Dad and Maggie

We picked her up last weekend, and she is happily fiting in to our pack. Welcome miss Maggie!!!

Haves vs. Have Nots

My friend MK sent me the following e-mail forward (from her step-dad):

Subject: Words to Remember
~~~~~~~You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
---Abraham Lincoln

The sender is ALSO convinced global warming is a hoax. I HAD to respond:



short response on global warming: There is NO SUCH THING as a peer-reviewed scientific journal that states global warming is a hoax. There are however, hundreds (if not thousands at this point) of peer-reviewed journals to indicate that it IS scientifically proven that humans are causing the overall temperature of the earth to increase (which causes melting of polar ice, extinction of animals, severe weather patterns including floods/draught/hurricanes/etc...).

If global warming is a hoax, and we take action to stop "warming" nothing happens. No one is hurt. No harm no foul.

If global warming is REAL, and we do NOTHING, we could lose the planet as we know it (Manhattan and Florida under water, etc....)

short response on rich v. poor: When Abe Lincoln said that, people could still basically live off the land. People had incomes, not generational inherited wealth. Being poor wasn't what it is today. Technology has changed it. Health care was a non-issue (people died around 40 yrs old) people could grow their own food and build their own house.....

The divide between the rich and the poor has NEVER been greater! 1% of the people own 50% of the wealth. Additionally, NOT helping people who need help generally means that they will die. DIE! Who would make a decision to not help another person stay alive? And if somehow the shit hit the fan, and Gil had NO money (for whatever reason) the same programs would help him out too.

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm

http://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_502.pdf

http://robertdfeinman.com/society/wealth_distribution.html

http://www.lcurve.org/ slightly older info, the gap has widened....




on both issues: Since we are ALL IN IT TOGETHER and making the world a better place benefits ALL OF US, how could anyone be against that?

Gun Rant

I recently heard the 9-1-1- tape for this case, and this guy SUCKS!!!! The dispatcher pleaded with him NOT to go outside and confront the burglars, but he INSISTED that he was going to go shoot and kill them. In fact, he even tried to be all dirty-Hairy on them and said something brilliantly-witty like, "FREEZE, you're dead!" And in TX, they let him off…


http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/30/burglary.shooting.ap/index.html



It just seems to me, like any kind of burglary or robbery or anyone's property they own is NOT worth another human being's life. And the guy was TOTALLY playing wild-west-vigilante-style-justice. Don't get me wrong, at the end of "New Jack City" when the crack dealer mastermind guy (Nino Brown) gets killed by the old guy who was originally from the neighborhood Nino destroyed, I cheered for that. But it's a MOVIE.

On the 9-1-1 tape, the guy sounded like a trigger-happy redneck. The two robbers were absolutely no threat to him if he would have just stayed in his house. He had already called 9-1-1 and the police were on their way. The operator TOLD him to stay in his house. Begged him to stay inside. But he was out for blood and WANTED to shoot these guys. The shooting also seems racially motivated. The guy who did the shooting was white, and the two robbers were Latino. Since they were "others" and looked different from him, it was probably even easier for him to take their lives (which I find appalling).

I was just explaining to my friend Ramon yesterday how I never think of him in terms of his race, I just think of him as my friend, and I can't BELIEVE that people gave him a hard time for being Mexican when he was growing up. The only time I ever think about it is when I hear him speak Spanish (so very well...). When I was growing up, my parents had so many friends who were all so different from each other that I never think about the differences as being bad or good... just different. My parents have friends of all different races, religions, sexual orientation, disabilities, financial status, political affiliations.... I have just always thought of people as people, so racism has never made sense to me.

I can't even begin to think of a way to implement it, but I think the U.S. would be better off without guns. I saw an episode of Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days" last night where a woman who is a gun control activist was sent to live with some gun-culture enthusiasts (and work at a gun store) for 30 days. By the end of the episode everyone (on both sides of the issue) had changed their minds a little, and come to more of a compromise. But we do have too many guns, too much gun violence, and way too many accidental shootings and deaths because of the wrong people having guns in our country.

Can't Take That Away From Me

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no they can't take that away from me.


The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no they can't take that away from me.


We may never, never meet again on the bumpy road to love
Still I always, always keep the memory of...


The way you hold your knife
The way we danced 'til three
The way you changed my life
They can't take that away from me.