Jūs Bar

The Hitchhiker

2011-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Last night I was driving home from Wal-mart at midnight. And yes, this is a fairly regular occurrence, unfortunately. At this time of night, Highway 24, an unlit 2-lane rural highway, had almost no traffic. The temperature was about 25 degrees so I had the heater going full blast.

Out of the darkness, I saw a glimpse of someone on the shoulder of the oncoming lane - a man waving his arms for me to stop. At that speed, all I could see was that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and what appeared to be shorts.

Instantly the thought crossed my mind - "Oh hell no!" I had images of a crazed hitchhiker with a butcher knife. Or a gun. I thought of every slasher movie set in Texas or some other isolated rural area. This was a no-brainer. Just keep driving.

Then I thought about what he was wearing. It was freezing outside and he had on almost nothing. Was he stranded? We were at least 10 miles from the nearest town. What if he stopped to rest and ended up freezing to death?

As I imagined all the possible outcomes, I let up on the gas. This was turning into a metaphysical crisis. What kind of person did I want to be? As a political junkie, I'm constantly railing against fear-based conservatives and their creative form of domestic terrorism. My basic viewpoint is that conservatives = fear, progressives = hope. But how committed was I to that ideal? Or was that viewpoint relevant at all in this case? I want to be compassionate, I want to follow in the footsteps of saints and angels who dedicate their lives to helping others. Then again, fucking crazy rednecks.

Would I have my compassion squashed by fear? Or would I have the faith to risk an act of kindness and know that I would be ok?

Ultimately it came back to the question - what kind of man did I choose to be? That was the clincher. Whatever the risk, I choose compassion. It's scary. Damn scary. But if it came down to it, I would rather live a short life of compassion than a long life of fear. This one moment was an opportunity to demonstrate that choice.

I pulled onto the shoulder and turned the car around. With my heart pounding, I drove back the way I came. I couldn't remember how far back the guy was, so I drove a little slower and kept an eye out. After what seemed like 10 minutes, I crossed a bridge I'd noted before I saw him, which told me for certain that he'd already been picked up or otherwise found help.

Whew! Relief. I made a choice for compassion AND didn't have to pick him up. Win / Win!

And then I saw him.

This time he was waving his pants at me. Nutjob.

I hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. I could barely swallow. I didn't dare back up for fear of running him over. But it was so dark I couldn't see anything and I was scared of him suddenly appearing in my window. Eventually, I saw him in the rear view mirror, sprinting up behind me, a ghostly image coming out of the dark in the glow of my tail lights.

I rolled down my passenger window. He ran up to it, breathless. The guy was about 25, very cute, and as it turned out, wearing pajama bottoms and carrying his pants. He was also out of breath, and obviously scared. Uh oh. Like a friend said later, this was either the setup for a slasher flick or a porn film. It could go either way.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"Yeah."

"Can I use it? I need to call the sheriff."

"I can make the call for you. What's going on?"

"My girlfriend's husband got home early and he's beating the crap out of her."

Wow. That just said it all right there.

I dialed 911 and put it on speaker phone so the poor guy could explain the situation. After the operator agreed to send a sheriff to meet him, I invited him into the car. Definitely not a slasher flick. The jury was still out on the porn, but probably not that either. Really, I was just worried that the guy was freezing his ass off.

I drove him to a defunct gas station, where he'd parked his truck and asked the sheriff to meet him. Evidently he had a rendezvous with his girlfriend, but the husband decided to quit his truck driving school that night and came home early. In a rage, the husband grabbed his gun. My guy, a sheriff's deputy in another county, had left his gun in his truck. Fortunately, the husband's dad came in and calmed the husband down enough to set the gun down. That's when the stud took off, sans pants. His girlfriend threw his pants and shirt out the window but the guy's truck keys, cell phone, and wallet were still there. I guess the last thing he heard was the woman screaming.

So now I had a freezing, scared straight boy in his pajamas sitting in my car. What else could I do - I introduced myself. He told me his full name and we chatted a bit. Then I made sure the husband did NOT know where he'd parked his truck. I found out what town he lived in and a little more about the situation, and casually mentioned that he might want to tell the sheriff that the husband is armed. I tried to keep things light and simple until the sheriff showed up, which he did shortly. My boy tossed his pants on the hood of his truck and talked to the sheriff. After the two of them left together, I stepped out just to make sure I was alone and that I wouldn't run him over when I backed out (the gas station was completely shut down and had no lights - yeah, I know). Then I updated my facebook status and drove home.

This could have had many different outcomes. But in the end it turned out to be a very good thing that I stopped. My only regret is my hesitation. If a woman was being beaten could I have saved her some pain if I had stopped sooner? If my reaction had been more instinctual than methodical?

Hopefully I'll know the end of the story soon enough. Being the son of a well-connected ex-county judge and ex-law enforcement officer has its advantages. My dad knows just about every sheriff in the area. When I told him the story (leaving out the part about how hot the guy was), my dad wrote down his name so he could check with some of his buddies.

I'm glad I'm ok, obviously. But I hope everyone else is, as well.

Saying Goodbye

2009-04-14T23:20:00.001-07:00

I thought I was alone. I knew I had friends, some good friends, some acquaintances. But ultimately I thought I was alone in a city filled with people. Unnoticed, invisible, able to slip in and out without a whisper.

How I was wrong. Once I began telling people of my decision to leave San Francisco, the response was overwhelming. I went on a whirlwind tour of dinners, brunches, coffees, going away parties. People were sad, some visibly so. But most understood. I have a wonderful opportunity waiting for me, a chance to check out for awhile and write in solitude until the economic storm lets up a bit. Still, they were sad.

And that makes me a bit sad. What a missed opportunity, to have brilliant, creative, sophisticated, engaging, kind-hearted people in my life and yet sit alone in the corner feeling sorry for myself. And yet what a revelation.

I spoke with a friend recently who related the story of her ex, who's gone a bit, shall we say, "off". Amongst the stories he's telling himself is that he has no friends, no one to hang out with or turn to. As we talked about how sad it was that he was so delusional and self-destructive, I had to bite my tongue. I understand this. It's a strange veil of occlusion, pulled down by a hand of habits. Some of us habituate depression. When we falter in coping with a major disappointment, we revert not to anger or defensiveness but the stance of failure. We use the disappointment as ammunition to say that yes, in fact we are weak / clumsy / stupid / a failure. It's a delusion. But that delusion begins to spread and infect the truer, brighter moments of our lives.

I think it's common to see ourselves as alone in our misery. In addition to being grateful for all the amazing friends I have in San Francisco, I'm grateful for cracking open that delusion in time to appreciate what I have, if only for a few days. That I can see this and still feel right about my decision to go tells me I'm on the right path. I'll miss many, many things about this city. But one thing I'll take with me is the knowledge that the party starts right here. All I have to do is ask people to join it.

And in moments of darkness, no matter how lonely I feel, I'm never truly alone.

Transitions

2009-03-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

This is my life today. I'm sitting in Coffee to the People at the corner of Masonic and Haight, San Francisco. One block to the east is my home, next door to the former residence of Jimi Hendrix. One block to the west is the famed Ashbury part of Haight and Ashbury, a street corner immortalized by a single rowdy summer and mountains of press. I still don't quite understand why that corner in particular - Masonic is much more of a happening street. And Central, where I live, is at the edge of "Hippie Hill", aka Buena Vista Park.

In any case, it's a pretty mellow day. Not packed, like usual, possibly because of a light drizzle outside. Tourists trickle in, sit for awhile with local shopping bags, have some coffee or one of the exciting and unusual espresso drinks, plan their next excursion, then trickle out again. A few of us are regulars. I recognize the others and they recognize me. Sometimes, if we've had a particularly meaningful encounter, we may acknowledge that recognition with a nod. Otherwise, we pretend the other doesn't exist.

This is my life in San Francisco for the most part. I don't exist. To 99% of the people I see in a day, the thousands of people I press up against on the bus or the subway or pass walking down the sidewalk, I'm an anonymous biomass taking up space. Just as they are to me. Now, after about 4 years in the city and 9 years in the area, I understand that hard shell that forms around the soul to protect it from the sheer crush of chaos, insanity, and life. It's with a mix of relief and regret that I've formed one myself. A shell, perhaps a toughness, perhaps simply a surrender. Whatever it is, it allows me to stand firm while unwashed schizophrenics dash themselves against me and bounce off. It allows me to step over a pile of dog crap, human crap, stale lunch, someone's leg, without breaking stride. I can walk down the sidewalk checking email on my iPhone and barely register the half a dozen homeless, pushing shopping carts while screaming at invisible demons, that I pass en route to my next appointment. Did I say half a dozen? Make that a dozen. Two dozen.

The music at the cafe today is lazy, grungy, distorted. It fits my mood. They added new food to the menu a couple of days ago. I tried the breakfast burrito. I can't really afford it but I won't be here much longer and thought I'd indulge. Now I'm sipping my quadruple cappuccino. My external hard drive sits on the table next to my iPhone and is plugged into my computer so I can continue editing some dance footage I should've finished two months ago.

I didn't finish because I've been looking for work. Scrambling to earn a few bucks here and there in between bidding on projects, sending out resumes. It's been nine months since I quit my "job" as a consultant/journalist. It was killing me. Seriously. I'd reached the point at which the work was dead to me. It wasn't what I wanted to do, wasn't what I was meant to do. And that knowledge, no matter how buried, bubbled to the surface in toxic belches of incompetence. I was beginning to fail, frequently and in rapid succession. The failures, the pressure, the vain attempts to cram 30-hour days into 24 hours, the broken relationship, the neverending stream of disappointed and frustrated clients, the cat who kept shitting on my bed - all sent me into a death spiral of depression. Every night I would go to sleep wishing I had the strength to end it once and for all. So when I finished my last assignment, I said no more, cashed the paychecks, and coasted for a couple of months with a renewed sense of purpose and redirected ambitions. Then the economy went to shit. And when it was time to work again, there was no work to be had. Since then I've sent out well over 100 resumes and out of those got about 10 or so acknowledgements that my resume had been received. And out of those got about 3 phone screenings. And out of those got 2 in-person interviews. And out of those got 0 jobs. I've been to two job fairs, standing in line for multiple hours with multiple hundreds of other people competing for less than 10 jobs in the entire room. I've bid on at least a dozen coding projects and lost them all, some of them mere moments before signing the contract. Maybe someone with more fortitude, or self-delusion, could push through and restart an abandoned career. But it's just not in me. New Agers would say, "You can create anything you want." And that's true. And I don't want this - not tech work, not really. But the things I do want take time to develop. And how can you develop and nurture a new career when you're scrambling to subsist? It's a no-win situation.

Time to make a change. This isn't where I want to be. Broke, indebted, unemployable, hardened, callous, shut off from humanity and my own spirit. Something is broken. I have so much more potential than this.

Fortunately I also have something that few other people have, something for which I'm more grateful than I can put into words. I have a family who loves me and a wide circle of friends, some here in San Francisco, but many, many more in Texas. And I have an opportunity. My dad wants me to take over his job managing a storage rental facility in East Texas in exchange for free housing and a small income to cover monthly expenses. When I say it's in the middle of nowhere, I mean it - it's in the smallest county in Texas and the nearest community is two miles away and has a population of less than 200. The entire county has just over 5000 people and the county seat, my official residence, has just over 2000 of them. Dallas is one and a half hours away, though. A morning commute in Silicon Valley.

In other words: it's a writer's dream. It's my chance to check out for awhile, focus on my writing, get reacquainted with myself. There are huge downsides, of course - small towns tend to inbreed astonishing ignorance. It's also one of the few counties to become MORE red in the last election, primarily because the alternative was to elect a black man. As a whole, the people are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and ultra religious. Shooting animals is considered pleasurable, a concept I have never understood, while selling alcohol is still illegal, a holdover from the Prohibition.

Is this a good move? An upgrade? Downgrade? Lateral move? I feel like I'm traveling between dimensions. I wonder if San Francisco will still seem real or if my memories will take the tone of a strange but distant dream. Regardless, it's the right move. Of that I'm sure. I've asked the hard questions, looked for the signs, done my research, and undergone all the contemplation I need to feel comfortable. It's a strange decision, completely out of character. This is not about "going home" - East Texas has never been my home, despite the fact that every single member of my immediate and extended family, without exception, lives or has lived there. I'm an anomaly in every sense of the word. An outsider.

But for whatever reason, I feel that East Texas is where I need to be right now. My work here is done. I've tried to hang on but God, the Universe, What Have You, is nudging me a little further down my path. Everything has lined up too perfectly to be other than destiny. The stick behind me, the carrot in front. And my true desire, to live a contemplative life of solitude and writing, looms despite every effort to deny it.

The line here is getting longer, both tourists and locals queueing for their fix. The employees are scurrying - one on food, one on register, one on espresso machine. They all know me, the employees, and I know them. I've been to their parties. I've been coming here two years and I've almost got their names down. They know mine. They know all the regulars. We say hi and we say bye and in between sometimes we chat about things. It's always a little stilted, like co-workers at a water cooler who don't really know each other or want to but are familiar enough to be friendly. When I stop coming here they won't notice. A couple months from now someone will ask "I haven't seen Justin in awhile, have you?" And the other person will respond, "Who?" And the first person will answer, "That tall guy with a beard? Filmmaker? Kinda nerdy?" "Oh yeah, no, I haven't seen him. Double cappuccino!" Or maybe I won't come up. Maybe they won't even think of me.

But then, I won't think of them, either.

This is my life today. An outsider. Alone, tribeless. And this is my life tomorrow.

And I'm ok with that.

Happiness is a State of...ah, whatever.

2008-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the black dog was looking for a sit again. As someone who was practicing The Secret before The Secret ever came out and knows it to be true and effective, I started thinking about what I needed in my life to be happy, really and truly Happy. But I kept circling back to the fact that happiness is just a state of mind blah blah blah. It's not a thing or person or job or accomplishment or reputation or dessert or body image. No amount of getting back in shape will bring me peace. No amount of work will do it. No amount of success. Or pie. So what will, exactly? What's it going to take?

I decided to re-focus those reality-warping dream-manifesting powers of actualization on something else this time. In the past I've used visualization quite successfully to bring in work, relationships, even my cat. For example I once realized, sitting at a cafe, that I needed an income again. So I focused on it, did my thing (I have techniques), and literally 30 minutes later got a call from a total stranger, a referral, who wanted to throw money my way for an easy tech job. After that came another job, and another, and another. So it goes.

But what to focus on this time? At some point in the day I realized I needed to take a step back, or out, and look at the issue from a broader perspective. What are the causes of Happiness? What are its roots? Why do some people have it while others, in equally bearable or unbearable circumstances, become overwhelmed by the dark cloud? I need to understand this thing a little better. Then I can go about identifying action items and putting a plan into place. So yesterday I shifted my focus from Things to Concepts. I focused on: "What do I need to learn? Help me understand this. Bring me the experiences that will help me understand the nature of Happiness." I broadcast that out to the ethers and let it go.

Last night I got home and checked the mail. I found one and only one thing - a flyer, not addressed to me, for a conference titled "Happiness and its Causes."

So there you go.

I wonder if China...

2008-08-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

is secretly poisoning American consumers as part of a plot to destroy us from the inside out?

Blocking Pleasure Causes Depression

2008-04-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

There's a new type of pill out that blocks pleasure, literally. These pills block the pleasure pathways in the brain. The idea is, you get people to stop smoking by blocking the pleasure they get from smoking. Same thing with eating. If you over-eat because it's fun, then take the fun out of it.

The only problem is, these pills also drive people into a suicidal depression.

Does anyone else see approximately a thousand things wrong with all of this?

The world according to Betty Burks

2008-04-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

I have no idea who this woman is but she's got something special going on.

I want to create an imaginary character and post totally random Amazon reviews that chronicle my imaginary life in a disjointed yet uplifting way. Betty Burks, I salute you.

Re: Fwd: FW: Pictures from London ~ this is beyond scary..

