This was sent to a mail list from Samcvt on 09/06/08
There are dozens of folks on this list who spent precious and painful time near the pile at the World Trade Center as volunteers assigned to the "Big White Tent (BWT)" working with colleagues and for those moving the pile onto trucks to be hauled away to still more piles. Other volunteers worked with the brutality of raking and seeking some portion and identifying personal property of those whose lives disappeared as the World Trade Center collapsed. Still others were assigned to the Disaster Morgue, shelters, the Mayor's office, Disaster Service Headquarters, and to be available for family members, colleagues and friends of those who died that day.
Some of us were assigned as administration, health care, operations, public relations and logistics managers, and service managers. Others were assigned as disaster service instructors to the operations management center, New Jersey and Philadelphia for the American Red Cross and some of us were assigned to and worked as either direct service providers, managers and supervisors at the various sites throughout the region.
While I cannot write or speak for the hundreds of victims and commited volunteers I worked with and trained, I can write and speak my thoughts about that day and what followed for months thereafter.
I was an operations manager, an instructor and a direct service provider and supervisor at different times during my assignment. In addition to working in the Disaster Mental Health function, I provided public relations information at various times, and interviewed in-processing and out-processing mental health professionals volunteering from North America the Caribbean area and South Pacific Islands. Other mental health volunteers and I provided brief counseling with volunteers overwhelmed by their experience.
There was little time and less opportunity for introspection during those 10-15+ hour days during my time there. But, there has been ample time since to reflect about the experience, and what the events and our national response immediately and over time have meant to me. I'm fairly certain the same is true for probably thousands of others who volunteered back then.
Some of those faces, those personalities, those situations continue and will probably never fade as background images and memories of my life - they are that powerful.
The only two adjectives I could use to represent my experience at the time which continue to be valid today are that the experience was awesome, humbling and painful.
I didn't see the McCain public relations piece shown at the just completed political convention, and am relieved that I wasn't watching that portion of the convention. I was angry enough about the lying and misrepresentations being thrown at the attendees and viewers, and didn't need to add more fuel to the ire that evening. But, watching the video today reminded me of just how damnably significant 9/11 was and has been for millions of our nation's people - it was a unique, seminal defining moment and experience which has been used for various purposes from then until now.
I am increasingly concerned about that defining moment for our people and its meaning in our nation's history.
We are allowing some of our political leaders to continue using 9/11, the entire experience and millions of the world's citizens as the basis for their claims that fear and hatred are the most appropriate means of understanding and responding to our nation's leadership and security requirements today and for the forseeable future.
Unfortunately, it is the "Government of the People (GOP)" political party which has allowed a partisan group within the party to demand that fear and hatred must prevail if the United States is to survive. I resent that this has happened. I resent that our nation of patriotic citizens has allowed this to happen and prevail. As was spoken so eloquently at the beginning WW II, we "have nothing to fear, but fear itself." I believe we can better manage our response, not from fear but from an understanding and realization that dealing with hatred requires far more aspects of our lifes than merely using war. War in this case, has served to enhance our fears.
If anything beyond the actual 9/11 experience should prevail, it is that we Americans must think about why 9/11 occurred, how had our nation come to be so hated by so many millions of the world's citizens such that hatred, fear and terrorism became the only reliable means to get our attention.
We must understand this aspect of who we were before, on 9/11, and since. I believe it is imperative that we discove how we got to that point in the world, how we have reacted to 9/11 and what differently we must do if we are to ever move our nation and others in the world to a more positive understanding about co-existing positively in a world of ever increasing social complexity.
For the past 7+ years fear and hatred have been perpetrated and sustained by our national governmental and social leaders, and this has extended and intruded into our industrial and economic identity as well. It is almost as though every nation, every culture different from
own has come to be viewed here at home as at best, our enemy and at worst, the most evil threats against our nation. The espoused response from and to this phenomena of fear and hatred has been to rouse and stir up more fear and hatred as a means to either remain in power or demonstrate that we can overcome those who threaten us with more fear, hatred and power. This is not working and millions of Americans are believing and stating that this cannot have positive results.
What is clearly happening today within our political and social arenae is that any response from our base of fear and hatred that does not respond in rage and like fashion and purpose as those who threaten us, represents a lack of resolve and patriotism, a national and social weakness.
This belief and attitude has prevailed far too long to be considered potentially successful, and any discerning American can understand this as a failure of national intent - the results are obvious. Our leaders use a strategic process called "the surge" in attempts to assuage our national fear and hatred, all the while ignoring that those who are threatening us at home and abroad have gained more viable strength since 9/11 than was extant then. Using this "surge" to support claims that we are winning is not unlike the current commercial depicting a fellow walking away from a gum-patched hole in the dam which isn't holding, but is worsening. We Americans are allowing and encouraging this delusion, and it is one of the major aspects today which represents the failure of leadership a lack of genuine patriotism that is "killing" our society, disarming our values, ruling our lives.
Those of us throughout the nation who speak out against the ruling tyranny of fear and hatred are attacked, just as millions of us were attacked for opposing our war in Viet Nam. Historical observations have taught us how correct about our resistence to the Viet Nam experience we were. It seems to be becoming more and more apparent that those of us who are continuing to reject the strategy of fear and hatred directing our nation today are correct.
With this in mind, I believe it is an essential American patriotic responsibility for young and old alike to join forces and increase our resistence to being controlled by fear and hatred demanded and perpetrated by our national governmental and non-governmental leaders. More, I believe we cannot afford to elect and appoint any more leaders whose actions and espoused intentions are to continue using fear, hatred and brute military power as our only national response to others' fear and hatred of us.
This does not mean that I believe we should avoid confrontation and challenge to the fear and hatred we are responding to in like form. It does mean that we must move toward the basis for those cultural and social emotions held by so many millions of people at home and abroad; we must engage those beliefs and feelings underpinning that fear and hatred. We must bring to the table our leaders and those of other cultures and nations to better understand our differences and create different and more positive opportunities for resolving our difficulties. We must initiate a different resolve and intent which can lead to far different results than we are now achieving as we continue to ruled by fear and hatred.
We must change as we expect others to change. I believe it is as simple and as complex as that. The alternative cannot work. We know this simply because there has been ample documentation that our participation and use of war has not been working for decades. We must make hope and peace positive words and concepts in our society. We must win from a collaborative and positive perspective because there can be no win when we attempt change from the base of fear and hatred.
Thank you for reading this and know that I'll read any comments which are returned on the blogspot pages.
Sam Conant
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
False Beliefs and National Ignorance
Comments are welcome {;?)
The following is an email stream from a list where this Damn Yankee participates.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There is an amazing U.S. trait which persists that allows our people to act from an ignorance of history - ours and others.
We have been here before.
The nation brags about beating the Soviet Union and wearing them down. This, all the while allowing ourselves to ignore that what we are doing by circling and embroiling Russia is very near what the U.S. was doing throughout the 1920s and 1930s which led to the Japanese "need" to attack us in Hawaii. It is possible, also, that a significant reason behind the Chinese sponsorship of North Korea was based on similar fears that we were increasing our exploitive influence in Asia as a result of our "win" over Japan.
We certainly gave "proof" for and encouraged that "Asian concern" with our dogged support for Taiwan and our gradual occupation of South Viet Nam after the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu.
Another aspect of our willing ignorance hiding behind the falsehood that we "beat the Soviets," relates directly to the willingness to perceive Russia as the relatively backward, over-controlled and bureaucratically excessive Soviet Union.
Whereas the Soviets were mostly unable to produce sufficientg food and material from an incompetent agricultural and industrial base, Russia is a far different and improved nation with more natural resources and the ability to exploit them than the U.S. in the 21st century. They export food surpluses, oil and other resources, including science and technology in direct competition (and opposition, in some cases) with "The West."
And, in this 21st century, we are a far more dependent nation, on the world's non-U.S. resources than we accept andacknowledge for the most part. This simply because we continue to delude ourselves, and allow our national leaders to support that delusion, by believing we are the only potential and extant super-power remaining in this world of rapidly advancing and developing, competitive nations.
Russia, for example, has vast, untapped and known petroleum resources as well as other natural resources - and the world is now it's acknowledged marketplace as it was for the U.S. in the 1950s-1990s. The world has changed.
In my opinion for the U.S. to continue dealing with Russia and other nations which our leaders and political ideologues persist in their attempts to demonize, in the way we have since the 1940s, reflects downright ignorance and wrong-headedness. I believe, if we are to survive as a relatively free nation, we must seek and maintain equitable and friendly relations and partnerships with all nations and stop attempting to pass ourselves off as some sort of arrogant, brash, independent, all powerful and entitled demagogic world leader.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
http://samcvt@blogspot.com
----- Original Message -----
From: jordan.joseph@comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: Who Started Cold War II?
Hi Folks,
Bush courted the former USSR state of Georgia for two reasons.
1- The oil line from the Caspian to the Black Sea.
2- Turkey couldnt be bought to launch troops and planes to invade Iraq..(I think neither to Iran.)
( Georgia is North of Turkey and if Iraq wouldnt let Bush attack Iran from there he could use Georgia from one side and Kuwait from the other.
Remember folks, Russia is assisting Iran with its manufacturing of nuclear power.
Thats why Russia interfered with Georgia. They dont want us invading Iran from anywhere.
Meanwhile putting ICBMs in Poland is dumb as hell when we can strike anywhere in the world from Submarines, Ships and Planes as well as ICBMs from Canaveral or Dallas with nuke warheads and maybe even from multiple nuke warheads in space sattelites.
Isnt it enough that we have the whole Arab world stirred up against us except Kuwait? (Even our VPs pet Saudi Arabia wont let our military on Allahs land). The Pentagon has farmed our Military manufacturing capability out to the extent that that we dont want go back to the "Cold War".
On the other hand if Russia attacks one American troop anywhere in the world I say nuke Russia and prepare to die when they retaliate.
