Sunday Morning Coming Down

This is one more time the vaunted two party system has already failed this country.  Saturday night I listened to one senator after another say we needed to raise the debt ceiling and then go off depending on their politics to say we need to lower the deficit, reduce spending, tax the rich, protect the poor, elderly, defend medicare, medicaid and lots of other things. Earlier in the week, the Pew Center released a study about the wide gap in wealth between ethnic groups in this country. The median afro american household has less than $7,000 in wealth, while the median anglo family has about $123,000 in wealth.  There were also statistics that the weathiest are getting wealthier faster than ever before.  In Florida which has some of the richest zip codes in the country, the unemployment rate in Miami Dade County is a little over 13%.  Tourism jobs are rebounding but there is still a need for efforts to grow the economy and stabilize things. The politics of...

There have been several legislative initiatives to make it harder to vote for students, minority groups, and the elderly by using id requirements more stringent, making it harder to register on election day, and shortening the period for early voting.  This is being done in the name of stopping fraud related voting.  A more candid explanation might be to game the voting process to lessen the impact of poorer, vulnerable, and liberal voters. One of the answers to increasing voter turn out is to make the process more voter friendly.  I don't believe voter fraud is that big an issue and to the extent that it is an issue you can find anecdotal stories that involve both democrats and republicans. Voting rights are fundamental to a functioning democracy and the insiders are messing with the process when it favors one group over another as some of the proposed and newly passed legislation seems to. This may just be another little piece of the incumbent forever mentality ...

I like sports of almost any variety, but I don't get all the sports talk about the end of the NFL lockout.  It would seem that this has been a contrived by talk shows because they need to fill some air time and they have all been programmed to follow the season(s) as dictated by the NFL. I'm not even sure if the Hall of Fame Game has been cancelled and my interest in the pre-season is limited.  I don't have a fantasy team and am able to get enough football information through The Miami Herald.  I realize that a lot of money is gambled on football games and a lot of time is spent in front of TVs, at sports bars, and for all too many people Sunday is organized around when the game is going to be on TV.  I would vote to start the Sunday Service at my church at 9:00 am to avoid any conflict with a 1:00 pm kickoff.  There is a lot of time, effort, and treasure for a home game if you have bought tickets for the game.  I can't dispute the impact of...