Author: mopress

June 14th, Monday: I wrote the blurb for the Learning Annex catalog, deadline today, only 150 words, including the bio and the lecture and all. That was tough. It will go on every street corner in midtown Manhattan. Merry is always full of enthusiasm on the phone.

I called Ted to see if he was into doing a shoot, but he wasn’t in. I wrote a letter to Pete, explaining a lot of proven techniques on how to combat space weapons-microwave attacks and the recurring memory loss it can cause.

Dear Pete Seeger,

As you recall, we discussed your memory problems on Sunday at the Strawberry
Festival. If its Lyme’s disease, I can get you more spruce buds (if you used the last batch I sent). If it is old age, you can try Ginko but its too strong for me at my young age.

However if you are being bombarded with microwaves, there is a lot you can do to protect your brain, which I refer to as “the stronghold.” That is the part they want to get at. If you experience cold skin but hot underneath the skin, or hot in some places cold in others, migraines, tingling and buzzing in your feet and hands, (or sometimes a strange feeling your feet are both hot and cold at once) then you may be targeted by microwave cannons. While being buzzed you may feel a buildup of electrical energy inside you, which may go away as you leave the targeted area, then come back six or so hours later. This second wave of buzziness will be less intense, and is actually the body self-healing. Any way you can discharge this energy will help your health and memory; through cedar baths, (boil cedar branches in a pot of boiling water, let cool a little then put it in your bath water and soak) walking, sweating, working in the soil, etc. Many dissidents I know in the Hudson Valley are well versed in these defensive techniques. This is a big area for experimentation.

Number one thing to do is to take some Reynolds Wrap (“200 square feet’ 18.5 m 2 thickness) aluminum foil, cut out a 6” x 12” (or 12” x 12”) sheet and fold it over into a circle or oval that you can fit in your baseball hat with no one noticing. If you are being “burned” by microwaves, this will feel like a relief when you put it on. If your house is targeted, you should wear this around the house even if other armor is in place. This foil will repel low frequencies and keep them from interfering with your brain’s natural processes. If you have headaches caused by microwaves, this will help. Of course, you should not wear this type of hat in public as in the 60s it was believed that only paranoids wore foil in their hats. Yes, they were paranoid, but yes, the space people really were after them! John Lennon may have used this technique himself, and according to the grape vine, he was experimented on, from a distance. I have found that being near a river (a large one such as the Hudson) somehow cancels out the microwaves. I don’t know why. It must draw a current. If you feel your memory loss while at home and it comes back when you are on the river, you are most likely affected by microwave attack.

Microwaves pass through almost everything except sheet metal, and thick stone walls. They can also be trapped by chicken wire and copper wire stretched into a netting. The trapping is necessary but not a complete defense in 24 hour situations. Chicken wire traps the lower frequencies and the copper traps the higher frequencies. Lower frequencies are serious and can fry your eyeballs or burst your organs (at top amplitudes) however the upper frequencies can cause headaches or nausea. Most people put up chicken wire on their walls to start, chicken wire woven in with copper wire (light gauge), with the copper wire end stuffed into a grounding hold in a three-hole socket. This can be covered with blankets for appearances. It will not affect their ability to protect the household.

Next you can string copper wire on your ceiling in a kind of net or zigzag pattern. The exact pattern is not so important, but if the different parts connect somewhere, that helps. The end of that wire should be grounded to something as well. It could be a rock, etc.

I tried fluorite stones around me, but it is too weak. They absorb a small amount of “bad energy” but not enough to feel safe. By the way fuzz busters radar detectors, don’t detect these waves. Real micro detectors may soon be on the market.

It is helpful to know where the signal is coming from; some are land based, some from space. Take an AM radio tune it to a low frequency (I use 660 AM which is baseball) and walk around with it. To demonstrate how AM works, take this radio and move near the refrigerator; when you get near the generator, it should lose its signal and just rasp at you. If you walk around the outside of your house and it rasps in one corridor, you have a land based attack.

