Ubiquitous Reciprocal Affinity

8:11 — Tall Skinny Guys should rule the world.
8:15 — Welcome to the House: President Change!
8:16 — You’re very welcome.
8:19 — stronger than the last 8 years.
8:21 — Come on lay Blame, we all know where it rests
8:23 — short term gains made possible by the low capital gains rates, encouraging speculation in many markets.
8:24 — Glad it passed, even if it doesn’t have enough infrastructure money and to many tax cuts for businesses.
8:25 — home town mention !!!
8:26 — now how bout a cram-down on my student loan?
8:27 — credit crisis - re-cap interest rates
8: new loan fund from the
29 — responsible home owners = employed people
32 — continuity of institutions is less important than responsibility for bad decisions — I say let the bugges fail. To Big to Fail = just to damn big.
34 — Solving the problem can only occur after you figure out what the problem is. BTW here’s a clue it was the unregulated/unaudited CDO and MBS’s pushed into the market as ticking toxic bombs.
36: More Rail!
37: New term for the Recession/Depression should be Economic reset.
38: New World Order — Clean Energy, can be American Energy.
39: Science is a good thing yes, siree.
40: Better late than never to Carbon rationing.
41: We must now unionize all automobile factories.
42: Bankrupcy from health casre costs implies a morality bankruptcy pending if not here.
43: Nancy is really proud of s-chip.
45: can we have a presidential work out video? I’d aerobicise with Barak. Lets fight Obesity like we fought the Nazi’s.
46: So we need to out teach them by valuing teachers.
48: Let’s get smart America. “Quitting School is quitting on your country” there’s a take away line.
50: Americorp on Steroids?
51: Parental responsibility is the paramount - and then
52: “Inherited” has never been so pointed.
53: No earmarks = nothing to run on but your policy.
54: dropping agri-subsidy, KBR’nt going to get any more of my money,
55: Don’t outsource my bail-out
56: 5% of the population should have control of 5% of the national wealth.
57: No more will we hide it’s price. Can we get cameras into Dover AFB?
58: Longest applause for Armed service members (even the gay ones?)
9:00 : GitMo going down — now if only we can prosecute the ones who authorized torture.
9:02: Hope is found in unlikely places - just around the corner
9:04 if only al bankers were as altruistic
05: gotta love the 8th grade simplicity — from the mouths of babes the saying goes
07: agreement? Bi-partisanship? Ha! I say steam-roll the failure of the Republican ideology.

I haven’t seen a good idiot beat-down in a while so I enjoyed this one more than usual.

Since the job 2 schedule has settled, my Sunday rituals have changed. In an earlier incarnation the political talkshows would fire me up better than coffee - curse like a sailor indeed, John. Before that it was puzzle time with Steph, Michelle and the dogs. Now I find that my Sundays consist of a Panera breakfast and “Speaking of Faith”. The train ride is a good way to start the day, and the topics being discussed on the radio take me back to some of my earliest Sunday memories.

The church I attended, and that my parents still attend, was, in the 70’s a very lively place with many social groups engaged in lively discussions after, around, and between church(s). This was I think largely the work of the pastor’s interests - he had left teaching and later returned to it. Knowing what I do now I would characterize the atmosphere as a response to, and an augmentation of Vatican II creative energies. Of course at my young age all I knew was “Church”.

I’ll give a lot of credit for my spiritual direction to Joe Everson who fostered that environment in the 80’s (and Katherine Finegan who carried into the youth ministries of the 90’s). I was in fact his first Baptism, and part of his last Confirmation class. But when he moved to CA and I was about 14, the spirit of the place changed.

Where Joe was a curious and intellectually rigorous person of religious temperament, he seemed not be as engaged in the emotional mystery of the Christian tradition. A “bridal” Lutheran he was not. (Leave it to a guy typing on a train to commingle those two labels.) His replacement was of contrasting ideas, more in tune with how peoples’ hearts connect with God; and, I suspect, that he was correspondingly much better at pastoral care.

The tenor of Sundays also changed, as one would assume with a new speaker at the pulpit. A community seems to choose the leadership style they most need. And where Joe was very interested in the history and textual analysis of the bible, Connie understood the good book through its great characters. The sermons implicitly asked the congregation to imagine themselves in the place of gospel situations; often extemporaneous, they expressed an assumption that each person could develop a personal relationship with god. Its description was vertical.

I am tempted to draw some parallel with the national rise of political evangelism but that puts to much of a negative taint to the direction of my childhood church. What I did see was a growth of the membership that drew on more un-churched demographics. Illustrative of the change was the use of the phrase “whose side we/you are on”.

