Sea Cape Cod by Michael Mosier

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  So good, as always, to be with you on this beautiful late summer morning here on Cape, as the sun did rise again this morn, a huge orange ball of light slowly rising in the East, with seasonable temperatures expected today, while we wait for Hurricane Earl, now a category 4 storm, to first affect the outer banks of North Carolina, moving up the east coast, through Delaware and Maryland, and by early Friday morning, and then overnight, crossing Long Island, and, if the latest computer models are correct, making a direct hit on Nantucket, along with parts of Cape Cod, by early Saturday morning.  By then, the storm will have been reduced to a category 2 storm, but with winds whipping off that northeastern part of the counter-clockwise movement of a big low pressure system, the hardest hit areas will be the great island of Nantucket, along with Chatham, Provincetown and Truro– may God be with us.  Tonight, marks the official end to the Iraq war, a war that started on March 19th, 2003, a year that I would like to forget, along with the entire decade of the 00’s, as this was the same year that I, too, felt as if I were in that same war, the year that I was assaulted on the island of Nantucket and left for dead by the Nantucket Police Department.  I say that, for it is therapeutic to give voice to something as horrific as the experience I endured, and the Iraq war was a constant for seven long years, as it was for the rest of the nation, for it was a divisive war that divided this country into two very polarized camps.  As we all know, the war itself was a ruse, a lie, a device used by the Cheney/Bush administration to put troops into harms way all in the name of a little used three letter word–OIL. Anyone who offers a different opinion on that fact is either delusional, or has an ulterior motive, for the 4421 soldiers who lost their lives, and the 33,500 plus troops that were injured, not to mention the countless Iraqi civilians who, too, lost their lives, only added to the damage that war did to the country at large.  Creating uncertainty and fear among even the bravest of us, always alert to the “orange threat level” that was blasted on the corporate owned airwaves anytime the administration needed a little “justification” for what it was doing–prosecuting an illegal war, that funneled trillions of dollars into the pockets of defense contractors like Halliburton and KBR, all connected to Dick Cheney, and the rest of the corrupt administration who left this country high and dry, as evidenced by the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, leaving it’s own citizens to die, all while saying to the world, “follow our lead, become like US, we know how to “do” democracy– first, we dismantle all regulation, throw the poor under the bus, take on regime change in a part of the world that is 3500 years older than we are as a nation, and create the beginnings of a plutonomy that will rule over anything the “founding fathers” had in mind by way of the Constitution of the United States of America. We know all of this because this country has become stagnant, with uncertainty reigning supreme once again, as the jobless rate continues to climb, small businesses have no credit to expand, people are hungry and desperate, and no one at the “top”, the p.o.h.n. and their handlers who speak for “the American People”, gives a rat’s as$ about it.  The only game they are playing is one of misinformation, innuendo, and corporate profit margins…leading to the election of “tea party candidates” who are more like puppets than the puppets currently playing on stage via the late, great Jim Henson.  These “tea party candidates” are stooges for big money politics, corporate owned politics, that give rise to a new order, a new Koch, I mean Coke, a new way of “thinking” about what America should be, taking us back to the 19th century, preferably before the Civil War, and allowing the bullies of the world to take money from weaker kids at the junior high school house recess break.  Think about for a moment, tonight we turn the page on what was the worst administration in United States history, and yet, because of the damage that was done BY that administration, via vanishing jobs and opportunities because of Global corporate commerce, no one will notice this speech.  Save me.  I have a vested interest in relishing this day, for it is one that will be remembered.  To take a decade, and turn the page on it, literally, is the most freeing feeling I have ever had, and I wish I could share that with someone.  We as a nation, do not need to live in the dark.  That is what the p.o.h.n., the grand old party of hell no, is all about, keeping people in a cave– a cave of fear and mistrust, and cave of ignorance and hate, a cave of violent knee jerk reaction to ideas, people and policies that they don’t understand, nor do many of them care to, for they gave up long ago on the notion of, “one county, under GOD, indivisible, with LIBERTY and JUSTICE for ALL! GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the dear people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may GOD, the true creative force behind all things, be with you and yours, now, and forever. Have a nice Tuesday everybody!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the  great island of Nantucket!  I put a space there on purpose just to let you know how “far away” that island really is from the shores of Osterville, where I hail from.  That island, that I know all too well, may get hit hard by Hurricane Earl that is ‘churning out’ to be a category 4 storm by the time it glances North Carolina and makes a b line towards Cape Cod and the islands…something I have personally been through on a boat, back in 1997, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard, where Hurricane Edwourd was taking aim directly at that fair island, and, instead of taking refuge in a shelter, as they began closing the town down on a September evening around 5 p.m., I took the other route and rode out the storm on a 78 foot sloop with the captain of “South Florida”.  The extreme nature of a Hurricane is not evident until the sustained winds hit you, as they did me, and as soon as the dingy reached the boat, I fell in the water, with my leather coat and jeans, hiking boots and tag watch, and it only through the grace of God, that I was able, with the help of my friend, to pull myself out of the water, and climb aboard the white yacht.  The winds at that point were 90 m.p.h., sustained, and as we went for the shelter of the cabin, we called the harbor patrol to see if we were all alone out there in the Edgartown Harbor, a good mile away from the Yacht club.  We were.  I admit, I panicked a little, well maybe a lot, for a minute, as the winds, evidenced by the instruments on the vessel, indicated, that we had reached sustained wind levels of 110 m.p.h… As it was a slow moving storm, and as I retired to the Captain’s quarters to ride it out alone, save for the only movie that was available, “The Graduate”, which I watched at least 5 times that night, I attempted to call “home” at that point, which was Newport Beach, California and my girlfriend at the time.  I called on my mobile phone and reached her, but was cut off as soon as I said the words, “I’m on a boat in the middle of a Hurricane…”  then, crickets, rather loud crickets, water logged crickets actually.  The next morning, I recall going up on deck and with the winds still howling at 40 knots or more, sustained, I remember how the rain drops fell like stinging swords upon my face and the strange noise the wind made as the storm slowly, but steadily made it’s way into the Atlantic Maritime, spinning towards Newfoundland and the North Sea, where it would die the death of many hurricanes that went before it, a hurricane graveyard, if you will.  For the cold waters tend to slow the anger represented by the deepest low pressure system known to mankind–the hurricane. I tell you this story because I have a special place in my heart for the people of New Orleans, the poor of New Orleans, who were ravaged by a category 5 storm that destroyed so much and yet, did not destroy as much as the complete failure of our government, at the time, to bring even the most basic of needs to the people who were suffering the most, people, not from a distant land, but people of our own flag, our own country, our own code of conduct, I believe that destroyed more than the physical damage of Katrina ever could have.   If you have not seen Spike Lee’s movie, “If God is willing, and da creek don’t rise,” SEE IT. With men, real men, like Garland Robinette, a great radio guy out of New Orleans, American historian and author, Douglas Brinkley, and Wendel Pierce, actor and star of the HBO series, ‘Treme’, all of whom were on “Meet the Press”, yesterday with Brian Williams substituting for David Gregory, and, who did, Brian Williams, do an excellent job bringing the suffering of Katrina to Light on national television, speaking candidly about what really happened in New Orleans five years ago, along with some dynamite women who speak volumes of what they are doing to revive that city and surrounding area, with men and women like that, speaking and doing so much for the city of New Orleans, it brings one full circle, with a bright light shining on what is really going on in this crazy country, let alone world, that we are  ALL living in now.  For example, the corruption in the New Orleans Police Department, smelling like a macrocosm of the Nantucket Police Department, in the violence and even cocaine ring that was discovered in the mix, resulting in the conviction of 7 police officers who were brought up on charges on everything from drugs to murder–we now know why it all happened, and is still happening to some degree, greed, and the corporate mission statement that has become a viral plague upon this nation and indeed world at large, PROFIT OVER PEOPLE, a modern form of cannibalism.  There was a big push to keep the 98 percent black population, in the 9th ward for example, or Lake Pontchartrain, away after the storm and that has been followed up by a systematic dismantling of the public school system, opting for “charter schools”, that are privately owned and thus, answerable to no one.  The “board of education” is what is at stake here, as well as the bigger picture “U.S. Department of Education,” that slimy politicians, like Sharron “Angle” of Nevada, want to do away with (for this very reason–create schools that bring no real opportunity to the poor and feed them fictional history courtesy of the Texas Board of Education).  As it was once an elected position and thus, not prone to corruption and therefore, created real opportunity for education for ALL of New Orleans residents, not just those with white skin, the new charter schools are overcrowded and understaffed, making real learning impossible and therefore, creating a caste system, the very thing the p.o.h.n. and their handlers were going for to begin with, Just ask “W”, he’ll tell ya!  Now, you have so many young black men, falling through the cracks, as they have no where to go for an education, and thus, turn to crime and drugs that are rampant and getting worse as I write this commentary.  How can we let this city down again?  When you have a group of people, who were told by “authorities” to go to the Superdome and wait there for help, when no help was ever going to arrive, you have a big problem HOUSTON! Remember those images, for they will be repeated, and, in fact, in more subtle ways, they already are, as we watch rallies in Washington D.C., with faux preachers, snake oil salesmen, who speak out of both sides of their mouths, creating NOT what the HOLY SPIRIT had in mind, but what the corporations had in mind–again, YOU HAVE A BIG PROBLEM HOUSTON!  