Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 23 Editor's Choice: 2
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Dear Christians. Please Help Us!
[Read the article: Tortured justice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is going out to all the right wing Christians who are George W. Bush supporters.
Okay. You won. You got your guy into power. You have the congress, you have the Supreme Court. You have your own network of TV and radio stations. Your servants work to pass legislation against gays getting married. You are on the path to protecting all innocent life from the second the sperm unites with the egg as you have determined that is when life begins. You got the president to get out of bed to fly to Washington for Terri Schiavo even when he wouldn't do the same for the flood victims in New Orleans. I have no doubt you will keep going until the world is remade in your image or we reach the End Times. Only then will you rest. So...given all the power you have, I have a request:
"Could you please help us stop your government from passing laws that make it OKAY to torture other humans? Could you please come out AGAINST torture? Against the bill that is winding its way through congress now?
Could you please get as worked up over this as you did about Janet Jackson's breast? Can you please make some of the same 100's of thousands of phone calls and letters to your servants as you did when you were hoping that Teri Schiavo was tracking a balloon with her eyes after years in a coma? Okay, those are nasty shots, please forgive me. In fact, I'm willing to grovel. It's more important for me to look out for the least of my brothers who might be in an eternal state of imprisonment with no hope of a trial than to get in my snarky comments.
It's hard for me not to be angry at you because it seems to me your priorities are wrong. I often don't agree with you since you target my friends and their choices. But I'm going to get down on my knees and beg you now. Please, please, PLEASE pick up this cross of suffering that our elected officials want to lay on the people they determine are enemies.
I know that you are scared of terrorists. That's normal given the times we live in where fear is sown in every newscast. I know that you have been told that if someone is a detainee they are guilty and would slit your throat if they could. But here's the thing. Sometimes we get it wrong. People make mistakes. You know all those people in Gitmo? Hundreds were let go. Why? THEY WERE NOT THE TERRORISTS WE WERE LOOKING FOR. Some were mistakes. If there isn't a chance to recover from mistakes with something like habeas corpus we are all diminished as children of God. We can give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.
And wouldn't you want that for yourself, for your brother? And who is your brother? Who did Jesus say was your brother?
I think that if you look at the authentic passages in the New Testament, some of those stories or parables that Jesus said will back up my request.
Dear Christians. Please help us! And I'm not going to ask the question, "What would Jesus Do?" you know the answer. Whatsoever you do to least of my brothers that you do unto me.
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Battlestar Galactica is important TV. 2nd best show on TV (after the Wire)
[Read the article: Space balls]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Science fiction has often had an ability to comment to our current life and deal with what I like to call "future ethics". How do we deal with a race of clones? What does it mean if your consciousness can be uploaded? Do the machines we create have souls?
BSG deals with all these issues and more. I especially love when the people who you care about do terrible things. You understand their actions but wish they had found a third way. But BSG often faces down the tough choices. Collaborators are killed. Bulkheads are closed off and people die. Sometimes the leaders do less flashy things, like throw an election. You understand why they did it and it appears it is the right thing to do. But if THEY think that way, you can understand why people you HATE would think that way.
This season they have dealt with torture, summary justice and how to deal with collaborators.
I don't want to give out any spoilers, but a scene this season with Jammer and "The Circle" still sticks in my brain today.
I also love that the Cylons are the ones with the "One True God" and they are the ones who are trying to understand what it means to love someone at the same time that they systematicly go about killing hundreds of thousands of people to settle old scores. Sound like anyone you know?
If I had a quibble it is that they don't have one strong element in their world that we have in ours -- the right wing media and a co-opted mainstream media. It would be interesting to see how they would deal with that aspect of our society. They do touch on it. Again no spoilers, but I love the fact that two of the most evil Cylons were positioned in the PR business and in the media!
Do yourself a huge favor. RENT this series. Buy this series. Download this series from iTunes.
WATCH THIS SHOW.