September 30, 2004
Associations and Interpretation
The scene of the dream is a building with many levels (not atypical of my dreamlife) I visit a number of these levels - the ominous entrance, the basement/subconscious, the fascinating shop on the second floor that opens into a festival of delights. (that's progress for you)
The scrapbook of my transformation. The company that used make them is out of business (the church?) I must do it myself. I am a bit daunted by this prospect in the dream. (My blog?) (My spiritual path?)
There are two items of note among the materials I have brought along to be included in the scrapbook. A horse's leg. At the moment, the energetic pain in my body is in my lower legs and hooves, oops, feet. Actually I often think my feet, in their seized up state, feel like hooves. A horse is an animal, with eyes in the side of it's head, so that it can always scan for danger. A horse will take flight when frightened by the slightest trigger. The amygdala is in control of action. I still have that kind of energy in my legs. It's painful. The skirt is there to cover the horse leg. Traditional female garb/role, covering up instinctual hypervigilance.
The elevator is not exactly a friendly one. It hasn't been easy to get from one level to the next. The handicapped woman is an aspect of myself that I have struggled to bring up to the platform on the first floor. Her mother is watching critically - that's how I know it's an aspect of self. I had some help with pulling that part of myself up, but not enough. My handicapped self, exhausted from the effort, goes to rest in the basement, as does A. They are both covered by white sheets -a bit corpse like. I should not mistake them for dead.
I leave the basement alone, without either one of them, quite happily, I might add, and take the elevator, which by now is more a ordinary sort, to the delightful shops, courtyard and festival, where I am offered delicacies and samples. I am able to hang out there for awhile. Unfortunately, I don't stay. Silly dream me has to go to the airport. Up in the sky, off the ground. Why?
I take A. along, but we are separated on the way to the train that goes to the airport. He is worried. He is halfway up the the stairs (again another level), looking out the window at the train station when I find him. (Bus, train, bike lots of horizontal movement).
Looking with him out the window, I am happy to recognize a musicologist at the bus stop, who will show us the way to the airport. The musicologist is a welcome guide, warm and handsome, suggesting a bike ride, which is right up my alley. A. cannot recognize him, and that makes him anxious. I tease A. out of mild irritation. Why a musicologist? Someone who knows more than I do, an expert, a scholar. Projection of my own authority to an outside source?
We don't make it to the airport on our bikes before the alarm rings. The final scene finds me taking apart a dysfunctional path, and worrying about what the neighbors will think. I worry most about getting in trouble. That distracts me from seeing that the path is dangerous, and I might be doing a public service by dismantling it.
I think this dream has to do with my struggle to reach a peaceful place in my life, and my recent relapse, getting hooked into chaotic energies again.
I don't think I will do a project like this again. The hyperlinking was too literal, too serious, and too time consuming. It was hard to find images that exactly fit my dream images. I feel exposed and ashamed by the content of the dream, (notice the amount and quality of human contact) and feel my skills as an interpreter are inadequate. Also, who, pray tell, did I think would be interested?
Oh well.
Photo note: Stairs, door, shadows, layers, depth, patterns, complexity -- seemed like a good pick.
Analyse this: Hypertext Dream 9-26-04
h
Because my sleep has been so disturbed as I approach cronehood , my dreams are few and far between. I did have one on Saturday, and it has been suggested that I hypertext it, as an experiment. So here goes.
I have come to a warehousey building with a huge, strange, primitive elevator/escalator in it. I am there to have a professional scrapbook made of my transformation . I have brought the stuff I want to work with, which includes a horse's leg (miniature) and a flowered skirt to place over it. I discover, when talking to the other merchants in the building who are waiting by the elevator contraption that the company that I'm looking for is out of business . I am disappointed and think I will have to make the scrapbook by myself .
A severely handicapped woman of my acquaintance, P., is on the escalator/elevator. She is struggling. Her mother is watching critically from the top. I help her get up and down, but it is a mighty effort . A. helps also, but leaves before she has reached the top. P. is by now crawling on her stomach, and I am holding onto her and yelling to A. for help . He doesn't respond. I pull her onto the platform.
I go to the basement of the building where P., exhausted, is lying sprawled on a double bedcovered by a white sheet in a side room. A. is sleeping outside on a couch , also covered by a white sheet.
Upstairs, the building is full of fascinating shops. I enter one of them, that I think is on the second floor, explore it ,and notice that it opens onto ground level. There is a beautiful long grassy courtyard with tables along a path. The tables each have lovely displays of of food and soaps for sampling. A sort of festival .
