Joyce's Take

Welfare Reform 2

2012-01-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

August 22, 1966

Republicans still trying to undermine the country

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzQNRe2UZk

The Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC. Originally entitled Aid to Dependent Children (ADC). The name was changed in 1962) program was put into effect when President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law back in 1935. It provided financial assistance to children of single parents or whose families had low or no income. This was the basis for the entire system that is commonly called "welfare," and lasted until 1996, and cost about 24 billion dollars a year at the time it ended.
All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands operated a AFDC program. It enabled states to provide cash welfare payments for needy children who had been deprived of parental support or care because their father or mother was absent from the home, incapacitated, deceased, or unemployed. The states administered the program or supervised its administration, and defined "need," set their own benefit levels, established (within federal limitations) income and award limits. The states were reimbursed by the federal government. The states were required to provide aid to all persons who were in classes eligible under federal law and whose income and resources were within state-set limits.
This program undoubtedly helped millions of low income families, and especially the children of those families, who would have been destitute without it.
And like any large government program, (the Defense Department's procurement services as just one example, where billions mysteriously disappear on a regular and continued basis without anyone seeming to bat an eye) there were those who abused it.
President Reagan's "Welfare Queen," for instance. He once described her in 1976, at which time he claimed "She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."
This was a work of fiction, as he never named an individual, and he was trying to get elected to the presidency. However, there have certainly been documented, and prosecuted, cases of definite fraud committed under the welfare program (one can only hope it were true for the DOD procurement program).
That's to be expected. But as did Reagan, opponents to the program have referred to this fiction time and again in their attempts to amend welfare, or end it all together (there have been many other criticisms as well throughout the programs history, some blatantly biased against the poor as a class, what some would call "class warfare."
During the 1960s through to the 80s, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, William Shockley, made the argument that AFDC and other programs like it, encouraged mothers to have more children and stay on welfare, especially among what was considered less productive members of society (particularly blacks, whom he considered to be genetically inferior to whites, which of course is inherently a racist point of view, and not backed up with any scientific evidence whatsoever). He purported that welfare was causing some kind of reverse evolution founded on the premises that: there is a correlation between financial success and intelligence; and that intelligence is hereditary.
Heredity factors almost certainly can be correlated to the level of intelligence individuals may or may not have, but intelligence is in no way connected to financial success. Not every smart person is wealthy, and their are arguably many, many people of lesser intelligence (George W. Bush, for instance) who gain positions of authority and financial wealth.
Many other arguments have been made that welfare causes dependence on welfare, and in many instances it may be true. But whether or not as a rule that argument has any merit, it was used as a basis to undermine AFDC, and set the conditions for its so-called reform by President Clinton in 1996.
On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton, after vowing to "end welfare as we know it," signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act which ushered in the most sweeping changes in the welfare system since its inception in 1935.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, the Act was a sop to the Republicans in Congress, and a ploy to seem fiscally conservative at a time an embattled incumbent President was fighting to maintain the White House. What it basically did was place more restrictions and work requirements and time limits on those unfortunate individuals seeking or currently on welfare.
I'll be fair here and let Bill state his point of view in his 2006 New York Times essay: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/opinion/22clinton.html?emc=eta1
A lot of people don't see it as does our ex-President, and dispute the reasons for the numbers he sites in his piece.
"You have so many people who were pushed off welfare who didn't find work in the beginning, and today there are so many people who can't get welfare at all," said Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law professor who resigned from a senior position in the Clinton administration to protest the President's decision to sign welfare reform into law. "As an anti-recessionary tool, welfare as we know it today is useless."
Edelman compares the paltry expansion of the nation's welfare rolls during the recession -- from about 3.9 million families in 2007 to about 4.4 million families in 2010 -- to what happened to the food stamp program. During the same time period, food stamp program participation rose from about 30 million to 44 million, reflecting real levels of economic need.
"What we've done is make things worse," Edelman said. "There are now people who cannot find work, and who can not get welfare."
Here's the entire Huffington Post article the above quote appeared in : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/welfare-reform-poverty_n_932490.html
Here's my take, Joyce's Take: Welfare does need to be reformed in the sense that the need for it decreases by the uplifting of the middle class and economy in general. A rising tide lifts all boats, the saying goes. This is the vision of the Democratic Party, to an extent. Corporate money still needs to be taken out of the equation by significant campaign finance reform. What has that got to do with welfare reform? Glad you asked.
Our Congress currently is as corrupt as a Mississippi Governor. Corporations, both domestic and foreign, own Congress, the judicial branch in the form of the Supreme Court, and to a large extent the executive brach as well. Why? Because they need corporate money to finance their reelection campaigns, and also, since the Supreme Court gave it's supreme gift to corporations in the form of the Citizens United decision, politicians are terrified of offending corporate interests fearing retribution in the amount of money spent against them in future elections.
The Republicans believe that their corporate masters have no interest in improving the overall economy, even though it has been proven in the past that overall economic prosperity occurs when the middle class has money to spend and inject into the economy. This benefits corporations, as well as everybody else.
And Republicans don't want to help the economy because that would help re-elect President Obama.
In a depressed economy more people apply for welfare at a time when Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act lowers federal and state resources to supply that growing demand, as Professor Edelman pointed out above.
We need to improve the entire economy to get people off welfare permanently. To do that we need to get money out of politics and support public finance of our elections so politicians are able to work for America rather than General Electric, Goldman Sachs, and Boeing.
That's the real answer to true welfare reform. No one in Washington wants to talk about it, except Bernie Sanders and a couple of others, because it so easy to not face the truth, and keep on blaming poor people for the plight politicians got them into in the first place through lack of oversight of Wall Street pirates.
To sum up, true welfare reform requires embracing campaign reform, a Constitutional Amendment reversing the Citizens United decision, ending the Bush tax cuts and lessoning of income disparity, and ending corporate welfare.
We need to put people back to work. Permanent work at a true living wage, not the fake federal minimum wage currently set at $7.25 per hour (see the Living Wage Calculator here: http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
You want welfare reform America? Real reform? It's going to be hard to do.
But what job worth doing isn't?

P.S. Herman Cain is now unemployed and should blame himself. He now spends his time at home being bitch-slapped by his wife.

Happy Birthday Norah (O'Donnell)!

2012-01-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

Norah O'Donnell

Beautiful Lady

At work at MSNBC

Her 2nd Job

All Business

Cooking for Kids

With brother Larry

Still Beautiful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjovbveUgtc

It is my great pleasure this morning to give a great big happy birthday shout out to one of my favorite television anchors, the lovely and Irish, Norah O'Donnell!
Norah was born at a very early age in the very city she would later work and report in, Washington D.C. She works there now for Jesus's sake! But somehow (no one knows) she wound up in San Antonio, Texas, where she graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School, named after Douglas MacArthur, who used to be a general in the Army. In 2007, Douglas MacArthur High School's varsity dance team, the Brahmadoras, won nationals in the kick category at NDA finals in Orlando, Florida.
I don't think Norah had anything to do with that though.
Norah is very smart and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, and a Masters Degree in International Affairs from Georgetown University, which is also in Washington D.C., and where the priest from "The Exorcist," worked.
Norah got her professional start as a writer for Roll Call, a D.C. newspaper, where she covered our dysfunctional Congress. She soon began working for NBC, which is a big time broadcast television station in the United States.
In 2001 she won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Breaking News Coverage for the Dateline NBC story "DC In Crisis," which concerned the 9/11 attack, and aired that very night.
But before that, in June of that year, she got married to the successful restaurateur Geoff Tracy, who owns several restaurants, which is probably not surprising to many people when you think about it.
Norah continued her career with NBC as a commentator for the NBC News Today Show, Chief Washington Correspondent for MSNBC, and from September 2003 to May 2005, the White House correspondent for NBC News. She was also a contributing anchor for MSNBC Live, and a rotating news anchor on Weekend Today. I first became aware of her there as an everyday anchor on MSNBC, and her incredible laugh, which I find completely intoxicating. But I'm a sucker for things like that. Pretty ladies with incredible laughs.
I don't know why.
She's been on NBC Nightly News, The Today Show of course, hosted Hardball with Chris Matthews when Chris was off lollygagging somewhere, and Dateline NBC, as well as MSNBC. She also co-hosted the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade on WNBC beginning in 2007. You have to be Irish, like me, to do that. As a matter of fact in 2000 Norah was named to Irish American Magazine’s “Top 100 Irish Americans” list.
On May 20, 2007, she and Geoff (sounds like a foreign devil to me) became the parents of twins, whom they named Grace and Henry. Their third child, daughter Riley Norah Tracy, was born on July 5, 2008.
Her daughter's first name Riley, was suggested by Tim Russert, the anchor for "Meet The Press," when it was still a viable news program, and not a commercial for the Republican Party. Tim died just three weeks before Riley's birth.
That year Norah won an Emmy Award for NBC News' Election Night coverage in the 2008 General Election.
Two years ago she and her foreign devil husband published "Baby Love: Healthy, Easy, Delicious Meals for Your Baby and Toddler," a cookbook for parents with small human infants.
“I’m a better journalist and reporter and person because I’m a mom,” Norah says. “I’ve become less uptight on television. Many people have mentioned to me that I’m much better at my job because I’m less serious, I’m more fun. I’m not just focused on one thing, which was politics and the White House.”
This what she has said about sexual roles: “Men are never asked how they balance it all. That’s because women, at the end of the day, even if they have great, supportive husbands like I do, we’re responsible for making sure they get to their dentists’ appointments, their yearly checkups, and they get all their shots for school.”
Great, supportive husband huh?! Get the lead out Geoff! Help out with the kids once in a while, will you please. You had something to do with they're being here if you remember!
In June of last year, unfortunately for me, because I very rarely watch CBS, she moved to that network serving as their Chief White House Correspondent, which gets her right back where she began this wild ride called life, in Washington D.C.
She moved to CBS because there were just too many O'Donnell's at MSNBC (Norah, Lawrence, and Kelly). They couldn't keep track!
Well I can keep track by golly, and all of us here at Joyce's Take wish Norah and her wonderful family continued good health and success, and of course, a very happy birthday!
Happy birthday Norah!

Welfare Reform

2012-01-03T00:01:00.001-08:00

President Roosevelt signing the
Social Security Act, August 14, 1935

Rachel Maddow

Rick Santorum

Mrs Kravitz from "Bewitched"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyM9RzFLh0g&feature=related

