What's really on my mind

Some questions . . .

2011-12-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

First, the Republicans want the government to intervene (by preventing an abortion) when a woman wants to abort a pregnancy under "normal" circumstances, but they don't want it to intervene by providing an abortion when she's been raped.
Then the Republicans want government to intervene if you are a man who loves a man or a woman who lives with a woman, but don't say anything when a man beats his wife, or if their candidate is a serial philanderer.
Now, the Republicans want the government to intervene if you lose your job: they want you to pass a drug test before you can collect your unemployment payments.
What drugs will they test for? What happens if they get a false positive? What recourse do you have? Who's going to pay for all the testing and notifying and verifying? I thought the Republicans were for less government.
They want to interfere with someone who just lost their job, but they aren't willing to increase taxes on rich people nor allow regular middle-class people to keep their stimulus tax credit.
From whence does such doctrine arise?

Sharing a post from another blog

2011-01-11T05:11:00.000-08:00

"You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger. The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.
You who worship Jesus at the top of your lungs (in defiance of Christ's own teachings on the matter of worship, by the way) helped put several churchgoers into their graves and into the hospital. You who shriek about the sanctity of marriage helped cut down a man who was about to be married. You who crow with ceaseless abandon about military service and the nobility of our fighting forces helped to critically wound the wife of a Naval aviator who fought for you in a war. You who hold September 11 as your sword and shield helped put a little girl born on that day into the ground . . .

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for."

- Rush Limbaugh, Denver Post, 12-29-95

"Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."

- Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), talking about President Clinton

"We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs."

- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), Mother Jones, 08-95

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

- Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 08-26-02

"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."

- Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, 02-26-02

"Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."

- John Derbyshire, National Review, 02-15-01

"Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity. The degree these two have diminished is in direct proportion to the corruption and fall of the nation. Every problem that has arisen (sic) can be directly traced back to our departure from God's Law and the disenfranchisement of White men."

- State Rep. Don Davis (R-NC), emailed to every member of the North Carolina House and Senate, reported by the Fayetteville Observer, 08-22-01"

http://www.truth-out.org/the-wrath-fools-an-open-letter-to-far-right66686

This blogger, in an open letter to the far right, lays out my emotions for me. I may at moments feel we should not lay too much blame at the feet of people who say violent things because it's the people who carry out the violence who are ultimately to blame. But I certainly feel that there is WAY too much violent language in our society. Too much real violence. Too many young people denied a life because a gang threatened them with violence if they didn't themselves become violent. Too many have gone off to war and not returned because a man who stole an election sent them off to fight an unjustifiable war. Too many get beat up in school because they're pudgy or skinny, or just a little different in some other way. Too many use language that demeans them because they've never been taught that words can be used to heal as well as to hurt. Too many hurt inside.
This blog encourages me to feel angry. But no more the actual quotes from those targeted by the writer. And I know that the best anger is the anger that impels a person to act with determination, but also with creativity and love. When Jesus overturned the money-changers' tables, he was angry. He used it to expose the exploitation carried out by those money-changers, and to call for REAL piety, not a sham of piety.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-24T04:32:00.000-08:00

Once again, I am of two minds:

On the one hand, I feel that the Christmas holiday is messed up. It co-opts the old pagan Solstice celebration, and it's likely that the date it's celebrated has nothing whatsoever to do with when Jesus of Nazareth was born. It has come to be a time of extravagance, of which I'm quite certain he would disapprove. People are wondering what they can get for Christmas, and worrying about what material things they can give, instead of being truly supportive of one another. It's so much about material things, instead of the lasting things that can be shared by humans.

On the other hand, what's wrong with celebration? Laws were passed in England and these colonies in the 1600s, forbidding the celebration of Christmas and the use of its pagan trappings, like Christmas trees and decorations and mince pie and pudding, so that it was not generally celebrated in this country until the 1850s. And that was so much "bah, humbug".

So, where does that leave me? Perhaps just back where I began, feeling that there's plenty to be critical of, but also acknowledging that people need to get together to enjoy one another's company, enjoy good food and drink, and perhaps to give gifts to one another. It is good to see a child's smile when they receive a toy that gives them pleasure. Every child deserves some of that. So do grown-ups.

But I won't go so far as to say that Jesus is all this holiday is about. Feeling this way may get me accused of just being politically correct (or worse), but I don't think that's an insult. Political correctness simply takes into account that not EVERYone celebrates Christmas. To say "Happy Holidays" may seem to dilute the greeting, but it takes into account the preferences of an audience that is not singularly Christian, and most people do know someone who celebrates Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, or the winter Solstice, and this is as it should be.

In the same sense that we should not be prohibited from celebrating Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, or the Solstice, neither should we be REQUIRED to do so. We should celebrate Christmas with joy and gratitude. Hanukkah deserves celebrating, as a commemoration of the end of fighting, and a festival of lights. Kwanzaa, as a celebration of family, community and culture, does, too. So does the solstice, because it is wonderful to know that the days will be getting longer instead of shorter, when winter seems to have closed in around us.

May we all find more of the best of ourselves and each other, at this holiday time, and less of the worst of ourselves, and of others.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Kwanzaa! Happy Winter Solstice! Happy Holidays!

He looks like me

2010-03-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

Who is he?

This young man looks like me.
He is my co-creation.

His mother carried and nourished him,
We have tried to guide.
Encouraged him
These thirteen years.

A lifetime left to go . . .

He seems to feel things I recall.
I cringe at all he must go through.

He is so like his mother
That I relive our courtship again.

My love for him is deep,
Beyond fathoming,
As if it were
My own love for life.

If I could
I would give him all I know:
A database file
Direct to his mind.
Whatever wisdom I’ve earned.
Struggle and heartache.
Moments of joy.

All we can do
Is moment by moment:
Reassurance.
Shared laughter.
Common tears.
Advice.
Stories from life.
Dose by dose,
Day by day.

This young man looks like me,
But he is another self,
Beyond my grasp.

I cannot make him love what I love,
But I can nourish his mind and spirit
With love and excursions
From which he will sculpt his own being.

He will protect himself from my judgement
Though I judge myself more harshly.

This young man looks like me.
He is my boy,
Yet he is his own man.

My son,
May you walk with courage in spite of darkness.
May daylight brighten your days.
May you live with satisfaction of work well done.
May your friends be many and faithful.
May love find you in many places,
And may you find many to give yours to.
May your love also grow deep and strong.
May your children be blessed
And your grandchildren many.
And may our love find its way to them all.

G. Douglas Clarke
March 20, 2010

Tracks in snow

2010-03-13T04:06:00.000-08:00

I took a walk in the field below our house this morning with our dog, before the sun had yet come up. The wind was unceasing and biting, in spite of temperatures that have been melting our snow-pack steadily for a week. Not many days ago, if I tried to walk in our fields or woods, most of my steps were ones in which I put my foot down in one place but it slid to a new one before my weight was even resting upon it. Enough of the snow is now gone, that ones feet mostly stay where you put them, when walking. As i moved south across the meadow on the path that I mow in the summer, I found my own tracks. I had taken our son and a friend to a slope below the house, for some sledding, twice during the winter, and here were tracks from one of those outings, that had been buried under a foot or more of snow, for a month or more. It got me to thinking about the evidence for global warming that has been trapped in ice and snow for hundreds of thousands of years. It also got me thinking about the impact one person may have on others' lives, or even on their own. I could, by looking in my diary, figure out what day we had made those tracks. But I couldn't have found those tracks a few days ago, before the layers of more recent snow had melted. The sun and warm air had done what I could not. I had an experience yesterday that was a similar sort of liberation, perhaps. I had been told that a person who joined our fire department when I was an assistant chief, had said that he'd not been effectively engaged in learning how things work, and being trained so he could be active. I had taken this as fact, and assumed some of the responsibility for his never getting very active in the department, which is very much in need of people to fill offices and get things done. Yesterday, I saw him on the street and had a chance to ask him if he could serve in some more active role, or if he would at least recommend people for those roles. In introducing that possibility to him, I said I'd understood that he'd felt neglected in those early days. He said that no, everyone had been friendly and engaging, and that he never had felt ignored nor neglected. For years I had carried a load of guilt around, thinking I had been responsible for his hurt feelings and his not being active in the organization. I don't know if whoever told me that, had misunderstood something my friend had said, or if I had associated the guilt with the wrong person, or whether he had simply stopped feeling that way, but it was like that depth of snow that has melted from our meadow, was lifted off in an instant.
Why I carry such burdens around with me, I don't know. I know I come by the propensity due to inherited traits from my ancestors, both learned and genetic. But I don't know why I don't throw off such burdens, psychologically and emotionally. I know they steal buoyancy from my spirit, but it is difficult not to cling to them.
Well, at least there is one less of them, now.

