I take the subway whenever I want to get around NYC, and a Times to read while blending with my fellow riders. These news items infuriated me:
1) Estate Tax Repeal and Refusal to consider Raising the Minimum wage—The Republicans added to the repeal bill yet another tax break, this time to the timber industry, in order to sway 4 Democratic Senators to vote for the whole package. I’ll be clear: THE ESTATE TAX IS AN ESSENTIAL Democracy-protecting vehicle. It does more than raise money—it prevents the ever-accumulating massed wealth in the hands of the few, the aristocracy who controls the political process.
And that is EXACTLY what we’ve been seeing with the politicians in power the last 10 years. The influence peddling, the industry-writing-the laws and policies (Enron et al writing energy policy, the credit industry writing the Bankruptcy “reform” Act e.g.), the no-bid contracts, the bribes and giveaways to the well-connected this is ALL part of the CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH and power to the EXTREME DETRIMENT of our Republic.
America was founded on the ideal of democracy and equality—equality of opportunity, as well as of the protection of rights and laws. And the founders structured our system to prevent the hereditary aristocracy and vast inequalities of wealth of the European kingmakers and king-keepers from which they came. The Estate Tax is a check on that corruptive power, and its dilution is directly contributing to the corruption in Washington today. It is exactly as Franklin Roosevelt said, “Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the basis of personal and family security … Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.”
Any so-called free market capitalist should understand that no taxpayer is an island. It is ONLY through an intricate network of all citizens, from the laborer, the burger-flipper, as well as the professionals and the force of law that enable ANYBODY to make whatever fortune they do make
Teddy Roosevelt, the second to last truly great Republican President (Eisenhower was the last, NOT Reagan) said: “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” Roosevelt recognized that wealthy citizens were aided in their endeavors by government protection of wealth and property rights. And at NO TIME SINCE THE GILDED AGE has that been more true than today!
Yes, the exemption should have been increased—and it has been. An honest discussion can help determine the proper exemption amounts and the rates of taxation above that exemption. But the lies—DAMNED LIES—of the pro-repeal camp is sickening. Let them point to even ONE family farm lost from paying the tax. THEY CAN’T!! The tax only affected 2% of estates to begin with. And with reforms, those unfairly hit—a miniscule number—can be rescued without a wholesale elimination.
Hastert and company followed this gift to the rich by preventing a floor discussion on a much overdue raise in the minimum wage. When their shouts of “CLASS WAR!” begin in the next election cycle remember--THEY started it.
2) Bush Compares Iraq War to Hungary’s Uprising. That is the problem with America in a nutshell: the PRESIDENT, who theoretically represents the top of our society, makes such an UNEDUCATED, horribly flawed analogy betraying a complete lack of understanding of history, OR WORSE, intentionally lies about it to further compound his earlier lies that set about our war of conquest and control of Iraq and its oil fields.
In fact, Hungary’s uprising was only one of many in its thousand-year history against all its occupiers (the Mongols, the Turks, the Nazis) and monarchs (the Hapsburgs). In fact the Soviets “liberated” Hungary from the fascists after WWII. Of course the Hungarians wanted out from under Stalin’s cruel heel, and although their 1956 revolution failed it did compel their puppet leader to institute reforms—living standards raised and it remained in the Soviet sphere until Gorbachev dismantled the system in 1990.
In Iraq, if anything it is we, the USA, that is playing the role that the USSR did in Hungary and the Iraqis want nothing more than to be rid of us and our control. In Hungary a citizenry who for hundreds of years were fighting to rid the yoke of submission once again did so under Stalin. In Iraq, WE started the maelstrom, NOT THE IRAQI CITIZENS!!
But, hey, it’s a great sound bite…and with today’s Foxification of our corporate media that’s ALL that counts.
By time I climbed the stairs out of the subway into the blazing sun, I had definitely seen the light. Thanks to God.
rfd
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
FORE-gotten: An Ode to the Woods
“You have quick hands, you must be a golfer,” the gentleman told me as my finger hit the ‘door open’ button just as the elevator was closing in on him.
“Nah, don’t play much…but I used to love it!” I then recalled those days of pine and glory. I’d light up an Antonio and Cleopatra and lay it on nature’s scalp before swinging away. (I got a special thrill from this, I guess because the cigar was a pure substance of the ground and this sort of connected me to mother earth as well—I GUESS). Then I’d look at those fairways that just begged for a down-the-middle drive and the tall trees and sand traps that inevitably ended up with it.
