SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, AND PASTOR RICK.
I watched the questions tossed at Senator Obama, and at Senator John McCain last night. Here's what I said, in my letter I just posted, at salon:
______________________________________________
Christ was a Peacemaker....
I think I can sum up the "real deal" last night, pretty quickly.
If you're a thoughtful, thought-filled individual, you take time to answer a question. Senator Obama did this.
If you're impulsive, and a bit quick to respond, WITHOUT deliberating your answer, you are I think, a bit cocksure, even arrogant.
Senator McCain answered in that way.
If you are appearing among a group of people who often are hostile to you(conservative Christians) to remove doubt about your allegiances, and to defeat Internet rumors about you, you are automatically in a "proving yourself" mode, and though Senator Obama COULD have been on the defensive, he appeared calm, and thoughtful, and reasonable.
If you are beloved by a certain segment(conservative Christians) and are appearing before them, you will instinctively know what to say to win cheers. McCain did this.
If you're an audience-member who is moved by a candidate's response to questions of faith, and that person answers in terms of how he wishes to SERVE, you'll most likely be happy with Senator Obama's engagement in the discussion he had with Pastor Rick.
If you are a audience-member who gets excited hearing stories of war, and repeated references to war, and glory, then you'll most likely be happy with Senator McCain's responses and anecdotes(some of which were touching, and seemed authentic).
But I hope--and yes--PRAY!--that Senator Obama's tempered and even words of calm will trump the fierce, irascible fight seen in Senator McCain. For this audience member, I am looking for the candidate best able to--among other things--forge Peace.
________________________________________________
How 'bout you, dear readers? Anyone out there have a guess as to how this televised event from a mainstream, but rather conservative Christian church will be viewed? I think Senator Obama did a stellar job, but I know a lot of folks will not "connect" with his deliberate, careful, reasoned responses to Pastor Rick. Senator Obama appeared to be engaged in a communion with the Pastor, and not particularly concerned with the "audience" .
That audience will speak, I'll betcha, about all the "down home" feel of John McCain, who kept playing to the audience gathered, much as if he were performing onstage, in a theatre.
Sigh.
Peace, kids.
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK FOR V.P. PLEASE!!!!!!!!
I said some time ago that Wesley Clark ought to be considered as Senator Barack Obama's running-mate. Although I still adore John Edwards, General Wesley Clark would bolster Obama's foreign policy staff, by serving as V.P. He's four-star, and was correct about EVERYthing concerning Iraq, but no one (in this Administration) listened to him!
Read below, from salon.com, and writer Steve Benen, what the good General has been saying about John McCain's oft-touted "foreign policy experience"....
_________________________________________________
Wesley Clark boldly goes where few have gone beforeWesley Clark draws criticism after questioning McCain's military credentials.
by Steve Benen Jun. 30, 2008
Perhaps because of the four stars on his shoulder, retired Gen. Wesley Clark is bolder than most when it comes to criticizing John McCain's efforts to connect his military experience with his presidential qualifications. Indeed, Clark has been tougher than most in pushing back against the Republican nominee's pitch.
Clark, for example, spoke with the Huffington Post a few weeks ago, and was unrelenting in his criticism. "I know he's trying to get traction by seeking to play to what he thinks is his strong suit of national security," Clark said. "The truth is that, in national security terms, he's largely untested and untried. He's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or [in managing] his own congressional staff. It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is."
Two weeks ago, Clark did it again on MSNBC. When the on-air media personalities noted that Obama, like McCain, has not been in a position to make leadership positions in a military context, Clark responded with the obvious point -- Obama's not the one making the claim.
Sunday, on CBS's "Face the Nation," Clark was just as emphatic....
It's not especially surprising that Clark's remarks aren't going over well on the right. Several conservative bloggers have the outrage meter turned up to 11, and the McCain campaign issued a statement accusing the Obama campaign of wanting to "question John McCain's military service," and allowing Obama's campaign surrogates "to demean and attack John McCain's military service record."
