First. Know yourself.

Super column Glenn.

“I love to tell the story.” That really is where man lives. We love to tell our stories. We seek understanding and affirmation by projecting our emotions into others.

It is how we avoid being entrapped in accepting the other’s definitions — but that is a big task to know and separate our identity from the “given names.”

To extend it back to the politics. We must know our selves and our values first, but just the knowing is not enough — we simply must articulate and spread the message.

From a distance it seems a situation familiar to me. The real progressive candidates are cut off at the knees by an entrenched conservative Democratic establishment. If tv interviews on MSNBC are any indication this guy Barrett has to be the worst milk toast candidate I have seen outside Georgia. I wait to be proven wrong in my assessment that this is an internal failure of a Democratic Party in Wisconsin that does not represent the will of most of the people.

Bingo!

Back at you ((demi))

You remind us that hope lies in incorrigible human nature. Which is another way of saying we do, too slowly at times, learn and then are masters at “work arounds.”

I love it.

Hell, Skittles will be happy for all the publicity. Don’t you know profit is all it is about in the “serious” world?

That is such a hateful thing to say. The whole story brings me to tears then you add these comments. It just confirms the callousness and absence of any human connection with those you and your right wing fellows define as other. My tears have to be not just for this promising young man Trayvon but really for the whole nation that has spawned such meanness by so many.

Errrrrr. You are out of date. Haven’t you noticed? The media is not reporting “Drone attacks” They are calling them airstrikes. To be serious, keep up the good work in calling them what they are– both the weapons and the casualties.

There is of course all kinds of history of ways to bind women to men through sexual practice. Some called marriage. But its purpose and use has gone through lots of variations and changes.

By the time this country became a country “traditional” marriage had been affirmed more often by clerics as a religious sacrament. But of course the term has also been used in secular law from the beginning.

In more recent times the term has been taken up more and more by those seeking secular law securing civil liberties, mostly rights equal to the special advantages governments give to pairs who have gone through some kind of ceremony.

I don’t know what the big deal is. I agree with you and holeybuybull. I agree as to how marriage should be defined now.

Ditto

Yes it’s a scheme and maybe intended as a scam. It certainly does not elevate my personal opinion of Obama’s convictions or any indication of any move from his pro business elite agenda.

But no matter the political outcome it cannot be put back in the bottle and I think it will prove to be a significant step in the drive for guarantees of civil liberties.

Yes. That is what I am saying as to how the term is now used. It is now appropriate to consider it a civil contract.

My comment at 1 is in response to dude expressing the opinion that marriage should be left as a religious sacrament.

I have been in agreement with this most of my life. Leave ”marriage” to the individual religion to define for itself. But the reality is the term has always been to some extent and now it is become secularized by all sides and I accept that now the term must be applied in secular law.

I agree this represents a victory for the culture and the power of proud people standing up for and demanding their rights as human beings. The president is wise to understand that as a done deal and, as is his character as a politician, take up his position of leading from behind. I suppose we should be grateful to at least have one candidate that responds to liberal movement pressure.

I agree completely, including contempt for Obama and the Democrats for such behavior.

Yes. Another of many sad days as the public too often demonstrates the worst of irrational dark prejudices. But this is why the protection of civil liberties were and must be set aside and not subject to the vote. If we are to continue to call ourselves a nation their definition and protection cannot be just a matter of local or state opinion.

It seems to me there are twin goals. One is to assure protection of these rights no matter how few are affected or how the politics du jour may run. The other is, I think in this case succeeding, to gain respect and acceptance from the community as a whole. I take hope in how seriously this Amendment was taken note of. No matter the idiotic actions of one electorate, if the polls are correct, the larger aim is succeeding.

The real problem for me is that it’s the Democrats who won’t fight for us.

Amen!

That is certainly a powerful aspect. But don’t ignore the even more primitive explicit sexual narrative.