•TPC•

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Jean-Louis Turcot and Emily Spence

10/7/07

One of the authors of this piece once read that, based on size and weight, ants proportionally consume more than humans. And the current number of ants present in the world, according to E. O. Wilson’s judgment, is between ten to the sixteenth and ten to the seventeenth (roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000) in totality [1].

These facts raise a question: Should we reduce their population since there are so many of them and they use up so much?

To further consider this question, let’s examine what the ants do for a living. They work in a colony and perform specific tasks, the most important of which is to obtain nourishment since nothing else is possible unless they can eat and drink as a precondition of survival. Therefore, they consume, rest at night and go out the next day to forage for more provisions.

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Sandeep Pandey, Aruna Roy & Medha Patkar

8/25/07

Much has been said and written about the India-US Nuclear Deal, beginning with the statement issued by many eminent nuclear scientists soon after the talks on the deal began between the India and US governments. Public fora and people’s organisations such as Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace called it anti-sovereignty. Today when it is seen as an issue of conflict between the UPA and its Left front allies, we as representatives of people’s movements must re-iterate our stand, which is that the deal is not just anti-democratic but against peace, and against environmentally sustainable energy generation and self-reliant economic development.

The Left front is questioning the fact that such an international deal with significant implications is imposed on the Indian people and Parliament with no public debate and consultation. While the US Congress took a year and a half to discuss the proposed change in US laws to permit nuclear commerce with India, the process in India has been totally undemocratic.

The deal is part of a successful attempt by the United States to build a strategic relationship with India. In confronting the rising capitalist challenge from China, India will be used as its client in the region. Directly or indirectly, the US will also enter the Indian sub-continent to manage intra-regional, inter-country relations. This whole process is likely to escalate the arms race between Pakistan and India, sabotaging the India-Pakistan peace process. How can we ignore the fact the US sells arms to both India and Pakistan?

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

BY GARY CORSERI

8/23/07

There was a point we were drifting towards;
There was a place we were seeking.
We called it: The Home of Sublime Understanding,
The Quality of Differences Subtly Restored.

“After the War,” we assured one another:
The War to Make Living Safe for the Living;
The War we have been breathing since birth—and before.

But the War never ended.
Its sand filled our mouths with reproachable sorrows.
It was mother and father, sister and brother;
Priest and rabbi, preacher and imam.

The Causes lay under a quilt of stars.
And numerous corpses clawed the hard ground.

The politicians hallowed the ground.
The various preachers hallowed the ground.
Children placed wreaths on hallowed ground.
Great monuments were built on hallowed ground.
They gleamed in the sun.
Patterned, colored cloths, called flags, flapped
Over hallowed ground.
The band played anthems over hallowed ground.

And we forgot:
There was a point we were drifting towards;
There was a place we were seeking;
We called it: The Home of Sublime Understanding,
The Quality of Differences Subtly Restored.

Gary Corseri is a senior contributing editor of Cyrano’sJournalOnline. His work has appeared at ThomasPaine’sCorner, The New York Times, Village Voice, PBS-Atlanta, GlobalResearch, ThirdWorldTraveler, OpEdNews, MyLeftWing, WorldProutAssembly, PalestineChronicle, TeleSurTV, IslamOnline and over 200 other venues. His books include Manifestations (edited) and A Fine Excess. He can be contacted at .

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to  

By Emily Spence

8/10/07

It is easy to be discouraged with the peace movement. It is easy to want to walk or run away, especially so when progress seems so slow to stop war activities anywhere in the world.

Ironically, the first day that I joined the peace moment was the same one that I most desperately wanted to run away. I, literally, wanted to flee with every part of my being, but somehow managed to sit still instead.

At the time, I was five years old. I was sitting on a bench at a Quaker Meeting. I remember the drop dead silence surrounding the deeply inward-dwelling people all around me. I remember the contrast that the occasional trilling bird in the shrubbery outside the window made and the merry splash of intermittent sunshine on the floor opposed to the overall dimness of the room. Then I heard the room’s door open followed by a muted shuffle of feet.

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Gary Corseri

8/8/07

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

–Martin Luther King

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all other liberties.”

