School Girl Crushes

Ditto what this post says about Obama- Not a crush exactly -- great admiration.... although I did have that one dream a couple of years ago and made the mistake of telling C about it and now everytime we're watching TV together and Senator Obama comes on, he says "there's your man" ;~)

And then yesterday I read about another HUGE crush almost endorsing him:

"In the current presidential race, "there are two really good Democratic candidates for president. I admire and respect them both enough to wait and see what happens." But while he won't endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama yet, he specifically praises the latter, who cited Springsteen as the person he would most like to meet in a recent interview with People. ( I KNEW IT - HE HAS GREAT TASTE!! -we have so much in common ;~)

"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," Springsteen says. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? How do we create a more humane society? We've lived through such ugly times that people want to have a romance with the idea of America again, and I think they need to.

"The hard realities and how things get done are important, too, but if you can effectively convince people that it's possible to make things better, they get excited."

Just as an aside... Speaking of crushes... Here's my current movie star crush ... James McAvoy. I just saw Atonement and loved it... I just wanted the whole movie to be about him. (I still love the book WAY more than the movie, even though they did a pretty good job translating it to film). That said, the Library scene was absolutely fantastic!!

I highly recommend "Last King of Scotland" -great performances and Mr. McAvoy's was outstanding- the character. I've also seen him in the "Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", but I want to see more. He's got a shoot-'em-up movie with Angelina Jolie coming out soon. I hope it doesn't ruin him for me. I'll probably see it anyway. ALso there was an article by Maureen Ryan in the Trib about a UK TV series that he was in, "State of Play" so I'm going to see if that's on Netflix.

(pic by Lee Bromfield from here)

Sunny D

Remember to Get your vitamin D !!

" In a study of 1,739 Boston-area residents reported last month, rates of heart attack, stroke and heart failure were about 50 percent higher in those with low levels of vitamin D.In addition to strengthening bones, muscles and joints, high vitamin D levels have been linked with lower rates of colon, prostate, breast, esophageal and pancreatic cancer.Harvard scientists found that high levels of vitamin D reduced children's odds of developing asthma, while researchers in Pittsburgh reported that pregnant women with low vitamin D had greater risk of preeclampsia, a dangerous form of high blood pressure.Vitamin D also appears to be one of the reasons multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases are twice as common in Northern versus Southern states. Washington's rate of MS, which causes nerve damage, is one of the highest in the nation."

Wikipedia

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

Of course a trip to Mexico would be great too....!

The Motherhood drive

Update on previous post about surrogate mothers and the motherhood "imperative" /drive:

Meghan Daum (in response to the Atlantic article by Lori Gottlieb):

".... I don't really blame Gottlieb for the premise; she's merely reflecting the values of her culture. And I don't mean the affluent, urban, progressive culture suggested by the details she provides about her romantic quandaries. I'm talking about the way baby hunger has become such a consumer force in this country that some women want a baby in the same way they want a Louis Vuitton bag because they've been told to want one.

Most people eventually want to become parents. But in the 21st Century, there is no good reason to see childbearing as an inevitable extension of a committed partnership or even as an ordained personal ambition. Instead, we need to view it for what it is: a profoundly important and difficult job that should be undertaken only by those who have the will and temperament to do it.

Because we're biologically programmed to take on that job -- or at least fill out the application -- it's unlikely we'll run out of humans. And by all means, if you're truly listening to yourself rather than buying society's relentless parenthood sales pitch, have a child, find a mate or both.

But when it comes to Gottlieb's case for "settling" -- for doing that at all costs -- I can't help but wonder if what's missing from the prototypical unhappy single woman's life isn't a man or a baby but an imagination. There are infinite ways to define a fulfilling life. Why enshrine the one whose accompanying illustration shows a marriage certificate and a baby stroller? Talk about settling."

