Who Cares?/Things Seen & Obscene/Ball 4

(P1) Political

Who Cares About The Individual Citizens?

It has become increasingly evident to me that the Bush Administration cares not a single whit about the individual citizens of this nation. To be fair, Bush and the Cronies (interesting rock and roll band possibility) may not be accurately characterized as "anti-people" so much as "pro-billionaire." So I guess that if you view a billionaire as an "individual," perhaps it was unfair of me to write that he doesn't care about (at least a very few) individuals.

Seriously, I think most of us can agree that the administration associates with a stratum which blinds it to the interests and needs of the common folk.

Here are a few examples:

1. The total blindness to Poverty which was brought forcefully to their attention in New Orleans.

2. The effort to eliminate Social Security in favor of privatized accounts.

3. The constant emphasis on Tax Cuts and especially attempts to eliminate the cynically disguised "death tax," an inheritance tax elimination which really would benefit only the 3000 richest people in America. Why are other tax cuts anti-people? Because people need vital services and infrastructure improvements, and all of this must be paid for.

4. The current recommendation to Reduce many categories Mortgage Interest Deductions for Homeowners.

5. The recommendation to Reduce Popular Deductions for Employer Sponsored Health Plans.

6. Although the right to declare Individual Bankruptcy has been severely curtailed, corporate bankruptcy allows United Airlines to Gut Employee Pension Plans. Virtually eliminating Individual bankruptcy enables the banks and credit card companies to continue to try to get 20 credit cards into everybody's hands, milk them dry, and then, when their "customer/cadaver" faces divorce or a catastrophic disease or injury, the predator can take everything they have.

7. The ongoing disinterest in Health Care and Elder Care priorities.

8. The degree of debt America has entered into with China (among others) holding the note. No payments are being made. The entire burden has been shifted to our children and grandchildren (who, after all, are also "people").

9. Then there's the entire issue of "Voodoo" Supply-Side Economics (Anybody experiencing any trickling down?). This seems to imply that our so-called "conservative" administration can spend, spend, spend on foreign wars, massive hurricane relief, and corporate tax cuts (a type of "expense") without raising the money to pay for all of this. (I suppose that it's too much to ask such gutless politicians to raise taxes, but, for God's sake, cease this nonsensical reducing of taxes!).

10. The recent poll showing only two percent (2 %) ! of black/African-American voters approving of George Bush's performance. What happened to his care for these people?

11. And finally, lest we forget, every single day in our local communities, another young man or woman dies in Iraq in a war which has nothing to do with our national security and everything to do with corporate welfare of the most extreme sort.

(P2) Philosophical

Of Things Seen and Obscene

I was both amused and horrified watching the Today Show on October 12th. They were doing a bit of a puff piece about Exorcism. It borrowed from the obvious movies and discussed how the last pope had participated in 3 exorcisms while he was in power. The handsome movie-star-like priest who has become Today's spokesman for the Catholic Church explained, in defense of the Church's practice of exorcism, that it is better to err on the side of believing in the devil rather than dismissing the notion. Faith is said to be a belief in things unseen. Interesting then that the Catholic Church would trot out the unseen devil in the midst of the very much visible child molestation issue. Why then are they not performing exorcisms on their own staff on this very day when the headline was, "Files Show The Long History of Abuse by L.A. Priests - At Least 8 Priests Allowed to Remain in Contact With Children Despite Allegations"?

(P3) Poetical


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American Hero #2/Oprah Candidacy Update/Nuthatch

(P1) Philosophical

Who Is This Bright, Funny, Insightful, Gutsy New American Hero? Register your answer by hitting the link.

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(P2) Political

Oprah-For-President Update



Most of you will recall that, on September 13th, I named Oprah Winfrey as my presidential choice for the November 2008 election. The reason I know that you remember is that the number of responses to that posting were voluminous and virtually unanimous in support. I also gave you a website for the most coordinated current campaign to get Oprah to run (convincing her to run will be the biggest challenge. Her winning chances are obvious). Please scroll down to the Sept. 13 piece.

Anyway, you've asked for updates, and here is an interesting one including background from Willy Chaplin founder of the Dream Magic website.

I've also sent for the tee shirts for my wife and me. Here's a link to The Oprah For President 2008 Website

Here's what Willy wrote to me about his background and the Oprah campaign

...My formal training is as a psychologist and mathematician, but I have spent the last 30 years as a computer consultant. I turned 69 on October 2nd...

It was nice to see that you are close to being a contemporary. Probably younger, since baldness gives a false impression, but at least you are not of the cohort of our fifteen children who are charter members of the "me first" generation. It's hard to blame them, since we spent so much time...it seems futilely in retrospect...trying to change the world for the better when they were growing up, often neglecting thtm in the process. Our grandchildren (29 of them) are a different story. Perhaps us old dudes and dudettes can inspire them to change the world for the better. We sure failed! But, it is never too late to try, and electing Oprah could be a good start.

