Columns

Meeting the Locals

On my Sunday morning run uphill to the Berkeley Rose Garden, I had an unexpected encounter with one of the local residents. I detected a presence in the street on my right and, when I turned to look, I found myself starring at a young deer. I paused and watched as the deer's four feet passed in front of me—four feet in front of me.

The animal hoof-hopped up the front stairs of the nearest house before diving down between a couple of cars parked in the driveway and heading into the backyard where deer like to linger and munch.

As always, I extended a courteous greeting: "After you, my deer fallow." 

Beer on Raft 

Strolling down Solano Avenue a few nights back, we passed the Kirin Chinese Restaurant And Cocktail Bar and admired the new parklet that now extends into the former parking zone. 

There was a huge banner over the parklet wall that contained a welcoming message. To our amusement, a recent edge-tipping blast of wind had flipped the west end of the banner up and over the print so the invite now read: "RINKS TO GO! Rafted Cocktails!" 

The messed-up message conjured images of ice-skating waitpersons driving Zambonis and paddling kayaks. Guaranteed to draw a crowd. 

Clos Encounters of the Herd Kind 

On a recent morning drive by Berkeley Natural Grocery on Gilman, I couldn't miss the message on the side of a large delivery truck parked nearby. The truck was filled with a load of dairy products from Sonoma's Clover Farms and—for anyone who doesn't know—Clover has a mascot: Clo, a cartoon cow who recently celebrated her 50^th anniversary as a pun-grazy commercial icon. 

Checking out the side of the delivery truck, I found a cartoon of Clo holding hooves with a bullish beau as they both traipsed across a hillside wearing 18^th century garb. It looked like a bovine version of Wuthering Heights. And the pun, floating overhead/overherd read: "Happily Heifer After." 

(After doing a Clos check of Clover's online archives, I've discovered that this pun actually dates from 2009. Clo's entire list of moosings—viewable online—dates back to 1969.) 

Here's a collection of Clo puns that could leave you feeling cowed. 

"Tip Clo Through Your Two Lips" 

"Born and Grazed in Sonoma" 

"Clo's Knit Community" 

"CLOVER: The Only Milk With LOVE In It" 

"Dancing with the Steers" 

"Dairying to Be Great!" 

"Home Quart Advantage" 

"The Moo the Merrier" 

"Under the MistleClo." 

"Baby, It's Clo Outside." 

"Happy Moo Year!" 

"Sip, Sip, Hooray!" 

"A Scoop Above the Udders." 

"Udderly Devoted to Moo." 

"Talk Dairy To Me." 

PS: Clo even has her own book of children's stories: "Pasture Bedtime." 

Hearts So Full for David Hartsough 

Sunday, May 2nd, marked the 81^st birthday for veteran Bay Area Quaker peace activist David Hartsough. 

Like John Lewis, Hartsough knows how to make "good trouble." He has put his body on the line to block US Navy ships headed for Vietnam and ammo trains filled with munitions destined for covert US wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. He has crossed borders to meet “the enemy” behind the "Iron Curtain" in East Berlin, Castro’s Cuba, and inside present-day Iran. He has marched with victims of violence in Guatemala, stood alongside refugees threatened by Philippine death squads, and handed out stuffed teddy bears to traumatized children in Gaza. 

His book, Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist, is testament to the positive change a single individual can accomplish. Inspired by the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. (with whom he worked during Civil Rights campaigns in The South), Hartsough has spent his life demonstrating how to defuse conflict through the power of active nonviolence. 

In 2002, Hartsough joined Mel Duncan and peace activists from 49 countries to create the Nonviolent Peaceforce. The NP has engaged in civilian peacekeeping missions around the world, training nearly 8,000 volunteers to serve as "unarmed civilian protectors" in far-off hotspots. (NP volunteers are currently active on the ground in Iraq, Myanmar, South Sudan and the Philippines.) 

Hartsough’s story demonstrates the persuasive power of organized nonviolent action. But Waging Peace is more than one man’s memoir. Hartsough shows how nonviolent strategies are being employed all over the world by growing numbers of ordinary people committed to extinguishing the flames of violence and war. 

The broadcast birthday party was special this year since Hartsough has been diagnosed with a bone marrow cancer and chronic leukemia. His extended on-line family of activists repeatedly praised Hartsough for his "relentless persistence" in confronting political violence and predicted he would also be successful in battling (make that "nonviolently resisting") cancer. 

The celebration took the shape of a Sing-a-long that included no fewer than 25 tunes ranging from civil rights anthems and protest ballads to classic Broadway show-tunes. 

After one of the event's many talented musicians completed a stirring rendition of "The Rose," Hartsough and his wife Jan re-appeared onscreen holding a handful of roses they had just plucked from the family garden. The sing-along ended with a rousing chorus of "We Shall Overcome." 

Hundreds of Hartsough's friends and admirers gathered for a memorable dive in the Zoom pool and many of them shared memories of meeting Hartsough in peace actions on nearly every continent. Many of those sharing memories had become life-long friends after meeting Hartsough in college, in high school, in grade school and even in elementary school. 

One of the many well-wishers to log into the Happy Zoomday event was local peace hero Daniel Ellsberg. Noting that Ellsberg's screen was blank, the moderator asked if he could activate his video. 

Ellsberg explained that he had intentionally left his screen blank since he was experiencing a bout of Bell's palsy—a short-term disorder that causes a drooping or swelling of one side of the face. The condition usually passes after a week or so. 

"I look like Dick Cheney!" Ellsberg complained, referencing George W's Vice-Presidential mastermind (or "master," for short). Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney was known for his trademark lop-sided sneer. 

One of the online party-goers interpolated the reassuring news that "Amy Goodman once had a bout of Bell's palsy." 

