On Politeness

“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as ‘empty,’ ‘meaningless,’ or ‘dishonest,’ and scorn to use them. No matter how ‘pure’ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”
– from Time Enough For Love, © 1973 Robert A. Heinlein

More in a bit!

Separating the Cows from the Goats?

Mercy me, I just said I wasn't going to be a total wuss and just post others' stuff, but check out this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/07/27/clinton.kenya.ap/index.html

I love the Clintons, but so does this guy, evidently. Or at least Chelsea!

256 Million Shades of Gray

In the land of the RED white and BLUE, let's forget about those two, oops, I mean three colors for moment. Let's think about the gray instead. I'm taking the wussy way out for my first real post and directing you to someone else's article, an eloquent argument for understanding 256 million shades of gray:

http://www.alternet.org/story/23709/

One step forward and two steps back. That first step tends to be forgotten, but it was indeed a movement forward...

Welcome to the Church!

Hello all --

Welcome to the Church of Progressive Liberalism!!

This blog is where I will be posting my political and/or religious commentary as it becomes applicable and/or urgent to me to comment on in daily life. I will also be posting past rants/comments/diatribes that I have seen fit to share with my long-suffering friends via email.

I may also periodically post the comments of others and/or link to their comments on the Internet. With their permission of course! No Fascism at this blog!! All commentary pro/con/indifferent will be warmly received. May our coruscating dialog ever blaze!

Again, welcome!
Dace