Riters bloc

I haven't posted in awhile. Been busy at work, and just haven't been or felt creative.
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Africa is in the house! According to Stat Counter, someone in Cote d'Ivoire had visited wysiwyg twice now. I didn't know there was such a place, so thank goodness for Google.

Turns out the little country in western Africa — about the size of New Mexico — has about 17 million people and produces oil and diamonds. It's a French-speaking country where the males live to about 48.62 years of age, and the females about 51.27 years. About 570,000 of the country's adults are living with AIDS, I'm told.
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Jerry Falwell is coming to my town. Seems the popular evangelist will be preaching Monday at the Pastor's Conference that's part of the Oklahoma Baptist Convention. I look forward to what Jerry has to say.
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Speaking of Baptists, the folks from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, were in my town this week picketing the funeral of a local soldier killed in Iraq. It really isn't fair to link them to other Baptists, since I haven't been able to find another Baptist church that claims them. And anyone can call themselves whatever they want.

If you're not familiar, Fred Phelps started the church, which consists mainly of his dozenish children and 50+ grandchildren. Some — encouraged by Fred himself no doubt — say Fred is a prophet.

Fred's/Westboro's message to the world is very simple. God hates fags. In fact, they feel so strongly about it that the address to the church's web site is www.godhatesfags.com. They have another site, godhatesamerica.com, which is a little different than the first but the same rhetoric of hate.

In Fred's mind, it's real simple. God hates fags. And He hates people who enable them. And since America has, in Fred's estimation, turned itself over to them, God has turned his back on America and America is irreversibly doomed. They picket soldiers' funerals with their signs because if you fight for America, you're fighting against God, and you're in Hell when you die.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't suggest people expose themselves to this stuff if they didn't have to, but I'd encourage you to check out www.godhatesfags.com. You have to see it for yourself to believe it. If you have an hour of your life to waste, listen to one of Fred's sermons, links to which you can get from the website. I listened to the one he preached on the Sunday after the last space shuttle explosion. A real piece of work.

Saddest for me was that of the six Phelps protestors who showed up to picket the funeral this week, three of them were kids, including one boy who was only 8. There he was, in his blue t-shirt with bold white "God Hates Fags" printed on the front, holding a sign of hate high in the air. I pray for those kids. Not so much for their parents, though I know I should do that, too. But I hurt for those kids.