Becoming A Writer Again

A potential employer remarked the other day that they couldn't consider me for a particular job because I hadn't blogged here since September of 2006. One needed to blog at least three time a week she wrote me. I wrote her to go to my other blog...Gabrielle Cusumano.Townhall.com, where I post two or three time a day, let alone three times a week! But that was not acceptable since hardly any of the writing is my own, except for the headlines. So I didn't get the job. (Looking for a copywriting job in reporting, advertising or blogging)

You see there is plenty of news out there which never reaches the American public...like how our Troops in Iraq feel about the non-binding resolution the US House of Representatives ( with the majority of Democrats and 17 Republicans)took this last Friday, voting against the troop surge. Or how the Main Stream Media, especially CNN has no problem being outrageous showing an insurgent group's video of a sniper killing an American soldier while conversing with Iraqi citizens, but doesn't report that the infamous Juba, a sniper known for killing American soldiers, was caught by his stalked American prey. (Go to http://www.gabriellecusumano.townhall.com or Gabrielle Cusumano (Michigan) in Your Blogs to see the range of topics I've covered in 170+ posts)

So what I have been doing is posting article after article and videos of all the unseemly stuff that never gets printed let alone read. Since September of 2006, I have had some success, though it be small in 6,000 plus page views and visits, many from overseas predominately Europe, but often from Iran (which even raised my eyebrows a bit.)

But I haven't been writing, I haven't been giving my vewpoint nor my opinion. A close, wise, friend once remarked that I ought to be the "mouth" in regards to these worldly issues, not the "voice". At the time I couldn't quite understand what he meant, yet over the last few months I have come to understand. Yet researching, connecting and writing found ideas, giving them copy and to an audience who are still individuals in their own minds, who want to understand and try to know the truth, that is what I ought to be doing with my life and with my God given talents.

So I'm going to make sense of it all and all that I am reading, and I will try to start pondering and writing again here, on this thought full blog of mine.

Does Al Gore Dare To Enter the 2008 Presidential Race (Remembering those Good Old Days of Hanging Chads in 2000)

Confessions Of A Political Junkie

I wonder if Al Gore thinks he's the only one in this country to feel like he just crashed and burned now that Election 2000 has been declared over and done with. He mustn't because he has lots of company on both sides of the political fence feeling the same pain, the same angst, the same thirst and hunger for just one more shot of election conflict.

By Thursday, December 14, the withdrawal symptoms were evident in homes, work places even the shopping malls, only blizzard like conditions and below freezing temperatures kept minds and bodies otherwise occupied, when what people really wanted was another fix of the outrageous opinions, mudslinging spin, one-sided media reporting and interpretations, frenzied exaggerations, and more counter lawsuits.

Even though Americans were growing weary, (let any unexpected occurrence go on for thirty days or more and people say they've had enough) the unfolding process of deciding the presidential election had now taken on a life of its own and that life infiltrated our lives via our cable televisions, our radios, our internet use, our newspapers, even our personal communications.

My week day mornings would begin promptly at 7AM by flipping on all the major news networks "morning shows" Good Morning America, The Early Show, The Today Show. Up front, the first item of their opening greetings was about the election counting process in Florida or where the lawsuits and counter lawsuits stood. If you tuned into cable you would automatically tune in CNN and get an update every five
minutes.

On mornings when there was nothing major to report from the night before, the hosts of these shows would be hard pressed to give the public something of real news so they would bring on their talking heads who spouted their carefully camouflaged slanted opinions. I must confess, even though I was getting sick of listening to them and their pseudo truth-in-reporting babble, I craved word of my side (the guy I voted for) winning even an inch.

After the morning shows were over I needed more news, I needed up to the minute information, I'd log onto the internet. If I wanted straight news I'd go to AP or UPI or Reuters, but after a few early days of this I became dissatisfied with the "straight" news stories. I wanted something with a little more meat on it, a little more insight into the reasons why, I wanted the motivations, the inclinations or sway. Towards the end I think I was looking for a little sign of blood letting, my appetite having become so ravenous.

