Good Advice from Rev. Peter Gomes

Good Advice from Rev. Peter Gomes

"Discover something in life that is worth doing, not simply something you're good at, or that's profitable.That means doing the very best you can to conquer this culture of mediocrity, to destroy the mendacious second-class set of values that permeate our culture. Excellence is what you have been called to exercise, and you have the capacity to do so."

Rev. Peter Gomes, American Baptist minister and member of the faculty of Harvard's Arts and Sciences and Divinity school, gave the commencement speech at UNC/Chapel Hill on Sunday morning.

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I will be away from the blog for a few days. Because of an unfortunate string of meaningless and fruitless offensive attacks lately, I have my Comments section on 'moderation mode' and may not get to them until I return. I hope you will read and enjoy what I've provided here for your reflection.

I may be reached at iddybud@yahoo.com if you have any questions or messages for me.

Have a great week!

Byrd Option

Byrd's Option

Republican talking points are misleading these days. So, what's new, right?

The Right (for example, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell on one of yesterday's Sunday morning talk shows) is trying to skate away with categorizing the nuclear option as "the Byrd option".

The Nuclear Option battle is a fight for the soul of the GOP - and I wonder if the radical wing of the Republican party will win?

This is NOT a fight for the soul of the Democrats. The GOP's center is dissolving and their armor of "party unity" is melting away.

You cannot blame any Democrat as they have no majority power at this time..and they are having their only bit of minority power in Judicial matters stolen by the GOP, who wants to change every rule when they cannot get their way. (The Founding Fathers would spin in their eternal resting places like chicken rotisserie if they knew!)

Only, the GOP doesn't want America to figure that out, so they look for a Democratic scapegoat. Byrd was once a bigot. Most of the white guys who were the real bigots, however, ran to the Republican Party in the sixties.

I wish to talk about Byrd's real option. Senator Byrd had an option to remain a bigot in 1964, or to move on with the times.

Sen. Byrd is one of the 'coolest' of all Congressmen, if you ask me. He has learned many lessons in his long, long political life and is not afraid to share his experience and political evolution with us. You see, he changed over the years, whereas white guys like Strom Thurmond decided to remain in the old southern Dixiecrat mode....by becoming a Republican (and Trent Lott loves the fact to this day)! Bigot that Strom was, God rest his soul, he switched from the Democratic to the Republican party in 1964 to join the like-minded bigotry, mid-Civil Rights era...and Byrd stuck it out with the Democrats - with courage and real ideological change - surely NOTHING of which to be ashamed.