Apparently I missed some fighting

And then there’s buhdy’s Yay we are fighting

Much as I love buhdy, I can’t say Yay and we’re fighting in the same sentence that way.  If there’s one thing that there is too much of, here, there and everywhere, it’s fighting.  Inside families, outside families.  I fought plenty with my mother, now she’s dead.

We don’t need any more fighting.

I didn’t trace this round of fighting back to its source.

We have some of the usual suspects.  The subject this time seems to be racism.  And accusations of racism. And accusations of race-baiting.

I didn’t follow it back to its source, and I have no intention of doing so.  Feh.

Do Black people ever race-bait? Only a racist could say no.  Of course some Black people race bait.  You know why? They’re human.  Like White people.  And, likewise, some gay people are hypersensitive.  I can’t imagine why.  No one’s ever really been anti-gay! Of course not!

And race! Sheesh!  I mean, after a couple thousand years of White people treating Black people with total compassion and respect, the thanks the White people get is that some Black people race bait!  The NERVE!

I mean, white Christian males are, by definition, followers of Christ, right? So, none of them can ever throw that first stone, unless they are without sin.  Right? So, all the Christian people throwing rocks must be pure!  Stands to reason!

Then, a certain well-known front-pager starts calling out the kumbaya brigade.

Jeeze.  Let’s fight more, folks.  That way, we won’t have to concentrate on the real enemy.  Wouldn’t want that.  I mean, if we win….if we really do elect some progressives, if we really do start changing things, then what would we do?

So, fight amongst yourselves.  Go ahead. Meanwhile the real bigots will continue the real oppression. Insult each other.  Insult each other for being racists, for being rude, for objecting to people being rude, and for objecting to people objecting to being rude.

Call each other names while the world burns.

Go ahead.  I won’t stop you.

But if that’s what this site is about, include me out.

I thought this site was about changing the world.  Fighting isn’t a change, fighting is old.  We’ve been fighting for a couple million years, and look at us now.

It’s time to stop.

It’s time to stop fighting amongst ourselves, and start saving the world.

If that’s what this site is about, then cheers to us.

If it isn’t, then I am out of here

That’s what *I* want to do.  What about you?

Free your mind, and the rest will follow.

(cross posted from dailyKos)

What do a 19th century rabbi and a 21st century congressional candidate have in common?  They both exemplify the true meaning of progressivism.

Israel Salanter was a 19th century rabbi

Sam Bennett is a woman running for Congress

This morning, I wrote a diary on

Republican representatives in Democratic districts and, while researching it, ran across

Sam Bennett who is running for congress in PA-15.  She says, on her site

The Bush Administration seems to have things exactly backwards. Where government should be robust – protecting and caring for its citizens – they have made it weak. Where government should tread lightly, they have made it overbearing.

A long time ago, I wrote a diary on dailyKos called

The 25 best things ever said by anyone. My number 1 was from Rabbi Israel Salanter:

Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people’s souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls, and other people’s bellies

Aren’t those two quotes perfect?

Sam Bennett’s quote is 35 words.  Do they not sum up what is wrong?

Salanter’s quote is 26 words.  Do they not generalize that concern for the ages?

Are we progressives?

My soul is my business, thank you, and I would like the government not to tell me how to live my life – whom to worship (or how, or when, or if), or whom to love (male or female).  But everyone’s belly is everyone’s business, and, in this 21st century world, the government must help.  We no longer live, most of us, in small villages where everyone knows everyone.  We live in anonymous megalopolises.  

PS  My earlier diary did well on big O., and seems to have fallen into a void, here.  This one is going nowhere on daily Kos, but may be more appropriate here.

cross posted to dailyKos

Today I have the first in a bunch of analytic diaries based on congressional districts. For each congressional district, I have:

%Urban

Median Income

% in poverty

% veterans

% nonHispanic White

% nonHispanic Black

% Hispanic

Cook PVI

Below the fold, I look at Republican Reps in Democratic districts, based on Cook PVI

People seem to love to categorize things.  One of the things we love to categorize is other people.  We categorize by sex and gender and race and age and educational level and many many other things.  

Men, women.

Masculine, feminine.

Homosexual, heterosexual.

Black, White, Asian….

Senior citizen, generation X, generation Y, boomer.

Graduate, dropout

Democrat, Republican

Conservative, liberal.

Christian, Jew…..

and so on.

Are any of these categories real?  Do they “carve nature at its joints”? (I forget who came up with that memorable line)

I doubt it.

There are many people who, when asked “Are you male or female?” can only answer ‘No’.  There are people who are masculine or feminine, and there are some who aren’t much of either, and there are some who are so hyper-masculine or feminine that they seem almost parodies of gender roles.  A woman where I work is one-quarter Black, one quarter American Indian, one quarter Scottish, and one quarter a mixture of other European countries; pray tell, what should she mark for ‘race/ethnicity’?  (oh, and she grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and speaks some Yiddish).  

People aren’t born in generations, they’re born in years.  And their attitudes don’t necessarily mesh with any particular ‘generation’.  I was born in 1959.  Does that make me a boomer?

I’ve got a PhD, but I dropped out of law school.  My father has a law degree, but no BA.  The best professor I had in grad school dropped out of his own PhD program.

I count myself a Democrat, and have only once voted otherwise, but there is that once; others have split tickets or changed parties many times.

I’m very very liberal on social issues, somewhat liberal on most economic issues…. but even conservative on some issues.

I was raised Jewish, but am an atheist; of the religions I’ve studied, I find taoism most appealing, but I can’t really call myself a taoist.

and so on.

reposted from DailyKos

From now on, as I update this series, you’re going to get it here first, on docudharma, and they will have to wait a day or two over at big Orange.

This is the first of what will be an occasional series attempting to predict how many seats we will gain in the Senate.  A separate series will  look at the House.

What I do is gather information from various sources for each race, attempt to turn that into a probability of the Democrat and Republican winning the seat.  Then, I use R to simulate the combined races. 

More below the fold