The welcome I gave at our church last night's Christmas Eve service

2009-12-25T12:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the First Seventh Day Baptist Church of Alfred! This is perhaps the one-hundred-fifty-fifth time that Christmas has been celebrated in this building. The entire community has not always met here on Christmas Eve, but at least this congregation has celebrated it here on the Sabbath before Christmas Eve, every year since the building was completed, back in 1854.
The tradition of celebrating Christmas is apparently quite long in our family and, of course, goes back about two-thousand years. One of our earliest ancestors who lived on this continent was a man by the name of Joseph Clarke, and he was known as “The Immigrant”. His elder brother, Dr. John Clarke, founded the town of Newport, R.I. in 1639 and became the pastor of the first Baptist Church in the American colonies. Although John Clarke apparently had no children, he spent twelve years back in England lobbying for a new charter for Rhode Island colony, and the one he secured from King Charles II in 1663 was probably the first to ever grant such complete religious liberty for the inhabitants. His younger brother, our ancestor, was a solid citizen of that colony, and his descendants are many.
I can only assume that Joseph’s parents gave him that name to honor the earthly father of the one whose birth we celebrate tonight. He and his children thought so much of it that there was a Joseph in each of the next three generations, and several more since then.
So it is that our family, and each of your families, honors that tradition with your presence here. We gather tonight to consider the events of that night so long ago, to ponder what thoughts may have come to Mary, and to Joseph, and to all who witnessed those events. May this shared experience of reflection and celebration bring you new and deeper meaning for Christmas, the satisfaction of love shared among family and friends, and joy in abundance.

Let us pray:

Dear Heavenly Father, we gather this evening to remember a night long ago when one was born who would later ask his followers to love one another, and to love even their enemies. We find ourselves in a world very much changed while two millennia have come and gone, yet it is very much the same. We are still in need of that admonition to love one another.
There are now, as then, wars going on elsewhere, and we think of those whose duty it is to wage them. We think also of those who are trying to build peace between the families, tribes, and nations of the world.
We consider the awesome obligations of those who wield political and economic power in our nation, and in all the nations circling the vast oceans. We consider the fearsome duties of those with little apparent power, whose only occupation is simply to survive, and to help their families and friends to live another day. Guide each person who hears your voice, to lend a hand to another, across the Earth.
We ask that your wisdom might be granted to the greatest and the least, that all might benefit from it, and this world be made more peaceful. Let our hearts be so full of your love, and our minds so full of insight, that we might all live as did that babe, born in a manger, so long ago.
In His name,
Amen

Getting it

2009-12-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

Some people just don't get it. The latest tripe is that people like Al Gore are just fearmongering about global warming so they can profit from it, but it's the oil/coal lobby that's financing the "there's no such thing as global warming" campaign so they can suck the last oil and dig the last coal out of the ground in their lifetimes. THEY are the ones who will profit from doing nothing.
There are those who say global warming isn't happening, and if it was, we can't afford to do anything about it. It would hurt the economy. Well, the science is solid that it is happening and the uncertainty is about exactly how that will impact things but they are all bad. I've heard that some economists have said that a warmer planet is a good thing. They should speak with experts on climate, because they're wrong. The entire global economy will be disrupted in lots of bad ways. The only ones who will profit are the greedy opportunists. And don't tell me that's what the U.S. was founded on. In our early years corporations obtained charters to do business in a state and if they acted improperly, their charter could be revoked by the people of that state. Now corporations have more rights than individual humans do.
An old friend cited Genesis 8 and said that chapter pretty well covered climate control, as he put it. In this chapter is the story of God promising never to exterminate the creatures of the Earth again, as he had in the great flood in the time of Noah. Another friend made some citation warning mankind not to play God, as if to say the asserting the reality of global warming was doing so. But my friends miss the point that HUMANS are exterminating species and have wrested control from God.

A Musing Upon the First Day of Hunting Season

2009-11-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

There is a comfortable simplicity about being outside in the world in the hours just before dawn. It’s not the middle of the night when it seems interminable, but when the observant creature can tell that daylight is coming soon. It’s not the middle of the day when activity levels are high. It’s that time when the nocturnal creatures are quieting down, and the crepuscular ones have not yet become active.
I walked down the path through the meadow, this morning when it was still misty from yesterday’s rain. It was overcast and moonless and quite dark, but I could easily see my way as I walked, flanked by this year’s crop of goldenrod, and the shrubs and trees that have begun to fill in what was once a farmer’s field. Nothing I saw seemed to have any color, but I have walked the path so many times that all the larger plants along the path were familiar. Shapes were soft-edged, and only near things were visible. All things were in shades of gray.
The air was almost perfectly still, so there was no chill, and my footfalls were all I heard. The quiet was calming. The only thing that might have surprised me would have been a deer if my approach had first startled it up from its bed alongside the path.
I made my way to the large ash tree where I’ve installed a platform on which our son can play his games. It serves a dual purpose, as I can wait there for white-tail deer to pass by, in hopes of filling our freezer with their flesh.
The ash tree stands along the southern boundary of the field, so it has been shaded on its southern side for most of its life. This prompted one of its branches which grew about fifteen feet northward to branch vertically in several directions, trying to capture as much sunlight as possible with its leaves. The greatest part of the limb is now nearly as big as the main trunk of the tree, more than twice the girth of my body, and its upright branches form an inverted tripod which cradles the platform as if it intended to do so.
I had placed a high-backed office chair there earlier, so I climbed the ladder and sat in it. It was easy, in such a close and quiet world, to relax. All I heard were droplets of water falling from branches, onto this year’s layer of fallen deciduous leaves.
The world, for a time, seemed familiar, small, quiet, and uncomplicated. All that was required of me was to see what I could see, to think my thoughts and, if I could be so skillful and so fortunate, to bring home food for my family. It is so often in such stillness, that wisdom comes to me. Life seemed a process in which success was assured.
But then the neighbor’s cock began to crow. Chickadees and other songbirds began to call. Squirrels began their morning territorial announcements and squabbled over boundaries. One came close and protested vociferously and repeatedly, that I was on its habitual path. I heard ravens’ wingbeats and calls as they passed from one horizon to the other, of my dome of awareness.
It being the first day of big-game hunting season, I began to hear guns going off, first in one direction and then another. Objects took on colors which deepened, and they became hard-edged. As the mist lifted and Old Sol came further around the corner of the world, I saw more and more trees, and at further distances from me. I heard more and more cars on the highway down in the valley, conveying people to their business or pleasure. Canada Geese, all honking at once, flew from wherever they had spent the night, to the beaver pond beyond the highway, for a day of feeding.
Now, in full light, the day seems larger and the world more complicated. Less of it seems within my control, nor even within my ability to influence. I’ll treasure that moment of comfortable simplicity. I’m sure I’ll need to find it again.

copyright 2009 G. Douglas Clarke

War on poverty

2009-03-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

Recent analysis confirms that the poor are still with us. Further, many of them are still people of color -- higher percentages than "whites" like me. But there are more of all kinds, as the richest get richer.

Robert F. Kennedy's challenge, wish, and dream is unfulfilled.

"We cannot denounce extremists who reject our social system if we do not prove that system is capable of helping people lead a better life. This is the challenge I have come to offer you -- whether you are willing to apply the flexibility of our fiscal and economic tools to the great task of rebuilding our nation's shame -- and providing promise to the next generation of the poor, now dying slow, quiet deaths in our ghettos."
RFK

Those who say we should just let the poor fend for themselves (and of course few will come right out and say this, but many MEAN it, even if they won't say it), should be made to suffer their own prescription.

Thank you, Bonnie Raitt.

2008-12-12T03:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a piece by Bonnie Raitt, that I responded to:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/11/bonnie-raitt-the-time-is-now-for-a-green-revolution/#comment-488960

Our back yard

2008-11-15T05:24:00.000-08:00

Why does global warming matter?
Anyone like my oldest nephew, who is “crazy” enough to race his dogsled team 1,000 miles across Alaska’s wilderness, can tell you. Ice in the polar regions that has moderated our global climate for millennia is melting, fast, but we will lose more than ice and polar bears.
The melting of polar ice will come to places like Allegany County, New York, too. One town here claims to be the Republican Party’s earliest birthplace, while another contains America’s earliest truly coeducational school, and the region’s oldest museum. Inhabitants invented the automotive universal joint, and performed the first successful instrumental insemination of honeybees.
Allegany County was logged and settled in the 19th century, and has remained mostly rural since then. This is a place where people get to know each other, and where neighbors look after each other.
Our family has lived in this county since 1827, when they traveled part of the way from Rhode Island on the Erie Canal. They came on by horseback and wagon, after they found the canal frozen, near Syracuse. Our great-great-grandmother wrote of those “pioneer” times, including her arms-length encounter with a bear as a young girl.
Other ancestors founded farms, producing food and goods for several communities and enough excess to send their children to Alfred University and even establish scholarship funds for others.
When the melting of polar ice results in the flooding of coastal urban areas, this region will be flooded with “refugees”, and they will bring their ways with them. Here in our two-college town, we already know what that can mean: binge drinking, loud cars, littering, careless drivers and hunters endangering our pets, homes and lives, and all-terrain vehicles trespassing with reckless abandon.
Plenty of other problems already threaten places like our small perched wetland, here on a hill at a place we call “Would Knot”. We have seen Painted Trillium, Ladyslippers, Dwarf Ginseng and other threatened plant species in its interior. These are often (if not always) nibbled off before they are able to produce seed, by White-tailed Deer. In our ancestors’ time, they killed the wolves and cougars without thought of any negative consequence, but their “vermin” would help to control the deer which now ravage nearly every plant in sight.
We have already lost the American Chestnut and Elm to pests imported from other continents, and most American Beech trees are infected and dying. Canadian Hemlock, and Sugar Maples, from which our ancestors made 500 pounds of sugar per year, in “pioneer days” may be next. None of them can move away from pests, but now an even larger, more insidious threat looms: Plants, and many animals, cannot readily move away from a climate that is no longer hospitable.
Right here in our back yard, I have seen Least Weasels (ermine) and Fisher, Black Bears and Coyotes. A few remained from great-great-grandmother’s time to my own, but I wonder what my son will see here when he is my age.

copyright 2008, G. Douglas Clarke

Bush, McCain, and nuclear energy

2008-11-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

I awoke with this all put together in my mind, like Coleridge did with "Kubla Kahn".

