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                AN ANCIENT AIR
Through my body swells a symphony, a requiem lyrically toned,
an ancient air on an Aeolian chord; song birds singing, to lift the veil of night on dawn.
These sentences are its stanzas, a tone poem describing
a vague feeling flying through the darkness, something kept discretely out of sight.

If I could only free mankind from its tyranny
infinitely enrich it with a language newly found
and write rainbows of color with words of passion
simultaneously encompassing a child’s laughter and a lover’s sigh: what a sound!

“An empty conceit,” you cry. There’s no ether for the melody to grasp
to compose such music. If I felt, dear,
even the brush of your eyelid on my face, I’d be struck mute;
and these lips, made sacred by your kiss, couldn’t convey the music I hear!

                IT AMAZES ME
God, it amazes me, how you fill the Universe with music.
Its radiance illuminates the World.
From the distant horizons, it permeates everything under Heaven.
The holy sound of your music inundates all in its path,
as irresistibly it rushes on.
My heart strains to merge its little notes with your wonderful melodies,
but I’m afraid my presumption will be misconstrued.
I long to fly into the strong graceful chords of your music
that bind all that is the universe, together, in one harmonious whole, Lord!

                THE CATCH
In the brackish estuary, ensconced in black slime,
home to hordes of insects, my young sons
fishing, bring me their catch
on the end of their tangled line
a dead sea bird.

I’m devoured by fecund time,
served by light and sound
ambushed by bright smiling echoes
who resurrect now into existence,
biting my flesh like fish hooks,
before fading once more into oblivion.

Mercy
that one day I’m not reincarnated
without words and ideas,
a formless shadowy wraith,
a mute memory.

                EXTORTION
Night descends, disdainful glance – nothing dismays
these mongrel tragedians who
trade in misfortune like brokers in stocks and bonds;
and their conspicuously placed plaintiff,
in the docket against today, who holds his carelessly constructed placard
by the gray corridors that converge at the major intersection.

Extortion displaces honest misery, degenerated by time
a grotesque who gets by on the largess
of the corrupt contemporary pirates that directed him there,
where he’s deliberately staged to be seen, not receive the currency of pity.

A beggar stands beside the river of humanity flowing by
holding the cardboard sign that’s been carefully constructed for him
in front of his conspicuously dirty clothes,
board to distraction the transfixed crucifixion
stands staring off into the space of parallel universes
not even noticing the callous commuters that hurry past.

By intimidation and fear these modern pilloried individuals intrude
on more tender souls than their cruel brutal exploiters,
who are torture toughened beyond the reach
of common goodness and ordinary decency.

Darkness descends obscuring
the glinting river’s reflective blueness,
a blue house and its cold blue winter gardens.
The beggars out last their exploiters,

their most evil star, and the blind baleful moon,
as they patiently and with obstreperous obstinacy
baffle the most penetrating compassionate eye.

                A HANDSOME FAMILY
The thumb is that stout operative of unctuous and licentious disposition
who spouts reams of fatuous nonsense to his herd of cohorts
at the sign indicating baggage pick up.

The index is his spouse, a shrew as sour as a lemon, who, from the
morning on conspires to abuse children, using them as lewd sex lures, and as
instruments of torture setting them up to be, either sexually abused, or physically battered,
lately she has surreptitiously taken to the bottle, which she loves.

The middle finger is the son, a stout repetition of dad ruggedly cut as by a chain saw;
who would be a soldier if he weren’t a Judas Iscariot bartender and who would be an
ass if he weren’t a man.

The ring finger is their daughter, the attractive unscrupulous Jezebel,
who works as a sales person in retail and who sells herself to whoever she’s told.

And, the little finger is the youngest child of the family, an overbearing precocious
brat, whose already constantly ogling lewdly after adults, when he’s not
hanging on to the hand of mom like some small child from the fang of an ogress.

