Took a half day yesterday because it was the first 70 degree day of spring. There is something natural and primitive with horses that puts you in their time frame. That is to say horses have no concept of time, maybe we should not be obsessed with it either. Vacation is about a change. Change of scenery, change of setting, but mostly change of mind.
We had to walk them down the road to get to the trail. They both know it is not to be another boring ride in the field. It is nice out and they want to go. I must really confess to being a novice rider of horses. Yes, I can stay on and Blue listens to me most of the time. He is only five and a little better than greenbroke. My daughter is behind me on JD, the twelve year old. Entering the trail Blue is excited and wants to charge up the hill to a trail we have never been on. The good part is that I am starting to read him as we go from the odd couple novice horse, novice rider to short lopes up and downhill. We decided to try a new trail and he amazes me with another first, going through long patches of swampy water without protesting.
Our new trail turned out to be a shortcut back toward the house and not a three hour ride so two horses and the pony all got a bath. After that it was pony rides for my fifteen month old grandson. No, he didn’t want to get off.
Later it was steak tips and hot dogs from the grill, a first cookout with the whole family. After dinner we get out the pony cart.
What it is, is different. A half day of engineering stuff for Globo-corp ends with a half day of family, horses and the gleeful smile of my grandson. Feels like I have been gone an entire week.
Just because the world is going to end doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself. Stay balanced and get refreshed. You may find you are in a better place in dealing with the next evolution of horsemanure sure to come down the trail.
Keep bitching and put off the Apocalypse, one day at a time.
Down in New Orleans, they are burying the noted blogger, rabid Saints fan and local bon vivant ashley morris today. He leaves behind a wife and three young kids, and they need your help.
Ashley Morris
In the week since his death, there have been many moving tributes to this larger-than-life individual. This one’s from New Orleans City Councilwoman Shelly Midura:
I wanted to honor the life and passing of one my district’s neighborhood activists, Professor Ashley Morris, who we lost to an early passing yesterday morning. He was a friend to my office and a champion of his neighborhood. More than almost anything though, he was a fierce lover of New Orleans. He spent much of his time during the week teaching at an out-of-town university, yet he had no desire to move there. He preferred to commute.
To Chicago. From New Orleans.
Why would he do that? Why do so many others in our city do such things? I believe it was because Professor Morris wanted to be able to tell people, “I’m from New Orleans.” He wanted people to know that New Orleans was his home and that this truth was not only conscious and deliberate, but perhaps also something fated. He seemed to believe that New Orleans chose him as much as he chose us, as if it were some quantum entanglement that could not be logically explained or rationalized. It was a matter of the heart and knowing in the bottom of your soul exactly where you belong. It was a deep yearning for a city he loved, cherished, and felt gratitude and appreciation towards every day, despite the challenges and the ups and downs of post-Katrina life.
On his blog only a couple months ago, he wrote about going out to lunch with his friend Ray to Willie Mae’s and grabbing take-out there and how “There on the stoop, we tore into a whole fried chicken, macaroni and cheese casserole, mixed greens, and candied yams that tasted more like bread pudding. An excellent meal, as you can see… anywhere else, we’d be having lunch. Here in New Orleans, we were having a world class meal. For lunch.” Ashley knew that any moment in New Orleans was unlike any moment anywhere else in the world, that typical days here are not typical days anywhere else on this planet, and that being a New Orleanian, especially now, comes with a special badge of honor.
And so I honor my fellow New Orleanian, Professor Ashley Morris. He will be so dearly missed by so many, of whom I am only one. New Orleans aches for him today and wishes his wife, young children, family, and loved ones its heartfelt condolences.
His fellow NOLA Bloggers have set up a fund for Ashley’s family.
The New York Times reports Gunmen kill aide to al-Sadr in Iraq. Sayyed Riyadh al-Nuri, “a senior aide of Moktada al-Sadr… was killed in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, as he returned home from prayers on Friday in what Sadrists officials said was an assassination carried out by unknown gunmen.” So, who could have carried out the assassination? Don’t know, but there are a lot of mercenaries in Iraq. “The killing is certain to increase tensions between Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and government security forces, who fought a huge battle in Basra last month and have been engaged in heavy fighting in Mr. Sadr’s eastern Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City.”
Meanwhile, the AP reports “Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he doubts that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr… would be subject to arrest by U.S. forces… When pressed about the prospect of arresting al-Sadr, he added, ‘I would be surprised along those lines _ a move to arrest him. He is a significant political figure. We want him to work within the political process. He has a large following. It is important that he become a part of the process, if he is not already.'”
