It's 6:06AM. These are the first words I read today. Thank you for putting the real face of this American tragedy on this utterly horrible and useless war. We need our troops and the dedication of our military to protect us. War is tragic at all times, but these losses in the Middle East are so indescribably useless and heartbreaking that it never leaves the mind.

I hope our leaders sleep little and suffer the pain American families feel at the loss of our children.

...and it is not just about the tragedy in Iraq.

We are divided and embroiled in this conflict because of our political parties agendas that are not about the American people. Politics in America has been reduced to the politics of destruction. The chief aim of the Republicans is to destroy the Democrats. The chief aim of the Democrats is to destroy the Republicans. American ideals and our precious military young are being sacrificed for the ego of divisive ideology.

Frankly, I think Americans are figuring it out. It's time to make our destructive politicians pay for their actions. If we don't find a way to regain political balance that is about the people of America, we will become universally hated as well as the laughing stock of thinking people all over the globe. Americans need to become active in government again. We've let the egomaniacs who litter our government bring us to this sad state.

I vote as an independent and have cast ballots all over the board. Americans are able to swallow the bully stuff as long as real work gets done. The only real work done in the last decade has been the lying by those in power, Democrat and Republicans.

I hope our new leadership takes into account that the American people are far less willing to be lied to from the 2006 line in the sand. America is waking up! We should continue to kick out all lying politicians until we arrive at a state of the union that is about the American people. We'd never again see America invading and creating chaos for reasons we were duped into believing.

I hope our new leaders are far smarter than their mentors of the past. It isn't a party issue. It is general sickness within the political arena.

Very funny essay. Funny because it hits us between the eyes, and every generation, as another writer said in an earlier letter.

Just the other day I used way too much Just For Men to color my beard, now mostly white, and my mostly sedentary but lovely wife walked in the door from work (she does not have a spiteful relationship with aging...but she's only 49...the big one hasn't punched her squarely in the nose yet)and said with disgust, "A little aggressive withe coloring of the beard again. Take it easy."

Indeed. Looking into the mirror I gazed at my nearly bald head with its shaggy-longish-I-really-need-a-haircut-this-style-no-longer-works-for-me and saw my beard was indeed too dark. It isn't black, but my face looks like it did when as a kid we played war and rubbed brown soil on our cheeks so we'd look like John Wayne in a WWII movie. I look like a clown sporting a few days growth made up with grease paint.

And AARP has been chasing me too. I summarily toss their offering in the trash with a certain ceremony. My age unencumbered wife laughs at me and says, "take the discounts you old fool."

It is said there's no fool like an old fool. I weary from feeding the stereo-type.

First, Merry Christmas, GK! I look forward to reading you anytime your words appear.

There's sufficient proof God never intervened in any of our administrations' efforts. We're just better at reporting it, and George Bush is much better at falling over his own rhetoric. This White House is just better at revealing"the devil is in the details" than others have been.

The mere thought that God has anything to to with any administration is how we get to having a president on a mission from God.

Well...God, if you really look down upon us, save us all!

Merry Christmas anyway!

I was thrilled reading this interview. My own sense of wonder and a quest for meaning is stated quite well in her words.

My only beef with Karen's words is the use of the word religion in any positive context. Just as she feels the Western, common view of God is infantile, so is the use of the word religion as it is unconsciously understood from years of indoctrination.

We have boxed the term religion into the same tough-skinned mold as the word God. The mere use of the word religion is dogmatic and filled with traps, it seems. Religion conjures up a meaning, a set of values that are hard and unquestionable, thus, it seems, removing the ability to search with an open mind into what Being encompasses.

I hope she soon rejects that word with the same dexterity that she has disavowed our immature ideas of God within our entirely limited consciousness.

Al C