Walk for a Nuke-free Future April 23rd, 2011

While millions Worldwide oppose nuclear power generation and the inevitable weapons of mass destruction that nuclear power makes possible, our government continues to tell us that the radioactivity that we are getting from Japan is "minute". Seriously. When your milk becomes "hot" from ionizing radiation, it should be a warning that the entire food chain is contaminated. The US atomic Energy Commission deployed radiation detectors across the Western Coast of the United States last week. They stationed 22 units in Washington, Oregon and California. Within hours of getting data from them, several interesting things happened. First, the online telemetry,intended to quell fears that we are under a giant plume of radioactive isotopes, was taken down, which violates open records laws considering that any data amassed by the government through the use of tax dollars can not be withheld from citizens, unless it is a matter of national security. Second, twelve of the twenty-two radioactivity detection units were removed because they showed "abnormally high" readings. Lord and Lady know that in a crisis like this, that would more likely tell us that they are working, not that they are not! Finally, the very news that this entire boondoggle represents, for those of us who feel that we live in a free society, was wholly ignored by the major media outlets. Rather than create public "hysteria", our leaders must figure that the fallout from public awareness of this crucial issue would be more devastating than a few extra chest x-rays, for all of us. Please forgive my passion, but I have seen this approach taken many times before. The motivation is always the same and the outcome is the same as well.
As far back as the seventies, (and even before)citizens have opposed nuclear insanity. When I got involved we worked in Denver. Around the Bi-centennial, much of our opposition to following the corporate line on nukes was hidden beneath a thick slathering of cultural jingoism and "patriotic" drivel. The whole "America, Love it or Leave it!" crowd drowned out most accurate information about the dangers of nuclear energy production and environmental insanity that was being perpetrated by industry on the masses. My first protest marches against nukes were against The Bomb. Because of my inquisitiveness, it didn't take long to learn that our government had lied to us from the start about both the bomb and the precursor to nuclear weapons production, nuclear energy production. The marches that we attended in the early seventies morphed into teach-ins by the mid seventies.
While our neighbors were decking out every single thing in Red, White and Blue, our family made posters and charts listing things like the half life of many of the by-products of both nuclear fusion and uranium enrichment. At the time the closest nuclear facility to us was the Rocky Flats facility north of Denver. The facts were known and everything we said could happen, did. I have written of the feelings that this brings up in me before but it is worth mentioning again. rather than feeling elated or exonerated, being proven right in this instance feels more like a knife-swallower's trick gone horribly wrong. At one time, the Rocky Flats "facility" had the notoriety of being the largest Superfund site ever remediated by the USEPA. (Environmental Protection Agency)
This post is an invitation to come to Wisconsin, join in with others who are ready to end the madness and express your outrage over continued use of this unimaginably dangerous "source" of electricity. We will be walking, seven miles, between two reactor sites, one at Two Creeks (which is several miles North of Manitowoc, Wisconsin) and Kewaunee. Some of the most beautiful beaches on the Western Shore of Lake Michigan lie within the hot zone of these facilities. The public trust has been violated by putting such dangerous electric generating stations on the shores of this feshwater sea. In addition to the active reactor cores, these facilities harbor between them, over 100 tons of high level radioactive waste, which requires "safe" storage for tens of thousands of years. Remember, just 10,000 years ago, this area was covered by a one mile thick ice sheet. We may not have the threat of earthquake, but...
Previous protests that we have had at these facilities were wonderful chances to share food and fun, good information about the threat posed by nukes, a chance to experience a carnival atmosphere with other caring and compassionate people, and a time for friends and families, united to save Mother Earth, to re-unite and savor the knowledge that we speak with many voices but say the same thing, as one, STOP THE MADNESS! Japan may be the lead brick that breaks the camel's back so to speak. The radioactive nail in the coffin of this destructive and dangerous, although well-funded "technology". The Obama administration has roots in Illinois, one of the states with the worst environmental records. It takes people power to demand that our government make good decisions and we have been sheelple for too long. Stand together and work together and the task of creating a new paradigm will be much easier. We have the resources, the creativity and the intellect to replace nuclear generation with benign technologies. all that is needed is the expression of public will to proceed.
This event is scheduled from Noon-four o'clock, but I'm sure that we will be there earlier and later. In honor of the 35 million people who perished as a result of Chernobyl, and the many millions more who will be sacrificed as a result of the recent events in Japan,come out, stand shoulder to shoulder with others who want a sustainable planet for the next seven generations, not the threat of near certain annihilation that the specter of nuclear contamination holds for our people, our planet, our homes and our families.

