Weightless Weddings A Threat To Moribund Marriage




Noah Fulmor and Erin Finnegan will be floating -- possibly upside down -- as they say "I do" in a specially modified Boeing 727-200 departing Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral on June 20, a statement from Zero Gravity Corporation said.

They will be "the first bride and groom to be married in zero gravity," the company, a provider of commercial weightless flights, said.

-- AFP
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/NY_couple_to_be_first_to_wed_in_zer_06032009.html





Weightless Weddings A Threat To Moribund Marriages

NEW WRECK TIMES

Senior Travel Editor
Gerry Bronco

Thursday, 4 June 2009

Omaha, Nebraska-- The first weightless wedding was condemned in a joint statement by a coalition of Catholic, Mormon and Evangelical church groups here today.

"In another attack on traditional marriage," the statement began, "the evils of society has reared its hate-filled head and thrust another affront on decency."

The coalition of church groups has been adamant that any weightless weddings be outlawed and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect traditional marriage.

"We know that it is not without controversy, yet let me be clear that at the heart of this issue is the central doctrine of eternal marriage and its place in our Father's plan," Mormon Elder M. Russell Ballard said.

One Orlando, Florida pastor echoed those sentiments, "Weightless marriage is wrong. If we take sides, we must take the side of God."

The statement was one of many events planned supporting a constitutional amendment to take away the right of couples to get married in a weightless wedding. Christian conservatives have come to dominate the religious debate surrounding the issue - even though the Bible's statements on marriage are complex and disputed among Christians.

"We cannot allow these evildoers to make light of something as substantial as marriage," one evangelical congregant stated, "without our feet firmly planted on the ground, our commitments are prone to just float away. These weightless weddings threaten my marriage and all the heavy lifting required to make it work. I ought to know," he continued, "I've been married three times."

Liberal groups representing Christians, Jews and others are trying to defeat the amendment. But their efforts have been far more modest, even though priests and rabbis have played a pivotal role in creating and cultivating a theology that includes weightless weddings as equal to more moribund marriages.

"Culture is going to manifest itself in a way that summons the church to new realities," said Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus.

More conservative christians took umbrage over Bishop Andrus' conciliatory tone.

"The last thing we need is to embrace these new realities when they rewrite sacred heritage," said Steve Hansen, pastor of Solid Rock Fellowship, an evangelical megachurch outside of Omaha. "For example, public schoolchildren will be indoctrinated about weightless weddings without parental consent. Everybody knows it's best for children to have their own mothers and fathers ruled by the laws of God and gravity," he said. "People can know the truth of marriage just from reason alone."



© 2009 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen



cross posted at Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/4/738684/-Weightless-Weddings-A-Threat-To-Moribund-Marriages

Dawkins Confesses: "Evolution is a Marxist Conspiracy!"





Dawkins Confesses: "Evolution is a Marxist Conspiracy!"


NEW WRECK TIMES

Senior Travel Editor
Gerry Bronco

Washington, DC-- British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author, Richard Dawkins, confessed in a series of interrogations early last year that the Earth is only six thousand years old and the teaching of Evolution is a conspiracy by Marxist elements.

According to former senior officials of the Bush Department of Faith-Based Initiatives, Dawkins was apprehended in February of 2008 and secretly renditioned to a foreign black site where the interrogations took place.

"He was one of the most difficult of the high value targets we've come across," a former senior official remarked, "we waterboarded him 183 times before he confessed."

Sleep deprivation, stress positions and other enhanced techniques were also used, according to a little noticed chart included along with the more well-known of the so-called, torture memos.

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularized the gene-centered view of evolution. In 1982, he made a widely cited contribution to evolutionary biology with the theory, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.

A prominent critic of creationism and intelligent design, Dawkins was targeted by the Department of Faith-Based Initiatives, according to the former senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"We saw how well the Department of Defense contractors had interrogating Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Muhammed," the senior official stated, "it was imperative to find evidence of an al Qaida-Iraq collaboration. Without the enhanced interrogations, that link never would have been established. The Department of Faith-Based Initiatives and other departments of the Bush Adminstration were mandated to codify threat levels to their mission. Dawkins was deemed an immediate threat, a ticking time-bomb and was renditioned off-shore."

Dawkins also confessed that Regent University and The Discovery Institute are pre-eminent institutions and have been criminally maligned by secret Marxist cells.

When asked why Dawkins' confession was not made public last year, the senior official pointed to the recent decision by the Texas State Textbook and Curriculum to include intelligent design in that state's science textbooks.

