My Thoughts on Changes

Parisology and Perissology pits

I admit it, it is my fault. The haiku-like nature of Twitter lends itself to the dangers of open interpretation by others. Furthermore, the two-way nature of the medium, practically assures the immediate feedback of those waiting in the background with specialized nets that fish for specific words of their liking. It is like one of those Sushi restaurant with a carrousel, immense in size, where all kinds of fish pass in front of the patrons and, occasionally, their favorite fish appears and they take it front the carrousel. Then, they eat it, digest it for a couple of seconds, and, if bad, instead of blaming the fish or their own predisposition for properly digesting it, they blame everything else between the happy life of the fish at sea to their own teeth.

Now, the specific issue at hand, and the raison d'être for this post, is that yesterday I posted this in Twitter:

Question of the day: what's the attraction of "individuals" to find their own label? Thinking of MBTI tests, Eneagrams, etc. Note quotes
9:19 AM yesterday from web

A few minutes later I get this in reply:

@yijingman Your assumption seems to be that ppl are looking for labels perhaps they are seeking something else entirely -

Ah, the Blue, always prolific, didn't disappoint. Quick search of the "Blue" told me that yes, in effect, the person had a subjective reason for the defensive posture. Needlessly so, in my opinion, because I placed one caveat in my post (the " ") and I ended it with a big arrow pointing at it for good measure ("note quotes"). She missed both, apparently. Before I explain a few things, let me quote the next two exchanges. First my reply--two twits in length--and then her follow-up. I will also use bold and underline here, which isn't available in the medium.

:-) You're missing context but yes, my opinion is that certain taxonomy isn't useful at street level. Self knowledge

isn't attained by classificatory tests. Mind you, they are useful in other environments (thinking corporate and counseling)

To which she replied this morning:

@yijingman Self knowledge is emergent assessments+conversation+reflection+selfobservation+feedback My rant onthis http://tinyurl.com/9axdwg

The rant, as she put it, isn't bad but, pointing to it (it was written days before these exchanges) perpetuates the defensive posture that prompted it, and, in the process, misses my point, again.

Now, I suppose, is time for some clarifying thoughts. Alas, my initial comment in Twitter wasn't a criticism of MBTI or the Eneagrams as tools. I align myself with Jungian thought so I could hardly fault a "tool" that was inspired by him, albeit grossly trademarked by commercial interests. What's happening with the whole MBTI environment reminds me of scavenging pharmaceutical companies taking patents on the active ingredients of ancient medicinal potions still in use in many Third World countries, which is akin to "ZYX Energy Co." filling for a patent for fire and water..., and getting it granted. You get my drift. Shameful, in my opinion, and far from the intention of Jung when he published his "Psychological Types" in 1923. Proverbially, the man must be turning in his grave.

The missing context I talk about comes from a conversation in another forum--which does not deserves any negative feedback from those outside of it and shall remain anonymous--in which participants were quick to test themselves, comment about it..., and comfortably fall in place in their newfound little niches, like pegs on a board, wearing a badge that, for them, should obviate any conversation of whom or what they are or where they come from in a conversation. Thus, my twit/comment, was for those few that follow me there that are also participants in said forum. None of them took the bait, but, alas, the words MBTI and Eneagram got caught in "Blue Selective Net" and the fisherman manning it, instead of allowing the small fish to swim away, got it from the net and threw it back to the last fisherman.

As I implied in the original twit/post, and my follow up to the lady's comment, the real usefulness of the named tests isn't at the street/individual level but as corporate and counseling tools. To obtain one's own MBTI label, just because it is freely available, does nothing to further one's personal quest for self-knowledge. It provides nothing specific that would serve as a ladder rung to descend into the depths of your self--or to step out of it if you find that your nature isn't of your liking--nor will it help you improve it. It will, though, provide you with branding label. Unfortunately, branding labels, much like those in cattle, are mainly used by third parties to place you in your proper place. Thus, labels, in my modest opinion, diminish the self, rather than helping it to improve, by taking your freedom of movement within a given environment out of the equation. Which is why corporations love MBTI testing their current and prospective employees.

She points

When you need to open a conversation on differences between people an assessment tool like the Myers Briggs is an excellent starting place and provides a common language for people to begin to have a new understanding.

Really? I mean, yes, I suppose it does help in certain ways and in certain environments, but, are we, as a society, arrogant enough to believe that a classification label will explain the complexities of other selves to us or that those other selves would get a glimpse of our selves from an artificial label? I don't think so. I don't even think it is "an excellent starting place."

Having said that, I wonder if those popularizing and commercializing the MBTI tests--I'm talking about those who know enough to get in trouble and misstep in an in-depth discussion by lacking proper exegetical reading--are familiar with the modern works of Richard D. Grant Jr. and Chris Lofting. Furthermore, how many of those have even a clue that the real root of the so called MBTI test, which is a modern trademark, in good old Western fashion of legally appropriating ideas, is a few thousand years old and from a far away land?

As for the statement "self-knowledge is emergent assessments+conversation+reflection+selfobservation+feedback," yes, I agree, those are some of the steps, but, if it were only so simple to find your way within, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?

The title is an allusion to the dangers that lurk in throwing words to their own fate into the Blue. Alas, I've fallen into those yonder pits myself.

Technorati Tags: perissology

Nobody takes my feelings into consideration...

It makes me wonder...

When is the territorial China going to shrink. I mean, you can't have it both ways. Be a capitalist powerhouse and keep a totalitarian regime (cough! cough!, yes, I know, I'm pointing at the mirror). I'm not saying that they should follow the ex-Soviet example of breaking up the country at the hinges of the weakest links of their former territory, but, it is evident that forcing cohesion can demonstrate to be unbearable in the long term.


Attack in China Kills 16 Border Patrol Officers - NYTimes.com

The assault, the deadliest terrorist attack in China since the early 1990s, took place 2,100 miles from Beijing, but just four days before the start of the Olympics, adding to security concerns in the capital as hundreds of thousands of foreign athletes, journalists and spectators begin to arrive.

China, anxious to avert any possibility of terrorist attack during the Games, has girded Beijing with soldiers, missile launchers and sidewalk cameras. The heavy surveillance did not prevent a small protest near Tiananmen Square on Monday by people who said they had not been compensated after their homes were demolished for a redevelopment project, but a swarm of police officers rapidly broke it up.

Speaking of omens...

A twister in the middle of London?

Not a mini-tornado, but a genuine twister  - Britain - Times Online:

Today's tornado in North West London was a medium-sized twister by British standards. Initial reports of the level of damage to trees, roofs and cars indicate wind speeds of around 100mph (160kph), a T3-T4 strength tornado, on a scale ranging from T0 to T10 developed by the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (Torro).

In fact, Torro had issued a forecast alert of thunder, hail, lightning and tornado as conditions in the southern half of Britain turned convective. This meant that air was rising through the atmosphere - a surge of warm, moist tropical air rose up and hit colder drier air higher up, exploding into thunderclouds. This produced a squall line, a violent band of thunderclouds, which tore across Southern England during the morning.

Holy Greeks!

I'm starting to believe in Atlantis again...

Ancient astronomical�device thrills�scholars - CNN.com

The Antikythera Mechanism is the earliest known device to contain an intricate set of gear wheels. It was retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901 but until now what it was used for has been a mystery.Although the remains are fragmented in 82 brass pieces, scientists from Britain, Greece and the United States have reconstructed a model of it using high-resolution X-ray tomography. They believe their findings could force a rethink of the technological potential of the ancient Greeks.

Hey, the man is pro women!!

...If unveiled women are "uncovered meat", we men are just wild pack animals... The onus is on us, no? Poor man, he's been mistaken... Not!! What a crock!

Independent Online Edition > Australasia

Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has been forced to apologise after provoking widespread outrage with a speech in which he appeared to blame women for rape, comparing them with "uncovered meat" that attracts animals.

Humorless at the Department of State...

What can I say, most of the time I don't have to beat my writer's block to death. Many times, things to write about seem to fall on my lap. A few minutes ago, I received a comment to this entry 370hssv 0773h (click that link to see the entry and the comment). Mind you, I posted the darn thing back in December 2005, after I received it as one of those silly e-mail chains that spam the net. That is the first comment I get on the entry and was approved without a second thought. After all, everyone is entitled to an opinion. If the guy doesn't find the joke funny I respect that. Furthermore, he's right and it is a recycled joke that seems to morph according to whoever is at the top. However, that is also the essence of works like the I Ching or the Bible (when it is used as a prophetic work): people recycles meaning according to the moment in time a quote is interpreted... I'm sure Bill Clinton, Reagan and Patriarch Bush, were also, at some point in time, the target of this same joke.

The funny thing though, the ultimate joke, is what I discovered when I was reviewing the stats for my site, something I do regularly. Believe me people, I could not make this up even if I wanted to. If you click on the thumbnail you will see a screen capture of a very interesting hit to my blog. This person found my blog using this search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=370HSSV%20%200773H&btnG=Google%20Search) and I have the dubious honor of being, as of today (this will most likely jump me to the top) the fourth entry on those keywords out of a total of some 21,000 entries --ahhh..., God bless Google and its smug sense of humor... I wonder if Rick is commenting on every single one of them on time bought with my tax dollars... The surprise was to find out that Rick is hailing from U.S. State Department. Is this the way they conduct surveillance? Rick, come on, I'm sure the NSA was all over that entry even before I thought of writing it. As for lacking "originality", well..., what can I say, there is nothing "original" about many, perhaps all, works of faith and people do seem to fall dead like flies while misquoting their texts and mobilizing people behind made up "banners-of-the-moment." Bear in mind also that most government policies (and for "government" I'm using the word in the most generic form and it could be the government of the U.S., UK, France or Kenya for all that it matters) are massive works of faith; nothing more; nothing less. Speaking of ironies and synchronicity, while I write this, I'm watching our stemmed president on CNN giving a speech at the American Legion in Salt Lake City and I feel like I'm in Sunday School. We are so stuck in third gear that it appears to be impossible to slow down the rhetoric of "terror". Perhaps the concept of "self-fulfilling prophecies" of death and doom and the metaphor of "crying wolf" hasn't even crossed the mind of the powers that be.

On the other hand, what the hell do I know? I'm just a citizen hooked on the Net, the BBC and CNN...

Technorati Tags: humor, 370hssv 0773h

No more M&M's for you...

What can they do to the guy?? He's on a life sentence without possibility of parole. Would they shave him, head to toe, so he cannot create makeshift brushes? Put on hold his supply of paper? Hold his water so he cannot extract the dyes on the surface of M&M's to paint his postcards? Holding his M&M's may constitute "cruel and unnusual punishment"...


CNN.com - Prison: Killer broke rules with M&M art - Aug 4, 2006

The details of possible disciplinary action were unclear. A hearing on the matter will be held in the next few weeks, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Apocalyptic musings... (or An Amazon.com humorous point of view...)

