Friday, September 29, 2006

SEX AMONG THE STARS

I'm in my eighties and still have a craving for misbehaving ladies. When I reach my nines will I still have designs on female lines? Will I still kick up a storm at the sight of the feminine form? Will I still have an ache for a gal on the make who has what it takes to give what she's got whether she's got it or not? Can I abide her wrinkles and creases, the release of odors from her gastric disorders?

If she's sort of a chronic platonic but hooked on a tonic that fires desires, what is to worry or hurry to bed for fear that my miss in a burst of passion, for better or worse, will in her fashion. risk her sacroiliac and jump in the sack the minute I say in my indirect way, "Let's go to bed."

And if she replies with a snicker and sighs and smiles, "Wait while I take all the pills for my ills. Then if you still want the prize between my fat thighs, put up or shut up with all those kitchykoos. So come on, get it on or it soon will be gone

"But don't do it fast. Make it last a minute or two, then I must go to my maker. So shake it, I'll take it. Then I'll head for my place in the sky and lay on a cloud and shout out loud, 'Hey angel boy, let's wiggle and jiggle and have us a fling. Let's fly to the moon and dance on the stars and take a slow boat to Venus or Mars. Pluck me and I'll pluck you. What more can we do at a hundred and two?"

A VACATION IN SPACE

The wold's been here a trillion years, give or take a few, so on your race through space pick any spot in our terrestrial parking lot, put a penny in the slot, park for an eternity and shuttle off to Buffalo if that's where you want to go.

A flight for a night to a far off star for a honeymoon in the month of June at the Lunar Falls is the out of space thing to do. A trip through space to any place takes just a blip or two. The price is right so book a flight a light year away, stay a century at the Galaxy Regency. The second hundred years are free.

Or go to dazzling Dizzyland where green Martian Men brighten up the scene and Dipper strippers do things obscene and a Chorus from Taurus sings about "Isaac Newton's Rootin' Tootin's Star Wars Candy Bars and Milky Ways'."

DEGREES AND INCOMPETENCY

A college degree is no guarantee of competency or integrity, especially when you're seeking help medically. Don't just complacently agree to do what doctor tells you to. Their cure could kill you slowly, by degrees. (Pun intended, if you please,)

A symptom misdiagnosed may be the most serious mistake a doctor could make when a life's at stake. So take a doubting view of the advice you follow or the pills you swallow. And get a second opinion or more before running to the pharmacy, and always ask the doc a lot of questions and suggestions, demand in-depth consultation time before you pay the MD a single dime. Never say, "Why should I care? I'll send the bill to Medicare."

Some patients blindly trust, just shrug their shoulders and accept the possibly inept specialist whose advice consists of drugs and pills and tests that run up doctor bills. And don't just be impressed by a crowded waiting room or a look of doom upon the patients faces. They're just the type a quack embraces. Doctors can do no wrong? If they live, the physician was great. If they die, it was just fate. If they cling to life, live on and on, keep breathing artificially even though they should officially be declared dead, it's just like the doctor said and watched survivors nod: "I did my best. The rest was up to God."

Friday, September 22, 2006

CONFESSIONAL

Something strange has happened to the deranged population of our nation. We, as a whole, are in a hole of isolation with emotions that are on a permanent vacation. We, collectively, don't give a damn who we are. And I don't know or care who I am.

There is a vacancy inside of me, an emptiness that makes me less than I should be. I, and maybe you and others, too, are victims of complacency, an agency which strangely makes us free of self respect, integrity and responsibility. As a result, we can dress like a slob, loaf on the job and rob and steal and not feel guilty or be ashamed of blame.

I have an obsession to make this confession be cause it eases me of the depression that encapsulates me. But keep in mind as you read these lines that I am not what I seem to be. I use the "I" and "We" editorially to describe the personality I see in others who I observe objectively. And speculate could happen to me.

What I write about "I" or "Me" or "We" or "He" or even "She" is strictly fiction, intellectuality. I observe the population and arrive at a summation of my observations. What I write, wrong or right, I leave up to you to decide. I admit I write from the brain, not from the heart. But if my words strike a chord, if they ring a bell with your private hell, only you know what you must do.

A DAY IN COURT

You do the crime. You serve the time. That was true before. That ain't true anymore. Law gives way to corruption, a mere interruption between what was and what is has become.

