PROMOTE DIGNITY OF WOMEN AND THEIR ROLE IN SOCIAL LIFE
VATICAN CITY, APR 24, 2007 (VIS) - Made public today was the text of a talk delivered by Msgr. Franco Follo before the executive council of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on April 20.
Msgr. Follo, Holy See permanent observer to UNESCO, dwelt on the importance of the authentic promotion of the dignity of women and of their participation in social life.
"Christian faith," said the permanent observer, "nourishes the conviction that no human being, man or woman, can be denied the intrinsic value that God granted to each person," a value "that cannot be alienated. At the same time, this original dignity reminds us that all human beings must be treated as people and not as objects."
Msgr. Follo highlighted how political and social, national and international organizations "have the duty to do everything possible to ensure that such dignity is always respected, in all the stages of a person's life. In this context, greater attention must be given to ensuring respect for women and girls, especially as concerns their physical integrity, their free decision to choose a husband, and the need for them to access education and social life."
"Thanks to women, whose often humble and unseen activities must be supported, it will be possible to promote the family more effectively as a basic social cell, young people will learn to integrate into social networks, peace will be sought with greater intensity, and dialogue and human relationships will become factors for fraternity and solidarity at the local level. In other words," he concluded, "all of society will benefit from the vocation, the activity and the genius of women."
DELSS/DIGNITY WOMEN/UNESCO:FOLLO VIS 070424 (290)
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
WHEN JUSTICE KISSES PEACE
FREEDOM FROM WANT
We hear a lot of talk about giving Freedom to people half a world away.
For that we are sacrificing our finest.
Yet, you can't turn on Sunday morning TV and see the Feed the Children guy and not know that there is suffering everywhere. But you knew that. John Edwards calls it the "two countries" where the middle class is losing ground in a newly stratified "have, have not" society or according to Bush, a society of his base of "have mores" and everyone else. John Kerry railed against decimation of communities by "outsourcing" jobs to India and elsewhere closing factories that supported entire communities. Everyone knows people are hungry everywhere-except maybe Simon Cowell who was shocked to find a Food Bank kitchen in Los Angeles. Any given early morning in Washington, DC I can walk past Western Avenue Presbyterian Church a block from the Watergate where Condolezza lives and see homeless men lining up around the block for breakfast.
The American Idol personalities last night travelled to Africa to "give back" to people who don't have antiretroviral drugs or food much less TVs. But you know you don't have to go to Africa to find it-while it is stark there. If you look hard enough you can see it everywhere-its ugly-its shameful- its POVERTY. There might be some of it in your family even that has annoyed you and to which you turned a blind eye-that relative who is a bottomless pit of need. There might be some of it in your street at that crackling painted house, and for sure there is some of it in that neighborhood where you seldom drive without locking the doors and the windows up in the city.
"A National Scandal" is what Peter Edelman calls Poverty in America. He has been fighting the "War on Poverty" since working for Robert F. Kennedy as an idealistic young Harvard lawyer who could have easily instead probably gone to Wall Street. He is heading a task force on fighting Poverty with the Center for American Progress.
See, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_numbers.html
Katrina got to him. How on earth in this country could we lose entire parishes of people who were trapped and just drowned right before our eyes on TVs--IN THIS COUNTRY! No cars to get out, no bank accounts, no means to go anywhere but squatting in a sports stadium if they were rescued. You couldn't watch that and not be just sick at your stomach. People floating face down in the streets of New Orleans. Unspeakable.
Moral Lectures don't pursuade people to care about each other. Bad Boy, you made so much money you should give more of it away doesn't pursuade people to care more about those less fortunate. But economic arguments might. Poverty costs more than its worth. It costs in lost productivity costs for sick workers and for the non-integration of under-educated people who could be in the workforce, it costs in emergency room health bills, it costs in the emotional toll on people who love the people they know in poverty and it costs in terms of our international competitiveness in a thousand ways. Economists have ways to quantify this but it is obvious that Poverty costs us all. That is what the "ONE" campaign also understands.
Go to www.ONE.org and read about what they are doing to fight global poverty.
Ted Kenendy believes we can and must do better in Educating everyone to meet the competitive challenges of the global marketplace now. And don't tell him that anyone from a poor neighborhood cannot learn as well as the next kid from a rich suburb. Our public education system needs major overhauling at a national level to meet the obvious challenges, he argued.
Jesus spent his ministry doing three things basically; teaching, healing (healing people through teaching forgiveness, healing spirits and minds by driving out demons, and physically curing disease) and feeding people. He continues to do it and he continues to tell us to do it in his name. Matthew 25 is the clearest blueprint for what he has instructed and how he holds us accountable. We know that in so much as you do this to "the least of these" my brethren you do it to me. There will be sheep and goats, and you know the story. OK, so fear of firey hell doesn't motivate people much either these days. Charlie Rangel has another Angle. National Security. If we don't take care of people in poverty, they easily fall into crime, if we don't create employment in communties we create pathologies instead that eventually come back to bite us.
