JeffersonvilleIN for Obama

Making Love Out of Nothing at All...

James — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:08:16 EDT

I put my latest chapter of the espionage novel called "Closer to God," on the other blogsite I maintain: http://www.from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com, simply because some people have complained when I have put fiction on this site. Not that anybody seems to be reading much on the Obama site anymore. I never get comments at all. You could say that maybe my writing is just not good enough to elicit commentary, but I don't think that is it. The grassroots wonder of what was established by the initiation and continuation of this site before and right after the last election was quite something, and great fun to be a part of. But our population loses direction easily. Our culture bores even more easily. And being fickle today, at home and abroad, defines most Americans and most American policy.

We are making believe our money is worth something, and it is still working...marginally. We are making believe that there are actually jobs to perform in this country, instead of in China, India and Indonesia...where we sent them. Friedman stated, last week in the NY Times, that the fault for that is simply that Americans did not properly prepare and educate ourselves for the future, when they had the chance. The man is a liar and low-life cur, making millions while he laughs about why American's should quite justifiably be paid the same as Chinese peasants. And he golfs with the president, when he should more properly be water-tortured in Gitmo. But there is no real justice in the universe. There is only the eternal movement of information packets. Quantum mechanics. And there is no mercy, consideration, or even intellect at work in quantum activity. We are the merciful, the considerate and the intelligent part of this universe...when we choose to be. Right now, in this period of time, we are choosing to be dumb as hell, and reaping the benefits of that stupidity.

We are so busy admiring, and holding up to high exaltation, the phony 'stars' of our world, that our world is falling apart around us. In the Chicago Tribune, yesterday, the headline was all about people (including families, women and children) living in storage lockers, garden sheds and abandoned cars. The tragedy of it. Above that headline was a four inch column across the page, with a photo of a fifteen million dollar a year baseball player smiling out at us. The Sports section took that photo and made it the size of the whole page. How many people got the subtle distinction of the idiocy illustrated by that presentation? I wonder. Bret Favre is actually given tons of sympathy as he awaits the big Packers/Viking game on Sunday. Sympathy? How many million is he getting to play for two hours? I love his interviews, however. The man is a drooling idiot when it comes to discussing anything other than his 'game.' Its pretty funny, at least.

We are still in Afghanistan. We are fighting the Taliban. We are at war with the Taliban. What the hell happened to declarations of war and Congressional approval? Gone. We now go to war at a whim, or the opinion of a president. We actually are dumb enough to say that we are depending on our generals in the war theater to tell us whether we should increase or decrease our presence in the war! Now that is as dumb as asking Bret Favre! What general in his right mind is going to say "Oh, cut my troops in half please!!" What do generals do? They make war. How do they get advancement and more power? They make war. And they do it like Bret Favre, by being exposed to about as much danger as a taxi driver or deliveryman. Others are fighting and dying, or coming home with PTSD so bad they will never have any bliss in their lives. We are torturing the wrong people. We have a whole line of bankers, generals and even sports stars whole could profit us all mightily with just a few turns of the screw.

Maybe, one day, prior to the coming disaster in 2012 (Oh please God, bring it on), the common man can celebrate the common man again. They guy or gal working to actually make cars, the people building our roads, the nurses, baristas, waiters and cooks. And those people living in storage lockers (until they are outed and thrown in the streets, because you can't be allowed to live in a storage locker!) who are somehow trying to held life together instead of becoming insurgents.

And that is what is next if we do not make some changes. We will have insurgency here in this country, and we will be no more able to stop it here than we were able to in Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. We have a fiction of stopping it in Iraq, and we are going to try applying that same fiction to Afghanistan. We fortify the main population centers, then construct armored conduits to connect them, travelled by heavily armored vehicles. Then we claim that our 'surge' has worked. The natives laugh at us, as they properly should. We are not at war with Iraq or the Taliban. We are at war with our own self-imposed ignorance, and our willingness to glorify the ephemeral stupidity of stardom.

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"JULIA"

James — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:07:52 EDT

Julia

It was a common day. The Republicans gathered at community get-togethers to make sure everyone does not have a fair shake in this culture. Right now it is all about medical care. Like a country so rich and powerful that it can conduct two full scale wars at the same time while still bailing out some truly evil investment firms to the tune of seven trillion dollars cannot take care of the health of its citizenry. Please! And, oh yeah, lets get to those wild community sharing events armed to the teeth, as if there is anybody attending them that is dangerous or deranged, except for the armed idiots. But that just made it an average day in my Republic. Bret Favre continues to add his aging zest to the weirdness of professional football (he didn’t want to go to training camp, he’s too important for that kids stuff, so he waited til it was over to sign with Minnesota). Average stuff. The wind blows, the grass grows and the sun shines.

But I went to see the Julia Child movie. And I was quite surprised. I am in the entertainment business but had not been to a real theater for a few years. The first ten minutes was all ads. Bad, loud, blaring and rotten television ads transplanted into the theater. You cannot mute them, turn down the sound or anything. I looked around to see if anybody else was mildly disturbed, but nobody was. I realized that I was the only one who was out of sync. No wonder movie attendance is down. And then there was the other new thing, at least at the theater I went to, where the ticket has to be purchased from the same person who gets cokes and drinks, or whatever. You wait forever, just to get in. Which I almost did not, simply because of that. Movies are not dying, they are being killed off by idiotic businessmen who have no clue about humanity.

The movie itself was one neatly wrapped and pleasing chick-flick. Most of the chick-flick part was illustrated by the just wonderful men in the show. The husbands were all true, loving and totally supporting, no matter what. If there was a problem, well, it was resolved in no time at all. No drugs, no booze problems, other women or any of that. Nice and comforting, if not a long long way from any reality. I liked the blogging part of the movie. Of course, our heroine (not Julia, but the other one named Julie) rises in mere days to have hundreds of thousand of followers on Salon.com with her blog. Now that part was totally hilarious (most of the millions of blogs out here have less than five followers!), but it was passed off pleasingly enough. There were some really good shots at the publishing business. Those people, back in Julia’s time and in our’s, will steal the fillings out of your teeth, given any opportunity or sometimes simply out of some deeply driven need to torment. I liked those parts. A little truth in the vanilla pudding which swirled around most of the rest of the feature. But I liked it anyway. I laughed and loved Julia Child (in this case Meryl Streep, who I love almost as much) all over again.

I liked Julie’s blogs because they, the one’s they created for the movie anyway, were so nice and emotive. I don’t think I am capable of that kind of lightness of being. The blogs of that young woman were of gossamer cotton candy while mine are laden with acid and razor blades. But what can I do? Proceed on, hoping that I will be discovered too. That last sentence was a joke, as I have been discovered, and its not all so very good (I am missing some fillings).

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Prologue to "The Bering Sea,"....final edit

James — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:47:28 EDT

Prologue

Joshua Boatwright sat patiently, sipping from his small espresso cup, unsure of how he had come to be where he was, tucked into the back corner lobby of the Sheraton hotel in Crystal City. He looked out a floor-to-ceiling window onto a well kept courtyard. No, it was not his place to be there. Analysis was what he did, not personal liaisons. His calling in life was to assemble the smallest shards of data and form sweeping mosaics of truth, in a world filled with lies. Joshua was proud of his nickname, "Tevie," a shortened version of the motto he lived by. "Triple Verfification" was that motto. Three sources to establish the veracity of each shard of data he added to his mosaics, to produce pictures of sanity in an insane world. His team of analysts, located four miles away, at CIA's Langley complex, had not conferred the nickname because of his work, however. Unknown to Joshua, they had given him the name because of their knowledge of his only recreation, which was watching television non-stop when not at the intelligence facility.

Diminutive and fidgeting, he sipped and fretted over the tops of his prescription glasses. They had jet black frames, for affect. He did not need them to read or drive. But they gave him a distinguished look, or so his ex-wife had told him, and they did help when examining the tiniest detail of photo intelligence. The Agency's electronic surveillance, although not legally allowable for personal use, such as tracking one's spouse, had proven ruthlessly effective, just after she'd commented on his spectacles.

A big man entered the lobby near its grand entrance. He wore an expensive blue suit. Its Italian cut did nothing, however, to disguise his morbid obesity. Joshua flicked his eyes towards the man, then grimaced. The man's florid complexion, bulbous nose and polished smile gave his identity away. The Senior Senator from Iowa stopped in the center of the large foyer, to take the place in. No assistants or attendants of any sort accompanied him, which did not surprise Joshua at all. The Senator noticed him sitting alone in the corner. Joshua glanced at him before looking down at a folder he had placed very exactly on his table. Noticing a slight tremor pass through his left wrist, he quickly tucked it down between his thigh and the arm of the chair. Never had he encountered anyone as an Agency representative, and certainly never a sitting senator, much less one who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"There's no shame to having a little bit of fear here," he whispered inaudibly to himself, breathing deeply inward as he heard the powerful senator's approaching footsteps. Joshua squared his shoulders imperceptibly, his back ramrod straight. He had the weight and reputation of the entire Central Intelligence Agency behind him. He would neither genuflect nor grovel before anyone.

"You'd be their man?" the senator inquired very calmly, stopping astride Joshua's chair. Joshua started to rise and raise his right hand. He quickly caught himself, however, putting it down and reseating himself. He was not there, at a clandestine meeting, to be social, or to even appear social.

"Stay seated," the senator said, paternalistically, his voice soft and silky. He lowered himself with visible difficulty into the narrow chair Joshua had purposely placed at right angles to his own before a low coffee table.

"Got something for me?" the senator asked into the silence between them. His tone this time flavored with a likability that the analyst instantly hated.

Before any reply could be made, the senator picked up an unmarked but highly classified file Joshua had placed on the table. Neither man said anything while he read its contents. Joshua noted that the lobby was completely empty, save for two clerks working registration near the entrance. The waiter, who had brought his expresso to him had never returned. Joshua hoped he wouldn't, for fear of having to touch the cup and allow the senator to see him shaking. Minutes passed. A bead of perspiration ran down his hairline behind his right ear. Fortunately, it was the ear opposite the senator's position.

"Says here that you boys are gonna go ahead and help me out," the big man in the blue suit intoned, before plopping the file back on the table.

"The usual Agency drivel," the senator commented, acidly.

"You gonna tell me what the plan is?" he inquired.

Joshua cleared his throat to steady himself, then followed his instructions.

"Your nephew is being justifiably imprisoned by a foreign government. His violations, meriting that imprisonment, are in keeping with what we normally associate with serious criminal behavior in our own country. The Agency does not normally involve itself in such matters, particularly where such deviant and anti-social behavior is involved." Joshua halted, having delivered his own righteous version of the background information he had been given during his briefing. After a few seconds of silence he realized that something was amiss. Without looking over, he felt the heat of tremendous anger flow toward him from the direction of the senator's chair. Instinctively, he dropped his left shoulder a millimeter or two in defense, before he caught himself.

"Just cut to the chase son. Don't make me come after your career." The senator's threat was issued in a low tone, more akin to that of an oversized cat purring than of a human voice. Joshua's throat froze, a tendril of fear coursing through him at the mention of his career. He finally cleared it by swallowing several times.

"We're sending our best man," Joshua gasped. "He's resourceful, violently equipped and experienced. No expense will be spared in this operation. But we're sending him in alone. We can't afford, no matter what measures you may or may not take, to have this operation rise to the level of an international incident. Not now." Joshua averted his gaze from the direction of the man from Capitol Hill as he finished his memorized message. He waited for a response, again trying to fathom why he had been selected for the role he was playing. He was in the dark, but Joshua sensed the reason. It was about the fact that his analysis group had provided the data which sanctioned the mess-of-a-mission the so-called 'best man' had pulled off, against all odds.

He heard the senator arise from his chair. He looked up, but the man was already walking away, his manufactured smile once more plastered to his politician's face. He had made no comment at all, not even in dismissal.

Joshua's shoulders pressed inward, and his head sank to the point that his jaw nearly touched his chest. His trembling fingers grasped the espresso cup handle. He took a shaky sip. He thought of the 'best man' the Agency was dispatching, then smiled weakly for the first time that day. That 'best man' had just come out of West Africa under the bloodiest of circumstances, having improbably accomplished his mission. The skewed manner in which his mission had been conducted would no doubt have the Agency looking like a stone cold, heartless and uncaring beast, and no one in analysis was taking that lightly. His grip steadied as he pondered over what he'd just done. He'd sent a low-life field agent off to save a drug-dealing nephew of a corrupt scumbag senator. This time not the remotest possibility of the mission's success existed.

Joshua Boatwright stood up straight, tucked the classified folder under his arm and strode across the lobby. His mind was already lost in formulation of the final mosaic, as it would appear, when the details of an illegal and doomed mission crossed his desk.

"On the Wings of a Snow White Dove"

James — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:41:30 EDT

A few days ago the media was reporting in the news that our forces in Afghanistan had killed a Taliban leader by the name of Mehsud. The reports came with detailed descriptions of the actual terminal event. It seems that Mehsud was spotted on the top of a home, sitting next to his second wife, by one of our Predators, Reapers or White Doves. That last designation is my term for these robotic flyers who fire missiles from beneath their wings. Missiles were launched and the house, with Mehsud and wife, was obliterated.

Are we at war with the Taliban? I thought that we were at war with Al Qaeda. I thought that we went into Afghanistan to get the Al Qaeda cells who had launched 9/11, and, in particular, the cell which contained Osama Ben Ladin. I thought that we fought the elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan to get them out of our way, in order to allow us to reach the followers of Al Qaeda. But then I was also led to believe that, eventually, we were fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, until we changed the name of the opponents there to "insurgents." Now I just don't know.

Let's assume that we have to be at war with the Taliban. That assumption safely put where we can get back to it, let's take a look at the morality of killing the woman that was with him. We can even marginally presume that the guy on the roof of that building (Mehsud) when the predator struck down with six missiles was the Taliban leader we sought (there are many conflicting reports about that). But I want to write about that woman. Whoever she was. Were we at war with her when we executed her with full, willing and aforeknowledged intent? Nobody seems to care about this poor woman, blown to smithereens. Why not? Why is it that we keep getting reports that our White Doves shower down these missiles on all manner of people living in Afghanistan, and it is okay that many are not combatants at all? Who will cry for this woman?

I went to a party the other night. High class party. Everyone was higher class than I. My attendance was based upon the fact that I can usually be depended upon to engage in interesting discourse. The hostess of the party, when I was at a table deep in discussion about the Iraq war, said these words: "It's a war. Kill them all. Men, women and children. That's what war is. Kill them all." I looked at her. I like her. I want to be invited back to her parties. But I could not help myself. Quite forcefully I encountered her verbally: "I can understand your feelings, but I would like you to understand that this war should then have your husband and children laying here, dead at your feet, for you to have any comprehension of the enormity of what you just said." Even the mildest intimation that violence might be considered to be visited upon her, there in her own home, stopped the place dead for a moment. I still like this woman. I know that she is so very proto-American, however. She has not lived in those cities out there, humped those jungles, slogged across those deserts and certainly not spent any time with any of those wondrous cultures out there all over this planet. Those people are not people to her. Not like her husband and children. They are not even existent enough in her consciousness to be human beings.

They are very human to me. That woman on that roof who was blown to smithereens. That woman probably had a husband and children too. Maybe the husband is dead. But the children? If they survived the huge blast are they not thinking about enrolling in flight officer training as I write this? Or will that come later? I am not sure about that, the survival part, but I am deadly certain about the 'flight school' device I use here to describe the awesome hurt and hatred which will out itself one year soon. Where do you suppose all that emotion is headed?

And now, today, we have Fox and CNN running the same video of a White Dove watching some insurgents somewhere planting a bomb on a highway. The White Dove does what American White Doves do. It blows the living crap out of the insurgent. And it is all so very justified. And it all attempts to cloak a little secret that leaked out earlier in the day. The secret that we have designated fifty drug dealers in Afghanistan to be destroyed by our White Doves, came out this morning. You see, it is the drug dealers who are the sole remaining financiers of the Taliban. This, we are told very forcefully, then shown the video of a I.E.D. placing insurgent being killed again.

And where did we get out list of Taliban-loving drug dealers? Well, from our intelligence. Which takes us right back to the Monterey language school in Monterey, California. That is the language school the military uses to train our people to speak the languages of other countries so we will understand them. Without speaking the language, and isolated in a guerilla environment, we must depend upon local translators to tell us what people are saying. And to tell us the truth about it. How many graduates of Monterey have we turned out over the past few years who speak the languages of Afghanistan? I am willing to bet that the classified number is around ten, maybe twenty. So what we end up with is intelligence based upon what the locals are telling us. Remember those clowns from Iraq who supposedly gave us all that intelligence before this latest Iraqi nightmare? They lied to us time and again, and got paid hundreds of millions for doing it. We didn't find out about the lying for quite some time though. Today, in spite of the payments and lying, the chief-liar-in-charge of that crew is the Oil Minister of the country.

So here we are, killing supposed drug dealers, from the Wings of our Snow White Doves, all over the place. Do those drug dealer's have wives and family living with them? Or traveling with them? And what is the basis for assigning someone to this terminal hit list? The word of some locals, and very probably locals who would like a bit of the power that the person they are reporting on might have. I experienced this in Vietnam, in the field as a combat commander. Only after I was in country long enough to acquire some of the local language was I able to figure out that my "Kit Carson" local scouts were lying to me. That was after, by the way, we had already 'taken out' my scout's political opponents in a nearby village. The interpreters had, of course, indicated that they were V.C. (Viet Cong enemy, for you young people).

Why are we at war with the 'insurgents' in Iraq? Why are we at war with the Taliban? Why are we now killing drug dealers without true accusation or trial? Why have we allowed our assassination teams (as reported by Hersh) to rend and kill people all over the world on the basis of information which is worse than suspect? Why, if America does not like you, do you get visited, then carried away on the wings of Snow White Dove? I damn well think so. The hostess who invited me to that party probably thinks that this result is just fine with her. And I do not expect to be invited back, no matter how witty my 'House-like' commentary might be. But I have a problem with killing people willy nilly across the face of the planet and then expecting that we are not gong to be hated, vilified, and eventually hunted down ourselves.

It is hard for a Marine to say these words: "We must retreat." But retreat we must. We need to get our head and act together again. We need to stop locking up our own homeless, believing our own lies, and blaming the world out there for the problems we have here. If we were mentally healthy, as a culture, we would merely have absorbed the hit we took on 9/11, then made sure we caught up with Osama and his small band. We'd have rebuilt the towers and thumbed our nose at Silverstein in New York, or anybody else who got in our way (but we would not have struck down upon them with one of our White Doves!). With just the two trillion the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost us, and the seven or so years we've wasted, we could have bases upon the Moon, Mars and be running back and forth almost without limit. Now how could would that have been? You think the world might just be going; "God, but those American's are something else!" instead of "Those Yanks are bunch of violent imperialist creeps." And, finally, we would not have a huge crop of our young people coming home to kill themselves, or live their lives homelessly, drunk, drug-addicted and unemployed.

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Its a Wonderful Life

James — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:03:03 EDT

They're back. Oh not those two chicks who did whatever the hell they were doing on the border of N. Korea. No, I mean Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Al arranged for the great swooping rescue by the great swooping rescuer (that would be Bill) so both of those two "whatever the hell they are now" guys are talking like crazy inside a private airline hanger to CNN and the world. Al has introduced Bill, telling us all what a heartfelt sacrificing individual the big galoot really is...to go over and save two young American women from the clutches of that horrid simian dictator. Al smiles that wonderfully vapid Gore smile (which certainly had something to do with his having his election as president stolen) and says great things about Bill. He then introduces the man, expecting, without a doubt, that the great rescuer will say great things back. And Bill does not fail in that department. With one minor exception. He says great things alright, but he says them about himself. Clinton, strange faux blue dog democrat that he is, will go down in history as the greatest credit taker of all time. Al Gore, if he could have maintained the "I'm the guy who invented the internet" phrase credibly, would have secured that title. But no. We get Bill instead. His white hair almost iridescent inside the well coifed hangar, his body thin and in good shape. Gore nearby, sweating, with used car salesman hair and the 'I really am losing weight' girth.

It was also stated, prior to the huge plane rolling in, that Bill was on a private mission (totally unsupported by the U.S. government) to save those girls. I don't know why they bother with such giant introductory lies at events like this staged Hollywood production. Look at the plane! Its a 767, flying all over the world. That alone is about a million bucks of expense. Then there is the protecting of the plane because a former president, with Secret Service protection, is aboard it. How about five million or more to make sure Bill gets to and returns from a hostile country like North Korea. Who is paying all that money? We know damn well it is not Bill or the families of those girls. You and I are paying. Once more. The girls have been 'bailed out.' Now they too can write their books. They do need to take a little time to come up with a story though. Wandering about the country side near the N. Korean border isn't really going to fly.

I am very happy to see that the democrats have done a better job of getting the news away from healthcare, however. That last story they stuck in the way worked wonderfully well, but it did carry some ugly baggage. The Gates affair. This one has more positive elan. Young beautiful ladies of asian extraction saved from the world's most notorious pint-sized dictator. What if the girls had been black? You can tell that I write for Hollywood. Black would have been over the top.

Diane Sawyer, playing her well rehearsed role as the idiot-reporting blond, had the best question though. She posed it to the television audience when the plane was very slowly and majestically rolling into the hanger: "Do you think that Bill Clinton had a chance to discuss succession with Kim Jong?" I did get a kick out of that. I can picture the meeting in my mind. The somber Bill (his affected role for the exchange) leaning to the brightly smiling Kim (his affected role for the exchange) and whispering: "...so,when you're dead, soon who's getting the nod?" I liked the mental image of that. Thank you Diane. Kim is a generous man. I know he will leave that rocky mess of a country to his son. Unlike Bill. Bill would just take it with him. And Bill is still talking as I finish writing this. Al Gore is smiling that silly smile and darting his eyes sideways, waiting for Bill to say something great about him. Bill Clinton is talking about Bill Clinton and Al Gore is waiting for somebody to say great things about Al Gore. It is indeed a wonderful life.

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"Ushuaia" A story of hope...

James — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:03:40 EDT

“USHUAIA”

El Prat was never really finished properly, following the twenty-fifth Olympiad in ninety-two. Not the last part of the last terminal, anyway, where the tattered and beaten Montenegro Airlines plane had dumped me from the flight in. Barcelona was supposed to be one grand city, but I was not going to see it, and that didn’t bother me in the least. As cold and rotten as the rain had been at Golubovci when I had shambled aboard that morning, Barcelona’s warmer overcast sky, visible just beyond the terminal windows, seemed to offer little better.

All the other passengers had filed dutifully toward baggage claim, somewhere else, probably a long ‘somewhere else’ inside the vast facility. Instead of following along I had taken a nearby seat and fallen into it. I had no baggage. No checked and no carryon. Going home in disgrace did not require luggage or belongings of any sort. Your body was required to make the journey, so you could stand and be told what a sad human being you had turned out to be, and, without it being directly said, how it was not their fault that you were such a miserable representative of species homo sapiens.

But I did have cigarettes. American, no less. The good stuff, not that cheap burning Balkan crap. If I’d had drugs…well hell, I didn’t, so, as with the remainder of my life, it didn’t much matter. The people from the plane were mostly gone. Stragglers here and there, straggling aimlessly, like so many people do at airports around the world. I observed them by habit, as I didn’t care at all about them. No players among them, I knew. Even deep covered operations specialists were not difficult to spot, if you had been in the business, and the field, for awhile. I’d been both.

9/11, back home and so many years back, had changed everything, I thought, as I began looking around for a place to smoke even the smallest part of a cigarette. Airports were hermetically sealed environments following 9/11, where smoking had gone the way of the pay phone, and the coin-metered parking out front. I watched a beautiful, but stressed out, woman head toward the opening to the washroom. Barcelona, not home, so it was one of those single unisex things I didn’t care for. Although the woman was dragging a seven or eight year old girl along with her, I mostly noticed her. Tall, elegant, and wearing a beautiful knee length black dress. I noted that she walked powerfully, moved strongly but gave the appearance of somehow being wounded at the same time. I was a predator, and she had the look of prey. I smiled, turning away. Fortunately, for both of us, I was neither a predator of women nor children. Unless it was required of the mission. And there would be no more missions.

I had a decision to make. The greatest decision of my life. The decision about my life. And I needed a cigarette to help me along. I looked back toward where the woman and her child had disappeared into the unisex bathroom opening. Just beyond that opening was a large metal door with yellow writing angled across it. Spanish was not one of my languages, not the writing of it anyway, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the message was a ‘keep out’ message. I could not see any lock on the door’s surface.

Looking around carefully first I arose from the chair and headed for the door. I took out my pack of Marlboros, to use as a cover in case I was encountered. Even so, just trying to use a door marked not to be opened might be a huge violation, not explainable by a person simply wanting to have a smoke.

“Screw it, like it makes any difference at all,” I said to myself in disgust, pushing down on the European-style door lever. I pulled. No alarm. I opened it all the way, stepped into another world, and looked around in surprise. I gently closed the door behind me, leaning down to make sure that there was no hidden device or lock along the height and depth of its edge. I took out a Marlboro and lit it. I leaned against the hard concrete wall opposite the door. I suddenly realized what I was in. I was in a long walled off corridor open to the sky. At one time the corridor must have led somewhere, but the vagaries of construction , and probably security, had caused both ends to be walled off. I looked up at the gray sky. The walls had to be over thirty feet high.

I heard the sound of deep sobbing. I walked a short distance down the long enclosed length of the concrete box. The sound was coming from a vent just above my head, as I stopped. I blew out a great puff of smoke and watched it swirl right into the vent. A child coughed lightly from inside the vent. The vent led into the bathroom I concluded. The woman was sobbing, with her child nearby.

“What are we doing, Mom?” I heard the child say. I listened intently. After a moment of more quiet sobbing, there was silence. Then the woman spoke in a whisper loud enough for me to hear.

“Get on your knees. We’re going to pray to God. We‘ve been deserted hereand have no money. If the authorities take us in it won’t be long before they have us back in that horrid country with those horrid people.”

The accent was American I concluded. The world was a hard place. I imagined one of the countries the woman must be talking about. Saudi, Iran, Jordon. Cultures that were implacable, with respect to their women and children. Rendition had been invented by them, and the Israelis, not by Americans. To be on the run from one of those countries was to be in terrible jeopardy. I drew in more smoke, then watched it snake back into the vent. I heard no more coughing. Instead I heard praying.

“Please Lord,” the woman intoned, followed by the little voice of her child, repeating the same words. “We are in deep trouble. Please send someone to help us. Anyone. We can’t make it on our own.” I heard all the words twice, but it was the little girl’s that went in toward what was left of my soul. Then I shook my head, threw the cigarette down and ground it out with my foot. It was a cold cruel world.It took its toll on all of us and I had my own problems. I tip-toe'd to the door, opened it noiselessly, then slipped back into the real world again. I moved away quickly, until I was well down the terminal corridor.

It seemed like a half-mile walk to the main building where the counters were located. I had an electronic connecting ticket to Washington but I had already made my decision about that. I wasn’t going back there, so I needed a ticket. I picked the United line, as it was fairly short and my original connect had been on it. Maybe they had a flight to South America that did not connect in the United States.

I felt someone behind me, but then, I was in line at an airline counter. Instinctively, I glanced back anyway. I almost groaned aloud. It was the elegant broken-down woman and her child. I quickly turned my head, but not quickly enough. The little girl spoke up at me.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” I grimaced down at her, in question.

“Huh?” I said, intelligently.

“You smell like him," she went on. I stared, having nothing to say to such a comment.

I looked at the woman, but her attention was on everything else around. Her eyes darted all over the place, like those of a cornered animal. The girl kept staring at me, waiting for something.

“I smell?” I finally asked, against my better judgment. She nodded, knowingly.

“My Mom and I prayed for help. I smelled you when we prayed. You’re him, the one God sent.” I stared, my expression one of total disbelief. The girl had coughed at the smoke from my cigarette while in that bathroom I realized, then picked up the same aroma from my clothes. My mind raced. A lot of people smoked, especially in Europe. The girl could not possibly know that the smoke was from me personally. I started to comment, then stopped, looking into the steady deep pools of her eyes. She knew. I knew that she knew. She knew that I knew that she knew. No words needed to be said.

“Por favor?” a woman’s impatient voice said, from the side. I jerked toward the sound. I was next. The counter clerk was motioning toward me. I looked up at her, then back at the child, who smiled, her knowledge and confidence in my role total and complete.

“Jesus Christ!” I whispered bitterly, taking my wallet from my pocket, and then approaching the counter. I took out my personal Visa, the only credit care I owned myself. The Agency cards were not going to work to get me anywhere, I knew, not anymore. My last ten thousand dollars was invested in the Visa card. Or at least my only ten thousand, and it was all credit. I shrugged. What did it matter?

“Here,” I said, shoving the card across the counter, “fly these two people anywhere they want to go.” I pulled back. The woman moved to the counter.

“What?” she asked. “What’s going on? What are you doing?” The woman looked from the clerk to me, than back again. The clerk shrugged like I had, but with more meaning.

“Here, you need tickets out of here. Use my card. Take care of your child.” I said the words in embarrassment, as the woman stood staring at me in silence. I watched conflicting expression flow across her face like the surface of a river’s white water rapids.

“We needed help Mom, and God sent him,” the small girl said, in her penetrating little voice. She pointed up at my chest. I could tell that the woman did not know what to do.

“Take the tickets. Get the hell out of here,” I said sharply. The woman’s face broke, then she caught herself, thankfully stifling a sob. I stepped away, to give her room. The little girl stepped with me.

“Where are you going?” she asked me, conversationally, as if what was happening was just a normal part of her everyday life. I sighed.

“Ushuaia,” I said, thinking that that would stop her, but it didn’t.

“Ushuaia?” she intoned, getting the pronunciation all-wrong. I didn’t correct her, preferring to wait until she and her Mom were out of my life.

“Why are you going there?” the girl went on, as I wondered that she had not even asked where Ushuaia was. I answered as if she had asked.

“Its in South America, down near the tip, in a place called Terra del Fuego. There’s a bar down there I’m going to drink at. I’m done. I’m all done. “ I finished saying the last words with my eyes closed, imagining the total relief I would find down, in that weird wind-swept place, as there was just no point in living on anymore. The bar in Ushuaia was as good a place to end it all as anywhere.

“Can I draw you?” The little girl brought me back with her odd question.

“Huh?” I said, returning to my earlier intellectual response. I noted that the girl had produced a small notepad and pencil from somewhere.

“I don’t care what you do,” I answered, truthfully. I moved to the side to wait. Until I had to sign something. I did not have to wait long. The clerk gestured, the woman stood aside, and I signed the credit card slip, then some other papers. I accepted my card back, but did not put it away.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” the woman began, as I tried to shake my head and stop her. “No, without you I don’t think we would have made it," she went on, "you saved our lives and I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I don’t need any thanks, just get your child back home, or wherever you’re going.”

The woman nodded. I knew she was aware of my discomfort. She took her papers, turned, then turned back and kissed me on the cheek. She smiled for the first time, as I shrank back in surprise, bringing my hand to my cheek. The woman grabbed the little girl by one hand and made to depart. The girl pulled back.

“Wait,” she yelled, then held up the other hand to me.

I took the piece of paper she pushed at me, then watched as both she and her Mom half-walked and half-ran out into the main terminal area. I watched until they were gone.

“Por favor?” the United clerk said, once again.

“Connect me all the way through to Ushuaia, Argentina,” I said, pushing the Visa back across the counter. The woman went to work. I waited for almost ten minutes. All at once she looked up.

“The card’s no good. You don’t have enough money for that trip.”

I stared.

“What?’ was all I could say for a moment. “But I had ten thousand of credit on that card,” I said, in a shaky voice.

“Oh,” the woman said. “Now I understand. That woman and her child used up nine thousand dollars of your credit.” I stared, my eyes going round.

“Where the hell did she buy tickets to, Timbuktu?” I could not believe what I was hearing.

“Washington D.C.” the woman said, flatly.

“D.C.” I almost yelled. “It doesn’t cost that kind of money to fly from Barcelona to D.C.!” I waited for a reply, fuming.

“It does in first class. You said fly them anywhere. They were going to D.C. At the last minute and with a full plane, first class is all that was available. Do you want to fly somewhere else?” I shook my head, still in total shock. I took out my electronically issued boarding pass the Agency had assigned me. I handed it across the counter.

“Are they on that same flight?” I asked, knowing the answer. The woman checked her computer. She nodded, as I knew she would.

“Please tell me that they don’t have seats next to mine,” I murmured, all the strength of my voice gone.

“Oh no,” the woman replied, brightly. They’re in first class. You’re back in economy.” I just looked at her, slowly taking my boarding pass back. “You better hurry, you’re flight leaves in twenty minutes,” she finished.

I nodded again, saying nothing. I stepped away, hearing “por favor” behind me.

I walked numbly toward the center of the terminal. I stopped under the flight display to find my gate. I remembered the piece of paper in my hand. I unfolded it. It was a wonderful little pencil piece of some expressed talent. It was a drawing of a smiling man bending over to talk to or accept something from a female child. Under the drawing were written the words “Not Done.”

I could not help smiling to myself. I didn’t believe in God. If I did believe in God I wouldn’t have liked Him. But I walked toward the United gate smiling, with a strange new purpose in my step. I talked to Him, whom I did not believe in, while I walked. Indeed, it appeared I was not done.

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RAPTOR

James — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:41:14 EDT

Everywhere I look, everything I read, and just about everything written' confirms that it is a wonderful money-saving thing that that the government has done by canceling production of the new F-22 'Raptor' fighter. I don't see it that way. It is a dumb luddite-based decision. Yes, anti-technology, head-in-the-sand, but seemingly fiscally responsible decision. In reality, it is canceling the future to make believe we are paying for the present. And the amount saved is nonsensical. We could have had the remaining raptors built and operational for years just on the money that was recently distributed to executives at the banks we gave bailout money to. So this aircraft cancellation is all about posturing.

The F-22, it is complained, was designed during the cold war. Somehow that means that the design is mired in that period of strange political unrest. That is like saying that the hammer you have in your basement workshop needs to be thrown out because it was designed at a time when most things were put together with hammer and nail, not nail guns. The F-22 is a tool. Its use capability is amazingly versatile. And God, does it send a message to the rest of the world and to the future. That message is that the United States will dominate the air in any conflict that anyone gets involved in that includes the United States. Anywhere, anytime, when fighting breaks out, you will face the Raptor in the air...and nobody, but nobody, argues that there is a plane, or mix of them, that can match that tool in the air. And oh, do you happen to recall that we have a bomber in the inventory, still very well used, called the B-52? It was designed before the cold war, then dedicated solely to that 'almost' conflict. Amazing the usage we have found for that old 'hammer!' The argument has also been raised that the F-22 costs too much in maintenance to fly. What hogwash. It costs, even at the ridiculous figures presented in the press, about eighteen times less, per plane, than a B-52 to keep in the air!

A lot of people are talking abut retreat today. A lot of people are talking about not planning for future. It seems that the discussions are all about today, even though the hard-clad, cold-bleeding Republicans have supposedly been vanquished, and not tomorrow. From the space program through weapons procurement and even scientific research, we have been in retreat from a proactive plan that takes on the future. Instead we are 'going green' and heading into some 'bong considered' idiocy of pastoral life. The idea that we are somehow going to change this planet into one vast garden of Eden-type delight would be laughable, like Creationism, if there was not a grand, vapidly drooling, segment of our culture buying into it. Our future is in technology. Technology is why you have heat in the winter and air-conditioning in the summer. It is why you can talk to one another all the time, anywhere and at anytime. It is why you have clothing and shoes, and yes, packaged and then cooked food. Technology is simply another word used to replace the word 'better.' Whenever technology is considered something bad, and not better, then you have to go to the additional word 'perspective.' Nuclear weapons are great, if you have them, but terrible if you do not. Great if you are one of the people (in the countries that do have them) who control them, and maybe not so great if you are one of the people who do not, or do not trust the people who do. It is perspective of technology.

We live in a time where people who benefit from the stunning technological gains of the last two thousand years understand, and strive to do better. And we also live in a time wherein people who do not much benefit from the advances, hate them. We have a lot of problems with negative belief systems in the underdeveloped countries of this world. We have radical religion, which, amazingly, thrives in areas where technology does not reach very well! A great advance, also part of this technology, that should be used to combat this, is education, and gifted benefits of other technology. Instead we have gone at this great rift in belief systems with more destructive technology (bombs, mines and combat planes and troops). Hammers can be used to remove nails, and take apart, as well as build.

