The headline of the article says that Hillary Clinton has hired a "faith guru" to advise her on her 2008 bid for the White House, but she is not alone. Once you get into the meat of the article, it appears all the Democratic hopefuls are or will be making an effort to court "faith-based voters" going into the 2008 campaign.
From :
Clinton hires faith guru Burns Strider, one of the Democratic Party’s leading strategists on winning over evangelicals and other values-driven voters, will join Sen.Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as she prepares to launch her 2008 presidential campaign.
Strider now heads religious outreach for the House Democratic Caucus, and is the lead staffer for the Democrats’ Faith Working Group, headed by incoming Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) created the working group in 2005 when Democratic strategists recognized that the party lost ground in the previous election because of trouble appealing to centrist and conservative voters in rural areas, who tend to be church-goers driven by moral issues. Strider was an aide to Pelosi when the group formed and joined Clyburn’s staff as policy director of the Democratic Caucus in 2006.
Strider’s move to Clinton’s camp suggests that Democrats will woo so-called faith voters in the 2008 election. The plan is buoyed by the Democrats’ success in winning over religious voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the midterm elections.
Hillary has never hidden her faith, but many are cynical in thinking that she has been calculating in how she displays it.
I personally think that everything she does is calculated -- I don't see in her the passion and fire that made Bill Clinton such a charismatic presence.
Be that as it may, Clinton is not the only candidate who has found religion. Her prime rival right now is Barack Obama, he of the smooth demeanor and wear-it-on-your-sleeve faith.
And then there's the 2004 candidate who refuses to fade quietly into the irrelevance that is his presence, John Kerry, and is also trying to do something about his secular image.
But Clinton is not the only 2008 Democratic hopeful in position to appeal to religious voters. Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.) joined conservative Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.
) to speak about AIDS two weeks ago before the congregation of the evangelical Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Last week Congress passed legislation sponsored by Obama that would allow people in bankruptcy to give to charitable and religious organizations.
Josh Dubois, an aide in his Senate office, is heading Obama’s religious outreach.
Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), who is also contemplating running for the 2008 Democratic nomination, has been active, too.
In September, he gave a speech on “service and faith” at the conservative Pepperdine University. He has tapped Shaun Casey, an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, to advise him on religious outreach.
Kerry also recently held a dinner at his D.
C. home with evangelical leaders and traveled out to California for a four-hour meeting with Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, who wrote the bestseller, “The Purpose-Driven Life.”
That three of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination will have aides or advisers specializing in religious outreach is a dramatic change from 2004, when Democratic presidential candidates viewed reaching out to values-voters as a low priority.
Of these three, the only one I trust to actually be able to appeal to faith-based voters is Obama -- he seems more authentic in his beliefs, and they have been there from the beginning in his books and in his actions.
from this summer on faith an politics. Check it out to see why he has the best relationship with faith-based voters, and why he may have the best shot at winning in 2008.
Each week the Magazine picks out snippets from the news, and compiles them into 10 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Week. Here's an end of year almanac.Here are a few that aren't totally based in British-only interest.
4. An average record shop needs to sell at least two copies of a CD per year to make it worth stocking, according to Wired magazine.
5. Nicole Kidman is scared of butterflies. "I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don't like the feel of butterflies' bodies," she says.
6. WD-40 dissolves cocaine - it has been used by a pub landlord to prevent drug-taking in his pub's toilets.
7.
Baboons can tell the difference between English and French. Zoo keepers at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent are having to learn French to communicate with the baboons which had been transferred from Paris zoo.
8.
Devout Orthodox Jews are three times as likely to jaywalk as other people, according to an Israeli survey reported in the New Scientist. The researchers say it's possibly because religious people have less fear of death.
9.
The energy used to build an average Victorian terrace house would be enough to send a car round the Earth five times, says English Heritage.
12. Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable.
It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten.
15. Lionesses like their males to be deep brunettes.
19. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations.
He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".
29. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.
36. The average employee spends 14 working days a year on personal e-mails, phone calls and web browsing, outside official breaks, according to employment analysts Captor.
37.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong's heart is almost a third larger than the average man's.
38. Nasa boss Michael Griffin has seven university degrees: a bachelor's degree, a PhD, and five masters degrees.
39. Australians host barbecues at polling stations on general election days.
52.
You're 10 times more likely to be bitten by a human than a rat.
60. Newborn dolphins and killer whales don't sleep for a month, according to research carried out by University of California.
, so you know someone will be pissed off about it.
Christmas Brought To Iraq By Force
December 15, 2006 | BAGHDAD, IRAQ—On almost every corner in Iraq's capital city, carolers are singing, trees are being trimmed, and shoppers are rushing home with their packages—all under the watchful eye of U.S.troops dedicated to bringing the magic of Christmas to Iraq by force.
