You Can Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles

Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul and Mary has died at the age of 72.

It's a very sad day for folk music, for the generation of peace loving individuals who sprouted out of the 1960's, and for people like me who were raised with the tenants of peace and love and grew up listening to artists like Mary Travers.

She was not only radiantly beautiful, but she was kind, and courageous, and she had a damn good voice.

If I Had a Hammer

I'll always remember listening to her on tape, riding my bike around the neighbourhood, or watching Peter, Paul and Mary on the television and feeling completely connected to the lyrics they sang.

The saddest part of the death of such an icon for the peace movement is that there seems to be no one taking up the torch for the cause. I have no power, or fame, or money or really very much talent, or else I would have taken up the cause long ago. People with power, with sway, with the funds to do wonderful things and the talent to command people to listen just simply are not using those gifts for the right purposes. I hope someone comes along, sooner rather than later, who will remind us that justice, freedom and love are the three greatest gifts. I also hope that before any more wars start, that we might be reminded of where all the flowers have gone.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

If I had a Hammer

There are some things in life that simply do not make sense. For example, hate, it just doesn't make any sense. If you go along with the mentality that God (yes I believe that there is a God, yes I am a Christian, yes I disagree with all of the radical Christian ideologies) created everything, why would God create hate? The fundamentalists would tell you that God didn't create Gays, or Jews, or Muslims, or Mexicans, or any group that doesn't fit into their view of the perfect Christian world. I believe that God created everything equally, every flower, every baby, every thought. It is as difficult for me to rationalise hate as it is for the fundamentalists to rationalise alternative viewpoints.

I had a discussion with a friend of mine the other night about hate. My opinion is that hate is the manifestation of misplaced fear. The Communists feared a popular uprising against the party, so they propogated hate of capitalism. The Nazis feared everyone and everything that went against what they stood for, so the spread the hate of everyone who wasn't a blonde haired, blue eyed, Protestant of Nordic ancestry. George Bush and his cronies feared being caught in a web of lies they invented when they knew they couldn't protect the people to the uptmost, so they propogated hate of muslims, not just muslim extremeists, but anyone from the middle east. It's always someone else's fault. Why can't we, as a society, as a culture, as a human race admit that we have been led astray, that we are mistook, and it is all our fault. But we will do everything in our power to fix it.

That's the clincher, we won't do everything in our power to fix it because, well, we're lazy. It's so much easier to blame someone else and have them have to pick up the pieces.
Uncertainty breeds fear, and fear breeds hate. The fact of the matter is, uncertainty is an integral part of life. Nothing is certain. You may go to take a shower today, lather your hair, drop some suds, and slip and fall and never get back up. Or it may be the most uneventful shower of your life. God only knows.

So stop breeding hate, stop caring about uncertainty, more importantly stop fearing it. There are two things which are certain in life, and no they are not "death and taxes." Life, in any capacity and eventual sunshine are the only certain things in life. Life and sunshine, though fleeting, will happen.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hiMve1ggjnI&feature=related