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 10 Oct 2004 @ 12:11
Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.
---Cyril Connolly
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
---Robert Green Ingersoll
Clear stream, meanders by this hamlet, flowing.
Long summer days, at River Village, everything at ease.
Coming, going, as they please, the pairs of swallows soaring.
Paired and close, the gulls float with the stream.
My old wife draws a board for chess.
My son bends pins for fishhooks.
I'm often sick, but I can find good herbs.
What, beyond this, could a simple man ask?
---Tu Fu
This morning I find myself trying to catch up with a new documentary entitled Unconstitutional: The War On Our Civil Liberties. We watched it last evening. It's produced by Robert Greenwald, who also brought us Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, Uncovered: The War On Iraq, and more recently Outfoxed, an in-depth look at the Fox News channel. All of these films were released directly to the public by online and mail order purchase on VHS and DVD, with only secondary emphasis on theater distribution. You may recall that Outfoxed was premiered at thousands of house parties across the States, which anyone could host or attend just by contacting MoveOn.org. When you buy one of them online, it arrives in only a few days. [link] We had ordered Unconstitutional about a month ago, but it sat on our to-watch table in front of the TV until last night. Stupid us, we've been too "busy."
Yes stupid, because chronicled in that film is a lethal erosion of the basic freedoms we take for granted in our country. It's an erosion in the form of a piece of legislation named the USA Patriot Act, which you may recall President Bush mentioned in the 2nd debate the other night. He urged its strengthening and expansion. The Patriot Act was printed at 3:45 AM the morning Congress passed it. You probably saw Michael Moore, in Fahrenheit 9/11, driving around the Capitol in an ice cream truck, reading the act aloud for congresspeople who voted for it without reading. The legislation that was printed in the dead of night was not what came out of committee, but rather a form of the bill which Ashcroft wanted that had been amended by Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the government over the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, even as the Justice Department declares classified the very evidence the ACLU is demanding. [link] More >
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 6 Sep 2004 @ 11:03
My photo shows Parkersburg High School and us demonstrators at the distance we were kept by police lines, complete with police dogs, Secret Service and SWAT teams. You can see the lights of the football stadium, which obviously is further away still. The other sides of the school and stadium were lined with a fleet of schoolbuses parked bumper to bumper.
Fall River's many white apes
hurry like flying snow
haul their children over the branches
lap at the moon in the water
---Li-Po
Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of all creation---mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity---and enjoy the falling blossoms and scattering leaves.
---Basho
As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, a man bears a poem, either spoken or done.
---Henry David Thoreau
Parkersburg, West Virginia, is a sleepy town on the Ohio River an hour or so north of Charleston, the state's capitol. The Wood County Seat, for many years it's had a shopping mall that attracts consumers from miles around...including our town which is an hour west. There also are a number of curious federal centers in Parkersburg, chiefly the Bureau of Public Debt---here at a location conveniently out of sight of Washington policymakers. The Parkersburg High School has a football stadium attached which can hold about 9000 people, a graduate told me. What happens to a town like this if the President of the United States decides to stop by on the campaign trail? More >
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 20 May 2004 @ 09:33
Clouds come from time to time---
and bring a chance to rest
from looking at the moon.
---Basho
True words always seem paradoxical but no other form of teaching can take their place.
---Lao-Tzu
Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.
---E.M. Forster
There were 2 photographs that ended the United States involvement in the Viet Nam Civil War. One was of a Vietnamese citizen an instant before his execution by an officer of the army of his country. The other was of a child---a naked little girl running down a road crying. More >
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 5 Apr 2004 @ 03:28
An intense love of solitude, distaste for involvement in worldly affairs, persistence in knowing the Self and awareness of the goal of knowing---all this is called true knowledge.
---The Bhagavad Gita
In the blue heavens,
cold geese calling.
On the empty hills,
leaves flying.
---Ryokan
Again the blackbirds sing; the streams
Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,
And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple flowers.
---John Greenleaf Whittier
Dancing to the Big Band sound at the Penn State Senior Ball of 1936
I have reason to believe and report to you that the disappearance of the art form and social occasion known as the dance band now is complete. It has been the duty of my generation in America to preside over this evolution, and I have embraced it lovingly hoping hard and often I would not witness extinction. The final struggle took 50 years, which is not long in social or species history---but of course nearly a lifetime for this man. I have evidence, however, it has breathed its last.
There was a simple notice in the Events Calendar in Thursday's The Athens News that the Ohio University Jazz Ensemble would perform for dancing at the Athens Community Center on Saturday night. The band is made up of around 15 students playing the traditional instrumentation of this music (3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 5 saxes, 4 rhythm) and I was unaware they had developed a dance repertoire. In most parts of this nation, an opportunity to invite your partner to an actual dance in a ballroom is so rare that I jumped at the chance. I marveled at the wisdom of a teacher/leader to attempt to teach this tradition to a new generation of young people. When we got there, a table was set up at the door and they wanted $25 to get in---but "String Of Pearls" was playing inside, so I plunked down the cash and we walked through the door. More >
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 17 Mar 2004 @ 18:42
The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.
---Chuang-Tzu
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one,
to give birth to a dancing star.
---Friedrich Nietzsche
The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning.
Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
---Erich Fromm
Sir John Everett Millais (British, 1829-1896)
The Picture of Health
Dear Friends,
This afternoon my doctor reviewed with me the analyses of 2 groups of experts regarding the samples sent them. He has decided a diagnosis of prostate cancer is appropriate for me. Yes if it is there, it is a little teeny spot...but with this disease drastic measures are necessary. He offers two options for me. One is surgery...and it is all or nothing. That is, the whole gland would be removed. The other is radiation, and there are a couple different forms of that procedure. Both options are major and involve a good deal of time for preparation and recovery. Essentially I'm still in the state of trying to accept the situation. But I need to make a decision as well, and thankfully there are wife, friends and family to help. I'll not write a great amount about all this I think, but I have been interested to let you know what was happening in the event things get serious. If I tend not to write or communicate as much, or to live up to expectations and responsibilities for a while, please understand. Thank you for your continued concern.
Love,
Richard More >
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