The Path Less Taken: Christmas blog make-over. Envy of Mr Frost's web design.

The Path Less Taken: Christmas blog make-over. Envy of Mr Frost's web design.

The Path Less Taken: Christmas blog make-over. Envy of Mr Frost's web design.

The Path Less Taken: Christmas blog make-over. Envy of Mr Frost's web design.

Attempt at Chaos by American Free Press Fails Again

This blog is written in response by a recent opinion column in the New York Times which supposes there is a "twist" of some sort regarding America wanting to control violence on its border with Mexico and the recent winner of the Miss USA contest having non-Northwestern-European-colored skin.

The Law in Arizona regarding protecting American Citizens from Illegal Immigrants has everything to do with escalating violence in drug wars on the Mexican border and nothing whatsoever to do with Mexicans themselves who are basically charming and delightsome people.

People who live near the Mexican border are living with unheard of violence in their own yards, homes, and ranches. American Citizens are being terriorized by organizations of competing drug lords.

I'm starting to consider that the only people who want to keep "drugs" illegal are those who make a profit off of their trafficing and use.

The only people who think the recent Arizona law has to do with racial profiling are those living in the backwater of New York City as well as general journalistic trouble-makers.

When a well-known Arizona Rancher who was known in his life-time for rescuing and bringing water to people traveling in the desert across his ranch was killed, the State of Arizona finally decided it had had enough lawlessness and took action.

The Young Woman from Michigan truely is beautiful ... and intelligent as well. I join with others in congratulating her on her Title of Miss USA. Her selection has been based upon a life-time of hard work, perserverence, and focus.

Her selection has nothing whatsoever to do with her genetic coding or experiences in religion.

What nonsense we get in our news sources from the numb-sculls on the East Coast who think they are entitled to continue to create drama and uproar in our communities.

The "twist" is that there is any sanity at all in America at the moment given the role of chaos-inducement aka blatent misinformation from the "national" press.

Miss Michigan aka Miss USA: you go girl!

Violence Is Never An Answer

This blog is in response to a recent event of a Muslim Psychiatrist in the United States Army, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, openly murdering seemingly random troops around him where he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.

When a Psychiatrist acts out in this way, one has to ask oneself, "What is the message here?"

The people of Afghanistan have been surviving a state of war for over thirty years now. It's hard to get in a harvest under these conditions. Children are hungry.

Early on, in this go-round, about five years ago, an American drone killed a wedding party because one of the members was a tall man. Ben Laudin is thought to be a tall man.

Back when the Afghans were fighting to get the Soviet Union out of their country, we Americans trained Ben Laudin in war tactics here in the American West and sent CIA contract killers over with him to Afghanistan. Our deal was to help the Afghans after they won the war against the USSR and then help them to rebuild their country.

After the Soviet Union retreated, so did the US government. We blatantly did not keep any of our promises to the Afghan people.

Now, we want the Afghans to trust us again. Same old claims/lies. Same old US cronyism with corrupt officials. It's quite like Lucy telling Charlie that she won't pull the football away this year when she holds it for him to kick it. She always pulls it away. And, then she laughs.

Citizens of Afghanistan are intelligent people with an ancient, highly-civilized Culture. Our American troops are going around kicking doors in and then going into homes to check for ... enemies. We Americans are pretending that we are not aware of the deadly situation we are creating for anyone who helps us at all. That person's entire family will be killed, or worse. Unfortunately, as we all know, gang raping a young virgin is a traditional way to teach a family a lesson.

The so-called news is hindering the situation further by mis-representing Afghanistan itself and its people, by only reporting dramatic chaos and only showing photographs of Afghanistan as a barren desert. Au contraire. Afghanistan is famous for its orchards. I'm told the pomegranates are absolute heaven and widely and inexpensively available to all. I'll bet pistachios are too.

The last orchards of wild apples on Earth are in Afghanistan.

There is beautiful architecture from the Middle Ages. Walled gardens. Water-works.

Afghanistan is famous for its weaving and decorating of cloth. People have been weaving and embroidering over hand stamped images for thousands of years. The textures and designs are wonderful.

In the Seventies, I wore a "blouse" from Afghanistan which had been hand printed with a floral design, flowers were embroidered over and around the printing and, also, mirrors had been attached using a type of inverted blanket stitch. The blouse was comfortable and practical. There was a large pocket sewn onto the front of the blouse. All of the seams were covered with beautiful embroidery. There was even a hand-loomed tie at the top of the neck-line made out of embroidery thread with tassels on the ends. I could tie it closed if I wanted to.