If one wants to know what there is to know and let it set right with you so you can get on with the rest of your day, your next fix must be to read the newspapers and opinion-editorials, preferably written in by
editors and writers of the same political persuasion as yours, e.g.. liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc. I now have thirty-six newspapers on my internet favorites list that I tapped into each morning, New York
Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and more.

Are you thinking I'm a liberal, guess again. I'm a journalist and need well rounded news sources and if you wonder how I can say that and you recognize the first group as liberal papers, then you get my point.

Many conservative news and editorial services and newspapers come by the way of the internet such as the Washingtontimes.com, the Detroit News in detnews.com, Newsmax.com and Worldnetdaily.com, to mention a few.

Now the day comes to drive time or if you are lucky to work a job where your hands are occupied but you needn't worry about distractions, your next super intake of the election phenomenon comes from "talk radio." Yes these talk guys can really get you thinking and feeling and sometimes calling. They can rile you up no matter what side you're on. Sometimes they will give you information you hadn't hear or read which can make you feel better or madder. Again it doesn't matter what your politics is, talk radio can make you feel like a real patriot for your side, all twisted and churning with anger or uplifted and cheery with delight, it just depends on what is said and who said it. It's the real pulse of America you're getting, not some lopsided, filtered poll. You're hearing other Americans calling and voicing their ideas and thoughts, their doubts and fears, their hopes and dreams.

Of course what's dinner time without Dan, Tom and Peter. Again the networks' nightly news leaves something to desire when cable television gives you more than five minutes and more depth to a story like the election mess down in Florida. The networks can only give you a "blurb" and then a quick summary.

PBS gives the viewer more time and brings on the academicians and lawyers and then the talking heads. Thus they appear to be a step up from the networks but only a step, since objectivity in reporting seems to be missing from most news shows altogether.

At about 8 PM the fun really begins and it can go on into the wee hours of the morning if you have cable television and don't need your beauty sleep. Had you noticed many of your family or co-workers looking a rather haggard from November 9 through December 12? Who needs sleep when you can feed off the media frenzy and the plate of tasty tidbits they offer you via Larry King and Geraldo Rivera, Chris Matthews, Brian Williams and Paula Zahn, CNBC, CNN and Fox News.

These cable talking heads will host interviews with politically pointed and slanted questions, demonstrate on how and how not be able to make a "dimpled chad", they will have guest on who will tell the world and viewing public what a stupid idiot or scoundrel your candidate is, and then they will pontificate on the many ways the election will be decided, (did you notice that towards the end, no one wanted to be as wrong as they all were on election night, so all bets on the finish were off. ) And so it went, the same shows repeating themselves throughout the night.

As I tossed and turned and the clock striking two, three, four, my one fist would pound the pillow to make it more comfortable and sleep inducing, while I fingered the remote control with the other hand flipping between CNN and CNBC wanting more, needing more, needing so much more!

Pleasant election conversations with people, relatives, co-workers, what were those? If the person or persons you were speaking with agreed with your political persuasion, then you would commensurate for hours over the latest election details with your new best friends, exasperatedly wishing the opposition would just give up. If they didn't agree with your politics, ( as the members of my own family didn't with mine) it could go one of two very different ways. You either parted quickly and amicably without saying a word about the election or you argued for hours and ended up screaming obscenities at each other!

And so it went for thirty-five days and it has been so very hard to let go. I find myself craving the anguish my body had adjusted itself to. I'm waking up and finding myself upright and at attention to the first utterance that comes out of Katie Couric's mouth. I go online and look for dirt on either of the candidates , a vile move by one or the other's campaign managers, or a derogatory word or two from an editor about the whole stinking mess of the election process in Florida. Alas, none are to be had. Cable news has no attraction for me now, neither does talk radio, though I still tune in out of habit, I find that it is too distracting unless I'm driving otherwise just listening takes up too much of my time. Dan, Tom and Peter, to tell the truth I don't really care if I never see them again and the same goes for the guysand gals on PBS. The cable talking heads on CNN, CNBC and Fox, I wonder if each will ever be able to get a life again. After 35 days would they even know how. For all it is over, truly over and now I must wean myself from my political election junkie habit.

