Sinopian View

An Open Letter to All Republicans From a Former Religious Right Activist

2008-09-20T18:22:00.006-04:00

The letter is at this link.

I have limited myself to the conclusions for brevity. Read the longer message in the link above.

Conclusion
The Republican problem is a systemic disparagement of government,community, faith in our institutions, family, God's creation and themitigating institutions that put a check on something any partyaligned with a religious movement should know all about: sin. Greed is not the only problem. Human weakness and stupidity (i.e., "sin") is the problem! And the genius of the American system is supposedly thatwe have a ystem of checks and balances to mitigate our fallen state. You have destroyed those checks and balances.

Bush felt no guilt about promoting completely unqualified people to high posts entirely on the basis of social, ideological or political connections. I'll take that a step further: I don't think Bush ever wanted the government to work. You Republicans hate our government as bitterly as our terrorist enemies do. You have been trying to deconstruct it. Since the government is seen as the enemy of freedom by you, if it doesn't work so much the better!

We have met the enemy and he is us! When Islamists tried to destroy our country by flying planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Towers, we rightly called them terrorists. When the Republicans in the Congress and the White House set about destroying our country, our standing in the world, our military and our economy, but much more effectively, you called them statesmen. It is time for all Americans
-- including all you who are patriotic Republicans -- to sweep away these putrid earth-consuming, family killing, government bashing "me" worshipping individualistic fools--that or to watch our country be swept away by them. We can't afford eight more years of this willful ignorance. Obama in 2008!

Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (OrAlmost All) Of It Back.

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Don't mind the gap.

2008-04-29T13:56:00.003-04:00

I have been on other projects and learning what is going on in competing online venues. Let's resume with what I have read today.
Here is a good one:
Oil: the Lifeblood of Small-Town America

This excellent post brings to our attention that small town America was disrupted in the last century by the loss of its railroads and the emergence of highways and cheap petroleum. Now, the dislocations in the petroleum industry threaten to cause new disruptions in the remnants of that small town existence.

I grew up in a small town in central Kentucky. I lived on the edge of town, on the main highway that connected the commercial interests in my town with the distributors in the industrial center 60 miles away. I spent a good deal of my summer days lounging in a tree, reading and noting the trucks that went by that supplied my town. That commerce was fueled by 25 cent gasoline and diesel. When I was very young, I went to the train depot every night with my father to pick up the Red Flash Edition (final) of the evening newspaper. I watched the coal powered locomotives disappear and be replaced by diesel electrics. I rode those trains to the industrial center occasionally. Then the passenger service ended and finally the local freight service disappeared after I left for military service. Gasoline remained cheap and the cars and trucks doubled in number. By the mid-60s, it was near a sacramental requirement that ones automobile be a muscle car and burn gasoline at prodigious rates in the energetic consumption of tires turned into white smoke.

I had been out of the country for most of the 60s and I was treated to mild culture shock on my return.

Other things I have read today.
God and Evolution
Coming Soon: Nontrepreneur Nation
Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

"You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless."

G.I. Gurdjieff

2008-01-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

CNN.com users react to Kennedy backing Obama

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/29/kennedy.reax/?iref=hpmostpop

There has been a lot of negative reaction to this by those in all camps. I am a Democrat in all its ways. I have seen the Democrats be the motive force for the outcomes for change and movement in this country that has affected the many and not the few. For all their faults, the extended Kennedy family has been in the forefront of breaking down barriers in the civic process. I see this endorsement
as a way to skip the last breath of the current generation of political activity that has gone on unbroken through Bill Clinton, a man I admire and GW Bush, a man I have profound differences with. The Kennedies, in a stroke, have struck at the root of politics as usual.
Obama has not had time to accrete beholdens and encumberances that will continue with Hillary. I admire her as a leader and as a capable human being. I see that her run against the Neos is one of "good neo"Hillary and bad neo, Bush remnant.

Obama will be a break in the status-quo. He will be a new factor for the competing political action groups to approach and to turn their way.

I am looking forward to the possibility of hearing not Hail to the Chief but rather, The World Turned Upside Down. It was played at Yorktown when the American Insurgent Forces received the British sword of surrender.

Hear it and read the lyrics here.
http://www.contemplator.com/england/worldtur.html

God Save the USA

Lantern Bearer
Peter Lee Sapp's Grandson
He fell at Nashville in blue

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Busnies as Usual

2008-01-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

I have just come across a concept that seems to have been hidden in plain sight. It is called "snowballing". Any process that accretes some quality or quantity to a base is like rolling a ball of snow across other snow to make the ball bigger.

That concept has come to be applied to consumer spending. It is noticeable in mortgage lending, consumer debt and automobile financing rollovers. At first it may have been a convenience to a person who was in a period of reduced income but had positive prospects for being able to realize greater income later. It is now applied with abandon and is business as usual for here-to-fore lending institutions that required the application of savings or reserves from the borrower to pay down so me debt or to forgo more debt.

With automobile debt, there seems to be a significant bubble of debt that is being accreted whenever the value of a used vehicle does not support a reasonable total payoff from one vehicle to another. The remnant debt is rolled into the new financing for the new vehicle. It is called being upside down in a contract.

I have now seen two news stories that describe such situations in auto loans. The resulting situation for the subjects in the story is that the debt has become unmanageable and the resulting penalties are predatory as regards the lending institution.

I am now shopping for a replacement vehicle. I have an SUV that is now 8 years old and it is in need of major repairs. Fortunately it is paid off. The repairs, however, are such that the cost of such exceeds the value of the vehicle even repaired. The materials and parts are available from suppliers but the labor to install them and to make to the adjustments for their operation is now off the page. This is as a result of the accretion of taxes, fees and insurance that municipalities have slipped into business liscening. The business owner must recover those expenses from his customers. The result is that the life of a once repairable product is reduced because the cost exceeds the value.

I shopped at a dealership that posts all its cars with a "no haggle" price. It is not until one enters the office of the business closer that the true price of the vehicle is known. I have walked out of two closing offices on this go 'round. At one time the dealer prep, tax, license and tranfer fees were listed on the vehicle. They now come in the closing documents. This is where the haggling begins. Once the financing closer gets through, the bargain or reasonably priced vehicle becomes a "snowball". I have found that the old simple interest contract of just 8 years ago has now become a complicated scheme of acccretion that makes the difference between owning a vehicle and being owned by it. the addons and the interest can reach 30% over the life of the financing. I ended a lease on another vehicle a couple of years ago. The contract had been loaded and the close out of the vehicle caused me to return the vehicle and to withhold the end of contract cost that had been creatively worked in to a snowball. I let that go to small claims and when my copy of the contract did not match the hidden contract of the financing agent, the claims were thrown out.

"To live outside the law, you must be honest."
Bob Dylan
Absolutely Sweet Marie

The snowball of real estate took its pounding. There is some talk among analyst that the complications of auto financing now festering will break out soon.

Anything that does not contribute to an orderly society will sooner or later find itself in reproach.

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Tighter Gun Control?

2007-12-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

US passes tighter gun control law
The US Congress has approved the first major gun control law since 1994, improving background checks on buyers.
The bill was prompted by the deaths of 32 people at Virginia Tech University in April, when a mentally ill student used two guns he had been able to buy.
The law clarifies what mental health records must be included in checks and gives funds to states to help automate the processing of records.
It has been widely welcomed but critics say it will do "more harm than good".
Continue news story here -
This is something that cuts both ways. There is an obvious gap in
the head-space spark gap of some human beings. In my region, we have had several gruesome murders over the past month. The weapon of choice was a firearm for the many. Gasoline and a match was the second . All the perpetrators had access to fire arms in the face of some giant red flags. There have been thwarted firearms incidents in several high schools. The level of stupidity has been monumental. The level of outrage is just missing among the rabid defenders of unlimited access to guns.

I grew up with unlimited access to firearms and ammunition. There were still gun incidents in the community but none seemed to rise to the level of those are now being seen.
I believe that firearms familiarization and training should be more institutionalized than it is. Ability and respect for the power of the weapon seems to be more effective than the glorification of the "cold dead hand" method sought by the NRA. Something is missing.
I looked at what training is available in the State of Florida that is provided by the NRA. It seems that there is no institutional training, there is only for profit training. Check here.
None of the shooters or gun concealers and flashers in recent incidents seem to have been on anybodies "heads-up" list. They all had perfectly legal guns or perfectly illegal guns. None seem to have had access to firearms training. Most were children of broken homes, failed educational attainment and histories that would block their participation even in military training.
I am a supporter of the prevention of invasion of privacy from the top
of government down. I am a supporter of people knowing what is going
on around them at the family, clan and village level. The worst cases
have arisen in situations where some family member, extended family
member or fellow village person knew of some aberrant behavior of the
eventual shooters. They knew that the person had firearms. They
chose however to admit to, ". . . didn't want to get in their
business." The outcome was tragic.
The story continues.
Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

What Makes A "Good" Christmas?

2007-12-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

Ben Stein Says It's Not What is Under Your Tree But What's In Your Heart

Some of the best Christmases I have had have been in places where people know very little about Western Christmas. I have experienced the time without the hustle and bustle of getting everything just right in a commercial way. I have had very good "Season of Joy" without being reminded from every media source that the reason of the Holiday is spending.

We tend to forget that there is a Spirit that we celebrate. That Spirit is best expressed in people around the world in the ways of their native culture. In the US, our celebratory theme is a direct lift from Pagan practices of Roman and Teutonic antiquity. Now, some may consider that a slap in the face of conventionality, but to me it serves to remind us that humans have been seeking and celebrating the coming of the Infinite for a long time.

I read a particularly biased blast at Kwanza this past week. I had to respond in a pointed comment that the Entity which is the object of the season was first honored and celebrated in Asia and Africa before it was relayed to Anglos and Teutons. The most ancient traditions relate that the first visitors to the events were Wisemen, Kings of Knowledge from the East and that one of their number was a black African.

I also viewed a presentation called Nativity: The Art and Spirit of the Crèche. That theme is reproducible across a wide swath of cultural expression. It can be very anatomically correct or it can be very impressionistic. It is an expression of diversity and simplicity in a world of seeming empire and rigid dominion for-your-own-good. It is the very antithesis of the dominion of the Temple, of the City of Rome, and the terror of the conventional thought.

The season as expressed by the Crèche is the lesson. It is not parochial or sectarian. It is ancient and universal. It is a lesson of acceptance and perseverance in the face of seeming dominion (enrolling in the census) , persecution (killing of newborns) and lack (being born in a place where animals are quartered).

I have been accused of being too grumpy and not a good participant in the season. I find that my joy is within and needs no promiscuous displays of convention to fuel that joy.

Go! Be joyful!

I AM

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Greetings of the Season

2007-12-04T12:28:00.000-05:00

I am a vendor of the unorthodox and usual. I respect your methods of piety and observance. I am however quite in tuned to this. Give it a listen.

Here are the lyrics.

The Rebel Jesus

as performed by Jackson Browne
on The Chieftans, The Bells of Dublin

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and gun
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

I bid you good cheer no matter how you celebrate.

I AM

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

MILF - Money is Levereged Finely

2007-12-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

Does a free market economy include allowing theft by deception?

The savings and loan blowup of the 80s was like a practice session for the the games and scams that are being run today while "regulators" are kept at bay.

Enron was the first spark of the new fuse that is now burning. It is fortunate that the ethanol debacle is now being seen for its shortcomings and not as a panacea. Arbitrage and hedge funds today are the kin of the Credit Mobilier mess of the late 1870s. The trusts and Big________ (insert an industry) owned government. The strangle hold today is by a financial industry that is going for blood. To whom will the banks, trusts and holding companies sell the houses that have been swept into their holdings by foreclosure. Surely it cannot be those who were foreclosed upon. Will the power of the landlord come roaring back. There is already a sub-industry of buy-on-contract in my area that is replacing the sub-prime scheme.

Conservatives in business and government know that an orderly market is needed to have a real sense of business as usual. Radicals do not care for an orderly market. The turn over in an orderly market is so . . . how shall we say . . . arcane.

I once held an IT job in a small insurance company that put together very complicated schemes that were built around whole life policies. The objective was to allow for cash heavy individuals to get in on the scheme with big cash inputs up front, a backing of a whole life policy in which the scheme directors and managers had a piece of an insurance payout and a slush stream of cash by way of a complicated web of annuities. All this required a computer. The guy who wrote the software was doing time and the genius who wired the required bit of interface turned out to be a cryptographer who was fired in disgrace from his government job. He missed Leavenworth by the skin of his teeth. I parted company with them all before it all came apart. I did have to testify.

With that said, lets look at todays complications.

Paul Krugman wrote of it yesterday - oooppsss, there go the radical apologist. See ya!

[QUOTE]Innovating Our Way to Financial Crisis
By PAUL KRUGMAN

The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance.

How bad is it? Well, I’ve never seen financial insiders this spooked — not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://tinyurl.com/2tqsr5"]Follow on here.[/URL]

Keep saying to your self, "An orderly market is a conservative market." Only liberals understand conservatism. The radical mess we have today is not conservative. Those who try to call it so are ignorant, unschooled and subject to being told what and how to think. They are the intern Brownshirts of a dead end W_administration.

We may dismiss anything they say or write because, freedom of speech is about truth and not some damn "Swifter" (product that does a job with dirt) ideation devoid of truth or good intent.

The last thing any of these want to say is, "(MY) President is a woman. Too bad. It's their turn in the barrel. They made it so. What comes around goes around.

The survivors in the competition of life are smart, flexible, morally well centered and are breeding right at this moment.

I AM (as serious as a vascular blowout)

Live long and prosper.

Follow along with what I read and save on de.li.ous on the right hand side of the site page.

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

What does the quiet in Iraq mean?

2007-12-02T00:27:00.000-05:00

We are seeing a slow down in hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So here is the premise. There seems to be a slowing of attacks by the jihadis in Iraq. I had made some predictions and an appraisal of that and how the hostilities would begin again and in what approximate order. I had a nagging thought in the back of my mind about the tactical value of this to the various al Quaida elements, the tribal and ethnic insurgents, the Sunni and the Shi'a elements. We find that the Sunni are now aligning with the US as much as possible. We also find that the Shi'a are gravitating to the protection of their Iranian supporters. All Islamist insurgent activity has taken a down turn. It is much like the events of a stand down by the US Army to allow for some rest, resupply, changing tactics and rethinking strategies. That is essentially what seems to be happening with the Islamists now.

Here that Islamist stand down has a name in a Letter to the Editor of the St. Petersburg, FL Times.

Re: A time for thanks in Iraq | Nov. 22. David Ignatius column

Know the Enemy

On Thanksgiving Day, David Ignatius "suspects" the Iranians new policy of accommodation is a tactical shift. If he used (sic.) his library card, he would know it for sure.

Sulh is the jihadi term for interim peace. For centuries sulh was a diplomatic tool used by the supreme commander until the political balance became favorable once again for war. The logic of jihad is to wage fatah (invasion/occupation) when possible, conclude sulh when needed, and go back to jihad when conditions are right again.

In the Islamists' (sic.) ideology, they cannot accommodate a peace movement in principle. In their thinking, they are allowed to accept an interim cessation of war and work in sophisticated ways to stop wars they cannot win. Based on 1,400 years of history, that is what is happening.

Americans once understood the lethal language of our ideological foes: blitskrieg, kamikaze, arbeit macht frei.

Gary Harrington, St Petersburg

This is a good piece for information. The composition and grammar are a little stilted but it is still readable. We tend to lump all Islamists into an Arab mold. That is far from helpful in understanding just how such an insurgency directed at the US is to be understood. The US has a history of holding out a hand to movements that seem to be in pre-democratic modes and in the end those movements are sold out and left to struggle with local repressive governments with the US going over to the repressing side.

It happened to the Iranians in 1953 with help from the CIA. It most recently happened in Iraq when various elements of Iraqi tribalists, both Sunni and Shi'a rose up against Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War.

So. We may say then that this laying low is a structural and systemic agreement by the various insurgent elements in concert. We have driven them apart in Sunni Anbar Province, from the previously insurgent friendly tribal elements. We may also draw on observations, that the Shi'a in Basra and along the Iranian border are drawing themselves together and preparing for a possible attack on Iran by US Naval and Air Fosrce elements. The Shi'a would then be in position for a counter stroke against any cross border incursions by US ground forces and US friendly (albeit, Sunni Arab) elements. Islam not withstanding, Arabs and Persians have no love lost on each other. Just as the Arab W'ahabist have no love lost on fellow non-Arab Muslims. They will come together in the face of a common enemy, the US, but otherwise they have their own private ancient vendettas and infighting going on.

There is so much more to explain and flesh out but there is so much in the news and on the web that is crafted for a particular point of view and expectations of outcomes. The best prepare combat arms units I was ever around in the field were always adjusting and preparing for combatants to pop up out of flat ground. The VC and the NVA both were very good at frustrating the best preparations made by any unit in the field. We may expect that the very fluid Islamists will come back in ways we never expected. The US must be prepared for any event. It is not time to rest on the laurels of quiet. We must be very liberal in our thinking and prepared to move as the situation dictates. To resort to a conservative set of limitations of SOP, what has worked before, or what is in the budget is to fail as we have never before failed.

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

American Made Irony

2007-11-27T00:02:00.000-05:00

This is a pic that really needs no comment. It is such sweet comeuppance.

The Old Dog

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Parochial or Universalist?

2007-11-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

Faith Shouldn't Make Policy

Saturday, November 24, 2007; A16

I was perplexed by Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell's comments in opposition to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's decision to eliminate state matching funds for abstinence-only programs ["Va. GOP Assails Kaine on Sex-Ed," Metro, Nov. 21].

He said of the governor, "He is a Catholic, and I am a Catholic, and I know our church teaches abstinence. I am puzzled by his decision."

Since when should the teachings of a religious faith determine public policies? I expect the attorney general of Virginia to know better.

IAN THOMPSON

Washington

With which I responed . . .

lanternbearer wrote:

It is a component. It was the way of the Founding Fathers tempered by a strong dose of Enlightenment and the beginnings of ideas about co-creation in a non-theistic way. The wings of intelligence and practicality are parochial and universalist. They support and drive a body of knowledge and ideation that is best applied in balance. It is a science, that balance of ideation.

I find parochial certitude as irritating a scientific ineptitude. Politics is a science. The AG of VA is both a poor parochialist and a poor scientist. He confuses justice and enlightenment with popularity.

LB

11/25/2007 10:55:25 AM

The public display of ones pious ideation is no different now than it was in the court of the Temple in Jerusalem. I make this parallel from a historical perspective. Historically there was a movement afoot that took on the Temple parochialist of the day. It was defined and personalized in the imagery of a populist rebbi, Yeshua. The rest you know from a Roman perspective. Constantine recognized the power of the populist idea. He coopted the the symbols and myth for his purposes of statecraft. The parochial state system was renewed. It binds many today in error and fervor that has resulted in condemnation and rigid institutional paternalism. I grew up in that and then I grew out of that. You may also.

I AM

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

2007-11-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

By Dinesh D'Souza

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. – In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."
Source: Christian Science Monitor

By way of reddit.

Well, there go the bona fides for the CSM. This paper must change its name if it can not live up to the principles that Christian Science implies, i.e, that submission to a literal and condemning form of social control in the name of a religion is not what the first teacher had in mind. Science is a process that results in reproducible outcomes. Christian Science originated in ideas that the practice of an inner positive morality, reflected in ones worldly activities and is capable of being shared with others of like mind. This was in fact, the whole basis for a new social interaction in the years between the death of the original teacher and the ascendancy of the Roman state church to monotheism in the name and nature of a nonentity, Christ. Christ is a condition, not a person. Jesus was a teacher not a god. In that capacity and legacy, He is far superior to the qualities and superstitious constructs that have been created in the name of religion or hierarchical statist social control.

Theism is a superstition wrapped in a method of social control. Atheism is not without a concept of a greater power. It is that the power in question is not an elderly, robed and bearded fellow sitting on high and calling shots. The Greater Power is the accumulation of all the bits of power that are manifest in a mysteriously intelligent and seemingly intentional cosmos. Secondarily, that which is human is an artifact or perhaps even a precondition of something even more mysterious and wonderful. It is all up to the intentions, actions and outcomes of the former, the current and the future manifestations of man or something better. Man is a speck of possibility or more generously a component of that which will come.

Dinesh is a priest of superstition. CSM has either generously allowed his comments as a Zen like lesson or they have abandoned the prime directive of Christian Science. The result of which is that they may no longer be publishing in truth but rather in superstition.

Morality is a peculiar human trait and condition. Everyone is moral in either a negative, life taking or positive. life affirming way.

Dinesh may mean well, but his method is couched in certitude and arrogance not worthy of his intention. Dinesh and his way is the end of faith. The end of faith is certitude. The beginning of faith is doubt and reflection.

I must vote this up so as to expose it to the rigors of truth that will prevail.

Otherwise, I would not be a good . . .

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

2007-11-22T00:52:00.000-05:00

Taliban in Control of 54% of Afganistan

Quote:

Afghanistan 'falling into hands of Taliban'

· Frontline getting closer to Kabul, says thinktank
· Aid not going to those who need it most, warns Oxfam

Graphic: Taliban presence in Afghanistan

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday November 22, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanista...214994,00.html

The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into Taliban hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.

Despite tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid poured into the country, the insurgents, driven out by the American invasion in 2001, now control "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries", the Senlis Council says in a report released yesterday.

