WHEN WILL THE KILLING END?

When will all the killing end and mankind vow, "Never again."

Assassinations, illegal, unjustified invasions, nations attacking nations, power hungry politicians, religion-driven contradictions, greed-fed, insane mad ambitions, uncontrollable conditions, asinine generations of upheld traditions, manufacturers of munitions--all these and treason are but a few of the reasons men abandon daily labors to kill their neighbors.

In times of war crimes make heroes of those who, for years, will be haunted by what they've done. Whether they have lost or won, the cost will not be measured by billions burned, but by human fodder slaughtered and never returned.

Many among us, so filled with promise, hopes and dreams. now sleep for ever more in lonely graves on a distant shore. Some will make it home in a box or a body bag to leave his parents to brag about their dead hero son and all the good things he has done to make the future safer for---no one!

Wars are never won by those who fight or diplomats, Republicans or Democrats who might be wrong, might be right, or those of us who write and theorize and, no doubt, don't know what we're talking about. But then, who? I don't know, do you?

The answer is: wars are never won. They begin with lies and end with compromise by frightened men forced to admit they were wrong all along and swallow their foolish, ghoulish pride.

THE CONSTANT CRY, THE ENDLESS END

Like all would-be czars, dictators and kings. war brings them face to face with many things. Their personal war began with a plan to set an oppressed nation free, to end a reign of terror and make the world a safer place to be.

But with victory the populace was soon to learn another revolution was the way to go. Although they won they soon would know the truth of the lie at the election booth. That the blood shed, the thousands dead had not assured the free the right to liberty and democracy.

The cry Revolt! rang out again. The men lined up, signed up to fight another war and the rising star of the aristocracy was soon to see that his ultimate, unrivaled power was not to be.

The House of Cards fell and hell would reign as right fought wrong. How long it would last, no one could tell. But the die was cast. There could be no turning back and again the cry of the desperate mass, haters of the ruling class, rang out: Death to the enemy! But most who gave their lives died for a cause they thought was the same old dream, to be free. They soon realized it was buried beneath the debris of hypocrisy.

When will the free be truly free? When will words like Equality. Integrity and Honesty mean what Webster had in mind when he defined them in his dictionary?

A SIGHTLESS WORLD AWAITS

Now that I have left this world behind I wonder what kind of world I'll find, perhaps a world where all are blind, where all perforce must look alike and share a singularity of mind, who in their sightlessness do not seek to impress those with less or envy those with more.

Since none can see, in no way will others be better off than me. They, like I, will share the inability to see. Our sense of taste will have gone to waste and how can a sense of smell tell if the first bite on a plate will sate a sightless appetite?

We will know the color of the sky is black. The clothes we wear, our skin and hair and whatever else out there is also black. Even what we obviously cannot see must be at least in shades of ebony. My neighbor's black and so am I and that leaves no room for bigotry. Our blessed blindness and our blackness will set us free. Thus, all of us will have no cause for bigotry.

I am black and you are black just like me. And the world of darkness we will share is a rare and wonderful place to be.

THIS EARTH I GIVE TO THEE

To my children's children's children I bequeath a world our forefathers would not believe, a land called Earth that had its birth in unbridled fury and flame and overcame it all and saved the gift God created. In a world deep in debris God saw not what was but what could be.

The world was was not to be a monstrosity, but a land with trees and seas and birds and bees and creatures great and creatures small and bugs and insects, wind and breeze and the greatest prize by far, a heaven filled with sun and moon and distant stars.

Then, according to the master's Master Plan, came Man. This is when the trouble all began. God's plan got out of hand and to this day bloodshed has led the way. Marching in step behind the lethal leader are dread disease, illegal drugs that please but kill wantonly, those in denial that are eating and drinking all the while their bodies waste away as they await Judgment Day.

We can't tell when. We can't know how. If might come now or then it might not come for many years. But there is one certainty. One day Judgment Day is meant to be. The inventor won't alone be you or me. It will be US, the dumb who let the world grow warm enough to destroy our pride and joy, the world we know. It's gotta go.

So go ahead, you dunderhead, drive that gas eater super heater till life is dead, Smear the atmosphere with poisoned air that spawns monster hurricanes and unessential torrential rains and thawing glaciers that will fill oceans to overflow. Earth's bounty will fail to grow and wildlife will starve and few will understand why we planned our own super-size demise.

