“Family Values” have everything to do with social norms, and the idea that those who are generally scared of change or modernization will tend to clamp down and try to make a values based argument for their views. Family Values is nothing more than a marketing term, as it leaves out happy and positive non-traditional (single parent, same sex parent, happily single, non-theists, non-christian). Continue Reading →
A preview – Evening Service (Magnificat)
I haven’t finished the Nunc Dimittis, but wanted to post a finale MIDI preview of the Evening Service-Magnificat that I have been working on.
The Long Lens View of the Obama Presidency
Vice President Joe Biden predicted last night that the 2012 campaign will be about “strength and leadership,” and declared that the killing of Osama bin Laden had caused the American people to take a “second look” at the Obama administration.
“We have a leader with a backbone like a ramrod and now – now – the real Barack Obama, the president who inherited the most god-awful circumstance any president has inherited, is coming into sharp focus,” Biden told New Hampshire Democrats, calling the Bin Laden operation “the boldest decision … any president has undertaken on a single event in modern history.” Biden argued that the death of the terrorist leader had caused Americans to see even unpopular decisions, such as bailing out the banks, with “a longer lens, more perspective … People are now beginning to take a second look at those incredibly difficult, but absolutely necessary decisions the president had to make the day we walked into the West Wing.”
So true, So true.
“What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party?
I’ll tell you what they did.
- Liberals got women the right to vote.
- Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.
- Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty.
- Liberals ended segregation.
- Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
- Liberals created Medicare.
- Liberals passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
What did Conservatives do?
They opposed them on every one of those things, every one.
So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.”
- Matthew Santos (candidate from The West Wing). It is a quote from TV, but it is so damn on point it needs to be repeated here.