So, I was watching CNN this afternoon and with all the current events in the Middle East and in the archeological department they were interviewing Joel Rosenberg and Jerry B. Jenkins (the co-author of the Left Behind series). Although I don't subscribe to thinly veiled dogma in the form of fiction thrillers and refuse to read them, I was curious about Rosenberg as I've never heard about his books (pardon me, Mr. Rosenberg...). I searched his name in Amazon and of course, I found his books. Two of those books in the list, as of today, are yet to be released. I clicked on "Epicenter: Why current rumblings in the middle east will change your future", which appears to be a non-fiction book with some very pragmatic views and opinions about the, let's put it mildly, "changing of the world". All fine and dandy until you scroll down in the page and find the information contained in the picture above (click on thumbnail and look at where the black arrow is pointing to)...

Ahem...!! People, I would discount the connection as the humorous glitch of a mindless computer sitting deep in the vaults of Amazon's headquarters but I can't: It is created by humans. The connection is indeed hilarious because those recommendations are the result of statistical orders on similar books at the site. Why hilarious? Because people is connecting the "End of the World"  with things like "creating your own will". So..., I have a small question, you are leaving your possessions to whom exactly?

   A. Satan's minions?;
   B. All those "Left Behind" after the Rapture?;
   C. The IRS (whom will most likely survive the "Tribulations" to tax you another day)? or
   D. All of the above.

The only thing I can rescue as positive of this whole issue is that those people are not paying a lawyer to draft an Apocalypse inspired "Last Will and Testament..."

Technorati Tags: apocalypse, Jerry B. Jenkins, rapture, rosenberg, tribulation

Cool picture from the past...

BBC NEWS | Europe | Photo of Mozart's widow found

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany.

The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later.

Playboy, it is all about the articles...

Two things: 1. Yes, Playboy has good articles; 2. While a bunch of rednecks, top-heavy with guns, are chasing undocumented immigrants that come here to work, down South the more "affluent" version of illegals are feeding their "needs" for recreation... Can't they hunt Canadians too? I mean, to be fair, you know...

CNN.com - Drug runners flew copters through canyons, officials say - Jun 29, 2006

The cross-border drug runs got public attention in July 2005, when Playboy magazine profiled the practice.Investigators have also seized 8,000 pounds of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, more than $1.5 million in currency and two aircraft.

Sign of the times...

Risky metaphorical headlines...

Well, talk about using smart-assed headlines and titles for your blog postings... Last year I posted this in my photoblog with the title "Forced Lesbianism"... Little did I know at the moment that it would make me a celebrity. In the Middle East, that is... Thanks to Google and their "smart" (insert tongue-in-cheek here) search engine, if you search for those keywords in the Images section my site is the only one that comes up.... Repeat with me: "Wow!" Dubious honor, to say the least. (if you use the same keywords in the Web section, my page is somewhere in page 8 or 9, in case you are curious)

I mentioned my celebrity status in the Middle East thanks to that, cough! cough!, innocent entry, right? I'm not making this up, ask the NSA if you don't believe me, they know (not sure if that last one is a joke or a reason to cry.) Now, when checking my site stats, I invariably find that most of the hits for that entry come from, get this, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Irak, Qatar, Syria, Jordan, Yemen... Funny. What gives? I've been pondering about this ever since I noticed the pattern. My laymen's sociological theory is that many guys there (and/or gals, who knows, really) are much more visually oriented than people in the West. They would go to Google and search for those keywords, but, rather than using the Web Section, where the entry is buried deep in the results, they would go directly to the Image tab and voila!, they would fall into the one and only site listed there as of today, mine. Google, the last frontier...

I'll leave it to the experts to figure that sociological glitch out...

N62 W141, Blind spots and a Major WTF!

Just one for the conspiracy theorists in all of us... I saw this at LightStalkers.com, a photography site. Well, if we think about it, not even the very mysterious Area 51 in Nevada (the Groom Lake area) is blocked by Google Earth (first picture).

Now, what the heck is under that black swath on the border of USA and Canada? I don't buy the theory of a satellite blind spot or it being so precise if it was one. Hey, I didn't started it, I'm just as curious as everyone else...

By the way, I was reading Google Earth License and this is a NON COMMERCIAL USE of those pictures and I'm not exporting information to any "questionable country". If this is considered export of information, to friends or foes, then the Feds have a bigger problem than they think, i.e. the WHOLE FREACKING INTERNET...

370HSSV 0773H

This one has been around the Net for a while. Still, I think is very good.

After numerous rounds of: "We don't even know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in English, in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a real strange, perhaps coded message:

370HSSV 0773H

Bush was baffled, so he emailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it so it went to the CIA, then to NASA. With no clue as to its meaning, they eventually asked Britain's MI-6 for help. MI-6 cabled the White House: "Tell the President he's holding the message upside down.

Coping with loneliness...

Hmmm, she claims to have added a mustache, only....

I wonder how many seconds will it take for somebody to start selling those on eBay, catering to lonely wives of soldiers...

Only in America...

NBCSandiego.com - News - Mannequin Replaces Husband Serving Overseas

KINGSLAND, Ga. -- A Georgia woman has found an unusual way to cope with missing her military husband -- a mannequin that looks just like him.

Suzy Walker purchased a sailor mannequin on eBay, which she says looks eerily like her husband. He is currently serving aboard the USS West Virginia.

She takes him out to dinner, to the movies and even to buy lottery tickets.

Walker says the mannequin helps her get through the newlyweds' first separation.

The mannequin weighs about 40 pounds.

Black sheeps everywhere...

Hey, I'm all for it, but I thought Islam didn't allow for public appreciation of nudity, specially not in a place like Saudi Arabia. This guy/(gal?), hailing from the state run "Saudi Arabian Oil Company Saudi Aramco" was searching for photographer Richard Murrian and since I wrote a couple of notes about him in my Spanish blog they are stopping by at my sites, courtesy of Google...

What the heck, must be one of the infidel westerners contracted by the Saudis... (and he left in a hurry too: O Seconds stay? Fuck, I resent that!! Maybe the Spanish threw him off...) Nobody is perfect...

Click for bigger picture

An intersection of angst and wit...

I have mentioned it before, but I really enjoy reading him.

BIROCO.COM ~ A way to look at things

Starting to feel this is Escaped Pet Road, last month it was a parrot on a telegraph wire occasioning small crowds standing there holding their mobile camera-phones aloft like indigenous peoples making their offering to the Parrot God, me looking out the window with childish joy magnified ten thousand times more than seeing a shy Mr Robin Redbreast.

Midnight Express - Not

I don't know, it must be the money, real good money to be made, otherwise I cannot fathom the stupidity and motivation behind drug trafficking in Singapore. Geeze, the entry form they make you fill on the airplanes, before landing in Singapore, clearly reads "The penalty for drug trafficking in Singapore is Death"... I suppose stupidity is also a capital crime in there. Well, tread carefully when there...

One of my favorite T-shirts, that I bought in Singapore, reads: "Born free, fined to death." That should give you a clue...

VOA News - Canberra Rules Out Legal Move to Stop Singapore from Executing Australian Drug Trafficker

Prime Minister Howard says trying to force Singapore to have the case heard by the International Court of Justice - known as the ICJ - could damage Van Nguyen's slim chances of avoiding the gallows.

Singapore, whose laws provide for a mandatory death sentence in serious drug cases, plans to hang the 25-year-old Vietnamese-born Australian in nine days.

Sign of the times....

The scary thing is that it may be true...

Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City - I Can See Why He Proposed

Businessman lady #1: See, she always finds a way to make things about her! Businessman lady #2: Um, she just found out she has cancer Businessman lady #1: So? I am getting married, it should be all about me, focus all on me. Now we have to make it about her! Ugh. Businessman lady #2: You're not getting married till next year. Businessman lady #1: I know that, but I am getting married. Anyway, cancer is like the flu, almost everyone is going to get it. She is not going to die from it. Businessman lady #2: I can't believe you. You are so crass sometimes. Ugh. Businessman lady #1: Oh, shit! What if she really does die? Then it will really be all about her. Crap.

What do you mean...

..."what's next"? A book. Duh! Like you can't see that one coming.... You can bet your Christmas Day front page that she's being hounded down like a fox by publishers. She'll be filthy rich by this time next year. Mark my words.

With Career Derailed, Plame Likely to Leave CIA

What's next for Valerie Plame?

Lost in the din of the leak scandal that has consumed Washington is the very personal impact on the gracious, willowy CIA operative at its center. Plame, the wife of former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and arguably the most famous spy in the world, is not likely to stay at the CIA, some acquaintances say.

No, it's not for sale...

Google News Mysteries

Now, take a look at the screen-shot below and tell me, how many concerned Swiss are there in the world to have pushed this headline all the way to the top of the Google News site?

Click on the picture if too small to read.

E.S.L.

Do they mean that they are getting better at it?

Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea

Corruption in Korea Improves Slightly

Spreading the word...

Almost 700 years ago today...

...a good idea was snuffed and pushed underground...

Jacques De Molay 1244 - 1314 | The Knights Templar | templarhistory.com

After the arrest on the morning of October 13th 1307 De Molay spent the next seven years in prison during which time he and his Templar knights were dealt tortures that were unbearable. The inquisitors would go to any means to extract the confessions that would damn the order in the eyes of the people and the Catholic Church.

Not to worry...

...Republican friends, The Wonkette says it best. Not everything is lost for you guys...

Wonkette, Politics for People with Dirty Minds

In sum: Her conservative views have been unwavering, it's her backbone that ain't so strong.

Conspiracy theories...

...anyone? Or just plain dumbness... I'm leaning towards the former as the question is so open-ended and crazy that it just may be true. I only need to find the logic behind it...

village voice > news > Democrats, Rejoice: Right Says Wrong on Harriet Miers by Laura Rozen

"I'm actually hoping there are no more vacancies during this presidency," sniffed Mark Levin, at the "Corner" weblog of the conservative National Review Online, reflecting the conservative consensus sense of having been let down by the White House. "The Miers nomination. . . is an unforced error," wrote David Frum, former Bush speech writer, in his column at National Review Online:

Unlike the Roberts nomination, which confirmed the previous balance on the Court, the O'Connor resignation offered an opportunity to change the balance. This is the moment for which the conservative legal movement has been waiting for two decades.There was no reason for [Bush] to choose anyone but one of these outstanding conservatives. So the question must be asked: Why not the best?

It figures...

..., after DeLay is forced to step down, the rest of the party put a "blunt" in his place... (insert big tongue-in-cheek picture here)

Californian looked likely, but Missouri lawmaker takes DeLay post

But after Republicans emerged from a hasty closed-door meeting late Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois tapped GOP whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri to fill DeLay's slot, at least temporarily, while Dreier will remain at the Rules Committee and share some of DeLay's former duties.

The bold typeface is mine...

Main Entry: 1blunt
Pronunciation: 'bl&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English
1 a : slow or deficient in feeling : INSENSITIVE b : obtuse in understanding or discernment : DULL
2 : having an edge or point that is not sharp
3 a : abrupt in speech or manner b : being straight to the point : DIRECT

There is some justice...