The five fingers that comprise the hand are the most surprising
five leaved night shade that has ever adorned the public gardens of our once
fair and honorable Portland.

                THE GREEN FLAME
Mockingbirds in the luminous forest, the moon a spindle on the river:
the tessellated landscape of shadow and stone, even my skin is intoxicated.
The imagination reels, the clouds harmonize with my heart:
The green flame illuminates the World from my love’s face,
everything else is immersed in shadows.

It wasn’t yesterday, and it isn’t today that I learned to love intoxication;
the light was extinguished and anguish spread throughout the land.
I was drunk by dawn and staggered and stumbled the moment the discovery was made
and became ensconced in ecstasy, a descendant of Gilgamesh.

I’m a wanderer among the damp morning murmur of sound, streets, voices,
the crepitant sound of Autumn leaves, the flapping of wings,
cascading into a vast sea of silence. Our loses can’t be calibrated into discrete increments
of wind and water. As amber seals in crystal tears the glory of trees.

Its our insatiable desire that rustles dryly from the pages of books,
censored supposedly by the market place, and delivered from men’s souls
who come and go along the roads and parks of Portland. The pitiful right wing
promised paradise but delivered a vacuum, which they paid for with our green gold.

They established traditions of blood
deceitfully presiding over an epidemic of graves and guns,
as they distributed it through the stricken communities and countryside,
cacophonous and terrible.

Here I walk among my friends’ graves,
why can’t I ask them about love and liberty?
A chorus of skulls shouts silence out of their grinning holes:
after all, all time is theirs.

Night palpitates, and breathes, and exhausts itself into shades of green
beneath the indurate blue enigma above: now
the green flame illuminates the World from my love’s face,
everything else is immersed in shadows.

                ROAD KILL OR SHRINE?
The pathetic thing lies dormant
        on the weeping Autumn day:
by the roadside a hideous corpse quivers on the cement,
        as though sleeping on a dirty and gray bed;
its legs extended in the air solicitous as a common whore,
silent and shivering poisonously foul,
indifferently exposing its naked belly, obscene and sore,
erect with foul ecstasy.

The gray day feebly beats down on its rottenness,
        as if to freeze it posing, a drab rigormortis;
and render back to nature her own hubris
        a study of vanity, in a still life grotesque.

Heaven sees the stiff carrion, as it lays
        ripe with the bouquet of a skunk flower;
a terrific stench, which carcasses convey,
        that asphyxiates you with their vile power.

Maggots teem on the putrescent flesh
        a white seething mass of simmering
worms, festering like a boiling torrent that gush
        over fur that seems alive and appears to be shimmering.
Riding the back of a hairy wave
        they dive beneath its surface.
One feels that here at last is the quintessence of being a wage slave,
        burrowing through, as they vie with each other to nourish.

Vague forms vanish from the face of the Earth,
        where white apparitions depart
from beneath the sculpture’s chisel, so much dust and dirt,
        creating another unique work of art.

Beyond the curb a crow greedily stalks
        measuring us with envious eyes,
impatiently waiting to tear from the skeleton
        a small morsel infested with maggots about to die.

And, so we will end one day,
a foul banquet where infesting vermin conspire to retire.
You who are so radiantly beautiful, you’ve stolen my heart away;
        an angel full of virtue, you who are my desire!

This is what even your Heavenly goodness shall come to.
        after the final Kiddush has been said,
when trees, flowers and grass roots weave through you
        forming your last shroud after you are dead.

And, though your beauty will end in putrescence
        with worms residing where I placed such fervent kisses.
Know that I have kept our love enshrined, with its essence
intact; and, the World will know: such a love once existed!

        ANYMORE
The beast was constructed by computerized design,
it prowels the gray strands etched in unvarying grooves,
while in little artificial environs studied isolation makes its way
as existence pecks at the contents of another day in an insatiable flock.