So Al, you are not alone feeling the pain, the angst, the same thirst and hunger. As Shakespeare wrote at the end of one of his plays, "All are punished, all are punished."

excerpted Referenced Article for September 13, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20060913/cm_uc_crpbux/pat_buchanan20060913

CLINTON VS. GORE?

On Saturday on MSNBC, this writer volunteered that if Al Gore would enter the Democratic primaries, he could defeat Hillary Clinton and win the nomination. Hours later, there popped up on Drudge this headline: "Al Gore Says He Hasn't Ruled Out Second Run."

"I haven't ruled out running for president again in the future, but I don't expect to," Gore told reporters in Australia, where he has been promoting his film on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Al must have been watching MSNBC.

And why should Al Gore cede the nomination and a place in history he coveted to the spouse of the man but for whose personal transgressions he would be president of the United States?

If Al ran, he would open with a pair of aces. To Democrats, Gore was right on the war when almost everyone else was wrong, which gives him the inside track to the antiwar vote that will be as crucial in the Democratic primaries of 2008 as it was in 1968 and 1972... (excerpted for more go to link above article)

"Path to 9/11" Program Based On The "Truths" in These Books

The "Path to 9/11" Program Based On The "Truths" in These Books. Here's the short list:

The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (Hardcover)by John Miller, Michael Stone, Chris Mitchell (Editor)


Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security (Hardcover)by Robert Patterson

The Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (Hardcover) by Stephen F. Hayes "


If you are into being knowledgeable about what's happen and became of the United States since September 11, 2001, you may have read these three books,or at least heard of them.

Originally when "The Path to 9/11" (Part One) was aired on Sunday night "The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It" was listed as one of the books (besides the (9/11 Commission's Report) as where information to base and write the screenplay had come from.


As I watched the docu-drama unfold I saw how closely it followed chapter by chapter of The Cell which is an excellent book, well researched and a serious work of investigation by its writers on the events leading to September 11.


Personally I believe everything written between its hardcover's 348 pages is true and can not be disputed. It will come closer to the real truth of facts of why September 11th happened, than any FBI Top Secret documents which ever existed pre 9/11 or after the death and carnage occurred.


Here is a snippet of a Copyright 2002 review by Cahners Business Information, Inc. which explains the whole and intention of the book:


"The plot is tangled, but through it Miller, Stone and Mitchell follow two threads from 1990 up to September 11, 2001: first, "the cell," actually a series of terrorist cells, beginning with the one responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing a cell that, in one of their most illuminating revelations, the authors trace directly back to El Sayyid Nosair, convicted of murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990. The second thread is the Joint Terrorist Task Force, an FBI/NYPD squad whose sharp and dedicated members are the heroes of this tale, doggedly investigating the cells and their connections when not blocked by higher-ups. Miller, now coanchor of ABC TV's 20/20, scored an interview in 1998 with bin Laden, whose chilling words he repeats here ("You will leave [Saudi Arabia] when the youth send you in wooden boxes and coffins"). Miller, Stone (a noted criminal investigative journalist) and Mitchell (a senior editor at The Week) connect a lot of dots in this frightening and important book." Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. "


The second book is titled "Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Endangered America's Long-Term National Security" (Hardcover) by Robert Patterson.

Here in this book are the facts of the two times Osama bin Laden was in the crosshairs of being captured (before September 11th) told by "Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson who was a military aide to President Clinton from May 1996 to May 1998 and one of five individuals entrusted with carrying the "nuclear football"—the bag containing the codes for launching nuclear weapons."


Even if one chooses to ignore all else in the book where Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson writes on what he saw during his time of serving President Clinton in the White House, the chapters on the how and why bin Laden was never captured when the US had the clear and decisive ability to do so can not be ignored. The Path to September 11 could only allude to what are the facts written in this book by a man who saw with his own eyes why the US let bin Laden slip away twice.


The third book "The Connection : How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (Hardcover) by Stephen F. Hayes, is a well research and documented book on why the War on Terror after 9/11 took the United States into The War in Iraq.