U.S."It's important that life in liberated Iraq get back to normal as soon as possible," said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz at a press conference Monday. "That's why we're making sure that Iraqis have the best Christmas ever—something they certainly wouldn't have had under Saddam Hussein's regime.soldiers instruct an Iraqi to tell Santa what he wants for Christmas.
"
To that end, 25,000 troops from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 82nd Airborne Division have been deployed. Their missions include the distribution of cookies and eggnog at major Iraqi city centers, the conscription of bell-ringers from among the Iraqi citizenry, and the enforcement of a new policy in which every man, woman, and child in Baghdad pays at least one visit to 'Twas The Night... On Ice.
Immediately following the press conference, high-altitude bombers began to string Christmas lights throughout the greater-Baghdad area, and Wild Weasel electronic-warfare fighter jets initiated 24-hour air patrols to broadcast Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" over the nation.Armored columns struck out from all major allied firebases to erect a Christmas tree in the town square of every city, while foot soldiers placed fully lit, heavily guarded nativity scenes in front of every Iraqi mosque.
"Thus far, Operation Desert Santa has gone off without a hitch," said Gen. Stanley Kimmet, commander of U.S. armed reconnaissance-and-mistletoe operations in the volatile Tikrit region of central Iraq. "There has been sporadic house-to-house fighting during our door-to-door caroling, but that's to be expected in a Christmas season of this magnitude.
"
According to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top American military commander in Iraq, every precaution is being taken to ensure the peaceful enforcement of the Christmas season in occupied Iraq.
"All American military personnel have been instructed that the observation of Christmas should be carried out efficiently and tastefully, with minimal emphasis on the season's commercial aspects," said Sanchez, who addressed reporters while a decorations division strung wreaths and garlands outside his headquarters. "We must keep in mind that the reason for the season-oriented campaign is for Iraq to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
An aide for Sanchez later explained that, in order to ensure a meaningful holiday season for all Iraqis, provisions were made for those Iraqis who elected to observe Hanukkah.
A mosque in Baghdad decorated by U.S. troops.Like many U.S. operations in Iraq, Operation Desert Santa has met with some resistance.
A convoy transporting fruitcake and gingerbread came under rocket attack Sunday night just outside Checkpoint Noël in Basra, and unidentified bands of Iraqis exchanged gunfire with Marines operating an armored Humvee simulated sleigh ride in a Baghdad suburb. In spite of these troubles, regional commanders report progress, with only eight U.S.
casualties resulting from the operation.
Still, Iraqis report that they are unable to get into the Christmas spirit.
"Why am I supposed to feel joy for the world?" said 34-year-old Baghdad mechanic Hassan al-Ajili as he stood in line for his mandatory visit with Santa. "My country is still at war. I need an American identification card to get anywhere in my own city.
Now, for some reason, men with machine guns have placed two rows of jingling antlered pigs on the roof of our house. This is insane."
Bush, speaking from his Crawford ranch, praised the brave men and women of Operation Desert Santa and asked for the understanding of all Americans.
"We must be patient with the Iraqis," said Bush, seated before a Christmas tree dotted with Scottish terrier ornaments. "The holidays can be a very stressful time, especially for people not yet used to the customs. I'm sure Iraq will enjoy the happiest of holiday seasons if we show resolve and commit to making sure that they do."
President Bush then called for 30,000 new troops to be deployed in the next week to ensure an effective and precise enforcement of Christmas throughout the region. Salvation and Eighth Army detachments will be stationed on every corner by Christmas Eve to make sure that every last Iraqi citizen spends the holiday at home, with family.
Sanchez said he is confident that he can meet that deadline.
"A merry Christmas in Iraq means peace in the Middle East has finally been achieved," Sanchez said. "God bless us, every one." 6)
Comedian Frank Caliendo does a spot-on impression of President Bush's various idiosyncrasies in this clip from the "Late Show With David Letterman."
7)
JibJab looks back at 2006 with another in a series of great animated cartoons, this one featuring elementary school children singing about political figures such as Dick Cheney, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Saddam Hussein, and pop icons such as Britney Spears, Mel Gibson, and Lance Bass.
8)
Has Bush been drinking again? Watch this funny video clip from the "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" and judge for yourself.James Wood of The New Republic offers up his review of Sam Harris's recent addition to the war on fundamentalism, , in an article called . This title, of course, refers to a favorite trope of Harris, who uses often.
9)
The Late Show with Craig Ferguson has a little fun at Rumsfeld's expense.
