UPDATE: Christine “I dabbled in witchcraft” O’Donnell
From a (female) Cornell psychology professor: Who are they and what do they want? If they take America away from the rest of us, what will they do with it and will there be enough of it to share with the whole class?
JJ’s approach would be to compare their supposedly family-friendly advocacy with Teresa Heinz Kerry’s work for a healthier planet and for healthier women and children and families, living healthier lives upon it.
See also Natural Parent Power Kind to Climate, Children, Women Too.
Yes, Sarah Palin and all your grizzly pit-bullies, I’m talking to you. What counts is what you DO, who and what you live and work FOR rather than against, who and what you take responsibility FOR and what results you get. Is the world more heaven and less hell because you’re in it, or vice versa? People notice the difference sooner or later, you know:
As a young Methodist once upon a time, I remember deciding that heaven and hell described the state of mind each of us lived out in real time on earth, created by who I became, how I lived and why.
We can read heaven and hell into everything from the daily news to married life; in both journalism and marriage counseling, for example, what counts is what’s done, not just the words — of position, prescription, praise or promise — but their meaning manifest in reality, what’s behind the words, the circumstance and change described and delivered.
Show, don’t tell.
Whether in preaching or politics, inspiration literally means a new spirit goes “in” and becomes part of who you are, that you are affected and the totality that is “you” changes somehow that makes an outer difference for others. I suppose all presidents inspire the people and thereby change the nation’s reality but some presidents including the present one — hey, does the word president share a root with present? — inspire us to healthier change than others!
What’s Up With Fightin’ Mad White Women has a good discussion I just reviewed, remembering how much I miss the wise and gentle (also white Christian) voice of our dear departed friend Betty Malone.
And Nance said some smart stuff too, for a white girl.
Now we have Christine O’Donnell at the Values Voters confab. Can someone tell me seriously, what she ever did that actually make the world a better place in line with those supposed values? Apparently she’s never served in elected or appointed office, doesn’t operate a business and employ others and meet a payroll, and she’s not a wife and mother. Can’t even manage her own affairs, much less anyone else’s, according to her various financial and legal problems.
She’s a 41-year-old tv spokesmodel, says wikipedia:
“O’Donnell has worked as marketing consultant,[3] as a freelance public relations consultant,[4] as an advocate for sexual abstinence,[5] and as a political commentator.”
And then there’s the old spirit, so much a part of who you are it’ll never change:
She looks really good for 41.
That’s all the time I can waste trying to think of something serious about this particular idiot.
Except that I thank her for the probable win of the D in her state.
Just finished today’s Sunday NYT. Maureen Dowd calls her “the pretty Palin MiniMe” and then describes power of story O’Donnell wants us to believe is most like her personal story, from two — British, not “real American” — Christian writers, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. I actually read all their stories as a child btw, as the authors intended. She probably just saw the movies and missed the deeper magic. Does she realize for instance, that Tolkien was disturbed by Narnia as Christian analogy, and Lewis denied that it was meant to be? Oh well . . .
The column is imo quite aptly headed, “Myth and Madness” –
Speaking of that, the NYT is full of Thinking Parent story today. The whole Sunday Magazine is about education (or at least schooling) from the ethics of learning experiments involving deception, to video games, drilling and rote memorization, how kids learn language, does exercise help learning, lots of technology issues. One dad’s story even featured homeschooling (not in a way I liked much but still, good to know is out there so I can deal with it; this closed authoritarian approach chapped my unschooling philosophy: “child rearing is primarily about forming character, instilling values and cultivating habits . . .” because I’d say it’s mainly relationships, nurturing, fostering independence and exploration.)
My favorite quote OTOH was in another essay: “If we ask what thinking is so that we can then ask how to foster it, we encounter an astonishing and terrifying answer: we don’t know.”
Finally, I am sitting here thinking Ms. O’Donnell wouldn’t appreciate much of it and won’t read it in any case. Hence my question about what good she can be to us here in the real America, where education and thinking either matter utterly, or else we’re already done for.