Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and philosopher, 200 years ago, explored the possibility that all religions and mythical traditions, with their general agreement on the unity of God and the immortality of the soul, sprang from a universal life consciousness, which was expressed particularly through the phenomena of human genius.

Such a possibility could also be explored and expressed through the phenomena of evolution by scientists and Thomases doubting the existence of God. Just consider the wonders of the natural world revealed to discoverers over the ages.

Pierre Teilhard de Chard in, the philosopher, thought no conflict exists between religion and science, writing in 1950 that he is both "a child of heaven" and a "child of earth" meaning that he can believe in spirt as God simultaneously with believing in the material, natural world. Faith for de Chardin melded scientific and eternal truth.

Take your pick - human genius or the genius of nature as referenced by Coleridge when he penned:

"...so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself."

But only sub-human intelligence or a super intelligent stone could have penned the lyrics to a song I heard over the radio waves this morning: "Hold on to the night’ hold onto the memory. Love that is real but in disguise. Hold on to the night." Right? Wrong!

Coleridge, philosophers, scientists, nature lovers and even I, holding onto the memory of my 4th viewing of the film THE BLACK STALLION last night, can distinguish the light of reason and creativity from the darkness of unmeaningness and unintelligibility.

Not to decorate

Who not to decorate or remember on this day? The Clintons. Bill and Hell. Born within one year (1946 and 1947 respectively) of each other, they share political ambitions and a history of protests against military institutions. Bill obtained a draft deferment for his 1st year of studies in 1998 as a Rhodes Scholar and then extended his deferment by applying to the ROTC. Later he not only expressed his gratitude to the ROTC for "saving him" from the draft, but also his concern that his opposition to war might ruin his "political viability." Not to be outdone, Hellary embraced anti-war demonstrations, socialism and progressive agendas in college, rejected "milk and cookies" and the traditional role of motherhood to pursue a law career and politics. She campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, an extreme liberal for President, but his huge loss taught her nothing. Unlike Hell, Bill found apologizing easy. After apologizing to voters for his mistakes in Arkansas as a 1st term Governor, he was re-elected and went on to eventually hold 5 terms in office. "Feeling the pain" of others was Bill’s winning strategy as Governor and President. Since their marriage in 1975 and the production of their sole ‘love-child’ Chelsea, Bill and Hell have practiced dual sociopathies. Memorial Day means more than laying a wreath at the grave of a fallen soldier. It decorates ideals and commitment in the true American tradition. Hell and Bill, stay away today.

Competition

Is money the greatest competitor to God?

A health-and- wealth style evangelical Protestant church wants money from members for support and growth following Biblical teachings about tithing.

A small business owner needs money to support himself and his family.

A Corporation aims at profitability to support its bottom line for shareholders and stockholders.

Government uses money from taxes to support necessary expenditures that protect its citizens.

An individual spends and saves money wisely to insure support for retirement and old age.

Does money, therefore, compete with God? Wasting time, talent and finances displeases God. So I think responsible co-existence between man and money offers the best assurance of winning the competition for Heaven with God.

Decoration Day / Memeorial Day

Accompanying this time of spring swarms, decorations and declamations are laid to rest upon the graves of fallen warriors. This 2008 Memorial Day, we again remember with poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 -1882):

"Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours."

A 20 year navy veteran from West Chester, Pa., also sums up the spirit.

"I was trained by a family that taught me to love our country, not blame it. And I am paid (back) by troops and their families who say thanks for doing this, thanks for being here."

In 1922, when the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated, words to him still echo through the years our debt to soldiers, fallen in the line of duty.

IN THIS TEMPLE
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER.

Politics should not come into play on Memorial Day. Freedom has been rung by dedication and sacrifice, both bi-partisan, unifying American ideals.

