email i got this morning. thanks russel and tucker;
--------------------

as we say in Woolof--"Danka Danka Japa Gaola"--Softly softly catch the monkey" --I didnt see
this weird visit to one of my favorite countries-just everyone saying how compassionate the
speech was!!
Go figure
T


A letter from a Senegalese following Bush's visit that was forwarded to me.

Russell Banks


> >
> > Dearest friends,
> >
> > As you probably know, this week George Bush is
> > visiting Africa.
> > Starting with Senegal, he arrived this morning at 7.20
> > PM and left at 1.30 PM. This visit has been such an
> > ordeal that a petition is being circulated for this
> > Tuesday July 8th be named Dependence Day.
> >
> > Let me share with you what we have been trough since
> > last week.
> >
> > 1- Arrestations: more than 1,500 persons have been
> > arrested and put in jail between Thursday and
> > Monday. Hopefully they will be released now that the
> > Big Man is gone
> > 2- The US Army's planes flying day and nigh over
> > Dakar. The noise they make is so loud that one hardly
> > sleeps at night
> > 3- About 700 security people from the US for Bush's
> > security in Senegal, with their dogs, and their cars.
> > Senegalese security forces were not allowed to come
> > near the US president
> > 4- All trees in places where Bush will pass have been
> > cut. Some of them have more than 100 years
> > 5- All roads going down town (were hospitals,
> > businesses, schools are located) were closed from
> > Monday night to Tuesday at 3 PM. This means that we
> > could not go to our offices or schools. Sick people
> > were also obliged to stay at home.
> > 6- National exams for high schools that started on
> > Monday are post-poned until Wednesday.
> > Bush's visit to the Goree Island is another story. As
> > you may know Goree is a small Island facing Dakar
> > where from the 15th to the 19th century, the African
> > slaves to be shipped to America were parked in special
> > houses called slave houses. One of these houses has
> > become a Museum to remind humanity about this dark
> > period and has been visited by kings, queens,
> > presidents. Bill,
> > Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, and before them, Nelson
> > Mandela, the Pope, and many other distinguished guests
> > or ordinary tourists visited it without bothering the
> > islanders. But for "security reasons" this time, the
> > local population was chased out of their houses from 5
> > to 12 AM. They were forced by the American security to
> > leave their houses and leave everything open,
> > including their wardrobes to be searched by special
> > dogs brought from the US. The ferry that links the
> > island to Dakar was stopped and offices and businesses
> > closed for the day.According to an economist who was
> > interviewed by a private radio, Senegal that is a very
> > poor country has lost huge amount of money in this
> > visit, because workers have been prevented from
> > walking out of their homes.In addition to us being
> > prevented to go out, other humiliating things happened
> > also. Not only Bush
> > brought did not want to be with Senegalese but he did
> > not want to use our things. He brought his own
> > arm-chairs, and of course his own cars, and meals and
> > drinks. He came with his own journalists and ours were
> > forbidden inside the airport and in place he was
> > visiting. Our president was not allowed to make a
> > speech. Only Bush spoke when he was in Goree. He
> > spoke about slavery. It seems that he needs the vote
> > of the African American to be elected in the next
> > elections, and wanted to please them. That's why he
> > visited Goree Several protest marches against American
> > politics have been organized yesterday and even when
> > Bush was here, but we think he does not care.
> >
> > We have the feeling that everything has been done to
> > convince us that we are nothing, and that America can
> > behave the way it wants, everywhere, even in our
> > country.
> > Believe me friends, it is a terrible feeling. But
> > according to a Ugandan friend of mine, I should not
> > complain because in Uganda one of the country he is
> > going to visit, Bush does not intend to go out of the
> > airport. He will receive the Ugandan President in the
> > airport lounge.
> > Nevertheless, I think I am lucky, because I have such
> > wonderful American friends. But there are now
> > thousands of Senegalese who believe that for all
> > Americans the world is their territory.
> >
> > ��������������������� Love to you all
> >
> > ��������������������� Codou
> >
> > ______________________________________________________
> > ___________
> > Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.�
> > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
> >
> >
> > ------- End of forwarded message -------
> >
> >
> >
> Chase Twichell
> Editor, Ausable Press
> www.ausablepress.com

slowed down day. ninian spent the night last night. he played some pleasant hillbilly trance (that's "old timey") music on the banjo. doing watercolor on clayboard, very interesting possibilities. went to mark and sharri's for baba gathering, really interesting talk by sherri on sufi kawalli music. she got her doctorate in ethnomusicolgy. wish i had.

good news! check out my astro-gnostic probability-wave for this week:

yesterday was a little strange; worked all day on various things. i think i finished one oil and almost a second. if i'm right i will have finished 3 in this lifetime. decided to wait until end of august to continue upgrade on g3, mostly zif cpu upgrade and cd burner. also got pretty good electronic-trance mix done, now to add vocals (sigh).

also caught the last half of something on pbs about music and musicians in pakistan today. Peshawar, the northwest "wild west" of that country, has outlawed music. playing, listening etc. a la taliban. an articulate member of eclectic pakastani rock group traveled there to check out the feelings of the folks who live there and the students of a moderate madras.

Peshawar and the territories in the northwest are historically an aberration. after WW1 a line was drawn by some general in london or paris - or versailles - dividing afghanistan and pakistan and split this region down the middle. there was actually a short-lived movement to establish the area as a nation-state with a name something like "peshwaristan". i say something like because i can't remember what it was actually meant to be named.

pakistani law does not prohibit music, but the influence of the mullahs and madrasi means that it cannot be performed (or even hummed) in that part of the world.

anyway the conversations were most interesting. if you accept even in a tiny way the position of the fundamentalist muslims who wield power there that the modern mediated culture is exploding with destructive images and sound you can see the problem they are dealing with.

on the other hand, looking at islamic history and especially the sufi thread, one can argue that music has always been an integral part of that tradition - kawali, rumi, etc.

so it is (to fall into ken wilber's world) a clash of the modern market driven world-centric world view and an ethnocentric regressive world view.

the answer of course is to transcend but include the ethnic values. that is acknowledge the downside of the current cultural juggernaut and play good music that reflects the higher states of mind and culture and dismisses the cheap thrill. or to put it another way, the answer is blowin in the wind.

an interesting comparison is with the iconaclastic controversy of the 8th and 9th centuries, when both the islamic and byzantine cultures decleared man made images to be a distraction from the true, the good, and the beautiful. which they can be, if the observer worships the image and not the reality behind it.

so it's all in the eye - or ear - of the beholder.

but which beholder? here again i go along with wilber: the same beholder who is beholding us.

i changed the picture above and below. they were just not right. something off about both of them. hope they are a little more...interesting now.

i'm in countdown mode for trip to raleigh and on to arizona. the older i get the earlier i have to start organizing and packing. if this trend continues, there will come a time when i don't have the time left to pack and go anywhere.

i'm racing to finish 2 projects before the long hiatus. (no, not that), i mean the coming trip. want to complete a pdf file that will contain old parsons family photos so my scattered extended family can take a look and tell me who is in the photos, where they were taken and so forth.

second is another pdf file, the new life, a book i am typesetting for mr. jeff in south carolina. incorporate changes i have got, insert many picture frames and captions.

the first will be done by today, the second by tomorrow.

yesterday i was planning to drive up to mr. b.'s camping spot in yancey county, but the hot weather stopped me cold so to speak. instead i totally screwed up a water color but came close to finishing 2nd oil painting. ninian arrives sat. for an overnight stay. now i'm going to take a walk.

