The wisdom of respect
Our world's economic failures concern people and leaders everywhere, as nations rise and fall in their political maneuvering. But mankind has never succeeded in dealing with the problems of human society apart from attention to spiritual cultivation.
Unfortunately, this understanding is too often neglected by teachers and parents who rear their children to compete and succeed economically and physically but care too little for their learning the wisdom of respecting one another. Too often we spend our time and energy in getting ahead, then die fighting one another religiously as well as politically with the futility of despair or resentment.
There have been moments in history when individuals have sacrificed themselves to promote the well-being of others. Even today we can find people who are dedicated to sharing and assisting others in charities and civil justice; still we tend to despise those not of our culture.
Human nature is not apt to change while our culture motivates us to out-do one another rather than lead one another into the ways of spiritual growth and compassion as taught and practiced by people of eternal devotion.
Many have learned the ways of our Creator and are the hope and salvation of mankind in our nation and communities of divine faith around this world and future generations. This realization comes not in programs of governmental irresponsibility and the media's promotion of sexual lewdness and violence, but by people committed to moral behavior and accountability in business and education, and especially loving homes.
JIM HELVEY
Winston-Salem
Dangerous fracking
Natural-gas fracking is being championed by some in North Carolina as a way to raise revenue and increase statewide employment.
I'm not an expert, but it seems ludicrous that it could be considered OK to pump thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the earth when simply pouring a couple gallons of the same chemicals on the earth would get someone cited for pollution, complete with a fine and possible jail time.
How can we say it is illegal to dump a jug of benzene on the ground and then think it's completely OK and safe to inject thousands of pounds of benzene, and other toxic substances, into the ground? Remember, we have no recourse but to breathe the air and drink the water and consume the produce that will come from the same ground where the chemicals will be injected.
Of course, if politicians tell us it's safe then we really don't have anything to worry about. Do we?
MICHAEL MITCHELL
Winston-Salem
Shame
When I heard the results of the marriage amendment, I was very disappointed. One may as well have written "Shame" over the state of North Carolina on a U.S. map.
This is what I think: The Bible states that marriage is the union between a man and a woman, and a person may believe this. However, he who agrees with the Bible in this does not have to impose his beliefs on others.
The Golden Rule says to treat others the way you would want to be treated. I believe in this, which is why I oppose the same-sex marriage ban.
SOPHIE ANDERSON
Winston-Salem
Sum It Up
Who will win the presidential election?
Correspondent of the Week
A Memorial Day idea
Take your family to a national or state cemetery. Ask everyone to spread out and move among the grave markers. Have them search for a veteran who died on or near the date of their birth. Write the name, date, branch of service, rank, etc., from the marker. When everyone is finished, reconvene and get family members to report on their findings. Encourage everyone to examine their feelings privately or express their emotions to the group.
I actually did this with my family at New Bern National Cemetery several years ago while vacationing in the New Bern area. Not everyone was overly enthusiastic about this grandfather's activity suggestion. I gave each family member a clipboard, pencil and paper. Years later, one commented about how meaningful and valuable that experience had been.
MIKE MABE
Pfafftown
Who will win the presidential election? Romney by the exact margin that Obama won in 2008.
ReplyDeleteYou are probably right Whitewall.
DeleteWe will have a man who made quite a substantial fortune using debt, extreme leverage, tax payer subsidies, the tax code and backstops (which eliminate any downside risks) as president. Debt will not matter when Romney is president. I bet the debt ceiling limit will be raised by unanimous consent when Romney is sworn in and the Republicans control both the U.S. house and senate. Debt will not matter. The United States will use its sovereign currency to borrow money cheaply and invest in polices and projects that benefit the plutocrats. War, private prisons, for profit schools, VoucherCare (which will replace Medicare for people my age) and the war on drugs to name a few.
Who knows they might even get rid of the EITC. How will my renter ever pay her rent? By the way she is still current.
Hope you and Mrs. Whitewall are well. Great to hear from you. Off to pick cherries.
Hey Wordly, I like your reply. Some fair points in there though there is much more and plenty for me to work with as some of this subject matter is "right up my alley". Glad your EITC renter is current as she is only returning your money to you.
DeleteWe are managing ok and will be off in a bit to visit some elderly friends in Asheboro. Careful and don't chop down that cherry tree.
The tax code is set up to favor debt over equity.
DeleteRepublicans all become born-again Keynesians once they get into power.
