Word!

Man, I'm tired. I say this as a way of apologizing in advance if this diary title doesn't make a boatload of sense. But I wanted to post links to Oscar's Word for the Week, as well as Pastor Dan's. But, in the same diary, I also wanted to link to this article in the Times Online UK, in which reporter Carole Coleman described her meeting with Bush, using the words "I wanted to slap him". To that sentiment, I could certainly reply "Word!" In the preface to the article, we are informed: George W Bush was so upset by Carole Coleman’s White House interview that an official complaint was lodged with the Irish embassy. The RTE journalist explains why the president made her blood boil

But as I listened to the history of Saddam Hussein and the weapons inspectors and the UN resolutions, my heart was sinking. He was resorting to the type of meandering stock answer I had heard scores of times and had hoped to avoid. Going back over this old ground could take two or three minutes and allow him to keep talking without dealing with the current state of the war. It was a filibuster of sorts. If I didn’t challenge him, the interview would be a wasted opportunity.

“But, Mr President, you didn’t find any weapons,” I interjected.

“Let me finish, let me finish. May I finish?”

With his hand raised, he requested that I stop speaking. He paused and looked me straight in the eye to make sure I had got the message. He wanted to continue, so I backed off and he went on. “The United Nations said, ‘Disarm or face serious consequences’. That’s what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn’t disarm. He didn’t disclose his arms. And therefore he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons . . .”

I was now beginning to feel shut out of this event. He had the floor and he wasn’t letting me dance. My blood was boiling to such a point that I felt like slapping him. But I was dealing with the president of the United States; and he was too far away anyway. I suppose I had been naive to think that he was making himself available to me so I could spar with him or plumb the depths of his thought processes. Sitting there, I knew that I was nobody special and that this was just another opportunity for the president to repeat his mantra. He seemed irked to be faced with someone who wasn’t nodding gravely at him as he was speaking.

The whole article, found here, is worth a read. Apparently, it's an excerpt from a book Ms. Coleman is publishing, entitled Alleluia America!

Finally, Demetrius finally put his "Church of the Restful Sabbath" logo on Cafe Press gear.



The text on the pillow reads "Quiet please...services in progress". I could probably say "Word!" to that as well. I attended services today at one of the more "official" mainline denominations, but came pretty darn close to engaging in some restful Sabbath style "worship" while I was there. Our rector is making a point of incorporating more silence into the service. If the pews were more comfortable, I probably would have ended up practicing the sort of "worship" that requires a pillow. ;-)