AP: Methodists Defrock Lesbian Minister
From the
Associated Press via Yahoo News ...
The highest court within the United Methodist Church defrocked a lesbian minister Monday for violating the denomination's ban on "self-avowed, practicing homosexual" clergy.
The nine-member Judicial Council — seven of whom heard the case Thursday in Houston — issued the ruling through its Web site. The denomination's communications office is based in Nashville. ...
Surest way to stop a UU conversation cold
What's the surest way to stop a Unitarian Universalist conversion cold? If you're a member of a non-Christian congregation, you might think it's the mention of Jesus. Close, but no cigar. Perhaps it's commenting "Let me tell you why I'm a Republican"? While that's sure to elict an involuntary gasp or two, that's not it either.
The surest way to stop a UU conversation in its tracks is to look someone in the eye and say ...
That's starting to sound like a creedal test!
ohmygod. ohmygod. No - please! Anything but being accused of
starting to sound like a creedal test!
I didn't mean it. I'll be quiet next time.
Clyde Grubbs: Not "religion light"
Clyde Grubbs explains why Unitarian Universalism is
not religion light.
Show us where you live!
I'd be fascinated to see where the readers of this blog reside ...
please click here to add yourself to our online map!
The Presidential Speechalist
Here's a short movie on
the guy behind the words.
Big Pharma tries to scare people away from imported pharmaceuticals
According to the
LA Times,
... According to [a] proposal, PhRMA [the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America] would pay Phoenix [Books] a six-figure sum for the marketing and production of a written-to-order fictional thriller. The plotline was what Hollywood would term high-concept — a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they're importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. (Think "True Lies" meets the Physicians Desk Reference.)
If this scenario sounds familiar, it's because PhRMA has tried to scare state legislatures and Congress out of giving Americans access to cheap Canadian drugs by warning that terrorists might poison the imports.
OpenOffice 2.0 released
For those of you looking for a suite of Microsoft Office-compatible software, but not wanting to pay the Microsoft Office price, check out
OpenOffice 2.0.
OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the productivity suite that individuals, governments, and corporations around the world have been expecting for the last two years. Easy to use and fluidly interoperable with every major office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.0 realises the potential of open source.
With new features, advanced XML capabilities and native support for the OASIS Standard OpenDocument format, OpenOffice.org 2.0 gives users around the globe the tools to be engaged and productive members of their society.
Download it now.
It's free.
MyDD: The number isn't 2,000
MyDD correctly points out that to focus only on the American and military fatalities as a result of the American-led invasion of Iraq would be a mistake. For instance,
Iraq Body Count currently records the number of Iraqi civilian fatalities as at least 26,690, and as many as 30,051.
Reignite: 10 reasons why gay marriage should be illegal
This has been seen on a few web sites, including
Reignite ...
01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Re-post this if you believe love makes a marriage.
What did World War II vets have in common?
According to Fox's Bill O'Reilly
quoted in Media Matters for America, it's the fact they were spanked. That's right ...
Now in the Great Depression, every American got spanked. And those Americans went to war during World War II and won the very intense conflict and showed bravery across the board, the Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation, almost down to the man, was spanked, 'cause that's the way we did it in America. OK?
That wouldn't of been my first guess, to be honest.
No bingo for terrorists
According to
WKYT in Kentucky,
Kentucky has been awarded a federal Homeland Security grant aimed at keeping terrorists from using charitable gaming to raise money.
The state Office of Charitable Gaming won the $36,300 grant and will use it to provide five investigators with laptop computers and access to a commercially operated law-enforcement data base, said John Holiday, enforcement director at the Office of Charitable Gaming.
Thank goodness someone is keeping up on this stuff. It sure sets
my mind at ease.
uuworld.org: Has fascism come to America?
UUWorld, the official publication of the Unitarian Universalist Association, has
an article by Charles Derber interviewing the Reverend Dr. Davidson Loehr. Tom Stites precedes the interviewing beginning with these words ...
