My big sister introduced me to Garrison Keillor's radio show years ago. Having once been a big FM rock radio fan I found a radio show something kind of hip and since I had ventured into the organic farm life, taking part in food cooperatives and staying overnight in places with no electicity, I found Garrison's folksy kind of show entertaining. Unfortunately you can't see people on the radio. Now I have seen Garrison's picture in my local newspaper and on the Al Franken Show and I am surprised, I thought he was tall and thin, a bit like Al Franken's ditto head friend on his show, The Al Franken Show, which appears on the Sundance Channel at my mother's home.

I'm very happy Garrison has decided to write columns. I know my local newspaper can sure use a recognizable country voice like his that has a liberal point of view, and now he is writing in Salon, but Garrison has stumbled on to something cosmic in his comments on Halloween. He is asking the question Who Am I? A question answered by the vedantic statement I Am That, being, consciousness and bliss.

I found it interesting that Garrison speaks about trying on new identities at Halloween because in Play of Consciousness by Swami Muktananda, Baba says life is exactly that, the supreme self playing all these different roles.

I read Play of Consciousness back in the 80's and it is one of my favorite books. It never reached the best seller lists to my knowledge but it is an excellent story of a meditator's journey to self-realization. A similar book is Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda. Both books direct us to find out who we really are, which is nothing but consciousness and bliss.

Perhaps Garrison will soon write about that!

Libertarians once advocated the legalization of marijuana and cocaine. They also fought to rid our law books of ridiculous sodomy laws. But now it appears their chief role in the political debate is to lend credence to G.W. Bush and the Republican Party's hatred of taxes.

I voted for Ed Clark in 1980 and I'm disappointed to see the Libertarian Party identified with Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

As for the California initiatives, I am unfamiliar with them all. I certainly do agree about redistricting, but let me remind you that Arnold was unwilling to support the same plan in Florida where republicans are the majority party and redistricting might help the democrats.

Actually it made me sad to hear Garrison go on about cooking and the 80's and, good God, chili from a can. I remember it. Hormel, and Pepperidge Farm Pizza (whoever thought of making pizza even more caloric by adding some refined sugar to it?).

In the 80's I wasn't so vegetarian. I had been thrown out like some kind of refuse by the communalists (is that a word?) and all those "friends" who had to get on with their careers and couldn't entertain a growm man who still lived with his parents.

The 80's were a sad time for me. I was alone. I was seeking a Guru. I desired enlightenment and of course you know the problem with that. It's not that you can't always get what you want but that you never get what you want. Give it up, or "throw it" as Bhagwan Rahjneesh put it, and it will come to you. It happened to our friend Ram Butler, a writer quite a bit like Garrison but with less biblical references, more indo-islamic hippie like. I'm starting to sound ridiculous aren't I? Ram won't refer to Jesus or the Psalms but to Krishna and the Vedas.

I had tried hard to be vegetarian in the 70's but when everyone got so "high and mighty" toward the end of the decade and didn't desire my company anymore, I fell off the wagon, so to speak. The vegetarian wagon.

But, we are talking about now.

Yes, I did smoke in the 80's and I quit in the 90's. It was April 28, 1991 to be exact, at 8:28 P.M. They were I believe $1.65 a pack at the time. And it was because of the money that I quit them. I quit them to take an intensive in Siddha Yoga. I quit them because I was encouraged to quit them by Krsna Consciousness. I quit them because I knew they were killers.

I quit the meat at that time, too.

Thanksgiving has never really mattered that much to me except that I got that big weekend off from school. In college I usually got loaded. We would have basted our turkey in marijuana smoke if we could have affored a turkey. Later still I heard that turkey was full of hormones and other shit shot into it to make it grow fast and big. I would prefer a more organic, free range turkey if I were to eat it at all. But the holiday itself is all about the Puritans meeting some Indians isn't it?

Christians still have a problem with Indians to this day, but it isn't those Indians that rode horses and fired arrows back in the wild, wild west. It's Indians who preach about being vegetarian as a more moral way of life and I guess that's why none of us really will enjoy a real vegetarian Thanksgiving. We will have to have a holiday of our own, created by us for us.

Yeah, I watch Stephan Colbert if that's how you spell it, and I wonder "is he trying to be funny?"

Sounds just like the Bush Administration to me. Don't spoil the surprise, if you know what I mean.

Like we've found out you've got erectile dsyfunction and we're telling you're wife.

That isn't fair, is it?!!!

Right on! I totally appreciated the young, long haired Mr. Stern putting big bad daddy O'Riley in his place.

More of that, please.