How Billy Graham Stoked the Fire of My Sexual Desire

I suppose any era would be confusing for youth seeking to make sense of the world into which they are coming of age, but for me in the 60’s it was particularly difficult. I earnestly sought to reconcile God and religion [NOT the same thing in the least, which by not having this figured this out only added to my adolescent confusion] with morality, Americanism, popular culture and human relationships.

Damn near everything was BAD, so we were taught: drugs, booze, tobacco—a given. Lying, cheating, stealing, selfishness—another given. Anti-establishment, pot-headed, protestin’ hippies--to be prayed for but also to be utterly avoided! And then there was that magical little three-letter word that packs such a big bang: “sex.”

Society’s famously repressive guidance on sex was mostly just don’t do it—you’ll go blind if you do it by yourself, you’ll get VD and/or knocked up if you do it with a member of the opposite sex. And as for same-sex shenanigans…well, THAT wasn’t even on the radar—NOBODY spoke of that as if it plain did not exist, as if “it’s not even a possibility, we’re not speaking of it, you’re not gonna do that, nor is he or she and since we’re not gonna talk about it, it ain’t gonna happen, so there!”

Most of my (I’d venture OUR) indoctrination was from the world—the preacher and teacher, the screen and the song—and it all conflicted. Totally sensible proscriptions against pre-marital sex omitted any instruction on how to deal with the real physiology of a powerfully potent pubescent sex drive, guidance that came instead from Hollywood and Madison Avenue.

Then there was the family vacation, the one that takes you down I-75 through Atlanta, Macon and Valdosta. The one where you hear some guy named Johnny Cash singin’ bout a boy named Sue. But it was the fluidly melodious sandpaper sound from who I’d later know as Satchmo, the incomparable Louis Armstrong that helped liberate my budding libido. With that velvety voice Louis proclaimed, “Birds do it, bees do it even educated fleas do it, let’s fall in love!”**

The coup de grace so to speak came on a sultry summer night in ’67, the height of “the summer of love.” With the family all gathered round the tube on came Billy Graham, who cut a Moses-like figure, delivering the Word with eyes ablaze under that wavy shock of hair, arms outstretched. We all loved Billy Graham; my Uncle Willie was especially fond of quoting him.

Tonight Reverend Graham was lamenting contemporary society [query: was “contemporary society” always lamentable no matter what the era?]. He attacked the “if it feels good, do it” mantra as freedom run amok. And then he said it.

Picture Billy Graham with his Carolina voice-from-up-high cadence saying, “…and they’re making songs about girls and boys spending the night together!” WHOO BOY, they’re doing what I thought. Being 12, I didn’t quite get the allure of sleeping with girls—they were, after all, the bearer of the dreaded coodies—so Billy Graham’s protestation really piqued my curiosity.

I stayed ever vigilant to discover that song about which Billy objected. And—EUREKA--about the time I heard the Rolling Stones sing “Let’s Spend the Night Together” I was beginning to “get” the allure of doing so! And to think I first heard the concept from the world’s highest pulpit preacher (excluding God’s vicar on earth, the Pope, who was just a pope to us Episcopalians anyway).

Wow, Billy Graham was right—that’s some FUN stuff and, oh by the way, like booze, drugs, tobacco…it’s SIN! Oh well, at least I had Disney World.

**LET'S DO IT, LET'S FALL IN LOVE
(Cole Porter)

Recorded by: Louis Armstrong; Bunny Berigan; Tommy Bruce & the Bruisers; Ian Carmichael; Noel Coward; Bing Crosby; Dorsey Brothers; Ella Fitzgerald; Marvin Gaye; Georgia Gibbs; Benny Goodman; Stephane Grappelli; Roy Hamilton; Billie Holiday; Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson; Marion Hutton; Jack Hylton; Dick Hyman; Eartha Kitt; Peggy Lee; Mary Martin; George Melly; Moonlight Serenaders; Alanis Morissette; 101 Strings Orch.; Della Reese; Nelson Riddle; Dinah Shore; Frank Sinatra; Connie Stevens; Toni Ternnille; Rudy Vallée;Dinah Washington; Paul Whiteman; Jane Wyman ..... and others.

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do itLet's do it,
let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the FinnsFolks in Siam do it
Think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges they say do it
Oysters down in Oyster Bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do itEven lazy jellyfish do itLet's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels, I might add, do it
Though it shocks 'em I know
Why ask if shad do it
Waiter, bring me shadroe

In shallow shoals, English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Israel’s Wall of…Humanity maybe?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Israel’s wall from the perspective of Palestinians very badly affected by it and termed it Israel’s wall of apartheid. Well, an excellent article in today’s NY Times by a Muslim Yale student gives the other side of that story http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/opinion/18manji.html.

As Irshad Manji says, “Since the barrier went up, suicide attacks have plunged, which means innocent Arab lives have been spared along with Jewish ones. Does a concrete effort to save civilian lives justify the hardship posed by this structure? The humanitarian in me bristles, but ultimately answers yes.”

Ms. Manji notes that the Israeli government allows civil lawsuits by aggrieved Palestinians and that Ariel Sharon himself agreed to reroute sections of it when the Israel High Court ruled in favor of the complainants.

Now this objectivity from an educated member of the aggrieved class certainly leads upwards to a higher truth. While I was already aware of the other side of the coin, perhaps I underestimated the havoc of suicide bombers and its utter uncontrollability by about any means short of that horrid wall.

Therein lies the rub, for I still believe that the wall will fall well short of providing long term security without the powers in control addressing the underlying root cause of bombers’ desire to sacrifice themselves. That desire stems from the unjust dis-enfranchisement of native Palestinians from land they lived on for thousands of years.

As I have long said, this is a situation wherein it appears that all sides have just cause: the Jewish people needing a post-holocaust homeland, AND the Palestinians…[just what is the HIGHEST TRUTH here—were they evicted back in 1948 in an unjust war, did they merely flee from fear of being killed by the armed Zionists, or did they voluntarily leave at the behest of other Arab countries who allegedly promised to return them in a later attack (this is a common Israeli argument)—I just don’t know]…who were displaced in the making of that homeland.

