GOD WANTS LOW WAGES – Pay them nothing and they will teach.

•   McGill comments get national attention,
• AEA boss gives McGill failing grade

I’ve only half-joked for years that God really needs a better PR team here in the temporal world. Some of the most log-headed charlatans, grifters, and just plain logically-challenged people claim to speak on His behalf. Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, and the ethically inept Newt Gingrich are just a few who work non-stop to tarnish God’s image.

Unfortunately, there’s another PR flack trying to grab a share of the ignobility. AL state Sen. Shadrack (Shadrack, really? Shadrack?) McGill is currently charming the nation’s electorate with the fanciful notion that God has issued an edict that teachers should be underpaid, perhaps as foretold in the Book of Ignoramus.

“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach. To go and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?”

Oddly, though not surprisingly, McGill doesn’t extend the same “logic” to lawmakers. Last year he voted for a 62% increase in his pay.

Lawmakers: Bribed, Not Called

I suppose this illuminates his idea that lawmakers don’t need to be called to serve, they must be bribed to take on the job. It’s not unlike paying a large retention bonus to the CEO who ran the company into the ground because his expertise is essential to rebuilding the business.

But in his defense, McGill reasons that by paying lawmakers more they’re less susceptible to bribery – apparently bribery from someone other than the unbribable legislators themselves.

Head-scratcher, ain’t it?

It doesn’t do much for his credibility that he voted to tie legislators’ pay to the average Alabama teacher’s pay last year and reversed course this year. It’s OK though, flip flopping is a venerated sport at the Statehouse Country Club and the all seeing, all knowing God won’t really notice a little free play with facts.

Darby McGill and the Little People claim Alabama teachers are the 4th best paid in the country. Now I don’t know about you, but most people know that pretty much everything in Alabama education sucks a big weenie. They usually joust with Mississippi for the 49th or 50th spot in everything – although Propped 13 California is a strong up and commer. The true value of an Alabama teacher’s pay actually ranks 31st in the National Miseducation Sweepstakes.

Smite That Rascal Lord

Hey McGill, wait a minute. If that No. 4 standing is correct aren’t you overpaying teachers and attracting a bad crowd of the unmotivated kind? Shouldn’t you work harder to lower Alabam’s No. 4 ranking to 49th – or at least 45th?

If you’ll excuse a minor blasphemy…my God. If you claim to be serving as God’s on-scene commander, the least you could do is get your story straight. It might also sit better with the Big Guy if you didn’t stand behind his robes and yell, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my words and actions will never haunt me.”

God, I know you and I haven’t been on a first name basis for close to 45 years now, but I like to think we at least have a workable truce. So I beseech thee, if you’re really there control people like McGill. They do a disservice to you and just really chap the pants off the rest of us – You-fearing and not fearing alike.

Smite him o’ Lord. Cast him into the fiery pit of the unelectable. Just take away his 62% pay hike before you give him the eternal shove.

Can I get an Amen?

Related articles

• Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah speaks about politics, religion, economics, and crapweasels
• GOP Lawkmaker: Keeping Teacher Pay Low ‘A Biblical Principle’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Bible Man Better Be Able to Deflect Lawsuits (patheos.com)
• Alabama Republican Lawmaker: Teacher Payraise “Unbiblical,” Defends 62% Legislator Payraise (warmsouthernbreeze.wordpress.com)

Jerusalem

Minor skirmishes broke out when Christian, Jewish, and Muslim supporters fought for hours over which calendar – Gregorian,  Hariji, or Hebrew – to use in planning the move. Chinese representatives remain neutral on the calendar question and the Romans voted in absentia for the Julian Calendar.

The fighting broke out after the Christian delegation charged the Muslim and Jewish delegations of declaring a War on New Year.

“They declared a War on Christmas and now they’re trying to steal the entire year from us,” said Hank Hucklebuck, Chairman of the God Says We’re Right and You’re Wrong Alliance. “Like Christmas, New Year has been part of a Christian tradition leading all the way back to 1582 when St. Greg of the Equinox threw out that evil Julian calendar.”

“Look, Christians are a fair-minded lot and we would never want to deprive others of their right to celebrate the New Year as they wish. However, we’re right, they’re wrong and only God can change that. We have already contacted his representative, Pat Robertson, to negotiate when our calendar will be chosen. We are looking forward to resolving this issue peacefully,” Hucklebuck said.

Muslim representatives had a different point of view.