On the Sunday after Election Day 2004, the Rev. Dr. Davidson Loehr took to his pulpit at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, Texas, and delivered a sermon entitled “Living Under Fascism.”
“I mean to persuade you,” he told his parishioners, “that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying.”
Fascism is a hot-button word, and posting the sermon on the church website pushed the button. Word of the sermon “began spreading through the Internet like wildfire,” Loehr said in a recent interview. Bloggers started writing about it, and linking to it, and before long the church’s server was overwhelmed by such a flood of hits that it crashed. ...
Lo-Fi Tribe: UU Humanism
Shawn at Lo-Fi Tribe talks about
The Faith of a Unitarian Universalist Humanist - a brochure he picked up on the way out of his fellowship meeting. The brochure was written by UU Humanist Sarah Oelberg, former minister of Nora Church Unitarian Universalist in Hanska, Minnesota, and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Mankato, Minnesota. She says the basic tenets are:
- Showing love to all humans is a worthy goal.
- Immortality is found in the examples we set and the work we do.
- We gain insight from many sources and all cultures, and there are many religious books and teachings that can instruct us about how to live.
- We have the power within ourselves to realize the best we are capable of as human beings.
- We are responsible for what we do and become; our lives are in our own hands.
George Lakoff: Framing Katrina
George Lakoff, he of
framing fame writes ...
Hurricane Katrina exposed far more than rank incompetence and negligence by Bush administration officials. It showed Americans, in full force, the intellectual bankruptcy of modern conservatism.
With millions of Americans displaced in the hurricane's aftermath, and thousands needlessly injured or dead, the nation witnessed the pillars of modern conservative ideology -- less government, lower taxes, a strong defense -- crumble. Conservatives have lectured Americans for three decades about the evils of government and the need for a stronger nation. Turns out, the biggest threat to America's future and security is the complete dominance of government by a conservative ideology incapable of understanding and addressing our greatest needs.
Whoever succeeds in framing Katrina will have enormous power to shape America's future. Progressives started out with the framing advantage, because empathy, responsibility, and fairness are what progressives are about. Conservatives started out with a big disadvantage, because they promised to protect us and they failed. ...
Grubbs: The cliché sermon
Clyde Grubbs talks about
clichéd sermons.
Back in the day I would complain "if I hear one more book report sermon, I will scream." One of the most common sermonic methods for Unitarian Universalist ministers was to read a book and then tell their congregation all about it on Sunday.
I think we still find inspiration for a sermon in the books that we read, but we have learned to relate the contents of the book to our lives, or some national happening. I know I will read John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History before I attempt a little prophetic preaching about the impending pandemic of "bird flu." One can read books, just don't do a book report.
But apparently there is a new cliche genre of Unitarian Universalist sermons. ...
George Packer: Game Plan
George Packer, in a commentary in the Oct 24 issue of the New Yorker called
Game Plan, discusses how the Democrats might succeeed in the 2006 elections.
... As a new book, “Off Center,” by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, points out, Republicans never won the war of ideas—Americans remain almost implacably centrist—but they created a powerful political machine that is tactically shrewder and far richer than that of the Democrats. To overcome these structural disadvantages, the Democrats’ campaign approach needs to be broad and bold. Energy: The Republicans have made America more dependent on foreign oil while gas prices are skyrocketing; the Democrats will push for energy independence. Health care: The Republicans have allowed private companies to eliminate choice while costs go up and millions of Americans lack insurance; the Democrats will enact national coverage that restores choice and holds down costs. Taxes: The Republicans have shifted the burden from the top to the middle; the Democrats will reverse that trend, and will end the Administration’s ruinous fiscal policies. National security: Republican incompetence has squandered our power abroad and failed to make us more secure at home, as the country learned after Katrina; the Democrats will rebuild the armed forces—making it at least possible for the Iraq insurgency to be defeated—and bring competence to homeland security. ...
NYT: Faith and the Court
I've stayed away from putting anything here about the Harriet Miers Supreme Court thing, because everyone else in the world seems to be doing quite a good job. But there's a good op-ed piece in the
New York Times that I had to mention ...
