Escape the Okie Zone

Supreme Court clears way for medical marijuana
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for state laws allowing ill patients to smoke marijuana if a doctor recommends it.
Justices turned down the Bush administration's request to consider whether the federal government can punish doctors for recommending or perhaps just talking about the benefits of the drug to sick patients. An appeals court said the government cannot.

Nine states have laws legalizing marijuana for people with physician recommendations or prescriptions: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. And 35 states have passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value.

But federal law bans the use of pot under any circumstances.

The case gave the court an opportunity to review its second medical marijuana case in two years. The last one involved cannabis clubs.

This one presented a more difficult issue, pitting free-speech rights of doctors against government power to keep physicians from encouraging illegal drug use. A ruling for the Bush administration would have made the state medical marijuana laws unusable.

Some California doctors and patients, in filings at the Supreme Court, compared doctor information on pot to physicians' advice on "red wine to reduce the risk of heart disease, Vitamin C, acupuncture, or chicken soup."

The administration argued that public heath — not the First Amendment free-speech rights of doctors or patients — was at stake.

"The provision of medical advice — whether it be that the patient take aspirin or Vitamin C, lose or gain weight, exercise or rest, smoke or refrain from smoking marijuana — is not pure speech. It is the conduct of the practice of medicine. As such, it is subject to reasonable regulation," Solicitor General Theodore Olson said in court papers.

In states with medical marijuana laws, doctors can give written or oral recommendations on marijuana to patients with cancer, HIV and other serious illnesses.

Even some supporters of the laws had expected the Supreme Court to step into the case. They said the court's refusal to intervene, although it does not address the merits of the case, could encourage other states to consider passing medical marijuana laws.

"It finally definitively puts to rest these federal threats against doctors and patients," said Graham Boyd, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing patients, doctors, and other groups in the case.

Robert Kampia, head of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, said the court "has eliminated any doubt that states have the right to protect medical marijuana patients under state law, and that physicians have the right to give patients honest advice and recommendations, whether the federal government approves or not."

Keith Vines, a prosecutor in San Francisco who used marijuana to combat HIV-related illnesses, was among those who challenged a federal policy put in place during the Clinton administration. That policy required the revocation of federal prescription licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana.

"If the government is zipping them up, and we're not being told about options, that's negligence," Vines said.

Policy supporters contend that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration must be allowed to protect the public.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that physicians should be able to speak candidly with patients without fear of government sanctions, but they can be punished if they actually help patients obtain the drug.

The case is Walters vs. Conant, 03-40.

Supreme Court - AP


Court Questions Possible Abuse of Pot Laws

1 hour, 2 minutes ago

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court questioned whether state medical marijuana laws might be abused by people who aren't really sick as it debated on Monday whether the federal government can prosecute patients who smoke pot on doctors' orders.


AP Photo


AP Photo
Slideshow: Medical Marijuana Issues

Justices Hesitant to Endorse Medical Marijuana
(AP Video)



Watching the argument was Angel Raich, an Oakland, Calif., mother of two who said she tried dozens of prescription medicines to ease the pain of a brain tumor and other illnesses before she turned to marijuana. She and another ill woman, Diane Monson, filed a lawsuit to protect their access to the drug after federal agents confiscated marijuana plants from Monson's yard.


Their attorney, Randy Barnett of Boston, told the justices that his clients are law-abiding citizens who need marijuana to survive. Marijuana may have some negative side effects, he said, but seriously sick people are willing to take the chance because the drug helps them more than traditional medicines.


The justices refused three years ago to protect distributors of medical marijuana from federal charges. They are confronting a more personal issue this time — the power of federal agents to go after sick people who use homegrown cannabis with their doctors' permission and their states' approval.


The stakes are high because 11 states have passed medical marijuana laws since 1996. A defeat for the two California women might undermine those laws and discourage other states from approving their own.


A loss for the government, on the other hand, could jeopardize federal oversight of illegal drugs and raise questions in other areas such as product safety and environmental activities. A Bush administration lawyer told the justices they would be encouraging people to use potentially harmful marijuana if they were to side with the women.


"Smoked marijuana really doesn't have any future in medicine," said Paul Clement, acting solicitor general.


Justice David H. Souter said about 10 percent of people in America use illegal drugs, and states with medical marijuana laws might not be able to stop recreational users from taking advantage.


"Everybody will say mine is medical," Justice Stephen Breyer (news - web sites) said.


And Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) said there are many people with "alleged medical needs."


Despite the tenor of the debate, the case is hard to predict. The justices will rule before next summer.


The marijuana users won in the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites), which ruled that federal prosecution of medical marijuana users is unconstitutional if the pot is not sold, transported across state lines or used for nonmedicinal purposes.


Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (news - web sites) said the federal government has a stake in interstate commerce, but with the California medical marijuana patients: "Nobody's buying anything. Nobody's selling anything."


Her colleague, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites), observed that homegrown medical marijuana never makes it to the interstate market.


Conservatives like Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) and Scalia generally have supported states' rights to set their own policies.


Rehnquist, who is undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer, missed Monday's argument and is not expected to return to the court until January, at the earliest.


Raich said she hopes the 80-year-old chief justice's chemotherapy treatments "would soften his heart about the issue."





"I think he would find that cannabis would help him a lot," said Raich, who uses marijuana every few hours for scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other illnesses.

California's law allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Besides California, other states with such laws are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Medical marijuana was an issue in the November elections. Montana voters easily approved a law that shields patients, their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution for medical marijuana. Oregon rejected a measure that would have expanded its medical marijuana program dramatically.

The case is Ashcroft v. Raich, 03-1454.

___

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Predicts or prognosticates Garvald, November 29th, 2004.

I wish that my own computer was working or a laptop so that I would have access to the internets while on vacation in Joplin, Misery. It was nice to splurge with a little rest and relaxation in the Comfort Inn with Muffy and to get away from it all. The restful motel had a hot tub, miniature lap pool (Maybe in the teens for footage so I swam less than a stroke and I have to do a flip turn) and a workout room with bike, stair stepper and treadmill. We enjoyed these comforts while laughing at Hannity interviewing Donahue or an African American minister on Fox Snooze (I mean news). He was always wanting to interupt as loud mouth Repuke DJs of right wing propaganda love to do.

It is amazing how so many right wingers and especially religious fanatics love to spread their mandate because they think George the Crusader is on their side. I wished they saw the video of the Bush family partying it up with George Jr. in his cowboy hat passing the joint to his parents upset at first at all the lines of cocaine being done. It was hilarious. But imagine if it was true. It was obvious about George Jr. the cool frat leader heading a party sharing lines with other government good ole boys and gals.

No seriously, folks, it is getting scary with all these crusades the "inquisitors" are pushing down our narrowing throats. Pharmaceutical owners are not selling birth control because of their Bubbamentalist religion. Supporters of "intelligent design" are forcing schools to include creationism in the textbooks. God forbid, that our ancestors were little monkey like hominids let alone one celled amoebas deciding to mate when we all might have looked the same in this primordial soup. God, I would love for you to let me just have a visual trip back in time or better yet communicate with my cro-magnon ancestors when they decided to leave the beaches of Africa for Spain after the ice age receded! I would love to have chatted with the ape-persons about their beliefs in the Sun and the Moon before we became pagans and worshipped Heracles, Son of Zeus and a mortal woman, the way Christians worshipped Jesus couple of thousand years later. I would love to see the true evolution of religion and the various splits that caused more bloodshed or rationale for killing than any war. If we would realize that religion (some even think of Democracy as the Christian form of government) causes more warfare than anything else. Someone believes that God is on his or her side and they can rationalize genocide!

It was very interesting watching "Alexander" according to Oliver Stone and his desire to take over the world really believing that he was the son of God as his beautiful mother,Angelian Jolie, kept telling him. I saw it the other night with a good platonic friend and her out of the closet son.
Stone gave all the Macedonians an Irish accent and boldy exhibited the accepted homosexuality among the Greeks. The whole movie appeared to very historically and geographicaly accurate but dwelling into the Alexander's deep insecurities with wild abandon as he goes very deeply into a man's inner torments as he did in "The Doors". Right wingers hate Oliver Stone as much as Michael Moore especially when he delves into conspiracy theories! Wait till his movie comes out on Bush and Rove. He can go far deeper than he did on his movie about Nixon. Anthony Hopkins was great showing many of Nixon's deep psychological issues that we would be afraid to show with the McCarthy type of intimidation of the left wing press or Dan Rather being pushed into resigning when he was just wanting to answer the questions of what Bush actually did while avoiding Vietnam and just having a good time while others risked their necks or died there.

Since Alexander the Great - Afghanistan's Central Role in World History
Franz Schurmann,
Pacific News Service, Sep 27, 2001

Since the time of Alexander the Great, Afghanistan has been the incubator of global visions. Throughout history, swarms of armed nomads have migrated south and west, mostly to move their herds, but sometimes for conquest as well.

SAN FRANCISCO--Suddenly, America is facing a war with Afghanistan -- a country we associate with amputated hands and terrified women. In fact, ever since Alexander the Great staged his conquest of fabled India from the Kabul Valley, Afghanistan has been the incubator of visions that swept the world. The ancient city of Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, is still called Um al-Bilaad -- the Mother of (all) Cities.

In the mid-1950s, I spent a year-and-a-half roaming around Afghanistan with Japanese anthropologist Iwamura Shinobu in search of Afghanistan's "lost" Mongol tribe, descendants of Genghis Khan's armies. We not only found the tribe; we discovered that the force defining and energizing this remote and impoverished region was the long-distance migrating nomads.

All the experts had told us to look in northern or central Afghanistan; instead, we found the Mongols in the southwest. The first Mongol we saw had blond hair and blue eyes. Others bore African features. While they spoke a Mongolian dialect laced with Arabic and Persian words, they also opted to speak Pashtun, the dominant language for a thousand years of the Pashtun people living in southern Afghanistan. And now Pashtun is the preferred language of the Taliban.

Like the Mongol minority, many, if not most, rural Pashtuns are long distance migrants. They are called Koochis -- a Turkish word meaning people who migrate long distances back and forth.

For over 5,000 years, long distance migrants from Central Asia moved westward and southward, giving most Europeans, Iranians and Indians their contemporary languages. Then came the Ural-Altaic long-distance migrants from the northwestern borderlands of China, who gave rise to Hungary and its non-Indo-European language. A thousand years ago, the Turks, who went south intermarried with the local population to form the Pashtun people there.

The Pashtuns account for over half of Afghanistan's population -- some 16 million people when I was there and probably not much more today, given the enormous human casualties inflicted by two decades of war. And Pashtuns also make up the great majority of Afghan refugees in Pakistan -- at least three million in Karachi, the former capital, and a million more elsewhere. When Russians started dropping anti-personnel bombs all over rural Afghanistan and then civil war raged, many Pashtuns took their herds and moved hundreds of miles into Pakistan, as far as Karachi on the Arabian Sea.

More than 10 percent of Pakistan's 146 million people are Pathan, a people whose language and culture are virtually identical to that of the Afghan Pashtuns. Clustered along the Afghan border, the Pathans are considered Pakistan's warrior people and play a major role in its armed forces. The Pashtun refugees have increased the Pathan share of the total Pakistan population to possibly 20 percent.

The Pashtuns trace the rise of their culture to a Muslim Turkic ruler named Mahmood, who founded a brilliant dynasty in the Pashtun city of Ghazni, half way between Kabul and Qandahar. The Turks also brought a vision that transformed the Pashtun mountain people from short distance sheep herders into Koochi migrants.

The vision took the name Beni Isra'il, "Children of Israel." The Beni Isra'il figure prominently in the Muslim Qur'an, which describes the Children of Israel as being preferred by God to all others because they received his message. Many Pashtuns believe they are one of the lost ten tribes of Israel. Even the Afghan Mongols, once they embraced Islam, came to see themselves also as a part of the Children of Israel.

In the mid-1700s, a Pashtun clan, the Durrani's, became the rulers of Afghanistan. They held power until 1974. In the early 1980s, the Communist Pashtuns ruled. Later the largely Pashtun Taliban overthrew them in 1996. This time the Taliban ruled from the Pashtun stronghold of Qandahar, rather than the more Westernized and Persianized Kabul. Ever since the Taliban took power, they have refrained from engaging in the anti-Israeli denunciations that resonate throughout the Muslim world -- a testament to the strength of their identification with their Beni Isra'il origins.

Unlike Osama bin Laden, who envisions a seamless Muslim world, Mullah Omar, the reclusive spiritual leader of the Taliban, wants to build his realm only in Afghanistan. Yet he is called Ameer ul-Muslimeen, Commander of the Faithful, a title assumed by the early Caliphs, who a millenium and a half ago, launched their holy wars. Within a few decades, Muslim power ranged from the China borderlands to the Atlantic.

If America starts a massive attack on Afghanistan to punish and overthrow the Taliban, chances are that armed Koochis will start a massive, long-distance migration south into Pakistan. This alone could easily destabilize the entire subcontinent much as what the great conqueror Babur and his armies did when they moved south from Afghanistan to found the great Mogul Dynasty in India in the 1500s.

Babur is buried in Kabul, and I went several times to his grave. He could have been buried elsewhere in his vast domains, but he chose Afghanistan. Maybe that is because so many Afghans still talk about "Iskender," an Arabic variant of Alexander. It was Alexander the Great who first made Afghanistan into a launching pad for global visions.

PNS Associate Editor Franz Schurmann is emeritus professor at U.C. Berkeley and author of "The Mongols of Afghanistan" (Mouton, 1962). Schurmann can be reached at fschurmann@pacificnews.org

All these thoughts running across my brain since I waited before taking care of the tasks at hand. These last few days have been relatively succesful(?) or just much more productive along with the helpful motivation of a human made pharmaceutical. It's funny that the creators of "Desperate House Wives" must have seen my blog or just know the effects of an amphetamine (She rolls her eyes and walks off in total disgust with his delusions and has to have a cigarette!) Just rationing out those little pills with the magical beads of motivation. The mind just clicks on and doesn't seem overcluttered with all the shit that you need to get done. All obstacles are organized by the mind into manageable boxes or packages for this brief journey through life.

After waking up actually before noon today and about to go back to sleep when I looked at the grandmother clock (Alene bought it and I finally got batteries. The other one is not working so I left it on 4:20.). I decided that I needed to talk to the lawyer about this case, but wasn't sure if he might be the best defendant or the one with much more experience in Columbia. I finally get the motivation to call the one that is closer and who sent me the bill that I missplaced or worry that a burglar took it. Who knows? I've lost the number for the bloke in Columbia so I finally just call the secretary of the local lawyer that knows the prosecutor. The secretary calls back that nothing has been filed even though the arbitrary court date is for the seventh.
"It takes them a long time to process things, even tickets"

Well, I am so relieved that everything is taken care for now and the court date will be postponed for hopefully a couple of months so I can take the trip to Australia. Maybe we can all laugh at these ADD "Hunter S. Thompson" "addventures". (She rolls her eyes and says,
"You are no Hunter Thompson.")

I have a great chat with my neighbor, Charles about so many people doing their most creative works when they reached mid-life. Charles loves to do photographs and I can see how his eyes brighten up when he is into talking about pictures.
"You are never really good at something, unless you love it!"

Both of us are in similar situations. He's retired from Tinker in his early fifties, and now with more time than he knows what do with while his wife still works. We are looking for creative outlets for doing what we really love to do. Both of us end up sometimes watching the boob tube when we just wanna veg. ( Women don't seem to understand man's desire to go to his cave and veg or hibernate sometimes.) We are realizing that there are so many things to do in the world before we end the journey. I sometimes have visions of really being happy when this writing or whatever comes of my career will be really fulfilling. I feel that life is so short and I need to be cramming as much into it as I can! We had some afternoon tea together at about 4:20 and NO, we did not do that!
I made the elixir of ginger root juice, hot green tea with a little Kava Kava and a little of the most local honey that I could find at "Buy for Less". We also munched on dried cranberries,dried banana chips and walnuts. I like to explain to my female best friend (I think) that I love to eat well but I also do indulge in the ocassional binge on ice cream or onion vinegar potato chips. She gets upset when I try to lecture her on what is good for you in your diet, but I was eating chips the way she does I would have an 8 month paunch!

So I'm onto the public library after my fix of the national news while listening to NPR have about the movie "Alexander" and the reality of his life. It made me think about the destiny of a man like him where he does have a vision of really changing the world. The man was despised in Greece but was great in the rest of his brief empire. He had a vision as many that conquered.
I'm having delusions sometime of these words being found somewhere and making an impact with these thoughts and ideas that will help evolve the human race to a higher level. (Uh oh, she's really rolling her eyes into the back of her head!)

I'm not saying that we should conquer the world with force but with reaching a level of understanding of our differences. When we learn to accept folks that believe and have different lifestyles that do not harm your own, we will be in a much safer and loving world instead of being human lemming racing towards our cliffs of extinction.

So I'm walking into the Warr Acres Library and see the oriental lady on one of the puters and I do a 360. Is that a bad sign when I'm wanting my luck to change?

I drive on through the rain and the redneck drivers on their giant bubbamobiles to get to the Belle Isle Library and write for 90 minutes! Sometimes I miss being on this computer like a love that I can't stay away from.. Is that why some people have affairs so that they will find someone that listens? I worry sometimes that the only folks that want to leave comments never emotionally got out of 8th grade.
I would love to hear from folks that have a college degree, enjoy reading good books, realize that there is a life outside of football, and just enjoy deep conversation over the peace pipe or not. Just a friendly cuppa?

Maybe I'll just check into the Jesus House for Thanksgiving and hang out here in the land of disenchantment.
Or maybe I should research pagan thanksgivings?

11/26

So he visits her house and knocks on the door not sure of who will answer it. He prayed to God that he would actually meet her. He sees her but she doesnt aknowledge, telling him while breast feeding her new infant as coldly as she can,
"Oh its you! Go away!"
giving him even less conversation when he wanted to talk to her while she was bartendressing one customer a few years ago. For some reason he felt better at least seeing her briefly jealous of the new father of her 4th child?? What kind of life does she lead now living on a very busy street in a tiny house? Her talents are now wasted except for being a mother and maybe doing some artwork. He wished that she had his child and could have been with her when she breast fed their kids!

He wonders too now about God answering so many of his prayers and finally at least being able to see her. He had written out notes to God asking that they be back together. The spell hasn't been totally lifted but he has knowledge of what she looks like now and she's still beautiful but very bitter . There is a note on the door to tell everyone to go away almost like a curse.

He wonders about sending her at least a christmas card from his land far away?? That will probably only make things worse, but he always does thing out of hopeless romanticism before common sense!

The Politics Of Bullying
Paul Rogat Loeb
August 20, 2004


Examples abound of how bullying politics have shaped our country in the past four years. From the mob in Miami-Dade county to the jammed phone lines of a Democratic voting call center, manipulative tactics have become astoundingly commonplace. The challenge now, says Paul Rogat Loeb, is to make the issue of bullying the central theme of the election. Demanding that our leaders play fair isn't old-fashioned—it's democracy.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books, August 2004 www.theimpossible.org), and of Soul of a Citizen.

The best thing John Kerry did at the Democratic convention was to challenge the bullying. He talked of the flag belonging to all of us, and how “standing up to speak our minds is not a challenge to patriotism [but] the heart and soul of patriotism.” By doing this, he drew the line against the pattern of intimidation that the Bush administration has used to wage war on democracy itself.

A former Air Force colonel I know described the administration’s attitude toward dissent as “shut up and color,” as if we were unruly eight-year-olds. Whatever we may think of Bush’s particular policies, the most dangerous thing he’s done is to promote a culture that equates questioning with treason. This threatens the very dialogue that’s at the core of our republic.

Think of the eve of the Iraq war, and the contempt heaped on those generals who dared to suggest that the war might take far more troops and money than the administration was suggesting. Think of the attacks on the reputations and motives of longtime Republicans who’ve recently dared to question, like national security advisor Richard Clarke, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and Bush’s own former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill. Think of the Republican TV ads, the 2000 Georgia Senate race—which paired Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein—asserting that because Cleland opposed President Bush’s Homeland Security bill, he lacked “the courage to lead.”

