The Screeching Soapbox Is Open For Business.

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It is once again time to jump up on my beloved soap box. Today’s hectoring session regards the treatment of celebrities in the press of late. I’m not counting Filthy Filner – he’s just sleazy.

What I am talking about is the cruel treatment of celebrities with substance problems and mental health issues. The press delights in howling at the failings and foibles of performers who can’t handle their lives due to drugs, alcohol, or mental health problems. Very rarely will a full month go by without some poor character being dragged across the television screen on their way to jail or rehab.

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Some of the headlines and song parodies this brings out are rather clever. But they are all ultimately cruel. I admit I laugh on occasion when I see this stuff, but then I regret it all the more. There is something horrible about what the press does just to sell another ad at the expense of a lost soul.

The recent drunk driving arrest of David Cassidy is a great example. The pictures that accompanied the arrest were either the booking photo or a picture of him as he appeared on The Partridge Family. David has been around a long time and has his share of demons to fight. I don’t know how anyone with his past could remain level without the help of God on an hourly basis. Incredible pressure as his youth expired, temptation of every sort, drugs and alcohol at his beck and call. After the end of his teen glory years (brought on, in large part, by the death of a young fan in 1974) he struggled to just make a place in life.

David is a guy with a good voice. He had those Tiger Beat looks as a teenager and a stage presence that most performers would kill to get. He still sings well as he makes his way from casino to casino in pursuit of his career. But he can’t drink. He does. He shouldn’t drink and drive. He does.

Now he’s faced with a felony charge in New York for repeating the offense.

What does the press do? It revels in the destruction of this man. If David was a child molester, fine. Laugh it up. I’ll join right in on the fun. But he’s just a guy with a drinking problem who needs treatment and prayers.

The list of people we destroy in the media is long and awful. It will only stop when we quit buying the premise that that’s how you sell papers or advertising. Report the news but give it some sort of balance. Does the arrest of a singer for drunken driving rate more attention than the hundreds of murders in Chicago this year? Let’s pick one of those innocent kids caught in the crossfire and dedicate a small percentage of the ink to talking about controlling the rampant gang violence that caused the death.

Well, nice thought, but you won’t see it on the cover of the gossip rags at the checkout stand.

In the meantime, please say a prayer for the next one of those celebrities you see doing the perp walk. They need the help. And it will make me, and probably you as well, a better person for thinking of them as a man or woman with a need for prayer rather than a fallen star.

Finally, a little early Cassidy to rock you out.

And a more current video.

Holiday Safety Tip #472

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Never, under any circumstances, strain boiling water from a large tub of pasta when naked.

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Same goes for Roman Candles – clothing is not optional.

Sponsorship Sunday – Week Seventeen – Ally

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Week Seventeen is upon us. As always, I appreciate your taking the time to read about this week’s child and giving thought to financially supporting them. The response has been wonderful, and I love you all for taking care of these children.

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This week’s child is: Ally.

Ally

Like most kids at Grace Village, Ally loves to play soccer and he thinks it is one of his special talents. Ally enjoys studying and finds biology one of his best subjects in school. Ally looks forward to when they sing Bless the Lord in school or church. Ally says that rice is his favorite food and blue is his favorite color. Ally wants to do well in school so that he can be an engineer when he grows up. Ally‘s prayer request is that he will be able to finish school.

Ally came to Healing Haiti in February, 2009. Ally was abandoned by his mother and his father is unknown.

Birth Info
Birthdate: January 29, 1995
Place of Birth: Port au Prince, Haiti

It is my hope that one of you will find your heart touched by this child and take up a bit of Christ’s work by sponsoring them for an extended period. My wife and I are sponsoring a pair of sisters and we took on the commitment based on having to only gave up a fast-food dinner each day to change the life of a child. God came through with a very lucrative bit of voice over work for me that covered the bill that same day, but it really is as easy as skipping a value meal. Healing Haiti will do the right things for these children and I have full confidence in their work. I am not affiliated with them, they don’t endorse this blog, nothing like that at all. I just love kids (can’t be Santa and not love children) and know that Grace Village is the difference between life and death for many of these children. Please open your heart and prayerfully reflect on the opportunity God’s giving us to sponsor these children. Some of them have come out of slavery and have some of the toughest lives you could imagine prior to Grace Village.

