I regularly checked out Jake Thorn’s (meteoriot here at Docudharma) blog, Lose the Label, it’s a cool blog and I would check up now and then to see how he was doing, as he was battling cancer.

In September Jake wrote a post saying he was cancer free.

His next post, written in October, talked about the problems he was having with his bone marrow transplant, but I didn’t check the comment, where he said:

med update details…

the day after I made my last post, “REMISSION”, I was readmitted to the hospital because the transplant side effects had gotten too difficult to endure at home. Since coming back in, I’ve been getting “gut rest” to combat the symptoms… at first,this meant a “clear liquid diet” which consisted of chicken broth, jello and a few juices but I deteriorated further and am now on an “NPO” diet, which means I can’t eat anything but ice chips. I’ve been NPO for 5 days. I imagine it’s kind of what being on a hunger strike would be like. I hate it but I have to do it. I still get nutrients from my “TPN bag”, which is basically like getting food through a tube. I can’t wait until I can eat again. The doctors say they’ll let me have one new food at a time if I show improvement, but it’s very frustrating and seems to move at a snail’s pace. I’m trying very hard to be disciplined, but damn, the next time I eat a Double-Double I’m going to orgasm.

It was his second last comment on that blog.  As I read down the comments I saw something from his cousin, Jackie:

Hi Jake, I just learned of your passing this morning. I am at a loss for words. I will always remember the times we shared when we were younger and how when we came to visit you would always be at the window waiting. I promise I will help take care of your mom and brothers. You are a true inspiration to me. I am glad you are now at peace.

Love your cousin, Jacksie

Jackie has set up a donation page for Jake here.

I’ll miss you meteoriot.

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Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor, for petition backround.

I read Answering the Past by mcjoan today, where she quotes Digby on the possibilities of holding those in power accountable for their crimes.

The crux of Digby’s view:

Sadly, if history is any indication, that is highly unlikely to happen.

mcjoan makes the point that some things are just too big and ugly to sweep under the carpet.  She also reports on what Obama said to George Stephanopoulos on This Week about Bob Fertik’s question on whether or not there will be a special prosecutor.  I found this part of Obama’s response particularly interesting:

And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering.

Now that’s a surprise.  I wonder if perchance anyone from the CIA has been yelling at Obama that if he tries to really investigate their goings on there will be a price to pay.

Could it be something along the lines of what Mark Lowenthal is warning?

“If Panetta starts trying to feed people to that commission (ed. a congressional commission), his tenure at C.I.A. will be over,” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior C.I.A. official and an adjunct professor at Columbia University.

“If it happens, C.I.A. people are not going to start plotting against the president, but they are going to withdraw from taking risks, and then the C.I.A. becomes useless to the president,” Mr. Lowenthal said.

Holding those in power accountable for their crimes is an uphill battle, no one would argue that.

What makes someone a leader?

When I was a little girl, I had the usual fantasies of big strong male leaders who were heroes, yeah, I mixed up leaders and famous comic-book type heroes and that was foolish — because usually heroes worked alone (usually in strange costumes) to halt villains and stuff and that’s why they were called heroes, using raw power and all.

I was married to a jazz musician who was the leader of his jazz quintet.  I found that leadership in this case was pretty much doing all the boring work of checking contracts, dealing with surly club owners and constantly making sure the musicians and singer got to the gigs on time and would show up at a rehearsal or two.  He was a good leader – the musicians dug his original compositions and his playing.  But they showed up to play, they’d do rehearsals for free, but they didn’t do all of the rest of it.

I guess my biggest leadership role in meatspace was when I managed a transcription service.  That was pretty much the same story … I had to make sure all the work was done correctly, and basically I had to allow myself to be hated a lot whenever the temp workers were in a bad mood.  Naturally, an authority figure is always a prime target for the woes we don’t want to take responsiblity for, and there I was, as I worked right alongside my transcribers.  For the most part they did respect me … but oh brother, they would sometimes eat me alive if the mood was cooking up that kind of a storm.

So to me, a leader is someone who does the work, first and foremost, who shows up and does the work.  If they do their work well, most often they find people will gather around them and pitch in.  It’s a kind of vibe, I guess.

We have leaders in our government, at least that’s what they call themselves.  I think that’s mistaken, though, as what they really are is holders of power, the power that the folks who elected them vested in them by their vote.

So they have power.  But do they lead?  These last eight years … eh, not so much.  We all know the disconnect that has occurred between our elected representatives and the folks who elected them.  And we’ve seen the grave consequences of this.

Can individual citizens be leaders?  I mean just regular folks, like us.  Can we be leaders?

I think we can and in many cases we are.

I’ve quoted Kai at the blog Zuky several times here at Docudharma.

He’s a blogger who I’ve learned a great deal from, who has changed the way I write, we’ve all experienced that, here on the tubez.

Well Kai has been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award in the “Hidden Gem” category, one that describes his blog pretty well, imo.

Stuff like his Time to Throw the Traders Out of the Temple series, written right after the financial collapse.

He and Nezua from The Unapologetic Mexican went to Denver for the Democratic Convention, after which Kai wrote his own homage to Hunter Thompson with “Fear and Loathing in Denver.”

Anyway, if you want to show support to a great blogger, go on over to this post over at Zuky, the voting widget is embedded beneath the fold of that post.

You can vote every day through January 12.

And if you do vote for Kai, thanks from me.

Over at Your Right Hand Thief, oyster links to a multi-leveled story about a government informant.

An abundance of moral dilemmas if you like that kind of thing.  Interesting, as well, that the story was written by a New York Times intern writing out of Texas:

-Renee Feltz is a fellow at the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and an intern with the investigative unit at The New York Times.

