Dylanesque Eddie/Another Shooting Here/Nice Letter

(P1) Poetical

Pronouncing "Iraq"

Ear Rack or Ear Rock?
What implications?
(dismiss all Eye Rackers
for just who they are)

Ear Ack
Ear Ock
each tick
each tock

air attack
must whack
political hack
wolf pack
kick back
data track
pitch black
media claque
all those youngsters
ripped by flak
yack yack
spore sac

voting flock
cuckoo clock
where's John Locke
in dry dock
mental block
preening cock
full of schlock
writ in chalk
for mock and hock
loss of freedom block on block
despairing race against the clock

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Political

Please Ban Handguns, For the Common Good!

On a nice afternoon last week, I drove down to Mail & More (on Hopper & Airway) to deliver and pick up my business mail. As usual, I drove by the non-profit organization Community Resources For Independence (CRI) of which I was co-founder. To my amazement, the whole area was ringed with bright yellow police tape. Squad cars and officers were everywhere. I went into Luigi's to see if Edith was ok and to find out what had happened. She was huddled with an employee and no dining customers. She explained that there had been a shooting across the street and asked that I inquire at Mail & More as to what had happened. She also wanted to know what TV station was shooting in the parking lot. Sean at Mail & More told me that 2 kids from the continuation high school had been shot by a shooter who'd jumped out of a car. One victim was a boy shot (not fatally) in the head, the other a girl shot in the hip. The motive may have been gang-related. The school is a "baby-sitting" facility for kids expelled from other high schools.

My mind immediately went to the kids from Elsie Allen HS at a graduation party last year - good kids - one was the star of the rugby team which had just played for the national championship. Six good kids gunned down by party crashers. We all remember party crashers when we were kids. If violence broke out, it was settled with fists. We knew something of knives and chains from Westside Story, but never guns (those were the province of westerns and crime shows). After that tragedy, I emailed all of the City Council members who responded either with the rote "more enforcement" and/or "activities for kids." No one mentioned the fact that much of the gang crime was being controlled from Pelican Bay Prison in Crescent City. Anyway, the issues are big ones, and I don't think that gang violence will be easily solved.

What I did mention to Sean was my belief that handguns simply have no positive value and must be outlawed. He gave me the usual replies about hunting and that "then only the bad guys will have guns." But we've moved well beyond all this. The "guns for self defense" cry is belied by a statistic I read years ago, something like there being a 500 percent greater chance of a violent crime in a household possessing guns. The number of home invasions prevented by guns is an infinitismal fraction. It's simply time to contact legislators demanding that handguns be banned. Once they are off the legal market, certainly some criminals will find ways to obtain them, but with 90% of the availability curtailed, it stands to reason that gun crime will go way down. Gun crime and violence represents an emergency of the highest order. The lives of children are at stake. Let's do something!


Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P3) Philosophical

This lovely letter from the web site of Esther Cameron, editor of The Neovictorian/Cochlea resonates,

I want to write
to all of you, "accepted" or "rejected" this time around, to thank you for your poems, and also to explain in greater depth than I could do in that brief advertisement why I started this review, and what I hope for from its readers and its writers. (This is in lieu of criticism, which some asked for, and of guidelines for next time.) First of all, I am, like you, a poet, but for some time have felt dissatisfied with literary fashions that seem molded too much by various markets, and too little by visions of the world we’d like to make. My view is shaped by memories of a era when poetry was shared with friends who sought to see the outline of a common future. Then I heard poems, not in isolation but as the dialogue of one great play extending over many generations where every one had something to contribute and where the challenge was not to be "better" than fellow-bard, but rather to be true to one's own moment, one's own point upon the continuum of human space and time -- to speak your part, whatever it might be. Too, I've been influenced by Paul Celan, whose work made many voices audible, whose tragic fate seemed not just the result of the past trauma of the Holocaust but rather of a framework within which his word was not allowed to make things happen. Appalled by this, I looked toward other cultures, read Black Elk Speaks, some Talmud, and considered the little that is known about the Druids -- all cultures where the speakers formed a guild with some commitment to the social welfare, to poetry as a common enterprise of understanding and communication. I'd like to think that we could still rebuild this, that it is not too late. For after all the 'sixties were just thirty years ago, the changes which we sought then were far-reaching -- we might have known that patience would be needed, and willingness for long experiment. At any rate, the poems I've selected are those that seemed as if they might fit in to such a dialogue -- that held some spark of true experience or concern, conveyed in words that came alive to tell their tale. I have a certain preference for "form" because I've found the forms a source of strength, although the openness of good free verse is something that a reader of Celan cannot forget to honor. If the above has struck some chord in you, I hope you will pursue the conversation. If I've failed to understand your work, then please forgive me and try again. A sample issue may help you tune in. And last, this publication is funded by no grants. I hope you'll feel the company makes up for modest format, and that you'll want to help sustain this vision by subscribing, ordering extra copies (besides the two contributors receive) and sharing this with friends. The issue won't have a "bio" section, but will print titles of books by the contributors, also your mailing address, if you're willing to enter into dialogue with readers -- please let me know. Wishing you all the best of vision, luck and guidance, I remain yours sincerely, Esther Cameron Please Post Your Comments Here about the above and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

O.I.L./Yeats/National Debt

(P1) Political

Operation Iraqi Freedom (O.I.L.)

