Barnsdall Art Park is vital part of Los Angeles — and municipal art gallery and park that the LA City Council now wants to privatize, citing budget issues. To do so would limit citizens’ access to enjoy and create art and go against the goals of the land’s donor. Sadly, the privatization seems to be steamrolling ahead with minimal community outrage input as a way to keep Barnsdall open.

Barnsdall Art Park, atop a hill in the center of East Hollywood,  was the gift of Aline Barnsdall to the people of the city of Los Angeles to be used for arts exhibits and arts education. Aline Barnsdall, who had moved West to develop a theatre company, commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design her home  on land at the intersection of Vermont Ave. and Hollywood Blvd. The resulting building, Hollyhock House, still stands and is part of the facilities at Barnsdall Art Part which also includes the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. . . .

The Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery is a facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Founded in 1952, its mission is to promote, interpret, and present to the art of emerging, mid career, and established artists from culturally diverse Southern California. The Gallery showcases art from other parts of the world that is of relevance to the people of the City of Los Angeles.

Programs at Barnsdall include the Junior Arts Center which offers affordable arts education programs to young people both on site at Barnsdall Art Park and in extensive outreach, and eight-week classes that include everything from figure drawing, photography and weaving to ukulele playing and drumming. There’s also the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, available a low-priced rental house for live theatre, dance, music, spoken word, lecture, film and special event presentations. Barnsdall is also a go-to site for weddings and there’s a weekly farmers market held in the parking lot. Oh did I mention admission is free? And so is parking!

Barnsdall was recently the site of the second annual Beyond Eden Art Fair which showcased contemporary Low Brow/Pop Surrealist artists,  a West Coast movement that is gaining worldwide recognition thanks in a great part to Robert Willams whose paintings, mentoring of art geeks and his creation of  Juxtapoz Magazine have inspired artists and collectors alike to delve into the brash figurative style with its emphasis on pop iconography and exquisite technique.

The city Los Angeles faces serious budgetary problems. Heck, my street has needed repaving for over a decade and we’re always overlooked for pot hole filling.  That minute detail I can live with — it helps cut down on speeding shortcut takers, since nothing like hearing some maroon’s testosterone-mobile bottom out to really brighten my day — but the city council is mulling the idea of privatizing of Barnsdall, which is short sighted and stupid. The main contender: MOCA, Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.

The mandate of a municipal gallery is to provide art for the people and by the people. In a letter on behalf of the board of Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery letter asking for community support, Maria Luisa de Herrera, board president wrote of Barnsdall:

It occupies a unique niche in the city’s cultural landscape, being neither a museum, nor a commercial gallery, allowing it broad curatorial latitude not enjoyed by other institutions…We should be questioning the wisdom of, or the lack there of, any idea ceding total governance of such an important asset to any institution or individual who’s agenda is not in keeping with the public character of the LAMAG. Such a move has the effect of a greater stratification of the visual arts in a city where the disparity between so called “new school” or “high art” and more populist artistic genres is growing ever wider. Other cities are expanding their municipal exhibition spaces and establishing new ones. Many of these cities are facing the same budget challenges as are we, and see public safety as their number one priority. However they have never lost sight of the fact the that part of their responsibility in providing public safety includes promoting the general well being of its citizenry.

Mat Gleason, the editor of Coagula Art Journal, himself a maverick and strong supporter of the Los Angeles art scene had this to say to me:

Let’s get angry and maybe put energy into making these spaces a little more vital – the problem is not the administration of these spaces, it is the art public that is spoiled and passive, what are they going to do when all the spaces are privatized and operate as a monolithic statement of fashion?…As far as privatization, it would make for stunningly boring and insignificant art spaces catering to nobody outside of small cliques of whoever might be close to the players connected to taking over the space. It is the difference between the current slow suffocation and a quick one.

Gleason offers a radical solution:

make all of these art community centers lottery exhibition spaces for artists. the city budget can basically be for maintenance and insurance. Have lotteries for artists to get month long exhibits. Have an on-site administrator act as a den-mother/bad cop to hold of extremes that threaten the physical property but otherwise, let artists nobody knows have a chance at magically being awarded their fantasy of having the space for a month to show their art.

The shows would be interesting and would engage a much wider democratic dialogue than all of the insiders could ever deliver what with all the friends and relationships that the art world naturally foists on all of its players. And that is what the city stands for any way, right, we the people?

