NY Times' Frank Rich weighs in...

Click here to link to the Times Op/Ed piece

An insult, indeed...and bad judgment

Here's what Katha Pollitt writes in today's Los Angeles Times about Obama's choice of Warren to participate in his inauguration. I think she's "spot on" :

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Most Americans who've heard of Warren know him as the teddy-bearish, Hawaiian-shirted head of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County and the author of "The Purpose Driven Life." Perhaps they also know he's the rare right-wing Christian pastor who sometimes talks about poverty and global warming and HIV. His concern for those issues has given him a reputation as a moderate and has made him the darling of Democratic Party think tanks, ever hoping to break the Republican lock on the white evangelical vote.

But on the signal issues of the religious right he is, as he himself has said, as orthodox as James Dobson.

And as inflammatory. Warren doesn't just oppose gay marriage, he's compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn't just want to ban abortion, he's compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis and the pro-choice position to Holocaust denial. (Hmmm ... If a fertilized egg is as precious as a born Jewish human being, does that mean a born Jewish human being is only as valuable as a fertilized egg?)

Speaking of Jews, Warren has publicly stated his belief that they will burn in hell, presumably along with everyone else who hasn't accepted his particular brand of Christianity (i.e., the vast majority of people in the world). And forget about evolution -- the existence of homosexuals, he's argued, disproves Darwin. And while we may not know how old the Earth is, the Saddleback website assures us that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

Warren claims that his views are mainstream, pointing out that in 30 states, the majority of voters have banned gay marriage. Popular doesn't mean right, of course, but regardless of what Americans think about gay marriage, on other so-called social issues, he's way out in far-right field.

Take abortion. Most Americans, whatever their personal feelings, are pro-choice. On election day, anti-choice initiatives went down to defeat in all three states where they were on the ballot. Most Americans do not think the one-third of American women who terminate a pregnancy are running a concentration camp in their wombs, and would have no trouble choosing between saving a Jew from a gas chamber and a fertilized egg from a fire at the clinic.

Or take marriage. At his Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband's "leadership" even when he's wrong on important issues, such as finances. Never mind if she's an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids' college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be "yes, dear." Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?

Or take foreign policy. In electing Obama, Americans overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's Wild West approach to foreign policy. Apparently Warren didn't get that memo either. Unlike many evangelical preachers, he issued a statement against torture, but despite his access to Bush, he told Beliefnet.com that he never raised the subject of torture with him. ("I just didn't have the opportunity," he said -- although he apparently found plenty of time to lecture Obama about abortion.)

On "Hannity & Colmes," he agreed that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should be killed because "the Bible says God puts government on Earth to punish evildoers." Really? The Bible says the United States should murder the leaders of other sovereign states? How many other heads of state does Warren want to do away with? If Ahmadinejad, who is, after all, a more-or-less democratically elected leader, had shared his inauguration with an imam who had called on national television for the assassination of President Bush, Americans would be calling for the nuking of Tehran.

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Katha Pollitt, a poet, essayist and critic, writes the "Subject to Debate" column in the Nation.

Missing the point

This morning the LA Times editorialized Obama's choice of Rick Warren to offer the invocation at his inauguration, saying something to the effect that it's just a prayer.

The Times missed the point. This is a missed opportunity, and it's a bad choice. While it may certainly be true that a president and her pastor may disagree on all sorts of issues, the historical record to which the Times turns does not include clergy people who are fresh off an anti-human rights campaign. Warren actively campaigned for proposition 8. That's his right, of course. But by choosing Warren to play a very public role in his inauguration, Obama cast doubt on his own rhetoric.

It's a shame. There are many of us who were hoping for change. There are many of us who are disappointed.

As for Warren...give me a break. The guy agrees with James Dobson on just about everything. He just does it in sheep's clothing.

UGH! What's he thinking?

So, is this part of that "crossing boundaries" thing that the President Elect spoke of? Because if it is, it may be a boundary that's not worth crossing.

