Actual Journalistic Integrity: Words Mean Nothing

Cross posted  @ the Atheist Oasis

“Actions not words bespeak me” – Unknown.

I actually rather appreciate the sentiment, but not the event that prompted it:

Daily News provokes with cover on Calif. shooting: ‘God isn’t fixing this’
The front cover of the New York Daily News for Thursday takes a strong stance against how some politicians are reacting to the San Bernardino shooting with calls for prayer instead of tighter gun control laws.
The headline says, “God Isn’t Fixing This.”
“As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes,” the cover reads.
House Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP presidential hopefuls Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham all responded to the attack with tweets about “prayers” for the victims of San Bernardino.
The Daily News’ tweeted image of its provocative front page is currently the most retweeted of 2015 for the news organization, according to Twitter.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, took a different tone and called for “action” to stop gun violence.
President Obama underscored the need for stronger gun control laws in the United States after Wednesday’s mass shooting, which left at least 14 dead and 14 wounded.
“There’s some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of the mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently,” Obama told CBS News.
Some twitter users also called out for more congressional action.
David Mignery tweeted “@SpeakerRyan We need more from you than prayers.”
But others tweeted that calling for prayer should not be mocked at a time like this.

Yes, because prayer comes down HARD on people who mock it. Oh, wait. It does absolutely no such thing. It does not take guns out of the hands of anyone, it changes no minds, it alters nothing in the slipstream of reality. A prayer is an unanswered knee-mail that accidentally comes true once in a blue moon, but only because the person praying is asking for something available.
Of course the spineless Republicans are caterwauling for prayer. It fixes zero, it maintains the status quo, it’s a crippled placebo that works on the more feeble of minds. It also keeps the NRA lobbyists off their backs.
So get off your knees: nobody’s home nobody up there not even a ghost in a machine or a brain in a vat.
We are all alone here, so let’s take care of each other, and stop passing the buck to someone who doesn’t exist.
Till the next post then.