Terrible Suffering and Our Responses To It

The author (Click HERE, The New Yorker Magazine) uses the term "theoidocy", which he defines as the justification of the ways of God in the face of evil. The concept is an intriguing one that bears looking into. If something terrible happens, is it always deserved? If so, wouldn't an act of murder be doing the "will of God"? Surely there must be an obvious flaw in that hypothesis, but right off hand I can't see it.

What strikes me so forcefully is that the earthquake in Haiti seems to have slaughtered more human beings than any international disaster in a great many years, in fact perhaps as much as all of the other high- profile disasters in the last decade. When one says that, sadly we must exclude the deaths from starvation in places like Somalia and Ethiopia. Is it that the death of populations that appear so "other" are of far less concern to us as Americans? perhaps because those dying live lives so foreign to our own that we cannot wrap our heads around their problems and their horrifying suffering? Are we suffering from a form of "third world fatigue"? Rush Limbaugh appears to be, if compassion was ever a part of his nature. Pat Robertson? He remains nuttier than a leftover fruitcake and roughly twice as unappealing.

(Also from Arthur) Head of the GOP?

I think there are parts of this (click HERE) that are worth paying attention to. I think the suggestion that it is less about conviction than making money has a lot of validity. What is also worth remembering is that the Murdock kids, likely heirs to the Fox News empire, trend strongly liberal. Despite his daily drinking of virgin's blood, Rupert Murdock surely can't live forever.

Which reminds me, did you know that there was an Indian Prime Minister who used to drink a cup of his own urine every morning for health reasons? When he was elected he announced that he had stopped, so as to not make foreign guests nervous, but many assumed that was no more than a statement for public consumption (no pun intended).

And yes, the world is a good deal weirder than any of us could imagine. The current vogue in parts of Africa for medicines made from albinos is one example.

I hope the New Year finds you well?

Arthur

Weekend Update - Idiots of the Week

• Let's start with this religious note: With 200,000 people dead after a devastating earthquake in Haiti, Bad Hat Idiot of the Week Pat Robertson blames it all on the Haitians for making a deal with the Devil. Pat Robertson should know about all this, of course, because he IS the Devil. Click here for more on this story, from the French point of view.


• By the way, Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week Runner Up is former Clinton Administration Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. Ritter, who angered neocons in Washington years ago by stating flatly that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and thus became a bit of a hero of the anti-war crowd, allegedly got caught with his pants down while attempting to seduce a 15 year-old on the internet. And apparently this isn't the first time.


• Our friend Mark Morford is having a hard time deciding which story struck him harder, Haiti or the multiple murders in Mexico.


• Rush Limbaugh didn't make the running for Idiot of the Week because there were just too many others who deserved it, and besides, Rush could win it every week if we let him. But Roger Ebert has written an open letter to El Rushit that sums it all up.


• Republican Party Chairman and rodeo clown Michael Steele has demanded that Harry Reid resign for calling President Obama a "negro." Frank Rich comments on "The Great Tea Party Rip-Off."


• Now here's some good news: In a remarkable rebound from the depths of the financial crisis, JPMorgan earned $11.7 billion last year, more than double its profit in 2008, and generated record revenue. The bank earned $3.3 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Those cheery figures were accompanied by news that JPMorgan had earmarked $26.9 billion to compensate its workers, much of which will be paid out as bonuses. That is up about 18 percent, with employees, on average, earning about $129,000. And how did YOU do last year?

Tuesday Update

• Will it be drugs? Will it be gays? Will it be an unwieldy sex scandal featuring seedy hotels, bad cologne and grossly detailed text messages you never want to read? How about another "family values"' congressman busted for cruising gay chat rooms or hitting on young male pages in the congressional bathroom? That's always heartwarming. Of one thing you can be absolutely certain: whenever self-righteous Christians make the news, it's going to be... embarrassing. Sad. Sickening. Disingenuous. A little dangerous. A lot pitiable. What is this? Just Mark Morford reporting on what's happening in Uganda.


