Non-Violent Civil Resistance in Burma

Whatever your persuasion, pray or cross your fingers!

The international community fears a repeat of 1988, when government troops brutally suppressed a popular uprising, killing some 3,000 people.

Truck loads of soldiers have been seen moving into the center of Rangoon. The government is blaming rogue dissidents for the unrest.

The protesters came out even though the junta warned it would "take action" after some 100,000 people marched
on
Monday.

They have been joined by large numbers of students and supporters who until Monday had stood on the sidelines cheering the monks.

Along with Buddhist flags, some marchers carried flags bearing the image of a fighting peacock, which was used by students in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

In Rangoon, monks led the way from the revered Shwedagon Pagoda, which has become a focal point of the growing protests.

Tens of thousands of Burmese defied warnings by the military junta, and staged another day of marches in cities across the country.

John Edwards Does Not Betray Us!

3 Minute Ad Rebuts Bush, Petreaus & Crocker

Excitement with the Invalid!

Just to let all of my friends out there know that I’m still here – that’s the trouble, I’m still here. As a person who loves to be at home with my dog and cats and the computer, life is great. But if you HAVE to be at home, that’s another matter.

But I do have news to impart. With the permission of my physical therapist and my occupatonal therapist, each of whom came on Wednesday, I have now put my walker away and am now walking with a cane!! They will both be back on Friday, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon for more fun and progress.

Among other things, I have now been given permission to clean the FIVE litterboxes that are placed strategically around the house. My daughter’s men came every day or so for the past two months to clean them, but they are not as expert at it as I am, and the cats and dog have begun going to potty in various forbidden spots around the house, which is not good, as well as a helluva mess to clean up.

In addition to being allowed to use a cane (and I must say that not having the walker around is like having half the furniture moved out of the house, a great blessing), I am now allowed to CLEAN THE FIVE LITTERBOXES myself!! I had my first go at it this morning, and will do it morning and night.

If this is not enough fun for you, my old pull-up garage door broke a month ago and had to be propped open all day and night. Instead of fixing an old door, I decided to get a newroll-up door with windows in it, and it was just installed yesterday. That, for me, was so exciting that I can hardly control myself.

Any of you who have read my five chapter story of the terror I experienced at the convalescent facility (AND IT WAS TERRIFYING! I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be a nonbeliever in a small southern town, but that was a hint.) will not find the story above too exciting unless you have been sidelined with an injury, but you might hark back to it when you are injured or at least up in years.

Be nice to others...

...because . . as time goes on, it will make a difference!

Any questions???

(Don't forget to click for expansion.)

Safe at Last!

No sooner had I moved to my new room than my attending doctor, who had been disturbed by the fact that my leg pain persisted, sent me to the hospital for an MRI of my hip. It was there that it was discovered that I had an internal fracture in the neck of the femur. I was operated on the following morning, at which time the surgeon inserted 3 very long screws into the femur. (I saw the x-ray yesterday. Ouch!) I stayed in the hospital for four days and was then sent to another convalescent home, where the care and personal attention of the staff were far superior to my previous experience.

Above all, I treasure my relationship with my roommate’s husband, and through, him, with her. She was a very lovely-looking woman who, I gathered, had had a stroke some six years before and suffered from aphasia, the inability to speak words, although her husband told me that she was mentally alert. He spent most of his time with his wife, either in our room or taking her down the hall for the entertainment provided for patients. He told me that he was 91. What a long, sad end to two vibrant lives!

I watched C-Span most of every day on the TV in our room, and found that he was watching it also. We gradually learned that we had a great deal in common. Our conversation, as with so many people these days centered mainly around the war, the Bush administration, and immigration. I told him that I had my own views about immigration, which do not coincide exactly with either those firmly against, or those firmly in favor. As those of you who read my posts on the subject will realize, I blame most of the problem on this country and on those of us (and there are many) who are glad to take advantage of the situation for our own benefit.

This, of course, turned to talk of prejudice, and my friend told me that he and his wife knew a great deal about prejudice, as they are both Jewish and atheists. And the latter in turn brought a whole change in my way of thinking. I have always referred to myself as an agnostic, not knowing about how we got here, and not feeling it is knowable. But, as best I can explain their belief, they do not think there is any great, thinking force up there somewhere which is planning and creating the universe. This comes much closer to what I really feel, so henceforth I shall refer to myself as an atheist.

