Ursula K. LeGuin, “Letter to the Editor: Headline on Malheur occupation is inaccurate, irresponsible”
Ammon Bundy and his bullyboys aren’t trying to free federal lands, but to hold them hostage. I can’t go to the Malheur refuge now, though as a citizen of the United States, I own it and have the freedom of it. That’s what public land is: land that belongs to the public — me, you, every law-abiding American. The people it doesn’t belong to and who don’t belong there are those who grabbed it by force of arms, flaunting their contempt for the local citizens.
Those citizens of Harney County have carefully hammered out agreements to manage the refuge in the best interest of landowners, scientists, visitors, tourists, livestock and wildlife. They’re suffering more every day, economically and otherwise, from this invasion by outsiders.
Maria Konnikova, “Can You Spot a Liar?”
Part of it is that people really value their reputations, so they don’t want others to know that they fell victim. The other thing is that they value their reputation so much is that they don’t want themselves to know. They would much rather believe that they were the victims of bad luck than that they were victims of a con artist. Our self-deception is incredibly powerful, because we have this very strong protective mechanism where we want to think of ourselves in the best possible light. No one wants to think of themselves as a sucker or as someone who falls for some con artist, who to someone else might seem obvious.
You want to think of yourself as someone who’s smart, as someone who’s savvy, as someone who would know better, and so that’s exactly what you do, you say, “Oh, bad luck, luck of the draw, it was just a bad investment decision or this person just wasn’t ready for a serious relationship,” whatever it is. So the funny thing is, most people don’t learn from their mistakes because they don’t acknowledge that they made them.
Woody Guthrie, “Old Man Trump”
I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
he stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
That color line
Here at his
Eighteen hundred family project ….
Carol Howard Merritt, “Gaining confidence”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics … found that the gender gap in clergy is higher than it is in the business world.
We should be leading in social justice, and displaying a world as it ought to be. Instead, our sins are greater. And before I get comments that tell me that women have smaller churches or work part time, so they deserve to be paid less, let me just say, please stop. Of course, pastors with larger churches get paid more. And women have more part time positions and smaller churches. That is not an excuse for the problem. That is the problem.
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