An “Unprecedented drought” drives “never-before-seen wildfire situation in Texas.” What to do? “Today, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) came up with an innovative solution “” prayer,” as ThinkProgress reports in this repost.
Perry issued an official proclamation drawing on his constitutional authority designating three days as Days of Prayer for Rain:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal and robust way of life.
“State-sanctioned prayer for rain is not unprecedented,” as the Texas Tribune notes. In 2007, then-Georgia Gov. Sunny Purdue (R) “led a solemn crowd of several hundred people in a prayer for rain on his drought-stricken state.” And before him, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) issued a similar proclamation to Perry’s. Officials in other parts of Texas have done the same. Previous efforts like Perry’s have sparked opposition from atheists and those concerned about the separation of church and state. However, President Obama and plenty of politicans from both parties have participated in National Days of Prayer and other similar events.
– A ThinkProgress repost.
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A few words in those prayers for the tiny phytoplankton would nice too. I’m just sayin’ ….
He is going to need more then prayers. The future will see more of this kind of fire and drought in Texas. God won’t help now or in the future.
Pray for intelligence.
Oh no! Don’t do that! Remember Pakistan? Guess why they got so much rain:
January 22, 2010: President Asif Ali Zardari prays for rain.
From the Pakistani press release:
We all know how the Almighty responded to that request…
Oh no! Don’t do that! Remember Pakistan?
Pakistani press release, Jan. 22. 2010:
President Asif Ali Zardari offered Juma prayers and soon after Namaz-i-Istasqa in Aiwan-e-Sadr mosque today.
He prayed to Almighty Allah for showering His Blessings on the nation and for pouring much needed rain so that the dry spell which is adversely affecting the whole country could be ended.
He also appealed to the nation to submit their dua to Allah Almighty with utmost humility, for the rain and end of dry spell.
There is a long tradition of rainmaking charlatans in North America. Burt Lancaster nailed it in his movie “The Rainmaker” back in the 50′s.
The Anasazi died out because of drought in the late 12th century, and anthropologists believe that they lost faith in both their religion and their leaders when they could no longer deliver rain. The result was intercine bloodshed and cannibalism. Perry won’t have that problem, because like most politicians he can bullshit his way out of anything, and the media will cover for him. He’ll figure out a way to blame the drought on the liberals.
Perry won’t have to worry about failed faith, because America’s real religions are big trucks, guns, mansions built from two by fours, and stubborn ignorance.
We badly need Hollywood to deliver with a movie about characters like Perry, but since corporate takeover of the studios, muckraking has been relegated to low budget documentaries. Burt Lancaster had his own production company, and would have had a blast making a movie about Rick Perry. Maybe actors like Damon, DiCaprio, Pitt, and Penn can band together here. Otherwise, we will continue to see horrors like Meet Joe Black, a sick fantasy where Brad Pitt plays “Death”. If we don’t wake up soon, that’s a role that we’ll all be playing.
That’s risky ground for Govenor Perry to enter.
First there is the cutting response that Texans need urgently to pray for forgiveness for fouling up His Creation, along with their pledge to cease doing so forthwith and to strive to make good the damage they’ve caused.
Without such a recanting of their sin against the Holy Ghost (aka Great Spirit – aka Creation) not only will the drought and fires likely continue and intensify through the summer, but when the rains come He will likely see to it that they arrive as deluges “to sweep away the dwellings of the sinful” (those that haven’t already burned down that is).
Perry really should be more careful of just who he tries to use as part of his public relations stunts.
If the Creator is, as reported, listening, then He might be well advised to try educating Texans as to their sinful folly by sending them unprecedented deluges on the dot of three days after the Prayers for Rain begin.
Regards,
Lewis
I believe the former Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, who had himself long denied climate change tried the same thing. He asked his citizens to pray for divine intervention to help deal with Australia’s drought and it apparently worked. Relatively soon after his party fell from power and politicians came to power who were willing to take on this enormous challenge.
Instead of praying for rain they should be praying for objectivity.
Lewis C, you reminded me of something I saw on the wall of a truckstop stall near Dallas in 2006, apparently written by someone passing through:
“Nice going, Texas. You fucked up the whole world”.
New Texas credo?
“God helps those who help themselves! But not those who help themselves by acknowledging and acting appropriately on the findings of climate science.”