In this last case, it didn’t matter that Cleland had lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam, while the Republican who eventually defeated him had never worn a uniform. Nor that Republican strategists nearly defeated South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson in the same election, with similar ads, although Johnson was the only person in Congress whose child was actually serving with the U.S. military—and would see active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s hard to talk about such intimidation without sounding partisan or shrill, but we need to make it a central issue, because if it succeeds, it becomes impossible to discuss any other issues. Remember after the 9/11 attacks, when Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly declared that anyone who disagreed with administration policy was an ally of terrorism. We were still stunned and reeling at that point. Yet Democrats and honorable Republicans should have had the courage to say that this definition was unacceptable. Instead they capitulated to the tactics of Republican strategists like Grover Norquist, who proudly quotes Lenin’s motto, “Probe with bayonets, looking for weakness.” And a message of intimidation has dominated since, amplified through the endless echo chamber of O’Reilly, Rush, Hannity and Drudge.

Some who’ve embraced this approach believe they’re on a divinely sanctioned crusade. Others simply love the game—like Karl Rove, who got his start by destroying the reputation of a fellow contender to head the national Young Republicans, and helped Bush first take office by spreading rumors that then-Texas governor Ann Richards was a lesbian. My friend Egil Krogh—who worked in the Nixon administration, hired G. Gordon Liddy, and went to prison for Watergate—did things he knew were morally wrong, wanting to be loyal. He watched Nixon’s administration frame everything in terms of national security, then identify that security as whatever consolidated their power, while branding those who challenged them as traitors. Bush’s administration, to Krogh, seems even more ruthless.

The resulting rule of intimidation and manipulation grinds into the dust traditional conservative ethics of honesty and fair play. In the 2000 election, while the Florida ballots were still being counted, a mob of a couple hundred people, pounding on doors and windows, succeeded in permanently stopping a count of 10,000 Miami-Dade County ballots that were expected to favor Al Gore. As The Wall Street Journal reported, this mob was made up largely of Republican Congressional aides, organized by future House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and flown in by the Bush campaign. In a tight 2002 race for the New Hampshire Senate seat that Republican John Sununu eventually won, a Virginia-based campaign consultant group, GOP Marketplace, hired an Idaho telemarketing firm to jam the phone lines of Democratic "get-out-the-vote" call centers. More recently, Michigan and Oregon Republicans have gone all out to get Ralph Nader on the ballot, to siphon off votes from John Kerry.

The United States is an experiment, one whose outcome can be in doubt on any given day. But when our leaders embrace the ethics of Don Corleone, they undermine the very terms of our democracy. Go back to Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” where he deliberately used racially polarizing language and images to lure white southerners into the Republican Party. Or the Willie Horton ads overseen by Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater. Or the Iran-Contra scandal, when the first President Bush and key members of the current president’s administration, then working for Reagan, crafted and enacted secret foreign policies that defied the will of Congress—while collaborating with dictators and terrorists. Or the illegitimate purging, in the 2000 election, of 94,000 largely poor and minority voters from the Florida rolls. Recently, the same five Supreme Court justices who installed Bush prevailed by a single vote in upholding Tom DeLay’s midnight redistricting in Texas and Pennsylvania—where Republicans broke all conventional rules about redistricting only after a census, and instead gerrymandered as many Congressional seats as they could, just because they held the reins of power.

Whatever our party identifications or stands on particular issues—which, of course, will vary—we should be profoundly troubled by these developments. Since the United States was founded, neither major political party has exercised a monopoly on deceit, venality or political abuse. Dead people voted in Chicago. Lyndon Johnson closed an air base in a Congressional district that dared to vote against him. No administration since the World War I Palmer Raids, however, has so systematically attempted to silence its critics.

But just as a culture of silence is contagious, so is one of courage. And citizens are beginning to stand up and question—from Republican conservationists questioning Bush’s environmental policies, to career foreign service officers decrying the rift our unilateral actions are creating between us and the world, to cities across America challenging the USA PATRIOT Act.

The challenge now is to make the issue of bullying the central theme of the election, linking the intimidation of all questioners with the blind insularity that leads to debacles like Iraq. If we can do this, Bush will lose. As old-fashioned as it may sound, the demand that our political leaders play fair still resonates. And in a democracy, we should expect nothing less.

Stick up for yourself
by Debbi Marco


Do you wake up in the morning feeling sick because you have to go to school? Is school a nightmare because people in your class are horrible to you? If you're being bullied and you don't know what to do, read on.

Types of bullying
Bullying isn't always as straightforward as someone taking your lunch money or pushing you about in the playground - bullies can be very sneaky. Sometimes they make everyone turn against you and won't let you play with them, or they spread lies about you.


Even if bullies may not physically hurt you, it doesn't mean they're not bullying you. If they're making you feel sad and upset, you need to make them stopNow that a lot of people have mobile phones, they can even bully you by text message. Sending horrible messages this way is illegal. If it happens to you, keep a diary of when the messages are sent or calls are made, and then tell somebody, like an adult you can trust.


Tell somebody

Being bullied can make you feel depressed but it's important that you do something to try and stop the problem as soon as possible.

Even though it may not seem like it at times, there are lots of people you can go to for help. An obvious choice is your class teacher. He or she should listen to you and then be able to deal with the bullies. Your school may have an anti-bullying policy, which means that the head teacher will know exactly what to do when bullying is reported.

If you can't talk to your teacher, tell your parents or your grandparents, or an older brother or sister. Try talking to the school nurse, lollipop lady or dinner lady. Telling somebody can help you feel better, and then you can begin to make the bullying stop.

Jan Lea only found out her 9-year-old daughter Caroline was being bullied when she saw little marks all over her arm. At first, Caroline didn't want to talk about it - perhaps because she was worried that telling an adult would make the bullying worse. But in the end she told her mum that a girl in her class was sticking pencils into her, and it had been happening for almost a month.

'I went and spoke to the class teacher who hadn't got a clue what was going on,' says Jan. 'The teacher spoke to the bully and it all stopped.'

You're not alone
Oli Watts was bullied when he was 14 years old. He says: 'I don't know what triggered it - it just happened. One day everything was fine and the next day it was awful. It was a group of boys and girls and other people just joined in. Basically it wasn't cool to be my friend.'

After six months Oli decided to move schools. 'It was a complete change,' he says. 'I had a whole group of new friends. When I told them what had happened in my last school, they were horrified.'

Oli decided to set up his own website, which deals with issues faced by teenagers. His advice for anyone who's being bullied is to tell someone you trust. 'It's important to get it out in the open,' he says, 'and make sure your school knows what's happening.'

Where to go for help
18 out of every hundred calls that ChildLine receive are to do with bullying, but they'll listen to any problem you haveIf you feel you really can't tell anyone you know, you can call ChildLine on 0800 1111. ChildLine is an advice line that has people on hand who will listen to you and can give you advice if you want it.

The Bullying Online website is brilliant for loads of facts about bullying and also gives advice to your parents too. They have information about bullying by mobile phone, what to do if you are being bullied and even give legal advice. They get almost 3,000
e-mails a year, so they're experienced at dealing with every sort of bullying problem.

Standing up to a bully
If you knew someone who was bullying other people in your class or school, what would you do about it? Bethany Jacobs, 10, isn't big for her age and doesn't have a black belt in karate, but when she saw her friends picking on another girl she decided she had to do something about it.


'My friend said to this girl that she wasn't allowed to play with us, and told all my friends the same thing - that we weren't allowed to play with her,' says Bethany. 'I think she was worried that the new girl would split up our friendship group. I told my friend that if she didn't let this girl play with us, then I wasn't going to play either.'

It worked: even though the bully and the new girl may not be great friends now, they manage to get on because Bethany made it clear that she would not put up with bullying within her group of friends.




Don't be a bully, not even to your children...4
I believe that adults are the biggest
bullies and that children learn their bullying
techniques from adults. Some adults
bully all the time, some husbands bully
their wives and some employers bully
their employees. It's a vicious cycle, perpetrated
by insecure people who lack self-esteem
but want to feel a sense of power.
They believe that by belittling others they
empower themselves. Bullying is a way to
disguise one's cowardness. A bully is a
person that lives in constant fear. A bully
is a tortured person who demonstrates
gestures of hate. Bullies hide behind this
facade in the hope that they will not be
recognized as the whimpering cowards
that they are.
In martial arts you are taught about the
power of the art form, and the importance
of self discipline. A true student of martial
arts recognizes that even though life
may present combative challenges, he must
demonstrate self discipline,...

I still have so many things to do before Thanksgiving. I'm reluctant to call Dad, especially with the predicament coming up on Dec. 7th. I need to call the lawyers and the ACLU again about the ridiculous charges. We need to totally change the stigma of weed especially when it does less harm than alcohol and especially cigarettes (when you can afford to put it in your oatmeal in the morning instead of the harm that smoke causes to your lungs). I might go off of it for a few weeks and go to Australia to see Dad. I keep procrastinating about everything (that is one of the most prevalent symptoms of adult ADD), but I finally had the courage(?) or just not be intimidated by the IRS and walked and filed taxes for 2002, this afternoon, I will finish 2003! I went in Friday at 4pm after having a small taste of the very expensive adderall at noon. (It is over $100 for a bottle of 30 without major medical coverage.) It only took half an hour to fill it out and get help with any arithmetic mistakes or putting the numbers in the wrong lines. I was so happy to finally do it and know that I can do the rest. I think that we are paralyzed into not even starting a project such as a long college essay until it is the last minute.
There were many essays written overnight staying up until it was finished.

Sometimes, I think that it is a mistake to open up myself on this blog journal knowing that some judgemental folks that are immature love to spout out their psycho babble and have the audacity to call me mentally ill when most of you "friendly readers" can obviously see who has the issues by the sick comments that they leave.
I am not ill as "Monica" said but I am crazy in the sense that I do thing differently and in a very different way. Muffy, when she is speaking to me, can attest to that! My wierdness and eccentricities often gives me the label of the "wierd". Wierd in America is eating oatmeal with flax seed, cranberries, bananas and other flavors. Wierd is riding your bike in a blizzard instead of driving. Wierd is writing poetry in a redneck sports bar. Wierd is asking to watch the News or "Tour de France" instead of violent basketball or hockey.

When the human race is racing toward the cliffs of extinction like lemmings where they will have no choice but the deep chasms of debt, "nucular" holocaust, environmental destruction and death, I think that Maybe I and some others will go the other way so the rest of the race can fight it out.

In the grand satirical tradition of Swift, Rabelais, and Twain comes Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot And Other Observations, a scathing—but uncompromisingly fair—look at America's largest talk show host and the rest of the Republican right. Penned by the Emmy award-winning Saturday Night Live writer whom John Podhoretz of the New York Post has called "the man responsible for some of the most brilliant political satire of our time," Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations tackles the issues and the politicians in ways few have dared. On the subject of Rush Limbaugh, Franken lets the facts speak for themselves. Listen to Rush, the "rugged individualist" and enemy of government handouts, explain how his second wife made him stop sitting around the house eating junk food and go file for unemployment insurance. And learn all of Rush's several explanations for how he avoided the draft. Of course, when it comes to draft-dodging Republicans, Rush isn't alone. Reading Al's Vietnam short story, "Operation Chickenhawk," you'll savor the exploits of Privates Limbaugh, Gramm, Quayle, Buchanan, Gingrich, and George Will as Lieutenant Oliver North leads them kicking and screaming into combat. And don't miss Al's informative discussions with the man who has "the easiest job in America": Rush Limbaugh's fact-checker. And much, much more.


see the acclaim
buy this book
read an excerpt



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"This book establishes Al Franken as a master of political humor...
a delight to read and certain to appeal to readers of any
political persuasion whose spirit hasn't been completely
broken by the state of current U.S. politics."
--The Washington Times

"Wickedly funny."
--Newsweek

"Funny, angry and intelligent."
--The New York Times Book Review

"A very funny book... [Franken] picks the scabs off every logical
inconsistency, factual error or act of malice he can find in contemporary conservatism...
this book destroys [Limbaugh]."
--USA Today

"A laugh-out-loud funny book...
[Franken's] points are swiftly and deftly made, and his sense of
humor about the current carnival of political grotesques is badly needed."
--Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)

"He's back, and his wit is sharper than ever."
--The Boston Phoenix

Some folks have no life and so they like to bother folks and do it in the chicken poop way of bothering others. Some like to stake out a corner of the pub spew verbal obscenties while filling their lungs with several pack of cigarettes after going to their dull mundane job kissing up to some corporation or a cushy gov. bureaucracy job where they get free car to use for their commute.

They keep making payments to the "general store" always in debt and have nothing better to do than enlarge their livers, bark out order to insecure bartenders, and interrupt conversations so they can have attention. When they go home to their 'puters, they love to fulfill their secret desires of being the bully in the school yard with their insecure need to put themselves higher on their own need for a pecking order and say to themselves, "I rule" as if God decided they were destined to be the alpha male/female. They loved to sit at the head table in the school cafeteria and make fun of the nerds, or the kids that did not fit into their rich upbringing having the benefit of good clothes, food, etc. They then have to sit at the head table at their neighborhood bar like a dog pisses in every corner to mark it's territory.

It is so interesting how some folks who want to be anonymous blowhards , resort to making acts of sex or defecating as part of their scatalogical vocabulary. They cannot think of anything but redundant profane remarks that only impress themselves. They have no lives and secretly envy the president getting a decent fellatio from a young intern. These repukes like Ken Starr, or Karl Rove never had that life or even any sex life so they wanted to punish the sinners since they couldn't get any.

No women will tolerate having a relationship with a closet 'pter nerd that likes to go back to his days of being a bully in the middle school cafeteria making fun of others that are not like themselves. They made fun of the children that did not have decent food, health care, or even a home to sleep. These bullies love to make fun of the kids with old clothes that would not fit properly. A rich spoiled Republican brat's feeling of superiority was enhanced by enjoying the misery of others (Supply side trickle down noveau riche repukes. Stepford Repukes have not much of a life and are brainwashed by Fox and Rush and take this simplified 6th grade one liners as gospel.)

They like to be internet bullies looking for sites to pick on others from the safety of their computers, just like the goats hiding on the roof taunting the wolf. They feel safe in the anonymity of the net.
Some like to act like a testosterone toughy pushing back fingers of their neighbors instead of having a civilized intelligent conversation. Their conversation is filled with the one liners of their mentors, ugly O'Reilly O'Hannity ranting and raving to show that they are the meanest ugliest mouths in show business. They think that if they are loud in the bar they acutally compete with the noise pollution of the loud mouths on Fox. They are proud of their neanderthal violence just right below their guise of civilization. They love to bark physical threats and then get sued for harassment by their female associates.

Insane rants from Mr. Blow me or whatever pseudonym he/she chooses to have only only helped this site getting about a hundred hits a day. Others with more civilized behavior see your sophomoric comment and see how ignorant many in this nation are. Are half of this country just proud to be stupid and just let these right wing ignoramusses dominate the air waves and government? Maybe in the next 4 years we will have a backlash against this testosterone fraternity pigheadedness! We will be motivated to do something about the government that sleep with this nation's corporate bullies, pharmacy companies and carpet baggers. What was the reason for Southern Democrats? I thought to stop these northern Republican carpet baggers from stealing from the poor and dwindling middle class. That is your assignment if you choose to continue to participate in my site instead of spewing redundant garbarge with your childish comment that remind me of a former aquaintance in administration.

You are the vocal majority on this site. You are so filled with hate that you want to bother others and intrude on other people's lives as your overbearing voice might be in a pub.

This type of bullying behavior is often the reason that the president, and Americans (they pretend that they are Canadian so they won't die) are not welcome in many places of the world . Many do not like bullies whether they are in or out of the closet. Monica, or whatever fecal matter, I am sorry that you are too ugly to have a gf and most of the time have to resort to having sex with yourself since you have scared away any relationship by beating your spouse or gfs. Yes I do enjoy abreviating words but then you resort to low iq remarks. Get a life man, woman or it, whatever you are!

I know you might think I'm nuts if you don't already, but you never know??


Here is a website that I found by pushing another blog on my site. It is what I'd like to do more with mine:
http://rockinthebluesfromcanada.blogspot.com/

When I learn to blog better, I might be able to create sights with all the photographs included except for me.( right now for anonymous purposes and all the enemies of intellectual thought and discussion in public drinking facilities).
There is so much life to live, so many places to see, so many wonderful connections that have similar feelings about learning how to enjoy life.

Garvald wakes up at noon to his daily ritual of hot chocolate and cains instant coffee. It tastes so much better when he breaks down and buys some distilled water to make these elixirs and treats so much better. He has wierd kinds of youth elixirs added to his daily menu such as green tea, kava Kava and ground up ginger root juice. The Kava Kava helps alleviate some of the depression and keeps him mellow. (He tries to make it daily, but his ADD prevents it from being an organized ritual before escaping the confines of his 1660 sq foot hovel of hibernation.)
This alleviates some of the paralyzing worry or anxiety that often paralyzes him into inactivity. He has a little bit of stuff left to give him a little buzz before he ventures out for a Saturday drive wishing that the sun would peak through all these melancholic clouds that have settled in for a long period of stifling depressing blah since November 2nd.

So now for the past couple of weeks, the library has been his creative outlet for the world of cyberspace. How many souls will enter Garvald's daily world?? The tag board shows 6,028 all from word of mouth and maybe the ocassional ADD blogger looking for someone that might process in a similar way to him. He has a 90 minute time limit at the library for access to this world that he shares with friends and haters.

Fresh faces slam it out in poetry competition
TAKE A SEAT: Performers have three minutes to stay in the game.


By LAURA CARPENTER
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: November 19, 2004)

Emil Churchin performs as political comedian Bill Hicks in the "dead poet" division of the Classic Slam at the Fly by Night Club. The event was presented by the Alaska Poetry League. "A lot of slam poetry is stand-up comedy," Churchin said. (Photo by Marc Lester / Anchorage Daily News)

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Kim Barrett scores a performer in the dead poet division of the Classic Slam at the Fly by Night Club. (Photo by Marc Lester / Anchorage Dailly News)

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Click on photo to enlarge
Tuesday night's Classic Slam at the Fly by Night Club saw poetry diva Corinna Delgado shot down after reading a poem she finished at her table, while Angela Ramirez won the "live poet" division with the material that earned her second place a year ago.

Fresh faces from a slam class at the University of Alaska Anchorage competed in their first real slam, ousting previous winners.

Jazzed from adrenaline, poets presented their own work in the "live poet" category or the work of others, for the most part, in the dead poet category. Performers had three minutes to woo the crowd and judges and avoid elimination.

Throughout the night, the "celebrity" judges -- including a store owner, a handyman extraordinaire, a reporter, an actor and a biologist -- held up scores ranging from 6 to 9 using criteria known only to them.

The dead and not-so-dead poets started the evening, with Emil Churchin performing as political comedian Bill Hicks.

"A lot of slam poetry is stand-up comedy," said Churchin, winner of last fall's Classic Slam. "That's my justification. Plus (Hicks) has a lot of timely things to say." A member of the slam team that Alaska sent to nationals, Churchin said he prefers channeling the deceased.

"I always have more fun being a dead poet than doing my own material," Churchin said. He once performed soliloquies from Hamlet, losing in the final round to a woman named Pillow who recited in Klingon.

"Slams are great," said Wendy Withrow, who has performed at Classic Slams as Mister Rogers, Bob Marley and Marge Piercy. "All kinds of people turn out to listen to poetry and greatly enjoy the experience. It's so different from a poetry reading, which is quiet and formal and draws only a certain small, elite audience."

Withrow's favorite dead poet moment from Classic Slams past was Anne Reddig's portrayal of Sylvia Plath. In her performance, Reddig popped pills, drank, put a cardboard "oven" over her head and collapsed onstage.

On Tuesday, Withrow donned a trash bag, a cardboard keyboard and a monitor box as a hat to represent Spamma Wamma, reciting a "conglomeration of subject lines gleaned from the glut of e-mail spam."

Audience members chuckled at something they would quickly have deleted if they had been staring into their computer screens at home. Withrow's found poems went from ridiculous to poignant, from "shoe diaper imbalance" to "summer romance on a shoestring."

B. Hutton, who has performed at Classic Slams as Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Waits, played himself Tuesday. Commenting on the years when the Alaska Poetry League focused on sending a team to national competitions, he said: "The energy generated locally was phenomenal, spawning so many new spoken-word talents and new venues I couldn't keep up with them all. ... On the other hand, there was some sacrifice of local flavor and flexibility to meet what were seen as the competitive demands. ...

"We got extremely point-conscious in performance, and the hand-wringing in the parking lot at Whitekeys' (after someone received a poor score) often seemed a little bizarre (given that) the writer had put out one of the best pieces of work they had ever performed."

