I have to admit that it looks more like medieval images of Mary than most apparitions appearing in the news: burnt toast, rust stains, grilled cheese sandwiches. Usually any inverted U shape qualifies. This one however appears in one "slice" of an MRI scan of a local woman's brain and the woman's sister, hoping to raise needed funds for medical care intends to put it up on eBay.
I could ramble on about the sad story of someone growing up in a town polluted with dioxin and with a lifetime of health problems, including cancer, someone who our "every man for himself" medical care system has left on the side of life's road, but instead I'll talk about my kitchen counter. It's a large grained slab of granite and there isn't a morning when I don't discover another hitherto unobserved face in it. It's not that I'm hung over or astigmatic or even mentally unbalanced. Our brains seem to be wired to seek out faces lurking in the weeds. It's probably a survival thing even if it's only Millard Filmore or Maynard G. Krebs staring at me, eating breakfast.
Of course nobody knows if there really ever was a Virgin Mary or whether she actually was Virgo Intacta until Yahweh shagged her -- much less what she looked like. I'm certain she wouldn't have worn medieval European clothing, but none the less, just like we know that Jesus had long, straight, lanky and light colored hair, with northern European features and was somewhat underweight, we know what she looks like. She looks like a structure in the brain of Pamela Latrimore, in blurry cross section.
Ms. Latrimore has no medical insurance and needs the money, so for once I'm hoping that the deranged and delusional will want some object to pray to (God screens his calls these days) and will bid it up. Unlike Burnt French Toast Jesi or tomato slice apostles it won't rot and unlike road stain apparitions of Jesus you can hang it on your wall. Maybe God made us prone to see faces just so that he could inspire people who pray to bird shit splatter on car hoods to actually do some good in the "love thy neighbor" department. Maybe not, but Pamela definitely needs the money.
So I leave the dim coolness of the ophthalmologist's office and emerge into the Florida Noonday blaze and gain an immediate appreciation of how a vampire feels when he can't make it back to his coffin before the sun rises. Even with my darkest sunglasses on, my dilated pupils won't allow me to drive so I decide to get a haircut at Bob's, where you can look at his massive collection of old guns, antique ammunition signs and cowboy paraphernalia while you and the good old boys get your hair length reduced.
Even after an hour, I still can't see well enough to drive, so I go across the street to the gun shop looking to chat with the proprietor who, up to now, has been almost as lonely as the Maytag repairman would be if the claims were true, and willing to pass the time talking about outdoorsy things. Of course since Obama the Antichrist was elected, things are different at gun shops and the place was full of people and almost devoid of those non-automatic, civilian versions of military weapons that the more hysterical of us like to call "assault weapons."
The conversation was lively and as gun shop conversations have been of late, all about "that man" and the certainty of his rabid opposition to all forms of weaponry in private hands.
"I don't know" said the creepy guy, using a magnifying glass to inspect a nickel plated double barrel derringer chambered for .45 long colt and 410 shotgun shells.
"I just change channels when that guy comes on" says he. " I can't stand to listen to him."
"Well it's all on his web site." says the Deputy Sheriff, lovingly examining a monstrous, long barelled Smith &Wesson .460 SVR Magnum revolver with green laser sight and bipod. "Jesus, there's nothing in Africa you couldn't take down with this one."
"You've read it?" asks the store owner. "No, but his whole gun policy is on his web site. I just can't stand to read it, but I'm telling you if we're supposed to knock on doors looking foreveryone's guns, it ain't gonna happen. I mean he's talking about making lists of all registered guns and there is no gun registration in Florida in the first place. You just know the crime rate's gonna skyrocket."
"I guess the ATF has the authority to come in here and look at my books though" says the owner, let's call him Joe.
"Yeah, but I'll just tell them I sold them all privately or at a gun show and I don't have any guns any more" says creepy guy with a creepy, conspiratorial grin.
"Well it's all on his web site" says the Deppity. "He's going to bring back the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban and all the rest. It's on the web site."
It's not, actually. I looked and what it does say is that Obama believes the second amendment conveys an individual right, that he is concerned with the impediments to hunting and fishing and is determined to increase access and provide incentives to open more land to those uses and that he will protect the rights of law abiding citizens to own, transport and use guns. Of course that's not enough for the NRA and a lot of other people, but it's not wholesale confiscation and it's not the rabid, hysterical and diabolical plan to disarm the general public that theDeppity says it is.