DeleteI'm not surprised my economic philosophy is the right way, but the cynicism on the other side is just mind-blowing.
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ReplyDelete"However, he who agrees with the Bible in this does not have to impose his beliefs on others."
ReplyDeleteSophie Anderson
Did it ever occur to you that is precisely what others want to do that support gay/lesbian marriage?
If you believe it will 'just' between two people in their bedroom, I've got a bridge near New York that I want to sell you
Welcome back, WW.
ReplyDeleteA bit of wishful thinking, eh?
Obama wins Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii.
Electoral vote: Obama 274 - Romney 264
The $64,000 question will be whether the election will be close enough so that the President's superior ground operation will be enough to overcome Romney's negative ad war and the overall GOP voter suppression efforts.
DeleteThe avalanche of Republican money spent on media will be unprecedented. I was in VA recently, and it was wall-to-wall anti-Obama superpac ads.
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DeleteUnions will pony up well over $100MM in support from members' dues, along with untold inkind support. President Obama will probably spend well over $600MM on his campaign, so let's don't fuss too much about the dough spent by the opposition.
DeleteAh yes...the union menace. I believe Tom Barrett is being outspent in WI 3-1.
DeleteSheldon Adelson may give $100M in support all by himself.
DeleteJust re-read that...I say "will be" an awful lot. It's an artifact of my middle school years. I used words like "shall" and caught all kind of grief from the other kids.
DeleteF*** it. I need to embrace my inner aristocrat.
Barrett outspent 3:1
DeleteMoney well spent if it preserves Walker's reforms.
Kind of proved my point there.
DeleteNot really. You ignored the 100+MM to be spent by a very few union commissars to support Obama, without so much as a by- your-leave from the dues-payers. Now that's disproportionate.
DeleteOT..I don't concede Nevada,NM, Ohio, Va or Pa. Not by a long shot. Not provable, but I believe the public has already made up its mind to make a change. In the meantime, the media, pundits and polsters have to make a living with the horse race aspect of an election. Too many people have now "checked the box" of a black president and feel free to leave.
ReplyDeleteI agree. A lot people voted for Obama so they could run around saying, "I'm not a racist because I voted for Obama."
DeleteNow, they're faced with the grim reality that the country will collapse if don't make a 'change' AWAY from Obama.
The fracturing fluid is a proprietary mixture consisting of at least 98% water and sand with the remaining 2%, or less, of chemical additives, each having a specific function. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Facts-about-Fracking-Fluid-and-its-Disposal.html and even .5-2% of 3-5 million gallons per well is still quite a bit. So the smallest amount of chemicals per well is still 15,000 gallons up to the largest amount at 100,000 gallons of chemicals per well.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Commonwealth Foundation of PA, http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog/detail/fighting-fiction-with-fracking-facts, there are 8,983 of these wells in PA, so a minimum of 134,745,000 gallons of chemicals used up to 898,300,000 gallons of chemicals used.
Good AM, folks! Good to see WW posting and Bob more active.
DeleteThe election: I believe NM is slipping back toward the Dems, but I'd say overall it is too close to call. The votes in a couple of states for either non-entity challengers or No Preference instead of President Obama might well give a bit of pause to Dems, but things are really just too fluid to handicap.
Interesting report in the paper this AM, as District 74 candidate David W. Moore announced his withdrawal from the election, via Facebook. I think Moore is a bit of a crackpot, and thought that before this new, but that is irrelevant to another point: the article certainly reflected no bias in favor of Democrats, as I see in the national media. The fact that he is a Democrat was noted in the cutline under the headline, and in the first para. And the article was exhaustive. Apparently, for the Journal, coverage goes across party lines. Good job.
I agree on Moore...what a coo coo.
DeleteIn the NC presidential primary, 21% of Democratic voters voted "No Preference", probably half of that the KKK vote.
In the GOP race, 34% voted for non-entity challengers or no preference. That is consistent with the 35% of GOP voters who have been saying for over a year that they don't like any of the GOP candidates.
So who is really in trouble?
We are.
DeleteExactly...
DeleteAdministration policy is under harsh scrutiny amid fruitless talks with Iran, sustained bloodshed in Syria, and tensions with Pakistan over the doctor jailed for helping the US kill bin Laden.
ReplyDelete___________
Who said the Obama Administration was doing well in the foreign policy arena?
I'm sure that President-to-be Romney has a foolproof plan for dealing with all three of these problems. He's just been too busy shaking his Etch-A-Sketch to mention them.