Hutton read his own poem in the dead poet category as a way of tweaking the genre, he said. He wanted to use props and play, but the point system kept him from amusing the audience in the second round.

"I hate the competition aspect of it," said S. Preston Chase, who, as Henry Miller, described the good, the bad and the ugly sides of sex and civilization. The audience didn't know whether to laugh or gasp as he thrust, literally and figuratively, through his selection from Miller's crude, screeching, bloody, fornicating oeuvre.

"I hate slams. I hate the three-minute limit. Other than that it's OK. ... It's terribly exciting to get up there. Just is. And of course, I dread it." He placed third.

As Allen Ginsberg, Mike Christenson won second place in the dead poet category by speaking to America about its machinery and gluttony.

As slam legend Taylor Mali, Mitch Laird -- appearing in his first slam -- parlayed his portrayal of the slam champion into a win. Laird, one of the few performing without notes, lost his place in the first poem, but the pause fit: The piece was about how the collective "we" don't have convictions. Strong delivery and quality in the final poems garnered enough points to keep Laird in the lead in a close race.

In the live poet category, newbies with weak deliveries got second chances, while heavy favorite Delgado, who placed seventh in the National Competition, missed advancement by a fraction, joining fellow slam veteran Kima Hamilton on the sidelines for round two.

Hamilton, who performs his own work because he appreciates "being the person bringing it from paper to stage," understands the need for competitive slams. He has a poem about his grandmother that just can't be scored, but "without this venue audiences wouldn't hear it."

Before Tuesday's slam, Hamilton worried that his poems about a divorce and his soon-to-be ex-wife would offend and make enemies.

"As an artist, I have to document. I have to be honest. Every time I pick up a pen, it's about that situation. ... I could write something else, but it'd be a lollipop poem. With these, I could start crying."

Taking third place in the live poet category, Jason Marvel looked like he stepped out of an Old Navy ad yet began with a line about a "howling naked street." His style conformed to the tradition of the slam rant, complete with comments on equality, teaching and fathers.

Michael Shaeffer won second place. He tickled audiences with his renditions of Jack and the Beanstalk, "Oklahoma!" and "The Simpsons."

"I'll make a fool of myself in the interests of competition," he said.

Ramirez, who won the live poet division, and Jackie Carr started the night with a combo piece about former roommates, complete with sound effects. Ramirez also told tales of racism, horses and a shrine to a one-night stand.

Hawkins Wright, underage and able to attend only because his parents were present, struggled to deliver his work. But getting it out, he pleased audience members so much they gave him the People's Choice Award. He also enraptured the judges enough with his piece on why few men are nurses that he qualified for the second round.

"Not every man can watch someone cry" or hold a woman's hand as she wants to die, he told the crowd.

In an interview before the event, Linda Billington, a past winner of the dead poet category who was unable to compete Tuesday, summed up the appeal of the Classic Slam: "People reveal (the) truth of humanity, then others reveal truths of the human heart, (all) filtered through someone else. With a costume."

Week 3: Setting Yourself Up to Succeed

Or, Why the Commercials Are Wrong

In the last two weeks we have discussed some good ways of getting started -- or keeping going -- in our writing. We have talked about shitty first drafts and crapulence: about being open and fearless in our writing. We have also addressed how to ground ourselves when we write by using what is under our (literal or metaphorical) noses. All of this is important in forging a deeper connection to our writing.

This week I would like us to take a step back and examine the framework within which we write. Because in order to engage the subconscious in our writing, it helps to have a trust in ourselves and our commitment to writing. It helps to have some guideposts that signify that we will come back to our writing on a periodic basis, and that we will do so with a sense of love and gentleness toward ourselves. In other words, if we want to build a relationship with the Muse, we have to let her know that we are responsible partners -- that we won't flake out and never return and also that offer reassurance that our partnership will be respectful of the gifts we each have.

In other words, as important as what to write is how we are writers. This week we ask the question: what are the guiding principles of how we fit writing into our lives?

Established, published writers grapple with these "writing lifestyle" issues as much as (or maybe more than) new writers. Seeing writing as part of a structure, a larger process of learning and living, helps us to write with greater freedom and connection. This might at first seem like a contradiction: I give you a bunch of rules and this will help you be wilder and more open in your work? It's a paradox, yet it works. I have used it to improve my own writing and have taught it to writer friends when they've gotten stuck. I have learned it to train my dogs, and I also apply it to my meditation practice.

Let's examine the way most of us try to squeeze writing into our lives. First of all, nobody has enough free time. We are working full-time jobs or going to school or taking care of family and friends or dealing with a chronic illness or some combination of all of the above. So, when we sit down to write, we might only have fifteen minutes or an hour or two that day or that week. If we feel that to get anything accomplished we must start with a blank page and end with a completed manuscript, we will do everything in our power to avoid sitting down to write in the first place. Because we will know in our hearts that there is no way we will be able to succeed. After all, how much motivation can you muster to force yourself to do something you absolutely know will end in failure?

Or if we are very motivated, we might sit down, make a terrific start at something -- a bit of fiction or poetry or memoir -- and then when we have to stop (because the dog needs to be walked or the kids have to be picked up or we're too ill to continue), we will feel like a failure because our project is not "done." And this will make us reluctant to continue working on the piece because we know that we will probably not finish it the next time either, and who wants to keep setting oneself up to fail?

That is what we are doing when we set unrealistic goals for ourselves in writing (or in anything else): we are setting ourselves up to fail. Take a look at two scenarios.

1) You say to yourself, "This evening after I put the kids to bed, I am going to write that short story I've been thinking about all year." You sit down and start writing and in an hour and a half you've written the first four pages of your short story. Then you have to stop and go to bed because you need to get up early the next morning. You feel bad about yourself: you didn't meet your goal of writing the entire short story. Maybe you decide if you can't write it after all this time, you should just give up.

2) You say to yourself, "This evening after I put the kids to bed, I am going to write for an hour." You sit down and start writing, and before you know it, an hour and a half has gone by and you've jammed out the first four pages of your short story. You have to stop and go to bed, but you feel great! You just wrote straight through for an hour and a half and finally got a start on a story you've been wanting to work on for a long time. You are already scheming how you can make time tomorrow to steal another hour to write.

What is the difference between these two scenarios? In both cases you have written four pages of a new short story. That should be cause for celebration. But in the first scenario, because you set an unrealistic goal (finishing the whole story) what should have felt like a triumph was registered as a failure. This is neither a kind nor a useful way to approach writing. It is a way of making failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a terrible thing to do to ourselves (or our dogs, our children, our parents, etc.).

In the second scenario, you set a goal you could meet (writing for an hour), met it, and thus felt excited and proud: ready to do more. That is part of setting ourselves up to succeed. This is how many excellent teachers, coaches, animal trainers -- and some greater writers -- get their finest results.*

(*By the way, if you want to learn more about this philosophy, please read Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor. It's not about writing or dogs. It's about applying behavioral psychology principles to real-life situations. In other words, it's about how to modify behavior and learn or teach skills. I read it to make me a better dog trainer, but I think it has also made me a better writer and teacher. It's a valuable, fascinating book and a great read, to boot.)

Setting yourself up to succeed is
1) starting with goals that are easily attainable;
2) raising the level/criteria in small increments;
3) changing only one criterion or new expectation at a time;
4) surrounding yourself with support;
5) when the going gets tough, returning to "go."

Now I will explain each step.

1) Starting with goals that are easily attainable is just what it sounds like. If you've never written a poem, don't start with the goal of writing a book of poetry. Don't even start with the goal of writing one poem. Start with a goal you know you can succeed at, such as taking a poetry workshop. Or reading a book of poetry. Or writing for ten minutes and then pulling out all the lines you think might be poetic. You don't want anything in the beginning that can keep you from starting and that can give you an excuse not to continue.

However, if you are an accomplished poet and you already spend plenty of time every day writing new work, you do not need to set yourself that goal. Perhaps you are stuck getting your poems polished. In that case, you might focus on doing revisions. Your attainable goal might be that you will pick one poem from your stack of unfinished poems every night and work on revising it for an hour. You don't have to finish any of the poems, you just have to spend at least one hour every night doing revisions.

If you are new to writing practice then you don't want to even think "poem." You just want to start by doing five-minute timed writing practices. Say to yourself, "I am going to write for five minutes." You can write anything you want, about anything you want, however you want, just as long as the pen (or cursor) is moving, for five minutes.

I know that what I am suggesting here seems unAmerican. I know it goes against our way of thinking that we must always Push Past Our Limits and Go for the Gold and eXtreme Everything to the MaX. Almost every commercial on TV is about rejecting limits and boundaries. However, behavioral psychologists back up my method with solid science.

For one thing, these scientists tell us, a lot of learning happens between lessons. That is when you integrate information, when you stew in the juices of your creative thoughts. Have you noticed how inspiration often strikes a day or two after you have worked on a piece of writing? That is because part of your mind is still doing the writing. That is the learning that is taking place while your subconscious is still grappling with the problem.

What this means is that the information you tend to learn the best -- the stuff that sticks with you the most -- is what happens at the end of a writing lesson (or any learning experience). If we translate this to our writing practice, it means that it is very useful to end your writing sessions on a high note -- to stop when you are still producing strong, connected, juicy writing: when the happy chemicals in your brain are still whizzing around whooping, "Writing! Wheeeee! This is good junk, man!" That's why timed writings are useful. You set your timer, you write for the allotted time, and at the end, when you are still cranking, you stop and tell yourself "good job!" and go do something else.

If you push and push and push and you stop writing when you are tired and worn out and discouraged and you have no words left in your head, that will be a big part of what you will carry around with you until the next time you write. It will be sitting on your head like an anvil when you next pick up your pen. That is why short, timed writing sessions are so powerful: not only do they give you permission to write whatever you want and to not have to spend your whole day at the desk, they allow you to walk away when you are still doing positive learning.

In fact, I often do my best writing when I have the lowest expectations. One of my most successful short stories is something I wrote at four in the morning. I was awake with my chronic illness. I got an idea for a story and the opening two sentences. I thought, "I'll just jot down these two lines and then try to go to sleep." But the words kept coming so I kept putting them on paper. I knew I could put the pad down and go to sleep whenever I wanted. It was a very short story -- less than three pages -- and when it was done I fell asleep. I think if I had thought, "I have to get this whole story down! I must write it before I lose it all!" I would have locked up and it wouldn't have flown out as naturally as it did. By giving myself permission to end at any moment -- by having the sensation that I could quit at any second -- I was able to relax, let go, and write until I was done.

2) Raising the level/criteria in small increments means that you are very gentle with your expectations of yourself. You don't push yourself too fast or too hard. Remember: you are setting yourself up to succeed. Often, if we are doing well writing one five-minute session every week we think the next step is to move to one twenty-minute writing session every day. Wrong! That is an increase in length and frequency of writing sessions! Too much opportunity to fail.

Instead, if you know you can write for five minutes once a week, then go up to ten minutes once a week. Or five minutes twice a week. Don't try to go from five minutes to half an hour. Be gentle on yourself. That's the beauty of this method: as soon as you feel that you have mastered one level, you can always raise it another level -- as long as you do it one step at a time.

If you're not sure when or how much to raise your criteria, here's a guideline for you to follow. Think about
your schedule,
your motivation,
your past patterns,
and the demands on your time.
Taking into account all these factors, figure out how much time you can reasonably expect yourself to spend on writing in a week. OK, got a number? Now, cut it in half. Seriously. That's where to take your next step.

Are you worried that this is too slow? Well, don't be. It's actually a very fast and efficient way to learn and train yourself. What is inefficient is constantly failing, self-flagellating, and getting nothing done as a consequence.

This system has built into it your ability to control your next move! If you do one writing session a week with regularity and ease, try two. If you write for twenty minutes and are chomping at the bit for more, next time write for thirty. If you write from nine in the morning to noon every day and you'd like to fit in more, try adding an evening slot after dinner from six to seven. If you are cruising at twice a week, go to three times. If that feels easy as pie, then go to four, then five. Just take it one step at a time. Don't go from twice to five in one breath, that's all.

As a person with physical and mental limitations due to chronic illness, I have relied on this type of self-regulation for writing. If I try to push past my limits I pay in very real and painful ways. It has been important for me to give myself permission to write for brief periods of time, to skip writing on days when I am too sick, and to not raise my expectations too quickly for what I expect myself to produce. On days when I am very sick, it is good to be able to say to myself, "I am going to write for five minutes today" and feel satisfied for having done that. Or to know that my goal for the entire week is to revise one essay and that I don't have to do anything else. It allows me to focus, and paradoxically, I am more productive than I would be if I was working longer. In such instances I am usually just spinning my wheels, trying to work past the point of fatigue and productivity on too many projects.

3) Changing only one criterion or new expectation at a time means that you only fiddle with one "variable" at a time. For instance, if you want to try writing for longer periods of time, don't also try to write more often. Just practice writing longer first. And vice-versa.

Or, if you want to experiment with sentence structure -- going for really long, bizarre sentences with experimental grammar -- just do that. Don't also try to switch from your habitual third-person point of view to a first-person narrative.

The same is true for trying new types or genres of writing. I wrote nonfiction all through school and at work. Then I took some poetry classes. For years I was comfortable with poetry and nonfiction, but I had never tried to write a short story. Then I slammed out one short story. Next thing I launched myself into a novel. Of course that novel never found its feet. I wrote about forty pages and then gave up because I didn't know where to take it. Now I see what the problem was -- I didn't yet know fiction writing. A novel was too big a project. It was too much of a leap from poet to novelist, without any steps in between. Now I have been writing fiction for a few years. When I step out onto the pages of a piece of fiction I feel the earth is solid beneath me. The next time I jump into a novel I will have a better idea of where I am landing.

And even within a genre, you have to take one step at a time; you have to practice one bit at a time. It is like when you are a swimmer and you just focus on your kick one day. Another day you focus on keeping your fingers close together. Another day you focus on the angle of your arm as it enters the water. Then, when you are in a race, you have learned all those elements separately and it's easier to put them together. If you are always trying to focus on your kick and your hands and your arms all at the same time, you will be overwhelmed and your swimming technique will suffer. The same is true for writing.

I have done this many times in my writing career -- separating out one area to focus on. For instance, at one point I decided I didn't understand plot and I wanted to work on plot. Rather than trying to write whole, complete, beautiful short stories that had vivid, lovable characters and stunning dialogue and also had outstanding plots, I decided just to write plots. I would sit down and tell myself, "write five plots." (Notice I did not tell myself to write good plots. The only requirement was that they be plots.) And then I would. I didn't write stories, mind you, just plots: six or seven sentences about what could happen in a story that would take the character(s) through some form of tension, conflict, and resolution.

Here are examples of two plots that I wrote one day, in 1997:

A rabbit learns to climb trees and ends up trying to sing like a bird. She masters eating seeds and bird chatter, but tries flying and plunges to earth. On the way down she realizes she never knew how to climb trees.

An elderly blind woman has to move into a nursing home because she can no longer take care of herself. She can't bring a lot of her things with her so she hires a young woman to sort through her books, papers, and belongings and help her decide what to bring with her. The young woman is newly single, having moved to a new city, alone and at loose ends. As the young woman learns all about the older woman -- reading aloud the intimate details in the papers the older woman can no longer see -- they become close and the two women decide to live together.

It was an exercise, practice in digesting how plot tasted and felt and smelled. After I'd done that several times over a period of months I decided to write a short story where the only purpose of the story was to write something with a plot. I wasn't worrying about the dialogue or the characters or anything else. I just wanted it to have a recognizable, real-life plot. I used the second plot, above, as the basis for my story. After I had some practice writing stories with plots, my stories just started having plots all on their own because some part of my brain had stored away "plot" through practice. If I wanted to, I could go back and rework some of those earlier stories that were just meant to be plot exercises, to try to make them into finished works. But so far I've just let them be what they were, which was learning tools.

4) Surround yourself with support . Writing is a lonely business. It is ironic because I think most of us who write feel strongly that we want to connect with someone: the reader. This might be a specific reader (our teacher, our mother, our lover, ourselves at a later date) or a particular audience (parents, peace activists, Muslims, business executives) or the whole world. We write to tell our story, to share the truth as we know it, to reveal ourselves. Yet we write by ourselves, at our desks or computers or kitchen tables. Even if we are sitting in a cafe, writing across the table from a writing friend, the activity is happening independently, contained in our own brains. That is why I think it is so important to get support for your writing -- so you do not lose touch with the communal aspect of what you are trying to do.

The best thing is to have writing buddies. These are people to whom you can read what you've written (and, ideally, who will read you what they have written, too). It is great if these are people who also love writing, who will talk about writing and the writer's life with you, and who will share your joys and sorrows about writing. I have found writing buddies through writing classes, writing groups I have started in my home, and friendships -- online and in person. Going to writing-related events, such as readings or lectures at libraries or bookstores, is also a good way to meet kindred spirits.

It is also useful to foster relationships with people in your life -- your friends and family -- who are supportive of your writing. Even if they don't know much about writing and can't offer you tips on plot or meter, they should still be able to say "way to go, honey!" when you have pounded out a piece of work. And they should commiserate and offer you chocolate when you get a rejection slip from a magazine and tell you, "you'll get them next time!" They should certainly not make nasty, belittling comments about your writing or give you a hard time about taking writing classes. If they do, let them know that this makes you feel lousy. If they still do it, maybe you don't want to share this part of your life and yourself with them. If you are the person in your life making nasty, belittling comments about your writing, then I hope taking this class will help you begin to be a better friend to yourself.

5) When the going gets tough, returning to "go." Another term for this is "going back to kindergarten." What it means is that if you get stuck somewhere and find yourself floundering, back up a step or two or three. Set-backs are a natural part of the learning process. Planning for them -- knowing that there is a way to deal with them when they arise -- is crucial.

Again, I know this goes against everything we've been taught. We've been taught Onward and Upward! We've been told The Sky's the Limit! We've been inculcated into thinking that any step back means we are pathetic losers. But that's a lot of hogwash. Set-backs and learning plateaus are inevitable. In fact, what we perceive as set-backs are often crucial opportunities for the learner to integrate the information and commit it to long-term memory. That is because, when we are learning, we are storing the information in short-term memory, where we can access it quickly, but it's not necessarily going to stick with us or become part of our mental map. To integrate information deeply takes more time, and usually, to do that, we have to take a break from new learning in the same field. That is when "relearning" the information briefly -- doing a review -- can help us to store it more fully in long-term memory.

Thus, there will come a time when you are cruising along, working on a poem or a story or a set of essays, and you will hit a bump and suddenly you will feel like you have forgotten how to write. Maybe you've been writing for two hours every day and then there is a family crisis and you go three weeks without writing a word and when you come back you feel overwhelmed and your head is empty of words. Or maybe you are revising a draft of your story and no matter what you do the characters have just lost all zest for life. Or maybe you had been slowly lengthening your writing practice sessions by five-minute increments every day, having transitioned swimmingly from five minutes a day to two hours a day over a period of weeks, and suddenly you can't write for more than one hour, period.

This is when you go back to "go." Whatever step you're at, return to the beginning. This doesn't mean you have to go through the entire process again for the same length of time. It just gives you a bit of time to reset your internal clock. For whatever reason, you need a mental tune-up.

Since this is about setting yourself up to succeed, you need to return to an earlier stage where you know you will succeed. Give yourself a chance to succeed at an easier level. Just for now. Then you can work back through the levels, really fast, to where you were when the set-back happened. You'll probably find that you're raring to go by the time you return. In fact, behavioral psychologists find that learning usually accelerates after doing such a tune-up.

How does one go back to kindergarten? In the example of the person who stopped writing completely, she would return to doing one five-minute writing one day. If that went well, the next day she'd do a fifteen-minute writing. Then thirty, an hour, an hour and a half until she is back to two hours a day; it will probably take her a week or so. She can go back through the levels faster than when she first started because this is basically just review. You don't want to go from five minutes to two hours in one leap, but you do want return to five minutes to give your brain a chance to remember how to write.

Sometimes I use this technique with a story or poem that I have been reworking, when I have finally reached the point where I can't tell anymore if I'm making it better or worse. I feel like I'm just moving the commas around. I set it aside and let it sit, sometimes for a year or more. While that's happening, I work on other projects. When I return to the piece that has been laying fallow, I am starting at the beginning. I print out a fresh copy and read it, as if for the first time. I try to see it with new eyes. By that time I have forgotten a lot of what I was obsessing about before. Then I can start again from "go" on the piece.

