Patriotism blamed for marital infidelity

Oh, good grief:

'There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,' said Gingrich. 'And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them.'

-- Newt Gingrich

See everybody, my love for my country made me do it. Uh huh. That's right. That's what is was: love of country! (Whew...)

You can read about it right here. (If you have the stomach for it, that is.)
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What would Jesus cut?

About fifteen years ago, I was privileged to have a rather substantial conversation with Jim Wallis after a talk he gave at the Cathedral in Oklahoma City. He was very open and thoughtful and truly came across as spiritually generous. I've actually admired him for a very long time. May he continue to speak out in the public forum as he bears witness to the real teachings of Jesus.

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Today:

Growth in average income

A friend of mine sent me the following link:

When income grows, who gains?

Please go look at it. It's a chart and a graph and will only take a minute.

It made me quite ill, to tell you the truth.
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The clean dollar

Someone recently brought me a quotation by Frank Crane. I looked him up and discovered that he was a Presbyterian minister and public speaker who lived from 1861–1928.

The following passage really seems to speak to what's going on in our world today:

...[N]o matter how many memorial churches he builds, nor how much he gives to charity, or how many monuments he erects in his native town, any man who has made his money by ruining other people is not entitled to be called decent. A factory where many workmen are given employment, paid living wages, and where health and life are conserved, is doing more real good in the world than ten eleemosynary institutions. The only really charitable dollar is the clean dollar. And the nasty dollar, wrung from wronged workmen or gotten by unfair methods from competitors, is never nastier than when it pretends to serve the Lord by being given to the poor, to education, or to religion. In the long run all such dollars tend to corrupt and disrupt society. Of all vile money, that which is the most unspeakably vile is the money spent for war; for war is conceived by the blundering ignorance and selfishness of rulers, is fanned to flame by the very lowest passions of humanity, and prostitutes the highest ideal of men — zeal for the common good — to the business of killing human beings and destroying the results of their collective work.

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Sunday art blogging

"Road Builders" by Victor Teterin

Image from Wikimedia Commons

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A timely joke

And a tragic one, too:

By now you've heard the cookie joke. You know: a CEO, a tea party member, and a union worker are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the CEO reaches out to rake in eleven of the cookies. When the other two look at him in surprise, the CEO locks eyes with the tea party member. "You better watch him," the executive says with a nod toward the union worker. "He wants a piece of your cookie."

I found it right here.
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Lies about public employee unions

Please, please go read the article entitled "Public Employee Unions Don't Get One Penny from Taxpayers and Can't Require Membership, But the Big Lie That They Do Is Everywhere". Here's how it gets started:

Nobody has to belong to a union or support its political activities, but you'd never know that from reading the news.

Let us begin with this simple, indisputable truth: public employees' unions don't get a single red cent from taxpayers. And they aren't a mechanism to “force” working people to support Democrats – that's completely illegal.

Public sector workers are employed by the government, but they are private citizens. Once a private citizen earns a dollar from the sweat of his or her brow, it no longer belongs to his or her employer. In the case of public workers, it is no longer a “taxpayer dollar”; it is a dollar held privately by an American citizen. Public sector unions are financed through the dues paid by these private citizens, who elected to be part of a union – not a single taxpayer dollar is involved, and no worker is forced to join a union against his or her wishes. No worker in the United States is required to give one red cent to support a political cause he or she doesn't agree with.

I get so sick of right-wing dissembling.

Truly.
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Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Here's a headline for you

Take a look:

Hmm. Prominent Conservative Radio Hosts Planted Scripted Actors Among Callers

It's just too disgusting for me to come up with the energy to offer an excerpt. Please simply click through and read the post. It's from Crooks and Liars and it's not very long.
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The ultimate cost of union busting

I want to call your attention to an article entitled "Wanna Bust a Union? Be Careful What You Wish For". Here's an excerpt:

...[U]nions have historically fulfilled an important social role of helping to manage larger conflicts between socioeconomic classes in a manner that has benefited society as a whole.

Few now alive recall the turmoil, violence, bloodshed and destruction of property that took place before collective bargaining was made legal in the United States, as labor fought tooth and nail for its share of the economic benefits of its efforts.

Yet it did happen, and unions have served a socially desirable role of helping to manage the inevitable conflicts between the wealthy owners of property and those employed by them, thereby minimizing disruptions of the economy.

Undermining the legitimacy of collective bargaining now threatens to return us to something like the previous status quo, at the sacrifice of domestic peace in civil society.

Are the libertarians and conservatives prepared to sacrifice the peace and return to open warfare between the classes in the United States?

Are they so stupid they fail to understand that if collective bargaining is taken away from the working classes, they will certainly find ways to disrupt the idle holidays of the wealthy among us?

Yes, they are that stupid.

In my humble opinion.
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Intriguing:

Please watch:

I don't know whether to be happy about this or disgusted. Really.

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Quote of....well, a while back

Just take a look (sigh):

Understand this. If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States because Americans deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

-- Barack Obama (November 3, 2007)

Well????

Well????
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RIP Peter Gomes

He will be greatly missed.

What a headline

This one:

How Being a Jerk Shortens Your Life

Something to think about, dear people!

(It's a Time Magazine health story)
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Takes one to know one...

I'm sorry; I just couldn't help myself:

This report will make us look like jackasses.

-- Tom Coburn, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, referring to a Government Accountability Office study on federal government redundancies; Coburn sponsored the amendment that called for the report
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