We have no alternative in war with Russia but to nuke or lose as China will help Russia. Both are Communist inspired Nations.
All China would have to do to help Russia against the USA is to cut the USA exports off and send them to Russia.
Joe
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Sanjay Sathe"
It just amazes me how for every conversation Hitler is pulled out. Frankly, I would have thought that intelligent people could come up with better arguments then Hitler and the Sudetenland over over again. I guess when one has nothing more original to say old bromides work as a substitute. Frankly, there is no reason to draw parallels between Russian actions and Hitler when drawing parallels between their actions and past actions would do just as well. But that sort of conversation requires a more nuanced conversation and why bother with that when one can just resort to bumper stickers.
Curious are you a supporter of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank?. Did you write letters of protest when Israel bombed Lebanon for 35 days because Hezbollah took 2 Israeli's captive? I don't recall statements of dis-proportionality even when Israel attacked civilian infrastructure in direct violation of the Geneva conventions. Did you support Hezbollahs attacks on Isr ael when they were occupying Lebanon?
And BTW since you are such argent supporter of the Iraq policy where was the international authority to replace the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussain. Why is American unilateral preemption legal but everybody else reminds you of Hitler.
On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Jeff Scribner wrote:
Perhaps we should ask Pat how one "invades" it's own territory. The "problem" in Georgia arose because the President of Georgia had the temerity to try to enforce the law in a part of his own country that housed a large (but not too large) Russian minority. This was used by the Russians as an excuse for an adventure in Georgia that still might not be over and could still result in one of the Kremlin's main aims, closing or control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (sometimes abbreviated as BTC pipeline). If we don't quickly find a way to make the Russians back down from most of this, we are going to have a major future problem with them - just as we had when the west didn't face down Hitler in the Sudetenland and the Soviet Russians at the end of WWII.
JLS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sanjay Sathe
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 14:26
Subject: not a left wing nut case
not often I find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan!!
I think we should all be wary of the propaganda coming out of Georgia. It is designed to provoke the Pavlovian response in Americans. Russia was not trying to crush "democracy" in Georgia. They would have behaved in exactly the same manner whether it was a right wing or left wing dictatorship allied with the United States. I think we have to get out of our knee jerk reaction that people hate us for our democracy. There are plenty of other things they hate us for!
It is also worth remembering that Stalin was a Georgian and Krushchev was Ukranian. Clearly the Russian didn't regard them or the provinces they came from as outsiders- unlike I might say about the likes of Cokie Roberts who haven't figured out that Hawaii is not some exotic place but a rather a state of the Union. That somebody growing up there is as much an American as somebody growing up in Arizona, Idaho or any other state.
Who Started Cold War II?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.
Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.
If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.
From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.
Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did รข€" nothing.
These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.
The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.
Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.
And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?
As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?
For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.
If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?
The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.
What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?
Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.
The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.
The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.
Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.
A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.
Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?
As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is an email stream from a list where this Damn Yankee participates.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There is an amazing U.S. trait which persists that allows our people to act from an ignorance of history - ours and others.
We have been here before.
The nation brags about beating the Soviet Union and wearing them down. This, all the while allowing ourselves to ignore that what we are doing by circling and embroiling Russia is very near what the U.S. was doing throughout the 1920s and 1930s which led to the Japanese "need" to attack us in Hawaii. It is possible, also, that a significant reason behind the Chinese sponsorship of North Korea was based on similar fears that we were increasing our exploitive influence in Asia as a result of our "win" over Japan.
We certainly gave "proof" for and encouraged that "Asian concern" with our dogged support for Taiwan and our gradual occupation of South Viet Nam after the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu.
Another aspect of our willing ignorance hiding behind the falsehood that we "beat the Soviets," relates directly to the willingness to perceive Russia as the relatively backward, over-controlled and bureaucratically excessive Soviet Union.
Whereas the Soviets were mostly unable to produce sufficientg food and material from an incompetent agricultural and industrial base, Russia is a far different and improved nation with more natural resources and the ability to exploit them than the U.S. in the 21st century. They export food surpluses, oil and other resources, including science and technology in direct competition (and opposition, in some cases) with "The West."
And, in this 21st century, we are a far more dependent nation, on the world's non-U.S. resources than we accept andacknowledge for the most part. This simply because we continue to delude ourselves, and allow our national leaders to support that delusion, by believing we are the only potential and extant super-power remaining in this world of rapidly advancing and developing, competitive nations.
Russia, for example, has vast, untapped and known petroleum resources as well as other natural resources - and the world is now it's acknowledged marketplace as it was for the U.S. in the 1950s-1990s. The world has changed.
In my opinion for the U.S. to continue dealing with Russia and other nations which our leaders and political ideologues persist in their attempts to demonize, in the way we have since the 1940s, reflects downright ignorance and wrong-headedness. I believe, if we are to survive as a relatively free nation, we must seek and maintain equitable and friendly relations and partnerships with all nations and stop attempting to pass ourselves off as some sort of arrogant, brash, independent, all powerful and entitled demagogic world leader.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
http://samcvt@blogspot.com
----- Original Message -----
From: jordan.joseph@comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: Who Started Cold War II?
Hi Folks,
Bush courted the former USSR state of Georgia for two reasons.
1- The oil line from the Caspian to the Black Sea.
2- Turkey couldnt be bought to launch troops and planes to invade Iraq..(I think neither to Iran.)
( Georgia is North of Turkey and if Iraq wouldnt let Bush attack Iran from there he could use Georgia from one side and Kuwait from the other.
Remember folks, Russia is assisting Iran with its manufacturing of nuclear power.
Thats why Russia interfered with Georgia. They dont want us invading Iran from anywhere.
Meanwhile putting ICBMs in Poland is dumb as hell when we can strike anywhere in the world from Submarines, Ships and Planes as well as ICBMs from Canaveral or Dallas with nuke warheads and maybe even from multiple nuke warheads in space sattelites.
Isnt it enough that we have the whole Arab world stirred up against us except Kuwait? (Even our VPs pet Saudi Arabia wont let our military on Allahs land). The Pentagon has farmed our Military manufacturing capability out to the extent that that we dont want go back to the "Cold War".
On the other hand if Russia attacks one American troop anywhere in the world I say nuke Russia and prepare to die when they retaliate.
We have no alternative in war with Russia but to nuke or lose as China will help Russia. Both are Communist inspired Nations.
All China would have to do to help Russia against the USA is to cut the USA exports off and send them to Russia.
Joe
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Sanjay Sathe"
It just amazes me how for every conversation Hitler is pulled out. Frankly, I would have thought that intelligent people could come up with better arguments then Hitler and the Sudetenland over over again. I guess when one has nothing more original to say old bromides work as a substitute. Frankly, there is no reason to draw parallels between Russian actions and Hitler when drawing parallels between their actions and past actions would do just as well. But that sort of conversation requires a more nuanced conversation and why bother with that when one can just resort to bumper stickers.
Curious are you a supporter of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank?. Did you write letters of protest when Israel bombed Lebanon for 35 days because Hezbollah took 2 Israeli's captive? I don't recall statements of dis-proportionality even when Israel attacked civilian infrastructure in direct violation of the Geneva conventions. Did you support Hezbollahs attacks on Isr ael when they were occupying Lebanon?
And BTW since you are such argent supporter of the Iraq policy where was the international authority to replace the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussain. Why is American unilateral preemption legal but everybody else reminds you of Hitler.
On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Jeff Scribner
Perhaps we should ask Pat how one "invades" it's own territory. The "problem" in Georgia arose because the President of Georgia had the temerity to try to enforce the law in a part of his own country that housed a large (but not too large) Russian minority. This was used by the Russians as an excuse for an adventure in Georgia that still might not be over and could still result in one of the Kremlin's main aims, closing or control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (sometimes abbreviated as BTC pipeline). If we don't quickly find a way to make the Russians back down from most of this, we are going to have a major future problem with them - just as we had when the west didn't face down Hitler in the Sudetenland and the Soviet Russians at the end of WWII.
JLS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sanjay Sathe
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 14:26
Subject: not a left wing nut case
not often I find myself agreeing with Pat Buchanan!!
I think we should all be wary of the propaganda coming out of Georgia. It is designed to provoke the Pavlovian response in Americans. Russia was not trying to crush "democracy" in Georgia. They would have behaved in exactly the same manner whether it was a right wing or left wing dictatorship allied with the United States. I think we have to get out of our knee jerk reaction that people hate us for our democracy. There are plenty of other things they hate us for!
It is also worth remembering that Stalin was a Georgian and Krushchev was Ukranian. Clearly the Russian didn't regard them or the provinces they came from as outsiders- unlike I might say about the likes of Cokie Roberts who haven't figured out that Hawaii is not some exotic place but a rather a state of the Union. That somebody growing up there is as much an American as somebody growing up in Arizona, Idaho or any other state.
Who Started Cold War II?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.
Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.
If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.
From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.
Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did รข€" nothing.
These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.
The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.
Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.
And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?
As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?
For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.
If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?
The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.
What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?
Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.
The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.
The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.
Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.
A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.
Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?
As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, July 25, 2008
Vermont is a state, and seems to be a state of cultural mind which has earned and prides itself on establishing societal standards by which others might (not must) live. Over past decades, we've attracted hundreds if not more kindred folks from afar to join us in the effort to keep our small state and it's people vibrant and active in the world's politics and processes. One example of this effort exists in the widely read and enjoyed weekly "free" paper, "Seven Days" (www.sevendaysvt.com) which hits the stands each Thursday. Contributions to the weekly are eclectic and vary from the whats and where of entertainment events and general interest stuff are happening as well as comments about the state, the nation and the world as those socio-political "parts" interact and effect all of us.