This would save boatloads of money and excite the "what the hell might happen next" in all of us.

I’d add to this by throwing in two curatorial lotteries for group shows. And let Barnsdalls, like any gallery get a percentage of the sales of art exhibited.

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Entering Guell Park from above.

A truly beautiful concept occurred to Antoni Gaudi. He originated a housing project. It now is Guell Park. If all of us could live in such an atmosphere, no doubt the world would be a much better place.

Admitted, I’ve had the privilege of working to build Habitats, and was actually able to put up homes for people in Chile. It’s something that we all could do, and would do well to contribute our talents to do. Gaudi envisioned his creation as a wonderful place that normal people could live in. As a housing development, it was not operable, so now it’s a park and anyone can visit without charge and enjoy.

The park was originally part of a commercially unsuccessful housing site, the idea of Count Eusebi Güell, whom the park was named after. It was inspired by the English garden city movement; hence the original English name Park (in the Catalan language spoken in Catalonia where Barcelona is located, the word for "Park" is "Parc", and the name of the place is "Parc Güell" in its original language). The site was a rocky hill with little vegetation and few trees, called Muntanya Pelada (Bare Mountain). It already included a large country house called Larrard House or Muntaner de Dalt House, and was next to a neighborhood of upper class houses called La Salut (The Health). The intention was to exploit the fresh air (well away from smoky factories) and beautiful views from the site, with sixty triangular lots being provided for luxury houses. Count Eusebi Güell added to the prestige of the development by moving in 1906 to live in Larrard House. Ultimately, only two houses were built, neither designed by Gaudí. One was intended to be a show house, but on being completed in 1904 was put up for sale, and as no buyers came forward, Gaudí, at Güell’s suggestion, bought it with his savings and moved in with his family and his father in 1906.[1] This house, where Gaudi lived from 1906 to 1926, was built by Francesc Berenguer in 1904. It contains original works by Gaudi and several of his collaborators. It is now the Gaudi Museum (Casa Museu Gaudi) since 1963. In 1969 it was declared a historical artistic monument of national interest.

You should visit for yourself, and enjoy the mingling of incredible architecture with themes of nature. I came in from above, from the subway system stop and up the escalator, then up the hill – at the top of which I took the picture above – and down through the incredible fantasy there. Below you will see the amazing mozaic lizard that is one of Gaudi’s most beloved works.

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Sen. Jim DeMint, the conservative and increasingly powerful Republican senator from South Carolina, introduced a bill Friday to strip federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in the wake of National Public Radio’s decision to fire Juan Williams for comments about Muslims that he made on Fox News earlier this week…

… NPR does not receive direct federal funding for its operations, but it does benefit from allocations for programming from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the quasi-governmental agency that receives a federal appropriation from Congress — $430 million in 2010. In addition to direct outlays for programming, the CPB also allocates funds to public radio and television stations, which then send significant programming dues to NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

What’s on your mind tonight?

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Family values jurist Clarence Thomas, we are reminded, felt his power was sufficient – seemingly – to torment fellow worker Anita Hill with sexual overtures. Allegations that were serious enough to drag Dr. Hill before the Senate Judiciary Committee were never proven, nor disproven. Now, his wife has wrapped herself in the anti-law antics of the Teabaggage and wants to wipe that record clean by pressuring the victim to clear up that old blemish by an apology that Thomas’ former aide finds unwarranted.

In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.” …In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Hill claimed that Mr. Thomas had repeatedly made inappropriate sexual comments to her in the workplace, including descriptions of pornographic films. Mr. Thomas denied the allegations and called them “a high-tech lynching.”

Oh, yes, and the rest of that statement was “of an uppity black.” Yes, that Supreme, the one who attends political conferences sponsored by the Koch right wing proponents, and most intimately involved with Teabaggage. Of course, any such statement from President Obama would immediately be labeled as playing the race card. Different strokes, anyone? What was styled as tough, ignoring the polls, when the worst president ever did stuff like lie about WMD and go to war, is now called Big Government, overriding public wishes, by providing health care.

Inconveniently enough, Thomas’ one-time girlfriend McEwen, is confirming Hill’s statements, that Thomas was a pornography consumer and often talked about it. Over her long relationship with him, she observed that she found the discussion of pornography boring, and now finds his values harmful.  . . .