Conclusion
Giving yourself more breathing room and structure in which to write is bound to increase your creativity and connectedness to your work. If you get in the habit of trying to push beyond your capabilities, writing becomes a chore. When sitting down to write, you will not have as much energy to devote to creativity because part of your brain will still be busy telling you what a loser you are and how you better crank out something good this week since you failed last week.

On the other hand, feeling good about yourself and your writing -- having a supportive structure in your writing life -- gives you room to breathe. Inspiration means "breathing in." Being able to relax and breathe will lead to a looser flow in your work -- greater crapulence -- and greater chances of drawing in inspiration.

ASSIGNMENT: WEEK 3

Please type or hand-write the five steps outlined above. Make sure that you put at the top, "I am setting myself up to succeed!" Put them in the "I" voice:

1) I will start with goals that are easily attainable.
2) I will raise the level/criteria in small increments.
3) I will change only one criterion or new expectation at a time.
4) I will surround myself with support.
5) When the going gets too tough, I will return to "go."

Please put this in your notebook or next to your computer -- wherever you will be doing most of your writing.

Now make two lists. On one list, put all the writing goals you absolutely know you can accomplish. Label it "I CAN." On a second list, put the goals you have tried, but failed to accomplish. Label it "I WANT TO."

Make sure the "I CAN" list reflects reality and not wishful thinking. If you have been able to do one ten-minute writing a week, put that on the list of "I CAN." If you feel that you should be able to write ten minutes every other day and you just haven't gotten around to it, put that on the list of "I WANT TO." The only things that should go on the list of "I CAN" are those things you have already done successfully, preferably more than once.

Below is a sample of two lists for a fictional person named Lori. Lori works full-time and has a teenage son and daughter. Her friend Cheryl is also a writer. Twice a week, when their kids have basketball practice, Lori and Cheryl get together to chat and do writing practice.

Lori's lists:

I CAN
do a practice-writing session for twenty minutes every Monday and Thursday with Cheryl,
journal for 5 minutes every night before I go to bed
rarely write a rough draft of a short story
sometimes write a haiku
write a letter to my aunt once a month
occasionally write polished, completed essays

I WANT TO
write for at least 2 hours every day
revise (finish) one of my short stories
write a collection of haikus
get my essays published
cull writing from my journals to use for a memoir

Now, pick one thing from your "I CAN" list to start with that you can see leading eventually to something on your "I WANT TO" list. The second part of the assignment is to move, little by little, from one item on your "I CAN" list to one item on your "I WANT TO" list. The instructions for how to do this are below.

Right now, sit down and make a plan of little baby steps that you can take, starting with one current success and moving toward a goal. Please note: Do not pick more than one item on each list! Only one. Also, notice that I did not say that you will accomplish your final goal (what is on the "I WANT TO" list) by the end of this week! What you are trying to do here is set up a workable process that will eventually lead to that goal. Again, don't worry about this being too slow. After all, which is faster, getting to your goal after several weeks or setting yourself up to fail and never reaching it?

Let's return to our example. Lori has been writing for several years, but she wants to get more serious about writing. She feels that she isn't dedicating herself to writing as much as she'd like on a daily basis. Now that her kids are older and don't need her as much, she is looking toward a time when she can devote herself more to being a writer. She has chosen "I CAN do a practice-writing session for twenty minutes every Monday and Thursday with my friend Cheryl," and "I WANT TO write for at least two hours every day."

Here are two different ways Lori could approach the assignment:

Lori's Assignment "A" -- increasing length of writing practices

Monday: do writing practice with Cheryl for 30 minutes
Thursday: do writing practice with Cheryl for 40 minutes and skip the chatting.
Saturday: lock myself in bathroom to take bath so nobody can disturb me and plan next week's writing schedule.

Lori's Assignment "B" -- increasing frequency of writing practices

Monday: usual writing practice for 20 minutes with Cheryl
Tuesday: do writing practice for 20 minutes during lunch hour at work
Wednesday: not realistic to try to write this Wednesday -- too hectic
Thursday: usual writing practice for 20 minutes with Cheryl
Friday: too much going on on Friday, better not to plan to write that day, yet
Saturday: lock myself in bathroom to take bath so nobody can disturb me and write for 20 minutes in the tub
Sunday: Plan next week's writing schedule

You'll notice that in both cases Lori has set up very tangible goals and is realistic about what she can expect of herself. Since she has been doing twenty-minute writings for a long time, she is comfortable with them, so it makes sense that that's where she'd start her new writing practices from. She's not starting the week -- Monday -- with a big, new challenge. She's starting with something she knows she can do. She's giving herself time to build on her successes as the week goes on. Notice that Lori added either frequency or length, but not both in the same week.

Let's look at the different paths Lori might take. In version A, Lori chose to Monday and Thursday to add time to her writing practices. There are two good reasons for choosing these days to try for longer. First, those are the days she habitually writes with Cheryl. So she has her friend's support -- they can egg each other on. Second, Lori has her familiarity with that routine of Monday/Thursday writing nights. Finally, Lori will have already gotten in one smaller increase on Monday before trying an even longer one on Thursday.

In Version B, Lori has assigned herself the task of writing four times this week. She is keeping to the twenty-minute session because that's something she knows she can do. However, Lori also knows that right now she cannot write on Wednesday or Friday. She did not want to plan in a failure by deciding to try to write on days when she knows writing will be too hard.

Lastly, see that in both versions one day is set aside to draw up a plan for the following week. (In version A it is Saturday; in version B it is Sunday.) Lori is not overburdening herself and setting herself up to fail by trying to set up a schedule and do writing practice on the same day. Setting up a writing schedule is part of writing. That time and energy needs to be factored in, too.

You may think that Lori's plan is not impressive -- she's not writing every day and she's nowhere near her two-hours-a-day goal. But consider that if Lori succeeds with this plan, she will have greatly increased the amount of writing she usually does. In just one week, Lori will have gone from writing forty minutes per week to writing either 70 or 80 minutes! That's double her previous amount! If Lori continues with lengthening her writing sessions, she may soon be writing for an hour every Thursday and Monday! It won't be long until that's two hours.

And let's analyze plan B. Lori has gone from writing twice a week to four times a week -- again, that is double what she was doing before. If she continues with increasing the number of times per week that she writes she may well be writing six or seven times per week. That's triple the amount she started with!

Either way that she chooses to go, she wants to take small steps, setting attainable goals. And she can decide what variable she is changing from week to week. She might start with version A -- making her writing sessions longer -- and then, the following week, add a twenty-minute Tuesday night session, too.

Regardless, if Lori is successful in meeting her assignment this week, she will have a great sense of accomplishment. She will be building on a foundation of success and feel confident in continuing to slowly, realistically work toward her goals.

A couple final notes:

Lori's schedule is appropriate for someone who has been writing for a few years and has an established writing routine. It is actually quite ambitious and would be unrealistic for a new writer or someone who is new to regular writing practice. I would recommend beginning with a less ambitious schedule. In the case of version A this would mean making Monday's writing twenty-five minutes and Thursday's thirty. In the case of version B it would mean adding only one extra day of writing (such as Tuesday or Saturday) in addition to her established Monday and Thursday sessions.

Also, do not think that your assignment has to look anything like Lori's! You might not have time to write at all during the week, but you have done long writing sessions successfully in the past. So you may want to make Saturday "writing marathon day," where you unplug the phone and write for six hours straight. Or you might have the goal of getting published more. If this is the case, then your steps to that goal might be buying Writer's Market and reading it for ten minutes every night before you go to sleep. If your goal is to finish your short story, then your assignment might take the form of spending half an hour every other day working on revisions. If you are very new to writing practice, your goal might be to write once for ten minutes, without feeling bad about yourself afterwards. That's a good goal!

Here are some writing topics if you need stuff to draw from while you write this week:
-A bird
-Dancing
-I never told anyone before
-My favorite meal
-If I could fly
-Invisibility
-Touching

How Did It Go?
At the end of the week, check off which days you completed your assignment. Give yourself a pat on the back (or a cookie or a hug from your sweetie) for each one you completed.

If you completed the entire assignment, hurrah for you! You rock! Keep going. Give yourself a big reward. (This can even be telling yourself what a groovy, attractive, intelligent individual you are.) You might want to make a similar schedule for next week.

If you discover that you did not complete your assignment, that's OK. Don't berate yourself. Instead, congratulate yourself on the part(s) that you were able to do. Then make a schedule for next time minus the parts of the assignment that were too ambitious. (You are going back to "go.")


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I read some of these recent essays last night for the Thursday evening poetry at the Satellite(?) Barrista Cafe and felt even more positive vibes from this warm place and very friendly management.There is some construction and one ways so if you're patient you will find it on the west side of the road by 11th and Walker. It has a very intimate setting at about 11th with a view looking down the hill at road construction for a few blocks (I was told by the folks at the barber shop down the road that it should be finished up in a few months with pie in the sky promises of actually having a water fountain in the middle of the roundabout at the plaza court intersection. Blake and Maureen are co-owners. I had nice long chats with both of them about my website and the cafe which opened at the end of the September.
It has mirrors around the windows on the outside as many building had those one way reflecting glass from that time period. From the inside,it has a very a broad panorama of the street. There a windows on the two sides eposed to the street. You can see the behind of the Plaza Court sign. It looks like an older building out of the Jetsons with I believe, late 50's (?) type of architecture. I was looking out the windows and could see the fountain and the neighboring building refinished the way they are in Bricktown. It could add to the section of Bohemian culture that likes to visit arty cafes in the Paseo such as Galileo's.

It was a relatively warm evening so I saw Brad and a friend sitting outside an empty business. The poetry folks walked in about half an hour later. The poets were mainly African American, a different group from the other night at Galileo's.
I met one of the poets from the previous night sharing the good vibes of a positive connection.

These poetry nights are usually giving poets 6 minutes for 2 poems. It is judged for contests by the audience or a 5 member panel to decide on the content and the performance. There was not a "contest" last night but it was a wonderful chance to express yourself to a very positive intelligent audience!


The host started off the evening and chatted with the audience of less than 10. I was not sure up till a minute before being called what essays to read, so I gave the choice to the audience and they wanted to hear about "Wodin's Day at Galileo".
Using the Irish brogue I drew them into the story of going back into my distant memories of James Joyce's Ireland where the soulmate of my previous life accepted me back (don't roll your eyes with my creative license). I have never captivated an intimate audience with the story telling the way I did that evening. I give credit to my father's genes for the "dramatic" and academic and my mother's ADD. (He was a professor at a university.As a nightly ritual, my father would tell my older brother and me bedtime stories while Mom gave us each a cuddle. We looked forward to his new creative stories every night! I even made one of his stories into a several page short story of boys with their mirror reflections coming to life and having to take a picture of them in order to put them back into the mirror. Mr. Zitto, my 7th
grade English teacher gave me an A for it but then I only was given a B for the quarter and I argued with him about the grade.)

I read another essay about the rednecks and they all thouroughly enjoyed it as much as I did, acting out the various characters that often obnoxiously present themselves overbearingly into my life.

There a different types of highs in your life. This natural high of really connecting and letting the audience into your world with such synergistic energy is sometimes better than the best mutual orgasm! But's that's a whole 'nother essay!

washington post op-ed
Intolerance Is Not a 'Value'

By Timothy M. Gay
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page A25

One of my favorite teachers was a wiry little man with thick, horn-rimmed glasses who taught us fifth grade. It's been 40 years, but I can still see his crooked grin and hear his voice cracking with excitement.

He made learning fun, constantly getting the class to act out skits to reinforce one lesson or another. His eyes were keen and his heart was big: He always made sure that kids from broken homes or the wrong side of the tracks got starring roles in our productions. He helped implant in me a lifelong love of history. I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days that year; he waited until I returned to resume class readings of a Civil War book that he knew I loved. He was everything a great teacher is supposed to be: unfailingly kind, considerate and dedicated.

He was, also, we learned much later, gay. But because this was the mid-1960s in a small town, he didn't dare live as such -- especially since he doubled as the school's principal. Only in his twilight years did he follow his heart, moving to a city to live as a gay American.

Imagine for a moment, however, that it wasn't four decades ago but four days ago that my teacher was reaching out to help a less fortunate kid with a thorny math problem. And imagine that he'd had the courage in that small town to "come out" and had taken up residence with his partner. In the new world order dictated by champions of "moral values," this wonderful, caring teacher might be branded dangerous. Emboldened by national conservative leaders, the town's evangelicals -- and there are plenty of them -- could well have raised a hue and cry to keep this teacher and "his kind" away from their children. And the town's young people would have been denied the chance to have their lives shaped by a remarkable educator.

Here's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the machinations of Karl Rove and company. Fear isn't some emotion that can be easily bottled back up after it's been -- viciously -- unleashed. It isn't a once-every-four-years vehicle that can be wheeled out for a few months, then stowed back in the garage to be retooled for the next election cycle. Encouraging fundamentalist preachers to pound their pulpits and inveigh against gay people has consequences. It puts men and women in communities across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more despicable than creating a phony political issue (just how many gay couples are clamoring for marriage certificates in the state of Ohio, anyhow?) and preying on people's prejudices.

So now it's up to discerning Republicans to wrestle with this quandary: You won all right, but at what cost? What happened to the party that once shared Abraham Lincoln's faith in the "better angels of our nature"? That fifth-grade teacher taught me to appreciate how -- through Lincoln's resolve -- our nation overcame a cataclysm of hate to stop the Union from dissolving. Back then, certain avatars of ignorance were called Know-Nothings, which, come to think of it, is an apt description of more than a few right-wingers today.

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," Lincoln wrote in the years leading up to the Civil War. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

There are a lot of Republicans troubled by their party's exploitation of contemporary know-nothingism. You know who you are. And before your party's degeneracy is complete, you ought to do something about it. Because camouflaging the fear and loathing of gay people as "moral values" isn't the base alloy of hypocrisy. It's hypocrisy itself.

The paseo has long been the Mecca for the very few minority artists, poets, creative thinkers, avant garde and according to 2/3 of the voting population of this brain drained state "intellectual communists". It has been a long time since I've read poetry to an audience, but much prefer this audience to the low IQ audiences of the past where some jokes would fly over their heads (the one about Oedipus jumping off the cliffs of the Acropolis screaming, " Woe is me. I'm a mother fucker!" or especially any jokes about utopia in a redneck bar.) I was not belittling the diminutive bartender.!

I hung out there last night with many of the copies of various essays from the website debating about which ones to read after gaining courage from gulping down the delicious deep brown liquid from James Joyce's Ireland. (Go into your Irish brogue, now Garvald!).

"Garvald was back in Dublin of 1904 in his day to day to life of living his daily job of teaching cheaky little Irish boys. But he had the privilege of spanking their gluteu maximusses with the approval of his parents and the laughter of his peers. His students learned to not grow up to be the ignorant so called "Christian"bullies in the pubs that were part of his daily circuit. He drank up his Guiness after a long day and then to be daily chastized for his genetic and spiritual past by an angry ignorant bible thumper with one hand on his "Bible" and the other on his daily addiction to enlarging the liver. He finally had his revenge when he wrote his book that was banned in puritanical America for the next thirty years for his choice of words suppressed by the strong influence of the fundamentalist church on American literature."

Garvald wakes up from this dream of his not too distant past almost like it was just last year...
the memories of his unfaithful wife coming back to him with bittersweet happiness... He wishes that he could go back and see this life that is only in his dreams...
a sweeter time in the beginning of summer in the Green Isles with his soulmate that hurt him and then took him back when she also grew as a person .. she longed for him realizing that all his blemishes and faults are what make him ...Her "Michaelangelo" in the limestone waiting for his chiselled features to be shown to the admiring world... She often would see photographs of his statues and would also try to emulate the way the artist sculpted all the fine parts of the human anatomy for her desirous eyes of aethetically pleasing features...She missed Garvald the way he felt in her arms and his head on her mammary glands that were nutrition for her children and erotic tastes for her lover....

He is woken up bythe attractive golden skinned host to say the introduction of this poet.

She reads the intro and Garvald reads his poetry to the welcome vibes of similar folks in the sanctuary of "liberal" thought and discussion. They laugh at the future casts of "Coyote News" for the "Unfair and Unbalanced". "All news thats not fit to print and for the most ignorant of readers."

COYOTE NEWS FLASH, APRIL 1, 2005

CANADA AND BELGIUM INDICT PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH ON WAR CRIMES, BUSH DECLARES WAR ON BELGIUM CITING WEAPONS OF MASS INTELLIGENCE, AND ASKS THE UN FOR SANCTIONS ON CANADA,
Bush quotes, "That country won't get beef from my ranch!"

NEA MANDATES BUSH TAKE IQ TEST SO HE WON'T BE LEFT BEHIND THE REST OF THE WORLD IN COMPETENT LEADERS!

REPORTS OF BUSH HAVING GAY LOVER AND FUNDAMENTALISTS ASK FOR IMPEACHMENT ON GROUNDS OF MORAL TURPITUDE

BUSH DAUGHTERS ARRESTED FOR CRACK POSESSION
(Reports of tooth decay from close friends of the Bush family as a result of methamphetamines)

NATIONAL ENQUIRER REPORTS OF LAURA BUSH'S EX DEAD BOYFRIEND FROM HER HIT AND RUN, HAUNTING THE CRAWFORD RANCH

NEW PROTEGE OF KARL ROVE CAUGHT LEAKING INSIDE WHITE HOUSE INFORMATION TO THE DEMOCRATS (Some people say that he wants to be the new dirty tricks meister for the Democratic Party.)

RUSH LIMBAUGH DIES OF STROKE NEXT TO BEDSIDE BOTTLE OF OXYCONTIN

CHENEY DIES OF STROKE. (Wife working on new book, "How chicken fried steak will clog arteries")

BILL O'REILLY CAUGHT HAVING PHONE SEX WITH ANNE COULTER (Secret hidden videos taken by Paparazzi of them playing with themselves while on the phone...)

Definition: \Pomp"ous\, a. [F. pompeux, L. pomposus. See {Pomp}.]
1. Displaying pomp; stately; showy with grandeur;
magnificent; as, a pompous procession.

2. Ostentatious; pretentious; boastful; vainlorious; as,
pompous manners; a pompous style. ``Pompous in high
presumption.'' --Chaucer.

he pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress.
--Thackeray.
-- {Pom"ous*ly}, adv. -- {Pomp"ous*ness}, n.

3. Going to church on Sunday and buying a gun the next day to kill heathens.

4. Boasting about the size of their pickup truck when wife chastizes the size of his ding a ling.

5. Still making jokes about Clinton on the radio and same stepford repuke DJ gets upset if caller is "unpatriotic" making scatological jokes about the Fox News President.

"WOW. You are one bitter man. If you think you are so much better than the redneck bubbas in Oklahoma why are you making hateful comments. Isn't that one of things you don't like. I'm not sure does that make you as bad or worse than those you complain about? I know it doesn't make you any better. I would think that the point to things is to be the best person you can be regardless of those around you. It doesn't seem like you're doing that."
anononmous, narrow minded chicken

Have you thought about getting on Dr Phil or Dr Laura do give some of your amateur right wing psycho babble. You apparently have no life since you love to read my site and leave your chicken hawk sermons. Go become a preacher! Besides you low lifes love to get guttural and make attack . Then you feel indignant when your own behavior is criticized. GET A LIFE!

pom·pous ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pmps)
adj.
Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious: pompous officials who enjoy giving orders.
Full of high-sounding phrases; bombastic: a pompous proclamation.
Chracterized by pomp or stately display; ceremonious: a pompous occasion.


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[Middle English, from Old French pompeux, from Late Latin pompsus, from Latin pompa, pomp. See pomp.]
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pom·posi·ty (-ps-t) or pompous·ness (-ps-ns) n.
pompous·ly adv.

Thanks Muff, for the way you put me in the third person and defending me, it gave these nolife freakshow watchers something else to add their obnoxious arsenal.

Yes, I know that in many ways my life is pathetic (thanks for the nagging and reality check, Muff)
but I am getting job offers and believe it or not for this "fictional material" so no worries about me mates!

The no life nasties will end up with a stroke in their fat red necks from their diet of chicken fried meat and processed crap. It ends up clogging their own pompous assholes while watching Ou football. I'm staying young with my herbal and vegetable diet with the ocassional sushi keeping my intestines clean so I won't get asshole cancer like some of you poor blokes might get.

