Sunday, September 27, 2009

Dad/Zebras/Swaney/Edelen/Health Care




(P1) Poetical

John J. Coletti (August 31, 1914 -
September 9, 2009)

link to obituary



So Many Poems
(for John J. Coletti)


My father lies dying
(so many poems)
His chest rises and doesn’t
(so many poems)
then rises again
(This is our moment)
My beacon now phoenix
(so many poems)
I draw him,
soothe him
(so many poems)
I sponge his lips with cranberry
He sucks on it
(honey bee)
So many poems
he’ll never read —
has never read —
so many.


(ed coletti - sept. '09) Please see full 7-Poem Suite For Dad at No Money in Poetry site

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(photo by Katherine Hastings in Kenya 1989)














(poster by Ray Swaney)

(P2) Philosophical

VIRUSES OF THE MIND

by William Edelen
April 26, 2009

A child comes into the world, born an atheist as all babies are, and then is quickly indoctrinated with the religious virus of his or her parents and culture. A child through enculturation absorbs the culture of his, or her people. Enculturation is the process by which an individual learns the patterns of the family;

Children, through innocence, believe everything the parents tell them. They believe in the "tooth fairy"..."Santa Claus"..."The Easter bunny"..."witches changing princes into frogs"..."a man being born of a virgin"..."a man who could rise up from the dead"..."walk on water" and so forth. Children, being gullible, are easy prey for mental infections. It is easy for a child's consciousness to be exploited by a mind virus that is identical in nature to a computer virus or a biological virus.

The helpless young are easy victims of an insidious propaganda regardless of how ignorant or bigoted.

RELIGION IS A CULTURAL ACCIDENT. Children believe what their parents tell them and so follow the religious belief of their parents, or culture. The diety of ones worship is a product of ones culture. Catholic nuns do not have visions of the Buddha...nor do Buddhist nuns have visions of Christ.

Religions come with built in guilt mechanisms if the host starts to question. It is like a computer's warning statements if you try to delete a file needed for its operating system. Fear will usually remain even if guilt is overcome. A woman in my Congregational church in Tacoma, WA had grown up as a Roman Catholic and left to become a Congregationalist. She told me that she often awakened in the night in a cold sweat afraid she was going to be punished for that after death.

In my university class I would tell the students that the only reason they are Christian is due to the fact they were born in the United States to Christian parents. Had they been born in Israel they would be a Jew...in Japan a Buddhist...in India, Hindu...and so forth going through the various religious traditions. I told them they were not Christian because they had studied all the other religions of the world and then chose Christianity. And the only reason they were a Methodist, say, is because they were born into a Methodist home in the United States..They were not Methodist because they had studied all the other Protestant traditions and then chose to be Methodist. . In other words, quite simply and factually, they were only an enculturated Methodist Christian.

Link to Complete Essay


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(P3) Political

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

After great pain/ Preamble/ Edelen


(P1) Poetical

Emily Dickinson

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

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(P2) Political

Healthcare For All

Preamble to the United States Constitution

We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and
secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish
this Constitution
for the United States of America.

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(P3) Philosophical

Reply From William Edelen

My feeling about death is...as they say in Taoism and Zen...there is nothing to fear...at all...it is just a perfectly natural part of the cycles of nature...birth growth and death...everything is a part of that process...even the galaxies...the flowers of a rainy spring...and the grasses of a showery summer...are good...and beautiful...and sufficient even tho they will vanish..."life" so called...is only a brief interlude between two mysteries.which are yet ONE..birth and death are just perfectly natural part of the rhythms of nature...it is ONLY the people of the "book"...the bible...Islam and Judaism and Christianity that have made it a fearful event...so...my friend...I hope this helps a little...with love...Bill

Go here to William Edelen's Website


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