APOCALYPTO - MUST SEE MOVIE!

During this holiday movie season I saw Mel Gibson’s APOCALYPTO and all I have to say is wow!

Mel Gibson may be, no IS an ass, but boy can he make a movie.

I will warn the faint of heart that this is one hell of a bloody, violent movie but I think, it is true to history and offers a realistic view of Mayan civilization as it was at one point on the Yucatan Peninsula. The fact that I have studied this civilization and have actually visited Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula made the movie that much more thrilling for me.

People that see the movie will come away with varied impressions. The main story is of one man, his tribe and his horrific adventure. I am not sure what Mel was trying to say if anything but I got some messages from it.

It tells of families and friends, peace and joy and also of man’s inhumanity to man, death and suffering.

The Mayans were extremely advanced in astronomy, building, writing, math, etc. but their religion was violent and oh so bloody. When things went bad like drought or sickness, the priests called for sacrifice to the gods. They would capture warriors of small tribes and subject them to a sacrificial ritual where their beating hearts are cut out of their bodies and offered up to the gods in the hope that this would appease the gods and restore tranquility.

Sacrificing to the gods is actually a common ritual among human societies throughout our history even up to the present. We may not be as violent in our sacrificial rituals where prayers are offered instead of bleeding hearts but our recent history is filled with acts of violence in the name of god(s) so really, things may not be as different as we want to believe.

The Mayans sacrificed out of ignorance. They did not know why a drought occurred or why people contracted disease, the priests assumed the gods were punishing them for some transgression and they wanted to appease those gods. The Jews followed a similar belief, blaming themselves for their awful plight including the Holocaust, some still hold to that belief.

Religious and political leaders use the people’s ignorance and superstition to their own advantage – to this day.

At the end of the movie, the main character and his family see strange looking ships and people landing on their shores. This was the Spanish invasion and on the landing craft you saw monks holding large crosses. The man’s wife asks if they should go to these people and greet them and he replies, no let us go back into the jungle and start a new beginning.

History tells us that the Spaniards brought small pox that decimated the remaining Mayan population and they did not come to win new souls for Christ, they really came for gold and they would kill for it.

I mentioned that the Mayan civilization was very advanced and left many objects for us to study but alas we will NEVER be able to know their meaning because we cannot translate their images.

You see the holy Spanish Christian/ Catholic monks considered the books that would have enabled us to translate the Mayan symbols as products of paganism that would insult the Catholic God and so they BURNED every one of the thousands of books of an entire civilization.

You see those monks were also acting in ignorance and I feel religions to this day, base their operations on people’s ignorance and superstition a subject I will be addressing more fully in the coming year.

So did Mel, the devout Catholic have an anti-religion message in his book? I don’t know. He may have just made a good movie with a compelling story. I will keep my eyes open for other reviewers of this movie to see what they speculate.

A MUST see movie ! ! !

AND SO SADDAM IS DEAD!

And so Saddam Hussein is dead. How come I don’t feel any joy? It appears many of us in the U.S. don’t see how his death will have any affect on the miserable situation we and Iraq are in.

Bush made such a big deal about Saddam and why we have to invade Iraq but we now know it was all about Bush; Saddam just provided a convenient excuse that Americans bought hook, line and sinker.

Saddam was evil and ruthless and deserved execution for his crimes against his own people but 3,000 American soldiers did not need to die to bring Saddam to justice, his own people would have eventually seen to that.

Former President Ford, in interviews that could only be released upon his death, told President Bush not to go freeing oppressed people around the world unless there is a direct threat to our national security. We now know that Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

Maybe President Ford should have voiced his opinions while still alive, maybe his words would have done some good but alas, Gerald Ford was too nice of a guy.

TYPICAL POLITICIAN FROM DETROIT

Saturday, December 30, 2006

To: The Detroit Free Press
Re: “Conyers to monitor staff”, Dec. 30.

I found your headline “Conyers to monitor staff” amusing since it is his staff that turned him in for ethical misconduct. Shouldn’t your headline read: staff to monitor Conyers?

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE?

Saturday, December 30, 2006

To: The Detroit Free Press
Re: “U.S. panel rejects a delay for Prop 2”, Dec. 30.

George Washington, an attorney for the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary had the nerve to call a federal appeals court’s ruling against delaying the implementation of Proposal 2 an “arrogant opinion”. To me, the height of arrogance is in trying to block and undermine the expressed will of the people of Michigan.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

To: The Detroit News
Re: “Military weighs adding more noncitizen soldiers”, Dec. 28.