How can this possibly be? Was all that has gone before a charade? Did we not shoot or bomb enough mud huts, cave entrances, or did we not kill enough innocent people.

Was it something I said? Was it the Democrats not caving in to the W_administration sufficiently? Did the troops in the field not perform to their utmost ability?

In the face of the best the west had in its armament and tactical locker to bring to force against the political entity called Taliban, Taliban has survived, flourished and is occupying the heartland of Afghanistan unopposed. I do not believe that evil is the cause for their success from inside their ranks. The evil is outside in the way and means of forces opposing such a paternalistic and vulnerable martial group. Errors are being made every day by the west. The guard is down because the political prosecution of this war is being directed by a narrow minded and corporate mentality that has allowed corrupt business practices to become the rule. They will have their wealth at no cost to themselves. As long as the little people stand about with their remotes in their hands nothing but evil will come about.

The world will continue to turn. The seasons will change. Dancing with the stars will continue to play to the proles. As a nation the US will no longer have a place in the world of honest interaction outside arms and destruction of others by surrogates.

Many of you who now give lip service to this sad period in our lives will perhaps in the final moments of your conscious existence ask in pain, "What was I thinking?"

I AM
__________________
The Old Dog

Quote:
Today in Iraq

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

The World Turned Upside Down

2007-11-20T19:07:00.000-05:00

Scott McClellan is about to come clean about the political intrigues of the W_administration. It would not be, could not be without the clandestine backing of thinking Republicans. Of course the deadenders will go down waving the bloody shirt but the die is cast.

I heard the news from my wife moments ago. I believe that I heard the strains of music that were played when Cornwallis presented his sword to Washington's insurgent, militia, and regular forces at Yorktown. That would be

"The World Turned Upside Down."

If buttercups buzzed after the bee,
If boats were on land,
Churches on sea,
If ponies rode men,
And if grass ate the corn,
And if cats should be chased
Into holes by the mouse,
If the mammas sold their babies
To the Gypsies for half a crown,
If summer were spring,
And the other way 'round,
Then all the world would be upside down.

Melody - old British nursery tune sequenced by Karl P. age 5

I believe thinking Republicans are over this mess. The longer the dead enders hang on the worse it will be for an eventual recovery. they are guaranteed the loss of the White House for eight years, maybe twelve, and maybe even sixteen. The House and Senate will see a turn out of the Republicans and the Senate will perhaps go as well. Of course the corrosive effects of winner take all will come to rest with the Democrats too. Which! In truth and fact is NOT an organized political party. We are the blind hog that finds the occasional truffle.

We can not now just sit on our hands and play "ain't it awful. It is now time to stand up. It is not too late or a grave misfortune to bring this den of thieves and miscreants to justice.

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me. I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . . If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

No Fan of Law Enforcement

2007-11-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

One of my web friends sent me this news piece. She supports liberal access to firearms and a liberal interpretation of home protection. So do I.

What is your opinion concerning the self defense law. Does it give citizens the
right to shoot burglars when they are not on your property? Was this mans life in
danger as he was trying to be a good neighbor. What would you have done? Just get
a description and then report the break-in or take matters into your own hands?
Should the laws be changed?

Protecting Neighbor's Home Self-Defense?Testing "Castle Doctrine," Grand Jury To Decide If Texas Man Was Right To Kill Burglars

HOUSTON (CBS) -- It will be up to a Texas grand jury to decide whether a man who fatally shot two men he thought were robbing his neighbor's home acted within the state's self-defense laws.

Tough call.

For all the wind that has passed through either end of NRA supporters and their leadership, there have been few incidences of "castle defense" that have not received a rigorous, abrasive and sometimes costly first responses leading to the death or arrest and then court appearances for the castle defender.

The horror stories of no-knock entry by law enforcement into the wrong address have lead to some ugly outcomes for innocent residents and for armed residents who have shot the intruders whether LE or real bad guys.

I don't know about where you live, but here by me, in a metropolitan area of near 50 municipalities both large and tiny, there are ugly and questionable incidences of both plainly criminal and innocent protection shootings everyday or so. Nationally, the number would be astounding to some if they were all reported equally. Gun trauma and death are very common.

There are levels of defense and levels of thwarting crime that demand a firearm depending on remoteness of the victim from LE and neighbors. Individual protection within the confines of the walls of the home are different from that of the edge of the physical setting on which ones castle sits and the proximity of ones dwelling from ones neighbor.

I live in a neighborhood that has large lots, 6-0 foot wooden, wire or masonry fences. My lot backs on a railroad and utility easement. The street is a U-shaped street that has a north and a south entry. I know everyone on this street. We have no formal neighborhood association but we do have a mutual heads up agreement that would allow me or any other on this street to intervene in some way to protect the property of another.

Some of my neighbors have firearms, some don't. I have one antique, 1912 Springfield double-barrel, twelve gauge shotgun that is broken down and stored in a locked drawer along with fresh shells.

Most of my neighbors have electronic alarm systems. I have chosen other passive methods of thwarting intruders. I maintain a strong defense line in my fences. The fences are backed by rank growing Bougainvillea (crown of thorn canes). I am prepared for just about any eventuality of human intrusion. If some Joe Crack-head is looking for something easy, he is going to pass me by. If some semi-pro burglar is looking to steal my rare book collection he is going to work for it. It is LE that I fear that will enter with flash-bang grenades. We would to subjected to rough handling and an assumption of guilt by LE until better minds came to straighten things out. An elderly, ill grandmother in some Chicago hell hole would probably get one round of her 38 off before she was riddled with bullets. Would the NRA mount a defense in her case? I don't think so.

My short answer is that to be prepared for home defense, a form of deadly force may be just the thing. Any LE agency that conducts no knock entries must accept the possibility that they may lose a team member to constitutionally permissible firearm defense by the intruded-upon. A neighbor has every right to call LE to alert then to an intrusion into a neighbors house. His deadly response to intrusion is limited to the walls of his own abode. A person who goes into his yard and make an innocent , aggressive flourish of a firearm may be treated harshly by LE no matter the circumstances Some are even shot in their own doorways when spouting the NRA catch phrases of rights. LE doesn't like guns in the hands of those not in their ranks, on the scene of an incident. If you have a firearm in your hands in their presence, you are subject to the use of deadly force by them. (thus the title of this piece)

It may not be in the law books, court rulings or the constitution but it is drilled into the heads of recruits and old time cops, the NRA be damned. If you shoot someone or harm them with any form of weapon, you will be treated as a common criminal until there is a ruling from your States Attorney's office and their agencies of the courts in your local community. If you shoot an intruder in your home, there is still a rigorous investigation of the circumstances. It makes no difference what the Constitution says, what the general opinion of the local community is, LE has a penchant for treating gun incidents as if they were atomic attacks.

I will soon have a story to tell about a recent experience I had with an ill trained and steroid ingesting police officer. Aside from providing me with a new set of experiences and a first hand view of the process to write about, it left me with a less than confident view of the capabilities of the field components of LE.

The man in Texas will have a long, difficult time having his situation untangled. He will be subjected to closer observation by LE for the rest of his life. He is marked. The NRA be damned (by LE). Being smart, prepared and courteous and unarmed, around LE is a lot more effective than being well armed.

Is Justice Blind?

2007-11-17T13:47:00.001-05:00

In my county there are two cases that are in the courts that are very
troubling.

One has to do with an elected property appraiser who was the recipient
of a piece of marginal property in a remote subdivision. In the
following years, the property surrounding the appraisers property was
built on to about 99% build out. The property came to him from a
developer who held the mortgage, transfered the deed and then forgave
the mortgage. The developer and the appraiser were friends ever
after.

The property in question sits astride a creek that is flood prone and
is covered in rank growth of trees and under story plants that are to
be found in such areas. A good part of the creek runs through various
easements, dedicated parks land and highway ditches that are
maintained for drainage by three different government entities. The
property in question has sat undisturbed for 20 years or more. It is
the only piece of private property that abuts or sits astride the
creek.

The property has alway been taxed at a minimal value because it was
just not the kind of ground over which a conventional house could be
built. It is part of a drainage system and is subject to broad
flooding four or five times a year in non-hurricane years and more
often in hurricane years. A couple of years ago the entire ditching
and draining watershed was cleared within the confines of the creek
bottom and its immediate banks. The property owned by the appraiser
was included by error but without intent of harm to the owner.

The appraiser owner discovered the work and then sued the county for
its otherwise innocent intrusion for the general good of the
neighborhood. The property had been on the tax rolls for bottom of
the barrel taxation that the appraiser had assisted in by being the
one who had made the appraisal on his "gift land" from a developer.
When he discovered the work and sued he valued his land for purposes
of the suit at 10 times the long standing appraisal that he had
himself put on it. He enlisted the aid of the county attorney and
the chief executive of the administrative body that is the action arm
of the county commission. As a result they are found complicit in a
scheme of criminal intent and are dismissed. The appraiser is an
elected official and so he stays on.

The appraiser has, however, just announced that he will not seek re-
election and will go into retirement with his $80K a year county
pension intact and he will be allowed to keep the money that he got
from the county for the property. His defenders say that all his
intentions, actions and outcomes are just good business for him as an
individual. The fired attorney and the administrative executive got
what they deserved for their complicity in anything that might not be
"just exactly right".

The background of the story is here.

Something is way out of kilter in my estimation. What do you think
without giving into "yes, but" or reading into the narrative some
assumption.

Two. In my county a 17 year old son of a low brow entertainment
celebrity crashed his car on a downtown city street. Witnesses say
that his rate of speed and maneuvering in traffic was such as that
seen in street racing You-Tube Videos. There was another racer
involved. He was driving a vehicle owned personally by the celebrity
father of the young driver. When the young driver crashed his car
into a tree, the other driver fled and did not return to the scene for
many minutes. Shortly after, the celebrity himself appeared on the
scene and began a blustery display of "in-chargeness" until his act
was countered by law enforcement. The young driver of the crashed
car has a long history of driving infractions dating from the day he
was awarded a learner's permit. He was wearing a seat belt. His
passenger was not. The passenger was a near twenty year old military
man just returned from his second tour in Iraq. He still had time to
serve on his initial enlistment and had made his intentions known that
he would make the military his career. He is now in a near vegetative
state and displays minimal response to those around him. His military
life is over. His divorced parents are fighting over his estate and
care. The lawyers for the 17 year old driver are laying blame for
injury on the young soldier for not wearing a seatbelt.

The background of the story is here.

In both cases it is clear to me who benefited from status and
celebrity.

Am I missing something?

I AM

Lantern Bearer, the Old Dog

Generations

2007-11-02T09:36:00.000-04:00

I have been giving thought to the concept of the generations as they have been popularly described now and in past years.

I have come to find that I am not a "Baby Boomer". I find that I am the last of the "Silent Generation". I was born in the year preceding Jan. 1, 1946. I am not a boomer. I am however an "age mate" to that generation. We started school in 1950 and we were the bulk of the gun fodder for the Viet Nam years. We are now at retirement age and we find that our prospects for Social Security are not the same as that of our parents and grandparents. We also expect to be in the work force longer. We also may expect to be healthy enough to enjoy a longer and more productive "old age". I am just unable to see myself confined to watching Jeopardy as I see some of my more elderly friends doing. There are too many other good opportunities.

What about you are you a "Boomer" or are you something else? How has that affected your life and your worldview?

Lantern Bearer

Senator Craig wants to change his plea and wipe his "My Bad" slate clean.

2007-09-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

Senator Craig wants to change his plea and wipe his "My Bad" slate clean.

Senator Craig participated in flirtatious behavior that was out of order for a public facility in a public transportation hub where one may be expected to allow touching of their bodies by way of a legally necessary procedure called a pat down. That would be done by a law enforcement officer or a specifically designated and licensed security officer employed by a civil authority.

Such behavior could have led to unwanted violent outcomes or other crimes such as robbery. Senator Craig put himself in danger and created a state of insecurity that had a very good chance of becoming disorderly. It was ill mannered and completely out of bounds for the place and the reasonable expectation of absence of social discomfort that others, not of Senator Craig's predilections and sexual mores, would find outrageous and insulting. The same standard for heterosexual flirtation would fall under the same expectations of manners and orderliness.

If there had been a drink or eating establishment on site with a name such as "The Raging Queen" then there might be some indication that behaviors and ritual which Senator Craig displayed would be permissible within and that limits for outrage would be much more accommodating within the confines of that establishment.

That the behavior for which Senator Craig has been sanctioned had risen to the level of outrage for the public mores, and was cause for complaint from a citizen, then he has not a legal leg on which to stand for avoiding a charge or the reversal of conviction for disorderly conduct.

The plea and conviction must stand for the general good and orderliness of the most public of public places.

A reversal would be based in hair splitting and a signal for the privileged and powerful to make up the rules as they go along . It is the worst kind of justice.

Lantern Bearer

2007-09-08T15:26:00.000-04:00

Annals of Corruption: Part 1

In 1964 the eminent physicist Richard Feynman served on the State
of California's Curriculum Commission and saw how the Commission
chose math textbooks for use in California's public schools. In his
acerbic memoir of that experience, titled "Judging Books by Their
Covers," Feynman analyzed the Commission's idiotic method of
evaluating books, and he described some of the tactics employed by
schoolbook salesmen who wanted the Commission to adopt their shoddyproducts. "Judging Books by Their Covers" appeared as a chapter in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" --
Feynman's autobiographical book that was published in 1985
by W.W. Norton & Company.

To introduce a series of articles about corruption in
schoolbook-adoption proceedings, we present here (with permission
from W.W. Norton & Company) an extended excerpt from Feynman's
narrative.

As our "Annals of Corruption" series unfolds, readers will see that
Feynman's account is as timely now as it was when he wrote it.
State adoption proceedings still are pervaded by sham, malfeasance
and ludicrous incompetence, and they still reflect cozy connections
between state agencies and schoolbook companies.
Continue here
Feynman is one of my favorite academics. He had great humor and an ability to to make what was important stand out and what was completely cryptic plainly described as such.

Whose gonna build your wall, boys?

2007-08-22T00:46:00.001-04:00

I got 800 miles of bolted border right outside
my door... now the government wants to build a barrier like ol' Berlin,
8 feet tall (Tom Russell, Who's gonna build your wall)

Who's gonna build your wall

Tom Russell - Texas singer, song writer.

I got 800 miles of bolted border

Right outside my door

There's minutemen in little pickup trucks

Who declared their own dang war

Now the government wants to build a barrier like ol' berlin, 8 feet tall

But if Uncle Sam sends the illegals home

Who's gonna build the wall

Who's gonna build your wall, boys

Who's gonna mow your lawn

Who's gonna cook your Mexican food

When your Mexican maid is gone

Who's gonna wax your floors tonight

Down at the local mall

Who's gonna wash your baby's face

Who's gonna build your wall

I ain't got no politics

So don't lay that rap on me

Left wing right wing up wing down

I see strip malls

It's the bad cat white developer

Who's created this whole damn squall

It's the pyramid scheme of dirty jobs

And who's gonna build your wall

Who's gonna build your wall, boys

Who's gonna maw your lawn

Who's gonna cook your Mexican food

When your Mexican maid is gone

Who's gonna wax your floors tonight

Down at the local mall

Who's gonna wash your baby's face

Who's gonna build your wall

We've got fundamentalist muslims

We've got fundamentalist jew

We've got fundamentalist Christian

That'll blow the whole thing up for you

But as I travel around this big ol' world

There's one thing that I most fear

It's a white man in a golf shirt

With a cell phone in his ear

Who's gonna build your wall, boys

Who's gonna maw your lawn

Who's gonna cook your Mexican food

When your Mexican maid is gone

Who's gonna wax your floors tonight

Down at the local mall

Who's gonna wash your baby's face

Who's gonna build your wall

Special thanks to Steve Terrell for his knowledge of music.

To hear the song, click here

I loves me some good ol' Texas singer song writers.

Rove Left White House to Ensure Neocon Victory at Any Cost

2007-08-20T13:57:00.000-04:00

Posted by Trish | Aug. 20, 2007, 11:44 am
At Pensito Review

We cheered when Karl Rove announced he was leaving the White House, but the nagging question is why? Here’s my theory: Rove needs to have total freedom to ensure that Republicans — and Republicans the neocons can continue to control — stay in power.

We are all looking forward to 01.20.09, Bush/Cheney’s last day in office assuming Pelosi continues to refuse to impeach. But they will be leaving behind a crime scene worthy of several teams of CSIs. The fingerprints, buried bodies, photographs, emails, and evidence of wrongdoing that you and I haven’t even thought of will be everywhere. They simply cannot let a Democrat win.

Continue here.

Rove Left White House to Ensure Neocon Victory at Any Cost

Shawn: a Good Old Dog

2007-08-18T13:50:00.000-04:00

It is a sad but not completely unexpected day for me today. My women are at an equestrian event and my old dog Shawn has died. I am putting him in the ground along my back fence as soon as I can get a an adequate hole dug. I have him shrouded and on ice now. He was too much like family to throw out with the garbage. I had other plans for my bachelor weekend but it seems that life in all its manifestations has a way of dictating what comes next.

The picture above was made in the last month or so. Over the last couple of years Shawn had become stone deaf, near totally blind and in recent weeks incontinent. I would lead him out to the yard and he could get around on scent and habit alone. I tried to keep him kenneled overnight at my bedside but he retained a strong need to be loose to patrol the windows and doors throughout the house every couple of hours. If he was denied that, he would give off with a bark session from bedside that would peal paint from the wall. It was his best quality. He was in no way aggressive or snappish but his bark over a tile floor was near painful.

Shawn was a variety of dog that arose with the Bichons. He had all the best qualities of the smaller Bichons but he was a larger dog. Shawn was a well muscled 30 pounds. Legend has it that Shawn-like-dogs were ship board dogs for the early Portuguese seafarers. Their main duty was to swim lines between ships of a flotilla when conditions prevented them being passed otherwise. Their base breed stock is poodle and Maltese like dogs that were bred for intelligence and an agreeable nature.

Shawn patrolled the pool perimeter as part of his routine. He also liked to drink pool water. We have had so much rain this season that the pool water is is closer to rain water than the chemical soup that is standard pool water. On occasion we would get Shawn in for a swim. He was very a capable swimmer but his strong get-to-safety nature made him a poor water companion. He had large feet with blunt instruments for nails and was capable of causing ugly scrapes and gouges if you got in his way. The water was eventually his undoing.

Early in his pool career, Shawn would drink only from the corner of the pool that had concrete entry steps. In the past several years he would just choose a corner. Over the years we would arrive home to find that Shawn had had a full dunk in the pool at some time in our absence and we would find the evidence of his dip in the trail from the pool deck to the family room floor. When we decorated and bought furniture, we planned for a damp family room. There is nothing there that could be completely spoiled by water or damp. The floors are tile and the furniture is leather. The mop sink is nearby in the laundry room and there are two wet/dry vacs available at all times. The towel supply is color coded for for animal usage and human usage.

The pool, however, was Shawn's entry point into his next expression of existence. In recent months, Shawn's vision began playing tricks on him. His light and shadow discrimination caused him to startle and shy in very clumsy ways. His coordination and sureness of foot was failing. His ability to swim to safety had been overwhelmed by an atrophy of ability. He would quickly become lost in what here-to-fore was a familiar watery environment. It was evident even in the house that he was less aware of his surroundings. His sense of smell always lead him to the counter tops and the open refrigerator. If there was a bit of food anyplace on a table or counter top he knew where it was by scent alone. He remained strong enough to the end to surmount any obstacle to get to a sandwich left unattended on any elevated surface. He was a dog to the end.

In the past year Shawn had gotten himself in pool trouble several times. He would fall in at night and I would detect that from a deep sleep and would get up to rescue him in his confusion. It had not been too long before that when he would get in and out of the pool he would come to my bedside and run his wet chops against my hand to announce his adventure. In winter, I would get up, wrap him in towels and and tend him until his chills would subside into sleep. I would then put him in the laundry room floor and turn on the dryer. That would be good for a couple of hours and then he would get a flash of hunger or patrol purpose and would bark for release. He was after all a good old dog.

In his dogness, Shawn had a particularly aggravating habit. Whenever his humans would sit for a snack or a meal at the kitchen table or in the family room, Shawn would get as close as possible and pant his hot breath on exposed legs. He was never any more demonstrative than that but it was enough to be a total pain. As I sit here now, I miss his presence at my feet. If there were some snack morsel near me he would pant on my leg until I gave in or put some blocking chair or other object in his way. He was just a dog and he was very good at it.

As I have been keying this in, I have also started Shawn's resting place. It is against my back fence. I dig a while and then I key a while. I have put him next to the cats, Laverne and Shirley. My back fence is against the railroad and utility easement. Across from that is a 10 acre stable and paddock ranchette. One of Shawn's favorite things to do was to sit on the pool deck and bark at the steel monster that rolled by twice a day.

My women do not know of Shawn's passing. When I was running errands yesterday morning, Shawn went into the pool as I was dropping off the daughter and her equestrian friends at the barn. I picked my wife up from work at noon and brought her home to finalize her packing for the equestrian weekend. It happened in that slot of time when I left with the daughter at 10 a.m. and when I brought my wife home. While I was taking the little dogs to the yard, I noticed Old Shawn floating between a far wall and a pool float. I pulled him out and boxed him up before my wife emerged from her packing. I am alone with this at the moment. There is nothing anyone else can do. I am sure that I will be condemned and grilled by my women for being so callous and secretive, but there was no practical reason to have this interfere with their pleasure. They have a full schedule of schooling and eventing activities at the show grounds. The animals at home have always been my responsibility. When I am not available, my women like to respond to emergencies by taking the animals to the vet. I have pulled a lot of animals through some bad times. It was a gift of practical knowledge from my dad.

