Reverse Osmosis
Along the beach in the early morning
while you walked among the currents
An examination was undertaken
of the ordinary
of colored misshapen stones
The path you made entangled
the definition of time
While an oozing grain swallowed up
each indiscriminate step
of gathered and spurred thoughts
What ever remains of solace
dripping from innocence
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Richard Larsen, deputy opinion page editor for the Ventura County Star, had this to say about the internet and its effects on our pro-active/apathetic ventures regarding public involvement for and against the war in Iraq:
"A friend, a few decades younger than I, recently professed a sort of envy that I had lived in interesting times. She referred, of course, to the '60s, that era when possibilities seemed endless and schisms threatened every aspect of society.
I don't think my friend was expressing a wish that things would be more interesting now if we could re-experience the '60s, but I understood what she meant: The times today, though no less interesting, seem less intense. We have the Internet to be grateful or to blame for that.
In the '60s, debate over issues became passionate public roars that echoed across college campuses and street corners and parks. Sometimes, the heated words of debate turned into bloody confrontations.
Today, more debate over issues occurs in online forums, chat rooms and weblogs than in public. It is immediate, nationwide and as intense as the debate in the '60s, especially in connection with the overriding issue of each time: the Vietnam War then, the war in Iraq now.
But, by occurring online, much of the passion people express about the Iraq war does not reverberate with the same urgency and intensity as passions did over the Vietnam War. And that passion needs to surface more openly because the times today are more than interesting, they are deadly serious in the same way the times were when the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed more than a remote possibility.
In 1947, the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists debuted its Doomsday Clock to show how close the world was to nuclear war, midnight being zero hour.
When the clock first appeared, it stood at seven minutes to midnight. It came its closest to midnight, two minutes, in 1953 when, within a span of nine months, thermonuclear devices were tested by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was furthest from midnight, 17 minutes, in 1991. That's when the long-stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed.
Today, the clock is set at seven minutes to midnight and has been there since Feb. 27, 2002, when it was moved closer for reasons that included too little progress on global nuclear disarmament had been made, nuclear weapons materials worldwide were less secure and the United States continued to prefer unilateral action rather than cooperation through international diplomacy. (You can find all the reasons for the time change at http://www.thebulletin.org/media/current.html.)
A song by the Fugs, an irreverent '60s band, always reminded me of the Doomsday Clock. It begins, "Four minutes to 12 and there's a madman at the wheel."
That's always been the fear, that a madman at the wheel will take us on a journey from which there is no return. We don't have a madman at the wheel, but the more we learn about the Bush administration's march to war against Iraq, the more it becomes clear that fanatics are driving our government.
Fanatics do not see the errors of their way. They refuse to adjust plans that do not go as they intended. They steer their course blindly and let neither facts nor reason sway them.
We have begun to see the depth of this fanaticism in information being gleaned by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the 9/11 commission. We have begun to see how fanatical these leaders are from the books "Against all Enemies," by Richard A. Clarke, former national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counterterrorism; and "The Price of Loyalty," for which former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was the main source.
These, of course, have been dismissed as partisan attacks against the president or as the rantings of disgruntled former employees. What can't be dismissed is that the facts, characterizations and observations are of a piece, pointing to a White House of zealots obsessed from Day One with going after Saddam Hussein.
The release Monday of Washington Post reporter and editor Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" gives us a more detailed and more authoritative view of how President Bush and his key advisers, by their own accounts, turned the war on terror not merely into the war on Iraq, but possibly as a mission driven by a higher authority.
There isn't much people can do much when a madman has the wheel except go along for the ride and hope for the best, as the Iraqis did under Saddam, the Russians did under Joseph Stalin and the Germans did under Adolf Hitler. But we can do something about the fanatics who have come to power. We can vote them out of office and deny them any chance to turn their fanaticism into madness." -Richard Larsen-
The "feel" of today's anti-war movement isn't as fevrent or passionate as I remember the anti-war movement swirling around the Vietnam fiasco. Perhaps I long for the connection of a cause that gripped so many of my generation, eventually rousing us into a collective rage that was finally heard, ending another great tragedy of human kind. Seems that we're on the verge, (or maybe way past the edge), of the next example of human stupidity manifest as resident evil. It might be time to take my voice to the streets, the malls, the soccer fields, the corporate offices, the coffee shops and car dealerships, and start the next revolution of reason and compassion. If the giant mustard plant grows from a single seed the size of a pin head, why can't I start something fine and great by the strength of my will and conviction??? The answer is that I can, we all can, the answer is in the doing...