Upon reading “Military weighs adding more noncitizen soldiers”, Dec. 28, I was reminded that a big factor in the downfall of the Roman Empire was reliance on armies populated primarily by non Romans.

THE POPE AND HIS CHURCH IRRELEVANT!

Can’t let ole’ Benedict XVI off the hook this Christmas season; he and the Vatican need a slap on the head.

An Italian named Pier Giorgio Welby (60) lay dying of muscular dystrophy. He asked his doctor to unplug his respirator because he has had enough. His doctor did and the Pope immediately denied him a religious burial ceremony.

When the Pope delivered his annual Christmas message “Urbi et Orbi” some in the audience held up signs saying “Church, shame on you” and I second that sentiment.

My mother who is a loyal and devout Catholic said what is wrong with them. She expressly put in her will a proviso that I would have the power to pull the plug on her if I felt it necessary. She does not want to vegetate – she said that is not living.

Mr. Welby’s case maybe a little different; yes, he was dying and muscular dystrophy made his body useless but his mind was sound and he made a decision of sound mind to no longer live his life in his body. The Pope has always said that only God can end life and obviously the Pope speaks for God and so Mr. Welby committed a sin by going against Church teaching and he needs to be denied a Church burial so he can go straight to Hell – lovely.

The Pope said “What are we to think of those who choose death in the belief that they are celebrating life”. He is a smart man, a theologian and philosopher and he can’t see why a person would want to give up their life of suffering and go out as a real person and not a vegetable? I guess the Pope, of sound body and mind, cannot stoop to empathize with a suffering, dying human being.

The Catholic Church is painting itself into a corner. Most practicing U.S. Catholics do not follow Church doctrine; they consider it devoid of common sense. The Pope and his Church are in danger of becoming irrelevant.

MUSLIMS IN CONGRESS! RUN!!!

A note about the Muslim congressman from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, about whom I have written before; he’s the one that wants to use the Quran instead of the Bible in his swearing –in ceremony:

Remember that Ellison is actually a black from Detroit that converted to Islam while attending college so we are not talking about Osama here or even an immigrant.

Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia (R) sent out a letter to his constituents telling them to wake up to the Muslim invasion of Congress (Ellison was the first and only one in our history).

If we don’t stop Muslims from immigrating here we will have many more in Congress which would endanger the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.

Keith Ellison was legally elected by voters in his Minnesota district, the majority of who were not Muslims.

Virgil Goode is a good example of a mindless reactionary that is a member of our Congress. It is hard to judge if he is using xenophobic scare tactics for his own political benefit or if he really believes in what he is saying.

Number one, we freely vote for our representatives. Is he saying that Muslims will trick us into voting for them? Or that people in Dearborn, Michigan (largest Middle Eastern population in the U.S.) cannot elect some one like them to represent them?

Here in Detroit, the Polish community in the past has always voted for one of their own – had to have a “ski” at the end of their surname; same for the Irish, Italians, and etc. but that was some time ago, we don’t really have specific European communities like we used to.

But new immigrants do appear to congregate in communities by ethnicity and/or religion. They are doing what Poles, Germans, Irish and etc. did hundreds of years ago.

Is that the problem with Virgil Goode; he is scared Europeans/Christians are being diluted into minority status by them thar’ non-Christian feriners? – Probably so.

Mr. Goode would rather things didn’t change; we were a nation of immigrants and our immigrant forefathers build this country and their kin (us) helped make it the greatest country in the world.

But we cannot be a nation of immigrants anymore? We must stop the influx on non-Europeans?

I will be the first to admit that we as a nation we have immigration problems – big time – and something has to be done about illegal immigration first and tightening up and policing legal immigration second but we cannot just close the door!

Immigrants are what made this country great and new immigrants will make it greater.

I can kind of understand where Representative Goode is coming from and I feel that religion plays a big factor in his anger but I personally fear fundamentalist Christians like Bush and his hordes a lot more than I do Muslims, Buddhists or any other religious groups.

Keith Ellison the Muslim from Minnesota has sworn to defend our Constitution above all else and I believe he will. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, has abused our Constitution and the rights it grants us. If Bush won’t defend our Constitution, maybe a Muslim from Minnesota will.

