The Real McCain II

John Brown by Bob Dylan

John Brown went off to war to fight on a foreign shore.
His mama sure was proud of him!
He stood straight and tall in his uniform and all.
His mama's face broke out all in a grin.

"Oh son, you look so fine, I'm glad you're a son of mine,
You make me proud to know you hold a gun.
Do what the captain says, lots of medals you will get,
And we'll put them on the wall when you come home."

As that old train pulled out, John's ma began to shout,
Tellin' ev'ryone in the neighborhood:
"That's my son that's about to go, he's a soldier now, you know."
She made well sure her neighbors understood.

She got a letter once in a while and her face broke into a smile
As she showed them to the people from next door.
And she bragged about her son with his uniform and gun,
And these things you called a good old-fashioned war.

Oh! Good old-fashioned war!

Then the letters ceased to come, for a long time they did not come.
They ceased to come for about ten months or more.
Then a letter finally came saying, "Go down and meet the train.
Your son's a-coming home from the war."

She smiled and went right down, she looked everywhere around
But she could not see her soldier son in sight.
But as all the people passed, she saw her son at last,
When she did she could hardly believe her eyes.

Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off
And he wore a metal brace around his waist.
He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know,
While she couldn't even recognize his face!

Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face.

"Oh tell me, my darling son, pray tell me what they done.
How is it you come to be this way?"
He tried his best to talk but his mouth could hardly move
And the mother had to turn her face away.

"Don't you remember, Ma, when I went off to war
You thought it was the best thing I could do?
I was on the battleground, you were home . . . acting proud.
You wasn't there standing in my shoes."

"Oh, and I thought when I was there, God, what am I doing here?
I'm a-tryin' to kill somebody or die tryin'.
But the thing that scared me most was when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine."

Oh! Lord! Just like mine!

"And I couldn't help but think, through the thunder rolling and stink,
That I was just a puppet in a play.
And through the roar and smoke, this string is finally broke,
And a cannon ball blew my eyes away."

As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein' the metal brace that helped him stand.
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand.

War Prayer

PZ Myers

Have We Gone Insane?

Chimes of Freedom

Bob Dylan changed my life...it's that simple.

Antarctic Ice Shelf

Boston Legal's Alan Shore on the Supreme Court

Find X

Obama Has It EXACTLY right.....

And everyone else got it ALL WRONG!!!

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Closer To Free

Fast Food Mount Rushmore

Squid

Not In Our Name

We believe that as people living
in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices
done by our government,
in our names

Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions
of blood for oil

Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families
on foreign soil

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed evil

Not by our will
and Not in our name

We pledge resistance

We pledge alliance with those
who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war
or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world
to bring about justice,
freedom and peace

Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real.

Not In Our Name

The Surge Is Failing! Don't Lie To Me!

Why do I, an American citizen, have to go to other sources for the truth?

George Carlin- Still A Genius...

I Always Thought HELL was...Other People!

Fractals with Chaos

This was made with the shareware release of James Gleick's CHAOS: the Software. The software was written by Josh Gordon, Rudy Rucker and John Walker for Autodesk, Inc., with Josh Gordon doing the lion's share of the programming work.

Get it HERE

Which Side Are You On?

Tommy and Natalie Dance

Rickie Lee Jones

Nobody Knows My Name

For a thousand years
I've lay upon the Lake Victoria
I was winged and many-colored
And nobody knew my name

For a thousand years
I fell out of the sand into the Guadeloupe
And I made many songs into the air
And nobody knew my name

I fell like water
In sweet gasps of hydrogen up
Into the sea over the Bikini Islands
And I dove into the liquid concrete of sweet silver lake
The liquid concrete of down by the river
And nobody knew my name

Now I walk among them and I sing to them
And I open up my wrists
And nobody knows my name

And I translate into many hours of history
But nobody knows my name
I stood in the four winds
I stood in the four winds
I stood in the four winds
And nobody knows my name

So I walk again
Yeah, I walk every night
So I walk again
I look at you
Sweet every face
Do you know my name
Do you, do you know my name
Do you know my name
Do you know my name
Say it
Do you know my name
Say it
Do you know my name
Do you know my name
Do you know my
Do you know my name
Do you know my
My...

Wildernes by Carl Sandburg

THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-- I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross. There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun--I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis. There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and kill ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-- I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-- And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-- and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-- For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

Gram Parsons

If you don't know anything about Gram Parsons, take a moment to watch this video and go to http://www.gramparsons.com.

A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country

The Voyage of Life

The Voyage of Life : Old Age
Thomas Cole

And the sky cracked open,
and terrifying forks of lightning split the earth,
releasing deafening explosions of roaring thunder.
And the mighty wind blew,
creating a maelstrom of fury and rage...
And then all was quiet, and the gentle sea
serenely rolled on, as it has since the beginning of time.

I'm A Liberal...Suck on that!

I'm a fighting liberal

by Steve Gilliard

You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.

What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.

The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they were, slaveowners and pornographers, smugglers and terrorists, understood one thing, a man's path to God needed no help from the state. Is the religion of these conservatives so fragile that they need the state to prop it up, to tell us how to pray and think? Is that what they stand for? Is that their America?

Conservatism plays on fear and thrives on lies and dishonesty. I grew up with honest, decent conservatives and those people have been replaced by the party of greed. It is one thing to want less government interference and smaller, fiscally responsible government. It is another thing entirely to be a corporate whore, selling out to the highest bidder because the CEO fattens your campaign chest. They are building an America which cannot be sustained. One based on the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The indifferent boss who hires too few people and works them to death or until they break down sick. Cheap labor capitalism has replaced common sense. "Globalism" which is really guise for exploitation, replaced fair trade, which is nothing like fair for the trapped semi-slaves of the maquliadoras. In the Texas border towns, hundreds of these women have been used as sex slaves and then apparently killed,the FBI powerless to do anything as the criminals sit in Mexico untouched by law.

