Jesus on a Stick

   
       “Dashboard Jesus” – Mexico

I think I have snapped as PBS has had its third, I repeat third, month of pledge forever.  Which now seems, at least in our area with KQED, to be fashioned around long infomercials from the various gurus, financial (Suze Orman), health (so many there is no beginning and no end), Asiatic disciplinary systems as expounded by a white guy from Maui (Dr Dwyer) are better for you… and others… so Oprah (now self-baptised a political guru, we shall not be spared this Calvary!)  live streaming her exhortations to move the product has – literally – sent me over the edge:

“It’s time for us to dream America anew again and support Barack Obama,” the First Lady of television declared, as cable TV news programmes cut live to the event and camera flashes filled the huge hall in central Des Moines. “That is why for the very first time in my life I feel compelled to stand up and speak out for the man who I believe has a new vision for America. We need Barack Obama.”

Even channel surfing or waiting a few minutes for what little is on during Pledge Or Die — I have seen too much of it.   Oprah pushing Obama (a la The Matrix:  he is the One!) is the very same thing as Suze Orman and her discs and books – and all the rest of them…. 

I think the gamble for Obama is barely 50 / 50, this could be as evanescent as moisture in the air.  I could see serious and quick evaporation of whatever bump this manufactures in Iowa and NH and a slight shift of black vote to Obama in SC… My guess is there is some serious “walking around” money appearing in the early states from the Clinton Camp…

“South Carolina, our moment is now,” Obama said to an audience estimated by organizers as made up of 29,000 people at the University of South Carolina‘s football stadium. “Don’t let them tell you we’ve got to wait. Our moment is now.”

What!, no King child to stand with them, with Neo…?

“Dr. King dreamed the dream,” Winfrey said, referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “But we don’t have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality.”

And, if you see the film of So Carolina, I have to say that Michelle, as well as Hillary, needs to guard against the wrong facial expressions in public.

Jesus!… so many religion replacements on offer, from giveaway cars under your seat (OprahLand) to pols (fold your hands in prayer, follow me, bend over and say thanks lord and master)… I sometimes think the nation is lying under a film of Vaseline and that it is indeed a sex agent.

It is nothing new, I am just choking on it…  Meanwhile, the cats are still in forced prayer formation, now chained to their jasmine candles … I have sent in Lourdes water for their bleeding “knees”.

I have all sorts of weaknesses for “things”, from devotional candles to St Michael (you wanna fuss with an angel go for the big ones, the Archangels) to a whole bevy of little talismans and, hand made and sold in the markets, Mexican religious items that I put in a pouch and carried on planes wtih me… when my mother was ill and a clairvoyant card reader in New Orleans I used to visit told me to put a “secret heart” in her hospital room, I did it… and bought a Mexican healing talisman, a tin depiction of a heart that I wore…

…but I have no trouble calling all of this “superstition”…no trouble at all.  It is my idiosyncratic way of defining myself in the Universe…

I even have a soft spot for “Holy Water”… tho admittedly not at the 2007 prices at the above link for Lourdes water… what a hoot!  I especially love churches where the holy water is kept in a large clam shell… but lighting a candle and dipping your fingers in water is ancient.

The upshot is, I have been wondering who to fill in on the first line for President….and I have decided, something along the lines of The Risen Christ… or, The Virgin Birth.

They keep shoving him at us… call it push back. 

     
           The Resurrection Christ

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

UPDATE, 2:54 am

Lawdy! we are blessed!

I give all praise and honor to God,” Obama began. “Look at the day the Lord has made.”

Obama’s wife, Michelle, opened the rally with a description of her husband that could, at moments, have been a description of Jesus Christ.

“We need a leader who’s going to touch our souls. Who’s going to make us feel differently about one another. Who’s going to remind us that we are one another’s keepers. That we are only as strong as the weakest among us,” she said, echoing biblical passages.

Winfrey also touched on Christian themes that had not been highlighted in Iowa.

“It’s amazing grace that brought me here,” she began, adding that she was “stepping out of my pew” – television – to engage in politics.

It isn’t enough to tell the truth, Winfrey said. “We need politicians who know how to be the truth.”

Winfrey also recalled a story from “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” a 1974 film based on Ernest Gaines’ 1971 novel.

In Winfrey’s telling, the protagonist – an old woman who had survived slavery and the Civil War – would ask every child, “Are you the one? Are you the one?”

“I do believe I do today we have the answer to Miss Pittman’s question – it’s a question that the entire nation is asking – is he the one?” Winfrey said. “South Carolina – I do believe he’s the one.”

According to one academic discussion of the book by Christopher Mulvey, a professor at University of Winchester in the United Kingdom, the passage continues to ask whether the child is the one who will “carry part of our cross,” a “messianic figure.”

Oh stuff it  — everyone… the dark chocolate Easter Bunnies and the white chocolate Easter Bunnies. 

The political parties, operatives, candidates and consultants just laugh their fat heads off at the voters.  All day long.

 *********************************************************