Now dishonesty pays in many ways as new legislation makes violation a fabrication of the past. Loophole laws now in place make criminal justice a disgrace.

Shyster crooks take a look at the books and these well-trained legal minds design a legislative way to find that crime and greed, indeed, pay legally.

It's the fine print that you have to squint to read and the pressure to "Sign right here on the dotted line," And who can scan a thousand words of legalese? They shove a pen in your hand and pressure you to "just sign, please, initial here, initial there, check yes or no in every indicated square."

As the hour's growing late, the girls rush in with coffee and cake and to celebrate the signing of the contract to seal the deal you may live to regret when it's too late.

That's how million dollar deals are done and who has lost and who has won? This sort of thing may wind up in court.
"Did you sign on the bottom line? Is that your signature?" "Yes." "You're sure?" A nervous nodding head. "Did you understand what you read?" Another nod. "Then you know what it said?" "Yes. I guess I did."

With that admission, case closed.

WHAT'S WRONG MAKES EVERYTHING COME OUT RIGHT

Did you ever stop to think you ought to reconsider your thought and adjust your point of view as to what is false and what is true and what beezirk quirks lurk behind your mind to distort it and short-circuit it and leave you muddled and befuddled?

Have you chosen to let your frozen mentality block out rock reality and fill it with inexact facts that lack logic and leave you psychologically depressed? If your answer's "Yes," you're more than depressed, you're a mess!

You got that way by resisting and insisting you're not that way. The biggest trouble with humanity is that it denies its inborn, well worn insanity to feed its vanity with inanity.

A knowledge of quiz show trivia may bring ya bucks and loot and fame to boot, that will suit the customary customers who buy the no-good goods they seek week after week to sell to a slogan slaphappy sappy weak society that fuels the sagging, lagging economy.

It's the nuts what cuts the mustard, the final word on what is heard on Wall Street, that generates the heat that keeps the meat on the table and makes us able to maintain the gain of this insane society.

We buy it, try it and create the riot that keeps us high and mighty. So why would we be so flighty and go to all the trouble to worry about a sudden bubble that could burst and start it all come tumbling and come plunging down?

Sunday, September 17, 2006

WEATHER, WEATHER

Weather, let's get it all together. Whether the weather's cold or hot, a lot of snow and ice or just a nice calm and balmy day, storm and wind and hurricane, earthquakes that shake and rip the earth apart, death that breaks a heart and shatters a dream at the start, inspired minds in search of cures, relief from pain mankind endures, plans and dreams and even schemes, it seems, might have repaired or cared for victims of catastrophe.

All unrealized by research denied for religious reasons or a single shot fired from a madman's gun or someone with a war to be won or a disease for which a cure could have been found with a little luck and a million or so bucks wasted on fancy cars and unwinable wars.

It's tragic but true that a government can do most anything, find millions for bullets and bombs and armament but when it comes to helping the poor or finding a cure they can't afford a dollar or a cent, We've got a policy to fight a war and kill and destroy, then rebuild the enemy's homes and economy and let our vets rot away in a hospital bay with missing body parts, some blind, some with troubled war-shocked minds. Lifetime disabilities of every kind.

And who gives a damn? Not Uncle Sam.

ROAD TO SELF-DESTRUCTION

Because of the wrath of a sick, sadist psychopath this nation's on a one-way road to self-destruction. One man without legitimate reason's conducting a course in how to force treason down the throats of billions with the brains of billy goats willing to go willy-nilly to the no think brink of red ink ruin.

The lesson's a being taught by a Texas sleaze who graduated college with c's and d's and takes pride in his limited expertise to run a government he had to seize because he couldn't win it by legal means. To state it simple, George doesn't know beans from jellybeans, yet prances and preens as he plays the scenes on a stage of rage, reading a script from a text on Revolution 101.

"I have the solution," says the corrupt instructor, "Let voters vote and when it's done you count one plus one as twenty-one, yes as no and no as yes and then compound the mess by making what's wrong come out right. That's the way to win a fight. And if that fails, forget the details, your last resort is a captured supreme Court of Courts."

Well, they did all this. It couldn't miss. They achieved their goal and, bless my soul, they're on a roll out to take control of the whole ding-dong-dang shebang. Before they're through they'll do it. And enough of us knew it would be the result, the final insult of this cult of robbers out to clobber our democracy.

