Sunday, September 23, 2007

THE WAR -- click on this Title for more information.


Watch it ...

When I first posted this I thought I was just talking about a show on PBS. And I was ... but just looking at those two words "The War" and having seen the show, I know those two words have so much more meaning. While the PBS series was not about our current war, it certainly does applies to all wars ... death and destruction ...

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Fascist anyone?

Do these sound familiar?
Laurence W. Britt writes the following in an article called Fascist Anyone. He outlines 14 basic characteristics that are more prevalent and intense in some fascist regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism and homophobic
6. A controlled mass media
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections


Read the Link in the title above at Council of Human Secularism’s web site and get the whole article.

‘Your hypocrisy is so vast’

Olbermann to Bush:
‘Your hypocrisy is so vast ..."

Follow the Link in the title above and listen to the Olbermann commentary....

Okay, this is stupid, too



Okay, so I used to watch this show, some!

Pressed in Time: American Prints 1905 - 1950

Oct. 6
Now this is a place like.

Monday, September 17, 2007

How much funnier is this going to get?


BBC New: Monday, September 17, 2007: The Minneapolis airport toilet where US senator Larry Craig was arrested for allegedly soliciting gay sex is now attracting tourists, say airport staff. “ People are taking pictures," Karen Evans, an information officer at Minneapolis-St Paul international airport, told Associated Press.

Now it seems that tourists passing through the airport cannot resist the temptation to have a look at the scene. "We had to just stop and check out the bathroom," said Sally Westby of Minneapolis, on her way to Guatemala with her husband Jon. "In fact, it's Jon's second time - he was here last week already."

UPDATE: well it just got funnier. Check the title above to read some tacky report of someone who claims to have sex with Senator Craig. Gawd!

Friday, September 14, 2007

REALLY REALLY FUNNY

This is really good And thanks to BME'er Eroy in Australia for sending it.

Christian & Tattoos

Several months ago I was finishing a retreat at a mountain top monastery in Santa Barbara. On the last day the Prior preached. He began by referring to the last addition of The Christian Century. The lead article is entitled, "The Christian & Tattoos - Marked"... it was the center of his sermon.

After briefly restating the article, he said, "...that getting tattooed seemed to be a kind of sacrament, a way of bearing in the body and before the world something about one's deepest identity. And that, in a world lacking in 'rites of passage,' it becomes an experience that our American culture by and large lacks."

"Christ himself is marked. Our tradition teaches that the resurrected body of Jesus -- that mysteriously transformed yet recognizable human presence, that flesh bearing the wounds, the very scars of the life-giving passion -- is not discarded or thrown off or transcended, but is exalted and honored and seated in the heavenly places. It is a radical claim ... a challenge to our own experience of living in these particular bodies, in this material world. It reminds us that we -- body, soul, spirit, and our whole creation has an external and exalted destiny.

"Jesus is marked. And so are we. Each of us bears the 'imago dei', the divine image, whether we are aware of it or not. And each of us who has been baptized within Christ, bear his mark, his cross, his wounds on our soul. We, each of us, have been tattooed, if you will, into God's gang, God family ... thought we all too often betray those marks by our hatred and disobedience. But it is there.

"I wonder this morning what would happen if our marks, the tattoos of our faith, were to suddenly become visible. What would they say, what would they portray? What would the world read on our bodies/our souls/our lives/our action individual or corporately on that Body which is Christ's Church?

"I have to remind myself: I do have some choice. And the question I ask myself today is: What does the tattoo of my life say to me, to those around me, and to a suffering and fragile world? And what would I like it to say? Were I to visit a tattoo parlor this afternoon what would I have inscribe on my arm, my forehead, my heart? Sh'ma Yisroel? Simul Justus et Perccator? God is Love? Jesus is Lord? God be merciful to me a sinner?

"What would you choose; for in a sense we must choose daily, hourly. What would you choose? May God grant us all the grace to choose well.

A Note on Retreats...

I sometimes wander off to these places to get away. It's a good thing.



