Wednesday, June 30, 2004

letter sent to the kerry campaign i posted today:

"Today there seems to be a groundswell not so much for Kerry but for anyone but bush. There seems to be a feeling and hope that bush may lose the election.

However many things will happen between now and election day. Many of these things will be orchestrated by the republicans. In my opinion the republicans have in place endless ammunition and PR tricks to confuse, muddle, and otherwise distract Kerry and the public both. The republicans - or more accurately those who have kidnapped the GOP - will not go gracefully. The brouhaha over what exactly Kerry threw over the fence (medals or ribbons) is just a foretaste of the innuendos and sub-rosa characterizations that will be thrown into the campaign.

The problem with this is that Kerry and his people are not prepared for these kinds of attacks. I can imagine meetings, memos, and polls being used to figure out how to respond, and these are too slow plus open up Kerry to the criticism that he dithers.

The nomination of Edwards for vice-president is the best possible antidote for this situation. He is non-alienating to the opposition, carries little baggage, and is a direct, plainspoken speaker. More importantly, he intuitively understands public discourse. As a front man to the coming attacks, instead of becoming tangled up in the tar baby of republican tricks he would be able in short order to clarify what is being said and in short order deflate any sidetracks or time bombs the republicans throw at the Dems.

In addition this would allow Kerry to take the high road, and perhaps be perceived not as a somewhat slow and stogy candidate but as a thoughtful, deep canidate. Increased gravatas.

In view of the coming onslaught of tangled accusations, personal history, and innuendo from the republicans, i am convinced that Edwards can make a critical difference and keep the public discourse on track.

He can make the difference between a win and a loss."

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

tuesday already all ready. garbage pickup will be the highlight of the day. i've been going thru tape cassettes, clothes, blankets, paperwork, big pile to dump. feels good plus i can walk from room to room without stumbling over objects that i don't even remember being in the house.

heard from mimi, so now i can continue on her website build. keeping my hand in just so i can remember how to do it.

about ready to print miniatures - post cards - on r300. ordering note card blanks today. so it is just possible i may have some out before bell chere.

spending week of july 18 with april and bev in april's mountain cabin in ashe county. if the weather is not boiling hot i'll stay a week. they do a vajryana retreat and then sedately party, we play a lot of music.

many doctor's appointments before this happens.

believe it's time to try another oil painting. i've got a long ways to go w/ this endeavor. drifting back into audio recording. and early morning walks. it's interesting this time of the year that if i walk up the mountain aways the landscape suddenly transforms to the jackson county summers i spent years ago: wet, green, leafy, that green luminescent shade.

Monday, June 28, 2004

merzy doats

wow, it's tomorrow already.

this weather, dark, wet, almost gloomy, damp: i love it. but it puts me into hibernation mode.

i'm happy just to hang around the house and putter. today i puttered the picture above, start to finish.

maybe i'm addicted to video games.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

sunday

watercolor finished - sort of - this morning.

Well I saw it. Fahrenheit 9/11, that is.

Skipped Friday, opening day, although I was curious about the premier audience, how many commies, hippies, old lefties, young anarchists etc would be in attendance.

So I went with my friend janet sat. afternoon and there was still the longest line I'd ever seen at the fine arts theatre. 30 minutes sweating in the sun on a hot and muggy afternoon. Right before we reached the ticket booth the shade came and it started to cool down, rain on the way.

The film is a must see, even if everyone tells you so. It is well made, sprinkled with humor, has a sedate almost elegant pace, unfolding a story in a very clear manner.

Mr. Moore, who does the voiceover in a quiet, unhysterical style, makes a few appearances. In each he is restrained, subdued - for moore - and serious.

Despite my anticipation of a slapstick fast cut series of cheap shots, there were very few. Just the facts ma'am. (joe Friday does have a cameo appearance.)

The exposition hits heaviest in the beginning with the bin laden - house of bush connection. It's there, it's real, and it's not new. The Carlyle group. It is detailed enough to go beyond the flat statements I have heard from time to time on late night short-wave.

