Why I Didn't Need To Be In 2 Places At Once Last Night

Project Lollipop
A friend writes this morning in an email: "Couple of personal notes: [My wife's] mother had her ninth heart attack today in Sweden. I don't know what to say...Swedes get health care instead of aircraft carriers for their tax krona. Thanks to the miracle of medical science, Americans can expect to live until we have no money left. But in Sweden, you just live on and on."

That's a good place to start with the tragedy of America's begathon on American Idol last night for crumbs of corporate largess and personal giving to the starving of Africa and America. I guess I qualify for misanthrope status when I feel cynicism and discontent with such a good-intentioned attempt at charity. But, you see, I chose to watch Bill Moyers instead and saw his brave, unsparing indictment of the American media's capitulation and complicity in the Iraq war. So while American Idol raised $30 million, I watched how Americans were bilked out of $500 billion for an immoral, unnecessary war that goes on and on the way the life of my friend's Swedish mother-in-law goes on and on because welfare not warfare is Sweden's number one priority.

To me, American Idol's "giveback" was really a kickback, a couple dollars in an envelope to stuff in the pockets of police or slide under their pie plates. Asking American corporations and citizens to give millions to charity when the war machine has ceaseless, churning billions to spend is like diving for pennies in a fountain out front of the Pentagon. It's Advil for the aching, amorphous pang we call conscience. If the same people watched Moyers, the pang might have become the precise, howling pain it needs to be if we are ever to cope with and cure the real central ill of the world: run-amok capitalism. Global warming shouldn't be the reason to modify life styles. The curse of greed should be. And it ain't. Me included.

Another friend writes last night: "I'm no longer monotheist or polytheist. I'm pantheist. That way Christ can be Quetzalcoatl and fly from the cross before a single nail is driven through a talon. Wherever he lands, he's free to become rabbi or woodworker or husband playing with his kids again--whatever needs doing. My point is this: freedom is found in being available for the job at hand and competent to perform all or part of it. Sometimes the job is escape, sometimes full engagement."

Piques & Valleys: A Word From The Sponsor
In related news, I see where the Dow hit a new peak yesterday and drove me to a new level of pique with it. And I was ashamed at how automatic was my anger. I know now I'm as much a casualty of my vigilance as others are their indifference. For my vigilance has failed to be kind and comforting. Yesterday, I received a rebuke from a hero, William Stafford, in the form of a diary entry he made on November 18, 1991: "People who act randomly, angrily, with odd surges of negativity, have a disability that should be cared for just as generously as other disabilities. Their thinking is a hobble. Their seizures paralyze their ability to perceive. They stumble from one mistake to another." (William Stafford,, Every War Has Two Losers, p.75).

So let me apologize to all of you who worry about the constant volley/volume of negative posts. I'll try to be more selective and balanced. Nevertheless, I have this stubborn delusion that some of these articles and poems I'm posting are of immense spiritual and cultural benefit and would therefore like to continue sharing them.

A Bouquet Of Poems
I have quoted often from William Stafford and am about to do so again--this time journal entries. Interspersed will be some short poems by Jim Harrison.

12 September 1981
"Oracle, where will I begin to be saved?
Here.
"When do the proofs come?"
Now.
"Who can bring this about?"
You.
"Is there ever anyone to help?"
No.
"What happens to people who hurt me?"
It's cold where they live.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, p.44

28
Lin-chi says, having thrown away your head so long
ago, you go on and on looking for it in the wrong
place. The head's future can be studied in a spadeful
of dirt. The delightful girl I loved 40 years back
now weighs, according to necrologists, 30 lbs. net.
Why does she still swim in the eddy in the river's bend?
--Jim Harrison, The Shape Of The Journey, p. 371

14 July 1981
Two democracies: One where you have a right to speak,
another where you maximize what you hear.
Two censorships: One where the law prohibits utterance,
another where strong characters dominate and prevent
real interchange.
"I really told them off." "I really listened better than
they did."
Those times you caught them out and showed them up--
they learned how stupid they are. But now you'll never hear
the little song of their purring throats, and you'll never know
what they think, when you say hello.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, p. 43-4

32
If that bald head gets you closer to Buddha
try chemotherapy. Your hair drops casually to the floor,
eyes widen until the skull aches, the heart beats like
Thumper's foot. Heaven's near at every second.
Now you've become the lamb you refused to eat.
--Jim Harrison, The Shape Of The Journey, p. 372