Anyway I asked if he had sold all the AK's he had on the racks last Summer and he said he had, and I asked if was getting any more and he said yes, but he wouldn't say when because it would be a mob scene if word got out, but it should be soon and they would all be gone within hours.
Pasted on the glass counter where bowie knives and ear muffs and safety glasses were displayed was a cartoon of a car plastered with Obama stickers. The driver was saying to a questioner: "No, I don't, but I own a gun shop."
Today marks the 67th anniversary of the last day that America would truly feel safe. Today is Pearl Harbor Day, “a date that will live in infamy.” (President Franklin Roosevelt)
About 2,400 Americans were killed and 1,180 injured when Japanese fighters bombed and sank 12 naval vessels and heavily damaged nine others.
We learned a lesson that day that somehow faded into forgotten lore over time – we are never safe. We can be attacked from without or within at any time. The events of 9/11 should not have been such a shock – it had happened before.
We can build that border wall along our Southern border. The Russians used a similar wall in Berlin to great effect.
Our government can listen in on our conversations and read our writings and train others to help them – Hitler had great success with his Hitler Youth and a similar plan.
Our country cannot afford to go around responding to perceived threats with knee jerk reactions based in hatred and ignorance. In the end, we will do more harm than good and we will be no safer than we are now.
On Dec 7, 1941 our country went to war. We had no choice; we had to defend ourselves and our allies. What we didn’t need to do was inter thousands of Japanese-Americans, many of whom had been born here. A knee jerk reaction that did great harm.
On this day, I want to remember and thank each and every military man and woman who has served honorably, with great courage and compassion in the protection of our country and its citizens. Your sacrifice and the sacrifice of your families is remembered and truly appreciated.
To our leaders I would like to say, you are in charge of some very precious lives – please consider your moves carefully and take every care not to waste those lives.
And I want to remind my fellow Americans that what we do and what we say still counts in the world. Many look to us as a beacon of light and so we have a great responsibility to the world to light the way. I don't want to leave my grandchildren a legacy of hate and war. I want them to know we lived, we learned and we changed...
It seems the issue of president-elect Obama’s citizenship has NOT yet been resolved.
Yep, that old fake birth certificate controversy apparently lives on. This from the LA Times:
But here's the thing: The United States Supreme Court officially takes up the issue of whether to ponder whether Obama can become president in formal discussions today in Washington.
The complete article can be found here. But how do you like this irony?
In one of those delicious ironies that makes life so interesting, the justice who distributed the case to his colleagues was none other than Thomas, only the second African American to sit on the high court. One presumes the justices saw some legal issue to mull.
Seems there is a legal avalanche ready to tumble downhill from a multitude of suits filed nationwide claiming either Obama is not a natural born citizen or renounced his citizenship at some point. Got to hand it to the right wingnuts – they sure never give up!
Should we bail them out or let them go under? Here is a photo essay on the past, present, and future of our car industry from an 8pus perspective. What are your thoughts?
You arrive in the Airport terminal a bit frazzled by the traffic jams, congestion in the parking lot, the escalators; you keep looking at your watch because it's getting close to boarding time and you have that long security line ahead where you have to take off your belt and shoes and have your toiletries examined. You've begun to sweat, your heart is pounding. Quickly you look at the Departures screen to see if maybe you've lucked out and your flight is ten minutes late: WHAT? did I just see that? did the screen say "I'm going to blow up the plane" for a microsecond? Before you can finish asking yourself whether you've broken under the stress of modern air travel, two men in black suits and sunglasses grab your arms and lead you away into a little room. . . .
No, I'm not dabbling in Sci-Fi here. It's entirely possible that it could happen to you if some of the biometric devices being tested to read your thoughts and intentions are adopted. It's not enough to know whether you're carrying a dangerous nail clipper or an ounce too much of Johnson's baby shampoo any more. They want to know your intentions and they think they can do it.
"Several Israeli-based technology companies are developing detection systems that pick up signs of emotional strain, a psychological red flag that a passenger may intend to commit an act of terror" says CNN.
"One firm, WeCU (pronounced "We See You") Technologies, employs a combination of infra-red technology, remote sensors and imagers, and flashing of subliminal images, such as a photo of Osama bin Laden. Developers say the combination of these technologies can detect a person's reaction to certain stimuli by reading body temperature, heart rate and respiration, signals a terrorist unwittingly emits before he plans to commit an attack."
