Category Archives: America

Super Bowl Halftime

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It’s halftime. It’s a FOOTBALL FIELD. Football players play on this field. Except at halftime when the field becomes a hug stage – a plastic-wood-steel or something stage rolled out to the middle of the field. That can’t be good for the grass.

On the grass itself are marching bands, Beyonce and 40 other women with boots bouncing around on the football player’s field.

This can’t be good for the guys in the locker room, wondering which hole they might step into in the second half.

Has the NFL Players Union asked for an end to this? Has the union stood up for the players’ safety? Nope. It’s about money, not concussions, hips, or legs – except for Beyonce’s.

I confess. I love football. I know I shouldn’t. But I do. I don’t like concussions. I don’t like halftimes. But I still like a great play. Great plays take place in the first and second halves. I regret that halftime entertainment makes the second half less safe than the first.

  • Just a thought from an as yet unrepentant football fan waiting for the second half in 2016. Go Payton. Finish the game without injury. Then run for your life from the NFL! Gordon C. Stewart, Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Babe Ruth and the American Dream

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Beer_mug_transparent“Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams.

“If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, ‘It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'”

Regarded as “incorrigible at the age of seven (7), George was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage of the Christian Brothers. 

Brother Matthias Boutlier, a disciplinarian and fine baseball player, taught him baseball and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

“If I didn’t drink this beer….”

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 6, 2016.

Last Night’s Iowa Caucus Results

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What a difference a year makes. Last night, Senator Bernie Sanders virtually tied Secretary Hillary Clinton in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. In April 2015 a Views from the Edge post began:

Ted Cruz, Ron Paul, Marco Rubio, and Hillary Clinton are taking their places in the starting gates for the horse race to the White House in 2016. Smiles and frowns all around, emails asking “Are you IN?“ with requests for money from the partisan Yea-Sayers and Nay-Sayers. But the fact is that every horse they ride – conservative and liberal – is owned by Wall Street.

I’m not “IN” until a candidate rides a different horse into the starting gate. Until someone acts and sounds like Floyd B. Olson….

“I am not a liberal. I am what I want to be — a radical,” said Governor Olson to the 1934 Farmer-Labor party convention. A radical is not an ideologue. It’s a person who insists on going to the root of things. Olson was the nemesis of Wall Street, a champion of the people.

Most Americans have never heard of Floyd B. Olson, the popular Minnesota Governor regarded at the time as President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s successor before his untimely death. The Views from the Edge piece concluded:

“If and when someone like Floyd B. Olson rides a different horse into the starting gate for the 2016 White House horse race, I’ll be IN with both feet. Until then, I’m not IN.

That was before Bernie Sanders came on the scene.

Last night’s Iowa Democratic Caucuses resulted in a dead heat between Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders. Unlike all other candidates, Senator Sanders is not funded by Wall Street. He’s supported by over 3,000,000 small donations by people drawn to his clear message, unwavering consistency on the issues, integrity, courage, and a populism like that of Floyd B. Olson.

In Minnesota many people ask, “What would Wellstone do?” referring to Sen. Paul Wellstone who demonstrated the same straight-talking as Floyd B. Olson, and who, like his progressive predecessor, died too early to run for President.

What would Wellstone do? What would Floyd B. Olson do? Ask Bernie Sanders.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 2, 2016

“The time has came….”

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We just tuned in to the Iowa Caucuses. The GOP caucus is airing from Boone County, IA.

The first words from the Chair?

“The time has came!”

NEXT!

Making the nation great again?

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Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_037

Prisoners exercising in the Yard – Vincent Van Gogh

Might Vincent Van Gogh’s painting of the Prisoners Exercising have been inspired by conflicting biblical texts, like the ones read in many churches two Sundays ago?

