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Letter from Friends Committee on National Legislation on Budget Priorities
Wanted to share with all of you the text (plus link) of an email I received today from FCNL:
Here in Washington, everyone agrees that the current level of federal budget deficits is unsustainable. Our FCNL policy is that – with a few exceptions – government should take in sufficient revenue to cover the nation’s needs. But as our lawmakers debate how to cut the deficit, we need to insist on truth telling; a serious consideration of all federal spending, including the Pentagon’s budget; and open discussion about priorities. Contact your representative today.
The plan that the House leadership offers for a vote on Friday fails that test. The plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) reduces the $15 trillion federal budget debt by about $155 billion over 10 years – that’s a drop in the ocean. This plan “saves money” by transferring resources from programs that assist people with low and moderate incomes to wealthy individuals and corporations.
Rep. Ryan’s plan, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would cut $4.3 billion in federal spending – two-thirds of that directed at programs for people of low and moderate incomes. The plan would then give $4.2 billion of that sum away in tax cuts that benefit primarily wealthy individuals and corporations.
We at FCNL want Congress to be serious about federal government spending, which means looking at ALL expenditures and balancing priorities. Cutting waste, fraud and abuse makes good sense. The place to start is with Pentagon spending. Fair and adequate taxes and other government programs should also be examined.
Take Action
Urge your representative to reject the Ryan budget and to support efforts to make at least $100 billion a year in cuts to the Pentagon budget, as recommended by the Sustainable Defense Task Force.
Ask 5 friends to contact their representative too.
Find Out More
Who says we can and should cut Pentagon spending? The answer may surprise you.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force outlined how nearly $1 trillion could be cut from the Pentagon budget over the next 10 years. Read the summary and share it with others in your community.
Read the analysis of Rep. Ryan’s budget that was done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Find out more about the Our Nation’s Checkbook campaign to shift money from the military budget to advance other priorities.
Five Days of No Computer
and four days of no cell phone signal. Would I be able to do that without leaving home? Would I want to do that without leaving home?
I’ll ponder that another time. Meanwhile, I imagine waking up with the dawn in the high desert.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Tatah Dvandavah Anabhighatah (and “winners and losers”)
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra II.48, tatah dvandaha anabhighataha is translated by B.K.S. Iyengar as “from then on [after the yogi through steady practice has absorbed him/herself in the practice of yoga), the sadhaka (practitioner) is undisturbed by dualities.” This sutra follows the only two in all of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that specifically discuss asana, which Patanjali describes as a controlled and perfect ease and steadiness of mind and body.
I was thinking about the freedom from the “pairs of opposites” — pleasure and pain, etc. — when I read an article in the Washington Post yesterday dividing everyone who was impacted by the blizzard as a winner or a loser. Children off from school were winners, frustrated parents, travelers who were grounded from flying, and politicians sure to be blamed for not having planned in a Southern city to have the snow removal equipment, personnel, and budget of a city like Buffalo, NY, were losers. I am fairly certain (based on the harangues on the blogs) that the author was not alone in seeing everything as winning or losing. To me, though, it feels like one of the “afflictions” described by Patanjali. I was a grounded flyer. I was much looking forward to a trip to San Francisco to see a dear friend from college and then to attend the weekend workshop with John Friend. It would have been great fun to be there. I was disappointed. But it never would have occurred to me to label myself a loser. Do so so would just had me hold onto unhappiness.
Yoga teaches us to look for the good, to accept what we cannot change, and to seek to respond in the highest. In essence, we are changing what we can change, which is how we react. If my only reaction to the storm was pain and sadness from having the pleasure of my planned trip taken away from me, then I would in fact be a loser. If I just accept that no one can anticipate when record-breaking winter storms are going to arrive and then have the best day I can under the unavoidable circumstances, then I am a winner. I am not a winner in a game where someone else is a loser. I am not a winner in that I did not let Mother Nature win. Rather, I have learned that the steady practice of yoga makes life more easeful and delightful even in challenges and disappointments. I am motivated to practice more. The lessons learned from being confined a blizzard when I was warm, well fed, and surrounded by friends are a hopeful prelude for how the yoga will serve when I really face a challenge.
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Overheard in a Willow Street Yoga changing room, following a January 2nd workshop, spoken by a lovely gray-haired woman: “At this age, the challenge is in finding the joy in basic maintenance.” This has become my go-to phrase for 2011.