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20030429
"Our ability to disagree, and our inherent right to question our leaders and criticize their actions define who we are. To allow those rights to be taken away out of fear, to punish people for their beliefs, to limit access in the news media to differing opinions is to acknowledge our democracy's defeat."
Video version
20030428
Note twisted reference to "Smiling Buddha"
"(Sec. Rumsfeld), what more can be done to turn around the media's overwhelming negative coverage of the war? Do you have any thoughts about that?
Rumsfeld: ...I think there's not anything you can do -- with our Constitution, which is a good one that allows for free speech and free press -- about it, except to, you know, penalize the papers and the television and the newspapers that don't give good advice, and reward those people that do give good advice. That's about all we can do, and that's probably enough."
We supported this through silence and complacency/ While our government ruled the world under Masonry
Lyrics lifted from I Phantom, released in September.
Mr. Lif will be at Chop Suey on May 6.
"Success"
This is rock bottom, y'all
I never expected it
In order to be businesslike, you must meet the prerequisite
Leave your culture at home -- smile!
Don't be too proud, too wild
You may suffer, just don't cry out loud
This notion of professionalism is like an exorcism
Forced to give your life away while you're earnin' a livin'
These thoughts had stopped me from rejoining the workforce
But now the situation I'm in, it seems to hurt more
The voice of the modern world vs. the tribesman, "Iron Helix"
Come prosper and live plentily
My existence is heavenly
You were meant to be greater
Allow me to pray to my Creator
Nigga, you are the Maker, life-giver and taker
Take control, you should feel safer
But I don't even feel threatened
You need weapons, and apparently a classroom so you can learn lessons...
Your terminol is senseless
I'm rational; and actual, here let me send a fax to you
But what is a fax?
Ah ah, curiosity killed the caps'
Swimming pool and mattress, plus a book of matches
Credit cards and debit cards
Checks, cars, incredible odds, devil gods,
Laws, federal generals headed for Mars with medical cards
Fixin' Mother Nature's technical flaws
See, you learn quickly; now you're with me
Move forward and never look back at history
Focus on your omnipotence; teach your infants this
Kiss... the barcode on your wrist
"Earthcrusher"
At last, the day of the blast
Disaster, welcome to the hereafter
Government powers in conflict in a world gone sick
And they're heavily equipped
With arms to melt down cities and farms
The final stage, witness the force of pure rage
While we were all at work, tryin' to earn a wage
They targets are unlocked and ready to engage
Finally to put to use all those years of bomb testing
And biological questing
For better ways to destroy and torment
Now let's feel what we've chosen to invent...
Napalm scorch your backs and you ask where your tax dollars went to
So now they have sent you
A demonstration, devastation
Four billion degrees of presentation
Courtesy of some major corporations you might've had stock in
But money can't stop the toxin...
We supported this through silence and complacency
While our government ruled the world under Masonry
Made every nation regret their adjacency
Global hostility; now we're facing the
Worst burst of energy ever unleashed
I coulda sworn I heard 'em say that they wanted peace...
20030427
The last few days have been kinda wacky, hectic, jumbled
I was late to school three! times, had two photo sessions (in my little, little room) with two women who flew or drove in from Vancouver and San Francisco; polished off Stage One of the yardwork and planting; Easter brunch and an art opening in the Central District. Actually, this is all sort of typical: it's my mind and mental processes that've been perforated 'n' percolating since my birthday. Like the foliage in the area, events and inspirations, distractions and fixations have been shooting up from what had been open but fertile ground.
Of course, there have been quiet and subtle experiences: surprise at the blooms on the poppies and peonies, watching the rain of cherry blossoms with their feather-soft patter on the grass, the stunning blue sky Friday afternoon after a week of clouds and chill, spending most of the same afternoon on the playground with the children, noticing the lengthening twilight each evening (I'm told that by midsummer, it stays twilight-ish until 11; life on the 47th parallel).
Anyway, been picking up on all sorts of stuff lately (most of it on the bus, or waiting for one). I see that the moon's been in Aquarius for the last couple of days* (thus all the airiness). So many things have gone on or caught my attention -- a Quickening, as Jason said recently -- I had to write some down:
"I am almost nine.
