Daughters at DAR Constitution Hall

Trading Diebold for Richter? Keeping machines straight

I’m working on my book and a series of photographs for display, that I feel good about.

If you like reading here check back once a month or you know - whatever. I have a vision for this blog and it does not include givin it up.

I hope everyone takes time to vote on November 7th, even it you live where it’s unclear whether it will be counted. You know these computers can mess up and in many states the official who decides what the official count is can be quite partisan.

My plan is; lets make results not so micro close that the secretary of state can push the result his/her way. Let’s just overwhelm each state with clear results that even Richard J. Daley couldn’t touch, much less Kathleen Harris. Clear cut is hard to change, even if Mr. Diebold always attends your parties. An earthquake of course could shake the scales around the world.

Well that's a vision for ya, and I'm stickin to it!

Starting In September, 2006 - Ten months later, another new day

It’s ten months since I squeezed off a note to you my dear reader. I thought about you often and I never was disloyal. In my more liberal way of thinking, I was writing to you and sending pictures all the time, just not in this journal. I say this because it was good for me, even if you never see my other efforts to communicate. I say it’s good to cultivate your subjective life, to recognize it and share. This is true even if you can’t please all the people all the time.

In spite of natural human humility (humble to be a human) I have this great experience, that is, when I look back over my writing; I like it.

I have here at your fingertips, a body of writing from about ten months in 2005, this posting marks, once again my determination to write in this blog. This time I aim at more than ten months.

One thing I’ve noticed about blogs, it seems as you browse, that most of us who haven’t been professional writers, no matter how readable we may be, start them and then they stop.

You may have noticed in the previous ten months, before today, that I often write about why to write in a blog. Since this might not always keep a person writing in a blog ...

YOU CAN HELP.

No money is required here.

At any time you read perhaps more than one posting here at “visions”, send me an email, include in the subject line something like this:

Continue - Keep going - Quit - take a break - I like it

well now you get the idea.

In the body, include a reason or two if you choose, this perhaps is the “real” reward for a writer other than personal satisfaction.

I ask so little - and I promise that until the quantity is too great, I will read and/or if you desire it, respond to a question or comment in my blog and to continue writing as long as it’s fun for me. (See, blogs are nice)

Globalperson

Don't worry baby

Don’t Worry Baby -

I want her to know, riding down by the Ocean is a tight little California ride that you just don’t see back East ... open top, the quality sounds to the ear and the ocean or beach views slipping smoothly along between the worn surf shops and drive-ins.

The Beach boys dreams, I never really knew them, just the songs ...
the songs, three-dimensional and technicolor, vibrating all around in your eyes closed appreciation hinged on a seductive concept of a sparsely settled California, Northern Baja, Big Sur, Santa Monica place, you would drive your special wheels, with a board to ride the swells and then drink some brew and smoke stubby Pall Malls and talk with James Dean, not about the past but the brilliant Sun future, and where things might happen later on after the Pacific Ocean performs the dazzling spiritual feat of swallowing up del Sol and boys will invent a computer for the desk behind space for the metallic red 56 Tbird or the rich blue and white tu-tone hardtop 57 Chevy.

This is everything your father dreamed of with his eyes closed and when a vinyl revolver made a needle shake stereo speakers.

Daughter near Laguna Beach, for the enlightened education, not because of orange groves and Mexican food. The great American story, the hurt kid wipes his nose and goes to the Ocean and finds the future. Part of Dad wants to go there, part has been there ... the new Paris for kids down on the farm. How’re you gonna keep em, How’re ya gonna keep em? The Sun rises in the mountains and sets in the Ocean eternally.

Loose Threads

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago, but I've been so busy with my research ... (see photos).

Remember the August 15th post, sure you do. Anyway, do you have a person who you disagree with on some of your big issues? I like to think I do.

He is a nice guy. The kind of guy you don’t mind talking to. He reminds me a little of David Brooks, who shows up on the TV news that I watch, which not only gives depth of coverage on some issues that I regard as “loose threads”, you know the issues that don’t go away but beg for resolution. (ie: controversial) but they also choose these issues to explore based on a sense of appropriateness other than if it has potential for good pictures. (ie: entertainment).

See my guy, (let’s call him David) seems to understand the value of Public Television, in an age when even the whole concept of a nonpartisan forum is under attack. Now it seems that David is a religious guy. But David never talks about his religion, you know, like the New York Times. He must be religious because he speaks so thoughtfully, he watches PBS and he projects that he has a sense of VALUES.

Let’s say that my friend David, seems to be a guy that talks about issues of the day but does not seem to have a battery of carefully culled facts and talking points for such issues. It seems that David and others, myself included are in a class, we seem open-minded to opposing view points but have not been “transparent” about our personal religion, the way the successful Democrat did in the Republican commonwealth of Virginia when he was elected governor.

Wow, Tim Kane may be ahead of even Howard Dean, who suggested that democrats had better learn to talk to folks with the Confederate flag in the window of their pick-up! America wants “faithbased”, but apparently it does not have to be evangelical if you are white. I also have no doubt that America can integrate this “faithbased” idea eventually and give a few African-American preachers a chance.

When I listen to David, I am brought back to my blog, where I have the luxury of giving the “I wish I had thought of that while I was talking.” kind of second chance, you wish you had, when you are on the way home. I think of my blog, my little book discussion group at the Politics and Prose Bookstore, and my Buddhism, which I now practice “religiously”. And, Yes, I even get back to my thoughts of writing a book!

When I think of David, I wish I knew what he thought about religious or spiritual type things, the way I do with, Tim Kane, George W. Bush and Mahatma Gandhi. Virginia voters, you’ve got a point there: You listen to their religious ideas, you decide they have some faith and you vote for them even if they are not Evangelicals but Catholics.

The implications here are great for non-Republicans, you don’t have to believe the Bible literally, you just have to tell them what you do believe in. Obviously, this must have limits, it probably won’t work if you proclaim blind faith in Communism. I wonder what about a straight-up believer in pure Capitalism for instance and what about a lifelong Buddhist?

Tim Kane's election, can you see how this might get me into sharing ideas? It also makes me happy to think that we can be more open and less judged and perhaps less judgmental. I for one would love to know what kind of spiritual ideas people have in an age where you are no longer labeled by your religion.

Think of it. You could sit and listen to Richard Nixon, a former Quaker, explain his religious views sometime before he died. Am I wrong in saying that the founding fathers of our country left some letters or speeches on their religious views?

Apparently Tim Kane, went before an Evangelical group and told them he was a Catholic and he liked it (being Catholic). He didn’t put this on billboards but he did get the vote of the red commonwealth. I’m quite sure that if any of the rest of us, blue-staters or terrorists wanted to hear what he told them, it would be no problem for him.

Could we enter a new age of tolerance where John Kerry, could go anywhere and explain his views on religion and get elected to something? I’m tempted to write in my Blog here, that perhaps we’ve entered an age when religion is no longer so equated with class or nation, that we can deal with a person who changed religions or who has an enthusiastic spiritual belief in the good of humankind or perhaps even one who practices a religion that came from somewhere besides America (after of course, the middle-east). Hum, yes, if Tim Kane was elected by Virginia, perhaps I’ll go ahead and write this on the world-wide-web. You never know.

If we just need to believe in SOMETHING spiritual, besides liberalism perhaps the rush of revelations from previously closed mouthed newsmakers will tie up most of the loose ends. Now, I'd love to know what you've been thinking. I wonder if the "cream" of the philosophical ideas would then naturally rise to the top, that is when we could see more clearly what makes candidates tick.

Remember showing up at holy places during the holidays may no longer show you believe enough. Why don't you start a blog and confess to a spiritual nature, if the powerful religion won't ask you to speak at their gathering. "No longer a drunk, a drop-out or draft dodger, I found the way of ..."