2 links to good newspaper series on voting machine, procedures story (hugely under reported).

story

more

not a whole lot to say this AM. ran out of insulin in pump woke up with blood sugar reading of 530. this essentially blows my day and means taking it easy while i bring it down.

interesting discussion last nite at ken wilber group. one of the many things i like about wilber is that he dismisses the solitary holy man up on the mountain as not the way to go today, or not the way to spend one's life. or better yet, not the way to go exclusively.

when i was younger i pondered this question; i usually felt more than a twinge of guilt at any glimpses of the spirit i might have from time to time, because i couldn't relate them to the world. i believe martin luther dealt with this knotty problem when talking about the "quietists".

if i have any "faith" it is that beyond the visible world there is something attributeless without which the visible and manifest would not be. but this is the result of experiences i have had and what memory has left me, not "faith".

any faith i have is faith that for reasons far beyond my understanding i am in the world. like all of us my life seems to necessary, as it unfolds, to capital-R Reality. my existence and experience matter.

now that i've got that settled, what do i do with it?

just to be on the safe-side i checked out the white-house list of suspicious reading. so should you. thanks, tuck.

A PICTURE

A DAY

KEEPS

THE DOCTOR

AWAY



had a brain scan the other day. above is the result. doc said don't worry, it's going around.

i put it up because i don't have much to say today. except that the current interest in whether bush and company lie or not i think is entirely misplaced.

in my humble opinion nobody believed him in the first place. did you? so any revelations about what he knew when he said whatever doesn't matter and is beside the point.

here's an interesting thought: gen. wesley clark for democratic presidential nominee.

don't know if the google WMD thing below still works. maybe it was a temporary hack done for the "hacking" contest of a few days ago. hope it is still there.

it's dark and cool - but humid - outside this morning so i'll head out for a walk in a minute. this is easier said than done for me, since i have to check blood sugar when i wake up and if it is too high correct it with insulin pump and wait for it to come down while the sun comes up, which quite often means no walk until it's too hot. speaking of type I diabetes today is the day for my yearly retnothopy - sp? - check with eye doc. used to dread it, as blindness is such a bugaboo. nowdays i just go, thankful that somehow they will deal with me, even tho i don't fit into any socio-economic pigeon hole. in a culture that defines identity by role, marginalized pioneers sometimes pay a heavy price.

which reminds me of a sci-fi book by harry harrison i read a lifetime ago, bill the galactic hero, in which there were people called the "de-planned", who had lost thier way in the cutural matrix. can you say "marginalized"?

ken wilber, along with a lot of other folks, think that the outer edges of culture is where the action is, where the values and worldview of the future emerge. in a discussion i had with friends the other day it was observed that maybe some of us, because of this, might consider this group the true "elite". i don't. i think the "dispossesed" might be more accurate. i don't think any mature person would voluntarily put himself or herself in this catagory. but i think more and more folks will find themselves there. has to do with values, experience, intuition, and perspective, none of which are wholey self selected.

speaking of wilber, i am just about finished with sex, ecology, and spirituality, reading the footnotes at the end of the book, where i found this:

"for a particular chilling account of this retribalization and it's growing influence in the immediate future, see robert kaplin's 'the coming anarchy' in the february 1994 issue of the atlantic. kaplan also sees the world heading towards globalization, but with an extended period of retribalization: 'whereas the distant future will probably see the emergence of a racially hybrid, globalized man, the coming decades will see us more aware of our differences than our similarities.'

"kaplan ties his thesis to the work of van creveld's transformation of war, homer-dixon's environmental studies, and huntington's thoughts on culture clash: under various intense environmental and demographic stresses, numerous state mechanisms of governance will fragment into ethnic tribal bands. and, kaplan points out (quoting van creveld), future 'armed conflicts will have more in common with the struggles of primitive tribes than with large-scale conventional war' (i.e., regression to tribal warfare prior to state warfare about which van clausewitz theorized).

"...and thus, kaplan points out... 'in places where the western enlightment has not penetrated and where there has always been mass poverty, people find liberation in violence.'

"...as tribalized warfare increases: 'because the radius of trust within tribal societies is narrowed to one's immediate family and guerilla comrades [largely preconventioal and egocentric] , then truces arranged with one commander may be broken immediately by another.' likewise, 'when cultures [ethnicities], rather than states, fight, then cultural and religious monuments are weapons of war, making them fair game.' "

do this:

go to google and in search field type in "weapons of mass destruction", probably need to include quotes. then click "i'm feeling lucky". thanks, richard, for this gem.

sunday morning. for some reason having to do with with when i grew up, i am always reminded of the lines from an old charly musselwhite song:

"sunday morning
everybody's in bed
i'm on the street
talking out of my head"
course i'm not.

i talked to son eli yesterday. he visited damien friday. damien is now in rehab at wake med, was ambulanced there thursday. the good news: nurses told him that in the short time he has been there, he has gone up two levels on some scale they use. get well damien, we all love you.

i'm struggling with how personal i can get with these posts. the "confessional" mode does not appeal to me. plus the personal mode is one i seem to be able to fall into face to face, but the written word does not seem able to carry my story. the words just are'nt there.

so here is an update on the gulf war, strictly my own opinion. the political machine that got us into this for whatever reason has no idea of where they are. the class of corporate oligarchs that spearheaded the effort is incapable, seemingly, of appreciating world views other than thier own severly constricted outlook. "helpless like a rich man's child" (dylan). they should all be forced to spend a month on the street with a few bucks in their pocket. whether the changing storylines that led the public were lies or ignorance does not matter. in real world terms it was and is nonsense. what is happening around the world, esp. iraq, is entirely predictable from the point of view of the man on the street. which is why i argued during the ramp-up to the war that if we won on the first day and saddam's head was fed-exed to bush, our troubles would be just beginning. any number of saner methods could have produced the demise of saddam's power.

i believe the sequence of moves leading to the war were based on the same "logic" that the tv commercials for "total" cereal use. that product touts that it contains 100% of the daily vitamins needed to sustain life, so buy it. but common sense (remember it?) tells us the only way this could be an advantage is if this were all you were going to eat during the whole day. and then you would die from lack of calories. this line has been used for at least 20 years, so the people respond to it. just as they (we) are buying into the daily sound bites justifying the coup d'etat that has happened in washington dc. enough.

didn't sleep thru the fireworks like i usually do, my daily rhythms are in such a metabolic flux i more or less came to about 9 pm and painted for a few hours. two days before i woke up at 4:45 am, fresh, full of energy and enthusiasm and got a lot done - by a lot i mean work on my nebulous creative projects. lately i have to catch each wave of energy and ride it, but i never know when one will come.

yesterday i got a lot of phone calls from my daughter, cousin linda in idaho who i haven't seen since we were children, sister jane on her cell-phone while out walking in the summer heat of phoenix. tuned up G3 which seems to have settled down, i was experiencing a little of the inevitable system wackiness which manifests from time to time. i always attribute these things to stray muons blasting thru the electronics. not sure what they are doing to my head.

got an email from these folks who stumbled onto my site:

commonwheel journal

extremely pertinant site, great links, one of which jumped out at me:

ivan illych on what we need and what we don't.

last nite i finally managed to hook up good mike to G3, records well with no noise. i used to do this routinely about a year ago, but couldn't remember how i did it. played around for a week, and then stumbled on the answer which had been staring me in the face.

so i immediately recorded a short piece, 3 guitars, hammond b3 and percussion, and went to bed.

when i got up this morning computer would not boot up. i went thru the usual drill, and then gave up.

which was good, because it fixed itself.

