Two Americas Will Be One: Edwards

In his speech to the Democratic convention in Boston Wednesday, Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards outlined his and John Kerry's plan to bring the "two Americas" together as one -- "E pluribus unum," as Barack Obama memorably put it the previous night.

"When your employer makes you pay more for your health insurance or takes it away altogether, and you have to sell your car to pay your children's hospital bill when they break an arm or get the flu, John Kerry and I will give you a small credit toward your taxes the next year," promised Edwards.

Warming to the enthusiastic crowd, he continued. "We have hungry children in this the richest country in history. That's wrong. If some of those children can scrounge up enough change to buy a bag of potato chips by their own God-given initiative, then John Kerry and I will allow them to deduct a portion of it when they prepare their taxes the next year. That's what we believe. It's what we believe because it's the right thing to do.

"Homeless people can look to John Kerry and me to restore their dignity and lost opportunity. We will make sure they can deduct a small part of the tuition they pay to get the education they need to turn their lives around."

"This is a land of opportunity, and John Kerry and I look forward to the opportunity to fight hard for what is right. No more will a single mother have to choose between child care and a job, feeding her children or paying for their medicines, sending them to school or chaining them to the radiator. Under a Kerry administration, she will be a part of one America again, working hard and enjoying her just reward of several dollars off her tax bill every April. It's only right. Thank you, and God bless America!"

Presumptive nominee John Kerry is expected to address the convention on Thursday. He may, however, be called upon instead to perform a heroic rescue yet to be determined.

Wind Power Really Beautiful

by Keith Duly, AIA, APP-LED, HBO, MSCLD, PCP

The Nazi flag is superior to the American flag aesthetically. Judgement, however, is subconsciously shaped by intellectual associations to turn it the other way round.

Similarly, with wind turbine towers, which are aesthetically beautiful, misinformation and fear have filtered into the subconscience to make people think they are ugly. They are wrong and should not be allowed to persuade others to their opinion. Although I don't live near any proposed site, I am right and it is my duty to persuade others to my opinion. They use manipulative language to subconsciously bias the public. I don't.

Wind facilities represent joy. Opponents must think everything man-made is ugly and inappropriate. People killing and getting killed for control of fossil fuel is ugly. Coal mining and burning and oil spills are ugly. Opponents of wind plants must think they are beautiful.

My pure aesthetic judgement is in joyful harmony with the true consciousness that wind towers are a bright symbol of hope and many other words chosen to characterize myself as a sane smart mature moral sophisticated nature-lover in contrast to my opponents, who must be crazy dumb infantile evil backward pollution-lovers.

In summary, if Hitler was able to make the Germans feel good about the Nazi flag to replace the one that represented their ineffectual democracy, inspiring architects like Albert Speer to design grand testaments to the state's power, then this Vermont architect must make the same effort for industrial windmills.

-- Keith Duly, of Western, Vermont, is a member of the American Institute of Archetypes (AIA) and founder of Fair Thee Wind Vermont, which opposes opposition to industrial wind plants. This article is adapted from one by a different author in the April 2004 newsletter of AIA Vermont (720-KB PDF available).

Americans Celebrate Independence Day

Traditional get-togethers to clear brush.