Had a great show last night. Thanks to all who came out.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Myspace times
Hey everyone....go check out my myspace www.myspace.com/acousticmusicofmike i jsut added three new show dates in the last two days!!!
lates
mike
lates
mike
Friday, June 12, 2009
Tonight, Tonight
It's not only a great Pumpkins song, but also a reminder that I am playing a show tonight in Marion , IN at the Beatniks Cafe. Show Starts at 8pm, and is only a $2.00 cover! I go on first so be sure to get there early. Joining me onstage will be my lovely wife Andrea and my great friend Cory Miller.
Hope to see you there.
Lates,
Mike
Hope to see you there.
Lates,
Mike
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
New Additions to the Family
Carlo Robelli EL-500 full hollow body electric guitar
Wurlitzer 1960's ish Electric Organ
Time to make sweet sweet music together
Week of Grilling Mastery
Goat Cheese Stuffes Burgers with grilled corn.
Grilled Pizza and garlic bread with a nice Cab Sav.
BBQ Pork Chops, grilled corn, potato salad, beer, wine and best friends!
Beer Brats on grilled buns
Grill Assembly with my bromance JoshMonday, April 27, 2009
The Morality of Torture...and a lot of movie refrences
So if you haven't noticed yet, I listen to a lot of talk radio. I just can't listen to top 40 radio anymore. It makes me wanna throw the radio across the room and then stomp on it, Office Space style, with a gangsta rap song playing in the background. I can bare some oldies stations, or classic rock. There is a really great station in Indy that is pretty much the only radio station I can listen to for an extended period of time. 92.3 WTTS is kind of a local indie station, but I only tend to listen to them in the early morning and late at night.
Unfortunately here in the great state of Indiana there isn't much of a choice of talk radio. It is pretty much all conservative, except for NPR, and even that isn't all that liberal all the time. And it isn't so much that I have to listen to liberal radio. I enjoy conservative talk radio. I think it is important for me to be knowledgeable about opposing views of my own.
There is another local station that I listen to often. It is 93.1 WIBC. It's the local news station. In the late morning, though, they have this guy named Garrison that does a conservative talk radio show, and they also play Rush Limbaugh a.k.a Satan. But this guy Garrison is almost as bad, just not as much a paranoid schizophrenic as Rush.
I was listening to Garrison a couple days ago and he was fixated on the topic of torture. Recently the Obama administration has released some documents describing the methods used for extracting information from suspected terrorists. The CIA, in their secret prisons, used techniques such as water boarding, slamming against walls, sleep deprivation and other types of things that you would expect to read in some novel written about the soviet prisons in Russia. And there are now people asking if we are going to put the people who authorized this treatment on trial. There is evidence, however, that these methods extracted information that there may have been a plan to ram an airplane into some buildings in L.A.
With that information in hand the conservative right went on the warpath. The norm for conservatives is to fight for what is moral and right, but when it comes to things that bring horror to the Bush administration, they tend to get a bit offended. The argument I hear the most is that these were simply advanced forms of interrogation, not torture, and they worked. We got the information that we needed, and even put a stop to a potential attack on US soil. Which they have a point there. We did get the information, but at what cost.
A caller on the Garrison show that day posed this question to the anti - advanced interrogation people. What if a man had your family? And he was going to kill them in the morning. The government has a man in prison that might know where your family is. What do you not want me to do to this man to find out where your family is?
This is a classic political move. Give the person that you are arguing with a hypothetical question, that by answering it automatically proves your point. Now if a man had my family you have to know that I would go at this "Man on Fire" style, and just like Denzel I would blast my way through until I got them back. But I would also have to suffer the consequences for my actions. See, movies don't show that part, where Denzel goes to prison and gets gang raped on a daily basis by the sisters.
It seems as though that this is the mental picture that most conservatives have. It's like they watch to many bad action flicks and that is the only idea of how government works that they have. I was listening to Laura Ingram just a day or so into that whole pirate hostage thing, and she was calling Obama a coward because he hadn't sent in the cobra strike team, or something, and taken those guys out that night. But she had no comment after Obama gave the order for our Marine snipers to take them out in a carefully planned out, systematic way that didn't put the hostage in mortal danger. We can't always go in guns-a-blazin' and expect everything to come out roses. Not to mention that it takes days if not a week or more to plan out an operation like that.
But I will use the exact same political move. I pose this to that man on the Garrison show. What if a man had your wife and kids? And you had a secret that that man wanted to know, but the rest of your family was hiding you, and your wife and kids knew where you were. Wouldn't you want that man punished for his actions if he used the exact same interrogation techniques that the government did?