This morning on MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski and Andrea Mitchell admonished Clark, insisting that his remarks weren't "fair." Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez accused Clark of trying to "Swift boat" McCain.
I can appreciate the fact that Clark's comments might seem intemperate, but the reaction is more than a little over the top.
First, there are no similarities between Clark's remarks and the Swift boat attacks. Clark never said, and wouldn't say, that McCain lied about his service, or won medals he hadn't earned.
Second, did Clark say anything that was, you know, false? To be sure, McCain served heroically, and endured torture and abuse that I can hardly imagine as a POW. The nation will always owe him a debt of gratitude for what he endured. But Clark's point is that this service, four decades ago, does not necessarily constitute a presidential qualification today. We don't hear that often, but that doesn't make it outrageous.
_________________________________________________
Peace, kids!
Special note to my friends and family: Minor health problem identified today, and any serious issues will be tested for, next week!
I said some time ago that Wesley Clark ought to be considered as Senator Barack Obama's running-mate. Although I still adore John Edwards, General Wesley Clark would bolster Obama's foreign policy staff, by serving as V.P. He's four-star, and was correct about EVERYthing concerning Iraq, but no one (in this Administration) listened to him!
Read below, from salon.com, and writer Steve Benen, what the good General has been saying about John McCain's oft-touted "foreign policy experience"....
_________________________________________________
Wesley Clark boldly goes where few have gone beforeWesley Clark draws criticism after questioning McCain's military credentials.
by Steve Benen Jun. 30, 2008
Perhaps because of the four stars on his shoulder, retired Gen. Wesley Clark is bolder than most when it comes to criticizing John McCain's efforts to connect his military experience with his presidential qualifications. Indeed, Clark has been tougher than most in pushing back against the Republican nominee's pitch.
Clark, for example, spoke with the Huffington Post a few weeks ago, and was unrelenting in his criticism. "I know he's trying to get traction by seeking to play to what he thinks is his strong suit of national security," Clark said. "The truth is that, in national security terms, he's largely untested and untried. He's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or [in managing] his own congressional staff. It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is."
Two weeks ago, Clark did it again on MSNBC. When the on-air media personalities noted that Obama, like McCain, has not been in a position to make leadership positions in a military context, Clark responded with the obvious point -- Obama's not the one making the claim.
Sunday, on CBS's "Face the Nation," Clark was just as emphatic....
It's not especially surprising that Clark's remarks aren't going over well on the right. Several conservative bloggers have the outrage meter turned up to 11, and the McCain campaign issued a statement accusing the Obama campaign of wanting to "question John McCain's military service," and allowing Obama's campaign surrogates "to demean and attack John McCain's military service record."
This morning on MSNBC, Mika Brzezinski and Andrea Mitchell admonished Clark, insisting that his remarks weren't "fair." Yesterday, CNN's Rick Sanchez accused Clark of trying to "Swift boat" McCain.
I can appreciate the fact that Clark's comments might seem intemperate, but the reaction is more than a little over the top.
First, there are no similarities between Clark's remarks and the Swift boat attacks. Clark never said, and wouldn't say, that McCain lied about his service, or won medals he hadn't earned.
Second, did Clark say anything that was, you know, false? To be sure, McCain served heroically, and endured torture and abuse that I can hardly imagine as a POW. The nation will always owe him a debt of gratitude for what he endured. But Clark's point is that this service, four decades ago, does not necessarily constitute a presidential qualification today. We don't hear that often, but that doesn't make it outrageous.
_________________________________________________
Peace, kids!
Special note to my friends and family: Minor health problem identified today, and any serious issues will be tested for, next week!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
PRESIDENT OBAMA. Big news below, kids, about why he's going to win--much more easily than we might think--in the fall!!
First, I've pasted the entirety of SF Gate's marvelous op-ed piece by Mark Morford below, which frames Senator Barack Obama in terms of "enlightenment"....
After reading Mr. Morford, check out a recent report from The Huffington Post, and what I found "the other side"(conservatives and evangelicals) has to say about why Obama may get a third--or even 40% of THEIR vote!!!!!!!!!!!