Yet the game for me was not about the score as I learned early on that golf was not my destiny. Instead, the game was about the sights, the sounds, the feel, even the smells. Who can’t appreciate GOLF AROMAS: fertilizer, fresh cut grass and clubhouse chips, dogs, nuts and nabs! And I couldn’t wait to prance across those cushy soft greens, which were noticeably harder in seasons of draught.
But the most satisfying of all—even better than sinking a long putt—was the sound of that perfect drive off my Ben Hogan wood. Whoosh…THWAP! and about one drive out of twenty the ball’d be where I always looked (I always thought positive): high, down the middle and respectably long. There was nothing that felt as good as a solid wood-on-ball strike… well, I do exaggerate here, there are LOTS of things that are better than that, but it was sweet, as you who golf know.
As a boy I occasionally went with my dad and his foursome. I loved to look at those duck-headed clubs, the shiny shades of wood kept in colorful covers of all varieties. I knew right then and there that one rite of manhood, other than wearing boxer shorts and pleated pants, would be the day I could take a controlled swing with that NUMBER ONE WOOD. Not the 3 or 4 woods, which were fun to swing because they were still woods, yet so much lighter. Nah, they were just tricycles. The big test was the DRIVER!
So it surprised me to learn that you can’t even FIND a wood today—they’re all big ol’ metal heads now. Space-aged titanium and alloys and grotesquely large heads that give golfers a larger sweet spot. Seems golfers are not traditionalists, they just really want the best chance of having the longest, and most accurate drives.
The woods have gone the way of the bat, replaced by today’s technology that either enhances performance or economy. Free markets apply to golf so there are no laws against this kind of progress, nor should there be. Yet like other areas of life where personal values check behavior and choice a collective desire to cherish tradition could bring back the wood.
I prefer to honor the THWAP! of tradition, so I will the wood. Alas, most will ping away and go for the win.
-------------------------------------------------
*ASTERISK*
Today’s athletic feats, be they home run records, field goals or sprints—impressive as they are—must mostly be asterisked for if it isn’t space-age equipment changes, then it’s one of many evolutionary advantages today’s athletes enjoy vis-à-vis yesterday’s legends. These include vastly higher nutritional opportunities, a greater public placement of value (even national pride), hype and DOLLARS on athleticism, as well as a quantum jump in equipment options and technology.
“Nah, don’t play much…but I used to love it!” I then recalled those days of pine and glory. I’d light up an Antonio and Cleopatra and lay it on nature’s scalp before swinging away. (I got a special thrill from this, I guess because the cigar was a pure substance of the ground and this sort of connected me to mother earth as well—I GUESS). Then I’d look at those fairways that just begged for a down-the-middle drive and the tall trees and sand traps that inevitably ended up with it.
Yet the game for me was not about the score as I learned early on that golf was not my destiny. Instead, the game was about the sights, the sounds, the feel, even the smells. Who can’t appreciate GOLF AROMAS: fertilizer, fresh cut grass and clubhouse chips, dogs, nuts and nabs! And I couldn’t wait to prance across those cushy soft greens, which were noticeably harder in seasons of draught.
But the most satisfying of all—even better than sinking a long putt—was the sound of that perfect drive off my Ben Hogan wood. Whoosh…THWAP! and about one drive out of twenty the ball’d be where I always looked (I always thought positive): high, down the middle and respectably long. There was nothing that felt as good as a solid wood-on-ball strike… well, I do exaggerate here, there are LOTS of things that are better than that, but it was sweet, as you who golf know.
As a boy I occasionally went with my dad and his foursome. I loved to look at those duck-headed clubs, the shiny shades of wood kept in colorful covers of all varieties. I knew right then and there that one rite of manhood, other than wearing boxer shorts and pleated pants, would be the day I could take a controlled swing with that NUMBER ONE WOOD. Not the 3 or 4 woods, which were fun to swing because they were still woods, yet so much lighter. Nah, they were just tricycles. The big test was the DRIVER!
So it surprised me to learn that you can’t even FIND a wood today—they’re all big ol’ metal heads now. Space-aged titanium and alloys and grotesquely large heads that give golfers a larger sweet spot. Seems golfers are not traditionalists, they just really want the best chance of having the longest, and most accurate drives.
