Monthly Archives: February 2008

4 weeks now till the next St Paddy’s

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You know, the cops handled me pretty much the same way when I was chair-bound from my injuries, lo, these many years ago.

What got my Irish up, and I had to shame a few members of the crowd, really loudly in front of their kids too, was they were screaming for the other floats and parade members to run us over, they cheered when the piggies put the choke-hold on Frank and cheered when they slung Elizabeth to the ground like that.

And then tried to shout me down because “They’re Fighting for YOUR Right to free speech”…

yeah, right.

Free to say whatever you want as long as you have police permission first.

If they were in Belfast or worse yet Dublin they would have been Informants for the British. That’s their level of loyalty to the culture.

They would also be really stupid about trying to hide their collaboration, and the IRA, instead of just killing them, would have taken them out in the middle of a slum street and shot them in the kneecaps.

Mark them as snitch-bitches for the rest of their unnatural lives.

Because that’s the level of their intelligence, and the equal but opposite level of the contempt the IRA would have held for their coward asses.

The cops would have been simply shot down in the street.

Ila and Lila and the car

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‘Lila, this is Ila. You were born in 1996 and she was born in 1906.’

Since Harriet was there, Ila began to talk about her brothers and their hunting dogs. Then she told Lila that she, Lila, had a ‘family name’, and that her family had had first a DeLila in it, then a Lila, then her, named a shortened Ila. Ila held Lila’s hand in hers, and she talked more than I had ever seen her do.

When finally we had to leave, later I told Lila that Ila had been her age in World War 1 and that there had not been bathrooms, electricity, TVs, phones, refrigerators, nor the car back then. Actually, I was technically wrong, since Henry Ford had just begun his company around then in 1903. Certainly there weren’t too many of them critters around back then, though. What a different time that was, as they used horses or walked.

I hope Lila learned something by meeting Ila? And I know that Ila certainly appreciated the opportunity to talk. And that’s how Lila met Ila.

It’s certainly sad when history is not recognized so we got to grab it when we can. Ila had 102 years to talk about but we were only able to give her 15 minutes. It felt sad to go.

The Genetic Purity Kennel Club

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Miniature Alsatian from MaltaThe 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show aired this week, much to my excitement and sheer delight. Broadcast from Madison Square Garden, the competition is the height of absurdity, but plenty of hilarious fun. In case you’ve never watched, dozens of dogs, broken into categories such as sporting, terrier, herding, or toy are placed, one by one, on a table draped with fine linens and examined by a stern-looking woman wearing a full-length silk dupioni skirt and fitted cropped jacket, pearls and heels. She dramatically pulls back the lips of each show dog to inspect the teeth and gums, checks the body position, runs her hands up and down the pooch’s torso to assess bone structure, lifts the tail for reasons unknown, and then grunts her assent.

The handler then puts the dog to the ground and somberly run-walks it in front of the bedecked judging panel. This is the best part of the circus. The women handlers are middle-aged, wearing knee-length skirts and sensible shoes and are usually rather frumpy. The male handlers, in great contrast, are young cute men wearing Armani suits. The spectacle never fails to make me laugh hysterically, even to the point of falling from my chair.

One of the more interesting things in the show is the commentary about the history of the various purebred dogs: where they originated and what their use was in bygone days. Dogs were domesticated generally not as pets, but as herders, hunters, workers, or for the amusement of the royal and wealthy.

There are 400 million domesticated dogs around the globe. Scientists looking into canine DNA have postulated that all dogs descended from gray wolves in East Asia about 15,000 years ago, and came to the New World across the Bering Straight with human nomads. Analysis of ancient canine skeletons from Alaska to Peru shows a genetic link to the Old World gray wolf. However, the DNA of modern New World dogs shows no evidence of Old World wolf genes, likely because European colonists brought their own hybrid dogs and systematically discouraged breeding of Native American dogs. Even the Mexican hairless dog, thought to have developed in the Americas nearly 2,000 years ago, possesses mostly European DNA.

Hybridization to develop new breeds began merely 500 years ago, and has resulted in the widely-divergent pure breeds we see today. This targeted breeding continues and each year another specimen or two is added to the American Kennel Club’s canine A-list. This year it is the French Beauceron and the Swedish Vallhund. As in human inbreeding, notably the royal families of Europe who have close blood ties which are strengthened by noble intermarriage, incestually-bred organisms are more likely to manifest genetic imperfections and problematic temperaments. Still, the lure of genetic purity remains.

A recent study reported in Science magazine found that dogs are perhaps the most perceptive species when it comes to recognizing and interpreting human behavior. A 15,000-year friendship between man and animal has engendered this symbiotic bond. Watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, with its products of purposeful breeding, had me wondering about man’s relationship with dogs in other parts of the world. Do they pamper, exercise, feed and water their dogs like we do? Are dogs beloved family members or communal property tended by all? What types of dogs have arisen when natural selection and breeding are allowed to reign?

