Lunch Money
3/22/2003
These selected excerpts from a speech given by JFK express better than I ever could what I am feeling today along with anger, distrust, and disgust with the current adminstration. God save the USA !
On June 10, 1963 John F Kennedy in part spoke:
"I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children-not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the glove and to generations yet unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year of weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles - which can only destroy and never create - is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war - and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable - that mankind is doomed - that we are gripped by forces we cannot control." -----------------------------
---------------------- "Our problems are manmade - therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable - and we believe they can do it again.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace - based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions-on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace - no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process-a way of solving problems.
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it."----------------------------
"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace."
3/01/2003
I don’t do sick well and for the last week I have been as sick as I have ever been with flu followed by infected sinuses. Double yuk!
In one of those half aware fever driven times I crawled into my sick bed ( wearing my sick jammies, those magic jammies that I only wear when I’m not well and which I hope will impart some healing properties) and sunk down into my pillow and felt that warm, primal, all will be OK feeling that has it’s roots in childhood memories. Memories of my room, my bed, my mom taking care of me, and I free associated into the following:
I was twelve or thirteen. My Mom and I would travel one Friday a month to an old family friends house for an evening of "mad canasta". A card game more complex than I can now remember to explain but kind of a cross between canasta, gin and pinochle. We would play for nickels and dimes and mom and I each had a small stash of change we would horde for the game. More than the game this was something that my mom and I shared. A night out together. The game required four not three players and I became moms’ partner. Not child, but playing partner. It was my introduction into the world of adults and a special time for mom and I.
The friends, Merle and Vera, were previous neighbors and my mom had kept the friendship alive long after we had moved to another city after my fathers death. Merle was as much a gentle-man as I have ever known. He was strong but kind, wise but earthy, and never ever talked down to me. He had taught pilots to fly during world war two, traveled extensively and shared many fascinating stories that always held me in awe. Vera, a short perky woman of Spanish, not Mexican she was always quick to remind, decent. She was the perfect hostess, homemaker and wife. It was obvious that they cared for each other deeply and I always felt comfortable in their well kept upper middle class home on the hill.
The evening would always fly by. Lots of small talk about this and that and lots of witticisms about the play or the cards or life in general. Merle would smoke his Viceroy cigarettes, lit by the coolest Zippo lighter with it’s WWII Army Air Force emblem on it, and nickels and dimes would change hands. More importantly we talked and laughed and shared the evening. Somewhere into the evening we would break and Vera would produce cake or pie or some other wonderful treat and the card playing stopped and the feasting began with hot coffee or milk and more discussion and laughter. The refreshments finished we would delve into another round and continue until the wee hours of the morning until brain dead from counting tricks and sorting hands we would call it a night. Nickels and dimes back into the pouches, we would gloat over the winnings and moan over the losses and say good night.
On the way home in our land barge of a 59 Chevy Bel-Air, I would talk mom into stopping at an all night burger joint that had as a specialty, "Boasted Chicken Basket". The specialty consisted of chicken cooked as I have never again been able to find, french fries made from real fresh potatoes and a hamburger bun buttered and toasted on the burger grill. I would devour the meal on the twenty or so mile ride home while mom and I talked. Can’t exactly tell you what we talked about, we just talked.
We would arrive home around two or three and the house would be still, cold and feel a little alien. I never felt right moving about the house after midnight. I would go quietly upstairs to my room, get ready for bed and crawl in between the covers and sink down into my pillow and feel that warm, primal, all will be OK feeling.