The woods have gone the way of the bat, replaced by today’s technology that either enhances performance or economy. Free markets apply to golf so there are no laws against this kind of progress, nor should there be. Yet like other areas of life where personal values check behavior and choice a collective desire to cherish tradition could bring back the wood.
I prefer to honor the THWAP! of tradition, so I will the wood. Alas, most will ping away and go for the win.
-------------------------------------------------
*ASTERISK*
Today’s athletic feats, be they home run records, field goals or sprints—impressive as they are—must mostly be asterisked for if it isn’t space-age equipment changes, then it’s one of many evolutionary advantages today’s athletes enjoy vis-à-vis yesterday’s legends. These include vastly higher nutritional opportunities, a greater public placement of value (even national pride), hype and DOLLARS on athleticism, as well as a quantum jump in equipment options and technology.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Pooped and Pooped upon...
I’m tired—pooped (no sleep last night as an old fraternity brother was in for a funeral then a 6 am flight to NY, followed by a sultry pavement pounding day, ending with a Vegan eatery’s candlelit reading of a NY Times editorial, The Call of the Gun Lobby, that prods this output) —but simply MUST use whatever coherence I yet have to share this latest in a long, long line of Republican Congressional travesties (okay Republican friends, I see I’ve already lost you with that, but please read on).
With Bush railing against terrorists, with “national security his constant credo, the Republican-led House is set to make POLICE OFFICERS FELONS for sharing data on ILLICET GUN DEALERS all because of the GUN LOBBY, its influence, its MONEY. Additionally, since Bush has taken office he has hidden vital information about illegal gun trafficking—classifying it as a “state secret”—thus “putting the privacy of unscrupulous gun dealers over the safety of the public.” NY Time editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
This echoes the UNBELIEVABLE post 9/11 sell-out that protected the ability of terrorists and other criminals to get guns by forbidding the sharing of gun purchase records between law enforcement agencies, then mandating the destruction of all such purchase. This severely undercuts Bush warnings of terrorism for how serious can that be if the same wolf-cryers are so cavalier about laws that are aimed at catching them……………………………………………………………………………………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the terrorists……..slee-e-e-p, s-le-e-ep, YAWN, sl-e-e-e-e-e-e-p-pp…………y…….//,’;;;/..
NO! No, NO SLEEP---THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING-- WE have been doing!! WE ARE ALL ASLEEP. We go about our affairs, kid’s softball games, club golf foursomes, cookouts, business trips, backyard burgers, weddings, reunions, x-boxes, gardening, etc. etc. either unaware of the perverse sell out of our common interests to power and influence, all the illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (that is my fingers laying on the l key as I doz-z-z-e off).
Just think of their brazenness, that if they are so openly on the take by making policemen FELONS FOR DOING THEIR JOB PROTECTING US!!!!!!, how much more are they selling us out on matters much further under the radar screen????
Republican friends—do me a favor—don’t vote Democratic, for you think I am just slamming the GOP. Well…. I AM, and have been slamming TODAY’S utterly corrupt Republican Party which has turned utterly Jekyllian from the honor of Ike, even, GASP, Nixon and the fine Gerry Ford.
NO, NO, NO, Democrats have NOT acted against the greater public interest to anywhere NEAR the same degree or on as many fronts as these Republicans. Some of you say “I agree that these guys are bad, but where is a Democrat I can truly trust to do better?” …………….Oh, the heck with it, good knight…er night. I’ve said ljpijkllll what I wanted t ol and what difference dossss ………..
With Bush railing against terrorists, with “national security his constant credo, the Republican-led House is set to make POLICE OFFICERS FELONS for sharing data on ILLICET GUN DEALERS all because of the GUN LOBBY, its influence, its MONEY. Additionally, since Bush has taken office he has hidden vital information about illegal gun trafficking—classifying it as a “state secret”—thus “putting the privacy of unscrupulous gun dealers over the safety of the public.” NY Time editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19mon1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.
This echoes the UNBELIEVABLE post 9/11 sell-out that protected the ability of terrorists and other criminals to get guns by forbidding the sharing of gun purchase records between law enforcement agencies, then mandating the destruction of all such purchase. This severely undercuts Bush warnings of terrorism for how serious can that be if the same wolf-cryers are so cavalier about laws that are aimed at catching them……………………………………………………………………………………………………….,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the terrorists……..slee-e-e-p, s-le-e-ep, YAWN, sl-e-e-e-e-e-e-p-pp…………y…….//,’;;;/..
