Finished the reference letter for Leslie, brought it down the street to her, and spent a nice half-hour chatting. She told me about a Mennonite-inspired movement for a "peace tax fund," founded during the Vietnam war. The idea is that people could specify that their federal taxes not be used for the military. Groups are still active in this movement and I looked into several web sites explaining it.
I was astounded to find that--guess what?--a huge percentage of your taxes go to murder children. (Yes, I'm going to keep repeating that phrase.) If, say, y0u pay $5000 in federal taxes, $2100 goes for past and current military expenses. What's left funds all other social needs-- for education, the infrastructure, health care, and so on and on!
Here's a web site that puts our monstrous war budget in perspective, using Oreo cookies, of all things:
http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/
Later: Went to Weight Watchers. From now on, will use code for my weight saga: +1.4--dn.72.4--w.127.2.