For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn't. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn't enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.

Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world and those who did not agree would suffer.

Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.

It's time to regain the sprit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.

It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.

Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America's defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.

It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

Steve Gilliard
http://tinyurl.com/ytocqy

James Lipton meme

I thought this would be a fun way to get to know one another a little better. Answer the following questions James Lipton asks of his guests on Inside the Actors’ Studio, inspired by the French interviewer Bernard Pivot.

1. What is your favorite word?

quintessential

2. What is your least favorite word?

Homophobic

3. What turns you on?

Music

4. What turns you off?

Blathering

5. What sound or noise do you love?

Running water

6. What sound or noise do you hate?

Sirens

7. What is your favorite curse word?

Motherfucker

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Musician

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Politician

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

So, it turns out you were wrong!

Darwin Kills

The notion of intelligent design has been hijacked by those with a religious agenda to promote. Almost all proponents of ID do in fact have a religious agenda and they must be stopped from disseminating their ideology in public schools. The trick is to separate legitimate scientific investigation of intelligent design from religious creationism. As it stands now, most scientists are afraid to even talk about the subject for fear of being misquoted or having their own words used as religious propaganda. This has had a chilling effect on legitimate science that may take decades to repair. Ideology has no place in any public school science classroom and it must be stopped wherever it occurs. But one must also recognize that there have also been zealots on the evolutionist side who want to teach mechanisms of evolution that have no empirical support. The answer is simple and clear. Religious creationism must be eliminated from school curriculums and darwinian evolution must be taught not as fact, but in it's historical context. There is enough factual science, from anatomy to zoology to fill any school's scientific curriculum with non-controversial, factual science. Any teaching of darwinian evolution or creationism or "the controversy" is nothing more than a waste of time that could be better spent on real science.

This Says It All

It's Christmas in Fallujah

Merry Christmas! !

Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae. This remarkable wide-field (3 degree) image of the region shows the famous star cluster at the right, while highlighting lesser known dusty reflection nebulae nearby, across an area that would span over 20 light-years.

Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year to all!

Mars, the Bringer of War

I'm finally feeling motivated enough to update this site.
I'm doing fine considering the situation. While I do have Stage 4 prostate cancer, it doesn't seem to be bothering me very much. My main problem is not being able to walk, although I am able to get into the wheelchair and the recliner with the help of the lift.
I have my laptop available and it is my lifeline to the outside world. I spend a lot of time watching movies and surfing the internet.
I can be reached by e-mail at charlie@charliewagner.com and by cell phone at 516-286-5472
I finally sucumbed to necessity and bought an artificial Christmas tree. I'm certainly not in any position to get a real tree and decorate it :-(
I'm actually looking forward to the holiday season. Thanksgiving was great, even though we celebrated it on Saturday the 17th. The whole family was here and it was a good day.
I'll try to keep this journal up to date so you can check in here from time to time to see how I'm doing.
Here's a video that I found interesting. The music is from Gustav Holst' piece "The Planets" and is called "Mars, the Bringer of War":

Tommy tries to walk

One Picture........

Is worth a thousand words!!

Kind of reminds me of David Byrne standing by the side of the road in the middle of the desert with his swimming gear in the "Road To Nowhere" video by the Talking Heads.


The dark night is over and a new day is about to break.

On to 2008!!

Count Me Among Them....

"The power of righteous vexation is what keeps so many old Democrats hanging on in nursing homes long past the time they should have kicked off. Ancient crones from FDR's time are still walking the halls, kept alive by anger at what has been done to our country. Old conservationists, feminists, grizzled veterans of the civil rights era fight off melanoma, emphysema, Montezuma, thanks to the miracle drug of anger. Slackers and cynics abound, not to mention nihilists in golf pants and utter idiots. Time to clean some clocks. As Frost might have written, "The woods are lovely, dark and thick. But I have many butts to kick and some to poke and just one stick."
Garrison Keillor

Why Voters Like Values

"...values sell because they’re an antidote to the endemic mental health problem of our time: depression.

Humans demand that there be a clear right and wrong. You’ve got to believe that the track you’ve taken is the right track. You get depressed if you’re not certain as to what it is you’re supposed to be doing or what’s right and wrong in the world.

People need to divide the world into good and evil, us and them. To do otherwise – to entertain the possibility that life is not black and white, but variously shaded in gray – is perhaps more honest, rational and decent. But it’s also, psychically, a recipe for disaster, as are the psychic pressures of life in our multicultural, tolerant, globalist, egalitarian, post-1960’s era. It all leads to great uncertainty as to what is right and what is wrong. That is very conducive to depression.

The Republican Party wins elections because the Democrats – with their perceived agenda of tolerance, multiculturalism and equality – are inherently depressing." Jerome Kagan via a column by Judith Warner

When The Deal Goes Down

Dylan at his very best.

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildering brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down

We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray
I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night
When I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
O'r the road we're bound to go
More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
That keep us so tightly bound
You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's sayin' it true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down

Time to feed the babies!

Gail and Natalie

Cuter than a.....

speckled bellied puppy on a red wagon!


Leah Nita visits Grandma and Poppa

Natalie and Tommy come to visit

Doing what we do best!

Great-Grandma Marie feeds Natalie

Great-Grandma Marie and Grandma Gail lend a hand

July 8, 2006

Tommy and Natalie

Eric's 4th Birthday

Eric, Sophie and Leah

View Slideshow HERE

Natalie and Thomas come home!