When the trial of those in denial, who resisted proven fact and refused to react to warming warnings, are proven guilty, will we have learned our lesson and lessen our messin' 'round and restore the ground and all around it to the way our forebears found it way back when? Will this planet come to life again?

HY AND KATE HAD A DATE

Hymie Hokuspoukas had a toukus. Oye, was it fat. At least five feet wide when he was erect, I expect ten when he sat. His thighs were wide as pizza pies, his gut was, you know what, round like a blown up balloon soon to go ker-pop. Hymie's hands and feet could never meet and greet because there was that more-so torso that blocked the scene in between his nose and toes. He had no idea what he weighed because there was no scale made that displayed a dial he could see. It was his estimate his weight was a thousand three.

Hymie had a date with Kate who was just skin and bones. Her boobs were shaped like toothpaste tubes. Her neck's the size of a duck's and her rear end waddled like one, too. She was the thinness ever featured in the Guinness book and what she looked like you wouldn't, couldn't want to know.

Well, to make a short story long, they got along like ding and dong and it's said they wed and then is when their wedding bells went bong, bong, bong, Kate said Hy had done her wrong. They got a divorce, of course, and Kate married a little horse. Hy said bye-bye. He didn't cry. With a sigh, he ate a ten pound pizza pie, a ham on rye, a great big suckling pig, a t-bone steak, a chocolate cake, then realized he was super-sized. He heard about a diet and decided to try it. By fall he was trim and ten feet tall and married a Barbie doll. And that was all.

ABOUT GEORGE BUSH'S WATERLOO

Remember Napoleon Bonaparte who fiddled while Rome burned? He had a dream to rule the world he knew, but it was shattered at a place called Waterloo.

Now there lives a twice selected president with similar dreams to rule the world as he knew it but he blew it. After many failures this prevailer is all but through and soon will meet his Waterloo in Iraq, the land where there's no turning back.

The truth is this: In politics, the rotten are soon forgotten. But not in Dubya's case. Scientists couldn't wait till he was dead to find out what was in his head. George okayed to be x-rayed if they'd keep the findings top secret. No doubt they tried. But inside leaky D. C. news has as way to get out. You can bet it did, I kid you not. And it was hot, the rage of a featured place on the funny page.

In spite of what scientists expected to find, Bush does have a mind and brain. But, as reported in the news, the mind was awash in a pool of booze and the brain was made of limp spaghetti, two meatballs and a Barbara doll. That was all.

DUBYA DITTIES

DUBYA, DUBYA, once a comer, now a dumber, prone to slumber while the voters do a number on his wrecker crew plumbing down while this clown still wears a crown as the self-declared King of Ding-a-ling. No doubt this Texas horse's ass should get out.

* * *

THIS TWICE selected president, illegal White House resident, this loser boozer, accuser diffuser of the truth, burglar at the voting booth, has made a mess of the U. S., aided by a bought and biased press and the far right fright. no less, should confess and face his doom and vacate the Oye-vay Room. He and his phony baloney cronies gotta go. All the surveys say that's so.

BUSH MORALITY: MAKE ONE BABY, LET MILLIONS DIE

Every time I read about that worthless lout (you know who I'm talking about) I am ashamed we have a president who sent GIs to Iraq to die for no damn reason why. And he did it with lack of plan to bring them back.

Oh yes, one way the US will send a GI home is if he dies or loses an eye or limb that makes him no longer qualified to be living fodder for democracy. If war gets them, which happens often, and they are certified dead, they won't have to suffer from jet lag as they sleep comfortably in a coffin or a body bag.

If you or those you love true are stricken with a disease doctors aren't sure how to cure but know, with stem cells they'll eventually find an answer. (Cancer, anyone?) Forget it. You and yours ain't gonna get it because that VETO SCHMOE won't allow our dough to make it so. Why? Because the religious right, of which he's a part, says each frozen embryo might maybe make one baby instead of aiding science in its plight to do what's right. Isn't it more morale to sacrifice a life not yet conceived to find a way to someday save millions who would go to an early grave?

Good grief, you Thief in Chief, you're beyond belief. You're an unmitigated unabated dirty crook who not only cooks the books but even hooks the books while Congress looks the other way and the media says it's A-Okay.