happy fourth.

thurday evening. sam dropped by. i think he's right: next step for me is periodic, routine, but very minor hubbub. reflection is a funny word. but, like my sister always tells me, i probably could use a little more structure in my life.

so i'm going to walk each morning before it's daylight.

rainy tuesday morning. bad night last night, couldn't sleep. listened to alex gray on shortwave for a long time. this guy's operation fascinates me. (info-wars.com) if 1% of what he is talking about is anywhere near true, we're in philip. k. dick land bigtime.

i haven't studied his documentation, but am thinking i 'll take a look at it. as i understand what he is saying:

9-11 was a setup. the FAA or defese dept was conducting an in the air test of crashing airplanes into buildings that very day.

the "mainstream" media has stated that troops were in afghanistan up to 6 months before 9-11.

iran invaision plans already in place.

prison labor ("slave-camps") already a profitable operation, the bush's own stock in one of the companies spearheading this.

terrorist threat is generated by us govt. to produce docile public. this operation goes back a long way.

pretty strong stuff, huh?

thanks to tharpa for this information. i wonder if the guy they are studying watches tv:
"NASA to study man who survives on liquids and sunlight"
from
here:

another big (40k) cyber-doodle. lately i feel like i'm just messin around, not accomplishing much. which is probably true.

the best part of waking up is taking a walk which i am gonna do...right now.

today is the birthday of my two oldest children, eric and nicole. i am very proud of them and the way they are navigating through this life, aka "vail of tears".

on another subject entirely (?), i found this quote yesterday which, as is said, "speaks" to me:

"any faith with the idea of truth behind it is better than no faith at all. it is better to walk the wrong road and return to the right way than not to walk at all. what matters spiritually is faith. when faith becomes love than there is no need for faith any longer."

Meher Baba

oops. a trifle big. still only 20 something k . just wanted to see how fast i could drag a rabbit out of a hat. (5 minutes).

i don't know why but i'm having a perfectly wonderful day. got a nice walk in this morning. played with flash a bit, i'll be learning it in bits and drabs (drabs?) so watch out. paid a bunch of bills, never an easy thing for me to focus on. ordered insulin pump supplies. worked on 2 oil paintings, just having fun on these, i don't think either are gonna work. and mixed down an mp3 that totally stressed the old mac out. results questionable so i'll strip it down a little and redo tommorow.

haven't talked to a human all day. in wilberese i'm hyper-agentic. but not very communal.

when i was exiled to phoenix i used to get upset because there was no "outside", a comfortable place always available. now i'm totally - but not i hope permanently - adjusted to living in a pod by myself because i want to do so much.

new documentary out:
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick - A Filmmaker's Journal
looks very interesting, i'll see if it is for rent anywhere.

trying to remember what i did saturday... oh yes, it was an out and about day. bought electric paraphanalia to try and unclutter painting micro-space lighting system. pharmacy for a bunch of medicine, quite costly, but bush told me he would help out. swung by steve b.'s house and we spent a little while trying to figure out how to siphen the contents of 3 55 gallon barrels of no. 2 heating oil into his tank. i've been scanning in watercolor landscapes, goal is they end up giclee miniatures on some kind of notecard. it will take a little time the first time to get the files ready.
also trying to get a fix on how to get the cleanest audio recording from a bunch of mike's and adapters. i keep forgetting how i did it. today i skipped friend's meeting and painted all day, then went to steve and ira's for a potluck at six. ira wasn't there. come back ira! pleasant hours in a pleasant space. conversation: silence and manifistation.

yesterday i had sort of a free day with a 1:15 appt to neurologist sandwiched in. cleaned up the computer and the house, jump started oil painting again. i'm still at the try everything see what works stage. so far in my life i've started 5, and want to more or less finish one.

got together with the old folks who didn't used to be last evening. very pleasant couple of hours and some great bar-b-q and flat beans. talked about rotweiller pups and narrative flow.

i tried to explain how "the narrative" was not my strong suit at this point of my life; don't much read novels anymore, and when i do often don't finish them. haven't put a movie in VCR for a few years, and only seen 3 movies in the 5 or so years i've lived here. as my old ladyfriend michele used to say when we lived in AZ, every time we watched a movie, within the first 20 minutes or so i would wonder off. reading a novel for me is like reading a series of paragraphs that don't always have a lot to do with each other.

could it be that this is because by the time i'm on page 100 page 10 is lost in the dust? ie can't remember too well how i got there? maybe this sheds some light on this development:

"much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,
the owl hoots from the elder,
fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward,
the log groans and confesses:
there is one story and one story only."

-robert graves, "to juan at the winter solstice"

Nice visit to hendersonville yesterday, walk in light rain with bill o. around carl sandburg's place in flat rock. very lush northwestern feel, maybe because of the rain which only ended today. visited his bro-in-law fred, beautiful mountain spread, goats, garden. helping me on my latest mission, relaxing. as bill quoted from somebody, "it's better to do nothing than do something wrong." doug b. dropped by this morning, may or may not be on the way back down the mountain. i'm about ready to edit and delete the blog archives which is not real easy but needs to be done. that and clean the kitchen.

colored pencil done in my sister's backyard awhile back. just making sure all is as it should be in my slice of cyberspace and it displays in browser's of my vast number of fans.

driving to hendersonville in 30 minutes to visit my old friend bill o. we pushed the envelope a bit a quarter of a century ago. i've never been to hville.

of course today we both are perfectly sane, settled, and older. not in that order.

haven't been able to post since sunday i think. i believe a stray muon zapped something somewhere within blogger.com. i did manage to finally get tueusday's post up. what i did was delete post from blogger that never showed up in browser, paste it back into post window in blogger, and publish. but after that one instance nothing i did would show in browser.

this morning it seems to be working again. now maybe i can do something useful like vacuum my domestic module.

more and more i think you've got to be twisted to plunge into the meta-vortex of digital anything. fortunately i guess i qualify.

can't complain today. i woke up. got out of bed. dragged a comb across my head. did not go out and have a smoke.

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic
fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar."
Julius Caesar
from
holons.org Home

just finished 12 hour marathon in front of computer. was it worth it? no. killed a lot of time though. and did manage to finish two projects that have been hanging around.

i find i am getting very interested in doing nothing but with a clear head, not zombieville, just "easy does it".

"easy do" as bill burroughs said.

a front porch would be nice. staring at a wall, laying in the grass, whatever. this feverish frenzy has got to go, creative or not. somewhere bouncing around in the gridlock in my head there is a dim memory of long endless summers, copper colored air around me, inside a green glow, lost in the kadzoo. what happened? where'd it go? and who was that child anyway?

the worst i've felt in a loooong time. nothing specific. like i'm drugged - slow motion - zero energy. very short periods when i feel sort of alive. must be coming down with a case of terminal terror, ancient angst, solitary ambiguity. once in awhile i sleep. most of the time i stumble around in a fuzzy daze.

why am i telling you this? cause i've got nothing to say. i've seen two doctors this week and they didn't have much to say either.

found on a piece of paper in the living room:

squeeked through again
but i don't know where i'm going
up on the mountain top
where the wind was blowing
i left a beat up chevy
way out in the park
walked through an icestorm
man it was real dark
when i got back to town
it almost wasn't there
but neither was i
so i almost didn't care
the children were roaming
up and down the street
i sat there in a stupor
it all smelled like meat

see what i mean?

