BOO!!!!!

A Coservative's Message to a Monarch Named George....

MotherJones.com / News / MoJo Blog

Edmund Burke Speaks Out About Blogs and the Failure of the Democrats

What did the famous British parliamentarian and political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-1797) have to say about the internet and our current political circumstances? Quite a bit, it turns out.

Burke is beloved by conservative intellectuals. George Will, for instance, mentions him all the time. Quoting Burke gives their pronouncements a nice glossy sheen.

Yet their Burke-worship is genuinely bizarre. Few people understand this, since few people (including conservative intellectuals) bother to read what Burke wrote. Anyone who does, though, will immediately understand how strongly Burke would have opposed today's conservative movement, since he strongly opposed their 18th century equivalents.

This is particularly clear in Burke's 1770 pamphlet, "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents." It's not merely that Burke was writing during a time of uprisings in overseas colonies, and in opposition to a monarch named George who was trying to expand executive power and neuter the legislative branch. Almost every sentence Burke wrote applies precisely to today.

For instance, in one passage Burke sounds like he's describing current efforts by MoveOn and blogs to prevent Congress from granting telecom companies immunity for violating FISA:

Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Burke also covers George's insistence on appointing incompetent hacks to positions of power, to habituate Parliament to impotence; the way the King's cabal is mired in the "deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption" yet purports to be motivated by the "most astonishing prudery, both moral and political"; and the "futility, the weakness, the rashness, the perpetual contradiction, in the management of our affairs" in colonies across the sea. Then there's his description of a corrupted, weak legislature, which could have been written yesterday:

A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy; an anxious care of public money, an openness, approaching towards facility, to public complaint: these seem to be the true characteristics of an House of Commons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation; an House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with Ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the general voice demands account; who, in all disputes between the people and Administration, presume against the people; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution.

Parliament cannot with any great propriety punish others, for things in which they themselves have been accomplices. Thus the controul of Parliament upon the executory power is lost; because Parliament is made to partake in every considerable act of Government. Impeachment, that great guardian of the purity of the Constitution, is in danger of being lost, even to the idea of it.

So if we truly want to remember the past, rather than repeat it, Burke's pamphlet is a good place to start. As another old dead guy, Thomas Jefferson, said:

...experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny...the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

- Jonathan Schwarz
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.
© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress

Tickle Me Please...........

Integrative Way: Go ahead and laugh – it's good for you

By Dr. Kay and Dr. Max -

This story is taken from Sacbee
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 28, 2007

The idea of using laughter and humor for healing has been around since biblical times. Cultures from the ancient Greeks to American Indians have long recognized the power of humor to help us to heal. The healing power of laughter was reawakened during the 20th century, and research studies in mind-body medicine have confirmed that laughter produces positive changes in our bodies.

So what happens when we laugh? A good belly laugh seems to benefit multiple body systems. There have been a number of studies in the recent past looking at health outcomes with laughter therapy. They have shown the following:

• Laughter increases the activity of the immune system, especially IgA, which helps us to fight respiratory infections.

• Laughter increases natural killer cells that protect us from cancer and viral infections. One study showed that 30 minutes of watching funny videos produced positive immune changes that lasted for 12 hours!

• Laughter seems to relax and dilate our blood vessels, protecting us from heart disease and lowering our blood pressure; one study at Loma Linda University School of Medicine showed that heart attack survivors who watched a funny video for 30 minutes every day significantly reduced their risk of recurrent heart disease. Another study showed that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared with similar folks without heart disease.

• Laughter forces us to breathe more deeply and may help us to clear mucus from the respiratory tree; this can be beneficial for people with respiratory diseases, including asthma.

• Laughter relaxes our muscles and reduces spasm; this may be one of the reasons why hearty laughter seems to reduce musculoskeletal pain.

• Laughter also may boost endorphin production, which is our body's own natural pain-killer.

• Laughter reduces our stress hormones, including cortisol and epinephrine; this in turn also protects our immune system, as chronic stress weakens our cells and makes us more vulnerable to infection.