An ordinary girl. Nothing special about me.
One of the youngest in my class.
But then again, there could be magic in my hands?"
- a Metro bus poem by Roxie Hower
"You Drink, We Drive." This was tagline pasted across two buses that passed me near the university tonight. When I noticed the first one, it was stopped at the light on 45th and The Ave, jostling side to side. "They do _not_ have hydraulics on that thing..." I hoped. As they rolled by, I was witness to the sight of some college boys playing at stripper pole-dancing, disposal-camera flashes, rope lights running along the top of the windows, sound system bumpin', people cavorting... The second bus stopped in front of me and one guy opened the transom while I stared and shook my head.
"Hey, how's it goin'?!"
"Fine."
His friends started chuckling, tickled by this brief interaction with a black guy on the curb.
"Want a beer?" he asked while someone else took my picture.
"That's alright."
"Stop the bus," indeed...
--
"800 New Parking Spaces Open May 2003," an almost-two-story-tall banner read above University Village (the driving-maze mall complex near UWash). It's like they were announcing a new store...
--
My friend Michele and I met for Indian buffet on Wednesday. She's finished (?) her first novel, I'm halfway through this studio project. We of course discussed the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent obliteration of much of its history**. She prompted me to read George Orwell's (a penname; he was Indian?) 1984. Since her last offering was Olivia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, I'm sure it will be well-timed... not unlike my experience of hearing the album I Phantom by Mr. Lif while CD-shoppin' today. I've gone for months without buying anything but in the last month I've been drawn into the stores -- today it was really like some force said "Yes, go in now." "Earthcrusher" on I Phantom was... man. Borrow, burn or buy that one soon.
--
I recently finished Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (took three years, oops). Yesterday I finished Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren, a used-bookstore acquisition from a few months back. It provides background and theory on "the quintessential Japanese aesthetic" as developed through tea ceremony but evident and sought after in many facets of traditional Japanese life... a tradition or state of culture that he asserted is under threat from modernist, technological values and Western lifestyle.
I am going to apply for an artist's residency/retreat on a volcanic slope in Central Oregon. I'd be going for the Sept-Feb session.
At the same time, I'm going to apply for scholarships/fellowships for the summer term (well, maybe a year) at Pratt Fine Arts Center here in town. So either way there will be more art workin'/workin' out art.
I'm also going to move across town to a location yet to be determined. End of May at the earliest, solstice or so at the latest.
Mr Day-Day
* I know most sources will say the moon was in Pisces, but in actual space the moon's been in Aquarius, entering Pisces tomorrow.
** http://www.thememoryhole.org/history/iraq-natl-library.htm
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/iraq.html
*** The trip where Ramesh and I flew out of ABQ, bought snacks from the Nation of Islam at Oakland Int'l, drank lots of wine, ate lots of crab, and got into a drunken curbside brawl in Microsoft's parking lot.
20030425
There was no sure-fire way to link to this article, so I lifted it from the PDN news page...
Getty Images staff photographer Paula Bronstein recently left Kuwait following a "nonvoluntary disembedment"--the same sort of dishonorable discharge for the press that got Geraldo Rivera kicked out of Iraq.
Geraldo lost his embedded slot for drawing a map in the sand outlining the current position and future movements of his platoon during a live broadcast. According to the military, Bronstein's offenses were entering a restricted area and tampering with live ordnance.
To hear Bronstein tell it, her only offense was writing an anti-war slogan on a missile.
In the three weeks Bronstein was stationed at the U.S. Air Force base Ali Al Salem in Kuwait, she says, most of the bombs that left the base had messages written on them. One of the military's media escorts had prohibited Bronstein from photographing any messages written on bombs if they contained swear words. Bronstein says at least half of the bombs were decorated with saucy slogans.
One day, a flight mechanic offered Bronstein a ball-point pen and asked her to write a message on one of the bombs bound for Baghdad. She declined use of the mechanic�s pen, but instead used her own Sharpie to write: "This war sucks. It will only breed hatred."
