Wedding Vows/Last Man Out/Night

(P1) Philosophical


Scientology's "Traditional" Wedding Vows

I understand that Scientology offers 4 sets of wedding vows written before his death by founder and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

The following represents a portion of the "traditional" vows.

"Now (Groom's Name), girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills. A pan, a comb, perhaps a cat."

"Hear well, sweet (Bride's Name). … For promise binds. Young men are free and may forget. Remind him then that you may have necessities and follies, too."

Bob Adams, a representative of the church told ABC News, that in it (the ceremony), the minister holds up the couple's rings and asks that they imagine a triangle inside them.

"They're asked to imagine affinity, reality and communication as the points of those triangles," Adams said. "Affinity, reality, communication equal understanding. … To represent the long-lasting relationship that they will have."

The New York Times further reported, "in the traditional Scientology ceremony, when the bridegroom promises to 'keep her, well or ill,' he is also asked, 'And when she’s older, do you then keep her still?'" and also,

"The Scientology minister tells the bride, 'Know that life is stark and often somewhat grim, and tiredness and fret and pain and sickness do beget a state of mind where spring romance is far away and dead.'

"She is then asked if she is willing to 'create still his health, his purpose and repose.'

"Similarly the bridegroom is told, 'The tides of fortune and of life are sometimes fair or grim./ He should not leave his wife in search of solutions, and the minister says, 'Take thy own even though they sleep beneath foul straw and eat thin bread and walk on pavement less than kind.'"

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(P2) Political

Last Ones

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(P3) Poetical

Night

During day before first day was,
   She was.
Dark She was,
   black shiny forethought,


deep black as bottom of shaft hole
       ages deep
                    twisting  eel
                  onyx
             shine, flicker, spark.

Faith Restored/Byrd:Before the War/Pushes

(P1) Philosophical, Political, Poetical (whatever)

Flash - 12:15 AM Wednesday November 8, 2006

Faith in American Voters, Democracy, Freedom, Intelligence and Sanity Restored!

No text necessary here except perhaps from Sen. Robert Byrd awhile back

"Eventually, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." — Robert C. Byrd

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(P2) Political

Seems Like Only Yesterday

I'll let Sen. Robert Byrd's prophetic words before the war speak for themselves:

2-12-2003 - We are truly "sleepwalking through history." In my heart of hearts I pray that this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not in for a rudest of awakenings.

To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country".

This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.

3-19-2003 - ...today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart... We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split.

After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.

The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.... A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq...

...May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.

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(P3) Poetical

Gentle Little Pushes

Lying still
in the garden

warfare—
the notion
absurd.

Give everyone
a garden
breeze and swing

especially
executive
owners

of gardens and swings.
Lead them outside,
give them gentle

little pushes
start them all
moving—

forgetting all else,
being alone.

(Edward Coletti 2006)

If you are in the area Friday, please come see and hear Ed read
Coletti Reading - 7PM Friday - November 10th - at Copperfield's Books
hosted by the Word Temple Series
2316 Montgomery Drive
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
(707) 578-8938

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Hope For Iraq/God?/Coletti at Copperfield's

(P1) Poetical


Coletti Reading - 7PM Friday - November 10th - Copperfield's Books
2316 Montgomery Drive
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
(707) 578-8938

Here's a new poem by Edward Coletti ("the Bay Area's oldest 'emerging' poet") who will be reading on the Word Temple Series bill with Jane Mead and Brian Teare. Please come to the reading!

Now help me find a title for this poem

Bluest sky moment,
I paint you as words
spring maple yellow.

Photinia bush
redden my flesh, be my sun,
rain memory has fled.

Mirror of sea,
sky unblemished blue,
sing your song.

Copper fields slip
green to cyan,
oxygen’s funny magic.

Black dog come to me.
Tell me what you fathom
beneath this our common ground.