NO! No, NO SLEEP---THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING-- WE have been doing!! WE ARE ALL ASLEEP. We go about our affairs, kid’s softball games, club golf foursomes, cookouts, business trips, backyard burgers, weddings, reunions, x-boxes, gardening, etc. etc. either unaware of the perverse sell out of our common interests to power and influence, all the illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (that is my fingers laying on the l key as I doz-z-z-e off).
Just think of their brazenness, that if they are so openly on the take by making policemen FELONS FOR DOING THEIR JOB PROTECTING US!!!!!!, how much more are they selling us out on matters much further under the radar screen????
Republican friends—do me a favor—don’t vote Democratic, for you think I am just slamming the GOP. Well…. I AM, and have been slamming TODAY’S utterly corrupt Republican Party which has turned utterly Jekyllian from the honor of Ike, even, GASP, Nixon and the fine Gerry Ford.
NO, NO, NO, Democrats have NOT acted against the greater public interest to anywhere NEAR the same degree or on as many fronts as these Republicans. Some of you say “I agree that these guys are bad, but where is a Democrat I can truly trust to do better?” …………….Oh, the heck with it, good knight…er night. I’ve said ljpijkllll what I wanted t ol and what difference dossss ………..
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Where are the Lions?
I recall a youthful Sunday in church when this warning from Jesus totally baffled me: “you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” (MT 24:9, LK 21:17).
Huh?! Everybody was a Christian. In fact, it seemed to me to be just the opposite, if you weren’t a Christian, you were more likely to be scorned. I simply could not conceive of being in a threatened position by being a Christian. [However, years later I DID feel so threatened by being a follower of Jesus, which is NOT necessarily the same as being “Christian.” A subsequent essay will detail this experience].
Ever since, I had often wondered just how that kind of persecution would be and what turn of events would have to occur before we “Christians” would experience what Jesus was talking about. Would the butcher, the baker or burger maker suddenly scowl as a believer walked by? Would the cop on the beat or political powers that be clamp down on us a la Nazi Germany and the Jews?
The early Christians in Rome came to mind. Visions of lions devouring our faithful-unto-death bodies, releasing our souls to eternity, consumed me, even though I supposed the Christian-riddin’ death machine would more probably match the technology of the times. In America, and most of the world, cries of persecution are ludicrously false.
Yet hearing the shouts of many Christians today, one would think Christianity is under a severe state of siege. Cackles from the highest tabernacles cry “persecution!!” Behind every “Happy Holidays,” every Constitutionalist separator of church and state, every proponent of equal treatment for all people under the law lurks the lion of Christian persecution.
These pretensions are a total distortion of Jesus’ teachings and they demean the very real persecutions of the early Christians. In fact they are nothing more than a part of the plan to instill Christianity as the official state religion, wrongly entwining it within our government.
Hmmm, you might ask—“What’s wrong with having God direct our affairs, we even print our money with ‘In God We Trust’?” Here is the disconnect: First, God, as perceived by the deists who founded our country, and the Universal Moralists today, is truly universal in nature, as such God is God as God of all—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Zoroastrian, even agnostic and atheist.
Second, the Christian crusade to revolutionize America is totally against the teachings, principles and life of Jesus himself, the namesake and central figure upon which Christianity supposedly exists!
Jesus would never “Lord” himself over anybody. He never sought to create a political order, a government or nation. Indeed Jesus said: “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." John 18:36.
On the contrary, today’s evangelicals have become a political monolith, the surging wind beneath the Republican Party and part of the GOP’s very strategy for dominance. Their leadership uses lies, deceit, raw power and military might, packaging Manifest Destiny and end-times prophecy to energize and enthuse its Evangelical base.
Why do the “Left Behind” Christians fail to see the vast difference between their actions and Jesus’ teachings? Jesus himself said that “…I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." John 18:37. And that truth is nowhere more clear than in his Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:3-10), the TRUTH that God blesses those who put their faith in God, not man-made weaponry or ideologies, that God blesses the mournful, the gentle and lowly, those hungering for justice and work for peace, those who are merciful and whose hearts are pure, and finally God blesses those persecuted—TRULY persecuted—for righteousness sake. To all these will come God’s Kingdom.
Instead, the current leadership preaches division, fear and hatred. They constantly stoke the fires of the “Clash of Civilizations” between Islam and Christianity—a lie, a damned lie, if there ever was one. They preach fear and hatred of anything that varies with their own version of the truth, be it evolution, stem-cell research, animal rights, or equal human rights.