She was expressing an opinion that differed from the standard military point of view. It was for that, she says, that she was punished. "If I'm invited to express my opinion, should my opinion only be what the military finds acceptable?" Bronstein asks.
Lieutenant Col. Franklin Childress of the Coalition Press Information Center in Kuwait sees things differently. Childress calls Bronstein's "egregious violation" the worst he witnessed in an otherwise smooth embedding experiment.
"She violated the ground rules and did something foolish and unsafe," Childress says. "Rather than shoot her, they took her into custody."
Childress says the five-foot-one, barely 100-pound Bronstein could have caused major damage to the $20,000 missile and $8,000,000 aircraft by writing on it with a Sharpie.
"She actively eluded her escorts. She could have damaged the missile or the aircraft," Childress says. "They had reason to shoot her because what she did was not sanctioned by anyone."
Not wanting to get Getty Images in trouble, Bronstein apologized to military officials after they complained, but she insists they have a strange way of twisting the story to make her look like a criminal.
The photographer admits that she wasn't an ideal candidate for an embedded position, but she also says there were major problems with how the military handled the media at Ali Al Salem. For one, journalists had to share escorts, yet they were expected to seek permission every time they wanted to venture out to report or shoot pictures. Bronstein says she had to hitch rides and make escorts sit around for hours while she waited for shots.
"We had to choose between doing our jobs and following their rules," Bronstein says. "There's no flexibility in the way they think, and that's not the way I work. I think they should have assigned an individual escort to every person in the media."
"In the days following the conquest of Baghdad, the Iraq Museum was looted. Reports on the damage vary -- the number of lost or stolen objects varies between 50,000 to 200,000. Irrespective of numbers, the losses not only to the world of a archaeology but to mankind in general are tremendous."
''He didn't think (taking the painting from Hussein's palace) was a big deal,'' the official said of (Boston Herald reporter) Crittenden. ''He said all the embedded reporters were doing it.''
More on military and press theft from Iraq
20030422
War in Congo
Today I found out that more than 3 million people have died as a result of the four-year war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Belgian colony, later Zaire). Of particular distress is the violence inflicted upon women.
Quoth El Presidente in March 2002. This after Tony Blair had persuaded The Crusader not to attack Iraq immediately after Sept. 11, 2001.
One year later, no one could say if Bush's desire to penetrate Hussein punitively with munitions was realized, but many thousands died in the process. It was in December of '03 that a seemingly drugged and bedraggled Saddam Hussein was pulled from a hole and taken into custody.
The London Independent's Robert Fisk reports on a massacre of children in Iraq, the aftermath of which was filmed by AP and Reuters. But it looks like that graphic footage will never see the light of day:
At least 11 civilians, nine of them children, were killed in Hilla in central Iraq yesterday, according to reporters in the town who said they appeared to be the victims of bombing.
Reporters from the Reuters news agency said they counted the bodies of 11 civilians and two Iraqi fighters in the Babylon suburb, 50 miles south of Baghdad. Nine of the dead were children, one a baby. Hospital workers said as many as 33 civilians were killed.
Terrifying film of women and children later emerged after Reuters and the Associated Press were permitted by the Iraqi authorities to take their cameras into the town. Their pictures � the first by Western news agencies from the Iraqi side of the battlefront � showed babies cut in half and children with amputation wounds, apparently caused by American shellfire and cluster bombs.
Much of the videotape was too terrible to show on television and the agencies' Baghdad editors felt able to send only a few minutes of a 21-minute tape that included a father holding out pieces of his baby and screaming "cowards, cowards'' into the camera. Two lorryloads of bodies, including women in flowered dresses, could be seen outside the Hilla hospital.
What did Bush say a few days before this? "We are working to make the world more peaceful."
Never mind the cat below.
Who let this one out of the bag?
The background.
20030419
I tried to find a link on "the weapons effect," the topic of a conversation I had with a gentleman on the bus some months ago. All I found were two right-wing, pro-handgun articles -- and a lot of links about atomic and laser weapons.