David Brooks http://www.slate.com/id/2102382

green and orange clouds

The fish looks up, seeing clearly, just the same.

THIS IS THE CHANCE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

I have this little book I look at pretty much every day, because it’s got daily encouragement. For October 27th it says:

“Whether we regard difficulties in life as misfortunes or whether we view them as good fortune depends entirely on how much we have forged our inner determination. It all depends on our attitude or inner state of life. With a dauntless spirit, we can lead a cheerful and thoroughly enjoyable life. We can develop a “self” of such fortitude that we can look forward to life’s trials and tribulations with a sense of profound elation and joy: ‘Come on obstacles! I’ve been expecting you! This is the chance that I’ve been waiting for!’ ”

Well yesterday I was choked up with a great feeling of gratitude and joy, right on Wisconsin Ave. Really!

Talking with a friend, we just started on the subject of teachers we have had. I was relating how I was grateful that I was daily thinking of family members and friends who have died. This is not because I am sad. I do it as part of my practice of Buddhism, (remember Richard from the diner?) I was talking about adding those teachers to my appreciation. Well I realized this great sense of gratitude, that I was doing this (remembering) exercise! The moment seemed like an intersection of many great realizations. I couldn't speak.

The expanding realization swept over me as I was explaining how I was glad that we talked of teachers because, though I have been ‘religiously’ thinking of these family and friends, where I have been including George Washington along with some other less than perfect people, by the way, I had forgotten about my school teachers!

Since I’ve been trying to be conscientious about this practice, I was a little embarrassed by this oversight. With the split second thinking that it takes to decide to explain this more, it hit me and I got too choked up to continue. This little discomforting thought about forgetting, was overcome by these waves of gratitude I felt for those I had been chanting for, and the realization that I was keeping them alive in so doing and how this had changed my whole perspective, (it certainly has given my writing a foundation I was looking for but didn’t know where to find.)

Keeping people alive, changing ones perspective, each of these I can see now would cause tears of joy but also as I was heating up all in just a moment with this, I thought how happy I was that I was actually feeling this way, me with so many sad memories from childhood! Things I thought secretly that I would never overcome, I felt it was already done! Well it really was one of those kind of moments. You know, the great weight lifted and tears popped out, way too much to explain.

I turned to my concerned friend and managed to eke out, ‘It’s not sad.’ then took another moment to recover. ‘I feel so good.’

I knew I would chant for them every day (the teachers) and it would be so awesome! I thought of my blog and how I have used it to work on my writing. And so, you see, you're all involved! Isn’t that cool. I confess, admit, and proclaim it sure was cool! I really go for stuff like that.

This blog will reveal some great teachers! stay tuned.

It's the chance... It's the life, I've been waiting for!

book - For Today and Tomorrow - by Ikeda
A little hard to find, from a Buddhist bookstore.
(Click on title of this post)

Thanks also to my brand new friend, Deedee, from meetup.com

It’s all Iranian to me

First Written on Sept. 16th 05

The African-Greek systems of government, which later spawned the Magna-Carta, now that’s our kind of government! The Europeans copied it in their quest for democracy and greatness but once again we are spinning toward the Roman Imperial side rather than the time honored values we hold so dear.

Well, who knows where all these democratic ideas came from anyway. Perhaps it was more from George Washington’s rather profound observations of Iroquois culture in his “new” continent than it was anything uniquely English.

Tony the leader of the land of the values we all hold dear, has now proposed that speech is once again not free. Talking about terrorism in a favorable light, he thinks that should be a crime there. He told me via public radio this morning that (as with pornography) we all know it (terrorism) when we see it. I know this is true because Tony, laughed it off when the nasty British journalist raised concerns about losing democratic freedoms, saying in his soft fatherly voice, “Don’t make such a big issue of this, We can all tell what terrorism is.” Thus the free may once again vote against freedom of speech, because it is not really fundamental when we are faced with people who hold dangerous views. Gosh, it’s so obvious, dictators know what they are doing in these matters!

We can see the strict ideological restraints of our Republican congress and other aryan* systems of protecting our own kind have clearly worked. We all know that our own kind, are honest freedom loving people, make no mistake about it. In rather strange places like the middle-East where so many are not honest and freedom loving, we can certainly rest assured that our experts in Washington really can discern the freedom lovers even as their movements like the Taliban go in and out of acceptability. (Note: The Taliban is now not acceptable.)

Clearly it is important to be aware who freedom lovers are. For one thing this will make it much easier to recognize who the terrorists are. No person in a democratic state need ever worry about speaking in favor of the wrong side when such governmental clarity of purpose and enemies was so well highlighted in the British protection of its subways from Jamaican electricians and in our own Katrina disaster. The criminals did not get away and freedom lovers will rebuild. Not only that but our time worn values have even guided our president to declare that the poor people on rooftops who are not criminals will certainly get aid when FEMA meets again next week.

So far federal relief for other domestic refugees does not apply elsewhere in the land because our faith based communities have proven to be very good judges of character. In fact more and more free people are looking to be ‘faithbased’ all the time. It should be noted that, we live in a time when no witch-trials are going on and the holy leader of the church is neither proposing the crusades nor showing any other outward signs of insanity.

Our faith will be a lot stronger when such charitable functions as healthcare and buses are operated by the discerning as well. In this way we can see that all of our values are neatly protected and no terrorists can ever bring us down or make us forget what it’s all for.

There is one little thing I worry about, what happens when some evil scientists make it possible for the relatively poor to be able to launch airplanes with bombs, not the airplane as a bomb, and can shoot missiles across long distances thus making it possible to scare us in non-terrorist ways. How careful will these poor be about collateral damage when they can’t even tell us apart to begin with? I’m trying to connect the dots before something bad happens.

* Did you know that originally “Aryan” meant “the people of Iran”? It’s in the dictionary. click the title of this post.

Diner Under Blue Skys

Let's meet for Lunch.

The Untold Story - All About a hurricane named Katrina

How do we tell the story? It’s been seven days since Katrina went to where the dark-skinned people came to slave away their lives and sang the blues and partied giving America it’s authentic voice. We’re not going to lose - the untold story.

It’s what happens when you mix it all up and shake it all around, it gets good, real good! You can’t throw this stuff out!

I heard this morning that two policemen have taken their lives down in the Big Easy. They’re always cleaning up after something down there. When ever a person dies that way, we have to think, they took their story with them. Who really knows what they saw, these people without a voice, like fire, police, teacher people and slaves. We can only guess what they saw, the people from the Empire of China who built the railroads, the first responders who’s families remain in danger as America gets built, this shelter, build it quickly, you’ll get your pay later, Help is on the way.

These stories are good; who lived on the land, before? Did we tell our kids? and when we did, did we impart the glamour? These kids, want to know, they want to be like them, rock and roll and be good. Way down the river, where they all could be taken in.

These police people, did they have wives or husbands? As scores of their comrades turned in badges from the front lines, because often times, civilians and soldiers have real problems when their own families aren't safe. Who else responded?

Who else responded, when the pretense of a society is washed away, and dying people are washed right out in front of cameras. How many times the story of those who came back from the front lines, never gets really told. Who can tell the story? Who has the time, we have to get ready, be prepared our homeland needs security and if a many more people sacrifice and a few more billions are shifted from the taxpayers, to FEMA, the organization that wasn't, well you know, we will be secure, just keep the faith.

We find what we are looking for, this is what my Buddhist friend says. If you seek only spiritual happiness, that’s all you get. If you want to control your fortunes, how ever you choose it, you get there. Some get beautiful historic homes, some make the prettiest music and some have a lot more stuff to be washed away.