This morning it was announced that Rick Warren, Senior Pastor at an Orange County (CA) megachurch, would be offering the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. Interesting.

Yes, he hosted Obama and McCain during the election for what some say was a move at inclusion. And yes, he's been moving his church toward the center--at least when it comes to certain issues. But what is also true is that his church was part of the "Yes on 8" campaign that recently voted to strip millions of Californians of their right to marry.

It's no small issue, and there are a lot of people who aren't very happy.

I can understand that, given that there are hundreds of qualified clergy out there who haven't confused their personal religious beliefs with the "will of God" and recognized that treating people differently under the law for whatever reason is not the American way. Why not choose one of them?

Or why choose anyone, for that matter? Are we really still in a place where we have to have someone stand and mumble some words that most people will ignore to invite and/or placate a God about whom we do not agree? What's the point?

The worst invention EVER.....

OK, so maybe I'm just venting after driving the freeway on this rainy day...but maybe it's more than that.

I think the automobile is the WORST invention ever, and here's why:

1) It creates the illusion that we are our own little islands. Cars give us the feeling that we're independent of others, and that we have control. Cars create the illusion of autonomy and exacerbate the ludicrous American notion of independence.

2) The automobile keeps us so separate from the humanity of other people that we somehow feel free to cuss out total strangers, say things about their mothers that probably aren't true, blurt out expletives that we would NEVER say were anyone listening, and in general behave badly.

3) The automobile is built around the illusion that we are separate from the environment and that this separation has no cost. But it has a HUGE cost. Cars are destroying our environment. To build them we rob the earth of resources. To run them we rob the earth of resources. To build them we pollute the environment. To run them we pollute the environment. And when we're done with them, we somehow believe that they just magically go away...but they don't...they rust and rot and pollute even more!

4) The automobile is created by an industry that is now in jeopardy of failing, possibly causing great economic harm to many many people. In other words, the automobile is responsible for building an economic house of cards that's built on non-sustainability. It's all about to come tumbling down, and there's not a lot we can do about it.

5) The automobile is a killer. That's right, a killer. Think about all the gruesome highway deaths that have been the result of the need for each of us to have our own, independent way of getting around. Sure, people die on trains and planes too...but check the percentages...it's SO much safer to take the train or fly...

6) And while I'm ranting about mass transit, the automobile killed that too. LA and environs was home to one of the finest mass transit systems in the country...that is until the automobile killed it. The rights of way are still there for the most part...but will we use them? Not while we keep deluding ourselves into thinking that cars are a good thing!

7) The automobile has us over a barrel--and not just an oil barrel. (Prices have come down, for now, but how long will that last? And even if the price stays low, what part of LIMITED SUPPLY are we missing?????). The OTHER barrel is the one that has many of us living in places that are only habitable because we own cars. Too far from a store, or anything else that represents civilization, there are an awful lot of folks who will be S.O.L. on the day there are no longer cars to drive. We call them "suburbanites."

I'm done for now...but I don't think the conversation is over. In fact, I think it's only just begun.

Jon Stewart!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
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The Real Crisis in America

Here's the sad reality of American consumerism: a death all too real--and symbolic of what things have come to:

"A Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, New York died after being trampled to death by a mob of shoppers on Friday, the traditional first day of the holiday shopping season. The 34-year-old worker Jdimytai Damour was killed after a crowd of 2,000 broke down store doors and ran over him shortly before the store"s schedule 5 a.m. opening. Four shoppers were injured in the stampede. Nassau County police were trying to determine what happened during the stampede, but said it was unclear if there would be any criminal charges." (from Democracy Now website: democracynow.org)

No matter how you paint the current economic crisis in America, the corpse of a Walmart worker bears the truth: it's all been built on a platform of consumer spending, artificial hype and a false assumption of "value." What else could account for the fact that a horde of shoppers (who probably all think of themselves as very nice people...some of them probably even go to church!) could trample to DEATH a human being so that they could get a blender for $5? (a blender just like the one they could have purchased at their neighbor's yard sale last week for $2!).