I wore this blouse over a leotard that I had embroidered myself with lazy daisies and French knots. And, of course, with Levis. It was comfortable to wear. Beautiful. Well designed. Well constructed. For me, it stands as a metaphor for Afghanistan itself.

So. Against my extremely limited experience of Afghanistan, and, alas, never having been there, I feel so sad that these people are experiencing the horrors and terrors of war generation after generation. And we American citizens are not only paying for it, we are condoning it with our false patriotism and and silence. I guess Mao Tsu Tong was correct in at least one way. People always have their opiate. For us Americans, it's television.

We've become dulled to the inappropriateness of violence through our mass media. Violence and fear have become entertainment for us. We women have gone back to being mindless sex-objects. Breasts are portrayed as male sporting grounds instead of holy vessels with which to feed our children.

So. What was the Psychiatrist saying when he seemingly mindlessly murdered fellow soldiers who happened to randomly be around him? This might be the most important question for all of us to consider deeply and rationally.

This is not a time for taking sides or knee-jerk reactions. This is a time for us all to take a long pause and consider what we are doing here in America.

We've just given hundreds of billions to already wealthy stock brokers; we've just taken away $800 million from Medicaid which provides for our most vulnerable citizens.

We really are not a Christian country any more. Remember that Christ said, What you do to the least of them, you do unto me.

As a country, we here in America have simply lost our minds. It's time to slow the pace and gather information. By information, I mean measurable facts. Then we must get into some sort of a sane solution so that we can find our way back to rational life.

Why should we ask our children to put their lives on the line in order to get an education, have job security, health insurance, housing, and expect a retirement. There are a lot of benefits to life in the American Military.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with our young people. Our troops and highly trained and effective. Loyal. Everyone in our Armed Services are commendable human beings.

Our values are in question. How we perceive reality is in question. How we live is in question.

There are always extremist fear mongers in every society. These either/or, rigid people are usually fairly under-educated, rural people who want to keep the traditions of the generations who have come before them. Right or wrong. Very conservative. Very frightened. Things either are or they are not. The so-called ch***tian wrong in the American Southeast is no less hateful than the rural Pushtans in Afghanistan. Maybe the American wrongs cause more trouble. They have more funding.

It's obvious that our American behaviour has created all of the Terrorists who now hate us enough to want to kill us. This has been building up over decades.

We Americans, generally, don't know much about what our government has been doing in other countries. The revolutions we've caused and paid for so we could have a puppet government at our command. The despots we've kept in power. Not just our lies. Our arrogance. Our destruct ions.

The root of all of this current killing and screaming, is our continuing support of Israel and our turning of our backs on the Palestinian people. It's time to start addressing these issues realistically. Learning the actual history of what happened in 1947. Normal, everyday Palestinians were forced out of their homes under gun fire. Many were killed. Some fled to Jordon, Syria, Western Europe and elsewhere. Those Palestinians who still live in their original homeland...the Palatinate...live in hideous little Cantons where the Israelis have stolen all of their water, cut down all of their orchards, keep produce in check-points until it is rotten, and have repeatedly carpet-bombed the villages of all of the Arab areas around them. At American tax-payers expense.

Schools and libraries, power-plants and sewage facilities have purposely been destroyed by the Israelis. Now they're putting up a wall to "protect" themselves. The wall goes around Palestinian wells and orchards so that those resources are now part of Israel.

Newspaper and other news media in the Western World are under strict directions to never report one good thing about Palestinians. And, they can never, ever criticize Israel.

About six months ago, a group, in a small boat, whose crew included Representatives from the United States Congress, entered Israeli waters with a cargo of teddy bears. They were taken into custody by the Israelis and accused of attempting to deliver terrorist supplies to Palestine. It took several weeks of diplomacy for these innocents to be released from Israeli custody.

Palestinian women have been forced to give birth, in public, without medical care, without the help of their families, in Israeli check-points because the soldiers would not let them through.

Israelis lead wonderful lives. We pay for that. We don't take care of our own citizens yet we send tremendous amounts of money to Israel...which is a nuclear power...thanks to us. As is Pakistan. As is India.

I don't know why the American public are being so passive and ignorant about all of this.

How can we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people if the people don't pay attention?

With any luck at all, there will be those who are able to follow complicated thought. Not necessarily...but...possibly. Not probably...but, as I say, with any luck at all, we haven't become so jaded and corrupted that just a few will educate themselves and speak out. As I am today.