By the way, we are libertarians (small "l"...the Libertarian Party just can't tell the difference between politics and religion). We abandoned the Demidupes in 1964 when LBJ conned us into believing that they would save us from the madness in Vietnam, while Bad Barry would lead us all to Perdition and nuclear annihilation.

Another friend of ours and we started an Oprah for President movement in 1999. The response was so overwhelming that we were on CNN within a week. Patrick Crowe, our new partner, did the same in 2003 and received much the same response. We did it on the Net (prematurely), he on conventional media, mostly TV (also obviously prematurely). He too got royal treatment from the starved-for-entertainment media, partly as a joke, partly as a serious matter because of the incredible popularity of this woman.

But, alas, Oprah declined both times. So Patrick and we partnered up for the next contest. If at first...

Love and peace,

Willy Chaplin

P.S. With your permission, I will add a link to you on our Oprah site as a "friend of Oprah."

Hey, I (Ed) also just realized that an Oprah and Obama ticket would constitute "O2" or Oxygen, in other words a big breath of fresh air! - Eddie C

Oprah for President 2008 is a serious consideration. The following is not. Its funny though!



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(P3) Poetical


Nuthatch

I've yet to see
a nuthatch
hatch a nut
but
a nuthatch hatching
nuts would
surely also be
a nut.

(Ed Coletti in Light Year '87, (Bits Press, Robert Wallace, Editor)

Where Did Eddie Go?/Chicken Soup/Fear of Death

(P1) Political

A. Where Did Eddie Go?

Have you been wondering where I've been since the Sept. 27th posting? Well, I found that my inspiration for political comment had dried up in the blinding sunblaze of national events. I was completely overwhelmed by my competitors at the White House. Irony, humor, indignation were rendered impotent by the sheer weight of absurdity and surprise coming from Washington. Not only did Bush nominate a rank amateur to the Supreme Court, but, once again (as he did with Vladimir Putin), he looked into her heart and liked what he saw. His power in this regard is virtually supernatural. This "fact" is amplified by the revelation that he had told a group of Palestinian ministers that God had directed his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and that God was now directing him to establish a Palestinian state. At about the same time, we learned that House Majority leader Tom DeLay was indicted TWICE including for money laundering. Additionally Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was under investigation for stock manipulation. And let us not forget that Bush's Puppet Master Karl Rove is expected to be indicted for destroying CIA operative Valerie Plame's cover (an offense which the first President Bush once equated with treason.) Then, on top of everything, the very Base of Bush crumbled when no lesser pillars than Coulter, Krauthammer, Will, and Limbaugh turned on him.

So, dear readers, you can appreciate and forgive my brief absence. I had been rendered speechless. Then it also began to feel like any additional comment from me would be like piling on.

B. Have You Heard This One?

Monday October 10, 2005 "...Judiciary Committee...said Sunday that they were considering calling James Dobson to testify...Dobson the influential founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family, has said he is supporting (Harriet) Miers' nomination in part because of something he has been told but cannot divulge.

"He has not disclosed the source of the information, but he has acknowledged speaking with Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, about the president's pick before it was announced.

"On his radio program last Tuesday, Dobson said, 'When you know some of the things that I know -- that I probably shouldn't know -- you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that I believe Harriet Miers will be a good justice.' " ( NYT)


(P2) Poetical

Farm County (by Mary Oliver)

I have sharpened my knives, I have
Put on the heavy apron.

Maybe you think life is chicken soup, served
In blue willow-pattern bowls.

I have put on my boots and opened
The kitchen door and stepped out

Into the sunshine. I have crossed the lawn,
I have entered

The hen house.


(P3) Philosophical

"Our fear of death is directly equatable to our fear of life."

"If we examine our fear of death we see in it a fear of the moment to follow, over which we have no control. In it is a fear of impermanence itself, of the next unknown changing moment of life."

- from "Who Dies" by Stephen and Ondra Levine

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Terrorist Toddlers?/Reclaiming America/Rita Poem

(P1) Philosophical

Potential Terrorist?

How could I look at this picture of one-and-a-half year old Rhett Ricardo being patted down at a Tampa Bay game without wondering if our nation has gone totally crazy? Please recall when I posted a discussion about a Charles Krauthammer column in which he dared to suggest eliminating at least some groups from pat downs and intensive searches. I received quite a few negative replies because the immediate inference is always one of "racial profiling." Actually, what we were recommending back then was NOT actually concentrating on any one racial or ethnic group, but rather eliminating groups which, in all probability would never be terrorists, eg. the now stereotypical 85-year-old women in pink jumpsuits. What of the absolute ludicrousness of the photo above that simply makes reason stare? For starters, how about eliminating the following groups from extra searches:

1. Women over age 55.
2. Men over age 60.
3. Children under age 12.

Ok, we won't even get into race at all this way. We won't need to worry about special preferences for Scandinavians.

The argument remains that a 70-year-old man might conceivably be carrying a bomb. But that would be like saying that a pregnant woman on a plane is conceivably carrying quintuplets. Let's get real here. Save time, save money, save embarrassment, and...above all...concentrate on more probable or at least possible terrorists. I fail to see how such a program would infringe upon minority rights. I'm all for minority rights.

