THE CAROL OF THE FLOWERS

Back in college I found a very nice, big collection songs and carols. And I dug it out when I started playing with melodica. It might be fun to post at least the words, to some that I really liked. Considering the news lately I can use a break. The notes with the carol suggested it could either a solo piece. Or three voices singing one verse each with all three joining in on the last verse.

THE CAROL OF THE FLOWERS

The song of the three wise men

In the early morning as I went on my way,

I saw a fallen tree fallen into decay;

But a little violet had found its shade,

And in its coolness there its home had made.

As I journeyed onward in the noon day heat,

A great rock blocked the path before my feet;

But from its shade there gushed a cooling spring,

And it quenched out thirst and made our hearts to sing.

Then I saw a bush that bore many a thorn;

By its cruel points my bleeding hands were torn;

But among the thorns the sweetest berries grew,

And we ate with joy, and did our strength renew.

When the night seems darkest and our hope is gone,

In the east we see the signs of coming dawn.

Words by one Wyllis Peck Kent set to an old French Melody

Funny, I've been hearing this melody for the last couple of weeks. Too weird. 

THE 50 DUMBEST THINGS RIGHT WINGERS SAID IN 2013 PART 5

50 dumbest things right wingers said in 2013 numbers 10-1.  From Rolling Stone.

The final ten. Eddie Munster, sorry Paul Ryan strikes again. I wonder if Steve King has any idea how much space seventy five pounds of pot takes up. Frankly I think Stutzman should be at the top of the list. And if Jeb Bush thinks he has a snow balls chance in hell of being elected president I'd like to know what he's been sniffing or which reality he's living in because it isn't mine. Yoho the yahoo on how tanking the US economy would "stabilize" world markets. Better go back to taking care of kittens and puppy dogs at your vet office. 

And the last three are pretty priceless. Rep. Young. You do know that it's against the law to knowingly hire illegal aliens. IE daddy dearest was part of the problem, not the solution. Rick, oh Rick. The concept of a classless society is supposedly the Marxist's unrealized ideal. What alternate reality did you pop in from this time. 

And the winner is - Nevada's Assemblyman Jim "if my constituents wanted to bring back slavery I'd support it" Wheeler. If your supporters decided that the Biblical three score and ten was a long enough life span for anyone and that folks should be "encouraged" to commit suicide when they hit the big 7 0 would you support that? 

Where do they find these people? And the voters who elect them? 

10. Rep. Paul Ryan – Wisconsin – “We’re not preaching austerity” on a budget that would slash $4.6 trillion in federal spending.

9. Rep. Steve King – Iowa – “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert” on immigration and why he apposes the DREAM Act.

8. Rep, Marlin Stutzman – Indiana – “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is” on the aims of the GOP’s government shutdown.

7. Rep. John Boehner – Ohio – “We’ve done our work” on the track record of the least productive congress in modern history.

6. Jeb Bush – “I don’t think there’s any Bush baggage at all” possible 2016 contender on the political consequences of the family name. (sound of me laughing hysterically)

5. Rep. Tim Walberg – Michigan – “Society itself is at risk and cannot continue” on the apocalyptic consequences of the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decisions.

4. Rep. Ted Yoho – Florida – “I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets” on the hidden upside of forcing America into default.

3. Rep. Don Young – Alaska – “My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes” doing his turn to aid the GOP’s Hispanic outreach.

2. Former senator Rick Santorum – Pennsylvania – “the middle class. Since when in America do we classes? That’s Marxism talk,” (where do they find these guys)

And the winner is…or is that loser? Depends on your point of view I guess.

1. Assemblyman Jim Wheeler – Nevada – “Yeah, I would,” when asked if he would vote to reinstate slavery if his constituents wanted it. 

A SPECIAL REQUEST

I received this request from an individual with the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. Apparently he dips into my blog often enough to notice that I comment on the environment and asked if I would post some information about asbestos. I did not realize that asbestos, dangerous as it is was still being used.  There's a link to the website and it looks legit.

50 DUMBEST THINGS RIGHT WNGERS SAID IN 2013 PART 3

I accidentally deleted the original post. Blogger has been wonky and I usually end up with multiple copies of my drafts Oh well. From Rolling Stone. I probably won't remember all the kind comments I originally put in. 