Arrest al-Sadr? Right, you and whose army? We saw how inept the Iraqi army was in Basra last month and does the Bush administration really want to drive up the U.S. casualties this summer? Plus, since al-Sadr is the man who apparently can turn the violence on or off in Iraq, arresting him would mean no one is controlling the spigot.
“Iran has never interfered in Iraq … such claims are sheer lies made by Iraq’s occupiers to continue Iraq’s occupation,” Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a senior advisor to Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshippers in a Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University.
“Iran supports the establishment of peace, security and freedom in Iraq as well as the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” added Rafsanjani, also head of a powerful arbitrary body.
Bush, who has accused Iran of backing militant groups in southern Iraq and providing explosives to extremists in the country, said Tehran had to choose between peace or war… The United States also is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to acquire nuclear bombs. Tehran says its atomic work is solely to generate electricity.
And, Bush has been a big advocate of nuclear energy… They’re all nuts.
Those leaders — finance ministers from all over the world — are gathering in Washington this weekend to sort out their reactions to the most profound global economic crises in at least a decade. The situation could reveal the limitations that international economic institutions face in dealing with the risks inherent to global capitalism…
The Group of Seven finance ministers of major industrialized countries meet today, and the governing boards of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank will meet tomorrow and Sunday. Their agendas: in the case of the G-7 and IMF, countering the breakdown in financial markets; in the case of the World Bank, food inflation that threatens to drive more of the world’s poorest people into starvation.
But these problems don’t have obvious solutions, and it may be hard to achieve consensus on even modest steps that might improve the situation.
Well, I’ve got lots of ideas for solutions, but then they are not along the rape and pillage, er capitalist variety though…
Barcelona is to take the unprecedented step of importing water by ship to prevent a water crisis prompted by extreme drought. The emergency measure, to start next month, indicates dramatically how climate change has affected one of Europe’s most developed cities – a metropolis known for its efficient infrastructure.
The Catalan Water Agency has chartered 10 tankers to ship water to Spain’s second city from Marseilles in France, from the Catalan port of Tarragona, and from desalination plants near Almeria in Spain’s parched south. Some water may be transported by rail. Water will be imported for at least six months, or until the resumption of normal rainfall ends the region’s acute water shortage.
The Sahara is moving north, across the Mediterranean.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs may not have been the whopper scientists thought.
An analysis of the chemical remains of the asteroid that can still be found in sediments under the sea today shows the rock was about 2.5 miles wide, according to Francois Paquay, a geology professor at the University of Hawaii.
That’s less than half the six-mile-wide space boulder that past researchers have suggested was the dinosaur-killer, according to the research published Friday in the journal Science…
Researchers used the same technique to estimate the size of the asteroid that created the 63-mile-wide Popigai crater in Siberia at about 1.7 miles across. It was previously believed to be about 2.5 miles across.
Humans will do the dinosaurs extiction one better and we won’t even need an asteroid.
Excerpts Below, as well as Contact links for the Chairman of the Judiciary and the Speaker of the House:
“…Today (April 8, 2008) House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) announced plans to hold a May 6 hearing to examine a recently released torture memo and the issue of executive power as it relates to interrogation and war-making authority. Conyers also sent a letter today to University of California – Berkeley professor John Yoo asking him to testify at the hearing…”
“I am concerned that some in the administration view the president’s power as that of an imperial presidency – not a democracy,” Conyers said. “The Judiciary Committee will look at the legal basis for actions taken before and during the war and whether we need to write stronger laws to prevent a future imperial presidency from steamrolling Congress and the American people into a thoughtless war and violating our fundamental human rights obligations.”
“…The announcement comes the same day as a request from Judiciary Committee member Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) to hold such hearings…”
(Bhudy commanded very nicely requested that I repeat my info in a “quick” Essay-so here it is.) I know that we’ve all got some degree of “contact your representative” fatigue, but I’ll overcome mine, if you’ll overcome yours and join me in writing to Conyers here at the Contact the Judiciary Website and for good measure, let’s Tell the Speaker what we think about Bush and his “Senior Advisors” including Co-President Cheney “authorizing” Torture.
If the Chairman or Speaker need some legal guidance about the lawfulness/Constitutionality of these actions, maybe we could share the link to Keith Olbermann’s interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley and his comments on the illegality of the Bush Administration’s actions.
Paul Keil at TPM Muckraker has a good summary of the “road to torture” here: Today’s Must Read.