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!

“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams”. The words of one of my favorite carols always bring a tear to my eye. I feel very sad for people that cannot be home for Christmas.

I remember a time when I could not be home for Christmas. I was in the Air Force in the 60s. I don’t remember why but I was not granted leave and even though I celebrated with my buddies that were stuck along with me, far away from home, my thoughts were always of home and my family.

Since we celebrate a very traditional Polish Wigilia in my family, you can actually visualize the gathering and smell and taste the traditional foods.

My heart goes out to especially the soldiers far away from home. I know that we have a volunteer military and it is their chosen profession unlike the draftees in our previous wars, but still they are at the mercy of a lunatic president that thinks nothing about placing them in harm’s way, far, far away from home on Christmas for reasons only he apparently knows.

In a quiet moment this holiday week, I will raise a glass of the best vodka and drink a toast to those who cannot be home for Christmas.

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE #1

Here it is, Christmas 2006. How do I feel? Well, I feel many different ways.

It’s raining so no white Christmas but I don’t really care. The family is here and all will attend our traditional Polish Wigilia celebration which is a Christmas Eve gathering we have been doing like forever – I really care about that.

Part of the tradition is a ceremony called OPLATEK. Everyone takes a piece of special wafer (oplatek) and exchanges pieces of this wafer with everyone in the family. During the exchange you wish each other a great new year. Traditionally at this ceremony, all hard feelings are put to rest between family members; start fresh and happy, all is forgiven. Anyway, that is the way it is suppose to happen.

We have a lot of children in the family and keep adding new ones each year; we celebrate that and rejoice at the growing of the family. This year my first grandson BEN will be celebrating his first Christmas.

We also have the elders. My father-in-law is 86 and my mother is 84 – wow, how many Christmases have they celebrated and how many more will they celebrate. That does enter my thoughts more and more these days. In my usual speech before dinner I mention the family members that have departed and my mother says a prayer in Polish for them, for us and in thanks for the dinner we are about to enjoy.

My mother is probably the last member of the family that adds some religious content to our holiday celebrations and of course the Polish language.

We used to be 100% Polish and then through marriage we have become somewhat international. My niece married a Frenchman and my daughter a Scotsman. We have had both families over and the French have attended a few Wigilia celebrations – it was nice to have them.

The dinner is different because no meat is served. We have a variety of fish dishes (pickled herring being my favorite). Everyone brings a dish of some sort and by tradition kielbasa and ham are available after midnight.

The midnight Catholic Mass tradition has gone and caroling is not really done. When my father was alive, everyone gathered around the piano and sang Polish carols, he of course led the singing.

Children open a few presents after dinner and then play with them. The grownups spend time talking about their lives with relatives that they do not see as often as one would like – we are all sooooooooooo busy.

So if I was to say what is Christmas to me, I would have to say FAMILY above all else and our hope is that our children will carry on the WIGILIA tradition long after we are no longer here.

Christmas my ass!

Every year at this time I hear the same ole’ shit about Christmas being too commercial and that Christ is being taken out of Christmas.

Every year I write to the papers and remind these so called Christians that this time of year was a pagan holiday for thousands of years; the Romans called it Saturnalia.

It was a “natural” holiday celebrating the end of one year and the start of a new year. People were happy and they celebrated.

In come the Christians – let us put a stop to all this vile, pagan merriment making – let us turn it into a Christian holiday! How about celebrating the birth of Jesus – but we don’t know when he was born – so what, we can make it up and those idiots will have to believe us and then this pagan celebration will be a Christian celebration – the end justifies the means – right?

We still have a lot of pagan traditions left over (Yule log, tree, etc.) but those that bitch about how the holiday is celebrated need to learn the facts about it before they go on gripping that Christ is left out.

We are after all, natural pagans just doing what comes naturally.

Christmas is nearly here and President Bush has decided not to rush things as far as Iraq is concerned. He agrees that changes need to be made but why rush; after the New Year will be soon enough. In the meantime, U.S. soldiers and countless Iraqis die on a daily basis. Kind of reminds you of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, doesn’t it?

Bush has already indicated he did not like suggestions that did not spell victory in Iraq. He likes the suggestion Senator McCain made about sending another 30-40,000 troops to put a stop to all the sectarian violence and allow the Iraqi government to do its job.

