A quote from Mother Teresa that rather sums it all up

[WildEyedLiberal]

I have been very pensive this week, deliberating the fallout of this attempted character assassination against our beloved Senator. During one of my darker moods, I happened to recall a sign I had seen once, in what seems like a lifetime ago:

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind.
Think big anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack if you help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Then I thought it a lovely quote and admired its romantic idealism from afar. Such concepts, while soul-stirring, are very removed from the daily life of an American teenager.

But today I recalled those words and with a shudder understood them fully for the first time. In dolor veritas.

[ProSense]

1. Excellent quote!

The thing that pisses me off is that this wasn't a blunder. The friggin outrage didn't match the harmless friggin flub, and these assholes knew it. This incident should not be mischaracterized by anyone as something Kerry did wrong. It was a friggin RW lie!

In a sane country, they would be apologizing to him!

Arrrrrrrrgh! Bastards!

[wisteria]

2. Exactly. It is being spun that it is all his fault , when in fact he did

nothing really wrong. He is even being accused of waiting to long to respond with the proper transcripts and apology. I hope he comes back and proves all of these back stabbing SOB wrong.

[karynnj]

10. The transcript was on CNN before he spoke on Tuesday

It was alos on Taylor Marsh's blog. If CNN had it I assume it was out to all the media. That was at most a matter of hours - probable because they didn't know of the issue. That timeline is easily proved. The apology was within a day and a half. I'm still waiting for a lot of Cheney apologies as he has said that votes for Democrats are votes for terrorism - that disses all of us other half of the country more than a statement that at worst implied some people in Iraq ended up there because they messed around in school. Abetting terrorism is a much stronger accusation.

As to Ms Senator "Inappropriate", she should consider a NY Daily News editorial. They took her response on torture for someone with knowledge of an imminent attack to position her as LESS against torture than McCain who had answered that the person could still torture by breaking the law. This created the odd positioning of McCain, whose compromise was a farce, being more anti orture than Hillary. Long term, this is a more serious gaffe and one that goes to character.

[Island Blue]

3. Beautiful.

If I could recommend that I would. :applause:

[sandnsea]

4. That's very nice WEL

I always had it summed up "If you can do good, you should."

And really, most people are on this planet just doing whatever thing it is that makes somebody else happy. Building houses, singing, running hotels, sewing clothes, growing food. If we all could be thanked and compensated for what we want to do for somebody else, there wouldn't be much of anything to fight over. It's just when the greedy bastards get in the way that it all goes haywire, but they get taken care of eventually.

Better times ahead!!

[karynnj]

5. That is a beautiful quote and it fits so well

Like everyone else, I think this was a setup and would have happened even without the botched joke. Even the literal meaning of the joke is NOT anti troops. This was likely preplanned to attampt to destroy Senator Kerry as much to keep him from being a strong voice on Iraq after the election as to win 2006.

I've been thinking all week of the fact that the Bible passage he chose at Pepperdine in addition to telling the apposles that to follow they had to serve said that they often would be attacked while doing so. Kerry chose that Gospel as one that guides his life. This poem seems to be related to that.

[beachmom]

6. Thank you for this, WEL

Now I wish we had sent this poem with the cookies.

[MBS]

7. just for the record,this isn't from Mother Theresa

These are great words, indeed, and thanks so much for posting them --good medicine for this awful week.
But these "commandments" come from an American, Kent M. Keith, who lives in Hawaii. . and who originally wrote these as part of a pamphlet for high school leaders that he wrote when he was a Harvard college student, in 1968. Somehow eight of the "commandments" of his pamphlet made their way to a children's home in Calcutta, and were then included in a book about Mother Theresa! God knows she LIVED these words, but these particular wording belongs to Kent Keith.
He's now written a little book, "Anyway: the paradoxical commandments" (GP Putnam, New York, 2001).

Here's the original wording of # 6 (better, I think, than its modification, and original wording somehow brings out its relevance to the events of this past week)
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

There's one commandment that's missing from the list, so for sake of anal-retentive completeness, here it is (#7 of the original 10--not as powerful as the other 9, though, so I can see why it got dropped as these were passed around)
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs .
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

[WildEyedLiberal]

9. Thanks for the additional info!

The poster I saw attributed it to Mother Teresa, but when I found it on the web, it said that it was on a sign hanging in one of Mother Teresa's homes in Calcutta. So thank you for clearing that up!

[Inuca]

8. Very beautiful & very appropriate

It would have been nice indeed to send these words with the cookies. Well.... some other time, there will unfortunately be "other times"....