Rep. Johnson. If you don't believe in the system why did you run for office and my are my tax dollars helping to pay your salary. Louie Gohmert strikes again. Must have missed the sections in the Bible about Abraham and Jacob, their wives and the wives maidservants. Sen. Paul must have slept through the third term of English Comp. The one where your write a research paper and learn how to make footnotes and a bibliography. If you didn't already have to do in high school like I did. Maybe Rick Perry should use a teleprompter. At least then he might remember which state he's speaking in. And good ol Joe the Plumber. In case you haven't noticed Americans come in all shapes, sizes, ages and COLORS.

50 dumbest things right wingers said in 2013 numbers 30-21.

30. Rep. Ron Johnson – Wisconsin – “When I hear politicians talk about restoring faith in government…No, no, no, no, no. That’s the wrong solution” revealing the depths of his hatred of government.  (yet he has a government job, hypocrite)

29, Steve King – Iowa – “It’s not event the government’s business now much money you make. That’s a part of freedom” channeling Mitt Romney’s accountant.

28. Rep. Louie Gohmert – Texas – “when you say it’s not a man and a woman anymore, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal” on marriage equality.

27. Rep. Frank Lucas – Oklahoma – “Is this a conspiracy to buy all the bullets so they’re not available to us” questioning whether Homeland Security is trying to create false scarcity by hording ammo.

26. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee – “Holy matrimony is formed into an unholy pretzel” on same sex marriage.

25  Sen. Rand Paul – Kentucky – “I’m being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters” on critics of his serial plagiarism, including from a Wikipedia entry on the 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca.

24. Gov. Rick Perry – Texas – “There are many other states that embrace those conservative values, the approach that we’ve taken over the years. I’m in one today, in Florida” delivering a speech in …Louisiana.

23. Gov. Chris Christie – New Jersey – “I am tired of you people” yelling at a school teacher.

22. Sen. John McCain – Arizona – “My friends, it’s a cover-up” on Benghazi.

21. Failed congressional candidate Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher – “Wanting a while Republican president doesn’t make you a racist, it just makes you American..”

50 DUMBEST THINGS THE RIGHTWINGERS SAID IN 2013 PART 4

From Rolling Stone.  Man, it just gets better and better (actually worse and worse.) I keep running across commenters who claim that even the great RL doesn't believe half the bullshit he cranks out. I'm not convinced. And in any case too many of the people who listen to him, do believe what he says. No matter how outrageous. 

Pat Robertson needs to be kept on a leash or least kept on his meds. 

Michele B. The end of her term in congress can't come soon enough. And suppose it's been safely gerrymandered. 

Rep. Cramer. So abortion is responsible for school shootings, not the fact that the country has almost as many guns as people and no way to track who has them or how sane they are. 

And the report on the Maine governor came not from disgruntled democrats but shocked Republicans. Actually LePaige reminds be a lot of Rick "all hat no cattle" Perry. Only this case I guess the butter has dripped off his lobsters. 

20. Rep. Jeff Miller – Florida – “It wasn’t just a few years ago, what was the problem that existed? It wasn’t global warming, we were gonna all be ice cubes. We’re not ice cubes.

19. Supposed evangelist Pat Robertson – “You’ve got a couple of same-sex guys kissing…To me, I would punch ‘vomit,’ not ‘Like.’ They don’t give you that option on Facebook.”

18. Rep. Michele Bachmann – Minnesota – “President Obama can’t wait to get Americans addicted to the crack cocaine of dependency” on Obamacare.

17. Rep. Kevin Cramer – North Dakota – “Forty years ago, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned abortion on demand. And we wonder why our culture sees school schootings so often” on the hidden connection between Rove v. Wade and gun massacres. *

16. Rep. Pete Sessions – Texas – “Everything we do in his body should be about messaging to win back the Senate. That’s it” on the solitary purpose of the GOP’s House majority.

15. Sen. Ted Cruz – Texas – “We need 100 more like Jesse Helms in the US Senate.” (Helm’s if you’ll recall resigned in disgrace)

14. Gov. Paul LePage – Maine – “He hates white people” according to two state lawmakers (both Republican) who heard LePage say this.

