ContextPerception

Jim's Food for Thought

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If you are a bad person, a whining enemy or a strong-arm occupier, you are not my brother, even if you are circumcised, observe the Sabbath, and do mitzvahs. If your scarf covers every hair on your head for modest, you give alms and do charity, but what is under your scarf is dedicated to the sanctity of Jewish land, taking precedence over the sanctity of human life, whosever life that is, then you are not my sister. You might be my enemy. A good Arab or a righteous gentile will be a brother or sister to me. A wicked man, even of Jewish descent, is my adversary, and I would stand on the other side of the barricade and fight him to the end. - Avraham Burg’s <The Holocaust is Over, We Must Rise From its Ashes> with thanks to Ray

"Sometimes when chasing happiness, happiness is what you leave behind." - Joe Posnanski,
Sports Illustrated

"On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway." - Martin Luther King Jr, with thanks to Ray

"Gray hair is God’s graffiti." - Bill Cosby, The Week

"There is a problem today that is found not only in Christianity but in most of the religions, as well as in many nonreligious ideologies. I will call this the problem of certitude. Its corrective is the importance of Christianity’s being a thinking faith – and more specifically, the importance of doubt in faith.

"The people who attacked the United States on Sep 11 01, were apparently inspired by absolute certainty with respect to their cause. They found that certainty in their religious belief. Their religion functioned for them as an antidote against all self-doubt, all consciousness of the limitations of knowledge, all awareness of the precariousness of human judgment. ... No one religion, and not religion as a whole, has a monopoly on what (for want of a better word) we call fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, whatever the origin of the term, has come to mean a position of such exactness and certitude that those embracing it -- or, more accurately, those embraced by it -- feel themselves delivered from all the relativities, uncertainties, indefiniteness, and transience of human existence. They are provided, they feel, with a firm foundation -- a fundamentum -- greater than their own finitude, greater than any observations of any of the sciences, greater than the collective wisdom of the race." - Douglas John Hall, quoted in Brian Stoffregen’s sermonic notes

"Get involved…the world is run by those who show up!" - carryabigsticker.com

"Soon we allow the Current Occupant to leave the Mansion d'Blanc with a big grin in a couple weeks, his self-esteem apparently fully intact, imagining that his legacy will emerge golden and shining in a hundred years after all of us are deceased. He is one of the cheerfullest idiots you ever saw, a man who could burn down his own house and be happy that the patio was still standing. Had Congress impeached him, his defense would have been that he was not capable of understanding the charges." - Garrison Keillor’s The Old Scout

"It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job, and a depression when you lose yours." - Harry Truman, Time

Jim Jan 17 09

Jim's Food for Thought

Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." - Brennan Manning

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." - Sir Winston Churchill, with thanks to Will

"Why is that to make things, even spiritual things, more ours, we so often have to make then less someone else’s? Why does being right depend on everyone else being wrong? Do other children need to be failures in order for ours to be successful? Do other women need to be ugly in order for my wife to be beautiful?" - Brad Hirschfield, Christian Century

"When an old person in the tribe dies, a whole library disappears." - African Proverb

"Jacob was a reed, and the breath of God blew through Jacob, made music of him." - Noah benShea’s <Jacob the Baker>

"’This is not the America I know,’ President Bush said after the first, horrifying picture of US troops torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq surfaced in Apr 04. The President was not telling the truth. ‘This’ was the American he had authorized on Feb 7 02, when he signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention – the one regarding the treatment of enemy prisoners taken in wartime – did not apply to members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. That signature led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. It was his single most callous and despicable act. It stands at the heart of the national embarrassment that was his presidency." - Joe Klein, Time

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go." - Publisher William Feather, The Week

Jim Jan 15 09

Jim's Food for Thought

Upon Obama’s selection of Nobel Prize-winning Physicist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy: "After the anti-science Bush administration, this is like going to a Mensa meeting after eight years of being trapped in the Flat Earth Society." - Daniel J Weiss, Christian Century

"The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have remembrances of what never happened." - Saki, aka Hector Hugh Munro, from Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but instead will interest his [sic] patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." - Thomas Edison, LC-MS newsletter Gee, didn’t he live a LONG time ago? Not much changes, I guess. Just yesterday, Medicare wouldn’t cover a procedure of mine because it was "preventative."

