R Blog

Clusterfuck Nation

I don’t go to horror movies so I am surprised that on Monday morning I quickly link to James Kunstler’s weekly essay on Clusterfuck Nation. If you aren't quite sure what a clusterfuck might be check here. Kunstler, author of  The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century has a dark view of the future. We will be out of gas and car dependent suburbs and cities will collapse. Kunstler believes we are in a daze believing we can maintain a Wal-mart way of life with spinach being hauled cross country on trucks. Today he writes, “When politicians flog the term around -- "energy independence" -- they invariably mean that we will continue enjoying the happy motoring utopia by other means than imported oil (which makes up 70 percent of all the oil we burn). Get this: the day is not far off when, for one reason or another, the flow of imported oil to the US will cease. But when that day comes, we will not be running our shit the way we have been running it. That day will be the end of the interstate highways, Walt Disney World, and WalMart -- in short, the way of life we are fond of calling "non-negotiable." Amazingly, this scenario is not part of this discussion even by those who claim to be reality based. When it comes to gas for our beloved cars we are all faith based and believe that science and industry will find a way. Kunstler believes they won’t and that all of us will have to make huge readjustments in the way we live.

UPDATE: Cambridge Energy Research Associates say peak oil theory is flawed. Will be anxious to see what Kunstler has to say about this next week.

Moveon.org's Annual Report

Democrats are arguing over who should get credit for taking over the Congress last week. There should be plenty of credit to go around but one group that can’t be forgotten is  Moveon.org
Moveon.org is a progressive, grass roots, internet based group that currently has over 3,000,000 members. Members decide the goals of the group which are:
Health care for all
Energy independence from clean renewable resources
Democracy restored
In the recent election cycle (2 years) they raised and distributed $27,000,000 and, according to their  annual report(PDF file). The report is worth reading to see what one can accomplish in politics while not a member of a political party or beltway pundit, who in this campaign were mostly wrong.

Colbert Recaps the Election

The “Word of the Day” is sigh (Courtesy of Crooks and Liars).

New Congress...Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

You can find your congressperson’s email here. Perhaps congratulations, exhortations, even commiseration's are something to consider today. Send them an email.
Don’t relax. Keep track of what Congress is doing. Participate in the  wiki which provides interesting info like which congress people are under investigation (twelve Republicans and four Democrats).

Pastor Ted’s Rehab

Ted Haggard will come back to lead and rule the New Life Church. He will continue to be a force in the evangelical Christian movement. He will, in fact, be stronger because he will have cast out the demon of homosexuality with the help of Jesus, his family and his congregation. Read Jeff Sharlet’s Harper’s article.
from May 2005, Soldiers of Christ: Inside America’s Most Powerful Megachurch With Pastor Ted Haggard and scan the New Life web site and you will see how this will be done.
Clue #1. Pastor Ted caved in too easily and readily confessed his sins. Why step aside so quickly? His sin will be understood by the congregation. In the long run, his sin won’t hurt him because: Clue #2 He and his followers believe in demons. Jeff Sharlet reports that one of Ted’s followers told him, “We are surrounded by demons, she explained, reciting the lessons she had learned in her small-group studies at New Life. The demons are cold, they need bodies, they long to come inside. People let them in in two different ways. One is to be sinned against. “Molested,” suggested Linda. The other is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You could walk by sin—a murder, a homosexual act—and a demon will leap onto your bones...” Clue #3 Pastor Ted and the congregation believe in exorcism which they call “cleansing.” There are a number of cleansing groups which will be able to help Ted find his way clear such as this one. He could select from several others.    Jeff Sharlet’s source,  “explained the process she had undergone to reach her refined state. She called it “spiritual restoration.” Anyone can do it, she promised, “even a gay activist.” Linda had seen with her own eyes the sex demons that make homosexuals rebel against God, and she said they are gruesome; but she did not name them, for she would not “give demons glory.” Clue #4 New Life’s huge congregation is managed through the device of 1300 cells or groups. Sharlet again, “Not just anyone can lead a small group, much less a section; a battery of personality and spiritual tests must be undergone first, as well as an official background check. Once chosen, group leaders meet regularly with their own leaders in the chain of command, and members are encouraged to jump the chain and speak to a higher level if they think their leader is straying into “false teachings”—moral relativism, ecumenism, or even “Satanism,” in the form of New Age notions such as crystal healing.” Clue #5  Ted Haggard and Galyle Haggard started and built this church to the point where Haggard was "the man" in the evangelical world, confidant to the President. I doubt he is ready to give this up. And, of course the devil wanted to strike him down by infesting him with demons. But the Haggards will fight back and win. The mechanism and the belief system is in place.

