Problems to Fix at Home

From a speech delivered by Fr. John A. O'Brien, professor of the philosophy of religion in the graduate school at Notre Dame, published in the May 12, 1941 issue of Social Justice.

"The richest one-tenth of one percent of American families, according to the Brookings Institute, received in 1929, as large a share of the products of industry as the poorest 42%. This means that 36,000 families at the top of the income scale obtained as much as 11,650,000 families at the bottom. Is this the kind of democracy we are being asked to bring, as a gift from Mt. Olympus, to the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia?
"How can we talk about democracy, the moral order, social justice and the supremacy of human rights, when in our midst are millions of (Americans) who do not have even a nodding acquaintance with those ideals? How can we impose them at a point of a bayonet upon other peoples when we have not been able to secure them for the majority of our own?
"War is a false path to that freedom. We do no supply [political freedom] by engaging in a gigantic campaign of destruction, by plowing under every fourth American, and by setting our own house on fire."

American economy

Here are a few quotes from an article in the Wanderer, which was quoting an article by Darrell Castle, entitled, "What should we do to save the American economy?" He says, "Yes, there are many things that we could do which collectively would bring economic recovery very quickly.
1) End the Fed. Monetary reform and economic recovery are not possible unless Congress is able to recover its constitutional authority over our monetary system. The growth of debt must be stopped and reversed, and the debt-based system of monetary creation through interest-bearing bank credit must be reversed if we are to recover. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 should be rescinded and the Fed banks liquidated and their assets truned over to the U.S. Treasury...Once Congress regains its constitutional aughority over money, it could issue money based on the full faith and credit of the United States or said another way, based on the labor and productive capacity of the American people. This money and credit would keep the economy functioning and prevent depression while we transitioned from our present debt-based system to the gold standard....
2)Withdraw from both wars immediately. Our nation has never been able to pay for these wars except through massive debt or massive inflation. Immediate withdrawal would save at least a trillion dollars."

Executive pay cap

I see in the news today that Obama is setting an executive pay cap to go along with his bailout. I have even better ideas to go along with this. How about a pay CUT for everyone in our national government? Obama could really set a fine example here by demanding that his salary be cut by at least 25% and his retirement by 50%. Then he could cut all senate and representative salaries, too! While he was on a roll, how about a HUGE cut in the department of defense? How about slicing and dicing all those monstrous government programs where all the money really goes to the bureaucrats instead of to the poor? If we just pulled out of the middle east we would probably come up with the 900 billion he wants for his stimulus package!

I read a couple of weeks ago that the size of the bailout is enough money to give every household in America $100,000. That would probably save the banks and car companies because people could pay off their loans! But that's too simple for the powers that be.

Neighbors

I am currently reading a pretty good book called "Outwitting the Neighbors" by Bill Adler, Jr. This book covers topics such as noise (music, fighting, barking, chain saws, etc) weeds, pets (roaming pets, dangerous pets, dealing with pet waste), rudeness, parking spaces, teenagers, and excessively fussy and complaining neighbors, among other things.
One of my favorite suggestions was his returning dog droppings to the yard where the dog really belongs!
I think generally speaking we should try not to be too fussy about our neighbors. Does a dog barking during the day really bother you that much? (Now nighttime is a different story!) It's much quieter than a chain saw running. If a kid wanders across corner of your yard, did he really damage your lawn? Can't we just learn to ignore a few weeds?

We had a next door neighbor who was Ok to get along with most of the time. I remember when he brought his rock band home to practice. Man, was it LOUD! The worst time was on a Sunday afternoon when we had company over and we had to shout to hear eachother, inside our own house, with doors and windows shut! It was pretty bad.
But Hubby and I decided not to say anything about it and shortly thereafter the band broke up. Looking back I am glad we waited and didn't make an issue out of it. By exercising a little patience we kept good neighbor relations.