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	<title>Notes from the Back Porch</title>
	<link>http://www.eksommer.com</link>
	<description>Perspectives on being.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:17:54 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>The Unthinkable</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The media is awash in election minutia and the stores are filled with Christmas decorations (and other holiday paraphernalia, but the Christian celebration dominates). Despite rampant home foreclosures, plummeting financial markets, roller-coaster oil prices, people still seem oblivious to real life. American television is still chock-full of those unreal &#8220;reality&#8221; programs, and American magazines are [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/11/01/the-unthinkable/</link>
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		<title>Financial Bailout AKA Advanced Bribery</title>
		<description><![CDATA[To the Congress of the United States of America:
Please consider carefully what you are doing if you vote in favor of this &#8220;bailout.&#8221;
President G. W. Bush has bribed the American public twice with &#8220;handouts,&#8221; and he now sees fit to provide handouts for rich corporations who have mismanaged their (and other peoples&#8217; money).
I do not [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/09/23/financial-bailout-aka-advanced-bribery/</link>
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		<title>Obama, McCain, and Health Care</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Health insurance gets a lot of attention from candidates and in the media. What the media fails to do is ask difficult questions and to report on the candidates proposals not only for reining in the costs of health insurance, but for containing the costs of health care as well.
While John McCain&#8217;s official Web pages [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/08/27/obma-mccain-and-health-care/</link>
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		<title>Is There Anyone Out There?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[More than likely you will never get the chance to travel into space, but your name and a few well-chosen words can travel to the stars!

	
	Kepler Mission Certificate

The Kepler Mission, NASA&#8217;s first exploration to detect Earth-like planets around solar-like stars, will launch from Kennedy Space Center in February 2009. After a 372-orbit around the Sun, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/08/14/is-there-anyone-out-there/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Cyber Books</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Google Books is sadly ahead of its time. The flap that went up when Google announced that it was going to start scanning books and making them accessible online is representative of the turmoil that precedes paradigm shifts. Lights bulbs were going to ruin society. Telephones were devices of the devil. Perhaps to the practicing [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/07/11/cyber-books/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>One Nation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This week there has been a lot of discussion by the media about the meaning of the word “patriotic” and by association the accusation of “unpatriotic.” With the presidential elections looming and political rhetoric waving like flag, the concept of patriotism is undergoing microscopic disassemblage.

Did you know that you can make a peace dove by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/07/04/one-nation/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Undercover Journalism</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The new trend toward “secret” journalism disturbs me (listen to the June 15, 2008 NPR story on the subject). With a degree in journalism and more than 35 years of reporting, editing, and publishing, I see this concept as frightening. Not because I think journalists should be hampered in any way in what they do, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/06/16/undercover-journalism/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Rocks and Diamonds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the New York Times Magazine a number of years ago (November 2002) there was a story about a Nigerian woman being stoned. The story was nestled between advertisements for rocks that a woman can wear around her neck if she has an extra ten grand.
I think about this story every time I read the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/05/01/rocks-and-diamonds/</link>
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		<title>The Irony That Is Plastic</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Many people I know claim to have never met a plastic that they like or trust. Anti-plastic Web sites are beginning to appear where people share alternatives to plastic, especially the plastics that hold our food. (Two of my favorites are cynematic  and fakeplasticfish and one that has been around a while mindfully.org.
Here we [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/04/30/the-irony-that-is-plastic/</link>
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		<title>On the Wings of Mindfulness</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Amid the torture, the wars, the poverty, the pollution and degradation of the environment, amid the growing storm of intolerance and the dumbing down of the general population, I find myself deeply frustrated and practically helpless at making any significant change.
I watch. I whine. I grieve. But there is very little I can effectually do.
We [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.eksommer.com/2008/04/20/mindful-of-insects/</link>
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