Words of Wisdom

Peter, Paul and Mary have been my folk heros as long as I can remember - I consider myself fortunate to have lived through the '60's when folk song had its great revival and these three wonderful singers were at the top of the movement.

Indeed, the era for me marked the beginnings of my own coming of age, artistically. I was so inspired that I had to try my own hand at the guitar - a Martin no less that I bought and taught myself with ------ all way back when.........

Fast forward now about 25 years into the 90's; my youngest son Hunter has entered PS 6, the elementary school right around the corner from where we lived in New York City - and I discover that it is the venue for an annual Christmas concert that Peter Yarrow - the "Peter" of the group and a New York City resident - gives at the school in honor of his own son who had graduated from there some years before. Talk about six degrees of separation........

Channel 13, New York's PBS station is airing for the next 2 weeks, an exclusive 1/2 hour special interview w/ Peter. He is one of the most sensitive, heart warming and positive human beings you will ever have the privilege of listening to. i urge all to tune in and enjoy.

For those outside of the viewing area, I am trying to urge Ch. 13 to put the interview out onto the broader PBS system. Be especially keen to listen for one of his most tenderist and uplifting pieces - With Your Face To The Wind - written for a close friend of his who was fighting cancer when Peter wrote it, to give her strength and spirit and to let her know that she was not alone......
It will lift your spirits as it did mine, i promise............

On April 21, 2003, the now infamous Judith Miller wrote a front page article in the Times entitled:

AFTEREFFECTS: PROHIBITED WEAPONS; Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, An Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert

In response to that article specifically and to all of the articles and newscasts generally which played a decisive role in convincing the public that there were WMD's in Iraq, I sent a brief "letter to the editor" to the paper, published two days later, which read:

To the Editor:

Re ''Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert'' (front page, April 21):

In the months leading up to the war, the United States asserted with absolute certainty that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that it had a dossier of sites, types, informants and so on.

Would it not make sense, then, with Iraq now under American control, to have already gone to these sites with our special inspection teams and to have demonstrated to the world that what we said was valid?

HERBERT PERESS
New York, April 21, 2003

That story continues to resonate and tonight on PBS, David Brancaccio hosted a 1/2 hour special on NOW in which his guest Lawrence Wilkerson, Sec'y of State Powell's Chief of Staff, when the latter was head of the State Department, talked about all of this in the context of how this administration mislead the public and the world.......There's lots of information at the show's site.......look it over.

This continues to be one of the most important issues of the day..........in spite of what I sense is the administration's ploy to try and pull this all off by invoking in its defense the age old adage of "the end justifying the means," assuming that we might see (or the administration may try to show) a very slow but steady improvement in some of the metrics, strictly vis-a-vis Iraq.

Stay tuned......