Many facts in this book are based on top-secret Iraqi Intelligence documents found when the American soldiers arrived in Baghdad, and interviews with high-ranking Bush and Clinton Administration officials. “The Connection” with evidence, shows that Sadam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Iraqi Intelligence and Mohamed Atta and even Jordanian born Iraqi terrorist Zaqawari had all interconnected and were not waging unrelated and separate wars against the US.


I will update this list later in the week with more books and articles which will help Americans realize that The Path to 9/11 wasn't some made up fantasy of a politically conservative screenplay writer. The events and facts which the story was based on are true and are alarming.

Link: http://abc.go.com/movies/thepathto911/index.html

Don't Doubt Your Values In A World Gone Politically Wacko !

Don't Doubt Your Values In A World Gone Political Wacko !

Woke up this morning to some disturbing news. One of our world's "good guys", Steve Irwin of Crocodile Hunter fame died suddenly after being stabbed in the heart by a stingray's poisonous barb. Irwin at 44, died leaving two small children fatherless and a hole in the hearts of many viewers who "valued" his spirited expertise, entertaining friendliness and kindness to all animals.


There was the news item that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is negotiating the release of the two "kidnapped" Israeli soldiers for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Two for one thousand! Within the American values, does this make sense?


There was also the news that the War in Iraq is not considered to be part of The War on Terror. On September 5, 2006, (only 6 days from the fifth anniversary of September 11th destruction of the World Trade Center Towers)it is being reported that the Congressional elections to be held in November will be decided by whether Americans believe Iraq is the main battleground of the War on Terrorism.


The fact that this is is being fiercely debated across our nation, even though both Osama bin Laden and his number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri have in audio tapes have called, (in his (bin Laden's words) “the war in Iraq and Afghanistan the fronts" in the War on Terror," is almost ludicrous.

This debate and argumentive reports in our Main Stream Media have to be affronts to our American values and intelligence since both men have alluded to "the US and coalition allies have determined the primary fronts in the war, and al-Qaeda is forced to operate primarily in those environments."


Bin Laden notes in his January, 2006 released taped that it wasn’t his intention to speak about this issue. “I had not intended to speak to you about this issue, because, for us, this issue is already decided: diamonds cut diamonds."

"Praise be to God, our conditions are always improving, becoming better, while yours are the opposite.” then says that the “repeated fallacies of your President Bush” are behind his current words and bin Laden’s view of American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bin Laden believes that the American public is no longer supportive of the war in Iraq and since the war in Iraq is “raging” and Afghanistan rising in the favor of his (bin Laden’s) allies, he offers a truce. These thoughts and ideas are from the man who after taking credit for September 11th, I would hope all Americans agree is a terrorist and a enemy in the War with Terrorism.

Americans are being bombarded everyday by political situations and conequences of world wide international events, which are so skewered as confound and confront not only our national values but our personal values.


Most often now days what goes on in Asia, Europe and the Middle East over nuclear weapons, oil, sanctions, boundaries, non-nation nations (such as Palestinian Palestine) makes no sense at all, but appear to be blackmailers blackmailing the blackmailed in business as usual. All hands are dirty or suspected as such, since all politics, international affairs and negotiations, war and peace, freedom or fascism are such dirty businesses in the first place.


Often it seems that the world has gone berserk in trying to reconcile what is and what is not right or wrong. Our values have been compromised for so long by "political correctness" that often one looks around at who's listening or who's nearby, before one will express what we think and feel is right. We have all felt pc policed at one time or another by either society or our own selves in taking a stand, a position or giving an opinion. Most of us feel guilty before we even speak and so we stand mute and agree with the status quo, shaking our heads in disbelief that things have gotten so nonsensical or absurb.


The solution: Don't doubt your values in a world gone politically wacko! Remind yourself often of the children's story, "The Emperor's New Clothes" and remember the child's exclaimation and the truth of it, "The emperor is naked and is not wearing any clothes!", let alone new and fine ones.


Stick with what you can believe with your own eyes and ears. Research what you are told or read before you accept it, and weigh your findings with your internal knowledge and sense of right and wrong.