–John Milton

“Ecraser l’infame!”

–Voltaire

The Romans had a saying: Mole ruit sua. It falls of its own bigness.

They knew a thing or two about Empire, over-extension abroad and decay at home.

Apparently, Americans are still learning. Hence, we’re shocked by a 9/11 event, the devastation wrought by Katrina, the collapse of a bridge over the Mississippi. We don’t understand how our health care system could have deteriorated into the “Sicko” joke of the developed world—and to be a lot less efficient and fair than systems in much poorer countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Costa Rica, for example). Within a few decades, how did we go from putting men on the moon to a nation whose cars can’t compete with Japan and Germany—nations less than half, and a little more than a quarter our size; nations we bombed to smithereens some 60 years ago?

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Pablo Ouziel

8/2/07

In the 1994 drama film based on a novel by Winston Groom, the world was captivated by a simple man called Forrest Gump and his journey through life. In a famous scene, he starts running and he explains his reasons for running in the following way: ” That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road… to the end of town… across Greenbow County… across Alabama… clear to the ocean. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”

Forrest Gump was running because of a broken heart, and along the way thousands of people began to join him; one man with a broken heart and a whole march for hope was started. Those were the days, at least in the movies.

Back to reality, on July 25th the International Herald Tribune ran a piece titled; “Teens march across America in lonely opposition to war.” The article talked about nineteen year old Ashley Casale and eighteen year old Michael Israel who started their 3,000-mile walk from San Francisco to Washington opposing the war in Iraq and hoping that others would join them. The pair did pick up a third marcher, nineteen year old Tom Garrett, but the masses were absent; What happened to them? What happened to all those Americans opposing the war?

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online, Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop are initiating a weekly email which will include links to both the most recent offerings and to timeless classics available on our very diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.

7/9/07

I want you to know how very much I love you, how much I have always loved you since the very day you were born. From that moment on I have given you my best as a father. I taught you everything I knew, everything you needed to know in order that you might one day become a man.

However, during the past few years the world has changed, and as a result I, as well, have changed. When you were but a child, I believed that a man had no choice but to love, honor, and respect his country, that one should, without question, obey the laws of his land. Since that time, however, I have come to believe that there is something of much greater value……. that of doing the will of God. Rather than meticulously carrying out the rather capricious commands of those who administer the affairs of this world, I suggest that you set for yourself a more demanding task, one of doing what you can to create a world of peace, love, and justice, that you do your best to serve a much higher calling, that of being a servant of your fellowman, one dedicated to the best interests of the human race.

Continue Reading »

Cyrano’s Journal Online, Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop are initiating a weekly email which will include links to the latest high quality content available on our very diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“Sometime in your life, hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives. Hope that you might have baked it or bought or even kneaded it yourself. For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even.”

— Daniel Berrigan

“Daniel Berrigan was born in Virginia, Minnesota, a Midwestern working class town. His father, Thomas Berrigan, was a second-generation Irish-Catholic and proud union man. Tom left the Catholic Church, but Berrigan remained attracted to the Church throughout his youth. He joined the Jesuits directly out of high school in 1939 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1952….

“Berrigan, his brother Philip, and the famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton founded an interfaith coalition against the Vietnam War, and wrote letters to major newspapers arguing for an end to the war….

“In 1968, he was interviewed in the anti-Vietnam War documentary film In the Year of the Pig, and later that year became involved in radical violent protest. He manufactured home-made napalm and, with eight other Catholic protesters, used it to destroy 378 draft files from the Catonsville, Maryland draft board. This group, later known as the Catonsville Nine, blamed American Christians and Jews for showing “[…] cowardice in the face of […]” the U.S. government, and for their racism “[…] and hostil[ity] to the poor.”….

“Berrigan was promptly arrested and sentenced to three years in prison, but went into hiding with the help of fellow radicals prior to imprisonment. While on the run, Berrigan was interviewed for Lee Lockwood’s documentary “The Holy Outlaw.” Soon thereafter, the FBI apprehended him, sent him to prison, and released him in 1972….

