An amazing quote from the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine, one of the founders of the Humanistic Judaism movement.

“There are two visions of America.

One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.

This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.”

- Rabbi Sherwin Wine

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Obama/Biden 2008.

This was one of my favorite Bill Maher’s ever. Bill Maher October 17th. Panel: Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT-I), Ben Affleck and Martin Short. These guys really hit the nail on the head on this show. Every average American who still doesn’t understand that by voting Republican you are voting against your own best interests should watch this.  And, then watch it again, especially the discussion about what a society needs to function, democratic socialism, the statistics on income disparity and the poker game analogy, and the fantasy life that 99% of Americans will never attain yet fail to realize.  And, just to repeat — especially the poker analogy.

[UPDATE: my original post had a two part video. they are no longer available, but i found a partial clip here:]

I forget who said this recently (Biden?) but “sometimes you need and sometimes you have more than you need” and these things are cyclical.  In other words, things might be going well now, but down the road they might not be. So, don’t put policies into place that hurt average people, some of whom are already in need.  You might be one yourself one day. We live in a connected world. Why is this so difficult for people to understand?

If you are interested in any of this, then you might also watch this powerful slideshow from Karl Fisch that I wrote about a few months ago.

Obama/Biden 2008.

Hey, I’ve been a bit busy lately trying to be maverick in my everyday life.  So, I hope you social media types don’t try to pin me down with any gotcha questions about why I haven’t been blogging lately.  I’ll tell ya right off the bat that I won’t answer yer questions directly. I’ll just change the subject. After all, I’m not accountable to nobody. No siree. It’s my blog. So there.

Before I forget, I’d like to give a shout out to the all the social media hockey moms and joe sixpacks out there.  I feel your pain. It’s difficult to find enough hours in the day to take advantage of all the social media out there, and even more difficult to find something that doesn’t smack of that there pompous elitist attitude that seems to permeate throughout that there blogosphere.  Even mainstream users need reliable, affordable social networking. And, gosh darn it, you should not have to apologize to A-list bloggers for liking lowest common denominator social media. Geez, why raise the bar so high and make things so difficult? Not everyone wants to be smart, ya hear?

And, while I’m on the topic, I’d just like to say that I’m concerned, concerned about Twitter. They lured us in and now we’re hooked. And, when that there big bad whale rears its head and flies onto our computer screen…and, yea, and what about Facebook. I mean, golly, they have changed their user interface. What a bunch of flip floppers!  I think we need to band together and say never again. Never again to being exploited and taken advantage of by Twitter and Facebook. 

Well, hey, gotta run…I got some maverickin’ to do.