... after all. Even in Texas. Let's see how far it goes...

KR Washington Bureau | 09/28/2005 | Delay indicted in campaign finance probe

AUSTIN — A Texas grand jury indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Wednesday, forcing one of the most powerful Republicans in the government from his post.

I wonder who the "myth" serves...

Sigh... The grand machinery of propaganda can only serve a very few vested interests...

The 'myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters | csmonitor.com

The US and Iraqi governments have vastly overstated the number of foreign fighters in Iraq, and most of them don't come from Saudi Arabia,

Spooked by Google yet?

Well, you should be. I know that my beloved search engine is starting to raise the hairs at the base of my neck. Hmmm, isn't this akin to wiretapping? Isn't it enough with the Feds and Carnivore? Now "commercial snooping" will be the norm? Watch that space and mark my words, in the future the Feds will be contracting Google to keep an eye on YOU

Google Expected to Target Phone Search

What's the next big killer app from search companies? Quickly and easily searching telephone calls for a particular word or phrase--in essence, to Google your calls--is a likely candidate. And it isn't as far off as it might seem.

Mutations...

Well, since everything else evolves, perhaps schizophrenia is doing the same, just like a mutating virus... Impossible you say? The jury is still deliberating that one.

The Seattle Times: Health: Old antipsychotic drugs comparable to new drugs, study finds

Old antipsychotic drugs comparable to new drugs, study finds

By Rosie Mestel

Los Angeles Times

A landmark study comparing schizophrenia drugs has found that an older medication, perphenazine, is as effective at managing the devastating brain disorder as most of the newer, more-expensive drugs.

Closet? What closet?

Well, at least, honesty is spilling out of the female quarters... If only men would imitate...

New York Daily News - Home - Women bi into sex ... options

One in seven young women confides she has had a sexual encounter with another woman, a striking rise from past studies, federal researchers said.

"That was surprising to us," said study author William Mosher, a statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics. "The previous studies had not shown as much."

Human??

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005.

Now, why does the Emperor has to ask for permission to take a leak??

Yup!!!!

Click the picture for full story...

Making sense out of a nonsense situation...

I like John Farmer; he's making lots of sense to me, on this and some other issues. I don't know about you, but for me his assessment of our posh living style, our ubiquitous head in the sand, is right on target.

Imagine there's no city

But emergency planners have known for years how vulnerable New Orleans would be to a major storm. When I attended a seminar for FEMA emergency planning certification a few years ago, one of the two hypotheticals we studied was whether New Orleans, a city below sea level, could withstand a Category 4 hurricane. What happened this week may have been the worst-case scenario, but it was also right out of the textbook. The catastrophe predicted in our exercise came true this week. (The other, by the way, was a Category 3 hurricane hitting Lower Manhattan.)

Why, given our experts' clear knowledge of the Gulf Coast's vulnerability, were we so unprepared for the scale of this week's tragedy? The answer is simple: We live in the age of sweetness, light and horror.

We are anaesthetized by our prosperity. We sit addled in our suburban indifference until, every once in a while, our world is shattered by some horrific disaster. The Twin Towers fall. A tsunami kills over 250,000 people. A hurricane murders a city.

We have a few bad weeks. Then we get over it. Back to sweetness and light. Horror's back on hold.

Our politicians are mortally afraid of disturbing our comfort for any reason. So they have refused, in the name of not disrupting our economy, to urge us to change at all the way we live after 9/11. To do so, they say -- to devote greater resources to preparing for disaster, and thus to impinge potentially on our prosperity -- would be a victory for the terrorists.

The absurdity of this logic was revealed by Katrina. By this reasoning, if members of Congress had appropriated the money to reinforce the levees, to ensure a more rapid evacuation strategy and National Guard deployment and overall emergency response, they would have been handing Providence a victory it hadn't earned. Right.

Commentless...

You figure it out... Shame, a real fucking shame.

CBS News | Superdome Evacuation Stopped | September 3, 2005 03:48:19

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line, much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, next to the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.

Then again,...

...I may be wrong and there may be some hope, after all. I just hope there is no retribution coming for, at least once, telling the truth on TV and on Fox News, of all places. Kudos for Rivera and Shepard for breaking line!

TalkLeft: News Heroes

News Heroes

I've never seen anything as harrowing as Fox News' Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith on Hannity and Colmes. While Aaron Brown on CNN said we have "turned the corner", it's clearly not the truth. There are thousands of people trapped in what Geraldo called "this Hell on earth" at the convention center. No one has been bused out. Shepard was on I-10 and just devastating in his description of the "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of people being denied exit and still without food, water, medicine or water.

Soylent Green...

... Reality may be stranger than fiction.

So, you are telling me that if A: beef eats humans; B: We eat beef; therefore, as simple set math show: C. Human eats human... Nice... I think I'm turning vegetarian...

Theory links mad cow disease to funeral rites. 02/09/2005. ABC News Online

Theory links mad cow disease to funeral rites

Dead bodies washed ashore in India may have contaminated animal feed that was exported to the United Kingdom, triggering mad cow disease, scientists say.

The human remains would have floated downriver as part of Indian funeral ceremonies, the scientists write in The Lancet journal.

The cause of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which infected an estimated 2 million cattle during an epidemic, in the UK is unknown.

It is thought to have resulted from cattle being fed material containing remains of sheep infected with the disease scrapie.

But Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent says it may have been caused by the tonnes of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed.

He says the feed would have also contained the remains of humans infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

A rose, by any other name...

... is still a rose. And so are terrorists. Finally, something smart to do, if and when they actually do it.

Herald.com | 08/30/2005 | Posada may be Venezuela-bound

Posada may be Venezuela-bound

The U.S. government has agreed that Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles be deported to Venezuela if he loses his plea for asylum and other protections.

Africa, the last frontier...

Ever wonder why the continent is so behind the ball and power and resources are so tightly controlled by a few? Here is an example:

CNN.com - Report: Swazi princess whipped for loud music - Aug 28, 2005

EZULWINI VALLEY, Swaziland (Reuters) -- The king of Swaziland's daughter was whipped by a palace official at a party of teenage virgins ahead of a festival where more than 50,000 maidens are available to become her father's 13th wife, media said on Sunday.

Mind you, I'm all in favor of tradition, but, I'm more in favor of reason and logic.

Staying the course...

I feel proud of this woman. I wish many more mothers of sons and daughters in the military had the drive and the common sense to protest against a war that only makes sense in the minds of the current administration.

Sheehan Vows Her Cause Is Just Beginning - Los Angeles Times

CRAWFORD, Texas — The mother who pitched a tent near President Bush's property three weeks ago and watched her antiwar campaign gain momentum said Thursday that her efforts would not end, even if Bush granted her the face-to-face meeting she has been seeking.

A gift for the assertive woman...

I am laughing my ass off!! Thanks Terranova!!!

The stupidity of U.S. policy towards Cuba

This is by far the best recent article I've read about the stupidity of the current U.S. policy towards Cuba. It appeared, of all places, in our local newspaper, "Today's Sumbeam". I have a new respect for the paper that is deemed  "conservative" by most. Just click on it to read it.

W.T. F.!!! V2.0

I just confirmed what I suspected about about Pat Robertson: He is A Crazy Mother Fucker

I'm not fan of Chávez --I think he's anachronistic within the current context of South America-- but he is the leader the people of Venezuela democratically voted for, twice. Since when is a Christian Voice entitled to call for assassinations of world leaders? Is that "Christian"? Why does he feel with the right for that? And don't tell me that he has a red phone kind of direct line with Jesus. Sure, is a free country and free speech is guaranteed. Hey, here is my piece of "free speech": When is the current U.S. government end that arrogant policy of thinking that they are a global police force?

Stay the fuck out of South America. For your fucking record, Mr. Robertson, the place is overwhelmingly Christian; so, don't be waving Christian flags at the place. That Crusade was won when the Conquistadores colonized the place.

CNN.com - Robertson: U.S. should 'take out' Venezuela's Chavez - Aug 23, 2005

(CNN) -- Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas.

Proud member!!

Woohoo!! One of the first 500 members of Attention Trust Darn it! One of the first 300's... Watch that space, it will be something cool and big in the future. Darn it,! again, it is cool already, it will be huge in the future.

Attention is the substance of focus. It registers your interests by indicating choice for certain things and choice against other things. Any time you pay attention to something (and any time you ignore something), data is created. That data has value, but only if it's gathered, measured, and analyzed. Right now, you generally lack the ability to capture that data for yourself, so you can't benefit from it. But what if you could? And what if you could share your data with other people, who were also capturing their own data, or if you could exchange your data for something of value with companies and other institutions that were interested in learning more about the things that interested you? You'd be in control--you would decide who has access to what data, as well as what you'd accept in exchange for access to your data.

A layman's explanation by PC4Media.

As we use the web, we reveal lots of information about ourselves by what we pay attention to. Imagine if all of that information could be stored in a nice neat little xml file. And when we travel around the web, we can optionally share it with websites or other people. We can make them pay for it, lease it, scream for it "show me the money", barter for it, whatever. The important point is that we get to decide who has access to it, how long they have access to it, and what we want in return. And they have to tell us what they are going to do with our Attention data. But, the possibility of having all of that information within our control and being able to share it with anyone - is huge. It opens up the marketplace to anyone with the right product. It gives marketers the ability to plug into this data and serve us better. It gives new startups with clever algorithms the ability to bust out onto the scene.

Yes? Really? How so?

Sometimes I think he never left the drugs behind. Geeze,! at least Clinton didn't inhale... (insert big tongue in cheek here) But, seriously for whom consumption is that speech? It must be for the troops, as they have no real choice as to where they are sent. Well, pardon me, Mr. President, but you are not Alexander The Great, leading your troops by example...

IOL: Bush: Troops in Iraq protect US from terror

"Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

"They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war, and they know we will prevail," he said.

WTF!!

Finally, a rare find: self-conscious lawyers... In the wrong place and time, mind you...

New York Daily News - Breaking News - Officer: Army unit blocked from sharing 9/11 info with FBI

Shaffer said Able Danger identified Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers in 2000, but that military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the U.S.

The pathology of a bully...

Main Entry: pa·thol·o·gy
Pronunciation: -jE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
Etymology: New Latin pathologia & Middle French pathologie, from Greek pathologia study of the emotions, from path- + -logia -logy
...
2 : something abnormal: a : the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular disease b : deviation from propriety or from an assumed normal state of something nonliving or nonmaterial

Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy.

Rumsfeld testifying before the House Armed Services Committee in March: "The world has seen, in the last three-and-a-half years, the capability of the United States of America to go into Afghanistan ... and with 20,000, 15,000 troops working with the Afghans do what 200,000 Soviets couldn't do in a decade. They've seen the United States and the coalition forces go into Iraq ... That has to have a deterrent effect on people." (Ann Scott Tyson, "US Gaining World's Respect From Wars, Rumsfeld Asserts", the Washington Post, March 11.)

