Campaign Limerick

I have thoughts today on the strain

Of this presidential campaign

A rhyming viewpoint,

To scold, not anoint,

How negative gives us a pain.

Advertisements are often diseased

With rampant political sleaze.

Let us say from here on

No mean lexicon

Let's demand commercials that please.

Imagine what that would be like,

Back to times of Stasson and Ike

The ad's must be clean

And nothing that's mean

With statements that only unite.

It starts with political speech

And the rule to follow for each,

Find something that's nice

That's true and precise

With comments that honor, not preach.

Do you think we could make it a law

In this leadership quest seesaw.

All ad's must be true,

That people will view

If you lie, or smear, then withdraw.

And tell us at once where you stand.

Do nothing that seems underhand.

Stay simple, direct

The truth, in effect

Elections would surely be grand.

China and Tiananmen Square

Some thoughts on what we ought not forget.

Nearly two decades ago the Chinese government crushed the public expression of democracy in Tiananmen Square. Some estimates say several thousand people died. Now they have decided, even though they said it was OK, they don't want any live video from the square during the Olympic games.

The world of early June 1989 watched the beginning of the tension and the defiance on television, but then abruptly, the signal was cut off. To this day, the Chinese Government continues to deny that anyone but soldiers died in the weekend massacre. The collective heart of humankind, however, knows the truth and weeps. Just as the 2008 heart knows the truth of what's happening in Tibet.

There is another sadness, beyond the continuing loss of life. It is the omnipresent shame that again in the human experience, an oppressive authority, used and uses force to prevent the empowerment of the people. Force will never conquer the desire, or the active quest for freedom in all its forms. History validates that truth, over and over again, on the crumbled actions of failed oppression. Truth and tolerance, compassion and education, common courtesy and common sense are the only values that will sustain a government in power and elevate the condition of its people. If we fail to learn it, we are destined to repeat it.

Why Poetry

Some thoughts on poetry.

April is National Poetry Month. Poetry is my avocation, better yet, my passion.

You might rightfully ask what inspires a broadcast journalist to dwell in a poetic world. The quick answer is a balance to the daily tragedy of life. The long answer involves acknowledging the heart, spirit, and nature and the peace that comes from that awareness.

Each broadcast day contains many of the sorrowful and tragic stories of life. Emphasis is placed on information that separates our unique, yet interconnected, human nature into undesirable parts. We labeled them as hate, prejudice, violence, intolerance, and greed.

Poetry, whether its rap or metered verse, quatrains or sonnets, laughs and cries, clarifies and condemns and brings the intellectual and emotional senses into a radiating body of meaningful words. Poetry holds, sometimes forever, an emotion long past, a desire forgotten, a wish remembered or a splendor that’s vanished in the illusion of time. It is also a minute connection to the elegance of verbal choice; to the beauty of form and to the emotion of words put fitly together on the palate of the mind. Poetry is both raw and sophisticated art available to the reader and listener as a subjective creation similar to the appreciation found in images created in oil or marble.

Ghosts of Greatness

I had an extraordinary experience a few years ago. I was on Ellis island in New York harbor. If you haven’t been there, you should. It is a place that is energized with the resonant memory of the past.
It’s an exhilarating experience standing in what is now the Ellis Island museum. I felt the courageous spirits of our immigrant ancestors and a profound respect for their courage to embrace change. So many moved step by step through the great hall on their way to freedom.

Amid the din of other people and soft conversation. I walked the path and steps that 18-million immigrants followed. I felt their hearts as I sensed their pride at what they personally accomplished, and at what this country has become because of them and what we still can be.

These ghosts of greatness linger there, not because they came through that portal of liberty so many years ago, but because they stay to stand watch. Their presence is everywhere, in old photographs, in hundred year old scribbled messages to loved ones on a passage wall, and in the descendants, who visit here and keep it hallowed ground. Ellis island reminds us that it does not matter how or where or when potential greatness comes to this land, it only matters what one does with the manifesting dreams of freedom, opportunity and responsibility.

Fear

Some thoughts on fright.

I suppose everybody is frightened by something sometime. We have all sorts of phobias documented by science that give legitimacy to our fears. Acrophobia, thristadeckaphobia, hydrophobia and so on. Phobia is a Greek word meaning fear.

After 9/11 and rightfully so many of us developed terrorphobia. We are worried that some misfits who have no concept of the real world will again kill indiscriminately in order to effect fear and punishment.

In many ways these terrorists are a lot like the road rage guys. It’s their way or no way. The road "rager" will dart dangerously in and out of traffic creating fear and anger and counter rage.

This is where we have to be careful. If we let our counter rage, our anger, or the fear encouraged by government comment or actions to control our common sense then we give up our franchise of choice and many of the freedoms that come with that franchise.

President Roosevelt was right when he said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. I think we’ve forgotten it lately.

Global Warming

Some thoughts on troubling reports of Global Warming.