There are massive "dead zones" in the Earth's oceans as reported by a committee of scientists concerning the health of planet earth. Do you know what happens when the oceans gasp their last breath...We do too. The time is now, because soon we won't be able to live behind the protective curtain of 'out of sight, out of mind' anymore. As gloomy as this all sounds, there is a bright side to all of this. When things are at their very worst, we humans often are at our best! It is never too late to become what we're meant to be...
"A friend, a few decades younger than I, recently professed a sort of envy that I had lived in interesting times. She referred, of course, to the '60s, that era when possibilities seemed endless and schisms threatened every aspect of society.
I don't think my friend was expressing a wish that things would be more interesting now if we could re-experience the '60s, but I understood what she meant: The times today, though no less interesting, seem less intense. We have the Internet to be grateful or to blame for that.
In the '60s, debate over issues became passionate public roars that echoed across college campuses and street corners and parks. Sometimes, the heated words of debate turned into bloody confrontations.
Today, more debate over issues occurs in online forums, chat rooms and weblogs than in public. It is immediate, nationwide and as intense as the debate in the '60s, especially in connection with the overriding issue of each time: the Vietnam War then, the war in Iraq now.
But, by occurring online, much of the passion people express about the Iraq war does not reverberate with the same urgency and intensity as passions did over the Vietnam War. And that passion needs to surface more openly because the times today are more than interesting, they are deadly serious in the same way the times were when the threat of nuclear annihilation seemed more than a remote possibility.
In 1947, the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists debuted its Doomsday Clock to show how close the world was to nuclear war, midnight being zero hour.
When the clock first appeared, it stood at seven minutes to midnight. It came its closest to midnight, two minutes, in 1953 when, within a span of nine months, thermonuclear devices were tested by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was furthest from midnight, 17 minutes, in 1991. That's when the long-stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed.
Today, the clock is set at seven minutes to midnight and has been there since Feb. 27, 2002, when it was moved closer for reasons that included too little progress on global nuclear disarmament had been made, nuclear weapons materials worldwide were less secure and the United States continued to prefer unilateral action rather than cooperation through international diplomacy. (You can find all the reasons for the time change at http://www.thebulletin.org/media/current.html.)
A song by the Fugs, an irreverent '60s band, always reminded me of the Doomsday Clock. It begins, "Four minutes to 12 and there's a madman at the wheel."
That's always been the fear, that a madman at the wheel will take us on a journey from which there is no return. We don't have a madman at the wheel, but the more we learn about the Bush administration's march to war against Iraq, the more it becomes clear that fanatics are driving our government.
Fanatics do not see the errors of their way. They refuse to adjust plans that do not go as they intended. They steer their course blindly and let neither facts nor reason sway them.
We have begun to see the depth of this fanaticism in information being gleaned by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the 9/11 commission. We have begun to see how fanatical these leaders are from the books "Against all Enemies," by Richard A. Clarke, former national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counterterrorism; and "The Price of Loyalty," for which former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was the main source.
These, of course, have been dismissed as partisan attacks against the president or as the rantings of disgruntled former employees. What can't be dismissed is that the facts, characterizations and observations are of a piece, pointing to a White House of zealots obsessed from Day One with going after Saddam Hussein.
The release Monday of Washington Post reporter and editor Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack" gives us a more detailed and more authoritative view of how President Bush and his key advisers, by their own accounts, turned the war on terror not merely into the war on Iraq, but possibly as a mission driven by a higher authority.
There isn't much people can do much when a madman has the wheel except go along for the ride and hope for the best, as the Iraqis did under Saddam, the Russians did under Joseph Stalin and the Germans did under Adolf Hitler. But we can do something about the fanatics who have come to power. We can vote them out of office and deny them any chance to turn their fanaticism into madness." -Richard Larsen-
The "feel" of today's anti-war movement isn't as fevrent or passionate as I remember the anti-war movement swirling around the Vietnam fiasco. Perhaps I long for the connection of a cause that gripped so many of my generation, eventually rousing us into a collective rage that was finally heard, ending another great tragedy of human kind. Seems that we're on the verge, (or maybe way past the edge), of the next example of human stupidity manifest as resident evil. It might be time to take my voice to the streets, the malls, the soccer fields, the corporate offices, the coffee shops and car dealerships, and start the next revolution of reason and compassion. If the giant mustard plant grows from a single seed the size of a pin head, why can't I start something fine and great by the strength of my will and conviction??? The answer is that I can, we all can, the answer is in the doing...
