Todd S. Purdum on Sarah Palin: vanityfair.com
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Golden Rule and Fair Minded Words
The Golden Rule and Fair Minded Words
It is good to have someone remind us.
Why do we write, why do we blog? An audience----an audience for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? The chance to tell what we feel, what we believe, what reality looks like to us.
Yes, the world is made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death.
Pain reminds us there is life full of conflict. Conflict challenges us to be better than we are. And death, well death gives us the chance to sum up all the good we have done or left and done in life.
It is a painful world. And in this painful world we need people with a good heart and common sense. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours.
We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand. ~Author Unknown
It is good to have someone remind us.
And because of this, I am blogging the Election of 2008. These are my words, my, visions, my truths. I have taken that chance and the opportunity to tell what I feel, what I believe, what my reality looks like. This is my own take on the world. The Political and Religious World.
If you are an American voter and citizen who finally wants to get beyond the hot button battles and solve today’s real problems, Obama is the man to vote for.
Obama once said about his beliefs, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values".
His belief is a moderate, intellectual Christianity and I like that, in fact I love that. It is a belief that is courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, which I mean by that, emotions that are balanced, decent, filled with common sense and reasonable. People such as this, we need to fight for, not for their sake, but for ours.
It is good to have someone remind us.
I believe American Christianity has lost its way, taken a turn down a dark path of meanness and disrespectfulness in its pursuit for righteous, political power. People are forgotten and trampled upon by others who are blinded by political ideology and dogma who are intellectually dishonest and philosophically inconsistent.
How can Christianity survive when the Golden Rule is not practiced and forgotten too?
It is good to have someone remind us.
It is a painful world and in this painful world we need people with a good heart, decency and common sense. We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Even after we are reminded, we may resist. The uncomfortable bile of conflict rises within us adding pain. But conflict challenges us to be better than we are. The Golden Rule, an essential belief of our Common Humanity's history challenges us to be better than we are too. The pain of failing the Golden Rule reminds us there is still more to be done in life.
Here before us is a statesman by his action, his courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, with his deep sense of respectfulness reminds us of using "Fair Minded Words".
It is good to have someone remind us.
In fact, it is necessary, when the world is changing rapidly and the true meaning of Christianity is becoming more distant, losing to disrespectfulness and pettiness. Maintaining balance and perspective with our human emotions is very difficult for many of us. And I believe America having a President-a leader, be a Republican, Democrat, white, or black, who is fair minded, calm, intelligent, respectful, packaging it all up in one word---Balanced, is a good thing. Thank goodness for people like this to help us, the ones that are always searching for some balance and some decency by continually remind us not to give up, to keep trying to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
When Americans spiritually thirst for a reawakening of the Golden Rule and the much needed practice of Fair Minded Words it is always a good thing to be reminded. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours. We may in fact have found such a person.
It is good to have someone remind us.
And so for America's sake and my own, I will take up the challenge, not for a person but an idea, a belief, if you will. The same idea, belief and an inspiration that we all fight, strive and struggle for. When Christianity and all Universal religions live up to the teaching of its founder, it becomes a better world. For thousand of years we are taught by our spiritual institutions decency and respect for one another is well worth the fight, well worth the struggle. This belief is not new but a tradition that has always been the central principle of all world religions. This history and life is well worth living in a the world made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death when we are diligently reminded to use Fair Minded Words and given the chance to mature in spirit within the belief of the Golden Rule.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Imagine a world without the pain and conflict of common humanity striving for and struggling in support of the grandest idea of the Golden Rule. "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." It does make us look at the pain, describes it and gives it shape so we can understand. It is a painful world without understanding, without respect, without critical intelligence infused by a sense of human caring and without reason balanced by compassion and empathy. Just imagine a world where the human community has no desire to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
That is why I blog, that is why I write, in the process of writing, I remind myself the necessity of "trying", to not to give up on doing better and writing about wanting better for our country. Each day is a new day to try again because I do struggle daily with the challenges of living a life according to the Golden Rule and failing miserable many times over which then presents itself into my own self-imposed conflict and pain. As I live within the knowledge of my one life on this earth followed by a full awareness of death does give me the need to take the chance to tell what I feel, what I believe and what reality looks like to me.
It is good to have someone remind us.
A home for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? A place to go to deal with life's conflicts and pain when we fail to do better. These are my words, my visions, my truths. This is my own take on the world, as I view it. This is my Place, my Home for my words, visions, truths, pain and conflicts on this painful but awe inspiring earth. This is my one small voice reaching out, to be heard, to be understood, to be known that I was, here.