Now is the time we are bone tired, and we are so aware of all the untold stories. The ones that lived and the ones that died. After the cleanup, when we all think so positive again, who will there be to tell the stories? Who will sing the blues? I try to absorb these stories, like Fredrick the field mouse, from the great novel by Lio Lionni, of the same name.

I’m seven days late, to my own family, here, but I have a story to tell. I thought of something on the stairs on my way out. I heard of the deaths of the two policemen. This is the story of when we don’t care enough, this is the story of when we care a lot. I want you to tell your story. I want you to make it a good one!

To say it Jazz style, this keyboard in front of me is my “ax”. Hey, man, don’t put down YOUR ax. Don’t ever put it down, even if you have to sell it or it washes away, don’t ever put it down! We need you, we need you and this realization makes us feel better, so don’t put down your ax.

More on this breaking story later.

Pictures for February blog post - The Lost Woman

Here are the sad pictures illustrating - the Lost Woman of Bethesda -

See the gripping Story on this Blog! - Archives; February 2005.

The best image I could find of her was a sketch for a watercolor which was not completed after the woman disappeared. This work was the begining of a labor of Love and captures only a shadow of her power.




SHE WAS LAST SEEN
BEHIND THE ORANGE AND WHITE BARRICADE

In the photo, you can see where she stood for decades next to the Bethesda Post Office and the locations of the vanished Peoples Drug Store and Baronet Movie Theater, the statue with a plaque naming her - The Madonna of the Trail - is rumored to still be alive. Truly, the missing woman had seen it all.

Pretty Not Clueless - Bethesda

I just got back from - Pretty Persuasion -

It reminded me of - Clueless - At first, but it went other places. Girls are so cute!!

First let me tell you, being close-by, I decided to venture into Bethesda, for the show. Bethesda is really great if you are walking or very rich. Otherwise - On-Guard! Since it does not seem to be especially appealing to the folks who must walk of the world, we have to assume it is frankly and honestly for the rich.

The people who get it together to get a car often show up there. This provides a solid steady revenue for the area and reenforces the message, you welcome if you are rich, for the mere middle-class will feel the sting. Parking very quickly costs you thirty five dollars for a minute! Of course for many, not a problem. (Many have paid Thirty-five dollars for one minute over.)

If you may regret that cost later, then Bethesda is fine to just drive through, but never, never leave your car. You may be tempted but just don’t. You don’t usually pay a penalty for walking, but if that is all you can afford, Bethesda is quite far from were you live.

I have decided that like Kimberly in the movie, disguised unfriendliness, is in direct conflict and a protest against its neighbor Friendship Heights (read, Brittany in the movie). You see the friendliness there got so out of control that they never put in parking meters. They somehow thought it was a good idea to just let people arrive there with no particular invitation just park carefree right on the street. As long as they don’t do it all day, nobody questions them at all.

This presented Bethesda with a problem. Washington D.C. the town South on Wisconsin Avenue had garnered an international reputation for efficiency in parking enforcement, the only well-run aspect of the city. Of course Washington has an inferiority with grown up cities on the East coast which ticket and tow cars with in minutes all to a place in the Bronx which has been deemed unsafe for human visitation.

So Washington funds the local treasury and those friendly to the treasure, very well and Friendship Heights, is sitting there acting friendly. What a waste. Who is smarter? This was a no-brainer for the great minds who plan such things. You could generate great gobs of money and Bethesda was developing alluring places to see all along its roads! This was much better than old Friendship Heights and you don’t have to worry about the bad press that comes with your poor citizens having to pay hundreds of dollars for a necessary trip in the car, or the complicated feelings about the embassies filled with free parkers. Clearly the potential was there, Parking could be a profit center!

What politicians could resist. The public gets mad at the poor people in each block and in little cars you pay minimum wage to for issueing the tickets FAST, not people in business suits up in Rockville. Why these days you can adopt the same methods used where a parked car can tie up over a million cars in three minutes as out in the blue suburban skies of Bethesda, where an over-parked car gets terrifically hot inside posing a risk to pets and may engender excessive spending in local shops.

Well the best minds in the county set to work to bring a new revenue source on line to supply local needs, drastically underfunded when money used-up by the feds with unfundated mandates to protect our buses from being blown-up. Of course the fact that none of the money spent would ever stop a single terrorist, somehow did not slow the drain from state and local government, for roads and schools and libraries.

Anyway, the best minds! for yes, this is genius. Make your meters work until 2 am at night, this way you don’t miss any opportunity. Then make folks pay 25 cents a minute, who can carry enough quarters? Then have the meters collect as many quarters as are fed into them with no return even though the only three will work. Wow. you see, these folk run out of their quarters very fast and who will make change to get more of these precious these quarters?

Inhance the lovely deceptive atmosphere with scores of people walking around picking each piece of gum-wrapper when it is dropped and people will be lulled and forget all about their strict and ruthless time-limit. Some of the shops are really intriguing. Next you take advantage of the current economy and hire hundreds of parking enforcement officials who will sink to such jobs, make it illegal to get within 100 feet of them unless you are smiling and reset the fines in a predatory manner and well, it’s all figured out.

It’s somewhat like Las Vegas, some are tempted to come, they get burned and never come back. Some get burned but they can’t resist, it’s sort of a high-risk thrill to go, and finally there’s always the folks in this economy who can pay and enjoy the whole thing. The minor ups and downs of their parking payments don’t make a blip on the chauffeurs radar or the car enthusiasts thrill of showing off the new Italian convertible that cost as much as a house in Bethesda did last year. Of course, this fellow can payoff the tow-truck driver before his car disappears to a farmers field up where the cows live, and no buses go. If you think tow-truck companies don’t get rich in Montgomery County, check again they are empowered to tow cars out of empty parking lots in the middle of the night without any complaint registered at all! Plus make you pay storage in their lot and a penalty if the damage to your car posed at threat to the wrecker.

What about the movie, oh yes! This movie like so many at the Landmark made the stress of leaving the car in Bethesda seem worthwhile, especially since you figured out a way to see it and feed the meter with out missing any of it. (Don’t think about eating after the show, unless you eat at fine places several times a week, even if they are in Paris.)

OK, Ok, the movie! I did forget about past parking experiences after the movie. It was really ‘Pretty Persuasion’ The pretty girl, hero? was as attractive as Alicia Silverstone in ‘Clueless’ before weight became an issue and she was as intelligent/scheming as an American woman can be at age fifteen. This is more intelligent than anyone else around. Unfortunately, Evan Rachel-Wood, as Kimberly, did not have the warmhearted cunning as Alicia’s, Beverly Hills high-schooler, Kimberly ended up looking more like the “American Woman” lamented in the song. Maybe the kids here are a little better informed and a little less cunning than the valley-girls, However - Our poor kids, both in our United States and in Iraq are getting so screwed by this war! We end up believing the worst said about the other, where will we end it? When?

This movie was about collateral damage from the wars.

Pretty Persuasion - in theaters

Gratitude

I haven’t forgotten about the second of Richards ‘diner’, storys however, after I read something he recommended since, and wrote about it, this seemed more timely, besides, it’s already written.

I thought of something on the staircase again (see June 3, Globalperson Refreshes). I want to thank the keeper of BLOGGERVILLE - http://www.geocities.com/bloggerville/personal1.html - for making an EXPLORATION OF BLOGS a little more manageable. (mentioned it the previous post. I promise to learn how to put links in the text of my posts!)

I have not decided to get my friends to ‘pile on’ to my blog, at least for a while. (What if I gave a party and nobody came?) I want to see what those who stumble on it think, so thank you for the input, however you got here.

So many people have studied so much literature on the subject of Buddhism. The conclusion is that there is one practice, which is born out in doctrine to be essential to the realization of Buddhism, in our world. Well, that’s the theory!

