Poets (and stories) for Peace

http://www.citrusmilo.com/zion2004/ilovezion2.cfm This spring I did a whirlwind trip with a friend. At long last, I visited the Grand Canyon. But, though that brought tears to my eyes, the magnificence of driving down the winding road to Sedonna and the indescribable beauty of its surrounds was nothing I ever dreamed of and no picture, that I have yet to see, does it justice. That being said, I would not have given up the trip through Indian Country up into Utah, either. Through maneuvering of our plans, we found ourselves going that way. since the other side of Grand Canyon was still closed for the winter. Our original plan had been to tackle several views of the canyon and Sedonna. Once having found the other side of Grand Canyon Park closed, fortune found us driving amongst stretches and stretches of canyons in front and along side us, decorated with rock formations and brush in shades of sage and violets leaving us breathless on more than one occasion and speechless, while drivin...

From: http://www.giftedbooks.com Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals James T. Webb, Ph.D. Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted Dr. Webb is co-author of the book Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Asperger’s, Depression, and Other Disorders It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely to experience a type of depression referred to as existential depression. Although an episode of existential depression may be precipitated in anyone by a major loss or the threat of a loss which highlights the transient nature of life, persons of higher intellectual ability are more prone to experience existential depression spontaneously. Sometimes this existential depression is tied into the positive disintegration experience referred to by Dabrowski (1996). Existential depression is a depression that arises when an individual confronts certain basic issues of existence. Yalom (1980) describes four such issues (or ...

http://www.the-trukstop.com/articles/2007/10_more_star_wars_images.html Gotta keep a sense of humor!

(I have not wanted this site to become political, since that was not my intention for it. But, I received an email from Obama asking for his support in pulling out of Iraq and my thoughts. This is what I wrote. I have been interrupted by phone calls all morning and have to get to work now, so please excuse the grammar errors, etc.) I have so lost faith in this country from what has happened in Iraq, and I am so concerned that we will start bombing Iran, which I believe would have horrific consequences. Furthermore, there are places online where you can go and see the list of all the changes that have been made in the name of protecting our country which take away our freedom and the freedom of people who are being arrested and being brought to trial amongst a long list of other things. It is appalling. I do not know how we can have some of those laws and executive orders removed now that they are in place, and even pulling out of Iraq, I have no idea how those people will ever forg...

It seems that this blogs clock is not on central time, as I am, or else time has slowed down for me a bit, and I certainly could use that! Probably, we all can these days, and I remember when computers were just coming into fashion, and people thought that would save time and make our lives easier. Personally, I'm still waiting. I continue to have in the back of my mind this morning, the things that I wrote yesterday. I even wonder, if I should take this blog down. Just think of a government program looking for key words monitoring all websites, blogs and emails. They could even monitor the word love. What is that word I am looking for speakeasy, speaktalk, thoughtspeak. I bet at least some of you out there know what I am referring to.

The world is now far too dangerous for anything less than Utopia.— Buckminster Fuller You must be the change you want to see in the world. — Gandhi As a result of confusing the real world of nature with mere signs such as money, stocks and bonds, title deeds and so forth we are destroying nature. This is a disaster. Time to wake up!— Alan Watts in The Art of Meditation As a result of confusing the real world of nature with mere signs such as money, stocks and bonds, title deeds and so forth we are destroying nature. This is a disaster. Time to wake up!— Alan Watts in The Art of Meditation Some kind of dialog is now going on between individual human beings and the sum total of human knowledge and...nothing can stop it. — Terence McKenna "Are you a God?" they asked the Buddha. "No," he replied. "Are you an angel, then?" "No." "A saint?" "No." "Then what are you?" Replied the Buddha, "I...

Since the top right picture is of the former Twin Towers, it strikes me as interesting that I should get into my blog again on the anniversary of 9/11. Today is a date when I was wondering whether we are going to attack Iran, and how horrific I think the consequences would be. Do we have enough military to support it? Would the government want to initiate another draft and, if not, where would they get the manpower? If not, would they bomb the heck out of them? And then what? I don't know if it is true or not but, this week I read on the Internet that in all the centuries of mankind there has only been seven years of no wars. And, we have the nerve to call ourselves civilized. Okie Dokie, but holy smoke and mirrors, it seems there is a fly in the soup to me. And then folks, what have most of these wars been about? The other day I spoke to someone who does a particular meditation to open the layers of the heart. It is a Sufi meditation. You know the tradition where that bea...

