Category: Politics, Religion & Money

To paraphrase Charlie Brown, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Easter is all about??”

Matthew, Chapter 28
New American Standard Bible

Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women,”Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. “Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

… That’s what Easter is all about, Charlie Brown.

The Great Depression. What was so great about it, anyway?

Actually, a lot of positive things came out of the 1930’s despite, and because of, economic hardship. There were many technological advances, and FDR innovated many social and public works programs that remain with us today.

But times were indeed extremely harsh for working people. PBS is running a show called Novel Reflections on the American Dream. One of the featured books is John Steinbeck’s unflinching look at the plight of migrant farm workers in California, The Grapes of Wrath.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/APR07/GrapesOfWrath.flv 400 260]© PBS

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/APR07/HiveCollapse.flv 400 300]© PBS

What’s killing the bee hives? Bee colony collapse is a serious problem, if you haven’t heard about it. I recorded the last few minutes of a 10-minute report on the PBS News Hour. The complete audio of the report is below.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/APR07/Bees.mp3]

A report on the bee problem that was presented to Congress last week is at this link in PDF. [Link Here]

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/APR07/JesusCamp.flv 400 300]

Through Netflix my wife Carol and I have watched an interesting collection of recent documentaries, a couple of which I’ve highlighted previously.

• The Devil’s Playground
• Jesus Camp
• Who Killed The Electric Car?
• An Inconvenient Truth
• The End of Suburbia

All of these films are recommended, but I would say that Jesus Camp is the most disturbing. I’ve selected two brief scenes from the film and spliced them together. I’ll let these three minutes speak for themselves, while making the assumption you know what Ted Haggard was forced to admit shortly before the November elections.

By this point Karl Rove’s penchant for simplistic catch-phrases and talking points, such as “when they stand up we’ll stand down” and “up or down vote” must be apparent to the majority of Americans, and hopefully everybody is tired of them. The current argument being repeated is that “a timetable for retreat” in Iraq means the enemy would simply hide until we are gone.

Let’s follow that reasoning a bit. If we stay indefinitely the bad guys will continue to fight. If we announce that we’ll be leaving, they’ll run away and hide.

OK, so if the bad guys lay low, that should result in relative calm in Iraq. Will the administration then say the “situation on the ground” must be getting better? Or will we be told there is merely the appearance of stability, and we must therefore stay? I would bet on the latter. In other words, there will be no definition for victory. With Karl Rove there’s just no winning.

Obviously, the so-called surge isn’t working and it won’t work. If Iraq can’t be secured in the next 18 months, then it can’t be done. Not by foreign military occupation, anyway. We’ve got stop enabling the devious, deceptive and dangerous men in the Bush administration, and that means no more money without a timetable for withdrawal.

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Added Comment: By Bush’s own logic, by his declaring that the surge would focus on securing Baghdad, didn’t he signal to the insurgents that they should leave the city for a while?