(P2) Political

Reader Poll (Please Participate)

How About Some Ideas to Reclaim Our Nation, It's Ideals, It's Respect

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(P3) Poetical

Andrei Codrescu was born in Romania in 1946. He is a poet, novelist, essayist and publisher. Codrescu became an American citizen in 1981 and has lived in New Orleans for the last 20 years. The following poem is moving.

Each day has its own pictures:
bumper to bumper traffic two states long
a frenzied mob in a domed prison
rising water
the hungry pushing carts out of looted stores
rooftops in a lake as vast as the eye can see
dead city silent city
the survivors the tribes
stadiums filled with refugees
helicopters over a dead unlit city
a ragged parade of decadents spitting defiance
television cameras as numerous as marchers
a can of tuna and a strand of beads
take that you former shithead king
dead pets rotting away behind locked doors
the smell of putrefaction visible
muck darkness heat an eviscerated pigeon
two dogs shot by a hired executioner
a sea of horrible stories rising like swamp fever
from the foul mouths of dear ones from exile
11th DAY OF HELL!
We are all working in this pit of sorrow to
unfreeze time.

New Chief Justice/Weather Gone Wild!/Poetry's Role

(P1)Political

Let's Pick Our Fights More Wisely

Why all the fuss over the nomination and confirmation process of Judge John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court?

Sure he'll be there in position for 20 or 30 years, but just think about almost anybody else Bush could have or would have chosen. John Roberts is NOT a Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia and is certainly not a Robert Bork. Sure he is a Republican and a Conservative. What other type choice might you hope for from a Republican Conservative President with a Republican congress? Under the circumstances, John Roberts is the very best we're going to get.

I'm a Democrat who believes in choosing my fights wisely. Also, by virtue of my age, I've been around long enough to witness countless other supreme court confirmation hearings. No matter what party is in charge, the opposition will always protest that the nominee has not answered sufficiently regarding his or her position. The plain fact is that, in the interest of judicial even handedness and future flexibility, they cannot.

I almost totally agree with Columnist David Broder of the Washington Post in his column "Roberts Sterling Showing. Please read it and let me know what you think. Bear in mind that a. I am a registered Democrat, b. I believe in a woman's right to choose, c. I am for civil rights and universal health care, d. I am against the stupid, bloody, wasteful adventure in Iraq. e. In most respects, if you want to label me, you can call me "liberal." However, in this case, let's be fair. Above all, let me know what you think by commenting for or against. I'll be fair here. While I hate to concur in a Bush decision, I think his choice of John Roberts for Chief Justice appears to have been the best one under all of the circumstances.

Please let me know what you think. Were you George Bush, who would you have nominated?

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(P2) Philosophical

What The Hell's Going On With Our Weather?

With an unheard of 2 back-to-back Category 5 hurricanes in a row, I believe it's time to revisit my remarks about global warming. Recall that, although the administration outwardly downplays and even denies the phenomenon, their own EPA publishes warnings and tips to Insurance Companies on how to save money from the effects of "global warming." I published that article before Katrina. See August Archives and August 26th, 2005 posting.

According to 5 scientists at www.realclimate.org, "The available scientific evidence indicates that it is likely that global warming will make - and possibly already is making - those hurricanes that form more destructive than they otherwise would have been."

Nicholas Kristoff writes, "So far, Bush has resisted serious action on global warming on the basis that strong measures 'would have wrecked our economy.' Tell that to Portland, Oregon. In early July, I wrote a column from Portland about its pioneering efforts to cut greenhouse gases. New calculations had indicated that it had cut total emissions below the level of 1990 - the benchmark for the Kyoto accord - even as nationally, emissions have increased 13 percent. And Portland has been booming economically. Since then, Portland has discovered a small error in its calculations: In fact, total emissions were reduced to a hair over 1990 levels, not to a hair under. In any case, while the numbers aren't perfect, the trend is clear."

Please call the need to the attention of all your friends, representatives, and even to Republicans. Believe it or not, they care about the future too. The best way to approach them is with some evidence of what continuing environmental neglect will do to their economy. Certainly the insurance companies are worried! Katrina and now Rita!

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(P2) Poetical

I like what Poetry editor Christian Wiman has to say about poetry's role

"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."

Our Choice For 2008/Voodoo Revisited/Trees Tarnish

(P1) Political

Oprah Winfrey For President 2008

I'm passionate about this choice! Let's start a grassroots movement now!

The Democrats really have nobody to go up against such Republican candidates as iconic Rudy Giuliani. The Democrats have abandoned their liberal base. They've allowed "liberal" to become a dirty word rather than a symbol for open-mindedness and caring. As unpopular as it might be for me to say so, I believe we were sold out by Bill Clinton due to his fervently ambitious embrace of the "middle." Examples include welfare "reform," the total botch of the healthcare issue and the resulting grotesquery called "managed care," and finally the total weakening of his presidency when he couldn't keep it in his pants. Hillary Clinton will never be elected. Her candidacy would prove to be divisive, and she really has also been rushing to the ineffectual middle. The closest the Democrats have come to uncovering a leader has been John McCain, a conservative Republican.