It used to be you were safe in your car, but not any more. Those silver towers everywhere are able to blast you in your car, no joke. I have experienced this with increasing frequency and obviousness, and so have others. When under attack, close all your windows. The micro is a plasma form and can come into the open windows and give you a burning sensation on your left side if you’re driving, which will collect in your feet, so you know its not sunburn. Close your windows for a while and it will go away. You can get a spray on the internet (or at Walmarts I think) or a filter that will disguise your license plate from satellite beams. Its about $30, and probably worth it, although I cross the border a lot so I haven’t done it. They scan your plates at the border.

They have a system that is linked to the use of your phone. The blasters tend to turn on upon the hour or half hour (6:30, 7:00 o clock) after the first time you use your phone, which tells them you’re home. If you are on the road, best to use an ATT or other store-bought phone card. This is very hard for them to trace. Once its used up don’t refill, but get a new card.

Now, a most interesting strategy. When you are moving around you are helping to ground, but in your sleep you are an easy target. If you are sure you are being targeted, create a metal “pup tent” out of sheet metal. Buy two 4 x 8 foot sheets of regular sheet metal, have them cut into two 4 x 4 (or close) Use duct tape and tape the edges so they don’t cut you, and then duct tape two of the sheets together. Use this over your bed, over your body at night. You can prop it up right on your bed, or create a track for it. See if you feel better. The metal doesn’t cost very much, and it makes the biggest difference. It is much more effective if you have a headboard piece of metal as well and something to block an attack from your feet. If your feet stick out, just cover them with Reynolds wrap blankets. These are easily made by spreading out 2 sheets of aluminum foil, and using masking tape, taping them in parallel fashion, and if you wish, doubling the thickness. Cross pieces of tape will make them much stronger. If you make a big enough thick enough Reynolds Wrap blanket you don’t really need the pup tent, but the blankets don’t last forever, and are not nearly as effective as sheet metal. The sheet metal also protects your head. I have also pinned up Reynolds Wrap blankets on the wall at times to fill holes where the chicken wire can’t get.

I’ve experimented with a lot of other techniques, but these are the most effective so far, for me. By the way, if you have to work at home during an attack, turn the stereo on loud; I believe that this absorbs the microwave frequencies to some degree, especially orchestral music.

Floors can carry electrical currents from these things, and walking barefoot on wood floors may not help if the floors are carrying the current. Rubber soles insulate you from much of this floor current, but do not let you discharge. Leather soles let you discharge but do not insulate you from charged floors. So its kind of a trade off.

Massage helps pass off and discharge the energy, so does showering and brushing your teeth, and stretching. Avoid wearing synthetics and eating junk food.

That’s all for now. I know these are radical measures, but if you find it helps your memory, its worth it. I believe that once you are completely discharged, you will feel completely recovered. I know because there are no microwave attacks in Canada, (so far) and after a week there, I feel great.

On Monday night, I went to see Day After Tomorrow with a friend. It explains that that sudden freeze from warm to extremely cold does not indicate a pole shift necessarily, but a vortex being created where the troposphere is sucked down into the lower atmosphere, such as when an ice age is created. The movie starts with the Larsen B Ice Shelf, which was a thrill because I feel a personal connection, in that when editing Keller’s book on ‘what happened to IT?” I worked a lot on the opening section about Larsen B. Popular Science, again the June issue, said it was all based on fact, just sped up really really fast. I thought there were several plot devices that were brilliant moves that saved the movie; for example the “street guy” with the dog, and the loose wolves. The main character’s car should have broken down half way between Philly and New York to have been credible, not outside of Philly. He couldn’t have walked that far. Anyway. I thought the script was mostly good, just a few weak spots. We all thought the pretty girl’s leg would have to be amputated! The mission of the main character to warn the world about this new threat, against resistance from the Cheney-look-alike VP, reminded me of my inclinations to alert people to what is currently going on in space and the atmosphere and NLWs. So it was inspiring in that sense. And of course, the environment has always been my primary “cause.”

June 13th, Sunday: I took off for the Beacon Sloop Club’s Strawberry Festival, to enjoy a near-perfect day outside with the music and food, and of course, strawberries. Although Pete Seeger (the Sloop Club’s founder) had blurbed my book Native New Yorkers, we hadn’t actually sat and talked for a while, and it was putting a strain on things. I wanted to make face to face contact with him to re-establish the human part of the friendship.

