Reading At Moe's/Breaking Bread/No One But Us/ Evolution-Shmevolution

(P1) Poetical
2476 Telegraph Avenue
Berkeley CA 94702

Save the Date Monday June 11th

Katherine Hastings and Ed Coletti Reading at Moe's Books in Berkeley

If you're available (try to be available), my good friend and wonderful poet Katherine Hastings (Word Temple and KRCB) and I (Ed Coletti) will both be reading at historic Moe's Books in Berkeley at 7:30 PM Monday June 11th.




(P2) Philosophical

"Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead."

- W.H. Auden

There is No One But Us

There is no one but us.
There is no one to send,
nor a clean hand nor a pure heart
on the face of the earth, nor in the earth,
but only us,
a generation comforting ourselves
with the notion that we have come at an awkward time,
that our innocent fathers are all dead
--as if innocence had ever been--
and our children busy and troubled,
and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready,
having each of us chosen wrongly,
made a false start, failed,
yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures,
and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.
But there is no one but us.
There never has been.

- Annie Dillard




(P3) Political

What, Me Science? 

Just imagine!  3 Republican presidential candidates at the first debate raised their hands to
signify that they DO Not believe in evolution!  These 3 bright lights are Tancredo, Brownback,
and Huckabee.  The idea of not one but 3 candidates for President of the United
States not believing in the very most basic scientific fact!  Fortunately none of the 3 has even
an amoeba's chance of surviving more than a few more electoral moments.

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Reading Photos/Flashback/To Die In Vain

(P1) Poetical

First SoCoCo Reading and First Reading Together With My Son John Coletti

May 3d was truly memorable for the two headlined reasons. Sonoma Coffee Company worked out as a wonderfully intimate venue. Readers pictured below were all "on." Bliss prevailed. Pictured John Coletti, Ed Coletti, Kathleen Winter David Beckman, Richard Denner, Jodi Hottel. Next SoCoCo Reading will be July 5th at 7:30 and with a whole new slate to be announced soon.

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(P2) Philosophical

Who shall speak for the dead in our private ceremonies of remembrance?

by Ed Hagan

It is we.

We that step forward today.

Some of us that can still stand.

Others among us can’t stand today but still muster our bodies from our chairs and others stir from our beds.

We who are alive remember and salute you.

Forty years ago there were more of us that shared the moments of death and dying in the flicker of seconds passing like our hearts pounding among those noisy moments of shock.

Numbing moments of anguish that crushed our bodies as the blasts from bombs exploding reverberated in every tightened muscle that changed pitch like violin strings wound to their breaking point as they played a symphony from hell .

Steel bending, melting, dripping to the deck below. Blood bleeding from bodies mixed together with sweat, Co2, PKP, JP5, Avgas all into a swift flow washed away in the sea water and tears that flowed..

And after the fire was out we heard the word from the PA. For us thankfully it was not God.

Those that almost died but didn’t possessed wounded spirits. Minds marked suffering the memories of the dead on that day July 29, 1967, forty years ago. Over those forty years one by one each survivor suffered the sorrow of comrades lost. Fewer of us to remember that gathering "the only thing worse than soldiers dying in vain are more soldiers dying in vain." spirits, souls, cells and salt of the sea.

Passage from the forthcoming book “Forrestal BeDevilers of VF-74 Ord”, by my friend Edward J. Hagan III copyright 2007

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(P3) Political

"the only thing worse than soldiers dying in vain are more soldiers dying in vain."

- Alaska Senator Mike Gravel

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One Last Blog (cartoon)/Screw Light Bulb/Oxymoron Pudding

(P1) Philosophical























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(P2) Political

Question: How many Bush- administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any report of its lack of incandescence is a delusional spin by the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say about its going out undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

(Source unknown - in The Sun May 2007)

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(P3) Poetical

Oxymoron Pudding

Ever too many unshuttered souls

Torso-torn faults

Butterscotch-gaped

Deep here within

Still another good war.

(ed coletti 2007)

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B.Y. You, Dick, etc/Broughton Poem/Einstein's God

(P1) Political

Three Views From The Right Schools
(religious right, that is)


(1) B.Y. You, Dick


Amazingly, even Mormon bastion Brigham Young University's students and faculty have begun to find fault with the treasured Bush Administration, specifically with Vice President Dick Cheney. Their concerns have not centered so much around policy, but are more about the perception that Cheney is an "immoral" man. Two examples are cited by two different groups:

1. doesn't want him to speak at commencement due to his apparent use of the "f" word in addressing his political opponent Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT?

