Category Archives: government, law, and politics

Memorial Day

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Don’t Cheer

Don’t cheer, damn you! Don’t cheer!
Silence! Your bitterest tear
Is fulsomely sweet to-day. . . .
Down on your knees and pray.

See, they sing as they go,
Marching row upon row.
Who will be spared to return,
Sombre and starkly stern?
Chaps whom we knew – s0 strange,
Distant and dark with change;
Silent as those they slew,
Something in them dead too.
Who will return this way,
To sing as they sing to-day.

Send to the glut of the guns
Bravest and best of you sons.
Hurl a million to slaughter,
Blood flowing like Thames water;
Pile up pyramid high
Your dead to the anguished sky;
A monument down all time
Of hate and horror and crime.
Weep, rage, pity, curse, fear –
Anything, but . . . don’t cheer.

Sow to the ploughing guns
Seed of your splendid sons.
Let your heroic slain
Richly manure the plain.
What will the harvest be?
Unborn of Unborn will see. . . .

Dark is the sky and drear. . . .
For the pity of God don’t cheer.
Dark and dread is their way.
Who sing as they march to-day. . . .
Humble your hearts and pray.

– Robert Service

Religious Liberals?

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Interesting article from WaPo, but with one gaping hole, it fails to define religious liberal. Perhaps it is too broad a term for the authors to have gotten their arms around it just yet. I’m posting here because I honestly don’t know what the term implies. I don’t remember ever hearing it before. My educated guess is that a religious liberal would tend to be:

  • fiscally liberal
  • against the death penalty
  • dovish on the military and foreign policy
  • pro immigration
  • community service oriented 
  • environmentally conscious.

Anyone care to add to or refute this list?

They’re Coming to America

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I feel the need to write a political post, for a change. I've been observing the recent debate over immigration, and it's got me thinking. The part of the debate I dislike the most is the idea of a guest worker program. First of all, this system is in place in Germany (you know, one of those evil European powers that didn't support the war), but doesn't work that well. In Germany there is a sizable Turkish population (Turkish, but not born in Turkey), but the Turks stay low income and separated. In some parts of Europe this ghettoesque set up is fueling the terrorist cells. It doesn't work in Germany, but that's not what makes me cringe at the idea of an American guest worker program.

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Cleaning House

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[cleansweep.jpg]Go, PACleanSweep, go!

Pay raise backlash ousts top legislators
GOP’s Jubelirer, Brightbill lose; 10 incumbents in House out

"Two of the top legislative leaders in Harrisburg yesterday lost their party’s nominations for re-election, victims of voter anger over last summer’s aborted legislative pay raises."

[…]

"Across the state, at least 10 incumbent House members lost their party nominations, so they already know they will lose their jobs. Others face additional challenges in the general election in November."

Your Civic Duty ‘n’at

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Today are the Primary Elections for Pennsylvania. While the real fireworks won’t be till the General Election, we can still send a message to the fat cats in Harrisburg. You can always vote for Mickey Mouse or, better yet, Jack Bauer!

Alas, alack. While turnouts are low for local and state elections, making individual votes have higher impact, most people don’t know what their local politicians are like. Fear not.

The Post-Gazette has a How They Voted guide, showing how senators and reps voted for the gambling and pay raise bils. You can print it out and take it with you to the polls if you aren’t sure who’s your rep or senator. Operation Clean Sweep and LifePAC also have information you find handy.