It was a good idea. I also was prepared to sing my Voting Hymn of the Republic, which can be sung to the tune of Try To Remember, from the Fantastiks. I made copies of the space weapons flier and also the lyrics to Try To Remember and Cash Is King, which really is original. I ended up parking 10 minutes away. I saw Rachel and Alan (former Sloop club president, and former house mate) who were most welcoming. They went and had two babies since I last saw them) Others looked at me like “you missed the last 87 Sloop Club meetings!” But that’s okay. Speaking with Susan B, the music assistant, (who knows my music) I offered to fill in if one of the singers didn’t show up, and she said okay but the director didn’t know me, and said I couldn’t play, because rules are rules. She said if she let me sing two minutes she had to let this other guy from California sing two minutes, and she hasn’t heard him. So I said, “So let him sing!” We got into a heated discussion and I walked away to cool my heels and just enjoy the party. In the end, a scheduled singer didn’t show and I (and the guy from California) got to sing and I played my one song to wind up the concert, with the blessing of the music director, who realized that everyone else had heard me sing before and had no objections. It went over very well, and they were happy I sang. So as you see, even Peaceniks (like the members of the Beacon Sloop Club) have to find ways to resolve their conflicts. Everyone came out a winner. Apparently someone said I had been the music teacher at Kitama Seeger’s school (the Randolph School) and that piece of info (which I had forgotten) apparently was the missing link that brought things to a resolution. I guess they’d discussed it at some length. It proves what I’ve often said is that most conflicts can be resolved by having the right information.

I got to spend some quality time talking with Pete Seeger. (We had performed together as long as twenty years ago, at the World Wildlife Conference and other spots, he is the author of Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and If I Had A Hammer, Turn, Turn, Turn) At first he saw me and started complaining about his memory, which apparently fails him from time to time. He said he sees my name and says, “I think I must have read some of his books, because his name is kind of weird and unusual, so I remember it. But I can’t remember what you wrote sometimes…” This was one of those moments. He said, “I’m supposed to sing Guantanamera” in a few moments, and I can’t remember the words.” Later he sang not only Guantanamera (with Randi Harris on background vocals, just back from Ohio) but Big Muddy, which showed impeccable timing. Part way through Big Muddy, he said, “Of course this is just a song and there’s no intended comment on current affairs…” (The troops are saved when the captain dies from his own stupidity) I was standing by the stage and started clapping, with a knowing clap, and everyone in the audience followed suit. It was funny. Anyway, after that, his memory came back in full. Later, in the crowd, he practically ran over to me to let me know he remembered all about me. It meant a lot. He said, “I wish we had time to sit and talk about things, and I want to hear all your new songs. Come to the sloop club second Friday in July.” He showed me his appointment book, very small handwriting. I agreed. It gave me a chance to apologize for turning down his last similar offer to meet him at the Sloop Club, on a night I couldn’t make it. He said he’d let me tape him talking about the sixties and his experiences with civil disobedience. (We talked again about the Peekskill riots; I’d been with Pete on the 40th anniversary at Peekskill) I said, “you know Thoreau got a lot of his ideas on this from the Algonquins, and your work in the sixties was an extention of that tradition” He answered, “When Thoreau was dying, (of TB) and coughing all over the place, his auntie came and said, “Have you made your peace with God young man?” And he said, “Oh, I hadn’t known that we’d quarreled!” That was a priceless Pete Seeger quote, and like the song Guantanamera itself, a way of saying goodbye to those he cares about. He sang to me a song he had recently written about Martin Luther King, that I could use the lyrics in any upcoming book on non-violence. It was good, almost playful.

Interestingly, Pete talked a lot today both to me and on the stage about things that happened millions of years ago. His story of how Europeans survived by killing off the Neanderthal gave me a whole new insight into European history! Later I handed him the flier on space weapons, (microwave beams, etc) and he was interested, wondering if such a thing could affect his memory, which is a major concern now. We talked a bit today. I met “Spooky” the folk singer from NJ, really cool songs, including a voting song “Pull the lever” which was clever.

The Hudson Valley Peace Action Network table was very helpful. There was a lot of info on how the Patriot Act overrode the constitution and bill of rights. But some didn’t know there were two patriot acts, so I explained. I offered my flier for their table and they graciously accepted it as part of their collection. The director came up and said they have no rule against that, and anyway, he’ll change the rules as he goes along if it will help their cause. Of course he was joking. It made me feel more at home. Suddenly things made more sense! It was a good day to make peace!