I have to go dig some more. The spot is in deep shade so it is not so bad a job of taking care of my old dog for the last time.

Government for Profit

2007-08-11T15:05:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Government for profit

Posted at http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/08/government-for-profit.html

Both
academia and popular culture have largely neglected those parts of
history that don't fit into the modern mythology -- derived from the
late Roman Empire and diffused by the university system from the late
Middle Ages to today -- that all justice and political power -- a
"monopoly of force" -- is and must be held by a monolithic entity
called "the government." But there are plenty of examples of political
power both today and in history that don't fit in to this mold.
Federalism, separation of powers, and many examples of legally "taking
the law into one's own hands" are just three categories of examples.
Here, we look at an even more alien category -- political power wielded
by private individuals or commercial organizations, with profits or the
equivalent as a primary incentive of the organization.

Continue here: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/08/government-for-profit.html

Media and the 7 Negative Attitudes

2007-08-11T13:55:00.001-04:00

Have You Fallen for these 7 Negative Attitudes Pushed by the Media?

Thanks to JohnsPlaceonLine - no relation.

Like it or not, we live in a media driven world. We spend 11 hours a day

bombarded by television, radio, Internet, and other forms of media, a
non-stop onslaught on the psyche, an ever-churning series of images,
sound bites, opinions, and advertisements, but precious little
substance.

The media provides shared experience, collective memory.
Unfortunately, many of the ideas we’re exposed to are negative and
self-defeating. The pervasiveness of these negative ideas makes them
hard to ignore; easy to internalize.

If you’re curious about the cumulative effect of all this media upon
the mind, here’s a list of 7 negative attitudes common in the media and
tips for dealing with them.

1. Mindless Consumerism: The average American is
exposed to 247 commercials everyday. Buying things has become reflex,
due partly to the ideal lifestyle flickering on the television: big
house, giant SUV, three-car garage, flat-panel television. There’s
nothing wrong with enjoying life, but are you buying things to improve
your life? Or to compensate for feelings of emptiness? Find something
to believe in; fill the void with something real.

2. Poor Body Image: Never before in history have we
been surrounded by so many examples of physical perfection, shaped by
cosmetic surgeons, airbrushed by artists, and distributed by print and
video. Remind yourself that fitness is more important than perfection.
Besides, your value as a human being is not related to your appearance,
and those actors don’t look half as good without make-up and lighting.

3. Roaming Eye: Television gives everyone (men in
particular) the idea that the world is overflowing with beautiful,
willing sex partners; it’s not. And even if it were, that roaming eye
isn’t doing you any favors. Remind yourself that relationships are
built upon more than physical attraction.

4. Destructive Communication: Electronic media
brims with insults and anger. On message boards, gentle persuasion has
collapsed beneath the weight of incivility. In real life, victory is
seldom obtained with witty one-liners or rude put-downs. Hone those
communication skills. Learn to Persuade without offending. Connect.

5. Clique Mentality: As if cliques weren’t
prevalent enough, television programs often have casts that are
socially, ethnically, and racially homogenous. That’s fine; it’s free
enterprise at work, for the most part, and not every story involves a
melting pot. I make no bones about it; I’m simply reminding everyone
not to be afraid of diversity in the real world.

6. Stereotypes: As evolved as we believe we are,
television is overflowing with stereotypes: the dumb jock, the
bubble-headed blonde, the geek with a pocket protector, all
products of lazy writing. Most of us are smart enough to recognize a
stereotype for what it is, but I question the subconscious impact of
such repeated exposure. The best defense is to remind yourself that
every human being deserves to be evaluated as an individual, no matter
how prevalent or justified a stereotype might seem.

7. Negativity: We’re wired to pay attention to
danger, which is why the Discovery Channel broadcasts so many programs
that show the world being destroyed by tsunamis, earthquakes, and giant
asteroids; why the news leads with gunfire and bloodshed. Remind
yourself that there are just as many positive forces in the world as
negative; your focus on the negative is a matter of personal choice and
perspective.

Full article here.

By way of reddit.

Forums with Link Juice

2007-08-04T17:25:00.001-04:00

Forums with link juice

August 3rd, 2007 by GiorgosK

See: http://geoland.org/2007/08/forums-with-link-juice/

In the last few days or so I have been compiling this list of forums that give out lots of link juice.

What is that ?

Any experienced forum poster already knows that one of the benefits
of posting in forums is the fact that they allow forum signatures to be
attached under each of your posts. The forum signatures can in theory
contain links to sites that you choose. But not all
forums, forum administrators rather, treat signatures the same. Some
limit the number of links you can have in them, some will put a
nofollow in them, some will not even let you have a signature …

Table explanation

Let me just explain a little bit of what each column below mean. Alexa is the Alexa ranking of the the forum in order to judge if the forums has enough visibility. The PR (pagerank) can in turn affect the pagerank your signature links might acquire in the future. Links limit column displays the limit imposed on the number of links you can have in your signature. The next column Active displays if there is a minimum amount of posts needed to be posted before one is allowed to edit their signature links. NF

(NoFollow) column means if the links are assigned a “rel=nofollow” in
which case no link juice is actually passed (forum owner is not
vouching for any of the links of his forum users). RSS feed
is a way to get an extra link to your blog in which case in the options
of your profile you can provide the RSS feed of your blog and the
latest post will always be linked from your every post.

Follow Me:

Traffic cop vs. VIOLATOR

2007-04-14T12:53:00.000-04:00

Traffic cop vs. VIOLATOR

A motorcycle officer stops a man for running a red light. The guy is a
real jerk and comes running back to the motor officer. The violator
demands to know why he is being harassed by the Gestapo! So the officer
calmly tells him of the red light violation. The "Motorist" instantly
goes on a tirade, questioning the officer's ancestry, sexual
orientation, etc., in rather explicit terms.

The officer, being a professional, takes it all in stride,
figuring"battleship mouth and rowboat ass".

The tirade goes on without the cop saying anything. When he gets done
with writing the citation he puts an "AH" in the lower right corner of
the narrative portion of the citation. He then hands it to the"Violator"
for his signature.

The guy signs the cite angrily, tearing the paper, and when presented
his copy points to the "AH" and demands to know what it stands for. The
officer then removes his mirrored sunglasses, gets in the middle of the
guy's face and said, "That's so when we go to court, I'll remember you're
an asshole!"

Three months later they are in court. The "Violator" has such a bad
record he is about to lose his license and has hired an attorney to
represent him.

On the stand the officer testifies to seeing the man run the red light.
Under cross-examination, the defense attorney asks, "Officer, is this a
reasonable facsimile of the citation you issued my client?"

Officer responds: "Yes sir, this is the defendant's copy, his signature
and mine, same number at the top."

Attorney: "Officer, is there any particular marking or notation on this
citation you don't normally make?"

Officer: "Yes sir, in the lower right corner of the narrative there is
an 'AH', underlined."

Attorney: "What does the AH stand for, officer?"

Officer: "Aggressive and Hostile, Sir."

Attorney: "Aggressive and hostile?"

Officer: "Yes, Sir."

Attorney: "Officer, are you sure it doesn't stand for Asshole?"

Officer: "Well, sir, you know your client better than I do!"

WAR

2007-04-14T01:25:00.000-04:00

“war” is what neo-con Republicans want every American to call the situation in Iraq, because this one word gives them more power than they could possibly get any other way.

It is time we stop calling it “the war in Iraq,” and time we start calling it what it is: the military occupation of Iraq. This is not just semantics. It is a matter of life and death.

From Dangerous Intersection

Senator John McCain says he felt safe walking out into Baghdad. He should have, standing in the middle of a couple of reinforced rifle companies, thick air cover and in body armor. It was grandstanding and opportunism at it most egregious.

David Brooks of the New York Times comments that McCain's single minded support of the surge from the near sighted focus on the role of the US military has too little regard for the needs and the unremitting suffering of the Iraqi people. The pacification efforts have provided a checkerboard of safe market days and some small joy in children's play grounds, but the squares empty of death and destruction today become the targets tomorrow.

The situation on the ground now is not what our very fine infantry was trained for. It is very much a very successful organization of rolling death and destruction. It was not meant to be a well armed nanny. It is now being held in place only to suffer a thousand cuts and then a thousand more. It is tragically noble on the part of the individual G.I.s but a sinister gambit of opportunism by the W administration.

The daily accumulation of reportage of the thousand cuts is to be found here.

The daily carnage is spread across the Iraqi canvas like a painting by Jackson Pollock.

My wifes niece is now being readied to join the surge. She has a one year old girl child.

(click on pic for larger view)

From Com_Bat_Ra_Coon

. . .they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A. Lincoln
A portion of the Gettysburg address

Obie Wan Ka-Wobble

2007-04-12T17:44:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes. The great diversion begins. Just as AG Gonzales goes to the Congress to be grilled a bit, Karl Rove brings out his production of, "Look! Over here. Voter fraud!! We have to get to the bottom of this!!!"

Atlantic Online has just published a piece on the coming Karl and Friends Production of the Potomac River Dance.

Now I know that continued criticism of the way things are being done is quite annoying to some of my friends and relations but when the characters in the current tragi-comedy just as much invite a pie in the face, then it must be done.

It is to my great pleasure and fond regard that the first Republican President, Abe Lincoln, was born in my home state just a few miles from where I was born. His ancestors settled in the same river valley as mine. I take great pleasure in reading anything that comes out about him. I might recommend the Doris Kearns Goodwin book Team of Rivals to you. It is a book that everyone who claims to be a Republican should read.

In my state we have a new Governor.

Governor Charlie Crist

He is a Republican and served in the JEB administration. He is quite likeable in a way that JEB was not. JEB of course wanted to have an honorary degree from the University of Florida bestowed on him but the recommendation and award had to come from the University academic staff. It was a no go. Now a building housing the School of Education has been chosen by the Florida Legislature and shoved down everyones throats. I am thinking that he would have done better by approaching Ave Maria University down in South West Florida. Educational governor, indeed!?

Yes. Spring is setting in. The greening will not be denied. This is my favorite time of year in Kentucky. My parents chose to depart this plane about this time of year. It is bittersweet.

Don't forget to click on the Penguin.

Lantern Bearer

Bada Bing

2007-04-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

For a larger view see

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/DOJ-subpoena/?resultpage=4&

This President and his familiars are not above the law nor are they the law. They represent and administer in the name of the American people, not just those who voted for him.

Will your son or daughter, your grandson or granddaughter be sacrificed to the Molec that this administration worships?

It is not that we have not spent enough money buy off any danger that faces us in the wide world. It is that this administration has chosen to make people's lives miserable in a far away place for the sake of preventing a few who would attack us by our own design. The long tail of this administration going back to Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers has created an enemy. It has armed this enemy and it had provided provisions and means for it to attack us at will.

Albert Gonzales sought to prevent the investigation of high crimes and misdemeanors among advantage takers along ideological lines. The evidence is clear and the actions are known to many. If their agenda was right, why would it have to be denied and covered in lies and the convenience of hazy recollection?

Mr. President. Your house is not in order.

Blog Editing

2007-04-10T23:46:00.000-04:00

I have been experimenting with blog editors. I am composing this on Google Docs. I usually compose post here using the native Blogger editor. The reason I am posting from Docs now is that I have also been experimenting with Scribefire. It is a Firefox Add-on recently estranged from its nest at Performancing.

Much to my disappointment the Scribefire linking to this Blogger site is buggy. I have Googled for comments and a fix but to no avail. For now I will continue to keep the Scribefire pane open on my screen because it is a very nice tool that incorporates my del.icio.us categories into the Categ. button. The buggy linking will eventually work out. I do have one gripe about the del.icio.us functioning. Whenever I close out the original window in my speed browsing, I have to sign back in when I want to post another bookmark. There is no remember me next time and Firefox does not invite a remember.

I have been a user of Google, Firefox, del.icio.us, and other web based services for things that here-to-fore I kept on my HD. Well, that is not completely true because I am not fully trusting of the off HD storage just yet and I back up to CDs by category and project.

Old school blogging has been a practice of getting your thoughts out there in as many places as possible and to have a blog on one or several blogging hosts. I have had several experimental sites that reached my email list and some of the sites that usually turn out to be cat fight venues. Otherwise, I have been spammed dizzy by every sort of racket. The recent rise of social network sites has not changed the cat fight game. Those sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and others ) have become notorious for "Girls Gone Wild" and stalking content. As an aside, much to my delight I have found a Google Group that is named after my home county in Kentucky and draws contributors from surrounding counties. It is quite amazing. I know some of those people personally, I may know their families and I may even be related to them by either blood or marriage. There are the usual curmudgeons there but there is an amazingly deep and simpatico number of individuals with whom I would have never communicated otherwise.

The newest push in blogging is in the direction of what has come to be called web2.0. It is the new school. The goal in web2.0 is high quality original content and monetization from the presence of clickable ad placement. In other words, if you are good you get checks. I can go for some of that. How about you.

In these four short paragraphs, I have discovered why I would prefer to be able to post to my blog from Scribefire. The foremost reason is that I have several words that I always misspell and even though Google Docs calls my attention to it, it does not allow me to correct with a right click. I have just noticed that my Firefox Spell Checker has disappeared since a recent update. The linkmaker that presents you with the Blue Links is also a bit clumsy. 'm'I bad! I just spotted the Check Spelling button.

I believe that I will post this at that my home county Google Group site.

Got to go. I heard a noise in the yard. I believe that a coyote is trying to get in my new chicken run.

It is quite interesting . . .

2007-04-09T18:46:00.000-04:00

how Easter is reported in a Middle Eastern news site.

Out of all the photos that could be displayed, they chose this one. This is precisely how the ME views Christianity as a reflection of America.

It is what every Muslim hates and fears about Western society.

It is also strange that the news also acknowledges the sacrifice that has been made by Western troops, albeit faint praise.

Iraqis burn US flags on Baghdad fall anniversary

Sadr calls on Iraqis to protest US occupation of Iraqi four years after fall of Saddam Hussein.

Since the invasion of March 20, 2003, tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in insurgent attacks and sectarian violence.

The four years have also been brutal for the US forces in Iraq.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=20316
By Hassan Abdul Zahra - NAJAF, Iraq

Bernice the Hen

2007-04-09T17:23:00.000-04:00

I have a chicken. I rescued it from one of the barns where my daughter had boarded her horses. Its nest sibs were killed by an otter or a raccoon. I brought it home and have been raising it in a large parrot cage on my screened lanai. Until a week ago I was not sure of its sex. Starting two weeks ago, it would crow for morning. Then a week later, I found an egg on the bottom of the cage. I immediately prepped a nesting box and attached it high in the cage. During Easter Week, I received an egg a day.

Now there are some of you who will find this completely mundane and of little interest. Just think about it if you will.

Her name really is Bernice. I was being creative with the Paris moniker in the previous post.

Lantern Bearer

2007-04-07T11:51:00.000-04:00

I live in pretty nice neighborhood. My neighborhood is actually a small town that was a village 30 years ago. At that time my neighborhood village was composed of a central shopping area and some small outlying clusters of new homes in developments. The village residential property was mainly winter housing for Snowbirds and an eclectic mix of artists, one-boat commercial fishermen, and work-a-day people who travel elsewhere in the county for their jobs. There is still an active railroad spur that crosses Main St.

In the last 20 years there has been a lot of development both in the business area and annexed former unincorporated county areas. I have lived in apartments, owned condos, and conventional homes. They have all been within a single mile of each other.

I was visited this past week by a representative of the Village zoning and housing board. It seems that they are concerned that I have a snag of a dead pine in my back yard that they would prefer that I remove. I told them that I would certainly comply just as soon as the woodpeckers are finished brooding this years crop of young peckers. That was in the morning. By mid-afternoon they are back with a citation for some sort of non-compliance. They said that my tree, full of woodpeckers or not, presents a danger to the community and could fall under some provisions of the Patriot Act. They asked rhetorically, "What if we suddenly had a storm like Katrina come through, blew your tree over and endangered the middle-school?" (eight blocks away) Their very words. Tuesday, I am going to the town council meeting and plead my case for the woodpeckers.

I may take my chicken with me and check on her status? Her name is Paris.

Spring is coming your way

2007-04-04T19:34:00.000-04:00

I just got the news.

My friend Jan has been visiting FL from AK since Yule. She left yesterday. She flew to Indianapolis. It is 27 degrees there and spitting snow. Here it is 80 and just on the verge of needing a little A/C.

I have to go cut my front lawn now.

LB

2007-04-04T19:10:00.000-04:00

OK. We consent to make a comment.

I have been on other very serious projects. I have corresponded with some of you by private message. Thanks for not forgetting about me.

Here is a very telling turn of events.

Saudi King Abdullah Denounces US Military Presence in Iraq

By VOA News

28 March 2007

US 'Surprised' by Saudi Comments on American Role in Iraq

By David Gollust

State Department

29 March 2007

These headlines speak volumes about the trajectory of the Bush administration and its hand holding diplomacy with the Sauds.

This is not directed at the Bush family, but rather at the young bumbler W. The ground is being dissolved between his well shod feet. The dissolving agent is a fine spittal that is being directed at him by the Sauds.

This is the end of the delusion that was the grand alliance of the Bush Empire and their supply of juice from the desert kingdom.

The Sauds would like nothing better than for the Iranians to be cinderized by American conventional and non-conventional methods.

If I were in the remaining gimpy minority that is still voicing Bushivikism, I would have to seriously consider hiding up some holler until the "Happy Times" return.

We are quickly coming upon the day, May 1 that was the day that the unpleasantness in Europe ended in 1945 with the announcement of the death of "herr Decider". It was the high point of Soviet Bolshevism and end of National Socialism in Germany.

I would like to say that I was pleasantly relieved. I am, however, not. Now comes the time for a very aggressive adjustment team of State Department folks to step in, but is it just not going to be possible. They have all been "Turd Blossomed". or maybe it's a jelly baby.

The Bush era is on the way out. May it slide into a category of a good "bad example" or into the micro citations of other poorly executed experiments.

Ils n'ont donné aucun plaisir

LB

Sailed right thru February . . .

2007-03-18T22:07:00.000-04:00

and March is nearly gone.

It is "winder and door" season again. It is nice to have the air wafting through the house. Citrus is blooming and all the other spring bloomers have not gotten into a good synchronicity with our stuttering weather fronts. Evenings however are still button up a bit and put on some sweats.

I have been on one project or another mixed in with helping my friends Jim and Wilma get their condo ready for sale. I took on their ceramic floor project. It is not huge but with tile it is not the expanse but rather the corners, abutments, and cutouts. I believe that it is the last tile job I will do alone. I have no problem with my knees and back. It is the arthritic thumb joints that are getting me. I have also triggered some old carpal tunnel catches in my palms. I have two small baths to go.

I have four large pines in my back yard. They make a nice background for my roof line when seen from the street. One of the pines is dead. It was struck by lightning while I was on the computer just twenty feet away. Every tree contractor that drives by wants to take it down. I have left it for the woodpeckers. It is full of beetles and larvae and the woodies are having a feast It is at the point now where the peckers are able to work on nesting holes. I have counted six so far. I have had visits from the Downeys, Redbellied, and Pilliated. Whenever I am at my desk, I am able to tell who is visiting just by their call or pecking rhythm.

All this entertainment comes with the advent of pollen season. The oaks are blooming catkins and the pines are blooming new candles. Parked cars are covered with yellow dust and the pool is beginning to have a yellow cast when it has been calm for a while. I have not had a severe allergy reaction as yet and may get away without serious consequences this season. I have not had to be around cigarette smoke. That is the trip wire for me.

I have just bumped heads with some posters re: a political rant. I will share that in a post later this week.

Let's hope that the current mess at Walter Reed is resolved soon. This is not something that the recovering troops created for themselves. Please Google as much as you are able about this. It is a national and systematic disgrace.

Lantern Bearer

It's January . . .

2007-01-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

But who would know!?

Every flowering plant that makes an appearance in mid to late February is now in bloom. My favorite is Flame Vine. Flame Vine is a climbing vine and is found in the oldest trees that have never had benefit of a visit by a commercial arborist. That's a guy who charges you a couple of hundred dollars to give you an opinion on your tree. I know one aborist. He once moved a tree that was a couple of hundred years old on a building site and it is still living. He likes flame vine too. My other favorite is Turkey Oak. Turkey Oak needs some cold weather to get right for a dogwood like bloom. Many plants I like to watch in spring need some cold to hold them in check for a bloom. There has been no real cold to hold anything in check this winter. The azaleas have been showing color since Christmas. Usually they hold off for a spectacular explosion of color. That explosion spreads north and is usually terminates somewhere in mid Georgia. That is sometime in March. From there it is up to the Red Bud (really lavender) and Dogwood to continue the Appalachian show that reaches the Ohio River around the last of April and early May.

So. While midwesterners and upper Sou'easters are enduring ice storms and other northern jet stream misery, we are experiencing an appearance of the southern jet stream or the "Pineapple Express." It is a warm flow that comes across Central America from the Pacific with el Nino and makes for some really strange weather.

