Bumper sticker of the week: W's war is not my war.--
Quotes of the week: ''You meet a lot of dumb people who went to college.''
''If we all come back to earth in 100 years, it seems likely we wouldn't find men wearing ties.''
''I don't eat in a restaurant that has a sign outside saying, 'Home Cooking.' If I wanted home cooking, I'd eat at home.'' Common (Non) Sense, Andy Rooney--
You can't go around killing people and justify it as a war on terrorism. Not without killing yourself--
Galesburg Daze:
If only Walgreen's built car engines.
Win a free Maytag stove and refrigerator. We'll throw in a plant as a bonus.
TIF me, Zone me, Loan me. I think I'm a business man in love with Galesburg.
Crows are smarter than you think. They normally live where people won't.
There are plenty of clowns.
Galesburg Daze: Where you can count on things never changing. Not even the excuses.--
As the gap widens between the rich and the poor, between public affluence and private despair, somehow you cannot shake off the feeling that you must do something to address these wrongs.--
Economic development should not be done in a cloak of secrecy: They sneak into town by night, these entrepreneurs cloaked in black. They are worried that, if discovered, the folks back home will lynch them. And probably rightly so. They're looking for a deal. Any deal. A better deal than what they are currently getting. And their rules are simple: Rule I: We would prefer not to pay taxes for as long as possible. Rule II: We'll take free anything, i.e. free water, utilities, dumping. Rule III: We hope you have some good, cheap land ready for us to build on. Rule IV: We insist your workers not be union. If you can't meet rules 1, 2, 3, or 4, its been a pleasure. This is how the game is played. If you don't play along, someone else will, making you a loser. Unfortunately, if you do play along, as more and more communities are discovering, you also become a loser. Economic development has us double-bound into a no win situation. The only winners are the people getting paid to perpetrate this hoax, along with, of course, the businesses who take advantage of it. And the taxpayer pays for it all. A rather familiar scenario.--
I once gave up booze, sex, and cigars. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life.--
Now you are more: You may not think I know you, but I do. You yearn for a better country, a better community, a better lifestyle, more satisfying relationships. You know war will not bring peace, violence does not bring reconciliation, television will not improve your mind, bricking streets will not help the unemployed, the rich don't need government handouts, politicians should not be self-serving, guns are not an answer to our insecurities. You realize prisons will not rehabilitate drug offenders, capital punishment will not mend a broken heart, bankrupting people over health care is immoral. You know above all knowing that having affairs is an illusion of love, that drugs and alcohol will not improve our lives, that gambling takes away hope, it does not create it. You are looking for the truth. But what is the truth? That you can be more.--
I ain't much for arguing over religion. I have never believed that you come to know God externally. I've always thought it to be an internal experience. Now it's not that external things can't help, like a beautiful sunset, mountains, the ocean, beautiful cathedrals, paintings, meaningful moments. All of these things, and many others, act to wake you up to the possibility that there is more to life than just you. Or us. But listening to all the right-winged crusader crap we got going on around here just doesn't seem to help me. I've always had this funny notion that you don't need to go looking around for God, that God resides inside of all of us. It is up to each of us to come to terms with that, and understand that we are each a part of the divine plan, however insignificant, poor, or disenfranchised we may feel. No one can lead you to God. You already are.