In your zeal to steal our liberty, you rewrote the Bill of Rights, dilute the Constitution and mocked democracy and replaced it with idiotic hypocrisy, Isn't it odd that when you try to sell our American Way abroad they sigh, "For the grace of God, there do not go I."

Dubya, don't preach against Stem to them. In foreign lands they stand behind this research no matter what the far right church has to say or fills the air with unanswered prayer.

Leaders of Science came to D.C. to beg George intelligently to give the stem cell a chance to prove its worth. They were met with a sneer that said, "Get outta here. I'm committed to morality, not to saving lives through scientific trickery."

File Dubya denial in a garbage can. He's not wise enough to realize there are s many ways science paves the way to a brighter, healthier tomorrow, to an end to suffering and sorrow, to a better, longer life for all. Why should this incompetent president with a brain the size of a grain of sand have the power to halt the advance of science with his moralistic poppy cock? We should put him in a locked, padded cell and free the stem cell, immediately!

It can and will eventually be in spite of Dubya's moralistic stupidity. Trust me.

NEVER ENDING SEARCH

When you're eighty plus like most of us and still looking for a lady who's looking, too, remember you can pick and choose because the laws of longevity are on your side. You are old beyond the threshold of life's expectancy and she's still young as widows go. But she'll be bed weary and oh, my deary, she'll never recover from a lover just like you.

If you die first, she'll get the worst of the deal. She's cursed and nursed you, fed and bed you, heard your boring stories of youthful glories until she can't stand anymore. You have learned how to cut her short without resort to a "Yes dear" reply followed by a weary sigh. Just point to your ear, make believe you can't hear, bury your head in the racing form and sip your beer.

If she's the first to go you know there's many a fish in the sea waiting to be hooked who will cook and bake. mop and shop. drive you here and drive you there, wash and repair your underwear. She'll yes, yes yes you, bless. caress and undress you. What happens next is anybody's guess.

To your surprise, she'll fire and inspire you and no matter what size you rise to. she will praise and amaze you. This you will miss until you woo another mam or miss who will mother you and smother you with love and kisses and then you'll know what true bliss is. Each wife, a different life, a passion fashioned to your advanced romantic age.

STEM CELLS, HUMANITY OR INSANITY?

Ahem! Ahem! We're talking about Stem Cells, my friend. What the hell does Dummy Dubya know? What does his crew tell him to do? Kill the bill that might somehow allow science someday to find a way to cure disease plaguing millions now.

What's the rationale of Bush and his pal, brainless Cheney? Don't commit those "living" cells to research when maybe they could make a baby.. Isn't it a sin to kill at will when that tiny specimen could make more men to fight and die in wars, drive monster cars, smoke big cigars and fly to Mars? Make more soccer moms and kids hooked on dot coms doing what comes naturally, mating and populating overcrowded third world nations. Wouldn't it better be to save humanity?

We're talking about death, my friend. The beginning and the end. What did God intend for those microscopic specks of life, now the topic of debate between the test tube set and those ding-a-lings who won't let science do its thing.To create one life and deny cures to millions who endure pain and eventual death when the alternatives are immense makes no sense.

In a world of reality it is an impracticality that's forcing our corporations to set up stations in foreign nations who realize the financial prize to be won. To not invest in research simply because some radical church objects is next to insanity.

Wake up, George. Get real. Stem cell is a big deal. It can let us live longer and make our economy stronger. Health and wealth, no doubt, is what it's all about.

LAND OF FUNNY MONEY

This is the land of bilk and funny money where the have-nots have not got a pot to do that or this in and the have it alls have got us all against the wall while they enjoy their toys and feast on the oil profits of the Middle East.

This is the land of opportunity for crooks protected by immunity for cooking books and cheating schnooks. That's the way it is in big bizz which cons and controls our economy.

The bears and bulls who have all the tools twist the rules and fool the fools who sit and wait and pay the freight and rising rates as they, the buyer, watch them go higher and higher. If you've got the dough you can travel to the moon or anywhere. And the way things are going here you might as well just stay up there.

CORPORATE CRIME PAYS BIG TIME

Want to be a big time crook and commit the near-perfect crime without ending up in jail? It's easier than you think to stay out of the clink without slinking around thinking any moment the long arm of the law will lay a paw on you and there's nothing you can do except serve your sentence and do your penitence in a cell.