It is one thing to preach the Gospel (the TRUTH) to all nations as Jesus directed, but quite another to force upon any nation, including our own, a man-made religious doctrine about how to interpret, teach and live by that truth. Otherwise we end up with lies, damned lies, and falsities that discard truth, that throw science in the trash and exalts “biblical inerrancy.”
Subsequent essays will show that much of the Bible is allegorical as well as contextual, but suffice it to say that the mentality that IS NOW CONTROLLING our nation’s government is the same that denounced Galileo for saying that the universe did not revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolved around the sun.
Today, the lion devours truth, and it often wears a Christian mantle.
Rfd 6/18/06
POSTSCRIPT:
Kevin Phillip’s latest book, American Theocracy, foretells the disaster facing America should we fail to check the ruinous confluence of religious fanaticism, unprecedented national debt and the inevitable decline of oil. Phillips, a former REPUBLICAN strategist and Nixon Administration member, is a stickler for the lessons of history, and he compares the nearly exact scenarios that faced—and brought down—both the Dutch and the English in centuries past.
Huh?! Everybody was a Christian. In fact, it seemed to me to be just the opposite, if you weren’t a Christian, you were more likely to be scorned. I simply could not conceive of being in a threatened position by being a Christian. [However, years later I DID feel so threatened by being a follower of Jesus, which is NOT necessarily the same as being “Christian.” A subsequent essay will detail this experience].
Ever since, I had often wondered just how that kind of persecution would be and what turn of events would have to occur before we “Christians” would experience what Jesus was talking about. Would the butcher, the baker or burger maker suddenly scowl as a believer walked by? Would the cop on the beat or political powers that be clamp down on us a la Nazi Germany and the Jews?
The early Christians in Rome came to mind. Visions of lions devouring our faithful-unto-death bodies, releasing our souls to eternity, consumed me, even though I supposed the Christian-riddin’ death machine would more probably match the technology of the times. In America, and most of the world, cries of persecution are ludicrously false.
Yet hearing the shouts of many Christians today, one would think Christianity is under a severe state of siege. Cackles from the highest tabernacles cry “persecution!!” Behind every “Happy Holidays,” every Constitutionalist separator of church and state, every proponent of equal treatment for all people under the law lurks the lion of Christian persecution.
These pretensions are a total distortion of Jesus’ teachings and they demean the very real persecutions of the early Christians. In fact they are nothing more than a part of the plan to instill Christianity as the official state religion, wrongly entwining it within our government.
Hmmm, you might ask—“What’s wrong with having God direct our affairs, we even print our money with ‘In God We Trust’?” Here is the disconnect: First, God, as perceived by the deists who founded our country, and the Universal Moralists today, is truly universal in nature, as such God is God as God of all—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Protestant, Zoroastrian, even agnostic and atheist.
Second, the Christian crusade to revolutionize America is totally against the teachings, principles and life of Jesus himself, the namesake and central figure upon which Christianity supposedly exists!
Jesus would never “Lord” himself over anybody. He never sought to create a political order, a government or nation. Indeed Jesus said: “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." John 18:36.
On the contrary, today’s evangelicals have become a political monolith, the surging wind beneath the Republican Party and part of the GOP’s very strategy for dominance. Their leadership uses lies, deceit, raw power and military might, packaging Manifest Destiny and end-times prophecy to energize and enthuse its Evangelical base.
Why do the “Left Behind” Christians fail to see the vast difference between their actions and Jesus’ teachings? Jesus himself said that “…I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." John 18:37. And that truth is nowhere more clear than in his Sermon on the Mount (MT 5:3-10), the TRUTH that God blesses those who put their faith in God, not man-made weaponry or ideologies, that God blesses the mournful, the gentle and lowly, those hungering for justice and work for peace, those who are merciful and whose hearts are pure, and finally God blesses those persecuted—TRULY persecuted—for righteousness sake. To all these will come God’s Kingdom.
Instead, the current leadership preaches division, fear and hatred. They constantly stoke the fires of the “Clash of Civilizations” between Islam and Christianity—a lie, a damned lie, if there ever was one. They preach fear and hatred of anything that varies with their own version of the truth, be it evolution, stem-cell research, animal rights, or equal human rights.
