Saturday, April 16, 2005
SECOND INNING It is a rare thing for me to feel a strong urge to write about the same subject for a second day but just such an urge hit me after doing yestrday's piece concerning Aung San Suu Kyi the Burmese activist. It was, and is a complusive urge, not so much to reveal facts about her life and work ,but to help provide Americans – the young people, especially, with symbols of certainty and position of potential points of achievment which will create new leaders. Perhaps yuu, too, were among those of us who saw President George W. Bush on TV throwing the first ball of the opening season for the new D.C. team named the "Nationals". We haven't had a picture of a president doing that since Nixon in the time when the "Senators" were still around. The pictures of President Bush tossing out the first ball mark the start of the basball season for millions of Americans - culminating in the World Series games in October. Those pictures are symbols of good sportsmanship, fair play and healthful enjoyment of a sports activity. It is important that we, the older age group, make sure there is no generational gap in existence which might delay or prevent those who follow us from undertanding the difficulties faced by Aung San Suu Kyi and other such patriots around the world. We see such symobolism in the images which appear onour coinage, on our postage stamps, and even reflected in many of the popular songs we sing. They take on many forms: a bison, a spinning wheel, a fishing net, flags, banners, signs, even advertising slogans and sell lines, rocky peaks of rugged mountains, swampy bayous... a endless stream of a the real America we know and love. Most of all, perhaps, we have the example of dedicated man and women who have lived their lives to safeguard our general principles of free government for all time. Aung San Suu Kyi is one such person... one such symbol. A.L.M. April 16, 2005 [c347wds]
Friday, April 15, 2005
FRONT BURNER,PLEASE! It is past time to bring Burma back. This once rich and prosperous nation has been allowed to languish under inept military miss-rule for half a century and deserves a place among the free, self-determined nations of the modern world! Those nations who seem to find any efforts the United States undertakes any plan to help other less fortunate nations as being a cheap,underhanded,greedy scheme to gain power and control over smaller nations, could best use the money, time and effort they expend in being critical of the U.S.in undertaking to rescue the democratic movement in Burma. The NLD, the National League for Democracy, in Burma gained a worthy foothold in Burma in the 1980's and by l988 forced the ruling military dictatorship to call for a general election. That election was held in 1990. When the results were tabulated it was plain go see the people of Burma wanted change. They voted 82% in favor of the NLD. The military rulers, of course,ignored the results. They had permitted the election because they felt, as did many other people, that Burma was such a framented hotbed of tribes,families, peoples and most with factions among them that they could never be unified other than by force. Look at any map of the country and you will find it easy to agree with their view. Wholesale arrests took place througbout the counry and Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested for speaking against the nation. She was sentenced to six years in prison, and while she was under arrest she was the winner of three, world-wide peace honors – among them the esteemed Nobel Peace Prize for 1991. Her two sons, Alexander and Kim, accepted the Nobel prize in Norway on her behalf. The $l.3 associated with the prize was set aside for use in Burmese Health and Education projects. She was held prison July 10, 1995, but she remains, even now, under restrictions. She has been allowed her first foreign visitors. She has been allowed to do interviews and such videotapes included a keynote address to the U.N. International Woman's Conference in Beijing in August 1995. She received some telephone concessions,too, allowing her to talk to her husband and family in England where Michael was Professor of Himalayian Studies at Oxford University. Keep her name handy – Aung San Suu Kyi. She is certainly one of the truly great heroines of our time. Her name will come up when someone puts the Burma Problem back on the front burner. Who,I wonder, will champion this amazing woman? A.L.M. April 15, 2005 [c458wds]
Thursday, April 14, 2005
ON BORROWED TIME He did not have to say it the way he did - not in those exact words. It may have been better had he said the words on almost any day other than “Veteran's Day”of 2004 . He was “making a talk”, mind you, and not a formal speech. It was his intent to urge his listeners that morning to face up to then fact that “Veteran's Day” needed to be viewed with a sense of up-to-date clarity. He pointed out that, since we were, at that moment, a nation “at war” Veteran's affairs and concerns were “now” news - events in progress were determining today's needs. At the very end of the talk, as do so many speakers today, he quoted something he had heard just that morning on TV : “World War II Veteran's”, he said slowly, “ are dying off at a rate of a thousand per day!” No one picked up on it. I did feel a bit