Ask yourself which way the wind is blowing in your own mind, sense or nonsense? What is your gut feeling, truth or lie? And lastly the most important question to ask yourself and your hold on your values, can you stand up for your beliefs and stay firm in them always, no matter what?


Ask your heart to remind you of who you really are and your values will be like the stones of a mighty fortress which can not be swayed or destroyed ever.


[quotes of bin Laden's tape are from Marvin Hutchen's ThreatsWatch.org. analysis of bin Laden's January, 2006 released tape message.]

Informed Knowledge, Common Sense and Independence of Thought

Have We Lost Informed Knowledge, Common Sense and Independence of Thought In This Country?

It was (still is, I think) that two plus two equals four. The first time I saw that equation in first grade, the teacher spoke the words representing the numbers out loud, as she read the number sentence. It was there for me to see and read, in black and white. I could see the statement was true using my deductive reasoning. It made sense. I accepted it as fact.

I would assume that most people in this country learned arithmetic and how to make sense of what they read in the same way. Informed knowledge tested against one’s common sense, independence of personal thought and acceptance of fact. So why is it when Americans read the September 11 Commission’s Report they still can’t read what is written in black and white, use their own common sense, know and accept what it says. I am referring to the statements on pages 61, 66 and 134, whereas the September 11 Commission specifically reads of the “connections” which existed between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the Al Qaeda network.

There are no ifs, buts or maybes about it, the September 11 Commission makes this clear. Yet Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the Commission had to repeat the assertion by saying “There were contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq going back clear to the early 1990s, when Osama bin Laden was in Sudan, then when he was in Afghanistan. I don’t think there’s any dispute about that.” to make the point once again. Still a senior senator from Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln was recently quick to claim there really wasn’t much of a connection between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda in challenging a statement by Vice President Dick Cheney that such a connection did exist. As a senior senator of her state, she should have read the bipartisan report and used some common sense to connect the dots that are created in the report. And she should read the quotes in the report of Richard C. Clarke, the former counter terrorism chief of the Clinton and the Bush administrations attesting to the connection.

Yes, it is the same Richard C. Clarke, who was claiming there was “no connection” between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s regime. Now Clarke is sited in the report as having testified that if the US had apprised the Pakistanis of a U-2 flight to track down Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the Pakistanis had warned bin Laden, bin Laden might “boogie to Baghdad” and once there it would be “virtually impossible” to track him down. Clarke also warned that bin Laden, once in Baghdad, would put his terrorist network at Saddam Hussein’s service. In his testimony Mr. Clarke was able to make two plus two equal four, the Commission was able to do the same, so why can’t many Americans and the American media use some common sense and accept the facts.

For years now it appears that many of us in this country will believe only what we want to believe. We are fed carefully selected news by our favorite choice of media. We read or hear from them that “the emperor (metaphor for any hot topic in the news) has new clothes” and we believe it, even if our own eyes and common sense tells us otherwise.

It is astounding that we Americans have become so willing to give up our own sense of what we personally can distinguish as good or bad information. Our innate sense of our own truth should be telling us in our own hearts and minds what are the real and true facts. But we have allowed ourselves to succumb to the fuzzy and the multiple shades of gray presented to us by the media, and we have let it cast a cloud over our common sense.

We have even relinquished our individual independence of thought on which we base our thinking, our beliefs, and ultimately our decisions. We now unquestionably tow a party’s prejudices, a party’s biases, and a party’s line. We are blind to the reinforcement by what we read or hear in the media or newspaper of our choice. And we accept limited knowledge as the whole truth.

We are in grave danger of losing our greatest ability in the country, exercising free thought. Given the freedom of the press and free speech, we have the opportunity and ability to be well and roundly informed, so we can make good, sound judgments.

Ask yourself seriously do you really want someone else telling you what to think? When we limited ourselves to one-sided knowledge, we have handed our minds, our decision-making, and ourselves over to the dictators of that knowledge or news.

Lastly, we are in the gravest danger of becoming a deeply divided, weak and almost brain-dead nation of sheep, each herd led by their wisdom meistered pied pipers who play only the songs we want to hear as we are lulled off into the deep dark woods of a national future in a very dangerous world.