13. Rep. bill Johnson – Ohio - the president ought to reimburse the American people for any cost that’s associated with fixing or replacing this website” suggesting that Obama take personal fiduciary responsibility for the failures of healthcare.gove.

12. Mayor Michael Bloomberg –New York City – “I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little” on the controversial policing tactic eknow as stop and frisk which was ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge.

11.  Rush Limbaugh – “there’s a movement to normalize pedophilia…What is their objective/ They want to all think that pedophilia is just another sexual orientation. You know who is going to fall right in line is college kids, just like they have on gay marriage.”

* Me: Cramer also quoted scripture “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” as he supported cutting the SNAP program. Gotta get them five year olds down the mines and following the south end of a north bound mule. Ooops wrong century. I believe the verse is from Timothy.

AN INVISIBLE CHURCH

At least to many of us in this country. Especially if we rely on the so called mainstream media for our information about anything outside corporate America. 

Yes, I’ve mentioned an interest in finally reading the Bible. At least parts of it. I will cheerfully admit to practicing what the Darwin (Charles) family called “skipibus” through most of the first five books. I have no real interest in the dimensions of the portable Temple, how it was decorated and the mechanics of the sacrificial offerings. Except to say this. Once a permanent temple was built I hope they figured out how to deal with the inevitable mess. Who wants to pray in what amounts to a slaughterhouse?

And I’ll probably be skipibussing along until I get to the prophets. Who I realize were shouting into the wind trying to remind the people what they told to do in the first place. And aren’t doing. Just as a certain traveling rabbi attempted to do several centuries after that. With about as much success as the modern prophets are having. Heck if we really followed the commandment about coveting the advertising industry would be out of business overnight.

There is absolutely no danger of me turning into anything resembling a fundigelical. My list of “do you really expect me to take these literallys” is getting longer and longer. To those who natter on about so called “traditional marriage;” you do remember the story about Abraham, his wife and her maid servant don’t you? Then there’s Jacob, his TWO wives (sisters no less) and THEIR maid servants.

There’s even a passage in Deuteronomy that deals with husbands who fell out of love with the first wife, married another but the unloved wife is the mother of the eldest son. Sorry bub, the oldest son still gets the first born’s inheritance even if you don’t love his mother any more.

And we won’t even get into the murder and mayhem of the conquest of the so called promised land. “God told us to do it” gets real old, real fast.

There was one little entry that made me smile. It was customary to use donkey or oxen to help thresh the grain by having them walk over it. Masters were commanded to NOT muzzle their oxen when they were threshing the grain. Nice touch that.

There is another church. One that’s all but invisible and unmentioned in the MSM in this country. It was born out of the proxy wars in Central and South America from the sixties to the nineties. Alive and kicking in spite of the efforts of the new Roman Empire. If I want to understand them I have to understand their foundation. And that foundation is firmly grounded in scripture. Scripture that recognizes the least among us. The poor, the brutalized, the marginalized, the martyrs. They won’t be ignored any longer and if the traditional church won’t recognize them? Tough, they’ll do it anyway and they’ll build from the bottom up not the top down.

The Christians, true Christians of the south have much to teach us. I’d like to believe that the fundigelicals fears about the nonexistent persecutions, the so called War on Christmas are fueled by the fear that the theology of liberation will find a home north of the Mexican border. I’d like to believe that, but I doubt if the Limbaughs, Palins and O’Reilly’s even know it exists. In my gloomier moments I find myself wishing that the whiners in this country would be subjected to a fraction of the real persecution endured in the south. Anyway, more fools they. How shocked they’ll be to find that southern flowers might just thrive in northern gardens.

Thanks to the late Penny Lernoux and the very much alive and kicking Phillip Berryman to introducing me to a remarkable group of faithful, caring courageous men and women, Although. that's not entirely true. It started in a brief scene in a biopic about John Paul II played out between the Pope and Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Curiosity awakened I've been slowing piecing together what can only be called a miracle in the south. Lernoux and Berryman have been a fountain of background information. And if much of it not kind to the US and its policies. Too bad. 

50 DUMBEST THINGS RIGHT WINGERS SAID IN 2013 PART 2

Continued from the Rolling Stone Article. But, there's still almost three weeks to go. Ted Cruz now has his own coloring book.  I could be tempted to get one. I might kindling for the hibachi one of these days. this would be perfect. 

