Save the Children

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. –December 15th, 1791

What a pity there's not a national organization to promote the second amendment of the Bill of Rights. According to the Children's Defense Fund, "In 2007 [in the U.S.] 3,042 children lost their lives to gun violence and an additional 17,523 suffered non-fatal gun injuries..." Who's killing our children? We need to arm the populace so we can stop this mayhem.

If there were only something like a National Rifle Society or a National Rifle Association, we could take up our rifles and defend our children from attack by these scoundrels. Anyone with a handgun would be shot on sight, handguns being the weapon of the criminal and the outlaw, while the noble rifle is of course the weapon of the soldier and the hunter.

There is already a National Rifle Association? Oh. Then the children are safe!

For more on the on-going tragedy of gun violence in the U.S., click here and check out Michael Moore's film.

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Homage to La Luna

Naked the moon peeks shyly
            from behind a veil of mist;
Then boldly dances into light

 stolen from the sun.

At precisely 4:22PM today, the moon blooms full. In homage to La Luna and in recognition of the feminine side of my psyche, I fast from the evening prior to the full moon until the morning after. At each and every full moon, thirty-six hours of passive, worshipful hunger.

I am spiritual but not religious. I consider myself pantheistic; I find Spirit everywhere, especially in the heavens–sun, moon & stars. The sun gives me life; the moon gives me pleasure; the stars make me wonder. At my retreat in Arizona, I am often blessed with a simultaneous sunset and full moonrise–a natural yin and yang that gives me great peace.

Once each month, twelve times a year, I formally honor the woman within me. She argues for kindness when I am angered, for hope when I despair, for faith when I doubt. Without her I would be much less a man.

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Wisdom of the Beat

While composing a previous posting, I was reminded of the "beat" poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was popular in the '50s and early '60s. The beats, or beatniks, were precursors of the hippies of the late '60s and early '70s. Hedonistic and anti-establishment like the hippies, but with an intellectual flair. Ferlinghetti first came to my attention when a friend quoted the last line of one of his poems:

silence hung like a lost idea
                                        and a statue turned
                                   its head

Wow! And that's just one of many visually evocative lines in Ferlinghetti's poetry. I was never sure of his message, but I was always awed by the images his poems conjured up in my mind's eye.

I was reminded of Ferlinghetti when writing about the shortsightedness of Republicans with regard to national health care. One of his anti-war poems opined satirically that life is not so bad if we don't mind "bombs in our upturned faces" and "small minds in high places."

Ferlinghetti was writing during the post WW-II cold war era when everyone was legitimately and fearfully concerned about being nuked by the Russians. The movie "Dr. Strangelove" provides a humorous and satirical, but nonetheless chilling look at this era. As is evident, Ferlinghetti took a cynical view of politics and government, which is as appropriate today as it was in the '50s and '60s.

Ready for Ferlinghetti's poetry? Check out A Coney Island of the Mind and/or Pictures of the Gone World. Be prepared for a mind warp that may open up an alternative vision of reality.

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Comma to me

Language truly is peculiar and the English language particularly so. Words that are pronounced the same yet spelled differently–there, their and they're. Words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently and have different meanings–lead and lead, sow and sow, wind and wind. Synonyms, homonyms and acronyms. Idioms and slang. What a mess!

My hat is off to anyone who learns English as a second language; I have trouble enough as one born into an English-speaking culture–sort of. By comparison, German, which is perfectly phonetic, is a snap–even with all that der-die-das business.

Reading English is easy enough, I suppose. Conversing in English is somewhat more difficult. But... give a man a writing assignment and he'll break into a cold sweat. I've had students in college classes who would rather hang by their thumbs for a week than sit down write a term paper.

One real bugaboo of written English is the necessity for punctuation. One can speak without commas, colons and semicolons. But when it comes to the written page, something has to be done to partition the thoughts and ideas, one from another.

A single comma can alter meaning altogether. Take the four words: eats shoots and leaves. Place a comma after "eats" and the two nouns morph into verbs. And you've got the makings for a racy joke involving Panda bears. Oddly enough, Eats, Shoots & Leaves is the title of a nifty little book that may change the way you feel about our language. If you pay attention while you're laughing at book's subtle humor, you may come away feeling less anxious about whether "to comma or not to comma." I can almost guarantee that you will be amused.

The full title of the book is: Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynn Truss. Your local library may have a copy and then there's (theirs? they'res?) always Amazon.com.

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Tribute to Yogi

Ladybug on the rim of a glass
               going round and round;
                             déjà vu, déjà vu,
                                           déjà vu all over again.

Follow the Money

The 112th Congress convenes today. Since the Republicans now have a majority in the House, they control the agenda. The first item thereon: Repeal of Obama's Health Care Reform plan.