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. - Pablo Picasso, with thanks to Will

"An abba said, ‘The prophets wrote books, then came our fathers who put them into practice. Those who came after them learnt them by heart. Then came the present generation, who have written them out and put them into their window seats without using them.’" - The World of the Desert Fathers, quoted by Kathleen Norris in his <Dakota>

"Carrying a plastic water bottle might seem convenient. But after considering all the oil it took to make and ship and the watersheds that were affected, it begins looking like a pretty bad idea. Once you learn that Americans spend $9 billion on bottled water annually more than what it would costs to get clean water to every person in the world, we’re betting you’ll want to switch to tap water." - The Green Life, Sierra Club

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Bumper sticker from carryabigsticker.com

"The world is to us what the Garden of Eden was supposed to be to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were banished, but we are banishing ourselves from our Eden. The difference is that Adam and Eve had somewhere else to go. We have nowhere else to go. We hope that by the time you read this you will have at least partially curtailed our reckless greed and stupidity. If we have not, at least some of us have tried. … All we can say is learn from what we have achieved, but above all learn from our mistakes, do not go on endlessly like a squirrel in a wheel committing the same errors hour by hour day by day year after year century after century as we have done up to now. We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you. We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you." - Gerald Durrell, quoted by Garrison Keillor in his Writer’s Almanac

"Last year Americans spent 19 hours planning for their retirement. That’s about the same amount of time they spent planning their Thanksgiving Dinner." - Allstate ad in Time

Jim Jan 8 09

Jim's Food for Thought

"Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose." - Andy Rooney, with thanks to Will

"We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor — he said, ‘I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher.’ The French junior minister for human rights said, ‘On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes.’ When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment…

"It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see ‘United States of America’ and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian." - Keillor’s Old Scout

From Candorville, by Darrin Bell

Black man: "You waited in line seven hours?"

Black woman: "Ida waited 20 to vote for Obama! 400 years. About time America realized everybody on God’s earth is equal. Except the gays."

Man: "Say what?"

Woman: Thank God I got to vote to keep those people in their place. Taking rights away from gays is not the same as bigotry against black folks! You choose to be gay, you don’t choose to be black!"

Man: "You choose your religion, too. If I took human away rights only from Catholics, would that be bigotry?"

Woman: "Well, I’m not Catholic, so no, it wouldn’t be."

"The 2008 presidential campaign and congressional races cost an estimated $5.3B, shattering all previous records, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While that’s a lot of money, it’s less than the $6B Americans spent this year on Halloween candy, costumes, and decorations." - USA Today

"A toast to the Obamas as they enjoy a brief, golden moment before beginning the grueling business of disappointing their followers, astonishing their enemies and doing what is right for our country." - Garrison Keillor, Salon

BTW, if you missed the 60 Minutes interview with the Obamas Sun/Nov 16, google it. And if you have friends, family, et al, who also missed it, urge them to see it as well. What a sight to gladden the heart!

"Our young people are so much more idealistic than we deserve them to be,...still eager to be enlisted – to fix education, research renewable energy, repair our infrastructure, help others.

They want our country to matter again, they want to be summoned…to some great project worthy of America…to nation-building not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but nation-building in America." - Thomas Friedman, quoted by John Buchanan in Christian Century

"You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do." - Henry Ford, The Week

Jim Nov 21 08

Jim's Food for Thought

This weekend may you find, despite the tumultuous times, a bit of serenity!

"’He is not fighting for Joe the Plumber,' Barack Obama said of John McCain during the campaign. ‘He's fighting for Joe the Hedge Fund Manager.’
Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that yesterday, a mere nine days after McCain's loss, House Democrats hauled in Joe the Hedge Fund Manager to testify before Congress. Actually, they hauled in a billionaire's row of them: John, George, Philip, James and Kenneth the Hedge Fund Managers. Their average earnings last year: reportedly $2.5B apiece. [That’s "B" as in "billion", people!]

"They were in for the populist treatment. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Wasman (D CA) pointed out that some of their income is taxed at the 15 percent rate. ‘That's a lower tax rate than many schoolteachers, firefigxters - or even plumbers - pay.’ The audience chuckled.

"’Jesus Christ!!’ Rep Elijah Cummings (D MD) bellowed when his turn came to make the same point. ‘The median hourly earning for a plumber - we've been talking about plumbers here a lot lately - was $20.65 per hour.’ And yet, he added, ‘Joe the Plumber is being taxed at a higher rate than Joe the Investment Banker. . . . I'm sure people like Joe the Plumber and others would like to try to get into that category.’" - Dana Milbank, Washington Post

"Matrimony is not a word, it’s a sentence." - Eddie Cantor, The Week [Present company excluded, of course!]

"Since I spend most of my time haplessly battling global warming, I encounter a fair number of climate-change skeptics. They’re usually clutching some tattered study about tropospheric temperatures from six years back, or muttering about sunspots, but they’re almost never weighing the actual current science. The wellspring of their skepticism lies not in chemistry or in physics but in ideology, and their syllogism goes something like this:

Markets solve all problems; markets are not solving global warming; QED, global warming is not a problem. - Bill McKibben, Mother Jones

"The War on Terror, to most people, is a lame joke, and Republicans who've been embedded in Washington too long are now finding that the word ‘terrorism’ has lost its tread. This multi-trillion-dollar war is going to wind down, one way or another. The Occupant will hand it off to the next president, who can then negotiate with people who know people who know terrorists and work out a way to extricate our people from the desert.