If the machine can tell the difference between the fear of losing your job if you're late for a meeting, fear of mind reading machines themselves; fear about any number of things including airplanes, I would be amazed, even though we do live in an age of amazing technology. Will the Mercedes dealer install these things to determine if you're really able to buy or are just kicking tires?
Technology gets smaller and cheaper at a predictable rate. I'm absolutely positive that within a few years it will be available for under $100 and be as small as a wristwatch or hearing aid or at least small enough to fit in your wife's purse. So don't rely on those Ray-Bans to keep her unaware of just how fascinating that mini-skirt in front of you is. She'll know.
GIBSON: You've always said there's no do-overs as President. If you had one?
BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.
How does an “intelligence failure” explain the administration’s attempt to discredit and smear former Ambassador Joe Wilson, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, and other critics of administration policy?
How does an “intelligence failure” justify the 50,993 Iraqi civilian casualties (as counted by the Shiite government since April 2005)?
How does one explain “intelligence failure” to the 30,634 wounded soldiers now neglected by a government-on-the-cheap, just like the Vietnam era vets who were abandoned a generation ago?
What intelligence justified the dismissal of 350,000 Iraqi Army personnel who, after being turned out of their jobs and unemployed, had little recourse but to join the ranks of the insurgency?
How can one so easily dismiss the “tactical errors, thousands of them,” admitted by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice during a visit to Blackburn England in 2006?
How can one justify the loss of 4,207 American lives since the beginning of the Iraq War? On screen, the number 4,207 looks something like this:
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After the WMD argument proved bogus, the Bush administration advanced yet another false premise to justify themselves: The “pied piper” argument. The one that states: “We are fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” When intelligence fails, “staying the course” is the cowardly way to avoid owning the mistake.
Overall, the Administration rushed our soldiers into an ad hoc, itchy-trigger-finger war predicated on false intelligence, errors in judgment, gross mismanagement, and no exit strategy. When citizens demanded truth and accountability, the administration countered with subterfuge and smear.
Finally, here is George Bush at a White House Correspondents Dinner in 2004 cracking jokes about his “intelligence failure:”
"Those weapons of mass destruction gotta be somewhere. Nope, no weapons over there. Maybe under here."
Only a roomful of sycophants and sociopaths could find this amusing.
Now the War-Criminal-In-Chief intends to spin his own history. Over my dead body!
This is Eve Marie Carson, a pretty college senior with an unflagging enthusiasm for her school (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and a passion for life. She grew up in Athens, Ga. a much loved member of her family and her community. She was the student body president at Chapel Hill and by all accounts she was special, loving, giving person. In her own words:
“I love UNC. I love the quad in the spring and the arboretum in the fall. I love the Pit on a sunny day and Graham Memorial Lounge on a rainy one. I love Roy [Williams] all the time. But what makes UNC truly special is not our beautiful campus, our distinguished reputation or even our basketball team. It’s us—the student body—who make UNC what it is.”
Eve Carson was an exceptional young woman who laughed and cried and dreamed of a future; a full and promising life that would be cut short on March 5, 2008 when she was kidnapped, humiliated, tortured, shot dead and then her dead body was unceremoniously dumped in the road like garbage.
To add further insult, the results of her autopsy and other gruesome details are just a google click away. I have never looked at any of it; I refuse to be a voyeur in this charming girl’s death.
Her killers were aged 22 and 17. Once they were arrested, the police were able to tie them to yet another murder of a foreign student at a different college in North Carolina the year before. How do two little boys grow up to become such monsters? I wish I knew. Her death has caused so much pain and grief for so many and her father probably grieves the hardest but this is what he had to say even in the first days of his loss:
“The irony of Eve’s murder is that she, along with these blessed friends and fellow students, are the ones who can solve the most pressing problems of this time. I believe that these kids, along with their peers around the globe, can reach reasoned solutions for mitigating violence and tackling many of the inequities of poverty, prejudice, inadequate health care and under-education. This is no pie-in-the-sky wish! These kids are smart! They’re so capable.”
I didn’t know Eve Carson or any of her family members. The closest tie I have to her is that my youngest son lived in Chapel Hill up until about two weeks before Eve’s murder. But Eve haunts my every waking moment and I’m not really sure why; perhaps her death is that proverbial straw breaking the back of the camel of senseless violence we live with every day here and all over the world.