It began during President Roosevelt's first term with him signing the Social Security Act at approximately 12:30PM my time, which is the only time that matters, on August 14, 1935. The world was in the midst of The Great Depression at the time, and until this act came into effect (despite numerous attempts by the Supreme Court to declare it and many other initiatives Roosevelt wanted, unconstitutional) there was no social safety net for America's citizens. One worked, if they could find work, until they grew old and died. That is what Americans had to look forward to throughout their lives, and that was the way it was pretty much throughout history up until that time. President Roosevelt became the first president to advocate federal government assistance for the elderly. The entire Act was meant to be a hedge against widespread poverty, unemployment, and to assist widows and fatherless families. Accordingly the Act contained different provisions for unemployment insurance (Title I), Maternal and Child Welfare (Title V), public health services (Title VI), the blind (Title X), and something called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Title IV).
Opponents to the Act attacked it as they do to this day. They claimed it was a job killer. That it was socialist. If implemented Martians would attack the Earth in tripod machines, God would send his angels down from Heaven to wreck havoc among the populace, on and on. They said the same thing about the G.I. Bill which provided low interest home loans to thousands of servicemen and their families after World War II, and $20 a week for a year while they searched for work, and provided college (or high school or vocational education) benefits that thousands took advantage of, and which improved the common good of the entire nation buy helping to supply well educated and motivated individuals into the workforce. The G.I. Bill was considered welfare. Everything that helps the middle class and poor is considered welfare by Republican opponents. And they've successfully made the very word "welfare," pejorative... a bad thing. Something that needs to be stopped and avoided at all costs.
Welfare programs for the rich in the form of tax breaks, cuts, and loopholes are perfectly fine because after all those are for the "job creators," the "job creators," who never create jobs, and need to be constantly sucked up to.
Opponents to our national welfare system, mostly Republicans, say the same thing about our current welfare system. But the country is still intact with social security in effect, with federal funding of student loans, and with unemployment benefits, all of which provides desperately needed help for the poor, the elderly, the young, and the disabled. God doesn't seem to mind our social safety net, only Republicans, Tea Baggers, and their corporate masters.
These people just don't like giving assistance, cash or otherwise, to people who are not wealthy. That's it, pure and simple. Why? Because they are sociopaths and money going to the poor and middle classes is money that's not going to the rich. The thing is the Republicans are real good at propaganda and making a large amount of the American population belive their lies, that it is some kind of crime to be poor in this country, or that the poor are undeserving and lazy, even when it was the policies of the previous Republican administration, and past Republican administrations (Reagan) that have caused the huge income disparity in this nation which favors the rich, and which increases the very poverty they complain about. It's truly unbelievable. Oh yes, all of these people claim to be soooo Christian, and Christian values are the guiding factor in their lives. Yet you have Republican presidential candidates who would gut social security, end unemployment insurance and welfare, which would basically have the poor and jobless fending for themselves. I don't know what version of the Bible they've been reading (or smoking more likely), but it's always been my belief that Jesus Christ favored the poor against all others. In the case of Republicans, Tea Baggers, and the audiences at Republican debates, it's okay to pick and choose which Christian tenets are convenient to adhere to, at different convenient times. In other words they're hypocrites.
I just watched a commercial on MSNBC featuring the lovely Rachel Maddow. I've seen it many times, and she's right every single time it comes on. She was speaking of the dire financial crisis we currently find ourselves in, how so many Americans have suffered, entered poverty and homelessness due to uncontrolled corporate greed and the politicians that let them get away with ruining the economy. And she mentioned that one segment of our society is doing pretty well through all of this. "Older Americans. Older Americans are faring well, and that's because of social security. Social security works. It is not a Ponzi scheme. It is not bankrupting us. It is not an outrage. It works."
And the Republicans, if given half a chance, would turn it over to Wall Street in the form of private accounts and set Americans back to the way it was before 1935.
And I just watched a clip of presidential candidate Rick Santorum tell a group he was speaking to that President Obama wanted more people on food stamps. He wanted more people on social security benefits. He wants the majority of Americans dependent on the government. Santorum stated he wants people to make their own money, not for the government to give it to them. He says he doesn't want to help "black people," by giving them money.
Well there's so many things that are wrong with that statement I hardly know where to start. Besides it being inherently racist, it's premise is just untrue, or here's another way to put it... it's a freaking lie! What evidence does he advance to support his claim that the President wants more people on SSI or in the food stamp program? Well none of course because it's simply not true. It's a blatant lie told to his base who will believe it, so he doesn't mind saying it. How principled! As a matter of fact all of the evidence, which has been plainly documented and can be reviewed at anytime by anybody, is that it's the Republicans who wish to increase poverty in this country, and thereby the need for government assistance, which they then bitch about. No job program has been advanced in the Republican controlled House. They wholeheartedly rejected Obama's job program. Virtually nothing has passed in the House that would help the overall economy because that would make the President look good, and as Senate Minority Leader Mitch "Turtle Boy" McConnell has plainly stated, the Republicans foremost goal is to unseat President Obama. Let me repeat that: Their number one goal is to defeat the President. Not to improve the lot of the average citizen. Not to help the country prosper and grow... but to win an election.
That says it all about the current Republican party. All you need to know really.
But I digress.
There were a lot of problems with the initial Social Security Act. It didn't cover women directly for instance, or minorities, and certain job categories. However these discrepancies would eventually be amended to cover all of the countries citizens.
And these programs worked! They actually helped people who were out of work subside until they got jobs and back on their feet. They helped those who could not work because they were old, or disabled, or too sick to work. They helped children and families escape the vicious cycle of poverty. Social Security did not add a nickel to the national debt because it was completely paid for through payroll taxes. Social security is probably the most successful government program that has ever existed.
So of course the Republicans hated it, and from day one have been attempting to subvert it, or steal its funds.
We'll continue to discuss this in the second part of this post.

Holy GRAIL!

2012-01-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

Our Moon

The Earth's size in relation to Mars

The GRAILs attack the Moon

Dr. Marie Zuber of M.I.T.

Planetoid smack down 4.45 billion years ago

The Moon's possible interior

Testing the GRAILs

Looking good

Getting packed

Ready for launch

And away we go!

Planned future missions

Let's talk about our good friend the Moon.
I see it almost every day as I walk over the Sixth Street Bridge in the early mornings. I can't help it. It's way up in the sky and in plain view. It's not trying to hide at all.
Of course everybody except Bill O'Reilly knows how the moon came into existence, but I'll go over the whole scenario again just to refresh our memories.
The whole solar system formed approximately 4,567,000,000 years ago. Our planet, the Earth coalesced about 60 million years later. The solar system was a very messy and inhospitable place at that time. The Earth was a big molten spheroid that rotated much faster than it does today, in 7 hours as a matter of fact. The Sun was only 70% as bright.
Then about 50 million years later, as the molten Earth was strolling around the Sun in it's orbit, minding it's own business, a planetoid about the size of present day Mars, which is a little more than half the size of Earth (picture above), sometimes called Orpheus or Theia, smacked right into us!
How rude!
Anyway, after the two bodies collided a big chunk broke away and eventually formed our Moon. At that time the Moon's orbit around the Earth was much closer, about 40,000 miles away. That's pretty close considering the Moon is now 238,857 miles from us.
Okay, to make a long story short (and I mean really long), after about 50 more million years gravitational tidal locking caused just one side of the smaller body, the Moon, to permanently face the Earth. Our original atmosphere of hydrogen and helium escaped into to outer space because to Earth's mass was and is too small to hold it, which is okay. We didn't need it anyway.
Our Earth's day would lengthen, and the Moon's orbit would increase, or get further away from the Earth. All of this happened in what is called the Hadean Eon.
Our fundamentalist religious friends who believe God created the Earth 10,000 years or so ago can take a small amount of comfort in the fact that there is no direct evidence of anything that supposedly happened during the Hadean Eon. No one was around at the time to record it!
Yet the fossil evidence fairly well dismisses their theory, and the above explanation of the Moon's formation is the only one that doesn't have a major flaw in it according to present day observations and scientific conjecture.
During the next Eon, the Archaean Eon, which took place 3.8 billion to 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth cooled down and it's surface changed from molten to solid rock, water began to condense into liquid form, and about 3.5 billion years ago life began to emerge in that water. Life that produced oxygen, which is badly needed for most life forms today. The Sun brightened, the Moon continued to drift away from the Earth and started working it's magic on the our ocean's tides, our day became longer, and a planetary magnetic field began to form. At approximately 3 billion years ago our atmosphere consisted of 75% nitrogen and 15% carbon dioxide with oxygen levels continuing to rise due to the emergence of life. Today our atmosphere consists roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. It also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1%. This means that every time you and I, or practically anybody else you may know takes a breath, they're sucking in a huge amount of nitrogen... which is kind of creepy when you think about it... so I don't. Sorry I brought it up.
This is all fascinating and all, but really has nothing to do with what this post is about so let's get on with it, shall we?
Last year, on September 10th to be precise, two spacecraft, GRAIL A, and GRAIL B, identical craft, were launched into space on the same rocket, their final destination... our Moon.
You may be wondering what the hell does GRAIL stand for. I know I certainly did, and I found out! It stands for Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory. Isn't that wonderful!
It took America's Apollo astronauts only about 3 days to traverse those 238,857 miles to the Moon. The two GRAIL spacecraft took their sweet time so that NASA engineers could fully power them up before they arrived and play with them. When they got tired of playing with them they allowed them to insert themselves into the Moon's orbit. As a matter of fact GRAIL A fired it's insertion burn December 30th at 1:21PM my time, which is the only time that matters. It was still about 30,758 miles away from the Moon at that time. GRAIL B did the same thing yesterday at 2:05PM. Actually, I hope it will, because as I write this it hasn't done so yet, but is supposed to in about 45 minutes.
Anyway, these two craft are destined to achieve a polar orbit around the Moon, slowly positioning themselves on exact opposite sides of our nearest neighbor. They'll both be traveling at about 428 miles per hour, and once the final positioning burns have been completed they will be at an altitude of 34 miles above the Moon's surface, in a near circular polar orbit (orbiting above the Moon's North and South Poles), each completely circling the Moon every two hours. It will take until March of this year to get these guys in place just right.
Once they get in position GRAIL A & B will enter their science phase, which is why they're there to begin with. I bet you were wondering why they were going there. Well I'll tell you. They are going to measure the Moon's gravitational field as the moon rotates beneath them. You see as the two satellites orbit above the Moon's surface, the Moon's gravitational field will act on them in very minuscule ways, pushing or pulling them away or toward each other which the crafts will measure in some detail. They're very good at that, as that is what they were designed to do. They'll do this until May, at a cost of $496 million U.S., none of that Hong Kong stuff.
The purpose of these measurements is to learn what lies below the Moon's surface. It's like they're giving the Moon a big CAT scan. The Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth about 800 pounds of Moon rock, but that didn't tell us anything about what was going on below the surface, if anything. There probably isn't anything going on below the surface as the Moon is most likely dead geologically speaking, but we want to know what's down there anyway as this information will help us learn more about how the Moon, Earth and other terrestrial planets, like Mars, Venus, and Mercury formed. And it will of course allow us to eventually discover the Tycho Monolith Magnetic Anomaly featured in "2001, a Space Odyssey."
The lovely Dr. Maria Zuber, the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also leads the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, is in charge of the GRAIL mission, or as in charge as one can be of two satellites a quarter of a million miles away. She says she hopes to find out a whole bunch of stuff from this mission. That's a scientific term... "whole bunch of stuff," or WBS for short. For instance there is a recent theory that postulates that there was once two moons orbiting around the Earth, each moving rather slowly in relation to each other. At some point the theory goes, the smaller moon nudged into the larger due to gravity, and the two eventually coalesced into one entity. Dr. Zuber thinks the lunar highlands situated on the side of the Moon facing away from the Earth may be the point where the two came together, and that the GRAIL mission may help to prove or disprove this theory. We shall see.
This one experiment is the only thing these two satellites were designed to do... except for this other thing. And it's a really good thing! For kids!
Aboard each craft is four cameras to take pictures of the lunar surface. Not for scientists. They already know what the Moon looks like. No, it's for school kids and their teachers to use. They can go to the "Moonkam" website, where they can find out the exact locations the GRAIL probes will be flying over. They can then pick a site and request that it be photographed. Isn't that wonderful too! I certainly couldn't do that when I was in Jr. High School. I could hardly do anything when I was in Jr. High School.
This is the first time ever that NASA has included this type of feature on a scientific mission specifically for educational purposes. Good for them! And good for the American tax payers who paid for it! All of us here at Joyce's Take salute you.
America's first female astronaut, Sally Ride, will be helping out with this part of the program. Leesa Hubbard, a teacher at Sally Ride Science, says “I think once they [the kids] begin to look at detailed images, when they go out in their backyard and look at the moon, they’re gonna look at it in a whole new way and I think that’s priceless.”
I couldn't agree more!
All students from around the world can do this due to the Internet machine. All they have to do is register a picture request, after which the process can be followed. From when the commands are sent to GRAIL, when they take the picture, and then when it's downloaded to the website photo gallery.
After the GRAIL science mission is completed both satellites will crash into the lunar surface in about 40 days and would have gone "BOOM" if there were an atmosphere available to transmit the sound.
One of the two good things that George W. Bush did as President was to initiate the Vision for Space Exploration program which called for a manned return to the Moon by 2020 (the other was the establishment of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Northwestern Hawaii). When Presidents put into place these long period projects they know that the next President can do anything they want, like replace the program. That's exactly what President Obama did when he gained office and initiated his U.S. National Space Policy, which canceled the proposed Moon trip, among other things. He did this as a cost cutting move which was basically politically motivated. He was wrong to do this.
Now China and Canada have announced ambitious plans to land astronauts on the Moon within this decade, leaving the USA in the dust. We can't even send very much up into space these days, like people, after the retirement of the Shuttle program. We now have to rely on the Russkies to do that, and you know how temperamental they can be.
There are a lot of reasons for men... and women, to return to space, especially other planets like Mars, and the Moon, though it is not technically a planet. America should be a leader in this exciting endeavor. We need to care less for short term political gain by restricting the budgets of our national space program, stop funding unnecessary wars and wasting money by giving it to the defense contractors and oil companies, and get our act together and head on out there. Our survival as a species may one day depend on it.
Still missions like GRAIL, and other robotic experiments to Mars and the asteroids, are an important step for the advancement of scientific knowledge generally, and for humanity as a whole, and should be looked at as a stepping stone for us to explore, and colonize, the rest of our solar system.
It's waiting for us to come say hello.