Read what fearless Guardian (UK) investigative reporter Greg Palast discovered about the real reason for the invasion of Iraq.

by Greg Palast

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED

The Guardian

Monday, March 20, 2006

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just dead wrong.

On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.

But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney, accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called,

"Operation

Iraqi

Liberation."

O.I.L. How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.

"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's crude.

Now read the full article and discover how "Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it. " Here's a link to the full Palast article


Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P2) Poetical

Oil and Blood

IN tombs of gold and lapis lazuli

Bodies of holy men and women exude

Miraculous oil, odour of violet.

But under heavy loads of trampled clay

Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood;

Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet.


(William Butler Yeats - 1929)

(P3) Philosophical (sort of)

Could This Be True?


Randi Rhodes opines that the right-to-life folks might well want to rally against "stealing from the unborn." If, in fact, the unborn, possess a basic set of constitutional rights, aren't they entitled to protection against the robbery occurring as the national debt increases exponentially. You and I won't suffer as directly as our offspring and their children...and, if, in fact, the unborn are human beings too, and if the national debt increase will result in a de facto tax of $30,000 to each human American, where are the cries against this on behalf of the unborn? The first 42 presidents of this country COMBINED borrowed $1.2 trillion from other nations. George Bush, in only 4 years borrowed $1.05 trillion! What's going on here? I thought we were supposed to not trust John Kerry with our fiscal future. Bush has an MBA! So much for MBA's. Anyhoo, our "president" inherited incredible fiscal SURPLUSES, and, well...look at us now!



Please Post Your Comments Here about the above and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

Cruella/Bumper Sticker/Chicken Poem

(P1) Political

Mary & Cruella

Until Arianna Huffington ran the following image, I wondered why Mary Matalin had annoyed me so much more than merely because she procures for right wing so diligently. But now, following the Academy Awards, she'll get some respect considering that the winner of Best Song was Three/Six Mafia's immortal "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp!"

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P2) Philosophical

Bumper Sticker

A bumper sticker I saw several days ago on the back of a pickup got me to thinking. It read "Land of the Free Because of the Brave." Reflexively, I gave myself an unwarranted pat on the back for having spent a year in Vietnam. I also had visions of the young men, throughout the Twentieth Century who had fought bravely in ....and then it hit me..."in defense of our country." But, I asked myself (unpatriotically? heretically?) had these men fought to "defend" America? Let us review the wars from approximately the start of the century.

Spanish American War - ostensibly to bail out the suffering Cubans at the hands of the "mighty" Spanish. Actually a Hearst-provoked newspaper war.

World War I - How many American boys had even heard of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef assassinated by a Serb. How many of our boys had even heard of Serbia?

World War II - The closest thing we've got to a "noble cause." We fought to liberate Europe. Certainly, the Japanese played right into our hands affording us with a better excuse and, perhaps a real sense of a "defense" mission. However, how likely would it have been that the Japanese would have invaded the mainland? Just about zero. A farfetched argument could be made that, had the Germans kept Europe, they would have invaded us. Really? How? In any event, U. S. participation in WWII may have been our most selfless and lasting gift to the world (along with what the U.S. constitution once inspired).

Korean War - North Korea invades South Korea. China joins. Thousands of Americans die, but not to defend America.

Vietnam - Ditto with different country names. Our participation ruins our national unity for decades

Iraq Number One - We ostensibly defend Kuwait.

Afghanistan - This one is close to a "defense" of our homeland by going after the perpertrators of Sept. 11th only to see that the real purpose was to go after

Iraq - again and its oil.

So, I decided, the next time I see or hear jingoistic slogans, I intend to take a closer look especially when the slogans might result in more American men and women killed under false pretenses, and more and more billions of our tax dollars going to something misnamed "defense."

However, rather than completely rule out the "brave," I thought back to those who had died securing our freedom during the American Revolution and preserving the Union during the Civil War. Following this, my wife Joyce further called me to task by asking me to take another look at the bumper sticker's words, "Land of the Free, Because of the Brave." Couldn't it also refer to those brave enough to "fight" for freedom by calling attention to attempts to stifle it? What of Edward R. Murrow and all those who resisted McCarthyism, and those of us today who resist and call attention to government snooping and other attempts to curb our basic constitutional freedoms?

So let's also give that pickup driver some benefit of the doubt. There may be more to a bumper sticker than meets the eye.

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P3) Poetical

Original Song/2d In New Series/Forgive CT

(P1) Poetical

Song

Where Have All True Demos Gone?
(Ed Coletti to the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?")

