Kisses/Art by Jonathan Allen/ Broker/

(P1) Philosophical





Holiday Kisses

Ed bussing son John, daugher Elisabetta, and daughter Kathleen in NYC, Ithaca, and Santa Rosa respectively.

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(P2) Poetical

2 Paintings by Jonathan Allen (NYC)





































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(P3) Political






















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And don't forget the following,

Spitzer/Coletti/Aphorisms/Humor

(P1) Poetical

How Still We See Thee Lie

In the spirit of the season, I've dubbed this Jim Spitzer painting Bethlehem's Imaginary Harbor. May we all internalize Peace especially at this time of year.

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(P2) Philosphical

8 Coletti Aphorisms

1. It is never necessary to understand everything in either life or a poem.

2. Medicine does business poorly, and business does medicine poorly.

3. Seek or ask for answers from yourself, for what we call "god" and the deep-within-me are all but indistinguishable.

4. What other people think about me is none of my business.

5. The time is not always to write or to capture. The time also is to absorb and to be.

6. Profundity is easy. Description is impossible.

7. While there may be such a thing as "unhappiness," there is no such thing as "unjoyfulness," While there is such a thing as "undoing," there is no such thing as "unbeing."

8. Not everything is something.

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(P3) Political

SoCoCo At the Toad/Bill Edelen Column/Oz

(P1) Poetical

SoCoCo Resumes as "SoCoCo At the Toad" Sunday, January 11th at 2PM

<(Click on SoCoCo image to enlarge)

Very good news! After learning that Sonoma Coffee Company had closed, I began scouting for new venues for the popular SoCoCo Readings. I found several, but my first choice was the wonderful English pub in Railroad Square called Toad In the Hole. Paul Stokeld at Toad In the Hole is excited about our using the Toad for SoCoCo. I'm going to call it "SoCoCo At the Toad." Because they cannot infringe on their nighttime dinner crowd, we're going to move it to Sunday afternoons at 2 PM and advertise, "Come and either have late lunch during or early dinner after, or both. Great pub food and drink!" See menu and other info at

www.thetoadpub.com

Come early and have lunch. Or come later for snack, a beer, or soft drinks. Stay afterwards for early dinner. We won't have to seek out a location to which to repair after the reading!

Richard Denner's Berkeley "mentor Lu Garcia will be reading along with Gwynn O'Gara, Ed Coletti, Mark Eckert, David Madgalene, and Centa Theresa.
The pub is at 116 5th Street between Wilson Avenue and Davis Street in the Old Railroad Square area of Santa Rosa.

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(P2) Political
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(P3) Philosophical

Joy-filled column by a great and valuable friend, Bill Edelen who I believe to be young-in-his-eighties!


MY FAVORITE THINGS


William Edelen
November 23, 2008

One of my all time favorite songs is from "The Sound of Music". It is "My Favorite Things". I never listen to that without feeling joyful. It always brings forth a smile. As I write these words at the beginning of the month for Thanksgiving I let my calendar of the soul take over and my head and heart are filled with gratitude for so many of my favorite things...that make life so good and the days so sparkling.

# Great hugs from those you love...and who love you. (this also lowers cholesterol we are told. It beats Oak Bran).

# The wild flowers of a rainy Spring...and the grasses of a showery summer. The solitude and silence of the winter months when the mountains are covered with snow...and our Mother Earth sleeps a while.

# Choosing a great book for morning reading with the winter rain falling outside my study window...and a hush covers the earth.

# Sitting mesmerized at night in our living room before a wood burning fire that draws me like in the days of the Cro Magnon caves when the fire kept us secure and safe...I have never understood how anyone can have an artificial fire with fake logs.

# A freshly opened bag of Peets coffee in the morning to start the day on a high and noble plane.

# Or a freshly opened bag of pipe tobacco to follow the coffee and fill my study with aromas that are simply beyond description.

# The Bougainvilleas outside our home...in full and spectacular bloom.

# The Desert rains when the fragrant odors...the rich aromas of an earth moist and alive. The rolling sounds of thunder waking the earth from its restful slumber, as they say in the Taos Pueblo.

# Dazzling rainbows receiving a standing ovation from the little red flames on the tips of the ocotillos.

# The Candle of the Lord, the eloquent creamy white blossoms shooting up high on their great spike of the Yucca.

# Turning the stereo up and flooding my study, or the house, with Bach or Brubeck....or Count Basie...or Kiri Te Kanawa....or Barry Manilow with the "big bands".