And what's worse....people didn't stop. When it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong (hmmm...what gave it away, the fact that the crowd ripped the door off the store and shattered the glass? Or maybe it was the fact that there had been an attack on that line earlier, one for which the police had to be called?) they just kept on pushing. That cheap TV, that blender, that toaster, that WHATEVER, was more important than a human life. Even when it became clear that the store had become a crime scene, people continued to rush around looking for bargains.

Have we no shame?

It is the marketplace at work. It is profits before people. It is senseless global profit-seeking on behalf of absentee stockholders. It is "trickle down" economics in all its naked glory.

It is insanity.

Such talent!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Really, Mr. Goldberg?

Nice try....no, really.

In case you haven't seen it, this morning's LA Times (December 2, 2008) printed a column by the venerable Jonah Goldberg in which he likens an anti-prop 8 ad that featured Mormon missionaries to antisemitism and anti-Muslim propaganda. In the column, he lambastes "gay-rights groups" for running a "scorched-earth campaign." (link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg2-2008dec02,0,6411205.column).

Of course the problem with Mr. Goldberg's argument is that, somehow, we're supposed to muster sympathy for the Mormons and agree with him that the gay community is liberal, white, and wealthy (ie, not really the underdog). The elusive truth (at least to conservatives, it seems) is that the gay population of the United States is not representative of "Hollywood liberals" (that's right, whenever you want to win popular opinion to your side, start talkin' 'bout them thar Hollywood types!), can hardly be described as wealthy (another stereotype...studies have shown that the gay community is not wealthier than average, nor does it have power elites in its pocket, as has been suggested). True, the emerging voice of the pro-gay agenda (which, arguably, is pro-everyone, because it represents equality for ALL citizens, no matter what their religious conviction or affiliation), has been represented by white people with money. But is that any different than in any OTHER part of the socio-political sphere?

It seems that Mr. Goldberg has managed to turn this whole thing around and point fingers at those whose rights were being attacked in the first place. It wasn't the anti-prop 8 people who put this question before the voters. It was, in actuality, people (including Mormons) who hoped that, by simple majority, the rights of the minority could be removed. Tsk, tsk....

History has proven, over and over, that the majority will not necessarily do the "right" thing, that progress toward "liberty and justice for all" does not necessarily happen in the voting booth. When the gauntlet is thrown down, what else can those who are threatened with second-class citizenship really do but fight back?

It's true, the ad that parodied Mormon missionaries wasn't really fair. But would anyone really say that all those ads from the pro-prop 8 campaign (funded, in good measure, by Mormons whose church TOLD them how to vote!) were FAIR?

I'd agree, Mr. Goldberg, that "gay marriage is likely inevitable." I also know that it won't happen if those whose rights are being trampled upon don't rise up and fight. It's easy for those who enjoy the full rights and freedoms of their citizenship to somehow make this about themselves. But no matter how much those on the conservative side of things might wish to be defined as the victims, it just ain't so.

Ends...and beginnings

I saw a great bumper sticker the other day: "January 22, 2009, The End of an Error."

Whatever you believe about the outgoing administration, or the incoming for that matter, let's hope that there's truth in that bumper sticker...that this becomes a real turning-point, and things do start to get better. Anything else is unthinkable.

What's the point?

I've often been stymied by the futility of life. I mean, what's the point? You go through all this and in the end you die.

Yeah, yeah...I've heard lots of the religious takes on it...the afterlife, and karma, and heaven and all...but in the end, at least from this end of the telescope, someone tosses you in a hole or sprinkles what's left of you in a (hopefully!) favorite spot.

But then I got to thinking more about futility today, particularly since it's almost Thanksgiving, and I realized that there is an upside to futility. If I were to be totally mired in the futility of things, I wouldn't even bother EATING, because, after all, what would be the point? In a few hours I'd just be hungry again! But in this case, futility is a good thing...because it means there will be room for dessert.