“I believe there’s only one environmental conflict, and that’s between short-term and long-term thinking. In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature.”

-Mollie Beattie, first woman to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

It is so clear why nuclear energy will NEVER be a solution for energy production, and why John McCain was NOT the better choice for President this year -- or anyone holding the same view, in ANY year.

Here are the keys:

Producing energy from nuclear fission or fusion, produces nuclear byproducts that are dangerously radioactive for thousands of years. This means they must be guarded to prevent accidental injury and prevent malicious theft for use in terrorism. Just the cost of doing so for a hundred years (to say nothing of doing so for thousands of years) far exceeds the value of the energy produced. Then add the huge costs of designing, licensing, operating, and protecting nuclear facilities, and the energy produced is not a net gain, in any sense. Nuclear energy is simply a hole into which a people will continue to throw outrageous amounts of money in exchange for no net benefit, and condemn their descendants to the same fate, without their consent.

A man who cannot even pronounce "nuCLEar" should never have been entrusted with decisions about nuclear ANYthing. Thankfully, George W. Bush's term is almost ended. To have elected a man as his successor one who stated that, as President of this nation, he would have opened the floodgates to development of nuclear power, would have been the most foolish act this nation could have taken.

(another) reason not to vote for John McCain

2008-10-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

I had long ago made up my mind not to vote for John McCain, because he is no longer a maverick, if he ever was. Now, as I have gone through a comparison of the programs he endorses, versus those endorsed by Barack Obama, I would not vote for him, if for no other reason than that he supports the expansion of nuclear power. Barack Obama does not support development of nuclear power production, but favors development of alternative energy sources.

There is now reasonable hope that we can begin commercially producing biofuels from algae in the next ten years. Promoting such development, as Obama does, would result in the creation of new industries, while the expansion of nuclear power would require close regulation and protection of nuclear materials, FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS! Not only would nuclear materials need to be kept from leaking into places where they could accidentally harm living things, but they would have to be protected from malicious misuse, as well. The development of nuclear power production is a hugely expensive, dangerous undertaking that would last for many generations!

Wouldn't we rather have the expansion of businesses that would produce materials and technologies which don't emit invisible waves of harmful radiation, and which would immediately free us from foreign powers and corporations?

Putting money into this sort of technology would also free us from the fact that ethanol production from corn is a soil-depleting technology. Corn is a slow-growing crop, compared to algae, and producing fuel from corn diverts land from food production to fuel production at a time when human population is at its greatest. Where corn takes months to produce the raw material for food or for ethanol, some algaes can double their biomass in a matter of days. And, in the process, atmospheric carbon dioxide is converted to other compounds, thus reducing greenhouse gas volume! The fact that it would produce AMERICAN jobs, is no small thing, either!!!

There is also ongoing development of new photovoltaic (solar electrical generation) materials that will greatly increase the efficiency of power production from sunlight. This will also decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and create new business opportunities.

The expansion of wind generation has come rapidly in the current economic climate, and there is still great potential for further development that will result in environmental and other benefits.

With comprehensive conservation of fossil fuels through ramped emission reduction standards, speed limit reductions and expansion of mass transit, we could quickly see fuel prices stabilize for the meantime. This should not be a signal to go back to our old spendthrift ways, but gives us breathing room to reach new dynamic equilibrium, economically, socially, and environmentally.

Fossil fuels WILL RUN OUT SOON, probably in this century, at current consumption. Their continued extraction will only become more difficult and more expensive, and in the process will destroy even more natural habitats necessary to ourselves and the remaining creatures with whom we share the Earth.

Any alternatives that reduce the amount of fossil fuels consumed, is beneficial, in terms of cost, release of greenhouse gases, dependence on foreign sources, and new American business generated.

This opens the door for alternative fuels, increases in efficiency, and all sorts of innovations which will result in a better future for our children and grandchildren.

If for no lesser reason than the very quality of Earth's future, a vote NOT cast for John McCain, is a vote well cast.

Enter the Circle

2008-05-26T08:31:00.001-07:00

Enter the Circle

Enter the circle in silence.

Quiet the tumult that troubles your thinking.

Hear the rush of the wind,
the rustle of leaves
and the song of the bird.

Feel the warm sun shining on your face.

Hear the voice of clarity.

Feel the power of profundity.

Be refreshed and find peace.

Leave the circle in silence.

Carry clarity in your mind.

Feel profound power when courage is needed.

Carry the powerful quiet of the circle within you.

copyright 2008
G. Douglas Clarke
May 24, 2008

I wanted you to know

2008-05-05T04:01:00.001-07:00

If you're getting this in an e-mail, it means I've added your name to the distribution list, so any time there's a new post, you get it by e-mail, too. But I just instituted this, so there are other posts you won't see unless you go to the blog. If you don't want these to come by e-mail, let me know.
Doug

For Our Mother

2008-01-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

I always loved my mother at the deepest levels, although I know I did not always feel that way at the surface of things. I may have even told someone (I’m not sure the words ever left my lips but I fear they may have) that I hated her, when I was a teenager. I know I responded very negatively to some of the things she did, but I know now that she had limited control over some of them, and that some of them were side-effects of medicines she needed to take. But I always knew she loved me very much.

This is not one of those stories from someone who’s trying to make peace with a deceased loved one, after the fact. I spent hours with Mom, even before cancer began to steal her energies, wrestling with things that had come between us. On several occasions, we ended up crying and hugging, understanding each other much better, and forgiving each other for hurts and misunderstandings.

I am the last of five children and I’m afraid our father has never fully grasped the depth of reconciliation that Mom and I found in the last ten years or so of her life. He seemed to think that I hurt Mom’s feelings, but I believe we truly were able to work our way through most of the things we had done in the past that caused each other pain, and I know I only think fondly of her now.

Over the years, a few acquaintances, and even a few members of our extended family, treated our mother with a lack of respect, and even with scorn. I always suspected this was in response to her emotional idiosyncrasies. She was very emotional and obsessive/compulsive and all, but little did other people know – at least until recently – that Mother’s foibles have specific, medical labels. They unfortunately also bear stigma, even if less so than in the past.

We, her children, have always felt set apart, apparently because of our close association with Mom, and perhaps because we resemble her. It is not that people haven’t been generally cordial, but many have let us know they regarded us differently. I think in some cases they couldn’t even have acknowledged that they felt that way, to say nothing of knowing that they were sending such signals. Perceptions are such elusive things……..

Anyway, it was a lovely surprise, last Friday, when a family friend joined me in walking up the street, and made a point of saying that they missed my mother, even though she’d died seven years before. In the course of conversation, I remarked that some folks thought Mom was a “strange bird” and this friend reminded me that my mother’s love was never in doubt, and that it always flowed freely from her. This friend said “we go back a long way, don’t we?” It was my pleasure to concur.

Even in this time of Muslim-bashing and Christian fundamentalism gone amok – it would be no surprise to Mom that this Muslim (ZR) friend would have recognized her love for people, for all living things, and for beautiful things like sunsets…….she was that sort of woman.

G. Douglas Clarke March 20, 2005

Notes to self

2007-11-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Consider now your father's death.
Did you understand his wishes?
Did you carry them out well?

Consider how your father died.
Did he go as he'd approved?
Is there any good way to go into the long night?

See all the days of your shared lives.
Re-consider how well you lived them.
Did you really do all you could?

Feel his absence to the depth of your being.
Allow yourself to hurt and cry and mourn,
and live your remaining days accordingly.

Consider now your own young son.
Re-member your father knew not his father,
and do what you can to prepare that boy.

Give him what your father gave you
and add ten measures more, daily.
Give things that will endure when you are gone.

Consider your father's death
Consider how your own may come,
and live today as if a herald of that day.

G. Douglas Clarke, September 13, 2007

My, how the world has changed . . .

2007-09-23T04:02:00.000-07:00

I hadn't thought about something I had done in my college days as being terribly significant until yesterday, when some storytelling prompted a Bronx resident sojourning in our little town while attending college, to say "you wouldn't survive if you did that now."

I had been telling how, in my sophomore year of college, three classmates and I had taken a train from Huntington Station, Long Island to Bridgeport, Connecticut and then hitchhiked from there to Hartford. We had left Long Island on Friday, all with plans for returning to campus after the weekend. I had gone to see my friend Jodie while the others went to the New England Fiddle Contest (and maybe a Grateful Dead concert that was also going on). They had all hitchhiked back on Sunday, but I had lingered another day and hitchhiked back alone.

What had prompted all of this was simply that I had inquired of a restaurant clerk, where he came from. When he had said "Connecticut" I had requested greater detail, to which he'd said "Hartford", prompting me to say "Oh, I once hitchhiked from there to Long Island. He raised his eyebrows at that, and made some comment of surprise. When I rejoined my fellow diners, I told the story in more detail, prompting the comment on dubious survival.

