Blog One, Year One, Decade Two, Century Twentyone

It has been eight years ago today that I retired after 27.5 years from one of the most contentious, asinine, egocentric, all consuming places of employment one might never think existed even in fiction. The first three years of retirement were very very lean. I had left work three years earlier than I had planned and was short a few dozen shekels every month. But I had to leave, I needed to leave, I was glad to leave. I left my most delicate projects in the most capable of hands. I picked them carefully for these tasks myself. They have performed most admirably. Those projects are still alive and thriving today. A total miracle it my world. My gratitude goes out to those who have kept these activities alive.

Now, eight years later I can go and do and be and not worry too much about the cost or debt. That too is a dang miracle. This past year has not been good in other ways. I discovered that old wounds can open after a very long time. Especially if they are wounds of the mind. I lost many friends through death and destruction this year. I lost others as they scurried away for trivial reasons and/or their ego needs. Good riddance to those. Many more voids have been created this year than I have been able to fill.

As I start this next decade I will continue to repair and recover. Although I have traded passion away to conquer anger and hate, I still have a lot to look towards, things to do, people to love, places to go, and curiosities to satisfy. No doubt I will do it slower and with more caution than even just two years ago, but do it I will.

I'm beginning to regain my sense of humor. I've got good children, a reasonable wife (generally speaking), OK cats, and an almost new red Chevy pickup truck. Life is good.
I smile.

The Hobo Nickle of the Depression : a Folk Art

I have two Hobo Nickles that I've acquired over the years. They are descended from an old folk art of carving low denomination coins into art items of higher value. A poor mans way of making what they have more valuable as a barter item. From 1913 to 1940 the American buffalo nickle was the raw material from which these folk art items were made.

Working with all sorts of carving tools. These itenerant artist could turn the Indian and the Buffalo into tiny items of folk art like this:

"The Indian portrait or the obverse side of the nickel was altered and carved into portraits of clowns, women, men, other Indians, friends, loved ones, figurals and self portraits. The buffalo or the reverse side of the nickel were turned into men with backpacks or other animals such as donkeys or elephants. Like the Victorian Era Love Tokens, Hobo Nickels were inscribed with dates, names or other inscriptions.
Hobo nickels, were carved by the homeless during WWI and during the Great Depression. Hobo Nickels were traded for meals, a place to sleep, a ride, or other favors. Some were carved with images of loved ones as mementos. Each Hobo Nickel has a story behind them. These stories speak of a generation of men and women who struggled to survive, yet kept their faith in our Creator, themselves, and the American dream.
They may have been wanderers, but they worked hard for what they needed, helped each other, and honored an unwritten code of honor and respect among hoboes.
Hobo Nickels are still being carved today. Individuals who carved the Hobo Nickels have brought this area of folk art to another level. The images are contemporary and often abstract with modern imaging." Source

I'm going to show numerous versions of the "Hobo Nickle". The Internet has many many sites to tell you about these nickles, old and modern.

"PEACE ON EARTH, TO MEN OF GOODWILL"

Israeli minister warns on peace stalemate

It is the Season for "PEACE ON EARTH, TO MEN OF GOODWILL". Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Cabinet Minister on the Peace Talks:"It's not only that it is impossible to reach an overall agreement, It is simply forbidden."

Of course the West Bank Palestinians who are being walled off from Israel have stalled elections in there area. The Palestinian Gaza Strip isolated from the West Bank and by Israeli slight of hand is control by a separate faction , Hamas t...hat won't negotiate at all with Israel (Hamas that was fostered by Israel to counter the PLO). So if the West Bank and Gaza were ever joined it would mean a Palestinian Civil War. Granted Peace is hard and maybe even not probable. But if officially it is "Forbidden" then let us back away and wait to help the survivors. This is not Post WWII. Israel is steep in a war culture. In fact Israel is counting on its perpetual victim status as are the Palestinians. How about this world's generation stepping away from both sides, walling them both in, and saying you work it out and let us know when your survivors need help.