That is what we face in a situation like this, people. It is that damn old fashioned golden rule that always bites us in the ass. If we are willing to accept these methods as morally right, then are we willing to have these methods used against us? Because we cannot have our cake and eat it to with this one. This is very shaky ground that we stand on and if we do not do the right thing, and if we do not sit and think and really contemplate the future consequences of our actions, then we set ourselves up for catastrophic failure.
We had a big meeting a long time ago in a little town in Switzerland about this very topic, and us and a ton of other countries all settled on this ideal that we do not torture. And if we get all hot headed and emotional, and let those emotions dictate the policies that this nation creates when it comes to dealing with people who have wronged us, then we give up those very morals that the conservative right and groups like the heritage foundation fight to uphold. To put it in the great words of Il Deuce, "It is not how far we are going to take it, but do we have the constitution to take it as far as is needed?".
Now, you all read the answer I gave to that guys question, and I have to say that it does seem contradictory to what I'm saying. But that is why in a real situation like that I would rely on the level headedness of the local police. Just like we don't let the victims of 9-11 decide on our interrogation methods. We have to rely on an independent body to represent us and use sound judgement, not emotionally harsh reactions.
There is much more that can be said about this topic, and much more back and forth that goes along with it. We basically have to be, as American citizens, O.K. with not knowing all the ins and outs of our government, especailly when it comes to combat. If the CIA and other governing bodies need to take certain actions, in order to ensure the safety of the American people, then they also need to take certain actions to ensure that the American people don't find out about it. And that no one finds out about it.
I personally don't think that any action needs to be taken with the people that authorized these tactics. I think the whole thing needds to be dropped and chocked up to the fact that it is in the past and there isn't anything we can do about it now. And wether or not we will use those methods again will simply depend on the situation, and hopefully it will be kept a secret this time. But we do have to accept that as a country, these methods will be used against us, and there is nothing that we can do about it. But then again, if these are the only tactics used by our enemies on our boys on the frontlines of war, then at least those soldiers will be coming home. And John McCain would probably agree that he would have rather been water boarded in Vietnam.
Love you
Mike
Unfortunately here in the great state of Indiana there isn't much of a choice of talk radio. It is pretty much all conservative, except for NPR, and even that isn't all that liberal all the time. And it isn't so much that I have to listen to liberal radio. I enjoy conservative talk radio. I think it is important for me to be knowledgeable about opposing views of my own.
There is another local station that I listen to often. It is 93.1 WIBC. It's the local news station. In the late morning, though, they have this guy named Garrison that does a conservative talk radio show, and they also play Rush Limbaugh a.k.a Satan. But this guy Garrison is almost as bad, just not as much a paranoid schizophrenic as Rush.
I was listening to Garrison a couple days ago and he was fixated on the topic of torture. Recently the Obama administration has released some documents describing the methods used for extracting information from suspected terrorists. The CIA, in their secret prisons, used techniques such as water boarding, slamming against walls, sleep deprivation and other types of things that you would expect to read in some novel written about the soviet prisons in Russia. And there are now people asking if we are going to put the people who authorized this treatment on trial. There is evidence, however, that these methods extracted information that there may have been a plan to ram an airplane into some buildings in L.A.
With that information in hand the conservative right went on the warpath. The norm for conservatives is to fight for what is moral and right, but when it comes to things that bring horror to the Bush administration, they tend to get a bit offended. The argument I hear the most is that these were simply advanced forms of interrogation, not torture, and they worked. We got the information that we needed, and even put a stop to a potential attack on US soil. Which they have a point there. We did get the information, but at what cost.
A caller on the Garrison show that day posed this question to the anti - advanced interrogation people. What if a man had your family? And he was going to kill them in the morning. The government has a man in prison that might know where your family is. What do you not want me to do to this man to find out where your family is?
This is a classic political move. Give the person that you are arguing with a hypothetical question, that by answering it automatically proves your point. Now if a man had my family you have to know that I would go at this "Man on Fire" style, and just like Denzel I would blast my way through until I got them back. But I would also have to suffer the consequences for my actions. See, movies don't show that part, where Denzel goes to prison and gets gang raped on a daily basis by the sisters.