And the richest of us aren't saying "Bite Me." They are often really nice people who are happy to give if asked nicely in the right way by the right people-so long as they can write it off.
We have a chance now to make a real serious difference. In fact, Peter Edelman's goal is ambitious but realistic. We are the "Can Do" Nation and we Can Do this. We can cut Poverty in half in the next ten years. Certainly we can cut childhood poverty in half, and a huge percentage of people in poverty are kids. Think about it hard. A huge number of people in poverty in this country are kids. Kids. His task force has planned a 12 point legislative agenda toward this goal of cutting poverty in half in ten years and completely eradicating it in this country in a generation.
see, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/podesta_poverty_testimony.html
We can do this painlessly if we commit ourselves to it. 12 points, like the 12 apostles of progressive reform, or the 12 steps to sober reality checking the country's conscience.
What does Poverty mean? It means people really don't have peace of mind that they can meet their bills, it means keeping a roof over the head sheltering from the elements, it means food on the table regularly, it means a place to go to work or not instead of hanging on the street, it means that the struggle is with existence itself.
And here is what else it means-it factors hugely into calculations concerning whether women think that they can afford to bring another child into the world. Poverty is the single most influential factor on the Abortion crisis. You cannot look at Abortion in this country and ignore the issue of Poverty. To solve the Poverty problem goes a long long way toward solving the Abortion crisis. Ask any single female. 51% of all women in this country are now living without husbands single. We cannot plan public policy on the old Father Knows Best model because husbands and fathers are missing from the picture of over half the women in America now. Women are struggling. Women with children are struggling much more. Three million people a year abort their offspring in this country. Every two years we have a holocaust sized abortion pile of dismembered fetal arms, legs and heads created largely by the Bondage to Want in a country that isn't paying attention to the effects of Poverty on women.
We all want Peace, Peace in Iraq, peace of mind, peace from the tortured violence of self-destructive, emotionally devastating, fetacide abortions.
When we achieve the Justice that can happen through this 12 point legislative agenda proposed by the Task Force on Poverty, that is when Justice meets Peace and kisses it.
We hear a lot of talk about giving Freedom to people half a world away.
For that we are sacrificing our finest.
Yet, you can't turn on Sunday morning TV and see the Feed the Children guy and not know that there is suffering everywhere. But you knew that. John Edwards calls it the "two countries" where the middle class is losing ground in a newly stratified "have, have not" society or according to Bush, a society of his base of "have mores" and everyone else. John Kerry railed against decimation of communities by "outsourcing" jobs to India and elsewhere closing factories that supported entire communities. Everyone knows people are hungry everywhere-except maybe Simon Cowell who was shocked to find a Food Bank kitchen in Los Angeles. Any given early morning in Washington, DC I can walk past Western Avenue Presbyterian Church a block from the Watergate where Condolezza lives and see homeless men lining up around the block for breakfast.
The American Idol personalities last night travelled to Africa to "give back" to people who don't have antiretroviral drugs or food much less TVs. But you know you don't have to go to Africa to find it-while it is stark there. If you look hard enough you can see it everywhere-its ugly-its shameful- its POVERTY. There might be some of it in your family even that has annoyed you and to which you turned a blind eye-that relative who is a bottomless pit of need. There might be some of it in your street at that crackling painted house, and for sure there is some of it in that neighborhood where you seldom drive without locking the doors and the windows up in the city.
"A National Scandal" is what Peter Edelman calls Poverty in America. He has been fighting the "War on Poverty" since working for Robert F. Kennedy as an idealistic young Harvard lawyer who could have easily instead probably gone to Wall Street. He is heading a task force on fighting Poverty with the Center for American Progress.
See, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_numbers.html
Katrina got to him. How on earth in this country could we lose entire parishes of people who were trapped and just drowned right before our eyes on TVs--IN THIS COUNTRY! No cars to get out, no bank accounts, no means to go anywhere but squatting in a sports stadium if they were rescued. You couldn't watch that and not be just sick at your stomach. People floating face down in the streets of New Orleans. Unspeakable.
Moral Lectures don't pursuade people to care about each other. Bad Boy, you made so much money you should give more of it away doesn't pursuade people to care more about those less fortunate. But economic arguments might. Poverty costs more than its worth. It costs in lost productivity costs for sick workers and for the non-integration of under-educated people who could be in the workforce, it costs in emergency room health bills, it costs in the emotional toll on people who love the people they know in poverty and it costs in terms of our international competitiveness in a thousand ways. Economists have ways to quantify this but it is obvious that Poverty costs us all. That is what the "ONE" campaign also understands.
Go to www.ONE.org and read about what they are doing to fight global poverty.
Ted Kenendy believes we can and must do better in Educating everyone to meet the competitive challenges of the global marketplace now. And don't tell him that anyone from a poor neighborhood cannot learn as well as the next kid from a rich suburb. Our public education system needs major overhauling at a national level to meet the obvious challenges, he argued.
