Much has been made in recent days about the so-called 'sacred ground' at Ground Zero in New York City. You're aware that a vocal minority opposes the building of a community center and neighborhood resource that happens to include a small prayer space. Ordinarily no big deal....but that religion happens to be the followers of Mohammed, not Jesus.
Sacred Ground is a rather broad term. It can mean just about anything to anyone, depending on the usage. The Holy Kaaba and the entire city of Mecca is sacred ground for Muslims. The Sikh Golden Temple springs readily to mind, and of course most of the city of Jerusalem, and indeed nearly all of Israel and the surrounding countries is referred to as the "Holy Lands".
But that's religion. Can anything secular be sacred?
What happens when hate substitutes for critical thinking? What happens when lies and propaganda substitute for news? What happens when politicians, pundits, and profit-driven media organizations join forces to gain political and financial strength? The result is a populace increasingly anxious and confused over things that not only aren't important, they're not even true. The end result is America 2010.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal. Then-candidate, Barack Obama in a NYT Op-Ed; July 14, 2008
It's been said we are a nation of laws, not a nation of men. Our laws come from a framework put into place over 200 years ago: the founding document of our country known as the Constitution. It is a brilliantly written and conceived document in both it's simplicity, and the complex ideas it encases. Lately, it seems that we have a certain segment of the population that feels we've strayed too far from that original document, and are clamoring for a return to it. Like the checks and balances that are part of our political construct, there is a fair amount of yin and yang in the Constitution, But - based on their rhetoric - one has to wonder: do they love all of the Constitution, or are they only interested in certain parts?
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23 comments(Latest Comment: 08/18/2010 20:37:08 by Will in Chicago)
Today is our 2,708th day in Iraq and our 3,236th day in Afghanistan.
We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:
American Deaths Since war began (3/19/03): 4415 Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4276 Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3954 Since Handover (6/29/04): 556 Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 187
Other Coalition Troops - Iraq : 318 US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,227 Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 775 Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,457 Journalists - Iraq: 338 Academics Killed - Iraq: 437
We find this morning's cost of war passing through:
$ 1, 066, 639, 700, 000 .00
Does war have an "owner"? If it does, can that ownership be transferred? Iraq, in many ways, belongs to both Bushes. It was 20 years ago under the term of Bush the Elder, that Saddam invaded Kuwait and started this whole sorry state of affairs.
Suddenly and quietly the Cordoba House, the planned muslim community outreach center that is proposed to be built in a former Burlington coat factory has morphed from the "Ground Zero Mosque to the "9/11 Mosque" Don't think this shift in messaging is an accident. The former Half Term Governor herself, in a tizzy of somewhat bigoted tweets also mentioned this phrase this weekend. here is a sample:
Will Obama express US lingering pain& ask Muslims for tolerance by discouraging 9/11 mosque while he celebrates Islamic holy month tonight?
She is asking for the President to be tolerant of intolerance. The irony is painful. She's not alone. Continue reading...
65 comments(Latest Comment: 08/16/2010 22:16:36 by trojanrabbit)
Good morning fellow internets users. What a great day to read up on the news, catch up on opinions via blogs and message boards, check in with our friends near and far on social networking sites, pay our bills with online banking and write that overdue email to Grandma.
Here's something that I'd probably never see squished into the nether pages of my New York Times, but found it while scrolling the Huffington Post. Seems that people really are born Gay! Who knew?
A prenatal pill for congenital adrenal hyperplasia to prevent ambiguous genitalia may reduce the chance that a female with the disorder will be gay. Critics call it engineering for sexual orientation.
Each year in the United States, perhaps a few dozen pregnant women learn they are carrying a fetus at risk for a rare disorder known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The condition causes an accumulation of male hormones and can, in females, lead to genitals so masculinized that it can be difficult at birth to determine the baby's gender.
A hormonal treatment to prevent ambiguous genitalia can now be offered to women who may be carrying such infants. It's not without health risks, but to its critics those are of small consequence compared with this notable side effect: The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual. Further, it seems to increase the chances that she will have what are considered more feminine behavioral traits.
5 comments(Latest Comment: 08/15/2010 23:48:51 by livingonli)
What is love? Author: TriSecDate:08/14/2010 12:59:25
Love has a rather lengthy entry at dictionary.com. While I won't quote all of it, some of the more key definitions follow.
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
sexual passion or desire.
to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her.
to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music.
to have love or affection for: All her pupils love her.
to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person).
to have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in: to love music.
Trying to explain what love is to someone, is another matter entirely. Why do I love my wife, or my child, or an inanimate hunk of aluminum and aero engines? I don't suppose I could really say with any clarity.
It's one of those mysteries of life, I suppose. By necessity, or design, perhaps nature has it hardwired among all living things that "opposites attract". But again, what makes an opposite? At a base level, there's the male/female divide. But love is much more than that. There's love that contrasts....love that complements...and sometimes love that defies all explanation.
Our friends on the right, and the ultra-religious always try to define love in terms of pro-creation. But I believe that to be more a product of society. The physical act is, in all honesty, rather a quick thing that can be done by just about any animal without having any attachment to their 'partner'. Most animals reproduce with little or no contact with each other after 'the act' is complete...although some do form lasting pair-bonds.
It's only man that has turned it into a ritualized, lifelong pairing that needs to be codified and recognized by an authority, whether it's the church, the state, or something else.
Love of any kind should be accepted, and celebrated for what it is. The determination of two people that they have some mutual affection and want to build that into a life together is a wonderful thing.
I think the best categorization is something a long-ago member of Air America Place once said. Their name has since eluded me, but the statement has not.
"I fell in love with a person, not their anatomy."
Today is Friday the 13th. For the superstitious, this day is considered one of the unluckiest of all. There are many theories that claim to explain the origins of the fear of the number 13 (Triskaidekaphobia), but there will never be any that can be called definitive (technically, fear of Friday the 13th specifically is called "Paraskavedekatriaphobia").
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64 comments(Latest Comment: 08/14/2010 00:42:45 by trojanrabbit)