There are massive "dead zones" in the Earth's oceans as reported by a committee of scientists concerning the health of planet earth. Do you know what happens when the oceans gasp their last breath...We do too. The time is now, because soon we won't be able to live behind the protective curtain of 'out of sight, out of mind' anymore. As gloomy as this all sounds, there is a bright side to all of this. When things are at their very worst, we humans often are at our best! It is never too late to become what we're meant to be...
Thursday, April 15, 2004
The following is a quote from the book WHY WE RUN, by Bernd Heinrich. He had asked his father, a German who had fought in two world wars for Germany, whether or not he should enlist and fight for his country, the USA, during the Vietnam War:
"America is an experiment," he said, and after a long pause continued, "where the driving force is individuals chasing money. I would not risk my bones for a society guided by this principal."
Regardless of how this opinion makes one feel, there does seem to be some truth to it, and in light of the current world condition, perhaps more than a little of the calamity can be traced to the mechanisms that drive this country. Sometimes an outsider's opinion can slow you down just enough to see things that have been right there in front of you, but that had been hidden behind the cultural shrouds of one's origins. We are what we are...but then again maybe we are so much more...
"To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish."
-Yiddish proverb-
"America is an experiment," he said, and after a long pause continued, "where the driving force is individuals chasing money. I would not risk my bones for a society guided by this principal."
Regardless of how this opinion makes one feel, there does seem to be some truth to it, and in light of the current world condition, perhaps more than a little of the calamity can be traced to the mechanisms that drive this country. Sometimes an outsider's opinion can slow you down just enough to see things that have been right there in front of you, but that had been hidden behind the cultural shrouds of one's origins. We are what we are...but then again maybe we are so much more...
"To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish."
-Yiddish proverb-
Monday, April 12, 2004
The following reader's opinion appeared in today's Ventura County Star. It speaks my own mind quite succinctly:
"I found myself deeply offended by something I recently saw in The Star.
No, not the picture of the brutal deaths of U.S. citizen/soldiers in Iraq at the hands of the liberated Iraqis, but by letters complaining about the picture being printed. Apparently, our sensitive citizens can only take their reality from oversimplified reality TV.
This collective wish to hide or pretend there are no real costs -- continued horrific, brutal costs in lives and blood and treasure with no end in sight to the war to liberate Iraq -- has costs of its own.
God forbid children get a glimpse of the horrors of this unnecessary war of choice to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Better we all conspire along with our perpetually campaigning or vacationing war president to hide the truth, hide the coffins that arrive in a steady stream to Dover AFB, hide the thousands of permanently scarred GIs, hide the cost of tax cuts and loss of civil rights this president has imposed upon us and our grandchildren.
For Americans to get the sense that this war of choice -- foisted upon us by lies and exaggerations -- is not worth it, would be to risk his defeat for re-election, and end Bush's annual $300 tax-cut bribes for our votes".
-- Tom Kaiser, Hueneme
"War of choice", (whose choice?), is what we are engaging in, not a war of necessity or self-preservation, and the cost we are paying and being asked to continue to pay indefinitely is disproportionately high, i.e., the means certainly does not justify the end result. Do we run the risk of Iraq becoming a modern era Vietnam??? Wake up people, it already has!!! George W. and his cronies believe they can hold our will hostage with simplistic reasoning and superficial justification thinly veiled over the reciprocal of democracy and justice. There was NO connection between Al-Qaida and Iraq until our government created one by lies and subsequent military action, but now Al-Qaida may be the very least of our worries as an entire region/culture/religion looks to end our reign at the top.
Could 9/11 have been prevented? Probably not. Did this government over-react? Spectacularly, and any connection used to convince us that our current foreign policy is "justified" can be easily debuked with very little effort and truth-seeking. Yet it seems that all George has to do is evoke some substance-free moronic excuse in that home-spun Texas drawl of his, and legions of normally intelligent adults in this country settle down and fall in line, ready to send their sons and daughters squarely into harm's way in pursuit of nation building and continued corporate dominance of our society. What the fuck America! We have allowed our country to become the very opposite of what the Founding Fathers envisioned, and the affluent masses seem either okay with this, or merely too apathetic to enter into the realm of thinking for one's self. Ultimately this dynamic, apathy and the subsequent kaos it brings about, has caused the unraveling of ALL great societies. A little historical research will bring this frighteningly into view for anyone brave enough to look into the past and thereby gain new perspective on the present.