Oh yes, the world is taking over Jerusalem and holding it in posterity as an Earth Heritage Center. It seems we just can't trust you guys to take care of it.

Merry Christmas and peace on earth to men of good will. (oh I forgot that don't mean nothing to you guys).

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse

The eclipse started with high clouds.



But soon cleared off.




Using a hand held Sony digital camera DSC-H7 Zeiss 15X lense, you have to hold it Steady.




Laying down on the sidewalked worked well, but it was COLD.

Looks like something from Star Trek doesn't it?

Dr. No's Long List of 2011 No-No (Defeated Earmarks)

Senator Tom Coburn, pediatrician to the Senate and nick-named Dr. No by friends and foes alike has compiled an list of all the open amendments for earmarked appropriations that were in the Omnibus appropriations bill killed in the Senate last night.

Here is the document.

6751 lines in a search able Excel format so you can look up you favorite projects, area, state, senator, etc.

Now, Mitch and the boys are saying they will not do these earmarks anymore. Really?
Talk about the proverbial ROCK and the HARD PLACE. So how can they function if they can't provide? Seriously both Dems and Repubs trade favors for votes. The Repubs maybe a little bit more than Dems, but not by much if any. So all these 6800 items, projects, etc. will go unfunded? Remember too that there are hundreds if not thousands of "hidden" earmarks within Agency and Departmental budgets as well.

So the Republican in particular are caught between their Fat Cats who expect a return on their investment and the radical Tea Party types that could knock them out in a primary challenge.
Democrats only have to worry about delivering the bacon however. How is this going to work.

This coming few months will see the Republicans taking the heat for not funding these local projects, as well as taking the heat if they try to fund them. Dang, not fun.

This is going to be like watching a 6000 pound elephant walking a slack wire between two sky scrapers.

How To Steal A Dead Man's Voice

"End this war (in Afghanistan)."

Diplomat Richard Holbrooke said this as he went into surgery that ended in his death. Last words in western culture has had a special value. Legally a "dying declaration" is as good as live testimony in court.

Minutes after Holbrooke's last words were reported a concerted effort to discount them began in several quarters. He didn't mean it... It was a mistake....He was talking to the Pakistani doctor... He was just getting the last word in... Got to put it in context... Taking it too seriously.

Here is a War that has lasted nine years. Ninety two percent of the combatants fighting us don't know why we are there. Every dollar we spend there we are borrowing from places like China.
So when the number one civilian negotiator about the war in the country says on his death bed, "End this war", the powers that be try to take his voice away.

Stop the war in Afghanistan. I'm not anti-war. I am anti-dumb shit stupidity. The first year of the war was appropriate. Year ten of the war is plain stupid. Damn Stupid! To steal the voice of Richard Holbrooke should be the last straw, an act too much... end it now... Pull OUT just like the President has said we would...NOW!
Bring Our Children Home and Heal Them as best we can.

Reading The Exploded: A Prophetic Sign ?

Superstition is a lizard brain thing. Sure it is cultural, organized, & codified but behind that organization is simply an attempt to control the uncontrollable. True superstition is buried deep in the brain's stem. A primordial fear. Shared with the most basic forms of life we avoid things we don't recognize or understand be we a newborn or a PhD. It is innate, basic, coded.

When we grab hold of these fears we tend to to do so with an organized method of some sort. We use religion, folk ways, humor, stories, traditions, something that will encase the phenomena and protect us from it.

We control it by naming it. We control it by categorizing it. We control it by controlling something stronger than it is (i.e. my god is bigger than your god).

So when something unexpected, unusual, unpredictable happens, our medulla oblongata hurries back to its most primitive reaction at the speed of flashing neurons. For that micro second before the frontal lobes catch the errant emotion and suppress it into the pillow of the rational, you know, "That's an Omen!"

I dropped a glass the other day. I've dropped thousands of glasses. I have broken hundreds of glasses. I've shattered dozens of glasses. I have never drop a heavy-thick-glass six inches onto a counter top and have it explode.