Despite the fact that some individual and organizations are trying to convince us otherwise, there is scientific evidence that shows human influence has contributed substantially to global warming and that the earth will get a lot hotter than previously predicted. Wine growers in Spain are worried. Islanders in the South Pacific are worried. We ought to be worried.

What global warming means for our children's children is beyond devastating. Possibly the melting of the polar ice caps thereby raising the oceans levels, flooding low lying areas like Florida, Holland and much of the world's coast lines. Very troubling possibilities. Crop failures, dust bowls, species extinction. Look at the latest UN website, http://www.un.org/works, it's a good website and filled with global warming reports and other environmental information for serious consideration.

Nearly forty years ago satellite and space technologies gave us a view of our planet never before seen by humankind. We saw a shimmering globe from deep in space without borders, without boundaries, without fences and walls. We began to see a whole living system, with all life interrelated and interdependent. We saw the effect of choice becoming the affect of life.

What can we do?

No longer can the individual look only to the corporate polluter and say, there is the source of our pain. It's part of it, but until we, as individuals, no longer tolerate pollution and pollutants in ourselves and in our work environments, and let our voices be heard in a clarion call to stop, we will continue to befoul our nest for future generations.

We forget, we are the nature we abuse and if we don't protect our environment, extinction will.

Iraq War

We are now five years into the war in Iraq. The death toll of American soldiers has reached at least 4-thousand. The numbers grow each day. These men and women, sons and Fathers, daughters and Mothers are the new heroes of our republic and not only should they be honored, but so too their families for they bare the burden of a broken heart and the emptiness of a loved one gone.
It is not possible for us to recall at once all the names of those who died on the field of battle in this war. A warriors death should always have the dignity of a name said with honor. Yet all we can do is trust that someday a new etched roll will be created and memorialized in granite as other lists of heroes have been in the past.
It is not much, but it's what we do and it is sacred.
So in this sixth year of the war, whether you agree with the war or not, let us honor those who served and serve. Send your prayers of protection for those still in harms way and shout your appreciation to the men and women of our armed services and send your good thoughts of compassion to the families left behind. They will feel it.

A rite of spring

Easter is Christianity’s rite of spring. It is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, but even before Jesus lived on this earth another culture celebrated a re-birth.

The Egyptians worshipped many gods, but the two they celebrated in the springtime were Isis and Osiris. Each represented a part of nature. Isis was the land, mother-earth. Osiris was the river, the fertilizer. Their union each spring when the Nile flooded the land, brought the birth of crops, food, a gift from the gods.

The celebrations Easter and that of Isis and Osiris are close in symbolism. Osiris and his followers battle his enemies and during the struggle Seth, a leader of a foe, kills Osiris. The body of Osiris is entombed and after several days of mourning, his followers slay Seth and Osiris is restored to life and the celebration of re-birth begins.

The ancient Anglo Saxons had a goddess of spring too. She was called Eostre and her name may be the derivation of our word Easter.

The Easter bunny too has its origin in pre-Christian fertility lore. Because rabbits are prolific breeders, the rabbit and the Hare became symbols of new life in the spring season. Happy Easter.

Africa's HIV epidemic

Some thoughts on one of the greatest medical emergencies and moral dilemmas of the modern era.
We have a continuing big problem on this planet.
It’s AIDS. HIV infection.
22.5 million of the 40 milion people worldwide infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. Only one percent of those who need anti-aids drugs get them. The cost is too high.
Already there are 11 million orphans.
In fact the professionals needed to confront the disease are dying faster than new ones can be trained.
The moral dilemma for the industrialized nations is why have we ignored Africa and the AIDS epidemic for such a long time and let it fester to genocidal proportions. Why are we not, as human beings, seeing this as a pandemic emergency. If we look at it only as governments, as drug companies, as it being far away, as it being not my problem, a dispassionate venue emerges. If we look at it as fellow human beings, then the suffering, the pathos, the inhumanity of it all is shocking and shameful that we let it happen.
I wonder if greed or to be nicer, the profit margin, has anything to do with it.
I wonder if race has anything to do with it.

Molly The Cat

Some thoughts on Molly the cat.

It was quite a story a couple of years ago; the rescue of Molly the cat trapped behind a deli basement wall in New York City.

There was some criticism of the media for spending too much time on the rescue of a cat and not on other stories. The story, however, was important because it symbolized and validated the sanctity of life, any life. Why else would so many people, spent so much time, energy and effort to save stranded cat. It took two weeks to finally rescue Molly stuck behind a concrete wall.

It reminded me of a story in 1989 when two baby gray whales were trapped in the ice in Alaska. To rescue them, contentious governments ( then the US and USSR ) put aside mistrust, environmentalists and oil workers suspended argument to labor together for a common good and Eskimos did everything they could do to save what they normally hunt.
Both stories, two little gray whales or one little cat named Molly remind us that the essence of life is cooperation, not competition and compassion not conflict.