One thing I truly believe is that the Jewish people around the world along with those living in Israel want nothing more than peace. Above all, they want a secure and safe country, and even within Israel there is much distress about the methods used to attain that security. Most are eager to see a stable Palestinian state; many others, out of sincere empathy and desire for the highest justice, decry their government’s aggression towards Palestinians. This reflects the moral objectivity, compassion and empathy that infuses a people who themselves have suffered so much.

I shall keep trying to search for the highest truth. In the meantime I will pray for all.


RFD 3/19/06

How Cal Crucified a Disciple of Christ

It is amazing that during this high holy season of Jesus’ resurrection that Cal Thomas writes as though he wouldn’t recognize Jesus if he were directly in front of Him, much less if he met a modern-day disciple who emulated Jesus’ life, and, in furtherance of Jesus’ message of peace and non-violence, his death as well.

Yet Jesus himself said that those of the world would be blinded to His reality. Seems that Mr. Thomas, a self-described devout Christian who subverts Jesus’ teachings, is among that worldly population Jesus was speaking about.

Thomas, in a March 14 article, http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/calthomas/2006/03/14/189678.html criticizes Tom Fox, the peace activist executed by his Iraqi captors. Thomas said his murder was tragic “because the likelihood that the presence of Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none.”

Hmm. And when Jesus told Peter to sheath his sword and otherwise did not lift one finger to prevent his captors from killing him, did Jesus believe that his executioners would adopt Jesus’ message of peace, love and mercy? Of course not, and neither was that the expectation of Mr. Fox.

Thomas is so bent on protecting his radically conservative ideology that he would totally and thoroughly miss this modern-day Christ-like sacrifice and instead demean and sacrifice the fallen lamb on the altar of partisan politics because the spokeswoman for Mr. Fox’s group, Christian Peacemakers Teams, had the audacity to speak the truth: “We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S. and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.”

Instead, Thomas insists that Jesus’ teachings of non-violence are wrong. “Peace happens when evil is vanquished,” according to Thomas. And for Thomas that can only occur by the sword, and in the case of the US invasion of Iraq, a sword brandished on the basis of lies, and swung so as to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents.

In short everything Thomas stands for in this regards is the exact opposite of Jesus’ main teachings, indeed the very purpose of His life. Donning the cloak of Jesus, God’s Lamb, to cover the wolf beneath is, what…a lie, a sin… evil maybe?

So how would he like to be vanquished?


RFD 3.16.06

Send NASA To Nairobi

NASA’s abuzz with the possible discovery of water, and thus maybe, maybe—LIFE--on Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn. Predictably, their cry for more funding—“BILLIONS AND BILLIONS” as Carl Sagan was wont to say (but only in relation to the number of stars, not the money to visit them)—is now evermore urgent.


"It's startling," said Carolyn C. Porco of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., leader of the imaging team for the Cassini spacecraft that spotted eruptions of ice crystals from the moon’s surface. . "I wouldn't be surprised to see the planetary community clamoring for a future exploratory expedition to land on the south polar terrain of Enceladus…We have found an environment that is potentially suitable for living organisms.”

It is more than mere coincidence that I read this account just after hearing a fellow Rotarian speak of the utter horrors he saw on his mission to help orphaned children in Nairobi, Kenya. The pictures confirmed his woeful words describing the unfathomable poverty, the filth, the stench, the degradation of the living dead. Hordes of Kenyans just existing, barely, on and in the dirt—no dwellings, no goods, no medicines, little food and even less hope.

Gary McCormick’s big heart grew even larger when his eyes met those of the sickly child he was cradling, one of millions left orphaned either by Aids, war or starvation. “Touched my soul,” said Gary, who longs to go back. So much need, so much poverty and yet, those kids seemed content—“they did not know they had nothing, they had nothing to compare themselves to.”

I questioned the relevance of my do-good liberalism here at home in matters that seem so trivial when compared to those in much more dire need of humane intervention. The safe cocoon of America, with all the sedations of its Hollywood/Madison Avenue diversions, may shield our consciousness from the real horrors existing beyond our shores, but it does not negate them.

And the Universal laws of morality, of the yin and yang, of Karma, OF GOD, are as certain of occurrence as they are indeterminate in timing: what goes around comes around. It simply is in our own altruistic self-interest, self-PRESERVATION, to help those parts of the world in such dis-repair.

Of course, we certainly are doing much good through our foreign aid, through our volunteerism and through our involvement with international organizations. And the benefits from NASA have certainly been worth much of its cost, so I am not speaking of eliminating this incredibly successful program.

But why all the fuss and expense of searching for new life beyond our planet? All the life we need to know about, and care about, is right here on Mother Earth. Why not just assume there is life beyond and save the trillions of dollars needed to preserve and enhance life right here on earth.

Instead, send NASA to Nairobi.

RFD 3.14.06

Casi-NO for Kentucky’s future--

I did not want to write this, I really didn’t. I had already upset some with previous writings opposing casino gambling in Kentucky. But the stakes are too high and the pro-gambling forces too potent to remain silent in the midst of the onslaught.

-----------------------------------

Kentucky, from the Iroquoian “Ken-tah-ten”, means The Land of Tomorrow. Yet a vote by our legislators to propose a Constitutional amendment allowing full-scale casino gambling will rob us of this promise and instead return us to the ruin of yesterday.

The slots/casino lobby, KEEP, is now coating their argument within the trendy patriotic cloak of democracy—“let the people vote”—knowing full well that with their bottomless pit of cash they will corrupt the democratic process. That gambling cash is already at work, plying compliant politicians’ coffers and running a non-stop campaign to sell an agenda that, were it so worthy, would need no such maneuverings.

It now appears our legislature is close to a compromise to bring casino gambling full bore to our Commonwealth. If they do allow a Constitutional amendment to come before the public the casino lobby will stand virtually unopposed on the airwaves in the press to sway middle ground voters. They have the wherewithal and will spend and do whatever it takes to insure its passage with a slick one-sided campaign that will exaggerate the good while totally ignoring the harm.

Those who care about our future and the protection of our well being have scant funds to share the ugly facts that would effectively counter their propaganda. Those facts show that casinos/electronic gambling (slots): a) drain money from other traditional, longstanding businesses and services in the community, thus depressing overall economy; b) cause untold individual misery and financial ruin by addicting 5% of the population and enabling many more “problem” gamblers which, c) create huge social costs that gambling revenues never can cover; and d) cause more suicide, bankruptcy, absenteeism.