Unlike other potential "candidates,"


1. Oprah can win!
2. She actually does things for people.
3. Oprah is willing to speak out.
4. She also can be diplomatic.
5. She has the financial resources.
6. She has the media.
7 . She would get the vast majority of the women's' vote, the ethnic vote, and a surprising percentage of the total vote.
8. Oprah is not a Washington insider.
9. In my opinion, the only real thing that needs to be done is to CONVINCE OPRAH TO RUN.


If every one of the several hundred readers of this blog were to begin getting out the word to five or more people, the grassroots groundswell would begin to be felt and would soon get back to Oprah Winfrey and the press.

Google, which owns Blogger, disseminates and catalogues blog postings like this one and gets them out to the general reading public.

Guess what? As I was completing this post, I actually found an Oprah For President Website! Check it out. Ooops! It was up and running yesterday, but the website currently is down. Keep trying. I will too.

Please add your comments below.

Let's make a difference! Support the effort to make Oprah Winfrey President of the United States!


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(P2) Philosophical


What is the best way for Americans to contribute to the general well being, national defense, and preparedness in 2005 and the years to come?

Let's pay more taxes. Now, please don't tune me out. I'll keep this as short and to the point as possible.

Since the Reagan years, something called "Supply Side Economics" has prevailed. Here is a working definition:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Supply-side economics is a school of macroeconomic thought which emphasizes the importance of tax cuts and business incentives in encouraging economic growth, in the belief that businesses and individuals will use their tax savings to create new businesses and expand old businesses, which in turn will increase productivity, employment, and general well-being. While all macroeconomics involves both supply and demand, supply-side economics emphasizes the importance of encouraging increases in supply.

Ok, ok. I admit there is a bit of a seductive quality to this. We don't pay as much out of our pockets. On the other hand, our schools have deteriorated; we're paying hundreds of billions of dollars for a war in Iraq; the earliest true projection of the non-construction cost of Hurricane Katrina in $150 Billion; first responders in U.S. cities are not receiving adequate funding; the poor are getting poorer; health care coverage would be a joke were it not a nightmare, etc.

The nation increasingly will be in debt to such wonderful creditors as China. The deficit is going through the roof...of Saturn! Doesn't it therefore appear that, if it wasn't previously, America is now in a Demand Side situation. America needs to pay its debt. Americans need to pay for their services. Once we resume doing so, we may grow just a bit more critical of the way in which our money is being used to support Industry rather than People and Services.

I could offer a lot more here, but I promised to be brief, and I want to elicit your comments regarding the perceived need to at least take a critical look at what the major economists were referring to as "Voodoo Economics" during the early 1980's.


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(P2) Poetical

When Trees Tarnish

When trees tarnish
the green (let us call it silver)
tans white in the sun
beneath a cloudless sea
that is a sky

Nothing is what we’ve been told.
Why would we believe
trees are green
leaves turn brown
sky is blue
sky is sky?
What if the broccoli of scrub oaks were
a sauté-toasted garlic-rich
side dish for birds?

The blueness of sea sky
effulgent with mackerel
netted by fisherman
silent as hawks.
June is the month for
spooning and spawning
August the hunting
the harvest the catch.

With my dog named Lady,
her blackness is vital
her mouth and her eyes
blaze forth with a smile.
She knows not of August
but lies like a puddle,
they say there’s no color
for dogs or the sky.

(8-05)

Anne Rice On New Orleans/Funny Photo Op/Frost's Poem "The Flood"

(P1) Philosophical

Op-Ed Contributor

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?

Chas. L. Franck

• 
  

By ANNE RICE

Published: September 4, 2005

La Jolla, Calif.

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

(Here are a few more excerpts before I give a link to the complete article)

- Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

- Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

- Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

- I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

Here's a link to the complete Anne Rice article

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(P2) Political

Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn: "Say, y'all, this may be a great photo op, But could somebody tell me if the round part goes on the left or the right side"?





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(P3) Poetical

The Flood

Robert Frost

Blood has been harder to dam back than water.
Just when we think we have it impounded safe
Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!),
It breaks away in some new kind of slaughter.

We choose to say it is let loose by the devil;
But power of blood itself releases blood.
It goes by might of being such a flood
Held high at so unnatural a level.

It will have outlet, brave and not so brave.
weapons of war and implements of peace
Are but the points at which it finds release.
And now it is once more the tidal wave

That when it has swept by leaves summits stained.
Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained.

(1928)

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Katrina Kudos/Mencken Sense/God's Crow/Quiz Answer

Special Kudos to Chopper Crews
From the U.S. Coast Guard -

They, almost single-handedly led whatever early assistance was possible in getting survivors off buildings in New Orleans, Gulfport, and Biloxi. These valiant men and women, who had trained largely for ocean, lake and shoreline rescue, were now called upon to improvise and drop in rescue buckets through trees and powerlines in a flooded landbase operation. They performed courageously and efficiently under the most difficult conditions and saved countless lives.