“Those Christians are always going around shoving Jesus into our faces. To me this has nothing to do with the calendar. Mohamed is clearly the most important of any prophet in any religion and he chose the Hariji. Of that, there is no question,” said Isaiah Mustafa.

Israel’s Hebrew Calendar Defense League threatened violence if the Gregorian or Hariji calendars were adopted.

“We may have nuclear weapons. We have a very capable fighting force. We have the might of the last remaining global superpower behind us. We will prevail,” said Bibi Badder, Chief of Israel’s Time Continuum Militia. “If our calendar is not chosen, as as God directs, we will bomb the US Congressional Prayer Caucus, Iran, and both Michele Bachmann and that other fool…Richard Santorum.”

Fighting calmed only slightly after several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a cease fire. Sources say that negotiations broke down when representatives could not agree on a calendar to use in setting up the ceasefire timing. A small group of Atheists tried to enter the meeting and offer a compromise based on a scientific calendar, but Islamic, Christian, and Jewish members threw stones at them until they drove them from the Temple on the Mount.

“We may not be able to agree on a calendar,” Hucklebuck said, “but we can all agree that whatever the atheists propose is complete scientific mumbo-jumbo.”

When it appeared the chance for an agreement was unlikely the Christian delegation decided to gear up their grassroots War on Christmas organization for a War on New Year. They’ve called on Fox News to launch the crusade immediately. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have already come aboard.

“People will call things by their proper Christian names or they will be hanged as enemy combatants for their violations of our family values. If we do not win this war – though that’s impossible because God is on our side – homosexualist indoctrinators will tell our kids they can’t pray in school and a massive outbreak of man-on-horse sex could rage,” said GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

“Mark my words.”

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• First Date Shift Since 1927 (lezgetreal.com)
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• David Hunter: What year is it? Well, that depends (knoxnews.com)
• New Year’s Eve 2011 and the Launching of 2012 (examiner.com)
• Samoa calendar change: Samoans lose 24 hours as island moves over … – Daily Mail (dailymail.co.uk)
• New Year Cheer Starts Early in Time-Jumping Samoa (abcnews.go.com)

It’s been a rough decade or so for America. One disaster after another. I find it hard to get cranky over anything or anyone anymore and I’m ashamed to say my blog production has dropped off as a result.

People used to say I reminded them of,  “a curmudgeon sitting on the porch, throwing firecrackers at the birds.” Now, I post a number of mildly entertaining pop culture videos or some personal story as often as politics. Even my more cantankerous posts lack the panache of old. Really, I don’t know how Christopher Hitchens managed to get his cranky on, even in the face of death.

But, I still dream of the days when I mustered the strength to pop someone’s head like a zit, to just let the vitriol fly and let the pus-covered words land where they may. That day has come. Let the popping begin:

No. 6: Pat Robertson – Failed Faith Healer and TV Evangiswindler

Pat’s never boring. You can count on him to say things so incredibly stupid he has no credibility as a comic after he says them. Pat, here’s to hoping the Lord God Almighty calls you on the Supertheist Hotline and strikes you popped, like a big juicy one.

BTW, take Michele Bachmann with you as a sort of DIY rapture.

No. 5: Sarah Palin – Failed Reality Show Character and Half-Term Governor

Sarah’s sexy schoolmarm look has worn dangerously thin. No one buys rimless glasses anymore. She’s all but stopped the comic gold Tweets and now can’t even seduce Joe the Plumber into the Tea Party – much less be a Kingmaker for the largest group of knotheads ever to run for public office. Republicans? Michele Bachmann. Really? C’mon.

Sadly, she’s a victim of America’s economic turmoil. After her last reality show tanked, she couldn’t get anyone to pick up her newest TV creation – “reality” life with the First Dood. Who knew salmon fishing could be so…um, uninteresting? Who would’ve imagined that she and multi-baby momma, Kate Gosselin, would both find themself unemployed and downwardly mobile members of the 99.99 percenters?

Hand me that Alaskan hunting knife…POP! Woooo, look at that gunk fly.

No. 4: The Occupy Movement

Michael Moore described the movement as “organic” without seeing the irony that mushrooms grown in shit are organic as well. They have lofty goals, most of which I applaud heartily. However, if you can get 54% of America to agree with you and then shortly thereafter have polls drop like anchors, you aren’t onto a good political strategy. (See Baggers, Failure, Tea)

Word. Stop keeping your enemies close and pissing off your friends (for example, the Longshoremen’s Union). Face it, if there’s one thing 99% of America hates it’s people who camp out on the grass in defiance of the Keep Off the Grass signs. Those pro-watching grass grow people mean business (Use of Deadly Pepper Spray Authorized).

