Not Loving it

This new campaign from MC Donalds is the most absolute evil and insidious thing they have done.

They have shed all pretense and simply made the statement "We are no longer selling food, we are selling emotion."

The food is heinous and makes us all unhealthy. This is known. It's filled with chemicals, and even the salads are sprayed with MSG. And now, since they have failed at creating food we can eat, their new campaign plans on hitting us all where it hurts, with emotion, in an attempt to get us to come in.

And it will work,

Because they are connecting their food, their dining experience with the love emotion. The love we have for our children, our parents, our kin. The comercial expertly creates a mood in our hearts as we watch it which is al framed by the store's counters and indoor look -- which is the same throughout the country.

But they have been doing this for years.



Is it any surprise? And this was aimed at kids! Hey, don;t worry, your food will always be here for you.

Any way that the corporation can connect with out emotion is a win for them, because we are all emotional eaters. We eat at weddings and funerals and birthdays. We eat to celebrate, and this store can;t sell food anymore, so they are pushing a product that they can still sell with their powerful marketing presence: love.

So come on in! Buy some love! Because here is a corporation that cares. Right?

I hope he can see this...

...because I'm doing it as hard as I can."

I love this article. Asking when the middle finger became an offensive gesture? Really? I mean come on, the guy is British and so is M.I.A., but they know that the middle finger is obscene, or at least considered so by Americans. I mean, I am no obscenity scholar and yet somehow I know that the backward peace sign in a thrust means basically the same thing across the pond. The U.S. exports movies like no other, there is no conceivable way that you could not know that the middle finger is considered obscene unless you lived under a media rock.
So, we are left with M.I.A. in just another desperate cry for Superbowl Attention. It's sad really I don't think anyone watching the game really skipped a beat. It just like, "Oh, of course. Something offensive during the halftime show, why not. Just par for the course." And i have to wonder how complicit the network is in all this, and the kind of boost in ratings they will receive next year when people tune in to watch whatever is going to be the next horrible thing that happens during the show.
Really, we should be waiting for it to cross over into the game itself, or the announcer's booth, and certainly the commercials.

World Tax Codes...

The poor don't need your damn help.

I read this article recently about the UN's latest ideas on how to help the poor. I find it incredible and filled with the hubris of western nations. On the other hand it seems like a reactionary measure to the fact that the UN is actually powerless without the approval of the US government, and since some of their more humanitarian efforts are consistently blocked, this is the only other way left to them to provide some relief.

An example of what I am talking about. In Haiti, the US government Corps of engieneers built a damn across a major river to provide elctricity and irrigation for the weathly in Port au Prince and for the forigen owned agri-business and assembly plants located near by. Never mind the fact that it flooded good farmland that the poorest of that country relied on for daily living.

That's the kind of thing the UN will never be able to stop, but the only kinds of things that would bring any real relief to the worlds poor. the fact is that the worlds poor really dont need our help, they need the world to cease taking advantage of them in terms of resources, both human and ecological, and respect them and their way of life. But since that is never going to happen for the US, the UN is trying something new, something that the US might approve because it will make them look good and not really cost them anything.

I look forward to the day of reckoning. Cause it is coming, and the US is going to be begging at the door of the people it once persecuted without care.

Da Pres

The Presidents Song


Washington came first and he was perfect.
John Adams kept us out of war with France.
Jefferson made Louisiana Purchase.
In 1812 James Madison kicked the British in the pants.

James Monroe told Europe they could suck it.
John Quincy Adams looked just like his dad.
Andrew Jackson got rid of all the Indians.
Van Buren served one term, but he wasn't bad.

William Henry Harrison died early.
John Tyler annexed Texas from Mexico.
James K. Polk fought Mexico to keep it.
Taylor was a Mexican War hero.

Fillmore gave a boat to Commodore Perry.
Pierce appealed the Missouri Compromise.
Buchanan saw the Civil War's beginnings.
Lincoln saved the Union, then he died.

Andrew Johnson just survived impeachment.
General Grant enjoyed a drink or two.
Rutherford B. Hayes ended reconstruction.
Garfield was assassinated in 1882.

Arthur suspended Chinese immigration.
Cleveland made the railroad people squirm.
Harrison signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Grover Cleveland served another term.

McKinley kicked the Spanish out of Cuba.
Roosevelt was handy with a gun.
Taft was big and fat and had a mustache.
Wilson kicked some ass in World War I.

Harding said "Let's Laissez Fair with business."
Coolidge made the roaring 20s roar.
Hoover screwed the pooch in the great depression.
Roosevelt beat the Nazis in the war.

Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Eisenhower kept the Commies well in hand.
Kennedy was killed by a magic bullet.
Johnson murdered kids in Vietnam.

Nixon was a sweating, filthy liar.
Ford gave Nixon pardon for his crimes.
Carter lusted in his heart for peanuts.
Reagan won the Cold War, and lost his mind.

George Bush Sr. poked at Saddam Hussein.
Clinton gave an intern a cigar.
W's legacy's a work in progress.
That is all the President's so far.