• Rudy Giuliani once recalled that awful day in 2001 and how stunned he was as he watched someone jump from the burning north tower. Spontaneously, he said, he grabbed the arm of a man standing beside him and said, “Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president.” But something happened to Rudy since then. Something sinister and strange.


• Sarah Palin has just signed a multi-year deal with FOX News to be a commentator. I'd have a joke for that, but I'm not that funny.


• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid added his name to the wish-I-hadn't-said-that group the other day. In Harry's defense Brent Budowsky offers this: Click Here.


• Having a black President seems to bring the best out in a lot of people. Former Governor Rod Blagojevich called himself "stupid" 16 times in a few minutes while explaining to the press that he was not "blacker than President Obama." (Sigh)


• You want frys with that? A study published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology revealed there is actual fecal matter lurking in fast food soda. Mother Jones reports.


• For Fox News, religion is easy: Christianity is right and good and must be defended from its relentless persecutors, and other faiths are dangerous, inadequate, or funny. For example, last weekend Fox News analyst and putative paragon of "straight news" Brit Hume counseled Tiger Woods to ditch Buddhism in favor of Christianity as his best hope for a "total recovery" from the scandal surrounding his marital infidelities. Oh Brother.

Weekend Update - New Year's Edition

(As you may have heard, The Ducks lost the Rose Bowl this time around. But we'd like to thank The Ducks for a wonderfully exciting season. And before you get all gloomy consider this: Most of this year's starters will be back next season. Rose Bowl again? Sure. But how about the BCS Championship ...? Hey, we're Ducks, we can dream.)

• A group of British journalists were asked to make predictions and wish-lists for the coming year. Interesting to read a group of them at the same time, to see some clear themes emerge. But a big political comeback by Imelda Marcos? Oh spare us.


• Did you feel it? Did you reach up and lick the full, pregnant, bursting blue moon on New Year's Eve? Did you howl and wail and stomp your feet and raise your glass high and say oh my God let us now move and dance and shimmy and finally, finally get this nasty nefarious monkey of a doomed decade off our collective backs once and for all? Mark Morford hopes you did.


• In what has to be the first sign of the coming Apocalypse a recent very strange gallup poll lists Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as "most admired" contenders. Maybe this 2012 doomsday thing isn't as far-fetched as we originally thought.


• Bad Hat Idiot of the Month for December is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to ignite his exploding underwear on board an airplane on Christmas Eve. Apparently the only thing he accomplished was to destroy his ability to produce any little terrorists in the future, and caused the TSA to comtemplate forcing passengers to drop trow on command. I think I'll take the bus, thanks.


• Earlier last week, Glenn Beck's Daddy Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital in Hawaii after he complained of chest pains and had reportedly been taken from his hotel “in serious condition." Thankfully for thousands of DittoHeads nation-wide, El Rushbo is okay, and now he's praising the American health care system as the best in the world. So there.


• "Bring 'em on." Remember Dubya's unfortunate quote about the bad guys? Well, it made the list of the decade's top 10 quotations.


• Bad Hat starts our third year as a Blog, and we thank all of you for your support and continued interest. Junior has started his own Blog, Oregon Duck themed, of course. He calls it "Duck Lips," and there's a link to it posted at the bottom left of this page. He says he's going to keep up with it, and fill it with sports for the rest of year. We'll see. Check it out, and give him some encouragement.

It's 2010 and The Ducks Are In The Rose Bowl

First of all, Happy New Year. Most of us, we believe, are happy to see 2009 go. What a weird year. We'll be discussing that aspect in further reports this weekend.

But the big story of the moment concerns the University of Oregon Duck football team, who will be playing tomorrow in the Rose Bowl. Most everyone in Eugene who has a recognizable pulse is pumped up, and the phrase "gonna watch the game?" is repeated repeatedly.

My son, pictured here, is a huge Duck fan. He knows more about the team than I ever will. His prediction for the results of tomorrow's game: 28-17 Ducks win. The game starts tomorrow at 2:00 PST, on ABC.

Go Ducks!

Postgamescript: My son's prediction did not come true this year, but we're all very proud of our Ducks and what they accomplished this year. Just remember, most of them will be coming back next year, and it's quite possible they will revisit the Rose Bowl. Way to go Ducks!

