Maine Spring Has Sprung: Black Flies and Ticks Have Come!
MadPriest is deep into religion as science and science as religion. Out of this he concludes for the nonce that he’s a Sexy Pantheist. Fascinating speculation, I call it. Check it out.
Also, you might check Zaius Nation (linked to in MadPriest’s post) to find out what Easter is really about.
Here’s my old “buddy” Joan Baez, singing We Shall Overcome, partly in Persian, in support of the Iranians campaigning for more rights. Hat tip to Juan Cole. (Back in 1962 I went to the Brookline Public Library in Brookline, Mass., with a friend and watched the young Joan Baez do some songs.)
Tags: brookline public library, iranians, joan baez, juan cole, persian
Nancy Folbre has a fun article in the NYT today, Raise My Taxes. She starts off as follows:
We live in a country where the most visible support for raising taxes on the rich comes from … the rich. So much for the seeming dictates of economic rationality and the logic of class war.
She goes on to point out that Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, has called for an increase in the top federal marginal tax rate to 50 percent on all income over $1 million per year, and he claims this would not reduce his incentive to work. (Remind me to renew my Netflix subscription.)
And then there are the poor, many of whom pay no taxes at all, who think the estate tax should be done away with. In fact, as Folbre points out, the percentage of households with income under $30,000 complaining that federal income taxes are too high exceeds the percentage even paying federal income taxes. What a joke! But the joke is on those brain washed masses taken in by the right wing corporate media propaganda saying taxes are too high!
Warren Buffet, one of the richest of the rich, has always said his taxes are too high. In fact, to quote from Nancy’s article,
Mr. Buffett has peeved many of his fellow billionaires by giving much of his money away as well as advocating higher taxes for the rich. The man has so much class that he can talk about class war. (He explained, in 2006, that his class was winning).
She closes with this neat paragraph:
But our tax system itself confounds class interests by its complexity as well as by taxing income from labor so much more heavily than income from capital. Maybe some rich people recognize a good deal when they see one.
Tags: class war, federal income taxes, marginal tax rate, media propaganda, nancy folbre, netflix, reed hastings, warren buffett
This says it all, folks, this is it, the true voices from yon twelve-winded sky, from every quarter of humanity, this is Unitarian Universalism! Here’s a great ten minute video on our UU faith:
For more exciting UU information and videos go to Peter Bowden’s UU PLANET TV!
Tags: unitarian universalism, UU, UU Planet TV
HEY! Let’s party with Gogol Bordello! It’s been quite a while! Start wearin’ purple for me NOW! GO GOGOL!
Tags: gogol bordello, party time, wear purple
Here’s a mind blowing construction with the title mental and material realms from MARS-1. Blow it up to inspect more closely.
Could these be the two sides of the brain, all created from the right side of the brain? Check what Mario the creator has to say.
Tags: Mario Martinez
Here’s a poem by Ralph Helverson, minister emeritus of the First Parish UU in Cambridge, MA, which he served as minister from 1959 to 1977. The Rev. Dr. Ralph Norman Helverson died April 25, 2007, at Carleton-Willard Village, Bedford, MA, at the age of ninety-five.
Impassioned Clay
by Ralph N. Helverson
Deep in ourselves resides the religious impulse.
Out of the passions of our clay it rises.
We have religion when we stop deluding ourselves that we are self-sufficient, self-sustaining or self-derived.
We have religion when we hold some hope beyond the present,
some self-respect beyond our failures.
We have religion when our hearts are capable of leaping up at beauty,
when our nerves are edged by some dream in our heart.
We have religion when we have an abiding gratitude for all
that we have received.
We have religion when we look upon people with all their
failings and still find in them good;
when we look beyond people to the grandeur in nature and to the purpose in our own heart.
We have religion when we have done all that we can,
and then in confidence entrust ourselves to the life that is
larger than ourselves.
Not bad.
Tags: impassioned clay, poems, ralph norman helverson, religious impulse
Hey, the wife and I are going to my 63rd high school reunion tomorrow. After 63 years why bother? Good question. There will be perhaps three or four members of that class of 1946 present. Let’s see. Who will they be? OK, me, Shirley Burne MacDougall, Claire Ferguson Tappening, Helena McKniff “Mickey” Crocker. Is that it? Not much out of that class of 36 members, eh? Well, there are more than four alive but they don’t chose to come. Why not? Well, maybe they think, “I never sat down at lunch with them then. Why should I have dinner with them 63 years later?” ha ha A good one for sure.
The class wit, John Joseph Waugh, will not be attending. That’s too bad because he could liven things up, like he does through his emails. But he is suffering from pulmonary fibrosis which as he says is a progressive disease, and it would be too uncomfortable for him to make the trip from North Carolina, oxygen tank and all. So, yesterday I put his phone number in my cell phone under “Waugh”, and will give him a call during the banquet.
Tags: claire ferguson, high school reunion, john waugh, mickey crocker, north carolina, oxygen tank, progressive disease, pulmonary fibrosis, shirley burne
Here are the best arguments for Single Payer Health Insurance I’ve come across yet:
We’re lucky we have that great journalist, Bill Moyers, around. Here he’s interviewing two strong advocates of Single Payer, David Himmelstein, MD, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Sidney Wolfe, MD, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.
What chance in Hell does Single Payer have in this country?
I’ll answer my own question. It has NO CHANCE.
So what do we do? Stand with Dr. Dean and go all out for the Public Option. He explains this in the following:
This piece by Bernie Horn convinced me that Single Payer can’t work politically, and that our only option is the Public Option.
Right now, members of congress, including Olympia Snowe in the Senate are watering down the Public Option so that it will end up not being a Public Option. Read Paul Krugman on the Snowe “trigger”.
That’s why we’ve got to Stand with Dr. Dean. Sign his petition!
Tags: Bernie Horn, bill moyers, david himmelstein, Dr. Dean, health research group, national health program, Olympia Snowe, paul krugman, public citizen, public option, sidney wolfe, single payer, Snowe trigger
OK, I’m still on a high I guess from participating in Heather Pierson’s Open Mic last night at our First Universalist Church of Norway, Maine. I recited/read three poems, there was a great young comedian, and the great character Wellington was there with his wife, and some of the other performers, like Nate Towne, and Harry [?], and Bob Wallace, were great too. Am I including myself under the word “great”? Ha Ha. Hardly! I think I was a bit over the top in trying to get attention for the poems I read, but I felt powerful and enjoyed getting laughs — certainly different from the old days when I was so shy and frightened up there on the Open Mic stage trying to be perfect. And to top it all off, the Rev. Richard Beal was there providing scrumptious popcorn which I couldn’t resist.
For the record, here’s the poems I read: (1) Poem XXXII from Alfred E. Housman’s Shropshire Lads (note he’s not Alfred E. Newman) with the first line. From far, from eve and morning; (2) Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens of which I read only the first stanza and part of the final, and last but not least (3) Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath. Quite a bunch! I gave my personalized interpretation of each.
Perhaps I’ll add more to this later. I’ve probably forgotten things I should mention. OH, I forgot the Rev. Tom Myorie (sp?), and Mary Uke! More later.
Tags: alfred e housman, bob wallace, first universalist church, heather pierson, lady lazarus by sylvia plath, richard beal, shropshire lad, sunday morning by wallace stevens, wellington
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