And that's a metaphor I can really sink my teeth into.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Morning Coffee

This morning I sat at a different table at the coffee shop. I sat at a different table because the last time I sat at my "usual" table there were a couple of older guys who sat nearby and salivated over that table the whole time I was there: it was clear that I was at their favorite table...they seemed really glad when I got up and left.

This morning I sat at a different table. Not long after I got my coffee and copy of the LA Times, a man came into the coffee shop, got himself a cup of coffee and sat down at my "usual" table. He sat there, quietly, introspective (or asleep), dirty and forlorn-looking. Of course, in came those old guys, once again thwarted in their hope of occupying that table...

...and I just smiled.

Stupid is as stupid does

Let's get this right: first we're manipulated by the so-called "financial industry" to the point where the economy is in a shambles, and now these captains of finance are begging for the government to save them for the sake of the average citizen.

So, the rich get richer, and then the rich get richer again...all on the backs of the lower classes.

And we're supposed to believe it's all in our best interest!

Logic

What change?

It's too bad I'm not a betting man, because I could have won a bundle betting that it wouldn't take long for the critics to start in on Obama. A few cabinet choices (good ones, it seems to me) and he's taking it for recreating the Clinton White House.

Well, first of all, just because someone has had previous experience with the Clintons doesn't mean there's something wrong with them, or that they don't come with valuable experience. It also doesn't follow that choosing people with experience to be part of his leadership team means that Obama is going back on his promise of change. In fact, the ONLY thing it shows is the wisdom to know that you can't navigate the complexities of Washington for the sake of change without engaging people who know the system.

But we should have expected it, really...the naysaying. Sore losers have nothing better to do than start throwing barbs at someone who clearly wants to make a difference not only for one country, but for the world. Gee whiz...give the guy a chance! Stay home and lick your wounds and SHUT UP!

That's not to say that criticism for Obama is off limits...on the contrary, if he is really going to be true to his word, he will carry through with his self-portrayal as "not perfect" and recognize that there will be times when "mea culpa" will be the wisest thing he can say.

And who better to have nearby than those who have the experience to recognize a mistake when they see one, mostly because they've made one or two themselves, and learned something in the process.

But then again, some people never learn.

Turnaround is fair play

This from an editorial in the LA Times on November 18, 2008:

"I am a Bible-believing Christian, and I am here to tell you that the wildfires are a judgment on the bigots of California who passed Proposition 8 in order to deny a minority of Californians their human rights."

In theory...

This morning I was thinking about people. In theory, I don't like them much. Maybe that's because I tend to notice when they're being selfish, hurtful and stingy. When I think about people, I tend to remember the times when they weren't being very nice.

In theory, I'm probably even a little afraid of people. I think they are probably using whatever power they may have toward their own self-interest and not for the common good. And if it's powerless people I'm thinking of, well, I'm probably a little afraid of them too--it's hard to know WHAT folks will say and do.

Or maybe I'm just thinking about myself.

I like people a lot better in person. When I meet them, talk with them, share time with them--when people move from that theoretical place in my mind into that very real place right in front of me, I generally think the best of them.

And, come to think of it, I like myself a lot better too.

Returning

I think I understand why some survivors want to return to the scene and others want to steer clear. When I go to church I feel like I'm, in some way, returning to the scene of years of abuse. Those words, those images, they are at odds with themselves these days: holders of history and harbingers of some kind of spirituality that is, as yet, undetermined.

Framework...

I suppose it could be possible to blame just about anyone for a disaster. Heaven knows the gay community has been blamed before: you know, it was the gay people in New Orleans that brought God's wrath (aka "Katrina") on the city, it was the gay people in the World Trade Center that brought God's wrath (or was that Allah's wrath?) upon the people there....and on and on. People struggling to find meaning in life often look for a scapegoat.

So I'm preparing myself for what's sure to come: you know, all those anti-Prop.8 folks out today must have caused all these devastating wildfires.

But, once again, it seems God has a bad aim. A lot of these homes that are burning, especially in Orange County, might just belong to folks more likely to have voted "YES" on 8.