In the year 2005 we're out of money.
Somewhere, surely, freedom's on the march.
I don't like to make political statements.

Breathe In

There was a time when you went outside to get “a breath of fresh air.” Yet, the city of Richmond has earned a reputation that makes that act an impossibility.

In a recent story broadcast by Charles Fishburne we got a taste of an Environment Virginia study that called the air quality of the city into question. Ms. Corrie (of Environment Virginia) stated that Richmond is the 17^th smoggiest metro area in the entire country. For a city of Richmond’s size that seems like a pretty terrible record to have. Anyone that lives here can tell you there are days it’s not safe to breathe outside.

On the other side of this issue we have VA Rep. Eric Cantor who is leading congress to study how the EPA is affecting prices, jobs and reliability of electric power. In other words how loosening those regulations would allegedly produce more jobs, drive prices down, and make electric power more reliable.

So I guess our choices are breathing or jobs?

Here are two things. First, why does the city of Richmond have to care how the EPA regulations fall? If there is a problem with the air quality in this city, then the city should be already taking steps to improve the smog situation and work at a solution. Not wait for the EPA regulations to force or allow them to do something. I’m fairly sure the Federal Government wouldn’t try to stop us from cleaning up the city.

Second, am I the only one that gets tired of the same old rag in congress where everything is a choice between the environment and jobs? It’s like a ghost story they tell us to insure that the right people continue making the most money possible. As long as congress keeps threatening job loss the voters seem like they are always going to back them up. But is it really possible to be this consistently cut and dry? Is there no way possible to breath clean air, fish in clear streams, and swim in clear beaches without being jobless and have no electricity? There have got to be better solutions out there.

In the wake of the economy’s record these past few years the threat of jobs and price hikes might have become a dog without teeth. How many of us have learned to live with much less? How many are surviving on one income when we believed it wasn’t possible? People already don’t have jobs, and are dealing with higher prices of gas and food. So how much more could that possibly change? Do we really have to still live in fear of the “Boogey Man” that our congressional leaders keep trotting out?

You know what my family and I have been doing? Going outside more. City parks are free, and a great place to entertain ourselves, meet friends and have picnics as inexpensive alternatives to going out to eat. In all honesty, being able to breath saves us money!

I challenge the people of this city to do two things. Seventh District Representative Eric Cantor needs to be told that we feel the EPA regulations are there for a reason, and to stop using the environment as a scapegoat that only serves to tell us Capitol Hill is fresh out of ideas. Secondly, the citizens of Richmond need to make our city accountable to us, and not to the EPA. There are hundreds of things the city could do to make the air quality breathable again. Just a few ideas: more intentional greenspaces to freshen the air in key areas, directing the flow of large truck traffic around residential areas, zoning the city to decrease the need for citizens to drive as much making work, play and shopping closely available.

This city was once envied because of its innovation in creating an electric trolley system. That spirit of ingenuity and forward thinking cannot be allowed to wane! Creating a new fleet of mass transit vehicles or even something as simple as walking and biking paths in already established neighborhoods could be a statement made not only to the citizens of this city but to the state and again the country.

Richmond is a great city, with the potential to be even greater. It has some incredible parks, which sadly are going to become vacant if we and our children get asthma from the air we live in. This is our city, and regardless of what the EPA does or doesn’t do, we need to act in a way that makes this city a place of health for ourselves and for every generation that comes after us.

Moron Means Selfish

Here's the thing about stupid people and natural disasters.

When people lives in hurricane infested Kansas, it used to be they built a storm cellar underground. Now they live in mobile homes. When those get utterly destroyed and people die, we can't talk about it. Cause people died. And we have to throw a sadness party.

When people choose to live on the coasts and participate in a broken system of poor housing construction and low preparedness, we are supposed to pray and then blame God if people die. Heaven forbid we ask the question, why are there people living there in the first place, or at the very least, are there not any other building conditions we could enforce to help people live better?
No, no, people want to have a house on the beach that looks just like a house in downtown Savanah, and apparently it is their right as an american to do so.

Great. It's our right as an american to be a moron. To act like and idiot. You know what it's not our right to do? Expect everyone else's help and kindness as payment for our selfish and idiotic actions.

I can't understand why it is so taboo to talk about. No one is willing to think creatively about any of it. It seems like we think we can have normal sewer systems, normal roads, and normal homes in these areas that are struck year after year after year and not one person is willing to step forward and say, "We can't do this anymore." I am not talking about some desalinization method for sewage water, or building on stilts, I am talking about something completely revolutionary. A change in which people wont be able to just plunk down a house on a piece of property and get the insurance company to fix it when it is inevitably destroyed. Something that wont have counties shelling out millions every year to fix eroded beaches.

It might be that we can't live on some beaches. It might be that we can't go to some beaches. It might be that coastal regions become off limits save for natural preserves and daily tourism. No overnight structures. Maybe camping. We have so little respect for the way the coastal system works, and year after year Hurricanes come and try to teach us a hard lesson that we pay out in tax dollars and human life. When do we get tired of it?