So now I'm going to read the Gottlieb article after reading so much about it..... hmm. Well now that I've actually read it I agree with a lot of it. In fact I think I should send this to my single brother, who is 32, very handsome and has a job he loves (as a detective!). Knowing myself I really don't think that I would have accepted not becoming a mother -either biologically or by adoption. Even when I was in my early 20's I felt a really strong pull to be a Mom - I couldn't imagine then or now having a fulfilled life without becoming a Mother. I was settled in my career by that point and was sick of dating and tired of the never ending focus on SELF. ( I guess I wasn't in a voluteer/activist mode at that point). Anyone who knew me at the time could honestly say I settled for the wrong guy 'status-wise', but I was totally in love and quite naive. Even with the tears and drama of a divorce now in retrospect I can say I'm glad it happened this way. Its nice to point out now that women don't have to become mothers to have a fulfilling life, but I think that a very large majority of women desire this experience not just because of the social or status reasons - its certainly biological but also more than that. Its your investment in the future, a loving intimacy and history that you'll share with a child. Its about love. Its about experiencing childhood again. Its a herculian and yes, imaginative lifelong effort. A challenge that I would not personally choose to miss out on and have been blessed not to have faced that ticking-clock situation.

Hence - the compromises she discusses.

"They believe that part of the problem is that we grew up idealizing marriage—and that if we’d had a more realistic understanding of its cold, hard benefits, we might have done things differently. Instead, we grew up thinking that marriage meant feeling some kind of divine spark, and so we walked away from uninspiring relationships that might have made us happy in the context of a family.

All marriages, of course, involve compromise, but where’s the cutoff? Where’s the line between compromising and settling, and at what age does that line seem to fade away? "

Protestant decline in US

Interesting (USN&WR)

" But now Protestants are on the verge of becoming a statistical minority in the U.S., according a study released today. Whereas nearly two thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestant as recently as the 1980s, only 51 percent identify as Protestant today, the study found."

That's a big change in less than 30 years. I think the revulsion to the tactics of the Religious Right may be why more people are defining themselves as "unaffliliated". I'm pretty sure Lutherans are considered "mainline" even though we have E- for Evangelical in our name (ELCA).

I saw this quote as the intro to a book I picked up at the library ( Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq):

" Remeber those who are in prison,
as though you were in prison with them;
those who are being tortured,
as though you yourselves were being tortured". (Hebrews 13:3 ,NRSV)


Update: A follow up in the 2/26 Trib with a graphic

Siegelman - political prisoner

Yeah Andrew's back from vacation... Per Scott Horton at Harper's, I watched the 60 minutes episode last night and thought it was really good. I hope that Congress will hold contempt hearings on Rove not testifying and that this case gets the honest review that is so obviously needed.... We'll see. I suspect that everyone is just waiting breathlessly for President Bush's last term to be over next January, but I think there might be repurcussions for years to come...

Letter to the Trib Editor re FISA / PAA

I love the Trib but their editorials make me so angry sometimes... particularly today:

"If there ever were a time when this nation sought to be certain its spy agencies were operating at peak efficiency, this is it. Actually, there isn't a time when we'd want anything less. But something less is what we have at the moment, thanks to the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House.

Last week, the House left on recess without voting to renew a crucial terrorist surveillance bill. What does that mean to America's spies? It won't immediately interrupt wiretapping cases against terror targets already approved. But it could prevent authorities from opening new cases under the expanded powers they've had since last August. Any new targets now will be forced to go through an earlier, more cumbersome standard."

Here's my reply- I just emailed in to ctc-TribLetter@Tribune.com :

To the Editor:

Regarding your editorial “A dangerous spy caper” (Feb 22) you ask the US House not to “play chicken” with the nation’s security and renew the Protect America Act with provisions for Telecom immunity. Perhaps you might consider that the President is the one “playing chicken” with our security? If he truly felt that the American People were imminently endangered by the expiration of PAA he would have signed the bill without the telecom immunity provisions. Are the telecom corporations' legal bills more important than our collective safety? Would they really drag their feet to comply with future legal requests? If so then that would be a future enforcement issue the executive branch has a duty to carry out. But perhaps the critical issue in this legislation for President Bush is his hope that no legal cases can be pursued whereby the public could learn the true depth of the surveillance dragnet he asked the Telecoms to put in place… This is not necessarily about “punishing” telecom companies that did what they were asked to do, its fundamentally about finding out WHAT they were asked to do. It’s about the Executive Branch of Government protecting itself from the checks and balances of Congressional and Judicial review, not just about protecting the telecoms.