President Obama and Marie Antoinette

2012-01-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

Marie Antoinette

Mitt and the gang at Bain

Willard Mitt Romney,
Man of the People

"Here's looking at you kid."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLJ1vuUWprA

We're back from our Christmas break now... back from visiting Santa down at the South Pole. Sure is cold down there, and I couldn't find Santa for some reason... the wily old bastard.
Lots of penguins.
Should of just went to freaking Santa's Village in Santa Cruz (they named the town after him it seems). It's certainly a lot closer... and warmer. No penguins though.
And as far as politics in America at the moment, all anyone is talking about is Tuesday's Iowa Caucus, which I couldn't care less about. The Republicans are getting so much free, uninterrupted publicity these days simply because there are no Democratic primaries this year since we already have the White House. And because they're having sooooo many freaking debates. But it doesn't matter at all. No matter who the Republicans finally nominate they won't stand a chance against Obama because the Republicans are running on ideology and make believe rooted in some parallel Republican/Tea Bagger universe, whereas Obama is running in a fact based, real world, problem solving mode, and most of the people in this country know it.
Here's just one example of what the Republicans have stored up in their mighty arsenal of attacks toward President Obama. Mitt (Mitt) Romney, the probable Republican nominee, stated last Thursday that Obama was out of touch with the average American, just as the French queen Marie Antoinette was toward her subjects.
"When the president's characterization of our economy was, 'It could be worse,' it reminded me of Marie Antoinette: 'Let them eat cake,'" Romney said.
What Mitt was trying to infer was that Obama is an elitist, while he himself was just an average Joe who was truly able to feel the pain of the average American citizen in these difficult times.
And here we have a rebuttal by the Daily Kos which reiterates what press people in the White House have said about the comment: This is the same Mitt Romney who is worth an estimated $250 million but refuses to release his tax returns because they almost certainly show he pays a much lower share of his income to Uncle Sam than most middle class families [or possibly doesn't pay any income tax at all]. That would also be the same Mitt Romney who nevertheless declared himself part of the "80 to 90 percent us" who are middle class. This is the same Mitt Romney who despite his retirement from Bain Capital 13 years ago continues to make millions annually from his old employer, a firm which the Los Angeles Times rightly concluded, "often maximized profits in part by firing workers." This is the same Mitt Romney who proudly declared that "corporations are people my friend," but insisted "I don't think we hurt the poor" by cutting programs like Medicaid. This is the same Mitt Romney who's advice to struggling American homeowners is "don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up." This is the same Mitt Romney who has five sons, none of which has elected to serve their country by joining the military during a time of war (Why? Because rich kids don't do those kind of things. They're above that... and they might get hurt. Oh yeah, Mitt didn't serve either... another chicken hawk running for President (to fully disclose, Obama didn't serve, but I'll give him a little slack due to the fact that he just ended the war in Iraq)) because his sons had made different career choices in life, but he did mention a niece whose husband had been called up by the National Guard. "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected," he said back in 2007. Wow, thanks boys! We sure appreciate your great sacrifice for the nation.
"It is actually laughable that the 'Quarter-Billion-Dollar Man' would call President Obama out of touch -- and use the example of a French monarch to make the point," DNC spokeswoman Melanie Roussell said in a statement to The Huffington Post on Thursday evening. "This is the same guy who joked that he was 'unemployed,' offered a $10,000 bet as casually as one might buy a cup of coffee, and said 'corporations are people.' He's also the same person who, as a former corporate buyout specialist for Bain Capital, made his fortune firing thousands of workers, cutting benefits, bankrupting American companies and outsourcing jobs overseas... Laughable."
Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt quickly followed suit, tweeting out a link to a video of Mitt Romney speaking French for an introduction of the volunteers at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
This is the same Mitt Romney who doesn't even know there is not one shred of evidence that indicates that Marie Antoinette ever made that statement... the poor ignorant bastard.
Who is Romney telling this crap to? The Republican base of course, and/or Tea Baggers, who eat it up like cotton candy. They don't care if it's not true, because it's exactly what they want to hear... facts be damned. Ideology is paramount to them. They will believe they're right about everything... all of the time... in their deluded little minds, no matter how many times it can be proven again and again that their precious ideas are just... wrong. Their world view is based on fantasy, like the United States is a Christian nation for example, and all of its citizens should adhere to Christian principles, when that is clearly not the case. 60% to 76% of the population identify themselves as Christians (51% as Protestants and 25% as Catholic, who battle each other), which leaves a whopping quarter of the country exercising some other religion, or none at all. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," our founding fathers wrote in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and they did that for a reason, to establish the fact that they did not intend for the United States to be closely affiliated with any one religion. The Republicans, the religious right, the Tea Baggers don't like that so for them it doesn't exist, and they go on merrily believing that this is a Christian country. Candidates like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, if elected to the presidency, would surely do everything in their power to make that true.
Republican fiscal policy is wrong, which has been proven, unfortunately, time and again in the real world. This is the party that cut taxes during a time of unnecessary war which they started, and who deregulated Wall Street to the point it became a casino which precipitated the global financial crisis we're still trying to deal with, and here are the Republican presidential candidates, hoping the American people can't remember that far back and vote them back into power so they can start their disastrous policies all over again! It absolutely amazing!
Sadly a lot of Americans can't remember that far back which is why the Republicans own the House of Representatives now. And those Americans who voted for them deserve exactly what their getting from their Congress... a great big heaping plate of steaming nothing! This is the worst session of Congress possibly in its entire history, and I'm not the only one who's saying that. Congress people are saying that as well, and they should know. No progress on jobs has been achieved. They blocked the Presidents efforts for a job program. Of course nothings been done toward making healthcare more accessible, or ease the home foreclosure crisis, or anything else for that matter. Why? Because the Republicans believe that the less they do the worse Obama will look, which will give them back the Presidency this year. But the American people are smarter than that, or at least the majority of them are. The approval rating of Congress, which now stands at around 11 to 12% proves that, as does the country's reaction to the House Republicans refusing to pass the payroll tax break extension as soon as they got it the week before last. America is watching them, and keeping them in mind.
So with this kind of weaponry going for the Republicans I don't even expect it to be a very exciting election year, despite the media's constant attempt to make the race appear close. That's good for their ratings, but way bad for the country.
This is what Rick Joyce predicts will happen in the 2012 Presidential and Congressional election. I believe Barack Obama will return for a second term, and it will be interesting to see what he does, or tries to do as a lame duck. I believe the Republicans will gain the majority in the Senate... I hope they don't, but the math says they probably will. And I believe the Democrats will regain the House of Representatives. John Boehner and the rest of his boys and girls have done such an awful job I just can't see them keeping it.
And what's up for the 2016 elections? What do the Republicans look forward to in regaining the White House? A 73 year old Joe Biden and a 68 year old Hillary Rodham Clinton, that's what. Yeah they'll be a little older, but Ron Paul is running for President right now just fine, and doing pretty well for a 76 year old Libertarian who wants to destroy the government. Who can the Republicans hope to put against either of these two and win. That fat bastard thug from New Jersey? Unlikely. Jeb Bush? There's too much Bush in his name for him to win. Marco "My parents fled from Castro" Rubio? Maybe, but he'll lose to Biden or Clinton if the economy is still improving, as would budgetman Paul Ryan.
No, I see the White House remaining in safe hands for the foreseeable future, which makes me happy. For myself, my family and friends, and the country.
And if Biden and Clinton decline to run we still have a slew of respectable and popular Senators, Representatives, and Governors who I'd put against any Republican any day.
Maybe Al Franken will run. I'd sure vote for him, and it would sure piss of Bill O'Reilly, which I'm alway for.
But we'll win, despite all of the dirty election fraud tricks, lies, and corporate money.
Because we have truth, facts, and beauty on our side. The Republicans have false ideas, greed, and psychopathology on theirs.
We shall see.

Happy 2012!!

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne ?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !
and surely I’ll buy mine !
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine ;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

(The song's Scots title may be translated into English literally as "old long since", or more idiomatically, "long long ago", "days gone by" or "old times" -Wikipedia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoYByftSnAU&feature=player_embedded

Happy New Year from all of us at Joyce's Take... and of course Herkimer, my invisible cat.

We just watched the movie "New Year's Eve," on New Year's Eve! Amazing!

Here's JibJab's salute to 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zls4Ao3GyM&feature=player_embedded

Judge Rejects Obama's SEC Coverup

2011-12-01T07:06:00.000-08:00

Security and Exchange Commission

Judge Rakoff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXnoLAEUSQ

“A Modern Major Law Clerk”

"I laugh at all my judge’s jokes, and listen to his endless spiel.

I never pay the slightest heed to his reversals on appeal.

And even in those moments when it looks like he has gone berserk,

I smile and say, “More coffee, Judge?” – a perfect district judge’s clerk!"

-Jed Rakoff, 2000 edition of the “Courthouse Follies.”

Jed Saul Rakoff was born in Philadelphia, on New Years Day, in 1943. In high school, he was captain of the debating team. He graduated with honors in English literature from Swarthmore College (where he was student-council president and editor of the newspaper) in 1964, and earned his Master of Philosophy from Balliol College at Oxford University two years later. He thought about pursuing journalism and becoming a reporter before going to Harvard where he received a Juris Doctor, cum laude (a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law, with honor), in 1969, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He has received honorary degrees from Saint Francis University and from Swarthmore College.
Swarthmore, in conferring his honorary degree, noted that Judge Rakoff is "broadly recognized as a legal thinker, scholar and judge who not only elucidates and enforces the law, but interprets, defends and challenges it in light of the principles of ethics and social justice that it is designed to serve" and that his opinions "are cited as models of intellectual clarity and judicial vision by lawyers and judges throughout this nation."
And in his spare time he's taken up ballroom dancing.
On October 11, 1995, Judge Rakoff was nominated by President Bill Clinton to fill a seat on the Federal Court of the Southern District of New York vacated by David N. Edelstein. He was confirmed by the Senate on December 29, 1995, appointed on January 4, 1996, and entered on duty on March 1, 1996. On December 31, of last year he assumed senior status.
"He has always been a feisty person," says Todd Rakoff, the judge's younger brother, a law professor at Harvard University. "He's not at all afraid to mix things up, to put it colloquially, but I would say also that I think he really cares about getting it right, and I think he views the law as an instrument of justice."
Monday Judge Rakoff made national headlines... again, for throwing out a proposed $285 million settlement between the Security Exchange Commission (SEC), the supposed watchdog agency for the federal government (which is responsible for regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States. It is thus the watchdog agency for the American people as well), and Citigroup, Inc. the world's largest financial services network, with $3.77 billion in profit for its last quarter.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Citigroup stuffed a $1 billion mortgage fund that it sold to investors in 2007 with securities that it believed would fail so that it could bet against its customers and profit when those values declined. The fraud, the agency said, was in Citigroup’s falsely telling investors that an independent party was choosing the portfolio’s investments. Citigroup made $160 million from the deal and investors lost $700 million.
I emphasized the word fraud in the above paragraph. "In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation." -Wikipedia.
Now I emphasized that word, strangely enough, for a reason. Everyone pretty much agrees that fraud is a crime. I certainly do. Those committing crimes, when prosecuted, are usually punished commensurately to the seriousness of the crime. If you and I were caught and prosecuted for defrauding investors out of $700 million dollars (assuming you are not a big time Wall Street executive, or ex-Bush administration official) we would most likely get a stiff prison sentence, a big fine, and then have to face civil charges as well.
Well the SEC and Citigroup worked out a little deal. The big bank would pay the SEC a whopping $285 million dollars, 7.5596816976127315% of its last quarterly profits, promise not to do it again, and then the matter would be settled. Citigroup would be allowed to go back business as usual, and the SEC would go back to investigating other cases. Oh yeah, and Citigroup would not have to admit that it did anything wrong, or that it broke the law in anyway. Not having to admit fault would come in handy in the future when all of those Citigroup investors who were defrauded sued it in civil court.
As it has in other recent cases involving Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, UBS and others, the SEC proposed to settle the case by levying a fine and allowing it to neither admit nor deny the SEC’s own findings. Such settlements require approval by a federal judge.
This time they got Jed Rakoff.
"As an institution, I think they have a very distinguished history," Judge Rakoff says of the SEC, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "That doesn't mean they're right in every case."
Judge Rakoff’s concern was that the SEC did not provide any facts for the court to use to vet the settlement.
That should concern all Americans because without any admission of guilt, or innocence for that matter, there is no way to know if the remedies... including fines and pledges by Citigroup not to violate antifraud laws in the future, will indeed protect investors and ensure the integrity of markets.
Banks like the “no-admit/no-deny” clause, because if they had to admit to wrongdoing, they would invite additional lawsuits by their investors. As stated above, the SEC has claimed that settling rather than prosecuting allows it to obtain timely compensation for victims and to move on to other cases. That is partly true. It also has another, probably intended, affect, and that is to give these large, multinational, Washington lobbying, political campaign contributing, corporations what amounts to a free pass. 7.5596816976127315% of one quarter's profit, is a hell of a lot of money, but small potatoes for an entity such as Citigroup.
The title of this post ties President Obama to the SEC. The President appoints the SEC's five commissioners, which head the SEC, thus Obama is ultimately responsible for the SEC's actions, or lack thereof. The Obama administration now has a history of letting domestic criminals slide (he just assassinates foreign criminals), and what I mean by "slide," is letting guilty parties get off scott free from being prosecuted, tried, and punished. I'm very sorry to say that, but it's true. Not choosing to prosecute the former administration for obvious and admitted war crimes, and actively stifling attempts by foreign governments to do the same (Spain), is a clear example of my accusation (observation really). It would appear that the SEC is just following along with a course set by the White House in allowing large Wall Street firms, or large business firms in general, to get away with almost anything, which allows said corporations to continue to lobby and contribute to political campaigns.
In a welcome move Judge Rakoff wasn't having any of it.
The SEC, Judge Rakoff argued, “has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges.” But it is difficult to tell what the agency is getting from this settlement “other than a quick headline.” Even a $285 million settlement, he said, “is pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup,” and often viewed by Wall Street firms “as a cost of doing business." He said that the $285 million deal was “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest.”
"Why should the court impose a judgment in a case in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud, but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing?" he wrote in an order last month, which led to Monday's ruling.
I agree. Why should it?
Here's his full 15 page opinion, if you're interested:
http://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/111128-Rakoff-Citi.pdf
The SEC said that it disagreed with the judge’s ruling but didn't say whether it would appeal it, or try to refashion the settlement, or prepare to begin a trial, as the judge ordered, which would begin on July 16th.
Robert Khuzami, the SEC’s Director of Enforcement, said in a statement that the Citigroup settlement “reasonably reflects the scope of relief that would be obtained after a successful trial,” and that the decision “ignores decades of established practice throughout federal agencies and decisions of the federal courts.”
Well maybe... and maybe now is the time to start ignoring decades of established practice throughout federal agencies (what's good for the Supreme Court (Citizens United) is good for Judge Rakoff apparently). Maybe it's time for something new. Like real justice. Isn't that one of the stated goals of the Occupy movement?
Citigroup said it also disagreed with the judge’s decision, adding that it would fight the charges if the case indeed went to trial.
Good for them! I wish the smug little bastards well.
Other judges are not obligated to follow Judge Rakoff’s opinion of course, but the ruling could severely undermine the SEC’s enforcement efforts if it eventually blocks the agency from settling cases in which the defendant does not wish to admit to the charges.
Good! I'm generally against the practice of plea bargaining, which this SEC proposed settlement essentially is, and which is used extensively by the justice system to save time and money.
Cases as large and significant, and symbolic as this one... they need to go to trial. Just saying.
As for Judge Rakoff, he's no stranger to controversial cases. In the past he essentially restructured the communications giant WorldCom after the SEC accused it of fraud, he rejected a similar deal between the SEC and Bank of America ordering them to trial, and once found the death penalty unconstitutional, among others.
The death penalty ruling proved to be unpopular within certain circles.
Rakoff said he got a lot of negative mail after that ruling. But he only received a direct threat once when an apparently drunk man reached him by phone at the courthouse, referring to a ruling he didn’t even recognize, stating, “I’m going to murder you!” As the judge tried to keep him on the phone so it could be traced, he realized the man was referring to another judge’s ruling in another case.
“I was so tempted to say, ‘Let me transfer your call.’”