These are my profound thoughts after reading something suggested by my friend Richard, from the diner...

Somebody had to write the history of Buddhism to clarify it.
Nobody has to know the history of Buddhism to benefit from it.

Richard told me he started practicing because of the influence of a friend. Then he figured out that the person was his best friend. He said one reason is the friend, never ever tried to look like the great Buddah himself but rather was happy just to make what he calls good causes.

Good Causes? He said it’s all based on ‘cause and effect’. What is? Everything.
Look, if you make good causes you get good effects. This is what Buddhism says, it’s cool because you don’t have to believe it. He compares it to his understanding of his Corolla. If he had to fix it, he couldn’t. Well, he could eventually, but he could well use his Toyota for decades and never learn the details of even how the tires are made, or the radio, much less how it starts when he puts the keys in. He says in this age, we want the keys to the car, and to turn on the radio. I couldn’t agree more!

So, you don’t have to be any scholar of Buddhism. The idea is you can do something to activate it, even you area a person who spend your whole life trying to learn how to raise more crops on your little piece of land, Just surviving. That’s the mercy of the Buddha, it goes for non-scholars. Cool, I thought.

But what about his enlightenment? How could he experience enlightenment? Look what happened to the guy in America who made a better peanut. or who invented the light bulb. What might happen to the guy who told others about; “the way for a farmer to be truely happy. Think about it.”

The important thing is that there should be a true connection to the great enlightened one, who figured it all out to begain with. Right?, ....if it’s such a great idea and you can successfully pass it on even a in world filled with a whole lot of illusions. We just sort of think, the doctrine for the teachings should be there, as well as the results. The doctrine, just does not have to come first.

Wow! That has implications for a lot of people seeking Buddhism in North America. Yes, it really does. If your seeking is successful, it should show up in how you look, so to speak. I mean, do others think of you as a happy person? Do you really, really, think that you are yourself, deep down, like on your blog? It’s actually very strict, like you SHOULD go for the best way you can find to be happy. We all influence so many people. I remembered, Richard had said; ‘choose carefully’. Well I see that’s a big thing in Buddhism. You can't escape your influence on others.

All that is based on this writing of Nichiren, (I actually read it,) which is on the internet. In a way it made me feel glad that I decided to do his chant, before I read it all, and then it sort of made me feel like chanting after I read it. At least I can celebrate the concept of Americans finally getting it right.

I don’t know how to put a link in middle of my post, if you are interested, I’ll make a link, just click on the title of this post. The writing is called:

‘Repaying Debts of Gratitude’ by Nichiren

The World at Large

I'm taking a little time.
The first rule of blogs is - there is no first rule, well right now I declare the rule is, Don't stress about it them - whatever.

I've taken some time to: read your blogs, read new blogs, read, think about and write emails, Thank you very much! for emails, and to start two more myself. One to tell stories about my family, and one for a single issue,

Oh yes, also to go to the diner and have a life. This is not a complaint at all. Just news and encouragement to keep reading - visions - I'll always be adding, sometime, in not too long.

My old friend Arnie

I met Arnie for lunch a few days ago. He and I used to spend time together. Arnie likes to talk about things like this:

“What about old friends?” He asks. “Aren't these the secret stories that we never hear of.” He went on to clarify. "I mean the ones that we were romantically attached to before we married someone else. I like to think about; what if my mother was really attached to someone, before my Dad.
Do you think we would ever hear of such a thing? Every time you read about this kind of relationship, it has always been kept a secret or it caused some kind of trouble, if it came out. Think of all these very meaningful relationships that are never acknowledged. Imagine how much they must shape things in life. You know, at least influence things.”

“Well, Arnie, I think you can never be sure of what motivates a person, I try to just see what they really do.” At this he looked a little discouraged. I shut-up so he could tell me about his thinking.

A - “I don’t think it usually makes much difference at all. Everyone has had influential friends in the past. Right? I’m talking about really magical people for us, who really impressed us but just didn’t happen to be there when it was time to get married or move on.”

This time I encouraged him by looking at him with a thoughtful nod.

A - “I don’t know maybe this a guy thing. Most of the time we try to understand things by cause and effect. And sometimes there are things that don’t seem to quite fit in. Right? Just imagine how many influences there are like this that we could never hear about?

GP - “Oooh Kay.” He was going somewhere with this.

A - “When you get married, all that, is supposed to be in the past. Maybe sometimes, people get married and are not totally sure about a person, from the past. They are just thinking, he or she will never be an issue. Like what are the chances? Or they think and hope that their marriage will change anything like that. Right?”

I still offered my steady gaze. I liked Arnie anyway, and it was a little interesting.

A - “Well, I think about it sometime. It’s like I hear about people who don’t ever talk about their experience during the war. Think about “Casablanca”, It was such a cool story because you know she will never talk about it again. We saw it and we know, she will go on with her life, have a family, whatever and as far as that guy is concerned, all she’ll ever have is Paris.”

GP - “Right guys like to think they are somebody’s, Paris.”

A - “Well, it could be sometimes.”

GP - “Like all the girls are incomplete without some guy. That’s kind of tired.”

A - “Well can’t some guy be there too?”

After I hesitated, I said; “Ooh Kay.” slowly again, with a little smile. Then before he spoke, I encouraged him; “OK, this is where people don’t usually want to go.”

A - “RIGHT! It’s what can make a really good story. See?” He was enjoying, making his point.

GP - “So we writers can go there.”

Arnie hesitated

GP - “We can go there and it’s OK.” I smiled with him. “We have to be saying something, somehow.”

Arnie, understood, I would meet with him, when he wanted.

Knowing Who We Are

I am very concerned about who we are and were we live. For example, when I take a break sometimes I read other blogs. Should I read yours? As I surfed around, I discovered my blog was listed (I think that's great!) at one place near sites that had pink backgrounds or black (for gothic).

I appreciate but still ...
I don’t want people to KNOW me know me. I mean if we’re talking about boys and girls, I can say something to the boys. Sometimes a girl can want you and be nice, ... but sometimes they are just nice and this can be complicating. Like, they don’t want anyone, ANYONE, to assume they know what they want. OK.

I am just very serious about writing. I have not always been this serious about it. In fact from about Kindergarten on, I had writer’s block. Before that I didn’t really know how to write. I just always knew I had my thoughts. Nobody else could say they really knew my thoughts. Now I am among the liberated, I guess, because I find writing is coming out of my fingers.

Sometimes people think I have the wisdom of the ages, you know, like a man. It’s scary sometimes, some want to run. I’ll tell you right now, I don’t write the way I talk and sometimes I talk different than what I really feel. Like a fifty something old man who really wants to get into your pants. You can see, neither of these people want you to know who they are. That is if they want to write and have readers. I do admit that’s me.

I am not a color or an age or looking to be pinned down - that is who. Like I say, if you like that, then meet me down at the diner. Maybe we can have a good talk, a really good talk.

APPRECIATION and a very big subject

Since I met Richard at the diner, I’ve got more appreciation. Seriously, I do. I don’t mean for just, Richard the all right looking guy but for more, much more! I was thinking of Gilda Radnor, this morning. Seriously, I naturally could relate to her, did she have a different God from me? I wasn’t sure of this at all.

Gilda answered questions from Richard Fader, in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Now I used to date someone from there but anyway, Gilda used to patiently answer Richard Fader’s letters, whenever he wrote. (not the Richard from the diner) How cool is that? So I have to thank you, Gilda!

Every time that Richard wrote, Gilda, patiently answered him! I know what it’s like, dealing with insecure guys! So I really appreciate her wisdom. She never got impatient, she just gave him wonderful answers. I learned a lot from her, like sometimes, there is some value in being nice to jerks. Not that the guy from Fort Lee was a jerk or anything (appreciation).