I have to go to the airport . A is with me and we are on foot, heading for the train station. We get separated and I find him on the stairs at the station , like Penn Station, looking out of the window at a bus stop . We approach the bus stop and a tall handsome man in a raincoat recognizes us. I think he hugs me. A. is anxious because his learning disability kicks in and he cannot place the face or the name. I tease a little. The guy is the husband of a musicologist couple we know. When he finds out that we are going to the airport, he suggests we take our bikes . I'm enthusiatic , although I don't know the way, and say I will follow
Eventually we come to a path up a hill, near the musicologist's house. The path has recently been built. Plastic sheeting has been fitted to the path and covered with sawdust. It is very slippery and we cannot ride our bikes up the hill. We try to remove the plastic sheeting from under the sawdust without making too much of a mess . I am afraid of getting into terrible trouble with his neighbors for ruining the path.
Anyone care to interpret ?
Photo note: Stairs, moving from one level to another. The mystique and power of the ordinary.
September 29, 2004
The tent
This is a tent at the Scallop Festival.
Just a pretty picture
posted
while I'm
unearthing
the right clickies
for my dream.
finding the
perfect dream image
on the internet
is harder than
I imagined
Stay tuned
September 27, 2004
Punctured
Isn't this punk? It is the latest in license plate holders (I fail to find it on the net, perhaps it's a custom job.) The spikes, an inch out front, will puncture your plastic bumper to the tune of several hundred dollars, as the SUV to which this aggressive little accessory is attached, attempts to parallel park behind your automobile.
If you are disturbed by the SUV owner's choice of plate holders, you could easily trace the license number and send the owner a note to that effect.
On a related topic, political bloggers made the cover of the New York Times Magazine this week. Although the article did acknowledge that Daily Kos and Atrios have a larger combined readership than the Philadelphia Inquirer, I thought they were characterized as mean. Where else will we hear about stuff like this ? Mean is a license plate holder with spikes. Mean is calling voters in North Carolina, pretending you are a survey and asking them if they knew that John McCain had a black baby out of wedlock, would the knowledge affect their vote. Good investigative reporting and telling the truth are quite another thing.
September 24, 2004
Bye bye Belle
Belle de Jour is moving on, jumping ship, picking up camp, throwing in the towel. And what a shame, though she will be paid handsomely for whatever she writes from now on. Being paid probably won't take the fun out of it for her, either.
Belle, for those of you who are unfamiliar with her, is a ritzy blogger call girl, based in London. Her blog is wildly popular (chosen Best Blogger by the Manchester Guardian last year), not only because her writing is so incisively insightful, but because she has chosen an interesting subject upon which to base it. Let me put it this way, her blog isn't full of flower photos.
We know that she is scrumptious , due to dialog like:
"The young man smiled (seated on bench next to her after a short verbal encounter) 'When was the last time someone told you you're gorgeous?' Belle: 'About forty minutes ago'. " There is also much focus on professional maintenence - slathering, waxing , preening, fluffing , conditioning and shopping for silky underwear , as well as the usual pursuits of the calling profession.
There is some speculation that Belle de Jour's blog is fiction. It's fun to think that a 70 year old woman , or one who weighs 300 pounds, created a heavenly experience for herself that others enjoyed and admired . Maybe Belle isn't a woman at all, she's a sensitive new age guy who is practicing identification with women, or a transsexual . In any case, I hope her bestseller will enable her to afford that personal trainer, that lipsuction, that sex change, that beautiful underwear, or that flat in Chelsea - whatever her little heart desires.
Belle's departure to hardcover leaves a terrific void in the tasteful, brilliant online erotica department. The wonderful thing about the internet is that her entire blog will float, intact, in the great v-yond, for all of us to savor at our leisure.
Aside: Yesterday, as I was lunching and blogging, a cherry tomato got the best of me, and splattered it's seed on my laptop keyboard. Now one of my letters is jammed by a tomato seed. It's the letter "i", which is most inconvenient. Perhaps it is a message from the universe to stop carrying on about myself.
Photo note: a towel picture, for throwing in the towel. I would have photographed one of my silky teddies , but I didn't have time. Later
September 23, 2004
Hanging them out to dry
Well, we have successfully prevented two big Muslim terrorists Tariq Ramadan and Cat Stevens , from entering the USofA. Let us ignore the fact that they have both been working for peace and mutual understanding for many years. We simply cannot have a dialog with moderate Muslims going on in this country. It's bad for the war business .
This is the beginning of demonization, actually, not exactly the beginning. Although it's happening on both sides. Have you noticed how much more golem-like the caricatures of W have become? While we're at it, Here's the best of today's press conference from Atrios -perhaps the reason they are soooooo infrequent.
Speaking of the war business , this attractive poster, which, at first sight, seems to be a parody, is available at www.Metrospy.com, under promilitary posters, for only $5.99.