Gender and linking habits....

By way of Madame Levy I found an interesting article about linking habits of bloggers. It appears to be divided along gender lines with males overwhelmingly favoring male blog authors and females with the same trend towards their own gender. I counted my own blogroll and found I have links to 29 sites (as of today and could have more but I'm lazy about updating my MT templates...) and ten of those are to female authored sites, two that belong to gay writers (at least I know those two are) and the rest are links to male authored blogs. An almost 50/50 split. Not sure what that says about me as a person but it seems I'm not completely following the pack. Perhaps it has to do with what I like to read; what calls my attention in writing style, beliefs and ideas. I am not concerned about reaching any artificial "readership top" by strategically linking to other sites. Most of the sites I link to are sites I comment in and try to get to know the person behind the writing. Mind you, I have experienced some backfires by my habits but is all in a life's journey of learning. In any case, I'll be watching that space as social trends is something I find fascinating.

Keep up the good work!

apophenia: the biases of links

I began this investigation curious about gender differences. There are a few things that we know in social networks. First, our social networks are frequently split by gender (from childhood on). Second, men tend to have large numbers of weak ties and women tend to have fewer, but stronger ties. This means that in traditional social networks, men tend to know far more people but not nearly as intimately as those women know. (This is a huge advantage for men in professional spheres but tends to wreak havoc when social support becomes more necessary and is often attributed to depression later in life.)

As I was saying...

...ahem! I'm sure Chairman Mao is laughing his ass off, wherever his spirit is...

Skies open to China's new jet set

The number of millionaires in China is growing, and more and more Chinese will have a chance to own their own planes, said Michael Feinig, Diamond's managing director.

"It is not far from a reality for wealthy Chinese people to be able to treat the private jet as a practical means of transport, creating an attractive market for us," Feinig was quoted by the 21st Business Herald as saying.

Capitalism at its best...

...and it's too late to stop it... Well, duh!! Welcome to the club! They should have seen that one coming. The first thing that is satiated when one have access to a "variety of good", is hunger. When hunger is satiated, then the next, inevitable step, is consumming food for the taste of it. Then and there is when trouble begins. Nobody will eat unsavory foods for pleasure. Flip that one and you have a recipe for a fat waistline.

Fatter Chinese facing more health problems

"If the Chinese have a similar diet to Westerners, for example, with a high fat intake, they will also become corpulent," Gong said.

As China's economy grows, so do waistlines.

As the report pointed out, the Chinese diet has turned down an unhealthy road. Urban citizens' consumption of poultry, meat and oil/fat is too high, while the amount of cereals in the diet is relatively low.

Bullshit? Really?

Just because the outburst was "bullshit"? Or because he walked off the room? Hey, where's the bleeping thingy when you really need it? And what about all those commercials about "Erectile Dysfunction", on Prime Time, with the implicit invitation to a good "Fornication Under Consent of the King"? Right, I forgot, it is only intended as an aid for married couples in the flacid phase of life...

Chicago Tribune | Novak's outburst, exit stoke CNN's ire

"Bob Novak's behavior on CNN today was inexcusable and unacceptable," the network said in a statement. "Mr. Novak has apologized to CNN, and CNN apologizes to its viewers for his language and actions. We've asked Mr. Novak to take some time off."

It's a heck of a sendoff for "Inside Politics," which already is scheduled to be swallowed up after Friday's edition by Wolf Blitzer's new three-hour weekday program, "The Situation Room," set to launch Monday.

Already this year, CNN has axed Novak's "The Capital Gang" and "Crossfire." But CNN has expected him to be a regular contributor to "The Situation Room." There's no word yet on whether that now will change.

Misnomers...

Military Council for Justice AND Democracy??

Yep, that's a "misnomer" if I've ever seen one.

Talk about flashbacks. The press still uses the Spanish name "Junta" for this type of government. Anybody remember where the name came from? They even used the name for the military government that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974... Yup, it is an old and disgusting name for the infamy of millions of civilians being ruled by the sole of thousands of military boots... Hey, they have the bigger stick after all, right? I guess it gives them the right to flex some of that muscle, once in a while.

VOA News - Mauritanian Army Announces Overthrow of President Taya

In a statement issued in the name of the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, the Mauritanian military announced the armed forces have decided to end what they call the "totalitarian activities" of President Ould Taya and take power for up to two years.

Great ideas from a sadist child...

... put into practice in real war interrogation tactics... Now, imagine, just imagine, this being used on our own citizens, as the School of the Americas taught countless military heads on South América to use against their own citizens. Think this is farfetched? Think again.

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.

And then again...

...there is always the "optimists"...

Reaction to Bolton's U.N. Appointment

"Let's not prejudge his behavior. Let's wait for how he comes and what he says here. ... The tendency here at the United Nations is for us to work together. So I hope that this general tendency will prevail." _ Brazil's U.N. Ambassador Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg

Curriculum Obitus

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Greasy Assassin. Where You Lived: Israel. How You Died: Killed in Battle.

Heck, yes!! I would have

Heck, yes!! I would have flee the place like running from the bubonic pest... I did, once.

Watching the news and biting my nails...

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

The Expatriate Achtung! You are 15% brainwashworthy, 18% antitolerant, and 38% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism ("patriotism" for short) does not reach unhealthy levels. In Germany in the 30s, you would've left the country. One bad scenario -- as I hypothetically project you back in time -- is that you just wouldn't have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don't interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil shit was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could be one of them, depending on your age. Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would not have been a Nazi.

What's wrong with this picture?

Just go and look at the picture of a bunch of guys, "relaxing" in hammocks, with laptops firing RF beams all around... And then they want to "erase" stereotypes? Guys, you are not helping!

CNN.com - Geeks gather at 'What The Hack' - Jul 29, 2005

Geeks gather at 'What The Hack'
Computer security conference aims to erase stereotypes

Friday, July 29, 2005 Posted: 0605 GMT (1405 HKT)

LIEMPDE, Netherlands (AP) -- There are hundreds of tents on the hot and soggy campground, but this isn't your ordinary summertime outing, considering that it includes workshops with such titles as "Politics of Psychedelic Research" or "Fun and Mayhem with RFID."

Not that there is anything wrong with being one...

Where is Jerry Seinfeld when you need him?

CNN.com - Roberts documents reveal a conservative - Jul 27, 2005

Limiting Supreme Court's reach

Roberts argued that Congress had the power to limit the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction on controversial issues, like abortion, busing and school prayer -- but advised that doing so would be "bad policy," according to recently released memos.

A document dated April 12, 1982 shows that Roberts disagreed with the view of then-Assistant Attorney General Ted Olson that Republican legislation in Congress to limit such jurisdiction faced constitutional problems.

The Justice Department later sent a letter to the Senate and House Judiciary committees, concluding that Congress not curtail the high court's jurisdiction, the documents show.

Three years later, in a memo to his boss in the White House counsel's office, Fred Fielding, Roberts would still argue that the Senate bill to stop the Supreme Court from hearing challenges to voluntary school prayer laws was constitutional.

But he also advised that the Justice Department not reverse course and to "let sleeping dogs (an apt reference, given my view of the opinion) lie," he wrote.

The richness of language...

Mind you, I had to run for the nearest Merriam-Webster to find out what the heck "dragooned" means... I feel "harpooned" when I find a new word and the only way to take it out is to find their meaning. I should play more Scrabble...

La Vache Qui Lit

Perfectly clear words can be dragooned into sentences so grammatically torturous and incoherent that any meaning once inhabiting those words runs screaming fro m the wreckage.

Then, if you go and read the article with the "Dianetics" critic you find this quoted words from the book:

Dianetics begins with a stern admonition: "Important Note: In reading this book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood."

Wise words if I've ever read any... Talk about pointing to the obvious. Hey, Tom Cruise, "you had me at hello"...

Trained monkeys...

There is a reason circus monkeys are trained: so they would not bite their masters. In this context, the masters are the "people" who pay their taxes so that the monkeys can receive their pay. You can train a monkey to do a number of things, but, would you trust a monkey with a loaded .357? Well, at least not overnight in a place where  carrying firearms is a completely alien concept in the popular psychology (and this includes that of the monkeys) You cannot reverse a policy of "no" weapons carrying for a police force on a flick of a switch and expect they will not get trigger-happy with their new found toys... I'm afraid this is just the beginning of "a series of unfortunate events..."

Relatives and Friends Remember a Busy, Hopeful Man, and Discover a New Fear - New York Times

But on Friday morning, Jean Charles de Menezes became another innocent casualty of London's terrorist wars, shot and killed on the London Underground by police officers who mistook him for a would-be suicide bomber. The police have expressed regret for what they called a tragedy, but the incident brought fresh horror to Londoners who look at Mr. Menezes and see their sons, their brothers or themselves."Now I think it could happen to me, to anyone, to someone who was just visiting," said Mr. Menezes's cousin Alex Alves Pereira, a student in London who has emerged as a spokesman for the shocked family. "We are not safe here.

PS: Sorry to confess that I strongly believe that emotional IQ goes out the window with every minute of tactical training a police officer or a military personnel takes. It is a recipe for the the concoction of state sponsored sociopaths. Sure, it is always easier to react than to fix the root problems of many issues, but, does that makes us any better human beings?

PPS: Sorry too if anybody feels offended by the comparison. Violence, be it religiously motivated or state sponsored, is violence and goes beyond any logical excuse or reasoning. When all of them come back to the fold of "human beings" then there will be no need for comparisons. Mind you, I am well aware that a lot of "civilians" are salivating at the opportunity to crack some heads in the name of patriotism. Actually, "Planet of the Apes" is a great metaphor for what I'm saying. Just watch the movie...

Livin' la vida loca...

Great!! The new version of Windows will be called "Vista," Spanish for "View" or "Sight," depending on the context where it is used.

I guess is something else to blame Hispanics for when things start going wrong, right from the start, with the new version of Windows... (insert big tongue in cheek picture here)

Microsoft christens its latest baby - ZDNet UK News

The next version of Windows, until now referred to by its code name Longhorn, finally has an official name: Windows Vista.

The advertising tagline for Vista is "Clear, Confident, Connected: Bringing clarity to your world," according to a video of the announcement posted by Microsoft.

He's not?

Good God! Thanks! Coming from him.... I feel so much better now... (although, for some reason, that "probably" word is kind of stuck in my throat) Does that means that Lieberman and the so called "moderates" (what the heck is a "moderate"? A timid "liberal"? Perhaps
a circumstantial "conservative"? What is it?) would "probably" approve him in the hearings or "probably not"? Why do they always leave me with more questions?

Lieberman: Roberts Probably Not Extremist

A moderate Democratic senator who helped broker a deal over President Bush's judicial nominations said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts doesn't seem to be the kind of right-wing candidate they feared the president would select.

Jumping together...

This reminds me of a little trivia I read almost twenty years ago; it had to do with China and its people. One of the factoids was that if the Chinese paraded on a street, four in a row, they would parade for eternity. Another factoid was that if all the Chinese people jumped at exactly the same time they would knock Earth out of its orbit. Talk about "low tech" warfare...