50 dumbest things right wingers said in 2013 numbers 40-31

40. State Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin – Alabama – “When a physician removes a child from a woman, thit is the largest organ in a body.” Now that was a real whopper.

39. Rep Trent Franks – Arizona – “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” Rep. Franks was “mansplaining” why abortion bans don’t need rape exceptions.

38. Rep. Tom Cotton – Arkansas – “To have women serving in infantry could impair the mission essential tasks of those units. And that’s been proven in study after study, it’s nature.”

37. Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee  “Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.” I’m sure that’s news to every African American and Latino in the country.

36. Don Yelton member of the GOP Executive Committee – North Carolina _ “If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it” on his state’s voter ID law.

35. Rep. Steve Stockman – Texas – “He’s even using children. It reminds me of Saddam Hussein when he used kids” on the president’s push for gun control after the Newtown shootings.

34. Rep. Tom Coburn – Oklahoma – “It might be a wonderful experiment” on whether the US could avert default after hitting the debt ceiling.

33. Rep. Saxby Chambliss – Georgia – “Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur” on the military’s rape epidemic.

32. Jack Gerard president of the American Petroleum Institute – “The oil and gas industry gets no subsidies, zero, nothing” whose industry gets $4 billion a year in tax breaks.

31. Rep. John Boehner – Ohio – “I need this job like I need a hole in the head.”

Well, this ten is certainly interesting. Let's see, a baby is not an organ in a woman's body. There's no magic that keeps a rape victim from getting pregnant. I think the guy who make the "lazy blacks" remark had to not only eat crow but resign. And then there's the mope who claims to be totally unaware of the tax breaks his industry receives that the rest of us have to cover. Of course simple compassion keeps us hoping for health and long life for most of our fellow beings. And if compassion doesn't keep you praying for the president and vice president the fact that Boehner is next in line certainly will. 

Love the claim that the days of racism are over and just a fading memory. And there were flying pigs shivering in the treetops at dawn this morning. 

This just keeps getting better and better. 

SOMEBODY FINALLY USES THE "R" WORD

Article from the comment pages of the Eugene Register Guard this Sunday titled "Today's divisive political climate has racism at it's heart."  I suspect that the Guard would prefer I go with a link, rather than posting the entire column. And with a little patience you can read the whole thing on the website. If they ask you to sign in try the refresh button. If that doesn't work, leave a comment and I'll e-mail the text. I did copy it for my own library. This is too good to lose.

This is the first paragraph. "Save the babies (especially the white ones), read the sign held by the anti-abortion picketer. It got me thinking. Far too many old white guys (and more than a few women) are running scared. The communities they've inhabited are changing in ways they don't understand, no longer the America they once knew. And it has much to do with race.

Which ties into a Think Progress piece  on a Fox (faux) News presentation featuring one Suzanne Venker. She's the latest in a long line of women who preach that a woman can only be fulfilled if she's married, has kids and doesn't work outside the home. Odd how many of these gals don't follow their own advice. And I purely hated to actually go to her website but nobody has done a Wikipedia article on her so I guess I have to put up with adding an extra "vote" to her counter. There was another link to one of her articles. Only a buck ninety nine to get access to a 2500 word article.

I suspect that her advice is aimed at upper middle class, upper class pigmentally challenged American women. This is thinly veiled eugenics folks. As the racial demographics shift in this country, obviously the "wrong" people are reproducing.

A couple of years ago the truth finally shined a flood light in my eyes. If the people crossing our borders without visas were white, blue eyed, Presbyterians there wouldn't be near the whoop ti do over immigration reform.

Which also ties in with the 50 really weird, where did I put my brain utterances of mostly Republican right wingers of 2013 posts over the next few days. I think Rolling Stone should have waited until January 2014. After all, there's still THREE WEEKS  to go. Plenty of time for more switch off brain, insert foot in mouth tweets, pronouncements, sound bites and whiskey tango foxtrot moments.

