quotes and musings

Governor Hayley Barbour and the Prisoners

2012-01-12T10:43:00.000-05:00

Governor Hayley Barbour did what I've always wanted to do. He opened the prison doors for nearly 200 prisoners. For years I have fantasized that I could somehow fly to the prison gates, open it, and tell the astonished prisoners that they were free to go. He stepped outside of the circle and did what no one else had the power to do. Give the state's forgiveness. There is a lot of "outrage"

does it matter where the finger is pointing?

2012-01-05T15:00:00.000-05:00

From an interview in an Alaska Catholic newspaper, Fr. William Meninger talks about Centering Prayer. http://www.catholicanchor.org/wordpress/archives/5537 How do the creeds and dogmas of the church bear on the practice of contemplative prayer? Does it matter whether the practitioner denies essential elements of the faith? Does it matter where the finger is pointing? If you want to go to the

the dance of the pen

2012-01-05T08:06:00.001-05:00

another thing, not to lose: http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/aug2003/features/dance_of_pen/index.html

what kind of Buddhist was Steve Jobs, really?

2012-01-05T07:24:00.001-05:00

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/10/28/what-kind-of-buddhist-was-steve-jobs-really/ I need to come back to this. Putting it here so that I don't forget. One of the books that inspired Jobs to become interested in the process of "using the mind to watch the mind" was Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama who led a group of monks over the

cutting through the tangled knots of lies ...

2012-01-01T08:10:00.001-05:00

http://homiliessermonsharangues.blogspot.com/2011/12/iraq-war-is-over-sort-of.html Tom Cornell’s blog Saturday, December 31, 2011 The Iraq War Is Over -- Sort Of Captain James, the son of the Bellameys in the "Upstairs Downstairs" BBC series comes home from World War I disillusioned. He knows the war is a massive criminal waste. He is at his wits’ end to process his bitterness. But when dear

All the way to heaven is heaven

2011-12-31T06:38:00.000-05:00

"Howling is the noise of hell, singing the voice of heaven; sadness the damp of hell, rejoicing the serenity of heaven. And he that hath not this joy here, lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joys of heaven; and hath neglected or refused that earnest, by which God uses to bind his bargain, that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of heaven, as a river flows into the

christmas is for children

2011-12-22T06:24:00.001-05:00

From my friend, Esther Brown, who advocates for, and accompanies, the men on Alabama's Death Row: CHRISTMAS IS FOR CHILDREN Those among us who feel too sophisticated to be childlike during this season often say that Christmas is for children. For the sake of argument let me appear to agree with them. If Christmas really is for children then I hope you will open your heart to the children

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

2011-12-17T07:35:00.001-05:00

From the NY Times: "it was “impossible for me to imagine having my life without going to those parties, without having those late nights, without that second bottle.”" Don't you just love the spiritual HEALTH of that statement? Christopher Hitchens unwaveringly trusted in WHAT IS, without getting mired in the muck of God-talk. He faced his death totally trusting the the integrity of

“I wanted to show the dignity of the people who live there, their beauty”

2011-12-06T07:36:00.001-05:00

Andre Cypriano's photos of the people who live in the Rio Slum, Rocinha ... http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/in-brazil-finding-dignity-in-horror/?hp

every gun that is made ...

2011-10-14T09:54:00.002-04:00

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious-makes you so sick at heart-that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free,

On Christopher Hitchens, who just received the liberal atheist award

2011-10-10T07:37:00.002-04:00

“He has this great love of life, which I rather envy, because I think I may be deficient in that respect. It’s an odd thing to say, but he’s almost like a Tibetan monk. It’s as if he’d become religious.”

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

2011-10-06T09:28:00.000-04:00

In 2005, Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to the graduating students at Stanford. He told them the secret that defined him in every action, every decision, every creation of his tragically unfinished life: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise

now we know, nothing is almost everything!

2011-10-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

“The discovery that the universe is dominated by the energy of empty space has changed everything in cosmology. Nothing could, literally, not be more exciting, because now we know nothing is almost everything!” This is the very essence of contemplative awareness! The full story in today's NY Times HERE.