The article is more than a review of Harris's book, it is a look at atheism by an atheist. So you have to read a bit to get to the review in this review, but once you do, it's over quickly:
We are in the midst of that tragedy, and America is drowning in God's attributes. The Lord will increase your salary, teach your children, raise your self-esteem, boost your career, be a lifelong friend, and take you into his heart if you only take him into your heart.He is love, and gentleness, and charity, unless he is forbidding homosexuality or stem-cell research or punishing New York with September 11 for its high proportion of gays, lesbians, and degenerates. He greatly dislikes evolutionists, largely because he created the world six thousand years ago. He certainly dislikes Nancy Pelosi -- and now, alas, Pastor Ted Haggard.
The Bible is his inerrant word. According to recent polls, 53 percent of Americans are creationists, and 87 percent -- or 260 million people -- claim to "never doubt the existence of God." An avowed atheist cannot be elected president.
And so on. You know the stupefying recital. Many millions across the world are absolutely sure they know what God is like, and what he likes.
Heine's unbelieving joke, reported by the Goncourt brothers, rises up: on his deathbed, while his wife was praying that God might forgive him, he interrupted her to say, "Have no fear, my darling. He will forgive: that's his profession."
The rise of evangelicalism, and the menace of fundamentalism, along with developments in physics, and in theories of evolution and cosmogony, has encouraged a certain style of public atheistic critique.Many of these names are well-known: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris. The events of September 11 were the direct spur for Harris to write his best-selling book , which vibrated with an admirable anger. It has a suggestive thesis, too, which is that America cannot possibly fight fundamentalist Islam while it is itself gripped by Christian fundamentalism.
This symmetry of fundamentalisms means that America will not stoop to defeat the religious content -- and dangerous idiocy -- of its foes. I am not sure if this is exactly provable. Britain, for instance, almost 40 percent of whose citizens profess not to believe in God, has not yet mobilized its secularism in victorious ways (though Harris would doubtless point to Tony Blair's strong Christianity).
But it is not his job to win the so-called war on terror, and the essential intellectual approach seems right: attack all the troops of irrational religiosity at once.
The End of Faith starts well and then becomes a bit predictable, because it begins to follow the rules of its rather thin genre. Letter to a Christian Nation, which is an open letter to the many Christians who wrote to Harris in complaint, is even thinner.I have an almost infinite capacity for the consumption of atheistic texts, but there is a limit to how many times one can stub one's toe on the thick idiocy of some mullah or pastor. There is a limit to the number of times one can be told that the Bible is a shaky text, and that Leviticus and Deuteronomy are full of really nasty things. Ratio vincit omnia, but the page-by-page demonstration of this rationalist conquering can become wearisome.
This may be no especial insult to Harris so much as to his family; Bertrand Russell's made a great initial impact on me when I was a teenager -- it was like seeing someone in the nude, for the first time -- until I began to get bored with its self-exposure. Russell complaining that Jesus was not a moral teacher, that he was really rather a bad example because he threw the money lenders out of the temples and cursed the fig tree, seemed somehow a little undignified. Russell is reliably at his least philosophical when he is at his most atheistical.
The genre tends to proceed thus: the atheist must first remove all possible respect from religious belief. The tone is a little perky, and lively thought-experiments bloom. They go a bit like this: if I told you that President Bush prays every day to his vacuum cleaner, you would judge him insane.But why is there any evidence that the God he prays to exists? It is fun, knockabout. Harris likes to compare belief in God with belief in Wotan or Zeus: "Can you prove that Zeus does not exist?
Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars of their personal income each year propitiating the gods of Mount Olympus."
.
If you'd like to see how a Buddhist reads Harris's book, check out
This week featured scientist and atheist Daniel Dennett writing on faith in government: .
Of the big three atheists currently getting so much media attention, I find Dennett much more level-headed and reasonable than Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. I enjoy his writing even when I disagree with him -- mostly because I do not feel in him the fundamentalist zeal I see in the other two.
From the article:
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This wise maxim, applied to the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state, has permitted the principle to drift into disrepair. People are encouraged to think that while there may be all sorts of borderline cases and vexing conundrums about just where to draw the line, examining them will only arouse anxiety and discord--so let’s just cover everything with a fine fog of pious, presumed consensus.I agree completely.We all honor the First Amendment and that’s that, and that’s fine. So it would be, if it weren’t for the steady pressure of those who would exploit our benign neglect, encroaching gradually on what makes the principle work–to the extent that it does.
For instance, the Christian conservatives in the country who wish to declare that this is a Christian nation are becoming bolder and bolder in their willingness to impose their own viewpoint on those who disagree.Fortunately, there are the beginnings of an organized resistence to this takeover, such as the Interfaith Alliance, chaired by Walter Cronkite. I enthusiastically support this effort, even though I am myself an atheist. Atheism is one of the live rails of American politics-touch it and you're toast.
Fair enough. Those are the current facts of life. Not so long ago, you couldn’t be elected if you were Catholic, or Jewish, or African-American.
