Living Free

I hope you can get to this journal entry that is linked here, written by oxbow on democraticunderground.com. I read it today and it just hit home with me, on many levels of my life, not just about the political climate.

After reading the story and thinking of the background of our political issues and my own situations recently, the last paragraph was so refreshing:

We enjoy the little things that bring us joy. The warm sun on our bare skin, the taste of a really good meal, the pleasure of good company, all of these are things we can enjoy even in the darkest hours. The universe could have been made so that such things didn’t bring us pleasure. There is no reason why a flower HAS to be beautiful, or sex MUST feel as good as it does. Miraculously though, it is and it does! Try and remember that when things are rough, and you’ll do just fine. And when you catch yourself enjoying life, say a quick thank you. Thank the universe for being the way it is, and yourself for being the way you are, which is good enough on both accounts.

Thank you, oxbow! Nonattachment: The essence of living free.

Iowa Stops Funeral Picketing

Can you believe that someone would want to have a protest at a funeral? Get this: A Kansas City church wants to protest at an Iowa National Guardsman funeral. Why? Because this church believes that our soldiers are dying because they are fighting for a country (the US) that allows homosexuality. This article went so far to say that God is killing our soldiers! What kind of weed is this church smoking??

Jesus did not protest at any funerals. In fact, when one of his diciples wanted to bury his father, Jesus said, "let the dead bury the dead." What did Jesus mean? Are funerals a folly? A waste of time? Thus, would this mean that protest at a funeral would be doubly foolish?

Maybe this Kansas City church doesn't follow Jesus, because Jesus would not lead them down the road to protest at a funeral. "Let the dead bury the dead."

Changes on the Blog Front

Ok, today I am going to get a lot less political and a lot more personal. Maybe this whole blog is going to change. There's a whole heck of a lot of blogs out there that are doing way more research into the progressive, purple movement than me. Sure, I might bring some things up ever so often that catch me a bit funny politically that I may blog, but really, I am being redundant here.

If you want to read some good progressive blogging, go to http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/
Len Hart does quite a job of finding and connecting the political dots, and some of the pictures he creates are rather interesting. That blog will get you thinking. At least it does for me. Bravo, Len!

Anyway, Indigo Lake is going to transform a bit into more of a leisurely place to sit back, chat about what's on your mind kind of blog. Please feel free to join in the chat on any discussion that might come up. In my opinion, it's all about perspective, and yours is likely different than mine. So, let's compare sketches and enjoy the company!

The Scarlet Letter

Whenever you put some physical stigma on someone who's done something wrong, something like this is bound to happen. Now, the question is what's worse? Murder or sexual offenses?

Well, that has always been my question, after this law to mark all sexual offenders with the state's scarlet letter. However, murderers are not marked. There is a long list of offenses that an offender/criminal does not have to deal with being marked. Except for sexual offenses.

Are sexual offenses that bad, worse than murder, that everyone needs to be made clearly aware of the offender's presence anywhere? What is the purpose of the sex offender list? How does such a list help to keep our neighborhoods safe?

The sex offender list is a prime example of making people paranoid, creating legal gossip about the offender, and stigmatizing that person for the rest of their life. Might as well just force them to wear the scarlet letter on their apparel.

Now that the scarlet letter has cause two people to needlessly die, will states that have enacted these sex offender lists rethink their law? I hope so.

George W. Bush: RICO Suave'??

RICO Suave'? George W. Bush?? What do they have in common???

George W. Bush finally admits to being the leaker in the Plame Game... now the blamer is blamed. Well, if the courts ever get to try anything against George W. Bush and his gang, they may use the RICO Act. If that ever happens, die-hard Bush fans will hope that Bush and his attorneys are RICO Suave' enough not to get indicted on such charges because penalties are super stiff with the RICO Act.

Anyone care for some hot, latin salsa dancing?