The 12 Year Old Girl Who Shamed The World

2011-11-30T04:08:00.000-08:00

12 years old addressing UN summit

All grown up

Gaining a little weight

Continuing her work

With Dad

Happy Birthday Severn!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPx5r35Aymc&feature=like-suggest&list=UL

I love children... other people's children. I always smile when I see them on the bus doing children things. Sometimes they smile back at me.
I've related previously one of, if not the greatest thing that has ever happened to me while living near downtown Los Angeles.
Alright, if you insist... here it is again:
I told this story to my lovely case manager once in a nearby McDonalds restaurant while waiting for her iced coffee (vanilla). I told her this: One day, several years ago, I had made my way to the bus stop near the corner of Sixth and Central, on the northeast corner, to be exact. At the time it was raining quite hard, and a little river of water was rushing on the street near the sidewalk, rushing into the storm drain. Fairly soon an 18 bus pulled up to the stop... and me, and opened its forward door. Inside was a beautiful little Hispanic girl, who couldn't have been any more than four or five years old, all dressed up for the inclement weather, looking just adorable. Her mother was at the top of the steps, busy with the driver. The little girl came down the steps, looked at me, looked down at the rushing water in the street below between her and the sidewalk, then looked back at me. And this is what happened. She gave me a great big smile while raising both of her little arms way up toward me, thereby demanding that I pick her up and safely transport her across the watery abyss onto the safety of the sidewalk. At this point in my story, Erin went, "Ahhhhh." I dutifully did as the little girl demanded, settling her gently onto the sidewalk. Her mother came down and thanked me, and they continued on their way. I got on the bus and continued on my way. And I'll always remember that as one of the greatest things.
Why do I like children? I like them because they are pure and true, and honest. The younger they are the more honest. They are curious and trusting. Maybe too trusting. They are innocent which is the opposite of being corrupt. They tend to care about issues that affect them in a most direct way. The are unabashedly egocentric. And they are cute... most of the time. As a matter of fact their "cuteness" is a survival mechanism for making adults, including their own parents, look out for them for they are essentially helpless for many years after being born.
And they represent our future. They are our replacements, and therefore are precious and should be treated that way. They are a resource, one that needs to flourish if our species is to maintain itself.
And considering our species as it stands today, the future generations of human beings are going to have to make very hard decisions, and part from the established norms their parents so persistently adhered to. They have to change, quite frankly, or the human species will perish, pulling down a whole bunch of other species along with it.
What were you doing when you were twelve years old, dear readers? I vaguely remember what I was doing only because my father had died the previous year, thus providing an important event in my life my memory can rally around.
When I was twelve my dear mother was in the process of selling the liquor store my father had owned, the store just across the street from Universal Studios. Fairly soon after that I would start taking days off from school, start drinking and smoking, and generally creating a hell on Earth for my mother who was busy trying to make a new life for herself and certainly didn't need my nonsense.
But such is life. We had to go through what we had to go through I guess. I survived my teenage years, as did my mother, and eventually turned into the great success and self actualized individual I am today. But enough about me.
Some twelve year olds took a much different route. Some, like Severn Cullis Suzuki, while attending elementary school, at age 9, founded the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a group of kids dedicated to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues that affected the entire planet.
That was when she was 9. She was just getting started.
When she was 12, she and a few of her ECO members paid for their way to the Earth Summit, a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3rd to the 14th, in 1992. She was the natural spokesperson for her group, and she made an address to the assembly. She was very honest, sincere, non-confrontational, eloquent, and truthful.
In 1992 I was at the Salvation Army in Pasadena trying to get my life together. Severn Cullis Suzuki was busy trying to change the world.
We have to be honest here. It appears that she was indeed influenced to some degree by her family. Her mom, Dr. Tara Cullis, is a writer, and "has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and British Columbia." Her dad, David Suzuki, is the well known Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. He is the host of Canada's longest-running documentary series, "The Nature of Things," having recently celebrated his 30th anniversary on the show, which is seen in over forty countries. He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment. In 2009, Mr. Suzuki called for putting the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, in jail, apparently for his mismanagement of environmental issues.
Here's a promo for the television program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Wh8H8-edk
And a link to the David Suzuki Foundation:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/#
Which his wife is co-founder and president of.
Obviously Severn's parents were a bad influence on her.
Also obviously, considering Severn and David's last name, they are of Irish ancestry. However this did not stop Canada from interning David and his family during World War II when he was 3 years old. Until I read of his life I had not known Canada had followed the United States in the deplorable action of jailing it's own citizens based simply on racial distinctions.
In June 1942, the government sold the Suzuki family's dry-cleaning business, then interned Suzuki, his mother, and two sisters in a camp at Slocan in the British Columbia Interior. His father had been sent to a labor camp in Solsqua two months earlier. Suzuki's sister, Dawn, was born in the internment camp, where they all remained until the end of the war.
I researched for this post yesterday, shortly before I wrote it, which I'm doing right now. Ironically, I came across this story that I found on the Internet machine.
"Thousands of Japanese-Americans who fought in the fiercest battles of World War II and became some of the most decorated soldiers in the nation's history were given an overdue thank-you from their country [USA] Wednesday when Congress awarded them its highest civilian honor.
Nearly seven decades after the war's beginning, Congress awarded three units the Congressional Gold Medal. In all, about 19,000 Japanese-Americans served in the units honored at a ceremony."
The video of 12 year old Severn became very popular, no doubt due in a large part to her youth, her sincerity and earnestness, her ability to place blame where it belonged, and her ability to clearly communicate her message.
For some reason the video has made a resurgence lately which is why I'm writing about her now. I just found out about it, and her, a little while ago.
The video is often titled, "The Girl Who Silenced the World for Six Minutes." I think whoever came up with that title was taking a little poetic license, as there is no record of the world being completely silent at any point in June of 1992. She certainly silenced the people of the UN that were attending the Rio conference, as you can see in the video.
I'm not going to go into detail concerning the exact issues Severn brought up 19 years ago. She is perfectly able to do that herself in the following video clips. She did bring up a point that I found exceptionally interesting which is the concept of the world's leaders, governments, businesses responsible for the exacerbation of climate change and global warming as participants in inter-generational crime. Criminal acts that will not affect those who generate the effects of climate change, but will affect their progeny in disastrous and irreversible ways.
All of us are guilty, some more than others.
The UN delegates to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, listened to Severn politely, were duly impressed by this earnest young lady, and then promptly forgot about her message and warning, going back to business as usual. The proof of this being the current state of our environment and the continuation of use of our atmosphere and oceans as sewers for industrial waste, and the dumping of greenhouse gases from the exhaust emissions from our vehicles. We have continued to be inter-generational criminals.
That hasn't stopped Severn.
The year after the Summit she was honored in the United Nations Environment Program's Global 500 Roll of Honor. At the age of 13 Doubleday published her book "Tell the World," a 32-page book of environmental steps for families. She graduated from Yale University, with a B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology. She followed in her father's footsteps and co-hosted "Suzuki's Nature Quest," a children's television series that aired on the Discovery Channel in 2002. And as the following videos document, she has continued in her work with the environment.
This is Severn's speech at the University of BC in Canada on October 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBs--W-EY_8&feature=related
Here Severn speaks as the international ambassador for the conservation group RARE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmEvk1a2paM&feature=like-suggest&list=UL
And speaking about the upcoming Earth Summit 2012, again taking place in Rio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbbSDmjBWi4&feature=related
Here is the website she mentioned:
http://earthsummit.ca/
In 2010 Severn was the main character in the documentary film "Severn, the voice of our children." Below is the film's website:
http://www.severn-lefilm.com/
Here is a written interview that appeared in the May 2011 issue of ZME Science:
http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/world-problems/interview-with-severn-suzuki/
And a little lecture to round things off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F26UqJaOUEQ&feature=related
Severn, what a lovely name. When I have a daughter I'm going to name her Severn too (if whoever the mother is lets me).
She's very pretty as well... for a girl.
Girl. She's all grown up now, and today celebrates her 32nd birthday.
She lives with her husband and son on an island off the north coast of British Columbia, where it's cold and rains a lot.
And now, with the awakening of the Occupy movement around the world, the issues that she has fought so hard to promote throughout her life, throughout the lives of her mother and father, will undoubtedly come to the forefront of a new global consciousness, one that will not, and can not be ignored.
Happy Birthday Severn!

Brooklyn Mills

2011-11-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

Lovely Brooklyn

Yoga! I do this every morning

Fund Raiser with Local Businessmen. Thanks Guys!

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1079195--heath-minister-reviewing-oakville-teen-s-ohip-application?bn=1

"If however, we continue to ignore the tremendous problems that the world faces, as is our custom, and are going to continue in this pattern of unrestricted population growth, I need to point out that we need more cheerleaders. They bring nothing but joy and happiness into the world... and cheerfulness, as their name would imply. Less politicians, pizza CEOs, bankers, Republicans, Tea Baggers, war profiteers, hedge fund managers, Texas governors, Representatives from Minnesota, reality show TV contestants and hosts, and more cheerleaders. They're much more energetic and easy to get along with than Mitch McConnell for instance, who's always causing trouble.
My friend Mike after reviewing this post, said he likes cheerleaders too. This pretty much proves my point." -Richard Joyce, Joyce's Take, "7 Billion For Halloween," Oct 31, 2011.

"Cheerleading originated in the United States, and remains a predominantly American activity, with an estimated 1.5 million participants in all-star cheerleading. The growing presentation of cheerleading as a sport to a global audience has been led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it On. Due in part to this recent exposure, there are now an estimated 100,000 participants scattered around the rest of the world in countries including Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom." -Wikipedia.