Add to that the lies and deceit of big oil, that runs Washington D.C., spilling over 5 million barrels of oil, 10-15 times the amount of the Exxon Valdez, with an undetermined amount of dispersant, banned in the U.K. for over ten years now, called Corexit 3500, the most toxic and least effective dispersant, to help, “break up the oil”, so that their, bp’s, liability would be next to nil because it is impossible to calculate how much oil was spilled when it is broken up into microscopic pieces, coupled with the fact that the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind,” comes into play psychologically in this five minute attention span theater of a world we live in today.  This, in my humble opinion, has made bp, Tony, “gone sailin’” Hayward and the rest of the monsters of big oil and big gas perhaps the shrewdest, nastiest “businessmen” alive today, or ever–in the history of mankind–raping and pillaging OUR lands, especially our marsh lands, our seas, our wild life, and most importantly, OUR people.  It is even worse than the destruction of a natural disaster such as Katrina was, and still is, for the all the work that still needs to be done, in the caring for our educational system, that has yet to see the true LIGHT of day… for the damage that has been done to the fishing industry and the world’s environment will someday come home to roost, and WE will know who to go after…let us just pray it won’t be too late.  If you wish to know what is really going on in the gulf, the whole story, condensed into a short movie that you and I have the luxury of walking away from, I would highly recommend reviewing this film.  For it is a true American tragedy.  As was put by one of the contributors to the film, author and historian Douglas Brinkely, “New Orleans, the Bayou, and Alaska have become third world nations all unto themselves,” with no one caring, not even the Mary Landrieu’s of the world, who claim to represent the “American people of the Bayou,” by virtue of the fact they live there, about even the most basic of safety nets, such as the moratorium on deep water drilling, that will only effect jobs on 33 rigs, out of thousands of rigs already running at full capacity, let alone the giant problem of the great divide between the have’s and the have not’s– not to mention the ultimate problem for all of man kind, GLOBAL WARMING, the direct result of carbon emissions from fossil fuels, i.e. OIL! How can we, as a collective nation, “ONE country, under GOD, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all…,” how can we really say that with any amount of conviction, while we literally watch a city fall into the sea? who tells other nations what to do, because, after all, we are the United States of America, and we are, above all, blessed by GOD himself above all other nations…  Are we?  Are we blessed when we put our brothers and sisters out on the streets and still claim that high road of “We the people…?”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the great people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may the grace of the true creative intelligence always be with you and yours! Have a wonderful week folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  Good to be with you on this Sunday morning, the twenty ninth day of August, 2010, with another gorgeous day on tap for the Cape and islands.  I hope the weather is cooperating wherever this note might be reaching you and that you and yours are safe and warm…  The Sunday morning talk shows will be ablaze once again, with ABC and NBC leading the way, unless you consider FOX NEWS a credible source of information and/or facts, a little ingredient that makes the whole show worth while to begin with.  I have to again, hand it to the highly paid consultants and republican strategists who put together the “non-political” rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, a day normally set aside for the remembrance of the historic speech of Martin Luther King Jr., who 47 years ago, on August 28th, 1963, changed many African-American and, indeed, many American lives in general, where he proclaimed that, “I have a dream,” imparting the Knowledge that all men are indeed created equal despite the color of their skin and should be judged upon the content of their character…a fact that seems to have been lost on the corporate sponsored “tea party” movement that showed up in droves yesterday on the Mall in Washington D.C. and listened to the game show host, I mean moderator, Glenn Beck, who spoke about GOD quite a bit, evoking the HOLY SPIRIT to bring him, or rather bring US to salvation.  Salvation from the evil practices of providing universal health care to it’s citizens, keeping an environment clean of 596 chemicals from the “fracking”, hydraulic fracturing of rock to produce “natural gas”, let alone an entire ocean that is still filled with the highly toxic chemical compound known as COREXIT 3500, designed to mask the oil, or rather “disperse it”, so that it did not look like the Exxon Valdez disaster of 21 years ago, keeping banks from destroying our fragile economy with casino like practices, the destruction of our educational system, our regulatory systems in general, our environmental protection agency, not to mention social programs, solvent programs like social security, our medicare program and some other safety net programs designed to rebuild what the last 30 years of unregulated government has actually done to this great country of ours–creating an ever widening gap between the have’s and the have nots.  I’m not sure what GOD has to do with any of that, for it sounds more like the will of man, or the will of the ego’s of a few very rich men, who use GOD as a front man to gain as much as they can, stealing money from the poorest of the poor in order to get re-elected this upcoming fall– to truly create a plutonomy that no one really wants to talk about on the homogenized news “outlets” owned and operated by the very corporations I am speaking of right here and right NOW.  The “new puppets on the block”, the Sharron “Angle’s” of the world, offer nothing in the way of what Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Thomas Paine had in mind when they lived in this same country over 235 years ago.  Not a lot of time when you consider Cape Cod was created 11,500 years ago by the Last Great Ice Age.  Men like Franklin Delano Roosevelt fought similar battles with “robber Barron’s” who manipulated the TRUTH and sold it like snake oil on the steps of town halls all across this great country, muddying the waters with incorrect “facts”, or better yet, straight out lies, then, fueling those lies, with fear and hate that resulted in elections that only served to bring this country backwards, all for the purpose of gaining power and money, while keeping the “working man” down, his wages flat, and, if he is lucky enough to have a job, keep him or her in fear of rocking the boat, for his slave like job might disappear if he does not fall in lock step with the likes of a “she turned me into a Newt”, Gingrich or Sarah, “I shoot innocent wolves from a helicopter”, Palin who acted and ACT as the heavy stewards of hate, fear, and violent rhetoric that comes out in the form of “second amendment remedies”…Great job Beck, you really nailed that rally!  The Holy Spirit was with you in one sense only, you had the good taste to actually leave politics out of it, but missed the point of the Holy Spirit completely, for you must know, as you now own your own University, that the Holy Spirit is within each and every one of us, and speaks to us through other people.  He does not have a political affiliation or agenda, nor a religious one, and has, as his only goal, one thing in mind, to remind US all that we are really all one collective soul, one source, one LIGHT and one LOVE, here to serve one another– all of US!  Exclusion is not his game, inclusion is, and when I looked out at your little rally yesterday, I did not see a whole lot of inclusion, rather, a sloppy group of retired white people who are “sick of the federal government getting in their business”, one of the many talking points that Frank Luntz and “word doctors.com” put together for YA!  Tell all of that horsesh$t to the shrimper on the Gulf, whose “small business”, independent of the federal government, will be forever tainted by the MMS (mineral management services) of the BUSH adminsitration, whose lack of regulatory practice allowed for millions upon millions of barrels of oil to be dumped into his fishing grounds, along with a highly toxic, banned (for ten years now in the U.K.) substance called Corexit 3500, the effects still unknown; just like the 596 chemicals in the “fracking” process of the other arm of the oil and gas industry, all brought to you by, “The Koch brothers, fu$king up America for over 40 years now, bringing hazardous waste to your backyard and then telling you to go fu$k yourself at the same time…” No wonder the p.o.h.n. and their employers want to eliminate the EPA, because they don’t want the 37 states now facing this problem of 596 chemicals in their water supply to know what those chemicals are, how they will effect human beings, animals and plants, and to what degree they are making money off of other people’s suffering.  The Holy Spirit indeed.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may creative intelligence trump the gas and oil industry soon. Have a blessed Sunday folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  It is a beautiful day here in Osterville, the small village I live in, that is only a football toss to Martha’s Vineyard, the majestic island that sits 7 miles off the southern coast of Cape Cod proper.  There are many ways to get to the island, if you were in really good shape you could swim it, but most prefer the boat route, planes or ferries, that depart out of Woods Hole, Falmouth and Hyannis.  The Obama’s will be spending their last night of this year’s vacation on the Vineyard and I hope they come back and visit soon.  We appreciated your patronage!  What can I say, the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us, and I was struck by not the normal stories of plight for the poor, that shocked me nonetheless, but another story that goes even deeper than the failure of the Bush administration to save it’s own people.  It was the story that gained national attention a few days after the storm hit, it was of a photo taken by a journalist who noticed a man lying, face down, with his hands tied behind his back, he appeared to be dead and everyone agreed with that supposition.  If you recall the story, the ten police officers who were just standing around this man who appeared to be dead, noticed the photojournalist and upon reaching him, assaulted him, taking his memory card from his camera and forcing the man away from the scene of an obvious crime.  Years later, as told on the “Rachel Maddow Show” last night, airing every week night at 9 p.m. on MSNBC, it turns out the police had severely beaten this men and shipped him off to GOD knows where and thus, effectively sweeping him under the rug in order to save their own as$ and thus, remain in the world of the brutal practice of “Law and Order”, that the New Orleans Police Department has ascribed to in the past, hiring Blackwater to do it’s dirty work for it.  The reason this story was of particular interest to me, aside from the fact that I am an advocate for people who cannot defend themselves, along with animals and children, was that this happened to me personally.  