China's stealth war on the U.S.

Their different approaches include financial warfare (subverting banking systems and stock markets), drug warfare (attacking the fabric of society by flooding it with illicit drugs), psychological and media warfare (manipulating perceptions to break down enemy will), international law warfare (blocking enemy actions using multinational organizations), resource warfare (seizing control of vital natural resources), even ecological warfare (creating man-made earthquakes or other natural disasters).

Like is going to make any difference

Perhaps the day the people of this country overcomes their apathy towards anything political. Not until then and perhaps "then" would be too late to really change anything...

The man who could shift the court right | csmonitor.com

The formal announcement has triggered a massive campaign by both conservative and liberal advocacy groups seeking to mold public opinion either for or against Judge Roberts. And it sets the stage for a Senate showdown that could, once again, test the limits of political resolve in Washington.

Speedy Gonzáles...

No pun intended (but mark my words, just in case....) Just a reflection on the speed our president can make a decision when just hours before he was playing poker with the reporters...

Bush Drops Supreme Bomb On Rovegate

Prime time is a special time in America, a time when families gather 'round the warm glow of the 42-inch screen to watch sitcoms, cop shows, and the occasional presidential address about bombing some country. But Tuesday will be different as President Bush goes before the cameras at 9 p.m. to announce the winner of the 2005 Supreme Court Sweepstakes.
Wow, that was fast: Just yesterday the president was asked about his pick at a White House press conference with the prime minister of India.

Reality checks...

Somebody, at least, is talking some sense about this mess... They may as well ask Dubya to commit Harakiri...

James Moore: Why Karl Rove Will Never Go - Yahoo! News

People who think the president might cast his deputy chief of staff to the wolves need to get another fantasy. Short of a Nixonian resignation by George W. Bush, or an indictment and conviction, the Architect, Bush's Brain, Turd Blossom, or by whatever name he is called, Karl Rove is on for the long ride. There would be no Bush presidency without Rove. All hopes of Republican realignment would be cast aside without Rove. Any aspirations George W. Bush had for a legacy beyond a hopeless war would be disappear as quickly as evidence of a Rove dirty political attack.

Nothing better to do with a life full of bliss?

I just wonder, time and again, if some people has nothing better to do with their lives, specially when they boast to the four winds that they have such a wonderful and full of bliss existence... I mean, doesn't a "bestseller" author has anything better to do than sending anonymous "tips" on weight loss to somebody that has struggled with the same problem for a number of years? Can't she use the same brain that is able to spew full length novels in six days to figure out that her "tips", sent in contempt, are old news? What is the point you are trying to make? That Julie is overweight? Big news flash: "she knows!!" As well as every other overweight woman --and adoring fan-- that visit your blog and read your novels every single day...

What bothers me the most is that I think we've had --the three of us-- enough water under the bridge for at least sign "our own comments"... (If they are approved or not is another story but at least is something honest) What is worst, to sign them under somebody else's name, is kind of low, don't you think? Come on, IP addresses are "unique" and they are recorded. Even a four-year old can match the numbers "68.42.40.113" in one place with the ones in another. A "bright one" may even tell you the same thing I'm saying here.

Thank you, though, for taking some time out of reading Julie's poetry --and staring at her picture,-- to also visit my other blogs. The traffic is always appreciated.

Where do they find them?

I mean, is it a prerequisite for a job at Fox News to be a fascist? Is this guy still holding a grudge from the "Hundred Years war"? This was written "before" the London attacks; I could almost hear the guy saying: "See? I told you so! It should have been Paris, not London, where that happened..."

FOXNews.com - The Big Story w/ John Gibson - My Word - Missed Opportunity

Paris was exactly the right place to pick and the Olympic committee screwed up.

Why? Simple. It would have been a three-week period where we wouldn't have had to worry about terrorism.

First, the French think they are so good at dealing with the Arab world that they would have gone out and paid every terrorist off. And things would have been calm.

Or another way to look at it is the French are already up to their eyeballs in terrorists. The French hide them in miserable slums, out of sight of the rich people in Paris.

So it would have been a treat, actually, to watch the French dealing with the problem of their own homegrown Islamist terrorists living in France already.

Now, this is the same guy that yesterday wrote:

Karl Rove Should Get a Medal

I say give Karl Rove (search) a medal, even if Bush has to fire him.

Why? Because Valerie Plame (search) should have been outed by somebody. And if nobody else had the cojones to do it, I'm glad Rove did — if he did do it, and he still says he didn't.

No, sir, the kids that are dying for nothing over in Iraq and Afghanistan should get a medal, the very moment they sign the recruitment papers thinking they are fighting for their country when in fact are just pawns on a worldwide chess game where people like Karl Rove are moving the pieces.

Let's not forget people like these reporters and commentators that fan a misleading patriotism into the red-hot conservative base of this country. What a bunch of hypocrites...

Weird news of the day...

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism Security

Washington lifts London ban for troops

July 12, 2005, 7:31 PM (GMT 02:00)

In response to a British protest, the US reversed an order issued a few hours earlier placing London out of bounds to thousands of US military personnel based in the UK. The order specified: "Until there is more knowledge about what happened."

Karl Rove or "where did I put...

...my shiny red horns?"

Now, why am I not the least bit surprised?

Why Bush Has To Fire Rove - Yahoo! News

The Nation -- In a weekend posting I asked if it was time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march? The question was prompted by a Newsweek article by reporter Michael Isikoff that disclosed the first documentary evidence showing that Rove revealed to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the
CIA. In a July 11, 2003 email that Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper sent to his bureau chief, Cooper noted he had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." "Agency" means CIA. This is not good news for Rove and the White House.

Beware the "War on Terror", Truthout.org. Article.

t r u t h o u t - Norman Solomon | Beware the "War on Terror"

"Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism. And it does whip up fear. Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few."

US Army general, William Odom, Retired, Nov/2002 on C-SPAN.

Big brother is watching...

Well, what do you know, I was just checking the stats for my sites and found that somebody at the U.S. Department of State has been reading my blogs. Actually, I'm jealous, somebody sent a message to someone in the U.S.D.O.S. with a link to my wife's blog, Julie. Hey, since when are Julie's steamy poems more interesting to the Department of State than my own stuff and photography!?!? Uh? That someone is checking her/his e-mail thru AOL Webmail. Here is a look at the stats:

Hmmm, is Dr. Condoleezza Rice into reading steamy Spanish poetry? I know she knows Russian like the back of her hand, I didn't know she knew Spanish too. I'm glad Colling Powell is out, I may think he was after Julie. With Dr. Rice, well, I don't know what to think...

Just do me a favor, all of you out there, if you don't know Spanish, please don't use the Google Translator to read us, it fucking STINKS!! It is better to ask us to translate that for you guys.

Live 8 - Philly - Over Two Hundred Pictures!

I just posted something in "Cambios y Reflexiones," my Spanish blog, about the "Live 8" Concert in Philadelphia. For those who do not read or speak Spanish, sorry, I will not post an English version of it here. However, suffice is to say, the post was about the uploading of a picture album with over two hundred photographs in it. The album is here:"Live 8 - Philly, Pictures"

I took almost six hundred pictures that day, from about 80 yards away from the stage. Below are three pictures with a circle marking the spot where my family and I were. I must say the experience was unforgettable and the richness of people and faces to be found there was a photographer's dream.

Above and to the left, where the links to my other sites are, I placed a permanent link to the album.

Live 8 is a very good cause against sickness and poverty in Africa. I hope this little grain of salt I'm contributing with my pictures helps to reach the hearts of those in power to change the destiny of our world.

I hope you all enjoy the pictures.

live8 philly
Philadelphia

Words to live by...

I love to read Wil Wheaton's blog. He's one of the very few high profile personalities I've had the pleasure to read that is open and humble, more so even than most people who are nobody. Here is a piece of self-advise that he's taking seriously. I've read Wil for a couple of years and he shares so, so much soul with his readers. I know exactly how he must be feeling about being accosted by creeps that take advantage of such openness and honesty. I'll keep reading though. The man knows how to share thoughts...

I hate Reality TV, and I feel like my blog is dangerously close to crossing the line from " this interesting thing happened to me" to "come with me while I take a shit in the woods." I need to tell more stories, and bear less soul. You know what I've learned about The Internets? It's full of freaks, and if a high-profile person bears too much soul, they really come out of the woodwork and latch on. It's a little creepy. So, I need to reclaim a lot of myself for myself and my friends and family. If that means people stop reading WWdN, I'm really okay with that. In fact, I hope it has a bit of a Darwin effect.

Remembrance of a Tomorrow

You have a name,
A body, a voice,
A soul and I
Held you, left
The dream behind.
I will not let
Passion escape.
No more, never again
Will allow sanity
To plot my
Heart's course.
I want to remember
A tomorrow where
You simply be.

The dream, the loss
The pain, letting
Go when I held
You in my hands

Never again! 

I'll hold your waist,
I'll feel you mine and
Turning to me, your
Soul will speak 
Your eyes, softly
Weaving little words,
In abandonment,
Saying "I'm yours,
Don't, ever
Again, let go"

And I remember,
That tomorrow,
Like the past
Of a life that
Has brought me
To you.

Of Mercy Killing and Killing Mercy

The clock is ticking. Chances are Terri Schiavo will be allowed to die in peace. Time flows and minutes and days pile up like autumnal leaves. Chances are time, the great equalizer, will rule above all judges and members of Congress. No appeals there. No higher authority. No way back.

Almost 30 years ago, to the date, another young woman, 22 years old and single, Karen Ann Quinlan, collapsed at a party from overdosing on sleeping pills and alcohol. She stopped breathing for long periods and by the time she was treated at the hospital, she was brain dead. A few days later she was declared:

as being in a "chronic persistent vegetative state." Dr. Fred Plum, one of such expert witnesses, defined this as a "subject who remains with the capacity to maintain the vegetative parts of neurological function but who . . . no longer has any cognitive function." . . .

Her breathing was assisted by a respirator and was fed by a tube. Her parents, in their right mind, after exhausting every bit of hope that their daughter could regain consciousness, requested her respirator to be disconnected and Karen be allowed to die in peace. Karen's doctors and the hospital, refused. What ensued was a long court battle and a landmark ruling in favor of the parents. They were granted their wish to spare their daughter from an unknown amount of time suspended between here and there. The ruling was to disconnect her breathing support apparatus, not her feeding tube. In a interesting turn of events, her breathing assistance was disconnected and she kept breathing on her own. It took almost 10 more years for her to die from pneumonia. She died in 1985.

The main issue was the inability of a patient to make her own decisions and one of guardianship:

#18. Our affirmation of Karen's independent right of choice, however, would ordinarily be based upon her competency to assert it. The sad truth, however, is that she is grossly incompetent and we cannot discern her supposed choice based on the testimony of her previous conversations with friends, where such testimony is without sufficient probative weight. . . . Nevertheless we have concluded that Karen's right of privacy may be asserted on her behalf by her guardian under the peculiar circumstances here present.

