What Is the Political Price of Life

First I question the need to even discuss politics and the price of life. What price? What life? That all depends on what the definition of is is.

Clinton jokes aside, is has many meanings as it relates to a state of being. Is is transitional, static, active, imperative or transcendent? Sure this is semantics. Semantics here relate to profound differences in meaning.

I question whether we Americans have the capacity to understand, based on knowledge of the tools we acquire for language development. Someone once asked me what a person who speaks two languages is described as? "Biilingual, right?" I answered.

"That's right. Now, what about someone who speaks three languages?"

"Trilingual."

"Good, good. How about one language?"

"Monolingual" I confidently replied.

"No. American."

It turns out that this joke is quite popular around the world. Do we really think that the world should learn English because it is such a superior language? I loved language classes. My German and Spanish are far from fluent these days, but I still know from learning languages and living in The US of A that remedial language skills are rare indeed amongst born and bred true blue-blooded Americans.

I had a writing instructor once who cracked down on the use of the verb to be. Heather circled every occurrence and totalled them. Then she graded down for each unneccessary use. Like the use of cuss words, Americans abuse this verb to the point of stagnating our language skills in a mode where it has no hope of ever expanding. Instead, lingual (and subsequently mental) dexterity atrophies. The importance of being earnest and due diligence compel those of us who desire clear truth as opposed to obfuscated lies to develop skills to express ourselves clearly. And we meet many blank stares. Our leader has the language skills of a mud puddle. No real incentive for anyone to build good skills. If this inarticulate boob can become president, then, like, any dumbf### can.

Some of us have just accepted this. We cannot be evangelical all the time. Our tolerance grows as endurance wanes. After time, we just wait for those instances where our desire to raise the median level of American intelligence meets the opportunity.

But I digress. Back to the definition of is. Is can be transitive or intransitive in English. Other languages make this distinction. We do not. English has developed into a tongue for liars. Clinton's true brilliance went miles over the heads of Jack and Jenny USA (J&J USA!), because the foundation for this distinction does not exist in the C student society.

Politically, using the a form of the verb to be which obscures the truth separates the winners from the losers in a vast majority of elected offices. Maybe we intend to be something. Perhaps it's true now, but won't be in the future. Maybe it's hyperbole or minimization. Maybe it's true sometime. Maybe it's something I want to be true, or imagine, or dream.

By such standards, 800 plus American lives, untold thousand of Iraqi lives, live of our 'coalition,' and even those of Uday and Qusay Hussein equals no price. As in zero. George W imagines a world where he pays no price for causing countless gallons of blood spilling around the world.

He does not even understand the significance being. That much is obvious in his actions. He does not deserve to be at this point. His karma grows exponentially with every passing hour, not day. I'd suggest to anyone listening: stay away from him, karma by proximity is like getting bit by a hurricane.

If you do not yet infer my point: the political price of life is the death of a political career. We must send this message to GW. I dream, imagine and want this to be true.

Stay tuned for a new blog where the Reverend Paul Reuben discusses the spiritual meaning of life, and it's price.

I'm not running for Congress, yet

But one of my namesakes is. Check out his site:

• Paul Wilkins for Congress

Praise Allah! Praise Y*w*h. Praise God?

Listened to Christian talk radio today, on accident. On the right side of the dial (ninety something point something...) as she put it, there's the most bigoted small minded insolent woman I have ever heard. I don't know her name, but I must figure that she's representative of the genre, broadcasting locally here in Portland during drive time.

She announces one of the most inspiring stories I have heard in the last few years. A town in Michigan, right by the Motor City (at first she said Chicago--I should have guessed that she has mental problems at that point) has decided to allow the local mosques to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over their outdoor PA systems. What a wonderful development!

Can it be true that more American cities have a collective conscience outside of the traditional liberal havens? (I know it's not Dallas, but they'll be out of the closet soon enough, too.) What a time to rejoice, I thought. Bully for them!