My musical friend Wa-oosh showed up unexpectedly at the festival, and found me just as I was preparing to go on to ‘the hill” stage. I didn’t tell her I was waiting so sing. Sometimes I wonder if she is open to my “protest” songs, most of which are humorous anyway. She walked away, but came back when she heard my name announced, and ended up hearing the song, and we talked. She enjoyed it. It was nice, because I’ve been talking to her about lesser known revelations concerning the dark side of this current administration, and she’s been surprisingly open all along, listening and considering without jumping to conclusions. I made several predictions to her which came true. I can’t reveal her name because she has ties to certain very powerful families, some of whom have four letter words for last names. I can say that on one particular day I was with her and unbeknownst to us, Dick Cheney was less than a mile away, and at the moment he arrived, I suddenly got very sick and went into this other dimension where there was an endless universe of hopelessness and anger, which I described to her. It was like hell. I couldn’t continue playing. She helped me snap out of it, but it affected her too. Later we learned Cheney was giving a speech a few blocks away. At the time of the clock that he left, I suddenly felt much better. Isn’t that weird??

I made my way home, and wrote this first peaceblog for peacefile. I got a message from guitarist Angel Romero’s assistant, Susan Hofflund, that she will give my new guitar CD to him tomorrow, Monday. This is very exciting. The music of Contemplations CD is some of the most peaceful music ever written, and is designed to be healing as well. We shall see what the great Romero makes of it all, having seen the score almost six months ago.

June 12th, Saturday: I went to the post office, mailed the usual stuff, nothing in the box. I just missed the Woodstock Poetry Society meeting, walking around in the sunlight, a beautiful day. Doing errands, etc From one to four today, several people in my circle of friends who are healers, felt depressed for no reason whatsoever! Still no answer.

I got a message from Jennifer Meiers from the Poughkeepsie Journal, so I called her back and we did an interview on the spot about the relationship between the Native Americans and the rivers of the Hudson Valley, in the old days, and I stressed the importance of the estuary, the salt point itself, where sea and fresh water life is abundant. I also talked about the old canoe crossing from Waryus Park at the bottom of Main Street (next to Fall Kill Falls) and Highland Landing a mile to the north, how colonists used to stand on the shore and wave a white flag on a pole, and Native Americans would come and give rides in exchange for wampum, trinkets, food, etc. We may have talked for an hour.

Garrison Keilor is at Ocean Grove today, doing his show, but I didn’t go (to thank him for mentioning my book Whole Hearted Thinking on his Prairie Home Companion show) or listen in, too busy.

Shawna called out of the blue, panting, saying excitedly, “I found the rocks.” I said, “Can we go now?” “Yes!” So suddenly I was on another adventure with Shawna. Apparently, she had gone by herself and meditated and burned sage, etc, before trying to locate the rocks. The rocks “led her to them.” (I know, spooky, right?) She brought me with her to the spot. This time we found it, and I was quite puzzled and surprised. I found that the east wall was certainly man-made and well done, but there was a rock of different type sticking out which seemed to be carved into a turtle head, with a turtle’s fin to its right sticking out. The rest of it looks like it was at one time a hemispheric dome, six feet tall, representing the entire northern hemisphere. There were natural steps to climb to the top. I have often stated that Algonquins did not create monuments, and yet here is a monument of a turtle, a tremendous discovery. Of course there’s no way to prove it was not made by a “drunken farmer.” But here are some reasons to say it is Lenape; 1. Lenape used turtle designs as boundary markers 2. this spot is at the northeast corner of the old Lenape territory. 3. it is on the same exact longitude as the most famous turtle boundary marker, from the Bronx River. 4. it is created using the same techniques as the shelf or platform constructions found at Oley PA (at the SW corner of Lenape Hoking) and also in Vermont, where there are eighty of them on a single slope!. This shows that more “recent” Lenape did have this platform tradition still intact. 5. it can be used as a platform, but is much more. Ted added to this to say there are many possible “turtle effigy” spots in Lenape territory, but none are that convincing. I took a roll of pictures of the site.