BTW, fewer TV interviews with formerly middle class post-grads who trained for archeology, but now can’t find a job “in their field of study”.  More interviews with people who not only can’t afford Christmas gifts, but food, clothing, shelter, and water too.

Herewith is a group pop, because the movement is so “organic” no single mushroom has emerged from the shit to take one for the team.

No. 3: Newt Gingrich – Deity

When Joe Scarborough says you’re just plain mean and you’re too crazy for Glenn Beck, some self-examination is in order – even if you’re congenitally unable to do it.

Newt has enough skeletons in his closet to fill the Catacombs three times over. He will not get a pass on those, regardless of how above them he feels entitled to be.  He’s now on Wife No.  36, more or less. He’s cheated on the lot of them and is probably grooming Wife No. 37 as we speak. No one believes that he’s really gone over to the God side except the American Family Association, Jim Bakker, and Billy Graham…and he’s almost dead and confused to boot.

Oh, and Joe Scarborough says you are a mean man.

May God have no mercy popping your zit.

No 2. Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh – Media Mavens Who Hate the Media

This one is really too easy, because they are really the same person. Same buffoonery, same  blowhardism, and like Newt, same mean people.

If you have a TV or radio show, website, or both, you can’t talk about the media like it’s some underground nefarious plot by treasonous commies, socialists, or nazis who hate the Hate America First or War on Christmas crowds. Simply put, YOU ARE THE MEDIA YOU MORANS!

Each of you have skin thinner than a condom and egos the size of Donald Trump’s – although most of you have better hair (notwithstanding Rush’s bald pate). This is not an especially endearing combination except with survivalists still looking for Barack Hussein Obama’s “real” birth certificate under a chunk of Kenyan rock, and abortion clinic bombers.

Here’s a huge zit-pop for you.

CAUTION: Readers, please step away from the zit so you don’t get wet. This is a juicy one.

No. 1: Barack Obama – Change and Hope Peddler and World’s Worse Negotiator

He means well. He really does. He believes the whole change and hope thing, but wants to get to it by selling his skin to corporatists and kowtowing to any interest group more powerful than the National Association of Wiener Dogs. He’s also under the misguided impression that bipartisanship actually works. When your opponents say “no” – or worse yet – “hell no” before you even float the infamous trial balloon, bipartisanship is a loser. How many times will he bang his head against this particular rock?

But, the O-Man’s biggest failure is as a negotiator. He bargains like a Rube trying to buy a Ford Pinto with only 3 wheels at Mad Man Dapper Dan’s Pre-Owned, Used Car Lot (“I’d give ‘em away, but my wife won’t let me.”). You don’t tell Dan exactly how much you have in your pocket and then begin haggling against yourself. Clearly, the Pinto will be just a hopeful and change-deprived dream.

True, he’s gotten few things done after a fashion, but his greatest claim to fame may be that he’s infinitely preferable than John McThusela and the Gun Totin’ Moose Mommy. Not a bad accomplishment in its own right.

Sorry Mr. President, but I’ll make this as painless as possible. I hope you can handle the change.

(Quick Stab) little ooze.

Damn! Vitriol feels so damn good. I FEEL ALIVE! ALIVE I SAY!

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Robertson, God’s official gaffemeister, says it’s okay to punch out of a presumably ‘traditional’ marriage if one spouse has Alzheimer’s.

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s (the spouse) going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her,” Robertson said.

From the quote, it’s hard to tell if he intends this privilege as a traditional male-only perk, but that’s another gaffe for another day.

Robertson’s unusual advice comes with a sort of ecumenical escape clause. According to God’s worst PR person, marriage vows to take each other “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health,” are suspended by the whole “til death do us part” sub-clause.

Why? Robertson says Alzheimer’s is “a kind of death.” He doesn’t cite a traditional values bible passage explaining his position, but if gays can cause hurricanes and earthquakes I suppose Robertson can choose only the gospels he finds convenient.

Robertson also breaks from the traditional dogma followed by most other Christians by ignoring Jesus’s words in the Gospel of Mark. Words that say divorce and remarriage is adultery. You know, that pesky 7th Commandment plastered on school hallways across the land.

