Having received a postcard yesterday and enjoying that my friends are having a wonderful vacation in Italy, I realized that the rain I am experiencing each day is not allowed to appear in postcards. Of course that led to the conclusion that no agony or suffering or bad weather condition is shown in postcards. There is some kind of unwritten code that prevents a store owner from displaying objectionable or non-beautiful scenes in his window or on a display rack.
So do we ever see life as it really is: A balance of the grey, dark skies with the cold and wet shivers contrasted against the pleasant relaxing warm sun on our skin, safe and relaxed? Postcards are a prisoner of their creators.


The "Postcard's Pledge of Allegiance"

I am the photographer, equipment in hand, waiting for the perfect sunset. 
(I only need to get close to the perfect capture of light - my photo software can fix anything.)
I am the publisher, gloomy sales are not what I appreciate. More color, more depth, more creativity in presentation - that's what I want.
I am the retailer, all happy with smiles for my endless stream of tourists, each spinning the display rack looking for that special picture moment which they have not experienced.
I am the rack who faithfully holds the postcards, gazing dizzily from within, peering from between the cards, adoring the accents of all the languages, playing 'guess the next favorite card' chosen, bearing with sorrow the unchosen.
I am the traveler who wishes to capture a memory of the places I've been, to see and hold a memory captured in a season, to believe that I have been there when the postcard arrives.
I am the postal carrier who for a brief moment glances at the blue, orange, green, white, brown, warm, embracing, welcoming tones and says, "Someday..."

I'm still confused that some well intended politicians in 1949 got together after WWII and added The Geneva Conventions to the basic rules of war. It was the fourth treaty of such nature whose precedents were set in 1864, 1906, and 1929. These conventions provided for basic wartime rights of prisoners, established protections for the wounded and protections for civilians around the war zone.
You see why I'm still confused? We have a war situation. A country has chosen to sacrifice its citizens (or allow them to be killed) in order to defeat another army of another country (or with some justification 'fix' an evil regime), and 'they' (the other army) chooses to retaliate, AND 195 countries on this planet have agreed to some basic guidelines of war.
If the last one standing broke some rules, does it matter how people were killed? Those victims are just as dead one way or another.
And to top it all off, the use of chemical agents in war seemed so onerous that these same persons have placed a giant NO NO on their use as well as other weapons. This became called the Hague Conventions.
It's as if there is something way down inside of mankind that seems to have a shout out to our consciousness now and then. "Thou shalt not kill". We, so far, have seen this as too definitive, and way too narrow for wiggle room. 

Universal Soldier (Songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie: 1964)
 Sainte-Marie said of the song: "I wrote 'Universal Soldier' in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. 
(Made popular in 1967 by Donovan)

Click to listen to her describe the song and hear her sing it!
He is five foot two, 
And he's six feet four, 
He fights with missiles and with spears, 
He's all of thirty-one, 
And he's only seventeen, 
He's been a soldier for a thousand years. 

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, 
An atheist, a Chein, 
A Budhist, and a Baptist and a Jew, 
And he knows, he shouldn't kill, 
And he knows, he always will, 
Killing for me, my friend, and me for you. 

And he's fighting for Canada, 
He's fighting for France, 
He's fighting for the USA 
And he's fighting for the Russians, 
He's fighting for Japan, 
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way. 

And he's fighting for democracy, 
He's fighting for the Reds, 
He says it's for the peace of all, 
He's the one who must decide, 
Who's to live and who's to die, 
And he never sees the writing on the wall. 

But without him, how would Hitler 
Have condemned him at Lw'ow, (German concentration camp) 
Without him Cesar would have stood alone, 
He's the one, who gives his body 
As a weapon of the war, 
And without him all this killing can't go on. 

He's the universal soldier, 
And he really is to blame, 
His orders come from far away, no more, 
They come from here and there, 
And you and me and brothers, 
Can't you see, 
This is not the way we put the end to war. 

Anger starts from within each of us. Does it make it to the surface in the form of body language, words, or action?
Are we less angry than yesterday? Who or what has aided us in dampening or controlling our own potential anger? 
Personal anger expands into regions, nations, and the world like an invisible cancer. Do we add or subtract from the 'anger debt' that seems to show so clearly in our world media?
Are our beliefs subjugated to another's authority? Do we use this as the 'way out' from expressing disagreement on topics. It always seemed strange that a soldier gives up their free will to the directions of their commanders. Necessary when one believes that the killing is justified. Horribly tormenting when one sees the travesty of political abuse of war.
How do we use our talents, our intellect, our daily service within companies and corporations? Is the resulting service of labor and effort used for the purpose of furthering weapon development, contributing to 'hate' groups, adding to divisive thoughts, creating products or intellectual property that has little or no positive use?

What efforts are visible to teach our children about their potential choice of anger? 

Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) an increasing witness to the fact that we should not be killing?

Ask the dead about the morality of killing. I don't think I have an answer, just questions.

...
In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued since the adoption of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of issuing paper money receivable in the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several states upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the constitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place.