The truth is that this has nothing to do with “democracy” but everything to do with public policy. The question is NOT whether we let voters decide whether to allow an activity like slots—the “crack cocaine” of gambling--but whether as a matter of POLICY we curtail any chance of its occurrence for the betterment of our community.

Indeed that is why we must amend our Constitution at all. There was a similar national gambling scourge in the late 1800’s. It got so bad that states, including Kentucky, outlawed gaming and, in order to prevent future generations from falling into it again, amended their Constitutions to prevent it from rearing its ugly head again.

And so Kentucky’s politicians are on the verge of enabling something that is unprecedented on a national scale: full-fledged anything goes gambling right smack dab in the middle of EVERY major metropolitan area in the state.

Think about it. If the argument were simply to stem the flow of dollars leaving the state (which is a false issue to begin with) then the appropriate response would be to push for a riverboat right across the river from Indiana’s on the Kentucky side. But such is the strength of mammon that they have far exceeded this by proposing ELEVEN casinos to blanket the state.

Money promised for education and health care is done in the same mold as that used to sell the lottery, and as such, is the conscience-soother that helps persuade us to agree to something we would never accept otherwise.

The real problem is that casino gambling should be federally regulated, as one state’s activity has such profound effects on the others. But until that day when the citizenry demands the end of money’s corruptive influence on politics Washington will not touch it. And so we embark down this losing race to the bottom.

But there is yet time. By remembering history and rejecting the gambling lobby’s false arguments our legislators can stand tall for a Kentucky that is worthy of its citizen’s character.

And they will insure a Kentucky that can truly be the land of tomorrow.


Respectfully, Richard F. Dawahare

Yogi Bear, Beer and God

I really enjoy Friday’s bar on Friday nights. The gang’s all there full of camaraderie, ready to laugh at the draught of a beer, even at one of my corny retorts. Conversations are free-ranging and often spurred by the NTN trivia we all play.

When Yogi Bear came up as one of the answers it was yet another reminder of why I believe that the 60’s were the peak of civilization. [I’ve written before that music, that technology (relatively—certainly there has been much advance since then, but does anything rival landing a man on the moon!), that social and philosophical advancement peaked in the 60’s, and that we’ve regressed ever since].

Take Yogi for instance, denizen of Jellystone Park. He touted himself as “smarter than the average bear!” No strutting, no exaggeration, no arm-pumping braggadociousness. He didn’t claim to be the meanest, bestest bear of all, simply smarter than average. And he probably was considering his wheedling a contract out of Hanna-Barbera the way he did.

Yogi of course was patterned after the loveable Yogi “nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded” Berra an American original if there ever was one. But he wasn’t the only good guy from 60’s cartoons. The decade that crushed our generation’s hope and optimism with the real-life assassination of JFK anesthetized us with the fictional fantasy of such great animation as Beany and Cecil and Rocky and Bullwinkle—still the best kid-to-adult show of any kind.

There were more humble heroics from the likes of Underdog, Atom Ant and Johnny “hey hajji” Quest. There were the not so humble, but oh so clever Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and Pink Panther. And Al—VINN!, Cool McCool, Quick Draw McDraw, Top Cat, George of the Jungle and my favorite, Go Go Gophers:

“Here comes the colonel with his sargeant,
Both are a-roarin' and a-chargin'.
Go go gophers, watch them go go go. Go go gophers, watch them
GO GO GO!”

Yeah, we were nothing but goofy smiles as I took a big gulp from the FREEZING and bubbly effervescence of the new Mich Ultra AMBER, lovingly poured by Friday’s great barkeeps. Reminded me of my first trip to Amsterdam back in ’79 when my buds and I did the Heineken tour. Afterwards they poured us their fine brew and proudly asked our opinion. I looked at the Dutch brew master and said, “well sir, it’s okay but it just doesn’t have that Budweiser bite.”

It was then that Delores (not her real name) told me that her husband, my good friend Roger (not his real name) might finally have a terrific job opportunity. They weren’t talking about it until it was more solid, but she was praying fervently about it. Delores told me why she had such faith in God.

Years ago her son left home and fell out of contact for nearly a year. Her mother, his grandmother, had had enough and in a screaming plea to God as she was driving implored Him to make her grandson call OR ELSE…she would not believe anymore. It was kinda like Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump, yelling at God from the top of the shrimpin’ boat’s mast through that wicked storm.

Well, Delores told me, the minute her mother got home the phone rang and lo and behold it was her grandson!! Ever since her mother told her, “you simply MUST have faith because God is real” and Delores certainly has kept that faith, no matter what difficulties she has faced, and they’ve been many.

There were many more chuckles and warm fuzzies before the night was done. And outside of Yogi’s intelligence, there was nothing average about it!

Rfd 3/4/06

Israel's Apartheid Wall

Security is a legitimate concern for Israel. And being so removed it is hard to put oneself in the shoes of either an Israeli or a Palestinian. Regardless, the Wall of Apartheid that Israel is building around and through the West Bank is a rank injustice, imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, stealing land, water, homes, farms, heritage and livelihood, and ALL financed by the American taxpayer.

Now walls can be a great blessing or heartbreaking tragedy. Nehemiah led the ancient Israelites to rebuild Jerusalem's walls, which represented power, protection and beauty. Contrarily, the Berlin Wall, built out of fear and hate, was a monstrous obscenity. Israel's apartheid wall is both blessing (for illegal Israeli settlers) and beast (for everybody else). In its desperate attempt to secure their citizens, Israel's wall will only further fuel the flames of discord.

Please see this link for information about this wall--at 408 miles more than 5 times the length of the Berlin Wall, and up to 24' high.
http://www.thewallofhate.org/film/thewall.wmv

And like the Berlin wall, I can't help but think that no matter how mighty it is, the pure force of righteousness will cause its demise.

If Watergate Happened Today

The difference between the Watergate break-in happening then or under the Bush Presidency now is the wide gulf between IMPEACHABLE CRIME and HEROIC surveillance acts on behalf of NATIONAL SECURITY.

This is spot-on accurate and true. A similar "break-in" today into the Democratic national HQ would be legal according to Bush's self-proclaimed "inherent" powers. The President would be protected, aided and abetted by a compliant House, Senate and Supreme Court.