I remember my friend (who I had hoped would become more of a companion) dropping me off on a West Hartford entrance to the Merritt Parkway and being warned that I could be arrested for hitchhiking. After at least an hour, a black man in a powder blue VW Beetle picked me up and drove me all the way to Cross-Bronx Expressway, where he let me out on the ramp. For some reason I was not certain I was on the right ramp, so I climbed over the railing and headed for the nearest gas station, to ask for help in being sure.

As I recall, no-one there habla'ed de Englais, but I looked at a map on the wall, gestured to where I thought we were and where I wanted to go and pointed outside to the ramp I'd just left, got a nod, and went back out. Still not being quite satisfied, I walked out the ramp until I could read the signs over the roadway, and then walked back to where there was room for someone to stop and pick me up. I still have the sign I carried that day, tucked under our bed, I think: a rectangle of cardboard, with "Lloyd Harbor Long Island" written on one side, and "Hartford" on the other.

I think my next ride was in a VW microbus, in which I sat and ate sandwiches given to me by the owners, while petting their dog and talking about whatever came up. They dropped me off at an intersection leaving the Long Island Expressway and entering Cross Island Parkway, I think. The way I've always told the story, I got three more rides and made the trip in four and a half hours, but I remember nothing else until I was actually let out of that last car, right in front of our dormitory. My companions were embittered that they had taken twelve hours to get back to the same place, and had had to walk the last five miles. That was in 1976 or 1977 (I'm not sure if it was fall or spring semester of college).

Our companion at a meal yesterday lives in the Bronx, and seemed genuinely impressed that I had done such a thing, and I have to admit that I shudder at the thought of how alone and exposed I was. We talked about the fact that, the last time we went to Long Island, we were stuck in traffic near the very same place on Cross Bronx Expressway, and I had marveled that I had once stood and lobbied for a ride from that spot. On the more recent occasion, we had seen a car-load of Hasidim on one side, and on the other, a car-load of young men who seemed itchy for a fight and had tried to make eye-contact and heckled us and other drivers while we were all sitting still, waiting for traffic to move ahead. That had given me cause for concern, as had my previous journey through that same passage.

Looking back, I have a sense of pride in being able to say I did that, but I feel no cravings to repeat it.

I do wonder how much the world has changed. Would a young man with long hair and little money (and both innocence and fear) be able to hitchhike that same way today? The question does not burn enough in me to try that test, but I do pine a bit for the days when hitchhiking was fairly acceptable and there was a reasonable expectation of safety, and of getting a ride. Now it seems only the hardiest, boldest and most desperate take that method of transport. Yet my soft-spoken, un-intimidating mother had done so in her youth. Somehow those years when the world was younger, were times of greater trust, and perhaps of greater acceptance of differences. I do pine for those things, and hope they will be part of our future, in much greater measure.

2007-08-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

It is time for aging hippies to get their spit together and revitalize the idealism of the 1960s. Assassinations and Altamont should not have been the back end of all the good that accumulated in that decade.

Ann Coulter is the godless one.

2007-06-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted anything for four months . . . so here goes:

Ann Coulter did it. She said she would stop implying John Edwards is gay and would switch to saying she only wishes he'd get killed in a terrorist attack. This from a woman who's promoting her book with the title and thesis that godlessness is the ruination of our nation. So she's brazenly breaking the 9th (8th, if you're catholic) of the 10 commandments upon which she says this nation was founded. She places herself antithetically to the very one whose name she invokes in her book.

Matthew 5:44 - But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

That instruction is for Christians, regarding people who oppose them. John Edwards never attacked Ann Coulter. Elizabeth Edwards tried to treat Ann with respect, as one person to another. Ann doesn't get it.

If these are the teachings she's claiming to live by, she missed it completely. I can't remember the last time she did good to anyone she hates, nor blessed anyone who cursed her. She just tries to curse them in worse fashion, even the ones who try to practice those teachings in their dealings with her.

"Teacher," he said, "what must I do to be sure of living forever?"

"What does the Law say?" Jesus asked him. "How do you read it?"

"It says that you must love God with all that you are - with your will, your spirit, your body and your intellect - and that you must have the same regard for your neighbor as you have for yourself."

"Right," Jesus said. "Do that and you'll live."

For our son

2007-02-18T02:12:00.001-08:00

So it didn't take an attack or cancer for him to reflect on his own mortality-he did it all the time. You know, he'd say, "One of these days I'm gonna be dead and you're gonna have to look after these trees!" And I'd be, "Stop saying that, Dad!" And he'd be like, "But it's true." Because he was a realist. And I'm very much the same way. Everyone is gonna die, but no one thinks they're gonna die. No one. And that's like the biggest blind spot that everyone in the world has, this inability to believe that they're gonna die. And I think the sooner you
address that, the better, really. It's like practice, really.

Dhani Harrison, regarding his father, George Harrison

Life is not fair, my son. I might as well just tell you that now -- now that you are of an age that you are becoming self-conscious and will remember what happens to you and what people tell you, and now that you understand that we don't live forever.
One of the hardest things with which I have had to deal, for all of my life that I can remember, is the assumption – or presumption -- that life should be fair. I still struggle with it on a regular basis. No-one ever told me that life would be fair, but evidently I got the idea, or the tendency to think, that it SHOULD be fair. Many things I have seen, seem to be unfair, and I find myself angry about them, while most people around me seem unaffected.
I have, from my earliest remembrances, seen that humans were unkind to other humans and animals. I have seen that some people took advantage of other people, or hurt others with obvious intent, and I could never accept their apparent motivation, even revenge, for doing so. I was once threatened with violence and even struck repeatedly, but refused to fight my antagonist, who stalked off angrily and haunted my steps for years afterward. I am still angry that he was able to cause me such fear and distrust and distraction from other, more important things, for as long as he did. I hope I've forgiven him, but I worry about the prisoners he's spent many years guarding, in his chosen occupation. I fear that he has perpetuated the violence in others, that was inflicted on him as a child. I worry about his children.
So I find myself to be an idealist in an imperfect world. In teenage years I was told things like "let it go" or "lighten up" but found it impossible to do much but to try to moderate my feelings. I get angry over the slightest injustices.
For my own part, I regret the times that I have spoken unfair things of others, or said unkind things to other people, although I can't remember ever intending to hurt someone. I may have done so in responding to things while not controlling my emotion as well as I wished, but the worst I remember wanting to do is wishing to stop someone from hurting me any further. I used to fear my own potential for harming other people, if I should ever unleash it, but I usually walk away from a situation in which I feel my anger about to turn into violence. I deeply regret some of the times in which I have unleashed my frustration in forceful words, but I have always tried to apologize or to make it known that I've expressed emotion but not hatred.
I have come to see my own potential for physical violence as an ability our ancestors and animal relations have used for millenia, to protect resources and increase the chance that their kind would survive and reproduce. Humans just mis-use that potential in ways that are unnecessary and immoral and unfair.
I continue to observe that bad things happen to good people, but feel to the depths of my being that this SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SO. This is just a feeling I get. On the other hand, I understand that the Universe simply operates upon cause and effect, not at the behest of temperamental gods or demons. I can acknowledge, intellectually, that life often is NOT fair, and I see that our world contains the potential for wonderful AND terrible things to happen to ANY and ALL of the creatures which inhabit it.
I would like to think that humans who do terrible things to others are somehow re-paid, either in punishment or shortened life or that they are given cause to make right for their transgressions, but this recompense is not consistent, and many injustices go un-answered. This is a fact. Whatever happens to them beyond this realm of living, is not known to me.
Too many persons with incredible potential to produce fairness and justice in their own living and to promote it in this world, have been murdered or taken by disease or lost to some accident, long before their work was well-advanced. Some have been killed specifically because others recognized their potential and wished to snuff it out, and one historic personality shared the same birthday with me for too few years. Too many persons who tortured or murdered or raped or exploited others, have lived to advanced years. This is true and inescapable, but truths like this are hard to accept, at least for me.
Dealing with life looking backward from the present, is the quintessential act of futility, yet I find myself continuing to practice it, year after year. I seem unable to escape the regret (and other emotional accompaniments) I feel when presented with specific cases, such as:
That my friend Tim (whose given name is your middle name) should have been given such genius without the psychological stability to deal with it;
That your grandfather never met his father, thanks to a disease that killed so many at that time;
That your grandfather, and all of us, never met his grandfather, because a broken relationship was never mended;
That you and I never got to know my uncle, who was so talented and outgoing, but chose to risk his life in fighting the Second World War;
That you and I never got to know my aunt, who was overcome by surgical complications;
That you and I never got to meet your mother's brother, whom she loved so much;
That those who seem most able to bring disparate peoples into unity often die without the opportunity to do so; and I could think of plenty of other things that I wish were not as they are.
But they are.
So it is that I was telling you, not long ago, that I don't want to stop you from questioning authority, because it is something you should do as an adult. I want you to trust me to be telling you things that are in your best interest. I told you that I will be happy to explain why I tell you to do things but won't always want to do so at the time. If you were about to be struck by a car, I wouldn't take the time to explain why you need to get out of the way, right?
I told you that you would need to learn to trust your own sense of right and wrong, no matter what other people do. I said that I was certain you would grow up to be a very good person. I saw the tears in your ten-year-old eyes as you leaned in to hug me.
Life is not fair. It is up to each of us to make it so, in the places we inhabit. And you, my boy, will do just fine.