But shouldn't we install another live rail, on the opposite side of the religious spectrum?
It ought to be just as much a fact of life that anybody who declares that their allegiance to their religion comes before their allegiance to democracy is simply unelectable.
Any politician who places their faith in their particular religion before the best interests of the people and the nation should be excluded from politics. Straight up, no exceptions.
It will never happen, much like .
There are far too many people, many of whom are in power, who would never agree to such a test for candidates. They argue that the majority of the people in this country identify as part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, making this by default (in their minds) a Christian nation. If you don't like it, they might say, move to France.
Dennett argues:
Consider the situation in Turkey. There are radical Islamic groups intent on using the democratic process to vote in an Islamic state that would then throw away the ladder and abolish democracy, replacing it with theocracy. What should be done about this is not at all obvious.How much different is that situation from what the radical religious right wants to do here?If the people democratically vote to demolish democracy, isn't this just like a club voting itself out of existence? It would be the will of the majority, after all.
In the United States, the problem is no less real for being less dramatic: There are many deeply religious people who believe that they may democratically impose more and more of their creed on the nation, by simply exercising their First Amendment rights to free expression and creating thereby a climate of opinion that renders opposition by secularists politically ineffective. This is a grave danger to democracy, more subversive, in fact, than anything Al Qaeda threatens.
Many of us believe that American democracy is the best hope of the world, that it provides the most secure and reliable–though hardly foolproof–platform on the planet for improving human welfare.
If it tumbles, the whole world is in deep trouble. We therefore put the securing of American democracy–America's secular democracy, with separation of church and state–at the very top of our list of priorities.
I guess I'm working , because Dennett goes on to say:
That [democracy] is something worth giving our lives for, if it comes to that, but only because, and so long as, we continue to believe that America plays this role of political lifeboat for Planet Earth.He concludes the article by suggesting that because we are asking the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq to put their nation before their particular form of faith, we owe it to ourselves and the world to do the same thing here.Isn't this what America asks of all of us?
This article is an example of why I like Dennett.
He is a clear thinker who does not resort to ridicule to get his point across. He argues his points with the faith-based as though they are as smart and educated as he is -- .
A friend suggested I deeply reflect on exactly what I need to communicate about I-I to have closure.
She basically said, "say it and move on." She made a great point. This is my final post relative to anything I-I or Ken Wilber.
...
and after much thought, I realize that I've already written most of what I need to say. Giving additional detail around the Multiplex, Salons, etc. isn't really necessary and is more destructive than constructive.
It is time for me to move on and have new adventures in this wonderful world!
Personally, even though I can understand his decision, I wanted to see some transparency brought to the situation at I-I. It certainly won' t come from those still inside the organization.
Those of us who have supported the organization as members from the beginning feel a little frustrated, I think.
Some of the parting words:
I suggest to the rest of you what I suggest to myself. Take Ken's books, read them, and use the map towards your work in the world.Do it yourself. Do it now. Start your own organization, movement, or whatever.
Maybe that is the best way to say thank you to Ken for what he has given us.
It tastes like dirt, which is one strike against it, and it has some potentially serious health consequences associated with it. But as much I would like to see soy use limited as much as possible, I have never referred to as does "columnist," Jim Rutz.
Check this out:
A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals
There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture.The ironic part is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular. . .
. .
The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy.Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.
I have nothing against an occasional soy snack.Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.
Estrogens are female hormones.If you're a woman, you're flooding your system with a substance it can't handle in surplus. If you're a man, you're suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally.
In fetal development, the default is being female.All humans (even in old age) tend toward femininity. The main thing that keeps men from diverging into the female pattern is testosterone, and testosterone is suppressed by an excess of estrogen.
If you're a grownup, you're already developed, and you're able to fight off some of the damaging effects of soy.Babies aren't so fortunate. Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you're giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby's endocrine system just can't cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable.
At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.
Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.(Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant.
But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.
Doctors used to hope soy would reduce hot flashes, prevent cancer and heart disease, and save millions in the Third World from starvation. That was before they knew much about long-term soy use.Now we know it's a classic example of a cure that's worse than the disease. For example, if your baby gets colic from cow's milk, do you switch him to soy milk? Don't even think about it.
His phytoestrogen level will jump to 20 times normal. If he is a she, brace yourself for watching her reach menarche as young as seven, robbing her of years of childhood. If he is a boy, it's far worse: He may not reach puberty till much later than normal.
. . .
.
Recent research on rats shows testicular atrophy, infertility and uterus hypertrophy (enlargement). This helps explain the infertility epidemic and the sudden growth in fertility clinics.But alas, by the time a soy-damaged infant has grown to adulthood and wants to marry, it's too late to get fixed by a fertility clinic.
. By the way, I added the emphasis on that insane part in the middle.
