A little sun yesterday got it up to 70 in he house, with a fire at night.

Ray and I went to the forum. Jim Porter spoke about the Ecology of War. He made a persuasive case that the environmental damage caused by war is even greater than the human and financial costs. He studied Vieques (Puerto Rico). The first thing is he asked the Navy if it was safe to go there. "Oh, yes," they told him. "There is nothing there." In fact, they found very high concentrations of unexploded bombs on the sea floor: one for every area about the size of the Fellowship Hall. Cancer levels in people from Vieques are 50% higher than on mainland Puerto Rico, mostly due to childhood cancers. Coral and other sea life are suffering. They built a machine to safely pick up unexploded bombs from the sea floor, so they could be moved to deep ocean or detonated in a box. The US stopped doing tests there and declared it a Superfund site. But they refused to allocate clean-up funds...because Puerto Rico is not a state. Puerto Ricans enlist in the Army, die and receive medals of honor at greater rates than any state. He talked some about other war damage. For instance, there are still tire tracks in the desert where Patton first tested tanks during WWI. Vegetation has not yet grown back. One thing that worries me most about these government lies and inconsistencies...what have they lied about that we don't know about yet? What other bad decisions are they making right now that will affect the Earth for generations or maybe destroy it?

The service was quite interesting as well. Dave spoke about Confucianism, which he summarized as being kind and developing your second, more civil, nature--a compromise between freedom and the rule of law. I think perhaps when people ask me about my religion, I will describe myself as a follower of Confucius. He also talked about the play Copenhagen, a fictionalized account of the meeting between Neils Bohr and Heisenberg. Bohr was Danish (Swedish?) and won the Nobel Prize. Heisenberg worked for Hitler. The play is about the physics of morality and the uncertainty principle. In fact, Heisenberg failed to develop the bomb before the end of the war, while Bohr (the good guy) contributed to the bomb that was dropped on Japan.

After the service, we went to the Melting Point. The Friends of Advantage had a luncheon. For $25, we had low country boil and listened to jazz. Advantage is the agency that provides services to people with mental illness, mental retardation, and substance abuse. It has been underfunded for years, so they have started to raise money in other ways. The food was good (although I have had better low country boil) and the jazz was lively. I couldn't get Ray to dance, though, not even after a beer... the sad thing? There were only about 20 people there.

We went home and I made some bread and planned the meals for the week. The Captain planted peas. The dogs got to be outside a lot. Made supper, watched the Super Bowl, went to bed.