irked that he had singled out Second World War veteran's, but I was quickly reminded how reasonable it was for him to cite that statistical reduction at this time and on Veteran's Day, as well. As my age seems to be adding up higher each year, I have in recent years been urged by health and economic reasons, to seek assistance from the V.A. In many ways, I have been impressed and pleased with results. I was called to my nearest VA installation for evaluation and assignment. All went well. One particular gathering for twenty-five veterans was concerning with filling out interview forms which were then discussed with a staff member. The “group” interview routine was deemed essential because, I found out, the V.A. had been required by conditions tied to wild congressional funding, to agree to “process” fifteen hundred “new” veterans within what remained of that particular month. They accomplished this seemingly impossible task by scheduling group interviews three times per week. I have one special memory of begin in such a group. I was “a “minority”. By my count, I was one of perhaps six in all of that group who were ”WWII” vets. It is, indeed, evident that we are ,as a group, dying off at at a rate of, at least, a thousand per day. The majority are veterans of more recent wars. Our our public celebrations are ,however, too often centered on wars of a generation or two ago just as,when I was a kid, we revered memories of “The” World War and we held on to that and the “Spanish American War” until we were forced to start calling the big 'un “the” war “ because “II “ was with us in a big way. We must revise out way of thinking about our nation's wars. We need new, sustained awareness of the sacrifices being encountered daily men and women and that of their families in our current and continuing wars. We must not, at all costs, allow veteran's affairs and concerns to be used a political footballs or a subject to be set aside as something we had rather not discuss openly. The needs of the Veteran's Administration are not static. They, too, change with the times. Far too many politicians are still deciding if the had best profess themselves to favor the Blue or the Grey; the Patriot or the Tory. A.L.M. April 14, 2005 [c571wds]
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
WHERE WE AREEvery place has meaning. It is a two-way arrangement, as well. Every time you visit a place you bring a part of that place back with you. It is not pilfered. It is a natural exchange in that you left a part of your self wherever it was you happened to have been just as you did the same thing at many points in between the places you were before you, most of you, finally, arrived back here from where it was you were When exchange was in progress. Simple. This could be a clue to the curious way in which a cat finds its way back home from wherever it was before it was decided you had lost it. The miss-placed cat was not lost; all it had to be concerned about was to decide if it seemed worthwhile to go on such a long and complicated journey back to some person so inept as to actually miss-place a live cat. We humans , as a general rule, seem to be pretty content with the way we think we are. We don’t often think of ourselves as physical chunks of flesh and bone which is in a constant process of either drying up and blowing away or by means of a less offensive process of refashioning, rearranging, revising, repairing or re-defining portions of our body to suit our way of living among fellow creatures. I read just recently about the quantity of such physical flotsam we drop by the wayside. I don’t remember the figures – which vary a great deal from person to person - but they are not so important and you wouldn’t believe them anyway. It is quite true that we do, indeed, spread a film of dead cells in our movements – wherever we go. It is not that we intend to be improper or impolite to our fellows inasmuch as they are doing the same thing. We are usually not even aware that we are we doing such a thing. Of much greater importance is the fact that we directly influence people by our conduct,our speech, habits and attitudes. Go as a grouch and you will be accepted as being one. Be of good cheer and let other people think they, too, are of such friendly and outgoing persons.. Respect age, too ...both old and young alike. The youth is learning and the old man wonders what it would be like to be that which he has become. The exchanges are visible when you see an old man and a boy talking; or an older lady and a small girl They exchange parts and pieces of the lives, willingly, even eagerly. And, each is happier having done so -each and every one. A.L.M. April 13, 2005 [c471wds]
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