• Laughter helps us to maintain optimism and hope; this is enormously powerful in healing, and can also reduce the risk of anxiety and depression when we are facing illness or other challenges in our lives.

What should you do if you want to become more mirthful? You certainly don't have to become a stand-up comic. In fact, people who learn to find and appreciate the humor all around them seem to benefit the most (that's right – humor is a learned behavior – you too can do this).

So go ahead and laugh – you'll feel better. And who knows – you may get healthier, too.

Note: If it's tough for you to find pleasure in normally pleasurable activities, especially if this persists for more than a month, then you may be dealing with depression, and you should talk to your doctor.


Copyright © The Sacramento Bee

Eric Clapton, Cream and us Old Farts Still Rockin...............

Clapton is.......Alive and Well!

Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll: Clapton After 'Cocaine'


Listen to the story here

Listen to "Layla"

Listen to "Wonderful Tonight"


Second of a two-part interview.
All Things Considered, October 18, 2007 ·

In 1977, Eric Clapton released a version of the J.J. Cale song "Cocaine." At the time, Clapton was consuming copious amounts of cocaine — and alcohol — and had only recently kicked a heroin habit.

Now 62, the legendary guitarist looks back and wonders how he survived his decades of drug and alcohol addiction. Sober for 20 years, Clapton is the father of three young daughters, ages 6, 4 and 2.

Clapton writes about his many years of addiction in his new autobiography, Clapton. He calculates that he was spending the current equivalent of 8,000 pounds — about $16,000 — a week on heroin.

Drug-Filled Days, Nights

"Financially, it was ridiculous," Clapton tells Melissa Block in the second of a two-part interview.

"The thing about that kind of addiction that's pretty funny, on reflection, is that I always thought, 'I'm handling this. I can handle it. I can stop anytime. I just don't want to stop right now,'" he says.

During the three-year period that he was most deeply involved with heroin, Clapton says he stayed home a lot and did not perform live very often.

Later, when he had overcome his heroin addiction but was still battling alcohol abuse, he once performed lying down on the stage.

"It didn't seem that outlandish to me, and in fact, probably was all I was capable of. It was either that or just laying down somewhere else. The fact that I was laying down on stage means at least I showed up," Clapton says.

He characterizes the mid-1970s as a time that was "extremely casual and crazy … when anything was possible."

"I think in the book I did refer to the fact that there were people who were moving through that period with respect and dignity, and I just didn't run into them that often," he continues.

Music as Salvation

Even during these dark days, the music kept him going.

"The presence of music in my life has always been the salvation element of it. Not necessarily the playing, as much as just being conscious of it, listening to it, has kept me moving," Clapton says.

Clapton says he doesn't think his music suffered that much as a result of his addiction — he thinks if it had, it would have brought him to recovery earlier — and he expresses mixed emotions about his past.

"I don't know that I can honestly regret any of it safely, because it's brought me to where I am. My life would not be the same, and I would not have what I have today, were [it not] for the fact that I went through all this stuff," Clapton says.

"But I suppose if I do have any regrets, it is that musically I lost something there."

Life After Drugs

Sobriety brought its own challenges.

Making music without drugs and alcohol was very difficult initially — everything sounded so loud and rough to him — as was sex.

"It was funny because both [of] those things were things that I took for granted. And yet, without alcohol, both of them became very, very difficult and unmanageable," Clapton says.

He says that his earliest experiences with women were always fueled by alcohol.

"And so when you took it away, I just didn't know what to do and actually was, for quite a while, physically impotent. I was terrified. I would be paralyzed with fear. And I think, musically, it was the same," he says.

Despite his age, Clapton says he plans to continue touring ("It's something I will ways need"), although the days of huge tours are probably behind him.

"I don't think those big world tours are possible for me anymore, nor are they desirable, because there's somewhere else I'd rather be — with my kids and my wife. The home life has a lot of power for me now, and it's where I get most of my satisfaction," Clapton says.