_________________________________________________
Is Obama an enlightened being?
Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain't no ordinary politician. You buying it?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, June 6, 2008
I find I'm having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I'm having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell's the big deal about Obama?
I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.
Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former '60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain't gonna like this one little bit.
Ready? It goes likes this:
Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.
This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don't understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama's aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.
To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?
No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.
Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.
Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.
The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.
Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.
Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.
Let me be completely clear: I'm not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. I'm not saying the man's going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.
Please. I'm also certainly not saying he's perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama's certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn't hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history.
But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it's not even about Obama, per se. There's a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that's been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama's candidacy. People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically drawn to him. It's exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better.
Don't buy any of it? Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes? I understand. I get it. I often believe it myself.
Not this time.
Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.
_________________________________________________
Religious Right Figure Gets Chills: Obama Could Win 40 Percent Of Evangelicals
The Huffington Post June 6, 2008 11:56 AM
Read More: Barack Obama, John McCain, McCain Evangelicals, Obama Evangelicals, Religious Right, Politics News
"With clients like Focus on the Family, Franklin Graham, and Campus Crusade for Christ, Mark DeMoss may be the most prominent public relations executive in the evangelical world. A former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell, DeMoss became then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney's chief liaison to evangelical leaders."
In a new interview with Dan Gilgoff for BeliefNet's God-o-Meter, DeMoss explains the lack of religious enthusiasm for McCain and predicts a potential major shift to Obama.
How is John McCain doing among evangelicals, a crucial Republican constituency?
The evangelical world or the conservative religious world is not his natural habitat, so he doesn't strike me as being all that comfortable with it. I think that's evidenced by the strong comments made in 2000 about Falwell and Robertson. ...
You represent some of the nation's most powerful evangelicals. What do those leaders say about McCain?
This is one guy's perspective, but I am surprised by how little I've seen or read in conservative circles about McCain since February. I don't think I've gotten one email or letter or phone call from anybody in America in the last four months saying anything about this election or urging that we unite behind John McCain and put aside whatever differences we have. Back in the fall and winter, you'd get several things a day from conservatives saying, "The future of the Supreme Court is at stake. We have to stop Hillary Clinton. Get behind so and so--or don't go with this guy." It's just very quiet. It could meant there's a real sense of apathy or it could mean they're waiting for the general election to begin. But it's a surprise, given the way email networks work now.
Barack Obama is trying hard to win evangelical voters. Does that effort stand a chance?
If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess--that's a statistic I didn't believe at first but I double and triple checked it--I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election. You're seeing some movement among evangelicals as the term [evangelical] has become more pejorative. There's a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing. There's some concern that maybe Republicans haven't done that well. And there's this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 40-percent.
________________________________________________
Ever since I decided to walk with faith, to rediscover my Roman Catholic roots, and find spirituality while practicing a religion, I have discovered that people of faith can differ wildly on politics. But I have also found that the more deeply held someone's beliefs are, the less they need to impose it on anyone. In terms of my own spiritual awakening, walking the walk, and becoming a better person through the examples Christ gave me/us, I believe is the way to win hearts.
And when it comes to voting--which is a completely separate issue--supporting a fine example of a peacemaker like Senator Barack Obama is one way to finally have in our midst, not another politician, but a public servant.
Peace, kids.
First, I've pasted the entirety of SF Gate's marvelous op-ed piece by Mark Morford below, which frames Senator Barack Obama in terms of "enlightenment"....
After reading Mr. Morford, check out a recent report from The Huffington Post, and what I found "the other side"(conservatives and evangelicals) has to say about why Obama may get a third--or even 40% of THEIR vote!!!!!!!!!!!
_________________________________________________
Is Obama an enlightened being?
Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain't no ordinary politician. You buying it?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, June 6, 2008
I find I'm having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I'm having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell's the big deal about Obama?
I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.
Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former '60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain't gonna like this one little bit.