It seems as though that this is the mental picture that most conservatives have. It's like they watch to many bad action flicks and that is the only idea of how government works that they have. I was listening to Laura Ingram just a day or so into that whole pirate hostage thing, and she was calling Obama a coward because he hadn't sent in the cobra strike team, or something, and taken those guys out that night. But she had no comment after Obama gave the order for our Marine snipers to take them out in a carefully planned out, systematic way that didn't put the hostage in mortal danger. We can't always go in guns-a-blazin' and expect everything to come out roses. Not to mention that it takes days if not a week or more to plan out an operation like that.
But I will use the exact same political move. I pose this to that man on the Garrison show. What if a man had your wife and kids? And you had a secret that that man wanted to know, but the rest of your family was hiding you, and your wife and kids knew where you were. Wouldn't you want that man punished for his actions if he used the exact same interrogation techniques that the government did?
That is what we face in a situation like this, people. It is that damn old fashioned golden rule that always bites us in the ass. If we are willing to accept these methods as morally right, then are we willing to have these methods used against us? Because we cannot have our cake and eat it to with this one. This is very shaky ground that we stand on and if we do not do the right thing, and if we do not sit and think and really contemplate the future consequences of our actions, then we set ourselves up for catastrophic failure.
We had a big meeting a long time ago in a little town in Switzerland about this very topic, and us and a ton of other countries all settled on this ideal that we do not torture. And if we get all hot headed and emotional, and let those emotions dictate the policies that this nation creates when it comes to dealing with people who have wronged us, then we give up those very morals that the conservative right and groups like the heritage foundation fight to uphold. To put it in the great words of Il Deuce, "It is not how far we are going to take it, but do we have the constitution to take it as far as is needed?".
Now, you all read the answer I gave to that guys question, and I have to say that it does seem contradictory to what I'm saying. But that is why in a real situation like that I would rely on the level headedness of the local police. Just like we don't let the victims of 9-11 decide on our interrogation methods. We have to rely on an independent body to represent us and use sound judgement, not emotionally harsh reactions.
There is much more that can be said about this topic, and much more back and forth that goes along with it. We basically have to be, as American citizens, O.K. with not knowing all the ins and outs of our government, especailly when it comes to combat. If the CIA and other governing bodies need to take certain actions, in order to ensure the safety of the American people, then they also need to take certain actions to ensure that the American people don't find out about it. And that no one finds out about it.
I personally don't think that any action needs to be taken with the people that authorized these tactics. I think the whole thing needds to be dropped and chocked up to the fact that it is in the past and there isn't anything we can do about it now. And wether or not we will use those methods again will simply depend on the situation, and hopefully it will be kept a secret this time. But we do have to accept that as a country, these methods will be used against us, and there is nothing that we can do about it. But then again, if these are the only tactics used by our enemies on our boys on the frontlines of war, then at least those soldiers will be coming home. And John McCain would probably agree that he would have rather been water boarded in Vietnam.
Love you
Mike
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
A Note To The Big Three...And Others
So I was listening to The Laura Ingram Show the other day, which if you don't know Laura Ingram don't start listening to her. Listening to her is like listening to some paranoid schizophrenic homeless guy on the sidewalk. Of all the conservative talk radio hosts she is by far the most paranoid. But that is beside the point.
The point being that Laura Ingram is also a sell out idiot. Of all the conservative talk radio hosts she has to do the most commercials. And she won't just cut to break to do them, she will do them right there in her show. I understand that being a radio host probably isn't the most lucrative career in the world, so naturally she has to do ads to make real money, but she does so many of them it is so annoying.
But anywhoo. I was listening to Laura Ingram the other day and she had the stupidest commercial I think I have ever heard. Now I can't quote it because I couldn't find that specific show online, or I would just post the actuall commercial on here, but this is the basics of it.
Blah Blah the economy is in real bad shape. Blah Blah we here at GM know that everyone is hurting. Blah Blah that is why we are here to offer a special deal on The Hummer. Blah Blah If you buy a Hummer and you loose your job we will make your payments for so long blah blah, and if you don't get another job we will take back the car no questions asked blah blah.
Yeah Laura Inngram, thats a great idea. The economy is crashing to the ground. Banks are failing all around us everyday. Gas prices are slowly rising everyday. the stock market is at an all time low. You should go out to your local GM dealer and finance yourself a Hummer, one of the most expensive, least costeffective vehicles on the market!!! Are you mental!?! Only a total idiot would go out and make that deal. Esspecially if you are in a career where there is a real possibility of loosing your job. And only a real idiot, or a sell out with a radio show, would hear that from their ad people and think "Yeah, thats a good idea. Thats somthing I want to promote to the American people".