I'll be the first, most times, to condemn soy (see and ). However, I have never seen any information anywhere that suggests soy will cause homosexuality. If you fed your son soy formula and let him eat school lunch soy burgers as he grows up, you might end up with a smaller, less muscular, more effeminate son, but there nothing indicates that he would be gay.
The moronic author of the above article takes some useful data from rat studies and tries to formulate a blame for homosexuality and his apparently small penis -- it was the soy, really, it's not my fault -- as if penis size has anything to do with masculinity or homosexuality (well, actually, gay men have a slight statistical advantage in penis size, which is actually associated with higher testosterone levels).
I would never support using soy formula with infants, but I would also never blame it for everything Rutz blames on it. The real hazard to all of us, since it isn't a food choice, is environmental estrogen, or .
Compared to these toxic chemicals that are in plastics, air fresheners, auto exhaust, weed killers, paints and thinners, and so many other places, the in soy are relatively harmless.
The ignorance Rutz displays in trying to blame soy for the presence of homosexuality (which he says is on the rise, despite all official data suggesting ), is just plain disproved by the facts. He's another whacked wingnut intent on proving that homosexuality is not the genetically determined behavior that it is.
However, I do like the #1 song quite a bit -- it's refreshingly different that much of what I hear when I do listen to music stations.
1 "Crazy"
Gnarls Barkley
In a perfect world, Al Green could still sing collard-green soul gems like this one, but Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse stepped up with an instant classic, winning this year's "Hey Ya!" award for the song nobody even pretended not to like.
Everybody tried to cover it (our personal fave: the Raconteurs') -- but nobody can hit the chorus like Cee-Lo, and nobody ever will.
2 "Steady As She Goes"
The Raconteurs
The first single from Brendan Benson and Jack White's garage-glam band was a perfect dirty sundae of fuzz-box stutter, metallic zoom and pop-chorale candy. It is also a good reason to hope the Raconteurs are no one-album project.
3 "Ridin'"
Chamillionaire
The song least likely to be played in Drivers' Ed.: Chamillionaire dodges the cops, riding dirty with a car full of thugs who don't care where they're rolling or if they get there in one piece.
4 "What You Know"
T.
I.
T.I.
gets majestic with bass and synth strings booming like your car just flipped the corner. What you know about that? T.
I. knows all about that.
5 "Vans"
The Pack
Bay Area MCs the Pack broke out with this sleek, bare-bones ode to midpriced sneakers.
Words of warning: "Lace 'em past the fourth hole, you some type of sucker."
6 "Thunder on the Mountain"
Bob Dylan
So that's how you bring sexy back! Dylan slaps on a cowboy hat and greases up his favorite Chuck Berry guitar riff, one step ahead of the apocalypse and one step behind Alicia Keys.
7 "Smile"
Lily Allen
This deceptively named ditty was '06's most gloriously bitter breakup song: Part Mike Skinner, part Gwen Stefani, part Blondie, the young Allen defined her very own bratty, musically adventurous style on "smile," a reggae-lite platter about the joys of an ex's despair.
8 "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)"
Clipse with Slim Thug
Best line: "So proper/Hammertime gun-cocker." But the lyrics aren't really the point here -- the cuckoo-for-coconuts Neptunes steel-drum beat is.
9 "Dimension"
Wolfmother
Aussie guys dig out their big brothers' worn vinyl copy of Master of Reality and let the brain-bludgeon guitars off the chain.
10 "Ooh La La"
Goldfrapp
The kind of groovy dance number Kylie used to write, full of steamy, sweaty vocals and a fierce Sixties vamp.
December 1st
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
I’m happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23rd at Luigi’s Open Pit Barbecue.
There will be lots of spiked eggnog and a small band playing traditional carols … feel free to sing along. And don’t be surprised if our CEO shows up dressed as Santa Claus to light the Christmas tree! Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over $10.
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Patty Lewis
Human Resources Director
December 2nd
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
In no way was yesterday’s memo intended to exclude our Jewish
employees. We recognize that Hanukkah is an important holiday that often coincides with Christmas (though unfortunately not this year).
However, from now on we’re calling it our “Holiday Party.” The same policy applies to employees who are celebrating Kwanzaa at this time. There will be no Christmas tree and no Christmas carols sung.
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Patty Lewis
Human Resources Director
December 3rd
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
Regarding the anonymous note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table, I’m happy to accommodate this request, but, don’t forget, if I put a sign on the table that reads, “AA Only,” you won’t be anonymous anymore. In addition, forget about the gifts exchange– no gifts will be allowed since the union members feel that $10 is too much money.
December 7th
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
I’ve arranged for members of Overeaters Anonymous to sit farthest from the dessert buffet and pregnant women closest to the restrooms. Gays are allowed to sit with each other. Lesbians do not have to sit with the gay men; each will have their table.