Nuke Supporters Caught With Pants Down

The rhetoric that we have heard over the past few years about energy generally and nuclear energy specifically has been severely skewed by several factors. The current President of the United States of America being from Illinois has more to do with the policies that are being put forth than we might understand. Illinois is notorious for lying to their population, promising to meet unrealistic expectations and looking away from obvious liabilities that come with their chosen path. I am old enough to remember the rhetoric that surrounded the toll roads, the state lottery and such "inventions" as the cloverleaf (yes, invented in the Illinois Department of transportation) Each of these developments came with promises and none of those came to pass. The massive subsidization of the nuclear industry is also a factor. I understand the urgency that is felt by most policy makers regarding long term energy independence, but their fall back position is rife with ill conceived and utterly nonsensical "facts". The first, has been repeated ad-nauseum, and is no less false for the repetition. Nuclear energy is not carbon neutral. Mining, milling, processing, concentration, and transport of the vast quantities of ore required to yield useful fuel for nuclear electrical generation are energy intensive and the vast majority of that energy comes from dirty fossil fuels. I wish that everyone could study this for themselves because once you understand the massive costs associated with this energy source, the lies told about it seem even more asinine. The massive concrete facilities that are meant to contain the radioactive material are also created using cement which is created by heating limestone in giant kilns to extremely high temperatures, you guessed it, using, most commonly, dirty coal.

Now that we are beginning to see, arguably, the most technologically advanced people in the world have their own devastating problems with this technology, we can begin to ask better questions about what went wrong and why. In spite of all the assurances that we get from the corporations who run nuclear electric generating stations, we cannot say that another accident will not happen right here in our own country. It certainly lies within the realm of possibility that it could happen at nearly any moment and any day. I lived within eighty miles of Three Mile Island, (TMI) when it released radioactive material in central Pennsylvania. We still have not had an accounting of health effects from that accident. For over two weeks, radioactivity spewed from the facility while the public was not informed about the leak. Considering that the best time to use iodine to combat negative effects of radiation exposure is inside a window two weeks before exposure and up to eight hours after exposure, this delay was unforgivable. How facility managers could have kept that accident quiet for so long isn't the least bit confusing. Those sorts of things happen every day.

While our government is courting the nuclear industry, carving out huge pieces of the budgetary pie for low interest and government backed loans for them, the reactors that we have on line now continue to age. Inspections routinely turn up worse wear and tear than designers thought would occur. Billions have been spent on several plans for what to do with the waste, but to date, none make sense or are capable of providing the thousands of years of "safe" storage that are required. It would be far less costly and infinitely easier to use available technologies to save 20% of our electrical energy, and phase out our use of nukes than to continue to taunt fate with this ill-conceived production method. We continue to be fed lies about the dangers, the real costs of production and the problematic disposal of waste that is generated by these facilities. Understanding the temptation of virtually limitless power might help us to see how easily our decision-makers fell into bed with the nuclear industry, but understanding the ultimate costs of this relationship of convenience begs the question, why have we not come to our senses yet?

Please, don't take my word for it, learn for yourself what it takes to make this type of energy possible. I'm sure it will be enlightening.

Snowed In Means Rest Of World Snowed Out

Bliss under a white blanket reminds me that there is nothing quite as sweet as a true day off!