So this got me to thinking about cars. And then I was lucky enough to catch "Click and Clack", the hosts of NPR's "Car Talk", doing a special NOVA on PBS last night about cars of the future. It was a good program, they traveled all around the world looking at how alternative forms of energy are impacting the auto industry. But there are some things I just don't get.
They started out at the detroit car show, looking at all the concept cars due out in the next five years or so. All the big three auto makers had their nice electric concept cars, that were going to cost around fiftey thousand dollars. And it made me mad.
And they spoke to reps that were talking about how they had to make electric cars apealing to the american people so that it would sell. At one point Ray from car talk was asking why they are focusing on making high horse power gas guzzlers when they had technology to make electric cars, asking, When you have a car like that (pointing at the Chevy Volt) why do you make such shit (pointing at the new Ford Mustang).
They also interviewed the owner of Tesla Motors, one of the first all electric car companies. They currently have two cars, the Roadster, and the Model S (due out in 2011). The roadster is a sleek stylish sportscar that can go from 0-60 in less than 4 seconds, and go about 300 miles per charge. The Model S is a family style sedan that seats 7 and gets about 300 miles per charge. It is equally as stylish and fancy, and, even though they havn't released options yet, im sure it has a multi disk CD changer, fancy stereo, navigation, DVD, and all the works. The Roadster averages about $100,00.00, the Model S will be about $50,000.00 after a $7,500.00 tax rebate. Watching the interview I couldn't help but see dollar signs in this douch bags eyes the whole time.
Here is my challenge to the big three and the guys at tesla, make an affordable hybrid or all electric vehicle for the masses!! It can be done, but no one will do it. The technology is there, but these people are too focused on how to make money off it instead of giving people an affordable and environmentally friendly way of getting around.
My first car was a 1992 Ford Tempo. I paid $1,000.00 for it in 2002. It was a simple car with a simple design, with simple interior and a simple package. What I want from the big three and tesla motors is a 1992 Ford Tempo that is all electric, or at least a plug in hybrid. And I want it for under $15,000.00.
I don't understand why the car companies are so focused on the idea that they have to make their hybrid and electric vehicles super flashy with all kinds of extras or nobody will buy it. No one can tell me that if there was an all electric car that looked like a cheap car from the 90's but ran like a normal car, and was $10,000.00 they wouldn't buy it. All of those 50 - 100 thousand dollar cars aren't whats going to turn people to electric cars. With out a decent priced all electric or plug in hybrid car for the masses people will not embrace electricity as a form of transportation. If it hadn'e been for the mass production, avaiability and chepaness of the Model T we would all be riding horses still!
Which brings me to availability. We need the car companies to pledge to a mass produced electric or plug in hybrid car. There can't be any more of these concept cars that they make a few hundred of and then no one sees them again because the auto makers say, we made one but we only leased a few hundred of them so there must not be a demand. (see "Who Killed the Electric Car") Hey Wakeup!!!! We can't demand something if it isn't there idiot!!!
With the government passing out bailouts to car comanies like they are goodie bags at an eight year olds birthday party, we as the american people MUST demand that these things happen. We pratically own most of the big three anyway now, shouldn't we have a say in what types of cars we want.
Roll that around in the old noggin.
Love You
Mike
The point being that Laura Ingram is also a sell out idiot. Of all the conservative talk radio hosts she has to do the most commercials. And she won't just cut to break to do them, she will do them right there in her show. I understand that being a radio host probably isn't the most lucrative career in the world, so naturally she has to do ads to make real money, but she does so many of them it is so annoying.
But anywhoo. I was listening to Laura Ingram the other day and she had the stupidest commercial I think I have ever heard. Now I can't quote it because I couldn't find that specific show online, or I would just post the actuall commercial on here, but this is the basics of it.
Blah Blah the economy is in real bad shape. Blah Blah we here at GM know that everyone is hurting. Blah Blah that is why we are here to offer a special deal on The Hummer. Blah Blah If you buy a Hummer and you loose your job we will make your payments for so long blah blah, and if you don't get another job we will take back the car no questions asked blah blah.
Yeah Laura Inngram, thats a great idea. The economy is crashing to the ground. Banks are failing all around us everyday. Gas prices are slowly rising everyday. the stock market is at an all time low. You should go out to your local GM dealer and finance yourself a Hummer, one of the most expensive, least costeffective vehicles on the market!!! Are you mental!?! Only a total idiot would go out and make that deal. Esspecially if you are in a career where there is a real possibility of loosing your job. And only a real idiot, or a sell out with a radio show, would hear that from their ad people and think "Yeah, thats a good idea. Thats somthing I want to promote to the American people".
