I, as someone living across the pond from the USA, watched the news this late evening with empathy for the family grieving the death of their son. The news hounds and legal eagles jostled for air time  and in the melee a couple of sentences jumped out at me. The next paragraphs gives some context:

Speaking at a press conference, Angela Corey, the Florida State Attorney, said Zimmerman had voluntarily turned himself in, and was now in custody.

Saying that the decision to charge him was not taken lightly, she went on: “Today we filed an information charging George Zimmerman with murder in the second degree. It is the search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this moment.”

Miss Corey said she had spoken to Trayvon’s “sweet parents” moments before the press conference began to tell them about the charges.

She added that she had first discussed the case with his mother, Sabrina Fulton, and father, Tracy Martin, who she described as “constitutional victims,” when she took over the case three weeks ago.

"The first thing we did was pray with them. We did not promise them anything," she said.

Excuse me?

Forget the patronising 'sweet parents' comment. For a moment. Forget that justice (whatever that means and in various forms) is very difficult to obtain if you happen to be in the wrong 'category'.
By pass the fact that this juncture has arisen purely because people mobilised and highlighted that a young black man was killed on the street.

The Florida State Attorney, no less, who had been allocated the case only 3 weeks ago decided that in her wisdom the first thing she needed to do with the family was.....pray. You could not make it up.

They prayed together and so what a great way to show how you connect with the family, show your determination to obtain truth and detailed analysis of the death of this young man. You stand and do something so utterly based on a collection of 'whoppers' (as we say in the UK) and the family will go away feeling that you are doing the very best job possible.
Well I'm not convinced. Why someone in such a powerful position would feel the need to state, in a 'secular country' that prior to meeting with the family of the deceased they all prayed together.

Is it me or do you see why I am spitting feathers about this? How could this happen? The young man is dead, the system has failed him and his family and only due to immense pressure do the powers that be decide to placate the dissenters/protesters and do what some say they should have done in the first place.

'We did not promise them anything'. Of course you didn't. You couldn't. Nor should you do something so utterly pointless and dumb as to pray with them.

A little late but a more than worthy blog post here. Greta Christina is a very interesting atheist blogger who I have written about here on a few occasions.
She has very kindly added my name and this blog to the list.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2011/03/atheists-of-color.html

She has kindly agreed to the list being copied. Please pay her a visit and leave a comment.
INDIVIDUALSMina Ahadi, founder of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims (Zentralrat der Ex-Muslime) and the International Committee against Stoning

A woman who is a friend decided at the age of about 13 or so to start going to church. She 'gave' herself to Christ and received encouragement and praise from her relatives and peers. Her devotion to 'God' was so intense that she even spent a year in a theology college in Scandinavia, taught young children about the love of god and all things Christian.

I have pondered on the Wikileaks story and haven't quite made up my mind as to the motivation, aims and objectives of Julian Assange - not yet, not completely.

The nub of it seems to be:
World powers are a cabal, various factions with Cosa Nostra-type behaviours and values who rule, and do so with impunity.

Yet it is disturbing to watch the distraction techniques being used by people who are a part of the cabal, overtly or covertly, who act as mouthpieces and apologists for those in power.
We have been fooled into believing that democracy is what we all have and should aspire to. That people like Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, David Miliband, the Clintons, Karzai, Harper, Putin, Merkel and the rest of them, have our best interests at heart. They don't. It doesn't work like that. The scenes have been set to look different but they are all the same.

I have been fascinated by how MSNBC, ABC and the other television news media have been reporting the Wikileaks story. No surprise that it is 'Julian Assange - The Rapist', instead of  'Wikileaks opens a can of worms about corrupt, murderous governments around the world...' It stinks so badly that it would be funny if it wasn't so grave. I listened to the news presenters foaming that these leaks would cost so many lives of brave servicemen and women and diplomatic personnel around the world.
I imagine the loved ones of those who have been killed - fighting for a system which has killed millions of people around the world, decimated communities, arrested progress, engaged in and forced others to engage in - and how they must feel now they know the deaths were part of a great big con, used as cannon fodder, of low value in the whole scheme of things.

What do we do with this information? Well it would be good if we could all think about what is being presented to us and why. Hidden agendas operate all around and we should not believe anything we are told just because it is in front of us. We should take back control of our lives and realise that labels are irrelevant: black, white, old, young, left, right, LGBT or any other tag, we are considered as little more than rats running hither and thither: work, pay taxes, consume and then die.
Makes me think about how the religious myths have been promoted for the same reason - control.

I don't buy it.
So, what do you think? Have the worms turned?