37
Beware, o wanderer, the road is walking too,
said Rilke one day to no one in particular
as good poets everywhere address the six directions.
If you can't bow, you're dead meat. You'll break
like uncooked spaghetti. Listen to the gods.
They're shouting in your ear every second.
--Jim Harrison, The Shape of The Journey, p. 374

13 May 1980
A democracy may fail to gain participation from nonassertive
people. If you want a system that allows active roles for activists,
that's one thing; if your objective is to gain from the insights
of all citizens, that's a different thing. The creative life of unknown
people might be a tremendous hidden river. An intelligent leader\
might want, not just the complaints and declamatory input, but
the tide of quiet perceptions from everywhere in the populace;
might promote an incessant quizzing of all minds. Contribution
of opinion might be more than a right--it might be a need, a
salvation, and not just for the individual but for the society.
And the individual might react in a democracy in light of
whether in fact opinions are sought or just tolerated: if a
contribution isn't worthy in terms of the welfare of the group,
the individual might not be all that eager to insist on it.
--William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers, pages 40-1

The strongest nation in the world, with no present danger
to itself, acting without formal declaration of war, under
firm military conscription, has burned, used gas, threatened
atomic force, systematically invaded noninvolved nations.
Restraint must come from citizens. Hence our meeting.
Coercion by violence has hardened much of the world;
that feeling lasts. But moderating it is the patient, worthy job.
--William Stafford, note for a conference on Vietnam 5 Oct. 1966

Is The Great Wave of Islamic Terrorism Exaggerrated?

Last month, Europol, the criminal activity reporting arm of the European Parliament, issued its 5th annual study of terrorism activity in the EU--covering crimes during 2006 (TE-SAT 2007). Islamophobes craving evidence of increased Muslim menace are in for a great disappointment. Of the 498 terrorist attacks reported by the EU's 11 reporting member states, only 1--I repeat, 1--was classified as "Islamist" while 424 were classified as "Separatist." The remainder were divided as follows: 55 "Left-Wing," 1 "Right-Wing" and 17 "Other/Not Specified." In other words, Basque separatists were far more mischievious than al-Quaeda operatives. Hmmm. What does that say about government and media drumbeaters for a Great Islamic Wave of Terrorism? It says, Muslims are being demonized--rather successfully.

The report also gives arrest figures. Of the 706 people arrested in 15 reporting member states, 257 were classified as "Islamist" and 226 as "Separatist." Of the 303 terrorists tried, 257 were convicted and 46 (15%) acquitted. I cannot find a breakdown of the number who were convicted as Islamic terrorists and Separatist terrorists. But the number of arrests for "Islamist terrorism" doesn't jibe with the minuscule number of reported "Islamist" terrorism incidents.

Below is the report's Executive Summary. Is it any wonder you didn't read about this report in the NY Times or hear about it on Fox News, CNN and the like? They're all singing that new surf classic, "Bomb Bomb Bomb / Bomb Bomb Iran" introduced by John McCain. In the mean time, Arab League peace overtures also go ignored. So if you must continue to point fingers, stand in the mirror and point them at yourself for falling prey to mass hysteria.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A large number of various types of terrorist organisations have an active presence in the EU. Some of them aim at Member States or Third State targets situated in Member States, whereas some others who conduct their campaigns mainly outside the EU, use the EU as their logistical base or for fundraising.

Altogether 498 attacks were carried out in the EU in 2006.The vast majority of them resulted in limited material damage and were not intended to kill. However, the failed attack in Germany and the foiled London plot demonstrate that Islamist terrorists also aim at mass casualties. A total of 706 individuals suspected of terrorism offences were arrested in 15 Member States in 2006. Investigations into Islamist terrorism are clearly a priority for Member States’ law enforcement
as demonstrated by the number of arrested suspects reported by Member States.

The small number of suspects arrested for dissemination of propaganda may indicate the lack of legal basis and difficulty in investigating these types of crimes.
France, Spain and the UK are the countries most severely affected by terrorism as concluded from the number of terrorist attacks and arrested suspects as well as the average penalties handed out by the courts.

Islamist Terrorism
Along with the failed terrorist attack that took place in Germany, Denmark and the UK each reported one attempted terrorist attack in 2006. No further information on prevented or disrupted Islamist terrorist attacks was made available by the Member States’ law enforcement authorities.