What Have We Here

took an hour's walk last evening, if the weather would stay like it is now (like aville was 30 years ago in the summer) i might get healthy.

as it is i got up at 5, tested my blood sugar in preperation for nice cool walk, and it was 450 plus. infusion set had torn out during a very restless and sleepless night.

so i redid the whole do and spent the next hour or less on the phone long-distance to jeff who fed me corrections to book i am typesetting for him. exercise of any sort is contra-indicated when blood glucose is over 200-250.

it will be a long slow day, blood sugar dropping bit by bit. then i can eat breakfast. i'll spend the day trying to make sense of ken wilber graphics i am doing.

a pretty damn bad week - so far:

maybe something to do with what mr. eliot was talking about in "four quartets":

"a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything."

a mantra of my youth was

"if it's not one thing it's another."

now i think it's

"if it's not one thing it's everything."

this is along the lines of the rule:

1 + 1 = 2 + 1

damien aycock, son of travis and ludie, had a car wreck coming home from work friday night and is in intensive care at UNC hospital. neckl and skull fractures. his spinal cord seems to be all right. the way a break like he has is usually treated is a box like affair around the neck attached by screws to the skull to prevent head movement, but the skull is fractured and not stable. hospital team meets today for treatment plan. basically he is very lucky, no nerve damage. get well damien.

meanwhile james in oak ridge is failing fast. i saw him wed and thursday and am so glad i made the effort.. we have some sort of very unusual karmic connection i think. pancreatic and liver cancer.

[later] james passed away at 7 am this morning.

could be one of these....

or...
maybe not

or



or

Lily by the Footbridge

the weather here has been so beautiful. a long cool wet foggy misty spring, cool air blowing through the window at night. this is western carolina as i remember it from 30 years ago.

made it to friends meeting today and re-met the father of an old friend of mine, same 30 years ago as above.

it looks like aug 2 - august 23 i will be in arizona.

i talked to dave, jame's brother today on the telephone. after consultation with oncologist last week decision was not a good candidate fo chemo. he enters hospice program, ie no medical treatment except pallitive on monday. i'm hoping to drive to oak ridge wednesday to say good bye, return the next day.

been feeling good the last few days; abunch of stuff i was doing i finished and now i'm doing another bunch.

visited ira nd goats and dogs yesterday. oscar seemed to like my (chinese) fiddle playing. looked at large format "100 flowers" by o'keefe, inspiring and discouraging at the same time.

cleaned art factory, found surprises etc.

just took a pleasant walk - the skies are cloudy and overcast - with richard.

"When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."

We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."

from
AlterNet: Patriot Raid

click here to download a copy of collected lyrics and pictures by yours truly in the form of a pdf ebook.

"State and commercial institutions
have assumed some of the functions
of the public sphere, and political
institutions, such as parties, have
assumed advocacy roles in support of
their patrons.

.... this transformation has led to a
refeudalization of the public sphere.
Large and powerful organizations
such as corporations, labor unions,
political parties, professional groups
and interest groups bargain with the
state and one another -- often out of
sight or mind of the public -- to
allocate resoureces, opportunities,
and patronage.

These institutions still seek public
support and the marks of legitimacy,
but they do this through the exercise
of publicity or public relations, not
necessarily through contributions to
rich public discourse."

Siva Vaidhanathan paraphrasing Jurgen Habermas.
from
BookBlog

had an early breakfast with barbara and winnie. then barbara took oof into bookville. she's got another book going.

woke up this morning clear-headed and squirrly. the first day in a long time with no self-imposed or otherwise "must-do-NOW"s. then i noticed french easel had callapsed during the night. not to bad, but patches of thalo blue oil color on the astroturf. worked on it for a while using differant substances. some how i dislodged insulin cannala without knowing it. started feeling bad and when i finally discoved problem, blood sugar was 489. took it very easy allday bringing it back down.

had to present at wilber meeting, really brought out my ADD.
meanwhile check this out:

"May 21, 2003 - A White House Fluent In Language Of Fanatics. I've been racking my brain, trying to reconcile the ever-widening chasm between what the White House claims to be true and what is actually true. After all, we know the president and his men are not stupid. And despite the tidal wave of misinformation pouring out of their mouths, I don't believe they are consciously lying.

"The best explanation I can come up with for the growing gap between their rhetoric and reality is that we are being governed by a gang of out and out fanatics."

from
www.ariannaonline.com

feeling nutty. ragged. blown away. so i took some time out and did this. i feel about the same but maybe i can sleep now.

had a pleasant outing sunday to a potluck at tom and erin's. nice singing by a group of six ladies. harmony. it's great.

the gathering was in a beautiful setting, reminded me of some of the places i've lived in the past. it could have been the rural 40's.

proto-alzheimer's does not permit me to tell you the name of the singing group at the moment.

speaking of the mind, this sliding IQ thing is getting out of hand. i have been working on some kind of visual representation of ken wilber's thought, and i made every mistake in the book, definitely took the long way around the mulberry bush several times. and didn't know it. maybe i need to watch more TV.

yesterday was one of those flat blank days. i did get a lot done on wilber project, but it was drudgery. little oil painting, still don't know what i'm doing with this.

so my question is the universal eternal one, why these black moods and days? can't be mercury in retrograde because it's always in retrograde. i don't think it's contrails in the sky because i've been hiding under the bed. maybe i was born under a bad quasar. or it could be that my aura slipped and is cock-eyed. perhaps a stray muon or two tarnished my cellular DNA. could be i was bad in a former life. or good.

it is possible this old painting i found explains things, but i don't think so:

nothing much to say today. yesterday was a blur. worked all day with ken wilber content, text. haven't spent a day like that since school or workplace. my understanding did increase though, so maybe i should do it more often. usually i just let osmosis do the work. but quite often it leaks.

found one of my first watercolors: here it is:

installing software today. dizzy. gotta turn computer off. but i am finding old images like this one:

moday monday. spent all day transcribing ken wilber notes for mega-pixalated animated song-and-dance series of charts. really hit it hard, flashes of my past buried in some cubical, fingers barely working, a thousand thoughts fighting for primacy in my addled mind. anyway i should be finished inputting text tomorrw - words like "holarchic fulcrum 3 subphase-2 centauric vision-logic pathology".

but i went grocery shopping also, a major accomplishment these days. last few hours i've been tuning er-hu, someone with an ear could probably do it in two minutes.

meanwhile for your delight and delectation, i pulled this out of the "what do i do with this thing now?" heap. started out ages ago as a charcoal drawing:

communication. after 3 hours of sleep - no i was not having fun, just tossing and turning in bed - or twisting in the wind - came across this stuff. it all relates in some way or another to a mega-graphic i'm constructing to explain 800 pages of ken wilber.

the first is about a parrot.

"The fact that these experiments statistically prove that N'kisi's use of speech is not random also gives evidence of his sentience and intentional use of language. Though our work is just beginning, N'kisi has already shown aspects of intelligence that animals were thought to be incapable of, particularly a species that shares so little genetic similarity with humans."
from
Nkisi Project

then this:

"You can trust your audience to infer your full meaning from their knowledge of the situation, taken together with what you actually said."