Many revealing statements from the bush oligarchy. The in place plans to invade iraq transformed into the "run up" to not only a misplaced war, but a detour from fighting the real attackers. A lot about money. A lot about the saudi's. the plans for an oil pipeline from the caspian sea - wait a minute, maybe it's to the caspian sea - across afghanistan. The elite bush base.

And the lies. Amazing. Goebble's "big lie" has morphed to the bushies endlessly repeated small fibs. And they change to fit the situation with no referent to former fibs.

Go see it. Pick it apart. It is not objective; it was what once was called a polemic, counter-argument or counter-propaganda.

Counter to what? To the folks who kidnapped the republican party which would piss me off I was a true conservative. Counter to the entire media industry, including the press and TV. and way counter to jefferson. adams, and hamilton. (remember them?)

The conventional wisdom is that it will fire up the opposition to bush but not change anyone's mind. I think it may do a little more than that.

Saturday, June 26, 2004

jd


above are some scruffy customers at the annual "knock knock who's there" convention i almost attended a few weeks ago.

a few observations:

i heard, saw, or otherwise absorbed news blip recently to the effect that mr. moore's film is "counter-propaganda". yep, and what are the implications of that opinion?

and the republicans, understandably upset at the spate of "counter-propaganda" films and books coming out want to classify them as political ads, somehow limiting their accessibility, especially during the month before the election.

if they do try this, i suggest the democrats quickly pull in the AM talk radio cabal, tit for tat. could be an interesting discussion.

and speaking of the culture wars, did you notice this by supreme court justice kennedy?:

HoustonChronicle.com - Justice Kennedy backs discretion in sentencing:
"Archer noted Wednesday that the 2.1 million people behind bars in the United States accounted for one-quarter of the world's incarcerated population."

and hers ongoing news that seems endless. is there a connection between a "public" that puts up with country being stolen and "public" that puts up with this knd of nonsense?

Russian server blamed for latest Web virus / Source of infection, which may have been aimed at stealing financial data, shut down: "The virus does not affect Macintosh versions of Internet Explorer, nor does it spread through non-Microsoft browsers such as Mozilla and Opera."

Friday, June 25, 2004

whoa, it's friday already. what has happened since my last post wed. is that i've been booted into another phase.

taking care of the genz's dogs, painting, making "stuff".

and getting ready to go to spend a week in ashe county with my friends april, bev, and more friends.

right now i'm waiting for this out of rob brezny's astrology column for this week:

bezny

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

oops. didn't kleen house. or anything else. missed k. wilber gathering, went to bed at 7, got up at 12 & watched charlie rose. then back to sleep. up at 5:30, got some computer work done, two hour stroll from 7 to 9.

then back to sleep until 11. been pretty busy since then, i am making some headway on house and color prints.

woke richard up at his house around 7:30. i bet he's never been woke up that early by two scruffy beings on foot way up on the mountain.

what else? zip. did pick up some summer reading yesterday, can't do much with the heavy stuff altho i am up to the notes sectin of wilber's integral psychology.

truck goes in shop tomorrow i hope. drove it yesterday and it only hiccoughed once.

[later:nite] actually got a lot accomplished today. maybe i'll even wash the dishes.

don't know if you will be able to read these lyrics but they are great.

quit


memories, memories... from sam philips, cd is a boot and a shoe

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

zowee. this dip in energy has lasted 4 or 5 days. i guess it's needed downtime but i'd rather be busy, even if nothing comes of it.

skipped walk this morning. taking truck out to get groceries, paper for B&W printer, archival sleeves for color prints. an adventure because faulty ignition switch turns the engine off at the damnest times. truck goes in for repairs as soon as expensive ignition switch arrives at truck hospital.

biggest job: kleen house. today. right now.

Monday, June 21, 2004

slow day. gray. 2 hour walk in the morning, then back to sleep.

you might want to read this speech by bill moyers. whatcha gonna do about it?