The thing about going away is that you get some time to refresh but when you come back, you come back to the same problems you left behind.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

THE DUST BIN OF HISTORY AWARD

A partial list of previous recipients include:

  • Karl Rove
  • California State Representative Anthony Portintino
  • The doorman at Dick's Cabaret
  • President George W. Bush (multi-times)
  • The North Carolina State Baptist Convention
  • Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter
  • Rev. Fred Phelps (for whom this award was first given)
  • Wayne Lusvardi - the "Antichrist" of Pasadena?
  • Sally Kern - Oklahoma House Representative
  • Archbishop Akinola - Should remember the role of a servant
    U.S. Rep Paul Broun- who is just hateful.
  • Kern County Princess Ann Barnett - faith before her duty.
  • high school principal Eddie Walkers - faith before righteousness.


  • Most people submit potential DBOHA names by by email ... you may also obtain a complete list of past recipients by posting that request below.

    Six year old wisdom ...

    Notes from the Garden… #103

    There are so many people who have made my garden great. Anyone who gardens knows that God is always in the process. Several years ago Christian, then the six-year-old grandson of our Orthodox neighbors, found me pruning roses on a Sunday morning. “How 'comes' you aren’t in church,” he challenged me. "I was!”

    What did you learn?” I asked.

    I learned about the Transfiguration,” he said.

    What’s that?” I asked. “It is too complicated for you to know.” Christian said.

    For some people gardens are complicated; some know the names of all the weeds … but everyone, no matter who you are, can sit in one and listen to the wisdom of a six year old.

    Wednesday, September 12, 2007

    ARCADIA, LEMON TREES AND YARDDOG


    The older I get, the more I know about threes. Perhaps that is part of life. I don’t know their botanical names yet, but I know how to prune them, especially fruit trees. Several of my friends even call me an arborist. My neighborhood isn’t perfect but the trees are. They are a joy.

    I learned most of what I know from my next door Greek neighbor. One day I met Alex in front of his house. “Why are you staring at your apricot tree?” I asked. In his thick accent he responded: “I am talking to my tree. It is telling me how to cut it. Listen.”

    So Alex began to show me what his tree was “saying.” “I can show you what your apricot is saying, too.” He suddenly bounded into my yard and I began to learn a whole new language, one my trees “spoke.”

    That is how my affair with trees began. Those long and quiet conversations led to beautiful trees, sharing fruit, giving new knowledge away to others and building a small community on Palm Drive in Arcadia.

    Across the street from us was one special tree – a lemon tree. It produced the biggest lemons in the world. The average lemon from that tree was bigger than a grapefruit! I sent those lemons to my childhood home in York, PA.., shared them at church and used them in cooking; we all did. The former owner always said, “Take whatever you want.” Our entire neighborhood shared its abundance.

    Recently someone new bought that property. They knocked down the house and tore up the lemon tree. A huge bulldozer took out in two minutes what we had seen grow for 40 years. Not only did they kill that lemon tree but they chopped down a city tree as well. That city elm made our street a tree-lined drive.

    “They don’t like trees that block the front door.” The Arcadia city tree man told me.

    What do you mean: they don’t like tree in front of their house? Can’t you make them replace it?”

    "Well, there is a fine, and a new tree will be planted.”

    "... the same size as the old one?” I demanded.

    No, no, just a new tree.”

    So, yesterday I began to wonder, how does a community fall apart? How can a public tree be killed just because someone doesn’t like it facing his front door? Does anyone care about a lemon tree that grew the biggest lemons in the world or how those trees will no longer make a small neighborhood a real community?

    My mother who is 80 years old said: “I wish we could have said goodbye to it. We will never see another tree like that one.” I could not respond and perhaps there are no answers to any of those questions.

    What I know is that I have live here and grown old with those trees. My father died in his house here. I have gone through our schools, have mowed and watered my lawn, tended my gardens, paid my taxes and made this town the kind of place others now desire and move into with such a seeming disregard for what we have cared for and loved.

    Next year there will be a huge new house across the street. But I will remember those two old trees, see the shape of the fruit, smell those lemons and miss the shade from the elm. And in another 40 years? Well, neither my mother nor I will live long enough to see that a new little tree grow to make Palm Drive a tree-lined street again.

    Originally written and published on August 29, 1999

    Sunday, September 9, 2007

    WHY A BLOG & EMAIL

    My goofy friend David once told me that he would only vote for a politician he knew personally. Saying that may have been his reaction to my attempts to sway his natural inclination toward conservative politics … to circumventing that aspect of our conversations.

    Perhaps good form or a long time friendship kept me from challenging this odd concept … after all politicians; of all stripes affect our lives. It seems silly, almost un-American to automatically disenfranchise yourself ninety-nine percent of the time.