In the issue distributed the week on June, 16, 2008 on page 20, is an article describing the meaning and consequences of "patriotism" and how the concept plays itself out around the world, including in the U.S. I happen to believe the article to be a "must read" for any U.S. citizen expressing her or his patriotism. Simply, it should be read because it expands on the concept in a way we all might want to consider with regard to our personal patriotic beliefs. The title of the article is "Against Patriotism" and addresses "...public uses and abuses of emotion" framed in the name and behavior(s) of patriotic beliefs and actions by individuals, cultures and nations.
The author, Judith Levine, can be emailed at Levine@sevendaysvt.com.
I should refer also to another article which addresses the contemporary use of "Yellow Ribbons" as expressions of caring and support the troops patriotism. The article supports my occasional reference to the patriotic display of tattered, torn, filthy pennants and flags on motor vehicles such I've seen behind the radiator grill of local septic and sewage pumping trucks where they become bug-crushed, mud-spattered and road-greased symbols of the trashing of our nation's self-image.
Surely, there are far better, more honorabele and respectful uses for the flag most Americans swear allegiance to a many public events and privately in their homes.
In the issue distributed the week on June, 16, 2008 on page 20, is an article describing the meaning and consequences of "patriotism" and how the concept plays itself out around the world, including in the U.S. I happen to believe the article to be a "must read" for any U.S. citizen expressing her or his patriotism. Simply, it should be read because it expands on the concept in a way we all might want to consider with regard to our personal patriotic beliefs. The title of the article is "Against Patriotism" and addresses "...public uses and abuses of emotion" framed in the name and behavior(s) of patriotic beliefs and actions by individuals, cultures and nations.
The author, Judith Levine, can be emailed at Levine@sevendaysvt.com.
I should refer also to another article which addresses the contemporary use of "Yellow Ribbons" as expressions of caring and support the troops patriotism. The article supports my occasional reference to the patriotic display of tattered, torn, filthy pennants and flags on motor vehicles such I've seen behind the radiator grill of local septic and sewage pumping trucks where they become bug-crushed, mud-spattered and road-greased symbols of the trashing of our nation's self-image.
Surely, there are far better, more honorabele and respectful uses for the flag most Americans swear allegiance to a many public events and privately in their homes.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Tonight, I visited a relevant person's blog. Leaving his thoughts and his words, I felt like writing this. I am not feeling maudlin and, though I'm fast approaching the first "anniversary" of my wife's death, I don't intend to get that way and write a whole lot of only serious stuff about relationships and growth in the month ahead. Promise {;?)
Some of you know a bit about my attitude regarding religion. So, it might come as a surprise that I am a friends with a local church pastor. His blog is titled "From Out of the Wilderness." His name is Ryon Price. I commend his blog to you to read and think about.
For the record, and I guess this is one of those "buts" my friend Ryon Price refers to when writing and discussing race issues, Ryon is my brother's pastor. Ryon, on his own offered to speak at my wife's Memorial service last August. I had neve met him.
Never having met anyone in my family but my brother and his family, Ryon offered and I accepted with grace. He did that knowing that I entered churches rarely and usually only for family gatherings around Thanksgiving (our homes don't hold the 75 or so Conants and their families who join and commune around the lives for which we are grateful)as well as for funerals and weddings.
Almost the moment he entered my home to become acquainted with my wife's life and our families, I new I had met a stranger who had become a friend - one of those rare occasions when one just plimb blank* knows. Through the year we've gotten together for lunch and spoken on the phone a few times. Late in the evening last Christmas Eve, on a whim, I drove over to his church, walked in and sat with my brother whose wife sings in the choir. Together, as children and as middle-aged adults, Ed and I sang songs with tears and smiles. Years ago, he and I entertained grandparents and other family members singing together. We hadn't been together in song for more than 15 years. It felt good. As Ryon Price began to speak, he looked out over his small congregation and spied me. There was a halt in his voice before he picked up his pace again. A few choir members who I've known as friends in town for several years winked and smiled at my brother and me a few times on Christmas Eve. I've not returned to that church since and may not again. Communion to me is the joining of people, and I've never really enjoyed the religious strictures and requirements which "church" sort of demands if one is to be in communion within the physical and spiritual structure of that 2000 year old social institution.
Ryon and I spoke this week. He had agreed to join my family when we commit Lynn's ashes to the hallowed grounds of the Vermont Veterans Memorial Cemetery. We will ride together, and I'm looking forward to him and my family who have circled and supported me when needed this past year. This will be one of those bittersweet endings which, for me, marks one more step in this beginning as I "grow up" one more time {;?)
One more thought, and then I'll end this. For many years when someone close to me has died, I've yearned for the sounds and symbols of beginnings and have never been disappointed when I've heard an infant's cry, laugh or some other sound at those moments of yearning. On the first or second day following Lynn's death, I was in my sun room listening to folks and interacting. At a point, I recall saying, "I need to hear a baby, I need a beginning..." Not five minutes later, my nephew, Trevor, walked in and his newborn infant was making small crying noises ... I had my beginning. The night of Lynn's Memorial service at a point when I felt particularly over-whelmed by the kindness and numbers of people (a few hundred, literally), I told someone "I need to hear a baby, a beginning..." A very few minutes after that feeling and statement, I looked up and there were Ari and very young Abigail Price in her mother's arms - my symbolic beginning once again.
I am thankful that this young man, this minister for others, of candor and honesty, Ryon Price, is a part of my life - not an everyday physical part, but a thoughtful, accepting spiritual part AND I am thankful that I know, albeit less, his daughter and his wife. It has been many years since I've had the joy of knowing groups of inter-racial people - families and friends, and I know I have missed that important aspect of life since moving back to Vermont in 1972.
Having these experiences at this point in my life, losses and beginnings, is one of the significant reasons I know truly how fortunate and blessed I am. Life is good. Accepting and giving life to others is also good - at least for this child.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
http://samcvt@blogspot.com
Some of you know a bit about my attitude regarding religion. So, it might come as a surprise that I am a friends with a local church pastor. His blog is titled "From Out of the Wilderness." His name is Ryon Price. I commend his blog to you to read and think about.
For the record, and I guess this is one of those "buts" my friend Ryon Price refers to when writing and discussing race issues, Ryon is my brother's pastor. Ryon, on his own offered to speak at my wife's Memorial service last August. I had neve met him.
Never having met anyone in my family but my brother and his family, Ryon offered and I accepted with grace. He did that knowing that I entered churches rarely and usually only for family gatherings around Thanksgiving (our homes don't hold the 75 or so Conants and their families who join and commune around the lives for which we are grateful)as well as for funerals and weddings.
Almost the moment he entered my home to become acquainted with my wife's life and our families, I new I had met a stranger who had become a friend - one of those rare occasions when one just plimb blank* knows. Through the year we've gotten together for lunch and spoken on the phone a few times. Late in the evening last Christmas Eve, on a whim, I drove over to his church, walked in and sat with my brother whose wife sings in the choir. Together, as children and as middle-aged adults, Ed and I sang songs with tears and smiles. Years ago, he and I entertained grandparents and other family members singing together. We hadn't been together in song for more than 15 years. It felt good. As Ryon Price began to speak, he looked out over his small congregation and spied me. There was a halt in his voice before he picked up his pace again. A few choir members who I've known as friends in town for several years winked and smiled at my brother and me a few times on Christmas Eve. I've not returned to that church since and may not again. Communion to me is the joining of people, and I've never really enjoyed the religious strictures and requirements which "church" sort of demands if one is to be in communion within the physical and spiritual structure of that 2000 year old social institution.
Ryon and I spoke this week. He had agreed to join my family when we commit Lynn's ashes to the hallowed grounds of the Vermont Veterans Memorial Cemetery. We will ride together, and I'm looking forward to him and my family who have circled and supported me when needed this past year. This will be one of those bittersweet endings which, for me, marks one more step in this beginning as I "grow up" one more time {;?)
One more thought, and then I'll end this. For many years when someone close to me has died, I've yearned for the sounds and symbols of beginnings and have never been disappointed when I've heard an infant's cry, laugh or some other sound at those moments of yearning. On the first or second day following Lynn's death, I was in my sun room listening to folks and interacting. At a point, I recall saying, "I need to hear a baby, I need a beginning..." Not five minutes later, my nephew, Trevor, walked in and his newborn infant was making small crying noises ... I had my beginning. The night of Lynn's Memorial service at a point when I felt particularly over-whelmed by the kindness and numbers of people (a few hundred, literally), I told someone "I need to hear a baby, a beginning..." A very few minutes after that feeling and statement, I looked up and there were Ari and very young Abigail Price in her mother's arms - my symbolic beginning once again.
I am thankful that this young man, this minister for others, of candor and honesty, Ryon Price, is a part of my life - not an everyday physical part, but a thoughtful, accepting spiritual part AND I am thankful that I know, albeit less, his daughter and his wife. It has been many years since I've had the joy of knowing groups of inter-racial people - families and friends, and I know I have missed that important aspect of life since moving back to Vermont in 1972.
Having these experiences at this point in my life, losses and beginnings, is one of the significant reasons I know truly how fortunate and blessed I am. Life is good. Accepting and giving life to others is also good - at least for this child.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
http://samcvt@blogspot.com
The following is the first of my sailing sagas which began with the first time I had ever sailed ... It was back in mid-summer 1999, and I had just purchased the, Quetzal, the 25 foot Catalina which is still being kind to me... I wrote about the journey to a friend who is a far more seasoned sailor than I will ever be, and I put it into the Franco-English Quebecois patois which I've enjoyed for many years.
Le Storee....
Ma frens, Mes Amis.
H'ime heer tu tel u dat storee! Ya no? dat wun wot say "De win she blo on Lac Champlain, she blo lac ell she du?"*
Wel now, lette Sam de nouveau Baptiste h'xplayn bout dat firs sojourne h'aup dat lac.