# Being a member of the loving...caring...extended family of my Sunday Symposium...a family that extends into dozens of other states when the winter people are here. for their 4 months in the sun.

# Freshly baked bread.

# A world class, medium rare, hamburger...smothered with onions...tomatoes...pickles...mustard...and "pardon me...but would you have any Grey Poupon?" My love for Julia Childs who also said this was her favorite meal.

# Returning home and being greeted with pure...non-judgmental...love and tails wagging like pom-poms from dancing dogs...who are always dancing with the joy of the cosmic dancer, Shiva.

# The Mourning Doves and Quail that fill my backyard for breakfast.

# Turning back again and again , day after day, month after month and year after year to enrich my spirit with the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson....Robert Ingersoll...Carl Jung...Learned Hand...Bertrand Russell...Joseph Campbell...Frank Waters...Octavio Paz...Voltaire...Erasmus...and all the giants of human thought and the free mind that fill the four walls of my study with this inexhaustible legacy...knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.

# The joy of the dawn hours of first light for quiet thought and meditation, remembering that it was Erasmus who reminded us that "The dawn is always a friend to the muses."

# Experiencing the Mystery that moves and flows within relationships and events and destinies...and "shoes and ships and sealing wax...and cabbages and Kings..." or in the words of Wordsworth..."In the blush of every dawn...in the evening breeze...in the leafs low murmur...in the swell of the ocean and seas...the rising and ebbing of tide...the mote of the sunbeam...rest here, I whisper to the atom...I call to the orb...roll on...the link...the chain of existence..."Artist of the solar spaces...and of human faces...though all human races claim Thee...thought and language fail to name Thee...mortal lips are dumb before Thee...Silence...only silence...can stand in awe before Thee..."

To leave the Mystery alone and un-named is not to lose...for silence names as well as sound...and it is enough...

It is this Mystery that fills my days and nights with joy and reminds me that all of my "favorite things" are a revelation of that same Mystery.

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Cogratulations/Bird//We/Prop 8/

(P1) Poetical

Rare Bird (water color by Ed Coletti)




(P2) Political

Congratulations America!

There is a saying widely attributed to Winston Churchill that "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." We arrived at a moment when change was the most conservative option. The 47-year-old president-elect came to represent the belief that Americans had to embrace change

- Ellen Goodman

On Proposition 8

In response to the above political cartoon which depicts the ratification of equality for all as of November 4, 2008, Katherine Hastings reminds us of the despicable passing of Proposition 8 which amended the State Constitution so that gays and lesbians no longer have the right to marry -- a right the California Supreme Court put into law earlier this year. As a reminder to those who voted Yes on this proposition, she shares the following poem by Walt Whitman:

Thought:
Of Equality --

as if harm'd me, giving others the same

chances and rights as myself -- as if it were not

indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same.



-- Walt Whitman

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(P3) Philosophical

First Person Plural

(On Barrack Obama’s Election)

We join hands
We rejoice
We can
We did
We build
We people
We nations
We friends
We who disagree
We voices
We sacrifice
We love
We make music
We write poems
We read the constitution
We open minds
We raise hearts
We commune
We forget
We forgive
We hope
We expect
We realize
We won’t always
We thank
We praise
We help
We feast
We celebrate
We cry
We lift
We soothe
We unite
We become
We melt
We blend
We elevate
We fly
We become us
We

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Dresden/ Swaney/Pronouncing Iraq/What It's All About

(P1) Political

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(P2) Poetical

Art Work by Ray Swaney (Santa Rosa, CA)

While listening to Sarah Palin constantly mispronounce words like "nuclear" and "Iraq" during her debate with Joe Biden, I was reminded of my 2006 poem

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.

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(P3) Philosophical

Just Thinking Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held for awhile. Some dove somewhere. Been on probation most of my life. And the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments count for a lot--peace, you know. Let the bucket of memory down into the well, bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring, no plans. Just being there. This is what the whole thing is about.

- William Stafford

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Spitzer & Rothenberg Painting/ Anticipating Morons/Philosophy Cartoon /

(P1) Poetical

Michael Rothenberg & Jim Spitzer Co-Produce Masterwork

and they are looking for a wall on which to hang it! Any ideas?