The London airplane plot and the trolley bomb case of Germany targeted civilians and transportation infrastructure in Member States. The radicalisation process of the suspects in these cases is reported to have been rapid. The weapon of choice of Islamist terrorists are Improvised Explosive Devices made with homemade explosives. The cases reported by the UK and Denmark involved the use of Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), a highly volatile explosive the use of which requires a certain degree of expertise.

Half of all the terrorism arrests were related to Islamist terrorism. France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands had the highest number of arrests of Islamist terrorist suspects. The majority of the arrested suspects were born in Algeria,Morocco and Tunisia and had loose affiliations to North African terrorist groups, such as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

However, the suspects involved in the foiled plots reported by the UK and Denmark were born or raised in a Member State. Converts, who had been radicalised in Europe,were involved in both cases.

The frequency of video statements by members of the original al-Qaeda leadership and other Islamist terrorists shows a marked increase. The propaganda is of greater sophistication, of high quality and more professional. English is used more often, either in direct speech or in subtitles, allowing potential access to a wider audience than previous publications in Arabic. These facts may point to a coordinated global media offensive from Islamist terrorists.

Ethno-Nationalist and Separatist Terrorism
In 2006, separatist terrorists carried out 424 attacks in the EU. The Member States most affected were France – with 60 percent of the attacks – and Spain. Attacks were, for the most part, limited to the Basque regions and Corsica. Five attacks took place in the UK and one in Ireland. No group claimed responsibility for these attacks.

After the unilateral cease fire declared in March 2006, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) mainly used Taldes Y to carry out a high number of low intensity attacks to maintain pressure on the Spanish government and to demonstrate to its supporters its determination to fight for its goals. However, the attack at the Madrid airport on 30 December 2006 by ETA resulted in casualties and injuries. ETA has not only maintained but also rebuilt its capabilities to strike with well-prepared, organised
and coordinated attacks against high profile targets.

Separatist terrorists in Corsica carried out a very high number of low intensity attacks resulting mainly in limited material damage. Only six percent of the attacks were committed against governmental targets. Although Corsican separatists have not directly tried to kill people, the volume of attacks may increase the risk of casualties.

The rise of fundraising activities by the PKK in the EU is related to the escalation of the terrorist campaign of Kurdish terrorists in Turkey.

Left-Wing and Anarchist Terrorism
In 2006, left-wing and anarchist terrorists carried out 55 attacks in the EU. Their campaigns mainly targeted Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany. Left-wing and anarchist terrorists carried out a relatively high number of low-intensity attacks which resulted in limited material damage against business and governmental targets. A minority of the attacks, however, were intended to kill or injure.

A variety of left-wing and anarchist terrorist groups are active mostly in Germany,Greece, Italy and Spain. In Greece, the number of terrorist attacks rose rapidly towards the end of 2006. Left-wing and anarchist terrorist attacks are motivated by domestic politics but they are also perpetrated as a part of wider international campaigns; for instance, the G8 Summit 2007 that still has to be held has already been the target of left-wing and anarchist terrorists.

Right-Wing Terrorism
Right-wing violence is mainly investigated as right-wing extremism and not as right-wing terrorism.

Although violent acts perpetrated by right-wing extremists and terrorists may appear sporadic and situational, right-wing extremist activities are organised and transnational. For instance, details regarding possible targets are collected and disseminated on the Internet.

A Talisman-Poem: Robert Creeley's "For No Reason"

There is a mercy which appears as enveloping as mist or fog or even sunshine when clouds break. In this poem it first appears as dust. No matter what form it takes, the mercy seems a grace, undeserved, unbidden except for, perhaps, the desperation that preceded it. Later it seems that unbeknownst to you that desperation's survival ability had acted unexpectedly, improbably, as an agency, as conduit of mercy's flow. Readers of "Dark Night of the Soul" will understand this mystery. The sudden change of circumstance is, I think now, the autonomic protection of prayer, a habit so strong and ceaseless we do not realize its workings within us.

When my teacher told me that in my days preceding him, "Despair was your way," I think now he was not disapproving of or chastising me for this preferred modality because it was anchored to prayer. I think he knew I fell prey to prayer when it mattered most and was, in that way, dependable in my faith. Think of it in an existential way: as prayer so pure and troubled it did not need the thought or mention of God to be made; as prayer that wasn't answer to any plea or wish but resumption of a condition where it is native and natural.