Just click the link and it will take you directly to the page where you can sponsor this week’s child. And if God is particularly good and that child is sponsored when you get there, please grab another smiling face and change their life instead. My goal is to put Sponsorship Sunday out of business as quickly as possible and take that day off each week. Thank you. God bless you for your generosity.

Some of the finest people you’ll ever meet. The hands and feet of Christ.

Touched A Nerve – Pun Intended.

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Seems my primer on chemical weaponry this week provoked a larger than usual response. The comments were all deleted before being published as I didn’t feel like responding individually.

That’s why I pay the rent here – I get to control the comments. They ranged from one rant that appeared to be narcotics fueled (seriously, it was like reading directly from the journal of somebody on heroin) to another that questioned my ability to write about orphans in Haiti if I wasn’t going to go to war over children in Syria.

The ones in between were not so bad. But I elected to use this forum to clear up a few things.

First, it’s a good idea to read a whole blog post before commenting. The comments this week indicated a lack of reading for comprehension. I didn’t say children aren’t valuable. I did not advocate genocide. I did not… the list goes on.

What I should have pointed out is that with over 100,000 dead in that civil war in the last five years it’s rather silly to rush into a military entanglement just because somebody used chemical weapons. Remember, chemical weapons have been around since at least 900 B.C. Not exactly an orbit shaking event that somebody used them. After all, nobody seemed too upset when Saddam used them on the Kurds, the Syrians used them on – you get the point. Heck, even Italy used them on Ethiopia. But I digress. Artillery and truck bombs don’t count? Rifle fire and grenades are moot? As Greg Gutfeld pointed out, machetes don’t count? As the post pointed out, anyone could have used chemical weapons in this spot and it’s least likely of all that Assad was the culprit. He may be a lousy eye doctor, but I don’t think he’s stupid.

I will throw this out there: If Barack Obama can give me a tersely worded five sentence explanation of what we would accomplish with limited air strikes in this mess I might change my mind. But the nebulous nonsense out of Washington is too much. There is no real gain here, only loss.

For those of you in the comments who were advocating our involvement I have a question? Have any of you ever done contingency planning for air strikes? Have any of you studied chemical weapons? Have any of you trained to use chemical weapons? Have any of you sat for hours wearing a gas mask with your clothing all buttoned up to avoid contamination? Have any of you “Set Circle William” and shut off all the air to your compartment to avoid nerve gas?

Yeah, thought not. I have. All of the above. And the one really nasty thing about the kind of strikes that President Obama (Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) is proposing is that the poor schmucks downwind will die. Chemical weapons tend to linger in the air for a ways. Syria has had plenty of warning to move these in close to the cities. Strike a chemical depot and kill all the civilians for a few miles downwind.

Doesn’t sound so great anymore does it?

That’s the point, Ladies and Gentlemen. If you really give this some thought either we’re backing Iran or we’re backing Al Qaeda. Not much of a choice. Stay out.

Here’s An Idea To Save Lots Of Taxpayer Money.

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How about if we settle two of the biggest military news items of the past week with one solution?

My proposal is that we set up a little obstacle course on a large flat area under control of the military and test some new hardware. Take an area 1 mile in radius and put Bradley Manning and Nidal Hassan at the center. If little Bradley manages to push Nidal’s wheelchair all the way to the outside of that 1 mile mark he gets his sex change operation while he’s in prison and can spend his days as Chelsea – still in a federal military prison. Nidal gets to take a hand grenade and blow himself up so that he can be shaheed (*martyr*) and claim his virgins.

The obstacle part of this is that it will be a sandy area so wheelchairs don’t roll so well. And the Army (since it’s their two idiots) gets to see how their micro-drones do when weaponized. They get 60 drones to use during the test (I like the idea of numbers working out, 60×6=360, 360 degrees in a circle, etc.). I’ve heard the Israelis do a fabulous job with these things blowing up gaggles of morons on their borders, but I don’t believe our military has yet employed them. Seems this would be a really good way to test them out.

Everyone wins.

Do you have any clever ideas on how to deal with these two swine? If so, send them to the Army where they will no doubt be looked at in 10 years or so. On the other hand, just say something in an email about using drones to blow up people and I’m sure the NSA will forward the info to the Army right away.

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