"If a Democrat does it, it will be appeasement, and if a Republican does it, it will go down as a courageous act of statesmanship, but one way or another, it will be done." - Garrison Keillor’s The Old Scout

"There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don’t even have to exaggerate." - Will Rogers, Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac

"Give me lucky generals." - Napoleon, The Nation

Jim Nov 14 08

Jim's Food for Thought

Today we remember Mother Cabrini, St Augustine, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louis Brandeis and Karen Smallwood. Did I forget anyone?
Hand on, people. We stand on the Eve of Fri! We can do this!

Two thoughts on our fiscal/economic woes:

"When tempted to panic about the market, do it like you’re supposed to do it when you come to an automobile accident – keep going straight ahead, and try not to look!" - Heard on public radio

"Never confuse the stock market with the economy." - Ronald Reagan, The Week [Yeah, I know. I don’t quote The Gipper a lot.]

"There are greater pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a prize for being the most clever, the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself." - John McCain, quoted in Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac [I don’t quote McCain than much either, but if it’s the truth, what does it matter who says it. And wasn’t that a classy concession speech!]

"Progressives have long stood for a wider franchise that includes the property-less, women, African Americans and young adults. The same is not true of conservatives: from Edmund Burke, who worries about the ‘cruel oppression’ the many have-nots might visit upon the few haves, to activist Paul Weyrich, who admitted in 1980 that ‘I don’t want everybody to vote…as a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.’" - editorial from The Nation

On a similar note:

"The notion that a progressive income tax is a form of socialism is ludicrous. Since the time of Teddy Roosevelt, Americans have recognized that those who are flourishing most in society should pay a proportionately higher share of tax. After all, they are the ones benefiting most from the social stability and infrastructure that government provides…

"Since the late 1970s the share of national income going to the top 1% of Americans has doubled and the share for the top .1% has tripled. More than 40% of total income goes to the wealthiest 10% - their biggest share of the nation’s pie in at least 65 years." - editorial from The Christian Century

"The Current Occupant tossed Nazis into a speech [the other] week, something he rarely does since it only reminds people of Dick Cheney. He likened those who would negotiate with terrorists to those who tried to appease the Nazis, an awkward comparison, since Nazis were self-defined and wore the swastika proudly, and terrorists are anybody we nominate to be terrorists, who may include terrorists, people who know terrorists, people named Terry, or people with wrists. One reason Guantanamo is kept top-secret is so you and I won't know how many innocent people have been locked up there and how little the bureaucracy cares about innocence, which might remind people of the Nazis." - Garrison Keillor’s The Old Scout

"A friend in power is a friend lost." - Henry Adams, The week

"Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses." - George Washington Carver, The Week

Jim Nov 13 08

Jim's Food for Thought

How ironic! Barack Obama attracts millions of black people to the polls in California. And they "have trouble" with gays and vote "Yes" on Prop 8. A male friend of mine is dating a black man. The friend says the sex is great. The black man says of course he is not gay.

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." - Samuel Johnson, with thanks to Will G

"I’m for morality, but morality goes beyond sex to human freedom and social justice." - Billy Graham, on his refusal to join the "Moral" Majority. He celebrates his 90th today.

"A writer cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it." - Albert Camus, whose BD is also Nov 7

"You can only become a parent when you have two children, because if you have only one child you know who broke the lamp." - Bill Cosby, Christian Century

How things have changed! Once Abe Lincoln gained the presidential nomination in 1860, he lay low until the election. He only attended one campaign rally, in Springfield, and he didn’t even make a speech. - From Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac

"Hope dies last." - Spanish proverb, quoted by the late Studs Terkel

"It is better for a truthful person to tell a lie than for a liar to tell the truth." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christian Century

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left." Oscar Levant, The Week

Jim Nov 7 08

Jim's Food for Thought

Yes, hallelujah! HALLELUJAH! And, for good measure, add a Hallelujah Chorus or two! We did it!

To be honest, I was not at all sure we would win this intolerably long and ugly campaign. But then there was last night! I worked at a polling place in Rockville from 6 am to 9:30 pm, came home exhausted, grabbed a Heinecken Lite and became mesmerized by the returns. Irene and I shed tears of joy! Even Jesse Jackson was crying and, for the moment, silent.

The sight of our gorgeous First Family, those beautiful little girls who will finally get their puppy, the enraptured crowds at Grant Park - almost more than the senses could take it. But take it in we did!