"I have no hostility toward him," McEwen said. "It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time. That’s the problem that he has." ‘

Those family values, they wrap around a whole lot of baggage. You wonder if it’s part of the drill, an official kind of costume, or immunization, for the deviant from acceptable behavior. As I learned when working in a church office a few years back, those who choose to work with the young and impressionable are going to include those with intentions other than pure ones. Recently, Bishop Eddie Long has been thrown into the light for abuse charges from several young boys who started as spiritual proteges.

The entire Catholic church, of course, is suffering the aftermath of a long history of priests who dedicated themselves to far other principals and practices than they professed to follow.

Another example of right wing Family Values proponents was Congressman Mark Foley.

In the House, Foley was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography. Foley had served as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He introduced a bill, coined the "Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act of 2002" to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that “these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles.” …On September 28, 2006, ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross reported that, in 2005, Foley had sent email messages from his personal AOL account to a former Congressional page, asking the page to send a photo of himself to Foley, among other things. …Foley said in a statement, “I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent.” …More pages came forward, alleging a history of inappropriate conduct by Foley dating back at least 10 years…Florida officials have closed the investigation of Foley, stating they found "insufficient evidence" to file criminal charges, since the page was over the age of 18.

That former Congressman was the strangest of bedfellows, even if it was only in his mind – that we actually know of.

C Street Family entertainment included unacknowledged parlor games with mistresses for its members, whose public face was one of self-styled Family Values. Several of the members of that community of the outwardly pious included those who strayed really far afield from the Family Values they extolled.

It blends into the streetscape, tucked behind the Library of Congress, a few steps from the Cannon House Office Building, a few more steps to the Capitol. This is just the way its residents want it to be. Almost invisible.

But through one week’s events, this stately old pad – a pile of sturdy brick that once housed a convent – has become the very nexus of American scandal, a curious marker in the gallery of capital shame. Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s disgraced Republican governor and a former congressman, looked here for answers – for support, for the word of God – as his marriage crumbled over his affair with an Argentine woman. John Ensign, the senator from Nevada who just seven days earlier also was forced to admit a career-shattering affair, lives there.

"C Street," Sanford said Wednesday during his diffuse, cryptic, utterly arresting confessional news conference, is where congressmen faced "hard questions."

On any given day, the rowhouse at 133 C St. SE – well-appointed, with American flag flying, white-and-green-trimmed windows and a pleasant garden – fills with talk of power and the Lord…Residents include Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), Ensign and Coburn.

This year yet another episode of strange bedfellows turned up the example of publicly straight arrow, Rep. Mark Souder,in May 2010,

Every time a conservative Republican gets caught up in a sex scandal, it carries a little extra punch — the GOP, after all, claims the moral high ground as the party of "family values" — but Souder’s scandal is especially humiliating. The Indiana Republican, after all, has made the "fight to uphold traditional values" the centerpiece of his professional life. His official website declares, "The family plays a fundamental role in our society…. I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman… I am committed to fighting the assault on American values." Souder has been especially active in fighting against gay rights and for abstinence-only funding.

Oops.

At this point, Souder is quitting Congress altogether, not just announcing his retirement. The timing is a little awkward for the Indiana GOP — Souder just won a tough primary two weeks ago — but Dave Weigel has heard that Hoosier Republicans can replace Souder on the ballot when the state party hosts its convention in mid-June.

But then there’s the larger context: those "family-values" Republicans sure do have a lot of sex scandals, don’t they? It’s getting difficult to keep track of them all. Souder is the newest, but his humiliation comes on the heels of Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) scandal. That came to light around the same time as Gov. Mark Sanford’s (R-S.C.) sex scandal, which came soon after Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.), which itself followed Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

If we look back a little further, we also find disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. If go back a little more, names like Vito Fossella, Tim Hutchinson, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, and Bob Livingston also come to mind. And those are just the office-holders.

Family Values, the pose, holds a great attraction for deviants from acceptable behavior, it would appear. Of course, unwilling straights and straying husbands/fathers and even pedophiles, are not found only within the ranks of those who proclaim they practice an entirely opposite sort of ethics. Gary Hart’s taunt to the press, that they would only be bored to follow him all the time, brought down that potential presidency amazingly fast. Bootsie Mandel got to play to the footlights from inside the Governor’s mansion, when her husband Marvin Mandel, the Governor, got caught cheating.