Yet, here I am proposing that the cancellation of the F-22 raptor is a big mistake. Amazing. But the analytical points of my argument are well founded. The United States is something special. It arose from a nightmare of warring nations intent on supporting the wealth of a few and the deliberate (and forced) slavery of the masses (physical and economical). The United States has pulled itself through and up above that, dragging much of the world with it! And here we sit. "Top of the World, Ma!" A line from an old Jimmy Cagney movie. We are on top of the world and we are having a terrible time figuring out what to do with the position we are in, for ourselves and for everyone else. And, in truth, since the cold war, we have been acting like a horse's ass, to our own people, for the most part, and the people of the world. We have to change all that, for our own survival and for that of the world itself. But we cannot change it from a position of weakness.

We need a six hundred ship Navy. We need a strong well-equipped Army and Marine Corps. We need domination of the air (and that 'for sure' includes the F-22 Raptor). And, with those things in place, we need to then do the hardest thing of all. We need to do the right thing, for us and for everyone else not so blessed. So, yes, I am an Emersonian Imperialist...of the right thing. And how is the 'right thing' decided upon? Therein lies the rub. Bush and Cheney had all the power in the world, and the good will of the planet (following 9/11) and what did they choose to do? The wrong thing. We voted Bush in (arguably), and he delivered very poorly. But we did not vote him in to do the right thing. We just kinda slipped him on by another mediocre candidate...twice. I think, however, we voted Obama in to do the right thing. And I think we were correct in our choice, if he can work through the morass of our Congressional Houses he was handed to deal with.

Obama was at the top of the heap in the cancellation of the F-22. I believe he is trying to do the right thing, but I do not think, or expect, that he is always going to be correct. We may well rue the day, with respect to this cancellation of a fighter contract, and pay a price in that future I write about. I hope not, but, more than that, the cancellation is symptomatic of our flight from science and technological advance. I think about this and I worry.

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"The Fakery"

James — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:32:10 EDT

I read the Sunday New York Times today. I was sorry to see that Maureen Dowd, brilliant as she can be, wrote near unprintable drivel. That didn't bother me. Most of the columnist's spend so much time doing everything else but writing that I expect to see their 'staff work' much of the time. What bothered me was the article in the middle of the front page, just under the photo from Afghanistan, which poignantly illustrated it. We just had our worst month over there, with a ton of kids having lost it all in our names. The article was well written. It was all about the problems that the 'living' returning veterans have in coming home. How difficult, or near impossible, that return can be, depending upon the horror of what the particular veteran whet through to get home. There was no fakery in any of that. PTSD is a killer, and when it is not killing directly, it is a destroyer of marriages, family relationships, friendships, sleep and all appetites. It causes drug addiction and acoholism. The worst part is that it is damned difficult to diagnose, very hard to treat, and embarrassing difficult for a combat 'hardened' veteran to admit. No fakery.

But read on in the same issue. Half way through the first section is a long article about this 'problem' that we have with people making up war stories, the places they did or did not serve, decorations or even units served with. We have a federal law that now attacks anyone who is caught even lying verbally about those things, or, and this is a grand bit of fakery, of not being able to prove what he or she said is true! Yes, said! Like in the first amendment freedom of speech 'said.' Wild times. That this article would be in the same section with the PTSD article from the front page is deeply droll. Gallows kind of humor. You see, most civilians do not make up any of that veteran junk! They usually don't even know enough to make credible stuff up. No, the preponderance of fibbers are veterans themselves, embellishing stories and maybe just demonstrating mental damage. Many many of them are veterans returning with PTSD, just like the kids pictured in that photo on page one! Do you know that there are even volunteer groups of other veterans who pursue these fibbers to catch them, label them on the internet and then turn them over to the feds for prosecution? The law is called the 'Stolen Valor' law, and it is one of the most deceptively damaging laws against veterans ever passed in this country.

Let's take a group of these woeful, and deeply hurt, returning veterans, and lets hold them to a standard which no civilian (except a complete idiot civilian, probably on drugs or alcohol) would be held. Where does stuff like this come from? Has the lead content in our water supply increased substantially? Or let's take a geriatric veteran who has PTSD stuff come out late in his life, and gets it all wrong. Are our Congressmen and Congresswomen completely out to lunch? And the veterans who go along and investigate, mostly their fellow veterans, who are these people? I was a Marine Officer in Vietnam, shot three times and brought home on a gurney, barely alive. I won't even tell anyone, ever, what decorations I received. "Let's have that fact-checked," somebody might say. Then I can allow beads of sweat to form as the report comes in. Is the report missing something I said I had? Did I give the proper unit and place? Yes, I know all that stuff by heart and I've got the medals in my closet. But, you know what, I don't want to go through the 'vetting' process. You know, in many ways, it is better for me to say that I did not serve at all. This 'Stolen Valor' law is all about that. I am not ashamed of my service on your behalf. I am just ashamed to admit it to you, or around you. PTSD has caused me to be 'hyper-vigilant,' and I am. I am hyper-vigilant of you. You can, and may, hurt me.

What fakery is up next? The new G.I. Bill! The one that gives vastly huge benefits to the guys and gals who served following 9/11? But not the veterans before? Yeah, that sure seems fair! Thanks again. And how about preferential treatment at V.A. medical facilities for returning Iraqi and Afghani veterans? A bit more thanks is due there, from those of us who bled our asses off in prior wars (and I was at Yokosuka Naval Hospital in Japan first, then Oaknoll over in Oakland, CA, and then the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, CA....go 'fact-check" it!)

But this new fakery is not just directed towards veterans. It is all around us. It is in the press portrayal of that black professor named Gates, and that police officer named Crowley. The media, with the governments support, changed the whole thing all around, into complete fakery. The black guy lipped off and the cop broke the law, numerous times. That the black guy gets to lip off to the police in his own home (except about any decorations or units he might have or served with!), nobody is much arguing about his right to do that. But nobody is talking about the simple fact that our police, across this entire land, and definitely including Officer Crowley, may not arrest people for that. Fakery. Crowley got to stand up to the President of the United States and thumb his beer foamed nose. I do so hope that Obama has a long long memory.

And the H.R. 3200 fakery. I wouldn't want to pass on that. We started out with everyone talking about health care for all Americans at affordable cost. The insurance companies, and the medical providers (yes, that is the hospital in your neighborhood, and your doctors and dentists in town) do not want this. And they have a ton of influence on those Congress people I was writing about earlier. So much so that the watered-down version of this bill we are hearing about now has just about one thing left, as a solid feature of it. 47 million uninsured Americans will be paying premiums to these rotten insurance companies, except those companies will have Federal Punishment built into the collection system. And the insurance companies will still decide on who gets real coverage, what coverage and when. This is the fakery that is descending upon us in health care. If you think those Federal Punishments for not paying your new medical premium are in any way humorous, then think again. How about no air travel if you are not up to date? How about no driver's license renewal? How about garnishment? Through fakery, lies and just pure bullshit we are being led along like the bovine, press-driven, creatures we are all beginning to resemble, physically and mentally!

A lot of the things I have discussed here are not going away. The bills have been passed. The procedures are in place. Even H.R. 3200 is just about a done (and rotten) deal, thanks to the Blue Dog Democrats and the usual assortment of Southern Fried Republicans, and the big health money people. But can we recognize what we have done? And what we are doing? Can we sit and think about the reality of these things, without just being sold on all of it by that melodious voice coming from the television? If we do not pay attention to the past we are not doomed to repeat it. We are doomed to having everything become a whole lot worse! Over the course of the last ten years have things really been getting any better, anywhere? Think about it.

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The Meteors

James — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:07:04 EST

I have this meteor. It was given to me for Christmas by my astronomer friend. It weighs about a pound and a half and is shaped like a mangled potato. i particularly like the fact that it has three little 'tangs' jutting from the bottom so it sits firmly and flatly on a hard surface. I have ordered a chunk of that terrific Hawaiian wood (Koa) to work on and make a stand with. The 'Dreiser' meteor, as I term it, named after my friend, is not the only meteor I have. An astronaut (a really neat guy named Mitchell) gave me the other one. It came from the Moon, or so he said. Why would an astronaut, and one who had been to the moon, no less, lie about that? I believe him. But I also know that all the geologic stuff brought back from the moon was categorized, labeled, stored, displayed, gifted to other countries, and held to be quite valuable. So what am I doing with a two pound chunk of ejecta from the Moon, sitting over here next to the Dreiser object? The Mitchell and the Dreiser. They are both wonderfully weird ducks, objects and men, and they are both emblematic with respect to the interesting things in life. I like to sit and hold them, one in each hand, sometimes. Cold, but somehow comforting. Even the Mitchell. It used to scare me. The Mitchell weighs just over two pounds but does it is not right. If you move your hand with the object in it, well, your hand just keeps going. The two pound piece of silvery metal does not have the proper inertia. It has too much. And that can't be. Not in our universe. Not as we know it. I went back to MIT to study in Quantum Theory. I worked on Project Antares in Los Alamos. I know these things pretty well. The physical laws of the marcro world, the one we inhabit, are immutable. They always work the same way. Every time. The glass dropped from your hand always falls to the floor. It never starts on the floor and rises to your hand. Never. Inertia is the resistance of an object's mass to acceleration. The mass. So you weigh it. Then try to move it. The inertia has to be a function of that mass, which cannot be changed unless you modify the object in some way (like hollow it out or cut part of it off). So the inertia has to be directly tied to the weight. Balsa wood cannot have the same resistance to movement as lead. Never can that happen. But there sits the 'Mitchell' over there, an arm's length away. And it's not right. I have been waiting for years for somebody to come and collect the thing. Some agents in Brooks Brother's suits and cheap shoes. Not from the Agency. From some sci-fi kind of organization. My imagination runs wild. Mitchell must still be laughing over that 'gift.' I have not seen him since, and that was way back in the early nineties. I know he's alive because he surfaced a few months back, and said that "yes, there are aliens about," or some such, on T.V., and it was played all over. I don't believe that, however. But I also don't believe that the universe is quite the place we think it is either. The 'Mitchell' is reassuring, with respect to that. There is more 'out there' than we know. There are possibilities we have not even considered. I like that a lot.

It is Sunday night and the year is ending. Two Thousand and Eight. Wow. I always expected to make it this far, ever since laying there in Yokosuka Japan recovering from the bullets after Nam. I just knew that if that did not kill me than I was in for a long run. And here I am. Maybe it is that single event in my life that made me a keen observer. Writers are keen observers. The good ones, anyway. And I think I am a good one. I did not write that I was great, however. Only history can make such a determination as that. There have been some stupendously great writers, in my opinion, who have not fared that well. Try Ralph Waldo Emerson. Absolutely terrific. But, historically, barely a footnote. And, as far as the general, rather vapid, population is concerned, no footnote at all. Britney Spears gets more play, and probably will over the years ahead. But then, we have become products and control items of that visual device. We don't really get the words and ideas of philosophers put in front of us anymore. We get Letterman and Leno. We get Conan. They give us acid repartee, like I write for House. They don't give us meaning. They don't give us hope. They don't make us think, and in thinking....do. Act. Attempt. If we can't think it we can't do it.

I swing my meteors. The Dreiser, in my left hand, is real and reassuring in it's functional obedience to physics. The Mitchell is anything but that, yet still delightful in the brilliance of opportunity it portends. You can't really swing them in unison, as the Mitchell does not want to come back from the end of the arcs. Real life. Life as it may be. Real life. Life as it will be. I swing them without coordination, as life really is. A New Year beholds.

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Conclusions Foregone...

James — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 11:32:24 EST

Ah, people, Caroline is going to be the Senator. it matters not what she says or does or even does not say or does not do. She is in. But we will have all the churning and roiling of waters until the appointment is made. If it was an election, she would still win. Does anyone remember the Conan clown from California? Yes, the guy who's name proves that Hollywood stars change their names because they don't want you to know who they are related to rather than because the names are inconvenient or don't sound right, Mr. Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He walked in from off stage, with a resume that was beyond laughable, an accent straight out of Transylvania and star power. He was in. From the night he stepped onto the stage with Mr. Lovely-Stripe-In-My Hair Leno, he was in. That is the power of the media today. Remember our recent debates? As much as I love Obama, I did not suspend my observation capabilities when he went onstage with John McCain. It did not matter what introduction McCain received or what he said. When Obama stepped onto the stage, that was it. He radiated what he has. Star power. And he was in. The rest was time and a lot, and I mean a lot, of talking about issues and problems and concerns. We are, essentially, still tribal. We follow the leader. If the leaders gets us killed by the million or truly miserable, then we take him or her out. And then appoint or elect his or her son or daughter! It is just the way things are. And yes, i hate that part of culture. All culture. Not just our's, but all of humanity responds the same way. We used to study this phenomenon when Sociology still existed (as the study of group relations). Before the powers that be became frightened by that science and did away with it. Now, just believe what they tell you on television. The War is going just fine out there on the Oceanic Front! Orwell be damned.

Back here, in the middle of my newspaper strewn living room, I reflect upon the homogenated news of the day. It seems that WaMu was all about the lousy mortgage loans they gave to unacceptable risks. Once again, the mantra. It is about the poor people. They sneaked in and destroyed everything with their poorness. They could not pay. Low lifes. These stories lately are being more subtle. They are kind of shifting some of the blame to the people who gave out the loans. One interviewed for the article in the Times was in jail for his fourth charge (theft) unrelated to his work as a mortgage counselor for the bank. So we have the criminals now, they, in league with those poor people, causing the downfall of WaMu. Almost seven billion in bad loans. Wow. Seems like a lot, until you look at the simple fact that it was a run on the bank that took it down. Yes, the simple old, we want our money, depression era, run on the bank. Over the course of three days, just before WaMu fell, people went in and took out nine billion of cash. Forget the loans. Those are long term and have all sorts of delays and things to keep them at a distance for awhile. But you can't avoid nine billion in withdrawals. The people lost confidence and that was it. Funny how that works.

I also read, here and there, about how communities are scaling back on programs for the poor because of their shrinking budgets. I am waiting. I am waiting until they just have no more money to take from the poor. And then they will have to cut law enforcement. Prosecutors. Judges. Probation Officers. Parole Officers. Court facilities. Jails. Prisons. Corrections Officers. All of that awful part of our society which is quietly consuming us. Not just the money, but our very morality. It has to go. We have to do something else, but it will have to be forced upon us. We Puritans are a punishing lot.

Finally, the gas thing. Friedman is at it again. He endorsed globalization and sending jobs offshore. Now he is into gasoline, with other conservatives. They see taxes coming. The worst kind of taxes. Those would be taxes on them. Income taxes. So what do they do? They lay it off. Let's get a huge tax on gasoline while the getting is good. We can then use that to pay for many many things. Oh, nothing that they say it will pay for if it gets done. No, the uses of the money will be changed later, like with social security and highway funds. But they want taxes on the gas because that shifts the burden of raising revenue from the rich to the people who have to drive to work. So here we go again. Note this kind of chicanery for what it is. We have to raise more revenue at some time in the future. You are going to see a lot of Friedman style squirming.

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The Aftermath

James — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:55:17 EST

It is two days after. My hangover is just starting to clear, and I do not even drink. The weather has responded in kind, with a tepid weepy mess of a presentation, splashing ran all over the lovely clean snow mass out there. Well, it was lovely and clean out there before, albeit cold as hell. Fog. Gray. Christmas is gone. I have a wonderful Mont Blanc pen that the professor gave me, two shirts and three new sweaters. They are all green, or so I am told, being color blind as I am. I put one sweater on this morning. I had laid out the best one (in my damaged opinion) but, after finishing morning clean-up and shave, I forgot I had laid it out and instead threw on one of the other folded one's. I guess I can't tell the difference, and that is okay. Einstein used to have five suits, all of the same color and cut. Then he wore only white shirts and black socks. I like Einstein's style. He was probably as color blind as I, but he was too important for anybody to ask him to his face, or make fun of him (but then, maybe they did and that is why he ended up with the collection he came up with). Harvey has gone into the basement to hunt his 'stocked' supply down there. The pump is running non-stop, but keeping up. Harv checked that out, but, after just one sniff, went back to his dogged pursuit of his genetically enhanced prey. He is not quiet down there. Empty boxes fly and stacked stuff tumbles. The only rule is that he cannot bring his catches up here though, so I ignore a muted crash or two, coming from down there. If he has any catches I mean, which I doubt. But, in his world, as in mine, make believe is a lot more important than reality.

C.E. Morgan wrote a Christmas story and got it placed in the editorial section of the New York Times on Christmas Day! How do you get a short story into the New York Times at all? By being family I guess. I don't know who C.E. Morgan is, except I did read that the first novel written by this person was demanded by the publisher. That same publisher produced a mid-six figure advance. It is all a crock. Oh, it happened all right, but you see, nobody, and I mean nobody unheard of, gets a six figure advance on a first novel. And nobody gets a short story published on the editorial page of the New York Times on Christmas Day. And finally, nobody gets a rotten story published like that. 'Over By Christmas,' the name of the story that person wrote, should really be the title of the author's career, if the story is any indication. A story about the killing and/or training of horses...and the 'gift' of the necessary torture applied during the training process. "You can't shoot a dog while patting it's head, she had learned the hard way..." Good Christ, what bunk. Then there was the phony alternate sub-story of 'Dean, over in iraq, talking to her on the phone. In the background was an explosion so loud it made her "cry tearlessly." I have already used the phrase 'Good Christ,' so what can I reach for now? Cry tearlessly, give me a break. And somebody died from that explosion, in her story. Now what are the chances of that? Zip. Only in a bad story does that happen. Why am I going on about this? Because C.E.'s very existence in print displays one of the major problems we have in the withering writing culture of our nation. Good writing is seldom read, much less published. Instead we have a litany of the 'Over by Christmas' crap. And, instead of looking at the origin of the piece for answers, we question ourselves. "What is wrong with me? Why can't I understand this story?" It is not you. It is poor leadership. it is nepotism. It is profit-taking. It is keeping it in the family. It is good for them, in the short run, but bad for us all in the long run. The New York Times is dying and the stench of that slow decay is right there, seeping out from the Christmas Day editorial page.

Today, we have humor, once again, from that same editorial staff. Judith Warner, one of my favorite dumb columnists, has a run down one side of the page, while Bob Herbert ("I can too push a pencil across a table top with my nose") Herbert has the opposing side. His article is titled "Stop Being Stupid," but then, of course, he writes on and becomes illustrative of his own title! Part of his rant is about people being so stupid as to purchase houses that they knew they would not be able to afford. What rubbish. People buy a house on hope. And then there is the assistance from the talking heads they got. Even the head of the Federal Reserve was telling them that everything would be alright. He sure as hell was not telling them that whatever they bought would be worth fifty percent less one year later! But, in Herbert's twisted view, it was those poor people once again, pulling us all down. Those grubby, selfish and unionized auto workers. You know the routine. But back to the humor. Judith Warner starts her column with this sentence: "What if you could just take a pill and all of a sudden remember to pay your bills on time." I looked at that sentence and then back over at Herbert's title and then started to laugh. You guys! Saturday Night Live is not that droll!

As if we have a problem, in this current culture, remembering to pay the bills. We are not paying the bills because we do not have the money!!!! We remember. No kidding. We remember every night we go to bed and try to think about the unpaid bills. We remember because our phone does not stop ringing, and it is not friends calling because they forgot Christmas! Judith Warner and Bob Herbert do not have those problems. If you are writing regular columns for the New York Times you are wealthy. Not to mention the books and other perks that go with those jobs. Judith's article was all about a group of shrinks that think it is great to take some of these new 'brain enhancing' substances produced by our wonderful drug companies. How it is as okay as enhancing our intellect by eating a proper diet or working out. Trash. Go ahead, take the junk. Prosac and Paxil and Zanax, and all of the other's of the same ilk, were created to help people who suffer from depression. They take those drugs and become robots. Robots who tend to kill themselves. And the shrinks even know that but prescribe them anyway. I know two people who might benefit from those intelligence enhancing drugs, however. They are both columnists writing on the same page, this day, in the New York Times.

Christmas Morning....

James — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:17:21 EST

The sun has broken through and, although God has decided that the deep snowy sunscape beneath should stay awhile (it's below zero out there), it is nice to have a break. And the presents are under the tree and waiting, which I am delaying going at with my bare hands until I have everything else in the house just right. A few minutes from now. I found a place to make a fifty out of two twenties and a ten, so I have the paper person's tip ready to post. Hopefully, that person will not take 'Halloween' type action against me for a few days, or so I hope.

I have placed a couple of stories inside the body of my posts over the past few days. They have related to Christmas, or the poignancy of it all, in some way or another. Here is one from the mid-nineties when I was not yet 'all that I could be.'

Christmas Pueblo

I found myself inside the confines of the Santa Fe County jail on some vague trumped-up charge. I was in the 'drunk tank,' which is what the cells they use for new prisoner intake are called there. No bars, no windows, just concrete and steel. No way to see out of the ten by twelve box and no ability to hear. Thankfully I was alone for the first few hours, as I had to come to terms with being inside an American institution for the first time (I had already been in a few abroad, so I was not exactly a 'new fish'), and this was not much fun. It was Christmas Eve. Late into the afternoon. The heartless Santa Fe 'Gestapo' had shown no mercy, in spite of the impending holiday. The way I saw it, I was a gringo and they were anything but. They probably saw it in a more 'Harry Callahan' kind of way. The tank did not remain empty for too long. The riff-raff of evening Santa Fe, New Mexico, began to flow in, dredged from a pristine city that prides itself on not having any homeless people. No, they don't, as all of the potentials get combed off the streets and into that heartless modern version of the Bastille, conveniently located five miles South of even the most outer edge of the town.

The cell became so crowded that the entry of one more body meant that there was just no floor space left. And then they opened the door and forced a huge American Indian through. They slammed it shut again, immediately. He stood there for a few seconds, then stared at the man laying next to me on the bare concrete floor. The man moved, finally settling atop the rim of the stainless steel john located in the corner. The Indian took his place, and glared over at me, inches away, when I happened to look into his eyes. This was no Little Big Man Indian of great good cheer and ancient wisdom, like Chief Dan George. No, this was an Indian from hell, more like that one who killed the girl in the Mohican's film a few years back. I showed no fear, but did look away. I was already an old hand at the predation game. You do not show fear to a predator. That is what the predator is looking and waiting for, because it identifies you as prey. No, you meet predation by impassive and emotionless presentation. The predator then takes you for a predator, as well, and there is no point in attacking another predator unless territory is an issue, or survival. You will only likely get hurt, and predators are deathly afraid of injury, as then they become prey.

There was no trouble from the Indian, as the hours passed, nor from any of the usual suspects. Just prisoners inconveniencing the poor guy who's only spot was the on top of the john. He had to move so the drunks could be sick, and worse. Some head of corrections guy must have known a modicum of mercy that night, or, more likely, there were just too many prisoner's for the place to hold, because they came for me. The guards called my name and told me that I was being 'rolled out,' which is prison slang for being released. I went with enthusiasm, but somehow kicked the foot of the snoozing Indian as I departed. "Excuse me White Eyes!" he hissed up, already into a sitting position as I turned. I held together against the pure ferocity of his expression and the penetration of his hawk-like eyes. "My apologies, I was careless," I stated, flatly. Then I moved slowly to join the corrections officer at the door. The Indian's eyes followed me out the door and remained embedded in my mind as I went through the many steps of processing out. Finally, the guards took me to the big door of intake, opened the steel slab with a key about the size of a Waring blender, and shoved me through it. Merry Christmas, the guard said with a laugh, then slammed the door. My relief was immense, until I looked about me. The sodium yellow of the parking lot lamps allowed the driving snow to appear as if I was standing adjacent to Niagra Falls. And it was cold. I wore an old Sheepskin Company coat so I knew I was not likey to freeze, the torso of my body anyway. But I did not know how I was going to make it the many miles to town, much less a few more miles to anywhere I could get a ride. I turned to see if there was a pay phone on the wall to call a cab, but there was nothing. Only the pitiless concrete.

For an instant I felt relief, as the steel door opened again and I saw the warmth that had been prevalent inside. But that was extinguished in an instant, as the big Indian was pushed through the door, before it slammed again. There we were, and I knew fear. He looked down at me with no expression on his face. I tried to look impassive once more, but I knew I was not doing well because I saw a slow cruel smile begin to form around the edges of his mouth. Then he spoke. "Where you going?"

I was surprised. Not that he would talk but that this time he did so in clear unaccented English, not like he had sounded inside. "To town," I murmured, motioning back with my right shoulder. "Never make it. Not on a night like this," he mused, more to himself than to me. He looked out at the scene I had first encountered. The snow was coming down heavier. Then he shrugged. "You can come with me to the pueblo. It's down the way," he gestured south with his own shoulder. I looked off toward the darkness, then looked to the parking lot. But it was Christmas, and i could not stay there, and I knew I could not make it to town. I shrugged with deep resignation. "Okay," I said aloud, then whispered to myself, "let it be Quick." I followed the Indian into the night. There was no trail, there was no moonlight or any other way to establish bearings. So I just followed the huge man closely. We moved downhill, through the La Bajada Canyon, finally trudging under an overpass which held up the four lanes of Interstate forty.

A yellow glow in the distance became the pueblo. The Indian wormed his way between the densely packed mud buildings. Lights glared out, to assure us that the snow had not abated in it's attack. We came around a corner to a wooden door. The upper floor of the adobe structure jutted out above, so we stood and beat the snow from our clothing and boots as best we could. The door opened without anybody knocking. An old woman stuck her head out, then motioned us both inside. I stepped into a different world. The room was filled with people of all ages. They were all sitting at the many tables, seemingly strew about without order. The big Indian motioned me to an empty seat between two young boys. He said nothing. They said nothing. I sat, more in shock and wonder than because I was willingly following rational directions. The two boys reached for bowls and started scooping stuff onto my plate. Tortillas and burritos. I did not even know what Indians ate until then. Corn things, with lots of hot sauces. Everyone went back to eating. They did not look at me, so I started eating as well. I ate the whole plate, so the boys refilled it without any request on my part. When I finished the second plate, they refilled it again. I looked over at the old woman, whom the big Indian had seated himself next to. I saw here smile very briefly. Then the big Indian smiled for the first time, and I understood without any words being necessary. The old woman liked the fact that I loved her food. And the big Indian appreciated that.

"This is my family," he said, gesturing around at all the people at all of the tables. They smiled, as if on cue. "Welcome to the Reservation and my family. I'll drive you back to town tomorrow. But its Christmas, so maybe you want to stay longer for the ceremony." I nodded, only briefly wondering if the 'ceremony' had anything to do with a White Man being cooked in a pot over a roaring fire. "Merry Christmas," I said, as I nodded with enthusiasm, a genuine smile creasing my face for the first time in months. "Merry Christmas," they all yelled back in unison, then began talking, laughing and carrying on, just as if I was an Indian returning to his home.

from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com

This Blessed Time

James — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:57:13 EST

It is upon us, the Christmas of two thousand and eight. I have sipped of the Don David and made my wish for the happiness of those who have fallen before me. That one sip of a fine Argentinian Malbec, a product from a valley where maybe God reigns over this night. Do you believe in God? I think of such things on this night. It is so cold out there, so blowing and white. My 'advent' trees shine up upon the hill and spokes of light and color radiate out over the sweep of the deep snow, with movement from the wind making them twinkle and play. Is there a God? I don't know. Do you sometimes fall upon your knees and tell your troubles to Him, then ask for His help? I do, and have over the years. Do you ever ask for a ''sign' of His existence? Any sign at all, no matter how subtle or marginal? Then look about for such? I do, and have over the years. In driving I sometimes think of Him as my co-pilot, and even look over at the empty seat, from time to time. Does that me make me totally whacked? If I confessed those acts to a shrink, would the shrink find me certifiable? I mean, more certifiable than I am from other stuff? Do you do any of this? Would you tell if you did? I tried to be a good Catholic, in my early years, then fell away. I tried to be a bad Catholic, but that did not work either. I read the Bible and argued with people who were supposed to know that work backwards and forwards. Reborn Christians. Maybe I fit with them best, simply because they do not mind if I say that "God did not give me the gift of faith." I have studied the Koran, as well, and found it to be strange, going from back to front, as it does. A lot like the Bible, but not. I once, long ago, went down on my knees, literally, and presented the 'Unseen Above' with a list I had written on a yellow note pad. I had written down nine items. The items were problems that I was experiencing, or was afraid of, which had no possiblity of solution whatsoever, outside of divine intervention. I asked for those problems to be taken away. The next day, over coffee with a good friend, who believed more than I, I told him of my act. He asked to see the list, so I produced it. He read the nine items slowly, then looked over the top of the paper at me, as if in wonder that a person such as I could have problems of that magnitude. He shook his head, then smiled. He tore up the list right there, in front of me. And he said, "Now, go out there and those problems will be gone. We spend most of our lives worrying about problems that never happen." We left. Over the next three months the problems, all nine, went away. My question, on this Chrismas Eve night is, did those problems go away because of what Bob said, or because I had put them forth to God and He acted? Or was it all bizarre coincidence? I can't remember the problems anymore, but I wish I could. And how life changes. When I ask God for help now, it is usually because I am asking for Him to help other people, or for Him to help me to help other people. Is it His work that I do not feel that I have to ask him to resolve my own problems anymore? I do not expect any answers from you, out there, on this night. I don't even really expect that anyone will read this, but it is okay if people do. Just for fun. And for their own introspection. We don't often really take the time to isolate ourselves and think such thoughts, or ask ourselves such questions. But I think it would be better if we did. Do you think so too?

I received a gift from a friend, just before he headed South for the holiday. Back when I was 'operational,' during Desert Shield (the operation to prepare us for Desert Storm) I ran a group of communications guys out in the Arabian desert. Our job was to move into Iraq from Saudi Arabia and test the communications capabilities of the Iraqi forces. We were looking for holes in their surveillance net. We found a lot of them, so the mission was a great success. But I lost eleven guys doing it. Back then, our control, back in the home office, used to give us Mont Blanc pens after the completion of a successful mission. The regular size black and gold one for team members and a maroon one for the mission commander. That was me. Some of the guys who passed over did not have surviving family (common to field personnel of that ilk) so I got their personal effects. And the Mont Blanc pens they had accumulated. So I had, and still have, quite a collection of those fine writing specimens. Once and awhile, I give one away to someone I find deserving. I gave a black and gold one to this man here, a friend of mine, just before he left on his trip. And I did not tell him the significance of the gift. Now, here is the amazing thing. He also gave me a gift. It was a small oblong box. I opened it to discover a Mont Blanc pen, just like the one I had given him, except brand spanking new. We laughed. Then he added something. He said that the pen he had given me at least had a full cartridge of ink! I realized that I had not checked the writing capability of the one I had given him. It was, of course, the original that had been in that pen since it was issued way back in the eighties. I nodded and smiled in mirth with him. But I did not tell him about the history of the instrument. Even though he is a noted historian, i was not sure he would like the sentiment and provenance of the gift. But it is Christmas, and those boys gone by, who fought and gave everything, believing it was for us, well, I think they would be okay with the gift. I always wondered why we were given such 'after-action awards.' Most of the guys were not even readers, much less writers. But life is strange, and you just don't get to know some things. Is there a God? Did those pens come from or through him? If they did, then what is their significance?

It is an interesting time to be alive, as this day closes, and Christmas, that single brief day, opens. We are in such dire straights, as a nation, a culture, a way of life. We have a new team at the helm. We have Obama and Clinton and Richardson, and more. We have hope and a shining dream of a grand trip back to a future steeped of the past. We are 'marching to Pretoria, so to speak, and we are doing so with a bit of hesitation and trepidation. We don't know who to trust or why we should trust them. But we have to trust somebody. No choice is a choice in of itself. Or is it as they used to say in early Marine Officer training: "Any decision is better than no decision at all." I don't know so many things. All I can do is celebrate certain things that just feel right. Hilary, who I can't be allowed in front of, particularly on this night, said that "the time of Cowboy diplomacy is over." And I stood up and cheered to hear that on CNN earlier. Some things are going right in this pocket of the universe.

I am going to make a list of nine problems. I am going to get on my knees and ask Him to take those problems away. Then I am going to go see Bob (he is a friend to this day!) and present my list to him over a morning cup of coffee. When Bob tears up the list, as I know he will, my smile will grow broader and my hope for the future warmer, and filled with blissful expectation. Merry Christmas to one and all.

The Eve of Christmas...

James — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:50:08 EST

I am fully awake, as I got the papers from under another layer of deep snow. And I found the envelope from the newspaper wraith. What do I put in it? No check because it is addressed to "Delivery Service." I feel like I am getting my papers directly from Langley (CIA) Headquarters. A twenty? Is that too little? Maybe a fifty. I don't have a fifty (this is Southern Outback Wisconsin and they don't know what a fifty is out here, unless is refers to a clothing size) so I would have to put in two twenties and a ten. But that wad seems excessive. But it is Christmas. But it is a tough financial time for all of us. But I am afraid of the Newspaper Delivery Service. I was once a very decisive person, but look at me now. I am still three presents 'short of a full deck' and it is Christmas Eve, and snowing to beat all get out. What do I do? Where do I go? Lake Geneva has a bunch of stores, each about the size of an airport kiosk. Will they even open in the middle of this, the most aggressive winter attack of recorded history out here? I don't know. The aging dinosaur of a Rover sits patiently in the garage, crying softly to be decked out in the chains that even Professor Machado, the smartest man any of us have ever known, can't fathom the directions to install. But they are back there, all shiny on the floor behind the front seats. And 'Bertram' my old wonderful troll of a beaten-up four-wheel-drive is ready for anything.

Oliver Morton. He wrote a column for the New York Times this morning. He slipped through, like Thomas L. Friedman. The editorial board of the Times must be on Christmas furlough. Both of the columns were pretty extraordinary, bright as they were accurate. Morton wrote of the earth, its condition and prospects, while Friedman wrote about the silly and destructive celebration of stupidity that has taken over this country and caused much of what we are experiencing now. Yes, Thomas stole some of my stuff, then wrote it better. Usually, I only celebrate Maureen Dowd's assumption of my blog material (I can't call it stealing as her fan club gets all upset, and besides, its not. We don't own this stuff out here anymore. What we bloggers write is like air. You just breathe it in and then it gets re-breathed again). So Thomas, you may have my stuff and I doff my non-existent hat at the elegant manner in which you chose to use it. But back to Morton's column. He writes about the earth as George Carlin used to describe it. If the earth ever figures out we (homo sapiens) are here, and causing trouble, then we are screwed. We have almost no power over this blue and white ball of water and ice. Even our limp-wristed influence over base temperature is a mere nothing to this planet. And the only one's to actually suffer from our excess are likely to be, well, us. The Earth turns and moves on inexorably and it is unaffected, really, in the scale of things, by even such events as large astroid strikes. That stuff merely impacts on the ecosystem. Life goes up and down and around stuff like that all the time. Way to go Morton. A scientist. A brain. No more of that Bush stuff. Okay, okay, I am not going there. I will even give that low-life scum bag of a drooling president a break today. It is Christmas Eve. And life is cold, snow-buried, but good. Christmas music plays, I have the wood for a fire to burn through this day, on into my own personal Eve, and I have a prime rib for the oven. Harvey is ever loyal and only mildly condescending. Cat bliss.

Now, I shall get cleaned up and go out there into the whiteness of day. It is Christmas Eve and there just have to be more people God wants to put in my way. Merry Christmas!

We Three Kings of Orient Are....

James — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:59:04 EST

i get comments through email, much more than I get comments on this site. it seems that many people feel that I am a bit 'over the top' tough on some of our leaders, the pundits and even the media. Am I? I wonder about that. The RAGE has not set in yet. The rage I speak of is the one that is going to sweep this country once everyone figures out that they are not going to avoid being stung to the core by this financial madness of the last forty years. And they will figure out that they were robbed, which means their families and their children's children, as well. Note that there are sites popping out on the internet about where the exact locations of the thieve's mansions are located! That is just the start. But I will back off a bit. I will leave Bill Bennet out of my vitrolic comment. He is bedded down on an opium mat somewhere, 'biting the clouds,' as they say in China (about opium smoking). I shall not attack William Kristol for awhile, no matter what his elitist pedigree and lifestyle seem to demand. And Krauthammer. He is a nasty little guy, but he's crippled, so I'll back off. That I support the auto workers, wholeheartedly, well, I guess that is okay. And I hope it is okay for me to continue to advise Governor Rod. Remember, he is our entertainment right now. We don't need him to pack it in just yet. Couric gets a pass, as does that little weasel Ben Stein. Maybe I can pick on Letterman. He seems to be able to take it.