I must say that I do not know how it works. Maybe it will be loud. In that case, a reasonable volume would be in order, lest it become a nuisance. However, I do not see a huge problem if it can be heard for a 50' radius around the mosques. The church bells peal echoes for miles. All over the country. One small town has the decency to sanction a prayer to Allah.

So this woman decides to make her call in topic: Would this offend you? What?! Is she kidding me?!

I listened for a while on the bus home today. Thankfully, two callers I listened to did not really want to talk on topic. Not that she didn't try to get them riled up about it--they weren't interested. Their comments were bizarre, though.

Can somebody tell me since when Did Abraham worship two gods? Or maybe it was three. I guess I don't know anymore. As I was taught it, Abraham was one of the first monotheists. His son Isaac worshipped the same god too, no? Yes. At least that's the way I read it.

OK, so I am a biblical scholar, and I have never heard anyone with a different take on Abe's god. That's why he went with the name Abraham - it was part of his faith. He lived in a time of polytheists and set himself apart by worshipping one god instead. He changed his name from Abram to Abraham to symbolize his faith. (I hope this sounds familiar. It's in the Tanak. The Christian and Islamic religions both revere Abraham as one of their earliest patriarchs.) Everyone who worships Abraham's god knows this story.

So now we have Islam and Christianity and Judaism as the three religions who worship Abraham's god. Looking back to Abraham, we know he had a son, Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The scriptures tell us that all of them continued to worship this god and spread faith in this god, eventually around the world.

Esau was Isaac's first son. He was a manly son, just the type of guy we would call the ideal rugged man - he could wrestle a bear and win. He was the epitome of manhood then, too: honest, faithful, hard-working and successful.

Jacob was Esau's opposite. Jake was a wimp. A twiggy little girly man who couldn't pull his own weight, let alone make a good living off the sweat of his brow or the strength of his intellect.

On Isaac's deathbed, Isaac bestowed his blessing on his son, as was the custom at the time. The firstborn received the blessing of the father, that he might succeed in life and carry on the family legacy. But, Esau did not receive this blessing that he so richly deserved. Jacob and Rebecca, his mom, lied to Isaac and duped him into giving his blessing to the second son.

Does any of this ring a bell? Because according to the radio earlier today, it seems that some folks have forgotten.

Now Esau, the God worshipping, strong and rightful heir to Isaac's blessing, realized what had happened, asked pop for whatever blessing he had left for him, but it was all gone. If you ask me, he really did not need it. He had it all already. Plus he had his god. That god would be good to him and make him the father of a new faith one day. Islam is his legacy to the one god of the Hebrew bible. Eloim, if you will. Or Allah. There is no God but Allah.

Jacob went on to father twelve children, among them Reuben, my namesake, and Josef, the one the other brothers sold into slavery. These children, Ephraim, Mennasseh, the whole lot of them, would each father a tribe of Israel. The twelve tribes of Israel. All of these sons carried on the faith in one god, started by Abraham, their great grandfather.

Now I have to wonder something? Which god does the lady on the radio worship? As far as she made it sound, it is the Christian god. The Jewish god. The god of Abraham. Allah.

But she said that she worships a different god. And I am lost. She either worships god or she doesn't. The only difference is that the three monotheistic traditions worship differently. Heck, there are literally thousands of different God traditions. Do they all worship a different god than her? I could suppose they must, but then I wonder how many monotheistic gods there are?

The woman is cracked like a walnut if she thinks Muslims worship a different god than Christians. And by the same token, she should not have any reason to be offended by a prayer to her god.

But she obviously sees it differently. And she deserves all the misery in the world if she truly has that much hatred for Islam. If you read my queer marriage post, then you must realize that I am about to attribute this woman's paradigm to self-loathing. She needs some enlightenment. Allah save her.

What Happens When They Bring This War To Us?

Just a thought that I have not heard anyone else voice yet. (If you're going to use it give me credit.) What happens when they bring this war to us?

I know we have the department of homeland security, but airport line babysitters will not defend us from terrorism here at home.