More money than brains

Which is the bad idea whose time has come? A local law criminalizing ‘voyeurism against minors’ because of one local incident a few years ago? A local politician asking for the state to step in to contribute a little more to local projects in his district? A jobs package by the Governor for 1.7 billion dollars to create a mere 25,000 jobs which includes a ‘clean Ohio fund’? A Democrat Mark Dann spending his campaign contributions on over 300 lunches (which I bet were not noodles and cheese)? A state representative making a liberal statement that eliminating the gas tax for the summer will cost jobs; therefore, the public must be educated against it? The Democrats sneaking into the wartime bill, a 10.4 additional dollars for the food stamps and nutrition programs? Americans spending 11 billion dollars on bottled water, which beats what they spend on beer, milk and coffee. My, oh, my! How hard a decision is it? Piece of cake! Turn on your home tap, soak your head or drink deeply. Americans with more money than brains have lost their sanity.

medling

We could do worse than a libertarian candidate for President, Bob Barr. Too much freedom certainly trumps too little and liberty is all-American to boot. Incessant, needless meddling by government continually buzzes around us like bees about their queen. Bees at least produce honey, but government’s swill tastes as bitter as gall. Government meddles into private companies and their pursuit of profits, meddles with spending bills sneaking into them extra pork for pet projects, meddles with the freedom of individuals to choose recreational activities, food, drink, drugs, sexual, moral, patriotic and religious beliefs. Non stop’s the meddling. Inevitably meddling costs taxpayers more money but keeping the payers from understanding the facts constitutes a full time job for government. Meddling is propagated as a public good at the local, state and federal level. Even a silly program like the Homestead exemption for senior citizens - to bestow a few hundred dollars as a housing tax credit - just tweaks the tax code and adds one more layer of waste and complication to the income tax system. It even wastes postage with a notice mailed to all homestead participants which does not need to be answered unless a change of status has occurred. A libertarian President would allow individuals to be superior to the state which might result in anarchy or democracy. This could be good. We need anarchy to counteract the governments constant meddling. We don’t have democracy as long as government meddles.

Shock and Awe

Shock and awe as a strategy and/or battle tactic did not originate with Republican politicians in Washington with and military leaders before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. No, a curious fellow Confederate in the Civil War commented that "since most men tended to look at a battlefield with fear and revulsion, he sought to make the enemy’s initial impression of it as ‘shocking’ as he could. Rather than hold a significant force in reserve, he tried to deliver all he had in the ‘fiercest’ way possible, so as to immediately ‘overawe and demoralize.’ Then ‘with unabated fury, by a constant repetition of blows’ he could kill, capture, and drive the foe ‘with but little difficulty.’" And so it came down for America’s capture of Baghdad. So it played out for Nathan Bedford Forrest as a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War. Shock and awe, however, have been redefined as disgust and disaster when it comes to the two Democrat Presidential candidates in today’s battle for the Presidency. Disgust as Hellary Clinton, Disaster as Barack Obama. Barack would throw shock and awe into the dustbin of history and replace it with a gentler, kinder diplomacy without preconditions. Even a former Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, warned us that "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies."

Pig out

When an elitist, yuppie, weight-conscious, hedonistic counselor of all inferior beings speaks about "eating mindfully," Americans for whom life is worth living, speak out. "I love food. When I eat something good, I want more... of that (which) brings me pleasure," writes a critic. Another respondent states how "I could ‘learn’ not to love chocolate cake. And eating a couple of bites, by itself, creates the desire form more bites." A third answer sums up the thought of common folk. "Your article made me furious." Only a liberal, life-denying sourpuss could advise me or any other life-affirming individual that "a single mouthful of something can be more satisfying than a larger quantity of you focus on it intently." That’s called meditation. One sits on a carpet for that; I sit at table to truly worship at the altar of goodness. Only a liberal life-denying sourpuss could counsel fellow homo sapiens with mad advice that a ½ eaten scone ( after you force yourself to consume what you dislike) would not result in hunger sooner. Only a liberal, life-denying, biological psychiatrist with an agenda could declare that "sugar and fatty foods deplete the brain’s pleasure chemicals..which then lowers self-esteem." Only a liberal, reality denier could claim that exercise is a more productive way to satisfy cravings. Any fool knows that exercise absorbs calories and naturally whets the appetite. Only a liberal ‘loves’ to make life a living Hell without a source of joy or inspiration or thank you to God. Ironically, God only exists for liberal life deniers as a reflection in the mirror, which, remember, is mortal.

Who are right

About the modern-day immersion of a technological generation, who is right, who divines the future? What oracle speaks?

"The electronic technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology on and through which the American way of life was formed." So recorded Marshall McLuhan 40 years ago.