2. at least one faculty member is concerned that Cheney may not be a truthful man, eg. using the bogus "WMD" to support a pre-ordained attack on Iraq.



(2) Pat Robertson Lays (Down) the Law


Did you know that TV Evangelist and African mining investor Pat Robertson founded two institutions of "higher" education, Messiah College and Regent Law School avowedly to advance the agenda of his Christian Right. Nothing particularly alarming about either.......except that........Regent Law School, typically located at the bottom end of rated law schools, boasts no fewer than 150 members of the Bush Administration including Monica Goodling, Bush's liaison with the Dept of Justice. Goodling's attorney recently indicated she would take the fifth amendment rather than testify in GonzoGate. Instead, a few days later, she quit the Justice Dept.



(3) First it was Pluto - Vatican set to Dump Limbo


First it was Pluto. Now we're going to have to do without Limbo. Although never unpleasant, Limbo had been an obstacle to Heaven for unbaptized babies. So, apparently due to competition from other religions in Africa, the Catholic Church, is recognizing that the unbaptized-babies-can't-go-to heaven idea just doesn't play there where the infant mortality rates are through the roof. It looks like they may go to heaven after all. So, bye bye Limbo, and, therefore, when dancing, it's no longer "Limbo Lower Now," it's "Perhaps-Heaven's Lower Now."

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(P2) Poetical

Quit your addiction
to sneer and complaint
Try a little flaunt
Call for comrades
who bolster your vim
and offer you risk
Corral the crones
Goose the nice nellies
Hunt the bear that hugs
and the raven that quoths
Stay up all night
to devise a new dawn

James Broughton from Little Sermons of the Big Joy

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(P3) Philosophical


Einstein's God

Here are several Albert Einstein quotes re. God and the supernatural from Walter Isaacson in the April 16 issue of Time

• "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."
• In answer to the question, "Do you believe in immortality?" Einstein answered, "No. And one life is enough for me."
• "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
• "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."
• "There are people who say there is no God...But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views...What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos,"

• "The fanatical atheists...are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'--cannot hear the music of the spheres."

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Bizarro Rich/Religiously Rich/SoCoCo/Stereotypes/

(P1) Philosophical

Bizarro On the Wealthy -->

Wealth & Christianity

The following is from Nona Williams blog "Fish Wars"

A Time / SRBI Public Affairs poll reports that:

61% of Christians in the U.S. believe that God wants them to be financially prosperous.

31% also believe that if you give money to God, he will bless you with more money

21% believe material wealth is a sign of God's blessing

So, if you're poor, it's because God doesn't like you.

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(P2) Poetical


SoCoCo Poetry Readings

If you're near Santa Rosa on Thursday May 3d, please join me, Ed Coletti, as I begin hosting a new series of poetry readings I've conceived at

Sonoma Coffee Company
521 4 St
Santa Rosa, CA 95401-6323
Thursday May 3

7:30-9PM

Readers thus far scheduled include Richard Denner, Kathleen Winter, David Beckman, John Coletti, and Ed Coletti. John is from NYC and the famed Poetry Project at St. Marks in the Village. He also reads regularly in Boston and Philadelphia. I'm proud to call him my son. Should you be interested in reading that night, we have 2 or 3 more open slots. Otherwise, also contact me about future readings.

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(P2) Political


A. On the Ascendancy Of Money

Romney Reaps $20 Million to Top G.O.P. Rivals

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: April 3, 2007



Never in my 63 years have I seen a campaign dominated neither by issues or popularity polling but rather by the race for dollars. Perhaps politics has finally devolved to the point at which a sort of perverse honesty has taken over, and the principals and the press are actually telling it the way it is. At least when it comes to money.

B.On Stereotypes

Recently, this was passed to me by a friend. Take a look and then see my reply in blue beneath:

AMIGOS E AMIGAS . . . !!!

DON'T FORGET TO PAY YOUR TAXES BY 15 APRIL !!!!

NINETEEN(19) MILLION ILLEGAL MEXICANS ARE DEPENDING UPON YOU !!!!

