Growing up Protestant, I knew there was something different from my church and the Catholic church down the street, mostly though I was glad not to spend hours at CCD each week. Friends of mine that were Catholic didn’t seem different, and they weren’t. Sure…in the middle of it, sitting in church, I’d imagine just about anything could be fed to us and happily eaten, but whatever it amounted to in the end, firebombs, kidnappings and beheadings weren’t part of anyone’s playbook. Why is this? My feeling is that life outside of jail is a hell of a lot better than life inside of jail, a fact that keeps even the most bugged out American religions in check. Sure, every once in a while there’ll be a “prophet” who’ll round up a collection of rednecks, who then allow him to sleep with their teenage daughters…but none of this is mainstream. Religious muscle in America is flexed at the ballot box, and then from the top down once a believer is in a position to beat down logic and reason long enough to get something put off for a while (Plan-B contraception) or to hijack a public institution like the schools (Kansas comes to mind). Short lived experiments such as this are what makes your average voter realize that such-and-such a candidate was working for God instead of the taxpayers, and as the ballot box giveth, it also taketh away. That’s the cycle in a “civilized society founded on law and order”…religion gets in line with everyone else, and if its got enough money, the game is forced to pay it some mind along with your 2nd ammendment folks, parents petrified of everything, industry and so on.
In the middle east it’s something different altogether, and this map lays out the situation quite well. LIGHT GREEN = SUNNI, DARK GREEN = SHIA
Killing your neighbor in Iraq isn’t much to be worried about once the bodies are found…no CSI over there to run you down, not with bodies scattered across Baghdad every day. Law and order isn’t a reality. Protestants and Catholics…Sunni and Shia, same difference, and if you go back 500 years and look at Europe, whites had the same problem back then as these people are having now. What sucks for them is, they’ve got no New World to go to and have all to themselves, and unfortunately the ballot box can only accomplish so much. In Iraq’s case it works to soothe the minds of Americans more than it does the mind of a Sunni merchant who knows it’s going to be his day to die soon most likely. The government sponsored Shia militia abducted the Sunni man across the street who had owned and operated that shop for 15 years, and even without a head to match up with the rest of what they found, his wife was able to identify him at the morgue.
But that’s just me laying out some thoughts…the map is from 1995, and for anyone with an opinion about the middle east, it’s worth some time to study. The administration wants to bring up history all the time now, so I encourage everyone to do the same, on their own terms though. For me, after studying it for a full semester in high school, this map and the stories behind it scream of the Hundred Years War. How am I wrong?
When I think of the number of Muslims in the world, the percentage willing to die or kill is fairly small. I can not blame the entire religion for the whackjobs out there. The different factions have been slaughtering each other forever..on horseback even..
My mom test-drove all the religions..the woman made us go to every denomination there was. She was really searching hard for God..
How about that No-No today? freaking Marlins….
Yea…Beckett gave up a LOT of home runs this year, Lowell is a magician at 3rd. These will be the moves Theo is judged by later on, just like what happened with Duquette (Varitek, Pedro, Lowe, Manny acquired…Offerman, Lansing, Everett, Castillo – plenty of bad, a lot of good…Duquette’s failure was in ignoring the details, or what every other team in baseball calls “defense, speed”)
Letting Pedro go was a sin. They added seats to the park and let the best pitcher I’ve ever seen go over a few million bucks. He reinvented himself IN BOSTON, and while he’s not going to make it through every season, he will take the mound when it counts, and when he’s on there’s no one better. WITHOUT THE FASTBALL, he strikes guys out, more than Schilling, more than Beckett. When Greg Maddux did this he was a ‘genius’. They call Pedro a ‘diva’ in Boston.
Theo losing Pedro, if it wasn’t Luccino and his ego, and that could very well be the case, but according to Luccino, having AROD would be better than having Manny for LESS money, and Pedro ain’t shit.
I’ll tell you what…they made me a lifelong Mets fan from now on. Screw ’86
So they want to run the organization like the Marlins, but this trade aside, they haven’t got the pitching staff. No Dontrelle Willis just yet.
Or maybe that was him.
Anibal Sánchez – a player that went to the Marlins along with Hanley Ramirez (SS) in exchange for Beckett and Lowell.
Theo also traded Bronson Arroyo for Willy Mo Pena, a guy destined to be a DH, who cannot play the outfield for the life of him. Bad deal.
Too many moves involving young starters is a bad thing. As we see with Julian Tavarez starting his second game on three days rest…
Here’s Sanchez – http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7701/
Ah yes, the Land of Bad Trades. Los Angeles is renowed for them
Tim Wallach, John Wetteland, Pedro, Delino DeShields, Paul Konerko, Mike Piazza.
Indeed – – – Minnesotta is the crown jewel when it comes to pumping out players year after year.
Minnesota and Ortiz — what were they thinking?!
Ortiz was brought into Boston initially to platoon at first base with Kevin Millar. He wasn’t putting up the numbers like he is today, and frankly, even if he had, Minnesotta isn’t going to drop 50 million on a guy unless he’s a starting pitcher.