Truth for a Birthday Present...

I'm just getting ready to meet some friends for a drink or two in celebration of my birthday, when I thought I'd check on the news. What do I find? "A Coup Has Occurred," by Daniel Ellsberg at consortiumnews.com.

The story is actually a transcript of an apparently somewhat extemporaneous speech Mr Ellsberg delivered at the American University on 20 Sept.

Read it - please! (here)

It is not good news, but it is a gift nevertheless. It is precious because our nation is daily emerging as more and more fascist and reactionary. Aggression in the cause of wealth and power is painted as freedom-fighting while assaults to our freedoms are codified into law by those sworn to protect them. It is precious because our Leader's violence is not limited to those abroad, but increasingly directed to any voice of sanity and humanity here at home. It is a gift because it is courageous and because it is truth.

Don't read it and think it over-dramatic. If you can only occasionally stomach a direct look at those things you would normally rather not think too much about, let that moment be now as you read this article.

There are darker days ahead, but perhaps not total oblivion. This is a looming storm we can fight and fight it we must. This article is but a forecast...

Peace, peace, peace.

I just want to get a couple of pics up from Peru (May 2006). This is Machu Picchu...

This is Huaynapicchu - up above Machu Picchu which we reached via the steepest trail I've ever attempted. It nearly killed me! I swore to myself I'd never smoke again (that didn't work). Lori was ever-so-patient, but I think she must have barely resisted leaving me behind...

Over-looking the Sacred Valley of the Incas just a few kilometers beyond Cuzco... This was a really good trip - but exhausting!

I don't think I could have planned a better vacation than the one I recently concluded.

I planned that one, but didn't follow the plan.

I was touching base with the family, then heading to the Caribbean and Mexico.

I touched base with family. Then I changed my mind.

I went fly fishing. I've never enjoyed fishing and I'd not planned to fly fish. My brother-in-law, Tony, lent me a pole and I thought I'd try it out. Now I get distracted in the middle of a busy day thinking of when I might be able to get back out and try it again. I loved it. I want more.

My sisters have made the most enjoyable human beings I've ever met. To miss a day of their lives is to miss a dozen of the most profoundly enjoyable novels and thirty-seven soul-shaking poems and sixteen beautiful songs and lots of laughs and silly indulgences. Am I crazy to live so separate from them? Yes. But here I am...

My trans-planet vacation is yet to come and still to come but I cannot regret my recent travels.

I am returning to my muddiest roots day by day. I soon shall be recognizable only to my mother's gynecologist.

Integrity

Oh how the observations of the most obscure of us can sum up the whole of the problem...

I am not absorbed by the desperate protestations of a closeted law-giver, but I succumbed to temptation and read the transcript of the late great senator's confrontation with truth.

In the end, the law-keeper says it all.

The scandal itself is minimal in the wider Order of Things, but in the background is the spirit true to both the confronted senator and the lofty Leader of the Free World. The spirit pervades the world today and stains me and my enemies alike.

A man declines to tell the truth to those who know the truth perfectly.

Embarrassing.

A man should be more than one who denies the clear truth. He should stand up and shout all truth, and especially the truth that is not so easy to see.

Embarrassing when he does not.

No wonder we're going down the tubes.

Welcome to my world

This is my first post and this is my first blog. Mainly for friends and family. We'll see.

I've been back at work from vacation for five days now and I am glad to be back. My vacation was great. Family is great. Now I'm obsessed with plans for my next vacation.

Nine countries in four weeks: South Korea, China, Mongolia, Russia, Balarus, Poland, Germany, France, and England. If anyone would care to join me, let me know!

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." -Aldous Huxley