The cards are gone. I don't know how they turned out. I never like the finished product because it could have used more work and detail. But my heart is in the right place. I send them to transmit care and thanks. Thanks for being someone deserving of getting one, in my judgment, and care about people who have great hearts and are helping us go in the right direction. The postman at the little post office here, Michael, a really really great guy, frightened me to death by first telling me the way in which I framed and glued the stamps to the envelopes would never be allowed. There I stood, with fifty of these things in my hands. He saw my look, and to prevent my collapse, and the subsequent trampling by everyone else in line, he relented. He hand-cancelled them. Thank you Mike, and Merry Christmas. Try to find that kind of greatness in a big city post office. On the other hand, he can tell me what is inside the envelopes of my incoming mail without my opening them.

The Advent trees are out there whipping around in the wind and blowing snow. I can see them from up here in my office. This office emits a 'blue hue' when I am working. That is most nights. People who have come to know that my abode is secreted right off the main road and a bit down the hill can see the blue hue when they drive by. Some beep, but I no longer attempt to get to the window to wave. I am just not fast enough. Harvey pays attention though. He always raises his head, looks toward the window and then back at me, as if to say: "Does someone need to be eaten?" When I do not respond, he lays his head back down and does what he does. Passes the winter time by sleeping, or making believe he is asleep. Fools me. Why is it that a cat can come out of sleep in an instant? I can't do that. Some of the reason that i go out into ten below weather, forgetting the nearby prepared duster, is because i am not fully awake at that point. I am fully awake a few seconds later when I get back in, however. Which reminds me. I have to find that envelope. For the newspaper guy/gal. I just cannot get by without the papers and I can't get down that driveway at that hour of the morning. Without a substantial Christmas tip I just know what is going to happen. I also can't seem to get up early enough to catch the sucker red-handed, delivering. Or, if I am up early enough, he sneaks in and out without my knowing. Maybe i should start drinking again. Or try that Ginko stuff. No, that was discredited, like red meat. Maybe it will come back, like red meat.

I have this friend in Texas. He is smarter than me. But he thinks that I am smarter than him. Or at least he makes me think that he thinks that. I am confused. But, anyway, he also edits some of my work. And he is terrific. But I have to be careful because he 'lays things between the lines,' if you know what I mean. I have to re-read his email several times to get everything. And when I don't, well, he is also a bit arrogant and steps on me with his marvelous intellect. I think I have convinced him to write again himself. He once sent me some work. It was better than mine. But I could not tell him that because...I was not big enough to be able to do that. So, for Christmas, I am encouraging him to write again. And that feels good. There is so much under-utilization of talent today. It is out here, but our culture has not been encouraging it.

Once i was so poor I could not afford a Christmas tree. I think it was nineteen seventy four, or so. I went to the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Tree lot to see if I could find a remnant. I had four dollars. And I had no car, well, none that ran. I got to the Sears parking lot and started checking the leaning cut trees. There was nothing under ten dollars. But I had the diligence only known by poor people. I went on checking. After awhile, a guy came over to help me. He had the buff outdoor wear that I have never really never known how to buy or wear. I tried to brush the guy off and keep on checking. But he would have none of it. Finally, stepping from tree to tree with me, like a bad Laurel and Hardy routine, he asked the big question: "How much do you have?" I shrugged trying to appear urbane, then gave up. "Four bucks," I admitted. "Where do you live?" he replied, which surprised me. What did it matter?

So I described the labyrinthian path I had followed to get to the lot. "No car?" he asked. I frowned. I could not figure out what his point was, so I let him have it: "No car, four bucks, no job, and no prospects, is that enough for you?" i started to walk away. "What about this one?" the guy promptly came back with. He pointed at a beautiful eight-foot Noble Pine. I just looked at him. He stepped closer to me. "This isn't really the Sears Christmas Tree lot. it's mine. I just rent the space every year. It would be a favor to me if you would take the tree for Christmas and let me deliver it with my truck." I couldn't say anything. I thought of all the proud reasons that I thought that that was a bad idea. He saw me think those thoughts. "I do it for redemption, so don't get the wrong idea," he said gently. "I wasn't always the way i am today. i was something less. And I owe it to The Man to do Christmas right every chance I get. You're my chance. Don't blow it for me." I nodded. What else could I do. I rode with him in his truck, with my wonderful tree in the back. He didn't say a word and neither did I. When he helped me unload it in front of my apartment I saw his shirt rise up on his forearm. There was a tattoo there. The image was of a couple of wings, under which was inscribed "101st Airborne." And I understood. "Merry Christmas," he yelled, driving away with his window down, a big smile looking back at me. I shouted the only reply that seemed appropriate: "Semper fi."

The Manger

James — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:02:47 EST

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi created the first Nativity Scene in his yard. The mythology has it that he set up a manger, and the then made up other characters from whatever he had laying around. He wanted to recreate the birth of Christ, the best he could, for himself and his friends. I have one. A manger and the Nativity Scene characters. The stable I made myself out of some old wood with a hand saw and some nails. It has survived intact for twenty-nine years. In 1969 I was fresh out of the hospital from getting all shot up in Vietnam. I could not be a Marine and I could not walk, or move well enough, to get a job. So I sat around and waited. During this time I found a small apartment in San Clemente to live in. So cheap that my other dwellers in the six-plex were new immigrants from Vietnam. Strange, to circulate among them every day as I limped around with nothing to do. One day I encountered an older man, who I knew to be the head of one of the families living there. His name was Huang Nguyen. Somehow, he had found out something of my service in his former country. He approached, shook my hand, and then apologized. I didn't get it. I tried to get to the bottom of things but his English was bad. Instead he invited me in to meet his wife and three young children. They treated me very nicely, and I was surprised. In country, the Vietnamese civilians I met had all been cold and remote. Huang took me into his bedroom/office. There he showed me two pictures on his walls. One was of him walking arm in arm with Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the North Vietnamese Army. In the other, he was striding along, a huge smile on his face, with Robert McNamera. I asked Huang who he really was. He told me that he was the former Province Commander of the I Corps area. I was stunned. That was the area I fought all over and had been wounded in. I asked Huang who's side he had really been on. He said that he was on both. He had a family. He did not know who was going to win. He then asked me what I would have done in his place. I thought over that one, and then had to laugh. We shook hands again, both laughing. We would have become friends, I think, except the language barrier was just too great. And maybe, I was too soon from that awful war.

It was just before Christmas, when Huang and I met that year. On Christmas Eve, his oldest daughter, a pudgy cute little thing everyone called Hamburger, because of her proclivity for those things, knocked on my door. She handed me a bag and said Merry Christmas, then giggled and ran. I took the bat in and opened all the small packages wrapped inside. The Three Wise Men. The manger. The baby Jesus. Mary and Joseph. The dutiful cow, sheep and donkey. And a big camel. All the pieces are porcelain and gilded with gold that has not tarnished to this day. The sit this evening in my home-made stable atop a special table near the base of my tree.

I think often of Huang and Hamberger. I wonder what became of them. They were always wonderful to me and seemed to always act surprised that I was wonderful back to them. As much as I could be. I had nothing but limps, scars and painful memories back then. Why did Huang apologize? Why were they so nice? Why did they give me a Nativity Scene, of all things? Today, I don't know anymore than I knew back then, although I have had a lot of time to think and many more battles to grow more experienced. If there is a God. If there really is a Jesus. Then Huang and his family were sent to help me through. To help me understand, at that so very difficult a time, that the Vietnamese people were not to blame. That they were not much different than we are, and were. That my pain did not have to be translated into an eternal hatred. And so I have the set. And it means a lot to me. Christmas is special in so many ways to me, and I wish that the spirit evident in this season would seep through to the rest of the year for everyone.

from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com

Drivel...or is it twaddle....

James — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:17:57 EST

Kristol, that William fellow who writes for the New York Times. You know the one. William Kristol. Saliva runs from the side of the mouth Kristol. Maybe, if he keeps writing and getting read, one day people will say "Oh, what a load of Kristol," when they are talking about a pile of the steamy stuff. This morning both of my papers, thrown literally to my doorstep (I still have not sent that envelope with the cash in it), were just filled with garbage. Kristol's drivel stood out, however. His column was both a compliment to Cheney and and insult to Caroline Kennedy. He compliments Cheney on the man's using the "F" word on Leahy one day. Kristol thinks that, when Cheney was asked about whether he had really said that to the Representative, he said that he had and that it was called for. Cheney. The fat white slob of a moronic brutal coward that he is. Yes, the same man who was appointed head of the committee to find a real Vice President for Nucular Bush. What did he do? What clowns like him always do. He made sure that he took apart every real candidate that was evaluated, then declared himself the only viable alternative. This is the man who, under the influence of too much booze, and saliva dripping from his craven down-slanted lips, shot his friend in the face with a shotgun, then forced the friend to say that he actually needed that birdshot treatment for clearing his lifelong case of acne. The torture king Cheney. The war criminal. The same creep who says that the President can do anything, during faux wartimes, and it is legal. The Goodbye and good riddance Vice President of all time. And then Caroline. I too railed recently about the nepotistic trends in both our political and our art communities. I don't like it. I think that we went deep into democracy to get away from this kind of inherited passage of importance and power. Inheritance means that you are going to get some real stupid and crummy leaders in large amounts (the average I.Q. really is 100, don't forget, which is not bad but do we want them running our lives?). But Caroline is okay. You know why? Yes, you do. Me too. She stood there while her father was carted by in front of all of us. She has stood well against the rage of outrageous fortune which has bruised and battered her pampered existence for all of her life. She is our's more surely than anyone I can think of, except her brother John Jr. And he is dead. And I still miss him. So, I think that Caroline has a good heart. And I do not require much more. Cheney has a black heart, which he received in a secret transplant operation from the cadaver of Joseph Mengele. He has been very very successful at continuing those medical experiments, begun years ago by his donor. Please, Mr. Lowlife Kristol, do not ever mention those two people in the same column again. We know which of the two you most resemble.

And then there is the Torturous Tribune. Yes, they came out for torture again this morning. In time for Christmas. There little editorial piece explains it all away as being due to fear. The poor, weak and phoney- macho leaders of this country, so stunned and frightened by the events of 911, turned to torturing suspects in order to defend our country. Suspects. That is the key throw-away word in the article. Suspects. Who the hell was a suspect? Who is? And that word is one of the biggest problems with torture, and all that goes with it. The suspect can be anyone. People turn in people all the time, given an enormity of motivation. In Iraq we were giving out hundred thousand dollar rewards for anyone who would accuse and turn in a suspected terrorist. No questions. A hundred grand. The lottery over there. Equivalent to millions over here (well, it used to be. Now it is worth about $312.00, or soon will be). And you could get rid of your worst enemy quite anonymously. Wow. What a bonanza that was! The victim you turned in was instantly taken out of the country and then slowly roasted over charcoal fires ten thousand miles away (the heat occasionally quenched with water from the water-board pool), never to be returned to your country or village. Torture is absolutely terrible, to the people tortured (go figure) and the people forced to torture them. Even to the people that happily torture them (take a close look at the miserable facial features and expressions of Dick Cheney). Shame on you, the editorial staff of the disappearing Tribune. Do you know why you are going away, slowly but surely? Because you have no heart,and your 'thinkers' have no life experience. You have not lived hard, ever. You have not traveled the world, really. You have not lived in poverty or fear or without hope. I celebrate that for you. But you should not be in control of what we read, any more than Caroline should be handed the reigns of decision-making for an entire state in the Senate. You are probably nice people. But you are simpering fakes when it comes to understanding the human condition, then allowing us to be informed about it. Like the executives of the auto companies, as with the executives of all of our financial houses, you need to pass on. And you will, but you are going to take The Tribune with you. It is your right. And I understand that. But I will miss that Tribune of old, which your fathers and their fathers built. But twaddle takes its toll.

Hey, even that smarmy slob Krauthammer is taking my stuff. Okay, go ahead Charles. If it is good enough for Maureen Dowd than I guess it is good enough for you. He writes on the heels of my blog, with respect to Caroline's probably appointment to the Senate in New York, wherein I ran on and on about this 'transfer of royalty thing,' this nepotism and concentration (brought about by our media) of fame meaning everything about everything. Kraut is just an aging neocon without a cause right now. So go ahead and pick on Caroline. She has set herself up to be a target out here. I am sorry about that. For me, when I look at her face, I still see the fragility and pain of those terrible days in the early sixties. Piss off Krauthammer. Go pick on somebody your own size, like Bill Bennet (the slimy silent edifice of corpulent fat) or that radio rat (Rush "these are not oxycontin" Limbaugh).

Finally, there was a funny article. It was the reverse of "I confess, he did it," kind of a thing. There is this writer who is a supposed historian. He was fixated on, for most of his life, about a guy named B. Virdot who took out an ad in an Eastern Paper to solicit stories about hardship during the first depression (1933, or so). Then he sent checks, this Virdot guy, to the best stories. Well, it seems that our writer looked into this matter, which had perplexed and impressed him for his whole life. For years he could not find out who Virdot really was. It seems that the guy had used a fictional name. He investigated and then investigated some more, until finally his mother handed him a proverbial 'old black valise.' Inside were all the letters written to Mr.Stone, the real benefactor (Virdot). It turns out to be the writer's grandfather. His mother had never said a word. So now we have it. The great hero of those dark days turns out to be the grandfather of our investigator and writer. Now, is that a load of Holiday crap, or what? His mother never said a word for all those years. It reminds me of the 'silent warrior' veterans at the Naval Hospital. There are silent warriors, you know. They are the one's that did not do anything when they served. By being silent they protect that simple fact. You are left to assume, as they want you to, that they were in such bad stuff that they can't talk about it. Another load of brown stuff. Just like the Virdot story. The investigator and author works in fiction not history. And he is selling much more in that genre. The sale of drivel is going well.

Back to my cards. I am almost done. Really. Really! Shut up Harvey.

Flying to pieces....

James — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:46:25 EST

So, have you been to an airport since 911? A lot of people have, but, amazingly, a lot of people also have not. For those of you who have been, I offer my sympathy and rage buried deep. For those of you who have not, but will in the future, all you get is my humor. God, are you in for it. But, in watching Sixty Minutes tonight, you would have thought they we, the prospective passengers, were all of the problem. Our attitude. Our treatment of the security personnel. We watched TSA training. And we got to view the new Gestapo oriented uniforms. For some reason in this culture we have the idea that violence is prevented, and aggression tempered, by authority figures wearing ever more militant macho costumes. Who the hell is advising these nitwits? And it's in our military too. Ever look at photos of our Doughboys in WWI? Our GI's in WWII, or even our troops in Vietnam? They looked American and they, almost one and all, aside from looking stressed and burned out, looked nice. Looked of quality. Looked like they were part of the Jeddi Knights fighting for 'The Force.' Now our troops look like nasty Imperium troopers, with insect dark glasses and ugly helmets designed directly after the hated SS helmets worn by the Germans in WWII. Jesus Christ, give us a break from this developmental stupidity. Where are all the gay designers? Have they all died of aids? Cannot a single one of those gifted geniuses 'not tell' when 'not asked,' and help us out? And then, when they are done serving us there, can they please move on the the police and security services? Get stopped by a local state trooper these days. The uniform alone (with, of course, the derigour insect glasses) will scare the crap out of you. We are leaning toward our gayer more gentle side these days. How about we do that with our authority figures. The results might astound us all. What if TSA agents were just nice? Maybe out Puritanical Calvinistic origins just cannot stomach that.

But I digress. It seems that the TSA is upset that we treat them so badly. I have been to at least fifty airports since 911. Guess what. I have never ever once seen any passenger treat a TSA agent badly. I have seen no verbal or physical abuse towards those people. But I have seen a ton of TSA types making complete nasty-tempered asses out of themselves. The public is, by and large, well aware of the overwhelming power of the TSA dolts to put us on 'no-fly' lists or 'danger' lists for the rest of our lives. We know it and we know that power is present, and right there in our faces. Clint Eastwood might have been referring to the attitude of most TSA agents of today: "Go ahead, make my day." There was a little glimmer of truth that seeped through the cracks on that Leslie (I do not wear a wig) Stahl presentation. A woman complained about being abused in her 'training' class but then was on a video where she was at an airport directing passengers. She sounded exactly like what I have described, and it was right there. It was obvious that she felt that her charges were timid dumb dolts. And the passengers responded like that, just before we cut away. This is media spinning. It was brought to us by this very same media, and it was authored into existence by the political advisors of running politicians. The idea is to immediately jump on the band wagon with facts that are just opposite of the way things really are. And that is what is going on today with the TSA. And Sixty Minutes, Investigative nothings. Purveyors of pablum and disinformation.

Here is the solution. Technology. Not agents. And technology of hardened protection, not detection. Yes, build better tougher planes. There ought to be no ability of the crew to interact with the passengers anymore. None. The bulkhead built between should be impenetrable. Then stop allowing all that carryon. Yes, limit us to little bitty purses and bags with stuff like books and snacks inside. Nothing else. No computers, no cell phones, no games or ipods. Nada. No overhead bins (and more headroom!). All luggage gets checked. And then the technology of the plane takes over. Make the cargo areas hardened to be able to take even a small explosion. And build them to be jettisoned in flight. Now, the detection. Let it all go toward the checked baggage. No people involved. Just stuff being analyzed. Forget about the penetrating radar images to view our bodies. And do not believe that they are not going to keep the images and play with them, and laugh at all of us, or sell them. Our social security numbers were once sacrosanct. Then our driver's license information. All gone to graveyards every one. Your credit data is now forever (not five years or seven....they lie), and our driving information is for life (not three years or five or even ten for a drunk driving...they lie). F. Scott Fitzgerald: "You don't get to start over in this country." No shit. So stop believing them and get skeptical. It is a whole lot healthier, and you are also less likely to find your corpulent body on Facebook or Youtube.

I am finishing my cards. I really am. I have gone to the basement. Or, at least, I am going right this minute. Harvey is waiting for me down there. He has the mistaken impression that there are mice down there, and he hunts madly through all the stacked boxes and piled chairs and just stuff. He came up with a mouse once, and I was mad as hell. He brought that mouse in from the outside and then stocked his basement for the future. I just know it. There have been no more. I caught that mouse (with Harvey's unwitting assistance) and he is running free, under the snow, in a nearby field. Or at least he was until it hit fifteen below again a few hours ago. Now he is paused. On hold for the winter, so to speak. The non-existent one's in the basement I refuse to consider further, but I am about to put up with Harvey going down there and making believe, just to drive me daffier.

Nonsensical Insanity...

James — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:18:39 EST

It is fifteen below zero out there, and the wind is whipping last night's five extra inches of snow into a moving white curtain of death. I went out in my robe anyway. Because I am more like Ben Stein than I care to admit. By writing that I mean, 'someone who is much more capable of transmitting the image of being intelligent rather than actually having that quality.' I am quoting one of the shrinks at the Naval Hospital, where I go every Wednesday, after he had been around me for awhile. I did not kill him, because I am not violent anymore. I swear. But I felt violent after coming back in the front door. I did not curse Harvey, who sat at the door looking at me with that 'Good Christ, but you are one stupid example of the species Homo Sapien' cat look. I had no rotten bleak words for him because I could not talk. I could only inhale. When I recovered enough, I looked over at the chair where I had carefully set out a huge sheep-lined Austrailian Duster the day before. Harvey sat there and looked at it too. Finally, regaining my voice, but having to discard my snow covered slippers (Ugh, of course), I was able to talk. "Don't start," is all I said, pointing at him with a snow and plastic covered Tribune. The mail delivery guy (I think he is a guy, but I have never seen him/her) has been dropping my papers at the door lately, ever since I found a note in the paper two weeks ago with an envelope for a Christmas bonus. What can I do? Put cash in it and send it off to some address in Elkhorn? I can't write a check because there was no name. Hell, I'll do it. I am such a pushover. I wonder if the papers will remain thrown to the doorstep instead of simply being dropped way down at the end of the driveway. That mail person. Clever bastard. I am caught in a vice.

Ben Stein was on television with one of his stupid droll commentaries, as I recovered my coffee and dumped the paper snow onto the fireplace ledge. God I can't stand that guy. His trademark smirking vocal presentation just drives me nuts. And then there is the content. "If we just go out and spend money then we won't need a bailout." That is the solution. Do not save. Do not hold onto anything. Well, I hope Ben is holding onto plenty and I hope that his investment counselor is named Madoff. He is another of these totally 'removed' talking heads making believe that they have a regular job and some sort of semblance of a normal financial life. He does not. He makes more in a month then the average person makes in two years! He can spend all he wants and never get to the bottom. He probably has one of those super-secret black American Express cards (twenty thousand in fees just to have, or so I am told). He is like that creepy baseball player who just signed a 160 million dollar contract to play baseball for a few years. The guy has barely a high school diploma. A box of rocks who can throw a ball. Which means he will also be allowed to become an author, a television spokesperson and honored member of our terminally sick culture. At least Ben Stein is smart. He is a short little troll example of a creepy man, but he does have a brain and some real formal education.

We have a guy, down in Chicago, named Steve Chapman who writes columns in the Tribune. Now there is another dumbo, along with Stein (when it comes to putting out garbage which is nothing other than vaguely disguised neocon philosophy). His solution to the financial mess is inflation. Yes, a true, world class, never call home, idiot. And he is too young to remember 1979 and 80. A home loan back then was written for around fourteen percent interest. Thats about fifteen hundred a month for a ninety-five thousand dollar home. Say what? So you get the loan and the house. No problem. When the interest rates go down you can always refinance, right? No. You see, because of inflation of everything else, except your income (note that they are talking about lowering all wages just now, and look at all the companies dropping contributions to 401k plans....the plans they all touted and pushed in order to get out of more structured and disciplined pension plans), you lose your good credit. So you can't refinance. And it is your fault. Just ask the lender. Under such circumstance they are happy to tell you that you are a loser, unless the outsourcing of today means that the representative on the phone says the word 'loser' in such bad English that you cannot understand it. Steve Chapman is just throwing crap up against the wall. Inflation. My ass.

Now John Kass, he is different indeed. He is the new Royko of the Tribune, and they have been running his articles on the second page of the paper. His nemesis is Governor Rod. Dead Meat Rod, he calls him. Dead Meat Walking, as of this morning's below-zero edition. I love his writing. He even swipes at our hero and savior (Obama) by inferring that his latest appointment from Illinois has ties to the Illinois mob (deemed to be the 'we-will-never-die-or-run-out-of-kids' Daleys). I love that too. Obama needs plenty of detractors, lest he fall down in his pew from absolute adoration of Rick Warren, his new spiritual guru (since that last black preacher was found to be 'socially unacceptable'). Kass is wrong, of course. He did say Governor Rod's "I will not quit" speech was okay. Okay? It was a 'Checkers' quality oration. He was great. He was perfect. Even his awful bowling ball hairstyle was okay. He even bent forward and down, so you could see that is is thinning on top. Now I really liked that. He is one of us. Oh yes, he is dumb as a post and he has some real mental issues. So what. Look at Senator Byrd or some of those other nuts we have in there. Larry Craig? Ted Stevens? Jesus. We have some goodies. Kass thinks that Rod ought to quit. He thinks that Rod is staying in to drive the best deal he can get. Well, no kidding Kass! Where the hell have you been? This culture loves a great confession, as long as that confession points the finger at someone else. "I confess, he did it," ought to be part of the Pledge of Alligiance. We could slip it in, right at the end, while we covertly point at the person next to us. "I confess I did it," on the other hand, well, we have electrical appliances and special injections prepared for those, soon to be dead, special cases.

And so this miserable representation of a Sunday morning ends with two cups of strong Alterra coffee. I must go out in the garage and pull all the cords from my generator. The power went out last night. The Alliant Company, our local electrical co-op, decided to experiment. Since it was the coldest night in a year, they thought that it would be great if we all remembered how important Alliant really is. Especially at this time of the year. So I turned on the infernal generator, but I have not had time to wire the thing into my electrical system. So I had extension cords running all about. Not enough to run the lights in my office, however. So I have cards to finish. The damned infernal custom cards. What am I doing out here? Why am I not in Hawaii, spending the money Ben Stein tells me will save everyone? I am being wary. That is what I am doing. I am hunkered down out here, extension cords piled high, the wind and temperature near absolute zero, my cards strewn everywhere with glue all over, and Harvey, laying right here under this monitor, studiously ignoring my slow descent into nonsensical madness.

Knights in White Satin...

James — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:41:00 EST

Ami Pedezhur, columnist with the New York Times, writes to us this day about the spawning of terrorism. You see, in her view, it goes all the way back to the sixties. It was just not called terrorism then. More high humor from supposedly intelligent writers, or maybe writers who simply have a goal other than that which they claim. You see, terrorism began when we wanted it to begin. It has been a very useful word, since it was coined and then converted into our modern linguistic medium. We actually have a war on terrorism. War on a word. Not a specific enemy, no that was back in the old days when we fought the terrible Hun (Germans), the Japs (well, you know who) and the Gooks (Vietnamese). Now we no longer need to specify an opponent, and that is so much more convenient for the military industrial complex and governmental leaders. Terrorism, even using the modern definition, is merely that activity which opposes any current government or force in control, with violence. What kind of violence does not matter, although it seems to be better for everyone if it involves suicide, bombs of any kind, and damage to 'innocent' victims. That we carpet bombed and burned Dresden, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, well, that would never ever be termed terrorism. Nor A-bombing Nagasaki or Hirosima. Those were not exactly military targets, and we could have picked military targets if we chose to at the time. So terrorism is really more like piracy. It goes way way back. In fact, it is all over the Old Testament. That we rail against terrorism all the time now is indeed true, but the question is why. Why do we so go on about it? Because it supports decisions to spend money and control people's lives. We won't even let our vaunted, and supposedly free, press view and report on such stuff anymore. We have not covered Iraq or Afghanistan anything like we covered Vietnam. The complex and the government did learn a lot from Vietnam. Tell the people nothing and they have nothing upon which to make decisions. Kill the reporters, if necessary. Bar the reporters from the return of our dead troops, from going to the funerals. It is all there right in front of us. We will always be at war against terrorism, unless intellect and sanity take over. Which is not likely. Oh yes, Barack is intelligent. There is no question about that. But does he want to give up the war on terror? Does he want to give up the perks available to people who maintain the war on terror? I don't know. This coming year is going to be a really interesting one. And it is portended by ominous talk on Obama's part. He wants a huge surge in Afghanistan. What for? Whom do we have to beat over there? The Taliban? Who the hell cares? The Taliban, last time around, eradicated the Opium production of that country. We took over and brought Afghanistan back to being the world's largest opium producer. So what are we doing there? Really. We don't have a clue. We are depending upon Obama. And the outlook is not good, not in this area.

Bob Herbert wrote of the end of the war on American workers. We have a new Labor Secretary coming in who is fond of the American workers, and unions even. Supposedly. This person has never been a Secretary of anything, other than a steno pool, perhaps. Take a look at the auto bailout. It is so badly written that Ford opted out. They would rather risk bankruptcy than take that worm medicine. At the top of the agreement is wage cutting. We have got to get the wages of American workers down to those of the Japanese companies in the U.S. who have American workers. The fact that those companies have not been here long enough to have pension obligations, well, that is ignored. The unions must also accept the fact that, instead of money going into the current worker's pension plans, under this bill, they will get some kind of equity transfer. Have we not heard enough of this kind of 'garbage financial talk' from these creeps? The Congressional creeps? The Republicans? So the bailout passed American Auto Workers, but it is a mighty cold and snowy world out there this December, if you have not noticed. And those executives and members of Congress still have their residence addresses online and in phone books. Firewood is to be found there. The only. I repeat. The only way that our leadership is going to make the changes you need to survive yourself and your family in any credible and comfortable way is to cause fear to live and breathe inside these dreadfully powerful people. It is just the way it works. It has always worked that way, except for brief respites too short to even mention. You either run them or they will run you. Take note of the last eight years. We have been run right into the ground in just about every area that can be mentioned. The only person, whom I have noticed, that has done anything at all about it is locked up in an Iraqi prison, being tortured by our people right this minute. He threw his shoes at George Bush. By God that took balls. By God that took good judgment. By God I love that guy. If it could only start a trend. Wherever that Bush clown goes, people throw shoes. Not at him, as that will get you twenty years in administrative maximum in this country. No, people should just throw shoes before him. Let him get the idea. Let him understand that God, and we, can punish very very harshly and for a very long time. This guy and his people hurt the hell out of us and we are a long way from being beyond that hurt. Do you feel it yet? This country is built upon a Puritanical base of Calvinistic thinking and is righteous in the presentation of those ideas and philosophy. It is time to get righteous indeed.

My cards are not done. I labor on into the night. The foil is hard to work with. But the effect is great. That the cards will be taken from their envelopes, briefly read and then discarded is not the issue (although I do indeed sometimes think about that). The issue is that it is meaningful for me to do it. It is good to think of the neat nature of every one of the people I am sending to. I thank God that I have fifty of them. Many people have none. It is a Merry Christmas, as it has been for many years, at least for me. And it is snowing again. My Advent trees stagger under the weight. I thought it could not snow more than last year but I was mistaken. Global warming is making it colder. I do not understand that, but I think that I am not supposed to. Sometimes global warming, the phrase, seems to sound like terrorism.

My cards are like the song, maybe: Knights in White Satin, never reaching the end, letters I've written, never meaning to send. There was a television show on the science fiction channel a while back. I liked it. Most of the show was hookum (everyone above a certain age had died of a virulent virus) but the show always opened with this really poignant scene. The protagonist was standing over an open fire, reading a letter he had written to his father that day (the father had, of course, died from the virus years before) and then burning it. There was no point to it. But there was every point to it. Letters I've written, never meaning to send.

On the descent into stupidity....

James — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:20:20 EST

Rick Warren. The man is just a studied case of applied stupidity, and the celebration of that whole concept. It finds favor with a male oriented population which seems to take its roots from the 'Cowboy mentality' of the late eighteen hundred's. The Gran Torino (AKA: Dirty Harry gets old) is a perfect example of this mentality. And Obama and the Dream Team are throwing a bone to this grousing rat pack of carrion feeding mongrels. Rick Warren wants homosexuals dead or reduced to sexual predator status. Now, how in God's name, can we have a guy like that say the invocation for our incoming savior? This man is part and parcel of the same pack of assholes who have taken our country to the brink of total devastation, caused us to lose all respect around the world, entered us into evil rendition arrangements with the slimiest of torturing characters, and so on. Why stop there? Jesus Christ, this man is emblematic of the kind of person who, in the Old Testament, the Lord would have smitten with a sweeping vengeance. But here he is, right up there in a place of honor. That just sucks, and I don't care if Obama thinks that will help unite this country. Get it here, and right now Barack, we do not want to be united with this shit or any of his followers. We overwhelmingly picked you because we wanted no more of these self-righteous and self-enriching creeps around us. Now get to work! Or become what you sought to rail against yourself. Or at least we thought you did.

MTV is throwing 15 new 'unscripted' reality shows up against the wall this coming season. It appears that their viewership is down almost twenty-five percent. Dah! You are putting crap out there for the audience to view. We, as television viewers, lack the ability to throw vegetables at you, so we just switch off. We do not want any more of that dunce-cap reality stupidity, no matter how much you keep hyping that it is more 'real' than anything that has come before. We have reality right here, where we are living, and we don't want any more of that. We don't care about Donald Trump, or chefs fighting in kitchens over more stupidity, or people chasing about on obviously (and badly) scripted races. Get over it or die. Television, as with the newspapers, is going right down the toilet unless it gets over the producer's nepotistic self-love and self congratulation. You have to make the effort to give the audience good stuff. If you don't then we sit out here and drink, or go back to reading, or play Scrabble, or something. Rick Warren is emblematic of this, as well. Applied stupidity. It is, at times satisfying, but it is the way of the loser. In school and out here. At work and at home.

I am working on my Christmas cards. I create them from card stock I order from Italy, then build them with foil from Germany and stamps from the good old USA. I use a black ink fountain pen to address the cards and then the same pen to write inside. The actual stamps are from the fifties (I collect stamps too). The great old six and eight cent Christmas stamps that were put out back then. I have fifty cards to finish. That is about as many as I have ever made. I have been as low as thirty-three. Now, I lose people for entirely different reasons than in years past. Back then I lost people because they moved and I never heard from them again, or they simply turned out to be bad apples. Now I lose them because they die! And that is disconcerting, indeed. I miss them. The ones that die. I still keep them in my book, but there they are to remind me that they are no longer here. Shit. Why do I spend all this time to do such a strange thing, in a world where people do not even bother, for the most part, to even go out and buy cards and send them off? Because it is important to me. I am not sure why. Maybe because I am a writer and I think that the written word is special. And the personal written letter or card, the most special of all. Reality cards, if you will, but well scripted ones.

Governor Rod spoke! He came out and, backed by the fiber transmitted to him through the absorption of my blogs, stood firm. Meanwhile, the pundits complain away about the fact that nobody supports this governor. Another crock! The governor does not need any of the support they seem to think he ought to have. This guy is at the helm of the Illinois ship and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Now, idiots, pray that the captain does not aim the ship to run up upon the rocks, because he can certainly do that, and in so many ways. I detailed a bunch of them. There are more. I don't like the guy, or his wife. But I sure understand his situation, and the role he was elected to perform. If I were Fitzgerald, the Federal Prosecutor (who seems to have gotten the idea that he is Javert, from the Victor Hugo novel; Les Miserable), I would tuck my tail in and shut my mouth. If Governor Rod chooses to focus on him, that Fed will find out, for the first time in his life, what public and private pain are all about. You stand, Governor Rod, just as you are, as a beacon against outrageous public prosecution.

Hip Deep....and children playing with matches....

James — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:42:34 EST

There was some war protest song written and sung by some great singer in the sixties. It had words within it, to the effect "hip deep in the big muddy." I liked those protest songs of the Vietnam Era. We don't have such songs any longer. Clear Channel, the Fox of radio, has assured us of that. We must always be reminded that the war on 'The Oceanic Front' is going well. That we have had our asses handed to us in Iraq, Afghanistan is besides the point. What good would have protests done, anyway? Saved four thousand young men and women who died for nothing? Well, ask Dick Cheney. He said it was a necessary sacrifice. He lost nothing. He lost no children. Neither he, his wife, nor any of his craven spawn have lost one damn thing. Quite the opposite. He, and his family, have tremendous power, have enriched themselves twenty times over since the start of Iraq, and will continue to hold positions in our new American Aristocracy. That is, until children come to visit them with matches. To those Gold Star families out there, my heart goes out to you. I left 211 boys behind in Vietnam. I remember every one of them. All good Marines. I still think, all the time, about Corporal Fusner (18), Buck Sgt. Stevens (19) and Sugar Daddy, my Scout Sgt. At this time of the year it is hard not to. I am living and they are dead. I know they would celebrate my living but I cannot celebrate their passing. A glass of that Val de Flores, lifted to my lips for one sip on Christmas Eve will be the only clue that they are well remembered. Their names are clustered together on one block of that black wall I visited in Washington D.C. My name should be up there, but I got a 'get out of jail free' wound that night, and ended up discovering that I possessed a 'survivor's body.' Great. Maybe I am only here, in my own tattered form, simply to remember them.

