The Old Man

Paperback Publication Event from Night Publishing

Night Publishing (UK) has just released a quality paperback edition of George Polley’s popular story about the friendship between an elderly man and a large monkey.

Here is what readers are saying about the story:

Author Tim le Roux: "It is stunningly beautiful, one of the most amazing and moving pieces I have ever read." Tim le Roux is the author of Dance of the Pheasodile, Fishing for Christians, Missio, and other titles.

Author Stella Evelyne Tesha: "Reflects the rare values of unconditional friendship; love, trust, respect, loyalty and dependability. It also shows that being humane can bridge the differences between cultures or in this case, species." Stella Tesha is author of Love As Flowers and Journey Into Life

Artist Jean Sullivan, Seattle: "The Old Man and the Monkey is what good writing is all about: it makes you look within to find the best that you can be.”

To purchase your copy of the book, click on https://www.createspace.com/3439344

Then sit down and enjoy a great story. And be sure to recommend it to your friends and acquaintances.

All for this post,

Toasty

A Poetic Interlude

Macaw in winter

1

Too cold for an old
red macaw perched

outside the door of a
Kushiro pet shop this

December day. But
there he is

hunkered down,
grooming his feathers

in the cold winter wind
as snowflakes begin to fall.

2

Today the old red macaw
is on his perch munching seeds
as the arctic wind whips past.

Does he dream
of steaming tropical
forests?

--Kushiro, December 2007

Government of the people, by the people, for the people

The phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, so dear to the hearts of Americans comes from Lincoln's Gettysburg address: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In their majority ruling, the U. S. Supreme Court has today turned government of the people, by the people and for the people on its head, reengineering it to say "government of business, by business and for business", the people be damned.

What we now are guaranteed, unless Congress can overturn this ruling, is government by business interests, the best government that money can buy, that does what business interests wants it to do, with an utter disregard for the interests and needs people like you and me.

How did the Supreme Court do this? In a 5-4 majority, they said that businesses and business organizations could make unlimited political donations, including sponsoring TV ads for candidates they support, and against candidates they want to see defeated. What this does is hand the power of the purse over to the power elite, because they are the ones who have the money. Where does that put the average US citizen and citizen's organization? In Pauper's Row, begging for money.

This totally upsets the way politics are supposed to work in America, and hands it to people who do not have your interests, or mine, in mind.

If this doesn't make you mad, it should.

It is high time we flood the email Inboxes and mail boxes with demands that Congress reverse this ruling with strong protections that spell out in crystal clear terms just what government of the people, by the people and for the people is, so that business and the U.S. Supreme Court justices who wrote the majority opinion in this ruling understand exactly what it means, and spells out in clear terms its guarantees.

And we need to do this now.

All for this post,

Toasty

“The day I see a leaf is a marvel of a day.” — Kenneth Patton

Sitting here in my study looking out at the snow, I think what marvelous things our senses are. To sit quietly and see, touch, hear, smell and taste the world we live in. To take the smallest, the tiniest particle or being and take it in and savor it. To watch the wind in the trees, the approaching rain, the sound of voices or a voice. To hear music, laughter, grief. To look into our loved one’s eyes and see into the depths. To hold a loved one’s hand, to feel the warmth and texture of skin on skin, to cherish memories.

What a privilege just to to be without expectation or agenda.

Spring Poem

This morning walking

to work

I saw

leaves

backing out of

the

branches of a hedge.

Scottish Country Fair, St. Paul

On the green

dancers leap & twirl

bodies light as mist

They catch moons with their arms

throw out suns

make the earth under their feet

groan with pleasure

& with their eyes

give out a solemn joy & pride

that moves across the green

like a soft wind

blown up from a valley

or a shaft of light

cast down through trees.

Ocean

The ocean

is magnificent

sun sparkling

on its calm surface.

Quiet

In this quiet room

only the TV and my pen

show any motion

~ ~ ~

I wrote the first poems back in the 1970s. They are in my poetry collection, Seeing: Collected Poems, 1973 – 1999, published by Tortoise & Hare Publications in 2000, and now out of print. The last two poems I wrote while visiting my wife’s family in Kushiro, Japan in December 2007. On sunny days, the old red macaw sat on his perch outside in the winter wind.

Happy New Year to each of you. I am now back from my “writing sabbatical”. For more about that, go to www.geogepolleyauthor.com, go to “Writer’s Blog” and read “When the Well Runs Dry”.

Warmest regards,

Toasty

A Recommended Blog

Every once in a while I run across a blog that I like well enough to recommend to others, and Spence Smith's blog is one of them. I really like Spence’s blog, what he writes about, and the way he writes. I guess it proves the value of social media, because I ran into him on Twitter.

Take a look, wander around and see if you don't agree with me that he writes about some very worthwhile things.
His link is: http://www.spencesmith.com

Enjoy.

Toasty

For a future to be possible

Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that for a future to be possible on this planet, we – each of us – has got to do something to turn things around so that a future is possible for our children, grandchildren and beyond?

“The day we stop killing off our own species,” writes Zoe Taylor of McClure Middle School in Seattle, WA, “our world will become a book with no more torn pages.” (Source: Wisdom Commons, www.wisdomcommons.org.) That ought to be so obvious that no one would question it. Yet people go on killing each other every day in acts of war and vengeance.

Are there active movements where you live to reduce violence and the madness of war? If there are, what are they? If there aren’t, why not? What prevents such  movements from happening? Historian Andrew Bacevich has written that Americans are seduced by war (“The New American Militarism”). I am convinced that America and its citizens are seduced by violence. It’s in our militarism, our video games, our domestic relations, our language and in our gangs. Is this true where you live? What can you – can we – do to change this where we live? What are we willing to do.

For the first time in my life, I live in a country – Japan – that is committed to the peaceful means of solving conflicts. Nonviolence has been written into its Constitution since the end of World War Two. Does this mean that war thinking has ended? Not at all. It means that the nation, and its people are dedicated to seeking peaceful means to solving conflicts. Looking back at the horrors of World War Two, the Japanese people wanted nothing to do anymore with war and warmongers, and they have stuck resolutely by that and demanded that their politicians and military leaders do the same. (The last military officer to publicly rattle his sword, a four-star Air SDF general, was summarily fired from his job earlier this year and mustered out of the Self Defense Force.)

South Africa changed from a White controlled government to a racially inclusive government led by Nelson Mandela without the eruption of violence and hate that most people had predicted. And in Northern Ireland, in spite of occasional outbursts of sectarian violence, the people and their leaders seem committed to a peaceful future.

For a future to be possible we, as individuals, neighbors, communities and nations, must begin committing ourselves to beliefs, attitudes and activities that bring a peace that respects our differences.

What do you think?

All for this post,

Toasty