tortured. 

Iraqii Chaos: Bug Or Design?:

"“The residual unity of [Iraq] is an illusion projected by the extreme repression of the state.” After Saddam, Iraq will “be ripped apart by the politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects, and key families,” he wrote. “Underneath facades of unity enforced by state repression, [Iraq’s] politics is defined primarily by tribalism, sectarianism, and gang/clan-like competition.” Yet Wurmser explicitly urged the United States and Israel to “expedite” such a collapse. “The issue here is whether the West and Israel can construct a strategy for limiting and expediting the chaotic collapse that will ensue in order to move on to the task of creating a better circumstance.” "

-David Wurmser, working you in the office VP Dick Cheney.

Enough? Not yet. The Beast hungers still.

Where will this stop?

"Enemy combatants" are those poor souls who can be caged indefinitely, without legal representation, or access to the courts.

Soon, an "enemy combatant" is no longer just a terrorist King George the W. claims we captured on the battlefield, but rather anyone who "'has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States' or its military allies."

By that defintion, I think any critic of this administration qualifies for detainment, or as we said in the pre-Orwellian world- imprisonment. Don't forget, as our Republican leaders keep reminding us, to openly question their authority is to appease the terrorists.

What happens when we these two lines of thought intersect, people?

Unless, someone finds their balls and puts them in their pants and stands up VERY quickly, then no dissenter marches far from the gulag.

Those words might sound grandiose. But they are not. We are frogs in the pan. We will soon be boiled. All because we had not the courage to jump.

Olbermann delivers. Big Time.

A Pakistani Mother and daughter gang raped for twelve days because the girl continued to study for her Master's degree at home after being banned from school. Police failed to act. In order for there to be justice the women must find four male witnesses, otherwise they themselves will be imprisoned. That is the Pakistani law under the The Hudood Ordinances, which "were introduced 17 years ago when the then military dictator General Zia ul-Haq was installing shariah law in Pakistan as a way of impressing his conservative Islamic backers at home and abroad".

The leader of Pakistan had dinner with Bush last week. I wonder if this came up. If so I am sure Bush just recommended labeling the women "enemy combatants." What an elegant muzzle to the scream of injustice.

Little Superstar

The Summer Of Death:
12,400 dead Iraqiis, from May thru August
That's a lot of hearts, a lot of minds.

"The July total of 3,590 deaths was unprecedented, it said, while the August figure of 3,009, though lower, was also among the worst yet.
In its previous report two months ago, it gave a combined figure of 5,818 for the two months of May and June. The latest two-month figure shows an increase of more than 13 percent over that number, which it described as a sharp surge at the time."

Too lazy to research this further, but the American controlled government in Iraq instituted a new flag in Iraq two years ago. It seems to to have disappeared as Iraqii Kurds are now flying the flag of "Kurdistan" over goverment buildings in a supposed unwillingness to fly Saddam's. 40 million Kurds comprise Greater Kurdistan, its flag is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Those rooting for the underdog, a populace who lost their homeland in the divving up of the region after WWI, score one point.

Aljazeera.Net - US war with Iran has already begun

"trickle down theory", as in what happens with cheap diapers, aka doodoo economics: The Washington Monthly

Microsoft's DRM cracked.

To a particular altar boy:

Religion is not eternal.
Do not bind yourself with beliefs.
Do not hold your faith in the highest regard.
It is as though idolatry.
Be free in your thoughts.
Run with ideas.
Nurture imaginations.
Create.
Creation is a process;
it has no end.

Does it matter if man sees a world full of magic or only imagines it so? What is the space between magic and madness?

'...failing or betraying some mission you were mandated to fulfill and being unable to fulfill it and then coming to understand that the real mandate was not to fulfill it but to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself.' "

-Leonard Cohen, reflecting on his song "The Traitor",
from the documentary "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man."
via New York Times


An excerpt from "The Traitor":

But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
The poison sank and it paralysed my will

I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
That they had been deserted from above
So on battlefields from here to barcelona
I’m listed with the enemies of love

And long ago she said I must be leaving,
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
You can move it up and down and when I’m sleeping
Run some wire through that rose and wind the swan

So daily I renew my idle duty
I touch her here and there -- I know my place
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
And people call me traitor to my face

Have been doing a little research into Celiac Diesease, a form of gluten intolerance, and I came across a couple of interesting things.