No S. O. S., no Signal of Distress, no power we no more possess can save us now. Somehow. the game is lost and, oh, the cost! We need a savior to reverse this behavior and put our sources and resources back to work again. And this will take strong women and men with resolve to solve what has evolved.

So where are they? Where are we? Where are the millions striving to be free?

Friday, September 15, 2006

DUBYA/ GOP HOPES WE REMEMBER TO FORGET

What will the Dubya/GOP run on in November? The faint hope that dopes who cast votes don't remember what they should be unable to forget. That they'll let the past slip by as Dubya/GOP spread the lie that US can only rely on them to stem the terror threat. How dumb can they get? Every time Dubya scratches his nose or shows his stupidity, the insurgent foes attack our troops and---oops!---a few more GIs die!

Who can forget the Dubya/GOP gypped the American economy by shipping thousands of jobs overseas for certain, just to please Halliburten? That the rapidly shrinking middle class is doomed to death as tax breaks boost the loot of the oh so rich? Now haves have got what have nots have not. And so what, says the Thief in Chief. Let 'em go on relief!

The longer we remain in Iraq, they explain, the safer is the USA. What they really mean, we need a war to spurn the obscene returns of the military industry. That keeps the economy going and the war threat growing.

Remember the promise the Dubya/GOP made not to politicize the twin towers raid. Surprise? Here's the point they made: Be afraid of terror. Don't make an error. Vote for us, the best protection from terrorists who persist. We're on their list and they're on ours. Eventually they'll succumb. How dumb can Dubia/GOP get?

The Dubya/GOP machine tried to turn the tide to support the war. They didn't get very far.The majority oppose what they got us in. On this issue alone the Dems should win.

The Dubya/GOP, led by a born again decider, has seen the gap grow wider between profit and loss of our budget. No matter what George decides, he can't fudge it. It keeps rising which ain't surprising due to the undeclared war this excuse for a man began. His plan: fix it with accounting tricks and fuzzy math while our nation takes a bath. The path that leads to bankruptcy is apparent to all but the Dubya/GOP.

There are so many reasons why we should lick the sick DubyaGOP. We Democrats can turn the trick, but we must be quick before Dubya/GOP comes up with its next phony pre-election surprise.

SAVE DEMOCRACY. KICK OUT THE DUBYA/GOP!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESIDENCY

It has been said you can resent the present president, oppose all he does. That's your right. But you are expected to respect the office and dignity of the presidency? That makes no sense to me. A rotten, misbegotten president breeds disrespect for the position he has vowed to protect.

Look at the record of this one-man wrecking crew, what he did and didn't do. Once you review what I present to you can you be true to your conscience and have confidence in Bush, his mismanaged administration, its effect on the nation and our outraged allies he defies?

His arrogant abject rejection of every measure they bring to the table, principals he knows are bedrock of our respect for intellect and decency, he vetoes. He's turned our allies over night, to his apparent delight, from friends to foes.

Bush lies. His disregard for citizens' rights, his flip-flop oppositions. his miscalculated, imprecise decisions, his attacks upon the Constitution, his contempt for almost every respected institution don't bode well for international solutions to avoid war at any cost and prevent an atomic holocaust.

His long vacations at the height of crisis, his spendthrift decisions no matter what the price is, have sent our Clinton surplus on a fall to the brink of bankruptcy. The list could go on and on. But this is enough to help you see what he has done and will do to our democracy.

A legally elected president is not expected to defend and serve his country, but our country. He is not the keeper of a me and mine divine, God blessed regime. He should consider himself a member of a team to protect and enhance the respect of all for the presidency. But how can you accept one without the other? I can't. I shan't.

Bush has trashed everything we hold dear. There's only one answer to this curable cancer. Get that bum outta here!

MANY DEAD, WHERE WILL THEY GO?

With all the killing going on, so many soldiers dead and gone, so many lined up at Heaven's Gate, some too early, some too late, all in wait for admission depending on God's permission,

There's a traffic jam of massive proportions, the worst since the Supreme Court decision on re-illegalising legal abortions, overturning Roe vs. Wade, allowing all sorts of guns and the right to kill to defend property, to outlaw suicide and reject forces trying to provide dignity for those in pain, slowly dying.

Will all this cluttering up the clouds with blood-soaked souls, young GI guys died because our ''fearless," phony, feckless leader lied. And with all Iraq lacks they just want their country back.