Prayer “an innovative solution” ?? Prayer is as old as salt, and as old salts know, God listens to those who listen to Him.
~Chris
Re CW comment at #9. I was going to make the same quote, except that I was taught that “Help themselves” meant working hard to improve the lot of everyone rather than helping yourself to everything you can grab out of the communal till by whatever means. If only I’d been “brung up proper” I could have been a Republican too.
I predict that if it fails, it will be the fault of atheists, Libruls and foriegners for not praying and thus anulling the noble efforts of the God-fearing. Clearly, it won’t be the fault of those pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because that’s another UN plot to rule the world.
As people whose houses are fortunately spared will, no doubt, say that God spared them because they prayed so hard, I see the perfect oportunity to blame the victims of the fires. Clearly they didn’t pray sufficiently sincerely or they, too, would have been spared.
“Quos Deus vult pedere, primus dementat.”
I’m for the separation of church and hate.
The Egyptian priesthood made it their business to seem indispensable to the pharoah and the the people, supposedly by their intercession with the gods, though they did a good bit of weather monitoring to be able to look good.
Compare that to the governor’s call for three days of prayer:
A recent satellite image the Southwest and Pacific Coast shows a good bit of moisture coming along in the Pacific.
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsw3.html
The Dallas TX forecast says thunderstorms on Monday.
Prayers on the three days of Friday, Saturday, Sunday should be just so timely for those T-storms.
There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Texas is preparing to sacrifice its virgin.
Great, so instead of actually enacting policy measures to help the people, these politicians think they just need to keep slashing the budget and pray to God?
Surely the “God” they’re actually praying to is the god of irresponsibility, ignorance, and greed, with David Koch and Donald Trump as his high priests.
– frank
Meanwhile, down under, one church is preaching a different message about what is causing extreme weather and what to do about it:
“the leader of one of Sydney’s three main Christian denominations…said in his Easter message that climate change was the result of “unsustainable, unfettered and unthinking addiction to economic growth”, and those who could not entertain a less destructive path were like those who sent Jesus to the Cross for expediency’s sake.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/church-leader-likens-inaction-on-climate-to-crucifying-christ-20110421-1dqlq.html#ixzz1KGVCDFvZ
Joan (#12) brings up the interesting angle that the call to pray for rain just happens to coincide with a favourable prediction of rain.
And of course that weather forecast was made using all that satellite data and super-computers and systems modelling that the GOP routinely tells Americans can’t be trusted to base policy on.
Theatre of the absurd.
Pray for some common sense in Austin and in Washington, for a change.
Yes, let’s drive around like good Texans in our huge pickup trucks, be very friendly to multiple oil corporations, cut environmental regulations to the bone, be home base for multiple predatory coal fired utilities some of which colluded in the California “energy crisis”, and then, of course, pray for rain.
As a very large historical producer of oil, with each barrel contributing to total cumulative heat load on the earth heat equal to 100,000 times its heat of combustion, Texas is a significant contributor to global warming, of course.
And praying for rain is this guy’s solution.
Such deliberately deceptive and manipulative political tactics show that if we foul our nest, and screw up a self-regulating biosphere that provides us with many trillions of dollars in free services per year, maybe it’s a good thing- to rid the universe of such stupidity.
Oh that’s easy. The OT talks about nations having their land, crops blessed for being faithful, and when sin was prevalent in the land, they experienced droughts and famine. Obviously, there is sin in the land and it can’t be the Conservatives so it must be the Liberals…and the drought coincides with the election of a Muslim for president who wasn’t born in the states.
Somewhere (can’t remember now) I posted a comment saying prayer is good for the person doing the praying (like a meditation, a way of seeking insight into yourself and your behaviour, a way of changing yourself).
This type of praying though is not meditation. It seems to be just an incantation. Say the magic words, envision it, and it’ll be done. I think too many people who claim to pray have lost what prayer was really about, and in their congregations it has degenerated to rote repetition. So not only does prayer fail to change the external, it now fails to change the internal.
JCH says: “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Texas is preparing to sacrifice its virgin.”
That’s right. They are too busy working on sacrificing the whole upcoming generation of kids to “hell and high water” to focus on any one child in particular.
Marc Morano is also attacking religion today, especially the Catholic Church.
Marc Morano, who is beneath contempt but not stupid, recognizes that religious people often accept the science of climate change.