2008-03-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

In reference to the mass email you just forwarded to me showing placard-bearing muslim extremists (which can also be seen on snopes: http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp), thank you for showing us yet more evil muslims to justify yet more wars against large groups of people. I agree that these signs are pretty extreme. But I have four problems with the premise of this email:

1. It selects a small, vocal sample to represent the whole. Did you know that there's a small "christian" family in Topeka, Kansas that uses similar signs in the name of God? They insist that God hates America and will destroy it for being evil. Yet these few people are considered nutjobs, extremists, and in no way representative of Christianity as a whole, right? Nor do "christian" terrorists like Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh (and many others) represent Christianity. So why does this small, sick but small, group of people stand in for an entire religion that, on the whole, IS peace-loving and reverential of life and freedom?

2. The purpose of this email is to incite hatred and violence against a group of people. Presumably, the point is that we should go out and slaughter every man, woman, and child who is Muslim. What Christian honestly believes that's what Jesus would do?

3. It ends with a classic call-to-arms against the "liberal media". This has become nothing more than a silly punchline. Not only does it further enflame tensions between progressives and conservatives (the LAST thing this country needs more of), but it's a meaningless cliche. Fox News is in no way liberal. Nor is CNN. Nor is every other major network (in other words ALL of them) that cave to corporate interests. When your news channel is run by a food company that is only interested in profit and ads, do you really think you're going to get honest, quality news?

4. But worse, that last remark about not seeing these pictures in Canada or the US is an outright lie. I don't know about Canadian coverage but the US actually covered this event extensively, as well as similar events all over the world. See, here's the trick, and why I find this kind of inflammatory email so deceitful and appalling - these pictures are from a London protest over Danish political cartoons in February of 2006 (over a year ago, not "recent"). Every country with a large Muslim population experienced the same thing. If you go back to papers of the time, you'll no doubt see some of these pictures. In fact, Jon Stewart did a great bit on The Daily Show about Muslim extremists protesting their depiction as violent reactives by...bombing embassies.

Obviously, these are some dangerous people. And yes, many people who call themselves Muslims are hell-bent on destroying Christians, democracies, and Americans in particular. But is declaring war on an entire religion the answer? What are we going to do, round up the Muslims and send them to concentration camps? Nuke their countries into oblivion? Do you really think that's what God wants His children to do to one another? Is that really what Jesus was teaching on the Mount?

The problem is, neither can you just invite them over for tea to work it out. They're not going to join you in counseling. And I suspect giving them fresh-baked cookies as a lure to bring them to church will not ultimately lead to their conversion.

So what's the solution? Yes, there's a problem. What's the solution? Ridicule liberals? That doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. Elect another cowboy? Looks like that just made things about a zillion times worse. I think we've seen that for every "terrorist" we kill, we inspire a hundred of his friends and relatives to take up the cause against us. So what's the solution?

You might want to research a woman named Imaculee Ilibagiza. To start, here's a small description: "Imaculee Ilibagiza is a Rwandan woman hunted by her friends and neighbors during the Tutsi genocide in 1994. She lived for 91 days in a 3x6 bathroom with 6 other women and never made a sound. Her family was massacred in the most horrible way by people she knew and trusted."

Quick history lesson: by 1994 Rwanda was divided into two ethnic groups, Tutsis (the minority) and Hutus (majority). They'd had a history of war and tension, which escalated into a full-on genocide in April of 1994, in which millions of Hutus, armed with machetes, hacked to pieces every Tutsi they could hunt down, whether neighbor, friend, or family, man, woman, or child. No one in America noticed because, just a few months later, we were all glued to the tv as OJ Simpson drove a white bronco down the 405. And the Clinton Administration (lest anyone think I revere them in any way, which I don't) did absolutely nothing about the situation. You read that right - despite declaring ourselves the global police when it comes to oil-soaked dictatorships, we did absolutely nothing to stop Hutus from hacking the limbs off of small children or murdering their parents in front of their eyes. It wasn't until France, yes France, sent troops in did the genocide finally stop.

After Imaculee Ilibagiza's family was slaughtered, she convinced a local priest to hide her in his bathroom with 6 other women. He covered the door with furniture and didn't even tell his own family. For 91 days, they flushed only when he flushed in another room. They ate only what crumbs and scraps he could shove under the door when no one was looking. They slept propped up against one another, covered in filth. Again and again, they could see Hutus through the cracks searching the house for them, calling out to them, singing hunting songs, holding their machetes inches away from the hidden door.

So what did she do? Did she jump out, guns blazing, and mow down everyone in sight? No. Did she pass the time plotting her revenge? No. Did she send out mass emails convincing all her friends to bomb the bad guys? No. So what sustained her? How did she survive?

In her words, it was an unshakeable connection with God. A profound, intense connection so strong that she knew, beyond any doubt, that no harm would come to them. That faith sustained her for 91 days until the FRENCH (!) military finally intervened and set up safe zones. By the time she limped out of that bathroom, she weighed only 65 pounds.

But the ordeal wasn't over. Just a few hundred yards away from freedom, the women were surrounded by machete-armed Hutus determined to finish the job.

But here's the important part. This fragile woman could barely walk, much less fight back. Yet when a man stood directly in front of her and raised his machete, a man who had massacred dozens, if not hundreds of defenseless men, women, and children, you want to know what she did?

She loved him. She looked directly at him and loved him. And in her love, she forgave him.

So great was the power of her faith in God, so great was her connection with God, and so overpowering was the love that poured from her that she stopped this man in his tracks. Whatever look she gave him, whatever force she pointed in his direction, his response was to lower his hand and drop his machete, then stand aside and let them pass in peace.

THAT is how we'll end this violence. THAT is how we'll stop this insanity before millions more get killed and maimed by our hands or the hands of extremists. By letting God's love work through us and overwhelm those who would do us harm.

Frankly, I'm no longer interested in how the "liberal media" is hiding the truth, or how democrats or republicans are destroying our country. I'm not interested in stirring each other up with inflammatory emails, declaring war on other religions, or inciting hate and violence against people we don't know.

I'm interested in inciting a genuine connection with God. I'm interested in being inspired. I'm interested in loving my enemies so powerfully that they can no longer even conceive of doing me harm. I'm interested in pictures that remind me that God is at work in our lives. And that he doesn't pick sides. Most of all, I'm interested in remembering why America is great - because through our bounty and freedom we have the privilege of evolving in the truest sense of the word. We're not cavemen who can only stop someone by beating them into submission. We're better than that. We have great, great power. I'm interested in ways we can use that power to serve. And how to inspire our enemies to lay down their arms in peace, WITHOUT holding a gun or a nuke to their heads.

I see so many mass emails, like this one, that try to inspire violence and hatred against other human beings. And then mock or demonize anyone who thinks it's wrong to kill. I wonder if every person who forwards those emails has the courage to forward a call for compassion as well. Or is that more "liberal hooey"? I can think of one long-haired Jewish hippy who didn't think so. Since mass emails end with a challenge, here's one for you: choose your side. Hatred and violence? Or love and forgiveness? It starts with you.

Justin

freshly burned

2005-09-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

Back from Burning Man 2005. Strange year. Much fun, but also much frustration. The law was out in force, rounding up those "damn hippies" and conducting their annual fundraiser by fining anyone who looked at them funny. At the same time, I had an absolutely wonderful, furry, playful, magical time in the Astropups camp. And boy do they have pictures.

My experience this year was in many ways similar to last year's - Remembering Connection. Something about being in a harsh climate with 35,000 astonishingly creative souls really opens up my heart. The defenses fall away and I realize that it's safe to risk smiling, hugging, flirting, or even just being kind to someone else. Interestingly, the repeating gong of the Message From Above came after I returned to the city, when I made the effort to stay connected with pups off the playa. I had some one-on-one time with two travelers who said SF was an easy place to meet lots of new friends. And someone else, a long-term resident, mentioned he could walk in anywhere and know people. It all made me wonder why I haven't made a lot of friends here. A few buddies I hang out with on occasion and several dozen casual acquaintances who flit away like wisps in the night, never to remember my name or face again. It's not like I'm a loner - in Dallas *I* was the one who knew someone everywhere I went, who had dozens of friends, who could organize a party and have 50 or 60 people show up.

Ultimately, it has to do with me, of course. Here, I keep to myself. Out of fear, mostly. Or simplicity. No friends means no pesky phone calls or movie dates or coffee chats, which means more time to myself to play computer games or write or just sit and think (and wonder why I'm so lonely). If I don't make eye contact and smile, then I don't open the door to some broken soul who just wants money, or meds, or bizarre sex, or even just a kind soul to latch onto and suck the life out of. This definitely ain't Dallas.

But the playa reminds me that it's ok to take risks. If I shut everyone out for fear of a few bad encounters, then I shut out the beautiful ones, as well.

So I'm trying a few new tricks. Affection without sex, friendship without fear, smiling at strangers, being open to meeting new people. A casual fuck is far too easy in this city. I'm ready for something for more exciting and dangerous - emotional intimacy. Perhaps this will finally lead to a fulfilling relationship. Perhaps not. No matter. The risk of opening up is worth the journey, regardless of where it ends.

Random Encounter

2005-04-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

I sit at Café Flora distracting myself as much as possible from the task of writing. I’m wearing $9 Wal-Mart jeans, a Blue Man’s Group t-shirt I got in Vegas, and a vintage tan leather jacket I got from the back of my dad’s closet last xmas.

A guy walks by, styling, obviously fucked up from the squinting redness of his eyes. I can barely look at them without my own starting to water. His bleach-streaked banks fall down to his nose in opposing curves and shake with the constant twitch of his head. Every few seconds, he brushes them aside so I can see those eyes. Even still, he’s constantly on the move. He speaks with the refined, loopy pace of someone educated and articulate, with one foot on the other side of this reality. I saw him earlier and was grateful to escape his notice. But from across the room, he sees my little keyboard and saunters over.

“I love that jacket. 1972,” he says.

“Um. Thanks.”

“David Bowie wore these pants in 1978. You’re a writer?” He takes a seat across from me and puts his hand out for me to shake. I’m too nice to do anything but grin awkwardly and comply, wondering what that hand has been touching.

“What do you think of T—m-- -a—te?” I can’t quite hear above the din.

“I don’t know the name.” A look of shock. It clicks. “Oh. Truman Capote? Um.”

“He sucked my cock in New York from 1982 to 1985. He died in 1989. If you were in New York and could meet any writer, just sit across the table from him with a big fat jug of wine, who would it be?”

“Um.” For the life of me, I can’t think of a writer from New York.

“Come on, anybody.” He leans forward. A sly red-eye peaks through his streaked bangs. “You never know, I may just be able to make it happen.”

“Uh…well, Stephen King would be great. But he doesn’t live in New York.”

“Stephen King lives in Vermont,” he says with disgust. “I saw him in Kennenbunkport, getting drunk at the finest restaurants. He’s not very intelligent. Come on, give me a writer.”

I think some more. It occurs to me that I might be able to drive him away with my pedestrian taste. “Um…Anne Rice? But she lives in New Orleans.”

The look on his face says it’s working. “Anne Rice lives in Paris. That house in New Orleans? She hasn’t lived there in years. Come on, they’re not even writers. Anne Rice? Stephen King? They’re entertainers.”

“But that’s what writing’s all about. To entertain.”

Bulls-eye. He’s really disgusted now. Perhaps he’ll leave. “What about JD Salinger?” He shakes my hand at the mention of Salinger’s name. “Or F. Scott Fizgerald?”

“But he’s not around anymore.”

“Well…”

For a brief moment, I’m concerned about the implication that he can help me meet dead authors. “Dickens. I’d love to meet Dickens.”

It slipped out. I’d just been reading Oliver Twist and had fallen in love with Dickens. Evidently, it was the right thing to say. He appraises me as an equal and shakes my hand again. “Now there’s a genius. Miss Havisham? Who can forget that scene in Great Expectations when he first meets Miss Havisham. The rats scurrying across the table. The old lace wedding gown. ‘Is that cobweb she wears?’ You can see the camera rising.” He makes the director’s square with his fingers to show an image on screen, rising up from the floor. “It’s cinematic. Before anything in the 20th—what is this—the 21st century?”

“Yeah.”

“Before any technology, he made movies. You can see them in your head. Or Anna Kerinina. Leo Tolstoy. When the train hits her in the head. Bam!” He smacks his hand against his head. Bangs fly. I notice the gap in his front teeth as he grins.

“She throws herself from the train and it hits her in the head. Bam! Then again, Bam! And she says, ‘But I have made a mistake. I want to live.’ And it hits her a third time, Bam!” He’s into it now. I’m worried about him. “He gives us three times. Three. To realize the truth.” He stands to leave. “That’s brilliant.”

He shakes my hand again. Not knowing what else to say, I lift my latte and call out “Cheers” as he walks away in his David Bowie pants. And I’m left sitting at my keyboard, with its blinking cursor, thinking “What the hell was that about?”

Make Something Beautiful

2005-03-07T01:50:00.000-08:00

A friend took me to a concert tonight. Keep in mind that my primary purpose for going was to hang out with my friend. I'm not that into live music, believe it or not (perhaps it reminds me that I'm not performing, myself). So I didn't have particularly high hopes. Also consider that I have a bad inner ear infection and am feeling drained and generally discombobulated.

On top of that, we met for drinks, then dinner, beforehand. So just before the concert, I had copious amounts of Thai food, stuffed myself silly with chicken curry, and wanted nothing more than to curl up for a nap afterwards. Then I sat through about 2 hours of at time quirky, usually lethargic, jazz-ish ensemble music.

I never anticipated how I would feel afterwards. Everything conspired to put me to sleep. And at times, that's almost what I did. But not quite. For two hours, I lingered in that last stage of consciousness before going under, that state where I just floated like in a mineral bath. That state where I could not only hear, but also feel the music. With sleepy, lidded eyes, I could see the glow around the performers, see when it swelled or spiked. I could tap into the energy of the music itself, ride that wave along with the musicians, feel the interplay between instruments and vocalists. Their improv became just an expression of what we all felt was already there.

The leader of the band had taken the words of Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, and put them to music. Then he brought together a collection of accomplished performers he'd worked with before - trumpet, trombone, sax, reed (a little of everything), percussion, bass, cello (hottie), male and female vocals, and the composer on grand piano. Because of my state of mind and the receptivity it put me in, I felt like the words and music slipped right into my subconscious and throughout my body. What it did there, I don't know. I couldn’t even tell you what the words were. But something magical happened.

As I write this, hours later, I'm still in a mellow state of bliss. I'm wide awake, at peace for the first time in days, and I feel incredible. On top of that, the infection on my ear has gone down. I can tell because it's stopped bubbling - before, it felt like it had water in it, at the same time that the ear canal itself had swollen completely shut, impairing my hearing. Now, the water feeling has gone away and the canal is opening up.

Regardless of what's going on with the ear, the most important thing is just the feeling of beauty. I thought I would fall asleep, in fact I fought to stay awake. But I came away deeply impacted.

At one point during the concert, I wanted to cry. It occurred to me, somewhere during an ad lib duet between a vocalist and trumpet, I think, that these men, both Whitman and the composer, created something of beauty. In this harsh world, seemingly filled with angry and selfish people, they made something beautiful.

It's his gift. And it's an opportunity we all have. I thought about that on the walk home. I skipped Muni and strolled down the street instead. Back in the chaos, passing belligerent drunks, angry homeless, a few out and out crazy folk. The residual echo of the music spoke to me more in feelings than in words. And it said this: When someone frowns, smile anyway. When someone discourages, have hope anyway. When someone shuts you out, love anyway. And when the world around you is filled with ugliness and pain, make something beautiful.

On Discipline and the Journey of Writing

2005-02-19T22:46:00.000-08:00

I may have mentioned it before, but for a couple of years now, anytime I would meditate on my "Purpose" or the direction I should be taking in life (doesn't everyone do this periodically?), one word would float into my consciousness again and again...WRITE! Sometimes I would feel it so strongly it was like someone was screaming at me. Nothing else, no particulars, just "WRITE".

