Advent Conspiracy

the advent of Advent is near

2 weeks from Sunday -

check out "The Advent Conspiracy"

I love this movement to make our celebration of the Incarnation more meaningful and just more about what Christmas is really about... through these commitments, to:
Worship Fully
Spend Less
Give More
Love All

to "Give Presence"

Christmas can [still] change the world

I will not fear

I've been carrying around the following for several years, looked at it again today, still a good word: "I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. "But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face the perils alone." (Thomas Merton)

$3 billion

Ralph Nader commenting on the approximately 3 billion dollars spent on campaign ads this past election cycle:

the public airways, as we know, belong to the people, and they’re the landlords, and the radio and TV stations are the licensees. They’re the tenants, so to speak. They pay no money to the FCC for their annual license. And therefore, it’s really quite persuasive, were we to have a public policy to condition modestly the license to this enormously lucrative control of the public airways twenty-four hours a day by these TV and radio stations and say, as part of the reciprocity for controlling this commons, so to speak, you have to allow certain amount of time, free time, on radio and TV for ballot-qualified candidates. I supported this and talked about this in my presidential campaigns over the years. And third party candidates are doing that. But today, as you say, the money coming into the radio and TV stations, Amy, are so massive they completely overwhelm the profits from soap and toothpaste and hot dogs and cars, and the elections have become a commodity, a profit center for these radio and TV stations.

(Democracy Now, Nov. 2, 2010)