You may call it “playing chicken”, I call it defending the Fourth Amendment from a Big Brother surveillance state. It is the key law American citizens have to protect themselves from Government power. This is what the Fourth Amendment says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”

If the Executive Branch will not uphold this part of the Constitution because they view it as insufficient to fight terrorism in the 21st Century electronic frontier, then they need to step forward and advocate amending the Constitution, not just asking for a bad bill that may in effect be unconstitutional anyway.

In our quest for physical safety from terrorists are we willing to live with the subdued but real terror of a weakened Constitution, weakened habeas corpus laws, and a government that has recently admitted to torture? These are the other “terrors” we need to be vigilant against while in pursuit of terrorists. The democratic freedom provided in the 4th Amendment is in essence one of the most highly valued democratic freedoms Americans ask our Government (all 3 branches, including the our Soldiers in Iraq) to fight FOR, not against. Let's not take it for granted. If this is important to you, tell your Congressman or Congresswoman.

Who is the Terrorist?

re FISA "Protect America Act" expiration & telecom immunity.... "Ditto"

(linked from Scott Horton at Harpers.org )

LOST

Yep I admit it, I'm a "LOSTIE". OMG I just watched (lunch break!) last week's episode online - its was awesome. I can't wait to find out what happens next....

Here's a great recap of the beginning from multiple characters' perspectives. Very cool. This is pretty much the only show I watch on TV. Its addictive....

Art--> Voice for Tortured Detainees

Artist Daniel Heyman "Abu Ghraib Detainee Interview Project" -showing at DePaul Art Museum thru' May 4th

from here to here to here to here

" When asked, I'll sometimes say I'm writing about torture, but I've found that when I say the word torture, many go glassy-eyed, as if I had just dropped a stone into a deep, deep well. When asked, I'll sometimes say I'm writing about the way photographs are a type of dream, or I'll say that I'm writing a memoir of bewilderment, and leave it at that, but what I mean is the bewilderment of what it is to wake up in an America that has legalized torture. (p.3)" Nick Flynn, Esquire- Feb 08

The New Abolitionists

So last night my neighbor Bob and I went to hear a speech at Wheaton College by Jim Wallis- he is promoting his new book, "The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America" . I really enjoyed it, and I just ordered the book on Amazon today. I had never heard of this man before, because I haven't really been reading religious blogs all that often. Anyway, I was really impressed -although I'll admit that I'm easily impressible. The room was packed, young and old. I believe this is the voice I've been looking for when I made this comment on an earlier post " this is what every pastor should be preaching". Here's a taste from a recent interview with my favorite TV interviewer, John Stewart on the Daily SHow:


oh here's another one I found from 3 years ago!




I'll update later after I've had a chance to read the book. Here are some notes/references I jotted down during the speech:

-referencing other great movements such as abolition, women's sufferage, child labor, civil rights-- we will be the new abolitionists against poverty and inequality, it will take time!
- flourishing churches (high growth) in failing cities -->concept of parish neighborhood where inner-city churches accept responsibility for what happens in their 12 blk radius
- politics of the common good, challenges selective moralities of Left vs Right
- politicians do not change history, social movements change politics
- "evangel" --> root word for Good News, Luke 4:18- Jesus' first public speech/ mission statement: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor"
- hob nobbing & working with Bono and Bishop Desmond Tutu
- Big Choice: Hope vs Cynicsm - Hope is a decision " believing in spite of evidence --> then watching the evidence change". Christians -prisoners of Hope
- Justice Revivals this summer, sojo.net

PADS

My church supports DuPage Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS). Every 3rd Monday we provide food for the homeless. It was really cold outside last night. I got there late ~ 6:45 and most of the guests were inside already. I wish there was a more permanent solution to homelessness that we could wave a magic wand and everyone would have a place to stay....