So for the entire stretch of 2004, that's just what I did. I stopped consulting, stopped coding, and just wrote. For the most part, I dabbled in different types of writing and different styles. I would try first-person essays, scripts, short stories, non-fiction. I would try fantasy, mystery, contemporary. I actually wrote quite a few personal essays, published none, and for all appearances, pissed away an entire year, supporting myself with the occasional technical piece that seemed to fall into my lap at just the write time.

But 2005 has started much differently. On December 15, 2004 (exactly one year to the day after I left my last big consulting gig), I wrote a contract with a writing coach / therapist, who I hired to help me get through this block I have of not finishing a damn thing. We agreed that I would write 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. If I was working or writing for pay, I would do that for 4 hours minimum, then write for 2 hours. But write what? Out of all the things I was working on, I picked a fantasy novel I'd been mulling for years.

There's the key: ONE project. One single project, four hours a day.

I just finished up my second month and I've long since come to realize that this project has nothing to do with writing a fantasy book. This is all about finishing something. It's a journey to an unknown and mysterious destination. But it's the journey, not that destination that counts.

The end goal is not to be published. It's not even a finished book. Hopefully these will come about naturally. But the goal is that journey. And like any other discipline, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters how you do it. I'm finding that the process itself is uncovering loads and loads of...stuff.

I read once that the key to absolute freedom is discipline. I didn't quite understand that at the time. For the great bulk of my life, I've had ZERO discipline. I was the classic flake, promising much, delivering nothing. I had a consistent pattern of letting down everyone in my life. Every company I worked at, every organization I volunteered with, friends, family members. I would bite off WAY too much and end up delivering none of it. I would just fall apart.

Then, as an experiment, I started staying with what I was doing. Toastmasters, for example. Reiki, as another example. Instead of dabbling and running, as was my standard operating procedure, I would stick around. Lo and behold, that's when things started to happen. I would hit that first obstacle, the one that usually drove me away. But instead of running, I would work through it. The form of this obstacle could be anything at all. But SOMETHING would always, always, always come up. That's just the way of things.

Later I began training at the gym consistently. I began studying kickboxing. Still later, after moving to the bay area, I began studying martial arts. I'm now coming up on 4 years at the same school. That's a long time for someone like me.

The crazy thing is that the same pattern happens no matter what I'm engaged in. I jump in, have a great time, play for awhile, then something comes up. I face it down, work through it, and suddenly find myself at another level of expertise, one I didn't know existed. You can't know it exists until you go there. And then I would play some more, having fun, until I hit the NEXT wall.

The walls keep coming. In fact, they get harder, not easier. But on the other side of every wall is a level of expertise I never knew existed. It just gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

It occurred to me at one point that it's much like digging a hole. Coming from Texas, the idea of drilling for oil comes to mind, though I prefer to think of digging a well. You can poke around here and there, digging a dozen, a hundred shallow holes. And each of these would be a different hobby or practice. But if you stick with one and go deep, as deep as deep can go, you eventually hit this massive underground reservoir. It doesn't matter which hole you pick or where you dig it, the reservoir is the same for all of them. The point is to just keep digging, staying with whatever hole you're working on.

This is not to say that discipline means digging yourself a hole. Rather it means persisting, getting through the layers of sediment and bedrock, until you find that natural, rich, life-giving spring.

Which brings me back to the writing. Even now, after all the journies I've been on, I kind of thought this would be about finishing a damn book. It's not. Not in the least. I've been crashing into one block after another. All the voices inside my head telling me what garbage it all is, what a talent-starved hack I am. The boredom that's really just fear in disguise. The endless distractions. The procrastinations. The rewrites, going back to the basic story again and again and re-visioning it so that I can start over from scratch. They're all obstacles on the journey. And the key is to see them for what they are.

Most recently, I not only stopped hitting my 4-hour mark, but I practically threw out what munged outline I'd been working on and started over. I seriously considered throwing out the 19 or so chapters I'd written thus far. But I recognized that as yet another way to sabotage myself, to run from this overwhelming insecurity I feel as an artist. And so I just picked back up with chapter 20. I made huge continuity gaps, deleting several characters, changing some circumstances in midstream. But instead of going back to chapter one, I'm determined to get all the way to the end. To see what's at the bottom of this hole. Then and only then, I'll go back to the start and begin the revisions.

My writing coach gave me a wonderful quote. I hope I remember it correctly: "When there's no wind, row." I've been rowing quite a lot lately, working through this novel. But every now and then the wind picks back up and sends me sailing. Those are beautiful moments. They remind me that, regardless of the outcome, I'm here for the journey.

The Empty Yard

2004-11-28T21:50:00.000-08:00

With the commandment to “Go play together,” the young boy and girl skip into the yard, an empty field of bare grass. A blank canvas for their fertile imaginations.

“Let’s play Tag!”

“Ok!”

One reaches out and pokes the other, then runs away squealing. The other chases. After a few minutes, two mothers glance out the window and smile. All is good until The Incident. The current “It” reaches out and brushes a sleeve – light contact, at best.

“Hey, you’re It now!”

“Am not! You didn’t touch!”

“Did too – I touched your sleeve!”

“That don’t count. Besides, I was Home.”

“Was not – Home is over there.”

“Is not cheater!”

“You’re the cheater!”

A flying blast of sod escalates the confrontation. Soon a scream and crying pierce the air as perplexed mothers rush out. An empty yard, filled with imaginary rules resulting in hurt feelings and physical violence. What went wrong?

And so goes human nature. What an incredible power we posses, to create something out of nothing. We can create worlds from blank paper. Music from silence. Rules from anarchy. Boundaries from empty space.

We need rules, of course. Our systems organize us, give us structure in which to advance and grow. So we create imaginary boundaries and laws, then imbue them with the power of our belief.

And there’s the key: communal belief. We cannot paint a boundary in an empty yard unless we all believe it exists. Our communal belief creates the structure and order we desire. In fact, it is the only thing that creates this structure. Without communal belief, it doesn’t exist.

Of course, the truth is, it doesn’t exist even then.

It is not the incontrovertible fact of a rule’s existence which we recognize and honor. It is our combined belief in this rule. And does this belief help us? Without communal belief, we have no rules for the games we play. No laws to order our society.

No religion to bring us salvation.

No boundaries to fight over.

No “other side” to kill or die fighting.

But in the end, they still don’t really exist do they? And if a rule that doesn’t actually exist is causing hardship, then doesn’t it benefit us to question it, challenge it, dissolve it back to the nothingness from which it came?

Who threw that clod of dirt on the playground? Who knows. Rewind. Was Home over here or over there? Rewind. Did the sleeve count? Rewind. Let’s play Tag. Rewind. Moments of unbridled joy. Rewind. Children running into the yard. Rewind.

The yard is empty. No rules. No joy. No suffering. It is empty.

And so it was. And so it will always be.

Candle in the Shadow

2004-11-03T21:55:00.000-08:00

I just came across this old favorite again:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
Nelson Mandela 1994 Inaugural Speech

Since the election results came in, I’ve been feeling a bit depressed, sort of closed in and full of anxiety for what the next four years will bring. But beneath it, I feel a ribbon of hope. It’s a hope borne of determination not to succumb to that fear. A hope for the strength and power that comes from being “a child of God.”

Mandela’s quote helps me remember that this strength and power lives within me. It’s that connection with the Divine. It’s that joyful, playful spirit that dances inside this body.

We are already free. We always have been. And what better time to celebrate our beauty than now?

I will not lend strength to the troubles of our country by naming them directly. I imagine that anyone connected with the spirit of Life can feel the same potential for sadness that I feel, and for the same reasons.

I’ll say instead that with the changes our country currently undergoes, we who have a commitment to Spirit, who see beneath the structures and patterns of our society, who understand the nature of this world and the next, have an opportunity. This is the time to be Ourselves. Our True Selves. Unmasked. Uninhibited. Unbridled. Full of all the joy and hope and peace and love and beauty and truth of life itself.

This is our time to “make manifest the glory of God that is within us” and to live that glory in our daily actions.

This would be our path in any age. But I feel that in the context of all that is Not, we can give greater strength to all that Is. For the next several years, we’ll have even greater opportunity to see the power of this connection to the sacred.

It’s not my place to label good and evil. I feel we all start out the same and discover our version of reality in large part because of the context of our environment. Even so, I feel that this is my time to be a candle in the shadow.

I’ve been late getting started. Now’s the time to do the work of a Higher Purpose.

Spinning in Circles

2004-10-28T01:16:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a class lately on staff-spinning. I hear that it's vaugely Polynesian. It's related to poi-spinning but with a staff. In other words, the staff dancer lights both ends of a large staff and, to the throbbing beat of trance techno music, spins intricate and beautiful patterns in the dark.

I've just started so I'm not lightning anything on fire just yet. Strangely, I have an affinity for the staff, having gotten one as a teenager and spun away for hours and hours on end in the backyard. More recently, I've studied "bong sparring", which has nothing to do with cannabis. Something about using the staff really feels right to me, feels very comfortable and natural.

So I decided to take this class, to explore it a little deeper and learn some new moves. But that's not all that's happening. This is rocking my world.

When the music starts and the staff spins effortlessly in my hands, circling in front of me, behind me, all around me at blistering speeds, I've started to feel transported. The music pulses through me. The staff begins to spin itself, with me gently guiding the energy like a flowing stream of water. It moves around me. My body flows with it. We become a rapturous dance, stepping aside from time and space and simply existing in The Moment.

How is it that something so simple as spinning a staff can produce such heightened blissful states of consciousness? A lot of people take drugs to feel this way. Something I used to do in the backyard for fun has turned into this ecstatic dance. And I've only begun dipping my toe in the pool.

There exists a level of consciousness that transcends this "reality". Perhaps it's just a step to the left, floating just outside the corner of our vision. Many cultures, many paths, have explored this state throughout the history of humanity. Processes have become codified into religion. Then religion becomes the end unto itself, losing sight of the original goal - a transcendent state of being.

It's hard to describe, but those who've experienced it (and there are millions in the world) know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a special place, a rabbit hole. You can find it through prayer, through meditation, or, as most people in America, simply engaging in a Passion. Ask any athlete about The Zone. Ask any painter or dancer who creates from the deepest part of their soul. They know what it's about.

This is a place that can be reached by anyone, through anything. I've experienced it while singing onstage, while dancing at a nightclub, while sparring in the dojang. And lately, I've experienced it by simply spinning a staff. Feeling the music. Allowing my body to be swept up in the flow.

What takes YOU to that place?

Speaking of courage...

2004-10-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

As one of the "Two Cents" contributors to the SF Chronicle, I get a couple of questions every week for "man on the street" commentary. A couple of days ago, I got the following question:

"When was the last time you had to be brave?"

Normally, I rattle off a highly quotable answer. But this one stumped me. At first, I thought about my martial arts training. It takes a certain courage to smash my hand through a stack of bricks or to spar with a black belt for whom "light contact" means sending me flying 5 feet instead of 10. Then I thought about the Reiki meeting I organized, which didn't actually involve a lot of effort OR courage, but still sort of terrified me in the way giving a toast terrifies nerds.

But then I thought about war, about US and Iraqi fighters both facing a deadly unknown - each other. I thought about peace protesters risking life, limb, and liberty against jittery riot police. I thought about heroes who run into burning buildings to save someone or stand up to an aggressor or even donate a kidney.

What exactly does it mean to be brave? I've never risked my life in an act of courage. Is that what it means to be brave? I don't know.

I ended up giving a very non-quote-worthy answer about how I try to break through my own fears every day, but I've never risked my life. Perhaps we have degrees of courage. Some sit in front of the tv all night, work in a cube all day, living quiet, desperate lives, insulated from fear by pork rinds and pizza. Some make courage such an assumed part of their lives that they no longer think of it as an "act of".

And what of those for whom bravery is a self-indulgence, whose acts of courage extend only to the salvation of their own lives? I think of thrill-seekers who may or may not consider risking their lives for a cause greater than an adrenaline rush. But I realize that's a reflection - in all the small victories I engage in, the daily confrontation with my own shadows, the only person I'm saving is me. Moi. Justin. Myself. That's it - no burning buildings, no small children playing in traffic.

Perhaps courage is a habit, to be conditioned through persistent exercise. I do believe that my own breakthroughs, large and small, habitualize courage. That doesn't make them any easier. I have a non-existent novel to demonstrate that, along with several unpublished short stories and essays and a half-written screenplay. But I feel as if my own journey is leading up to something. I don't know what. Perhaps someday I'll be called upon. I'd like to think that when the time comes, my experiences of facing down fear will play a part in my future success.

So in answer to the question "When was the last time you had to be brave?" I could say I haven't, yet. Or I could say just today, in a writing class, when one of the world's greatest fantasy authors ripped my story to shreds in front of everyone and I took it all in without crying.

Or I could say just say this morning, when I bloody got out of bed.

Reiki Meeting #1

2004-10-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

Shortly after getting back from Burning Man, I decided to look up Reiki on meetup.com. I found a defunct San Francisco group and signed up. As I did, I saw a notice that said "This group needs an Organizer."

"Pshaw," I thought to myself. "I'm no organizer." But as I wandered through the site, it kept coming up, like an appeal or persistent demand. I felt opportunity tapping me on the shoulder, looking down at me as if I knew damn well what I should be doing. Holding my breath, I clicked the link. I became Justin, The Organizer.

Last Wednesday we had our first meeting - I would rate it a smashing success. 6 other people showed up (all women - what is it about Reiki and women?) and though everyone seemed a little uncomfortable at first, most of us were hugging each other by the end.

Our opportunities seem to come when we're looking just to the side. But we have all these chances every day to make some small impact, a positive ripple on the pond of reality. We're planning on another meeting, perhaps some group Reiki by the ocean. Maybe this group will evolve and grow. Maybe not. But for a few hours last week, several people opened up and connected heart-to-heart, shared very personal experiences about the miracle of Reiki, and came away feeling better about life. If a single click can create these ripples, imagine what a true act of courage might effect.

What is Matter?

2004-09-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

I saw What The Bleep again last night at the Metreon. Freakin amazing. Blew me away harder than the first time I saw it. This is definitely one of those movies that require multiple viewings. It's packed with goodness. It'll have you sitting in a daze after the last credit rolls away, blown away with a universe of new possibilities you haven't considered before, questioning everything around you.

This is what I saw the night before belt testing.

Tonight I tested for black/red belt, the last one before black belt. As the past several nights of testing have been as well, tonight really and truly sucked ass. The vibe felt like mud. I could tell the moment we started that this would be one of those nights where just getting hyped would be the big accomplishment in itself, much less doing anything impressive.

That's a shame, really. Because when we're on, we're REALLY on, doing some amazing, freaky shit. But tonight, it was mostly about just getting our legs off the ground and not getting hurt.

It was also, for me, probably the greatest success I've ever experienced in a test.

We all have days when the world just feels like "ugh". You want to crawl back into bed or chill in front of the tv or just take it easy. You do NOT want to do mad-sparring with your posse on the dojang dance floor. You do NOT want to be breaking things with your hands. You most definitely do NOT want to be vaulting your 240 pound ass into the air to do any fancy kicks.

So the test is this: in the worst of times, can you still do it? Can you conquer the malaise? Can you create the reality of your CHOOSING and transcend the world you perceive around you?

Most of my testing kinda sucked. I just consider that context for what was to come. I'm glad to say my sparring went pretty well once I made a DECISION to bring up my energy. (Shortly after we started, a friend whispered in my ear, "Bring it up, but keep it under control." Very smart words. Transcend the night, but not so much that I go wild.)

I completed a knife hand break for the first time - someone held the top of the board (only the top, which meant less leverage and required a faster strike) and I sliced it in half. I did it but it hurt like hell. Looking at my fingers now, I have a strange purple bruise covering my FOURTH finger and the inside of my fifth. Bottom line: little bitta energy, lotta brute strength.

Later we stood around a candle, punching and kicking to put it out. Now, this is something I've gotten pretty good at. I can usually punch out a candle on the first try. This is pure energy - no matter how fast you punch or how windy you make it, the damn candle is not going out unless you bring up the energy. Tonight: nothing. Everyone else got it but not me. I never did put that fucking thing out. Well, except when I kicked it across the room by accident.