The National Guard has been shipped overseas for all intents and purposes. No? Yes.

I'm not Mr. Military Science, but the National Guard is supposed to Guard the Nation. No? Yes.

If I remember right, the National Guard deploys during national disasters to keep the peace and help cleanup of catastrophes.

Well, has George stopped to consider that there are probably thousands of people here in the United States who are capable of attacking us here at home. We have let it be known to the world that we do not have enough military personnel to even make an impact in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time.

We are talking about an entity that can wait years before taking action. I, for one, do not have any confidence in the idea that my homeland is secure. I predict that we do not have much longer to wait before the bloodshed continues here in America.

And our National Guard is not home. Troubling.

Pull the Other One, George

Because you've got to be kidding! You're going to the UN? Asking for help? Is that not exactly what we've been saying all along?

The irony is wasted on him, I'm sure, but Kerry could start governing from the campaign trail. All he has to do is keep giving George the right ideas and watch as they become policy.

Not that George's plan has any real merit. He told us himself that we have no measure for success. Will we see fewer attacks by insurgents? No, he said. Probably more. (That might be the measure, the more violence, the better it's going?)

From halfway around the world, we will have no way to see that anything productive happens. For starters, how will the provisional government work differently than it does now? So far, all of our chosen ones have turned out to be NFG, witness Chalabi (I think that's his name). From venerated guest at the State of the Union to the next candidate for electrified nards in four months;this does not inspire my confidence in a US backed transitional government. We have five weeks to put together a government from scratch.

George, it's not going to happen. You have to know that.

You want to have free elections in January? We take two years to choose a new President. Again, this will not happen. Your damage control at home may fool a few people back into your camp, but not for long.

You must understand, we do not respond well to hucksters. You have had trouble wiping that silly smirk off your face for almost four years. You speak like you have something to convince us of. At least Reagan and Slick Willy had the presence of mind to speak like they were convinced. You lie terribly. Go join Toastmasters and learn to deliver a speech without cracking yourself up.

Even if you had a good plan, you would never pull off the execution of it successfully. You are a failure. So much so it infuriates me so much I cannot even delve into an analysis of your speech.

Saw Kerry the Other Day

Not really. More like I heard him. So many people showed up. It spilled out into the streets--8,000 was the published number. I thought it was a good showing.

Kerry rallied the crowd around his message for his can do America. The United States will surely benefit from his leadership. Back in March, I was a Deaniac. I still am. Oh, I know that Dean is nowhere near as liberal as I am, but he spoke out early and loud against the invasion of Iraq. He wanted to give us healthcare. I went to see him and it was electric. The fire in his belly reverberated with us.

We still love him. But the reality is John Kerry. He's as American as ketchup. And we're going to elect him President of these here United States. Howard came here with John, to let us know that he wanted us to give our time and energy to Johnny Ketchup.

The more I know about John, the more I like him. If you're out there John, I say to you: Thank You! I thought you were a little Kennedy. Teddy got away with murder and you were guilty by association. I mean, you spent two decades in Congress with him. What else was I supposed to think? I knew you were in neck-deep with this (thankfully) liberal crook.

You know what made me change my mind? The FBI. If Kerry posed enough of a threat to merit investigation while he simply followed his conscience and had the courage to take Direct Action against an unfathomable atrocity, then he deserves my vote. He has a vision for the future in addition to not being George Bush.

I wish Ralph Nader would realize that.

Wrap Me Up In The Red, White And Blue! or Color Me Patriotic!

First of all, I want to know: what idiot sent the Iraqi Army home with their weapons?

What can you say about a bonehead move like that? How can you not expect that they'd use them? Against YOU?

I cannot understand the workings of these people's minds. I listen to them speak. One guy was outraged at the outrage? Where did he grow up? I was taught that this is the land of the free. I do not recognize the country these republicans are from. It's not mine, that's for sure.

I went to grade school in Maine. Up there we were taught to be proud of our abolishionist history. Of our fight to be independent from Massachusetts. Proud of our heritage and high moral constitution.