Scouring the gray narrow paths of the void
behind twin white eyes that peer sightlessly straight ahead
through the changing landscape with its changing raiment:
the desperate hours emerge from Autumn mists.

By the river which is a mirror and through neighborhoods whose green grass
is covered with white pearls of dew and riotous colored leaves
which are beginning to decompose; whose rotting leaves leave the air smelling
vaguely of decay which gives way to the herd,

with its exhalation exhaust that assaults our senses
and binds us to the will of pistons.
Out from flourishing forests whose innermost rock core of fragile stone thrusts
through the floor and forms foundations for our prosperous cities and abundant dreams.

Onward, through the zone of myriad livid colors,
which we enjoy; and, through the transforming terrain
rendered real by sights, sounds and smells.
Accompanied by my constant companion – the hidden ache,

where miles devour the linear hours.
Among lush hidden structures,
where the green kaleidoscope turns, green mountains,
green waters and the green Willamette Valley.

And, where visual clutter and litter
announce the arrival of a thousand shaped city.
On this cool moist morning, I wonder, if anything innocent can live
and not hurt anything anymore!

                THEMIS
A curtain of clouds surrounds
the gray colored city, with its
historic facades and sleek steel and glass skyscrapers.
Stepping from the restaurant,
evening wanders around town.
Sits at a deserted park bench.

In the slate gray sky
now streaked with crimson tints
small loudspeakers assault our ears
with tolling bells from nearby rooftops:
a complex sound heavily laden,
suggesting comfort for the invisible (modestly dressed in donative attire) homeless here.

Church spires light up around the park
lancing at the gathering darkness.
Themis, appears.
Watching it arrive with reproachful eyes
filled to the brim desolation,
evening takes a long pull from the bottle from his pocket;

and, slowly rising
he deposits it carefully back into its sanctuary,
his cheeks florid, as he pulls his coat
close about his body and
picking up his book departs
with a despondent air.

The deserted street warily watches
but makes no attempt to accompany
his lean threadbare frame
through the somber mists that meander up
from the water front. A conspiracy of shadows
seems to ambush him in a darkened doorway.

A crippled crowd: with plebian manners
ignores its discretely paid members
who write graffiti among abandoned autos
and shattered glass. He onerously growls,
“Arise, you fools who endeavor to be knaves,
you’ve already squandered to much time here,
caught in the webs of your own deceit.

Have you no shame? Away!
You there, with your swaggering self-satisfied airs,
why do you peddle people like they were worthless products?”
Then, he climbs into his dapple gray car
and drives away with the wind,
into the West.

                CELESTIAL MUSIC
I don’t know the Universe
where exiled love
establishes itself victorious,
and begins to transform its dreams
into a growing reality;

nor, where the shadow
of the child’s smile,
whose body was casually disgarded
into the playful flames,
is eternally preserved;
but, I do know
that this is the source
from which the Earth’s Erinyes,
with solemn beating hearts,
ignites the music of her spheres.

                BECAUSE I BELIEVE
Because of the sleeping child
that she carries, her walk
has become tentative and awkward.
And, when I, with my ear
to her ballooning belly, hear
the twin heart beats
since she started carrying this mystery.

Her voice is sweet,
like love making’s muted melodies,
and, its because we’re afraid of disturbing his slumber.

Now I intensely search the fearful faces
for the sorrow that resides
deep inside, so that others,
even the people whose superficial certainties
have compressed their lives to an artificial mono-dimension,
may silently understand
the reason for your pale vulnerability-

In the coastal range
I search the gorse and grass
looking for the elusive quail’s
carefully concealed nest
she’s secretively hidden from predatory skunks,
and, in cathedral silence I carefully go through the forest and fields.
I believe that nature is full of mothers, like the streams and trees,
who warily watch over their children.