This is the Fight of Our Lives:

excerpt:

"Here's something else to get mad about. Two weeks ago, the House of Representatives, the body of Congress owned and operated by the corporate, political, and religious right, approved new tax credits for children. Not for poor children, mind you. But for families earning as much as $309,000 a year -- families that already enjoy significant benefits from earlier tax cuts. The editorial page of The Washington Post called this 'bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed,' said the Post, 'but they're not.'"

Sunday, June 20, 2004

Apparently father's day and the solstice were way too much for me. had a nasty insulin reaction last night. totally drained today.

spent most of the day on my back. blew an appointment i had at one o'clock.

did manage to calibrate printer a little and dabble with a new watercolor. watched a lot of TV. Dad seemed to like the picture i sent him which is posted somewhere below.

Saturday, June 19, 2004


today is a sloooow day off. resting. almost bored. too hot to go out.

played with color prints this morning, about have monitor and printer matched.

culture wars: have you noticed that a few films are coming out with anti-bush slant, and of course AM radio has had a lock on the neo-con world for some time.

nothing to do with mcluhin; technology has made it possible to bypass the nrmal expensive production costs of cinema. and folks are so hungry for "the real rest of the story" that distribution stranglehold is loosening.

i may start a novel. i may fall in love. i may wonder off to the top of the "right" mountain.

then again i may sit somewhere and stare beyond the wall.

Friday, June 18, 2004

bigg

a quickie i did yesterday on mac. i kind of like it.

here's a place to go to find out your spiritual "type". Belief-O-Matic. i was diagnosed as a christian scientist(!).

ABC news came through as the only news i encountered yesterday that fleshed out bush's response to the "no connection between al-quiada and saddam" criticism.

he of course said that he said that he said that he said "we never said saddam was part of the al-quiadia attack". ABC followed this clip with one from a year ago in which the same guy says "al-quiada and saddam are allies."

the news media or at least the democrats should line up all sound bytes from 3 years of bush. anytime he says something, follow it up with what he said before. might give us people a little help in remembering.

Thursday, June 17, 2004

water

found this ink drawing on a very small piece of paper, ran it thru photoshop. one thing i think jung was right about is that images are endless.

saw "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" yesterday. best movie i've seen in years, have to put it right up there with "the flower thief" by ron rice, "koyanasquatsii" by ricci and "eclipse" by antonioni.

to cut to the chase, the movie was a lot about me. probably you too. no answers, except as ram dass said, you must live with a broken heart. only the movie adds and enjoy it.

got an easy catch up day today. but... catch up with what?

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

want


ooooh...ugly. my german abstract expressionist mode perkulating to the surface. i'll reduce size when i get time.

been finding more old poems. here's one i think i'll put in book:

[note: ancient history]

prepare for departure
that's what the man said
rolling down the runway
feeling half past dead.

i can't shake the feeling
of the woman i lost.
i had to move on,
past her last double-cross.

i still miss her touch
and the look in her eyes
the few times she saw me
and told me no lies.

all my life
i waited for her show
and when she finally did
it was a woman i did not know.

i lost myself inside her
but she reserved the right
to take her body anywhere
man or woman share the night.

her thoughts were a mystery to me
she'd share her body but not her mind.
right on time i realized
loving her meant staying blind.

so here i am on a plane
talking to a ghost
a woman designed to kill
the love she needs the most.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

smalloilcan

finished above yesterday. oil pastel. i'm on a roll with images, they can't see the light of day fast enough.

rainy morning. going out in it for a long walk, then pick up truck from garage. the rest of the day? let's just say i'll be busy with nefarious projects. simultaneously daydreaming. what a treat.

Monday, June 14, 2004

indmnt

up early, dropped off truck for starter/ignition switch fix.

getting some nice prints from epson r300. above i did this morning to send to my father. it's looking out one of his windows, called "indian peak".

big cleanup: a lot of photos and cassette tapes going. clothes and blankets too.

working on poetry book. i can print it here if i use 5.5" x 8.5" page size.

if i get truck back today will aim myself towards monday night drumming instruction.