On your travels, take note of the dogs. Are they skinny and neglected or, as in Peru, seemingly well-tended but running free? I was recently in Playa del Carmen walking along Fifth Avenue and noticed dogs of every shape and size, well-behaved and non-threatening, but seemingly never attached to an owner, let alone a leash. Try also to find out the dogs’ names. Rover, Spot, and Fido? Or are they named like the show pups: Roundtown Mercedes Of Maryscot, Cookieland Seasyde Hollyberry, or Jangio’s Ringo Starr Kurlkrek?

Below is a picture of a dog that was sitting at my feet in a cafe in Aguas Calientas, near Machu Picchu. If you are so inclined, take pictures of street dogs in your travels, or even dogs with owners, and send them to me. I will do the same on my upcoming trips to Argentina and Chile. I’d love to amass a collection of pictures and stories of dogs around the globe. There will be no trophies or prize money awarded. This will be purely for fun.

Street dog Peru

Iraq Moratorium comes up against Feds

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Feb 15, 2008 Southeast Corner
I just got back from an invigorating Iraq Moratorium street- side demonstration. The cold wasn’t so bad, the IVAW boys held down a corner, one participant traveled a ways to be here, a Gazette reporter came with a photographer, and we were deluged with the usual honks of support. Then two supervisors from the nearby Post Office visited to tell us whichever of us had parked in their lot better move our cars or expect to be towed.

I stepped forward but noted the parking lot was only a third full, plus by coincidence I had a time-dated receipt from their counter. No matter they said, the parking was private, and/or you can’t protest on government property. They incorrectly asserted plenty more, finishing with “sue me” but wouldn’t give their names. One called out for security as I entered the post office to stand in queue, shouting to everyone that I was likely to cause a scene. The clerks volunteered the info I needed: Jim Hickle and Bill Schafner, big-for-their-britches USPS supervisors of customer relations, wannabe feds.

I’m always perplexed by the politics of the postal worker. I regard a number of them as my friends actually, whom I see everyday, including the late John S, about whose horrible political ethics I’ve already written. Why are workers, who benefit mightily from the APW Union, and who more likely than not are veterans, stand so passionately behind the right-wing? Postal workers are losing their jobs to privatization, their jobs are as blue collar as any, they come face to face with so much of the local community. Why would their personal opinions be so regressive?

Mark and Garrett help on Northeast corner

UPDATE: After I left, another activist of our group was sitting in his car, having taken medication which called for a pause before he could begin driving. He was parked, as I had been, at the extreme north of the lot, far from any customer traffic. The same two postal authorities, Jim and Bill, approached his window and insisted he had to leave. My friend explained that we was quite willing, but that he was required to wait until his medication permitted it. They insisted he leave immediately or they would call the police. My friend complied, in a hallucinogenic state, and thankfully he made it home safely.

President Bush wiretapping warrantless

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My spell checker informs me the word is unwarranted. Forgive my Crawford-Kennebunkport pidgin, I’m loving the intented-less poetic justice. Bush’s wiretapping is warrantless.

For law enforcement to search a house, to otherwise contravene a citizen’s protection from unwarranted search or seizure, it must be given a search warrant. That is to say, you must seek a judge’s agreement that such action is warranted. Often this consent is merely a rubber stamp, but the procedure does inhibit swat teams from advancing over citizens like an invading army.

Likewise for wiretapping, intelligence agents can eavesdrop neither pell-mell nor wholesale. They are restricted to poking into private affairs for which they’ve shown a judge they would have probably cause to do so.

To discuss President Bush’s NSA spying activities as needing no warrant is to expose a delightful single-entendre. Warrantless? Yes they are. Unwarranted. Without warrant or cause. Of no merit, legally. No justification, certainly.

Bush’s wiretaps are: Not reasonable or right, uncalled-for, unjustifiable, unreasonable.

Bush’s wiretaps are: Incapable of being justified or explained, indefensible, insupportable, unjustifiable, unwarrantable.

Bush’s wiretaps are: Without a basis in reason or fact, baseless, groundless, idle, unfounded.

Bush’s wiretaps are: Lacking justification or authorization, undue, unjustified.

911 Truth is Ground Zero for change

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9/11 Truth is Ground Zero for change
If you cannot see the big lie, what can you be expected to comprehend in its true light? You cannot see the Federal Reserve, you cannot see the National Security State, you cannot see your lost rights or the national treasury sacked; but you can see, on your TV, two towers fall with the aid of detonations, WTC-7 fall all of its own by demolition, and every last bastard on TV telling you twas terrorism that done it. What can you change if you don’t see that you’re not up against al-Qaeda, you’re up against the Carlyle Group?

The Germans have their shepherds

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I was watching the Westminster Dog Show and learned about the most improbable breed of dog. It’s Jewish.

Anti-anti-semitic hundWould you believe it? It’s called the Canaan Dog. It’s named after the biblical lands, and it shares the mystical stewardship connection the Jews have with the Holy Land. Only they are fit to look after it.