So this got me to thinking about cars. And then I was lucky enough to catch "Click and Clack", the hosts of NPR's "Car Talk", doing a special NOVA on PBS last night about cars of the future. It was a good program, they traveled all around the world looking at how alternative forms of energy are impacting the auto industry. But there are some things I just don't get.
They started out at the detroit car show, looking at all the concept cars due out in the next five years or so. All the big three auto makers had their nice electric concept cars, that were going to cost around fiftey thousand dollars. And it made me mad.
And they spoke to reps that were talking about how they had to make electric cars apealing to the american people so that it would sell. At one point Ray from car talk was asking why they are focusing on making high horse power gas guzzlers when they had technology to make electric cars, asking, When you have a car like that (pointing at the Chevy Volt) why do you make such shit (pointing at the new Ford Mustang).
They also interviewed the owner of Tesla Motors, one of the first all electric car companies. They currently have two cars, the Roadster, and the Model S (due out in 2011). The roadster is a sleek stylish sportscar that can go from 0-60 in less than 4 seconds, and go about 300 miles per charge. The Model S is a family style sedan that seats 7 and gets about 300 miles per charge. It is equally as stylish and fancy, and, even though they havn't released options yet, im sure it has a multi disk CD changer, fancy stereo, navigation, DVD, and all the works. The Roadster averages about $100,00.00, the Model S will be about $50,000.00 after a $7,500.00 tax rebate. Watching the interview I couldn't help but see dollar signs in this douch bags eyes the whole time.
Here is my challenge to the big three and the guys at tesla, make an affordable hybrid or all electric vehicle for the masses!! It can be done, but no one will do it. The technology is there, but these people are too focused on how to make money off it instead of giving people an affordable and environmentally friendly way of getting around.
My first car was a 1992 Ford Tempo. I paid $1,000.00 for it in 2002. It was a simple car with a simple design, with simple interior and a simple package. What I want from the big three and tesla motors is a 1992 Ford Tempo that is all electric, or at least a plug in hybrid. And I want it for under $15,000.00.
I don't understand why the car companies are so focused on the idea that they have to make their hybrid and electric vehicles super flashy with all kinds of extras or nobody will buy it. No one can tell me that if there was an all electric car that looked like a cheap car from the 90's but ran like a normal car, and was $10,000.00 they wouldn't buy it. All of those 50 - 100 thousand dollar cars aren't whats going to turn people to electric cars. With out a decent priced all electric or plug in hybrid car for the masses people will not embrace electricity as a form of transportation. If it hadn'e been for the mass production, avaiability and chepaness of the Model T we would all be riding horses still!
Which brings me to availability. We need the car companies to pledge to a mass produced electric or plug in hybrid car. There can't be any more of these concept cars that they make a few hundred of and then no one sees them again because the auto makers say, we made one but we only leased a few hundred of them so there must not be a demand. (see "Who Killed the Electric Car") Hey Wakeup!!!! We can't demand something if it isn't there idiot!!!
With the government passing out bailouts to car comanies like they are goodie bags at an eight year olds birthday party, we as the american people MUST demand that these things happen. We pratically own most of the big three anyway now, shouldn't we have a say in what types of cars we want.
Roll that around in the old noggin.
Love You
Mike
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay
Hey everyone. Had a great weekend with great friends and great music. Started off Friday night with a singer/songwriter round at Indy Hostel featuring my great friends Cory Miller, Dusty Clark, and Scott Kline. It also featured one of my favorite (new, since I just heard him for the first time Friday) singers Josh Lemasters. He is really awesome, and you HAVE to check him out. Hopefully we will all be playing some shows together, as I am starting to book my summer with as many shows as I can for me and Andreas new project.On Saturday I had a show at Mo'Joes Coffee Shop in downtown Indy. It was a show for the group Democracy Matters at IUPUI. I had a ton of really good friends come out and I appreciate all of them showing up and clapping for all my tunes. It was an awesome crowd and I actually had a few songs that hushed the whole crowd, which if you have ever played at a coffee shop the crowds can me kinda noisy. I played about a half hour set that was 7 songs long. Here is a set list.
Night After Night
Greyhound
Cities Are Cold
Bury Me
Wonder Why
Not At Home
A Decent Proposal
It was a really fun place to play, and I even got my drinks half off. I hope to play there again. And I really hope to play for Democracy Matters again. It is a really awesome group that does some great work locally and nationally. Right now they are working very hard to get some legislation passed to make it illegal for private corporations to buy out public lawmakers. Which just makes sense.