"Has he (a social critic Thomas Frank) not noticed that everyone has a cellphone, that flatscreen TV’s are flying off the shelves and millions of new cares are being sold? ...Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, ... there’s nothing about equality. ... the core of America is liberty." So writes a resident of Connecticut.

Scary, exciting, liberating, frustrating, infinitely ambitious and thoroughly amnesic. If you live in a high-tech community ...you already live in this world." So thinks Michael S. Malone

"What’s really important is the culture of ideas and innovation" that books represent. But to "expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters." So believes a columnist L. Gordon Crovitz.

Which oracle tells us the future. Is the book dead or dying as technologies are continually created and/or transformed? Affluence accompanies higher and higher standards of living and quiet, down time for reading seems to be receding. The excitement of new ideas and new experiences will remain the key to the future. So? Why can’t both sides of the coin continue to be minted? Technies and luddites. Web browsers and bookworms. The Core of America is liberty.

Domestic vs. Wild

Just - twenty feet divides
lares and penates
two worlds apart.

Suburban perfection,
eastward protected from wind,
intense in cultivation
with arboretum standards,
the madness of minutiae,
bedded black-skirted flowers,
sheared grass all around.
Devotees to exterior detail.
A garage of useful machines
bedded down beside air-conditioned
comfort and irrelevance of natural air.
Restraint behind closed doors.
Appearance of modern dwellers within.

Rural madness across the road
buffeted by western howls
that strip leaves and flip flowers
down branches, blow unneighborly leaves
to wear patience thin. Inherited
ancient, humpy farmland,
useless topsoil of rock and clay,
bivouac for weeds and wild upstarts
a continual workload under the sky.
Indoors, minds immersed in books,
souls consigned to reflected perfection
consistency shunned out of necessity,
decorations consigned to understatement,
resignation opening windows
each new, old-fashioned day.

Four adults’ live two worlds apart.
America, of thee I sing.

Dan Patch lies a-moulding in the grave

Dan Patch lies a-moulding in the grave

In 1916, the great pacing horse, Dan Patch, was dumped to rest unmarked and unsung near a Minnesota riverbed.

On April 12th, 2008, a family’s pet bull dog was dumped in a roadside ditch nearby my home, marked with a blanket covering, left unsung to die because it suffered from an eye infection and a stomach tumor the owner had tied off with a string.

Movie critic Joe Morgenstern reminds us that "There’s no way of putting the genie of overstimulation back in the bottle. ... Kids live in a world of ever-increasing excitation. But we can expose them to alternate visions and alternate rhythms.... We can show them the best, and then hope for the best." Examples of such films are THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, FANTASIA, OLIVER, THE WIZARD OF OZ, MARY POPPINS, AND THE BLACK STALLION.

Edwin Way Teale, the naturalist, also points out a sobering thought. "Each breaking wave was unique just as each human being is unique. No two other people would ever appear on earth alike in all respects to the two who then sat under the stars listening to the rush of water on the shore. The infinite originality of nature, originality in snowflakes and sand grains, in waves and human beings - and stars - runs through all the universe."

When IRON MAN and SPEED RACER fill up the big screens, how can you expect youth to reach responsible adulthood? I say with John Milton, the poet, "childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." and then again with William Wordsworth, another poet 100 years later, "the child is father of the man. How should the reverence for a meaningful life lived, be noted in death? Would not teaching the lessons of contemplation and reflection rather than excitation not produce better children and adults? How should a uniqueness be remembered? With horses? With dogs? With living creatures? Why must creation be spoiled by individual and conscious acts of cruelty?

"The people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny." Untruer words may not have been spoken. In 1845, for President James Knox Polk, they presaged the Mexican War. In 2008, for true Americans who inherited the scrappy personas of independence, it should be a battle cry again. Polk felt that taking the Southwest would be OK if the residents gave their consent. Perhaps he lied us into the war or started the war with a questionable shooting as a cause celebre because he felt that if we didn’t take hold of our Manifest Destiny, some other country would. But Polk would have approved of HEAP. 150 years after the victory at Chapultepec, Mexico, we have the national Home Energy Assistance Program. It has migrated from help for home heating bills to home cooling bills. This season, it will have a shortfall of funds and will be able to hand out only $100 not $175 vouchers. Where do these vouchers originate? They come from the citizens who pay taxes (usually not the recipients). They would never be approved if the contributors were provided the truth about government takeover of their freedoms and their paychecks. They would never approve of their country, re-distributing wealth built up in this nation by hard-working, scrapers. Settlers, by the way, rushed to make their fortunes in California once gold was discovered in the new ‘land’ a year after the end of the Mexican War. Liberalism, progressivism, socialism have replaced self-reliance. They were unknown war games in Polk’s time. Citizens would have rejected HELP from HEAP. Has Manifest Destiny for America come to this?