It has become obvious that left to her own devices Nancy Pelosi WILL let them get away with it….no matter what they do or how horrendous “it” is. She is the only one with the real authority to stop them. And she, apparently, will not. The answer then, seems to be: Yes, they will. And a new administration is not the answer either.
The implications here are truly chilling. If the Democrats won’t pursue prosecution….We are faced with a government with NO internal or external checks. A government not subject to the law. A government which can wage aggressive war and torture with complete impunity. That is NOT hyperbole, it is where we stand at this very moment in time.
The latest revelations from ABC Newsclearly point to a high level, willful conspiracy to commit torture:
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
CLEARLY a conspiracy to commit illegal acts, and not a technical conspiracy, see my bolding above.
I am not a lawyer, but if you are charged, as the Democrats are as the alleged Opposition Party, with the duty and responsibility of oversight and holding the government accountable for illegal acts…..indeed, if you are the only one capable of it….and you choose not to act, the you become part of the conspiracy to commit illegal acts.
If both Parties are conspirators, our government can do whatever it wants with complete impunity, with no responsibility or accountability. They can, and so far have, literally get away with murder.
Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, IS the only one who can decide to prosecute these criminals. If she fails to do so, she IS part of the conspiracy to allow torture. Especially since she was at leastpartially informed that it was occurring. If it was JUST Pelosi however, there is a slim chance that pressure could be brought to bear on her. It is not just Pelosi, though. It is in fact the entire Democratic Party establishment, aside from a few voices raised in the wilderness.
Any sane person would ask why. Aside from their years of culpability in not stopping or prosecuting what it is now apparent to anyone who has even cursory knowledge of the issue, an entire network purposeful and willfully developed to facilitate, endorse, and carry out torture from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib to the secret torture prisons in Europe, there is another, objectively stunning, reason.
Political expediency …and political gain. For the entire Democratic establishment. Including two sitting Senators charged with oversight and holding the government accountable. Who are now running for president, running to take the reigns of a government that they are allowing to break the law…and every moral code….without challenge.
And putting aside the purely legal obstacles to a prosecution for war crimes, there’s also the political cost. Why would an Obama or Clinton Administration waste precious political capital early on with a politically divisive prosecution of former government officials? One can imagine the screaming of countless pundits arguing that the Democrats were trying to criminalize political disagreements about foreign policy. Such a prosecution would make politics extremely bitter and derail any chance for bipartisan cooperation on almost any significant issue. Obama or Clinton would rather get a health care bill passed, deal with the economy, or try to solve the Iraq mess, than have the first several years of their Administrations consumed by a prosecution for war crimes by officials in the Bush Administration.
As I noted in a previous post, the most likely prosecution for war crimes will not occur in the United States; if it occurs at all, it will come through the use of universal jurisdiction against Bush Administration officials who make the mistake of traveling outside the United States. There are certainly plenty of people outside this country who would like to try Bush Administration officials for war crimes. However, perhaps predictably, an Obama or Clinton Administration would probably try to exert political influence to nip any such prosecutions in the bud, worried that acquiescing in such prosecutions would set a very bad precedent for American interests.
It’s important to understand the point I’m making here. It is not that certain members of the Bush Administration haven’t committed war crimes. I’m pretty certain that at least some of them have. The point rather is that it is very unlikely that they will ever be brought to justice for it, at least in our own country– despite the fact that there are statutes on the books which assert that the commission of war crimes violates our laws.
(emphasis mine)
If the candidates are willing to allow this administration to conspire to torture with impunity, if they are unwilling to check their illegal acts, what does that say of their morality? This campaign is full of “character issues,” what greater character issue is their than allowing torture to go unchallenged and unprosecuted?
“We are on stronger ground ethically and morally . . . when we do not torture,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, in closing the debate. “Our ability to lead the world depends not only on our military might but on our moral authority.”
Well the, Speaker Pelosi, what does it say to our “moral authority” that you will allow a conspiracy to commit torture right under your nose and do NOTHING to stop it?
And what does it say of the American Citizens who will not, as our system of government is designed for, hold their government accountable?
It is up to us to do what we can. To raise a unignorable din.
Some folks out there may remember that I wrote a while back on the IOC’s decision to give the Olympic games to China, asking rhetorically, “What were they thinking?”
Right now, given the IOC’s desire to see the Bubblelympics continue free of any influences of the world outside the Olympic village, I’ve just gotta ask, “What are they thinking?”
The Times UK covers the recent “decision” of the IOC regarding whether or not athletes at the games can make any political statements. Calling displays of the Tibetan flag potential propaganda, the IOC stated that athletes could be banned for such displays.
