Don't be surprised!

Fool us once, fool us twice, but even the American public is smarter than he thinks. OR maybe not.....

"There is nothing more uncommon than common sense." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

"Force without wisdom falls of its own weight." ~ Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

"Rubber Stamps"

"Our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. I know that we can begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope." ~ Hubert Humphrey

"The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion." ~ Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Independent thought must prevail, once again! We must have discourse. Real, honest, level-headed discourse. Outlaw think-tanks! Look what it has given us, a Karlrovian image of America. Foxnews daily runs a raised "terror" alert across the bottom of the screen and the puppets panic again. Watching Faux News for the news is like buying The Enquirer for sports scores, they ain't there!

We as a nation must address the disparity between the rich and the poor. Close the tax loopholes for the upper 5-10% and large corporations. Stop writing laws to aid and abet drug and insurance companies. When was the last time you tried to get something approved by your insurance company? I have lost all faith in big business, drug companies, and insurance companies within the last six years. Being a baby boomer, I continually face age discrimination in the work place, even though I continue to out work those younger than myself, both physically and intellectually.

We have a moral dilema in our country that is skewed to a "right" driven, not correct driven issue. I've recently heard so called fellow christians complain because they think too much attention has been given to the cartoon flap in Denmark, well if it was Jesus the Danes made fun of they would be just as infuriated as the Muslims. It's just like the election in Palestine, you get what you create. Create hate, you get hate. There is hope out there, new blood, not so dogmatic, not so set in regression, we must re-invent ourselves to regain America we dream about.

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." ~ James A. Baldwin

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." ~ Sinclair Lewis

"Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth - to see it as it is, and tell it like it is - to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth." ~ When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1968, Richard Nixon (yeah, right)

What goes around, does in fact come back around once more. Full circle once again.

IT DOES TRY OUR PATIENCE.......

Faith is all we need.................

"Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right." ~ John Donne

Naaman proved he was a man of faith, yet it took a servant to force him to understand that the obvious is sometimes not only the easiest, but the most appropriate thing to do. Today's Christian must look at the Whole Word. Not just select the few pieces of language that support the political and irrational motive of their inner lust. Yes, I said lust. When one allows their entire being to be overcome by something outside the Will of God, it is lust of a certain kind.

Whether it be focused on cleansing the world of homosexuals, abortionists, or liberals; gaining wealth, imposing your belief on others or out shouting the people across the aisle; or maybe its just not understanding that democracy is freedom for all in their "OWN" land, under their "OWN" elected leaders (whether we saw it coming or not).

According to AP, The Bush administration said Thursday it will ask Congress for $120 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought he declared victory two years ago? Where is the money coming from? Since he has promised to cut taxes once again, during war time, it certainly makes sense, doesn't it? The debt continues to grow, the programs fail, the country slides into despair, people loose faith, wasn't this what it was like when Hoover was in charge?

Our local congregation just under went a severe breakup, because the pastor forgot his main purpose as the shepard his flock: to keep it together and nourish the members. He became self-important, self-serving, self-absorbed. He carried with him about 80 out of 500 plus members. The people that left with him seemed to almost worship "him" instead of God. They became a social club for people that needed like minds, not spiritual uplifting. Vengance is mine says the Lord....

"As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit." ~ Emmanuel Teney

And now: Arlingon, Va.- KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL).
With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The fat just keep getting fatter......

"Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him the longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world." ~ Albert Camus

"In a democracy . . . good will without competence and competence without good will, are both equivalent formulas for political disaster" ~ Theodore H. White

"I tell kids to read like a wolf. Read when they tell you not to read; read what they tell you not to read.” ~ Gary Paulsen

"The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same." ~ Stendal (Marie Henri Beyle), novelist (1783-1842)

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." ~ Albert Einstein

"Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

"All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation." ~ W. H. Auden

I got to get out of here!

Today I went for a short walk to retreive some vitamins from the drugstore. I realized that life has a certain course and deviation from that course is a matter of chance. It all depends on where we get started and what assistance we receive along the way. Some get more assistance than others, some get none at all. The bootstrap philosophy is a myth, in reality, because someone else has to help a person that is pulling their own bootstraps. A person that suceeds gets some kind of help from some where along the way. Be it a mentor, teacher, parent, pastor, friend or benefactor. An interaction must have occured with one of these in a significant way to cause a desired result.

"'Tis one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it." ~ David Hume

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" ~ Robert Browning

"The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friend says behind your back." ~ Alfred de Musset

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." ~ T. H. Huxley

"A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes." ~ T. H. Huxley

"Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning." ~ Karen Horney

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." ~ Mark Twain

"A good novel is possible only after one has given up and let go." ~ Walker Percy

"The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant." ~ Salvador Dali

"A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship." ~ John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

"Throughout history, most of the wrongs of the world have resulted from people absolutely sure they were in the right." ~ Dr. Mardy Grothe

"My life consists in my being content to accept many things." ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them. We are always at the beginning, eternal apprentices." ~ Charles Simic

"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?" "That's against the law!" "Oh. Of course." ~ Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- ) [Fahrenheit 451]

"A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one." ~ Heraclitus

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

"Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being." ~ Martin Heidegger

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together." ~ Eugene Ionesco

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." ~ Thomas Pynchon, writer (1937- )

"A cleric who loses his faith abandons his calling; a philosopher who loses his redefines his subject." ~ Ernest Gellner

"Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government." ~ Jeremy Bentham, jurist and philosopher (1748-1832)

So as I attempt to find my way out of here, go with me along this pathway. The tracks lead forward and back. Neither wrong nor right, however you must choose. For not choosing is also a choice. Follow, stay, or go the other way. The choice is always ours, or so they tell us.

Godspeed.

Quotes for another day

Along the winding roads of the Virginia Blue Ridge sits this reminder of days gone by. Pull up, read the menu, honk your horn, order your food, eat in the car. No Tables! After your meal drive up the hill to the Starlight Drive-In and catch a first run movie on a warm summer night. Both reminders of a time gone by. Enjoy a the night and a flick and some popcorn.

Now for the days business....

"Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me." ~ Bertrand Russell philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

"Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, nor paltered with Eternal God for power." ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), poet laureate, eulogizing the Duke of Wellington.

"In Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular imagination that is fiery and magnificent, and tender; so that those of us who wish to write start with a chance that is not given to writers in places where the springtime of the local life has been forgotten, and the harvest is a memory only, and the straw has been turned into bricks." ~ John Millington Synge

"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing." ~ Kingsley Amis

"Politics is opposed to morality, as philosophy to naïveté." ~ Emmanuel Levinas

"The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think." ~ Søren Kierkegaard

"Liberality consists rather in giving reasonably than much." ~ La Bruyere

"It is sweet to be remembered. But it is often cheaper to be forgotten." ~ Kin Hubbard

"If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions." ~ Buddhist Saying

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" ~ Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)

"I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste." ~ Lucille Ball

"Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another." ~ Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The beloved of the Almighty are the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich." ~ Saadi, poet (1184-1291)

"All our knowledge falls within the bounds of possible experience." ~ Immanuel Kant

"Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!" ~ Henri Frederic Amiel philosopher and writer (1821-1881)

"The will does not choose between good and evil; it is its choice, rather, that makes it good or evil." ~ Karl Jaspers

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, then that of blindfolded fear." ~ Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)