The White House is making a well-publicized shift in its marketing of Harriet Miers, President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court. From now on, the talk is to be about her qualifications rather than her heart, her character or, especially, her religion. It's none too soon. The president's attempt to sell his choice on the basis of her evangelical faith has been offensive. Mr. Bush is all in favor of judges strictly interpreting the Constitution, but he seemed to have forgotten about Article VI. That's where the founders decreed that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office."
The Bush administration has been using religion as code, to communicate reassurance to the right that Ms. Miers will be opposed to abortion and gay rights, and to dodge legitimate questions about her legal philosophy and qualifications. As a result, the American people have no idea whether Ms. Miers thinks there is a constitutional right to privacy or where she stands on the extent of federal powers, but they do know that she was born a Roman Catholic and became an evangelical Christian. They know that she was a longtime member of the Valley View Christian Church, and that she was one of a small number of worshipers who joined its minister, Ron Key, in breaking away and forming the Cornerstone Christian Church because of a disagreement over styles of worship. ...
Scientists Sign Petition Opposing the Teaching of Intelligent Design as Science
PR Newswire reports ...
Archaeologist R. Joe Brandon has organized a massive, four-day online campaign in the scientific community in response to the Discovery Institute's ongoing efforts to include Intelligent Design content in public school science classes. The petition, at
http://www.ShovelBums.org, was circulated between September 28th and October 1st to scientists trained in evolutionary theory and gave them an opportunity to publicly state that Intelligent Design should not be taught in public schools within the science curriculum. The results were overwhelming -- 7,733 signatories, more than half of whom are scientists with Ph.Ds. ...
Church of Reality is an IRS-approved official religion
Thanks to
Boing Boing for pointing us to the
Church of Reality which recently had its 501(C)3 tax exempt status approved by the IRS.
Their Fundamental Concepts section begins ...
Here are some of the principles of the Church of Reality. The Church of Reality is not a dogma based religion. There is no "Bible" in the Church of Reality. But there are some principles that we hold to be true. And this list will change and grow as we continue to learn. Some of these principles may be wrong and all are open to debate.
Pretty honest to admit that your principles might be wrong.
Rev. Jim Wallis on tax cuts and budget cuts
Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners comments on
tax cuts and budget cuts ...
... As I travel the country, diverse audiences of people across the religious and political spectrum agree with the following statement: A time of war, record deficits, rising poverty, and natural disaster is no time to cut taxes mostly for the rich and cut vital services to the poor. The poorest among us must not be asked to bear the cost of fiscal responsibility, deficit reduction, and disaster relief. We must clearly tell our senators and representatives that cuts to social services for poor families are not the way to pay for hurricane relief. We must not help some suffering people by making others suffer more.
When I tell people around the country what congressional leaders in Washington are planning to do with tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for the poor, they are stunned and outraged. "Have they no shame?" is a frequent response. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and all that has been revealed about poverty in America, how can we balance the budget on the backs of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens?
It is time to draw a line in the sand against further tax cuts for the wealthiest and more program cuts for the poorest. Budgets are indeed moral documents. From a biblical point of view, the current congressional priorities are simply wrong and should be changed. It's time for the churches and faith-based organizations working with the poor to tell their elected officials to get their priorities right.
Will other political leaders offer the moral leadership shown by Sen. Chambliss and others? Will those who call themselves Christians or people of faith in Congress pay attention to what their faith tells them about our obligations to the most vulnerable? Perhaps it's time for the members of Congress who like to talk about their Christian faith to dust off their Bibles and take a fresh look at what Jesus said about the poor. Some good Bible studies in the House of Representatives about God's commands for social justice might be just what the political process needs right now. ...
AskPhilosophers.org on gay marriage
A philosopher comments on the subject of gay marriage.
