WELCOME TO LOUISIANA...WAIT...NOT QUITE

State officials sent a letter to members of the society [American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene] “disinviting” those who have been to the West African countries impacted by the deadly virus in the last three weeks or who have treated any patients on American soil.
....

“In Louisiana, we love to welcome visitors, but we must balance that hospitality with the protection of Louisiana residents and other visitors,” the administration officials wrote. “We do hope that you will consider a future visit to New Orleans, when we can welcome you appropriately.”

Jindal and crew know better than the experts.  Bill Gates is not afraid.  New Orleans depends on income from conferences and tourism for its very life.  Since the city tends to vote blue, the governor doesn't like New Orleans, and he doesn't care about the damage to tourism that will result from his ignorant decrees.

Jindal's hubris has no bounds. That was yesterday's reported stupidity, but there's more.

A major U.S. public health organization has become the second group impacted by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Ebola response policy as it prepares to bring 14,000 people to New Orleans.

State health officials advised the American Public Health Association that registrants recently returned from Ebola-stricken countries and those who have treated patients stateside should stay home.

Ai-yai-yai!  A convention of 14,000 public health experts will be welcomed only conditionally, because Bobby Jindal, once again, knows best how to safeguard the health of the citizens of Louisiana.  How unfortunate that the governor does not concern himself with the 257,000 people who would be eligible for health insurance if he implemented Medicaid expansion.  He won't, because he's running for president and advocates repeal the Affordable Care Act.  In the meantime, because of Bobby's ambition, people in Louisiana suffer.  Who knows but that among the hundreds of thousands of people with no health insurance, there are those who walk among us with communicable diseases?  If Jindal cared about public health safety in Louisiana, he'd allow people to buy health insurance that they can afford.

I'm not finished.  Not even ashes.

The incinerated remains and belongings of from Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan, who died in Dallas will not be allowed into a landfill in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Fear, fear, fear - governance by pumping up fear in the citizenry.  Yes, I know other states are doing it, too, but the authorities act out of ignorance.   It's the American way. 

PSYCHIATRIST VS BARTENDER

Ever since I was a child, I've always had a fear of someone under my bed at night. So I went to a shrink and told him:

'I've got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy.'

'Just put yourself in my hands for one year,' said the shrink. 'Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears.'

'How much do you charge?'

'Eighty dollars per visit,' replied the doctor.

'I'll sleep on it,' I said.

Six months later the doctor met me on the street. 'Why didn't you come to see me about those fears you were having?' he asked.

'Well, Eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!'

'Is that so!' With a bit of an attitude he said, 'and how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?'

'He told me to cut the legs off the bed! Ain't nobody under there now!'

(Thanks to Doug.)

FEAR ITSELF

MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
Last Judgment (detail)
Fresco
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

Fear Itself

Fear itself …
that is the thing explaining
why bombers bomb
why we cannot control guns
why the Pope suppresses nuns
speaking “radical” humanist words
why “real men” loathe nerds
and arm themselves against
delusions of apocalypse.
Fear is the power of coercion
trumping all notions
of civility, compassion “fittest” assumed to mean
the ruthlessness of nihilists
protecting their own small niche
at the expense of all “soft” targets
“not my problem”
“take care of our own”
dismissing the thoughtful
the adaptive, the truly strong
who mean it when they say
life itself is sacred.
Fear is the tool of men
protesting too much, claiming
to be defenders of liberty
when what they are protecting
is their consumption of advantage
their right to shoot, to profit
to procreate any way they choose
but not you, not you
you must be frightened into
compliance with their rule
their privilege, their proprietary
fist enforcing the lie of superiority
“emotion” labeled “girly” “useless”
except when it is “manly anger”
an excuse to pretend the violence
is just … but it is just their fear
their adrenaline addiction
raging, tolerated, “just the way it is”
not inevitable
just the way things will be
until the greater we
says no
passes the laws that prevent
paranoid bullies from expecting
and getting
our cooperation in their death industry
fear itself.

(Marthe G. Walsh)

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

ASH WEDNESDAY - THE LIGHTNESS OF LOVE

It is necessary that at the beginning of this fast, the Lord should show Himself to us in His mercy. The purpose of Lent is not so much expiation, to satisfy the divine justice, as a preparation to rejoice in His love. And this preparation consists in receiving the gift of His mercy—a gift which we receive in so far as we open our hearts to it, casting out what cannot remain in the same room with mercy.

Now one of the things we must cast out first of all is fear. Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves. If we were terrified of God as a terrible judge, we would not confidently await His mercy, or approach Him trustfully in prayer. Our peace, our joy in Lent are a guarantee of grace.

And in laying upon us the light cross of ashes, the Church desires to take off our shoulders all other heavy burdens—the crushing load of worry and guilt, the dead weight of our own self-love. We should not take upon ourselves a “burden” of penance and stagger into Lent as if we were Atlas, carrying the whole world on his shoulders.

Perhaps there is small likelihood of our doing so. But in any case, penance is conceived by the Church less as a burden than as a liberation. It is only a burden to those who take it up unwillingly. Love makes it light and happy. And that is another reason why Ash Wednesday is filled with the lightness of love.

From Seasons of Celebration by Thomas Merton.

The emphasis is mine.  The words in bold text struck me like a thunderbolt because they are so very true and wonderful as applied to the beginning of the season of Lent.  Let us pray that our hearts may open to receive the lightness of God's love.

And then from my friend, Marthe: 

Ash Wednesday

Rituals, meant to teach, can become
public piety, for show
gloom, dismal fasting, tests to divide,
exclude, not repair the breach
greed and error tears in mortal souls
too weary to hear blessing.
Let these ashes signal life, not threat.

Marthe G. Walsh

Amen and amen. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

With respect to the alleged continuing cover-up of child abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy seems to fear that acceptance of their own humanity and full admission of responsibility for their mistakes in response to child abuse will result in the collapse of the entire edifice of their church.

(Thanks to Wade, who inspired the thought by his words in an email.)

DRIVEN BY FEAR

Malcolm+ posted at the No Anglican Covenant blog on the information coming from The Anglican Communion Office, Lambeth Palace, and Church House in Westminster:

So much of what has been driving the machinations of international Anglicanism over the past 15 years or so has been rooted in fear—fear of women, fear of LGBTQTS, fear of modernity, fear of post-modernity, fear of the loss of privilege, fear of the loss of power and influence.
....

Sadly, that is the point we’ve now reached in international Anglicanism, and in the deliberations on the proposed Anglican Covenant. Full and fair debate is no longer on the table—at least at the Anglican Communion Office, Lambeth Palace, or Church House in Westminster.

Read the rest at the NAC site.

Malcolm+ blogs at Simple Massing Priest.

STORY OF THE DAY

What are you scared of? she said & I
said, Nothing & then I said what are you
scared of? & she said, people like you &
it was such a relief to know I wouldn't
be able to fool her for long

From StoryPeople.