Like I said I hope to be booking most of the summer and if any of you out there know of places to play let me know so I can get in contact with them. Then me and Andrea can get out there and start promoting the album that we are recording later this summer to help us fund our adoption. You can get more info on that on my Myspace Page.
Also this week Andrea got her Ukulele in the mail. She looks so cute with it, and she is picking it up really quickly. Hopefully she can join me in some shows soon. I will let all of you know more info on shows and stuff as it becomes available. Hope you all had as great a weekend as I did, and I hope you all have an equally great week.
Love You
Mike
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Adoption
Hey everyone. As most of you know Andrea (my wife) and I are going to be starting our Ethiopian adoption soon. We are using an agency called Children's Hope International. They are really awesome. Please be continually praying for us as we begin this amazing process.
Remember to keep baby brewer in your prayers. Pray for the country of Ethiopia and for the little one who will one day be in our arms. Pray for us! Pray for wisdom, strength and patience.
Pray for spiritual growth, for financial blessings, for love to grow within us every single day.
Pray that God will have his hand in every single circumstance.
Pray that God would keep our baby safe, happy and healthy until we can bring him home to us.
We will be starting an adoption blog soon that you can all follow. We will have daily and weekly updates about us, fund raising, and also where we are on the list. And trust me we will have an immediate posting once we have our referall. You can also follow the blog for Childrens Hope here. More to come soon.
Love you
Mike
Remember to keep baby brewer in your prayers. Pray for the country of Ethiopia and for the little one who will one day be in our arms. Pray for us! Pray for wisdom, strength and patience.
Pray for spiritual growth, for financial blessings, for love to grow within us every single day.
Pray that God will have his hand in every single circumstance.
Pray that God would keep our baby safe, happy and healthy until we can bring him home to us.
We will be starting an adoption blog soon that you can all follow. We will have daily and weekly updates about us, fund raising, and also where we are on the list. And trust me we will have an immediate posting once we have our referall. You can also follow the blog for Childrens Hope here. More to come soon.
Love you
Mike
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Devil in the Details
So there are several topics on religion that I could go on and on about. I call myself a Libral Orthodox Christian, and I don't think you could create a more contradictory term. I always have some rant that I get on and could go for hours with, but there has been one that I am particuarly obsessed with right now. I heard about this on my local news station several weeks ago, along with another somewhat similar story, and it has actually become national news since then.
OBAMA VS. NOTRE DAME
So if you have been living in a cave and have'nt heard about this here is the rundown. Several weeks ago Notre Dame in Indiana decided to invite President Barack Obama to speack at their graduation ceremony this spring. As you should know Notre Dame is a Catholic university. so as you can geuss a Democrat probably isn't going to get a warm welcome, which is exactly what happened. Several pro-life and homophobic groups have banded together to protest the presidents coming to the campus, arguing that his religious, and social veiws don't align with those of the Catholic faith and therefore he has no right coming to the university to speak.
Now I have to agree with the protesters. No, his views are not the same as the catholic views on the two subjects. The basic catholic view on pro-life is that abortion is murder, but they tend to take it a step farther than most religious groups. They also believe that using any type of birth control IS abortion. No matter if it is the pill, the shot, the patch, the insert and for the man using a condom and also going as far as pulling out and male "self relief". Basically if you are having sex and the guy stuff doesn't make it into the girl stuff you have committed a sin against God and must then seek redemption. Not to mention they have the same view on premarital sex. and homosexuality. President Obama obviously does not have these same views.
Now if those are your veiws that is fine. Not everyone in the world is going to agree with each other. And I repect the Catholic church. They have shown amazing steadfastness over the years, and have'nt changed to reflect what is popular, and have continued to show love, mercy and certain levels of acceptance despite ones sins. And I am not one to try to force my opinions on others, I just enjoy to make sense.
I also think that if you are going to hold any type of religious or socio-ethical opinion you need to use that ruler on everyone, not just those that you pick and choose. I will include some websites at the bottom of this post for you to self educate. You will notice, though, that these groups are'nt calling for the expulsion of all homosexual students. Nor the same for all female students using any form of birth control. Neither have I seen and nationwide petitions to kick out all students who are having premarital sex. I have done a lot of reading on the Notre Dame website and as far as I can tell there are no expulsion rules for students who "walk the dog", maybe they need a march on the archdiocese residence for that one. I can see the signs now: "whacking = murder".