The link is from the online page at the Texas Observer.

And a different kind of dilemma, captured in rant by the ever miraculous Gentilly Girl, whose fire burns bright:

Yet another example of outsiders coming in, smacking down $$$ for a home in an old neighborhood and then going bat-shit insane when they finally realize that the culture they were surrounded by wasn’t exactly their cup of tea. And then they attempt to stop our cultural expressions to suit their desires.

Open thread is open!

I’ve been gratified by the good response in the blogosphere to the Petition for a Special Prosecutor.

I believe most people, if they take even the smallest bit of time to find out the extent to which human rights abuses and crimes against humanity have occurred via torture, promulgated by this misAdministration and admitted to freely by Dick Cheney, know the right thing to do is to give them a fair trial, which means an investigation and, if proven guilty, conviction and the full penalties of the law for those who were involved,  no matter at how high a level of power.

Even the folks who have made comments saying they are against holding those in power accountable do not deny crimes took place.

Yet there are obstacles, and I’m not speaking of the usual obstacles of the media and those in power.  There are obstacles within the minds of the citizens of the United States of America.

Interesting post over at zuky, who quotes Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine on the present situation in Gaza:

From the standpoint of Tikkun, war is the wrong response. If Israel wants peace with Palestinians, it can achieve it by negotiations based on the Saudi peace initiative; it cannot achieve it by killing more Palestinian civilians or even by wiping out the current generation of Hamas activists. There is no path to peace-peace is the path. And if Israel wants to destroy Hamas, it has one clear way: rebuild Gaza and the West Bank with a massive Marshall Plan type enterprise-adopt our Strategy of Generosity and renounce the strategy of domination. Trust in God, trust in love, trust in kindness, trust in generosity-and give those strategies a ten year chance to work and Israel will get far more security than it will achieve by this latest violation of international law, Torah ethics, and common sense.

I have no expertise on this issue, but I do find that line compelling.  Would that we’d all learn that precious path.

Open Thread is hereby Open!

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Why should they get a fair trial?  Why should there be a special prosecutor who investigates thoroughly the torture of human beings that has been going on in our name?

One reason is because so many have not gotten a fair trial, both here in the USA and abroad.

Give Bush and Cheney a fair trial — something they have not bothered with since they stole office.

It’s funny how the powers that be in the media and government are running around with their big fat excuses as to why we can’t hold these criminals accountable for their crimes.  It all boils down to “It’s too hard!!!”

It’s too hard.  It would affect too many people.  It would interfere with the crucial work of restoring our economy.  Blah blah blah.  Not one of these folks say, however, that no crime has been committed, no law has been broken.  No one says that.

I find that stunning.  We all know, at least those of us who have been paying attention, that Bush and his crew of crooks have broken the law over and over again.

And Cheney says “What you gonna do about it?”  And Cheney says “oh, the Dems knew about this and approved it, hell they wanted us to be even tougher than we were!”

And we should believe Cheney … why?

Wrote this a year or so ago and thought I’d share it here, as there ought to be at least one Chanukah essay!

Prose poem, title is “Secret Ingredient”

Chanukah began at sundown on the winter solstice this year, December 21.  It’s a story of great loss and great faith.

The NOLA blogs are at war … Xmas video war, that is.

From Tim’s Nameless Blog I found the name of this war is “Hostilidays”:

The other night I showed my Precious Daughter what grown-ups do for Christmas. Well, grown-ups who are also NOLA Bloggers, that is. If you didn’t know, they engage in a Christmas video war dubbed the “Hostilidays.”

The idea is to post the most silly, annoying and offensive videos. So far, a whole slew of bloggers have joined in battle including Oyster, Maitri, Varg, Greg, Leigh, Loki, Adrastos, Mark, and Howie.

I had not participated in this ugly annual exchange–until now.

Tim’s daughter gave him this one.  Chinese version of Jingle Bells.  She’s learning Chinese in school, nize.

Other than the strange sofa covering, that didn’t hurt too much at all!

Open Thread is Open!

I looked up the etymology of torture, it’s from the French, and among other descriptions I noticed the word “twisting.”

Try to put aside for just a brief moment any outrage, fear, anger, any high emotion that automatically occurs when the subject of torture, and more specifically, institutionalized torture a’la Yoo/Cheney, etc. comes to mind.

Just for a brief moment.

Twisting.  For some reason that makes me think of someone taking a beautiful sacred mesa and brutally mining it so that it is utterly destroyed.

I recently read a wild book by Whitley Streiber, 2012, a Philip K. Dickian paranoia trip with some interesting notions, one being that there are monster people (somewhat lizard like but who can mimic human beings if necessary) who want to enslave our souls and the sacred spots on the planet were put there to keep the monsters’ giant “lenses” from working and stealing every human’s soul with a weird sparkly light that when poured over a person basically turns them into a zombie.

Well, that’s a terrible review, but I found the notion interesting in the sense that we have sacred places on our planet for a real reason, not just some mumbo jumbo hooie or sentimental “tree hugging’ motive.  Winter Rabbit, among others, has enlightened me to the reality of why human beings need sacred spaces.  And Streiber just gave a jazzed up high tech paranoid illustration of that in his book.  But for me, the conclusion is the same.  Sacred places, the word “sacred” itself, is a part of our human condition, and can be a very instructive teacher if we open ourselves to learn.  I’m sure all of us here have experienced the sacred, but the word itself is either laughed at or “twisted” by fundamentalists of every stripe into something awful.

When we raze mountaintops and destroy sacred spaces, we are twisting something valuable into something not only useless but dangerous and toxic.