My congratulations to Marek and Andy for actually getting this thing off the ground. The first issue is already a collector's item in some circles. It is hard to get even the best-intentioned people to respond, to participate in anything that takes just a little extra time. America! Where time really is money, or so people believe.
Richard Truax is right on the mark. Apathy rules and no one gains, especially the unempowered. Marek is correct also about the need for changes in the system -- but I'm so damn cynical after all these years. (I revisited Woodstock, the movie, recently and realized how close we were then. So close it was scary.) As for Andy's piece in the first "CHOSES", the best over-the-counter drugs I could lay my hands on while I was reading it were insufficient to see through the fog. "Whatever he said."
There are far too few people making the rules for the rest of us. It doesn't matter whether it is development aid to smaller, poorer nations or what any of us can choose to do with our own bodies. The same fascists who preach less and less government are legislating our private lives right out of existence. Do it their way or don't do it at all. Power is a very dangerous drug itself.
I am no Bill Clinton fan but I'm glad he was smart enough at age 23 to use his wits and avoid military service to this country when such service meant endorsing the war to end all guerrilla wars. Where does anyone get off attacking or questioning that position instead of asking the rest of them why they did serve, why they do go, why they killed on command and when, if ever, does personal conscience come before blind patriotism. Of course , that won't happen nor will Clinton take the high road. He definitely should have inhaled when he had the chance.
I would like to go on the record, then, just in case I am ever running for anything that I am very proud of my actions and decisions from 1967-on concerning war, killing, violence, love, peace and even the evil weed. I'm thankful I did inhale when I had the opportunity.
Overall I find myself more and more in the minority on most issues, on the losing side of most elections, forever paddling up stream and, in a sense, losing ground. Losing ground if it were a race against time. However, it is not that sort of race, an attempt to get somewhere faster than everyone else. I prefer to see it as a race to discover the good and the positive all along the way and so losing ground just means I get to see some of it again. And knowing the way a little better.
That is why, you realize, and I'll give it a rest after this final stray thought, that's why baseball is superior to other team sports like football, basketball, hockey, or even soccer. There is no clock. It takes as long as it takes to declare a winner. And no matter how far behind you get, there is time to come back, at least no clock to say you cannot.
So when and where is Team Togo going to reunite? We could challenge the Royals to a best of seven and make them look bad. I'm talking ugly. Everybody write!
John Elmer
4/7/92
[The quote that I put after John's entry seems especially significant right now:]