Then again, maybe it IS a sign of God's disfavor on gay people: seems the demonstrations have been eclipsed in the news by smoke and ash. God is, well, stealing our fire.

See, that's the problem: if you choose to frame historical events in terms of divine intervention, you have to be selective, or sooner or later you will find yourself the victim of a wrathful God--and who wants to believe THAT?

The danger, of course, is not that we live under the wrath of an angry God (sorry, JE!) whose rage is hair-trigger, as unpredictable as a shifting wildfire. The danger lies in that we want to make the judgment our own, for the sake of convenience, depending on our own p.o.v.--and in doing so we send a very clear message: that we believe that God's will and our own are the same.

Our thoughts, these days, are with those who have experienced loss...be it of house, home, or basic human rights.

Grass is Growing!

After the bitter disappointment of last week, it seems that hope is growing. More and more people are catching on to the injustice of Proposition 8.

Will even more people get it? Will they begin to understand that this isn't some frivolous demand from a ridiculous fringe group. This is an issue of civil rights. Enshrining bigotry in the constitution is neither fair nor is it prudent. Who will be next?

Momentum is building, and the fairness express is on its way. The winds of change are blowing. It's a new day.

My Hero!

More queer bedfellows....

African-Americans and Mormons? Catholics and Evangelicals?

It's amazing what alliances fear will create.

For many of us, it's difficult to understand how any group that has been subjected to oppression and discrimination could then turn around and do that same thing to another marginalized group. But that's what fear will do.

The question is: of what are these people afraid? Of WHOM?

Is it their god whom they fear? Do they live their lives under the magnifying glass of a scrutinizing deity, moving in the shadows for fear that living in the light will result in their burning? Are they bugs under the watch of a playful god who will soon tire of them and squash them or pull off their legs and watch them squirm?

Somewhere....

Delayed by rain, a morning run brought me to the Downtown Marina, the big old Queen brooding just across the bay, a perky princess next door busy readying herself for another raucous weekend, oblivious to the matriarch she will leave in her wake.

Behind me the remnants of what had been a most impressive sunrise, ahead a rainbow in the sky, double at the bottom, looking like an ethereal inland bridge from the harbor, and I thought, "It's OK. It's going to be OK."

Plate Tectonics?

I don't know about you, but the last time I looked at a map, Rome and Salt Lake were on opposite sides of the globe. Yet these days, at least here in California, these two meccas have collided on common ground.

How is it that these two competing hierarchies and their minions have arrived at consensus? What looming threat could have the power to create such queer bedfellows?

The pro-Proposition 8 anti-marriage campaign is a colossal waste of resources, rooted in fear. If these two bodies of the so-called "faithful" really cared about the will of their God, they might check to see what that God has said about fairness, love, justice, and stewardship--that is, the good and proper use of resources.

The Problem with Adam

We've all heard the theory before: laissez-faire government allows the "invisible hand" of capitalism to create wealth. The economic "pie" gets bigger and, in theory, everyone is better off.

It's touted as realistic, because it makes use of an observable human characteristic: self-interest. In effect, laissez-faire capitalism says "this is the way people are, we may as well take advantage of it."

Besides the obvious ethical flaw in accepting what is commonly thought of in negative terms (greed), in some cases calling it "good," this theory is problemmatic in terms of simple logic: how can we expect something "good" to come of bad intent? It's like making an omelete from rotten eggs: it may look good, but it stinks...and it's inedible.

Oh, to be sure, it works for some...generally those who already have. But there are even more who suffer from such illogic. In the globalized economy there are fewer places to hide. The injustices can no longer be swept under the economic rug.

It all reminds me of those summer afternoons at the lake. Someone had built a raft and tied it way out in the deep water. Kids would swim out, use it for a diving platform or to enjoy the sun. When you got there, there was a feeling of self-accomplishment. Those already on the raft hadn't done much of anything to help those who followed (except maybe cheer them on...or sometimes jeer!), but in the end they shared a sense of triumph. It was anyone's game. All were welcome to swim out, hoist themselves up, and share in the revelry.