Delete"Who said the Obama Administration was doing well in the foreign policy arena?"
DeleteI don't know. Why don't you ask Bin Laden that?
How about asking Billyboy why he didn't take out OBL when he had the chance?
DeleteOr Bushie tush for that matter.
DeleteUnions are projected to spend about $400 million on the 2012 election in the national and state races. That includes the "in kind" business that some worry so much about.
ReplyDeleteSince the total spending is expected to rise to a record $9.8 billion, the union spending amounts to a measly 4% of all spending.
PACs are expected to spend about $4.76 billion, 48%.
Among big business spenders, so far, Contran Corp (Harold Clark Simmons, one of Romney's LBO buddies) has spent $17 million, Adelson Drug Clinic has spent $15 million and Las Vegas Sands* has spent $11 million. The US Chamber of Commerce, which alone spent $32 million in 2008, is unwilling to reveal how much they will spend this time, other than to say that it will be well over $50 million.
*Los Vegas Sands operates a number of gambling resorts in the US and Asia. It is owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is probably the world's biggest union hater. That's because he wants to continue to pay his army of maids, cooks, bellhops, clerks, maintenance workers, etc. below minimum wage/no benefits while treating them like dogs. Forget death and taxes…the one real truism is that the rich will get richer, whether they deserve it or not.
Unions seems to get a lot of bang for their bucks. Look at the deficit havoc that unions' pols have wreaked upon CA.
DeleteMy, my...one would think that the world's 9th largest economy might be a bit more complicated than that.
DeleteGreat to know that it is so simple. I'm sure that my college econ professors would agree with you, 100%.
I lived in CA. The Assembly was absolutely irresponsible. And the bulk of its members were/are there on unions' support. And now, CA's gov, Jerry Moonbat, is the pol who handed CA public employees over to PE unions. Good luck, CA.
DeleteInteresting that Cal was doing just fine until the Arnold came to office. Is he a big union guy?
DeleteAnd actually, Governor Moonbeam seems to be doing better than expected. Cali has apparently split into two parts, sort of like Italy. The east, especially the valleys, which were always bogus, are in the pits, but the coastal economy, from SF down to Dago, is booming.
My friend in LA who made millions in the real estate boom, lost over $100 million in the big bust, but has now made all that back and more.
CA had budget probs when Davis was gov, and the Assembly has been a union fiefdom for longer than that, Dem-controlled, y'know.
DeleteAnd the current budget deficit in CA is $16B, so I can't say that Gov Moonbeam has done that well. He also appears to avoid involving unions in deficit reduction, while pushing tax increases.
DeleteAmerica's newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen.
ReplyDeleteA staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press.
What's more, these new veterans are claiming eight to nine ailments on average, and the most recent ones over the last year are claiming 11 to 14. By comparison, Vietnam veterans are currently receiving compensation for fewer than four, on average, and those from World War II and Korea, just two.
___________
Gotta get some of that Obama money, BABY! It's a different time now. Only 'fools' work.
You know, Buck boy, you are beneath the gutter, some sort of slime that oozes up from beneath.
DeleteOnly an idiot would compare the first Gulf War with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the first Gulf War, a joke war, 248 coalition troops died, most in accidents or from friendly fire, and about 700 were wounded, few critically, from same sources.
In the two CheneyBush wars, nearly 6,000 Americans have been killed and around 37,000 seriously injured. 300,000 theater vets are suffering from PTSD, but many of those have been misdiagnosed…they are actually suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury, a much more serious condition caused by repeated concussions from nearby IED explosions. We now know that Robert Bales, the Army sergeant who recently killed 16 Afghan civilians, was suffering from TBI.
But the American public, which loves to start a war, doesn't like finishing it. So the returning troops don't get the level of medical care that they deserve. That was true at the end of the American Revolution…it was true after the Civil War…and it is true now.
"Thank you for your service…here's a crutch, sucker."
Be careful crawling around in those slimy public toilets…you don't want to encounter a big bang and get TBI.
Against wounded veterans? He's tossing out bait OT.
DeleteOn Memorial Day weekend no less. Don't respond.
DeleteIt's despicable is what it is.
DeleteBucky, you plumb the depths. Be ashamed.
DeleteSorry, Arthur, but I couldn't help it. I have spent 40 years trying to get help for many of my fellow Viet Nam vets, so know just how little Americans care about their combat vets.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky to come home relatively undamaged, my only enduring injury being a powerful contempt for the State Department and the Pentagon and LBJ's "military adviser" Maxwell Taylor, all three of whom knew long before the Gulf of Tonkin that Viet Nam was a hopeless case.