I read a review in the New York Times that was bleak and dark. About one of my favorite movies called "It's a Wonderful Life." I cite it often in these blogs, especially at this time of year. The review was harsh, because so much of the movie was 'real,' in my opinion. And the reviewer gave away much of his own battered perspective on life by his writing. It is a problem for us real writers. We live a lot of what we write and vice versa. Anyway, this guy wrote about how the raucous and wildly crass times, as illustrated by the shots of Bedford Falls portrayed as the result of 'George' never having been born, were much more cheerful, alive and filled with success. Those shots, rather than the boring and staid placidity of the 'real' Bedford Falls Jimmy Stewart was still alive in. About that, all I can say is that if you love what Las Vegas has become, then you agree and deserve such perspective on life. If you think that the Dells, in Wisconsin, are just great in all their neon and crappy water slide idiocy, then you deserve the poor taste you somehow got from your parents. The reviewer also screws up the 'mysterious disappearance' of the eight thousand bucks which the evil Potter found and squeezes George over. The reviewer goes to a prosecutor to determine that this eight thousand would be treated as theft, and George thrown in jail. It would not. Not unless it could be proven that it was theft. George's idiot uncle, responsible for the loss, might have to answer some serious questions, with respect to the loss, but it would not be likely that he would be held for theft. Certainly not George, who only entrusted the money to his uncle. The movie is dark in parts, especially the interpersonal relationship's of George and his family and his relationship with his brother. But good God, have you looked around at relationships in this country lately? What is our divorce rate? What is the holiday get-together like for most people? I can't say the following about most all of film that has passed before me during my life. But, I would love to have written that screenplay, or the novel behind it (there was no novel). I love real people. People with too much weight, varicose veins and bad hair. I love people who lose control on occasion but reel themselves back in. I love people who do things they need to apologize for and then apologize. I love people who tell me that I am full of shit, and then argue appropriately that I really am. I love people who say no to what I want to do, so that I am forced to convince them. I love people who drink too much of my wine and get drunk, and then drive when they should not, and then suffer a bad hangover and call to apologize for things they cannot remember. Am I this way because of Fusner, Stevens, Sugar Daddy and the rest? Is what I feel, as my true humanity, nothing more than post traumatic stress disorder from the DSM IV manual?

I don't know. Joe Campbell said that you must work and toil to finally, and only possibly, enjoy bliss at the very center of your being. I have that. I know it. Even if I am McMurphy (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) inside some facility, unaware of where I really am, I have this bliss. I just know it. Merry Christmas.

Oh, Just Outrageous, but so 'ho-hum'......

James — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:49:50 EST

Bernard Madoff is at home in his seven million dollar penthouse. He is wearing some sort of GPS anklet or bracelet so the authorities will know that he is in residence from nine p.m. until nine a.m., when he gets to go out for the day. He was supposed to qualify for this privilege (of not sitting in a dank crummy holding cell downtown) by putting up the penthouse (which he bought with stolen money) and getting four friends or family to sign responsibility for him. It is extremely denigrating to go to friends and family for this kind of favor, by the way. So he didn't do it. He put up the penthouse and then the court decided to let him out of getting the four people to sign. Outrageous? Of course. The Federal Prosecutors are about ninety percent successful at getting their intended victims held without bail (or getting the terms of the bail so onerous that it cannot be met) for 'flight risk' potential. They get this through normally, even for people who have no passport, and have never been out of the country (you gotta leave the country to evade the Feds, and that will only serve you for a short time, unless you are Marc Rich), and have no assets to use to support any kind of successful fugitive evasion. But, what do we have here? Madoff, if convicted, would serve the rest of his life in prison, easily, according to the mandatory sentence guidelines. He has a chateau in France. He has two huge offshore yachts, staffed and waiting. He has tons of cash in all kinds of foreign accounts. He does not need no stinking passport! Oh, and they took his wife's passport. Now that was meaningful. More crap. We are being handed more crap. Like Caroline getting that Senate seat (forgone conclusion there). Just crap, repackaged with a brown wrapper and shiny brown ribbon. Merry Christmas America. And you think Governor Rod is going to prison? Think again. Picture Madoff up there in his penthouse, overlooking all of New York, while you sit down there in your one room flat you can't even make the payment on. I encourage you 'normal' New Yorkers to begin looking skyward. Madoff is up there, enjoying the Argentinian wines I write about, and laughing. What are you doing? Sit there and think. Playing with matches is not always something you should be punished for.

Writing of Argentinian wine, I have found another. Now, you know I am not a connoisseur, since I don't drink at all (I do consume huge quantities of Alterra coffee) and, when I was drinking, way back there, I downed Barcardi rum with coca cola. So, take all wine stuff with a grain of salt. It snowed over a foot last night and the stuff is still coming down. Jeff, the guy who plows me out, because i am not a John Deere kind of a guy, has had to come three times because his plow is not all that big. On the last trip I gave him my last bottle of Don David. You know, the good stuff that my guests have been raving about. Jeff frowned and smiled at the same time. The Don David is going to go down the hatch, for sure, but Jeff is more a Blatz kind of guy himself (I know, I know, they don't make that old beer anymore). I served this new stuff last night, which I found at a butcher shop in Port Washington on this recent trip. I was actually in there buying head cheese, a German delicacy which you, being assumed to be normal, will not eat. It was for my mother. She is not normal. Anyway, I spotted this dust covered bottle of Argentinian wine. It was priced at $7.99, an 06, and a Malbec from my favorite valley (the Mendoza). So I took it to the counter and asked the meat-remnant-covered butcher about it. "I don't know nuthin' about the wine. Its been here since I bought the place last year. That one's old though. You can have it for five bucks." So I bought it along with the head cheese.

It is called Trapiche. The company putting it out in the Mendoza valley is quite aptly named the Bodega Trapiche Company. Bodega being the key word here. My guest's drank it last night, but not the whole bottle. They just could not get that far. One of my connoisseur friends stated "it has the approach of fuel starved single-engined Cessna, the attack of a studded wet leather whip, and the finish of a greenish brown troll, like the one who lives behind the slats under your back porch." They drank almost all of it anyway, because I was saving the Don David for Jeff, and my supply is low. One neat thing, however. I poured the remainder of the bottle onto a clear white place in the snow this morning. It was beautiful! The snow has since tried to accumulate over it, but the intensity of color and the acidity of the brew has continued to overwhelm the tremendous building efforts of even this blizzard. If I order five cases, open the bottles and apply liberally up and down my driveway, I will not only add an amazing new color element to my home, but I will probably not have to pay Jeff for the rest of the winter. These 'Bodega' guys and gals have happened upon something they, as yet, have no clue about. This may be as good a product as synthetic rubber!

The Storms

James — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:01:20 EST

A storm of snow slowly, ever so slowly, creeps its way across the Midwest, to eventually arrive right here in Lake Geneva, where it was bound all along. At least, that is how I view weather. I never think of a storm occurring elsewhere and then moving over me. After all, how could one storm blanket miles and miles and miles of countryside before it ever even got to me. I mean, there just wouldn't be enough snow left for me. It just does not make sense. So I am a local storm nut. I love them. The storms, I mean, not necessarily the after-effects. Yes, I do put the chains on the Rover (at least I claim I do, but in actuality they have never been out of their neat canvas bags located behind the front seats) as I do know how to do that (I have the soggy and worn cardboard directions back there too). I am ready. I have wood for my fireplace. Covered by canvas in the back yard, down from the Advent trees. I also went to the store to buy some more junk, and it was loaded. Where or when is this brutal economy going to hit. The one we all read and write about? It is not at the Sentry store nearby my place. The floor and aisles were jammed and people were buying tons of frozen pizza and coke. And booze. They do not necessarily have a ton of class out here, but they know how to get through a long blizzard.

A storm continues to sweep through the life of Illinois Governor Rod. He is sitting down there, beneath the border, in his huge chateau. It is cold, windy and just about to dump feet of white stuff on his manicured lawn outside. But inside, it is colder still. If he keeps reading my blog he will stay in office. His office (and my advice with respect to it) is the only thing he has to bargain with. The wild-eyed Republicans around the state have been hunting him for a year. Now they have him in their sights and they are not letting him out. He has to make it as expensive as he can, in order for them to get him. It appears he is doing a good job of that. If he quits, then they lock him up, which would not be all bad. Have you ever listened to his wife? Mack the Knife immediately comes to mind. That woman would cut any man and leave him bleeding. But he picked her. He chooses to wear his hair that way. He chose to go ahead and say whatever he felt like when he knew he was being recorded. Governor Rod is going to go, but it will only be because he made it happen. If he gets a prison sentence at least she will be long gone when he gets out. Life's little bonus elements, here and there.

A storm is also brewing in the auto industry. The auto workers are figuring it out. First, if things don't go their way, they need to burn down Thomas Friedman's house. You know, Mr. Flat Earth. Then they can move on to my favorite "Jobba The Hutt" character, Bill Bennet, and burn his place out. The auto company executives? Easy pickings. They have not even learned to hide their address information yet. Finally, the massed workers can proceed to the retired auto executives, as they will never figure out that they have been figured out. Well, not finally. No, that is reserved for you esteemed Congressional members. Each and every one who voted against the auto bailout. Those fires will also keep us warmer. Fires in those places will assure that there will be no high usage utilities being used there either. It is a green thing to do. Hooray for the AFL-CIO. We have not heard the last of those guys and gals. America. I love it.

Clark Griswald

James — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:46:07 EST

My Advent trees (you know, the five I have lit sequentially, making believe that I have some understanding of the Christian tradition in this area) have struck me down. The breaker blew last night around midnight. So the outside circuit is dead, unless I disconnect some of the lines to the trees. The breaker just keeps clicking off if I try to reset or keep them plugged in. The scene where Clark Griswald blows his own electricity out in the movie 'Christmas Vacation' is reminiscent. I plunged into the basement and figured all of everything I had to figure out to get back online. To no avail. So I am ruminating. Night will come and my unknown, but well known, and expectant, admirer's will be driving by and looking. Without the Advent trees all they will see is right into the back of my house, and I have been told that I keep too many lights on (true) and that people can vaguely see movement in the house at all hours (I have discussed this with Harvey). They never comment that it might be a violation of some sort to look in, or that it might be bad manners to tell me after they do look in. But I am not violated. I am just acting like I might be a bit violated. I don't know what kind of a guy I am but, whatever I am, I can handle the interest of friends and even those who don't quite measure up to that moniker.

Gifts. I am at the end of the Christmas rope here near Christmas. Things are so very far away from here. I mean 'real' stores. I wonder how much of America is in my situation with this. What can you buy locallly from a Home Depot or a Wall Mart? And these are Home Depots and Wall Marts that are stocked for country living. Just how many Toro snow blowers, Stanley levels or DeWalt drills can one give out as presents? And to whom? Women do not like gifts of tools (like a vacuum cleaner, which was portrayed as a gift that got a guy into a long term dog house in an ad I saw on television recently....a great ad, I might add). And many men do not like that either. So industrial strength gifts are out. That leaves me with a long drive to the shopping centers of Milwaukee or Illinois. I hate crossing the state line. I always feel like I am wanted by some shadowy authority when I go down there. The fact that nobody ever notices that I have entered the state, well, that is bothersome from a different, and more solitary, perspective altogether! And Milwaukee! What do I say about that place? Worse roads, from a directional standpoint, than Washington D.C. But I must get ready and get out there. A foot of snow today, they say, with more on Saturday. I better get out there and get under the lip of the coming white mantle. Hawaii beckons but I have miles to go before I sleep. Whitman. If you don't recognize the quote, I mean. I'll bet he was a great guy. But you never know about artists. We are a bit whacked around the edges, here and there.

Caroline Kennedy is not selected to fill Hilary's seat. Not yet, anyway. So there is a sliver of hope. We need some raucous junior legislator on his or her way up. Full of brimstone and testy brine. Ready to pull a Mr. Smith or Ms. Smith goes to Washington kind of thing. We don't need the faux royalty of this country doing more of their paltry do-nothing showboating. And then there is torture. Finally, the outrages committed in our name are receiving some notice. Mainstream media is hopeful that nothing will come of it, however. They want Obama to drop such 'rear-looking' investigations. But this is one that needs to be brought right up to the top of the table. We need to know. We need to consider and then judge. We need to make absolutely certain that this bottle, with the genie inside, gets corked and buried deep under some New York landfill. The only way to do that is to know, and then reflect, and then be sorry as hell that we allowed this current serving slime to represent us like that. And don't compare this to what was done by the idiots who flew into those buildings on 911. That is them. Screw them. We can't change them. But we can change us and assure that we do not ever resemble them. Let's do it.

I've got it! I can run another extension cord from one of the sockets on the other side of the house to run half the lights! Those sockets are on a different circuit, according to the weird scrolling written next to the breaker switches on the panel, so they should be able to distribute the load. Merry Christmas, from the Lake Geneva Griswalds!

Sweet Caroline...

James — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:13:43 EST

It looks like we will just continue the "aristocratic movie star" kind of crap that has been going on in this country since right after television became common to most households. Fame is everything. If you are not known, or do not have a 'linked' last name, then you are a peasant, and you will not be allowed to rise above your status. Caroline Kennedy, without complaint and without any credentials at all...except great fame, looks to be the next Senator from New York. The woman who preceded her, and is now about to be our Secretary of State, lived in New York about three months before starting her run for that seat. And her husband was the former President. So there is plenty of precedent in New York and around this country. Arnold is governor in California. Dumb as a post. About as educated and life-experienced as a troll, but there he is. Nero is fiddling while Rome is slowly but surely beginning to burn. You can see the smoke. You can almost smell it, but not quite yet. I was up in Northern Wisconsin again, over the past few days, and several people asked me about the nation's anger. As in, where the hell is it. I did not have an answer for that question. I don't know. Maybe all this has to really come home to everyone's front door. Maybe the appointment and election of such dolts, and the disaster they leave strewn in their path, will only sink in when it is up close, personal and in everyone's face. Caroline will stroll into her new Senate office and set up shop, with the usual trail of servants, security, pomp and circumstance. We are giving away all of our country to this kind of deliberate stupidity. Without any anger at all. She will sit there and be honored and fretted over, while auto workers are laid off and dumped into the social and physical sewers of this land.

I notice that Gates, of the CIA, is apologizing for black permanent magic marker being used to 'highlight' secret documents that are now being declassified and given out under Freedom of Information Requests. It seems that black highlighters were used in order to, well, highlight the important sensitive parts of many documents. And this is told to us, the public, straight-faced. And the press just rolls over and eats it up. What a crock!!! They use black highlighters to redact. They use it on the original documents because the original document can still be read after highlighting (just hold it up to the light and the letters will be visible no matter whether they were typed, written with ballpoint or even pencil), but they are totally black to photocopiers. Get it yet? All Freedom of Information Request Responses are copied. You even pay for each copy they make for you. But the black 'highlighter' leaves you completely in the dark about whatever they want to keep you in the dark about. And now they lie about it. And get believed by the supportive donkey mainstream media. Actually the media is simply paid well to do just that.

I also heard some anger, while I was up there in the North, about the missing money. It is becoming apparent, with the toppling of the Ponzi guy in New York (for 50 billion, or so) that the whole derivative and hedge fund thing is nothing more than a series of Ponzi schemes (wherein the people who invest early are paid with the money coming in the door later, to keep them appeased and quiet) which were used to allow the schemers to take almost all of the money themselves. That money is offshore and tied up in many many luxury homes, boats and planes. As I explained about this fine mess, the real problem is that the very people charged with going after these people are all part of it! Yes, the Paulson people, and so on, have their own offshore accounts. Paulson is a multi-billionaire. Hell, almost all the people at the top now are. Have you not noticed? So what can we expect? What we can expect is that these thieving people are going to continue to divest themselves of dollars while they print money hand over fist from the Federal Reserve. You see, if you do not hold dollars (instead you have hard commodities like gold and silver and platinum) then you do not have to care that the printing of trillions of dollars of more money will dilute the rest of it out here. Stand by for some real inflation. Like twenty or thirty percent per year or more. But it will not apply to those people.

Oh, you will be mad about it. But you are not yet. You are still believing that Obama and the dream team are going to pull this thing out in the last reel. Well, they are not. They are not hear to pull us out. They are here to make us all feel better as we go through this terribly tough purge. We are at the end of the beginning. The winter will now grow colder and colder, and then colder still. Be as ready as you can. Where the hell is Bill Bennet hiding when I need somebody to take this out on?

The last 'advent tree' is lit. Christmas is days away. It is a wonderful time of coming change and challenge, of anger and deeper emotions. It is going to be a time of love and care, for those close to us. It has been quite some time since that kind of thing has been a part of this cold existential culture. Merry Christmas, and thank you God for giving us more problems so that we may grow stronger as we solve them.

The Outliars....

James — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:13:06 EST

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2008 The Outliars...Actually, the book by Malcomb Gladwell is called The Outliers, I think. But I like the other spelling better. David Brooks, in the New York Times reviewed the book as part of his column this morning. Besides the point on my mind lately, like just how does one even get one's book reviewed by the New York Times Book Review, much less on the editorial page, I read the review with raised eyebrow. Here we go again, was all I could conclude. With a background steeped in social studies, it is so easy to spot more hookum. The age old argument, nature versus nurture, is placed before us once more, in a bright new package and with some pretty fluffy new wording. The book is referred to as a breakthrough and brilliant. Max Weber, turn in your grave! Max was one of the early 20th century social scientists who believed and wrote about the system versus the individual. It seems that there arose, many years before we had social sciences, an argument about this. Does the individual influence the course of social development or does the social system influence the course of the development of the individual. Nature versus nurture, once again and back then. Gladwell has repackaged Weber's Germanic argument. It is all the social system influencing the individual. It is the luck of the draw. Self determination only plays a minor role. The example of Bill Gates is cited. Bill was able to attend a school, during his early development, which had the latest computers. Or so the hoary old myth goes. In truth, Bill did have computers available to him, but it was his relationship with a small group of computer nerds and geniuses which allowed Bill to do what he did. He exercised extreme individual self-determination by stealing their developments and putting them out there for the public. P.T. Barnum would have been proud. But, Malcomb has the right contacts. That I have to give him. I can't get a visitor pass to enter the New York Times building, much less reach a David Brooks to convince him to review and then write about my book. No, I have purchased a plane ticket to New York, arranged for a cheap room, and I must travel there to skulk about the sidewalks with the other street people. Maybe they are just authors like me, out there in the cold trying to figure out a way to sneak inside. I don't know yet. I am going in January. I will report, using shaky frozen fingers to punch letters into my iphone and hiding under cardboard from the New York Police.

Meanwhile, I shall wait for self-determination to overcome me. I watched the financial guru on ABC this morning. She was all about self-determination. She is a young black woman who offers banal comments about how to do better with your personal finances. It is always the same. Pay cash. Get cash. Save cash. Save more cash. Like anybody has the extra money laying around to save, especially at this time of the year. But, indeed, that was her point this morning. Then there's the give a group gift thing. One gift for a group of people. I begin to laugh at her openly. I can't help it. Can you imagine getting this potted plant, sent to the entire family, of which you are a part? It would sit out there, in the seven below zero post Christmas weather we have here. My group would watch it rapidly freeze and grow as shriveled as the bleak little heart which dictated its fate. She (the guru) also recommended giving services. Teach someone how to cook a great dinner. I love that one. After you cook the great dinner, and have discharged your great and wonderful 'gift-giving,' then you can eat the food and get the hell out of there before the kitchen must be cleaned up. She herself, this guru, is going to give people free financial advice for the holidays! I started to howl at that one. Harvey split for a quieter part of the house and I had to get up to clean spilled coffee from my special blue robe. You see, I got the whole thing. She can advise her friends and family to get more cash. Pay with cash and save cash. They will just be ever so happy. They will howl too. And spill their boiling hot coffee. Amazingly, their coffee will somehow end up all over the guru, by accident of course. Her injuries will later be blamed on the movement of the social structure, since individual determinism has been taken care of by Mr. Brooks friend, the esteemed social scientist Malcomb Gladwell.

There is meaning in the universe this morning. Mr. Kass, a columnist in the Chicago Tribune, has termed the Illinois Governor to be Governor Dead Meat. Now, I like that. The carrion birds are madly circling lower and lower. Governor Rod is staying inside his rolling and armored Chevy Suburbans. Ever moving. Occasionally, as he circles the capital building, errant shoes bounce from the sides of his vehicle, but he doesn't even flinch. George Bush is a flincher. Governor Dead Meat is anything but that. He plots and reads while his cavalcade moves slowly about. He reads my blogs. He thinks about mobilizing the National Guard, but can't quite work up the courage for that. He thinks about arresting the pesky Madigans. The Attorney Madigan trying to toss him out on disability and the State Politician Madigan trying to toss him out just for fun. And he plots between shoe impacts, occasionally sweeping his nine pound hair do back to its proper place over his eyes. "Maybe if they can't see me..." he breathes to himself....

The Mastodons

James — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:11:26 EST

In a time 25,000 years ago, a small tribe located in a primal valley attempts to survive the many threats from geology, weather, hunger and health of the times. The perspective of this sweeping adventure is from that of a young boy, cast down by not out, ignored by his family and friends, but accepted by the animal life indigenous to this period. It is a story of integrity lost and won, hard-earned honor and its meaning and effect, but above all, a romance of great proportions. The boy loses and learns, fights for love and survival itself, while attempting to overcome physical and social difficulties that at times seem insurmountable. The first novel of this series is called The Boy and it establishes a benchmark for the beginnings of the meteoric rise of the homo sapiens species, from its lowly beginnings to its eventual dominance over the entire planet.

And so reads the back cover of the new novel. I wonder what the public is going to think of it. So much of that (the public's opinion) is all about some of the things I rail about on this blogsite. Who has access to the eyes, minds, hearts and souls of this population we all belong to? Who has access at all to the outpouring of sensory pleasing technology? The books, the television and the movies? It is not me. I have a large voice in Hollywood, on two shows, but I am mostly unknown (credit is much harder to come by in Hollywood than money). I have a little bitty voice on the blogsites. Learning about how to have a larger voice is fraught with hard-work, serendipity and relationships. How to make it all work to get a message out. I ponder into the cold dark night. It is below zero here and the wind is right at twenty on my anemometer. It is to snow again tomorrow and the next day, and this is proof of global warming. I read that on Fox, one of the scrolls across the bottom of a screen that went by while ORielly was talking bad talk about Blogojevitch, the embattled governor of Illinois. He is even colder than us, up here above him in Wisconsin. Cold and becoming more alone with each passing day. Soon, the icicle he married will dump him too, and rejoin the ranks of Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Kelly Rippa and the rest of the brittle botox queens of advancing age and declining beauty.

There is not much good to say about the mess that Governor Rod has created for himself, and also the one that his enemies are helping to make worse. After all, they want to sell that senatorship themselves, and then the governorship itself. Just as soon as they can get rid of the Donald Trump Hair Guy, I mean. We have watched high offices be traded for favors and more ever since this country got under way. What is this new explosion of outrage all about? I mean, come on. The brother gets appointed, the son, the wife. All the time. To just about any office. Try Cheney's daughters being given jobs to run the Middle East! And look at New York. There is another do nothing law school graduate from a silver spoon background of no life experience being touted for the senator's job there. Her name is Caroline Kennedy. This is to be another of the leaders that is supposed to lead us where? Is there any wonder we are hip deep in the big muddy and sinking fast? While we go down, knowing and stating that we have been lead to our fate by idiots, we appoint new idiots to represent us along the way. Oh Caroline seems like a nice lady. All of us with age watched her at her father's funeral. But what has she done? Nothing. The advantage of gaining public office today is to have done nothing with your life. You cannot be found to have done anything wrong. At least she will be used to the limos and the private aircraft and the rest of the royalty perks we give our own aristocracy, while we look the other way and condemn those evil unions and those overpaid auto workers. Like she is going to give a damn about people like that. Our aristocracy is just like all the aristocracies which have preceded it. They are taught not to give a damn. It is simply a part of being what and who they are.

So I am trumpeting for the auto workers. Yes, those guys and gals who build Chevys, Fords and Chryslers across this land. I am looking to see that they get a fair deal, and they get to keep their jobs at an even higher rate of pay. I want the ideals of America, and how we go here, to this point, to be reapplied. How we got into space with real quality equipment. How we got to the moon. How we built world aviation almost single cultured. How we built the computer revolution step by step. How we did, and are doing, all of it. We did it with hard work, grit, and determination and talent. And we used our money to help fund those efforts. So, God Damn It, lets lay out the bucks to build these new cars that this fickle public seems to want. Give the building cars over to the rest of the world and we might as well just hang on to Mediterranean Place and Baltic Avenue, while ceding each and every other property on this World Monopoly Board to the rest of those cultures out there. Screw them. Let's fix our own situation. Let's get busy and build some real cars and show all those bastards a thing or two, again. And if our representatives stand in the way of this, lets show those people just what riots and tough times are like. They all live in mansions in D.C. and in their home states. Lets go get the addresses and start visiting. Hell, if those craven thieves have their way (the 'conservative' representatives) there will be plenty of unemployed auto workers to make those visits. With tools.

The Advent, of something...

James — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:19:56 EST

I have been brought up short, with respect to what have become known as the advent trees around here. My five trees, which I have been lighting sequentially, I mean. It seems, from writers out there who are not as Christian culturally deprived as I, that the advent wreath, as it is properly called, indeed has five candles. There is a center one I had forgotten. So, my five trees, symbolically, are correct. The fifth candle is in the center of the wreath (just as my fifth colored tree is in the center!). So I got all that right. A candle is supposed to be lit on the day of the beginning of each week until Christmas (starting on November 30). Roughly, I have accomplished that. The center candle is lit on Christmas Day. I screwed that up, as that tree is already lit and burning bright in multiple colors. I have one more tree to go, but, as it turns out, I have a few days before I must have it ready. Whew! And it is five below with a twenty mile an hour wind out there this morning. I kid you not. The wind chill is so cold that I did not retrieve the papers from my driveway in my ratty blue robe and slippers. I stepped out there, as did Harvey. We both stepped instantly back, with mutual shudders. I put my wool lined duster on to retrieve those items. This time Harvey watched from the window. No fool, that cat.

The Green Bay Packers are quite the thing here. And there is a pall hanging over this entire area, as the Packers lose game after game, Sunday after Sunday. It is like living in Rome, when the Colliseum was all the rage, on Sunday afternoons. Except lately, the Christians have been kicking the crap out of the Lions, so to speak. And that is terrible. Bret Favre, however stupid the spelling of that man's name is, compared to it's pronunciation (which, however, is explained by the stupidity he evidences every time he opens his mouth), has been winning up there in New York. You see, he retired a year ago, then tried to come back, but the current Packer management no longer wanted to deal with such an outrageously famous, arrogant and stupid movie-star-like player. This part of the American outback does not take to that well. So, they said no, stay retired, but then they weakened and allowed him to go play for somebody else. And now they are losing games while that New York team is winning. There is a quiet across the land out here. That quiet is the same one that comes before a storm. Current Packer Management is about to become the eye of that storm. And they better have some prospects (like maybe coaching for the Winnepeg White Doves, or somebody like that). All they had to do was have a winning season. Not even get into the play-offs. That would have been okay. Or, even if they had the current season (like two wins and a hundred and eight losses), and Favre had a losing season too, that would have been alright. But no. They are so screwed. Before this season is out, those coaches will be put in one those yellow and green wagons I see all over out here, and towed (by a hugely expensive John Deere) to the football garbage dump.

Writing of garbage, Governor Rod is still not giving up. Nope. He has been reading my blog and saying "Aha!" after he takes in the paragraphs I devote to him. He has not arrested Ms. Big Fat Lawyer Mouth Madigan yet, nor taken on the Righteous Roaring Ftizgerald in open combat. But he may at any time. It is so cold that he could call out the National Guard just to defend his population against that. The power of being governor is a marvelous thing. And he has that young cute wife to go home to every night. Rod toils and Rod bubbles....and what more can we, his bored public, ask for? Entertain us Rod. For sure that is the greatest thing you could do for us since you could never govern yourself out of a wet paper bag. C'mon Rod, Advent is fast closing in on us. Light that last candle early. I dare you.

Messy day, great season, nice life...

James — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:24:33 EST

According to Joe Campbell, it is all about bliss. That is the general feeling of goodness, wellness and self-worth, that one should be able to generate from deep inside one's center. Happiness, well, he didn't like the word, because it is linked (by its origin) to happenstance. Outside influence. We should be able to generate bliss no matter what the circumstance, or happenstance. So, I try. I do not always get it though. Some days 'happenstance' overwhelms me. This financially trade-oriented world has, at its very heart, discovery and negotiation as it's main tools. You discover knowledge that no one else has and you can make money. You negotiate from what you have, to gain more of what other's have. And so on. This is a life of some considerable worry and stress, simply because of that process. Then there are natural disasters. People dying or getting cancer all about. And other things. So, my bliss is regularly challenged.

Today, I have been out in the decaying melting snow sliding down hills with the two Indian kids that came here with the tribe the day before yesterday. I have been throwing snowballs (I used to be quite accurate and, on top of that, was willowy enough so that I did not get hit a lot...but now, I am riddled by small children, and I never seem to be able to hit them at all). Anyway, there was a lot of laughing, mostly at me. King of the Hill was a lot more fun when you just fell down the hill and didn't take half of it with you! And I can't type worth a hoot because I was too stupid to wear real gloves out there and my fingers won't work right.

I read the papers and watched the television, of course. Coffee and the papers, with Sunday morning visible just over the top of my pages. I watched Mr. Good Looking Even at Seventy-Eight (Robert Wagner) explain one more time how he and Christopher Walken did not kill Natalie Wood that night aboard their yacht off of Catalina Island. Which I understand and did not mind. I did not like the part where he gushed over about Jill St. John coming along in his deepest hours of grief and loss to fill the void. Oh Please! What kind of grief and loss is that? I mean, that it can be immediately filled by another Hollywood starlet? And then they sit there, Bob and Jill, doing the mutual admiration society thing. "Bob is the most wonderful human male on the planet. He is such a gentleman." And on and on on, until it is his turn to gush about her. Where are the decent reporters who refuse to put up with this kind of self-serving crap? Gone to graveyards, every one. Or maybe drowned and floating off of Cataline Island.

So I put my head back down into the editorials. And there was Governor Rod. I can't ever remember how to spell his last name, or even say it really. Sort of like that guy over in Iran. But, I digress. Governor Rod is being lampooned left and right. He is quite a wonderful target. It is written that he takes our mind off of our real problems. He is acceptable to Illinois because Illinois is so corrupt anyway. And so on. Then we have this new witch Madigan. She, State Attorney General of Illinois, has dredged up some variation of the 'disablity' act thing, whereby a governor can be declared unfit for duty if he is badly ill or hurt. Let's see, his disability, according to this 'Palin-like' Madigan, and I am not making this up, is a 'political disability.' You gotta love it! Governor Rod is politically disabled. Lisa Madigan and Governor Rod hate each other, by the way. She is another of these no-life-experience-but-I-went-to-law school types. She is friends with Obama (like most of the rest of us). She wants to be the governor or take the open Senate seat. Naturally. Mr. Smith, when he went to Washington in that movie, was the last politician to simply want to do the right thing for the good of all. But then, he was fictional, wasn't he.

Rod is hanging tough, trying to make the best deal he can. Call out the National Guard Rod! You will get more credibility. Or, if not that, at least more negotiation room. Barring all of that, get hold of whoever did the legal and P.R. work for Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken!

"Don David"

James — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:04:20 EST

Another Argentinian Malbec (that is a red wine like Cabernet Savignon, but more mellow) has been served up, after I took a proper chastising on the internet. Yes, Val de Flores is much more expensive, and yes it got rave numbers in the Wine Spectator, but man-o-man do my guests like this Don David. And it is sixteen dollars a bottle, from the strumpet's 'going out of business anytime soon' paramour. Of course, my guests are currently Santo Domingo Indians and staying with me here in the main residence. But they are erudite, albeit very careful and limited, imbiber's of the red fermented grape. Such a thing is possible, in spite of all the stuff we hear about alcohol problems on reservations. Maybe the fact that these Indians are such fantastic artists in silver, gold and such means something. I don't know. My neighbors and friends have encountered these special tribal people and found them to be riveting conversationalists, as well. Tonight we shall reprise last night with the professor and his wife over to enjoy it all. Christmas. I love it.

My third advent tree gets turned on tonight. One more to go. I have so many strings out there I have to use three circuits to keep from clicking off the breakers in the basement. As it is, my lights dim a bit anyway. What are you going to do? A little bit of Clark (Christmas Vacation, the movie) lives and breathes inside my core. I love all the deocrations (not to the point of watching Queer Eye for a Straight Guy on television, however).

Why are the Republican's so powerful in Congress? I mean, they are in the minority. Why are they not even being forced to filibuster? What is wrong with the democrats in Congress? Why are we not supporting the car industry when they need such a small amount? Hell, we even bailed out American Express and they were not in trouble, by their own admission. What is wrong with what is going on? Plenty. It is still about getting all they can get before Obama and his team get installed. And it is running rampant. I don't know where this is going to go but I doubt whether any of it is going to be forgotten as things get worse. And I do pity the people who are doing this. They do not know. They do not study history and they have come to believe that the only authority they need fear is self-derived and controlled. It is what took the Illinois governor to his edge of doom. It is going to take those people too. You see, you are the ultimate power. It is just that you seldom ever, as a unit, take it into your own hands. Why are we allowing these creeps to demand that our workers make less? I am not an auto worker. I am not blue collar. In fact, you might make a case for me being a liberal 'elitist.' But I am not. I do well, with my writing and other business interests. I want everyone to do well, however. That is the liberal in me. I really do want life to imitate It's A Wonderful Life and other films of the same ilk. What is wrong with me? Why do I seem out of place?And, if I am, how did we come to be this cold uncaring culture? We ought to bail out the car companies, big time, and then fire all the top executives and find some new ones. We ought to give the auto workers, one and all a raise, just for being put through all of this crap! We have scared the be-jesus out of them all, and right before Christmas. That guy who runs Tesla Motors, out there in California...let's make him the Auto Czar! And Steve Jobs. Can't he take a break from Apple for a year or two and help his country out? An iCar. I love it. I would love it. You could just slap the name on a little chevy hybrid and it would sell millions! And then Bill Gates can come over and try to build something really super and attempt to make it a monopoly. He is great at that. These guys all owe us a lot. We ought to get them involved.

I would have a glass of Don David, like my friends downstairs, but then, I would end up in an institution somewhere, which would be bad. I have heard that some of our best comedians go to 'vacation resort institutions' from time to time. Maybe if I could go in with a one of them, like Robin Williams or Jonathan Winters....,now that would be worth doing. But, alas, I have obligations. I shall have some Alterra coffee, and just think about the robust flavor of a great Malbec.

Saturday Morning, Indian Weather....

James — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:27:14 EST

My Santa Domingo Indian friends have descended upon Lake Geneva. They are driving back from New York. Yes, they actually drove into Manhatten looking for a place to stay, crossed the Narrows bridge three times (paying the ten dollar toll each time) until they got their bearings. Picked up a ticket for an illegal "U Turn" out on the highway, but, because the highway patrolman was pro-Obama (as are they), he gave them a non-mover instead. Anyway, they are here. A long time ago, the sagest Indian among them (Raincloud...the Shaman of the tribe) told me, on an bad weather day, that it was "indian Weather" that day. I asked him what the hell Indian Weather was. He replied, straight-faced (they have no other real expressions you would recognize), that the White Man had stolen everything, and all that was left to the Indians was bad weather. Indian Weather. and so it has become among all of us who live and work around Antares Research and Development, our company.

I note that the creepy righteous Attorney General down in Illinois is still after Governor Rod. Still making unethical statements and trotting out questionable evidence. His showcasing of the governor's plight is a display, in major proportions, of what happens to any ordinary citizen if he or she gets caught up in the same system. The prosecutor, with his minions of assistants, all paid by taxes, holds press conferences about the case. Basically, the person is convicted by the media and the people well before any real trial begins. Only very wealthy or powerful people have the ability to have a press conference to refute such charges. And then, the press does not have to give you the opportunity. It is up to them. Hence the over ninety-eight percent conviction rate of the Feds. Unfair? Yes. Outrageous? No, unless you are the poor target of such tactics. We have a culture which is really more like a huge swimming fish ball. The fish ball up so the attacking sharks will only attack the outside of the ball. The fish keep swarming, all fighting to get on the inside of the fishball. Our justice system represents the sharks. Don't ever get caught on the outside of that fishball. I also note that the governor seems to be taking it all pretty quietly. There are some moves by the State Attorney General to try to remove him, but, as I said, they must be extremely careful. The governor's office of any state is really not to be toyed with. Not with impunity, anyway.