Dat win? she blow ezee as firs. But, b'ambie? She get strawger den I remembre she du sum tam back der wen I wuz leetle chile, on de bay dey call de Malletes. layter? Bon ouis! Ow she blow dat day. Lac der wuz be no mor win on de h'Ontario h'oute de wes across de montaines de Adirondac an on de Riviere St. Lauren nere Montreal. Cuz dat win wot sit over dere beefor she cum h'ere? dis tam she h'all cum here for tu blo on dat Sams Cataleena as she clere de Nord Hero Gut tu de brawd lac oui call Champlain. Beecauz dat Nouveau Sam ad nevere sale de bateau beefor? ee ad hire da h'xpeerienz saler wot sale de Newport tu Bermuda raze ever yere... by nam uv Camille... she wuz a plezen woman, but Sam shud av been worn erlee h'in dat jurnee wen dat Camille? She cudnt start de 'engin tu get dat Catalina h'owt de ting dey call de slippe? Dat wuz a nue meening for de slippe dat Sam h'on dat day de memoree tinks 'abowt an on hiz fase dere wuz awhil wid grin. But dat Sam? ee wuz probly lukeen h'at wot wuz show roun de batheeng suit? H'an tinkin sumtin elz, maybee? Ah Non! ee wuz stik tu biznezz lac de gud saler ee wuz tu bee, bon ouise! Certement!
So dat Sam, ee iz lukin tue de nord wun tam ... an she see de cloud? She wuz gettin darcque an low tu de wahter? an de wave bak dere? She wuz lukin lac she growin...So wot u tink? Dat Sam ... ee say to Camille... did u see dat beeg black cloud? da wun tue de nord? wot makin dat wave zo beeg, she gonbe tawl'er den de Catalina? Wot u tink dat Camille de skiper tel tue Sam? "Get h'awp dere quik h'an drawp dat ting she cawl de jib!" She screem so loud, I bet u wun ting; dey heer dat screem h'al de way h'awp de lac tue Montreal on de Riviere San Laurenz...
Wen Sam luk stoopid won minut, dat Camille shaout "de sale h'awp dere!"
a leetl layter? az Sam ee ang frum de fron of dat bote wid de sale she rap ha'rown him lac a blancket? an ee eez slap de water tri tue kepe dat bote frum sinkin? az de wave she cum up de fron an splash dat Sam .... an az dat sale, she tri tue tro dat Sam h'into de wat er? Dat win? She blo lac more den dat fan wot stik h'in de whindo h'at dat ome Sam wish ee wuz h'at dis tam, bon ouise! wot seme lac mor den h'ower agoe wen hee tink lac dat?
but, dat Sam ee get head uv himself heer won tam wid storee. Wen dat Catalina finlee leff dat slippe an hed aowte h'awn de leetel baye? Ee eeze luk h'aup hi in de sky an wot u tink hee see? jus sittin h'awp der so beeg wuz dat dam brigge de Nord Hero ... wot Sam forgot wuz dere! Sheez wan beeg ting, Sam tue himself tell. she luk so beeg h'an prowd? tu bee shur....but wot u tink! Dat ting standin h'awp dere? wot de man sole u dat yawt tu u she say? Dat brigge Sheez gawt tue opin h'awn de alf houre lac wen de clawk she chime...or sumtin lac dat... an iff u tri tue sale dat bote tru h'under dat brigge dat ting wot stick h'awp in de aere wot dey cawl da mass (Hmmm... lern anudder salin wurd dat tam wot dis tam soun lac sumtin tue du wid de catreedul, I tink dat de salin wuz gon teech Sam de ard whay). Anee ouwe? dat man wot sell de bote, sed dat h'iff dat brigge don h'opin an I trie tue sale h'und-er neet aneewhay? Tu bee shure, dat mass will go bange an snappe an crash down tue my edd wid beeg urt an u wone fele so gud h'bout byin dat bote den. ouise, ee say. Dat brigge she gon stawp u lac 'ammer tue de hed. So wot u tink ole Camille an Sam du? Bon Ouise! Ouise flote dat bote roun an roun wid dat win? sheez blo an blo an dat Camille? she wurk ard jus kepe-in dat bote h'out de wede bi de side uv de lac chanal. An Sam? ee beegin tu tink wid de brane der, wot ee gawt, an Mon Dieux! Camille an Sam ee sed to 'imself ... dat ouise bin heer more den wan houre an dat ting? she aynt moov wan h'inch sidewaize or h'awp in de aire! So de puzzelle she cum to de brane and Sam tri to figger jus ow ee gogne get dat brigge tu op-en orr wot it wuz spose tu due... so dat bote, she cudd sale h'oute tu de gut wot paz u tru tu de brawd lac. So dat Sam ... he kip dat puzz'el in frun uv is brane der an tink won tam den ee tink sum moure, and he gawt wan an-ser to dat puzz-el. HA! she say. I cud uze dat radeeo! Dat ting on da wall wot da man sole dat bote say wuz a bulkhed (damme' anudder new wurd). De radeeo, she ad say "mareen h'oppurate...but dat damme ting? she onlee hiss an buzz...so wot u tink ole Sam d'Nouveau saler she du? Dis shy an bashful fell-o wot u no so gud?
Wal, h'eym scrach dat ed, an h'eym pawn-der wan tam ... une quatorze minut der (mois spellin? shee ain tu gud) nawt tu longe an nawt tu shorte...an wot u tink? She see dat leetle 'ed peekin out de windo der, bye de side de brigge...an she iz waiv an pointin wid and in de aere...I'm tink wan mor tam ... den count de fing-er on dat han she waivin an pointin wid...dat finger? she say tirteen. So, Im tink sum mor nawt tu long an nawt to short an i luk wan mor tam. An dat faize? she hold-in dat telephone' in de win-doe. Lac wot she tink? Dat Sam an Camille gon jump off de bote an swim to plaze, an clime dat stele brigge der? An anzer dat cawl? She muz bee crazee, dat Sam tink.
Wal, aftir wan tam...bynbie Sam, she luk h'up dat briddg an smyle dat smyle an chuk-ul dat way, u nowat ee 'ave an wat u tink ole Sam, she doo? Ell, ee waiv an laff an say lowd so dat crazee wom-an can ere..."Baptiste is heer! u bet-ter h'opin dat ting h'on de tawp uv dat brigge middul. Baptiste, she iz cummin tru wedder or nawt u caire! Den? wat u tink! By gar...dat brigge? sheez go h'up in de sky...so fas she make u blinque tu see dat wun-der.
An Sam? 'e juss smyle dat grin wat saye "h'ime no dat. All u gawt tu doo is smyle an say ur peez h'an dat briddge she 'opin awp eezee!"
Da ress uv dat storee? Sheeze wate an she is mour dramateek den dis firz part.
So, aime close dis storee for now .... but say juss enuf to let u no dat dis wuz wan beeg day. Dat tres, quatorze houre sale wat wuz spoze to bee? she taik more den de daylite leff dat day. Mon deaux, dat wuz sum dey. she envolve' dat us coste gard? Bon Ouise! an dat estat poleez .... an dat Colches-ter mareen pa-trol man hoo wuz my naybour, Mike Hammond frum de Col-chester poleez ware is de 'ome port por de bateau wid de sale...dat Cataleena
Now? aime home an de rume sheeze stil rock-in ... so aime tink Im gowan tu quit por le day an rite more la-ter.
Bon nuit, Mes Amis
Sam d'Baptiste...who danse wid Champ dis dey...an liv tu say h'bout dat Vive le Salin h'on Lac Champlain ware de win she blo lac el she doo.
Dat day wuz beegan reel nize wid de win? She blo nize h'an gentl an stedee...an now? Sam, she stawp por le nuit an start o-ver anudder day wid sum more. Dat nex chap-ter she begin wid...
Long h'bowt du quatere hour? Dat Sam luk nord and say
Le Storee....
Ma frens, Mes Amis.
H'ime heer tu tel u dat storee! Ya no? dat wun wot say "De win she blo on Lac Champlain, she blo lac ell she du?"*
Wel now, lette Sam de nouveau Baptiste h'xplayn bout dat firs sojourne h'aup dat lac.
Dat win? she blow ezee as firs. But, b'ambie? She get strawger den I remembre she du sum tam back der wen I wuz leetle chile, on de bay dey call de Malletes. layter? Bon ouis! Ow she blow dat day. Lac der wuz be no mor win on de h'Ontario h'oute de wes across de montaines de Adirondac an on de Riviere St. Lauren nere Montreal. Cuz dat win wot sit over dere beefor she cum h'ere? dis tam she h'all cum here for tu blo on dat Sams Cataleena as she clere de Nord Hero Gut tu de brawd lac oui call Champlain. Beecauz dat Nouveau Sam ad nevere sale de bateau beefor? ee ad hire da h'xpeerienz saler wot sale de Newport tu Bermuda raze ever yere... by nam uv Camille... she wuz a plezen woman, but Sam shud av been worn erlee h'in dat jurnee wen dat Camille? She cudnt start de 'engin tu get dat Catalina h'owt de ting dey call de slippe? Dat wuz a nue meening for de slippe dat Sam h'on dat day de memoree tinks 'abowt an on hiz fase dere wuz awhil wid grin. But dat Sam? ee wuz probly lukeen h'at wot wuz show roun de batheeng suit? H'an tinkin sumtin elz, maybee? Ah Non! ee wuz stik tu biznezz lac de gud saler ee wuz tu bee, bon ouise! Certement!
So dat Sam, ee iz lukin tue de nord wun tam ... an she see de cloud? She wuz gettin darcque an low tu de wahter? an de wave bak dere? She wuz lukin lac she growin...So wot u tink? Dat Sam ... ee say to Camille... did u see dat beeg black cloud? da wun tue de nord? wot makin dat wave zo beeg, she gonbe tawl'er den de Catalina? Wot u tink dat Camille de skiper tel tue Sam? "Get h'awp dere quik h'an drawp dat ting she cawl de jib!" She screem so loud, I bet u wun ting; dey heer dat screem h'al de way h'awp de lac tue Montreal on de Riviere San Laurenz...