Where have all true Demos gone?
we must be asking.
Where have all true Demos gone,
since Roosevelt?
Where have all true Demos gone,
conciliating placators?
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where are all the radicals?
we must be asking.
Where are all the radicals?
since days of rage
Where are all the radicals?
Gone suburban every one.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all idealists gone,
Since late Sixties?
Where have all idealists gone?
So long behind
Where have all idealists gone?
Gone to believe what they hear
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Still unchanging.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
this time again.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to greedy oil wars.
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

What of all their families?
lost and grieving.
What of all the families?
All bereft of hope.
What of all the families
Are you all still listening?
When will they ever learn?
When will you ever learn?

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P2) Philosophical


Number 2 From Our New Series
(Things Even I Know That George Bush Doesn't)

(2) "Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish me from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons."

-Alan Watts in The Book: On Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are"

(1) "In all there are more than seven thousand known species of dung beetles without which the earth would literally smother in excrement."

-Carl Hiaasen in Sick Puppy

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P3) Political

Troop Poll/Ingersoll/Octavia Butler

(P1) Political

What The Troops Are Saying

Wondering how to support the troops in Iraq? How about just listening to them. According to Nicholas D. Kristof who actually visits these places, "...unrepentant hawks (most of whom have never been to Iraq) have insisted that journalists are misreporting Iraq and that most soldiers are gung-ho about their mission...

"Hogwash! A new poll that was released Tuesday shows that U.S. soldiers overwhelmingly want out of Iraq-and soon...Zogby International and LeMoyne College...asked 944 service members, 'How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq

"Only 23 percent backed Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary. In contrast, 72 percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should withdraw 'immediately.'

"That's one more bit of evidence that our grim stay-the-course policy in Iraq has failed. Even troops on the ground don't buy into it-and having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale...

"So what would it take to win in Iraq? Maybe that was the single most depressing finding in this poll. By a 2-1 ratio, the troops said that 'to control the insurgency we need to double the level of ground troops and bombing missions' And since there is zero chance of that happening, a majority of troops seemed to be saying that they believe this war to be unwinnable...

"..."It's time our commander in chief stopped stage-managing his troops and listened to them."

Because I wanted to make absolutely certain that this was a poll of troops serving in Iraq, I went to Zogby and found the following:

Nearly three of every four American troops serving in Iraq think the United States should withdraw all its troops and end the war within a year, according a Zogby-Le Moyne College poll released Tuesday.

Le Moyne faculty helped develop and word the poll's questions, which were given to troops in face-to-face interviews in Iraq, pollster John Zogby, of New Hartford, said.

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Philosophical

Wow! Robert Ingersoll

"Robert Ingersoll, "a glorious flame of free thought.' How can I do this genius justice in such a short space? I will try. He lived from 1833 to 1899 and was internationally known as the 'Great Agnostic', one of the most brilliant thinkers, lawyers, orators, debtors and authors of his day, or any day. Twelve volumes of his works are still available and are a collector's treasure. He lectured all over the United States and abroad to standing-room-only audiences. He spoke on many subjects, but thousands upon thousands turned out to hear him demolish the absurdities of orthodox religious dogmas, including Chriatianism. He found them repugnant due to the damage they did to the human mind and spirit. And yet, on a deep and profound level he had a sense of the Mystery that was breathtaking.

"I can tell you that, without exception, his funeral eulogies are the most beautiful that I have ever read in the English language.

"Walt Whitman, the poet laureate of the universe, said that only one man could speak at his funeral and that man was Robert Ingersoll...

"Mark Twain..wrote...Except for my daughter, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved his. (Ingersoll's).

To read some of his words, press the link to the full William Edelen column titled Robert Ingersoll..."A Most Precious Treasure."

(P3) Poetical

In Memoriam

Octavia E. Butler
American Science Fiction Author
1947-2006






All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.

-OEB 1993

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

Lose Your Head/Vegetarian Poem/New Series

(P1) Philosophical

Himalaya Headless

(link to photo source)

I was so taken with Joe Carpenter’s response to my afterlife survey that, in addition to it being added as a comment, I thought I would feature it here because I suspect that not everybody reads the comments. Following the article, I’ll include what Joe provided as a “biography.” I first came across Joe Carpenter’s work in a wonderful article titled “We Are The People” in the current Utne Reader.

Notes from nobody - with a smile

In the 1930's, a fellow named Douglas Harding was hiking in the Himalayas. At one point, in an instant, he realized that he'd been confused about the nature / existence of - his head. His thoughts, and sometimes various sensations, had always endeavored to place this "head" atop his shoulders. However, as he was wandering about in the Himalayas, looking at the astonishing scenery, he was jolted by the fact that, for the most part, he did not experience a head in that "space," where he thought his head was, but, rather, moment to moment, in day to day life, he experienced an "empty space." Somehow, he'd just never noticed! He realized, too, that that space was filled, at the moment, with the clear, crisp grandeur of the Himalayas, but that it generally contained "the world." This empty space, where he'd always believed he had a head, was filled with life - with, well, with everything. He said, later: "...I lost a head, and gained the whole world." (photo-D.Harding)

This understanding, this insight, is sometimes called enlightenment, or awakening... as if waking from a dream.