So there's approximately 1,600,000 cheerleaders on the Earth today. 1,600,000. 1,600,000 out of 7 billion. That's only 0.022857142857142857% of the total population of humans on the planet. That's way less than one percent!
COME ON PEOPLE! We can do better than that!
That's one of the reasons why Brooklyn Mill's story is so important, other than the terrible disease this beautiful young woman has contracted at such an early age, and the lousy predicament the Health Ministry of Canada has put her and her lovely family in.
Brooklyn. What a lovely name. It reminds me of a snow crested New York City for some reason. I don't know why.
Brooklyn used to be a cheerleader (picture above) at Oakville Trafalgar High School, in Oakville, Ontario. That's in Canada. If the Canadian high school grades are the same as they are (or were... it's been a long time since I was in high school) in the States, then she was a senior in the twelfth grade, and probably looking forward to going to college, where hopefully she would have continued her cheerleading career. However, one morning in October of 2009, Brooklyn woke with horrible lower back pain. She didn't know why. Neither did her parents, Rebecca and Kris Mills.
In a few months she became severely debilitated. She needed a wheelchair to get around, and was taking heavy pain medication. Her mom and dad moved a hospital bed into the living room because it hurt too much for Brooklyn to walk or move around (the medication for pain she was taking, her mother said, was of the kind that is often given to cancer patients in their final stages, and her body was atrophying from being confined to bed).
She was only 16 years old.
The lower back pain Brooklyn experienced took them from their pediatrician to countless doctors and specialists. She was hospitalized at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children in Hamilton and then after related symptoms were recognized through a cardiologist, the diagnosis of EDS was made.
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, is a genetic disorder of connective tissue that seriously affects joints and blood vessels, weakening the muscles and making the patients vulnerable to infections. A rare disease, which in it's most prevalent form affects only 1 in 5,000.
In a peculiarity of the Canadian health care system, being under the age of majority, she was not allowed to enter intensive pain management programs. While the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota... that's in the United States... did agree on letting her participate in an intensive pain-management program that didn’t include taking any narcotic drugs, the nearly $50,000 cost of treatment was denied by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
In February of this year the Mills family and friends held an entertainment/auction with the proceeds going toward Brooklyn's treatment (another picture above).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkiFGEdI3m8
“It was incredible,” Rebecca said. “We had over 700 people participating and got $32,000 in fundraising.”
The event made Brooklyn's admission into the narcotic-free pain management program possible.
For nearly a month, Brooklyn worked long days with other teens affected by chronic pain, learning a holistic approach to pain management in a medical setting and under medical supervision. Her family was nearby, Rebecca staying at the nearby Ronald McDonald House.
http://www.chch.com/index.php/home/item/2443-brooklyns-battle
The Mills family gladly paid the $50,000 for the cost of the pain clinic, money of which they have not been reimbursed by the Ontario health system. As a matter of fact, they’ve been refused twice.
The pain management regimen worked... for a short time. She regained the ability to walk and even continued her studies at Oakville High. She relapsed in about a month though, around April and May.
The Mayo Clinic couldn’t do anything about it anymore. Brooklyn was admitted to a hospital in Toronto for 8 weeks. She was back in a wheelchair, and needed to be fed through a tube. Her condition appeared hopeless. But her parents wouldn’t quit. Why would they?
Brooklyn’s case was sent to a specialist in Maryland, back in the States. The Mills were told that their daughter had brainstem/spinal issues that needed surgical treatment. Brooklyn was moved to Maryland for treatment where she had four major surgeries involving her brainstem/spinal cord, and a few minor ones. That was last October. While she is healing from surgeries, Brooklyn can now walk a little, and her psychological condition is getting better too.
“It may be four to six months that she heals from surgeries,” Rebecca says. “There was a time when she went almost blind and her limbs would go numb, losing sensitivity to touch. But she is gradually getting better, though ESD is likely to stay with her for long, for the kind of disease that it is.”
Like many of us here in the United States who have no insurance, or are under insured, a major obstacle toward Brooklyn's recovery was the cost of her treatment. While her local community as well as the general public has been very supportive of the family, the Ontario government still has to decide whether it will bear the costs incurred by her treatment in the US. Rebecca has said that they do need money for their daughter’s treatment but they are not going to ask for donations until they learn from the Canadian government if it will do the right thing and cover the costs, and how much they will cover.
“All we need for now from the people is prayers,” says mom.
Meanwhile, as Brooklyn Mills struggles to get her life back. Her courage, stamina, and drive are certainly a major inspiration to me, as I'm sure they are to you, dear readers.
Here is a link to a petition asking Ontario’s health minister to cover Brooklyn’s medical care for EDS.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/450/032/533/?z00m=20111426
And links to two sites concerning her disease (if you insist on donating toward Brooklyn's recovery, please do so at the first link below, as the Mills family has associated themselves with the ILC Foundation. Thank you.):
http://theilcfoundation.org/

http://www.ednf.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Why am I advocating for this one girl when literally millions are in need throughout the world? There are several reasons really. First I like her. Her courage, stamina, and drive are an inspiration to me. Second It breaks my heart to hear about, or see her so ill. This young, beautiful girl... this woman, she's over 18 now, should be out enjoying life and befuddling the minds of boys which young ladies do so well. Third, I can advocate for those other millions as well, all at the same time, and will continue to do so. And fourth, but not last (this list is not exhaustive), she's a cheerleader! And maybe her future daughter will follow in her moms footsteps.
And as I've said so many times we need all of the cheerleaders we can get (...and bellydancers)!
They bring nothing but joy and happiness into the world... and cheerfulness, as their name would imply.

Fox News: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

2011-11-28T04:01:00.000-08:00

Bill O'Reilly

Sean Hannity

Greta Van Susteren

Shepard Smith

Niel Cavuto

Mike "Fried Squirrel" Huckabee

Chris Wallace

Brit "Hound Dog " Hume

Fox & Friends

"Food Product" Megyn Kelly

A. E. Newman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VV2bVW8QSw

There is a disturbing tendency in our national media to equalize everything having to do with the two major political parties in the United States. The Mainstream Media's Misguided Obsession With "Objectivity," as Bhaskar Sunkara, the editor for Jacobin Magazine put it in his article.
http://www.alternet.org/media/153095
For instance, just after it was announced that the so-call "supercommittee" could not come to a bipartisan agreement to locate areas in the national budget to cut, and enact revenue increases in order to lessen the deficit by some 1.2 trillion dollars over ten years, the corporate (mainstream?) media reported that both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats had equally failed in their task.
Well that's just not true. Even with just a cursory glance at the situation the simple facts that the Republicans were intractable in regards to not allowing revenue increases in the form of tax increases for the wealthiest among us, on the table. Not at all! This is nothing new. They've done the same thing over and over again. The very same thing! It's always the same thing... no tax increases for the wealthy even though their taxes are at the lowest point since the 1950s. Their pledge to ass-hat Grover Norquist, and pressure from their Tea Bagger base (if that is indeed their base. The Republicans may be bowing to a small faction of their real base, which may come to haunt them come 2012 election time).
So, the Republickans idea of bipartisanship remains "we give nothing, you give everything... or we'll take all the toys and go home." And I'm not exaggerating. Often when I watch the Repubs at work on C-SPAN I feel like I'm watching an episode of Romper Room, or Sesame Street.
Be that as it may, the "mainstream" media blames both sides when it is often very clear one side is mainly at fault (the Republicans). They tend to ignore the facts, or don't delve into the subject with any depth, or ignore President Obama when he clearly identifies the culprits, their actions and motives. You have a large powerful political party whose leaders stated goals are to limit the President to one term above all other considerations, and the national media doesn't take that into account.
This type of behavior has spilled over to to news programs that pit Republican pundits with Democratic pundits, who battle it out with little regard for discovering the truth behind the questions of the moderator. Why? That would be just too much work, and television hosts don't really want to offend any particular side as they are afraid of losing access to, I don't know... whoever. The host of NBC's Sunday morning program, Meet The Press, David Gregory, has openly stated it's not his job to fact check the various guests he has on the program. Apparently it's his job to just ask pointed questions and allow his guests to spew out whatever garbage they want to without fear of consequence.
This is not journalism. "Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience." -Wikipedia. To investigate and inform, which implies seeking the truth and reporting it.
The Fox Propaganda Network, which some misguided people call Fox News, is the most popular "news" cable network currently operating in the United States. That's a shame. It says a lot about our country.
So does this:
"As of January 2011, the Democratic Party-affiliated Public Policy Polling reports that Fox News Channel is the second-most trusted television news network in the country, with 42% of respondents reporting they trust the network, compared to other major news channels (behind PBS which stands at 50%, and ahead of NBC at 41%, CNN at 40%, CBS at 36%, and ABC at 35%). Simultaneously, Fox News Channel is also ranked the most distrusted news channel in the country, with 46% of respondents reporting they distrust the network (behind PBS at 30%, NBC at 41%, and CNN, CBS, and ABC each at 43%)."
Why would anyone distrust Fox News? A news organization... ideally... is supposed to be an impartial entity that reports the news impartially. That's the definition of reporting.
But Fox doesn't do that.
“Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” said Anita Dunn, the former White House Director of Communications.
I have to agree. And most everybody else does too! It is hardly a secret that Fox, owned and operated by hacker Rupert Murdoch, and operated by former NBC exec Roger "Human Saggy Balloon" Ailes displays a marked conservative bias. It not only displays a marked conservative bias, it also actively promotes and advertises conservative ideas and events, the formation of the Tea Baggers being a prime example.
Well MSNBC does the same for the left, liberal, progressive side, I hear you saying. And you would be absolutely right in saying that. But there's a major difference between the two. Or differences.
MSNBC's liberal bent is in direct response to the rights domination of the media, through talk radio to the Fox Propaganda Network.
MSNBC does not promote propaganda, but reports, as best it can as far as I can tell, in an unbiased fashion. Yes, I can hear all of you right wingers laughing your ass off at my last statement, but your laughter rings hallow because deep down you know I'm right.
And most importantly, MSNBC, and most other networks other than Fox use what are known as "facts." Pieces of realty that can be independently verified by multiple sources. Fox doesn't bother with these things. Facts give Fox a big headache, because, well, facts most often do not promote the untenable positions that Fox often wishes to promote, for instance like Newt Gangrich would be a good president. If facts do not support Fox's position or world view Fox tosses them out and spews forth what are called... lies.
Fox "News" has a marked tendency to misinform their own audience. And they get away with it each and every day.
"Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals." -New York Times editor Howell Raines
Attitudes have changed in recent years which allow this type of behavior from a major "news" organization. I believe this is due in large part to the media being controlled largely by major corporations, like News Corp, or Disney, or National Amusements, or General Electric, which tend not to concern themselves very closely with little things like ethics, or public opinion. And since the media is controlled by these corporate entities dissension is controlled by them as well (this type of "fuck you, we're going to do whatever we want" attitude has also spilled out into other areas, our judicial system being a case in point. Some of our Supreme Court Justices who will remain nameless (Thomas and Scalia) think it's perfectly acceptable to attend social functions for businesses and political factions that they may have to rule on in the future without recusing themselves. This type of behavior is without precedent. But what would you expect from a court that gave us Citizens United?)
But Fox stands out among the rest. As I stated, Fox tends to misinform their viewers in order to promote their political agenda. The lovely organization, Media Matters, which some at Fox have demonized as some kind of terrorist organization simply because it reports back on exactly what some at Fox have said or done, verbatim (that's all they do. That's all they've ever done. But Fox doesn't like that) has documented this point repeatedly.
Anyway, here's some examples of how Fox may... bend the truth (lie):

On climate change: "A new study confirms that Fox News systematically paints a distorted picture of climate change, with the effect of worsening political polarization. Published by The International Journal Of Press/Politics, the study examined primetime cable news broadcasts from 2007 and 2008, and found that Fox "discussed climate change most often," but "the tone of its coverage was disproportionately dismissive... Fox broadcasts were more likely to include statements that challenged the scientific agreement on climate change, undermined the reality of climate change, and questioned its human causes... An internal email revealed, Fox's Washington managing editor Bill Sammon directed Fox journalists in December 2009 to cast doubt on the basic fact that the planet has warmed... Fox has also tried to manufacture a number of pseudo-scandals by distorting climate science research, misrepresenting or disavowing the temperature record, and seizing on any opportunity to distract from what the National Research Council has called "a strong, credible body of evidence" supporting manmade climate change... Fox News is a loud, popular, and influential network that is reinforcing its viewers misconceptions about climate science. The study concluded that "to the extent that Fox News presents a different view of reality than does CNN or MSNBC, the knowledge and opinions of the networks' respective audiences will likewise tend to polarize."

