tempting the tempest

our miraculous cruise

a sea party passed us as we ate great patches of pastrami on a rather weathered patio. I was particularly attracted to a furtive turtle in a girdle who was introduced as a girl trapped within herself till she sold her chateau for a scarf to cover her scars. she was warmed by the arm of a skinny latin fat cat in satin moccasins who annoyed us with his sarcastic moroccan maracas.

we feasted with some Sandinistas and fell strangely ill. our repast had caught up with us. luckily the ship's mystic therapist came to our rescue skewing our screwed up tubing with harmonious hypnosis using a mist incense to cure our psychosomatic neuroses. we regressed into the matchless recesses of subtle effervescent bubbles that knocked us off our land lubber rubber deck huggers.

the next morning we were loose from our mooring. the tide had lifted our ship and slipped us from our slippery slip and we found ourselves adrift among the dipping waves. that day we had tea on the high seas which pleased us sweetly.

we never felt dead. we still don't.

Scott Peterson Didn't Kill His Wife

We've got ourselves an innocent man on death row here in our beautiful, incomparable state of California.


Rights? You accused? You got no rights. Not to privacy in your own home, not to a fair trial, not to responsible journalism, not to reasonable doubt. Not to attorney-client privilege, and that's regardless of whether you've ever run afoul from the law atall. You got shit.

California Vs. Peterson---if you've been wondering where I'm at....over theyyyahhh.

Come see me, man. I need thinkers like you over there. This case truly blows my mind, because everyone really thinks he did it. But he didn't. The baby's bone growth proves it. The baby lived at LEAST six days, and that is the outer reaches of convservative in age estimation --beyond December 24, 2002, which is when Peterson's wife disappeared while he was out trying his new boat in Berkeley. Prosecution's own experts calculated the baby's age---except for the one expert whose fuzzy math magically managed to place the baby's age at 32 weeks (his age December 24th). The nifty number tweaking was beyond all the jury members except one. The one who got it--who got that Peterson didn't kill his wife, couldn't have, because after December 24th he was being tailed 24/7 by police who believed he was responsible for her disappearance---that guy got kicked off the jury. Lots of people got kicked off this jury----the whole case is a the mother of all clusterfucks. And it's a death penalty case. And it's scary.

so it's my latest obsession. Sorry for being so neglectful over here. Tell me what's goin on with you.

I have to say Obama found his way onto my short list of moving orators wednesday night. I've been impressed with him before but when he did that posthumous Kennedy letter close, I didn't shbluther, but I did tear up.

it occurred to me the secret is his black minister chops. the black church force is strong in him and I'm a sucker when it's done sincerely.

thing is it's pretty early in his career to be able to trigger that response in me. good for him and good for us. a great orator with a great heart is rare and quite the thrill.

now we'll see if he can defeat the idiot dragons. he's got the brain...let's see if he's got the balls. thing is it usually takes a few years to reach that level of strength.

he's off to a beautiful start. go, man, go.

I mean, hey...

if they werent incurious tunnel visioned oafs who have no reasonable understanding of the world they actually live in they wouldnt be saying most of the infinitely clueless bonehead slobbermouthed things they be spewing now would they???

my guess is they'd have a hard time spelling 50% of the words in that last querstion.

Anti-Reform Demonstrators Unable to Locate Iraq on Map of Middle East

Many town hall protesters enjoy boasting to federal lawmakers about how knowledgeable they are about public policy. For example, at a town hall meeting with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) yesterday, an attendee stood up and declared, “I have taken the time to look at certain provisions of a bill on the Internet and I can quote…the sections and the page.” But the Omaha City Weekly went to a recent town hall hosted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and found that the health care protesters actually aren’t all that informed about public policy. They asked 40 pro-reform and 40 anti-reform attendees to locate Iraq on a map. The results:

A full 75%, 30 of 40 pro-reform attendees, could identify Iraq in its rather eye-catching, dead center position on the map. Only 52.5 %, 21 of 40 anti-reformers could do so. [...]

More telling was the startling reactions I got while conducting the test. Pro-reform people, even those geographically challenged few who laughed out loud at the futility of the task before them, portrayed a uniformly agreeable front. Most gave a knowing, touch_-like nod and smile. I received no negative comments, none at all, from that group.

The same could not be said of the other camp. Far from it.

One gentleman practically knocked the clipboard out of my hand in jabbing - angrily and correctly – at the country that (John Kerry was right) represented the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.

Many sneered. Most at least glowered. Four accused the test itself of being somehow biased.

One anti-reform Vietnam veteran also responded, “Why the hell should I care where Iraq is?”



story from Thinkprogress.org

well, okay, back from taos. dammit....oh, it's cool. first week of class outta the way. hugely busy and rewarding year ahead. time to get busy even if I Am in dallas. at least I'm not in hoostun.

still in taos

I've been in taos since august 3rd teaching at ft. burgwin...which I have to leave tomorrow. dammit. love the 1000 hand dance video. quite a production. quality stuff there.

my class has been a combination rock history/drum circle/facebook thing. I had 4 kids, then 1 got kicked out for drinking on campus. this is an abnormally upper class bunch o kids who think they're on vacation yet still most are respectful and take class time seriously so whatever.

the cool thing is the vibe. we dont lock our doors or our cars. the beauty and sanctity of the place creates a trusting environment that demands a kind of family respect. it's ineresting cause it's nothing like dallas where I tend to mistrust my neighbors cause you just dont know.

one other cool thing is I'm teaching in one of the archeology labs where the shelves are full of boxes of artifacts from the digs, including human skulls and bones...ooo.

I had my friend Lauren Camp up from santa fe to read her poetry while we played drums last thursday and it was so cool for both performers and audience. I really like her stuff and her voice has a lot of character.

the pictures are obvious...all the drums I brought and the town at dusk.