This experience and association is one which I would not have missed, and it will remain in my memory.

End of Chapter 5, and the end of my story.

Crescendo!

One day I came back from my physical therapy session to find a joyous party going on in our room. There were five or six support staff members enjoying the usual leftovers from patients’ trays, and the Reader was the delirious hostess. “We found it,” she told me. “It was in your drawer.” And behind her I saw the blue blanket, ostentatiously arranged at the foot of her bed.

That means, of course, that someone had gone through my drawer and found it buried beneath the white towel and whatever else there may have been there. This was done when I was out of the room and without my permission. Between this incident and the previous encounter with the staff members examining my adding machine with the thought that I might have stolen it also, I had had enough.

So I wheeled myself down to the nurses’ desk, but no one was there, so I waited, with the wheels of my chair pointing obliquely toward the desk.

All of a sudden my wheelchair was hit so hard at the side that it nearly fell over! I couldn’t imagine what had done it, and I hadn’t heard anyone coming. When I turned around, I saw a woman I had never seen before. She remained where she was in her wheelchair, and looked at me with hatred on her face. Not only that – when I looked beyond her, there stood Smiley in the hall, watching us, and grinning the biggest grin I had ever seen.

Across the lobby from the nurses’ desk was a large alcove about 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Half of the alcove was taken up by a very large plant in a very large bowl. This strange woman had not moved, so I quickly wheeled my wheelchair over and backed into the other half of the alcove and closed my eyes in relief. But she hadn’t finished; I felt something bump my toes, and there she was again, toe to toe with me, looking even more malevolent than she had before. And through all of this, not a word passed between us.

Just then, a nurse came back to the station, and I demanded that I be moved to another room immediately. I did not even stay to collect my clothes and possessions, leaving it to an assistant to bring to me. (Incidentally, one of my nightgowns was lost in the process.)

And as I left the room for the last time, the very religious Reader who had learned love from Christ waved her arms from side to side above her head and exclaimed, “God loves me! Thank you Jesus, thank you!”

End of Chapter 4

Third Movement of the Symphony

I’ll digress a bit to give you a flavor of living in such a care home. All such facilities seem to have a hard time being adequately staffed, but this somehow seemed to be worse.
The more menial the work, the less training they seem to receive.

For example, after one young man gave me a hair-raising ride down the hall in my wheelchair at top speed, dodging oncoming old people walking toward us within inches of hitting them head-on, I asked if he had had any training about that. He said that, no, he hadn’t had any training about that or anything else. It scared me to death, so you can imagine the reaction of people who are barely ambulatory. It was also common for staff members to open doors with the toes on your foot when navigating in close places and not to notify the passenger in advance about when they were going to turn, so that they could adjust their bodies accordingly.

There was one old man who wandered the halls saying that he had never received his breakfast. I was told by a staff member that he had had his breakfast already and that he had done that for years, so they just ignored him. I realize that they are overworked, but it is terribly sad to me that they couldn’t just have given him something to chew on or at least a kind word so that he knew someone cared for him.

The cords to our reading lamps and our red light calling for assistance were often left hanging at the wall, so that you couldn’t reach them if you were unable to get up, and the red lights often stayed on for some time before they were answered. There was also a woman down the hall who called for help almost ceaselessly. She may have had mental problems, but her plight was pathetic in any case.

Caring for the old and infirm is tough work, no doubt about it, but no tougher than being the old one being cared for.

End of Chapter 3. (Two more to come.)

Horror Continued

Horror Continued

The three of us in my room shared a bathroom with one toilet with three women on the other side. One of them was very ill and required a lot of time there, often. The polite custom was to wait at the door until you heard the opposite door close, and then go in.

On this particular occasion, I had been waiting at the door in my wheelchair for about an hour. Just as I was about to go in, Smiley leaped from her bed, saying that she was faster than I was, and pushed ahead of me. I was furious, but didn’t say anything.

But the next night, she did the very same thing. So I asked her if she went to church. As I suspected, she said she did, so I said, “I could tell,” thinking of the many people who are loyal worshippers, but lose their values upon exiting the church door.

