Fridge notes for the fourth of July
June 25, 2006 by Bill
In the discussion time of my Sunday Symposium we have a small ritual. When anyone says something worth remembering, or I say something equally important, we say “that’s for your refrigerator door.” Everyone has a fridge door library of notes. For this month of July it is a wonderful opportunity to make a dent in the historical ignorance of the political and Christian knee jerk right wingers who are always babbling about our “Christian” founding presidents. They continue to publish phony, fundamentalist, quotes that are laughable to any historically enlightened person with an I.Q. above 3.
These fridge quotes are in defense of historical accuracy , facts, honesty and integrity. The right wing knee-jerks are like the elderly woman, who when first told about evolution replied: “well…I pray to God it is not true…but if it is true, then I pray to God that nobody ever hears about it.”
Women without superstition
June 18, 2006 by Bill
Women Without Superstition…No Gods…No Masters…”is a very moving…educational and inspirational book. Ninety women are portrayed…women who had virtually no status or respect as individuals. And yet, what a tremendous difference they made in the life of our nation as they challenged the Christian church, the clergy and organized, orthodox religion.”
Two women in the book are such inspiring examples of courage…guts…intelligence and inegrity.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON wrote “We need the courage to go to the source and strike the blow at the fountain of all tyranny, religious superstition, priestly power and canon law. I can tell you that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged from the shadows and superstitions of the old theologies.”
She was the author of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women’s right to vote. She was the first to call for women’s suffrage in the United States. She fought tirelessly to free women from legal constraints and from the blight of religious superstition.
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The sanitized life
June 11, 2006 by Bill
As usual, Mark Twain said it best: “There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way a shady reputation. They pay this horrible price for health. And health is all they get from it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.”
The knee-jerk and hysterical people who are on a never ending crusade to sanitize our lives are not only boring, but lose their case by hyperbolic obsession. It is almost impossible today to read a magazine or newspaper without being overwhelmed by the latest news on what is bad for us to do, eat, drink and smoke. We are told to stay clear of fat, milk, ice cream, butter, cream, sugar, coffee,alcohol, tobacco, red meat, white meat, shell fish…the list would take up the rest of this entire column of all that will destroy us. How I love Julia Child, the great goddess of cooking, who uses real butter and real sugar and when asked the secret of her energy at age 90 replied “red meat and gin.”
Perhaps I would change my habits for the better if only anyone was sure what “better” was, or is. I am told to “walk more”, and yet Arnold Palmer who has walked five miles a day all of his adult life came down with prostate cancer. I would give up my wine except that I remember “The French Paradox” and the fact that Bertrand Russell sipped about a fifth of bourbon daily and was still strong and productive in his mid-90’s, as was Winston Churchill, who not only sipped his bottle of brandy daily but went through a box of expensive cigars, daily.
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