Senor McDave

Bob,

Because there are aspects (*) to this problem that are beyond the understanding of people like Senor McDave, I won't use the term "racist." But tell Senor McDave , whoever the hell he is, that I suspect all 19 million work a good deal harder than he does. But what do I know? Just as I don't know any of the "19 million," I don't know Senor McDave either. So I'm not going to do an argumentum ad hominum based upon stereotypes of either Mexicans or idiots. I'd appreciate your passing this on.

* Undocumented workers, in fact, are here. Why are they here? Almost overwhelmingly to work. They come here to support their families. So, (a), economic conditions ain't so good in Mexico, and (b) Corporations and other employers here are willing to hire them "illegally." But does our government enforce its own laws against hiring undocumented workers? Only for show as in the Swift meat packing plant raid in Chicago which was done mostly for the show of appearing to do something --like trotting out poor handcuffed unfortunates who were trying to earn a living. For the most part, however, this administration is NOT about stopping the practice but rather helping corporations maximize their bottom lines by paying the lowest wages possible to whomever will work for them --hence the undocumented worker.

If you, dear reader, truly want immigration reform, demand that your representatives seek to prosecute a few corporate executives from firms which hire illegally. Send a message that, when workers are paid adequately above the table, such problems won't exist anywhere near the way they now do.

Thanks,

Eddie C.

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CUSPS Revisited/Spring/Kiva/Trivia

(P1) Political

Edwards and Obama Tied For CUSPS Lead

Recall (Feb. 13th) that in the first CUSPS ("Coletti's Unabashedly Subjective Presidential Scale") I gave Barrack Obama a slight edge over John Edwards. Now they are in a tie. The reason why I have not given Edwards a clear lead is that my selection criteria involve both policy and electability. The position-oriented Edwards, in my estimation, currently surpasses all candidates in policy because he has clearly defined written positions on heath care, the environment, labor, and the war. However, Barrack remains the rock star especially within the younger echelons of his party.

As to Hillary Clinton, she has the money, mainstream party backing, and what I would call a "cynical stay-out-of-trouble" stance.

Here are my latest ratings based both upon the public good and electability" This time I've thrown in a few "pros" and "cons" as well:

John Edwards ( D-NC) 8 Excellent hard working well-researched thought on actual plans for health care, the environment, labor and the war. Has courage. Would be top choice. Has a way to go to overcome early Clinton and Obama starts. Making up ground.

Hillary Clinton (D-NY) 6 The Democratic front runner by virtue of name recognition, money, mainstream party support, and attempting to say nothing controversial. I believe her nomination could result in a Demo loss during a time when it should reap an easy win. Don't insult me by saying that I'm opposed "because she is a woman." She's the wrong woman. Either Madeline Albright or Nancy Pelosi would be infinitely better.

Barrack Obama (D-Illinois) 8 Still a strong ethical choice. Solid on issues including the war. Very serious thinker. More electable than Edwards at this point.

Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) 2 Perennial candidate and strongest liberal. Nothing wrong with his positions. Unelectable.

Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) 3 Strong Democratic and Liberal positions. Will have great difficulty catching on with the electorate.

Joe Biden (D-Delaware) 4 Intelligent and highly experienced especially in international policy. Had best hope for a cabinet or supreme court nomination. He gets himself into too much difficulty by being verbose.

Mike Gravel (D- Virginia) 2 Crusader for universal non-profit health care. Will be 78 at time of election.

John Mc Cain (R-Arizona) minus 1 History of courage and perseverance. But ultraconservative who flip flops to look good and generally ends up looking bad as a result. Detested even by his Republican Senate colleagues.

Rudy Giuliani (R- Ny) minus 2 Executive experience but also hair trigger temper/no diplomacy/by all accounts impossible to work with/overrated on security/one-day wonder.

Tommy Thompson (R-Wisc.) 1 Latecomer popular with conservatives. Experienced governor and health secretary. Some interest in health initiatives. Probably the wrong ones. May be a Republican "sleeper" and mainstream choice.

Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) minus 4 Ultra conservative who fortunately has no chance of doing more than (by virtue of declaring "candidacy") forcing me to type his name here.

Ron Paul (R-PA) 0 Appeared on Bill Maher. More of a libertarian. Opposes the Civil War 1860-65 (seriously). Somewhat of a consistent thinker.

