Obama Ratified Nuclear Deal with Iran

President Obama and Iran have come to the “framework” of a Nuclear agreement.  The terms are confusing- - and some would have you to believe that Iran has made few, if any concessions.  According to Rush Limbaugh the agreement could just as easily blow up by next Tuesday.  But no conservative outlet played the body of the President’s speech today in the Rose Garden, when he spelled out all of the specific terms we are imposing on Iran and that they have agreed to.  These are measures that will decrease the likelihood of war.  But the right wing won’t tell you this.  The first place I was sent in links when I Googled the topic - - is FOX news.  Of course their job is editorializing and continuous ranting against Obama and repeating endless mantras that we’ve heard a hundred times before.  Shawn Hannity on his show today repeated the same platitudes endlessly quoting from some Presidential speech from “six months ago” where the President said he had good relations with both Somolia and Yemen, both of which seem highly improbable, giving the troubled relation we’ve had for years with both of those countries.  There was endless ranting by Hannity about his “entire Mideast strategy has been a failure” and repeats the laundry list of nations such as Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  When Shawn Hannity talks about US Allies, he’s not referring to France or Germany- - or Mexico or anywhere in Latin America or eastern Asia.  No, he’s speaking of Saudi Arabia and the military junta that took over in Egypt a couple years ago.  It’s kind of a thing with would be dictators to speak of things and entities that aren’t there, just as they endlessly refer to “The Constitution” yet show little signs of having read it.   I have no idea whether this treaty will last.  Hannity and Limbaugh are right about one thing.  They say that Obama is out to hype his accomplishments- - when he’s accomplished almost nothing as President on the many pressing issues of our day such as the economy, or reducing dangerous drilling and fracking, or reform of the criminal justice system, or going after Wall Street crooks, and lets not forget our friends, the lobbyists.  It would seem as if the world is no safer today than when Obama took office, but I hardly see that as very much the President’s fault.  So Obama clings to things which only destroy him- - like his immigration executive action, which destroyed his relation with congress- - or the Affordable Care Act- - and I don’t think I’ve talked to anybody that doesn’t say that passing that was a horrible mistake.  Obama is a man obsessed with a legacy- - and it would be a feather in his cap if he made Iran our friend.  From what I’ve heard on other shows- - continual bulligerance to Russia is just counter productive, and could end up in a lot of undesirable things we don’t want to happen.  Well, there is obviously nuclear war.  There is straining our relation with Germany in particular.  We have a much weaker position with Iran if Russia is not at least nominally on our side backing us up.  As to the idea of somehow arming the Ukrainians beefing them up for the next major War - - if it’s World War III and Nuclear weapons are changed- - nobody wins anyhow.  Having said all that, the agreement does give me gratification in one area- - and that is in sticking it to Benjamin Netenyahoo.  Because now he is out in the cold.  Israel doesn’t like “not being in control” and I fear they might be so desperate that they’ll “start something” with Iran just to make a “statement” to the world.  And if that happens- - we’ll forget our treaty and come running to Israel’s beckon call like some suicidal ex wife who’s threatening to slash her wrists if we don’t come running there.  This idea of Israel, the "apple of God's eye" being joined at the hip with another nation that will save them from their own bulligerance- - is a reference that will be found nowhere in the Bible.  I hope that fact doesn't ruin Shawn Hannity's day.  An Israel alone in the world- - - is truly an unknown entity.

Now they are complaining because there is still a whole raft of anti gay regulations in states.  They even call these groups “Big Gay”.   So I guess Wall Mart and Nascar and Ely Lilly and Apple are all part of “Big Gay” because they pressured the Indiana governor to back down.  Now he has to put his John Hancock on a document that expressly disallows gay discrimination.  The homosexual lobby is one interest group that sure gets their way and controls the media.  I wish people against Wall Street corruption or for workers rights had the kind of muscle power that the gay lobby does.  But they don’t.  So now the Republicans are in the strange place of “having to go gay” to win elections.  Frankly there are situations where I believe businesses should have the right to deny services to certain people on moral grounds.  For instance a hospital's abortion policy or florists with a certain moral reputation to uphold.  Should a cake maker refused to bake a cake in the shape of a machine gun if the NRA asks them to.  Should not a resturant decide itself which "private parties" it wants to rent its place out to?  I believe so.

