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Showing posts from 2012

Seeking the Romance of Life

A recent trip back to California, where I spent the middle half of my life (the part between the Seattle bookends)  and other smaller events have made me reflective of past events and places.  My brothers and I stopped in Santa Cruz, briefly, where I had lived for years, and stopped by a nightclub I had spent time in, the Catalyst, and asked the bartender the current status of local things. I found out Club Zayante in the Santa Cruz Mountain had closed.  When I got home I researched the Club, which was once of the hottest nightclubs in Central California to learn what happened.  I found out the club had closed for financial reasons then burned down. But what I learned about the owner, Tom Louagie intrigued me. He had come out from the east coast on a romantic quest, to find the Cannery Row he had read in Steinbeck. He had the idea of moving there and living a literary dream from the past.  He didn't know that that Cannery Row had died when the sardine schools left. He moved up t

Politics or Beatitude

I recently subjected myself to a political spectrum diagnosis that tried to categorize people along a left-right, Republican-Democratic spectrum using only two sets of issues and a few questions.   The issues were the economic questions and social issues, with no foreign policy/military questions of civil liberties/ rights questions.  In some cases, such as immigration, I was not sure if the questions were economic or social.  The mean computation of my "social issue" questions placed me on the right side of the Democratic party or among the left of the independent centrists.  The economic policy questions placed me at the far left of the Democratic Party, and the mean of them placed me closer to the center of the party.  Adding foreign policy/military questions or other social questions, such as the death penalty, might have placed me further left in the spectrum.  But the entire process raised the question of were I fit, anywhere, any time. A Catholic Worker friend raise

The Glass-Steagall Act

The Glass Steagall Act was designed to protect us from the greed of bankers through regulation.  It was passed in the 1930's as a result of the major stock and banking collapse to regulate the financial industry and dismantled later at the prompting of banking lobbyists to allow the kind of activity that lead to  our recent financial collapse.  Instead of rules to protect the economy, bankers expect to be bailed out when there speculation goes awry.   This is a link to apetition asking for The Glass Steagall Act to be reinstated.  http://signon.org/sign/reinstate-the-glass-steagall-5?source=s.em.cr&r_by=1682043&mailing_id=5614    

Heal

I noticed her walking "The Ave", as the non-avenue, University Street, near Seattle's University of Washington campus is known.  Then I saw her sitting at a table in the neighborhood Tully's Coffee Shop.  Or perhaps I should saying sitting over, her head and hair hovering over the table as a result of her weak and deformed back.  Perhaps an extreme case of  osteoporosis, or perhaps something else.  I didn't have the medical knowledge to know.   An old women with long grey here, hunched over completely, almost as through she could break in two. She looked incapable of standing erect.  And old woman in dress and attachments, the classic bag lady.  One look at her sufficient to evoke sorrow for suffering humankind. Nightly, I do a bible study, inclusive of reading the gospels. That night the gospel spoke to me about her. I opened the pages of Luke and it spoke to me.  In chapter 13, v.10-17 it spoke to me about her.  There we find Jesus teaching in a synagogue on

Declensions of Virtue

Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love, writes the Apostle Paul. In the development of theology in the church these three became known as the theological virtues. But while grouped together both in scripture and tradition these three have often been separated by theological disputes and the disposition of believers.   Some shout for salvation by faith alone and it's companion--solo scriptura. Some place all their marbles on hope, as if salvation were a gift of humanist psychology.  Others, using some mangled near universalism,   seize on the smallest charitable act or sentiment of brotherhood as absolute proof that people totally alienated from the gospel are just as saved as the greatest Christian saints, and that what you believe has absolutely no bearing. The last is a rootless love, destined to topple as surely as a tree whose roots have rotted through.  The sentiment of love without a relationship with God is dying.   Faith without hope and love is a dark

Wyatt Earp and Commonsense Gun Control

In the aftermath of the killings  a Colorado theater, a Seattle coffee shop over the past few years at Congresswoman Giffords rally in Tuscon it's time to reconsider our polices toward guns.  America has a Cowboys and Guns mythos that hangs over every effort traditionally discuss guns.  For many Americans, gun ownership, our most dangerous right, is also considered our most absolute right.   Historical untruths and legal fictions abound on the subject and  are even accepted by our legislative and judicial leaders. The first the Second Amendment right of retaining guns was provided to "The People", not to individuals. " A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  In the legal parlance of the day, the terms "The People" was a collective, not an individual term, and the practice of the militias reflected that.  While in rural areas and small tow