A tale Carter vs. Carver

Jimmy Carter, son of a peanut warehouser, claims that he desires to serve humanity. Excluding his Habitat program of home building for the poor, he has performed the greatest disservice to America by promoting and supporting the enemies of American freedoms and self-sufficiency. In contrast, another man with an affinity for the peanut, enhanced our nation’s economic and moral landscape. The son of a slave, the 18th of 20 children, George Washington Carver, worked to better the plight of not only Negroes but all Americans. He cultivated peanuts and soybeans, ultimately utilizing 300 derivatives from peanuts. He promoted responsibility and freedom of opportunity. Furthermore, Jimmy Carter said in his Gubernatorial inauguration speech in 1970, "the time for racial discrimination is over." However, his political heir-apparent and present Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has run a campaign dividing our country along racial lines. Racism, alive and well, won’t silently steal away because it never was eliminated and it continues to be brought to the fore. The defeat of Carter and his ultra-liberal Vice-President Walter Mondale in 1980 spoke to the weariness Americans felt for the man who supposedly ‘served‘ their interests would erase racial divides. Liberal Obama, unfortunately, fans the flames of racism and dependency, i.e. socialism. George Washington Carver, not Jimmy Carter would be scandalized.

Bureaucracy

The encyclopedia get its wrong. It defines bureaucracy as "a professional corps of officials organized in a pyramidal hierarchy and functioning under impersonal, uniform rules and procedures." Bureaucracy, of course, is comprised of as many un-professionals as are possible to muck up any good idea. The best idea appears to be that of natural law as espoused by Edmund Burke. The encyclopedia gets it right when it explains Burke’s thoughts about "the emotional and spiritual life of man as a harmony within the larger order of the universe. Natural impulse, that is, contains within itself self-restraint and self-criticism; ... It follows that society and state make possible the full realization of human potentiality, embody a common good, and represent a tacit or explicit agreement on norms and ends. ... The political community acts ideally as a unity."

When a bureaucracy takes over, the time for good ideas ends. In 2008, bureaucracy gets 300 billion dollars for a farm subsidy bill for unworthy welfare recipients. A prospective teacher from Arizona is ‘giving up the ghost’ because he doesn’t want to be part of "this failed bureaucracy" called public education. Incompetent teachers, working in an incompetent bureaucracy perforce will turn out incompetent students into an incompetent society where natural impulses have been squashed. Natural laws don’t have a fighting chance. No personal self-criticism arises from a bureaucracy; no independent creativity results from its unnatural teachings.

The encyclopedia merely supplies definitions and facts (as accurately as possible). What will rational men and women do with them? First we must find those individuals for whom the examined life is worth living.

Deep doodoo

The Wall Street Journal features In Depth articles on Health, Travel, Leisure and Arts and more. How deep do the features go? They plumb the issues of helping the blind see art. They take on the new tack of fliers self-sorting at airports in the security lines. They expose the drying up of money coming in from dues at homeowner’s associations. They discuss the playwright Mamet’s verbal jiu-jitsu. They present the suggestion of mindful eating of 1 meal or snack a day to lose weight. They ask whether Frank Sinatra was an artist or idol. They tell readers that web sites help people spy on their friends ( as if patrons don’t already volunteer ‘dirt’ on their friends and relatives ). They document the University of Colorado recent pro-marijuana rally of 1/3 of the student body which featured tofu wieners on the menu. They show that the dollar weakens and our economy follows. They also remind readers that from 1981 to 2003 reading for young people 15 - 18, fell to a record low of 7 minutes a day. What does an in depth look at America tell me? Are we mindless idiots who love hooey? If so, we are in deep doodoo.