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(P2) Political


Caption reads "I keep thinking we should include something in the Constitution in case the people elect a fucking moron."

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(P3) Philosophical

Big Alaska Rally/Playing With Our Money/HL Mencken/Lew Welch

(P1) Political

Photos From Big Anchorage Rally (self-explanatory)

If McCain Had His Way, That'd Be Our Social Security Money Wall Street is Losing

- Headline from Huffington Post 9-08

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You hear that implosion reverberating through financial markets? It's the sound of decades of conservative ideology collapsing.

- Jared Bernstein

Note: Sorry to those who come to the Palin Church You Tube in a posting below. It was removed somewhere at the source, not by me!!

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(P2) Poetical

I Saw Myself

I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it

and vowed
always to be open to it
that all of it
might flow through

and then heard
"ring of bone" where
ring is what a

bell does

- Lew Welch

(P3) Philosophical

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man (or Ed adds woman) is always skeptical and tolerant (as Ed is with H. L. Mencken's archaic use of the word man in this otherwise bright piece).

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Green Cheese/Drill, Baby, Drill/Jim Spitzer Art/Don Wentworth Poem

(P1) Political

Green Cheese

If John McCain and Sarah Palin were to say the moon was made of green cheese, we can be certain that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would pounce on it, and point out it's actually made of rock. And you just know the headline in the paper the next day would read: "CANDIDATES CLASH ON LUNAR LANDSCAPE."

--Paul Begala

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(P2) Poetical

What Planet Do These People Live On?

These are selected remarks by Thomas Friedman on the Sept. 8, 2008 Fresh Air with Terry Gross:

When I heard Rudi Guiliani lead that crowd (at the Repub convention) in chanting “Drill Baby Drill,” I thought, what planet are these people inhabiting? It’s as if on the eve of the advent of computer technology, the Republicans were out there saying “Let’s stick with the IBM Selectric Typewriter.” Type baby type. Type. Type. Type.

If the Petro-dictators–the leaders of the world’s most repressive, anti-modern, anti-woman regimes like Saudi Arabia, which we’re supporting by our addiction to oil, either foreign OR domestic–were up in the bleachers at that convention, they would have been giving each other high fives! They WANT us to remain focused on fossil fuels.

We ought to be promoting fuels from Heaven (wind, solar, etc) rather than fuels from hell (fossil based)

John McCain, whom I used to respect, has been ‘bloody dishonest.’ He’s making people stupid, and it’s frankly disgusting.

John McCain’s support for lifting the federal gas tax for a summer giveaway was absurd and misleading.

We ought to have 100000 innovators working in 100000 garages.

The current tax and production credits for wind and solar energy expire on December 31. A bill to extend them has been brought up in Congress eight times and John McCain didn’t show up to vote eight times. Obama showed up three times and voted to extend. So now, at this crucial time, the solar and wind innovators in this country are at a dead stop, frozen. Nobody is starting new projects. This makes no sense at all.

President Bush claimed we have an addiction to oil, but do you think he invited all these senators, Republican’s and Democrats, to Camp David and said, “Let’s work it out.” Do you think he lifted one little finger, one pinky to help?

Remember when Ronald Reagan pulled Jimmy Carter’s solar panels off the White House?

When Reagan canceled Carter’s tax credits for wind, Denmark bought the top American wind company and now has the largest wind company in the world.

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(P2) Poetical

Against Ted Hughes
by Don Wentworth

Leaves will reattach themselves
to trees before being a poet
will ever be more
important than
being.

(P3) Philosophical Ted Hughes
by Don Wentwort
Jim Spitzer Poster Detail

Palin's Nutbag Church Video/Bumper Snicker/James Tracy

(P1) Philosophical

Sarah Palin's Nutbag Church

If you've entertained any doubt about Sarah Palin's nutty and dangerous political/religious views, just watch her numerous times in these scenes from Wasilla Assembly of God Church. Also bear in mind that her pastor in Juneau, where she also attends, is said to be a member of "Joel's Army" which wants Armageddon to happen now! If McCain wins, Sarah is only a heartbeat away from the nuclear button!






