On And On.....Across The Universe

It's the middle of the night, first of November.

A song John Lennon thought perhaps his greatest, most poetic lyric ever done flows in....


"Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me...."

Last year, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of "Across The Universe," NASA took a 70m antenna in its vast Communication Complex and transmitted the message in the direction of the star Polaris, 431 light years from Earth.

It was the very first time a song had ever been intentionally transmitted into deep space.


"....Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe...."

Thoughts surely are meandering.

The anguishing year is drawing to a close, with a very restless wind swirling above. Beneath us are some big pools of sorrow.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is currently blathering the same old line as she waltzes around the room with Israeli War Criminals, Inc. "There are always demands made in any negotiation that are not going to be fully realized," said Clinton, alluding to America's indifference to Zionism's Final Solution--systematic destruction of the last remains of Palestine.

Meanwhile, at home, any meaningful change to our Big Insurance/Big Pharma Death Panel Regime appears increasingly remote. The report out is that Congress's weak-kneed proposal for a public option would cover barely two percent of those under 65, when and if it ever is brought into law.

Gotta hand it to them bright-eyed Town Hall rabble rousers, eh??

Yeah, they did have just a liiiitle bit a help from their friends. An excerpt from Rolling Stone's September expose, "The Lie Machine":

"The insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform," says Wendell Potter, who stepped down last year as chief of corporate communications for health insurance giant CIGNA. "I'm certain that people showing up at these town halls feel that they're there on their own — but they don't realize they're being incited, ultimately, by the insurance industry and the other special interests."

Behind the scenes, top Republicans — including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Minority Leader John Boehner and the chairman of the GOP's Senate steering committee, Jim DeMint — worked hand-in-glove with the organizers of the town brawls. Their goal was not only to block health care reform but to bankrupt President Obama's political capital before he could move on to other key items on his agenda, including curbing climate change and expanding labor rights. As DeMint told an August teleconference of nearly 20,000 town-hall activists, "If we can stop him on this, the administration won't be able to go on to cap and trade, card check and the other things they want to do."

And, of course, there's our illustrious heroes of Wall Street. Hard to find a more vivid demonstration of the wreckage that rapacious, slobbering free enterprisers can REALLY inflict on us when a coopted Congress lets 'em off the leash.

In fact, like the Everready Bunny, this is one monster that will just keep on tickin'.

One reviewer of Jonathan Tasini's new book, "The Audacity of Greed," summed it up this way:

"Mad Magazine once satirized the movie Rocky complete with a re-christened character called "Appalling Greed." And the greed of corporate the CEOs chronicled in here is just that, appalling and at times nothing short of pathological. Tasini cites instances where certain CEOs were involved in schemes to illegally back date the stock options that provide them with so much of their wealth, when they were already getting away with murder by legally backdating and re-pricing options."

"For the epitome of this orgy of greed and the metaphor for the age, Tasini chooses the party Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski threw for his wife on her 40th birthday on the isle of Sardinia, replete with a replica of Michelangelo's statue of David rigged to spray vodka....! Yes, this is right up there with the bacchanalian excesses of late imperial Rome or the extravagances of Marie Antoinette. And if this kind of thing keeps up the United States may some day soon follow these historical predecessors into similar oblivion."

We have little choice than to try, struggle, hold on.

Live.

Love.

Endure.


That was the message in Lennon's third stanza.

"....Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe...."

It's the limitless undying love. That's the secret. And the redemption.

It's the strength I draw from the eternal love for my two daughters despite--in the line from one of the greatest films of all time--"the whole silly world going to pieces around us."