What Bush and McCain do not realize is that more troops on the ground means more U.S. troops dead. What do you think more troops will do? Will we put a soldier in each house? How about a soldier on every street corner? And what is the Iraqi government suppose to do in the meantime? The government is basically Shia and support killing Sunnis – is that not being sectarian?

The stupidity of this whole Iraq thing is continuing with no end in sight, well maybe in two years when Bush leaves. The Democrats, come January, will have to pressure Bush to start thinking realistically; obviously the Iraq Study Group Report had no affect on him.

The shifting political sands in the Middle East need a Kissinger to handle the diplomatic front; Condoleezza is obviously no Kissinger and cannot handle the growing Lebanese situation and the growing possibility of a Palestinian civil war. A smart diplomat could use all this to our advantage in Iraq but we have no smart people in the White House – sad.

You notice that Afghanistan is getting worst and Pakistanis are helping the Taliban and Al Qaeda – remember them?

No, as far as I am concerned Bush is allowing the whole world situation go to hell in a hand basket – while he fiddles.

There is a current issue that has caught my interest. It is a case before the Supreme Court about school integration plans in Oregon and Kentucky.

White parents have gone to court to challenge school plans in their districts that use race to achieve a racial balance in line with the racial ratio of the community. In doing so, they are prohibiting parents from sending their children to schools that they want, specifically, to the schools in their own districts and therefore close to home.

Historically, certain states in the union separated children according to race when it came to education. In these states you had black and white schools or the separate but equal formula. The Supreme Court in the Brown vs., Board of Education landmark ruling said the practice was despicable and violated the equal treatment under the law provision of our Constitution.

The court found that indeed the black schools were separate but not equal and that forcibly separating the races in schools negatively impacted the black students. For this reason they banned the use of race as a factor in how our school systems operated.

Following that decision, we had a pretty contentious time when federal courts ordered “forced busing” in an attempt to desegregate the schools in the country.

Since those days, the need for court ordered school desegregation has gone. Schools are legally prohibited from segregating according to race.

But what has happened in our society is that people settled in communities according to race so you have black, white and mixed communities. In the black and white communities, the schools are de facto segregated. Detroit is a good example where 80% of the population is black and so are the schools. In fact in Detroit, the schools are more like 90% black since many white parents and some black, send their children to private schools.

Communities like Seattle and Kentucky where the racial divide is not so one sided but maybe 60/40 either way, feel it beneficial to maintain that ratio in their schools even if they have to bus children out of their own school district.

There is no argument that a racially diverse school population is good for the students; that has been proven over and over again. But if race is legally NOT to be used as a governing factor in how schools are populated; can the school plans be challenged legally.

I think parents have every right to send their kids (K-12) to the nearest school to their home, if that is what they wish. Many move to certain communities specifically to be part of that communities’ school system. I know here in Canton-Plymouth, the excellence of the school system is what drives the property values higher and higher and attracts parents looking for good schools. Is that a problem? Many black families move here for that very reason, well maybe not that many but some.

Diversity is good for our school children but should it be forced? I think legally, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision should be closely read as no race factor allowed.

Should society be allowed to develop naturally or do we want to meddle with it – good question.

I hate to even bring up the Iraq mess anymore but we have to keep talking and writing if we want something positive to occur.

I hope the Iraq Study Group report would give our president a way out of the quagmire. It does make 79 suggestions but he spits on them all – why? – Because the report does not have a plan for a victory in Iraq – a victory?

The “victory” cry was echoed by all the right-wing pundits in unison. I was disappointed to hear Senator McCain joined the group. My hearty endorsement of him for president in 2008 has been put on hold – for the time being.

I can understand the call for a victory; we all can. Bush absolutely needs a victory otherwise over 3,000 American soldiers died for nothing. On the other hand many more died in Vietnam and we still pulled out without a victory. Actually we suffered a defeat in Vietnam; plain and simple. The difference is that the pullout and defeat did not happen to the president that started the mess. Here Bush is absolutely the one responsible for everything that has happened in Iraq; hell, he invaded Iraq – remember? It would be HIS defeat!

I have maintained that the plan to invade Iraq and by doing so, create a democracy in the Middle East that would then spread democracy to other countries in the region was a silly, ignorant delusion. If that is what Bush defines as victory; it will never happen and it had no chance of happening from the start.

