Let’s step way-y-y-y back to Friar Giovanni da Fiesole (1387-1455)

Take peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach is joy.

There is radiance and courage in the darkness could we but see; and to see, we have only to look.

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.

Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, and wisdom, and power.

The day breaks and the shadows flee away.

Why isn’t peace on anyone’s platform?

Remarkably, the goal of peace does not appear.

IS THE word “peace’’ disappearing from our national conversation?

Armies of talking heads, bloggers, and op-ed opinionators assault us daily on every subject . . . but rarely on peace.

When was the last time we heard a national leader of either party, especially one running for president, put the goal of peace at the center of a political platform or place it among our highest national aspirations?

(Oh, for a long long while, we do know what to do… beterian… to improve.)

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Massachusetts Congress declared Christmas illegal from 1659-1681.

Another fact: The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus’ birth at all.

In other words, there were no Christmas Eve services and no pageants and no ministers trying to make sense of it all! Only over centuries, and only after solstice feasts turned really wild and really out of control did Christians seek to offer an alternative, calling it “Christ’s Mass,” or Christmas.

Another fact: Nobody was as hard on Christmas as the Puritans.

Christmas wasn’t biblical. And Jesus wouldn’t have approved of celebrations. Puritans ordered shops to stay open on Christmas. They banned holiday cakes and candles.

There’s more.

Ahh, forget it. Wingnuts don’t use facts !

For the rest of us, love is on our minds during the holidays.

But we can correct our history thought by thought, image by image.

For example, instead of a rowboat on Christmas Day in 1776, George Washington crossed the Delaware on a ferry pulled by a cable and crowded with troops.

Guy Davis.

We all need more kindness in this world
we all need more kindness in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more kindness in this world.

We all need more hugging in this world
we all need more hugging in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more hugging in this world

We all need more laughing in this world
we all need more laughing in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more laughing in this world

We all need more sunshine in this world
we all need more sunshine in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more sunshine in this world

We all need more peace-times in this world
we all need more peace-times in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more peace-times in this world

We all need more friendship in this world
we all need more friendship in this world
You may look high and low, but there’s no
place else to go–we all need more friendship in this world

NYTimes:

He drew a chart called a growth-share matrix with little circles to represent various pursuits: work, family, church. Investing time in work delivered tangible returns like raises and profits.

“Your children don’t pay any evidence of achievement for 20 years,” Mr. Romney said.

Excuse me while we ponder Jefferson’s warning that we must relocate the Capitol each generation or so…

In the Valley, they think of themselves as visionaries. Tomorrow is theirs; and their confidence in innovative products and services depends in no small measure on their belief that the future is not simply influencing their thinking (we are, as it were, all futurists now, at least in these zip codes – if friends in DC will now forgive me a Keynesian allusion) but it will in turn be shaped by their personal and corporate vision.

The future is both their study and their creature.

They have the kind of symbiosis with tomorrow that the District has with yesterday. So creativity, risk, and a long entrepreneurial arc, are their stock in trade.

In the District, a community of generally smart and committed persons, the “corporate culture” could hardly be more different. Pretty much whatever our politics, our client (sorry) lies in the past.

filetype:not.kidding

Ron Paul flippin' from the hip.

Proof of Ron Paul racism?

Yeh. Yeh. One document isn’t enough to prove it. 

Well, now there are many documents. Over fifty. Right here.

National Press Club asks:

Do you get a lot of complaints about your weather forecasts?

Let’s put it this way:

“I’ve never gotten a Thank You letter for nailing a forecast,” reports Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel, “And that’s after 25 years.”

Cantore adds:

“I used to get the Farmers’ Almanac as a kid…

and then I became a scientist.” !

Shame, we sloppy Neighbors, shame.

Why do Deepwater explosion survivors struggle struggle struggle ? ? ?

families still dealing with the aftermath of the accident

Find the execs
Find the checks
Pull ‘em away from lunch
Pull out the whole damn bunch

Conservatives and liberals alike should step back from conventional thinking in the face of our current conditions.

This is not an esoteric line of inquiry.

The United States is not broke.

We should laugh at the delusion that we are.

The potential for abundance is everywhere around us, but it stagnates for sheer lack of funding.

For Hire: Lobbyists or the 99 percent

Corporations have vast resources to pour into Congress.

Low or no taxes are paid thanks to rules they lobbied into law.

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

A Christmas Message From America’s Rich

“It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

“True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.”

The New Propaganda All Over Again.

“Let them eat cake.

“I want a reality show where the Billionaires come on every day and talk about their troubles.

“It could be like the old TV show ‘Queen for a Day’. The 1 Percenter with the biggest sob story wins a brand new dishwasher.” —Jon Taplin

Neal Stephenson warns about ‘Innovation Starvation’

“You’re the ones who’ve been slacking off!”

The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rules.

It’s the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments.

Too bad we’ve forgotten how to do it.

“Hey, everybody, that’s our tree, not theirs.”

OK, here’s the weird part.

Vowels pull on our brains.

“I”s pull us differently than “O”s.

A curious pattern shows up.

Ice cream companies mix lots of “O”s and “A”s

Rocky Road, Jamoca Almond Fudge, Chocolate, Caramel, Cookie Dough, Coconut

But the cracker brands stick pretty much to “E”s and “I”s.

Cheez It, Wheat Thins, Pretzel, Ritz, Krispy, Triscuit, Chips, Biskit

But Why?

Destroying the Common Wealth is easy, abundant and cheap.  It is what the vast majority of organizations do.  Enhancing it, in contrast is the scarcest, rarest, and single most disruptive capability an organization can possess. -Umair Haque

The place to start is America’s executive suites, which should be cleared of mercenaries in order to encourage real leadership.

Contrast this with the America of bailouts, where the fat are considered “too big to fail.” In fact, many are too big – or at least too mismanaged – to succeed.

Public support should be shifted from protecting large established corporations to encouraging the growth of newer enterprises.

Armies of MBAs who have been trained to manage everything in general but nothing in particular are part of the problem, not the solution.

So are economists who study clouds without ever getting wet.

If only we could all borrow at 1% and lend at 7%.
Finally we’ve found our Cadillac welfare queens.