The verse: "Put to shame and confound all who seek to take my life. Turn back in disgrace those who desire my ruin." Simple and elegant. Of course, I don't think it should be offered on Cafe Press. proactively, Bright

...was last Friday, actually. I was hurrying back across the Plaza to get to the hotel where a conference luncheon was being held. I'd run across to a bank that has an ATM to get some cash so I could get my car out of hock after the lunch. I was walking quickly; it was a lovely day. The Plaza, here in Santa Fe, is a place that combines many elements of the city's life. It is, literally, the center of town, blocks from the Capitol building. There are always many different types of people ha...

Oh, yes it is. They may not perceive it, it may not be conscious, but it's about race. And it's racism. No, I'm not talking about any and all criticism of President Obama. It's perfectly legitimate to criticize the President, if you disagree with his actions or his expressed policies. And it's possible to do so with acerbic wit and biting satire and hyperbolic rhetoric and yes, even with anger and outrage, and not tread on the ground of race and racism. But, by and large, that is not what ...

What if: President Obama abandons the ‘public option’? What if: The Progressive Caucus puts up a fight for the ‘public option’, but eventually gets outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outvoted? What if: All of the various Democratic HCR bills stall out, get watered down, and we end up with practically nothing: A law that says everyone must purchase health insurance, a wholly inadequate fund to assist the poorest Americans in complying with that law, and a couple of mild ‘suggestions’ to the in...

I only recommended once because that's all the software allows. But I WOULD recommend H2O Man's post many times if I could. Exactly. They WANT us to feel helpless, hopeless, discouraged, angry and futile. They know that until we feel the power within ourselves, and begin to ACT upon it, we will be weak and disorganized and impotent. Just this week, I spent some time with a person who exemplifies "internal locus of control" and who taps the power within as naturally as breathing, and she is ...

And how do you know you have it? Seriously. I'm getting more than a little curious about the people who are worried about protecting their "good insurance." Because I know a lot of people who have insurance. And not one of them has "good" insurance. "Good" insurance doesn't cost more per month than the payment on a top-of-the-line Mercedes sedan. "Good" insurance doesn't force small businesses to decide between keeping all their employees and continuing to pay for the employees' insurance....

I will defend to the death anyone's right to make hateful remarks, and I will defend to the death the rights of a free press to cover those hateful remarks. BUT I think it is time that we had a national discussion about the COST of such self-expression, and whether we wish to promote other forms of expression in public dialogue, or maybe even sanction hateful discourse with collective disapproval. For those uncertain of their terms to "sanction hateful discourse with collective disapproval" i...

I think that we are going to get health care reform within the next eighteen months. I think it will not please everyone who wants nothing less than a single-payer, government-based, universal coverage health system. I think it will be a fairly messy, cobbled-together bill with a number of items grafted onto it for no other purpose than to slow the inevitable demise of Big Corporate Healthcare (BCH)--the Health Insurance congloms, Big Pharma, the big for-profit provider networks. I think it w...

a prose poem(?) Because Persia is very old, Neda. Persians have seen the sands of history fall past Zoroaster and Alexander and Ahura Mazda. Long before the alleged Messiah of the Hebrews was allegedly ratted out to the Romans for various acts of civil disobedience, the laws of the Medes and Persians struggled to solve the ancient riddle of justice. Long before The Prophet led a ragtag band of followers across the face of the desert, long before Crusades bathed the eastern shores of the Medi...

What do these two things have in common? Well, here's the deal. How many times have black men who've suffered the indignities (or worse!) of DWB episodes heard something like this: "Of course it's not right. But it happens. Deal with it appropriately. Be respectful of the officer and don't make it worse. Have common sense, for heavens' sakes. One of these days we'll get around to ensuring that our law enforcement personnel don't feel free to abuse their power and use racist assumptions i...

On July 26, 1990, the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed. And the world ended, obviously. It ended because all of America's small businesses would have to build ramps and they couldn't afford it and it would put them out of business! It ended because every podunk local jurisdiction would have to install curb cuts and door openers and elevators in public buildings and our taxes would go through the roof or they'd all have to declare bankruptcy or BOTH! It ended because every school wo...