Lowering taxes increases revenue says Fox... not really says everyone else (except the Tea Baggers and Republicans in Congress of course):
"If there's one thing that Republican politicians agree on, it's that slashing taxes brings the government more money. "You cut taxes, and the tax revenues increase," President Bush said in a speech last year. Keeping taxes low, Vice President Dick Cheney explained in a recent interview, "does produce more revenue for the Federal Government." Presidential candidate John McCain declared in March that "tax cuts ... as we all know, increase revenues." His rival Rudy Giuliani couldn't agree more. "I know that reducing taxes produces more revenues," he intones in a new TV ad.
If there's one thing that economists agree on, it's that these claims are false. We're not talking just ivory-tower lefties. Virtually every economics Ph.D. who has worked in a prominent role in the Bush Administration acknowledges that the tax cuts enacted during the past six years have not paid for themselves--and were never intended to. Harvard professor Greg Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005, even devotes a section of his best-selling economics textbook to debunking the claim that tax cuts increase revenues." -Time, 12/6/07
Paul Krugman, After Reagan's 1981 Tax Cuts, "Revenues Are Permanently Reduced Relative To What They Would Otherwise Have Been." In a July 2010 post on his New York Times blog, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that "the revenue track under Reagan looks a lot like the track under Bush: a drop in revenues, then a resumption of growth, but no return to the previous trend." He added, "This is exactly what you would expect to see if supply-side economics were just plain wrong: revenues are permanently reduced relative to what they would otherwise have been." -The New York Times, 7/15/10
Economic Policy Institute: Bush Tax Cuts "Added $2.6 Trillion To The Public Debt Over 2001-10." In a September 26 article, Andrew Fieldhouse of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) wrote: A spending-cuts-only approach is regressive in that it forces the brunt of deficit reduction on the backs of poor and working families while ignoring a prime culprit of the budget deficit: the expensive, ineffective, and unfair Bush-era tax cuts. These top-heavy tax cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt over 2001-10 and will add $3.8 trillion to deficits over the next decade if fully continued." EPI, 9/26/11. On and on.

Kristol, O'Reilly Suggest That President Obama Has No Deficit-Reduction Plan.
Bill Kristol: "Where Is President Obama? ... Where's His Proposal?" From the November 21 edition of Fox News' Special Report:
BRET BAIER (host): "Do you buy that the Democrats were that united in their own proposal, going forward in the supercommittee, that it was actually a real deal?"
BILL KRISTOL: "Well, where was the Democratic proposal? The House Republicans passed a budget, the Paul Ryan budget, which would cut much more than 1.2 trillion. Senator Toomey put out a proposal, which we've seen a fair number about of the details of, which would have gotten to 1.2 trillion. Maybe I'm unaware of it, but is there a Democratic proposal that we've seen? Where is President Obama? He's up there, 'Oh, this is a disgrace. It's terrible, It's irresponsible.' Where's his proposal? Where's his proposal? I didn't notice him coming back from Asia, or not even -- or even before he went to Asia and saying, 'OK, here's how to do 1.2 trillion.' It's a total abdication of leadership on his part." -Fox News, Special Report, 11/21/11.
O'Reilly: "Where Is President Obama On Leadership? He Should Have Laid Out His Vision." From the November 21 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: "We, the people, well understand the chaos in Washington. The Democrats, generally speaking, want to spend. They often get elected by promising entitlement to minorities, to unions, to special interest groups. The Republicans want a much smaller government. They want to strangle what's in place now by denying it revenue. The GOP also wants President Obama out of there, so they are not likely to compromise much. In the meantime, little gets done. The debt grows larger, the economy weaker. And where is President Obama on leadership? He should have laid out his vision for spending cuts, but he didn't. In fact, he's MIA. Running around with the Indonesians, having fun in Bali. Meantime, Washington is collapsing. Mr. Obama should be showing leadership, demanding trillions in spending cuts." -Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 11/21/11.
In September, Obama Released the Plan "For Economic Growth And Deficit Reduction." Obama's plan assumes $1.2 trillion in savings from the Budget Control Act passed in August, and reduces the deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next decade:
"The Budget Control Act that I signed into law last month will cut annual Government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It also charges the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction with finding an additional $1.5 trillion in savings. As part of this jobs bill, I am asking the Congress to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act. In addition, I believe that the Congress should seize the opportunity that this new Committee presents and do much more so that we can put the country on a sustainable fiscal path, which is critical for our long-term economic growth and competitiveness.
For this reason, I am sending to the Congress this detailed plan to pay for this jobs bill and realize more than $3 trillion in net deficit reduction over the next 10 years. Combined with the approximately $1 trillion in savings from the first part of the Budget Control Act, this would generate more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. This would bring the Nation to the point where current spending is no longer adding to our debt and where our debt is no longer increasing as a share of our economy--an important milestone on the way to restoring fiscal discipline and moving us toward balance." Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future: The President's Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction, WhiteHouse.gov, September 2011.

Fox & Friends claimed that alleged White House shooter Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez had been "tied to [the] Occupy" movement, even calling him the " 'Occupy' shooter." In fact, investigators have reportedly "found no connection between him and the Occupy protesters."

Following a live report from New York City's Zuccotti Park in which protesters chanted "Fox News lies," Fox Business host Gerri Willis claimed that Fox is simply "trying to cover the story just like everybody else." However, Fox hosts and contributors have pushed lies, smears, and attacks about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Such as:
"ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role In 'Occupy' Movement." FoxNews.com claimed that ACORN, which disbanded in November 2010, is playing a "behind [the] scenes role" in Occupy Wall Street. Fox alleged that the group New York Communities for Change (NYCC) -- which is led by a former ACORN official -- is paying people to join protests and collecting money to fund OWS activities." FoxNews.com, 10/26/11.
Fox & Friends Promoted "We Are The 53 Percent." While Fox was baselessly claiming the Occupy Wall Street protesters do not pay taxes, Fox & Friends hyped a counter movement launched by CNN contributor and conservative pundit Erick Erickson, a website called, "We are the 53 percent." -Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/11/11.
Everybody pays taxes. If not income tax, then payroll tax, sales tax, Social Security Tax, on and on.
Special Report's Baier Claimed Protests Were Supported By Ayatollah Khamenei And Hugo Chavez. Special Report anchor Bret Baier claimed that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "threw his support behind protesters" at Occupy Wall Street. A day later, he also claimed that the protests had "elicit[ed] support" from Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. -Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 10/11/11.
These two have mentioned the OWS protests, but that hardly constitutes "support." And what difference would it make if they had?
"When the Associated Press reported on October 20, 2004, that Iran had endorsed President Bush for re-election, Special Report tried to discredit the claim two days later, according to Nexis transcripts."

Hannity Graphic Labeled Protesters "Lunatics Of The Left Wing." During the September 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity, an on-screen graphic aired while the co-hosts discussed the protests, reading, "Lunatics of the left wing."

On and on and on and on. For years this kind of crap has been going on (remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies... er, I mean Truth? Fox may not have started these lying morons, but they sure as hell promoted them)

Last week another study ( http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/ ) conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University made the case that the more you watch Fox "News," the less you knew about the real world in which we live in. In fact it pointed out that those who don't watch any news programs at all know more about the real world we live in than Fox "News" viewers.
Media Matters: According to the new survey, Fox "News," is "very, very good at misinforming people. And it's very bad at reporting the news.
In other words: Propaganda? Yes. News? Not so much.
For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all..... Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news."
This is hardly the only poll to come to the same, or similar conclusions:
--2009, health care reform. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Fox fans were overwhelmingly misinformed about the proposed health care reform:
"In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly."
--2010, global warming. Stanford University, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, released a report titled "Frequent Viewers of Fox News Are Less Like to Accept Scientists' Views of Global Warming."
It concluded:
"More exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists' claims about global warming, with less trust in scientists, and with more belief that ameliorating global warming would hurt the U.S. economy."
Furthermore, in December of last year "another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.
In eight of the nine questions below, Fox News placed first in the percentage of those who were misinformed (they placed second in the question on TARP). That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic fraud. Here is a list of what Fox News viewers believe that just aint so:

91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming its viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably false information fed to them by Fox News." -Mark Howard of News Corpse, "Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid."
And to be fair, for the purposes of full disclosure... Mr. Howard continued:
"By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases. Even MSNBC, which had the best record of accurately informing viewers (emphasis mine), has a ways to go before it can brag about it."
Stupid, "Lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity." That's one definition.
When confronted with the results of this study, Chris Wallace, the Host of Fox News Sunday, just smiled that smarmy little smile of his that got Bill Clinton so pissed off, and went on as though that particular discussion just didn't matter. It was of little importance to him.
The facts seem to always be of little importance to Fox so-called News.
The sad part about this story is that the audience for Fox "News" do not seem to mind being lied to. They seem perfectly happy to be misinformed, and misinformed toward the goal of fulfilling the political agenda of Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and other corporate interests, much to their own determent. Much against their own best interests.
Fox viewers are not only being misinformed... they are also being manipulated.
We'll discuss why people may be susceptible to this kind of manipulation soon.
But for now I hope it is of some small interest to them that they are.
And admitting that truth may be the first step to regaining some sense of direction, some sense of independence.
Not in a Republican and Tea Party fantasy, but in the real world. The world that matters. The world we and our children live in.

A Message from the General Assembly of Occupy Portland

2011-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

Occupy L.A. on Spring St.

Occupy Portland

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/134511708.html

Last Friday instead of walking across the 6th Street Bridge in the morning, as is my custom, I choose to wait until later in the day, around 11:30AM, or so, and walk the six or seven blocks to the south lawn of City Hall, where Occupy L.A. has been camped since the 1st of October.
I usually stop by on Saturdays to see what I can see, but since this was the day after Thanksgiving, and nothing but prison programs were on MSNBC (because as everyone knows, there is no news on the weekends and holidays), I decided to visit on Friday instead.
Besides, I had heard that the Los Angeles chapter, one of the last major encampments left in the Occupy movement, was going to be evicted soon.
It hadn't changed much since I had been there last. If anything more tents had crowded into the 1.2 acre park. Some enterprising individual had actually made a count (a good of a way to pass the time as any I suppose) and came up with a total of 485 tents, mostly the small dome type that can be seen in the second picture above (taken on the west side of City Hall, along Spring Street). Someone had erected a large wooden box like structure which had been painted liberally (no pun intended) in mural fashion, the Federal Reserve building facing the front. One out of three people had a dog it seemed. Pit Bulls seem to be in fashion.
It was business as usual at Occupy L.A. No one was speaking about leaving anytime soon. I even experienced my first "Mic Check," when an energetic young lady invited those who were interested, in participating in an upcoming Flash Mob (how do they do these things? There has got to be a hell of a lot of rehearsal time involved, for the ones I've seen are choreographed to the tee). However, Mic Checks don't seem to be necessary as amplification devices are allowed at Occupy L.A. One young man was reading something from Dr. Martin Luther King through a bullhorn while sitting on the south steps, although I couldn't really make out what it was he was saying. Maybe that's why they have them, for clarity's sake.
I walked around the building and saw a couple of signs worth noting.
"If bank regulations were followed as well as Park rules we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place."
And:
"Don't make me come down there..." -God
I hadn't seen a police presence in the encampment before, but on this day two uniformed LAPD officers exited the building and ambled about the people and tents. No one was doing anything illegal... other than occupying the park... and the officers were fairly well ignored. The L.A. movement has enjoyed an amicable relationship with the police and local politicians, unlike most other cities we've heard about recently. What makes Los Angeles different. The past.
From the beating of Rodney King in 1991 to a May Day celebration gone bad four years ago in nearby MacArthur Park, the Los Angeles Police Department has suffered from a pretty poor reputation of turning to the quick use of violence, ofttimes seemingly unnecessary violence, that's not only been promoted on the city streets but in popular culture as well (for instance in the 2004 Academy Award winning film "Crash," the term "trigger happy L.A.P.D." comes to mind).
So Mayor Villaraigosa and Chief of Police William Bratton have played it very cool with the occupiers. Why wouldn't they?
Until now. The L.A. protesters have been given a deadline of 12:01AM Monday morning, the 28th. Some campers say they're not going anywhere, some say it's time to leave citing the unpredictability of the L.A.P.D. as a motivating factor.
We shall see.
Well we've discussed this aspect before, but as our friend Naomi Wolf wrote about in her article:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/441-occupy/8592-the-shocking-truth-about-the-crackdown-on-occupy
There appear to be indications that the Department of Homeland Security had a hand in orchestrating the recent bout of violent police crackdowns in cities such as New York, Oakland, and Seattle (the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the DHS had participated in an 18-city mayoral conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests).
This would implicate President Obama as well. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, should be held responsible for what her department does. Ms Napolitano holds a cabinet level position, which means her one and only boss is the President (although she is answerable to Congress as well). It would be a sad day indeed if it were proven that Obama and Napolitano had a hand in the violent suppression of peaceful protesters exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
But why would they do this? What is so threatening about the Occupy movement?
Wolf thinks the answer lies in what she has learned about the movement's objectives, such as drafting "laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors."
She contends that DHS is attempting to influence city mayors to crackdown on their Occupy encampments and crush the movement because they are demanding that Congress close a loophole which allows said members to profit from their own legislation, or insider trading on information that passes through their committees, apparently with the blessings of the White House.
Maybe.
We'll undoubtedly hear more about this as the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists, as well as other agencies which may eventually get involved, make further investigations into the matter.
But whatever the DHS does, or the White House, or mayors, the Occupy movement is not going to disappear. It's too big to stop now, whatever form it takes in the future (I for one do hope that it does become politically active in some respect). Too may people, too many Americans are involved in the cause now, if not physically, then in spirit. The Occupy movement is our best chance for real change to the system that has been dragging down the average citizen for more than 40 years now.
Though the tent city that was the physical base of Occupy Portland built on October 6, 2011 was dismantled forcefully on November 13, Occupy Portland itself continues. Below is a statement from the general assembly of that movement, and I repeat it here verbatim because it is pertinent, thought provoking, informative, powerful, and eloquent.
And as I've said before... the Occupy demonstrations, protests, and movement isn't going anywhere.
Thank God.