At night, I worked on making a flier compiling news stories about space weapons which don’t get coverage in the US. The two main sources were The Ottawa Citizen, an article which I had seen on the stands while in Ontario, and Counter Punch, which I believe is British. Space weapons may pose the greatest threat to freedom and democracy if fallen into (or created by) the wrong hands. I called Raymundo to tell him of the Great Turtle. He was very pleased. He likes turtles. He’s a marine biologist.

Here is the email I sent Ted:

Hi, Ted,
Speaking of wild speculations, I saw and explored the new “rock pile” in Rhinebeck, and it is quite puzzling.
You have to see it for yourself, and decide if it is exactly what it looks like.
It is not like the platforms you have filmed, and is in bad shape, but perhaps it is MORE, not less.
It looks to me like it was a hemispheric turtle (facing East by southeast) about 6 feet tall, which was stripped of its capstones for fencing. There is a rock that emerges from a well-pieced and intact wall on the east face that looks like a roughly carved turtle head, and a turtle’s fin to its right. The rest could well have been what remains of a perfect hemisphere, (actually a little bit oval, in the opposite way than a turtle is oval) and yes, there is a ton of large quartz rocks near the top. There is also a little “doorway” opposite the turtle head. And there is also a large stepping stone which makes it quite easy to climb to the top, which leads us to consider it may have been a ritual platform as well as a form of sculpture.
Now here’s another thing: it is very roughly in line ( of longitude) with the famed Bronx River Turtle Petroglyph, known to be an eastern border marker of the Lenape, (Beirhorst says circa 1000 AD) as the turtle is the sign of the ruling Unami “clan.” It is also in the general area of the no-man’s land between Lenape and Mohican territory, roughly between Rhinebeck and Hyde Park. Therefore it is a candidate for being the NE boundary marker for all of Lenape-Hoking. It is certainly within a few miles of that spot. It is near or in Staatsburg, which I heard was a northern-jutting outpost of Lenape culture as was Coxsackie in the West.
What this implies is that,since it is part platform and part “modern” Lenape boundary marker, that the Lenape knew of the platform tradition and remembered it! Or perhaps the platforms are not that old. Oley PA was the southwest corner boundary of Lenape Hoking, probably during the 1730s (easy to research, in fact I have the relevant deed maps somewhere, and the date the Susquehanna ceded the land back to the Delaware) and also an important spot in 1000 BC. As I mentioned, Oley PA is rather near the Schuykill rift (about five miles north) which was a natural boundary between north and south.
I would suspect there would also be a similar “platform” marker near Lexington NY for the Munsee as that was their border with the Mohawk. The southeast border would probably have been Cedar Swamp in Delaware, or Cape May NJ depending on how you divide up the tribes.
According to my reading of William Richie, any Lenape boundary markers in Staatsburg would have dated from before 1300 AD, because the Wappingers had rather different E-W boundaries and didn’t use the turtle. However, their boundary with the Mohicans was roughly the same as far as we know.

The article on the stone walls in the bottom of the Hudson was published in the NY Times on April 16th, 2000!!!!
The divers/researchers claim no news since then. I suspect its all being kept secret. But there were significant numbers of Orient Point fishtail projectiles found at Dobbs Ferry less than a mile from those walls built at that same time.
I took a roll of photos which I guess I should have digitized and send to you asap. I don’t know how good they will look. But they may whet your appetite. It took about 20 minutes walking. I think I could find it again. There would not be a good view of the sunrise from that turtle’s perspective, but a better one of the sunset if the trees were clear.
I don’t have any tribal maps of Vermont, but there might be a case that the Rochester site was a northern boundary of L speaking (Lenape type) people. I have a Canadian government map of 1700 that shows Atikamek (Algonquin/Cree) people’s boundary down into Vermont quite a ways. They were N speakers, not a Lenape type. Just more wild speculation.

