This succinct letter to the editor in the Friday edition of South Carolina's The State newspaper pretty much sums up my thinking also regarding our financial ability to sustain health care for all:
Put health care ahead of warIt never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for our government to spend trillions on war, but find health care too expensive when it hits the $1 trillion mark. Put another way, isn't it too bad our government finds it easier to spill blood than save it; or, finds it more economical to take lives than to save them? May God forgive our evil ways.
From CNN:
In 1947, he founded the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association in Tulsa, "and began conducting crusades across America and around the world, attracting crowds of thousands -- many who were sick and dying and in search of healing," the biography said. "Through the years, he conducted more than 300 crusades on six continents" and "laid hands" on an estimated 2 million people, according to association officials.In 1954, he brought television cameras into services, providing what he liked to call a "front-row seat to miracles" to viewers, the biography said. He later began a television program, initially called "Oral Roberts Presents." The ministry's daily program, now called "The Place for Miracles," can be seen on more than 100 television stations, multiple cable and satellite networks and the Internet, Ethridge said.
[snip]
In 1977, Roberts said he had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus, who told him to found the City of Faith Medical and Research Center. The biography said the center was aimed at "merging the healing power of medicine and prayer."
In 1986, Roberts announced that God would "call him home" unless he raised $8 million to send medical missionaries from the center -- an announcement that was widely publicized. He wound up raising $9.1 million, but the center closed in 1989. However, the biography said, it left "a lasting impact on the understanding by many medical professionals of the importance of treating the whole person -- body, mind and spirit."
So, the old huckster finally got called "home"! I consider Oral Roberts to be the original thief in the name of religion paving the way for the modern televangelists who have made robbing from the gullible faithful an art form!
As a personal anecdote, I remember when I was just a little guy of probably 6 or 7 being taken by my grandparents to an Oral Roberts tent revival in Florence, S.C. For some reason I can still picture a part of the scene in my mind although I obviously didn't understand what was going on, but I do remember the hucksterism of the faith healing.
No tears to shed here!
Just in the past few weeks I have seen more and more of these monstrosities popping up around the area. This afternoon I took a short road trip down south and saw even more in the populated areas. I find the brightness of these LED billboards to be immensely distracting as I'm driving.
The local police are also using LEDs for their flashing blue lights now and one thing I have discovered is that they are visible from so far away that my depth perception is affected. I always pull over to a different lane for flashing emergency signals and I find that, more often than not, I am changing lanes far sooner than I need to. On a relatively flat and straight road these lights are visible for at least a couple of miles.
One more irritant in my life!