Rumi refers to it in several places. In this example, he calls it "presence" -

"...The presence that one second is soil, then water, fire, smoke, woof, warp, a friend, a shame, a modesty,

is too vast and intimate for partnership. Observers watch as presence takes thousands of forms.

But inside your eyes, the presence does not brighten or dim; it just lives there..."

In this one, he calls it "another world" -

"People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!"

In this one, he speaks of what happened to him, after this insight, after "losing a head, and gaining a world:"

"...He has ransacked my house so that no one lives here anymore,

just a boy running barefoot all through it."

Let's pretend, for the moment, that this "space," this "presence," is actually that "Reality, which is neither sensory nor conceptual, neither of the body, nor of the mind, though it includes and transcends both," as Nisargadatta puts it.

Let's pretend, further, that "the world," the stuff which occupies this "space" - whatever it might be at any given moment... the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, a row of filthy garbage cans, the kitchen sink, the pizza delivery guy, the lawn in the back yard, a portion of one's body and a computer screen and keyboard, a dreadful and vivid old memory, a fantasy involving several nurses and a bedbath, the darkness of the insides of the eyelids - whatever...

let's pretend that this "world" is a magnificent painting - a living, breathing, constantly moving, ever changing painting, astonishingly "lifelike."

I ofttimes think that, as we age, and perhaps acquire a bit of wisdom, there come some odd 'pentimento experiences,' as it were. There is something "else," sometimes, in the painting, beneath the painting. There arise odd questions, strange presentiments, experiences which do not make sense. We grow older, still, and the painting sometimes almost seems transparent, and the painting now sometimes contains odd images and strange dreams, insights, certainties...

Then, one day, an "unseen hand" comes and wipes away all the paint of the painting that is "one's life." That "empty space," that "presence" we've talked about, above, is entirely unaffected. It remains as "presence," powerful, aware, alive - but the painting has been wiped away. One could call this "death."

But now, the 'pentimento' painting is revealed; there is another painting beneath the old one. It is a "new," old painting - and the "stuff" of this painting is what fills that "empty space," for a while, or perhaps for a very long time. And then, perhaps, the empty space somehow conjures up a brand new painting to cover the old, new one, and we call this "birth." Though, of course, that "empty space," has remained, throughout, entirely unaffected - "including and transcending both body and mind" - and infinitely more.

Joe Carpenter says the following about himself, “Gee, I don't have much of a bio. I'm just a goofy, almost old guy who has spent lots of time wandering around. I work out in my cluttered garage, on an aging, beat-up laptop. I'm a nobody with a smile. I guess that's as good a title as any - "Notes from nobody - with a smile."

You know, I went to Nisargadatta's house, in 1991. He'd been dead for ten years, but I was undaunted. I stood there with my hand on the building for perhaps ten minutes while a lot of very, very poor Indians hustled by and looked at me as if I was from another planet - which, of course, was true. Then, I walked to a wonderful, old cafe up on the main road. I talked with an old curmudgeon who had known Maharaj. He asked me why I'd visit the home of a dead man. I told him about reading his books and pondering his teachings. The guy said: "You believe all that? No need to be so complicated. Here's the answer: Want much? Little happiness. Want little? Much happiness."

The US had just invaded Iraq, in George the First's War. He said: "Americans want very, very much."

( Sharp Cookie, eh?)

< - This is not Joe Carpenter

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Poetical

I'm Not Yet a Vegetarian but...

This poem must be read all the way through or you'll miss the whole point.

A Buddhist Grace or What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Somehow I never make it through this prayer:
Potatoes, celery, carrots, onions,
Each tenderly coaxed
From soft soil aerated by your hand
Thank you farmer for your work
I am connected to you
Through this fine stew
Unified by its good red burgundy stock.
Thank you vintners and wine makers
For your part in this symphony
Conducted with the tang of a bay leaf.
Let’s see, allow me to consider what else
For which to be thankful in my
deep dish of pungent stew...
...ah the succulence of fall-apart beef
Nurtured to morseled chunks by your hand,
My cook, my uniter of all components.
Thank you cattle for offering yourselves as sacrifice
Thank you slaughterhouse workers
wading ankle-deep in blood.
Thank you, those of you with the courage
to impersonally slay.
Thank you to the packers hanging carcasses on hooks.
Thank you for the cutters who hew beef bodies
As if they were so many grades and cuts of lumber.
Thank you, all of you, for the intimate part
You play in my meal and my life this day.

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P3) Political (sort of)

New Series: Things Even I Know That George Bush Doesn't

(1) "In all there are more than seven thousand known species of dung beatles without which the earth would literally smother in excrement."