Ah, yes, but how to handle that whole “freedom of speech” thing?
Follow me under the fold for the machinations…
Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda.
snip
Addressing concerns about free speech, Mr Rogge described the scenario of a Spanish athlete doing a lap of honour in the Olympic stadium with Spain’s national flag and his provincial flag as “perfectly legitimate”.
He said: “We have had many examples of mixed flags where the athlete is proud of that. Is there a will to demonstrate propaganda or is it a desire to demonstrate joy in his victory?”
The IOC did not specify whether a Chinese athlete or a foreign competitor of Tibetan origin flying the Tibetan flag would be regarded as patriotic or propagandist. A spokeswoman said that there had been no discussion internally or with the Chinese authorities about use of the Tibetan national flag. Asked whether athletes would be allowed to hang the flag in their rooms, she said: “The village is an Olympic venue so it falls under the same rules and regulations of any venue which would mean that anything in there would be judged on whether it was a provocative propaganda initiative.”
So, you can’t display the Tibetan flag. But maybe you could be able to if you’re displaying the Tibetan flag to demonstrate the joy of your victory. Or maybe not. We haven’t talked with the Chinese yet.
Confused? So are most Olympic athletes. The Times UK says the British Athletes Commission is trying to get a tighter definition from the IOC of what constitutes “propaganda” in this context. They probably won’t be alone.
Now, leaving the mental gymnastics of this ruling aside for a second, let’s talk about propaganda. The American Heritage Dictionary has a pretty good definition of what propaganda is:
The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause
Is wearing a Save Darfur t-shirt, then, propaganda? Yes, probably. Is this propaganda:
I would say it is.
Ah, but that’s advertising, and corporate advertising isn’t political.
Or is it?
Part of corporate advertising is building a brand, making sure that people associate the company with positive, almost human characteristics.
Kind of like this ad from another sponsor of the 2008 Olympics, General Electric:
This ad sends the message to people that here’s a company that cares about family, and cares about the environment. We’re hip, we’re green, we’re multicultural.
Love us.
But again, is this political? I’d argue that GE has a far greater impact on the politics of the United States – and elsewhere – than a whole room full of Dalai Lamas (all respect to His Holiness aside, this is quite literally one simple monk versus a multi-billion dollar, multinational corporation with some definite thoughts on what needs to be done politically to make a buck).
From the Center for Public Integrity:
Not surprising given its size, GE spends considerably to advocate its interests. In 2001 and 2002, the company spent more than $31 million lobbying Congress, federal agencies and the Executive Office of the President on issues touching on virtually all aspects of its operations: defense appropriations, environmental cleanup, energy, science and technology, aviation, banking and finance, telecommunications, domestic and foreign trade, foreign relations and taxation. GE spread its lobbying business among many individual lobbyists and lobbying firms, both in-house and outside. It spent $16 million on overall lobbying in 2000, twice what it spent in 1999.
Okay, so they lobby. Well, everyone does that.
But there are hints that GE’s involvement in politics goes deeper than simply shoving money at politicians:
Former CEO Jack Welch was a George W. Bush supporter and a major Republican contributor. Two weeks before his inauguration, Bush invited Welch and other CEO’s (including Enron’s Ken Lay) to Texas for a summit. Bush reportedly considered Welch for a Cabinet position and, in the summer of 2001, sent members of his administration to lobby the European Union in support of GE’s proposed merger with Honeywell, which the EU ultimately rejected.
Throughout 2001, California Congressman Henry Waxman accused Welch of intervening in NBC’s 2000 election night coverage and pressuring the network to prematurely declare Bush the winner. Welch admitted he attended an election night party at NBC’s headquarters and that he cheered for Bush but denied interfering with coverage decisions. When the major network and cable news division heads were called before Congress in January 2001 to account for the election night debacle, the president of NBC News offered Waxman access to internal videotapes made of Welch on election night, only to withdraw the offer just days later.
And then there’s the question of how GE chooses to make its money. This is a company that has chosen to do defense contracting, and is enabling the execution of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq:
Iraq contracts
GE’s reconstruction activities in Iraq were not disclosed in documents the Defense Department provided to the Center for Public Integrity in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Media sources, however, indicate that GE has or had post-war business dealings in Iraq. For instance, it was reported in April 2003 that GE Energy Rentals Inc., a division of GE Power Systems, was supplying temporary electrical generators to the U.S. military in Iraq. GE Energy Rentals, based in Atlanta, rents power generators, heating and cooling equipment and light towers. It was launched as a separate division in June 1999. The company refused to divulge the value of the contract.