Appreciation, it got me thinking about that really cool guy (or is he a girl?) believe me, I mean no offense either way, for I refer to God. God with a capitol “G” or “A for Allah. I want anyone who’s thinking about checking-up to know, I mean no disrespect!

What do you do when he is telling two different people they have inherited the same land from him? I’ve seen families broken up by wills, after the last parent dies. At best, it is just awful, at worst things get violent. It’s this feeling, why did this person do this to us. You start to wonder, “Where did they live!” and this is not a good thing to think about your parents.

Well, I respect God or Allah, deeply. He is so cool! When you appreciate him, it seems you start to respect yourself more and the people who ask some really dumb questions but still are flattering you. I really, really love him!

The only problem I have is; Where does he live? And sometimes can’t we all admit; I do wonder what sex he is.? Is that OK? Some people say he is everywhere and that’s OK. I know when you really want to appeal to him, it is good to know he’s there. But, don’t you sort of want to know, how you can get closer?

There are houses of worship. The problem comes when some very sincere people want to burn down your house of worship. Who really, really owns these holy lands? This is really, really bloody tough! If you are looking for me to start being sarcastic, I’m not going to. I just wish we could still write letters to Gilda and get it sorted out. Injustice, makes me really mad.

When Gilda died, her cool God died with her. Seriously, who else can tell what she thought about him, beside her? She took that secret with her.

Of course that leaves priests. I mean priests. Priests. I’m I the only one who wonders if that is OK? If you have kids to protect, you want to be really, really sure, they are OK. I know some people are really sure about this but are they really, REALLY sure? I mean some priests tell them to blow themselves up and do other things that can really mess your mind.

I see young people everywhere want independence AND then they want to come home. Admit it. It’s true, ... anyway I can tell! This is not always a bad thing. So we are looking, looking out on highway 61, (click on title of this blog) where to go. Not now! I mean sometime, we all have to reconcile with our parents, I have certainly heard this and I don’t want to be disrespectful.

Well, anyway, I think where God lives is a problem and that is a very big subject!

CORRECTION:
The home of Daisy and Jordan was Louisville not New England. Sorry, Tim Robbins. Ah should have known.

Hungry?

I’ve picked up two good stories from my friend at the diner. I’m pretty sure one comes from the Buddha, anyway they both seem to relate to - visions - so I’ll share.

You can see the very poor man (on a fixed income?) with little hope. When he goes to the park a young little dog came right up to him and made him smile. He he gave the pets and the little dog thought he had found his long lost friend. When the dog started to follow him home, poor man started to feel bad. for being so friendly, this dog may latch on to him and miss getting back with his people when they were ready to leave. He scared him off as he left for home.

That night, he kept thinking about the dog. He suspected that little dog may be on his own in this world. The next day he went to the park a little early and the dog was there. He trotted over to him and saddled up next to him, curving his body, as he circled, full of wags and making a sound which was relief. The man sat on a bench and checked out doggie. He looked a little dirty and he looked a little thin to the man who was a little uncomfortable knowing as he did, he couldn’t take on a dog.

He found it hard to be mean to doggie when he left but still the little dog turned and went back into the park when he half-heartedly motioned him back. This made the man unexpectedly happy. Perhaps he could have the best of both worlds. A true friend in the park and no additional responsibilities.

The next day he put a little cup in his pocket and brought his water, just in case. Dog wolfed it down and the man went over to the grocery and bought a bottle of water, something he never, never does. As the man watched, the dog drink up all that water too, it was clear this little fellow was all alone.

He walked all around the park, quite a way for him, with doggie bouncing along. There weren't that many people and no one acted as if they knew the creature. As he walked a feeling sort of settled in his chest. It wasn’t too bad. The park over on the other side looked beautiful, he would come here more often.

On this third day, little doggie didn’t turn back. He stuck right with him. Man stopped in the grocery and got a small bag of dog food, he noted that was the only size they carried, for later and he didn’t buy the cheapest kind.

As I followed this story, I could see the man really improving himself because of his attachment to a stray dog. He started getting better food for himself. He got a better job, just for the better diet at first, after he started feeling better. It was something he always knew he should do.

A nice girl came up in his life, who could resist the man so devoted to his amazingly devoted little dog?

I could see the whole dream unfolding, as it has so many times before, always by surprise. The man found he really cared about another person and hey, we all know this really helps a person to clean up his act. As my own new friend started to wrap up his little story about the man and dog, I started to see this story doesn't end.

The man could start up a little business, or what? Maybe he went back to school. He went to see his father, he became a famous artist ... who knows. Who knows when we will meet something that will change our lives?

My new friend at the diner told me that the relationships are so important. We forget how much our relationships can mean.

I got the skeleton of this story from Richard and I didn’t have to give away any food! My little eating place looks really good now and I think I’m going to try somewhere else, as well. Writers just love food.

I’m saving the other story for when I’m hungry later.

How to Count

It seems every time I try to get a free counter on the website, I end up giving up too much information and I don’t actually get a counter. I know that just like speaking Chinese, it may seem impossible but I’m quite sure there are many people out there doing it. Is this an illusion?

Please let me know what you know, on the companion dialogue website
- Visions Too - http://sharevisiontoo.blogspot.com/

Oxford and Homer = delicious!! yummy!

Today my radio compared the way people speak in Oxford England and Oxford Georgia in the USA. At the end the speakers were asked to speak the way they thought the others spoke. This is when I learned from the English English speaker that Homer is very popular with the
Brits. You see they have learned that is the way Amerricns talk. What do they say when they are suprised by something bad? Dogh ! (pronounced dough.) He laughed quite hard at this, that slick Brit who said it did.

Unlike when I was younger and nervous and I couldn’t enjoy some of Woodie Allen’s funiest movies because I totally identified with the little man. He was really in some pretty sad situations. I mean who can laugh when a guy from NYC gets his nerve together to go to California AND drive a car, to get his girl back and then crashes the expensive rent-a-car into several other cars in a drive-in when she decides she won’t go back with him. What a time to drive! The house was roaring and I was going; “Oh my God!” and feeling really bad that people always laugh when you are in that situation.

Unlike those nervous old days, I have gotten to the place where I laugh out loud at Homer, whenever I can see him. He’s NOT me. No No No,
ha ha ha. At least they can’t say we don’t have humor as good as theirs. Their’s is just more, more ... sarcastic? No harm to Montie there old boy.

Well I’m used to it. Remember a few years ago when my brothers adopted Bart? Matt Groening just knows how to do white humor, white American humor. “Isn’t it supposed to be good when we laugh at ourselves, Lisa?... Dogh!” Well I know I’m a much saner person because of the laughing at the father and the boy, who know that school is hell.

This is a painful time for many of us when we must learn what the rest of the world thinks of us, the ones we forgot about, you know like on the reservations and in France. Hum, who would have thought, ... The Simpsons? I admit, I laughed right along with the sniveling old mate. What are we gonna do?

You thought this was about;

The Illiad, by Homer

Right? (click on title of post to see what it's really about)

A Real American

When I got home from the diner today, I thought of some really good stuff I could have told a guy there! Really.

I’m as American as the regular guy and George Washington (and a regular guy who likes to imagine he is George Washington in another life.) And Harriet Tubman and Audrey Tautou, wait I mean Angela Jolie. She’s American, right? It’s getting so hard to pick-out your American these days, some people even think Bill Murray was an American before he ever left Canada. Just ask a Canadian if they are Americans.

Anyway, you can see why people like George Washington are so popular and why it turns out that the Republican Party has the heart and soul of Jeffersonianism. Who knew? Who Knows?

I know I’m not the only one who reads this stuff about our founding fathers and mothers. Now what was I defending?

More on this important topic (I’m sure) later.