Morano is mainly attacking the Catholic Church because he knows that the Vatican says there is man-made climate change and that the Pontifical Academy has just hosted a workshop about thawing glaciers.
The Vatican can defend itself against the Denialist Party’s vicious, desperate anti-religious propaganda.
The April 2-6 Vatican workshop is just the first climate change workshop in a series.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2011/03/pontifical-academy-of-sciences-hosts.html
Morano links to an article that links to a video by “Real Catholic TV.” This group is not anything to do with the Vatican.
The “Real Catholic TV” have a cartoon shadow of a priest (because they don’t have a real priest). They even tell people not to give money if the Church their priest discusses climate change in church.
Real Catholic TV is claiming that climate change is a sham and that its adherents support abortion. In fact, the Vatican does not support abortion; and the scientists who study climate change are hoping to save lives.
Morano uses Bolshevik tactics against the Catholic Church–trash the Church in the media and sponsor fake religious organizations in order to subvert the legitimate leadership.
I know that Dr. Mann has attended a Vatican workshop in the past. Some of the most famous nobel prize winners have been invited to be members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
My favorite Academician is Roald Sagdeev. He denounced the KGB lie that American scientists at the Pentagon made AIDS to kill blacks.
Eventually, even the KGB admitted their lie right in Izvestia and threw their former propagandists under the bus.
If some Russian entity stole those RU emails, there is always a chance their role will come to light when the policy changes. Even the Russians eventually have to confront reality.
The communist party denounced Lysenkoism, the Doctors’ Plot and the AIDS campaign when the party line changed, and the stooges got in trouble.
God must be evil to allow such a devastating drought. Or perhaps he wants to test the good Texans…
The conversion of western culture to a cargo cult is advancing on schedule in Texas.
Pray for the People of Texas, so that the Holy Spirit of God make the People realize that the pro-pollution, anti-science, anti-people crowd is the responsible for continuing the economic system that causes the emissions that are already triggering Hell and High Water.
Pray for the People to realize that the right-wing priests and pastors are colluded, with millions of dollars, with the polluting plutocracy.
And then, realize that there are a lot of left-wing (from liberals to socialists) priests and pastors that are truly followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ, who said 2000 years ago “love your neightbour like yourself”.
Pray for the People to realize that supporting the pro-pollution crowd is a flagrant violation of this commandment, because doing this is supporting people that are causing today and will cause in the near future disasters that will kill thousands of people and leave in misery millions more.
Glad to see from post #14 that rain is forecast. I hope for the sake of everyone in Texas that it is heavy and long enough to ameliorate the crisis, though I’m sure it will need several powerful systems to do that.
The good Governor can now win both ways. If the rain comes, it’s due to his call to prayer: if it’s a bust then those Guvmint meteorologists are clearly liars, who cruelly offered false hope, and, as they’re worse than useless, can be dispensed with to help fund a new tax cut (for top earners only).
Joan Savage @ April 22, 2011 at 10:50 am,
You are so right. How to produce a “miraculous rain” in the 21st century? Consult the experts on when the best chance of rain is then preface it with 3 days of prayer.
A roommate once told me about the leader of a Persian Gulf State who was held in high prestige by his people because he was able to tell them when the rain was coming. The Sheik had a satellite dish (one of the few people in the country to own one at the time) and he watched The Weather Channel or had someone else watch it. Superior technology or magic, that is in the eyes of the beholder.
I checked out the forecast for some cities in Texas on Weather.com. Here are the results:
City – April rain to date; highest % chance of rain and day in 10 day forecast
Dallas – 2.73″; 40% Monday, 60% next Saturday and Sunday
Austin – 0.27″; 40% Monday
Midland – 0.00″; 30% Sunday
Odessa – 0.00″; 30% Sunday
El Paso – 0.00″; 10% Monday
Lubbock – 0.00″; 30% Sunday
Amarillo – 0.00″; 20% Monday
Abilene – 0.06″; 30% Saturday-Monday
Waco – 0.60″; 40% Monday, 60% next Sunday
San Antonio – 0.00″; 30% Monday
Closer to the coast, the chance of rain is low and spread across multiple days.
If you’re going to proclaim 3 days of prayer for rain, you better make sure to correctly time it. I guess production value is everything, forget about substance.