The fine print reads, "pansies, hippies, dirt bags and freaks, shut up and stay out of the way" Moi?. That poster boy, who's supposed to be on our side (I think), doesn't look exactly clean cut to me.
Photo note: To hang someone out to dry, means to defeat, convict or throw the book at at that person, and, wouldn't you know, I had a picture in the archives.
September 22, 2004
bird
When there are no
pretty pictures ,
words
luminous
waves of wonder
you know
the toaster
that is you
Photo note: notice the electric lines, notice the color
September 21, 2004
The Armenian Band
When I popped into my local market last night to pick up some essentials, there was an Armenian band playing in the nut department in front of the ATM.
It was quite a gala event with manned samples of cookies, ice cream, chocolate and pasta salad. When I asked my Central American friend in the deli department what was happening, he just shrugged. I seem to be bumping into ethnically incongruous experiences in ordinary places. All the more reason to carry a little camera at all times.
I think I spy the edge of an American flag in the upper left hand corner, which gives me an excuse to direct you to this animation .
September 20, 2004
More tushies, more ethical dilemmas
I didn't ask if it was okay to take this photo either, but I figure if you let the duck hug you, you have given implicit permission.
There is, you will notice, the ubiquitous American flag in the background, which provides me with the opportunity to recommend Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right , which he read to me on tape on the way to the Hamptons.
This book was published in 2003, but it's contents are just skimming the front pages now. This book is much more than a hilarious rant. It is carefully researched by Team Franken , fourteen Harvard students who worked with Al on the project during his Shorenstein Fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It is the clearest explanation of how the right introduces, spins and twists the truth so that decent men, like John McCain and Max Cleland, are irreparably smeared and lose elections, among other things. It is chock full of dates, facts, and quotations, that only a team of Harvard students working night and day could produce (Ann Coulter , on the other hand, only has her little old self to manufacture her vitriol, which is why her facts may sometimes be inaccurate.)
Facts don't seem to matter much anymore. I just heard this morning on NPR that W is seen as "more likeable" in the polls. What's likeable about a man who has singlehandedly taken apart the environment, and lead us into a futile, useless war, enraging the world, while depleting the treasury with monumental tax cuts for the wealthiest in a mere four years? Maybe it's the cowboy accent. It's probably too late for John Kerry to develop one. He should have started right after Yale when W did.
September 19, 2004
Bagpipers, tuchies and weddings
For some reason I am manifesting bagpipers, perhaps they are just in season. This, however is my primo bagpiper shot, a piper dining. I did not ask permission, I am sorry to say, but since a face was not involved, I thought it unnecessary.
There was a bagpiper at the wedding I attended this weekend too, quite unexpectedly, since the groom was Jewish and the bride Catholic. I think he might have been part of the wedding package at the Presbyterian church in which the ceremony took place. You don't often see bagpipers around the synagogue.
The wedding was in the Hamptons. It did not, to my dismay, make the pages of the New York Times Sunday Styles Section, even though it was a lavishly tasteful affair, adjacent to the lighted surf, complete with plum and apple martinis.
The Hamptons are an interesting combination of cauliflower and tomato farms, extreme wealth and abject poverty. I've never been there before. I found it difficult to see Southampton, because all of the houses are set back behind twenty foot hedges. I didn't take pictures of these behemoths because they do not photograph well. Just image endless privet, up and down every residential street, three feet deep and twenty feet high. The hedges are precisely trimmed, which probably accounts for the many central American men on the street corners, waiting to be picked up for illegal day labor.
The sweet proprietor of our million dollar B&B is a Southhampton townie, and an EMT. She described the horrible, crowded conditions under which the laborers live. She says they are terrified to go to the hospital, even when they are mortally ill, for fear of being found by the INS. Soon the wealthy may find their privet too permeable and start with the gates. But I digress.
Picking up on the secondary theme of weddings and tushies , there was a fanny photo in the Section this week. Another first to the best of my knowledge. Paul von Holten is carrying Brooke Gomez lightly in his arms, and there's her tushie (nicely shaped) featured prominently in the Section. We have a sense that this is a theme picture, since Paul is the fitness director of the David Barton Gym on Madison Ave. and Brooke works for her mother as an interior designer on East 74th, right around the corner. Wanna bet he was her personal trainer. The internet tells us that Paul Barton's (Mr. Northeast body building champ) mission is to make the whole world "look better naked" - we can only assume.
View larger image View larger image
September 16, 2004
Distortion
The temptation here is to vent political vindictiveness. Isn't this photo just longing to be exploited for bushy associations?. Black, bent bridge, reflected on an SUV with a fine veil of dirt that's hard to see at first glance. And the deep meaning of the windshield wiper that can never eradicate the shadow. You see the temptations.