"The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy."
Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947)

Sunday, June 13, 2004

msm

pencil, drew it in arizona. piece of the feminine puzzle i suppose.

talked to mona, may, and june on the telephone, three very different women. there seems to be a great concern that i will fall back into the clutches of mona.

i don't think so. but i would like to talk with her someday, somewhere, share truth.

slept all afternoon. started difficult watercolor, trying something new.

now for a walk in the gray mists of morning.

[later] friends meeting. back here, stayed burrowed for the rest of the day. talked with marshall.

getting good prints with premium luster paper. do you know any premium lustre folks? me neither.

but there is no way to outline today, and yesterday is already filed somewhere else.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

ofeelia

an interesting day so far. bed last night at 8, up at 5:30, maybe 2 hour walk. quick trip to grocery store. lots of this's and that's.

i call picture above "ofeelia".

Friday, June 11, 2004

kat


pencil drawing of daughter nicole's cat, kally. i don't think it is spelled "kali", but you never know these days.

nothing much to say today so why am i typing this? it's a routine i picked up a few years ago and surprises continue to bubble up from time to time.

ray charles died, and ronald reagon died. of the two, ray affected my life waaaay more than ron. i was buying and listening to his early atlantic 45s in the 50's. "sinner's prayer" has always been one of my favorites. i didn't listen to much of his later music, i was already on to jazz and in the 60's electric music for the heart and soul.

what do i listen to nowadays? not much, mostly classical muzak turned down low.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

664


it's good to see thomas friedman coming around:
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Dancing Alone: "'Hey, Friedman, why are you bringing politics into this all of a sudden? You're the guy who always said that producing a decent outcome in Iraq was of such overriding importance to the country that it had to be kept above politics.'
Yes, that's true. I still believe that. My mistake was thinking that the Bush team believed it, too."

well it's 11:30 in the morning and I just finished my morning ablutions which consist of 1) making a picture (above) and 2) putting it up.

I won't even go into if this routine makes any sense. I have no idea.

went to tibetan buddhist sitting and talk last night. It was fun and I learned a little bit about vajrayana - undoubtedly spelled incorrectly.

this makes 4 days in a row that I have been involved in some sort of group practice. Hammy.

now here's my plan for the coming presidential election which I believe bush will win unless:

1. Edwards is the vice presidential nominee. He and an excellent team of emergency respondees field all of the dirty tricks and heavy artillery that are already positioned to overwhelm them. Edwards it seems to me is the best possible point man to handle incoming, quick, alert, experienced at brushing aside bombs in simple straight terms without offending Joe Sisyphus and friends.

2. This allows Kerry to more or less continue on slow methodical path, back off into "thoughtful reflective" mode. Trick here would be to outlast the glitz and glittery static of the republican campaign. There is a good chance that the public - you and me and strangers - are on the cusp of rejecting this mode.

that's it.

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

6,9.4

kw

picture i did at ken wilber meeting last night. very animated discussion of diamond approach by almass.
Ridhwan Foundation Home Page: "THE DIAMOND APPROACH TO THE WORK"

truck starter went south, i�ll deal with it tomorrow. roll it to start in a minute and make a pick up stuff run, take it in thurday morning.

reading the lost language of plants by buhner. he is in to a lot of interesting facets of the present culture which has turned into a box for so many of us. here�s some of what he has to say about TV:

"...it is intricately bound up with our need to dream...

"...mircea elide comments that...

'[man] - is continually fascinated by the chroicalling of the world, that is, by what happens in his world or in his own soul...�

"...before printing, dreaming was crafted as art through story telling...after printing, story telling followed a new tack and developed as art through written fiction. they all involve our human capacity and need to dream...

"with movies story telling even more closely began to resemble dreaming because dreaming contains such sights and sounds...

"with television, dreaming no longer is an irregular, isolated event like sleep-dreaming, the theater, or a trip to the movies (events set off in time and space as important), but a habit casually undertaken anytime one wishes...and the dreaming process is continually interupted by commercials - a unique shift in our evolutionary history of dreaming...