Jesus spent his ministry doing three things basically; teaching, healing (healing people through teaching forgiveness, healing spirits and minds by driving out demons, and physically curing disease) and feeding people. He continues to do it and he continues to tell us to do it in his name. Matthew 25 is the clearest blueprint for what he has instructed and how he holds us accountable. We know that in so much as you do this to "the least of these" my brethren you do it to me. There will be sheep and goats, and you know the story. OK, so fear of firey hell doesn't motivate people much either these days. Charlie Rangel has another Angle. National Security. If we don't take care of people in poverty, they easily fall into crime, if we don't create employment in communties we create pathologies instead that eventually come back to bite us.
And the richest of us aren't saying "Bite Me." They are often really nice people who are happy to give if asked nicely in the right way by the right people-so long as they can write it off.
We have a chance now to make a real serious difference. In fact, Peter Edelman's goal is ambitious but realistic. We are the "Can Do" Nation and we Can Do this. We can cut Poverty in half in the next ten years. Certainly we can cut childhood poverty in half, and a huge percentage of people in poverty are kids. Think about it hard. A huge number of people in poverty in this country are kids. Kids. His task force has planned a 12 point legislative agenda toward this goal of cutting poverty in half in ten years and completely eradicating it in this country in a generation.
see, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/podesta_poverty_testimony.html
We can do this painlessly if we commit ourselves to it. 12 points, like the 12 apostles of progressive reform, or the 12 steps to sober reality checking the country's conscience.
What does Poverty mean? It means people really don't have peace of mind that they can meet their bills, it means keeping a roof over the head sheltering from the elements, it means food on the table regularly, it means a place to go to work or not instead of hanging on the street, it means that the struggle is with existence itself.
And here is what else it means-it factors hugely into calculations concerning whether women think that they can afford to bring another child into the world. Poverty is the single most influential factor on the Abortion crisis. You cannot look at Abortion in this country and ignore the issue of Poverty. To solve the Poverty problem goes a long long way toward solving the Abortion crisis. Ask any single female. 51% of all women in this country are now living without husbands single. We cannot plan public policy on the old Father Knows Best model because husbands and fathers are missing from the picture of over half the women in America now. Women are struggling. Women with children are struggling much more. Three million people a year abort their offspring in this country. Every two years we have a holocaust sized abortion pile of dismembered fetal arms, legs and heads created largely by the Bondage to Want in a country that isn't paying attention to the effects of Poverty on women.
We all want Peace, Peace in Iraq, peace of mind, peace from the tortured violence of self-destructive, emotionally devastating, fetacide abortions.
When we achieve the Justice that can happen through this 12 point legislative agenda proposed by the Task Force on Poverty, that is when Justice meets Peace and kisses it.
Friday, April 20, 2007
PERVERSIONS AND OTHER SICKNESS IN THE CITY
ARE THEY KIDDING?
This has been an interesting week in Washington. We had a moment of silence today for the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech slaying.
How many years of silence should we have for the half a million Iraqis we slaughtered for their “freedom” and favorable oil trade terms? There is something just a wee bit perverse about that.
Then yesterday on the Hill:
Our Attorney General has proved that he should now be called “The Right Honorable Esteemed Little Lying Putz, Esquire.” His rehearsed lapses in memory make one wonder how he remembered to put a tie on. He was there, he wasn’t there, he had a meeting with discussions, without discussions, what meeting? he forgets who was there, he is the decider, he had minimal involvment, it's the DAG's job, it's his job, he didn’t know about it, Who’s on first? GIMME A FRIGGIN BREAK! The only things he can specifically remember about why he fired brilliant, highly educated, highly experienced, successful chief US attorney prosecutors in EIGHT jurisdictions had something to do with failings in the areas of “energy level” (from someone who could put the Energizer Bunny to sleep), vague ill-defined “judgment” areas (meaning they disagreed with the Torture Czar’s judgment) and failing in some undefined way to more vigorously prosecute immigration and obscenity cases.
What is really obscene, however, is the Attorney General’s total Perversion of Truth.
And for the triple hitter on the Too Perverse to Leave a Head Unscratched Meter, is the slew of statements from virtually every Democratic Presidential contender condemning the 5-4 Supreme Court “partial birth abortion” decision that was quickly eclipsed by the more macabre news. We actually have to have a law and we actually have to have the Supreme Court of the land saying it’s a good one, that we can’t puncture the skulls and suck the brains out of viable pre-born children as they are being born. The weird fact that we actually have to have a law saying that is trumped only by the weirdness of every Democratic Presidential contender boldly declaring that the law violates women’s rights to –what privacy-? Aren’t you forgetting that there is someone else present getting his or HER skull punctured in and brains sucked out?. In the last days it is said, people will call right wrong and wrong right and really not know the difference. Hard to see how we could be more there than now. A procedure that most people would recognize as inhumane torture worthy of locking someone up for life if done to a puppy, somehow should be permitted because to not permit it violates women’s rights? Are they kidding?
