Saturday, February 21, 2009

It is possible for an atheist to believe in faith.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Citizens and the Draft

There was a note today in the newspaper yesterday that legal immigrants who have been in the US over two years will be fast tracked to citizenship if they join the armed forces.

I agree; anyone who fights for our country deserves to become a citizen.

But I think that anyone who is already a citizen of our country (by birth or not) should be required to fight for that country. In other words, I am for the draft and against a volunteer army.

A voluntary army distances the citizenry from the reality of war.

Citizen voters who vote for war (or allows their representatives to vote for it) should have a life direct stake in the life and death options of a war.

A war should be fought by you and me; by your kids, friends, husbands and wives. When we all be eligible to go to war, that properly raises the consciousness and stakes in making the decision whether to go to war in the first place.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Fakery

With the orchestration by the league and the players of the co-MVP award to Kobe Bryant and Shaq O'Neal in the NBA All-Star game, the pro-basketball league exhibited it's evolving nature into a pro-wresting league, with outcomes determined to please the fans and the leagues marketing intent. A travesty; at least Kobe had the class to be embarrassed by having to stand there with O'Neal.

Friday, February 13, 2009

To Bacchus

Dear Bacchus,
god of wine,
who reigned supreme
long before
valium
zoloft
and vicodin,
I raise my cup to thee
eternal
majestic God of
calm (freedom from pain).
With your natural sources
"from the vine came the grape..."
long before lab's chemistry,
you calm me
more than
today's synthetic truth.
Wine's ancient mysterious sources
knew more
than molecular truth.
All truth is chimera, true;
but,
forever knowing,
forever kneeling,
then as now,
I bow to wine's eternal effectiveness.
I raise my glass to thee,
Bacchus,
Dear Bacchus, loving Bacchus,
God of peace.

"If a bank is too big to fail, it's too big to exist."

"Life is a good idea."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Economic Looking Glass

"...financial markets are like the mirror of mankind, revealing every hour of every working day the way we value ourselves and the resources of the world around us.
It is not the fault of the mirror if it reflects our blemishes as clearly as our beauty."


NIALL FERGUSON in his " The Ascent of Money".

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Jonathan Winters:

"I couldn't wait for success, so I started without it."

Israel's 'Right' to Exist

The radical Middle East asks a question: "Does Israel have the right to exist?"

Let us frame the question in another way: "Has Israel earned the right to exist".

The question of Israel's continuing existence is a matter (the question/answer) of Israel's ability (or inability) to get along with their neighbors, which has been going on for the last sixty years. The core issue is this: has Israel squandered the great gift--a proper, deserving and generous gift, I might add--that the world (through the UN) gave the Jews after the horrible Holocaust of World War II? That is the central question which lies at the core of Israel's continuing existence: Israel's obligation to itself (and the world) is to find an answer/solution to the question of neighborliness.

Friday, February 06, 2009

The Sins of Our Fathers

Niall Ferguson, in his book, "The Assent of Money": "Every shock to the financial system must result in casualties."

We've had the (sub-prime) shock and the 2008/9 casualties are: the investor class is reeling (and reacted by freezing up credit). Home owners who got homes based on sub-prime loans are defaulting. And there is a business and employment recession.

The new administration is trying to lessen a spreading casualty rate of the recession/depression by asserting today that we must accept trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future: so that borrowed money can go to bailing out financial institutions, helping defaulting mortgagees with lower interest loans, and investing in infrastructure to create and save jobs.

A cynic's question: Is this stimulus package just more of the same thing that got us into this mess? Is the administration simply and erroneously postponing the inevitable (and proper) generational casualty effect caused by that generation's (and earlier generation's) financial mismanagement--one that that generation (and its greed) benefited from and caused; and should therefore now rightfully accept is their punishment and cost to bear (in a much more modest living style, for example)?

Or is this 'boomer' generation simply (and unfairly) passing their profligacy/casualty onto the next generations of their grandchildren and children, a conscious, willful and still greedy financial version of "The sins of the [debt-addicted] fathers are passed on to the sons" (rather than absorbed themselves)?

I thought we were 'hoping' for 'Obama-change'?

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

A Taste from Heaven

Snow
gently freezing rain upon the tongue
of Sofia.
On the way to school with Mommy.
Hand in hand.
Footsteps in white
announcing
my tall girl and her soon-to-be
taller girl
on their way to Two Rivers.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Nothing reveals truth better than laughter.

Happy New Year. I'm back.