Yes! Right on! Just do it! Get rid of that bureaucratic albatross and replace it with HR676!

If you know what HR676 is all about, you know that this plainly logical event is not about to occur. John Boehner and his comrades do not want to provide the nation with health care of any sort–except that of the Health Insurance industry.

The stated objective of their effort to repeal the Obama plan is to reduce government spending. They argue that the U.S. government has no responsibility for the health care its citizens. Never mind that this is the case in every other country in the developed world. Never mind that in the long run HR676, "Medicare for All," would save money–in several ways.

One way: The cost of administering the current Medicare program is 3%, i.e., for every $100 doled out for health care, $3 goes for the government administration of the program. On the other hand for every $100 doled out by the Health Insurance industry, $30 goes to administration (and profit)! Uh, that's 3% vs 30%. Isn't this a no-brainer?

You bet it is! Any U.S. legislator–Republican or Democrat–who is against "Medicare for All" is not worried about government spending; he or she is worried about how little they will have to spend if they vote against the wishes of the Health Insurance industry.

Which is why the first item on the agenda of the 112th Congress should be–not Health Care Reform (or not)–but CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! How can a member of Congress vote for what's best for the people when he or she is on the payroll of big oil, big health insurance, big defense, big finance and/or any other big greedy industry out there? [Didn't Republican President Dwight Eisenhower warn us against the tyranny of the Military-Industrial complex?]

On the other hand, how do we get Congress to take up the issue of campaign finance reform and vote against their own best interests? Hmmm... Maybe if we consulted with the movers and shakers of the Republic Party. The G.O.P. has been duping the middle and lower classes into doing just this for years.

Want to understand U.S. politics? It's easy, just follow the money.

Want to learn more about HR676? Check out The Citizens Alliance for the Public Option and Physicians for a National Health Plan (where you can read the actual text of HR676–all 30 pages :-)

~ fini ~

Marley's rules

Almost every morning of the world I go walking in the woods with my friend Marley, a pure-bred female Rottweiler. I would use the proper term for a female canine but it reminds me of my ex-wife. [The ladies just quit reading, so it's just us guys.] Marley and I enjoy the luxury of 20 miles of trails on 200 wooded acres near Waxhaw, NC. Marley doesn't talk, but she can communicate and over the past year or so I've come to understand her rules for a walk in the woods.

Rule Number One: No friggin' leash! Nothing spoils a good walk more completely than being tethered to your walking partner. Being connected might be reassuring on a space walk and even necessary if Marley and I were in a public park. But here in our private forest she wants the freedom to romp here & there–and I want the freedom not to be yanked to my knees when she does so.

NB: Yeah, yeah... there are those who assert that the creatures of the forest deserve the right to be free from the chase, perhaps while listening to J. S. Bach's Sheep may safely graze on their MP3 players. Come on! The white tail deer are way faster than Marley and Nature provides her favorite prey –Squirrel!– with an escape route up every tree. In any case I would maintain that a sporting chase by a dog keeps the critters alert and fit for the real peril when the hunters arrive in the fall. 

Rule Number Two: No talking! What's the use anyway, since Marley only understands two words: "Walk" and "Eat." I have to spell out w-a-l-k unless I'm ready to hit the trail and I think she's even beginning to catch on to that. On the trail I don't utter a single word. She's taught me that a walk in the woods is about experiencing the forest with your own senses in accordance with your particular personal proclivities. [Sorry, but I'm an avid alliterator.] To her credit, Marley doesn't speak either. She never barks or tries to align my consciousness with hers by saying things like, "Hey, look at that spider web!" or "Did you hear that crow?" or "What pretty flowers!"

Rule Number Three: No touching! The sensory experience of the forest is intended primarily for three modalities: sight, smell, and hearing. If someone touches you, it distracts from your focus on seeing, smelling, and hearing. Okay, it might be all-right to hold hands on a walk in the woods, but then it becomes something else... For Marley touching is okay later when we're lounging by the fire or watching TV. She is indeed willing to demonstrate to all the world that a 90-pound Rottweiler makes a perfectly good lap dog, far better than a puny little Chihuahua. Really!

Rule Number Four: No eating! As much as 90% of taste is actually smell. So eating while walking masks the smells of the forest. If you're munching on a tuna sandwich, how can you smell the wild flowers, the decaying leaves, or the wild plums fermenting in the sun? Or the trail of a squirrel? When we've finished, it is of course okay to eat. Since our walk is meant to satisfy our hunting instincts, it's only proper to enjoy our kill –of bacon, eggs and grits.

NB: There is of course a rule against smoking, but it's a non issue since neither Marley nor I smoke. And in any case, that's the bear's rule, not Marley's.

Marley's rules are guaranteed to increase the enjoyment of your walk in the forest. And if you want to walk with us, the rules will be obeyed!

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