#19. If a putative decision by Karen to permit this non-cognitive, vegetative existence to terminate by natural forces is regarded as a valuable incident of her right of privacy, as we believe it to be, then it should not be discarded solely on the basis that her condition prevents her conscious exercise of the choice. The only practical way to prevent destruction of the right is to permit the guardian and family of Karen to render their best judgment, subject to the qualifications hereinafter stated, as to whether she would exercise it in these circumstances. If their conclusion is in the affirmative this decision should be accepted by a society the overwhelming majority of whose members would, we think, in similar circumstances, exercise such a choice in the same way for themselves or for those closest to them. It is for this reason that we determine that Karen's right of privacy may be asserted in her behalf, in this respect, by her guardian and family under the particular circumstances presented by this record.

In that case, Karen's guardians, her own parents, opted for sparing her a life akin to a house plant. Humans don't fit well in the Vegetable Kingdom. Her condition denied her even the limbic, reactive, feral consciousness of an animal. In my opinion, no human being deserves such a life. Her parents, her acting guardians, asked for, and received, the right to provide Karen with a mercy killing. That the ruling only contemplated the disconnection of her breathing assistance and she continued to breath on her own, does not deny the fact the ruling was a victory for the rights of guardians to decide what they consider the best for their protégé, if and when said person has no hope to ever make decisions for him/herself.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the sad situation of Terri Schiavo, who's the unwilling ping-pong ball between her husband's desire to grant Terri's wishes of a merciful passing and her parents who want her to cling to a life that just not there and never will. Terri's court appointed Guardian, Jay Wolfson, after two month of close contact with Terri, appeared to lean towards disconnecting her feeding tube. The above link is to an interesting article in Shady Radio and says in part:

Also, Wolfson concluded, Schiavo would never have tolerated the enormous, "omnipresent" acrimony between her husband and parents.

In the 38-page report he wrote afterwards, Wolfson said the best decision for Schiavo could be made only if both sides agreed to fresh, independent medical testing. If the new testing showed she couldn't swallow on her own and that Schiavo had no hope for improvement, then the feeding tube should be pulled.

And then, it appears that all efforts for forming such an independent panel went up in smoke. Countless judges making decisions, three Supreme Court hearings denying hearing the case and sending it back to the State of Florida, and all that to end with a sort of legal consensus that she should be allowed to die. Her right to a merciful end. Then, enter the right wing politicians and their holier than thou attitude toward life and righteousness. All the way to the top it went (it seems that one step above that is God). G.W.Bush is assuming the role of God's Archangel and ruled that Terri should LIVE... If that isn't killing mercy, I don't know what is.

The battle is not over. Thankfully, there's still some separation between the Judicial and Executive branches of government. The lines are being blurred as we speak. Still there though. I hope reason, and mercy, prevails.

Throw the glamour out the window...

It isn't because I was a bonafide fan of Star Trek TNG that I like Wil Wheaton. I like the guy because he is one of the most candid, warm, down-to-earth, hard working, self-abnegating persons the bestiary of Hollywood has ever produced. Per his own words, this wasn't always the case. Today's Wil Wheaton is the product of his life experience and of paying close attention to past mistakes. That's an exception, not the rule, from where I see it.

I read his journal almost daily. It is perhaps, due to the nature of his writing being so personal, a voyeuristic compelling. Who cares? On the other hand, I don't have a local chapter of V.A., so I'll have to live with it. Meanwhile, I'm having fun watching from my local window what Wil is up to and wants to share with us. Hey!, the guy actually writes you back like a friend if you send him a message and is something relevant. The couple of times he did write back to me was enough to make me grow an appreciation for the person, not the actor and writer.

Professionally, things seem to be brightening up for Wil. A few weeks ago he finished filming an episode for one of TV's rating kings: CSI; yes, the original; Las Vegas centric issue of the franchise it has become (did I hear somewhere that there's thinking about creating a CSI London? Or was I dreaming it?). Well, that episode airs tonight and I'll be glued to the screen -- at the expense of foresaking my Spanish "Novela" on Telemundo that airs at the same time as CSI, that is... Sigh, the sacrifices I'll have to do for you, Wil...

Well, talk about signs...

I just read in the news that Reggie Roby died this morning. This just a few weeks after Reggie White died at his home.

Both men named Reggie. Both men 43 when they died. Both successful and retired NFL players. Both great family guys and caring community people.

This morning, early, many hours before I read the news, on my way to work, I snapped this photo of a Black Volture sitting on top of the cross at our local church and placed it in my photoblog. At the moment of stopping my car and preparing my camera I wondered: What is it waiting for?

Old tales say that bad things come in threes. I hope they are wrong.

The view; the other side of the pond...

I just read something funny in the New Yorker magazine; the paper version, mind you, on this week's edition. It was a commentary about the state of affairs in the European Union titled Pigs Must Play:

Does it even include Great Britain? To most Englishman, the geography is unambiguous: Europe is what you get if you are stupid enough to venture any farther than Kent.

About immortality...

Ray Kurzweil is at it, again. There is a very interesting article about his latest book, Fantastic Voyage: Live long enough to live forever, at Wired.com.

I won't speculate about the possibility of ever achieving such a feat, it is beyond the scope of what concerns me. The article, as well as the book, as I gather from the comments (I've not read the book yet), leaves outside of the debate the philosophical and ethical implications of immortality.

The quest for immortality is as old as death. The belief systems constructed around death have tried to explain or, why not?, speculate about what lies beyond the threshold of death. Who can blame us, homo sapiens, for not trying? As a species, homo sapiens are the only ones in the Animal Kingdom to contemplate their own death. Survival instinct in the rest of the species does not account for contemplation. Homo Sapiens -leaving the word humanity out on purpose- hate, above all, uncertainty and death is the biggest uncertainty placed on our path, the moment our embryos start dividing cells a fortuitous event pairs a female egg with a sperm.

In the face of uncertainty our species wriggle around it until either the temporal continuum resolves it -which usually is the case for most of them-, we find logical explanations for it, or we build a mystic surrounding it. Death is one of those uncertainties that has been laughing at time and logic and enclosing it in "mystic" is one of our species favorite pastimes.

Most, perhaps everyone of us, go to their graves clutching onto their own "mystic" of death, wrapped around -or perhaps wrapped inside- a dogma of their choosing, even if that dogma is the belief in nothing. Yes, that temporal continuum is merciless and resigning to a certain outcome is a choice thrust upon our chest as a one sided coin.

Still, it appears though, that some bright minds still quest for a Philosopher's Stone that would, if nothing else, build a wall between our psyches and that unsurmountable of all uncertainties. I suppose that, at some point in time, someone may succeed in building that wall. (If you are still around, keep an eye on the news...)

The past few centuries of human history have shown our species in a path of suppression of natural selection. Improvements in science and health care appear to have been an equalizer in that natural selection. But, the real, inequitable truth, is that equalization depends on access. Modern societies have, for the most part, socialized access to health care. But only to a certain extent. Much room for improvement is left for the socialization to spread fully. If the above quest ever succeeds to achieve its goal, the shift back to human natural selection will be so sharp and dramatic that would make virus mutations the inspiration for poetry...

Pintando con Luz

Lo and behold! I finished redesigning my photoblog, Pintando con Luz.

Just a place to paste some of the many pictures I take. Always in pursuit of angles, shadows and highlights. I hope you like the pictures.

Still here

Well, I haven't gone anywhere. Always here, following the same routine. I've been doing a lot of reading though. Online and off-line, something that would make my pen-pal, Joel Biroco, happy.

I don't have many excuses for not writing. I stopped writing after I sent the entry about Misguided Targets. I suppose a lot of frustration went into making that observation. The situation with the war in Iraq --which hasn't improved that I can see--, the Presidential Race (lost), the U.S. rapport with the rest of the world, etc., can bring that kind of commentaries out of an observant person. I mean, if you do share such a vantage point of view.

I won't get into the controversy of analyzing the "other" half of the American population. Suffice is to say that I see it as refusing to let go of a bad marriage: when divorce is out of the question, you just try to carry it the best way you can.

On the practical side of things, I've been redesigning my Spanish blog and adding some links. Lots of what I believe is very good writing is done in Spanish.

Let's hope I can keep the commitment and write more often.

Misguided targets...

"...the fallacy that good is limited by evil, and that you cannot receive any good except through eliminating the corresponding evil by realizing it and beating it back. In this view, life becomes a continual combat against every imaginable form of evil, and after we have racked our brains to devise precautions against all possible evil happenings, there remains the chance, and much more than the chance, that we have by no means exhausted the category of negative possibilities, and that others may arise that no amount of foresight on our part could have imagined. The more we see into this position the more intolerable it becomes, because from this standpoint we can never attain any certain basis of action, and the sources of possible evil multiply as we contemplate them. To set forth to outwit all evil by our knowledge of its nature is to attempt a task the hopelessness of which becomes apparent when we see it in its true light"

Judge Thomas Troward, "The Dore Lectures On Mental Science".

This was written about a hundred years ago, Still, I've got a chill running thru my back when I read it. We, The Almighty People, are so much of a herd on this "War on Terrorism" that, when we drive past a milk farm, the cows go into fits of laughter...

Of Blogs and Flogs

I wonder why, with so many interesting things happening around me and beyond, is it so difficult to sit down and just write about it. Anything. How does some people actually learn to organize their ideas and pour them effortlessly down in fluid writing? For me, most of the time, although I love to write, it feels like I rather volunteer for a good flogging than enjoying some nice blogging. Writer's block? No, I don't think so. It feels more like lack of will and motivation. Still, in the back of your mind, you know there is a blog waiting to be filled with some serious thoughts and experiences - not that those would ever come from me but I can hope, right? - and then guilt sets in, like you are forgetting to call your mom or something like that.

Then, to "facilitate" my blog life, I had the brilliant idea of creating another blog for my Spanish thoughts... Go figure. It seems that masochism is one of my personality treats.

More on this later? Perhaps...

Réquiem para un manosanta

Don Pablo, mi amigo y consejero, así como llego a mi vida, salido de la nada para caer en ella, así se fue. El día de su partida, 24 de abril, la noticia me encontró dentro de mi; ensimismado en quehaceres que no me permitieron digerirle. Como que no pasó. Como que todavía estaba su presencia alrededor. Quizás sea así. Quizás algo quedó detrás; omnipresente e intangible, pero aquí, cerca de uno; susurrando consejos, de aquellos que son pedidos y de los que no lo son.