(if they trust you.)

from
HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE?

and then i wondered into this which i think i will blowup and print and hang on the wall where i can spend hours staring at it. by far the best one of these i've seen, maybe because it relates to human conciousness and not who won a war:

imhoFAQ timeline of knowledge-representation, part 1

ended the evening at a very pleasant gathering of Baba folk, i really needed it.

bill o. from the old days dropped by. he had a tape we recorded here in town maybe '82. real artifact and i realized that once i could play the guitar, at least one evening.

this just in: (thanks tharpa)

"Zoloft is most commonly prescribed for the
treatment of depression and anxiety disorders,
but it would be ridiculous to limit such a
multi-functional drug to these few uses," Pfizer
spokesman Jon Pugh said. "We feel doctors need
to stop asking their patients if anything is wrong
and start asking if anything could be more right."
from
The Onion | Pfizer Launches 'Zoloft For Everything' Ad Campaign

busy day. nice day. restless night. started oil portrait which should be a hoot because it's pretty unknown territory for me. worked a lot on wilber chart. more about this later. i'll put up a link to poetry art ebook later. right now it is 2MB and i want to get size down. visited dave Mc, my old high school teacher. made phone calls trying to straighten out tax problem...yuck.

oh yeah. big breakthrough: discovered tgat the low string on chinese fiddle was tuned down an octive. sometimes life in the manifest world assembles such small delights. conciousness disconnected from the real, we putter till we don't. distracted by hallucination and tone-deaf to boot.

ran across this: i'm afraid it is not parody but true:

"The growing popularity of the World Wide Web is slowly but surely transforming the lives of human beings who are beginning to make the sad transition from being thinkers to becoming "clickers.""
from
From Thinkers to Clickers: The World Wide Web and the Transformation of the Essence of Being Human

finished this one yesterday. started it at the Baba Center and kind of blew it, but feel like i pulled it back from the rejects pile.

saw bobby dylan last nite with richard, debbie, and lots of young people. the concert was just about right for me: no epiphanies, just a nice leisurely performance, comfortable seat, great view, sound very good except bob's voice a little loud and his keyboard mixed way down. the sound and playing of the band was superb. so was bob's singing, i like the way he is using his new old voice. couple of songs i'd not heard before, one i really liked, "things are changing(?)", i think from a movie. his grammy stood on an amp near him. "like a rolling stone" filled me with emotion and memories, the lights sweeping the crowd and making it clear who was being asked "how does it feel?" "blind willie mctell(?)" was really played nicely, a little dark, nostalgic. great evening.

fuzzy mountain
finally finished this watercolor, started it at the center. should finish the 2nd i started there today.

about ready to upload e-book of poems and illustrations. it's been a learning experience.

i've been trying to fix a vacuum cleaner for a week now, throwing in the towel and taking it to professional today. today is drive around town and do errand day. tonight is go to dylan concert and hope for small epiphany (any size will do).

mmmm... so much is happening. or is it?

went to ira's be-day party fri nite, first time out late and downtown in ages. aville continues to evolve and the ambience is certainly there.

if i was in my 20's i would be too.

yesterday i took an unexpected cruise with john r. it was a pleasant sunday to float thru some of the lesser-known (to me) neighborhoods kind of like chapel hill 40 years ago.

and i finally got one of thoses scam emails form africa. it's pretty long but starts like this:

"FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT YOUR STRICTEST
CONFIDENTIAL AND TOP SECRETE. YOU WERE INTRODUCED TO ME
FROM SIERRA-LEONE CHANBER OF COMMERCE (FOREIGN
TRADE DIVISION)."

and on and on with the story. but it ends like this:

"PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO REACH ME ON MY
E-MAIL ADDRESS .I MUST APOLOGIZE FOR ANY
INCONVINIENCES THIS MAY CURSE YOU."

this could be the beginning of something new.

up at 6 this morning, took a long early morning walk. trying to establish this as routine because, due to reasons i do not understand, i have over the years developed a real aversion to heat. summer sun. it physically does me in and, maybe even worse, makes me crazy.

still working on poetry e-book. like any set of production hoops you jump thru, the first time is always touch and go, fumbling around, scratching head, occasional outbursts.

reinstalled viavoice which i hope now works. reason behind this is about 100 pages of notes i need to convert to flash, an interactive visual guide to ken wilber's lines, levels, and quadrents. and i can't type (meta-dyslexica).

today's hypothetical activities: finish a failed watercolor, finish another one that might work, and start on an oil portrait - this last is totally foreign territory. also looking for a native chinese speaker who can translate er-hu info i need to understand. angela from new york who i met at the Baba center and is american-chinese was most amused at my pronunciation of this word. i pronounced it as "air-who", which of course is the post-modern hillbilly manner of speaking. but most important of all i have restarted project i let drop a year or so ago: the yo-yo. my goal is to keep two going at once, left and right hand.

just found out that my old friend jim in oak ridge has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. i'm going to take a long walk.

slept 13 hours last night. AM radio left on, low volume, lots of UFO babble. worked on poetry book all day. paid $35 for library audio book that vaporized awhile back.

considering the time and place, this is an interesting piece:
Tripping De-Light Fantastic - Are psychedelic drugs good for you?

i'm back in the saddle again, but ridng very slowly. currently working on 3 books, one my own, one an extended family photo book. i enjoy working with these small b&w very scratched and faded snaphots and bringing them to life. unfortunately very little info on history, anecdotes and history of my dad's generation which was my initial goal.

it's been mostly gloomy and rainy in the wnc mountains, flooding here and there and scattered mudslides. this is my favorite kind of weather, cool, calm, contemplative. once i heard from someone who was suppossed to know - don't remember who exactly - that rainy weather was "spiritual". but i never heard this on the weather channel. for sure it is wet.

my friend tucker fowarded to me a very amusing letter to the govt. from the Appalachian Coalition for Just and Sustainable Communities. it proposed that the govt. attack appalachia because the area needs the same kind of help post-war iraq does. it included the following tag line:

"Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized
control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set
out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each
case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit."


George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003

got back. in a couple of pieces. normal nowadays.

my visit to the center was very intense. i felt things that i have not felt in a long time.

my children and grandchildren in chapel hill all seemed solidly themselves.

i'll be on earth in a few days.

meanwhile here is an updated link to jay kinney's site. gotta fix the one in the left hand column of this page. always a good read.

Jay Kinney's JayKinney.com
"Personally, we are convinced that 9/11/01 marked the entry of
consensual reality into a paranoid abyss curiously resembling a
Philip K. Dick novel."

and what looks like a very interesting site belonging to one of tucker's friends. a topic that our generation seems seems to find both disturbing and fascinating.
THE NEWS DISSECTOR
"MediaChannel.org Site"

if you believe a little tax-break is good for the economy, why wouldn't you want a bigger tax-break? it would be even better for the economy.

the logic of the talking point. no taxes at all would be the best for the economy. right?

weaved a lot of baskets today. put up 4 MP3s, small files. cleaned and reassembled watercolor materials into small mobile unit. cut poly to act as emergency vent water stopper in case of very hard rain. cleaned truck. packed medications. got jeff's manuscript together.

tomorrow i hope i have po'try book done, pdf file, and post it. why not? change oil in truck. buy new shoes or shoelaces, whichever is easier.

so now this has turned into a list of things to do and and that are done. i really feel like this is a good timely time to visit the center. get out of my mind.

like i said, a lot of baskets.

i'm starting to feel like some soul-zombie, going through the motions. but going through the motions is better than not going through the motions.

i put 4 MP3s up, they are from 429k to 1035k for us bandwidth-challanged. get to them at upper right box. they'll give you an idea of what i do with my spare time.

watercolor i finished yesterday
i'm in my pre-leaving town and taking a trip phase. for about the last 20 years, or the amount of time i have been dealing with type I diabetes, i've gotten in the habit of spring house-cleaning before i leave.

maybe it its because i live like a single male post graduate student even at my advanced age. every room is like a studio, projects everywhere, and of cousre i always have a list of things i cannot find. so squaring things away before a trip makes it a whole lot easier to get back in the saddle on my return

finished watercolor, i'll put it up today now cleaning up paints and assembling plein-aire mobile paint supplies. so i can paint a little while i'm gone.

so before today is over i'll post paintings and the four shortest and worthy MP3s i could find yesterday.

i'll also post a link to pdf file of version 1 of "whistling in the dark" in book format. this is a collection of obscure verse. if i channelled it i'd like to know from whom. later.