Ready? It goes likes this:
Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.
This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don't understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama's aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.
To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?
No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.
Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.
Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.
The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.
Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.
Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.
Let me be completely clear: I'm not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. I'm not saying the man's going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.
Please. I'm also certainly not saying he's perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama's certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn't hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history.
But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it's not even about Obama, per se. There's a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that's been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama's candidacy. People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically drawn to him. It's exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better.
Don't buy any of it? Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes? I understand. I get it. I often believe it myself.
Not this time.
Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.
_________________________________________________
Religious Right Figure Gets Chills: Obama Could Win 40 Percent Of Evangelicals
The Huffington Post June 6, 2008 11:56 AM
Read More: Barack Obama, John McCain, McCain Evangelicals, Obama Evangelicals, Religious Right, Politics News
"With clients like Focus on the Family, Franklin Graham, and Campus Crusade for Christ, Mark DeMoss may be the most prominent public relations executive in the evangelical world. A former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell, DeMoss became then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney's chief liaison to evangelical leaders."
In a new interview with Dan Gilgoff for BeliefNet's God-o-Meter, DeMoss explains the lack of religious enthusiasm for McCain and predicts a potential major shift to Obama.
How is John McCain doing among evangelicals, a crucial Republican constituency?
The evangelical world or the conservative religious world is not his natural habitat, so he doesn't strike me as being all that comfortable with it. I think that's evidenced by the strong comments made in 2000 about Falwell and Robertson. ...
You represent some of the nation's most powerful evangelicals. What do those leaders say about McCain?
This is one guy's perspective, but I am surprised by how little I've seen or read in conservative circles about McCain since February. I don't think I've gotten one email or letter or phone call from anybody in America in the last four months saying anything about this election or urging that we unite behind John McCain and put aside whatever differences we have. Back in the fall and winter, you'd get several things a day from conservatives saying, "The future of the Supreme Court is at stake. We have to stop Hillary Clinton. Get behind so and so--or don't go with this guy." It's just very quiet. It could meant there's a real sense of apathy or it could mean they're waiting for the general election to begin. But it's a surprise, given the way email networks work now.
Barack Obama is trying hard to win evangelical voters. Does that effort stand a chance?
If one third of white evangelicals voted for Bill Clinton the second time, at the height of Monica Lewinsky mess--that's a statistic I didn't believe at first but I double and triple checked it--I would not be surprised if that many or more voted for Barack Obama in this election. You're seeing some movement among evangelicals as the term [evangelical] has become more pejorative. There's a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing. There's some concern that maybe Republicans haven't done that well. And there's this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 40-percent.
________________________________________________
Ever since I decided to walk with faith, to rediscover my Roman Catholic roots, and find spirituality while practicing a religion, I have discovered that people of faith can differ wildly on politics. But I have also found that the more deeply held someone's beliefs are, the less they need to impose it on anyone. In terms of my own spiritual awakening, walking the walk, and becoming a better person through the examples Christ gave me/us, I believe is the way to win hearts.
And when it comes to voting--which is a completely separate issue--supporting a fine example of a peacemaker like Senator Barack Obama is one way to finally have in our midst, not another politician, but a public servant.
Peace, kids.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
PRACTICING WHAT I PEACE...
I could engage in real battlefield language, what with John McCain's "spiritual mentor" calling the R.C. Church "the great whore". I could engage in a rowdy defense of the R.C. priest who has worked wonders for his church, and been a great supporter of Senator Barack Obama...and has been attacked by The Catholic League(no big feat here, The Catholic League attacks nearly everyone who disagrees with its outdated, ultra-conservative agenda), and ordered to withdraw from any campaigning, or even naming of a candidate, by his own archbishop.And while this priest's comments were mean-spirited, and I wish he'd expressed his outrage over his interpretation of Hillary feeling "entitled" to the Democratic candidacy for President in a less strident way(mimicking her crying, etc.), I defend his right to express himself.