The system is broken. As it is now we have cities and infrastructure locked into these coastal areas with no easy way to extricate them. And maybe that's not the right answer. But we should at least be able to discuss that living there, and building there, and being there is not the wisest life choice in light of the events that are there. People in California accept that earthquakes are going to be in the future and plan accordingly. They build accordingly. How is it that we sill have trailer parks mere miles from the NC coast? Hotels that are built with sub-standard materials, and building codes that allow all kinds of person homes to go up. If people aren't smart enough to do something proactive (which is arguably their right) then we at least shouldn't feel like we are required to pity them and bail them out when the inevitable doom comes to their doors. At the very least can we not build mobile homes in places like Atlantic Beach, NC?

Doing Your Chores

I read something in an AFP article that I found startling.

The Us give 3 billion dollars to the Israeli government every year. That's not counting the 250 million that President Obama just approved.

Now, granted we perceive that Israel is a calming state in the otherwise -- which is debatable. I am no time traveler, I can't tell you what the middle east would look like now, but we do know the millions of Palestinians who were displaced as refugees, and the anger that the Israelis have continually sparked in the region. Yet aside from all that I realized that it told me jsut how distant from our country's spending.

So I looked it up.

Every year we spend a huge portion of our budget on defense ($663 billion). And we spend $25 billion on foreign aid to other countries. $3 billion of that goes just to Israel. That's 8% and change. Of course, we also pay Jordan an undisclosed amount (since 2007) just to leave Israel alone and not harbor its enemies. So really we should add that back in. In 2007 it was $561 million. So Israel is really up to $3.6 billion. I was rounding down before. The next highest recipient is Egypt with $1.75 billion. Together they make up 1/3 of all US "aide" to other countries. The largest cut of the money we give these countries is through the FMF fund which is strictly for military purposes. So, wait, didn't Egypt and Israel fight a war a while back? Yes they did. It's weird that we are giving them both money for weapons. Somehow, that seems counter productive to peace right?

A lot of this money we are throwing at people has to do with our fear of the spread of communism. Which seems like a huge threat now. One communist economy went into total collapse and the other is where everything we own is made (who continually poison themselves so we can have slick i-phone glass). That noted we can say we don't care about communists anymore. So why are we still dolling out this kind of money to these countries to buy weapons in a place where we are trying to get people to be peaceful.

I know what the answer is for those who are in the big stick camp. The only way to make people sit down and shut up is to have a bigger stick than they do. Except that tactic has never worked in the history of mankind. The guy with the stick eventually gets taken out by a bunch of other guys who get together and say, "You know that guy with the stick? We can take him."

I wanted to point out something else as well. We spend $19 billion on education every year. In terms of Percentage of our GDP we rank with Russia. Awesome. And guess who else? Egypt.

So wait, we spend tons of money on defense. Give more money to Egypt for their military weapons, and that frees them up to spend the same amount we do per student? That sounds like some kind of crazy. This kind of comparison might be unfair, but in any budget you can see a countries goals and ideals spelled out in its spending.

Ok so out ahead is Social Security. That's fair since technically that's OUR money the government has been setting aside for us all these years. How nice of them. Next is Defense. I might argue that. I mean, if in the category of "Foriegn Aid" we are handing out money for other countries to buy weapons... I mean. I dunno. Am I crazy? Is it really a good idea to be handing out guns to people?
 I get it, we are trying to make them as tronger nation and they are our allie, etc etc. But that is not working out so well. Castro wrote letters to FDR. Saddam Husein was an ally. We named Adolf Hilter as man of the year. Honestly, we aren't good at picking out our friends.
For real. We shouldn't be giving anyone guns with record. They just end up shooting at us. It would be bad enough if the aid we were giving was for food and education, but it's not! The biggest portion of it is designated for military. Sigh. It seems like the defense budget might not need to be so big if we weren't so busy fighting all the people to whom we've been handing out weapons.
Medicare and Medicaid eat up another 20%, more even than the defense budget. The next largest group at 4.6% is the INTEREST on the nation debt. Now, if you own a home you might think, wow, that sounds like a deal. Hook me up with that rate. But, remember, that's not the rate, that's the percent of the GDP that we pay to the interest payment every year. We spend more on that than we do on education, transportation and veterans. Recall also that as of 2010 almost 40% of the debt is help by foreign governments. Another reason it might not be a great idea to be giving these people weapons. When they come to collect they will be well armed. I'm not saying they would win, but it will certainly be worse. In 2011 the debt is $14 trillion dollars. Our 2009 GDP was $14.2 trillion. This looks bad. The debt is 90% of our current GDP, working backwards that makes our current GDP around $16 trillion. The only other time in History that it was higher was after WWII when it hit 120%. So, its not all bad news.

Everything else that the Government does is lumped into the last few percentiles. Agriculture, FDA, Energy Reg, Commerce, Treasury, the National Science Foundation, Health and Human services, Corps of engineers, Justice, and even Homeland security.