... There was a time, and it was not very long ago, when the contract of marriage essentially gave a man ownership of his wife. A man could not be prosecuted for beating his wife any more than he could be prosecuted for beating his donkey; he could not be prosecuted for raping her (rape itself was so understood that it would have been regarded as impossible by definition for a man to rape his wife); women had essentially no rights as regarded property; and so on and so forth. When marriage is so understood, and when the rights and roles of the two parties are so clearly defined by gender, then it is easy enough to see why marriage must be between a man and a woman. How would you know who owned whom otherwise? But all of that has changed, and we would now regard it, in retrospect, as deeply unjust that women should have been so treated. That is to say, our understanding of the kind of relationship marriage is has changed. ...
Street Prophets: Something To Learn From The Religious Right?
Street Prophets asks if it's possible that the "religious left" in America could become the "mirror image" of the Religious Right.
They quote an article on the Episcopal News Service which says in part
While underscoring the importance of keeping the Episcopal Church an “inclusive” body of believers, former Sen. John Danforth on Thursday cautioned National Cathedral conference-goers against becoming a “mirror image” of the Religious Right.
Danforth, an ordained minister, a former United Nations ambassador and a Republican, spoke at the opening plenary session of the “Values, Vision and the Via Media” conference, a three-day event designed to explore how moderate and progressive people of faith can make their voices heard in a national values debate that many believe has been usurped by conservative Christian groups.
“While the real problem has come from the Religious Right… it’s not impossible that the Religious Left becomes the mirror image of the Religious Right,” said Danforth, who addressed an audience of about 150 in the cathedral Nave. “It’s possible that people on the left can become as equally sure of themselves as people on the right.” ...
Congress Begins Work To Pass Federal Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment
365Gay.com reports that "The Senate Sub Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution will hold hearings today in a new push to amend the Constitution to bar same-sex marriage." ...
Get permission to sing "Happy Birthday" first!
Did you know that "Happy Birthday To You" is copyrighted and the copyright is owned by Time Warner? That means that you need to
get permission from ASCAP to perform it. And if you see if performed, you should notify them of the infringement of their copyright (assuming the performer hasn't already arranged to pay a royalty for its performance, of course).
Every time.
Bill For First Lady
BillForFirstLady.com. Join the campaign. If you dare.
AskPhilosophers.org
Thanks to
Phil Bradley for pointing out
AskPhilosophers.Org. The site says about itself ...
There is a paradox surrounding philosophy that AskPhilosophers seeks to address. On the one hand, everyone confronts philosophical issues throughout his or her life. But on the other, very few have the opportunity to learn about philosophy, a subject that is usually taught only at the college level. (Why? There is no good reason for this and plenty of bad ones.) AskPhilosophers aims to bridge this gap by putting the skills and knowledge of trained philosophers at the service of the general public.
Transient and Permanent: A Nearly UU Statement of Belief
Transient and Permanent says about beliefs listed in the blog message from a surprising source
Divorced from their specific details, they clearly articulate a UU [Unitarian Universalist] framework for life and belief: non-exploitative and responsible relationships; free and joyous expression of humanity; trust in well-informed individual conscience; equality for women, men, and all persons; a family- and community-orientation, within which children are loved and included; passion for change; thirst for justice; care for others; compassion in action; honoring of diversity; a global, not parochial, sense of interconnection; environmentalism; peace; democracy; moral duty.
Red Cross rejects food if it's not from Southern Baptists
According to
People for the American Way,
Aid brought to a Red Cross shelter by PFAW board member Rev. Timothy McDonald’s church was rejected. Why? Unlike the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, McDonald’s First Iconium Baptist Church didn’t have exclusive rights granted through the Red Cross to serve food. ...
Exclusive rights to serve food??
Discovery Institute: Teaching About Intelligent Design Is Constitutional
Here's why the
Discovery Institute thinks that
teaching about intelligent design is constitutional.
Muder: The UU-FAQ VI: Death
Doug Muder's sixth UU-FAQ discusses
Unitarian Universalists and dying.
SeattlePI: Groups threaten to boycott American Girl
SeattlePI reports ...