Why the Penis is Like Religion

Please forgive my using someone elses' idea. It was referred to as "something I saw on the internet" which, to me, it is a terrible citation. If you need someone to blame for it, I take full responsibility. "It's okay to have a penis. You can even be proud if it if you want. Just don't whip it out in public and certainly, don't ram it down any child's throat." Now, to be clear, the substitution of the word any for my at the end is completely mine.
Having survived child sexual abuse, including, at birth, with circumcision. I know that it was wrong, but that it was the sole responsibility of the person or persons perpetrating, each, their own particular type of torture. There is no universal evil force, like a devil on one's shoulder telling them to do wrong, every abuser chooses their own path. Often in a demented way, they are feeling powerful by dictating what goes on by their particular choice. We are all survivors of a pathological culture. This male dominated top-down approach survives on command and control, or "power and control" if you will. The new age is cooperative and sustainable, which is on the opposite end of the socio-political spectrum. The current fight between those who have status, privilege and wealth (In America, they call themselves "conservative")and the vast majority of the United States Citizenry, no longer serves any purpose but enslaving greater numbers and amassing ever more fortune on ever fewer individuals. No matter what the rich, or their supporters might say. Oddly enough, many of the most unlikely groups often fall in with the right leaning folks. Poorly educated, make for the saddest segment of the population to take up the repressive standard. I believe this is mostly due to the exploitation of residual hatred for any minorities, and the myth that illegal immigrants are taking most of the available jobs. In fact, the biggest growth in jobs has often been in low level service sector positions that pay poorly and have little security. The kind poorly educated whites are in competition with "smarter" read more affluent, people for anyway.
Seniors, who by their designation are recipients of entitlement program funds that the conservatives often ransack and threaten will be "broke" by the time young people need them. Closer analysis reveals that small changes over time yield big savings and rebuilding the economy with wages and benefits for the lowest level workers would do the most to "rescue" the system. For a group that touts themselves as "defenders of commerce", they sure suck at bookkeeping. Again, playing both sides of the fence with the "We can't afford it, but we're the greatest country in the world" logic. The one thing to be said about the last hold-ons, many elderly are old men, they are dying off. Grandmothers are, on the whole a lot more sensible.
The creepiest sector that still votes with the money are the survivalists. They think that projectiles will keep one "safe" in a scenario that goes totally awry. Again, with millenarian fervor and conviction. Reality Check Guys! If it goes back to survival, love and a sense of community is going to get you further than bullets.

The very terms that we use, in conversation about issues, are dictated by the wealthy purveyors of truth. Like a referee at a boxing match, the media is supposed to keep both sides honest. If we fight fairly, the politics of reason should win out over lies. After all, lies need to be constantly propped up, you might say. In America today, politics is more about the concept of one dollar one vote. The Supreme Court in the USA, ruled that "political" speech can equate to dollars and that corporate money, even that from overseas, including that from media magnates, sent out over "public airwaves", is both free and protected. We have the technology to screen political ads for truth, but when these political action committees get going it is more about innuendo and half-truth anyway. Bad campaign ads are obvious to those who have seen any. Democracy would be further ahead if we spent just half what is currently spent on campaigning on funding social programs.
Religion aside, there are millions of reasons to get government right. look around at the children. They do not deserve a culture based on consumption alone. They should not have to bear the burden of our addiction to cheap oil. When the soils are all blown from the prairies, the watersheds tainted with chemicals and the very groundwater that slakes our thirst is made poison, how will we eat our profits and the factories that grew up around our extractive culture? Perfecting what polychronic creatures have known for ever, can help us grow and adapt to different time signatures throughout the seasons, the moon cycles and the different phases of life itself. Thinking only to next quarters' profit ossifies development and ham strings creativity limiting our ability to find new solutions.
Evolution of our species requires reveling in uniquely variable characteristics to achieve more than a sum of parts. Compelling evidence shows that humans are born magnanimous and compassionate, unselfconscious and endowed with generosity and helpfulness, until they are faced with neglect or abuse. Calvinists and many who have tried to limit the development of humankind with statements about the "human nature" of "brutishness" and rancor have done nothing more than to perpetrate the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. It is time to break free the shackles of old way thinking. Justice and peace go hand in hand. The dawning of the new age requires us to liberate our minds from old strictures, old convictions and out dated limits to growth, awareness and synchronous action. Spin the wheel of life and often you will find that there are many more winning numbers than the ones you bet on. giving away your limits might be the best way to find harmony, or at least resonance with a larger whole.
The art of the give away needs to be explored if we are to

Neo-Tribalism And The New Reality

In the sixties, many of us heard a song about the Age of Aquarius. It truly is the dawning of a new age, but what exactly are we talking about? To understand the ages, we first need to explain the procession of the equinoxes. Every 2150 years or so, the solstice moves through an age. The procession of the equinoxes slowly moves backward through the astrological signs. Each of these mega-time periods constitutes an age. The birth of Moses brought us into the age of Aries, that is why the ram's horn is still a part of jewish faith and rituals. The birth of "Christ" was the beginning of the current age, the age of Pices (that's what the fish is about). Now for those of us that are familiar with polychronic time, what I am about to say next makes perfect sense. Those less familiar with "native time", or "Indian time" may have a harder time following this. Just as the sun standstill (solstice) or the full moon energy lasts for several days, so too at the boundaries of these great ages, there are times of flux where the energies mix and match, ebb and flow, allowing the change to come and the old ways to fall away.

In our ordinary, mudane, world view, we get to the end of a (Julian calendar) year and throw away one calendar and then, just put up a new one. This year I felt out of sorts because I didn't see a single television show that had the theme, This Was The Year That Was...around the time that we change out the calendar, several things happen. Many of us make resolutions, we feel that there is a better us waiting out there somewhere and we resolve to go off in search of it. Some, reflect on the joys and sorrows that came and went in the passed year. Still, others look to family and friends for their annual infusion of cheer and cameradiere. Most of us do a combination of all of ther above. Likewise, in the hundred or so years around the end of one age and the beginning of the next, there are serious upheavals, new ways of reconing with our world view and new resolutions made that lead to better ways of living. Most of the strides that humanity has made in the past age have come with terrible costs. It is tuly now or never when it comes to trying to find new ways of behaving that will be sustainable if humanity is to make it through the next age.

I certainly will not be around to see the dawning of the next age, but seven generations down the line, my children's children's children will be looking at the world in the midst of another great upheaval wondering how they made it through the trials of hteir own day. With luck,and insight and great creativity, I think that we have a fighting chance at coming together under a new banner, that of world citizens and find our way into the new age with relatively little trauma and a minimum of growing pains.
anyone familiar with my writings knows of my utter dissapointment with the prevailing belief that humans are inherently greedy, self-centered and "brutish". Science has now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that children are magnanamous, compassionate and giving, until they face hostility, neglect or abuse. Is it any wonder that we developed a whole philosophy on the concept of dog eat dog logic? Allowing ourselves to act terribly without fear of repraisal because, we say, we are "hard wired" to be brutish is something that I have had very little tolerance for my entire life. Abject poverty and lack of moral character are only correlated statistically because the higher classes just put on a better game face while they lie about their experiences and behaviors.

Another thing that many of us still hold on to from the past, that needs to find it's way to our cultural dust bin is the notion of Calvinists that bad people, making bad choices because of questionable morals is at the heart of why we have lower classes in ther first place. I grew up priveleged, and I know it. I was a poor white male and I was able to do far more than almost all of my friends who were either women or minorities. Now that the white male is becoming a threatened sub-group, they may soon find out the hard way what minorities have known for centuries. Much of what the old way of doing things led to was perpetration of lies, deciet and haterd that has flowed through generations like a blinding poison that cripples the majority for the beneift of a few.

Neo-tribalism is alive in the slow foods movement, foodies from all over the world are now concerned about where their food comes from and the quality of life that their farmers enjoy. It is alive in the environmental movement, where concerned individuals want to increase the quality of life for all people by saving resources and energy so that others can have a more sustainable life while they meet their own needs with less consumptive behavior. Tribes are forming around shared ideals, new ways of studying the world around us, new ways of thinking and the many new ways that we choose to communicate and interact. In these times it is not enough to weild a sword over some serf's head and tell them what part they are to play in the unfolding of your world. Mutual respect and cooperative action may be the difference between success and failure. I have always been curious about several religious sects who dissolve their affiliations with approximately half of their community whenever the community grows to about three hundred individuals. The new tribes will most surely organize along similar lines. It is hard to get away with anything in a community of 150-300. Anyone who has lived in a small town knows that. as we usher in The Age Of Aquarius, let us take time to consider well, both those things that make life, and living it, worthwhile and those that bring anguish and lack to the majority of our population. All things must pass, as George Harrison once said, let us choose which will be the first to go!

"Official" Start of Spring

The news has been telling us that "Spring", what they consider to be springlike weather is coming a week early this year. They are basing this opinion on the fact that when consulting the Julian Calendar and applying dualistic logic to that subjective and fictional accounting of time, the seasons have everything to do with the equinoxes and solstices. Anyone who has been exposed to the ritual calendar of the tribal cultures around the globe know that Julius Ceasar is not powerful enough to set the time signature of life, nor is the dynamic sphere that we call the Globe able to be relegated to a mere scientific accounting. The officials are just plain wrong and it is time for all of us to question their other assumptions as well.

Spring actually began, according to the pagan calendar on, or about, the second of February. For those of us who work outdoors a lot, you could feel two things combining their efforts to change the season. The tilt of the Earth, combined with our slow annual revolution around the sun, combined to make the lengthening days most apparent. During these times, the day length jumps up in the largest increments of the year. In addition, the sun angle in our middle latitudes changed from it's lowest angle, that allows most of the sun's energy to reflect off the sphere of the Earth, back into space, to a much higher angle that has the power to melt even the occasional spring snows that fall over the next few moons. A friend called to find out if there was anything that they needed to know about the New Moon that coincided with the start of Spring this year. My view is that the New(no visible)Moon brings a time of new beginnings, of introspection, setting of goals and tuning in, if you will, to what resonnates within our own being. Once you allow yourself free reign over your inner talents and motivations, it becomes a time of reestablishing contact with the core of one self, so that new directions can be explored.

Like the walkabout of the aboriginies, we occasionally need to reset our moral and ethical compass and this reflective time every moon allows for that as well as many other healing processes. Letting go of what has held us back, putting new ideas into practice and renewing one's commitments to the most deeply held goals and aspirations fits right into the New Moon Energy, as well as the start of Spring. like being dealt a pair in Black Jack, doubling up on this energy of renewal can have profound effects on one's future. Many fear the future and what it may hold in store for humanity, those we love, or, in fact, our own lives. This is old way thinking. We are really on the doorstep of a completely different mind set, we just need the courage to let go of what we thought was real in the past. In feudal times, it was good to have a castle to run to when your land was being overrun by jealous forces, intent on raping and pillaging your towns and the fertile countryside. In those days, one's enemies were pretty obvious. Doing exactly as the king wished was a matter of life and death. Today, we are in a different world, one that allows our enemies to rape and pillage under the cover of authority and expediency. We are called to find a new way to protect ourselves and at the same time create new communities that are protected from a different kind of ransacking. Stone walls will not protect us from the type of attacks we are likely to face.
Our air may be contaminated from worldwide use of toxic compounds. Our water might be contaminated by people trying to dispose of hazardous chemicals by pumping them into our aquifer or thrying to "release" the last oil and natural gas from deep layers of the bedrock. the land may be rendered sterile by the use of anhydrous ammonia or bio-cides that were developed by industrialists to quell natural pests that swarmed over sick fields. These are the real and present dangers that we are facing at this moment in time, not fur clad heathens. In fact, if we are not careful, many more of us might have to become fur clad heathens if we are to have a chance at surviving the next major shift in our culture. The key will be in keeping our humanity intact whils letting go of many of the fictional accounts about who we are, how we got to where we are and the ultimate place which we occupy in the Universe.

Just as the Julian Calendar is not the true time signature of life, and the saying that humans are "brutish", cruel, self-centered and greedy is based on subjective analysis of long dead scholars, many other beliefs are outdated and need to be discarded if we are to have a chance at creating the world anew. Scientists have now proved beyond a reasonable doubt something that all parents knew implicitly. Children are magnanamous, compassionate and giving, until they are impacted by the world around them in negative ways. Abuse a child or neglect them and they begin to transform before your very eyes. That is where the "brutish" side is created. Sure, we were unaware of how it happenned back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but today, we can see our way clear to a new age, a new future that was obscured as we crouched behind the ramparts of our rulers. now we use the term official to squelch every form of questioning that makes those in charge uncomfortable.

As we approach the Equinox this week, and the fullness of the Moon that coincides with it this year, try to find a quiet place within yourself. or share that quiet space with others who can appreciate the abundant blessings that we all partake of daily. Feel the generosity of the unwounded child within, and attempt to reflect that generosity in everything you do for just one short month. I bet, that you will never go back to unfeeling, uncaring or unwitting participation in the "dog eat dog" world. If you need a guide or a mirror to reflect back to you the images and new found insights of this new way of being, I am available for consultations, classes and tours that focus exclusivly on reestablishing a deeper contact with our natural world. sustainability begins within each of us and can only be reflected by attuning ourselves to the laws of nature and the ever changing world that we live in.

As part of my own transformation to a new world order, I have been committing myself to a not-for-profit organization here in Northeast Wisconsin that plants native trees while providing experiences in nature. Our efforts have led to the planting of over 60,000 trees before we even registered with the State of Wisconsin as a non-profit. In the six years since registering with the state, we have planted another 60,000 trees and are in the process of reforesting over two hundred acres. The sharing that has taken place on these tours has been worht all the effort and time that we have put into it. Our staff is all-volunteer, so not a single cent of our donations is wasted on salary. Every dollar that we receive goes directly to purchasing seedlings, planting them, protecting and caring for them and many of the trees we have planted are already transforming the landscapes in which they were planted in positive ways. Many of the trees we have planted will outlive us and provide benefits long after we are forgotten. Participation in these efforts has changes many lives for the better and helped to stabilize the local environment as well as the climate of the entire region.
You can reach us to find out more about ECO-Tours of Wisconsin at: 1445 Porlier street, Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301. Or if you prefer to donate online, we do have a Paypal account at tnsaladino42@hotmail.com. It takes the combined efforts of many to get important things to happen, but if we each take responsibility for our own actions, understand the full effects of each of our choices and lend a hand in whatever way our spirits compell us to do so, thing will improve exponentially whatever the old way thinkers say. It is time for us to stand for the truth, however we come to know about it. Taking for granted that others, especially "officials" know more or better than the rest us has led to most of our problems. The time has come to take back our own power and lead, so that our leaders can follow.

The Cult of Ignorance and America's Worship of Stupidity

I am an avid student of parenting issues and am seeing a startling parallel between the development of the human organism and our country as a whole. There are critical times in the development of the human brain. Called efflorescence, these times are characterized by what is best described as a blossoming of synaptic potential in the brain. My understanding is that new neurons are created, which inevitably displace some connections, but allow new connections to develop as well. The times that this occurs are well known in the first stages of life, but the second phase, that takes place in adolescence, is something we are less familiar with. Anyone who has raised children knows far more about this phenomenon than science can prove or recognize at this time.

The scary thing is that with our new found personal computing potential and the increased ability to communicate via the digital realm, it is as if our entire human potential has been changed in similar ways. Many of the same effects that brain growth can manifest are taking place throughout our culture and especially in these United States. Babies have this efflorescence because their brains must become capable of far more than the new born can process. Similarly, in adolescence, the human organism must greatly increase skills and integrate more responsibilities as well as developing sensitivity to subtlety. With this mighty "brain storm", change occurs which temporarily debilitates us with the ultimate result being increased functionality. Luckily, for most, parents are still there to guide us through these turbulent times and add a sense of stability to the craziness that is taking place inside our cranium. Our whole culture has run amok in that we cannot "see" the results of our actions or understand the results of inaction within the greater context in which we are becoming able to operate.

We all know individuals who are cheerleaders for the "no growth" model. The ones who will be childminds throughout life. Some of them can be fun at parties, but will forever be challenged by the tilt of the Earth or it's revolving around the Sun. Retardation of a person's development can be caused by many things and I do not want to belabor that here, but for our culture, it is essential to guard against retention of childlike ways. We cannot continue to be the country that throws temper tantrums or makes bad decisions in the future. Adolescent behavior is difficult enough for those ho have to live with one or two people who are suffering the consequences of this stage, but when a whole country is trying to adjust, it can throw the whole planet off it's game.