Flash! (Sept. 4) Coast Gaurd helicopter, returning from rescue activity, crashes killing 2 aboard.

PS - I also urge my readers to take a look at my August 26th posting article titled "Insurance Industry Fears Global Warming." Subsequently I've also learned that Stanford scientists and much of the scientific community attribute the growing intensity of storms to the rising temperatures of our oceans.



(P1) Philosophical


Mencken Sense (a continuation)

In my post-before-last, I discussed some of the ideas of the great French philosopher Denis Diderot. Bringing thinking a bit more up to date, H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), with his immortal definition of "Puritanism" takes up right where Diderot left off,

"Puritanism" - The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

I never thought that America would take such a backward step as it has in its insane examination of nonsense or nonscience. Mencken, in 1920, spoke directly to the lunacy:

To sum up: (1) The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. (2) Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. (3) Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride. (December 1920)


Because I have no real belief in a glorious afterlife, I have adopted the idea that, at birth, a light switch is flipped on. During life, I live in the light. At death, the light switch is flipped off. That's it. A nice pleasant end after a full life and an easy death. What more can one ask - except for the hubris of eternal glory. It just doesn't even make sense to type that. As Mencken wrote,

When I die, I shall be content to vanish into nothingness...No show, however good, could conceivably be good forever...I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it.

I couldn't have said it better! Who needs Dante's infernal "vision"!


(P2) Poetical


God's Crow


God's crow

swooped low

over my shoulder

screaming:

"I am

God's crow;

why do I scare you,

boy, why

did you shrink

from my kiss"?

(1970)


(P3) Political

Answer to American Hero Photo Quiz

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil is the answer to the "Forgotten American Heroes" Quiz.

In addition to being George W. Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury, he had been CEO of Alcoa Corporation and an ardent supporter of George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald Reagan. So the fact that his Republican and conservative credentials were impeccable lend great weight and credibility to his report of disillusionment overcoming him at the very first Bush cabinet meeting.

O'Neil describes the President being so detached that he was "like a blind man in a room full of deaf people". O'Neil went on 60 Minutes and indicated that Bush was planning the Iraq War as soon as he was sworn in a full 9 months before September 11th, 2001!

For this contribution, our hero suffered the same fate as John McCain, Max Cleland, Richard Clarke and countless other nonconformists. He was totally trashed by the Bush/Rove smear machine. Fortunately, though, O'Neil is a very wealthy independent man who has no political aspirations.

Bravo, Paul O'Neil!


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Upcoming Musical Benefit of Note

My friend Sani, who does charitable work on behalf of the Roma people worldwide requested that I post this announcement of what looks to be an extraordinary entertainment benefit in Sebastopol, California. This world-renowned award -winning group not only plays Bulgarian Wedding Music but is a top Be Bop Progressive Jazz Band as well. Check it out.




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Katrina and Her People

(P1) Philosophical

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

-Proverbs 29:18-

This is not a political statement. In fact, in (P2) Political, I will call for bipartisanship of the first order. My former philosophy professor, Jacob Needleman, has written one of the more profound and important books of the decade. I wondered when I'd mention it here. The horrific aftermath of Katrina calls all Americans to the task of self-reflection. What does it mean to be American? What is the truth of America? These are the questions Needleman tackles in his book The American Soul (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, NY 2002).

His premise is that the soul of America, its greatness, issues from its great ideas as in those of Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, Douglass, Roosevelt, Kennedy, etc. The paucity of great ideas today gives us a starting point in our desperate search for America's lost soul.

It is ever so sad that it might have taken America's worst natural catastrophe with its horrendous displacements, deprivations, and loss of life to get Americans truly thinking once again about who we are and what we're about.


(P2) Political

But for starters, it's going to take more of the material than the abstract to help the millions displaced and destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. This effort must be totally bipartisan. Recriminations are out of place at this point. The time to review will come soon enough. For now, here are a few places for us common folk to begin our efforts

www.redcross.org

www.charitynavigator.org

www.salvationarmyusa.org

www.nvoad.org

www.la-spca.org


(P1) Poetical

Sneaking Out The Horseman

We live here right next to dying people,
next to awful tribulation and misery,
and it’s not just that we all act
as if it were no concern of ours,
but we’re even protected, spared
any possibility of coming into contact with it,
or seeing it.
And now they’ll sneak the horseman out
while we’re eating supper or breakfast.

- Thomas Mann –The Magic Mountain-

And with the Austrian horseman gone,
the knowing reader asks both “why” and “where”
The “why” is mostly philosophical,
how the horseman came to ride,
how the horseman came to die.
But to ask him “Wither goest?”
presumes that he too is a poet searching.
Only art attempts to plumb this depth;
Where he’s going, to a horseman spreads before him
jointly chosen by both man and mare,
but is not all of this in every way rhetorical
- ever since they snuck its rider out
while we picked at either supper or our breakfast –
like seeking knowledge from the horse’s mouth?

