| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness
Via Daily Dharma: Begin Again
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
|
Via Choose Democracy
Friends,
That clenching feeling in your stomach? That restlessness? That mind jumping around checking the news anxiously? That's a normal response to an abnormal situation.
We strongly suggest some deep breathing, sharing with friends how you truly are, and digging into your spiritual and physical practices. We definitely recommend these 7 practices at Finding Steady Ground:
- I will make a conscious decision about when and where I’ll get news — and what I’ll do afterwards.
- I will make human-to-human connection with another person and make sure we stay in motion.
- I will pray, meditate, or reflect on those I know who are being impacted by oppressive policies, and extend that love to all who may be suffering.
- I will read, listen to, or share a story about how others have resisted injustice.
- I will be aware of myself as one who creates.
- I will take a conscious break from social media.
- I will commit to sharing with others what’s helping me.
(Read more at Finding Steady Ground.)
Via Informed Comment daily updates (01/21/2025)
Death shaded the Life of this Holocaust historian. The cancer Memoir he began in Hospital was a final ‘Act of Love’
By Tess Scholfield-Peters, University of Technology Sydney (The Conversation) – Mark Raphael Baker began writing his final book, A Season of Death, from his hospital bed, in the wake of his terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. His second wife, Michelle, would later observe: “More than a comfort or distraction, in him it was a need.” The […]
Via White Crane Institute
 2009 - The Swedish Parliament was presented with legislation that would allow Gay couples to marry in civil ceremonies or in the Lutheran Church, which until 2000 was the official church of Sweden. "The main proposal in the motion is that ... a person's gender will no longer have any bearing on whether they can marry. The marriage law and other laws concerning spouses will be rendered gender neutral according to the proposal," a statement from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's conservative Moderates said. The proposal had wide backing in parliament. While heterosexuals in Sweden could previously choose to marry in either a civil ceremony or a church ceremony, homosexuals were only allowed to register their "partnerships" in a civil ceremony. Civil unions granting Gays and Lesbians the same legal status as married couples were allowed in Sweden since 1995. On October 22, 2009, the governing board of the Church of Sweden, voted 176–62 in favor of allowing its priests to wed same-sex couples in new gender-neutral church ceremonies, including the use of the term marriage. Same-sex marriages have been performed by the church since November 1, 2009 With the adoption of the new legislation, Sweden, became the first country in the world to allow Gay people to marry within a major Church. Under the proposal, Lutheran pastors are permitted to opt-out of performing Gay marriages if they have personal objections. | ||
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 |
Monday, January 20, 2025
Via White Crane Institute // Inaugurations
Noteworthy
2001 -
On this date some 25,000 protesters gathered in Washington, DC for the inauguration of President George W. Bush
along with some 7,000 police. George Bush, the so called "1st President
with an MBA," was inaugurated as the nation's 43rd President in
Washington DC. The "compassionate conservative" vowed to lead "through
civility, courage, compassion and character."
Four years later on this date in 2005 the inauguration ceremony for
Bush was held in Washington DC. Anti-Bush demonstrators jeered the
president's motorcade during the inaugural parade. The event was
expected to cost $40 million the administration asked DC to use $11.9
million of its own federal homeland security funds to help pay costs.
Pres. Bush pledged to spread democracy and support democratic movements
worldwide.
In case anyone has forgotten in the current atmosphere of
rehabilitation for Dubyah by comparison to Trump, after eight years
involving two wars, three attacks in the country, near economic collapse
that dwarfed the Great Depression Black Monday Crash, massive hurricane
damage with little response from the Feds, and more than can be
enumerated on this list (like his being the first president to call for
the codification of anti-Gay legislation into the constitution), Bush
left office with the lowest approval rating of any U.S. President in
history (22%, beating the former record holder -- Truman who had 32%).
But wait! There would be so much more!...
2009 -
President Barack Obama was inaugurated
into office in Washington, DC with great expectation to make sweeping
change. It was a great day with great fanfare (Aretha's hat!) and record
crowds for an inaugural in bitterly cold weather. Though his
administration took on one of the most dire economies since the Great
Depression he continued to be blamed by many Americans for the economic
predicament (forgetting the prior right years of disastrous economic and
politics.)
And while he was a disappointment to some progressives, he did
manage to fulfill the promise of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the
legalization of Marriage Equality. Whatever his shortcomings he would
be sorely missed as we bore up under the Dark Age of Donald J. Trump,
now, thankfully, out of office...for now.
2017 -
Donald J. Trump received the nuclear codes. Post-swearing in on this date he appointed as many or more Wall Street executives to a variety of positions in his administration, many of whom were formerly adamantly opposed to the missions of their appointed agencies. At the same time his Secretary of State, a lifetime employee and finally CEO of Exxon-Mobil, Rex Tillerson, while he lasted, relentlessly gutted the state department. The Foreign Service officer corps at State lost 60 percent of its Career Ambassadors since January of that first year. Ranks of Career Ministers, State's three-star equivalents, were down from 33 to 19. The ranks of two-star Minister Counselors fell from 431 right after Labor Day to 369 —and continued to fall.
Trump, a vulgar narcissist, praised racists and white nationalists, which should come as no surprise considering he installed tinfoil-hatted nationalist Steve Bannon in the White House (and pardoned on his way out). Bannon departed but the damage he continues to wreak from the sidelines is no less worrying.
And then there was the whole matter of Trump's seeming love affair with Vladimir Putin and the trail of crumbs and bums that lead back to Moscow. A self-proclaimed sexual predator, and under investigation for conspiracy and collusion he will go down in history as the Worst President in American History, and as the only president ever to be impeached twice. Stay tuned. We await the indictment of the Orange Menace, his slimy family and his greedy cronies. As one of his last gasps while declining to acknowledge his loss in the 2020 election, he incited a mob of his followers to invade the Capitol in an attempt at a coup. Stay tuned.
A draft-dodging three times-divorced liar and grifter who wraps himself in a false flag of patriotism he remains the darling of the craven right wing theocrats. He is a disgusting person. It is impossible to run out of negative things to say about him because as soon as you think you've hit on it, he goes lower.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Via Daily Dharma: Perpetual Flowing
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: The Noble Truth of Suffering
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)