Reply #97: Good advice, Tinoire. Sometimes they work "tag team." [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

Also it appears they bring in helpers. Asking them for sources never works. They expect you to do the research, then when you provide it, they completely ignore it and continue as if your post had never appeared.

Sometimes posters simply don't have the time to do all the work and await their insipid responses.

Found this interesting item to post which says a lot more than articles we're used to seeing:

Posted on Sun, Dec. 19, 2004


Devout thousands walk, even crawl, to honor saint

BY GARY MARX

Chicago Tribune


EL RINCON, Cuba - (KRT) - Smoking a cigar and dragging a 100-pound stone chained to one leg, Tomas Poblar is lying on his back and pushing himself down a highway in an annual pilgrimage to honor St. Lazarus, patron saint of the sick and poor.

A lonely figure moving at a snail's pace as trucks and cars rumble by, Poblar said his dayslong ordeal - completed for 52 consecutive years - is his way of honoring a saint he says healed a crippling injury.

"I was on the seas and my ship capsized and I was hurt and couldn't walk," said Poblar, 74. "I prayed and was able to walk again. I made a promise to do this every year for the rest of my life."

It was early afternoon and Poblar had covered about 13 miles in three days. He had about 4 miles to go to reach his destination: a simple white church in this village outside Havana.

Each year on the night of Dec. 16, thousands of Cubans walk, crawl or literally drag themselves to the St. Lazarus shrine in the one of the most public outpourings of religious faith in this island nation.Poblar and many devout pilgrims are dressed in clothing fashioned out of burlap sacks, a sign of respect and act of penance for the humble saint who seems to have a special following among the poor.

The pilgrimage is a raucous affair, blending elements of a street party with stunning displays of devotion in a communist nation that has become more tolerant of religion.Along the road to the shrine, teenagers drank rum and danced to hip-hop, rock and salsa music while couples pushed baby strollers and quietly held candles and flowers as offerings to St. Lazarus and his Afro-Cuban counterpart, Babalu Aye.Vendors hawking roast pork sandwiches, fried rice and other foods competed for attention with table after table of brightly colored religious statues and other religious items for sale.
(snip/...)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10454439.htm

(Free registration is required)

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Don't you find it worth contemplating that the man at the beginning of the article has been making his religious pilgrimage for 52 years, and the article does NOT say, "52 years, except for the years after the revolution in which we are forbidden to attend the churches of our choice?"

Some of the slower ones have NEVER been ambitious enough to start reading a little, and simply settle for the crap churned out by propaganda mills, including the drivel sucked up in south Florida which is assigned to the Cubans working on the U.S. payroll as "idenpendent journalists."

Your advice to do far more reading was more than adequate. Too bad some of these visitors are unwilling to invest their time, and unwilling to stop depending upon the right wing propaganda mills for their understanding of the world!