577. The Bad, the Good, the Important

1. The Bad News.
The United States Senate and specifically the Republican Conference has declared the Insurance Industry is now in full control of the U. S. government. The American Republic is obsolete. And the Party in the majority is helpless. I'm not sure [read I'm not smart enough to know] where we go from here.

2. The Good News.
Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, of Prestonsburg, indicated some capacity and support on the part of Kentuckians for additional [meaning new] taxes in support of education. A lot of us on the left want to look at a lot more than the Speaker does, but this is a great and good first step. Thank you Greg Stumbo.

3. The Important News.
I sent a handwritten letter to The Most Reverend Joseph Kurtz, D.D., Archbishop of Louisville, yesterday explaining that the time had come for me to formally leave the Roman Catholic Church. I cited my thirty years of active membership at Holy Family Parish, my beliefs in Social Justice, my concern that the current Church of Rome in the United States is simply an arm of the right wing of the Republican Party, and that Jesus' sermon in the Gospel of Saint Matthew at Chapter 25, Verse 45 has been given over to the close-minded and narrow-focussed campaigns that in my opinion were never a part of the teachings of Jesus. I also emailed The Reverend Tim Mitchell, Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Advent, requesting to be received into that church at the earliest possible date, presumably in January upon the visit to the church by the Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky.

It has been an interesting week so far.