Glenn's Gleanings

There's been much in the media about our War in Afghanistan--especially with Obama agonizing over "how many troops" to send. The media folks tell us that we should expect an answer next week. In my reading of the arguments, I came across the following article in the journal Commonweal (A Review of Religion, Politics and Culture). The article finishes with this quote:

If the United States today has a saving mission, it is to save itself. Speaking in the midst of another unnecessary war back in 1967, Martin Luther King got it exactly right:

“Come home, America.” The prophet of that era urged his countrymen to take on “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”

Dr. King’s list of evils may need a bit of tweaking—in our own day, the sins requiring expiation number more than three. Yet in his insistence that we first heal ourselves, King remains today the prophet we ignore at our peril. That Barack Obama should fail to realize this qualifies as not only ironic but inexplicable.

I don't have all the memories of the mid-1960's when LBJ was wrestling with a similar issue regarding the number of troops in Vietnam, but I have certainly read the history books and his decision, we all know now, was greatly flawed. I pray that Obama doesn't repeat history along the lines of LBJ.

I suspect that it is time for the next greatest generation to stand up and say NO to anymore military excursions halfway around the world. By the way, that generation are the young adults of today's Millennials. It's time to say NO, especially if you are a progressive--NO to War as the solution to the world's problems.

Take a look around and see what is happening to our nation and maybe it's time for another Peace Generation to rise up and tell our elders--you've got it wrong, once again!

Today's St Pete Times has a front page article about Marco Rubio raising more than one million dollars for his US Senate campaign which forced me to think maybe I should switch parties for the 2010 primary election. Then I could vote for Rubio against Charlie Crist--thinking that the far right Rubio would be such a contrast to Kendrick Meek, that Meek could win the middle (where elections are won or lost most of the time anyway).

Yet, then it dawned on me, that Rubio could actually win the election (as Floridians refuse to vote for a black man for US Senate in 2010 as they refused to vote in 1968 for a white man--LeRoy Collins who just happened to walk alongside a black man--MLK at Selma, Alabama representing the President--LBJ in negotiating "peace" terms for blacks and police officers in the South). So, would Rubio be worse than Crist--absolutely, at least for Democrats and probably for Floridians.


Now, I know that many Republicans don't seem to really like Crist much these days--and who's to blame them. He is certainly Mr. Wishy-Washy! -- He runs for a political office just to get ready to run for the next political office--certainly not to actual "govern." But, if you check into what Rubio is saying, we might as well go backwards to the McCarthy years.

Bottom line, I think that Rubio would be such a contrast to Meek that it would be a clear choice for anyone to vote; but I also know how few voters get out to vote in the non-Presidential election years, even with a governor's race on the ballot.


Oh well, I guess I need to save up my pennies and get out my walking shoes and start to really hit the pavement for Kendrick Meek--I wonder, could this election be the Lawton Chiles campaign in 1970--a new face for Florida that took our state out of the old confederacy into the New South?

Faithful Reform in Health Care - Home

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August 17, 2009 | The General Board of Church and Society

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I am really getting excited about Wednesday's conference call with President Obama. Look elsewhere on this blog or at the Seminole Heights UMC blog (www.shumc.org) for further info.

Patti and I have been joshing each other back and forth about our potential lust for the Amazon Kindle (a digital book reader). I especially like the latest version that allows one to read the newspapers while eating my breakfast cereal. However, there has been some recent controversy (click on this blog entry title for a different NY Times column about the controversy) about Amazon censoring the Kindle by removing two of George Orwell's novels, most notably 1984 (anybody remember the Apple ad, only shown one time on national tv during the 1984 Super Bowl, announcing the Mac?)

Ah, but in further reading there is much more to the (NYTimes) story. Allow me to make a parallelism (is that right?). Suppose you wrote, sang, and owned the copyright to the "Top 40" hit, "Patti's Love Song" and were counting the pennies coming in for your long desired retirement and somebody illegally uploaded it into iTunes and now it was all over the country on everybody's ipod and you weren't getting a dime. Apple creates a software app, so that the next time the person syncs their ipod on iTunes, the song is automatically deleted to protect your copyrights and diligently earned pennies. Is that censorship or proper protection of copyright laws?

The two Orwell books are under copyright in the US (but not in other countries) and Amazon has no permission to sell those two books without paying the appropriate fees. A third party, hacked into the Kindle program and added those two books (from pages copied on a copier). Amazon, I believe rightly so, in an effort to protect the persons who own the copyrights to those two books in the US, deleted them.

It could also be like the local public library, finding out that someone photocopied a library book, and was distributed them to patrons in the library. Couldn't the library remove those photo copies without it being considered censorship? Now the parallelism falls apart if Amazon refuses to allow those books to be added to a Kindle (assuming that Amazon buys the rights to do so) because they (Amazon) doesn't like the content of the books?

A closer reading of the issue at hand is called for in this case.

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan, but I always seem to forget that it was a lawyer that quizzed Jesus, asking "And who is my neighbor?" Eugene Peterson in The Message, says he was "looking for a loophole in the law." I also always seem to forget that in that day, the Samaritans were some of the most hated and despised folks in their culture (who are our "most hated folks"?) Our friend, Catt shared on Facebook a video from a social justice organization here in the Tampa Bay area (Community Tampa Bay) that certainly garners a second look by me (and maybe by some of you) (or another group in your own community wherever that might be). Thanks Catt! Keep those prophetic links a-comin' Take a look: