NO RADIO SHOW TONIGHT. TAKING A WEEK OFF FOR FUN, BACK HEALTH AND PURE SELFISHNESS. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.
Lovely morning to you all. I'd like to say even the coffee tastes better at 49.... but I know its just that I finally put salt pellets in the water softener! The back is still being wretched and I am pretty much on lay-around duty, which of COURSE for a hyper spaz like me the hardest part. I can live with the pain, but the not-doing is killing me worse.
I already miss my girls at Olga's. A couple years ago, one of them got me this coffee mug:
It a muses me muchly. Except once I drink coffee, besides playing for a couple hours on the various FB pages, I want to DO stuff. Its kind of like being grounded during summer vacation. I'm off work and want to rip out carpet, do projects, something. I know, I need to catch up on my books. I read the 1st couple pages of Tulum the other day and was rapt. That's what I should do today. But if I do a show, I need to put together a show, you know? Trying to decide that. After more Goddess Coffee. Heh.
The Donations I got were enough to pay the $300 Blog Talk Radio Bill for another year of radio. Now I've got until April to come up with $275.00 to keep this Blog afloat.
Its always something. But then we'll be clear for another year!
A new window has opened for your Bloguero on the meaning of "insignificance." Your Bloguero is delighted to be able to tell you about it and to allow you to infer, if you wish to, how he and you may now be the zenith of insignificance (Note: or the nadir of significance, if you prefer).
On Ground Hog Day the "celebrity businessman" who calls himself "The Donald" endorsed Willard for president. (Note and digression: your Bloguero does not refer to this person as "Mitt". He will never refer to him by that name. "Mitt" is a preppy, friendly, brotherly, harmless sort of name. "Willard," the candidate's real moniker, reminds of rats and is, therefore, preferable). It wasn't much of a surprise. It was an ersatz "surprise." A manufactured event. So, of course, there were front page stories, and videos, and the kind of breathless oohing and ahhhing reserved for contrived, fabricated, apparently meaningless events. (Note and digression: Your Bloguero notes that such oohing and ahhing isn't required and never accompanies really breathtaking, really surprising events. The Egyptian Soccer Riots for example. Those are accompanied by eye popping incredulity. By gasps. By screams. They don't need a laugh oohing and ahhing track). But your Bloguero digresses.
And in the midst of the simulacrum of excitement, CNN reported deep in its story:
It was unclear whether Trump's decision will have any impact on the Republican race. A Pew survey last month found that 64% of definite and likely GOP voters said an endorsement from the reality television star would make no difference to them.
In the survey, 13% said it would make them more likely to back a candidate, while 20% said it would actually make them less likely.
May your Bloguero translate this paragraph? 84% of "definite and likely GOP voters," almost 6 in 7, said The Donald's endorsement didn't matter or would make them less likely to vote for whoever the Donald chose to endorse. Your Bloguero wonders who "definite and likely GOP voters" might be and whether, having scrutinized the potential nominees, admitting to be a "definite or likely GOP voter" might be tantamount to admitting that one had a diagnosed thought disorder or suffered from delusions (Note: Even if the assertion that these people are mentally ill is problematic, your Bloguero does not retreat from it. If the reader is more comfortable with the venerable assertion that they are "fools," the reader may so edit the previous sentence). But your Bloguero digresses. A further translation: even among the zealots nobody gives a hoot about The Donald's endorsement, or they just don't like it.
Your Bloguero was talking about "insignificance." If an endorsement actually hurts the candidate, why would the candidate show up to accept it amidst all the oohing and ahhing reserved for such obviously fake events? Wouldn't the candidate be better served by actually campaigning in Nevada or Maine or making speeches to likely primary voters, the people whose votes he needs to receive to win a primary? Put another way, what kind of loon seeks out and accepts an endorsement in New York City, which is not having a primary this weekend, that will hurt him with voters in states having primaries he is running in? Why would Willard show up to kiss The Donald's [expletive deleted]? Thereby, as the Bard said, hangs the tale.
How naïve even to ask such a thing. As if this had to do with voters. As if this had to do with directly seeking votes. Tsk. Tsk. No. As everybody by now knows, the candidate is always better served by fellating a ginormous donator like The Donald than by doing the actual campaigning, the shaking hands, the eating corn dogs, the VFW halls, inspiring his GOTV workers. (Note: the adjective "ginormous" refers to The Donald's money, and not to any part of his anatomy). The old school, get out the vote stuff. The old routine of getting votes directly. This, herman@s, is not about The Donald's appeal to voters. It's not about old school politicking. That, as your Bloguero and CNN have pointed out, is the definition of "insignificance." Of no importance. Without importance. Without meaning. With no significance. Meaninglessness. The Donald's appeal to voters is the very definition of "insignificance."