"as a result, people are continually exposed to dreaming that works withvery shallow and homogenized meanings relective of one particular inustry and way of thinking.because the level of meaning is so shallow people begin to live more and more in a world of less and less access to deep meaning."
one way to describe why bush got elected.

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

6.8.5

azgully
another pencil drawing from arizona messed with this morning.


gray torpid day, a little wet, a little too humid. that feeling that something is hanging in the air.

went for 1 1/2 hour walk with bobby this morning. short health appt this afternoon, while i was out picked up a few items.

when i returned from arizona last week, i totally spaced out on phoning sister and dad to tell them i landed on this side safely. matter of courtesy and respect, routine. i thought i had made the calls, but i didn't. kind of worrysome, chalk it up to the "mind-body" crashing for a short few days.

so here's what i've been wondering about: identity, personal experience, the experience of consciousness right now. or maybe just this week.

about 10 or 15 years ago i felt like the "personality" or personhood in general was changing in the culture, and that what is outside in the culture shapes the outside of the personalities that live within it. there was no way to call this personality that was emerging in the culture "good" or "bad", it was just different than the one i had. although from time to time i did wonder:

whether it was a neo-darwinian case of adapting to the actual and was not totally obsolete

OR

if it was a change that lost something, i.e. lost the type of personality that existed when i was living youth.

in the first instance i am old and in the way, in the second maybe something is being called from me.

today it seems like the question has escalated: all over the culture there is a question not only of how "I" exist in the culture, whether the possibility of change exists in this realm today, but whether the whole phenomenon of identity has outlived it's usefulness. always with the contrary, the compliment, that the experience of life in the world of 10,000 things can be lived in a way that both needs and doesn't, us "identities" milling around.

glad i got that off my chest.

Monday, June 7, 2004

6.7.4

dark

another picture done in az - pencil - and messed with here.

this is an interesting item, leads to thoughts of movie wars, the fusion of entertainment and politics:
Pumping Kerry

otherwise business as usual, have fallen back into old habits of puttering around the house everday, talking to the muse and staying amused.

Sunday, June 6, 2004

6.8.4

woke up at 7, thought about getting ready for hike.

i think i was still thinking about it when i lay down and woke back up at 10. so no sycamore cove trek for me today. the place i inhabit is an ADD disaster so i'll clean and organize. who knows what i'll find.

water


this is what i found, an old & forgotten doodle.

tried to email richard and debbie in the ukraine last night, it bounced back this morning. richard and debbie, if you're out there, email home.

loaded up on CD's and mysteries from the library yesterday. got an 87th precinct book by Ed McBain. that's good because i'm experiencing difficulty getting into any book these days, and this series i've always been able to read no matter what the state of my psyche.

greg brown tonight. i worked with a friend years ago who tried to get me to give a listen to him, but was stopped cold at the time by some sort of preconception that he was a member of the lake wobegone crew, which even back then i couldn't tolerate.

but recently i have heard a few CDs and get the idea that he is a rough and tumble redneck with a definite streak of noir, right up my alley. so we'll see.

[...later] the usual obscure run-arounds to get this posted.

now that (some) of archives are (sort of) accesable, i've been browsing through them. found a number of poems i think i will add to the book i'm working on. here's one:

someday maybe i'll feel new
but these days those days are mighty few
the sky leaves clouds like a clue
hangs question marks in the blue

atmospheric ice-crystals are cold
artificial memories i've been told
pathways lost in wars so old
storms of life bought and sold

azdoodle


for the last 2 days i've been back to my old sub-normal. lot of catch-up to do, and i've been busy briquologing.

got a good walk in today before the heat. dr. r. stopped by for a visit. going to see cold mountain tonight. heard talk of "preemptive joy" today at friends meeting.

picture above started at my dads house.