Not in the city of New Orleans, but in the richest neighborhood, one of them at least, in North America, Nantucket island, Massachusetts.  That is what my upcoming book is centered upon, a brutal assault to my person– as I was arrested for no reason, I caused no resistance of any kind, but was placed in handcuffs and then, as I thought the worst was over, the “police officer” who had me in his custody, tripped me deliberately and then taking his hand, forced my head, face first, as violently as you can imagine, into the cobblestones of the quaint little town of Nantucket proper.  Two witnesses who were in the little Atlantic Cafe, in the only window seat in the small restaurant on the same street directly across from the incident, 20 feet away, saw the whole thing and were so mortified, they ran to the newspaper and later needed support from the local Massachusetts State Police, for fear of the Nantucket Police Department’s threats of intimidation. Fortunately for me, I was only in a coma for 18 hours, but was similarly shipped off to  a prison, an honest to God prison called Bridgewater, where I was held for 30 days without any trial, lawyer or say in the matter whatsoever.  The fact that I had never been in jail before, coupled with the fact that both of my eyes were swollen shut and thus, could not see, but could certainly feel the fear of being in such a horrible place all because I went to Nantucket to begin my writing career straight from Denver, Colorado where I was an insurance executive for the second largest brokerage firm in the world, AON corporation, employed as an “employee benefits consultant”…you know, health insurance, my favorite industry!, put me in a state of denial to feel anything, for I could not stand the thought of just how horrible that memory was and still is to this day, the true story of PTSD, so I thought I would write a book about it.  This is just another story of police brutality, and/or intimidation, under the guise of corporate plutocracy to keep the poor down, scared, hungry and “manageable” and is being fueled by the clown puppet employees of FOX NEWS, one of it’s chief investors, a man who is from Saudi Arabia (with questionable ties), and the chief pirate himself, Roger Murdoch (arrggghhhh matie!).  When does the hate, violence and ignorance end, Beck? Do you even know what the HOLY SPIRIT is really all about? Have you ever read the real gospels of Jesus Christ, and moreover, applied them to your life, where you actually WALK YOUR TALK? Is that a course offered at your bogus money making Beck U?, brought to you buy, GOLDLINE! I didn’t think so, for cowards like you tend to stay in packs and when cornered run and comprehend only the hate that is so firmly planted in their brains they could not stand to think, feel, or act in any other way, for that would mean change, and change to them is death.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, especially New Orleans today, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may the grace of GOD always be upon you and yours… p.s. please donate if you can to the “real American People” of New Orleans who are in such need in this upcoming free health clinic, www.FREECLINICS.US, thanks Keith! Have a wonderful week end folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sun, sand and the surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket.  The President of the United States, BARRACK OBAMA, is still on Cape Cod’s bigger island of Martha’s Vineyard, and is most likely enjoying a beautiful day of Golf that has been presented by the sun shining once again, after a torrential downpour of the past 72 hours…hit ‘em long and straight Mr. President, for people who are in the KNOW, realize what you have done for the real “American People” of this grand and majestic country called “America”. As we all wait in baited breath for the wisdom and genius of Glenn Beck, an employee of FOX NEWS and the “Saudi Arabian home shopping network”, right Murdoch?, to spring forth that has been ordered by the prayers of the “faithful”, the poor deluded souls who actually watch that crap, i.e. “The Glenn Beck hour of hate, bigotry and ignorance,” coming soon to a theater near you soon, who, as told by Glenn himself, will deliver the eulogy of Abraham Lincoln once again, all in the name of Jesus Christ himself, we wonder, “what are those bullet points, and, moreover, how will the SPIRIT move you?” Why, you ask, a eulogy?  Abraham Lincoln is now, turning over in his grave, as he awaits the “prophet” Mr. Glenn Beck to teach us all what SOCIAL JUSTICE really means, especially to all of the African-Americans who were freed by Martin Luther King’s words in 1963…words that were lost, a long time ago, on the ignorant, paranoid fools of the p.o.h.n., their employers and anyone who truly believes the bullsh$t that comes from their mouths.  I thought it might be interesting to ask Mr. Glenn Beck a few questions from the Almighty, for he asked for His prayers, even as he made fun of my dear friend’s mother, who passed away a little while back, Mr. Keith Olberman, of “Countdown, with Keith Olberman,” airing every week night on MSNBC at 8 p.m. EST.  Your prayers, Mr. BECK, have been answered…  AND ACTION! Jesus, “Beck, you have a lot of ‘esplainin’ to do…”  Beck:  “I know Jesus, I am so sorry, I have no recourse for my actions or words, I have asked for your complete and absolute forgiveness for my stupidity and moronic viewpoints, I know that FOX NEWS is a just a sch ill, a propaganda machine, for the top 2 percent in this country, and more importantly the wolves from abroad that are ripping off the true “American People” even as I speak these words…Further, I wish to cleanse myself from this horrible plan to continue to rape and pillage our land, all in the name of profit over people, and moreover, I have to say that the true NAZIS are the corporations that care nothing for LIFE, LIBERTY and the pursuit of Happiness.  We have no leg to stand on, and if you could find it in your heart to forgive us, we will, in the words of the evil villain of the Christmas time classic, “Frosty the Snowman”, as Santa Claus stared him down for stealing Frosty’s magic hat, “we have to get busy, busy, busy!”, changing our ways, becoming human again and realizing that we are all on this little blue boat together, that WE all count, the rich, the poor, the young, the old, the sick, the healthy, the black and the white, the red and the orange, yes, even the orangemen like John Boehner (R_OH), for, as you once said, “FORGIVE them, for they KNOW not what they do.”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, the good people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may the truth happening in New Orleans, via Columbia University, come to  full fruition. Have a nice day everybody!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  So good, as always, to be with you on a rather wet and wild day here in Osterville, as the rains came down with authority over the past 24 hours, giving that much needed moisture to all of the incredible trees, flowers and ponds that adorn this hamlet created 11,500 years ago by the last Great Ice Age.  Perhaps, that is what the “grand old party of hell no”, or p.o.h.n., is really gunning for here.  As our “friend” and FOX NEWS employee, Glenn Beck, ramps up his nonsense for the upcoming atrocity on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this upcoming Saturday, degrading the very fabric of the message of Martin Luther King Jr., who, in 1963, called for REAL reform in “this here” country of ours, i.e. SOCIAL JUSTICE, i.i.e. what the FOUNDING FATHERS had in mind, we see the slow and steady decline of the frontal lobe of half the American population.  Why not go all the way, Beck?  Invite the REAL Nazis, Charles Koch and his henchman brother in crimes against the environment, the American People, and God himself, David, who have single handily paid Glenn Beck’s salary, the tea party joke, and the Saudi “investor” in Rupurt Murdoch’s (arrrggghhhhh!) crappy, bullsh$t television brainwashing station straight from HELL, to finish the job, and put all of the poor in jails in order for them to learn what LOVE is, something you are so sorely missing.  You, my dear misguided freak show of a “journalist”, should hang your head in shame, for even taking one step on a Memorial that was given to a man who freed the slaves that you and the rest of your sick DELTA buddies want to take back to the fourth century, enslaving them in a plutonomy that will END the United States as we know it and further, embedded in the the first version of King James Bible, untranslatable, except, to those who believe that Jesus was a CEO who raped and pillaged his own people, should give you more than pause, for your words and deeds are being noted by the world at LARGE. To quote the great man Mr. John Stewart, of the “Daily Show”, GO FU$K Yourself! and may Mr. Abraham Lincoln have pity on your soul.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, the good, ” TRUE American People”, of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, and marsh lands therein…to quote the band “THE WHO”, and Roger Daltrey, “we won’t get fooled again.” Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  I suppose it is ironic that I live in one of the most republican villages in the United States of America, if WE are still calling it that, for if the Bush Tax cuts are extended on December 31st, 2010, small businesses will see a rise in the interest rates, and thus, will find it harder to gain credit, to produce goods and services that are unneeded by the general public, for they have no money to spend, for so many suffering souls are caught between a rock and a hard place, and will believe any of the fearful LIES that are told to them.  Don’t believe me?  Rent a car, mini-van, or even Winnebago, and go off into the open vacancy of the crumbling interstate system, designed with the never-ending supply of oil and profit in mind.  There is no doubt in my soul, that you will see the suffering from which I speak of, for I was there, and know what it is to be hungry.  I say this, not to disturb, or even provoke thought, but put it out there for the Mitch McConnell’s of the world who claim to speak for the “American People.” For the “mouse” has no idea what the 98 percent of “the American People” live through, day in, and day out, perhaps, someday he will.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the good people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may creative intelligence squash the LIES. Have a wonderful day folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  Good to be with you, as always, on a very windy, warm and wet day here on Cape.  The Cape and islands embraced a soaking rain the past 24 hours, much needed rain, but that was not enough to keep our President off the links for some much needed R&R on one of the many fine golf courses Martha’s Vineyard has to offer.  I hope, for his sake, he is able to get in a few more holes before his vacation is over in five days…before returning to the Lion’s den of Washington D.C., where it is all too clear now that old cliche, “if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog…”, is becoming truer by the day.  The Sunday morning talk shows, “This Week, with Christiane Amanpour”, and “Meet the Press, with David Gregory”, actually showed me something yesterday, as both moderators of those venerated news magazines, shined in a way I have not seen in quite some time.  