At this point, the Reader, who was not involved in this, and to whom I had never talked about religion, shouted, “Do you go to church?” and when I said no, she shouted back, “We could tell.” I did not really expect Smiley to understand what I was trying to tell her, but my slur against the Church was more important to the Reader than the lesson I was trying to convey to Smiley.

That was the real beginning of the descent.

A number of the service personnel were in the habit of coming to the Reader’s bed to enjoy breaks, during which they imbibed leftover food and drink from patients’ trays. The Reader spoke more often of the blue blanket which had been a gift to her and which she could not find. On just such an accasion, I woke from a catnap to find a man and a woman standing over my table. My daughter had brought me a plastic drawer with get well cards, bills, my checkbook and my adding machine. Before they became aware that I was awake, I heard the woman ask the man, as she pointed at my adding machine, what it was. When she saw my eyes open, she apologized and said it looked something like a tool which some of the staff used.

End of Chapter Two

Faith Without Values

Faith Without Values – Horror at the Convalescent Facility

When I fell in the gutter on June 27th (this is the second time I have chosen a gutter, if that tells you anything) while walking my dog and talking to a friend with his dog, I thought at first that it was just a bad bruise, but decided to go to emergency to be sure. The x-rays did not show a break, so I was sent to a convalescent facility to recuperate.

The building was a large, sprawling one-story facility, with some really beautiful furniture, and I was told it was at one time a motel for the very rich. I can believe it. The grounds were lovely, with stately oaks offering welcome shade to the occupants, and there was an elaborate inner court with lovely gardens and koi ponds.

The rooms also were lovely, despite hopital beds and tables and wheelchairs. Rooms which had only two beds were still spacious, though I was in a room with three beds, so we felt a little cramped. I was in the middel bed.

My roommates had obviously been together long enough to become friends, and they talked a great deal to each other, while I got some reading done. The woman by the window, it soon became obvious, had a very low IQ, compensated for by an enormous mouth that smiled – no, grinned – constantly. I’ll call her Smiley.

On the other side was a woman who kept a huge paperback Bible on her table, as well as another religious tome of equal size. In quiet moments, she recited verses quietly to herself. I’ll call her the Reader.

Though we had little in common, we occasionally asked after each other’s health and exchanged other pleasantries.

Each of us had a closet of our own at the foot of our beds, with a drawer underneath. Shortly after I moved in, the Reader told me that someone had given her a blue blanket, but that she could not find it, and she asked if it might be in my drawer. I bent over in great pain to open the drawer, but could only see a large white towel, and nothing of mine was in there. I assumed that that was the end of that.


End of Chapter One

Romney Family Dog Story

Chapter I: Romney Family Vacation

This shaggy dog story, courtesy the Boston Globe, begins with the beginning of annual 12-hour family trek from Boston to Ontario.

Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. He'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.

Then Romney put his boys on notice: He would be making predetermined stops for gas, and that was it. As the oldest son, Tagg Romney, recalls

Think about it. A 12-hour drive and the only time we stop is to get gas. When we stop, you can buy your food and go to the bathroom, but that's the only time we're stopping, so you'd better get it all done at once.

The ride was largely what you'd expect with five brothers, ages 13 and under, packed into a wagon they called the "white whale."

Tagg commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway.

It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free problem-solving & crisis-management.

Chapter II: The Explanation

Hope you didn't forget to turn up your speakers!

Don't Leave Me

After several days of intense pain relieved by Vicodin, I am doing much better today. Also, have had several changes of caregivers here at home, which has taken time from thinking about blogging and emailing.

I still have my scary experiences at one of the two convalescent care homes to which I was sent to write about. Which reminds me—when I retired as a librarian, I volunteered to deliver meals to shut-ins in Berkeley three times a week. Many lived in the poorest parts of town, and my dearest memories are of them. I got 4 of my dogs as a result of promising to take them when their owners either went into rest homes or died.

I went often to visit one dear little lady (whose chihuahua I adopted) who moved into a low level rest home, and I remember how much she looked forward to moving there, and how much she regretted it after she moved. I also remember the lost souls sitting in the halls in wheel chairs, who reached for my hand and begged me to get them out. (I have written before about the punishment of dragging on forever like that with no conrol over how and when one’s life should end.)