Well, there is a better way you can stay out of the can and preserve your nerve and protect your respect and make your intellect your key to jail free respectability. Do what the Big Boys do. Become a corporate boss dealing with profit and loss and cook the books and wine and dine with fellow ex-cons who will turn you on to how to be a criminal with minimal risk and great reward without working hard.

Be logical. Go ecological and join a corporation with a squeaky clean reputation that makes its loot fair and square by fouling up the air. Then seal a cash deal with a Washington wheel so he'll go slow on enforcing the law to make you clean up your act. Slip him the dough, he'll shake your hand and never call you back. Deal's done, you both won. If that ain't dirty, crooked biz, I don't know what is!

That's just an example of what goes in Washington and, with variations, in cities large and small all over the USA every day. If the deal's not air it's steel or gas or to buy the votes to pass a bill that will put billions in the till.

The FBI more often than not turns a blind eye to what you do. And even if there is hanky-panky of this sort what happens in court is never included in the report of the investigation and most legislation to correct the situation dies in committee or until the lobby side is satisfied.

I researched the facts and found them true. What big business does costs you. So next time you pay a speeding fine or a monster price for gas or oil. just know that with each sale you're helping keep these crooks out of jail.

SHAME ON SUPERMAN!

Superman, oh Superman, take a tip from a loyal fan who liked your looks in comic books and has seen you on the silver screen fighting crime and every time you scored an heroic deed I grew more proud to be a buddy of the kid from Kryptonite.

Last night I watched your latest flick and I must admit it made me sick to see my old-time hero let the whole world fall apart while he saves his ex-sweetheart from the forces of evil. Unbelievable! Please explain why you must let your lust for Lois Lane be a faction that impacts your he-man action in favor of physical attraction? Why have you become so dumb to let lust turn you into a wimp? Are you for real, oh mighty Man of Steel?

I couldn't believe what I saw. You, the champion of the law, for shame! You let the world go up in flame while looking for
that dame in peril. Where'll this all end? Get wise, Clark Kent in disguise, or I'll switch my loyalty to Batman. Now that's a man who never lets sex keep him from preventing wrecks, fighting fires and inspiring our nation's youth to protect truth and
justice and the American Way. Things that you used to do, I might say.

The next time you take a trip into space or any place, forget that Newsy sob sister, Mister Hero, and battle crime big time or write a rhyme, land in a Seven Eleven to catch a thief, then stop a shopper from being arrested by a copper for stealing a pound of beef at a Wal-mart super store. Later in the afternoon pick up Iraq and drop it on the moon. And if all that doesn't make your day, go back home and clean up the city you left in disarray.

RUMINATIONS ABOUT REINCARNATION

Allow me these ruminations about reincarnation. Are hallucinations invitations to another place far away, visitations from loved ones, friends and relations? Are they to reassure you they're OK? Anticipations of expectations that await you on a very special day? Verifications of life after death for which so many pray? Implications you are nearing the end of a vacation and soon will return to another world a million worlds away?

If there are answers or suggestions to these questions where you may go after you take your final bow in this show, you will learn with certainty that what you heard about eternity is really so. If this be a truth sublime, you'll wish you'd begun your journey ahead of time.

I'm not advising suicide or a one-way ride to the other side. But in the stress and strain and pain of life for which there is no way free except to die, why not give another life a try?

SEXUALITY AND REALITY

Sexuality is reality. It is part of your personality. It is vital to the vitality of your life, from the day of your birth until the finality of your time on Earth. It identifies not just your worth but also who you are.

You may not know why you are but you cannot deny what you are, although some may try to seek acceptance by a society that refuses to admit variety is not just the spice of life, it is what makes life worth the price.

You may be straight or gay or go either way or say the role you play day by day exemplifies and typifies what you choose to be. You may claim you used to be what you no longer am but that's a sham and even if you try not to show it you know it still resides deep inside. You cannot hide the truth from you. Even if you tried, and on the surface lied skillfully and successfully, the so-called heart of you, there is a part of you that knows you best. and where you fail or pass the test of integrity.

"To be or not to be..." You know the rest.