No, this is about something else. You know what it is already. Admit it. Ok. If you insist, your Bloguero will tell you. It's about money. Dinero. Moolah. Cash. Greenbacks. What used to be called "bread." Surprise! It's about Citizens United and the spigot of funds The Donald claims to possess and to be willing to turn on in the service of Willard, and the supposed message from The Donald's explicit endorsement to other fat cats to pony up. To pay up. To buy the votes. To buy the TV attack ads. That's why The Donald is significant, and we, compadres, aren't. We're insignificant. We cannot fund a campaign that is about meeting our desires. Nope. All we can do is vote for whatever candidates others have bought for us. We are that insignificant.
The opposite of "insignificance," the precise antonym is what Willard expects from The Donald. And what he showed up on Ground Hog's Day to attain. How many zeroes are in the number?
This Week In The Dream Antilles is usually a weekly digest. Usually, it appears on Friday. Sometimes, like now and for several of the past weeks, it isn't actually a digest of essays posted at The Dream Antilles. For the essays you have to visit The Dream Antilles.
I hitchhiked from my little town in Maryland at 19 and eventually, after many side trips, ended up in Berkeley, California in late spring of 1972. I had been a long time on the road sleeping rough and wasn't feeling quite up to civilization, so I avoided the city at first. The afternoon my ride dropped me off I started climbing up the range of low hills above Berkeley and Oakland. With a backpack it was hard going and I was tired and I didn't look behind me as I climbed. Twilight came and I still climbed, wanting privacy. As it grew dark I stopped at a good camp site and sat down and looked back towards the west. And stood up. The stars had come out, the moon was up, the cities were alight and I was looking at beauty. It was my first look at the western ocean and my first look at these lovely bright cities I hadn't known were around me.
The night was clear, I was high in the hills and I could see sixty miles in three directions. I stayed up late drinking the vista in and mentally made it all my reward for the past months of hard travel. I didn't know enough to place names on what I was seeing. I was sure that was the Pacific Ocean but San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Marin County were confused in my mind. After, for an entire day wandering around Berkeley I thought I was in San Francisco.
I was sitting in a little lunchroom in Berkeley and this black guy asks me if I needed a place to stay. I did. I got settled in and wrote a letter home to the folks, telling them I was okay and giving them a censored version of my travels. I finished it, sealed it and asked Howard what the address of his apartment was. 2244 Dwight Way says Howard. %$#*&^???? Wow. Dwight Way. Really? How did you guys even know I was coming? I have always had an overblown sense of my own importance. Life is supposed to knock that out of you but it never took, in my case. Dwight Way! Ta Da!
About a week later I walked down Telegraph Avenue exploring. A long walk. I decided to take a beer break before heading back to Berkeley and I turned into the nearest bar. It was wonderfully dark and dim inside. I need to remind the reader that I was 19, from a small town, and I knew, in theory, that there were homosexual people in the world. I knew that one or two of them had come right out with it. Said they were gay right out loud. I had even seen two men holding hands in Baltimore. So I take a stool and have a beer. The bartender played an amazing song on the jukebox. It was the first time I'd heard Roberta's version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Magic.
Then the bartender brought me my third or fourth beer, refuses my money for it, leans on the counter and asks with a smile "Where are all the girls?" I had been mellowing out nicely and hadn't been thinking about too much besides the beer and the music. Then I thought "Yeah, where are all the girls?" I turned around on my barstool and gave the place a good look for the first time. Walking into the dark bar from the bright afternoon I hadn't noticed details. In a side room I hadn't seen when I walked in, men were dancing with each other. No women anywhere. Just guys dancing or sitting together talking. Oh my God.
My innocence and idiocy had caused me to walk into a Gay Bar, a Portal To Degenerate Lusts. And not just any gay bar. This was the infamous White Horse Tavern in Oakland, probably one of the dozen most famous gay bars in the entire world. I had managed to pick this one bar out of a thousand in the region. And I was on my fourth beer, just sitting like it was a normal thing to do and like I wasn't in incredible danger. Would I turn gay just from sitting there? Would they drug me and have their way with me?
That's the story. Nothing bad happened. I exchanged a few more nervous words with the bartender. I think he knew I was in unfamiliar territory and he was amused with me, as well he should have been. I got back to Howard's apartment and told him about it and he laughed. A few days later Howard told me he was gay and he said it in a way that I knew he was asking something. I told him I really liked him but I was straight. I asked him if he wanted me to leave. He thought about it and said no. A few days later he asked me if I'd let him brush my hair. It was a mess, he said. Howard was pretty cool. I hope he's alive and well somewhere.
So far? 2012 hasn't been sterling or anything. I mean, I did discover I had a heart again for a moment which is a good thing. Then I discovered shortly thereafter it could be broken. I had forgotten that part too. Even Goddesses have to relearn caution, humans can be mean things. Enough about that.
So, today I turned 49. Didn't see my shadow or anything; the reflection in the mirror of the morning face was quite enough. Yeah, I could crawl back in bed for 6 more weeks, but that would require a store of batteries I can't quite afford. LOL.
But I didn't come here to talk about that. I came to talk about my Birthday Eve, the closing moments of my life as a 48 year old.
Its a funny story. Click through, you need the laugh, you know you do.
I studied under the Gardners of "Washoe the chimp learns American Sign Language" fame. For awhile, I even lived on the former Nevada divorce ranch where the chimps (including Tatu, Dar, and Mojo) lived, long after the chimps pulled stakes and moved to Washington, but "their signs" were all around, the chimp cabins full of toys, "robo-chimp" graffiti in barns, the tree-house, and pastures where the chimps threw rocks at the horses.
The Gardners told fantastic stories, including the coining of phrases by chimps, such as "listen-drink" for the alka-seltzer served one New Year's Day.
Trixie once explained a great ape strength experiment employing a large garage door spring attached to a wall. The gorilla put his pinkie into the bolt-hole at the end of the spring and stretched it out effortlessly. The chimp grabbed on with both hands, feet against the wall, and managed considerable, yet considerably less distension than the gorilla. The orangutan simply dismantled the apparatus, bolt by bolt.
Allen once described a troop of domesticated primates that had a vending machine (a kind of Skinner box, really) at its disposal. Once the smaller, smarter guy figgered out how to operate the machine for treats, the bigger guy would just punch the smarter guy around, rather than watching and learning.
At some point was the story of "Basso," the chimp at the Frankfurt zoo who could add numbers, or rather, point to the correct answers from choices painted on wooden plates when asked sums (auf Deutsch). The experimenter was asked how Basso could do arithmetic, and he replied that of course chimps can't do arithmetic! He reads my mind.
Great stuff. But the best thing they ever did for me was to disabuse me of the notion of the Law of Effect. Now, go back to your wars of aggression and financial collapses.
Took my slipped disc to the chiro yesterday, and it was better for a while. This morning? Back out, so to speak. Part of it is from doing too heavy work at the good bosses' the rest of it? It seems to go out every time I am overly stressed or overly tired.... and since I sleep badly when I'm stressed, that really makes it worse. I hate conflict, drama, etc. I like peace.
But I am off to the grind anyway. Need the money. Even though the doc said to lay off for a while, she isn't paying my bills, you know? Besides I need to probably cough up another 30 for a return visit to the chiro tomorrow, and don't remember what renewing my chauffeurs license cost me last time.
I ran across this image this morning, and since I have no time to write-write, enjoy:
Its warming up now, and I'm getting ready to hit the streets again in Occupy Detroit.
Of course, everything is a lyric in my world, and the armchair warrior thing reminded me of this song. And that unless you march? (royal "you" as in me too) You ain't shit. Besides? Its just a dmaned beautiful song anyway, and glad I thought of it :)
In my dream I was pacing and orating at Occupy Detroit, and had begun to try and elicit sympathy for the people from the cops. I admitted I knew they needed their jobs - there weren't many left, and had to follow orders. But HOW they followed orders matter, the zeal with which they did it, or their "blindness" to somethings they "don't" have to see... I asked if the "code," their blue code, was stronger than their human code. I told them we stop the ones who act badly among our own, and they needed to too with THEIR won.
I would point people out and say, "Do you want to hurt her? Her husband had a stroke, she raised three kids, she is active in her Church, and now she's evicted because disability hasn't come through and she can't get a job at 64, and needs to take care of her man."