That's all any of us want and why we blog, is it not? A home, a place, an audience, for each of our one small voice to be heard, to be known that we were, here. To let it be known what we desire for ourselves and our country. To remind and to be reminded what our country stands for, inclusion. Established to be a nation for all people with an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others.
This Golden Rule echoes throughout the land. If we forget what our country stands for and we loose our possibility of compassion and respect as a nation, we run the risk of loosing our nation. Because of our failures and shortness of memory, we need the visionaries, religious leaders, and statesmen to show us, to remind us of our history, our traditions and our creed as a nation.
To be reminded to use "Fair Minded Words" is a good thing.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Susan Thur
Militant Christianity v The Great Command(The Golden Rule) http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1556/%22go_and_do_likewise%22%3A_militant_christianity_v_the_great_command
It is good to have someone remind us.
Why do we write, why do we blog? An audience----an audience for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? The chance to tell what we feel, what we believe, what reality looks like to us.
Yes, the world is made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death.
Pain reminds us there is life full of conflict. Conflict challenges us to be better than we are. And death, well death gives us the chance to sum up all the good we have done or left and done in life.
It is a painful world. And in this painful world we need people with a good heart and common sense. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours.
We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand. ~Author Unknown
It is good to have someone remind us.
And because of this, I am blogging the Election of 2008. These are my words, my, visions, my truths. I have taken that chance and the opportunity to tell what I feel, what I believe, what my reality looks like. This is my own take on the world. The Political and Religious World.
If you are an American voter and citizen who finally wants to get beyond the hot button battles and solve today’s real problems, Obama is the man to vote for.
Obama once said about his beliefs, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values".
His belief is a moderate, intellectual Christianity and I like that, in fact I love that. It is a belief that is courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, which I mean by that, emotions that are balanced, decent, filled with common sense and reasonable. People such as this, we need to fight for, not for their sake, but for ours.
It is good to have someone remind us.
I believe American Christianity has lost its way, taken a turn down a dark path of meanness and disrespectfulness in its pursuit for righteous, political power. People are forgotten and trampled upon by others who are blinded by political ideology and dogma who are intellectually dishonest and philosophically inconsistent.
How can Christianity survive when the Golden Rule is not practiced and forgotten too?
It is good to have someone remind us.
It is a painful world and in this painful world we need people with a good heart, decency and common sense. We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Even after we are reminded, we may resist. The uncomfortable bile of conflict rises within us adding pain. But conflict challenges us to be better than we are. The Golden Rule, an essential belief of our Common Humanity's history challenges us to be better than we are too. The pain of failing the Golden Rule reminds us there is still more to be done in life.
Here before us is a statesman by his action, his courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, with his deep sense of respectfulness reminds us of using "Fair Minded Words".
It is good to have someone remind us.
In fact, it is necessary, when the world is changing rapidly and the true meaning of Christianity is becoming more distant, losing to disrespectfulness and pettiness. Maintaining balance and perspective with our human emotions is very difficult for many of us. And I believe America having a President-a leader, be a Republican, Democrat, white, or black, who is fair minded, calm, intelligent, respectful, packaging it all up in one word---Balanced, is a good thing. Thank goodness for people like this to help us, the ones that are always searching for some balance and some decency by continually remind us not to give up, to keep trying to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
When Americans spiritually thirst for a reawakening of the Golden Rule and the much needed practice of Fair Minded Words it is always a good thing to be reminded. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours. We may in fact have found such a person.
It is good to have someone remind us.
And so for America's sake and my own, I will take up the challenge, not for a person but an idea, a belief, if you will. The same idea, belief and an inspiration that we all fight, strive and struggle for. When Christianity and all Universal religions live up to the teaching of its founder, it becomes a better world. For thousand of years we are taught by our spiritual institutions decency and respect for one another is well worth the fight, well worth the struggle. This belief is not new but a tradition that has always been the central principle of all world religions. This history and life is well worth living in a the world made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death when we are diligently reminded to use Fair Minded Words and given the chance to mature in spirit within the belief of the Golden Rule.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Imagine a world without the pain and conflict of common humanity striving for and struggling in support of the grandest idea of the Golden Rule. "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." It does make us look at the pain, describes it and gives it shape so we can understand. It is a painful world without understanding, without respect, without critical intelligence infused by a sense of human caring and without reason balanced by compassion and empathy. Just imagine a world where the human community has no desire to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
That is why I blog, that is why I write, in the process of writing, I remind myself the necessity of "trying", to not to give up on doing better and writing about wanting better for our country. Each day is a new day to try again because I do struggle daily with the challenges of living a life according to the Golden Rule and failing miserable many times over which then presents itself into my own self-imposed conflict and pain. As I live within the knowledge of my one life on this earth followed by a full awareness of death does give me the need to take the chance to tell what I feel, what I believe and what reality looks like to me.