I note that it is being argued on the Senate floor that American Workers need to get their compensation closer to that of the foreign competition in order to be employable. You are getting to watch, right from the front row seats, the neocons finish what they started so many years ago. The destruction of the middle class and 'flat-earth' application of global economy. That is where all workers here get paid like the Chinese there or the Vietnamese. It is important that the standard of living for the middle class plummet further. That is the only way the very wealthy can truly enjoy their wealth. That they get to enjoy only a short time before another French Revolution results, well, they don't worry about that.

Today I must get out and do the fourth 'Advent' tree. I have sworn not to use a ladder so I have to curl and toss one string of lights to the top, which is hard when it is ten degrees and the wind is blowing at thirty. That is the way it is right now. I kind of like the way it makes me feel. Fighting tough. Survival challenged. Some meaning in life. I am hunkered down here, only going out to hit the coffee shop, buy food and Christmas stuff.

Just Walk Away Renee....

James — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:00:28 EST

Bloomberg just lost in it's request to prize 'Freedom of Information Act' stuff from the Federal Reserve. It seems that the Federal Reserve has given out two trillion dollars (which it does not have, so it had to print the money) to several different financial organizations over the course of the past few months. It seems that the Federal Reserve has a provision with respect to 'trade secrets' that allows it to dispense money to financial organizations without telling anyone anything. We don't know who got the money. We don't know what they provided as collateral, if any. We do not know what the provisions are for paying it back. The statement of denial to Bloomberg did, however, comment upon the need for transparency, with respect to all of the Fed's financial transactions! But, it seems, that need was sublimated to the need of the receiving organizations to maintain a public posture of strength. Are you getting it yet? Once again, we are redefining and legalizing theft. Where did the money go? We don't know. Trust the people at the Federal Reserve? Why? The top members of that organization have reached pardonable status. If they get caught then they will get pardoned, for working so hard on our behalf. We are a country of thieves and phoney heros. And they all live at the top. None of the people at the top are involved in anything of real life. They live in wealth and redistribute to their friends, and when they are caught in outrageous schemes, they are pardoned or able to negotiate their way out of any accountability. And so we will have it be at the Fed.

Down here, just above the level of rising muck, I write. On into a cold (zero) morning. It is time to go on out to Hawaii and sit on the beach with a Corona. No, I don't drink, but I do like the color (and yes, I am completely colorblind) of the liquid and the shape of that bottle. Maybe it is that I have just seen too many of the advertisements. I sit on the beach in my folding chair with an 'urban sombrero' to protect me from the sun. I wear a "T" shirt with a picture of Che on the front but the notation under the picture reads 'Obama.' I wait for something wildly droll but barely discernable to occur, like in the ads. And I wait. Like a drooling idiot. But I can't go out there yet. It is Christmas and I have the remaining two trees to decorate to complete my mad 'Advent' scheme up on that hill behind the house, which runs next to the road. People drive past on that road all the time. They are like readers of blogs. I don't know they are there, but they are. Every once and awhile, like an unexpected comment from a blog responder, they find a way to say something. Hence my mad scheme to entertain them. The third tree I decorated last night. This time I used multi-colored strings of light. The middle tree of the five. You see, advent calls for a wreath with four candles on it, when it is complete. So the fifth colored tree, the middle one in this case, represents the Christ. In my damaged way of thinking, anyway. Will my passing viewers get it? No. But here I am, about ready to enjoy the holidays and then run off to Ohau's Kahala Beach to sit and wait for nothing to happen. I have a laptop now so I can sit there and write more nonsense while I am out on the sand. Actually, I have a total re-write to get done. I am re-writing The Warrior, which is the follow-on book to The Boy (coming out in April). The Warrior is the 'real' novel that The Boy was written to introduce. But we'll see. You readers are a fickle lot and I don't understand you at all.

It is not funny that during this serious time (everyone always says that whatever time it is, it is the most serious of all time) that we have newscaster anchors like we have? I mean Newscasters Lite! Charlie Gibson, good old boy from morning radio, Wolf Blitzer, blowhard from Baghdad, and Anderson Cooper, our gay application with his 'Twiggy' presentation. Oh, I am forgetting Katie Couric, our Palin-seeming (she has a brain, however) sex kitten who made her bones by tearing her fellow cougar apart. Brian Williams is the only one who does not seem like some sort of human appearing iteration of the TeleTubbies. These are the talking-heads of our times, interspersed with various part-time talking heads, here and there. Bill Bennet was right up there as my favorite one of those, but now is out grazing off in some alcohol plant pasture, only holding his shaggy head up (with effort) in order to pick a new Keno number or check a lottery ticket. Rush grazes in that same pasture, from time to time, but just now is still on top of his game. Ever since he figured out how to change the labels on his pill containers they have not been able to farm him off that over-large office chair he spouts from daily. Are not these interesting news times?

Clint Eastwood has made another movie. This time it is Grand Torino. How fitting. An ugly old car, even when it first came out. How the car resembles that man. And his dark lousy movies. The Unforgiven was such a trashy piece of Western film that I was astounded. It was like Cormac McCarthy's The Road (novel). It was so rotten and trashy that it won all the awards. The awards being totally meaningless, except for the cash they cause to roll in, of course. Eastwood made one brilliant movie, and that was his adaptation of the novel 'Gone To Texas.' In the eighteen hundreds a person that disappeared was noted on police reports as GTT. You get it. When people got caught doing something they should not they did not all go to prison. The one's that figured out that the jig was up split for Texas, or somewhere else. Anyway, the movie Clint made was called The Outlaw Josey Wales. The movie was not only brilliant in plot and theme, but Clint's own acting performance was overshadowed by the fantastic performance of an actor named Chief Dan George. Wow. But that was kinda it for Clint. And now we have the older, much more miserable Clint. Mad that he is getting old. Mad about his looks. Mad at just about anything that is not violent, jingoist or prejudiced in some way or other. Clint is the quintessential red-neck and proud of it (I actually saw that phrase on a bumper sticker yesterday!). Almost like inferring the Bush thing "I am dumb and I am proud to be dumb." But we watch him. Most of us just walking away, or driving by, like the admirer's of my decorated trees.

They are just at it, again, and again, and again...

James — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:04:19 EST

Between the governor of Illiinois story and the auto bailout odyssey, we have the usual collection of news features. Murder here and there, butchered children every once and awhile, and even a cat that had its face sewed back together after some accident. But it is the bailout that is the most ridiculous. Oh, I know what you are thinking. How can one top the dumbest most arrogant governor story to come along since Huey Long? Try this. We are spending day, after endless day, talking and arguing about whether the car industry of this country should get a fifteen billion dollar bailout. The Senate, House, Whitehouse and even our 'Proto-Whitehouse With No Real Power, But Ready To Serve,' are all working back and forth on this miniscule bailout. Ever uglier Pelosi is hip deep with, and attached to, Harry Reid (we won't even bring up his looks, except to say the word 'troll') just working day and night on this idiocy. Why is it miniscule? Simply because we have so far given the banks six trillion, or so, of all kinds of money to help them out of bankruptcy. That is right. All the news is on the 15 billion while six trillion, so far, is out the back door. It is worse than a joke. Mr. Righteous Prosecutor Fitzgerald (using the biggest legal bully pulpit every trotted out before the American public) has the Illinois governor by the throat, publishing tapes and statements from everyone. What about saving that stuff for the trial, you ask? This is the trial, you idiot! And we allow this under our unfair system of federal justice. Then, by the way, when Fitzgeald gets his appointment in D.C. to some big job, well, that will be simply because he was so good at putting bad people in prison. Bah! Humbug! It will be because he traded the governor's life for it. However dumb and arrogant Rod was, or is, does not matter. It is our system that needs an overhaul.

And have we really forgotten Huey Long? Do we really want to take on a sitting governor of a populous state in this way? What if he gets mad? I mean snake hissing, hawk spitting and hog pissing mad. What could he do? Well, for starters he could mobilize the National Guard of the State of Illinois and force them to arrest Fitzgerald and all of his people! If the National Guard would not accept the quite legal order, then what kind of wild precedent would that set alone? If they did it, or the State Police did it, what would that cause? Huey did it. What if he closed the borders of Illinois? He could do it. What if he closed the airports for 'security' reasons? He could do that too. I mean the things that an angry governor can actually pull are beyond belief, and I have just written a few here. What if he dismissed the House and Senate of Illinois? Yes, he has the emergency powers to do that too. We could actually end up with either a huge confrontation between Illinois and the United States of America or, if that did not go, then a precedent setting lessoning of state's rights that would follow all of us for some time to come.

Yet here we are, Charles Gibson is trumpeting the attempt by Governor Rod to 'sell' the open Senate seat right now. Go ahead, poke the Governor B bear Charlie. And then we hear that, oh excuse me, but the bailout for the auto industry (wherein the big argument in favor would allow the car companies get rid of the unions and hire people for 'what they really are worth') has, tucked in quietly, an across the board pay increase for federal judges. Yes, while we trumpet the big pay of those poor hard-working car workers we are going to give a raise to the federal judges, across this land, who are already making eight-five bucks an hour (if they worked a forty hour work week, which they do not) in just base pay. With benefits and retirement thrown in, it actually comes to about two hundred an hour. Yes, they need a raise. And, but don't we just really need to get rid of those car workers? Funny, but I also think it will take rulings by those same Federal Judges to get rid of the the pesky unions!

We have bought into some paradigms of 'justice' and 'fairness' and economics which are leading us right over the edge of a cultural cliff. At the bottom of that cliff, which we are determined to leap over, is a place called social chaos. It is a familiar place. You see, we all came from it, or at least our ancestors did. It took us three million years to pull ourselves out the muck to have even this vestige of civilization. Now, here we are, slowly but surely, and deliberately, sinking back into that muck.

As we pause and reflect...

James — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:13:39 EST

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008 Star TrekWhat was it about that show? The many shows? Why is it so popular? Why do people, many of them anything but whacked-out science-fiction nuts, flock to the conferences? Because it is about philosophy, life and the human condition. That series of shows and movies always remained oriented around truth, justice and the dream of a better future. The dream of adventure filled with compassion and caring. Even when using such dialogue as "the need of the many outweighs the need of the few," it was written from a viewpoint of self-sacrifice, not enforced sacrifice. We are tribal in nature, we band of humans. We are not national or international, except by association. We take care of the people we know. The people we like. We admire cult, television and sports stars from afar, and it is to their advantage that most never become known by almost anyone, other than those selected to be in their close tribes.

We are living in a time when we are going to be forced to become more homogeneous, not less. We are not going to be run by some international government, or, if we are, we are not going to care. We are going to soon be forced to look within, to our family, our circle of close friends, our neighborhood. And that is where we shine. Just as the 'tribe' in Star Trek was, in reality, a small cadre of tribal members who manned the bridge of the Enterprise, or appeared on it regularly. There is even a standing joke among Trekkies with respect to crewmen who wore red uniforms. When those 'non-tribal member' crewmen appeared in a scene you knew they were going to get killed by the aliens or in some gruesome accident. And it did not matter all that much. But when a tribal member was lost to the show, as in life, then there was grief and wailing to no end.

Tribalism is good. From the close association of tribal members comes new ideas. Comes synergy of ideas and work. Comes survival cooperation. We are all in this life to survive and propagate. That is it. All that was given to us by biology and physics. But we, us homo sapiens, have taken that to a height beyond what we know to be the case in this universe. We have used tribalism to advance ourselves to the point where we can actually give ourself as one for the good of the many. And that is a tribal achievement. Our young men and women still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, are not dying for the money, the contract they signed, or for the Marine Corps or the Army. They are not dying and being horrendously wounded for you and me. Unless that you and me has a family member or friend doing so. They are doing it for the tribe they serve with and the tribe they have back home. It is how we get through. How we survive. And it is good.

As Obama is organizing a tribe to surround him in the White House, to supplement the family one he is moving in there, we are called upon to do the same thing in our lives. Think. You have time. Who do you want in your tribe? What does it take to have that participation? What must you do to be a member? What must you require of other's for their membership? It is time to take an active role in such thoughts, and then actions. In this direction lies bliss. Joe Campbell. This is about Joe's understanding of mythology and the real world. Come in from the real world. You can only survive the real world by living in the mythical one.

My coming series, called The Mastodons, is all about this. The first book is called The Boy and will be available at TheMastodons.com soon. Come, adventure with me.

"O Holy Night"

James — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:56:43 EST

There is not much about Christmas in these newspapers I get, nor on the television, really. We had the final show of Boston Legal the other night, and boy was that ever a neat Christmas trip! The legal firm is purchased by the Chinese (with plenty of anti-Chinese crap thrown in....they are dumb, dress and look funny and just don't get it at all about anything cross-cultural), and then we get the real delight. Denny Crane and his friend Alan get married. Yes, to illustrate the situation in California (and around the nation) where there are strong reactions against allowing gay marriage, the L.A. based show had to take a stand. Marriage between two guys, without sex, of course, is okay and legal. That was made clear many times. For the last year the show has been in the toilet, as it accumulated more and more producers and fewer writers (House is headed the same way). The final two hour segment was the flushing of that toilet. Another great show gone bad, with Christmas music and decorations all about, as it went down the drain. Great.

And today it was announced that we would have the transition of talk shows to 'Prime Time.' Jay Leno is going to be on here at nine (10 EST) against CSI and others of that ilk. We only turn to those talk shows in the evening because there is nothing else, which the networks have carefully constructed it to be that way. Now we have the big dope with the strange hair on in prime time. Talking to us. Ever talking. Having one vapid movie star on after another. They can appear totally drugged or on booze, and it does not seem to matter. They are our stars. We look up to them...until we are ready to toss them in the trash (got that Governor Rod?). But here we are. The networks even tell us that it is because of money. No matter what they pay Leno it is less than what they pay to put for dramatic or comedy shows. Which they are not putting on anyway! Reality shows were foisted upon us over money. They cost dirt. Because they are dirt. How much do you have to pay for bad singing, bad dancing and downright more stupidity from the 'judges.' The average I.Q. is 100. And so they prove, night after night.

The Illinois Governor is through. Hubris, comes to mind. "Testicular Virility" is what the online vehicle Buzzflash calls it. It is like the guy didn't care. But, I think the truth is that he did not know. I mean, seriously. Those people become so powerful in our culture now that they come to believe that they can do anything they want. It is all over the place, if you look closely. Ashcroft and the cabinet croonies of Bush during the last two administrations, are suing for "immunity." Immunity from what? Everything? Because of their high position they should be held accountable for nothing they did. And it is going to be heard and considered by this bunch of sitting dunce caps called The Supreme Court. Wow. But it speaks right to this issue of fame and isolation which we provide to such notables. They are chauffeur driven, private-plane'd, shopped for, chateau house'd and servant administered to the point where they have no contact with real humanity at all. Is it any wonder that they become convinced that they are serving from Divine Right? God has placed them there or they would not be there. So, they act any way they want. One day, a bigger god comes along and they are sent to the dungeon. Tortured along the way (how else can you describe going from receiving all that wondrous coddled treatment and then being roughly thrust into that awful and lengthy descent into an underground jail cell?). And that public, who so showered you with seeming devotion, now celebrating every step and bit of your misery. They are even going to leverage his wife against him. "Confess or we go after her." Who said the inquisition is over? They will force whatever goodness is left in the husk of this man (loyalty to his family) to be the instrument of his own total destruction. And everyone will celebrate that righteous Attorney General down in Illinois (who looks amazingly like Elliot Spitzer!)...until it is his turn.

So what of Christmas? I hope that God sends Governor Rod a Guardian Angel. Yes, he has sinned, but then, who has not. And he needs a Guardian Angel pretty badly, as I am sure he is going to bed nights thinking of that bridge where Jimmy Stewart stood and contemplated his own end (Its a Wonderful Life).

Late in the season now, I am working on my Christmas cards and getting the planning done for gifts. And the travel around to different parties and social events. I don't have many, as I am new to the country life out here (at least I like to make believe that that is the reason for so few invitations....try, none!). I can always go to the coffee shop and write. I have my Christmas disk to play on the machines at home and in the car. I have old Christmas movies and such. I have a fire. But most of all, I have the Christmas spirit and I mean well. And that is the big one.

Our culture too needs the work of a Guardian Angel. A great prayer to close with.

One Love...

James — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:39:31 EST

Let's Get Together and Fell Alright....

The neocon idiots are still out there, make no mistake about it. Here comes the Financial Times' Gideon Rachman, idiot-in-charge of that right wing rag and now trumpeted on The Drudge Report. It is time for one world government, according to him. After all, we have these three global problems: financial, warming and terrorism. That the financial is neither homogeneous (applying to all countries in the same way) nor universal (some countries are doing just fine), the warming issue is still conjecture (as to what is really causing it) and the terrorism thing, well, that is just a matter of semantics, which we all know. Our own terrorism is called National Defense, or First Strike Capability, or Collateral Damage. "They' are always the ones committing the terrorism. And Mr. Dufus Rachman supposes, from his time in Brussels writing for the Economist rag one supposes, that the developing European 'model' is the way to go. What model? They can get together and agree on a uniting constitution and they have been trying for years. They can't arrive at all of them on the Euro, even. Everything, including our own security setup is almost exactly as it was on December 6, 1941.

And did anybody really celebrate or recognize that occasion this year? Even though the anniversary was on a Sunday? Not much. We perform such remembrance because we do not want to repeat the mistakes that lead to them. But, we don't really. Somehow, over time, we convert those vital failures into media hype. We trot out the 'survivors' of Pearl Harbor, in that particular case. Even though ninety percent of all the armed forces personnel on Oahu that day were not in Pearl Harbor until well after it was struck. Over the years the role changed for these people. Anybody there on the island (military only, please) became a 'Pearl Harbor Survivor.' You can even get one of those trick license plates (like the Gold Star thing). More people rewarded for doing nothing at all, except they know people who did, or had them in their family. That this kind of behavior dilutes the role of those who really did suffer and fight, well, no matter. We are a culture driven to make 'stars.' Whether they are dumb drooling sports characters with phony college diplomas, porn film stars from wealthy families, or merely people who were in a certain part of the world at a certain time. P.T. Barnum turns out to be the greatest of all American philosophers.

What amazes me, more than anything, is the bright people, who say damaging and hurtful things for all of us, just to maintain their 'voice' in front of the audience. The Ann Coulter kind of thing. They could care less that this mighty ship of state is slowly slipping under the waves, as long as they have a deluxe cabin with an ocean view. Gideon Rachman is one of those. Sad. His father is an psychiatrist working in abnormal behavior. Could anything be more predictive or apropos?

The Tribune Broken, The Governor Busted....

James — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:48:44 EST

What is this? The governor of Illinois is in 'Federal Custody.' What is going on. The Tribune bites the dust, although it was out there anyway, under a couple of inches of ice and snow. The guy (I think he is a guy) came all the way up to toss the papers near the steps, which normally he does not do. I slipped, even at that, but did not go down. I swear I am going to start putting on long-johns under my robe, however. The only thing saving me from a place on the Megan's Law Sexual Predator List is the fact that my neighborhood is devoid of humanity at this time of year. Well, just take a look out there! It is coming down all over the place. Maybe, just maybe, I can try out those new stainless steel chains I bought for the Rover. I looked at the directions to put them on last night, however. I am a bit daunted. I turned the photo brochure this way and that but received no better clues as to how to do the job. So, I'll leave them in the back seat, just in case.

The governor got caught in a sting. They recorded him. His best friend being the 'rat,' quite naturally. We all watch television and that is the preferred method of getting people into the Federal 'justice' system. I pity the poor bastard. Once the Feds get their tongs into you, that's it. And it does not matter what you might have or have not done. The Federal conviction rate is nearly ninety-nine percent. Which should be a joke except that they have this great explanation: we wouldn't prosecute in the first place if our victim's weren't all guilty. It is like Harvard's argument that they give seventy percent 'A's' to their students because they get only really bright people as students (ah, they neglect to mention that sixty percent of their students are there by legacy. Their parents went there so they get to go there). More phenomenal world stuff that is thrown at us (lies) rather than reality (systems tend to do whatever they want when they are powerful enough, without respect to honesty, integrity or honor). So, the governor is going down. Pre-ordained. See ya, Rod. That will leave the selection of the Senator to replace Obama to the Lieutenant Governor. I know nothing about that person, but I really don't need to. I think the seat will go to Jesse Jackson Jr., just as soon as he is declared not to be really black, like Tiger and Barack. Special dispensation. My parents provide that, but you not only have to be a shade lighter than truly African in color, you have to be rich or powerful, or better still, both.

My friend, the professor emeritus (the smartest man in Walworth County...which title I am not a competitor for because I am in Linn County!) just called and his wife will not let him take the Mercedes out in this mess of a day. So I am to pick him up and take him to the coffee shop where we will attempt to impress the counter women there with our combined erudite brilliance. If the Rover makes it. It is really bad out there. Hmmmm. I can have the professor pour over the diagram provided to me by the truck chain company as we proceed in the Rover. I shall make sure he brings gloves, just in case. I have my special Christmas disk I made that I can listen to while he gets the chains on. You may order the disk here, if you comment with your address. I will send the disk for free, just for fun, and for Christmas cheer. The weather is terrible, the paper is a tattered wreck, the governor is going to Guantanamo, and I am out there in my aging Rover with the professor. Life is good. Merry Christmas!

The Chicago Tribune

James — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:36:16 EST

Bankrupt. Yesterday I wrote about the Tribune and the reasons for its difficulties. Today they went into bankruptcy. I know that the two are not connected simply because I know how many people are reading this (not many!) and I also know that I was a bit simplistic when I wrote. None of these large newspapers are really just that anymore. They are part of conglomerates and that means other interests play a big part of the financial foundations. I hope the paper does not go down. But I still stand by my comments. They are putting nothing between the pages. How do you sell a newspaper that has nothing to say? Writing of that, did anyone read Charles Krauthammer's column? He ran on and on about our triumph in Iraq. It seems, from this damaged man's view, that the Iraq thing is just about settled and that we are going to have a real working and effective democracy in Iraq. All we have to do is stay the course. More garbage. We have done nothing but lie about Iraq from the very beginning. Condi, Colin and Bush all admit that now (although they blame other people, of course, that is what famous people do). Why not lie some more? The surge worked? Crap. We paid those clown mullah's twenty billion to cease for awhile. We stopped any real press coverage from coming back here from over there. We stopped all reporting on casualties, in the name of privacy, quite naturally. We now know nothing about what is happening over there. But we can all be assured of one thing. Krauthammer is lying. It is all he does. If he says it, then we can depend upon it to be a Rush Limbaugh moment. A product of Fox. Or an ORielly statement. A crock, as I call it. Obama, bring us home. We have problems here, if you have noticed, and I know you have.

It is snowing out there. Feet of it, upon a nice solid base of ice. I have two of my trees decorated up on that hill. I did not fall today. So I have three trees to go. More extensions. More Ace Hardware light strings from China. They do not burn white. They burn yellow. Of course they burn yellow. Why would they not? I was at the coffee shop today. A woman stopped buy my booth and asked if I was indeed the fellow who decorated the trees on top the hill along that road. I agreed, a bit skeptically, I must admit. I am the same guy that got yelled at years ago for putting up crosses on my beach property on Bainbridge Island right after 911(I was told that the association did allow 'religious edifices). She then asked me if the staggered manner of the tree decorating (it takes me about ten days to finish but I light up each tree as it becomes decorated so they light sequentially) was ceremonial. I asked her what she meant. She then asked me if it was like the Advent Wreath, and the lighting of the candles. Wow! That took my breath away. I had never thought of that. So I told her the truth. About how I just work at it until I am done. But, in reflection, I like the Advent thing better. I will wait for somebody else to ask me, then try that one on them.

I wonder if my Tribune will be out there, in the morning, under the one foot of snow we are supposed to have overnight. I hope so. I don't much like those guys, the one's who put out the paper. But it is one of my papers and I am a loyal, albeit acidic, camp follower of their's.

"I confess, he did it!"

James — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:23:08 EST

Condi was interviewed yesterday. The greatest failing of her service, during all those miserable years with George Bush, was that she relied upon flawed intelligence reports with respect to going into Iraq and committing yet untold devastation. There it is. The same schoolyard whine I used to hear from the brats in grade school. Bush is saying, by and large, the same thing. So is the big dumb former Secretary of State, Colin. They relied on faulty intelligence. And the lie seems to be acceptable these days. But it is still a giant lie. They made the intelligence agencies give out the false information they 'depended' upon because that is the data they wanted to base their idiotic imperial crusade upon. They fired anybody who did not agree to go along, outted them, or simply attacked them using the Justice System as their personal weapon. Condi is just as rotten as the rest of them and she has blood all over her hands. That's right. Blood. The real stuff. The blood of all those boys and girls who died for her idiocy and her willingness to go along. Career and money at all cost. And the fame. She is famous. She never has to worry about a thing. We now have Gold Star families all over the nation. Those are families that have lost a child over there. They even have their own license plates now. We ought to have "Black Star" license plates. Condi, Bush and Colin get the first three.

Which leads me into my next incendiary pet peeve. The Chicago Tribune. What a bunch of 'puttz's' those clowns are over there on that Board of Directors, to use a word somebody called my yesterda. One of my principal papers, The Chicago Tribune, which I depend upon in the morning over coffee, is going down the tubes. Thirteen billion dollars in debt. How the hell does a newspaper, of any size, end up thirteen billion dollars in debt. Who is dumb enough to loan that kind of money to a newspaper, for Christ's sake? And then they lay it off on the economy. And the fact that readership is falling (for newspapers) across the country, because of the internet. Hogwash. Yes, people are reading the internet stuff. Why? Because they can no longer find in between the most convenient pages of their newspapers! Simple. The crap you read in the paper is just that. Trolled and filtered garbage that is so pablum oriented that you want to spit it out immediately (figuratively, of course). There is no investigative reporting at all. Where is Royko, when we need him? Dead. Who replaced him? Nobody? Why did nobody replace him? Because the board of directors are a bunch of uncaring idiots. Too taken up with attending Cubs games in their private boxes (the Tribune owns the Cubs, another entire story in of itself!) to pay attention to us. The readers. The buyers of their newspapers. Even the New York Times is struggling with the same problem. That problem is writers. They will not let anybody in! Go ahead, write anything you want to either of those papers. Editorial, column, application, story, anything! You get no reply. They do not even deign to reject your work, much less consider it and comment. They do not have the time, if you listen to them talk about this issue. Hollywood has the same problem. They do not have time, any of them, to stay in business!!! Because their business is not money. Money is merely the result of their business. Their business is creativity and interest. They simply must have writers who can write stories that people want to read or view. And they don't have the time to find or evaluate the work of such people. Instead they depend upon sons, daughters, cousins and friends of them. The people who can get in the door. And their work is almost universally crap. Go ahead, open this morning's papers and see for yourself. You will find yourself, after only a few minutes, at the crossword puzzle. The horoscope. Maybe a line or two of the Sports page or even the obits. But that's it. The rest is pablum.

A Wine For All Seasons....

James — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:04:25 EST

Val de FloresArgentinian Wine. I am serving this product for the holidays, as I came upon a local wine merchant who has decided to 'pack it in,' following this season. He is quite a wonderful man, this local wine merchant, but he has taken up with a strumpet, and, since he is sixty-three, and she twenty-five, he must dissolve his assets in order to purchase stuff for her. I understand his move, as those young sex kittens can seem pretty darned inviting...unless you talk to them for any length. Then, you might just as well be trying to carry on a conversation with Sarah Palin. Save your wine. Don't quit your day job. Sex too will pass.

So, I bought a couple of cases of this Argentine Wine called Val de Flores. It is what they call a "Malbec" in France. Cohors France, my soon to be sexually challenged wine merchant told me. There, it was brought (the grape) into the country by some Hungarian peasant back in 1868. I don't know how anyone knows something like that. Was there someone in charge of following Hungarian peasants on their travels back then? I digress. Now, in a place called the Mendoza region, at the foot of the Andes in Argentinia, they make the best Malbec in the world. Or, so I have it on good authority. And I just love the foothills of the Andes in Argentina. Yes, it is mighty beautiful indeed, but it is the people there that make it great. What wonderful, warm and generous people those Mendoza Argentinian's are. When I was there, years back, I was unfortunately otherwise occupied, so I remained unaware that they produced wine at all. It seemed like just a really neat farm community to me.

I tried the Val de Flores out on my Thanksgiving victims a couple of weeks ago. I never get raves on the wine I serve, and I do not really scrimp on the purchasing, or re-pour the bottles! But this stuff caused all manner of kindly compliments. Since I do not drink any kind of alcoholic drink, I could not take true credit for the selection. I was merely looking for a good Red, because that is what people seem to drink most at dinner now, and found that this Malbec, normally priced at sixty-nine bucks a bottle, could be had for thirty-five if I bought two cases. Which I did. Besides, I must assist the wine merchant in supporting the supply of Viagra he is going to need to get him through this long cold winter (well, not as long and cold in his case).

Obama spoke today. He is going to try to not smoke in the White House. I love this man. And his wife. And his kids. How can one not? He is also going to step in, if given the chance, and support the auto industry. Which I applaud. I cannot deal with the thought of my new found friends up in the auto shop outside of Appleton, Wisconsin, losing their signature vehicles,
even if they don't really seem to care (but they sure as hell would if they could not get them anymore). So Obama and I have to look out for those ignorant, red-neck, but lovable, louts. There is one Republican Senator from Alabama (which, of course, is a state where they produce cars for Japan...we are talking about a Republican here!) is going to filibuster any assistance to the auto companies. Lets wait him out, I say. Lets require that the rules of filibuster be held to the bar. He must take the floor and hold it until he falls asleep or collapses or stops speaking. We have time. And, just possibly, that would result in a serious collapse. We can only hope. As coid and thieving as these men have been we need not show much remorse, as they go down. No, and I encourage knitting. It was popular in France during the Revolution. Why not here and why not now?

And we can drink that fine Malbec of Val de Flores from Argentina while we knit....and watch.

The Decline and Fall of Ebay...

James — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:46:08 EST

Meg is gone and John Donahoe has taken the reigns of this quintessential American company of brilliantly invented and managed commerce. Meg, we are all going to miss you, but Ebay is going to miss you more. Look at what has happened, ever so quietly:

1. "Buy It Now" has taken over. Most auctions are crammed with BuyItNow crap. You have to weed carefully through all the listing to find actual auctions anymore. The BuyItNow auctions are not auctions at all. They are just people (retailers) hawking their ware. And the mess they are creating with all of their entries is destroying the site. And they are never a good deal. Anyone using BuyItNow should simply go to Google and run the item. You will always find a better deal by doing that.

2. Feedback. One used to have a feedback reputation that went back to the initiation of one's Ebay beginning date. Not anymore. Now that experience is only measured for a year, which allows people who have had a history of crummy transactions to hide out in the present from the sins of the past, so as to drag in new suckers. I prized my 268 transactions at 100%. You can still go back all the way if you want to page through tons of previous transaction feedback one by one. Hardly worth the effort, and the time. This did not have to be done and was only done to make dirty records appear clean. There could have been no other reason. Shame on you Donahue.

3. Just how does one get the attention of this multi-billion dollar company for any kind of assistance? Well, you can just forget about it. They make it almost impossible to even find a way to contact them. They do not answer emails anymore, at least not for me and I seldom have ever had a problem. These people are now a one way organization. You get about the same feedback from them as you get from your local filling station attendant, and in about the same language. Nice work Donahoe.

4. Disguise. They are now not allowing you to know the identity of anymore bidding against you while the auction is going on, thereby preventing you from following the identity of your competitors to see if the sellor is setting you up as a straw bidder (bidding on the item using a different identity to drive the price up). Just great, Donahoe.

These changes are the acts of Mr. Donahoe responsibility, and the company's failure will result from these actions. It will not happen quickly. There are simply too many loyal followers who will keep trying to work with the system. Eventually, they will go away, however. You cannot slant the site so heavily towards the sellers without driving off the buyers. And driving off the buyers is what is happening.

Can Obama save us here? I don't think so. He has bigger fish to fry. But Ebay could have been so helpful in being a place to get a better deal while times turn harsher and harsher. Ebay is making sure that they will not be that place, however. I do not know whether Mr. Donahoe is acting out of ignorance or deliberation. It hardly matters, because the result is going to be the slow sinking of this once mighty ship.

Goodbye Meg, God but we miss you.

Oh Please!

James — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:34:55 EST

Gag Me With A Spoon. An old 'Valley Girl' saying, but so applicable as I watched Tom Brokaw hand over the reigns of Meet The Press this morning to Gregory. The two of them together worked to compliment one another in almost a "who can top this' routine. Gregory just thinks Brokaw is so wonderful, a mentor and he is going to lean on him so much for support as he takes over. Broakaw, meanwhile, going on and on about his 'exclusive' interview earlier with Obama and just how great he himself is. The cutting edge of the greatest generation (his, of course). These two clowns remind me of CNN's insufferable line about that how they are the greatest newscasting crew ever put together on television. What a load of crap. But we watch and listen because we have no choice. I could turn it off but then I would be stuck with only my New York Times and Chicago Tribune. And they get stale and old, especially in their weekend products. About all you can say, with respect to the characters we get shoved in front of us on the tube, is that they are famous. They really don't have much to say but that is neither here nor there. They are up there and I am here in my library (because that is where Harvey chooses to sun himself in the morning).

I was in this wonderful restaurant up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, sometime back. One of those storefront places that serves 'tubs' for drinks at four o'clock sharp every day (happy hour still exists up there). The place is called Maricques on University. We go there because it is about the only place in the world where you can order perch, and have it served with the bones still in (thereby making the fish moister and better tasting, or so we think after a couple of tubs of Whiskey Manhattens!). Anyway, the place has big flat screens up in all four corners of the dining area. There is no volume and there are different programs on every television. Mostly sports junk or Packer related things. We went in at four-thirty, because my parents are very old and must eat at the earliest minute that food is to be served, and there was only one other filled table in the room. All four of those people were as old as my parents (And I mean old). They were playing cards, drinking tubs of gold stuff and talking loudly (because they can't hear). My father did not like the flicker of the television which was situated just above the table we had chosen. We could not move to another table (there are twenty, or so) because that is not done once one roosts. To get rid of Dad's complaints, I reached over and pulled the plug controlling the power to the television just above. Instantly, the four happy codgers interrupted their game to complain. When we ignored them, they went to the bar to complain that I had pulled the plug on one of the establishment televisions. The bartender (with his 'Milwaukee Tumor' of some significant size, proceeding him, stepped over to let us know that the television was his, and that we were not entitled to unplug it. He plugged it back in, after looking intently at me, to let me know that the knives they use to carve the fish in the back room were all available to him, then turned generous and allowed us to leave the set off.

Why am I recounting this story? Because we have become accustomed to having the visual of the moving lights from our televisions as backdrops to our lives. The television has become a comfort. Not for anything that is said by the 'talking heads' or any meaningful action that might be up on the screen. No, it is part of the necessary wallpaper of our lives. It just makes us feel not alone, not out of the loop and not without meaning. Those old coots did, probably, have some of that Germanic stuff going inside them, as well (you know, the rules thing that is so important in this part of the country) but I don't think that is what caused them to rat us out to management.

And so it is with Meet the Press, and all of the other programs we have up there on the screen. Those two over-effusing creeps (Brokaw and Gregory) could say whatever they wanted to and nobody was going to complain. I am probably the only person this side of Lake Geneva that has the volume turned up. This article does qualify for the Obama site because I did slip him in there, once, somewhere.

On Into The Night....

James — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:31:54 EST

The wind is at about twenty out there this night and the temperature is zero. I was in the snow trying to put lights on the five pine trees that stand in a row between my house and the road. Those trees are on top of a big long hill. I could get nothing done with thick gloves on, in the way of stringing the hardened light strings, so I tried to do it with exposed hands. That hurt after only a few seconds but then I could not get the damn gloves back on so I gave up and started back down the hill. After a few steps I did not have to walk any further, as I was on my back sliding the remainder of the way down. My gloves are still out there somewhere in the blowing dark and will not be recovered until spring. I will try again tomorrow. On the lights, I mean. Christmas is very important to me. I am not at all sure why except for the general nature of the idea. My Catholic days are remembered well but not actively in play anymore. I believe in God but I don't think he comes down and appoints people to be his messengers, prophets or priests. I think men do that themselves as a power and career move. But I like the idea of Christmas and all the good will that seems to swirl around it.