Who knows why, or who knows if it’s really true. The Bedouin keep these dogs, as have the Druze, but because the Kelef K’naani is the official dog of Israel, the exclusive lineage, which we are informed is deserving of preservation, excludes the Arab connections like they were pariah.

(Exclusive- Do you think you might have a Canaan dog? Well you don’t. They’re that exclusive. And the Canaan Dog Rescue is only interested in saving real ones.)

In spite of the Westminster Kennel Club’s waspish ambiance, the voice-over description of the Canaan was similarly Kosher, which is what caught my attention.

Bred in Ancient Judea to be shepherds and watch dogs for the Israelites, the breed suffered a setback when the lands were overrun by the Egyptians. When the Hebrews were scattered in the Great Diaspora their dogs were left to go feral in the Negev desert. There they lived in the wild for, are you ready for this, 2000 years! When Zionism brought the Jews back to Palestine, master and faithful hound were reunited. The Canaan was re-domesticated again in the 1930s [to protect their unpopular owners from their historic rivals]. Bracketed notation mine.

Actually, an animal behavior specialist was recruited from Austria in 1934 by the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization protecting the Zionist settlements in Palestine since 1907. They needed a working dog for what would become the Unit Oketz, the Israeli K-9 special forces. Bred from the pariah dogs which attended the Bedouins, the Canaan dog, actually a Spitz, is noted for its alertness, its bark and its distrust of strangers. I’m reminded of the attack dog trained to be racist in Sam Fuller’s 1982 film White Dog, banned in the US.

Canaan, by the way, encompassed an area which covered present day Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, and parts of Lebanon and Syria. Who is dragging politics into the dog show?

Policing by America’s Reich

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Last week it was news about a woman named Hope in New York, whose cousin had called the police because another cousin had sexually molested her. When the police came they ended up arresting the victim, taking her to jail, then assaulted her again with 7-8 heavy and thuggish cops jumping on her, stripping the clothes off her, and leaving her naked in a jail cell!
 
Just yesterday, millions of Americans saw police dump a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto the floor of the police station, like he was just so much trash. Where do these attitudes and policing methods come from? How did the cops get to think that this sort of stuff is normal in the US?

These attitudes come out of the airports, out of Guantanamo, out of the Colorado Springs city council, where similar policing attitudes and methods were glossed over when used against elderly St Pat’s Day paraders in the city last year.

I remember Elizabeth being hauled across the pavement just an hour or so after having given her a ride to be there. She could not walk to the area where we were to start the parade and I had had to ask a cop to let my car though the barricade just for her to get to the Bookmobile. Later, after being assaulted by the cops, she had to face the city bringing criminal charges against her in the aftermath… for supposedly being part of a plot to block the parade from going on!

These police attitudes come as the American Reich has begun an electrical arms race across the country, with Taser International being the Lockheed of police weaponry. Our city and county governments think nothing about now spreading these devices into the schools!

These attitudes come from Iraq and Afghanistan, where our bombers drop ordinance down onto children below, just as if they were so much trash. This is policing today, in the American Reich. This is a new system in place, that uses torture on POWs even as our own local city flies flags about American POWs once held in Vietnam from the flag masts of the downtown post office right here in The Springs.

The American Reich doesn’t see the incongruence in their idiotic national pride about being the supposed repository of all democracy as they police as they are now doing. They have become more thuggish in simple increments, and now do not see the distance downhill they have actually traveled.

We live in a scary place and in scary times, but unlike in New York with Hope and here in The Springs with Elizabeth, at least in Florida these cops who dumped the paralyzed man on the floor from his wheelchair are now facing some troubles of their own. Yet, there are many more places where those in charge are totally complicit in the Reich style policing. Foremost among these hot spots of official complicity, is the Congress of the US.

Iraq Moratorium monthly rendezvous

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Funding the war is killing our troopsIt’s time again, February 15th, to meet at the intersection of Academy and Fountain Blvds, where US tax dollars meet the military industrial industry. Join UFPJ, PPJPC and CSA on Friday at noon. We’ll assemble at all corners with banners, flags and chants to remind the major war profiteers that the American public would appreciate another line of work. It is the war merchants who stand between humanity and peaceful co-existance. It is they who dictate what our politicians offer America as its options. It is they who work in pools of the blood of millions of innocent peoples. Wear boots.

Eye now on undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party

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Super delegates or not, the public eye will still be turned on the totally undemocratic nature of the Democratic Party, since there is nothing about Barrack Obama that will bring about any real change long term. Still, the question of the moment though is whether the Clinton part of the DLC machine can still manipulate the entire DP or not? The Obama part certainly could… short term.

There is no doubt though that the corporations can manipulate the party since they totally own it. This is no people’s party at all. Rather, The Democratic Party is owned by the military industrial complex every bit as much as the Republican Party.

Nothing will be gained election time with a Barrack Obama as the new president. The only long term gain can only come about when the US population gets angry and totally fed up enough with the corporate 2 parties that act as one con. Unfortunately though, the American people still think that their corporate rulers have some God given right to rule everybody on the planet. Stupid, very stupid. No personality change in the front office will bring about change as long as the American people still are enamored of their country’s nationalism….The Empire.