Basically everything that you think of "government" doing for a society is a marginal part of what our country actually does. Is it any wonder federal school systems are a mess? That bridges and damns fail? That our energy innovation is stale? That our space program stagnated years ago? That commerce regulation are outdated? That food is fraught with E. Coli? The only thing our government does is have guns, pay for people to be sick and out of work, and... oh. That's it. That's the top percentiles. Everything else (aside from our debt payment) is less than 4%. What the heck!?

The system, my friends, is broken. Yet, somehow in the midst of this, we still send billions over seas to provide weapons to foreign powers who we might just end up fighting someday.

The problem now is the Medicare/Medicaid/Unemployment/Welfare chunk of the pie. That's huge. Huge. And I don't see a way out of it through programs or more spending. The only way people get off the government ticket is through the two things that made the nation a pretty great country in the first place. Freedom and community. When people have the courage and the freedom to care for each other and themselves. They do. When it becomes necessary. The program rewards laziness right now. Especially welfare. I don't dismiss the need for the program, but there have got to be incentives that drive people into each other's arms. Not inside with the television. In fact, that could be rule one. If you are on welfare, you can't have a TV. What would people do!?

In the end, it seems like we as a country are in the habit of paying people for doing nothing. Weather it is here at home, or abroad, we delight in just handing over billions of dollars while no one does anything to compensate us for it. How long can we keep this up? We certainly live in interesting times. 

Dealing with Dragons

Mullin Forum Notes, Greensboro NC
Dr. Brain K. Blount, Union Presbyterian Seminary

One of the biggest themes in the talk was that of making a stand. Dr. Blount takes a non-literal view of Revelation and does a great job in using that message to apply to our struggles today with "dragons."

Part of his point was that John of Patmos wanted the readers to know that accommodating the Dragon, or the evil that was behind the throne of Rome, was to sacrifice everything about their faith and loose it all. That the only choice was to fight the dragon or become like it. That there could be no "blending" in Christian faith.

Another topic he touched on was that in the churches of Revelation there was a blending of Politics and Religion. One could not succeed in either without adhering to the other. Or at least not by Roman standards. In fact the cities that he condemns in the book are the same churches that are flourishing, because to John, to flourish in the world of Rome you must be making compromises in your faith life.  John constantly called out to them to decide, Mammon or God? You cannot serve both--to echo previous NT words from Jesus.

Some people have a problem with seeing Revelation as a non-literal book, but to me it follows other apocalyptic literature we have in the Bible in Daniel and Ezekiel and even parts of Isaiah. One thing Dr. Blount said was to remember that the visions are serving the prophecy. Not the other way around. Which I thought was a neat way to look at it. Although, I will say that there is nothing baring it from perhaps being both. It could be a message for the churches of Asia minor, and still be a prophetic piece for our world. Of course like all scripture it is still a living word for us today in each part of our lives.

How many times do we have the opportunity to sacrifice our beliefs and blend in with society for power and privilege and the security of the world. But we are constantly called out not to. To stand firm and face the dragon instead, relying on God's power and salvation and protection and provision.

The discussion of "witness" language was also interesting. Dr. Blount put forward that translators have added the number of witness in Rev. 6:9-11 but have changed then the spirit of the verse. The idea intended is one of a call to active resistance. Not patient endurance through hardship. RESIST! I like it...

In the end of it all you can see why John was exiled in the first place. The guy was not just saying, "Oh doom an woe, here comes the end people!" He was actively preaching a message of resistance and basically telling people to go pick a fight for Jesus. Radical stuff. You can see why the message had to be disguised, and why it is still so powerful and relevant thousands of years later.

Review This:: The Other Guys

The Other Guys
Rated PG-13
Directed By Adam McKay

2.5 Stars

This seems like one of those movies that was so close to working but then just... didn't. (Read "The Spy Next Door") I feel like that is how a lot of McKay's films are, who had suck blazing success with Anchor Man and such limited return on a movie like Step Brothers.

At this point Will Ferrel has already proven himself with flicks like "Stranger than Fiction," so it's got to be the writing and directing. Ferrel is a funny guy who has become a great actor, so the problem has to be elsewhere.


That being said "The Other Guys" is still a funny movie. It has its own list of quirks and repeatable tirades by both Ferrel and Walhberg (Lion vs. Tuna) and the quintessential exchange that makes you cringe and laugh and wonder if you should really be watching this (when grandma is ferrying love messages between husband and wife."

Micheal Keaton plays a great Captain figure, who alternately wants to be called Gene and Captain in an attempt to differentiate between his two careers-Police work and the Bed Bath and Beyond. I felt like somehow they weren't letting Keaton out enough. And maybe if they had he would have stolen the show, but he is another incredibly funny guy who I feel got a little short changed in this. But I love Keaton, so maybe that is tainting me a bit. Hey, I even loved Multiplicity.

Ice-T the O.G., narrates--which is fitting and somehow a funny commentary on Ice. But it works because he takes the lines so seriously.

