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Wednesday, February 23
Garrison Keillor's 'Homegrown Democrat'
by
Chad Thompson
on Wed 23 Feb 2005 01:04 PM CST
 Garrison Keillor's 'Homegrown Democrat'
With all
of the various things in life that seem to eat up my attention span,
sometimes a few things that I intended to read or pay attention to fall
through the cracks. This book is one of them.
If you
are searching for the answer to the modern question "Why do I care,
anyway?", this book has your answers and a little reminder about just
who we are and where we come from.
Here's an excerpt:
This
is the difference between Democrats and Republicans in 2004, when it
comes right down to it. Republicans are all about Old Glory and school
prayer and the sanctity of marriage and the Fatherhood of
God but when it comes to actually needing help from them,
you shouldn’t get your hopes up. They might send an ambulance or
they might just send a Get Well card. In yellow-dog St. Paul, you
will be rescued by the St. Paul fire department and there is no
better emergency service anywhere in the civilized world. You may
be flat on the floor feeling as if an elephant stepped on your
chest, or your child may have swallowed a fistful of God
knows what medication, or your grandma may have slipped on
the ice and banged her noggin and she insists she’s okay but in
Swedish—whatever your dilemma, the St. Paul rescue squad will
deal with it in swift and professional fashion. Because we
Democrats feel that the people of St. Paul are entitled to the
best when it comes to what’s crucial. You can be a Christian,
atheist, Buddhist, nudist, and the rescue squad will be there for
you within four minutes. Republicans have perfectly nice
manners, normal hair, pleasant smiles, good deodorants, but when
it comes down to cases, you do not want them to be
monitoring your oxygen flow: they will set it to the minimum
required to sustain basic brain function, and then they will
recite a little prayer for you. They are a party that is all
about perceptions, the Christian party that conceals enormous
glittering malice and is led by brilliant bandits who are
dividing and conquering the sweet land I grew up in. I don’t
accept this. We Democrats are deciduous. We fade, lose heart, become
torpid, languish, then the sap rises again, and we are
passionate. This is a year for passion.
You can download a copy of the first four chapters here - and purchase the book from your local bookstore.
Thursday, February 3
From Anger to Compassion: A Cosmic Perspective
by
Linda Thieman
on Thu 03 Feb 2005 05:55 PM CST
 From Anger to Compassion: A Cosmic Perspective
by Caroline Vernon
Blog for Iowa would like to welcome Caroline Vernon of Davenport to the blog team. We are very pleased to have her with us!
Anger is most often a difficult emotion to sit with even though it
often serves as an indispensable catalyst to act. The challenge for me
(the Bush junta sure doesn't make it easy) has been in making an
operational shift from anger to compassion in order to obtain a higher
understanding of what ails us, let alone determine the best way to move
forward from where we find ourselves. In order to do so, I believe it
is important for us to take a step back and look at things from a more
impersonal or cosmic perspective.
The
essential ingredient in allowing understanding to take place is that
the overwhelming waves of personal emotion have subsided. We
have all had the experience of watching a friend become romantically
involved with someone whom we could clearly see was wrong for that
person. We had the advantage of an impersonal, wise perspective,
whereas our friend was under a romantic spell -- and nothing we say can
break a romantic spell. The clarity we had is a very real example of a
cosmic perspective as opposed to a personal one.
However, an impersonal or cosmic perspective can often feel threatening to people,
precisely because it appears to lack the warmth of personal emotion.
What cosmic understanding actually lacks is not emotional animation as
such, but the interference of toxic emotion, which can include
self-pity, self-righteousness, or the inability to detach from the
moment and see the greater purpose hidden within the chaos and pain of
an event or relationship.
For
many, the response of compassion could seem weak and powerless. Who can
see the immediate consequences of compassion, especially when measured
against the satisfaction of a bullet? A bullet satisfies the ego’s need
for immediate physical action, whereas if one’s spirit were enlightened
and truly understood the Divine paradox that ours is an intimate
Universe governed by impersonal laws and cycles of life, then a reply
of compassion is the only answer that holds any power. For to awaken to
the nature of consciousness is to awaken to the truth that the only
domain of true power is that force which is pure light, eternal,
transcendent, and impersonal -- like the invisible power of an act of
love or forgiveness.
Global events – even natural ones – are created through a complex of energies.
And included in that mixture of energies are the psychic forces
generated by the collective consciousness of the global soul of
humanity. We are a part of the earth and its consciousness. The earth
does not exist separate and apart from our psychic energy. Mother Earth
is involved in the evolution of the human species. Global warming is
occurring and we have been continually tampering with the balance of
nature in an ever-increasing momentum. That may well be creating a
psychic stress for Mother Earth that we have no way of measuring; but
Mother Earth could be feeling the pain of the human condition as much
as humanity is – including the pain generated by a build-up of anger
and rage in our collective spirit.
Mother Earth doesn’t discriminate.
She isn’t a political being. People will continue to die as a result of
acts of Mother Nature. Some of these events, like the recent tsunami,
may be enormous in proportion to others. But let’s look at the good
that is coming from this crisis. What other event could possibly have
drawn the world together and caused humanity to act as a global
community, transcending political differences? What other force could
possibly cause so much destruction yet leave no traces of hatred in its
wake? While grief abounds and will for years to come, so does
compassion. The bonds of care, gratitude, friendship, and new
beginnings that will be formed as a result of pulling together to
overcome disaster may have consequences on behalf of peace that will
save who knows how many lives in years to come.
I
believe compassion is one of our most potent progressive values, which
brings me to the topic of my next blog, "From the Perspective of
Values"... Stay tuned Iowa...
In Service,
Caroline Vernon
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