Likes and Dislikes

I like a lot...

The Nature Conservancy, for it's laudable and very effective approach in protecting the wonderful and useful natural things around us.   If it's worth saving, well then, ...buy it!

The Natural Step, for it's view, implemented successfully 'round the world, that environmentally-sound business practices can be even more profitable than those now ravaging the planet.

Claire Braz-Valentine, a widely published, award-winning poet, playwright, and journalist, for giving us a hilarious and very dim view indeed of John Ashcroft's approach to The Spirit of Justice.
For the multi-media-browser-challenged among us (including me), I provide a plain text version here.

Robert Test, a man I don't know, who wrote:

      To Remember Me

      At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
      When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my "death-bed". Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
      Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise or a baby's face.
      Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
      Give my blood to the teenager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
      Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my faults...and all my prejudice against my fellow man.
      If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

...and I strongly dislike

Mr John Ashcroft himself, an Attorney General in the Administration of (past) US President Gearge W. Bush. A dangerous man, I believe; his views on morality, law, and life in general have ominous implications for our US civil liberties; and are all too typical of that whole "regime". Save for that [weak grin...], he'd be laughable. Do see Braz-Valentine's knife-edge satire, above.

Microsoft Corp., for foisting on a gullible public the crash-prone security-sieve "Windows" computer OS. They deserve everything the courts (in other countries, anyway) can throw at them; and more.

Pompous people, stupid people, and bigoted people everywhere (see Ashcroft, above), for being what they are, and making life harder for the rest of us.

Things which concern me greatly, and should concern us all:

For a decade past, my (USA) government's soul had changed; in my view not for the better. The national temper was changing too; also not for the better. Ruth Rosen (San Francisco Chronicle 'Opinion' April 24, 2003, "One Soldier's Plea") reviewed Anthony Swofford's then-recent anti-war book. She describes his view:

    "Compared to "Old Europe", which cannot forget the blood-soaked reality of war, the American celebratory mood often seems adolescent. Swofford's plea is that we never forget that war is hell, even when we win, and that we should always worry about the soul [emphasis mine] of a nation that regards war with child-like delight." (Used with permission.)

Most recent data update:  Feb 10 2008.