Women, who are by Democrats presumed to be completely emotionally incapable of making a choice to not have sex and thus avoid an unwanted pregnancy as if they had no clue how babies are made, want all the choices in the world when and how to dispose of the natural repercussion after ignoring the fact of how babies are made, abnegating all pre-conception choices, and after having made a baby.
Here are the choices they apparently thought they didn't have a problem exercising in a timely manner- whether to meet a man, to go to a private place with a man, to take off one’s clothing and have a man take leave of his clothing, to then consummate. Here are more choices no one seems to have a problem with- do you want the chicken or fish at dinner? Do you accept the guys call or hang up on him? Do you want to take a cab to his place or have him come to yours? Do you want to pay for parking or park on the street? Do you want to go to a movie first or just home? Do you want to go upstairs or just sit on the couch? Do you want to have the red or white wine? Somehow we think women are mentally capable of exercising all those choices out of their own free will-and guess what- they do!. But they don’t apparently have the last choice when to succumb to having him insert himself into them. Are they kidding?
Then they want to say that because their fetus (which contains DNA different than theirs and can even have different blood type) is in utero- regardless of the fact of whether it can exist viably outside the womb- it is something somehow etiologically of a different substance than the identical DNA it is ten minutes later after it makes it outside the birth canal such that they can't call it a "baby" or "child" and they have exclusive right to deny it of all legal right to existence. Just Totally Perverse.
The Democrats want to canonize people like Kate Michaelman because she was victim to an abusive husband whom she divorced and so she wants the legal right to “terminate” her offspring before she figured out how to leave him. Cry me a River Honey. Sorry- Again- Just Perverse. Why are we canonizing women not having the strength or intelligence to exercise their bodily integrity before they get pregnant? We have bodily integrity enough to stick to a Jenny Craig diet, South Beach Diet, and bodily integrity enough to know when we have our clothes on or off. People have been leaving their abusive husbands for thousands of years. Aren’t we catering to and promoting a culture endorsing the bigotry of low expectations of women’s underestimated emotional intelligence? Can’t we insist women be –hello- just a little smarter than that? Because most of us are and we are sick of the argument.
Family Planning starts at “Hello, here’s my number.”
We are creating a culture where men treat women like disposable trash because, frankly, we treat the fruit of ourselves, our offspring that way. I would rather live in a country where women are considered worthy to be trained to be smarter than that, because until we respect ourselves and the lives within us how do we expect men to?
This has been an interesting week in Washington. We had a moment of silence today for the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech slaying.
How many years of silence should we have for the half a million Iraqis we slaughtered for their “freedom” and favorable oil trade terms? There is something just a wee bit perverse about that.
Then yesterday on the Hill:
Our Attorney General has proved that he should now be called “The Right Honorable Esteemed Little Lying Putz, Esquire.” His rehearsed lapses in memory make one wonder how he remembered to put a tie on. He was there, he wasn’t there, he had a meeting with discussions, without discussions, what meeting? he forgets who was there, he is the decider, he had minimal involvment, it's the DAG's job, it's his job, he didn’t know about it, Who’s on first? GIMME A FRIGGIN BREAK! The only things he can specifically remember about why he fired brilliant, highly educated, highly experienced, successful chief US attorney prosecutors in EIGHT jurisdictions had something to do with failings in the areas of “energy level” (from someone who could put the Energizer Bunny to sleep), vague ill-defined “judgment” areas (meaning they disagreed with the Torture Czar’s judgment) and failing in some undefined way to more vigorously prosecute immigration and obscenity cases.
What is really obscene, however, is the Attorney General’s total Perversion of Truth.
And for the triple hitter on the Too Perverse to Leave a Head Unscratched Meter, is the slew of statements from virtually every Democratic Presidential contender condemning the 5-4 Supreme Court “partial birth abortion” decision that was quickly eclipsed by the more macabre news. We actually have to have a law and we actually have to have the Supreme Court of the land saying it’s a good one, that we can’t puncture the skulls and suck the brains out of viable pre-born children as they are being born. The weird fact that we actually have to have a law saying that is trumped only by the weirdness of every Democratic Presidential contender boldly declaring that the law violates women’s rights to –what privacy-? Aren’t you forgetting that there is someone else present getting his or HER skull punctured in and brains sucked out?. In the last days it is said, people will call right wrong and wrong right and really not know the difference. Hard to see how we could be more there than now. A procedure that most people would recognize as inhumane torture worthy of locking someone up for life if done to a puppy, somehow should be permitted because to not permit it violates women’s rights? Are they kidding?
Women, who are by Democrats presumed to be completely emotionally incapable of making a choice to not have sex and thus avoid an unwanted pregnancy as if they had no clue how babies are made, want all the choices in the world when and how to dispose of the natural repercussion after ignoring the fact of how babies are made, abnegating all pre-conception choices, and after having made a baby.