His "heels-dug-in" religious/patriotic/moneyed base is the key enabler of this wrong-is- right, black-is-white world which is nothing more than a bridge backwards to the eras of dictatorships and which are, paradoxically, the antithesis of democracy.

We can only hope that we awaken BEFORE this phenomenon has us fully crossed over, much like Alec Guinness did before destroying the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Japanese horde's advance.

British Conservative's view on US Political Corruption

Greetings from Europe!

Arrived Paris Thursday and now in Amsterdam, on a fashion hunt you know. On the train I read London's CONSERVATIVE Financial Times (FT) and the more liberal Guardian. Seems our long-entrenched Congressional Corruption has finally made the British presse, with BOTH papers equally alarmed.

From the FT: Jurek Martin's LETTER TO AMERICA, "Money makes a mockery of democracy:"

Just before Christmas the House of Rep voted on a masssive budget reconciliation bill. Upwards of 800 pages of legislation wre dumped on members' desks at four in the morning, with the vote scheduled one hour later. Most had no idea what was in the bill. The only people who did were the LOBBYISTS WHO WROTE IT AND THE LEADERSHIP THAT DID THEIR BIDDING!!!! (emphasis mine, as I've been a broken record on this for years!).

"The bill GUTTED MANY SOCIAL PROGRAMMES FOR THE UNDERPRIVILEGED ANS SHOWERED FAVOURS ON THOSE WITH CLOUT. This is no surprise as the majority leader, Tom DeLay years ago came up twoth the "K Street project," designed to people the lobbyists' avenue with more of his like-minded Republican friends...

"It was the perfect illustration of the pernicious marriage of money and politics...
"In simultaneous and perfect juxtaposition to this OUTRAGEOUS PERVERSION OF DEMOCRACY stood the obituaries of William Proxmire, who spent virtually no money gettin re-elected....he was never for sale.

"...Jack Abramoff...is the super-lobbyist who robbed the poor (Indian tribes) to peddle influence to the rich... (and) will lay bare how politicians can be bought--and which were.

"Abramoff is VERY MUCH A REPUBLICAN PROBLEM. running restaurants where politicians fed at his trough...paying off conservative pundits for publishing kind words about his clients.

"His connections, apart from DeLay...include congressmen, a senator, the upper reaches of the interior department...and such party stategists as Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist (who may regret once saying THE REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDED "A HUNDRED JACK ABRAMOFFS!!!" (emphasis mine, I've been saying this for years!)...

"It seems to me that only if Americans--and that means Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents--recover their SENSE OF OUTRAGE about the abuse of money and power will there be even a chance of change. Oh, and a few more Don Quixote politicians such as Bill Proxmire." (end)

Sure, Democrats have and are subject to moneyed influence as well, but the lion's share, AS THIS CONSERVATIVE British paper notes, is done on the Republican side of the ledger, and has been for a long, long time.

I appreciate Mr. Martin's warning, as it corroborates my own: this continued corruptive buying of our government will DESTROY our democracy, our national well-being and our ultimately our nation.

We CAN stop it, we CAN do better. But we must drop our emotional attachments to labels, party affiliations and the past and instead look at reality and commit to making a better whole.

In the end we are neither Republican or Democrat. As Bill Murray in Stripes said, "We're not Watusi, we're American with a captial "A!"

And with that I'm off to quaff!

Tot seens! Rd

British Conservative's view on US Political Corruption

Greetings from Europe!

Arrived Paris Thursday and now in Amsterdam, on a fashion hunt you know. On the train I read London's CONSERVATIVE Financial Times (FT) and the more liberal Guardian. Seems our long-entrenched Congressional Corruption has finally made the British presse, with BOTH papers equally alarmed.

From the FT: Jurek Martin's LETTER TO AMERICA, "Money makes a mockery of democracy:"

Just before Christmas the House of Rep voted on a masssive budget reconciliation bill. Upwards of 800 pages of legislation wre dumped on members' desks at four in the morning, with the vote scheduled one hour later. Most had no idea what was in the bill. The only people who did were the LOBBYISTS WHO WROTE IT AND THE LEADERSHIP THAT DID THEIR BIDDING!!!! (emphasis mine, as I've been a broken record on this for years!).

"The bill GUTTED MANY SOCIAL PROGRAMMES FOR THE UNDERPRIVILEGED ANS SHOWERED FAVOURS ON THOSE WITH CLOUT. This is no surprise as the majority leader, Tom DeLay years ago came up twoth the "K Street project," designed to people the lobbyists' avenue with more of his like-minded Republican friends...

"It was the perfect illustration of the pernicious marriage of money and politics...
"In simultaneous and perfect juxtaposition to this OUTRAGEOUS PERVERSION OF DEMOCRACY stood the obituaries of William Proxmire, who spent virtually no money gettin re-elected....he was never for sale.

"...Jack Abramoff...is the super-lobbyist who robbed the poor (Indian tribes) to peddle influence to the rich... (and) will lay bare how politicians can be bought--and which were.

"Abramoff is VERY MUCH A REPUBLICAN PROBLEM. running restaurants where politicians fed at his trough...paying off conservative pundits for publishing kind words about his clients.

"His connections, apart from DeLay...include congressmen, a senator, the upper reaches of the interior department...and such party stategists as Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist (who may regret once saying THE REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDED "A HUNDRED JACK ABRAMOFFS!!!" (emphasis mine, I've been saying this for years!)...

"It seems to me that only if Americans--and that means Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents--recover their SENSE OF OUTRAGE about the abuse of money and power will there be even a chance of change. Oh, and a few more Don Quixote politicians such as Bill Proxmire." (end)

Sure, Democrats have and are subject to moneyed influence as well, but the lion's share, AS THIS CONSERVATIVE British paper notes, is done on the Republican side of the ledger, and has been for a long, long time.

I appreciate Mr. Martin's warning, as it corroborates my own: this continued corruptive buying of our government will DESTROY our democracy, our national well-being and our ultimately our nation.

We CAN stop it, we CAN do better. But we must drop our emotional attachments to labels, party affiliations and the past and instead look at reality and commit to making a better whole.

In the end we are neither Republican or Democrat. As Bill Murray in Stripes said, "We're not Watusi, we're American with a captial "A!"

