Tuli Can't Stop Talking

These are just my thoughts on contemporary issues and an attempt to open up a dialogue.

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Location: New York City

A citizen who cares deeply about the United States Constitution and the Rule of Law.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Finally, PeaceWins!


What can I say? This was one of the stupidest things that I had ever heard of. It says, unfortunately, that there are some incredibly stupid and misinformed folks out there. Were these folks part of the USA/Gallop 38% approval rating of George W. Bush?

Who are these people and where do they come from? I have to wonder if we have a very large group of extraterrestrials inhabiting this country. Really I do!

That said here is what the NYT put out today on the wreath story:


November 29, 2006

Pro-Peace Symbol Forces Win Battle in Colorado Town

By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER, Nov. 28 — Peace is fighting back in Pagosa Springs.

Last week, a couple were threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association unless they removed a four-foot wreath shaped like a peace symbol from the front of their house.

The fines have been dropped, and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.

Two board members have disconnected their telephones, apparently to escape the waves of callers asking what the board could have been thinking, residents said. The third board member, with a working phone, did not return a call for comment.

In its original letter to the couple, Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, the association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically “divisive.”

A board member later told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.

The peace symbol came to prominence in the late 1950s as the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a British antiwar group, according to the group’s Web site. It incorporates the semaphore flag images for the letters in the group’s name, a “D” atop an “N.”

Other people have said the upright line with arms angled down, commonplace in the United States in the Vietnam War, especially, has roots in the early Christian era, representing a twisted or broken cross.

Mr. Trimarco said he put up the wreath as a general symbol of peace on earth, not as a commentary on the Iraq war or another political statement.

In any case, there are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people 200 miles southwest of Denver, than probably ever in its history.

On Tuesday morning, 20 people marched through the center carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow perhaps 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be easily seen.

“There’s quite a few now in our subdivision in a show of support,” Mr. Trimarco said.

A former president of the Loma Linda community, where Mr. Trimarco lives, said Tuesday that he had stepped in to help form an interim homeowners’ association.

The former president, Farrell C. Trask, described himself in a telephone interview as a military veteran who would fight for anyone’s right to free speech, peace symbols included.

Town Manager Mark Garcia said Pagosa Springs was building its own peace wreath, too. Mr. Garcia said it would be finished by late Tuesday and installed on a bell tower in the center of town.

The Times left out some of the grittier details like how the president of the association fired everyone who agreed with the proposition that hanging the wreath was legal. But, that said, the Times did bring out the fact that in the end “Peace Wins.”

What in God’s Name is happening to this country that this is even a controversey?

1 Comments:

Blogger George said...

A Sunday Morning Diatribe

I’ve been thinking about peace…. I’m not sure that peace always wins in the end. Unless, you mean, “rest in peace!” Which leaves me wanting more, since I associate a good experience with ..movement! Also, a certain kind of peace can be rather stressful. Think of the Cold War peace and a shaky hand over the annihilation button.

Peace can be seen as a threat too! Some individuals who sought peace and sang about it, got their peace but not in the way they would have liked. Our FBI thought peace activists like MLK and John Lennon were subversives… When we fight our enemies, you can’t be seriously peddling peace, because the enemy will take comfort in our moment of ..weakness! Right?

There are lots of folks who believe life is a constant struggle, but in absolute terms. Their ideologies hold a simple view of life: good v. evil; heroes v. villains; etc. This struggle is not in the abstract, or just against the devil, but against all others that challenge this world view. That’s why we have crusades and jihads. And the more you destroy your enemies, the more closer you get to the ..peace! Right?

We like strong leaders. Maybe we see something in them we don’t have. But, I think we’re not all that mature yet. Because we tend to appreciate more stubbornness than agility, and force more than diplomacy. We fail to recognize that intelligence is stronger than brutal force. Ah, peace… much maligned & abused but still so desirable!

11:15 AM  

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