The Trinity

Classifications into threes has been perennially instinctive. Archeologists have classified the ages of man into the Stone, the Bronze and the Iron Age. The Hindus explain mankind through a Trinity. The Creator, Brahma, is manifested as the supreme, eternal, absolute universe, the Preserver, Vishnu, is manifested through incarnations, and Shiva, the destroyer, represents death and human reproductions. The Christians believe in God the Father all-mighty, Jesus the Son, Redeemer of mankind’s original sin of disobedience and the Holy Spirit, alive in the world through the winds and fires of grace. In the Father, Brahma we believe. In Vishnu, the Son we love and in Shiva, the Holy Spirit we hope. What can we make of the Trinity of fools vying for the White House in 2008? Political pandering and power-playing have taken Faith, Hope and Love back to the stone age. Maybe wandering around there each or all of the three lost souls can recover the words of the Bible: "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer."

Bolus and chyme

Barak’s bolus vs. Hellary’s chyme - both food for thought. When Obama mixes in his mouth socialism’s goal of the perfection of society with Americans’ longing for change, sometimes he spits it out, sometimes he swallows it as delectable. Clinton’s nannyism, progressivism and Big Brotherism has been churning around in her gut for years having been been digested to perfection and then regurgitated as qualifiying her for political leadership. Bolus vs. chyme. I prefer my lunch menu raw, my meat rare, my life untouched by another person’s leftovers. Liberalism won’t give us Americans back any hope for our future. Its philosophical and real choices at the table, at the employment line and at the altar, will strictly be bland, equalized, unappealing. If it fulfills its ‘plan’ with either Barack or Hellary, our culture and society will finally be perfect. Don’t you swallow their lines of garbage.

Definitions:

Bolus : A roundish lump of chewed food
Chyme : Digested food in the intestines

A U.S. haiku

The saint of the haiku, under the pseudonym, Basho, lived from 1644 - 1694 in Japan. The early 17th century also reflects the birth of our great nation. Basho’s haikus attempted to compare and contrast 2 independent phenomena using as his background, the natural world. The pattern of 5,7,5 syllables formed his short poems. He felt that the meaning of the world could be captured in a simple, eternal, unhackneyed pattern of poetry. For ex.:

On a withered branch
A raven has alighted -
Nightfall in autumn.

Moving forward 300 years here’s a haiku from humble me; keep in mind America’s great history.

Patriotic buds
Feed a natural harvest -
Self-sufficiently.

Dead fish

A spectre is haunting America, the foreboding spirit of liberalism. Karl Marx released the ghost in his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. It floats over our country still. Socialism lives in the dream of a nanny state. Barack and Hellary preach it from their souls. Virtually every artist, professor, liberal politician and non-thinking black (or white) American perceives the ideal socialist state as a good when in reality it has failed historically and will always fail to raise the standards of freedom, self-determination and morality for the peoples of the world. Instead of achieving social perfection, liberalism and socialism result in arrogant, ruthless and motor-mouthed leaders and followers doing harm under the rubric of democracy in action. They have crossed the Rubicon of reason, gone astray, somewhere in the 1960's and have not changed course. Quoting an irrational, self-identifying liberal, Jim Hightower, “even a dead fish can go with the flow.” Liberals always follow the mainstream lies of their party; they always will. What’s the point of trying to scoop up their carcasses out of compassion when they deliberately self-destruct by the loss of their higher God-given power to reason?

The shameful many

"In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress." Can you believe this observation is as old as the 2nd President of the United States, John Adams? Yet nothing’s changed. In America, the downfall process has been gradual. One politician without common sense has multiplied into many along with two plus two hundred greedy attorneys-defenders to eventually constitute a bi-partisan, bloviating Congress bent on doing good at the expense of the tax-paying public. To obtain 1 gallon of ethanol fuel, 1700 gallons of water are required along with 51 cents of tax credits. Is this moral and environmental inefficiency justifiable? No way. In addition, even with the food supply at the stage of crisis in some countries, crop production continues to be diverted to shameful ends. Subsidized waste of nature’s greatest liquid treasure would have appalled Adams, but it sure doesn’t scandalize our Congressional nitwits today.