Pablo Gonzalez nació en 1946, en la Ciudad de las Piñas, Barceloneta, Puerto Rico. Ciudad con playas de arenas negras y los manantiales de agua fresca más pura de toda la isla. Su compleaños, 25 de Julio, fecha imposible de olvidar para mi, era compartido con mi hija Amarís. Padre de familia, tenía responsabilidades y preocupaciones tan mundanas como las mias; con una esposa que le amaba, un hijo ya crecido y otro que bordea los diez. Pero don Pablo era también otra cosa. Don Pablo era un ser que vivía en dos mundos; un manosanta, un chamán; a la vez el portal a un lugar que no se encuentra en esta realidad y el viajero que le cruza a placer. Don Pablo era un ejemplo viviente de una realidad que nos está vedada. Amigo de Orixás, intercedía ante Exu, charlaba con Xangó y era amante de Iemanjá.

¿Cómo se reemplaza uno de estos seres que te cuentan cosas de un mundo que vive más allá de tu visión? Alguien que parece mirar detrás de escena la obra de tu vida. Alguien que te alimenta los sueños con imagenes fantásticas de espiritus que se compiten entre si el tablero de una realidad que está de éste lado. Alguien que te sana el espíritu cuando este necesita ser sanado. ¿Cómo hago ahora para saber que es lo que Ogum u Obatalá quieren de mi? ¿Cómo se que Iemanjá me escucha, que me quiere, que está contenta conmigo?

Muchos andan por ahí que visten el mismo sayo, sin embargo, uno no debe salir a buscarlos. Para mi don Pablo pasó, no fue buscado, fue sino el producto de mis acciones. Un día estaba allí. Yo, en el banquillo. El, testigo, abogado y fiscal de mis haceres. Yo, el juez. Una noche, como tantas otras, viajó a ese plano que visitaba a menudo para charlar con dioses, semidioses y otros espíritus. Esa noche decidió quedarse. Esa noche le pidió al pálido jinete, a cuya espalda cabalgaba por ese mundo, que no le devolviera. La muerte, ese pálido jinete, amigo inseparable, se obligó a conceder.

Don Pablo, mi amigo, de este lado el vacío es como hambre. Desde donde esté, no se olvide de volver un día a para charlar conmigo. Cierto es, nos volveremos a encontrar.

Existentialism and a flight to Spanish

Main Entry: ex is ten tial ism Pronunciation: -'ten(t)-sh&-"li-z&m

Function: noun: a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad

I decided to start a new blog in my site for Spanish language musings only. I believe that although the two languages, English and Spanish, are not mutually exclusive in a given place, it could be a little confusing to follow one's train of thoughts if I jump from one to the other, unless of course, the reader is also bilingual. That is something I cannot assume.

The new blog is at: Lear, Bitacora Existencial

Now, why the existentialism theme in the blogs? The reason is that I am trying to find a voice that is able to explain why I see things the way I do. I found a very good quote about the definition of existentialism at Existentialism: A Primer:

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society. - Anita Brookner (b. 1938), British novelist, art historian. Interview in Writers at Work, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton (1988).

I am a firm believer that life is what we make of it and that the strategy is to stay one step ahead of those things that would interfere with the goals we set forth for ourselves. In this blog, as well as the one in Spanish, I will ponder upon many things I see and experience in my life. You may ask in what part of that equation does the I Ching fits in. The answer is that the I Ching plays a very important role in my life and the pursuit of those goals. It is a helpful tool to make decisions I can live with and, why not, its understanding, is a personal goal by itself.

Old death and tiny cemeteries

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne (1572-1631)

A few days ago we were coming back home from yet another auction and we took some of the back roads. The day was cold but beautiful for a drive around the fields of Salem county in New Jersey. Salem is where the oldest colony settlements in New Jersey are to be found and history, as it pertains to the European colonization of this country, is rife.

Photography is the "art of seeing". Over the years, although I don't consider myself a school taught professional, I have developed what I humbly consider a respectable eye for photography. For that I mean not that I have mastered all the technicalities of the trade, but that I have an eye able to find subjects worthy of being photographed. Or that is what I'd like to think. Be it as it may, I have very good peripheral vision and I'm constantly scanning, left and right, for something that would make me take the lid off my camera. My wife thinks this is distracting when you are at the wheel of your car. I suppose a passenger can't but pray for a safe arrival when a driver's field of interest on the road is about 160° as opposed to a "safe" 60° field of vision. She has been trying to find some horse blinders that would fit me. Oh well, everybody is a critic...

Many times this practice pays off. Just over a road I have travelled many times before, and in which I've never noticed anything interesting, I spotted for the first time something that made me hit the brakes: the tiniest formal cemetery I have ever seen.

This little plot of hallowed land measured some 10 feet by 5 feet and had eight graves in it. Some of the headstones were very small, made of limestone and corroded beyond any legibility. It made me think of babies buried there.
The whole sight was so curious and compelling that I took several pictures from different angles. The only headstone I was able to read though was of a man called Nathaniel Stretch and he lived from 1792 to 1870. It was very hard to read and had to play some Photoshop tricks to actually bring the writing up (see the negative picture below).

I would say it is safe to assume that the other graves are of close family members. The only thing I found about Mr. Stretch is that at one time he owned the famous Hancock House situated in what is now known as Lower Alloway Creek. He sold that house for $4,200 in 1848. The tiny cemetery is only a few miles away from the house. If I find some will and the proper mood I will do some further research at the Salem County Historical Society and see who this man really was.


The whole affair was a good example of synchronicity with something I've just read. It is a critic in the New York Review of Books, by W.S. Merwin, of a book by Robert Pogue Harrison called The Dominion of the Dead

Mr. Harrison have some very interesting premises in his book about death and how humanity deals with it. One of those premises is that Humanity

"is not a species (Homo Sapiens is a species); it is a way of being mortal and relating to the dead. To be human means above all to bury."

What's interesting in all this is that I read the article after taking the pictures. Even though I am fond of them as photographic subjects, that day I wasn't looking for cemeteries compelled by the article. It just found me and I had only intended to add the pictures to my collection. When I read the article, I thought: "what a great example of some of Mr. Harrison's expositions". As he says in the final chapter:

"While it is true that we speak with the words of the dead, it is equally true that the dead speak in and through the voices of the living. We inherit their words so as to lend them voice."

Mr. Nathaniel Stretch and his close family, whoever he was in real life as a person, has found an unintended voice some 134 years after his death.

Cheers to you Nathaniel. Live long.

Auctions and the Ephemeral Quality of Life

Last Saturday I went to an Estate Auction. I'm always visiting auctions. I am a "Hi, my name is Luis and I'm an auction junkie..." type of guy. Some of the times I'm just curious about what may be there, some others I go because there are books advertised. The present case had both characteristics.

This auction was different in many ways from others though. For once, I took my camera with me. Even though my cameras are always at arm's reach, this was a first. The other interesting thing was the items that were there for auction. The place was full of Egyptian articles and esoteric books about Kabala and ancient Egypt religious practices. Quite amazing indeed.

There is something magical about Estate Auctions. If you step aside from the obvious reason you go to an auction, if you place yourself as an observer, the proverbial fly on the wall, you would experience something very different. Auctions are the epitome of object immortality while at the same time are a vision of the future. It is our own mortality that dances at the tune of the auctioneer's voice. Left behind possessions are but a surreal echo of a person's life. I think that if I wasn't so fascinated by some of the items one sometimes finds at auctions I would stand in awe in their presence as if they were religious relics. I cannot but wonder what drove some of the deceased to collect many of the curious items we can find.

This lady, I found out, died in 1999 of lung cancer. The auction was held at her house and her husband was there - a witness to the common past of this lady with her personal possessions - taking himself pictures of it all. As if this was his own rite of passage. Perhaps an incomplete one at that. A not so clean break with the past. This is alright, I cannot find fault in creating memories. Memories, after all, are the ultimate possession.

All of it makes me wonder if I could ever find a practical use in my own life for what Joel Biroco said in his online journal:

I do think possessions weigh you down, give you too much that's too trivial to think about. One day I will inherit what my parents spent their lives slaving for. Not a massive amount, but enough to last a long time if I go to live in a place where food and shelter is cheap, such as Asia. Then perhaps my accumulated skills at living light and desiring little may come into their own. Perhaps then I will stop marking time, as it were, and start living. Oh, I don't say I am not living now, I'm just very very curious about what I'm actually living for

The goal is very noble indeed. Present society is so stuck on accumulation that we've become overgrown squirrels preparing for a hibernation that never seems to happen. When the date is actually upon us, material possessions do actually lose their appeal. Unless you are an ancient Egyptian - and this lady, if we go by what she had in life, appears to have been one in spirit - whereby your possessions accompany you to the afterlife, they are always checked at the door, thank you. On the other hand, I really wish that, as a tribute to her beliefs in life, some of the things that were at the auction, actually had made it to her side in the coffin.

Many times I wish I had the ascetic mentality that Joel seems to be developing. Easier said than done. Baggage is already way beyond my control and I am already bound to fatten some auctioneer's wallet.

Mortality is nothing but an opportunity for those left among the living to keep accumulating from left behind possessions. All of it to eventually feed those that will most certainly come to their own Estate Auctions.

Living dangerously

There are sacred things and there are SACRED things. You just don't mess with sushi unless you are a pro at Russian Roulete!!

Well, so much for that...

New Blog design

I've still got it! How do you like the new design for this blog?

I hadn't designed web sites since 1995 when I created what at that moment was the first site for a Steamship Agency in the U.S. The company was "Gulf and Atlantic Maritime Services, Inc." and is now defunct. It has since merged with the giant A.P. Moller back in 2000. The domain name was "gnamaritime.com" and is a name that has been expired for a few years already.

I just did an experiment to see if I could find the old site at the WayBack Machine in the Archive.org site. Surprise, surprise! It was there. Here is how my site looked like in 1995: Gulf and Atlantic

Pitiful, eh? Compared to today's designs and tools available to create sites, the darn thing looks more primitive than an undiscovered Amazonian tribe, but, believe me, it was not only cutting edge at the time but the very first site for a Shipping Agency in the U.S. plus one of the first ones in the world for shipping related services. At that time the Web was completely new and almost unexplored for business promotion. I just wish I hadn't had so many other responsibilities at the time that took me away from web designing and programming. Who knows, you may had been reading the musings of a Yahoo like ticoon by now... Wishful thinking? Well...There are so many, self-made web-millionaire weirdoes out there that one more weirdo would fit right in. Water under the bridge...

Which brings me to today's posting. I had originally "borrowed" a design for this blog from another one using Movable Type. That design was completely done with HTML Tables and contained the most obscure coding you can imagine. At the end of the day, I had changed so many things in there that the code was completely unrecognizable from the original "borrowed" design. If you believe me that it was obscure to begin with, the end result was right down akin to Egyptian hieroglyphs before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone...

Finally, I decided to "refresh" my web design knowledge. A few books, design oriented web site readings and Dreamweaver's learning curves later, here is the result. Now the whole blog is based on CSS and XHTML. With the exception of the Calendar section, it contains no HTML Tables. It even passed the W3 compatibility check! See the links to the validation site to the left and check it out.

You can also check my Home Page. That is the portal to a new site I designed that will host an I Ching Forum, among other themes, in Spanish.

If you use Movable Type for your blog and like this design, you can download it from here. Just customize it to your needs.