Talk to you soon
EVAN

June 11th, Friday; A slower, relaxed morning, more news on Reagan. NPR said, “Today we will honor the passing of a great communicator, Ray Charles!” Someone in the long line in Washington was interviewed, and quipped, “Isn’t this the Ray Charles funeral?” Made some phone calls. I took a walk around, and read on page 9 of the NY Times that Jason West finally got a judge who declared the licensing laws unconstitutional. Then caught a mid day train. The train was very crowded! I wrote out an outline for a new publication series The Stupidity Report, a periodical based on a mock investigation into the possibility of a new terrorist threat, the “stupidity virus” that makes you do stupid things. This will be a vehicle for investigating unusually foolish political agendas that lead to injustice and violence without being threatening or depressing about it. I learned today that Dick Cheney dropped out of Yale not once but twice. He voted against a house resolution to support the release of Nelson Mandella. He avoided Vietnam with student deferments. When they were eliminated, his wife had a baby 9 months and two days later. My son called; he’s going to a leadership conference in the Midwest, and is conducting a seminar on Native American leadership and spirituality, and wanted me to send him the words to Micmac traditional songs. I did, but it took a while to find them.

I had gotten an email from New Paltz’ beleagured mayor Jason West on Wednesday, just now received. He is interested in going on my tour perhaps. I had said, “Maybe you and I should go on a “don’t let the bastards get you down” world tour.” He said, “Yeah, and let’s bring David Rovics.” (a friend of his in New Paltz).

I wrote the following letter to him back in March, concerning constitutionality. By coincidence, the next day after he sent the email, (concerning the tour) New Paltz judge Jonathan Katz threw out Williams’ 24 misdemeanor charges against West. Williams is appealing the ruling in county court. (link to http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com. The Journal stated, (June 16) “West has maintained his marriages upheld constitutional law. That trumps the licensing provisions of state Domestic Relations Law, West’s lawyers have argued in court.”

To: Jason West
From: Evan Pritchard

I have been following your legal reformation campaign closely and with great interest. I am not a lawyer, but I thought I’d pass on a few notes that you might find interesting. You and your legal council can decide if they are relevant to your case.

In 1803, there was a ruling which stated that “All laws that are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.” (Therefore if Spitzer thinks the marriage licensing ban on gays might be unconstitutional, he should at least mention that it might be null and void.)

It may have been part of the following: “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights, it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never passed.” Norton vs Shelby Co. 118 US 425, p. 442. (I believe this was the 1803 case above)

Further, The Bar Association, to which Williams and Spitzer belong, was chartered on November 21st, 1876 in Albany, New York and was written into the New York State Constitution a year later “to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, and the Constitution of the State of New York.” It seems to us lay people, from the previous statements, that the duty to defend the constitution overrides the duty to defend the law.

But what is the process by which one challenges a law in order to defend the constitution? It never happens by itself. Usually there is a case that comes to court, and that case generally has a defendant and a plaintiff. Then the constitutionality is discussed in fair and open debate by all involved. According to the original plan as I understand it, juries played a major role in deciding the merits of a standing law. One of the main original duties of a jury was to determine whether or not a law was just. This is rarely mentioned today.

John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said in 1789; “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

Samuel Chase, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, said in 1796; “The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.”

Harlan F. Stone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1941, said, “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.”

So it seems to me that when these state officials say “Let’s prosecute the marriage license issue now and let Spitzer worry about the constitution later,” they have it backwards. Constitutionality seems to be a first line of defense, not the last. That determination has always sat with the people themselves, under the guidance of the Judicial system, judging by the above statements.

President Bush swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States in his inauguration ceremony. Yet now he wants to use the power of Amendment as a way of reducing and eliminating the existing rights of gay people in San Francisco and Massachusetts, and New Paltz, based on religious concepts of marriage. However, marriage predates Christianity and even Judaism, and takes many forms throughout the world. To rewrite the constitution based on one religion over another (and in this case one sect of Christianity over another, for example Unitarianism is opposed to this amendment) clearly would erase the barrier between Church and State, which was guaranteed to English people in the Magna Carta and guaranteed to the colonies even under the tyranny of King George III. To un-separate them would take lawmaking back a thousand years, back to an age of holy wars and feudalism that makes most historians shudder to recall.