Mother's day

"It’s not about you," are the first words of Rick Warren’s ever popular best seller, THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE. Most would approve of this sentiment on Mother’s Day. Or should we? Not only the concept but also its interpretation is equivocal. 2008 marks the centennial of the 1st celebration of Mother’s day in Grafton, West Virginia, when Anna Jarvis commemorated her mother’s death at the Andrews Methodist Church. Mother, of course, is the operative word but remember that the ceremony took place in a church. Respect for motherhood has fallen in proportion to the fall-off in church attendance. Consider too the concept of selflessness embodied in the word mother. Some time past, a mother’s devotion to sacrifice was replaced by a devotion to ‘me.’ Yes, present culture speaks to fulfillment of ‘me’ - my needs, my wants, my career, my dream, my life, my spiritual journey without regard for an ‘other.’ I’m sure Rick Warren intended his philosophy to inspire Americans to serve others, to doing unto them as you would want them to do to you. But women (and men) should revisit the concept of me (not you) in light of what duty, sacrifice and yes, love truly mean. Otherwise, moral behavior and self-satisfaction will never coalesce. A recent letter to the Record-Herald by Mr. McDaniel pointed out a few of the weaknesses in our society’s moral backbone. Do we still have mothers (symbolized by Anna Jarvis’s mother) who civilize society and provide backbone to our nation? Single mothering, inebriated mothering, absent mothering, self-indulgent mothering, undisciplined mothering just won’t do. Truly it’s all about you this Mother’s day, mothers, with or without the flowers.

7 deadly sins

Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth - 7 deadly sins - how many of them escape the Clintons? Novelist Kurt Anderson writes about Bill Clinton’s presidency as bungled and distasteful, his wife’s Presidential campaign the same, both husband and wife as incarnations of the "most unattractive attributes of their generation’s elite - blind ambition, cloaked in do-good self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement, high-handed snobbiness, ...hedonism,... narcissism.... They have become a bit of an embarrassment." To whom does shame apply other than to themselves? To America as a country that has endured their slings and arrows unused in their quiver and never aimed at the 7 deadly sins. Theirs is: arrogance, greed, lust for power as well as sexual satisfaction, angry tirades against Republican and conservative conspiracies, materialistic excesses and addiction to the good life, jealousy of the Presidency and its power and laziness to learn the facts about ‘real Americans, real patriots, real intellectual honesty and real moral, self-sufficiency that have made this country great.

Shame on you two Clintons. Does a third, Chelsea, stand in the wings? Oh God, no!

Anorexia on turf

To prove that ideals can be perverted, to achieve the ideal of slimness Americans perfected anorexia in young women. To achieve the ideal of speed on the backstretch, thoroughbred gambling perfected anorexia on the turf. No longer is the ideal horse a thing of beauty, albeit a hayburner. No longer do strength, stamina and heart prevail. Cowardly inbreeding accounts for the 2nd race horse put down after competition. Barbero and now Eight Bells... As Glenn Beck so cleverly put it Monday May5h, 2008, the automobile on popsicle sticks remains out of the purview of pet status. Why could technology not have saved this filly when she broke down? Why couldn’t she have been saved to become some one’s pet? Why no way? Horseflesh has been re-tuned, refined and literally down-sized to the point that the ‘kings and queens of the wind’ are capable of fewer and fewer races. The car’s horsepower has bulked up; the horse has been slimmed down. No wonder the outside of these ‘commercial’ horses cannot enrich the inside of a man. Descendants of Native Dancer are cursed, so why continue to breed them? The answer lies in another perversion - the perversion of the ideal world when common sense has been bred out of humanity. Take two current examples. A new law establishes a data base for next of kin in cases of emergency or death. This new law is necessary to overturn the old law that refused to reveal to individuals identities of next of kin in just such cases. Again, the government mandated and subsidized ethanol but now that food prices have soared, government wants to cut back on the program. Insane goings on!

Letter to editor

Stop the mowers! Global warming hysteria monger Al Gore will speak May 4th at the Value City Arena in Columbus about energy sustainability. Tickets are free to OSU students ( so they can be indoctrinated) but will cost the public $37.50. His message purportedly is how communities can achieve greener living and save the planet. What are we to do about this? Should we go on mowing our lawns, wasteful of gas and human capital? Recycle? Meditate in the dark? Refuse to shop or travel? Should we succumb to Al the Prophet’s drivel about consensus among scientists that we have only ten years to stop global warming? Recently, a group of scientists admitted that the earth is cooling not warming and nature - not man - controls our future. My answer is practical. Save the $40.00. Save driving time, save gas money, save yourself from environmental, pseudoscientific evangelization and brain-washing spoon-fed like pabulum. When the elitist multimillionaire called the Goracle eliminates his lavish lifestyle and lives conservatively and green as he suggests to others, then I’ll believe he has Americans’ best interests at heart, not just the lining of environmentalists’ pocketbooks. Until then I advise each of you to take a mini- vacation, to cruise down the highway, waste gas, enrich an oil company and party hearty for the heck of it. Let’s keep our country free.