Reports from U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq (not general that serve at the pleasure of the president and say what he wants to hear) have confirmed that the Iraqi soldiers they are training do not, and will not, have any loyalty to Iraq. Their loyalty is to their religious group; Sunni or Shia. This one fact is what prevents us from ever having a victory in Iraq and what made a victory impossible from the start.

The idiots that are demanding a stable, democratic Iraqi government are in a state of denial. They have a bunch of lessons from past and recent history and they still refuse to learn.

Recently, news came of the Saudi government offering support to the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Syria also is supporting the Sunnis and Iran obviously the Shia. Iraq is already divided and yet we continue to believe we can create a unified, peaceful Iraq.

Interviews with ordinary Iraqis confirm the fact that the country is already divided. The police are Shia and kill Sunnis at their checkpoints, so is the army. The Sunnis have only their militias to protect them and remember the Sunnis are in the minority. The government is basically Shia and will protect and enrich their own. So you see the division I called for in my past blogs is a reality; we just don’t know it.

NO WIN IN IRAQ POSSIBLE!

Saturday, December 09, 2006

To: The Detroit News
Re: “Reject study group’s lack of principle, reality in Iraq”, Dec. 8.

Frank Beckmann is the one that needs a healthy dose of reality for suggesting a victory in Iraq is the only acceptable plan, “Reject study group’s lack of principle, reality in Iraq”, Dec. 8.

The old geezers in the Iraq Study Group are wise enough and politically independent enough, to call it as they see it and the war in Iraq can never be “won” and in hindsight, was un-winnable in the first place.

Mr. Beckmann needs to get of his high horse of principals and admit that the war was a mistake, a terribly ignorant miscalculation that needs to come to an end, if for no other reason than to save lives.

IRAQ STUDY GROUP SUGGESTIONS?

I told you about the bipartisan Iraq study group of Baker and Hamilton and how they are suppose to give President Bush a game plan of how to get the hell out of Iraq without causing too much damage – too much damage? I have hoped that this wise group would make some commonsensical suggestions like to divide Iraq, like I have suggested, but I am starting to have my doubts.

Some leaked information is pointing to a suggestion to get Syria and Iran involved. Well, since they are the countries that were and probably are, sending in rebels to destabilize Iraq, it seems kind of ironic.

Iran, a theocracy is dangerous. As long as the clerics are in power and they will be in power for a very long time because the people, who want to be modern, just are not strong enough to overthrow the clerics. I hope I am wrong and something is fomenting there but right now, we cannot see any ray of hope there.

Iran has a madman for president and he can and will do anything to advance his and Iran’s power and influence. They are Shiite Muslims, sworn enemies of Sunni Muslims (the factions slaughtering each other in Iraq).

Iran would love to add Iraq as another Shiite brother theocracy. They still aim to destroy Israel and this would make them more powerful and when they get the atom bomb – watch out world.

Syria officially is secular or non-religious. Syrians are mostly Sunni Muslims and believe me, the regular people ARE probably religious; a factor to keep in mind.

Syria also wants to destroy Israel and control Lebanon. Ceding Iraq to Iran may not be in their best interest but this is where it gets a little complicated because we do not know what kind of deal they can make with each other; we give you Iraq if you give us Lebanon?

What would the U.S. want to talk to these two about - ask them to quit sending terrorists to Iraq? Ask Iran to quit supporting the Shiite insurgents? I don’t really know and have no ideas. Hopefully the Baker report will make it clear what they want these two countries to do in this mess.

My idea of dividing Iraq is not such an easy solution. Each division would come under influence by more powerful countries. The Shiite part would automatically become an Iranian protectorate. The Sunni’s would come under Syria and the Kurds would be hated by all and probably attacked by all – they have the oil.

The U.S. would still be involved if they wanted to protect each division and allow each division to become an independent country. The Kurds have the best and probably only chance of forming a semblance of a democratic form of government. Bush’s whole reason for going into this war fiasco was to introduce democracy into the Middle East with the hope of it spreading. The Kurds would be his only chance of that ever happening.

More and more though, it is looking like we cannot win no matter what we do. Let the civil war play out till the bitter end? Well at least we would not be losing our soldiers on a daily basis and all those billions of dollars.

The Bush legacy; who gives a fuck, he will already go down in history as the biggest idiot president who damaged this country and the world because of his ignorance EVEN though he had good intentions.

POLITICS & RELIGION AGAIN!