He’s got good hair and that is all that is required to be one of the darlin’s of the GOP.
The thing that kills me is the arrogance of politicians who do these prayer days. Sure, I think the entire idea is colossaly stupid, but I’m a godless liberal. But doesn’t a Christian fundamentalist west Texas rancher think, “WTF, Rick Perry asks for a day of prayer – it’s not like I hadn’t already been doing that.”
Rainmaker Mike Nesmith a Harry Nilsson song about Hell and High Water with a depression era slide show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5jIbUiDRZw
So if being an Atheist and not praying mean that if Texas does not get rain that God is punishing Texas for my blasphemy? Do I get burned at the stake? Does God pay more attention to little ol’ me than ALL the God Fearing Folks in Texas? It gets very strange.
Maybe the “Republic of Tejas” will get smacked by a few hurricanes later this year.
Molly Ivins, beloved syndicated Texan columnist, would very likely have appreciated Tim’s salty remarks (#29) about the “Christian fundamentalist west Texas rancher” who has been praying all along. I’m merging that thought with the anecdote passed along by Jason Miller (#27) about a Persian Gulf sheik with a satellite dish.
Let’s face it, a lot of folks in Texas have both a satellite dish and a Bible. It’s ordinary to keep the radio turned on when working in a barn, ready for a tornado warning or the like. If rain is in the forecast, it’s news. The governor should know that much about his constituency.
So, I’m guessing that his call to prayer is pretty much a reflexive response to a crisis for which he has no practical course of action, at least short term. The 40% likelihood of rain on Monday certainly hedges his call.
Thunderstorms on Monday would be a mixed blessing, though, as lightning could start more wildfires.
Somehow Gov. Perry doesn’t strike me as a Noah or a Jonah or a Moses, who grasps that it’s time to do something radically different from the status quo. He seems to fit somewhere else in the Bible pageant, but I haven’t figured it out.
C’mon Rick. Pray for FEDERAL ASSISTANCE! (We all know you want to.)
Maybe he should pray to have his god stop him from destroying the planet. I doubt god would do that though, because the religion of conservatives is not Christianity. It is the religion of capitalism, whose Holy Trinity is consumerism, militarism, and greed.
I wonder if there has been a proper scientific study of the relative effectiveness of prayer, as opposed to the use of a rain dance. We should employ the two methods in alternate weeks to see whether an oscillating precipitation pattern can be established.
Some have suggested that we could resolve the federal deficit by selling Texas to the Chinese.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (weather), courage to change the things I can (climate), and wisdom to know the difference (between my backside and a hole in the ground).
Mike Roddy #6, I remember seeing a doco. concerning the Peruvian civilization, the Moche, who were devastated by flooding alternating with drought between 536 and 594, caused by a ‘super El Nino, itself possibly triggered by the gigantic eruption of Krakatoa on 536. They fell back on more and more hideous sacrifices to appease their Gods, involving prolonged torture, torment and mutilation of the victims, all to no avail. Their culture survived a while thereafter but was much reduced and seemingly obsessed with defence against outsiders and one another, probably in a fight to the death over scarce resources. The near future of the planet, it seems likely. Of course we could spend some care-free time speculating who might make the most efficacious sacrificial victims, whose torments might most efficaciously attract the Gods’ attention, or pity, or satisfaction, but I suppose that might be considered in bad taste.
All this god-bothering wasted at a time when it is obvious that she is flat out 24/7 doing her job of removing the greatest obstacle to continuing to have a living planet, ME
@39 Richard Brenne: Priceless; thank you.
May we quote you?
Well Mulga Mumblebrain, when Texans start sacrificing high school quarterbacks, you’ll know Texans have truly gone “Moche.”
Ridiculous. One would expect modern politicians to know better. Anybody knows that for rain, one has to eviscerate a goat!
Just in case, I’ve prayed for NO rain – at least not right away. After all, any rain the Almighty bestows on Texas will have to come at some other state’s expense. Also, I believe Gov. Perry’s heart is hardened. As soon as he has acquired humility, I’ll cease the counter-prayers. No point in having Heaven reward villainy.
A soaking but gentle rain + snow has come to us in southern Colorado. A blessing after all the dust storms.
Sunshine (#42) – Please do! Also I came galloping to your rescue on a white steed at the end of last weekend’s open thread, or maybe crawling on a sea turtle, whatever.