Agreed. It's shameful how we still treat our vets.
DeleteYep...latest is a 24% + unemployment rate for returning veterans.
DeleteThe recruiters told them that they would get invaluable training in the military. What they forgot to mention is how few civilian employees have a need for specialists as combat infantryman.
Victory, unprecedented
ReplyDeleteHow the gay movement's successes surpassed feminism and civil rights -- and became a model for a new era
BY LINDA HIRSHMAN
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/27/victory_unprecedented/
Thanks, Wordly…a terrific piece.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that the article misses is the role of labor unions in both the civil rights and feminist movements, things that came together around the same time, but in several steps.
Both movements had been around in one form or another for centuries. But they did not blossom until the 20th century. Why?
Because before the industrial revolution, few women worked outside the household. Men were farmers, the most important part of the economy, and other men were craftsmen, the forerunners of industry. Women stayed at home, out of sight and mind, and took care of private family matters.
But the industrial revolution changed all that. As women moved into the factories, they became empowered, first as valued employees, and second through the contacts with other women that they had never had before. Soon thereafter, beginning with marriage and property rights and culminating with gaining the right to vote in 1920, and to a great extent due to labor unions, women's status in society changed sharply.
But other forces were at work as well. For instance, RJ Reynolds' first workforce was almost entirely black women. And RJR would continue to be dependent upon black women well into the 20th century.
By the 1940s, black women were still essential to the success of the local tobacco industry, but the usual biases had fallen into place. Women stemmers were paid $ .50 per hour. Men were paid $ .60. This despite the fact that women tended to be better stemmers than men. The rate was far too low for both.
After much complaining, and being unable to convince the men to join them, the women walked out. That led to the formation of a local branch of the tobacco workers union. And that led to backlash from the local powers that be, from tobacco folks to the local government to the Winston-Salem Journal & Sentinel to J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.
Several union members, male and female, were arrested on trumped up charges of blocking a sidewalk and sentenced to 3 to 4 years on the chain gang. When they appealed their sentences, the locally bought and paid for judge laughed at them and doubled the sentences, all of which were served in full.
But in the end, the union won a small victory. All stemmers were to be paid $ .75 per hour. RJR eventually broke the union, but it cost them a small fortune. So the continued presence of a union office on Main Street near the Reynolds Building for the next 40 years would ensure that RJR employees would always after receive better treatment and pay.
But more importantly, the black community learned that they could exercise some political power. The year after the strike, years before Brown vs Board of Education and the lunch counter sit-ins, they elected the first local black alderman in the 20th century. Of course, it was a man…women would have to wait…but many of those black women would be spearheads in both the civil rights and the feminist movement.
I am delighted to say that I eventually got to know several of those brave pioneers…a remarkable lot, indeed.
Heartwarming, but those same crusading unions demand membership and tribute without true free choice. Methinks they may not be quite so altruistic as depicted.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! Of course all those industrial magnates have become doting grandpas and are spending their 25x union money to sponsor legislation to support the Sisters of the Poor.
ReplyDeleteCuz, you need to get a hobby.
I had a great uncle who spent his retirement years building beautifully detailed Confederate Navy ships in bottles. A few years ago, his grandnephews and nieces sold 11 of them for about $600,000.
I would have liked to have one of them to remind me of a truly charming man, but for some, money talks and humanity walks...always.
That's a shame about heirs' avarice. I gave a couple of family antiques to a caregiver after Dad died.
DeleteNot sure of the exact nature of our kinship, but would give you, Cuz, a family memento as well. In spite of our divergent views, I value the kinship, and call you a friend.
BTW, I have a "hobby," Susan and her family, a passtime we will elevate to marriage in December. Members of this blog and their SO's are emphatically invited to ceremony and subsequent reception.
DeleteSay it ain't so, Joe. Marriage is a very dangerous business.
DeleteOne of my students once married a guy on spring break at Padre Island in Texas. A few weeks later, my wife and I managed to help her get it annulled.
Ten years later, when she was an assistant professor at Trinity College in Texas, she married him again.
"He was the right guy all along," she told me. "We both just needed to grow up a little."
Life is nothing if not great!!!
Life is indeed great, and we've been a couple long enough to navigate marriage's shoals.
ReplyDelete