Drought Grows More Perilous

Last week I gave a worst case assessment of the effects of the drought on corn, soy and other crops, and it's potential political effect as hunger grows.  Now evaluations of the damage to the corn crop are moving in my direction, but the media is still underplaying it's potential effect on hunger. Poverty in this country has returned to the early 1960's level and hunger near that as food stamps, in real dollars, don't stretch to feed low income families.  Last month the government said that food prices will increase by 3-4%, now they are admitting to more, but they say it doesn't matter because people will adjust by changing what they will by.  With the House trying to cut back on food stamps, I have to ask for poor families to what: white rice and potatoes? Meat and dairy, corn flakes, prepared foods, etc will soon be out of reach for the a wider segment of low income of people. Meanwhile 20% of our corn crop is committed to the production of ethanol, when muc

Giving it Away For Free

Making life more comfortable in the margins of America depends on a few freebies now and then.  I've written about dumpster diving a few times in the past, but there is my passion for free piles, both the giving and receiving ends of them.   Once I prayed to God for 3 free things that I needed, then went out to the corner the next day and found those three things and only those three with a sign that said "free".  Living in the University district when the students move, free piles appear.  When I do spring clean I reciprocate. I have been know to dumpster dive and take clothing I didn't need, wash it, and put it out with a free sign. And then there are the oddities of freebies.  Eventually they will take almost anything, and sometimes sooner than you think.  I have an old TV once that "snowed" a little.  If you banged it the snow went away.  So I put it out with a sign saying, This is a good waiting for your unemployment check to come in TV, b

Ravenna Creek

The rooming house where I live  is near Ravenna Creek Park, which was once an old logging area.  The park has suffered ecological set backs through the years and is being  restored.  It includes an entry subset park called Cowen Park, which is an open area suitable for  things like frisbee tossing, a baseball area, a picnic area, and lots of hiking trails under heavy canopy.  It touches on the Ravenna neighborhood, the University District, Roosevelt and University Park areas. It has two bridges over it. I have been taking pictures of the park and surrounding urban area as a wildness/development contrast, looking especially for quirky shots. This doesn't have a lot to do with the theme of  the blog, but it's fun. I'm presenting part 1 of the photo essay here  I am also working on a photo essay on homelessness, but that may take more time. A neighborhood grocery about a block from the park. This grocery/cafe is typical of the relaxed atmosph

A Heart in the Hands of God

A former pastor of mine, Fr. Michael Sweeney, O.P. used to say that a Dominican is permitted one heresy per homily, and he had better know which statement it is. As a blogger in a Dominican run parish I fell entitled to toy with a heresy now and then in a blog, and I very much do know where it is.  Bear with me, faithful readers, while I push through this heresy to the truth. It has come to me, in reflected on the repeated references to faith and love in gospels and epistles what an unresolved dilemma of priority this poses to believers. We are saved by faith. Charity is required of us. I imagined my dilemma brought to a head  by the appearance of an angel of God posing a question. The angels says you must lose either your faith  or your love and you must choose.  You will be punished in measurement to your choice.  Which do you choose to forfeit? I would tell the angel that I forfeit faith because I know I would be punished more severely for lack of love than for lack of fa

Wither Goes the Corn?

One of the most under played news stories in the national media right now is the potential impact of the mid-western drought on food security in the United States.  According to Forbes 75% of food on supermarket shelves has corn in it.  Having already destroyed, stunted or delayed much of the corn crop, the heat is now working it's way on the soybean crop.  The Agriculture Dept conservative estimate is that food prices will rise by 3-4% this year as a result.  However this is based on the current, incomplete assessment of the drought's impact on corn and other crops.This drought is a new phenomenon-- a global warming drought based on fundamental alteration of weather patterns.  Already about one quarter of the country is in severe drought. Other estimates of potential price impacts range as high as 15% and the latent fear that eventually, for a time, the U.S. may become a net importer of food may play havoc with the crop futures market.  Food inflation may undermine economi

Back Again

Just a brief note to let you all know that I will be resuming blogging here soon.  I have been running some Facebook pages, but I want to get back to the kind of blogging I did through my Google blog sites, but with some changes.  I have a new camera and I will be inserting more photos, and I will be buying some audio equipment, maybe a web cam to make blogging more interesting.  I will be saving fewer you tube videos and posts from email, etc to this site -- that's what my Facebook pages are for.