   RUMOR MILL
                                Liberty vs. Authority
        Varied subjects ranging from recent events pertaining to Medicare, Iraq and local criminal acts will be discussed in this essay, which of course only expresses the opinions of the Rumor Mill. It is hoped that it will be done in an insightful fashion, tethering the discussion to fundamental beliefs held about Civil Liberty and the legitimate exercise of power by government over its citizens. Hopefully, this will enable us to further our understanding on these troubling events and difficult issues.
        Today, as in the days of antiquity during Greece and Rome government in some quarters is being viewed antagonistically. Then, as today with the Republican Party at the helm, government represented a ruling elite class, who exercised their arbitrary power over the rest of the population. And, it was the goal of the indigenous populations to protect itself from internal and external plunder. Domestically, protections came to manifest themselves in two forms. First, tradition eventually established rights held by the citizens which over time became codified into law and are known as Civil Rights. Second, constitutions were created initially to protect the nobility from an ascendant power, but the rules of conduct recognized in it were gradually distributed down, to include merchants and tradesmen and eventually to most of its citizens. The greatest portion of human history was conducted under this form of political restraint.
        A time eventually came when society outgrew this form of government. Societies grew and economies did, too. The rise of an industrial class was followed by the development of an educated work force, and both became factors that resulted in the establishment of an ever expanding franchised population. This was done in recognition of the fact that only by establishing the ability to remove persons from power could a society ever be potentially safe from abuses of power. It was a nice arraignment for whenever the popular party rose to ascendancy. However, with the passage of time when democracies ranged over the majority of the Earth, it became unclear to some why nations needed to be protected from themselves. There were those who felt that they represented their nation’s interests and so they didn’t need to have any checks placed on their power. And this is the case with the Republican Party. The problem is that protection from abuses of power looses none of its importance even when those who exercise power are periodically held accountable in regularly scheduled elections.
        In America we are at that position today. The problem becomes compounded when the ruling power politically entrenches itself with unfair monetary advantages in the elections. And, when the ruling class owns and operates all sources of information for its exclusive benefit, like the Republican Party does with the media; then, the benefits of Democracy become at risk, and the tyrannical exercise of power becomes a real prospect, which jeopardizes all of its citizen’s civil liberties. It was pointed out in last month’s essay that when a society exercises its own mandates, or a power elites mandate through a populist front, then the potential exists for forms of social tyranny more formidable than most expressions that political oppression could and or would ever dare to engage in. What have been the consequences of such unchecked power in America?
        Recently, Medicare has been assaulted by the Republican Party, who has consistently and repeatedly promised to destroy Medicare for the last 20 yrs.. In the media it is claimed that Medicare is being reformed by government. We are told that there will be some form of prescription relief for some senior citizens, but who will qualify and the exact nature of that assistance are not specified. Further, we are told that 40 million Americans will be able to receive new forms of insurance coverage. Finally, we are told that the provisions will be implemented in the year 2006. If it were a good bill that benefited the citizens the Republicans would initiate it earlier, preferably before the upcoming elections, but because it is a huge, devastating disaster for American Senior Citizens, who vote, the Republicans wont be candid about what the bill’s provisions are and will put off implementing it until the distant future; and, in the interim the Republicans will have their media diffuse public anger by blaming “government”, and not the culpable parties, who in this instance is the Republican Party.