"Actionable intelligence is utilized when needed," the senior official said, "Dawkins' confessions were of little use last year. But with the many Bush loyalists burrowed throughout the Obama administration, expect to see more of these revelations made public as criticism of the previous administration mounts."



© 2009 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

Super Bowl Weekend and The Capture of Champmathieu







Super Bowl Weekend and The Capture of Champmathieu

by

Justice Putnam

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

-- Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms

It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real when most violently excited; violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiate men from each other, but rather tend to reduce them to the same state.

-- Thomas Elliot

Super Bowl weekend and memories of past glories and defeats percolate in a dim corner of my brain. It is an ancient memory of blood and fire. It is the crisp wind across a cold, chalk-lined field; it is a howl on a hard city street; it is a bayonette-enforced order along a Guadalajaran desert path.

I don't really know why I'm wired the way I am; but I have my suspicions. I come from that place in the genetic code that cannot turn away from an injustice; that will act unflinchingly to right a wrong; that will protect the weak and infirm from the hostilities of man and nature. I come from that place in the genetic code that prizes Community and also Solitude; that meditates on Peace and Love; that will stand against Hate and Bigotry, not with the embrace of naive innocence, but with the calloused knowledge of the bruised cheek.

It is an equal measure of Nature and Nurture that makes us who we are. That place in the genetic code we come from is a powerful force indeed; but the landscape we are born into is a great teacher as well. There is so much brutality in that landscape, though, that the only sensible act is to have Compassion; and if one is fortunate enough to have the brains and brawn to stand strong against the Hate and Bigotry, then it is almost a duty to do so.

I'll be fifty-four towards the end of March. I've been fairly physical all my life, whether it be for work or fun. I tried to play football at Cal Poly Pomona in the 70's and was a semifinalist as a high school sophomore in the California State pole vault championship. I could run the hundred meters in 9.9 seconds. I ran the third leg on my high school's district championship mile relay team. I scored six goals in one game playing in a water polo summer league and was timed swimming 50 seconds in the 100 free. I would never travel without my surf boards and have caught waves from Big Sur to Costa Rica. I bicycled the Pacific Trail from the Sierra Nevada to the Washington Cascades when I was twenty-six. Along the way I scaled the peaks of Mt. Whitney, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Rainier. I sailed along the coast of California and Mexico on a 4-man catamaran the summer of 1974; and was a grinder on a racing yacht during the mid-90's in some regattas on SF Bay.

I dug water wells for schools in Honduras and built free standing Sonoma moss stone walls in Marin and Sonoma Counties. I have built homes and dug ditches. I have planted grapefruit trees and harvested alfalfa.

Of course all that physicality has taken a toll, for sure; four knee surgeries on each knee, a shoulder reconstruction, broken ribs, torn hamstrings, broken teeth and a few concussions.

But these injuries have never prevented me, at any time in my life, from coming to the aid of someone in distress; or turning away a mugger on a hard city street. I could never stand by and watch a woman being abused. I once chased away some toughs who were beating a gay friend. I have faced down racist thugs in Idaho and bayonette-wielding Federales in Guadalajara.

This landscape of brutality seems to exist on every level; from the street to the boardroom. People starve in cold alleys and freeze in hungry rooms while million dollar bonus babies wipe their ass with gold leaf 1400 thread-count cloth.

The only sensible act left is to have Compassion; to continue to help the down-trodden and the infirm. The only knowledge is that derived from that part of the genetic code that causes us to stand against the Hate and the Bigotry.

That is why I feel like crying. I fear that I helped in the capture of a Champmathieu.

I had finished my Night Audit shift at the Inn and rode my bike to the Montgomery station to catch a train back to Berkeley. A couple of months ago, one of the housekeepers was hit on the head with a metal pipe and had her purse taken. Maybe that was in some dim corner of my brain when I heard a woman's voice yell,

"Stop! Thief!"

I was off my bike and could see a guy being pursued by a couple of people. I had the same feeling I've always had in those moments; something is not quite right, somebody is being abused, someone is being taken advantaged of. Someone is being robbed and someone is getting away with it.

It's been awhile since I really head over heel in the air tackled someone. I had that same feeling I had during my gridiron days, whether I was running over someone on offense or tackling them on defense,

"I didn't really mean to hit you so hard, but, here we are!"

I looked up and a half-dozen store security personnel took over and hauled him away. His eyes met mine and he had a look I recognized as not being quite right.