They were highlighted by two clowns, clown 1 and clown 2, Mitch, “the mouse”, McConnell (R-KY) and Senate minority leader and “Dick” Armey (former republican congressman from the great state of Texas), and were only outdone by the fine work of Michigan Governor (D), Jennifer Granholm and Katty Kay, the outstanding broadcast news anchorwoman for the BBC who systematically shot down these two hypocritical idiots of the highest order, with the help of David Gregory who exposed “the mouse” for who and what he IS, a conveyor of misinformation and blatant lies, designed to fool the followers of the p.o.h.n.  I know, “judge not, lest ye be judged,” but in this case, I think I’ll take the chance.  Before his soliloquy on how the former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who some might say, had everything to do with the current downturn in our economy, due to REAL insider trading, and the scrapping of the regulatory system of checks and balances on Wall Street, that rewarded the biggest banks and richest Americans, while leaving the rest of the country high and dry, but did have the courage to tell Mr. David Gregory on “Meet the Press”, August 1, 2010, concerning the Bush Tax cuts of 2001, 2003, (unpaid for, just like the Iraq War that totaled 1.5 Trillion dollars, thus far, and, if kept in place, will cost the American tax payer, according the CBO, congressional budget office, an additional 3.5 Trillion dollars in the next few years), when asked the question, “should these tax cuts remain in place if they are not paid for?”, his answer was a simple, “no”–Mitch, “the mouse”, McConnell could not answer David’s straight forward question, “how can you be for balancing the budget, but not pay for these tax cuts for the richest of Americans?”  Tax cuts that do not create jobs and actually will hurt the economy according any credible economist and the CBO.  As he stammered on about, “David these tax cuts are already law,” failing to recognize that the “law”, that was bullied into being, was only temporary, to be reviewed, i.e. NOW, and could not answer the question of why he speaks out of both sides of his mouth, it became clear that we were seeing the end of the a talking point, the death of talking point #401, if you will.  To repeat, he could not answer the simple question of keeping a tax cut in place for the top 2 percent of us, raising the obvious conflict of the p.o.h.n.’s talking point #401, “we must stop spending money we don’t have.”  The man is a walking, talking contradiction in terms–so many terms that one needs a doctorate in political science to keep up.  However, as the interview was winding down, Mitch did make an effort to redeem himself, offering this, and I quote, “I’m sorry David, for my behavior on your show today, with my lame answers and obvious lies, I am currently on medication, preparation H, because I’m an as$hole.”  Fiscal conservatives, in name only, as they continue to pull the wool over, “The American people’s eyes,” whom they claim to represent and speak for…those “American People”, they really speak for, account for only 2 percent of the population, and some of those, I am sure, would not care to be spoken for by a greedy, little mouse of the highest order, a “mousehead” by the name of Mitch McConnell.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may creative intelligence save your shores! Have a great Monday folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  A happy Sunday morning to you and yours on this windy, increasingly rainy day here in Osterville, as we ease on down another great week end here on Cape and islands, with our visiting President of the United States who is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, and perhaps even sleeping right now, as I write this commentary.  I wonder sometimes, “what if”, the corporate owned hate mongers out there could just tone it down for one day, you know, give it a rest on this day of rest, if, for nothing else, for the sake of Christianity that the right wing claims as it’s own.  Ironic, no?  “Judge not, lest ye be judged…” is that not what Jesus said, roughly 2010 years ago?  Perhaps it all comes down to the thought system of the ego, which, of course, has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ, the basis for Christianity itself.  “This world, as I have told you, is based upon the denial of truth itself.  And I have told you that to deny is not to know.  And what allows this world of illusion to SEEM real Is the fact that, here in space and time, You do not, and cannot, know the truth of what you are.  As you look within, There is a simple question which you need to ask, In order to become a happy learner.  And the question is so simple.  It is this–”Am I at peace? Do I have what I would call the peace of God?”  If you, even as an ego, would think about God, You do, in fact, believe that God has peace.  For can you, even as an ego, imagine An all-knowing, all wise, all powerful creator of the universe, Who would create a universe whose function would be To destroy his own peace?  And the question is absurd enough that you might even laugh were you to say yes.  We speak often of the peace of God.  For indeed, God IS at peace.” I think we all know what I speak of here.  There is no greater gift than to lay down your life for your brother.  That does not mean what you might think it means, but even by stopping the attacks on our legitimate President, even for one day, for some, that would mean that they would have to lay aside their over blown ego, that has kept them in a dark prison of pain, fear and death, and that might, to them, seem like dying.  You cannot see the Light when all you do is concentrate on the darkness.  For even the darkness is an illusion.  God is all INCLUSIVE, never exclusive, and thus, if one is to demonize the goodness that comes from the works of a man who believes in his convictions and goals that he has set out for this nation, to make it a better place for all “Americans”, then who are we, collectively, to denounce that?  Especially when “they” offer no real solution for the good of the one, the one collective soul that we all are.  Contempt prior to investigation, seems to be the “law” of the land, where a few misguided souls are poisoning the waters with lies, propaganda and profit motive intentions, that are as far from what Christ taught as you can get.  To keep that “power”, these forces of darkness use fear and hate, anger and violence to maintain it’s ridiculous position, a place where the ego reigns and peace cannot abide.  Have a nice Sunday President Obama, and enjoy “the Vineyard”, you deserve a vacation from all of the madness.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may your lives be healed soon! Have a nice Sunday everybody.  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  Good to be with you on this Saturday morning, the twenty first day of August, 2010, with yet another spectacular sunrise arriving here on this little sand bar created by the Last Great Ice Age over 11,500 years ago.  I just never get tired of saying that.  With the President of the United States only a few miles from my home here in Osterville, the whole of the Cape, especially the island of Martha’s Vineyard, is full of people enjoying the last few weeks of summer, this year, and quite a summer it has been.  We have seen the temperatures of politics rise to levels that this country has never seen, at least not in my life time.  So many stories have fallen through the cracks, as we listen to the few “media outlets” left, explain their bought and sold viewpoints, designed to brainwash rather than inform.  When I lived and worked on Martha’s Vineyard, after graduating from UVM in 1987, employed by the good folks at the Edgartown Yacht Club, I had the privilege of serving and getting to know the late, great journalist, known to many as “the most trusted man in America”, Mr. Walter Cronkite.  Walter was not a tall man, nor was he arrogant or snobby.  But, the man was larger than life.  There was a story of him at the Kentucky Derby, where, after the winner entered the “winner’s circle” with his colt, Walter was walking up to the paddock amongst a huge gathering of people, a sea of people, who were all there for the same reason, to catch a glimpse of the two athletes in their full on glory.  As he approached, it was described, by someone who was there, the sea of people parted like the fable of Moses parting the Red Sea.  Always humble and honest, Walter showed me the same kindness that he transferred over the air waves every night for decades on CBS.  I was only 22 at the time and had no idea that I would be writing about the “man” 23 years later–in the hopes that we can somehow get back to that level of journalistic integrity.  At present, we have a media that is corporate owned and resembles the film “Good Morning Vietnam”, where Robin Williams was forced to read news that had been scrubbed, sterilized and disinfected…all for the benefit of not the listener, but for the “powers that be”, whose only goal is to sell product and brainwash it’s viewership, bending their fears and insecurities towards their political goals, namely to bash a great President, Barack Obama, who has done more for the “little people” in this country than any President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  FDR had it right, as he fought to keep this country safe from the grips of corporate greed that has taken over this country like a pestilent, viral infection.  The problem that faced FDR is the same one Obama faces today, namely that the corporations, now global, are so powerful that to change the system that is ripping this country apart at the seams, one Constitutional Amendment at a time, is going to take a revolution.  When you have a foreign company like bp, who apparently owns the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as they lied about the oil that is still in the Gulf of Mexico in huge underwater “plumes”, extending 20 miles by 6 miles, 3000 feet down, hidden from sight by the use of the banned “dispersant”, highly toxic substance called Corexit 3500, we have a BIG problem Houston.  Like the Mineral Management Services (MMS), these government agencies were hijacked by assh$les like Dick Cheney when he took the Environmental Protection Agency out of the picture in 2005, effectively allowing the oil and gas industry to rape and pillage our greatest resource, our land, our sea and ultimately our own people, as so many people get sick all over this country with hydraulic fracturing of rock to gain the “natural gas” with 596 chemicals that seep into the drinking water from the mountains of Colorado to the plans for drilling in upstate New York, where it will affect the drinking water for over 18 million people in the greater New York City area.  Nice, huh?  It is called the “Halliburton Loophole” for those insiders who are in the know about what the hell is really going on in this great country of ours.  If this crap was going on when Walter Cronkite was alive, it would have never happened.  That is how powerful he was.  I am proud to say I loved him, and I know I am not alone, and I pray that men like Keith Olberman, a friend of mine, women like Rachel Maddow, someone who I also consider a friend, or even Katie Couric, who single handily exposed Sarah Palin for the moron that SHE IS–effectively shutting down that ridiculous notion of McCain for President, continue to thrive and stay strong, for we need you now more than ever. Thank you.   We need honesty and TRUTH to come forth in a big way, now more than ever, and more people like Michael Moore, whose movie, “Capitalism, A Love Story”, won critical acclaim from many who see this as a call to arms, intellectual arms, and compassionate arms to pull us away from yet another brink that big banking, big insurance, big coal, big oil and gas, and any other global corporate monopoly whose modus operandi has, and always will be, “PROFIT OVER PEOPLE”, are pushing us towards.  