It is true to say that I have no proof that there are such students at the university. It could be possible that all ND students are great young catholic men and women, but really, lets not be nieve. I, too, am not going to be nieve. I realize that ND is not a religious school, in that there are no religious requirements for admission, unlike many "Christian" schools out there, like the one I went to, Ozark Christian College, where I had to submit my baptism certificate, and a letter from my pastor along with my admission application. But like I said earlier, if your going to deny entry onto campus to a person simply because of the religious views and opinions on certain topics, and the fact that those views don't align with those of the leadership and predominate religion on that campus, then it needs to be across the board or not at all.
How can these groups make such a big deal out of Obama, just coming to speak at the school when there are openly gay students on campus, students having sex, using birth control, and it's probably not to big of a stretch to say that there are students who have had an abortion going to ND. And these students aren't just coming to ND for a few hours and a photo op, but they are there for four + years, living on campus, joing clubs and forming their own, and getting degrees that they are going to take out into the world along with all their personal views and opinions. And, oh yeah, they are also giving ND $50,000.00 plus per year! Could it be that the money is the real reason behind why there is no outcry from these protestors to expell all the students that don't hold up the Catholic faith. If only 100 students were kicked out due to these reasons, that would be a $500,000.00 loss for ND. Im sure thats probably several proffessors salaries, or travel expenses for the fighting irish sports department.
Not to mention the exposure that these groups are going to get throughout this controversy. Every signature on that petiton is one more possible donation to next years fund raiser for the on campus pro-life campaign. They might as well be just collecting a call list for next years telethon. I'm just wondering where the ND chapter of the NRA is at. Plus lets look at the basics of the speach. He isn't giving a pro-choice speech, or a gay rights speech, it's a commencment speech. He is a very succesfull person, and I think that is pretty much the only requirement for giving a commencement speech.
Thats right folks, money. Money has once again taken priority, and pro-life and homophobia is once again the mask behind which the greed of organized religion is hidden. I'm really trying not to be a total jerk or anything. Here is my basic view:
If you're going to love, love all. If you're going to show mercy and grace, show it to all. Not just those that you pick and choose.
Now there was another story I wanted to hit on real quickly. It was also at a christian college. Some students at Anderson University are trying to get the no drinking rule taken out of the school. They claim that they are of legal age and the school has no right to tell them they can't drink. And really they are right. But they also knew the rules before they started going to school there. But what I really thought was odd was their way of protesting it. They decided to hang up posters all over campus about a march. They decided to march from the campus to a bar a few blocks away and have a beer. Now this is just dumb. I have a lot of friends that went to anderson, and a lot of them drank while they went there with no repracutions. So here is the deal AU guys that wanna drink, I hope your reading this. DRINK! Just dont make such a big friggin deal out of. I smoked cigars all the time while I was at OCC, but I didn't tell all my profs thats what I was going to do that afternoon. Would you sign a rental lease saying you won't paint your apartment, and then call the media to tape you painting it? And if you don't agree with the rule, and you morally object to breaking it, then drop out and go to Butler or Ball State like all the other anderon drop-outs that had an awakening while at AU.
Well those are my thoughts for the day.
Love you,
Mike
References:
ND finances - http://admissions.nd.edu/financial-aid
ND Scandal Homepage - http://www.notredamescandal.com/
Gays at ND - http://www.nd.edu/~observer/02022001/News/1.html
News Flash: Dateline - Anderson, Indiana - AU students are dumb - http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990325015
OBAMA VS. NOTRE DAME
So if you have been living in a cave and have'nt heard about this here is the rundown. Several weeks ago Notre Dame in Indiana decided to invite President Barack Obama to speack at their graduation ceremony this spring. As you should know Notre Dame is a Catholic university. so as you can geuss a Democrat probably isn't going to get a warm welcome, which is exactly what happened. Several pro-life and homophobic groups have banded together to protest the presidents coming to the campus, arguing that his religious, and social veiws don't align with those of the Catholic faith and therefore he has no right coming to the university to speak.
Now I have to agree with the protesters. No, his views are not the same as the catholic views on the two subjects. The basic catholic view on pro-life is that abortion is murder, but they tend to take it a step farther than most religious groups. They also believe that using any type of birth control IS abortion. No matter if it is the pill, the shot, the patch, the insert and for the man using a condom and also going as far as pulling out and male "self relief". Basically if you are having sex and the guy stuff doesn't make it into the girl stuff you have committed a sin against God and must then seek redemption. Not to mention they have the same view on premarital sex. and homosexuality. President Obama obviously does not have these same views.
