Showing posts with label kindness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kindness. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Should I be Liberal or Conservative? (test)

Wisdom Quarterly editors Seven and Ashley Wells

I want to be rich, so that makes me liberal. I am poor, so that makes me conservative. Anyone who wants to conserve this system is, by definition, a corporate-welfare-loving "conservative." Obama, for example. Anyone who wants change, equality, fairness and justice for all regardless of categories or labels we put on them from birth is radical and rises on the side of being liberal.

I am rich, so that makes me conservative. I want to be poor, so that makes me liberal. Anybody who wants to change this system is, by definition, some kind of human-welfare-loving "liberal." Bush, for example. Anybody who wants preservation, inequality, "fair and balanced" news and justice for some depending on labels and the categories we put them in is reactionary and falls on the side of being conservative.
  • But everybody wants to be richer!
  • Yes, but not everyone wants to be richer by making others poorer. That's a cruel delusion many people carry around. We can have a win-win cooperative world. Instead, many push for a win-lose competitive world. What does the conservative media feed us?
  • I can be rich and kind to everyone?
  • Yes, be rich; have compassion; think of yourself AND others! It's called "enlightened self-interest." We don't have to be like Cartman...or Stan.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Money and the Kindness of Strangers

Wisdom Quarterly

It was raining money at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium! Club-level server Heather Allison was taking orders in the stands at a Chargers football game when she tripped and showered unsuspecting fans a level below with about $1,000 in cash. You can guess what happened.

  • A man threw his baby over the railing telling him to grab as much cash as he could before hitting the bleachers?
  • Fans began to fight each other resulting in two deaths in a mad scramble during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?
  • Gunshots were fired by security personnel in an attempt to clear the crowd who looked up to see money raining down before the shots did injuring many in the confusion and stampede?
  • No, it was even more amazing. The fans surprised everyone.

chargersfans Sports hooligans, susceptible to groupthink, give all fans a bad name (AP)

“All my customers began screaming over the railing to the people below: ‘That’s the servers’ money,’” explains Allison, who has sold refreshments in Sections 36 and 37 for five years.

Fans helped collect the stray bills as did the crowd below. Within minutes, a security officer returned with a stack of cash for the grateful waitress. “It was all there,” says the mother of four and full-time student who, after paying the concession, still pocketed $170 in tips. “Chargers fans are amazing,” she says. “We’re like a family.”

Jealous woman sets boyfriend on fire
This is the horrific moment a couple became human fireballs as they were engulfed in flames in a New York street. The first victim, 32, is pictured with his clothes burning as he desperately tried to put out the fire. He died four days later in hospital from 50 percent burns. On the floor, his 50-year-old lover, mass murderer Agnes Bermudez lies screaming in pain as flames roar along her body, as she was accidentally ignited in the attack. The terrifying images were captured on CCTV. But the blaze caught hold of their apartment block in Queens and three people died in the fire. Horribly disfigured in the attack, Burmudez was charged with four counts of murder -- because that's how things are done in America. More