Part of my hang up with this movie is that it is one of those, like Step-Brothers, in which the main characters or most of them exist in this different world from everyone else. It works in Anchorman because everyone is in the same place. There are no characters who look at the wacky antics of others and go "huhn?" It breaks the mood of the movie and it confuses the issue.
Over all thought it's a funny flick and just what Ferrel and McKay have done several times in the past.

look

the hardest thing

By Francis Robert

open caskets are for suckers.

i have attended a lot of funerals in my line of work. a lot. A ton of them have been open casket. I find it horrifying. I know a lot of people find it gives them a sense of closure or whatever, but to me, I just see a lot of meat sitting in a box. I have seen people I know, not intimately, not family, but people I knew. And it does not help. It just looks... cold. And fills me with dread.

the whole business of being dead, I mean, he chemicals, the caskets, the liners, the biers, the plot, the headstone, the service, the limo... holy crap. It's like this enormous expensive really sad prom. Not to mention the food and the venue for the viewing or wake. How did it come to this? Funerals were once a time of honor for the dead. Burning a fallen comrade as they floated majestically against the waves. Even the old wakes were events to reckon with. the services surrounding the dead were a way of comping, but all of our modern mechanisms seem so sterile and horrifying.

I mean, I want my funeral to not even have my body. I don't get it. What is the obsession with the body? Do we not believe people? I am not being flip, is that really it? Is there some part of us that just refuses to believe the person is gone until we see them lifeless? Let me tell you too, you really are lifeless. I see these people who I knew in life, and they look... dead. Not sleeping, not whatever, they look dead. Like the life has gone out of the very skin cells. It's really kind of incredible.

We all want to be remembered. We all want people to wail and cry and shout and laugh and get drunk and eat and be merry at our passing. We want stories good and bad, told about us. We need that. We human. We all gonna die. It's just a matter of when and how.

Old Article, Still Relevant...

Divestment call 'bold and beautiful'
Christopher M. Tweel, Greensboro, N.C., Reprinted from "The Layman" on Tuesday, December 7, 2004


The call to divest from multinational corporations with ties to Israel was one of the boldest and most beautiful moves the church in general has made for a long time. The action only strengthens my feelings that the Presbyterian denomination is one that is filled with people who make a habit out of study and prayerful consideration on important aspects of faith.

It does pain me however to read some of the comments of other lay people who feel that the church's decision was in error and that, in fact, Israel's position and "right to defend" itself were not being taken into account before the decision was made.

To those, I would ask, or better, plead that they follow the footsteps of those who made the decision and rely on their own research to come to conclusions before passing judgment on the General Assembly. By that I mean more than what Fox News and CNN can piece together and spoon feed to the American public.

To date, 3,492 Palestinians have died since September 30, 2000. Compare this to the 986 Israelis who have died in the same span. Fully 20 percent of the intifada victims were Palestinian children. Consider also that while some organizations resort to terrorist tactics the large portion of those deaths have been civilian casualties while the Israeli losses have been almost entirely within the ranks of their armed forces.

Think also of the numerous American peace workers who have been killed by Israeli armed forces. Rachel Corrie, the American girl who refused to move when an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Caterpillar was going to tear down her host family's home. The bulldozer simply drove over her, crushing her to death. A sniper shot Brian Avery, from North Carolina, in the face, while he was trying to carry two children off the street during a tear gas attack by the IDF.

Over and over again IDF and the Israeli government have proven to be callous and unwilling to find a solution that acknowledges the Palestinian people as having the right to life, and to a quality of life that all people all people deserve. Israel breaks international rights laws over and over and the UN has condemned its actions more than once. Most recently, the UN voted unanimously (with the exception of the US) that the Wall in Israel was an apartheid action and the World Court declared it unlawful to continue.

Yet the Israeli government ignores them, and the US has yet to withdraw its support-encouraging injustice with its silence.

The action by PCUSA is a bold and brilliant stand that makes exactly the right statement to the world and our own country. We recognize that the situation in Israel and Palestine is complex beyond measure and has been raging for 50 years and more. Yet we as a church will not support oppression – even when that oppression may be described as "deserving." This was never the way of Christ. And that will never be the way of the church that follows him.

Book Nooks:: Cresent

Cresent 
by Diana Abu-Jaber

(c) 2003 W. W. Norton and Co, Inc

4.5 Stars

This is something of a divergence for me. I don't usually read love stories, and I don't usually read things set in the present day (another flight of fancy was "The Bronze Horseman" another excellent read). This book caught my eye. Mostly because I was at my uncle's house and had nothing to read and found this on a table.


There are some reviews I found on amazon that rave about the portrayal of Iraqis, which I find interesting because that wasn't the tone I picked up from it. I read it as part of the family I guess, my family was half Arab growing up and we went to a lot of dinners and gatherings. Which is I think what really brought me to this book. The food. the lovely descriptions of the food. In the same way that I watched "Waitress" for the pie. Also, I think I associated the main character's uncle with my own. Or maybe the kind of uncle I hope to be someday. Full of old stories and mystery.

