Worth Your Reading

Finally, a main stream press article that tells it like it is! To read it, click on the link below:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

DOWN WITH “TRICKLE DOWN” ECONOMICS!

The G. O. P. is adamantly bent
on favoring the wealthy one percent.
Their “trickle down” approach has never worked,
and that's why most economists are irked,
especially those who care about the poor,
whose numbers are increasing more and more.

CHRONIC GEOPESE*

Our congress has been crippled by a serious disease
that paralyzes government, called chronic geopese.
Those afflicted with this ailment, as their symptoms indicate,
when it's time to be constructive never will cooperate.
If the President is for it, they're against it from the go;
so on every new proposal they have always voted "No!"
Yes, the congress has been hamstrung by the chronic geopese,
and no one has found a cure for this crippling disease.

*pronounced jee-oh-pees; G.O.Ps, for short

A WAKE-UP CALL TO YOUNG VOTERS

How can any thinking persons who are under twenty-six
vote for someone who has vowed their health insurance will be nix?
“The first day I’m in office I’ll repeal the Health Care Act,”
says presidential candidate Mitt Romney. That’s a fact!

 The G.O.P.controlled House voted to extend today
 the lower interest rate on college loans that students pay,
 The problem is they passed the bill with customary stealth,
 by paying for the program out of funds for women's health,
 i.e., preventive care provided in the Health Care Act ---
 another sortie in the War on Women. That's a fact!
 How can younger voters with a sense of right and wrong approve
 of a Party that would pass a bill with such a sneaky move?


Of course, these issues are reflective of the disregard
the G.O.P. has for poor, who would be hit real hard,
as would be, too, the middle class, by their tax policies
that favor the rich one percent and big bucks companies.

There’s just as much at stake in this election, even more,
for younger voters as there was four years ago, for sure.

                                                                            R.S.A.

THE WAR ON WOMEN

 
The G.O.P.’s continued war on women’s right to choose
remains a most disturbing issue in the daily news.
The mandatory ultra sound required by some States’ laws
has rallied the support of men and women to the cause.

Nor can Republicans deny what is a well-known fact,
      that almost every one of them opposed the Fair Pay Act!
And now they justify their vote by claiming it's not true
      that men for equal work still earn far more than women do.

We’re told that ninety-eight percent of women use the pill
or something else for birth control. They think they always will.
They may wake up some day and find this long-held right is gone!
One wonders how some women cannot see what’s going on.
                                                                                               R.S.A.

And that's only part of the story. Click on http://pol.moveon.org/waronwomen/

THE ETCH A SKETCH CANDIDATE

Now that he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Romney is living up to his Etch a Sketch reputation. His incredible flip-flopping is bad enough. What is even more reprehensible is the way he and his supporters deny that he ever said the things he has been taped and is on record as saying. If we can't trust anything he says now, how could we trust anything he says as President? It's a scary thought!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

More food for thought from If I Do Say So Myself, CSS Publishing Co.

      BUT HOW MANY DO?

Here's the clue to great persuasion:

    Have a sense of the occasion.

 

         IN DEFENSE OF NIGHT PERSONS

We put in just as long a day as early risers do.

     

      The hours that we spend in bed are relatively few.

If early in the morning we are not a perky pup,

      It's just because we go to bed when some are getting up.

AN INSPIRING ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT

After listening to President Obama's sincerely felt address at the Holocaust Museum in Washington this morning, I am tempted to comment on the stark contrast between his beautifully sensitive, thoughtfully worded, and politically balanced style and that of his front-running Republican rival, whose negative rhetoric is anything but inspiring. I found the President's remarks to be powerfully moving. I'm sure I won't be able to reconcile what I heard with the distorted misrepresentations of his critics, who twist and attack everything the President says.

LITTERBUGS

Continuing the pollution theme, I have a thing about "litterbugs." They are the most inconsiderate and habitual polluters of our environment. I trust some of you home owners can identify with this poem from my collection entitled If I Do Say So Myself (CSS Publishing Company). It is a take-off on a familiar line from a poem by Sam Walter Foss. At the same time, on behalf of all us who care about our environment, I'd like to express our deep gratitude to all those caring folks across the nation who have participated in the Adopt-a-Highway program. They are dedicated to keeping America beautiful!


