the Tax Collector the Farmer and the Reverand

the farmer grew two dozen bushels of grain last season, Tithed a share to his seed store, tithed a share to his Church, and trades the rest with store Keeper in town for what his farm did need for next season. Was a cold lean winter, Farmer don't have two bits to rub together by springtime, just the good credit of the Storekeep, the Preacher and farmer's trusty Seed share.

then come Friendly tax man tells that farmer he ought to pay his share, his two bit share of what uncle sam did right and up give the good farmer, the land, the rivers, the mountains and the rails.

Good Ol Uncle Sam Says we better pay our share of all God did grace on gods country, and the bit the old farmer did grow.

Farmer knows the preacher says God made the rivers and the trees and the good working hands of god's people... so farmer is a bit confused.

Farmer knows his farm does grow two dozen bushels of two dozen sorts, try all he searched though, Farmer never did see a two bit grow up from the weeds, just the grain and the weeds did grow, oh no two bit did grow!

what pocket does uncle Sam have that is not the pocket of us all?

Uncle Sam took the farmers boy off to war last year, uncle Sam took Farmers two bits made two bullets, one bullet for the farmers boy to put in his gun, one bullet for a farmers boy from the other side of the farm to put in his gun too. Who started the war again? UNCLE SAM, UNCLE SAM, UNCLE SAME OLD SAM.

~~~
Ancillary functions of a Progressive Church

Food Tax worries Coalition of churches

LOOKIE HERE GiRRRRRRLLLLL~~~~~

Washington state Department of Revenue Tax guide for Nonprofit Organizations
"Typical organizations receiving a property tax exemption are schools, churches, cemeteries, hospitals, social service agencies, character building organizations, nursing homes, homes for the aging, museums, and public meeting halls. Nonprofit organizations engaged in artistic performances for the general public, including production of musical, dance, artistic, dramatic and literary works, as well as art, scientific and historical collections, are also exempt from the property tax on property actually used for these purposes."

food for thought

The new food movement is an act of popular resistance against a system hardly less harmful to life and limb than military conflict. Food isn’t just something we need to shovel down our gullets each day to survive. It’s far more potent: the means, more than any other, by which we humans shape our planet and ourselves. Recognition of food’s true power demands we treat it in a completely different way. Rather than think of it as cheap fuel, we need to embrace food as a cultural force. We need to understand food in the way our ancestors did, before fossil fuel blurred our sense of its importance.

We need a new food manifesto—one that enables us to start thinking not just about food but through it. We need to understand how profoundly food affects every aspect of our lives, depending on the way it’s produced, transported, bought and sold, cooked, eaten and wasted. Food is much too important to be left in the hands of mega-corporations. We must take back control of food, and start wielding that ­control ­positively and ­collectively as a tool to shape a better world.

High-tech industrial farming isn’t the only way to feed the world. Comparative studies of alternative approaches, such as organic or permaculture, tend to focus on short-term metrics, like crop yields. But the number of tons of grain produced per acre per year is much easier to measure than happiness, the feeling of the wind on your skin or the satisfaction of following in your grandfather’s and father’s footsteps. The tacit assumption that nobody in his or her right mind could possibly choose farming over a desk job is clearly false, too, as hundreds of highly educated farmers in America and Europe can testify.

Like Fluid

Let’s get down to brass tacks and rap about the facts of life
It’s like the whole world is delirious
Mysterious isn’t it man how we all cheer for weariness
I’m serious. It’s eerie how weird it is. I’m fearing this.
It’s like the end is near and I pretend it’s not
And there’s a shot in this atmosphere drinking beer, smoking pot
Just a means to dodge the hang-ups that I got
But I refuse to let ‘em slide in the lyrics that I jot
I’m caught in a web of surreal material
And force-fed fear by governments of imperialists
The gist of this is not to twist your wrist
Or get you pissed enough to resist the abyss amiss that exists
Between our eyes and our minds
Cuz a zodiac sign can only lead the blind
Only the blind can be defined by Calvin Kline designs.
Make kindness intertwine with chat lines
Combat these bad times with fair rhymes.

Life’s like fluid, flow right thru it man
Take what you get, get what you put into it
And Life’s like fluid, flow like fluid man
Take what you get, get what you put into it

Maybe the song’s wrong
Maybe the strong only survive within the confines of corporate goldmines
Maybe the divine lies within wearing a tie
Following the guidelines and getting dollar signs in your eyes
Maybe it’s about being corrupt, blowing yourself up
Taking thirty people with you like you don’t give a fuck
Life’s a hard pill to swallow when you wallow in your sarrows
Hollow, like the bottle of liquor bottles when you’re blottow
Hollow, like the popular models we try to follow
Hollow, like putting our plans for tomorrow
But tomorrow never knows, yesterday is history
It gets to me when all that I can Scope is fucking Listerine
Persistency seems to come to me without consistency
Resisting the rhyme and reason of existence
Be all that I can be without enlisting in the infantry
I’d rather shoot the gift, light it up like a Christmas tree.

Life’s like fluid, flow right thru it man
Take what you get, get what you put into it
And Life’s like fluid, flow like fluid man
Take what you get, get what you put into it

While I’m waiting for my day to come, numb from the opium
Equilibrium’s fucked up from drinking rum
In the slum, dumbing myself down to make a buck
What the fuck, it’s like slumming for crowns back to a ruck
When I bust this shit, I’m gonna cus and spit
Until you just admit, this is the rush I get
When I flash that raw flesh in your face
And get ill when I spray these lyrics like mace
Vanish up in the air without a trace
Like damn! Who was that kid? He just fell from grace
I’m bound to be a mental case if I don’t get my cards in place
I got the jack, the ten, the king, the queen – now all I need’s the ace
I try to keep the pace with this rat race across the nation
Time’s a-wasting, way to patient
In the way I tend to face realization
Everyday it’s like vacation that he’s spacing in
In a way I’m way to patient when I hit my destination cuz

Life’s like fluid, flow right thru it man
Take what you get, get what you put into it
And Life’s like fluid, flow like fluid man
Take what you get, get what you put into it

Critical thinking

uTube: Pocahantas knows whats up
Kurt Cannabis meets Connie Cancer


A Lack of belief
irreducable complexity cut down to size
Critical thinking