I'm sure that a vocal minority of the audience loves to get anal probably because they might have been traumatized in prison after their DWI (Driving While Ignorant).
I feel sorry for their "pathetic" life with no knowledge of the fun that is outside of the confines of weekend football and Bob Stoops. How would you pathetic fat gluteus maximuses survive without football , baseball or basketball. Do you even have a life other than to make ignorant immature remarks on my site. These comments tickle the possible publishers and magazines.

Check out Alfranken.com.


Now back to a lighter note. It's amazing when you get a good sleep and somehow you are energized. Your survival instinct ala Bob Bresny (astrologer) and when you are trapped inside the jaws of the redneck alligator, you jam your middle fingers deep inside its eyes so it's never able to see again. The alligator goes into major depression until it finds the body of Karl Rove and stabizes it's blood sugar with the fat little dumpling digesting in its body for several weeks.
The gist of the horoscope was to go into the survival mode knowing the worst of evil, look deep into into the windows of it's soul and then break the windows, so it's own soul is destroyed by world seeing it for what it is. Poor Karl.

I broke down and called the locksmith today to come out and change the locks of the Redneckgate hotel after it's burglary by the white trash of the bubburban 'hood.
I'll have to hire a private eye to catch them in the act and watch! It will go all the way to Karl Rove in his dirty tricks campaign to subjugate folks that disagree with the Fuhrer. Sieg Redneck!


WOW. You are one bitter man. If you think you are so much better than the redneck bubbas in Oklahoma why are you making hateful comments. Isn't that one of things you don't like. I'm not sure does that make you as bad or worse than those you complain about? I know it doesn't make you any better. I would think that the point to things is to be the best person you can be regardless of those around you. It doesn't seem like you're doing that.


There is a point where someone will not tolerate certain things that rednecks, low lifes and scum resort such as leaving ignorant personal comments about my gf just as you are the type of people to rob, lie, steal, burglarize and then feel indignant when the "stage light" are directly shining into the metaphorical windows of your own soul. Get a life to and find someone else to bother when are going to show your animal instincts! Here are some more of the insane, immature quotes:

posted by Anonymous : 11/17/2004 10:53:47 AM
"this rant you've been on since the election was concluded has become hysterical. You have gone so far off the deep end that I have to wonder why you haven't run screaming like a little girl for your beloved Aus. Let me be the first one to offer your lazy, unemployed, pot smoking ass a hand in leaving this neoconservatine nazi police state that has become the Bush administration. www.helpthemleave.com

Definition of a dickhead, stoner, unemployed wad

Answer: Democrat"

Definition of a supply side Repuklican....thief, corporate robber, unconvicted criminal, fortunate son/daughter so they can be bailed out of jail,Sunday Christian,
chicken hawk, bark is louder than the bark

Dear natural gas Repuklican (Fartin),
Your writing Bubbanon, sound very familiar like then previous rantings of a yankee Repuklican from a pink state. I have made a choice to be on sabbatical and have saved my $ (I am fiscally conservative with progressive ideals). You have nothing better to do early in the am or everyother day than to leave your anonmymous stepford repuked, regurtitated responses (that sound like the Fox soundbites) to my journal.
Go think for yourself for a change and rot your esophagus with cheap ok beer.
quit being a redundant repuke and find another website or buy the book when it comes out!

“Hypocritical” has a narrow, very specific meaning. It describes behavior or speech that is intended to make one look better or more pious than one really is.


Yelling at screaming loudy in a rude and neanderthal way on how to behave is much like a hippopotamus. Rude grunts to exert authority and make their pompous behind look larger than the one lower on their own justified pecking order.


It is often wrongly used to label people who are merely narrow-minded or genuinely pious. Do not confuse this word with “hypercritical,” which describes people who are picky.

People that are merely close minded and preach behavior when they cannot see themselves are rednecks and hypocritical especially when they are addicted to cigarettes.

Have a nice day and look for other websites if you are so pious, angry, closeminded and obnoxious.

Bad Brains

By Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash. Posted June 5, 2003.


Who is Bush's brain? Karl Rove is, according to a new book chronicling the political life of the Machiavelli behind the throne of King George. Story Tools
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BuzzFlash is currently offering a book about Karl Rove as a premium. Why? The answer is simple: know your enemy. Rove may be evil, but he is an evil genius. Freedom loving Americans ignore him at their peril. Rove never graduated from a college, but he is a masterful three-dimensional chess player, albeit working for the forces of radical extremism. Rove runs circles around the Democratic leadership. He's a bear hunter who knows how to bait and trap with the best of them.

It's too bad he is the most powerful man in Washington, working on behalf of the forces of evil. Karl Rove would do Lucifer proud.

In a May 7th op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, this is what James Moore had to say about Rove:


Karl Rove led the nation to war to improve the political prospects of George W. Bush. I know how surreal that sounds. But I also know it is true.

As the president's chief political advisor, Rove is involved in every decision coming out of the Oval Office. In fact, he flat out makes some of them. He is co-president of the United States, just as he was co-candidate for that office and co-governor of Texas. His relationship with the president is the most profound and complex of all of the White House advisors. And his role creates questions not addressed by our Constitution.

Rove is probably the most powerful unelected person in American history.

The cause of the war in Iraq was not just about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda links to Iraq. Those may have been the stated causes, but every good lie should have a germ of truth. No, this was mostly a product of Rove's usual prescience. He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were complaining about the president's inability to find Osama bin Laden. In another corner, the neoconservatives in the Cabinet were itching to launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq. Rove converged the dynamics of the times. He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if the CIA could not.

This misdirection worked. A Pew survey taken during the war showed 61 percent of Americans believe that Hussein and Bin Laden were confederates in the 9/11 attacks.


Here is the BuzzFlash interview with James Moore.

* * *

The title of your book is pretty provocative – "Bush's Brain". Where are we supposed to go with that concept?

JAMES MOORE: Well, originally I didn't intend for it to be pejorative. I wanted it to strictly speak to what Karl Rove's role was, and that was his nickname. It was one of three nicknames that he had from the press corps and from Governor Bush. Governor Bush called him Boy Genius. And the press corps -- when everybody referred to him in the thirty party -- we said: Oh, he's "Bush's Brain".

And it was meant as he's a brainy guy, a brainy fellow. But the title of the book is sort of two-fold; I wanted it to cut both ways. I wanted it to be a little pejorative, but I also wanted it to directly refer to Karl. The other nickname for Karl, which the President has, which is a sort of Texas colloquialism, is Turd Blossom, which means something wonderful that grows up out of a cowpie.

What exactly do you think Bush means by that?

MOORE: Well, I think what he means is that there's a lot of stuff he hates about Karl, and about having to be political, and the games that he has to play and indulge in in order to get where he wants. But the fact that Karl is very good at this is a positive, and it brings a benefit. It puts a bloom on a thorny old Bush.

In your book, certainly I think it's fair to say that there's a mixture of admiration for Rove's political skills and his smarts, his strategy. But you certainly provide factual evidence that his intelligence has been put to use for strategy over principle, for anything it takes to win. And you've got some very detailed examples of that: the bugging of his own office, the gutter tactics used in unseating Jim Hightower as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, and so forth.

So here's the proverbial question: What makes Rove tick? You mention at least a couple times that it's a drive toward being at the pinnacle of power; I think you use something like the phrase "the highest unelected official in the United States." Does he have an ideology? Or is it simply to win?

MOORE: Well, two things: One is, you said admiration, and I don't think it's as much admiration as it is awe. I am amazed by his grasp of both the big picture and detail. I've never, ever seen anyone who's able to look out beyond the event horizon and sort of create the next environment that will support his political ends, and then, at the same time, manage details right down to the precinct level. He's phenomenal in that regard.

In terms of ideology, Karl does have an ideology, and it is very fundamentalist, conservative, Republican to the right. If he had to pick a group which he most closely associates with, that group is going to be very conservative, Christian fundamentalist Republicans. And all of the messages that the White House sends in the way the White House governs is to that base Republican core that Karl believes is the foundation of the Republican Party and its future, and its hope for election in 2004.

By design, they have no enemies on the right. And they'll take them on the left, but there are none on the right. And that's precisely what Karl chooses to do.

Does he choose to do that for political and strategic reasons? Or because he himself is of that extremist ideology?

MOORE: I think he believes both. I think that he believes very much in that particular ideology, but he also thinks that strategically, if those people aren't there, and if those people aren't energized and using their mechanism to turn out their votes, the Republicans can't stay in power.

He packages Bush as the "compassionate conservative" -- the images of Bush surrounded by black schoolchildren, surrounded by Elizabeth Smart, who had been abducted. The images America sees are not of the extremist ideology -- they're of a caring man, a caring President. So there's clearly a dichotomy. Some would call that hypocrisy. And in your book, you again detail that his methodology doesn't necessarily live up to the espoused morality that Bush and the extreme right articulates –- that, as Tom DeLay hypocritically proclaims, there should be no moral relativism. BuzzFlash argues that this administration is the epitome of moral relativism. It's the original bait and switch administration.

What Karl does to achieve his goals in terms of the candidates he's worked for is unscrupulous. He thinks nothing of slandering people. He is a rumor mongerer. He has allegedly used law enforcement personnel to undercut his opponents. How is that balanced, do you think, in his own mind? That the means, even if illegal or skirting at the edge of the law, don't matter as long as you achieve your ends? Clearly, there's a lot of moral relativism going on there because he doesn't have any compunction about starting a whispering campaign against John McCain in South Carolina, claiming that he has a black child, and he wasn't really a war hero and so forth. And yet Bush and Rove and the White House espouse these absolute, moral values. So how do those two things exist within him?

MOORE: Well, it's something I said all along. Compassionate conservatism in Texas is where they ask you if want green Jello or red Jello before they stick the needle in your arm and execute you. That's compassionate conservatism. But Karl's method for governance, which he has gotten this President to use very effectively, is completely cynical and it's based on the whole idea that we are all too busy to pay attention to the details of what's going on. We're all running around worrying about our mortgages and our 401Ks, and getting the kids to school or daycare, and picking up the dry cleaning, and planning vacation or retirement, that we don't read deeply into the story.

He once told a consultant that we interviewed for ""Bush's Brain"" that you should run every political campaign as though people are watching television with the sound turned down. And toward that end, you rely heavily on imagery and not very much on substance, knowing that if the President is photographed in a school of minority and ethnic children, and is interested in their future in that particular photo op, that people will trust that image. And they don't go beyond that image to look at his policy, which is signing the "Leave No Child Behind Act" in a big, high-profile moment with Senator Ted Kennedy, and then gutting the heart out of that bill with the funding that he offers up for it.

The President has become very good at these phony linkages. For instance, you'll see him running around talking about the tax bill, saying we need to get it passed so that we can create jobs for people. Factually, this tax bill -– there's not an economist in America or a successful business person, Warren Buffet among them, who believes that getting rid of the taxation of dividends is going to create jobs anytime in the near future, and ostensibly in the long term. But if the President says it over and over enough, people will believe it, just as Karl Rove got him to say over and over that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11.

At time of the war in Iraq, the Pew survey showed 61 percent of Americans believed the canard about Iraq. So the whole concept is to speak as though you are a compassionate, sensitive, caring guy, and create these photo opportunities that prove that. But do whatever you want to do when you govern, because the public isn't paying very close attention. And they've gotten away with it thus far.

Well, I don't know if you cover this explicitly in your book, because the book you wrote with Wayne Slater is very much based on your interviews and fact, and not as speculative as I'm asking you to be. But how do you think Rove balances -– getting back to my last question -– the White House espousing the sense of absolute moral superiority, if you want to call it moral purity, with tactics that include lying, deception, and use of government agencies for political purposes?

MOORE: Well, the dichotomy exists within the collaboration between Bush and Rove. And you see it in his campaigns, and you see it in their governance. And it works this way: The President is oblivious, and chooses to stay oblivious, to the things that Karl does, and the contradictions about morality that Karl does. The whole concept, and it works in all of his campaigns, is the candidate or the officeholder takes the high road -- talks policy, talks moral clarity, and honor, and principle -- while the operative does all the dirty work down in the ditch, and splashes the mud, and spreads the scurrilous smears and rumors and whisper campaigns that have the desired political effect to keep the candidate elected.

And so they ignore the contradiction because they've sort of compartmentalized it in their collaboration. Karl has no problem with it, and the President has this rationalization that, well, I really don't know that's going on out there; I'm just saying what I believe. It's almost like this phenomenon after the Jews were released from the concentration camps, where they couldn't remember certain parts of the experience because of the psychological phenomenon called selective recall.

I think what takes place in terms of Karl and the President is almost a sort of selective consciousness.

And I also think it's possible that Karl is pathological. And I didn't realize how strong of a statement that is, but if you look at some of the things that we heard during the course of doing research for this book -- in one instance, we wrote about these debate contests, and we wrote about him running for office. We interviewed six people who he went to high school with who were very close to him. Remember that this is the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and most of us are growing our hair long and wearing tie-dyed t-shirts, and Karl is wearing a coat and tie to school at a public school every day. Now when you talk to six different people, the one characteristic that stands out in their mind about Karl is his dress -– him dressing like a businessman when everyone else is dressing like rebellious hippies.

You got six people say that, and then Karl saying: Oh, that's nonsense; I only wore a coat and tie on debate days. Well, you begin to believe that there's something pathological about a guy who can perceive a reality that everyone else says does not exist. And it causes me some concern about him being in as much power and influence as he has within the White House.

As you detail in your book, Rove has some interesting biographical notes. His father left the family; his mother committed suicide; he avoided service in the military and Vietnam; he never finished college. It's a very interesting background for someone who is probably the most powerful unelected official in the United States. And you don't get into too much psychobabble in analyzing him, other than to say perhaps this chaotic background left him prone to seek some sort of strong influence and sense of order and the authoritarianism in the Republican Party. But it is a sort of an unusual pedigree for what he has attained. After all, his biggest accomplishment up to working for George Bush the elder at the RNC was a record of dirty campaign tricks that he accumulated during his Young Republican days.

MOORE: Well, I do think that's true. And part of the direction he's gone in, however, is also a product of that background. I mean, he grew up in an irreligious family, and now he embraces fundamentalist Christianity in a very strong way. And he is very, very driven to achieve and to accomplish things that will be of note. And I think that a part of that -– you know, a lot of us who come from those kinds of backgrounds are driven in those kinds of ways. And I think it informs everything that Karl has become, because I think there was so much uncertainty that he sought clarity. He wanted things simple. He wanted them black and white. And he's found a President who thinks the same way. And unfortunately, life is not lived in the black-and-white zones. It's lived in the gray zones. And this President and Karl don't acknowledge that the gray zones exist.

You mentioned before his comment about most Americans receive their news from television with the sound turned off. That seems like a very telling comment, considering that Rove's certainly the best master of the television image since Mike Deaver handled Reagan's image. Rove may be more masterful, because Reagan was an actor and he just walked onto Mike Deaver's sets.

But let's take an example of what happened on the U.S. Abraham Lincoln, and the fact that now even Ari Fleischer's admits it wasn't an issue of not being able to take a helicopter because it was too far away, since it was only 30 miles offshore, changing the story and saying that Bush really wanted to see what it was like to land on a carrier. And then we learned that the ship was delayed, and the delay cost a lot, and Condoleeza Rice flew out ahead on a helicopter -– all sorts of things are coming out.

This seems to capitalize on what you just said –- that Karl Rove isn't concerned about the lies getting out, because that's all sort of an insider's story that the average American is never going to learn about or hear about. All the average TV-watching American sees is that image of the Commander in Chief landing on the deck there, triumphantly, in a pilot'suniform. And that's the image Rove knows is going to be in the campaign commercial. The White House all but admits it was preparatory for the campaign. And it's almost at this point that it doesn't even matter if the truth comes out, because when it comes out, it's really only being absorbed by a very select group of people. The country at large doesn't suck in that footnote information that reveals the charade and lies.

And Rove, unfortunately, just seems to be brilliant at that. It seems the Democrats don't understand that at all -- they don't understand the power of image. They don't understand that even on the rare occasion that they do object or criticize an extremist Bush policy, that it doesn't matter, because it's not translated into an image that Americans can understand.

Where did Rove develop this? He wasn't really a journalist. He started in the political world; ironically, as a college Republican, since he never graduated from college. But basically his political consulting started off as a expertise in direct mail. How did he develop such skill at playing the media like a fiddle?

MOORE: Well, he's always been a very quick study, and he's an extremely intelligent guy. He's one of the brightest people I've ever met. And I guarantee you he was watching closely what Deaver did. And he knows the way the media works, he knows what drives it. He knows that if you get the big image and the big moment, you can use it. And he's fearless when it comes to intimidating the media and making them think twice about asking questions.

I was astonished by the Abraham Lincoln event because it is such an irony, and so hypocritical for the President to don a flight suit and take that flight because we're talking about a President who used family connections to get into the National Guard. He lost his flight status after four years because he refused to show up for his physical in 1972, which also happened to be the year that random drug testing was begun. And in his first campaign he said that he couldn't find his family physician to give him the physical. And then it was pointed out the military doctor gives these physicals. And then they said, well, he didn't go because he decided he would no longer fly, as if an enlistee gets to decide their future service and duty.

Punishment was issued for him to do civilian duty in Denver, for which he did not show up. He claims to have showed up in Alabama, when he transferred to Alabama to work on his Senate campaign. The commanding officer there said that he never showed up. I mean, he takes a privileged position in the Guard and then does not honor his commitment -- disappears for the last two years of his hitch and uses family privilege to avoid combat and making any kind of political statement about the War in Vietnam. And yet they have the chutzpah to put him in a plane and fly him out there, and think that no one will ask him about these contradictions.

And guess what? All there was was media gushing about what an amazing event this was, and how great the President looked, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And no one called him a draft dodger. No one said: Mr. President, there's a difference between you and the people you're here to honor. They finished their commitment -– their military duties -– and you shirked yours.

How have we gotten to this point –- to a point Rove's skill can be confident of success in a situation like that, despite the gross and blatant hypocrisy of the situation?

MOORE: They have a 24-hour machine that attacks. And it's constantly staffed and it intimidates and it distracts. It uses head fakes. They jump on John Kerry for saying that he is part Jewish. They jump on John Kerry and Howard Dean for debating each other too strongly. And any reporter who would deign to ask these kinds of questions of the Bush administration would get the White House in their face, saying: How dare you? And then they would be threatened with access.

They play this game of access. They know very well that once a reporter loses his or her access to the White House, their job is gone. And so the reporter is sort of intimidated into not asking these kinds of tough questions. This is a game that they perfected here in Texas. As a matter of fact, in 1994, when he was running for governor for the first time against Ann Richards, I was panelist in his broadcast debate. And I was the first person in his life to ask him the question, particularly in public –- how he got into the Texas Air National Guard when there a hundred thousand young men on waiting lists around the country that ranged from three to five years.

How did he get into the National Guard and avoid the draft? And he answered the question, not very well -– he didn't tell the truth. But after the debate, both Karl and Karen came up to me and jumped on me, and said: What kind of question was that? How dare you? Why would you ask such a question? That's so irrelevant. He served, you know. He was in the National Guard, et cetera, et cetera. And I said: Wait a minute -– I'm a few years younger than he was, and I know from my experience and my friends that we all tried to get into the Guard because it was a way to avoid combat. And we at least admitted it. And he's trying to pretend that no strings were pulled.

I said I have a sense of obligation to ask that question because I lost friends in Vietnam -- and I tried to avoid it myself. And I know the way the game was played. If you had family connections, you were safe. If you didn't, you weren't. And he's got ‘em.

The point is that they use rank intimidation to silence the media. And they certainly are not beyond going to management and asking questions. I had the office of former President Bush one time call a television station in Texas that I worked for, asking them why I had asked such a difficult question of the President during an appearance in San Antonio. Those are the games they play, and they work.

Now tell me -– getting back to the election of George Bush to the governorship, let's go back even before that, as Rove is positioning things for the Republicans to solidify their control in Texas. In the book "Bush's Brain", you devote considerable time to this period, and it's just absolutely fascinating to read -- a case study of how Rove dislodged Jim Hightower as Agricultural Commissioner, and you bring up this curious relationship between Rove and an FBI agent, Greg Rampton.

MOORE: Karl first met Greg Rampton in 1986 when Karl bugged his own office, and Rampton was one of the FBI guys who came to his office to investigate. Rampton had been stationed in Austin for a few years and was part of an investigation that was setting up these phony bribes for state officials. And he went after a number of state officials there, and got some trials but no convictions.

