Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself, especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly to the counsel of the years gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be; and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Copyright © 1927 Max Ehrmann

“…aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence”

David Frum in the National Post, March 3rd 2009

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot is the title of a book by Al Franken. Maybe if he ends up losing his Senate race, Al can publish a new edition for 2009. There should be plenty more to talk about.

“What we all need to do is to sit down and calm down and go back to basics.
And most important of all, shed our sense of pessimism.

It is only with a sense of optimism, preferably accompanied by a sense of energy and laughter, that we will be able to pick ourselves up from a broken Humpty Dumpty.

In particular, governments must immediately instigate infrastructure projects to increase employment, and they must force banks, particularly those that they have rescued, to lend to small businesses.

Without a general sense of gainful employment, from which the ordinary people at large can grow optimistic, we run a huge danger of increasing unemployment.”

Viewpoint by Sir David Tang, Entrepreneur

Read the entire article on the BBC News / UK/ Business section

“The reason people are poor in America is not because they lack money, it’s because poor people in America lack values, character, and the ability to work hard. And it’s got nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with color”

From the October 28 broadcast of Clear Channel’s The Big Show with Bill Cunningham

Nice, isn’t it? A so-called “Christian” I know once told me in all seriousness that lacking any other way to measure it, you can measure a person’s goodness by how much money they have or make.

“He is not the McCain I endorsed,” said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. “He keeps saying, ‘Who is Barack Obama?’ I would ask the question, ‘Who is John McCain?’ because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me. I’m disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues.”

– Former Republican Governor of Michigan William Milliken

“Look it. This doesn’t befit the office that she’s running for. And frankly, people don’t like it.”

– Veteran Republican Congressman Ray LaHood

“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain,” Weaver said. “And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.”

– John Weaver, John McCain’s former top strategist

“John McCain has shown a stunning failure of leadership. His campaign, in a time of economic crisis and foreign policy drift, has degenerated into a negative and nasty campaign of smears.
The reports are piling up of ugliness at the campaign rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Audience members hurl insults and racial epithets, call out “Kill Him!” and “Off With His Head,” and yell “treason” when Senator Obama’s name is mentioned. I strongly condemn language like this which can only be described as hate-filled.
According to reports, every ad paid for by the John McCain campaign is now a negative ad — every single one! McCain allows his running mate to make outrageous charges that only a few years ago would have disqualified someone from serious consideration for national office.
We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to fight back, spread the word about what kind of low campaign he’s running, and make sure people know the truth.“

– US Senator John Kerry

10 points for Catholic citizens to remember

Point #8
So can a Catholic in good conscience support a “pro-choice” candidate?
The answer is: I can’t and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics — people whom I admire — who will. I think their reasoning is mistaken. But at the very least they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And even more importantly: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up their efforts to end permissive abortion; they keep lobbying their party and their elected representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can support “pro-choice” candidates if they support them despite — not because of — their “pro-choice” views. But they also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it.

Point #9
What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue?
It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

Archbishop Charles Joseph Chaput
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver
Archbishop’s Column, Week of January 16, 2008, Denver Catholic Register
http://www.archden.org/dcr/news.php?e=454&s=2&a=9553

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is probably the “authority” on the subject, has made the following statement, which does not really differ from Chaput’s view:

“A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voters intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidates opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.”

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic Bishops of the United States
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
http://www.usccb.org/faithfulcitizenship/FCStatement.pdf

My take on this:

These statements are instructive, because they tell us that while it would be wrong to support a candidate because he or she is pro-choice, it is acceptable to support a candidate despite being pro-choice, as long as your conscience tells you that the candidates views on other moral issues are just as important. The bishops tell us that to support a pro-life candidate only for that stance, if that candidate fails to address other critical moral issues, would also be wrong.

So, in other words the “single issue” approach to voting that revolves around “choice” or “life” is not valid. By the way, I’m not Catholic, but I’m married to one and many of the people I know are. I hope that Catholics, and Christians of all denominations, will come to realize that issues such as health care, poverty, justice, environmental stewardship, war and the death penalty are just as important as that other issue. We have to consider our moral obligations to those of us who have actually been born, as well as the unborn.

Apparently the $700bi Wall Street bailout is about healthcare.

From the CBS Early Show, September 25th 2008:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? … Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.

Mind boggling. Also interesting to hear that “reducing taxes … has got to accompany tax reductions”.

“She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials,” Hagel said Wednesday in an interview. “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”

The McCain campaign has cited the proximity of Alaska to Russia as evidence of her international experience.

Hagel scoffed at that notion.

“I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, ‘I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,’” he said. “That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.

Omaha World-Herald
September 18 2008

“Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they’ve cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs. the Elites. It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before. And from the fact that the party’s dogged allegiance to up-by-your-bootstraps individualism … is leading to a culture-wide crack-up.”

Quote from Judith Warner writing on nytimes.com
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/the-mirrored-ceiling/index.html

In fact, the Republicans’ recent success depends on this being the case. I’d like to think that most real people aren’t idiots. Naturally, there are some. But most people are not as well educated as they could be, and certainly not as informed as they should be. Worse, there’s very little critical thinking or evaluation of information. Something has happened here which causes people to believe every sound byte on TV or radio. There’s a disdain for intellectuals and scientists and distrust of the press. I’m very, very concerned about the future of democracy in America; in fact I believe the long term future of the country itself is in grave danger. Because eventually, perhaps not for another hundred years or so, the real people will wake up and realize that they’ve been hoodwinked by the party of the rich, and they’ll be angry. And they’ll have guns.

“L’intento dello Spirito Santo, nell’ispirare la Bibbia, era insegnarci come si va al cielo, non come va il cielo”.

Roughly translated, this means “the intent of the Holy Spirit, in inspiring the Bible, was to teach how one goes to Heaven, not how Heaven goes”.

Apparently, Galileo was paraphrasing Cardinal Baronius… I don’t know who he was, but this is a great way of reminding us that the Bible is not intended to answer scientific questions.