How Obama handlers a Christian heckler

2011-09-28T06:17:00.001-04:00

Charging money to visit prisoners

2011-09-17T09:45:00.001-04:00

Those resisting their impoverishment

2011-09-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

It would be foolish to expect objective reporting: not because the journalists are bad people, but because of the economic structure of the organizations they work for. In fact, what is surprising is that despite all of this, occasionally there is some very good reporting. But overall we either have silence, or a completely distorted picture, in which those resisting their impoverishment are

work

2011-09-05T18:14:00.000-04:00

From another good essay by Wendall Berry on the Utne Reader: "It is true that the industrialization of virtually all forms of production and service has filled the world with “jobs” that are meaningless, demeaning, and boring—as well as inherently destructive. I don’t think there is a good argument for the existence of such work, and I wish for its elimination, but even its reduction calls

lifer

2011-08-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

Lifer by Sam Hamill McNeil Island Correctional Center, I:86 Hunched over hard white bread and plastic soup bowl filled with gruel, he looked like a stork, a silly angel, all neck and bony shoulder-wings and awkward beak. His head lifted, then fell in a slow deliberate dance, three, four times, doughy-skinned in a gray room sickened by yellow light. He kept his eyes shut tight. Outside the

Smartdust

2011-08-30T11:30:00.001-04:00

Smartdust - micro-electromechanical systems that are networked wirelessly for sensing and receiving data. Cheap sensors that will literally be everywhere The network will be just like Hal. It will sense everything and as such will be able to take part in the human process. It will sense human activity and adapt its behavior to suit the needs and preferences of these humans. It will also be

Technology revolution is just beginning ...

2011-08-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

“You know the “IT revolution” that the business press has been touting for the last twenty years? Sorry to tell you, but that was only the prologue. The last twenty years were just about forging, sharpening, and distributing all the new tools with which to collaborate and connect. Now the real IT revolution is about to begin, as all the complementarities between these tools start to really work

Belligerent Home Rule - the Tea Party?

2011-08-19T08:25:00.001-04:00

[Remember: the first personal computer came out in 1984. It has been suggested that the Tea Party is the Belligerent Home Rule that Mcluhan references] McLuhan's '80s: LIVING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT Amid runaway technology and change, the backlash gathers strength By Marshall McLuhan Copyright 1979, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan MACLEAN'S/JANUARY 7, 1980 'Representative government will

I just can't help myself

2011-08-17T12:09:00.001-04:00

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience

2011-08-06T12:40:00.002-04:00

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience ... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and

Oscar Wilde on Crime and Punishment

2011-08-06T12:39:00.002-04:00

One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted. ~ Oscar Wilde - (1854-1900)

Happy 50th Birthday, Mr. President

2011-08-04T18:02:00.004-04:00

blindness and arrogance - the CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan

2011-08-02T06:02:00.000-04:00

According to this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA's intervention in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 Soviet invasion. This decision of the Carter Administration in 1979 to intervene and destabilize Afghanistan is the root cause of Afghanistan's destruction as a nation. The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National

jingoism

2011-07-29T10:10:00.001-04:00

Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.[1] In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an

Want to balance the budget?

2011-07-29T07:48:00.000-04:00

War is a Racket “As President Barack Obama and Congress claim it is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that are breaking the budget, people should demand that they stop paying for war.” - Amy Goodman in article entitled, War is a Racket “It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious [racket]. ... It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in

2011-07-20T09:34:00.000-04:00

In this in-between time, remember that our history is steeped in despair turned to hope Boethius, a philosopher of fifth-century Rome, taught the world of his time something important for ours. “Every age that is dying,” Boethius taught in the midst of a declining Roman Empire, “is simply another age coming to life.” New life, in other words, is not death unless we reject it. New life is

about talking to those who don't agree with you ...

2011-07-18T06:17:00.000-04:00

This
This is one clip that I want to save. The heart of what Obama is about as a President.

