Outrage and Indignation

I try to avoid being outraged, but two events last night evoked that emotion in me. The first was an email forwarded to me by a very close family friend back in Texas. It was about Barack Obama- here are a few choice tidbits:

• "The info below is only as a warning and serves to ensure that all Christians become very aware of the BACKGROUNDS of the people we support (political or religious) and do our due diligence before putting them in charge of anything that may affect our lives and homes. Barack is VERY like-able, smooth, and has easily worked his way into the hearts of many influential Americans."
• "Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim."
• "Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world."
• "Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. "

This pretty much made me want to scream. It also stresses his middle name (Hussein) and the fact that his mother was an atheist. It of course fails to mention that he is highly educated, a former Univ. of Chicago professor, and devout Christian (because the Christianity is just a cover for his radical Muslim thoughts to wage Jihad on America after attaining the presidency). What really upset me is that a very well-educated man whom I respect greatly emailed his entire contacts list to warn them all about Obama. Really?! Is he that scary? God forbid you should do some of your own research into his background instead of sending scare tactic emails. And God forbid we should have a bit of diversity in the presidential candidate or a president who is not an idiot and has read the Constitution. Even if you're not a Democrat or a fan of Obama, spreading misleading emails about a candidate is not what a democracy of informed voters should be about.

And on to the next rant... (I apologize for the morning anger, but both of these things were very upsetting). On his show Wednesday night, Bill O'Reilly attacked kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck. (See a link to the video here). O'Reilly decides that because Shawn had a piercing when he was found he was obviously "a troubled kid" who chose to stay with his kidnapper because "it was more fun than school." The Moderate Voice has a good blog post about it as well as Fox's contact information. I've already written them a politely restrained email expressing my objection to O'Reilly's comments. I know my email probably won't do much, but I felt that if I was going to bitch about it in my blog, I should complain to the network as well. O'Reilly's comments aren't even political, they're just a pompous man beating up on a boy for the controversy ratings. I could write a lot more, but the above two links phrase most of my thoughts better than I could, and I have a bunch of securities reading to do before class.

I will have a happier post tomorrow.

Update: Someone (I believe the original sender's brother) sent out a link to a website that debunks almost all of what the email said. I was still struggling with how/what to respond, so I'm glad the correct information was sent to everyone. His brother has renewed some of my faith in the South!