A man walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, because it is full of "liberals." A man walks into a police station and opens fire, because 'they might take my guns.' A man walks into a Church and shoots a doctor he believes is a "baby killer." A man walks into a museum dedicated to the Holocaust and opens fire, killing the security guard who held the door for him. Men and women wearing the proud uniform of the United States military perform unspeakable, unthinkable, degrading acts of to...

Anyone who's ever seen Little Shop of Horrors knows when Seymour Krelborn made his first mistake. Seymour just wants to be loved by Audrey, a blond with a good heart and a very tacky fashion sense, and bag some economic success. So when he happens upon a sinister but appealing little plant and takes it back to the flower shop, at first giving "Audrey II" a few drops of his own blood to keep it alive seems like a harmless, even noble, thing to do. Lo and behold! Feeding "Audrey II" proves to ...

Yes, that's right, TAX CUTS!! And to prevent future outbreaks, the guaranteed solution? Eliminate at least three major federal administrative divisions-- say (for example,) the EPA, the Dept. of Agriculture, and, uh... lessee... Yeah! The Bureau of Land Management!! That'll do it, definitely! That's right, folks, just listen to your friendly rightwing wackjob spokesperson, they'll tell ya: Want to end hunger? Tax Cuts! Want to eliminate drive time traffic jams? Tax Cuts! Want to prev...

I would probably be really enjoying myself today. I just watched some videos of the various Tea Party events that were held at various locations yesterday. Now, IF I were a mean person, the kind of wicked sadist who delights in deliberately escalating and augmenting the paranoia of the poorly-informed, I would probably write something like this: "Good work Comrades! Central Planning HQ in the White House basement estimates that we now have video footage of nearly seventy-six percent of the r...

(This is a repost of a response I posted in another thread, and then realized it was so damn' good and so well-thought-out and I'm such dang hot stuff that it should be its own damn' post and in my Journal, so there.) Well, I've done some research. The Tea Party thing. First mentioned (by that name) by Rick Santelli during a rant on CNBC's "Squawk Box" editorial/opinion show on February 9 of this year, during which he also asserted that (presumably pre-Castro) "Cuba used to have mansions, ...

Evolution (or the Creator, if you wish) has given human beings binocular vision. This is important. It means that we can drive cars at speeds in excess of three or four miles per hour without smashing into things. It means that we can throw things with a reasonable hope of accuracy-- everything from a lifesaver to someone struggling in deep water, to a baseball across home plate. Binocular vision allowed our hunter-gatherer ancestors to survive and pass on their genes to produce the current ...

My husband and I were having a conversation the other day, and he said something that went right by me at the time, but it's been haunting me ever since. I think it might be a big part of What's Wrong with the economy-- and hence, it might offer an interesting clue on a direction for change. My husband has been creating ways for people to recover from addiction for more than thirty years. He's published a number of books that are highly respected in the field. He's developed more than a few ...

I want to juxtapose two apparently conflicting positions: Position One: I am a strong support of President-Elect Obama He has shown intelligence, amazing leadership capability, a preternaturally shrewd grasp of the realities of national politics, and colossal determination to bring fundamental --and I believe mostly positive-- change to both our government and our political culture. For all of this, I am profoundly grateful, deeply respectful of his aspirations and abilities, and enthusiastic...

I don't know if this would work, Constitutionally. Perhaps some of the more savvy legal minds around here can comment on that. But here's my idea: Bush is making hundreds of last-minute rule changes, changes that have the potential to damage and delay many of Obama's planned initiatives to rescue our nation. Most of them appear to be based on recommendations proffered months or years ago and quietly pushed through the various pre-implementation bureaucratic hurdles by Bush apparatchiks behin...