In Tahrir Square, citizens calling for a civilian government are being maimed and murdered by those same forces which helped them in their struggle for freedom. Many of the weapons used by these forces are imported from an American company, Combined Tactical Systems. We call on this company, which openly deals with tyrants, to cease this trade, and for the people of Jamestown, PA, home of CTS, to call for the same.

In Davis, CA, Lieutenant John Pike used pepper spray at close range on peaceful, seated students. We stand with those students and faculty who call for a system-wide strike on the UC campus, and who call for the resignation and punishment of Lieutenant Pike and the chancellor of UC, Linda Katehi.

In New York City, the NYPD has destroyed the free-speech encampment of Liberty Plaza, detained and arrested journalists unlawfully, and acted, generally, like brutes. We condemn these actions and remind the NYPD and mayor Bloomberg that the people will not abide peacefully so long as they are not free.

In Seattle, one week after the City Council voted unanimously in favor of a “resolution recognizing and supporting the peaceful and lawful exercise of the First Amendment,” the Seattle police used pepper-spray on lawful demonstrators, including two senior citizens, a priest, and a pregnant woman. This woman has since miscarried, citing a kick in the stomach and a blow from a bicycle by Seattle police as a probable cause. We condemn this atrocious behavior and ask that anyone, regardless of their stance on the sentiment of these demonstrators, join with us insofar as we hold that violent suppression of lawful protest is categorically unconstitutional and will not be tolerated.

In Portland, in part because of a negative public response to the paramilitary actions of Multnomah County police forces, Police Chief Mike Reese has announced that he will no longer be running for mayor. We ask that all funds collected by his fundraising committee, “Friends of Mike Reese” be reallocated to more useful organizations: those that help the houseless and otherwise economically underserved. We also ask that any officers who have benefited from the glut of overtime pay as a result of Chief Reese’s unnecessary deployment of police forces create a fund for the benefit of these same organizations.

We remind the people of Portland and the people of the world that we have come together to address the deepest problems of our economic and political system, and that these problems have no easy solutions— especially when those openly seeking the solutions are painted as filthy, ignorant, violent hooligans by those with a vested interest in maintaining the current broken system. We remind them who we are: mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, the unemployed and underemployed, students, teachers, government employees, laborers, and pensioners. We remind them, two months after this movement began, and on the eve of the most lucrative commercial day of the year, to not lose sight of the original animation of this movement.

We remind them that unregulated greed is not a solid foundation for an economy; that self-interest does not constitute a system of ethics; that gambling with the livelihoods of Americans should not be rewarded with bailouts and bonuses; that we should not turn for solutions to the same bankers and executives who created our problems; that our representatives are to serve not the private interests of their financiers but the public interests of those who elected them; that those interests are not served by a politics which refuses even to discuss its own corruption, but instead scapegoats anyone at hand: liberals, conservatives, immigrants, minorities, and the American citizens whose homes and savings were used as pieces in a private game. We remind them that all of our actions are manifestations of our indignation at this corrupted system. We remind them that we cannot change it without their help.

These things which we have called for, these manifestations of our indignation—the resignation of Lieutenant Pike and Chancellor Katehi, the reappropriation of Portland Police funds, the condemnation of all who suppress and aid in the suppression of lawful demonstration—these are not the limits of our fight.

We fight against a political culture that has placed the needs of the American people beneath the appetites of thieves whose gambling for short-term profit has devastated the economy and the lives of millions around the world. In solidarity with all who have suffered from the recklessness of unregulated business and the corruption of government by commerce, we demand an end to a politics controlled by wealth and perverted to serve corporations legally bound to care only for profit.

We will not stop until this corruption ceases.

Is There Life On Mars? Are We Martians?!

2011-11-26T04:11:00.000-08:00

Ready for Launch

"Curiosity"

Curiosity (right) Compared to Rovers Opportunity
(left) and Sojourner (center)

My Name's Going to Mars... Again!

Gale Crater

Landing Site Inside Gale Crater

The Way to Land a Really Big Rover

Martians?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GAKOLOnfV4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmW4GZikWH4

In a little less than three hours from now The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) sitting on top of an Atlas V541 rocket (supplied by a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing) will blast off from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. As it's name implies its destination is our second closest planetary neighbor, Mars. If everything goes well (Earth has launched more than three dozen missions to Mars, which is more like our planet than any other in the solar-system. Yet fewer than half of those missions have succeeded) it should take approximately eight and a half months to get there, hopefully landing inside Gale Crater between August 5th, and 20th of next year. It's total cost to the American tax payers is around 2.5 billion dollars... American, none of that Hong Kong stuff.
The MSL contains a big rover inside called "Curiosity," named so because it wants to learn things, mainly what it wants to learn is if Mars could have evolved microbial life at some point in it's history, which would be a very interesting discovery. It won't be looking for actual present day life unfortunately, but only if the conditions existed for life to once have come about on our smaller neighbor.
Why do we care if there was once life on Mars, or if there is now, and why are we spending so much money to find out? Good question dear readers, I'm glad you asked. It is very important because as of now we only have one example of life evolving anywhere in the universe, and that's here on Earth. If we found life on another planet like Mars, or Saturn's moon Titan which has its own atmosphere, or in the under-ice oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa, then we will have for the first time verifiable evidence of life being able to independently evolve somewhere else in the solar system... and universe.
And we can learn a lot from that. Life that evolves on a different planet will have evolved with a much different set of evolutionary pressures and conditions, so it would be of great scientific interest to be able to compare a true extraterrestrial form of life to our terrestrial form. An extraterrestrial life form may have evolved using a whole different chemistry, for instance not using carbon as the basic organic building block for its form of life, or not using DNA at all.
And there's another reason which might be of interest to some... all of us here on Earth, every living thing as a matter of fact, may be descended from life which originated on Mars, by extension making us Martians, as the above picture of myself and lovely Erin appears to indicate.
I'll get back to this in a little while.
And if we don't find any trace of life, or learn that there were no conditions in the past (like free flowing water on the surface of Mars) conducive to the evolution of life, then we learn that life is rare, and may be rare throughout the universe, and therefore precious, and not to be wasted on stupid ass wars, or large scale poverty, or dramatic climate change that we can mitigate if we put our efforts toward that goal.
The MSL mission has four goals really: To determine if life could have ever arisen on Mars, to characterize the climate of Mars, to characterize the geology of Mars, and to prepare for human exploration.
"The rover will analyze dozens of samples scooped from the soil and drilled from rocks. The record of the planet's climate and geology is essentially "written in the rocks and soil" -- in their formation, structure, and chemical composition. The rover's on board laboratory will study rocks, soils, and the local geologic setting in order to detect chemical building blocks of life (e.g., forms of carbon) on Mars and will assess what the Martian environment was like in the past."
Curiosity is going to spend a year doing those things... Martian year. A year on Mars equals 686 Earth days, or a little less than 2 Earth years. It will have an onboard power source, a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator that will use the heat generated by a little decaying plutonium-238 converted into electricity, providing constant power during all the seasons and throughout the day and night, unlike the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which rely on solar power.
As you can tell from the pictures above Curiosity is pretty big (for a rover). It's about the size of your average mini Cooper automobile at approximately 10 feet in length, 9 feet wide. It weighs 1,984 pounds, which includes 176 pounds of scientific instruments.
Because Curiosity is so freaking big it will not be able to use the airbag assisted landing system that Spirit and Opportunity used to set down on the surface. It will use a technique that has never been tried before, what is called the sky crane touchdown system that was illustrated in the animated short film above. It's all very exciting, and because we've never done it before, it's also very dangerous.
Curiosity's wheels are designed to leave a tread pattern which will leave an impression on the Martian surface spelling "JPL" for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Morse code. I don't know why. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology is managing the project for NASA, so I guess the tread pattern thing is a form of advertising for... well I don't know exactly who the advertising is aimed at really. It confuses me and makes my head ache.
Oh yes... my name is going to Mars again. It's already up there you know. In 1997, the Pathfinder mission, which included the Sojourner rover, and what has been renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, which was the lander, included a microdot with the names of the then current membership of the Planetary Society, the non-government, civilian space advocacy group founded by Dr Sagan, planetary scientist Bruce Murray, and astronautics engineer Louis Friedman in 1980. I of course was a member and thus my name has been sitting on the Martian surface, on Mars' Ares Vallis, in a region called Chryse Planitia in the Oxia Palus quadrangle to be exact, for over 14 years.
And it's going there again! The opportunity to have your name sent along with the Curiosity rover was open to the public for years if you happened to know about it. I did happen to know about it and submitted my name and received a certificate very similar to the one above that states my name is being sent to Mars.
Again.
Now I'll have my name in two different locations on the planet Mars, all ready for someone to find at some future date (if they don't wait to long. Mars does have an atmosphere, although a thin one, so the possibility... the certainty that erosion will occur and sandblast all our names to hell exists) if they happen to have a microdot reader.
Speaking about that Martian atmosphere, it consists mostly of carbon dioxide. Humans can't breath carbon dioxide. Plants can, but we can't, which would make living there very difficult. It's cold there as well. Really cold. And there's little protection from the sun's ultra violet light radiation because there's no ozone in the atmosphere, so if man ever does go there, which we plan on doing eventually, we're going to have to bring spacesuits and heaters and stuff like that. Air too.
Be that as it may, we're finding things in the atmosphere of Mars that really shouldn't be there at all, like methane.
In January of 2009 a team of researchers reported that the bursts of methane originated from three specific regions in the planet’s northern hemisphere, where it was midsummer. The gas came out at a rate of 0.6 kilograms a second, the scientists said, and the plume contained 19,000 metric tons of methane. That's a lot of methane.
Now methane falls apart easily when acted upon by ultra violet radiation, which would occur rapidly in the Martian atmosphere. That means the methane that was detected had to have originated recently.
There is only a few ways methane could enter the atmosphere of Mars. One of them is inorganic, consisting of geothermal chemical reactions involving water and heat in volcanoes or underground hot springs. Despite Mars having the largest volcano in the solar system, Olmpus Mons (14 miles high, twice the size of Mt. Everest), evidence for recent volcanism on Mars is scarce.
The other possibility is biological. Living things excrete methane. Cows do it. Horses do it. I did it once. Girls do it though they won't admit it.
On Earth, a class of bacteria known as methanogens breathes out methane as a waste product. So there could be living organisms near the surface of the planet, probably near areas where water is located beneath the surface as well.
Or there may not. We don't know. The one time we did send an experiment to Mars to look for microbial life forms, the Viking landers of 1976, the results were ambiguous, meaning we really couldn't tell if the chemical reactions observed were due to living organisms, or non biological systems.
And as I've already said, another experiment to look for biological activity was not included on the MSL mission. I don't know why. It hasn't been included on the next two planned Mars landers either, although they may be canceled due to budget considerations, which would be a crying shame.
So what are we to conclude from this. Obviously the federal government knows there is life on Mars and doesn't want anyone else to know about it.
Obviously.
So dear readers, please get out your pens and paper, or your Email machines, and contact your Congress people and demand they put a halt to the great Martian cover up!
Really!
Because they could be trying to hide the fact that we are all (Republicans expecially) descendents of Martian microbes.
The sun and the planets formed at the same time about 4.6 billion years ago (sorry all of you Christian people who believe the Earth is only 10,000 years old. You are almost certainly wrong. Man did not live with the dinosaurs... despite the Flintstones). But because Mars is smaller than Earth, it cooled faster, and it probably would have been hospitable for life earlier. That raises the interesting possibility that pieces of Mars containing microbes were blasted into space by asteroid impacts and later landed on Earth, seeding life here.
Meteorite ALH84001, was discovered in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica in 1984. It is believed to be one of twelve meteorites to have landed on Earth which originated from Mars. ALH84001 became dislodged from the surface of Mars about 16 million years ago, floated in space until it struck the Earth 13,000 years ago. Scientists have discovered what they think are micro fossils inside the rock. Micro fossils indicate past life, which in this case would have come from Mars. This discovery prompted the news conference with then President Clinton that can be seen in the motion picture "Contact," based on the novel written by Carl Sagan.
Small world.
This is called the Panspermia hypothesis, which stipulates life did not evolve from chemical reactions in the oceans of ancient Earth, but was brought to this planet from space seeds, via meteoroids, asteroids and planetoids.
Now I and a lot of others believe that the so-called fossils found in ALH84001 are simply too small to be derived from living organisms. However, if the Panspermia theory is eventually found to be true, which the government may be trying to keep from us for purely political reasons (whose going to run on the Martian ticket?!), then we all (or at least some of us) may be in fact be Martians.
I certainly think Newt Gangrich is. Michelle Bachmann for sure. Mitt probably. Who on Earth would name their child Mitt for God's sake. Everybody from Texas certainly.
So be careful who you vote for dear readers. They may not only be un-American. They may be un-Earthian.

