Tag Archives: religion

O’Bama is His Name-O

President O'BamaLately I ‘ve been hearing a lot about people’s claims that President Obama is a Muslim in disguise, despite his protestations to the contrary.  An August 19, 2010 report by the  Pew Research Center concludes that 18% of Americans believe that Pres. Obama is a Muslim. Fox “News,” Tea Party members and right-wingers in general are doing their fair part to ensure that the most gullible of our fellow countrymen and women live in abject fear of an Islamic take-over of the USA, and that unless we get rid of the terrorist in the White House, we are looking down the wrong end of the barrel at the end of a free America.

It is hard to believe that people can be such nincompoops.  Anyone can see that the current POTUS is Irish!

To preface my discussion, it must be known that I have thoroughly researched this subject in a scholarly and erudite manner.  I have delved into that infallibly academic source, Wikipedia; I have scoured Google for true unfiltered images of our president in action; I have even searched videos on that bastion of truth, YouTube. After considering all the evidence I agree with and drawing from my own narrow-minded point of view, I have thus concluded that President “Obama” is Irish.

To clarify one point, “Irish” and “Muslim” are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As in many parts of the world, there are certainly people in Ireland today, native Irish or not, that were either born Muslim, or have reverted, as Muslims like to say, to Islam. Frankly if one sixth of the world population professes Islam, then it follows that there must be at least one or two families of Muslims in the Republic of Ireland.

We arrive now to my point that the President is Irish, by using the same stream of logic that leaves nearly 1 in 5 Americans actually believing that B. H. Obama is a Muslim.

Let’s start with his name:  

  • Barack: ‘Barack” sounds a bit like ‘brick’, a tool of the building trade with which the Irish in the 18th and 19th centuries were largely responsible for using to erect many of the great edifices of the American east coast.
  • Hussein: The letter ‘s’ when followed by an ‘e’ Irish is pronounced, sh.  (The English spelling doubles the ‘s’ in order to ensure that it is not pronounced like zz, as would be a tendency for American speakers of English.) In Irish, the ‘h’ sound in words is dropped, or aspirated, leaving us with  ‘Ushayn’, which through the natural evolution of language could become any number of words including, for example, O’Shaughnessy.
  • Obama: If the Irish-ness of his first and middle names is not obvious to the casual reader, the president’s last name should clinch it. During a March 17, 2010 luncheon with the Irish Republic’s prime minister, Brian Cowen, the president said of his surname,  “I used to put the apostrophe after the “O” but that did not work.” He did not elaborate on why it didn’t work, but I believe it is that, in the Irish language, the character is Ô, and that takes too long to type when you are going for 70 wpm. And if I believe it, then it must be true.

Now we come to O’Bama’s physical features. The picture on the left shows Pres. O’Bama. The picture on the right shows another well-known Irish citizen, Bono. The resemblance of the of the two men to each other is uncanny. (The president’s resemblance to Dilbert will be discussed in a future article.)

The uncanny resemblance of two Irishmen

Finally, a discussion of O’Bama’s historical connection to the Irish struggle for freedom.  Cornelius “Conn” Colbert was a hero and martyr of the Easter Rising, in which  a 1916 rebellion by Irish republicans was the catalyst of a struggle which eventually led to the creation of the Republic of Ireland. “Colbert” is also the surname of the American TV host,  Stephen Colbert, although the latter uses the French pronunciation of “Coal-BARE.” Nevertheless, the two names are spelled the same. (Stay with me here; this is going somewhere.) On October 30, 2008 Stephen Colbert publicly endorsed Barack O’Bama on The Daily Show.

Therefore, Brick O’Shaughnessy O’Bama is unmistakably and doubtlessly Irish.

American Radicals Read the Quran, in Public no Less

Gotta love Free Speech! It allows anyone to come off as dumb as they want, and no one can throw them in jail to protect them from their own stupidity.

In our local rag, the Times-Argus, there was an article this past Monday about the Universalist Church of Barre, VT holding a public reading by several area ministers of sections of the Quran.

As could be expected there have been a broad spectrum of community viewpoints on this subject expressed in the comments section of the article. The way I see it, there are those that observe the entire forest, and those who look at the bark on one tree, and have decided that the entire forest needs to be cut down.

My first post, in response to the vitriol that had been published by the first few yahoos, er..excuse me… fellow citizens of the U.S., was this:

“I proudly stand with my Muslim, Catholic, Apostolic, Methodist, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Evangelic, Baptist, Anabaptist, Orthodox, Atheistic, Polytheistic, Unitarian-Universalist and all brothers and sisters of the world. And I give my full name below.”
– Posted by Kenric Kite on Sun, Sep 12, 2010, 12:24 pm EST

A short time later I checked back and saw this comment from one of the “frequent flyers” who never seems to have anything good to say about anybody or anything when commenting on articles. I hope and pray this person does not hold public office: (Any similarity to Sarah Palin is purely coincidental, I’m sure.)