Also check out:
A pretty cool book about how Ben Franklin, was actually young and handsome but would never sit still for a picture to be made untill he looked like the hundred dollar bill. He was loved by the girls in Paris and he wrote some cool stuff to friends who were trying to decide between a life of public service in a shakey sort of government and the passionately promising new take on the subject of alchemy called science. Seriously, I found it at my sisters and she ended up giving it to me.

- Benjamin Franklin - by Edmund S. Morgan

Ask if ...

It seems more people are suggesting George II, should be impeached.
I did get interested in impeachment - “Asking if the office holder did something he should not stay in office for” in Bill Clinton’s time.

I knew there are so many Republicans and Catholic priests who can’t campaign on their moral superiority, that it made me nervous.

Now we are supposed to be thinking about, if maybe, we should ask if new leader, has done something he shouldn’t be doing in office. Well I always used to get in trouble for asking questions but I see it never really hurt.

I mean, where is all this partisanship taking us? Anyway, I hope we keep promoting “checks and balances” at least overseas.

I’m sure we all want the nasty stuff to stop, for the sake of our land and when our guy is in office.

Please email - vision Comments, for a Dialogue

email

I look forward to publishing feedback from you.

thought@email.com

Social Security

Social Security - the sign of civilization - we all want it,
and still it has the distasteful scent of welfare.

Social Security - homeland security sounds better, we all seem to agree that taxing people for Police and Army is worthwhile.

What makes social security work, is that like the U.S. dollar, it based on a promise. A promise that we believe. You know like the President swearing-in that he will uphold the law and not be a crook.

When this type of promise has doubt cast on it, We all get nervous, you can see how a tricky politician could conceivably cast enough doubt on it (Social Security) that like a bubble, it could burst.

It would be unimaginable and uncomfortable! Are we all hanging in here with no safety net. Why, I can imagine we could ALL fall at the same time. All it takes is one to fall and somehow an imbedded photographer accidentally stumbles on the scene.

Suddenly the thought that people can fall is on our minds. It’s finally broken out on our front pages! This is the unspoken lack of security that could cause people eventually to stop a war AND in spite of insurgents, stop supporting the regime. It’s not pretty, this reliance on patriotism, when many are asking where is the civilization?

FROM THE FRONT:
The latest victim of a drive by was in the boondocks of Texas, when a U.S. solder (mother) was left in the dust.

Stay Tuned for Casual Events in a Crowded Summer

- “Reading over what I have written so far i see I have given the impression that the events of three nights several weeks apart were all that absorbed me.” -
from - The Great Gatsby -

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been looking myself, but I can’t get over, Richard’s words at the diner, about choosing carefully. (see previous post)

He’s not pointing any fingers, he was just in a conversation! I think that’s why I like stories so much. I think story-tellers can tell what they really think and not be disowned by some relaitive who thinks it’s autobiographical. There is some reason, Lewis Carol and Frank Baum, keep getting told and any writer has to assume that we want to know what we think. Hey, if somebody is really spilling the beans, I want to be there.

I’m re-reading a story I really enjoyed in High School, The Great Gatsby. I called the library, up at the corner and asked if they had it on tape. Sure enough in a few days a could pick it up. You see, I wasn’t going to read it again, I was going to listen.

Here’s what happened. I put the ridiculous looking silver and blue boom box I have behind my chair by the window and started it up. Tim Robbins does a good job speaking it, except he makes the women hailing from New England and living on Long Island, sound Southern. Well, it’s really cool hearing from F. Scott Fitzgerald, so far out of H.S.

When the first of the six cassette tapes was over, I carefully put on number two. This just wasn’t right. I mean the story didn’t seem connected. Over the years I have picked-up three different editions of Gatsby at the library used book store, thinking it was a good book, also ready to forget it again, so I could get another one. I got my “Authorized text” marked 50 cents and started skimming to see what was up. I really got into the words on the pages. They were so accessable they seem to stand-out and it felt like I was remembering these well-crafted words.

In my “sorting-out”, since 9-11, I have been thinking pretty much that I have ADD. I must have had attention-deficit disorder as a child and I probably have it still. Fortunately I am secure enough now to think, what ever effects it may have had, it doesn’t matter at all now. I’m sure it made a big difference in school which is set-up to measure how many facts you can retain when doled out in irrelevant books and from often uninterested teachers. (see Matt Groening’s book, - School Is Hell - for a more detailed explaination.) In that world, I remember Gatsby stood-out, you know, like - Catcher In the Rye -.

Anyway for me, hearing Tim, read it and then reading myself was dino-mite! Will this work for the rest of the books up at the corner? I think I’m on my way. The problem with the tape was, I hadn’t listened to side two of tape one. Whew! Learning everyday and you can see why I hate finger-pointing.

Community Resources

Let’s remember Francis Perkins, who thought that democracy means a government concerned about needs of the people. She led the fight for Social Security in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, they got it passed seventy years ago tomorrow, (Sunday) and it was her vision that no politicians could ever repeal it, the promise was safe, because we are a democratic nation.

When I looked at the actions of Tony Blair back in February, he seemed to be unattaching himself from our presidents here in North America.

How do we get attached to things?

I must admit that this topic has come up because of an attachment of sorts I have made at the local diner.

You see, it’s been a while, (again) since I have written on this blog. I find the writing fits and is enjoyable. Anyway as I told one person interested enough to write me; I Moved during July. Just a half a block but I had to pack and unpack. I am happy and proud that I threw away at least a third of my things. These were things I was attached to enough that I had saved them for many years. It feels much lighter, this existence. During this time, I did not write here at all, however, I continued my fairly regular research at said diner. (See pictures this blog.)

The usually friendly atmosphere is enough me and enough not me, to make for interesting observing. I go to this place alone and unattached ready to drink-in signs of life in my community.

I ran into an old friend, an acquaintance really from back in high school. Richard asked me to join him in a booth. I sensed he wasn’t hustling any goods, services or religions AND he seemed open to the kind of open conversation I was looking for.

I said to him;
“I guess I hesitated a second to decide if I would get attached for this lunch. But you seem willing, and that’s good enough for me.”

“I love talking with people, you never know what you’re going to learn.”

Ah, talking to Richard was going to be just fine! We caught up a little bit, mostly about where we are now. Then he continued;

“Are you thinking about attachments or something?”

“Ya, I’m glad I’ve been able to get rid of a lot of attachments. I’m just moving and I got rid of a whole bunch of STUFF! I think we get attached to so much and we really don’t need these attachments at all.”

“Well you just got attached for this lunch.”

“Oh ya! that’s cool, for lunch or something.”

“Well I think I can relate to what you’re saying, I’m a Buddhist.”

“Right, no attachments, that’s cool. Did you read some books?”

“Yes, I’ve read books about Buddhism, but I’ve also been practicing Buddhism for many years.”

At this point, I was afraid he was going to start telling me about some intense religious group somewhere but I also held out the hope that a Buddhist wouldn’t go there.

“Are you attached to Buddhism?” I cleverly thought of.

He said “Yes.” That’s it - Yes period - as if he was reading my thoughts.
He just looked at me eye to eye, with a totally open look.

“Well, no, no, I didn’t mean anything bad about Buddhism! I mean I just wonder how you really stick with Buddhism when the whole point is not to be attached.”

“I think you’ve read something about Zen Buddhism.”

“Yes, I have. I guess I think of Zen as sort of the cutting edge of Buddhism while a lot of Buddhists seem to be sort of attached to their country or some statues, I mean statues are fine, they can remind one to think about the Buddhist principals.”

“and in Zen, you get rid of attachments?”

“Right.”

“Well I think your attachments are very important. Everyone has attachments.”

“Right, like Tony Blair, has attached himself to American Presidents.”