It is good to have someone remind us.
A home for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? A place to go to deal with life's conflicts and pain when we fail to do better. These are my words, my visions, my truths. This is my own take on the world, as I view it. This is my Place, my Home for my words, visions, truths, pain and conflicts on this painful but awe inspiring earth. This is my one small voice reaching out, to be heard, to be understood, to be known that I was, here.
That's all any of us want and why we blog, is it not? A home, a place, an audience, for each of our one small voice to be heard, to be known that we were, here. To let it be known what we desire for ourselves and our country. To remind and to be reminded what our country stands for, inclusion. Established to be a nation for all people with an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others.
This Golden Rule echoes throughout the land. If we forget what our country stands for and we loose our possibility of compassion and respect as a nation, we run the risk of loosing our nation. Because of our failures and shortness of memory, we need the visionaries, religious leaders, and statesmen to show us, to remind us of our history, our traditions and our creed as a nation.
To be reminded to use "Fair Minded Words" is a good thing.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Susan Thur
Militant Christianity v The Great Command(The Golden Rule) http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1556/%22go_and_do_likewise%22%3A_militant_christianity_v_the_great_command
Saturday, June 13, 2009
What Socialism Looks Like
The hot-pink portion of this pie chart is the percentage of listed American business assets that have recently been nationalized by the American government (ie, General Motors). Obama's version of socialism is so sneaky you can hardly see it! (And there is some reason to think this actually overstates the portion of the corporate landscape that's been nationalized, but more on that at the end of the post.*)
There is a serious discussion to be had here, and I think Jon Henke is having it: Socialism, like farenheit, comes in degrees. Sure, a government that nationalizes GM is "more socialist" than one that does not, even if it doesn't mean we're living "under socialism." But differences of degree shouldn't obscure differences of kind, and as Tim Fernholz says, "it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy." If it were, 99.79% of the American corporate assets that existed at the start of the Obama administration would not remain in private hands. The differences of degree are so small that they aren't worth mentioning. And yet, somehow, they keep getting mentioned.
See Chart:http://digg.com/d1ssBR
There is a serious discussion to be had here, and I think Jon Henke is having it: Socialism, like farenheit, comes in degrees. Sure, a government that nationalizes GM is "more socialist" than one that does not, even if it doesn't mean we're living "under socialism." But differences of degree shouldn't obscure differences of kind, and as Tim Fernholz says, "it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy." If it were, 99.79% of the American corporate assets that existed at the start of the Obama administration would not remain in private hands. The differences of degree are so small that they aren't worth mentioning. And yet, somehow, they keep getting mentioned.
See Chart:http://digg.com/d1ssBR
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
America’s Changing Moral Universe
Excerpt: Put aside that pollsters of various ideological stripes subsequently decided that the exit-poll question was flawed. In 2004, so many on all sides just knew that cultural and moral issues were the wave of the future.
But a funny thing happened on the road to the revival tent. The crash of the economy has concentrated the minds of Americans on other things. Moral conflict just isn’t what it used to be.
We know this thanks to an extremely useful exercise by the Pew Research Center that has not received enough attention. In a survey released in late May, Pew offered respondents the list of issues that appeared on the 2004 exit poll and asked them which one would matter most if they had to vote for president now.
The proportion responding with “moral values” fell by more than half—from 22 percent in the exit poll (and 27 percent in Pew’s own post-2004 election survey) to a mere 10 percent. Concern over the economy and jobs more than doubled, from 20 percent in the 2004 exit poll to 50 percent in the new survey. The other issues that gained substantial ground were health care and education
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090531_americas_changing_moral_universe/
But a funny thing happened on the road to the revival tent. The crash of the economy has concentrated the minds of Americans on other things. Moral conflict just isn’t what it used to be.
We know this thanks to an extremely useful exercise by the Pew Research Center that has not received enough attention. In a survey released in late May, Pew offered respondents the list of issues that appeared on the 2004 exit poll and asked them which one would matter most if they had to vote for president now.
The proportion responding with “moral values” fell by more than half—from 22 percent in the exit poll (and 27 percent in Pew’s own post-2004 election survey) to a mere 10 percent. Concern over the economy and jobs more than doubled, from 20 percent in the 2004 exit poll to 50 percent in the new survey. The other issues that gained substantial ground were health care and education
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090531_americas_changing_moral_universe/
War is Sin by Chris Hedges
Excerpt:
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090601_war_is_sin/
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090601_war_is_sin/
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