Bumper sticker of the week: Nobody is normal.--

Quote of the week: ''By letting the small slights go, and choosing to incline our hearts toward love, we shape a life that reflects that love, even if we do not live it every moment of every day.'' Calm Surrender, Kent Nerburn--

A liberal's ten commandments:

1.The rights of the individual are to be protected at all costs. Sometimes this becomes very difficult.

2.Do unto others with kindness and compassion, understanding full-well that this does not always work out.

3.Question ''conventional wisdom'' as positively as you can. This is called ''positive doubt.''

4.Try to understand that your mind is not the epitome of reality. There are other ways to live and do business, currently over 6 billion of them.

5.Harming people in order to make money or gain ''power'' is never a good idea and a poor path for human beings to walk.

6.Big business will not conduct itself in an honorable way without oversight. Unlimited profit is always the outcome of uncontrolled capitalism.

7.Any program that helps people rise up out of misery and despair is a program worth considering.

8.Religion and politics don't mix. The selling of religion is not a holy matter, it is right-winged political ideology.

9.Liberal means open-minded, understanding, generous, charitable, progressive, left-winged, as opposed to conservative, meaning orthodox, traditional, tight dogmatic, unyielding, right-winged. I just happen to find liberalism more in touch with the human spirit.

10.When liberalism is excessive, it generally will cost us a lot of money. When right-winged conservatism is excessive, it generally will cost us our freedoms and a whole lot of suffering. I feel it an honor to be called a liberal, and will walk that path above the other any day of the week. Besides, the other is currently too well tread.--

The President shows his lack of intelligence and common sense when he calls other heads of state names. He has no idea what the meaning of ''power'' is. True power is a very gentle thing.--

Some mental health problems you may not know about but probably have:

­­Mathematics Disorder: I definitely have this.

­­Disorder of Written Expression: A lot of people claim I have this.

­­Selective Mutism: I definitely don't have this. The folks in Washington definitely do have this. They seem to be selectively mute about a lot of things.

­­Dementia: There are many dementia problems, the most talked abut nowadays being Alzheimer's. Actually, forgetting things can be very useful.

­­There are a lot of Mood Disorders. Mine gets disordered about 3 or 4 times a day.

­­A Fictitious Disorder is not a real disorder, but a make-believe one.

­­There are a lot of things listed under Sexual Disorders. Some of them don't sound so bad.

­­There are eleven Personality Disorders, just enough so that we can all be considered nuts.--

Any business in America that does not 100 percent stand behind the idea of universal health care is a business apparently being run by morons, which in the past has also been a mental health diagnosis. Actually, business is getting out of the health care business (it's too expensive), leaving an approximate 45 million people without health care coverage. Good Bless Our System.--

Some potential city slogans:

­­Follow the Purington Brick Road.

­­Galesburg: Where we make buying a house easy.

­­Paradise lost.

­­Half-tree city.

­­Galesburg: A wee bit of Ireland, with both a Protestant and Catholic hospital.

­­Galesburg: Why settle for more?