J & her friend S helped me carry in the stuff I voluteered to bring this month:

-a big pan of baked mac & cheese
- a cocunut bundt cake w lime/yogurt/confectioner's sugar glaze and toasted coconut on top -very tropical I thought for a night below 10 degrees! (next time I'll take a picture!)

- 3 liters of Diet pop

I love to bake so its actually fun to make desserts and then not have to gain the calories by having it around the house to tempt me!

Press self-censorship - Ministry of Truth

Regarding a post last week, here a link to an article with some more good examples of self-censorship in the press:

Yikes he's right I DIDN'T know that Butz said such a bigotted inflammatory, dispicable thing (Christopher Hitchens- Slate.com). Hey I'm all for free un-PC speech because people who say things like this eventually will put their own foot-in-mouth or "shoot themselves in the foot". I had only previously heard of Butz as the guy (Sec. of Agriculture) who started us all down the path to being corn/petroleum consumers in the 70's (High Fructose Corn Syrup). I know its not nice to speak ill of the dead, but UGH, what a pig!

Unluckiest of the Unluckiest

Nicholas Kristof- NYT

"Most Americans, including myself, originally gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the inmates truly were “the worst of the worst.” But evidence has grown that many are simply the unluckiest of the unluckiest."

Sami Al-Hajj
Amnesty International appeal - I wrote letters to Guantanamo in December

The Barber of Seville

C's sister gave us tickets to see the Barber of Seville at the Lyric. We saw the opening night performance. This was my very first opera and I enjoyed it very much.

HR 2082 Torture veto?

I just sent this out to my friends, family and some people from my church:

Hi All :

In addition to prayers, I believe some phone calls and emails are needed to influence President Bush's position on maintaining his current policy on torture. He plans to veto this bill which in part would require that CIA interrogators follow the rules the Army already has against torture.

http://www.votesmart.org/issue_keyvote_detail.php?cs_id=16703&can_id=6382
" Mandates that no person in the custody or within the control of an element of the intelligence community, regardless of that individual’s physical location or nationality, shall be “subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations” (Sec. 327)."

More background:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/february/23.32.html?start=1
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002305

I pray, we pray, for forgiveness for what we have done - but also for what we have LEFT UNDONE. We are blessed to live in a country where we still have input into its decisions. This may be small input but whatever - - individually or together we must say what we believe!! I believe torture is morally wrong and the people in government who represent me (Senators, Congressman, President) have heard my small plea.

Sincerely,

L

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:05:02 -0500
From: nrcatlist@nrcat.org
To: ___
Subject: Major victory and please contact the White House

TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE

To Supporters of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

Dear Friends:

We have good news. Earlier this week, on a 51-46 vote, the Senate passed important anti-torture legislation that would prohibit all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, from engaging in torture or other so-called "harsh" interrogation techniques. This bill has already passed the House of Representatives and now it only needs the President's signature to become law.

This is an enormous victory, and it is in part due to your efforts and the efforts of NRCAT. By emailing and calling your Senators, you made it clear to them that the American people expect Congress to take a clear stand against torture.

Unfortunately, however, the President has already said that he plans to veto the bill rather than sign it into law. If he does so, he will repudiate the will of both houses of Congress and of the American people. Worse, he will keep us an immoral and destructive path.

We ask you to call the White House at 202-456-1111, or to email the President at comments@whitehouse.gov to express your support for H.R. 2082 (the Intelligence Authorization bill). Tell the President that we cannot win the war on terror by abandoning the values that made us great, and that he can help return us to those values by signing H.R. 2082.

Sincerely,

Linda Gustitus, President, NRCAT
Richard Killmer, Executive Director, NRCAT

Ministry of Truth

This was a good article I just read on Salon.com by Michael Massing

In his reflections on politics and language, Orwell operated on the assumption that people want to know the truth. Often, though, they don't. In the case of Iraq, the many instruments Orwell felt would be needed to keep people passive and uninformed -- the nonstop propaganda messages, the memory holes, the rewriting of history, Room 101 -- have proved unnecessary. The public has become its own collective Ministry of Truth -- a reality that, in many ways, is even more chilling than the one Orwell envisioned.