"Do you want to hurt him? He's trying to go to college, and working 2 jobs to do it. Look at that face, that smile. He just wants a future."
I started asking if they weren't worried about anyone in their families, "You have a sick mother in law, are your grown children moving back in with you, is this the city you want?"
As they softened, and the people softened towards them, I stepped down off the still empty fountain's edge, and walked up to each cop in the line. "Lets not fight today, you're one of us." Some of them shook my hand. A couple hugged me. As I moved down the line, a couple ignored me but most were friendly. Then it happened, I reached out to shake one's hand, he whipped out his club and smashed it into my forearm, breaking it on the spot. I hit the ground writhing and he started hitting me more, saying, "You assaulted a police officer."
"Why are you letting him do this to me? I'm one of you too!" "Thats enough" one of the other cops yelled. He eased off then, turned and faced the Occupiers raging around him. I struggled to my feet, and when he turned back to me? Kicked him squarely in the balls. The cop who had hugged me rushed in, and looked at his fellow officers. "Joe fell and hurt himself, we had better get him to emergency." He smiled at me, as they picked the officer up and put him in the back of a squad car. "I didn't see anything here today, did you?" The other cops murmured no....
I had them set, more or less, my arm in the medical tent, and bind it in a makeshift cast with duct-tape and a torn up t-shirt.
When I returned, the march was close to starting, and the cops were now leading us down the street.
Maybe someday, the code of silence of the blue will be all the peoples.
Ha! A friend of a friend said this about my essay yesterday regarding the rising Oppression and Brutality of the Elite Classes on our citizenry.
This is a perfect example of the combination of paranoia and fatalism present in both the radical left and right. The problems are corruption, money in politics and derangement from facts on both sides. NOT privacy and or/detention. Every time we focus on this kind of paranoia, we lose a bit of ground. Focus on the real problem: regaining regulatory control of wealthy private interests.
Yeah, suuuuurrrre cousin. How has regulatory control worked so far for you? Do you think they will just hand it back nicely when they own all the money and power? One is symptomatic of the other. The "money in politics" and deregulation have created a political structure that votes to take Constitutional Rights away from the citizens and give unfettered rights to the Corporations.
One Black Hawk, a helicopter that has served in combat in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and other areas in the Middle East, and four OH-6 choppers - "Little Birds" - flew over the city during the exercise.
At one point they flew just above the US Bank building downtown and later flew over the Staples Center as the Los Angeles Lakers played against the Los Angeles Clippers inside.
If this isn't both an intimidation tactic to threaten the Occupiers and a practice run for using our Armed Forces against our own people, I don't know what is.
Yeah. Its not paranoia when they actually ARE out to get you.
Members of the Occupy movement were outraged by the joint exercises by the LA police and military, in light of the unprecedented campaign by the US government and local police agencies against the First Amendment, Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
"Open to the public?" the Occupy LA Morning Report blog responded. "You mean the deployment of military assets in an urban area is supposed to be inconspicuous? The video of these 'exercises' would be something to behold, probably much like what we saw in Iron-Curtain Eastern Europe and Tiananmen Square. But since the NDAA 2012 was passed nothing seems surprising any more."
"It appears America is preparing for war against its own citizens. I don't know how else to put it. If someone can make a suggestion for another way of interpreting this, please do," the blog stated.
Since I wrote, not DJ'd this morning, as is tradition....
I gave a piece of advice to my friend Julie this evening, and found I had waxed poetic.
Trust is never given freely without pure earning. It is a process that refreshes itself daily and in time becomes rock solid. Once it is made with weak materials and falls apart, must be rebuilt as if from bedrock. Or abandoned entirely.
Only then, will it be strong enough to free fall, and free fall is ever the goal, knowing you will never hit bottom!
Everyone longs for the intrinsic trust of a babe in arms, or a lover clung - yet one is borne of innocence, the other time.
Build it, it will withstand anything. Demand it with out that created structure? You doom yourself to failing and being failed.
Distraction is not enough. Wanting trust is not enough. Filling lonely is not enough.
Trust will come when you least expect it, and you find the one who makes you a better angel. The one who makes you want to earn them and be everything you can be. It will come, when you least expect as they say.
What good a revolution, have you no fixed plan for what comes next?
~
Be careful what you wish for....
~
Things aren't that bad. The devil you know may be better than the devil you get...