One, not only can bearers of this cross not drink Regular Joe Beer (malt and barley are no-no's), but they can not even play with Playdough (contamination issues). Can you imagine living your entire life with the dark knowledge that never again would you be able to make inedible blue pasta that smelt really cool?

Two, Gluten-Intolerant Folk (GIF)* are not supposed to eat the traditional Catholic communion wafer. Now I am sure some enterprising young Jew is selling the gluten-free commuion stuffs on his Kosher website, but that is not the point.

What is the point?

Well, maybe there is no point, but I do wonder aloud: Does the Pope have a position on this? According to Catholic Dogma (Is there any other kind?), the communion wafer is transfigured from baker's bread into the body of Christ upon placement onto a believer's tongue. Would the Pope have us believe the spotless lamb is not gluten-free?

*I am sure they have a catchier name, as do the diabetics or mavericks. I will look into it.

From Atrios:

"Of course, the Wen Ho Lee tale and the Times' wildly over-heated reporting (eagerly hyped by the paper's editorial page, run at the times by Howell Raines) did not spring from a vacuum. Instead, it occurred at the pinnacle of the press corps' Get-Clinton years and fit into a distinct and troubling pattern at the newspaper of record. Recall that the Times embarrassed itself in the 1990s with its now-discredited Whitewater coverage; a story often fed to the Times by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with an innuendo-heavy Loral investigation that suggested the Clinton White House gave away weapons secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with its one-sided Wen Ho Lee coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. And more recently, the Times embarrassed itself with its pre-war WMD coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. "

My site is finally redesigned.

holland photos

Paper Mache
It's not just for fourth grade art projects and Mardi Gras floats.
(anymore)

Today, I went to the craft store and picked up a lot of tissue and wire and plaster. I am making life-size paper mache effegies of all the happy people I met this week.
I am going to set you around my dining room table and serve you Peppermint tea and yummy cake. It is going to be real nice. I will never drink alone again.
So far, I have made a Bala (the denim shirt was not so easy),
an Andreas (I had to seperate he and Bala, because I could not sleep over their constant chatter).
I made a Patrick and and an Anamiek and three fluffy kitties, who strangely enough keep shedding their tissues (i swear to god, every sweater and pillow is covered with the stuff). I made a Noor (it is indeed a great place to live: tonight we will be serving a cilantro-topped salmon on a bed of mango and microgreens), I even made a Gerrie and gave her special wings to facilitate her intercontinental travel (i have not seen her since Sunday).
That is all I have done so far. Well, that is not true exactly. I had made a Sep as well, but I left him on the porch over night, and the Mexican neighbor kids pummeled him with a stick thinking him to be a candy-filled pinata. Sorry Sep. I put you back together, but something just wasn't the same. You were still smiling, but it just wasn't convincing. I used your legs to make Bala a pair of wings (he was jealous, of Gerrie: "The queen always has wings; it's my ant colony", and so on and on.)
Anyway, Black-eyed Carl, map-totting Katie, free spirit Linda, and all the rest will soon populate my table.
So, if you want to find yourself, please come visit.
"They will be beside themselves."
Andreas, you are funny. Do you want some more cake?

Can I be serious for a moment?
"Not that I have seen."
Bala, please go smoke that outside. I am trying to think here. Leave the cookies. Now, there is something very important that I am trying to say. Or rather, something important I want to say, but not going to try. But it has to do with smoke and mirrors and air and love and world and magic and a small mouse and a mighty elephant. It has to do with moving a great stone from here to there. It has to do with dreaming and acting. It has to do with the blessing of being surrounded by people and spaces that inspire, old wood to a young fire. But I am not going to say these things. I would not know where to begin, and certainly not where to end. It is a beautiful sunny day, and I have a lot work to do.
Thank you all. Love.
"Has he been drinking again?"
I heard that.

