WB coming to Seattle

so long, jacques...
Le philosophe Jacques Derrida est mort...

i've just recently come across this position statement from Sojourners... and find that it expresses pretty exactly my own thinking...

God is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat.


"It is the responsibility of every political conservative, every evangelical Christian, every pro-life Catholic, every traditional Jew...to get serious about re-electing President Bush."
- Jerry Falwell, The New York Times, July 16, 2004

"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. The Lord has just blessed him.... It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad."
- Pat Robertson, AP/Fox News, January 2, 2004

These leaders of the Religious Right mistakenly claim that God has taken a side in this election, and that Christians should only vote for George W. Bush.

We believe that claims of divine appointment for the President, uncritical affirmation of his policies, and assertions that all Christians must vote for his re-election constitute bad theology and dangerous religion.

We believe that sincere Christians and other people of faith can choose to vote for President Bush or Senator Kerry - for reasons deeply rooted in their faith.

We believe all candidates should be examined by measuring their policies against the complete range of Christian ethics and values.

We will measure the candidates by whether they enhance human life, human dignity, and human rights; whether they strengthen family life and protect children; whether they promote racial reconciliation and support gender equality; whether they serve peace and social justice; and whether they advance the common good rather than only individual, national, and special interests.

We are not single-issue voters.

We believe that poverty - caring for the poor and vulnerable - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' budget and tax policies reward the rich or show compassion for poor families? Do their foreign policies include fair trade and debt cancellation for the poorest countries? (Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 10:1-2)

We believe that the environment - caring for God's earth - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies protect the creation or serve corporate interests that damage it? (Genesis 2:15, Psalm 24:1)

We believe that war - and our call to be peacemakers - is a religious issue. Do the candidates' policies pursue "wars of choice" or respect international law and cooperation in responding to real global threats? (Matthew 5:9)

We believe that truth-telling is a religious issue. Do the candidates tell the truth in justifying war and in other foreign and domestic policies? (John 8:32)

We believe that human rights - respecting the image of God in every person - is a religious issue. How do the candidates propose to change the attitudes and policies that led to the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners? (Genesis 1:27)

We believe that our response to terrorism is a religious issue. Do the candidates adopt the dangerous language of righteous empire in the war on terrorism and confuse the roles of God, church, and nation? Do the candidates see evil only in our enemies but never in our own policies? (Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 8:12-13 )

We believe that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious issue. Do the candidates' positions on abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS-and other pandemics-and genocide around the world obey the biblical injunction to choose life? (Deuteronomy 30:19)

We also admonish both parties and candidates to avoid the exploitation of religion or our congregations for partisan political purposes.

By signing this statement, we call Christians and other people of faith to a more thoughtful involvement in this election, rather than claiming God's endorsement of any candidate.

This is the meaning of responsible Christian citizenship.

Signed by:

me... yr friend... good old brtom... lefty... wannabe christian...

Founded in 1971, Sojourners is a Christian ministry whose mission is to proclaim and practice the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice.

been buried in dylan's book all day...

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau Reader

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20th Century Decades: General Links

To fully appreciate Tom Waits' new release, it helps to forget everything you know about the human voice. (via poetry hut blog)

good news for us... malcolm's at the zoo... zotz

smoking was part of my college days... i picked up a pipe at the walgreens on 16th and wisconsin... but after a month or so of all the business and a few close calls with self-immolation i moved to various brands of cheap and really cheap cigars... and smelled like my grandfather on and off for the next few years... so when it came time to try cigarettes i was unimpressed... and pretty much done with tobacco... but i never had anything against it and never minded friends who smoked... live and let live... or die... as the case may be...

in the late summer after my graduation from marquette... (where was i? starting my first teaching job in louisville)... a bit off to the east in henry county a group of neighbors were bringing in the tobacco crop on owen flood's farm... now thirty years later i'm reading about it and looking at photos in this long thin book... Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy... wendell berry's essay serves the reader well... tells the story of that summer work, identifies the laborers pictured... including himself his son and daughter... describes the craft, the pain and the pleasure of the work, touches on the social history of the work and the economic-political evolution of tobacco farm policy, and... well, the jacket copy says it... "An insightful meditation on the shifting nature of humans' relationships with the land and with each other, Berry's essay laments the economic, political, and societal changes that have forever altered Kentucky's rich agricultural traditions." ... the b/w photographs by james baker hall clearly, fittingly, and often beautifully document the work, the place, and the people... overall, a necessary reminder of the human face of tobacco... its once-honorable place in the life of a community...

berry doesn't side-step the "health issues" of tobacco... but he writes "...the old antipathy to tobacco, which had been mainly religious and social, became not only political but politically correct and as fashionable as cigarette smoking had been. For some people, some Kentucky newspaper editors among them, the new infamy of tobacco legitimized the old prejudice against farmers and country people. The growers were condemned along with the crop, even though the farms that produced tobacco has always been diversified and were contributing significantly to the food supply."