It is one thing to preach the Gospel (the TRUTH) to all nations as Jesus directed, but quite another to force upon any nation, including our own, a man-made religious doctrine about how to interpret, teach and live by that truth. Otherwise we end up with lies, damned lies, and falsities that discard truth, that throw science in the trash and exalts “biblical inerrancy.”
Subsequent essays will show that much of the Bible is allegorical as well as contextual, but suffice it to say that the mentality that IS NOW CONTROLLING our nation’s government is the same that denounced Galileo for saying that the universe did not revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolved around the sun.
Today, the lion devours truth, and it often wears a Christian mantle.
Rfd 6/18/06
POSTSCRIPT:
Kevin Phillip’s latest book, American Theocracy, foretells the disaster facing America should we fail to check the ruinous confluence of religious fanaticism, unprecedented national debt and the inevitable decline of oil. Phillips, a former REPUBLICAN strategist and Nixon Administration member, is a stickler for the lessons of history, and he compares the nearly exact scenarios that faced—and brought down—both the Dutch and the English in centuries past.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Life, Death, Rats and Bugs that go Splat!
Today began with Life and Death, and ended with it too. Life: a cool-aired morning run, under crystalline azure blue skies, vivid green leaves waving appreciation for their newly-budded life, bird songs of every feather, like that of a South Pacific tropical island. High overhead a circling hawk soared, its stationary wings riding the airwave in easy, wide arcs. Life, freely roaming, freely happening as I filled my lungs with the what’s still free*.
*[Let the corporate, capitalist privatizers find a way to control our air and we’ll REALLY BE IN TROUBLE! We MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST take back our water, and put it in the public domain. NO essential resource should be subject to private profit. Food is plentiful and there is much, much competition, so it is different. Oil and coal…well, now we know why many countries nationalize those industries, for their greater public good.]
The radio drive to work brings death: Iraq, railroad crossings and rats. Yes, rats on the local morning talk show with the local “balanced” talk show. Turns out a condemned property is overrun with that furry mammal, so cute and cuddly as a Beanie Baby, or as one of its cousins, the squirrel, but as a rat, well, they rate as only disgusting vermin.
A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) spokesperson suggested capture and lethal injection as a much more humane way to dispose of the rats. The hostess was aghast—“But they’re RAT-T-T-S! Disgusting vermin, all we want to do is KIL=L-L them!” The talk show hostess was so, so dismissively condescending and incredulous that the young lady could even suggest a more humane way to handle the problem.
But she did not even stop to consider: a) it costs about the same, 2) it is HEALTHIER for humans, because once the rat is poisoned, it runs off to who knows where before it dies, to then rot, attract germs, maggots, YECH-H-H. Further, that approach and attitude is consistent with her stands, which seem to mirror most of the other “fair and balanced” camp, on everything from immigration to capital punishment: DEATH, death of the body, death of the spirit, and death of hope.
She and they would imprison illegals and, any who aid or abet them, and send them back, period. They believe in the death penalty, period. No deeper thinking, just raw eye for an eye emotionalism. The states with the HIGHEST murder rate are death penalty states, those with the lowest—countries as well—ban capital punishment. Immigration is likewise fraught with policy and fairness issues to make their “rack ‘em up” solution foolhardy as well as hard-hearty.
Well, a long time former employee, Brian Gibbs, passed away and I drove to the most northeastern tip of Kentucky, South Shore, on the Ohio border. Like all drives through rural Kentucky, it was just beautiful. Rolling green hills, trees, forests, and farmlands. One thing about a one-stop light town is that the funeral home is real easy to find. Inside was his family, who were all very appreciative of my visit.
Then, there was Brian. He had suffered a form of cancer and got a bone marrow transplant from his brother a few years ago. It affected his immune system and he started wasting away over the last 6 months. He was literally a ghost of the robust, smiling spirit that I knew—down to 100 pounds. I cried as I saw him lying in the box, with our trademarked bugler logo on the lapel of his suit. I tear up now thinking about that: such a great person, loyal to our company—he worked in FOUR different towns, wherever we needed him to go, and now we will be with him, where he goes.
All there seemed in good spirits, there was laughter and good cheer, as one might expect after a long awaited suffer-releasing death, the initial grief gone. The sense was that HE has graduated and is truly in the best place, blazing a path to welcome us some day. It was hope. It was peace. It was life. It was good.