Sleep well Walter, we are thinking about you today, and always.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may GOD’S grace always be with you. Have a nice Saturday everybody!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  Great to be with you on this Friday, the twentieth day of August, 2010, as I sit down to write this humble commentary about the visit of our President to the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard, a place I know very well and love even more.  I was introduced to this great island back in the summer of 1987, where I was lucky enough to work at the Edgartown Yacht club after graduating from the University of Vermont.  I, being a history major, had no real idea what I was going to do with my life, although I had an “offer” from Jordan Marsh, as an executive trainee, in Hyannis, that was to start in the month of August, 23 years ago.  Jordan Marsh, a department store based in Boston, has long gone out of business, and, perhaps, I was, again, lucky, that I did not take that job, for I fell in love with a girl from Michigan, who I ended up marrying, and moving back to Boston, via Detroit, and realizing how much this little island really means to me.  The marriage did not work out, but the love remains nonetheless.  Love, for an island that is full of majesty and grace, mystery and myth, never losing it’s charm, through the endless battles we have fought collectively as a nation.  Martha’s Vineyard, including the smaller Chappaquiddick Island off the south of Cape Cod, is often called just “The Vineyard”, and is the largest true island of the East Coast of the United States.  Originally inhabited by the Wampanoag, Martha’s Vineyard was known in their language as Noepe, or “land amid the streams”.  In 1642 the Wampanoag numbered somewhere around 3,000 on the island.  By 1764, that number had dropped to 313.  A smaller island to the south was named “Martha’s Vineyard” by the English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, who sailed to the island in 1602.  The name was soon transferred to the big island.  It is thus the eighth oldest surviving English place name in the United States.  Gosnold’s mother-in-law and his second child, who died in infancy, were both named Martha.  Gosnold perhaps named Martha’s Vineyard after his daughter, who was christened in St. James’ Church (now St. Edmundsbury Cathedral).  British settlement had its origin in the purchase of Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth islands by Thomas Mayhew of Watertown, Massachusetts from two British “owners”. During his lifetime, he had friendly relations with the Wampanoags on the island in part because he was careful to honor their land rights as well.  His son, also Thomas Mahew, began the first English settlement in 1642 at Great Harbor (later Edgartown, Massachusetts).  Indian literacy in the schools founded by Mayhew and taught by Peter Folger, the grandfather of  Benjamin Franklin, was such that the first Native American graduates of Harvard were from Martha’s Vineyard, including the son of Hiacoomes, Joel Hiacoomes.  “The ship Joel Hiacoomes was sailing on, as he was returning to Boston from a trip home shortly before the graduation ceremonies was found wrecked on the shores of Nantucket Island.”  Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the son of a sachem of Homes Hole did graduate from Harvard in the class of 1665.  They were literate in Wampanoag, English, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.  All of the early Indian graduates died shortly after completing their course study.  However, their were many native preachers on the island who also preached in the English churches from time to time.  Moving forward to the 20th century, we saw in 1974, Steven Spielberg film the movie Jaws on this great island.  Spielberg selected island natives Christopher Rebello as Chief Brody’s (played by the late great Roy Schneider) oldest son, Michael Brody.  Of course, the great Richard Dreyfuss made the movie come to life along with his work as, and I don’t think he was acting, an expert marine biologist who had not sold out to oil companies and the like.  In fact, his dedication to the concept of safety of people over profit was an inspiration to me, as I had the honor to meet him right here in Osterville, while filming a film called the “Lightkeepers”.  On March 5, 1982, John Belushi died of complications of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, California, and was buried four days later in Abel’s Hill Cemetery in Chilmark.  Belushi often visited the Vineyard and his family felt it fitting to bury him there.  On his gravestone is the quote, “Though I may be gone, Rock ‘N’ Roll lives on.” Because of the many visitors to his grave and the threat of vandalism, his body was moved somewhere nearby the gravesite.  His grave remains a popular site for visitors to Chilmark and they often leave tokens in memory of the late, GREAT, comedian.  On July 16, 1999, a small plane crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, claiming the lives of pilot John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette.  Kennedy’s mother, former U.S. FIRST LADY Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, maintained a home in Aquinnah (formerly Gay Head) until her death in 1994.   With the arrival of our true President of the United States, Barack Obama, to this grand island of myth and lore, we should examine our rich history as a country a little deeper.  We should embrace the differences between us and then come to the realization that we are really are not that different afterall.  Why would we want anything different?  I was on the Vineyard two weeks ago and spent some time in Saint Elizabeth’s church in Edgartown, where I sat, all alone, in the quiet darkness of that peaceful sactuary, not a soul around, adorned with stainglass windows, colored in purple and green, denoting love and acceptance, the real message of a man who once roamed this earth 2010 years ago, and thought of my own grandmother Elizabeth, who passed one year ago.  She was 104 years old, and had no regrets of her love for her family, her country and the world at large.  Her last days were spent in the arms of the nuns of the great Catholic order, “The Little Sisters of the Poor,” who cared for her with all of the love that GOD IS. I sat there in that quiet darkness, surrounded by LIGHT, and knew there was an answer to this craziness we all seem to be caught up in.  And that answer is LOVE.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, the people of Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, and marsh lands therein…May the TRUTH of corexit 3500 and the lies of the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration come out SOON…and may we SEE what the floods of Pakistan (to help, go to SWAT and text your donation to 50555), shows us how “the greatest hoax ever played on the American people”, via James “she’ll be comin’ round the mountain when when she comes”, Inhofe (R-OK), i.e. GLOBAL WARMING is coming home to roost, despite his ignorance and stupidity.  Believe it. Have a great week end folks!   Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  I hope you are doing well on this Thursday, the nineteenth day of August, 2010, as the sun did rise once again on this fair, sacred sand bar created by the Last Great Ice Age over 11,500 years ago.  I awoke to a brilliant sunrise and much cooler temperatures, lower humidity and a sense of peace that I have not felt in over 7 years.  Perhaps it had something to do with our troops pulling out of Iraq, combat troops leaving in the middle of the night, streaming south and over the border into Kuwait, bringing a special joy to my heart–as it is all too personal for me.  The past seven years have been like the Iraq war for me too, as I explain in my upcoming new novel, “Taking Fog to Nantucket,” where I too, a little over seven years ago, embarked on a journey of my own, some would say an odyssey, leaving Denver, Colorado for parts unknown (Nantucket via Boston), enduring a severe assault to the head, leaving me in a state of fear that cannot be put into words, other than the acronym PTSD.  Watching those tanks, heavily armored vehicles lumber through the streets of unknown Iraqi towns was like watching my own nightmares drift slowly out of my radar screen forever, leaving me with a large chunk of gratitude for my life, the lives of people I love, and the wildlife still left preserved on this little blue rock I call earth. Still alive and well, despite what WE, as a collective species, have been doing to it for the span of an era called the “Industrial Revolution”, now replaced with corporate greed that has expanded globally.  Last night, my annual writers conference (48th Annual conference of the Cape Cod Writers Center) wrapped up it’s main event with keynote speakers of the highest quality and humanity– none other than Colum McCann and William Martin.  They both spoke of the written word and the importance of story telling, for that is what makes us human and remember why we came here, from wherever we came from, in the first place.  To pass down our Knowledge to subsequent generations and give them the same inspiration that inspired us, the inspiration of LOVE for our fellow man. Colum McCann, the internationally best selling author of novels such as, “This Side of Brightness” and “Let the Great World Spin”, which focuses on the impact of a mysterious tightrope walker who traversed a wire suspended between the Twin Towers of New York City in 1974, won the National Book award for fiction.  Colum has been named by Esquire Magazine as, “one of the Best and Brightest.”  His story is much like mine in the sense that he left Ireland to live and write on Cape Cod, of which I have attempted three times, the third time being the charm.  It was an honor to listen to him speak of his wife’s grandfather who was on the 59th floor of one of the towers when the attacks came on September 11th, 2001, how he managed to escape and when returning to his home where he must have lived with Colum and his wife and baby girl, who asked the question, “why is grandpa on fire?”, Colum explained that grandpa was not on fire, that there was a fire downtown and grandpa just got some ashes on him from that fire and that he was OK.  Then, in an extraordinary moment in that fair city, the little girl told her father, “No, he’s burning from the inside.”  I was sitting in the front row of the ancient wooden tabernacle that houses the lectures such as this one every year, filled with the rich history of Cape Cod, the Pilgrims and the simple place of worship that it is, a place hundreds of years ago where they enjoyed freedom of religion without fear of persecution, a right set up by our own founding fathers who placed the will of God above the will of man. As I sat there stunned by what was said, “out of the mouths of babes,” I was moved to tears, as I had not even heard of the withdrawal of troops from a foreign country that now seemed to have left an indelible mark on my own soul.  Many others must feel this way, feel as if they are burning from within, about violent attack and war in general.  I cried because I thought of the many soldiers who do not have the luxury of burning from within for they are no longer with us, perhaps burning away all of the baggage that we carry with us, that seemingly has no exit strategy, only a repetitive cycle of fear and sadness, anger and guilt, robbing us all of the here and now, the true PRESENT that is indeed a present if one looks closely enough.  Colum’s wonderful words and speech was echoed by the great author William Martin who spoke only a few moments after Colum.  