i like that hint of thoreau in bob's thought... hdt: Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

from dylan's chronicles...
Whatever the case, it wasn't that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambitions to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk on it. I didn't know what age of history we were in nor what the truth of it was. Nobody bothered with that. If you told the truth,that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs had taught me that. As for what time it was, it was always just beginning to be daylight and I knew a little bit about history, too -- the history of a few nations and states -- and it was always the same pattern. Some early archaic period where society grows and develops and thrives, then some classical period where the society reaches its maturation point and then a slacking off period where decadence makes things fall apart. I had no idea which one of these stages America was in. There was nobody to check with. A certain rude rhythm was making it all sway, though. It was pointless to think about it. Whatever you were thinking could be dead wrong.

coincidental that the three books i've recently got have all been designed in black and white... the hall/berry elegy, the walden, and bob's chronicles... all in a black & white moment...

Here Comes Everybody

ALRIGHTY.... Hannah Coulter: A Novel... shipped... and should be in my grubby old hands in a day or two... released at least one month sooner than expected... good news for fans of WB...

The Poetry House

Guardian Unlimited Books | St Andrews launches online poetry guide
St Andrews University today launched an online guide to poetry through the ages to coincide with national poetry day. The website documents the historical progression of poetry in seven global regions, with links to information about the major poet of each era. It has sections documenting the poetry of Africa and south east Asia, and period-by-period analysis of the development of poetry in the UK.

The New York Times (free registration required) > TV Review | 'Life As We Know It': What (Sex) Boys (Sex) Think (Sex) About... an insightful review... with actual ideas and stuff...

Ideal Boy Poster

Pope Innocent III Action Figure

Edgar Allan Poe Action Figure

Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure

from garrison keillor's The Writer's Almanac
It's the birthday of the poet, and novelist Sherman Alexie, born on an Indian reservation near Spokane, Washington (1966). As an infant, he was diagnosed hydrocephalic, underwent brain surgery, and his doctors were amazed that he survived. He suffered from seizures for the rest of his childhood. For that reason, and because he was constantly reading books, he didn't fit in at the school on his reservation.
read the whole bio here...

happy birthday ShermanAlexie... and i see at this site of his that he was at suny oswego this past tuesday... and guess who never said a word to me about that...

Elfriede Jelinek - Biobibliographical notes

Elfriede Jelinek... hmmm...

i just discovered that vladimir putin is a year younger than john mellencamp... and it's freaking me out...

It is quite a harvest, and we made none of it. It is all a gift. Most of it we will never see or know or taste or smell or hold or even dream of. Yet it is there, alive and somehow teaching us about God.

The Nobel Prize in Literature - The Nominators... so i wonder if any college-type professor has thought to nominate mr. berry... but it's a secret...

nobel in literature to be announced here tomorrow... will it be bob... could it be wendell? i wonder how one might discover who has been nominated in any given year...

self-inflicted christmas in october... who don't like to open boxes from the mail... even when you know they're coming... received today: two books, two cds...

tobacco harvest: an elegy (u. p. of kentucky)... photos by james baker hall, essay by wendell berry... pictures made in 1973 during harvest apparently on the berry farm and elsewhere (any day new work by WB arrives... is a good day)

walden: a fully annotated edition (yale u. p.)... jeffery s. cramer (ed.)... i was thinking it's time to read walden again... with some facts alongside... a handsome edition...

trouble... performed by ray lamontagne... acquired on a whim after a recommendation by a perfect stranger...

real gone... performed by tom waits... o boy... (any day with new waits... is a very good day)

so long, rodney d.
I was an ugly child. I got lost on the beach. I asked a cop if he could find my parents. He said, 'I don't know. There's lots of places for them to hide.'

read suzanne on... the wonder of words... "My imagination's broken!"...

i find myself cited... Murphy asserts that it is not a natural inclination to do so, but learned through practice (2002). Yet, the answer may lie in the evidence that the virtue of working together is useful to those involved. ... and typoed: Murphy, Tom. "An Anger and A Brute: Self Interest and Individualism in Tocqueville's America." ... anger... angel... eh...

still tough to get back in... or is it laziness... ap is reading invisible man... amlit just began the revolutionary period... rationalism ben franklin the grid and all... fielding some responses to the mid-quarter progress reports... actually we've only got three more weeks to quarter's end...

On "Farm Implements and Rutabagas In a Landscape"

On "Farm Implements and Rutabagas In a Landscape"

DesMoinesRegister.com | Agriculture
Forming a cooperative to produce cheese in a modern plant needed to be examined by leaders of the Old Order Amish, Gingerich said. For religious reasons, Old Order Amish do not use many kinds of modern machinery. Their lifestyle is best known for the horse-and-buggy transportation on which the Amish rely.

Does Bob Dylan still matter?... what a stupid question... and i'm a guy who believes there are no stupid questions...