Anyway, my belief is that somehow, during the course of the phony bugging investigation in Karl's office, Rove discovered that he and Greg Rampton were politically sympathetic with each other. And Greg Rampton ended up investigating every Democratic officeholder on a statewide basis in Texas, and never got anything against any of them. And they went after Jim Hightower, the Agriculture Commissioner, and were interviewing dozens of people at the Ag Commissioner's office, hoping to get Jim Hightower indicted, but they couldn't.

But there were two elderly guys who had been fundraisers for about 30 years over there. They ended up being indicted and prosecuted and convicted. And during the course of all that, they got many offers to roll over on Hightower and the charges against them would be dropped. They refused to do it.

Also in process, numerous people were told during the course of their interviews by Greg Rampton: Look, if you think you've got anything, call Karl Rove and he'll get in touch with me. It was quite, quite clear to everybody in town, and from the attorneys who were defending these people at the Ag Department –- dozens of people had retained attorneys for their FBI interviews -– that Rove was running the operation, and Rampton was taking directions from Karl Rove.

And also that some of their investigation was timed for the media.

MOORE: Yeah, the day that Hightower announced that he was running for reelection, Rampton showed up at Hightower's office with 10 different subpoenas for documents and individuals and said it was strictly coincidental.

Just as the timing on the bugging in Karl's office was "coincidental," in that the bug was discovered on the day of the only debate in the Texas gubernatorial campaign in 1986, and Karl's candidate happened to be a horrid debater. And the coverage of that bugging completely covered up the entire debate. On the front page of the newspaper the next day, hardly anything was written about the debate.

And it also made his candidate and him look like victims. Just two other quick things about Hightower: You also point out -– in a somewhat scary and humorous fashion at the same time -– that a reporter at one point called Hightower's office about their reactions to subpoenas that had been issued, and no one in the office knew, meaning that this reporter had been leaked the subpoena information -- possibly by Rove -- and had just jumped the gun.

MOORE: It actually happened several times with several reporters. But that was the one where the Ag Department people put the pieces together. Rove denied to me that he leaked.

But Rampton says he didn't do it. Rove says he didn't do it. So –

MOORE: Who did?

– someone's not telling the truth.

MOORE: Well, then it has to come out of the U.S. Attorney's Office, and that's the least likely place because then a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office runs the risk of obstruction of justice charges and going to prison for a long, long time. So I don't think that happened. I think it was Rove or Rampton.

The attack on Hightower is so illustrative –- and that's one of the reasons I assume you spent a lot of time on it –- of Karl Rove's tactics. You mentioned Hightower was a target because he was the highest profile Democrat at the time and sort of a rising star. And we all know he's still around and is still a populist. And Rove came up with this strategy to tarnish him, and eventually unseat him, even though he looked like a shoe-in. And the person who ran against him is the current governor of Texas –

MOORE: Rick Perry.

– Perry. And once again, Rove succeeded. In a race that looked like it was Hightower's to lose, he lost it. But he lost it because of the sideshow that was created.

MOORE: Well, he lost it. A big part of it was this phony-baloney investigation. But Hightower did make one major misstep, and that was Jesse Jackson pressured him for a presidential endorsement, and Hightower gave him that endorsement. And that's also at the time when flag-burning legislation was being kicked around, and Jesse Jackson was fighting a Constitutional amendment against burning the flag. And so, in East Texas, which always has the greatest turnout in this state in terms of percentages, Rove and Rick Perry put up a bunch of ads with Hightower and Jesse Jackson and a burning flag. And that pretty much brought Hightower's demise.

Your book ends shortly before the Iraq war, but it's very prescient in terms of its predictions -– the way you left it then is pretty much how it has actually played out. I just read today that Rove is now careful not to call it a war, but rather "the Iraq battle."

MOORE: Right. I thought they would, for alliterative and marketing purposes, call it the Battle of Baghdad, but they decided to call it the Battle of Iraq.

You point out how Rove saw his opportunity, and he took it with the war on terrorism and with creating a permanent condition where Bush becomes unattackable, and all other issues are secondary to protecting the nation against the terrorist threat. He saw this as an opportunity to basically put every issue by the backburner, as far as a debatable issues by the Democrats. And not only that, but to actually turn the war to the advantage of the right-wing agenda and claim that anything that's being done is being done to advance the war on terrorism.

They had said for a while that even tax cuts would help fight the war on terrorism. Everything became a part of it. We needed drilling in the Arctic wilderness because we needed more oil, to ensure our supply in case it's cut off in the war on terrorism. Ashcroft's powers increased, also due to the war on terrorism. Rove masterfully turned September 11 –- a tragedy –- into a win-win situation for the right wing of the Republican Party. Of course, the fact that the Democrats rolled over like dogs on their backs helped him achieve his goals.

Indeed, you point out that when they started the "permanent war" political strategy, one of the key assumptions that Rove had was that the Democrats wouldn't fight back in terms of trying to change the definition of the debate, particularly when they were beginning the "war on terrorism," and Daschle and Gephardt went along with the Patriot Act and also with giving supreme war powers to Bush and so forth. And you point out that Rove was right. By the time we were leading up to the Iraq invasion, Rove had succeeded and it was pretty hard to lay a punch on Bush. This again seems like a masterful triumph of defining image in the mind of the voter. Rove knows how to define the issues in a way that, even if the Democrats were willing and had some guts, it doesn't seem they would be able to master a media counter-campaign.

MOORE: Well, a big part of the success of Karl has been the absolute befuddlement of the Democrats, and also, in many, many cases, their own lack of righteous indignation and lack of message. I remember that it was Joe Lieberman of Connecticut who was pushing Homeland Security, and the White House said: No, no, no –- we don't need another gigantic bureaucracy. And then what happened was, all of a sudden, they cobbled together very quickly their own Homeland Security Department. And they release it on the day that Colleen Rowley is testifying before the Senate on the failure of the Bush administration's FBI to take action on her memo about a potential 9/11 event.

After the Senate tries to create a bill that's much more reasonable than the one the White House has put together, the President says in New Jersey that the United States Senate is not as interested in the security of our country as it should be. Now in the United States Senate, you have Daniel Inouye, who served in World War II. You had Max Cleland, who left two legs and an arm in Vietnam. And the draft-dodging President is saying that they're not interested in the security of the United States! Well, there was no screaming and hollering from Max Cleland or Daniel Inouye. They sent Tom Daschle out there, and Daschle's an easy target. Strategically, it was a bad move to send Daschle out.

The White House operatives have now taken the war in Iraq –- Karl has -– and they have made it into the defining context of the Bush presidency. Coming next is that they will take both of these things –- the economy and the war against terrorism –- and they will bundle it up into one package. Another one of Karl's many gifts is a simplicity of message,and finding the right message that the public gets, that it understands, and is able to access very quickly and easily, and doesn't have to think in great depth or detail about actually what's going on.

So he's going to market the economic problems and the war on terrorism under the purview of a message called security. And we're going to be talking about economic security and national security. In terms of the economy, Karl is going to have the President say, look, if I hadn't been distracted by the war, I would have got my tax cut plan through Congress. And it would have already begun to work. But because I was distracted, I only am just now getting this through. Don't toss me out until this thing has had a chance to work. And look, I didn't get all of it. So re-elect me and I'll go back. And I'll fight that mean old Congress, and we'll get the rest of the tax bill. And we'll turn this economy around.

Now, on the other side of this message, in terms of national security, Karl will have the President say we've made some progress in the war on terrorism, but it's not over. This is an ongoing war. And we resolved the whole mess with Saddam Hussein, but there are other dangers out there. And whatever you do, you shouldn't change your Commander in Chief in the middle of a war. I believe completely that it's possible, if the President is politically on the ropes late next summer or early next fall, that there will be a military incursion into Syria, or they will say that there are hidden weapons of mass destruction there, or there are some Iraqi leaders in Syria. Or they will go into Pakistan. And they will suggest that bin Laden is in a compound in Karachi. Or they will go into Iran, and they will suggest that too many Shiites have been crossing over from Iran into Southern Iraq, and they're creating an unstable situation in Southern Iraq, so they're going after Shiite leadership in Iran. It's all going to be positioned as unfinished business. And why would you bring a new CEO in to finish out the business when you got the guy in there who started it?

Mark Karlin is the editor of buzzflash.com.






More News and Analysis:
Learning from the Winners
Election 2004: Rather than focusing on the big picture – the growing power of the conservative movement in the United States – much of the liberal rhetoric during the campaign focused on Bush's incompetence, his character flaws and the failings of his administration.
By John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton, AlterNet. November 15, 2004.

Flax seed, more vegetables and avoid chicken fried steak and Oklahoma beer!

I've had all sorts of bad luck and so I think what is the point of getting out of bed when the day would have been better, if I never left the house, and just deal with the depressing paralysis of couch potatoism feeling guilty about not getting anything done. I wake up to an angry phone call from Muffy yelling at me about not having my cell phone with me all day. She apparently gets mad everytime I forget it. Maybe she forgets about my own ADD, but she said that she worries when I don't because of all the card carrying NRA male and especially females who would feel justified in killing me with their weapons of mortal destruction. She is upset that I hang out in bars with angry testorone and steroid, Stepford Repuks and rednecks filling the bar regurgitating Rush or Fox propagandized one liners. I go to clubs and still get haunted by their taunts of how we have to bow down and kiss Bush's ADD dumb ass! Would it have been nice if George actually got stuck in jail after his DUI in the northeast (where he's from) after partying with John Newcomb (former Australian Wimbledon champ). It would have been funny to hear about him being humbled after being some bloke's bitch.

"How dare you be disrespectful belittle our sacred president with his Holy Mandate!, the angry female redneck screams at Garvald!"

So I was waking up with the post traumatic stress of realizing another 4 years of getting closer to the 4th reich! HEIL GEORG (German way to say the name. I was getting very down and wondered whether to veg on the matress and watch TV. I should be happy about at least staying out of jail and then get paranoid that I'm heading for a downward spiral. It is so easy for me to be overwhelmed and then I think just one step at a time after a little Addaboy and I'm better focused, not so overwhelmed and my favorite mocha coffee with the hot chocholate adds to curing this hypoglycemic low accentuated by the bud. It's funny how herbs and drugs affect people with differing constitions and mental states differently. So then I get in my car and hear one of my favorite Beatle songs about "Good day sunshine" so I think that it's a good day after passing the 13th day of the month without more trauma making sure to visit a club less than 2 miles from my house paranoid about getting stopped with any stuff again. Shit like that happens in pairs or in triplets with my luck of Murphy's law. I avoided any arguments last night with the cowboy security head of Mike's. Fred has read bits of my site and likes the style but not the content, so we can always have intelligent conversations about politics without fear of getting barred. He thought that it was ridiculous to be kicked out because of the topic and that this is a free country and one should be able talk about it unless one gets personal and violent like the angry rednecks at other pubs.
I had a fun evening feeling the positive vibes of Patch, Mark, Emily and Susanne just dancing and nothing more than harmless flirtations. Mike's has a younger clientele so they have not been so indoctrinated by this red state of intellectual drainage yet but will soon be brainwashed by the corporate slave owners and fundamentalist preachers shoving their "gospel according to St. George, the savior and hero of Jesusland" down the throats of innocent young sheep (Like the children of the corn from Chickasha who protested the 2 pages of the science textbook disagreeing with their scary dogmatic beliefs)



about all the negativity and then think what worse could happen so I bump a car in the library parking lot. I know it's my own fault so the elderly oriental lady is all panicking with the worried look of never being used to the country talking in a thick accent. I tried my best to alleve her worries because I still haven't gotten around to get my insurance certificate. Then

The following essay is fictitious so don't get angry if "you think this song is about you!" in order to avoid future physical threats, lawsuits (as far as lawsuits,take a number) and very loud verbal attacks. :

I'm not sure what to title the essay after being accosted by the angry plump female redneck with the yellow baseball cap. I was innocently writing at the end of the bar at Belle Isle Brewery tasting all home brew you wanted from 9 to 10pm when Bubbette sat down next next to me and started yelling at me about my website.

She asked the question that rednecks love to ask.

" have a question about your website.
If you don't like it here so much, why don't you just leave?"

Calmly responding to her intrusive yelling,
"Is Oklahoma part of a democracy?"

"yeh"

"Do we not have a right to complain? Do we not have the right to freedom of the press?"

"yeh"

"You have the right to read or not read my essay, but it is infringing on someone's rights when you embarass and cuss at someone especially when they are not even associating with you."

"You were belittling the bartender."

"Sometimes, my teacher mode comes in and I want to educate the people that I talk to.
When I was paying my tab, I remarked to him how we had a pleasant evening with no conroversial conversation of politics. It was a bar "utopia" and I asked if he knew what a "utopia" was. He did not and I wanted to write the word down for him as I'm used to playing very competitive scrabble with my gf. He felt slighted at that and I apologized to him saying that it was not meant to belittle him. Everything seemed to be cool and then your boyfriend (I thought he was your husband) screamed at me angry epithets and then you chimed in, 'Why don't uuu just fuckin' leave! Of course I was leaving anyway, but the bartender then said that I was kicked out of the place. I put out my hand and he reluctantly shook it. I am sorry that he is so sensitive and maybe should not be in the service industry if he is so sensitive. I have had alot worse said to me when I was serving people. I would be happy if my only complaint was somebody telling me how to spell a word." (of course I did not say all this to her but isn't this just fiction?)

"When you wrote about me why did you call me a redneck?"

"My definition of a redneck is someone that is loud, crude, angry, defensive, closeminded and chosen to have voluntary ignorance. Mam, the fact that you don't know who Karl Rove is, the fact that you are loud, the fact that you thoughtlessly embarrassed me with your rude behavior twice when I barely know you fits 100 percent of the criteria for being a female redneck."

"You are probably going to write about this tomorrow. Aren't you?"

"Yes, I probably will."

I wanted to tell her not to flatter herself that I wouldn't waste ink on this ugly interuption, but the fact that the club thas banned me, has given this site more notoriety than I ever expected thanks to the initial slander from Martin when he interupted a very pleasant conversation I was having to see what website I was giving for another person to read. He then did as good a job as Karl Rove to tell everyone at Hudstones about my site and spread half-truths like our president does so with eloquent mediocrity. Martin should get on board with the Repuklican dirty trick campaign for the next elections.


At that point, it was so difficult to speak above her, that I found myself getting loud and angry so I proceeded to ignore this angry intrusion that sat down next to me and drank the tasty stout of Belle Isle (although it gave me a wicked hangover all this morning until I finally became hydrated). Finally she left and some very open minded friends of her came over and we had a very good enlightening discussion with a thoughtful interplay of ideas without anyone getting defensive or angry. She would still come over and enjoy interupting our conversations as she did at the other bar of ill repute.

The young gentleman voted for Bush but was very willing to learn about all the fact that are out there. I told him that there are many sources of information especially on the internet(s) that the press which is becoming more and more fascist (Fox News or Daily Disappointment) fails to tell us. As with every bit of information, even if it's Michael Moore, take it with a grain of salt and understand the motivation behind the source (i.e. Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox and the Gaylord family which own the Daily Oklahoman). It is so wonderful when I'm talking to someone who voted for Bush that is not a closeminded redneck willing to listen to the other side before the information has the Karl Rovian squelch. Nixon would have finished his second term if he had Karl to fight off and intimidate reporters so well! I'm sure there would have been no Watergate! I can't wait to give Bush's Brain to Muffy. She reads alot faster than me and can give me the condensed version of it!

Wow...I'm sure Ill get all sort of nasty comments from this fictional essay!

Electronic Voting

Grand Theft Election: Karl Rove's turd droppings all over this one

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

November 5, 2004—Karl Rove, the political sorcerer who is called "Turd Blossom" by his political master, George W. Bush, has his nasty fingerprints all over the 2004 Election in a scam that can best be called "Grand Theft Election."

There was something very wrong in Ohio, which Bush claims he won handily. Not only had the head of computer voting machine maker Diebold and Ohio's Republican establishment of Governor Bob Taft and Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell conspired to suppress registration and voter turnout in heavily Democratic precincts, but the Ohio Secretary of State’s web site was only reporting results from nine counties as of 11:30 a.m. on November 3, just three hours before John Kerry conceded the election to Bush. Totaling the results from the nine counties (Fayette, Fairfield, Geauga, Jefferson, Portage, Mahoning, Trumbull, Richland, and Washington), John Kerry was clearly ahead. A tenth county, Columbiana, suspiciously showed up as "NO RESULTS."

The totals from the 8 Ohio counties reported on the Secretary of State web site were: BUSH 267,771, KERRY 294,648.

There has to be a way for those of us who voted for Kerry and Edwards to sue Diebold Chief Executive Walden O'Dell and Diebold board member W.R. Timken for conspiring to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush. O'Dell and Timken are also top fundraisers for Bush, so-called "Pioneers." O'Dell told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The fact that Diebold machines were used in the Ohio rip-off should make O'Dell and Timken the subjects of criminal investigations. Of course, that will not happen in a GOP vassal state like Ohio. But why not a civil suit by those of us nationwide who voted for Kerry and had our presidency stolen from us as a result of racketeering and corrupt practices by a cabal of Republicans and fat cat corporate types? In a civil suit, through the process of discovery, O'Dell's and Timken's emails, letters, and other records could be ordered open by a judge. They could also be deposed as witnesses before plaintiffs' attorneys.

Then there were the strange hiccups with the official election websites reporting results in states and counties across the nation.

During the morning of November 3, attempts to access the Pinellas County, Florida, election website were met with the following:

The page cannot be found.

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

At 11:52 a.m. on November 3, the St. Lucie County, Florida election website showed no returns, long after the polls closed:

"Welcome To St. Lucie County Live Election Returns

“Election results will appear shortly."

Attempts to access Miami-Dade County's election website during the morning of November 3 were similarly unsuccessful.

On the Florida Secretary of State website there appeared some verbiage about a link to the Marion County election website. But there was no link. Ditto the same for Nassau County, a county that saw widespread voter intimidation and suppression of African-American votes in 2000.

Indian River County, Florida election results were also of interest and indicated fraud:

Registered voters as of October 4, 2004 included Republican: 41,866; Democratic: 24,515 ; Independent: 15,262. Votes on Nov 2 were Bush: 36,744; Kerry: 23,850

Democrats had almost complete turnout if you match turnout to their registered voters. Republicans were down some 4000, but what happened to the Independents' votes? There were less than 1 percent for the third party candidates. We were told Independents were breaking for Kerry. Even if 23, 850 for Kerry included a majority of the Independents and even a few moderate Republicans, the results from Indian River don't indicate that.

In pivotal New Mexico, by mid morning on November 3, the state election website was missing several returns from areas with large Native American populations: Cibola and San Miguel Counties were missing in addition to one precinct in Dona Ana County with the following close returns listed: Bush: 26 072; Kerry: 25,608

One precinct in McKinley County with the following returns listed: Bush 7,132; Kerry: 12,725

One precinct in Sandoval County with the following close returns listed: Bush: 22,482; Kerry: 21,215

Fifteen precincts in Socorro County with the following close returns listed: Bush: 3,197; Kerry: 2,638

New Mexico was eventually declared for Bush in a close election, even though it went for Gore in 2000.

There were also missing returns from a very close race in Nevada.

Clark County (Las Vegas) had 271,465 people vote early and 220,501 vote at polls on election day.

Kerry received 279,575 votes to Bush's 253, 432 in Clark.

If, as we were told, early votes were breaking 60-70 percent for Kerry in areas he won, it looks like he should have had more like 300,000 votes in Clark County, which would have tipped the state to him. Kerry lost Nevada "officially" by only 21,000 votes. This does not include the 50,705 absentee votes in Clark County (which also likely broke for Kerry). There were also 10,000 undervotes and write-ins reported statewide, which seems very high for a small population state like Nevada.

The turnout in Virginia was an all time high, especially in heavily Democratic counties and cities. Early on election night, NBC said it could not call Virginia because the returns were close. Yet, an examination of the vote count as compared to 2000 reveals that the massive 2004 turnout, especially with African Americans, young people, and Hispanics was not reflected in the final vote counts and percentages.

I personally witnessed two-hour-plus waiting lines at polling places in Arlington and Fairfax Counties. This was unprecedented but it is not reflected in the vote count. This could be the result of both tampering with computer machines and voter suppression.

