StumbleUpon | BarryWeber's blog posts

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/37031248/

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:47:21 -0700

feel free to friend! I probably communicate better at FB these days than here:

http://www.facebook.com/davidbweber

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/35615651/

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:07:43 -0700

Sarah Palin's Facebook page may soon rival the Rapture Ready Out-in-Spacebook page. Here are some comments from her 'friends' about the death of Senator Kennedy (remember, she has the option of erasing any comment on her page!)

"Now if we could just talk God into taking Arlin Spector, Harry Reid,and Nancy Pelosi America would be Eutopia!"

"good riddens"

"If he makes it into Heaven (& I doubt he will with his stance on abortion) I hope that God makes him babysit all the aborted children for eternity. God have mercy on his soul."

"Ted Kennedy dying has made my day...."

"He cannot fillibuster God. Good ridencance to a sorry person."

"It's about time, we can only hope Pelosi and Ried will be joining him very soon. All 3 of them should be buried in Moscow for whom they work so tirelessly."

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/34539252/

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:34:52 -0700

A friend and I sat at his house and watched the moon landing.

An hour later, we got a phone call. We found out that a former classmate had been killed the day before in Vietnam.

One small step for a man.. (etc.)

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/33387180/

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:12:51 -0700

I've posted this here on other years. But this year is this year..

Thoughts on the 60th Anniversary of D-Day
(to Ike)

I wish they had talked more, And I wish we'd have asked more.
They were our fathers, uncles, teachers, and neighbors,
And that one guy who sat at the park by himself.
They were men, then, and we couldn't imagine they had been soldiers.

We played in the dirt with our plastic soldiers
and mimicked machine guns in the woods:
Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh...
then spun to the ground in death throes we knew nothing of.
They didn't tell us how to play, or how men really died...screaming sometimes.
They kept those thoughts to themselves,
sitting on them in a silence which their children did not need to hear about,
because nothing could be that terrible.
Ever again.

Maybe it was a matter of time:
A time when tears did not signal doors opening to what really mattered;
A time when it was best to be busy with the yard, the car, the other thousand tasks which mattered to them but have never mattered to me.
A time when sitting next to others at Rotary or Kiwanis who shared those memories was enough.
Even when we wanted them, so we could compare my dad and your dad, to talk,
they would answer questions, without elaboration, a sentence or two,
then back to the yard or car.

Al hid in a haystack in France for months. Then left for the garage.
Fred's brother died in a tree, shot while he parachuted. But he's gotta change the oil today. Dick was in a POW camp for a year. He ate mice. That damn yard's getting out of hand. Dad saw Japanese skulls bobbing in the water but didn't know what to do about them. And he had to go down to the cellar.

We didn't know how to ask; and they didn't know how to tell us, anyway.
So we all got older together during quiet baseball games in the back yard.

When we came back, they'd gotten very old. Dad did, too.
Sometimes he would just sit. I remember him the summer before he died, him sitting by the back porch crushing sweat bees with the handle of a hoe.

Maybe I should have asked him then.
The guy in the park shot himself years before he'd gotten old.
And now the rest, all of them that I knew while they worked on their cars or in their yards, or who sat at Rotary meetings each week, and who needed stuff from the cellar, the barn, town... they've joined that first one.
Maybe they had all died back then and gone to hell on the shores of France, or on some jungle island, or behind the barbed wire of a camp somewhere in Germany.
Maybe these new lives had so little to do with where they'd been that the silence had to be.
Maybe they simply could not go back there while their kids were playing war in the woods,
because they might have had to die all over again.

Requiescat in pace.
We just didn't know. .

.by Barry Weber, 2004"

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/33332773/

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:07:24 -0700

From Obama's speech today in Cairo..

"At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

"Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress. "

You say 'Amen!' to this with a fist in the air, hope in your heart, and the determination in your soul to move these thoughts forward with your votes, your resources, and the sharing of this 'good news' in all ways possible.

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/29553249/

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:22:58 -0800

How incredible it would have been to read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 2008.

Damn..

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/29417766/

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:14:39 -0800

Almost as much fun as the RaptureReady discussion forums:
The Sarah Palin Facebook pages!

These are all comments made during September/October of last year. Before you read them, however, let me say that I agree with many of them: I am so happy McCain chose Palin to run with him!

"And again, it is so exciting to me that extreme liberals, who tend to advocate fewer children, will, in a few generations simply die off."

"I can't wait to see you tear Joe Biden a new you-know-what! You're awesome, Sarah, and you've got millions of people behind you!"

"After she is a two term VP for McCain she will become the 1st Female President. This is a fantastic choice! Smug and Plugs do not stand a chance."

"Bring on the Dems!!! I kind of feel sorry for them now!!! :)"

"THANK YOU LORD - YOU ARE THE GREATEST STRATEGIST IN THE UNIVERSE - WE ARE STILL IN YOUR HANDS... :)"

"Cindy McCain
Sarah Palin
...hmm...I smell a trend! GOP girls are simply more attractive!
Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Bush, so on & so forth."

"I think the landslide on election day is going to be so huge FOR McCain/Palin that it's gonna knock the Democrats on their butt."

And so it goes..
and so it went.
Yes, we did...

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/28877422/

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:42:18 -0800

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/28877478/

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:41:41 -0800

http://thefirstmorning.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/a-religious-new-years-resolution/

http://BarryWeber.stumbleupon.com/review/27477458/

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:06:16 -0800

In God We Trust

Although the phrase "In God We Trust" first appeared on some U.S. coins during the Civil War, it did not become the official motto of the United States until an Act of Congress deemed it as such in 1956, at the height of McCarthyism and the Cold War (against godless Communists!).

The phrase had been urged by some congressional members earlier than this. In 1908, Congress mandated that the phrase apppear on some coins, with the option for it to appear on all coins. Teddy Roosevelt said this about that: "My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege... it seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements."

But, superficiality in all things in the U.S. had begun to win over substance, so in 1956, the phrase was ordered onto all forms of U.S.money.

But, we must also note: Look at the history of warfare before the motto became official, and since. Since 1956, we have had Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, et.al, et.al. Any winners among those wars? Our prisons are larger than ever, illegal drug use and the money spent fighting it is greater than ever, and the economy has tanked and is tanking. There are few manufacturing jobs anywhere.

The phrase didn't help much, did it? Of course, all of our current predicaments will be blamed by some on the fact that it is not allowable for school principals to lead loudspeaker prayers over school intercoms- which (ask those of us who remember them!) NOBODY WAS LISTENING TO ANYWAY!

Therefore, may I humbly propose, from here in the back row of American culture, that we drop our motto for a decade or so and see what happens? May I suggest that a few more of us watch for God in the changing of the seasons, each others' eyes, and Hubble telescope images? Perhaps some more of us could listen for God's tears over the deaths of whole animal populations, the poisoning of Asian rivers, and the manufacture of single generation seeds? We could do those things, then act in our own humanitarian ways to overcome or enhance them, instead of staring at embossed words on worthless metal and paper, and claiming some special national piety because those words are there.

Y'know, I try to be at least kind-of nice most of the time. But, dammit, sometimes we are just idiots.