a picture speaks

suffice it to speak that if this woman wins, i'm leaving the country. strange that i just started reading Witness ...

light enough to laugh

for your amusement and enjoyment, i thought i would share this brilliant little sketch with y'all, in keeping with the present debate on the current political situation.

the ideal candidate

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the ideal solution was presented to me by a good friend. i encourage everyone to visit his site.

captain baghead wrote:
Jaime. Have you been skipping classes? That would be like you. I just want to urge you to start walking the"straight and narrow" in 2007.
Also, vote Macgyver in 2008. --Captain Baghead


gipsy to captain baghead:

captain. i am so grateful to you for solving my election difficulties! now i will be able to vote in good conscience. truly, this is the solution.
hope to make it to F-town asap, hopefully in a green jeep with some guy and a helper monkey. pax.
~j

curious

i was asking a coworker how a population could be "growing" if two people were only having one child to replace both of them. she said "let's not think to hard about this, now." curious ... am editing a lesson originally entitled "human population explosion." changed it to "growth," but this idea that mankind is a sort of pestilence on the Earth i find very disturbing. i vote that all those viewing humanity as a nuisance volunteer to exterminate themselves. just kidding: death is never the answer. curious again, that death doesn't solve everything, seeing as the only alternative is to live and do something with your life.

i suppose it's just very selfish. i will not get started on how modern civilisation has raped the earth. how can people be a pestilence and not strip malls and condominiums?

fate of the blog

poor rant & ramble! sorely neglected by all, including me.
right before we left for Christmas, my roommate and i started digging into the democracy issue. here is my question: distrubutism, for instance, is great in theory. how practical it would be in practice, i'm not really sure. every time i get into this discussion, people like to tell me how great capitalism and democracy are because they allow for all these great opportunities etc. i'm sure that is true in theory, but look at what it has created in reality: a nation of consumers, who don't know or care what they are buying as long as they are buying something, completely absorbed in obtaining material goods at the cost of the nation's welfare or the producer's welfare or the earth's welfare. i realize any system of government is going to have corruption: that is the problem with trying to find an ideal government. but part of the reason i hate michigan is because my hometown, detroit, has been the victim of such mayors as coleman young and kwami kirkpatrick, who are more concerned with lining their pockets, who have obviously fixed the votes, who have systematically destroyed and continue to destroy the architecture, artistic mastery, character, history, and soul of detroit to sell out to mundane second-rate quick fixes that will bring quick easy money. it is one of the most horrible and shameful things i have seen of its kind. similar things happen around the country, i've no doubt. not to even get started on the food industry ...
so i don't know what the answer or what the balance is. if we're going to talk about how things play out in actual practice, i am far from convinced that democracy OR capitalism have given a very stellar performance run, at least as implemented in america.
on that note ...
Merry Christmas!

Warning from history . . .

Here's a little video I came across. It's really old and cheesy, but I think it fits the current discussion.

Warning From History!
Uploaded by lulu7777

Democracy and fallen nature

For the record, I don't remember what the wording on the picture means; I just thought that it fit the motif of the discussion.

Completely agree with you about the problems of members of the Catholic bubble not getting involved in art and politics. A large reason why these areas have become so corrupt is likely the result of this paranoia which was caused -- not by any Catholic teaching -- but by the heresies of the Puritanism and Jansenism which influences the American Christian, and even Catholic attitudes towards art and culture. Such scrupulosity is not at all consistent with Catholicism, and yet Catholics are often accused of this. Catholics, real Catholics who actually practice their faith, are the ones who need to change this attitude in society.

Original sin has caused us to have more difficulty in choosing what is right, first because we lost our preternatural understanding of natural law, and secondly because pride became part of our nature. This does not mean that we are incapable of choosing for ourselves, however, nor does it imply that God in any way wants us to not have the freedom to choose for ourselves -- that's the very meaning of free will. Moreover, if we are deemed incapable to choose for ourselves, who chooses for us? Another fallen human being? No thank you! What makes ANY leader, regardless of their religious upbringing, education, whatever, ANY leader less susceptible to original sin than anyone else? He is given special grace from God as a leader, it is true; nevertheless, he is arguably more susceptible to corruption because he is given power over an entire country. Even under a leader God still expects us to choose for ourselves.

There is one crucial difference between communism and democracy. Communism is based on the idea that, so long as a society is constructed properly, there will be no evil -- eventually. Democracy, on the other hand, was constructed with the understanding that human beings are fallen and corruptible, regardless of the high quality of society; the checks and balances of a democratic system automatically assume this. It is not the Utopian, unrealistic, godless ideas that communism posits to be the cure of the evils of the world; the democratic setup admits that man is subject to corruption, and probably always will be (in this life), period. The very fact that our leaders can be elected every year in itself implies that the founders of our country believed that even the most noble leader can become corrupt regardless of how well the society is constructed.

Communism, moreover, is based on the belief of evolution; if we mold people by forcing materialism out of them, they will eventually no longer be materialistic; the survival of the fittest theory kicks in, and man becomes more than he has ever been. On the other hand, Democracy is based on the belief that the intellect and will are what determine our actions, our choices, and our dignity as creatures of God. Communism plays God; Democracy in its very construction demonstrates an understanding that it is impossible for man to play God. Unlike the "bevy of high sounding, noble ideals" that is the atheistic utopia of Communism, which is founded on the premise that man does not gain dignity from God but from society, the ideals of democracy gain their nobility from the fact that they are actually consistent with Catholic teaching in regards to fallen nature, and recognizes that mankind is made in God's image and likeness, and therefore has enough God-given dignity to make his own choices when it comes to how he wants to feed his family.

Yes, the American government is corrupt. However, the abuses of industry, the moral decay, the corruption, the poverty, all occurred when our government started to become socialist, around 1905 (give or take a few years). In other words, the majority started to have less control. Coincidence?