So there's context. Sitting in a funk on the floor with a big glowing "L" on my forehead, I heard Master Johnson ask who wanted to break. I felt no need to volunteer. I felt complete. Actually, I really, really wanted to mope. But I didn't. I CHOSE to stay present, not thinking about the candle (the past) or a possible break (the future), just observing the present and focusing on my own energy.

As someone else prepared, I decided to try something fun, mostly cuz I was feeling like a smart-ass, as in "if I'm such a loser with a stupid candle, let's see if this energy shit really works." There's a meditation I do that involves sitting in silence for a long period of time until my awareness starts to float up, then transition through several "levels" or states of consciousness. The whole thing takes me awhile nowadays. Or so I thought.

For shits and grins, and to help me get out of my funk about the candle, I decided to see if I could do the transition just sitting there in the middle of testing. So I closed my eyes and started traveling. Instantly, I felt the most amazing thing - a separation of spirit and mind, or spirit and body. My essence, my consciousness, began to travel. It shifted through several layers. For kicks, I sought out this mysterious but magnificent "source" I've encountered several times in the past. And I found out. I allowed it to fill me. I started opening up, feeling a swell of energy through my body. I started shifting.

Cracking open my eyes again, I saw the matrix. The intangible world we pretend is matter, aka the material plane, aka reality.

It's not.

I looked at the room from the perspective of someone not in it, someone sharing not quite the same dimension. Master Johnson must've sensed this, because as the other guy prepared, he suddenly asked if I wanted to do a break. I said sure, mentioning that I wanted to break big bricks.

Big Bricks: extremely heavy, extremely thick, much harder to break than the "small" ones (which are still big and heavy). In the past, I've tried twice to break a stack of 4, and failed both times. At my last testing, we ran out of the big ones and I didn't even get the chance. So for well over a year, I've had an old score to settle. It also means I had a PATTERN of failure that I needed to literally break through.

But I chose not to think about that at the moment. I felt sublime, I felt shifted. Utterly calm. At peace. My awareness sort of layered over the room like looking into a pool of water. I quite unexpectedly felt like if I was to ever break through, now was the time.

And yet, Master Johnson knew what the night was like. Everyone, EVERYONE, had missed their break thus far, needing two or three attempts to make it happen. So he instructed the black belt to set up three big bricks for me, instead of four.

As I prepared, another guy suddenly raised his hand and asked to do a break. He wanted to do four. He also wanted to prove something. It was obvious to everyone paying attention. Master Johnson chuckled and said "Set up 4 bricks". He knew, I knew, others knew, that this break was never going to happen. But the guy needed to experience that. We also knew that it needed to happen before mine.

Sure enough, for all the screaming and sheer strength, it didn't happen for him. 3 bricks, barely cracked, the fourth still unblemished, and one bruised and bleeding hand later, it was my turn. But I'd been bringing up the energy, tapping into this otherworld that I suddenly, after a night of shit, felt access to. Master Johnson saw it. "Four bricks," he said. A point needed to be made. He knew it, I knew it.

No fear. I chose calm. No apprehension. I chose the present. No bricks. I chose clarity. I chose to see past the illusion, to see beyond the veil.

This world IS an illusion, a collective make-believe experiment. We believe this matter exists, but what is it, really? As I prepared, I made a silent prayer: to experience matter as the illusion it is. And as soon as I sent my prayer, my intention outward, I shifted to gratitude, knowing that it's already been answered.

I threw some palm strikes to the floor with a shout. The first shout came from my chest, and I felt it there. The second and third came from my SOURCE, and I felt them there. "That's what I like to hear," said Master Johnson, who felt it also.

Approaching the stack, I chose not to see the bricks. The other students, without exception, touch the stack, feel it, practice a few strikes against the surface. But I chose not to validate the existence of the bricks. Instead, I simply held my hand above it and sent my energy out, through my arm, sensing the bricks, then feeling the bricks NOT THERE. I sent my energy straight through to the floor. I stayed there for a couple of seconds, until I knew a connection with the floor, with nothing in between us.

I felt no emotion, except perhaps amused. I didn't hope, I didn't think, I KNEW that I'd already broken the stack. I KNEW that I was safe and whole. I KNEW that this illusion in front of me meant nothing but dust and air.

As I felt the bricks dissolve under my stream of awareness, something "clicked" and I knew it was time. With another shout from my deepest depths, I put my hand down and passed gently through four bricks. I felt them crumble, one by one, beneath my palm, like breaking the surface of the water. A slight resistance, a slight tingle, as they dissolved under my hand. It all happened in a fraction of a second, yet I still feel it. I passed through the illusion and continued to the floor, where I'd been focused all along.

Eight cleanly sliced pieces fell to the floor. And the room erupted. Despite myself, I cracked a smile. A big one.

This was more than a break to me. It was a validation. As shitty and murky as this night felt, I proved to myself that it didn't matter. I have the power to break through far more than concrete.

I also proved that I am my own man. It was to be the only successful break tonight. Others after me tried, but it just wasn't happening. For several, it didn't happen at all - the first brick might as well have been solid steel. But for me, everything came together perfectly. Perhaps because I didn't have the chance to get nervous? Or perhaps because I was so shifted that I wasn't even there anymore. It all feels like a dream. And my hand felt so, so good after the break. Like a massage or a mineral bath. Safe and whole (though my fingers are still traumatized from the previous break).

In the end, I turned a night of failure into a night of firsts. And also reinforced, THROUGH EXPERIENCE, the knowledge that we do indeed have the power to transcend this material existence. And that's what it takes - first-hand experience. Reading is nice. Learning is even better. But to truly feel it takes experience.

So now the big question: what next?

come into the light, carol anne

2004-09-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, now here's some cool shit: sungazing, also known as Living on Light. It's evidently one path to becoming a "breatharian".

Now, I don't know how authentic all of this is, but it sounds really cool. And one website said this one guy who's been doing it since '95 has been checked out by scientists and NASA, even! So it must be real! Seriously, though, I'm keeping an open mind about it. I'm about ready to try anything to whittle this belly down.

The reason I noticed this is because Sacred Space in San Francisco is hosting "HRM", the guy who's been doing this since '95. I'm half-interested in going but it looks like an all day thing and I've nekkid leatha men to gaze at on Folsom.

In other news, I've suddenly got the organizing bug up my ass. I signed up with a Reiki group on Meetup.com and, noting the lack of an organizer, jumped in. So now I'm organizing Reiki folk in the bay area. (And I've never been to a meetup meeting.) Then I searched craigslist for other Reikers (my term) and found a pocket that will hopefully join up. Then today, walking down the street, noticed "Reiki" in a window and decided to strike up a conversation with a total stranger, which is quite uncharacteristic of me. All in the quest for connection with cool people.

Because that's what this world needs. Like-minded souls, united in positivity, hooking up and amplifying that vibe into this munged place we live in. I don't generally consider myself a social person. And since I moved to California 4 years ago (as of today, in fact), I've cocooned myself from all the mean people here.

Not anymore. We've gots to risk it. Take a stand. Be real. Get the fuck out the door and be something that's going to help this world.

Tip for the day and note to self #1:
Keep a stash of food bars in the car, as in the "Clif bar" suggestion from yesterday. I keep pulling up to opportunities in the city to feed someone with an empty stomach and bad complexion. But I keep forgetting to put those damn Clif bars in my purse. Dharma points for good intentions? Don't think so.

Tip for the day and note to self #2:
Stop dating fucking drama queens.

Tip for the day and note to self #3:
Keep breathing, bitzchness.

A New Jus Bar

2004-09-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

Let's face it. Burning Man changed my life.

One thing it did was take me out of this media-saturated reality and return me to the harsh, intense, infinitely fulfilling natural world. You're not supposed to leave anything behind in the desert, but I did: my interest in the bitterness of politics. Among many other things.

In the past, this blog has turned into little more than a bitter rant, like all the others out there, even when I try to shade it with compassion and meaning.

But I find lately that, while my fundamental interest in politics has not gone away, my approach to it has shifted dramatically. I'm not as interested in jumping into the mud and slinging it out the old fashioned way. In fact, I've lost interest in addressing political issues directly at all.

Because underneath the political issues, we find the same foundation as social issues, justice issues, environmental issues, self-development, hobbies, personal interactions, learning, family, entertainment, addictions, and on and on and on into every facet of human existence.

I'm talking about our view of the world around us. Once we pull our heads out of the everyday (job, food, entertainment, relationship, and of course, money), we start getting into those lofty issues that only certain types of people seem interested in looking at. Why are we here? What IS "here"? What is the purpose of this mundane life I seem to be living? Where the hell did I park my car?

So if I'm to continue blogging, I feel the need to shake things up a little. I may ramble a bit, but if in reading this you spark to a kindred spirit, let me know. Post a message. Plug into this fabulous thought-train of peace, love, and neo-hippie techno-groovalicious power vibe we call Manifesting Reality. Because we're already making things happen. We're already creating the world of our imaginations. Now we just need to realize that and change our freakin minds, because we're in the process of creating something that's so not cool right now.

Check back here for more on that subject.

But for now, some short term instructions:

1. If you haven't seen it yet, then make plans RIGHT NOW to see What the Bleep Do We Know? at your nearest available location. No, stop - did I say you could keep reading? I mean NOW! Check out the times and get back with me once you've bought your tickets (I use plural because you know you want to bring a friend).

2. Find the groove you like and chill, freak.

3. VOTE! FOR GOD'S SAKE VOTE!!! Register NOW. And once you're registered, then apply for absentee voting NOW. Because that's the best way to get counted this time around. Shite's about to hit it and the fan won't be pretty on November the 3rd. So vote now and make it count.

4. Spread the love. Do something mysteriously cool and charitable for a total stranger. Fold someone's laundry. Drop an extra quarter in someone's parking meter. Give a homeless guy a Clif bar. Be the good in the world that you keep bitching about not seeing. Because we need you.

Don't say the "B" word

2004-08-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

Two Held for Alleged New York Subway Bomb Plot

This is sort of like saying "bomb" on a plane. Or saying "bum" with an accent. They didn't actually HAVE a bomb. Nor did they have concrete plans to get or plant one. Muslims today, everyone else tomorrow. (I wonder if the FBI is spying on me RIGHT NOW.)

Elsewhere in the news, the crackdown on bike-riding terrorists has officially begun.

message from God

2004-08-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

Locusts Invade 'Passion of Christ' Town

Bush Campaign Lawyer Tied to Group's Anti-Kerry Ads

2004-08-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

Gotcha!

The Purpose of Fox News

2004-08-24T01:47:00.000-07:00

Here's my theory. Stay with me on this.

Fox News, radical rightwing critics, and other noisy voices from the extreme right, have an agenda underneath their spoken war of words: to create and enforce and imaginary split in America.

Much has started to be written about the "Two Americas" - every single issue that reaches the news is now interpreted in two, exactly two ways. There's the Democratic viewpoint and the Republican viewpoint. The "left" and the "right". Once commentators get ahold of it, we're all told what our arguments are to be and, because we simply have too much information coming at us to process it all, we spit those same talking points at each other.

This is an illusion.

America is NOT split down the middle and there are NOT exactly two ways to see every issue. As many perspectives exist in this country, in this world, as exist people.

But here's the tricky part. In framing every argument as "us vs. them", those who control the political process are tricking us into putting ourselves into one of two buckets - the extreme right and the MODERATE right.

The logic goes like this. Bush says "We need to invade / liberate Iraq!" (Or rather, he moves his lips for whoever is actually speaking.) So there's the official "neocon" line of thought. All conservatives, including Murdoch's media empire, fall in behind it.

Kerry says "we must be SMARTER about fighting in Iraq." Since we have only two sides to every argument, all democrats and everyone else who doesn't like Bush and company fall in line behind Kerry.

The problem: we shouldn't fucking BE in Iraq!!! We never should've invaded them. We never should've invade Afghanistan. (As a matter of fact, we never should've starved Iraq with a decade of sanctions, Clinton.)

By forcing the debate into only two directions, the party leaders force a win-win for their corporate donors. And American consumers, mindless sheep that we are, go along with it because at this point, we only see two colors. We only see two options.

What kills me is that this entire debate, in fact EVERY debate, has moved to the right of the ideological spectrum. When the people we detest (O'Reilly, Cheney, Bush, Hannity, Ashcroft, etc, etc, etc) rail against a particular issue, we are tricked into supporting that issue. What those smug bastards never let on is that they're usually only slightly to the left of their own opinions, which still leaves them far too conservatives for how I truly believe most Americans really feel. Similarly, if I say "I support Hillary Clinton and I love purple donuts" then conservatives are suddenly going to hate purple donuts, because they sure as hell hate Hillary. That's how habitualized we've become.

I promise you this: if Bush stood up tomorrow and said "I don't like orange. I think orange looks French. I just think the color orange is un-American. This country is founded on red, white, and blue. And that's what God wants for us." I promise you if he made a speech like that, you would have millions of conservatives all over the nation falling over themselves to build bonfires, hold anti-orange rallies, destroy every scrap of orange they could find. They'd boycott oranges altogether and anything they thought LOOKED orange. Then you'd have millions of Bush-haters with jerking knees who would take up banners of orange, go on orange-only diets, wear orange head-to-toe.

The rest of us would be scratching our heads in utter bewilderment, wondering how the hell we got to this point. Oh yeah - we're already doing that. I've been scratching my head over this whole Vietnam debate for weeks now. (WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT KERRY'S FUCKING MEDALS!!)

This is called manipulation. And right now, we are being shamelessly manipulated into supporting pro-corporate, anti-compassionate policies regardless of which candidate or party we associate ourselves with.

It's so sad to see true progressives being forced to support Kerry because that's the only chance we have to get bush the hell outta there. This is the result of our deplorable winner-take-all system of elections. If we were to establish a more sensible electoral system, I believe we would crack open this two-sided fallacy and introduce some much-needed sophistication to the debate. In fact, we might discover we have opinions of our own.

I, for one, don't really care for orange. But I have to admit, if Bush hated it, I'd probably like it a lot more. Guilty.

AdGate

2004-08-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

Requirement of a scandal: put "gate" at the end of whatever subject you're talking about. In this case, it's this ridiculous back-and-forth about the attack ads. Not sure who in particular is more scandalized. The whole damn thing stinks to me. (The latest.)

I have a theory about this. Perhaps this whole thing is being done deliberately to nauseate the voting public and turn them completely off the electoral process. Whenever the general public is polled, Kerry generally gets majority. Only when REGISTERED VOTERS are polled does it split down the middle. So it's to republican's advantage to keeping voting at a minimum. Ergo, the Let's Disgust America strategy.

Of course, personally I believe that Kerry is actually a republican who thought he'd get more mileage posing as a democrat. So at this point, conservatives win no matter what. It's just a question whether the corporate agenda will be shoved in our face and adorned with redwhiteblue streamers, trumpets blaring, or whether it'll be done behind the scenes under withering attacks from rightwing demagogues and Fox News.

Ellen is God!

2004-08-24T01:36:00.000-07:00

I love this!

Whoever came up with this casting is just brilliant. That's all I have to say.

Halliburton's Hubris

2004-08-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

$8.8 billion in missing funds.

These guys just amaze me. Some excerpts:

At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon...

One of the main benefactors of the Iraq funds was Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid more than a billion dollars out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians.

The monitoring board said despite repeated requests it had not been given access to U.S. audits of contracts held by Halliburton, which was once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, and other firms that used the development funds.

finally saw Outfoxed

2004-08-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

Saw Outfoxed last night at the Roxie and listened to a couple of guest speakers afterwards. Alone at dinner later, finding myself without my usual pad and pen, I seized upon my napkin, took a pen from a donation basket of used pens that are being shipped to children in Africa (no, I did not make that up), and poured out the thoughts bubbling in the back of my brain. Here's what occurred to me:

We are too numb / lethargic / overwhelmed, incapable of action. What is it we can do individually against a rigid power structure which has evolved over decades, even centuries. I remember someone once saying we need a revolution every 30 years. But the 60s was not a revolution. The anti-war protests, as they were recently, were completely ineffectual, except in framing the war historically. But it changed nothing. It prevented nothing. Even now vets are considered heroes and the validity of the war itself, though widely condemned, is rarely brought into question. And it stopped nothing. What can we do now?