Said my good byes and hit the road again. It was night now and there is one thing about driving in rural Kentucky on a spring/summer night: BUGS, BUGS, BUGS galore! Bugs of all sort, and with the high beam it looked like snow! But instead of the soft powdery landing of flakes, it was SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT on the windshield. Life free flying through the wild Kentucky night one second, SPLAT, life OVER the next.
Do bugs think? Perhaps they were returning from or going to a date. Maybe to eat, or just to sightsee. Like the trillions before them, little did they know they’d end up as window décor. No eulogies, no tears, no lover’s remorse. Just the chipped rubber blade of the next gas stop’s squeegee.
As I thanked my lucky stars that I was the squeeg-er and not the squeeg-ee I stopped at a CVC to get the only sensitive skin pre-electric lotion I know of. A very cute young lady rang me up…and after all that death, I never felt more alive!
Rfd 6/8/06
*[Let the corporate, capitalist privatizers find a way to control our air and we’ll REALLY BE IN TROUBLE! We MUST, WE MUST, WE MUST take back our water, and put it in the public domain. NO essential resource should be subject to private profit. Food is plentiful and there is much, much competition, so it is different. Oil and coal…well, now we know why many countries nationalize those industries, for their greater public good.]
The radio drive to work brings death: Iraq, railroad crossings and rats. Yes, rats on the local morning talk show with the local “balanced” talk show. Turns out a condemned property is overrun with that furry mammal, so cute and cuddly as a Beanie Baby, or as one of its cousins, the squirrel, but as a rat, well, they rate as only disgusting vermin.
A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) spokesperson suggested capture and lethal injection as a much more humane way to dispose of the rats. The hostess was aghast—“But they’re RAT-T-T-S! Disgusting vermin, all we want to do is KIL=L-L them!” The talk show hostess was so, so dismissively condescending and incredulous that the young lady could even suggest a more humane way to handle the problem.
But she did not even stop to consider: a) it costs about the same, 2) it is HEALTHIER for humans, because once the rat is poisoned, it runs off to who knows where before it dies, to then rot, attract germs, maggots, YECH-H-H. Further, that approach and attitude is consistent with her stands, which seem to mirror most of the other “fair and balanced” camp, on everything from immigration to capital punishment: DEATH, death of the body, death of the spirit, and death of hope.
She and they would imprison illegals and, any who aid or abet them, and send them back, period. They believe in the death penalty, period. No deeper thinking, just raw eye for an eye emotionalism. The states with the HIGHEST murder rate are death penalty states, those with the lowest—countries as well—ban capital punishment. Immigration is likewise fraught with policy and fairness issues to make their “rack ‘em up” solution foolhardy as well as hard-hearty.
Well, a long time former employee, Brian Gibbs, passed away and I drove to the most northeastern tip of Kentucky, South Shore, on the Ohio border. Like all drives through rural Kentucky, it was just beautiful. Rolling green hills, trees, forests, and farmlands. One thing about a one-stop light town is that the funeral home is real easy to find. Inside was his family, who were all very appreciative of my visit.
Then, there was Brian. He had suffered a form of cancer and got a bone marrow transplant from his brother a few years ago. It affected his immune system and he started wasting away over the last 6 months. He was literally a ghost of the robust, smiling spirit that I knew—down to 100 pounds. I cried as I saw him lying in the box, with our trademarked bugler logo on the lapel of his suit. I tear up now thinking about that: such a great person, loyal to our company—he worked in FOUR different towns, wherever we needed him to go, and now we will be with him, where he goes.
All there seemed in good spirits, there was laughter and good cheer, as one might expect after a long awaited suffer-releasing death, the initial grief gone. The sense was that HE has graduated and is truly in the best place, blazing a path to welcome us some day. It was hope. It was peace. It was life. It was good.
Said my good byes and hit the road again. It was night now and there is one thing about driving in rural Kentucky on a spring/summer night: BUGS, BUGS, BUGS galore! Bugs of all sort, and with the high beam it looked like snow! But instead of the soft powdery landing of flakes, it was SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT on the windshield. Life free flying through the wild Kentucky night one second, SPLAT, life OVER the next.
Do bugs think? Perhaps they were returning from or going to a date. Maybe to eat, or just to sightsee. Like the trillions before them, little did they know they’d end up as window décor. No eulogies, no tears, no lover’s remorse. Just the chipped rubber blade of the next gas stop’s squeegee.