Now that the Republicans have been shown the door, religion in politics should be a dead issue – wrong! Keith Ellison, newly elected Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota is causing a stir because he wants to be sworn in using the Koran or Quran.

Now Mr. Ellison is originally from Detroit and probably part African-American so it isn’t as if he was some cleric from the Middle East. He probably converted to Islam in later life.

First some background about the swearing in ceremony. All new members of the House are sworn in en masse, i.e. all together. They then can stage “photo-ops” by posing for an “individual” swearing in ceremony. Usually, in these photo-ops, they have a hand on the Christian Bible; at least that is how it always has been done – tradition.

Sine Ellison is the FIRST Muslim ever to be elected; he can start his OWN tradition for the future Muslims that may be elected to Congress – as I see it.

But NO – an angry column by Dennis Prager on Townhall.com argues that Ellison’s ceremony “undermines American civilization”. In his mind, American values can only be defended by people that swear to do so on America’s holy book; the Christian Bible.

Well, I disagree. The Christian Bible is NOT America’s holy book. It has, by tradition, been the book all swearing in ceremonies use. That is because Christians were the majority of early immigrants to this country and remained the majority in the early years. But now, things they are a changing and have changed.

It only makes sense to use a book that would matter to the most people even though obviously it REALLY does not matter since members of Congress lied, cheated and sinned like hell after they swore on the Bible.

The last few words of a swearing in ceremony are “so help you God” or something like that. Anyway, this would not carry a lot of weight with an atheist but with religious people, yes it would. But with all the different religions in existence here, the Christian Bible does not necessarily carry the same weight for everyone – obviously!

I personally, would want someone swearing to uphold American laws and not to harm America in any way, swear on something that he or she really believes in and something he or she holds very holy in their belief system otherwise it is like swearing on a Sear’s Catalog.

I am all for tradition but only when it makes sense. In this case, I don’t think it does and I think the Holy Roller conservatives need to pipe down and get a life.

A CIVIL WAR FOR SURE IN IRAQ

Iraq is in a civil war. I have been saying this for some time now.

NBC just decided to call the conflict in Iraq a “civil war”. President Bush adamantly denies that a civil war exists in Iraq.

The daily slaughter in Iraq is incomprehensible; people are now being set on fire as they walk the streets.

General Abezaid plays the Bush stooge and repeats the same ole’ stupid Bushisms, not realizing that he is damaging himself as a general but most of all, as a credible person.

Bush is in Europe trying to get NATO involved in Iraq – they won’t.

Iran and Syria are being urged to take a role in Iraq. How IRONIC! Syria and Iran have been sending suicide bombers and inciting general mayhem in Iraq and now they are called on to be peacemakers – how does that make Bush look?

Senator McCain is saying send more troops – to do what? You can have an American soldier behind every Iraqi and when we leave, the slaughter will continue – and he wants to be our next president – the idea is stupid.

Senator Levin says start bringing the troops home. He may as well say bring ALL the troops home right now because if we are unable to stop the civil war, we must let the civil war go on until someone wins. In this case, it will be the Shiites who will exterminate the Sunnis. The Kurds will hold their own ground.

Bush says “stay the course”. Has he completely lost his mind? What about his advisors?

The Baker commission is yet to make their suggestions. One that has leaked out is to get Iran and Syria involved. I thought they would come up with some sensible plan but I guess I was too optimistic.

There are a few that agree with the idea to divide Iraq. I think it is the only viable idea and an idea that will stop the slaughter the quickest.

Things are coming to a head rather quickly now – time for definitive action or there will be no Iraqis left.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT EVOLUTION.

Monday, November 27, 2006

To: The Canton Observer
Re: Letters to the Editor, Nov. 23.


In recent letters to the editor about religious faith and science, I was dismayed to see that certain common misconceptions about evolution still exist in people’s minds.

The number one misconception is that science somehow knows and teaches how life began; it does not and therefore you will not learn about the origin of life in science class unless and until solid evidence is available to make a scientific assumption possible. In plain words, right now, science cannot tell you how life began and therefore cannot discount the involvement of a supernatural force and does not.

The other great misconception is about the word “theory”. In common usage a theory is not a fact but more like a guess or a hunch waiting to be proven. In science, theories like the theory of evolution or the gravitational theory do not become facts through the accumulation of evidence; theories are the end points of science as defined by the National Academy of Sciences.