(P2) Political

Cool Bumper Sticker





You can order it at Cafe Press







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(P3) Poetical

A Million Revolutions

by James Tracy

walking in circles, I picket myself
do not patronize! self unfair to self and others

boycotting myself like a field strawberry
i will not buy my own bullshit anymore

leading a sit-down strike in my own room
until better living conditions are achieved

washing my molotov mouth out with soap
for kinder, gentler dialogue

stepping outside and smiling
the earth moves a million revolutions per minute

Another Fairy Tale/My Confession/Silence

(P1) Poetical


(by Eddie C.)












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(P2) Political

Proud To Be Working Class & My Confession

I have a little confession to make. Coming from a working class background (my father was a New York City fireman and my mother an elementary school teacher) I, for quite awhile, attempted to put that all behind me. You see, my parents, stretching their budget considerably, sacrificed and sent me to Georgetown University.

I arrived wearing a lime green poncho shirt and was immediately schooled by my patrician classmates in how to dress (blue blazer, blue button-down Gant shirt, khakis, and brown Bass Weejun loafers). Once in awhile, I'd be invited to stay over at friends' houses ("mansions" to my way of thinking) in Scarsdale, Boston's North Shore, etc. Ultimately, I felt the need to reciprocate, and my friends came to stay over at our exceptionally modest house in Queens. I was very nervous about this, but they always loved the Italian food, openness, good humor and warmth of my folks. Still, for a long time, I felt that I had been "found out."

Later in life, I did vocational rehabilitation counseling with industrially disabled workers under California's Workers Compensation system. In this capacity, I developed a new affinity for the salt of the earth, blue collar workers. It brought me back to my roots and a respect for those who the patricians in our government, but for their platitudes, sadly neglect.

So, at this time, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden leading the way (and let's also hold their feet to the fire), let's join in proclaiming anew and with feeling, "All power to the people of this great nation!"

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Most Hypocritical List

I was going to refer to this quotation as "The Most Hypocritical Quotation of All Time" when I reigned myself in, "Whoa! There's a lot of competition out there!" How about us all compiling a "Top 10" list of hypocritical quotes. Here's my first nominee.

From David Bonior, former Michigan congressman, after the Edwards revelation:

"You can't lie in politics and expect to have people's confidence."

But, David, something like a mind-numbing fifty percent of the population still believe Cheney's big lie that Iraq was involved on Sept. 11!

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(P3) Philosophical

Noise Drenched Lives
by William Edelen - August 3, 2008

The distinguished anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote that, "Never in the entire history of our species, homo sapiens, has one generation been subjected to so much chaotic noise." He writes that , "We will not know the damage it is doing for years." (press this link to continue reading)

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RaceCardFever/Dept of Peace/BushResume/Poem

(P1) Political

What Race Card?

Instead of just playing the press's game, why doesn't Barack just come out swinging with:

"What race card. I'm the black guy, not McCain. I'm the guy who had to overcome race to get where I am, and I've done a marvelous job of that. Where the hell are you guys coming from acting like you've been victimized by me. Yes, last time I looked in the mirror, I had fairly dark skin, perhaps not dark enough to satisfy you when you were saying I wasn't black enough! So this is what I mean when I say I look different from all those other guys on the dollar bill! I do! I'm black! And I'm proud! Were there one thing that might keep me from winning a landslide victory in the age of Bush, it would be what the polls cannot show us, namely how voters will feel when they enter the booth and decide whether or not they want to vote for a black man (spell that B-L-A-C-K). Otherwise, there's really no other choice in this election. I'm smart, informed, attractive, not Republican, certainly not Bush or McCain. Oh, and, not so incidentally, I'm black!"

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George Bush's Professional Resume

As stated by the friend who sent this to me, "It's nice to see all of this in one place."

This person needs a job, an executive position, will be available in January 2009, and is willing to relocate.

RESUME-GEORGE W. BUSH

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

(continue here)

(P2) Philosophical

Response to Those Against Department of Peace

Interestingly, the majority of my responses to support for a U.S. Department of Peace have focussed not upon the positive goals but rather reasons to say no to another bureaucracy. I'd really be interested in your observations. Hit "comments" below. In the meantime, hear is typical correspondence:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone actually read Kucinish's bill? While it is an interesting idea in theory, it is totally unworkable from a practical standpoint. The governmental department turf wars alone would render the "Secretary of Peace" impotent.

4:35 PM

Ed Coletti said...