Lighting the fire within

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Mother Nature Orange Nipple
Most Americans exist completely apart from the natural order. We live in artificial dwellings, are transported by artificial means and “nourished” by artificial foods. We wear high heels, mask all body odors, prepare meals in toxic cookware, wrap our bodies in synthetic materials. We pop pills to feel better and lose ourselves in electronic black holes to assuage boredom. Many of us live lives of isolation, like lone wolves, instead of in community with our fellow human beings.

Some of the more visionary among us provide suggestions for improvement. No more plastic bags! Wear hemp clothing! Eat organic! Bike to work! Use crystals to deodorize! Give free hugs! Such solutions are mere band-aids on a gaping wound. They are unable to stem the flow of blood, but they somehow make us feel better.

My children are learning about the benefits of recycling. Period. The conversation should be expanded. Instead of taking our cans to the curb, why not vow never again to drink anything that comes in a can? Or, even better, any beverage besides water. Let’s teach our kids that canned and bottled beverages are inherently unhealthy for the body, as well as detrimental to the environment. With a more holistic approach, the need to recycle would become less urgent, and the children would be better educated and healthier.

A holistic solution to energy conservation and national obesity can be found in the home thermostat. Many of us have turned down the heat to conserve energy. Good for the planet, no question. From a more holistic perspective, is it natural for man to live in a tightly climate-controlled environment? It isn’t. But our bodies have adapted to this artificial reality over time and we feel impelled to preserve it. So while we may turn down the thermostat, we bundle ourselves up to maintain the status quo.

I like to keep my house cool, about 60 degrees. I wear t-shirts and drink ice water and my little kids, with barely an ounce of body fat amongst them, play in their underwear, completely impervious to the cold. Remember that human beings are not dependent on the environment to determine body temperature. It is set biologically and will be maintained naturally in nearly all situations. If the outside temperature is hot, we sweat and our metabolism slows down so our bodies don’t overheat. This makes us feel sluggish; hence, the lazy summer day and dog days of summer weather characterizations. If the outer temperature is cooler, the body maintains heat by increasing the rate of metabolism and converting fat to energy. We build a fire within. Not only do we get warmer, we get thinner and more energetic to boot! Over time our metabolic rates are reset at a higher level, and we no longer feel the cold. We are warmed by our own energy source, not by a polyester sweatshirt.

Think about what it means to live naturally, like cave men. Get familiar with the workings of the body. Ponder what the planet was before man imposed his artificial intelligence upon it. Then attempt to conform to that which is natural wherever you can. What is good for the body will be good for the mind and the spirit, and is bound to be good for the environment.

People’s Republic of Higher Education

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Fair enough, the Berkeley City Council is being asked to reconsider whether it really meant to tell US Marine Corps recruiters to go fuck themselves. I hope it’s just a chance to say it again.

Maybe the People’s Republic of Berkeley is due for a new honor. Keeper of the Flame of Freedom. The United States of Berkeley. It used to be the joke to send the Statue of Liberty back to the French, because America wasn’t using it. How about we install Lady Liberty off the shores of Berkeley? They’re showing the temerity to claim her. Berkeley is standing up for everything America used to. What do you make of the vociferous accusations of treason being leveled at Berkeley in the name of patriotism? What fault can you find with the clear headed resolutions being pronounced by their City Council?

The only thing which differentiates Berkley from the rest of the country is level of education. I wouldn’t want to be caught poking fun at, much less belittling, someone smarter than me, especially for taking a more principled stand than I -err- me. You can tease them about inarticulate athletic ability, but the last thing you’d want to do is to presume to correct a grammarian.

How are dumbfuck Americans like Move Forward America so easily goaded to speak derisively of their own who know better? It’s one thing to question authority, another even to be skeptical in general. But Berkeley isn’t filled with the social engineers who’ve got a boot on your throat, it’s full of students, your children, who you sent to acquire an education. Not your education in fact, a better education. A world view beyond your own, a comprehension you were not afforded. That’s Berkeley.

Berkeley is not unique, though perhaps it has the highest visibility. Regionally there are other college towns that fit the leftist stereotype. Boulder and Ann Arbor for example. These are home to progressive populations, teachers, students and alumni which color the demographics significantly to affect the local politics. Why are better educated people always leftists? A dolt could only hope to chance upon the inspiration to ask himself such a doozy.

This dolt would ask the reverse: AS left EQUALS education, SO less-left MUST EQUAL less-education.

Why aren’t more college campuses like Berkeley? What’s going on that our educational institutions are producing idiots to mock the product of real education? It’s a terrible portent.

Dubya’s Show Trials

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The more elderly generation might well remember Stalin’s Show Trials, or the Moscow Show Trials of 1936-37. These show trials brought by the Soviet Communist Party leader of the time, Joseph Stalin, weakened the country right before Hitler’s onslaught. As a result, millions upon millions more of Soviet citizens died that didn’t have to. These show trials of Stalin destroyed patriotic unity when it was most needed.

