nother pome. song? chosen at random.

Since I fell
Through empty air
I can't tell
Here from there

We need to talk
From then to now
While we Walk
Tell me how.

email fowarded by a friend of a friend of a friend:

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft
error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict
construction rules - each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are 16 actual error messages from Japan.

Below, the essence of Zen:
---------------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
-------------------------------------------
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
-------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
-----------------------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
------------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
---------------------------------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
---------------------------------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
--------------------------------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao- until
You bring fresh toner.
--------------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
---------------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
---------------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
---------------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
------------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
---------------------------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
---------------------------------------------------

6.23.2

since i've got nothing to say today i thought i'd post the following from the following; it is from a collection of words i have been assembling from notes i wrote here there and almost everywhere. i'm going to make a book out of them, or maybe songs.

Keeping track of traffic
There's nothing else to do
Forget about the roadblocks
It's strictly up to you

I stood there for a moment
And forgot why I had heard
The lonely hum of light rays
Singing like a bird

The trees flex and wave
Slowly like the breeze
That stirs the clouds above
And puts me on my knees.

6.22.2

well today is still today. so far so good. thoughts i have briefly received this past week:

the story is the essence of life. we all have a story. something is telling our story. failing that, we try to tell our story nonstop somewhere in the back of our brain. so we can live.

if there is no story there is no us. and if that were so, the statement would be meaningless. maybe there cannot not be a story because if there were no story there would be no statement to that effect. or maybe that would be the story.

what if our situation here is one of exile? put here by a mystery and then the mystery departs. deus abscandus, the god who split.

maybe we are left here, as the gnostics seem to think, with just a hint, a spark of something real within, but we hide from that the way god hides from us.

when and if we finally know we're going to die, the question becomes how to live.

robin williams says: "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

what else? oh yeah, i broke my guitar string again.

6.21.2

chris in jim's kitchen when he realizes it's after 8 o'clock
"In the last 15 years alone, software defects have wrecked a European satellite launch, delayed the opening of the hugely expensive Denver airport for a year, destroyed a NASA Mars mission, killed four marines in a helicopter crash, induced a U.S. Navy ship to destroy a civilian airliner, and shut down ambulance systems in London, leading to as many as 30 deaths."
Technology Review - Why Software Is So Bad

a good description of the tech hallucination so many of us believe is real. rush to market = profits = klunky software.

bookmark this: CounterPunch. newsletter edited by alexander cockburn and jeffrey st. clair. in todays climate, this is necessary muckraking.

ran across this by old friend tucker. intresting story with a moral.

6.20.2

from an old email (cleaning up my inbox): more on the bush dynasty:

> Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates
> and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, reacted with
> disbelief to The Wall Street Journal report of yesterday that
> George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin
> Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an
> international consulting firm. The senior Bush had met with the bin
> Laden family at least twice. (Other top Republicans are also
> associated with the Carlyle group, such as former Secretary of State
> James A. Baker.)
> The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had supposedly been
> "disowned" by his family, which runs a multi-billion dollar
> business in Saudi Arabia and is a major investor in the senior
> Bush's firm. Other reports have questioned, though, whether
> members of his Saudi family have truly cut off Osama bin Laden.
> Indeed, the Journal also reported yesterday that the FBI has
> subpoenaed the bin Laden family business's bank records.
> Judicial Watch earlier this year had strongly criticized
> President Bush's father's association with the Carlyle Group,
> pointing out in a March 5 statement that it was a "conflict of
> interest (which) could cause problems for America's foreign
> policy in Middle East and Asia." Judicial Watch called for the
> senior Bush to resign from the firm then. "This conflict of
> interest has now turned into a scandal. The idea of the
> President's father, an ex-president himself, doing business
> with a company under investigation by the FBI in the terror
> attacks of September 11 is horrible. President Bush should not
> ask, but demand, that his father pull out of the Carlyle
> Group," stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel
> Larry Klayman.
> "This has the potential of making 'Billygate' (Jimmy Carter's
> brother's dealings with Libya) look like small potatoes," added
> Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
> See "Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense
> Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank," by Daniel Golden, James
> Bandler, and Marcus Walker, The Wall Street Journal,
> 9/28/01(www.wsj.com, subscription required).