Young and old dream of tarnished gold, bemoan loss of stocks bought and sold. Murderers fresh off the electric chair, where they're waiting who can tell, probably at the gates to hell. Drunks who drank, drove and dared a train in vain at a RR track and, SMACK! One more fatality, now just a statistic reality.

There are dozens of ways to die. Deny the reason why, eat and drink and live too high. Shoot up your veins, blow out your brains when losses outnumber gains.

Exit Earth and leave a dearth of unpaid bills, then laugh in your grave about money saved screwing debtors, bookie bettors, those who compose threatening scarlet letters.

Jilt undercover lovers, just depressed and seeking rest six feet down with folded hands against their chest. But the best way yet is welch on a bet and get in front of a real live 45. One shot, no sweat. You've paid your debt.

Monday, September 11, 2006

SEPT. 11---- A DATE TO REMEMBER

We shall not forget, we shall long remember that brief moment in September when grief and disbelief rained down from the skies, when evil from the East rent our lives asunder and made us realize we are all the target of a terrorist attack that turned civilization back to the "Day of Infamy."

It's a day we must commemorate, not let the sinful celebrate, not let the enemy mark as a date when their hate lit the spark that turned our lives from light to dark. Set this day o in stone in every memory.

Let it remind the world that we are not alone, but live or die as one, that the sun shall shine for everyone who craves peace and release from the jaws of terror, from the bearer of the most lethal weapon in any arsenal, the will to kill and kill and kill until each champion of humanity will simply cease to be.

Terrorism is a prison without bars, it locks the world in endless wars, leaves its scars on every family that believes in democracy, that prays to be free of tyranny, untouched by mindless misery but is now faced with the reality of day by day fatality.

This shall be a day when all humanity remembers the insanity when highjacked planes dealt death blows from the sky. Why? The world may never know. But this is so. We cannot have lasting peace while terrorism is our foe.

THE STORY OF THE MAD COWBOY

Mad cowboy disease was once rampant throughout the nation. Milions had it. How bad it was we didn't know. It infected more than anyone suspected it might. The first symptom, urge to fight those we thought had led the attack--Iraq, that oil glutted Moslem land in the desert sand of the Middle East where a beast named Hussein reigned with iron fist and an arsenal of weaponry poised to attack our unprepared land of freedom and democracy.

We saw what they did to the Twin Towers, not in hours but in minuets. With hijacked planes they slammed into these massive structures with destructive force worse than man could conceive. Thousands died, millions cried. The Towers became funeral pyres, victims trapped inside its walls.

Hundeds disappeared beneath mounds of cement and steel in an unreal rain of death. Others drew their final breath, jumped a hundred floors to their death to escape flame and smoke that was intense. It was a cruel joke that made no sense, but panic forces the sane to do insane things in moments of frenzied frustration and desperation.

So George W. Bush, a new and failing president, declared it his intent to vent his fury on Iraq he said had led the attack. We would pay them back and even up the score in a few short weeks of war. Forget lack of evidence, forget expense, Iraq possessed dreaded weapons of mass destruction, WMDs. His plan: defeat the beast of the Middle East, bring the country to its knees, seize its oil, make them pay for what they did to the USA

As you know, none of this was so. Why did he vent his wrath on Iraq? He knows why. So do we. Avenge his dad's defeat, steal their oil, become the hero of a two-bit war and the first American czar,

Thousands of GIs died because he lied with a sneer from ear to ear. Now he's in a hole out of control. The Dems must win big in November so the nation will long remember what Dubya and the GOP did to destroy democracy.

WHAT IS WAR WORTH?

All the billions and bombs and blood won't buy a bucket of mud when the killing is over and all that is left are roaches and clover and a few scorched trees and dead honey bees, a fridge filled with rotting cheese, dried up seas and a few of that and a few of these and who will be left to say, "Thank you, please."

There will be no disease and nobody to catch it. There will be no chickens and not even an egg or a hen to hatch it. And who'd hit a fly when there's no one to catch it?

Wall Street will be overjoyed for there will be no unemployed when the world is a void and neatly, discretely and completely destroyed.The immense expense in dollars and cents for uncivilized and civil defense to cover the cost of all this destruction won't really matter because there will not be a need to proceed with reconstruction.

