While other folks have posted Diaries on this, see: Irony: Be careful what you ask for... by aquarius2001, I thought having the original video of Stuart Shepard, of James Dobson's Focus on the Family, suggesting that people pray for "rain of biblical roportions" to ruin Obama's speech at Mile High Sadium, would aid the discussion that has already begun.
I am not a religious person, but I have read enough of the bible - particularly the old testament - to know that when you ask god to intervene, he's going to do things his way, and sometimes that means a bloodbath or a supernatrual disaster. That is one of the reasons why, in ancient Israel, you could be stoned to death for merely saying the name of god.
For people who believe in all that religious stuff, the fact that some force, whether of nature, global warming, or of the spirtual realm has sent a killing storm towards the U.S. only weeks after a spokesperson of the religious right asked for devine intervention in the form of bad weather, should give them reason to reflect upon the political masters they have been serving as of late.
I don't pray. But I do wish people good luck. Because even if there was an entity that would be recognizable as a god, or the GOD I don't think that such a being would care about who wins what football game or any of the other things that people claim they did with "his" help. I have seen too many of my friends in my cancer support group die, many with their families praying earnestly, for a cure, or just for respite from excruciating pain to be granted, to believe that a being usually attributed with great kindness, would be at all interested in helping someone score just one more touchdown.
When my father was only days away from his death, I asked him if he had any religous stirrings. He looked at me, he was once a vital man, now his body was riddled with cancer, and said "If there was a god, why would he be doing this to me?" Certainly no just god wants us to be"wealthy here on earth" when it is almost impossible to accumulate great wealth without causing at least some harm to others.
But, if there is a god, who created us all, then he created cancer too, and in my book, that makes him one mean motherfucker. Anyone, like Stuart Shepard, who would dare invoke a being of such power, capable of such cruelty, for petty political gamesmanship, is wrecklessly foolish. Maybe they didn't have such a bad idea in ancient Israel.
So to everyone who might be in the path of Gustav, (including the folks in St. Paul who will suffer a devasting economic hit if the Republican Convention is cancelled) I wish you all the best of luck. I hope the storm behaves much less like hurricane Katrina and much more like hurricane Karl, which emulated my father-in-law Karl: basically harmless, but wandering around aimlessly, bumping into a few things and, now and then, blowing out a little wind. I hope Gustav misses everyone, and not one more life is lost. Maybe we will all learn a little humility from such a near miss. Now that would be a miracle.