        How is it that such a fate could occur to an immensely important and popular program like Medicare? Here is what we are told happened. Three hours before dawn the Republican Party called a vote, which they can do and mandated that everyone attend. They sent uniformed police to force elected Democratic representatives into attendance, as forced participants in opposition to the measure. The Republicans then proceeded to destroy the valuable Medicare program. The Democrats knew that the Republicans were all going to unanimously vote for this special interest legislation (like the homogenous Republicans have been doing on most other legislation during the Bush administration) and had been avoiding attendance as a means of avoiding a vote. It was a clever Parliamentary ploy the Democrats were using, in an ill fated effort to save the Medicare program for the American people. Unfortunately, the Republicans correctly figured that at 3:00A.M. police would find their Democratic opponents at home in bed and could force their political dissidents presence. Doesn’t this raise the specter of 1930 Nazi Germany, with midnight visits by armed uniformed police of political opponents? When the Gestapo forced responsible people to engage in behaviors against the individual’s expressed wishes, generally to the detriment of the vast majority of their nation’s citizens! In our predawn American example of tyranny, we are talking about our nations leading political figures, not known criminal elements! It is amazing how the face of tyranny never seems to change.
Medicare reform by “government” is nothing but an obvious attempt to conceal the Republican responsibility for another bad piece of special interest legislation. Further, Americans haven’t received the facts about the Republican Medicare rape, even about the parts that are supposed to diffuse the public’s outrage, like the provisions on prescription coverage for senior citizens. Concrete information is scarce all that the Republican propaganda machine provides are vague generalities, which is a clear indication that the legislation is calamitous for the vast majority of American citizens.   Next, if you consider the 40 million figures you’ll find that it represents a large number of prosperous Americans, the ones whose health on the average is better so it won’t cost the insurance industry money to provide the health care coverage, while at the same time obtaining for them the additional insurance premiums. It represents the richest citizens, who are critically important in adequately funding the Medicare program. It represents for the over 50% of retired Americans, who haven’t one concrete asset to their name; or, the 75% of average Americans, who rely on Social Security as their primary source of income and can’t afford the other forms of insurance offered it represents the prospect of deprivation, not if but when the illness comes; and, that economically will wipe them out and plunge them into poverty, in some cases causing them to lose their homes and in other cases their life savings and in many other cases both.   THE PROGRAM REPRESENTS CORPORATE WELFARE, for a narrow band of economic interests, and its designed to replace the dwindling revenues to the owners of the industrial military, whose excessive profits are at risk now that the bloated military budgets they represent are no longer necessary, in the post Cold War era.
It is important to realize what the deliberate distortion by the Republican’s media propaganda machine, in misrepresenting the 40 million figures, represents. The effort by the propaganda machine to label this as “governments” reform is also deliberately misleading, because if I’m not mistaken not one Democrat voted for it. And, as to the phony claim by some Republicans that they were forced to sign, did some one hold a gun to their head? If they were told that they couldn’t leave until it was voted for, then send out for breakfast, lunch and dinner a program as important as Medicare for America’s citizens isn’t getting my vote! End of discussion! Forced to vote for it: BULL!!!! They were given a political excuse for consumption by their politically naive constituents and that is all. Another lie by the Republicans! All these are examples of deliberately deceiving the American public, and demonstrate the lengths that they are willing to go to retain power and depths they’re willing to sink, in order to maintain their privilege at others expense.
        It is incredible to note the Democrats response. They claim that the effects can’t be reversed in a timely manner. Why not? If they are inactive because it furthers the Democratic Party interests in the next election then they are putting party interests in front of the public, which represents poor policy. Initiating a quick response to show the voters the serious intent of the Democratic Party, a party committed in action as well as in words to pursuing policies that truly do represent the interests of the vast majority of Americans will ultimately serve the party interests best. The best position the party can take is to align itself with examples of good government by protecting the interests of the vast majority of its citizens on the issues that currently confront the country. The Rumor Mill can only wonder if the Republican political opponents are being subject to subliminal influence by the radical right, in inexplicably following a policy line that will aid and abet the factional interests of the radical right on this issue.