Sexuality's not just about sex even though that's a complex part of it. At the heart of it, it's much more. It's how deep you understand and comprehend the feelings of your special friend and the messages you send to one another that creates and grows the love you share and shows how much you care.

Of course, that's the inner driving force behind a true relationship, straight or gay. It's the way to say: "It's OK. I know, I understand." And that sums up where this all began. A love between a woman and a man, between two women or two men, it's all the same, it's not a game we play. It's the way we are. The way we were meant to be.

IF WE GIVE IN BOTH SIDES WIN

I honestly believe if we get out and give Iraq back Iraq, the killing will stop and, whether we like it or not, the opposing sides will eventually get together and peace will follow. Why should we and they wallow in mud and blood just to save face for that human race disgrace whose place in history's already kaput?

If we choose to refuse to lose a war we can't win, we're in for double double triple trouble as the war gets badder than bad for Baghdad. If we get out no doubt we'll be shamed and blamed, rightly so, for the mess we left behind. But if the sects correct what's wrong and peace succeeds, we can say we planted the seed in the Middle East.

If we depart, that won't start a civil war. It already rages.in its early stages. If we stay and continue to fiddle, we'll be caught in the middle, which, in a way, we already are. The insurgents continue to surge and our side seems to lack the urge to respond in kind. We can't find a way to at least keep the enemy at bay. And more of Us than They are being killed every day.

There's a theory that makes more sense than why we commenced the war and our pretense for getting to where we are: Force America to spend and send GIs to war. No matter how Bush tries to fudge it, that drains our budget. And Dubya's maniacal stand to stay and fight with no end in sight is bankrupting our economy. That's the key to who has already won. The day our dollar ain't worth a dime is the time when terror ends. And all those so-called "allies" will no longer be our friends.

Let's face it. Our government's bankrupt-bound unless we turn this plunge around and make the dollar sound. For now all Bush and his Dum-dum Crew of can do is suck their thumbs and hope things don't get worse in days to come.

WHO'S KIDDING WHO?

No matter what we do, whether we stay or leave we will have lost, not gained, what this lame brained son of a Bush sad sack got us into in Iraq.

It may sound confusing or ironically amusing but the truth is the only way we can win is by losing. If we stay, day by day the insurgents who play a deadly game will maim and kill more GIs and up the prize they're netting by getting any price they want for fuel that we, the fools, are willing to pay. This becomes more evident every day.

Some may not agree but the reason why they willingly sucked us into this endless war was not because they wanted to kill us. If their masses die they'll be happy as apple pie. The minute they're dead they'll be sped by American Express on a one-way trip to Nirvana, a heavenly place where virgins wait to compensate them for turning suicide into an orgy-fide ride to Allah Lala-Land.

They don't care if our GIs live or die or wind up in a soldiers' nursing home without arms or legs and battered brains to become painful victims of a sorry past that will last as long as they're alive.

This thug has got a bug up his Texas ass to keep 'em dying while he keeps lying, trying to find somebody to blame for his lame leadership that could sink our ship as our world goes up in flame and our economy goes down the drain.

This whole mess is a disgrace to save the face of an invented, demented president who ain't worth a two buck bucket of cement which would make a nice November bullet-proof coat when his suck-cesser loses the vote and refuses to be Bush's billy goat.

The longer we stay the course the worse it's going to get. Bring the GIs home alive.

THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS

Before the beginning had begun, before anything was done, before there was a moon or sun, a night or noon, a winter or a spring, before there was anything, there were tons of nothing in empty airless air.

What could be, what should be, what cannot be in this world that does not exist is a creator to create, thinkers to contemplate, minds to complicate, complex sex, a master plan, man, meat for nobody alive to eat, bees, an ocean breeze, prostitutes or birthday suits, Dubya jokers or Wall Street brokers, tax, six pack, Iraq, evolution, revolution or a Texas execution.

There are no condoms to prevent infections or impregnations, no diapers, no windshield wipers, no snipers, no gripers, no cattle or a baby rattle, no Constitution, no solution to non-pollution, no chicken bones, no grunts or snorts, no jockey shorts, no warming of a non-existent planet.

Will there ever be a world to be? We'll just have to wait and see.

ARMPITS ARE THE PITS

Armpits are the pits, but they're a part of the anatomy of you and me and everybody in town that has arms hanging down. Hands at the other end are your best friend. They, with fingers, ten in all, can be used to catch a ball, halt a fall. scrawl an autograph, break bagels in half, scratch a head to understand what an egghead said.

