Use the stairs, people!
How do you get people to change their behavior? Make it fun.
Link courtesy of ED.
Stealing from the Poor
Basil of Caesarea, from Homilia in illud dictum evangelii secundum Lucam: «Destruam horrea mea, et majora ædificabo:» itemque de avaritia (Homily on the saying of the Gospel According to Luke, “I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones,” and on greed):
Naked did you not drop from the womb? Shall you not return again naked to the earth? Where have the things you now possess come from? If you say they just spontaneously appeared, then you are an atheist, not acknowledging the Creator, nor showing any gratitude towards the one who gave them. But if you say that they are from God, declare to us the reason why you received them. Is God unjust, who divided to us the things of this life unequally? Why are you wealthy while that other man is poor? Is it, perhaps, in order that you may receive wages for kindheartedness and faithful stewardship, and in order that he may be honored with great prizes for his endurance?
But, as for you, when you hoard all these things in the insatiable bosom of greed, do you suppose you do no wrong in cheating so many people? Who is a man of greed? Someone who does not rest content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes away what belongs to others. And are you not a man of greed? are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation?
The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.
§7 (PG 31, 276B – 277A)
Thanks to De unione ecclesiarum
Links of the Day, October 21
Go buy this t-shirt:
Or just follow the advice found thereupon.
News
- A nuclear fuel agreement is reached in Iran.
- Human Rights Watch says dozens of ethnic Uighurs have disappeared since being detained after riots in China.
- The really, really smart people at Apple release a brand new iMac, complete with the really, really pretty Magic Mouse (below). They really know how to make attractive products over there.
Health care
- According to CBO estimates, the House's desired bill--which includes a public option, hurray!--will cost $871 billion, and will cut the deficit.
Green
Miscellaneous
- Freakonomics authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt get climate change wrong.
- Marginal Revolution points out some successful government bureacracies.
- Illustrator Marc Johns' "If Paper Towels Could Talk." Hilarious.
- If you don't like reading about giant spiders, don't click on this link.
"What do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?"
An 86 year-old World War 2 veteran at a public meeting on Maine's marriage equality bill:
The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?