Yes, there will be a flower arrangement for the gay men’s table. Happy now?
December 9th
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
People, people — nothing sinister was intended by wanting our CEO to play Santa Claus!
Even if the anagram of “Santa” does happen to be “Satan,” there is no evil connotation to our own “little man in a red suit.”
December 10th
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
Vegetarians — I’ve had it with you people!!
We’re going to hold this party at Luigi’s Open Pit whether you like it or not, you can just sit at the table farthest from the “grill of death,” as you put it, and you’ll get salad bar only, including hydroponic tomatoes. But, you know, tomatoes have feelings, too. They scream when you slice them.
I’ve heard them scream. I’m hearing them right now… Ha! I hope you all have a rotten holiday!
Drive drunk and die, you hear me?
December 14th
TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
I’m sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery from her stress-related illness. I’ll continue to forward your cards to her at the sanitarium.
In the meantime, management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd off with full pay.
“You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.”
We all need to access more courage in order to live our lives with greater joy, love, power, choice, integrity, and fullness.
And we all can envision and create a better tomorrow while finding courage to make required changes.
Courage means ‘heart.
’ It cannot be found in one great, heroic act, but in day-to-day actions that come from the heart, and from our willingness to take the path of heart.
We can cultivate and develop courage; it’s just a matter of discovering what’s most vital and enlivening.
So, grab your life by the throat and start living a bold life.
Here are the ten commandments:
I. You shall not quit, because it ain’t over till it’s over.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give up!II. You shall think before you speak.If someone tries to put you down, use that as fuel to get you to your goals. If you get rejected, keep trying. Pursue your goals with passion and confidence, and you’ll succeed in whatever endeavor you take on.
What are you made of? Really, what makes you tick. And how strong do you think you are?
Whenever you will feel fear, tiredness, discomfort or laziness, stare them right in the eyes and just laugh. Because the bottom line is if you want something and commit to paying the price to get it, you will, sooner or later, have everything you could ever want in your life.
So never quit on yourself.It ain’t over till it’s over.
When you engage another person in conversation, always think before talking. May sound simple, but everybody knows someone who does not think before talking. You know the saying, “Putting his/her foot in his/her mouth.III. You shall not try to save someone from himself, because you will fail.”
I know your mind has many random thoughts, but there is no need to expose them to the world. Look at good politicians, sales people, and diplomats. They are masters at saying enough to stay out of a conflict, but somehow they still manage to get a particular point across.
So, before you open your mouth, just turn over your thought and inject it with a trace of reason.
You can try if you want - and you will - but you’ll eventually fail. You have to understand that your belief that you know what’s best will always be trumped by his belief that he knows better.IV. You shall surround yourself with good people.
So, treat his crash-and-burn like a good New Year’s party: Enjoy the carnage, but offer to stay and help clean up afterward.
If you want to achieve great heights, you must fly with the best.V. You shall not think life is fair, because it isn’t.And people will always judge you based on those that surround you. So choose your friends carefully.
If you choose people of quality, competence and integrity to work and live with, you will eventually come off looking brilliant from the onset.
And remember to stay away from negative people as much as you can, they are really draining. Bad taste in pants can be forgiven. Bad taste in friends cannot.
Life just isn’t fair, and I know this might sound crazy - but that’s great news!VI. You shall always consider the source.
If life were ‘fair’, you would be in trouble. And that’s because you wouldn’t be able to do anything to change your personal success, you’d get what everyone else was getting.
Truly, the best part of this realization is that you CAN change your personal success in ANY area you want.And you can turn the tables around in YOUR FAVOR, because many people living in our society feel the house is playing with a stacked deck.
Life isn’t fair! Now realize the truth and harness the power of flipping it around.
With so many different media we have today, why rely on just one person to get help?VII.Why would you put success on the line by allowing only one person to mentor you?
Because no matter how much experience or how well you think they are trying to guide you, you have to validate that advice by checking for yourself. Never take advice only from one source.
Remember that only after you’ve gathered enough data and finished reading anecdotal reports you can make a well-informed decision. And when you can, when you have time-tasted information to provide, make sure to share your experiences with others.
You shall get over yourself.
That curing-cancer story you have is good only as a nice résumé builder and good for about 5 minutes of party talk. After that, all anyone wants to hear is just a good joke.VIII. You shall shut up and play.
I think it’s time for our society to take a more modest approach and quit this destructive pursuit of self-esteem at all costs.
Are you one of those people who is always complaining about how the world is run? Well let me tell you something: Complaining accomplishes absolutely nothing. If you have a problem with something, you’re the only person responsible for fixing it.IX. You shall not try to please everyone.