Click on the link below to see a slideshow.

Natalie has the dark hair and Thomas is fairer.

Please excuse the lousy pictures, my autofocus is apparently not working.

Watch slideshow HERE

First Pictures

Congratulations to Carrie and Tom!

Natalie (5 lbs 11 oz.) and Thomas (4 lbs 14 oz.) were born June 27

Everyone is doing just fine.

Natalie Marie



Thomas Arthur II



Father and Son



Mother and Daughter



Natalie Marie



Aunt Jen, Grandma Gail, Daddy Tom and Grandma Maria

Winds of the Old Days

When I was a young boy, about 6 years old, my mother and father took my brother and I down to Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn to the Vim store. They bought a large upright radio that was bigger than I was and even had a record player. When the radio arrived and was plugged in, I stationed myself in front of the speakers. We didn't have a television at all, and the old radio had been broken for so long that I can't ever remember listening to it.

The first song I ever heard was "Goodnight, Irene" by the Weavers and for days after that I would plead with my mother to turn the radio on and I would wait, sometimes for hours, to hear that song another time.

I was never the same again. Music, especially folk music became my life and remains so to this day. I can't imagine life without music. It would be easier for me to stop breathing than to give it up.

Pete Seeger will be 87 years old this coming May 3rd. Pete was one of "those Weavers" who spun their magic into my impressionable ears. I'm going to send Pete a note and I hope all of you who love his music do so also. Just send it to Pete Seeger, Beacon N.Y. 12508. I'm sure everyone in Beacon knows where Pete lives.

Life is like a chain, and we're all links from the past to the future. There was Woody and then Pete and then Dylan then Springsteen. And so it all comes around in a new album just released today by Bruce: "We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions"

And so the Great Mandala rolls on as it has since time began.

Crackpot?

On the subject of "crackpot" that's a term that I prefer not to use,and in my opinion, has no place in science. Some ideas have more support than others. In science, as you well know, we never prove or disprove anything, we simply say what is more or less likely. We can safely say that astrology is "highly unlikely" to be valid, based upon a complete absence of supporting evidence. On the other hand, we can safely say that QED is "highly likely" to be valid, based upon a massive amount of evidence. Some other ideas, like QM, relativity, abiogenesis, panspermia, etc. have various amounts of supporting evidence. It is up to each individual to study the evidence and consider the liklihood of each theory being correct. Sometimes a consensus emerges in the scientific community, but often times even this consensus can be wrong. The cases of Lynn Margulis and Barbara McClintock comes to mind. In each of these cases, there was a strong aversion to these theories, which later proved to be correct. As for darwinism, I have studied the evidence and I have come to the conclusion that it is not strong enough to defend the idea. Others may reach different conclusions, but where the problem lies is with those who want to elevate an unproven theory to the status of "carved in stone" truth.
My belief is that many people support darwinism because they have been taught it for so long, or devoted their life's work to it, or are too scared of being labelled "crackpot" to oppose it.
I have asked evolutionists repeatedly to present the evidence for evolution.
What they do instead, is present evidence that different species are related. The fact that we're all closely related does not say anything about the mechanism of evolution.
Prof. Gould has provided 3 main evidences, small scale mutation and selection,
the fossil record, and the historical study of related species. All of these evidences are flawed and can be shown to be unsupportive.
As for the status of "why" questions in the field of science, I agree that they more properly belong to the field of philosophy. But who decides what is philosophy and what is science? Is there a definitive boundary? At one time some people believed that mind and body were separate entities. Now, most agree that they are one.
Most of the questions we're concerned with here can be properly framed without using the word "why?". For example, we can ask "by what mechanism did life come to appear on the earth and by what series of steps did it give rise to the diversity we observe today. Same with the universe. By what mechanism did the universe come to be in it's present state and what series of steps causes it to change over time?


"Here begins Homo ignoramus. He does not know what life is or how it came to be and whether it originated from inorganic matter. He does not know whether other planets of this sun or of other suns have life on them, and if they have, whether the forms of life there are like those around us, ourselves included. He does not know how this solar system came into being, although he has built up a few hypotheses about it. He knows only that the solar system was constructed billions of years ago. He does not know what this mysterious force of gravitation is that holds him and his fellow man on the other side of the planet with their feet on the ground, although he regards the phenomenon itself as "the law of laws." He does not know what the earth looks like five miles under his feet. He does not know how mountains came into existence or what caused the emergence of the continents, although he builds hypotheses about these, nor does he know from where oil came- again hypotheses. He does not know why, only a short time ago, a thick glacial sheet pressed upon most of Europe and North America, as he believes it did; nor how palms could grow above the polar circle, nor how it came about that the same fauna fill the inner lakes of the Old and the New World. He does not know where the salt in the sea came from. Although man knows that he has lived on this planet for millions of years, he finds a recorded history of only a few thousand years. And even these few thousand years
are not sufficiently well known." -Velikovsky

I read those words when I was 15 years old. And they changed the course of my life. Not for the particular examples cited, but because of our immense arrogance. Lord Kelvin said a hundred years ago that all of the problems in physics had been solved. All that was left was to dot the I's and cross the T's.
Evolutionists and cosmologists of today display the same arrogance. They know
nothing of how the universe came to be and how the life on earth came to be. And they have the arrogance to even suggest that darwinian evolution and big bang cosmology have answered most of the questions.

Where is the outrage?

from "Boston Legal" 3/14/2006 "Stick it"

Alan Shore's closing argument

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.

The verdict? Watch it and see...

Evolution and Development

Just as development is the unfolding of an algorithm that is already present in the zygote at the time of fertilization, so evolution is the unfolding of an algorithm that was already present at a time before evolution began.
In addition, just as a mature adult represents the culmination of this developmental algorithm, so the present state of life on earth represents the culmination of the evolutionary algorithm and no further evolution can be expected.
We know the immediate origin of the developmental algorithm, it was inherited from the previous generation. But the question of where this information originally came from remains unanswered. In evolution, one would be wise to suspect that this algorithm has a long history, and probably did not originate on the earth, but came to earth from elsewhere, fully front-loaded to unfold in a compatible environment into the biosphere we see today.

On The Value of Theories and Hypotheses

The only reason for having theories and hypotheses is to guide
experiment. They have no value on their own as truth.
The very idea of "selecting" between competing theories is
ridiculous. It brings us no closer to the truth. The way to
decide among competing theories is to test them, not decide
which is probably true based on some theoretical calculations
or by using some trick, like Occam's Razor.
After you collect all of the data, then you can draw
conclusions as to what is or is not likely. And one theory will
usually emerge as superior. Truth does not flow from the human
imagination, it flows from experiment and observation. That's
the only thing that has value. Speculation is interesting and
keeps the mind amused and helps us to design experiment, but it
serves no purpose in it's own right.
Of course, the number of possible hypotheses is infinite.
The human mind can create an unlimited number of scenarios to
explain any observed phenomenon. But if that is true, it's not
just a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. It becomes quickly
evident that all possible hypotheses can never be tested.
This may not seem to be a problem until you consider that if
this is so, then the results of *any* experiment will never be
conclusive. The scientific method becomes incapable of proving
anything, ever.
But this is not catastrophic because fortunately, science is not
in the business of proving and disproving things. The business
of science is saying what is most and least likely. In addition,
what is sometimes referred to as "scientific truth" is a very
fleeting phenomenon at best, and is inversely proportional to
investigative effort. In the past, scientific truths lasted a
long time, because very few people were looking very much.
But as time goes on, their lifespan is becoming increasingly
shorter. Science finds itself today leading mankind, not to a
single, absolute truth, but to multiple, indeterminate, relative
ones. Rational science is supposed to eliminate this uncertainty,
but it does not. In fact, it contributes to the chaos. Look at
what we deal with on a daily basis. Studies of various kinds are
reported every day with wildly varying claims. This is good for
you today, but it was bad for you yesterday. Substance after
substance is demonized by alleged "scientific studies" that tell
us things that we know are not true. Sugar is evil, salt will
kill you, eggs will give you a heart attack, fat is poison,
blah, blah, blah. Science is not making things clearer its making
people crazy. So what happens?
They look for an anchor, something that doesn't ever change,
that is constant and supportive. So they turn to God and religion.
It's inevitable. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

Facilitated Variation

For years I have been arguing that the neo-darwinian view of evolution, the slow accumulation of beneficial variations over time, has never had any empirical support. I have argued that science has failed produce any empirical evidence, either observational or experimental that supports a nexus between the trivial effects of mutation and natural selection and the emergence of highly organized structures, processes and systems.

I'm glad that people are beginning to notice this glaring defect.

"In the 150 years since Darwin, the field of evolutionary biology has left a glaring gap in understanding how animals developed their astounding variety and complexity. The standard answer has been that small genetic mutations accumulate over time to produce wondrous innovations such as eyes and wings. Drawing on cutting-edge research across the spectrum of modern biology, Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart demonstrate how this stock answer is woefully inadequate."

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300108656

Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma (Yale University Press, $30).*

(*just so there is no misunderstanding, these guys are opposed to intelligent design and have the misguided confidence that this new "patch" will somehow mitigate the growing belief that some sort of intelligent input is an absolute requirement for evolution.)

Now, just like Punctuated Equilibrium was proposed to explain the gaps in the fossil record, so a new "theory" has emerged to attempt to explain this glaring dilemma.

"The key is what they call “facilitated variation.” By this they mean that an organism does not merely tolerate environmental perturbations or developmental accidents, but in fact adjusts to the disturbances and incorporates them into its physiology or development. This buffering facilitates variation in traits by channeling environmental or genetic irregularities into integrated pathways of response. Furthermore, random inputs in the form of environmental perturbations or genetic mutations do not produce random outputs, because the outputs are shaped by the organism’s adaptive responses. Although genetic mutations may be random in their effects on the DNA sequence of an organism, facilitated variation implies that they may be far from random in how they affect the development of the organism. Facilitated variation therefore views the organism itself as playing a central part in determining how environmental and genetic variation is expressed

http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/110512.html

"...random inputs in the form of environmental perturbations or genetic mutations do not produce random outputs, because the outputs are shaped by the organism’s adaptive responses."

That sounds an awful lot like "adaptive evolution", which sounds an awful lot like "directed evolution" (Barry Hall, are you listening? You were RIGHT!)

My, my, my....the organisms are responding to their environment, not just tolerating it? Now let me see, where have I heard THAT before?

http://makeashorterlink.com/?B1553205C

Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture

Some exerpts from Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture.

Read the whole lecture HERE.


"Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed."

"I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'"

"The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm's way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves."

"I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man's man.

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'"

"I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called 'Death'.

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body"

A Typical Conversation

“As for the claim that you cannot create order through only random events—true enough. Except evolution is not random.”

I think you mean natural selection is not random. Are you saying that mutations are not random too?
I’ve discussed this issue many times. Natural selection is not random in the sense that all offspring do not have an equal chance of survival. Those better suited to their environment will have a better chance. Those less suited will have a lesser chance.
But natural selection can only act on what is already present. It has no power to create, assemble or design the variation it acts on. According to neo-darwinists, this variation is the result of random mutations. So, it’s disingenuous to say evolution is not random.
In addition, the jury is still not in on the randomness of mutations. As you see from Sean (Carroll)’s article, he pretty much puts paid to the Modern Synthesis. Mayr was wrong when he expected the genomes of vastly different species to differ vastly. As Carroll states “Natural selection has not repeatedly forged eyes from scratch. Rather, eye formation has common genetic ingredients, and a wide range of eye types incorporate parts, such as photoreceptor cells and light-sensing proteins, that have long been under the command of the Pax-6 gene.”
So, variation does not flow from random mutation, it flows from a pre-existing set of toolkit genes that pre-date the appearance of the adaptations they control.
And we’re left with the question: “where did these ‘toolkit’ genes come from?” They could not have arisen by mutation and selection because these mechanisms can only act at the organism level. For a “toolkit” gene to evolve, it would have to be present and functional in some organism. But we know now that these genes pre-date the organisms and the adaptations they control. They preceed all that comes after them.
They are “Genesis” genes.

PZ Myers Says:

Nonsense.

Evolution is not random, although it contains random components. Our chemistry is driven by stochastic processes, but no one claims that metabolism is random. Well, at least no one with any sense.

Regulatory genes have homologs in single-celled organisms. We are talking about genes that modulate the expression of other genes, and of course these are present in organisms that don’t have eyes. That is no big deal at all.

Also, these genes are found in families. They arise from duplication and divergence of precursors. Your objection is no objection at all, but simply yet another testimonial to your cluelessness.
Paul,
You wrote that “Evolution is not random, although it contains random components.” but you really mean to say that evolution is not random because it contains non-random components.
The fact that there is a non-random component to natural selection, the differential survival ability based on fitness, does not make the entire process non-random, just like the presence of random components does not make the whole process random.
You wrote: “Our chemistry is driven by stochastic processes, but no one claims that metabolism is random. ”
Agreed. The presence of stochastic processes
does not mean that the whole process is stochastic. Any more than the presence of non-random components makes the whole process non-random.
But the point is, that natural selection can only act on what already exists. The fact that natural selection has one non-random component does not overcome the fact that the variation is allegedly (by neo-darwinians) generated by purely random processes. In addition, as I have said many times, there is no nexus established between the components of mutation and natural selection and the emergence of highly organized structures, processes and systems. You simply cannot get from point A to point B.
You wrote: “Your objection is no objection at all, but simply yet another testimonial to your cluelessness.”
I might have let this go, and let you have the last word but you’ve always got to throw in the zinger. You have absolutely no scientific explanation for the existence of these “toolkit” genes. The development of form depends upon turning on and turning off genes at different times and different places. This is controlled in part by regulatory genes, which, as you say, have homologs in single celled organisms.
But the question still remains. Where did the regulatory genes come from and who (or what) programmed them to orchestrate the the symphony of development, to activate the genes at just the right time and in just the right places to create the final product: an integrated, functional system made up of multiple structures and processes?
"It is clear from Mr. Wagner’s last post that he probably has a firm belief in his statements and I agree that logic and reason will not sway him. However, I do enjoy these types of posts as they get you to think critically about such statements, and they give you an insight into some of the muddled thinking of ID proponents.

"But the question still remains. Where did the regulatory genes come from and who (or what) programmed them to orchestrate the the symphony of development, to activate the genes at just the right time and in just the right places to create the final product: an integrated, functional system made up of multiple structures and processes?"

This statement of Mr. Wagner’s really highlights the origin of his confusion and that of many creationists. The assumption is that a Genesis event must have occured. Without it, you can not explain your existence. Science does not deal with assumptions, it deals with data, therefore it can not include an assumption about God. Does this mean God does not exist? No it only means there is no testable data to point to a Creator’s involvement in the existence of life. Any IDers or creationists reading this, please remember that word ‘testable’.

Evolution does not disprove God, it instead simply shows that life is alot more complicated than originally envisioned 2000 years ago by the authors of the Bible.

I hope that in replying to these posts, we can help show non-scientists the flaws in ID or creationist reasoning with clear and concise rebuttals."
I went back and looked and sure enough, I capitalized “Genesis”. That makes it look like I’m referring to a supernatural event, which I’m not. I used the word “genesis” in the sense that they are the origin, rather than the result of a process of evolution. In my world, the world of science, god plays no role.
You say “Science does not deal with assumptions, it deals with data,”. This is true. But evolutionary theory (neo-darwinism) is based wholly on an assumption: that a nexus exists between the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection and the emergence of highly organized structures, processes and systems. There is absolutely no empirical data to support this audacious conclusion, yet it is the foundation of modern evolutionary thinking.
The main flaw in your thinking is that you equate the scientific consideration of intelligent input with religious creationism and a supernatural being. While it is true that a majority of ID proponents are religious creationists and their “intelligence” is god, that should not preclude science from investigating a phenomenon that most likely resides in the natural world and will eventually by explained by the scientific method.

And so it goes....