“Well yes, that’s an attachment, I can’t tell if he’s trying to get away from that, but we need to have attachments.”

“But wasn’t the Buddha teaching that when all is said and done, we get enlightened when we get rid of all attachments?”

“I believe he was actually teaching about choosing carefully.”

Now, that was a new twist for me! With the fact that we were nearing the end of lunch, I said;

“I’m glad I attached myself for this lunch, I figured this dinner was going to teach me something. I always figure that when I come in here.”

“We could meet again.”

“That’s cool.”

“I usually come here on Fridays, do you want to meet here next Friday?”

So just like that I went from being an observer to getting attached. Since then we have decided to meet pretty much each week and since I have discovered the ability of my iPod to double as a tape recorder, I plan on using it for some conversations. I guess that there are many people who don’t mind being recorded in conversation like this. Anyway I don’t plan on my blog being the place to transcribe the words of Richard from the diner, instead it will continue like most blogs to release my mind for “... for wandering, here it will go.” Richard, seems like a resource in my community.

Globalperson Refreshes

One person not only found this blog but wrote to me. I think we like sharing our visions. So globalperson conjured up the reasons to start such a blog and decided they weren't so bad, even if they are easy to forget.

Here you, which is me and maybe one other person, can see a writer's lab, with stabs at story telling, social commentary (well hidden) and even the mysteries of the sexes (Ya never know, one of these days, Alice!) (I want to be alone.)

My local "Wordsmith", who provides me with a "Word a Day", recently sent, - esprit d'escalier (e-SPREE des-kal-i-YE) noun, also esprit de l'escalier -

Wordsmith says:

"Thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit.
Also such a remark.

[From French esprit de l'escalier, from esprit (wit) + escalier (stairs).]

We're all witty. It's just that many of us think of our clever remarks a bit
too late. The French call it the staircase wit, indicating that one thought
of that perfect retort on his or her way out."

Since I can handle a word about every two days, this concept of "esprit d'escalier" really rang a bell with me. Those naughty French. This is why writers write, murders murder, and children are so wonderful. I've spent my whole life learning how to get it right, the first time. Thus, I may have developed my writing some to reduce the pressure.

Of course, when your writing is an assignment, it can be more complicated in terms of pressure. Well, I've decided that these blogs are a good thing. Blogs are truly the sea of words. Open to all, and helping us somehow to sort it all out.

I used to spend time on the shore of Lake Michigan, doing my sorting and I can tell you, it never hurt. Hey, let's cut our teeth on blogs. Since very few of us on this globe, have a real audience, much less an audience who wants to see us, let's keep these words simmering!

Globalperson often considers politics, you can't get away from it. Along this path, I am reading at a book by Gar Alperovitz, titled, "America Beyond Capitalism; Reclaiming our wealth, our liberty and our democracy". Since I now have some doubts about the sustainability and/or desirability
of our current world system and because the book seemed a little optimistic from what I heard on public radio, I picked up a copy. My theory is that someone who says "capitalist" is not necessarily traditional thinker.

Also, this very morning I heard on radio that a certain word was like a truck, (i.e. democracy), you can load it up with what ever you want. It seems the trucks named, capitalism, communism, democracy and genocide, have all crashed. Here we are left to sort it all out. What in the world do we mean?

For example, the Communists used the word "fascist", so it seems pretty far gone, but when you google this word or look for the fascist vision, it is still interesting. Our top politician, is making much use of the word, "faith" but many still feel it has some use. And, ripped from today's headlines is the word "gulag" who is using it correctly? Who wants to claim ownership of such a word anyway, Yuchh!

Gobalperson is writing a book, and I will keep up this trusty blog, "Visions". In my view they are both apropos (Being at once opportune and to the point) for those of us who still try to get it right, on the way home. Plus, it seems time is something, I have the fortune to create.

You heard it here first. and when I write stuff like this, it seems like a good idea to go down to the diner and listen to the people, as I walk back, I'll know what to say.

America's Search for Intelligence

It seems to me one of the major ideas to come out of the September 11th tragedy is that we’re trying to connect the dots.

I don’t think there’s too many people who felt like they wanted to leave the dots entirely up to Tom Ridge. I certainly have been thinking about the concept. This is what intelligence is all about. Basically the brain recognizes patterns and uses the information to survive and flourish.

Now we have a problem not seeing the dots. This is a bipartisan problem, it also transcends all other barriers. Almost anyone could have figured out someone could use an airplane as a very powerful weapon, most could have figured out the world of Islam has some major problems with the United States. Some people willing to use violence, connected some dots. If more people than that, put together more dots, we could maintain enough peace to allow some flourishing.

Intelligence is not the property of people who seem to be named intelligent. Didn’t we all feel a little personally set back, that we didn’t figure the tragedy out? I know I did. I was shocked at myself and I love to figure things out.

I also have a computer in my home, something I couldn’t imagine in 1975. I still get the feeling my own intelligence totally guides it. I have the best performing nation, in that regard in the world, who has more data? Of course, a new model could come out anytime, who knows. Just today I read about blue-ray and blue gene. I’m serious you can google those names. The first one is for the house and the other is for our United States intelligence labs.

Well more and more of us are thinking and saying, “Who is there to connect the dots?” We can learn any persons secrets, what their doctor is telling them, how much money they have day to day, their politics or lack of politics and much, much more. Some are quite uncomfortable with this situation but the bigger question may be, who can possibly sort it out in a way that is beneficial, in a way that affords us security.

Even the FBI and the CIA are challenged, I see they are trying to hire smart young people. It might take several generations to catch up to what potentially computers can tell us now.

The mantra is, “Who is outside the box.” A real problem for most of our schools. The latest memo from corporate headquarters is that we all are outside the box. Really, do you know someone who is afraid to think ourside the box? Just ask them. What we’ve really done is to quickly make the concept of the box unintelligible. At least we know the old box can be dangerous.

We are trying to learn what outside the box is. Good luck. This doesn’t go so fast.

We suspect our reality TV shows. A real reality show presents some new information and leaves many questions. It’s like a glimpse at a public television show, you’ve learned something but your brain was challenged with the implications and you feel you are qualified to face them. A good feeling. It’s a road we can travel and it leaves many turning away from the national evening news in search of real reality, it’s outside the box.

We have NASA and Hollywood and blue genes but who can have a life? What are the Europeans possibly thinking about? and can the Arab people even think about lives? These aren't my questions but they are gaining in popularity.

I leave you with these questions, I think about.

Why are people happy paying more taxes?
Why do people blow themselves up to kill others?
Is there any other way to stop the killing than what we have tried?

These questions are my attempt to venture outside the box.

The Lost Woman of Bethesda

STORIES OF BETHESDA

An old friend loaned me this book, "Stories of Bethesda". Bethesda is a place in Maryland named after an old Quaker Meeting House up on a hill there. The word means house of mercy. It’s right where the old highway going East and West met the pike from Georgetown towards headwaters of the Potomac, running up through Frederick all the way to Cumberland Gap through the mountains.

It was a Post Office there near the intersection that took the name of the Meeting House a mile away. A smaller road that ran the same way as the Pike was called the old Georgetown road. Harriet Beecher Stowe, stayed there a few miles up and wrote about an old man in a cabin on the road before the discrimination laws changed and we were all declared equal.

It was a good place to stop on the wood planked pike which would not washout most of the time in the soaking weather. A hotel or inn opened up and houses sprang up in the usual way for the North American great eastern forest lands, once the largest forest in the world. It made great farm land and houses tended to collect at big intersections. The Indians had known these were the best trails in the Potomac River basin but the United States capital city was built next to Georgetown and the value of the place went way down for them. No one is quite sure where the Potomac Indians went.

