Choose Well

He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.

Abe Lincoln
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Hello Arlene
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As we approach election day, politicians all over the country will be campaigning to get enough votes to win a job or keep a job. The President and Vice President jobs are at the top of the pile, but other positions from Congress, through State Governments on down to local governments are also being sought.

A lot of money will be spent trying to win votes. Speeches will be made, interviews will be held and debates will take place. There will be a lot of information and misinformation delivered to the voters. Accusations will be made and denied. Records will be held up for scrutiny. Our radios and TVs will be inundated with advertisements for and against one candidate or another. And. yes. unfortunately, lies will be told.

There will be talk of war, budgets, human rights, health care and the "future" of America. Programs, systems and traditions will be threatened by the sabers of opinion and policy.

One of the greatest things about the United States is that no matter where you live, stuffed into a small room in the ghetto of some inner city, in a shack on the desert, a remote island off the Alaskan coast, there is someone in Congress, in your state legislature and in some cities who represents you. It means you have a link to the government, and you have a right to contact that person at any time of you need help or if you feel the need to express an opinion. What that means to me is that although a tremendous amount of power resides with the President, the Vice President and the 50 Governors of our various states, and those people should be carefully chosen. it is equally as important to provide the best people you can for those representative positions.

I look at the records, I hear the speeches, I read the opinions, I consider the issues, I watch the debates. Unfortunately I also have to watch the mud slinging, the back slapping, the nose twisting and the hand shaking. But when it's all over and time to exercise my special privilege as an American citizen to cast my vote I look for the person who has the heart, the heart to care, the heart to help, the heart to heal.

Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Whited Sepulchers

Beauty isn't worth thinking about, what's important is your mind. You don't want a fifty dollar haircut on a fifty cent head.

Garrison Keillor
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Hello Lily
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Across the street from where I used to live is an old red brick building. The bricks were dirty and some of the cement between them was chipped, eroded and falling out. One day workers came, set up ladders and commenced to fill in the cement areas between the bricks where it was needed, Then, a few days later, they washed down the entire front of the building until the bricks looked almost new.

But then they took down their equipment and left. They never repaired or cleaned the sides or back of the building. I mentioned that to my neighbor and he patronizingly said it was because the front was the only part you can see from the street.

So that's it. It's only the superficial that counts. It doesn't matter what goes on behind the expensive suit or evening gown as long as it looks good. "Whited sepulchers, full of all uncleanness."

The kidnapper drives a good car. The sweet angelic girl is a liar. And when the con man finally takes off with your money everyone will say "But he was such a nice fellow."

What about the holy Christian pastor who burns Korans or the swift and sturdy politician, the family man, with a secret lover in the next town.

How about those who hide their ignorance behind a popular slogan (America, love it or leave it) or a misunderstood action (The Patriots Act). Like the woman with a big cross on her chest who proclaimed that she was a good Christian and believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The self appointed pastor who claims that God sends a hurricane or visits a disease upon us to punish us for our sins and bring us closer to Him. The idiots who flood the ACLU with mail at Christmas time out of pure ignorance.

People need to face facts, stop assuming things and start thinking for themselves, and if they don't know the facts, find them out. Look at the sides of the building, or behind it, and see what's there and what isn't.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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When Moloch Wins

Government is too big and important to be left to the politicians.

Chester Bowles
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Hello Lily
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It's all a matter of worship. We are the modern day children of Israel. So the so called Christians, Jews, Muslims and others had better pay attention to what Moses is telling us.

"Whoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed to Moloch; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones." (Leviticus 20:2)

Moloch was an ancient god who, in some cultures, required the sacrifice of children. How many of our seeds: our ideas, thoughts, faiths, beliefs, practices, prejudices, actions, present, future, freedoms, rights, our children, are we sacrificing to the modern day Moloch? And who is this modern day Moloch? Allen Ginsberg tells us.

"Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!"

How many of our seeds, our reason, compassion, understanding, humanity and love, our future and our children's future must we heave onto the smoking alter of this modern Moloch and it's priests, the politicians, wearing the putrid robes of false progress? How long will we worship this false god whom we call God, or Right, or Truth, before we go reaching for the stones, the words, the revolt?

They are not long in coming, the days of destruction. No Rapture, no Judgement Day from Heaven, no earth wide earth quake, no aliens from outer space. Just the ultimate piracy of the rich and powerful, the point of no return, the critical mass, the moment when Moloch wins and swallows up all the intangible beauties and true values that we used to have.

DB - Vagabond Journeys

Never Give Up

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Sing Along

If you are reluctant to change think of the beauty of autumn.

Unknown
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Hello Beth
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Yes, it's Autumn. Not the Fall. The Gathering. I know my name for it will never catch on, but that won't make me change my song. It's a gathering of crops, of experiences, of ideas. It's gathering up the experiences of Summer: the memories, the photographs, the new friendships. It's harvest time: the pumpkins, the squash, the corn, wood for the stove, hay for the barn. It's the gathering of ideas, of going back to school, of plans for the Winter, of investments of time and money. It's the gathering of friends and family for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah and other celebrations. It's the gathering up of the leaves in your back yard and sidewalk. As Gino, the down to earth owner of the diner in Northampton, used to joke "Yup. Mother Nature is taking off her clothes."

While the politicians on the Republican side chew each other up and spit each other out Autumn gently and surely progresses into Winter. The only thing that falls in the Fall are leaves and respect for our candidates.

Autumn, like Spring, is also a time of change, significant, graphic change. The kind of change that makes fundamental effects in the lives of real people, not the blue suit buffoonery of Washington and Wall Street. The kind of change that takes a lump of honest thought and vigorous action. The lazy days of summer and the lazy mentality of the super comfortable are over. Cold air is breathing through the cobwebs and an energetic force is announcing itself in the bright night sky. It's the force of , strong, necessary and inevitable. Singing through the bare branches of the trees is a song of freedom, a new freedom, from poverty, disease, oppression and ignorance. Freedom from the tyranny of the unchanged and unchanging. A song that is gathering voices.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
What? Give up? Never.
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

Only 5 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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