Welcome to...

"It's time to matter."
(--the Grateful Dead, "Mountains of the Moon")

A Smile for Your Day...

"Got Any Duck Food?"

A duck walks into a hardware store and says to the clerk, "Got any duck food?"

To which the clerk replies, "No."

The next day the duck walks into the hardware store and asks the clerk again, "Got any duck food?"

The clerk impatiently replies, "No!"

The duck goes into the hardware store for a third time and asks the clerk, "Got any duck food?"

The clerk whirls around and says, "If you ask me that one more time I'm going to nail your little webbed feet to the floor!"

The duck comes back a fourth time and asks the clerk, "Got any nails?"

The surprised clerk answers, "No, we just ran out."

So then the duck replies, "Got any duck food?"

A Poem for Your Day...

MIDSUMMER MOTIONS

Midsummer motions soothe my soul:
The gentle winds caress the corn,
The lazy river greets the morn
Majestic, in control

And yet so soft, peaceful and slow.
In nature's grace let us abide;
The human race pre-occupied
With death shall to death go,

But not without the wind and rain
About us, as fields warmed by sun
Live on as each one's life is done,
Consumed by love and pain.

Bring All the Troops Home Now!

Today we see the big damage control effort by mainstream media, the White House and Congress to trivialize the significance of the contents of the 92,000 classified memos that were leaked by an insider to the public... akin to Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers.  A tremendous amount of money must obviously be at stake for so many people to be screaming, "Nothing to see here, move along."  It's a shameful atrocity that we don't just bring all our troops home, period.  Get them all the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Forget about "winning" a "war" that has no clearly-defined enemy, no clear-cut "this is what victory will look like" vision, and that has totally shattered the lives of millions of people in that part of the world.  For what?  America is crumbling from within while it squanders its blood and treasure halfway around the world.  For what?

Do You Believe in These Values?

1. Ecological Wisdom

We recognize that the Earth sustains all life processes. Our ecology moves beyond environmentalism by understanding the common roots of the abuse of people. Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.

2. Social Justice

We want to replace the worldwide system of poverty and injustice with a world free of all oppression based on class, gender, race, citizenship, age, or sexual orientation.

3. Grassroots Democracy

The powerless suffer the most from resource depletion and toxic pollution. We believe in direct participation by all people in the environmental, political, and economic decisions that affect their lives.

4. Nonviolence

We reject violence as a way of settling disputes – it is shortsighted, morally wrong, and ultimately self-defeating. We are working to create a world where war is obsolete.

5. Decentralization

Power and responsibility must be restored to local communities within an overall framework of ecologically sound and socially just values and lifestyles.

6. Community-Based Economics

We seek a new economics that is based upon the natural limits of the Earth, and which meets the basic needs of everyone on the planet, under democratic, localized community control.

7. Equality

The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control over others.

8. Respect for Diversity

We honor the biological diversity of the Earth and the cultural, sexual, and spiritual diversity of Earth's people. We aim to reclaim this country's finest ideals: popular democracy, the dignity of the individual, and liberty and justice for all.

9. Personal and Global Responsibility

We demonstrate a commitment to global sustainability and international justice through political solidarity and in personal lifestyles based on self-sufficiency and living lightly.

10. Future Focus

Like the Iroquois, we seek a society where the interests of the seventh generation are considered equal to the interests of the present. We must reclaim the future for our children and ourselves.

If you believe in these values, then please do as I have done: join the Green Party, because these are their values.

Tiger's Den changes several times a week!

Wait! There's more!

November, 2002 My second volume of poetry, TigerTale, is now available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, and Books-a-Million!

No trees were injured in the creation of this web site, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.