My story, on the other hand, is quite different. Hope to get to it tomorrow.

How Much of This Can You Take??

I Mean,

How much MORE of this can you take?????

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Been thinking about our troops when they come home, if they come home. Let’s ruminate.

The Big Guys will be okay. They will still have the same jobs with high pay, but the little guys with little education and less hope who enlisted at least to earn some self-respect and possibly an education are the ones I am thinking about.

Many of our troops enlisted out of loyalty to those already serving, and that will be an inner badge of courage that can never be taken away. Those who enlisted out of patriotism to their country may find that to be a badge without meaning to them anymore.

Getting to the nittygritty, however, what are their prospects when they come home? Where will the new jobs be? Will they have to compete with the people holding the jobs they want or need, the ones who didn’t go to war with them, the ones who could have enlisted, but didn’t?

What about their qualifications? They have all seen HORROR close-up, and that will never leave them. It will be with them waking or sleeping. Those who have been in actual combat will have special skills, killing and cruelty, but they are not in much demand, and besides we have football players and other civilians here who will compete.

Many of our troops will bear the obvious badges of honor that we all can see, such as grievous head and facial wounds and missing or prosthetic limbs. Adjustment to civilian jobs may be difficult or impossible for them, and our present leaders apparently don’t have them on their front burners.

Welcome home, guys and gals!

Ethics on the battlefield

Ethics on the battlefield

Sarah Sewall, director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, most recently wrote the introduction to the University of Chicago Edition of the new U.S. Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

Ethical lapses among military personnel in Iraq pose a grave danger not simply to U.S. military professionalism but also to the operation itself. According to a newly released Army field survey, significant numbers of U.S. troops directly undermine their mission by mistreating civilians. Ironically, the same person who inscribed high ethical standards into new U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine -- Gen. David H. Petraeus -- inherited this compromised force. While the Army and Marine Corps can address future education and training for U.S. forces, is it too late to fix the problem in Iraq?

Intuitively and anecdotally, we understand the corrosive effects of irregular warfare. An unseen enemy that won't respect the laws of war tempts the opposing force to abandon its professional ethic. Now for the first time, we have hard data that scopes the extent and nature of the problem.

Read the rest of Sewall's column from the San Francisco Chronicle
(Sunday, July 1, 2007)

Bring Back the Citizen-Soldier

After hearing U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., explain his program to keep veterans off the streets, I couldn't help but think of Rome.

During the middle republic, military legions consisted of landowners, who, although required to supply their own equipment, weapons and armor, did not suffer the ravages of battle worrying about homelessness upon their return.

A recent Newsweek story puts the number of homeless Iraq war veterans between 500 and 1,000, a shameful, shocking red flag considering that, unlike the Vietnam era, the homelessness is taking root not just before the war ends, but in the midst of a surge. This wave of homelessness indicates many things -- misguided and myopic government spending, lack of insight among policymakers, decaying social infrastructure, toxic levels of a "suck-it-up" mind-set among soldiers -- but most of all, it indicates the extent to which civilians have grown divorced from the military. The days of military service as public service have largely ended, and our mentality is a far cry from Rome's plough-and-sword system.

Today, we non-military citizens tend to think of the military as "over there," a view that is inaccurate, dangerous and unkind. Inaccurate, because the military is not a monolith; it is people. Dangerous, because it encourages apathy among civilians, military disdain for civilians and a level of military autonomy that, history teaches, can lead to chaos. Unkind, because it allows us to look the other way when warriors come home emotionally, physically and spiritually scarred by acts carried out in our collective name.

Many Americans don't want anything to do with the military, and that is a problem. Mandatory conscription would quickly eliminate the "us versus them" gap, but any attempt at making service mandatory would probably incite outrage.

Read the rest of H. Savala Nolan's column from the San Francisco Chronicle
(Sunday, July 1, 2007)

LittleBill Is Back!

Hi, everybody, I got home on Tuesday and am so glad to be Back. I will require all day help for a number of weeks, and there are a ton of papers and bills to take care of, so things will be slow for a while.

I have some very interesting things to write about my stay first in the rest home and then in a recovery home. I got new furniture for my “office,” but will have to learn the computer again, as well as rearranging the office. LittleBill has walked all over my keyboard and is now on my lap helping correct the mistakes he made.

