Month: February 2017

A Poem For The 21st Century…

Children of a Lesser God  by Eileen Manassian Ghali

I’m tired of knowing
That because of my race
Because of where I live
Because of my last name
I’m part of the band…
The children of a lesser God

I’m tired of knowing
That there is so much hate
That it can only escalate
Till someone presses the button
And we blow up in nuclear hate
All because
Some of us are children…
Children of a lesser God

First world 
Second world
Third world
Labels and degrees
Different ideologies
Religion no longer a balm
But something to cause harm
Human life of differing values
We mourn them differently
for some of them are children...
Children of a lesser God

How it must make God cry
When His children bleed and die
Unable to understand
That there is a grander plan
One of perfect harmony
In another place in time

He won’t be sitting at heaven’s gate
Asking for an ID
Or checking your nationality
He won’t see the color of your face
Or ask about your race
All He will want to know
Is if you let love grow
Did you live according to His will?
Did you try to relieve suffering and pain?
Were you the bandage of peace
that bound up the wounds of hate?

First, second, third world people
Are all children of one God
Though some may disagree
I ask you all to see
That we are all
Every single one of us...
Children of the Greatest God.

Sweeden Pushing The Envolope On Novel…

A local official in Sweden has a novel proposal to improve work-life balance and lift the local birthrate: give municipal employees an hourlong paid break each week to go home and have sex.

Sweden is already celebrated for its generous welfare state, including 480 days of paid parental leave, universal health care and a common ritual of coffee and pastry, known as fika, which is considered sacrosanct.

Per-Erik Muskos, a 42-year-old councilman from the northern town of Overtornea, wants to add to those benefits, by offering the municipality’s 550 employees the right to subsidized sex. In introducing his proposal this week, he told fellow members of the town council that it would give a nudge to the dwindling local population, add spice to aging marriages and improve employee morale.

The idea quickly got attention all over Sweden, where for at least some, it was a welcome distraction from President Trump’s vague reference to problems the country was having with immigration, which were strongly denied by baffled Swedes.

Noting that “sex is also a great form of exercise and has documented positive effects on well-being,” Mr. Muskos suggested that local municipal employees could use an hour of the workweek already allotted for fitness activities to go home and have sex with their spouses or partners instead. The motion, which is expected to be voted on in the spring, needs a simple majority to be passed by the 31-member council. As of now, opinion on the council is divided.

“We should encourage procreation. I believe that sex is often in short supply. Everyday life is stressful and the children are at home,” Mr. Muskos explained in his motion in Overtornea, a town of about 4,500 in the picturesque and remote Torne Valley. “This could be an opportunity for couples to have their own time, only for each other.”

Complete article BELOW THE FOLD

A novel idea with great logic behind it. Sweden is home to many of my ancestors. Maybe it’s time to make a visit. 🙂

A 21st Century Nuclear Arms Race?…

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.

In a Reuters interview, Trump also said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea “very easily if they want to,” ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to exert more influence to rein in Pyongyang’s increasingly bellicose actions.

In his first comments about the U.S. nuclear arsenal since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump said he would like to see a world with no nuclear weapons but expressed concern that the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity.”

“I am the first one that would like to see everybody – nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country even if it’s a friendly country, we’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power.

“It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack,” Trump said.

Russia has 7,300 warheads and the United States, 6,970, according to the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear group.

“The history of the Cold War shows us that no one comes out ‘on the top of the pack’ of an arms race and nuclear brinkmanship,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the independent Arms Control Association non-profit group.

Trump code for lets start another nuclear arms race to the top. This dude is one scary MF’er.

Full REUTERS article BELOW THE FOLD.

CPAC And The White Wash Attempt…

The term “alt-right” is toxic. It should be. The loose confederation of neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and misogynists have spent the last year spreading fear, hatred, and conspiracy theories.

The problem for conservatives is that the movement is directly connected to the major right-wing news outlet Breitbart.com; its former executive chairman, Stephen Bannon; and Bannon’s new boss, President Donald Trump.

“The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for the ‘Alt-Right,’” Hillary Clinton said last year after Bannon was hired by the Trump campaign, highlighting the website’s promotion of “race-baiting ideas, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas, anti-woman [ideas].” “A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party,” she added.

That “fringe element” is now in the White House. But direct association with racists and misogynists isn’t great for the conservative movement’s brand — or Breitbart’s bottom line. So the organizers of this week’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are working hard to redefine the term “alt-right” in order to retroactively separate that movement from the White House and the website.

In cable news interviews and speeches from the conference lectern, CPAC’s organizers have condemned the “alt-right” — even having security very publicly remove from the premises Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who originally coined the term.

Try as CPAC  might smart folks will see through the smoke and mirrors and the white wash. In other words if it has heretofore walked like a duck and quacked like a duck it is almost a certainty that it remains a duck.

Bannon himself described Breitbart last year as “the platform for the alt-right,” and he led the website in an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, misogynistic, ethno-nationalist direction that appealed to that movement. He hired Milo Yiannopoulos and had no apparent problem with the despicable commentary and activism he wrought — or the way he championed the “alt-right.”

Notably, when Breitbart produced a list of “20 lies” in Clinton’s speech on the “alt-right,” it made no effort to distance itself from the movement or suggest that she erred in linking it to the website and its former leader.

When Bannon was hired by Trump’s presidential campaign, white nationalists cheered. When his move to the White House was announced, they were ecstatic.

Bannon was very happy to be associated with the movement when it was boosting Breitbart’s traffic, influence, and revenue. But now things have changed, as companies and ad vendors have pulled their advertising from the site in huge numbers due to its association with racism and misogyny.

We suppose the gullible and those who willfully remain uninformed will continue to buy anything the conservative movement and republican  party attempts to convince them is the “real” truth.

Red complete article BELOW THE FOLD.

Poetry Tonight…

 “Philosophical Poem”

The disease of civilization is not tools, citizen.

Ignorance might be closer to it.

Politics closer. But only Money

Will hit the brass tacks everyone wants to get down to

Squarely on the head.

 

Above all, I have no case against human nature.

Whatever that is, I like it.

I like mechanics with wrenches,

Taxi drivers’ photos on licenses,

Drunks lighting cigarettes.

What the hell else is there to like

After you’ve kissed your wife and gone to sleep?

 

I like everything but important people being important.

And academic people being academic.

What I like least is bookkeepers

Spending their human eyes on accounts receivable,

Interest receivable, payment due, balance on hand.

And columns of soldiers marching.

John Ciardi