But armpits are out of it. They can't stand and they can't sit, they can't spit a pit, flit fleas or bees or say their A-B-C's. Pits don't have rosy cheeks, they can't take a peek or make a leak or play hide and seek and, just think, even washed they have a stink worse than the smell of a devil shoveling coal in hell.

Armpits are always pale and white because they only get sunlight when a robber at the beach says: "Reach! Stick 'em up!" or the pits' owner lifts his cup to "bottoms up" to toast the host of a weenie roast.

You meet a gal you desire who sets your heart on fire. You admire her posterior and most of her exterior but don't you ever wonder, are her pits inferior, hanging there beneath kinky, stinky hair? If you've got to stare somewhere. let it be her darrier. If you dare.

A PROPOSAL FOR A WORLD AT WAR

The American Flag waves proudly as the symbol of our liberty. It is the voice of our great democracy. The badge of honor and integrity. It tells the story of our history. The blood we shed, the living and the dead, the wars we won with guts and gun to guarantee our right to be free. Its colors never run nor do we in the defense of humanity.

The Grand Old Flag stands for what we are, what we can be. It is a badge we proudly wear, respected and protected throughout the land, that says, "I am an American."

When our heroes die we fly the flag at half staff to honor those who gave their lives so we could survive as the land of the free. Today and forever more our GIs die on foreign shore as insane madness reigns.

In these days of trouble and tribulation throughout all great nations we must recognize and memorialize those making the ultimate sacrifice. From this day on until all the killings and the terror are gone we must let the Red, White and Blue talk for all of civilized humanity.

FLY THE FLAG AT HALF STAFF TO HONOR THOSE WHO HAVE DIED AND OTHERS WHOSE DEATHS ARE SURE TO COME FROM THIS DAY ON UNTIL ALL TRACES OF WAR ARE GONE. FLY THE FLAG UPSIDE DOWN AS A SYMBOL OF OUR DISTRESS UNTIL THE WE AND ALL THE WORLD ARE BLESSED BY PEACE AND HOPE AND HAPPINESS.

MURDERER IN TRAINING

When in their teens most kids read sports and comic pages and headline news of violence that rages across continents. Each event, real or fiction, is a prediction of what might be. Sports events often glorify violence, send chills and thrills up the spine. Reading about it, hearing mad fans shout about it, makes a young mind spin like the time he sipped his father's gin.

Their world comes alive when they read of wars and crimes, killing that fills the pages and TV screens. They ask: "What does it mean?" One day they knows. They read of over populated nations where unfed blacks are just skin and bone and bellies blown up like circus balloons, graphic indications of starvation. They are convinced wars are good. They kill people as they should. That seems to be the GI's destiny.

Empty spaces quickly fill with new young faces, waiting to die. God talks to them, tells them what to do: Slay the bad to save the good. If you die along the way, that's your gift to humanity.

THE ZOO STORY

It was a fine howdy-do throughout the zoo. No doubt it was true. From cage to cage it was the rage. The lions in their pit were part of it. Every rhino and hippo too were in at the start of it.

The turtles in their shells, the baboons and the men who sold balloons could tell all was not well. It had cast its spell on the sick and well in the menagerie. It wasn't imaginary. Something was askew throughout the zoo.

It started with monkey monkeyshines and spread to the gnus and kangaroos, the pythons and the bisons, the anteaters and the skeeters and cats and rats who got in free without paying an admission fee.

The monkeys were the first junkies to crash. Where they got the cash to buy their stash of crack and hash nobody knew. But every day as the zoo would close the jungle came alive with all the jazz and all the jive and the beat of stamping feet and the smoke of poke,

A cough and coke would soak the veins and befuddle the brains and fur would fly as birds got high not in the sky but in their nests and sometimes guests would join the quest for a shot of pot. And the pelican went pschycodelican again.

The laughing hyena would giggle a lot and the coyote hooked on peyote would howl and the owl would who-who hoot and shoot and the faun would get it on from dusk till dawn and this would go on until all the drugs were gone and they'd have to wait for the next supply to get high again.

