Ode to our curbsides

When will they come?

Did I put it out on the correct day, the correct week — oh no maybe there was a holiday!

Please come take it away! I did what I was told and separated the recyclables for our small part of the globe, stashed them away for two weeks and more.

I put out separate bundle of newspapers, cardboard and yard waste to help keep things nice and clean.

Just take it away! It looks so bad, kills the grass and the wind scatters it about!

Those that don’t sort have it taken away, why not me? I did what I was told.

If I had just put it all in a green bag.

Bill Berardi

Kingston

---

Peace is within

I would like to invite my community to a free DVD Presentation featuring Prem Rawat, also known as Maharaji, world renowned as an expert on inner peace, on Sunday, June 5 at the Bearsville Theater from 5-6:15 p.m. The April event was well attended and much appreciated.

Many of you were able to hear Prem Rawat in person when he came to Woodstock last August. Some of you told me how much you appreciated the event, and many of you are now on the preparatory process to learn the practical techniques he teaches. Perhaps you have heard him on our local cable program, “Words of Peace” that airs every Wednesday from 8-8:30 p.m.

I met Prem Rawat in 1970 in India when I was a traveling hippie. He was 12 years old at the time. I subsequently learned the techniques he teaches to go within, and returned to the west to prepare for his first visit. We are coming up on the 40th anniversary of his arrival in the West in June 1971.

We are going to be showing a DVD of one of Maharaji’s talks. His theme is always the same, a theme that resonates and feels familiar. “The peace that we are looking for is within. It is in the heart, waiting to be felt, and I can help you find it.”

The free presentation will introduce a practical way, which he calls “Knowledge,” to find inner peace and fulfillment. Many listeners say they experience a deep sense of calm and greater clarity by merely listening to him express his vision of life. His message is fundamental and crosses all cultural, social, educational, economic, religious and political boundaries.

Over the last 40 years, Maharaji has addressed more than 12 million people on every continent. People find that his conversational, interactive style often makes his talks deeply personal experiences.

“What I offer to people is not just talk,” he says, “but a way to go inside and savor the beauty that is within. I don’t create the beauty. It is within you. The gift of Knowledge is a practical way to connect with that feeling inside. Without that, all my words would be empty.”

Please join me on Sunday, June 5 for an evening of inspiration!

For more information: www.wopg.org or (845) 332-2247.

Joan Apter

Woodstock

---

Be fair to nurses

I’m writing this letter to give my support to the Benedictine Nurses in their efforts to obtain their first contract as a unionized nursing staff. They have been working with the New York State Nurses Association (the union they voted in by a landslide) for two and a half years to help them achieve this goal.

Benedictine nurses have been treated unfairly since the merger of Kingston and Benedictine hospitals. The Benedictine nurses who were sent to work at Kingston Hospital after the merger have been working for lower wages and worse benefits. In fact, when these nurses go to work they punch a different time clock from the Kingston Hospital nurses. They are, in effect, being treated unequally. As a result, we have lost many experienced nurses. This unfair treatment must stop.

David Lundquist (the CEO of the company created for the merger) needs to give Benedictine nurses what they deserve, instead of hiring consultants to help staff “cope” with the merger, and lawyers who are stalling contract negotiations. He needs to give the nurses a fair contract and retroactive pay for two-plus years of lost wages due to their unequal treatment.

Mary-Sue D’Orazio, RNC, BSN

Kingston Hospital

Stone Ridge

---

Corporate America

There are two fundamental truths about America that must be vehemently denied for our form of government to work.

The first is that we live in a military empire, one that stretches around the globe. This empire consists of bases in over 130 countries, from which America, with the help of apartheid Israel, launches its wars of aggression. The astronomical costs of this empire means that our nation spends more on war-making than every other country in the world combined.

The second truth is that our country has ceased being a democracy. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans want to tax the rich more to balance the budget. In the latest survey, only three percent wanted to cut Social Security. Yet our two major parties, firmly controlled by the corporations and richest Americans, have already extended the tax cut for billionaires. The gutting of Social Security comes next.

Our media does its best to obscure these truths, although they may eventually prove to be as irrepressibly “self-evident” as those expressed by our Declaration of Independence.

And when we as Americans eventually find our way to the truth about our empire and the truth about our democracy, we may find that rather than two truths we have one. For empires destroy democracies and have since recorded history. The very richest have always used empire as a way expand their wealth at the expense of everyone else. Why else was King George in the New World?

Fred Nagel

Rhinebeck

---

Save our water

Your participation is needed to strike a blow against fracking in New York State. Are you in? There are two pending laws in our state legislature. A7400 calls for a one year moratorium on issuing new permits for horizontal hydraulic fracturing until June 2012. The current moratorium ends June 2011. Because there have been so many reported disasters from fracking all over the country this is a wise move to require more scientific research which could eventually lead to a permanent ban.

A7013 closes a dangerous loophole that allows fracking waste to be treated at local wastewater facilities. Fracking wastewater can contain highly toxic chemicals and radioactive particles. Treating this as standard industrial waste means that these pollutants will end up in our water.

Please contact 1) Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver at 212-312-1420, 2) Assemblyman and Chair of Environmental Conservation Robert Sweeney at 631-957-2087 and 3) your Assemblyman (for most Kevin Cahill at 845-338-9610). Tell them they must get Bills A7400 and A7013 on to the Assembly floor for a Yes vote for an extension of the current moratorium and to close the dangerous loophole that allows toxic fracking wastewater to be treated at local sewage treatment facilities.

To quote Food & Water Watch, “Passing these bills would help protect our water, gain us valuable time to win a ban and send a powerful message to Governor Cuomo.” This legislative session ends June 20th so it’s time to act now. Urge everyone you know across the state to also call their Assembly person. Visit district offices. Let your voice be heard.

Rosalyn Cherry

New Paltz

---

Faded coat of blue

I attended “Civil War Days” at the Ashokan Center last week. On my way from the parking lot, I passed a platoon of six Confederate Marines, then headed to the Pewter Shop, where a gathering was underway. Jay Ungar and Molly Mason were performing an instrumental duet for the crowd, which sat on rustic benches and a few chairs. In a corner of the room I recognized Abraham Lincoln, erect in a tall black hat. Next to him sat Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, in his trademark gray goatee. The two of them eerily resembled a contented married couple. In the back of the room stood the slightly slovenly Ulysses S. Grant. Jay and Molly launched into “The Faded Coat of Blue”:

No more the bugle calls the weary one,

Rest, noble spirits, in their graves unknown;

For we’ll find you and know you among the good and true,

Where a robe of white is given for a faded coat of blue.

Lincoln sat perfectly still, conscious of the tragic weight of death on his shoulders.

Sparrow

Phoenicia