Jim and Wilma are getting along in their new routine. Jim, who was near getting his final ticket punched in November, has rallied and is back in his normal humorously snarky mood. He is on on O2 and has a cannula line strung through the condo. As with any therapeutic, it is working so well that he is thinking of ditching it. The adults in charge are not about to have any of it. He dislikes not being the fully functional silver back, but he is well recognized for his position as silver back emeritus. Jim will have a birthday in the Aquarian days of February. He will be 80. His birthday is two days after mine. His quote, "Hell, if I had known that I would have lasted this long, I would have planned better." It is slightly tongue in cheek and foot in mouth.

I endured the State of the Union speech this week. Thanks to the "internets" I had access to the same copy that the President was using. Poor thing. While, the greater part of the American populous may not know what is going on behind the scenes, it is quite obvious that "somethin' ain't right."

Super Bowl? Out of town team, home town hero . . . It is possible to identify greatness by the quality of people who are associated with a particular individual. It is just that way with the coming contest between Tony Dungee and Lovie Smith. I am not a slavish follower of pop sports but when the talent of particular individuals stands out, I pay attention. Unlike many Super Bowls that were a blood lust between sworn rivals, this one is going to be a cerebral scrimmage between collegial Zen Masters of the game. I will be unable to follow it on TV because that medium has become an irritant to me. I will have to search for a more collegial medium to gather my Super Bowl News. Maybe from Oliver Willis.

Take a look at the links on the right under the my del.icio.us heading. It is what I am reading and saving to bookmarks. Some may be of interest to you, some not. They all hold a grain of substance for me. If there is something of interest that you find send it to me. My email is also on the right near the top of the page. I do not post FW: material. I like original material with good links.

This is all for now. The light has become perfect for pics. Gotta go.

LB

Please refer to . . .

2006-12-26T16:04:00.000-05:00

"Saturday, November 25, 2006

I saw my friend Jim. . .
in the hospital on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. He is very frail. I was glad to see that there were no tubes in his throat and I expected to hear some utterance from him but none came."

My friend Jim is out of the hospital and is now home. He has made a good recovery but he is still frail. He is being fed by a direct tube to his stomach. It is not the best but he is hanging on. The next events for Jim and Wilma are going to be that they sell their upstairs condo and move into something downstairs and maybe away from our very crowded and now over priced and over taxed metropolitan area.

Christmas morning, starting at 5am I made a run to Orlando to pick up Jims daughter who flew all night from Juneau AK, to Seattle to Orlando. We were back around 11am. We were just in time to catch the passing of the cold front that originated in Arctic Siberia last week and had dumped snow and rain on the AK panhandle down to CA and across the Midwest and upper south. It caught us in the last 15 minutes of the trip as we topped a high bridge over the bay. The wind was gusting and the rain was sideways and blinding. We completed the trip without incident.

Jima will help Wilma sort and toss. She has been anticipating this for several weeks. She will stay a month and then get back to her job in AK which will kick into high gear in anticipation of the spring thaw.

My daughter Ameri is in school and is taking a Med Tech course. She has her scrubs and is collecting her med tech paraphernalia. It is all new and great fun in this early going. The school is within walking distance and there are plenty of job ops in the immediate neighborhood.

Some people wait a lifetime and never get the picture of the cat in the tree. This is the cat from the road that daughter Ameri brought home. He climbs where no cat we have had before has clumb (the archaic usage).

More later.
Lantern Bearer.

A Holiday Read Recomendation

2006-12-04T18:04:00.000-05:00

I am unable to watch television, listen to talk radio or, read much fiction anymore. I am now reading the Greek that was the basis of a classic education until a hundred odd years ago and I and re-establishing a relationship with math functions and physics.

I have also become a book harvester. The number of recently published books that are available in thrift and used book stores is astounding. My current crop includes Malcom Gladewell's Blink and Tipping Point and Freakanomics by Bates and Levit. They Google easily. I have roughly $10, in $90 worth of cutting edge non-fiction. For the classics in Greek, Latin . . . any language, there is the Gutenburg Project. The current book business models are as archaic as watching for arriving sailing vessels from atop cathedral spires.

Really, the three books mentioned above are not just engaging, they will take you in their grasp and give you a brain shake.

May I also recommend a closer cleaving to Google for the near term. Buy some stock. If no stock then, dig around in it for all your worth. The old paradigms of knowledge and governance are about to be "Googled" (a verb for change) out of business.

Also. I have, through somewhat coerced circumstances, cut my ties to the wire phone company. I just settled my account with them and am now going VOIP, WiFi-enabled, and pre-pay cellular. (10 cents a minute) You will to in due time. The wire phone company is dead to a whole generation. The wire Internet is dead as well to that generation. The only morsel left from that technology is Optical Fiber and it may be too little too late for a consumer market. The only way that business is going to continue to have a say is by the imposition of regulations (on you) that they have preached were unnecessary and bad for business.

Regulation? Did you know that with little or no trouble, you, as a law abiding citizen with a credit card and a computer are able, this very evening, to buy any automatic assault weapon you could desire. If you wanted to own a quad 50 cal. (mounting your choice) setup, you could start those arrangements this very evening and have possession in a week or 10 day. You may do all this in a "Blink." We have reached a "Tipping Point". Our Western civilization has gone further into red shift. We can afford to show some love. If not that, then order the assault weapon. Just keep in mind that there is a whole new class of weapons available legally only to the military and to law enforcement that are one shot and the building comes down around your jelly like corpse that is puddling around your assault weapon.

This concludes by brain belch of the evening. Have a nice red shift.

First Saturday in December 2006

2006-12-02T11:38:00.000-05:00

Friday, December 1, 2006, I viewed the newly released Bobby. It was a family event. We took the "kids" to see it because they are as old now as we were then.

In June 1968, I arrived back in the US after being away for nearly four years. I had traveled in the Middle East , East Asia and South East Asia. It was during the hot years of Viet Nam. The country had been in an uproar. King was murdered. Watts, Detroit and other cities had exploded in violence. I watched from afar. In that first week of June of 1968, I was decompressing and readjusting to the new US tempo that was the late 60s. There were hot cars, hot pizza to go and Go-Go girls. It certainly was not the country I had left in 1964.

On the morning of June 5, 1968, I awoke in my parents home. My old room had been restructured and so I was in the large bedroom that had been where my sisters had slept before we flew the nest. The sheets were line dried and had been ironed by my mother. The house was open to the June morning breeze that came through the floor to ceiling windows that were opened top and bottom. There were familiar sounds coming in from the neighborhood. Kids were playing, mower were droning, birds were making their June noises. I heard the phone ringing. It is 1968. It was a large black Bakelite model with a rotary dial that sat in the foyer just outside of the bedroom. It was my mother. She was crying. She told me that Bobby Kennedy was dead. I was stunned. I went to the TV and turned it on. It was November 22, 1963 all over again.

I had traveled the world. I had seen world poverty. I had seen how the rest of the world lived its everyday life. I had been on the inside of the forces that were countering the communist menace. I had been in the third world where politicians were murdered on a whim, and where governments were subverted into proxies for one side or another. I had come home to a country that retained a third world consciousness.

Last evenings movie was one of those routine breakers. My wife had given us all instructions to be ready to sortie for a surprise event at 4:00p.m. We did as ordered. I thought we were going to go do the annual Holiday photo shoot at the mall photog-shop. No. We are going to the movie. Its too early for my meds so I figure that later will work. After the movie, we went to Mall Food Court. I had sipped a cola at the movie. I got sweet tea with my number 3 pseudo Asian meal. That was a big mistake. I rarely drink anything with caffeine in the late afternoon or evening. We made a couple of stops on the way home and at 10:00p.m. I am propped up in bed with the laptop catching up on the news and my favorite posting spots. I just let the antihistamine, the ibuprofen, and the Prozac slide. I was buzzed from the late caffeine. At midnight, I turned the lamp off and thought I could doze. The rest of the family is prepping the Tannenbaum. I turn on the white noise and have a fitful nap. I wake. It is 2:00a.m. It is too late for the usual sleep aids. I don't want to have a groggy Saturday morning. Over the next 8 hours, I am awake every 90 minutes or so. I don't panic - It's Saturday. I will be able to adjust. At 10:00a.m., I rise to make coffee. I take the dogs out and find that my yard is a bee garden. There are some small purple flowering weedy invasives down in the turf. I am not a rigid feed, seed and lawn futzer. The bees, a small variety, are collecting the minuscule drops of nectar for their honey. I get down on my knees and elbows to get a closer look. I can hear their micro droning. It is snowing in the Mid West and it is not quite officially winter and I am down on my hands and knees watching bees in my yard. I am 61 years, 10 months old. Bobby Kennedy would have been 81.

I made a trip to the grocery. I met Dave. He was a Marine communications NCO in Danang and Phu Bai. He had been billeted near an Agent Orange loading area. He lived in the dust and vapors of Agent Orange for 18 months. He is just getting along but poorly. I met Bill. He has a Harry S Truman, CVN 75 cap on. I have to ask . . . Did you come by that cap honest or did you see it blow out of a pickup truck. He adjusts his hearing aids and asks for a repeat. When he understands he chuckles. He came by it honest. He was career military, and a nuclear propulsion officer on subs and then on carriers. He was a guest of honor at the Truman launching. The new grocery set up guys are restocking my grocery to a new plan-o-gram. I asked Rad. Where the vinegar was now. He took me to it and of course, I had to know his story. His given name is Radavan. He has a delightful Slavic accent. He was run out of one city or another in the breakdown of Yugoslavia by one militia or another until he was able to slip into Germany and then quite legally into the US.

I have since had coffee, eggs and toast. I am munching on raisins and typing at the moment. My peeps have gone to tend the horses and I am still without medication. I can feel the demand for Neurontin coming on for my lingering shingles pain. I can feel the demand for Ibuprofen building in my lower running gear. I will have to feed the Prozac level or get an insufferable head ache. Before bed I will have to resort to a Xanax or face another restless night. For now, normal is not too bad, but any demands for action will have to be accompanied by medication.

Bobby would have been 81. W would be a second string oilman in Midland. There may have been a much smaller black granite wall in Washington, D.C.

I need a nap.

These are the words of Liberal Government

2006-11-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

For the short time that Americans were able to hear and see this flawed but talented President, he became a danger to those who would tell us what they wanted us to hear. He was a breakout politician that was able to charge up the better sentiments of two generations and to stimulate of the reaction of those against whom we were warned.

JFK speaking of an open government and an open press serving an open society.

The words and warning were dismissed and refuted by two generations and today the entire American society is paying a high price at all levels.

Lantern Bearer

Today in Iraq
Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.

I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .

If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.

G.I. Gurdjieff

I saw my friend Jim. . .

2006-11-25T20:04:00.000-05:00

in the hospital on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. He is very frail. I was glad to see that there were no tubes in his throat and I expected to hear some utterance from him but none came.

Jim is in the standard hospital gown and is covered by s sheet only. He has nothing on his feet or head. I probed a bit to see if he was cold. He was able to move his head side to side and I took that for a no. He is in isolation because of the c-def and MRSA bugs he has picked up in him almost constant hospital stays for the past six months or so. These bugs are anti-biotic resistant and are the scourge of the hospital system.

It took some time for me to get connected with him. At first I was in a one way conversation. Then I pulled out the gig gun - Godiva Chocolate liqueur. I transfered a drop from the miniature bottle to his lips on the tip of my finger. A switch came on. He was still unable to speak but he was responsive with his eyes and could move his head appropriately for yes or no questions. He go two more drops. He then became weary and was drifting away from me. By evening I had heard that he had been moved to the rehab facility nearby. By late evening I felt the onslaught of a virus cold. That has put me pretty much out of commission until today, Saturday. My family is all away visiting and having stay overs. I am fine in my hermitage.

Jim was up and dressed for Thanksgiving. It was a surprise for Wilma. She visited with one of her local sons. They watched the NFL game. Jim dozed. It was just like watching at home with him.

I spoke with one of Jim' daughters this evening. She is quite concerned about being here for Jim, or her mom. I had to let her know that if she is going to be here, it will be for herself, a much less complicated position to be in. She lives very far away as do her older siblings. The years have brought strained and distant relations for them all. So, best to drop any pretense of a trip here being for mom or dad. It is now OK to take this on for yourself and for no other reason.

I was far away when both my mom and dad died. I had seen them shortly before and was comfortable with keeping my watch from afar. My sister took on the responsibility of the last days and hours. When I was very young and I stayed over with my grandmother a lot, it was not unusual for me visit and sit overnight with a passing relative. It was not an unusual occurrence to be an observer on the edge of those events. It was still a time when a body was tended even before the undertaker arrived to prepare the deceased for a funeral in the front room of the house and ne'r the the thought of a trip to the mortuary or the a church. On some occasions, the burial was on the ground of the farm home. It was the end of an age.

More later.

The Army We Need

2006-11-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

November 19, 2006
Editorial

The Army We Need

One welcome dividend of Donald Rumsfeld’s departure from the Pentagon is that the United States will now have a chance to rebuild the Army he spent most of his tenure running down.

Mr. Rumsfeld didn’t like the lessons the Army drew from Vietnam — that politicians should not send American troops to fight a war of choice unless they went in with overwhelming force, a clearly defined purpose and strong domestic backing. He didn’t like the Clintonian notion of using the United States military to secure and rebuild broken states.

And when circumstances in Afghanistan and Iraq called for just the things Mr. Rumsfeld didn’t like, he refused to adapt, letting the Army, and American interests, pay the price for his arrogance.

So one of the first challenges for the next defense secretary and the next Congress is to repair, rebuild and reshape the nation’s ground forces. They need to renew the morale and confidence of America’s serving men and women and restore the appeal of career military service for the brightest young officers.

That will require building a force large enough to end more than three years of unsustainably rapid rotations of units back into battle, misuse of the National Guard, overuse of the Reserves and conscription of veterans back into active service.
More here.

And I see that an innovative and timely back channel "Iran Desk" is being formed in Dubai for the purpose of getting to know the "Evil Doers". Nothing like staying ahead of the curve.
And I see where the Democrats are now all a flutter about how far to goes with the re-establishment of an ETHIC in government.
My party, my party!?

I think perhaps as far a necessary and let the chips fly.

"But, Maa - umm, he got to somethin' and I cant . . .?"

Get a big bunch of knotted cords!

Lantern Bearer

A Rough Day

2006-11-14T17:50:00.000-05:00

Today I had to remove my friend Jim's waterbed from his upstairs condo. I have know Jim and his wife Wilma for twenty two years. They were our first friends and confidants when my wife and I returned to Florida. They are eighteen years older than us, but we have always been close. We have always been neighbors. I am still able to walk to Jim's house in about five minutes.

Jim has been in declining health over the last three years. He had a bout with cancer when he was forty and even after reconstructive surgery and jaw replacement he has had physical chewing and swallowing difficulties over the years. Recently, that has become much worse. In the past year he has had some stenting of coronary arteries but other wise he is affected most seriously by the aspiration of food bit and liquids into his lungs. That has set up serial pneumonia and various other lung related dysfunctions. His swallowing has become so affected that he is now carrying a permanent direct feeding tube into his stomach. He also has MRSA, a hospital related infection that is resistant to usual antibiotic treatment. All of this has left him in a very weakened and debilitated condition. He is now in his fourth hospital stay in as many months. He has been carried out of his condo and transported to the hospital on three occasions now by EMS. He will probably be in a rehab facility again before he returns home.

My project today was to clear his much loved California King waterbed from his bedroom. It will be replaced by a hospital bed that can be adjusted as needed and will be rigged with assists for him to get in and out of bed. Wilma is just about at the end of her strength and energy to deal with all this. There are so many things to take care of. the The hospital and rehab center are all business and have little time to let things sink in. If Jim is able to come home it will be under the care of Hospice and home health services. He could live, not as he would prefer, under home health care for several years.

Jim and Wilma have grown children. They are however reluctant to involve them in the day to day challenges of being the aged parents. The children live far away or are in stretched circumstances themselves. It has become my lot, not reluctantly, to run interference for Jim and Wilma and do what I can do to keep up with the details of their current circumstances. I told Wilma again today that I would do that. She is so concerned about "being-a-bother". I had to insist and so I started with the waterbed.

This is going to be a continuing story for some time. I will address the high points in future posts.

In Flanders Field

2006-11-10T14:03:00.000-05:00

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Link

Most Americans have no idea the lives that were lost before American forces stepped into the trenches. We got off fairly easy in that war. When I was ten, there were many WWI vets. There were even Spanish-American war vets - my Uncle Hugh was one. My daughter's maternal great grandfather was at Balleau Wood and the Ardenne. She knew him in life and remembers a bit of him. When I worked in the Corner Drug Store, Mr. Henry would come in in his wool uniform and Smokey Bear hat. He would pass out the paper poppies that he had made.
Please read the history.

Lantern Bearer __________________
Today in Iraq
Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .
If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.
G.I. Gurdjieff

Rumsfield Chaney

2006-11-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

Rumsfield

I have read much of what is available re: Rummy. He along with
Chaney have been the Princes of inflexibility that have kept this mess afloat since it became obvious to the more practical leadership of both parties that they R and C were being quite limiting by their very inability to admit any error.

The Rummy/Chaney dynamic is now broken. Chaney may now conveniently have a coronary event that allows him to slip away into medical retirement and from the comeuppance that he richly deserves.

I am a very forgiving adversary. I must however in this case withhold any appreciation toward Rumsfeld because he had to have his ass handed to him by the voters. Chaney will never be able to say "Hold, enough . . ." and drop his sword arm. He will have to be grilled in Congress, maybe twice, before he pulls the heart dodge.

The ultimate good that may come of this is that W, now free from the headlock by the above mentioned duo, will act on his own over the next two years to make some amends. I have read a good deal of what is available re: George Walker Bush. He is a bumbler and a good-ol'-donkey-git-along-boy, but he has been out of character since he handed himself over to the Neos. He may yet display some of the better heart that is in him. He has two years. He owes as much to his dad, who has been in great pain over the mess that has been created in his son's name.

So. I am going to call this a defeat for the Neos. They deserved it. Now W must rise above the smoking ruins and be really presidential. He owes it to himself.

Lantern Bearer

__________________
Today in Iraq
Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .
If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.
G.I. Gurdjieff

Election Day has come and . . .

2006-11-08T12:40:00.000-05:00

the results are a bit less than expected but still favorable for breaking out of some of the arrogance and idiocy of the past six years. Now the process of politics (in the best sense of the word) may get back on track.

On my first class day in my freshman Political Science class, the professor, a Republican with state and national standing in the then Nixon' White House, said, "Politics is the art of creating a sense of fairness and balance in the national polity." That is the noble job of politics. There are many subfunctions of the grand plan and sometimes methods are used to create outcomes that are inimical to the greater process.

Radical departures from the classic liberal center of American politics (of which there are two wings, Democrat and Republican) as displayed by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, may achieve a new overlay of fairness to the national experience but there is a price to pay. The Eisenhower years nurtured a new level of intervention and military adventurism, not so much by Ike's leadership, but rather by whom he allowed access to the national resources. In so doing he nurtured the idealist and operatives of military adventurism in Iraq. The lessons of history are not on that side of the equation. The current "leadership" (read enamblers) have allowed a whole new level of privateering and racketeering to prevail for the moment. Some of that will go unpunished, but the dockets and committees will have criminal fodder to chew on for several years.

The American experience is by design a construct of the best of the western Christian moral tradition as cast through the prism of the Enlightenment. The American experience is a process of trial and error. It has been messy but the order of tyranny has never had a lasting run.

The greater work is now just ahead. the errors of the last six years have to be addressed. The trickery and the empty words of alliance with particular groups of malleable interests will become exposed.

As a nation, in the world, we have a lot of water to carry and a lot of places to visit officially with hat in hand and a plan to serve rather than to kill. After all, it is the tradition on which we are established.

Please do be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

Primitive Sinop

2006-11-05T21:12:00.000-05:00

From GREENPEACE

July 4, 2006

Mothers fight against first Turkish nuclear power plant

Posted by Lisa at 2:43 PM

It's great to see that plans for Turkey's first nuclear power plant are facing opposition thanks to a bunch of middle aged women. Having suffered the effects of Chernobyl in this Black Sea region many people are against nuclear power while the Government is pushing plans for three nuclear power stations to come online by 2012. Many local fisherman in the northern city of Sinop where the plant is planned to be built, are now carrying anti-nuclear stickers and flags on their boats. They want to protect the nearby harbour, which is one of the richest fishing areas around. They are concerned that the cooling station will raise the temperature of the sea and have detrimental impacts on the fish. Outstandingly the "Mothers against Nuclear Power" have already got 25,000 signatures on their petition and even Sinop's Mayor is supporting them. Interestingly there is no mention of this opposition in the Turkish press!