The public figure affecting a stance of great virtue makes antics they condemn actually revolting, though, because of the total hypocrisy.

Without standards to violate, the thrill of getting by with stomping on your own public image, would it be so thrilling? I leave that for those with degrees in behavior sciences that I don’t have. I also don’t care for the limelight, though, and am not at all a gambler…so maybe I’m just not having fun yet. But now, after wading through some of the public spectacles we’ve watched from Family Values pretenders, I do want a good, hot shower.

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[Ed. Note: Be sure to see the update at bottom of post, thanks!]

It feels like Christmas has come early this year behind the scenes here at The Seminal. Or maybe a bit more like New Year’s Eve, when the promise of exciting new horizons lies before us while we wistfully wave goodbye to the past.

So what’s new?

This platform you’ve both loved and fretted over will get a screaming hot upgrade to be launched tomorrow morning.

With it will come a new name: MyFDL.

Yup, it will be your own slice of FDL. Where we’ve all shared a single, partitioned blog as The Seminal, we’ll each of us have a more fully realized blog of our own with MyFDL.

More importantly, you will have many more social media tools which allow you to stay in touch with your friends in the MyFDL community, keep an eye on what’s hot at the site, combined with much improved editing tools to help you post your own diaries at MyFDL.

Between now and tomorrow morning we will be migrating all the existing community posts to the new MyFDL platform. You may notice a site outage in the wee hours here as the switches are being flipped and connections tested.

By mid-morning tomorrow you should see a slightly different front page. You’ll be able to use your existing login as that will also be migrated.

Once you log into the site, that’s when the NEW will hit you — like the My Friends tab, or the Site Activity view.

We hope you’re as excited as we are about the possibilities the new platform will bring; we can’t wait until tomorrow morning when we open the doors to the new MyFDL.

One important note: If you are working on a post right now or have one in drafts, please publish it today before 8:00 p.m. EDT or save to your own computer. Any drafts will be lost during the migration to the new site. All previously published content will migrate, however.

Have any fond memories of The Seminal you’d like to share, or questions about the new MyFDL platform? Please share in comments.

UPDATE — 2:30 P.M. EDT – Fiddlesticks! As so often happens with really big technical projects, we found we need to push the roll-out back by 24 hours to Sunday morning. Please plan on a brief outage on Saturday evening and the new platform appearing on Sunday by mid-morning, if all goes according to the new plan.

New posts can be added to the site through 8:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday; any drafts not published by that time may be lost if not saved to your own computer. Thanks for your patience; MyFDL will be worth the wait!

[Photo: teachernz via Flickr]

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By Van Jones and Billy Wimsatt

We’ll give you the punch line first:

Voter guides are cheap and easy and they help win elections. The right-wing uses them better than we do. Luckily, there’s a new tool that compiles local progressive voter guides: www.TheBallot.org. Everyone should go to www.TheBallot.org right now. Find one, create one, then Facebook it, Blog it, and Tweet it like mad!

Please take two minutes right now and help us reach millions of 2008 Obama voters and inspire them to vote again in the next few days.

We feel real urgency because we’ve seen what the other side is producing.

It looks innocent enough at first.

A plain-looking one-page sheet entitled: Nevada Voter Guide For Christians (PDF).

So far, so good. . . .

There’s Democratic Senator Harry Reid, a good practicing Christian. We learn that he is: "Anti-Free Speech" "Pro-Homosexual" "Pro-Abortion" and the kicker: "Anti-Jesus."

Yep.

It’s all marked there in the little chart with a "Y" by his name.

His percentage score for "Faith Friendly?"

A big fat: 0%.

Then we look over at Nevada’s other Senator, Republican John Ensign, who during the summer was involved in a major sex scandal and was found to have inappropriately funneled money to his mistress.

Senator Ensign’s faith-friendly rating?

You guessed it: 100%.

According to these voter guides (which exist in all 50 states), the vast majority of Democrats in Congress are "Anti-Jesus" and have a "faith friendly" rating of zero. No matter that the majority are Christians and people of faith. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Republicans are similar to John Ensign: They get a perfect score.