The supposed reason Stalin gave for the trials was to protect Soviet communism and Soviet citizens, though, and today we have the preparation under way for Dubya’s Show Trials to supposedly protect Americans from ‘terrorism’. Unfortunately for us Americans, George W. Bush seems to be just as big a dunderhead as Stalin once was. Out of these show trials from Guantanamo will only come misery, so why doesn’t the US population begin to speak up?

Why didn’t the Soviet citizenry oppose the Moscow show trials? The answer is similar to why Americans have remained so quiet post 9/11. The Moscow show trials followed a huge national tragedy caused by Stalin’s attack on the peasantry, which became a 1932 famine that killed around 5,000,000+ people. The Moscow show trials then were actually Stalin’s attempt to deflect blame from himself for this previous catastrophe just a few years before.

Similarly, trying 6 men tortured illegally at Guantanamo to then put at least some of them to death, is Bush’s effort to deflect attention away from his foreign policies which are destroying the financial and social stability of the US Empire and the US population itself. And like the Moscow show trials before, these modern day show trials by the US government will lead to greater strife in the immediate years ahead. There will be new ‘terrorist’ attacks, precisely because the Bush Administration and their Democratic Party enablers have done so damn much, most if it idiotically not well thought out at all.

Dubya’s show trials might well be the preparatory event for a coming world holocaust that might well dwarf what the world went through in WW2. Time will tell. But certainly none of our nation feels any safer now than they did in the immediate days following 9/11/2001, and murdering POWs after torturing them at the Guantanamo Concentration Camp will change none of that.

Roller derby nostalgia for a lifestyle?

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Broads, Quads, Bruises and Brawls, the PPDD Slamazons versus the Muencas MuertasI enjoyed the buzz over the past decade as the Pikes Peak Derby Dames built their DIY franchise, as if a regional roller derby team had simply been an oversight of misplaced heritage. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why the WWWF of the 70s had gone the way of the spitoon.
 
This poster appears to depict a supine woman relishing the attentions of leprechaun droogs intent on mayhem, or -dare I suspect- her own rape murder?

I heard one Dame interviewed on local radio. She joked about a cat fight at the City Auditorium event the night before. Asked what being a roller derby queen meant to her, she answered “Everything! It’s a lifestyle!”

To be fair, she is probably referring to the full time job the dames have undertaken to enliven this city. At local events the Derby Dames always make an appearance to promote their upcoming bouts. The message is no more ever than frivolity and empowerment. But is the gladiator ring the greener pasture for those across the gender gap?

We can joke about mud wrestling, but marauding gangs of teenagers already cross our streets and schools intent on violence. Hair pulling being the least of the injury.

Did the zeitgeist of the 70s, newly health conscious, concerned for the environment, and sensitive to social issues, lose interest in the roller derby for its cartoon violence and promotion of an adolescent gang banger ethic?

The sport might have lost its television coverage, but roller derby teams have sprung up a quarter century later all on their own. As much as we might hold ourselves to higher standards, and hope to discourage gang violence, the ape urges are strong. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl. The Salvation Army knows this struggle better than anyone, you can’t always keep a bad man up.

Britney -just what big pharma ordered

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Star Magazine prognosisBritney Spears is not just the latest celebrity substance abuse train wreck, nor is she just the opportune diversion for our media eager to obscure private grand theft of the public sector. (Ignore war, warming and the economy, give me more Britney!) Ms. Spears is now also the poster child for corporate America’s biggest crime partners, the pharmaceutical industry.

Is there a medicinal remedy for alcoholism, for a methamphetamine habit, or any chemical addiction? Not really. But there certainly is a burgeoning market for psycho stabilizing, mood tempering meds. And Britney is their “it” girl.

Unlike Clara Bow, or for that matter Mary Pickford forward to Lindsey Lohan, Spears is being pegged for mental disorder normalization, not behavior correction. There’s a well paved road of drug and alcohol excess in Hollywood. Some stars overdose, some recover, just as you or I in anytown, anystate USA far off the tabloids. Frances Farmer was an unwelcome trend setter in the days before Lithium and Thorazine. Imagine if Ed McMahon had been able to pitch Paxil in the wings like Alpo.

Poor Brit. She’s got something the drug companies can cure and they can cure you too if you exhibit her symptoms. Lord knows it’s not uncommon, driving intoxicated, clinging to your children as they are taken from you because you are being judged unfit. Take heart, the diagnosis is not alcoholism which would require government intervention, education, diminished alcohol sales and advertising revenue; it’s not illegal drugs, which would mean more education and law enforcement; it’s not prescription drugs which would require more regulation, education, and a big hit to drug company profits. It’s… would you believe it? MORE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!

A quick fix for Britney. She’s not drunk, she’s not addicted, she’s certifiable! She’s psychotic, bipolar, manic, etc, it’s treatable! Have you been feeling angry, depressed, tired, driven mad yourself? The pharmaceutical peddlers have a remedy for you. Not less booze, less drugs, or less meds, but more meds. Everyone’s a winner!