Several books were mentioned in the article that I've added to my To-Read list... stories from soldiers and journalists who have been there and see the profound damage to the civilian Iraqi population. I feel sorry for the soldiers too -first having to deal with this extremely stressful situation of kill or maybe be killed, but also that nobody pays attention to the psychological damage they're going through when they get back home.

Shooting at Northern (NIU)

So sad... very very sad. Its awful when it happens ANYWHERE and this really feels too close to home.

(Updated with graphic on 2/26- I saw this in the Trib on 2/19. Artist: Scott Stantis -Birmingham News)

Happy Valentine's Day

Wow- I just got an envelope in the mail from J's school... and I opened it up and read this. Yeah! How wonderful to be thanked for being her mom. I love her so much!

Marv Reznik -Rest in Peace

In the Tribune today, an obituary of an acquaintance I met while working at Gift of Hope. Marv was an organ donation advocate who spoke eloquently at many public events GOH hosted and also at in-services I held for nurses and doctors to encourage them to be thinking of donation as an opportunity for helping families to deal with the loss of a loved one. He was the only person I had met who was both a donor family member (his son died in a car accident) AND a recipient of a organ as well. He was a really great guy. Very funny - a wonderful sense of humor. Of course I don't meet that many funeral directors (thank goodness) - but up until that point I had never expected to meet a funeral director with such a great sense of humor. I guess you could say he had a zest for life and it was infectious.

He will be missed tremendously by the local organ donation advocacy/community.

Low- Carb

So I'm almost done reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes - very interesting. I've read almost every popular diet book out there in the last 15 years. This goes back to advocating the high-protein low-carb method. Last week I decided to try it out and see what happens during Lent. I'll report back the day after Easter. (I certainly don't want this to be a diet blog.)

I will say this book was super heavy on the Science - not a regular diet book - it has tons of references and studies which have been bunked and de-bunked. I love to read that stuff, but probably a lot of other general readers may not. A basic premise is that we've been sold a bill of goods since the 1970's that low fat is the best way to avoid obesity and heart disease. He lays out a strong case that it simply isn't true.

I found this online that summarizes his points rather well:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/interviews/taubes.html

Science tries hard not to be political - but it is.

Two other books good in this vein are Protein Power and The Zone.

classic Jon Stewart

This about sums it up.... When you feel like crying, its good to laugh. I know I'm fixated on this issue... I just can't believe these heinous acts and acts of hypocracy continue to stand. Evil.

Here's another good summary from Dahlia Lithwick at Slate.com.

Fingerprinting Americans who travel to the EU

The European Union's top justice official proposed Friday to replicate U.S. border security measures in Europe with plans to fingerprint and electronically record the entry and exit of all visitors to the 27-nation bloc.

Oceana, indeed... its all coming together.

WaPo:
" What for? Does this actually make the world a safer place?"
The Bush administration says it does.

"Not only do we support these measures, we applaud them," said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. "Measures like fingerprint and passenger-data collection can disrupt the ability of terrorists to move easily across international borders. They also serve to protect American citizens traveling overseas."

DHS already has a database of 85 million sets of fingerprints collected, for instance, from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at the border for criminal violations, or for U.S. citizens adopting a child overseas. The FBI is building a huge biometric database for criminal justice purposes. All are supposed to be built to the same standards so data queries can be easily exchanged.
The "common ambition across the Atlantic," the European official said, is to achieve "as much interoperability as possible," through common technical standards for fingerprints and facial images..... "

I really don't want to do this when I travel.... The Euros already do when they come here...

We're screwed on Privacy

We're screwed on Privacy, the Senate caves.





