Raising the Bar

No poster today. No ad hominem's today. I thought I'd try to raise the bar a little and, just for today, quit being clever for it's own sake.

There was a wonderful piece over on The Huffington Post last Saturday by Brian Young regarding a 1-on-1 debate that was held in Salt Lake City between their conservative firebrand mayor, Rocky Anderson and Fox news commentator Sean Hannity. Anderson really came off as the winner in that face-off and you can (and should) read it here.

One of the issues that Young mentions in his piece is how the left really needs to stay focused on the issues rather than the discourse, and how it's necessary to keep hauling people up to The Hill in order to ask them questions.

One question I'd like to ask is this:

How come we (the United States of America) consisently tolerate religious bigotry in our public life and the public lives of our client nations at the same time that we piously decry religious bigotry in the public lives of nations we perceive as our enemies or nations that we simply don't like? How do we justify that in our minds? Why do we justify that in our minds? Should we be justifying that in our minds?

Is "our" religious bigotry better than "their" religious bigotry? Is Judeo-Christian fascism somehow "better" than Islamofascism?

These are questions that I would like to put, point-blank, to the Secretary of State.

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Out of the Woods Follow-up. Saturday.

I had a great time in the Big Apple on Saturday. Got my hair cut with my old stylist down in GV, saw Alfred Molina in "Howard Katz" (one-word review: "eh."), dropped by Bloomies and cruised through the 1st floor (always pandemonium on a Saturday afternoon) and had dinner with friends in Queens (wonderful time).

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Sunday.

I was a total goof-ball on Sunday but I did get out to see the new Spiderman movie, which I loved. Movies have been my escape and salvation since I was knee high to a bottle of Ballentine beer!

The darkness came on me Sunday afternoon and evening ("What does it all mean? I'm not getting any younger. My aches and pains are getting worse. I haven't made nearly enough plans and/or money for my old age! I'll wind up being a poor veg in a wheelchair in a state-run hell hole!! What should I have for dinner?") but God always gives me what I need and this morning, after my 12-Step meeting, someone (unsolicited) came up to me and gushed about how my presence there is meaning enough.

No, I hadn't mentioned to him what had been going on in my mind yesterday and yes, these sorts of "God moments" happen to me more and more, the longer I'm sober.

My big fear du jour is about buying real estate. I'll elaborate on that sometime this week but for the moment let it suffice to say that I get scared poopless at the thought of taking out a quarter of a million dollar loan.

Have a great day!