I thought of my youth and my frequent mental turbulence this morning and those occasions of mercy's resumption and dominion when I read a poem that meant the world to me four turns (a turn = one decade) below on the spiral staircase where I now stand: Robert Creeley's

FOR NO CLEAR REASON

I dreamt last night
that fright was over, that
the dust came, and then water,
and women and men, together
again, and all was quiet
in the dim moon's light.

I paean of such patience--
laughing, laughing at me,
and the days extend over
the earth's great cover,
grass, trees, and flower-
ing season, for no clear reason.

--Robert Creeley, For Love, 1962
P.S., Don't be put off by the words "laughing, laughing at me." Mercy does not mock. It smiles; its laughter is gentle. Creeley was then still to much of an ironist to let his reader know how he languished in the relief that mercy brought. I didn't know til now what relief the mercy brought and was/is preserved in this poem. I hope Creeley, who died in March of 2005, received as much pleasure growing old with this poem as I have. I can't thank God enough for his companionship.

The Meaning Of Compassion: An Excerpt from Jim Harrison's "Returning To Earth"

I have spent the last 35 years as a student of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. I am convinced he is an avatar of God as were Jesus and Buddha and some Zen Masters (oh hell, a cast of thousands!). Buddha and his best buds usually aren't talked about in such a context, although Incarnation is a word with which all religions seem on good terms. I know people that still object to Buddhism because Buddhists don't use the word 'God' much or ever. Duh! There is a point at which God and Man empty into each other, and then we have open space and clear roads forever. Or so I am told by the avatars. And always thrilled by this teaching.

The other day, during a Sunday morning meeting at the Bawa Muhaiyadden Fellowship in which I participated, the leader said, in a rapture of enthusiasm for Bawa, that he was "the greatest teacher who ever lived." I felt at that moment like I was choking on an anchovy. I just don't like it when followers of a teacher set him apart from all others. What we revere in our gurus, masters, teachers, etc. is that they are conduits of the truth, passage-ways for the teaching into human life. To say one man who became such a vessel is greater than all others is to forget that the vessel is meant to hold water or wine, and that the teacher is only such when the cask is uncorked.

These days I dread the subtle sin of separation through reverence, love that places the exemplar out of emulation range, deification that threatens alienation from the very teachers we love. I realize that surrender is necessary, and that part of that surrender is to see or hear or cling to no one else until the transubstantiation of student into disciple is complete. But afterwards, like after days of steady rain, the world is literally dripping with instance and reminder. The sound of tires on the streets makes a soft sibilance of remembrance. We have lived to become as much of a constant as our teacher.

I've been reading the histories of religions. Even peaceful, imperturbable Buddha who sat under trees rather than be nailed to them had to face defiant students at the end of his life who told him he was an old man and to step down. Wars of succession were fought even before he died. This pattern keeps repeating itself. No wonder Bawa once lectured a gathering in San Francisco on the dangers of calling him anything. "I am teaching you a way to make good your escape. Even one title and you will be blocked from moving through the narrow tunnel out of this world."

So when friends and wife tell me we were blessed to study with the "Qutb of the 18,000 universes," a six-star general of wisdom, I feel forlorn, as if God's messengers needed to hand out resumes. It's why I object to the exclusivity of Jesus Christ based solely on crucifixion and resurrection--as if his teaching was in no other way validified. I find myself congenitally incapable of believing that God appoints just one or two revealers and explicators per century or, worse, age. God manifest is, to me, the highest and best use of this human being, and thus a condition of ultimate well-being that everyone can attain. What we call deliverance is not just from suffering but to a blessed state of adequacy and true self- sufficiency. In this state, living itself is"articulance" of supreme understanding. To reach this state, we need, I am convinced, a teacher who stands, as Christ stood, as "holy ghost," as mediating spirit of the divine. That spir it does not have to resurrect in any other life than mine and yours. This town ain't big enough for the three (Father/Son/Holy Ghost) or two (me/you) of us. Our life is learning to count to One.

On this road to well-being (well meaning both healthy and also deep reservoir) and completeness, we are asked more and more for compassion, to act as if none are worthy of hatred or contempt or denial of love. The unity is first. As poet Jack Spicer put it, "The Union can sure as hell be scabbed on--but never broken." Yeah, I find compassion hard whenever I see the diabolical duo of Bush and Cheney, but I am slowly learning not to give way to rage. They are scabbers not Union busters.