"you laugh like a child, but you think like a martyr"
fyodor d., the brothers karamazov

Our path is neither straight
nor narrow.
We are not simply falling stones.
Rather we are cast
with a mighty hand.
Towards starry heavens
hidden by light of day.
Before we slow
and return to the swallowing sea.

Torture got you down?
Refresh yourself.

The Next Big Thing?

Daffodils:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,...


...For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-- William Wordsworth"

Really?
Really.
Had a really bad day last Sunday. I awoke truly disappointed that I had done so. Spent the day in the bottom of a well without bottom. In case you have never been there, it is not so nice. In the evening I went to sleep, wishing I had the might to stay that way.
That night I had the most beautiful dream I ever had: After playing bouncy ball with Gigi, my favorite lost dog (sorry, Ginger), I found myself in my childhood home, and then a car drive with my mother through the fields near our home. We went down into a shallow valley over which we floated in what I assumed was a hot air balloon (I never looked up).
It was the lovliest scape I ever saw, and still is. There were golden mounds of ground grain, heaps of paprikas, the size of babies' heads, red and yellow and green. Orchards heavy with fruit. I was surrounded by horizons filled with brilliant patches of color. Just lush. Into the gorgeous distance workers sowed beneath wide-brimmed hats and a vibrant technocolored sky.
We floated just above the valley's floor, and when I saw something I wanted, we would inch closer, and I would stretch down and grab it. Fresh Bread. French cheeses. Peaches. I had everything I needed. My dog. My mother. Life was perfect.

When I awoke, I was saying aloud: "daffodils."
I do not actually remember the daffodils. Indeed, while I awoke saying daffodils, I have no idea the signifigace. To be honest I could not have pick up them out of a line up. But I will say this: They are now the key to another place. When I say that word to myself, I am warmed inside against the cold "grey haze" that seeks to envelop these days: dream as memory.

I did some research on daffodils (sounds better than "googling", doesn't it?), and came across this Wordworth poem. I used to read a fair bit of literature back when I was young and I thought such things would make me seem more entertaining at cocktail parties.
But whether this is memory or magic, I do not need to know. I will judge this tree by its fruit.
"daffodils"
still works.

Read This Article:
"Al-Kahtani was interrogated for 18 to 20 hours a day for 48 of 54 days; he had water dripped on his head and was blasted with cold air-conditioning and loud music to keep him awake; his beard and head were shaved; he was forced to wear a bra and panties and to dance with a male jailer; he was hooded; he was menaced with a dog, told to bark like one and led around on a leash; he was pumped full of intravenous fluids and forced to urinate on himself; he was straddled by a female interrogator and stripped naked; and more -- all under a list of interrogation methods personally approved by Rumsfeld."

My Way News: "White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, 'The president remains fully committed to building a culture of life, a culture of life that is built on valuing life at all stages.'"

Know it's a little obvious but a couple of words come to mind: Iraq War. Death Penalty.

the things I want:
shiney shoes
a dusty road
the girl I botched
coffee with mom
the cars i crashed
the dog I lost
all the money I drank
and one last drop

I never liked Arial Sharon. Considered him a mass murderer for his role in certain war atrocities. Saw him as an old warrior whose political interest lay in constant agitation. Did not consider him an honest broker in the peace process, thought his small, first step towards unilateral disengagement was a sinister ploy, i.e. he would make that first step his last step, disengage from the peace process, and retire behind the wall he built around the Palestinians. It was not until last month when in he quit the party he helped build, a move designed to solidify a new middle that could move forward with a solution to the Palestinian problem that I begin to think differently of Sharon.

He suddenly seemed like a man of sincerity. One more of those grizzled veterans of hard living that time tempered in old age. Like Framk McNamara in the Fog Of War. I feel as though I just got to see the real man and the caricture I had created from my readings and musings.

And now he is in a coma. He dream not yet realized, and no one obvious to carry his torch. It is more than a little sad.

There is a nice little piece in the Post that adds someflesh.