                                    RUMOR MILL
                                Expanded Surveillance
        In another issue American’s vociferously rejected the PATRIOT ACT II, which would have seriously undermined even further our already at risk CIVIL LIBERTIES.
Here is how the REPUBLICAN Party responded. They quietly passed, in defiance of the overwhelming public mandate, a bill that expanded FBI and other intelligence agencies ability to subpoena business documents and transcripts, and records on a broad range of business activities including everything from library records to travel agencies records to eBay activity, without having to first seeking a judge’s approval. The Republican’s passed this measure by secretly tacking it on to an intelligence spending bill. Intelligence spending bills are a type of bill which is usually drafted and passed uninspected. Notice even after knowledge of this has become public the media hasn’t touched the story? The expanded bill will primarily help Republican factional business interests keep a close eye on their business opponent’s activities, at great and inappropriate public expense. And, its deleterious impact on our already reeling Civil Rights is self evident. Here is an instance were the inappropriate use of power was almost universally decried and yet the power elite’s Republican Party proceeded with impunity in implementing their private agenda.

                                RUMOR MILL
                            Unemployment Statistics
        Under the Republican Party and Pres. Bush Jr., Oregon has suffered three years of record breaking unemployment. Recently, the local propaganda establishment conspired to say that unemployment was improving, and it was. The fact that they were deliberately neglecting to mention was that this employment improvement was the usual seasonal adjustment for Christmas. A fact they always mentioned during the years when Democrats held the White House and the nation experienced unprecedented prosperity. The importance of this biased form of misrepresentation of facts we’ve already addressed in this issue in the essay on Medicare. However, it’s even more important and irresponsible when covering economic stories. People depend on reliable information received in a timely fashion to make important decisions that potentially influence every aspect of their lives’ well being, like retirement, and children’s savings accounts for college education to name only two. The potential negative impact of misinformation on a modest investor can be devastating. Unfortunately, we’ve been observing consistent unreliable and irresponsible patterns of behavior utilizing the media to shape public opinion advantageously for the radical right, as opposed to responsibly providing the public with objective information, for a long time. And, the Rumor Mill will continue to lament and protest its unfortunate practice, while realizing that controlling information is essential for any tyrannical attempt to abuse power.

                                RUMOR MILL
                                        Iraq
        Iraq is an excellent case in point. To date the public has been told three different stories justifying our continued involvement. See previous essays. In the most recent tale the public was told that we must rebuild oil wealthy Iraq. An OPEC country that has enjoyed a higher standard of living than the US. We were told that we would look like Hitler and Nazi Germany, if we ousted their duly elected government, and destroyed their country, and then left them in the lurch; which is what happened with Bush Sr. after the first phony war, when the bogus secret agricultural loans were discovered to pay off Iraq’s war debt and stopped. In spite of no US aid and a major economic trade embargo Iraq rebuilt and rearmed and had enough left over to pay Saddam Hussein and his family and supporters graft and corruption, while paying oil industry investors off at competitive rates of return.
        Why not pull out our US military presence and let the Iraq people choose their own government? It would serve to substantiate US claims at supporting Democracy instead of rejecting every civilian government the Iraq people choose like Bush and the Republicans accomplices have done. Currently, Bush and the Republicans are running up the largest debt the World has ever seen. And then, they stupidly advocate further tax cuts for the wealthy as the way to achieve economic recovery, when that very course of action has already been tried for the last three years and failed miserably. All it accomplished was to increase the national debt, as if it weren’t big enough already. Then, after we’ve further antagonized the radical right recruited, trained and organized terrorists, we will rebuild Iraq which is a richer country with money that we do not have. This sounds like economic policy through the looking glass.
        Why not let Iraq pay for their economic recovery with their own oil revenues. Instead the Republicans are extorting the US public with terrorist threats into paying for Iraq’s recovery, while Bush Jr. supporters steal and pocket Iraq’s considerable oil revenues. A fact not lost on the Iraq people, even if it’s not prominently covered by the right wing dominated media propaganda machine. Talk about the corrupt effect of the abuse of power.
        And, speaking of extorting public support through terrorist attacks,
Istanbul was rocked by explosions against US allies, when Bush visited England. Talk about convenient coincidences. A public relations firm couldn’t orchestrate events any better, in futile attempts to defuse and curtail British public protests opposing US military occupation of a foreign country, in this instance Iraq. It is interesting to note that Blair’s support of US policy is overwhelmingly opposed by the public in England, US and Iraq. But, the policy does further the perceived economic interests of the Radical Right at the expense of everybody else. What the radical right is saying to all the democracies of the World and their people is now that they’ve sufficient power concentrated in their hands World opinion can go to Hell and the will of the people flagrantly ignored.