Now if those are your veiws that is fine. Not everyone in the world is going to agree with each other. And I repect the Catholic church. They have shown amazing steadfastness over the years, and have'nt changed to reflect what is popular, and have continued to show love, mercy and certain levels of acceptance despite ones sins. And I am not one to try to force my opinions on others, I just enjoy to make sense.
I also think that if you are going to hold any type of religious or socio-ethical opinion you need to use that ruler on everyone, not just those that you pick and choose. I will include some websites at the bottom of this post for you to self educate. You will notice, though, that these groups are'nt calling for the expulsion of all homosexual students. Nor the same for all female students using any form of birth control. Neither have I seen and nationwide petitions to kick out all students who are having premarital sex. I have done a lot of reading on the Notre Dame website and as far as I can tell there are no expulsion rules for students who "walk the dog", maybe they need a march on the archdiocese residence for that one. I can see the signs now: "whacking = murder".
It is true to say that I have no proof that there are such students at the university. It could be possible that all ND students are great young catholic men and women, but really, lets not be nieve. I, too, am not going to be nieve. I realize that ND is not a religious school, in that there are no religious requirements for admission, unlike many "Christian" schools out there, like the one I went to, Ozark Christian College, where I had to submit my baptism certificate, and a letter from my pastor along with my admission application. But like I said earlier, if your going to deny entry onto campus to a person simply because of the religious views and opinions on certain topics, and the fact that those views don't align with those of the leadership and predominate religion on that campus, then it needs to be across the board or not at all.
How can these groups make such a big deal out of Obama, just coming to speak at the school when there are openly gay students on campus, students having sex, using birth control, and it's probably not to big of a stretch to say that there are students who have had an abortion going to ND. And these students aren't just coming to ND for a few hours and a photo op, but they are there for four + years, living on campus, joing clubs and forming their own, and getting degrees that they are going to take out into the world along with all their personal views and opinions. And, oh yeah, they are also giving ND $50,000.00 plus per year! Could it be that the money is the real reason behind why there is no outcry from these protestors to expell all the students that don't hold up the Catholic faith. If only 100 students were kicked out due to these reasons, that would be a $500,000.00 loss for ND. Im sure thats probably several proffessors salaries, or travel expenses for the fighting irish sports department.
Not to mention the exposure that these groups are going to get throughout this controversy. Every signature on that petiton is one more possible donation to next years fund raiser for the on campus pro-life campaign. They might as well be just collecting a call list for next years telethon. I'm just wondering where the ND chapter of the NRA is at. Plus lets look at the basics of the speach. He isn't giving a pro-choice speech, or a gay rights speech, it's a commencment speech. He is a very succesfull person, and I think that is pretty much the only requirement for giving a commencement speech.
Thats right folks, money. Money has once again taken priority, and pro-life and homophobia is once again the mask behind which the greed of organized religion is hidden. I'm really trying not to be a total jerk or anything. Here is my basic view:
If you're going to love, love all. If you're going to show mercy and grace, show it to all. Not just those that you pick and choose.
Now there was another story I wanted to hit on real quickly. It was also at a christian college. Some students at Anderson University are trying to get the no drinking rule taken out of the school. They claim that they are of legal age and the school has no right to tell them they can't drink. And really they are right. But they also knew the rules before they started going to school there. But what I really thought was odd was their way of protesting it. They decided to hang up posters all over campus about a march. They decided to march from the campus to a bar a few blocks away and have a beer. Now this is just dumb. I have a lot of friends that went to anderson, and a lot of them drank while they went there with no repracutions. So here is the deal AU guys that wanna drink, I hope your reading this. DRINK! Just dont make such a big friggin deal out of. I smoked cigars all the time while I was at OCC, but I didn't tell all my profs thats what I was going to do that afternoon. Would you sign a rental lease saying you won't paint your apartment, and then call the media to tape you painting it? And if you don't agree with the rule, and you morally object to breaking it, then drop out and go to Butler or Ball State like all the other anderon drop-outs that had an awakening while at AU.
Well those are my thoughts for the day.
Love you,
Mike
References:
ND finances - http://admissions.nd.edu/financial-aid
ND Scandal Homepage - http://www.notredamescandal.com/
Gays at ND - http://www.nd.edu/~observer/02022001/News/1.html
News Flash: Dateline - Anderson, Indiana - AU students are dumb - http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990325015
Saturday, April 11, 2009
New Blog
This is my new blog. I will post things, and write various thoughts and observations about many different topics, such as: Religion, Music, Me, Stories (real and fictional), Poems, Songs, Social Commentary, Politics and the like. Hope you enjoy.
Mike
Mike
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