As I thanked my lucky stars that I was the squeeg-er and not the squeeg-ee I stopped at a CVC to get the only sensitive skin pre-electric lotion I know of. A very cute young lady rang me up…and after all that death, I never felt more alive!
Rfd 6/8/06
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Guilty!
Guilty! I sit guilty, Lord. Guilty of blocking the light you’ve given me. Guilty of straying from the path you’ve paved for me. Guilty of desiring more the favor of friends and the comforts of culture than pressing forth the principles you’ve implanted within me. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty! Guilty of failing to figure out a way to reconcile Dale Carnegie with Gandhi. Our political leaders persist in gross hypocrisy, hiding behind You while changing money for favors, selling out the least of us and acting with all means of hate, selfishness and greed. Yet my defiance makes the voters of them, the supporters of their party, upset with me, draws a line between us, makes Your love impossible, or at least most difficult. How do I smile with family and friends, how do I keep from offending or afflicting them as I stay true to the mission of justice and truth that is me? How Lord, how?
Guilty! Guilty of shielding my mind to war abroad and poverty at home with the distractions of plenty and pleasure. Guilty of soothing my conscious with trifling donations, exchanges of peace at church, prayers and tsk-tsks at daily headlines—“34 killed in roadside bomb in Baghdad.”
Guilty of deadening my senses, of rationalizing my paradise while murder and mayhem I condone by my friendly-faced silence. Guilty of the chaos and corruption I support with my taxes and “let’s get along and go along” pleasantries instead of round-the-clock Canary in the mineshaft cries of “LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING, LET’S STOP IT NOW!” But canaries die. Jesus died.
Guilty! Oh woe, don’t want to die, Lord. Just let me lie, lie in peace with my pleasing luxuries and remain, safely, guilty…
...And then the Jesusian refrain: “Whosoever will save his life will lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake will save it.” And what is “Jesus’ sake” if not the Beatitudes—to live peace, live justice, live charity, live mercy, wish well for friend and enemy alike, turn over the moneychangers’ tables, tear down the walls of hate and intolerance, tear them down!
Not for one minute more should we tolerate theft from within by those in Washington. Not for one minute more should we engage in pre-emptive war sold on lies, continued on more lies. Not for one minute more should we sing “God bless America” while not also wishing that God Bless THE WORLD!
If I offend thee, I am sorry. If thou wouldst silence me, then deaf to ye shall I be. For I shan’t longer tarry with the work given me, so that from now evermore my guilt be set free.
Guilty! Guilty of failing to figure out a way to reconcile Dale Carnegie with Gandhi. Our political leaders persist in gross hypocrisy, hiding behind You while changing money for favors, selling out the least of us and acting with all means of hate, selfishness and greed. Yet my defiance makes the voters of them, the supporters of their party, upset with me, draws a line between us, makes Your love impossible, or at least most difficult. How do I smile with family and friends, how do I keep from offending or afflicting them as I stay true to the mission of justice and truth that is me? How Lord, how?
Guilty! Guilty of shielding my mind to war abroad and poverty at home with the distractions of plenty and pleasure. Guilty of soothing my conscious with trifling donations, exchanges of peace at church, prayers and tsk-tsks at daily headlines—“34 killed in roadside bomb in Baghdad.”
Guilty of deadening my senses, of rationalizing my paradise while murder and mayhem I condone by my friendly-faced silence. Guilty of the chaos and corruption I support with my taxes and “let’s get along and go along” pleasantries instead of round-the-clock Canary in the mineshaft cries of “LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING, LET’S STOP IT NOW!” But canaries die. Jesus died.
Guilty! Oh woe, don’t want to die, Lord. Just let me lie, lie in peace with my pleasing luxuries and remain, safely, guilty…
...And then the Jesusian refrain: “Whosoever will save his life will lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake will save it.” And what is “Jesus’ sake” if not the Beatitudes—to live peace, live justice, live charity, live mercy, wish well for friend and enemy alike, turn over the moneychangers’ tables, tear down the walls of hate and intolerance, tear them down!
Not for one minute more should we tolerate theft from within by those in Washington. Not for one minute more should we engage in pre-emptive war sold on lies, continued on more lies. Not for one minute more should we sing “God bless America” while not also wishing that God Bless THE WORLD!
If I offend thee, I am sorry. If thou wouldst silence me, then deaf to ye shall I be. For I shan’t longer tarry with the work given me, so that from now evermore my guilt be set free.
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