How I blew 20 Million Dollars...

I must give it to them, these guys are persistent. I suppose this kind of scam must work for the perpetrators or otherwise not so many people would be wasting so much time and bandwidth in this kind of crap. I even read somewhere that this is an actual industry in Nigeria with traceable income in the overall GDP.

There must also be an unending supply of suckers out there who actually reply to this kind of correspondence. Well, good luck guys!!! Who knows, maybe some distant cousin will get the 20 millions and cut me in the profits. I am sure I will not...

Would somebody please put this guy Musere out of his misery?

By the way Mr. Musere, please check your spelling. It does not look very professional in business transactions to have these kind of errors. Besides, aren't there 20 million reasons to look good?

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

Email:rmusere@mailtobe.com

Dear Andrade,

Compliments.

My name is MR. ROLAND MUSERE, a close confidant of Mr.Martin Andrade,a
foreign national but who was resident engineer who was into heavy duty
farm equipment maintenance and supplies in Zimbabwe. Since his death I
have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my friend's
extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his last
name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I
contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money
left behind by my friend before they get confisicated or declared
unserviceable by the security company where this huge deposits were
lodged.

.... read on

The crux of the matter is that during the war against the farmers in
Zimbabwe from the supporters of President Robert Mugabe to claim all the
white-owned farms to his party members and his followers, he ordered all
white farmers to surrender all their farms to his party members and his
followers.

My friend being one of the best agric-engineers in the country and because
he did not support Mugabe's ideas,Mugabe's supporters invaded his site and
burnt everything in the site, killing him and his entire household and
made away with a lot of items in his site.

Before his death, he had deposited with one of the Security Companies in
Europe the sum of US$20 Million (Twenty million USD), then after his
death,because of the apprehension all over the place I decided to move out
of Zimbabwe temporarily.Indeed my late friend died just a couple of days
after he had just returned from a visit to the said Security company in
Europe where he had gone to extend the period of domicile of the Twenty
Million USD for another 12 months.

Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the the relatives for some
years now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the
deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this
transaction is moved out of the Security Company. You will be rewarded
with 25% of the total sum for your assistance, 5% will be mapped out for
any expenses that may be incurred in the course of this transaction and
70% will be for invest in your country.

All I want you to do is to furnish me with your confidential phone numbers
for easy ommunication. You can contact me via mail:rmusere@mailtobe.com
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MR ROLAND MUSERE

Looking at things in a certain way

Today I was reading what I consider one of the best online journals around and had an epiphany: This world, behind the fluttering banners of "Big Pharm", is walking right into the gates of hell (albeit with the sound of lulling music...)

It is such a shame that the voices of so many people - the real, internal voices - are being suffocated by dulling medicines. Mind you, most of them ask for it, cry for them - please take away this pain that, ever so intangible, resides in my head. Very few people have the spine, the courage or the vision to make use of such states of mind. Depression, in the hands of the very few, is a tool for artistic brilliance. We are however, bombarded from every side with sobering pitches of impending personal doom by succumbing to such states. Personally, I'd be much more concerned about falling into that river...

When I read or hear about depression, or when I am depressed - something that seems to creep up on me, every so often - I find that reading Hex 18 gives the situation some missing perspective.

The popular Spanish translation for the I Ching (Yi Jing) is Libro de las mutaciones as opposed to the popular English translation of Book of Changes. The key word, of course, is "mutaciones", which translates into English, in a very straight forward manner, to "mutations".

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has this entry for change:

1 a : to make different in some particular : ALTER "never bothered to change the will" b : to make radically different : TRANSFORM "can't change human nature"; c : to give a different position, course, or direction to 2 a : to replace with another "let's change the subject" b : to make a shift from one to another : SWITCH "always changes sides in an argument" c : to exchange for an equivalent sum or comparable item d : to undergo a modification of "foliage changing color"

However, mutation has the following entry:

1 : a significant and basic alteration

While the word change leaves the door open to many different interpretations mutation is very specific. For me, the nature of mutation is the essence of the Yi. Which brings me back to Hex 18.

Hexagram 18 is perhaps one of the most misunderstood hexagrams in the Yi. Wilhelm/Baynes translates the name of 18 as Work on what has been spoiled (decay). Small wonder then that thanks to the most popular Western translation of the Yi a querent cringes every time this hexagram is obtained in a reading. Another one, Wu Jing-Nuan, translates it as Poison, Destruction. I prefer Richard Rutt though. His translation is Mildew His first line for this hexagram reads:

6 base: Milldew for a deceased male ancestor. He has a son: thus, for a dead father, NO MISFORTUNE. DANGEROUS; but ultimately AUSPICIOUS

What other hexagram resonates so much with depression as Hex 18? Before popping that pill, toss the coins. Who knows, this may come up...

Dragones negros...

Hace algunas noches tuve un sueño bastante inquietante y curioso. Como podrán saber, uno de mis hobbies es la fotografía. Siempre ando de arriba para abajo con una mochila llena de cámaras y lentes mientras mi trípode y monópodo viajan en mi camioneta a la espera de ser usados.

En el sueño, estaba viajando en mi coche por la rambla de una playa. Acababa de caer la noche. La playa corria de norte a sur y era curveada como si encerrara una pequeña bahía. Cada punta de la playa tenía un monte de altura regular que permitía ver la playa completa desde un punto de vista muy ventajoso. En un momento dado de mi paseo, cuando me estaba acercando al extremo norte de la playa y la ruta empezaba a subir al monte que dominaba esa parte, vi que la luna estaba saliendo sobre el horizonte. Una luna enorme y amarilla que iluminaba la costa completa y dejaba su imagen en el agua como si esta fuera el camino a algún lugar místico. Paré enseguida y saquè mi equipo de fotografía para ver si podía sacar algunas fotos decentes de tal visión inspiradora.

Una vez en posición, cuando estaba a punto de empezar a tomar las fotos, vi que sobre el horizonte, entre este y la posición actual de la luna, algo inmenso y negro venía volando hacía la playa. La forma de volar era bien curiosa ya que resemblaba a un animal que estubiera nadando en el aire, no volando. Alguien que haya visto a una serpiente nadando sabrá de que estoy hablando, solo que esto era en el aire.

Cuando la inmensidad negra estaba lo suficientemente cerca como para ver algún detalle, pude notar que no se trataba de un cuerpo singular sino que era un grupo de siete u ocho dragones negros que, a la vez que volaban en dirección a la playa, se entrelazaban en vuelo como un grupo de serpientes en un balde de agua. Cada dragón cargaba a un jinete que no pude ver en detalle. Sin embargo, noté que llevaban armaduras negras lo cual tenía el efecto de que los jinetes parecían parte del cuerpo de los dragones. La acrobacía de los dragones era algo fantástico, todo el tiempo haciendo ochos en el aire mientras entre si parecían anudarse imposiblemente.

Desde mi punto de vista, cuando los dragones estaban sobre las aguas de la playa, en línea recta entre mi monte y el monte del extremo sur, estos empezaron a nadar. El agua de la playa era absolutamente cristalina y les podía ver jugando debajo de la superficie. Yo sabía, sin embargo, que estas acrobacias no eran juegos y tenían un propósito bien definido. No puedo decir con seguridad pero puedo jurar que tal propósito no era benigno y tal certeza me llenaba de temor. Era como estar espiando el trabajo de un grupo de hechiceros practicando mudras mágicos con el cuerpo de estos animales místicos.

De más está decir, en el sueño sentía la urgencia de escapar de allí y buscar inutilmente de un refugio que me escondiera de estos dragones a los que sabía omniscientes.

Hilarious...

I almost fell off my chair laughing. I was just checking my web stats and saw that somebody arrived to my site using the following search terms:

"very smart thoughts"

No comments...

Wild searches

Now, this is not a new sport. I was introduced to it by reading one of my favorite ranting blogs about "ways to look at things" . It is about looking into your website's logs to see where the references to your site came from. Although I don't have anything closer to some of the hilarious and weird searches that end up in his site, this one is the one that is taking the prize so far for me: hand signs comical

I'm starting to think that search engines like Google are becoming sentient and have a funny bone to boot. In this case I can only imagine that a deaf mute, with a great sense of humor, looking for new ways to charm his friends, landed in my site and is now as captivated by the Yi as I am...

Karl Haushofer and Chinese Mysticism

I was browsing one of Gen. Cheng's books and noticed the following name in western characters: "Karl Haushofer". The fact of finding western characters in a completely Chinese written book is very interesting and prompted me to search the web for that name. I found this site with a brief biography of Mr. Haushofer. http://www.geocities.com/integral_tradition/haushofer.html
I will try to find some more information about him but the quotation below is very interesting. I can only guess what Mr. Cheng wrote about him...

Have you ever looked for signs?

Well, I am always looking for them. I don't usually find them, but, sometimes they just jump at you. For the past couple of weeks I've noticed a few. Some of them can make you reflect about what comes next...

A few nights ago, I was driving home for dinner when something to my left caught my eye. Since I live in a semi-rural community in New Jersey, the sight of animals by the road don't particularly get my attention. However, this was a sad sight. A beautiful little fawn, stil covered with small white patches all over its body, was standing along the road, just watching across to the other side to a field of green soybeans. I followed its sight and to my right I saw his mother, laying on the ground, dead. Doing fifty miles an hour did not help and could not spend much time thinking about it. That is, until I got back to work from dinner and the fawn was still there, still staring across the road and, not yet weaned off his mother, trying to graze, not knowing what to do next.

The next morning the fawn was gone. One can but wonder what would happen to it. The turkey buzzards, however, were hard at work feeding on the carcass of the doe by the side of the road. Now, this and on itself is nothing much to give you many signs. What made me think of them is that when I rode back home that night, on the side of the road, next to the dead and half eaten doe, were the flat carcasses of two buzzards. Now, don't misunderstand me, for all the carrion they eat, they are very smart birds, not mentioning the fact that in the area where we live they are used to stay away from cars on the road. I've never before seen a buzzard ran over by a car... Do you see? The combination of this facts are a sign of things to come.

Another little sign manifested itself yesterday when I was on my way to Delaware from home. A beautiful green Katydid climbed to my side mirror for a ride. What's interesting, besides being a first, is that from the time I left home until I decided to stick my hand, pick it up and let it fly, some 6 miles away from where I started, the little creature just hung to smooth back of the mirror like a kid holds to the front of a seat on a wild rollercoaster. Amazing! The katydid sustained an air draft of up to sixty miles an hour, the little antennae flying back like the long mane of a biker riding a Harley down Route 66. I still don't know how it did it but I reached a point where I was afraid the air draft would dislodge it from the mirror and the poor little thing would become a green splatter on the windshield of the car behind me. At the toll both of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I carefully picked it up (I had to tug a little...) and let it fly away. All along I've got the feeling that it was trying to say something to me.

Today I searched for some information on katydids and synchronicity brought me to a site where Chinese Cricket Culture is discussed. For that alone I owe my little friend a heartfelt thank you!