But, I have resisted , and will go on to matters of the spirit. Weather forecast: partly sunny with some relief from the angry heat of last week. Storms have passed due to somewhat successful, intentional focus on beauty and light .
My liver cleanse according to my tui na practitioner, has evened out my pulses, The obstinate organ remains the same. I think my pulses are even due to caffeine abstinence.
I have spent my week swilling flaxseed oil and diluted cranberry juice . I have learned to tolerate flaxseeds floating in my drinks and have added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to my daily.
HEALTH NOTE: I am told, via the grapevine, that a local HMO is recommending 2 capsules of turmeric and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon a day to diabetics. Cinnamon lowers both blood sugar and cholesterol. I forget what the turmeric is for, but, believe me, it was an item on everyone's to-do body list.
Taking a teaspoon of cinnamon turns out to be quite a challenge for the carbodeprived, since it's finest vehicle, wholewheat toast with butter, is completely out of the question. The darn stuff floats atop drinks, doesn't dissolve, and clumps in spoon- sized piles of powder that stick in the craw, causing the aspiration of clouds of medicinal spice. If you do manage to get it into the oral cavity, it adheres unpleasantly to the teeth , adding flavor to everything you eat for the next hour.
The herbal product world is still dropping their cinnamon into soap and tea, so it is not yet available in pure, costly capsule form. I am told I could make my own capsules, but I don't have a full evening by the fire to do so in the next few weeks. If anyone is interested in encapsulating cinnamon, please let me know, there's room for business development here.
Oh, and my shin splints from hell. Isn't this just what you hate about blogs? Buttoning lip .
Photo note: see paragraph one.
September 15, 2004
Far Afield with the Zapatistas
The other night, a dear and close personal relative, while dinner-table-advising John Kerry about how he might deal with the Smear Machine , told this story about the
Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos .
When Marcos was "accused" of being homosexual, he sent one of his masked guerillas out of the jungle with a proclamation in which he admitted everything.
"Marcos is a black in South Africa, a gay in Saint Francisco, an anarchist in Spain, an Indian in Mexico, a pacifist in Bosnia, a Palestinian in Israel, a Communist after the end of the Cold War, one single woman in one night of every Saturday in metropoli Mexican, one student poor devil, a dissident in the market economy, an artist without gallery and, naturally, one Zapatista in Southeastern Mexico. [note: the translation gets a little baffling here] Marcos is all takes advantage of to it to you, neglects to it to you, the overwhelmed minorities that resist and say: Enough!"
- NEOLIBERIS
(You can tell that the Subcomandante has been hanging out with the literati.)
The over-dessert advice to John Kerry was admit everything, and then reframe it, as in, "Yes my third wound was superficial, but I know what it feels like to be hit by a bullet in a war, do you?
Actually, I don't think this tactic would work, given the Smear Machine's proclivity to take quotations out of context.
As I was looking for this quote, I discovered that the Zapatistias have a website of their own named "The Human Bean" -- not very ferocious for a radical group. Maybe the Spanish translation is more intimidating. Here's an excerpt:
"Question #4, Kerry: People often talk about the struggle in Chiapas as if it were just a local struggle between indigenous peoples and the Mexican government in regard to poverty. What is this struggle really about and are there other protagonists involved besides the Mexican Government?
Marcos: Well, lately the protaganism is global. It's not about a national problem. The effect of the neoliberalism and the process of globalization is that it erases the borders for money and erases the borders for the problems. With this I mean to say that the fundamental problem that is in the Zapatista rebellion is not just an indigenous problem but also the problem of the excluded in this gigantic genocide that the big money and great financial powers of this world are doing that decides to exclude a part of the population at any cost, even at the cost of human lives. And this is repeated in Europe, in the United States, in Canada, in all the countries of Latin America, in Africa, in Asia, in Oceania; in all five continents there is this process of annihilation to shut out social groups and to concentrate on nothing more than the criteria of economic devaluation or productive devaluation, in this case, the power of purchase. The body of the Zapatista rebellious movement is a body fundamentally indigenous. We are speaking of a civil population that is 100% indigenous with four principal ethnic groups of Mexico; the ethnic Chol, the ethnic Tzeltal, the ethnic Tzotzil, and the ethnic Tojolabal, Mayan peoples of the Southeast of Mexico. And 99% of the regular combatant forces, the insurgents that we are, are indigenous and a small part of us are Mestizos. That is the body of the Zapatista rebellion but the heart has to do with the problem of human dignity on the international level. It has to do with the problem of putting value back into one's word and giving feeling to the question of humanity. We insist that whatever defense of humanity now is a struggle against neoliberalism as it was before against fascism in the middle of this, the 20th century that is about to end. We can say it that way, that the body of the Zapatista rebellion is indigenous and the heart of it's rebellion is the dignity of all the "excluded" in the world that encounter power."
