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Wednesday, October 11, 2006

 

October 2006


Thirty Days Before Midterm Elections

A typical October in the San Francisco Bay area. A few showers followed by warm, sunny days. The leaves,however, make it clear that it is fall. You don't see piles of them under the trees yet but the colors have started to turn. A friend who recently returned from a trip to Eastern Sierra and Nevada said that the fall colors were "spectacular". Here in the Silicon Valley we rarely see that kind of foliage but there are pockets of blazing colors along Skyline that can surprise hikers and drivers.

Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
-- Van Morrison, Moondance

Last year there was a bumper crop of chanterelles. It will take more rainy days before they begin to emerge. The mushrooms are unpredictable but the pleasures of walking through the woods are rewarding enough....good for the body and soul.

October has brought its share of news --- good and bad.

Good news is the battering taken by the Republicans over the Foley scandal. It ripped away their sanctimonious facade. Fall of hubris is cause for celebration. Too early to tell if the disgust for Republican politicians and their hypocrisy will mean victory for Democrats. All 435 House seats and 34 Senate seats are to be contested on November 7th. Based on current polls the Republicans risk losing between 7 to 30 seats in the House. Democrats need to win 15 to retake control of Congress. They are unlikely to win six seats needed for majority in the Senate. David Broder and Dan Balz in the Post: "Approval of Congress has plunged to its lowest level in more than a decade (32 percent), and Americans, by a margin of 54 percent to 35 percent, say they trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the biggest problems the nation is confronting. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said congressional Democrats deserve to be reelected next month, but just 39 percent said Republicans deserve to return to office."

President Bush has failed to drum up support for his misadventure in Iraq despite repeatedly playing the threat of terrorism card. The American public has begun to see through him. 39 more American soldiers lost their lives in the first 10 days of October. (Source: Iraq Casualties.org). The president spoke about the war as "just a comma". He got to be an insensitive dunce to disregard the human cost of the war. But the masters of dirty tricks will try their damndest to retain power. From voter fraud to red herrings, they will stop at nothing.

Then there was the murder of the Amish school girls by a crazy man. The tragedy reminded me of the NRA bumper sticker "Guns don't kill people, People Do" Yes, it takes someone to pull the trigger but the abundance and easy availability of guns have an undeniable role in the high number of gun-related deaths in our country.

North Korea thumbed its nose at world opinion and carried out a nuclear test. There is hypocrisy about this too. America which has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons is the loudest critic of North Korea. The argument that North Korea cannot be trusted sounds hollow when you look at the records of the countries currently in the Nuclear Club, those "suspected" to possess nuclear weapons, and those "suspected of having clandestine nuclear programs".

Atrocities continue in Darfur, described by George Packer as "the world's greatest human disaster". The major powers, including the United States, remain largely uninvolved. Silence of Islamic countries
is especially difficult to understand. Thousands of their brethren are being killed and there is no outcry from the Muslims ! Is it because the perpetrators of the massacre are Muslims ?
*****


Comments:
Hello Musafir,

Interesting to read your bit about chantrelles, since I also look forward to them. Early ones in late September/October near rivers and more after the winter rains start. Just had fresh chantrelles for dinner this weekend.

On to more serious fare...:
Here's some more red hot ink for your pen. Now help me vanquish the sword!

This Foley fiasco has given people the chance to change the make-up of this government, which will ultimately lead to the end of the Bush-Cheney reign. It may not be pretty, but it is a gift, nonetheless. Don't waste this advantage. Use it wisely to end the more pressing problems that face us all.

Want to better understand some of the desperation among top Christian politicos? Want to know what else they are pretending not to know about? Follow the links and read about who I am and what I have to say. Notice that my last name is Page? Think this "page" scandal is a mere coincidence? The timing and ramifications are much worse than most realize yet.

If Christian political leaders are going to go around attacking others for not living up to their professed values, it's a damn good idea to be truthful and actually walk the walk. Logs and motes in the eye, camels through the eye of a needle, glass houses, kettles and pots, and what goes around comes around, et al. Karma's a bitch when She finally decides enough is enough! This wouldn't have been so bad on Republicans if they hadn't been such arrogant hypocrites in order to corner the so-called values voters! Now the "Two Candlesticks" and "Two Witnesses" (Truth and Justice) are "breathing fire" and "raining hailstones!"

Christian Political Leadership, Hypocrisy, Duplicity, and Purposeful Evil

The current scandal involving Congressman Foley is merely the latest in an amazingly long list of blatant deception and duplicity by Republicans and the Christian Right in recent years. While bedeviling us all with their holier-than-thou pretenses, they consistently support and/or perform blatant greed and abominable evil. Never forget the extent of their arrogance over the last two decades and especially the last 6 years. It is beyond amazing that Christians continue to blindly support such obviously blatant scoundrels, even as they are repeatedly exposed going against the most basic of human values. The level of hypocrisy and duplicity boggles the mind. There is no longer any doubt, whatsoever, that Christianity is little more than a purposeful deception used by political and religious leaders to dupe, manipulate, and coerce entire populations into giving them wealth and power, which they always use for greed, injustice, and abominable evils.

The actions of Foley and those who covered up for him directly parallel the actions of scores of priests that have raped innocent children, preyed upon others for centuries, and had their actions hidden and abetted by the Vatican. Now, in eerie repetition of Vatican history, we have a power hungry Christian Emperor (GW) working closely with the Vatican and Judeo-Christian aristocrats to lead crusades in the so-called Holy Land. Furthermore, to leave little doubt about the reality of this assessment, the USA, as the new Holy Roman Empire, is about to legalize the torture it has perpetrated in recent years while steadily reversing many of the democratic and civil freedoms that people gained when the Vatican and royalty lost control of their European empire at the turn of the nineteenth century. Now we see them following the same old path of evil as they strive to cement the status of the USA as the latest proxy Vatican empire. Make no mistake about it, the new dark ages are looming on the horizon unless we do something proactive to prevent it.

Remember that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it!

Read More:
Here is Wisdom !!

Peace...
 
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