-Carl Hiaasen in Sick Puppy

On Drugs/Art Ain't Easy/Meditation & Poker

(P1) Political

On Drugs - George Bush Attempts to Explain

Can you recall several months ago when my 91-year-old parents were being cut from their Kaiser medical coverage due to a snafu caused by the George Bush's so called drug pogrom (I mean "program") for the elderly. Fortunately, after several weeks of trying, I got Mom and Dad back aboard with Kaiser. Well anyway, thanks to Cory Farley in the Reno Gazette-Journal Feb. 21, 2006, we have a verbatim transcription of George Bush's "explanation." First here is the question from the audience:

"How is (Medicare's new plan) going to fix the problem?"

Here's the answer from the President of the United States who a reader of this column reminded me that "...unfortunately, this is the leader of the free world."

"Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered.

"And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised.

"Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect.

"In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those --if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."

Believe me, dear readers, I even had trouble typing and proofreading this!!!

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Poetical

Michelangelo Poem - Demonstrates that "Art's Not Always Easy"

To Giovanni Da Pistoia
On the Painting of the Sistine Chapel, 1509

I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den -
As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,
Or in what other land they hap to be-
Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:
My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,
Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly
Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery
Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.
My loins into my paunch like levers grind:
My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;
My feet unguided wander to and fro;
In front my skin grows loose and long; behind,
By bending it becomes more taut and strait;
Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:
Whence false and quaint, I know,
Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;
For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.
Come then, Giovanni, try
To succor my dead pictures and my fame;
Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.

(Michelangelo Buonarroti translated by John Addington Symonds)

(P3) Philosophical

Meditate Your Way to Better Poker

(From Utne Reader - Mar/Apr '06)

Can meditation help your poker game? For Andy Black, the answer seems to be yes. Last summer, after a five-year hiatus studying Buddhist teachings, the Irish card shark returned to the game and took fifth place at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas (he came in fourteenth in 1997, then quit the game in 1999). At the tournament, Black and his coach meditated each morning and sometimes read dharma texts during breaks. He recently told the Buddhist magazine Tricycle (Winter 2005) how his meditation practice and his game intersect: "When I'm playing I just try to be in the present moment...I find I make wrong decisions when I act out of tune with my gut sense of how things are: what this person is like, their situation at this moment, and the element of chance. My experience of Buddhist practice means that I also include how I am, how I am treating the other players, and how I respond to both winning and losing. You can disregard that feeling, just like in life, but in poker you get immediate payback. It's always the same lesson: When your actions are not in accordance with how things are, you suffer."

Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

A Reader Survey/Heaven?/Mark Twain

(P1) Philosophical


What Afterlife - A Readers' Survey

What (if anything) happens to us after our death?

Reincarnation?
Heaven/Hell?
Pure Energy
(with energy body? without energy body?)?
Lights Out (nothing at all)?,
Other?

Please answer and comment below - Please really try! (you too, Moe)!


Please Post Your Comments Here about the above or any below and/or Read the Comments of Others.You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but please add your name or initials to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P2) Poetical


Heaven?

This weird wonderful
weaving lattice of illusions
simultaneously held and disregarded.

My sister believes my dear
demented mother left
for heaven sometime ago.

Simply put, Mom has gone
somewhere farther away
even than New York is

from San Francisco, some
where our mother attempts to
explain from an infinitely interesting

tower of tongues as though she were
the Oracle of Delphi at the last moments
providing wisdom to her children straining

to comprehend what wandering meanings
she finds for where she's been when back
to time she journeys home to us.


(P2) Political

Mark Twain - Still Here When We Need Him

My friend and unofficial mentor, Bill Edelen posed 2 questions in his January 22d column, "My Hero: Mark Twain":

1. Do parents have a right to insist that their children grow up to be as ignorant as they are? In a democracy the answer is "yes." So, the next question:
2. Do the public schools have to be a party to this tragic process of promotion and cooperating with bigotry and ignorance? In a democracy founded on the separation of church and state, the answer is a loud resounding "NO."

Edelen continues: "Directly above my computer, framed, are these words about a writer's 'worthy calling' by Mark Twain" 'ours is a useful trade...a worthy calling...and it has one serious purpose, one aim, one specialty, and it is constant to it...the deriding of shams...the exposure of pretentious falsities...the laughing of stupid superstitions out of existence...Whoso is engaged in this sort of warfare is the natural enemy of royalties...nobilities...privileges...and all kindred swindles...and is the natural fiend of human rights and human liberties.' "

The column is a bit too long for this space, so I will here give you a link to the entire column.

Presidents Month/Coffee Poem/Cartoons

(P1) Philosophical

The "Religion" of Our First 6 Presidents

Regular readers of this blog may recognize William Edelen who I consider to be a spiritual mentor. Interestingly, Bill was a WWII Marine Corps fighter pilot and is also an ordained minister. His mission over the years has transformed into a sort of "shaman" who demythologizes religion and examines the present in the true light of history. Incidentally, Bill married Joyce and I.