The goal of this campaign, created by www.PrayInJesusName.org is to fax these voter guides to 120,000 churches, to be distributed among congregations during Sunday services.

Was this propaganda paid for by the GOP?

Part of Karl Rove’s multi-million dollar war chest?

Not as far as we can tell.

The voter guides state very clearly across the top: "This voter-guide is non-partisan, and neither endorses nor opposes any candidate for office. It simply reports the actual votes of Senate or Congressional incumbents, and lists their main (challengers). You should register to vote NOW to vote on November 2nd." The donation page for www.PrayInJesusName.org says: "Your donation to this ministry is tax-deductible under the IRS code."

The total budget for the entire campaign is only $36,250. They simply fax these one page voter guides to 120,000 churches and allow local congregations to distribute them.

As the website brags: "How many millions of dollars will be wasted on ads that don’t mobilize Christian voters? For just 29 cents, we can equip and mobilize an entire church of voters. For just $29, we can mobilize 100 churches. For just a few thousand dollars, we can wake the entire nation. We don’t need millions, just a few thousand dollars spent wisely, and SUDDENLY WE WIN."

Nevermind that this particular website and these voter guides appear to be in violation of IRS guidelines (someone should file a formal complaint). The larger point is that the right-wing has been using local voter guides for a long time. They’re incredibly effective, and they cost almost no money.

"That’s a really smart idea," you say. "Why aren’t we doing that?"

Well… we’re starting to. A new alliance of groups recently launched www.TheBallot.org to aggregate local progressive and non-partisan voter guides. More than 200 have been posted so far, from 42 states, and dozens of organizations. The best ones are personal voter guides created by local bloggers, political junkies, and informal groups that tell you in plain English (or Spanish or another language) the real deal on races and ballot measures all the way down the ballot to the School Board level.

Instead of wasting precious time getting offended by right-wing hypocrisy — or even worse, responding with offensive anti-Christian bigotry — please go check out www.TheBallot.org. Think of it like Wikipedia for progressive voter guides. The more people participate, the better it gets.

Is your town represented on www.TheBallot.org?

If YES, Blog it. Tweet it, Email it. Facebook it -go crazy.

If NOT, please forward this to your local political junkie and ask ‘em to make a voter guide so folks in your town know how to vote. Not just for Congress, but down ballot: Judges. County Clerks. Ballot questions. The stuff nobody knows.

The hidden benefit of local voter guides is that it actually makes people understand what’s on their ballot which makes them want to vote, and get their friends to vote –especially new voters: The Obama 2008 Generation.

There’s no time to waste! Get out there and do God’s work! Make a progressive voter guide today, or at least download one and spread the gospel.

Can we get an Amen?

This article was originally published on Huffington Post.

[Photo: Theresa Thompson via Flickr]

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Wolf Blitzer missed an opportunity to ask Valerie Jarrett why the president won’t end the investigations and discharges under his stop/loss authority as Commander-in-Chief now that Judge Virginia Phillips ruled DADT unconstitutional. He also let her elide his question about why the president doesn’t say it’s constitutional when she responded that he will end DADT in his term as presidnet.

It’s as if CNN newsanchors are about ten years behind on this issue, which probably suits Valerie Jarrett just fine.

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I don’t know this place; this state. Throughout the many dark nights of soul I’ve experienced, I never found that comfort or profound communication they describe. And yet I like to say prayers. The time spent in gratitude for my life, or mindful intentionality about my place and behavior in the universe can be nourishing, and requires no belief. It’s more an acknowledgement that it feels good to be part of something larger, to be connected, even if it’s just to all the best thought-energy sailing around in my local branch of the universe. You know; a hippie version of spirituality. What I mean to say is: Whether or not I believe in God isn’t a problem for me.

Last week I watched God on my teevee. Well, okay; it was part of a PBS series called God in America, which said America is the most religious nation on earth. Yeah; I blinked, too. I’d think if such a huge majority of us believe in God, and call ourselves religious, we’d be a hell of a lot kinder to one another, and hold better values. I guess it doesn’t work that way.  . . .

