…To Shining Sea
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 Thursday morning, the tenth day of February, 2011, coming to you LIVE from the one of the shining seas, Nantucket Sound, Osterville to be precise, as you look out onto the sound above you, image taken only a few days ago, looking south to both the islands of Nantucket as well as Martha’s Vineyard. The winter’s clear air, combined with the solitude one finds on the Cape and islands this time of year cannot be matched anywhere in the world. I have always maintained that if one wishes to get some rest, one only need look so far as either Provo, Utah, not too far from Robert Redford’s ranch, where they roll up the streets around 5 p.m., or take in Cape Cod and the Islands in the winter, for not only will you see abundant wildlife, spectacular solar lighting, amazing geographical scenery, incredible architecture dating back to the 1600’s, fantastic sea food, and real Cape Codders going about their daily New England lives, but you will feel a real sense of peace and tranquility that is very rare in this day and age of constant on line connectivity that impedes our need as human beings to SLOW it down and smell the roses, “gathering those rose buds while ye may”, a little Robert Herrick this morning if you will, and truly seizing the day–for today is all we really have anyway. The crisis in Egypt, or rather the popular revolution, has now gone viral, as protests are now being waged all over the country, from smaller towns in the south, to the northern port of Alexandria, east to Suez, and in the capital city of Cairo itself, where the heart of the protest, the now tent city that has emerged in the center of Tahrir Square, has seen more than 250,000 protesters yesterday, with that number expected to grow to over a million after Friday prayers conclude. The problem the Mubarak contingency faces is this–with the ever growing union and labor strikes, the state will not be able to sustain itself if the oil and gas industry shuts down, if tourism continues to be non-existent, and if the Suez canal is affected. The viral nature of the people’s revolt against this dictator spells out the reality on the ground in Egypt, as the people have obviously not taken Mubarak and his military cohorts at their word, and for good reason. Mubarak has been known to gather dissidents, drag them to secret prisons and torture them for decades now. The “orderly transition” that Mubarak and even the United States now endorse seems to be a smoke screen designed to offer a carrot when the people know that after the ‘revolt’ has been squashed, the stick will be introduced and will be used to punish those who opposed the “status quo” of the current “constitution”. That is precisely why the citizens of Egypt feel the fierce urgency of NOW and will not quit until the whole regime has been removed from power. This is a sovereign country and the United States of America should have learned it’s lesson by now, that fooling around in the Middle East is a risky venture at best, as our efforts to “place” a Shah, Iran’s U.S. stooge puppet, circa 1953, for example, in that volatile country, ended badly for the United States, and the Shah, for that matter, who was ousted in 1979 by a real Islamic revolution, and with the rise of an extreme version of Islamic rule, now a thorn in the side of the United States and world for that matter, as Iran continues to develop a nuclear capability, the U.S. should tread lightly on this one. The simple answer to this is sticking by OUR own principals and lead by example through our democratic process–emphasizing the nature and purpose of the lower case “d” in the equation. We have no idea what the Egyptian people need, “just look at Iraq, and the lack of electricity for most of the people living in that war torn country, they’ll tell ya!”, (credit Rodney Dangerfield) and should not assume to know. In an increasingly digital and thus, virtual world, where tweets, instant messaging, e-mails, and the Internet have replaced the written word, where professors at many colleges here in America will not assign more than one “less than 200 page book”, a semester to their students, for it seems that no one reads anymore because they don’t have the “time”, yes, as a nation possessing the collective attention span of a bunch of five year olds, we should not jump to any conclusions such as our friend Glenn Beck would suggest, such as a “caliphate”, an Islamic ‘takeover’ of the world, where the ‘uber left’ and the ‘Islamists’ are in cahoots with each other, scheming and planning the demise of the “American way of life”… What “American way of life” do you speak about Glenn? The “American way of life” where we allow the “big five” banks to continue to steal, where oil and gas companies can rape and pillage our land at will, with no consequence, where insurance companies can profit on sick people, where coal companies can destroy entire mountain ranges up and down the Appalachians, destroying entire eco-systems forever, where our educational system continues to fail our children and is falling behind every other progressive country in the world, falling behind quickly, where the middle class is quickly turning into the class of the working poor, where the poor and disenfranchised are secularized, dehumanized and left for dead, where more and more families are losing their homes, where children are going to bed hungry, where the corporations can literally buy elections and thus write U.S. law and therefore, guide it’s policy, foreign and domestic, where the infrastructure is going the way of a third world nation at best, awaiting the next bridge to fall, or the constant fear, paranoia and increasing hatred that is being stoked in this country, spurred on by incessant right wingnut rhetoric on certain radio and television stations, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, that borders on the insane, filled with misinformation and down right lies, filling the hearts of our people with dread thinking, falsely of course, that their president is really a “secret Muslim”–is that the America that you speak of SIR? Well, at least WE had two pieces of good news from yesterday. The lunch meeting with the republican leaders of the House and the President yesterday was followed up by a blistering loss for the republicans, as the “Patriot Act bill”, that was on the floor, was shockingly struck down, begging all kinds of questions from who is really in charge of this conflicted party to again, who now heads the “do nothing congress”? Really, that’s only one question is it not? Come on folks, the 112th congress of the United States! Give it up everybody! They’re doing hell of a job thus far, don’t you think? And, I apologize for using the word “job”, as we all know now, via your ACTIONS, that jobs are really your number on goal, and I did not mean to bring up such a sore subject, my apologies Mr. Eric Cantor, you go girl! The second piece of good news is that Gabby Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona, who was shot, a little more than a month ago, in the head, by a deranged gunman carrying what should have been an illegal 31 bullet magazine, designed for that horrible Glock nine millimeter hand gun, is speaking at her Houston rehab, making significant progress everyday, asking for some toast yesterday morning…if that does not make you smile, then nothing will. GOD’s Speed Gabby, we are all pulling for you! My prayers are with the PEOPLE of Egypt this morning, for as ALL nations go, we go–we live in an increasingly connected world, even if it does not seem so, as we continue blindly into the virtual world, to be so consumed by the digital “presents” that rob us of the PRESENT. Have a wonderful day folks and GOD BLESS US ALL. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