Unfortunately, there were many who would never make it out to that raft. Maybe they couldn't swim--they hadn't benefited from expensive swimming lessons at the club or weren't self-taught in the backyard swimming pool. Maybe they just didn't like to swim, or weren't built for that kind of haul. Maybe they had spent their spare time working to help support the family, or had simply been told that swimming wasn't important. These were the ones who stayed on the shore, or nearly drowned in their attempts to reach the raft while laughing "peers" looked on.

IF the playing field were truly equal, one might make a logical case for Smith's "invisible hand." Unfortunately, an honest appraisal of the world reveals something far from that level field. Instead we discover a lot of people continue to be left behind while elitists buzz that old saw that it's all about opportunity, hard work, and perseverence. If you fail, it's your own fault.

The saw buzzes at great peril to the future of humanity, relegating some to the category of "burden on society" and completely missing the assets of their humanity which call for a wider definition of success, a more generous spirit, a true equality.

Don't Vote for Hate: Vote NO on 8

The bottom line? A vote for Proposition 8 means you want to take away the rights of millions (!) of Californians and add discrimination to the State Constitution. No matter how you couch the argument, offering a right to some and not to all is discriminatory.

And while we're at it, it's NOT OK that some religions believe and preach that entire segments of the population, by virtue of who they ARE, are somehow immoral, sinful or evil. It is NOT OK that religions preach "love" while promoting discrimination. It's hypocritical. These people should be nervous, because the ethics of fairness are catching on to their little game--to control human behavior for the continuation of oppression.

Screamin'

The current campaign seems to be proving the old adage, that if you say something loud enough and repeat it often enough, no matter how bald-faced a lie it is, some people are bound to believe it. Up is down and down is up and suddenly the Republicans are the great champions of the working Josephine-six-packs of the world. Pah-leeze. In one sentence Obama is supposedly cavorting with terrorists, in the next it's his "Wall Street pals." Hmmmm....come to think of it....those two may just be the same. Only problem is, it's not Obama who's been hanging around them.

Once again the right is wrong and the left is....RIGHT!

It's not the same

Separate but equal is not equal...it's separate. No matter what issue we're talking about, when it comes right down to it we need to treat everyone the same under the law. There CAN be no legally sanctioning of class based on perceptions of race, color, gender, orientation...or CREED.

What the proponents of Prop. 8 have failed to grasp is that, in effect, they are asking the citizens of California to create a separate class for heterosexuals, one in which they are entitled not only to rights and privileges guaranteed under the law, but also to the exclusive use of a word that carries with it its own particular cache. Their argument is often religion-based, and claims that "religious rights" are being trampled.

In what way? Even if Prop. 8 passes it doesn't change anyone's right to believe whatever she wants to believe. And freedom of religion does not imply that any particular religion has the right to force its views on others, in effect creating inequalities under the law.

What it all boils down to is an attempt by some to limit the freedoms of others based on a particular religious perspective. And we all know where that can lead.

Vote NO on Prop. 8

The Collective U.S.

"We the people..."

Or so it goes. In these tumultuous times we will, as a collective, be challenged to think and rethink who we are and what we are all about. With all the talk about "us" and "them," the challenges of the days, weeks, months, even years ahead will certainly include figuring out who we want to be, and HOW we want to be.

Do we want to be known as people who are all about self-interest? Do we want to be remembered for our tenacity, even loyalty, to an economic system that has self-interest at its core? Will we open our eyes to see see that we really cannot be, at the same time, personally selfish and collectively generous?

These are important times, rife with opportunity for the evolution of thought and action. Now is the time for us to see that there really is a "more perfect" way.

Blah, blah, blog.....

What have you done today to help someone in need?

How have you made the world a better place?

How have you reached out to those whom the world has shoved aside?

Have you?

The Lady Speaks!

This morning, the LA Times ran a piece about the Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild's decision to support the McCain-Palin ticket because, as she said, she doesn't like Obama. "I feel like he is an elitist."

