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 Sunday, April 06, 2008
Baseball and God
I know that there are any who cannot believe that I have been so quiet this semester but I have been distracted.  The sunshine and the promise of warm weather (and baseball) inspires me to reconnect via the blog. 

Poem: "Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God" by Philip E. Burnham, Jr. from Housekeeping: Poems Out of the Ordinary. © Ibbetson Street Press, 2005.

Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God

And on the ninth day, God
In His infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue sky,
Separated the infield from the outfield,
Formed a skin of clay,
Assigned bases of safety
On cardinal points of the compass
Circling the mountain of deliverance,
Fashioned a wandering moon
From a horse, a string and a gum tree,
Tempered weapons of ash,
Made gloves from the golden skin of sacrificial bulls,
Set stars alight in the Milky Way,
Divided the descendants of Cain and Abel into contenders,
Declared time out, time in, stepped back,
And thundered over all of creation:
                                       "Play ball!"


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Sunday, April 06, 2008 12:49:33 PM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [1] | 
 Thursday, December 13, 2007
Winter Forecast
A couple of days ago we had what the forecasts call a “wintry mix,” which always sounds to me like something you’d set out in bowls at a ...tail party this time of year. It was, in fact, rain, snow and sleet mixed with salt and the sludge that gets thrown from the treads of tires. One minute, snow was falling, and the next it was raining. The sky was the color of duct tape, and it let about that much light through. What a “wintry mix” does is make you want to stay home — or obsessive about your travels, anxious simply for the pleasure of getting home again.

It’s the difference that makes a day like that so interesting. Till now, this has been a bright oaken autumn. The most vivid colors came and went, leaving behind the oaks, which hold their leaves far longer. The last few weeks have been dusted with a dry, clear light, and the oaks have shown just how various and brilliant their colors can be. It was as if the oaks had all stepped forward to remind us of a spectrum of color that goes unimagined the rest of the year.

But everything changes on a wintry day.


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Thursday, December 13, 2007 7:31:08 AM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [0] | 
 Tuesday, October 09, 2007
The End of Conservatist Agenda

Conservative ideology has been given a chance, and it has run its course, to the detriment of the country and possibly to the near permanent hobbling of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, the rest of us were forced to suffer the injuries inflicted by its running its course straight into a brick wall, but the wounds will heal, and so will our nation.

 

The Right Wing think tanks, the Congress and the administration, together implemented the conservative agenda, and here we are. The disparity in wealth we are currently experiencing is by design and the infeasibility of a financial structure based on debt is the legacy of conservatism in practice.  A recent posting to Bill O’Reilly at the FOX News site in response to O’Reilly’s question (Where are the neo-cons?):  “There’s a reason the neo-cons have left the building, failure is the orphan these conservatives have no compassion for.”

 

Think of the great experiments in liberalism, Social Security, Medicare, the Environmental Protection Agency, the five day work week, child labor laws (the list is a long one), all still going and despite conservative intervention (attempt to destroy them) over the years, all still working relatively well considering. On the other side you have experiments in conservatism, trickle down economics, perpetual war to feed the military industrial complex, the unitary executive that says the President is above the law and should be above the law in times of crisis (of their own making), all have failed and all are costing the average American time, money, security and peace of mind.


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Tuesday, October 09, 2007 2:11:00 PM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [3] | 
 Wednesday, August 08, 2007
From Bonds to Nixon
I don't follow baseball but you cannot catch any news today without hearing about Barry Bonds' record setting homerun.  I read Kelly's blog that included reference to Lindsay Lohan so I don't think I am reaching when I reference Richard Nixon in my entry.  Anyway:  33 years ago  today Richard Nixon resigned the presidency.  I remember the day vividly - I was 18 and about to begin college (pre-law major) and I was enmeshed with the drama of  the Watergate hearings.  Now, his "impeachable offenses" seem somewhat minor when compared to the scandals of the last few presidential adminstrations.  If I am willing to forgive Nixon will we forgive Bonds in 33 years?

 


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Wednesday, August 08, 2007 8:47:57 PM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [0] | 
Fairness and Justice
I was asked to facillitate a meeting earlier today with a group of community helpers.  The purpose of the meeting was to establish criteria and policy for the distribution of emergency assistance (money) to "needy" individuals.  The meeting went on and on as there was much discussion about "fairness".  How much do we give each person who asks for help? What is a fair amount?  What about those who do not ask for help - should money be given to them to make things "fair"?

There was little opportunity to speak so I am offering my reflective thought in this space.  There is no fairness in assistance to those in need.  And, we should not hope for fairnes but work for justice.  As social work students at Lourdes College well know, I am a huge fan of John Rawls and his ideas of justice.

Rawls wrote The Theory of Justice that includes the idea of "original position" -- a hypothetical situation in which people of roughly equal ability decide to agree on principles of social cooperation, without knowing how anybody is placed in society. That position  provides a model of a deeply held  collective and moral norm. As Rawls puts it in the famous last sentence of the book, "Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view."

Rawls' model of "purity of heart" has two parts. First is the description of people in the hypothetical situation of choosing principles for living together. They are imagined as rational, self-interested individuals who aim to do as well for themselves as they can, who are roughly equal in capacity (no one can easily dominate all the others), and who have needs that can be met more effectively by cooperation than by noncooperation.Then the second part of Rawls' model comes in: the "veil of ignorance," which ensures that the parties do not know where they will be placed in the resulting society.  It is the ignorance that supplies "purity of heart," in the form of a morally decent impartiality toward the well-being of others. Rawls' idea is that, where social justice is in question, people should always try to choose without being biased in the direction of their own special interests.

Maybe I will get a chance to share Rawls' ideas with the community group but only if the group can agree that it is OKo be unfair.



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Wednesday, August 08, 2007 8:33:49 PM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [0] | 
 Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Joyce Litten

Joyce Litten is a new Faculty & Staff blogger!


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Wednesday, July 18, 2007 10:08:57 AM (Atlantic Standard Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [0] |