-2004


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Insurance Co's Fear Global Warming/The Deep Mystery/Answering a Jihadist

(P1) Political

Insurance Industry Fears Global Warming...More So-Called "Liberal Propaganda"?

No...interestingly, this comes from the environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Bush-appointed administrators.

While I'll give you the link to the EPA's website in a second, I first want to give a few quotes in case the EPA site changes.

"While the effects of climate change will impact every segment of the business community, the insurance industry is especially at risk..."

Note the term "climate change" which the Bush administration prefers to the term "global warming." However, when you go to the link, look about 24 lines down, and you will read the following: "What Can The Insurance Industry Do?... Educate policy holders about financial risks associated with GLOBAL WARMING..."

So why, after not signing the Kyoto Accords (which, by the way would not have been a panacea) and also seemingly denying the very existence of global warming, would the administration, through its EPA be this emphatic about the dangers? Well, in the words of Deep Throat, "Follow the money!" Who represents more money than the insurance industry? Even though the EPA's motivation may not be perfect, I regard this particular EPA action and advisory as at least being a somewhat hopeful sign for those of us who care about the environment.

Here's the link to the full text which is very interesting.


(P2) Philosophical

"God is an invention of Man.
So the nature of God
is only a shallow mystery.
The Deep mystery is
the nature of Man."

(Narei Koburi, late Abbot of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, a Buddhist Sanctuary in Kyoto from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, by Sagan and Druyan)


(P3) Poetical

Of Art, Satisfaction, and Justification - by Edward Coletti

“Bin Ladin also relies heavily on the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood executed in 1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government…He dismissed Western achievements as entirely material, arguing that Western society possesses nothing that will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence.” – From The 911 Commission Report –

By this poem
I seek
to prove myself
and by extension
survival of a Western soul
to Sayyid
the unpronounceable
Qutb
who (how like a Q-Tip)
opens our ears
to his own truth
which is the truth of certain death,
truth of Jihadists
who, like Qutb,
value life only
for the dying.

nothing
No thing
will satisfy
Qutb
like the death
he found
in his own execution
(It is said also that
poets never die.
What of martyrs?
What of those
who inspire this
very poem?).

As to America,
nothing
no thing
will satisfy
its conscience.

Materialism
like reflection
gives us only
a collective
stomach ache,
head ache
dull unfilled ache.

United we stand
therefore
we are.
Is this justification
for our existence?
Qutb would argue
deeply in the negative,
so deep within the earth
that even the worms
have ceased to hear him,
but, nonetheless
his argument rises
from a no less unusual place
than the presidentially-appointed
911 Commission
finding in the corpse of Sayyid Quttb
a quiet grub of truth
expelling noxious authenticity;

By breathing it in,
by making it part of me,
I satisfy my conscience,
I justify my existence.

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Three With a Chess Theme

(P1) Philosophical

This time, I thought I'd pay a bit of homage to the grand game of chess, not just as a "game," but for the manner in which it informs almost everything. Joyce frequently asks if I'm playing a "game" of chess. To those of us who play, it's a lot more than a game. I took up chess as sort of a counter-phobic pursuit. I tend to make my decisions in life through less than fully analytical means. Additionally, I'm not the most disciplined person in the world. So, with the help of my neighbor and friend Dave (to whom this piece is dedicated), I learned to play chess (albeit rather badly). My idea was to stare my deficits squarely in the face and perhaps by so doing, acquire a bit more discipline and become somewhat more analytical. I believe I have succeeded (especially if the hedge of the word "somewhat" is fully considered).

Beyond disicipline and analysis, my greatest spur to becoming involved was this passage from the great Grandmaster Sigbert Tarrasch who wrote simply and profoundly that, "CHESS, LIKE LOVE, LIKE MUSIC, HAS THE POWER TO MAKE MEN HAPPY." Any pursuit carrying such a promise of happiness is worth investigating. I have never been disappointed - frustrated, yes - but don't love and frustration go hand-in-hand? - The results have been well-worth the effort.

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(P2) Political

Perhaps the two greatest young chess players who ever lived are still alive: 1. Bobby Fischer - a total nutcase, and 2. Garry Kasparov - a force for world change.

Permit me not to give any "press" to anti-semite Fischer. But Kasparov should be heard and is being heard by his sworn enemy Russian President Vladimir Putin.



Why should the Russians and the world listen to a great chess player? In his autobiography, Garry Kasparov - Unlimited Challenge, Kasparov offers the wise words of his own esteemed teacher, Grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik, "In order to solve inexact problems it is essential to limit the scope of the problem so as not to get entangled in it, and only then is there the chance of finding a more exact solution. Hence, it is a mistake to think that chess does not reflect objective reality. It reflects man's thinking."

Here is an example of Kasparov's chess-influenced political analysis:

"Western leaders who still hope that relations with Putin will lead to reforms are similar to chess players who wish to attack only the enemy’s king. One must learn to play against pawns, play on all sides of the chessboard. If you are able to convince the opponent’s pawns and pieces to join you, the enemy’s king will not succeed in standing alone for a long time.”

