I read with some surprise (or maybe I shouldn’t have been) that Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani in his bid for the Republican nomination. Remember we haven’t even had a primary or caucus yet!
He says (and I’m not quoting here) that he feels even though we disagree on social issues, Rudy’s the right man for this time – mostly because of our world-wide situation; as if that trumps everything domestic.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned about things in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Myanmar, etc. but I don’t think we can set aside our major, and I mean really major differences.
If I’m going to do that, and I mean say that ‘OK for America, things like abortion don’t matter’, then I have no reason to stick with the Republican party.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I could vote for Hillary if she came and had dinner with me and asked me to vote for her. But I also think some probably really good ideas get tossed just because they come from the Democratic side of the aisle.
All I’m saying is if we can (and I don’t think we should) dismiss so-called “social issues” as not being reasons to select or reject a candidate, then we have to be open to consider ALL the other reasons. And I don’t even know what they are at this point; I’m just making a general point.
This sort of goes back to my blog of last month or so about guessing that the final result of this will likely be a 3rd party run by a conservative candidate. I didn’t expect this to happen until AFTER the Jan/Feb run of primaries in 2008.
Now here’s another prediction: Rudy will start talking with Mike Huckabee to get him to be his running mate. He’ll use that to satiate those for whom Robertson’s endorsement isn’t enough. ‘See’, he’ll say, ‘I believe that conservatives should have a voice, so I’ll put one of your own in the VEEP slot’. This helps him in the south, helps in all the Red States and with the Christian Right so they can maybe stomach a vote for Rudy (given the alternative is either a vote for Hillary OR for a 3rd party person which might as well be another vote for Hillary).
I used to work for Mr. Robertson and always found him to be an extremely bright person even though I didn’t always agree with him. I have no idea what his agenda is in this endorsement but it is bound to have some far-reaching and perhaps unintended consequences.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
How can they think that?
I am not smart enough to enter the argument against evolution. I know what I believe but am not a particularly good apologist.
So I won’t begin to debate in this lowly place whether we descended from amoebas, apes or Adam. (I love it when you can get three things together like that!)
Without sounding heretical, let’s just assume for sake of this post, that you do believe in evolution. You accept the scientific theories as fact that somewhere in our past, lie our genetic ancestors who may or may not have walked on two legs and had opposable thumbs. Just assume that and not worry about who your great-great-great-grandparent to the 100th power might have been. Just assume it was not someone who looked like you or me.
Along with this theory you now accept as truth, usually comes a disdain for any sort of belief in a Creator or intelligent being that put all this thing we call our universe, in place.
This belief or lack thereof may actually come in reverse; i.e. you choose not to believe in any sort of God with a capital “G” and then what follows is usually acceptance of other theories etc. that have as an almost pre-requisite, a dis-belief in that sort of spiritual or religious thing.
Still with me?
But something troubles you. You accept evolution and the theories of the origin of species and how the earth and the universe came into being. You might accept or espouse the so-called “big bang” theory that some sort of cosmic explosion happened billions of uncountable billions of years ago and the earth and our neighbors, near and far, landed in this thing we call space. Again I won’t try to defend or explain the big bang and its corollaries.
But something still troubles you. Who started the big bang? Who lit the fuse? Who for that matter made the fuse to light?
I read something yesterday in someone else’s blog (and sorry I can’t give credit because I don’t recall where it came from) but it went like this: “We're on a planet that is spinning at 1000 mph around its axis and traveling 66,600 mph through space. We'll travel 1.3 million miles today in our annual trek around the sun."
Even if I could assume some of the aforementioned theories are plausible, I’d still be wondering who figured all this out? Who knew that the earth had to spin exactly 1000 mph? Who knew just how much speed would be needed to counteract the effect of the gravity put in place inside our planet?
I guess my long awaited point here is that if you can somehow get this far and not see that all the beauty and complexity we live amongst – regardless of how you feel we arrived at this point – and not wonder if there wasn’t/couldn’t be someone out there who thought all this up and put it in place – well then I don’t think I can help you.
But if you can accept that there is something out there bigger than all of us and it just might be called God, then we can work on that evolution thing later.
So I won’t begin to debate in this lowly place whether we descended from amoebas, apes or Adam. (I love it when you can get three things together like that!)
Without sounding heretical, let’s just assume for sake of this post, that you do believe in evolution. You accept the scientific theories as fact that somewhere in our past, lie our genetic ancestors who may or may not have walked on two legs and had opposable thumbs. Just assume that and not worry about who your great-great-great-grandparent to the 100th power might have been. Just assume it was not someone who looked like you or me.
Along with this theory you now accept as truth, usually comes a disdain for any sort of belief in a Creator or intelligent being that put all this thing we call our universe, in place.
This belief or lack thereof may actually come in reverse; i.e. you choose not to believe in any sort of God with a capital “G” and then what follows is usually acceptance of other theories etc. that have as an almost pre-requisite, a dis-belief in that sort of spiritual or religious thing.
Still with me?
But something troubles you. You accept evolution and the theories of the origin of species and how the earth and the universe came into being. You might accept or espouse the so-called “big bang” theory that some sort of cosmic explosion happened billions of uncountable billions of years ago and the earth and our neighbors, near and far, landed in this thing we call space. Again I won’t try to defend or explain the big bang and its corollaries.