Have also written a couple of political things while I was there.

Thanks to everyone for your cards, calls, emails, and comments. I have missed all of you tremendously.

Love to all.

Behind the Scenes with Neo-Cons

Tuesday is as good day as any to demonstrate bipartisanship, so. . . .

Columnist Johann Hari recently infiltrated an annual National Review-sponsored cruise so that he could discover What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening. Seminars were designed to exhume the conservative corpse and discover its cause of death on the black night of 7 November, 2006.

I have excerpted from the forest some of the more coherent trees which Hari relates.

Dinesh D'Souza:

It's customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who's 'we'? The left won by demanding America's humiliation.. . . of course politics is about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers.

Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's one-time nominee to the Supreme Court, mumbled from beneath low-hanging jowls:

The coverage of this war is unbelievable. Even Fox News is unbelievable. You'd think we're the only ones dying. Enemy casualties aren't covered. We're doing an excellent job killing them.

Rich Lowry, the preppy, handsome 38-year-old editor of National Review, says,

The American public isn't concluding we're losing in Iraq for any irrational reason. They're looking at the cold, hard facts. I wish it was true that, because we're a superpower, we can't lose. But it's not.

The ageing historian Bernard Lewis - who was deputed to stiffen Dick Cheney's spine in the run-up to the war - declares,

The election in the US is being seen by the bin Ladenists as a victory on a par with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We should be prepared for whatever comes next.

Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley are adversaries on the topic of Bush and his Iraquagmire. Podhoretz, looking in Buckley's direction, says,

I have lots of ex-friends on the left; it looks like I'm going to have some ex-friends on the right, too. . . . There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria … This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better. . . . There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we're winning.

pertaining to Islamophobia and Iraq, Buckley confides in an interview,

. . . . what animated the conservative core for 40 years was the Soviet menace, plus the rise of dogmatic socialism. That's pretty well gone. . . .I think the prudent Reagan would have figured here, and the prudent Reagan would have shunned a commitment of the kind that we are now engaged in… I think he would have attempted to find some sort of assurance that any exposure by the United States would be exposure to a challenge the dimensions of which we could predict. . . . found a strongman to replace Saddam. . .

James O'Beirne is husband to National Review's Kate O'Beirne and was Rumsfeld's Pentagon personnel director who staffed Iraqi occupational authority based upon personal loyalty to Bush:

The civilized countries should invade all the oil-owning places in the Middle East and run them properly. We won't take the money ourselves, but we'll manage it so the money isn't going to terrorists.

Mark Steyn, author of America Alone bemoans a fact that Muslims are procreating faster than

European races . . . who are too self-absorbed to breed . . . large-scale evacuation operations circa 2015. . . Greater France remorselessly evolve[s] into Greater Bosnia.

Here endeth my weekly duty to the spirit of bipartisanship. I've done my best to provide fairness, balance and equal time.

Watchin' NASCAR. . .

Hi all my adoring fans in NASCar-Land.

I'm taking a moment from the last practice before Sunday's race to let you all know that I'm doing okay. I've been lying here on my bed of pain after falling and braking my hip with internal fractures a couple of weeks ago. Luckily, my surgeon was able to put it together again with a screw of some sort. (They say it was just strength of character and from heavy-duty drugs that pulled me through.)

Hey mark, don't let that son of a bitch do that to you again! Next him just knock him the hell out of the race.

Sorry, I've got distracted by an accident. Where was I?

Oh Yes, They say I will rise from my bed of pain, any day now, just in time to get back home to a new table set up for my computer, and catch up with all of you.

Hugs & Kisses

Appraising George Bush

Some people have said, in appraising George Bush, that he is a “nice guy”. Being a party clown does not qualify a person for membership in any intellectually motivated groups.

If he were a man with any moral capacity at all, he would drop to his knees before his God, take full responsibility for the dreadful hubris which has driven him to sacrifice so many human lives, and beg for forgiveness.

Victory through size and strength alone is hollow and meaningless.

Settlement through mutual acknowledgement of personal and national error and overeach is the only possible basis for peace. Each side deserves recognition without condescension of its values, needs, and rights.