" Analogously, in 1973, The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for its work in uncovering the Watergate abuses, and that led to what would have been the imminent bipartisan impeachment of the President until he was forced to resign in disgrace. By stark and depressing contrast, in 2006, Jim Risen, Eric Lichtblau and the NYT won Pulitzer Prizes for their work in uncovering illegal spying on Americans at the highest levels of the Government, and that led to bipartisan legislation to legalize the illegal spying programs and provide full-scale retroactive amnesty for the lawbreakers. That's the difference between a country operating under the rule of law and one that is governed by lawlessness and lawbreaking license for the politically powerful and well-connected. "

RTWT- Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

Misc reads today

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008/02/biofuels_cause_global_warming_/

http://pruningshears.squarespace.com/pruning-shears/2008/2/7/the-new-authoritarians.html
ooh looks like I stumbled upon another cool blog

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/timeline_don_siegelman_1126.htm
And I thought Illinois politics was bad... political persecution in AL

Mitt "Rudy G" Romney drops out

Romney just dropped out....

....and if he fought on all the way to the Republican convention, " I forestall the launch of a national campaign and frankly I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

He's saying voting democratic is a Surrender to Terror... Surrender to Terror!!??? OMG!! WTF? That takes the cake.

This race is getting clearer and clearer by the day. McCain wants to stay in for a 100 years. Frankly I'm starting to worry about my 11 year-old nephew being drafted in 6 or 7 years. God help us.

Surrender to Hope - - - -

Scott Horton at Harper's is brilliant. This is what every pastor should be preaching. How these politicians can look themselves in the mirror is truly beyond me!

The accounts that remain of Paul’s life are of course fragmentary, and in particular we have no more detail on the legal proceedings against him. Clearly from the perspective of the Romans he was viewed as an instigator connected with a radical and dangerous religious organization. But this story offers some astonishing parallels to the dilemma America faces today. Only today the great empire struggling to maintain order and wielding torture as a tool is America, and the radical religious movement that is caught in the crosshairs and that it seeks to suppress is Islamic. Of course we are linked to that community which formerly suffered persecution and torture at the hands of the Romans, we are their successors. And it behooves us to recall the cord that links us over time.

Read the whole thing!

DuPage is turning Blue

Woo-HOO!!

I just got off the phone with Amy and she said the results of the PC "write-in's" will not be announced until Feb. 26. She said this story was in the Daily Herald-- Front Page-- above the fold today.

For the first time in anyone's recollection, Democratic voters have outnumbered their GOP counterparts at DuPage County polls.

Nearly 55 percent of all voters pulled Democratic ticket ballots Tuesday, according to the DuPage County Election Commission data. More than 132,000 residents voted Democrat to the GOP's 109,132 voters.

Very Cool. I guess I wasn't the only one feeling so much frustration. I'm really glad I joined the effort this fall. I am going to do my best to get everyone to come out and vote in my precinct this fall!

Spying on Americans

Kevin Poulson at Wired.com :

As first reported by Wired.com, the software, called a "computer and internet protocol address verifier," is designed to infiltrate a suspect's computer and collect various information, including the IP address, Ethernet MAC addresses, a list of open TCP and UDP ports, running programs, operating system type and serial number, default browser, the registered user of the operating system and the last visited URL, among other things.

That information is sent covertly to an FBI computer in Quantico, Virginia. The CIPAV then monitors and reports on all the target's internet use, logging every IP address to which the machine connects.

While the FBI FOIA official did not remark on the quantity or details of the CIPAV affidavits, it's likely the surveillance requests were granted Through the end of 2004, the court approved 18,761 warrants, and rejected only five. It approved 2,072, in 2005, and 2,181 in 2006, rejecting none. Five were withdrawn before a ruling.

OK everybody - this is really happening.... And these are just the ones they get rubber-stamp "permission" for. Our voices need to be heard to protest this... call your Congressman and Senators.

Super Tuesday

It WILL be SUPER if my man Obama pulls out a good night! (credit to cartoonist Mort Gerberg)

I voted today. It felt like a holiday to vote for someone I really like. I wish everyone in the world had this privilege. I'll find out soon if the PC (precinct committeeman) thing worked out or not. I called people on my registered democrat list last night...my friend BW pointed me to this show on the PBS show "NOW" with David Brancaccio this past weekend. I think voters in DuPage County would find this really interesting. Watch it here:

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/405/video.html

Yeah for Amy!! you go girl!! (her part starts about 11 min. in)

Michael "Peter & the Wolf" McConnell

Glenn Greenwald rocks!- tell it:



This is really, really scary. We better forget about checks and balances and oversight and restraints of any kind and everything else and just make sure that the President can spy on our emails and telephone calls with no oversight, otherwise Al Qaeda is going to slaughter us in our Homeland. And we also better make sure that telecommunications corporations don't have consequences when they break the law, otherwise we're doomed, because Al Qaeda is coming.



blah blah not scared of Al-Qaeda. Maybe I should be but my ears are closed listening to this crap. I'm more scared of phone and email tapping. I think I'll send an email to my ex-husband's family in Tunisia right now. Hello NSA!

