Thursday, March 04, 2004

This Modern World: "Now of course, the free traders in the audience are already composing lengthy emails about the inevitability of change and the invisible hand of the free market and so on--but here's the problem: the invisible hand only functions efficiently when labor and capital are equally mobile. Unfortunately, here in the real world, pretty much any job can be outsourced, but human beings are still stuck living where they live, in Buffalo, New York, or Little Rock, Arkansas, or wherever they may be. They're not going to move to Bangalore to keep their jobs. And since the cost of living is considerably higher, even in Little Rock, Arkansas, than it is in Bangalore, they simply can't compete, and the invisible hand is transformed into an invisible fist which pummels one side at the behest of the other--not exactly what Adam Smith had in mind. And decades and decades of progress for working people in this country are simply wiped out, as we devolve further and further into a winner-take-all, screw-the-rest society. "

This is the argument we ALL need to be making right now!

Monday, March 01, 2004

Opinion / The Irish Times on the Web / ireland.com: "



Tuesday, August 11, 1998

When marriage between
gays was by rite



RITE AND REASON: A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman pronubus (best man) overseeing what in a standard Roman icon would be the wedding of a husband and wife. In the icon, Christ is the pronubus. Only one thing is unusual. The 'husband and wife' are in fact two men.
Is the icon suggesting that a homosexual 'marriage' is one sanctified by Christ? The very idea initially seems shocking. The full answer comes from other sources about the two men featured, St Serge and St Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who became Christian martyrs.
While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly close. Severus of Antioch in the sixth century explained that 'we should not separate in speech [Serge and Bacchus] who were joined in life'. More bluntly, in the definitive 10th century Greek account of their lives, St Serge is openly described as the 'sweet companion and lover' of St Bacchus."


via buzzflash