Seems to me there were at least four reasons for the overwhelming victory by 44:

1) Obama is a charming, charismatic, bright, articulate and transformational personality. He is a breath of fresh air our planet has yearned for for a long time!

2) He ran perhaps the most sophisticated campaign ever. Some are critical of his opting out of Federal funding, and I share a bit of umcomfortableness about that. Maybe the new rule should be that every candidiate can raise as much cash as s/he can raise - provided no individual/corporation/union/PAC contributes more than say, $1K.

3) There was an overwhelming revulsion at anything and everything at all connected with George Bush.

4) Asking Sarah Palin to run for VP has to go down in history as the most stupid political move ever. EVER!

Meanwhile, I'm trying diligently not to gloat. McCain (McBush?) gave a very classy and gracious concession speech. I can imagine how I would be feeling today if McBush had won. Would I seriously consider moving to British Columbia? I would not wish that feeling on anyone - even the McBush-Palin camp and their supporters. The Golden Rule works!

Let us be fervent in prayer for Obama and his gorgeous First Family. Let us pray for their personal safety. There are some seriosuly deranged people out there.

In the Post this morning, the pondering in the Style Section wondered how the DC social scenario would change. From Cowboy/Oil Magnate Parties to...shooting hoops? Sigh!

Jim Nov 5 08

Jim's Food for Thought

The Anchorage Daily News - the biggest newspaper in Palin's state - endorsed Obama, saying that Palin was being stretched ‘beyond her range’ and that she clearly is not ready to be ‘one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world.’

"It's hard to imagine that a McCain presidency could possibly be as scattered, irresponsible, uninspiring and intellectually bankrupt as the McCain campaign. It's even harder to imagine that Americans, at this crucial juncture, will take that risk." - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

On the other hand, voter-suppression by the GOP and over-confidence on the part of the Dems could put McCain over the top. As they say, a black candidate with a 5-point lead should consider him or herself even. Encourage EVERYONE you know to vote!!!

"Bitterness, like cancer, eats its host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean." - Maya Angelou, Time

"Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse." - Lily Tomlin, The Week

"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities." - Frank Lloyd Wright, Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac

"The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. I think God intended that – it is a way of making us creative instead of smug in our belief." - Ron Hansen, Christian Century

"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is possible. Expect more than others think is likely." - Jennie Rose, Faith/Baltimore newsletter

Jim Oct 29 08

Jim's Food for Thought

I apologize for the length of this FFT. But I think Garrison Keillor is so right-on; I had to send it to you.

Have a relaxing weekend - and keep the faith!

The Old Scout

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
October 7, 2008

We are a stalwart and stouthearted people, and never more so than in hard times. People weep in the dark and arise in the morning and go to work. The waves crash on your nest egg and a chunk is swept away and you put your salami sandwich in the brown bag and get on the bus. In Philly, a woman earns $10.30/hour to care for a man brought down by cystic fibrosis. She bathes and dresses him in the morning, brings him meals, puts him to bed at night. It's hard work lifting him and she has suffered a painful hernia that, because she can't afford health insurance, she can't get fixed, but she still goes to work because he'd be helpless without her. There are a lot of people like her. I know because I'm related to some of them.

Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but not inevitably. The attempt to link Barack Obama to an old radical in his neighborhood has desperation and deceit written all over it. Meanwhile, stunning acts of heroism stand out, such as the fidelity of military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay — uniformed officers faithful to their lawyerly duty to offer a vigorous defense even though it means exposing the injustice of military justice that is rigged for conviction and the mendacity of a commander in chief who commits war crimes. If your law school is looking for a name for its new library, instead of selling the honor to a fat cat alumnus, you should consider the names of Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Lt. Col. Mark Bridges, Col. Steven David, Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel and Maj. Michael Mori.

It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. The American people have an ear for BS. They can tell when someone's mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged. When she said, ‘One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars,’ people smelled gas.

Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself — one stink bomb after another, and now Governor Palin.

She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Mr. McCain's first major decision as nominee. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will get a nice book deal from Regnery and a new career making personal appearances for forty grand a pop, and she'll become a trivia question, ‘What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?’ And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.

Your broker kept saying, ‘Stay with the portfolio, don't jump ship,’ and you felt a strong urge to dump the stocks and get into the money market where at least you're not going to lose your shirt, but you didn't do it and didn't do it, and now you're holding a big bag of brown bananas. Me, too. But at least I know enough not to believe desperate people who are talking trash. Anybody who got whacked last week and still thinks McCain-Palin is going to lead us out of the swamp and not into a war with Iran is beyond persuasion in the English language. They'll need to lose their homes and be out on the street in a cold hard rain before they connect the dots.

© 2008 by Garrison Keillor

Jim Oct 17 08