I’m sure our grandchildren and great- grandchildren will criticize us for our blind sidedness, particularly for the way we treat our planet. Every time I want to pat myself on the back, God shows me more ways to improve.

It’s important to celebrate St. Elizabeth’s day, Independence day, freedom, peace, good food, waking up in the morning. Celebrating is a form of gratitude. It’s easier to appreciate the good things when we come face to face with their cost in sweat, blood, and tears. When we share in the pain, then we can more fully experience the joy.

You might like Bush if you met him in person rather than as president. I can think of a lot worse people to have as president.

I really wish our politics, any politics, were run by the golden rule. It’s a principle that transcends any particular religion or belief system. Politics seems to be so much about various special interests -so many people worried about getting what’s theirs, that it seems it has forgotten about “us”, about the fact that we all live on this planet together.

I'm sure our grandchildren and great- grandchildren will criticize us for our blind sidedness, particularly for the way we treat our planet. Every time I want to pat myself on the back, God shows me more ways to improve.

It's important to celebrate St. Elizabeth's day, Independence day, freedom, peace, good food, waking up in the morning. Celebrating is a form of gratitude. It's easier to appreciate the good things when we come face to face with their cost in sweat, blood, and tears. When we share in the pain, then we can more fully experience the joy.

You might like Bush if you met him in person rather than as president. I can think of a lot worse people to have as president.

I really wish our politics, any politics, were run by the golden rule. It's a principle that transcends any particular religion or belief system. Politics seems to be so much about various special interests -so many people worried about getting what's theirs, that it seems it has forgotten about “us”, about the fact that we all live on this planet together.

1. When I criticize patriotism (or, more exactly, jingoism) I do it for patriotism-jingoism everywhere, not just Northamerican one (peraps this is one of the most dangerous).

2. Despite the “hard words” I just wrote, all this was supposed to be a criticism of a concept (patriotism-jingoism) rather than a critic over a particular person (Well… it is almost imposible to not hate G.W. Bush).

3. I acnowledeged the good things that might be brought up by a “light patriotism”.

4. I don’t condone “kicking anglosaxon butts”. But, if someone there in USA thinks of patriotism as imperialism, then it shouldn’t criticize Anti-USA sentiment as long as it could be considered a way of patriotism for people in the “third world”.

5. Well said hewhocutsdown: love is borderless. Maria: I apologize if my words were offensive for you.

I don’t really want to cast aspersions on the gratefulness of others, or deny the appropriateness of greeting the good things that come our way with some kind of thankfulness. Nor is my consternation directed at persons — I’ll poke fun at the American founders, in a kind of counter-hagiography, but it is simply part of the human tragedy that gross injustices were and are perpetuated by agents who, for the most part, are well-meaning, earnest folks — most of them God-fearing in some fashion and many of them earnest believers.

But they were — and we still are — acting out a destructive and even demonic script, one that continues to have grim consequences. I’m really more of a brats-and-beer than a sackcloth-and-ashes kind of guy, but that script bothers me.