Another Obama and Babies photo

2011-07-18T06:01:00.000-04:00

The caption that went with this photo was: " ‘Obama’ sneaks up on unsuspecting babies and tries to indoctrinate them with his brand of Hitlerism"

Brian Haw - holy fool and peace campaigner

2011-07-07T14:23:00.002-04:00

Brian Haw, peace campaigner, died on June 18th, aged 62 WHEN Brian Haw sat in his old canvas chair in front of his banner-hung tent in Parliament Square, people kept coming by. Tourists with their cameras. Teenagers drinking beer. Commuters on their way to work. Taxis, vans, bicycles. Bloody big black cars with lying politicians in them. Buses with passengers all on their phones or buried in

Cy Twombly

2011-07-05T17:45:00.001-04:00

Today, on the day of his death, I find out about abstract artist, Cy Twombly. AUTUMN According to the NY Times article, Mr. Twombly was idiosyncratic. He went against the grain, avoided publicity and ignored his critics. My kind of artist. His art jumps out at me with its bold and elemental simplicity. Evocative without resorting to descriptions or explanations. Reminds me somewhat of

Freedom

2011-07-04T09:48:00.000-04:00

FREEDOM Monday, July 4, 2011 American Independence Day All great traditions teach us some form of contemplation, because it is actually a different form of knowledge that emerges inside of a “cloud of unknowing.” It is a refusal to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and finding freedom, grace and comfort in not needing to know, which ironically opens us up to a much deeper

Babies know who to trust ...

2011-06-29T14:06:00.002-04:00

mercy without borders

2011-06-26T12:58:00.001-04:00

From a review of the book, "Mercy Without Borders - The Catholic Worker and Immigration", by Mark and Louise Zwick. The Houston Catholic Worker also is a beacon for the homeless who may suffer from mental illness, perhaps hearing voices that are not there. With so many people in need coming and going, how does Casa Juan Diego maintain its peace and equilibrium? The authors point to the

Photographs of Old Dogs

2011-06-23T09:23:00.000-04:00

“The dog lives in the present,” Ms. Levine said. “We don’t. Our body is fragile. We’re thinking about the past and what we could have done differently; we’re thinking about the future and what is going to happen to us.”From a Photo Essay in the NY Times. "While the photos are cute — so cute! — there is a depth in the eyes of the dogs. Some appear noble, even stately [Slide 2]. Others,

The Reluctant Prophet - Fr. George Zabelka

2011-06-22T09:34:00.002-04:00

In August of 1945 Rev. George B. Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army Air Force, was stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. He was assigned to serve the Catholics of the 509th Composite Group. The 509th Composite Group was the Atomic Bomb Group. He served as a priest for those who dropped the atomic

Unity Is Seeking Out Differences

2011-06-21T16:48:00.000-04:00

Sr. Joan Chittister OSB and Fr. Richard Rohr OFM - Prophets of our time. Unity Is Seeking Out Differences by Sr. Joan Chittister OSB Unity is more than solidarity and more than uniformity. Unity, ironically, is a commitment to becoming one people who speak in a thousand voices. Rather than one message repeated by a thousand voices, unity is one message shaped by a thousand minds. In times

John Edwards - pariah

2011-06-21T09:45:00.003-04:00

Last night I read an online article about John Edwards - John Edwards Life in Exile - depicting John Edwards in his hometown of Chapel Hill. He sits on a bench at the graves of his wife and son while being gawked at by tourists passing in buses. He sits alone at his son's baseball game. A local pub that showcases local people who have made good is going to put the photo of John in the bathroom

Love thy neighbor: Son's killer moves next door - the power to forgive

2011-06-17T14:45:00.001-04:00

June 7, 2011 7:06 PM Love thy neighbor: Son's killer moves next door By Steve Hartman MINNEAPOLIS - In Minnesota, a young man was murdered and his killer was sent to prison. Then, as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports, the story took a surprising turn. In a small apartment building in North Minneapolis - a 59-year-old teacher's aid sings praise to God for no seemingly apparent

Flannery O'Connor on Grace

2011-06-17T14:41:00.001-04:00

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” —Flannery O’Connor from The Habit of Being, a collection of her letters

Response to the state of the Catholic Church these days

2011-06-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, you're right of course. It's a sad state of affairs. I hardly recognize our "official church" these days. Benedict continually seems to refer to people without God & start to worship idols eg. materialism, consumerism, hedonism like it was in Germany under the Nazis. Little it seems does he know that he is inflicting on the church the same kind of control that the Nazis themselves did.