The solution to gluttony isn’t fewer potato chips but more of the Olestra butt leakage variety. Consumer-temperance paradox averted. patient’s infirmity stabilized, IV firmly tapped into bank account. Have you seen the prices of the insanity-normalizing medications? Insane! You’re going to wish you had universal health insurance. Or that you could just stop drinking.

Body habitus

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Bad postureMy son, David, had a band concert last night. There is a performance at least once a week which I don’t mention, so please indulge me here. This one was notable for several reasons. First, it was held at Roy J. Wasson High School, my alma mater. The last time I was in the auditorium, more than 25 years ago, it was for a pep rally.
 
Second, this was an all-city event, both the jazz and concert bands, and David played first chair (trumpet) in both.
 
Third, the concert had enough significance that both sets of grandparents attended.

After the show, my parents and Dave’s parents chatted amiably, sharing grandchildren in common, though no longer marital ties. This is when I noticed that I, at 5-foot-7 with shoes on, seemed taller than all four of them. While neither family is blessed with the genes of giants, I don’t recall ever being the family’s Amazon. Thus, I can only assume that they are shrinking. All of them.

Certainly gravity compresses the spine and wreaks general havoc on the body over time. But questionable posture is not only for the aging. We’ve all seen children, and especially teenagers, with stooped shoulders, drooping heads, swayed backs, jutting stomachs that have nothing to do with body fat.

My unsolicited practical advice–begin to work on posture. Remember that bones are just bones. The muscles and our efforts largely determine how the body looks and functions.

Women, because we are the childbearers, are configured differently than men in the lower spine. We’re more easily able to sway our backs and jut out our butts so that we don’t fall over carrying the pregnancy load. But unless pregnant, a swayed back is not good posture. The ideal position of the lower spine is found when the hips are slightly tucked under.

Try this: With your usual stance, stand at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Take one foot and place it on the first step with your weight equally distributed between both feet. Pull your abdominal muscles inward. This is the ideal position for the lower spine. Try to mindfully maintain this slightly tucked position throughout the day.

Now the upper back. Usually when told to sit up straight we pull our shoulders back and push our chests out using our upper back muscles. This isn’t very effective, is impossible to maintain, and doesn’t address the underlying physiology. A better way to correct posture is to straighten and lengthen the spine.

Try this: Stand with your hips tucked under as above and slowly push the top of your head up toward the ceiling as far as you comfortably can. To do it correctly I pull the hair at the back of the part, where cowlicks are often found, straight up. You should be able to feel your head aligning and your spine elongating. If you are doing it properly you’ll feel your core, the band of muscles around the body’s center, engage. Now gently push your shoulders down. You’ll feel the rhomboids in the middle of the back engage. Notice that your shoulders are no longer hunched forward.

This is proper posture and should be consciously maintained. Difficult at first, but easier as the muscles lengthen and strengthen, and you become more accustomed to paying attention to your body position.

Good postureYou can often tell a dancer by the way she looks. It’s not the size of the body, nor the manner of dress that tells us her avocation. It’s her posture. It’s the way she mindfully inhabits her body. She radiates a certain presence, and is able to show her dancer’s heart in her physical being.

We need to remember that we, too, are the masters of our physical domains. We have much control over our appearance and our health. Consciously inhabit your body. Make it a reflection of the inner person, the essential you. Confident, strong, aware, well-tended, loved.

Moving Pictures, or pathetic Gazette pseudo-journalism?

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Today’s Sunday Gazette highlights its Iraq coverage with a huge headline titled, ‘Moving Pictures’. Below the headline in smaller print is the additional sub-headline, ‘Everyday Iraq Through a Humvee Window’. Our local paper has no shame at all, it seems, as it even brags about being ‘in bed with’ the American government occupation army of Iraq as it rides through the Baghdad suburban streets in super armored vehicles pointing high powered weaponry at the local kids !

What we get is not real reporting but Pravda style propaganda. Comical crap. We can expect no less from this Far Right Wing propaganda rag called The Gazette. Their paper is pure trash. The local community deserves much better.

911 response post 9/11

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Hope Steffey is stripped in Stark County Jail9/11 is the excuse for what happened to Hope Steffey after a 911 call. The Torture State’s Domestic Face. Do you think that 911 and 9/11 have nothing to do with each other? Then think about the men held 5 years without charges in the Guantanamo torture camp. Where are your rights now? Tasered?

Caucus surge for Obama 2004 speech

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Give Barack Obama a trophy for his speechEverybody who is anybody I know showed up at last Tuesday’s DEM caucuses. I felt so bad for all of them, tuned in, activated, braced to make elections work this time. But to work for whom? Not them. We are indeed lemmings, our legs spinning, our arms waving, our faith unshakable because to not jump off the cliff would be to derail the train without the engineer and be left to organize a can of worms.