Intelligent Input and Evolution

No one who has looked at the evidence objectively can deny that humans have evolved. They have evolved culturally, morphologically and technologically in the time they have been on the earth. In addition, our kinship with our other primate cousins is clear. That all primates most likely had a common origin is obvious.
What is not obvious, however, is the mechanism by which these changes have occurred. In this matter we are still pretty much in the dark. Evolution is a process, that is strongly supported by empirical evidence. But it remains a process looking for a believable mechanism. Random mutation and natural selection are mechanisms of evolution and it is possible to accept the reality of evolution on a scientific basis and deny the claim that mutation and natural selection are capable of achieving it.
Intelligent input is also a mechanism of evolution, without any empirical support. But it is clearly obvious to me that random mutation and natural selection are insufficient to explain the complex systems that human beings possess as well as the cultural, intellectual and social components of our collective humanity.
What we observe in humans (and other living systems) are means adapted to ends. We see structures supporting other structures and we see processes supporting other processes. We also see that these structures and processes are integrated into functional systems in such a way that they all support the overall function of the organism.
Science has failed to establish with empirical evidence, any kind of believable link between the trivial effects of mutation and selection and the emergence of highly organized structures, processes and systems. Some important component is missing.
It seems to me that such a level of organization simply cannot be achieved by random processes and requires insight. Some kind of intelligent input seems necessary.

You're Doing A Heck Of A Job, Shrub...

I wrote this just before the 2004 election. Wow!


"After hearing Kerry's speech yesterday at NYU, I've decided to vote for George Bush. The logic is simple, yet powerful: why should we let him off the hook? He made this mess and he should clean it up. Keep him in office and make him undo the damage that he's done. Why should us poor Democrats have to save his ass? All of his life, people have been bailing him out of disasters of his own making. Why should we let him simply turn this mess over to Kerry and go peacefully back to Crawford and smirk? For once in his life he should stand up like a man, admit that he was wrong and correct his mistakes. Then he might be able to go to his reward standing on his own two feet, head held high instead of crawling on his belly like a reptile."

I'm a Liberal (and proud of it!)

"...if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies."

John F. Kennedy, 1960

Gerontion by T.S. Eliot

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass,
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London.
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man,
A dull head among windy spaces.


Read the entire selection HERE

Why I Became A Yankee Fan

When I was a little boy, I lived near Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. You could walk down to Eastern Parkway and then up to Ebbetts Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. My father often bad-mouthed the Yankees, as did other kids in the neighborhood. I was a Dodger fan, true and blue.
When the New York Mets appeared in 1962, it seemed only logical to transfer that allegiance to this new team and continue with my disdain for the Yankees. At first it seemed like a good idea. We won 4 pennants and 2 World Series and while there were a few "ouch!" moments, my loyalty remained strong.
I haven't given up completely on the Mets, but it hasn't been looking very good for the last couple of years. Should I abandon them altogether? I don't think that's possible. I still live with the hope that they can turn the team around and become the team that I would like them to be.
But what of the Yankees? I have been a New Yorker all my life. Why does it have to be one team or the other? Can I not like the Yankees if they're in a pennant race or a World Series? Should I root for Boston or Atlanta or St. Louis? Can I not have respect and admiration for their accomplishments?
Let's face it, the Yankees are a class act. Every player who puts on the Yankee pinstripes is proud to be a Yankee. The team is run well by a competent owner and dedicated, competent managers. The players know what's expected of them and they do their jobs, often very well. It would be absurd to hope that a team from another city would beat them based on an intra-city rivalry that goes back to 1955.
So, I hold the Yankees in the highest regard and I hope that they win the Championship Series and the World Series. And I still hold out hope that the Mets will rise from the ashes like the Phoenix and maybe regain their credibility and my respect.
Until then...Go Yankees!!!

My Latest Crisis

10 fucking years of suffering, ruined kidneys, neuropathy and enough medicines to kill a horse.

I should have started thinking for myself 10 years ago.

A Google search of "hypertension" led me to several good papers on the subject.

Hypertension can be primary (95%) or secondary (5%)

Primary hypertension is usually mild and responds to medication. It's cause is unknown.
Secondary hypertension is more severe and often is the result of KNOWN, TREATABLE causes and is almost always curable.

I discovered that the main type of secondary hypertension is renovascular and the main sub-cause is renal artery stenosis.

No one ever bothered to check my renal arteries. Not even the Chief of Nephrology at a major hospital.

I asked for a Renal Artery MRA (angiogram).

The results?

Major blockages in BOTH renal arteries. 99% certainty that this is the cause of all my problems.
And no one ever bothered to look.

Bottom line:

They put an expandable stent in one of the the arteries to open it up. The other side is completely closed and cannot be reopened. The kidney is atrophied and useless. Now we have to wait a week or two to see if the good kidney rebounds and the blood pressure and creatinine drops.

If I hadn't asked for the MRA, the other renal artery would have closed up in short time and both kidneys would have expired. It would have been Dialysis City for me.

I'm thankful that the technology was in place (interventional radiology and endovascular surgery) and I thank the doctors for their hopefully successful intervention. But I can't help being a little bitter that this was not diagnosed 10 years ago and that up till August 23, 2005, nobody had bothered to look at my renal arteries. It could have saved me a lot of grief.

Alan Fredericks

Alan Fredericks has died.

Those who knew Alan Fredericks probably identify him as the editor of "Travel Weekly" and a prominent travel journalist.

But to me, as a 15 year old teenager growing up on Long Island, he was much more. Each night, I would go to my room and turn on my radio and wait patiently for the opening theme song, "Night Train" by Ernie Englund. I kept notebooks full of musical information on songs that I heard, including title, artist, label etc. Often, there would be call-in contests to identify a song or artist and once I even won a copy of "You" by the Aquatones.
But the best part was the record hops. Alan used to bring the WGBB mobile trailer to supermarket parking lots and high school gymnasiums across Long Island and feature live bands. We could see local groups like the Rocking Chairs (A Kiss Is A Kiss) and the Belnotes (I've Had It). Once I even saw The Mello-Kings.
We got to see plenty of live Rock and Roll in those days by going into the Brooklyn Paramount theater to see Alan Freed's Rock and Roll Show or Murray the "K". But there was nothing better than going down to the parking lot of the local supermarket and coming face to face with live bands and if we were lucky, to talk to them. It was also a great way to meet girls, most of whom wouldn't be seen dead with us.

