Day One of the Trek North

Well, I started the drive to Wisconsin this morning, leaving Miami where I had taken Pam and the dogs yesterday to stay with our best friend, Linda, until I return next week. Leaving Linda's around 9:30 or so this morning, I made a leisurely drive back home to Bradenton. Rather than taking I-75, which would have been quicker, I took our preferred route--I-95 to Fort Lauderdale where I caught I-595; then west to U.S. 27, where I turned north to drive up the spine of the Florida peninsula.

At the recommendation of a good friend, Craig Fannes, I stopped at "Julio's Cafe Tropical" in Clewiston, FL for a great meal consisting of filete de pollo pimienta (sauteed chicken w/green pepper and onion), rice, black beans, fried plantains and an ice cold Corona cerveza. As Craig suggested, the price was quite reasonable--only $9.98 TOTAL! Fortunately, I got there just before the place filled up for lunch. By the time I left, there was nary a seat left in the house. What the place lacks in ambiance, it more than makes up in tasty food and reasonable prices. It is definitely making my list of places to stop for lunch on future trips to and from Miami.

Leaving Julio's behind, I continued north at a very leisurely pace. I had no place to get to, other than home, so I just set the cruise control on 60 and enjoyed a nice drive back to the house, by way of State Route 70, thru the quaint town of Arcadia, FL and on to Bradenton.

I am now catching my breath, planning on an early shower and restful evening watching the Tampa Bay Rays and getting an early start tomorrow, heading out to Panama City, FL to take Mom out for dinner and spend the night with my brother, Gene and his wife, Regina. While I'm not really looking forward to sitting still for the long drive north, I am looking forward to the solitude such affords and seeing more than just a sandy peninsula that juts off the southeastern portion of the United States.

The First Liberal

Anne Rice recently renounced Christianity calling it a quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, infamous group. She refuses to be, “anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth control, anti-Democrat, anti-secular humanism, anti-science, and anti-life”. She is so right because, unfortunately American Christianity has been hijacked by the conservative right wingers who have no tolerance for the views of those who may not agree with them. They wrap themselves in the flag and tout the virtues of Thomas Jefferson, a professed Deist, and Abraham Lincoln, who seldom went to church and basically scoffed at religion in general.

They follow the preachings of such paragons of virtue as Pat Robertson, who called for the death of Hugo Chavez and blamed the Haiti earthquake on a vengeful God, claiming that Haitians “sold their souls to the devil” in their fight for independence; Jim Bakker, who bilked thousands out of millions; Ted Haggard, who admitted to “sexual immorality” in having a homosexual relationship (nothing wrong with that); and Jimmy Swaggert, who “sinned” in having sexual relations with a prostitute. All these evangelists (and many others, for that matter) wrap themselves in God and the flag and profess to know what is best, not only for America but also for all mankind.

What they lose sight of is that Jesus, the man whom all conservatives look up to as the guiding light of what to do and why, was in fact the first liberal. He spoke for the poor and disenfranchised, for women, and for people who had less political or religious power in the society. And so that made him a popular figure. He preached about freedom and a new social, economic, and political order. But in an occupied country, when you start talking about “Why shouldn’t slaves be equal to their masters and women be equal to men, and shouldn’t the poor have as much as the wealthy?” these are revolutionary ideas.

So then, I ask “What gives conservatives and the religious right ownership of Jesus’ teachings? Should not those of us to the left side of the spectrum be claiming that we are more in line with Jesus and his teachings?” As he cared more about people than he did about money so, too, do present day liberals. As Robbie Burns once wrote “Oh would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.”