I have heard from a few people, with respect to my last blog. I only write two blogs in one day upon occasion. Today, a new record, as this is the third. I messed up about Tony Snow. I should have written John Snow as that is the guy. But my mind always goes back to Tony when I think of the last name Snow. And I have paid in emails and comment response for that error. Some people also feel that I carry on way too much about my observations in life, rather than about the political or economic climate we are all living in. Those criticisms are valid. I do. But that is me. If my homilies do not belong on the Obama site then I guess I should not be publishing this blog here, but here I am. I am also at from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com (and that name comes from the castle dungeon wherein Edmond Dantes was held prior to his escape and transformation into the Count of Monte Cristo). I will discuss, at a future time, why I picked that name specificially. But it would merely be more personal homily this night.

The fire is burning down, Harvey is asleep on my desk under this monitor and I am beginning to tire, as well. But I shall endeavor to persevere and watch Saturday Night Live, hoping to see something funny and fascinating. It seems that John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live and David Letterman are all falling upon hard times, what with the election being over and Obama having won. It goes further back, however, as we all know. The Bush years were fabulous for poking fun. We could not have found a more able foil than George Bush (unless it was Sarah Palin!), and now we suffer at losing him. Those great presidential speeches that Letterman ran, and is still running, have been terrific, by and large. I shall miss them. But I will never ever on this planet or in this life miss that awful stupid representation of a president we are stuck with until January 20th of next year.

In The Spirit...

James — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:59:24 EST

Penetration, however slight....The world is twisting and turning as we enter this holiday period. Normal life seems so all around and just like before. I go to the market, or any other retail store, and their are sales going on and prices are the same as I have always known them. So what is really happening that I should be aware of, or that might set me to considering what I might do different? There are some stores closing. I note that. They should not really be closing until after Christmas, at least that is what I think. There are people who have lost their jobs across the board, but I still don't see any of them. Gas here is 1.69 a gallon, as of this morning. How can that be bad? On my flat screen I note that everyone is being 'bailed out' in one fashion or another. I wonder where all the money is coming from to bail everyone out. It can't be from tax revenues. And it can't be borrowed, as who is going to loan anybody money on that magnitude anymore. So it has to be made up. Hypothetical money. Printed money. Which means that inflation has got to be coming sometime soon. But that is just another worry, not real. It has not happened yet. In fact, house loan interest is way down again. But I wonder if anybody can get a house loan at all.

In Wisconsin, two municipal authorities are going to print their own local currency. Will that be something that spreads? That act would seem to indicate that there are advantages to having a local currency, but I can't figure out what they would be...unless our national currency, the dollar lost all value (because of hyper-inflation brought about by printing gobs of money that has no backing!).

On another note, O.J. got sentenced to many years. He will not be able to get out for at least nine years, or so I hear. I am no fan of O.J. I kinda think he did the murders too. Whom would not? But all I have is media stuff for the foundation of that belief. And my trust of the media is anything but high. I did not like the fact that the judge who sentenced him (on CNN this morning) started right out with a statement that "this is not about anything that happened before, as to the legal problems of this man"), and from that she went right into how she had come to see O.J. as both ignorant and arrogant. What does any of that matter upon sentencing? I mean, supposedly in our supposed system of 'justice?'). What gives? Everyone kind of understands today, that when someone, anyone, starts out by saying the words "its not about that" they mean that whatever follows is exactly about that, but they don't want you to think it is exactly about that. So, why did she say it? Why did she say he was arrogant? So we would feel her sentence was more fair? After all, is it not better to put away someone who is arrogant, rather than someone who is not? I don't know, but I didn't like it at all. And that whacked out family that has been in pursuit of O.J. all these years! Their lives are all tied up in getting O.J. physically and financially. Do they realize that they have all begun to physically resemble ferrets themselves? They sniff and frown and scowl in anger and righteousness. All they lack is four rows of whiskers about their lower faces. They have dedicated their lives to this man. To their detriment. How very very sad.

Nuance. It is all about the nuance. And this is not anything we get from the media. We get a bit from PBS and then a bit, here and there, from regular media, mostly in error...when they let something slip through. Moyers on PBS about music, was all about such. The special last night was all about some operation called 'Playing for Change.' The lengthy rendition of 'Stand By Me,' the song, was enough to bring anyone to attention. It was wonderful. The special was about rather luckless musicians playing along city streets, in alleys and such. For spare change. Really. And it was wonderful. Real. So very unlike what we normally get. We are used to the 'Sarah Palin Presentation,' wherein she gets a hundred and fifty grand worth of hair and makeup care to be shown to us. Screw her, I'll take those street players singing and playing anything anytime. They penetrated my being, however slightly.
And I ordered the DVD. You ought to too.

Chistmas is coming....

James — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:18:55 EST

It is snowing in Lake Geneva. It snows just about every day during the winters here now. Last year it snowed once every three days, and I know because it has to be plowed out, it snows that much. It was not always this way they say, but, for some reason, somehow connected to El Nino and global warming, it is very much that way now. But at least in December, the snow is kind of welcome because it is a precursor to Christmas, my favorite holiday season. I haul out the old films that you don't see on television anymore, like Holiday Inn and White Christmas (I really didn't realize just what a piece of military jingoism that one was until I watched close last year...one would think that 'General Waverly' was a god, or maybe a Barack Obama!). Whatever. I like the way people think during this coming holiday. They are more open and caring and giving. At least it seems that way to me. The television news, however, is constantly telling us that things suck and are getting suckier by the moment, while we should also be aware of thieves, scam artists, computer fraud and our own tendency to give too much. After all, if you read my blog from two days ago, those damn banks simply gave us too much and so might all go broke. We don't want to turn into Jimmy Stewart in that awful (read wonderful) movie called "It's a Wonderful Life."

I note that there was mention, barely, this morning, of one problem the car companies share, in getting into the supposed mess they are in (the three reasons they listed were laughable, as in the "we gave in too easily to union demands," which was number one. That is just like saying "I confess, he did it!"). They gave huge dividends to the stockholders. That is the real and only reason for their troubles. The Republican media does not want to play that tune too loudly or often, however. Someone might ask "why did they give out such huge dividends?" The answer becomes obvious. They gave those out in order to portray the vast and great success of the organization so they, the executives, could then cream off huge billion dollar salaries and bonuses and stock options. And there it is. Legal theft. Oh, do not forget that they literally, and right out there in front of everyone, borrowed much of the money to pay those dividends (and monies to themselves) from the hedgefunds. Now we are bailing these people out to save the jobs the businesses control. And we are doing it without firing, wholesale, the very same people who did this to all of us. We are doing the bailout without going back and holding accountable all of the legalized crookery executives who dreamed this fraud up and then brilliantly executed it. We are being extorted again, and by all the same hoary old characters. We can't get rid of them.

And we have a new old player. A silky silent hedge fund derivative operation like the Carlyle Group. These new guys, or at least the newly revealed guys, are called the Cerberus Group. Yeah, these guys are the three-headed-dog who guards the gates of hell, alright. Tony Snow, former SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY is their leader. They own Chrysler, hotels all over the place, rental car companies, bus companies, and too many things to mention here. They are actually out of the U.K., like the Carlyle people, and bank in the Channel Islands. What is wrong with this picture? Our leaders move from office to office, becoming names, like Palin, Kennedy, whatever. Then they move into the private sector and use their former offices and contacts to enrich themselves. Then they move back into office to give more to the organizations they just left. And on and on and on. Our media is supporting this continuing nightmare. It is being done to all of us. It is these people who have stolen everything and it is these people who are driving us into a new period of the dark ages that you and I are now starting to actually feel. Get ready for more. What can we do? Be aware of what is really going on. Use these holidays to band together as friends and family. We need to get tribal to survive this thing. Give gifts and shop, but to support your tribe. We are going to need one another badly, but it is all going to be local. The damage nationally and internationally is beyond our control or any repair. Look towards Wisconsin, where some communities are taking the step of producing their own local currency (which is legal, by the way, as long as you don't make it look like national currency).

Catherine Austin Fitts predicted much of this and sought to create small communities banded together in entities called Solaries. The Solari is a small community which survives upon its own resources of credit and currency. Go to her site and check it out. This woman knows what she is talking about (former director of HUD, way back there).

I was in town yesterday (it was snowing, of course) and we can't use salt here (for the roads) because it flows into our pristine lake. The Range Rover is great. I have chains and can't wait to put them on and try them out. I have two tow straps, as well. It is great good fun to ride along and pull others from the ditch when they get stuck. I don't know why I like that, but I do. Maybe I am more of a country guy than I thought. One day, maybe soon, I will be hanging around an automotive shop, enjoying the warmth of a pot-belly stove, and murmuring about the 'city-slickers' who have come up from Chicago to enjoy the country. Instead of identifying with the Chevy Chase character in his New England Christmas comedy of years ago, as I always have, I may be becoming much more like the whacked-out mailman in that film! Last year I pulled about ten vehicles from the snow on my various trips back and forth into town. I never took any money, but one woman did force a pound of Alterra coffee on me. I have used the brand ever since, it's true, but my real reward that day was simply the fact that the woman was in her slippers and robe when I extricated her car. It is the whacked-out mailman buried deep within my being that made me smile all the rest of the way into town that day.

The Stutz Bearcat...

James — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:03:15 EST

I was up North, visiting my parents and generally circulating among the myriads of 'out-back' Northern Wisconsin types in winter. Lots of red plaid. Lots of farmer johns. Lots of talk about what the country is doing and where it is going, in terms that even Floyd R. Turbo could not fully appreciate, or take in. After all, I was about twenty-five miles North of the home and base of the John Birch Society. I mean it. It really is there, outside Appleton, and they have a building with their name on it. I blew a tire on my Volvo. The steel belt went and, since the car is one of those rare weird 'R' models, it takes a special size tire. They ordered it and then put it on the next day. It was the wrong size. They ordered it again, this time getting it right. But it meant that I was up there an extra day. And it meant that I had to spend a lot of time at the automotive place waiting. I did so, hanging about, talking to the other customers and some of the mechanics. The auto repair place is built for this kind of winter gathering, however. They have a fake soda fountain with booths and tables built into one corner, a showplace for an old Chrysler and an ancient motorbike in the other, and a lot of radiant heaters.

So we talked while we all waited. I only discovered on the second day that I was the only customer with a car in there. The rest of the 'guys' were just guys who stopped by to warm up and talk, and drink free coffee. Cop coffee. Really really bad, but with plenty of fake cream and stolen restaurant sugar packages.

It seems that the consensus, from Birch-land up there, is that the auto companies should be on their own. No bailout. No help whatever. Let them go bankrupt. "Let them face the same music we would have to face if we got ourselves into the same predicament." I was quite surprised, as when I looked out into the parking lot it was filled with Chevrolets and Fords (mostly pick-ups) and a few Chryslers too. Not a single Prius graced the lot, and certainly nothing with that strange "H" on its trunk (as in Hyundi). So I asked them what they would do if there just were no more Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Buicks, Fords, or Chrysler products available anymore, or parts either. That question floated around above everyone's head for awhile. Finally, one old-timer decided to say something. "It won't come to that. Those guys who run those companies are smart fellas. As soon as they get rid of the goddamned unions everything will be back to normal. Toyota did it and so can they." But, I didn't give up, even at the idiocy evident in that response. I was having too good a time. So I asked, "It seems that the car companies are only asking for about something less than fifty billion. What about the six trillion we have given to the banks and financial houses over the past two months?

They looked at me over their bad coffees. I was afraid for a moment that I might have stepped over the edge, but no. One of the really old coots, he had last worked for a company called Hudson Sharp thirty years ago, responded into the slurping silence, "you see, that was them banks. Them banks there, well, banks need money and when they have it they can give it out to the rest of us. Without that money they can't help us." As I attempted not to fall from my booth end in shocked amazement, the other coots slowly began to nod in agreement.

The Stutz Bearcat was a luxury car long before most others. It had a motor the size and weight of an old Volkswagen bug. The company stayed in business for about ten years, not selling many cars but charging a heck of a lot for the one's they sold. It was a wonderful old car that was completely useless for the times. It was big, heavy, and very difficult to drive. It had a little round windshield thing and you had to have a butt made of a hundred pounds of cellulitis to be able to ride in it. The Stutz Bearcat did not die out because of any of those things. It died out because Ford built a car that was easy to drive, much more comfortable, more dependable and cheaper by far. I wonder, no matter what we do with the bailout of car companies on the table, whether we are not just marking time until our versions of the Stutz Bearcat go their way all on their own.

Things are not as they seem in middle America. That was my conclusion in listening to those whacked out but appealing men. The average I.Q. worldwide is only a hundred. Yes, a hundred and I am not making that up. Out in the country it is less. I do not know why, but it is there. But they do have a sense of humor. I think they put that wrong size tire on my car as part of the humor. I drove away with one corner cocked up in the air and did not even notice. Only the ABS light coming on caused me to go back. That second day, those old men all kind of looked at me different, with a smiling glint in their eyes. When I left I believe I might have heard the old Hudson Sharp guy whisper to the rest: "...the average I.Q. is only a hundred, you know, and them city slickers..."

The Storm Tossed Sea....

James — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:49:54 EST

We are battered this way and that by criss-crossing waves of unknown origin and unpredictable vehemence. The stock market rises and then falls, not like in the the old days, where it might go up a percent or less and then down by the same a few days or weeks later. No, these are monumental rises and falls, which set records as the figures writhe and seeth. But we still plunge ever downward. We are up today. Of course, it is only early in this day.

I went to Ebay. It is Christmas. And I do love the commercial aspects of Christmas. I see little support of that ethic out here in the ether or even coming from mainstream media. It would seem that everyone is adopting the principle that it is better to send a card telling family and friends how much they mean to you rather than sending a gift. All, and I mean all, the articles and shows portray this action from the perspective of the sender. I wonder if the senders of such idiotic cards and letters have thought about the total lack of gifts that they are going to receive? I doubt it. After all, they are important and a gift would be appropriate because of their stature in other's lives. And, we do not believe! As a culture, we have been conditioned by our entire systems of communications not to believe. So, what exactly can we hope to gain by sending out cards and letters with statements of our love, appreciation and devotion enclosed? We will not be believed. The cards and letters will go right into the waste basket. We don't even really believe telephone calls. Look how many times video phones have been re-invented and made more financially possible. They would be a reality today, except for one thing. We don't want to be observed by the other party when we are on the phone. We don't even like caller I.D., except for our own phone (so we know who is calling. We would rather not have the other person or entity know when we are doing the calling). That is because we like to lie. We need to lie, upon occasion. And we don't always want to have to look good either. I don't right now, as I write this. I will, a little bit later, when I am ready to go to the office (my coffee shop). But not right now. If you called me right now and I had a video phone I would turn off the video feed part of it, lie and tell you it was broken, and then lie and say I was cleaned up and ready for the day, if you asked me. Go ahead, tell me you would not do that!

I send gifts. I spend money to send gifts to show that I care. In hard goods. I care enough to find the right gift. I work at it. The people who get gifts from me know that I work at it. They may even think me a fool, because I don't get a whole lot of gifts in return. But that is okay. You see, it is not about them. It is about me. I appreciate. I care. I love. Those feelings are not totally dependent upon how the recipients feel towards me. They partially depend upon how I feel that they feel however. They may be fooling me. But that is okay. I am fooled a lot. I like Christmas carols playing, even the silly ones. I like the cards, more because I got one at all rather than what the card might say. I like a real cut tree, just because I have always had one since I was a kid. I like people who wrap their gifts and do it well. I don't do it so well, but I keep trying. I don't like gift certificates and I do not care where they are from. I do not like money gifts. I always think money gifts are given kind of to get rid of the recipient, at least for this year. And, anybody who reads this knows, I like a fire in the fireplace, or in the back yard, or where ever.

So, Merry Christmas. The season is here. I love it.

But I do not love Sarah Palin. She is still doing what I thought she would be doing. She is the Paris Hilton of today. She did not get famous by making a porn movie for You Tube. But she may well end up doing one at some time. Because she will do anything at all to maintain that spotlight upon her. Her dumbness is palpable but honest and direct. She does not make believe that she has a brain. She makes no effort to slow down and, possibly, say anything that has any merit at all. So, I do like that about her. She is a female Forest Gump, although I doubt that her heart has the warmth that the producers of the film put into the 'real' Forest Gump role. She is out there speaking on behalf of this Chambliss fellow. He must be as dumb as she is. Or maybe he is just laughing!

I took some flack for writing that women should not serve in certain political positions abroad. I expected to. Unless you travel out there you don't know. And Americans, by and large, do not travel out there. The cultures of this planet are many and varied. We are the single largest culture ever, for example, that is dedicated to the idea that one man should only have one woman in marriage. We are among the minority of cultures on the planet which feel that way. Think about it. That means that our whole concept of 'marriage because of falling in love' does not apply in most parts of the world! The idea that one woman and one man can have this wonderous and exclusive life-time relationship is primarily a Western concept practiced here and in Europe. And almost nowhere else. And it is a huge planet. In most cultures, the woman, or women, are relegated to functions which serve the male leader of the group. Period. From procreation to chores, from social contact to child-rearing. The male leaders of such groups are not accustomed to paying any attention whatever to women when it comes to the administration of the group (except in those areas wherein she works). Take that onto the larger stage. I did not make these dynamics of behavior. They developed over time and their relative merits are argued to this day at universities across the world. But they are there. We must deal with life as we have it. Yes, we can strive to change things to more fit our paradigm, but we cannot do it quickly. We must ease the world along and 'sell' it on doing things our way. That is why I wrote what I wrote. Sarah Palin has nothing to do with sexuality. She is just an idiot, as are Bill Bennet and George Bush. Hilary is smart. But God, is she on a mission traveling in harm's way. An impossible mission. We could have made things so much easier, with such a better liklihood of accommodating outcome. But I have to also count on Barack. I paid the money. I campaigned. I hoped and prayed. Now he is here. I must wait.

The Approach of Night....

James — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:13:44 EST

MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2008 The First Shadow of Night....The stock market suffered badly again this day. All gains from last week were swept away as we head below eight thousand. What is the nature of the trouble. Well, it is cascading now. Home values plummeting, along with forclosures. Prices dropping but less and less in the way of buyers. Gasoline prices down but just laying there, waiting. Banks won't lend because they are afraid of not being liquid enough and people won't travel or buy cars because they are afraid that they won't get a loan. And then there are the credit card companies. The five majors. They are all lowering the amounts of credit that they will allow their credit card holders to have. Just as we approach Christmas, the best retail time of the year, driven ninety percent by credit card purchases. We are still frozen in time. We are not moving as an economy and nobody, including the vaunted Obama and his team, have a clue as to what to do. The more money they throw into the maw of this thing the more it just gobbles up and moves along...never seemingly to have noticed. What are we waiting for? It is all awaiting a new value assignment. Whether that comes from a new U.S. entity (as with the return of the United States Bank, as I propose) or from a bottoming out of the currencies worldwide (this is sometimes referred to as bankruptcy, but, if it happens, will be called something else. Something like 'The One-Time Currency Readjustment and Patriotic Participative Assistance Plan.) The OTCRPPAP approach. The public vernacular for this new plan will be 'The Outta Crap Plan." What are we to do? We all must wait, as we literally have no other choice. And it is a strange wait. Not one of panic or abysmal depression, but one of expectant hope. After all, we have Obama.

And what the hell is he doing, anyway? I mean, I think Hilary is great, but have we not proven that most of the world simply will not receive a woman as our representative on equal footing? We have also proven that we are not powerful enough to cram them down all those culture's throats, either. Condi did not make it! Total failure. They all ignored her. Madeline never made one inch of headway against those prejudiced creeps out there. Tell me what good Karen Hughes did in the Middle East? Nothing. Nada. They will not listen. They barely even show up for meetings. They laugh at us behind their 'clean' hand. Asia, the Middle East and even Eastern Europe, will not tolerate negotiations with a woman. They just won't do it. So what do we do? We just keep throwing women at them. What is Obama doing? Making Hilary fail. He knows all this. So why is he proceeding? Because he is canny, wily and very politically feral. The Clintons have met their match. But it is not doing us, as a country, a whole lot of good. That job, just now, calls for a fat old and white-haired male. Send him out there and let them deal with him. Let him drink Jim Beam and coke,or even the Jamison, smoke cigars and ogle all the young women. That is the conduct those creeps out there understand. And maybe, between hangovers and scandals, something might actually be accomplished.

But we wait. It is dark out there. More snow in Lake Geneva. Harvey is asleep just above this keyboard, but hanging that languid accidental paw over the edge. I am having trouble with 'o's' and 'p's' and all numbers. But I do not have the heart to move him away. Today, he went out there in the snow and scampered about, just like he was going to stay out all day and freeze to death. I had to suit up and chase him down. When I finally caught up to him he bounded home to the back door. When I got there, huffing and puffing, he sat looking over his shoulder with a cat expression. It said, "Well, are you going to stay out in this and freeze to death or open the door?" We went in. I am having trouble with my self esteem lately. Four year olds, ten year olds and even my cat are putting me down so badly that I don't want to go on. But I will. For them, if nobody else. I feel like the grandfather in Princess Bride. You know, the role played so wonderfully by Peter Falk. When I was younger I imagined myself as Inigo Montoya (you killed my father, prepare to die!) or maybe even the lead (as you wish!). Now I am relegated to being the narrator, my swashbuckling days all done and gone. Can it be? Already?

Or maybe, just maybe, this whole world is going to go upside down and my old skillsets are going to be dredged back and up and much needed. I sure as hell hope not. I am doing okay as Peter Falk, even with one kinda lazy eye!

Lawrence

James — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:56:53 EST

The fire has burned down to hot cinders. I love the open fire in that stone fireplace, but I also much enjoy the pile of super-heated embers that lays there when the actual fire has died out. The radiation of heat seems all the greater, and maybe it is for, all I know. It is late here, as the snow falls and we all prepare for one of those deep white days tomorrow. The harsh weather gives one pause for thought, and also the time and proclivity to watch a few old movies. Lawrence of Arabia was on a few hours back. "We don't leave our wounded for the Turks," says the Arabian ruler, "we kill those too injured to move. The Turks torture the wounded because they regard them as rebels and therefore not accorded the rights of the Geneva Convention." How very timely. Alec Guiness, no less, playing the ruler. Why have none of us listened since WWII? As countries, I mean. What is it about torturing people that we, all of our existent cultures, can seem to get away from? Here we are, still 'stealing' people off the streets of any city in the world and then throwing them into prisons without charges or anything else. Oh, and then torturing them. The Soviets were terrible about such. We even pointed that out to the world. Then we started doing it ourselves. He, Alec, also says: "Lawrence gives mercy because of passion, while I do it our of good manners. You decide which of those things is more dependable." Wow! There really are movies out there that give one pause to think. Which of those two things would you want to depend upon?

At the Thanksgiving feast I ran into a four year old named Peter. A jewel of a young man. Sharp as a tack and straight as an arrow. Another youngster was running around working over some new game which uses rolling things that spring open when they cross magnetized cards on a board. I have no idea how the magnetic balls work (except it is really cool to watch) and I also do not understand the rules of the game. A seven year old tried to explain the rules to me. I got the hyper-speed super-compressed version of the rules, one after another with no commas and no periods. Then I got that look! Like, "do you get it?" I didn't look back correctly, because the ten year old sighed deeply, then moved me back away from the board. The four year old gentleman came over to console me. I asked Peter if he understood the game. He said: "No, I am only four. I am not very smart. But next year I will be five." He beamed and then ran off. I thought about what he had said. God, but I had to smile. Next year he will be five and the earth and all of its unknown treasures are going to open before him. He just knows this to be a fact. Why can't I be that way, anymore?

Harvey, my cat (pint-sized predator) was out there earlier, when it was light and the snow was only about one inch deep. I didn't know where he was and he had been out there for awhile. As usual, I became concerned. It is not like he has one of those 'gay' cat coats, or booties for his paws, or anything. He is tough and a road warrior, but there are limits. Anyway, I started calling him. Even though nobody lives in this neighborhood, except me, during the winter, I am always embarrassed to be out there screaming "Haaarrrrveeey" at the top of my voice. And to no seeming avail. So I went back into the house. Then into the library, from which I can see out towards the woods, and sat to wait. A horse came across my yard! It shocked me. A big black horse against the white of the snow, walking with a woman and a very small child mounted ahead of her on the pommmel. A horse in my yard. Right near the window. I have no fences and neither do any of my neighbors so nothing is to stop anyone from riding around, but nobody has for the two years I have been here. The woman saw me through the window and waved. I waved back, self-conscious in my blue robe, so I stepped back out of view, but not before I saw this small gray shape creeping along behind the horse. Yes, it was Harvey. i went straight to the front door and cracked it open. I hissed as deeply and quietly as i could "you leave that horse alone and get in here." Harvey heard, called off his Safari, and scurried through the door opening. He then joined me in the library, sitting on the cloth chair (which I hate for him to sit on as he gets it dirty, but what can I do?) and staring after the horse. What is in that cat's mind? I know he was stalking it. Has he ever had horse meat, do you suppose, or was he merely letting that horse know that he was inside another predator's area. I explained to Harv that the horse was a herbivore and therefore not a competitor. harvey licked himself strategically, in order to let me know what he thought, then closed his eyes in feigned sleep. I went back to the fire in the other room, giving out the same resigned and measured sigh that the ten year old had given me over my inability to understand the game.

Somebody from the Maureen Dowd fan club wrote me an email, requesting whatever it was that caused me to state that Maureen Dowd had purloined some of my work and made it her own. I am not going back through all those blogs to find it. And why would I? I can't imagine that such information (which that person can certainly find if he or she tries hard enough) would be gathered for any good purpose. I love Maureen Dowd and I make many comments about her here on my blog. But I mean her no ill will at all. If she wants to use some of my ridiculous notions and stories then she is welcome to them. If, on the other hand, somebody is mad at me and does not believe me, then what that person was really emailing about was arcane indeed. I may be insulting or lying about somebody the fan club adores. I apologize. I don't know what, for but politicians do it all the time. A blanket apology. I think Dowd is a saint, but then are not saints the most fun to poke fun at, upon occasion? It is the Catholic in me. Rotten Catholic as I am.

I will sleep well tonight, dream that I am going to be five tomorrow, and that all the wonderful secrets of this world will be revealed to me.

The Fireplace

James — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:18:44 EST

Snow is coming to Lake Geneva this day, or so they say. A fire is called for. My wood is delivered by a high school girl headed for college. Her Dad owns a woods and he allows her to cut down trees and turn them into firewood in order to support her college fund. She uses an old beat-up truck and delivers and stacks a whole cord of split hardwood for a hundred bucks. I tip her fifty dollars each time. She thinks I am some sort of idiotic wealthy person living in the wilderness, a view I do not dissuade her from. She remains blissfully unaware of the fact that three times I have tried to find a wood person since I met her, because I wanted to get a load of split oak (I don't know what it is about oak, as I have never burned it, but I have this fixation that oak is what Bing burned at his fictional place up in Vermont called Holiday Inn). Anyway, the cheapest quote I got was two-fifty a cord and then the cord would have been dumped in my driveway for me to move to the back of the house and stack. So I am stuck with Linda and her pursuit of political science at the University of Virginia two years from now. I am certain that she will be going. If she fails in college, well, she can certainly sling a cord of wood in no time at all. She brought her younger brother to help her, this time out. They fought through the stacking process. She was mad because he, being a freshman, quit the football team (he was apparently a very successful tight end) because he didn't like the other players and did not like the violence. She thought he was an idiot, of course. He wanted to know what I thought but I can't remember what advice I gave him. You see, I was too busy prospecting to see if he was going to take over Linda's firewood delivery service. I like the wood, even if it isn't oak. And where else am I going to find kids like that to be around, and give idiotic advice to that I can't even remember?

Maureen Dowd was at it in the Times this morning. She never did get to the bottom of whatever the point was she was trying to make though. She is always fun to read, even when she steals my stuff (well, only that one time that I know about). Her article was all about this clown named Macpherson in Pasadena. Seems he has an online newspaper, whatever the hell that is (maybe like Buzzflash or Raw Story or one of those). He was paying his reporters between six and eight hundred dollars a week, which is either twenty-four hundred or thirty-two a month. Not exactly big change, but then reporting pays pretty poorly unless you have a column in the New York Times...which is not really reporting at all, I know. This guy, Macpherson, has outsourced his reporting. He has hired seven or eight Indians in India to do the reporting and he pays them 7.50 for a thousand words. That would be about a dollar or two per hour I guess. Maureen does not pick on the crummy Scotsman for outsourcing. Instead she goes on about how some other regular newspapers have decided to try it and that this may be the next area of our economy to suffer from this ridiculousness. My point, other than the idiocy of it, is the truth of it. OH COME ON! An online newspaper in Pasadena that had seven reporters? Oh, please. To report what? The flower festival? The obits? the police blotter (which you can't get online, I might add). So, the physics begins to fall apart in the story as we take it apart. Just like an urban legend. Sounds good, until you look at it very closely. Let's be clear here. No online rag reporting locally needs or has anymore than one or two 'reporters,' on its staff. And no 'reporter' physically located in India is going to be able to cover anything other than that which is already covered and put online! So, the whole thing is a crock! Maureen, would you please get a bit more diligent on editing and research! Maybe, if you hired a few 'reporters' in India you would not screw up like this and make me throw the paper. I expect more from you. And, if you are going to be a dunderhead like Bill Bennet, or one of those, then please make the article funny.

Macpherson has received a great boon by being made into another modern entreprenuer for all the world to see. That it is all a lie is besides the point for him. Pretty soon we will see a flat earth book from this clown and it will all be Maureen's fault.

Oh, writing of the flat earth, Friedman was in that issue too. Playing the Republican Retreat Card, as I call it. His column was placed right close to another column all about how Hoover attempted to snake the incoming Roosevelt into his plans, as he lame-ducked his way along before Roosevelt took over. What does Friedman advise, right next door to that rather insightful piece? He encourages Obama to go along with most of the Republican ideas about fixing the economy while he is awaiting to becoming President himself! The New York Times editorial staff occasionally deserves my plaudits. And this morning they have them. That was a very entertaining way to juxtaposition those articles. I laughed. It made up for Maureen falling into a literary toilet and attempting to have Macpherson flush here down. Funny. It was funny. Friedman has become funny. He has nowhere to go and not much to say. Soon, he will be one of those commentators on CNN who are kept in some sort of bunker, awaiting resurrection and re-use, like Bennet. Cheney is down there with them. Waiting for some weird unforeseeable event to occur so they can be dragged out and foisted upon us.

Finally, this early day, General McCafferty has been surfaced! They take him apart, piece by piece. A four star General running his own little self-serving cabal of advisors selling military equipment. But using his four star status (retired) to get access to people like Petreius. He has made millions and millions off his stars. And he has used CNN like a dirty bathroom rug to work from. You see, he is also one of those 'vaulted' commentators down there with Bennet and Friedman. But he has figured out how to really make a killing. He just lies. "See here General P, those poors soldiers over there are being forced to drive around in Toyotas and the evil Osama is blowing them all to hell. Just have this here company, to which I have no connection, build 500 of these armored things and all will be well." Next thing you know, the deed is done. And McCafferty's little company takes in about ten million for using his influence. What crap. Reach back and pull that man's stars right off those epaulets! And then there is General P. Get some help General. I personally know about a guy named Macpherson in Pasadena who has some dirt cheap but penetrating and vicious reporters on staff. They are Indians, but what the hell. The U.S. Army kicked ass on the Indians last time. They can do it again. Wrong Indians? What does it matter. After all we are still after Osama in Iraq! Fighting the wrong battles is part of the great American tradition.

Mumbai

James — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:53:30 EST

The news is stuck in a terrorism rut this morning, as you have noted, unless you have a real life filled with social activity and occasions. Early Saturday and my choices, on the box, are limited, so CNN gets the nod. And the New York Times gets reread. I worked the crossword puzzle until I threw the Arts section toward Harvey, for his consideration. He may use the paper but not for working any stinking crossword puzzle. I did get thirteen words, but then fumed over trying to put the word trident into a five letter space. Something the devil is often seen with, was the question.

I turned to the editorials. Some Indian woman was featured, writing about the 'Songbird' of Mumbai. The wonder of everyone flocking there (supposedly a million a year moving into the city, however improbably or downright impossible that seems) because of the opportunity to make a fortune. And her take was similar to that which I have seen with respect to other objects describe anthropomorphically. She gave the city its own life and quasi-sentient identity. The city does this or the city does that. The city feels and hums and sings. Not hard stuff to read, unless you are smiling when you read it. Mumbai is a pit. it was a pit of cess back when it was New Delhi and it has not changed much with the addition of more millions of poor uneducated country folk. She ended the article with another of those mythical expressions of ardor. Mumbai will rise from this occasion as the population exalts against this tyranny and shops and buys more and rebuilds the hotel bigger and better than it was before this event. Straight out of a WWII movie. "Go ahead and kill me, as for every one of us you kill two will rise up to take our place." Now, I am just willing to bet that not one idiot prisoner in that whole war ever said anything as flagrantly stupid to a captor. I can imagine one of the administrators of Mumbai standing before a microphone in the city center and talking like that. Right as he finished he gets hustled off-stage and tucked into an armored limo. He whispers to the driver as the doors slam: "Get us the hell out of this place."

And the commando outfits. I just love that 'Mexican Wrestler' look. They love to wear masks over there. Ostensibly, it is because they do not want their identities revealed (for whatever insane security reason) but in reality it is because they are so 'Bolywood.' They love it and you can tell they do. The new head of the commandos even wore a bandana over his face that was transparent! I kid you not. I am reading Scaramouche and then I look up at my television and there he is! Different accent, of course. I like the French better. Accent, I mean.

Good morning. I am going to actually get dressed and put this robe in the washing machine. Really. With one of those fluff maker papers in the dryer when its ready later. I will look and smell like Cary Grant (I mean before he was dead) in one of those old movies. Well, maybe a morph between Cary and Dom Delouise. Happy Saturday. It is a good day.

The Day After....

James — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:42:02 EST

The Friday following Thanksgiving is always such a pleasing day. Two more days of 'kicking back' ahead. A lot of mindless, but pleasing, stuff on television, from Holiday inn to Magnum P.I. reruns. And strangely heartwarming movies like Chocolat with Judy Dench (one of my favorite women of all time, just behind Julie Child and Meryl Streep). So I sit back with my collection of incomplete crossword puzzles (I am supposed to be smart so why can't I ever seem to finish the puzzle in the New York Times?), my thick blue robe surrounding my turkey-fed body, and occasionally reading from an old tattered Scaramouche. By God but that period (the French Revolution) was a very political time indeed! I have a fire in my fireplace and I am burning a tree that died a couple of years ago. After only once reading Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," I have never looked upon trees in the same way. Now, burning the pieces of this dried old birch, I smile at its contribution to my warmth and life. Some would say that I am easily moved and I guess they would be right. When I cut it down, though, I left a nice flat stump, so that one day it can provide me with a place to sit.

Ferrari. I like that name. I love the looks of those cars. But I won't ever own one. After I saw Scent of a Woman, with Pacino (another great movie), however, I went out and rented one, however. Some advisor to the movie knew what he or she was talking about when Pacino, playing the role, was given the script words: "a man should drive a Ferrari before he dies..." I rented an old 400i on Oahu a couple of years ago. It cost some ridiculous amount and I had to keep it three days. When I rode around in it at first I wondered what the big deal was. After three days I felt very different. It was indefinable, the feeling. I never even drove it fast. But on the fourth day, when I had to turn it in, I got up at five a.m. and drove it all around the island. And I loved it. But I can't own one. I don't ever want to be the old guy driving the Ferrari to make up for advancing age. It would be like when I was 'the guy with the rolex.' Yes, I am a social creature, and I can rail all I want about the ills of our social order, but I too remain a product of it and controlled by it. At least by some of it.

But what if Ferrari doing these days? Why they are building bunches of new buildings designed by the world's best architects so that they may construct many more two hundred thousand dollar sports cars? To what market, I ask myself. Oh, the CEO of that wonderful company was not incorrect (I think) when he said, some month's past, that every year there would be at least six thousand people who would buy one of his cars. But, my question comes back to display, not to want, need or the love of the car. Are you really going to want to drive around in a two hundred thousand dollar car in the near and far future? Like Bentley and Rolls, those cars are not really that much at all. They are much much more. They burn fuel at huge rates of consumption, they cost thousands upon thousands to service, care for and insure. And then you can't drive them all the time, like you can a Volvo or Honda or Toyota. They break. They are for looking at and very occasional show driving. And people are not going to like people who drive cars worth that kind of money, for very much longer, anyway. So I feel bad for Ferrari. A lot of people (from that six thousand) are going to figure this thing out and put their funding into a fleet of Hundais or maybe a dozen Prius sedans. And then what happens to the Ferrari works of art? I will miss them. They are fast cars. But I am not slow enough to own one.