American Girl, manufacturer of a highly popular line of dolls and children's books, has become the target of conservative activists threatening a boycott unless the toy maker cuts off contributions to a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians.
The protest is directed at an ongoing American Girl campaign in which proceeds from sales of a special "I Can" wristband help support educational and empowerment programs of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit organization which describes its mission as "inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold." ...
The organization threatening the boycott, not surprisingly, is the American Family Association.
Looking for a new career?
This from
Reuters via Yahoo News ...
It was the first day of school, so some students were understandably nervous. But then again, they were not taking just any course, but one run by a Vatican university to teach aspiring demonologists and exorcists.
Apparently it's not absolutely necessary to be a priest to get into the four-month course, called "Exorcism and the Prayer of Liberation".
President Bush's job-approval rating among African Americans is ...
2% !!!
That according to an NBC / Wall Street Journal poll discussed in the Washington Post.
A few months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found Bush's approval rating among blacks at 51 percent. As recently as six months ago, it was at 19 percent.
But Bush's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina -- seen by many blacks as evidence that he didn't care about them ... -- may have brought support for the president in the African American community down to nearly negligible levels.
Fausto: What a Great UU Church Could be
Fausto, over at the Socinian, posits
What a Great UU Church Could Be. His thoughts are based on the fact that both Unitarian and Universalist theology are based upon Christianity.
It's going to raise a lot of disagreement, especially on first reading (except, I would think, from those who consider themselves Unitarian Christians). But it needs to be read slowly, and a couple of times. I don't think he's saying that UU churches need to be "Christian" (Fausto, please correct me if I'm wrong).
Some of the ideas are a little more difficult for me to accept than others. For example,
A church that cherishes and uses the Bible as its first source of moral and spiritual insight, rather than neglecting or disparaging it.
I agree that the Bible is often neglected, if not disparaged, in UU churches. And I agree there's a lot of moral and spiritual insight in it. It's the
first source idea that I'm reflexively gritting my teeth on. Maybe first among equals?
His definition of Humanist as a "as a half-true, half-false heresy" also grates. Perhaps just a little polishing might be in order.
The thing I like about it, overall, is it describes something solid. Maybe I'll bring it to the Mass Bay District meeting this month and distribute it :) (Unless Fausto's planning on coming, of course).
Trey Ellis on a Democratic Agenda
Trey Ellis
comments on reports that Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats will unveil this fall a broad, inspiring Democratic agenda for midterm candidates to run on. Thank goodness someone is taking that need seriously!
On the trickiest question - Iraq - here's what Ellis suggests:
What I would humbly suggest is that we pull out our Ace in the Hole – Bill Clinton. In the platform we should urge the current President to appoint the former President as his special envoy to the Middle East. His tireless work for a Middle-East peace gives him impeccable street cred in the region when the rest of the U.S. government has none. Bill could sit down with the regional players, the Arab League and the U.N. and hammer out an accord where pan-Arab troops would help Iraqis police their streets and train Iraqi troops – Sunnis in Sunni regions, Shiites in Shiite regions. We would still provide an overall umbrella of protection but we would become less of a lightning rod for the insurgents. A stable, peace-loving pan-Arab Iraq is in the best interest of everyone in the region and a pan-Arab solution would bring a face-saving pride to the regional players, allow us to strategically disengage and prove to the world that we have no long-term colonial designs on the region either for oil or for Western-styled secularism.
Bushfish: it's getting worse
Some things have to be seen to be believed:
.
Buy your own car magnet :(
NewDonkey.com on The Politics of Polarization
NewDonkey.com discusses a report entitled
The Politics of Polarization, by the congressionally-focused group
Third Way.