Fox executives Monday unveiled their latest reality-TV venture, Appointed By America, a new series in which contestants vie for the top spot in Iraq's post-war government.
see
The Onion | New Fox Reality Show To Determine Ruler Of Iraq

Just Biddiness

lately i've realized i have nothing much to say. or maybe it would be more accurate to say i have urges to say something but am not sure what it is. i won't know till i say whatever it is.

but the language is unavailable. language being an environment of mutual understanding. it is available one on one, talking with an old friend, and this is the sort of context i deeply appreciate.

but this public cyberspace place...one of the things that fascinated me about blogs was that the reason for their existence was obscure. what are they for?

after a year and a half i still don't know. and i have yet to find the voice to communicate via blog.

i could get much more personal, paying attention to the moods, happenings, changes, of my daily life.

but i can't - won't - attempt it here because this is not a personal space. the confessional genre is not my genre. at least not here.

so i guess it's an ongoing record of stray, loose, marginal, "off the top of my head" stuff. that's why i throw in picures i've done. and i'd love to have more audio available which i'm playing - oops i mean working - on.

easter. went to friend's meeting at 11. saw ira briefly. and easter eggs.

tomorrow i start mini-retreat. i find that it helps to throttle back on medication, rest, and back off from projects once in awhile.

especially before long trip (7 days starting the 28th).

but before i fade away i will put on site mp3 that is 1) short and maybe worth listening to; and 2) small file-size for us broadband challanged.

meanwhile i need to back out of commitment to have ken wilber quadrant chart done. i'm out of time on that one.

a little over the top, but i hear this guy at night on shortwave, and from that perspective (horizontal, very dark), he sounds like a stark-raving lunitic conspiricy freak who picks and documents plausible conspiricies. could this guy be even half right? i think maybe so.

"The new enemy, the new threat is, in reality, the lone individual simply trying to live his or her life who wishes to control their own destiny. Make no mistake, you are slated for dehumanization."

Infowars.com -- Talk Radio's Alex Jones v. the New World Order

friday was sort of flat. got my "creative" stuff done in the morning, visited mr. steve, then the afternoon turned into a tired blur. redeveloping i'm afraid the "chaotic metabolism" problem i've been mostly free from the last few years.

however i hope today goes better, anxious to try an oil portrait which of course i don't know how to do.

today i'm going to locate a small MP3 file and put it up and leave it there. it will serve i hope as a sample of what i am doing noise-wise, but as for as distributing this stuff you're going to have to wait for CD around christmas.

yesterday was about right. painted, worked on books, recorded music, installed software. took a walk. life is sweet. and maybe too insular?

April 16, 2003 - Why The Anti-War Movement Was Right

"The powerful role that shame and humiliation have played in shaping world history is considerable, but something the Bush team seems utterly clueless about. Which is why the anti-war movement must be stalwart in its refusal to be silenced or browbeaten by the gloating "I told you so" chorus on the right. On the contrary, it needs to make sure that the doctrine of preemptive invasion is forever buried in the sands of Iraq."

yesterday spent a pleasant low key afternoon with bill o. we knew each other in the days before the earth cooled, late 70s early 80s.

trying to work on ken wilber's quadrent chart, now have 2 week deadline. i don't think i'll finish it but when i get to a certain unfinished point i think i'll put it online and incorporate any feed back i get. might be more fun. the final chart will i believe be done in flash so i can somehow condense meaning into the visuals with zooms, jumps, links.

errand day this morning. meanwhile finish current watercolor which i'm trying to do with masking and pouring. so far it is looking very amateurish, a difficult technique to learn.

upcoming: camp in truck camper at mt. pisgah one night soon, spend the day taking early spring photos - landscape - for painting reference.

realized that with summer coming i need to get some work out. i think i'll take 6 landscapes and have them printed giclee about a foot square max, see if i can place them around town as limited edition prints, no mat, maybe shrink wrapped. another endless task, eternal basket weaving. puttering in the true sense of the word. it never ends. that's why it's fun.

kind of an interesting oldie, done god knows when but i'm doin it again. that is, i found it and posted it. i'll reduce it's size sometime today because it currently comes in at 70k and i like to keep jpgs under 40k.

had a nice gentle day yesterday until nightfall when i fell apart. came undone. dizzy and confused. started 2 new paintings, both outside my current capabilities. should be fun. think and hope on the practical side i finally fixed vacuum cleaner. on and off activity of the last week.

hope to see old friend tom m. sometime today.

very distant from war news. TV has been quiet. off.

but on the new world that is emerging, it occurred to me the other night when it was on and i was in front of it, that the "reality" shows that live in TV land are the exact electronic equivalent of the byzantine "bread and circuses" that kept the inhabitants of that world distracted.

in the city of constantinople during it's hegonomy the city's inhabitants were divided into "reds" and "greens", each group sort of like team fans, and who lost or won at the hippodrome was a big deal, spilling over from time to time into political riots.

watching tv to find out who voted for who to get married, or be the woman of the year, could in the very near future be the hallmark of 21st c. democracy, especially since the political vote doesn't seem to matter today to most of us.

did it [the walk]. finished fooling with 2 oils, starting a real one, and a watercolor landscape method i want to try. avoided sunday news... then realized it was monday. oh well, it's the thought that counts, or in this case it's abscence.

woke up about 4 AM, spent some time reading over new wilber material for meeting tuesday evening. went back to sleep and rewoke about seven i'm glad to say.

george foned me at noon yesterday so i rode up to his yancey county hide-away, nice place, nice ride, nice day.

pushed back trip to Meher Center to april 28th. this should give me time to recalibrate meatabolic sandtraps that seem to constantly pop up these days. today i'm going to come close to finishing my book, work another few chapters on jeffs book, finish scanning fotos for parsons book, work on oil #2 which has been thru so many iterations.

and no matter what or how or when, take a long walk.

first day of spring yesterday, at least that's how it felt. great morning, spent time scanning fotos for family book, polishing poetry book, a few chapters of jeff's book, and trying to rescue an oil painting i've been fooling with. visited steve in the afternoon, plans were made to play music around 6 or 7.

went home and ate and crashed. my metabolism is swinging unpredictably in many unpredicatable directions. beginning to be a major personal problem, gotta fix - or at least adapt.

another beautiful day today, i'm gonna shut down computer, throw away the keys, and get out somewhere and walk. maybe take some pictures, everything is budding out in early lacy configuration.

Yesterday i woke up to hear a heavy, steady rain outside.

a little later i was standing by the window, coffee cup in hand, and the raindrops seemed to get a little fatter, slightly slower, still very steady. as i watched, they got even fatter, slower, and in 15 minutes it was snowing, which it did most of the day. late afternoon my truck was stacked with as much snow as i had seen all winter. the warm ground turned it slowly to semi-slush.

it's still dark out today so i don't know what's out there yet.

i had a good day. finished a watercolor, worked on laying out 2 books, one for print and 1 (mine) that will soon i hope be a pdf file.

the only frustration was trying to fix a vacuum cleaner which i've been working on all week. i think a trip to (yikes!) sears is in order today to get the right bag. the last time i was there was more than 20 years ago when my family and i drove from big ridge, jackson county, to pick up a washing machine and dryer.

alexander cockburn touchs on the subject of the common language, what used to be the language of political discourse in this country. it has been hijacked and is long gone i'm afraid.