On "Days of our Lives" Lucas and Adrian were at each other’s throats yesterday and the way it looked- both were so angry they didn’t care if they never spoke to the other again.  There was a lot of moralizing about “Adultery and how it damages trust in the home”.  So how is it in today’s episode (taking place an hour after yesterday’s) they have an affair and spend almost as much time in bed together as John and Yoco on their honeymoon.  And the other bombshell of the day is that John Black is Paul Norita’s father.  This of course makes no sense and is physically impossible and I’ll tell you why.  Since 1993 when Stephano said “It’s good to be back” on one of his many returns from the dead- - John Black has either been with Christine or Marlena, if you don’t count that affair with Gina alias Hope Brady- - on the submarine.  Before that Stephano was not around.  John Black was only apart from Marlena before then from very late 1991- - to early 1993, again when Stephano was not around so there WAS no “Di Mira property” to have the affair on, and of course zero reference to any mystery women then.  You know this is why many dreams can’t happen.  They involved times and people and places that don’t exist- - or don’t exist at all in the way portrayed in the dream.  So you know that they aren’t real, and can’t be prophetic, either.  And just by the way- - if I claim to know or know of anyone who has a “message” from the other side of the grave- - it should be confirmable- - made valid- - by indisputable facts, and a whole lot more than an author’s fertile imagination.  One of the most unsettling dreams I've ever had was overhearing (as if an invisable fly on the wall) was inside my parent's bedroom on a Saturday afternoon (?) and they were talking about one of my Mom's old boyfriends and for some reason - - the boyfriend still had some "hold over the relationship".  But you tell yourself "This is an entirely a false scenario that never happened".

LATE ADDITION:  I just saw on KNBC news that the Rev Robert Schuller passed away today.  He died of esophigial cancer, cancer of the throat.  He couldn’t talk in his final time on earth- - and had to mouth to his grandson “I love you”.  The grandson was there reflecting on the life of his grandfather.  Schuller started Hour of Power in February 1970 and I remember that, and me and Mom used to watch that on TV every week in a period when I wasn’t going to church.  Schuller was a main stream “Reform tradition” Christian, that sang all the hymns we sang in our own church.  He was never political.  He kept it positive but never resorted to “taking the Lord’s name in vain” like Ernest Angley or Rex Humbard or some of these others.  I was only in the Crystal Cathedral once in my life for a Christmas Eve musical- - when I had the flu.  Then I had country chicken at the Claim Jumper for dinner and was healed of it.  I never wrote Schuller letters.  David Simons of SP was a member of his church. Laura Hammil was a frequenter of his Church. Schuller was never particularly caught up in this “Moral Majority” fever, and was certainly never political in his sermons.  He even had Yasser Aarafat at one service- - which was a controversial move – then and now.

Some random thoughts can be Enlightening.  The random thought came to me yesterday was that “Sometimes when people think they hold all the reins of power- - is just the moment when the very control they sought finds a way of “slipping away from them” as if God had other plans all along.  I don’t know if this thought was from God or what.  It’s just that the Bible tells a number of stories where people conspire and think that they’ve got all the bases covered, and they don’t and God finds a way of- - for lack of a better phrase “Making His will known”.   Right now I feel “defeated” for lack of a better term- - because of my ongoing and worsening money problems and relational problems with the family that seem to be continually adverse.  I look to almost “any time in the past” as a better time than today.  And it’s not a question of the “if only I had done something different” game- - because it’s though the Devil had all of my “Exits” covered (for lack of a better term) and no matter which way I fled- - he’d have a new problem there waiting for me.  What I’m looking from God if he wants to show he’s really there- - is some kind of a basic “Game Changer” that fundamentally affects the balance of power in my life.  Nobody wants to feel as though their life now is merely “waiting to die” because Death is no deliverance.

One of the assertions you used to hear a lot from Religion - - Religion in the generic sense of the term- - - is the assertion “Nothing happens by accident.  It all happens by design”.  What’s first of all strange about this statement is at least in my case that if I were to ask “Why did Christianity fail me” I’m most likely to be told, in whatever sugar coated terms “It was just an accident.  Accidents happen”.   But you maybe we don’t even look to Religion to find “A reason for it all” so to speak.  What makes “stuff” happen?  For instance- - is a Freshman senator begins making hawkish speeches right and left (something that would not have happened in the old days) why not look to Big Money.  Maybe the military industrial complex is footing the bill, as in the case of this Senator Cotton of Arkansas, who has been making the headlines lately.  Maybe things like THIS are no accident.  Some wonder “How did the Roman Catholic church get so rich?”  Well- - maybe there is a connection between Priests not being allowed to marry and not having children to pass their acquired wealth on to- so they leave it all to the church.  Trying to find any difference between the old Bolshivic communist party and the Roman Catholic Church- may be harder than it looks.  Because both “entities” aren’t at all what they claim to be.  Some ask “How is it Scientology has such a hold over certain celebreties such as Tom Cruise or John Travolta?  Well, could it be the Church makes them confess all their secret sins- - or perhaps things they aren’t even guilty of that the Church has convinced they are guilty of.  Remember when Joan of Arc was forced to recant her testimony of hearing the voices and signed a piece of paper and the minister waves it before the cheering crowd in triumph, as if he’d accomplished something great?  But the problem is today- - Religion in most part stands naked to the world to much more a degree than in former times.  We’ve seen all the money scams and the sexual hypocracy.  It’s really hard for religion to hide today.  All of that “guilting into submission” doesn’t work any more, with today’s audience.  Today it’s all the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson and all the others.  It’s all about getting money to get more power over people’s lives- - to make them poorer and more without hope than they are even today.