#1: UNDERSTAND the system. Understand the flow of money and influence. Understand how the various portions of our society work together.

#2: Understand our own individual channels of influence. What we as citizens are and are not capable of.

#3: Become centered within ourselves. Free our spirits from the encrusted shells we have grown onto like the nautilus, mired under chambers of its own creation.

OBSTACLES - what causes the lethargy?

1. Comfort. We're stil basically comfortable. We've learned to ACCEPT our situation. As long as we're making enough money to get by, very few of us are willing to sacrifice and make significant changes.

2. Exhaustion. By the time we're through doing the do, we have no more energy left to make changes, especially those that could result in an even greater expenditure of energy. We're tired. At the end of the day, we simply want to escape, not march, not think, not work MORE. We must lighten the workload, free ourselves and our time so we have the ENERGY. Incorporate a private practice of growth - ANYTHING. Turn away from the distractions, sports, games, tv, drama, movies, music. Or at least incorporate them in moderation and in such a way that CONTRIBUTES to our growth.

3. Too many ideas, not enough vision. We end up with dozens of people excited, with ideas how to change things. But not enough support. Too many conflicting agendas and leadership but not enough common purpose. Poor organization. Ideas with no focus, no discipline, no expertise. Several organizations have grown to lead the charge - moveon.org being a perfect example. But too many different agendas, some coordination, but not enough. No big impact. No success on the big initiatives.

If after this election we still elect Bush, that will prove that nothing the citizenry can do will be effective over mob psychology and the mass manipulation of the current power structures. I've never seen or imagined the current level of political consciousness. And from what I hear from elders and those who should know, what we're experiencing now is a movement as intense and anything in recent history. So will it be enough? If not, what then?

How can we re-evaulate the American system as a whole and make fundamental changes that are equitable for ALL???

the wisdom of Jerome Corsi

2004-08-13T02:45:00.000-07:00

"John Kerry, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Katie Couric, CBS, NBC are all communists. Hillary Clinton is a lesbian fat hog with fake hair. Al and Tipper Gore are terrorists who are part of the Taliban. The pope is senile. And pedophilia is fine with him as long as it's not reported in the liberal press. If you think all this sounds nutty, well, it is. According to the organization Media Matters For America, all this has been written by Jerome Corsi. Why do we care what Jerome Corsi says? Well, we don't. But as co-author of the book "Unfit for Command" about John Kerry and his service in Vietnam, some people are making the mistake of taking him seriously. In the world of putrid right-wing pond scum, Corsi is one of the biggest bottom-feeders of them all." --James Carville, CNN Crossfire

Talking Points

2004-08-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart is a god.

Did anyone notice...

2004-08-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

...that we don't pick our leaders? Not even close. An excerpt:

After two days of interviews of more than a dozen prospective candidates and hours of debate, the Republican party's 19-member central committee settled on the 53-year-old Keyes over Andrea Barthwell, the former deputy director of the White House drug czar's office. (emphasis mine)

It's become such a given, such a basic part of the process, that no one seems to question the complete annihilation of democracy when not the constituents, not the voters, but the party's COMMITTEE picks the candidates. And not just the GOP - both parties work this way.

The boys (yes, boys) that head the national parties get to pick and choose our leaders. All we do is decide if we want a republican or democrat. And that's already decided for the most part, except for those mythical "swing voters" who pretend to be independent.

The legacy of Clinton

2004-08-04T22:42:00.000-07:00

Incidentally, I love how conservatives keep using Clinton's behavior as an excuse for Bush's. If you say Bush didn't have enough evidence to support a war against Iraq, they'll trot out Clinton quotes talking about danger and WMDs, etc. It's like if Clinton endorsed it, it must be ok. If Clinton did all these things, that makes it ok for Bush to do them. Hey, Clinton lied about a blow job, ergo Bush can now lie about anything he wants - it's all OK!!

They must really respect the man to want to emulate his behavior so badly. However I, for one, didn't support a lot of the things Clinton did and I sure as hell don't support them now that Bush is doing far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far worse.

They knew

2004-08-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

Wow - smoking gun. We all knew he was ballsy but it turns out dubya didn't just "rely on bad intelligence" (his own, in other words), he actually had senior advisors telling him NOT to blow things out of proportion, NOT to use WMDs as an excuse to go to war. Great article. Read it.

No really! There's really a wolf this time!

2004-08-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Credibility Cloud Hangs Over U.S. Terror Warnings

I've no doubt something will happen someday, though hopefully not anytime soon. But we've already grown beyond numb at this ridiculous terror alert routine. Why is this even a public announcement? What can mere mortals do other than get scared and look at everyone suspiciously? Terror alerts, if they're going to be used, should be part of an INTERNAL communications process throughout national law enforcement agencies. In other words, tell the people who can do something about it. This kind of fearmongering helps NO ONE (except the actual terrorists).

Halliburton Settles SEC Charge from Cheney Years

2004-08-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

Why wasn't Cheney charged???

It still amazes me that the attack dawgs spent millions and millions to try and nail the Clintons on Whitewater, which even Ken Starr was unable to do anything with. Meanwhile, Dems are sitting on so much material on the current administration that you could spit at random and find an impeachable offense. Are they taking the high road or are they just that timid? (Or perhaps that outgunned by the republican coup.)

Intelligence Director

2004-08-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

I heard on NPR that bush (note the little "b") has suddenly taken an interest to the 9/11 panel's recommendations. But he doesn't want to create a cabinet-level position. Meanwhile, Kerry wants to create a cabinet post and, it was also mentioned, implement a high degree of executive control over the department. Color me suspicious but the fact that both candidates are "skull and bones" members, it worries me when we talk about executive control for ANYTHING.

That said, I would strongly support a cabinet-level position. Have the director (or secretary) be accountable at the highest level. Furthermore, make it a position that MUST be approved by the Senate! By making this a cabinet post, we can at least try to ensure some sort of approval process, to (hopefully) prevent dubya from annointing...I mean appointing...another divine Ashcroft to the glowing eye of scrutiny over our most private lives.

Ron Reagan speaks

2004-08-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

Great editorial by Ron Reagan, the younger.

Excerpt:

The far-right wing of the country - nearly one third of us by some estimates - continues to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid (liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a "hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.

The New Iraqi Bank Note

2004-07-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

there goes the journalistic integrity

2004-07-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

Another great note from moveon...

Since Fox News is unable to rebut the basic premise of "Outfoxed," its anchors have resorted to slamming the film's technique. Fox News' convention correspondent Carl Cameron, who is portrayed in the movie sucking up to then-Governor Bush before an interview, complained "It was an unfortunate piece of editing in the movie that gave a far worse impression than the reality."

To counter this charge, director Robert Greenwald has released the entire footage of Cameron's pre-interview moments with Bush, when he didn't realize the tape was rolling. The full clip makes Cameron look even worse. He spends a full three minutes fawning over Bush. See this outrageous footage here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?539

All this bluster hides the serious fact that Fox News allows political partisans like Cameron to do important journalistic interviews, even when there are blatant conflicts of interest.

Call up Fox News and tell them to reassign Carl Cameron from the conventions and find a political reporter who doesn't carry a partisan bias, at:

Fox News Channel
(212) 301-3000
Please let us know you're making this call, at:

http://www.moveon.org/foxcalls2.html?id=3167-3218763-stRLwf9fVxB.l5.GpRNxwg

This footage is a smoking gun -- Fox News is a Republican outlet, and the reporters make no bones about it. At most networks, even a perception of a conflict of interests is enough to reassign a reporter. In 2000, a CNN producer whose husband was a lawyer for Gore was told not to have anything to do with campaign coverage [1]. Last Thursday, the San Francisco Chronicle put its letters editor on leave for contributing $400 to the Kerry campaign [2]. Not so at Fox News, where Cameron remained in charge of campaign coverage, including the exclusive interview with Bush, despite his wife's involvement with the Bush campaign.

Do conflicts of interest really matter? Well, to take just one example, the head analyst of election results for Fox News in 2000 was John Ellis, Bush's first cousin. On Mr. Ellis' advice, Fox News was the first to declare Bush the winner of Florida and the presidency. Ellis' call for Bush set off a cascade of similar calls by other networks, ultimately leading to the infamous Florida vote-counting controversy [3].

Blatant conflicts of interest like Cameron's and Ellis' highlight an appalling lack of journalistic balance on the part of Fox News. To permit such assignments is unprofessional and deceptive. It's the sort of behavior that gives Fox News such a bad name.

Most news outlets would be embarrassed and apologetic. Fox News is smug and unrepentant. Worse, they are doing it again this election. Before we go any further, demand Fox News reassign Carl Cameron from the conventions and choose a reporter without personal ties to one candidate:

Roger Ailes, CEO and Chairman
Fox News Channel
(212) 301-3000

Of course, Fox News is trying hard to deny its obvious partisanship. Both Cameron and Roger Ailes always cite a single story as proof that Fox News doesn't favor Republicans: the discovery of George W. Bush's arrest for drunken driving in the final week of the 2000 election. Fox News takes credit for getting the scoop. Real journalists at Salon magazine, however, reveal that the story was discovered by a young reporter at a local Fox broadcast affiliate, WPXT-TV in Portland, Maine, not the team at Fox News Channel. Fox News recently affirmed it has "no editorial oversight" of any Fox affiliate [4]. Read the Salon story at:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/23/fox_dui_moveon/

Salon provides excellent, independent journalism without partisanship or personal conflicts of interest. This is the sort of journalism we need to support with our subscription dollars. Salon is offering a 50% discount to MoveOn members. Can you help support Salon's important work? Please subscribe now at the link above.

Thanks for all you're doing to encourage true balance in our national news media. Our democracy depends on it.

Sincerely,
--Wes Boyd and Noah T. Winer
MoveOn.org
July 28th, 2004

On Abortion

2004-07-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

I sat at Peet's today, reading about the Democratic convention, thinking about the politics of the abortion issue. And my caffeinated mind began playing out my own views. I began to think about this divisive moral question from a spiritualist's perspective.

The question on the right to kill an unborn child is moot – no one would argue in favor of death. This is not a question of life vs. abortion. The question is: at what point does this collection of fertilized cells become “life”? Thus the argument gets tricky and turns into a highly subjective, immensely personal decision.

I personally believe that the inception of life is a Divine act which should be left to run its course. That’s why I will not, under any circumstances, have an abortion should I ever become pregnant.

And I’ll thank the government to let me make that choice on my own. Granted, as a man, this probably won’t come up in the foreseeable future. But those for whom this is a more immediate issue deserve the free will to make this difficult moral decision on their own.

The standards by which I decide on a definition of life come from my own instincts and experiences. When the existence of a soul is unprovable by universal standards, we have only our own experiences to lend guidance.

Unfortunately, many who seek to make this choice for others are not even guided by personal experiences but rather the influence of environment – family, peers, church, community. When social conditioning dictates a belief or course of action, that belief or action automatically becomes contrived. Valueless. False. And above all, unworthy as a measure for the actions of a stranger.

As sentient beings, we are each accorded free will and the right to discover our own moral code. As a society, we create laws to codify the obvious boundaries between one anothers’ free will. In other words, my free will ends where yours begins. When my personal choice limits yours, for example through murder or theft, then I violate the universal principle of free will. And in the US, I violate the law (unless I work for the government, where murder is called “death penalty” and theft is called “imminent domain”).

But what if one person’s actions do not blatantly impinge on the free will of another? When the boundaries are blurred – does a collection of fertilized cells have free will? – then we have only our self-discovered moral code on which to base our decisions. If that moral code somehow violates cosmic law, then who metes out the consequences? Again, the punisher, as with the crime itself, becomes a subjective perspective – God? St. Peter? Karma? Pluto/Hades? Extra-dimension aliens? Those with a framework for deciding the crime must rely on the same framework for deciding punishment.

In other words, where God judges a sin, let God punish it as well.

No human has the authority to be God’s moral advocate on this earth. Let God do God’s work. And let God’s followers follow. Those of us who screw up will be dealt with.

something for everyone

2004-07-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a patriotic little ditty we can all rally around.

big deep questions

2004-07-24T02:44:00.000-07:00

Here are the questions keeping me up tonight (I mean that literally - I have insomnia again):

- Are we born with a Purpose for our lives, which we must then discover and fulfill? Or is Desire the only real point to this story? Or are they one and the same? Why it matters: if we do have a single (or even dual) goal for being here, then we have some sort of benchmark by which we can test our life choices - their efficacy in propelling us down our unique path. This is not the same as Destiny or Fate, in which whatever happens was going to happen / was meant to happen all along. I do believe we are at choice in every moment. The question for me is what guides that choice - Purpose or Desire?

- If you can, with a snap of your fingers, completely change your attitude / mood / emotional state, should you? Is this honest? Is it natural? Authentic? A prostitute, an actor, and a meditator all have one thing in common - they generate a new state of mind at will which is often vasty different from the previous state of mind. If I'm feeling depressed, I can meditate myself to happiness. But is that honest? Have I addressed the root cause of the original depression? Does it make me genuinely happy? If I see someone less fortunate, then I can, at will, generate a feeling of compassion, no matter how pissy I'm feeling at the moment. Does that make me genuinely compassionate?
Why it matters: there's a group of people whom, when I'm not around them, I view with distrust and disconnection. Yet when I'm with them, I'm part of the gang, connected, enjoying myself, wondering why the heck I don't spend more time with them. Which is the truth? Is kinship authentic when I don't feel it in solitude?

And now back to our regularly scheduled political diatribes.

whew - that's a relief

2004-07-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the records have been located. Now the question is what the heck do they say.

An update:

Bush moved to Alabama in May 1972 to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of seeing him there.

Last February, the White House released hundreds of pages of Bush's military records. Those records did not provide new evidence to place Bush in Alabama during the latter part of 1972, when some Democrats had said he was basically absent without leave.

Almost funny

2004-07-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is almost funny, in a sad, sad way. Bush Tells Blacks, 'I'm Here to Ask for Your Vote'

It reminds me of the speech I heard him give to a southern black church. I was listening to NPR and couldn't see what he was actually doing, but it sounded like he'd read from a prepared speech, then step and explain in Very Small Words exactly what he just said. It's like he was talking to a class of pre-schoolers. He'd read a sentence (which was dumbed down to begin with) then stop and say "Now, what that's saying is that we're the good guys." I don't know if it's a withering disrespect for the intelligence of the black community or if he was trying to work out the meaning himself. Either way, it came across unacceptably patronizing and insulting.

Now, if only he'd let blacks vote so they can kick his ass out.

George Says...

2004-07-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

This site is awesome. Since George is just a finger puppet anyway, put YOUR words into his mouth instead of Karl Rove's and the veep's.

naughty chess players

2004-07-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

So, I just want to be sure I've got this right. We want to throw Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess champions of all time, into prison for playing a game of chess??? Fill in your analogy of a much harsher crime (like, all of them) that went unpunished. This is just ridiculous.

depends what the meaning of i$, i$

2004-07-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Is anyone at all concerned that Cheney is still getting paid 150 grand A YEAR from Halliburton, even though he said he'd severed all ties?

Btw, props for the latest flurry of posts goes to ... White House Props - hysterical site, y'all!

Oops, part 2

2004-07-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

This has to be one of the funniest damn things I've seen this week.

United Press International: Found notes may show Bush plan on Clarke

White House Gets Permission to Lie

2004-07-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

White House Gets Permission to Lie

a well-reasoned argument?

2004-07-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a tip from my brother, I subscribe to a conservative newsletter, primarily to keep tabs on the "other" perspective. I try to stay open to other points of view so as to challenge and ultimately strengthen my own, a tactic I don't often see amongst conservatives.