Okay, so I have a teacher at the center of my life. And he asked me to practice love and compassion no matter what. So what is compassion? How does it operate? Well, I have some clues and indicators to offer today--courtesy of author Jim Harrison, whose latest novel, "Returning to Earth," I have just finished. The book consists of 4 narratives--the first that of Donald, a northern Michigan contractor who is half-Chippewa, half-Finn, and dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. As a remembrance, he has been asked for a memoir. Debilitated by his disease, he must dictate it to his wife Cynthia, who often annotates (to the annoyance of some family members). Donald, it turns out, is far more Chippewa than Finn and even has a medicine man guru.

The fourth narrative is written by Donald's wife Cynthia and relates what happens to her in the year following her husband's death. It is a year of profound emotional and spiritual rehabilitation. This may sound a little like a summary of a soap, but you need the following details to understand what is going on. In this excerpt, Cynthia and her brother David are meeting in a Chicago bar with a lifelong friend named Coughlin who is a psychoanalyst. David has brought with him Vera, the daughter of his father's best friend, Jesse, whom the father raped as a teenager. As you can imagine, the conversation is intense, but also part of healing. Central to regeneration of Cynthia, David and Vera is to make peace with this father. Why, Cynthia wonders, did her mother put up with him? Gradually, she realizes that service in the Pacific during World War II, and loss of nearly all the men under his command, irreparably damaged, if not destroyed, him . I'll let Jim Harrison take it from here:

"Each of my three evenings we had dinner with Coughlin. The first one was a little iffy because we went downstairs in the Drake to the Cape Cod Room and halfway through the meal David [brother of the woman who is narrating] abruptly left for the ground-floor bar, where we found him eating a cheeseburger. He explained that the Cape Cod Room was where he'd had dinner with Father the evening before the fatal trip to Mexico [where the father died]. Things got even rougher when the subject of the war came up and I carelessly described a little research I had done on the World War II battles in the Philippines in which both my father and Vera's father [the father of the daughter the dad raped], Jesse, had taken part. A martini had made me half daft as I rambled on about the Battle of Cape Engano and also gruesome land battles where my father lost most of the men he commanded. Coughlin said he had met an ex-Green Beret medic while fishing in Montana who had tried to duct-tape tog ether several dozen children who were in pieces when our personnel had called in mortar fire in the wrong place. I wasn't hearing Coughlin clearly when he quoted some poet saying, "There's a point at which the exposed heart can't recover." I was looking at the increasingly pale face of my brother, who got up abruptly and walked out. Vera also looked stricken and followed. Naturally I was upset but at the same time amused that Coughlin continued drinking with relish. I raised an eyebrow.

"In thirty-five years of practice I've heard everything. There are no true monsters, only some people like your father who with regularity act like a monster. It's still episodic."

"Meaning?" I quickly drank a full glass of wine.

"Well, David managed to spent half his life researching the wrongs his family visited on everyone. Long ago I told him he should be looking into what happened to his father during the war. You managed to do so. It never works when you leave out even a small part of the picture. It's a little like the doctor who failed to diagnose the reason for a woman's stomach ache but then she failed to tell him that her husband punched her there. War can do horrible things to men. Most recover well enough to behave well and some can't. And some don't even seem to want to as if the horrors are encysted in their brains to be examined over and over almost as if they deserved affection or at least loving attention because what would be there is the horrors were taken away? In crude farmland lingo, pigs love their own shit."

"Even as a boy David never seemed to have enough skin. I mean his skin wasn't thick enough while mine was."

"Precisely. Once on the way to fish we stopped to look at a big snapping turtle crawling along the road and I said to David that it would be bright of him to take this creature as a model, you know, develop a carapace."

He paused because David returned sheepishly but with Vera looking as if she had told him an important secret. The old waiter stopped by, shaking his head at the cold hamburger, and David said he'd settle for a dozen oysters. Vera ordered a cold lobster "just in case" she had to leave again. She laughed and tickled him somewhere critical under the table.

"To close the conversation and get on to something more interesting like a beauty queen's perineum, true, I never gave my father the slightest break. Mother told me that she remembered him before the war and that's why she held on with the help of booze and pills. Let's give the dead a break today."

David raised his glass and we all followed. I felt slightly choked and Coughlin gave me a peculiar look that I . . . used to receive from the young men on Donald's work crew. I admit I felt pleased."

--Jim Harrison, "Returning to Earth," Grove Press, New York, 2007, pages 222-24.