God, the Universe, and Everything

At the beginning of the year, I selfishly asked for more coverage of natural and man-made disasters in the media to keep at the forefront the vanishing belief in the government's responsibility to ensure the safety and security of EVERYONE. With the unfortunate death of two more miners in West Virginia, the current administration is now revisting safety measures first proposed in the Clinton era. How lovely! Pat Robertson's God probably does not care as much about the workings of the Mine Safety and Health Administration as He does about Israeli politics.

But he does increase your salary if you donate to the 700 Club. Or at least that was the testimonial of one donor last night as I flipped through the channels. She said, "I just got my checkbook out and wrote a check to the 700 Club, now I make 30 times what I used to make." God works in upper-level management so He can get these things done. But perversion of religion is nothing new to the South. Lincoln caught on to this in his second inaugural, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged."