Esoteric Bowl

It’s like a cruel joke. A single day out of the year traditionally established to invoke our better angles to give thanks for what we have and to recognize all that makes our lives better, followed immediately by a retail thrust which results in a mad dash of consumer gimme and greed.

Granted, Black Friday is nothing new. It happened last year and many years before that. Still, it seems somewhat hypocritical and rather unseemly that before a dent is made in the Thanksgiving leftovers and with the flowery words of grace still floating in the ethers, priorities and values take a 180-degree turn and it’s every man, woman and child for their shopping selves.

With the sentiments of Thanksgiving clearly behind us, we can now participate in Black Friday and similar such bargain days for the next month. And during that time we can look forward with optimism to Christmas day when we’ll collectively acknowledge peace on earth and goodwill towards one another; at least for a day.

Thanksgiving doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Christmas, nor the party atmosphere of Halloween, and the symbolic turkey will never be as cute as the Easter Bunny. Still, somewhere along the way Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday.

While the concept and meaning of some holidays can at times get lost in the anxiety of buying and getting, Thanksgiving has withstood the barrage of commercialism and held onto it’s core ideal. There’s a simple pleasure in Thanksgiving of preparing food for family and friends, and sharing that food over good conversation. It’s these simple pleasures of Thanksgiving which provide us with our most timeless of holidays.

Turkey Trivia

Turkey Quiz

Cranberries never looked so good

How to Carve a Turkey

Thanksgiving according to Wikipedia

Being a big fan of animation as I am, I was looking forward to seeing Chicken Little. However, I must admit that I was a little disappointed to hear that the cartoon somewhat strays from the original storyline. For example, I hear the story takes an ugly turn at the end when an angry Chicken Little denies over-hyping that the sky is falling, then he desperately accuses all the other farm animals of having the same intel that he had.
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Recently I’ve been occupying my mind with Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History, which is a marvelous illuminating read. Comprised of more than 200 source documents, Voices is a vast anthology of American history.

Rather than republishing presidential speeches, Supreme Court decisions, and an all too familiar watered-down historic perspective, Voices focuses on pieces penned mostly by unknown figures who often stand on the lesser known side of history. Arranged chronologically, the volume begins in 1492 with the arrival of Columbus and concludes with Bush II and the “War on Terror”. In between, articles address such issues as slavery, the American Revolution, the women’s movement, the Civil War, protesting of the first World War, McCarthyism, union organization, racial segregation, corporate power, and the Vietnam War to name just a few.

The many articles are often emotionally gripping, thoughtfully written and heartfelt, and oftentimes expressed with a voice of defiance against much larger forces of the day. Thought-provoking, the parallels between the struggles of the past and those of the present are at times eerily similar. From a historical point of view, Voices continually reminds that some of the most dramatic changes in the American way of life have been brought about by revolutionary ideas from regular people who felt they had no other choice but to speak out and to fight. An informative and inspirational read.
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Have a great Aloha Friday!

These past few months I’ve heard and read a lot of opinions about the supposed demise of President Bush and his administration. Some suggest that the White House is demoralized, that Mr. Bush has lost his mojo, that his administration is running scared, and the wheels have finally come off the neocon wagon. Personally, I’m not buying any of it.

Granted, when polls now show that 68 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country and only 33 percent of Americans believe Mr. Bush is honest and ethical, it becomes quite clear that the dissatisfaction goes beyond just liberals and Democrats.

Still, when such assumptions are made about how demoralized the White House is or how concerned they must be about public perception, one is making a very large assumption that Mr. Bush and those of his administration actually care. And that’s the rub; they don’t.

During the summer when Cindy Sheehan camped outside of Mr. Bush’s home in Crawford, it would have been compassionate if Mr. Bush had met with this mother of a fallen American solider. Instead, Mr. Bush ignored her, and Karl Rove called her a clown.

As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina unfolded, Mr. Bush remained on vacation, Dick Cheney was reportedly house-shopping back east, and Condoleeza Rice was sighted buying shoes and taking in a Broadway show. When Mr. Bush finally got around to doing something about rebuilding New Orleans, his first action was to eliminate the minimum wage and to lower environmental protections.

After witness testimony showed that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby had leaked the identity of a CIA operative, Libby was indicted for obstruction, perjury and two counts of lying. Libby resigned his post as assistant to the President and his position as chief of staff to the Vice President. Despite his involvement in leaking secret information, Karl Rove remains at his position as chief of staff to the President and continues to hold his security clearance. There is the suggestion that since Rove wasn’t indicted, he is therefore exonerated. It’s kind of like the O.J. Simpson theory of innocence.

Recently, as Mr. Bush looked into the camera and proclaimed, ‘We do not torture,’ Mr. Cheney was busy trying to convince senators why we should embrace torture. At the same time it’s reported through yet another leak that there are a string of secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe where suspects are held and tortured indefinitely.

There are many other examples to prove the same point. But the bottom line is that the administration doesn’t get demoralized, Mr. Bush never had any mojo to lose, they don’t run scared, and the wheels of the neocon wagon continue to spin. Mr. Bush and this administration have never seen right and wrong as most of us do, and they don’t measure success and failure in the same way as most Americans do. In their eyes, they are doing a heck of a job.

“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.”
George Washington

My father served in the Marine Corps for more than twenty years. During his time in service, he fought in the wars of Korea and Vietnam. He also served as a Drill Instructor, molding thousands of young men into Marines while continuing the proud tradition of the Corps. During his distinguished service, he received several accommodations and medals, and he also was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds received in battle.

After he retired from the Marines, benefits that he had earned were systematically taken away by politicians in Washington. Access to veteran’s benefits and medical care that was once promised, he now no longer qualifies for.

Like my father, my brother made a career out of serving in the military. He served in the Army in Germany during the Cold War, and he served on Johnston Island with the U.S. Army Chemical Activity of the Pacific, responsible for the storage, security and transport of deadly chemical agents.

With less than a year to serve to achieve twenty years and to qualify for retirement, my brother was diagnosed with cancer. Against his wishes, he was forced out of the Army and thus never qualified for his twenty year pension. Since his departure from the military, any benefits that he receives from the Veterans Administration has not been without a fight.

I enlisted in the military with a desire to serve and a yearning to see the world. As a Navy Seaman, I was stationed aboard a frigate at Pearl Harbor. During my time in service, I sustained a service-connected injury and was given an early release from service.

Since my release from the Navy, I have witnessed a consistent and continual withdrawal of veteran benefits. The battle to qualify for veteran’s benefits is surpassed only by the battle to receive those benefits for which I qualify. Long lines, overcrowded waiting rooms, red tape, and understaffed hospitals are commonplace, and waiting four to six months to see a doctor is the norm.

I write this not out of a desire for pity of my family or myself, but rather to provide a glimpse into how our country is providing for its veterans. Unfortunately, my family is not the exception, but rather the rule. I also want to point out that while existing veterans are waiting for health care and benefits, a new generation of veterans are slowly coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite the growing population of veterans, federal funding for veteran’s programs has not even kept pace with inflation. In recent years a continued systematic erosion of veteran’s benefits has taken place even while our nation is engaged in war. To help pay for the administration’s massive tax cut package, the House majority proposed cutting veteran’s programs by some $25 billion over the next decade. Earlier this year the Republican majority of the Senate defeated an amendment to increase veteran’s health care by $2.85 billion, just three percent over last year’s funding levels.

Sadly, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the conservative estimate is that “one out of every three homeless males who is sleeping in a doorway, alley, or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served our country.”

Tomorrow the nation will celebrate Veteran’s Day. There will be parades and lots of flag-waving, and many will speak about the brave young men and women who have served our country. The veterans of this nation are often honored rhetorically, but all too often the support for our veterans and their families fails to go beyond the words.
We owe our veterans much more.

It takes a while to get back on the blog-horse and to get in that writing groove. I never consciously decide to take time away from blogging, it kind of just happens that way. On occasion during this recent hiatus I sat at the keyboard with every intention of writing, but sometimes the thoughts didn’t come and other times all the words I wrote looked misspelled. Strange how that is.

It seems like a lot has been happening during the last month or so. Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and for a while the family was holding its collective breath to see how things turned out. Thankfully the cancer has been found at an early enough stage where Dad has some options as far as therapy goes. There’s a lot to be said about regular testing and early detection. Before the diagnosis I knew nothing about prostate cancer, or even exactly where the prostate is located. Since the diagnosis, I have read just about everything on the web that has to do with the prostate.

Our family also lost one of our youngest members when two-year old Lillieanna choked to death on a pea-sized bead from a broken bracelet. She was my brother’s second of three granddaughters. I never met Lillieanna, she was born and raised in South Carolina. So sad when a child is lost.

Thankfully, not all the news has been dire. The family is excitedly awaiting the arrival of a new addition. Amber, my oldest niece, is due to have her first child today. If baby boy doesn’t decide to come out on his own, they may decide to induce the delivery. Amber is said to be excited about the baby, and she’s looking forward to having her body back.

So often during these past few weeks I’ve resisted the urge to get on my soapbox and rail against Mr Bush and those of his administration. Despite the lies, deceit, ineptitude, and corporate-friendly policies, there comes a time when the outrage moves to acceptance and a desire to move on to new ideas.

To be sure, this acceptance is not condoning the decisions and misinformation of this administration, but rather acknowledging what Mr Bush is all about, and understanding that nothing I write or say is going to change him, his policies, or your opinion. The way I see it, you are either really angry and disgusted with Mr Bush and his administration, or you’re enamored with Mr Bush and there is nothing he can do to upset you outside of nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

There are countless blogs on the web dedicated to either attacking or defending Mr Bush and his policies. There are also political chat-rooms where individuals take turns calling each other names and attacking each other. Talk radio and cable television news-shows are often much worse. Even on the once civil C-SPAN call-in show, partisans now hog the airwaves. In short, so many have become mirror images of the politicians in Washington, regurgitating the talking points and fighting over one political battle to the next, yet very few are actually listening and even fewer are willing to compromise in developing alternative ideas.

Far too often in recent years what is best for the country has taken a backseat to what is best for a political party to get reelected. The best ideas for all concerned are too often ignored or pushed aside for policies that serve only the privileged, the corporate lobbyists and/or the special interest groups. One need only look at the plethora of problems along with the largest debt in the nation’s history to understand that we the people are not being represented.

The country is in need of new ideas. In many ways, the problems and challenges we now face were brought about by ideas, albeit wrong ideas, but ideas just the same. And if we are to get out of the morass we are in, it must be on the strength of our ideas. Granted, Mr Bush will be in office for three more years, and he hasn’t been open to many new ideas. However, a year from now there will be elections, and those elections will be crucial. Rather than wait until the elections for the politicians or the media to tell us what issues are important and what ideas are best for the nation, we must decide that for ourselves now.