The Twisted Language of War That is Used to Justify the Unjustifiable

"Then there's the famous "war in Iraq" slogan which the British and American media like to promote. But this is an invasion, not a mere war."

molly ivins on the usual suspects who may try to sack and pillage what's left of iraq:

Bush Offers Crooks and Warmongers to Lead Iraq

"This gets better. Chalabi has been in exile for four decades and, in 1992, he was convicted on multiple counts of embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars in Jordan after the failure of his bank there. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He escaped from Jordan, reportedly in the trunk of a car, and wound up in London. Dick Cheney is also a Chalabi fan.

from A Letter to America: nothing new, but short and to the point.

"You're torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be, not to produce anything yourselves, but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few megarich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system?"

watercolor i finished last week. if i can paint during the doldrums i'm home free. if i can't i won't.

no tv today. did i miss something about a statue? don't they come and go?

still gloomy outside - expecting more rain and, up the mountain, a little snow. after a long & good night's sleep, i'm back to rising early and scurrying around puttering with various obscure projects. up to chapter 6 in jeff's book layout, creating a pdf file of some sort of poetry that i've caught running thru my brain. lots of music, i'll put up a new mp3 today - to hear it click in the box on upper right.

meanwhile thanks to tucker here is part of an update from the infamous micheal moore:

"What I am most concerned about right now is that all of you -- the majority of Americans who did not support this war in the first place -- not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as some great military victory.

...Some are afraid of retaliation at work or at school or in their neighborhoods
because they have been vocal proponents of peace. They have been told over and over that it is not "appropriate" to protest once the country is at war, and that your only duty now is to "support the troops."

a timely and much more upbeat message than the above would indicate. read the whole thing at:

www.michaelmoore.com

monday was blank. gloomy, flat, dim. the stars, biorhythms, metametabolism and so forth all seriously skewed. did manage to do a few errands, grocery shopping being the least optional.

i really dislike these kind of days. i'm talking about internal weather here. nothing to do but wait it out.

[much later] i think it is daylight savings time that has me twisted sideways. or maybe it's the massive morphogenetic fields resonating such destruction, or even worse, frozen silence.

interesting and very enjoyable weekend. i'll tell you about it next time i feel human.

just kidding, fingers doing the talking. an assymetric assemblage of psuedo-projects and detailed insignificance has really been rolling uphill the last two weeks, break-through city. later.

had a lot of fun last night at steve and rachael's house, got into a little music. speaking of which i was 4th in line early this morning for bobby dylan tickets. hoping to play a little music this afternoon, but this can a hard group to corral.

From the March 2003 issue of The Sun:


Stop thinking that this is all there is....Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage and
environmental devastation and bogus Iraqi attack plan, there are a thousand counterbalancing acts of
staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world, right now, on a
breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral....Resist the temptation to drown in fatalism, to shake
your head and sigh and just throw in the karmic towel....Realize that this is the perfect moment to
change the energy of the work, to step right up and crank your personal volume; right now when it all
seems dark and bitter and offensive and acrimonious and conflicted and bilious...there's your opening. Remember magic. And, finally, believe you are part of a groundswell, a resistance, a
but actually very, very large impending karmic overhaul, a great shift, the beginning of something
���������������������������
Mark Morford

"Speed ... is a function of effective power and in turn becomes one of the chief means of ostentatiously displaying it....Royal commands, like urgent commands in the Army, must be performed 'on the double'. The current commitment tosupersonic locomotion as a status symbol, already comically exposed in the intercontinental oscillations of the 'jet set'in business and government, has its beginnings here."

Lewis Mumford

here's the latest watercolor:

so is it too many thimblewhistles? the lost still losing sparks in the dying - but supringly spry - natural twilight bluz:::

4.1.03. beggers opera: the future of the blooz

another fine whatchamacallumm from what's his name.

i don't remember why i posted this? must investigate.
--*-----Www.kRackDowN.Com-----*-----

nice day, 5AM roll, 2 painings [Ed note: oops, believe he means paintings: must investigate], an instrumental, some life maintainance. nice afternoon drive to max patch, where the wind did blow and the spirits stirred.

remember sitting around in the old days and talking about this?:

*spark-online.com >> version 34.0, JULY.2002 >> MAX PODSTOLSKI

"In my view, art history, the art world, the art market - in other words art with a capital "A" - is less important than the art which is part of all of us, which we participate in by virtue of being human."

had one of the best mondays i can remember. never got in truck. talked to noone but kat. finished another odd mp3. worked all day on and off finishing a water color and an oil painting. put together a print piece for children, loaded it as a pdf so they can check it out. played the guitar.

i wouldn't do well if everyday was one like today, but i can handle a good helping of them. can you be 90% monomanical? how much basketweaving is too much? i guess it's all a question of either time or timing.

i'm back on the upgrade train. yesterday installed powerlogix firewire/usb pci card and la cie 80gig ext. firewire ext. hard drive. i partitioned the latter into 25% hfs+ and 75% hfs (digital audio). next step: g3 or g4 zif upgrade and a firewire cd burner. for some odd reason i feel like i need to have a cd out by next xmas.

snowy morning here. gonna run outside and photograph brilliant blooming forsythia in the white stuff. later.

finished this watercolor this morning, started it in myrtle beach.

i figured out why nobody pays much attention to the massive amount of non-"official" war commentary. there is too much of it. noise. too easy to dismiss with comments like:

"that's not the real reason for the war. there's a lot of reasons."

and there are. one of them is previous megabucks business dealings with saddam. many of the players are running this war.

the war wobbles on. people like myself, and there are a lot, find themselves in the interesting position of how to comment on the decision's of the government as the language of public discourse continues to shrink into a small puddle of pre-canned cliches.

on the one hand i do not wish disaster to our troops. i want them to survive and win.

on the other hand the ineptness, the hubris, the linguistic distortions of our government, the newly institutionalized secrecy, the corporate connection, can only be ignored by a self-imposed denial.

some of the recent postings on this site do not so much represent, in my view, absolute truth as much as they represent perspectives absent from the "main stream media". (tip of the hat to the neo-conservitives am radio rabble rousers for that last phrase.)

we are not losing the war. we are seeing, sort of, what happens when a lot of powerful, culturally isolated people born and bred to money and power, sit in closed, sealed rooms, incapable of understanding worldviews other than thier own, or of even realizing that there are other worldviews, and plan the future.

one of the things i have been hearing over and over from am radioland is "the president knows more than we do." i disagree. he knows different things than most of us. but because of class and socio-economic distinctions, he and his cohorts are surprisingly naive about the world of other people. including the islamic world.

repeating myself: saddam's hold on a piece of the world is a problem. the hundred's maybe thousands of those like him will continue to be a problem as time goes by. the proliferation of WMD, like saturday night specials, will continue to be a growing problem.

the war, win lose or draw, will not solve any of these problems but only add to them. only rubes, marks, aristocratic provencials, or corporate oligarchs incapable of transcending thier point of view can think otherwise.

i know, i know, you are tired of reading about this stuff. read this anyway. thanx tucker.
---------------------------------------------------