They certainly have a point, and they're the canaries . Haven't I just been complaining about this?
Photo note: It's not often one catches a praying mantis , showing it's true colors - in this case, on a seedum blossom. When you see it, shoot. You are left on your own to understand the connection of this photo to this entry -- suffice it to say that it is loose.
September 14, 2004
Hugging a Dead Fish
My computer is doing something weird and I just lost this whole entry . I must not succumb to the temptation to rant.
In an attempt to improve the negative effect on my vibration that the current administration has had , I shall try to hug a dead fish, so to speak. Esther Hicks channeling Abraham would approve. She would say that you are in control of your own thoughts, no matter what is going on around you, and that your thoughts determine what you attract. That is true empowerment. Here goes.
Perhaps we need more evil, darkness and hatred in the world as contrast, in order to help us develop a more intense desire for peace, light and love.
If this is indeed the case, then someone needs to do the dirty deed. W is really enjoying the role, so far, wielding power for the first time in his life. We can be grateful to him for elucidating the thoughtless face of evil so clearly.
As the consequences of our behavior as a nation become apparent, we will better be able to see that everything in the world is connected.
If I continue to feel as vitriolic as I do now about the administration, I am only adding more turbulence to the system. I have caught the disease of hatred, as the Buddhists would say.
"What's good for General Motors , is good for the nation" In an attempt to find out who said that, I ran across some business quotations , which made me feel more hopeful about the corporate community in general
Harvard Business School is putting a new emphasis on ethics in it's admission process and it's curriculum. This wasn't the case when W matriculated. Perhaps our new corporate leaders, as a result, will be more altruistic and ethical, less self serving and sleazy (NSFW}.
I could stick one of those ubiquitous yellow ribbons on my bumper that says "Support Our Troops". Who doesn't support our troops, by the way? It's the policies that are the problem.
Photo note: Perfect costume for a fish hugger, right. Obviously, I asked this gentleman's permission to shoot. "Wanna pose with your fish?" I neglected to get his email address in the excitment of the moment. The fish, for the record , is a striped bass, weighing 38 pounds.
September 13, 2004
Turning over a new leaf before they all fall off
I have decided a few things. First, September sunrises are more spectacular than those of other months, at least in the vista to which I have access.
I met with my Abraham -Hicks Discussion and Manifestation Group last night and was reminded that focusing attention on any subject makes it more prominent in one's vibration. Esther Hicks channeling Abraham asks herself the question "Do I really want to attract more of that?" when finding herself in a snit about something.
No. I have given quite enough attention to dishonesty, stupidity ,
It's sunrise and flowers from now on, folks. Enough beauty to gag a maggot.
The Perfect Costume
And here we see Dexter's Grist Mill built in 1654, restored in 1961, where you can buy fresh milled cornmeal (if you weren't cleansing your liver ).
And look who passed by in perfect costume at the perfect moment? An Amish tourist, ruining only part of the effect with papers in her purse and a digital . The digital could pass for an apple, but the papers are prominent. I don't think women in 1654 carried paper. This is when it would pay to know a little more about photoshop. Perhaps if I erased the papers, I would eliminate the irony .
I sat with someone last week who felt quite violated by an acquaintance visiting her house, whipping out her digital and taking pictures . I must watch that inclination in myself.
The aforementioned photographer takes pictures of everything in her life as it rolls along, and then has them all developed, professionally, and puts them into albums. Let me know when I get that crazy.
September 10, 2004
Bananas
Forgive me
while
I go
a little
bananas
because you
think it's
all my fault
and I
bite that
styrofoam
tomato
and spoil my
digestion
At some
point
in the
future
then again,
I may not
September 08, 2004
Finally, The Light Dawns
Just when my complaints about the lack of investigative reporting in the mainstream media reached their apex , I have renewed hope .
From the Boston Globe 9-8-04
Bush fell short on duty at Guard
Records show pledges unmet
September 8, 2004
This article was reported by The Globe Spotlight Team -- reporters Stephen Kurkjian, Francie Latour, Sacha Pfeiffer, and Michael Rezendes, and editor Walter V. Robinson. It was written by Robinson.
"In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.
He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.
On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.
But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.
And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a ''statement of understanding" pledging to achieve ''satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty -- usually involving two weekend days each month -- and 15 days of annual active duty. ''I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.
Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.
The reexamination of Bush's records by the Globe, along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed regulations from that era, show that Bush's attendance at required training drills was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been ''satisfactory" -- just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months.
Bartlett, in a statement to the Globe last night, sidestepped questions about Bush's record. In the statement, Bartlett asserted again that Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not ''met all his requirements." In a follow-up e-mail, Bartlett declared: ''And if he hadn't met his requirements you point to, they would have called him up for active duty for up to two years."
