It's a good day when

you can do something nice to help someone who you will never meet.

I first heard about KIVA (see link on left side of this page) on a program on LINK TV. It is a program to enable people like Patti and I to make small loans to people who have or want to start a small business in their community. I recommend you check it out. So far we have "invested" only $25 but that's $25 more than we have ever invested in something like this before. Our money is going to a mother of six children who has a clothing shop in Benin City, Nigeria. She is borrowing $500 to buy more clothing to seel. Including our measly $25, she only needs $50 more to fulfill her loan. I know she will get it and we thank God we can help her in our small way.

It is our goal to raise our total investment "portfolio" to $100, which means we will make at least three more $25 "loans." The as loans are repaid we will always reinvest. What a great program. Please check it out!

It's not my job... (but it is)

"I may criticize a carpenter who makes me a bad table, though I cannot make a table myself. It is not my job to make tables."
Dr. Samuel Johnson, 18th century English author and philosopher

Who am I to argue with an 18th century philospher?

I don't remember the first time I heard someone say "it's not my job," (and I may have even said it myself at one time or another) but it's always bugged me. Especially when it's used as an excuse to escape responsibility. The latest version of this comes from the "esteemed" power people in the Bush administration. Rumsfeld and Gonzales are two good examples but Boy george himself is the prime culprit. He so often and so easily talks of being "responsible" for the actions of his people but at the same time never accepts any responsibility. In Dr. Johnson's terms it's as though Boy george's job is to make tables but he thinks he's only "buying" them. Of course Boy george was never responsible for "making" anything (including a profit at two oil companies he headed) before he was handed the presidency (and he was able to "buy" anything he wanted) so why would anyone think he would change once he had moved into the oval office?

According to Boy george, who likes being known as the "Commander-in-Chief," it's his job to start wars but it's not his job to end them. He is not responsible for any of the hundreds of thousand, millions, of lives lost and suffering because of the way he has done his job. He is just buying a war that other people are paying for. Which makes sense, what he used to get with his daddy's money, he now get's with (future) taxpayers money. (we should call this our first credit card war.)

And like more and more Americans, bankruptcy is closing in on our democracy. But of course, I can always say it's not my job to save democracy. But I can't if I have a conscience and I believe in justice and I want peace in our world.

It's time to stop this god damned war! (and it's my job to work for it!)

"I understand..." (I don't have a clue)

"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2006

I wonder if anyone has ever counted how many times George Bush has used the term "I understand" in response to questions posed by news media? If you listen and watch closely it most always means he doesn't have a clue. It really means he doesn't believe or accept the premise of whatever the question happens to be about. That means he has to use the phrase repeatedly.
In the context of the statement quoted above, GB doesn't have a clue how "tough" it is. He may, on a rare occasion or in the midst of a photo op "talk" to someone who really knows "how tough it is" but he certainly doesn't listen to them. He's too busy thinking about himself to be able to hear anything else.

They have a word for GB's dumb statements, thay call them "Bushisms." You can find them updated and archived at http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm
They show how GB's mind works, or doesn't work. More importantly I believe they show how dangerous it is to put a person of his lack of intelect and thought in a position where he has so much power. They show why we have good reason to be mad as hell.
It's time to end this god damned war!