The middle of the plots drags, so you really have to be in love with the story before that point or you will never make it. I found that easy enough though. I was content to simply drift through the lives of the characters in what was a lull of their lives. Learn recipes and hear simple stories of life. The richness of the descriptions allow you to exist there in California with them.


Also the association with food and sensuality, while not a new idea, is told beautifully in a way that will make you want to cook or make love, or both. A fantastic read, give it a whirl!

In Corpus Domini

Was watching something the other day that said in the wake of the 14th Amendment the corporation through a process of 288 court cases established itself as a "person." Meaning that the rights of a person were transferable to this Corporation.

So that is weird.

But I was thinking that if each corporation is a person, then, if a corporation is owned by largely Christian members, that Corporation should then act as a Christian person? Right? Other wise the corporation is being owned by Christians and operated as an atheist? That's really bizzare...

What's more interesting is the whole workers thing. If a corporation is making people work in sweatshops and then telling us that a portion of the proceeds are being donated to help children... i mean, if the corporation is a person, then this person must be insane. Paying people 3/10 of 1% of the retail price for the manufacture of this stuff just can't possibly be ok.

Then we look at the level of pollution that corporations put out. The number of chemicals that have come through "the magic of research" is staggering.

There was a time when public regulation kept these things in check... In the 14th and 15th century there was a shared collective responsibility. Things were shared as commons, the church and lords administered this as stewards...The privatization of everything runs against this idea, and in someway could be considered un-Christian as well.

The same corporation that makes the seed for the food we eat made agent orange and paid 80 million in damages to the guys who spread the stuff during Vietnam. Think on this for a moment... we create seeds that have "terminator" genes in them. After one generation of life every seed it creates is dead. Aside from the the health implications this has (what kind of nutrient does a "dead" seed have when a lot of what we eat are seeds?) this is a new kind of insanity. For thousands of years every human on the face of the earth has worked to keep and refine better and better generations of seeds. Through this process many have survived famine and pestilence. What would we do if all the current seed were corrupted? And we had no others to rely on? Where would our food come from?

If the corporation has the freedoms of a person, then we need to perceive it as such. Do we really want to be around this person? Should we hold this person accountable for its actions? The truth is calling something a "corporation" seems to only make it easy to pass of the incredibly evil and heinous actions as part of a faceless thing that cannot possibly be held for its actions.
If the corporation is a person, it might be a psychopath: Callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness, incapacity to experience guilt, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior...The present day corporation has the diagnosis of a frightening guy.

Fanta Orange was created by Coke for the Nazis.
IBM systems were in place in every railroad and concentration camp.
FDR was undermined by involving General Butler who was fed up with being a "gangster for capitalism" who admitted to setting up a faciast regime. GP Morgan, Dupont and Goodyear Tire were fingered as the main men in the conspiracy.

What do you Really Want...

During worship while we were praying we did something so powerful that it actually made me stopped praying in order to really focus on what we were saying. The prayer said that we were asking Christ to change our world and our lives. It struck me that we pray this sometimes without fully being prepared for what the answer to that prayer might entail.

A few months ago there was a speaker in Charlotte NC addressing the situation between Palestine and Israel. This little hotbed hasn’t gotten much attention in the wake of our own financial woes and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. An interview was preceding his speaking engagement, the interview being broadcast on “Charlotte Talks.” So much of what the man said was so false, the interviewer couldn’t have possibly been expected to keep up with it all. The guy stated statistics of casualties and injured civilians, never mentioned the equal or greater number that the Israelis are also responsible for. Not to mention the American civilians that Israel has murdered. (See Racheal Corrie, a 23 year old who went to bid for peace and fairness on behalf of the Palestinians in 2003 and was crushed by a bulldozer)

He mentioned the relationship between Palestine and other Arab nations and even the Russians, and all I could think was that when an overwhelming force is opposing you, there is no where you won’t turn to protect your homeland and your freedom. I mean, the US even turned to France once upon a time. The truth of the matter is that Israel pushes the Palestinians into seeking allies wherever it can because of the level of injustice being visited on it. Israel is trying to make the other Arab countries responsible for the Palestinians so that Israel can continue to push them out of a country that was theirs to being with.

He cited a 1947 UN Agreement that established the statehood of Israel (one that was made without the input of the people that lived on the land that was being declared a state), and yet failed to mention that even though it was Harry Truman’s vote and persistence that forced the vote through, Truman was never comfortable with the idea. He is quoted as saying, "I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."

The truth is that the creation of Israel is not a Jewish practice. Nor is it a religious one. It is a political movement created with propaganda to do what men have been trying to do since the dawn of time. Establish their own greed and consolidate their power. That it comes in the guise of a holy nation should come as no surprise. Somehow they did such a good job of convincing the first world powers of their gentleness and peaceful nature we allowed them to secure nuclear missiles. As the only country in the Arab world that has them an imbalance of power was immediately created. This daggers drawn mentality does nothing for peace in an already tumultuous arena.