Dear Anonymous,

In the future, please add your name or nickname. That would add more moral force to the comment. My support of a Dept. of Peace is not so much based upon it's bureaucratic workings as upon the transformative nature of the words "Secretary of Peace." Regardless of how it works out, a Dept. of Peace gets people talking about Peace. What's a Dept of Defense? When was the last time troops were used to defend this country? Don't you think that focusing upon family serenity, gang neutralization, an Academy of Peace (paralleling the 4 "service" Academies), etc, might have a more positive effect? Tell me, Anonymous, why do you focus merely on the negative? So there would be "turf wars." I suspect the war turf might gain the advantage over the peace turf. But then, what do we have now? War turf and No Turf.

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(P3) Poetical

In Silence
by Thomas Merton

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”




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Junk Assemblages/zzzMcCainFever/Jack London/

(P1) Poetical

4 Junk Assemblages

Just before leaving for Colorado, Richard Denner gave me two of his "junk assemblages" which now hang from fences at the Coletti homestead as do the two additional assemblages Richard inspired me to do.






Two Untitled by Richard Denner and Water Hole by Ed Coletti








Mylar Homage to Ira Cohen by Ed Coletti
Detail-Mylar Homage to Ira Cohen









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(P2) Political

McCain "Fever"





















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(P3) Philosophical

Jack London on Democracy

"By a pure democracy is meant a form of government in which the supreme power rests with and is exercised directly by the people instead of the present form, which is a republican form of democracy, in which the supreme power rests with the people, but is indirectly exercised by them, through representatives.

"Representatives may be corrupted, but how could the whole people be bribed? It would be a Herculean task, and as Lincoln said, 'You may fool all the people part of the time; part of the people all the time; but not all the people all the time."

- Jack London - "What Socialism Is" in The Radical Jack London edited by Jonah Raskin (University of California Press 2008)

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"McCain Withraws"/ Schevill Poem/ Peace Alliance/

(P1) Political

"McCain Withdraws 'For Health Reasons' "

Now before you go scurrying to the New York Times for confirmation, please realize that I made this up but did so in the way of prophecy. I suspect he will withdraw in August. I'm not alone in this speculation. He will say it's due to his "health." However, of course, it will be the Republicans, knowing that he has no chance of winning, who will force his hand.

The GOP is not into "throwing" an election. I've been saying for some time that Obama will win the November election in a landslide. The Republicans fear this. Therefore, in their view, McCain must go." So who will take his place? Romney, Hegel or Bloomberg? Probably not the last who is a virtual Democrat. Chuck Hegel is a mid country conservative who correctly opposes the war. Romney flip flops with the worst of them. Were the Republicans to overcome their feelings of betrayal, Hegel could be their best bet by providing a fresh face and an apparent major "change" position (even if only on the war) and pull a late-term steal of Barrack's thunder. Then (and please don't laugh at me), there is always Jeb Bush. There is this nagging feeling that Jeb will prevail as the "smart Bush." Who better to cover up the criminal behavior of the current administration and to obstruct special prosecutor appointments and even war crimes investigations.

You may disagree with me that McCain will pull out, or that Obama will win in a landslide. But realize that he is now winning even in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio! His wife Michelle is positioned as another Jacqueline Kennedy and already influencing fashion while intelligently framing issues and parrying attacks. Don't underestimate the importance of a strong first lady "candidate" in an election.

Finally, there is McCain himself. While I don't engage in ageism, because that will come back to bite me, I can say that this is a thoroughly lackluster personality facing a dynamic force. Then there are his hopelessly garbled and inconsistent statements on the issues (see what immediately follows), and, now I rest my case.


Please listen to the entire 3 minute video compilation of John Mc Cain's incredible series of pathological direct contradictions of John Mc Cain!!!


Watch the incredible 3 minute video


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(P2) Poetical

The Will of Writing

The will of writing is
to make the pen
sound a word,
the sound neither hard nor soft,
but of that balance
which gives forth
something surrounded,
shining and stopped.

(James Schevill)

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(P3) Philosophical

U. S Department of Peace Revisited

Recall several months ago when I mentioned my membership in The Peace Alliance and urged you to contribute a significant portion of your stimulus check "gift" from George Bush to The Peace Alliance in support of the legislation to create a Department of Peace with a Secretary of Peace. Just saying those words is transformative.

Listen to Walter Cronkhite speak eloquently on behalf of this legislation. Then go to the additional links below.

The Peace Alliance and a Dept. of Peace


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