There is a lot of talk about Mumbai everywhere. Another 'terrorist' attack. An attempt to curb the services of American Companies doing business in India. The call centers. The medicine thing. One would think that the death of two Americans abroad was this huge deal. If it was such a big deal we would have our troops home from both Afghanistan and Iraq. If anything, it is an excuse for some very large American monopolistic companies, like AT&T and Intel, to drop services. I mean we have gotten to be such a poor service applications society that it does not make much difference anymore. Notice that we have no physical service centers anymore for the utilities we all use? The gas companies and the electric companies used to have offices where you could go to get help or pay your bill, or get your service turned back on. The cable companies too. Not any more. Nope. You get a call center. Go ahead and call, Pilgrim! You got an hour or two and then some language skills in tongues you have never heard of? Be my guest. Now, we have the call centers quaking so why take calls anymore at all? The filling stations all got away with it. Note that they are not called service stations anymore. We are lucky if they speak English inside or have an air pump for the tires (at fifty cents for air, or more!). This is what I am talking about. Apocalypse, as we may be awaiting, will do away with a lot of this pure crap that has been handed to us by the money managers. We want service back and we are going to get it. A real person on the phone. A place to go and complain, or even compliment! Sounds too much like Holiday Inn to be real or possible (the movie not the chain). It is good will that we need back. It is trust. It is compassion. Those things we have been losing. Barack is a step in the right direction but the whole enchilada is about you and I. Read this. Start living some bliss, for Christ's sake, and pass it on. Smile and greet your neighbors and friends. We need them and we are going to need them a whole lot more. And they need you.

Thanksgiving and Apocalypse

James — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:35:20 EST

We are not heading into apocalypse! Not from this financial cataclysm. We are headed into a time of hardship and hard work. We are headed into more tribal times, but we are not going to breakdown into small bunches and live off the land. There will be no small roving pockets of the remnant running around starving to death, as in Cormac MacCarthy's idiotic post apocalyptic novel (The Road, which unbelievably won the Pulitzer Prize!).

That work was fiction at some of it's lousiest. We are not headed for a time of barter or any of that, unless it is for a very short period of time. Money works too well. Leaving money behind would be akin to leaving the wheel behind. Some inventions just make too much sense and, once invented, they are with us for as long as we remain an intelligent species. Money allows us to translate. Money is the product of value assigned, for labor, for time, for stuff, or whatever. It lets us all get a share of what is all around us that we need, or simply want, based upon our possession of it (which we got from our own work, time, trade, discovery or inheritance) in enough quantity. I am not postulating the departure of money in any of my blogs, but I read plenty of other blogs that posit exactly that. We may suffer what I call a 'hiccup,' as the system must true-up sometime in the next year, worldwide. Maybe that 'true-up' can be held up for longer, but it is coming, no matter what. And that true-up does not have to be all bad, particularly if we get off our butts and demand real accountability from the thieves...and real jsutice for them.

So rejoice, if you believe anything of what I write. It is Thanksgiving. Not all positive out there on the fronts of the future we will face tomorrow and thereafter. Nope. After all, we have Nibiru, Planet X, or even maybe a giant astroid headed for us, with the collision set sometime on the day of 12/12/2012. That is the day the Mayan Calendar ends. Why we think the Mayan's might have had a handle on knowing stuff like that, I do not know. Maybe we have gleaned additional information from the Mayan satellites we have come across, still orbiting overhead. I kind of doubt it though. As secret as this controlling government is, I think that idea is beyond even conspiracy theory about them. And now we have Obama. Maybe he will see to it that some of this ridiculous classification junk will be opened up. We will get to know who got tortured, why and how and who did the torturing. Not through the filter of some 911 'sweep it all under the rug' commission. We really do not need even one more of those Warren type commissions in our life. Maybe we will get to see the UFO files opened and that stuff laid to bare, whatever it is. Maybe some of these 'black' projects will be laid open, like anti-gravity and HARP. Maybe there are some really great times ahead. Until that pesky astroid strikes, of course. In any event, here's looking at you kid.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

James — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:51:31 EST

I have read several references to a 'tsunami,' with respect to describing the coming effects of this financial cataclysm. I sometimes wonder if those references, by mostly famous people, come from my earlier description, not that that matters. But all those references have gotten it wrong. The water is still going out! Waves are not coming in yet. Oh yes, we have banks and financial houses, even auto companies, on the brink and being 'bailed out.' I guess a good analogous description would put those efforts, the paying out of newly printed money to hold off disaster in those companies and industries, into best perspective in the following way. Our government is paying the wave to stay the hell out there. It can work for a little while. But its gotta come in eventually. That wave is a quadrillion dollar wave. Maybe a bit bigger. That's a thousand trillion dollars. We have assembled about six trillion and spent about four of that so far. We might put together another six trillion, which would make this bailout the largest expenditure of funding ever made by any government, for anything, on this planet. And still, it pales next to the quadrillion or more sitting out there.

Some people are talking about how we are going to be able to get through all this (without going through bankruptcy or cancelling our existing currency) by having a central worldwide bank and extending credit from that. A bigger version of the United States Bank, backed by our government alone, which I expounded on a few blogs back. Are we willing to sacrifice all of our sovereignty? Are we really ready for Friedman's flat earth? If we are, then being poor for a long long time will be where and how we live. Ninety percent of the world lives in some sort of poverty. Yes, that is a huge percentage. Only twenty-five percent of the planet has sufficient energy and food in order to have heating, air conditioning and eat a healthy diet. The media has shown us nothing else, really. We saw some of it marginally when Bono was on tour in Africa, but we kind of blew by it. We see just a few little swatches of the real world on newscasts about the Sahara, the Eastern Bloc and most of China, but we just let that stuff slip by. I liked to say, when I was traveling out there (which I don't do much of anymore) that the difference between a Republican and a Democrat back here was simply world travel. If you go out there, and get away from the airport and four star hotels, you see it. You begin to live it with those people. That expression applies: "If you stare into the abyss long enough, it begins to stare back at you."

In Mombasa, Kenya, the average yearly income for a family is less than a thousand dollars. I once supported a small village there, for many years, on a contribution of only two hundred and fifty a month. The world is a poor place indeed. And Kenya is not considered anywhere near the poorest! The questions posed by these facts are these: Do we live comfortably, thinking, creating and building technology to the point where all of us are lifted from poverty? Or, do we share absolutely everything we have and live in poverty with everyone else on the planet, and going nowhere? Maybe there ought to be two follow-on questions. Do we have enough generosity built into our culture to share the advances our status allows us to create and build, when we reach that point? And, do we have the kind of generosity it would take to simply distribute everything we now have to those who are not as well off as we are today, and then live with them in their circumstance?

And we ready for one central ruling body running the planet and the representatives of countries appointing those people who would make all the decisions from such an authority? Have we done that great a job with the United Nations? Have we done that great a job with our own country? If you answer no to those two questions then what idiocy would it take for us to just throw in with a financial entity that was created to make financial decisions for the world? Why trust them? Who do we trust now? Do we trust our banker? Our insurance companies? How can we? Did the people we trusted act honorably in taking this quadrillion I write about? Even if they changed and shaded the rules in order to make their thieving 'legal,' do we accept such behavior as being worthy of our trust again? If not, then why are these executives not being discharged across the land? Who's heads are rolling? None of them are losing their jobs. There is only talk of those people not being paid bonuses. Not getting the same amount of stock options. That sort of thing. But the, the wave is not really visible out there yet. But the water keeps on going out farther and farther.

It is Thanksgiving tomorrow. Whom do we thank? God? Well, thanks God. I don't understand You, but then everyone says that I am not supposed to or you would not be God. I would be. And we can't have that. So I thank God, for whatever. I have it okay. I have been given gifts. I prayed for strength so He gave me tremendous problems that I had to solve. After railing against Him about that, I finally figured out that He had also given me the gifts, if applied, to beat the problems. And I have never really figured out whether He gave me the problems, anyway. I just kind of had and have to believe. And He did not give me that gift.

So, I thank the people I am close to. I thank family and friends. I thank some of you out there who communicate with me regularly and positively, even though my rather strange life-style and opinions do not always merit such. I am sorry about the people I have hurt...and there is indeed a line of those back there, and I promise to continue to exert every effort in my being to try harder. To have a stronger sense of honor, integrity and compassion. The very things I write about in all my bodies of work. There is a happiness and bliss in my life and I wish it upon you, whoever you may be out there...on this night and on the morrow. Happy Thanksgiving.

Stop it, Mr. Flat Earth Friedman!

James — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:08:59 EST

Here we go again, just as I get settled in on my chair. I open to the Times editorial and the blood, already pumping a good supply of caffeine from my two cups of 'regular' Alterra, begins to move a bit faster. The fault of this whole financial mess, around the world no less, comes down to those pesky rotten "sub-prime" borrowers. Yes, all 1.7 trillion dollars worth of them. Yeah, Mr. Thomas does go on to use his broad unedited New York Times paint brush to color in the people who made the loans to the sub-prime borrowers, but then he quickly moves into his example. Poor little 'Jose' just up from across the border and making $14,000 a year from God knows what. Mowing lawns, fry-cooking in some back street restaurant. We are not told. But Jose gets himself onto a lender who gives him a 'no payment for two years' loan of $72,000 for a home. Jose takes it. Jose keeps it for two years but then can't make the payments. And Friedman's logic seems inescapable, which it is not. Friedman is merely dedicated to the corps of right wing idiots he has been supporting all along. "We are a flat earth and business will be spread from now on all over the planet" type thing, which was an open permit for the U.S. to send all of our manufacturing and decent employment abroad. Thank you Mr. Friedman. And now we get more from this dunderhead (who has been annointed as a financial genius by the others of his thieving genus). Jose took the money. Whom would not? You see, we live in a country wherein, if you do make fourteen grand in a year, you believe right down to your core that that situation is temporary. That you will, quite naturally, make a lot more as time passes. It is that kind of a country, or at least it used to be.

But, in reality, 1.7 trillion dollars worth of toxic mortgages (lets assume they are all bad) is a drop in the bucket. And Friedman, of all people, knows that. We are already seven trillion dollars deep into the 'bailout' and going ever deeper. Hell, the entire United States mortgage holdings only total a bit over 13 trillion, depending on who is doing the totalling. Friedman is brush-blocking us. In professional football a brush-block is a manuever the offense uses to protect the passer. They brush-block the charging defensive players to the outside, so that their momentum and direction is changed, sending them to a spot where there is nobody to tackle. This is what our dear Thomas is doing this day. Mis-directing us. In fact, he is also lying outright and doing a bit of immigrant bashing, as well. This is a worldwide problem, not a local or national problem. The financial disaster befalling us, I mean. Maybe I will get a Nobel, like Krugman. Hell, he didn't deserve it...but he took it. Yes, he is an economist, of sorts. But what he really did was merely write an opinionated column about the financial situation which was pretty damned accurate. Worthy of a Nobel? No. Not unless they develop a category for punditry, which they have not. Or maybe, on the other hand, they have! Economics is now the category for punditry. So I have a chance. Trouble is, when I am proven to be correct those guys won't have any money left to pay out! Rats. Like my book coming out next year. So I have to hope I am wrong. That all of this is going to go away, just as soon as we arrest Jose and get him back down there with the rest of 'them.' Just as soon as enough of these corporate executives get paid sufficiently to leave with him. We'll be left with the land (which they will still own from 'down there' in their resorts, of course). We'll be left to rebuild.

Since we are so damned Calvinistic and Puritanical in our attitudes here, how about if we turn that from the pursuit of drug and alcohol offenders to the pursuit of those executives? And you have to love this. Also today, the guys heading up UBS, a Swiss consortium of banks, have decided to take salaries of only one dollar each for the coming year. That will be their salary. The very next sentence written in that 'news' article (the reporter was recovering from a bit of overstimulation using marijuana tincture, medicinal) said: "the amount of stock transfer, options and bonus was not to be revealed." A glimmer of truth slipped by that addled writer of fiction. Those guys! You gotta love it!!! More 'lime humor' to start our day.

"I Coulda Been a Contender"

James — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:44:37 EST

My first novel is coming out in April. Finally, It took me ten years, but I guess that is not uncommon, unless you are related somehow to the publisher or your name is synonymous with Paris Hilton or Sarah Palin. They don't even have to write. In fact, they can't write, but that is not the point is it. They are news. They sell issues or time. And that is what we have allowed our literary life to be filled with. Have you been to Borders or Barnes and Noble lately? How is it that you can spend two hours there, drink a Latte, and end up buying a couple of magazines? Among all the books, 'new issues' are not. I have seen some hardcovers in that section at least three years old. The lead in Gondola (what they call those funny book-holding cabinets) usually has a whole collection of stuff I cannot even consider picking up to page through, much less buying. Serial killers, Catholic or Biblical code mysteries, and supposedly revealing books by Washington pundits. Finding new paperbacks, which are at least affordable (as long as they are not the new 'tall' ones) is the work of a sleuth. Here and there, hither and yon, you find some. Go to the sections like Mystery, Science Fiction or Literature and all the books are spine out. You cannot see the covers unless you pull them out of the rack. I just sigh and move on. I want the cover to draw me in and then the explanation on the flyleaf or back to convince me. Usually I only read the first page, to gauge the true metal of the author, while I am standing in line, waiting to pay. I never bring books back. I read all the ever more dire and restrictive signs about bringing stuff back but pay no mind. I am not a receipt keeper so I have an ever-growing library. I have a section of 'I didn't like that thing' over by the back wall. It now takes up almost a fourth of my library! I can't even give them away or loan them out as then I would have to recommend them.

Anyway, I got the "Advance Uncorrected Proofs" in the mail yesterday. On the same day came the Library of Congress copyright. I liked that. The coincidence, I mean. The book I have written is called 'The Boy.' It is a paleolithic novel set, appropriately, 25,000 years ago. Jean Auel started the genre, at least in numbers, about twenty years ago with her 'Clan of the Cave Bear' novel. Mine is much more hard science than her rather mystical presentation. I liked her book. Even as an anthropology professor. I liked the fact that people would be drawn to imagine the past. But my novel, although set back there, is all about honor, integrity, endurance and survival. It is pretty neat, as I have discovered in the many re-readings required to fully go through the edit process (which is long and hard, hard hard). And it is timely as hell with respect to what has happened to us and what may come later on.

Now I have to get a website. Hell, I have just learned how to blog, so how am I going to design a website? But life demands that we continue to change. So change I must. God is laughing because my novel is set to hit the stands on April 15th of next year! According to my calculations, fully considering this collapsing economy, that means my novel should be out just in time to be swallowed up and used as a fire-starter around the nation. Maybe I should change my calculations. If I tweak them a little bit, maybe I can get into the summer and at least be able to reflect back on how "I coulda been a contender."

Speaking of God's peeling laughter from on high, Ann Coulter has had to have her mouth wired shut! Do you know how astounding such an event is? That is almost as big as when Larry Flynt (publisher of that awful porno magazine called Hustler) was shot through the torso and lost the use of his private member for the remainder of his life! Now talk about a laughing cruel God! It's not Larry but the Ann situation is good enough. She is not really right wing, or Nazi, or any of the other things they say about her. She made it doing what she does. It did not require her belief, only her understanding of what might outrage a good part of the nation. The small part that is not outraged, and is certifiable, well, those are her buyers (the weird Aryan books) and watchers (occasional television interviews). She was into that long bare 'Cougar' leg well before Hasselbeck, Palin or even Faith Hill. And Botox. And surgery. I wonder if any of them have ever bothered to go back and read that old novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray," by that whacked out genius Oscar Wilde. It deserves reflection, in their cases. Faith was something else on The View this morning (I'm a writer and it plays in the background, for Christ's sake!). Ten thousand dollar shoes. And the legs. Then she stands there singing in that skirt, with her legs spread provocatively wide apart. That style of 'my crotch in your face' aggressive stage work was actually invented by the husband of Shania Twain (probably spelled that wrong). She was a great hit, years back, standing there and looking like she would do the whole male (and quite possibly female) part of the audience. Shyna dumped the husband a bit later, but not the style. Faith seemed okay when she spoke though. Maybe her husband will be allowed to stay on awhile.

My book, "The Boy," is the first of a four book series. The others are The Warrior, The Shaman and The Chief. But I won't get to see them in print unless The Boy is some kind of hit. At least I can now say that I am a novelist and not just one of those Hollywood hacks. House tonight was the usual drivel that has been coming through the producer's staff filter lately. Shame. Come on David, get a handle on things.

Biting on a lime

James — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:42:09 EST

Behind my place in Kahala, near the beach, there is a small lime tree. The strange thing about the tree, however, is that the fruit it produces is yellow. Now, it is true that I am terribly color blind, but still, limes are green and it is hard to mistake green for yellow. Isn't it? So, the first time I encountered the fruit of thas tree I pulled one off and bit into it. You can do that with a lemon from Hawaiian soil. Nothing is sharp in taste from the lava soil. Oh, you can't eat it like an orange, but you can bite into a lemon and the sourness does not cause you to grimace and spit all over the place. Not so those limes. I bit into the one I picked and grimace was my expression all right. The humor from news these days is 'lime humor.' It makes you laugh but it also makes you grimace terribly.

The Chicago Tribune. Early morning. Here in Lake Geneva. Wispy snow dust blowing as I shake the plastic covered paper off and retreat back into the house. There is not much the new Tribune has to offer. Some teenager was brought in to redesign the paper a couple of weeks ago, and his brain-damaged scattered effort is in my hand as I deftly avoid letting my cat, Harvey, scurry out and freeze to death. In that modern mess of a paper is an article about why we can't go back to a more honest time. I kid you not!!! Why can't these people who made all of these poor financial decisions just apologize and give us some satisfaction there? Why can't they detail what they did wrong and then provide advice on how to fix it all? The columnist is a complete drooling idiot.

I laughed, as I read, with the 'lime humor' expression all over my face however. Harvey caught that strange sound and jumped up onto the arm of my leather chair to consider. He knows that his partner in the cave, as he views the place, is daffy. And I know that because he climbs right up to my face and then stares into my eyes. His head twists from side to side, as if to ask what the hell I am thinking or talking about. After a bit he jumps down in disgust.

Those people the 'drooler' writes about can't apologize. They are the 'Greatest Generation' after all. They won WWII. They rebuilt the country from the disaster it was in after the first depression. Is it not kinda strange to talk in terms of the 'First Depression?' Between WWI and WWII there was no talk of a WWI. It was the Great War. The War to End All Wars. Then came WWII. And the numbers game began. So we have the GDI and now the GDII. I so coin that usage. No, those people cannot apologize. They can't because then they would have to admit that they have the money!!! They took it. If a thief apologizes then his very admission requires a return of whatever he took. If he never admits the crime then he must return nothing. In fact, he can't return anything. That would be a tacit admission of the crime. So, those old bastards are not returning a dime. And they are remaining very very quiet.

Unless we make them give all the stuff back, that is the end of it. They will continue to sip lime rickies from the beach houses they own across the warmer parts of our land. They will continue to gaze out upon their moored or docked yachts (you know, the one's over a hundred feet in length with a full time crew) and then repair occasionally to the nearby airstrip. The big decision of the day will be about what private jet to use. The big wide body or that damned little Gulfstream. If they are having a 'green' day they will choose the G-5. Where are they going, after such a decision? On to one of their other residences, of course. It is Thanksgiving, after all. And this holiday is their favorite. "Thank you America, for giving us all of your wealth and money!" And thank you for being too dumb to figure any of it out. And thank you for being too weak to do anything about it. They actually believe that both God and Right endorse their huge wealth. And they justify the grand theft by Spencerian Darwinism. That's right. While they espouse having Intelligent Design taught in our schools they really believe in naked survival of the fittest. It was there, the money, and they took it. Tough luck, the rest of you.

Take a bite of that lime. It is bitter and your face is screwed up into an awful grimace. Can you convert that reaction of taste to a grimace of anger? Real anger. Way down there. The anger of your lost retirement. The anger of your lost hope. The anger of your embarrassment at not being able to offer that hope to your children or your grandchildren. the anger of the peasant, the serf, the slave. What are you going to do with that anger? Take another bite of the lime and laugh. You are going to do something. Me too.

Where did Alex's hope go?

James — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:31:12 EST

That quote is taken from the movie Big Chill. The preacher at the front of the church in the movie, who speaks on behalf of Alex, the guy who committed suicide (actually a cameo role played by Kevin Costner), uses it in talking about the 'sampling from a number of careers' and the subject,s failure to capitalize on earlier success later in life, which led to his taking of his own life. It is an appropriate phase to put out to our culture at this time. Where did our hope go? How did such a prosperous nation of brilliant people filled with enthusiasm and vigor come upon such a rock-strewn, windy, storm-tossed shore of discontent and short-sighted narcissism? We wander around in fear and vaguely expressed general anger. We think about our own situation and how we are going to get by. We continue to shop, a bit. We buy some more gas, now that it is reasonable again...but we don't buy into the huge SUV thing again. We are too wary. We are too worried about the future. We are worried about the future all the time. When we are not worried about the future we are still worried, and we don't even know what about.

And that is the biggest thing about the culture that has changed since my childhood. Even in the sixties, after I had reached young-adulthood, there was not this general feeling of hanging doom prevalent all over the place. Who the hell, today, is talking about going to Mars? Going back to the moon to build a base? About the wonders that our computer industry is going to shower upon us? About how much better the future is going to be than this present? About how much better it is going to be for our children and their children?

There is none of that. I never hear even a wisp os such conversation at my coffee shop, or anywhere else I go. Even science-fiction conventions are not places of positive light and wild-eyed brightness. We, as a culture, have bought into our own failure. The one burning flame is Barack Obama. It is as if we have thrust forth every last hope we have into getting this guy into office. And now we wait. Do you notice the waiting? We must get through this transition period until that creep Bush goes back to Crawford and gets forgotten. Everyone is feeling it. And everything that is done up until January 20th we just feel we have to absorb until our dream begins. The dream I once had. It is not a dream that our youth have experienced, however. They have been raised on narcissism. What is here is good enough. Let's just improve on it a bit. But we know that that is not good enough. We cannot survive without innovation and progress. We are not constructed to be the green pastoral stewards of this planet. That is a philosophy of life put forward by some really really dumb people. Who get paid well to present things in such impossible ways. Truly being pastoral stewards for earth means turning ourselves into fertilizer so that whatever or whomever comes next is well nourished! We are not here to preserve this earth. We are here to use it and then move out. It is not heaven and it not some blue haven to be preserved as it is for all time. Good God, it changes itself from time to time in frightful ways (like ice ages, as just one example). It also gets changed without being at fault (like getting hit with huge astroids from time to time!). And the changed periods have no space or characteristics that allow for man's survival while they are going on. When that big astroid hit and wiped out the dinosaurs, well, it would have wiped us out too if we had been as advanced as we are today. Only the fact that we were tiny arboreal creatures (and our competition got killed off) allowed us to survive and develop. Our media talks about the 'market' as if is an organism. The stock market does not think. It does not react. It is nothing but a record of buy and sell transactions clustered together. Period. And the earth is a ball of natural resources. It does not think. It is metal, minerals, fauna and flora. And a helluva lot of water. But that is it. Before we can move into the future we have to do an accurate accounting of what the present is and what those resources might be good for. They, and everything on this planet, is our's, and only our's, because we are the only one's to claim it.

So where did our hope go? It was leached out of us by our own design! It was taken by human predators (the very same ones who are being bailed out, even though they do not need to be bailed out...regular people need to be bailed out not banking executives and stockholders). It was drained away by a mass media that we did not understand the power of. It came and took our beliefs away. It showed us that there is nothing that is real and that there are no truths. There are only only illusions and lies. So we gave up. And we mill about. We are waiting and waiting and waiting. Only Obama can save us. But we have to make him save us. We have to rise up and thrust through this veil of awful mistruth and bad philosophy, and then force him to be what we must have him be. It is on us. And we have in front of us an almost impossible task. We must believe in something that we know is not true...in order to make it true. Can we do it? I do not know, but I am going to give it one hell of a try.

Today's Humor

James — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:07:34 EST

God, it is funny out there in the real world. I live in a pocket of irrational misunderstanding. Out there, those people have a corner on that rational thing. Let's see, in the Boston Globe this day they are writing, with wild liberal cheer, about the abolition of all nuclear weapons. Former Secretaries of State are in favor of it. The Pope loves the idea. And I am laughing, from my pocket of strange humanity. We, the USA, is going to get rid of our existing stockpile? That is just hilarious. About the only way that you can assure that nobody will nuke you, in that whole rational world beyond, is too find, build and keep nuclear weapons. We, as a country, did not attack Iran or North Korea. Why? Well, we don't know if either really have nuclear weapons. Did we want to attack them? Hell yes. Even here, in Quasi-Lake Wobegone, we know that! Instead we attacked Iraq and Afghanistan. We knew they did not have nukes. How do you find out whether a country has nukes or not? You can attack them, if you don't believe them when they say they do. If you lose your entire 6th Fleet, well, then you know for sure. Kissinger is in favor of getting rid of all the nukes. That is rich, in of itself. This guy can only travel to Switzerland and back, as far a foreign travel goes. He is wanted for international war crimes around the planet. But, you see, out there, in the real world, he is a master liar as well as a craven killer of men, women and children...all on your behalf, you know.

So, here is the real pitch. We say that we have gotten rid of all our nukes. We do the usual. We lie. Who knows what we have anyway? You think you do? Where are they? How many are there? What happens to old ones? Where are new ones built? You think you know? If you have any idea at all then you are a true believer, in what those people tell you to keep you from really knowing. As for the rest of the world, oh please. We, the USA, has had nukes in other countries for years, much less our own. Yes, even in Allied Countries. They have not known and do not know. They won't know anything and neither will you. It is for your own good, you know. And more rubbish. It is all about control. The idiots interviewed for the Globe article (the Pope, the former Secretaries of State, Etc.) speak as one. Let's make the world nuclear free, they cry. Anyone who disagrees with that is considered part of the 'forces of evil.' We are the good guys. With the nukes. And we are never, ever, ever, giving those up. Because we are not stupid. Once that genie was let out of the bottle, it was out to stay. But we still work with this belief thing. We want others to believe that we are something or have something other than what we really are or have. It is simply a negotiation tactic. We supposedly know that Osama is in Pakistan (which he is not!) but we never threaten Pakistan with anything at all. They have nukes. Instead, we give them billions to do nothing about producing him. Except, they are not stupid either. They keep trying to convince us that he is still there so that we will keep giving them even more money to find him. So, we are clever in coming up with idiotic belief scams but we are dumb as a post in dealing with these clever Pakistanis. Rats. The world out there is so damned intelligent that I can only laugh. I can't possibly understand it.

It is all pretty funny, once you take the pieces apart. Like the Palin thing. She is so dumb she probably needs help to butter her toast in the morning. But there she is, still being interviewed. Writing a book, which has to be a new standard for defining 'oxymoron.' She spoke about Obama being so accurate in his verbal presentations. His sentences are spoken in real English. She took umbrage with his presentation, which speaks volumes in of itself! But then, to add to this, she spoke in that weird 'stupid-speak' she has in common with our current President. I call it the 'celebration of stupidity.' And it makes me laugh. Her seven million should not be paid out for a book. It should be paid out to get her on television doing her own show. She has those legs, and a dedicated willingness to show them. Look at Kelly Rippa's success. As Regis rapidly loses his marbles in front of us all daily, she shows more and more leg....and everything is okay. Writing of 'losing one's marbles,' the Attorney General went back to work right after he got out of the hospital for his stroke. Oh, they said he did not have a stroke. You know, the same one's that will be more than willing to tell everyone that we have gotten rid of all our nukes. But there the guy was, the day before, having such an obvious stroke that the film can be used in any medical school as a descriptor. Hilarious. We all saw it. We all know exactly what it was. But, like the the dolls in the back windows of some old cars, we just keep nodding away. In my little pocket of isolation we would have this guy over there in Aurora Health Care trying to make sure he was okay. But not in the real world. Out he goes, to lance some more windmills before he hits the stage floor for good. The real world is smarter, much more experienced and knowledgeable, but oh so much harsher and colder.

The Emperor has no clothes. That is an accurate description for our economy. The media is telling us that this will all pass. It will all be okay. And i twill for them. They are the same people, by the way, that give us the garbage about some future that is nuclear free, with a straight face. They tell us and we nod. One and all. It is really really funny. Why are their tears in my eyes, as I laugh?

The Financial Solution

James — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:47:02 EST

Our currency is failing. The world's currencies are failing. You can't see it yet, but it is there and coming. The private money sector is failing, simply because it cannot stand against the quadrillions of money lost through stupidity and theft over the past forty, or so, years. That is right. Quadrillions. That is thousands of trillions. What happened is not even important anymore. No, that will come later, if we ever decide to go after the people who did this to us. And it was done to us. But what do we do in the meantime? There is only one thing. Unless we form a new Bank of the United States and begin granting credit based upon that bank's promises to pay, we are doomed to a financial fate worse than the depression. The Dark Ages, which took hundreds of years to recover from, and cost millions upon millions of lives, will be our fate. A return to barter. To a time when guilds are re-started and small tribes prevail. The technology we are all so accustomed to will be gone, almost overnight. Cell phone towers will dot the plains like windmills of old. Our children's children's children may even forget what the hell those rusty tall towers were for. It will be Planet of the Apes but we will be the apes.

A new bank needs to be formed here and in every other developed country of the world. Those banks would guarantee credit. The old currencies, including ours would have to go. All of them. New ones would have to be issued. Only then can new values for things be reassigned, based upon sound credit decisions of the new bank. The Federal Reserve could easily be disbanded and remade into this bank. The bank would also print the new currency. Of course, many wealthy people have foreseen exactly this necessity and so have been buying up every valuable commodity they can get their hands upon. Bullion in person. Possessed, and not based upon any paper. When the real 'bailout' occurs, then they can buy the new currency based upon whatever value is assigned by the new bank. And then they are wealthy agaln. If we let them do that, of course. We live in the most adaptable and functional democracy on the planet. We, as a people can do pretty much what we want to. All we have to do is decide what we want to do.

And therein lies the rub. The media is not going to tell you any of this until it is too late. It is not that they do not understand. It is that they are afraid. And they too hope. They hope that nothing will happen. We are frozen financially right now. But we cannot stay absolutely still forever. We have to move. Goods have to be produced and transported. And all of that cannot continue to happen with what companies have kept back in cash or in very limited credit. We are in the last ninety days of our old lives. Maybe we have until as late as March, but not much more than that. And there is a solution. Can Obama take the necessary steps? Will we have until January 20 even for him to have that opportunity? Will both Congress get behind him?

Will anybody, outside of small fringe voices (like mine) say anything about this? I just don't know, but I think the chances are only about ten percent that action will be taken. That is kind of depressing, and I don't mean to be depressing. There is adventure and opportunity in violent change. Never forget that. And, if everything goes completely to hell in a hand-basket then the people who have had nothing have not lost much. So there is that. And there is always tribalism. Band together in small groups of family and friends now. Make mutual pacts among yourselves. Support one another. Have Thanksgiving (we are still here and okay) and Christmas together. Begin quickly shedding this existencial existence we have fallen into. This culture is cold unforgiving place, in general. Maybe that will be the greatest thing to change if there is tremendous upheaval. God Bless and carry on!

Culling the internet for material....

James — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:42:17 EST

I write all the time. It is what I do, both for a living and for fun. I write to my friends using email, holiday cards and even hard copy (yes, honest to God letters). I prefer the hard copy letters, and I write them with a fountain pen. For people who write a lot, a fountain pen is a valuable tool, as it eases the pressure on one's fingers. A ballpoint requires pressure, while, after you get good at it, the fountain pen can be held lightly and allowed to glide across the paper. Good paper is important, like Rhodea or Cambridge produces, not that dime store junk. Anyway, when you write, even though you do write for an audience, that audience is never very large...the one that sits in the bleachers of your mind while you concentrate, anyway. My first novel comes out in June of next year and it will have a large readership, I am sure. Much larger than the small band I conceive of writing to when I am at work. That band has no faces, no real identity at all. It is composed of young and old, male and female, although I do not consciously see the audience at all (or maybe I would be writing from within an institution). On my blog here, I write thinking of only a very few readers, yet my work somehow permeates farther than I imagine. And that always takes me by surprise. I have received comments from people as well known as Krauthammer (he was really pissed at what I had to say about him), William Kristol (he was even more pissed) and a whole bunch of others. I never get any response from important people who agree with me or like what I have written. I wonder why that is.

I just found out this morning, from Herbert's column in the New York Times, that the Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran's of America (IAVA) is running new ads about post traumatic stress in order to get veterans so suffering to seek help or view their site. The ad is a graphic portrayal of an Army veteran in his combat fatigues wandering an Airport by himself. All alone. He appears lost until he encounters an ex-Marine in civilian attire who greets him: "Welcome home, man," the Marines tells him. I read the column, and then smiled. My short story, called Daisy, and published here weeks ago on this site, has made it into the big time! Oh, you could read my story (about a returning Army veteran at the Phoenix airport encountered by an ex-Marine in civvies) and conclude that it was simple coincidence that the ad by the agency hired by IAVA is so similar to elements of the story, but come on! Nope. They stole 'Daisy.' Those writers at the ad agency are probably not veterans, and, even if they are, they do not have PTSD. So they went online and started looking for stuff that might help them portray the emotional expression of the disorder. Voila! They found Daisy. Their theft is everyone's gain. I bear no malice toward the fact that I was not credited. I have gotten used to that. I wrote "End of the Runway" and it became the movie "Eight Below." No credits. No money. I wrote my novel "The Boy" and sent it off to the same agent who represented Jean Auel. Part of my novel was lifted for her "Shelter of Stones," book. No credits. No money. It is just part of the business. You either pursue that sort of thing or get on with living and writing. And smile. At least I am good enough to be stolen from!

I had dinner last night with some very wealthy people. Our conversation turned eventually to the economy and the potential effects for the future. All of them have placed their hopes on Barack Obama. He is now their savior. Three weeks ago they wanted him assassinated. Now he is all they have. Ironic, don't you think? I feel like my Barack has been stolen from me. He was all mine, along with some of him being owned by the others who occupy this site, and I felt special. I sent money. I campaigned. I believed. I was doing all that while those white wealthy people (at dinner) were hating him and predicting utter social and financial disaster if he got in. Now he is their's. I guess that is the way it is supposed to work. But I felt a loss. I am not sure why. Oh, I don't think Obama can save us, or anybody he hires to help him. He is here to make us feel better while we go through this. I made one small attempt at dinner to let those people know that America is not mad yet. In Mexico the wealthy people are hiring more and more guards for their families and homes. It is not going to work. Many of the wealthy Mexicans are coming up here for safety, but that won't work for long. My recommendation last night was that these people ditch their Mercedes and Bentleys and huge fortress chateaus. The 'ratty robe and Motel Six' look is going to be in, and very soon. But they did not believe me. America is going to get mad. Really mad. And the people who took all this money are going to be their target. Unfortunately, there is also this combat term called collateral damage. So I shut up. I don't need to alone. A wealthy woman told me, a couple of years back, after I had made a telling verbal point in public about something she had said: "Jim, you can be right....and you can be alone." God, was she correct in that analysis.

I was right about Captain Ridley and the Bridge at Dong Ha. None of the whole mythical Marine Corps charade makes any sense at all. Ridley was a captain. Captains have enlisted guys to do their real grunt work. They do not haul 'five hundred pounds of explosives' on their back to blow up a bridge. Captains are ruling commanders in combat zones. They have 'people.' They don't use "TNT" and blasting caps to do the job either. Not in Vietnam and not in 1972 when this event occurred. They used composition B or C-4, which were stable and available all over the place (TNT is a weak, timid and a much more volatile pyrotechnic, much less the fact that we just did not have it in the field). And we didn't use blasting caps that we 'crimped with our teeth,' either. We used 'Det Cord,' another really stable way to set off explosives in the field (if you crimp blasting caps with your teeth you will soon have no teeth). The story that continues to circulate is idiotic, like all urban myths. It falls completely to pieces when you apply any scientific study to it. Then, after all the explosives were set, Ridley blew up the bridge. That was it. Oh, and he got the Navy Cross for it. For extreme heroism in combat. The entire SeaBee force of WWII should have gotten the Navy Cross, time after time, as they blew up many many more bridges all over the place. But Vietnam was special. We did not have any eventful things to do. We just sort of muddled around in the jungle and shot what moved, or shot through the brush at something that shot at us. And we needed a mural entry for the wall at West Point. And we needed some entry for our piece of mythology (we Vietnam Vets, I mean). So we have "Captain Ridley and the Bridge at Dong Ha." Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick would be just as applicable, but not nearly as dramatically moving.

