Romney and 47% comments historical perspective...

"The notion that ones economic fortunes were connected with ones character ones hard work, ones thrift, ones persistence and dependability ran strong in the American bloodstream throughout the nineteenth century. The theme had its origins partly in the old Calvinist idea that good economic fortunes were a sign of Gods favor, a visible symbol of belonging to the elect. It was also an outgrowth of individual experience, since many, like Lincoln, found that hard work did enable them to get ahead. But with the dawn of the Gilded Age, this belief was transmuted from Lincolns message of hope into a verdict of condemnation. It became a rationale for blaming laborers for their desperation and condemning the working poor for their very poverty. Meanwhile, any government effort to intervene on workers behalf was to be fiercely resisted as a violation of natural law. Proposals for legislation to mandate an eight-hour workday threatened the very foundation of civilization. Even laws forbidding child labor were anathema. Godkin editorialized against a proposal for a New York state constitutional amendment forbidding employment in factories of children under ten. The government, wrote Godkin, might as well tell us what to eat, drink, avoid, hope, fear, and believe." Garfinkle, Norton. American Dream vs. the Gospel of Wealth : The Fight for a Productive Middle-Class Economy. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, 2006. p 67. From the dawn of the Gilded Age. The 8 hour workday, the minimum wage. I wonder if it would be okay to increase the minimum wage by 3 or 4 dollars per hour. Then some low paid minimum wage earning full-time workers would actually make enough money not to be "takers" and would have to pay some taxes, would earn enough to pay some taxes! As if those who make minimum wage working full time and pay no taxes aren't giving society and the company they work for some service and profit!!!!

It is never late to ask yourself “Am I ready to change my life, am I ready to change myself?”. However old we are, whatever we went through, it is always possible to reborn. If each day is a copy of the last one, what a pity! Every breath is a chance to reborn. But to reborn into a new life, you have to die before dying.

Rumi

Rumi and Joyce Meyer

"Nothing should stand between yourself and God. Not imims, priests, rabbis, or any other custodians of moral or religious leadership. Not spiritual masters, not even your faith. Believe in your values and your rules, but never lord them over others. If you keep breaking other people’s hearts, whatever religious duty you perform is no good. Stay away from all sorts of idolatry, for they will blur your vision. Let God and only God be your guide. Learn the Truth, my friend, but be careful not to make a fetish out of your truths."
RUMI

Your real life is the life that's IN you. It’s not your circumstances, the kind of job you have or how much money you have.
Joyce Meyer Ministries

"The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest - as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars."

Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Everyday - develop, expand, achieve, benefit.

Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ - Dalai Lama

"The principle of compassion is that which converts disillusionment into a participatory companionship. This is the basic love, the charity, that turns a critic into a living human being who has something to give to - as well as to demand of - the world."

Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” Ben Franklin

The CRITIC contrasted to the LIVING HUMAN BEING - how do we convert, how do we transform?

Gabriel Marcel. What does it mean to be "with" another in relationship? Participatory, part of a larger, part of the "between". Critic, complainer, imposing value judgements, I-process, GALSPEW seven deadly sins. What does it mean - giving to the world what we demand of it? The prideful person demands the world be different, demands of it, but does not see that they are part of the world, and have a responsibility to give to it, to root out in self what is wrong with the world in their own life and attitude. The vulture invades us, we worship its appetite.

Rule 16 - Isaac Watts (Michael Faraday mentor)

XVI. Offer up therefore your daily requests to God, the father of lights, that he would bless all your attempts and labours in reading, study, and conversation. Think with yourself how easily and how insensibly, by one turn of thought, he can lead you into a large scene of useful ideas: he can teach you to lay hold on a clue which may guide your thoughts with safety and ease through all the difficulties of an intricate subject. Think how easily the Author of your beings can direct your motions by his providence, so that the glance of an eye, or a word striking the ear, or a sudden turn of the fancy, shall conduct you to a train of happy sentiments. By his secret and supreme method of government, he can draw you to read such a treatise, or converse with such a person, who may give you more light into some deep subject in an hour, than you could obtain by a month of your own solitary labour.

Think with yourself with how much ease the God of spirits can cast into your minds some useful suggestion, and give a happy turn to your own thoughts, or the thoughts of those with whom you converse, whence you may derive unspeakable light and satisfaction, in a matter that has long puzzled and entangled you : he can show you a path which the vulture's eye has not seen, and lead you by some unknown gate or portal, out of a wilderness and labyrinth of difficulties, wherein you have been long wandering.

Implore constantly his divine grace to point your inclination to proper studies, and to fix your heart there. He can keep off temptations on the right hand, and on the left, both by the course of his providence, and by the secret and insensible intimations of his Spirit. He can guard your understandings from every evil influence of error, and secure you from the danger of evil books and men, which might otherwise have a fatal effect, and lead you into pernicious mistakes.