Men could not be sent to the moon if gravitational theory was just someone’s gut feeling. The flu virus would not change every year, certain bacteria could not become drug resistant, and mosquitoes could not become resistant to insecticides without the forces of evolution being present. The theory of evolution is the cornerstone of biology, without it nothing would make sense.

That is not to say that questions do not still exists in the field of evolution. Darwin posited in 1859 that evolution occurs through natural selection or the survival of the fittest. His hypothesis, although still conceptually sound, has undergone some adjustment and expansion. We now can document mutation on a genetic level and have found that some mutations occur by pure chance and their survival or demise is then governed by natural selection.

Copernicus and Galileo were condemned by the Catholic Church for stating that the earth revolves around the sun and not that the sun revolves around the earth, as Church teaching avowed. Pope John Paul II apologized before he died for the Church’s grievous error and deplorable treatment of Galileo; one of many examples of why religion and science should be kept as separate disciplines.

Science and religion play important roles in many of our daily lives. They do not have to be viewed as adversarial. I feel it is important to first dispel misconceptions as a way of promoting genuine dialog.

BACKGROUND FOR THE DIVISION OF IRAQ

To understand why I am calling for a division of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurd areas with a weak central administration to distribute oil revenues, you must know something about how Iraq was formed.

Prior to World War I (WWI) the area was called the Ottoman Empire, administered by the Ottoman Turks in Constantinople / Istanbul. The empire encompassed most of the Middle East as well as part of Eastern Europe (Bulgaria and Albania).

The people living in the general Mesopotamian region were divided along ethnic and religious lines (Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds).

WWI was pretty complicated but suffices it to say the Ottomans chose to join Germany and Austria against Great Britain and France and we all know who won.

The Ottomans lost their empire to the Brits and the French. Where was the United States in all of this? Well, Woodrow Wilson was the president then and he really care about international politics but the U.S. people and the U.S. Congress did not (isolationism) and so Wilson was denied a voice in international affairs and so Britain and France divided the Ottoman empire as they saw fit.

The nation of Iraq was created by Winston Churchill and encompassed the three diverse groups we mentioned above under a single ruler the British picked. The British did not seem to understand the diverse nature of the groups they forced to live together in a phony country or, for that matter, did they really care.

The British were imperialists, had their own empire on which the sun never set and were really very full of themselves.

The Iraqi people became a nation and existed peacefully together but so did the Yugoslavians under Tito. But take the dictators out of the equations, Saddam out of Iraq and Tito dead in Yugoslavia and look what happened; neighbors slaughtering neighbors.

Why? I don’t have an answer but certain reasons are evident. The main and obvious reason is and was religion. The Kurds are Muslim but a different ethnic group all together. In Yugoslavia it was Christian against Muslim.

Knowing the history of the region, of the peoples and how they were thrown together (Yugoslavia by the Communists and Iraq by the British) will make it clearer why they should be separated once again.

ONLY IRAQ DIVISION WILL WORK!

Monday, November 20, 2006


To: The Detroit Free Press
Re: “Victory? Increase troops?” Nov. 20.


Most agree that the escalating sectarian violence in Iraq must be controlled if the country is to have any hope of ever becoming a unified nation. Calls for dramatically increasing our troop level there as a means of creating peace among the opposing factions will not work, “Victory? Increase troops?” Nov. 20. Even if you had one American soldier for every Iraqi, you could not change how they feel and as soon as we left, those feelings would boil over into violence once again.

If we really care about the Iraqi people, we must put an end to the de facto civil war that is raging there. To do that, we must divide the country into Shiite, Sunni and Kurd areas with a weak central authority to distribute oil revenues between the three. The only way we can force the three Iraqi peoples to live together is to put Saddam Hussein back in power.

FDA AND SILICONE BREAST IMPLANTS

Let me get this straight - DOW went bankrupt and had to establish a billion dollar fund for all the lawsuits brought and won by women that had silicone breast implants that leaked or did something, and now the FDA is allowing the same silicone implants to once again be implanted in women?

If the FDA now certifies silicone breast implants as safe shouldn't DOW and other manufacturers that were financially hurt if not ruined by lawsuits claiming the implants were unsafe, get their money back?

Should all those women that walked away with millions give those millions back?

How about DOW suing the federal government for being incompetent or at least "in error"?

Hey, I think we have a big case of unfairness here and I don't think the lawyers that made millions off this whole issue should get to keep those millions.