Mitt Romney (R-Mass) minus 2 I really have little understanding of this man and his confusing position shifts. Somehow he did get elected governor of Massachusetts, and his Mormonism surprisingly didn't stop him there. It will nationally, however.

Mike Huckabee (R-Arkansas) 2 Good guy image. Being minister may appeal to Christian voters - "social Christianity"- claims more interest in peoples' needs rather than fundamentalist agenda. Conservative who has long way to go with name recognition.

Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) minus279 Where to begin? I won't.

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(P2) Poetical

Another Spring

The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water.

- Kenneth Rexroth

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(P3) Philosophical

Here's Something You and I Can Do To Stem Poverty and Divert Folks From Terrorism

The following is from a recent Nicholas Kristof column. You may find yourself motivated.

KABUL, Afghanistan

For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.

To read the rest of the column, press here.

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Trivia Quiz

Who said?

"It is a quite special secret pleasure, how the people around us fail to realize what is really happening to them."

Put your answer here

McGovern Visits/War&Sense/Poem/Abbey

(P1) Political

George McGovern Makes Sense In Sebastopol

If only he'd beaten Nixon! Oh well, he's still a wonderfully caring and intelligent man. That George McGovern loves kids, he demonstrated speaking to the students at Analy H.S. in Sebastopol (Sonoma County) California March 16th.

McGovern, who now serves as the United Nations' global ambassador on world hunger caught my attention by pointing out that it would take a mere $5 billion a year to fund a global school lunch program which would double school enrollment in poor countries, boost academic perfomance and help cut birth rates in half (presumably those issuing from teenage pregnancies). The war in Iraq costs close to that much each month!

McGovern who was a bomber pilot in World War II, added that Iraq was "not the slightest threat to the United States," and were he president, he would bring the troops home over the next 5 weeks.

This makes me mindful of the thought-provoking documentary "Why We Fight" which features Dwight David Eisenhower and his warning against "the military-industrial complex." Stop and think: Our government is reluctant to participate in real health and anti-poverty programs because avowedly "there ain't enough money," yet that same government will spend billions and eventually trillions on armaments to feed the insatiable arms industry. Note: I will not refer to it as "defense" industry, because I challenge you to show me how any of our wars (with the possible exceptions of WWII and the Civil War) have anything to do with "defense" of this nation.

Bravo, George McGovern!


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(P2) Philosophical

About War

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious." - Major General Smedley Butler


"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." - George W. Bush, prior to the invasion of Iraq


"I cannot help but wonder what it will be like for the young men and women wounded in Iraq...For us, in 1968, it was the Bronx veterans hospital paraplegic ward, overcrowded, understaffed, rats on the ward,...urine bags overflowing...Paralyzed men lying in their own excrement...wondering how our government could spend so much money on the most lethal...advanced weaponry to kill and maim human beings but not be able to take care of its own wounded when they came home...Has any of it changed?" --Ron Kovic (recall "Born On the Fourth of July")


"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots." - Barbara Ehrenreich


"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." -John Lennon


"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers." -Jose Narosky


(Quotations are from The Sun Magazine)

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(P3) Poetical


A Single Step


The path branches

immeasurably.

Your choice

becomes yr history.


(Richard Krech)



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Answer to the Last "Trivia" Question

Who said: "Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners."?

Answer: Edward Abbey "When Edward Abbey died in 1989 at the age of sixty-two, the American West lost one of its most eloquent and passionate advocates. Through his novels, essays, letters and speeches, Edward Abbey consistently voiced the belief that the West was in danger of being developed to death, and that the only solution lay in the preservation of wilderness. Abbey authored twenty-one books in his lifetime, including Desert Solitaire, The Monkey Wrench Gang, The Brave Cowboy, and The Fool's Progress. His comic novel The Monkey Wrench Gang helped inspire a whole generation of environmental activism. A writer in the mold of Twain and Thoreau, Abbey was a larger-than-life figure as big as the West itself."
-- cover text from the Edward Abbey Video

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About Attraction/Apathy=Enemy/New Orleans Poem/Intelligent?