Afghanistan contracts
The documents the Center received from the Defense Department revealed that GE was awarded a contract worth $5,927,870 from the U.S. Army Engineer District, Philadelphia, for “gas services.” News releases available on the Defense Department’s Web site, however, go into greater detail. For example, the contract is a firm-fixed-price contract awarded in February 2003 to GE Energy Rentals Inc. to provide prime power services at Bagram and Kandahar airbases. The contract is to be completed by Nov. 30, 2004. Seven bids were solicited for the contract in December 2002, and two bids were received.
But, in the world of Bubblelympics, athletes wearing track suits emblazoned with GE’s logo isn’t “propaganda”…but wearing an armband to show solidarity with Tibetan monks is.
Now, let’s review.
Acceptable propaganda:
Not acceptable propaganda:
Clear? Good.
Please keep all sides of this conflict in your thoughts, prayers and meditations.
UPDATE The IOC is now stating that the torch relay will proceed through Tibet:
IOC president Jacques Rogge is adamant the Olympic torch will be paraded through Tibet as planned.
snip
He said on Friday: “We have agreed to a route for the torch that goes through Tibet and this is the position confirmed by the International Olympic Committee.
“The great media attention that the torch brings is being used. It is not the symbolism of a united humanity that is being attacked, it is a fact that the protestors know that a lot of media will be watching.
“It is clear that it is the importance of the Olympic Games that attracts the events we are seeing now.
“I am quite sure that no-one is attacking the games but some are using them.”
The article mentions that “participants would be allowed to stage their own protests as long as they did not break Chinese law.” However, as these are the same laws that led to the jailing of human rights activist Hu Jia, it still remains to be seen what this means in practice.
Meanwhile, other leaders and activists have decided to withdraw their participation in Bubblelympics:
Meanwhile, with pressure growing on US President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games, aides to UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he would not attend because of scheduling issues.
Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai also said she would pull out of the torch relay leg in Tanzania.
Maathai said she withdrew to give support to activists over many rights issues, including China’s crackdown on Tibetan unrest, which Tibet’s exiled leaders say has left more than 150 people dead.
“I have decided to show solidarity with other people on the issues of human rights in Sudan’s Darfur region, Tibet and Burma,” she told AFP.
H/T to edgery, who provided a link to Students for a Free Tibet and their petition to encourage the IOC to stop the torch relay from proceding through Tibet. This situation remains fluid and I encourage folks follow this link and sign the petition: http://actionnetwork.org/campa…
Toad the Wet Sprocket, “All I Want” (probably their most popular song after “Walk on the Ocean”, which was so overplayed I wont even include it here 😉
On Saturday, my ex was supposed to pick up ‘thing 1’ around noon. I had set my alarm for 10, but was awoken at 9 by one of the pain-in-the-ass neighborhood boys who like to have my daughter watch them do crazy stuff. I know that sounds weird, but that’s about what happens every time they knock on the door looking for her. That, and they eat all my apples. But I dont think the two are related. Anyway…
When I was awoken at 9 I turned my alarm off, but then fell back to sleep. So I was grossly behind in getting ‘thing 1’ ready for her visit to dad’s. And I’m anally punctual. So I shouldnt even have been in her room shortly after noon, when the Toad the Wet Sprocket concert was announced….
My favorite Toad song…“Throw It All Away”..
Toad broke up many years ago, and I had given up all hope of seeing them perform. Different members of the group had been known to do small club shows and perform the band’s songs…and they did a ‘party boat’ thingy over the winter, but that required a weekend commitment…a commitment I couldnt make…
So I had basically given up all hope of ever seeing them, when out of the blue the universe sends a pain-in-the-ass teenage boy to my door to make sure I turn off my alarm so I oversleep, run late getting ‘thing 1’ ready for her visit to dad’s, and hear the concert announcement on the radio..(why the universe didnt just arrange to play the commercial announcement sooner, i dont know…and i DONT ask…)
A two-fer (with a longish break between)…“Whatever I Fear” and “Fly From Heaven” (another favorite…rumored to be written from the perspective of an apostle after Jesus’ death, but not confirmed to my knowledge)
On June 11, ‘thing 2’, her dad, his partner, one of her friends, and I will be at the Trocadero in Philadelphia…and, at long last, I’ll get to see Toad the Wet Sprocket in concert.
MEXICO CITY (AP) – The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.
The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.
