{"id":5928,"date":"2011-05-20T06:25:43","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T06:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2011-05-20T06:25:43","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T06:25:43","slug":"the-media-joke-of-objectivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/the-media-joke-of-objectivity\/","title":{"rendered":"The media joke of objectivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is not written with serious intent, though its tone is serious. Make My Bed? But You Say the World\u2019s Ending<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to \u201csound the trumpet\u201d on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom has told me directly that I\u2019m not going to get into heaven,\u201d Grace Haddad, 16, said. \u201cAt first it was really upsetting, but it\u2019s what she honestly believes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of people around the country have spent the last few days taking to the streets and saying final goodbyes before Saturday, Judgment Day, when they expect to be absorbed into heaven in a process known as the rapture. Nonbelievers, they hold, will be left behind to perish along with the world over the next five months.<\/p>\n

With their doomsday T-shirts, placards and leaflets, followers \u2014 often clutching Bibles \u2014 are typically viewed as harmless proselytizers from outside mainstream religion. But their convictions have frequently created the most tension within their own families, particularly with relatives whose main concern about the weekend is whether it will rain.<\/p>\n

Kino Douglas, 31, a self-described agnostic, said it was hard to be with his sister Stacey, 33, who \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to talk about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say, \u2018Oh, what are we going to do this summer?\u2019 She\u2019s going to say, \u2018The world is going to end on May 21, so I don\u2019t know why you\u2019re planning for summer,\u2019 and then everyone goes, \u2018Oh, boy,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reporter “tells it straight,” as if these idiocrats aren’t just making fools of themselves. As it is, people will read the article, look up their address or phone number, and call these morons to laugh at them Monday morning. This should be in a tabloid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story is not written with serious intent, though its tone is serious. Make My Bed? But You Say the World\u2019s Ending: The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5929,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions\/5929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}