Here are a few blurbs from Bill Edelen's February 5th online column "Stars and Treaties." After describing a very much deserved personal honor, Bill goes on to discuss the "non-Christian" heritage of our first 6 presidents. I will follow the excerpts with a link to the complete article and the "Edelen" website:

"February is called 'Presidents' Month."...I call ...your attention to the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli. A Treaty that drives the religious and political right wing historically illiterate fanatics out of their minds...Article 11 reads 'THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS NOT IN ANY SENSE FOUNDED ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.' This treaty was ratified by the Senate in 1797 without a single objection and signed by president John Adams...The Treaty was written under George Washington and signed by John Adams.

Our first six presidents were Deists and Humanists...the Encyclopedia Britannica...quote: 'One of the embarrassing problems for the nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was the fact that NOT ONE of the first six presidents of the United States was a Christian. They were Deists.' In Deism there is no personal God, only an impersonal 'force' or 'energy' or 'natures God' or 'providence' or 'creator'...words that Jefferson often used.

In Deism the bible is nothing but literature...In Deism Jesus was nothing more than a nomadic teacher. President John Adams wrote that: the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus has made a convenient cover for absurdity. Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths are all trumpery.'

Thomas Jefferson put in one succinct sentence what they all believed: "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by a supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." (letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823).

Please...let us try to bring a little integrity and historical facts into Presidents Month. Please...all of you religious and political right wringers raving about our 'Christian' heritage...please do something different, for a change in Presidents Month...try to be honest."

Here is the link to the full column and Edelen's website


(P2) Poetical


Coffee

At times like this

when I am literally nothing

more than the coffee I drink,

at times like this

when I am precisely nothing,

I am the poet.


(Ed Coletti - 1994)


(P3) Political


Please Post Your Comments Here about any of the above or below and/or Read the Comments of Others. You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but add your name to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback

GayleVsPolitics/S.Rosa Pizza/Poetry Series

(P1) Political

Politics? Relevant? and My Friend Gayle

Recently my friend Gayle Swift told me she does not read the Political section of "Ed Coletti's P3." She may not even read newspapers much or at all anymore. Gayle finds politics to be irrelevant to the real issues of life and therefore is much more attracted to the Poetical and Philosophical features of this blog. She looks toward grassroots movements like that of Gandhi for any hope of lasting changes in the world. Gayle especially would like to see such a movement operate economically through its buying power.

I told Gayle that, at this stage, I include a political section for two reasons: 1. I want to inform. So much pap is fed to the public through TV and other mainstream media. However, my readers are mostly of a different sort, and I realize that I well may be "preaching to the choir." 2. I feel the need to be active in opposing injustice, corruption, and plain old sheer idiocy.

More and more, however, I am growing cynical. I never wanted this to happen. Because I realize 1. that politicians must raise tens of thousands of dollars a day simply to be reelected; 2. as I watch the president make earthshaking world and domestic decisions without consulting congress or the people; 3. as we face the growing prospect of increased domestic spying and consequent losses of privacy and freedom; 4. as I note the escalating power of the oil barons internationally; and 5. as I shudder at the constancy of warfare and brutality among men,

I simply do not have an answer and can understand my friend not finding such an answer in politics.

However, I have pledged to make this blog a 3-pronged effort, namely Philosophical, Poetical, and Political. It may well be, however, that the flavor of the Political section will begin to evolve in new directions.

Readers of this blog, I invite you to provide your own observations regarding the relevance or irrelevance of politics in your life and experience. I also continue to extend a special invitation to my friend Gayle to submit a lengthy piece on this subject for future publication.



Please Post Your Comments Here about any of the above and/or Read the Comments of Others. You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but add your name to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Philosophical

"Santa Rosa" Pizza ?!

The following barely credible blurb appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on Sunday January 29, 2006:
"If you go to Cafe Viva on Manhattan's Upper West Side, you can get a 'Santa Rosa' pizza made with sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, roasted garlic, olives, tofu marinated in miso and soy cheese."

Yikes! Time for a barf break!



(P3) Poetical

Word Temple Poetry Series

For those of you living in Marin, Sonoma, or Napa Counties and those planning visits, check out local poet Katherine Hastings' ambitious project of bringing well-known and significant poets to town for monthly readings at Copperfield's Bookstore in Santa Rosa's Montgomery Village. Here is a bit on the first event:

Time: Friday February 10th at 7PM
Location: MONTGOMERY VILLAGE, 2316 Montgomery Dr., Santa Rosa (707) 578-8938
Title of Event: Jane Hirshfield and David St. John (WordTemple Poetry series)

Copperfield’s is pleased to launch a Friday evening series of poetry readings hosted by area poet Katherine Hastings. It begins auspiciously with Jane Hirshfield’s launch of her sixth poetry collection. After is an extended investigation into incarnation, transience, loss and connection. Jane Hirshfield’s work (October Palace, Given Sugar, Given Salt, Nine Gates, Lives of the Heart) has been heralded as radiant, passionate, and ethical, and has appeared in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize Anthology, The New Yorker, and many other publications. She will be joined this evening by David St. John, whose work includes The Face, Prism, In the Pines, and Where the Angels Come Toward Us.

