Category: Civic

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Summer thoughts

Most of the folks who are virulently anti LGBTQ are unsure of their own sexuality. I’ve found gay people to be twice gifted with unique contributions to make. Indigenous people in the Americas referred to gay folks as the people of two spirits.

Taking away a woman’s right to choose is also profoundly wrong. Imposing your narrow religious beliefs on the rest of us is fucked up.

The real existential threat facing our world is climate change. If you aren’t concerned about that you ought to be. I’ll be long gone when the worst happens but our children and especially our grandchildren’s lives will be cut short by a mass extinction happening within the next 100 years.

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WTAF?

I just read that the governor of Ohio has signed a bill that allows teachers to carry guns in schools in that state with no more than twenty-four hours training. What could possibly go wrong. I wonder when the government of Ohio will allow citizens to get a drivers license with merely twenty-four hours of training. The God, guns and Jesus crowd are creaming their jeans I’m sure. What about the collateral damage in schools where such insanity prevails?

Previously Ohio teachers who wanted to carry guns in schools could do so with seven-hundred hours of training but now the requirement has been reduced to twenty-four hours. The governor is a Republican of course. The GOP might be on to something here. I wonder if the Army, Air Force and Marines will follow suit. We could save a lot of money if basic training were reduced to twenty-four hours instead of seven to ten weeks.

The backers of the measure say that the bill will make schools safer. Teachers unions have opposed arming teachers. I’m with the teachers who are opposed. I don’t see how any good can come from this obtuse response to keeping schools safer.

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Thank you padre!

Saw this on Representative Mike Thompson’s Twitter feed this morning. Mike Thompson represents California’s 5th Congressional District. This letter from a Catholic Priest friend says it all about Arch Bishop Cordileone’s latest misguided decision:


“Bishops, priests, etc. are neither the hosts nor the bouncers nor the ones who wrote the guest list. The Eucharist is the resurrected body of Christ given for the life of the world…

Jesus Christ is the one who invites the guests (“all you who labor”); he is the host of those who come; he is the setter of the table; and he is the feast which is shared (“Take this, all of you. this is my body, this is my blood”)… 

We are guests at the meal, and sometimes (by his calling) servers. So stay in your lane, please. The wait staff doesn’t get to exclude those who want to come. If you don’t like the company Christ calls (and, admittedly, it is a rag tag bunch of sinners, one and all), it’s… you who need to leave the table, not them.”

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Who are they kidding?

I read today that a poll conducted recently that a majority of voters of both persuasions believe that the time has come for secession from the United States of America. Are these folks living in a vacuum? Who do they think provides the fuel for the economy that provides for the common defense and the common good? Forces of the extreme right wing of the Republican party who care nothing about the common good of the country and for that matter, the world are espousing this wrong headed approach to the body politic.

These separatists who decry socialism and advanced society fail to realize that the roads we drive on, the sewer and water systems that support our day to day lives and most of the infrastructure that supports our daily lives is paid for by tax dollars. Many of the so called red states are full of military installations which provide thousands of jobs and no doubt contribute mightily to the wealth of the communities that surround them. If they secede from the union then those jobs go to other states.

Nearly seven hundred twenty thousand Americans are dead from a deadly virus primarily because this same bunch of idiots are interfering with roll-out of the vaccine to mitigate the effects of the virus.

It’s October 1 and where I live the trees are still mostly green. That’s unusual. When I was a boy most of the trees were bright orange on the first day of October. It was common to have a ‘killing frost’ by mid-September. We have had one overnight when the temperature dipped to 38 degrees fahrenheit. The forecast for December this year is for warmer weather than normal. That’s all becasue the climate is changing. The gulf coast of our country has been ravaged by record breaking hurricanes which have left unheard of destruction in their wake.

We need thoughtful leadership from intelligent people. I encourage you not to listen to talking heads spreading lies and misinformation that put the lives of all the world at risk. Be a uniter not a divider.

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Holding Afghanistan in the Light

More broadly, it is far past time for the United States to acknowledge that peace and real security can never be achieved through military force, and to therefore abandon the failed endless war paradigm completely.
— Read on www.fcnl.org/updates/2021-08/holding-afghanistan-light

The horrific attacks at Kabul Airport must not be used as a pretext for more war. The military industrial complex and its supporters have kept the United States in a wartime footing since 1939. The present war in Afghanistan has depleted our National treasure long enough and has done nothing to end terrorism nor advance the cause of world peace.

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You owe it to yourself

Persist by Elizabeth Warren

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I liked Elizabeth Warren and thought she had the makings of a great president before I read this book. Now after reading the book I am more sure than ever. This book is well written. It’s full of personal stories that are riveting and policy statements and research that are compelling. I was fortunate to get a signed copy of the book and now it’s going to be passed on to my daughter who is an Elizabeth Warren fan. I highly recommend reading the book. You won’t be disappointed. Persist.



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Vote to confirm Xavier

Yesterday I received an email from a sibling urging me to pray that Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services be defeated because he’s pro-choice. My correspondent wrote of course that he’s pro-abortion which is not true. I’m tired of these either/or evangelicals who are merely pro-birth and not truly pro-life. Life is both/and and much more complex than the binary choices these folks espouse. I pray everyday for an end to bigotry and hatred based on skin color, sexual orientation, religion or no religion at all. I hope Xavier Becerra is confirmed and that he leads us to better health and human services.

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Preserve, protect and defend

June 1972 I took the oath of enlistment when I volunteered for service in the United States Naval Reserve. The words if you’re unfamiliar are, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;…” My enlistment ended in 1978 when I received an honorable discharge. Later as a public school teacher I had to do the same and recently as a trustee of our two county public library system I had to affirm that I would uphold the Constitution.

Today I witnessed lawmakers and our president seeking to overturn the will of the American people who overwhelmingly elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to presidency and vice-presidency. Today insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol and threaten the well being of the capitol police and members of congress. One of the people involved was mortally wounded. I wonder if those lawmakers and the insurrectionists have ever read the U. S. Constitution. The lawmakers took approximately the same oath as I did. Did they mean it?

Ironically the current president and many of his followers have made a big deal about law and order. Not much evidence of respect for law and order today. These same folks got upset when athletes knelt at the time of the National Anthem. Today one of the insurrectionists tore down the United States flag from the U.S. Capitol and raised a campaign banner of the president. Apparently their patriotism was fraudulent. We have heard a lot about fraud in this election and we witnessed that fraud today. It was on display for all the world to see. American exceptionalism died today. Our republic is under siege by forces of evil who are hell bent on destroying us.

I hope that order will be restored and that our republic will survive this insurrection and that we will grow as a country. E pluribus unum.

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The wisdom to know the difference

Earlier today I saw a post that rang true. In 2008 we elected a black man to be president of the United States. The specter of a black man as the leader of the free world was so terrible to those who are intent on white supremacy that they spent eight years attempting to discredit him. Equally terrifying to these folks is that people of color will soon be the predominant group in the United States.

In many areas of the country that is already the case. The United States was founded by white men who slaughtered indigenous people, enslaved Africans and kept women subjugated while using religion to justify it. There has been an evolution of consciousness since the 1790’s. We stopped slaughtering indigenous people in the nineteenth century although we put them on ghettos we call reservations. We ended chattel slavery in 1863 and passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. We followed that with Jim Crow and one hundred more years of terror for people of color. Nonetheless consciousness continued to evolve. We passed landmark civil rights and voting rights in the 1960’s.

All of this progress has been countered with reactionary movements which live on to this day. Consciousness will continue to evolve despite the efforts of some to put the genie back in the bottle. I may not live to see the change but eventually our democracy will evolve to the land of the free.

On January 20 2021 a woman of color will be sworn in as Vice President of the United States. We’re long overdue for a women at the top and especially a woman of color. This fact is what mostly animates the angry white men in our halls of government. They’re actually frightened that America is living out the promise of our ideals.

Democracy isn’t easy. It never was nor will it be.