Here are the choices they apparently thought they didn't have a problem exercising in a timely manner- whether to meet a man, to go to a private place with a man, to take off one’s clothing and have a man take leave of his clothing, to then consummate. Here are more choices no one seems to have a problem with- do you want the chicken or fish at dinner? Do you accept the guys call or hang up on him? Do you want to take a cab to his place or have him come to yours? Do you want to pay for parking or park on the street? Do you want to go to a movie first or just home? Do you want to go upstairs or just sit on the couch? Do you want to have the red or white wine? Somehow we think women are mentally capable of exercising all those choices out of their own free will-and guess what- they do!. But they don’t apparently have the last choice when to succumb to having him insert himself into them. Are they kidding?
Then they want to say that because their fetus (which contains DNA different than theirs and can even have different blood type) is in utero- regardless of the fact of whether it can exist viably outside the womb- it is something somehow etiologically of a different substance than the identical DNA it is ten minutes later after it makes it outside the birth canal such that they can't call it a "baby" or "child" and they have exclusive right to deny it of all legal right to existence. Just Totally Perverse.
The Democrats want to canonize people like Kate Michaelman because she was victim to an abusive husband whom she divorced and so she wants the legal right to “terminate” her offspring before she figured out how to leave him. Cry me a River Honey. Sorry- Again- Just Perverse. Why are we canonizing women not having the strength or intelligence to exercise their bodily integrity before they get pregnant? We have bodily integrity enough to stick to a Jenny Craig diet, South Beach Diet, and bodily integrity enough to know when we have our clothes on or off. People have been leaving their abusive husbands for thousands of years. Aren’t we catering to and promoting a culture endorsing the bigotry of low expectations of women’s underestimated emotional intelligence? Can’t we insist women be –hello- just a little smarter than that? Because most of us are and we are sick of the argument.
Family Planning starts at “Hello, here’s my number.”
We are creating a culture where men treat women like disposable trash because, frankly, we treat the fruit of ourselves, our offspring that way. I would rather live in a country where women are considered worthy to be trained to be smarter than that, because until we respect ourselves and the lives within us how do we expect men to?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
THAT's WHY THEY CALL IT A MIRACLE
That wasn't supposed to happen
You know it isn’t supposed to happen that you can take a few jugs of water and turn it into enough wine to feed a wedding party. Just thought I would remind you that this was one of my first miracles. A wedding. That’s because I adore weddings if you have not noticed.
It isn’t supposed to happen that I can say to a dead girl “Talitha Koum” –or “Get UP little sweetie!” and she isn’t dead anymore.
It isn’t supposed to happen that a guy who was blind from birth could see after I spit in a bit of dirt and made mud patties on his eyes. Some people might have even thought mud spittle pattys were disgusting.
It isn’t supposed to happen that someone who was lame for years could pick up the floor mat he sat on and skip away on the Sabbath when I asked him to. That one was really against the rules.
It isn’t supposed to happen that I could take a few loaves of barley bread and a couple fish and feed about five thousand people hanging out on the hill to hear me give a little lenten talk.
It isn’t supposed to happen that people can walk on top of water.
It isn’t supposed to happen that people can walk through walls to an Upper Room-I was really excited to see my old friends and the door lock was annoying-locked doors can't keep me from being with my friends.
It isn’t even supposed to happen that you could be dead and buried in a tomb and walk out come to think of it.
It isn’t supposed to happen that old ladies can be love and in love such that they have children well past what everyone thinks are usual child bearing years- but Sarai, wife of Abraham-the great patriarch of all nations did, Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah-the holy righteous Priest did, and Anna-wife of Joachin did, without which act credited to them as righteousness we never would have had Isaac, John the Baptist or the Most Blessed Mother Mary, thus Me. So get over it-you are too old- I love old ladies.
In fact I love all ladies- even skanky ones- even ones married five times, even ones getting stoned for being ho's, even one's with no money sense who waste all their money buying me annointing oil for my feet (still remembering that one aren't you), even ones who refuse to do the dishes so they can sit at my feet listening to me instead.
Listen- Do you need a Miracle? I am the storehouse of Miracles. I am the CEO of Miracles. I am the Way. All of you who are tortured, burdened, heavy, labored, just come to me. Just come to me. I can give you rest. Don’t you believe in miracles yet?
What are you blind? I have something for you.
You know it isn’t supposed to happen that you can take a few jugs of water and turn it into enough wine to feed a wedding party. Just thought I would remind you that this was one of my first miracles. A wedding. That’s because I adore weddings if you have not noticed.
It isn’t supposed to happen that I can say to a dead girl “Talitha Koum” –or “Get UP little sweetie!” and she isn’t dead anymore.
It isn’t supposed to happen that a guy who was blind from birth could see after I spit in a bit of dirt and made mud patties on his eyes. Some people might have even thought mud spittle pattys were disgusting.
It isn’t supposed to happen that someone who was lame for years could pick up the floor mat he sat on and skip away on the Sabbath when I asked him to. That one was really against the rules.
It isn’t supposed to happen that I could take a few loaves of barley bread and a couple fish and feed about five thousand people hanging out on the hill to hear me give a little lenten talk.
It isn’t supposed to happen that people can walk on top of water.
It isn’t supposed to happen that people can walk through walls to an Upper Room-I was really excited to see my old friends and the door lock was annoying-locked doors can't keep me from being with my friends.
