J's Cafe Nette

Archive for June 17th, 2007

After reading Ayschlay’s excellent post on our pre-conceived notions of the major media today I went to the New York Times to see what was free on their site and to look at some of the articles that interested me.

Since I’m not much of a television viewer I noticed an article talking about the guests on this morning’s network news talk programs.

It seems all of them will be talking about Iraq.

I then went to the comments section, and instead of talking about the news shows people started bashing Cheney for wanting to go to war in Iran.

It disintegrated into this:

4.June 17th,
2007
2:55 am A rare treat is in store for those who abandon the pew for the arm chair this morning.The backslidden can watch Mitch [ Mitchell ] Mc Connell on Face the Cretins, aka face the Nation.
Mc Connell who looks like a crew man on the Flying Dutchman of Caribbean Pirates fame is with out a doubt the most unctous villian in all politics. He is the most partisan of all republicans. He never deviates from the White House line. He opposes any kind of campaign finance reform
not because of any deep seated constitutional foreboding but because it would harm the stranglehold the republican party has on the nation. If they can`t throw big business money around they can`t hood wink and scare the sheep people of the red states into locking stepping freedom down John Crapper`s invention.
He has not a single redeeming social skill that I have ever heard of. He is arrogant, boring, and condescending; in short the perfect reason Kentucky languishes in the back water of reality. His number two, a pretty decent guy, Jim, no-hit Bunning, has to go along or the Mc Connell juggernaught will bury him on some Fisheries and Brothels committee.
When you watch him you can almost see the smoke of Baghdad circling around his fat face like the smoke from his state`s number one agricultural product that he maakes certain will have government support. We should have an anti-Mt. Rushmore somewhere on an abandoned building in some rotten ghetto that he helped create. His but ugly puss should be right there next to Justice Taney, Charles Manson, Al Capone, and John Wilkes Booth.
Charles B. Tiffany
Kissimmee, Florida

— Posted by Charles B. Tiffany

This is the kind of reading I would expect from any of the far wing blogs on either side, but not published in a major newspaper.

This is nothing but an ad hominem attack, mostly on Mitch McConnell, and has no place in the public discourse.

This is a prime example of why our country is so divided right now. People cannot argue without making it personal, and they do that only when they really have no point to make.

It reminds me of a five year old saying, “You’re a poo-poo head.” It accomplishes nothing and contributes nothing to the debate, but it makes the writer feel better that he has publicly opened his thoughts and confirmed what people who know him probably already know.

We are a small blog trying to bring our country together as a people. We disagree on the methods of governing and even on the priorities of our government, but I can proudly say not one of our readers’ comments has had to be censored due to this kind of discussion or any other reason except to clean up some profanity occasionally.

This is a credit to the people who engage in dialog on this site and to the bloggers themselves.

This blog is a little experiment to see if liberals and conservatives can have discussions and debates over the issues and still walk away from the discussion with respect and friendship of the others.

We, as a whole, are not ideologically pure in the sense we are an echo chamber for one side or the other.

I deliberately set out to find liberals as well as conservatives so we can publish both points of view in one place for people to read and discuss.

I’m very proud of our blogging team and I’m very proud of our readers who have kept this site pleasant to visit. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to some blogs I’ve visited.

Every blogger on this team is a person who loves our country and wants only what he or she feels is best for it. We are all patriots.

And that is what this blog is.

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We all send happy Father’s Day wishes to our readers and to our bloggers who are fathers, grandfathers, surrogate fathers, etc.

My husband’s father died on Father’s Day in 2000.

My own birth father died three years ago next month.

The man who raised me and was a real father to me while growing up went on to his reward over 35 years ago, but I think of him often and the values he helped instill in me.

My uncle, who was an uncle by marriage, passed away suddenly last October, and I remember him on this special day, as he was a surrogate father to me and I loved him dearly.

If your father is alive, give him a visit today and tell him you love him.

Don’t forget to wish a happy Father’s Day to your husband too.

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J has kindly let me join the team here at the Cafe Nette to share occasional columns on Christianity.

Feminist author Naomi Wolfe writes in New York Magazine about The Porn Myth. After meeting Andrea Dworkin, the famed 1980s anti-porn activist, she contemplated on how Dworkin predicted that pornography would create a “domino effect” in men’s relations with women. Men would objectify women and treat them as objects, things.

Wolfe realizes—as do I—that Dworkin was right in warning about the prevalence of porn, but wrong about the outcome:

The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.

But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as “porn-worthy.” Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention.

There is so much truth in those paragraphs I barely know where to start. As a man who went down the dark path of porn, I know exactly what she’s talking about. I’ve lived it. Your wife fails to “measure up” to the sexpot on the computer screen who will do anything and be anything for you. Don’t like the image you see? Call up another one. Or go to the next web site. This woman’s not turning you on? Next! And on and on and on…

And soon, your real, flesh-and-blood wife just can’t compete with the hundreds, the thousands of women and girls who are just a mouse-click away on the Internet. Your wife, who has headaches, the monthly “friend,” troubles with weight, sometimes just wants to be held and has to be turned on, just doesn’t measure up to the instant gratification found trough pornography.

Men who turn to porn turn away from their wives and family. They make time for their “special time,” stay up at all hours, searching for the ultimate rush. Work suffers, relationships suffer, marriage suffers. You want your wife to do things that the sexpots on the Internet do, but all she wants to do is be with you.

Many times, the porn can lead to Internet chat rooms, then liaisons, affairs and then divorce. Thank God that didn’t happen to me, but I know men for which it did.

Two thousand years ago, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, told men that if you lust after another woman in your heart, you have committed adultery. (Notice that adultery, when God is speaking, is all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.) Every time you—I—look at porn on the Internet or cable TV or magazines, and wonder what it would be like to sex her up, well, according to Jesus Christ, master of the universe, you’ve just committed adultery.

How many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times have men done so while looking at that filth just on the Internet? Many men can’t count high enough.

The stuff is pure poison. It deadens relations between you and your wife, or you and your girlfriend. It kills your drive for the real thing, and wrecks lives. It can wreck your job, your career, and even your sons’ lives.

The next time someone tells you that porn is just “freedom of expression” and doesn’t hurt anyone, I hope you’ll remember this.

What will you do when you discover your son’s stash of Playboys? With me, I know I won’t be saying, “That’s OK, son, I did the same thing when I was your age.”

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I have extended an invitation to Truman to be a blogger on our site and write as often as Truman would like to write.

Truman’s interest in blogging here is to discuss faith and religious issues.

Please welcome Truman to our blogging team, as he adds to an already great team of bloggers.

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