There will be no love, there will be no hate, it will be too late for caring, compassion and brotherhood will be out of fashion. A lifetime of friendship will fade in a second, even much sooner than man could have reckoned.

After the crash of creation, the end to what once was called civilization, there will be no today, no tomorrow, no sorrow, no birthday bashes, only wide open fields of dried bones and ashes.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

ANOTHER PLACE IN SPACE?

While we send probes to Mars and other stars faraway from where we are, searching space for another place where there might be intelligent beings just like those we are seeing every day, chances are it might be worth all the time and expense to unlock the secrets how some planets began and ended and descended into nothingness.

The guess is there were other humanoids in the void of distant space who sought a place just like theirs a trillion light year away. Did they perish in their endeavor, never to achieve success?

Is intergalactic exploration going on? Will it continue when we are gone? When Earth's life has expired and all the wealth we've acquired is worth less than less, when all that's left are empty plains and flesh-stripped bones, working cell phones, melting ice cream cones and fossilized remains of Bush's brain and evidence of a once-great civilization, will explorers be wise enough to surmise what the message of our demise implies? Will they vow not to allow what happened then occur now or ever again?

FOR TWO, A GIFT FROM GOD

The desert sun was in his eyes. It was also flashing off the gun the Arab carried by his side. He mustn't see me, otherwise he'd try to hide, but where?

"Ain't nothing 'tween us but a lot o' air. Easy pickin'," the GI said. "Like catchin' chickens back on the farm." But the minute he eyed the enemy they both took aim and fired. Two lone targets in the desert sand. They both heard the double crack as they fired. Instantly. Like they both were wired to one brain. The bullets took flight. One would die, maybe two.

The bullets met head-on. There was a link. Both shooters saw the bullets sink together gracefully into the sand. The two soldiers shook hands, thanked their gods neither was dead. "It was a miracle, " the GI said and cried. "A gift from god," the Arab replied.

IMPEACH BUSH A DREAM? IT CAN COME TRUE!

After the nIghtmare of the Bush affair it's fair to hope the dream can come true. But it's up to me and you and every voter in the land who understands what this nation has been through. True, there have been ups and downs in the economy, even hints of turnarounds from the early years when there were fears that Dubya's obsession with favoring the rich and not the poor was the cure to avoid depression. It was not. So a war is what we got.

What Bush spent to invade Iraq, his spending spree to turn it into a GOP-style democracy has boosted our economy while GIs die for no damn reason why and lies are told to tighten the strangle hold on the oversold war Bush wrought and we, the stupid people, bought.

The proof this is a false economy is there for anyone to see. Mybe it put a few bucks in our hand, but it's buying the blood of our troops in a foreign land. Our basic rights are being denied as we rebuild the losing side that we bombed to kingdom's come and then some. Billion dollar corporations, awash in profits, benefit those who invest. Tax breaks enrich the filthy rich. The rest are denied basic needs to bloat corporate greed. Oil's a good example. Everybody knows there are ample supplies, but motorists pay through the nose for everything they have to buy. War boosts the economy, keeps prices high. Dead GIs are the reason why.

It's a win/lose situation. Blame the Dubya administration. Bring back peace, prosperity, democracy. Bring back our GIs. The time has come. Don't be dumb. Let Republicans pay for all their lies.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

R. I. P. TINKLE TINKLE RIP VAN WINKLE

When Old Man Winkle died the undertaker, with approval of his maker, buried him on the shore beside the tree known locally as the resting place where he had slept and snored for twenty years. Tears were shed in the lake he created when he urinated that mighty stream.

Townsfolk stopped by his grave and gave thanks for his boost to the local economy he'd created with his pee. Farms and homes along Lake Tinkle's shore increased in value, you see, because they were now water front property.

Over the years the lake lost its yellow tint and turned mint green as rain and snow added to the flow that had begun when Rip, in front of everyone, exposed himself to empty his bloated bladder. But that's another matter. It was now the home of fish, the source of delicious dishes where many a skinny dipper wished to pish. It's reputed to be polluted but folks don't care. It's where they wash their underwear, their hair and derriere, drain water for irrigation and sail their boats on vacation.

The old guy's stone is known as a redundancy in the history of urinarial biography. The old guy as years went by became a poet and, wouldn't you know it, don't laugh. He wrote his own epitaph:

Here lies RIP, may he R. I. P. and pee throughout eternity.
Van Winkle's tinkle brought prosperity to the community.
So if you have a sudden urge to purge, let it flow
Because when you gotta go you gotta go.