Yes. I've learned things I haven't wanted to know. Yes. It's taken time. Yes, I believe in the delicious, idealized government which our formothers and fathers brought to bear, at great personal expense, a republican democracy. This kind of thing is actual patriotism.

Our unique form of government is the fruit of the Age of Enlightenment.

Maybe this is the message, or something like it, that the Psychiatrist is telling us. Random killing. Check. Killing of innocents. Check. Going crazy because death has become so common in our world. Check.

One would not think that a man so highly trained as a medical doctor and then further trained as a Psychiatrist would thoughtlessly and for a shallow reason, give his life away without some rational reason. Especially since he is a Psychiatrist.

Let's think about the recent murders at Fort Hood thoughtfully, calmly, and find as many of the lessons as we can which will help us to live the way our Great-great-great-great-grandparents thought they were preparing for us.

We woman are complete human beings.

This particular blog is in response to what happened today in the House of Representatives of the United States of America.

I insist on being one of the women who speak up for women.

Being able to blog is a great place for us to talk to each other about actual issues.

Many of these citizens and politicians today are missing the point.

We, as woman, are in charge of our bodies and it is up to us, personally, to make decisions about what to do with our bodies.

How dare politicians and others try to decide for us whether or not we have the right to choose?

We recognize that we have a moral obligation to make a reasoned, rational choice about whether or not to bear a child.

Giving birth to another human being is a life-changing, life long-decision, It should not be taken lightly. It should not be a matter of chance. No woman should ever give birth to a child because she feels guilty to have an abortion.

A woman's right to life is not superseeded by the so-called rights of an unquickened mass of tissue.

Why don't we have hoards of people screaming at woman going into birthing rooms at hospitals. The world is already over-populated. Can you afford this child? Are you mentally and physically stable enough to have this child?

Why doesn't anyone shoot at doctors who are delivering babies?

Every child deserves to be a prayerfully-wanted child.

And, we, as woman, are complete human beings. Without the right to make choices about what we do with our bodies, we have absolutely nothing.

Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant is no longer cute. It's simply irresponsible.

Each child deserves to have two active, engaged parents.

Each child deserves braces and piano lessons.

All of this baloney is just another way to keep us in thrall to men...who do have larger bodies...and who are, generally, more willing to be bullying and abusive.

A zygot is not a child.

An embryo is not a child.

The mass of tissue that develops when sperm and egg join is not human until it "quickens". That means, until the woman feels the life itself, usually after about three months. A pregnant woman feels a feeling like a little fish swimming quickly inside her. That is the quickening.

And, don't get me started on feeling obligated to bring genetically deformed creatures to term. It's unfair to society and it's hideously unfiair to that person.

The safest birth-control fails about 3% of the time.

Not funding abortion, or worse-yet, making it illegal, will not stop woman from having abortions. It only means that we will have to go back to the old way of back alleys, clothes hangers, and suicide.

And, abortion is a health care issue. We women deserve to receive health care in clean, medical facilities.

This terrorist-to-all-woman decision to trade our health and safety for political reasons is unacceptable.

But. What will happen? The younger woman don't remember the "good old days" when women couldn't enter libraries without a male escort; women could not get an education; women could not own property; woman could not control our own money; and...we could not vote.

We still earn cents on the dollar compared to what men earn...but we pay the same for rent and groceries. And, often, we have to feed less-than-actually-wanted children inferior diets because the sperm doner has skipped out.

Too many Grandmothers are taking care of their grandchildren because their daughters don't want to.

Too many children are homeless because no one wants them around. These actual people, the children, are vulnerable. Hungry. Frightened. Over-tired.

These younger woman with their cute little short skirts and their emphasis on chatting with each other. I'm so sorry they're going to have to learn the hard way what it means to be second class.

The problem is that woman don't support woman.

Let's put Nancy P. at the head of the list.

The heart of the matter is that we use the third-person pronoun, "they," when in actuality, we are talking about ourselves, "we."

Once we start using "we", we will begin to own ourselves.

Bravo to all of us who have been blazing trail since the sixties and we're still going. Won't some of you other women join us? It's fun to be informed and to think. It's fun to make decisions and take responsibilities.

Choices are only valued when they are (1) freely made, and (2) made from choices.

Allowing our House of Representatives to trade our safe place to have abortions for political reasons is unacceptable. We all need to stand up for each other on this issue. As they used to say, "It's the heart of the coconut."

Tah for now.