Wen Sam luk stoopid won minut, dat Camille shaout "de sale h'awp dere!"
a leetl layter? az Sam ee ang frum de fron of dat bote wid de sale she rap ha'rown him lac a blancket? an ee eez slap de water tri tue kepe dat bote frum sinkin? az de wave she cum up de fron an splash dat Sam .... an az dat sale, she tri tue tro dat Sam h'into de wat er? Dat win? She blo lac more den dat fan wot stik h'in de whindo h'at dat ome Sam wish ee wuz h'at dis tam, bon ouise! wot seme lac mor den h'ower agoe wen hee tink lac dat?
but, dat Sam ee get head uv himself heer won tam wid storee. Wen dat Catalina finlee leff dat slippe an hed aowte h'awn de leetel baye? Ee eeze luk h'aup hi in de sky an wot u tink hee see? jus sittin h'awp der so beeg wuz dat dam brigge de Nord Hero ... wot Sam forgot wuz dere! Sheez wan beeg ting, Sam tue himself tell. she luk so beeg h'an prowd? tu bee shur....but wot u tink! Dat ting standin h'awp dere? wot de man sole u dat yawt tu u she say? Dat brigge Sheez gawt tue opin h'awn de alf houre lac wen de clawk she chime...or sumtin lac dat... an iff u tri tue sale dat bote tru h'under dat brigge dat ting wot stick h'awp in de aere wot dey cawl da mass (Hmmm... lern anudder salin wurd dat tam wot dis tam soun lac sumtin tue du wid de catreedul, I tink dat de salin wuz gon teech Sam de ard whay). Anee ouwe? dat man wot sell de bote, sed dat h'iff dat brigge don h'opin an I trie tue sale h'und-er neet aneewhay? Tu bee shure, dat mass will go bange an snappe an crash down tue my edd wid beeg urt an u wone fele so gud h'bout byin dat bote den. ouise, ee say. Dat brigge she gon stawp u lac 'ammer tue de hed. So wot u tink ole Camille an Sam du? Bon Ouise! Ouise flote dat bote roun an roun wid dat win? sheez blo an blo an dat Camille? she wurk ard jus kepe-in dat bote h'out de wede bi de side uv de lac chanal. An Sam? ee beegin tu tink wid de brane der, wot ee gawt, an Mon Dieux! Camille an Sam ee sed to 'imself ... dat ouise bin heer more den wan houre an dat ting? she aynt moov wan h'inch sidewaize or h'awp in de aire! So de puzzelle she cum to de brane and Sam tri to figger jus ow ee gogne get dat brigge tu op-en orr wot it wuz spose tu due... so dat bote, she cudd sale h'oute tu de gut wot paz u tru tu de brawd lac. So dat Sam ... he kip dat puzz'el in frun uv is brane der an tink won tam den ee tink sum moure, and he gawt wan an-ser to dat puzz-el. HA! she say. I cud uze dat radeeo! Dat ting on da wall wot da man sole dat bote say wuz a bulkhed (damme' anudder new wurd). De radeeo, she ad say "mareen h'oppurate...but dat damme ting? she onlee hiss an buzz...so wot u tink ole Sam d'Nouveau saler she du? Dis shy an bashful fell-o wot u no so gud?
Wal, h'eym scrach dat ed, an h'eym pawn-der wan tam ... une quatorze minut der (mois spellin? shee ain tu gud) nawt tu longe an nawt tu shorte...an wot u tink? She see dat leetle 'ed peekin out de windo der, bye de side de brigge...an she iz waiv an pointin wid and in de aere...I'm tink wan mor tam ... den count de fing-er on dat han she waivin an pointin wid...dat finger? she say tirteen. So, Im tink sum mor nawt tu long an nawt to short an i luk wan mor tam. An dat faize? she hold-in dat telephone' in de win-doe. Lac wot she tink? Dat Sam an Camille gon jump off de bote an swim to plaze, an clime dat stele brigge der? An anzer dat cawl? She muz bee crazee, dat Sam tink.
Wal, aftir wan tam...bynbie Sam, she luk h'up dat briddg an smyle dat smyle an chuk-ul dat way, u nowat ee 'ave an wat u tink ole Sam, she doo? Ell, ee waiv an laff an say lowd so dat crazee wom-an can ere..."Baptiste is heer! u bet-ter h'opin dat ting h'on de tawp uv dat brigge middul. Baptiste, she iz cummin tru wedder or nawt u caire! Den? wat u tink! By gar...dat brigge? sheez go h'up in de sky...so fas she make u blinque tu see dat wun-der.
An Sam? 'e juss smyle dat grin wat saye "h'ime no dat. All u gawt tu doo is smyle an say ur peez h'an dat briddge she 'opin awp eezee!"
Da ress uv dat storee? Sheeze wate an she is mour dramateek den dis firz part.
So, aime close dis storee for now .... but say juss enuf to let u no dat dis wuz wan beeg day. Dat tres, quatorze houre sale wat wuz spoze to bee? she taik more den de daylite leff dat day. Mon deaux, dat wuz sum dey. she envolve' dat us coste gard? Bon Ouise! an dat estat poleez .... an dat Colches-ter mareen pa-trol man hoo wuz my naybour, Mike Hammond frum de Col-chester poleez ware is de 'ome port por de bateau wid de sale...dat Cataleena
Now? aime home an de rume sheeze stil rock-in ... so aime tink Im gowan tu quit por le day an rite more la-ter.
Bon nuit, Mes Amis
Sam d'Baptiste...who danse wid Champ dis dey...an liv tu say h'bout dat Vive le Salin h'on Lac Champlain ware de win she blo lac el she doo.
Dat day wuz beegan reel nize wid de win? She blo nize h'an gentl an stedee...an now? Sam, she stawp por le nuit an start o-ver anudder day wid sum more. Dat nex chap-ter she begin wid...
Long h'bowt du quatere hour? Dat Sam luk nord and say
A Series of Nonsense-Mine, at least
I just got invited to think about having a column on an in-progress web site, and am thinking about it. More on that if it happens ... But, the invite reminded me that I started a blog a couple of months ago, and have not really paid much attention to it unless something reminded me to go into it...
So far, I'm the contributor ... including one pasted set of comments from a friend ... identifying his blog which I comment and encourage others to visit it along with mine.
I think that, periodically, I'll paste onto my blog a few thoughts shared with and by others hoping to attract an audience from the "world of blogs."
I've added the blog URL to my email signature line, and invite readers to write and begin leaving comments about what you read there. I promise to expand the topics.
For example, I'm a scuba diver and sailor, and a manager of a company that recruits seniors 55+ in age who are interested in being trained (upgrade or learn new skills) as preparation for returning to the work force and an unsubsidized job. I'd like to read comments by seniors and others which reflect experiences (negative and positive) in the job-finding and searching as well as getting hired end of the employment process. Our company is in the process of setting up a web site (www.vermontassociates.org) but I'm not sure if our techno-guy has it up and running yet. He's been more than busy establishing our MIS and policies into our 12 office organization as soon as possible after our policy group finalizes them, and 7:30 am - 4:30 pm just isn't a lot of time right now for ancillary tasks. But, things are coming together.
Personally, life is trucking along. While the past 2-3 years have presented several difficulties, I no longer have bad days; just a bad moment once in awhile, and the changes are positive for me and, I hope for others who are close to me.
Sailing this summer has been limited, in part by, once again, failing competently at retirement and Vermont's capricious weather. Today, for example, it is sunny and 82 degrees out ... and, I haven't seen the leaves on my trees moving much. I life very near the shores of Lake Champlain so this lack of sailing signs has more or less dictated the day for me.
A couple of neat "firsts" have come along in the past week.
The last professional haircut (heck; the last haircut, period) I had was on August 26, 2007 in my kitchen. My wife died on the 25th, and my cousin pulled me aside to order me to be ready the next day for a haircut. He arrived on his designated day and trimmed me up. A year ago this month, I was diagnosed with cancer. To date, I've had two nine (9) week rounds of chemo split by a major surgical procedure, and lost all of my hair as expected. Yesterday I had my hair trimmed by another professional for the first time in 11 months!
The second "first" (and I know this is a public forum, but HEY! I've got a right to be open about "firsts" on my own blog; right?
I had a date! A month or so ago, I met an acquaintance from 20 years ago and we caught up with personal news in the hallway of a local medical facility. The conversation ended with her sort of saying "lets get together on the 4th of July on your boat...I'll bring the wine and cheese," and me standing there probably looking dumb and mumbling something which may have been "OK." Because of injuries caused by an auto accident, she couldn't go sailing. But, she called to thank me for sending a brief note hoping she would get well, and I wondered sort of aloud if she might like to join me and attend a local stage play. We went to the worst play I've ever sat through in my life and I usually enjoy stage plays. She hated the play too. But, apparently she and I were not discouraged by my slackness in not having read the play's reviews because we agreed to see one another again....So, another first has occurred. Growing up again ... who would have thunkit?
Back to the blog. In an earlier lengthy comment (are there ever brief ones from me?) I promised to resurrect le storee uv dat tam h'I sail dat bote h'up Lac Champlain for de firs tam h'in my life..." I found the story in the Franco-English patois which is so enjoyable to my ears and eyes ... and will get it onto the blog...
Until then ... Life is good, give some of it back...
So far, I'm the contributor ... including one pasted set of comments from a friend ... identifying his blog which I comment and encourage others to visit it along with mine.
I think that, periodically, I'll paste onto my blog a few thoughts shared with and by others hoping to attract an audience from the "world of blogs."
I've added the blog URL to my email signature line, and invite readers to write and begin leaving comments about what you read there. I promise to expand the topics.