The reading from the Book of Nehemiah tells the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

In the absence of leadership, the people’s confidence – their sense of national destiny – has been shaken. The citizens have intermarried. They’ve welcomed and married foreigners. Now Jerusalem’s exiled leaders have returned to restore the nation’s religious identity, to rebuild a nation that has lost its way. Ezra, the priest, and Nehemiah, the governor, are rallying the people to make the nation great again.

Sound familiar?

Jesus, Ezra, and Nehemiah shared a common faith. They were children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their lives were rooted in Torah. Each interpreted Scripture in his own time, according to his own lights. Ezra and Nehemiah re-built the wall. Jesus doesn’t like walls.

Jesus returns to his home town synagogue in Nazareth. He opens the scroll to the Book of Isaiah, and selects the reading announcing good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed.

There is nothing about building walls. Nothing about isolation. Nothing about privilege. Nothing about rebuilding the nation. Nothing about the nation at all. Nothing about building the walls of a self-imposed penitentiary.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. – Luke 4: 16-18

No more prison. No more wall. No more other! Every Other is a BrOther. Otherwise, we’re all exercising in the prison yard.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Jan. 31, 2016

Elizabeth Warren Speaks

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As presidential candidates scramble to win Iowa, Senator Elizabeth Warren, in this opinion piece in the New York Times, reminds voters why the choice is so important.

Click “For whom does the government work? Presidents decide.”

Protected and Secured?

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You receive a mailing. Snail mail. Addressed to you. It looks official.

The upper left hand corner reads:

PROTECTED AND SECURED
PER CURIUM DOCUMENT ENCLOSED
RECEIPT MUST BE AUTHENTICATED

You open the envelope. The letterhead – with a picture of the U.S. Capitol dome – reads:

United States
Investigative Unit

OMG, you’re being investigated by the United States Federal Government!

You’re 80 years old and scared. You call a friend who knows something about the law. The friend is not scared. He looks at the bottom of the stationery which reads in small light colored font:

 

Project of Policy Issues Institute. Not affiliated with the federal government
5405 Alton Pkwy, Suite 5A #369 Irvine CA 92604
http://www.policyissuesinstitute.com (202) 558-6491

The enclosed letter and URGENT RESPONSE form asking for money “to support the fight to impeach Barack Obama” is to be returned to a different address:

UNITED STATES INVESTIGATIVE UNIT, a
Project of PII, P.O. Box 96444,
Washington, D.C. 20090-6444

Your friend assures you this is a hoax. He does a google search. He finds a blog that exposes the details of the work of the Policy Issues Institute.

To be PROTECTED AND SECURED against the United States Investigative Unit, click Drowning in Junk Mail – How to Opt-out of Junk Mail from Policy Issues Institute (PII) and to learn more about the meaning of sinister.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Jan. 29, 2016

 

 

 

 

Mr. Bluster and Mr. Trump

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Those who grew up on the Howdy Doody Show will recognize that Mr. Bluster is at it again tonight in DesMoines, Iowa. The only things missing are Buffalo Bob and FOX.

The Story of Ed

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Click The End of Exile to read the story of Ed, the beloved Jewish atheist communist in the assisted living facility. The story is memorable, especially for those losing their memories.

Quote Me: More than Words

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“The characteristic place to find Christians is among their enemies. The first place to look for Christ is in Hell.” – William Stringfellow (1928–1985), author, My People Is the Enemy.

WIPFSTOCK_TemplateThese aren’t just words. After Harvard Law School, Constitutional attorney Bill Stringfellow moved into an East Harlem tenement apartment on the block the New York Times then called the “worst” in the city, turning down lucrative NYC corporate law firm job offers. The first of his many books, My People Is the Enemy – a theological reflection on racism and poverty in America- opens with an unusual sentence:

“The stairway smelled of piss.”

All these years later, Stringfellow’s words sound strange to many Christians and non-Christians alike who see the Christian life as the search for moral purity and the climb into a Hell-free afterlife. You want to meet Christ? According to the author of An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, Christ will meet you from among your enemies and in the Hell of human suffering racism and wealth create.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 27, 2016