(P1) Philosophical

In Favor of the Law Of Attraction

Dear Friend,

While walking my dog Lady today, I pondered further on your understandable objection to positive affirmation and the law of attraction because they don't seem to be working for oppressed and suffering people in the third world:

My answer is that there is nothing wrong with the law of attraction. Were these people in a situation where they could practice it positively, it would work for them in a positive way, but where oppression takes away personal freedoms and where poverty is usually the result of greed, corruption, and oppression, personal freedom to choose is removed. Still, as was the case with Viktor Frankl in the concentration camps (Man's Search For Meaning), he survived by envisioning a different reality and made it his own. When I went to the DeYoung exhibit of the unbelievable quilt collection from the women of Gee's Bend, Alabama, I was forcefully struck by the freedom which comes from creativity. No one can suppress what goes on within. Even the slaves created great music as their way of transporting their reality to something much more inwardly sublime.

For the most part, however, when one's freedom is taken from them, the impoverished reality which they notice day in and day out becomes and remains their "vision." Of course it's not their fault. And it takes the helping vision of others to enable them to see beyond their immediate "reality." Hence the absolute wisdom in granting the Nobel Prize to Muhammad Yunus creator of the Grameen Bank who empowers people (especially women) with mini-micro loans of $100 or so to begin their own tiny weaving or similar businesses. The success of this program and others like the Namaste Bank serving Guatemala and other Latin American countries is staggeringly encouraging.

Enough soapboxing for positive vision except to say it's also the only route to world peace, and that's a whole other of my soap boxes. Encourage everyone to support the current House legislation for a US Dept of Peace! http://www.congress.org

Love,

Soapbox Eddie


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(P2) Political

Where Y'all At"?

American jazz spokesman and genius speaks also to the world we face daily and wonder what will become of it. He counsels doing something in other words participating:

"Find out where the tax money is going. Find out why something happened. Write to people. Just be a participant." Fittingly his latest song is titled, "Where Y'all At."

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(P3) Poetical

PIECES OF THE SKY
by Greg Fuchs

The wind, the water

Washed my home,

My people away,

My people wash far

Away my home.

Pieces of the sky.

The wind, the water

Took my home

Into the lake.

Home so fleeting

The pieces of the sky.

The wind and the water

Biblical lesson.

The lake came to visit

The river. The lake

Came to my house.

The wind and the water

So fleeting,

Pieces of the sky.

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Not-So-Trivia(l) Quiz

Who said the following - Press here to answer

"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners. put your answer here

Veterans/Jesus/Poets Loveable

(P1) Political

Dumped Soldiers!- (Santa Rosa Press Democrat - recent letter)

EDITOR: Service men and women, upon returning from duty in Iraq, are being given less than honorable discharges after being diagnosed with depression, anger problems and post traumatic stress disorder. Instead of getting the help they need, after witnessing the horrors of war firsthand, they are being dumped and have a good chance of not receiving the benefits due them because of the type of discharge they receive. This is shameful.

Presently, it is estimated that 33 percent of the homeless are veterans, including people from as far back as the Korean conflict. They were dumped in the same manner and it is happening again. Supporting the troops doesn't begin and end with a cheer. All vets, present and past, deserve our support in helping them overcome their problems. It is the least we can do in return for their service.

Please, raise your voices locally and nationally to stop this betrayal. And be a little kinder the next time you encounter a person that is down and out, they may very well be a veteran.

JACOB W. BOUDEWIJN

Santa Rosa

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(P2) Philosophical

Jesus H. Christ!

I like this response by a reader of the Huffington blog to articles attacking the admittedly questionable James Cameron book and documentary claiming to possibly have found bones belonging to the family and, thereby, calling the resurrection into highly conjectured question:

The reason people have launched pre-emptive strikes against this doco has less to do with the validity of the information and more to do with the threat it poses to the current power structure by opening a discussion of who Jesus really was, which might cause some of the "believers" to question their "faith." And the church (and by default in this country, the government) to lose some of their unquestioned authority. Reasonable minds might question whether the resurrection (and thousands of years of mass mind control) was a bigger hoax perpetrated on human kind than this short-lived doco. By: bamboozled on February 27, 2007 at 05:30pm

Then too, and very related, I love the following from no less than Aristotle:

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

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(P3) Poetical

Who Woulda Thunk it?

Writer's Digest (April 2007) reports that, according to a survey of 1,000 adults interviewed by the Poetry Foundation, the response to the question "Do you think poets are more likely to be people you'd like to meet or people you would like to avoid?" revealed the following:

"An astonishing 70.3 percent of respondents chose 'meet' vs. 8.3 percent who chose 'avoid.' And respondents thought poets tend to be more respected (75.3 percent) than disrespected (4.8 percent).