Eve was shot with a shotgun, but no amount of gun laws would have helped since the gun was an unregistered weapon that had passed through many hands before being used to commit this last horrific act. Her killers had long juvenile records, but not enough was ever done to stem their criminal escalation in an overburdened judicial system that the criminal knows how to circumvent expertly.
I want to stand in the street and just scream at the top of my lungs ENOUGH! I’ve had enough of hatred and violence and death and destruction – of countries and communities and human beings like college students. We can’t continue to shuffle the problem back and forth. We must break the cycle of ghetto culture that has allowed this kind of violence to grow.
We must make tougher laws to deal with habitual juvenile offenders. These kids have no real fear of punishment because by and large, they know that the worst that can happen is that they will be locked up until age 21. Many states have enacted laws to charge juveniles as adults in certain crimes, but this is too little too late. Welfare recipients need to take on more personal responsibility. If they have children, those children should be able to meet minimal standards of conduct. If not, the parents need to be held accountable. We have a work for welfare program that doesn’t go far enough to push people out of the welfare nest. We should be giving a hand up; not a hand out. We need to ensure police depts. have enough staff and enough money for programs and wages to bust up gang activity and crime rings. We need to decriminalize drugs and thereby take all the intrigue and profit out of drug dealing at the same time freeing up jail space and giving police more time to pursue violent offenders.
The protection and nurturing of our children should be our greatest priority – not just our own children, but every child in our communities and in our country. Because that kid who isn’t “one of ours” might just grow up to be a monster. And every kid knows you can't protect yourself from a monster.
I’m sorry we let you down, Eve but I hope your story will serve to galvanize others to act so that what happened to you doesn’t happen to another beautiful young woman.
One of the more amusing bits of Republican flotsam that wash up on my electronic shore is one that asks wouldn't it "piss off the Libs" if Bush were to resign in favor of Cheney, who would then appoint Rice as VP and then resign himself leaving her the first black, female president.
If I knew just what they meant by "Lib" I might answer that, but since it's really their creation and adjustable to fit any size or type of circumstance, I won't. Of course it's hidden purpose is to assert that the only reason he won was the novelty of his ancestry. That's something they seem far more concerned with than are "the Libs."
It's going to be harder over the next day or two to dismiss him as a lightweight beneficiary of Affirmative Action when one compares the appointment of Condoleezza the oil toad whose credentials were entirely academic and whose career has been marked with little that is noteworthy, and General James L. Jones, the tough-guy Marine who campaigned with McCain. It does make it look as though Obama is actually concerned with beefing up national security rather than in seeking yes (wo)men or making choices dictated by plutocrats.
As I keep saying, it's not terrorism if you're not terrified. The notion of a United States with 300 million people cringing and cowering in fear that a dozen nutjobs from abroad might come and shoot us all is, quite frankly disgusting and reminding ourselves at every football game that we live in the home of the brave doesn't seem to have much of an effect. Very odd in a country where so many of us are heavily armed.
As one who grew up in the years immediately following WW II, I've long been impressed with the stories of the citizens of London going about their business, upper lips as stiff as Sheffield steel while the bombs and rockets fell from the sky, night after night. People slept in the underground and in the suburbs, houses such as my parents once lived in had a reinforced bomb shelter in the back garden. If they were terrified, they kept it to themselves. England was devastated, the English were not.
I have to be impressed by the story related today in the Daily Mail by an Englishman who took refuge in a restaurant in the Taj Mahal hotel while the shooting went on on the other side of an improvised barricade.
"I was extremely lucky. I was with a very good bunch of people. Three or four of us were Brits"
said Nick Hayward. Remaining calm and sober, they conducted a search for booby traps and built barricades.
At 5 O'Clock int he morning, as it began to seem that Indian troops would soon retake the hotel lobby, the group, stirred but not shaken, found some glasses and a bottle of vintage champagne.
"the head waiter came rushing across to me and said, “No, no, you can’t do that!” and I said, 'Well we’re going to' and he said, 'No sir, those are the wrong type of glasses. I shall find you champagne flutes.' "
counter. It's a large grained slab of granite and there isn't a morning when I don't discover another hitherto unobserved face in it. It's not that I'm hung over or astigmatic or even mentally unbalanced. Our brains seem to be wired to seek out faces lurking in the weeds. It's probably a survival thing even if it's only Millard Filmore or Maynard G. Krebs staring at me, eating breakfast.