Courage is exemplified by public acknowledgement of a true leader to those whom he has harmed, both his “enemies” and his adherents.

Endurance Test

How long can you watch this historical review?

Hope You're Healing, Little Bill!

Hope it won't hurt you too much to risk a chuckle!

Open Thread for Little Bill

I have bad news to share. Little Bill has fallen while on a dog walk yesterday. She's recovering and expects to be back soon. In the mean time she wishes that none of her readers forget to stop by and leave a comment once in a while. And she has three words she wanted me to leave you with:

Impeach the Beasts!

Stem Cell Research

When Bush gave his victory speech about why he chose to veto the stem cell reseach legislation again on the basis of his personal religious beliefs, he was surrounded, as usual, by adoring invited fans who clapped approvingly at his decision.

It might have been more balanced in this great Democracy of ours if he had included the loved ones of those who have died of diseases that stem cell research might have saved, and who, therefore, were not able to be present.

6/20/07

Beyond Hope

This is just about the best article I have ever read about environmentalism and activism. One of the most interesting and well-thought-out you will ever read. It should remind each and every one of us that we have responsibility.

Overpopulation Solutions as I See Them

Overpopulation Solutions as I See Them

It is both encouraging and alarming that there are so many letters and articles these days about overpopulation—encouraging because of growing awareness of the problem, and alarming to realize that it may already be too late, that human beings are breeding themselves to extinction and taking the rest of the world’s creatures with us.

War, hunger, illiteracy, disease, violence, mental illness, and hatred between groups and nations are not discrete problems. Overpopulation is the BIG problem. It is worldwide, and it is a web in which we are all enmeshed.

Let’s start with some irrefutable facts:

1. The earth is of unchanging size.
2. The earth’s resources are finite, and rapidly being depleted, especially by the developed and developing nations, the United States leading the pack.
3. Human beings, like all creatures, do not live forever. We die at different ages from different causes—some old, some young, some ill, some healthy—but we will all die.

Envision two cows in a corral with barely enough food to keep one alive. Obviously, one will die. Almost certainly both will eat some of the food, so both will die.

Some humans live in big corrals with plenty of food for the body, the mind, and the soul. But millions are living in tiny corrals with little or nothing to sustain them. And as the numbers of each increase, they draw ever closer to each other. Folks, it just ain’t gonna work.

There is only one possible solution. Humans will have to start dying faster than they are being born. Following are my suggestions for partial solutions, written for this nation, but imperative in some form for all:

1. In the future the number ofchildren per family should be limited to one for all those on public support and two for all others, irrespective of religious belief or personal wealth, and it should be strictly enforced. Birth contnrol should range all the way from abstinence to abortion and sterilization. The method should be the prerogative of the woman, and it should be fully funded by the government for those who cannot afford it.

2. The Hippocratic Oath (first do no harm) should be rethought, both for the benefit of the people involved and for their caregivers. The evolution of scientific knowledge with regard to prolonging life can frequently result in more harm than good.

3. Babies born with no chance for any quality of life should be allowed to die mercifully at birth, at the request of their parents, and with their consent.

4. All adults should be made aware of and sign a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care (or similar legal document) stating how they should be cared for in case of catastrophic injury or illness. In the case of children, or adults who have left no instructions and are beyond the ability to do so, their families or their surrogates should be allowed to make the decision for them, rather than having them drag on forever unable to make the decision for themselves.

5. Suicide should be relieved of its stigma, and the humane means of accomplishing it made available to those who want to choose that course for any reason, physical, mental, or emotional.

And then, of course, there is the final solution, of unending war, pestilence, starvation, and violence of every sort, marching over the face of the earth as I write—the option-of-choice of the compassionate religious right.

6/16/07

Laughter is the Best Medicine, Sicko!

For many of us, it's the only medicine!

Click on the above item and you'll see the trailer; afterwards, you'll see more options at the bottom of the frame!

Good night, good luck and good health to you! Otherwise. . . .

Sandy Claws

T'was six in the morning and I was in bed,
When I heard a commotion that filled me with dread.

There came the growl of a cat, which my cats never do,
So I rushed to the bathroom to see what was new.

In the tub the black cats whirled like water in a sink,
Or skateboarders racing in a skateboard rink.