But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor. [more]
150+ years’ worth of history of “owning” said land vs. tens of thousands of years’ historical habitation? Which much of the US public insists those narsty NATIVE AMERICANS (whom Lou Dobbs et al refer to as “illegal aliens”) forget they ever inhabited? OK…
DD folks, I write not so much to you as for you. I realize people on this site overall have radically more excellent views of their fellow human beings than many in the US. I hope what follows – our experience as recent Mexican immigrants – will be of use in your conversations up there with your fellow countrymen.
The happier ending to the story of Native America
After much visitation to inland towns/villages which are quite unlike border towns (slums) and tourist destination beach haunts (corrupts people every time), we can say one thing for sure: most of the people we have seen in Mexico are Spanish in surname only. The great majority don’t look Spanish at all.
While statistics/schmatistics claim the majority are of mixed native/Spanish ancestry, this writer would remind the world that the Spanish are a white race generally of chiseled features, a narrow skull and scant cheekbone structure.
Hernando Cortez
Hernando De Soto
Native Americans, on the other hand, look – and behave – in very different ways.
Geronimo
Red Cloud
Sitting Bull
Most of the people we meet – more than 99% – look more native American than Spanish.
The Spanish, by the way, were/are not keen on intermarriage with the native Americans they conquered. Even if they’re called Mexicans. They still tend to stand apart in Mexican society. And… there are a whopping lot of blondes among the Spanish Mexicans we encounter. The difference stands out.
While most of the US people admit of “native Americans” getting a raw deal, the same are taught by the media to curse Mexicans. Legal and illegal immigrants alike are conflated into one great economic fear phantasm, scapegoating Mexico for the disintegration of the US economy (as if deregulating lending standards to put the US mortgage industry in hock for war borrowing had nothing to do with it).
These people who are the subject of hate emails throughout the US, I would have the public know, are native Americans. Not to mention the people who grow, harvest and transport food to the collective US kitchen. And clean toilets, houses, tend gardens etc. etc. Indeed many are of some scant Spanish blood, but then so are many reservation Indians of mixed ancestry. Would we then tell mixed ancestry US native Americans to leave their reservations? I bet not. So where does the US public get off, calling native people “aliens” and constructing border walls?
About that “immigration problem:” it ain’t how the teevee sez.
One, statistics/schmatistics (OK, the local buzz down here) indicate that about 20% of the US Mexican workforce have forsaken the US. The flow is heavier southward than northward. Legal Mexican US workers are sick of being criminalized by the southwest’s police state mentality – and because of US animosity, this is frequently happening to legitimate immigrants. We meet returnees all the time who say they wouldn’t venture northward again for a million bucks.
Down here they return to a more happy, content lifestyle and their own land which they own free and clear courtesy of the Mexican Constitution, which by the way is a great read for contrast. It makes liberal mention of such human needs as workers’ rights to organize, having a day of rest and alloting rights/lands to the people. After a look at the Mexican constitution, I regarded the US constitution as primarily reactionary to imperialist industrialist tyranny. The Bill of Rights indeed would regulate the rights of government and military during crisis, but not much provision addresses normal life issues. Would that land ownership were a right, not something to slave for all one’s life! We can vouch that this personal security makes for a gentler, more content people. Mexico’s wars are a history of the people taking back the land from her conquerors, as opposed to the US story which has become an industrialist’s debt slavery dream come true and a corrupt search for rents (a mortgage, as we have learned, is not ownership free and clear).
Two, we often ask about those who “illegally” cross the great wall of Babylon to enter the US – why they would do so, while so much of Mexican society is content where they are. We are consistently told the same thing: the ones who come up from Mexico tend to be very ill-educated, and more often than not are in flight from a region troubled by CIA drug wars (see the so-called Iran-Contra “Affair”), or are actually not Mexican but rather citizens of other countries displaced by outrages wreaked upon Central America.
Not all Mexicans even want to be in the US, but to hear the MSM tell it, you would think they did.
Action Diary!
If possible, it would be an excellent vision quest for people of US reservations to visit Mexico. It certainly ended better for the native people here. These are the most loving, warm, content and mirthful people we have ever met in our travels around the earth. Same goes for the community of DD: come on down, we’re glad to help you get a look around and meet some of these dear people. Not to mention seeing a pyramid or two and reminding oneself of just how long these folks have been on this continent in comparison with the immigrants of US society.
BOBBY MULLER, Veterans for America: Very little, if at all. Understand the qualifiers in the statement. There will be nothing provided in the form of relief for all of the troops that are currently deployed. He’s talking about only those that deploy after August 1st.
And of the majority of those that are targeted for deployment through the year, the overwhelming majority are National Guard units, not regular Army units. They already are limited to 12-month tours.