Not that I believe there is such a thing as sides, but that’s a different post. An important coincidence with the change in tone was the tapering off of the adult education hours. As this was happening in the older populations of the church, I was beginning to ask the tough questions that all gay kids most struggle through.

I never discussed those questions with Connie, but I suspect that he would have likely told me to pray more often and more diligently. I hope that he would not have been disparaging that about my sexual quandary, but the emphasis would have been on trying to feel closer to God, and the implicit meaning was that my heart would choose the non-gay road. The experienced know that whenever there is a dispute between the heart and the mind the body decides, so really there was no contest - Exodus material I wasn’t (and am not).

The hot-rod-lovin’ pastor was incredibly inviting to neighborhood members, but the Sunday services moved away from the comfort of ritual and metaphor  and closer toward testimonials of parishioners and celebrations of how great it was that those assembled had found their way to God. Surprisingly we never hosted an AA group.  

As I’ve struggled to find a spiritual home in my post-coming-out life, I find comfort in literature of faith, both broad and rigorous. I recently exchanged a few notes with a sister who had some questions about where I was in my faith life. I told her I was heartened to learn that she was interested but also skeptical of her ability to listen to my answer. I recommended that she read some Spinoza which has recently influenced me, but also that she expand her search for meaning beyond her tradition and environment - not really happy with her choice of educational institutions. I look forward to talking more with her about this journey.

It continues as it will through, and amongst many different Ideas and it’s the movement that I find most to be the most comforting ritual. And thanks to the latest version of the Sunday morning, I now have a new path to explore.

Reinhold Niebuhr

The cable TV was awash in comercials for flowers, teddy-bears and pajama-grams this week in the build up to a fat ass fraud. Yes, I’m annoyed, I’ll get over it though - always have. Even on those February 14th’s that I’ve had a Valentine, the cultural expectations that come to bear are difficult to escape. And if there’s something that really annoys me, it’s cultural expectation.

Everybody is familiar with absurdity of “a special day for romance” so I’ll skip the if-it’s-expected-is-it-real straw man. I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t like somebody to have Dinner with this evening, but I keep wondering what things would be different if there were larger cultural acceptance of being single.

I suspect that there have been many an unhappy life created by the assumption, external or internalized, that being in a relationship is better than not - and there are the children that have been brought up by the people in those relationships.

There are of course cultural icons and archtypes that single people are assumed to emulate: John Wayne, comes to mind. And then

Special Olympics Polar Plunge

The Best Speech from Pres. Obama Thus Far (Part 1)

The best speech from Pres. Obama thus far (part 2)

This week I got notice of my 2008 performance bonus and raise. It was disappointing to say the least. Not surprising, but disappointing none the less. A 1.08% raise and a “Bonus” about 36% of last year’s - Citibank, my job is not.

It’s not like I am struggling on my current salary, and with everything that’s happened with the economy I am happy to have a job. But with the pending “Stimulus Bill”, all the talk about people being “upside down” on their mortgages, and the supposed “foreclosure crisis”, I think that there is a demographic that seems to have been forgotten: student debtors. It seems that with the dramatic increases in cost of a College diploma, and the declining value of all but the highest graduate degrees, the sheepskin that once would have seemed a ticket to prosperity is more and more a type of indentured servitude. Is it time to rethink the position of the student loan on the good debit - bad debit spectrum. 

At least it is time to start looking at the trade offs more individually, and in personal contexts. For instance: how is it possible to take a job in the non-profit sector, or even in education when the service on your debit is approaching the recommended savings allotment? For myself I find that if it weren’t for my second job my social life would consist of treating myself to an Applebees dinner once a month. (I will admit that I did live outside my budget while dating Dale because I felt guilty if I ever let him pay for something. And while I loved the grand canyon trip I’m not sure we would have gone if price had been an object for him. I don’t recommend dating one of the Joneses.) 

The way I see things is that if we were really looking toward stimulating the economy that there should be some thought given to the debit that so many of my peer group have incurred in the pursuit of higher learning. Maybe it it is we who should be considered as deserving of a bail out. How many good ideas could the next generation think up if they had enough time to spend thinking them up. How many new and innovative products could be brought to market if the “we” of indentured servitude could spend our time living our lives and not making money for other people.

Perhaps I exaggerated a bit and maybe I should just sign up for some American Volunteer Service program. But I know that if I didn’t have my student loan payment in my bi-weekly budget I could get $2500 a month closer to my retirement goals — to my gorgous condo/work space on which to work on my media empire (chuckle). JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.