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(P2) Political

Playing Chess With My Friend In Baghdad

I recently heard a radio interview with Rory Smith, OBE, a British diplomat, author, and former interim governor of two provinces in Iraq. Mr. Smith eloquently described the true situation there. What stood out stongest, for me at least, was his firm belief that the current insurgency is not so much Sunnis attacking Shiites as it is insurgents rallying a nationalistic fervor against non-Islamic foreign occupiers. Were the U.S. to withdraw, according to Rory Smith, the insurgents would become impotent, and the canny Iraqi potiticians and clergy would settle their differences in the manner they have for centuries.

This immediately reminded me of the day several years ago when I found myself playing internet chess with an Iraqi engineer in Baghdad. Between moves, I typed questions and received illuminating answers. When I asked about the difficulties between Shiites and Sunnis, this man (who was without work due to the war) responded that the problems have nothing to do with the troubles between Sunnis and Shiites which have existed for well over a millenium. Rather, pleaded this Baghdad professional, "Please try to convince your government to leave, and we Iraqis will solve our own problems quickly. It is your army which is causing the tragedy."

I'll never forget that dialogue, and Rory Smith has reminded me of it, and the wisdom in those words.

*********

Regarding the Kerry Tempest In a Teapot

Kerry also said:

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they’re crazy,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement. “I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did…

“Had George Bush and Dick Cheney been in combat one minute of their comfortable lives, they would never have sent American troops to war without body armor or without a plan to win the peace, and they wouldn’t be exploiting our troops today.”

If I had a single criticism to offer Senator Kerry in this regard, it might be that he could strengthen the latter remark by dropping the words following war and inserting a few others, ergo, “Had George Bush and Dick Cheney been in combat one minute of their comfortable lives, they would never have sent American troops to (this stupid) war (they created from whole cloth).”

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(P2) Philosophical

If, by 'God', you mean love

Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the author of nine books, including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and The Ancestor's Tale. His new book, The God Delusion, published last week by Houghton Mifflin, is already a NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, and his Foundation for Reason and Science launched at the same time (see RichardDawkins.net).

I highly recommend the entire Dawkins piece, but this excerpt is good. I especially like what I've highlighted in bold.

"...Humanity's best estimate of the probability of divine creation dropped steeply in 1859 when The Origin of Species was published, and it has declined steadily during the subsequent decades, as evolution consolidated itself from plausible theory in the nineteenth century to established fact today.

"The...tactic of snuggling up to 'sensible' religion, in order to present a united front against ('intelligent design') creationists, is fine if your central concern is the battle for evolution. That is a valid central concern, and I salute those who press it, such as Eugenie Scott in Evolution versus Creationism. But if you are concerned with the stupendous scientific question of whether the universe was created by a supernatural intelligence or not, the lines are drawn completely differently. On this larger issue, fundamentalists are united with 'moderate' religion on one side, and I find myself on the other.

"Of course, this all presupposes that the God we are talking about is a personal intelligence such as Yahweh, Allah, Baal, Wotan, Zeus or Lord Krishna. If, by 'God', you mean love, nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, or Planck's constant, none of the above applies. An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. 'Sure,' he replied. 'He's positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that is ¬religion!' Well, if that's what you choose to mean by religion, fine, that makes me a religious man. But if your God is a being who designs universes, listens to prayers, forgives sins, wreaks miracles, reads your thoughts, cares about your welfare and raises you from the dead, you are unlikely to be satisfied. As the distinguished American physicist Steven Weinberg said, "If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal." But don't expect congregations to flock to your church.

When Einstein said 'Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?' he meant 'Could the universe have begun in more than one way?' 'God does not play dice' was Einstein's poetic way of doubting Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle. Einstein was famously irritated when theists misunderstood him to mean a personal God. But what did he expect? The hunger to misunderstand should have been palpable to him. 'Religious' physicists usually turn out to be so only in the Einsteinian sense: they are atheists of a poetic disposition. So am I. But, given the widespread yearning for that great misunderstanding, deliberately to confuse Einsteinian pantheism with supernatural religion is an act of intellectual high treason.

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