So the president’s statement is, to be kind, misleading, but, to be more honest, basically a political ploy to deflect the pressure that you heard from Colin Powell, General Cody, General Casey, across the board.
The senior military leadership, particularly in the Army, has been confronting the president, saying, “We cannot sustain the levels of deployments.” The price that’s being paid by the troops is unconscionable.
Mental impact of multiple tours
BOBBY MULLER: You have to understand, one of the defining criteria of this war that people have got to pay attention to is multiple deployments. All of the regular Army units that are scheduled for deployment after the president’s deadline of August 1st have already been there. We’re talking about people serving multiple tours.
Same thing with National Guard units. Even with the National Guard that historically have never been deployed like this, multiple deployments.
And what we’re finding, if you look at the Department of Defense’s own reports that, every time you redeploy a soldier, there’s a 60 percent increase in the likelihood of psychological damage, those kinds of wounds. It’s a devastating toll.
We have frontline troops that are basically severely damaged. And if you can willingly, consciously redeploy them, as the mental health task force at the Department of Defense itself said last year, we are knowingly compounding injuries to those who’ve already served because of these redeployment practices.
Debating stop-loss policy
BOBBY MULLER: I wound up being a very militant activist against the war in Vietnam. I was a Marine infantry officer. The week before I got shot, they asked me, “Would I extend my tour?” And I said, “Yes.”
It’s about the troops; it’s about the people you serve with. It’s about a sense of obligation and commitment, particularly if you have experience, to try and protect them.
We go to military bases. We are talking to these troops. They are being stop-lossed. They’re being denied the ability to leave.
WASHINGTON-No lights at the end of the tunnel. No corners turned. Give Gen. David Petraeus points for using well-understood clichés to express the obvious: We are bogged down in Iraq, the general in charge there has now testified on Capitol Hill.
I am not the fine man you take me for. No no. I come in April to sell a string of horses and try my luck in the streams. What I got for the stock I lost at the wheel, and the flake I washed up I drank the fuck away. I don’t know as I’ll get home at all. I sold my boots. I owe $9 to a whore.
~Deadwood
There is something that troubles me about blogging. What troubles me is that we choose what we post, what we share about ourselves, how we present ourselves to others. I wouldn’t have it any other way; relationships with other people online are ill-defined at best, and as much as I like many of you, you are by and large strangers. You are not entitled of more of me that I choose to give you, which is a two-way street, of course.
Like most of you, I try to be intelligent, thoughtful, and courteous when I post. I hope that I succeed more than I fail. But what I think is that being smart or being nice doesn’t mean that I am good. I don’t know that I’m a good person, and I don’t know that y’all are either.
I’m not the son I’d like to be, not the lover I’d like to be, not the adult I’d like to be. I am not the man I hoped I’d be. I am fortunate to have good and patient family and friends who love me and care for me, but there are wrongs there that I cannot ever undo nor fully be forgiven for.
Since I was a kid, I’ve always empathized a bit too much with the TV. I remember watching The Wonder Years with my family, and when that kid (Fred Savage?) was about to make a fool out of himself, I’d get so uncomfortable I’d have to walk out of the room. Today its easier; with VCRs and DVD players, I can simply pause it until I’m ready to handle it. I do this a lot; watching the last four episodes of Friday Night Lights, I’ve had to pause at least ten times already. It is a bit better if I’ve seen it already, but not entirely. I don’t think I’ve made it yet through an episode of The Wire season two.
I love stories. I love that moment in stories, when even if what is happening couldn’t be further from your life or your experience, you hit that moment of recognition. That moment where you feel what the characters are feeling, where you know it like it was your own. That feeling, I believe, is the moment of being all people, that knowledge that while each of our stories is uniquely our own, what we are part of – the grand tale of human love and desire and hope and fear and loss and friendship and despair – is an interwoven tapestry. That moment allows us to see plainly how insignificant and yet beautiful we are; one solitary note played on but a single instrument of a vast orchestra, yet a part of a grand and tragic and gorgeous symphony.
There is another feeling I feel coming up unbidden and irrepressible when I’m watching the TV. I am afraid of this feeling; so afraid, in fact, that I’ve never admitted it to anyone and can barely imagine saying it here: spite. I feel spiteful to the people who make things I enjoy and admire. I am jealous of their ability to make those stories. I am scared that I lack their talent, and that I cannot do what they do. I am bitter at their success and that I do not share it. I hate this feeling. I despise myself for having it.
