Huffington Posts . . .

Whatever the Republicans and the critics are saying to trivialize the blog isn't justified by what I've experienced so far. There's something truly interesting seeing in print the ideas of people who might in fact be listened too. And it is refreshing to realize that a sense of humor is very important when speaking about serious topics. If nothing else this is why I enjoy blogging, to be able to have intelligent conversation with people who aren't threatened by a discussion.

What can I say?

The days roll past, the stats pile up, the ugly turns beautiful just because it outlasts.

More and more I hear the words "You know I have to give Bush credit." The New York Times, Bill Maher, my earnest neighbor at the coffee shop.

And I want to shout yes, give him credit for using your fear, and your willing lack of thought, your incredible laziness and sloth.

But what difference would one more shouting voice make?

You know I have to give him credit.

More about war than ...

Living on the farm in summer was a way to find family. I learned that I didn't have to be any more than I was though my Uncle George sure seemed worried about my Mom's Catholic background. And my Aunt Mabel always wanted to know what that paper backed book was I seemed to always carry in my back pocket. I learned to drive from my cousin's husband, June, for Junior, Biggers.

One day about a week after I'd told my Uncle that I could drive and then proceeded to take out about 30 feet of fence when I popped the clutch on the pickup, June stopped by the house right after dinner, said he was on his way to plow up a field and did I want to ride along. You bet, I said and jumped up beside him on the tractor. When we got out to the field, he showed me how to hook up the double disc plow and then we started plowing a circuit around the field working counter clockwise from the inside out. After a few circuits, he motioned me to stand beside him and watch how he shifted and worked the clutch and to see where the brake was. Once more around and then he said he had another field he had to look to and would I mind finishing up what we'd started while he went and took care of it? So there I was, the tractor engine idling, the steering wheel in my hands and a field to plow. Which I did.

Later, my Aunt and Uncle were both kind of mad that I hadn't told them where I was going but that didn't seem to matter because there I was a thirteen year old boy who now knew how to drive.

That summer down toward the end of it, my cousin's husband went off to Korea and when he came back he had lost the hearing in his right ear from a bomb explosion on the air field he and his seabee buddies were building. Until then I thought war was some game me and my friends played after school. Of course, there was some benefit to the whole deal. Whenever June didn't want to listen to my endless questions anymore he'd just turn his head. http://antiwar.blogspot.com/

Once upon a time . . .

I used to go down to live on my Uncle's farm in the summer when we lived in Memphis. I think I thought of him, my uncle, as a father. I was 13 when I used to do this, but when my Dad was overseas in WWII we lived on the farm, my Mom, my sister and I. I was 4 then and he became quite important in my life, what with starting the day at breakfast with his sonorous bass voice intoning the daily Bible reading. And then me following him around most of the day as he fed the cows, plowed the fields, and worked the rest of the farm while fending off my constant questions about why this and how come that.

If it looks like a Christian. . .

I once worked on a roofing crew one summer and within two days of starting our first job the crew was decided about one thing. The Christian kid had to go. It was unanimous amongst us. The kid had to go. It wasn't that he couldn't do the work, or that he had sloppy work habits. No, it was clearly his need to proselytize us and anyone else who happened by that sealed his doom.

Another time, I was auditing a psychology of sports class at SD State and we were having a guest lecturer. No less than 15 seconds after he had begun his pitch, God and his place in our sport's lives, at least ten class members, myself included, spontaneously got up and left the room.

Sometimes you just have to say by act or word, I don't want to hear the sermon. Which is why my stomach turned and my gut reaction was to turn off the tv. Boston Legal, sunday night, the subject of one case: creationism to be taught in a science class. And by dint of the we're all Christians here, the founding fathers intended us to be one nation under god, sort of reasoning that passes for liberals trying to eat their cake and be elected too, the goddam case was decided in favor of the defendant, a god-fearing superintedant that just wanted to have all sides fairly represented. Ha! See www.angryoldman.us for more on this.

Sometimes you just have to say

This day I just have to say that I that my mood is more than reflective. I blog on even though I haven't made a connection with anyone. So more and more this becomes my journal. I used to try and write for ten minutes without stopping to think what would come out. I'd compose pieces of poems and parts of deep thoughts. I'd comment about books and music. Like today I should say something about the tremendous new music I bought. But first I should say how it all began. I was checking my email and found an offer from a promotion firm to win an apple Ibook. So what I thought, and entered the survey which turned out to be a series of questions leading to a set of offers for selling me everything from credit cards to cds. So I joined a music service www.bmgmusicservice.com offering me 10 free cds if I'd sign up to buy one. Now I'm sitting here listening to a mix that includes Dido's Life for rent, www.futureforests.com/dido, Keb Mo's self titled Keb Mo, and Kindred Spirits, a tribute to the songs of Johnny Cash.

Barack Obama

It is with an interested heart that I try to sort out my thoughts about what is happening today in the Democratic Party national committee meeting. Howard Dean is the computer generation's fave, and Arianna Huffington at http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=748 sure has a valid point when she says it is time to get out of the middle of the road. But my favorite candidate right from the start is Barack Obama, the only black senator in the 2005 congress. Even though the usual bullshit applies in that he is young. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3936013.stm. I listened with amazement to his speech at the Democratic convention, and I knew in my heart right then that this was the one for whom we should be voting.

This ain't nothing . . .