So what I'll do here instead, is show you a way to more peace, kids. It's called music. Music doesn't just "soothe the savage beast". Apparently, it soothes the savage, in all of us...Read on, in an article from the AP:
Neurologist, choir explore music's healing power
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Sat May 31, 9:17 AM ET
NEW YORK - Noted neurologist Oliver Sacks has found common ground with the pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church:
Both men believe in the healing power of music.
Sacks, the best-selling author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," was to share the church stage Saturday with the famed gospel choir as part of the inaugural World Science Festival, a five-day celebration of science taking place in New York this week.
"It should be an exciting and unusual event," Sacks said in an interview this week. "I will talk about the therapeutic and beneficent power of music as a physician, and then their wonderful choir will perform. ... And the audience will make what they can of it."
Sacks' most recent book is "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain," which examines the relationship between music and the brain, including its healing effect on people suffering from such diseases as Tourette's syndrome, Parkinson's, autism and Alzheimer's.
"Even with advanced dementia, when powers of memory and language are lost, people will respond to music," he said.
A Baptist church is an unusual venue for Sacks, a professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center who was brought up Jewish but is not a religious believer.
But the central role of music in church makes Abyssinian a good place to discuss the myriad ways that music affects the human brain, said Sacks, who was played by Robin Williams in the movie version of "Awakenings."
Abyssinian's pastor, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, said the choir is looking forward to performing with Sacks. He noted that music plays a central role in the healing power of prayer.
"What we have been studying ... is that when you pray, there's actually a physiological change in the body," he said. "Music is very much a part of this. There are certain notes that generate in the human body a kind of peacefulness."
Abyssinian was founded by Ethiopian sea traders in 1808 and is celebrating its bicentennial. It is a popular destination for European tourists who line up around the block in Harlem for Sunday services.
The event there is one of two Sacks is participating in during the World Science Festival. The other focuses on vision and the brain.
The festival was conceived by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and his wife Tracy Day, a broadcast journalist.
"Our intent is to help shift the public perception of science, so that people realize that science is as important as art, literature, film, theater," Greene said.
Panelists include Nobel laureates as well as actors, dancers, philosophers and science journalists.
Greene said he hopes the festival will spread to other cities.
___
On the Net:
http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
http://www.abyssinian.org:
Have a sacred, blessed, peaceful weekend!
I could engage in real battlefield language, what with John McCain's "spiritual mentor" calling the R.C. Church "the great whore". I could engage in a rowdy defense of the R.C. priest who has worked wonders for his church, and been a great supporter of Senator Barack Obama...and has been attacked by The Catholic League(no big feat here, The Catholic League attacks nearly everyone who disagrees with its outdated, ultra-conservative agenda), and ordered to withdraw from any campaigning, or even naming of a candidate, by his own archbishop.And while this priest's comments were mean-spirited, and I wish he'd expressed his outrage over his interpretation of Hillary feeling "entitled" to the Democratic candidacy for President in a less strident way(mimicking her crying, etc.), I defend his right to express himself.
So what I'll do here instead, is show you a way to more peace, kids. It's called music. Music doesn't just "soothe the savage beast". Apparently, it soothes the savage, in all of us...Read on, in an article from the AP:
Neurologist, choir explore music's healing power
By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Sat May 31, 9:17 AM ET
NEW YORK - Noted neurologist Oliver Sacks has found common ground with the pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church:
Both men believe in the healing power of music.
Sacks, the best-selling author of "Awakenings" and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," was to share the church stage Saturday with the famed gospel choir as part of the inaugural World Science Festival, a five-day celebration of science taking place in New York this week.
"It should be an exciting and unusual event," Sacks said in an interview this week. "I will talk about the therapeutic and beneficent power of music as a physician, and then their wonderful choir will perform. ... And the audience will make what they can of it."
Sacks' most recent book is "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain," which examines the relationship between music and the brain, including its healing effect on people suffering from such diseases as Tourette's syndrome, Parkinson's, autism and Alzheimer's.
"Even with advanced dementia, when powers of memory and language are lost, people will respond to music," he said.