What is going on in the Catholic Church? Or is it just me?

2011-06-16T11:14:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to the contemplative prayer group held at St. Ignatius. The experience left me confused, and I am writing it out to see if I can come to some insight. In the last year I have begun a practice of contemplative prayer that I treasure. I have found the way of prayer that I had been searching for all of my life - an outward expression that holds an inner dialogue that is deeper

concrete, steel and paint

2011-06-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

"An extraordinary film that demonstrates how art can facilitate even the most difficult dialogues…" Grady Hillman, Texas State University-San Marcos "When men in prison join with victims of crime to create a mural about healing, their views on punishment, remorse, and forgiveness collide. Attempts to find consensus repeatedly stall. But as the participants move deeper into the creative process

The Prayer Beneath The Tree of Life

2011-05-24T14:07:00.000-04:00

"Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life's experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer "to" anyone or anything, but prayer "about" everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the

Throw Out the Money Changers

2011-04-21T07:14:00.001-04:00

These are remarks Chris Hedges made in Union Square in New York City last Friday during a protest outside a branch office of the Bank of America. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/blocking_the_gates_to_the_temples_of_finance_20110418/

Fr. Clete Kiley - Labor Priest

2011-04-09T09:38:00.000-04:00

take joy - Fra Givianni Giocondo

2011-04-07T09:38:00.001-04:00

Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer, accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, classical scholar, and Franciscan friar. Today we remember him most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513. Fra Giovanni Giocondo I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing

Albert Camus on capital punishment

2011-04-06T15:07:00.002-04:00

An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be

Mildred Aristide “Aristide is Ever Present in the Haitian Psyche and History”

2011-03-24T10:51:00.000-04:00

“As a priest, as an educator, when he was president, and now as he will return to education, [Aristide will] continue to be a person that always, always, always withstands.” - Mildred AristideA beautiful, articulate and courageous woman, Mildred Aristide understands her husband's place in the history and soul of Haiti. An interview with Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) is HERE. She speaks with much

Aristide's first day home

2011-03-19T06:09:00.002-04:00

Celebrate this day! Aristide returns to Haiti

2011-03-18T12:45:00.002-04:00

As one young Haitian put it: “Aristide represents the voice of the poor people here,” said Wadson Pierre, 19, an Aristide supporter waiting outside the airport. “We feel comfortable when he is here."Jean Bertrand Aristide gives voice and confidence to the many Haitian poor. His return is an historic victory for democracy and self determination. His return marks an end to the era when the

Titid!

2011-03-17T12:29:00.001-04:00

Having followed Jean Bertrand Aristide for the last 20 years I am really excited about his return to Haiti, hopefully sometime today.

rednecks

2011-03-03T16:04:00.001-05:00

It was no accident that the uprising in Egypt was so nonviolent....

2011-02-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

MLK and Egypt

2011-02-15T13:39:00.001-05:00

A translation of this 50 year old comic book was passed around Tahrir Square in Egypt by the American Islamic Congress. The group advocates peace and civil rights through nonviolent means. Originally published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1958, The Montgomery Story was a comic book that dealt explicitly with Dr. King's philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience, specifically with

Cuddling with a seal!