For example, I'm a scuba diver and sailor, and a manager of a company that recruits seniors 55+ in age who are interested in being trained (upgrade or learn new skills) as preparation for returning to the work force and an unsubsidized job. I'd like to read comments by seniors and others which reflect experiences (negative and positive) in the job-finding and searching as well as getting hired end of the employment process. Our company is in the process of setting up a web site (www.vermontassociates.org) but I'm not sure if our techno-guy has it up and running yet. He's been more than busy establishing our MIS and policies into our 12 office organization as soon as possible after our policy group finalizes them, and 7:30 am - 4:30 pm just isn't a lot of time right now for ancillary tasks. But, things are coming together.
Personally, life is trucking along. While the past 2-3 years have presented several difficulties, I no longer have bad days; just a bad moment once in awhile, and the changes are positive for me and, I hope for others who are close to me.
Sailing this summer has been limited, in part by, once again, failing competently at retirement and Vermont's capricious weather. Today, for example, it is sunny and 82 degrees out ... and, I haven't seen the leaves on my trees moving much. I life very near the shores of Lake Champlain so this lack of sailing signs has more or less dictated the day for me.
A couple of neat "firsts" have come along in the past week.
The last professional haircut (heck; the last haircut, period) I had was on August 26, 2007 in my kitchen. My wife died on the 25th, and my cousin pulled me aside to order me to be ready the next day for a haircut. He arrived on his designated day and trimmed me up. A year ago this month, I was diagnosed with cancer. To date, I've had two nine (9) week rounds of chemo split by a major surgical procedure, and lost all of my hair as expected. Yesterday I had my hair trimmed by another professional for the first time in 11 months!
The second "first" (and I know this is a public forum, but HEY! I've got a right to be open about "firsts" on my own blog; right?
I had a date! A month or so ago, I met an acquaintance from 20 years ago and we caught up with personal news in the hallway of a local medical facility. The conversation ended with her sort of saying "lets get together on the 4th of July on your boat...I'll bring the wine and cheese," and me standing there probably looking dumb and mumbling something which may have been "OK." Because of injuries caused by an auto accident, she couldn't go sailing. But, she called to thank me for sending a brief note hoping she would get well, and I wondered sort of aloud if she might like to join me and attend a local stage play. We went to the worst play I've ever sat through in my life and I usually enjoy stage plays. She hated the play too. But, apparently she and I were not discouraged by my slackness in not having read the play's reviews because we agreed to see one another again....So, another first has occurred. Growing up again ... who would have thunkit?
Back to the blog. In an earlier lengthy comment (are there ever brief ones from me?) I promised to resurrect le storee uv dat tam h'I sail dat bote h'up Lac Champlain for de firs tam h'in my life..." I found the story in the Franco-English patois which is so enjoyable to my ears and eyes ... and will get it onto the blog...
Until then ... Life is good, give some of it back...
Friday, June 20, 2008
Americans and Our Ridiculous, Mis-Directed and Oily Finger-Pointing
The major petroleum companies have held drilling rights and privileges to off-shore and on the continent regions with proven oil resources. As I wrote last night, some of those resources will be costly to bring to the well head. But, what is most bothersome, and which most Americans know or admit nothing about is that the petroleum companies have absolutely no interest in opening up new and known oil fields on which they already have drilling and production rights.
Think about the dramatic rise in end product prices. Then, think about the profits the companies are already reaping from what they purchase and what they, themselves produce. Now, think about the vast billions of already known resources over which those companies already hold the rights to produce, and think about what it is worth to them to not drill and produce more end product. Now, think about why those self-same damned petroleum companies might be agitating for more and more drilling rights over known resources where drilling rights are restricted by laws which were enacted back in the 1970s when oil by the barrel cost what? $10-15.00 per bbl compared with today's per bbl cost of ________? Now, do you get it?
I believe we need to stop this damned jabber-walling and complaining merely about the obscene profits those companies are enjoying and stop allowing them to adhere to the ludicrous claims that they are pumping (pun intended) those windfall profits back into production etc ... for which they get significant tax deductions ... and just think about what they are sitting on and what more they want to sit on.
If people in would just figure that out, and accept the obvious, we would stop bowing to the petroleum gods, we would rise and insist that the windfall profit protections guaranteed by our government and laws be stopped, we would continue to insist that our legally protected regions continue to be off-limits, and we would demand that those companies begin producing the resources they already have legitimate access to.
More, if people in this country would just stop allowing the petroleum industry and the federal government to allow the finger-pointing at OPEC, the Saudis, Venezuala, and others and demand that our government stop protecting the corporations which really control our fuel availability and costs, we just might be able to work ourselves out of the mess the government has gotten us into.
Your thoughts?
Think about the dramatic rise in end product prices. Then, think about the profits the companies are already reaping from what they purchase and what they, themselves produce. Now, think about the vast billions of already known resources over which those companies already hold the rights to produce, and think about what it is worth to them to not drill and produce more end product. Now, think about why those self-same damned petroleum companies might be agitating for more and more drilling rights over known resources where drilling rights are restricted by laws which were enacted back in the 1970s when oil by the barrel cost what? $10-15.00 per bbl compared with today's per bbl cost of ________? Now, do you get it?
I believe we need to stop this damned jabber-walling and complaining merely about the obscene profits those companies are enjoying and stop allowing them to adhere to the ludicrous claims that they are pumping (pun intended) those windfall profits back into production etc ... for which they get significant tax deductions ... and just think about what they are sitting on and what more they want to sit on.
If people in would just figure that out, and accept the obvious, we would stop bowing to the petroleum gods, we would rise and insist that the windfall profit protections guaranteed by our government and laws be stopped, we would continue to insist that our legally protected regions continue to be off-limits, and we would demand that those companies begin producing the resources they already have legitimate access to.
More, if people in this country would just stop allowing the petroleum industry and the federal government to allow the finger-pointing at OPEC, the Saudis, Venezuala, and others and demand that our government stop protecting the corporations which really control our fuel availability and costs, we just might be able to work ourselves out of the mess the government has gotten us into.
Your thoughts?
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Reading a blog regarding "Jesus for President," I was reminded of several thoughts I've had over the years about "things and concepts religious."
During my graduate school years at the University of Missouri, I recall writing a paper entitled "Jesus Christ as a Community Organizer." Much more recently, I've been known to write that if Jesus Christ was alive in these times, acting and speaking as he allegedly did in his young adulthood, he would be labeled by many in the United States of America as a left wing zealot, a communist. He would have been condemned for those socialist beliefs by the very church and its various conservative denominations and sects which tout their christianity (small "c" intentional) in strident, intrusive and blatantly biased terms.
Having been raised as a Methodist, I am very much aware as to why I attended any event in that church during my adolescance: The MYF group was where most of the girls I liked attended, and our basketball team (YMCA league) was excellent.
I was a boy scout in two troops - one sponsored by a Baptist Church and the other by the Unitarian Church. My grandfather was a Unitarian and my grandmother (guardian) was a Methodist-neither was particularly active in churches, and religion was only one aspect of the scouting movement back in the 1950s.
I minored in history in undergraduate school, and took several courses in religion for the minor. My view of contemporary, conservative Christianity is that the religion denies its roots which did not originate with the Old Testament but predate those stories. More, today's conservative Christianity ignores the origin(s) of the fundamental beliefs which emerged from several different cultures and societies long before Christ was born and lived.
Finally, I am appalled about the warring by humans in the name of religions, which leads me to believe merely that God was a great idea, but we humans have so bastardized the beliefs as to render the idea unrealistic and hypicritical. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated, it is the fundamentalists in the world who pose the greatest threat to humankind. Today's expressions of fundamentalism both in the United States and in the Middle East are testament to Kennedy's comment, in my opinion.
I write this not knowing if anyone will read it, and whoever reads this is invited to visit my blog and share thoughts there.
Respectfully,Samcvt
During my graduate school years at the University of Missouri, I recall writing a paper entitled "Jesus Christ as a Community Organizer." Much more recently, I've been known to write that if Jesus Christ was alive in these times, acting and speaking as he allegedly did in his young adulthood, he would be labeled by many in the United States of America as a left wing zealot, a communist. He would have been condemned for those socialist beliefs by the very church and its various conservative denominations and sects which tout their christianity (small "c" intentional) in strident, intrusive and blatantly biased terms.
Having been raised as a Methodist, I am very much aware as to why I attended any event in that church during my adolescance: The MYF group was where most of the girls I liked attended, and our basketball team (YMCA league) was excellent.
I was a boy scout in two troops - one sponsored by a Baptist Church and the other by the Unitarian Church. My grandfather was a Unitarian and my grandmother (guardian) was a Methodist-neither was particularly active in churches, and religion was only one aspect of the scouting movement back in the 1950s.
I minored in history in undergraduate school, and took several courses in religion for the minor. My view of contemporary, conservative Christianity is that the religion denies its roots which did not originate with the Old Testament but predate those stories. More, today's conservative Christianity ignores the origin(s) of the fundamental beliefs which emerged from several different cultures and societies long before Christ was born and lived.
Finally, I am appalled about the warring by humans in the name of religions, which leads me to believe merely that God was a great idea, but we humans have so bastardized the beliefs as to render the idea unrealistic and hypicritical. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has stated, it is the fundamentalists in the world who pose the greatest threat to humankind. Today's expressions of fundamentalism both in the United States and in the Middle East are testament to Kennedy's comment, in my opinion.
I write this not knowing if anyone will read it, and whoever reads this is invited to visit my blog and share thoughts there.
Respectfully,Samcvt
Friday, May 2, 2008
Growing Up Again
One of my life's persistent and periodic questions has been, "OK Sam, what'n ell are you going to do now that you're growing up again?" At this point in my life, I'm putting truth to power: I'm once again "failing competently at retirement."
About three weeks ago, I was offered and accepted a full time position as a program manager for a company which recruits, obtains subsidized training for and moves participants who are low income and over 55 years of age into unsubsidized employment for which they've recently been trained. Some of those folks are training in occupations they've always wanted to work in and some are merely upgrading and obtaining skills needed for occupations they've worked in at sometime in their past. I'm supervising five community-based offices and their staff on the eastern region of Vermont from Canada to the Massachusetts border.