Our Church of the Ignorant, seems to me, to have gotten it's start long long ago. Terminology like "ignorance is bliss" and our fascination with "idiot savants" is well known. When I was a child, I never could understand the love people seemed to have for The Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy. The stupidity behind their violence just upset me. Many tried to tell me that it was fun (and funny), and they encouraged me to lighten up, but the underlying messages were too puerile for my young brain. Like the spacy period that we all went through in adolescence, having to relearn things that we had known years earlier, our whole culture seems to have forgotten some of the basic facts of life, the things we learned in kindergarten, and how to be helpful to others that we may one day depend on for our own quality of life.

I see this most clearly in the realm of politics, but it is all around us. It has been a long understood phenomenon that all it takes to bring people together is to give them a really good enemy. As our ability to communicate improves, it is harder and harder to establish criteria for who would make "a really good enemy". What is needed is a new way to bring people together without the need for hate, deception and trumping up charges that really don't hold any water. Case in point...here in Wisconsin we are currently being told that public sector employees, except police, fire and emergency services personnel, are costing us more than we can afford to pay them. Teachers alone are being singled out for a 900 million dollar pay cut and another half billion is being proposed to be cut from health care workers in our state. This is concurrent with continued funding for our prison system which is nearly two billion dollars. I don't want to discount the need for doing something with people who threaten public safety, but in this day and age, we have incarcerated huge numbers of people for non-violent drug crimes, while we let those who ran our economy into the ground amass ever greater wealth. We are also living through the safest time period in over thirty years. Even as crime rates continue to plummet, we are told that we must be involved in a war on crime, a drug war, and be "ever vigilant" against every manner of imagined threat. But I digress. The point is that those who destroy the economy, the ecological integrity of our land, air and water, those who fill the airwaves with lies and distractions from those real problems and those who destroy the lives of the poorest people among us by making them work harder for less are held up as "successful" and allowed to keep the wealth that they take from the rest of us. In fact, if they get themselves into trouble or crash the economy, we say that they are too big to fail and take even more from the poor, to fund more wealth and tax relief for the rich.

If we are to believe most of the rhetoric that makes it's way into the "news" the only safe place is sitting at home in front of the tee vee. Luckily, as more and more people get out in the world, they discover that the biggest threat that we face is the dumbing down of our culture by the major media outlets. This week's exoneration of the church of hate known as the Westboro Baptist Church is as fine an example of the Cult of Ignorance as one can find. Imagine, having the "right" to invent a fictitious character who is supposedly all powerful but that would kill innocents because they were mad at gay people. Then, imagine the courts affirming the right to speak out about this abominable belief in the presence of people that are grieving their lost loved ones. Assaulting both the sensibilities and emotions of those who are gathered to mourn their husband, lover, child or friend in a lame attempt to popularize their quirky beliefs. Those who "serve" our country are left to swing in the wind, but the very people who they served can attack and desecrate their memory? What is next? Should we demand that all children be raped so that they might have more compassion for the perpetrators of this heinous crime? I think that Baptists claim Christ as their savior. I have never heard a story about Christ that made him out to be a hateful bastard. Somehow, it isn't very comforting to know that if he had truly existed, he would have had every right to treat others without respect.
Like the child, who for years, has known that after each meal they need to rinse their dishes and put them in the dishwasher, wash their hands and put the leftovers away, our country has gotten things right for quite a while. The source of our current break down in reason and lack of attention to logic and sanity remains obscure. My own feeling is that it is a result of being awash in a sea of ideas and opinions that are not well-reasoned or thoughtful. Like the brain that is rapidly adding nerve cells, some are blocking established routes and connections, leading to utterly unrealistic behavior. In time we will hopefully learn to utilize this new potential. With a bit of luck it will be before we destroy ourselves completely. Many children are not able to navigate through these turbulent times, but with the steady hand of a compassionate mentor, they have a much better chance of surviving into adulthood.
Education is the second most expensive thing in the world ignorance is the first. Please speak out on behalf of truth. It may be the most important time in the history of humankind to do so.