2011-02-11T10:20:00.001-05:00

The Nobody Poems

2011-01-23T15:22:00.001-05:00

The Nobody Poems by Beth Cioffoletti | Make Your Own Book

Winter Worship

2010-12-21T09:17:00.001-05:00

Winter-Worship by Charles Wright Mother of Darkness, Our Lady, Suffer our supplications, our hurts come unto you. Hear us from absence your dwelling place, Whose ear we plead for. End us our outstay. Where darkness is light, what can the dark be,

Pope John XXIII visits Regina Coeli Prison

2010-11-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

How the Stars Came Down

2010-09-22T11:59:00.002-04:00

How the Stars Came Down by Pat Schneider Night. How the stars came down arching over us, and the only name we had for them was shooting stars. Why there were so many was anybody's guess. My great grandmother thought the world was coming to an end when Haley's comet flared across the sky. I lay flat on my back and watched the night sky falling all around me and I wanted, more than anything,

God

2010-09-16T09:35:00.002-04:00

privilege - my version

2010-09-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

made with photoshop and a photo of weeds.

privilege

2010-09-08T08:40:00.000-04:00

Love this graphic and quote. HT to barefoot toward the light.

Valedictorian, Erica Goldson

2010-08-10T08:56:00.002-04:00

Excerpted from Erica Goldson's High School Valedictorian speech. The whole thing is here. ... And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for

how to be alone

2010-08-10T08:05:00.002-04:00

The Peace of Wild Things

2010-08-01T08:03:00.000-04:00

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence

Harris Neck Island

2010-07-01T07:14:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago I posted here about a side trip we took to visit a museum - the Penn Center - in St. Helena SC. The museum honors the culture of a tribe of former slaves, the Gullah-Geechee, who lived in the low country and islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In today's NY Times, there is an article about some of those Gullah people who are attempting to have their land, at

"peace must be dared ..." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2010-06-25T07:26:00.001-04:00

"There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itselft the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not

how cool is this?

2010-06-24T16:32:00.003-04:00

Had to save this photo of Obama (I LOVE my president) and Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, having burgers at a place called Ray's Hell Burgers. NY Times article is here.

Memorial Day - Andy Rooney

2010-06-02T11:07:00.003-04:00

Memorial Day Andy Rooney, 60 Minutes Commentary, May 30, 2010 We use the phrase, “They gave their lives.” They didn’t give their lives, their lives were taken from them. There is more bravery in war than in peace. It seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity—war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people. Because I was in the Army during

... mourning Jubilee ...

2010-05-30T10:19:00.000-04:00

Mobile Bay, Jubilee I can't read the stories coming from the Gulf these days, it is too depressing, too overwhelmingly sad and tragic. This one about the Jubilee of Mobile Bay, though, caught my attention. ... mourning Jubilee, NY Times, May 29, 2010 Wikipedia entry on Mobile Bay's Jubilee

Look at yourself after watching this ...

2010-05-30T10:13:00.002-04:00

Very, very cool ...

recollecting

2010-05-30T10:11:00.000-04:00

I've decided to resume collecting stuff that I don't want to lose, here on Q&M. I had been sort of putting them on Facebook, but am becoming disillusioned with that "place". Countless times I've come back to this site to retrieve something that I remembered reading or seeing. A blog can be good for more than just blogging!

Tanner's interpretation of Mary

2010-05-06T18:08:00.000-04:00

The Annunciationby Henry Ossawa Tanner

sanctuaries (Ave Maria Florida and the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary)

2010-05-06T16:04:00.001-04:00

This is another musing, and since I don't have a running blog going now where I could put it, this is where it's going. The town of Immokalee is just about the poorest, but most interesting of Southwestern Florida. It is simple and hard-scrabble, colorful. There are housing projects, a Haitian bakery, and many little ethnic grocery stores. I want to walk around that town, talk to the people,

ETC (thinking freely)

2010-04-21T08:24:00.000-04:00

Formerly no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are supposed to think, and this they consider freedom. ~ Oswald Spengler - (1880-1936) Source: The Decline of the West, 1926 We allow the most atrocious lies uttered by political and moral prostitutes to go unchallenged. These lies are endlessly recycled

ETC (the rich and the poor)

2010-04-14T05:32:00.001-04:00

It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us. Perhaps the reason is that rich men are very clever at covering up what they do. ~Andrew Greeley (