~~~
Seattle is getting ready
Washington State tokers invited to pay taxes
official Statement(.pdf)
MMJ tax code advisory for Washington

The Now Pages

TheBridgePortland
BridgeSpeak
The Bridge includes singing, dancing, drumming, painting, writing, lauging, crying, praying, learning, teaching, and even just listening. We try to open ourselves up to full creativity, full giving of ourselves in worship to God, and see what God speaks back to us as individuals. People are not only allowed, but encouraged to worship in whatever way they want.

You deserve to be loved because you exist. And that love has to come without a price tag!
homePDX
Speak
God and I don’t have the sort of relationship like a Thomas Kinkade painting, where he is walking me through the meadow of life and I see glimpses of him everywhere, nor is it like the forth of July and the fireworks are His voice. Most of the time God has to talk to me like I am a child in a preschool class; they sit on the mat, the teacher holds up a picture of something, like a cat and the child knows what a cat is, the teacher makes consequences very clear and the child gets punished. So God knows I need to be led by the hand and He also knows that unless He makes it very clear what he is doing in my life and my community I will miss it because I am a preschooler and I get distracted.


JessicaRoyeSpeaks
She yells my name like a mother would and gives my advice even when I don’t necessarily want it. She tells me every week that she is praying I have lots of babies. This would usually irritate me, but because it’s her I encourage it. I feel like is some way she gets a small, very miniscule part of the motherhood that was taken from her. Recently she found the phone number for her daughter and began calling her, now every Sunday she will take my cell phone and talk to her daughter on the phone. I don’t know what they talk about, I can’t understand a word of it, I every time it happens I stand back a listen. I listen and feel overjoyed and sad all at the same time.



Even in the midst of great pain, Lord,
I praise you for that which is.
I will not refuse this grief
Or close myself to this anguish.
Let shallow men pray for ease:
“Comfort us; shield us from sorrow.”
I pray for whatever you send me,
and I ask to receive it as your gift.
You have put a joy in my heart
greater than all the world’s riches.
I lie down trusting the darkness,
for I know that even now you are here.



Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.



GreenRibon