That assertion by the White House spokesman infuriates retired Army Colonel Gerald A. Lechliter, one of a number of retired military officers who have studied Bush's records and old National Guard regulations, and reached different conclusions.
''He broke his contract with the United States government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen," Lechliter said in an interview yesterday. ''He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard."
Even retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. By not joining a unit in Massachusetts, Lloyd said in an interview last month, Bush ''took a chance that he could be called up for active duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the Air Force was not enforcing the penalty."
But Lloyd said that singling out Bush for criticism is unfair. ''There were hundreds of guys like him who did the same thing," he said.
Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs in the Reagan administration, said after studying many of the documents that it is clear to him that Bush ''gamed the system." And he agreed with Lloyd that Bush was not alone in doing so. ''If I cheat on my income tax and don't get caught, I'm still cheating on my income tax," Korb said.
After his own review, Korb said Bush could have been ordered to active duty for missing more than 10 percent of his required drills in any given year. Bush, according to the records, fell shy of that obligation in two successive fiscal years.
Korb said Bush also made a commitment to complete his six-year obligation when he moved to Cambridge, a transfer the Guard often allowed to accommodate Guardsmen who had to move elsewhere. ''He had a responsibility to find a unit in Boston and attend drills," said Korb, who is now affiliated with a liberal Washington think tank. ''I see no evidence or indication in the documents that he was given permission to forgo training before the end of his obligation. If he signed that document, he should have fulfilled his obligation."
The documents Bush signed only add to evidence that the future president -- then the son of Houston's congressman -- received favorable treatment when he joined the Guard after graduating from Yale in 1968. Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House of Representatives in 1968, said in a deposition in 2000 that he placed a call to get young Bush a coveted slot in the Guard at the request of a Bush family friend.
Bush was given an automatic commission as a second lieutenant, and dispatched to flight school in Georgia for 13 months. In June 1970, after five additional months of specialized training in F-102 fighter-interceptor, Bush began what should have been a four-year assignment with the 111th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron.
In May 1972, Bush was given permission to move to Alabama temporarily to work on a US Senate campaign, with the provision that he do equivalent training with a unit in Montgomery. But Bush's service records do not show him logging any service in Alabama until October of that year.
And even that service is in doubt. Since the Globe first reported Bush's spotty attendance record in May 2000, no one has come forward with any credible recollection of having witnessed Bush performing guard service in Alabama or after he returned to Houston in 1973. While Bush was in Alabama, he was removed from flight status for failing to take his annual flight physical in July 1972. On May 1, 1973, Bush's superior officers wrote that they could not complete his annual performance review because he had not been observed at the Houston base during the prior 12 months.
Although the records of Bush's service in 1973 are contradictory, some of them suggest that he did a flurry of drills in 1973 in Houston -- a weekend in April and then 38 days of training crammed into May, June, and July. But Lechliter, the retired colonel, concluded after reviewing National Guard regulations that Bush should not have received credit -- or pay -- for many of those days either. The regulations, Lechliter and others said, required that any scheduled drills that Bush missed be made up either within 15 days before or 30 days after the date of the drill.
Lechliter said the records push him to conclude that Bush had little interest in fulfilling his obligation, and his superiors preferred to look the other way. Others agree. ''It appears that no one wanted to hold him accountable," said retired Major General Paul A. Weaver Jr., who retired in 2002 as the Pentagon's director of the Air National Guard."
Dakota: I read the whole article, I hope you could. Perhaps am I projecting my attention deficit onto others. and there's more if it doesn't vanish.
The The Globe Spotlight Team brought us The Catholic Church and Cardinal Law in their last project. They were unrelenting, and it took them at least two years to expose the patriarchy and its coverup. They don't have two years for this one. Let us not forget, the patriarchy is strong and bounces back.
I hope they find out why a pilot would miss his medical exam and lose his pilot's license. It only cost $1 million dollars to train him. Easy come easy go. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones . A stitch in time, saves nine.
Now that the real news is doing what it should, we won't have to rely exclusively on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart for the truth. (videos well worth watching)
Photo note: Notice the light, notice the dark, notice the exit sign.
September 07, 2004
Sliding down the slippery slope
Ask me what I've manifested in the last couple of days and it doesn't look pretty. I attracted two rages from people with borderline personality disorders, and gave a pretty close proximity of one myself, actually two. One hissy fit was in stupid response to accusations, and the other, quite unsolicited, precipitated by a yawn. How did I slip into this vibrational slot ?
Aside: I'm listening to Chuck Palahnuik's delighfully creepy new novel "Diary" - It is sprinkled with weather reports. If Chuck had seen me the last few days he'd say something like: The weather today is overcast, with a vibration of uncontrollable rage, precipitated by perceived abandonment. The two day forecast is a deliberate attempt to transform the impending storm into consciousness. He'd say it much more eloquently, though.