Perhaps Robertson needs to stop by a school hallway for a refresher course.

As with most of his goof-spouting, he derives his idea of consistent piousness comes from the same intellectual font as Michelle Bachmann’s – Nasty, Rude, Brutish, and Short – Official Barristers to God. He gets all the communal property in his traditional values divorce so he can dole it out as he sees fit, including his definition of death.

Morality is the business of the person living it, not some failed faith healer claiming to have a non-secular cellphone with the Big Guy on speed dial. Married gays would, and expect to be, in the same positions as straights. Some accept each other in, “for better or worse and in sickness and health, until death do us part” and stick it out. Some, not so much. Just like traditional couples. It’s a tough decision for anyone, so I’d suggest you follow your own wise advice. “(I) wouldn’t put a guilt trip on anyone who took such a step.”

But Pat, if you wouldn’t put it this on someone else, you should feel guilty as hell about putting a guilt trip in other circumstances – like gay marriage.

 Related articles

• More From the Poobah on Religion and Politics (omnipotentpoobah.com)
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• Pat Robertson Is VERY, VERY Wrong About Divorcing One’s Spouse With Alzheimer’s Disease, Needs To Offer Nation Apology (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• Until Death [or Dementia] Do Us Part? Robertson Says It Is OK To Divorce Spouses With Alzheimer’s (jonathanturley.org)
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Disclaimer: The Omnipotent Poobah, aka Jack Koeneman, is a former Christian turned atheist. He has nothing against most theists and respects their beliefs – up to the point where they step on his.

PROSPERITY! - It's time for churches to share some of that prosperity with those they profess to want to help.

I have dozens of theist friends. Our discussions are generally polite and lean toward the relative merits of atheist and theist beliefs, not mundane secular topics like religious tax breaks. But with the hew and cry over taxes and spending, perhaps it’s time to start that conversation in earnest.

Feel free to jump in anytime.

Everything has a consequence and despite popular belief, cutting taxes and spending have consequences far beyond the ideological argument that we’ll be just hunky dory if government is limited to the political equivalent of forcing Americans to work without a net.

DIY Ass Wipes
It’s not uncommon for teachers to buy school supplies from their own pockets or firefighters in Rick Perry’s capitalist paradise to pay for their own equipment and fuel. In some schools, teachers buy toilet paper because the schools can’t afford it. A sort of DIY ass wipe. It’s sad, but I have boundless admiration for the sacrifices they make while selfish no-taxers bitch about how bad they have it.

Except for the most lunatic-fringe zealots, theists preach a deep spirit of hope and charity. Yet, most don’t walk their talk by volunteering to give up their churches’ tax exempt status.

The primary argument for tax exempt houses of worship is that  theists need the money to exercise their right to worship. However, that argument is a little weak. They’re not only insistent on tax exemptions, but are apparently looking for exemptions to important parts of their faiths too.

I don’t think everything religions do is wrong. On the contrary. By and large, theism is a good thing for society. But with funding disappearing for social safety programs, someone has to take up the slack. My beef isn’t that religious exemptions wholly disappear, but limited to exemptions for the secular parts of the business of their religions.

For those of strong faith, axing the exemption for purposes of building Crystal Cathedrals, installing air conditioners, and proselytizing shouldn’t matter one whit. It wouldn’t interfere with their ability to freely practice their religion. It would force them to make hard decisions on what they do with the tax money we give them.

Let Aunt Milly Rock On at the Organ
No, I suggest exemptions only apply to the parts of their truly secular holdings that have nothing to do with spreading the gospel. A salary for a new organist is an option that could be dealt with by having Aunt Milly play for free. If a church decided a professional organist was essential they should carry the weight of their own hiring decisions.

Conversely, decisions that have nothing to do with freedom of religion shouldn’t be exempt. If theists want to run their own businesses, like Pat Robertson‘s African blood diamond and gold mines or extensive land holdings, or acting like holy day traders, they should pay tax like GE…we’ll if GE actually paid the taxes they owned.

Obviously, there is a scant chance this will happen. I don’t see the Tea Partiers lining up for some sacrifice and politicians are as terrified by the religious lobby as they are the NRA or AARP.

Many would assume that taxing secular business interests would cut the amount of money for charity. However, you could make the argument that the money taken in through new tax revenue would offset a loss and encourage theists to make sacrifices and shift their charity toward more beneficial, secular endeavors.

More fully following your faith is the least God would ask.

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