There were no muggings in my town. Not like those in New York. We were sitting on our throne, looking south. (means you are not worried about your enemies attacking from the north - a very auspicious position, since you obviously have no enemies.) Anyhow, we were an agrarian state, proud of our taters, berries, apples and maple syrup. We were a seafaring state, with a vibrant economy in seafood and shipbuilding.

I was a proud American back then. I was about 10.

Through my teenage years, I developed a contrary attitude. The word patriotism lost all meaning and I was definitely against the state of affairs in Washington. I have long been active in direct action for environmental, social and economic issues and went through phases of anarchism, socialism and despotism (if I was dictator, things would change a lot, I'll tell you that!).

I even went right for a while. But not really. The laize-faire economic policy squawked out of the republican party during the 80's (Reaganomics!) rang true to me. Lower the barriers to entry into new markets. Lower taxes. Keep government regulation out of the marketplace. What they truly wanted were laws written to protect their share of the market and let them grow into omnipotent multi-national conglomerates.

Today we have NBC Universal. I don't even know what to think about that. I know it means something bad for me. What I'm driving at here is that the laws will never go away (sorry to the anarchists, but get over it - move to Montana and wait for the world to end, like the millenarian) I'm going to live my life, and seek to change the laws I think are wrong. Break down the system by participating and changing it.

When my free market turned out to be an illusion, I looked at other things, like government intrusion into my private life. It seemed to me that the republicans favor sticking their noses everywhere! And they are always wrong!

Two strikes. Banning everything you find threatening and rewriting economic laws to favor your billion dollar business are not conservative moves. They sound kind of like they're meant to shore up the ruling class and stop the masses from doing their thing.

Marx is one strike away from winning. The final strike against the GOP comes from the environment. Is it not obvious? Conserve ye conservative, no? No. Waste resources, liberally.

The funny thing is, I don't really think about these things differently today than I did then, I just come to remarkably different conclusions. The day I realized conservative means ignorant when it comes to the republicans was a sad day. That was when I really began to hate the government and studied up on socialism, anarchy, libertarianism and all those other wing-nut philosophies. Now, I have a much clearer picture.

My nation made it possible. Can it be that I love the United States? I am a born-again Patriot. And, yes, I have been a Pats fan for going on 30 years. And I hate what is happening to our nation. Liars, thieves, evil villains and perhaps even satan himself are in charge. Bush has us headed down the path of top-down control!

Not in MY country! Maybe I'm still not the firmest believer in Democracy, but that just makes my faith stronger that we will wake up and take charge of our government. It is OURS!

I am proud of our Constitution and our Nation and I want it back! I want to be the best country with the best values and the best people. We are now close to the worst, as a whole. The atrocities were supposed to be what we were going to stop. MY Army will not torture anyone. In fact, my Army should be expert in bringing about peace by ending the fighting with as few deaths on either side as possible. This truths we believe to be self-evident: by hook or crook, Bush has got to go. Do not let him steal another election - vote early and often for John Kerry.

Nader HAS Gone Mad!

The Reform party, eh? Crazy like a fox, methinks: he said he is recruiting votes from the right who voted for Bush last time, ergo use the same party that got papa the boot!

If anything will work, perhaps this is it. I have faith that he won't get in the way of a decisive Democratic victory. I think it's obvious that we all need to vote for Kerry. It's gonna be a landslide. I tell you that now with great confidence. Kerry will win.

Nuclear Genies

We developed nuclear technology almost 50 years ago. Since then we have run through a cycle of trial and error to the point where now we still have no real idea how to handle nuclear materials. We make great waste. But what to do with this waste?

It was not until 1980 that we even agreed that we needed a comprehensive national plan to deal with radioactive materials. We still have no viable plan. This is a fifty-year crisis. And no one is paying attention to the new plan to reclassify weapons manufacturing waste as low- level waste. There is a profound difference between low-level and high-level waste in terms of the risks to the environment.

