The Golden Rule is everywhere.

Christianity	All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.       Matthew 7:1
Confucianism	Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.       Analects 12:2
Buddhism	Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.       Udana-Varga 5,1
Hinduism	This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.       Mahabharata 5,1517
Islam	No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.       Sunnah
Judaism	What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.       Talmud, Shabbat 3id
Taoism	Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.       Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
Zoroastrianism	That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself.       Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5 And thanks, Cynical, for the reminder.

Death panels (and unicorns) are real!

Go here and see how.

And thanks, Huffington Post, for the link.

If it happens once…

The singer Chris Brown was allegedly involved in two previous domestic violence incidents, prior to his February assault on the singer Rihanna, which got him into trouble.

For his February attack, Brown was sentenced to five years’ probation and 180 hours of physical labor.

Like so many domestic violence incidents, Brown’s previous violent episodes — which occurred in other countries — were not reported to the authorities.

What were we talking about with health reform?

I’ve almost forgotten, but Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the 86,000-member California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the largest U.S. union of nurses, and a vice president of the AFL-CIO, hasn’t.

Whose money’s against health care reform?

Yeah, this is too small to read. To get a better version, go to Campaign for America’s Future, and click on the chart a couple of times. Over 40? Get out your reading glasses, silly.

And thanks, Huffington Post, for the link.

R.I.P, Sen. Kennedy

Sen. Ed Kennedy died last night after a brief bout with brain cancer. He somehow rose above the diminutive “Teddy” to become a “Lion of the Senate.”

He died before his dream — universal health care – could be realized. But we’re oh-so-close…

The beauty of making a mistake

I’m a big fan of The Pursuit of Harpyness, and in this post, she explores Marva Collins’ wonderful quote:

If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything.

I remember lying about my age when I first started in the rough-and-tumble field of daily journalism. I started doing that when, during an interview that wasn’t going well, the interviewee lowered his glasses to the tip of his nose and asked, “How old are you, anyway?”

I was 19, but I answered with the oldest and most mature age I could think of.

“25,” I said, and thus started years of untruths, when I lied about my age for so long that by the time I blew through 25 and went into my 30s, if someone asked me, I’d have to stop and do the math.

I did that to disguise what I figured was an obvious flaw in me. Rather than being happy that at the dewy age of 19 I’d found the job of my dreams, I worried that soon the people would see that I Was A Fraud, far too young and immature to hold a Real Job. But I figured they might not look so closely if they thought I was all of 25 — a real, live grownup.

I don’t lie about my age any more (I’m 50.) and I don’t worry about people finding out that I’m a fraud. I am not a fan of making mistakes, but I’ve made enough of them (some quite large) that I’m kind of used to it.

But I know there are things I haven’t tried because I fear failure — or making a mistake. I stuck with what came naturally. Was that wienie of me to do that? Play to my strengths? Is this the thundering hooves of my midlife crisis?

Nah. I have that scheduled for Thursday.

Oh, and here’s more on Marva Collins.

Feminists heart infants

Well, this was posted earlier this week, and it set the blogosphere churning.

Here’s a sample:

One of the minor dishonesties of the feminist movement has been to underestimate the passion of this time, to try for a rational, politically expedient assessment. Historically, feminists have emphasized the difficulty, the drudgery of new motherhood. They have tried to analogize childcare to the work of men; and so for a long time, women have called motherhood a “vocation.” The act of caring for a baby is demanding, and arduous, of course, but it is wilder and more narcotic than any kind of work I have ever done.

I appreciate the author’s take on her new motherhood, but the broad-brush tarring of feminism for its lack of attention to motherhood is ill-considered, at best.

For more perspective on the topic, try this.

(I’m a fan of the Toni Morrison School of Feminist Mother-Thought:

The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.

This is our frog pond

I’m told there’s a muskrat there, too, though I haven’t met her yet. I spend more time on the other side of the island (roughly 100 feet away) watching the boat traffic and planning how I’m going to take my next shower.

When you live off the grid, your life revolves around a whole different set of issues. There is the aforementioned shower schedule (I’d like this a lot better if I didn’t have to be clean enough to go to work), but there’s also the issue of — how to put this delicately — elimination. We have a compost toilet but I haven’t posted those photos yet because everyone thinks I’m odd to be so excited.

So I’m holding off on those photos for another day or so. Suffice it to say that somehow not having to flush makes me happy. I don’t know if I think I’ve gained extra minutes in my day,  but there you are.

Still: Something is going into the toilet and chewing up the (unused) toilet paper. (As for the used, that’s down a hole and we need never concern ourselves with it again.) I am now reduced to locking up the rolls in a large oak chest that’s in there.

Tonight, there’s more of Russo. I won’t be back online until mid-day tomorrow. Meanwhile, as always: Talk among yourselves.

What Pres. Obama is reading on vacation

Here.

Do you think his office forgot to mention “Dating Jesus?” Dang!

I’ve already said I’m just into Richard Russo’s “That Old Cape Magic,” but if it doesn’t get happy soon – not likely in a Russo book, I know — I may move on to something completely shallow.

I am also reading — because life’s short — “The Alchemy of Air.” That’s not a laff riot, either. Any suggestions? Have you read a book lately that made you giggle?