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POPSOne Reason Not To Spend 10 Minutes and 35 Seconds With John Piper He gets a "A" for his efforts at fear mongering. "As the church continues to debate the issue of homosexuality, we find ourselves facing another culture of fear. Many in the church fear those who are other, who are different, and are able to find ways to manipulate scripture to support this fear. And it certainly doesn’t help when extremely influential Christian leaders like John Piper make absolutely ridiculous statements about the connection between a freak tornado and an ELCA meeting. I have to wonder if even John Piper really believes what he has written – or whether this is a convenient way to support the discrimination and hate of the LGBT community. This is conspiratorial bunk that uses the bible as a weapon of ideology, not a source to find God's grace."
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POPSA Tale Of Two Women There is a world of difference in my previous clip "Triumph Of A Dreamer", a woman who overcame many obstacles to improving her life and this tale of ingratitude. Compare the stories. Poor Sarah Palin elects to portray herself as a victim again and again as she laughs all the way to the bank. I don't know who is more pathetic--the idiots who pre-ordered this trash or Ms. Palin.
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POPSTriumph Of A Dreamer "Tererai’s husband eventually agreed that she could take the children to America — as long as he went too. An impossible dream had come true, but it soon looked like a nightmare. Tererai and her family had little money and lived in a ramshackle trailer, shivering and hungry. Her husband refused to do any housework — he was a man! — and coped by beating her. Tererai found herself eating from trash cans, and she thought about quitting — but felt that doing so would let down other African women. At one point the university tried to expel Tererai for falling behind on tuition payments. A university official, Ron Beer, intervened on her behalf and rallied the faculty and community behind her with donations and support."
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POPSDemanding Rights "As long as you need acceptance from people, they will continue to disappoint you." How many times have we, as unique human individuals, tried to fit into some sort of mold that society would demand of us? Can anyone remember feeling weird or gangly or shy or not athletic enough or clumsy or, or, or? Some people lose that unique part of themselves on the road to conformity. Others, hide that difference on the inside. We, as a society, need to grow up and recognize the differences in all of us.
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POPSFree To Lose It wasn't too long ago that a certain clipper wanted to argue and argue with me that we weren't in a recession. I wish I wouldn't be in the position of saying I told you so. I'm in agreement with Krugman. We need to try something different without listening to the Glen Becks of the world, because I don't think they have our vital interests in mind.
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POPSI DO NOT This is a perfect example of how slow and difficult social change is. But these little girls have stood up to be counted as worthy to claim their childhood and the right to choose their own partner and their own life. I can't imagine the type of courage that must take.
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POPSWe Must Be On Guard For Extremism "When dealing with soldiers far from their homes and families and subject to the greatest imaginable stress, the Army needs to be on the watch for the predatory inroads of any form of political or religious extremism -- whether it be the jihadism to which Hasan was drawn or the Christian identity nonsense that inspired Timothy McVeigh."
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POPSThe Sad Illusion Of Happy Customers Best Buy is not being picked on here, it could be them or anyone else. As a regular part of my work I have to trudge through large retail stores all the time and my biggest complaint is the lack of help. If you want us to buy, then have enough informed sales people to help us and get us through the lines quicker! "It's not rocket science. To make customers happy, all you need to do is offer high-quality goods at competitive prices and staff your stores with a sufficient number of well-trained personnel to ensure a smooth shopping experience."
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POPSShe Sailed On "The cathartic moment came when her sons gave her a computer for her 80th birthday -- and she started writing her story."
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POPSTalk About Playing The Victim Card Ms. Prejean: If you made a sex tape when you were 17 years old, the first mistake you made was sending it to your boyfriend. Things like these have a way of coming back to haunt you; boyfriends come and go sweetie, but video tends to be there forever. Please quit playing the victim of your God -spoke-to-me crusade against gays. It looks bad when you pretend to put your chastity belt on to the world and do something entirely different in private.
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POPSHe Never Played The Fear Card "Underscoring the power of fighting fearmongers without resorting to fearmongering, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche issued this warning with which I close. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. In reminding his fellow Americans that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, President Roosevelt sought to make us less vulnerable to our enemies, not more like them."
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POPSA quiet voice for gay marriage Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt. "It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!" Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
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POPSKing And Nonviolence Yes it's true that September 11th changed a lot of things and reminded us how vulnerable we are. It made us realize we face a dangerous and diabolically clever enemy. It strengthened our resolve and triggered important steps to prevent future attacks, actions that made us more secure as a nation. But 9/11 did not and could not change the basic ground rules: War or incitement to violence is justified only when it's in response to a deliberate attack and only when it's undertaken as a last resort. And even during wartime, nations must observe the highest moral standards. It's so easy to incite violence. And it's so wrong.
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POPSIt's Never Easy {{iamonetoo}} told me once that she didn't understand why it had to be so hard to be herself. She could have taken the easy way. But she didn't and I admire her. Social change is hard, long and difficult work. It will often spawn hatred by other's who are just ignorant of human differences. That's ok; the struggle of civil rights for everyone is always worth it :)
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POPSShould We Trust The Experts? "None of this suggests the public should abandon a healthy skepticism toward even well-credentialed authorities. Pharmaceutical companies, with colossal missteps like the dangerous medication Vioxx, have earned suspicions about their motivations. Vaccinations foregone put not only those individual children at risk but clear the path for infectious disease to spread more easily. That's not a great outcome, whether we're collectively battling the measles or this season's H1N1 flu. "You can't minimize your individual risk," Wallace writes, "unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in." Our children most certainly deserve safe vaccines; that's a given. I don't blame people for not trusting special interest groups. I just thought this article brought out some interesting points regarding social media.
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POPSNonviolence As Their Weapon "It was 2001. Khatib watched in horror as Israeli soldiers shot an unarmed friend at a checkpoint. Two weeks later, the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made a revenge attack on the checkpoint, killing seven soldiers. "My first reaction was 'Good for Al Aqsa!' " Khatib said. Then he realized the dead soldiers belonged to a different unit, not the one on duty when his friend was shot. "It made me wonder: This cycle of death, of violent action and reaction, how we can break it?"
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POPSRepublicans In Congress Understanding complex issues in Washington is a big challenge and I'm incredibly excited about this new technology.
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POPSA Southern Mirrored Window "Ms. Stockett, 40, herself a native of Jackson, said the idea for the novel came to her in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when she was living in New York. Ms. Stockett, who had another novel in her drawer that a writing coach had told her was “just awful,” said she felt homesick and “tried to comfort myself by writing in the voices of the people I missed.”
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