THE 'O8 SLATE One feature which is very clear on the American political scene in the United States is that we are paying little or no attention to “timing” studies made during the most recent presidential election. Many people felt there were strong indications that several worthy individuals seeking the office were given a boost long before the general election citizens were in anything even close to election moods. Such cart-before-the-horse presentations usually encourage criticism and ridicule. Such fledgling candidates, too, if they develop any sort of following at all, often become personally weary of the ways in which such campaign need to wander to gain and hold attention. It is also evident that the issue important enough in the early days of the campaign are not the same ones which are paramount to voters in the final weeks. It may well be, too as some insist that pre-time bloomers actually harm the “real” campaign as it gets underway having taken over various local issues as their very own. Each day we see or hear some individual mentioned as being good material to be elected as our next President in November of 2008. That is “a rite fur piece down the ole road”- it might be said to be, but I have been amazed when so many people take such a way of thinking so seriously. Many are influenced by echoes from the past and they look forward to seeing Al Gore, from down Tennessee way, take another shot at it all - chards or no chards. Most of these people seem to believe “he was was cheated out of the office last time” and that we, in consequence, “owe it to him!” Some few I have heard mention another former runner who might stand a better chance of success - Governor Edwards of South Carolina, but much of this depends on what plans Senator Hillary Clinton may have in mind. If so there will be an horrific primary battle which, as some see it, could either make or break the Democratic Party as it now exists. The Rev. Jesse Jackson keeps his name being mentioned each time he shows up to help solve some national or international problem. Others who have to be included in such an at-random listing include Senator Behy, of Indiana, Governor Mark Warner,of Virginia, Secretary-0f-State Condaleezza Rice and Colin Powell. Any of these, even all of them, may well fade from view before balloting for 2008 begins. A.L.M. April 12, 2005 [426wds]
Monday, April 11, 2005
BE A LABEL LOOKER I will agree quite readily that reading labels is not the most interesting thing in the world to do, but it is a reading habit which can save lives. Most of us have sufficient common sense not to leave deadly substances within easy reach of children of all ages. And, most of us can get careless at times and forget to replace something exactly where it should be rather than where someone unauthorized might wonder what it is; why it is where it should not be and be tempted to use it, or miss-use it. There is, quite often, no “second chance” offer to it, either. Among us – and not scattered out as thin as to may think – we also have whole schools of individuals who fancy themselves to be experts capable of being qualified to determine when a substance is “poisonous” and when it is only “toxic.” Eschew anyone who seems to be such an authority. They will argue that substances can be “toxic” enough to make a person sick unto such a low level that they actually say they wish they were dead. Authentic “seasickness” can provide such a feeling of desolation, and that can be the same general aura which permeates the person who “takes” something said to be “toxic”. I have, as the years have gone by, suddenly come to know that certain substances which My parents and siblings assured me were “poisonous” are rally not that bad after all, but the terms was used to keep me from becoming involved with them at any early stage of inquisitive or nosy nature. So I grew up being v very cautious about poinsettias around the house during the Christmas season – one among those things listed in those days a being “poisonous”. I don't remember them every bearing a skull and cross ones emblem like the tiny bottle or iodine on the top shelf of the medicine chest in the bathroom or not. Now, we are being told they are “tonic” and a “final stage” evil as we had always b been told they were. Okay. Maybe I can enjoy a beautiful flower more knowing that it is just a sickener and not a killer... but that doesn't set too well with me just the same. Back in generations from which I came, and those folks who were my “family” never had a chance to see the tomato advanced and improved; max-ed in every way, or modified as we enjoy it today compared to the tiny,little cherry-types they had. They thought it to be nice as a flower along the woodland pathway but not a mainstay for building a B-L-T – as a leading fast food for fall times. A.L.M. April 11, 2005 [c468wds]
Sunday, April 10, 2005
VATICAN VISIT
I have heard only a few words of criticism concerning the manner in which the TV industry -and the media, as a whole - handled the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II this past week. It is refreshing to know that someone has done something right for a change. At no time did I get the feeling that networks were "overdoing it" which has been a common complaint in recent years when dealing with special events materials. This was serious work and the manner in which it might be done can affect the lives of millions of people round the world. It was a story which had been a long time in the making ,too, which was an advantage to all of us. John Paul II held the office for over a quarter of a century and built a following among people of many types as he became special person for so many of us. I remember when John Paul, became Pope and how much it meant to all of us that he came from Poland - a wise choice by the Cardinals of that day.
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