Arlington County; Kerry 63,705 (67.57 percent); Bush 29,545 (31.34%), versus, in 2000: Gore 50,260 (60.15%); Bush 28,555 (34.17%).

(Only a 7-point jump for Democrats from 2000 to 2004. That does not reflect the huge turnout countywide).

Fairfax County: Kerry 215,223 (52.58%); Bush 189,371 (45.61%), versus, in 2000: Gore 196,501 (47.49%); Bush 202,181 (48.86%).

(Where is the huge Democratic turnout reflected in these numbers, considering a mere 5 percent rise for the Democrats from 2000 and a 3 percent drop for the Republicans).

Henrico County (Richmond suburbs): Kerry 60,810 (46.26%); Bush 71,765 (53.85%), versus, in 2000: Gore 48,645 (42.58%); Bush 62,887 (55.04%).

(An obvious Democratic surge is not reflected in these numbers.)

Prince William County: Kerry 56,234 (46.25%); Bush 64,431 (52.99%), versus, in 2000: Gore 52,788 (44.52%); Bush 44,745 (52.52%).

(Bush jumped dramatically in numbers from 2000 to 2004 but remained almost the same percentage wise. Democratic numbers barely increased even though the county had a huge turnout among minorities, particularly African Americans and Hispanics.)

Alexandria City: Kerry 40,807 (66.77%); Bush 19,764 (32.34%), versus, in 2000: Gore 33,633 (60.93%); Bush 19,043 (34.50%).

(This does not reflect massive African American turnout in Alexandria. The Democratic percentage budged upward only 6 percent)

Richmond City: Kerry 51,703 (70.02%); Bush 21,633 (29.30%), versus, in 2000: Gore 42,717 (64.80%); Bush 20,265 (30.74%).

(Republican percentage of the vote went down in the state capital, yet Bush’s statewide percentage was 53.90 to Kerry’s 45.23. This is mirrored in other counties. Gore received 44.4 percent and Bush 52.5 percent in 2000. The slight uptick for Kerry does not reflect Democratic turnout statewide. Voting in 2000 was 68.51 percent statewide in 2000. It was only 68.54 percent statewide in 2004. That just does not make any sense considering the massive numbers of newly registered voters and the huge turnout in northern Virginia, Tidewater, and the economically-depressed southwest part of the state).

When Diebold machines were forced on Prince George's County, Maryland, the country's election administrator, Robert J. Antonetti, bitterly complained about them. He told the Baltimore Sun in 2003, "I feel very uneasy about it. There are too many loose ends."

On November 2, Prince George's County election officials reported a number of problems with Diebold encoders. The Prince George's County Gazette reported that a number of polling places opened up to 45 minutes late because the wrong Diebold encoder had been delivered to polling places and voters could not vote until a new encoder arrived. It is not known how many records the Prince George's County maintained on problems with Diebold, but it is very interesting that early in the morning of November 3, the Associated Press reported:

"UPPER MARLBORO, Maryland (AP)—Fire broke out Wednesday at the Prince George's County courthouse, engulfing a large section of the ornate building.

“About 100 firefighters were at the scene, fire and emergency medical service

spokesman Chauncey Bowers said."

And Washington, DC News Channel 4 reported: " . . . pictures from Chopper 4 shows that almost the entire building is completely ruined and a section could be in danger of partial collapse. Thick billowing black smoke can be seen for miles."

Early reports were sketchy on what records may have been destroyed by the flames in both the old courthouse building and an adjoining newer structure, but one report on Channel 4 stated that records had definitely been destroyed. Later reports claimed no records were stored in the burned out building.

But next time you see a Diebold employee, you may want to ask him, "Hey, pal, gotta match?"

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based journalist, author, and commentator. He is the author of the forthcoming (but suppressed) book “Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, & Brass Plates.” He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and has written extensively on intelligence and national security issues.

September 11, 2004
Bush's Evil Genius
The Terror Playbook of Karl Rove
By DOUG GIEBEL
In his convention acceptance speech, President George W. Bush used a variation of the word "terror" a mere sixteen few days later, during a day's campaign appearances in Missouri, the Bush references to terror totalled forty-three, while during his infamous a-vote-for-Kerry-is-a-vote-for-a-terrorist-attack dialog in Iowa, Vice-President Cheney went called up the terror image twenty-three times, expanded one day later in a New Hampshire appearance to twenty-six.
After the criminal attacks of 9/11, fear and terror have been trump cards in the speech-making lexicon of the Bush Administration. It's as if the message is, "Be afraid. Be very afraid. But don't worry. We're here to protect you." The other guys, as Cheney let slip in Iowa, will bring on another attack. Not only must citizens fear the terrorists, they must (equally, perhaps) fear the Democrats -- especially John Kerry and John Edwards, candidates with a magnetic attraction to terrorism's evil nature.
Even Senator John McCain, embarrassed but doggedly pimping for the Bush-Cheney re-election, claims that terrorism poses the greatest threat to the nation's existence since . . . well, since ever. McCain's pony show is especially troubling, because the senator knows personally how vicious and cruel these no-holds-barred Bush campaigns can be. McCain and Kerry share a sorry characteristic: they both served with distinction during wartime, McCain especially so; but their years in the senate seem to have drained them of the courage to blow the whistle on wrongdoing--as Kerry did when he returned from Vietnam and reported on the horrors of war to those back home.
Behind this Bush-Cheney Reign of Terror is the Frankenstein genius of Karl Rove. As Wayne Slater and James C. Moore point out in their book and film "Bush's Brain," 'twas Rove who "created" George W. Bush the Politician, just as Mary Shelley's good doctor created his creature, proving there is no "self-made" man currently occupying the White House--unless it is the genius Karl Rove himself. Rove, perceptive student of history, knows about the earlier French "reign of terror" and its patrie en danger condition, precursor to our own cancerous Patriot Act. During the last election and the administration of George W. Bush, Rove's signature is on everything, but his fingerprints are nowhere to be found.
Each time John Kerry and John Edwards are put on the defensive by some surprise, such as the recent Swift Boat attack ads, Rove can be assumed to be somewhere behind the curtain pulling the strings. His proof of success, the envy of many ethically-challenged politicians and hack political operatives, is in the pudding he concocted by turning a black-sheep of the Bush family into a presidential swan. And yet one can not help but wonder if there is a limit to Rove's "How To Succeed" formula. Is it possible to go too far? Are the American people really as stupid and pliable as Rove's cynicism knows them to be? Will Karl Rove's swan take a swan dive in the end?
A signal part of the Rove-Terror strategy has been to raise the possibility of an imminent terrorist attack: on a holiday, at the Super Bowl, during the Democratic or the Republican Convention, just prior to the November election, or, as Cheney so clearly implied: if the American voters elect the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
Although this hysteria-producing scenario has little or no basis in historical fact, it has enough plausibility to give less-thoughtful voters pause. "Oh, oh. I'd better vote for Bush and Cheney . . . Just in case."
Of course if Bush and Cheney are re-elected and another terrorist attack occurs on U.S. soil, the blame can always be dumped on the Clintons, easy targets for vilification because of their high visibility and the hatred they engender in right-wing circles of compassionate conspiracy.
Another fear-of-terrorism hypothesis has been the prospect that a terrorist attack on the day of the November election causing the election to be postponed. A neat scenario if George W. Bush a far behind in the polls. One wonders if Rove has a plan, and the cheek, to pull it off. Although the cancellation of the election seems doubtful, one might imagine a situation where the impending threat of terrorism coupled with a move to red-orange alert could cancel one or more presidential debates. President Bush seems interested in limiting the number of debates to two, but with sufficient outcry from the public he will likely flip-flop and accept a third debate--unless the terrorism level and national safety require otherwise.
There seems little doubt the current father of his nation of ten-year-olds considers re-election more important than trading words with an elite Brahman from (wink-wink) Massachusetts.
As I write this, the Swift Boat assault on John Kerry's reputation seems to have backfired as more evidence emerges of George W. Bush and his less-than-stellar performance in the National Guard. Still, Rove must have counted on having to deal with the problem, even though the mainstream media has been overly-timid about asking the right questions, such as: "Why would a young man trained as a jet pilot give up his opportunity to fly simply because he missed a physical examination?" "Why could the examination not have been re-scheduled?" "If George W. Bush was in Alabama, why couldn't he (a) take the physical there, or (b) catch a military or commercial flight back to Texas and complete the required examination?" The "evidence" may not be in the missing documents but in a generous application of good old American "common sense."
Terrorism, real terrorism, is a serious problem. It may be much more a criminal problem than one our military can resolve.
There are no organized armies of terrorist hordes waiting to set sail in an armada to invade East Hampton, Arlington or the Mendocino coast. Only the most thoughtless pessimist would argue that terrorists, even if armed with "suitcase" weapons of mass destruction, could "bring down" the United States of America. It is not about to happen, whomever sits in the Oval Office or stalks the halls of the Pentagon.
England was not destroyed by Hitler's wrath. Germany survived the horrific attacks on Dresden and Hamburg. The destruction of Leningrad did not wipe out the Soviet Union or the spirit of the Russian people. Japan, the one nation subjected to nuclear holocaust, survives today. Even Chechnya has not been brought to its knees, despite the murderous efforts of dictators from Stalin to Putin.
Terrorists and terrorism are not about to wipe out the United States. Let's get real. If Democrats are willing to "think outside the box" and stop quaking at every mention of the name "Karl Rove," the tables could be turned, the ethical vacuum known as Bush's Brain may be vanquished and America's new long self-imposed nightmare of fear and terror may end. Then Mr. Rove can finally join the private sector and amass the financial fortune he knows he so truly deserves.
Doug Giebel is a writer and analyst who lives in Big Sandy, Montana. He will participate in a panel on October 23 human rights conference to be held on at Rutgers University (Camden Campus). He welcomes correspondence at mailto:dougcatz@ttc-cmc.net
Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James PetrasThe Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib
Fred GardnerRun Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin DelacourAnti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian CloughleyPersecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua FrankThe Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. BoalOn "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris FloydAll About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew FentonFighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem ShrivastavaSaga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil CorbettSee Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller / Forrest HillRigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote
Tarek MilleronBreaking the Principled Voter

posted by Garvald  # 11/11/2004 06:32:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Muffy was upset about the last two essays and I have a feeling why but fear to delve there. She was about to write a comment but chose not to maybe because of the abundance of hostility lately in the site.

Many of us open minded liberals have become depressed lately and all of them can't be bipolar.
We would have all been elated but the other half would have Jesus to cheer them up (oops, Im sure that pissed off some evangelicals. Roger Moore showed the "United States of Canada and the rest "Jesusland" and that offended stepford anchorman with his little editorial on the news. Maybe, he went to the "Daily Disappointment's" journalism school at OU. A lot of folks at theschwag.com site have been showing that map of North America on their message board.

I wonder if I'm even more depressed or just have this genetic(?) general state of lethargy which paralyzes me into doing the easiest thing and not motivated to do anything. I enjoy parts of this sabbatical but I have to discipline myself to something productive other than writing. The little bit of adderall helps get some of the activities done. I slept till noon, today, part of a very sinful daily inactivity. The only thing really motivating me is writing, romance and the pursuit of intellectual nirvana. Muffy asked me what I've been doing other than writing?

"Well I eat, eat at Chinese Buffets especially the one that has Salmon and for less than 8$. I watch Tv and blog looking for dirt on Karl Rove."

What a life and then you get into the feel sorry for yourself mode. Now watch some redneck will just repeat or regurgitate the previous statement in one of their thoughtless comments. My superid or parent part of the my concious nags me more than anyone so it really gets on my nerves when I have someone repeat the obvious to me.
This site is a chance to vent and I don't need judgemental nagging from anyone. I do enjoy productive criticism of the writing or what can be more entertaining to my gradually expanding readership. I do enjoy most of the interchange with Niles who became upset when I criticized rednecks.

I just bought the book "Bush's Brain" for me, Muffy and our Bohemian friends, Lillian and Eric.
Our favorite thing to do is watch documentaries about the current evil empire. I'm impressed that me in my own ADD, I have read the first few chapters seeing in more detail what the DVD shows so that Muffy can also read it in her bathroom library. I love the way she voraciously reads a book as much she loves food! She is fascinated with the seveal hundred page book on the history of sex that I got for her. She would often rather read the book rather than partake of the activity ....lol. Well absence often makes her heart grow fonder and it gives me the freedom to hibernate without as much guilt or at least the nagging externally and internally.

Well I only have five more minutes before I have to vacate to another puter from this 30 minute limit one. I know, Muff, I need to buy a handy laptop which I can carry around with me and not be dependent on hers except that I would need a phone line.

Much of this drivel or dribble will be edited from my book when that day comes (I know, Muffy). Writing this all down helps me put a perspective on things and sometimes wonder if it was a mistake to make this site all public almost like an experiment. Was it good for my inner feelings to be exposed especially and intentionally to folks that would disagree with my views and then want to nag on this board about my own character and life? I should expect and sometimes entertained it knowing the ire would bring out in the general way humans react to being scrutinized themselves. This experiment has gone on for 4 months during one of the most pivotal times in this country on the brink of an evangelical inquisition or to more freedom.
It was scary watching Pat Robertson's Christian News Network immediately talking about how they will overcome the obstacle of getting another supreme court justice to replace Renquist.
I am very scared of George being head man in this inquisition or crusade.

I would love to write more about this internal struggle if some might be a little more supportive instead of being so negative and angry. I know that you are the only censors as far as whether you want to read this or just go to another essay. I have been upset about the situation with having to get a lawyer and deal with the unpleasant and questiontionable search of my car when I was not drunk and then finding my own home violated so I do not feel safe in my own neighborhood.

Now it's Wodin'sday and I am stoned into a funky kind of depression as we fast forward to winter. The first frost will be this weekend here in this bored mentalist state of chicken fried steak with tolerance for sushi and ginger root. I've been swimming to long upstream and maybe just learn swim with the waves of time and weather....digging into the capital way too long unless I can really make something of this site or delusion (?) of this book.

I broke down and finally called Dad the other night almost dreading making the effort to make the call but so relieved when I talked to him. I love him and he told he me that he loves me and really looks forward to talking to me. (I'm teary eyed just thinking of him probably not as alone as I feel in this land of intellectual stifling. He is 88 and has a bit of a cough but his doctor gave him a clean bill of health. I told him to grind up some ginger root and mix it with hot green tea.

I wrote two of my previous paragraphs and then was interupted from the writing and the last two were wasted in cybespace because it wouldn't save the new paragraphs.

What I was saying was that my father is a staunch conservative of the old conservative party.
He is not aware of how much the party has changed to the neo-conservatives and all the dirty tricks and political smears that far out did Alexander Hamilton's smears 200 years ago.

Dad was a big fan of General Eisenhower and General Douglas Macarthur. He was a captain of intelligence in the Australian army and met Macarthur in the Phillipines. Dad was also a big fan of Napolean Bonaparte who of course did many evil deeds. Dad especially admired his military tactics.

( I am frustrated that the blog is not publishing but I at least can get into the edit posts)

Some people get onto this site and write nasty comments such as Martin or the neighbors so baring my soul can be difficult when I'm censored into not writing some of my deepest thoughts.

I have many ideas sometimes brought on when enjoying the buzz and then overwhelming sadness when I think too much of what might might be my fate. I get inspired to read poetry at Open Mike at Galileo's in the Paseo. It used to be at Medina's several years ago and then went across the street after they closed down. Galileo's has good food. I remember going there a few years ago with the pagan girlfriend and it has that very different taste of a much more ecclectic cuisine and customer. I would presume that over 90 % hate or at least have an intense dislike for Bush. I suppose that I should hang out there instead of in a redneck pub.

Now it is Thursday and I want to socialize but concerned that we have to get into our vehicles in order to go anywhere or meet anyone instead of us having the alternative of a dependable mass transit system. Where we would not have the fear of getting stopped everytime you had a couple of drinks. The weather has become so miserable and I have been hibernating these last few days wondering if it's even worth getting outside in the real world to face all the bullshit that we don't have to tolerate if we organize and say that we do not have to depend on large corporations and energy companies' desire to take our money because of our addiction to oil. I do not understand why others don't realize this fixation and slavery to autos which are dependent on fossil fuels. It is un- American according to Rush to want to save trees, have alternative lifestyles that don't accomodate our dependence on the big energy companies.

Thank the univeral God (not the Repuklican god, the one that is compassionate, helping and and coexists with the universal forces that seem to help us when we reach out to them) that it's Friday or frei tag (another Pagan godess that we name our days after even here in Jesusland. It's funny about Michael Moore having the cajones to come out in the open with extension of the midwest fundamentalism to most of the country. I don't know the figures, but I think about 10-20 % are devout puritans that have the same radical religious right as the Moslems in the middle east. Two faiths battling it out, just like Northern Ireland, Israel and all the countries in the past that believed that there way was the only way or you'll go to hell or not go to heaven unless you believe exactly the way they do.

Well, I'll get off my soap box for a sec. to mention a principal called me up for an interview for teaching special ed. Muffy says how good I am with young children. Middle school age seems to be the toughest for me when some start developing habits that often lead them to becoming bullies in bars or bully presidents. I told the principal that I was on sabbatical writing a book but that I was interested in the position. She told me that she would call back in 20 minutes, but she never did. Oh, well, I am still wanting to take that trip to see Dad, but it is so much easier to go back to work.

I have a feeling that some of the "enemies" or Bubba mentalists will have a field day saying that I should not be teaching. I want everyone to know that much of this is fiction and that's why I have changed the names of the guilty including myself. Besides, I have a good positive influence on young children with disabilities. I never bring politics or religion into the classroom unless they ask questions and I give an unbiased answer. I still want these children to grow up to be independent thinkers that can make up decisions on their own instead of Fox news or Rush telling the mindless Stepfords who to vote for.

Being that I am on this sabbatical from teaching and wondering if my teaching certificate might survive the barrage of misadventures and blackmail (even the fictitious neighbor yelled about calling the Okie state board of education), I need to set up a plan for this venture of writing a novel where the names have been changed to protect the guilty or the bloke serving papers will have to reach me in the "Land of OZ". I wonder what the obese one would say to the board..
I can just imagine the conversation,

"He's a stoner and shouldn't be teaching children!"
speaking in soto voce knowing that he's one himself ("glass house")

I don't even want to dare think why he would threaten that, except that he loves to read this site about the fictious characters in my life and then have one of his friends or roommate write the comments anonymously..this website is the only way to adress them without threats of bodily harm or just over the intolerable decibel level of mad screaming...
At least know I am not so intimidated by him coming over and harassing me (I say that and he'll read this and come over in angry tantrum...

Hopefully, my garbage can will still be there after writing here in the library.. when I know that thieves have alreay burglarized the 'hood.

From now on, so the blokes in the novel don't get upset . These characters often have traits of many people put together to help one imagine it....I do use creative licence so if you are taking it too personally then chose another website...if you do not want personal attacks yourself from your own glass house, then to do a rank amateur job of spewing out pscyho babble like its vomit...

Ocassionally someone of the opposite view can write intelligently about the topic of the site or why they like or dislike it. When they want to make a personal attack then don't get upset when you set yourself up for analysis.

Since the death of the owner of the Daily Oklahoman, EK Gaylord was about 97, there are occasional liberal letters allowed in this paper to the right of FOX News "unbalanced and unfair", and Rush. The only letter today was from a gay person saying that he was leaving this state because he wanted to be in a state where his opinion mattered and was not ostracized because he was born genetically with an attraction to males. 75 % disapproved of gay marriage by voting here in Oklahoma. So this wonderful paper puts it first and titles it "It's time to leave Oklahoma" and in another part of this paper they wrote "If they want to marry, gay Oklahomans will have to look elsewhere". This obviously tells gay people (most are professional)that they want them to leave. Besides hatred of liberals, this intolerance for folks different than themselves is the central theme of this state of close minded bigotry and fundamentalism.

"If you don't like it here, why don't you just leave?"

Oklahoma is part of what I thought was a democracy, not an empire or fascist state where people that disagree are put in prison and sent to concentration camps.

People have a right to disagree peacefully without violent threats.

It is not right that someone should be intimidated or harassed because they don't believe in guns or using coat hangers rather because they don't have the choice.

It is scary what fear has done to this country. People that are church going "Christians" want to take away our freedoms as much as possible. They are "pro life" until the child is born and then the children are sent off to a war that have no business to be in except for our addiction to oil.