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came-next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams-visions of a stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!-then home from the war, bronzed heros, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation -- "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever--merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory -

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.

With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,"Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said

"I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd and 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 and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who hearth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this-keep it in mind. If you beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer-the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by 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 and 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 compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory-must follow it, cannot help but follow it. 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 shrieks of their 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 the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and 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 it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause)

"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

I Sit In A Chair and Read the Newspapers

Smoke

by Carl Sandburg

I sit in a chair and read the newspapers.

Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finger-rings of smoke in a north wind.

I sit in a chair and read the newspapers.

A Good Solution

Last winter, I discovered that my blanket was too long at the top and too short at the bottom. I had an extra foot of blanket tucked up under my chin and my feet were sticking out from under the blanket at the bottom of the bed. So I asked Gail to cut a foot off the top of the blanket and sew it onto the bottom, which she did. Now everything is fine.

Oh, by the way, I must remember to set my clocks back an hour this fall...

My Talk With God

It started just after midnight, Monday February 14th. First came the shortness of breath, followed in moments by the rales. I woke up Gail and informed her of what was happening. She wasn’t even out of bed when the gurgling started. My breaths became shorter and shorter.
I knew I was in a world of shit.
I threw on my shoes and a jacket and headed for the car. By the time I got there it was painfully obvious that I had only minutes before my window of life would close completely, perhaps forever. North Shore-Long Island Jewish hospital (the *good* hospital) was 20 minutes away. Fortunately, I was less than a mile from the Nassau University Medical Center (the county hospital). Gail dialed 911 while I struggled to keep breathing. I was literally drowning in my own body fluids.
The cops were there in minutes. I was unconscious when I arrived at the hospital and the doctors were fast, efficient, and very young! I thought to myself, “I hope they know what they’re doing…” But I knew right away that I wasn’t going to die. I watched intently as they went about their business, like they had done it a thousand times before. Not like on ER! No shouting, no rushing, no emotion. The breathing tube was inserted, the IV installed, the Foley in place, the respirator hooked up. It was only a matter of minutes. This is all still clear in my consciousness. After all, I was standing right there watching them the whole time.
I began to notice that the room was getting very bright, like someone had opened the window and the warm sunlight was streaming in. It got so bright that I could no longer see anyone in the room. I began to walk towards the one figure I could still see, down the corridor in front of me. As I approached, the figure did not become clearer, but more amorphous. A great wave swept over me, a sensation of complete peace, joy and contentment. As I approached the figure, it stepped aside and I looked into the beyond.
I saw a young man nervously trying to get up the courage to ask a pretty girl on a date. I saw an old man, sitting quietly in front of his beloved wife’s casket, his head buried in his hands. I saw a young father, scolding his son for writing on the wall with a crayon. I saw a soldier, pinned down in a trench, praying to God that he would live to see his daughter get married. I saw my mother, walking across the street in Brooklyn to the neighborhood hospital, where she would give me life. I tried to understand what I was seeing.
And then, God spoke to me.
“This thing you call time, is an artifact, composed of eidetic simulacra. Imagine that you are wandering over the surface of the earth for all eternity. Every point on the earth’s surface exists simultaneously, even though you are not present at all locations. So it is with time. Every point exists simultaneously, even though you are not there. The human mind creates beginnings and ends. There is no past, no present, no future. It’s all the same thing. Every moment, every event, every joy, every tragedy exists simultaneously. Only in your world, your mind, your reality is time linear, with beginnings and ends.”
I pondered this for a while, trying to absorb this simple yet profound truth. Then I spoke to God.
“I want to go back. Send me back to Afghanistan. I’ll assemble an army, I’ll hunt down Osama bin Laden and convince him of the error of his ways. I’ll teach him about love and tolerance and humanity. I’ll save all those innocent people.”
But God said no. “You’ll strike up a conversation with him. He’ll try to convince you that his actions are justified. You’ll listen and be convinced. You’ll join his cause and become an Ayatollah like Cat Stevens and move to Iran.”
“Send me back. Send me back to Memphis. I’ll find Elvis, I’ll take away his drugs. I’ll tell him that we love him. I know that he will listen”.
But God said no. “You’ll ask him if you can ride in his plane, come to Graceland and eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches. You’ll fall in love with his daughter and want to marry her.”
I sensed that I was losing and that I would soon be beaten. I tried one last time. “Send me back to Calvary. I’ll talk to the Romans and convince them not to kill Jesus. If they don’t listen, I’ll help him escape, hide him in the desert. If they hurt him, I’ll treat his wounds, nurse him back to health, follow his teachings.”
But again, God said no. “You would listen to his teachings, but you would not follow them. You would call yourself a Christian and claim to follow the precept ‘Resist not evil: but whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also’, but you would make war on innocent women and children for the flimsiest of reasons. You would call yourself a Christian and you would claim to follow the example of Jesus to ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’, yet you would be filled with moral indignation and self righteousness and permit envy and hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. You would believe in your heart that ‘if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor’, yet you would allow children in poor countries to go to sleep hungry, perhaps to die of malnutrition while you gather up to yourself great wealth, far beyond your simple needs.”
God continued on. “I will not send you back in time because time belongs only to me. This is why I am who I am and you are who you are. All you have is now. That is the difference between us. Eternity belongs to me and I reserve it for myself. It is, you might say, the one real advantage that I have over you. You cannot change what you call the past and you cannot affect what you call the future. Now belongs to you. Do you want it?
“Yes I do.”
I turned slowly and began to walk back down the corridor. The bright light began to fade until it became almost impossible to see anything. Soon it was totally dark. I heard a voice calling my name and I slowly opened my eyes. It was Gail, standing at the side of my bed.