50 DUMBEST THINGS RIGHT WINGERS SAID IN 2013 PART 1

There's fifty entries. I'll take them ten at a time. 

per the Rolling Stone Magazine.   If you do take the time to go into the website each person has a link to the original story. Some are just tweets. Some are more substantial news stories. But the first think I thought of was; you could only find fifty? And the state with the majority of the off the wall statements? Starts with a T and ends with an S. Although to be fair, some of the commenters made the list more than once. And they didn't include what I consider Louie Gohmert's most insulting statement. He told a woman who chose a late term abortion because the baby was facing a diagnosis of a fatal birth defect that she should have carried to term. Reason? Doctor's have been known to make mistakes. I made the mistake of looking up the condition just before going to bed. The fetus basically had no brain above the part that controls autonomic functions. You can't miss it on the scans and THERE IS NO TREATMENT. Of everyone on the list I believe Louid Gohment takes the cake. 

Just fifty? Anyway here’s the countdown 50-41.

50. Rep. Steve Stockman – Texas “The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil  gas come out.”

49. Sarah Palin – “Let Allah sort it out.” On the Syria conflict.

48. Rep. Jim Bridenstine – Oklahoma “Just because the Supreme Court rules on something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s constitutional”  on the legal status of Obamacare.

47.  Rep. Joe Barton – Texas  “The Great Flood is an example of climate change. And that certainly wasn’t because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

46. Sen. Rand Paul – Kentucky They’re coming after your donuts” after the FDA said it would phase out trans fats.

45. Rep. Louie Gohmert – Texas “We know Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border. We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists.”

44. Rep. Ted Yoho – Florida “it’s a racist tax” on the civil rights consequences of taxing tanning salons, which supposedly discriminates against pale Americans.

43. Rep. Virginia Fox – North Carolina “It is not the role of the Congress to make college affordable and accessible.” Voting against regulating for profit colleges and universities.

42. Justice Antonin Scalia _ I even believe in the Devil. He’s a real person.”

41. Rep. Paul Broun – “Obamacare is going to destroy everything we know as a nation.

OPEN LETTER FROM JESUS ABOUT CHRISTMAS

I came across this on the Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented website. It was originally printed on the website's blog. The original author is unknown. You may not agree with all of the theology but it does make you stop and think. I especially like this line "Don’t forget; I am God and can take care of Myself."

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I wasn’t actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don’t care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn’t allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn if all My followers did that there wouldn’t be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actual spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks was. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1-8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don’t have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing the President complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don’t you write and tell him that you’ll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can’t afford and they don’t need. Spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don’t know who that is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile’ it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren’t allowed to wish you a “Merry Christmas” that doesn’t keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn’t make so much money on that day they’d close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary – especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here’s a good one, There are individuals  and whole families in your town who knot only will have no “Christmas” tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don’t know them, buy some food and a few gifrs and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don’t do things in secret that you wouldn’t do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that your are one of mine.

Don’t forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I’ll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is hsort. I’ll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember:

I LOVE YOU,

JESUS

SPACE AND TIME

A different look at that first Creation story. Part of Heschel’s interpretation is echoed by John Crossan. Crossan began his career as a Dominican priest. He’s not a priest anymore but that didn’t shut him up.

“Yet my father’s approach to the Sabbath did reflect some of the political concerns and language of the day; the themes of liberty and freedom recur in the book. He writes that we need the Sabbath in order to survive civilization: “Gallantly, ceaselessly, quietly man must fight for inner liberty” to remain independent of the enslavement of the material world. “Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from the domination of things as well as the domination of people. There are many who have achieved a high degree of political and social liberty, but only a very few are not enslaved to things. This is our constant problem - how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent.” From Susannah Heschel’s introduction to Abraham Heschel’s The Sabbath. Which I’m going to have to reread say three or four times.

I was raised a Methodist Protestant. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around what makes a Quaker different from a Methodist. With some small success. So what do I do to make my life even more interesting? I decide to take on a Hasidic rabbi. Why do I insist on coming in during the middle of the story all the time? 

Heschel was a Polish Jew. A brilliant scholar who managed to make it out of Europe ahead of the Nazi extermination machine. He was descended from a long line of rabbis and he was a mystic. I suspect that English was his fourth language. At least. But, you’d never tell it from his writing. He handled the language better than many native writer’s I’ve read. But, he was a teacher and rabbi. It was his business to make the message as clear as possible. But, he was a mystic. And better read in small bites than big chunks.

