Chamblee54

There are a lot of lips moving about the “Tea Party” these days. Many of the party people are Jesus Worshipers, who believe that the Bible is the word of G-d. While this belief is not required to join the party, it is very, very helpful. Probably, very few tea partiers are Muslims, who believe the Koran to be the word of G-d. Whatever the phrasing, these three movements are real to those who believe.
PG watches from the sidelines. He feels that practice is more important than belief. PG sees Jesus in the words and deeds of those who worship Jesus. (Is this worship a violation of the first commandment? That is another issue for another day.)
This hobby blogger drinks a lot of tea, favoring the cheapest brand available. Put two bags in a pitcher, heat the water for ten minutes, and pour the water over the bags. Sugar gets in the way of the taste, and lemons are too much work. You make the next pitcher of tea when you pour the last glass. What this custom has to do with politics or religion is a matter for those with a philosophical bent.
A blogger named Frank Turk made a video. There were 86 comments. Mr. Turk makes the comment in this video that Jesus is a real person. This is different from PG’s view, which is that Jesus is a spirit that lives in the hearts of those who worship him. To PG, this spirit has almost no relation to the person reputed to live in Palestine 2100 years ago.
In the video, Mr. Turk tells a story about tea parties becoming real . ” My brother-in-law David tells a story about the first time he visited Boston. David’s ex-military, and He says that he can remember all through school people told him about American history — about the events that happened that caused us to be a country, the list of facts. But in Boston, he found himself out in the harbor looking down into the water, and when he looked into the water and out at the harbor he realized: “Wow. This is were they dropped the tea into the harbor.” And at that moment, all those men and all the stories about them weren’t just facts or true statements anymore: the real people became obvious to him, and it changed the way he thought about our country and his part in it.”
Politics and religion are emotional affairs. Some sayings resonate, and some do not. This feature is about the concept of “real”. How political movements are based on events that only marginally relate to the movement, but make a statement that you feel in your gut. How religious movements worship a figure who has been distorted to mean what the believer wants him to mean. About how you know something is “real”.
First, the present day tea party, and the events in Boston Harbor December 16, 1773. PG wrote about the original Tea Party earlier in 2010. In the ecologically sound tradition of recycling your own work, here is what he found.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people (some dressed as Mohawks) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax. (It is not known how the imitation Mohawks cut their hair.)
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea. The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
Smugglers, a corrupt colonial governor, and peaceful solutions at the other major harbors. Is this the story Glenn Beck is crying about? Or has he taken a dramatic moment from history, and exploited it for his own purposes?
In a similar fashion, modern Jesus worshipers have taken a figure from the past, and created a spirit in his name. The history of Jesus is much further in the past than the Boston Tea Party, and much less is known. There are those who say the Bible is the word of G-d, and can be trusted to tell the facts about Jesus. Others are much less certain.
So, when did Jesus finally become real to PG? The watershed incident took place in the spring of 1999. By this time, PG had decided that he did not agree with the two key beliefs of Jesus worship…that the Bible is the word of G-d, and that belief in Jesus will affect what happens when you die. It was becoming apparent to PG that Jesus was different things to different people, and that not all of them were good. You need to trust your eyes, ears, and soul.
The incident took place at PG’s place of employment, a business we will call redo blue. A co worker was a Bully for Jesus. The BFJ was an angry man, given to temper tantrums, where he used Jesus to hurt people. On this day, the BFJ shouted down and humiliated PG.
When the tirade was over, PG started to run a job. BFJ took a phone call, and screamed “I never felt better in my life”. In that instant, Jesus became real to PG.
This is a repost of a feature originally published two years ago. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The tea party is still boiling water, although their influence in the upcoming election may not be apparent. PG drinks more green tea than caffeine enhanced, and continues to be alienated from Jesus. Frank Turk is still in business. PG has a facebook friend called “Sweet Tea”. This post is not about her.

Part of the fun of a free press is checking in on those you disagree with. When a man posts his twitterfeed on a blog, anyone can see what he thinks. When it is a Jesus worship blog, with a taste for drooling right wing politics, the tweet can’t be beat.