It isn’t even supposed to happen that you could be dead and buried in a tomb and walk out come to think of it.
It isn’t supposed to happen that old ladies can be love and in love such that they have children well past what everyone thinks are usual child bearing years- but Sarai, wife of Abraham-the great patriarch of all nations did, Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah-the holy righteous Priest did, and Anna-wife of Joachin did, without which act credited to them as righteousness we never would have had Isaac, John the Baptist or the Most Blessed Mother Mary, thus Me. So get over it-you are too old- I love old ladies.
In fact I love all ladies- even skanky ones- even ones married five times, even ones getting stoned for being ho's, even one's with no money sense who waste all their money buying me annointing oil for my feet (still remembering that one aren't you), even ones who refuse to do the dishes so they can sit at my feet listening to me instead.
Listen- Do you need a Miracle? I am the storehouse of Miracles. I am the CEO of Miracles. I am the Way. All of you who are tortured, burdened, heavy, labored, just come to me. Just come to me. I can give you rest. Don’t you believe in miracles yet?
What are you blind? I have something for you.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
"FIRST DO NO HARM"
THEN FIX THE PROBLEM NOW
God Saw the Light and that is was Good. And God divided the Light from the Darkness.-
And God called the Light Day and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.
Remember when “Christmas in April” was a clever play on words, not the fact that it snowed at Easter and the trees were budding at Christmastime in Washington? When was the last time you saw snow covered cherry blossoms? Can you remember a freakier weather system than what we have experienced lately? Have you seen the “Inconvenient Truth” movie yet?
Have you heard the connection between parts of the Nile Delta and Sudanese water systems drying up contributing to water wars and Darfur horrors and displacements?
I bought a portable DVD player recently. I can use it in the spoiled event I want to watch a movie on a plane that isn’t showing at the in-plane central listings on the screen right in front of me. Then I remember that my dearly departed grandmother was born in the year 1900-- 8 years before the Ford Model T was manufactured, when horses drew carts in the streets of New York, before there was such a thing as an airplane in the common man’s mind. Can you imagine it? Flying like a bird in the air?
In the year 2007 we have things totally unheard of to those living at the time that my grandmother was born; phones with cameras, blackberries, email, portable computers, internet, airplanes, electronic washing machines, electric hair dryers, convertibles, space shuttles, CDs, microwave ovens, electronic fences and garage doors, cameras in phones, to name just a few.
In the year 1960 when I was born, a computer was the size of an entire room and flicked IBM punch cards with holes in them through it. You could not “desalinate” the sea, you couldn’t nuke your dinner in the microwave, you couldn’t email your Mom in 1960. We have had a technological and communications revolution. The Internet has proved more revolutionary to civilization than the Guttenberg press and movable type. In a mere century the world has been amazingly transformed into something barely recognizeable to those who lived a century before.
But it is a mixed blessing that comes with a curse. We apparently are freefalling in a reckless desecration of the earth to birth all of it without much notice except for a few famous “environmentalists” who seem like John the Baptist to be screaming in the wilderness or Ralph Nader screaming at the Pinto or chicken little screaming the sky is falling--- Which one is the more apt analogy?
Sure, Al Gore got an award for his slide-show movie, so scientists think we are burning ourselves alive in a carbon overload that is melting everything to drought, flooding other parts in a dysfunctional greenhouse gone mad. Who actually gets it and how serious is it really doc?
Apparently, people who really know, really know how serious it is. It’s really serious. Take the Earth’s temperature over the last decade or so and you get part of the prognosis. Serious people like NASA scientists and the Harvard egg-head collection referenced by uncle Al in his movie all agree with the rest of the world scientific community apparently- Houston, we have a problem; we are in melt down. Ice caps are looking like my 7-11 slurpee.
Remember my DVD player above. Well, I dropped it on it’s head. It is rather delicately made and there is a laser that reads the DVD track paths unseen to my naked eye so it can project on a screen the DVD. All I see is the movie. I don't see the laser or the tracks. After I dropped it on it’s head, it disturbed the laser alignment and would not read the DVD. It projected instead on the screen “loading, loading, loading” forever and nothing came up. I damaged the laser alignment by dropping it on its head beyond repair. There was a “tipping point” of knocking about I could do before irreparably knocking the laser out of alignment. I had to go back to Radio Shack and get another one which, thankfully, they just replaced.
We are doing the same thing with our planet- only we can’t go back to Radio Shack and get another one, God gave us only one. There is a tipping point in the carbon cosmic meltdown after which the laser will be so out of alignment that it won’t read the DVD. It will be orphaned polar bears frying alive in Aruba heat, Avalon New Jersey the way of Atlantis and no such thing as about a thousand other species who will be remembered only in books if we can figure out how to make books non-combustable or instantaneously flammable and if we survive the melt down according to some. Is this science fiction or real science?
Lets assume that the environmental histrionics is based on real science, what should we do?