When the MLK portion of American religious history highlighted MLK, I paid closer attention. I do love the man, and his speeches; his vision of a Better America. I love hearing his anti-Viet Nam War rhetoric, and his concepts of love and justice and true brotherhood among all humans, and how that needs to inform our politics. His story, of course, is not my story. But often when I hear him speak: his story makes me believe in God while I listen. In one speech he told about a night that one particular “Nigger, get out of town, or I will shoot you dead, and bomb your house” phone call brought his body and his soul to their respective knees. He considered leaving town, then heard God’s voice inside him telling him to keep up his righteous fight, and claiming he would never leave him.

This is an excerpt from his final speech to sanitation workers at Mason Temple in Memphis:

Some people say that he went off-script here, that The Voice of God came channeling right through him. And I can believe it while I’m watching or listening. He knew right then that he would be dead soon, and he was letting us know that it was all right. As it turned out, the following day he would be shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel, exactly a year after his Why I am opposed to the war in Viet Nam speech. The man’s story knocks me out. Listen to some things he said about war

Are we living his prophecy concerning American arrogance in his anti-Viet Nam War speech?

"I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don’t let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, "You’re too arrogant! And if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I’ll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God."

More from the April 4, 1967 speech:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.

[break]

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…" We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Off’ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ’tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

……………………………………………………
As we begin to consider advocating for principles that seem lost in the Democratic Party, and America as a whole, I’d like us all to consider how the Social Gospel of the ‘50s and ‘60s was embodied by Dr. King. And if you’re not a believer, at least try to suspend your disbelief for even short times in order to wonder if his visions and admonitions might not have been inspired by God. We can easily pose other theories of his revelations, but in this case Occam’s Razor theory seems easiest: believe that King knew, or believed, from whence the voice came.

And at least while you listen to MLK, then consider a new political statement or manifest that encompasses better lives for all Americans, and all people of the world, pencil into your mind that God may exist, and that people like King may be evidence for it. And since it’s only written in your mind in pencil…it can fade again, but the messages he gave us can remain. We shouldn’t be embarrassed to espouse them. For too long now, the Democratic Party has been trying to couch beneficial policy in economic enlightened self-interest concepts; it’s not working, and it misses the point.

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Whitman has run 80,000 TV ads to promote her conservative version of a future for California. That one video above is fighting against the, at least, $60 million Whitman has spent buying up airtime and producing commercials for herself.

What else has Whitman spent her money on in this race? Here are some recent calculations. On staff and spouse travel, lodging and meals: $2,643,529. Fundraising events: $1,028,538. On campaign consultants: $11,085,653. On print ads: $4,247,724. On polling and survey research: $1,254,627.

In all of this tossing of money around like life is a game of Monopoly, Whitman’s true goal is an attempt to buy democracy. She’s acting on a belief that if she throws enough of her own wealth out to woe voters, she can buy their votes. As if California is up for auction and the deciding factor of who wins is who bids enough.

California is not for sale. Please share this blog and the above video with other Californians who cannot be bought.

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According to the Washington Independent, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is angry.

As a ruling is set to be handed down today, by a U.S. District Court, on a lawsuit brought by the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), regarding whether or not the Ohio law barring false claims in election advertising is constitutional, pro-and anti-choice groups are getting prepared.

The non-partisan, social justice group Catholics United which opposes SBA List’s efforts held a press call today to discuss the lawsuit and SBA List’s recent embroilment with the Ohio Elections Commission over what the commission ruled was false advertising.  NRLC’s Legislative Director Douglas Johnson "crashed" the call and, according to Washington Independent, angrily interrupted the discussion claiming that he did not think SBA List’s advertising was untrue and that, in fact, he said as much in a sworn statement.  . . .

SBA List is targeting certain anti-choice candidates who supported health care reform, claiming they voted for "taxpayer funded abortion" by doing so. In Ohio, they paid for a billboard targeting Rep. Steve Driehaus stating, "Shame on Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted FOR Taxpayer Funded Abortion!" Driehaus complained to the OEC, which ruled that the claim was in fact false and ordered the group to take the billboard down.This ruling is what sparred SBA List to bring a lawsuit, seeking to overturn the state’s "false statement" in political advertising law.

In fact SBA List has been targeting both anti-and pro-choice candidates around the country using print mailers, and radio and television ads to relay the same message about health care reform’s inclusion of what they say is a measure to allow "taxpayer funded abortion."

In response to the Ohio ruling and the subsequent lawsuit, the national group, Catholics United, joined 36 Cincinnati-area faith leaders, including 11 nuns, in an open call to SBA List. Read more

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