Starting Upon the Next Leg of the Journey

Several of my dearest friends helped me walk through the Arch into Old Age in the earlier part of the Summer. Some friends created a surprise party that really was a surprise; others gathered for a special luncheon at a local Japanese restaurant. Although I know there's a chance that I might have a good twenty-five or more years ahead of me, with wonderful adventures awaiting, it is true that I have started reminiscing in a way that I really never have before. And, this is bitter-sweet.

I've learned new ways of processing information. I seldom allow hideous memories to come back into my consciousness any more. I'm less driven by fear. I'm not as sure of what is proper and correct and valuable as I was when I was younger. I've accepted that there are as many ways of doing life as their are people. This is especially true of me because I am an American. Perhaps it's easier for Americans, with our high-value of Rugged Independence, to accept that there is more variety in life than ever could be expected.

I spent most of my life looking for that elusive how-to book. I always had a strong sense that other people knew things that I didn't know and that it was vital to my well-being and happiness to find that information, learn how to use it, and incorporate it into my daily life. Well. I guess to the extent that I have done that, I have done that. Life for me is no longer the fiery experience that burns my heart. Life has, for me, become a delicious, daily bread...and, mostly, I am completely satisfied.

I'm including this photograph of this roadway which goes under an arch and into what was once a town as a visual to commemorate and express to the reader how I feel at this very moment. I feel a total sense of completion of my past and a total, yet unformed, happy expectation for my future. I keep in mind that it would not be surprising if I were to drop to the ground, suddenly dead, at any moment now. That could make sense. I don't particularly expect that ... yet it is more possible now than it ever has been in the past.

I do believe that as a person reaches my age, a certain path has been created out of all of the choices we have made in the past as well as how we have processed information and handled both the expected and the unexpected. On a certain level, life is a constant maintenance of keeping total chaos at bey and generating as much order around ourselves as possible. Generally, people are more comfortable when we can pretty much predict what is going to happen next. In fact, it's orderly to have routines. We accomplish more. We are relatively predictable to ourselves and those around us. We move comfortably through the order which we have created in our lives. The people around us are comfortable. Plans are made and actuated. We move ahead from one accomplishment to another. Then, all of a sudden, Everything Changes.

This happens to everyone. Sometimes more often than we would like. Chaos roars swirling back in and around us, inundating our entire lives and purposes, our expectations and commitments, dragging us in another, unexpected, undesirable direction with all the forces of Evil and Bad Intent. There are moments in life when the most we can do is to keep breathing. To concentrate on slowly breathing in and slowly breathing out. I breath deeply and I breath completely.

I was dragged out into an Ocean of Terror exactly sixteen years ago on this very day. Nothing at all has ever been the same in my Life. Nor can it ever possibly go back to what it was. All of the worst possible things have taken place in my life during this period. I was under-served by the medical community and dis-served by the legal community. Never in a million years would I have expected the individual people in my life at that time to have acted in the ways that they did during this period.

So. Today I let go of all of that. Actually, we all know it's a process, not a moment. It's time, finally, to move on.

Moving ahead feels good to me now. Oh, yes. There are incipient left-overs of the horror yet they are pretty much predictable at this point, fairly well-contained and well-tolerated. One develops an incredibly sophisticated sense of humor. I feel like making a bumper-sticker that says, "Stupidity happens."

So I'm looking at the path which leads under the Arch and foreword into....who can really know. I'm getting a sense of possibly what I might like to do and all depends upon how my health resolves in the next little while. I've never recovered from whatever happened up above the Arctic Circle two winters ago when I was experiencing first hand...Solar Midnight on top of a very frozen mountain at 2AM and so forth. But, I did see a high-speed particle come blasting into the atmosphere, whoosh along a line of electro-magnification...and then gently drift upwards into a veil of pale, emerald-green (excited oxygen particles), drifting upwards into an Aurora Boralis...and I could see stars through it.

More to come. Tah. Pompadour.

18 July 2009

Hello to all.

This is my first ever blog. I'll be writing about a variety of subjects including Literature, Politics, and the Arts. I invite my fellow humans to respond to my thoughts so we can have a civic dialogue. Mostly I plan to elucidate and philosophize. Inform. Report inconsistencies between reality and television or radio coverage. Sometimes I will attempt a civilized essay. Sometimes I will rant. Sometimes I will discuss travels or methods. Other times, I may write a simple, perhaps personal, journal entry.

I've wanted to do a blog for a long time and am glad to now be moving ahead into actually doing it.

Tah for now. Pompadour