Reflections on Mankind

Further reflection on January 1, 2005 entry

N,

I had posted this commentary on my blog but don't think I sent it to you. It is too lengthy for me to write out again, so I sending it here. It is rare of me to write thoughts such as these which have an underlining concept (sins of the father perpetuating continued hate and war throughout the world) and not just the wondering outloud about whether man has or can access his "higher state of being" and solve world problems.

I've long felt that money (lots of it) usually makes friends of enemies, I just hadn't recognized the seriousness of us whoring our values and integrity to obtain it. I'm not talking about making peace with the enemy, but letting thousands of guys (in the case of Vietnam) and elsewhere, men, women and children, losing life and limb for "wars and causes" that the powers that be never really believed in in the first place, but gave themselves a "trial" at success, throwing bodies and equipment towards the masses who "were" in life the opposite ideology.

There it is again that base element in man.

Can You Trust What You See or Read In Today's Mass Media?

I am writing this article off the top of my head, so it won't have all the quotes and footnotes to support my thoughts about how "You can't trust what you read in today's mass media", but I can assure you this article will make you think!

Just this week there was a poll published that claimed by the results that most Democrats in the U.S. read and go by as truth and fact what they learn via the MSM, aka (otherwise known as) the "Main Stream Media" which is the major news networks such as ABC, NBC,CBS and papers such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post to name the major outlet where people get their news and information. I might add here too that all of these outlets are considered to be "liberal" by most of their public audiences.

Republicans seem to get their news from Fox News and conservative newspapers and magazines, none which are so big as to dominate the conservative or moderate media market that they can be readily named.

Now having stated the two sides, which sometimes appears as enemies in the war for influencing the opinions of the U.S. public, (whether it be on The War in Iraq, Terrorism and the Security of our Borders, Illegal Immigration, Abortion, Taxes and even the cause of the rising cost of gasoline) do you believe in what you know at this moment on any of these subjects because you have researched both sides of the issue and then came to you conclusions, belief and opinion on the matter? Or did you just watch your favorite evening news broadcast and broadcaster, and peruse through your preferred newspaper over breakfast or dinner and let the media tell you their version of today's current events.

Did you know that just recently Reuters Wire Service fired a freelance photographer for "doctoring up" a picture he took of the war in south Lebanon? He has been working for them for the last three years and this breach of ethics was just discovered. Do you realize that crucial statements, facts or quotes can be left out of a report or "taken out of context" of a press conference, a public event, an interview and be slanted to appear unrecognizable from what really occurred or was said?

Has it ever crossed your mind as you are reading, watching or hearing any news that you might be getting only one side of the story? Look at the "front page" of your newspaper tomorrow morning and look to see if the "hard news' or the "straight news" as in "just the facts" articles answer only the five Ws of journalism 101 News Reporting, who, what, where, when, and why! Chances are the lead article has the newspaper's editorial opinion written not only in the lead paragraph but throughout the entire article, as will all the other articles on that front page.

The solution? Don't open wide when you're reading or watching the news while you eat your breakfast or drink your morning coffee. Don't eat up all that the Main Stream Media or Mass Media dishes as food for your mind, information for your American heart and soul. Be a little discriminate in accepting what you’re read and hear and see. Do a little research on your own, have a discussion with the other side, check the facts, and then independently make up your own mind.

You can't go down the wrong path like one of the sheep being led to the(political, financial, social) slaughter if you do your own homework gathering your news and making informed decisions based on "just the facts madam" which are more likely to be the truth and reality.

Viewing Photographs of Hell On Earth

June 6, 2006

N,

Had some time to kill and had to return some books to the B Township Public Library, so browsed a bit and ended up in the photography section. While a book on photographing architecture and another Paris In the Fifties both interested me, a newer book entitled Shooting Under Fire The World of the War Photographer by Peter Howe captured my attention with its color pictures and the stories behind the pictures and captions. I sat down and turned the pages slowly as my mind grasped the utter horror this man has seen since his days photographing our guys in Vietnam. I kept remembering my comment once to you how invigorating it would feel to be a war correspondent in the middle of everything, being like Hemingway and putting into compelling words the sights and sounds of all that was happening around oneself as the seer and the journalist. I also remembered well something you wrote me early last summer, as I viewed the pictures of dead civilians and children blown to bits while playing in the snow in Bosnia in the 90s , (paraphrasing your words) "In short, I am a pacifist, and would rather have a bomb drop on my head than have to drop one on someone else's. Fear is death."

