My personal purveyor of spirits (Laura) passes on this bit of wisdom along with the cabernet to savor while reflecting:

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me...It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too."

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied..."The one I feed."


As one may expect, the Iraq war has fertilized the entreprenurial spirit in ways as old as war itself. Dan sent us a page from the Center for Public Integrity that gives insight into just how magnificently this spirit can manifvest itself. I am particularly moved by one company that caught my eye. It is described as,

a "Small, woman-owned company, was founded in October 1997, and began servicing government and commercial clients worldwide. in November 1997."

Ooooh! Gotta love it! The girls are just doing their patriotic bit, you know!...Servicing clients...Explosively, as it turns out!

The name they go by is "Explosive Ordnance Technologies Inc." and they are all trained graduates of the U.S.Navy explosive ordnance school. This one actually seems legit:

Girls who will defuse your bomb, for a price. Works for me!

Others are pretty iffy! Tens of millions of dollars to companies founded by Egyptian diplomats to support war? Check out a couple of these for yourself:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro

We Wuz Robbed! Well, Duh...

From a respected source, the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum:

"What does this mean? Take a look at the top line for Colorado. The first colored column shows what the exit polls predicted: Bush would win by 1.8%. The second colored column shows the actual results: Bush won by 5.2%. The third colored column shows the difference between the two: Bush won by 3.4 percentage points more than the exit poll predicted.
In fact, Bush won 10 out of 11 battleground states by more than the exit polls predicted. The odds of this happening by chance are essentially zero."

Will this change the election results? Let's repeat: "The odds of this happening are essentially zero."

But we can rail against Bush's Man Date with just cause! If you haven't written a Senator or congressman, Poo on Yoo! Do it now! Step one is to support Arlen Specter, a Republican for Judiciary Charman.

Here is something else from Kevin Drum...a bible study class with much discussion on the topic of the biblical view of abortion. It's fascinating!

Things my bible belt upbringing did not tell me:

In at least one place:

Abortion is mentioned in the bible.

The life of the woman is more important than the fetus.

There is only one place in the bible related to the death of unborn child and the bible clearly says it is NOT murder. (not a good thing either)

I suppose it will be like discussing nuance with a rabid dog, in some cases, but here it is:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_11/005144.php

My real point in that was to demonstrate that there is no definitve statement in the christian bible that lets the fundamentalists get their justification. It was sloppily written and inconsistantly interpreted as a document of law. The doctrines against Birth control and abortion came centuries after the time of "the one who has had olive oil poured on his hair" , which is the translation of the word "jesus" which they never told me either. All of this gets back to my personal philosophy on abortion and birth control: the parts of this that are my business are my business. The Bible tells me so!

As a great man once said, "In the world view, and for the future of civilisation...

It don't make a rat's ass!"

Making sure the environment can support healthy life on this planet is a far more important issue.


Peace,

Steve