And with that I'm off to quaff!

Tot seens! Rd

Casino Gambling a Loser for Kentucky: LEGISLATURE SHOULD AVOID TEMPTATION OF EASY MONEY

From the Lexington Herald-Leader Monday, Dec. 26, 2005 http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/editorial/13478743.htm

A wondrous, wintry day in Woodland Park was a welcome break from not only the typical holiday buzz, but also from controversies so out of character for this season of peace and goodwill.

I mused on the ancient oaks and elms, their bare brown branches stretching across the cold, gray-streaked skies. These trees have presided over a past that created our present. And so, I wondered, what kind of Kentucky our majestic friends will find on a future Christmas morning.

For we are most certainly at the proverbial crossroads and the decisions we make now will create a Kentucky worthy of its citizens and character or rob us of the greatness within our grasp.

The most critical obstacle to our ascension is the rush to adopt casino gambling as the answer to our problems, when it will in fact worsen them. Will Kentuckians have the wisdom and strength of character to look beyond the siren call of false profits? Will we identify the wolf in Santa's suit promising money for education and health care if we will only strike this Faustian bargain?

Those most loudly touting casinos ask why we should allow tax dollars to leave the state. Yet that is the wrong question at the wrong time in Kentucky's history. The proper question is not how many tax dollars Indiana gets from Kentucky gamblers, just as it is not how many vacation dollars Florida gets from Kentucky tourists. Rather it is how we best and most fairly raise sufficient revenues for our needs and then live within whatever budget they provide.

Electronic slots are unlike any other form of gambling. As John Warren Kindt of the University of Illinois says, it is the crack cocaine of gambling. It is lickety-split action with manipulated payoffs that hook gamblers, 5 percent of whom become addicts. Many more become problem gamblers.

All academic research, unbiased and untainted by pro-gambling propaganda, conclusively shows that slots are an economic loser. That is, the state will lose more money than it takes in from taxes. Indiana, for example, has approved ever more gambling and still is $1 billion in debt.

Even worse, this economic loss does not take into account the ruined lives, the inconsistent lessons to our youth and the sacrificing of our pioneer tradition of leadership at the altar of false hope and short-term thinking that casinos represent.

The nation underwent a similar gambling scourge in the late 1800s. It got so bad that Kentucky and other states banned gambling and even changed their constitutions to prevent future generations from falling into the downward spiral of economic and societal ruin.

An alternative vision would build on the inherent goodness of Kentuckians, instead of preying on them. We could be the state that welcomes business and industry, as an electronic-gambling-free zone, unlike our neighbors. This is a niche where we win big.

Our very name, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, suggests the winning path. We must think positively and encourage the helping hand of friendship in every field, whether it is volunteer programs for reading instruction, worker training or financial advice. We should teach good citizenship to our young, strengthen opportunities for families and lend a hand to those left behind.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come tells us Kentucky still has time. All we need do is walk the sure-footed path consistent with our highest values. Then Woodland's stately trees will witness a Kentucky that is indeed all happy, merry and bright.

Jesus and Politics

It’s always tricky relating Jesus to contemporary politics, but it is especially so during this time of peace and goodwill. Yet if we are to glean the true essence of Jesus and all of what he so passionately wanted to teach us we must not cower of doing so when an occasion presents itself.

The recent U.S. Congressional budget vote is just such an opportunity. The House has once again voted to cut taxes for the wealthiest taxpayers, while slashing roughly 45 BILLION dollars in social welfare programs, including food stamps, Medicaid, student loans and child-support enforcement.

Jesus’ exhortations to do precisely the opposite are so numerous they need no citation, yet I dare say ALL those who vote against the poorest of us while rewarding the richest are among the most vocal and visible Jesus cheerleaders.

“WAIT!” they typically say, “our actions are not anti-Jesus because they promote personal responsibility and individual freedom from oppressive government.” They will add that their personal charity is sufficient to fulfill Jesus’ commands. Many would further intimate that government welfare is socialism and makes us like “godless” communist states.

First, if anyone doubts Jesus’ desire that we apply his principles even in—ESPECIALLY within—our political process they should refer to ACTS 4: 31-35*. Here you will find no better definition of collective action, of, um…er…wow the truth is sometimes so hard to say…of “socialism.”

In no way am I saying we must conform our free market capitalistic system to this arrangement. And perhaps it is because I derive my goodies from it that I feign ignorance about Jesus’ will in this regard.

But it is beyond any reasonable argument that even should Jesus not require us scrap our system he would certainly want us to do as much as possible to achieve the social EFFECTS of a the collective arrangement described in Acts. That is, Jesus would want us to use our political governing systemto do all we can to ameliorate human suffering and “promote the GENERAL WELFARE” as our own Constitution mandates.

Now of course our very system accomplishes much of this. Free markets encourage the entrepreneurial spirit that fuels industry that in turns provides job and creates progress. And it is to the gods of this private initiative that today’s conservatives so bow, in undying loyalty to “trickle down” theory. Yet we know from our history, from our current situation, that trickle down does not work: there still remains much human want and need right here in our own country.

Admittedly politics is about finding the right balance between fostering free market capitalism and checking its abuses and it is often an area very shaded in gray. However, this last Congressional budget vote is way beyond that area.

Reducing aid to our most vulnerable citizens while adding still more to the richest is bad enough. That they did so during this celebratory season of Jesus’ birth is truly a pity.

And Jesus wept.


*ACTS 4:31-36
31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

Jesus Beyond Mere Christianity

So begins a serendipitous series on Jesus, during the celebratory season of his birth.

While not “born again” by what I perceive many would consider that term to mean, Jesus has forever been at the center of my consciousness. From the Jesus of my little childhood church nestled in those mystical mountains of Eastern Kentucky, to the Jesus of the Bedside Storybooks, the ones with the colored illustrations showing Jesus with the flowing brown locks and blazingly blue eyes. He was “the little lord Jesus, who laid down his sweet head”…the Jesus who “loved the little children, red and yellow, black and white, (because) all are precious in His sight.” Yes, that Jesus was all good and all loving.

When the death of my little 3-year-old brother, Willie, crushed my poor parents, it was Jesus who was our rock and sanctuary. I recall one Sunday, me and mom going to a different mountain church one Sunday—just me and her—and I looked up at her beautiful, but now so forlorn face and saw a tear streak down from her left eye.