The media, the parties, everyone is in election year mode. Get Out the Vote, Be the Change, You Can’t Win if You Don’t Play, the candidates shaking themselves out like Lotto balls coming up the tube. Meanwhile we’ve got our heads down eagerly keeping the turkey cold for whoever gets Bingo. Perhaps our selfless trust in them will be reciprocated by an equal lack of self-interest on their part to help us. Do you think?

My local district caucus on the West Side was positively humming with enthusiasm. It could have been related to people thinking they might get to attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver, or even the State Convention to be held right here. But there also seemed to be an urgency about securing a nomination for Obama instead of for old Hillary.

Out with the old, in with change. Almost no one in my precinct wanted to speak in favor of Hillary, she had supporters but none that dared speak. The posters and endorsements were mostly for Obama, and the enforcement was heavy handed. One woman was told her Clinton posters were not needed in the caucus rooms because the posters there were already 50/50, when clearly they were not.

Another friend of mine in another precinct wanted to make a pitch for Clinton in hope of convincing just one person to tilt her way to reach the minimum required to earn one delegate. Otherwise the six individuals for Clinton would be thrown into the Obama majority. Thus instead of sending one delegate for Clinton against Obama’s seven, Obama would get them all. (It’s complicated the way I can’t explain it, isn’t it?) An Obama disciple approached her to explain that Obama was for uniting the party, not for dividing it, and what my friend was proposing was definitely divisive and not in keeping with the spirit of Obama. Her precinct chairman concurred and my friend was not allowed to speak. There was just that kind of fervor.

I was offered an Obama sticker which I declined. I explained that I wanted to remain undeclared, there were a few of us actually, because I thought we were being given no real alternative, certainly not relative to American war-making. The button giver sympathized with me, and offered instead that she liked the stand Obama had taken on the war in his speech before the Democratic National Convention in 2004. He spoke against the war there, and what he had said afforded her some hope.

I’d have to agree that Obama gave a great speech in ’04. Is that really going to be the basis for selecting him to be president? What has he done since, as a Senator or high-profile contender, all this time? Has he advanced, lobbied, spoken out, championed, appealed, endorsed, raised his voice about anything?!

If Obama’s speech was so convincing, why didn’t Democrats nominate him then and there for their candidate? I agree he was promising then! Now he is a confirmed professional campaigner. Not unlike… Bush! (This thread to be continued…)

What I take to be the lesson of DNC 2004 is to save the decision until all the really impressive orators have spoken, then pick one. Why tie ourselves to a nominee before all the suitors have made their overtures? Especially if we’re going to make our decision based on a speech. Let’s leave our options open. If we’d done that in 2004, we could have had Obama, and none too soon. Let’s do it this year and see who rises to the occasion. At every convention, there’s always a side player at liberty to offer a more interesting sermon.

At the 2006 state convention, soon-to-be-governor Ritter gave the worst speech I’d ever heard. I didn’t even have to close my eyes to wonder if he was a Republican, a Democrat or a Saturn dealer. It was the most bland claptrap, and he’s delivered precisely that in office. The same day, a would-be state representative spoke in amazingly blunt terms and brought down the house. Based on Obama logic, he should have been nominated for governor. I wish he had.

Who’s going to be the Obama of 2008? It wouldn’t have to be an unknown. As I remember, Dennis Kucinich gave an underrated speech at the last convention. Perhaps we should give him a chance to do it again. And he has credentials. Or Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson. Give Ron Paul or Ross Perot a turn at the podium as well. Based on one speech we can definitely feel optimism for any such candidacy.

Coming out at the Manitou Carnivale

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My favorite moment at this year’s Carnivale Parade in Manitou was a friend’s gay subversion of the spotlight. Did anyone get a picture?

We were watching the parade beside the flatbed truck upon which two radio jocks were announcing the entries. In between discussing their intentions to drink to excess, they’d describe each parade entry, egg on the participants, and whenever they deemed it appropriate, they’d suggest that ladies bare their breasts. The two seemed to think that the masked girls were supposed to both throw the beads and show their boobs instead of the reciprocal tat for tit.

The two hired jocks got plenty of beads thrown their way, and nothing more –it satisfies me to say– until my friend Larry came parading by.

Larry was not part of the parade, and was in fact walking the other direction along the sidewalk, but was showing off his Mardi Gras finery, a flowing silk cape decorated with a hand painted, life sized nude. It was a fully nude figure, androgynous from the backside, with long locks of hair and facial features in profile. The DJs may be forgiven, since they didn’t know Larry, nor had they maybe fully assessed his parading stride, for having mistaken all that skin for a woman’s. But they went on and on about “that’s what we’re talking about, hubba, hubba” etc, having Larry stop and pose repeatedly the better to acknowledge their construction worker catcalls.

Then one of the DJs thought to ask Larry to bend over, to which Larry obliged, and the bare backside bent with him, which left the DJ really pleased with himself. “I’ll bet you didn’t think of that” he chided Larry, as if the Jock had snuck an indiscretion past him. The crowd was presumed to be laughing along as Larry was being cuckolded by the clever jock’s too easy conquest of the “girl” on the cape. But Larry was eating it up.