If each and every individual would simply take the time to carefully and thoughtfully consider what we are being fed, daily and relentlessly, and then interject what we are probably living on planet Earth to learn, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", you'll see that the math in the current equation doesn't work. Once the pursuit of truth is undertaken it's up to the individual to choose how to continue on, either in ignorance and oblivion, or fighting the good fight. Iraq wasn't, isn't and will never be a good fight, and the only way the madness will start to get better is via the individual. We all have the power to change the way of things, but it may take a great deal of courage and commitment to face up to a government run amok and bent on eroding our civil liberties and freedoms through a daily barrage of fear and corporate coercion that runs contrary to the original ideals this country was founded upon. Wake up and smell the coffee, but you may want to ask for a refill from someone other than George W.
"The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves". -Plato-
"I found myself deeply offended by something I recently saw in The Star.
No, not the picture of the brutal deaths of U.S. citizen/soldiers in Iraq at the hands of the liberated Iraqis, but by letters complaining about the picture being printed. Apparently, our sensitive citizens can only take their reality from oversimplified reality TV.
This collective wish to hide or pretend there are no real costs -- continued horrific, brutal costs in lives and blood and treasure with no end in sight to the war to liberate Iraq -- has costs of its own.
God forbid children get a glimpse of the horrors of this unnecessary war of choice to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Better we all conspire along with our perpetually campaigning or vacationing war president to hide the truth, hide the coffins that arrive in a steady stream to Dover AFB, hide the thousands of permanently scarred GIs, hide the cost of tax cuts and loss of civil rights this president has imposed upon us and our grandchildren.
For Americans to get the sense that this war of choice -- foisted upon us by lies and exaggerations -- is not worth it, would be to risk his defeat for re-election, and end Bush's annual $300 tax-cut bribes for our votes".
-- Tom Kaiser, Hueneme
"War of choice", (whose choice?), is what we are engaging in, not a war of necessity or self-preservation, and the cost we are paying and being asked to continue to pay indefinitely is disproportionately high, i.e., the means certainly does not justify the end result. Do we run the risk of Iraq becoming a modern era Vietnam??? Wake up people, it already has!!! George W. and his cronies believe they can hold our will hostage with simplistic reasoning and superficial justification thinly veiled over the reciprocal of democracy and justice. There was NO connection between Al-Qaida and Iraq until our government created one by lies and subsequent military action, but now Al-Qaida may be the very least of our worries as an entire region/culture/religion looks to end our reign at the top.
Could 9/11 have been prevented? Probably not. Did this government over-react? Spectacularly, and any connection used to convince us that our current foreign policy is "justified" can be easily debuked with very little effort and truth-seeking. Yet it seems that all George has to do is evoke some substance-free moronic excuse in that home-spun Texas drawl of his, and legions of normally intelligent adults in this country settle down and fall in line, ready to send their sons and daughters squarely into harm's way in pursuit of nation building and continued corporate dominance of our society. What the fuck America! We have allowed our country to become the very opposite of what the Founding Fathers envisioned, and the affluent masses seem either okay with this, or merely too apathetic to enter into the realm of thinking for one's self. Ultimately this dynamic, apathy and the subsequent kaos it brings about, has caused the unraveling of ALL great societies. A little historical research will bring this frighteningly into view for anyone brave enough to look into the past and thereby gain new perspective on the present.
If each and every individual would simply take the time to carefully and thoughtfully consider what we are being fed, daily and relentlessly, and then interject what we are probably living on planet Earth to learn, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", you'll see that the math in the current equation doesn't work. Once the pursuit of truth is undertaken it's up to the individual to choose how to continue on, either in ignorance and oblivion, or fighting the good fight. Iraq wasn't, isn't and will never be a good fight, and the only way the madness will start to get better is via the individual. We all have the power to change the way of things, but it may take a great deal of courage and commitment to face up to a government run amok and bent on eroding our civil liberties and freedoms through a daily barrage of fear and corporate coercion that runs contrary to the original ideals this country was founded upon. Wake up and smell the coffee, but you may want to ask for a refill from someone other than George W.
"The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves". -Plato-
Thursday, April 08, 2004
Saturday, April 03, 2004
The bodies of 4 Americans; mutilated, burnt, drug through the streets in a foreign land, and finally hung from a bridge for public viewing and ridicule. Along this journey the bodies where abused in spectacularly violent fashion, sometimes by children. Some segments of the media chose to show images of this carnage to their subscribers/viewers. Hard to look at, but maybe harder not to peek at, our curiosity tugging at our sleeve. Are we asking ourselves where such anger towards us begins?