And what to my half- awake horrified eyes should appear
In the tub in my house with my cats was a mouse, poor dear.

First I grabbed Mercury, threw her out, slammed the door
Then back for LittleBill to finish the chore.

He couldn't believe it was something I?d do,
So he wrapped around my hand and started to chew.

I finally got him out, went back to the tub,
Where the little mouse was OK, not even a rub

I rushed to the storeroom for the have-a-heart trap,
Which he thankfully entered. It was a snap.

To the backyard I took him and set him free.
My blood is cleaned up, so don?t worry about me.

So it's sweet dreams for me when I go to bed.

One more little creature still alive, not dead.

6/11/07ARW

The Bard on the Bush

All's Well
That Ends
Well?

"Thou art a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality."

All's well that ends well? Sort of
begs the question, in my opinion.

We are living out a tragedy,
not a comedy.

Beauty, Grace, and Sheer Joy

Turn up your
speakers and
click on this!
 
 
 

Second Grade Patriotism

That’s alright, Mr. President, happy we could help. Just give us a call anytime. You’ll
probably need more troops in Iraq, and of course, Iran is coming up soon.

We learned all about patriotism in the second grade, when we learned to recite the pledge of allegiance and didn’t even know what the words meant. And we’ve remembered it just that way all these years. Those of us who, like Vice President Cheney, haven’t enlisted because we had more important things to do, will think about our troops and pray for them often during this sacred Memorial Day weekend while we are watching the games and NASCAR. (Just between the two of us, some of us even have tickets. I hope you were lucky enough to get one.)

That’s all right, Mr. President, any time. Just give us a call. And have a nice day.

5/23/07

The Thanks I Get

I have spent the entire morning, bent like a cashew, working at my computer. At one point, my cat Loudy jumped on my work table and spoke to me nose to nose. I was too busy to pay attention to him, so he finally gave up and jumped down.

When I finally turned to the work table, I discovered that he had peed on everything, today’s Chronicle, a number of articles I planned to address, including several especially great Jon Carrolls I was going to copy and mail to friends. They are all out in the back yard as I speak, plastered by a fairly strong breeze--against fences I hope.

Loudy must have really been mad at me, because there was quite a sizable lake to clean up as well. If you sense a vague smell of cat pee on your computer, blame him, not me.

(Note: By coincidence, I mentioned cat pee in an email to a friend the other day, saying that when I couldn’t smell it in my home anymore, I wouldn’t want to live here. That will give you some idea of my lifestyle at the age of 84.)

5/23/07

Jerry Falwell'sLegacy

There as a very fine article on the power that Falwell accrued to himself and his Moral Majority and the harm that he has done to the separation of powers and freedom in general in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution written by Cynthia Tucker on 5/20/07, titled Falwell Was GOP’s Prophet of Intolerance. Go to ajc.com/opinion for the article. Falwell’s influence, unfortunately, like Bush’s, will be felt for a long time. Remember how hard it used to be to believe Americans used to burn “witches” at the stake?

5/22/07

And Another Thing--About Immigration

And Another Thing—About Immigration

What is all this crap about Mexicans bringing down wages in this country? Employees don’t bring down wages--employers do. It stands to reason that Mexicans are not saying, “Oh, please don’t pay me a living wage! Pay me less.” It is the venality of the employers which forces them to pay less in wages. Likewise, American consumers are delighted to pay less for what Mexicans produce, even if that means the Mexicans who produced it can barely eke out a living.

And the news today is that American farmers are unable to find workers as a result of the crackdown on immigration, legal or not. The result is, not that Americans are flooding into the fields to take these newly available jobs, but that no one is there to work for slave wages, so now the fruit and vegetables are rotting in the fields. Oh, my heart bleeds for the suffering of our generous American people!

5/23/07

Caving to the Cave Man

As I understand it, both Houses of Congress have agreed to knuckle under, at least for now, to Bush’s demand that there be no benchmarks on withdrawing from Iraq, and they will continue to support our troops. Polite language dictates that I should express my disappointment. But that just doesn’t cut it. I am goddam mad, especially at the Democrats who voted for it.