At that precise moment I knew what faith was. All the years, all the books and sermons and televangelists and little courses in this or that were all summed up in that one tear on mom’s otherwise serene face. It was a tear of unfathomable grief, but of immeasurable faith as well. We needed no words on our way back home as that tear spoke volumes about mom’s total trust in and total reliance on God.

The next fall, when I was 6, we moved to Lexington and my idyllic Mayberry mountain childhood was over. Church shopping, we started at the Greek Orthodox, as all my grandparents were Orthodox in the “old country” (Syria and Lebanon). But the services were in Greek and lasted about three hours! I remember following dad as he got up and walked around, in out and around the church, until the closing prayer.

We eventually settled on Good Shepard Episcopal Church, and it was in and through this church that God has revealed and is revealing still the nature of His most enlightened of sons, Jesus. This ideal nature is at its core familiar to ALL humanity for it is the essence of humanity’s highest nature. Yet, the traditions of MAN have obscured it, layering manmade conventions and supposed truths on top of the Jesus’ true nature.

Too often these dogmas contradict Jesus, making him a flashpoint for division and conflict instead of unity and harmony. Subsequent writings will explore this in more detail, but just for today consider Christmas and how the whole world, Christians and non-Christians alike, celebrate the anniversary of Jesus’ birth.

My Jewish vendor-friend was on his way to buy a “secret Santa” gift for an office party. Another was going to visit his mother for “Christmas.” He explained their observance similarly to many non-Christians with whom I have spoken: they celebrate Christmas as a time of HOPE AND HAPPINESS and Jesus as that message’s prime author.

They, like me, do not consider Jesus as God, for as even Jesus himself said, there is only one God, and he is father of us all. But Jesus said that God sent Jesus as our Rabbi, our teacher, to show us a higher truth and a higher way to live that was truly revolutionary for his times.

Fact is, it gives me great hope to see my spiritual brethren, be they Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic or not who celebrate the season for they grasp the essential core of what Jesus was all about and why this is imminently worthy of our celebration and especially of our emulation.

Indeed, if Jesus would even want a celebration in his name, this recognition of hope, happiness and a desire to live life as he taught—did he sacrifice his very life to so teach—would be his ideal reason.

Merry Happy Holly Jolly to you all!

Rfd 12/8/05

Party Loyalty vs. Personal Priorities (or Why I won't be Seeing Hillary)

It is moment of truth time. A fellow Democratic activist friend invited me to attend Hillary Clinton’s fundraising event in Louisville this Friday.

Suddenly the conflicting rays of principle, party and personal priorities converge in the prism of his invitation. For while I have long been a fervent FDR Democrat, Mrs. Clinton supported the Iraqi war, which for me is the defining issue of our time.

There is NOTHING more important than correctly calling forth our military to invade another country, nothing. All our social justice and citizen’s benefit philosophies are dwarfed by the hypocrisy and immorality of erroneous decisions to war. And Mrs. Clinton was a vocal advocate of this war, voting along with many other Democrats to authorize President Bush’s fait accompli.

The whole of 2002 found me so frustrated and enraged by the Democrats buckling, not only on Bush’s anti-social domestic policies, but especially by their complicity in Bush’s frequent and flagrantly FALSE assertions about the non-existent Iraqi threat and our urgent need to go to war.

From his State of the Union “Axis of Evil” speech to his West Point address enunciating an unprecedented policy of PRE-EMPTION it was clear that Bush was intent on going to war way before the final CIA report that fall. His bellicosity was as Un-American as it was illogical, and was based on deliberate mis-representations in order to whip up public fear and fury to support this long-planned invasion.

Thus, I wrote an anti-war article based upon my own research and analysis that thoroughly debunked Bush’s rationale and correctly predicted the hornet’s nest we instead created. (http://peacecow.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_peacecow_archive.html appearing under the June 21 “Time To Impeach” entry).

I could not for the life of me understand how intelligent, highly placed Democrats like Mrs. Clinton, like John Edwards and like John Kerry could have voted the way they did. It showed either an incredible lack of depth of thinking OR depth of character in sacrificing long term truth, justice and security for short-term expedience. How could I, sitting here in the hinterlands of rural America know more than them?!

Then came the 2004 Democratic platform, which had as its top priority a vast increase of our military so that we could exert control across the globe, practically mirroring the Republicans and totally missing the fact that we were nearly outspending the rest of the world combined.

MY COUNTERPOINT: “Yeah Rich, but we’ve gotta support the party if we are to unseat the Republicans, who are killing America with their selfish cronyism and corruption!” True, but if I have no say in what my party prioritizes, and if it continues with leadership that has acted contrarily to my deepest held values, then I would have to abandon that party. I am NOT saying the Democrats are there yet.

In fact, John Edwards has apologized and admitted his error. Good. But can he be trusted again? Those in the highest levels simply cannot make those errors on such important issues and with a little research and analysis this was not even a close call. Yet Mrs. Clinton still supports this war.

MY COUNTERPOINT: “But Richard, a party will never represent 100% of its members wishes.” True, but war and obscene military spending are bellwether issues, and if that remains the official party line in 2008 I will leave it.

I have come to this realization: I am not merely a “Democrat.” I am first a Human, then an American, reporting to a Universal Moral Director.

MY COUNTERPOINT: “You know, you’ll about kill any chance you had at getting your party’s support for any elective office you may want to seek down the line.” Yet my goal should never be a seat per se, a position per se or anything but to do the will of the Director and to serve others as well as myself as best I can with the light given me.

I hope the Democratic Party will return to that snug fold. But if not there IS a political party that more closely represents the Director’s values, and Ralph Nader is that party’s leader.

Respectfully, Rfd 11/30/05

Nee Cassius Clay, Now Muhammad Ali

My first recollection of Mr. Ali was February 26, 1964 in the morning school bus on the way to my 3rd grade class at Stonewall Elementary. I still recall an older student with one of those little transistor radios, the hottest techno-gadget for that time, excitedly telling the whole bus about Clay’s stunning victory.