So, I have received bad mail for that analysis. I am not of the "Marine Corps fabric," and I have "tread upon the great traditions of the United States Marine Corps." And so on. Well, all you detractors, and since I really do have PTSD, I have this to say. I was there. I was that Marine Combat Veteran you hold yourself out to be. I bled across that field outside of An Hoa. I spent that year of surgerie'd nightmare in Japan afterwards. And I don't buy phony war stories whatsoever, although I seldom comment on them because of this kind of reaction to my comments. I was never a Marine like you and I am not an ex_Marine like you.

I love my country and the Corps. But I love Christmas, Thanksgiving, Barack Obama, Lake Geneva, Kahala Beach, licorice, prime rib, Harvey, my cat, and much much more, as well. And I love the truth, whenever and wherever I can find it. That truth, outside of the hard sciences, is damned hard to come by, if you have not yet noticed.

The Country...

James — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:33:50 EST

I live out here in the outback of Southern Wisconsin. There is a long lake nearby with a town built right down to the water on one end. In the winter, which is now, the people from down in Illinois go home to their 'real' residences. They leave their summer places to darkly dot the plains and the pocket million dollar developments around the lake itself. The people away from the lake are called hobby farmers. But they don't farm at all. They just are set up to make it look like they farm. You know, old farm implements laying about, a redone barn all fresh with red paint and even a silo or two, empty but who would know. Down by the lake the people are called nothing at all. They are just the wealthy. "Them" is a term you hear, but only in the winter when "them" are gone. I live in one such lakeside development and I wonder why, occasionally, during this long winter, I will not be referred to as a "them." I am a local because I live here all year long. Being a local kind of gives one special dispensation. Plus, I tip five bucks a day into the tip jar at the coffee shop. It is like Hawaii that way. If you live on Oahu you are called Kamaina. And you get treated better. Unless you are white, in which case you are called a Haole, which is not good. Here we are all white so I am just a local.

I know it is winter from the changing weather, of course. But also because I don't drive absent-mindedly and get the finger. During the summer, I get it all the time. I am a writer and a bit absent-minded when it comes to four way stops and such. And I either drive too fast or two slow. Nobody who lives out here, as a local, makes bad signs to one another, however. You see, we all kind of know one another. Not be name, or even facial appearance, but by car and other small signs a non-local would not understand. We are going to see each other again soon and bad signs would not be forgiven or forgotten. But if you have an Illinois plate you can get away with any sign you feel like flashing.

I am a follower of Garrison Keillor now. Lake Wobegone, and all. Garrison made up a fake lake in order to describe all the oddities of the real way things are out here, although he is up in Minnesota, where they say those "ooo's" even longer than down here. You do not go to the grocery store like normal people from the urban centers. You leave an extra hour because you will have to talk to people. You dress better because people will tell you if you don't. If you have been on a diet then people will remember, just from the food you have been buying (yes, they notice everything!), and then tell you about the fact that you have gained all the weight back. They don't mean to be mean. They are just being accurate, so it is best if you do not break down in front of them. In fact, you cannot even cry in the parking lot. You have to drive a few miles away. But if you pull over, well, then cars pull over to help you with whatever problem it is that cause you to pull over. When I moved here I was afraid that I might get stranded along one of these seemingly abandoned roads if my car failed. So I carried a cell phone. I don't have to carry it anymore. You can't stop for more than five minutes without people coming to your assistance. It is kind of neat, unless you have a real thing for privacy and all.

If you take photographs to the coffee shop then expect them to be passed around. Never take your digital camera. They will pick it up to admire the make and mega-pixels but then quickly scroll through the photos you have stored on the chip. If you have been doing some home nude photography of your wife, well, they will like that a lot. And you will be known by everyone. Your wife will be known even better. If she is pretty they will tell her which are her best parts. Maybe, they will tell her even if she is not pretty. So, I don't take my digital camera to the coffee shop anymore.

They all voted for McCain so I had to live in disguise for awhile. I don't do that well. I didn't, anyway, and my popularity at the coffee shop dwindled substantially when my Obmaitis was uncovered. But Barack won, and these back country folk are big on winning. Obama is an honorary Green Bay Packer now. They don't really like him that much but he is on the team so he is in. And I along with him. It is good to be back in. They even explain his race away quite deftly: "Donald Driver is a lot like him, and Driver is cool. Then there is Tiger Woods...." and off they go. You can be black here, if you are a winner. If you are wealthy. But that is for television. We don't have any black people here, which is a shame. I would love to see the coffee shop populated with a good number of them. But my kind of humor is not very back country, and I might find myself semi-unpopular again. And it is winter. And I need them to stop and help me if my car breaks down in the snow.

Waiting

James — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:36:53 EST

There are only two kinds of people in our culture right now. They are not distinct by race, proclivity or even economics. They are distinct by awareness only. There are those who are waiting for the coming cataclysmic financial drop, and there are those who do not know that they are waiting. What is going to happen here that is going to impact upon all of us so substantially? It will start with businesses closing. It will start with much more unemployment...and those unemployed will not stay home. They will gather in malls, without shopping, in coffee shops ordering the cheapest small coffees, and across the land. They will just simply be there. Hitch-hiking will be back. Hanging out will return to places that never even knew what hanging out was. The malls will begin to limit people as they become ghost towns. We will go to cash at filling stations and food stores. And we will still wait for what might be coming of even greater hardship.

The dollar must find a bottom. Currency world-wide must find a place of value. What is anything worth? A whole new system of evaluation and application must be constructed from the disaster which began back in 1971 (when we went off the gold standard under Nixon) and will not reach its peak until sometime next year. Going off the gold standard sounded great. It allowed for the movement of currency and interaction of currencies world-wide, which would never have been possible any other way. But it depended upon a strict discipline, timely accountability and a basic integrity. We, as a world, were not ready for any of those things. Not in dealing with cultures outside our own or even the culture within. Having one's currency value based upon a belief system allowed for control of that value by media manipulation (the discipline), slight of hand (the accountability) and downright theft (the integrity).

It was not the military industrial complex that did us in, which Eisenhower was so afraid of, nor was it world war. It was simply that old beast which has haunted us since the time of man began, several million years back. It was theft by deception. They (the one's in control of the money) said one thing and then did another. In anthropology today we no longer believe that the spoken word was invented to communicate. No, it was invented to cover action. You say one thing and you do another. You use slight of hand and slight of mouth or even slight of pen. The expression which so typifies this today is: "It is not about that...." Whatever the speaker or the writer is stating that the subject is not about, well, that is exactly what it is about. The speaker or the writer always follows that statement, by the way, with: "It is about this...." which it is not about at all. The slight of tongue is right there in front of you. Listen for those phrases among your friends. You will hear them all the time, more in the business setting than in personal communications.

Paulson is still stealing and giving the money to his friends and himself. The Congress is supporting all this in league with the Federal Reserve. You and I both know that the only reason we are not told about where any money at all is going (our tax dollars or the printed money of the Fed which cheapens our tax dollar) is because it is going somewhere or for something that we would vehemently not agree with. We would fight to stop where that money is going. So, we are only told, if at all, after it is distributed. And those same people have made it all legal. They made torture legal. They made snatching anyone they want off the street and throwing them into hell holes forever legal. They made surveillance of everyone for anything basically legal. They have made the theft legal and they are still doing it right this minute. They know this whole thing is going to come crashing down. Why the hell do you think that you cannot even find any gold bullion to buy anymore? Oh, you did not know that? Well, try it. There is none. The price is being artificially held down at about 775 an ounce but there is none to buy. And silver is disappearing, as well. The real bullion, not the futures crap (which is a piece of paper supposedly backed by the bullion....and part of the London Bridge, as well).

They are buying all the gold. All over the world. They are taking the stolen trillions and putting it into hard stuff before the bottom falls out. They know it is coming while most of the people out in the culture have no more than a vague fearful clue. When currency becomes relatively worthless for awhile, they will be totally covered. They will have bullion. Then, when new currencies are issued (which will be what happens when our own currencies fail) they will buy back in and sit there, fat, white, old, ugly and still in control of the great blue pearl we live on.

What can be done? Something that probably won't be done. They need to be identified and then hunted down mercilessly for everything they have. The havens they use need to be opened up with our military's version of can-openers. Cruise missiles are great convincers. But I don't see it happening. I see us all going to hell in a hand bag and then the remnants recovering to be ruled by these awful bastards on into the future.

Obama is going to get to watch it all and make us feel better while it is happening. That is something, anyway. Go out and buy a shit-load of gin and store it in the basement. Obama and a bottle of gin may well be the only way we get through this coming brutal winter.

Gee, what a shock!

James — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:08:14 EST

Sarah Palin is being offered seven million dollars, or thereabouts, for her book. The book will be about her, of course, as what would she otherwise write about? Helicopter hunting? Family counseling and pregnancy planning? A 'how to' book about becoming the greatest 'cougar' on the planet? So here she is, another of those women pushed into our living rooms in bad taste. Her company is solid. Kelly Rippa (our daytime television legs) Ann Coulter (our pundit legs), Dianne Sawyer (our anchor legs) and Hasselbeck (our talk show legs). All aging queens hanging on by the hooks used to pull back the skin of their hawk-like faces. Our star cougars, looking for all the world like glacially cold sex magnets and snuggly ice kittens of love and affection. My God, can you imagine getting between the sheets with one of them? Being helicopter hunted would be more merciful, although certainly not as quick! These Stainless Steel Queens we seem to adore these days. At least they are pushed at us for adoration. I note that none of them are overweight in the least. All are into short skirts and high heels. Gee, I wonder who they are trying to appeal to. McCain picked Palin because he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When he was delirious, in that horrid prison complex outside Hanoi, he dreamed of having such a hardened sex kitten awaiting his return. He came back to a normal loving woman, and got the hell rid of her! He quickly took up with a Palin clone (Titanium Cindy) and married her. Then, when looking for a VP candidate, he found Cold Queen Palin herself. And here we are, stuck with her and the idiocy of her artificial existence. About the only thing we males can congratulate ourselves on is that we are not Todd, being force-fed Moose stew every night out of a dog bowl. Poor bastard. And we are not John McCain, tied with billion dollar velvet handcuffs and being beaten daily. Buy her book, but remember, the importance of her writing will not be in the words. No, it will be in the spaces between the words. Very cold barren spaces, filled with pain. Right under the title, in parentheses, should be these words (BUY ME, READ ME, BUT DON'T EVER TOUCH ME).

It is interesting to read about all the problems that local governments are having. They are losing revenue all over the place. Home values are down so property taxes are going down. People are being foreclosed on so those properties don't pay any taxes at all. Income is down so those taxes are going down. People are not buying enough so sales taxes are going down. What to do? Add more taxes. That is actually being discussed (that "S" creature out in California) but the reality is in the cutting. What to cut out of the budgets in order to make it is really what cogent discussion is all about. And yet, nowhere have I heard discussion about cutting law enforcement and incarceration expenses. Cuts in court costs, from prosecutors to judges, from attorneys to probation officers. The facility costs, the vehicular costs, the food and clothing and medicine costs of all that. Half of every cost laid into county, state and city budgets is somehow related to this great rule oriented beast. Television is all about it. From CSI, to Bones, from The Unit to Boston Legal, and on and on and on. We are a nation caught up in catching violators of the rules. Laws are merely rules written down. We make them all the time. Our puritancial calvinistic roots are quite literally strangling our local economies. Yet, there is no mention of this beast. Communities are perfectly willing to cut what remains of welfare, food stamps, health care for the poor, and more. But we keep arresting everyone we can catch, and nailing them all the time. In Wisconsin we have 'felony bail-jumping,' and it is hilarious (unless you are subject to it's nastiness). We have many local drunks, for example, who get thrown into the county jail for, well, being too drunk. They are given supervised release to await their court hearing. The terms of their supervised release say that they cannot drink. As soon as the drunk gets home the police show up with a mobile breathalizer. They test the drunk. He fails. They arrest him. But, guess what, forget about the original charge (they drop that) because now they have the guy on 'felony-bail jumping.' Six years inside and a felony charge for life. Unbelievable? Yeah. True? Come to Wisconsin and have a few toddies if you do not believe me! I know of one guy here (out on supervised release today!) with six charges for felony bail-jumping. This guy could do thirty-six years for being a drunk!!!

So, what the hell are we doing? I will be happy to inform you. We are not being poor enough! That is what we have been doing. We are too wealthy as communities. We do not measure our needs. We measure our desires. We are going to change a whole lot in the very near future. We have been tricked, by our media, into believing that there are only good guys and bad guys out here. We have been tricked into thinking that if we simply catch all the bad guys and lock them away then all that will be out here will be good guys....like us. The trouble is, we are all good guys and bad guys wrapped into one. Kevin is the drunk's name. He is a great guy. He has never hurt anybody. Never cracked up his car and hurt someone. Never hit anyone at all. He is just a drunk, and a pretty happy-go-lucky one at that. But he gets so drunk on occasion, especially on holidays, that he literally drinks until he falls off his stool. We don't call cabs for people like that anymore. We call the police. So, poor old Kevin, at age 56, is looking at life inside, when they get around to actually locking him up permanently. He is in his house today. I am sure they will be over there with the breath test machine soon. This afternoon he will owe the county forty-two years instead of thirty-six...at about a hundred thousand a year (that it costs the county to keep him in prison, as long as he does not get really really sick!). And oh, the hundred thousand? That is merely the cost the prison has to pay for corrections and facility, food, clothes and medicine and all. The cost of constantly monitoring and testing Kevin, arresting and re-arresting him, and jailing him, and prosecuting him, and judging him, and hauling him around, plus putting him through de-tox each time, well, those costs are never accounted for anywhere. Not that you can find, anyway.

I think things are about to change. And it is about damned time. War Bond, in the movie 'It's a Wonderful Life,' drove Jimmie Stewart home when Jimmie was drunk. I used to do that for locals when I was a cop back in San Clemente so many years ago. I never realized just how much I was saving my community. I only thought that I might be saving the drunk and giving him or her another chance. Today, my conduct then, and Ward Bond's representational conduct in the movie, would be seen as 'enabling,' and a bad thing.

Obama campaigned on a platform of change. I wonder if he had even a clue as to how much change we are about to endure.

Bleak Dawn in Kwazululand, with hope...

James — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:08:27 EST

KWAZULU A quiet encampment,Ulundi hills,Where lions temper evening moves.Zulu rest toward coming dawn,In wait of warming light,To hunt, as men. Tribal ways come undone,Time raved then passed,In hunger's swollen wake.Young boys unmade alive,Who pray for prey,To fight, as men. Shaka's day came then went,Advancing industry,Exchanging liberty,Unrest these left behind,Yet once again stay,To live, as men.

The Phenomenal World

James — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:33:12 EST

Immanual Kant was a philosopher who lived during the 1600's in a place called Konigsburg, Germany. He lived his entire life of eighty years in the same home, only traveling to lecture daily at the university after getting his degrees there. Why do I mention this rather myopic gentleman of old, who lacked anything near what anyone might consider significant enough life experience to discuss how life is lived on this planet? I mention him because often genius transcends normal logic and process. Kant proposed many things about life and remains discussed and considered seriously to this day for almost all of them. The one thing I bring up here is the one about the substantial difference between the phenomenal world and the 'real' world. I taught about his ideas back in anthro, when I was a professor, and well before those brothers got together and used this theory to frame a movie called 'The Matrix.'

The real world is the world that encounters us all the time but is so harsh and ugly that we convert it into a place that is more livable. The ability of human beings to perform this operation is probably the one single thing that distinguishes us from all other animals on the planet. I used to use simple examples, with my students, to illustrate the difference between these two places. For example; the phenomenal world is the one inside of our houses. The wall board, wall paper, paint, rugs, etc. are there to not only provide shelter from the real world outside but to transport us to a more ambient and esthetic place. Right behind the wall board is all the detritus of construction plus mouse droppings and dead insect larva. We don't see it and we make believe these things are not there. Outside it is snowing and blowing hard, but inside it is toasty aqnd warm while we talk on the phone to someone on the other side of the planet. We don't even have a clue as to how our voice gets to that place or how that person's voice gets back to us. A physicist could explain it but we would not even understand his or her explanation. The real world as opposed to our made up one.

The same thing is true of our communication complex. We use 'phenomenal' elements to get through life comfortably, instead of speaking 'real' things. We tell people that we are fine, that we are happy, that we are successful, that they are attractive and not overweight at all. We say we have money and the future looks bright when we are just about broke with no seeming future at all. We use deception and phenomenal elements to stay alive and then live in any comfort with those around us.

While we do these things and say these things we deny that we are doing and saying them. We use deception because it promotes our survival potential and sometimes lessons the survival potential of those around us. We lie. All the time. And we always proclaim that we are telling the truth. That we are not a liar. And we suffer guilt over this. Not because other people believe our lies but because we know, in our heart of hearts, that we are lying all the time. And, because of this, we believe the lies of many others. It would, at first, seem illogical to believe the lies. But, you see, we are taught from birth that people should not lie, no matter what. Quite common today, in verbal expression in this society, is the saying "just tell me the truth. I don't care what you did or might have done." We are forced to project such a front of truth to the world that we buy into the belief system that is impressed upon us. It is a sin and terrible to lie. And in this teaching lies the rub. We believe the teaching, that lying is bad. But we lie. So, we end up believing that we are bad. And we attempt to believe that others we encounter are not lying. We are really the only one lying all the time. There are certain exceptions. This happens when someone around us is found to have lied about something, and the evidence is right there in front of everyone. We jump all over that person with righteous indignation. Our vengeance upon this 'liar' is harsh and our punishment even harsher. But, in truth, we take that attitude and extract that punishment to illustrate the fact, and enlarge upon it, that we are a truth-teller, compared to that wretch. We cover.

We see obvious lies on the television all the time now. The television has changed everything because it has exposed so much as lying and the products of lying. Slowly, ever so slowly, it is changing us by bringing out the fact that almost everything is a lie. Almost all spoken words are spoken to influence activity, to induce action by using verbal deception.

The hair resoration ads are all lies. Only Rogain has ever been known to work and it does not work very well.

The male enhancement ads are all lies. You are as big as you are ever going to be.

The male performance (sex) ads are mostly lies. The ones that do work do not work the way they claim they work and there is no loving, smiling, trusting woman at your side (as you get older) just hoping that you will be able to perform better in bed that night.

The political ads were mostly all lies, on both sides. McCain's were bigger but not better.

And on and on. The televisions producers even got a bill passed years ago that allowed for the lies. They are not responsible for any of the lying. The movie stars and other people in the ads and shows are not responsible either. Nobody is responsible. The phenomenal world is legalized and declared to be the real world.

And so we have our country's leaders. They are lying so badly that the obviousness is hitting us right in the pocketbook daily now. Each day is worse and it is not going to change for awhile. None of this mess was caused by bad investing or bundling or any of that. Hedge funds and Derivatives are lying machines of big money. It has all been about baffling us with the phenomenal while they held off reality. Now reality is creeping toward us. We need to understand that we have been lied to and then act. We must first understand the real world before we can use our phenomenal powers to make it more livable and comfortable. The President, the Congress, and even the Supreme Court all work at the 'pleasure of the American People.'

They can all be impeached and thrown out. And they can all be prosecuted. And all of them, and their 'private' supporters, contractors and executives, can be hounded for the money they have stolen from all of us. If we only understand that the phenomenal world is one which we created and the real one is the one that God gave us the ability to change and control. But first, before we do any of that or understand anything at all, we must look at things and then distinguish what is 'phenomenal' and what is 'real.'

The absolute need of the United States to dissolve the Federal Reserve

James — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:05:47 EST

John Kennedy came up with an executive order in June of 1963. It was Executive Order Number 11110 and it has never been recalled or cancelled. That Executive Order allowed for the United States and the U.S. Mint to print money again, using silver as the guarantee behind it (instead of nothing, as is the case today). Why am writing about the Federal Reserve? Because our terrible financial difficulties (and only the very tip of that iceberg has been revealed so far) is rooted deep within this private bank-like organization.

Today, just about all of the print media came out with one version or another of a story about the Federal Reserve issuing over two trillion dollars to various banks to cover their cash needs. The Federal Reserve does not have any money of its own and does not draw upon money from the U.S. Treasury (like Congress in passing the bailout package would draw on U.S. Treasury funds as raised by taxation from the public). No, the Federal Reserve has no money. But they can print it. And they have gone ahead and done so. Two trillion or more. That will dilute the value of the current amount of currency out in circulation. Marginally, yes, but this is not going to stop. If it continues then inflation is going to hit us very hard indeed and it is going to hurt very badly. It was the Federal Reserve under Greenspan, who enriched himself openly across the board while running the Fed) that created this mess by allowing the thieves to go about their work. And yet, nobody is talking about theft. Nobody ever talks about the huge theft. So, what do we, as a people get, with this distribution of two trillion dollars or more? We get nothing in the way of information. Nothing. They call it 'preventing transparency.' And it flies. Nobody questions this. We are not to be told who got the money. What banks are involved. What ownership or collateral the U.S. gets in return. We are not to get any of it.

So, the answer is simple. The time of the Federal Reserve is over, along with the director of the organization who cannot even be removed from office by the President himself. If the government is going to be responsible for all the banks and financial houses it might just as well be directly responsible and accountable for the management of the money. Then we, as a voting public, have some recourse. We can no longer afford the luxury of having organizations running things in secrecy. We cannot afford trade agreements which violate the Constitution (like NAFTA). We cannot afford subterranean rules that subvert our freedom and spirit (like rendition and torture or even echelon, carnivore and omnivore). Barack Obama and the new Congress must abolish the Federal Reserve and take over. And transparency must be brought to our financial condition in all areas. We need transparency in just about every area of government and military equipment and operations. There is no enemy out there that needs to know anything more about anything we have or do. They already know, and laugh in their knowledge. You see, all the secrecy is only to keep the American people out of the decision-making process. What we do not know we cannot complain about and prevent. We can only complain later on after the deeds are done. Like I am doing right this second in this blog.

The water is still going out and the financial tsunami is building. I can't write any stronger, but I lack of the readership of even a bottom-feeding scum-sucker like Bill Bennent. Frustration suffuses me.

We are watching a lack of transparency in Alaska right now. They cannot explain, up there in the cold, just how so many votes have gone missing. With the Vice Presidential candidate from the Republican Party as their citizen and governor (which has never ever happened up there) the state has come in with eleven percent fewer votes than in 2004. Nobody voted? They had no interest? So what really happened? They threw away votes. And they were not worried about Obama. The vote for McCain Palin was a forgone conclusion well before election night. This is all about that low-life scumbag Stevens. But will the nation wake up? Will Obama act? Will this new set of idealistic leaders fold the proverbial tent and just get on with things as before?

The changes coming need to be huge across the board, and I am not talking medical care, education, Iraq or Afghanistan. I am writing about the money. They simply must go after the people who took it. All of them. Without that kind of dogged pursuit we won't be able to bail out selves out of this mess. They have the money. We can only make their money worth less by making all of our dollars worth less, and believe me, they have plenty more than we do to last the thing out (which is what they foresee will occur). But that is not all that will happen unless our new team acts quickly. Violence will spring up, seemingly out of nowhere, if people do not have food, transportation, heat and electricity. Poof! Just like that we will have an insurgency at home. And we have also learned that once an insurgency gets started it is almost impossible to stop.

Kennedy got himself executed six months after he began his crusade against the Fed and that day all silver certificates ceased being produced. Interesting, is it not? It is all about money, as I keep writing, time after time after time.

I am afraid to sleep because the clowns will eat me....

James — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:39:13 EST

John Leonard died. What a wonderfully biting critic and master of our language. His mental gymnastics entertained us all for years, as he skewered people, places and things across the board. I will miss him. But he was as wrong as the rest of the appeasingly rebellious critics just after 911. I think just everybody except Bill Maher (and he got fired for it!) went along with the line of the day. "We have been mildly damaged but we are undaunted. We are hurt but not down. We will be unaffected by this event in almost every way. We will get the dirty rotten bastards who did this terrible thing to us." It was all a croc. 911 hit us harder then Pearl Harbor and it's effects will remain with us far longer. Did we rebuild the towers after they were knocked down? No. We did not even try. In fact, the self-serving idiots who run that part of New York have simply whipped around and around, as if they are in the base of a blender set on puree. Bureaucratic flatulence and torpor have been the result. Instead of going after Osama, the presumed culprit, we went after Saddam. He was right there and his country was a seemingly lucrative target. Oh yeah, we did bomb the abandoned training centers of the terrorists in Afghanistan (after they were long gone) and we did send some troops there to mix it up with the Taliban, as they were another fun opponent to beat up on. Neither Saddam, his country or the Taliban had anything at all to do with 911. Everyone knew it then and everyone knows it now. But boy, did we celebrate just how righteous and unaffected we were following that New York event. We are still saying it! We are still not in pursuit of Osama! We still get his annual videos and they are best sellers every time they come out!

911 gave us a gift. It was the gift of the world extending a hand to us in sympathy and support. We bit that hand and sent the world packing. We launched a ridiculous war, wrote policies saying that 'what's our's is our's and what's your's is negotiable.' We 'rendered' and tortured. We imprisoned without rights or communication. We began to spy on our own population and anyone in the rest of the world we felt like. And we proclaimed to one and all that we would attack with nuclear weapons anyone or anything we might have an opinion would be a threat to us. We squandered the great gift we were given.

We have been gifted again. Obama's election has caused the world to once more hold out that proverbial hand. The world is saying that it is ready to forgive us this past idiocy and work with us for the betterment of all. We simply must take the world up on this extraordinary offer.

And what will John Stewart and Stephen Colbert do? Poor Letterman. And what about the View? The material they have become so dependent upon is just about exhausted. Palin has returned to her little office in Anchorage, where she remains backed into a corner attempting not to appear pathetic, and failing in that effort. It is a damn good thing that Alaskans use alcohol instead of warm winter coats to guard against the bitter cold up there. Their mainline defense allows for serious memory lapse and comatose acceptance of just about anything that lays around them (usually in the same torpid state!). Down here, well, we have the economy to worry about, but it is not much fun to talk about. And how can one make fun of people losing one thing after another....from their homes to their jobs. We can't make fun of that stuff because we are so deeply worried about our own home and our own job. And if not directly, then the homes and jobs of our children. That fat pig Bill Bennett has disappeared, for awhile, anyway, after attempting to become a died-in-the-wool democrat on election eve. William Kristol, Jewish elitist in full-term denial, continues to bleat on the editorial pages of the New York Times, but all he has to say is junk about how good things can be under Barack's rule if only this, or only that. It is truly funny to watch the reduction of this towering conservative into a barely liberal pool of quivering saliva. He has nothing to say, but he must write on anyway. He is used to those big checks now. And newspapers are not doing well. The public caught on to all the lies they have been telling. The lies of the mass media of television, as well. Hilariously however, television news continues on unaffected while the newspaper industry pays the price. Seems we can't do without our televisions but we can certainly cancel the delivery of our newspapers. The New York Times will, no doubt, be writing soon about the injustice of that. There is nothing more agonizing than watching two prisoners being led to the executioner's block and one getting a reprieve at the last second. The newspapers are outraged and hurt over having to suffer this ultimate punishment alone. Dumas wrote of it in The Count of Monte Cristo, but nobody is reading that man's vital romance novels anymore.

So here we are. The GREATEST GENERATION, of thieving, murderous and unprincipled bastards, is handing off the leadership and ownership of this country to it's quivering mass of children. That old generation of grizzled war and depression tested veterans is allowing us to pry the culture from their cold dying fingers. Here we are, our inheritance in hand...and slowly discovering that the thick envelope, of what we thought was cash, is instead simply a massive pile of debt instruments. Thanks a lot. Go quietly, Tom Brokaw, and the rest of you. Obama is all we got. As I lay down to sleep, he is all that stands between me and the clowns.

Guns to the left of them, guns to the right of them...

James — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:14:52 EST

The sales of guns is way up. Articles and blogs keep bringing this obvious point to our attention. Why are gun sales up? Each article I have read, from the one in the New York Times to others, such as the one on Buzzflash, place the motivation for increasing gun purchases on the election of Obama. Just where, during all the campaigning, did Obama come down on gun owners or encourage any limitations on the purchase of weaponry, of any kind? He never mentioned anything about guns. Or any other weapons. The authors of these articles are simply trying to find some seemingly cogent point of criticism for the new 'liberal' administration. Guns are selling like hot cakes. That is true. And the sale of assault weapons is at the very top. Why is this happening? This is all going on because people are afraid. They are buying guns in the hopes they will be able to protect themselves in the event that this coming economic nightmare gets so terrible that neighbors are going after neighbors for food and other staples. This upsurge in weapon purchases has nothing at all to do with Obama, or hunting, for that matter (unless you include hunting other humans in your calculations!). So it is all about base emotion. It is about fear.

Those guns will just lay around, by the way. Most people have no real clue as to how to use such weaponry in combat. And yes, fighting your neighbor falls into that category, should it ever occur. Shooting people is not like hunting animals. And besides, we got here (with all this technology and civilization) by working together! We didn't get here by killing one another, as much as we love to take that part of our nature and place it right up front. Yes, we have been violent in our development, but not nearly so much as is written and reported. If we are hungry and have nothing, others will share and then expect us to do our part in helping the rest of the group. That is how we get through tough times. We do it by working our way out, not killing each other to get the very last of what may be left. We'd have died out as a species long ago if we simply killed off the 'competition' every time disaster struck. So do not worry about a country where so many people have guns. Worry about doing your part when it comes to that. Right now your part is to accumulate some things should things get terribly worse. Be a bit prepared. Be of mental toughness and fiber. Be prepared in thought. Think about how you will work with those around you, not hurt them or be hurt by them. That guy who won the Pulitzer by writing 'The Road' last year was just full of crap. He has no clue. It was a work of fiction. It's a Wonderful Life by Capra is much more what we are all about. If want it to be that way.

Obama is the President-elect, but we have a lot of time before he actually takes over. Endurance is a big part of what we have to do. Wait this out without going off the deep end. Things are going to get worse but we can handle that, if we think our way through. It is thought that is important at the present time. And sociology. The power of group thought and action is almost impossible to measure. We can do it. We just have to believe we can do it. This is what Obama's campaign was all about and what his administration is going to depend upon. Yes, we can.

Into the valley of death, rode the 600. Tennyson. But we are not the six hundred, and we are not going to have to march our horses and calvary into those guns. Unless we choose to view things that way, that is.

The Call of the Wild....

James — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:39:00 EST

My parents called today. Earlier. After dinner but before the food could settle. They wanted to know if I had seen the press interview Obama conducted earlier in the day. I felt the food from dinner move in my stomach. My parents do not ordinarily call at all. And they are such avowed Republicans that I have always felt that I must remain neutral at all times. Even so, I have found it distinctly uncomfortable to have to play the role of the Swiss neutral. And you, the reader, must understand that if you have taken in any of my previous blogs.

I indicated, to them, that I had not viewed the press conference. I lied. Of course I had viewed that conference. I approved of the 'mutt' comment immediately and felt that Nancy Reagan was owed no apology whatever. With respect to his comment about her use of astrology forcasting to run the Whitehouse during her husband's tour of office. Obama is a mutt. And that is more than okay. It makes him one of us, in at least a marginally passing way. And i worked for Reagan. Ronald and his wife were hopelessly lost in the world of astrological prediction. Why we did not self destruct as a society during his tenure is only due to the wise appointment of personnel he made with which to surround himself (and thereby keep him from conducting policy in a totally insane manner) and the obvious intellect and generosity of the astrologers they used. But it was indeed a 'whacked out' time to be attached to those people, and realize how they were making decisions.

But my parents. They called. And they shocked me. I am used to the 'N' word from them and their total support of the whole neocon platform. That is not what I got from them this day. They listened and watched the press conference and they have decided to back Obama! They think he is on the right track. That he is intelligent and saying the right things. They are stoked that he is appointing white people to office to serve with him. They think he is correct to 'admit' that he is a mutt (they mean of mixed race, of course) and they also think that he is correct to have trashed astrology, even if he included Nancy when he did it.

Here I am, now alone out here on my own. I am the guy who told them I was not going to vote at all, in order not to upset them. The guy who never defended Obama behind his back, for my future distribution of silver, and to keep family harmony. There is no justice in the universe. I thought I was doing the right thing, as they are 90 and 89. Are we ever doing the right thing when we are not really doing the right thing that we believe? I wonder now.

I thought God was being fair in assigning them a black president in the waning years of their lives. God did do that. But then he allowed them to change and respond to it. And they did.

I hear the beating of the drums in the distance, as I remarked yesterday. I also hear the call of the wild, as I do not seem very well grounded in all this urban life activity. I just, sometimes, think that I have it all down and know most of the answers. In reality, I am an aging child.

The Drums in the distance....

James — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:11:18 EST

Like in one of those old "B" movies, the drums beat in the distance, but only from time to time. They appear closer, then farther away, but they always return. The financial disaster of epic proportions is what we are hearing. Thump, thump, thump. Then it misses a few thumps, but always comes back. The hair on our collective neck does not rise and we are not truly afraid. But those damn drums. Why are they still beating out there? What is coming and when is it going to arrive? Or are the drums simply going to stop beating one day, as we fervently pray they do.

The stock market was down again today, after a hefty drop yesterday. Both days together creating a drop larger than anything since 1987. Thump thump. Just two beats, but big ones. Obama is the elect. The one. Yet, those damn drums are not appeased. Bailout funds are distributed, but still those damn drums. What is lurking out there? Can Obama stave this off? Can he, with his new team, hold back the night? Today he appointed a Chief of Staff. A mean-spirited man, which surprised me, but should not have. Somebody very intelligent and funny said that the new Chief of Staff conducted himself, in the House of Representatives, somewhere between a hemorrhoid and a toothache. Building a coalition to quiet those thumping drums is not going to be advanced by bringing Dobermans into the White House. And the new Chief of Staff is another of those chicken hawks we have become so accustomed to watching lead our country. Rahm Emanuel. Much more Israeli than American. All of his time since graduating from Northwestern has been spent working as a political aide or a politician. Just why is it that we are inundated with people who have no life experience at all outside of leading us around by the nose. Oh, I am sorry, he does have experience outside that box. He went and enlisted with the Israeli Defense Force in 1981 to back the war there by rebuilding truck brakes. I find not a single note of his service, or offering of service, for Desert Shield or Desert Storm. No service in the CIA or NSA. No service anywhere, except as a politician. He has never rebuilt any brakes at all for the U.S. Army or the United States Marine Corps.

But, what the hell, David Axelrod, Obama's campaign director just took over the position as Presidential Advisor, and he has the same track record as Rahm. No service whatever, not even for the Israeli Defense Force (he is Jewish, as well), in his case. Again, in politics all of his life. But nothing else. Nothing? How can we expect these guys to know anything at all about the real world. They are like players of the board game named RISK. Once they have played the board game long enough they know how to handle other countries and even win wars.

Unfortunately, once they get welcomed to the real world, they find that RISK has a few drawbacks, as an educational instrument. The result of the prior RISK players has landed us mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, while all the time we are considering going against Iran with seven armies to their one. We can win that with our advantages (we get three dice and they only get one).

What is 'The One' doing? I have not a clue. I am afraid to write my letter volunteering how we can go out there and get Osama Bin Laden simply because I do not want to end up on the no-fly list or maybe get a free cot at Guantanimo for awhile (I mean, if they have cots, which i doubt). And I hear the drums again. The Asian market is opening right now and the markets there are diving into oblivion. I can hear the drums all the way from the far East. Thump, thump, thump. Quiet. It is a long way away. Way in the distance. But the drums continue to beat.