As I was listening to this interview a thought struck me in conjunction with our prayer from church. We don’t want peace. And we do not desire change. Our asking for Christ to change our world can only be one of two things; simple lip service, or a conditional asking that is based on our own expectation. Our actions as a country are neither Christian nor just, and in the face of these we cite that some things must be protected, must be fought for. But these things are the way of the Christian or of Christ, and no matter how we try to dress it, our actions to the contrary are in betrayal of our allegiance God.

Solving our Differences

William Ury

TEDx Midwest Talk October 2010

Solutions to peace: actions as a surrounding community to any conflict

Living with Saan Bushmen
One person hides the poison arrows
The community comes together and talks for days until there is resolution or reconciliation
Or people are placed with family in order to cool off

The Third Side : the surrounding community (Them v. Us + Community)
Remind the parties what is at stake
Easy to loose sight of things, we are reactionary beings
Need to “go to the balcony” get perspective for a distance

Where is the third side in the Palestine?
Stories Matter
Are the key, keeping us engaged in this conflict
What is the story here?
Origin story, 4,000 years ago Abe walked across the dessert
A message of Unity, family and of all things
Respect and kindess to strangers, hospitality
The symbolic 3rd side
Retrace the footsteps of the third side, gain the balcony perspective
Walking from Urfa, to Haran, Alepo, Damascus, Ajloun, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and to Hebron
The Abraham Path


Terrorism
Taking a stranger who is treated as an enemy who you kill to create fear
Hospitality
Taking a stranger who is treats as a friend who you treat well to create hope

Space Grace

What is it that captivates the mind of our nation these days? Is it possible that something aside from sports or the latest “Hoarders” episode could draw the national attention to a single focal point in this age of over stimulated instantly accessible viral videos?
The unification of our country was once more than just a collective vote on the latest “American Idol.” There was a time when almost every eye looked skyward, and every neck craned to watch a chosen few go further than any other man or woman. There was a time when our astronauts were heroes.
The shuttle program, star of the national space transportation system, is coming to a dire close in February of 2011. The last flight of the shuttle Discovery is set for the end of this month. More than nine-thousand people who are a part of the shuttle program will loose their jobs, and a bright chapter in the history of innovation and spirit in this country will likely go with them.

The shuttle program was more than just a part of some government organization. In its heyday, the men and women who traveled that ultimate distance into space were like movie stars. We sought out their pictures and autographs with wide eyes and rapture in our faces. Sadly, the years have not been kind to the program. It suffered through an age where practicality and the bottom line over-ruled the wonder and desire for exploration the people of this country used to feel. The money to give the program the updates it needed never came, and it began an inevitable decay despite the best efforts of the people who loved it.
But there was another time I remember. In school we all had posters of the shuttle orbiter on the wall and knew the names of the astronauts currently circling the globe faster than any other thing on earth could ever possibly go. The math and physics of the missions could be studied, as well as the biological experiments and even the effect of space travel on the astronauts themselves. We were all space nuts, and dreamed of the lucky few who could afford to go to space camp and consume Tang® and dehydrated ice cream.

But something happened. It somehow became passé, this feat of American ingenuity and incredible science. Cape Kennedy and Cape Canaveral became far away places once more, and Major Nelson and Jeannie were replaced with other TV Shows. Florida’s association became one of alligators, beaches, hanging chads and citrus fruit.
We lost sight of the dream we once shared together, brought our eyes low and began to forget; a new generation was born without even knowing about the vision we all once shared.
Of course how could we continue a new breed of space nuts? The starting fees for entry into the Kennedy Space Center are at $43.41 per person (including minors over 11 years of age) and go up from there. What family could afford to show their children the wonders of the Space Center? Our country does a wonderful job of making the National museums in D.C. free to all citizens, yet somehow funding for this amazing center cannot be made even affordable for the average family. Is it any wonder we all lost connection to the dream?
The space program will most likely descend into the private sector. Perhaps that’s not all bad. In the long run we will probably achieve more, and get into space quicker and in greater number. However, we will miss the unity of a national space program. It was something that every American citizen could look skyward to the launches and think, “I had a hand in that,” You could watch the tax dollars and hard work applying itself spaceward in a vaunt of fire to further a noble dream of exploration, scientific discovery and maybe something more.
Without our national space program we will not be any weaker as a country, but we will have lost a part of our heart and imagination. So here’s to Enterprise, Discovery, Atlantis, and especially Challenger and Columbia; we will always remember you and your crews. Noble men and women of science, faith, and passion who did something incredible and were the brilliant heroes we desperately still need.

not by me

The creaking boards
Beneath my shoes talk back
As I dance upon them.
They shout they are in pain
From years of lying hinged against nails and beg
For mercy as I twirl and spin
You join in with my step and catch my hands and clasp my waist
Spin. Stomp, slap, hug,
Release

The circus of movement against
The old boards provides harmonizing
Notes of heels stomping and the boards
Receiving the blows
Although
They sound shattered, shoes still clatter against the straining floor.
Dane with me, dance with me, dance just once more

My love grows
Stronger with ever movement closer
As the colors fade
Around us
Time to end the charade. Good night, dear floorboards

And thanks again
For the wonderful complaining.