In more than one photograph Howe has captured the look in a person's eye as he is about to be executed, or is dying from his wounds. It started to turn my insides in that all he has photographed has happened with the explicit knowledge of the world over, the wars and massacres in Africa, Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, the Lebanese in the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the last thirty years. Nicaragua looks pretty awful with dead people in the streets and and missionary nuns lying on a dirt road with their clothes askew. It is all as if the holocaust never saw the light of day and the world's conflicts and wars are reenactment scenes from the worst and bloodiest history of mankind.

Everyday when I say the one prayer I repeat everyday since September 11th, I ask that some how we (all human beings) are blessed with an awakening to show good will towards every man, woman and child that we come across that day. Sometimes I look for proof that the universe might have heard me and perhaps there will not have been a car bombing, or an attack or a suicide bombing anywhere in the world for even 12 hours, but it never happens. I'm sick at heart here wondering if people would be better off dead, rather than be bound by fear of those who threaten them, who overpower them with bombs and bullets, slicing and dicing the life from them and their loved ones. Yet those who surrender and don't defend themselves are dead in the end anyway. Do people not wonder why the Jews did not fight and overpower the soldiers in the Death Camps whom they outnumbered.

I think we free thinkers think life as precious and we can't imagine death as being a choice. How can we watch what happens and not do anything about it. Do we leave like the UN did when a car bomb exploded at the UN mission in Baghdad and watch the slaughter from afar like we did during the Yugoslavia ethnic cleansing that went on for three years!

What I wonder too is whether in our life time we will see everlasting peace among all men a world without politics and greed and despair and desperation. Howe writes in his book how he was photographing the Afghans and the Taliban fighting "both twenty-first and seventeenth-century warfare," wearing the same type of clothing that their ancestors wore, some even still carrying swords, but also using shoulder propelled grenades, walkie talkies and portable satellite phones! Twenty-one centuries and we are no better civilized than the Romans were fighting the Gauls.

In reference to King Arthur (Clive Owens) film of 2004

N,

...I did though watch the video of King Arthur (2004) with Clive Owens as Arthur. There was a sentiment with a few lines of dialogue by Arthur in regards to "freedom" repeated several times throughout the film. It was more than a sentiment in these men's lives, it was a passionate desire and belief that they wanted for themselves (as if it were the Holy Grail of their lives.)

As I watched I remembered being moved in regards to this same feeling and passionate desire for "freedom" while watching Braveheart (Mel Gibson's film) and probably in some other films that impressed me while I was growing up. That feeling that gets stirred up when one, like myself, (and perhaps you also) see persons or people believing and acting ferverently in some "ideal". That human nature lifts itself to a higher level of truth (that was probably always there throughout all the ages but buried because of all the baseness that appealed to man's physical nature (ie. the seven deadly sins, sloth, gluttony, pride,lust, etc. and whatever the others are) and acts upon it with his whole being.

I consider "true love" to be up there with "true freedom", "true" being the ideal, not just that which is aspired to, which people say is unobtainable or can never be achieved, but that which must exist because we can sense it, we know it in our very beings, within our true selves, our true hearts, that these ideals are and they become innate feelings which exist.

...strangely though, in growing up I was always inspired by the ideal attributes of individual men. Ben Hur, Shane, El Cid, Lawrence of Arabia, Gordon of Khartom, Denys Finch-Haddon (Robert Redford character in Out of Africa), Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, William Wallace of Mel Gibson's Braveheart. I saw these men in videos and I wanted to be like them, have their strengths, have the power of personality or presence to lead others towards doing some good and making a good difference, showing people they've the ideal deep within them...

February 12, 2005