[a little later] saw cold moutain and kind of liked it. i thought the female lead was pretty inappropriate lokking, but by the end of the movie wasn' thinking about it. seemed more like exclusively romance that i remember the book being.

then there is this hameed ali thing that keeps circling around: "the diamond approach". don't know why but i feel better just having read a little of him.

is similar to dissapearing through the skylight. both are about the waning of the personality and identity.

Friday, June 4, 2004

Blogger Knowledge: "There are as many kinds of blogs as there are kinds of people, but there are only three motivations for keeping one: information sharing, reputation building, and personal expression. And though any one of these may be the primary reason for a blog, no one maintains a blog for any length of time without eventually doing all three."

dtree

back in aville, feels like I've been gone for years. Driving up 40 from chapel hill I had a moment when all of the green hit me in the solar plexis. Welcome home.

a lot happened in my heart and head while I was gone, all necessary, it's all good.

what did I learn?

I am equal to the present moment. Always already all ready. No guarantee that I am right or wrong, but if I'm in it I'm part of it.

Picture above from my dad's back yard.

I'll be redoing this blog. slim it down and shape it up soon.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Last day in sunny southwest, fly to NC in the morning. Probably spend a day or two or three visiting children and grandchildren, altho that is always contingent on their schedule and the heat.

the new yorker had a piece listing blogs that are being turned into books, or might be. Here is the list:

http://blogs.booklocker.com/matchmaker/archives/001506.html
instapundit
hit & run
the lack table
dong resin
zulkey
low culture
lindseyism
megnut
maud newton
meme-first
old hag
pressthink
i keep a diary
buzz machine
engadget
eurotrashgawker
the kicker
the minor fall, the major lift

I haven't checked any out.

the new york review of books may 27 has review of ghost wars: the secret history of the CIA, Afhanistan, and bin laden from the soviet invasion to sept. 10, 2001. The review is by ahmed rashid and the book is by steve coll. Buy it, get it at your library, read it and figure out how the contents can be converted to bumper stickers or burma shave signs: it would ensure bush losing the next election. Which people are getting, in my opinion, a little too confidant about.

my sister has a DMS-IV around the house which I took a gander at. Even tho categorizing consciousness in Dewey decimal like format is a crackpot idea, there were some interesting tidbits. Here's one:

"... pervaisive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others...referred to as psycopathy, sociopathy, or dyssocial personality. Because deceit and manipulation are central features...It may be especially helpful to integrate...information collected from collateral sources...

"persons with this disorder disregard the wishes, rights, or feelings of others. They are frequently deceitful or manipulative in order to gain personal profit or pleasure (e.g., to obtain money, sex, or power)... They may repeatedly lie, use an alias, con others, or malinger...Display a reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others... may engage in sexual behavior or substance use that has a high risk for harmful consequences...may neglect or fail to care for a child in a way that puts the child in danger...

"... Show little remorse for the consequence of their acts...Having hurt, mistreated or stolen from someone...[they] may blame the victims for being foolish, helpless, or deserving their fate...

"...Lack empathy, and tend to be callous, cynical, and contemptuous of the feelings of others...have an inflated and arrogant self-appraisal...Excessively opinionated, self assured, or cocky...May display a glib superficial charm and can be quite voluble and verbally facile...Exploitive in their sexual relationships...irresponsible as parents...more likely than general population to die by violence..."

well, we all know the DSM-IV is bogus and in our dull daily rounds we don't bump into people like the above. But if you do, you're fresh meat.

6.1.4

Memorial day in phoenix, went to Cosanti and was fortunate enough to meet paolo soleri. nice gent. otherwise spent the afternoon in a daze from the heat.

reading this and that came across this (and that):

"when we are listening to egocentricity we have the feeling that we know beyond doubt how we should be operating and how life should be.

"our heart doesn't tell us what to do. being at one with our heart means simply being present to and appropriate in the current circumstances.

... it might be helpful to consider:

-as long as you want to be right you'll be wrong.

-when you accept that you'r wrong, you'll be right."

from a 1990 california buddhist tract that which you are seeking is causing you to seek.