Duncan Lee's Ideal Candidate/Jerusalem/Imagination

(P1) Political


My Friend Duncan's President



I'd like to introduce my friend Duncan Lee who is going to provide us with some well thought out ideas for what he personally would like to see in a presidential candidate. You might not agree with all of this, nor do I, so I'd like to urge each reader to respond by pressing the "Comments" link below. However, at least Duncan is using his good mind, formulating what he is looking for, and even putting together an action plan for his candidate once he/she gets into office. He's giving us lots to think and comment about.

Now, here's Duncan's contribution and don't forget to comment:

"For someone who doesn't like talking about politics I got a little carried away here.

I think Winston Churchill said this: "Democracy is not the
best form of government, it's just better than all the others".

But, I've done some thinking lately and here's a start on my theoretical
candidate.

First, there's getting elected. So, my candidate is male, younger than 70,
fairly fit and attractive. When this man speaks you know he means what he
says, he's intelligent and articulate, can speak extemporaneously with ease, is poised and
exudes a sense of professionalism and leadership. The kind of guy about
which you don't hesitate to say, "I'd follow that guy into combat". I met a
young man in 1971 who had done some campaign work for then governor Reagan.
He said you could be in a room full of people, not looking at the door, and
you would know when Reagan entered the room unannounced. That's the kind of
guy I'm looking for. (Not like Reagan, but you know what I mean.)

The Campaign: Here are the issues. They are not necessarily the issues laid
out by the other side, they are MY candidate's issues.

1. Economy. ( Don't forget Clinton's famous words, it's the economy,
stupid.) When voters go to the polls they are thinking of their wallets.

A. Prices:
Gasoline, gasoline, gasoline.
Electricity, electricity, electricity.
Heating fuel, heating fuel, heating fuel.
Energy companies' scandals. Oil companies' obscene profits.

This issue must be hammered on non-stop.

Taxes:
Pledge a reform and equitable system.
Bring it to the common man. Don't harp on tax breaks for the rich. Hammer
hard on the average citizen being able to understand his tax return and that
reform will reduce taxes for everybody. If indeed that is the case. No BS in
this campaign.

Corporate irresponsibility and lost jobs. This is dangerous to the fund
raising side, but it's courageous. Must be done. Auto industry, airlines,
others, must be made examples of poor management and judgment. Pledge gov't
aid in getting organized, but not money.

Cost of Iraq. Not why we went in, etc., but when are we getting out. Hammer
hard constantly on the cost, the cost, the cost. Talk about all that can be
done with the money here at home, but more importantly who's paying for it.
The debt is out of control under a so called conservative administration.

Cost of Health Care: Come up with a national health care plan BEFORE the
campaign and unveil it. If you can't do it before you're elected, how can
you do it after? Ask Bill and Hillary.

B. Education. Part of this comes under cost, but more importantly is the
quality of graduates. Compare to other countries. No Child Left Behind is
said not to work. Introduce a plan that will. (Small sidebar: the greatest
cause of teenage death is auto accidents; most schools "can't afford"
driver's ed anymore, but they can afford football teams.)

C. Security. Phone taps: this is easy, get a warrant for the taps or get the
legislation in place for a workable plan. (Sidebar: After the news of the
wire surveillance was published (leaked) Democrats began screaming bloody
liberties. The top Democrats were briefed on what was going on for, what,
FOUR years? Why no screaming before now?)

Secure the ports and borders. Just do it, don't talk about how difficult it
is. Going to Mars is difficult but we're going to do it.

Find the #1 target, you know who I mean, but I don't want to put his name in this because of issue C. above.
Stop making our troops drive down roads in Iraq so they can
be blown up and find this guy. It can be done.

Okay that's about it for the campaign for now. There will be more issues, but
three is about right. The education one is a bit iffy, so it may get
shuffled down the list.

Now, my guy is elected over all odds. Please notice he didn't say anything
about the environment unless asked. He wants to ensure a healthy
environment, but he doesn't make an issue of it. Why? Like abortion, only a
few people really care enough about it to vocalize the issue, the rest aren't interested
because they
can't see how it touches them. Abortion is a dumb issue and should be
shunned unless really pressed for a position.

My president assembles his cabinet for the first time and lays out the
agenda:

Defense: Budget will be cut by at least one third. No argument, just figure
out a plan to secure the country with that budget. That includes securing
all ports and borders effectively. If it means reducing forces in So. Korea, Europe, or
elsewhere, so be it.

Homeland Security: You're abolished. Sec'y of Defense, Atty. Gnl., CIA and NSA come up with a plan.
All those agencies: Cooperate with all pertinent info or the directors will
be replaced.

Education: Get together a workable plan for all levels. Think outside the
box.

Medicare: Fix the prescription fiasco. Finalize the pre-election health plan and
come up with a plan that will provide
affordable health care for everyone. Meanwhile, president to tell insurance
companies to take a hike.

Transportation: Start building railroads, NOW.

Energy: Start building nuclear and natural sources of energy and figure out
the waste storage problem. Yucca Mt. is not the only answer.