Low-level waste could be dangerous for as little as an hour or two, contaminated by x-rays, barium shakes, other medical procedures and proximity to high-level materials - nuclear technician's clothing, tools and stuff which never makes actual contact with high-level materials.

High-level waste consists of materials used in weapons and energy production - spent fuel, mill tailings, items that have direct contact with ore and fuel. This stuff will be lethal for thousands of years.

Perhaps this plays into the fundamentalist right wing agenda: bring about the rapture and God will deal with it. Money spent sweeping the problem under mountains and into rivers beats investment in research developing means of decontaminating and reliable isolation processes. Research costs more and ruins the profits.

Do you realize that every nuclear waste dump in the United States leaks contamination into the environment? This contamination dissipates through hundreds of thousands of square miles. Nothing stops it. Why do we put tumors into the Earth? Are we that bitter? Where's the love? It's our only home, for crying out loud! And I've got news for everyone: Jesus ain't gonna save us. Seems to me his interests are elsewhere in the Universe, because he doesn't seem to care who invokes his name around here anymore.

I digress. What I mean to convey here is the idea that hegemony keeps the ruling paradigm in power. This paradigm hurts us more every day. Why choose ignorance, blindness and destruction over enlightenment, insight and creation? Profit?

Yes, profit. Profit off the dole, really. All nuclear weapons manufactured in the US have been bought by the US Government. You and I bought them all. ALL of them. They're ours. As for energy, we pay for that, too. We pay taxes on it to fund waste disposal. Millions of dollars to dig holes and bury it. And dig it up again. And again. Reminds me of Sisyphus.

The contractors profit every time. They have limited liability when 'accidents' happen. There is no incentive to develop safe methods of handling any of the waste, because we do not fund it.

The industry would certainly lobby against it - they're likely to stay on the dole for tens of thousands of years!

So now, we're going to plane, train and automobile it all over the country and most notably through downtown Las Vegas. On the order of thousands of tons of high-level waste will be shipped through Vegas to the perceived wasteland of the Nevada desert.

Did you know Nevada is not a wasteland? There is no such thing as wasteland! Every square centimeter of the Earth's surface is as valuable as the next. We need all of it to survive. Sin City does not deserve it. Her sins are ours.

As for the classification of waste, I think it is about time to bring this whole mess to an end. We could be disruptive or we could redirect our economy to prefer sustainability. I think a little of both are warranted. Every dollar involved in nuclear technology should be nationalized and directed towards a solution to the waste crisis. All production of nuclear materials should cease and all reactors should be decommissioned until nuclear technology improves. Because at this point, it has only been proven destructive.

Vignettes

I have a new strategy for today. A few vignettes for my fans who have missed my posts. I'm still having issues with producing coherent thoughts from the mental dissonance. I listen to Air America (boycott Morning Edition until they bring Bob Edwards back!) and really think Randi Rhodes say it all for me. She's a little cracked, but most of the time she falls on the right side of the fence, even though she's obnoxious and a little full of her own brain. Not that's she's not smart. That's the problem. She's much better informed than I am.

So rather than well-reasoned and informed opinion pieces, today I am going for short and sweet.

Red Wings Go Up In Flames

Give some props to the Flames - they beat the Wings. What a bummer.

Cujo got beat. I feel bad for him, I really thought he deserved to play for another Cup. He tended his team admirably to the end and I do not blame him. Short of scoring a goal, he did everything we could have asked from him.

Now I guess the Sharks are the team I hope plays for Lord Stanley's Cup from the West. Pity for them if they make it though, the Patrick Division will rise again this year, thanks to a new, great coach and some strong goaltending from two guys who won't crack like Chechmanek did last year, I feel this is the year for the Flyers to finally bring the Cup back to Philly. Thank you Jeremy. Keep up the great work!

Context? What Context Makes It OK?

I do not want to hear about the context of the prison torture in Iraq. There is no context which would make what I have seen OK. End of story.