Things are that bad. Things are unimaginably bad, had people the ability to connect dots so obvious a kindergartener with a crayon could complete the picture and probably sound out "Fascism" before the MSM could possibly do it.
I dreamed, long ago in gentler days of a 100th monkey moment of enlightenment. I prayed that humanity would evolve. I beseech-ed those who would listen that unless we did something then, that things were turning dire. I think even if my moderating forces were still around me? My radicalization is the result of facts on the ground.
Revolution is now coming whether or not you like it, dear readers. Everything is about to change so visibly that like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot, people will wonder why their world is burning around them, and wonder how we let it get so far.
War Threats against Syria 2012/01/18 DAMASCUS/BERLIN
(Own report) - Parallel to the Arab League's war threats against Syria, Germany is pleading to raise the pressure on the Syrian regime. It is consensus in the main capitals of the western world, including Berlin, that Moscow's recent UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria is not confrontational enough and therefore insufficient. The Arab League's Syria observers are expected to deliver their report tomorrow, Thursday, which can serve as a justification for tougher action. The emirate Qatar's autocrat, who for the past few months has taken on the role of the Arab League's rabble-rouser with the German government's approbation, is now calling for military intervention against Syria. Berlin's use of an alleged concern for the violation of human rights, to justify its aggressive policy toward the Assad government, could serve as a prime example of the German government's humanitarian cynicism to legitimatize its global policy. The German government was indifferent to human rights, as long as Damascus was a helpful partner for warding off migrants and as a torture chamber for interrogations within the framework of the "war on terror." Today, human rights activists are being ignored, when they criticize the Arabian Gulf dictatorships, such as Qatar, because they serve as the West's auxiliary forces. The focus is on geo-strategic plans, such as the neutralization of Iran's last ally in the Arab world, Syria.
This old dump truck has been sitting in the woods near my home for a long time. I first saw it about 26 years ago. Back then, I assumed its owner would pick it up and drive it away. Or haul it away if it wouldn't run and repair it. It was worth something, I thought. But that hasn't happened. It remains in the very same spot. Unmoved. In repose. Slowly rusting and rotting and deteriorating. Its registration expired in 1980.
The snowy morning has turned bright and sunny! Which is a lovely thing, since although I have 4 wheel drive? I prefer dry pavement for an evening excursion that slates me (as always) the Designated Driver. (I have ZERO tolerance for drinking and driving - thats just ignorant to do.)
But I will save a few of these lovelies for another day. I made them for my girlie-girls from Traverse City I am meeting tonight for our Cleavage Club's Birthdaypalooza Party! (Its Dawn's Birthday Party really, but since mine is next week, I'll take the thrill too) They are staying in a Hotel, so get to get as silly as they want.
Drunken Gummy Lifesavers, soaked in vodka and chambord until twice their size, swollen with festive cheer!
There will be food, cake, dancing to wear off the cake.
The boys of Howell & Stockbridge will never know what hit them, when we all show up.
With movie star looks, and the firm conviction of an activist for socialism, Camila Vallejo has emerged as the charismatic emblem of Chile's progressive youth.
Chilean students question the education system as commercial and elitist because it reproduces existing social inequities and makes them worse. But they are not just asking questions: They are practicing the kind of education they have spent years dreaming about and struggling to obtain.
"If workers can manage a factory, we can manage the school," says Cristóbal, 17, as he flashes a smile. Cristóbal is a student at the Luis Galecio Corvera A-90 high school in the Santiago borough of San Miguel. The school is among the 200 in the city that students have occupied. But on September 26, they decided to follow the example of the workers of Cerámicas Zanón, the Argentine factory workers took over and began running 10 years ago.
"Things were getting complicated because the occupation was weakening," Cristóbal says. "It was clear to us that it wasn't enough to just criticize our education. We had to do something more, but we didn't know where to start until we heard that the Zanón workers were giving a talk at the University of Chile. We went to listen to them and when we came back we started running the school ourselves."
After the takeover, a majority of students-with the enthusiastic support of many parents-returned to school. Some of the teachers joined them. "When I saw that my children were getting up and going to school without having to wake them up, that they were excited about going, I understood that they were doing something important, something that adds up to a different kind of education," says a mother at the basketball court, where the November sun shines brightly.
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With movie star looks, and the firm conviction of an activist for socialism, Camila Vallejo has emerged as the charismatic emblem of Chile's progressive youth.
