Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Everything

You came one day and
as usual in such matters
significance filled everything--
your eyes, the things you
knew, the way you turned,
leaned, stood or sat,
this way or that. When
you left, the area around here rose,
A tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away.

A. R. Ammons


Here's a worrisome piece of data I picked up in Adbuster's Magazine Sept - Oct 2003:

"Ironically paying for biodefense vaccines threatens the very research that produced them. The White House Budget Office stipulated that NIAID (Nat'l Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases) must purchase $233 million worth of a new Anthrax vaccine, and while the money must come from NIAID's budget, it isn't to touch the biodefense programs. "

"NIAID must slash funding grants to other areas of its research program--like basic immunology, infectious diseases, and AIDS research--in order to bankroll the bio-war demand. "
September 17, 1902 --Dad's date of birth. Brooklyn, NY

Dad would have been 101 today. If he's here looking over my shoulder, I miss you Dad--and wish we could have a conversation. Maybe you could get Grandpop, and the three of us could all be the same age--say 50--right now. What a talk that would be. I'd like to know you as a 50 year old man talking to me as a 50 year old man.


And then, maybe, a later talk bringing everyone up to 65. But each of the same age--50 and then 65.

Gee, now that I think of it--how about a series of conversations at each age starting with ten--then every five years...?