"My gosh. People want to meet poets! They think poets are respected! Who knew?"

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Enjoy Each Moment/Lincoln/Al Gore's Destiny

(P1) Philosophical




Vailia Dennis, 87, who refused open-heart surgery, delights in the warmth of sunlight on her hands.
-Photo by DON BARTLETTI / Los Angeles Times

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(P2) Poetical

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray,

that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years
of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago,
so still it must be said
"the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all,
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

- Abraham Lincoln
(from his second inaugural address, March 4, 1865 and thank you for this, Larry Robinson, Sebastopol, CA)


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(P3) Political

Gore's Convergence With History

Wonderful commentator Bob Cesca at The Huffington Post (Feb. 20), makes this thoughtful plea to Al Gore to run for President. Cesca begins by admitting that, whoever becomes President will need to laboriously work on reducing the dung pile left behind by Bush, however, continues Cesca,

Al Gore was made -- designed -- for this time in human history to confront this issue from the world's largest stage with the world's largest slide show. History shows us that this kind of convergence between leaders and issues is rare, but when the planets align and it actually happens, its results are spectacular. Jefferson and the Revolution. Lincoln and the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt and the labor movement. FDR and World War II. Contrast that with President Bush who was absolutely the wrong leader for this era by any standard or measure. His bloody roster of bungling failures are proof.

Sure it's a dirty job, but for Gore to withhold his voice from the race would be to forgo what appears to be his era of convergence. His time. And for us, without Gore leading the free world, we face the potential for a continued path of ignorance -- a dark ride through an alternate reality in which global warming and the survival of humanity as we know it is allowed to slip beyond the zero barrier.

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Answer to Our Last Trivia Question, Who said:

"The position in which we are now is a very strange one which in general political life never happened. Namely, the thing that I refer to is this: To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.This is really the cornerstone of our situation. Now, I believe what we should try to bring about is the general conviction that the first thing you have to abolish is war at all costs, and every other point of view must be of secondary importance."

- Albert Einstein in his Address to the symposium "The Social Task of the Scientist in the Atomic Era" at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey (17 November 1946)

Introducing CUSPS/Semi-Retirement/2d Trivia Question/

(P1) Political

Introducing C.U.S.P.S.

(Coletti's Unabashedly Subjective Presidential Scale)

Here are the declared presidential candidates rated (on the basis of hope/good-of-the-country and also slightly upon electability).

The scale is 1 to 10 with 10 being best. Of course, minus numbers are the worst.

I'll revisit this scale from time to time during the coming year.

Tom Vilsack (D-Iowa) 6

Hillary Clinton (D-NY) 6

Barrack Obama (D-Illinois) 9

John Edwards ( D-NC) 8 (This guy needs more of our attention. He has actual good plans for Iraq withdrawl and healthcare!)

Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) 1

Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) 3

Joe Biden (D-Delaware) 5

Mike Gravel (D- Virginia) minus 1

John Mc Cain (R-Arizona) minus 1

Rudy Giuliano (R- Ny) minus 2

Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) minus 4

Mitt Romney (R-Mass) minus 2

Mike Huckabee (R-Arkansas) 2

Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) minus107

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(P2) Poetical

The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

-Wendell Berry-

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(P3) Philosophical

Bumper Sticker (seen in Santa Rosa just before Valentine Day)

Love Your Enemies
It really gets them confused.

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(more than) Trivia Question: Who said this? put your answer here

"The position in which we are now is a very strange one which in general political life never happened. Namely, the thing that I refer to is this: To have security against atomic bombs and against the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war.This is really the cornerstone of our situation. Now, I believe what we should try to bring about is the general conviction that the first thing you have to abolish is war at all costs, and every other point of view must be of secondary importance."

Haiku/Limbaugh Lower Now/Peace Dept/Trivia Answer

(P1) Poetical

haiku

periwinkle floe
loose among Alaskan waters,
polar bears melt too

-ed coletti-

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Answer to Our First Political Trivia Feature: Question was: "Who said: 'I wonder if it isn't possible to get some of the people in these down-trodden countries to like us instead of hating us?' Hint: A US president during a National Security Council meeting on Iran." - Dwight David Eisenhower- at an NSC meeting on March 4, 1953, in which Sec. of State Dulles proposed overthrowing the government of Iran in order to prevent a communist takeover ( which was not even talked about, let alone imminent) thereby potentially blocking Iranian oil supplies. As we know, Ike agreed in the end and within months the CIA engineered the overthrow of the Iranian prime minister putting the Shah in total power.