In response to the energy I am attracting, I have decided to do something that is known in the wholistic, shamanistic trade as a liver cleanse. Here's the Chinese take on this issue from Zhang Huang's, "A Compendium of Illustrated Texts" (Tushu Bian), Ming Dynasty:
"The liver is associated with wood. It stores the blood and is the home of the hun spirits. Among the seven human emotions, only anger is of an intense nature. It dries up the blood and dissipates the hun spirits. The person who understands the way of nourishing the liver, therefore, never throws fits of anger"
Suffice it to say that cleansing the liver means cutting out all fat (with the exception of Omega 3's), all dairy products, sugar, white flour, all grains, all sweeteners except Stevia, alcohol, caffeine and salt, and adding delectables like cumin, cayenne, flax seed oil (which definitely tastes like it came from a fish, not a flax) and cranberries. I will admit that while my liver relaxes into good health, some of my parts are hoping to disappear entirely.
Esther Hicks, channeling Abraham, suggests that one change one's thinking before one embarks on an action. So here's what I'm thinking. I feel better when I fast. This "plan" is like a feast, compared to fasting . I can notice the changes in my energy and state of being as I proceed. I hope for a reduction in fascial pain. I hope for an improvement of energy flow through my feet., thus relieving the leg pains that awaken me.
In the spirit of things, as suggested, I now offer an invocation to the Canopic god of the liver, Kabexnuf:
I invoke thee, Kabexnuf, thou Child of Horus. Awaken thou hawk-headed one. Turn now thy gaze from thy place in the west for a child of Osiris summons thee. Be thou a steadfast ally and empower this symbol of life and regeneration with thy protection and vigilance. Help my body to separate the pure from the impure for such is thy domain and dominion. Oh Sakhet, thou sun in thy brilliance, call forth Kabexnuf who stands in thy service. I invoke thee, Kabexnuf, that my liver be made pure.
Photo note: Fish are a rich source of Omega 3 Fatty Acids. They are also slippery, and symbolize my present condition, as in, dead fish.
It was pointed out to me that this photo looks surprisingly like the astrological sign Pisces too.
September 06, 2004
The Wedding Section and Deteriorating Journalistic Standards Converge
Just after my vitriolic commentary on the media, look what popped up in the Section!
Ruth Shalit married Henry Robertson Barrett IV , who converted for the occasion. Rabbi Kenneth J. Chasin officiated. Those of us in the know, are acutely aware that there are no IV's among the Jews, since children are named (loosely) for the dead. Making someone a II, let alone a IV, would be a quite an insult. So the question is, what is a WASP to do with his IV after conversion? Seems only decent to drop it.
The clickie tells us that the upper left corner of the first page in the Sunday Wedding Section of the New York Times is saved for the important. I never noticed that. Ruth and Robertson, as he is known, are smack in the corner. His dad was the one time editor of the Times Sunday Magazine - maybe that's why. I wonder how Ruth's new father-in-law feels about her journalistic ethics. Maybe he's not worried, since Ruth is currently a contributing writer for Elle, and a free lance writer, where she can do no harm, and she will have to refrain from using big words..
Photo note: Flowers with tongues -white for wedding, yellow for journalism
September 05, 2004
Liberty trunkated
How does a lie float? If you are interested in that question, there is a documentary film at your local art house that illuminates the process. It was chilling. "The Hunting of the President" does something we don't see much anymore, investigative reporting. It exposes the exploitation of the press by neoconservatives, and the inexcusable complicity of the journalistic community (that is, the independent journalistic community who are not required to dumb down and mouth corporate interests like Fox Propaganda and Pulp).
The movie is about the smearing of the Clintons. In case noone noticed, eighty million taxpayer dollars were spent doing the deed. The neocons really didn't get their money's worth. While Ken Starr is the villian of the piece, the movie shows the machinations of the .Smear Machine It traces the Whitewater lie, it's the origins in jealousy, the exploitation of the mentally ill (James MeDougal), and the unforgiveable, unquestioning, complicity of the press in the process.
Susan McDougal , by the way, is the real heroine of the piece. Because she refused to lie under enormous pressure, she went to jail for two years. In jail, she was forced to wear a red uniform. The only prisoners required to wear red uniforms are mothers who murder their children and child molesters (What an inhumane practice!), thus identifying them in the prison community as legitimate targets for scapegoating. This was a little extra deliberate persecution of Susan McDougal for not acquiesing to the Smear Machine .
Bill Clinton's sexual exploits are even more baffling, since he knew the extent of the conspiracy against him, and could not afford casual dicky dunking under the circumstances. When Hillary tried to confront the conspiracy, she was made to look paranoid .