Weekend Update - X-Mas Edition

• Glenn Beck has been named by Media Matters as "The Misinformer of the Year." The honors for Mr. Beck are piling up, as we're proud to announce that Glen has been chosen for our "Bad Hat Douche Bag of the Year Award." There's no monetary reward involved here for Beck, just his own joy in knowing that he's a fat racist pin-headed greaseball just like his daddy, Rush Limbaugh. (How's that for seasonal name-calling?) Happy New Year.


• And in further tribute to Mr. Beck and his lies and conspiracy theories, a gentleman in Virginia, a Mr. Warren Taylor (his friends call him "Gator") held three hostages in a local post office because "the government is taking over the right to bear arms," and he was angry about "overtaxing." I just betcha he listens to Limbaugh too.


• I'm not making this up: Here are The Top 50 Assclowns of 2009.


• "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was a poem written by Lord Tennyson to commemorate a moment in the 1854 Crimean War, when British officers misdirected more than 600 troops into an area known as the Valley of Death to face 25,000 Russians. There were hundreds of casualties, the British officers were disgraced, and the Russians won the day. And so Rep. Michelle Bachman, who would still be called crazy even if her brain functioned normally, cheered on the latest misguided efforts of a group of "teabaggers" by yelling "It's the Charge of the Light Brigade!"


• You know the tune. For the loveofgawd you can't seem to get it out of your head around this time of year. Over and over and over ... 'Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad ...' Well, of course in the spirit of the holidays our Conservative Idiot Friends decided to make a racist parody of Jose Feliciano's classic Christmas annoyance, and it pissed Jose right off. The parody, titled "The Illegal Alien Christmas Song," was created by radio producers and writers Matt Fox and A.J. Rice and was posted in mid-December on the Web site for Human Events, a Washington-based conservative weekly publication. For your "enjoyment" here's the song.


• Render your garments. Tear out your Liberal hair by the roots. Cry and wail. Previously Democratic Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama has gone over to the Dark Side and is now Republican Congressman Parker Griffith. But wait, there's a lot more to this story, and some of it is mighty curious indeed.


• Sarah Palin has come out strong and has flatly stated "I'm NOT the biggest liar of the year." Our response: "Are too, are too."


• Hostile, vindictive, sarcastic - what's happened to John McCain? Sure his pick of Palin for running mate will rank as one of the worse political blunders in history, but what's happened to the good ol' boy we knew and loved? Maureen Dowd asks, "Is There a Real McCain?"


• And here's one more little gift from under the tree: The Top 20 Funniest Political Moments of 2009.

Iran Keeps Simmering

What is going on in Iran currently has been, and seems likely to continue to be, an upending of conventional wisdom as to who the Iranian people are, or are not. One thing we learned from the "Green Revolution" movement in the wake of a laughably fraudulent election is that many Iranians, young and old, are not very happy with the way things are. There is a faction within Iran who are fervent conservative thugs (can we say "thugs" on this website?) and they are no different from the opportunistic thugs in any other nation. They are Iranian Brown Shirts, pure and simple. Bought, paid for, protected and mindlessly loyal to those who support them. Such creatures will always be with us, in those societies that let them thrive and use them to suppress the people.

But bad things keep happening to the badly-corrupted Iranian Revolution; the people are fed up with it and spend their nights on rooftops calling out across the city, giving heart to one another and announcing protests, key figures in recent Iranian history are speaking up and taking strong stands in support of a sweeping change in the Iranian government. Opposing these populist forces are the predictable organs of state control. The odds seem good that the state, as the state usually does, will prevail. But things keep happening, like the death of this outspoken and principled senior figure in Iran's religious establishment. His death reminds Iranians of all that he stood for, all that he said over the years. This is very inconvenient for the current regime, based as much on cronyism as principle, deeply corrupt and no longer popular with the average Iranian, the majority of whom were not alive during the time of the Shah, so cannot be swayed by calls to recall what they never saw, never knew personally. Keep an eye on Iran. It still may change that part of the world in ways that none of could ever predict.

Arthur