              STAY PUT, MR. FOSS!

"Let me live in a house by the side of the road
and be a friend to man."
With all due respect to old Sam Walter Foss,
I don't know how anyone can!
It's not just his language to which I object.
Inclusive or not, it's the thought.
I have a suspicion the poet elect,
if it had been my house that he bought,
would find himself surely agreeing with me,
before a few days had gone by.
For all of the trash that is dumped on our lawn
would make any home owner cry.
From beer cans and bottles to Styrofoam cups,
old clothing and cigarette butts,
scrap metal and garbage and furniture, too,
and even dead cats and dead mutts.
How can I befriend all those mean litterbugs
whizzing by in their cars and their trucks?
Their thoughtless pollution deserves only wrath
---and a fine of a few hundred bucks!
So take my advice and ignore Mr. Foss,
      though he was a remarkable man.
If he moved to a house by the side of the road,
he would need a much bigger trash can!

VIOLENCE

Violence is a violation of the stewardship of life. The so-called "stand your ground" laws that many States have passed are reflective of the violent culture of our times. Here's another poem from If I Do Say So Myself (CSS Publishing Co.):

  
                          A VIOLENT WORLD


The violence surrounding us is frightening to see---
the child abuse, and spouse abuse, police brutality.
It’s on our streets and in our homes, it’s on the movie screens.
It punctuates the language of adults as well as teens.
It fills the daily papers and it dominates the news.
It saturates the television programs people choose.
It’s how some people root for teams, and how they drive a car,
and how they flaunt the litter laws, no matter where they are.
It’s their abuse of others’ rights, their treatment of the poor.
It’s what they do in their aggressive grabs for more and more.
It’s gross neglect of neighborhoods where poverty abounds,
it’s water, air, and land misuse, offensive sights and sounds.
It’s acts of terrorism that do not seem to abate.
It’s ethnic cleansing, racial hatred, bigotry, and hate.
It’s what some do to animals and their environment.
It’s corporate crime, the mafia, and sleazy government.
It’s slaughtering endangered species ‘til they are all gone.
It’s all of this and much, much more ---one could go on and on.
As violence breeds violence, we’ll pay the price, because
the whole world is the victim when a few transgress God’s laws.
How much worse, then, the consequence of violence and strife,
when for so many it has now become a way of life.

POLLUTION

I have long been concerned about pollution and its harmful effects, about the growing number of endangered species, and about the abuse, misuse, and waste of the earth's natural resources. About forty years ago I expressed that concern in a poem, which was inspired by something the prophet Isaiah wrote nearly two thousand years ago: The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant (Isaiah 24:5).Although what Isaiah meant by pollution and what we mean by it are not the same, if Isaiah were alive today, he would have plenty to say about pollution!

THE POLLUTED PLANET

Isaiah's words of long ago are relevant today,
prophetic to an ominous degree:
Polluted lies the planet Earth, as its inhabitants
are poisoning the air, the land, the sea.

The toxic wastes, the urban blight, the suffocating smog,
are symptoms and the causes of disease.
for human beings choke beneath pollution's brownish pall,
which also threatens birds and beasts and trees.

God gave humanity dominion over all the world,
which God created beautiful and good.
But we have squandered and misused the riches of the earth,
instead of being stewards, as we should.

The ruthlessness of power and the arrogance of wealth
  have dulled the human heart to human need.
So millions live in poverty and die from lack of food,
the victims of our apathy and greed.

God's statutes have been broken and God's laws have been transgressed,
and surely we shall suffer for our sin.
The madness of a race to arms of nuclear design
was leading to a war no one could win.

What senseless folly drives us down this self-destructive course?
How can we dare ignore our sacred trust
from God, to tend the universe and care for all of life?
By God's grace that we can do ---and we must!

(This poem is included in my third volume of poetry,
entitled IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF, CSS Publishing Co.)

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICS

I have been following presidential politics since FDR ran for a fourth term. I was in the Navy then, and loyal to my Commander-in-Chief. I was one who did not want us to “change horses in mid-stream.”