The New York Times best selling author of nine books is best known for his historical fiction, which has chronicled the lives of the great and the anonymous in American History while bringing to life legendary American locations from Cape Cod to Annapolis to the City of Dreams.  Some of the titles include, “Back Bay”, “Harvard Yard”, “Citizen Washington”, and “The Lost Constitution.” Bill has over 3 million copies of his books in print and was the recipient of the 2005 New England Book Award, given to “an author whose body of work stands as a significant contribution to the culture of the region.”  The conference is held on top of what I call “Green Mountain” and from that vantage point you can sit on one of the Adirondack chairs and look out onto the beauty that IS the Nantucket Sound, all while looking out onto “Lake Elizabeth” home to a pair of Swans who, as we all know, mate for life.  Being around that serenity and grace for a few days brings one back to what it is all about in the first place, bringing back to life that child like wonder and awe that we somehow lose when we “grow up”.  What are we growing up towards?  If a child can truly see reality as it is, then why can’t we?  I pray that we all can stop “burning from the inside” and start living out loud from the outside and bring peace back to this fragile land of ours.  We have been in a perpetual state of war since the ending of World War II, starting with the “Korean War”, and bringing about what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called, “the military industrial complex,” a business to be sure, a business that costs us the lives of our loved ones, the money that we work so hard for, and the reputation and indeed, collective soul of a country that was founded on LIFE, LIBERTY and the pursuit of HAPPINESS.  I do not, nor will I ever, understand how war, “justified” or unjustified, can ever offer those qualities to any human being anywhere on this small blue planet–a planet so angry and fearful, so lost and disillusioned, so alone and isolated.  We read, we write and we share our stories so that we don’t feel so alone, so that somehow, somewhere, someone is listening and loves us no matter what.  That is the mark of a  great author, someone who cares enough to tell you, “if no one told you they LOVE you today, I just did.”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, and marsh lands therein…may the grace of GOD always be with you and yours. Have a wonderful day folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  Good to be with you on this Tuesday morning, after a soaking rain storm overnight, the seventeenth day of August, 2010.  After taking some time off, a few days, touring Martha’s Vineyard and visiting the dunes of Race Point, climbing the tallest granite structure in all of New England, the Pilgrim Monument, and enjoying some long walks along beaches like the one you see above you, I began my annual writer’s conference yesterday at the Craigville Beach Conference Center.  Every year, this being the 48th year since it’s inception in 1963, the “Cape Cod Writer’s Center”, puts on a world class gathering of writers (most published) from all disciplines, to partake in workshops, attend lectures and socialize with “their own kind”, you know, the “professional left”.  Well, truth be told, most of these great writers could care less about politics and therefore, I have no idea, nor do I really care, what side of history they are on.  What I do care about is their craft and their dedication to improving it–so as to communicate with their brothers and sisters, doing what authors do, bringing readers and writers together in a symphony of Knowledge so that neither one of them feels so alone in this crazy, upside down world we seem to all be sharing at this present moment.  Why, you might ask have books become so important in this day and age?  For the reason that I just stated.  To feel as if they are NOT ALONE– (and they are not).  The writer has the privilege of conveying his or her message, via the befuddled form of communication that words often are, to an audience that is invisible to their eyes and ears.  But, with blind faith and a desire to reach down, deep down inside, and pull out whatever it is that needs to get out, the writer is somehow able to reach those people who, sometimes, need those words as much as they need air.  I know, I have been there.  I have been in those deep dark caves where no light seemed to get through, where nothing, NOTHING, made sense.  And, yet, when I read someone like Eckhart Tolle, or C.S. Lewis, or Oscar Wilde, I somehow feel alive and full of hope again, laughing out loud at the verbs and nouns thrown together with such majesty that I found myself laughing out loud, deep guttural laughing out loud at myself.  Not so much at my own expense, although that is sometimes a good side effect, but more at what I was fearing, what was stealing my Joy, my Peace, my Love.  After a class in the afternoon called, “What’s so funny?”, I attended a lecture put on by none other than the great television and radio personality Jordan Rich, who reviews books on WBZ here in Boston.  His demeanor and gentle kindness, as he addressed a large, for Cape Cod standards, audience at the historical landmark Tabernacle, part of the historic campus that is normally an exclusive summer village atop “Green Mountain”, with classes held in “the Manor”, “the Lodge” and “the Inn”.  As I listened to his words of encouragement and hope, inspired by the fact that he, too, is truly interested in his fellow man, a very rare trait these days, I began to relax more and more, feeling less isolated and unsure of myself, slowing down my “thinking” and just allowing my true essence flow through.  He spoke of all of the authors he has interviewed on his nightly radio show (WBZ radio-Boston), playing all night long here on the sand bar that never sleeps, and spoke to their dedication to an art form that seems to be picking UP speed rather than alternative.  I rarely speak of my upcoming book, “Taking Fog to Nantucket”, for it is heavy on so many topics and levels, PTSD being one of them, perhaps the most prolific, but I feel as though I should say this about that work and why I feel it is so paramount in this day and age.  Fear is a hell of a thing to live with, especially when it is in the form of an invisible disease, keeping one in a prison of sorts, paralyzed by an unknown anxiety/panic that one cannot seem to put a handle on, thus, making it doubly worse for the victim of it–for on the outside, you look just fine, or, as I said to Mr. Rich, as I had the opportunity to meet and speak with him, which was my great honor, “you become a great actor”.  However, on the flip side of that, you feel as if you are living a lie, in a way, for you don’t really feel “fine”, and don’t wish to tell that to anyone for a) no one would understand b) no one cares c) “get over yourself” attitude creeps in, making you feel even worse about yourself than you did before, reinforcing that “stigma” that prevented you from getting help to begin with… Matching one’s insides with one’s outside is the clear goal of any treatment to this dis-ease and thus, the first thing that must go is that stigma that so many face when they even consider getting any outside help.  This is especially true with soldiers who have seen so much horror, and, as they return back to the states, are usually left with nothing in the way of CONNECTION with other human beings, for those human beings, although they may love and care for them, such as their family and friends, they just don’t, and can’t, understand the depths to which their loved one may have sunk, moreover, are powerless to help them, creating an even greater divide, that may have been a reality even before the trauma took place.  So, many turn to drugs and alcohol, which works in the short term, but leaves one worse off after the drug (s) have worn off.  This is why books, any book, are so important in this, again, my deepest apologies for the tired old cliche, “day and age”…to feel less alone, to feel worthy and loved as a human being, designed by creative intelligence, to feel that sense of belonging that we ALL need, no matter how tough you “think” you are, and most importantly to become self actualized yourself– so that you to can be of maximum service to your fellow human beings who share this little blue rock I call earth.  Thank you Mr. Jordan Rich, for making the trek down here to Craigville Beach and Cape Cod in general,  bringing some LIGHT back into a darkened world.  We are here, on this planet, for a short amount of “time”, and the only “sin” I can think of is to not use that time wisely, to not reach your own potential, whatever that may be, and “gather those rose buds while ye may”… “We each have a verse to contribute to this earthly plane, what will yours be?”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, SEA BASS and marsh lands therein…may JUSTICE be served. Have a wonderful day folks!    Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket!  On this misty morning here in Osterville, after a spectacular week end here on this little sand bar created by the Last Great Ice age 11,500 years ago, I bid you and yours a fair adieu.  The Sunday talk shows were, as always, interesting, save the baseball expertise of Mr. George Will, who is currently on vacation (I hope he went to the Gulf).  They spoke of the hapless war effort in Afghanistan, policy wise, i.e, why are WE there?, the huge economic problem WE face in this country, even as I write these words, (hampered by the policy of “NO”, headed up by the tea puppets and their friend puppets, the p.o.h.n.), of hunger, the crumbling infrastructure, and more to the point, real jobs that have evaporated like fog on hot summer day, lifting off to far away places like India, Bolivia, and China.  8 million people have lost their jobs, permanently, in this country and, as a direct result of that, these good “American people”, as John, “Orange Julias”, Boehner (R-OH) likes to call them, as his own of course, are watching vultures take their houses, all while paying them to take out their own furniture and, in one case that I witnessed, burning everything they had known and owned for over 40 years, I found myself with my fists clenched in rage, thinking that that could have been my own Grandfather…..  It is enough to make your heart want to crack open and cry uncontrollably.  This sick, dirty, bought and sold, corporate stooge JOKE of a group of Senators and congressman who claim that they are “FOR” and, more to the point, SAY and truly BELIEVE they know and speak for the “AMERICAN PEOPLE” is a cruelly intended, calculated plot for plutonomy…a fact that many documents I have in my possession prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Stockholm Syndrome can be defined simply as “captors”, (banks, insurance companies, employers, such as Wall Mart, the oil and gas companies, big coal, politicians, Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies, etc.) who hold their prisoners captive (the “American People”, the consumers of the fixed system, be it student loans to what advertisers of all stripes brainwash you into “thinking” you need, when, in fact, you don’t) to their products and “services” and moreover, trick them to “believe” they LOVE them and want, and indeed, need them, need them more and more….because that is what MAKES them money.  The “syndrome” is this United States economy, or lack therein, right here and right NOW in this here United States…  We all “think” these monsters like bp are doing “the right thing”, when, in fact, they have destroyed an ecosystem that will be poisoned for decades, strike that, for many, many, many moons to come–not because of the oil, but because of the Corexit 3500, for it was a Houdini trick played to limit bp’s liability and cover up the oil, creating yet another “Wizard of Oz” moment for us all to FEAR–”pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” (corporations– nameless, faceless, sharks whose only goal is to feed, feed, feed!)  