There is no one else you need praise or blame, you have to take responsibility for your own life. There is no ‘they,’ ‘him,’ or ’she.’ No one is going to fix your life.You are!
So get out there and get your hands dirty, don’t just stand there holding a towel for others. The world needs people willing to do something, not people who just talk about doing something.Don’t just raise your voice, lift your feet and get moving!
You can’t be everything to everyone, no matter how hard you try.X. You shall not ponder so long.
Don’t cry, get mean, yell or vent during confrontations. Be confident, state what you feel and let the person show their true self.Laugh until your side hurts. And remember that you can’t please everyone.
People will always find some fault with your site, your work, your housekeeping, your parenting and whatever else they can come up with.So what? What counts is that YOU know you are doing the best you can, and you feel good about yourself.
Don’t worry about pleasing everyone.
There’s nothing less captivating or inspiring than watching a man ponder.Remember that pain is only temporary, but quitting lasts forever. So, live a strong, bold life!Heck, even Thoreau eventually stopped staring at the pond and wrote a book.
Anyone want to revise these? Add new ones and remove ones that aren't so good?
Sex seems to promise so much.
Skin aflame with unbearable bliss. Sobbing embraces of vulnerable rapture. Transcendent merger as utter oneness.
But usually, sex is fairly mundane.
Men get hard, pump and grunt, squirt out their tension, and relax. Women get wet, moan and hump, seize and weep, and snuggle in warm comfort.
At first exciting, sex can become quite predictable. Even good sex can become standardized.
In this way, sex is like the rest of life.
It’s actually less than you hoped. For almost everyone who reaches middle age, sex and life become a customary enjoyment, an habitualized routine of pleasure, comfort, and pain that is consoling at best, and often meaningless.
This is good.
Meaninglessness is a sign of growth. When something becomes boring it means you are ready to go deeper. When you are humping away but still unsatisfied, you are ready for deeper sex.
Sex that feels empty reveals a deeper truth: Sex is empty. Just like any other moment of life.
When you allow yourself to feel sex completely, you feel two things.
On the one hand, your genitals are engorged, your chest is heaving, and your passions are inflamed. On the other hand, so what? You’ve been there before and nothing fundamental has resulted.
This moment of sex—like every moment—is amazingly rich and deliciously textured, but also strangely vacant.
Eventually you realize that nothing specific is missing from your sexual life. You can certainly improve your sexual skills—communicating your emotions more fully and enjoying multiple orgasms that last for hours—yet, when your fascination with new pleasure and achievement wears off, you become re-aware of a haunting sense of emptiness.
The truth is, every sexual moment is empty. Every moment is empty, insubstantial, unreal. And every moment is full, tangible, explosively alive.
Like a vivid dream, each moment is intensely impactful, spontaneously dynamic, and instantly gone, as if it never occurred. Sex can be tender, a miracle of love, yet vaporously inconsequential, a wistful deja vu. Simultaneously, sex is intense and vanished; even when utterly blissful, it is also utterly empty.
Naive youth gets lost in the brief rush of pleasure. Depressed grown-ups linger in the not-enough of vacant embrace. The truth is that every moment is tangibly insubstantial.
The true lover surrenders beyond all hold, as naked life is.
But to get to this point requires outgrowing your grasp on feeling good—or bad—about sex. Early in your sexual life, enjoy the thrill of romance and fascination for as long as it lasts.
Then, frolic in the middle days of unsatisfying but decent sexual routine.
Eventually, when hope has worn away, when you have no other choice, relax in the coat of emptiness you already wear. Don love’s open bliss.
Bear edgeless luminosity. Sex is a revelation of what is, intensely.
There is news this morning, however, in the :
Dear Friends,
Ken was taking a prescription medicine known to cause seizures. He had one. Don't worry, he will be completely fine.
Sadly, he cannot have visitors, because they're keeping him for a week in the hospital for dialysis. He sends all of you his love and he says, “Enjoy the vacation, I'm coming back!”
No link was given, but it was also noted that it came from an email.
It sounds much less serious than the original info suggested. This is good news. KW has a lot of work left to do in the world.
She suffered a breakdown at the end of her junior year of college, but recovered well enough to return and excel during her senior year, receiving various prizes and graduating summa cum laude. In 1955, having been awarded a Fulbright scholarship, she began two years at Cambridge University. There she met and married the British poet and settled in England, bearing two children.
Her first book of poems, The Colossus (1960), demonstrated her precocious talent, but was far more conventional than the work that followed. Having studied with in 1959 and been influenced by the "confessional" style of his collection Life Studies, she embarked on the new work that made her posthumous reputation as a major poet. A terrifying record of her encroaching mental illness, the poems that were collected after her suicide (at age 30) in 1963 in the volumes Ariel, Crossing the Water, and Winter Trees are graphically macabre, hallucinatory in their imagery, but full of ironic wit, technical brilliance, and tremendous emotional power.