I wonder if Ike's conscience and sense of having been manipulated might have led to his wonderful farewell address in which he warned the nation to beware of the military-industrial complex. I've developed quite a bit greater appreciation for Eisenhower after viewing the incredibly wonderful documentary "Why We Fight." Take a look at it, and you'll thank me.

(P2) Philosophical

A Chance Encounter With Rush Limbaugh

Last week I was driving near Live Oak, California, in the middle of nowhere, north of Yuba City and discovered my radio reception to be somewhat limited. However, Rush Limbaugh came in loud and clear on more than one station. I must explain that I seldom if ever tune in to listen to this jovial moral wretch and I'm well-aware that very few of you, my readers are likely to either. Still, when I heard the stentorian bravado-laden voice, I just decided (as I do once every year or so) to listen to what "the other side" is saying. What I heard totally shocked me.

Limbaugh announced that he was going to go "into depth" about why he "pokes fun" at the "global warming folk."

Reaction # 1 - "Folk"? In other words, the majority of the world's citizens -- those of us who recognize the real danger to our planet from climate change, are some different sort of "folks" to this demagogue. That wouldn't be so bad except that other "folk" actually listen to him. He announces that they must listen only to him because he is the repository of all "truth."

So, not quite with baited breath, I awaited the "in-depth" explanation of why he "poke(s) fun at the global warming folk." The alarmingly slim "depth" was the following: "The global warming folks are all a bunch of lefties, socialists, and communists." I kid you not, that was what he said and just about all he said.

He then went on to "discuss" what manly men do when they play manly sports like -- yes, Golf.
I finally turned to another station when he explained that, on the golf course, when a guy hits a shot "a little fat," he (Limbaugh of all people -- and I use the term loosely), refers to that as "hitting it a bit Oprah."

All this would just be exceedingly juvenile if Limbaugh and his listening zombies, in fact were below voting age. Unfortunately they are not, so I bring this to you to convey a better sense of what's actually out there.

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(P3) Political

Please Support the Dept. of Peace

Action Alert Call your members of Congress today! Department of Peace bill re-introduction Dear Ed, On February 5th, 2007, legislation to establish a U. S. Department of Peace was re-introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives. The new bill number is HR 808. We need your support to help make this bill law; call, fax and/or email your Representative and also spread the word to everyone you know (you can copy this alert and forward to your email address book.) Nothing you can do will have as much impact as contacting your member of Congress today. Further instructions are given below. TAKE ACTION NOW! *** CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE *** Contact your Representative at the U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121. To find your Representative, visit http://www.congress.org. Tell the staffer who answers your call that you want your Representative to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Department of Peace legislation (HR 808). Request a written response explaining your member's position and the reasoning behind it. (You can call your local office as well.) It is most effective if you call the D.C. office first, then follow-up with a fax or email. *** WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE *** To write your Representative, click below to get started. This will allow you to send a fax and email to your congressperson. http://www.thepeacealliance.org/action ***CONTACT SENATORS*** Please contact your Senators as well. There is no bill number as legislation has yet to be re-introduced into the Senate. Urge your Senator to be an initial sponsor in the Senate (reference bill number S.1756 from the last Congress). Join us now. Create a Department of Peace. Together, we can do this. ABOUT THE LEGISLATION There is currently a bill before the Houses of Representatives to establish a U.S. Department of Peace. This landmark measure will augment our current problem-solving options, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict. Domestically, the Department of Peace will develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, child abuse, and various other forms of societal discord. Internationally, the Department will advise the President and Congress on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations. Learn more at The Peace Alliance website: http://www.ThePeaceAlliance.org *************************************************** HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE LEGISLATION: -- Provide much-needed assistance to efforts by city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs; as well as develop new programs based on best practices nationally -- Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children -- Effectively treat and dismantle gang psychology -- Rehabilitate the prison population -- Build peace-making efforts among conflicting cultures both here and abroad -- Support our military with complementary approaches to peace-building -- Create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy. -- And more…

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