A Baptist church is an unusual venue for Sacks, a professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center who was brought up Jewish but is not a religious believer.
But the central role of music in church makes Abyssinian a good place to discuss the myriad ways that music affects the human brain, said Sacks, who was played by Robin Williams in the movie version of "Awakenings."
Abyssinian's pastor, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, said the choir is looking forward to performing with Sacks. He noted that music plays a central role in the healing power of prayer.
"What we have been studying ... is that when you pray, there's actually a physiological change in the body," he said. "Music is very much a part of this. There are certain notes that generate in the human body a kind of peacefulness."
Abyssinian was founded by Ethiopian sea traders in 1808 and is celebrating its bicentennial. It is a popular destination for European tourists who line up around the block in Harlem for Sunday services.
The event there is one of two Sacks is participating in during the World Science Festival. The other focuses on vision and the brain.
The festival was conceived by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and his wife Tracy Day, a broadcast journalist.
"Our intent is to help shift the public perception of science, so that people realize that science is as important as art, literature, film, theater," Greene said.
Panelists include Nobel laureates as well as actors, dancers, philosophers and science journalists.
Greene said he hopes the festival will spread to other cities.
___
On the Net:
http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
http://www.abyssinian.org:
Have a sacred, blessed, peaceful weekend!
Friday, February 15, 2008
HEY KIDS LOOK AT THIS--TELL ME IT'S TRUE!!!
McCain Aide Says He Will Quit if Obama Gets Nod
Thursday, February 14, 2008 12:18 PMBy: Newsmax Staff
Article Font Size
Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to Republican presidential front-runner John McCain, says he will quit the campaign if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination.
McKinnon — a Democrat-turned Republican who was President Bush’s chief media adviser in 2004 — told National Public Radio he would leave the McCain team to avoid involvement in any attacks on Obama.
“I met Barack Obama. I read his book. I like him a great deal,” he said.
“I disagree with him on very fundamental issues. But I think … it would be a great race for the country and I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama.
“I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved
This is a bigger turning point, I think, than all the Unions who back Obama, or the Superdelegates choosing him. I mean, if your opponent's people DO NOT WANT to oppose you--my God, that's POWER.Think about it--think what a President Obama could accomplish in the rest of the world!
McCain Aide Says He Will Quit if Obama Gets Nod
Thursday, February 14, 2008 12:18 PMBy: Newsmax Staff
Article Font Size
Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to Republican presidential front-runner John McCain, says he will quit the campaign if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination.
McKinnon — a Democrat-turned Republican who was President Bush’s chief media adviser in 2004 — told National Public Radio he would leave the McCain team to avoid involvement in any attacks on Obama.
“I met Barack Obama. I read his book. I like him a great deal,” he said.
“I disagree with him on very fundamental issues. But I think … it would be a great race for the country and I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama.
“I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign.”
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved
This is a bigger turning point, I think, than all the Unions who back Obama, or the Superdelegates choosing him. I mean, if your opponent's people DO NOT WANT to oppose you--my God, that's POWER.Think about it--think what a President Obama could accomplish in the rest of the world!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
John Edwards is out? It certainly looks like he's ended his run for the office of President, though the actual word he used is telling:
"suspending", not ending, was the word he chose.....Hmmmmmmm.
methinks he could hop into the second-slot of nominee for Vice-President(if asked), and sail to victory with Obama at the helm, quite easily!
But then, there's Hillary. Champion for women and children, highly educated and skilled, and the most experienced. Unfortunately, as I have been saying for two years now, she is extremely unpopular--with most men, and approximately half of all Democrats.
And is seen as very divisive.I've also noted that the Pharmaceutical Industry OWNS her, by way of all the hefty $$ from their powerful lobby which has handed her millions...And let's not forget the war-machine, including the company Halliburton, and several key REPUBLICANS, who have contributed to her campaign!!