So, good luck, Garry Kasparov. You're up against a ruthless pro who also knows how to play. In fact he plays so well that George Bush, upon only one visit, declared that he had looked into Vladimir's soul and liked what he saw. But I rather doubt that Bush is a very good chess player.


(P3) Poetical

STALEMATE

Here when the game is done,

the last piece moved,

the King with no place to go,

Not dead, not checked,

just frozen forever

in a limbo of his own

creation. No exit.

No entrance. No movement.

No target. No victim.

No attacker. No time.

All the others gaping at him

here in his cave safe

forever in this vacuum-

-packed cocoon unclear,

No loss. No victory.

A draw. A stasis.

No nourishment. No need.

Compassionate Conservative/Ideas Toward World Harmony/Firefighters

(P1) Political














(P2) Philosophical

Brainstorming World Harmony

A close relative asked me for some ideas regarding world harmony through the internet and education. I sent off a five minute brainstorm. I come up with some of my best ideas when I work quickly. Here they are in no particular order:

1. I've long expounded on a theory of mine that governments, especially ours, should spend money on a world peace initiative involving either requiring or (more likely) making it difficult to refuse spending 6 months abroad to overcome xenophobia and the type of provincialism that causes folks in Kansas to view (let us call them) "Iraqis" as less-than-human fodder to be bombed, etc. And I mean make it available to EVERY American: grape pickers, farmers, assembly line workers, welfare recipients, Harvard students, lawyers, high school students, and fast food workers.

2. Along the same line, what of a U.S. President who had never left the continental United States ( except perhaps for a college binge in Tijuana) and then becomes President, and his first international act of note is to declare war on da furriners. What if Bush had been enticed or required to spend a semester or so wherever he'd have liked, and, let's say he'd chosen Paris, and let's imagine he'd fallen in love with a French girl. Would there have been any chance of french fries being renamed "Freedom Fries," etc?

3. I recall when I first got involved with the internet. It was back before there were any pictures or even colors on the worldwide web. It had to do with getting into different university libraries and in various countries. I was amazed. This was back when the few of us who knew about the technology (pre-mouse even) were traveling the world libraries with programs named Archie and Veronica. Later, something called Mosaic created a more usable interface IN Color. That led several Illinois University students to create something called Netscape, and the rest is history. But, when I used the most rudimentary technology a dozen or fifteen years or so ago, I remember one day running down to Joyce and exclaiming, "I'm in Russia!" That was when the Soviet Union still existed, and I almost felt like a "traitor" just for "visiting" a Soviet library online.

4. Today, thanks to the internet, there are no borders. Did I share with you a dialogue between me and an Iraqi chemical engineer I happened to be playing chess with online? That was a most profound interchange. He was out of work due to the war. He also didn't want us there and said that a nation as old as his could solve it's own problems. This sort of exchange happens online among many people worldwide by virtue of the internet. What a boon to world understanding and harmony!

5. Think also of the law enforcement predicament - trying to enforce U.S. laws - anti anti anti pornography pot sedition - when the "perpertrators" are not subject to U.S. laws. Anything goes. Or in Rastfarian terms: "One love...let's get together and feel alright."

6. What of Doctors Without Borders?

7. What of the European Community?

8. Can any of this (should any of this) be stopped?

9. What of India and China? India has the greatest technical university in the world.

10. So, much of this is very hopeful, and I am hopeful, except that my own country may be the most resistant to change. It's time for great thinkers, diplomats, statesmen, to step forward. All the Bushie Neocons care about is the bottom line. But they'll lose there too without subscribing to the movements of which we speak.

11. In terms of education, what about a virtual university of the world where students of particular schools gain credit from online courses from overseas universities and credit for participation in international forums and through actual visits to other countries? How about international work-study programs?

12. How about tracking the most successful students from other countries and creating test instruments based upon the stuff that makes them successful. Call it "TRS" for "The Right Stuff." To get the right stuff, American students will need to measure up to a World standard, etc. etc.

Please add your own Comments and Ideas. When prompted, you can sign in as "other" but please add your name to your text. Always feel free to also look at the comments of others as well by pressing on "comments" throughout these postings. Should you prefer, my email is edcoletti @sbcglobal.net.


(P3) Poetical

Found Poem (based upon an interview with NYC Firefighter Maureen McArdle-Schulman)

Somebody yelled something was falling.
We didn't know if it was desks coming out.
It turned out it was people coming out,
They started coming out one after the other.
We saw the jumpers coming.
We didn't know what it was at first
But then the first body hit
Then we knew what it was
And they were just like constant
I was getting sick.
I felt like
I was intruding on a sacrament.
They were choosing to die
I was watching them
And shouldn't have been.
So me and another guy
Turned away and looked at a wall,
And we could still hear them hit.

Getting Fat Again/Bolton And The Final Straw/Time Travel

(P1) Philosophical

Why Sweat Getting Fat Again?

