Fall into Winter Holiday Tidbits
Cheers all. Good-bye to fall, hello to winter.
Feeling funky over holiday cheer, rest in peace "Godfather of Funk, Soul" Mr. James Brown.
In the 13th century, Francis of Assisi went crusading in the role of a peacemaker, not a warrior, and met with a sultan who was the nephew of Saladin (who had defeated the crusading Christians back in the 3rd crusades), and they talked for a week and could have formed an alliance for peace, even though the Sultan had superior forces and did not need to negotiate. But, the Catholic bishop on the scene declined and chose to fight (s0 much for Christian charity), and the Christians were soundly defeated once and for all, thus assuring the schism between Islam and Christianity that has now lasted many more centuries.
Imagine a world of peace if this attempt at peaceful negotiation had come about so many centuries ago.
Imagine a world without religion to fight over. Now the (Christian) Ethiopians are attacking the (Islamist) Somalians, extending the religious wars we got started again in the Middle East into the Horn of Africa, and who knows where next.
We have need of talking, but to whom do we talk? Who is in any position to really listen and take anything we say seriously? After six years of losing the moral courage, what do we have to talk about that holds any weight?
It's the season of giving, and I see that Wall St. is giving itself the biggest bonuses in history and there's not enough 2 million dollar pieces of property to even go around anymore to the poor fund managers with money to burn and we're extending the tax cuts for these guys, so gosh, what are they going to do with all that extra cash?
And New Orleans continues to struggle, and millions still live in poverty in the richest nation in the world, and people are dying by the minute from treatable diseases because the big pharma companies can't seem to make enough money.
Oh well, eat, drink and be merry and keep shopping, because it's the American way!
Peace, love, justice and joy in 2007. I'll keep holding out for little moments of hope to carry us through.
Feeling funky over holiday cheer, rest in peace "Godfather of Funk, Soul" Mr. James Brown.
In the 13th century, Francis of Assisi went crusading in the role of a peacemaker, not a warrior, and met with a sultan who was the nephew of Saladin (who had defeated the crusading Christians back in the 3rd crusades), and they talked for a week and could have formed an alliance for peace, even though the Sultan had superior forces and did not need to negotiate. But, the Catholic bishop on the scene declined and chose to fight (s0 much for Christian charity), and the Christians were soundly defeated once and for all, thus assuring the schism between Islam and Christianity that has now lasted many more centuries.
Imagine a world of peace if this attempt at peaceful negotiation had come about so many centuries ago.
Imagine a world without religion to fight over. Now the (Christian) Ethiopians are attacking the (Islamist) Somalians, extending the religious wars we got started again in the Middle East into the Horn of Africa, and who knows where next.
We have need of talking, but to whom do we talk? Who is in any position to really listen and take anything we say seriously? After six years of losing the moral courage, what do we have to talk about that holds any weight?
It's the season of giving, and I see that Wall St. is giving itself the biggest bonuses in history and there's not enough 2 million dollar pieces of property to even go around anymore to the poor fund managers with money to burn and we're extending the tax cuts for these guys, so gosh, what are they going to do with all that extra cash?
And New Orleans continues to struggle, and millions still live in poverty in the richest nation in the world, and people are dying by the minute from treatable diseases because the big pharma companies can't seem to make enough money.
Oh well, eat, drink and be merry and keep shopping, because it's the American way!
Peace, love, justice and joy in 2007. I'll keep holding out for little moments of hope to carry us through.
posted by Paul Salinger at 12:54 PM
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