A Given Choice

If this is indeed the Land of the Free, why do we, of all the nations on Earth, warehouse the highest percentage of our own citizens in prisons?

Why are they disproportionally black and poor?

If we have the most equitable legal system in the world, why is justice too expensive for all but the very rich?

If we have the best medicine, why do tens of thousands of people here have to choose between food and medical care, when no one needs to do so in the 16-20 other countries whose citizens outlive ours?

If ours is the best educational system, why have literacy--and most people's understanding of the world and our culture--declined in every generation since World War II?

If ours is the best political system, why can no one win public office without becoming wholly indebted to those who do not have the common welfare at heart?

If America is so fair, why do its CEOs who, a generation or two ago, made 10-20 times as much money as their average worker, now make 500 times as much by robbing employees' pension plans and legally pauperizing people who have worked hard all their lives?

If the corporations, whose profits all come from your wallet, don't pay taxes, why do you have to make up the shortfall?

If other countries cannot or will not limit their birth rates to the carrying capacity of their lands, but send their population surpluses to you without you permission, why should you be forced to feed and clothe and educate and medicate and far too often incarcerate their citizens at the cost of your own life chances?

Internecine

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

-John Stuart Mill


They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary saftey deserve neither liberty nor safety.

-Benjamin Franklin


Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

-George Patton

A Higher Place

1010 18th street
Apartment 6

many good times to come

When Will They Learn?

"I see no conflict in what the Bible tells me about God and what science tells me about nature. Like St. Augustine in A.D. 400, I do not find the wording of Genesis 1 and 2 to suggest a scientific textbook but a powerful and poetic description of God's intentions in creating the universe. The mechanism of creation is left unspecified. If God, who is all powerful and who is not limited by space and time, chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create you and me, who are we to say that wasn't an absolutely elegant plan?"

-Francis Collins: Director, National Human Genome Research Institute.

"Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings. Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error tinkering: a retina installed backward, a seminal duct that hooks over the ureter like a garden hose snagged on a tree, goose bumps that uselessly try to warm us by fluffing up long-gone fur. The theory of natural selection explains life as we find it, with all its quirks and tragedies."

-Steven Pinker: Psychology professor, Harvard University



I believe that in a hundred years people will not look at evolution as a speculative theory, but rather the single most important idea ever conceived used to make sense of how God created the world around us.

Guilty of Love

Last weekend's theme:

Band on the Run.



This weekend's theme:

Beachside Blast... (let's try it again).



good stories behind each of these.

Royal Mail

I am wearing a mail man's coat from England

It has some golden virginia hand rolling tobacco in it

And some papers

And it smells like rasins




Yummy yum yum.

Land Sea Air

The time has come for the first camping trip of the year.

I along with Mattchew and Douger and possibly Westy will be heading up to Itasca State Park on Saturday morning. Probably leave like 8 in the morning so we can spend as much time there as possible. We are at a remote back-pack site which means we have to hike to our spot, which is up to 5 miles away, carrying everything we are bringing. Should be really fun. Go fishing, camping, swimming, bonfiring, hiking, maybe even mountain biking... should be great. Hopefully no bears or mountain lions attack us or eat our food. Then come back Sunday evening. Weather should be nice so that is good too.

Hopefully this is the first of a few camping trips this year.