The big story is the movie, and the rioting among the faithful. In a logical world, this would be a problem for BHO. This is not a logical world. Both tweets discuss this matter. And so, here are the twoubbling tweets.
@BibChr Absolutely infuriating: bit.ly/PuARWF. If only it were parody… but these are the lofty watchdogs of liberty. (No offense, dogs)
@Frank_Turk @theanchoress: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Donated Million Dollars To Obama Campaign shar.es/uYtbh via @sharethis”
The first one links to a feature written by Mark Steyn. PG heard him on the radio once. Mr. Steyn said, referring to the war in Iraq, “They have their ribbons and banners ordered for the defeat celebration.” This was before the surge. Part of the surge strategy was for the press to declare victory. When this was said, the talking points included the term defeatocrat.
“If, like me, you’ve been wondering why the US media has all but totally failed to cover the real issues in the Benghazi murders and the embassy seizures, wonder no more. … (JOE SCARBOROUGH:) If Mitt Romney had kept his mouth shut, if he had not acted like a rank amateur, if he had not embarrassed himself–and by the way internally the campaign understands they screwed up, he’s moved on, they know that… But Romney got in the way of the media looking at the president, going, wha-, wha-, what happened here? How did this happen? Now, those questions are going to be asked in the coming weeks. But they weren’t asked in the first 24 hours because Romney was holding this horrific, irresponsible, press conference.”
Sometimes, it is tough to tell who is complaining about what. Since this is a wingnut, it is safe to assume he was whining about the media. That is what they do. When the message does not please you, you whine about the messenger.
The truth is, WMR should have muttered some platitudes about sympathy for the families. Instead, he said that a wretched movie is “American Values”. This did take attention away from questions about why the embassies are not secured better.
This seems to be a pattern with WMR. During the GOP convention, he was supposed to have a national audience for his speech. Instead, Clint Eastwood had a conversation with a empty chair. When you provide a lunatic sideshow, the main news item gets pushed aside.
Tweet number two has a great title: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Donated Million Dollars To Obama Campaign. When you go there, you note that it is Breitbart.tv. You start to hear an auto start video before long. Auto start may be the single most annoying thing on the internet.
When PG went to the link, the first thought was the *person* who created the video. The producer is a bit of a mysterious character, which should be fun for conspiracy fans. However, “Sam Bacile” was not the “Anti Islam Filmmaker”. (Spell check suggestion for Bacile: Bacilli)
“Bill Maher made a comedy/documentary called “Religulous” that’s most famous for mercilessly mocking Christianity. But what people forget is that the last twenty-minutes or so of the film make a damning case against Islam. Bill Maher made a film that mocked Islam. Oh, yes, he did. Bill Maher also contributed $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC.”
Pictues today are from The Library of Congress.

As you may know, Clinton Eastwood Jr. gave a speech at the Republican National Convention last night. What you hear about it depends on who you listen to. Some think he was great. The Tampa crowd was highly entertained. Others think it was a joke.
Of all the many twitterwits to comment today, Chris Rock came closest to the truth. ‏@chrisrockoz Clint Eastwood on the phone with Obama now: “It all went according to plan,sir.” The truth is, you have to wonder what people were thinking.
The last night of the convention is supposed to be a showcase for the candidate. You want people talking about the candidate Friday morning. Instead, you have people talking about the “artistic” performance by Dirty Harry.
For a party that claims to be Conservative Christian, it was a strange event. You have to wonder just how smart some of those cheering masses were. Much has been made of the multiple marriages, and illegitimate children, that CE has sponsored. (There is no middle name.) “Eastwood entered a relationship with actress Sondra Locke in 1975. They lived together for fourteen years, despite the fact that Locke remained married (in name only) to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson. Locke had two abortions and a tubal ligation within the first four years of the relationship.”
The first few minutes of the speech were pretty normal. The people making rude comments about his hair were going to vote democratic anyway. At about the 3:28 mark, he started talking to an empty bar stool. We were supposed to pretend that BHO was sitting in that stool.
