LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

Building a community

— Bumper sticker of the week: No more Bushit.

— Quote of the week: “I once saw a sculpture in the great cathedral of Chartres so striking it stopped me in my tracks. The artist depicts Adam, the first man, emerging as an idea from the side of God’s head; God is thinking us into being. With such a beginning we human beings were destined ever after to think upon our existence, to imagine and argue about what it means to be made in God’s image. Our participants in this discussion come from different cultures and persuasions, demonstrating once again that being made in the likeness of God does not mean we were made to think alike.” Bill Moyers

— Bush on 5–week vacation. Thank God.

— DeLay gathers right-wing Christian nuts: Tom DeLay, congressional criminal #1, gives the keynote address to a bunch of right-wingers gathered to complain about the Supreme Court not being right-wing enough. These guys would have kicked Hitler out of office for not being right-wing enough. We got a group of lunatics running this country. We ought to be proud of ourselves. I can’t wait till everyone wakes up and sees what we’ve done. Unfortunately, by then we’ll all be standing in soup and bread line, wondering where we went wrong. Never let it be said Americans are quick to pick up on a royal screwing.

— Seers tower:

• We won’t win in Iraq. It’s a lose, lose, lose, lose, situation.

• The next President is going to come out of nowhere, which I hear is what they call Illinois.

• Mayor Daley is going down. You can’t run a town for that long and stay clean. The filth builds up, begins to cling to you, smother you. It don’t care what your name is.

• I see huge demonstrations at the White House by next summer. Multiple reasons. A human circle around the White House. People praying, chanting, meditating, hoping.

• Technology will outpace our ability to deal with it, resulting in people wanting to teach creationism as science. It’s like some kind of warped out Dark Age mentality.

• Before its all over, oil is going to control the world.

• All things being equal, Galesburg will become a fairly attractive place to live for retirees, or people with professional jobs. The price of living is, all things being equal, pretty low. If we see anyone coming in paying over $10 per hour, it will be just short of a miracle. Still, miracles are possible.

• When President Bush leaves office, he won’t become a professor, a scientist, a public speaker, or mayor of any city with a population over 50.

— Marketing 101: I like companies who make dangerous products and than warn you to not use them. Philip Morris is good at it. The beer industry plays right along. Now the soft drink industry is joining in on the fun. Seems all that sugar is not really good for the little ones. Or anyone. They never consider that perhaps they should no longer make their products. It seems the same as a drug dealer, after selling you crack or meth, telling you that you really shouldn’t be doing that. A drug dealer is a drug dealer, no matter how you market it.

— How to build a community:

• Know your neighbors.

• Look up when you are walking.

• Have neighborhood potlucks.

• Honor elders.

• Pick up litter.

• Use the library.

• Say hello to everyone.

• Learn from new and uncomfortable angles.

• Strive for diversity and tolerance.