Thursday, May 12, 2005

Indebtedness

Some days I am either lazy or I just want to share some good stuff with you fine folks. You may make up your own mind as to which it is.

I love a good quote, and nothing beats Emerson:


The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape.

The entire essay is a rejoinder that we cannot live without consequence. We are indebted to every other living thing on this planet. Our failure to pay the interest on that debt will destroy us. Emerson is here:

www.rwe.org


Sirota and Kos put me on to this incredible quote, that leads off todays set of incredible quotes:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

Here's a suggestion for an Earth Day bumpersticker from one of my favorite authors:

“Your Planet’s Immune System Is Trying to Get Rid of You.”


Kurt Vonnegut


And why don't Christians quote this ancient question?

“Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?”

The Prophet Ezekiel

Pat sent this link which has the editorial from which I stole the quote:

www.rupri.org

Speaking of Pat, here he is with the aquatic version of an Ivorybill, a Boulder Darter...reintroduced into Shoal Creek after 121 years or so. A great story in the Tenessean follows. Good work, Guys!




tennessean.com

Another bumper sticker:

We are definitely not united...

And most of Yall are sitting!


And now this final quote, funny on the surface, but there's more:
'
Well, money can't buy happiness, but it buys the kind of misery you can learn to live with.'"
Linda Carruth Davis

Linda Davis was married for 32 years to Dr. W. David Hager, the one dissenting vote on the FDA's panel reviewing the over the counter sale of Plan B, a morning after contraceptive. Even tough the committee overwhelmingly approved Plan B, the FDA rejected its recommendation, due in part to a right wing christian tirade led by Dr. Hager.

Dr. Hager turns out to be one weird duck, enforcing his own absolutely abominable prejuces on the rest of us and his sick, sick sexual perversions upon his wife...now his ex-wife.

Odd, isn't it? We keep finding out that these right wing fascists are also sickly perverted! Well now we learn that Dr. Hager doesn't see the need for Plan B, because he likes to sodomize sleeping women against their will. No need for a Plan B after that, eh Dr. Hager?

The Nation has the sicko details and what it means to us...

thenation.com/

I think I want to go take a shower now. Why is it that everytime I read about Christian Conservatives, I feel like I've gotten dirty?

Peace,

Steve

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:09 AM

    Steve - thought you might like these two additional Eisenhower quotes.

    "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it." TV Talk with Prime Minister Macmillan August 31. 1959

    "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." "The Chance for Peace" Address April 16. 1953

    and finally, the underlying piece that explains the philosophy (as much as one can discern from a quote)

    "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity." Canadian Club. Ottawa. Canada January 10. 1946

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