At the 4:46 mark, it got a little bit weird. Transcript courtesy of Fox News. “I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK. You know, I mean — you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how did it — they did there for 10 years.”
It is true that BHO has escalated the war in Afghanistan. It is true that BHO has escalated the drone strikes into neutral countries. It is true that BHO is killing women and children, at the funerals of the women and children he killed in yesterday’s roboplane strike. It is also true that George W. Bush started the war in Afghanistan. It is highly unlikely that W asked the Russians for advice before he invaded Afghanistan. Considering the number of heroin addicts in Russia today, it is possible that the Russians would have urged caution.
“But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think that, when we get to maybe — I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you know, he says, “Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?'”
During his big speech Thursday night, WMR did not mention the war in Afghanistan. A site called 2012 Republican Candidates has this to say about WMR and Afghanistan.
While Gov. Romney believes that the continued presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan should ultimately be decided by the military’s top brass, he cautions that the country should not be making similar commitments in the future. He also stressed that the bulk of the security obligation must lie with the Afghanis themselves. Gov. Romney indicated in an interview with ABC on July 29, 2012, that while he is supportive of President Barack Obama’s Sept 2014 troops withdrawal deadline, he disagrees with the plan to order 23,000 troops out of Afghanistan by Sept. 30. However, he admits that his position could change depending on the counsel of military commanders, while leaving open the possibility of keeping combat troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 should conditions change.
The next bit was just a wee bit obscene. CE was talking to the bar stool. “So anyway, we’re going to have — we’re going to have to have a little chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these promises — I wondered about when the — what do you want me to tell Romney? I can’t tell him to do that. I can’t tell him to do that to himself.”
The crowd roaring it’s approval thinks they are Christian conservatives. They want to improve the moral standards of America. To further this end, they laughed at an elderly actor making a reference to telling someone to f*** himself. There were thousands of children explaining that joke to their parents.
With the spectacle of a tough guy actor performing an absurdist skit on national tv, the jokes write themselves. Twitter nation has responded, it all its 140 character glory.
@ConanOBrien I know what it was like for Clint Eastwood. In my career, I’ve talked to more than a few “empty chairs.”
‏@WendellPierce Clint Eastwood’s presentation not funny to me today. The image of the empty chair with the President being talked down to was offensive.
@kirstiealley I just saw Clint Eastwood’s speech and I LOVED it!! Funny as hell & on point!!..& I’m a Democrat..US media is SO biased in favor of Dems
@BorowitzReport: A new poll reveals that Romney trails Clint Eastwood’s empty chair.
@Its_Death Clint Eastwood is used to talking to inanimate objects. He’s acted with Kevin Costner.
@NolteNC Hey media – do you think mocking Clint Eastwood will make America hate you less?
‏@DCdebbiev Lay off of Clint Eastwood, why dontcha! Talkin to an empty chair was how Cheney ruled the White House.
@BarackObama This seat’s taken. http://OFA.BO/c2gbfi , pic.twitter.com/jgGZTb02
‏@MrWordsWorth RNC brings out Clint Eastwood. DNC makes frantic call to Betty White.
‏@bobcesca_go Last night an awkward Republican delivered a weird speech filled with bizarre, fantastical remarks. He was preceded by Clint Eastwood.
‏@jtLOL Clint Eastwood is awesome. Liberals have no sense of humor about themselves, or about Obama. Even the ones who say they’re comedians.
The pictures for this expose were taken at last year’s dragoncon parade. This was the last time PG will ever attend that event. The sidewalks were five times too crowded for comfort. The pictures taken last year, and in 2009, are of the standard fantasy character costumes. They did not change much from 2009 to 2011. If you are a total masochist who likes science fiction costumes. be on Peachtree Street tomorrow morning. When you are done, you can go to black gay pride, the Chik fil A college football party, a NASCAR race, the Dickhater book festival, or a traffic jam. All of those events display a firmer grip on reality than that displayed in Tampa FL thursday night.