More Gayle Haggard

The New Life Church has just announced that Pastor Haggard has been kicked out. Link and click UPDATE. The church leaders note that their investigation has proven beyond a doubt that Ted Haggard committed what they refer to as “sexually immoral conduct.” A letter of explanation and apology from Pastor Ted and a “word of encouragement” from Pastor Gayle will be read to the congregation on Sunday. They also refer to a plan of healing and restoration presumably for Ted Haggard. Let the rehabilitation begin. Someone, maybe Ted, perhaps even Gayle, understands damage control. New Life Church’s strategy is to take action (not cover up like, say the Republican House leadership), get this thing off the news cycle, and let Ted work his way back with forgiveness. One wonders now how much the church elders (and if you search through their web site you will note that the New Life ministers all seem quite young, quite male, good looking and quite married), one wonders how much they all knew about Pastor Ted’s secret life. One wonders what Gayle knew and when she knew it. Pastor Ted’s denials were so  lame and so quickly unraveled by his own people that it appears they just decided to fess up and move on. Perhaps a damage control plan was already in place.
Ted Haggard’s own web site has an  article about him which claims that, “Ted Haggard sees things other people don't. He's seen angels and demons and blood on his hands. Sometimes, he sees things before they happen.” It wouldn’t have been too hard to see this coming down the pike.
It’s hard to believe that New Life Ministries could make a decision that Ted and Gayle wouldn’t allow to be made. After all, Ted surely hired everyone. Gayle managed the wives even taking all forty of the associate ministers spouses to  Free to Soar an annual convention of minister’s wives where they would get reinforcement on 1) loving the church, 2) Serving their husband and 3) Fulfilling their destiny as a woman in the ministry. Gayle, as a big time preacher’s wife has been a speaker at this  conclave. The 14,000 member group with a $12 million annual budget was managed closely through a  series of smaller groups.
In this arena Gayle was the Director of Ministeries . There are hundreds of groups, small cells of people who meet with leaders in homes to discuss subjects of interest. For example, there are at least 40 groups under the category of MEN including one called REAL MEN—”A real man is one who is REAL with other men.” One group for women is called “5 Aspects” and teaches biblical femininity. Ted and Gayle co-authored a book called  From This Day Forward: Making Your Vows Last a Lifetime which one guesses has a lot about family values.
They’ve been together since college days and built this huge church together. She’s a preacher and teacher in the church, the queen of this 14,000 soul congregation. You can hear her talk  here on the subject of “Women—The Glory of Man” and  here
on the subject of “Women With Wisdom. People don’t seem to be able to handle power very well and they sure don’t like to give it up. I’m starting to wonder if Mrs. Haggard couldn't be the brains behind this entire operation. As I mentioned, she looked haggard but perhaps she was just disgusted that her lame brained, meth using, closeted husband had screwed the pooch, so to speak.
In her book she tells us that women should
“Look to God - not your husband - to ultimately fulfill you. Understand that your husband's love is icing on the cake, but it's not the cake itself - the cake is intimacy with God. Don't expect your husband to make you happy. Instead, build an intimate relationship with God - the only One who can truly meet all of your needs - and let that relationship make you a strong and satisfied woman who is secure no matter what your current circumstances.”

Gayle Haggard Looks Haggard

Scandal, particularly sexual scandal, is always of interest evidenced by the nearly 2000 news stories about Rev. Ted Haggard now appearing on the web. It is a fascinating story, but not a new one. Evangelists from the fictional Elmer Gantry to Ted Haggard have fallen to the temptations of sin. We can recall  Jimmy Swaggart  and Jim Bakker. Some may even recall allegations similar to those made against Ted Haggard regarding the owner of the Holy Beamer 
—Reverend  Paul Crouch.
The Haggard revelations are a body blow for the thousands of members of Haggard’s  New Life Church a huge and active organization in Colorado Springs. How does one react when the spiritual leader falters and fails as Haggard so obviously has? And what must it be like to be Mrs. Haggard, a church leader in her own right, who must sit next to her husband as a reporter jams a microphone through her car window and listen as her husband denies having had sex with another man? We probably won’t expect to see the dripping mascara we saw from Tammy Faye Bakker, the wailing and incriminations. Because Mrs. Haggard appears to be calm and dignified. She is the author of the curiously titled—  A Life Embraced: A Hopeful Guide for the Pastor's Wife described by a reader thusly, “I would encourage any pastor's wife to read A Life Embraced. Not only does it give sound advice regarding home, relationships, and family, but it touches a great deal on the partnership of marriage and how important that is for a healthy, successful ministry...”   
One wonders how the girl who dreamed of marrying a minister is feeling today as the tsunami of scandal surges over her life. I suppose that every pastor's wife living the hopeful life has to be hopeful their spouse won't turn out to be Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker or Paul Crouch.<

I Know What Boys Want

The face of the Republican Party? Well, here’s a three quarter profile.