The problem with this idea is that conservative newsletters avoid any sense of reason or logic. For example, the latest newsletter, headlined "Don't Let MoveOn.org Censor Fox News", discusses a campaign by moveon.org to urge congresspeople to support a review of Fox's false advertisement. I think even the most rabid supporter of Faux News will admit that it's not "fair and balanced" and they have no balance using such an expression. It's like bottling battery acid and calling it "smooth and refreshing".

But I want to hear some other points of view, so I read it. Here's what I find:
- "loony leftists"
- "leftists"
- "blatantly liberal"
- "ever-gullible members" (referring to moveon.org members)
- "whackos"
- "loons"
- "out-of-touch far-left"
- "radical left"

And the ultimate slur: calling Fox News "the only bastion of Fair and Balanced news reporting on the air today."

I'm not really getting a lot of information from all this name-calling. The only other "argument" I can see, other than "they're freakin crazy" are repeated accusations of censorship. The way I see it, if the FTC told Fox to report only right-wing (or left-wing) news, that would be censorship. Telling them to report what they want as long as they don't LIE about it is not censorship. And asking our representatives to hold a media corporation accountable for false advertising is what we in this country call Democracy.

If you want to be a puppet for the GOP, then do it. Just don't call it news. And certainly don't call it "fair and balanced."

So if the conservative's only argument for his position is to slap a flag on his ass and call me a loon, then so be it. Just don't say I'm not a patriot, because I cherish the founding principles of this country more than any right-winger will ever comprehend. It's what fuels my relentless anger at this neocon depravity.

Tell me what to think!

2004-07-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder if we would be able to form our own opinions without commentators, Faux News, Rush, NPR, and all the others giving us the proper perspective on issues. It seems to me when the news breaks, each "side" (and there can only ever, EVER be two sides) comes up with the official reaction to it, which is then perpetuated through the entire communications system of America. Congresspeople, newscasters, commentators, talk radio - everyone follows the proper line of analysis.

What if the media only reported the news? What if we were left to interpret it ourselves? What if we argued at the coffeeshop using our OWN opinions and not the words we read or heard from someone who analyzes these things for a living?

This occurred to me today as I listened to NPR - two editors / commentators discussed Sandy Berger's alleged theft of top secret documents from the govt archive. The official left-spin is that this investigation has been ongoing for months and has just now been leaked to the press, the day before the release of the 9/11 commission report. Obviously someone on the right leaked the story and blew it out of proportion to distract America's attention from a damning report. The right-spin is that Berger engaged in some incredibly suspicious activity, most certainly did not take the papers "accidentally", and is out of politics for good because of this. Now I don't know WHAT to think because I've already been polluted with predigested analysis.

Thank goodness for that - I have so many other things to worry about right now. It helps to have someone smart think things through for me.

obstinance helps no one

2004-07-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

Bush Withholds Key Records About National Guard

Turns out there may be COPIES of those records that were mysteriously destroyed. But Bush won't let us see even the copies. I, for one, am terribly intrigued.

Support Alternet

2004-07-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Support Alternet and get a copy of Outfoxed. WHAT A DEAL! This is like a twofer to me - supporting a great news site at the same time you're getting an incredible new documentary.

My uncle told me last year that "The only network putting out the truth right now is Fox." I wonder what he would think of this video.

What year are we in?

2004-07-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

I got a SERIOUS case of deja vu when I read this: Measure to Outlaw Flag Burning Advances in Senate

Why the HELL are republicans wasting our time on this crap??? Only a few weeks left til the end of this congressional session and we've passed NONE of the major security bills waiting for a vote because these zealous hypocrits are pushing divisive social issues.

I know I'm sounding like the angry liberal, the flip-side of Rush, but republicans must really hate this country. They hate democracy. They hate unity. They hate peace. They gots to get them votes. And the only way they think they can maintain some power is to continue dividing our society and driving a stake through any chance at bipartisan unity.

Bah.

I'm a war president - no, peace - no, war - wait

2004-07-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

Bush: 'I Want to Be the Peace President'

Bush in February: "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind."

Bush today: "The enemy declared war on us. Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president."

Official GOP sound bite: "Kerry's a flip-flopper."

Mr. Bush? Line 2 - it's George Orwell. He wants his irony back.

Let's try this again

2004-07-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Iraq Requests Return of UN Nuclear Inspectors

Of course, last time Iraq requested the inspectors come in and do their job, we (1) pulled the inspectors out, (2) overrode the inspectors opinion that there were no WMDs, (3) basically called the inspectors liars, (4) accused Sadam of kicking the inspectors out (he didn't - we did), and (5) bombed Iraq with a few of our own WMDs anyway.

Things will be different this time. An election is coming up.

Liberals, get over it!

2004-07-20T02:31:00.000-07:00

Governor's 'girlie-men' remark stirs flap

This is a good example of getting your knickers in a twist over nothing. Much as I like to think my other progressives have the good of society at heart (and they do, even here), sometimes they get a bit TOO sensitive. CHOOSE YOUR WARS, if you must. This is not one of them.

As a sensitive gay man, I'm not at all concerned about Democrats being called "girlie-men". This is just Schwarzenegger being the man Californians voted on - brutish, fratboy crude at times, and more than a little silly. But seriously nothing to get upset over.

Get upset over what he's doing to the budget.

Pondering our highest potential

2004-07-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking more about what I can offer the planet, other than cynical and irate blog posts. My thoughts keep returning to my heroes and how their actions and vision inspired us to live up to our highest potential. There's the keyword: highest potential.

I believe the actions we take and words we say should be in alignment with our own highest potential. That said, I have no idea how to make that happen. But it's something to become more aware of - I look out at the world around me and observe the crass messages that appeal to the bottom of our potential. Marketing images and messages. Buy me! Wear this! Consume! Political ads. Fear! Hate! Ruin!

What if we could somehow demand of our corporate and government leaders that they appeal to the higher potential of all of us? In an enlightened world, no doubt this would be done automatically, without even being aware of it. But in a world where we actually have to legislate against obvious abuse of human beings (anti-sweatshop laws, anti-slavery laws, anti-violence laws, laws, laws, more laws), then what sort of policy might enact virtue?

Impossible - for virtue is not the realm of law but of humans. It is up to us to demand virtue and integrity of our organizations. Corporations, government entities, all other entities through which humans come together, are nothing more than collectives of individuals. Assuming a disguise for the collective, a proxy entity that represents everyone at once, does not allow us to forsake basic noble values.

It is incumbent upon us to demand better from the image makers of our society. Forget non-whatever (no violence, no nudity, no drinking, no swearing, etc, etc, etc). Focusing on the non gets us just that - whatever we're focused on.

Focus instead on our highest potential. Imagine a billboard that speaks to our innate compassion. Imagine a radio spot that inspires us to do good for someone else. Imagine a leader that speaks to our collective hope for peace and opportunity.

We each have the power to create this in our society and in our lives. But we must focus on them. Demand them. Most important, live them.

Singer Linda Ronstadt Ejected by Las Vegas Casino

2004-07-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

Sad, sad, sad. Singer Linda Ronstadt Ejected by Las Vegas Casino

I'm not sure if this says more about the type of people who go to Vegas or the type of people who vote Republican. Probably the latter. It seems a typical response - if you don't like someone's opinion, trash the place. Now I'm sure country stations around the nation will have big Rondstadt CD burning bonfires, like they did with the Dixie Chicks.

Iran next?

2004-07-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

I have an idea, let's invade Iran. It's just one country over - we won't even have to get out all them big ships and planes and things.

How low can they go?

2004-07-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm repeating myself now, but I'm just stunned at how crass, malicious, downright evil the GOP can go. This is from gop.com itself: In Case You Missed It: Michael Moore, Hezbollah Heartthrob - some bizarre and petty link between Michael Moore and a terrorist group.

They're desperate, kids. This is the party that controls this country and the minds of half its population. When the official party line compares dissenting opinion to a TERRORIST group, for God's sake, that's when we must run them out on a rail.

I'm shocked and saddened by this kind of histrionic fear-mongering.

OUTSTANDING speech from Sen. Boxer on FMA

2004-07-19T14:56:00.001-07:00

GO BOXER!!!

[Partial] STATEMENT OF SENATOR BARBARA BOXER
FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
July 13, 2004

Mr. President, after today, we have 27 legislative days until adjournment – 27 legislative days to deal with the most pressing issues facing this country.

We should be passing the Port Security bill and the Rail Security bill, both of which were approved by the Commerce Committee unanimously in April. We should be passing the Transit Security bill, which was approved by the Banking Committee in May. We should be passing the Nuclear Plant Security bill, the Chemical Plant Security bill, and the First Responders bill, all of which were approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee last year. We could be working on those bills to improve our safety instead of worrying about two people of the same gender who have decided to care about each other.

So there you have it. In the face of all this, what does this Administration want us to do? A constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage – a constitutional amendment that denies millions of Americans equal rights because, even if it does not say so explicitly, it will mean those in domestic partnerships or civil unions will not get equal rights or equal responsibilities.

An analysis by David Remes, a partner and legal expert at a well-respected law firm here in Washington, has concluded that this Constitutional amendment will guarantee legal challenges to civil unions and domestic partnerships. And many have noted, including the American Bar Association, that the language of the Constitutional amendment is so vague that the amendment could be interpreted to ban civil unions and domestic partnerships and the benefits that come with them.

This constitutional amendment is divisive to this country. It is completely unnecessary. And it enshrines discrimination in the constitution – the constitution – a document meant to expand rights. We have never amended the Constitution to deny rights and to deny equality.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, University of Chicago Law School Professor Cass Sunstein noted that all of the amendments to the Constitution are either expansions of individual rights or attempts to remedy problems in the structure of government. The sole exception was the 18th Amendment that established Prohibition – and that attempt to write social policy into the Constitution was such a disaster that it was repealed less than 15 years later.

The list of adopted Constitutional amendments is short – but impressive. There are the first ten amendments – the Bill of Rights – that guarantee important liberties to the American people from freedom of speech and the press to the right to be secure in our homes to the freedom of religion.

There are the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that undo the terrible injustices of slavery, ensure African-Americans the right to vote, and guarantee everyone the equal protection of the laws. There is the 19th Amendment that gave women the
right to vote – the 24th amendment that banned poll taxes to
further ensure minorities the right to vote – and the 26th amendment that gave 18 year olds the right to vote. Quite an impressive list – a list that seeks to expand freedom and equality.

The Constitution is a gift we have inherited from those giants among men who wrote it 217 years ago. As written, it was not perfect and we have had to amend the Constitution from time to time. But, it should never be used to take away rights from decent, loyal Americans. It should never be used to make a group of Americans permanent second-class citizens.

This amendment would make it impossible for states to say to two people who love each other, care for each other, and are willing to die for each other that they have equal inheritance rights, equal hospital visitation rights, equal benefits under the law. That’s outrageous.

My state has a domestic partnership law. California’s law is, I believe, a start. It gives same-sex couples many of the same rights and responsibilities as married couples. It is not perfect, and we need to do more. But even this imperfect law has meant so much to so many people in California. And for this Congress to take that away from them by amending the Constitution is wrong and mean spirited.

One of my colleagues says that marriage is under assault from gay relationships. Well I must tell you straight from my heart – not one married couple has ever come up to me and said their marriage was under assault because two people of the same gender down the street care about each other. If we were truly concerned about strengthening marriages and strengthening families in this country, we would pass an increase in the minimum wage. We would pass a bill to make sure people had the same health insurance that members of Congress have. We would pass a bill to make sure that all children have a high quality education. And instead of freezing the number of kids in after school programs, we would allow them to partake in programs that keep them safe until mom or dad comes home from work.

What is really going on here – the real motive here – is crass, cold, hard politics. This is being done to distract attention from the real issues facing this country. This constitutional amendment is being used as a weapon of mass distraction. And this constitutional amendment is being used as a tool for the upcoming political campaigns. Shame on us.

The Constitution should never be used as a political football or as an applause meter before an election. It truly is a disgrace on the Senate to play politics with the Constitution, and I hope and pray that the American people see this for what it is.

Mr. President, we are all God’s children. No two of us are alike – we have different color eyes; we have different color hair; we have different color skin; we are different genders; and yes, we have different sexual orientations. We are all different, and yet we are all united behind the common cause of freedom, justice, and equality.

This Constitutional amendment is an attempt to appeal to our prejudice instead of our compassion – our hate instead of our hopes – our fears instead of our dreams. This Constitutional amendment is an appeal to what is the worst in us instead of an appeal to what is the best in us.

In his first Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” This amendment flies in the face of these words. So regardless of what you think about gay marriage – regardless of whether you are for or against domestic partnerships and civil unions, which I support strongly – regardless of whether you support or oppose the law in your state – this Constitutional amendment should be soundly defeated.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing. I urge my colleagues to put the Constitution above any possible political gain. I urge my colleagues to put the Constitution above their own political well-being. That is the measure of a true patriot. Voting against this Constitutional amendment is the right thing to do.

And turning our attention to the awesome, challenging and difficult issues facing America’s families is what we must do – for the good of the Senate, for the good of our constituents, for the good of our country.

===================================================

Congress.org

2004-07-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Congress.org is a GREAT site for keeping tabs on what your elected officials are doing and contacting them. Also, members of Working Assets Long Distance can call their elected officials for free! Yet another great reason to join Working Assets. (Geez - I'm starting to sound like a commercial. This really is NOT a sponsored site. I promise.)

great new video clip

2004-07-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is awesome. Be sure to sign the petition before or after you watch the video.

windsurfer

2004-07-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

When John Kerry goes windsurfing, does he have secret service men surfing alongside him?

When can we stop calling him the "presumptive candidate" and start calling him the "presumptive president". I think now is a good time.

change of tone

2004-07-14T20:21:00.001-07:00

My little compassionate blog has not been too compassionate. I get stirred up as easily as the rest. I look for middle ground, for negotiation between ideologies. But it's like negotiating with the devil or, as Bush likes to point out when trying to patronize touchy feely libruls, negotiating with terrorists.

I often fall into the us vs them trap when thinking about those with vastly different political ideologies. One thing that occurs to me is the uneven playing field. If you're playing chess with a cheater, it takes extraordinary brilliance and vigilance to win, especially when the cheater is constantly distracting you by shouting "FIRE" and pointing behind your back.

For any difference of opinion to be successfully negotiated, both sides must agree to certain ground rules. Above all, honesty. Mutual respect. Fair communication. What we have instead is, on tv, shouting heads trying to interrupt each other to get their talking points across (see Outfoxed now, at least the trailer).

Far worse, you have one side for whom nothing is off limits. The "new conservative" will manipulate shamelessly, lie, misquote, misdirect, mislead, and then accuse truthtellers of the same. It's like an Orwellian Attack - accuse your opponent of doing what you just did before they ever have a chance to do anything in the first place.

For me, it comes down to the nature of Evil. I've come to believe that, given a choice, most people will do harm. Though we were all born into the same purity of soul, the same innate Goodness, this culture poisons Goodness and innocence. Our true natures scab over with crusty layers of cynicism, irony, and other self-protection mechanisms. As a result, the first impulse for most people has become Attack or, at the least, Defend.

So what of those who remain for whom Love is the first option? For whom Welcome is the natural instinct? What of Compassion and Integrity and Humility? Can the good guys win in this world? Especially when no one else is playing by "the rules", whatever those are?

People who play by the rules are at a natural disadvantage.

Which means that those with the courage and dedication to play fair anyway will win the ultimate test.

I believe this is the ultimate test, right here on earth, right now. Those of us who, when faced with all the worst humanity has become still demand of themselves only the highest standard, will prove the potential for Goodness to survive in the chaos.

When faced with only hate, we must continue to welcome.

When faced with cruelty and apathy, we must continue to care.

When faced with hopelessness, we must continue to hope.

In doing so, we don't validate ourselves or our own virtue. No, these things cannot be validated by our own egos.

Instead, we validate the potential of Love. That is the test.

Which is stronger, Love or Fear? Can Love survive in a state of chaos and hate? Tune in next week for the next episode of "Trial By Fire: Earth in the 21st Century".