In so many parts of the world, carnage such as this has become part of the landscape, no more escapable than the "daily commute" is in this country. To the people in Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan, (I could go on and on and on), scenes such as this, to varying degrees, are "acceptable" simply because the people are powerless to escape viewing them or living in an area where daily violence is part of the environment. Those of us fortunate enough to live in America are insulated from this for the most part, with only the occasional image of "hell on Earth" slipping under the radar. And because most of this happens so far away from us physically and emotionally, we may react with horror and abhorance initially, but then we recede back into our life of the 40 hour work week and the "six dollar burger". For the most part, we Americans remain unmoved at a deep level, at least at a deep enough level that would call upon us to attempt any real change.
If the media was bold enough to bring the reality squarely into our homes, with graphic images of how it really is, of the magnitude of death and destruction occurring in so many places outside of the USA, would it affect us collectively and to such a level that we would awaken from our slumber of ignorance and actually do something to effect a true and lasting change? Maybe we need to be sickened to the point of action for a change. I don't want to see violence and its devastation on my doorstep everyday, but I also don't want my head to be buried in the sand forever. Perhaps we can honor the dead much better by not allowing our gaze to be deflected elsewhere, by sharing their terrors and departure from this reality with 20/20 vision. Maybe this would rattle our cages in a way they need to be rattled. Not looking doesn't do anything to resolve the central issue of human beings doing despicable things to other human beings. Choosing not to look may make us feel safe and better about our own lives, but "out of sight, out of mind" does nothing to move the human race forward, and ultimately it may bring about the demise of us all.
Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I think I know who you may be, and thanks for your musical quotes via the comments section last posting. It's amazing how there seems to be a song or stanza from a song for every emotion or thought encountered by humans. Music to me is passion manifested and served up on a plate to be feasted upon again and again. Food for the soul, music can soothe the savage beast, inspire the down trodden, make one smile as memories flood the mind, and sometimes make one think of something greater and grander than all this, perhaps a glimpse of the divine. What is it about a series of sounds, strung together in a certain way and interwoven with words that by themselves mean little, but coupled with music create mood and magic? Musicians are portals to the infinite for the rest of us I think, more so than an artist who chooses the canvas or a poet who pilots a pen. Music conquers so many senses all at the same time that it can easily overwhelm. Imagine a world without music...impossible for me to conceive of a vision of that place.
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together".
-Eugene Ionesco-
"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me". -Simone de Beauvoir-
In so many parts of the world, carnage such as this has become part of the landscape, no more escapable than the "daily commute" is in this country. To the people in Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan, (I could go on and on and on), scenes such as this, to varying degrees, are "acceptable" simply because the people are powerless to escape viewing them or living in an area where daily violence is part of the environment. Those of us fortunate enough to live in America are insulated from this for the most part, with only the occasional image of "hell on Earth" slipping under the radar. And because most of this happens so far away from us physically and emotionally, we may react with horror and abhorance initially, but then we recede back into our life of the 40 hour work week and the "six dollar burger". For the most part, we Americans remain unmoved at a deep level, at least at a deep enough level that would call upon us to attempt any real change.
If the media was bold enough to bring the reality squarely into our homes, with graphic images of how it really is, of the magnitude of death and destruction occurring in so many places outside of the USA, would it affect us collectively and to such a level that we would awaken from our slumber of ignorance and actually do something to effect a true and lasting change? Maybe we need to be sickened to the point of action for a change. I don't want to see violence and its devastation on my doorstep everyday, but I also don't want my head to be buried in the sand forever. Perhaps we can honor the dead much better by not allowing our gaze to be deflected elsewhere, by sharing their terrors and departure from this reality with 20/20 vision. Maybe this would rattle our cages in a way they need to be rattled. Not looking doesn't do anything to resolve the central issue of human beings doing despicable things to other human beings. Choosing not to look may make us feel safe and better about our own lives, but "out of sight, out of mind" does nothing to move the human race forward, and ultimately it may bring about the demise of us all.
Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I think I know who you may be, and thanks for your musical quotes via the comments section last posting. It's amazing how there seems to be a song or stanza from a song for every emotion or thought encountered by humans. Music to me is passion manifested and served up on a plate to be feasted upon again and again. Food for the soul, music can soothe the savage beast, inspire the down trodden, make one smile as memories flood the mind, and sometimes make one think of something greater and grander than all this, perhaps a glimpse of the divine. What is it about a series of sounds, strung together in a certain way and interwoven with words that by themselves mean little, but coupled with music create mood and magic? Musicians are portals to the infinite for the rest of us I think, more so than an artist who chooses the canvas or a poet who pilots a pen. Music conquers so many senses all at the same time that it can easily overwhelm. Imagine a world without music...impossible for me to conceive of a vision of that place.
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together".
-Eugene Ionesco-
"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me". -Simone de Beauvoir-
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