ETC

2010-04-02T08:50:00.002-04:00

Our job this day is to become part of the answer to the world's immense and protracted suffering rather than continuing our ancient task of being part of the difficulty. ~ Hugh Prather - Author, minister There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing

ETC

2010-03-20T07:38:00.000-04:00

A religious man or woman is a person who holds God and humanity in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. ~Abraham Joshua Heschel - New York Journal-American, April 5, 1963 Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports

the rosary

2010-03-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

I think too much. Spend way too much time whirling words around in my head. Thinking can lead to worry for me, or a kind of loop that leads back in upon itself. Lately I have been saying the rosary. Out loud on my way driving to or from Loblolly. In bed when I wake up and can’t go back to sleep. There is something about the rosary. I used to think about the words of the prayers of the

ETC

2010-03-13T07:58:00.000-05:00

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back

musings on solid conservatives and fluid liberals

2010-03-10T09:17:00.002-05:00

Many of the conservatives that I know use the word “solid” to describe themselves. It seems apt. They really are solid. They are hard working people who look after themselves and their own. They have values and go to Church, and seem to feel that those of us who call ourselves liberal are floundering around in a secular, relativistic void, sacrificing all that they hold dear to our own

ETC

2010-03-10T08:58:00.002-05:00

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. ~Ralph

ETC

2010-03-09T18:57:00.002-05:00

If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us. ~Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

poem from Raheim

2010-03-07T09:35:00.001-05:00

I've been low, I've been high, both chemically and mentally I've done things that, now, don't make sense to me I've been loved, I've been hated, but mostly I've been hurt And it shaded my character to the point of committing and expecting dirt I've been saved, I've been an atheist, in my search for self Through living I've learned, that the only thing for certain is death. (convicted of 1st

ETC

2010-03-07T04:11:00.002-05:00

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace. ~ James Madison

humility (is it the same thing as nonviolence?)

2010-02-28T10:13:00.000-05:00

At some thoughts one stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide “I will combat it by humble love.” If you resolve on that once for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The

this blog

2010-02-25T10:59:00.000-05:00

This blog is getting dated, but is still very useful for me to keep track of things (like quotes, duh!) that I don't want to lose. I'm trying out a new place for my more personal writings and photos - http://shoofoolatte.tumblr.com - and I still love the louie blog. This blog has morphed into drawer, of sorts, where I collect things that intrigue me. All this is my way of saying that I don't

a deranged age

2010-02-25T05:42:00.002-05:00

We live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing. -- Walker Percy

my new religious status

2010-02-21T10:35:00.002-05:00

"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours." - Bob Dylan

the beauty of poverty

2010-02-20T09:17:00.002-05:00

Todd Heisler/The New York TimesI don't know just how to say this, but the photos coming back from Haiti carry with them a sense of beauty and peace. There is no glitz, no fancy (or even quaint) buildings, no tropical flowering - quiet the opposite, there is sewage, garbage, ruin. But if you look at the people, there is a beauty that is extraordinary. Their clothing, though mismatched, is worn

ETC

2010-02-20T07:20:00.002-05:00

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts one's own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare -

ETC

2010-02-18T18:31:00.002-05:00

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling instruments." ~ Noam Chomsky Civil disobedience is not our

ETC

2010-02-18T18:30:00.000-05:00

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by

ETC

2010-02-18T18:28:00.000-05:00

With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. People who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A

Howard Zinn

2010-02-07T13:13:00.002-05:00

The lesson of history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government will try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. My hope is that you will not be content to be successful in the way our society measures success;

ETC

2010-01-26T08:54:00.001-05:00

American preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa's apartheid, or Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth. You have to expose, and confront, the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion and caring of most American people, and the ruthless way

how else can you understand Haiti?

2010-01-24T01:39:00.001-05:00

A remarkable picture from Haiti. In the midst of the destruction, there was one item that remained standing and untouched at the cathedral in Port au Prince… Jesus the Christ Crucified. Some would call it a miracle.