This is the first place where I spent hours in the water, snorkeling and observing sea critters. The water there was clear to about sixty feet and the the junk of ages covered the bottom. The fish were there in schooled masses as I had never seen - growing up in Kentucky. Nearby Sinop, to the West there is the only fjord that exists outside of Scandinavian Europe. The whole north coast of Turkey is a place of great primitive beauty. If development could be achieved with great thought to the historicity of the place and the delicacy of the dry rolling countryside, it would be a benchmark for the rest of the developing world.
Lantern Bearer

Ode to Republican'ts

2006-11-03T14:04:00.000-05:00

Ode to Republican'ts

Excepted from Hymn to the Pillory
Daniel Defoe

Quote:

“They that in, vast Employments, rob the State,
See them in thy Embraces (of the pillory - LB) meet their Fate; 310
Let not the Millions they by Fraud obtain,
Protect 'em from the Scandal, or the Pain:
They who from Mean Beginnings grow
To vast Estates, but God knows how;
Who carry untold Sums away, 315
From little Places, with but little Pay:
Who costly Palaces Erect,
The Thieves that buds them to Protect;
The Gardens, Grottos, Fountains, Walks, and Groves
Where Vice Triumphs in Pride, and Lawless Loves: 320
Where mighty Luxury and Drunk'ness Reign'd
Profusely Spend what they Prophanely Gain'd
Tell 'em there's Mene Tekel’s * on the Wall,
Tell 'em the Nations Money paid for all:
Advance by double Front and show, 325
And let us both the Crimes and Persons know:
Place them aloft upon thy Throne,
Who slight the Nations Business for their own;
Neglect their Posts, in spight of Double Pay,
And turn us all in Debt the Shortest Way. " 330 **

*This is the passage from Daniel regarding the hand Writing on the wall
Daniel 5:25-28
5:25 And this [is] the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
5:26 This [is] the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
5:27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
5:28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
(http://www.godrules.net/library/kjv/kjvdan5.htm)

** Daniel Defoe: [Defoe, Daniel], J.T. Boulton, ed. Publisher: Schocken 1965, p.106

(Note: OCR and transcription by poster from personal copy purchased in used bookstore, Ginza, Tokyo Japan, Winter 1968)

And be sure to see what the GOPEEPERS are up to here.
http://www.gopcalls.com/

Lantern Bearer

__________________
Today in Iraq
Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

Today Megan was Born

2006-10-31T16:15:00.000-05:00

It was 32 years ago today. It was in the early hours of the 31st but that is close enough for a Halloween baby.

It was still light in the late afternoon. Day Light Savings Time had just ended. The weather was mild with a hint of cool. The resident manager of our apartment, Rosalyn, lived across the hall. She had been in and out checking things out with us. Mom is resting on the bed reading, nibbling at a Triscuit. Rosalyn had just left to freshen up her "hi-ball", when Mom appears in the door way to the bedroom with one hand on her back and one hand on the door jamb.

My question, "IS THIS IT?" The answer, "I don't know, maybe it was a little . . . uh-oh . . . " with a grimace and a blinking of the eyes. "UUUUUHHHHH . . . ! Help me sit down . . . no help me stand up! HAVEYOU GOT THE KEYS?"

Rosalyn pops back in and goes into over drive. She doesn't have any hand in this but she is all a mess. I lead Mom out to the car, and off we go. Not too fast, not too slow.

We arrived at the hospital. Mom checked in in a room and then the crash delivery team took its leave and mom got into bed.

Then it starts. "You want to play Hearts or Gin? "Oh, . . . oooooohhhhhh . . . wah, wah wah . . . That ones over, Gin."

So that the way it goes from about 5:30pm until . . .

Break in our drama.

Their is a woman in the next room over who is quite far along but going slow. She is already on the loony drip and she is seeing things on the ceiling. It is quite hilarious.

These contraction and dilation checks go on. There is a fetal monitor to stay ahead of the game. The OB nurse is all cheerful and apologetic about the "tripper " next door.

Around midnight, my fren' Big Kat shows up. He has already been through the delivery process twice and he is all enthusiastic. So we chat in the room; walk the hall, check out Carson in the waiting room. Around 2:30am, it is time to take the show to the delivery room. No, I waited outside with BK. At 3:15, the door pops open and out walks the doctor with a nicely wrapped . . . olive prune with a head of black hair that ended right around the bridge of her nose. So, what happens next? BK gets the honor of accepting the little package from the nurse that the doctor
had lateraled to. Then I get the package. She is still . . . damp. The nurse is adjusting her little Jacques Cousteau head gear. She smells just like a very organic thing. What a relief. OK, Big Kat, cuts out. We finish up the paper work. I make a couple of calls and head home. I have a couple of more calls at home, have a shooter of some distilled spirit and fall into the bed. It is 6:00am. At 7, good ol' Roz is at the door wanting to know everything. I get her settled and get back for another couple of hours sleep. By noon, I am back at the hospital and everything is right with the world.

Today, I went into the village hall to pay the water bill and I notice that everybody is dressed up for Megan's birthday. I tell the story to the ladie there and they let me get a hand full of Tootsie Rolls and Jolly Ranchers.

It is another swell October day.

Happy Birthday, Megan.

dah

While waiting for Megan

2006-10-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

I passed the time reading and riding ridiculous distances on my bike. Mom passed the time catching up on the soaps and nibbling on Triscuits.

One of my other things to do now is to aid where I can with the tornado recovery. In April, we had been subjected to the super cell out break that ripped trough the Upper South and the Mid West. My favorite cause had become the reforestation of the city parks that were the crown jewel of the City of Louisville. The organization was Trees Inc. It was the brain child of activism that had survived the crunch of the Nixon election and Watergate. We had great Tee-shirts and we planted a lot of trees and drank a lot of beer.

President Nixon had resigned in August and now Gerald Ford was unraveling the tapestry that was the Viet Nam War.

Showers. Yes baby showers. It was a second round but it was much subdued from the previous year. There is only so much stuff one baby needs.

October wears on. It is very pleasant. The long weekend rides with the Louisville Wheelmen are always best in October.

Waiting for Megan

2006-10-11T20:54:00.000-04:00

The summer has passed and now we are getting into the relief of Kentucky autumn. In Louisville, it is still not yet too cool that people have to wear heavy jackets or sweaters. Halloween is coming and the usual fall events of Butchertown Oktoberfest and St. James Art Fair are under way. In the last week of October 1974 we are all waiting for Megan.

October 1973 was a sad time for mom and dad. Dad had graduated from UL in August and was working for the Louisville Board of Education. October 1973 had all started well. Mom and dad were expecting their first baby and everything had gone very well. All the families were in rapt anticipation of a new little life coming to the world. That baby would be the first for this generation. Mom and dad had painted and cleaned the baby's room. There were new curtains and furniture. All the "new baby supplies had been laid in and everyone was waiting.

In the last week of October 1973 something tragic happened. There are things that happen to little ones in the womb for which there is no explanation. Mom had had the best of care from the doctor . She had taken the right vitamins and had eaten the right right stuff. She did everything just right. Yet, in one of those mysterious events that come about, something went amiss.

Dad was in his office at Coleridge Taylor Elementary just on the edge of downtown Louisville when he got a call to come to the office. Mom was on the phone and she was very sad. She was at the doctor's office and she had to listen to the tragic news that the baby that she was carrying was no longer living. The doctor had made arrangements for Mom to go to the hospital and do what had to be done to save her life. It was very sad. It is sad to this day.

Well. Mom and Dad went to Methodist Hospital and over the next 12 or so hours the baby that had been so anticipated was brought into the world having never to experience any of it. In those days, women stayed in the hospital at least 48 to 72 hours. It was a challenge for both Mom and Dad because Mom was on the maternity floor and there was no baby to be the center of attention. This lead, of course, to all kind of gaffs on the part of hospital staff in the course of their duties. It was a relief to end that hospital experience and get home. Mom stayed home for a while to recover and then went back to her work in the county office building in downtown Louisville. Things were not back to normal, but they were routine. The question arose of what to do next. Well, when the time was right, Mom and Dad got busy. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years came and went. In February of 1974 Mom took a solo trip to Florida to warm her bones from the Kentucky winter. February turns to March and then to April. Uh-ho! Something is up. Mom had to go to Dr. Oberst again. Great news! A baby is on the way.

Mom is an old hand at this baby business now. There wasn't much to do in preparation. Everything was pretty much in place. Mom was very confident. Dad never noted a drop of anxiety in her attitude. With April came the historic tornado (April 3, 1974) that raked Louisville along with much of the midwest. Mom's office was at the old County Building on West Market St. Mom and Dad saw the Louisville tornado on the way home from work that day. Dad remarked that this site should be noted because it was a very rare thing to behold.

Spring turns to summer and summer brought the usual muggy heat of summer. Again all the families were in anticipation of the coming event. There was no crepe hanging of any hint of dire consequences for the event that was going to take place in the last week of October or first week of November. Everybody was waiting for Megan.

-More-

A Personal History

2006-10-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

I was born before the first atomic bomb was detonated. Roosevelt was still alive and Hitler had four months to live.

Until I was eight months old we had lived in the Big City. World War II was still on in Europe and the Pacific. After the war, my parents returned to live in a small, rural central Kentucky town . We lived in duplexes or apartments. In the summer after I had turned four, we moved to a small farmstead on fifteen acres just outside of town. There was no running water, no electric, and there was an out door toilet. It was primitive. By this time my youngest sister was just turning one year old and my second sister was eleven months older. My mother had two in diapers and me. Fortunately for my mom, my dads friend had a wash, fold, and dry laundry in town. He did the heavy stuff for a couple of years. My mom paid him in kind.

I was near unmanageable in my new country world. My dad fenced the yard to slow me down. It worked after a fashion. I was a climber and adventurer though, and I was a handful to keep up with.

From the time I four years old , I was up-to-date on science and technology. I did not believe a thing until it came with accumulated data with words and pictures. I was all about jets, dinosaurs and robots. I was interested in WWII because my uncle, and many other men in my town had participated. Some of the ones that returned had suffered a range of wounds from very minor to grievous. I absorbed all their stories and first hand accounts of the war from the invasion of North Africa to the final stroll into Berlin. I also was acquainted with the World War II - Pacific Theater. There were quite a few men that I knew who had flown off aircraft carriers, had strafed convoys in P-38 Lightnings or had climbed Mt. Suribaci on Iwo Jima. I was a sponge for all the facts and details. In the summer of 1952, my dad and my uncle, who lived next door, bought Motorola table top television sets. They were the hottest new style. Every TV that I had seem before was a console model with a tiny screen. Ours had 19" screens. With that came the daily televised war news from Korea, cartoons and Arthur Godfrey. I was seven.

My uncle was a paratroops vet. He had made five combat jumps from North Africa to a "A Bridge too Far" in Holland. My uncle was a trained electrician, as was my dad. They were not so much home or commercial electricians but rather electrical stuff, like vacuum tube radios, to complicated traffic light systems and switch control boxes..

My dad had been a systems installer in a defense plant production line that turned out B-24 Liberator bombers. Needless to say I was very enthusiastic about aircraft, especially B-24 Liberators. After the war my dad went back to work for an undertaker and did that job until he and my grandmother opened a homestyle meal cafe.

I grew up on the small farm to which we had moved, when I was in my fourth summer. It was 1948. I grew up tending cows, hogs, chickens and a big garden. My dad taught me how to milk a cow, tend hogs, and gather eggs. I had to carry in wood and coal for a kitchen heating stove. I also had to carry in coal oil for the two space heaters placed in two other rooms in the house. I did that chore until I was ten. In my tenth summer, we had a gas line run from the highway to our house. All of the oil and solid fuel burners were replaced with natural gas space heaters. I thereafter became a child of some leisure except for tending the cows, hogs, and chickens. In summer, I had to add pushing a lawn mower to my duties.

My dad built and equipped a restaurant building on the frontage of our fifteen acre farmstead that we shared with my uncle. I was not allowed to participate in that building project. We lived in the existing house set further back from the road and my uncle soon built a house about three hundred feet away. I was allowed to participate in my uncles building project. I learned to read a tape measure in fractions and how to properly hammer a nail. At first we had no power tools on that job. When the cutting jobs became heavier, my uncle bought a worm drive rotary saw from Sears. It weighed all most as much as I did. I was not allowed to operate it. I could measure and mark but some one else did the cutting. I was allowed to use a hand saw on scraps and dunnage that may have gone in as filler somewhere.

My mom, was an Irish Catholic lady who had been in convent boarding school from the time she was eight years old. Just after she turned seventeen she graduated from a business and secretarial course that was considered very advanced and practical. She left rural Kentucky very shortly after that and traveled to New York City. She worked in Manhattan and took classes at night. She returned to rural Kentucky after seven years in the city. It was 1940.

My mother was a strong reader, an accomplished seamstress, a talented cook and an all round small farm wife along with her other accomplishments.

On the farm we had milk cows. My mother processed the fresh milk daily. In the days when we had no natural gas line or electric, that job was done in primitive but sanitary ways on a bottle gas stove. My mother was a nurse. She knew sanitary.

My mother strained the milk through a muslin and cheese cloth filter. She Pasteurized it in a large Army surplus pot on the bottle gas stove top. She had a set of thermometers and testers that were in her kit for hospital cookery and sanitary service supervision. She skimmed the cream when the milk had been allowed to separate. She churn milk for butter , made farmers cheese, and fed the waste whey to the hogs.

My mother also canned, fruits and vegetables and made pickles out of every piece of surplus vegetable or fruit. She also canned certain cuts of meat. She made her own V8 like vegatable juice. Nothing was wasted. Boiled potato water became the medium for scrap vegetables and meats to stew in for broth or stock she then canned or put in the home freezer. The surplus milk and eggs went into pies and cakes that were sold bartered or given as gifts. My mother also baked pies for our family restaurants and for special order customers. My mother also baked bread and biscuits. Every meal was a touch point. We all sat down together and started eating when given permission. It was a different time and a different consciousness. It was the 1950s, the cusp of an age.

Ain't it Awful?

2006-10-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

I have been listening to the Talk Radio echo chamber, I don’t usually but now is as good a time as ever. I refuse to have TV in my home so I occasionally have to get a touch point on a particular bit of news.

Please know that if any gay bashing results from the Mark Foley incidents that it will be from the usual hypocrites that keep that tool at hand.

What we need to address here is the Trawling and PREDATION for less than innocent sexual intention, be it homo or hetro.

We do not know that an act of sexual misconduct arose out of any of Mark Foley’s pleasant little chats that have been documented. We do have reason to believe that the intent seems to be there to create a sexually charged atmosphere between himself and some of the young pages. That is the smoke of this event. The draft that gave life to flames was the precipitous resignation. The fuel load is the result long period of benign neglect by those who knew without doubt that there was a hot clinker in the bin and chose not to address it - "out of kindness, I suppose."

Mr. Foley was a functioning, public gay man who mingled in the social setting of Palm Beach County and Washington D.C. as such. That is not the error here. That he was interested in the development of young minds for noble Congressional service is not even an affront. What is an affront is that he chose to tend that hot frame of seedlings to tease out those who were receptive to his advances for mutual sexual gratification, either in the illegal near term or as soon as they turned 18.

Alcohol as a reason for the behavior is a weak crutch and an illogical ploy to dismiss the egregious behavior. Mr. Foley is a brilliant man who did not need benefit of a university education. So, no matter the quality of his thinking or his able abilities of mind, he is one down from most of his colleagues because he is a mustang. He came up through the ranks without a university degree.

Further, Mr. Foley is a gay man who comes with all the baggage that entails. He is two down.

Mr. Foley is a rapacious pleaser and compensator. To fit in with his chosen political party he had to be twice or three times as aggressive and effective in all the organizational and political chores he took on.

Mr. Foley was also a second bench man when it came to his representative status. There are two House districts that run through Palm Beach County. One is the 16th; that is Mr. Foley’s. The other is the 22cd; that is someone else’s. The 16th takes in the west side of the county. The 22cd takes in the narrow coastal enclave that is centered on the City of Palm Beach. So, in Palm Beach Count, Mr. Foley was definitely second string.

Palm Beach and Lake Worth are different from the rest of the world. It is an enclave that is driven by the peculiar needs of its peculiar residents. They are “old money” super rich, they are new comer super rich. There are resident TV preachers who have made theirs and are now taking their ease. There is an inordinate representation of sexual preferences in the Palm Beaches and its attendant shore side colony of drones and worker bees.

Mr. Foley is very much a product of his surroundings. Those surroundings being wealth - great wealth. New money is one thing, but old, great wealth is preferred. There is the grand collection of epicureans, dilettantes, rapacious sexual appetites and predation on the shore side herds of willing.

Mr. Foley may have come with a predisposition for his sexual preferences. When they emerged in Palm Beach County, you can be sure that they were noted and tended by interested parties.

Back to alcohol. Drink is the salve that soothes the hurting and deprived ego. It is the great compensator for social division and isolation. Mr. Foley did not come by his preferences out of the blue. He was accessible and willing. It became a learned behavior. He in turn made inroads with the accessible and willing. The pages under his care came with all the potential that is to be found in the rest of the population. They are intelligent – they have a capacity – they are smart – they are able to develop their capacity. In addition they are accessible and some are willing. Mr. Foley needed only to cull the herd.

The rest of the defensive echo chamber is laying it off on previous administrations back to Constantine.

My educational background is one of research and writing regarding human intentions, actions and outcomes in the social, psychological and political arenas. My onboard skills are those of what I consider to be those of a successful hunter gatherer, that is a keen ability to observe and a deep capacity for details. The only ax that I have to grind here is that the relevant issues come to the fore and that the true nature of the circumstances prevail.

Lantern Bearer

Please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

You have no business to believe me.
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .
If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless.
G.I. Gurdjief

Comment by Lantern+Bearer — October 7, 2006 @ 11:15 am

Hug the Sting Ray

2006-09-05T00:25:00.000-04:00

Hug the Sting Ray.

I am greatly saddened by the death of Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin.

I am taking this opportunity to make sure that Hug the Sting Ray comes to mean the final act of any accomplished showboater.

Lantern Bearer coined the phrase Hug the Sting Ray on Monday, September 4, 2006 - right around midnight.

Flaming Lips on Leno.

Peace out, Steve Irwin.

Lantern Bearer
Zen Bonobo

Coffee

2006-04-25T23:29:00.000-04:00

When I was 13, I started working in a drug store on the corner - yes, Corner Drug.

I was the fountain attendant. Soda jerk to some. I opened three or four mornings week. On those mornings, I made six to eight pots of coffee in glass Corey Vacuum pots with stainless steel containers at the top that receive the boiling water and the funneled it back through a cloth filter into the glass pot at the bottom. I would then remove the stainless funnel top and pour eight cups already set out in front of the eight regulars and on many mornings four standers. By the time that that pot was emptied the second was ready. Then I started two more pots on the electric burners. I had four burner tops but with good technique I rarely had to use the other two except as warmers. I was a coffee making mofo. I started regular coffee drinking then at thirteen. I was good for two cups, maybe three before the first bell at school. I was one wired Jr. High student. I could conjugate Latin verbs and do pre algebra like a wild man. By noon I was finished. Lunch was either on campus or off. I would go shoot a game of pool, have a large coke and a burger and get a second wind. By three thirty, I was back at the Corner Drug making coffee, ice cream sodas, cokes from scratch and dipping ice-cream like a Wildman. Some time there were two of us on duty or I would call the porter in to give me a hand. It was a go go go job. It became my style. I had to multifunction before there was the term. I worked there five years. I made a lot of coffee. When I went into the Army, there was GI coffee. It was never great but it was coffee. The only time that it was great was when they brought it out to the rifle range. It rained every day and night that I was on the range in basic. The grind of shooting in the rain and staying many nights for night fire was grueling. When the coffee came out it was like having a new life. We could drink gallons and just as soon as we got back to the barracks we could fall into a dreamless sleep. Some nights we rode back in Deuces and some nights we ran with M-14s at second position port arms. It was five miles back. At the end of basic, I was one tough 140 pound bag of bones. Coffee got me through. It was the same for AIT. Escape and evasion week was not so pleasant or coffee driven. Tech school was back to mess hall coffee for meals and vending machines in the training building. There was endless coffee available in the field station messes and in the Ops buildings and remote sites. Today. It's two cups in the morning. One or two more if I am riding shotgun with my business partner in the equipment truck during the day. Other wise, I am a morning only coffee person now. The best coffee I have ever had in a restaurant is at any Emeril's. Second to that is any White Castle. Third, on the street in downtown Miami. Cuban, black and syrupy with raw sugar or con leche. (I am sure this last sentence is a fragment, but I am past fixing it.)

European and Middle Eastern coffee? Horse urine. Except for the Italians and the Morocans.

I prefer Chocked Fullo’Nuts Columbian in a Melita cone filter drip system. I occasionally get a bit of Blue Mountain or some Kenyan whole bean. Coffees with flavorings added? My aching culo. No thanks.

Are you aware that coffee roasters are no longer allowed to just vent that delightful smell out of their buildings. There are EPA standards that prohibit that. The steam and roast by product must be scrubbed. That was a Republican Grinch bow to EPA.

