OLYMPICS AND REPUBLICANS

Monday, February 10, 2014

The Sochi Olympics besiege us now. The athlete’s and their skill are dazzling.  Ann is fascinated by them and watches way more than I do. The hyper sports announcers grate on my ears and nerves. I do love bitching. The pro-American and anti-Soviet angles are annoying. American media still reports Russia as if it was the USSR. No thing good can come out of Russia. Americans hear reports from Russia as bad – corruption, overspending on getting Sochi ready for the games, runaway capitalism, poverty and things don’t work as well as they do in the US. The same reporting goes on about the Chinese and China. Poverty, merciless capitalism, corruption of government and business leaders.  How quickly we forget the conditions in the US with huge unemployment, poverty, broken healthcare, stalled government, pollution and global warming from our factories and cars.

I suppose there will always be the rah-rah for America and everyone else is inferior coming from the mass media where there is no longer fairness in reporting doctrine.

The constant commercials on Olympic reporting are disgusting not only because of their interruptions but because they are so stupid. I know they are aimed at a lowest possible education level of viewers. I congratulate them for their success in making their commercials unbelievable, irrelevant and sometimes dangerous in what they urge people to eat.  How many times do we see fat filled burgers oozing grease? Pizza slices with slimy ribbons of cheese dripping off the slices and tomato and mushrooms looking like cardboard called delicious?

Of course that is not just the Olympic commercials but also what I see on regular network TV.

On other matters:

Republicans don’t see unemployment as a human issue but an economic issue or laziness. Their constant attacks on the Affordable Health Care Act do the same. They seldom talk about human beings who need adequate health care. The Republicans only rant about possible economic and money problems.

As a Christian, I must see the human problem first while taking into account the economic concerns. Banks and businesses rake in huge profits. 1% of the population holds the bulk of the money. Workers are underpaid and there are fewer jobs for many more unemployed people. The leadership of our country is focused on money with human beings falling far behind their concerns.

All the more appalling to me is that so many Republicans and Tea Party members call themselves Christian. Obviously, it has been quite a while since they have read the words of Jesus in Matthew 5 or Luke 6.

Our beloved Episcopal Church still ministers to a great many rich Episcopalians especially in the large urban centers. St. Thomas, 5^th Avenue, St. James, on Madison Ave. Grace Church, on Broadway, Ascension on 5^th Avenue all in Manhattan. In San Francisco there is Grace Cathedral, St. Luke’s, and St. Mary the Virgin. Some economic leaders attend these churches. There are others in Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas.

Our Bishops and clergy seldom preach sermons on the economic responsibilities of rich church members to the society. They fear that such preaching would have people fleeing out the doors. Where are the sermons on the healings of Jesus and Affordable health Care? Where are the sermons and seminars on the relationship of Jesus welcoming the outcasts and strangers and Immigration reform? Where are the sermons and seminars on Jesus teaching on the poor and the hungry in relationship to the massive wealth of some and poverty to many?

I am proud to go to a church where we regularly hear that kind of preaching. St. John’s on 15^th Street in San Francisco, CA and Fr. Richard Smith our Vicar.