Sunday art blogging

Artist: Sergei Osipov

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, in other news:

Gabrielle Giffords warns Sarah Palin

This ought to give us all the willies. It's Giffords herself here back in March:

By the way, here's what the cross hairs graphic that Sarah Palin issued looks like (click to enlarge):

Word is this thing is going viral even though Palin had it scrubbed from her website immediately after Gifford was shot.

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UPDATE: Oh, my goodness. Here's what one commenter over on Democratic Underground said:

"Hey, Sarah. How's that hatey, killy, reloady, chrosshairsy thing working out for ya?"

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UPDATE 2: It turns out that out of the twenty members of congress targeted in the list above, only two of them (Gabrielle Giffords being one) were returned to office after the mid-term elections. The other is Nick J. Rahall II (D, WV). I would imagine he's pretty nervous these days.

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"We need to put the guns down."

Today's political rhetoric

You know, it doesn't much matter whether today's shooter in Arizona leans to the left or to the right in terms of his politics. This is true either way:

Gradually, over time, political rhetoric used by politicians and the media has become more inflamatory. The degree to which violent words and phrases are considered commonplace is striking. Candidates are "targeted". An opponent is "in the crosshairs". Liberals have to be"eliminated". Opponents are "enemies". This kind of language eminates largely from those who claim to defend American democracy against those who would destroy it, who are evil, and who want to "take away our freedoms".

Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric. Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.

The entire piece is entitled "Words Have Consequences" and it's by Gary Hart.
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Quotation of the moment

Here:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

-- Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County Arizona

On the off chance you don't know what's happening, go here.
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Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Quotation of the day

Well, let's hope they really do:

Where we cannot find common ground, we must stand our ground.

-- Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing Democratic Speaker of the House, on the possibility of working with the Republicans on issues affecting the middle class; GOP leader John Boehner officially became the new Speaker on Wednesday

I'm not holding my breath, though.
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Just watch it, please:

Something very dreadful is happening

Look:

More Dead Birds Fall from the Sky in Sweden, Chile, Kentucky -- Dead Fish Keep Washing Ashore

Here's how the article gets started:

They have dead birds falling from the skies (twice in the last week) in Arkansas. They have dead birds in Louisiana and Kentucky too. And in Chile. And now in Sweden.

Shortly before midnight on Tuesday, residents found 50 to 100 jackdaws on a street in Falköping southeast of Skövde. The incident echoed a number of unexplained incidents earlier this week across the southern US.

This is also happening in Brazil and in New Zealand and in Maryland.

It is very, very, very worrying.
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This is just wrong, wrong, wrong

Here's what I mean:

Blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, yet African Americans are 10 times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses. This is the unbalanced and inhumane effect of America’s “war on drugs” -- a dirty secret that nobody wants to talk about. The discriminatory treatment of minority drug users has been virtually ignored by the media, politicians, and the rest of us.

It's in an email I got this morning from the folks at Sojourners Magazine.

Fortunately, Soujourners reports on this kind of thing even if the mainstream media are negligent in calling it to our attention.
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Something very thought provoking

And not only thought provoking but very, very sad:

The price of freedom is to allow freedom. Very few people are willing to pay the price.

-- Leonard Jacobson

Oh, wow!

Trust me; you've never seen or heard a guitar played this way before:

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Question of the day --- of the year, really

This one, I mean:

"What happens to people when their unemployment insurance runs out and they still can't find a job?"

The question is actually the subtitle of an article in Slate Magazine called Depression Economics.

Here's a very small quotation that's interesting and horribly sad:

And economists have found not only that unemployment tends to increase the rate of suicide, but that the loss of unemployment insurance actually has a stronger impact on an individual's likelihood of committing suicide than the loss of a job does.

Some other important points are made as well.
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Weather ≠ Climate

I get so, so tired of political cartoonists that go for the cheap laugh by invalidating the reality of global warming because it's cold somewhere in the winter.

The idiots don't seem to know what "average" means. I want to kick them back into fourth grade mathematics class. Sheesh.

I'd like to call your attention to a brief article by George Monbiot called "That snow outside is what global warming looks like" over on the Guardian.

Here's a little bit of what it says:

There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. "You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I'm going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It's minus 18C and my pipes have frozen. You liar. Is this your global warming?" She's not going to like the answer, and nor are you. It may be yes.

There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere.
...
According to Nasa's datasets, the world has just experienced the warmest January to November period since the global record began, 131 years ago; 2010 looks likely to be either the hottest or the equal hottest year. This November was the warmest on record.

Click on the link and go on over to the article for a brief and wonderfully clear explanation of the science involved.
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A resolution that's easy to keep!

Hello, everyone. I'm asking everyone who stops by this blog to read the following and help me out here:

A Very Easy Way to Help the Center
(with no cost to yourself)

I want to appeal to everyone who believes that St. John’s Center does good work here in Tulsa to check out GoodSearch (http://www.goodsearch.com/) along with its sister site, GoodShop (which you can access by clicking on the “Shop Now” button from the GoodSearch home page.)

GoodSearch is a search engine that gives 50% of its profits to the non-profit organization of a person’s choice. The Center is registered with them. The more you search, the more money we raise. It’s that simple!

All you do is go to the home page and fill in our entire name where it says “What charity do you goodsearch for?”

St. John’s Center for Spiritual Formation

Then click on the button that says “Verify”.

If you have cookies enabled, your computer will remember this.

The easiest way to use the search engine is to download its toolbar. Then you can easily click on it whenever you want to.

Even if you really love Google, we are asking our supporters to use GoodSearch at least part of the time – especially for really straightforward searches for which you don’t need a particularly powerful or sophisticated search engine. GoodSearch is powered by Yahoo so it’s a very good engine.

Also, GoodShop has a huge number of very fine and well known businesses listed if you like to order things on line. The Center will get an average of 3% per sale. (Many businesses offer much more than that.) The donations really add up!

We are a small non-profit organization and we operate on a shoestring. So we really need all the contributions we’re able to encourage.

If you have the toolbar already downloaded then whenever you do a search on an item you want to purchase, GoodShop participants will be highlighted in yellow on your search results. It’s so easy and it really helps us.

Thank you so much for reading this!

Every blessing to each one of you and Happy New Year!

Sr. Ellen E. Finlay
Executive Director
St. John’s Center for Spiritual Formation

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