Somebody is being abused, someone is being taken advantaged of. Someone is being robbed and someone is getting away with it.

And then I saw his great robbery; this act that caused me to impulsively act at the mere mention of Stop! Thief! The act that caused him to be pursued by a half-dozen security personnel:

He had stolen a can of fucking Pringles! The man was hungry and I helped his Javerts capture him.

This is the landscape of brutality we live in. Million dollar stock bonus babies need to buy jets and eat sushi off the torsos of nubile twenty-year olds; while a man is charged with the crime of hunger.

Someone is being robbed and someone is getting away with it.

I can't stop crying and no amount of contrition can absolve me.

(Champmathieu is a vagabond in the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables who is mistakenly accused of being the convict Jean Valjean and taken for trial in the Arras superior court after supposedly stealing a fruit-laden bough from an apple tree, and being positively identified by Javert and three convicts as Jean Valjean.)

© 2009 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen



posted also at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/31/15943/0541/477/691101

The Vast Wright Wing Conspiracy






The Vast Wright Wing Conspiracy



by

Justice Putnam


Malcolm X had just sent another reply to another Instant Message from Thomas Jefferson. Adams, even though a neighbor of Jefferson's from across town, had replied more and more infrequently these last generations to even regular snail mail; so Malcolm took up the slack. Though Adams was enthralled with the modern Navy, he hated texting and the internet tubes. Nixon, Reagan, Hoover and Jackson never replied to Jefferson's missives; and he had sent them many. It was probably because mail delivery is rather spotty in Hades. Plus, there is no broadband there and interference from the heat disrupts the wireless signal. Kennedy and both Roosevelts carried on an infrequent correspondence; and Lincoln as well, but they were engaged with other pursuits in heaven, so Jefferson and Malcolm X began to Instant Message each other daily. After all, they lived only light years away from each other in Limbo; wireless is free, the signal strong and never disrupted.

It seemed Jefferson was worried about Obama's chances for the Presidency with this Reverend Wright oratory causing such concern.

T-Jeff: "I'm afraid my southern brethren will take the good reverend's rhetoric all too personal."

Mal 10: "As well they should; I'm still picking shards of Plymouth Rock out of my skull."

T-Jeff: "But that's the point, my good friend. Plymouth Rock may have landed on you; but they landed on Plymouth Rock and need to feel grateful. Reverend Wright is not respecting their gratefulness."

Mal 10: "It's hard to respect folks who will put you in chains, crush your dreams and keep you separate, inferior and feared; and then harp that you are not grateful enough for your good fortune."

T-Jeff: "I was just speaking with Sally about that this morning when she was washing my clothes. I could tell she was getting a little snippy when I corrected her grammar and spelling on a letter she was writing to Martin Luther King. After all I've done for her, she seemed a bit, well... ungrateful. Then it struck me; if not for the economic necessities in the forging of this Nation, she might have become the Queen of The Congo that was her birthright."

Mal 10: "That's what I like about you man, even though you're a manipulative, white landowner who is formed by the Enlightenment; your profession of guilt keeps me in this amorphous corporeal state so I can continue to point out the inequities still!"

T-Jeff: "Well, my dear friend, I'm not taking the bait. But I'm still concerned about this Wright fracas. It's important for the survival of The Great Experiment that Obama convince The People to vote him to the Presidency. Bringing up that the Black Community was infected with HIV and flooded with drugs by the government is a little over the top, no?"

Mal 10: "On this we agree, I find it impossible that a society and government that would infect the Tuskagee Airmen with syphilis; who would test insecticides on black communities; who would impose poll taxes, literacy tests and voter ID laws; who would buy drugs from the Contras to sell guns to the Iranians; who would incarcerate black men at rates that are astronomical is capable of such heinous acts. Reverend Wright is surely stretching it a bit."

T-Jeff: "So what can be done about this Wright Wing of the Black Community?"

Mal 10: "It's surely a conspiracy, another tactic to disenfranchise the Black Man. I'm not disagreeing with Wright's premise, mind you. I was a target in my day; hell they went after Martin the way they're going after Jeremiah. They'll use any means necessary to achieve their ends; even if it means using our words against us, even if our words are the truth."

T-Jeff: "Yes, you are correct. It is a vast conspiracy. I feel so helpless, though. Not quite in hell, but definitely not in heaven."

Mal 10: "I know what you mean, man. I know what you mean."

© 2008 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen


cross posted at Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/30/32853/1788/276/506192

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