Charity is a mask for social snobbery and class warfare

Will Wins Big in Charity Polo Match - The Daily Beast: "Prince William showed off his polo skills in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Saturday afternoon, scoring four goals to help his team win the charity match." We should have fewer snobby charities and more insistence on democratic revolution and governments that undertake to make charity an option, not a necessity.


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Deadly Mexico is a call for drug legalization

40 Killed in Mexico - The Daily Beast: "At least 40 people were killed in Mexico over the course of 24 hours as a result of fighting between the Zetas gang and other drug cartels. Twenty people died Friday after gunmen opened fire at a bar in Monterrey." The only thing we should not legalize, almost, is killing itself. If we legalized drugs we would have an entirely different world than the fascist-lite world that the war on drugs builds. We are condemning thousands to death, maybe millions, with our misguided efforts to maintain the illegality of drugs.


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Conservatives around the world are united in suicidal commitment to oil

Australia to Charge Biggest Polluters - The Daily Beast: "The move is a gamble for Prime Minister Julia Gillard's minority government, with the center-right opposition opposing the deal." Nice that Australia is trying to fight oil interests, but don't jhold your breath. We are in a vise globally made up of short term profits going to big oil and long term disaster beckoning. Instead of a tipping point we may be condemned to a century of gradual awakening to the truth of our condition.

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China Compounds its Ultimate Suicide

China Cozies Up to South Sudan - The Daily Beast: "Chinese President Hu Jintao congratulated the newly-independent country of South Sudan, promising strong ties so as to retain access to Sudanese oil." China is now the world leader in walking toward the cliff from which there is no return. That is the precipice of big oil. Setting off the competition for the sticky stuff, ensuring the continuation of a growing gap between rich and poor, and an unsustainable sprawl-based economy. If this sounds like the US it is. Oil addiction now underlies everything.


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Boehner Could Care Less About Debt Reduction

Boehner Pulls Out of Debt Talks: How the Debate Has Become Pathetic - The Daily Beast: "A grand bargain on the deficit was crushed when Speaker Boehner pulled out of talks, refusing to budge on revenue increases. John Avlon on the childish rhetoric that’s pushing America to the brink." Boehner cares for no taxes period. His interest in fiscal responsibility is zero. He is bankrupt. He will need to be rescued by wiser heads if any exist on his side of the aisle.

Spinster Aunt on Casey's Mistakes

I Blame The Patriarchy: "Like, never leave the house without looking like you’ve been up all night crying, and never, ever, be seen yukking it up in a bar, ever again. No partying, no selfishness, no murdering, and it’s so tacky if you sell your story afterward. Watch it, ladies, because we’ve got our eye on you."

Stephen J. Patterson: Jesus the Wisdom Sage

Stephen J. Patterson: Jesus the Wisdom Sage:

"It is becoming ever more difficult to imagine a Jesus who reflected upon his own death, and preached an imminent apocaylptic judgment to be visited upon the world.'' (The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, p. 231)

Apposite.

Though our NT canon contains much that contradicts the creedal messianic understanding, that understanding clearly dominates and makes more difficult the need to disabuse it of its power and expose its allegiance to thought patterns that have been ruinous to our system of values.

Only now are we on the cusp of a new freedom. It signals a movement from fivided religions to universal spirituality and values - to tolerance, democracy, helpfulness and non-idolatry.

Is the heart of human freedom the capacity to say no?

Per Caritatem: "Michel Foucault offers penetrating analyses of how subjectivities are constructed. His statements regarding the ubiquity of power relations have been misinterpreted as both a denial of human agency and a death blow to the subject. Against this entrenched view, I argue that his understanding of power relations presuppose free subjects and, in fact, creates a space for resistance possibilities." I wonder if this has to do with my own recurrent sense that the very heart of human dignity and freedom rests in the inner capacity to say no, and that the ultimate indignity is to wrest away this sacred capacity?



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