“If I am wrong why are there no more Twin Towers and a woman beheaded in Western NY, all at the alleged behest of the GREAT Allah and his shziophrenic (sic) prophet Mo-Mummer-Head.
Those that “embrace” Islam have no knowledge of its practices and its core beliefs.”
– Posted by Mindcat None on Sun, Sep 12, 2010, 1:33 pm EST

I responded thusly:

“Those who think Islam is nothing but beheadings and bombings have no knowledge of its core practices and beliefs. Such acts of violence are performed for political and economic reasons by people who claim religion as the basis for their actions, an excuse that has been the basis for wars since time began because religious passion trumps nationalism when you want to raise the rabble. How about Ireland’s “Troubles”?

“Take the time to look up the Five Pillars: profession of faith, prayers, fasting (during Ramadan), alms-giving, and pilgrimage to Mecca.

1. In most religions you have to profess the faith, i.e. “accept Jesus into your heart.”

2. Prayer is at the heart of most religions.

3. Jews and Catholics (and many others) observe periods of fasting as a means of cleansing the body and soul and reminding them of their sacred connection to the Almighty.

4. Giving to those less fortunate than yourself. How many of us do that?

5. Pilgrimage to Mecca (for those who are financially and physically able.) Can be roughly compared to celebrating the Mass with His Holiness the Pope or praying at the ‘Wailing Wall’ in Jerusalem.

The radicals that felled the Twin Towers were no more “Muslim” than the fanatics that caused the Holocaust were “Christian.”
– Posted by Kenric Kite on Mon, Sep 13, 2010, 8:00 am EST

Two days later another yahoo calling himself Olde Man posted this gem of insight:

“Iran, iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, Syria, etc. Not exactly peaceful places. Every time there is a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists we hear very little from Muslim leaders condemning the violence.”
– Posted by Olde Man on Tue, Sep 14, 2010, 9:25 pm ES

My response to this comment:

“Olde Man, you are absolutely right on your last point – we never hear about Middle Eastern leaders condemning acts of extremist violence. That’s because American media are in cahoots with the government in censoring those voices from being heard. Don’t even imaging Fox covering it!

“Try reading Middle Eastern or European-based news sites or google searching for “xxx leader condemns”

“As for your prior comment, “the church that does not believe in God…” If the Universalist Church in Barre does not believe in God, why do they have a large image of the His Son at the front of their Sanctuary? And why would they be reading from a book that is all about God, who is known by many names, Jehovah, Allah, etc.?”
– Posted by Kenric Kite on Wed, Sep 15, 2010, 10:24 am EST

My main observation about all of this (beyond the obvious difference of opinion on the merits of various world religions) is that those who espouse the viewpoint that the desecration of a holy book is justified, also lack the balls to use their real names; whereas those who provide the voice of reason stand by their words in name as well.

I am proud that a majority of American religious leaders of all faiths have come together in this issue to find common purpose.

Burning the Quran in Gainesville is an Act of Evil

It would be great for the media to voluntarily embargo coverage of the event and instead cover the other churches’ counter events. Ya, right….

Of all the acts of violence against people ‘not in the Lord’s sight’ (smiting) propagated in the Bible, there are none that espouse the burning of sacred texts. The Quran contains a sura on the miraculous birth of Jesus, and treats him with respect. We can look back at the Crusades, the Holocaust, the Empires of Europe as well as U.S. history in regards to “manifest destiny” to get a sense of the violence that has already been committed with the backing –overt or not– of religious leaders of all kinds. Columbus sailed westward in 1492 with the financial backing of both Queen Isabella and the Pope, and subsequently laid waste to the natives because they would not be converted and convinced to give up their gold. Christians can be implicated just as much as anyone else.

Lest anyone of you too afraid to use your real names (previous posts excepted) think I am unpatriotic or irreligious for even thinking of including Christians in the circle of blame, let me say that my own ancestors, who stepped off the Mayflower to establish a “free religious” society (freedom from the Crown, that is) gave no thought to the religious beliefs of the people they encountered. Yes, my folks are also implicit. I am religious and patriotic and make use of those facets of my life in very positive ways, such as volunteering in my community.

Our military have worked very hard to get this far in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all it takes is one burned Quran on TV for that bigoted git in Florida to kick us back to September 10, 2001