"Yeah," Ellsberg replied, "but when she looked in a mirror she didn't see Dick Cheney!" 

For updated information on David Hartsough's journey to recovery, you can visit this site at CaringBridge. 

Ellsberg's Actions Inspire a Mass Response 

And, speaking of Dan Ellsberg: To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers (on July 13, 1971), the University of Massachusetts and The GroundTruth Project recently collaborated on a three-day conference dedicated to Truth, Dissent, & the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg. 

The conference marked the debut of The Ellsberg Archive Project, a project of UMass' Special Collections & University Archives program. 

In addition to a keynote speech by Daniel Ellsberg, topics addressed during the conference included:
• Why Nuclear Weapons Remain an Existential Threat and What to Do About It
• The American War in Vietnam and Why It Still Matters
• Antiwar Movements Then and Now
• The Pentagon Papers and Watergate
• Whistleblowers: Plenary Panel with Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden
• Lessons and Legacies in an Age of Endless War 

More than 5,700 people registered for the online event and the conference videos have already been viewed more than 14,000 times on the Ellsberg Archive Project website. (UMass is also inviting visitors to check out the GroundTruth Project’s new podcast, The Whistleblower.) 

NATO to the Rescue? 

The UK and France have been facing off in a worrisome naval dust-up in the English Channel as part of a long-simmering dispute involving post-Brexit fishing rights in these shared waters. The British Navy dispatched two vessels to the waters off the island of Jersey and France retaliated by deploying two maritime patrol boats. 

The founding principle of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is that, if any NATO members is attacked, the US is required to come to the assistance of that country. This raises a vexing question. As World BEYOND War founder David Swanson asked during a May 6 webinar: "Does this mean the US now has to attack both France and Britain?" 

The Military Industrial Complex Has Grown More Complex 

Ray McGovern is not your average anti-war campaigner. McGovern is a former Army intelligence officer who worked inside the CIA for 27 years and delivered Daily Presidential Briefs before returning his coveted Intelligence Commendation Medal to protest the CIA's role in torturing foreign captives. In 2003, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. 

McGovern no longer believes that the US is a democracy. Instead, he warns that the country's economic programs and foreign policy are controlled by a powerful authoritarian elite. And it's no longer just the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) that President Eisenhower warned us against. These days, as McGovern likes to spell out, we have to deal with the MICIMATTC—"the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank Complex." 

What the Pope Said 

On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis made a historic appearance before the US Congress and offered a fundamental criticism of US foreign policy that somehow failed to make the evening news or the morning papers. Pope Francis had spoken the unspeakable: he condemned America's Military-Industrial Complex and the "many powerful people [who] don't want peace because they live off war." 

“Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade." 

At the time Francis spoke, the US weapons industry had pulled in more than $23.7 billion in weapons sales to nearly 100 different countries. Congressmembers applauded the Pope politely but there was no congressional debate about America's debased role in promoting war for riches. Why? Because in 2014, "defense industry" lobbyists spent more than $150 million on lobbying and direct contributions to the political campaigns of war-friendly politicians. 

In an earlier conversation with a group of Italian primary schoolchildren in May 2015, the Pope had this to say about what he called "the industry of death": 

"Some powerful people make their living with the production of arms and sell them to one country for them to use against another country. The economic system orbits around money and not men, women. … So war is waged in order to defend money. This is why some people don’t want peace: They make more money from war, although wars make money but lose lives, health, education.” 

Seven of the world's ten largest weapons dealers are US companies. The top two are Lockheed Martin and Boeing, followed by Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, United Technologies, and L-3 Communications. 

Letter Literacy 

There is one letter of the English alphabet that doesn't own a proper name. That single, forlorn letter is "w." 

Apparently a late-comer to the alphabet, W bears the name of its nearby neighbor U. But why is W called "double-U"? Why isn't it called "double-V"? 

Why isn't it simply called "wuh"? Did someone fear "wuh" might be confused with "Y"? But "wuh" and "wi" are just as distinguishable as A and I—i.e., "ay" and "eye." 

According to All-knowing Google, the Roman alphabet lacked a letter W. And, apparently, no one needed a W until the Anglo-Saxons came along in the 7^th Century AD. Since the letter "v" had not yet been invented (and would have had the wrong sound when if finally did arrive), two "U"s were joined at the hip to represent the "wuh" sound. 

In the 8^th Century, the "uu" was retired in favor of a Runic letter known as "wyn." This wyn-wyn situation lasted until the 11^th Century, when the Normans conjoined the "uu" into a single letter—our modern-day "double-u." 

Read the Not-Feeling-So-Fine Print 

Have you every glanced at a one-page pharmaceutical ad in a magazine and then paused to read the small print that follows in the next 2-4 pages? 

I haven't kept score but, I swear, in most cases I discover the potential symptoms of the featured drug somehow always manage to include the same conditions the drug is supposed to cure. 

Take Spravato (esketoamine), for example. (Or, considering the side-effects, don't take Spravato.) 

Spavato, a product of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, is a nasal-spray that is introduced as "a different choice" to deal with "treatment-resistant depression." 

So what are the possible downsides of sniffing a strong dose of Spavato? The more prominent symptoms listed include: "worsening depression, thoughts about suicide or dying, suicide attempts." 

Other common warnings point to increased blood pressure, vomiting, feeling drunk, disconnected, sleepy, and dizzy. On the plus side, the small print warned a dose of Spravato just might leave you "feeling very happy or excited." (A sign that the drug also is addictive.) 

In fact (according to the small print), this anti-depressant is so addictive the "your healthcare provider must monitor you for serious side effects for at least 2 hours after taking PRAVATO®." 

But don't blame Spravato. The warnings make the startling admission that, as a general rule, "Antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts and actions in some people 24 years of age and younger."