More Madonna, Less Jesus

A Message from God?

This morning a friend and I sat on the front porch and talked over our past history with our non-traditional families, the heartache and the love. While we chatted, we noticed two Jehovah Witness missionaries making their way up the street, knocking on doors. I joked to my friend: “Please god, don’t tell them to come over here.” My friend said something like, “We’re doing fine here, a jew and a pagan.” A few minutes later we left to go on an errand.

When I got home there was a tract tucked under the mat: Enjoy Family Life. Can families really be happy? How is that possible?

The pictures in the tract were: a white family with pets: a baby cheetah, a baby lion, and a macaw…

…a black family with dad holding a soccer ball up to his baby daughter. (Dad obviously thinks she’s not as femme as Mom has dressed her, what with that bow on her head)…

… and a chinese single dad, holding his daughter on his shoulders (no pets or sports).

I was relieved that the tract didn’t specifically say that lesbians can’t form families–I actually only need to read the newspaper or my own diary to learn how hard THAT is. Most of the message was the usual, but it included two proverbs which–like most of that part of the bible –has a common sense that transcends theology: “Better to eat vegetables with people you love than eat the finest meat where there is hate.” “Better to eat a dry crust of bread with peace of mind than have a banquet in a house full of trouble.”

Amen, sister.

Corporations are People? With Free speech?

Corporate personhood is the opposite of slavery. Slavery found people to be property, and therefore ineligible for civil and human rights. Corporate personhood finds property to be people, and 100 years of corporate law has given them more rights that human beings.

Dennis Kucinich on 10 Questions about Corporate Personhood

Ralph Nader has been speaking about Corporate Personhood for decades. He says here “corporate personhood should become a widely debated subject.” Yes. If people understood this, I think even the republicans would be repulsed by its monstrousness. Here’s his statement today.

Jane Anne Morris says it all pretty succinctly. But her amicus brief didn’t matter to those 5 Supremes.

Corporate anthropologist and Madison resident Jane Anne Morris’ recent book, “Gaveling Down the Rabble: How ‘Free Trade’ Is Stealing Our Democracy” (Apex Press, 2008) is cited in an amicus brief filed in support of the Federal Election Commission in this case.

I dunno. Perhaps it is my eternal optimism, but perhaps this time, they have over-reached. Corporations have free speech? Really? Does the Sports Talk Radio crowd know that?