Ethical seriousness without self-absorption

Remember this!

What I’ve always liked about the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith is that it leads, or ought to lead, to a kind of self-forgetfulness. D.M. Baillie identifies the distinctive teaching of Christianity as the “paradox of grace.” This paradox is that we are most free when God’s grace is acting in and through us, and that, though we are responsible beings, we can’t take credit for our good actions. “Not I…but the grace of God in me” is the proper attitude of the Christian. Luther, in his Freedom of a Christian, points out how justification by faith frees us from concern with our own standing before God and frees us for service to our neighbor.

That’s the key I think. Service to our neighbor (and I would include all of creation there), not self-betterment, is the test for our ethics. There have been movements within Christianity which have been at times morbidly introspective. But it’s hard to think of something more pointless than constantly taking your spiritual and moral temperature. Not that we should avoid self-examination, confession, and repentance, but that we should sit a bit lightly to our quest for “sanctification.”

RTWT! I have to remember to come back to this blog... very interesting.

SERVE. Lent is upon us tomorrow.

Against Marriage?

Against marriage (since 1966!)

" Even when subjected to the enormous strains I have described, the habits, customs, traditions, and taboos that make up our courtship and marriage cycle are uncommonly resistant to change. Here and there creative and courageous individuals can and do work out their own unique solutions to the problem of marriage. Most of us simply suffer without understanding and thrash around blindly in an attempt to reduce the acute pain of a romance gone sour. In time, all of these individual actions will show up as a trend away from the old and toward the new, and the bulk of sluggish moderates in the populations will slowly come to accept this trend as part of social evolution.

I wish I had not rushed into being married. I wish that I had not been so naive at age 26. I don't necessarily think that the institution of marriage is doomed to failure I just think that people need to go into it with more REALISTIC expectations. I think marriage is the best institution in which to raise children, our beloved next generation. But you have to really know who that person is. Love and expectation about what it means to be an "adult" can blind you. I don't know that anyone could have stopped me from making a big mistake based on the info and societal expectations I felt at the time, but I wish someone would have told me the realities of marriage beforehand. I don't necessarily think living together first is the best option either. I just think no body prepares you for the hard times and unlimited compromises - especially if you come from a relatively happy two-parent household! I hope my worldview doesn't jade my daughter J from the benefits of finding "true love" - but she will know that it doesn't always work. And I will tell the same thing to my nieces. Go to college, find a career you really enjoy, be prepared to take care of yourself and your kid if it doesn't work out. Also I will tell them never underestimate the force of societal expectations that work against your personal happiness. That said, the outcome of my failed marriage, was a freedom from my previous definition of a failed marriage as personal failure,... and best of all, one very awesome kid! Yeah for J - I love her so much.

Finally, I can't believe this was written in 1966 !! ( a good year for bein' born) . Ahead of its time. (BTW Have I mentioned lately how much I love -platonically!- Mr. Sullivan - he always finds these cool topics!) My heart belongs to Mr. Shannon. And he doesn't want to marry me... but I know he loves me.
" many should be encouraged to carry out their own creative experiments in living together in a relationship that is wholly voluntary. If the demands of society to conform seem overwhelming, the couple should know that simply to be defined by others as married will elicit married-like behavior in themselves, and that is precisely what they want to avoid. How do you marry and yet live like gentle lovers, or at least like friendly roommates? " (especially if you aren't going to have kids together... I'm sure everyone at my church would disagree)

As my favorite songwriter sings, "spare parts and broken hearts keep the world turnin' ....around".