As for McCain-Palin, the Lady speaks: "I want John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House so other people can have that wonderful life."

In other words, "let them eat cake."

Not helping

In the course of an evening bike ride I came across some folks whose meandering on the trail caused me to divert just a bit. "You're not helping," I thought.

It was a troubling thought, because it was directed at those folks who were doing exactly what I was doing on a cool late summer evening. They weren't particularly aware of how their presence was affecting me any more than I was aware of how my presence was affecting them. But somehow, in my mind, their actions were related to how I would perceive not only them, but the entire artificial category of human beings that I believed they represented.

But, you see, no one ever looks at me and judges all so-called "White" people by the way I behave.

So much for "honor"

"A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it." -Thoreau

It's time that we listen to the genius of Thoreau.

Voting for Hope

What's wrong with voting for vision? Is it better to vote for what we've always voted for and expect different results? That, according to many, is the definition of insanity.

Transformational

Wrap your mind around this concept and your life will change: there is no tomorrow, there is no yesterday, there is only NOW.

Space

Feelings take up space. The question is, can we allow room for them without allowing them to control our destiny?

A fundamental difference

Cut through all the rhetoric and you will find a fundamental philosophical difference between those vying for the White House: competition vs. cooperation. Experience and eloquence can only go so far. In the end, leadership is about vision and hope not only for a select few or a particular nation, but for all people everywhere.

What's so funny?

Rudy Giuliani managed to get a good laugh out of the RNC this evening--by mentioning Barack Obama's efforts to organize communities on the south side of Chicago. The crowd broke into derisive laughter at the thought of someone working to help the victims of economic oppression.

What's so funny?

There is much to fear in the war-mongering rhetoric coming out of the Republican party. This mob scares me with their chanting for off-shore drilling, their wild cheering for an extremist governor who "clings to religion," and its claim to be the Party that "ended slavery." Pahleez.....

But what is truly SAD about it all is a group of people who would LAUGH at someone who chooses to give their life in service to others.

But....

I while back a friend sent me a t-shirt that never fails to get the attention of passers-by:

"Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite."

It's an artfully backhanded reminder of the illogic of any religion that claims that "God is love" but then adds "if you....." Inclusivity and exclusivity are, uh, mutually exclusive!

Perhaps it's an indication of the edginess of our times. The version I read on the back bumper of a rusty van today said:

"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an @#$%"
(The language has been sanitized for this blog)

Roots, shoots and branches

The sad irony of religion is that it so often cuts itself off from its roots and then wonders why it finds itself struggling for survival. If a plant gets cut off from its roots, its branches will eventually wither and die.

Religious institutions are generally the result of the dogmatization of spirituality. While they have the potential for doing good, they are also very dangerous places because of their insistence on the application of uniformity of practice or belief. While differing from their so-called secular counterparts in that their self-validation is in the form of god-speak, they nonetheless share a propensity to harden and atrophy, eventually losing touch with the purpose in which they were originally rooted; to bring about change.

Never again?

This morning I overheard someone in Starbucks declare, "I'm never driving in Paris again!"

Such conviction. I'm sure that the whole world will benefit from this wisdom born of experience.

On my way home I wondered why I was being so critical. After all, I'd been sitting in a Starbucks, for goodness' sake. What did I expect? Did I think people would be talking about their tightening budgets, their fear of losing all that they've worked for? What did I expect, spending time in the netherworld of the rich?

I have nothing to complain about. I'm comfortable. I come from a family that has, for generations, been comfortable. But I'm NOT comfortable.

I'm not comfortable as long as there are people who are marginalized, overlooked, shunned, excluded. I'm not comfortable knowing that there is plenty to go around, but that the world's resources are being hoarded by an ever-shrinking minority that has convinced itself that their ueber-comfort is for the benefit of all, and that if someone's piece of the "pie" is too small (or non-existent) that she has no one to blame but herself.

As long as there is injustice and inequity, I'll find reason to be critical...thus the title of this blog, and all for the purpose of making this world a better place for everyone.