Guess this "new" failure means one cannot "go back in time," but can go forward in time.
Feels good {;?)
About three weeks ago, I was offered and accepted a full time position as a program manager for a company which recruits, obtains subsidized training for and moves participants who are low income and over 55 years of age into unsubsidized employment for which they've recently been trained. Some of those folks are training in occupations they've always wanted to work in and some are merely upgrading and obtaining skills needed for occupations they've worked in at sometime in their past. I'm supervising five community-based offices and their staff on the eastern region of Vermont from Canada to the Massachusetts border.
Guess this "new" failure means one cannot "go back in time," but can go forward in time.
Feels good {;?)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thinking about Spring 2008
Well, its Springtime in Vermont and snow is predicted for the higher elevations and our Northeast Kingdom. Here, on the West Coast of New England, the ice has left Malletts Bay, and I've seen a couple of sailboats out plying the 40 degree waters of Lake Champlain.
Quetzal is still on her cradle at the boat yard, waiting for the docks, moorings and slips to be returned to the water. The batteries are on the charger in the garage. As time permits, I'm toting goods, resources and the usual items which a cruising sailboat needs for the summer - like sails, cushions, cooking and sleeping stuff and life jackets. Thinking of rigging the back stay as an amateur radio antenna, so I can operate while lying in one or another of the abundant coves during the overnight trips.
Saw a 36 foot craft for sail in Fort Lauderdale and, for a few minutes, fantasized about selling Quetzal (25 foot Catalina), flying to Florida, picking up what looks like a sweet, well kept S2, and bringing her to Lake Champlain via the inland waterway to NYC, up the Hudson River, through the Champlain Canal and into Lake Champlain. But then realized I have just begun another adventure working full time for a company that recruits, places for training, and facilitates job finding for +55year old folks wanting to return to the workplace or find a new occupation. Guess the board wouldn't appreciate my taking off to be frivolous.
May's adventures as alternatives to raking, etc., have been planned and committed to -a white-water rafting weekend on Maine's Kennebec, and a scuba diving venture on Memorial Day weekend at York, Maine and Nubble Point. Both ventures will involve some colder water than I usually enjoy, but its a time for me to move on and continue along this life's sometimes crooked and twisting paths. Looking forward to 2009, there's a February Bahamian catamaran live-aboard trip scheduled by the local dive shop that looks interesting.
The bicycles are tuned and have been rolling along this Spring. Bicycling and the health club continue to make the aches and pains remind me of the muscle mass losses experienced over the past couple of years. I've been told by grinning 20+ year old folks at the club that those aches and pains are "the good kind" which reminds me that our culture has changed somewhat with the concept of "good" having been re-defined.
I'm wondering if I'm the only person who is getting either bored or tired of the same-old, same-old politicking which has gone on far too long with more to come. Several months ago, it occurred to me that the talking heads on the "news" channels, are the folks who focus on trivia, thus fabricating what passes for worthy news, and continuing to justify their incessant chattering about minutia to keep their ratings alive. How many times and ways can Americans hear "change" and still not understand that the change theme, to be believable, needs substance to be included in what we hear from the candidates. They continue to refer critics to their web sites, and I wonder just how many citizens really care enough about the issues besetting the nation to actually "visit" candidate's web pages and wade through the contents. But, what seems overdone and boring today is leading us to experience a full-blown political convention like the ones of earlier times - and that is something that has been missing from the body politics for decades. I'm looking forward to the conventions in August, but believe the Republicans' will be relatively boring simply because their candidate was chosen months ago.
And now, its time to end this...the sun is beckoning ... and I've got to drive up to open up the St. Albans Bay camp for the summer. Sure hope the new tiles we laid on the kitchen and bathroom floors didn't buckle over the winter.
Think 70 degree temps
Quetzal is still on her cradle at the boat yard, waiting for the docks, moorings and slips to be returned to the water. The batteries are on the charger in the garage. As time permits, I'm toting goods, resources and the usual items which a cruising sailboat needs for the summer - like sails, cushions, cooking and sleeping stuff and life jackets. Thinking of rigging the back stay as an amateur radio antenna, so I can operate while lying in one or another of the abundant coves during the overnight trips.
Saw a 36 foot craft for sail in Fort Lauderdale and, for a few minutes, fantasized about selling Quetzal (25 foot Catalina), flying to Florida, picking up what looks like a sweet, well kept S2, and bringing her to Lake Champlain via the inland waterway to NYC, up the Hudson River, through the Champlain Canal and into Lake Champlain. But then realized I have just begun another adventure working full time for a company that recruits, places for training, and facilitates job finding for +55year old folks wanting to return to the workplace or find a new occupation. Guess the board wouldn't appreciate my taking off to be frivolous.
May's adventures as alternatives to raking, etc., have been planned and committed to -a white-water rafting weekend on Maine's Kennebec, and a scuba diving venture on Memorial Day weekend at York, Maine and Nubble Point. Both ventures will involve some colder water than I usually enjoy, but its a time for me to move on and continue along this life's sometimes crooked and twisting paths. Looking forward to 2009, there's a February Bahamian catamaran live-aboard trip scheduled by the local dive shop that looks interesting.
The bicycles are tuned and have been rolling along this Spring. Bicycling and the health club continue to make the aches and pains remind me of the muscle mass losses experienced over the past couple of years. I've been told by grinning 20+ year old folks at the club that those aches and pains are "the good kind" which reminds me that our culture has changed somewhat with the concept of "good" having been re-defined.
I'm wondering if I'm the only person who is getting either bored or tired of the same-old, same-old politicking which has gone on far too long with more to come. Several months ago, it occurred to me that the talking heads on the "news" channels, are the folks who focus on trivia, thus fabricating what passes for worthy news, and continuing to justify their incessant chattering about minutia to keep their ratings alive. How many times and ways can Americans hear "change" and still not understand that the change theme, to be believable, needs substance to be included in what we hear from the candidates. They continue to refer critics to their web sites, and I wonder just how many citizens really care enough about the issues besetting the nation to actually "visit" candidate's web pages and wade through the contents. But, what seems overdone and boring today is leading us to experience a full-blown political convention like the ones of earlier times - and that is something that has been missing from the body politics for decades. I'm looking forward to the conventions in August, but believe the Republicans' will be relatively boring simply because their candidate was chosen months ago.
And now, its time to end this...the sun is beckoning ... and I've got to drive up to open up the St. Albans Bay camp for the summer. Sure hope the new tiles we laid on the kitchen and bathroom floors didn't buckle over the winter.
Think 70 degree temps
Monday, March 17, 2008
History of Religion-Colonies & Founders' Beliefs
In yesterday's (03-16-2008) Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, a local minister's article appeared on the editorial page wondering if our founders could/would have been elected were they running for office today. I've incorporated the editorial into this note:
My Turn: Could the Founding Fathers get elected?
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008
By Gary Kowalski It's happened before: God is getting mixed up in presidential politics and spiritual correctness is en vogue. Candidates have been as
One wonders, would the Founding Fathers pass the religious litmus test now required for public office? How would our first four presidents -- George Washington, or John Adams, or Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison -- measure up?
During the bitterly contested election of 1800, the Gazette of the United States intoned that voters faced a single question: "Shall I continue in allegiance to God and a Religious President; Or impiously declare for Jefferson and No God!!!" Many considered Thomas Jefferson a heathen, and clergy in New England warned their flocks the man from Monticello would confiscate their Bibles if elected. Instead, Jefferson wrote his own version of the New Testament, scrapping the miracles. But despite that, the author of the Declaration of Independence and engineer of the Louisiana Purchase was an outstanding president.
Job performance has little to do with private devotion, anyway. George Washington indicated that he was willing to hire "Mohometans, Jews, or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists" on his Mount Vernon estate so long as they were able workers. He himself attended church only sporadically and avoided Sundays when he knew communion would be served. His diaries never mentioned Christ nor any spiritual reflections that occurred to him when he did sit through a sermon. His mind was on other things: defeating the British army, presiding successfully over the Constitutional Convention and, by limiting his presidency to two terms, assuring a peaceful transfer of power in the world's first democracy.
Unlike Washington, John Adams attended worship almost every week, along with Abigail, who said she preferred "liberal good sense from the pulpit." But far from receiving divine guidance for the nation, Adams cautioned that the framers of the Constitution "never had interviews with the gods or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven." Putting God's name in the document -- or other theological assertions -- could only stir up trouble, for America even then was a land of diverse faiths.
The Constitution in Article Six specifically prohibits religious tests for public office. During ratification, some Virginians wanted the clause re-worded: "no other religious test shall ever be required than a belief in the one only true God, who is the rewarder of the good, and the punisher of evil." But this change was rejected. James Madison wisely defended Article Six as welcoming people of every persuasion into the field of public service: "The door of the Federal Government is open to men of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith."
If tested for orthodoxy, the Father of the Constitution might never have been allowed into the White House. Madison's own creed, according to the rather shocked testimony of Rev. William Meade, bishop of Virginia's Episcopal Church, "was not strictly regulated by the Bible."
Had spiritual correctness been required, would any of these founders have been elected president? Citizens have every right to take their religion into the polling booth, of course. But a look back at history should remind Americans not to demand any narrow definitions of godliness in the leaders they select.
Gary Kowalski of Burlington, senior minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, is the author of "Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of Americas Founding Fathers "(BlueBridge, 2008).
+++++++++++++++++++
A few days ago, while driving back to Vermont from Troy, NY, accompanied by one of the region's public radio stations, I listened to a Christian scholar describe the basis for our founder's insistence on and ambivalence about our "freedom of religion" phrasing in the Constitution.
