She is well-spoken, succinct and dead on… I hope she inspires others to speak up about this. We should not remain silent while someone voices heartlessness to the suffering of others by gloating about their special holy status. It breeds complacency in a world that desperately needs more compassion. A world that needs us to feel connected to humanity on the same level, not setting oneself apart as specially favored.

Without exception, the logical corollary to “My good fortune comes from God’s special favor to me” is “the suffering of others is because they are disfavored by God.” It’s an excuse to avoid responsibility. It is, quite simply, evil. I’ve never come up with a polite way of making this point. Yet I’m ashamed if I’ve remained silent when this is said in my presence. How cathartic to hear Cristina say “shut the fuck up!” to these narcissistis.

Well, I suppose that means that I should *never* use video myself… 😉

“There they are, down there every night at eight bells, praying for fair winds–when they know as well as I do that this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but there’s a thousand coming west–what’s a fair wind for us is a head wind to them–the Almighty’s blowing a fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one–and she a steamship at that! It ain’t good sense, it ain’t good reason, it ain’t good Christianity, it ain’t common human charity. Avast with such nonsense!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Texas_tornado_outbreak

Some who barely escaped were shown on the news attributing their safety to their prayers, even as they mourned family and friends nearby who had been lost.

What piques my interest here is the possibility that video has a wider social reach than text. Sure, lots of people read blogs, but do younger people shun text blogs in favor of video? This possibility troubles me, for there’s no question that the intellectual depth of our text resources vastly exceeds the intellectual depth of our video resources. Will younger people become intellectually shallow? At this time, my best guess is derived from the observation that the average citizen is woefully ignorant; the vast treasure house of information on the Constitution is useless to a public that never bothers to read the Constitution itself. Perhaps video like this will at least get the average person up to the level of a genuine high school education. In other words, perhaps we shouldn’t get too snobbish about the medium; ANYTHING that advances the cause of human understanding is a worthy contribution.

One other thing: what the hell are all those pseudo-film artifacts doing in the presentation? There are lines simulating scratches on the film and occasional “hairs” stuck in the “projector”. Obviously these were digitally inserted into the video. Why would anybody want to do that? Is this a form of humor that escapes this old codger?

Neener!