6.19.2

so far today is today. at the local convenience store i had a chance to chat with a very nice palastenian clerk there. no politics, but he talked about the difference between daily life here and there. at home during "normal" times he worked in his garden and flower shop until about one in the afternoon, went home, cleaned up, maybe took a short rest, and for the rest of the day lived a life consisting of friends, conversation, etc., the way we once did here in this country. he kept a stack of books by his bed which he read daily. here, he worked and slept a little. no reading. no time.

i once worked with a couple of indians who agreed that here we have a time-based culture, but when they returned to thier villages they enjoyed a relationship based culture, where there was time to visit with friends and family. a disappearing world.

why? profit and big money, speaking of which you might check this (long) piece out: Clamor Magazine - Heir to the Holocaust. ps - the bush dynasty featured.

6.17.2

the 2002 republican strategy as revealed by lost file can be found here. warning: it's a slow loading pdf file. i believe the origional disk lost by an intern contained a powerpoint presentation that the .pdf may be made from. it certainly looks like powerpoint: ugly, klunky, minimum amount of information contained per k.

there are those that think that the wide-spread use of microsoft powerpoint is partly responsible for the lack of real thought in so many institutions: corporations, politics, any large organization where a headline followed by three bulleted generic items passes for discourse. i'm one of them. but i think it's use has just reinforced lack of thought, not caused it.

6.16.2

it has come to my attention that the political and social commentary i used to ramble on about on this site is slowly evaporating. why is this? well, it just seems so distant and unreal to me. the deluge of "current events" has left me behind. none of it seems real.

however there is no doubt that unfortunate things are happening behind the scenes that may impact our daily existence way beyond what is apparent:

the nature of our government and the world of business is changing rapidly. most of these changes are "secret", that is not immediately visible in the public arena. this despite, or because of, the "war" and enron etc.

the neo-democracy that our government is transforming into has more to do with public relations, advertising, and profit than democracy.

the citizenry of USA is in a state of denial about just about everything.

dissenting voices are hard to hear.

most folks are willingly ignorant of some of the most extreme changes the country has ever experienced.

but even those of us who refuse to think are feeling the pressure and "wrongness" of the current situation.

the underlying unease of the current situation can be felt by all, but is attributed to the wrong sources.

the country has been taken over by the mega-rich in a very real way - most of them have been working on this for a long time, and their time has come.

profit justifies anything, including secrecy and manipulation of an uncomfortable but compliant populace.

6.15.2

Plastic: PwC Consulting Changes Name To: Monday
Awesome Gary keeps it appropriately brief: "The consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, has decided to change it's name to Monday."

6.14.2

i took my daily walk today for the first time this year. flowers are blooming and it's not winter. hope i can get back into this habit.

No More Mr. Nice Guy!
Take the No More Mr. Nice Guy! Self-Assessment

Plutocracy and Politics
a ny times piece on kevin phillips new book "wealth and democracy". he seems to be saying that the out-of balance present situation and cultural denial that this is so doesn't look good for the future of democracy. and it doesn't, does it?

6.13.2

watercolor i painted for my dad - father's day
haven't been thinking about anything much lately. except the thought that thoughts are disguised emotions and emotions are disguised...something. i recall james hillman saying something along the lines that the subtle body we hear so much about from various sources may be the somatic unconciousness. stuff like that.

6.11.2

last week's ink
todays plan is to finish watercolor and get it in mail for father's day. and add a few more scribblings to manuscript of odd notes i have found in my pockets and other places over the last 2 years. then i think i will hide under bed for a few days.

received an interesting petition fowarded by tucker, "not in our name". excerpts:

----------------------------------------
A STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCE
NOT IN OUR NAME

Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression.

The signers of this statement call on the people of the U.S. to resist the policies and overall political direction that have emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave dangers to the people of the world...
[snip]
...But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of good vs. evil that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had happened verged on treason. There was to be no debate. There were by definition no valid political or moral questions. The only possible answer was to be war abroad and repression at home...
[snip]
...In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. The President's spokesperson warns people to watch what they say. Dissident artists, intellectuals, and professors find their views distorted, attacked, and suppressed. The so-called Patriot Act along with a host of similar measures on the state level gives police sweeping new powers of search and seizure, supervised if at all by secret proceedings before secret courts...
[snip]
...We must take the highest officers of the land seriously when they talk of a war that will last a generation and when they speak of a new domestic order. We are confronting a new openly imperial policy towards the world and a domestic policy that manufactures and manipulates fear to curtail rights.

for more info:
Contact the Not In Our Name statement at: nionstatement@hotmail.com
----------------------------------------