When I first came to Oklahoma, a fellow logging geologist told me that the very few rich in this state want to keep the majority of the masses very poor and ignorant.
As long as they are, they will not question the status quo of government and will believe in the propaganda put out by the Gaylords and the very rich good ole boy oligarchy. They throw the word, liberal, around like its a dirty word, yet the economy always does better when there are democratic presidents.

Republicans will continue to preach "moral values" such as gays, guns and God in order to get the poor vote and the masses of closed minded religious bigots. As long as this intolerance continues to thrive, Oklahoma will continue to sink into poverty. We are one of the poorest states and are at the bottom as far as per capita spending on education. Congratulations, Oklahomans!

Here is an amateur shrinks choice of words:

"Let me ask you something. Have you taken a step back to try and figure out why everyone hates you?"

Not everyone hates me, just contolling folks or bullies that won't get their way or upset when someone else questions their behavior or want to be the loudest on the street or on the pub. Even Muffy did not want to hear my problems when I called her today. I am just so tired of angry people, but I suppose I have to expect this from certain people.
I have made a lot of friends and as far as enemies, take a number, Anonette, or from whatever glass house you reside in. I know that you will deny connections with some angry neighbors or alcoholics that get angry when they have a different view of things and want to make personal attacks. I do get personal with folks that get personal with me without having to make senseless epithets. Today is a gorgeous day and you or I will do my best to not take your nasty comment personally but I will reply to you. This person made it a vendetta to get the DVD and TV to the point of robbing my place. He will deny this but then incriminates himself when he comes right over after I had called the police to ask what the case number was and that he was "sorry about the incident in Kansas."
He then asked if anything else was missing and that I better not mention his or his "brothers" name to the police.

"If you have a problem with someone do you try to figure out why and fix it? Or do you run? Do you try and make peace? You might be surprised that given half a chance you might be able to coexist with people."

I have done my best to fix this problem peacefully but that person only gets loud, violent and angry when they have had walked off without paying the electric bill.
I do not want to open up another can of crap with this whole situation because they broke into my place after I already came back from an unpleasant situation to find my place being violated.

I have lived peacefully with neighbors for 20 years until these angry people moved next door. I have tried my best to get along with these people. I was influenced to let their blood brother move in at an extremely discounted rent.

The gentleman walked out and did not pay rent or 215$ in electric bills, and left with many repairs that I have to do.

Then, everytime, I walk out I am bothered by this bully or whatever you want to call him.
He threatened to call the board of education like other rednecks do from their glass houses. I am not teaching now, but I'm sure in his vindictive state he will do his best to make my life miserable.
The only reason is because he reads my site and wants to censor me, upset that he cannot have the last word unless he barks louder than his angry dog whenever I walk outside.

"You blame everyone else around you for your problems. The world is wrong and you're right. What's funny to me as I read your postings you ask people not to get personal but that's the first thing you do. "Repuklikans", "obese", "bubba's", etc. etc. etc. If you want respect first you have to show it."

But your party and liberal bashers want to give it out but can never take it...

You know I truly feel sorry for you.

Maybe I shouldn't though. Maybe you like to be miserable. Pathetic really


I will edit this some more but I will send it out into cyberspace and leave me alone and analyze yourself first!

I procrastinated until I finally made it to the library so I could cut and paste my previous comment. The library puter doesn't have the problems mine does!...Maybe Karl Rove or one of his dirty tricksters sent me a virus for popups and slowness...(just kidding or not ?)

Sometimes writing is so cathartic...getting all your thoughts together and putting everything in perspective,,,
For some reason, fate??, I can't publish on my blog unless I just chat with you on the comments part instead of doing a regular post
...writing is an art...a way for a message to be communicated...
what you are now experiencing is stream of consciousness..

It's so weird to most unless you imbibe...
I feel sometimes such an urge to talk to you.,,,being in the world of cyberspace...this new creation where you think that you might be talking anonymously...its 320 am and then guess what it's 420...Now more than ever I feel that when I am writing there are a silent majority that read this and give me support through the cyber waves...I can just feel good energy easily outweighing the negative energy of hate and misunderstanding that causes so much ill health to our bodies and the world...

At some points, lately, I can be so happy and then at the other points very depressed...I wondered how to word it...

to the neighbors next door, Garvald is the evil eccentric that camps out or hibernates as he has the last 20 years in his home
along comes visions of Garvald's childhood trauma of 6th grade... He was afraid to look Skippy in the eye before he made fun of him or tried to pick on him when he was sitting behind him in Ms. Ostrander's class. He was well known as the popular school bully like his older brother with a gang of punks behind him. The girls thought he was really cute with his wavy blonde hair. Garvald wanted to pull his hair off after all the constant verbal and physical taunts from himat school.. He wanted to fight him but in the safety of his own neighborhood. He couldn't fight him in the classroom.. So he was continually the "nerd" or "geek" being the butt of Skippy's malicious taunts with the approval of his "homies"

Garvald is awakened by the doorbell to see the neighborhood bully waiting for him outside.
Garvald opens the window rather than the door because he despises the middle school taunts of this obese former military man
Garvald is tired of being intimidated by this kind of jerk just like he's tired of a cop stopping him for bullshit...but the chairman is still not happy ...he has to taunt him about the case number for the police report....and then act like he doesn't know anything about being robbed
"You better not have mentioned me or my brother's name to the police!"
"Or what, Flippy? Are you threatening me?"
Almost like he's is in a bad dream and just wants to turn over so he can find a dream more entertaining and less obnoxious.

They have the DVD and TV. What more does he want other than to just get on his former friend's nerves?
Garvald tells him to get off his property and he closes the window likes it's a bad dream. Now hopefully he won't have any more reoccurrences of the nightmares next door.
Please God, who thought of that bumper sticker?
"Shit Happens" and then it happens more and more like diareah!
:)..... four more years of repukes and rednecks.....my oh my...lions and tigers and bears ...oh my!
I'm gonna take a melatonin and go to sleep ...knowing that they''ll be up bright and early reading this site....
the only problem is that I can't edit the comments but I can at least cut and paste this to a post later today when I visit the library :)
and have a great sleep, then I'll find out how I can put a harassment charge on the bully if he bothers me anymore with physcial threats or verbally abusive language ( get enough hate mail from Virgil and Bubba)
enough domestic bullshit, back to schwagland

... ...its amazing how negative vibes can really bother you...it is so nice get the occasional comfort from Muffy, but then especially in Schwagatopia...I did not want to leave this paradise in the rain...I loved the comforting feeling of the rain...but then a nice hippy couple needed a ride to St. Louis...I was almost thinking we would stay and party...I could have enjoying the sweet nuggets sprinkled with poppies ....and then BACK TO REALITY...they needed a ride to the real world and away from this comforting home , this haven, this sanctuary from the evils of the dog eat rat jungle out there...Garvald had a sense of foreboding, driving at night through the rain on that windy road...he was only going 40 but the narcolepsy was beginning to come...He would ask to rotate driving at the next stop
But behind he sees the scary inevitable flashing lights that plague Garvald several times a year...the last couple times the Fraternal Order of Police sticker saved him from tickets...
But,
this "officer of the peace" had other plans and an agenda....to find contraband or some meth king.?? Who knows what score this rookie officer would get??
He looks Garvald in the eyes,
"Your eyes are blood shot".
The short man with the receding hairline stares intently at Garvald. Garvald returns his gaze. That sets off the little Napoleon instinct to dominate people larger than them!
"You will take a field sobriety test. Stand on one leg and count to 30 starting with 1 Mississippi. Start!"
Garvald counts to 10 and then asks if he has to count to 30?
"You were not listening! I did not say you could put your foot down!"
Garvald replies, "I have ADD. Sometimes you have to repeat things to me or I won't follow"

The 1,853rd CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
10:20am EST, Tuesday November 2, 2004 (Vol. Nine; No. 216)

Bush Aides in Kerry-Mocking Halloween
Costumes Not Amusing to CNN

"The Bush campaign team had a little fun at Halloween," ABC's Charlie Gibson noted Monday morning over video of top Bush aides dressed for Halloween in hunting outfits which matched what John Kerry donned when he had his goose-hunting phot-op. But CNN anchor Carol Lin was not amused. On CNN Sunday Night, she demanded of a Bush campaign spokesman: "Was this a cheap shot at the Kerry campaign?" She then lectured him that if "you're a technologist who has seen your job outsourced to India, or you're a father or a mother with a son or daughter in Iraq and you see the lead characters, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, no less, coming out in these outfits to make fun of John Kerry, how do you think those undecided voters are going, going to read these pictures?" MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, on Monday night, sarcastically opined: "No truth to rumors that they found these outfits at the same costume shop where they found President Bush's flight suit for the big 'Mission Accomplished' landing."

Lin's rebuke came during an October 31 session, on the 10pm EST CNN Sunday Night, with Phil Singer of the Kerry/Edwards campaign and Reed Dickens with Bush/Cheney campaign, both of whom appeared via satellite. The MRC's Rich Noyes caught the exchange.

Over video of Karl Rove, wearing a camouflage jacket and hunting hat with flaps hanging down over the ears, going down the steps of an airplane,

(I'm sure that Karl looked like Elmer Fudd with his rifle, "Silly wabbit!")

and a clip of an identically-attired Karen Hughes, Scott McClellan and Dan Bartlett at the bottom of the stairs at the Northern Kentucky Airport, Lin, in Atlanta, announced:
"Reed, I've got to show you some pictures that came into the CNN Center tonight. I think you'll be able to see them in your monitor. This is, these are the most senior people of the Bush campaign, de-planing tonight in duck hunting outfits, Kerry pumpkins. It is Halloween. Was this just to be funny, or was this a cheap shot at the Kerry campaign?"
Dickens: "I think out on the road they have a lot of fun. I traveled with the President for three years, and I think it was all in good fun. Look, this is a very -- we're very excited about what's happening tomorrow. The American people are going to have a very clear choice between a President who's provided consistent leadership and led this country through some very difficult times-"
Lin cut him off: "Wait a second, Reed. If you're, if you're an unemployed steel worker out there, or you're technologist who has seen your job outsourced to India, or you're a father or a mother with a son or daughter in Iraq and you see the lead characters, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, no less, coming out in these outfits to make fun of John Kerry, how do you think those undecided voters are going, going to read these pictures?"
Dickens: "I think you're being a little unfair. It's Halloween night, and these people travel all the time..."

For a picture and bio of Lin: www.cnn.com

On Monday night, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth observed, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann showed the video during Countdown's "Oddball" segment. Olbermann, who incorrectly referred to the video as from "today," asserted: "It's Halloween time on Air Force One, and today Bush aides Scott McClellan, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove got into the spirit by dressing up in hunting outfits. Camo, a none-to-subtle swipe at John Kerry's getup last week during his goose-shooting expedition/'I'm-a-regular-guy' photo-op. No truth to rumors that they found these outfits at the same costume shop where they found President Bush's flight suit for the big 'Mission Accomplished' landing. Mmmmm."

ABC refrained from using the Halloween costume video to take political shots at one candidate. Good Morning America on Monday morning made the Bush aides in the hunting outfits its "Picture of the Morning" toward the end of the 7am half hour. Charles Gibson explained over ABC's video, which showed the group with their hands raised to form W's:
"Picture of the Morning. Two candidates can slam one another. The campaigns can also have a little fun. Even the Bush campaign team had a little fun at Halloween. They didn't miss a chance to poke fun at their opponent. This is Dan Bartlett, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and Scott McClellan coming off Air Force One Sunday evening dressed in the same jackets Senator Kerry wore to go duck hunting in Ohio last week. Dan Bartlett still had his, hat still had the tag on it from when he bought it because the day Kerry went hunting Dick Cheney mocked him for buying a new jacket."

For an AP photo of the Halloween-outfitted Bush aides: story.news.yahoo.com

For a photo from Reuters: story.news.yahoo.com

The posted version of this CyberAlert will feature a still shot from what CNN played.

g5001 november 4th: cheer up radio head junkie, and spanknut...often times great good comes out when people are tired of evil
g5001 november 4th: its the beginning of our collective conciousness with our poetry dantheman

dantheman: so you got stopped leaving salem? damn pigs! i had a bloody time i am the dude from little rock with the poetry.

g5001 as long as the: sun comes out, there is hope for the human race nov 4 ...its not the end of the world

spanknut: It's all good you guys! I'm a dramatic democrat with nothing put smack for a rat a tat tat! I peace one love give freedom a choice a chance.


radioheadjunky: Man it just saddens me to think that the majority of our population is so uneducated on all the political issues.
g: i AM REALLY BUMMED OUT..for some reason..
g 11/3 4955: evangelical "Christians" will continue to follow this religious agenda
g 11/3 4955: Kerry has just conceded the presidency county is going down the tubes bubbas will take over the country with political calculus and Rove's strategy
g 11/3 4955: Kerry has just conceded the presidency county is going down the tubes
g 11/3 4955: Emperor Bubba steals the election again.

I just wanted to cut and paste some of these positive comments from the tag board. I had such a fantastic time with you people....Im not sure who radio man and spanknut are but we have the same feelings and passion. I have to leave now before Muffy gets tired of my stay away from the OKIE ZONE and take care of business for a change. Ill go to the library and finish writing before the road trip back to the gleeful rednecks happy about another 4 years of Emperor Bush and his evil mastermind, Karl Rove.

Well, now! God (not the Repuklican one) has given me a mission. To educate rednecks but to do so in a more subtle way about their own behavior. I want them to be able to look at themselves thoughtfully as I do. How can I improve as being as being a better person, a more productive person and then be able to be happy with my reflection.

I hope that in the way this president want to "unite this partisan divide" by not polarizing it, I can do the same with Bubbas where they can at least laugh at themselves just as I am able to do when I make an adventure out of life's comedy of constant errors (Salem police for the most recent error when trying to help out a young hippy couple)

Niles and Martin are right that I might come off a little strange. I suppose part of it was always standing up to my older brother so that he would never be able to kick my ass. I learned how to give it out to the bullies of middle school and eventually was tired of the bullying that rednecks do in my adult life almost like Michael Douglas was tired of all the bullshit in his life in one of his movies.

I will continue this essay later but I need to go.

I always encourage well written comments that don't get too personal and have cuss words.
Here is your comment and I have separated it into different parts so that I may respond more effectively to your thoughtful comment.

"Garvald
I have not been on your site for a quite a few weeks, but your comments are very discouraging. Why do you always refer to Republicans (or as you say "Re puke licans") as mind numbed, ignorant, simple minded people? There are over 300,000,000 people in the great U.S of A. How can you say that 150,000,000 USA citizens are all ignorant? How can you say that Okies are all "Red Neck"? "

Niles,
Why don't you criticize Jeff Foxworthy for him making fun of "red necks"? Or is it ok because he uses a southern accent and acts like he is one himself? It is the thoughtless judgmental behavior that I have a right to write about and you have a right to respond without violence and hopefully avoiding the ignorant comments that some of the other "Bubbas" have made.
There are many conservative Republicans that are intelligent and some that are not clouded by their very fundamentalist thinking. I admire Pat Buchanan for not being a Stepford robot and writing a book about the "Neo Conservative" called "Where the right went wrong!"
He does not sound like Rush Limbaugh and the others that want to bash liberals and say mindless comments like they are friends with Hillary and Ted Kennedy!
I feel that we are bombarded with right wing media and there is hardly any alternative to listen to on the radio except for NPR which gives fact rather the administrations sound board, "Fox News". I am glad that Pat Robertson who is an ardent fundamentalist disagreed with Bush's very impulsive move into Iraq. Up to the point of disagreeing with Bush, he was on the Bush side. I admire folks that really look for facts on the net or library, and make it a point to make their own decisions instead of Rush, Bush, Fox propaganda, or the "Daily Disappointment" making it for them.

"Most of the patrons at Hudstone's have advanced degrees and are professionals."

I thought, Niles, that you told me that you do not hang out or know the folks at Hudstone's??
I appreciate that they are professionals. It is only the folks that chose to become angry, violent and thoughtless that I address. When some people drink a lot, some people become loud and violent.

"They have experienced skills in both life and personal experiences. How can you say Okies are "Red Neck" when most Okies are not from Oklahama? How come you assosiate all people that you meet in OKC, that do not agree with you, as "Red Necks"? How come you are spending so much time trying to figure out who is mad at you instead of figuring out why they are mad at you? Evidently this is not just a problem at just Hudstone's, but at other places too."

Apparently, you have been wanting to hear gossip about me from other places. I am flattered.
I do not waste time wanting to figure out who is mad at me unless they make violent threats.
That is serious and obviously shows their lack of intelligence. That person is according to my definition a "redneck".

!"Why do you edit my responses so you can address only the questions or comments that you choose? My last question is, why do you think, or assume, that everyone that disagrees with you is either a NAZI, a rich person, or a Replubican? I will just let you know that I am a very well educated 33 year old Cheese Head transferred poor boy that lives here now. I am not a Red Neck. I just make educated decisions.
Niles "


I appreciate the fact that you have written very well educated responses and you deserve the label of "replubican" or conservative rather than just an ignorant redneck that chooses to stay ignorant. Thank you for the comment. Maybe after the elections, I can buy you a beer, if it is safe to do so! Please do not be angry with me when Kerry wins!

--
Posted by Anonymous to Escape the Okie Zone at 11/2/2004 05:35:44 AM

We were blessed with the most gorgeous day on Saturday and I even went for a swim in the very cold water. Jeremy and Jenni were so helpful and sweet to a lonely middle aged schwagger! I had a great sleep in my car just putting the seat back, but Jeremy offered me an extra one of his tents so that I would have a better place to sleep. That is generally the spirit of everyone there and for most "Rainbow Gatherings". Everyone is helping each other out. Even when an emotionally disturbed adult was going nuts in front of everyone at the bonfire, a gentleman peacefully helped convince him to rest at safestock!


I had such a wonderful time with such wonderful young schwaggers! Most were in their early 20's checking out rainbow concerts all over the country. Most are very peaceful and we hardly saw any anger or violence except for Sunday when 3 kids assaulted a schwagger for money. I was there at my campsite early in the evening sharing the fire and smoke with these kid. I had no idea that they were violent criminals going from tent to tent looking for loot and victims. I hope that this is not a growing trend of an element of crime and poor attitudes invading this utopia.

Coming out of the place, I had an experience with the Salem Nazis. I failed a field sobriety test and I knew that I was not drunk. It is difficult late at night to stand on one foot while counting.
Counting to 30 on one foot was not enough and according to Montoya's opinion, I failed the test.
This gave the police the right to inspect my car. Officer Montoya handcuffed me (for the first time in my life) and gave me my choices as far as inspecting the car. I had a choice of telling him where the stuff was or holding me for 20 hours if they found any contraband or paraphenalia in my car. The thought of staying in Salem's jail coerced me into telling him where my stuff was. He asked me who would be driving the car ( I was giving a lift to two schwaggers to St. Louis who might have met the "profile" of the type of kids that the Salem police were looking for, "Hippies"). I told him that either of them would be ok as far as driving, so then he had them open up my trunk. While I was watching the policeman go through my trunk. He even brought over my weekly pill a day container that had mostly vitamins. He questioned one of the vitamins that had Kava Kava in it (legal) and tested it thinking it might be a methamphetamine.
He told me that it is against the law to have adderall anywhere except the pill bottle.

After finally being driven into Salem after they went through my whole car, I was escorted into the room to be tested and questioned. I ended up with 0.000 on the test after being interogated for an hour. They had found less than 2 grams of weed, a coffee grinder, postal scales (I carry those just for my own purposes and not to sell)....of course I had some dollar story baggies because they are convenient for storing food, pens,etc just to avoid organizational defictit disorder.
I will go into more detail later but I was left with a court date of December 7th with a misdemeanor and intent to distribute.

Others warned about having postal scales and baggies means that you are a seller! I have never sold and have no intentions of selling until Marijuana becomes legal with a kinder more benevolent administration.
I will be contacting the ACLU and prepaid legal to ask about the legality of them having the inspection of my car especially when I was not drunk! I will also question the field sobriety test when twice I have been stopped and then scored low on the breath test. I will also work on doing toe to toe exercises and practice standing on one foot for a minute.

I'm sure others that don't like me will have a field day with my continued misfortunes and say that I make the wrong choices and then I will have to reply about the obviousness of their statements :(

I will write more about the fun stuff including the "Waltzing Matilda" dance and the speech about this wonderful "Schwagatopia" while reading passages from my website during open mike.