Certain they could milk this for a bigger laugh, the DJs asked their mark to repeat his bow in the middle of the street and Larry ceremoniously complied. The figure on his back mooned us all, or beckoned us with its beguiling bare bottom, depending on how you saw it. Larry addressed all sides before standing erect, beaming. Read that as you will, it’s only conjecture. The Manitou crowd clapped and clapped, nothing lost on them. Then Larry gave us a wink before parading back whence he had come, all parties immensely pleased with the encounter.

We couldn’t do it without your support

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US soldier executing a captured wounded Iraqi who had escaped the first round of executionsRemember this scene from Fallujah 2004? Embed photographer Kevin Sites of NBC accidentally filmed an American GI dead- checking a wounded Iraqi at point blank range. The soldier accused the Iraqi of playing dead, and so shot him.

Why would a wounded Iraqi, captured by the Marines and medevac’d to a Mosque, need to pretend to be dead? That was the uglier story. This soldier examining the Iraqi wounded in the Mosque was actually making the second pass, verifying that all the captives in the Mosque had been killed. A squad before him had sought to save these wounded Iraqis, but a later order was issued to take no prisoners.

Europeans and US intervening in Darfur by way of Chad

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After all those nice stories about how ‘something must be done’, the European Union is sending in its troops to Darfur by way of neighboring Chad. In so doing, it will be propping up a French maintained puppet dictator that is so unpopular, that even some of his own relatives are trying to overthrow him along with much of the population at large. Oh, Go blame it on the Arab horsemen and the Chinese, I suppose?

What is all this Chad, Darfur, and Sudan stuff really about to our Western ears? Does our ruling class now have soft hearts and now are turning to stop bad things going on in the big bad, world? Pretty comical notion I think. ‘Save the Blacks! Save the children!’ What noblesse oblige!

Is this the new compassionate conservatism in action? Oh No…. It’s the liberal Democrats once again! Working with Bush and Sarkozy all together! Oh, and it’s to ‘Stop Terrorism’, too. It’s all part of the ‘Global War on Everybody and Everything’, patent pending in Washington DC office (or is it in Alexander, Virginia?). We got such good ol’ soft hearts, we going to save the world once again.

OK, actually the news is keeping the news away from us on this one. Too early to announce yet. We have short attention spans and need to stay focused on CHANGE and DARFUR. Chad is, well it is, politically incorrect to think about. There will be no Chad displays at the local library quite just yet. Hold your breath! And whatever you do, VOTE! The System need you.

Chad president urges EU force to deploy
Chad’s President Urges European Peacekeeping Force to Quickly Deploy; PM Declares Curfew …so many dead… so much suffering. But as Madelyn Albright would say… ‘It’s worth it.’ The European and US corporations must run Africa for themselves.

Republican Bad Boys, what you going to do when they come for you?

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No truth to the rumor that Ted Haggard does a version of the theme song from the TV sitcom called ‘COPS’.

Republican Bad Boys, what you going to do when they come for you? Bad Boys, Bad Boys…

Read Bad Boys, Nasty Boys: Out of the GOP’s Closet
by Michael Parenti for some interesting dirt on the Republican bad boys.

If they are not losing we are not winning

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A Department of Defense spokesman was asked the other day if the insurgents in Iraq are winning. He has Donald Rumsfeld’s speech writer.
 
“If the insurgents are not losing, they are winning.
If we are not winning, we are losing.”

Is that statement deep or is it obtuse? Perhaps that’s our military complaining that the insurgents win if there’s a draw. Unless our victory is decisive, we don’t get credit for it. But that’s obfuscating the real answer because there can be no stalemate with counterinsurgency. Ask the British in Ireland. You’re splitting hairs on a toupee. In Iraq the insurgents are winning.

The news charade doesn’t involve asking real questions. In this case, for example, the reporter could have followed up by repeating the unanswered question. You’d do it if you wanted to know something and instead of an answer you’d received a riddle.

I cannot remember if this man was military or think tank. Does it matter really any more who he was? The military is taken at its word, even as previous proclamations are disproved. We don’t torture. Oh, well, we don’t use that word, but yes we do. We don’t use Napalm. Oh, did you say Napalm? Yes we do. Think tank specialists are consulted without questioning who is funding the particular opinion they are spinning.

Anymore, the interview format includes two media people, the one with questions and the one with answers, both of whom have the same agenda. This has replaced investigative reporting. Want to know how France feels? Rather, how someone wants us to think the nation of France is feeling? Consult a specialist, a PR spokesman to make the pitch. France is fine, thank you, and how are you?

Perhaps the next step will be just one news-person, a trusted father figure, who will convey intellect and wisdom enough to sooth us. He’ll be able to report the current events, ask whatever questions come to mind, and answer them himself because who needs a middleman? The way we are heading, he’ll also answer in riddles.