At times, I'm consumed by hate, filled with rage, fueled by passion borne of anger and a deep sense of injustice. For me, the warring demons and angels of my own soul reflect a larger battle. I'm just an average Joe, a typical guy, just trying to make it through life without hurting myself or anybody else. If I can survive the forces of ambivalence and rage with my heart intact, then I've proven (to myself at least) that it can be done.

And that's all I'm really concerned with - proving it to myself. That's my personal goal, to keep compassion alive despite all the reasons not to.

he's got cajones

2004-07-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Bush Says His Re-Election Will Make America Safer - this has to be his ballsiest statement yet, just in case it wasn't yet blindingly obvious to the grannies in Podunk, Texas that he's using his make-believe war as a political ploy.

How obvious do repubs have to make it to prove that they will stop at NOTHING to grab and retain power? This has NOTHING to do with safety, with American values or freedom or liberties. This is about three easy words: POWER POWER and POWER. Nothing else.

It's like this chilling bit that slipped by most peoples' radars. The day ANY group is able to manipulate the time, place, or outcome of our ability to vote is the day this "experiment" of democracy has failed. Of course, it could be said that Florida has already proven such. But we've obviously not seen the worst of what these villains are truly capable of.

Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud

2004-07-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

There's just something really fascinating about this for some reason.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A storm is brewing in China as drought-plagued regions accuse each other of stealing clouds for rain-seeding.

With the help of modern technology, scientists can fire rockets filled with various substances into light, fluffy clouds to make them rain.

"But the practice has caused considerable controversy in recent days, with some saying that one area's success with rain has meant taking moisture meant for one place and giving it to another," the China Daily said on Wednesday.

The row over rainclouds was particularly heated in several cities in central Henan province.

"Meteorological officials in Zhoukou were soon accusing their counterparts in Pingdingshan of overusing available natural resources by intercepting clouds that would have likely drifted to other places, say, like Zhoukou," the newspaper said.

Much of China is short of water and cloud-seeding is common, especially over major cities.

Oopsie...

2004-07-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

Key Bush Military Service Files Destroyed

Separated at Birth?

2004-07-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Random thought: Are Michael Moore and Bruce Vilanch actually the same person?

The sacredness of marriage

2004-06-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

Christian hypocrisy - always a favorite subject of mine. This is old news, but in light of pride parades in San Francisco, I thought I'd post this gem on what a Constitutional amendment would REALLY say if based on the bible...

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

WOW. Moore trouble for dubya

2004-06-26T01:38:00.000-07:00

It's finally out. And of course I saw it. As did everyone in the bay area, telling from the lines outside. Completely sold out, long lines snaking across the front of the theatre. The movie grips, builds you with tension, releases you with a laugh, and gives you a huge emotional release with a good strong cry.

But how am I now? How have I come away from the movie? Emboldened? Energized? Has the choir been preached to? Inspired? Or worn out?

I actually feel much the same way I have this entire presidency. So much has gone wrong on so many levels in so many ways that I feel inundated with sheer, unbelievable hubris. Since before Gore won the election, I've seen through the cheap veneer of patriotism that bush et al slop to the snuffling crowds. Their blatant, audacious greed has sickened me from day one, yet I feel like I'm screaming in space. No one can hear me. The masses cheer and follow along like they're at a football game.

And I'm left so overwhelmed as to be rendered immobile. Standing in the middle of chaos, so much damage has been wreaked in so many directions, that I spin around dizzy, not knowing where to begin.

It's not unlike the way I feel sometimes when I need to organize my office. Only on a far more disturbing level.

And that's how I feel with the film. Moore has covered so much territory and done it so well, that I once again feel paralyzed by ambition, by a stunning swarm of wrongs to right, so many that I can't focus on a single one.

So I do what I can do. Write these words, which nobody may ever see. Pray. Carry my head high and my integrity intact. Live the life I want to exemplify. And take whatever steps I can take to voice my thoughts and feelings. I want to scream out, to release. But I know the sickening pain of observing this callous and selfish destruction won't go away if I do. If instead I can harness this burn, perhaps it'll carry me through deeds that will make a difference.

Cheney Utters 'F-Word' in U.S. Senate?

2004-06-25T15:27:00.000-07:00

Interesting news. Let's see how conservatives respond.

(a) Oh, he was just having a bad day. Stop hounding him.
(b) He is a disgrace to this country and must be removed from office.

Now, change Cheney to Clinton and ask again.

When will they come clean?

2004-06-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Censorship's Trial Balloons

2004-06-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

One of the fatilities of censorship is history. I'd never even heard about this. Fascinating article.

9/11 Panel Disputes Iraq Link to Attacks

2004-06-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

What?? You mean al-Qaeda didn't REALLY have links to Hussein? We were lied to?? Awe, I'm shocked.

You read it here.

Although Osama bin Laden asked for help from Iraq in the mid-1990s, Saddam's government never responded, according to a report by the commission staff based on interviews with government intelligence and law enforcement officials. The report asserted "no credible evidence" has emerged that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 strikes.

As recently as Monday, Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi president "had long-established ties with al-Qaida." And last fall he cited what he called a credible but unconfirmed intelligence report that Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, met in Prague, Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence official before the attacks.

The commission concluded no such meeting occurred.

"Boutique Fuels"???

2004-06-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

Seems to me that local communities should be able to set their own environmental standards. But, never ones to miss an opportunity, the Republicans are jumping on rising gas prices to find a way to restrict just that. Rep Roy Blunt (R-MO) has just introduced HR 4545, which calls special gas blends "boutique fuels". So, in other words, if someone (say, California) passes a law requiring oil companies to, say, stop putting cancer-producing gas additives in their gas blends so they'll stop seeping into local groundwater and poisoning communities, then, well, they can't.

Basically, this would allow the EPA and the Secretary of Energy to waive local law on the basis of "controlling gas prices" and, in fact, would prevent those laws from ever taking effect if enacted after June 1, 2004.

This bill just hit the box yesterday. Now would be a good time to call one's representative.

Play Enron Connect-the-Dot

2004-06-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dot One:

The Snohomish County Public Utility District released more transcripts of taped conversations by Enron energy traders.

A choice excerpt:

On their hopes that George W. Bush would be elected president.

MATT: Tell you what -- you heard this here first: When Bush wins -- --

TOM: Caps are gone.

MATT: That [expletive] (energy secretary) Bill Richardson, he's [expletive] gone. ...

TOM: Yeah.

MATT: Ken Lay's going to be secretary of energy...

Dot Two:

Feb. 22: Lay and other Enron company officials meet with Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.

May 17: Cheney's energy task force issues its report endorsing many, but not all, proposals favored by Enron. Later, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, says 18 of the specific points in the plan were proposed or endorsed by Enron executives.

Dot Three:

Bush said in passing today that we "should have passed that energy bill". In fact, just today, the House passed one almost just like it.

WHAT is this man on???

2004-06-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Bush Touts Afghanistan as Model for Iraq

What exactly kind of model are we talking about here? The little city models that Godzilla stomped all over?

How to make the world safer for US: bomb an already impoverished country into oblivion until nothing is left but a decimated infrastructure, poverty and insanity, and oh yeah, the actual terrorists you were originally trying to bomb.

Let's face it, the bombing of Afghanistan was an abject failure on all counts. Reacting out of hate and fear, we've done nothing but disperse al-Qaeda all across Europe and the Middle East, slaughter well over 3000 innocent Afghan civilians, and waste yet more billions (though not nearly as much as Bush promised in reconstruction funds). The US, and the world, is no safer from these actions.

Anyone from Texas should know how hard it is to get rid of fire ants. If you see a mound of fire ants, do you kick it over? No - that just scatters the ants all over the yard. Bombing them with hot water works in the short run, but just drives them deeper into the ground, then out across a wider underground network. On top of that, it kills everything around the mound, as well. Anytime you attack fire ants directly, you end up with 10 new mounds instead of just one. You only end up helping the colony take over the whole yard.

The terrorist network is huge, but we had most of them concentrated in one spot. We blew our advantage and, in the process, destroyed the rest of the country and thousands of innocent lives. I'd say this is not a good model to follow in Iraq.

CIA Restricts One-Third of U.S. Senate WMD Report

2004-06-15T17:36:00.000-07:00

I had another premonition today, but it came true before I could announce it.

A prediction...

2004-06-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

I had a random premonition today. I predict that Bush will follow in his father's footsteps and initiate a major military action just before the election, just as George H did with Somalia. Instead of a cynically false "humanitarian" mission, the action will be predicated on some sort of national security crisis and will be intended to scare Americans into keeping Bush in office until it's done. After all, we can't replace a President midway through a major military event, right?

As to whether or not it'll work, I'm not as sure. Americans are fickle, and have been scared rabbits these past few years. But my instinct tells me it won't work. Just as it didn't work with George 1 and Somalia, it won't work with George 2 and Iran. (Ooops - did I say that out loud?)

Great Quote

2004-06-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

I came across this quote from a rather well-known political chap. If said today, I have little doubt that conservative extremists would label it incendiary and un-American.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

-- George Washington, Farewell Address of 1796.

Kerry Calls on Bush to Reverse Stem Cell Policy

2004-06-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

I must say, I was a bit disappointed in Kerry's opportunism. Though I agree with his (and Nancy's) position, it's obvious what he's trying to do.

Not to mention that conservatives are probably going to jump all over this (whilst conveniently ignoring Bush as he jumps on Reagan's hearse and rides it like a skateboard).

Uniting two tribes

2004-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

I had a dream last night. Not an MLKJ kind of dream, but a literal dream, one so powerful it woke me up at the end. In the dream, I and a small group of people were stranded on an uninhabited island. We worked together to find food and to protect ourselves from the elements. There was no voting off and no politics. We worked as a team.

Across a thin bay was another island, on which a somewhat smaller group of people was also stranded. Though fewer in number, this group turned out to be stronger, more powerful, younger, angrier. We discovered the extent of their animosity one day when one of our own wandered too close to their territory and came back with a fractured and dislocated leg. (In the dream, in the absence of any medical resources, I helped reset the leg - a bit disgusting.)

No side made any attempt to contact or befriend the other. As the days grew, so did our animosity and fear. Each side became the threatening "other" about which nothing was known and all was imagined.

One night, the men in my tribe gathered together to prepare for a raid on the other island. In the middle of the night, we would sneak over and attack. Even though they were stronger, we would catch them by surprise with superior numbers. We would lose several workers to injury or even death. But we wouldn't have to fear them anymore.

At first caught up in the momentum, I did nothing. But as I prepared, facing the mirror in my dream, a distant memory resurfaced. A lesson learned from some unknown source. I realized that instead of attacking the other tribe, we could try something that could yield benefits to everyone, alleviate the fear, make each tribe stronger, and perhaps even bring us together into one community...establish trade.

I don't know where this idea came from or how valid it was. I don't recall hearing or reading anything on the subject in real life and I have no college education to speak of populating my subconscious with random and forgotten material. But it made perfect sense to me.

I would simply float over a meager offering of the resources we had available, perhaps precious food, asking for some sort of trade in return. Their answer would tell us everything we needed to know.

Remembering an imagined lesson, I knew that the establishment of trade between two unknowns would set the earliest foundation for trust. Assuming both sides wanted peace and were blocked only by fear and distrust, trade would give them the option to create that foundation of trust, bit by bit, over time, on their own terms. Eventually, it would open the door to communication. They would share stories, cultures, lives. With familiarity comes more trust, as well as an end to fear.

With familiarity, the "other" becomes "us" and the door swings open to a lasting peace.

I'm not a historian, but it seems to me that trade routes have served as the primary cultural bridges throughout history. On the downside, uneven trade has often given way to open hostility and even war (though more often than not, religion has been the chief cause of war).

Here's the catch: both sides must have integrity and a genuine desire for peace. Or else how can a stable relationship ever be established? At the least, both sides must gain great value from what the other side has to offer, or else no natural equilibrium will evolve.

Unfortunately, here's where I run into the wall of a missing higher education. It's an idea I can explore no further, except in theory.

Slicing and Dicing

2004-06-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

That last post brought to mind another thought: the policy of exclusion vs. the policy of inclusion.

Americans have a history, intensified in the last 3 years, of setting up a fearsome Them to unite Us against. This competitive instinct drives Little League baseball teams, departments, churches, political parties, even whole nations to work as a team against The Other Side.

We LOVE to split ourselves into factions, no matter how artificial. I've seen ridiculous office events in which everyone gets divided into teams by drawing numbers or some equally random selection process. Within minutes, co-workers are screaming themselves hoarse, red faces bulging, fists pumping, goading "their side" to defeat the "losers" across the room. In the extreme, things get vicious, fights break out, feelings are hurt. All for what? Because of an arbitrary division and manufactured conflict.

With a policy of exclusion, the world is never small enough. If Myrtle, sitting in the 3rd row of the 1st Baptist Church, was to eliminate all the people who disagreed with her interpration of the Bible, she would eventually whittle down the world population to just her denomination, and eventually just her church. Then, looking around the church, she'd realize that Helen over there is divorced - out with her. And that whole choir pit is just too colorful - out with them. And so on and so on until no one was left but the 3rd row - hers. But Joyce here disagrees with Myrtle on whether Leviticus 19:19, the one about wearing clothing of mixed fibers, applies on Sundays. Outta there. And eventually, it's just Myrtle. Alone in the world.

I prefer a policy of inclusion, in which the world is never large enough. We've heard of the lone hero working against an enemy. Or a small team of misfits uniting against insurmountable odds. Or a whole community coming together in a time of need. Or the South fighting the North. Or Americans uniting against foreigners. Or "western" countries battling Middle Eastern blocs. Since we obviously need an external enemy before we'll set aside our differences and unite, how about an international coalition uniting against global problems? Such as weather change or famine or crushing poverty?

When we redefine our "community", then the Other becomes Our Own. "Them" becomes "Us". With a simple shift in mindset, helping the homeless guy down the street becomes no more repulsive than helping your brother or a childhood friend fallen on bad times. And sponsoring a child in El Salvador or sponsoring one right here at home becomes no more of a stretch than sponsoring your co-worker's kid for a field trip.

Focusing on distinctions requires a conscious choice. If we can slice and dice our own citizenry, then we can unslice it and undice it, all the way out until we embrace humanity itself. Will it take an alien invasion before we unite as a single community?

Cannabilizing your own

2004-06-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

At the recent Progressive Conference I witnessed a phenomenon I thought I'd left behind in my early days of young and clumsy activism: preaching to the converted. I literally couldn't walk across the room without being stopped half a dozen times for donations, petitions, or leaflets. They followed me through the food line, accosted me whilst waiting for session doors to open. One woman approached me no less than five times, usually while I was already seated somewhere, asking me for a donation.

All worthy causes, yes. But sometimes we seem to get a little too carried away. At one point, someone passed around last-minute copies of a petition for MoveOn.org itself, one of the organizers of the event. Someone was asking MoveOn to take a stronger stance on a particular issue. I passed. My first thought was, "Why didn't they just ASK MoveOn? It's not like they're hard to talk to." My second thought: why waste this passion fine-tuning a group who's already doing good work when we have so many bigger targets out there?

When the woman next to me noticed that I wasn't "Nancy", she confronted me on the issue, challenging my lack of interest. Fortunately, the speaker took the podium shortly after, so I didn't have to burn mental energy on a pointless debate.

The whole issue brought to mind all the myopic groups with which I've identified. Vegans bash ova-lacto vegetarians for eating animal by-products. Macrobiotics castigate vegans for eating non-regional food, or cooked food, or non-cooked food, or whatever that particular macrobiotic happens to believe is right. And I would think to myself, why aren't you all talking to the steak-eaters?

It brought to mind a gay activist I once knew in Dallas who spent 100% of his volunteer time attacking OTHER gay leaders, calling them on perceived hypocrisy or for not being radical enough or active enough. He had such intense passion, albeit driven by rage, that I mourned its misdirection. He spent so much time attacking his own that he ignored anti-gay legislation, attempts to quarantine AIDS patients, and other heinous attempts to criminalize the entire community. Even worse, his relentless attacks distracted true leaders who were working to unite ALL people, gay, straight, and everything in between.

