Paul Hawkins

May 24, 2007 Salina, Colorado

This morning we watched "Democracy Now" while eating
breakfast. Amy Goodman was interviewing Paul Hawkins, the
author of "Blessed Uprising." He sounded like a really
interesting guy and in our e-mail there had been an
announcement that he was speaking in Boulder tonight.

I spent the day paying bills and getting caught up on the
minutia of daily living that gets skipped when you aren't
home.

In the evening we did go to listen to Paul Hawkins. He is
the most optimistic person I have listened to in a long time
and that alone made it a positive experience. He claims
that all over the world people singly, in groups, organized
and unorganized are rising up to demand accountability of
governments and more importantly corporations, many of
whom are larger and more powerful than most governments.
The uprisings are by environmentalists largely, but others,
too who feel the worlds peoples are being misused. Of
course I was particularly taken with him because at one
point he was describing an elderly lady that, when he had
bought a house boat, had come with the boat. She had wise
sayings and he liked her, although he also said, of course
she was 75 and too old to clean for us, but we kept her on
anyway. I, too, think 75 is too old to clean house, and
unfortunately, my house sometimes looks it.