> When Democracy Failed: The warnings of history
>
> by Thom Hartmann
>
> To comment on the newsletter, please do not reply to this email, but use
the
> message boards at:
> http://www.mythical.net/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?category=2
>
> The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely
> reported in the corporate media.� But the Germans remembered well that
> fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933.� They commemorated the
> anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens
> all across the world.
>
> It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic
crisis,
> received reports of an imminent terrorist attack.� A foreign ideologue had
> launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely
> ignored his relatively small efforts.� The intelligence services knew,
> however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed.� (Historians are
> still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service
> helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
>
> But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in
> part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the
> nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority
of
> citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a
> simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in
> black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the
> subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.
His
> coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost
> state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric
> offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in
> the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret
society
> with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved
> skulls and human bones.
>
> Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't
> know where or when), and he had already considered his response.� When an
> aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was
> ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to
> the scene and called a press conference.
>
> "You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he
> proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by
> national media.� "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion,
"is
> the beginning."� He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it -
to
> declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a
people,
> he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation
> for their evil deeds in their religion.
>
> Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in
> Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist.
> In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere,
even
> printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
>
> Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader
> had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and
> fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional
> guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus.� Police could now
> intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be
imprisoned
> without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could
> sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved
terrorism.
>
> To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed
> over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he
> agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency
> provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights
> would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be
> re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read
the
> bill before voting on it.
>
> Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police
> agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and
> holding them without access to lawyers or courts.� In the first year only
a
> few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by
> the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a
> leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the
leader
> in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the
> newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in
> protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches.� (In
> the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking,
> learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He
> became a very competent orator.)
>
> Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of
a
> political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage.
He
> wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of
> referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The
> Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech
> recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The
> Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of
an
> us-versus-them mentality was sewn.� Our land was "the" homeland, citizens
> thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people,"
he
> suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on
> others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our
lives
> better, it's of little concern to us.
>
> Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the
> French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international
body
> that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation
> was neither relevant nor useful.� He thus withdrew his country from the
> League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval
> armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a
> worldwide military ruling elite.
>
> His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that
he
> was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in
> Christianity.� He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian
> faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity."� Every man
in
> his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" -
> God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.
>
> Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that
> the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were
lacking
> the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary
to
> deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those
> citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist
and
> communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and
> "liberals."� He proposed a single new national agency to protect the
> security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of
previously
> independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single
> leader.
>
> He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new
> agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role
in
> the government equal to the other major departments.
>
> His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist
> attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal."� Those voices questioning
the
> legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his
> checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his
> central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to
> phone in tips about suspicious neighbors.� This program was so successful
> that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast
> on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians
and
> celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the
> media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate
> allies.
>
> To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't
enough.
> He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former
> executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government
> positions.� A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to
> fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking
within
> the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas.� He encouraged large
> corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial
> concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by
> suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry.� He built powerful alliances
> with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth
millions
> to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state.
> Soon more would follow.� Industry flourished.
>
> But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of
> dissent again arose within and without the government.� Students had
started
> an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society),
and
> leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose
rhetoric.
> He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate
> cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly
> illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil
> libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process
or
> access to attorneys or family.
>
> With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a
> campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war
was
> necessary.� Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle
> Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had
> set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it
held
> resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and
> maintain their prosperity.� He called a press conference and publicly
> delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an
> international uproar.� He claimed the right to strike preemptively in
> self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it,
> pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations
> seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.
>
> It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with
> European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the
United
> Kingdom, finally a deal was struck.� After the military action began,
Prime
> Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving
in
> to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our
time."
>
> Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular
> support as leaders so often do in times of war.� The Austrian government
was
> unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German
> corporations began to take over Austrian resources.
>
> In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain
> foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods.
I
> can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course
of
> my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the
> former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I
have
> never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."
>
> To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his
> politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a
> campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation
> itself.� National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the
> terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting
the
> nation or weakening its will.� In times of war, they said, there could be
> only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein
> Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide
> campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation
> itself.� Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good
> Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state
by
> failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men
in
> uniform.� It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit
> wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the
> "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.
>
> Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully
and
> quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again
> raised in the Homeland.� The almost-daily release of news bulletins about
> the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the
populace
> and totally suppress dissent.� A full-out war was necessary to divert
public
> attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing
> dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the
> epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the
> corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.
>
> A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was
now
> fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of
> national security.� It was the end of Germany's first experiment with
> democracy.
>
> As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth
> remembering.
>
> February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van
> der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag)
> building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and
> reshaped the German constitution.� By the time of his successful and brief
> action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler
> was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation.
Hailed
> around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."
>
> Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known
> as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most
> famous agency's initials: the SS.
>
> We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent
> warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating
> devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and
> awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996
book
> "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.
>
> Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton
Mifflin
> Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the
German
> democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest
German
> corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: fas-cism
> (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of
the
> extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business
> leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
>
> Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember
> that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States
> alike.� Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very
> different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.
>
> Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and
reward
> the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle
> dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of
> prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war.� America passed
minimum
> wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish
> the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the
> wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer
of
> last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the
> arts, and replant forests.
>
> To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again
> ours.
>
> Welcome to Thom Hartmann's
> Newsletter for March 17, 2003
>
> To comment on the newsletter, please do not reply to this email, but use
the
> message boards at:
> http://www.mythical.net/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?category=2
>
> Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the
> author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last
> Hours of Ancient Sunlight."�� This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann,
> but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media
so
> long as this credit is attached.
> http://www.thomhartmann.com
---------------------------------

i posted this earlier in the day - i mean night.

almost midnight monday. oops, after midnight and it's tuesday. a long day, started at 6 am visiting marshall and mimi in myrtle beach, landed in the western carolina mountains late this afternoon. it seems it took me only 5 hours which is hard to believe after former trips lasting 6 i/2 hours. maybe it's skipping those wrong turns that does it.

i fiddled with the radio most of the trip, couldn't stop myself from searching for war news. found a lot of country and rap instead, not even one shill-huckster am radio talk show host defeating logic and common sense. so tired when i got here that i can't sleep.

had a great and badly-needed trip to the meher center, as always some surprises, some lessons, some music, conversations, dark elegant familiar eyes that i must have known and that must have known me some other time and place, a minute here and there of peace, friendship, ancient faces, ancient places. the footbridge at twilight, halfway across, thankful for the distant cold but friendly stars.

and just a moment playing the shakuhachi and native american flute with denny. what inspiration, we could still do what we didn't know how to do and taste beauty skipping through the air. phyliss laughing about her visits to new york museums as a youth and discovering that folks were lining up to see "pictures", not monumental towers and babylonian walls. the lagoon cabin before morning light, dreams and obscure visions, movement, distant activity behind the eyelids. the reoccuring realization that i am part of something more real than myself.

no telephones, no radios, no tv... just rumors of war and the sound of the sea arcing over the logoon.

well i am at the eli parson's new house. it is very nice, reminds me of the houses i grew up in during the 40's, but has been really well taken care of, well insulated, double pane windows, etc.

had an especially exciting drive down: stopped in old fort for a very pleasant visit with sam, beautiful day out. later ran into a problem involving the highway patrol, but all turned out well. plan to visit the park today where there is a memorial bench dedicated to sally parsons who died last year. i'll try to get some good pictures to use on a thank you note to be sent out to all of her friends and relatives. the children did a really good job putting this together. grand-daughter lily says hello.

i'm outa here, heading out to visit children and grandchildren, then on to Meher Center for a few days. back next thursday.

today the noise is talking about maybe we will preemptively strike iraq before they premptively strike us before the war starts. public discourse will never recover from this kind of jumbled language.