This doesn’t really support our troops, it just keeps them in harm’s way, susceptible to death and dismemberment for a longer time. And the cause is not really “freedom and democracy” for the people of the Middle East. It is personal victory of a very little man with an enormous ego. Rather than exercising control as a co-equal branch of government over a man running out of control, this just validates his illegal and immoral war against another nation. Because we followed him into the war to begin with, regardless of the Great Lie, we as a nation do not have a right to win this war any more than he has.

As a result of this decision, many more human beings will perish, most of them innocents, and hatred for this man and this country will continue to grow, both abroad and here at home. Why didn’t the Congressmen and women who disagreed with him as the sole Decider force him to take full responsibility for his decision?

Bolstered by this victory, Bush’s ego can only grow larger, and his support by those who are easily susceptible to propaganda, as well as those who stand to profit by his success, will also find reason to continue their support. Running for, or seizing further time as Head of State beyond January, 2009 has assuredly crossed his mind.

The Democrats had a chance to save this godforsaken land, and they crapped it up.

5/22/07

It's Not Easy to Tell the Heroes from the Zeroes

You Would Never Have Guessed

Captain Kangaroo passed away on January 23, 2004 as age 76 , which is odd, because he always looked to be 76. (DOB: 6/27/27 ) His death reminded me of the following story.

Some people have been a bit offended that the actor, Lee Marvin, is buried in a grave alongside 3- and 4-star generals at Arlington National Cemetery . His marker gives his name, rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else. Here's a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time, why the heck does he rate burial with these guys? Well, following is the amazing answer:

I always liked Lee Marvin, but didn't know the extent of his Corps experiences.

In a time when many Hollywood stars served their country in the armed forces often in rear echelon posts where they were carefully protected, only to be trotted out to perform for the cameras in war bond promotions, Lee Marvin was a genuine hero. He won the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima . There is only one higher Naval award... the Medal Of Honor!

If that is a surprising comment on the true character of the man, he credits his sergeant with an even greater show of bravery.

Dialog from "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson": His guest was Lee Marvin Johnny said, "Lee, I'll bet a lot of people are unaware that you were a Marine in the initial landing at Iwo Jima ...and that during the course of that action you earned the Navy Cross and w! ere seve rely wounded."

"Yeah, yeah... I got shot square in the bottom and they gave me the Cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Suribachi. Bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys getting' shot hauling you down. But,Johnny, at Iwo I served under the bravest man I ever knew... We both got the Cross the same day, but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison. That dumb guy actually stood up on Red beach and directed his troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach. Bullets flying by, with mortar rounds landing everywhere and he stood there as the main target of gunfire so that he could get his men to safety. He did this on more than one occasion because his men's safety was more important than his own life.

That Sergeant and I have been lifelong friends. When they brought me off Suribachi we passed the Sergeant and he lit a smoke and passed it to me, lying on my belly on the litter and said, "Where'd they get you Lee?" "Well Bob... if you make it home before me, tell Mom to sell the outhouse!"

Johnny, I'm not lying, Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I ever knew. The Sergeant's name is Bob Keeshan. You and the world know him as Captain Kangaroo."

On another note, there was this wimpy little man (who just passed away) on PBS, gentle and quiet. Mr. Rogers is another of those you would least suspect of being anything but what he now portrays to our youth. But Mr. Rogers was a U.S. Navy Seal, combat-proven in Vietnam with over twenty-five confirmed kills to his name. He wore a long-sleeved sweater on TV, to cover the many tattoos on his forearm and biceps. He was a master in small arms and hand-to-hand combat, able to disarm or kill in a heartbeat

After the war Mr. Rogers became an ordained Presbyterian minister and therefore a pacifist. Vowing to never harm another human and also dedicating the rest of his life to trying to help lead children on the right path in life. He hid away the tattoos and his past life and won our hearts with his quiet wit and charm.

America's real heroes don't flaunt what they did; they quietly go about their day-to-day lives, doing what they do best. They earned our respect and the freedoms that we all enjoy. Look around and see if you can find one of those heroes in your midst. Often, they are the ones you'd least suspect, but would most like to have on your side if anything ever happened.

Take the time to thank anyone that has fought for our freedom. With encouragement they could be the next Captain Kangaroo or Mr.Rogers

Send this on, will you please? Nothing will happens to you if you don't, but you will be telling others what a HERO is made of.