Once again, the clothes are beginning to feel like someone else's. In the car, I unbuckle my trou. In the morning, I wonder how that guy from a year ago got back into my mirror. I begin to experience the dread of "having to" resume my program. It always works for me. I lost 20 lbs within the first few weeks after New Years Day. But the prospect of all that work!...rising at 5:45 AM...drinking water...lifting weights, doing crunches, squats, stretches...more water...a 45 minute walk up hills...but, worst of all by far- keeping meticulous track of all I ingest and holding it to 1800 calories a day! All that deprivation! Why can't I just stop weighing myself? Actually, I have. Why not just enjoy life and lasagne, and real breakfasts, and chicken fried steak and biscuits and gravy and ribs and potato chips and ice cream at night. Some people eat to live and others live to eat. I fall squarely into the second category!

But, it's not just about appearance. I don't relish the prospects of high blood pressure, arterial plaque, heart disease, stroke, or diabetes either. So, just as I adjust to this further motivation, Anthony Bourdain, on TV, from France, counsels to eat with all 5 senses and enjoy life fully like a Frenchman rather than wrinkling up like a puritanical American.

I don't have the answer this time. Help me and the other readers. Add your comments by pressing the word "Comments" , signing in either as "blogger" or "other" and making sure to add your name at the end of your comments.


(P2) Political

My friend Larry Carlin sent the following letter to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Larry might as well have been voicing my own opinions on the need to not sit silently by.

Saturday, August 6, 2005

No End In Sight

EDITOR: Bravo for your Tuesday editorial regarding John Bolton. I have been voting since the 1960's, and have never seen a president of any stripe who seems so consumed by his own vision or that of his inner circle.

To purposefully make an end run while Congress is on holiday on such an important position is unthinkable. Doesn't he hear the message from the rest of the world? Or worse, doesn't he care?

Watching a Bill Maher cable special the other night, I was struck by something he said. Maher intimated that while all these crazy things are going on, no one -- whether Democrats, moderate Republicans, a member of the media -- is speaking out loud enough.

Alas, he offered no specific solutions, but I think he's right. It's not just that the message is falling on deaf ears. No one is (peacefully) yelling, marching, protesting and creating a buzz. Yet, many of us are ticked off.

And, yet it goes on -- the war, the killings, politics in secret, health care, gas prices, Social Security, ad infinitum, with no end in sight. What will be the final straw? What needs to happen to make us step over the line?

Larry Carlin - Santa Rosa, CA




(P3) Poetical

Recently, I fell in love with a very old clock that belonged to my father-in-law George Watson and, before him, to his mother. I had the clock fixed, and it is running and ringing now at my house.

Time Travel

Waterbury Clock 1881
one hundred twenty-five
years encased in walnut

Named "Paris" a carved head
androgynous gaze
beneath a parasol dome

within a granddaughter's home
in Santa Rosa, California
doesn't run

teeth shorn
bell won't toll
time won't tell

What of a clock
speaks to love?

something of
the work it's done

movement's grinding
centennarian

thirsts for care
all it needs

to tock and tick
to ring aloud again
as it began

the Spring of '81
when Grandma
first wound

the Waterbury Paris clock
from Connecticut
she'd bought

at Wannamaker's Department
Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

worth a hundred times
its purchase price

more than that
for the time it's kept.


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Flight From Logic/One By John/ & Fun Zen

(P1) Political

Loyalty Oath To Ignorance - The Flight From Logic

Responding to a column I sent to her, a dear friend of mine asked me if I really believed that Republicans were responsible for all of the world's ills. Of course, I responded with a "No," but, after reading the following from Richard Cohen's Aug. 6th column titled When Politicians Are Delirious, I decided that, while the Republicans may not be responsible for all the world's ills, their current embrace of psychotic illogic is enough to scare the bejeebers out of anyone who thinks.

Cohen discusses 3 of the more "moderate" Republicans, who since becoming presidential "contenders, " have rendered opinions that they had previously eschewed regarding the morning after pill, Terry Schiavo, and a woman's right to choose. The offenders respectively were George Pataki, Bill Frist, and Mitt Romney.

Cohen writes:

"It has now become clear that a viable Republican presidential candidate must oppose abortion, stem cell research, the morning after pill, gay marriage and, for good measure, evolution. At the very least, you have to offer a good word for intelligent design, as the president did just the other day in the single dopiest statement of his presidency.

"These are positions that defy logic - not each and every one of them, but as a totality. Taken together, they require GOP presidential candidates to take a kind of loyalty oath to ignorance, to see virtually every issue through a religious prism."




(P2) Poetical


I'm fond of this poem by my son John in his book The New Normalcy (Boog Literature: NY, 2002)

Dedication

You can’t mean anything

To be anything

As long as you

Break something

With something else

You exist.

You buy something

To break something

And are something

(P3) Philosophical

Now Zen, Now Zen

Here are some philosophical musings...

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tyre.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbour's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. No one is listening until you break wind.

5. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

6. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat & drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

13. If you drink, don't park; accidents cause people.

14. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

17. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side & a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

18. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your mouth is moving.

19. We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

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