“Berrigan later spent time in France meeting with Thich Nhat Hanh, the exiled Buddhist monk peace activist from Vietnam….

“On September 9, 1980, Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six others (the “Plowshares Eight”) began the Plowshares Movement. They illegally trespassed onto the General Electric Nuclear Missile facility in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and poured blood onto documents and files. They were arrested and charged with over ten different felony and misdemeanor counts. On April 10, 1990, after ten years of appeals, Barrigan’s group was re-sentenced and paroled for up to 23 and 1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. Their legal battle was re-created in Emile de Antonio’s 1982 film In The King of Prussia, which starred Martin Sheen and featured appearances by the Plowshares Eight as themselves.”

[Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan]

Essay by Mike Palecek

7/6/07

I owe my life to Dan Berrigan.

For good or for bad.

I think for good.

I drove from a smallish, conservative town in northeast Nebraska in January 1979 to begin seminary at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In February or March, Berrigan was speaking at Macalaster College, up Summit Avenue a few blocks at a Vietnam Symposium, whatever that means, along with Eugene McCarthy and a journalist named Gloria Emerson.

Anyway, I went, and I heard, and I walked up to him afterward to introduce myself and ask a stupid question.

A couple of us ended up driving Dan around town that night, to a church to hear John Trudell speak about the FBI burning his family in their home, then over to a TV station where Daniel Schorr was hosting a discussion between Berrigan and some guy from the Kennedy administration. I think it was Ted Sorenson.

All’s I know is they let me into this one room and pointed at a table full of food. I could graze as long as we were there. Have at it church boy.

Berrigan also came over to the seminary and spoke to us, about Vietnam, prison, the United States, the Catholic Church.

I was enthralled. I had never heard this stuff before, and likely would not have ever heard it in my seminary instruction.

Well, on a home visit I asked the parish priest who had hooked me up with the seminary, Fr. Walter Nabity.

I asked him about Berrigan and protesting and nuclear weapons and war and all that.

Fr. Nabity told me to forget about the protests, stick to my studies, stay away from the likes of Berrigan.

Well, I was confused.

I told Berrigan what Nabity had said. Dan wrote back to me. [Below]

Over Easter vacation, on Berrigan’s invitation, two of us took a train to Washington, D.C. for a Holy Week retreat and protest. We stayed at the Church of St. Stephen in northwest D.C.

There were lots of “famous” folks from the peace movement there that week, that I only found out were famous, within the peace movement, over the following years: Richard McSorley, Sr. Elizabeth Montgomery, Art Laffin, Elizabeth McAlister, Fr. Carl Kabat.

And of course, Phil Berrigan. I remember going up to Phil and asking him a stupid question. He was wearing this army coat. He took me to the middle of the church and sat with me. He listened to my questions.

“What’s a nuke?”

And we talked about the Catholic Church, celibacy, marriage, prison, the United States, the military, Thou Shall Not Kill. Lots of stuff. And he took the time to talk to me.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, unless I eat way too many Ho-Ho’s … again.

It was pretty cool. We planned these protests at the White House — Jimmy Carter’s administration — and the Pentagon, and some people went to the Department of Energy, too, I think.

We boarded the bus in small groups so that it would not appear to be a big group, I guess.

We went through the White House visitor tour line in those small groups and inside we looked at tables and tablecloths and silverware, and I tried to not look like someone who needed to be apprehended and sent back to Nebraska — or even worse.

The tour exited out onto a porch, a portico? And then those who were doing the protest took out banners from their purses or coats and held them out.

Fr. Carl Kabat poured blood on the pillars and was put into a headlock and hauled away. I got a good picture of that.

Continue Reading »

by Mankh (Walter E. Harris III)

6/2/07

I am a citizen of the world, my countrymen all mankind.
–Thomas Paine

 

With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?

— Pink Floyd “Us and Them”

Imagine there’s no countries…

— John Lennon “Imagine”

 

Imagine the image of Earth stitched onto a corner of every national flag.