6.10.2

monday morning. if i can finish living maintenance chores today i plan to hibernate for a few days. i've been on the go since last fall when sally my ex-wife was diagnosed with lung cancer. she died early january. my mother died early april. i spent 3 weeks in arizona with my father. a visit to Baba Center was much needed relief. then my daughter was victim/witness in serial-rapist trial. that was over last week. today i want to finish watercolor for my dad (father's day). then i'll hide under bed for a few days.

very useful link for bibliophiles like me:
The Internet Classics Archive: 441 searchable works of classical literature

and some internet pizzaz for you high bandwidth folks:
theculture-simon tyszko

6.9.2

having a nice quiet sunday but did manage to spend the whole day in front of the computer working with songs. here's one:

another interesting link, a little heavy on tech, but something real interesting about old maps:

"...about some stone maps that have been found in China that may date to some 120 million years ago. The map appears to be a topographical relief map done on a scale 1 : 1.1 Kilometers. To blockquote:

The map indicates the use of civil engineering to
create a system of channels about 12,000 km in
length and 500 meters wide, and 12 dams that are
300-500 meters wide.

Their work is being peer reviewed in the scientific community, so there is some hope and reasonable possibility that this is not a hoax."

kuro5hin.org || technology and culture, from the trenches

6.8.2

seen on highway 40, heading west:

"the best things in life
aren't things".

6.7.2

after a long and exhausting trip i am ready to drive back to aville. i visited friends jim and marsha/doug, my children and grandchildren. truck towing and repair was added bonus.

but i spent most of the time in a hillsboro courtroom. serial rapist dwayne edwards was convicted yesterday. my daughter was one of the victims and a witness.

the wait for a verdict, the reading of the verdict, and the sentencing was highly emotional and brought tears to many eyes including my own. the other victims, their families, the assitant DA and his staff, the detectives, and the ladies of the rape crisis center were all great people who went beyond the call of duty in the interests of justice. the judge said the system worked. it would not have worked without these folks

story

6.2.2

after a long day yesterday of phone calls and waiting 2 hours for a tow truck, i said let's do it tomorrow. i didn't feel well at all during the whole day, reckon it's from the 2 or 3 preceding days, too much exhaustion, even tho i've been sleeping well.

woke up early and painted a watercolor i would very much like to finish because i've got another to paint right after it.

truck towed to tim's auto shop, they've already got the clutch fixed, it was the master cylinder so i guessed right on that. but it won't turn over, starter motor is asleep. i think it has something to do with electricity, not the starter motor. but then doesn't everything?

6.3.2

the content of this blog suddenly shifts (again) (no pun intended) today to the personal foibles of yours truly. truck quit at eli's out in the country, had it towed into the urban remainder of chapel hill usa yesterday. i think the clutch master/slave cylinders, or at least one of them, is kaput. no loss of fluid. trying to monkey with it early sunday morning i somehow activated the do not start if not in neutral or clutch depressed interlock so now it won't turn over.

as soon as i sign off here i begin the find-a-shop-to-fix-it routine. breaking down on the road has it's own quality. it could be worse, i unloaded all my camping gear and toys (guitar, shortwave radio, watercolors) which are temporarily housed in daughter nicole/husband doug's garage. trial in hillsborough plods on. if i am still here when final arguments, summations, whatever they are called take place i'll attend. meanwhile it's off to the world of auto repair.

6.1.2

sunday evening, parked under a tree at my son eli melissa, and grandaughter lily's. big rain storm finally got here, i hope it cools the sultry weather. i am experiencing some kind of clutch linkage problem, will look carefully at it in the am when i can think (i hope). big decision coming as to whether to nurse it back to asheville or (shudder) try and get it fixed in foreign country (chapel hill usa).

i am here because my daughter is a witness, along with two other women, in a rape and assault trial. spent some of thursday and a lot of friday at trial. the defense is hitting on the police procedures:

"you mean you didn't keep your hand written-notes after you input them into computer??!!"

answer i hope is given next week:"no, i am trained to take notes and create reports from them".

the defense objected non-stop to the reading of any police report that quoted anyone unless it was corraberating (i'm on the road - don't know how to spell this) someone's testamony. the judge sustained these objections.

i'm not a lawyer but i play one on tv. why can't a police report, filed on a certain date, be read in court, presented as what it is, a police report, a"snapshot" of what the police thought was going on at the time?

anyway to see a lawyer doing his business picking apart methods of work on a highly technical and arcane basis instead of dealing with the suspect's guilt or innocence is a sorry sight indeed. he is a public defender and "just doing his job". see article in durham herald.