... But the real value of the paper is that it hammers home three fundamental realities of contemporary partisan politics that cannot much be denied: (1) the GOP-engineered polarization of the two parties along ideological lines has made Democrats much more dependent than Republicans on sizable margins among self-identified moderate and independent voters (and thus more vulnerable to base/swing conflicts) (2) George W. Bush's 2004 win was produced as much by persuasion of a sizable minority of moderate voters (particularly married women and Catholics) as it was by mobilization of his conservative "base;" and (3) a changing issues landscape has reinforced the importance of Democratic efforts to deal with chronic negative perceptions by voters on national security and cultural issues--efforts which fell short in 2004.
Huffington: Will Al Gore Be the Anti-Hillary?
Arianna Huffington says ...
It's still three years away but Hollywood is already starting to choose sides for 2008. And two very distinct camps have started to form: those backing Hillary, and those desperately searching for the anti-Hillary. ...
Mass. Bay District: Engaging our Theological Diversity
The Massachusetts Bay District of Unitarian Universalist Churches is having its
Fall Conference on Saturday, October 29. The discussion subject is
Engaging Our Theological Diversity, based on the
2005 UUA Commission on Appraisal Report of the same name.
Earl Holt,the immediate past-Chair of the Commission on Appraisal and the Minister of King's Chapel in Boston, will be the Keynote Speaker. I've heard him say that he wasn't particularly pleased by the final report, so this should be an interesting get-together. The web page says
Through small group discussions we will:
- explore our personal beliefs and values
- develop a deeper understanding of our differences
- find what holds us together.
I'm sure we'll do the first two. Especially the second. I'm fairly sure we won't do the third because I simply don't believe we can figure out what holds us together by studying our differences.
"Commander in Chief" may be a sinister scheme
An
Associated Press via iWon article says that some people believe ABC's "Commander in Chief" isn't just this fall's most-watched new series - it's a sinister scheme by Hollywood lefties to hype Hillary Clinton for the White House. What struck me was James Dobson's (Focus on the Family) argument published in a "CitizenLink" e-mail.
The name of the lead character, 'Mackenzie Allen,' sounds remarkably, poetically like 'Hillary Clinton,' it stated, exercising poetic license.
Wow ... maybe he's right. Mackenzie Allen. Hillary Clinton. Yep ... I can hardly tell them apart.
Iraqi government officials learn from their mentors
The
BBC reports ...
Iraq has issued arrest warrants for 27 senior officials from the US-backed interim government over suspected embezzlement of more than $1bn.
The money was allegedly taken from the defence minister coffers to fund corrupt military procurement deals.
Gotta give us credit ... we trained them well.
Which is Worse?
Please take my
Which Is Worse? survey.
Romney: there are those who ''want to put in place a huge theocracy"
The
Boston Globe reports ...
Venturing into foreign policy, Governor Mitt Romney yesterday told a largely Republican audience that Islamic terrorists "want to bring down our government" and "want to put in place a huge theocracy."
Funny ... I thought that's what the very conservative wing of the Republican party wanted.
Carville: No Kumbayah crap
According to
The Daily Northwestern,
The problem with Democrat campaign speeches is “litany,” and they need more narrative like Winnie the Pooh stories, political consultant and pundit James Carville said.
At a speech sponsored by the Northwestern College Democrats Thursday evening, Carville told the audience that Democratic candidates can’t succeed by shouting out to every group in a crowd. Instead candidates should tell stories with the three elements of any good story — setup, conflict and resolution.
“No Kumbayah crap,” Carville said. ...
Trey Ellis: Who will lead the Democrats?
Trey Ellis, novelist, screenwriter and essayist, wants to know
who will lead the Democrats out of the wilderness.
... Everyone these days has a theory as to why the Democratic Party refuses to actually stand for anything anymore. New York Times columnist David Brooks recently asserted that there are two camps of Dems: the virulent Bush bashers (see John Kerry) and the more-forward-thinking populists (see John Edwards). Conversely Matt Bai in his recent Sunday New York Times Magazine profile of Hilary sees the Democratic rift as between “insiders” and “outsiders.” Outsiders, he explains, are the perpetually angry “netroots” liberal bloggers who froth at the mouth every time the inside-the-beltway “appeasers” make nice with the evil Republican monolith. Senator Obama recently weighed in on the Daily Kos defending the insiders and, as Hilary did before him when she addressed the DLC, asked the hotheaded outsiders to please stop attacking every Democrat who does anything more than lament and obstruct. For my money Salon’s Daou report has done the best job giving color commentary on the struggle for the soul of this Party.