It brought to mind churches I went to as a young, wide-eyed Protestant. The Baptists gossiped about the Methodists. The Presbyterians clucked at the Lutherans. And everyone attempted to convert one another. I remember reading about Southern Baptists taking a road trip to Utah to go door-to-door converting Mormons. Being a spiritualist, I thought "aren't they splitting hairs"?

I constantly ask myself, "What's the best use of my energy?" I have 24 hours a day, just like everyone else. Where is it most effectively spent? Where can I make the biggest impact using the talents I have?

One thing I know for sure - I'll make far less impact discussing peace with an anti-war activist, even if we disagree on minor details, than I will discussing peace with my war-hungry family in Texas. If it is even possible to convert someone through debate, which seems highly unlikely, then why waste that energy on fine-tuning? I can imagine the rate of return on a graph - large gains with someone on the opposite extreme, ever-smaller gains as those opinions approach my own.

Life's too short to cannabilize my own. They're not as tasty, anyway.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Trailer

2004-06-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's finally out.

The past is so quickly forgotten

2004-06-09T00:25:00.000-07:00

Reagan played decisive role in Saddam Hussein's survival in Iran-Iraq war

Stop picking on us!

2004-06-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

I love how Republicans are whining that we're paying way too much attention to things like missing documents and smoking gun memos about US torture policy. I mean what are they worried about? It's not like we're trying to impeach Bush over a blow job or anything.

A Compassionate Nation

2004-06-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

Now THIS is what I'm all about! Please view. Endorse. Donate. Let the Arab world know that we are not a nation of imperialist abusers.

this just in from MoveOn

2004-06-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

I love these guys.

CHENEY NOW HIDES HIS CRITICISM OF REAGAN

As the nation mourns the death of Ronald Reagan, the Bush administration is sending Vice President Dick Cheney[1] to memorialize the 40th President Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Cheney's kind words now, however, stand in contrast to his words while Reagan was president.

Last week, Cheney said, "during the decisive years of the Cold War, I saw the conviction and the moral courage of Ronald Reagan"[2]. Yet it was Cheney who, as a top leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, said Reagan was "tolerating a decision-making process in the upper reaches of the Administration that lacked integrity and accountability"[3].

He also chastised Reagan's defense policies - the same policies conservatives are trumpeting as Reagan's lasting legacy. Cheney said at the height of the Cold War that if Reagan "doesn't really cut defense, he becomes the No. 1 special pleader in town." Cheney urged Reagan to cut defense spending, saying, "the president has to reach out and take a whack at everything to be credible," and told the White House that "you've got to hit defense"[4].

Six years later, Cheney followed through on his statements by changing the same Reagan defense policies he now touts. In 1990, he bragged to Congress that as Defense Secretary he "cut almost $65 billion out of the five-year defense program" and that subsequent proposals would "take another $167 billion out." He highlighted, "we're recommending base closures," "we're talking about force structure cuts" and "we've got a military construction freeze"[5].

Sources:
1. "Public Viewing to Last 34 Hours" WashingtonPost.com, 6/08/04. 2. Vice Presidential Speech, White House Website, 6/4/04. 3. National Journal, 8/08/87. 4. Washington Post, 12/16/84. 5. Congressional Testimony, 2/1/90.

I won't show you mine if you show me yours

2004-06-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

And now Ashcroft, who has made a career of selectively declassifying incriminating memos, depending on who they incriminate, "Refuses to Release Torture Memo" (washingtonpost.com). Hey, isn't this the same guy who's been raiding porn studios and is now pressing charges against about 50 pornographers? Isn't this the same guy who insists on being able to see what we check out at the library? Isn't this the same guy who...

Aw, screw it.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems a little ironic that Ashcroft is going after porn here in the states. I guess he prefers his from Iraq.

Reagan's Politics of Passion

2004-06-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

I just asked in a comment today when we'll be allowed to criticize Reagan again. Looks like I'm not the only one ready to temper his mourning with a swig of reality. Though I must admit, that picture of Nancy laying her head on the coffin almost brought tears to my eyes.

Geneva What??

2004-06-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

So let me get this right. America is not bound by the Geneva Conventions unless, of course, it's our own people. I'm sure this is old news by now, but still.

Rumsfeld knew about and approved torture techniques that have been used in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (at the very least). He was well aware of the abuse that would eventually be witnessed by the world at Abu Ghraib. Yet conservatives seem to find this perfectly acceptable. No, the problem is evidently not with the torture, it's with TALKING about the torture, which has now put our troops at risk. And talking about the torture is not motivated by a sense of outrage at the injustice and hypocrisy, no - it's purely political. It's because those Clinton liberals have a "blame America first" mentality.

Personally, I'm all about accountability. It seems to me that if you truly respect human life, you can find other ways to get the information you need. ESPECIALLY when you know for a fact that a large number of the people you're interrogating are not guilty of a thing and have never been so much as charged with a crime, much less convicted.

The above link includes an interesting excerpt from Article 17 of the actual Geneva Convention, written in 1949 and ratified by both the US and Iraq:

"Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number."

"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever," Article 17 states.

Oops. Guess we blew that one.

haunting eyes

2004-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

I was just looking through the 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner for feature photography and came across this image from the Liberian Civil War. Something tells me she's had quite enough.

Letter from George W. Bush

2004-06-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

I just this moment received a survey in the mail from the Republican National Committee. It says "Your Survey has been assigned especially to you as a representative of all Republicans and Republican-leaning voters living in your area." WOO HOO!

This is a beautiful and eloquent example of manipulative propaganda at its finest. Here's the cover letter:

Dear Friend,

The enclosed letter from my good friend, Mercer Reynolds, is important. I would be grateful if you could give it your personal attention.

RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and I have asked Mercer to become Finance Chairman of the critical RNC Victory 2004 program and he has graciously accepted.

Victory 2004 is a special election year program of the Republican National Committee. It has one purpose: To build Republican majorities at all levels.

Victory 2004 will be responsible for building our Party from the grassroots up with voter education and registration, Absentee Ballot programs as well as the all-important national Get-Out-The-Vote effort.

Ensuring Republican victories in 2004 will not be an easy task. Liberal Democrats and their special interests allies have pledged nearly $500 million in soft money to run negative advertising against our candidates.

Together, they could spend a record amount to help Democrat candidates for federal, state and local offices. The RNC Victory 2004 effort is vital to overcoming their attacks.

That's why I ask you to read Mercer's letter and give this vital election program your full and complete support.

Thank you for all you have done for me and for our nation.

George W. Bush

P.S. The RNC Victory 2004 program is an important part of building our Party across the country. Please do whatever you can to ensure Republican victories at all levels of government by supporting it today.

Now, ignore for a moment the "us vs them" partisan tactics, which Democrats pull off just as well. What bothers me most about this letter is the lying - the blatant lying, the very thing Bush has become most known for. The fact is, Democrats are NOT raising $500 million - God, I wish we could. Fact is, Democrats have been the ones fighting soft money donations, a battle which Republicans resist at every opportunity. Fact is, Bush has raised more money than any candidate in the history of this country, primarily from his key constituency - the wealthiest 1% of the nation and Big Corporations.

It's a smart strategy, of course - if you want power, and money buys power, then chase the money. That's why the administration has been bought and paid for by "big awl" companies, energy companies, etc.

To bemoan Democratic fundraising efforts while they pale in comparison to RNC activities is hypocrisy. To exaggerate the amount of money is false. So already, just with the opening letter, Bush is resorting to his usual fearmongering based on faulty information. And if challenged, he would no doubt say he was "misinformed" about the specifics but that Democrats WANT to raise that much money, so we better take pre-emptive action to stop them now.

One more note: it's interesting that he pushes the get-out-the-vote effort. According to Julian Bond, during the 2000 election, Republicans bought up all the air time on black stations in Florida and other key states. But instead of running ads for Republican candidates or for getting out the vote, they DISCOURAGED African-Americans from voting. I don't know quite how this was done or what the ads said, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. Especially given the massive scandal with voter registration scrubbing in that state - "blacklisting" thousands of innocent minorities as felons so that they couldn't vote on election day, prompting a lawsuit from the NAACP that was eventually settled.

At least he didn't sign it "President Bush" - that's about the only honest thing in it.

Now on to the survey.

I won't outline every question, but I find it interesting what the opening letter shows me: progressive groups and people have become shorthand for All Things Evil to this group. I see "Kennedy-Clinton liberals" thrown around without any explanation. And none is needed. Hillary Clinton is the Ace of Spades in the conservative deck, thus anything she says or does is automatically wrong. No thought necessary. Just the way conservatives like it.

I also see "big labor union bosses", whatever that is. Having seen Gerald McEntee (President, AFSCME) at the Take Back America conference, I'll admit he's an imposing figure. But labor unions have been fighting a losing battle for the past 3 years - losing health benefits, losing overtime pay, losing pensions. So this is just another ghostie meant to scare conservatives.

One of the best parts is the who's who list of bad guys - People for the American Way, the Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, America Coming Together. More shorthand, evidently. I wish conservatives would actually open up and meet some of these people - passionate, compassionate, intelligent people with an undying commitment to the ideals of America. True patriots in every sense of the word.

And of course, there's George Soros being thrown about as the big moneybags behind the whole "liberal agenda". Let's see - 1 rich white guy for us, how many hundreds for Bush?

The survey itself serves as a sparkling example of manipulative language. Admittedly, DNC surveys are no better, but it's still worth a laugh (until you think about the simple-minded folk who'll eat this up and send in their money).

Question #1: "Do you support President Bush's initiatives to promote the safety and security of all Americans?" (Golly, I want safety and security for all Americans, so I guess I should say Yes.)

Question #7: "Do you support The War on Terrorism?" (Well, I don't much like terrorists and they shouldn't win, so I guess that's a Yes, too.)

Question #15: "Do you support President Bush's No Child Left Behind program..." (The funny thing is, even Bush doesn't support this.)

Question #16: "Do you agree that parents should have the final say in their children's education?" (Well of course I do! I should be able to teach my kids that the earth is flat, man was created 40,000 years ago, and women should wear burkas.)

Question #17: "Do you support school choice to give parents an opportunity to choose schools that do a better job educating their children?" (Also known as the No White Child Left Behind In A Black School Act.)

And on and on. You better believe I'll be filling this sucker out. I just wish this was more than a sneaky fundraiser and actually got counted somewhere. Wouldn't that be sweet of all Republicans (not just the ones on the mailing list, like me) stood up for their own thought-out opinions rather than sucking down the Republican kool-aid?

True Freedom means being able to make a choice using unbiased information. I would love to see BOTH parties begin respecting the American people to do what's right without resorting to manipulation. I trust in the innate goodness of all people. But we need freedom of thought first.

S. Korea withdrawal

2004-06-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

This is where we realize that the troops are just spread too thin. So instead of keeping a closer eye on someone who flaunts his nuclear program, we've sent all our troops on a fool's quest to a country that never had them, and are now forcing those troops to stay.

The thought occurs to me - it seems that a democracy with volunteer enlistment would have a naturally lower enlistment rate into that nation's military services. North Korea has a military of 1.1 million with a population of almost 22.5 million people. South Korea, with over double the population at 48 million, has only 690,000 troops.

I would hazard a guess that secretive North Korea probably doesn't have voluntary enlistment. However, countries like ours have a much harder time equaling those numbers, at least when the draft is not in place. So we resort to whatever means necessary to induce volunteerism - from fearmongering and jingoism to free education to appealing to that rare sense of authentic patriotism.

So how do we protect ourselves? How do we retain power over a country that strong?

First of all, that's the wrong question. America has the strongest military in the world. But we're only stronger than the runner-up, not everyone. Unless we're stronger than ALL countries put together, we cannot hope to dominate world politics through military power alone. This is a good thing. Because that would tempt us to thwart the free will of other sovereign nations (not that it's stopping us).

But rather than blaming America for all the hate, let's assume that some other countries are amassing large armies and genuine WMDs out of deep-seated zealotry against what we stand for (and not just in response to our own aggressive stance). How do we protect ourselves against them? How do we protect against multiple opponents?

A pre-emptive stance, the cornerstone of the Bush Doctrine, dooms us to failure. It energizes our opponents and spreads our own troops far too thin, as is happening now. In short, it weakens our country and leaves us far too vulnerable.

Instead, we must redefine the battlefield. To use a martial arts analogy, a larger opponent (US) does have obvious advantages. But he can still be dominated by a faster, smarter opponent. And when several smaller, faster opponents strike at once, he's doomed. First, he needs allies. Just as WE need allies. Alienating our allies weakens us every bit as much as emboldening our enemies. Second, he needs a defensive strategy. Rushing after one opponent, then another, again leaves a fighter open. A smart fighter takes nothing for granted, even a perceived weaker position for the opponent. A smart fighter stops, stays ready, and responds quickly and strategically to any act of aggression, making no such acts of his own.

That, I believe, would be the most sensible strategy for us. If we as a democracy truly are the guardians of free will and individual liberty across the world, a concept I am not opposed to, then we must redefine the battlefield. You cannot force free will onto another - that's a contradiction. We are all at choice, but we must come to that realization on our own, guided and aided by those who truly care about our highest potential.

Likewise, the people of an oppressed nation cannot be forced into freedom. This is hypocrisy. It's also futile and stupid, fostering rage against our aggression and leaving our own democracy weakened. But we CAN set the example, convey the information, provide the safe haven, and offer the means through which freedom can manifest itself.

Those in a closed society, such as North Korea, cannot be bullied into choosing democracy, as we saw through several failed attempts to do just that in the region. When they are strong enough to pose a challenge, we must rely on diplomacy and communication to maintain peace, while holding a strong defensive stance in case they decide to get aggressive themselves. Then if, given all the options, the citizens of that society choose to keep their present system, we must honor that choice. It's simply not our place to enforce our standards on other cultures.

Of course, the other half of the equation: in order to set the example of freedom, we must honor freedom within our own country. We're certainly trying, but we have a ways to go, especially now.

Notice that I haven't said a thing about Iraq. It's because we all know that freedom was never the issue. Overthrowing the evil dictator was never a reason, nor was it ever given as a reason except in shamed hindsight. That war is wrong for more reasons than I care to list today.

Air America Radio

2004-06-07T03:13:00.000-07:00

Air America Radio ROCKS, btw. Whoever hasn't been listening needs to start now. And just hope they make it to San Francisco.

Change Agent

2004-06-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

Just a thought. I wonder how many days (hours?) before someone introduces legislation to put Reagan's face on the dime or some other coinage. Maybe they'll come up with a new silver dollar with special grooves that keep it from stopping if you roll it away from you. No wait, that one's waiting for Dubya.

Credibility -> Gone

2004-06-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

I can't get the latest remarks by Libya's Khadafy out of my head. Libya has committed and continues to commit some of the world's worst violations of basic human rights. And yet when called to task by American leaders, even Khadafy uses Abu Ghraib as an excuse to scoff. Our moral leadership, such as it was, has been destroyed.

We know now that Rumsfeld knew about the Pentagon's torture policies, and indeed approved them. We also know that, according to the International Red Cross, up to 90% of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib were completely innocent. Detainees were picked up, even disappeared, based on rumors or malicious gossip, held without charges, stripped of their dignity and rights, as well as their clothes. Is this how a compassionate government works?

Of course not. A truly compassionate country wouldn't be in Iraq in the first place. A compassionate people would never have allowed the slaughter of 10,000-11,000 innocent civilians and the maiming of countless others.

How can we claim the moral high ground with Libya, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and countless other countries currently in the process of destroying their own people when we ourselves have allowed the politics of fear to poison our own military? We can't.

Will we again? Possibly. But only under strong leadership that values the humanity in all people, not just (certain) Americans, and inspires that high regard throughout his or her electorate, troops and civilians alike. Like any business, the culture of an organization comes from the top and spreads down throughout the hierarchy. So it is with the US government. And until we replace the top with someone who truly values human life in all its manifestations, we will never, NEVER be able to display the positive moral example that effects change throughout the world populace and empowers the oppressed everywhere.