Those Born 1930-1979 READ TO THE BOTTOM FOR QUOTE OF THE MONTH BY JAY LENO. TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE ...

At long last, I got back into my blog. This has been one of those seemingly unsolvable Internet fiascoes. I was not able to get to work on my blog for several months, and when I go back, I am being asked for a gmail account. What Gmail account? I never had one. I try an unrequited 25 or so possible combinations all of which are not the right combination to unlock my access to my own blog. I then go to google help files, which were no help and that I felt like a dog chasing their tale is probably underplaying what I experienced. Of course there is no way to contact a live person through email. I give up, but every month at least once try again, hoping the hand of God will zap my brain with a new combination, and today I hit the jackpot folks. So, for better or worse, here I am again folks. I know that some of you will find the above amusing, and have similar experiences creating an Internet personae. Here is another amusing Internet tale. I have these friends who question every...

He and the gate and the timer went looking to see what's finer the door opened wider, but moved along side 'um til what was in front was behind him. Turning around gate's shadow on ground he walked to the light and followed the sound and when he got there he found...... the beginning the end were nowhere, my friend * Someone I email to online told me about this: Cockney Rhyming Slang game that was somehow manifest in the text of Ulysses. It is played by one person saying something like..."me and my mate, me and my china" and the other player answering with maybe "me and my plate" - the game played by finding a word synonymous with china and rhyming with mate. The above was my end result.

I wrote this essay as a comment to articles on the following site: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/02/ One might not think so, but there is a relationship, between trans fat, global warming and the drunk driving issue. Unfortunately, I think that the problem has to do with education. These days in school, we are so afraid to step on someone's toes, so we avoid teaching morals in school, and why should we? Are you shocked? Read further. It has always seemed quite interesting to me that no one can come up with a simple means to start teaching community, integrity, self responsibility and the like to young children from their very first textbooks. I don't see that the word God has to be in there or in order to do that. All great religions teach a core of values that cross borders. There are values that are there in the constitution and the creation of America . By the way, a constitution created by people (whether or not you want to call it a dem...

If you have not heard of The Secret yet, I suggest viewing it. You can see it online at www.thesecret.tv or even purchase it there. So far, I have viewed it three times. As they state in the documentary 'The Secret' is not actually something new, in fact, it is centuries and centuries old and has been used by many. Amongst the many are very notable names. So it is not that this is something new and exclusive or that you can not find somewhere, but it is how it was put together with the clarity of intent. Since watching it, I have had some amazing experiences. One person apologized to me for something, which I did not expect. Another person, who if you knew the situation, decided to resolve the differences between us that had gone on for years, and the doorway to a long time dream to travel more opened up for me. Leaving me with nothing more than to decide where it is I want to go. There are other things that happened, too, so I highly recommend the $5 pop to see it on...

Dalai Lama 1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk. 2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson. 3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions. 4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. 5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly. 6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship. 7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. 8. Spend some time alone every day. 9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. 10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. 11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time. 12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life. 13. In disagreements with loved ones deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past. 14. Share ...

If Tomorrow Never Comes If I knew it would be the last time that I'd see you fall asleep, I would tuck you in more tightly and pray the Lord, your soul to keep. If I knew it would be the last time that I see you walk out the door, I would give you a hug and kiss and call you back for more. If I knew it would be the last time I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise. I would video tape each action and word, so that I could replay it back day by day. If I knew it would be the last time, I would spare an extra minute or two to stop and say "I love you", instead of assuming, that you know I do. If I knew it would be the last time, I would be there to share your day, but I'm sure you'll have so many more, so I can just let this one slip away. For surely there's a tomorrow to make up for an oversight, and we always get a second chance ...

The other day I came home from a long day and turned on the you know what. You know the two letter word. I started watching this old Donald Sutherland movie with Leonard Nimoy--the master of logic--and Jeff something or other and got pulled in by the languaging. What I noticed right away is that no one talks that way anymore. The impact of it hit me, before I had any recognition of what they movie was really about. You know they were actually trying to use sort it out type language--language to express one's inner most thoughts and feeling. You know that stuff they call humanness? Oh, you don't know that stuff. Do you think that is back with hippies and encounter groups? Well, think about this. The movie was Invasion of the Body Snatchers--a movie I left out of my agenda when it came out. And what was the theme of the movie? The theme, my fellow beings, was cloning of an alien kind--a pod that copied you as you slept. And though the hero made valiant efforts in the e...