GITTIN' OLD

The worstest thing 'bout gittin' old's admittin' yer old. I heered told when I were no more a youngun an' knew the end were comin' 'round the bend I figger better tend to bizness an' sich stuff that's a-comin' soonest enuff so when the reaper starts in creepin' in me sleepin' an' garantee he be keepin' a place up thar reservedly just fer me I be ready when he let me git through them golden gates.

Of late I seein' in me dreams what seems to be me mom an' dad, my missus an' all the kids we should o' had an' all the relatives what has died an' now's be livin' on the other side, some I loved and some I cain't abide, but when I be above in God's hometown I ain't about to put 'em down.

Oh, what a party we be havin' me an' them and frens an' such, the folks I miss so much. An' I guess oncet we greet we's sit down an' eat all kinds o' meat an' cakes an' pies an' sweets an' home fry taters an' fresh tamaters off the vine an' we drink wine and good homebrew an' such as what be illegal. An' I be pettin' my ol' beagle. He be a best fren to me. He got thar ahead o' me, y 'see, 'cause dogs cain't live to a hunnert an' three like me. But God, he's gonna wave his golden wand an' all those years an' aches an' pains be disapear,

Oh my oh me! It sure gonna be a comin' home fer me.

WHEN THE WITNESSES DIE, SO WILL HISTORY?

Are the victims of past madness, witness to a generation that saw the elimination of a massive population at the blood-soaked hands of the creator of the Holocaust, soon to die and fade into history?

This was a time when crime was rampant in the world. When bombs were hurled and humans slain and death rained down on once peaceful towns for diabolical, illogical reasons. Madness was in season and humanity committed treason against sanity. Thousands gassed as each day passed and the good people wondered, how long could this vast assault last before there would be wars no more?

Hitler with his war machine was turning Europe from green to red, leaving in its wake millions dead, horrendous at a stupendous rate just because of this man's hate that spread like the disease it was. All because the victims accused were mostly Jews. The sick, the lame, gypsies, homosexuals met the same fate in this evil game of death. And in their place would rise a Master Race.

Napoleon was not the only one to meet his Waterloo. It happens to all evil madmen as it must do. Dictators rise, dictators fall, but perhaps the most evil of them all was Adolph Hitler and his partners in the greatest crime of all time.

Some died by suicide, some by the hangman's noose, some spent the balance of their lives in prison cells. Who can tell how many fled to foreign shores, remaining free. Their guilt will follow them into eternity.

You would think the world would learn to spurn all war and tyranny, the shame of man, the game of fools, the violation of the rules brought down by Moses from the mount.

Today, on a lesser scale, but still monumental and instrumental, are evil acts that will prevail, committed by men who lust for power in our bastion of democracy. What stands as a violation, a criminalization and an abomination of law today will become a legality if men of good will don't stem the tide and halt the slide into massive suicide of billions headed for self annihilation. We must defy the enemy or freedom and democracy will surely die.

Is all already lost? Are we headed for another Holocaust?

BASEBALL. ET AL IS A BORE

They -- the senior center I call home -- took me out to the ball game. Our team won so, according to the song that immortalized the sport it was a hit. This game was not a shame, at least not to the screaming fans with lungs and hands that demanded action that never happened. The score was one to nothing and nothing was what the shouting was all about,

Maybe there's something wrong with me. I can't join in the activity which is more about drinking beer and pop and topping it off with popcorn and hot dogs that make fans fat which most already by far are.

I was sure I would not be thrilled with what is billed as America's national pastime. But I took the lure because the seats were free and I thought I'd give it one more try. I don't know why. But I got to thinking, if this sort of sport is all it takes to make saps clap and stuff their gut with God knows what, terrorists hit lists should include the Castles of Conformity where baseball and other sorts of sports are God.

Dynamiting these sites where wrong-headed rites draw capacity rowdy crowds night after night would shatter the morality and mentality of those whose minds are closed to intellectual pursuits and make them more astute regarding the alarming warming of the planet, the worst threat yet to the continuation of civilization,

For what it's worth, Earth is our only home.There is no place in outer space that could replace it. Face it!

Remember the once hero of history, the mighty Nero. He found that fiddling around almost brought down the world he knew. Are we headed for a rekindling of that ancient fire. Is this the world's unconscious desire?

Remember Nero, Remember Rome. And don't forget. There's no place like home sweet home.