20030418
Because if you allow them to maintain their history and identity, they'll have a basis for resisting your schemes and manipulations.
For almost a thousand years, Baghdad was the cultural capital of the Arab world, the most literate population in the Middle East. Genghis Khan's grandson burnt the city in the 13th century and, so it was said, the Tigris river ran black with the ink of books. Yesterday, the black ashes of thousands of ancient documents filled the skies of Iraq. Why?
20030417
20030416
My correspondent in Qatar, who might soon become the bureau chief in South India, sent a very interesting text to me this morning.
This is not a criticism of Christianity, but it does point toward the effects of language, culture, time... or just call it patriarchy. The first three lines resonated with me as a gardener and a lay physicist. I was reminded of the tone and theme of the prayers recited during Passover seder, also. Or Sufi devotionals.
Hmm.
20030414
... Afghanistan, Syria or wherever else the men in Washington think they need to kill in order to make things more peaceful.
20030413
20030411
Dialogue on a day in April
Brandoni said: "And our ability to twist logic and reason to suit our purposes is..."
Unfortunate. Most everyone does it for their own purpose, or to maintain their own sense of reality, personality, individuality, ignorance. What we're seeing now is a kind of group fantasy that is having all-too real effects on another group... and it's bound to have reciprocal effects on this or another closely connected citizenry. I mean, look at the effects on the economy here, where all this warmaking comes with an $87 billion bill in the middle (some say the economy hasn't hit bottom yet) of a two- or three-year recession.
Anyway, I wanted to say that while the real we all -- individuals -- play fast + loose with logic, attention, etc; the main men (and again, it's men) at the lead in this government seem particularly inclined to distort. And while it would seem that it's about power or self-righteousness or hegemony... but I think at the root it's fear. And certainly a lack of appreciation for the mechanism of cause and effect.
20030410
The R-word
Why is that "regime" is being bandied about in connection with several Asian countries? I saw the word used in reference to "the former Taleban regime" today. It might not take too long for me to find mention of "the regime in Pyongyang," or find some official blustering about problems with the regimes in Damascus or Tehran.
People , following the cue of El Presidente, seem to think the word means "dictatorship" or "non-democracy," when the word -- a FRENCH word (perhaps the adherents of this childish France-bashing missed that one) -- simply denotes a mode or form of government. Yet it's being used as a derogatory --or perhaps defaming -- classifier for any leader/leadership that the White Junta (or their supporters) wants to isolate, cajole, bomb.
Actions that will only create more impetus for a "regime change" here -- at the polls in 2004, and I hope in the attitude and actions of policymakers thereafter.
From Mama Bieb
The Nation has a great article about the next steps for the peace movement in their current issue... There is an essay and then three responses to it from various leaders, including one (the third) by Medea Benjamin, one of the founders of Code Pink. Also, a great piece about the war written by George McGovern
20030409
So much death...
Here were just some of the results of America's progress through Saddam Hussein's dominions yesterday, an advance that obliterated the symbols of his regime at the same time as it claimed to be liberating its people.
American military attacks hotel and offices where unembedded reporters lived and where Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi and BBC TV had broadcast
Fury at US as attacks kill three journalists
11 journalists die in 21 days of war
"We're not sure exactly who's in charge at this particular point in time."
"I don't think combat is any worse than flying an airplane, driving a truck or working in an emergency room."
US military action kills more civilians in Afghanistan, where bombing and ground combat resumed right after the invasion of Iraq.
Ad astra per aspera
Colorado crescent
Norwegian neon
Alaskan aurorae
Reaction and reiteration
Last night, I wanted to link to a document that I found through Adbusters. The original came from the New York Independent Media Center. It's a .pdf that highlights the 100 or so most notable weapons, training and military research facilities in the country, among other things.
One will of course need Acrobat to view this file.
I had dialed up Adbusters to see what those naughty Canadians were up to these days. Their front page is a sign-up form for "Boycott Brand America." They're rallying people to drop American products as a response to the invasion of Iraq. The logic is bit shaky (but mine can be also):
"Because I am one of the millions of people against the war;
And because the American government has made it clear that it won�t listen to world opinion;
And because the symbols of American power are its corporations and their brands;
I hereby pledge to boycott Brand America, from the moment the war begins and to the best of my ability until the empire learns to listen."