My apologies to natural sharks everywhere.  The Stockholm Syndrome could not be summed up any better than the Amica car insurance commercial when one of the actors was asked a question about “her” insurance company.  She stated in the best acting since Greta Garbo, “I don’t know if it is possible to love an insurance company, but, ah, I really like them…”  She made the cut on that take, but I’m sure they will find someone to actually say, “I love my insurance company.”, Larry Summers, perhaps?  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, SEA BASS, good people of the Bayou and marsh lands therein…may your claims be paid in FULL! Have a nice week folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  Good to be with you on this Saturday morning, back in Osterville, after a quick trip up to the top of Cape Cod, Provincetown, where I climbed the Pilgrim Monument which, standing 235 feet above sea level as seen in the image above, represents the largest man made granite structure in all of North America.  Fitting seen for the coming battles ahead with our friend Sharron “Angle”, running against Harry Reid, the current Senator from the great state of Nevada and majority leader in the United States Senate.  She made news this past week, as she holds the current enviable position (if you are a member of the p.o.h.n.) of poster child for “hypocrites-R-us” with this statement about social security.  See if you can see the blatant expression of contradiction and/or possible schizophrenia.  Remember, this is the Sharron “Angle” who warned US that if the conservative republicans don’t get their way in the fall, “they will turn to weapons”, i.e., “SECOND AMMENDMENT REMEDIES”…just what you want in a United States Senator, right?  To quote Ms. “Angle”, “You know, our founding fathers, they put that second amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government.  In fact, Thomas Jefferson said that it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.  I hope that’s not where we are going (really?) but, you know, if this, this congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking to those “second amendment remedies” and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?  And I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is TAKE HARRY REID OUT.”  Really Ms. “Angle”?  You would resort to homicide?  Of course, the new and improved Sharron does not talk about second amendment remedies (first rule of second amendment remedies, we never SAY second amendment remedies) as she dodges one reporter after another who simply ask her questions about her positions that she offered so freely only a few months ago… Now, her “Angle” is geared towards social security, and her desire to give the best social program ever offered in this country to greedy banks and middle men to bolster the already bolstered plutocracy, piloted by the puppet p.o.h.n..  However, that too, must not be talked about as she does yet another 180 degree turn, stating she wants to “save” social security from the evil government that created it, by, again, privatizing it and handing it over to the banking industry, via Wall Street, that brought this country to it’s collective knees.  How far does her hypocrisy go?  Let’s go to the video tape!  AND ACTION: “We need to to phase out social security and medicare and privatize it, we know that “government” can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed, it’s broken and we should phase it out.”  This is your choice in the fall folks–for Sharron Angle, a stooge puppet in training, lacking in any real credentials to be a United States Senator, is the best poster child we could ask for when it comes to the REASON this country is the way it IS right now and represents what the far right wing (nut) ideology truly is as well, and wants this country to be–a plutocracy, rule by the wealthy, kicking the common man to the curb to die of starvation, all while calling him or her, a “hobo” and part of the “spoiled citizenry”–she (republican strategists) is doing a hell of a job.  I had no idea we could create a puppet of that caliber.  Technology, am I right?   A little food for thought on the real numbers of the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003…if you make over 1 million dollars a year you will save, if the Bush tax cuts are kept in place, an average of 108,835 dollars, that’s U.S. dollars, while the average American citizen will save $6,343.  The old saying, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, could not be summed up any better than this hypocritical horsesh$t, as they claim they are concerned about the deficit, which has been brought to you by “fiscal conservatives” coming soon to a theater near you soon.  Stay classy p.o.h.n., we love ya!  The initial argument in 2001 for the Bush tax cuts was that it would “stimulate” the economy and create jobs.  REALLY?  The past ten years has seen NO job creation, and, if you look out the window, you will see the damage first hand.  Who is doing well?  Are you?  And, if you are, could you not find it in your heart to help those who are in desperate need of assistance, such as donating the Keith Olberman’s initiative USFREECLINICS.ORG who are helping out the victims of the bp environmental crime of the century.  To use the words of Eric Cantor, the fine congressman of Virginia, courtesy of the p.o.h.n., and his additional statement about the Constitution of the United States, “come on!”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein…may you be paid soon! Have a nice Saturday folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great Island of Nantucket!  Good, as always, to be with you on a breezy summer day, the twelfth day of August, 2010, and with the summer winds blowing from a more sane direction, i.e. “away from the things of man”, I bid you a fair a fond hello on this most beautiful day of what God’s green earth has to offer…sun, sand and surf, devoid of oil and filth, created by a corporate plutocracy inflicted with a coma of blind greed and a sick lust for power, at least for today…  One of the “professional left”, my good friend and hero, Keith Olberman, of “Countdown, with Keith Olberman”, airing every week night at 8 and 10 p.m., EST, had, as his guest, the “players” and actors extraordinaire from the hit Canadian series of the 1990’s, “Kids in the Hall”, who out did themselves again, in the honesty department, as always, and lend credit, again, to the work of the creators of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, who showed us all the way, if you lived in the United Kingdom in the late 60’s and early 70’s, as to finding the humor in stupid politicians who claim they speak for a public they would rather urinate on.  Truth, as always again, tends to hurt if you are on the wrong side of it.  And is that not what we are talking about here?  So many lessons to be learned, for the benefit of the lesson (E), but, as always, resistance to human kindness, mistaking it for weakness itself, remains the major stumbling block.  If only WE could see how we look from the eyes of these wonderful Canadians who see folly as clearly as they see the beauty in a morning sunrise somewhere in Newfoundland, Vancouver, or Montreal.  Sure, they have no right to claim a voice in the INSANITY that represents this “p.o.h.n.” hyped up on steroids, from a manufactured “tea party”, that is nothing more than a brainwashing, bullying, homophobic, black/Hispanic bashing hate scheme to get back into power, but what the hell, we are all adults here, can’t they take the JOKE that they ARE? When you hit a bully on the nose, he tends to back the F$CK off and realize that you mean business, that you have as much RIGHT as he to live on this planet and voice your opinion, especially in country that was built on that very expression.  I know that I am most likely talking to the choir on this one, and for that I apologize, for I know it is not what we all want to hear about on such a pretty day, but the TRUTH of the matter is this–someone IS listening, as we watch our planet burn, i.e. Russia, and get hotter by the second, all the while hearing, and many of us believing, in some jackass “Senator” from Oklahoma, named James, “she’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes”, Inhofe, who is famous for saying the words, “Global Warming is the greatest hoax ever played on the American public…”  Yes, “Senator”, you may be right, as people in Pakistan clearly got, digested, and threw up your ignorant memo, while they drowned in torrential rains pouring down from “your” heavens, proving your stupidity and the rest of the clown puppets in the P.O.H.N. (the grand old party of hell no).  So, to all of the fans of true “kids in the hall”, I implore you to take a good hard look at satire and realize it’s importance in our society–for if we are to tell the “emperor” that he has no clothes on, we must also ask him to get the hell out of our house, our minds and our hearts; for his place is, and always will be, one of hate, ignorance, and fear–for that is what projection is–accusing someone of something you, deep down, KNOW that YOU ARE… and as we all know, misery loves company…Stay classy Billy Bob (John Boehner, R-OH), we love you on Martha’s Vineyard!  GOD’S SPEED to the Gulf, all of the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, the people of the Bayou and marsh lands therein…may your wishes be granted. Have a great afternoon everyone!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  It is very good to be back with you on this fine summer morning here in Osterville.  The weather looks as if it might break into some kind of cooler jet stream, offering some cooler Canadian temperatures in the coming days…  With oil, “well tapped”, off the Gulf coast and a hopeful “solution” coming in the way of a relief drill, a hopeful reality after a weak tropical depression slips into the Gulf to disturb efforts at present, bp going bye-bye on so many different levels, and, thus, off the hook, general prosperity in the air for the corporate suck ups and the p.o.h.n. hypocrites who want their cake (the United States as we all know and love) and eat it too (Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2003 unpaid for and rewarding the top 2 percent in this country who could care less about creating JOBS in the good ‘ole USA, rather, creating more wealth for themselves), we have seen that nothing has changed in a week long cable news cycle, or should I say cyclone? To John, “Billy Bob”, Boehner (R-OH) and the rest of the puppets who claim to speak for the “American People” who are starving, literally, especially those “99′ers” out there, GOD BLESS YOU!, I have a message from our good friend and all round great guy, Mr. Tom Hanks, via a classic film circa 1990 and his role as Mr. “Joe Banks”… Title?   “Joe versus The Volcano”. A basic statement to all of the greedy corporations who stole so many jobs from Americans in the past ten to thirty years, and, dare I say, ripped off grandma and grandpa with the swill that is Wall Street…..  Enjoy. Characters:  Joe Banks and Mr., “Wahoo”, Waturi.  Scene:  A horrible industrial office with rotten work conditions and bleakness everywhere…  AND ACTION! W:  “What are you doing Joe, maybe you should just leave…?”  