The Attic

I visited my old neighborhood recently, where my mother still lives, and there by some unseen, yet strongly felt force I was drawn to the old attic. I hadn't realized how many things were stored there, things that I had imagined had been disposed of long ago. And yet, there they were. It is a delightful, yet frightening experience to revisit the old memories and to look back upon the path that has been followed to bring us to our present place. Each tattered remnant marks with crystalline clarity a point where life could easily have taken a different turn, and by doing so, have produced a different outcome.

One cannot help wondering if these paths were bound to be taken, as set down by the hand of fate, or chosen as a result of carefully reasoned free will and unerring judgment. Also, one cannot help wondering if it really makes any difference at all which is the truth. What is clear however, is that I have spent the better part of my life meandering from side to side, widening the banks of my river, but never cutting deeper into the channel. I do not hope to break any new ground at this point, only to deepen what is already there.

All of these things that I see connect me to the rest of the world and to the events in which my life is intertwined with the lives of others. But standing here, I sense that I am completely alone in the world. I have drifted through peoples lives, like a river flows through its channel, touching each rock and branch, exploring each swirling eddy and current, but leaving no hint or evidence that I had ever been there. My goodness, there's a lot of dust on these old memories. Once, they had meaning and value and were carefully stored here when their usefulness was over, as the great flow of life advanced to newer and uncharted regions. But now, their only value is to me, insofar as what they represent. They are the stations of my life, where my train has passed, and I, the lonely passenger, looking out the window into the mist, feel unable to draw their attention.

(uncle eddie, mom, grandma, 1923)

I'm sitting by my daughter's bedside in the pediatric ward of the hospital. She has just come down from the recovery room and I am waiting for her to wake up. In the bed across the way, a young boy, around 14 years old is asleep. His father sits at his side, his eyes half closed in weariness. It seems like he has been there a long time. After a while he begins to stir and gets up and walks over to the window. We exchange a brief glance and I sense the recognition in his eyes. Then the surprise. "Mr. Wagner!" he says. "Do you remember me?"

Unfortunately, I don't. "I was in your class in 9th grade". I struggled with the face but I could not produce the name. "Billy Daniels" he went on, "I was in your 4th period science class at Island Trees Junior High". Good God almighty, I thought, that was almost 25 years ago. He must be 40 by now, just ten years younger than me. We talked for a while about my daughter's accident and he told me about his son's knee, which he damaged playing soccer.

Then he asked me if I was still teaching. He seemed happy to hear that I still was.
"I'm a teacher too", he said, obviously proud to be able to tell me this. "Do you remember that story that you told us about the zoroastrian temples along the Jersey Turnpike?" He began to laugh like a kid. "Well, I still tell that story to my students! And it's just as funny now as it was when I first heard it".
I still tell that story to my students too.
"And do you remember telling me that you hoped that someday I would become a teacher and you hoped I would have a student just like me?" Sure I remembered. I say that all the time when students aggravate me. "Well, I did, and you were right. I've got plenty that are just like I was. And I never forget that. And that makes all the difference".

They say that life is like a river that flows deep and wide. But I think that it's more like a chain, and each one of us is a link to the past and to the future. I began to realize that every kid that ever sat in my room carries a little piece of me with them when they leave. And every one of them is forever a part of me... and I am a part of them.

Patti and Patty

Patti Smith, left

Patty Smyth, right

Listen to "FREE MONEY" by Patti Smith

Listen to "GOODBYE TO YOU" by Patty Smyth

Mystery

Some time ago, I found myself walking along the beach. As I looked out over the ocean, sunlight sparkled on the gently rolling swells. At one point in my view, the beach, the ocean and the sky seemed to merge into one. There is something compelling about the ocean, and I was a lone water-gazer upon this beach. Mountains have a certain grandeur and likewise canyons and forests. I have seen them all. But the ocean is special, and I always feel the need to venture as close as I can without getting wet. But at some certain point in time, I am always constrained to remove my shoes and socks and place my feet into the swirling waters. It is a holy baptism of life.



On this particular day, as I walked further down the beach, I saw a young boy who looked to be about five or six years old. He had dug a deep hole in the sand just above the water line and was going back and forth with a paper cup, dipping water from the ocean and pouring it into the hole. I watched him for some time and finally asked him what he was doing. He replied that he was going to empty the whole ocean into the hole. Since the water disappeared down the hole each time he poured, he assumed that it would only be a matter of time until his task was accomplished.

When I was a young boy, I looked out into the night sky and marveled at the beauty of the stars. I began to learn about the stars and the planets, and I soon took to the task of counting the number of stars that I could see. I would lie on my back on the beach and divide the heavens into sections, counting each one carefully and adding them up. Twenty, forty, eighty...one hundred! When I was older, my father bought me a small telescope and I soon realized that there were many more stars than I thought. I learned in school that there were almost 2500 stars that could be seen with the naked eye on a clear night. I soon realized that some of the points of light were not stars at all, but huge galaxies, filled with countless numbers of additional stars. Even today, with our most powerful telescopes, the farther we look, and the better we see, the numbers of stars and galaxies keeps ever increasing. Needless to say, I have given up trying to count the stars in the sky and just as surely, that little boy will someday realize that he has a better chance of getting the whole ocean into that little hole than he does of ever understanding the mysteries of the universe.