                                            RUMOR MILL
                                        Domestic Difficulties
        Meanwhile the US has been witnessing the trial phase of another domestic immoral criminal act. Now that the latest domestic terrorist show, which was viewed as so successful by the radical right, they hit the road with it in Ohio. It was felt that another domestic event was needed to fuel the US propaganda machine and distract the public. Enter the previously perverted Michael Jackson. It is believed by many that he was brought in as a substitute when the first choice trial of Cullen Bryant began to rebound badly after the radical right entrapment was proven to be sexually promiscuous. Some claim she was the radical right’s paid whore. In the unfortunate case of Michael Jackson there are many who are contending that it represents nothing more than the latest example of the radical right engaging in child prostitution, which is their systematic sexual abuse of children utilizing subliminal technologies to accomplish their sordid ends. Also, what is disturbing about this pathetic behavior, where adults are perverted to sexually abuse children, is the persistent pattern that emerges, where a prominent black man is entrapped into engaging in sexual improprieties. It seems as if all high profile sex crimes in this country are committed by famous black males. What about a Wasps, Hispanics Asians and Native Americans getting a turn at being foully abused by subliminal technologies in a large scandalous sex case. It is getting ridiculous, all these immoral criminal acts that are race related around an election year. Talk about assaulting a political adversary’s political constituency.
        And, yet in Oregon we are provided with the second prominent class of sex crime. Oregon has been afflicted with reruns of a scenario many are saying is radical right contrived. This one entails teachers and radical right wing child whores, we’ve witnessed two in two months, without any prominently presented contrary examples – my Heavens, another coincidence, isn’t life full of them? If it isn’t a prominent black male, then it’s some teacher involved with a young girl. The Rumor Mill can’t help but wonder?
        It is a lousy way to generate indirect negative publicity about schools. But, in order to off an inferior, unfair, more expensive charter school system on an unsuspecting public, the radical right believes extreme measures will have to be employed. Besides if your ultimate objective is cheap labor competitive with the Third World labor markets, then an ignorant public is extremely helpful. They will be easier to oppress, because being ignorant they will be less observant about the corresponding reduction in their standard of living. And, being undereducated they will still be trainable without dissatisfied with poor occupational prospects. Educated individuals tend to aspire for better paying jobs, which equate to better lives. And, these are not prospects the radical right economic models intend to realize for the vast majority of people, where approximately 80% of the population will be stuck with low paying dead end jobs with poor or no benefits like adequate health care.

The Rumor Mill would like to extend its best wishes to each and everyone, may all of us experience health and happiness over this holiday season and in the coming New Year. “IT IS THE BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES” and in spite of its problems and challenges we do live in interesting times. However, now is not a time for the faint hearted, now is a time for steadfastness and resolve, to courageously dig down and intensify our efforts at making this government our Democracy, and making our Democracy work for us. It is time for our generation to step forward and assert itself, to shoulder its great cultural legacy of Civil Liberty, and benefit from one of the great lessons of history that government in any form is not merely the base tool of privilege. We as a nation have work to do. After we’ve saved Medicare, if possible as it originally was designed and if not then re-established as it was originally intended as a fair and affordable health care alternative for all Americans that functions as an equitable safety net for us all. And, with that in mind two objectives should become our next political priorities. First, honest campaign spending reform, with fair spending limits for all qualifying candidates. Second, we must make sustained and successful efforts to maintain a depoliticized judiciary. This will keep the structural integrity of our government intact, and help to protect it from the excesses and ravages of our foolish age.