Happy New Year

This is part of an e-mail exchange between myself and one of my favorite students.

thx for passing that stuff along from your fellow classmates at the University of the Tree Mascot. very interesting dialogue y'alls have running. I am jealous to some extent. I miss those days, even if i didn't live them as actively engaged as you are. my friends in college didn't talk about stuff like that actually, but even without friends/associates talking about stuff like that, being in an environment where stuff like that could ferment was soooo stimulating.

as you know i'm a bleeding heart liberal and bernard left me hopeful that we'll win the good fight. and i think post election i'm realizing that it's OK to think of this in terms of winning losing. and i don;t mean that in a reaction to bush's with us or against rhetoric. i mean that we have to win the culture war.

we need to people to realize that Love, not gender, is the most important ingredient for a family and that Caring and Compassion don't care about chromosomes X and Y.

We need people to realize that courage isn't just holding to your convictions but admitting that one's convictions were wrong and that though one can rule from fear and the barrel of a gun, a legacy of peace and honor will come from a rule of power that comes from widsom, which comes from the mind.

that God may or may not exist and that in a secular democracy (which is what we are by law!) the right for each person to make that decision is more sacred than the right to believe in that possible entity.

We need people to realize that (to borrow the words from an american indian proverb) we do not inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. (my words now) and if we love our children as much as we profess to in bromidic greeting cards and whitney houston songs, then we'll take care of this fucking planet.

all right, i'll get the fuck off my fucking soap box right the fuck now.

your friend,
Mike