Lantern "Bring it On, Juan Valdez" Bearer

Bovine Ecreation

2006-04-10T19:19:00.000-04:00

The Real Power of Bullshit

http://www.vagabondpages.com/

In 1044, a Chinese alchemist was working on the Universal Panaceum.
It was supposed to be panaceum of Panaceums.
The medication for absolutely everything.
And indeed it was.
The inventor was blown to 1000 pieces.
He did not even have time to feel the pain.
And so Gunpowder was born.
The Chinese military really did not take full advantage of the invention.
They focused their energy not so much on guns as on bombs.
The Chinese being the Chinese gave them all kinds of fantastic names:
"The fire of skies ", " The bombs from Gods", " Heavenly hand "
etc.etc.
The gun technology did not really take off until around the year 1287 in Europe.
Europeans immediately recognized what kind of treasure they had on their hands.
Historians just recently found the answer to why the Europeans and not the Chinese won the arms race.
The most effective gun powder is made from saltpeter mixed with charcoal and sulfur.
And the most common source for saltpeter was animal dung.
And the best and strongest was the dung of bulls.
So dung became the most critical ingredient for gunpowder.
Europeans were much more advanced in breeding and farming bulls and cows than the Chinese.
Their gunpowder was much, much stronger.
This paved the way for much more powerful and effective weapons.
Of course every monarch and prince wanted to have cannons.
Cannons were very expensive.
Cash shortage!!
At the same time silver was discovered in the mountains of Bohemia.
Millions of coins minted there were called "thalers "
which very shortly became known as dollars.
The new thalers - dollars helped the industry to grow.
Bullshit was in great demand
And under many different meanings it became the power in the world it is still today
Even the Almighty Dollar -- indirectly comes from bullshit.
So, I think we can safely say that Bullshit is the biggest power in the World, especially if we apply a little more sophisticated version of this magnificent expression to our political establishment.
Thank you,

M.Kaniewski
mkaniewski@aol.com

Lanten Bearer

Sensenbrenner anti-immigrant bill HR 4437

2006-04-03T22:52:00.000-04:00

"Under Sensenbrenner anti-immigrant bill HR 4437... eight million to twelve million people would be subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment.
Link Spitting Image

All undocumented immigrants, all immigrants with visa violations, 1.5 million of their children, their families, their lawyers, their doctors, and the good Samaritans who aid them will become guilty of an aggravated felony. So if you give your co-worker a ride home, or you provide medical aid in your capacity as a health care worker, or you buy dinner for a friend who can't prove their citizenship, or you put a bottle of water in the desert to keep someone from dehydrating, you're a felon facing prison. Not to mention the person you assisted. Everyone arrested would be incarcerated. And, just for good measure, legal residents would waive their right to a hearing if their visa is in violation.

Local police forces will receive "inherent authority" and funding to turn over immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If local law enforcement has responsibility for immigration violations, every darker-skinned person--Meso-American, Southwest Asian, Middle Eastern, African--will become suspect just for walking past a cop. Whole communities will fade into an underground culture and economy."

more from the article "The Conscience of a Nazi and What Immigration Reform Means" Link

~Immigration reform is THE issue for this year's Congressional elections? (and for years to come?) The Republicans can keep their majority in the House by pushing the creation of 12 million new felons? Over-riding their party's corruption scandals, their lies about WMDs, the deaths in Iraq, the Bushies mismanagement of hurricane relief, gas prices and a stagnant economy?
(I think they can. I think they have the will and the discipline to serve it up in a big stinking-steaming bowl. And I believe the majority of Americans will get in line to gratefully gobble every last bit of it up. "Please sir, can I have some more sir?")

Who will cast the first stone? Who will loose the dogs? Who will pick the last tomato? Who will change the sheets on your feces stained hospital bed? Think about it!

Lantern Bearer

A loving family can boost children's intelligence

2006-03-19T17:20:00.000-05:00

A loving family can boost children's intelligence

· Five-year study measures impact of environment
· Deprived upbringing is linked to stunted growth

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1712586,00.html

Ian Sample in St Louis
Saturday February 18, 2006
The Guardian

Depriving children of a loving family environment causes lasting damage to their intelligence, emotional wellbeing and even their physical stature, according to the most extensive study of social deprivation yet.

A lack of care and attention left children with stunted growth, substantially lower IQs and more behavioural and psychological problems than children who had been better cared for, according to the report at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in St Louis yesterday.

The extent to which children are sensitive to the environment they grow up in emerged from an unprecedented study, the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. It is the first randomised clinical trial set up to investigate the effects of social deprivation on the emotional, psychological and physical health of children.

The study has been running for five years and records the wellbeing of children in a Romanian orphanage from an early age, and the changes they experience when transferred to foster care. The orphanage represents an extreme of social deprivation because the children are typically looked after by a rota of carers who will be responsible for 12 to 15 children at any one time.

Researchers found children living in deprived conditions suffered stunted growth, falling within the shortest 10% for their age. But on moving to a foster home, they went through astounding growth spurts.

"They can grow five times faster than normal and by the time they've been in foster care for a year and a half they will nearly have caught up," said Dana Johnson, professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, who estimates children in orphanages lose one month of growth for every three they spend there. Even though the children go through extraordinary growth spurts, they tend to go through puberty younger and faster, and so miss out on the usual long spell of growth most children experience.

The researchers say the children's recovery is unlikely to be explained by better nutrition as they had adequate meals before. Instead, they believe the effect is down to the more attentive environment.

The study found that a child's environment had a marked effect on intelligence and emotional development. It measured IQ and ability to express positive emotions in 136 children aged six to 30 months. All had spent time in the orphanage, but 69 had been moved into foster homes.

The studies showed that children in the most deprived conditions had exceptionally low IQs, but once they were removed to foster homes, improved when tested again at 42 and 54 months. Similarly, the children's ability to express positive emotions also improved markedly when they were moved into a family environment.

The report shows that emotional and cognitive impairments caused by a poor social environment can be substantially improved if living conditions are improved early enough, according to Professor Nathan Fox of the University of Maryland.

Not all of the psychological problems caused by a difficult upbringing were fixed by later improving conditions. Psychiatric problems were three and a half times more common among institutionalised children, but moving them to stable family environments did not always improve their mental condition. While the study showed children in foster homes had fewer psychiatric problems, with less anxiety and depression than those in orphanages, their behavioural problems, including being aggressive and confrontational, did not subside. The children's response was different depending on gender, with girls more likely to have emotional problems and boys more prone to behavioural disorders.

Charles Nelson, a paediatrics specialist at Harvard University, used measurements of brain activity to assess whether a lack of social interaction and attention might harm children's neural development. Using EEG (electroencephaolograms), Dr Nelson looked at the strength of brain activity relative to children who had never been institutionalised. The measurements showed children in the orphanage had less powerful activity in all parts of their brains. In this case, placing the children into foster homes failed to bring about significant improvement.

In a further brain study, Dr Nelson's team used a test called ERP, event-related potential, which measures the brain's response to certain stimuli, such as being shown happy, sad, angry or fearful faces.

"What we are seeing is that with the institutionalised children their brain's response to the faces was weaker and they took longer to respond," he said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mind-opening lectures on the physiology of stress

2006-03-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Mind-opening lectures on the physiology of stress

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/18/mindopening_lectures.html

Stanford's Dr. Robert Sapolsky is a specialist in the physiology of stress, and two of his sterling lectures are available gratis through the iTunes music-store. When I quit my day-job on Jan 1, I finally got around to going to the doctor about all the little ailments that had plagued me for the years leading up, little patches of skin conditions, aches, pains and botheration, and as each was diagnosed and treated, I looked them up online and saw that they were all symptomatic of excessive stress.

Sapolsky's engaging, fascinating lectures trace all the ways that stress creates heretofore unseen ailments in a population that has largely cured all the fast-killing diseases and can now afford to contract slow and lingering ones. From psychogenic dwarfism -- children who stop growing and never go through puberty due to extreme abuse-stress, something that Peter Pan author JM Barrie suffered from -- to the effects of stress on the heart, brain, blood, and long term overall health, Sapolsky's research is mind-blowing to those of us who wear our stress and overwork like badges of honor.

What's more fascinating is Sapolsky's citations to empirical research on the factors that mitigate harm from stress, which are surprisingly simple and intuitive. All told, listening to these two lectures was the best audio experience I've had in months:

Saplosky related a story about a boy from a very psychologically-abusive setting who was hospitalized in a New York hospital with zero growth hormone in his bloodstream. Over the next two months he developed a close relationship with the nurse at the hospital–undoubtedly the first normal relationship he had ever had–and soon, amazingly enough, the growth hormone levels zoomed back to normal. The nurse then went on vacation and the levels dropped again, rising once more immediately after her return.
"Think about it," Sapolsky said, commenting upon the story. "The rate at which this child was depositing calcium in his bones could be explained entirely by how safe and loved he was feeling in the world." He added that while this standard textbook version of stressed dwarfism is rare, there is nevertheless "major league psychopathology" throughout society, retarding human growth.
"Major stress is the police and social workers breaking down the door of the apartment, finding the kids who have been locked in the closet for two months, the food slipped under the door. Total nightmare situations that turn out often in history. . . kids in war zones, kids in areas of civil strife."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those of you who have stayed with me here at Sinopian View and Ameri's life will find that some of what is posted here is reflected in Ameri's history. The piece that I quote above is from one of my favorite Daily Reads, Boing Boing .

No one human is of whole cloth at birth or even at conception. The quality of the care given before and immediately after birth is the continuation of the looming that is necessary to make a whole human and a human whole. That looming, which is the totality of all the care and relationships from conception to old age, contiues right up to the moment of the last breath.

The evidence of failure on the part of humankind to care for its own is evidenced by the news photographs of the starving in Africa, the bulging at the seams prision systems, and the sleeping lumps in the door ways of the great metropolitan cities of the world.

More.

The Trouble With Creationism

2006-03-06T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Trouble With Creationism

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/02/22_trouble.html

Subject: The Trouble With Creationism

February 22, 2005

By G.M. Edwards

The anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin has come and gone for another year.

This man who did so much to free us from ignorance was born, happily enough, on the same day as Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809).

So now is a good time to point out just why Creationism is a bad idea, even under its new guise of Intelligent Design.

First, there is nothing very exotic or difficult about Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

The simple fact is that no individual generated sexually is exactly like either parent.

There are always differences.

Some of these will hurt the individual's chances of survival; some will help the individual's chances of survival; most will have no effect one way or the other.

Darwin's book is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, so he was not discussing the origin of life, as many believe.

For him, life was a given, and his concern was to describe the way in which species develop.

All Darwin's theory comes down to is that those differences that help the individual survive will tend to spread throughout the population, if for no other reason than those with a particular characteristic that helps them survive are likely to live longer and have more offspring.

If you add up many of these differences over time, what will emerge eventually is a species different from the one that existed when all these variations started to accumulate.

By now you've probably heard about the stickers on biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia, that read:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Of course, everything should be approached with an open mind, studied, and considered, and it is true that evolution is "just a theory."

But we need to be clear about just what a theory is.

It is not a hypothesis, which is a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.

(Thank you, Mr. Webster.)

A theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

(Thanks again.)

You can think of is as an explanation that has been rigorously tested for a long time and has overcome a great many attempts to prove it wrong.

There are problems with Darwin's theory, and biologists argue about these, trying to resolve them even as you are reading this.

The theory of evolution by means of natural selection nonetheless remains the best explanation we have for all the biological evidence we have so far accumulated.

Creationism may or may not be true, though the evidence is greatly against it, but in neither case is it scientific.

Biology is a discipline.

It has certain rules and procedures that biologists must follow, and Creationism, or Intelligent Design, or whatever it will be called in the future, does not follow them.

Scientific research begins with a collection of data and tries to find out what these tell us about the physical world.

Creationism starts with the conclusion that God specially created the world and tries to find data to support it.

You can do this all you want, but you can't call it science, and we all have an obligation as thinking beings and as citizens of the United States to keep such beliefs out of science classes.

Another important aspect of science in which it differs from Creationism is that Creationism is not falsifiable.

Simply put, this means that its claims cannot be disproven.

One of the bedrock principles of any scientific activity is that ideas are accepted as proven true if they cannot be proven false.

After all, anyone can prove anything if they put their minds to it for even a short while, but the trick is to come up with an explanation that cannot be demolished by a counter-argument.

If an idea isn't open to the possibility of being disproven, it therefore can't be proven and lies outside the bounds of that collection of procedures and rules we call science.

Here's a quick example.

Suppose I were to say that Jesus was not the Son of God, but rather the son of the Norse god of mischief, Loki, who sent him to earth to turn people away from the worship of the true god, Odin.

Can you think of any evidence that could prove this statement wrong?

I'm not asking that you produce the evidence, but just consider this:

If the evidence fairy wafted down and gave you whatever evidence you wished for, what would it be?

If you think about it you'll see that it is not possible to prove my statement wrong, therefore it is not possible to prove it right, and it is off limits in any discussion based on the principles of science.

Some people, like me, object to Intelligent Design on religious principles.

Those who espouse Creationism or some such idea claim that the rest of us should respect their belief in the inerrancy of scripture.

I'm perfectly willing to do this, but only if they in turn are willing to respect my belief that using the Bible as a science textbook is blasphemy.

Obviously, neither they nor I could prove either contention, so there is nowhere for this discussion to go.

Eventually, each side would end up shouting at the other and blasting away with fusillades of scriptural citations.

Belief in a special creation lasting six days is a religious belief, and it should not be a specially privileged interpretation of the Bible that is protected by law and enforced by the state.

Furthermore, as a religious person I think it is a mistake to try to define God in terms of our ignorance.

Proponents of Intelligent Design are effectively saying that since we can't explain the existence of something, like an eyeball, through evolutionary theory, it must be the work of God.

People thought that lightning bolts were evidence of divine displeasure until Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries knocked the props out from under that explanation.

If you lean on human ignorance to support your ideas, you are leaning on a very weak reed, and your faith depends to some extent on what research scientists are doing.

And I think that's a religious mistake.

I suspect that proponents of Intelligent Design are trying to find some sort of support for their faith in what they consider science.

And though I wish them well in their search, I strongly caution them against going down that path.

What should we do?

First, we must maintain and even increase the defense of our increasingly beleaguered Constitution and its separation of church and state.

(Check out Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, at www.au.org, which has been doing great work in this area for a long time. This is especially important now that the decision of the federal judge to remove the stickers on those biology textbooks is under appeal.)

Second, never concede the moral high ground to people who want the state to enforce their brand of religion.

All of history and most of religion argues that combining the power of the pulpit and the power of the state will lead only to disaster.

Despite the erroneous claims that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, the people who put this country together knew what they were doing when they decided not to permit the joining of these two powers.

Third, never concede the religious grounds for our opposition to Creationism in any of its forms.

Many of us object to these ideas because they conflict with our own religious ideas, and since the issue can never be resolved through argument in the public square, those who claim the mantle of religion as a cloak for their designs, even intelligent ones, should stop trying to bully the rest of us into allowing the state to foster their particular beliefs.

Both reason and Revelation are with us on this, and we must never let this fact slip from its prominent place in our ongoing debate with people who want to mind other people's religious business.

-----------

"The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start examining evolution, and then forcing nature into their straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science--or of any honest intellectual inquiry." --- Stephen Jay Gould

Lantern Bearer adds:

And yet, there is some common connection in every human being that transcends the material world and universe (s). It supersedes all that was, is, and will be. It is not supernatural. It is just not yet known.

I will argue for reverence and ceremony to be a deeply comforting activity among human beings. It is when stringent doctrine and creeds of demarcation boil up outside the bounds of toleration that troubles come. It is the psychosis of certitude. "It is true because I believe it and so must you."

The Constitution is only a piece of paper containing a set of methods for achieving a diverse national coexistence. It is the distilled thoughts and aspirations of generations going back to the time of primitive creatures dividing a kill among themselves. It began when the first emotional tear was shed by a thing that would become us. We live on a very small part of an infinite canvas.

Pollution Risks

2006-02-26T19:32:00.000-05:00

Common pollutant might raise suicide risk, researchers say
Possible link to child neglect, abuse also hinted
March 30, 2005Special to World Science
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/051111_h2sfrm.htm
A common chemical pollutant with a familiar rotten-egg smell may raise suicide risk, two studies have tentatively found.The researchers also said there are hints that the substance, and related pollutants, might increase child neglect and abuse rates in exposed neighborhoods.If borne out, the findings would be the first evidence that pollutants in the environment raise suicide risk.But “It’s still speculation—a lot more work need to be done,” said Richard H. Weisler, a psychiatrist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and volunteer with an environmental group, who led the studies.He added that it remains unclear whether the chemical, hydrogen sulfide, is itself the culprit. Other substances that polluted the same areas at the same time periods covered in his studies may have caused the increased suicide rates, he said.
On the other hand, he added, hydrogen sulfide is known to chemically affect the brain in animal studies.In the latest study, Weisler and colleagues linked higher suicide rates to hydrogen sulfide and other airborne chemicals from a paper mill and possibly other industrial sites in Haywood County, N.C.The mill’s owners said the allegations had no scientific basis.The findings were presented Nov. 7 at the annual U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in Las Vegas.Weisler’s previous study proposed a possible link between an increased suicide rate in Salisbury, N.C. and hydrogen sulfide and other chemicals from nearby asphalt plants and oil remediation sites. The new study found Haywood County’s suicide rate nearly doubled to about 21.1 per 100,000 residents for 1997-2002, when taking the residents’ age into account. Haywood ranked 46th out of North Carolina’s 100 counties for average age-adjusted suicide rate for 1979-1996, but the county was ranked third for 1999-2002, the authors added. “There have been increases in suicides during this time period when there were also operational changes at the paper mill” that boosted hydrogen sulfide emissions, said Weisler, who also volunteers with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. Hydrogen sulfide alters levels of several brain chemicals in animals, Weisler added. People exposed to it in their workplaces have been found to exhibit increased rates of nervousness, mania, dementia and violence, he added.But he added that hydrogen sulfide may merely serve as a “marker” for other possibly toxic compounds released in the mountain valley area that his study covered. Other chemical releases the mill reported include carbon disulfide, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl sulfide and methyl mercaptan, he said.Weisler said the county also saw a jump in child neglect and abuse cases around the same time as the rise in suicides, and he plans to study whether this is also linked to pollutants. It might also have been a result of greater vigilance by child-protection authorities, he noted.Hydrogen sulfide is a common emission from a wide range of industries, Weisler said, including fertilizer plants, coke ovens, farms, fisheries, iron smelters, mines, natural gas plants, oil drilling, pesticide plants, rayon plants, oil refineries, asphalt, rubber and tanneries. Volcanoes also release hydrogen sulfide.Bob Williams, director of regulatory affairs for Blue Ridge Paper Products—the company that owns Canton Mill, the plant fingered in Weisler’s study—called the study “fishy.”He said Weisler, “in his own comments, stated there was no direct correlation” between pollution and suicides. Despite that lack of evidence, “he proceeded to draw conclusions not based on any data… That calls into question in my mind the motivations of those associated with the study.”Williams added that Weisler has disregarded the company’s viewpoint. “He’s never asked for a tour, and we do these things on a regular basis… If there was an interest in getting to the bottom of the allegations, he would at least engage us in that kind of communication.” The mill actually slashed hydrogen sulfide emissions by 95 percent in the mid-1990s, Williams said.Study co-author Jonathan R.T. Davidson, a psychiatrist at Duke University Medical Center, said the key point people should remember is that suicidal depression is treatable. People with “persistent symptoms of depression should contact their health-care provider,” he said.

How are humans connected?

2006-02-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

This is the first post of my original idea of how I would use this site.

I have been going over the EGG Project for several months now. I am a student of total human connectedness in a spiritual and genetic ways, but had not thought much about how that could be represented graphically. I am intrigued by natural patterns and especially gyres (usually rendered in artificial colored views of the gulf stream) and by the seemingly widely separated random, yet clumped in time, emergences of art forms, technological advances, religious expression, and other human events that are of a parallel but widely separated and of a seemingly serendipitous origin.

This site covers some of that. The most intriguing is a five minute scatter graphic (click on small graphic) that automatically updates right to left and represents the effect of human activity and interaction as reflected in following various specifically chosen data sources. The telling image patterns are those that are affected by events of magnitude (i.e.; natural disasters, lead up to and commencement of war, shared emotion at the death of a notable or media favorite.)

The site is not to be read lightly. It takes some time for the micro impact of "a-ha" insights to settle in. This site and its concepts need to be grazed and followed with a period of rumination. Browsing only results in - "SO?"

For many here it can not compete with Blueballs, but for others the site will become intoxicating as it has for me.

All typos, errors and omissions are intentional. But feel free to point them out.

Lantern Bearer

*Remember your prime directive -
please be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

New Location for Ameri's Story

2006-02-03T11:41:00.000-05:00

My posts in Sinopian View have become too Ameri oriented. I am moving her story to her own page.

You will find it at http://amerislife.blogspot.com/

Sinopian View will recomense with entries about Politics, Economics, Practical Religion and anything I find interesting or humorous. I may even follow the crowd and do some x-day cat blogging - with pictures!

Still in the game . . .

2006-01-30T11:28:00.000-05:00

Ameri works late, comes home and thrashes around like she is the only one here. We have moved all A/V equipment into her area. That takes the edge off so that we have some sleep. She still cooks loud.

The cat she brought home from the road is another appendage for me. Cats and dogs bond with the one who feeds them. That would be me. I like the new cat. The other cats are bringing her into the pride. The new cat is Kittyblue. Sam is the Siamese. They crash about the place at night and in pepetual chase. The sisters and litter mates Gertrude and Alice tolerate Kittyblue. Kittyblue has strange vocalizations. She is a street cat made good.

I had outside projects today. It is raining. I am cleaning out my office and computer space.

And Now, Something from . . .

2006-01-23T13:46:00.000-05:00

the Blogmos. (It just came to me, but there are 399 Google refs already. Really !)

But here it is from Mental Soup.

Now for something completely different.

What I have really missed in the past few years is being on a morning drive to a job site and listening to Red Barber and Bob Edwards on NPR talking about the Azaleas blooming in Tallahassee. But then, I also tear up over a concert cut of Mr. Saturday Night Special.

I wish to assure you that Spring is in the air where I sit. The last cold front was weak. This one may be more problematic. The leaves and catkins are now falling from the live oaks, the azaleas buds are plumping up, and the flame vine is budding in the trees. Spring moves north about 100 miles per week.

