Alternative Views

Al Gore's speech yesterday accomplished several things:

1. Reminded all of us what an intelligent and forward thinking leader Al Gore really is.

2. Reminded the democrats in Congress what the words integrity and backbone mean.

3. By default perhaps, allowed all of to hear exactly what the Administration thinks of it's citizens: In response to Gore's speech, the Administration stated that,..'At this point in time Al Gore is irrelevant.'

I guess that makes the rest of us invisible. Read the speech for yourself, make up your own mind.

This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by the honorable Joseph Biden, is holding what looks to be the only hearings we are likely to get on whether or not the United States should invade Iraq. Apparently that old cliché, you hear what you want to hear, has become a motto to live by for the Senate. They have invited only those people who seem to think that waging war on Iraq is a good idea. Why? For the most part the members of the committee aren't exactly a booster club for the Administration's foreign policy.Congress has already told the Boeing Corporation to push its production of GPS satellite kits (they are what make the smart bombs…smart) for a target delivery date of September 30 and has passed emergency appropriations funds to pay for them. The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing right now to have 20,000 Marines in the Iraq region by mid-October and the Air Force has been told to ready three expeditionary wings for the same time frame.

Americans are by and large a prideful people, some of it well deserved…some not. But if I had to choose one aspect of American character that I am most proud of it would be the ability to see bullshit, smell bullshit and then call it for what it is.

So It Is Written, So It Shall Be Done…well…sort of.

It's usually enlightening to look back at what people have said they are going to do and then verify whether or not they have actually carried out their stated intentions.

Any X-Files fans out there? Remember Mulder's poster, "I Want To Believe"? I've always liked that particular poster because it was so open. Granted the poster also depicted a flying saucer but it did not dictate what the saucer might represent. Broadly interpreted the poster could mean I want to belief in more - more life, more existence, more possibilities.The television show took a decidedly narrower view but it was after all a drama, meant to entertain for the most part but also, as any good show must do, meant to offer a possible viewpoint for consideration.

    "The present model for physical life precludes any easy mixing of the living and the dead, any casual encounters between those in flesh and out of it as a common occurrence. This was not always the case, for at one time the dead and living mixed far more openly.

…Man gradually altered the focus of his consciousness, perceiving as real only those phenomena that fell within a particular range, bringing into actuality levels of physical experience to which he had been blind earlier, and gradually becoming opaque to other stimuli which he had once perceived clearly.