What Would Thoreau Say?

You know, this has been fun.  I mean I think of something and write about it and millions of followers (three) take it and pass it on and we change the world together.  Only no reason to keep going.  Harold Camping and Family Radio say the world is ending Saturday, or at least it's starting to end Saturday but the show runs five months.  Not sure why it takes god that much time but he says it will. Camping, if you haven't heard, has taken his Bible-that book full of myths, stories, made up stuff written by men (no women allowed remember) and has figured out 1) when Noah's flood was and 2) the exact date 7000 years later that the rapture will start and the just will be elevated to heaven and the rest of us will die horrible deaths.  Never mind that in 7000 years the calendar he's using has changed several times.  Old Harold-and Harold alone!-has figured it out. Have you SEEN Harold Camping?  First of all  he looks like he was here for that flood.  Second he's a f

In an earlier post I suggested you not take your economic prognostications from an old gym teacher.  But here I am making another one. Well, not a prognostication but asking a question.  What would Thoreau Say... Why wouldn't a flat tax work?  Really, what if we said everyone...and I mean everyone-people, companies, nonprofits (yes, nonprofits-more below), churches...everyone paid 10% on everything they brought in.  Everything. If you are Bill Gates or Warren Buffett and you make $2 billion during the year, you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... If you are BP and you made $15 billion last year (which they did), you pay 10%-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... If you are the church Our Lady of the Paved Driveway and you take in 100k in contributions during a given year you pay 10k in taxes-no exemptions, no deductions, no monkey business... Huh?  Why wouldn't that work?  I bet the treasury would have more money than it knew what

After overwhelming public response to my having not posted in a while (one email), I resume today jotting down some thoughts on the simple life, a life responding to "What would Thoreau Say?" In a talk I'm giving at the National Cathedral next week I am presenting the workshop I call SiSiSa---Simplicity, Silence, Sabbath.  In this workshop we confront a series of questions about our life in an effort to simplify it, find room for silence, and take steps toward defining what sabbath can mean to us in our lives. In the silence section we will explore something I call Two Times a Day for Peace, a simple system for meditation (it has been called meditation light) I developed and use to slow down...I present the contents of TTDP below.  Let me know your thoughts and perhaps respond with how you create peace... TWO TIMES A DAY FOR PEACE Introduction Several ago my son and his girlfriend joined me in a Peace Walk sponsored by Thich Nhat Hahn as part of “peace is every st