Sometimes I think it is just that I am getting old, or even that I am getting successful. When I was young, David Lynch and Tom Fontana and Federico Fellini were heroes and inspirations to me. But now, I consider David Milch and Joss Whedon and David Simon as, well, not competitors exactly. I am not that arrogant. But they seem to me like the mechanical rabbit at a dog track; constantly out of reach, exhausting me and taunting me and filling me with rage that I cannot catch up to them. But in my heart, I don’t think it has anything to do with getting old, or with success. In my heart, I think I’m just afraid. To reach the top of anything, to get the opportunity to truly do what you’ve always hoped to do, you have to be as fast as the rabbit. You have to not only have talent, but the discipline to work your ass off and to give everything to doing the best you can, and the will to catch the fucking rabbit, no matter how out of reach it seems. And no matter how hard you try, you must be willing to do so in spite of the fact that your absolute best might yet fail. And in my heart of hearts, I fear that even my very best will not be good enough, and so I do not try my best, so that I will always have an excuse. If I had just gotten my shit together, gotten disciplined, then I might have succeeded. I think I choose the torture of never knowing and blaming myself, rather than the excruciating yet finite pain that could come with measuring myself against greatness and coming up short. And I think that is why I find myself hating those who did not lack the courage to find out.
I don’t have a clue why I am telling you this. I suppose a big part of it is selfish; if I tell you, I can’t take it back. I can’t keep it secret within myself. Part of it is that I cannot stand the reaction that I get sometimes from things I post, those comments letting me know I am admired somehow, or respected. Part of it is because I cannot stand that part of blogging which is about the best of ourselves, where we can represent ourselves as the persons of moral sentiments simply because we are learned, reasoning people with ideas about how we can make our country and our world a better place. I am just another petty, mean asshole with something to say, coming to you and hoping you listen in spite of all the other bullshit. Knowing that I’ve done a million things too shameful to say, and that I am just as stupid now, but in a different way.
Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…
Muse in the Morning
The muses are ancient. The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them. Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward. In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.
It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse. Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets. Others have been suggested throughout the centuries. I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts. And maybe there should be many more.
The graphic my pitiful attempt at homage to Georgia O’Keeffe. The attempt was so pitiful that I wasn’t even thinking about O’Keeffe when I created it and had to have other people point out that I had indeed done so. The poem is about the graphic, sort of.
I know you have talent. What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent. I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook. 🙂
Let your talent bloom. You can share it here. Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.
Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making? And be excellent to one another!
Toad the Wet Sprocket, “All I Want” (probably their most popular song after “Walk on the Ocean”, which was so overplayed I wont even include it here 😉
On Saturday, my ex was supposed to pick up ‘thing 1’ around noon. I had set my alarm for 10, but was awoken at 9 by one of the pain-in-the-ass neighborhood boys who like to have my daughter watch them do crazy stuff. I know that sounds weird, but that’s about what happens every time they knock on the door looking for her. That, and they eat all my apples. But I dont think the two are related. Anyway…
When I was awoken at 9 I turned my alarm off, but then fell back to sleep. So I was grossly behind in getting ‘thing 1’ ready for her visit to dad’s. And I’m anally punctual. So I shouldnt even have been in her room shortly after noon, when the Toad the Wet Sprocket concert was announced….
My favorite Toad song…“Throw It All Away”..
Toad broke up many years ago, and I had given up all hope of seeing them perform. Different members of the group had been known to do small club shows and perform the band’s songs…and they did a ‘party boat’ thingy over the winter, but that required a weekend commitment…a commitment I couldnt make…
So I had basically given up all hope of ever seeing them, when out of the blue the universe sends a pain-in-the-ass teenage boy to my door to make sure I turn off my alarm so I oversleep, run late getting ‘thing 1’ ready for her visit to dad’s, and hear the concert announcement on the radio..(why the universe didnt just arrange to play the commercial announcement sooner, i dont know…and i DONT ask…)
A two-fer (with a longish break between)…“Whatever I Fear” and “Fly From Heaven” (another favorite…rumored to be written from the perspective of an apostle after Jesus’ death, but not confirmed to my knowledge)
On June 11, ‘thing 2’, her dad, his partner, one of her friends, and I will be at the Trocadero in Philadelphia…and, at long last, I’ll get to see Toad the Wet Sprocket in concert.
Meanwhile, the AP reports “
Those leaders — finance ministers from all over the world — are gathering in Washington this weekend to sort out their reactions to the most profound global economic crises in at least a decade. The situation could reveal the limitations that international economic institutions face in dealing with the risks inherent to global capitalism… 