Oh. Ameri. Every day is a battle of wills. We want her to finish her English composition course so that she can get a private school diploma, but that seems to be too much of a challenge. Structure and precision in language is a challenge for those who are dyslexic. Dyslexia is the inability to encode and decode written language. If you couple that with oppositional defiant disorder, the slope is too steep and the rock too heavy. We may have to just get her in a tech-ed class and forget the reading and writing. She seems to be no worse off than many of the fresh college grads I have to deal with. She has a job and she is beginning to pick up her share of the expenses but everyday is still a battle of wits.

And so to end, try this.

What is My Perfect Major?

2006-01-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

You scored as Anthropology. You should be an Anthropology major!

Biology

83%

Chemistry

83%

Anthropology

83%

Psychology

83%

English

75%

Philosophy

75%

Mathematics

75%

Journalism

75%

Sociology

75%

Theater

75%

Engineering

75%

Dance

67%

Art

67%

Linguistics

58%

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.

Ameri is Home

2005-12-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

This will take some catching up, but Ameri is home. There are still a lot of behavior and management challenges to work out but she is sleeping in her own bed.

She brought a new cat with her. We now have four in residence.

The catching up will have to come later. Mom and I are off to a bit of dining out and a movie for our anniversary.

Ameri Called

2005-11-21T17:52:00.000-05:00

She is on the move again within her new "family". She is surrounded with a lot of people who are good hearted no matter their circumsatances. It is very cold where Ameri is. She is slowly retrieving her posessions and getting some warmer clothes from the Salvation Army. Prior to this, a Salvation Army Thrift store was not on her agenda. When my older daughter, Margae, visits we like to go thrifting. Ameri would have none of it. We have offered to send her warm coat, gloves and scarves but she figures it is just a trick to pin her down to a location. "No, thanks. I'll get by." she says.

On the phone with Mom there was talk of visiting nearby for Thanksgiving. No, not going to do that. Mom asked about coming home before Christmas and getting ready to knock out the last high school class that is needed for graduation. Maybe. Everything is still up in the air.

Headaches, broken sleep and sneezing fits have signaled me that a viral bug is taking its best shot at me. I can shake off and avoid the worst that can bring but I am still affected enough to have my edge turned and my wits dulled a bit.

We got a blast of cold today. It was the same cold that was dusting Ameri with snow three days ago. I don't do well with cold and snow any more. My last sortie into that kind mess was two years ago. I'll not go willingly again.

Ameri Now at 48 Hours Agin

2005-11-19T12:27:00.000-05:00

This is either going to be ultimately good for Ameri to experience all the discomfort and deprivation that she is contending with, or it is going to wear down her physical and mental defenses to the point of no return. Mom, says I am too gloomy about this. It is causing me anguish. I have now had two nights of broken sleep. I take medication just for that. It is being overpowered by the anxiety. I was awake from around two a.m. until first light this morning. I had a headache. I rarely have headaches. Just after first light, I feel off to sleep and had an anxiety dream of being lost on a college campus and in the city streets around the campus. I was walking, then I was driving. I was pulled over by a young arrogant police officer. My anxiety increased because he was charging me with things that I knew that I had not done. When the supervising officer arrived to review things he found some technicality that allowed me to leave without getting citations. Ameri was always delighted when Mom or I would get pulled over by the police. I don't know what she found so amusing but it was always fun for her.

Ameri always seeks out some law enforcement officer when the chips are really down. She is doing it less where she is now because she has strained her welcome. Ameri sees herself as a child of shame. Her birth mother she imagines is either dead or in dire straits. She has no father of record for her first birth certificate. She has seen that birth certificate. She does not respond to shaming language or anything about how grateful she should be. Her life is too full of shame and too many parts are missing. Mom has the ability to talk to her and be a reflective listener. She would have periods of break through. I am best at doing all the no-verbal things. I made sure she had what foods she would eat were prepared and in the refrigerator, ready for the microwave. When she would storm out the door in one of her naughty girl outfits and take off walking, I would follow and shadow her just close enough to keep her in sight. She knew that I was there. If I didn't start out soon enough, she would loiter on her way so that I could catch up. She knew the dangers of the street. She had had enough experience with the leering, wolf whistles and direct request for a little fun some place. She was both appalled and thrilled by that. We would talk about it. Ameri is a very perceptive human being. She is very intelligent. She has almost total recall for details and circumstances. Her interpretation is not always on target but she knows the details. She claims to have memories of her life before her third birthday party. Her descriptions of those memories are too full of detail and timeliness to be fabrications.

The vagaries of mental illness do not always result in taking to the streets for solace. It is in the street, however, where the mentally ill find others like themselves. The only differences are degree, magnitude, and the choice of self medication.

Ameri gets fired, but I have cats

2005-11-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

I felt a bit of relief yesterday when I learned that Ameri was working at McDonalds. She worked two days. Today she started some verbal dust-up with a co-worker and both were canned.

Ameri called Mom to tell her the news. She is in her rapid cycling phase now. She is here for a moment and then in a detached angry state. She has lost her shelter spot in the family home where she has been staying. Out of town family are going to be staying over. This should be cause for another crisis episode. It may be that she breaks down and allows us to get her home or she will do something to get back into a hospital. The holidays, starting with Halloween, are usually troublesome. That trouble continues to around Easter. It has always been so. Ameri's birthday is in February but she is not an Aquarian as I am. It is, as if, she is reliving her birth trauma.

I spoke with my older daughter this evening. I still have to create a cover name for her. She is following my posting. When she graduated from college, she left her two cats with me while she traveled for a couple of years. I have grown very fond of those cats. They are sisters, litter mates. They are both around fifteen pounds. They are just great long cats. They are Charlotte and Emily. Charlotte is diabetic and so I must give her daily injections of insulin. Charlotte is very close to me at all times. Usually under my bare feet at the computer. Charlotte competes with the dogs. She is very aggressive at getting to any food bit that hits the floor. Emily is distant and has special times when she seeks out attention. Emily was Ameri's cat. Every night when Ameri was getting ready for bed she would search out Emily from her hiding places. She would take Emily into her bed room, close the door and snuggle with her until she fell asleep. I would always check and let Emily out when Ameri was asleep. There would be some nights when Emily would just come into Ameri's room and get up on the bed. My older daughter likes having a little sister. We have a summer tradition of getting together for a bit of resorting. Even though Ameri has done much to strain that relationship, my older daughter still holds out that Ameri will come around. We were just all together in July.

I have it! We shall call older daughter, Margae. It is just close enough and it has overtones of both her Gaelic and Teutonic ancestry.

If we, my reading public, spend enough time here together, you will get to read the story of "Waiting for Margae."

I am posting on a Politics and Current Events site. I have insinuated my MAD (Brit. sense.) bad self into the posting stream in a very cheeky way. I like cheek. Cheek always has a bit of a smile behind it. Arrogance, on the other hand, is one of my least favorite attitudes.

Ameri always had attitude. Sometimes it was abidable, sometimes not. She has a pattern that seems to be a contant outpicturing of all the hurt and deprivation she experienced in the first three months of her life. She plays it out now in the cold and snow.

Ameri has called . . .

2005-11-16T18:48:00.000-05:00

Ameri called me from a payphone. I asked if it was cold. She said it was snowing. She had just finished her shift at McDonalds. Hooray! This is her first payroll job with taxes and FICA. It's a landmark. Her other employment has been as a stable hand and trail guide for an equestrian venue. She made great wads of money, but it just evaporated into tack, ~~ferrier~~ (too many choices of spelling) horseshoeing bills, vet bills and entry fees. This may just work out for her but to me it seems to me like blindfold cliff diving after consulting an out-of-date tidal chart.

So it is cold there. Ameri grew up in a southern peninsular state. I have lived in that southern peninsular state for half my life. I do not travel in winter to places where bridges have signs that say, "Bridge Freezes Before Roadway". I will take hurricanes and humidity. I'll have no more truck with snow and ice.

I suppose that I should get back to with Ameri's history. I am soft pedaling on the details and I am being creatively obtuse to protect the "perpetrators". Ameri did not have a pleasant life until she was abandoned by her first adoptive family. It may seem strange to say, but as she remembers, she was both horrified and relieved to have been given away by them. Perhaps, I will pick up the story in the next post.

The silence continues . . .

2005-11-16T17:15:00.000-05:00

The silence continues . . .

Ameri has not called for some fifty odd hours now. This evening I will work the cellular contacts that I have. This silence may be prelude to either a partial solution or a further slide into the abyss.

I have tried to get some sales work going but my mind is not in it. I had a visit with a friend today who is having challenges with his youngest. His youngest is forty two. He is quite talented, quite handsome and will soon face either a harsh term of community control or confinement in prison. My friend has four other children. They are all quite unique and radically talented, functional and independent human beings. We have been neighbors and friends for twenty one years.

When Ameri was quite young, she would run away from home. She was cautious and predictable, however. She could always be found at my friend's house having cookies or some other treat with my friend's wife. I would like to think that tonight that she is safe in someone’s house that she can trust and not be afraid to fall asleep.

Ameri is silent again

2005-11-14T19:53:00.000-05:00

"Everyone is born, but not everyone is born the same. Some will grow to be butchers, or bakers, or candlestick makers. Some will only be really good at making Jell-O salad. One way or another, though, every human being is unique, for better or for worse."

Opening lines of narration from

Mattilda - 1996

Ameri is thoroughly a child of the microwave, the George Forman grill and Orville Redenbacher’s "Pop-in-Bag". Boiling a pot or rice to achieve loose individual grains is not in her repertoire. For someone to learn to cook one must observe the workings of a capable cook. One must read from a recipe and follow hints and suggestions from an accomplished cook. Yesterday I gave you a list of my talents. I wish to add to them. I cook. I watched my mother. I can butcher but not slaughter. I watched my dad. I can prepare and bake a pie shell. I watched my mother. I can flush, lead and bring down a quail with a small gauge shotgun. I watched my dad. I can tear down to loose bearings and spokes and rebuild a bicycle. I watched Louis the bike guy. Ameri has a natural talent for mechanical things and some cookery skills but she is incapable of taking instruction or following a lead. It is too full of anxiety for her. She had to learn to do for herself early and under threats and pressure so she is hardly receptive to team effort. Even individual mastery of tasks is difficult because she is unable to observe patterns or intuitively follow obvious sequencing. She resists directions, helpful hints or any such typical ways of gaining mastery. Her current drama is being played out in just such a manner. It is not that she feels that she knows everything but rather that anything that anyone tells her is useless. Unless it as a brazen untruth, or an out and out fraud, she refuses to believe it. It is a very strange world that she carries around in her head. She is relatively fearless in approaching strangers. She has panhandled her way around the town she is in. She is unafraid to drop by the police station and ask for a ride somewhere. She is nervy, persistent and unyielding. She is a natural sales geek. If she survives the winter in the Midwest , can rise above the mire of faulty thinking she is in, and she can find a spot. She can sell.

It has been thirty six hours since I last heard from her. Forty eight to seventy two hours is about the limit. She will call tomorrow.

Ameri Has not Called Tonight

2005-11-13T22:40:00.000-05:00

Ameri has not called. The law enforcement dispatcher that has had contact with her called to check up. They have not seen her to day. They obviously have had not street calls or contact with patrol officers either.

Mom wants to know what we should do if she calls. I have to bow out on tactical decisions. While I am usually at my best in small unit tactics, in this case I don't seem to be able to get the logistics and the movement of personnel just right. Give me an emergency situation with lots of movement, lots of bases to cover, people wanting help, then I am your guy. With Ameri, try as I might there is no way to meet her either head on or by attempting to flank her. She has the wits of a Jedi when she is confronted. I find that being the tough love heavy with Ameri is useless. Mom has the artistry needed to close a deal with Ameri. I am only a goof who says the wrong thing at the wrong time and I miss the close. I know the names of stars and constellations. I can identify most commercial aircraft down to production model. I can identify 99% of all classic rock and roll songs in the first bar. I read and write in ancient Greek. I can not get a handle on Ameri.

Further components of Borderline Personality Disorder

2005-11-13T16:53:00.000-05:00

To expand on Ameri's condition that we will now call BPD, we find other references to a like condition that is called Dysphoria.

Dr. Leland Heller calls this condition Broken Happiness or Biological Unhappiness.

A serious component of Ameri's condition is that of Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

All of which may arise out of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For me, this all adds up to this -

Human's are delicate creatures. Even though our species has been in existence for millions of years, we have either failed to work out all the design kinks or our design is growing ever more faulty. For sure our systems for coping with these conditions are growing ever more faulty. The prisons are full. The mental hospital hospitals are full and the Pharmacological Giants are growing ever richer from their patent medicines.

Ameri has come unseated from her horse on several occasions. She has had trips to the emergency room on a backboard with a neck collar on. Once she was unconscious briefly and had a saline line in her arm for the ambulance trip. None of this has caused me as much anxiety as having her on the street in a cold climate with no real intention of getting help until something dread happens.

Ameri's condition Further Defined

2005-11-13T16:03:00.000-05:00

This is an accademic description of Ameri's condition.

Ameri is, today, in the antenuated, or weakened, cycle of this condition. She may seek to get a tattoo or a body piercing. She may thwart attempts to provide shelter or travel home by finding a puppy with which she will not part. In the opposite phase of this cycle, which emerges under stress, are to be found the extreme acts of self inflicted wounds even unto death.

Abstract: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a diagnostic category that has been used with increasing frequency in the United States over the last decade. The attention given to the disorder, the adherence to the construct in the face of significant problems with reliability, the emotional salience with which the term is used, and the culturally specific assumptions upon which it rests, point to cultural aspects of this clinical disorder. This study begins to examine the disorder from an anthropological perspective by exploring by means of a life history method the experience of ten patients diagnosed with BPD. The techniques of grounded theory were used to identify common themes and issues in the narratives that resulted. While the clinical description of this disorder emphasizes an instability of identity, the study participants conveyed a coherent and stable identity. Also, contrary to reports of emotional instability, they had a stable dysphoria and their behavior was less impulsive than it might appear to others. Recurrent references were made to feelings of estrangement, the importance of social validation, and the wish for asylum. They had an ever-present wish to be dead, since death offered asylum, but they distinguished this from active suicidality. The depth of their despair and the constancy of their thoughts of self-harm were kept hidden from their clinicians to avoid involuntary hspitalization. Other conflicts in the therapeutic relationship were also identified. The experience described by the study participants is more congruent with other descriptions of despair than with the clinical description of BPD. Similarly, the grouping of behaviors recognized as BPD can also be found outside of the clinical domain - as a pejorative description of those economically marginal. It is suggested that the professional description reflects tensions felt by most within U.S. culture, but experienced more acutely by those who are marginal, and reflects a strong reaction that emerges from a fear of succumbing to these tensions. Like most culturally specific disorders, or disorders reflecting the distress of those who feel powerless, there are elements of rebellion in BPD and the response to it may be to render the actors powerless by declaring them mentally troubled. With BPD, as with other culturally specific disorders, the cultural expectations are not directly challenged, only the individual failure in meeting them.

Miller, Sharon Glick, April 1993 - BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

The author is now a PHd in a clinical practice.

Tonight Ameri has a Puppy

2005-11-12T23:36:00.000-05:00

I got a call from the police dispatcher with whom I had spoken earlier in the week. Ameri came in holding a puppy and said she wanted to go home.

I spoke with her briefly and as usual my words sparked a rage. I tranfered her over to Mom and let them work things out. They worked out a place to stay for the night. Ameri wants to come home by way of Amtrack. A puppy and Amtrack. I am just about at the end of my teather. I can feel nothing but frosty air beneath my feet. In my religious tradition it is said that if one comes to the edge of all that one can walk on and there is a bottomless pit below - if then one steps out over the abyss then one will either fall into the unknown or sprout wings and fly.

Ameri Calls from Someone's Home

2005-11-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

Last evening we had one call from Ameri. It was from a payphone that she had used to make arrangements to get a twenty from Mom. We missed the call. When we called back someone picked up but said they had not seen a small woman with golden hair. Our hearts sank.

Today we got another call from a cellular phone. The number and name popped up on the caller ID. I called back and Ameri came on right away. The police had picked her up and had brought her to an apartment house. Ameri's mom was at her office so I rang off and called Mom and gave her the number. Mom called and I heard later that it was a very animated and blustery call from Ameri's end. Ameri said that she was drunk. She said that earlier in the day she had to go to the hospital because she had thrown up blood. I got that information not from Mom or Ameri but from a woman who had over heard the conversation. The woman told me she had arrived at the apartment just as Ameri was getting the call from Mom. The woman told me that she had just been released from 30 days in jail as the result of a parole violation from a DUI. She said that Ameri's conversation was shocking in it content and level of anger toward Mom who was on the line. After Ameri left the woman called me and opened her heart. She said she saw herself in Ameri from her start down a rough road twenty two years ago. There are many damaged people who have good hearts but are trapped in the cycle they have chosen. I told her a bit about Ameri and directed her to this site. She said that the young man that Ameri is now with is not safe to be with. He is cruel to his mother, in whose home he lives, and he has a history with the courts and with law enforcement. I also spoke with the former girl friend of the man that Ameri is now with. She is eighteen. She also said he is dangerous.

My thanks to these two women for speaking to me about this.

I also got a piece of mail today from an agency of state government in the state where she is now. They told me that my information needed to be in a form that was included in the envelope. They also offered to send some brochures if I thought that they may be of any help. My jaw is still clinched.

I once described my relationship with Ameri as a replay of Job. It remains so today.

Ameri Grows from a Toddler to a Kindergartener

2005-11-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

Ameri's life with Grandma Lilya continues. By the time she is seventeen months old, however, she is beginning to put a real crimp in Lilya's style and styling. Ameri has been passed around to friends and acquaintances. She has experienced some good care and some not so good care. There is some talk that she has been used in ways that are just not conventional. She has been with older kids and questionable adults. There has been no intervention from any governmental family service agencies and if anything has gone on it has been kept quiet. But, clearly Lilya is not too happy with the way things are going and the obvious behavioral manifestations she has seen in Ameri.

Lilya is acquainted with a couple that she knows from a church group connection and she gets wind that they are looking to adopt a child. They have boys but they want a girl. Lilya finds a way to approach Bob and Diane and to present them with an opportunity. So as to not get bogged down in details we will say that a deal is struck and Ameri is handed over in a relatively unsupervised adoption proceeding that was handled by an attorney and a judge.

Ameri goes to live with Bob, Diane and the boys. We must imagine the joy they must have felt that they were getting such a beautiful child. She has golden ringlets of hair. She has kissable cheeks and she is overwhelmed by so much attention. Bob and Diane love sweet little things. After they were through having the boys, they filled in their nurturing needs with exotic pets and toy animals of various species. But, now, here they have a beautiful child. The camera never stops. Diane loves to dress Ameri up and off they go to the photographers studio for a shoot. I have some of those pictures. Ameri is a doll. She is just sweet and perfect in every picture. In time, though, the effect of birth circumstances and early care begin to show their results. Ameri begins to act out in strange ways and displays motions and activities that are at first puzzling and then as they are to be understood become disturbing. Bob and Diane find that they need to seek professional help for Ameri.

Ameri's behavior and habits become more and more disturbing. She does not seem to want to accept affection, nor does she seem in any way to be attached to Bob and Diane except for when food or treats are involved. The boys have doted on little Ameri. They play with her and watch out for her. They share their treats with Ameri. Still, there seems to be only a tenuous bond with her new brothers. Children seen to have one level of expectation with each other and quite another with parent figures. This is especially pronounced with Ameri. She has rejected all of Diane's motherly overtures and she is even hostile to her at times. That hostility shows itself by screaming and running away from Diane. It also come out in distinctly destructive or hurting acts that are targeted at precious mementos, pictures and family pets. The professional visits ramp up in frequency. As Ameri gets on to her third year she is really starting to show her stuff.
Between age three and four, Ameri is placed out in daycare and therapeutic respite centers. As she moves toward her fifth year she is in pre-kindergarten and then kindergarten. She is a hand full every where. She is accepted for a while and then has to move on. She is not an easy child to manage. When she is with other children with marginal problems, a dynamic arises that causes the allied behaviors to be greater than the sum of the parts. Now, Ameri must experience her first hospitalization.

Ameri in the Cold?

2005-11-11T17:40:00.000-05:00

We have heard nothing from Ameri for 36 hours. The over night temperatures, where she is, are in the thirties. We have had no response from the last people to have contact with her. Our last dose of reassurance is now wearing off. Is it time to worry again. Is it time for more aggressive communication. Are there new noses we can tweak or toes to step on. This is a roller coaster. This is a nightmare.

The very manner in which Ameri seeks help and then rejects it is the classic manifestation of Borderline Personality Disorder. The more primitive parts of the inner brain have taken dominance. The escape instincts take over. The cycle is respite, fright, and then flight. We were told that she is just not motivated for treatment now. Where is the starting point for that. We know that medication for the symptom may have to come first. Brain function may be a process of chemical infusion first, then electro reaction and finally the mechanics of chemical transference on to cellular surfaces. Brain chemistry is affected by the chain of events that begins at conception and then is refined in the early weeks of life, ex-uteri, by the quality of care given the infant. Interruptions in these critical early weeks skew the developing processes and misdirect the growing neural links. If, then, any genetic proclivities are added in, the emerging human takes a path that departs from the norm and the result is an adult/child manifesting just what we now see in Ameri. It is all too common a scenario. Our prisons are based in shame and are full of minds that emerged from just that path. The mental health patient population is based in shame and is full of minds that emerged from just that path. Not all those affected by developmental aberrations are in jail or in the hospital. They are on the street and are in high corporate or public office. They exist throughout out our society and the world society. The difference is magnitude of impairment and the functions of a remnant of self control.

