I agree with you that people get their information from churches to a much greater degree than some of us might think, and at some point a preacher might have pointed out some article in the Dallas Morning News as proof that even that newspaper was soiled with liberal taint.
I just don't understand how such people could read very far into the New Testament without throwing it down in disgust at its liberal teachings.
-- Jim Cullen
John K. Taber wrote:
>
>My cubicle mate is quiet and unprepossessing. He is a pleasure to
>watch at work because of his great skill. He is usually heads
>down but once in a while he comes up for fellowship.
>
>In the course of conversation I mentioned that I have been
>finding more and more inaccuracies in the NY Times. He
>said "It's a, uhh, Yankee newspaper." as I watched him pick
>his words so as not to insult me (he suspects I'm a "lib'rul").
>I said it's a conservative newspaper, and 100% Republican.
>He became visibly upset, and forcefully denied that the
>NY Times was either conservative or Republican.
>
>Now, I know he never reads the NY Times, so how would he
>know? I don't think he reads even the local Dallas Morning News
>except for ads, and he believes that the DMN is "lib'rul" too.
>Perhaps he gets his ideas from Rush Limbaugh. He takes lunch late
>on purpose so that he can listen to Limbaugh on his car radio, who
>is on air at 1:00pm Dallas time.
>
>"But David" I protested "You don't read the NY Times. I do.
>So how can you say that?" He is polite and does not like to
>argue so there was no answer. Then the thought occurred to
>me that his misimpression of the NY Times must be left over from
>the 60s and civil rights and integration. So I said "You must
>be thinking of the NY Times's support for civil rights and
>integration back in the 60s." I lived in Houston at the time
>and I remember very well the vitriol that the "lib'rul media"
>was treated with in those times.
>
>He became even more visibly upset. He cut off the conversation
>abruptly with the excuse that he had work to do.
>
>I think I had hit home. These weird ideas have something to do
>with race and civil rights. Limbaugh does not give him his
>ideas, but confirms his feelings, or he wouldn't listen to him.
>
>Once, somebody told him the media is "lib'rul" and he clings
>to the notion. Who was that somebody? I'm now working on the
>suspicion that it was the Southern churches. Basically,
>throughout the South, it is the fundamentalist churches --
>the Baptists, Church of Christ, and much worse that inform
>folks, not the papers nor even TV. Gingrich's ascendancy
>is based on the alliance between the Republicans and the Southern
>churches. Or so I guess.
>
>I'm waiting for the chance to test my guess on David.
>
>--
>Those are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others.
> --Groucho Marx
---------------------------------------- THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST James M. Cullen, Editor P.O. Box 150517, Austin, Texas 78715-0517 Phone: 512-447-0455 Internet: populist at usa.net Home page: http://www.eden.com/~reporter ----------------------------------------