Today was one of those days when the weather seemed to fit the news so I wasn't surprised when I opened up www.latimes.com/California to find a new list of war casualties, 35 in all. But I am surprised at how few people appear to agree with columnist Michael Kinsley on the reasons why there is so little response to the ongoing loss of lives. See www.latimes.com/opinion, Nov. 21,2004. Or maybe they agree but just don't care? So where is the anti-war movement and why is the daily carnage so obviously ignored? See http://antiwar.com I quess.

A thought ...

Some people see cause and effect, I see cause and reflect . . . Down the road from my house is a beautiful blue ocean. Several of my surfer friends sport ear aches, respiratory illnesses, and constant skin irritations. As of 11/2004, 5000 new homes have been added to the sewer system. And the city of San Diego almost finds itself with a write-in mayor. Hmmm?

No More War

Yellow ribbons gather on the trees and,
Yellow ribbons garnish their sleeves,
As citizen's blood becomes the red we spill in war,
And colors are what dead eyes can see no more.

So yellow ribbons wrap the trees,
While bombs blast the sand to its knees,
And countries begin to sew,
Yellow ribbons to the body bags,
Let yellow ribbons become refugee rags,
And remember that dead yellow eyes cannot see their own toe tags.
@ RH Bee 4/19/03

Move On ???

I attended the www.moveon.org meeting last Sunday, and via teleconference, we hooked up apparently with over 1500 of the same type meetings being held all around the country (US of A). Two things struck me about our local group: I asked if any of the 20 or so people present were bloggers? Nope. And when we were discussing the possible issues for consideration, the silence was stunning, or should I say stunned was the response I perceived, when I asked what they thought about decriminalizing drugs. I was reminded of the play, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates at the Asylum at Charenton, wherein Marat describes why all revolutions ultimately fail, everyone wants to hold onto at least one thing. That's us in a nutshell. People are incredibly afraid of losing what they have. And if I were really good at probing into things psychological I probably could discover of what it is that we are really afraid. Coulf it be the fear that we will be discovered cowering in the shadow of ourselves that was left from 9/11? Or is it the fear that we are going to lose the wonderful sense of gluttonous satisfaction we derive from simply being better than everyone else? Or maybe it's the fear that in order to make the world better we will have to do more that share?

Well, whatever it is, it can't be more ironic than the situation that christians are in as they condemn science while welcoming DNA profiling.

Real Mustard

So the real mustard is that no matter how hard you try to do everything right you can still screw it up and then many years later with a lot of money and luck it can all come together and in four sweet games the World Series is yours.

Sunday, and I just finished reading Deadwood by Peter Dexter. It's the novel that the HBO show is based upon. I like the way the characters have been changed and yet left unchanged from novel to tv show. And it seems to me that Swearingen and Charley Uttter have commingled as have Trixie and Lurline and Al's wife. There is of course no China Doll but the Chinese are as separated as they always were in both. This story put me in mind of Welcome to Hardtimes by E. L. Doctorow.

Saturday and the rain which came in hard and fast like a grey hound on the run, is gone and I am left with clean air and sunshine and the depressing feeling that I've done everything I can to kick GW out and still I'm down about the stupidity of accomplishing this and still being stuck with the same old same old. Why couldn't the Democrats choose to confront the issues of the economy as reflected in the War on Drugs or in the use of our tax money to bring peace not fight war. And by that last, I mean put our money and effort into achieving something beyond chest thumping?

So here we are just seven or so weeks from the election and one can feel the fear. Change the only thing we can't. Things change, people change, and yet like the song says it's seems to be deja vu all over again. The question I hear most often though is what is the difference between Kerry and Bush? Well, how about Bush wages war, Kerry wages peace. And it's not that I think that that will make a difference to the opposing sides in this world, it just makes a difference to me. The opposing sides seems to be content to win their issue. Liberals get abortion rights, Conservatives get assault weapons. No matter that each case, no matter how many cases, is an individual matter. No matter that the collateral damages are real.

So here we are at mid-summer and life is racing along at its usual heated pace.  Every day comes more news that what we think is worthless compared to what the people in power seem able to ignore.  I do see and hear more people speaking up about their sense of frustration over the world situation, though.  And that does give me hope that change is still possible.  The question is what will this election change?

I wish for the sake of us all that we could trust that this whole deal over Kobe will turn out okay. Right now I don't have much confidence that the situation will do anything but just worsen, and we will end up stuck with the Gary Payton Lakers. Yuck, does that suck or what?

So on and on it goes. Reagan passes and I wonder what the folks will think. Will the old folks mourn, the hippies remember with scorn, and will the young wonder why all the ink over someone who was important before they were even born?

Today's LA Times (pg.A7) reports that the death of Pat Tillman was the result of "friendly fire" and that this information was/is available in an "unclassified executive summary". I have to believe that this is not NEW info but was available at the time of Tillman's death. Since this is true, I have to ask what kind of political game is being played and who is being served by this deception? His death was praised as the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate American sacrifice (he gave up millions) and we, the American public, were allowed to participate in the orgy of public breast beating that ensued. How could this happen? How does it continue to happen that our prison warders, our politicians, our corporate leaders; everyone it sometimes seems; act as though they can continuously get away with lying about what they're doing? If media matters and has a responsibility, it has to be to accurately report the truth regardless of the political ramifications.

The more I work with computers the less I understand about them. I know that much of the programming is set up to be transparent but I can't see the value of being left in the dark when things don't appear in the right places.