Fact and myth

Slavery was embedded (literally and figuratively) in the city of Washington that symbolizes American democracy. The construction of many buildings, the baking of the bricks and the clearing of trees for development from former pastures involved slave labor. The irony has not been lost to historians. Nor has it not been exploited to perpetuate a myth. Yet the wheels of history have turned to bring us to a brighter future.

Is myth more important than fact? History is a collection of facts; we sometimes choose to create myths to explain facts. Both may be perpetuated. Both serve a useful purpose until the line of perversion is crossed. Dashed hopes and slaughter might be the recurring tropes of our country’s history, but any cup can potentially be half-full as well as half empty. It depends upon who pours the liquid refreshment or a poisoned drink. When John Tyndall wrote in the 1800's that "It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste," he could have been referring to the tendency to overlook a present good in order to focus on a an evil in the past because it is politically and financially expedient.

Most protesters and hate-mongers today, unfortunately, perpetuate the myths not the facts of history. Myths not only sells well, but sound appealing. Racists remain loyal to and enjoy the bitterness of America’s slave heritage. Walt Whitman’s "barbaric yawp" from such people ( a Rev.Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Cornell West, Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Sharpton or Jesse Jackson) is an unhealthy, diseased hold-over from the dark days of slavery.

Fact not myth sustains the optimistic view that human intelligence triumphs over obstacles - geographic or social. Equality has triumphed in America. Slavery and descendants of slavery rest (albeit uncomfortably) in their graves. Progress is not a myth. Eyes have seen the end of slavery. Glory, glory hallelujah!

60's

"Then I began to think that it is very true which is commonly said, that the one half of the world knows not how the other half liveth." 1495 - 1553 Francois Rabelais.

"Half the world knows not how the other half lives." 1593 - 1632 George Herbert

Within a hundred years of each other both men proved what I have contended all along after considering both sides of the issue of the 1960's revolution in America. On the one side, LSD remains the hallucinogenic symbol of the times. Many tired of the 60's want LSD a symbol of the hope to ‘Let the Sixties Die.’ I take the other side. I say, let the 60's live. For me and for half of the American world, it was the best of times. In the 60's I reached for and snatched the dreamed-of star of romance, the hoped-for child, the studied-for career and the happy life, oblivious to the immoral madness swirling around me. Above ground I felt the ideal. Underground and down South conditions were far from ideal, but they incrementally improved over time. In 2008, our democracy has reached pinnacles of constitutional and cultural equalities, but the very revolutionaries and critics of the status quo who fought for change in the 60's now preach the end of life as we know it due to global warming. They will never learn! They persist in drives to revolutionize our culture. Those in my half of the 60's world can’t understand how the other half lives.

May day, may day!

May day, May day. Again today we "pray over the area they’re burdened for," according to one Christian evangelist who will attend a National Day of Prayer congregation. Okay, so she is not a literate speaker. She is, however, a sincere believer. She and those who pray today, pray for the family first, then pray that our God is our "shield and strength" against the forces of evil prevalent in this oh-so-modern culture. Not one, but three events are being sponsored locally. One for youth was held last night (about 1 hr.), one today is held downtown at noon (about an hr.) and one tonight (about 2 hrs.) takes place by the Courthouse. Such commitment is commendable. Having been established by President Truman in 1952, the National Day of Prayer originally was established to remember the ‘workers of the world, but who knows, it might also have been intended to pray for the conversion of Russia and the atheists around the world. Who cares? Whatever "area... burdens" us can be addressed by prayer. Atheist nut jobs on the left and Christian nut jobs on the right and fair-and-balanced believers in the middle - can all come together on May day not to champion a godless society, but to pray that man can live closer to the Golden Rule, which originally arose from rational thoughts of men.