Inappropriate Conversations

My position on gambling tends toward indifference. I'm less likely to make obvious observations about criminal activity or other societal implications than I am to reject ideas that state-sponsored gambling lowers taxes or drives tourism. In narrow (and largely long past) circumstances, that may have made some sense. Now, it is clearly less sustainable than the average "reality TV" show.

Different Drummer: Tom Waits

Whether "old" church (pre-Reformation) manages ritual better than church today in more modern or contemporary settings?

It's not funny, it's hypocritical, how the same words can sound hateful or not based solely on whether they are heard rather than spoken. Sometimes we only understand the worst aspects of how we communicate when we hear ourselves through the angry words of others. The principle is very simple: if words you hear directed toward you are wounding rather than healing, then those same words directed toward others are hateful rather than loving.

Different Drummer: Peter of Bethsaida