Got REAL Milk?

Milk still does a body good.
Though, like any food, there is such a thing as good milk and bad milk. Sadly, for some reason, consumers have taken this miracle drink for granted and allowed industry to take control of it.
I think it’s interesting that Katie Scarvey’s recent article failed utterly to ask one simple question: Why are our children and babies having these allergic reactions to milk?
The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network puts milk allergies on the rise from 2-3% to 6-8% of children in the US. Additionally, they quote a study done in 2007 that could mean that these allergies are lasting longer than previously expected. Out of 800 children in the study only 19% had outgrown it by age 4. Certainly in the moment of diagnosis food avoidance is the way to initially deal with these allergies. Though, as the dust settles, our minds should attack the question head on – why is our food making us sick?
Initially we blame the milk, human nature is not to ponder reflexively, and fear mongering certainly draws more attention to our news articles. What we should be doing is analyzing the changes in our human behavior and food preparation that have occurred over the past 50 years.
There is something wrong with bodies that do not produce enough “lactase,” which is the bodily enzyme that allows us to break down the “lactose” sugars found in milk. These are small intestine enzymes, which can be harmed or destroyed in any number of ways. There is also something beyond mere genetics that keeps our bodies from breaking down the whey and casein proteins. One thing that Scarvey failed to mention was that during the processing of milk, the casein peptides and micelle structure become disturbed or denatured to form simpler structures.
Whey proteins are used in a lot of the foods we eat. Wonder how Kashi now has as much protein as an egg? Special “K” with added protein? You can bet it came from milk. Yet, this overabundance of the processed protein in other areas of our diet might be what is at the root of these new intolerances for it in milk.
“Drink your milk.”
The phrase was probably coined in the latter half of the 1800s when milk consumption was on the rise as a replacement for breast milk. Though even at that time, there were some city “farms” who kept their cows on feeder lots in confinement and fed them leftover grain from breweries--which produced sick, toxic milk. Even with that, I don’t think our American ancestors could have possibly foreseen the problems with milk our children are having today.
Problems which once again can be traced to huge conglomerate feeder farms where the average lifespan for a cow is 3-4 years. Lifespan on a normal dairy farm? Closer to 15 years. What I find incredible is that we think we can take milk from sickly, over medicated, over milked animals and then wonder innocently why our children are getting sick.
Milk in it’s raw forms is made for digestion, is nutrient rich, and almost the perfect health food providing good fats, lymphocytes, and macrophages that our bodies need and, in our health poor society, crave. Every process that we put it through (see homogenized, pasteurized, ULTRA-pasteurized, skimmed, etc) only serves to drive it further and further from being actual food. These processes are not for our health but for the profitability of stores and mega-farms. The further you can ship it, and the longer it can stay on the shelf the more people you can sell it to. Raw milk has also been given to those people with “Milk Allergies” who, by and large, can consume it with no problems. How is that possible?!
Delicious, wonderful milk is not the problem. How many children have to be taken off milk, and peanuts, and eggs, and wheat before we realize that our food has got to change!
Maybe it should start with milk. Wouldn’t it be great to have milk from farms in our own area, rather than some faceless corporation farm in Texas? We are blessed to live in a farm rich area of North Carolina and it should be our glad privilege to consume the vast richness that our area provides for its community. The trade off is that the cost is greater – but I would rather put $10 in my neighbor’s pocket, than $5 in the pocket of some faceless stranger from hundreds of miles away. I would rather pay $20 for food that won’t make me sick, than $8 for food that gives my kids eczema, asthma and IBS.
Our farmers should be the most well paid profession in the country. Yet, it’s our doctors who are buying new boats (no to disrespect another noble profession). Wouldn’t it be incredible if our farmers had summer homes, and our medical profession was just barely making it? What if we were so healthy from eating wonderful, safe foods that we no longer needed to go to the doctor so often! What a world that would be.
If we refuse to do anything, if we continue to expect our food to be cheap and incredibly inaccurately inflated, we will continue to get sicker, more obese, and have more food sensitivities as a nation. It wont be too long before our children will be so allergic and sensitive to food there won’t be anything left for them to eat.

verb-ose

You are the “she”
And the “her”
and the “you.”

My grammatical insanity
pleads for your ownership
Of all its pronouns.

and now "I" can't exist without
the "they" "we" became
when the "us" that we are
overcame the "me"
that was there

The “it”, is, well, easy;
As are “his” and “him”

“those” are the arms
meaning ownership
meaning plural,
meaning mine
entwined

“that” is "my" wonder
meaning descriptively
meaning awe,
meaning possesively regarding you.

“this” is our love.
Meaning demonstrative
Meaning action
Meaning more

"who," "which" and "whom"
will always be you.
must always be
can't ever not

"everything" is indefinite
cause we still don't know
but I will do "anything"
and "many"
to find out

reflexive and reactive
"myself" retreats
favoring "ourselves"
finding a beat
a skipping of time together again
making a new thing when people say "them"