I just realized that I'm smarter than I think I am. And those who know me well will have to pick their jaws up off the floor, because they know how smart I think I am. Hell, think? Call it a clear-eyed, cold-steel assessment of things-as-they-are. I KNOW I'm bloody well smart. So... Smarter than THAT, even? Okay, I'm not mapping any neural pathways, splitting any subatomic particles, explicating string theory or fractal geometry any time soon. I do know my limitations. But I've just bec...

There is something highly significant about the emergence of body weight, attitudes about weight, the science and conventional wisdom of weight management, etc. as the topic du jour (or du weekend?) on DU. It is clearly laden with emotional baggage for a great many of us. Maybe it's the 'methadone' substitute for the flame-war junkies whose addictions were stoked so abundantly by 'the Hillary thing' and various other controversies now rendered moot or robbed of their relevance. We do love our...

>>The reason for that is clear. Almost everyone has a great need to think of him or herself as a good person. Slavery was a brutal system that dehumanized its victims. How can a person think of himself as a good person when he brutalizes and dehumanizes other people for economic gain? The only way to do that is to tell yourself and make yourself believe that those whom you dehumanize are barely human to start with. Those were the attitudes that prevailed in the U.S. South during the slaver...

...in the issues and ideals. You convey the sense of wonder and joy at the feelings of inadequacy, etc. rising up and going away, very eloquently. I think many people have experienced something similar when they've overcome a challenge or surmounted a great obstacle. Please believe this: I will never stop fighting for the rights of you and my sister and my friends and other family members to have every support our society gives to every pair of consenting adults who commit to one another for...

I really think that the vile and bigoted ballot measures passed denying civil rights to gay people in several states are the beginning of the end. Yes, I really believe that, ultimately, states allowing this crap to be pulled are paving the way to a national civil rights act that will include gender identity and sexual orientation. In other words: There is good news and bad news to be read in these pathetic attempts to institutionalize fear, homophobia and oppression. The good news: I think...

We owed you sanity. We owed you a thoughtful, intelligent leader to interact with. We owed you an Administration that will listen with respect and make decisions on a larger basis than "how will this play to the semi-hominid wing of my political party?" We owed you a nation that is ready to interact on an adult basis. To speak eloquently for our interests and express our opinions with clarity and passion, but equally to look beyond our interests, and to take the opinions of others into consi...

Howard Dean, M.D. Chair Democratic National Committee 430 South Capitol Street SE Washington, DC 20003 28 October, 2008 Dear Dr. Dean Let me lead off with profound gratitude to you for your leadership of the Democratic Party. A lifelong Democrat, I was disappointed and alienated by the direction our leadership took in the 1990s, and I became essentially a “sleeping Democrat”—reliable Democratic voter, but not much else in respect to the Party. Your determination to return control of the Pa...

I just got back to Santa Fe from the second of two political rallies by major-party Presidential candidates in Albuquerque today. This morning, Albuquerque was honored with a visit by John McCain, with spouse Cindy in tow. According to the Albuquerque Journal, "McCain's Albuquerque stop is an attempt to blunt Obama in the voter-rich metropolitan area where the Democrat was backed by 51 percent of voters, according to a poll commissioned by the Albuquerque Journal." Also according to that orga...

America is getting bigger. Our heroes are getting bigger. Lieutenant Ehren Watada. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And, yes, Barack Obama. People who want to keep America small—small as their sad, vengeful little deities—are still around, mad and scared and loudly asserting the empty talking points that inflated their sense of importance. But the echo chamber has been turned off and their voices are sounding shrill and tinny. They’re still trying to whip up hate and fear about Scary Brown Peop...

"OMG.... So sorry! We never should have said, 'Barack Hussein Obama!' It was terribly inappropriate to say 'Hussein,' as in, 'Barack Hussein Obama.' We TOTALLY apologize for saying 'Barack Hussein Obama!' That was very bad of us." "Seriously. We never should have said 'Hussein,' as in, 'Barack Hussein Obama.' We will tell everyone associated with our campaign that they must never refer to our opponent as 'Barack Hussein Obama,' only as 'Barack Obama.' No 'Hussein.' Really." "In the fu...