So, let's support Barack Obama completely, and let's hope he eventually selects John Edwards for a running mate.That's a ticket that has, as I've said before--the vision of Obama, the pragmatism of Edwards--in short, the ticket that has the ability to WIN over a Republican candidate.
I have said repeatedly I believe if John McCain gets the nomination(hardly a "given", seeing as how the Repubs tend to not choose "moderates" like McCain), that opposite Obama, there would be a clear choice in terms of VIEWS OF THE WORLD...
I think it's like this:
Republicans think of themselves as simply American(we have only to look at their views on immigration, their insistence on establishing a "national language", etc.., to see how pervasive this exclusivity is felt by them) only,
whereas Democrats see our role as Americans, as being
Citizens of the World.
I hope the match-up will be between John McCain and Barack Obama.
A contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama, would be too boring. It would be a slam-dunk for Democrats, I believe.
I think if Hillary wins the nomination, she'll lose the race for the Presidency....
Possibly to one of the lesser Repubs, and definitely to John McCain.
Both Barack Obama, and John McCain have collaborated--across the aisles, Democrat and Republican, and will continue to do so.Both have pledged to do so.Both men wage fair campaigns, with little or no ugliness, and both dislike the old school politicians.
And on the Iraq War, there is a very very clear distinction:
John McCain has said "Whether it takes 100 years, or 1,000, we will have victory in Iraq..."
He makes no apologies for that statement, saying we must "win".
Barack Obama has said "We should be as careful in getting out, as we were careless in going in,", and has pledged to draw down troops immediately upon taking office.
How do YOU feel about the war in Iraq? As for me, I do not believe ANY militairy solution is possible.
The troops did what this government asked of them, and more. Let them come home.
"suspending", not ending, was the word he chose.....Hmmmmmmm.
methinks he could hop into the second-slot of nominee for Vice-President(if asked), and sail to victory with Obama at the helm, quite easily!
But then, there's Hillary. Champion for women and children, highly educated and skilled, and the most experienced. Unfortunately, as I have been saying for two years now, she is extremely unpopular--with most men, and approximately half of all Democrats.
And is seen as very divisive.I've also noted that the Pharmaceutical Industry OWNS her, by way of all the hefty $$ from their powerful lobby which has handed her millions...And let's not forget the war-machine, including the company Halliburton, and several key REPUBLICANS, who have contributed to her campaign!!
So, let's support Barack Obama completely, and let's hope he eventually selects John Edwards for a running mate.That's a ticket that has, as I've said before--the vision of Obama, the pragmatism of Edwards--in short, the ticket that has the ability to WIN over a Republican candidate.
I have said repeatedly I believe if John McCain gets the nomination(hardly a "given", seeing as how the Repubs tend to not choose "moderates" like McCain), that opposite Obama, there would be a clear choice in terms of VIEWS OF THE WORLD...
I think it's like this:
Republicans think of themselves as simply American(we have only to look at their views on immigration, their insistence on establishing a "national language", etc.., to see how pervasive this exclusivity is felt by them) only,
whereas Democrats see our role as Americans, as being
Citizens of the World.
I hope the match-up will be between John McCain and Barack Obama.
A contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama, would be too boring. It would be a slam-dunk for Democrats, I believe.
I think if Hillary wins the nomination, she'll lose the race for the Presidency....
Possibly to one of the lesser Repubs, and definitely to John McCain.
Both Barack Obama, and John McCain have collaborated--across the aisles, Democrat and Republican, and will continue to do so.Both have pledged to do so.Both men wage fair campaigns, with little or no ugliness, and both dislike the old school politicians.
And on the Iraq War, there is a very very clear distinction:
John McCain has said "Whether it takes 100 years, or 1,000, we will have victory in Iraq..."
He makes no apologies for that statement, saying we must "win".
Barack Obama has said "We should be as careful in getting out, as we were careless in going in,", and has pledged to draw down troops immediately upon taking office.
How do YOU feel about the war in Iraq? As for me, I do not believe ANY militairy solution is possible.
The troops did what this government asked of them, and more. Let them come home.
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