Her Selected Poems were published by Ted Hughes in 1985.
To me, no poem better exemplifies Plath's brilliance and mission than "Ariel." This is the most often criticized and most often praised poem in her body of work.
It is also my favorite Plath poem.
ArielAs often as not, critics look at the biographical detail that Ariel was the name of Plath's horse, and that she once was subjected to a two-mile ride in which she had no control of the horse as it returned to the stable at a full gallop (as told by , her one-time husband and the object of feminist scorn for having cheated on and left Plath to take care of their two young children).
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! -- The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks ----
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else
Hauls me through air ----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeel ----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
But the poem has deeper meanings, and the title also refers to Prospero's servant in Shakespeare's and to the symbolic name for Jerusalem, in which Ariel translates as "Lion of God" (see line 4 in the poem for how this works its way into the text).
Many of Plath's poems, as seen above, display a fascination with the Jewish people and their plight.
Jon Rosenblatt gets at some of the deeper elements of this poem in his book, . When I wrote on Plath in college, I found this book very useful.
. . .
A poem like "Ariel" possesses power and importance to the degree to which the horseback ride Plath once took becomes something more—a ride into the eye of the sun, a journey to death, a stripping of personality and selfhood. To treat "Ariel" as a confessional poem is to suggest that its actual importance lies in the horse- ride taken by its author, in the author's psychological problems, or in its position within the biographical development of the author. None of these issues is as significant as the imagistic and thematic developments rendered by the poem itself.
. . .
. . .
"Ariel" is probably Plath's finest single construction because of the precision and depth of its images. In its account of the ritual journey toward the center of life and death, Plath perfects her method of leaping from image to image in order to represent mental process. The sensuousness and concreteness of the poem—the "Black sweet blood mouthfuls" of the berries; the "glitter of seas"—is unmatched in contemporary American poetry.
We see, hear, touch, and taste the process of disintegration: the horse emerging from the darkness of the morning, the sun beginning to rise as Ariel rushes uncontrollably across the countryside, the rider trying to catch the brown neck but instead "tasting" the blackberries on the side of the road. Then all the rider's perceptions are thrown together: the horse's body and the rider's merge. She hears her own cry as if it were that of a child and flies toward the burning sun that has now risen.
In "Ariel," Plath finds a perfect blend between Latinate and colloquial dictions, between abstractness and concreteness. The languages of her earlier and her later work come together:
WhiteThe concreteness of the Anglo-Saxon "hands" gives way to the abstractness of the Latinate "stringencies": both the physical and psychological aspects of the self have died and are pared away.
Godiva, I unpeel—
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
Finally, the treatment of aural effects in the poem makes it the finest of Plath's technical accomplishments. The slant-rhymes, the assonance (for example, the "I"-sound in the last three stanzas), and the flexible three-line stanzas provide a superb music. .
. . the vortex of images sucks the reader into identifying with a clearly self-destroying journey.
On a literal level, few readers would willingly accept this ride into nothingness. But, through its precise rendering of sensation, the poem becomes a temptation: it draws us into its beautiful aural and visual universe against our win. As the pace of the horseride quickens, the intensity of the visual effects becomes greater.
The identification of the speaker with the world outside becomes more extreme; Plath's metaphors suggest a large degree of fusion between disparate objects, as in the lines "I / foam to wheat, a glitter of seas." The ride across the fields suddenly turns into an ocean voyage. The body then fuses with the external world.
As the speaker's merger with the sun is completed, so is the reader's merger with her: the process of identification within the poem generates a corresponding identification on the part of the reader. If the speaker will be destroyed in the cauldron of energy, the sun, so the reader will be destroyed in the cauldron of the poem. The poem entices us into a kind of death—the experience of abandoning our bodies and selves.
No other poem in Plath's work so well details the struggle between Eros and Thanatos as does "Ariel." It is the quest for transcendence through dissolution, a desire to completely erase the self and merge into something greater.
For more on this poem and some other Plath poems, see the page on Plath.
To get a feel for the softer side of Plath, please take note of and , both written for her baby son.
Sylvia Plath on the web:
-- 121 poems
spotlight on Plath
And like ebuddha, I remember when MTV actually played videos.
Amazon has its list of the , and of course they are on sale. Fortunately, there are only a couple of books in this top 50 list that I want to read.
Finally, Rolling Stone has assembled its list of . A newly restored box-set version of Brazil tops my list of must-haves from this list. I love Terry Gilliam.
There are many I still need to see, but none that I need to own, which is always good.
-- These buttons are hosted by ImagePile (http://beta.imagepile.net/) "We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thought. With our thoughts, we make our world.
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