so is that an osprey then?

i don't know why i am bothering to say this...but i am just a little uncomfortable with the whole, if only we'd picked this candidate instead, everything would be all-right NOW

also...



that was the prettiest most poetic bullshit that i have heard recently

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjCX8ude04

Damn! You go girl! You rule!

@

How about a nice big cup

Generic it is!

Boooo...Boooo....Sarah Palin... Boooo...
you know I had recently heard a clip of Sarah Palin speaking at a rally and I couldn't help thinking that I am still waiting for an inteligant words to come from her mouth.
Anyhow, getting back to the conversation of the subject line. I was reading that many of the ideas and views of Thomas Jeferson were very much along the Libertarian line. Imagine that. I think that what is really troubling me is I keep hearing Libertarians commenting on how this country is breaking the Constitution in this way or that way. Wouldn't that mean that our system of "Checks and Balances" has failed. I guess that I am still an idealist as I believe that the system works.. but sometimes it takes the people to make sure the system works. In my view I think that Pete Seegers ordeal is proof in fact that the system still works. He experienced the worst of government and in the end the system worked.

Yes it is. I took that picture at the place I worked from 98 to 06. They came back every year. The power people actually built them a platform on top of the power pole to keep them out of the wires. They were able to see the Columbia River from their nest on the power pole.

@

America loves wing nuts!

So long as we keep them on reality tv and don't elect, I don't see a problem..........actually, I still do see a problem!

EPR wrote:

" In my view I think that Pete Seegers ordeal is proof in fact that the system still works. He experienced the worst of government and in the end the system worked."


I think Pete MADE the system work......for him. Remember, Pete keeps saying that he gives Humans about a 50-50 chance of still being around in 100 years........

I dunno...Pete was convicted on 10 counts, sentenced, and then won on appeal on a technicality -- the court found that the Congressional committee that indicted him didn't state its authority specifically enough and, therefore, the indictment was defective and threw the case out. (You can read the opinion online at http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2 ... 27101.html .) I'm not sure whether this was a case of the system working, or of part of the system f-g up and another part of the system taking advantage of that f-up, helped by his very able lawyer.

But, that said, I think "the system" does work sometimes -- usually because of individual people who make it work, but doesn't a lot of the time...but I also think that's true of most systems, including capitalism. And have no clue how to solve that problem, and neither does any honest person. But any politician who admits that will get his/her behind handed to him/her.

But, going back to Pete, here's a story you might appreciate: I got a copy of Pete's book, The Incompleat Folk Singer, when I was in high school, and read it, including his summary of his legal case. Fast forward a few years, toward the summer after my junior year of college, by which time I had forgotten most of what I'd read in high school, including Pete's book, which was really long, anyway. That summer I worked for the Department of Justice, in their legal training office. They were switching from audio to video tape training that summer, and had a lot of surplus audio tapes by a famous trial lawyer, Irving Younger. They offered to let me just take them because they knew I was planning to go to law school. So, I did -- like a whole box of them -- and I listened to Irving do his thing. But I wasn't really interested in trial law, and there were a lot of duplicates, so...well, at the same time, I had a lot of records and no way to get them to school, and no car, and no money to buy decent recording tapes, so I decided to "reuse" them. And I taped a lot of records. ALOT. Including all my Pete records, and the first Pete and Arlo record. So, to this day, I still have tapes of Pete, recorded over Irving.

At some point after that, maybe in law school, maybe later, I reread The Incompleat Folk Singer, including the part about Pete's legal case, and realized that Irving was the prosecutor in that case.

The universe, or the subconscious, works in mysterious ways.

Great story Eileen! I think what I was trying to say was that, looking at things now (retrospectively), Pete's life has been pretty good and very full; not "in spite of" but "because of" what he went through. The system is what it is, and it works better for some folks than others. But Pete's 50-50 prediction speaks volumes about how humans (and their systems) are working out globally. I think he's just being honest about his feelings. That being said, I think the main thing I have learned from people like Pete and Arlo is that it just makes more sense to look at and focus on the pockets of good stuff happening here and there. I like to think about Arlo's "Neutron bomb" theory........that just means that somewhere out there there's gotta be an "Un-neutron bomb"......"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in"......

I love this place! Thanks Arlo. Thanks Dave.