Names and Places

2007-01-21T04:12:00.000-08:00

We've been living on this bit of land for most of twenty years and I've tried to come up with a name for it intermittently since we first began building our house. I've tried to find a gaelic phrase that means "high place where water lingers" and we've toyed with "Aspen Grove" and other names, but I may have finally hit upon something while I was drifting between sleep and wakefulness this morning. Once again, procrastination may have yielded something of value. Or was it patience?

I was half-dreaming about being in a rock/folk band and hit upon a few clever names for the group but I woke after I thought of a phrase and began trying to decide how to spell the words. I'll explain after I tell these other stories (it helps to build the suspense):

Years ago, a friend of ours built a cabin out away from any other human habitations, and had a naming contest for her place. Our father won the contest by taking the word "shall" and adding "land", and in so doing honored both this friend's determination and the place she had chosen to live. It also implied the Hebrew term for peace (shalom). She didn't stay many years, finding that it was too far out.

I had tried living alone in a tipi one winter long ago, and had been in town for supplies or something. As I snowshoed back to the tipi I found the words "far out" stamped out in the snow near my shelter. It was.

I tried living in a resort town and working in a factory down south (because jobs were hard to come by, here in western New York) for almost a decade, but came back because all that stimulation didn't suit me. I've learned since then that even small college-town stimulation is hard on my nervous and psychological systems. So we've returned to the "far out" option.

We are far enough out to not have drunken students yelling and screaming and waking us up in the night. We're not so far but what we hear cars going by on the highways nearby, and I can get to the Fire Hall to drive an engine or ambulance in seven minutes.

But why not just call this place "home"? Somehow that was not enough for me. This place and this house have a sort of personality that is still growing and changing, as we are. I think that what came to me this morning while my brain was working between alpha and theta wavelengths, I suppose, was something that encapsulates why we live where we do, and how we do it. It was Wood Not or Would Knot, and I think I've settled on the latter.

We made many choices about where to build our home, and how we have been building it, that we might, in retrospect, wish to change. But I have lived with plenty of regret, and tire of it. Would Knot posits that same sort of determination my father recognized in our friend, and we've had to learn. Would Knot also posits the connection we have been making to this place and its creatures. I think it's a good name.

I had a dream........Thank you, Martin.

2007-01-20T03:28:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning having dreamt about my ex-brother-in-law and timber salvage legislation. In the dream, I was explaining to my sister how salvage legislation left the door open for cutting almost any timber, when he handed me an article detailing how that was no longer true. I said that, due to the new Democratic majority, they must have tightened up the legislation before passing it. So I woke up with a renewed sense of hope that I had not dared to feel, until very recently. I've been saying for six years, that my baseline blood pressure would be elevated for as long as G.W. Bush was in office. So, for my own health (and yours and that of the next seven generations), I think his impeachment is worth considering.

But, speaking of hope, I was drinking (organic) coffee and talking with a friend of mine yesterday, when he mentioned that, on one of the forums he watches on biodiesel, people were talking about how maybe global warming wasn't real, and that record temperatures were just due to natural cycling. Boy, did I go from there: I told him that even the "normal" cycling is changing, and that there is no doubt that global warming is happening. He commented that he doesn't know any of the science on the subject, and that he can't do anything about global warming. Yeah, right.

This is the guy who decided to buy an old diesel truck and convert it to run on vegetable oil, just to cut his fuel cost. This is the guy who commented that I prepare for things so thoroughly that he figures I would pull a spare car on a trailer if I went on a journey, just in case the first car broke down. Unlike me and my preparations, he just decided to do it, and did it. He researched how to do so on-line, then figured out how to do it better, and has set up four different vehicles with a hybrid diesel/vegetable oil fuel delivery system, learning a lot more with each iteration.

This is the guy who decided to burn vegetable oil because converting it to biodiesel involved hazardous materials and was more expensive. And he can't do anything about global warming. At that moment, I didn't try to convince him otherwise, although we'd talked about this before.

So I explained some of the science of global warming to him; how scientists (some of whom are friends of mine) use tree ring widths to extrapolate climate averages; how they've re-constructed tree ring widths back into the past; how they have drilled ice cores and aged the ice and extracted entrapped gases to estimate climate; how there is no doubt that the earth's surface is warming at an unprecedented rate; and that ice is disappearing more quickly than people estimated or feared, and that it is now feared that much of what is happening could be irreversible.

He just commented that he couldn't do anything about it.

So I woke up this morning hoping to convince him otherwise, because I keep trying. I tried when I signed on-line petitions and when I talked with people about how they were voting. I tried when I was a Technical Specialist, working with students and telling them about things they could do. I tried when I helped a University faculty search committee choose a climate scientist to fill a vacancy. I tried when I taught Environmental Science to a class of 40 students from Japan, Bulgaria, South Carolina, rural New York state and New York City's boroughs. I try when I do as many errands as I can in one trip. I try when I talk with my son about what matters to each of us. I try when I look on-line for a diesel truck that I can convert to vegetable oil fuel.

My friend is not a liberal, not a Democrat, not an environmentalist. But we have been good friends because we are both willing to hear the other's viewpoint and give it a good listen, but still disagree on some things. We don't disagree about how much we love our wives and children, nor about how corrupt our government is, although we sometimes disagree about what should be done to correct it, and so on.

I like to think that, if he and I can disagree but continue to respect each other and continue to talk about what change is needed for our boys to have a good life, there is still hope. I hope that the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress will just be the beginning.

there is no fury..........

2006-12-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

Nature has no fury, and I tire of people suggesting that it does.
I saw a fellow by the name of Perkins in a PBS film on canoing alone in Alaska, and he said, after seeing a peregrine falcon nest out in the middle of the tundra, with two or three small chicks looking up at him, that the idea of a nest, or a home, is such a confident gesture. His point was that nature (or Nature) is indifferent to our lives, and that when some people are confronted with nature, they may focus on a bear or wolf or some limited threat, but that what people really fear is the land, the vastness of our world relative to our own individual size and capacity.

I am so tired of hearing on the news about how Nature's fury wreaked havoc on the Buffalo, New York area recently (the October, 2006 surprise), or when Hurricane Katrina came through the Gulf Coast or with the Tsunami a while back. Nature has no fury.
The systems that impact one another and produce storms of all sorts have no malice for humanity nor other creatures. They just happen.
Sometimes people get caught in circumstances to which they cannot adapt. Sometimes other creatures do, too. That is all.
Humans are getting so spoiled that they don't know how to adapt anymore. They're more than willing to change their environment to suit themselves, to the extent of global weather disruption -- even though that's an unintended consequence of environmental manipulation -- but native ways are getting lost and Americans are increasingly unwilling to adapt themselves to Nature.
An ability to adapt to their surroundings is why our ancestors evolved and survived to this point. An unwillingness to do so may bring our survival to an end, to say nothing of an evolutionary progress.

The Lord's Prayeraphrase

2006-12-17T04:32:00.000-08:00

An Adaptation of “The Lord’s Prayer”

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name
Great Spirit of the Universe,
we are amazed at all you have made.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
May the coming of your reign
Happen every day in our hearts;
In our living may your Good Will come to pass.

We trust your wisdom for us,
although we cannot always see it.

Give us this day our daily bread
We trust you know our needs,
And take up today’s Providence with gratitude.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Teach us to offer forgiveness to others,
Not deserving, but ever striving to earn
Your forgiveness, daily, freely given.

Lead us not into temptation
Although you send us to dark and
Difficult places for your sake,
Let not our minds and hearts go astray;

And deliver us from evil
Lord, spare us, please,
From evil without, and evil within.

Amen

G. Douglas Clarke
January 31, 2004

Note: I omit the "power and glory" part because it was evidently not included in the earliest versions, and does not seem to fit the "earthly" tone of the prayer.

A "Sermon" I gave on June 1, 2002 at the 1st Seventh Day Baptist Church of Alfred, NY

2006-12-17T03:40:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you a story:
In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less [than it does now], a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" "Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table, and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies - her tip.
This story touched me -- perhaps it touches you, too. I don’t know if this really happened, and I don’t have to believe that it did, in order to extract useful truths from this story -- in order to understand that impatience can be an embarrassment in the face of kindness, that children have large generosity hidden behind more child-like attributes, that I have a need to remember such stories in order to improve my own behaviour, and so on. The story is not explicitly about Jesus, but it expresses values he embraced, and I believe he wishes us to live out.
Jesus used stories -- especially parables that embraced some sort of paradox -- to challenge people’s thinking, to convey truths that were right in front of people but they had not recognized.
I have come to appreciate stories in ways I did not when I was younger. For instance, stories can encapsulate principles in all kinds of ways: Here’s one that . . .“puts things in perspective”:
“If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.
There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's
wealth and all 6 would be from the United States

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed
perspective, the need for both acceptance, understanding
and education becomes glaringly apparent."

This was attributed to Phillip M Harter, MD, FACEP at Stanford University, School of Medicine.