He argued that we live in a world of space (and the things that take up room in that space) and time. God spent six “days” creating the universe and He pronounced that Creation to be good, even very good. Then he rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath which He set aside as holy. Special, a time set aside to keep our spiritual house in order. I covered part of this in an earlier post.

There are pundits, politicians, even churchmen who go on endlessly about our political liberty to the point of paranoia.  The Tea Party, the NRA and anyone who has swallowed the Ayn Rand koolade are at the top of my list. But when was the last time anyone pointed out that we can be just enslaved to the things that crowd our “space” as to any dictator?

 In fact the last Black Friday proved that some of us are willing to resort to violence in order feed that monkey on our backs. How many of us are willing to stand in line for hours so we can boast that we have the newest cell phone, video game console or whatever is “cool” at the moment. And what would happen to an economy built on “gotta have the newest whatever to prove that you are, damned if I know.”

Are we buying these things because we really need them? Or is it to try to quiet the gnawing void where our soul should be?

Oh and this from someone lives in a house that’s relatively low tech. However…we do have ten bookcases. I think it’s ten. I hope it’s just ten. LOL  I have yet to find a book with ALL the answers. However, there are a lot a books with one or two pieces of the puzzle.

I SUPPORT YOUR INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO_______ EXCEPT FOR (TAKE YOUR PICK)

A detour on the journey through Genesis. Maybe not a such a big detour after all. And me stuck in Springfield with no fundies to torment. 

There’s a dirty little secret at the foundation of the fixation many of our economic and political leaders have on hyper individualism. It’s only really tolerated in the economic sphere of our lives. It’s ok to make as much money as you can, any way you can. No matter who or what gets hurt along the way.

Good jobs get outsourced to India or China? Ok, as long as my dividends and stock options survive. Another oil pipeline breaks and oil leaks out destroying habitat or farm land. Just the costs of doing business. And if we work it right we’ll stick the taxpayers with the clean up costs. Which means it won’t get done any time soon. Another gas pipeline breaks and explodes. Another train carrying cars full of oil and blows up. Well at least we didn’t kill anybody this time. Again somebody else probably get stuck with the clean up costs.

But, just try to carry that individualism over into our private or social lives and you might just come a cropper. Abortion on demand is the logical outcome of that individualistic philosophy. Just try to tell that to the true believers. They’ll give you chapter and verse about the “Right to Life.” At least until baby is born and then you are on your own. Have a couple of kids when times were good, fall on hard times and need a hand up? Tough, you should have consulted your trusty crystal ball, saw this coming and not had the kids in the first place.

And we’ll just belly up to the tax money fountain and ask for financing for pregnancy crisis centers staffed with counselors  that will outright lie to their clients. For their own good of course. No outdated, largely unverified information is too off the map to used to convince scared young women to keep their babies. Again for their own good. Too bad about the cuts in food stamps and other help; it’s never to soon to teach little Joey or Joanie that they’ll have to pull themselves up by their own bootie ties.

The right to decide how many children you have and when to have them? Same thing.  Just don’t step into one of our counseling centers believing you’ll get the same information as the Planned Parenthood clinic that closed down a couple of months ago. Not going to happen.

The right to marry person you love whether it’s Adam and Eve, Adam and Steve or Eve and Louise. Under that hyper individualistic philosophy it’s nobody’s business but yours. Not your neighbor, not the pastor down the street or groups like the American Family Association and their clones.

Yep. How you make your money is your business. How you live the rest of your life is the business of every Nosy Parker with a megaphone, a website, a Face Book page and a 501 whatever the designation is group with a good donor list.

You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s unfettered individualism in all parts of our lives or it isn’t. If you have the right to question how your neighbors live their private lives, they have the right to question the full costs of how you run your business and make your money.

MY TOTALLY IRREVERENT BIBLE STUDY

Somehow I don’t the think where I’m ending up is quite what the fundies have in mind.

I kind of wondered if the fundie shepherds actually allowed the flock to go wandering in Biblical pastures without a proper guide. And we’ll let you know who we think is qualified to run the show.

 Can’t let you run off on your own. You might actually realize that while scripture may be inspired (and I wonder sometimes if the inspiration came from the heavenly realms, a couple of bottles of new wine or if Ancient Israel was home to any magic mushrooms) but you sure as heck can’t take ‘em literally.