Guess what folks, The Little Smear Machine is still in top operating condition, as we can see from the Swift Boat Lie Float, which worked beautifully, flapping out there like a real American flag for twenty days before there was any questioning by the media. Here's another good example. Actually George HW revived it again last week.
The Smear Machine got Max Cleland and John McCain . Are we noticing that "trial lawyer" is becoming a dirty word, just like ACLU member?
Where, pray tell are the facts about W's service records? The facts about his addictions? The facts about his family's financial interests? As he said in his acceptance speech, he does have a few flaws. Let's elaborate.
By the way, there is no liberal press. Maybe they're worried about the Smear Machine going after them .
Photonote: I just happened to come across a large carving, cut in half, (how were they ever going to transport it otherwise?) of two American Eagles perched on tree trunks, sawed apart and strapped to a trailer in a driveway. You tell me if here's any symbolism involved .
September 03, 2004
Companion piece
Look what was parked in front of the church waiting to be shot. The Original Sin van, complete with concentric circles , serpentine swirls and segments to count.
The full text of the van reads "established in Eden - Original Sin - revived in New York". Across the front, printed backwards, so that it may be read easily in rear view mirrors, (though it's a strain for passersby) is the question "have you sinned today?" All in all, an inspiration to sample the product .
On Original Sin's website is an "Art of Sin" gallery to which one may submit one's creations relating to Original Sin. Is a blog entry art ? Gentle Giant liked my photo, but sadly, they don't have a gallery.
September 02, 2004
Autosymbolism
I bet you can't wait for me to stop reading "The DaVinci Code", and manifesting all this photosymbolism. Unfortunately, it is my current night table book. Because of that placement, I am likely to read the same page again and again, night after night because I fall asleep too quickly. This might be awhile.
So, guess who was a famous mirror writer ?
Mirror writing appears on the list of Triggers of Potential Exceptional Human Experiences . View this photo carefully.
September 01, 2004
Juicy tidbits from the Times style section
Although I have only had time to skim the Wedding Section, and I am trying to keep my vow to refocus on the profound, I did gleen a few mentionable tidbits.
Deborah Hull and Nathaniel Koren, son of Ed Koren, the New Yorker cartoonist, married. He is woodsy and whimsical. He spotted her at a party wearing a red sundress and inquired of his hostess, "Who's that over there wearing those big boots?" It was Ms. Hull, a modern dancer specializing in awkward movement. She eluded Mr. Koren's overtures, until she saw him coiling rope. Ah, competence, or perhaps, it was the spiral. The whimsical part is: " The bridegroom wrote his own vows, which no one but the bride heard. Like a child telling a secret, he whispered them in her ear. " Their children will have lots of whimsical genes.
Michelle Iva Hlubinka (she uses her family's original name, not their adopted name, Thomas, probably because Hlubinka is so yummy on the net) married Robert Alec Cook. [Googlestat: Michelle Thomas has two million, nine hundred and sixty thousand entries when googled] Robert Alec Cook has the same problem, ,as a name, that is. His presence on the net was, let us say, dilute. We are told by the Section that he is 39, and the director of the local office of Applied Minds.
Though the couple crossed paths casually at Yale, and around San Francisco, like strands of DNA , they were not yet ripe for the revelation. It happened at Burning Man . They crossed paths once again, biked together through the sculptures and, in the evening, entered an installation, which was a windsock, seven feet tall and thirty feet long. Mr. Cooke recalled, "It was painted in psychedelic colors, illuminated by black light, and mellow electronic music was playing inside."
"It was like being in a hallucination", he said. "The walls are waving, and your frame of reference is off." As he watched Ms. Hlubinka crouching in the tunnel, he said, "It was as if I was looking forward into the future and I saw her."
Now this is a story that warms the heart of the photosymbolist.
While we're on the subject, you might want to consider Getting Married at Burning Man
Photo note: Just a pretty picture of pretty white flowers for a change, vanilla wedding flavor.
Windy wedding on the boardwalk
It's been a long time since I have discussed a wedding . I am prompted to do so because there was a wedding right across my bicycle path the other day. The wind was blowing forty miles an hour. Fortunately for everyone in the energetic field, the bride had planned ahead with sufficient hairspray. Nary a curl out of place. The rest of the party, as you can see, stayed in the bus, except for one bridesmaid who had confidence in her hair product.
My 1GB card chose the moment I spotted the party from atop my bikeseat to develop a problem and stop. I immediately experienced a wave of empathy for wedding photographers and the consequences of equipment failure. I believe the shot of the groom grabbing the bride by the train from behind, (for safety or sexual purposes, we'll never know), has been lost forever.
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