If not for the older boy’s excited announcement, and the fact that NEVER before or since has ANYBODY gotten so excited over any news event on my subsequent public transports, I would not have given Clay, or any boxer or boxing feat any significance whatsoever. After all, as an 8 year old, I was—THANKFULLY--never exposed to this most brutal so called “sport.”*

*[Don’t get me wrong, I have long appreciated the extreme physical nature of boxing, the strenuous work ethic boxers undergo and the strategy and unbelievable courage they have. It’s just that for me “sport” excludes any and all activity wherein the goal is to literally knock somebody else senseless.]

So was born Cassius Clay into my young consciousness. For reasons I did not then understand Clay became Muhammad Ali. The years that followed were full of ABC Wide World of Sports, and its new Ali-made celebrity, Ho-ward Co-SELL (my interpretation of which won me my own sort of celebrity in high school and college).

Month after month, year after year it was Ali “Winner” here, Ali “winner” there, indeed Ali was the greatest anywhere! His braggadocios taunting was frankly annoying to me and yes, I would be hoping for an upset no matter who he faced, but of course, Ali always won.

And then he did something during the Vietnam War that from my limited perspective seemed unpatriotic and cowardly: he refused to go to Vietnam, saying “I ain’t got nothing ‘gainst them Viet Cong.” Being a pro-establishment conservative, wary of pinko-hippie pot smoking protestors any such opposition to our war against the spread of Communism was heresy!

I could only see a killer in the ring who was scared to die outside it; my young pre-pre-sophomoric mind did not yet fathom Ali’s principled action nor the rightness of his stand. [I’m sorry Mr. Ali, and thank you for helping encourage my own miniscule-by- comparison conscience-based stands].

Three years later Ali won again—this time in the US Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned his conviction and granted him his right to refuse service on religious grounds. Then came his fights of legend: the Thrilla in Manilla, the Rumble in the Jungle where Ali, with Joe FRAZHIUH, made boxing the undisputed King of um, er…(ugh) Sports.

I began to admire Ali and had hoped he would quit while he was ahead. I shuddered at the pounding he took in his final fights and, while never liking boxing anyway, forswear ever watching it again.

Today, we celebrate Ali as a world-class leader, a man who in humility now stands more strongly than ever in his quest for peace and justice.

Indeed Mr. Simon, The fighter still remains.


[The Muhammad Ali Center opens this week in Louisville]
Rfd

The "Heidi Game" Anniversary

The 60's was the peak--the peak of passion, of intellectual thought, and of technological achievement (I know, I know you are saying pc's, internet, cellular, hdtv," etc. but the stage was set in the 60's and before and at any rate all progress is built on the shoulders of giants).

And the 60's was the absolute peak of TELEVISED sports. None of the annoying, OVERKILL graphics, terrible field angles, interminable close-up shots of players, horrible replays from field level that are more appropriate for C-grade action movies.

Instead there was total field of view coverage, ample re-plays that showed the whole play develop, and the best announcers ever--folks like Curt Gowdy (my favorite), Kyle Rote, Charlie Jones, Ray Scott Al Derogatis, Chris Schinkle and Lindsay Nelson. And there were few more memorable sports moments than....THE HEIDI GAME!

___________

From The Writer's Almanac <newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org>


It was on this day in 1968 that NBC interrupted its coverage of a football game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets with one minute remaining in order to show the scheduled movie Heidi, about an orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.

In the last minute of the game, the Raiders scored two touchdowns, coming from behind to win the game 43 to 32. Football fans were enraged. So many people called to complain that the NBC's telephone switchboard in New York City blew 26 fuses.

It was that game, and the storm of protest by fans, that forced TV executives to realize how passionate the audience for football really was. Two years later, networks began showing football on Monday nights as well. And because of that game, the NFL now has a contract with the networks that all football games will be shown until their completion.

Why France Fries

It is with surreal fascination that we watch France set aflame. As with all abnormalities we naturally ask—or SHOULD ask—“why?”

Already there are those French haters who relate this conflagration to “Islamic terrorism” and loosely to the Iraqi war and France’s refusal to join it. Yet the reasons for the current inferno have absolutely nothing to do with either of these shallow and self-serving rationales.

As this excellent article http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5328931-103390,00.html from the Guardian details, the angry young French of North African descent are rioting for much the same reasons as American blacks did in the 60’s: a dynamite stick of poverty, discrimination and indifference lit by an emotionally-charged event.

In 1968 it was the King assassination, today it was the electrocution (apparently accidental) of youths evading French police.

That the impoverished immigrants--most brought over 50 years ago from to do much of France’s dirty work--are Muslim is of no consequence. They were long ago sequestered in suburban ghettoes, treated like third-class citizens and recently made to suffer 20% cuts in social programs.

France’s official non-discrimination law, a well-intentioned ideal born of the Revolution, tragically gave cover to the very real and human discrimination that permeates French society.

Hopefully, the recent events will breed positive change in French culture. Ideally it will cause their leaders to accurately assess root causes and effective, just solutions to them.

Or they may ignore the “why?” and focus solely on punishing the perpetrators. But like cutting weeds at the surface, those riotous roots will grow ever stronger.

And they won’t stop at the French border.


Rfd 11/11/05

On Being in a Hurricane

Common foes create camaraderie. Be they cold-blooded Nazis, malevolent Martians, microbic plagues, or as we are confronted in Florida, a horrific “act of God” hurricane, the victory is to be found in teamwork: sharing, caring and co-operative effort.

True, there was word of heated confrontations at the gas pump, understandable with MILES long lines to the few stations open, but these are few and way overblown. Anybody who has been through turmoil learns pretty quickly that the best way to insure everybody’s highest welfare is to cooperate and help one another, “share one another’s burdens” as the biblical phrase goes.

Last Monday at noon, just after the worst of the hurricane, I admit to a teensy crack in my faith. Like everybody else, I had little water, no power, but with an added dimension of having a brother in the hospital. Luckily I trusted instincts and had gone to Publix* on Sunday, anticipating a mild Cat 1 cane, truly not expecting to need the few provisions I did buy: some water, some fruit, some canned soup, crackers, etc., all to my exacting health standards (no hydrogenated or canola oils, no artificial anything, low sodium, no meat).

Yet the Cat 3 that materialized was far worse than anyone expected. Please don’t be fooled, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Katrina in New Orleans. Floridians still had their homes well intact, there was no flooding and the infrastructure is sound, albeit in need of widespread repairs. But when total power restoration is a month out, potable water is similarly non-existent, and property damage is unprecedented it’s pretty darn bad. The worst in 50 years they say.