A few moments ago, I read from Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and you heard portions of two different versions of “creation”: one which says God created light, then the sky, separated the waters into earth and sea and made plants, made the sun and moon and stars, made water creatures, then domestic (which is not possible, since domestic means they have been consciously bred from wild stock, to suit human expectations) and wild creatures, then humans, all in six days. This story tells us that God then rested and blessed the seventh day. The writer then begins what seems to be another story, of how God created man and placed him in the garden in Eden where there were plants. Next, God created animals out of the dirt, before making a woman from the man’s rib. This is not the same order of creation as was recounted only a few verses before, thus a conflict if one feels they must believe every word of scripture literally. If you understand that truth can be found in each account without their being reconciled as historical accounts, this is no trouble. Since no man or woman was present at the creation of the universe, it is easy to understand that these accounts of those events are valuable for understanding, but that scientific explanations are also valid. In science, it is understood that older theories are sometimes abandoned for newer ones which employ what is known, more effectively, and this is no trouble, until people attach themselves inflexibly to any given theory.
I don’t have to believe that story as a literal telling of “creation” in order to extract useful truths from it. I don’t have to believe that the universe was created in seven, 24-hour days in order to understand that regular rest and re-evaluation, prayer and fellowship is an important practice that brings positive results for my family and for our church members. I understand that it is important enough to take that understanding to others.
In an article published December 21, 1978, Virginia Bortin told how a story in the Gospel of John (to which you will find reference on the back of the bulletin) helped to illuminate scientific research, and was confirmed by that research. Ms. Bortin said:
“When Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, . . . she pointed to Mt. Gerizim rising above them. Then she remarked sadly, ‘Our fathers worshipped on this mountain.’ At the mountain’s summit, they were able to see ruins of a Samaritan temple destroyed 150 years before by Jewish High Priest John Hyrcanus I. However, a century after Jesus’ death, these sacred ruins were completely hidden from view by a Roman sanctuary built over them. . .
The ancient Samaritans regarded themselves as the legitimate heirs to the religion of Moses and Abraham. They considered their temple the only true sanctuary of the faith. The Samaritans were powerful rivals of the Jews, who believed their own temple at Jerusalem to be supreme. . .
For a long time after the destruction by Hyrcanus, Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies, neither welcome in the other’s land. Some 150 years had passed when Jesus, traveling through Samaria, encountered this hostility as he, a Jew, asked the Samaritan woman for water. . .
Ironically, the mystical Hyrcanus is said to have become convinced in his last days that the Samaritan religious claims were true. Seeking penance, the Jewish leader sent gifts and sacrifices to the ruined nation. . . .
. . . Jesus and the Samaritan woman could still view the results of Hyrcanus’ brutal destruction. Now, these ruins have again come to light, proven by 20th century technology [anthropological, archaeological, and other methods] to be the very ones Jesus knew. They are a poignant reminder of a long-ago struggle over faith [BELIEF]” (Olean Times Herald, date noted above)

The Bible is full of stories, and by saying so, I do not intend to diminish the importance of scripture, but to improve our understanding of scripture, and of its importance.

Mark Twain told lots of stories -- like the one read earlier -- based roughly on his life, in his classic books, and it does not matter which portions are true, in order for me to find myself laughing or crying at the message he conveys. He was good at telling stories that made fun of himself, and we are all richer for it. Likewise, his “war prayer” is one of the most eloquent at reminding us that losers in war are not always just “the bad guys”, among other things. This is especially poignant, since we just celebrated Memorial Day, and I mean no offense to veterans, by reading Twain’s words regarding “the Philippine-American War. It was submitted for publication, but on March 22, 1905, Harper's Bazaar rejected it as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine”
“The story relates a patriotic church service held to usher the young men of a town off to war. The minister begins with the invocation:
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder, Thy clarion, and lightning, Thy sword!
The service continues with a "long prayer" for the victory of the country's military. As the prayer closes, an "aged stranger" enters the church and walks up the aisle to the front of the church where the minister is standing. Motioning the startled minister aside, he begins to relate the "unmentioned results" that "follow victory -- must follow it, cannot help but follow it."
I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!... He has heard the prayer of His servant, your shepherd, & will grant it if such shall be your desire after I His messenger shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause & think.
"God's servant & yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused & taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken & the unspoken....
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed, silently. And ignorantly & unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is completed into those pregnant words.
"Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.
"O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended through wastes of their desolated land in rags & hunger & thirst, sport of the sun-flames of summer & the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave & denied it -- for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask of one who is the Spirit of love & who is the ever-faithful refuge & friend of all that are sore beset, & seek His aid with humble & contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord & Thine shall be the praise & honor & glory now & ever, Amen."
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! -- the messenger of the Most High waits."

So it is with stories, and even historians are learning that historical objectivity is not possible. No one historian can tell a story which contains all the truth, to satisfy those who lived through an event or were affected by it.
But stories can convey truth in all sorts of ways, and of many natures, be they symbolic, or emotional, or empathic, or simply intended to convey a principle for living.
But, when someone is telling a story about someone else, it matters a great deal, how much truth is contained in the story. It is a wise admonition that states “Thou shalt not bear false witness........” It mattered a great deal when people in this Association BELIEVED stories they heard about what we were doing, and why!!!!!
I have heard it said: “If someone says something unkind about you, live in such a way that no one will believe it.” and early Quakers said “What thee does speaks so loud that we cannot hear what thee says."

For some, it is extremely important that they believe exactly the “right” things, and in some cases their behaviour is inconsequential to their beliefs. It is more important that anyone with whom they affiliate, believe exactly as they do. They think that improper belief is sinful, and heretical, and abominable.
Others have discovered that their beliefs are central to how they live their lives, and much of their behaviour and practice, whether religious or not, arises from those beliefs and the resultant values they place on material things, the use of their time, and the ways in which they relate to other humans, plants, animals, and objects.
Many wise people have found themselves in situations in which time is not available to rationalize what is the best course of action, but make decisions which, when the results are seen, greatly affect their future behaviours. Think of someone who has made a great mistake that harmed others, who spent the remainder of their life in thoroughly altruistic endeavours, or the ordinary person who happened to be in a place and circumstance to preserve another’s life in some heroic fashion, and spent their later days in ordinary fashion, but being admired by many for their extraordinary willingness to be of assistance.
Here’s a story of such a person. It was sent to me by e-mail and I don’t know from where it originated, so I don’t know if it is urban folklore or a true account. What matters is that people DO do such things, every day:

“Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease, and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a
moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liz." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?" Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his
sister ALL of his blood. Attitude, after all, is everything.”
Rev. Darwin Maxson, a prominent member of this church and of the Alfred University faculty, when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, said he “won’t obey it.” (Fiat Lux, p. 46), because he believed so strongly in the need to put an end to slavery.
Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on the bus on that fateful day not so many years ago, not because she suddenly decided it wasn’t right. She had probably never believed it was right for whites to take seats from black people, but it had taken her time to come to the point of taking action to try to make the outside world match what she believed in her own heart. She, along with many others, had evidently been in the PROCESS of coming to believe that BELIEVING something was not enough. So she started something. The action arising from her belief prompted many others to action.

Psychologists now say that the largest portion of human behaviours are done without prior rationale, but are explained by rational means, after the fact. I’ve been pretty certain this was so, for many years. Maybe you have, too. How many times have you said, “why the heck did he/she do that?” Sometimes that’s because we don’t know what the other is dealing with, and sometimes we just don’t think. Not that our behaviour is entirely IRrational, but we apparently act mostly on some level that is not fully rational, but might be described as intuitive.

Nevertheless, what we believe is very important, because although we may rationalize ex post facto, our beliefs are at work in our psyche, in ways yet to be understood. But our beliefs are organic, and should grow with our understandings and wisdom that is granted to us. Our beliefs are affected by events in our lives and by processes in the world around us, and when these are profound, they produce uncommon courage, honesty, perseverance, and all sorts of gifts in our lives and in those with whom we live. Galatians 5:22 says “the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. There is no law against such things as these.” If we are open to the Spirit’s leading, we do not become perfect, but our lives have an abundance of these things, without our having to believe a complete and proper set of precepts, and this is the marvelous part of following Christ.

Jonathan Allen (prominent in this church and in Alfred University’s history) espoused “spontaneity, freshness, freedom, originality, and independent thought and investigation. . . comprehensive views, a respect for ideas, a scholarly enthusiasm, an ethical worthiness, spiritual dignity, and a reverent theistic tendency” for students at the University. It was said of Allen, “While loyal to his denomination, he was too ‘catholic [ecumenical, cosmopolitan] to be bound by any mere creed of any particular church. . . ‘” (Fiat Lux, p. 92)
He said “the universe is a living temple of God, everywhere and perpetually filled . . . {religion is] “a vital relationship and communion of the soul with the Divine. Religious certainty is not the inferences of logic, or the credence of historic testimony but immediate and living, an experiential assurance by a personal relation.”
Allen, who attended Oberlin College which claims to be the earliest co-ed institution........was “ahead of his time” in embracing women’s suffrage and abolition of slavery. He allowed himself to be influenced by his wife’s views (Dan Rase said he was a “wise man”)
I am astonished that, almost 200 years after “The origin of species” was published, and A.U. students discussed its merits with Allen and Maxson, who integrated such “new thinking” into their faith, there are people who persist in rejecting such things without any thought or investigation. I won’t deny them the right to believe as they wish, but I submit that beliefs are worthless and can be evil, unless they result in moral behaviour.
I do not deny to such people the right to believe that the human species was created in a 24-hour period, and that woman was made from man’s rib, but when such a belief denies God’s continuing creative power, denies to their children the understanding of the nascent potential of all creation, and denies others the opportunity to learn, then their belief is inadequate, perhaps immoral.
I remember my parents being more concerned about my association with youth groups which had less liberal approaches to religious belief, even though they were interdenominational, than they seemed to be about my experimenting with adult behaviours. I have always admired that about them -- that my parents continued to learn from others, to allow freedom to others while still expecting the best of and for them, throughout their lives. They were more worried about the closing of my mind, than about it opening to -- perhaps -- even dangerous things.
In 1963, this church had over 100 members, but with the Theological School closed, fewer SDBs came to A.U., and more and more members’ children moved away. In that vacuum, the denomination’s leaders like Allen, Maxson, Boothe C. Davis, A.J.C. Bond, Melvin Nida, Clifford Hansen, Wayne Rood, Herb Saunders, and J. Paul Green, are not replaced. There is not a group of young, energetic persons assembled here or anywhere else, to whom they can impart their wisdom, as was once true. Not that there have not been leaders here, but there was a lacking of strength in numbers of such people, and in that partial vacuum, our churches have suffered from the lack of progressive leadership, leading to the narrowing of our traditional ecumenism.
In that vacuum, this church was victimized by persons who presumed authority to dictate what was right belief, over others in the church -- a practice uncharacteristic of this congregation. This, and other events, resulted in the loss of members to other churches, even if just the next SDB church down the road. Now, here we sit wondering what we can do.
If this church is to be revived, we must either revisit what has made us successful in the past, or find new ways to successfully engage people in fulfilling activities. We must be more than just busy.
If this Association of Seventh Day Baptist churches is to have a promising future, it must make a place for those who do not hold that belief is the end of religion, but the beginning. There must be space made for those who differ on points of belief, but not on learning from the stories in the Bible. There must be space for those who can remain centered upon the Biblical foundation, but also learn from other sources that have integral rather than arbitrary authority, and integrate those learnings into their faith.
If this denomination is to have a future, Seventh Day Baptists must find ways to make such strong familial alliances work for the benefit of humanity, or we will be decimated by such struggles as this church has so far survived.
If we are to have a future as Seventh Day Baptists, we must find the means to engage creative persons who can integrate new knowledge and new conceptual understandings into the faith we have inherited -- the faith that gives meaning to our living, and to our common efforts. If we do not, our children and grandchildren will fall prey to “formula faiths” that offer simple answers and demand conformity with other person’s understandings, instead of building and using beliefs that are their own, with the guidance of God’s spirit and those with whom they covenant. Let us continue to believe that the future holds many good things, and that we can be a part of bringing them to pass.
Amen.

Bergren Forum Presentation at Alfred University February 27, 2003

2006-12-16T14:27:00.000-08:00

Bergren Forum Presentation at Alfred University February 27, 2003 G. Douglas Clarke

I hope you’ll permit me to tell a story or two:

When, at age 41, I returned to Alfred University to study, after a leave of absence (only twenty-three years after transferring out, at the end of my freshman year), it was only a continuation of my personal wrestling match with the “what are you going to do when you grow up?” question. Even way back then, although I would have had a hard time verbalizing it, I felt that my upbringing lacked a sense of cultural security -- that I had little sense of who I was and from what context I had emerged. This plagued me, and I felt envious of Native Americans and the tradition of learning the stories of one‘s people.

In 1975 I took courses in World Religions, Psychology, Biology, Expository Writing, Cultural Anthropology, and so on, and began to plan a Track II program for myself, thinking that any single curriculum was too narrow for my inquiring mind. After learning about Friends World College’s program, in which students wrote journals and conducted studies in which they took an active part in planning, I transferred to the Friends World College North American Center at Lloyd Harbor, Long Island. I spent one semester in seminars on world problems and in field trips to possible independent study locations from Long Island to Georgia.

My fourth collegiate semester was spent in Boulder, Colorado, where I took a Geology course that included a flight up the Front Range of the Rockies and back down along the Continental Divide, began learning the Lakota (Sioux Indian) language from a “white“ linguist while my friend Nadine Hoover lived among the Sioux and learned plenty of other things, did volunteer work for the Native American Rights Fund, hiked and camped in the foothills, and rode skateboards in empty pools and down city streets. I even ended up living in the same house to which my parents had brought me from the hospital, when I was born. I kept a journal of my experiences, and actually got college credits for all that.

In the fall of 1977, I had planned to travel to Japan, where I would have lived in Kyoto and studied how an island nation deals with environmental problems, and how its culture affected those issues. I planned to spend my senior year in Iceland. I had obtained my passport and visa, been inoculated for smallpox (since I would be travelling through Korea) and even had my ticket for a chartered flight, when I learned that some of the funding on which I would rely, would not be available, after all.

So I spent a little more than a year on leave of absence, in Alfred, trying to find work that would pay well enough for me to save some money for tuition (yeah, right, fat chance of that, without a degree!). I ended up accepting an invitation from a friend who was an engineer at an electronics plant in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to come and work for him there. I worked there nine years, having enrolled in a degree program through my place of employment, but was not able to finish my degree before persuading my (then) brand-new wife that we should return to Alfred to help look after my aging parents. I don’t know if I told her, then, that I had come to feel that who I was had a lot to do with Alfred.

In all those years, I acknowledged that I cared deeply about humans being humble in their use of natural resources, had a very strong sense of justice (meaning I am quick to spot an INjustice), sympathized strongly with indigenous cultures and wild creatures, and felt that there was a spiritual, moral basis for these concerns.

Coming back to college here provided the opportunity to respond to that emptiness which I recognized so many years ago. I was able to assemble, among other things, a number of my great-great grandmother’s writings, and wrote a thesis on the environmental history of some pioneer Seventh Day Baptists to Allegany County, NY, which earned me my degree and departmental honors, after so many years of yearning.

Now, let me tell you l little of what I learned in that process:

What is Environmental History?

A brochure from the American Society for Environmental History states that it is the interdisciplinary study of human interactions with the natural world, over time; that Environmental historians seek to enlarge our understanding of how nature enables and sets limits for human actions, how people modify the ecosystems they inhabit, how different conceptions of the non-human world shape beliefs, values, economies, politics, and cultures.

I submit, further, that humanity is inseparable from the rest of the natural world. We can no more separate ourselves organically from the rest of the world than we can view an event or issue objectively. We can try to be open to multiple viewpoints and take them into account, but must consciously give each one fair consideration. Certainly our surroundings place limitations on us, but we also limit what is possible in our surroundings. There is a mutuality between ourselves and our surroundings which may or may not be recognized by humans, even though the influences are constantly working, and the relationship is constantly changing. We separate ourselves from our surroundings, only in our minds.

What has the settlement of Allegany County got to do with environmental history?

Susan Strong -- in her doctoral dissertation -- spent quite a bit of time and effort writing a history of Alfred University’s founding and its very early coeducational structure, and found that what happened here was quite unique. A certain ancestor of mine, to whom I will refer later, aspired to partake of the educational opportunity that resulted. Dr. Strong used several hundred pages to describe what she learned about the people who first settled here, and posited what influences had converged to result in that unique set of events. She spent a lot of time learning about the people who called themselves Seventh Day Baptists, and discovered some things I don’t think they knew themselves. I was raised a Seventh Day Baptist and knew little about her subject, although I’m one of a line going back at least eleven generations of people who have chosen to be part of a group that has always been a bit peculiar.

Peculiar because, in evolutionary and economic terms, they have consciously chosen to be mal-adapted. They have chosen to observe a day of rest, and to come together for fellowship and religious worship, on Saturdays, when most of the rest of the Christian denominations had long ago adopted Sunday for that religious observance. This has set them apart, causing social and economic difficulties because "blue laws" prohibited their working on Sunday and conscience prohibited their working on Saturday, thus leaving them at a clear disadvantage to people who kept Sunday for church-going. Don Sanford says that S.D.B.s often chose farming, since even blue laws didn't keep them from milking cows and such farm chores, every day of the week. This clearly visible difference also probably resulted in their being fewer adherents to their churches in some cases. It has also been something many have called a blessing, and I daresay some have even been guilty of harboring pride for their peculiarity.

What Dr. Strong describes in her dissertation is that Seventh Day Baptists were numerous enough in Alfred’s early days, that they were able to model the community to their preferences, including that many businesses USED to be open on Sundays rather than Saturdays, and the Alfred Post Office was the only one in the nation that was open on Sunday, as well. That ratio of S.D.B.s to others, has reversed so that they are no longer a majority, but continue to be a part of the unique character of this community.

When I finally returned to Alfred University to resume my studies, I was glad that my ancestors were not the sort to throw everything out, and glad that my father had returned to his mother’s home (to look after her and her sister) when I was a teenager, a fact of which I was not so pleased at the time. But those two venerable women grew on me, and I wish they were still here to tell stories. They planted a number of those stories in my mind, and left lots more in closets in that house on South Main Street.

Tucked away there, were many of the objects that our ancestors used, along with diaries, letters, photographs on tin, glass and paper (and many of them identified), speeches to be given at civic organization gatherings, legal documents, and autobiographical writings. I saved the best for last, in that list, for one of our great-great grandmothers wrote much of her life story. Also among her writings was this caveat and advisement:
“To my Beloved Children and Grandchildren, . . . I could wish that I might do a thousand times more for each one of you, than I have ever been able to do. . . .Wherein my life has been a failure, overlook and profit thereby . . .”

May it always be so...........

Dr. Strong, at a Bergren Forum a few years ago, said that “Jonathan and Abigail Allen were Seventh Day Baptists, but their views went far beyond their faith” or words to that effect. At first, I bristled at this, but realized that what she was saying was that the Allens, though loyal to the congregation to which they belonged, were not bound strictly by whatever doctrine held sway in their time. They were willing to take all sorts of information in, process it, and draw some new conclusions, such as that women ought to be regarded as (at least MORE) equal to men, and that black men and women should not be regarded as less human than those of lighter complexion. I'd say some in our time could learn to be so wise.

Notes for questions from audience:

Environmental Historians may use techniques from other fields, but with different focus.

How did I apply it in my research?

Used historical sources to compare national trends to those of Seventh Day Baptists and also to primary documents of own family narrative.

Addressed questions of how and why settlers came to Allegany County, New York:
1) Why did they leave their previous residences?
2) Why did they come to Allegany County?
3) How did they come?
4) How did they cope with survival and other threats they encountered?
5) How did they develop social and economic well-being?

Why did they leave Rhode Island?
Many families had many children, resources limited P. 14, 18,19
S.D.B.s not prevalent in communities, received discrimination via Blue Laws p. 15
Economic mal-adaptation of Sabbattarianism
Regional Economic depression p. 15
Political dissension regarding military service in 1812 p. 15
Removal of Native Americans after 1812
Eric Canal completed 1825 p. 24

Why did they come to Allegany County?
Cheap land? Not really. P. 17, 32
Wells bought 1000 acres, encouraged friends to come from Hopkinton, but not exclusively S.D.B. p. 17
Did not wish to travel further away from friends and family p. 19
Trips home p. 19
Isolated, rural (to compensate for peculiarity) p. 18, 25
Moved further west once ties back east had weakened p. 20
Bitterness over financial, family difficulties p. 21, 22

How did they come?
In groups (national vs. S.D.B. vs. family) p.23
By canal and horse teams p. 24

How did they cope with survival threats?
Tomahawk, panther, toil, loneliness, etc. p. 26
Hunger in 1816 p. 26
Disease p. 26
Animals p. 27, 28, 29
Human p. 29, 30
How did they develop social and economic well-being?
Measured by private gain, not cohesion, justice, or cultural enrichment - Davis p. 34
Measured by social value, among S.D.B.s - Sanford p. 35
Cooperation, altruism p. 31
Bees, raisings p. 32,33

Conclusions:
David and Mary Maxson chose community benefit over cash, suffered losses when exploited p.36
David and Mary’s daughter may have rued not getting more cash, but participated much in former p. 38

Nagging Questions:
Why did a Port Master leave the sea and come to the headwaters of the Allegany?
Why did David and Mary move further west?
Where are the surveyors notes, describing this territory before it was invaded by New Englanders?
Did Uncle Stephen ever pay back what he owed?
Did Martin convey freed slaves northward?
What happened to Mary’s siblings?

A Lament of Aging

2006-12-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

When I was small,
even minutes seemed to last,
but now I walk the hall
of years that passed:
Days now are like moments then.

It used to be that memories
were clear and thoughts familiar,
but today even a friendly breeze
brings remembrance tainted with fear:
In future days what will I still remember?

In youth it's easy to learn;
in later years simpler to forget,
and so in early years we yearn,
but what we worked so hard to get,
becomes the hardest to retain.

Thus it is that the young do not
appreciate the reminiscences of the old.

Wisdom can’t at stores be bought,
so only in ignorance can youth be bold.

G. Douglas Clarke
August 22, 2004

What's wrong with Green?

2006-11-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

I had sent to some of my cousins the comment from the previous posting about being a registered Green because I felt the Religious Right had pulled the G.O.P. so far to the right that the Democrats were now in the middle. This cousin said that they felt "Greens" were just progressive Democrats, that ours is a two-party system, and that we are weakening the Democratic position by carving out a third party.

I have thought and thought about how to respond to this, and this is it:

The point about weakening the Democratic position is well taken, as far as stealing votes from a candidate who might otherwise beat the Republican. As for me, I've guarded against that in every election, including participating in the vote trade when Nader was running, such that my vote for Nader didn't cost Kerry or Gore any votes because they were so far ahead in our state, whereas Green votes in some other areas may have prevented the Democrat from winning. I was angry at Ralph Nader for not pulling out of the election when it would have made a Democratic win almost inevitable and would have kept Bush from prolonging the agony.

Otherwise, I really feel that the Religious Right really has dragged political issues so far to the right that some things need to be done to pull them back to the left. I feel that the Democrats won't go far enough in terms of global warming and other environmental concerns, especially since the Bush administration has forced our nation to take big steps backwards in this regard.

When I closed the curtain to vote, there was a Democratic line and a Republican line, but there was also Conservative, Working Families, Libertarian, Green, and a couple others. These are the parties that push issues where Democratic and Republicans don't dare, for fear of alienating the "middle" voters and losing a "winning position". A friend says this is where political "research and development" are done. These are the parties that reflect societal changes and sometimes replace the previously dominant parties. There are third parties in lots of other countries, and there have been third parties here since at least the time of the war between the sections.

Nowadays, Barry Goldwater is considered to have been liberal. But most "Liberals" in Congress were afraid to vote against authorization for the Iraq debacle, and have been afraid to speak out for abortion rights and other issues, for fear of alienating voters whom they have presumed to be in the majority. People of faith who don't follow the fundamentalist crowd have kept silent for fear of being called heretical or non-Christian, allowing those who speak most loudly to monopolize the public media, instead of demonstrating who are the true followers of Christ. It seems to me that those who profess most loudly that they are the true apostles are the ones whose actions least resemble the founder of their faith. Truly patriotic citizens have kept quiet because it has been in vogue to simply wave a flag (which is the very least one can do to "support the troops"), instead of demonstrating real patriotism by standing up for the ideals, such as a balance of powers and the separation of church and state, which are the ones that truly set this nation apart from others.

So I hold to my position that things have shifted too far to the right, that we needn't be limited to two parties, and that Greens (aka progressive Democrats) can fill that role as needed. I am a Green because my ideals match the platform pretty well, but I know I'll often have to settle for a Democratic reality, which will do. As long as we don't have to put up with any more of Little Schickelgruber's draconian tyranny.

State of the Union?

2006-11-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

To elect is to choose. Many Americans elected representatives recently. Now the challenge is for those elected to discern what message Americans really sent them. The resident of the White House (whom I like to call Little Shickelgruber) tried to downplay the results by saying that there were many very close elections that went the Democrat's way, but that the cumulative effect was big, but certainly no mandate. Ironic, since I've heard that there are now more Democratic governors than any other time in history, there is the largest Democratic majority in history, and so on. Sounds like a mandate to me.

A friend who happens to be Republican was telling me before the election that he was disgusted with both parties' corruption, and that the G.O.P. was right and the Democrats left and neither one represented most people. I told him I had a different perspective: that the Religious Right and Neo-Conservatives had pulled the G.O.P. so far to the right that the Democrats were in the middle. I told him I didn't want our nation to go any further to the right, and that's why I'm a registered Green. I think radical change is needed, but I expect I'll have to settle for less. I hope for more, and will do what I can to make it happen.

A friend of mine who helped found the Environmental Studies program at Alfred University more than thirty years ago, is involved with an organization that is trying to move things so that corporations don't have more rights than people. They -- the Program on Corporate Law and Democracy -- found that, over the last century and a half, corporations -- by various means -- have gained greater legal status than plain ordinary people -- the general public. In our earliest days as a nation, states granted charters to businesses, and those charters could be revoked if a corporation did something to displease the people of the state. Nowadays, municipal governments have gained the power to seize land for corporate development. That just ain't right, if you ask me.

I recently was introduced to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and one of the items in their agenda is a social responsibility amendment to our constitution which would provide for citizen panels to judge whether corporations were being sufficiently socially responsible, with the power to revoke charters of deficient corporations.

It was perhaps good to hear Little Shickelgruber say that he would work with the Democrats, but I don't trust it. Not from a man who said years ago that he was a "uniter, not a divider" and promptly took actions that caused divisions not only in our nation but in others. Not from a man who only used the worst terrorist attack on American soil as an excuse to do something that he had planned to do all along. Not from the man who spent a record surplus fuelling a war machine in a nation that didn't want our interference so now we have record deficits, yet he accuses Democrats of wanting to raise taxes. Not from the man who stopped funding for "No Child Left Behind" so he could give the money to his good-buddy contractors in Iraq.

A cousin of ours is an accomplished writer and teacher who has submitted her musings to the local weekly paper for some time, but she wrote a "final column" recently in which she said she thought her musings about birds and pleasantries was not so important. She said we all needed to get busy with changing things for the better. I will miss her column because although she dealt with everyday things, she often added a profundity that made them matter. Anyway, I hope this sort of writing will contribute to what she was talking about.