But something still troubles you. Who started the big bang? Who lit the fuse? Who for that matter made the fuse to light?
I read something yesterday in someone else’s blog (and sorry I can’t give credit because I don’t recall where it came from) but it went like this: “We're on a planet that is spinning at 1000 mph around its axis and traveling 66,600 mph through space. We'll travel 1.3 million miles today in our annual trek around the sun."
Even if I could assume some of the aforementioned theories are plausible, I’d still be wondering who figured all this out? Who knew that the earth had to spin exactly 1000 mph? Who knew just how much speed would be needed to counteract the effect of the gravity put in place inside our planet?
I guess my long awaited point here is that if you can somehow get this far and not see that all the beauty and complexity we live amongst – regardless of how you feel we arrived at this point – and not wonder if there wasn’t/couldn’t be someone out there who thought all this up and put it in place – well then I don’t think I can help you.
But if you can accept that there is something out there bigger than all of us and it just might be called God, then we can work on that evolution thing later.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Product Pedigrees
Maybe this has been done already but I have a proposal for the makers of everything:
Put a tag or sticker on your product – and don’t say it will cost too much, every piece of furniture has a tag on it (Do not remove under penalty of law …Ever taken one off? You can you know.) Food already has a pedigree of sorts letting us know a batch number, sell-by date and if you know the codes, you can tell where you milk was put in the container.
What I want this tag to tell me is – and lets take a t-shirt as our example.
This garment is made from 100% organically grown cotton.
The cotton grew on a peaceful farm near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. No herbicides or other chemicals were used in the growing of this cotton.
The cotton was harvested by a John Deere 9600 cotton harvester running on bio-diesel made from the waste oil from Martha’s Diner; also in Tuscaloosa.
The owners of this farm are Bob and Mable who received no government subsidies for the growing of their cotton or any other row crop they may have on their 640 acre farm. They were paid $0.70 per pound for their cotton which is just above the market rate nationally.
The cotton was woven and the t-shirt assembled at our plant in Guatemala.
This t-shirt was assembled by Maria Consuelos who was paid a fair wage of 5000p per day which translates to $4.89/hr. which while below the minimum U.S. wage, puts Maria squarely in the Guatemalan middle-class.
We spent about $1.13 shipping this product from our distribution center in Durham, NC – where as an Unionized-shop, everyone is paid at least the prevailing wage. All products are shipped on Teamster driver trucks.
We spent another $0.87 in the marketing and advertising for this shirt.
Our suggested retail price for this garment is $7.98 for this three-pak. We provide these wholesale for $4.01. This provides us (the maker) with about $0.47 profit on every package. Actual profit for your local store depends upon their own price and operating costs.
This tag made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper and will degrade in your landfill in approximately 3.4 months; depending on local conditions.
The cotton in this shirt is also recylable and we recommend you return it to us free via the included pre-paid mailing device. We will clean it and re-cycle as much of the cotton as possible to make …
UPDATE: After I wrote this I ran across a paper wrapper on a chocolate bar made locally by a chocolatier – Shawn Askinosie – former big shot defense attorney who is now paying penance by running what by all accounts is a successful and fair chocolate shop. His wrapper lists all sorts of information about the origins of his chocolate. Congrats to the man!
Put a tag or sticker on your product – and don’t say it will cost too much, every piece of furniture has a tag on it (Do not remove under penalty of law …Ever taken one off? You can you know.) Food already has a pedigree of sorts letting us know a batch number, sell-by date and if you know the codes, you can tell where you milk was put in the container.
What I want this tag to tell me is – and lets take a t-shirt as our example.
This garment is made from 100% organically grown cotton.
The cotton grew on a peaceful farm near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. No herbicides or other chemicals were used in the growing of this cotton.
The cotton was harvested by a John Deere 9600 cotton harvester running on bio-diesel made from the waste oil from Martha’s Diner; also in Tuscaloosa.
The owners of this farm are Bob and Mable who received no government subsidies for the growing of their cotton or any other row crop they may have on their 640 acre farm. They were paid $0.70 per pound for their cotton which is just above the market rate nationally.
The cotton was woven and the t-shirt assembled at our plant in Guatemala.
This t-shirt was assembled by Maria Consuelos who was paid a fair wage of 5000p per day which translates to $4.89/hr. which while below the minimum U.S. wage, puts Maria squarely in the Guatemalan middle-class.
We spent about $1.13 shipping this product from our distribution center in Durham, NC – where as an Unionized-shop, everyone is paid at least the prevailing wage. All products are shipped on Teamster driver trucks.
We spent another $0.87 in the marketing and advertising for this shirt.
Our suggested retail price for this garment is $7.98 for this three-pak. We provide these wholesale for $4.01. This provides us (the maker) with about $0.47 profit on every package. Actual profit for your local store depends upon their own price and operating costs.
This tag made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper and will degrade in your landfill in approximately 3.4 months; depending on local conditions.
The cotton in this shirt is also recylable and we recommend you return it to us free via the included pre-paid mailing device. We will clean it and re-cycle as much of the cotton as possible to make …
UPDATE: After I wrote this I ran across a paper wrapper on a chocolate bar made locally by a chocolatier – Shawn Askinosie – former big shot defense attorney who is now paying penance by running what by all accounts is a successful and fair chocolate shop. His wrapper lists all sorts of information about the origins of his chocolate. Congrats to the man!
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