J:  ” This Life, what life, what a joke, this situation, this room…”  W:  “Maybe you should just leave Joe…”  J:  “You look terrible Mr. Waturi, you look like a bag of sh$t stuffed in a cheap suit, not that anybody could look good under these zombie lights, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeball, suck, suck, suck…for $300 bucks a week, that’s the news, for a lousy $300 bucks a week, I have lived in this sink…if these lights don’t give you a headache, then you must be dead already, so let’s arrange the funeral… Why, I ask myself, why have I put up with this for so long?  But, I KNOW that it is just fear, it’s yellow freakin’ fear. To afraid to change my life, so I SOLD it to you for a lousy $300 bucks a week….Do you know what I could have done with that time?  The time it took to do this job?  I could have done in a month.  It was like GOLD in my hands…GOLD. I outa knock your head off, but I won’t, I am going to leave you here, Mr. Wahoo Waturi, and what could be worse than that?”  As we filter through the rest of the fable, facing tough questions posed by the late, great father of Meg Ryan’s character, who asks the question of Tom Hanks, “Joe”, who was a decorated fireman, rescuing three kids from a burning building, and wishes him to “jump” into a Volcano at the behest of “tradin’” (a.k.a. middle eastern oil), “does it take more courage to thrice jump into a burning building to save some kids or to jump into a Volcano, I don’t know Kimosabe, but when your making those calls, you’re in the high country…”  The Truth of this simple message is this, first, face those fears and face them down hard to realize they are nothing and cannot or will not hurt you if you don’t let them.  Second, don’t believe everything you read, see or hear on FOX NEWS… To quote Mr. Tom Hanks one more time, allow me to leave you with this, when asked by his driver in New York before he flew to Los Angleles, “Don’t you have anybody?” Tom responded, “No, but maybe, there are certain parts of your life where you’re not supposed to have anybody, certain doors you have to walk through alone.” The kind and wise driver simply responded, “YOU’RE going to be alright KID.” And to Lloyd Bridges, Meg Ryan’s father in the film, I wish to offer what he said to this once daughter in the fable extraordinaire, “almost the whole world is asleep, everybody you know, everybody you talk to… there are only a few people who are awake.  And they live in a state of constant amazement.”    GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people on the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, SEA BASS and marsh lands therein. Have a wonderful evening folks!  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  Good to be with you on this Saturday morning, the seventh day of August, 2010, as we all woke to a cool a.m., with drier air, recently settling over this little sand bar created by the Last Great Ice age over 11,500 years ago.  I spent some time on the Vineyard these past few days, visiting Edgartown, where I once lived 23 years ago.  I worked at the Edgartown Yacht Club, a special place in my heart for one reason in particular, I had the opportunity to meet the late, great Walter Cronkite who spoke the TRUTH better than most, and articulated it more effective than anyone I have ever met in the world of journalism.  His calm demeanor and gentle, kind voice held no venom, or hate, exposing a real human side that is so rarely seen in the news media today–with some obvious exceptions on MSNBC…to whom I will forever be in their debt.  The “Tea Party” movement is now an integral part of the p.o.h.n. and is on the hot seat of that TRUTH, and the politicians that support them must now fess up to who they really are and what issues they truly stand for, i.e., repealing the new health care LAW, privatization of social security, getting rid of medicare and invoking “second amendment remedies” if they don’t get their way.  This doesn’t even get into the fact that they wish to repeal the newly (albeit watered down) signed LAW of financial reform for Wall Street, the dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency and the abolition of the Department of Education…opting for the fiction offered by the rewriting of American History via the Texas Board of “Education”…  This all on the backdrop of extending the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 whose price tag for this country would be bigger than the 850 billion stimulus package offered by Bush himself, ballooning to over 4.4 Trillion dollars in the next ten years.  This, of course, brings about the fundamental question of who the p.o.h.n. really IS and who they work FOR. The top 2 percent in this country of ours, a country that has seen the worst job growth in it’s history, with millions of people out of work, people who have masters degrees, and wish to simply find their way out of a very deep, dark hole, are the very Americans that this “grand old party of hell no” are ultimately hurting, and that 2 percent ARE the people that they are working for.  Since when is the definition of “the American People” two percent of the general population?  I put it to you Greg, “IS this what the American people want, or is it what the top 2 percent want?”  It is the height of arrogance to have “men” like Mitch, “the mouse”, McConnell (R-KY), and leader of the Senate minority, get up on his soap box and talk to what “the American people” want, as he receives his kick backs from corporations who could not care less about “the American People…”, only what they can sell them.  He speaks of “balance”, balance?  You’re far right wing (nut) policies, that reward the few and leave the “American People” under a bus to die of starvation is not “balance”, it is hypocritical horses#$t and you know it.  The central question remains, “do you want to go backwards to the philosophy of plutocracy, or do you want to go forward in this next election cycle,” continue on with social progress and responsibility or move into a state of slavery where only a handful of people reap the rewards of living in such a rich nation such as the United States of America?  Look to the Sunday talk shows, brought to you by Toyota, and ask yourself a simple question, “who is telling the truth and who is selling you snake oil.”  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, SEA BASS and marsh lands therein…may this nightmare by over soon. Have a wonderful week end folks.  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  On a windy, humid morning here in Osterville, I bid you and yours a fair adieu.  We have all seen the puppet show, and with that in mind, I thought I would offer a joke that struck me as rather funny, told by some of the “dog friendlies” here on the shores of this little sand bar, again, created by the Last Great Ice Age over 11,500 years ago, called Cape Cod and the Islands…  It involves three distinct personalities, of dog, the “Black Lab”, the “Yellow Lab”, and the “Chesapeake Bay Retriever”, their “owners”, and the general philosophies, intrinsic in our electorate, sullied by misinformation, and, dare I say, Lies about what WE need to do to keep from going off yet another cliff, a cliff created by greed, a lust for power, and a backwards ideology that makes no sense in the “brave new world” we all find ourselves in…enjoy….  AND ACTION! An owner of a black lab (the “American People”, according to the p.o.h.n.), boasts that he can tell his black lab to do almost anything, including jumping off a cliff into the abyss with no questions asked…He instructs the black lab to do just that, and without hesitation, that lab jumps to his death.  Not to be outdone, the owner of the yellow lab asks the same of said, “dog” (the rest of the “American people, albeit a little gun shy, a.k.a., “independents”) and as he looks into his “owners” eyes he submits to his request that he must “jump” into an abyss, without reason or logic, and therefore, does so, meeting his death with no fan fare or martyrdom.  As we turn our attention to the man with the Chesapeake Bay Retriever (anyone who wants to embrace the TRUTH), who asks his loyal “companion” to fall upon his sword like the others, the retriever looks up at him, and, in dog “ease”, barks the words, “YOU FIRST”. That is the bottom line here folks, if you haven’t already received that memo.  We can take a big step back, listen to the men who asked US all to jump off a cliff for their financial benefit and tell them, once and for all, while we simultaneously screaming at them as to where they can take their Cheney/Bush policies, a remix of the 1980’s “morning in America” Reagan rhetoric, and say with a single very, clear voice… “YOU FIRST”. Of course, that won’t happen because these are gutless punks who have not fought for anything their whole lives, have never lived without food or shelter, and have no clue as to who they really are, let along who anyone else is…  READ BETWEEN THE LINES and KNOW the TRUTH…stand up for the TRUTH, and most importantly LIVE THE TRUTH.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS and marsh lands therein… may this nightmare be over for you soon. Have a wonderful day everybody.  Peace~M

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket!  As always, it is an honor to be with you on this third day of August, 2010…with the sun rising, once again, on a little sand bar created 11,500 years ago by the Last Great Ice Age, I bid you to come on down and visit US, we will leave the Light on for ya!  The bought and sold transparency of Washington D.C. makes us all sad– irony of the word “transparency” for starters, for so few people KNOW the depths of the LIES that are being told on a daily basis for the corporate owned media to eat up, told by the p.o.h.n., that serves to only fuel the insecurity and suffering that is so needless in a country so great, rich and diverse as ours– the very qualities that made this Union a model for the world to follow to begin with.  As the debate rages on regarding the BUSH tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the icing on the cake for the top 2 percent after the deregulation of the rest of the economy for the past 30 years, and whether or not those tax cuts would lead to an increase in the deficit while creating NO jobs (the right answer), is the simple TRUTH of what I am talking about–the muddying of the waters that fed the real tree of LIBERTY.  Hypocrisy is not just another river in Egypt, oh, excuse me, that was the “De NILE”, but you get the general idea.  You cannot stand on the position of preaching “we must reduce the debt”, while at the same time extending the tax breaks for the people who made a 278 percent profit on this dismantling of the United States economy in the past ten years.  I would challenge the man who is known as John, “billy bob”, Boehner (R-OH) to take a good look in the mirror and ask himself this question, “Am I really this giant hypocritical horses ass?”  As we all watch the “efforts” of bp and the rest of the big businesses, that have run rough shod over this country and its’ people, continue to make their main mission limiting their liability, increasing profits over people and being the embodiment of the soul less definition of what a corporation truly IS, a faceless, nameless shark that only survives by feeding on the weak (my apologies to real sharks everywhere), we must ask ourselves one simple question, “when are we going to see the LIGHT?” Stay tuned to men like Keith Olberman, welcome back, and many of the great reporters on MSNBC, who have stood up time and time again for something WE all still hold dear in this country-THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH and nothing but THE TRUTH.  GOD’S SPEED to the GULF, all of the people of the Bayou, the SEA TURTLES, DOLPHINS, WHALES, BROWN PELICANS, SEA BASS and marsh lands therein… Have a great day everybody!  Peace~M