THE HURRICANE

Here is what a Cat 3 hurricane sounds like from within a standard Fairfield Inn* outside entrance room. Around 10 pm (8 hours before the cane actually hits) the winds start howling, just like the worst windstorm you have ever heard; you know, when the wind blows long and strong and pulls at the door and sucks the air out of the room leaving you with a little heart palpitation and heightening your nerves only you know it’s just a rare strong wind that will soon subside.

But these winds only get louder and stronger and more consistent so that there is NO BREAK, none.

Every channel was tracking Wilma’s path from the Keys across the state and warned “Do NOT expect Wilma to weaken, it is moving too fast and will be just as strong as when it hit the gulf coast.” Thus, we have the extraordinary phenomena of a hurricane’s devastation as it was leaving the coast.

The power goes out around 2:00 am as the winds kept getting incredibly, impossibly, louder and stronger! They keep escalating in sound to a tone that keeps getting louder and louder, like an operatic diva on steroids.

Wilma hits full force around 6 am. It was as if a jet engine was right outside my door…but louder. With my mind still full of the record devastation of the last year’s many hurricanes I admit to being more than a little scared at first, but after a while I just had to open my door a few times to see this dude. I’d brace myself and crack the door every so often.

Unreal! Stiff, huge, thick palms bending, all kinds of stuff blowing completely horizontally for hours! Then the eye passed and the back end of the cane blows just as fiercely in the opposite direction.

By noon the worst had passed and it was time to venture out. I felt a little like Tom Cruise emerging from his basement after the alien invasion in War of the Worlds. Good lord, the stuff—all kinds of it—EVERYWHERE. Huge, hundred year old trees uprooted. Big utility poles, traffic lights, signs, roof remnants, signs covered the town. US 1 was barely passable, but I made it, every so slowly to the hospital, which was on generator power for the whole week.

THE AFTERMATH

Not knowing if or where you might get food, water or power is discomforting. For a self-professed believer in God who is called to FAITH regardless of circumstances it is a realization that I have a long way to go. Yet it was a major blessing that Publix* (also on generator power) opened on Tuesday.

Each day I’d leave the hospital and it was totally dark, not a light anywhere in the moonless night. It is amazing how importantly street lights are, one of the thousand things I took for granted before I temporarily lost them.

Then, Thursday night the power is back on in the motel (it is on the same power grid as the hospital)! Everybody was giddy with joy.

SILVER LININGS

1) As I mentioned earlier, turmoil can bring people together. In this case, you saw people totally in tune with helping one another. Forgotten were political, ideological, and philosophical differences that truly are petty matters in the larger scheme. The focus on our higher nature brings out the best in us all and makes us grateful for what we have, even though it is far less that what we had.

2) “Less Is More.” In the room, total blackness save the light from my fantastic $35 lithium-powered flashlight and the little light on the new Grundig emergency crank-powered radio from Radio Shack. Nothing to do, it was literally lights out by 9:00, the first time since 4th grade. No mind-cluttering TV, I caught up on much-needed sleep and felt terrific each morning.

*PUBLIX and The FAIRFIELD INN. They both deserve my sincere praise and admiration for serving the public so incredibly well. They were literally lifesavers for many of us. Both company’s people were just super, and despite having to weather their own difficulties, were focused on serving others. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

*And to the Holy Cross Hospital folks, from Gerald in security to Dorette on the nursing floor and everybody else as well…THANK YOU!

Rfd 10/30/05

Eyeing a Hurricane, Closely

24/7 hurricane coverage when safely ensconced the country’s midsection, thousands of miles from Florida is just more news sensationalism, but here in a Ft. Lauderdale hotel room with the pre-winds howling Wilma’s still-hours away arrival, the news has an urgent relevance.

A hospitalized brother flew me dead in the path of Wilma’s gaping jaw. Luckily, it looks as if this won’t be near the disaster of Katrina-Rita, yet the warnings have been non-stop, the lines in the stores long, as I joined the natives in queuing up for radios, flashlights, batteries, water and food.

“Dang, I shoulda took the collision insurance on my rental” I start thinking as the wind now grows louder with each commercial break. The Fairfield Inn has aluminum-shuttered all the windows, bringing it home that, yeah, we’re going to have 100+ mph winds. My brother is probably in the safest place he could be, Holy Cross hospital.

They say most folks stayed home at Key West, and that most in the Broward-Dade area are kind of living in denial. I hope we’re just living period tomorrow night!

Rfd 10/24/05 midnight

Rod Stewart IS Fall

Rod Stewart is fall. From Maggie May, the song of my football glory years ridin’ the pine at good ol’ Lafayette High, to the randomly played I-pod song during this almost-brisk* morning run, Every Picture Tells a Story.

*It was 58, not warm like it has been, but still not breath mist cold like late October mornings should be. I love cool, even cold, weather so unseasonably warm weather is uncomfortable. But with no hurricanes or tsunamis we have absolutely NOTHING to complain about. In any case there are MANY people who love the warm weather, and remembering that the best philosophy is to want (have love) for others as we want (have love) ourselves serves to “cool” me down.

[QUERY: Does love=want? This seems inconsistent, as “want” indicates a lacking, a pain. Of course “want” as used in the manner of wishing good is different, isn’t it? Well, no, not really because it still indicates that all is currently not fine, there is still something more needed to be “happy.” In fact for many of us LESS is MORE. Without realizing it our “wants” when fulfilled leads only to more unhappiness, which certainly is not love. Anyway, since warm weather makes others happy, there is solace for me. Whew! Sorry.]

So the sun was just rising on this gray morn, the mellow street lamps alit between trees now colored with those fabulous autumnal tones. Last night’s rain brings out such richness in the rusts, wines and golds of leaves now drained of August’s chlorophyll.

My feet slap fallen leaves, in death more beautiful than ever. Hum, the green leaf of summer stores fuel for its mother tree in summer, then in sacrificing that cholorphyillic feast serves humanity with its clarion call of color, the bellwether sign that Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner.

A call that will hopefully again remind us of our better nature, our higher selves.

May we all be like the storybook leaves of fall.