I don’t believe that the dichotomy is so simple. To me, the real problem with the Democratic Party today is that it is a body politic without a head. We have several prospective Presidential candidates for ’08 all acting like NASCAR drivers: nobody wants to be in the lead early, instead they all prefer to draft off the bumper of somebody else. The problem is they’re not just racing each other. The more important race is for the future direction of this country and even though many top Republicans these days are scraping paint off the walls, in perilous danger of crashing, the Democrats aren’t even in the race. ...
One person's take on Harriet Miers
This from Jesus' General.
Jory DesJardins: What Do You Mean, 'We'll See?'
I had to make note of
this blog posting because it talks about two types of people: those who are always on time, and those who bail from committments without so much as an apology.
I've always been one of those people who, at the latest, is on time. Being a minute late to anything would kill me. As she points out, that's a difficult way to be when you're invited to a party which starts at 8pm, because you'll probably be the only person there for the first half hour.
But later in the posting, she says this, which struck a nerve:
I went to a seminar a few years back for people interested in taking on enormously ambitious projects. The instructor made a brilliant distinction. "I really don't care what you feel like doing," she said. She was in the midst of a family emergency and she didn't want to be there with us that day, "But I am committed to being here," she said. I thought of all of the grand plans I've had in my life--the novels, the businesses, the trips with friends and family--and wondered why most of them had never happened. They didn't because, at some point in the planning process I didn't feel like doing something. We don't always feel like making our lives better, but if we are committed to that outcome, we do what we need to anyway.
"It doesn't matter what you
feel like doing." That's one's a keeper.
Kathleen Reardon: Pathological politics
Kathleen Reardon, professor of management at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, has a good article on
pathological politics.
... Then there's the worst kind of political environment -- pathological. Here daily interactions are much like those in highly political climates, but conflict is frequent, fractious and often long-term. There's much distrust, and for good reason. The boss talks almost exclusively with people close to him or her and, out of necessity, people spend a lot of time covering their backs and not wanting to be the bearers of bad news.
Pathological organizations tend to self-destruct, but often not before destroying a lot of good people and resources. The inner circle becomes smaller and smaller during the final stages as trust diminishes even further. Ultimately, nothing is done well because hardly anyone is talking to anyone else and those who are talking aren't sharing crucial information. If the process of self-destruction characteristic of most pathological climates isn't helped along, it can take a very long time and do untold damage. ...
Catholic Church: some parts of Bible, ummm, aren't exactly true
According to
TimesOnline, ...
The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.
The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible. ...
I kinda figured that might be true. This is going to remind an awful lot of literalist Christian fundamentalists why they're not Catholics.
Bush: God told me to invade
The
BBC reports ...
President George W Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals. ...
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'" ...
Did we mistakenly elect a man who we
thought was able to think for himself? Ummmm, wait. My mistake. He was elected by the Supreme Court.
Thanks to Street Prophets for pointing this one out.
Boston Globe: On the backs of the poor
In a editorial, the
Boston Globe says ...
Let's not pretend that the Republican plan to cut Medicaid this fall has anything to do with finding the money to pay for Hurricane Katrina. Congressional leaders floated plans to slash the healthcare program for the poor by $10 billion in April, long before hurricane season. The great urgency then was the need to reduce pressure on the budget created by the war in Iraq and the profligate tax cuts President Bush gave the richest Americans.
Now the hurricane has ripped the lid off shameful poverty in the world's richest nation. New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward was revealed as a kind of urban Appalachia, requiring the same wholesale response Bobby Kennedy's tour through rural Appalachia called forth in the 1960s. It would be ironic and cruel if programs to help poor people elsewhere were sacrificed to repair the lives of the poor people who were in Katrina's path. ...