I’m actually kind of having “fun” with Genesis. I think I can get several rather irreverent journal entries out of it. And darn it I don’t have any fundagelicals handy to tease.

Two Creation stories and the suggestion that the first one isn’t about creating the physical world but the creation of the world of the Sabbath. God “worked” for six days and on the seventh He rested.

And made a really big deal about it. So big a deal that it’s mentioned twice before the first Creation story is over and keeping the Sabbath is one of the commandments. You know the ones that the fundies want to post in public places? WE don’t actually keep them but, you know, we  think it’s important for the other folks to know about them.

Not only does our 24/7 business cycle ignore the Sabbath as a whole day to reorient yourself to the spiritual but heaven help the preacher who goes a little over on the sermon. After all little Benjie has a soccer game, Susie has volleyball and I’m going to miss the kick off, jump ball, first pitch, the big sale. I mean we all know what’s really important don’t we? God/dess forbid that we actually set time aside so we can slow down, look around and let our souls breathe.

To be continued. 

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RYAN

Or what the poor really need. Hint it isn't food, shelter, medical care or any of those other pesky social programs. This is the text of the NY Daily Ingelligencer article. And this is the link to the Washington Post article  mentioned in the main article.

"Paul Ryan has spent more than a year furiously distancing himself from the wreckage of the 2012 Republican campaign. Even in the closing weeks before the election, Ryan gave a high-profile speech about poverty that amounted to a personal escape pod from Mitt Romney’s disastrous caught-on-tape denunciation of the moocher class. Since then, Ryan’s team has openly discussed the need to rebrand himand the particular danger, in the wake of the 47 percent tape, of his association with Ayn Rand-ism.

Today, we see the next step in Ryan’s rebranding, in the form of a largely credulous Washington Post story outlining his plans to launch himself into anti-poverty policy.

The article asserts, “Unlike Romney, Ryan is no child of privilege.” And Ryan certainly did not come from Romney-esque riches; he was born into “one of the most prominent families in Janesville,” and received a share of two family trust funds. Ryan Lizza reported in a profile of Ryan last year:

Three families, the Ryans, the Fitzgeralds, and the Cullens, sometimes called the Irish Mafia, helped develop the town, especially in the postwar era. The Ryans were major road builders, and today Ryan, Inc., started in 1884 by Paul’s great-grandfather, is a national construction firm.

Ryan does carefully tend his working class bona fides – when his visit to a Belgian brewery was discovered, he let it be known he prefers Miller Lite and found the foreign beers on tap unfamiliar.

The substance of Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda remains yet to be announced, but the general spirit of the endeavor can already be discerned from Ryan’s previous remarks, and those of the allies helping him formulate it. Ryan believes that the main impediment facing poor people is the existence of government programs that give them money and health care – a problem his budget rectifies by cutting subsidies to the poor. Those subsidies, Ryan hassaid, amount to a “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”

Ryan’s new line seems similar to the old one:                                            

“Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps.”

In fact, lots of people who survived on food stamps — like J.K. Rowling — went on to achieve great things.

The other emerging element of Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda is Jesus:

“You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul,” he said last week at the Heritage forum. “Spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people.”

Basically, Ryan loves the poor the way fundamentalist Christians love gays."
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So with the money from the government cut, how do we replace it? Why, with private charity and volunteers. News flash. Those with jobs are already working their butts off. Food Pantries are strapped already and it's getting worse. And what guarantees do we have that willing volunteers will be living in the same areas where the need is the greatest? As much Ryan and his supporters like to demonize the inner city poor need cuts across race and geography. From inner city New York or LA to rural Oregon and Kentucky. The need is there. And it's largely there due to the slavish support of a hyper Capitalism that doesn't care where the jobs are as long as the investors get their dividends. 

It's always amazed me how the stock in a struggling company goes up after likes of Mitt Romney and Bain swoop in, break up the company, lay off employees, sell what has any worth and declare bankruptcy on the rest. "I've got mine, screw the rest of you" is so firmly entrenched I don't know how to eradicate it short of a second American Revolution. 

What is glaringly obvious is that too many good "Christians" haven't read Proverbs, the Prophets or the Gospels. At least they never got past the Gospel according to Ayn Rand. 

And yes, I have read several of the prophets in the last year.