I’ve always considered myself an Independent, and as an ordained minister I registered as an Independent, because I wanted to be able to address the issues in the pulpit from a Christian perspective, when they impacted our moral and spiritual life as individuals and as a nation, without being accused of being partisan. I have always voted for the person not the Party.

Although I hadn’t voted for him in 1968, I voted for Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972, because I believed his ambition to leave a legacy would make him an effective second-term President. His trip to China and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China was a good start. But then we learned about Watergate!

In recent years I have been registered as a Democrat, primarily because the Democratic platform consistently matches more closely my personal convictions and principles. Anyone who has ever read the Bible knows that God is on the side of the poor, and that’s where I want to be as well.

People of good conscience often disagree in their interpretation of principles. The extent, for example, to which the laissez-faire doctrine is applied to the government’s involvement in the economic enterprise is a matter of continual debate.

To cite another example, there was considerable disagreement regarding the application of the Second Amendment¹ to justify the right of private citizens to own handguns, until the Supreme Court in 2008 settled the matter in a landmark 5 to 4 decision ( District of Columbia v. Heller), ruling that Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to own firearms for lawful purposes, including self-protection in their own homes. The N. R. A., of course, was elated that the conservative Justices on the Court had prevailed. Many private citizens, however, myself included, were dismayed. And our fears have been realized by the increase in deaths involving handguns, a trend that has been alarmingly spiked by the so-called “stand your ground” laws that some states have enacted.

COMMON GROUND

God is a faith assumption.  I can't prove God is there;
but if I didn't have faith, life would be hard to bear.
I cannot prove to others what I believe is true;
but those who say there's no God have their assumptions, too.
I wish all nonbelievers could understand that fact.
Then maybe they would state their polemics with more tact.
Whatever our beliefs are, we can share faith, I've found.
Confessing our assumptions, we stand on common ground.
Then dialogue can take place, if people really care
and listen to each other.  Their faith they then can share..

(from Now, That's a Miracle!)

ROLLER COASTER RIDE

Faith is a roller coaster ride for clergy, clerks, or clowns.
The best disciples, old and new, have had their ups and downs.
The psalmists and the prophets had their moments of despair,
and even Jesus, on the cross, had doubts that God was there.

When faith is riding on the ridge, it shows in word and deed,
for mountains move if faith is but a grain of mustard seed.
It's not that we make miracles by willing to believe;
faith's not a work but God's free gift that we by grace receive.

That thought should keep us humble, when we're feeling strong and tall.
The higher up the heights we climb, the farther we can fall!
As autumn leads to winter's snows and nighttime follows day,
faith does not always sail the crest nor on the summit stay,

but sometimes plummets down the steeps with such breathtaking speed,
that roller coaster riders should this warning hear and heed.
Yet when the coaster car is at the bottom of the slope,
the peaks of faith loom large and give new impetus to hope.

Then we recall those moments when our faith in God was sure,
confirmed by truth, sustained by love, we find we can endure
the ups and downs of faith.  Indeed, we now can even say
without the lows there'd be no highs, without the night no day.

The ride is always risky, even scary, you'll agree,
but if we stay inside the car of faith, we're safe.  You see,
the roller coaster Maker is the one who takes the toll.
The car won't ever leave the tracks, if God is in control.

So re the roller coaster ride I'll take my own advice
and hang on tight until the end, no matter what the price.
For when the ride is over and the ups and downs are through,
I hope to be with God ---and all the other riders, too!

To order go to http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Stoll-Armstrong/e/B001HO6VBU; http://www.csspub.com

FOR STARTERS

Here’s a  question worth pondering:

Why can't preachers, who are mortal,
     when they speak of things infernal,
know that words to be immortal
     do not have to be eternal?

Here's another:

If prayer is essential
     in tough times like these,
why aren't more clergy trousers
     worn out at the knees?

And another:

Is it writ into law? Has there been a decree?
     Has it been canonized in a song?
How did so many church members come to agree
     that a service is one hour long?


(from ENOUGH, ALREADY!
    And Other Church Rhymes)

To order go to either of these links or your local book store:

http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Stoll-Armstrong/e/B001HO6VBU; http://www.csspub.com/