    But the actual idea itself is interesting. And so I have it in my mind to keep my musings to subjects and people I know; not in an ethereal context but in a real physical way, while not losing touch with the larger moral issues of my day.

    Yard[D]og maybe reached HERE.

    Saturday, September 8, 2007

    THE ROVE I KNEW


    It’s funny how people come into your life. If you live long enough and pay attention to the world around you, you might realize that old saying that each of us is only six degrees from one another. Those connections are like haze on a mirror after a shower, but wipe the surface, dig into it and you will clearly see everything around you but probably not the glue that holds it all together.

    Louie was gay; nothing unusual about that. He had retired to Palm Springs after a career as a geologist for Getty Oil and owned a comfortable house off Farrell Street, on Santa Ynez Way. His home was chock full with mementos, pictures of his kids, grandkids, art he had gathered on his travels; a library full of books, all kinds of videos, a fantastic classical CD collection – it was a place I felt at home. Like a lot of people in Palm Springs, he kept a spare room for visitors.

    His compact back yard had the obligatory Palm Springs turquoise colored pool and water-tolerant plants. Pea-sized gravel surrounded fruit trees that served as a feeding area for birds. Louie was an amateur birder and each day he would throw out seed for the various kinds of finch that lived in the tall, tightly cropped oleander bushes round the yard that provide privacy.

    And it was by the pool in the shade of the patio, on the floor in the library, driving off to Sunday brunch or birding at Salton Sea that I heard the tales of his journeys, saw the pictures of people in it, and got a glimpse of a man who had lived a full life. He was twenty years older and Louie intrigued me.

    All of this is not to say I viewed him as a perfect man; I thought he drank and smoked too much, was temperamental and never watched his diet. He held a grudge beyond reason and could be insulting … we lost touch because of his drinking. I just did not know what to do with people I might call moody drunks. But for a long time I just enjoyed my Palm Springs weeks, lazy days by the pool, laughter and story telling.

    And then on a Sunday brunch with the guys at Cedar Creek on Palm Canyon Drive, his best friend Joe Koons turned to me and sort of whispered, “You DO know who his son is don’t you?” “No!” “He’s the chief of staff for the Governor of Texas.” Looking back I realize there was something more in that whisper but at the time it passed by me.

    His son -- all I knew about his kids was what Louie told me as I looked at their pictures in the living room. He had adopted them. Other than that I was mostly bothered by their visits to Palm Springs or his to Santa Fe, because that meant the house was closed for other over night visitors. And his wife; Louie told me he had come out and so they divorced. But when I saw the family photographs I just saw the usual grouping of people and smiling portraitures.

    As I watched the news this week I saw a “Rove” standing beside the President, his voice cracking, talking about his love for the President and his country but over that “noise” I heard the memory of Joe Koons whispering in my ear. “You do know who his son is?”

    Oh My God! Louie Rove; Karl Rove.

    I started to wonder then if the son ever cried for the man who raised him and watched him grow up as he did for President Bush. Would Karl talk about his gay father, with the emotion he was showing then? I told a Texas based reporter that none of us knew where he is buried.

    He replied that the service was private. I can respect a family’s intentions but it is so typical for families who want to "hide" a person’s sexual orientation to keep a funeral private, away from long-time friends. Gay deaths are cluttered with "private" family services.

    There is a part of me that wonders why Karl did NOT "distance himself from his father.” Instead such things are reported like Karl having a picture of his father in his White House office; that they were “close”.

    Were they close as you or I might think "close" is? I do not nor can I claim to know. But Louie was gay; people knew it; his son knew it. And as Louie was dying in Palm Springs, Karl was developing and implementing a successful political strategy based on inflaming an anti-gay political base through wedge issues like gay marriage in very specific key battle ground states in the general election.

    My question is: How could a son do such a thing, and call it love – either of his father, or of his country?

    Luciano ~ the great one...

    BREAKING NEWS Updated: 26 minutes ago

    ROME - Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C’s and ebullient showmanship made him one of the world’s most beloved tenors, has died, his manager told The Associated Press. He was 71.




    This was the greatest tenor in my life ...here he sings the short, Nessun Dorma. IF YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OPERA OR THINK YOU DON'T LIKE IT, just listen to this 3.5 minutes and be changed forever. Period.