Gingrich in a rare moment of non partisan honesty actually applauded John Kerry for his new book, and indicated that there should be a vigorous debate on how best to most expeditiously address the problem. He doesn’t like big government, new taxes or apparently the “Fix” reputed to be “in” about carbon caps. But he surprisingly agreed that the problem is real, urgent and serious. He has a message for the Republicans stonewalling the debate which has to be well beyond whether it is a big problem or not, or whether there is any urgency to the need to address it. The challenge now is how to reverse the carbon overload immediately and stop the meltdown.
The laser knocked out of alignment is the point of no return. It caught me by surprise. We are working in the thinning margin.
The good news is that we are where the people were in 1900 when my grandmother was born in terms of not imagining what we can invent, what technological revolutions can be birthed in another ten to twenty years. Incentivization models, legislative structures, all these things can facilitate it- the best and brightest of the country should now be focused attentively and intensely on how to create it.
It is insane only Japanese companys make competitive hybrid cars.
Our American contribution to the carbon footprint is just piggish. I know insulting people does not motivate them, but come on now.
If this doesn't make you throw your soda can in the recycler I don't know what will.
This is apparently no time for arrogance of legislative posturing.
If there is one thing upon which we all should agree it is basic Stewardship of the Earth.
God Saw the Light and that is was Good. And God divided the Light from the Darkness.-
And God called the Light Day and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so.
Remember when “Christmas in April” was a clever play on words, not the fact that it snowed at Easter and the trees were budding at Christmastime in Washington? When was the last time you saw snow covered cherry blossoms? Can you remember a freakier weather system than what we have experienced lately? Have you seen the “Inconvenient Truth” movie yet?
Have you heard the connection between parts of the Nile Delta and Sudanese water systems drying up contributing to water wars and Darfur horrors and displacements?
I bought a portable DVD player recently. I can use it in the spoiled event I want to watch a movie on a plane that isn’t showing at the in-plane central listings on the screen right in front of me. Then I remember that my dearly departed grandmother was born in the year 1900-- 8 years before the Ford Model T was manufactured, when horses drew carts in the streets of New York, before there was such a thing as an airplane in the common man’s mind. Can you imagine it? Flying like a bird in the air?
In the year 2007 we have things totally unheard of to those living at the time that my grandmother was born; phones with cameras, blackberries, email, portable computers, internet, airplanes, electronic washing machines, electric hair dryers, convertibles, space shuttles, CDs, microwave ovens, electronic fences and garage doors, cameras in phones, to name just a few.
In the year 1960 when I was born, a computer was the size of an entire room and flicked IBM punch cards with holes in them through it. You could not “desalinate” the sea, you couldn’t nuke your dinner in the microwave, you couldn’t email your Mom in 1960. We have had a technological and communications revolution. The Internet has proved more revolutionary to civilization than the Guttenberg press and movable type. In a mere century the world has been amazingly transformed into something barely recognizeable to those who lived a century before.
But it is a mixed blessing that comes with a curse. We apparently are freefalling in a reckless desecration of the earth to birth all of it without much notice except for a few famous “environmentalists” who seem like John the Baptist to be screaming in the wilderness or Ralph Nader screaming at the Pinto or chicken little screaming the sky is falling--- Which one is the more apt analogy?
Sure, Al Gore got an award for his slide-show movie, so scientists think we are burning ourselves alive in a carbon overload that is melting everything to drought, flooding other parts in a dysfunctional greenhouse gone mad. Who actually gets it and how serious is it really doc?
Apparently, people who really know, really know how serious it is. It’s really serious. Take the Earth’s temperature over the last decade or so and you get part of the prognosis. Serious people like NASA scientists and the Harvard egg-head collection referenced by uncle Al in his movie all agree with the rest of the world scientific community apparently- Houston, we have a problem; we are in melt down. Ice caps are looking like my 7-11 slurpee.
Remember my DVD player above. Well, I dropped it on it’s head. It is rather delicately made and there is a laser that reads the DVD track paths unseen to my naked eye so it can project on a screen the DVD. All I see is the movie. I don't see the laser or the tracks. After I dropped it on it’s head, it disturbed the laser alignment and would not read the DVD. It projected instead on the screen “loading, loading, loading” forever and nothing came up. I damaged the laser alignment by dropping it on its head beyond repair. There was a “tipping point” of knocking about I could do before irreparably knocking the laser out of alignment. I had to go back to Radio Shack and get another one which, thankfully, they just replaced.
We are doing the same thing with our planet- only we can’t go back to Radio Shack and get another one, God gave us only one. There is a tipping point in the carbon cosmic meltdown after which the laser will be so out of alignment that it won’t read the DVD. It will be orphaned polar bears frying alive in Aruba heat, Avalon New Jersey the way of Atlantis and no such thing as about a thousand other species who will be remembered only in books if we can figure out how to make books non-combustable or instantaneously flammable and if we survive the melt down according to some. Is this science fiction or real science?
Lets assume that the environmental histrionics is based on real science, what should we do?
