Anthrax Mistake!

One of the many things that bother me is the stupidity of the bureaucracy. A news story last night was that the military shipped Anthrax to a number of labs in seven states across the country via FEDEX, but the Anthrax was a live virus not a dead one as it was supposed to be.

The Pentagon called it a mistake. A MISTAKE! Good grief, a mistake that could have and maybe will infect a considerable portion of the population. Let us hope not!

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of phrases that say, “it was a mistake and we are launching an extensive internal investigation.” Investigations are the “Mea Culpa” of disasters.

I’ve blogged in many posts that we are a fear-based society because authorities use the attack America modality as a means of getting the population to accept a usurpation of freedoms such as the NSA spying on all of our phone and Internet conversations.

The kind of mistake by our military is an egregious lack of intelligence and it is unacceptable. It is worse than any threat from outside enemies.

Dreams

Many years ago the cabinet department of War changed its name to the Department of Defense. Since that time we have been in more wars than we have needs for defense. Yes, we always need to be vigilant, but let's call it what it is.

I think we need some new cabinet departments. We need one called the Department of Common Sense. Its mission is obvious. It would be independent from politics. It would oversee all bills emerging from Congress.

We need a Department of Compromise to work closely with Congress to teach each representative in each house what statesmen responsbility is.

We need a Department of Outward Benevolence to replace Homeland Security. We have been lulled into being a fear-based society. It's logical for authority to use fear as a motivator. Reason will never convince the populous to give up freedoms and constitutional rights. Fear works wonders. A Department of Outward Benevolence would concentrate on restoring comfort in travel, welcoming visitors with the appropriate technological security and to show them how a free society can operate without fear.

We need a Department of Debunkment. It would bring truth to all public political statements no matter what party or person says them. That used to be the job of the press.

Whoops, excuse me, I must have fallen asleep. I was dreaming.

The Power of Thought

Memorial Day for Americans is a holiday that traditionally announces the beginning of summer, even though it is not yet seasonally summer. The season’s beginnings and endings never do coincide with mankind’s needs for work breaks and passing pleasures.

By observation Memorial Day Weekend is a traditional holiday of yard sales, barbecues, family gatherings, beach going, memorial tributes to the fallen and to standing veterans, flag waving, traffic accidents, busy emergency rooms, long lines at the ice cream parlors, and planting flowers and vegetables.

What happens next is summer. Vacations start, graduations conclude and school ends, camp begins for some as do lazy hazy days and summer jobs, if you can find one in this economy.

Endings always have an expectation of something beginning. All endings do. It is both the power of our envisioning and our powers of manifestation that takes us to something next. I believe that each of us has a singular power that we often ignore or forget we have. It is the power of thought. We do so many of these little imaginations every moment that we toss away as idle constructions and considerations, but each of them has possibility if we give it energy.

I would submit that all the great ideas in history began with a thought. It is a logical theatrical “Spock” kind of conclusion if not overly simplistic and sophomoric.

Suppose you have a thought of world peace, a clean environment, the cure for cancer and all the other insidious diseases that both conflict and inflict our current world. Maybe too you are thinking of eliminating poverty, hunger, greed, prejudice, and cruelty everywhere on the planet.

Most of us however are thinking about earning a living, finishing something, paying the bills, fixing the car, mowing the lawn or going fishing or golfing, watching the game, driving the kids somewhere, planning a vacation or party time with our friends.

Those are great, wonderful, everyday duties and desires, hopes and wishes, but they are not the noble thoughts of service. Service is instantaneous response to need and our planet has profound needs that require our collective thought.

I have a truth I will share with you. If only a very few of us collectively think about the noble things at the same time it can happen because of the power of thought. The power of manifestation is inherent in the divinity of our being; then the little stuff of life will happen perfectly and automatically.

There is only one simple problem. We have forgotten we have the power.

Memorial Day Memories

In my youth Memorial Day was different. It was a day of remembrance, honor and appreciation of those who died in the service to our nation. I don’t remember sales and bargains and deals as being part of it.

I lived in a small villages and parades were loosely organized. School bands marched playing Souza’s tunes and the service anthems.

The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts paraded in uneven lines as the local fife and drum corps headed up the volunteer firemen and a police contingent.

The Ladies Auxiliary from the VFW posts was there too. They always seem to march with a grace that the vets couldn’t muster.

I rode my bike festooned with red, white and blue crinkled crape paper woven in the wheel spokes with a piece of cardboard attached to the bike frame and moved by the spokes. It rattled like a motor as the wheel turned. We kids would ride between the marching groups; little American flags taped to our handlebars fluttered in the peddled breezes.

The guests of honor were always the veterans. Some wore their old uniforms and proudly displayed battle and campaign ribbons. Tight fitting uniforms kept the bulges of time from being too noticeable. Their step was proud as they kept their eyes ahead and heads held high.

The veteran contingents marched together by the war in which they served. In my youth, in my small town in central New York, the largest groups at that time were the vets from World War Two; that war had ended only a few years earlier. Then came the doughboys from World War One.

They were older and fewer. The oldest veterans, two from the Spanish American War rode in a convertible at the head of the parade. The next year they were gone and a Medal of Honor recipient rode at the head of the parade.

The parade ended at a local monument honoring all those from the area who died in war. Their names were embossed in bas-relief bronze on a plaque bolted to chiseled granite.

Memorial Day Celebrations in those days engendered a reverence for the fallen. Even as youngsters we felt a connection to those who had passed. We all knew someone whose Father didn’t come home.

Little did we know then that Korea, Quemoy and Matsu, Vietnam, Iraq one, Grenada and Iraq two and Afghanistan would follow and there would be new war veterans marching.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful that in some future time Memorial Day would have no new names to remember?

Santa Barbara's Oil Spill

Once again human technology has destroyed nature’s pristine environment. This time it’s Santa Barbara, California.

An oil pipeline split and spewed its crude into the blue Pacific off the central California gentle coast.  100-thousand gallons spilled, but a pipeline spokesman said, as if to minimize the flow, the pipeline was operating below it capacity.

There are 17-hundred pipeline and hazardous materials operators in the country and Plains All American Pipeline is among the worst violators.

The company has had 175 federal safety and maintenance violations since 2006.

WHEN will we stop allowing these careless and corrupt companies to operate.

WE ARE THE NATURE WE ABUSE!