I hadn't known that early colonists, escaping the religious and political tyranny(ies) of Europe to settle in North America, manifested literally no acceptance of religious freedom. In fact, in many of the early colonies, accusations and punishment by death, in the name of one religion or another were rampant. By the time the founders gathered to consider the meaning of independance for the nation they intended to form, religious freedom, per se, in North American was all but absent - a situation which had existed from the 1600s to 1776. Perhaps if I had read and learned more about my ancestry and family history during residence in Plimuth Plantation and, later, as founders of Salem, Massachusetts, I would have known about colonial intolerance for those who believed differently.
In fact, the founders we hold in reverence today, represented several disparate views about the importance and meaning of religion, and notes from that period indicate several heated discussions might have occurred before the freedom of religion clause was drafted and accepted.
My point with these references is to challenge those who read these notes and who espouse their genuine belief that our nation was founded based on Protestant religious principles to do some real research and learning about the religions of the world, their beginnings, their influences (negative and positive), and what beliefs about religiosity were extant during the period leading up to, during and following our nation's struggle for independence and nationhood.
A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me a lengthy piece with an accompanying video which describes what true Biblical scholars have known and understood for decades about the origins of many of Christianity's beliefs. Having studied world religions as part of my history minor in college, I found the article and explanation to be both encouraging (of my belief system), enlightening, and intelligently challenging. If I can find that material, I'll forward it and/or perhaps paste it into my blog at http://samcvt.blogspot.com.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
My Turn: Could the Founding Fathers get elected?
Published: Sunday, March 16, 2008
By Gary Kowalski It's happened before: God is getting mixed up in presidential politics and spiritual correctness is en vogue. Candidates have been as
One wonders, would the Founding Fathers pass the religious litmus test now required for public office? How would our first four presidents -- George Washington, or John Adams, or Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison -- measure up?
During the bitterly contested election of 1800, the Gazette of the United States intoned that voters faced a single question: "Shall I continue in allegiance to God and a Religious President; Or impiously declare for Jefferson and No God!!!" Many considered Thomas Jefferson a heathen, and clergy in New England warned their flocks the man from Monticello would confiscate their Bibles if elected. Instead, Jefferson wrote his own version of the New Testament, scrapping the miracles. But despite that, the author of the Declaration of Independence and engineer of the Louisiana Purchase was an outstanding president.
Job performance has little to do with private devotion, anyway. George Washington indicated that he was willing to hire "Mohometans, Jews, or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists" on his Mount Vernon estate so long as they were able workers. He himself attended church only sporadically and avoided Sundays when he knew communion would be served. His diaries never mentioned Christ nor any spiritual reflections that occurred to him when he did sit through a sermon. His mind was on other things: defeating the British army, presiding successfully over the Constitutional Convention and, by limiting his presidency to two terms, assuring a peaceful transfer of power in the world's first democracy.
Unlike Washington, John Adams attended worship almost every week, along with Abigail, who said she preferred "liberal good sense from the pulpit." But far from receiving divine guidance for the nation, Adams cautioned that the framers of the Constitution "never had interviews with the gods or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven." Putting God's name in the document -- or other theological assertions -- could only stir up trouble, for America even then was a land of diverse faiths.
The Constitution in Article Six specifically prohibits religious tests for public office. During ratification, some Virginians wanted the clause re-worded: "no other religious test shall ever be required than a belief in the one only true God, who is the rewarder of the good, and the punisher of evil." But this change was rejected. James Madison wisely defended Article Six as welcoming people of every persuasion into the field of public service: "The door of the Federal Government is open to men of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith."
If tested for orthodoxy, the Father of the Constitution might never have been allowed into the White House. Madison's own creed, according to the rather shocked testimony of Rev. William Meade, bishop of Virginia's Episcopal Church, "was not strictly regulated by the Bible."
Had spiritual correctness been required, would any of these founders have been elected president? Citizens have every right to take their religion into the polling booth, of course. But a look back at history should remind Americans not to demand any narrow definitions of godliness in the leaders they select.
Gary Kowalski of Burlington, senior minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, is the author of "Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of Americas Founding Fathers "(BlueBridge, 2008).
+++++++++++++++++++
A few days ago, while driving back to Vermont from Troy, NY, accompanied by one of the region's public radio stations, I listened to a Christian scholar describe the basis for our founder's insistence on and ambivalence about our "freedom of religion" phrasing in the Constitution.
I hadn't known that early colonists, escaping the religious and political tyranny(ies) of Europe to settle in North America, manifested literally no acceptance of religious freedom. In fact, in many of the early colonies, accusations and punishment by death, in the name of one religion or another were rampant. By the time the founders gathered to consider the meaning of independance for the nation they intended to form, religious freedom, per se, in North American was all but absent - a situation which had existed from the 1600s to 1776. Perhaps if I had read and learned more about my ancestry and family history during residence in Plimuth Plantation and, later, as founders of Salem, Massachusetts, I would have known about colonial intolerance for those who believed differently.
In fact, the founders we hold in reverence today, represented several disparate views about the importance and meaning of religion, and notes from that period indicate several heated discussions might have occurred before the freedom of religion clause was drafted and accepted.
My point with these references is to challenge those who read these notes and who espouse their genuine belief that our nation was founded based on Protestant religious principles to do some real research and learning about the religions of the world, their beginnings, their influences (negative and positive), and what beliefs about religiosity were extant during the period leading up to, during and following our nation's struggle for independence and nationhood.
A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me a lengthy piece with an accompanying video which describes what true Biblical scholars have known and understood for decades about the origins of many of Christianity's beliefs. Having studied world religions as part of my history minor in college, I found the article and explanation to be both encouraging (of my belief system), enlightening, and intelligently challenging. If I can find that material, I'll forward it and/or perhaps paste it into my blog at http://samcvt.blogspot.com.
Sam Conant
Colchester, Vermont
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Splainin
January 20, 2008 8:34 pm
Many folks have urged me to create a blog and, until this evening when I read the blog created by a special friend, I've avoided the urging by others. So, this is my first comment: one by which I believe the Blog's Title needs to be explained.
My former father-in-law, Emmett B. Adams, lived most of his life in Taney County, Missouri. I should probably point out that in the years I knew him, I addressed him as "Mr. Adams" and always referred to him as my, then, wife's father.
He was both a simple and a complex fellow, and someone whose memory I cherish. Emmett was a Godly Presbyterian who rarely missed a Sunday sermon. As I recall, the only times I experienced him not attending Sunday School and Church were those Sundays when he was off somewhere (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri or somewhere else) judging either horses or fox hounds. Oh yes, the man was an avid horseman and Ozark fox hunter. Many a long night it was that I sat with his friends and him around a fire in the woods, eating beans and bacon, swapping stories and bragging about "Old Blue's" or some other hound's mouth as the scent was caught.
More about Emmett at other times. Why I am calling this blog "The Plime Blank Truth" has to do with Emmett Adams. He once wrote a small book of anecdotes and local lore by that title. I have a copy and will probably share some of that here. I use the title in honor of Emmett Adams - a man who never swore (much), and who I recall never hearing a slurring word about anyone coming from his mouth. He spoke the "Plime Blank Truth," or he figured what he wanted to say just "warn't worth sayin." So, thats the splaination about my blog's title.
I intend this blog to be a forum for thoughts (mine and others) about whatever might come to mind - patriotiic, phylosphical, political, religious and anything else. About all I ask is that readers and responders think and act kindly of one another and work at avoiding assumptive, disparing labels.
Because of my upbringing, I intend also to attempt dialectical humor from time to time. My primary male role model during the formative years was my uncle, George Frechette. From him and others along the way, somehow, I learned to appreciate, enjoy and respect the French-Canadian Quebecois culture that sits atop and underpins the values of Northern Vermont. Some of what I'll share has been published and is in my small collection of folk lore material developed during the 20th century. Some will be original reflecting some of my experiences.
Now that I've begun, I believe I'll just stop here and put some fuel in the furnace so my energy level maintains.
Many folks have urged me to create a blog and, until this evening when I read the blog created by a special friend, I've avoided the urging by others. So, this is my first comment: one by which I believe the Blog's Title needs to be explained.
My former father-in-law, Emmett B. Adams, lived most of his life in Taney County, Missouri. I should probably point out that in the years I knew him, I addressed him as "Mr. Adams" and always referred to him as my, then, wife's father.
He was both a simple and a complex fellow, and someone whose memory I cherish. Emmett was a Godly Presbyterian who rarely missed a Sunday sermon. As I recall, the only times I experienced him not attending Sunday School and Church were those Sundays when he was off somewhere (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri or somewhere else) judging either horses or fox hounds. Oh yes, the man was an avid horseman and Ozark fox hunter. Many a long night it was that I sat with his friends and him around a fire in the woods, eating beans and bacon, swapping stories and bragging about "Old Blue's" or some other hound's mouth as the scent was caught.
More about Emmett at other times. Why I am calling this blog "The Plime Blank Truth" has to do with Emmett Adams. He once wrote a small book of anecdotes and local lore by that title. I have a copy and will probably share some of that here. I use the title in honor of Emmett Adams - a man who never swore (much), and who I recall never hearing a slurring word about anyone coming from his mouth. He spoke the "Plime Blank Truth," or he figured what he wanted to say just "warn't worth sayin." So, thats the splaination about my blog's title.
I intend this blog to be a forum for thoughts (mine and others) about whatever might come to mind - patriotiic, phylosphical, political, religious and anything else. About all I ask is that readers and responders think and act kindly of one another and work at avoiding assumptive, disparing labels.
Because of my upbringing, I intend also to attempt dialectical humor from time to time. My primary male role model during the formative years was my uncle, George Frechette. From him and others along the way, somehow, I learned to appreciate, enjoy and respect the French-Canadian Quebecois culture that sits atop and underpins the values of Northern Vermont. Some of what I'll share has been published and is in my small collection of folk lore material developed during the 20th century. Some will be original reflecting some of my experiences.
Now that I've begun, I believe I'll just stop here and put some fuel in the furnace so my energy level maintains.
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