Frogs were not my favorite critters, because I could always remember the Frog on the Buster Brown show--before your time you say! Well, Buster Browns were children's shoes, and they had their own TV show with a Frog that used to go in this deep gruff voice, " Hiya Hiya Hiya kids." He kind of scared me. Later in life, while living up in the country--not all of New York is Manhattan Island, though some may think so--I found that, if you put a frog on his back and stroked his underbelly from the smallest leap frogger to the biggest toad (thank God there were no poisonous one's around), the frog would become hypnotized and fall asleep. And that works its way to my belief in a story that I heard years and years later and wanted to put up here for some time, because it relates to our acceptance of things that we probably should not. The story goes like this: If you put a frog in boiling water, he will do everything in his power to get the heck out of the pot he is in. ...

Yesterday after work a few of us stopped in the cheapo movies to see Denzel Washington in Deja Vu. I really enjoyed the movie, because it had some unexpected twists and turns to it, although there were a few scenes when the acting was not quite believable. If you have not seen it, I suggest you stop reading now and come back to this after you have. Denzel plays a government agent who is involved with solving a case, which appears to be a terrorist attack. It turns out that the job was done--the exploding of a pleasure boat with about 500 military people and their loved ones--by a psycho, as you know if you saw the movie. The problem that I had with the movie relates very much to the moral questions in some philosophical problems that I posted earlier in the post The Trolley Car Problem and Related Moral Questions. In the movie, Denzel time travels, to rescue a maiden in distress, since he is not just enamored with her, but feels somewhat responsible for her demise. Cool right--qu...

Fuse By Roseroberta Pauling As in something that controls the current, As in a substance connecting two things together like God and man. Fuse as in integration and fuse as in blowing one’s fuse, as in a stick of dynamite-- Busy at work with the former to stop the latter. Morning As in the beginning of a new day. Mourning As in the loss or ending of something cherished Or once cherished-- They both sound the same. Both can be a new beginning but, how often do we think that way. Terminal As in a place of comings and goings like an airport as in cancer as in termination-- Both share completion but, not always in good time. Engagement As in being absorbed in or soliciting participation in an activity like in war. As in preparing to participate in the activity of marriage. Marriage As in the union of two complements, As in the joining of two people. for a common go...

(image came from svenfoo.geekheim.de/ ) Tricking us into thinking we just might possibly go a whole winter without her face, the snow leisurely drifted in, as I was driving forty blocks down Lyndale to a nature reserve for a friend's fiftieth birthday party. It was such a long wait and temperatures had been so near early spring that, I could hardly believe my eyes and kept thinking to myself that it would probably amount to nothing. As we ate and entertained ourselves at the party, we were surrounded by walls of glass on several sides that let us gaze at the falling snow. It was deceitful. Clustered in the courtyard the snow had not mounted much--just enough to give us a pretty view. Leaving to go home and banking on being able to go home a better way than I had come, which entailed winding my way through several highways that veered off from each other, I found a different picture. The road and all around were in several blankets of snow cushioning everything with a white bri...

* This came out of an exercise in which we gave each other a topic and a first sentence, at the writer's group that I have in St. Paul. Anyone who wants to know more about it can contact me at the email address in my profile on this blog. The houses I like best are decrepit with holes that need filling, drips that keep dripping and wind gusts like whispers from ghosts still astir in the walls. Working on them seems to fill some inner need to put things right with one's world, make one's own space and move into it. I remember back in the seventies a friend bought one of those old Victorian style fixer uppers designed for more then one and a half children that had survived without being divided into a multitude of flats till it lost most of its character, charm and who knows what else. There were six of us that moved in to this semi-commune, semi requiem to relationships, semi rebellion against alienation and deconstruction. Six of us including the owner's wife marche...

Each day I look out the window expecting to see the world blanketed in whiteness and regret that I have not brought the deicer and snow scraper upstairs, while I grab the myriad of things I need to bring into my home. And yet, the quintessential winter blizzard is still not here. One fears global warming, but I can remember one winter, as a child on the east coast, when the snow came pouring down in April. Buckets and Buckets full piled up on the streets, after the snow equipment went by. Some mysterious drift of air currents displayed the uunpredictability of weather. Has my longing for the longer falls of the East Coast culminated in this leafless greyness? Did someone up there listen to me? This is not exactly what I had in mind. The lake near home has changed its mind about providing a place to skate and ski three times over already, as if to tell us that we are all so undecided right now. Winter does not know whether to show its face or not. I expect that it will rampage ...