 

Not quite what John Lennon sang to us to do but it is a start. One World flags would help us to remember our connection with the world as a whole. And anything nasty done by a nation — wherever they might raise their flag as a symbol of having unjustly dominated, conquered, or enslaved another people, or polluted a river or terrain — would at least be under the ‘eye’ of the Earth, and somewhere on the nation’s One World conscience.

 

“Think global, act local” certainly has its merits, yet it is high time we also learn better to “think global, interact wisely”!

 

Business is the sacred international cow. People travel almost anywhere ‘to do business’ (legitimate or otherwise), but when it comes to cultural exchanges of a more personal level, the red flags often go up too quickly.

 

When a musician or professor cannot enter a country due to the content of his songs or lectures, a border becomes a wall. Yet, from the bird’s-eye view, nations are illusory borders, man-made lines drawn in the sand. No land mass can rule except by rulers. Then again, a mountain or an ocean may afford the best protection that money can’t buy (except when it comes to foreign companies managing ports). The root of the word foreign, from the Latin, is “out of doors, outside” (as in, public “forum”), and I presume that originally it simply meant to show how EVERYONE GATHERED TOGETHER, before the lines in the sand turned so-called foreigners into “those weird untidy people with the odd customs and strange hairdos”.

 

The little bottle of apple juice I recently bought at the local bagel shop had the following on the label, in tiny print: made from “concentrates from Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Argentina, Chile, Turkey, Brazil, China & U.S.” How do you like them apples? Rather, how do like them One Earth apples? Whether you bother to check the humanitarian records of each apple producing country, or are simply thirsty and glad to support the pickers, is your business. This particular little juice was from a big name company. When I’m purchasing a large bottle for home I certainly prefer local apples, whether they are from down the road or across the country.

 

All this does not mean that cultural and national identities need be avoided. On the contrary, they are to be celebrated yet kept in perspective. Perhaps another reminder catchphrase could be: “Celebrate diversity, respect Unity” or “Respect diversity, celebrate Unity”. Each nation has its gifts, its foods and drinks, music, and so forth. I love Mexican food and Italian food, to name a few, and celebrate the food-making aspect of those cultures by sampling their cuisines.

 

To prove that we as a species naturally identify with the bigger picture, ask anyone “where are you from?”, and I bet they will answer by naming a town, city, or country; you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who answers “1 Crabgrass Lane“. On the other hand, indigenous and tribal peoples would probably identify a specific element of nature (”the sacred mountains”, “the emerald forest”), or the Earth, or the cosmos in toto, while gypsies and nomads might answer, “Everywhere!”

 

All of this goes to show that: while people personally and very locally identify with their home and immediate surroundings, when it comes to the overview, they connect with the Gestalt, the people en masse, la gente… and mountains and trees are people too, according to those who really live among them.

 

In the athletic world, golf has become an international sport and there are many European and other worldwide golfers now living, and predominantly playing, in the U.S., yet they officially represent their country of birth. Is this a lifelong badge we all wear in some form or another? I consider myself a Turtle Islander, Turtle Island being another name for Earth and originating from the so-called mythical land portrayed in the origin-stories of American Indians, Hindus, Australian aborigines, the Chinese, and probably more. Technically though, having been born ‘here’, I’m an American and I’ve never called myself a German-Russian-American although that would more appropriately honor my roots. Nowadays African-American and Asian-American have become popular nomenclatures for retaining one’s identity, but are there any Australian-Americans, Eastern-Bloc-Americans, South-Pacific-Island-Americans… and what of Native, North, South, Central and Latin? These labels (not to mention the hyphens) can boggle the mind!

 

Tibetans, one of the most peaceful peoples on this planet, are well-known for their prayer-flags whose bright colors not only look lovely but also serve to send prayers and good wishes into the air, scattered to the four winds for whoever (especially deities) has ears to hear. Whether or not you believe or have ever experienced how that works, it is certainly less problematic than air-pollution.

 

At the United Nations, at the Olympics, a major golf tournament like the British or U.S. Open, and many other sites and events– imagine One Earth Flags, One World Consciousness, Global Getting Along Real Well.

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is a poet, essayist and small press publisher.

His books include Singing an Epic of Peace and Haiku One Breaths.

His literary website: www.allbook-books.com