Gingrich in a rare moment of non partisan honesty actually applauded John Kerry for his new book, and indicated that there should be a vigorous debate on how best to most expeditiously address the problem. He doesn’t like big government, new taxes or apparently the “Fix” reputed to be “in” about carbon caps. But he surprisingly agreed that the problem is real, urgent and serious. He has a message for the Republicans stonewalling the debate which has to be well beyond whether it is a big problem or not, or whether there is any urgency to the need to address it. The challenge now is how to reverse the carbon overload immediately and stop the meltdown.
The laser knocked out of alignment is the point of no return. It caught me by surprise. We are working in the thinning margin.
The good news is that we are where the people were in 1900 when my grandmother was born in terms of not imagining what we can invent, what technological revolutions can be birthed in another ten to twenty years. Incentivization models, legislative structures, all these things can facilitate it- the best and brightest of the country should now be focused attentively and intensely on how to create it.
It is insane only Japanese companys make competitive hybrid cars.
Our American contribution to the carbon footprint is just piggish. I know insulting people does not motivate them, but come on now.
If this doesn't make you throw your soda can in the recycler I don't know what will.
This is apparently no time for arrogance of legislative posturing.
If there is one thing upon which we all should agree it is basic Stewardship of the Earth.
Monday, April 09, 2007
WHEN LOVE PENETRATES THROUGH THE RULES
THE WAY, THE TRUTH,
THE LIFE
Happy Resurrected Jewish Messiah Day all. Easter. It’s easy to fall into clichés of happy Hallmark cards and Christian Country Songs without realizing really what exactly happened here. The laws of death that bound everyone were pierced through and forever voided, the veil in the Holy of Holies torn for access to all to the inner sanctum, and Eternal Life forever triumphed-if only you believe it. Think about it. Rules and laws of gravity, death and political retribution, all of them overcome with a stone rolled away from a temporary Tomb that could not contain or suppress this Supreme Love. What Wonderous Love Is This.
This is Radical Revolutionary Love. This is love that did not let us die bound under the rules of death. Not that there is anything wrong with rules-they keep order, they provide guidance, but Love creates Life, not Rules-and LIFE is of the very essence of the Divine.
Nancy Pelosi must have known that this gives us power to bless those who persecute us and pray for our enemies. Love even your enemies breaks all rules of War. Those seeking to bind her to the rule of death in War who favor perpetual war for its own presumed rewards shouted she violated some law, possibly a felony, certainly "aid and comfort" to the enemy, probably the Alien and Sedition Act prohibitions. Those seeking to lock us in perpetual War, which when unjustified is just state sanctioned mass murder, are co-operators with Evil. Co-operators with Life don’t kill their enemies, they pray for them.
Love is much stronger than man made rules or even church made rules. Love is stronger than ceremony. Love compels, propels and insists on creating Life from death and nullity, even when the rules prohibit it. Love cannot be suppressed any more than you can silence the stones shouting out “Hosannah in the Highest.”
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. He rendered death void, and his love lives forever, penetrating through the rules that bind us to death. Love is stronger than Hate; it cannot be contained by ceremony. Love creates Life, and Love has already overcome the World. The Creator of all Life compels it.
The Lord Indeed Lives, and Blessed Be My Rock
THE LIFE
Happy Resurrected Jewish Messiah Day all. Easter. It’s easy to fall into clichés of happy Hallmark cards and Christian Country Songs without realizing really what exactly happened here. The laws of death that bound everyone were pierced through and forever voided, the veil in the Holy of Holies torn for access to all to the inner sanctum, and Eternal Life forever triumphed-if only you believe it. Think about it. Rules and laws of gravity, death and political retribution, all of them overcome with a stone rolled away from a temporary Tomb that could not contain or suppress this Supreme Love. What Wonderous Love Is This.
This is Radical Revolutionary Love. This is love that did not let us die bound under the rules of death. Not that there is anything wrong with rules-they keep order, they provide guidance, but Love creates Life, not Rules-and LIFE is of the very essence of the Divine.
Nancy Pelosi must have known that this gives us power to bless those who persecute us and pray for our enemies. Love even your enemies breaks all rules of War. Those seeking to bind her to the rule of death in War who favor perpetual war for its own presumed rewards shouted she violated some law, possibly a felony, certainly "aid and comfort" to the enemy, probably the Alien and Sedition Act prohibitions. Those seeking to lock us in perpetual War, which when unjustified is just state sanctioned mass murder, are co-operators with Evil. Co-operators with Life don’t kill their enemies, they pray for them.
Love is much stronger than man made rules or even church made rules. Love is stronger than ceremony. Love compels, propels and insists on creating Life from death and nullity, even when the rules prohibit it. Love cannot be suppressed any more than you can silence the stones shouting out “Hosannah in the Highest.”
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. He rendered death void, and his love lives forever, penetrating through the rules that bind us to death. Love is stronger than Hate; it cannot be contained by ceremony. Love creates Life, and Love has already overcome the World. The Creator of all Life compels it.
The Lord Indeed Lives, and Blessed Be My Rock
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