IS PLUTO KAPUTO?

Scientists who ply the art of planetary commentary stare at stars and decide which are, which are not planets like the one we've got. Why did you do to Pluto what you did? After all these millions zillions years in the stratosphere, you measured it inch by inch and ruled it no longer is a planet on the scale of Mars and ours.

Are you just a bunch of telescope dopes playing a ccmmic cosmic trick to kick Pluto out of the solar system. And if you succeed who will go with them? Will Earth be next? If it is, will we object or subject our planet to ridicule for fooling astronomer all these years by claiming we are something we are not? And if not, what?

We are dealing with the feelings of possible Plutoites, intelligent beings out of sight on this block of ice. What if they exist and insist on a recount of the counting of what's amounting to a threat to the moon and stars, the Milky Way and candy bars like Mars? Would we go to war to free Pluto from the grips of spaced out drips behind this plot to rob whatever oil Pluto's got? Are Plutonians. like we, facing a November election surprise, where they won't compromise their size to those not so wise wiseguys out to rule the galaxy? GWB and the GOP are playing a game of wait and see if by undeclaring war the USA will free them from solar insanity. Would victory lead to Pluto's ORBITUARY?

There is a dog of Disney fame who answers to the name Pluto. He's so angry you don't want to know. He wants to be renamed Uranus, even though it rhymes with anus. Better to go down in history linked to an exploratory space lavatory than one not stinking but on the brink of shrinking.

Asked to comment, Pluto the Dog said: "I'm so sick I think I'll barf. Arf! Arf! Arf!"

Friday, September 01, 2006

THE BAD AND GOOD IN HOLLYWOOD

What's produced in Hollywood is bad and good, clean or obscene. rated X, PG or in between depending on the bottom line -- influx of bucks that suck the suckers in, the frequency of absurd four-letter words, of dialogue inane and plain asinine and unrefined seen and heard on the tarnished silver screen.

When it comes to movie-land morality forget about quality. Producers, other excuser play it loose, turn on the juice, glorify abuse of man and beast to release a box office piece when dough is low. They know it might stop the show but not the flow of idiots who go to see it.

That's my summation of Hollywood humiliation that assaults the nation. There'll be no censorship on this or any future trip as long as Hollywood flips, flops, pulls out all the stops to cop top reviews that please the indiscrete movie industry, already replete with subjects too offensive to mention to grab attention of a demented, discontented clap-happy hypnotized, mesmerized segment of those who go to movie shows.

This didn't begin recently. Indecency began when silent films turned violent to capture the mood of a nation fascinated by fame and lack of shame of those with names like Jesse James and Pancho Villa that filled the media of the day with six-gun justice just as they do today.

WOUNDS OF WEATHER

The wounds of weather, all together, portray the gory story of thousands dead, hurricanes that, in their wane, leave behind tales that will come to mind after they've been born and died---legends told and retold from now until today becomes one of the "days of old." Historians will recall the cold statistics, horrific and specific, the trouble and travail that left a nation in devastation.

Unlike storms and winds that innocently begin, grow strong and linger long, tornadoes strike without a sound, do their devastation, then go on a brief vacation. Where they go you can't know. But there remains the fear they'll reappear far or near the site where they unleashed their might. When you view that funel tunnel bearing down on your town all you can do is pray the twister tornado will go away.

Floods have a personality and vitality all their own. It's known they can start with gentle rains that adorn parched fields of wheat or corn. An end of drought? Farmers doubt as storm clouds shroud the sky and empty straining bladders, raining down on lands that cry for that first burst to quench their thirst.

But then there is a thunderous roar and more water continues to pour. The fields become a muddy mire and the land loses its desire for water to slake their thirst. Lakes replace greening fields and yields of crops near harvest time are reduced to worthless slime.

Like all of nature's force, floods will run their course and then subside and when the sun begins to shine again the farmers, a hardy breed, will reseed and eye the sky as days go by and when the corn is six feet high they'll have the best harvest they can recall. Rain will fall and sun will shine and everything will be just fine.

But in the hearts of all who depend on the vagaries of land and seas, on clouds that vie with wind and rain, on mighty powers that erupt mysteriously the scars of wounds of weather will remain.