Let me remind you that New York is the “Bill of Rights” state, that under Clinton, New York refused to ratify the U.S. Constitution until a Bill of Rights was proposed. Melancthon Smith, Clinton, and others debated this issue from June 17th to July 26th 1788 (with Jay and Hamilton adding a Federalist (compromise between state and government control) view to the discussion) and didn’t give up until such rights were guaranteed, the first of which was “freedom of religion.” If New York had refused to sign, the geographical position of the state would have cut the nation in two and made any further ratification useless. New York did ratify the new constitution on July 26th, 1788, and there is a painting depicting the event in the Poughkeepsie Courthouse across from the Poughkeepsie Journal (which has decided to be anti-gay and anti-West in recent days), and so now we have a bill of rights. It is appropriate that New York defend that Bill of Rights now.

When someone recently said “the Constitution does not mention separation of church and state,” they were deliberately ignoring the obvious fact that the first amendment was brokered as part of the ratification of that Constitution. Amendment One reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The new anti-gay amendment that is being proposed seems radically different from all other amendments in that it removes rights and undermines civil rights, whereas the process of amending was originally intended to protect rights or add new ones. As regards the New York State laws, it is not clear to me that husband and wife denote male and female in all cases, as gay couples use these terms to refer to “breadwinner” and “householder” respectively. If any part of New York state law is deemed unconstitutional by the majority of its citizens, (my own opinion poll is still running about 100% in favor of Jason West) it does seem to me that the only way to test the waters is by either suing the state or having the state sue you. This legal process will also allow laws concerning the adoption of children into “married couples” to be formulated according to the will of the people, which is a different matter. It does not stand that all 1, 249 rights of marriage should be granted to gay married couples, particularly where adoption is concerned. Adoption might be seen by the majority as a privilege, not a right, as perhaps it should be.

I hope this is helpful,

Evan Pritchard

(This pretty much says that constitutionality “trumps” local laws)

New Paltz Deputy Mayor Rebecca Rotzler is expected to certify four gay marriages on Saturday, June 19th.

Here is the email I sent Jason West.

Hi Jason,
It’s great to hear from you. I was in the big city on Friday, but saw a news release on your most recent success in the courts concerning the constitutional issue (on page 9 of the Times). It made my day. Sorry you are still a “wanted man” but you did succeed in creating the correct precedent in this state concerning constitutional rights. Bravo! I hope Warren and John Jay et al were helpful. Who is David Rovics again? By the way I mentioned you in a sermon at a Methodist Church at Glenford, on Mothers Day and a cheer rose up from the congregation!! I was comparing you to the muskrat in the Munsee “Mud-diver” story. It was humorous..I was talking about my conversation with “the young puppeteer in the muskrat play” about Algonquin-locally-directed constitutionality…and that young man…..Jason West…… (ROARS AND CHEERS)….decided to run for mayor of New Paltz…..(more cheers) and won!

The Methodist church is evenly divided on gay marriage, so I think it was a turning point for the congregation to hear such vocal support for your work. The opposition crumbled. Thought you’d enjoy the story. There was more detail to it, I hope to write it up some day and post it.
It would be nice to spend some time talking again. I guess you’ve been busy. EP

I also got an email from Roberto Borrero from Wed. about doing an armchair walking tour of Manhattan at the American Museum of Natural History, during the winter. Of course I agreed. I’d just been talking about how we met at The Belonging To Mother Earth Worldwide Conference of Aboriginal Elders six years ago in Virginia Beach. I also got an email from the people at Tappan Bay, about the NY Times article of April 16th, 2000 on the 3000 year old 900 foot long walls in Tappan Bay. Also a note from Sally Dennison about the new edition of Native New Yorkers. She told me it would come out in the fall. I also picked up a series of emails from super-radical peace activist Johnny Asia, who sent me all kind of links on strange findings from the 9-11 investigations, most notably some evidence showing a “pod” on the bottom of the planes that crashed into the WTC, which are only used to fly by remote control. He sent more evidence that all of the people “on that plane” were either airline personnel or military. Of course, I’m open minded. He also sent links saying that most of the terrorists on those planes are still alive. Again, I’m open minded, but its hard to imagine how this could actually be pulled off. I mean, the guy who said “Let’s Roll” over PA is certainly dead. Of course, the fact is this country “went to war” over the death of those passengers, so its of no small importance. Even if it was really about oil. So if those people are not dead, where are they? Are they with Ronald Reagan in some white room? How does Ronald Reagan know he’s not dead?