State: Tell China they must adjust their currency values NOW or US will
impose huge import taxes on all goods. Tell Taiwan the gravy days are over,
run your own country or do a deal with China, US will not fight your
battles. Tell Israel it they start another Middle East war our alliance is in
big trouble. Tell Palestine same thing.
If Iraq is not already in all out civil war, start getting out fast and let
the war start after we leave, which it will, and we will stay out of it. If
it's already started, get out anyway. Tell Mexico to clean up the drug trade
or we will do it for them, and follow up. (Side bar: Why are we setting up a
democratic, functioning government in Iraq when our closest neighbor has
always been dysfunctional and corrupt? Why don't we rebuild Mexico?)

Congress: Many members will not accept these plans, but President must be tough on them. Not
waiting for Congress, new president introduces legislation that bans campaign donations from any group or corporation. And the
limit on individual donations is $10,000.

Okay, I'm out of steam for now. This is all idealistic, of course, but one
can hope. Ending on the negative, however, as I am want to do, it's going to take about $400,000,000 to run a campaign in '08.
Where is my guy going to get that? Is our system beyond repair?"

Please Post Your Comments Here about any of the above and/or Read the Comments of Others. You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but add your name to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.

(P2) Philosophical

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

"HERE (IN JERUSALEM), NO MERCY IS SHOWN. ONE HATES ONE'S FELLOW MAN

TO

THE GLORY OF GOD."

-from Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) - Nobel Prize winning Swedish novelist in Jerusalem, 1901


(P3) Poetical

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from
earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth the
forms of things unknown,

the poet's pen turns them to shapes,
and gives to airy nothing

a local habitation and a name.


- from A Midsummer Night's Dream (5-1-Theseus)

Oprah Out, Al Gore In for 2008 / A Poem / A Blog Cartoon

(P1) Political

Ed Says, Bye Oprah and Hi Al - 2008

Al Gore is my choice for President in 2008. What happened to my campaign for Oprah? Let me explain.

Even before she told her TV audience "never, never, never (public office)!" this past week, she'd already demonstrated a "gullibility factor" that rubbed me the wrong way. While I can understand her espousal of James Frey even in the face of the fictions in his "memoir" (after all the book seemed to be doing some good) what was with her fawning over Tom Cruise and perpertrating the sofa-jumping event"? But, I let that all go. I thought her good works and powerbase could bring about a change in politics. I realized it was a long shot. The more I watched her show, I knew she was in the right place. With her "never, never, never" response to a question about political office, Oprah gave me the out I realize I had been seeking.

At approximately the same time, Al Gore leaped back into my consciousness with his impassioned and well-reasoned speech calling George Bush to task for "breaking the law" with the literally un-warranted wiretapping as well as the conduct of the war, torture, unjustified interments, and the management of Katrina.

But is one speech enough? Of course not. I've also strongly considered two other men of the people, John Edwards and Barack Obama. The latter needs more seasoning. The former will be a great ticket-booster as VP candidate. But Al Gore is a proven WINNER! He won the popular vote against Bush in 2000! He probably also won the electoral vote but for Florida, Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the debacle of the courts.

So, why not also consider Hillary Clinton? Because Hillary and her husband have always pandered to the center which wasn't so bad when we weren't caught up in a constitutional crisis at a time of maximum government corruption and decisions which must be brought down. A striking example during the Clinton administration was the sell out on healthcare and the establishment of the "managed care" mess we have now. But perhaps Hillary has emerged from her battles ready to lead the progressive charge? Hardly....

...Read Molly Ivins wonderful Sunday 1-22 column titled "Looking For One Brave Democrat" in which she writes, "I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president...Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges."

Then Ivins discusses the courage of Eugene McCarthy in the past and wonders what sort of "courage" it would take now to speak out for what the public "wants." In other words, why would Hillary Clinton dodge the big issues when the majority of the public believe the war was a mistake, that single-payer health coverage makes sense, raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, reducing the deficit by reducing corrupt defense spending and raising taxes instead of reducing domestic spending is the way to go, and repealing Bush's transparent tax cuts for the wealthy must happen. With the people on her side, who is Hillary going after? Not only won't she get the religious right or any appreciable number of votes from the right in general, but her candidacy would be a lightening rod for the worst forms of personal attack and ignoring the issues.

Al Gore, on the other hand has always been issues-oriented. He is a good man. He is experienced. He is speaking out with passion. Oh, and let's no forget his environmentalism. He is my candidate for 2008!

(P2) Poetical

unheeding

a stooped little man beside the unhearing pillar

a white tea rose beside the black marble pillar

a bug-eyed child’s distended belly against the iced-white pillar

a voice of reason echoes off the density of pillar

a shard of moonlight snaps in half against the bonelike pillar

a tiny repulsive mongrel blithely pisses on the pillar

- Edward Coletti - Jan '06 -

Please Post Your Comments Here about any of the above and/or Read the Comments of Others. You can sign in as "blogger" or "other" but add your name to your text. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net. We need your feedback.


(P3) Philosophical