Now I'd say the symbols and tools of American power (or at least force) are its bombs, guns, planes and tanks... so why not direct attention at the companies that manufacture them, and the government's use and sale of the same?
While any large/mega-large corporation has its own interests set far ahead of that of its nation of origin (or its impact on the earth), will boycotting Nike trainers or skipping the Frappuccino bring an end to American military aggression? It'll raise consciousness, create solidarity and put focus on exploitative business practices, sure, but as far as the other... it doesn't really follow.
More attention should be put on the fact that industrial/manufacturing use of water, oil, timber and ore far exceeds use by households. Personal consumption obviously has an effect on resource use and economy, but a refinery, foundry or processing plant can consume more energy and create more pollution than a whole neighborhood. So there needs to be pincer move against demand and (the methods of) supply.
Connect "supply" back to the federal govt's national insecurity stockpiles and research, arms and scientific sales and training (to Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, The Philippines, Colombia, Nigeria...) and you'll see what companies and practices need to be decried. And how elements of the government, and organizations affiliated with it, are managing to drain the life, substance, security and stability out of people/nations/the planet in an ironic/deluded quest to provide protection and freedom... or to encourage and profit from violence.
An example that came to mind was from when I saw the film No Man's Land last spring. There was a scene in which two Serbian soldiers laid mines throughout a Croat bunker. The sergeant in the depiction held up the most insidiously placed and least defusable mine and joked, "Made in the USA."
Oh, and I wanted to mention TV Turnoff Week, which begins on the 21st.
20030407
A soccer term...
"This is a really bad 'own goal' by the Americans."
20030406
"And if we are to take the enemy out, it may unfortunately be at the cost of a lot of civilian lives, unintentionally. If we start taking a lot of fire, we will simply level the building area, destroying it with indirect fire and air and tanks. Then we'll go in with ground forces. That's when you get civilians who choose not to leave, and they're going to die in the process."
Just one of the journalists claimed in Iraq
Kaveh Golestan was born in Abadan, Iran, on 8 July 1950, and died in Kifri, Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, on 2 April 2003.
20030405
20030404
Being human
"But even after we had bombed their hospital, they took us in and shared with us the little they had."
The conciliation and spirit of this story reminded me to mention that everyone needs to read the latest issue of The Sun (April, ish 328 -- the website is a month behind). Personally -- and so typically -- I opened the latest issue and was like "This arrived just as I needed it!" Main interview is on engaged spiritual action, with commentary on negotiating the solitary mystical experience with interdependent/intertwined suffering and injustice. I didn't finish the article on the bus because I knew I had to give it more attention than transit would allow.
20030403
"Freedom now means mass murder (or, in the US, fried potatoes)."
also:
"The angry chants at the rallies serve a purpose for a very short period of time, but for the long term we need to please each other and please ourselves."
No aid was allocated by Bushadmin to AFG after Taleban ouster.
Congress, incensed, had to scrounge up $300 million on its own.
20030402
... the difference now is that the federal government does not bother (dare to try) to declare war. It just launches the cruise missiles and says something about "clear and present danger," and most people accept it. They accept it.
"I saw the heads of my two little girls come off. My girls - I watched their heads come off their bodies. My son is dead."
HRW decries use of cluster bombs; Iraq is already dotted with mines
Bombing near Babylon kills 33, wounds ten times as many -- almost all civilian families
Marine reservist: "This war is very immoral because of the deception involved by our leaders." I went to check for this story on CNN's site. Was not able to locate one, but I found these instead:
Nun says protest worth 30 years in prison
Teachers placed on leave over war posters
Creative dissent
mr damon 18:17
Exploding echo of light
mr damon 18:15
Array of peace-promoting organizationsAnd a particular link to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship
mr damon 14:54
20030401
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"Don't tread on me, either."
HST 1937-2005
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