Van Jones on Bill Bennett
Van Jones, founding director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights,
writes - with footnotes - about Bill Bennett's recent comment that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
... For over a decade, the Justice Department has been working to reduce the racial disparity seen in juvenile arrests and juvenile imprisonment, a fact that underscores the existence of racially disparate arrests and sentences. African American youth arrest rates for drug violations, assaults and weapon offenses are higher than arrest rates for white youth—even though both report similar rates of delinquency. ...
Sinkford: Let Us Begin Again In Love
The Reverend William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, has this
pastoral message.
I write to you as we approach Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for the Jewish people, a time when they seek forgiveness for past mistakes and commit themselves to living moral lives, striving again to have their names written in the Book of Life.
We Unitarian Universalists do not have such an annual holiday of atonement, but I have often wished that we did. I am thinking about atonement particularly during this 200th anniversary year of Hosea Ballou's A Treatise on Atonement. This theological statement of Universalism, asserting that all people are worthy of salvation and may find it if they act in accordance with what they know to be good and moral, has called generations to align themselves so that they stand on the side of love. ...
Gore: something has gone basically and badly wrong
Al Gore
gave a speech on October 5 which starts ...
I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.
How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?
I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack. ...
Thanks to the Associated Press via TPMCafe.
Would Jesus be a Christian?
Ian Greenleigh, writing in
The Daily Texan, observes that while Americans bv and large
say they're Christian, all too often they don't
act like Christians.
... Americans seem to be neglecting the lessons of their savior. In the United States, 18 percent of children live in poverty. Only 8 percent of children in Sweden, whose population is largely nonreligious, are poverty stricken. Ideas such as privatizing Social Security, eliminating welfare and a disdain for public health care are hard to justify from a Christian perspective. If church leaders spent more time inspiring volunteer service and charity in their congregations, and less time blaming others for the ills of society, the United States would be a far better nation. How can individuals call themselves Christian but not make great strides to help those in need?
Consider the fact that 75 percent of us believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a lesson from the Bible. Wouldn't that be a relief if it were? Imagine if Jesus had uttered these words, rather than Benjamin Franklin. It would certainly help to ease the tension between selfish desires and righteousness. Instead, many Christians in the United States choose to adopt this creed as if it was uttered by their savior on the cross. ...
Amen.
Indiana attempts to limit procreation assistance
The
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports on a state bill that would limit procreation assistance ...
Gays, lesbians and single Hoosiers would be prohibited from using medical science to help have a child under a bill being considered by an interim legislative committee.
The legislation puts Indiana in the middle of a national battle over reproductive rights and promises to be contentious.
"If we’re going to try to put Indiana on the map, I wouldn’t go this route," said Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana. "It feels pretty chilling. It is governmental intrusion into a very private part of our lives." ...
Thanks to
ChaliceChick for pointing this out.
NYT: Mrs. Triangulation
Matt Bai, in a
New York Times Magazine article (registration required), discusses where he thinks Hillary really sits.
... In fact, among pundits and strategists of both parties as well as the reporters who cover them, a story line about Clinton has now taken hold, and it goes like this: While she is at heart a more stridently liberal and polarizing figure than her husband, Hillary Clinton is now consciously reinventing herself publicly as a middle-of-the-road pragmatist. According to this theory, she has resolved, along with her cadre of canny advisers, to brazenly "reposition" herself as the kind of soothing centrist that middle-class white voters might actually accept as the first female president. "A couple of weeks ago, certainly a couple months ago, Hillary was off there on the left," Chris Matthews, a reliable gauge of predictable Washington wisdom, told his viewers on MSNBC in May. "We thought of her with Barbra Streisand, Barbara Boxer, Rob Reiner, Chuck Schumer even. Now I see her as sort of part of this drift toward the center."
The problem with this idea, which goes virtually unchallenged in Washington, is that it simply trades one caricature for another. ...
NYT: Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
The
New York Times (registration reguired) reports ...
Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban. ...