Around the time the great movement of European “Americans” through the Gap ended, the citizens of Bethesda sort of missed the idea of the old frontier, so they erected a statue on the grass by the post office, the movie theater and drugstore on the other side. This statue was dedicated to the amazing grit of the women who committed themselves to the men who would leave civilization on the bumpy road through the mountains, children and all. There were statues for the Daniel Boones enough. The first story was about this woman.

illustration added 8/28/05

Sketch for a Watercolor - A Labor of Love, cut short by her loss.

THE LOST WOMAN OF BETHESDA -

They have a diner in Bethesda, so when the lunch crowd left, I settled back in the red plastic booth and read some.

The woman was powerful to see, with her children hanging on to her long skirt. She was stone and big, when you walked by the base, her head looked as tall as the stately new post office building. She faced the traffic on the pike going to the northwest. Only the people just came out to Bethesda to sleep. Somebody had to stay back in Maryland and help the government, and the grain and dairy farms run.

After the big world war which made the world safe for our kind of democracy, the quiet little capital town on the Potomac started steady growing rignt through the second such battle. In the 1970’s Bethesda “downtown” exploded. The government was going to be more than just some caretakers with little staff. The need for lots of agencies, commissions, guards and later people hired by the industrialists to stand around in the lobby of the capital building and catch the ears going by, became apparent.

The people going toward the capital each morning began to outnumber the folks heading toward the fields and shops for work and prices went up, for the new people had money with them as well as dignity. Bethesda, in thirty years became absorbed in the New York - Washington metropolis.

The Maryland-talking women from Olney and Darnestown who worked on the creaky wood floors at the Woolworth's across from the stone woman were replaced by children who attended the edifice of education built on the East-West highway, BCC, the Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, the only school in the urban area that allows students to walk over to Starbucks for lunch. Woolworth's, the drugstore and the little theater were replaced by “the Gap” and Designer Kitchens, in tall office buildings with high heels on marble.

Right where the stone woman stood holding the children and looking hard at the pike, a massive hotel went up with a giant atrium and doormen for the taxis and town cars. She was at one end of the driveway not too much in the way. Soon under her feet the incredible engineering feat of a tunnel large enough to hold two trains and a station found room deep enough not to bother the hotel. She didn’t look so big anymore, in fact representatives from Kansas and Alaska could whizz right by, with a favorable light and three smooth lanes in each direction filled with cars as far as she could see. You would have to look quick at the right moment to see her.

The building of thirteen glittering office buildings at once sent packs of dump trucks almost as large as today's SUV’s rumbling and grinding by her while the subterranean trains shook the ground every six minutes. The woman lost her footing and slipped downward at a post-modern angle and then she was gone.

About Writing - down the good stuff

GP thinks it is about time to invite some others into the visions blog. To participate. The tires are all kicked. I think all writing is written for somebody to read, even a diary! We don't organize these thoughts on paper only for our own clairity. It's satisfying to us if it makes sense to someone! I think we want that.

We are shy, then we're brave, I hope this all (writing and talking) happens before we die. I guess there always comes a time when we really wish someone, would just read it. We don't want them to read it WHILE we write. It's like someone is looking in your brain, please don't go there!?!

Writing develops some life and direction. GP gratefully remembers a cool teacher who said, "Once you put a mark on a pure white page it is already less than perfect"

GP likes the idea of marking up some paper and it's somehow easier when it's on the screen. We have to learn how to type but hey, it's got spellcheck.

We can still appreciate the old bard hunched over parchment with a quill but we can do it quicker. The writing part is quicker, the thinking part still takes about the same time.

If you got this far, join me at the local diner.

The Horse at breakfast.

The kind of place I like to eat in.
(air conditioned)

Shocking Article in Brit Newspaper

Globalperson found part of a British newspaper, the Defender of London, on the train. He muses; How many times are there stories that we just don't get?

Mad Cow Disease maybe in multiple humans on U.S. East Coast

By Cultural Anime

BRUSSELS (Defender) - Mad cow disease has been found in the body of a journalist on the American East Coast, the first time the brain-wasting affliction that ravaged European cattle herds and killed at least 100 people, has been diagnosed in the U.S., the EU said on Friday.

"A suspected case of BSE in a human who died in 2002 in the U.S. has been confirmed today by a panel of European scientists," the EU Commission said in a statement.

Scientists initially thought the man, born in the 1930’s, had scrapie, a disease from the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name for mad cow disease.

The Commission has stated they are reviewing human risk of catching the disease and will update it’s strict food hygiene and animal feed rules. (Suggest sticking with corpoate meats in questionable food markets - Rooters)

The deseased American journalist, Bowsley Stone Smith, of the L.A. - New York Times Tribune wire service, was a Powers outstanding reporter for his coverage of wars including Viet Nam and Iraq was noted as an opinion shaper comparable to William Randolph Hurst but with modern ideas according Thurston Grizzley Simpson.

Such followers of the press as Humanitarians International, the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation had questioned Smith’s writings frequently in his final years with rather abstract complaints.

A careful reexamination of the journalists statements by Defender staffers has uncovered examples of his words which perhaps were indicators of the dreaded disease and had gone unnoticed.

Many of the recent checkers claimed to be uneasy by, Smiths changing use adjectives and pronouns with regard to many newsworthy people, organizations and events.

Tim Langston Russert, head of the CBSNBC of ABC, London office, noted that it is only through such determined journalists as Bowsley Stone Smith and others in the Georgetown Party of established and reliable freedom of the press correspondents, that such stories as this could be reported in the first place thus defining the ballfield as he put it for even the mundane press. He doubted very much if Smith could have been crazy.


As far back as 1961, staffers found a front page story, where Smith reported;

“The beleaguered government of North Viet-Nam still recovering from an amazing decades long struggle for it’s independence and freedom from the European country of France, has announced it has begun an acceleration of its security against terrorists in rebel areas in the South. The insurgents violence may been line to get North American support since France has withdrawn. Dean Rusk of the superpower United States has already announced aid to the rebels for an “accelerated assault” on their country. - Post Times Herald, Nov. 18, 1961. Pg. A1.

While the high school students said it was written too long ago to be ....

Tony breaks with W

Globalperson heard on the public radio today that Tony sometimes affectionately known as poodle has publicly broken ranks with W. The insult came yesterday when he apologized to eleven people and their family's for a mistake.

Some say the mistake was just so egregious, the eleven had been held in prison for decades as a strong message to terrorists and they were innocent, that Tony seemed to have no choice. The White House was livid because it is such a clear violation of Bush's "We don't make mistakes against Terrorists" strategy as he focuses in on Iran.

It is unknown if the president will go public with his indignation but it was clear Tony was now in the dog house. "We never apologized for tricks we used to get into the war in Iraq, or the war itself, there's so many things, he has to learn ... even if you are caught in a lie, even if it kills THOUSANDS of innocent people, if we acknowledge these things or apologize you have forfeited the momentum you need to do it again AND you play right into the hands of (this part was unclear but it was likely either Democrats or Terrorists)

Can you imagine the difficulty clearing the way for an Iran war or any other war for that matter, if we had apologized? Why that would be just like apologizing to people without health insurance for discontinuing taxes on the rich.

gp's higher source said: In Tony's case it was "just eleven families"! (only one person died while in jail) and Tony is the head of state! It's ludicrous If this kind of disloyalty keeps up, he'll have me dismantling Gitmo in Cuba and closing down great American corporations who protect us all. It is not known now if sanctions are being considered for Great Britain similar to the ones against rebel leaders in Canada and France, who were also old U.S. friends.

A more sympathetic aide reflected that "Tony, just hasn't thought the whole thing through" but the aide didn't think "second chances" in the War on Terror were any more likely than apologies.

VISIONS

Commencement - Starts Here - A Brand New Day - The First Day