Frazz

Frazz
Frazz is one of the best comic strips out there. You should read it every day.

MJ

Mike Gerber has an excellent essay about Michael Jackson posted over at A Tiny Revolution. Here is an excerpt:

…it all felt strangely impersonal, as if this "Michael Jackson" we were all laughing at didn't exist as a person. To the extent that anybody I knew spared a thought for the guy, the human being, they decided he deserved it for being so weird. Such is the compassion of the herd.

But so what? you might say. Life's rough, and Jackson didn't have to be rich and famous. He didn't have to get nose jobs and sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. Well, here's what: It's inconceivable to me that all this concentrated ridicule did not drip down, poison-like, to the man himself, and make a difficult life even more difficult. And it would be one thing if the enjoyment generated as a result of this pain was in any way instructive, constructive, or substantial. It wasn't. It was just meanness. Occasionally Jackson deserved our scorn, but most of the time he didn't, and it says a lot about the culture in which we live that Michael Jackson--a pop singer--was the target of so much vitriol. Anybody who runs for President, much less does what it takes to win, is just as weird as Michael Jackson was. They simply hide it better. Here was a guy so terrorized by his father that he'd vomit at the sight of him; a guy whose talent robbed him of his own childhood; a guy who spent the rest of his life mutilating himself and possibly mistreating others in an utterly doomed attempt to release from his pain. Apportion the blame however you like, but what the hell is funny about that?

You can read it all here.

I'm not entirely clean. I made comments and laughed at the jokes, too. I think everyone did.

It's not something I'm proud of.

O'Bama

From Common Dreams:

Human rights and open government advocates were heartened by President Barack Obama's pledge during his first week in office to create "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and "establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration".

But now, well into Obama's second 100 days in office, many are expressing outrage and disappointment that many of the president's decisions have followed the path of his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

Let me just say this about that: "I told you so."

(Sometimes you get insightful, in-depth commentary and analysis, and sometimes you just get schoolyard taunts. You just never know.)

Holy Vow

From Living With War by Neil Young:

And when the dawn breaks I see my fellow man
And on the flat-screen we kill and we're killed again
And when the night falls, I pray for peace
Try to remember peace (visualize)

I join the multitudes
I raise my hand in peace
I never bow to the laws of the thought police
I take a holy vow
To never kill again
To never kill again

The stamp was created by deviantArtist RedDartFrog. You can visit his gallery by clicking here.

The Laughing Willow

bleu clair rhapsody has posted a charming little poem that you can read by clicking here. It'll make you smile. :)

The Peace of…

I had never read this poem before. I found it posted over at 3QuarksDaily:

For You
Carl Sandburg

The peace of great doors be for you.
Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs.
Wait for the great hinges.

The peace of great churches be for you,
Where the players of loft pipe organs
Practice old lovely fragments, alone.

The peace of great books be for you,
stains of pressed clover leaves on pages,
Bleach of the light of years held in leather.

The peace of great prairies be for you.
Listen among the windplayers in cornfields,
The wind learning over its oldest music.

The peace of great seas be for you.
Wait on a hook of land, a rock footing
For you, wait in the salt wash.

The peace of great mountains be for you,
The sleep and the eyesight of eagles,
Sheet mist shadows and the long look across.

The peace of great hearts be for you,
Valves of the blood of the sun,
Pumps of the strongest wants we cry.

The peace of great silhouettes be for you,
Shadow dancers alive in your blood now,
Alive and crying, “Let us out, let us out.”

The peace of great changes be for you.
Whisper, Oh beginners in the hills.
Tumble, Oh cubs—tomorrow belongs to you.

The peace of great loves be for you.
Rain, soak these roots; wind, shatter the dry rot.
Bars of sunlight, grips of the earth, hug these.

The peace of great ghosts be for you,
Phantoms of night-gray eyes, ready to go
To the fog-star dumps, to the fire-white doors.

Yes, the peace of great phantoms be for you,
Phantom iron men, mothers of bronze,
Keepers of the lean clean breeds.

A Question

I have a question: Do you feel closer to God during the good times or the bad times? Do you pray more when things are going well, or when things are going poorly?

I've heard the expression "There are no atheists in foxholes," but it seems to me that's exactly where you would find them. The times when things are not going well are the times I'm most likely to become self-absorbed and isolate myself. In the good times I pray all the time, and tell God "Thank You" constantly, but when times are rough I've never been able to lean on Him; those are the times that my faith is weakest.

(I do allow anonymous comments, so you don't have to put your name on your answer if it's a little more personal than you feel comfortable with.)

Moose

Click Image to Imbiggen
I saw this ad in an old issue of Southwest Art magazine. This artist takes shed moose antlers and carves them to look like eagles.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

Grateful

No longer forward nor behind,
I look in hope or fear;
But grateful take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

~John Greenleaf Whittier