Ameri does not feel the cold the way I do. Although it will affect her in much the same way as any other exposed to it, she does not have the same reaction to seek shelter and remain there. Being in a safe place is just not the same to her as it would be to toy or me. The conflict that arises from helping attention and the requirements of bending to simple rules is overwhelming to Ameri. Her inner adult/child reacts like a pet lizard that escapes from a warm display tank. The unknown world outside the tank is preferable to the safety of the tank.

A Quiet Night

2005-11-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Ameri has not phoned since she got her twenty. That would have been about 4:00pm EST on Wednesday. She said that she had to check in at the police station. I received no replies from my faxes and voice mail messages to my police contact. Maybe some thing is working in the background of which I am unaware. Ameri so much wants to be seen as capable and grownup. The problem is a psychiatric phenomenon called splitting. I had not here-to-fore mentioned a name for Ameri's condition but when I Googled the term "splitting" the first return referenced the most recent diagnosis that she had been given in her last hospital visit. That is Borderline Personality Disorder. Many people have an idea that someone just sits around and makes up conditions and then gives them a name; not true. The descriptors for conditions are the result of years of observation by psychiatrist and therapist who make scientific (rational) observations, then report those observations in papers to their peers and then reach definitive conclusions about how one particular condition results in a behavior and how it is alike or different from similarly observed conditions or behaviors. That's what science is. Someone observes. That someone reports. Someone else observes and agrees with the original observations as stated or suggests that additional components were observed. It is an endless refinement of observations that results in the description of categories, types, and magnitudes of observable descriptors.

So, we have always known that Ameri's early experiences had done much to wire her brain and body intelligence in ways that manifest behaviors in the emerging self that are not within the confines of what one would expect to see in conventional child development. Ameri displayed attitudes, behaviors and emotions early on that were identified as troubled. Not just troubled, but disturbed. She was a demanding infant. She was toddler that frightened some. Her personality and disposition became frozen in a state commonly referred to as the "terrible twos". That is essentially where Ameri is today. She is stuck in the "Terrible Twos". She has a woman's body and a brilliant mind. Her behaviors and ideations coupled with the concepts of splitting result in a very troubling condition now called Borderline Personality Disorder. There are at least three major sub components but I will introduce those later.

I must go back in time now and tell of Ameri's life from three months and three weeks to approximately seventeen months. I have mentioned Grandma Lilya in a previous post. When Ameri's mom, Avril, disappeared it was necessary for Lilya to take custody of Ameri when she was released from the hospital. Ameri is now essentially a new born that has survived out side the womb for three months and three weeks. Lilya take her home to an apartment that she shares with a boyfriend. His name is unimportant because he is one of many. Ameri thrives in her new home. There is of course a dynamic in this care that may be one of regret and possible redemption. Lilya's daughter, Avril, has turned out as she has because of something missing between the mother daughter relationship of Lilya and Avril. Lilya is now going to do her best to not repeat the mistakes she thinks she made with Avril. At first Ameri is well cared for and well tended. She has the cutest baby-doll clothes. She has toys as become appropriate and she is the center of attention among the bobes and enchanted auntie type alta kakas (term used in the best sense - not as a slur) that live in Lilya's apartment complex. As she develops and becomes more troubling, the interest and attention from the outside wanes. Lilya find that it isn't as easy any more to get out and be able to have a dependable baby sitter. Her boy friends find that their once enthusiastic Lilya has lost a certain spark of attraction and then there is that beautiful screaming child making it impossible to enjoy any intimacy or even the ball game on TV. Lilya's social life goes into a slump.

Ameri bargains for a Twenty

2005-11-09T22:33:00.000-05:00

I had to get away from the madness of the calls, the shouting, and the angry hang-ups. I mowed the lawn and I cleaned the green rime from the bottom of the pool. I let the pool get that way because it is my way of sitting in ashes and wearing sackcloth. Ameri loved the pool. She loved being wet and lazing on her floaty.

I heard bits of the conversation as the phone calls continued over the next three hours. Ameri's mom is an expert reflective listener. While I was mowing, I missed a lot. When I was cleaning the pool I heard more. The listening, the button pushing and the circuit breaking continued. I looked at the caller ID and there were a dozen or more calls and hang ups. We never accept reverse charges any more. We let the phone ring through to the service and then call the number back.

Ameri wanted her Mom to send her twenty dollars by Western Union. We want her to go to a human services agency and we would make arrangements for money to be sent there. Just as it is very difficult to lure in a wild animal, it is just as difficult to lure Ameri into someplace where she can get some real help. I stayed out of the money negotiations. The twenty was the attention grabber that kept Ameri on the phone through so many call backs. Finally some concession was wrung out and Mom agreed to send Ameri a twenty. When Mom left to do that I called the pay phone number and spoke with Ameri. My message is always the same. "Ameri, I love you and I want you to be safe. Your body is your most precious possession. Don't use your most precious possession as a weapon to hurt us. Go to an airport. Go to a ticket agent and we will make arrangements for a direct flight home." This gives rise to coyote spirit and she slams down the phone.

I was hurt but I knew I would be. I then did the most odious thing I could think to do. I went to the back of my property and cut brush. I feel so dirty. I feel so . . . Republican.

Remember. It's my blog. I get to say what I want. You on the other hand must please be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

Ameri calls from a liquor store

2005-11-09T12:07:00.000-05:00

Ameri has called twice this morning. She first called from the hotel where she was housed by the police. She left there and went to a liquor store. She spoke with her mom and the conversation devolved into a shouting match and my wife breaking down into tears. Ameri is saying things that she knows will push every button and trip every circuit breaker in our emotions.

We have attempted to contact the police but we are shunted to voice mail.

I am going to go do homeowner stuff.

2005-11-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

Madness Continues

Ameri is on the phone with her mom now. Last evening she had been in a fist fight with the boy in the home where she was staying. She left there and walked into the police station several blocks away. I tracked the payphones and found that she did take a circuitous route.

The offer to Ameri is that I will get her on a plane today for home. Her counter is that she has a new boyfriend in St. Louis and will go there. To someone this is perfectly reasonable behavior. After all, she is eighteen. She can make her own decisions. Madness is afoot. It is affecting all those who come in contact with Ameri. After all, she is uncooperative and annoying.

Here is our dilemma. The authorities want us to do something. If we do go there and forcibly put her in a car, we are then liable for kidnapping charges. If we just let her be we are innocent of anything. We have the right to let her be until we are asked by some coroner's office to come identify a corpse.

Ameri on the Road Today

2005-11-09T09:34:00.000-05:00

I had a night of broken sleep interspersed with anxiety dreams. I had to get up several times to walk around the darkened house. The dogs were restless all night. Their movements and alerting growls that usually give me confidence became an irritant.

We have heard nothing from the authorities this morning. I have posted a fax to the dispatcher and I had to leave a voice mail at the main police number.

The tragedy of the tornado deaths in Indiana may make my tragedy small by comparison but I have to keep at it.

It is interesting that I keep thinking about how societies and civilizations rarely disappear until they go into internal decline. A symptom of that internal decline for America, the country, not my daughter, is the epidemic of mental disease. Who will be the one to turn over the control of the country to the conquerors. Certainly not those who have the least to loose. It will be those who have accumulated the most and will do anything to preserve it. They are in place now and they have made every arrangement against the day they must abandon ship and turn Quisling. Do you supose that the conquerors will allow the psychiatric medication dispensing system to remain in place?

It's my blog. I will rant as I wish.

Ameri on the Road Today

2005-11-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

Ameri is Homeless

I must skip ahead in my story. Ameri has been on the street in a rural Midwestern town for about two weeks. Ameri had originally been taken to a hospital emergency room in another town by police officers. She was admitted to that hospital's psychiatry ward. Late in September she was found committable by a judge and was to be sent to a state hospital. She was to remain in the first hospital until a bed became available. That did not happen quickly enough for the attending physician and she was found to be annoying by the nursing staff. That staff then found a way to affect a release. She was put into a cab and sent to another county into the custody of a woman that she barely knew. The woman’s boy friend and the father of at least one of her children had been a patient in the same psychiatric ward as my daughter. She stayed there three days or so. She had a falling out with both the woman and the boyfriend and so she left. She sought shelter from a young man that she had just met and so became a guest in his family home along with his parents and younger brothers and sisters. We did not here from Ameri again until she called on Sunday evening, November 6, 2005. She said that she was not going to be in that family any more and so left and found shelter elsewhere. This evening, when I returned home, I found several calls from pay phones on my caller ID. The answer service indicated that she was attempting to make a collect call. No one was here to take the calls. From the caller ID I made return calls to the last number. It was a pizzeria. They had let her use the phone to make a collect call. She had been gone only minutes. The pizzeria was on the on the rural outskirts of the town. I called the sheriff’s dispatch number that I found on the web. I told the dispatcher about the calls and a bit of the hospital story. Her response was that as long as someone is 18 years old they have every right to walk along any highway and have every right to expose themselves to any danger they chose. I broke down into tears of frustration. The dispatcher then asked me to hold. I continued to weep and wait. When she came back on she said that my daughter, Ameri, had been picked up from the roadside by a patrol officer and that she was now sitting in a chair across the room from her. I was asked to hold again. When she came back on she said that she knew of the entire set of circumstances regarding my daughter and that she had been in contact with a police officer with whom I had spoken days ago. They made arrangements for Ameri to have a bed for the night in a safe place. I am to call the police officer tomorrow to make some arrangements. It is now 8:41pm EST on Tuesday, November 8, 2005. My daughter is safe for the night. This nightmare has been going on now since August 28, 2005 when my daughter left home with enough money to catch a Greyhound to Memphis, TN. With the exception of the period of time that she was in the hospital, we have not had a moment of peace.

This whole thing is becoming disjointed and may confuse some. Please accept my apologies. This is a complicated story and it is difficult to tell sequentially. Too much is happening. My phone is ringing again.

Bottom Feeders

2005-11-03T19:20:00.000-05:00

In the few minutes that it took me to post, edit and repost the beginning of the story of my daughter, Ameri, three bottom feeder commenters have left their spoor in the comments section. I am going to leave them for a while. I could edit them out or block them but I will just see for now what the low life of the web wants to bring to the table.

To post here, please, be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.

Ameri: A Throw Away Child

2005-11-03T17:47:00.000-05:00

Ameri is Born and Reborn

I have two daughters. One daughter came into the world within a marriage and she had the benefit of two loving parents. She was the first born grandchild of two combined whole families in which there were five aunts, four grandparents and five living great grandparents.

My second daughter, let's call her America or Ameri for short, was the second born child of a woman, we will call her Avril, who had not known the security of a stable home or loving parents for most of her life. That woman had been born to a woman who had grown up under conditions that were equally barren of love and stability. My daughter, Ameri, was the only living child of that unfortunate mother, Avril. Her first child was dead at birth. Ameri is then an only child. Ameri has no father of record. Ameri and her mother were released from the hospital and sent home. Her first home was a shared room with another man and woman who were in Ameri's mother's drug and alcohol crowd. That situation broke down early on and the trail from there leads from one shared accomodation to another that included various hotels and flop houses. At the end of about three months of that existence, Ameri was returned to the hospital where she was born. Avril disappears.

Ameri's physical condition when she was brought back to the hospital was not good. She was underweight for her age, 90 days. She was covered in scabs and her genitals were swollen and traumatized by either severe diaper rash or frictional abuse. She was dehydrated near to the point of dry. Her brain activity was more of a scratchy impression of seizure than any other way to describe it. She was near death. From that point, until Ameri was released from the hospital three weeks later, a seeming miracle has occurred. Tiny Ameri was brought back from near death to being instead of a functioning three month old infant, she was for all practical purposes a new born. She weighed just over ten pounds. Her stretched out body length was just over fourteen inches. That she recovered at all was seen as a major event by the hospital staff and that she seemed to respond with the minimun capabilities of a new born was seen as a further remarkable event by the hospital staff. Since Avril, Ameri's mom, has disappeared, it is now necessary for Avril's mother, Ameri's grandmother, to take custody when Ameri is released from the hospital after a three week stay. We shall call Ameri's grandmother, Lilya. Lilya takes Ameri home to an appartment she shares with her current boyfriend. The boy friend's name does not matter because he is one of many.

This part of the story ends. Ameri is alive. She starts life again with Grandmother, Lilya.

My World is Overturned

2005-11-03T17:19:00.000-05:00

I thought that Katrina would now be found only as a side light of a story that would fade into the collective conscious of "churn and burn" media memories. Not so. Today we find that Brownie was exchanging emails with his handlers about what he was able to purchase at Nordstrom's while he was on his watch in exile in the aftermath of the disaster in NOLA. Someone else will have to carry water for that part of the Katrina, Rita, and Wilma stories except for how they affected me personally.

My continuing story has to do with my adopted daughter and her taking leave of family and home, going on the road and ending up in the belly of a beast that is otherwise known as "the mental health system."

We must however start at the beginning.

Rebuild and Reinforce NOLA?

2005-10-03T08:55:00.000-04:00

It won't be this storm season that finishes NOLA off and it may not be the next. It may become impossible to sustain an urban population there as we have known it in the next 10 years though. Oil will continue to be pumped and levees will continue to be repaired until the precipitous end comes. As a world culture site, NOLA ranks with Holland, Venice and others as being in danger. As long as there is ice in the Artic and Antarctic to melt in our current cycle there is going to be rising waters on the world seacoasts. The contribution of industrial and internal combustion engine gases even if corrected now or in the next ten years will not prevent the inevitable erosion and retrenchment of the coasts. The long cycle processes of Polar precession, orbit distance from the sun, and deep mantle earth changes are going to combine in a dynamic that is not within the power of homo sapien sapien to directly control. The history of man has been one of advance, retrench, retreat, and adapt over generations. There have been periods when profound change was exhibited within one lifetime and there have been periods where change is less than obvious for generations. The disaster of the loss of coastal cities will appear to the next generation as precipitous and unexpected when the inevitability of such loss is only apparent to those with the long view.

If you live on the coast, as I do, click here.

Citizen or Consumer

2005-09-15T15:10:00.000-04:00

In a nation of radical individualist there seems to be no room for a national organization that addresses disasters on the scale of Katrina. In the 1950s there was a semblance of national thinking with the organization other wise known as Civil Defense. The reason for that of course was the nuclear threat and cold war jitters. When I was 14, my across the street neighbor built a big underground fallout shelter. There were six children in that family. There was only one in a town of 6,000. Think about it.

So. We have somewhat nationalized national preparedness by developing FEMA and then comes the establishment of Homeland Security. FEMA was at one time a truly federal and nation wide approach to disasters of scale. Homeland Security on the other hand is a radical class and political reactionary construct that is filled with political hacks and sadistic wannabes who are able to demand that you remove your shoes before boarding a passenger aircraft. We are becoming a nation of incarceration and prison guards. All this is of course privatized and meets all the specifications of a particular political worldview. Look in any daily newspaper and you will find ersatz universities offering courses and degrees in Criminal Justice and Incarceration Management. An industry is being created. It is a private industry and comes with share holders. Share holders must be satisfied and so the de jure criminalization of a broader range of behaviors must be instituted. The effect is the ever widening institution of consurmerization. We are no longer are considered citizens even by government. We have long been considered to be consumers and market segments by classic private and "publicly" held institutions of commerce. A system is now emerging that is no longer government as a shared responsibility of citizens but is now rather as a sanctioning agency owned by whoever has the most money and the best connections.

So, back to the question, "Who is in charge?"

It is no longer you , Citizen. Government is the shared responsibility of citizens. It is not something that just fell to earth and took over. It is not some thing that is separate and apart from a greater collection of individuals with shared interests. We fought a bloody and lengthy civil war to decide if we would be a confederation of states with individual interests or a nation of a whole with shared interests. The emergence of the movement of privatization of the functions of government is in fact the resurgence of confederation and privilege for special interests. The only connecting values they share is the protection of wealth and position. The drift in that direction can last only so long. Our national experience trauma and prosperity is cyclic and self adjusting. One must read or be taught the history of the U.S. as a nation to understand how that works. The civilizations out of which this nation emerged were cyclic and self adjusting until they chose or were forced not to be. Our story continues.

The Real Stuff

2005-09-12T22:06:00.000-04:00

Big up for this site. You can never say enough good things about CeeBees and FDNY.

Eye of the Storm

I am just a miserable Lantern Bearer.

A Wonderful Turn of Events

2005-09-12T20:35:00.000-04:00

What a wonderful turn of events. To think that one week ago the disaster that was Katrina seemed insurmountable. The President was on the ropes and his corner men were spinning and working hard to staunch the flow of political vitals. A large number of people were in misery and lost to the world. The experimental program of benign neglect was not working and once the word was given to make thing rights it started to become so. Thank you, Captain Kirk.

Today Michael Brown ends his unqualified position at the head of FEMA. There need be no apology or statement about following up on other interests. "Yeah, git out here Brownie. Go get another keg."

The best news is that the waters are receding from the streets of NOLA. People are still straggling out of attics and upper stories of buildings. They have the look and smell of death and despair. I have been in touch with an under utilized first responder who has been in NOLA with his rescue dog since Wednesday a week ago. He is well qualified and trained in vertical insertion with the dog. He has spent most of his time waiting and being hustled around for photo ops with the brass and poobahs. He is not happy. There is still misery to be salved but the will and the way have not yet reached 100%.

Of course there is a downside to all the attention that NOLA is getting. There are many areas of southern Alabama and Mississippi that are under reported and under served by way of high profile rescue efforts. I am sure that the prezdent sent someone out to help Ol' Trent clean up his lot (OOpps! NPI) so they can get started on that porch. So while Ol' Trent is being served there are still crackers, small holders and tenants at the ends of sand roads living under cobbled together sheds watching the choppers go over heading for the coast and they can hear the relief trucks going by them on the main highways heading south for the bays and beaches. Some have been lucky enough to get their trailer level again and some have pieced together living quarters in farm buildings and some have been lucky enough to get a little clean water and a bag of grits from the relief. And then of course many have been able to get to Wal-Mart and start over.

What a shame to have a perfectly good country devolve into a statistic that that is at the bottom of every index except executive pay and credit card debt. This disaster and recovery shores up the observation one of my mentors made. She said, "We don't have a problem of lack of stuff in this country; we have a distribution problem." I believe we have seen in this event and in other disastrous events in the near past that stuff and money is never the problem. The problem is the will and way to get it spread out to those who need it.

My good friend from Michigan would say to me when he would catch me in a dither, “What the hell, . . ., you waiting for the house to fall on you.”

New Orleans - A National Treasure

2005-09-10T19:05:00.000-04:00

The City of New Orleans is a national treasure. Or should we say that Orleans Parish and the more antique areas of the city contained therein are national treasures.

The underlying question "Should we rebuild New Orleans?" is deeply coded with a qualification of ". . . as it was for the greater part of the population of color that resided there?" There is of course a less polite way of framing the question that is at the heart of it. I will not express it here but most people know what it is.

From a practical stance, the rebuilding of New Orleans could take place with or without a great deal of outside support or interference. The transport and industrial structure will come back on line quickly. The “safe” tourist venues will quickly become repopulated. New Orleans is not dead but it is on life support.

The most widely covered population presented to the nation as representative of New Orleans was that of the mass of people of color who sought refuge at the New Orleans Superdome. For the media it was the story because it was easy to cover and made for visuals filled with pathos. It held the attention of the consumer base who were there for "ain't it awful" buzz that they got. Misery made money for the media giants.

We now find that the population that was moved from one dome to another has become a grudgingly accepted guest in another bastion of the old south. To be a resident in the dome in Houston is to be a de facto prisoner. Those folks for the most part will never again find that they are welcomed back in Orleans Parrish. Over time they will may settle elsewhere as a matter of choice or they will be forced to settle elsewhere as a matter of limited circumstance. This will be true for the former residents of color no matter where they have been able to find refuge.

Home is home no matter the outward appearance of the place. Some folks will return home and many will not. The trip to Houston or other place of refuge for the greater number of the people of Orleans Parrish is one way for those now away. Old New Orleans will be less vibrant as a result.

The property values of Orleans Parrish have now become ever so much more valuable for those who were either resident freeholders or absentee landlords no matter their racial characteristics. Money will follow money and value in this tragedy. The losers will be those who were not people of means before the event.

The immediate response by the Federal Government to the circumstances of the initial tragedy was a clear demonstration of "benign neglect". That condition of neglect would have continued had there not been a national outcry by people of conscience. In turn many of the fellow travelers of the "benign neglect" crowd saw the folly of just letting things work out. They may have abandoned that position out of fear or indignation but the non action by the neglectors was soon overcome by a resounding outcry. At first those who were on the scene and able were doing all that they could but those who were responsible at the highest levels were just not doing such a "great job".

The question must now become, “How will the affected parts of NO Metro be rebuilt and by and for whom?” Baton rouge may for now become the largest city in Louisiana, but New Orleans, especially Orleans Parrish, will always be its beating, living heart and a nation's treasure.

How to bring truth to light

2005-09-10T18:40:00.000-04:00

Be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, be responsible.