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With our current situation in Washington one thing is sure. Regardless how the United States debt crisis is resolved, our political leaders on both sides of the aisle have tarnished themselves badly.
Their inability to rise above their parochial, self serving-interest is becoming obvious to the majority of the electorate. This does not bode well for the Republic.
We, the people, deserve better than this.
Brother Giovanni, Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service, PNS
As a Pizzaonian observor of American politics, I find the attitude of the Republican Party paradoxical. Please do not consider this a defense for the Democrats, it is not.
Regardless how much the Republicans proclaim they are interested in saving the country with their screams for fiscal responsibility, the saving the country platitudes seem more like packaging for the real reason.
I am sure it’s not that subtle. Clearly the right wing of the Republican Party is hell-bent to bring down the President – and they seem willing to take everyone with them including themselves if necessary.
An analogy that works for me is watching the right wing passengers on the Titanic cheering wildly every time another bulkhead gives away as the ship slips deeper into the water. The cheering is for knowing that the Captain will go down with the ship.
I wonder if they will change their mind when the water is up to their waist. (Don’t count on it.)
Next: The problem with the Democrats – where to start?
Submitted by Brother Giovanni, Bureau Chief, Worldonia, Pizzaonian News Service, PNS
Storm clouds over the land of claptrap and nonsense.
Today the world is full of opinions. I wonder how much is out there today other than someone’s opinion. This is okay to a point. But when we begin to believe these opinions and shape our decisions and maybe even our life on what they tell us, then I am scared.
What am I scared of? For one, we live in a time when demagogues run freely through the information highway spreading nonsense at will. Now this is not ordinary nonsense. This is well articulated and directed claptrap that at first glance seems intelligent. But like all phony elixirs, as you take it in, you find your self getting sick.
For those whose sickness allows them to reject this BS, you’re ok. But the real sickness is when you become an addicted believer of this drumbeat of gobblygook. Now you’re hooked and need your daily fix.
I have no advice for you other than to feel sorry for you and for me. Why am I sorry for me? Well since you see yourself as an engaged citizen you will probably vote!
God save the “Republic!”
This article reflelcts the views of Brother Giovanni, and in no way are the views of Pizzaonian New Service - even though we completely agree with Brother Giovanni.
We live in a time when the concept of faith has lost its luster. Faith by today’s rules is consigned often to the unsophisticated. As a result when someone declares a belief or activity as “a matter of faith” it is immediately suspect.
This presents a major problem. If faith is suspect, than most of our assumptions must also be suspect since so much of what we believe is based on faith-like assumptions.
A major assumption we make everyday is the world as we know it will continue to exist. This is an assumption based on faith.
The odds may be with us, but nonetheless, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next minute and must assume we will still be here.
This obvious assumption should give us pause. Our arrogant supposition regarding the stability of life keeps us from changing many things that need changing.
The notion there will be a tomorrow may give us hope, but how many important things never get done because this assumed hope is part of our belief system. This implicit hope is the “mother” of all procrastination.
Be careful – the next time you find faith suspect - make sure you are not living most of your life based on assumptions rooted in faith.
Submitted by Sister Veronica and Brother Franco for Pizzaonian News Service, PNS
http://giovanniandfranco.com http://giovanniandfranco.typepad.com/musings
As the years go by you realize so much of your life is shaped by accidental events that require you to react to them, the notion of planning and shaping your life into something meaningful becomes a non sequitur. If this be true, then what is left? The answer to the question is for a lifetime to reveal.
We hear so much of goals and how important they are to finding success. Secretly, I sometimes think that so much of our stress is grounded in chasing goals for which we have neither the inclination nor aptitude.
We humans have so much difficulty in accepting the natural talents we were given in our DNA. As you observe people over the years it becomes clear that so many of us are working against the natural talents we have been given.
So many of us are spending our days doing things that don’t make us comfortable or fulfilled. Why? The question has perplexed me for years.
I suspect it starts with the early impressions we are all left with from our childhood. The need for acceptance teaches most of us early on that the affirmation we need comes from fulfilling the wishes and needs of the prominent adults in our lives.
As we grow older the need for affirmation transfers to the adult institutions in our lives: our cultural values, our work place, our church, our select group of friends and always present, the imprint within us shaped by our early years with our families. By this time the need for survival takes hold and the imprints are too grounded to change into what should have been.
Of course all of this creates the filter by which we judge and view all of the feelings and activities we experience in our journey to the end. This filter shapes our particular prejudices and perspectives, both individually and collectively. While this seems so obvious, it also remains so obscure.
Primarily because it is the subtle, but always present, static that plays in the background of our thinking process. It numbs us into submission and deludes us with its seeming virtuous resignation. We grow so use to its presence we ignore its significance. However we do so at our own peril.
There is a noted exception to this model. There are a few amongst us who see correctly and know what they do to survive is essentially meaningless to them other than providing a means to and end. They do not embellish, or try to justify their activities in “service for society” or other grandiose terms.
A means to an end becomes their justification, and stoic acceptance of this fact creates its own type of begrudging affirmation. Though not completely free, they may be the freest among us. And that is worth a great deal.
Brother Franco, Pizzaonian News Service -PNS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM: PIZZAONIAN NEWS SERVICE (PNS)
Contact: Publicio Relationio at the PNS office of Public Relations at PIZZAONIAN@YAHOO.COM
SUBJECT: Pizzaonia to dedicate the new Pizzaonian Institute for Recovering Dilettantes
Sister Veronica announced today that Pizzaonia would be in the vanguard by recognizing the extent of dilettantism in modern society. The opening of the new institute for recovering dilettantes marks the first official recognition of the death of expertise as we previously defined the term.
Access to the digital world and internet communications has exposed most so-called experts in various fields as boiler plate specialist using information that is now available to anyone with access to the internet.
It soon became obvious to Pizzaonians they would be inundated with recovering dilettantes when their experts discovered they could no longer be considered experts in their respective fields. If not experts, than what are they?
“This literally makes all so called, present experts dilettantes” explained Sister Veronica. She went on to explain, “Today’s expert can only be defined by someone who brings new information to the field of their expertise. If they don’t they are simply repeating what is already available to anyone with the means to research the subject.”
Pizzaonia expects a wave of recovering dilettantes to flood their medical services and believe the new institute will be an answer to this new phenomenon that is about to inundate our culture.
More as it develops………..
Submitted by Brother Giovanni, Worldonian Bureau Chief, Pizzaonian News Service, PNS