Here's the NASA Mars Science Laboratory site incase you're interested:
http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

Addendum: I'm happy to report that the Mars Science Laboratory successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral right on time at 10:02AM EST. Have a good trip MSL and Curiosity!

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

2011-11-25T03:53:00.000-08:00

Rafael Trujillo

Patria, Minerva, & Maria Teresa

"Dede"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxKFYlGUHfw
From "In the Time of the Butterflies," 2001

During this time of political strife between the two major parties in our country, and with both insisting on maintaining a certain state of the status quo, and the development of a new and powerful movement of change personified in Occupy Wall Street, it is important to remember history, and others who acted as agents of change at great risk to themselves, agents that had the courage to speak truth to power, and who were not marginalized by the established power base and media, as happens so often.
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo came to power after he betrayed his boss, President Horacio Vásquez, in 1930, by allowing a rebel army into the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, without resistance. Trujillo was a general at the time and it was his job not to let that happen. After Vasquez was forced to resign and sent into exile, Trujillo became the nominee of the newly-formed Dominican Party. He won, officially registering 95 percent of the vote, a fairly high total rarely seen in the real world without the benefit of massive fraud. He immediately assumed dictatorial powers.
According to Wikipedia during the time Trujillo ruled government employees were required to "donate" 10 percent of their salary to the national treasury, and there was strong pressure on adult citizens to join his party. Members were required to carry a membership card, the "palmita", and a person could be arrested for vagrancy without it. Those who did not contribute, or join the party, did so at their own risk. Opponents of the regime were mysteriously killed.
In 1936 the name of the capital was changed from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristobal was created as "Trujillo", and the nation's highest peak, Pico Duarte, was renamed Pico Trujillo in his honor. Statues of "El Jefe" were mass-produced and erected across the Republic, and bridges and public buildings were named after him. This happens a lot in dictatorships. The public must be reminded at all times who is in charge, and who will persecute them if they get out of line. I'm sure these self indulgences do something for the dictator's egos as well. Saddam Hussein, Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin, Big Brother, all had their images splattered throughout the urban landscape. Eventually, even churches were required to post the slogan: "Dios en cielo, Trujillo en tierra" (God in Heaven, Trujillo on Earth).
In 1937, claiming that Haiti was harboring his former Dominican opponents, Trujillo ordered an attack on the border, slaughtering tens of thousands of Haitians as they tried to escape. The number of the dead is still unknown, though it is now calculated between 20,000 and 30,000. Trujillo was hoping war would break out between the two nations, his desire being to control the entire Island of Hispaniola. This did not happen. Under pressure from Washington, Trujillo agreed to a reparation settlement in January of 1938 that involved the payment of $750,000 American. By the next year the amount had been reduced to $525,000 ($ 8,031,279.07 in 2011) $30 per victim, of which only 2 cents were given to survivors, due to corruption in the Haitian bureaucracy. This incident became known as the Parsley Massacre.
In June of 1960 Trujillo attempted to assassinate the President of Venezuela, Rómulo Betancourt, but failed, and world opinion turned against him. After the brutal murder on November 25, 1960, of three Mirabal sisters, Patria, María Teresa and Minerva, who opposed Trujillo's dictatorship, discontent against his rule increased.
The Mirabal women grew up in an upper class, well-cultured environment. Their father was a successful businessman.
Patria Mercedes Mirabal, the eldest sister, wanted to become a nun until she met and married Pedro Gonzalez. They had 4 children.
María Argentina Minerva Mirabal, the second eldest, was the one that initially got involved with the underground movement to overthrow the government. While she was away at school she found that she had friends whose families had been tortured by Trujillo's men. Minerva went to University in Ciudad Trujillo and was granted the right to study to become a lawyer. She did complete her studies, the first woman accepted to study this profession, but she was denied the right to practice law and was never granted her diploma due, it is said, to her resisting the romantic advances of Rafael Trujillo, who was quite the ladies man despite his being married most of the time to various women. Minerva had a keen interest in politics which is what led her to meet the leader of the Popular Socialist Party. She married Manuel Tavarez and had 2 children.
Antonia María Teresa Mirabal, the youngest sister, married Leandro Guzmán, and they had one child together.
Bélgica Adela "Dedé" Mirabal-Reyes, was the sister that was not with the other three on November 25th. She has since dedicated her life to preserving her sisters memory. She has 9 children.
The Mirabal family's first real run in with Trujillo was at a party to which they were invited. The girls left early. Trujillo was angry about this so he had the father, Don Enrique arrested (no one was permitted to leave a party before Trujillo it seems). Minerva was also arrested the following day. Every day she was taken to the Fortaleza Ozama and "interrogated" by two of Trujillo's men. Still she refused to write a letter of apology to him.
Since the family was well connected, they knew the right people. They got Trujillo's brother, with whom they were acquainted, to intercede for them and have the family members that were imprisoned released. They were arrested again a few years later, and released again.
The Mirabal sisters helped form a group that fought against the Trujillo regimen which was known as al Movimiento 14 de Junio, The Movement of the Fourteenth of June. The sisters were known as Las Mariposas, The Butterflies. On November 25, 1960, Trujillo decided he had enough of the sisters constant trouble making and decided it was time to get rid of them. He sent men to intercept three of the sisters who were on their way home from visiting their husbands who he had incarcerated. The sisters car was stopped, and they were taken into a sugarcane field where they were mercilessly beaten and strangled to death.
Trujillo's action backfired on him. Apparently the Mirabal sisters and their cause had become quite popular within the country. The people of the Dominican Republic, along with the Catholic church, were outraged. The deaths of the sisters brought more attention to the rebellion, and instead of eliminating the overthrow of his dictatorship he brought about its downfall.
Six months later, on May 30th 1961, Trujillo's car was ambushed on a road outside of the capital. According to his driver, Trujillo exited the car wounded in order to fire back at his attackers, and was subsequently and quickly riddled with bullets.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
His remains were interred in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris, France, and subsequently moved to the El Pardo cemetery near Madrid, Spain. I don't know why.
The Mirabal sisters became a symbol of the crisis of violence against women. Women's activists, especially in Latin America, have marked November 25th as a day to fight against this violence since 1981.
On December 17, 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Resolution 54/134).
The United Nations invited governments, international organizations, and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) to organize activities designated to raise public awareness of the problem as an international observance on that day.
Women around the world are subjected to all forms of unnecessary violence. They are the sisters of men who bring beauty and grace into our ofttimes ugly world. They bring wisdom as well, and they should be protected and cherished for the wonderful individuals that they are. Protected from domestic abuse, rape as an instrument of war, self serving religious convictions, out dated cultural customs, and the basic brutishness of men.
Today, November 25 is the official day according to the UN.
I would hope that the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and Girls, is remembered and practiced everyday.
This needs to happen. The empowerment of women and girls enriches the lives of everyone... men included.
For our world to overcome the many problems we now face, the feminine half of our population needs to stand equal with the other half. Equal in education, in position in society, in everything.
And they certainly need to be free from any and all forms of violence... for their sake, and that of the world.

Yesterday U.S. Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords helped serve a Thanksgiving meal to service members and retirees at a military base in Tucson, Arizona, her hometown.
She has been undergoing intensive rehabilitation at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston as she recovers from a gunshot wound to the head. She was among 19 people shot January 8th as she met with constituents outside a Tucson supermarket. Six people died.
This marked the first time Rep. Giffords has met with her constituents since the shooting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

The LA Mission

Jennifer Love Hewitt and someone named Kim yesterday

Pilgrim Erin

Happy Thanksgiving to you all dear readers!
Since I'm posting this very early on Thanksgiving morning I have not lived through my Thanksgiving experience yet but that is okay as I know exactly what will happen today because I happen to be omniscient. It's a curse really. Today will be a little bit more boring than a regular Thursday for me. The Hippie Kitchen will be closed simply because it's a holiday. Imagine that. What, people don't need their beans and salad on holidays?! Yes they do. I certainly do, but I will not get any today.
This makes me very sad.
I will endure though.
The Midnight and Fred Jordan Missions will be serving their annual Thanksgiving dinners today, but I will not be going to either. I've never eaten at the Midnight Mission, so it would frighten me, and the Fred Jordan Mission tends to make people wait, wait, wait, way to long, then preach about how Jesus Christ will save us, and stuff like that before a thimbleful of tasty food is presented.
If I want to know about how Jesus Christ will save me I'll read the freaking Bible.
I have read the freaking Bible! Jesus Christ couldn't even save himself, so it's unlikely he'll be able to save anyone else, especially since he's been dead for over 2000 years. Goodness gracious!
I don't think I really need saving anyway. Saving from what? I'm perfectly happy with the way things are going so far.
I do need some new socks though. The ones I'm wearing right now have holes in them. No one can see them so I don't really care. Perhaps I'll get some for Christmas.
I certainly don't think Jesus will give me any socks.
But I'm not here to discuss religion today.
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by myself, today I will work, writing about violence against women and the Mars Science Laboratory. Two posts that need to get done in one day, so I will be fairly busy and the time will pass quickly.
I will eat some turkey. I have some left over from yesterday, and a nice lady who helped cook the Las Americas annual Thanksgiving dinner yesterday made some turkey stew for today, so I may have some of that as well.
Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. If I'm really omniscient shouldn't I already know if I'm going to have some turkey stew or not? Well I have this to say about that... I may be omniscient, but I still have free will... I think.
It's all very confusing.
Anyway, today will be boring. Not for me, but for you to read about. Let me relate what happened yesterday (or today as I'm writing this... now I'm confusing myself), which is the actual day I experienced many Thanksgiving festivities.
I began the day a little after midnight. I woke up and got out of my nice cozy bed and went to my refrigerator and took out and ate two mini-Twix bars I keep in there for just such occasions. Then I went back to bed.
My alarm clock woke me about 4 hours later. As you can tell from the time stamp on yesterday's post I was up rather early. I always get up early.
My lovely yoga teacher Beth asked me Tuesday what it is I do when I get up so early.
"I do yoga, Beth." Which is true, I do do yoga, after I post the day's post and check my Email. I do sit ups, and push ups, and 37 count burpies as well, but Beth doesn't need to know about that. She would undoubtedly disapprove.
"There's nothing to do that early in the morning but sleep," she said.
I appreciate her position, and I do find sleep comforting at times, and restful, but I would do without it if I could. I'll sleep enough after I'm dead.
After yoga, after a nice warm shower, and meditation (counting 400 breaths), it is around 5:30AM, and time for me to walk over the 6th Street Bridge. Why? Because it's there (if it wasn't there I wouldn't do it).
That takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. I was out a little longer than usual yesterday morning as after I finished with the bridge I walked over to Central Avenue to mail a letter to the Superior Court who want me to perform jury duty again. I've already done it this year (a few months ago in fact), so I told them to muck off.
Okay, I then returned to my box and listened to the lovely Stephanie Miller on the radio while I made myself a healthy egg, Bologna, onion, and cheese bagel sandwich.
Tasty.
I read more of my Email while doing those two things simultaneously... listening to the radio and eating. I guess I was doing three things at once by eating, listening to the radio, and reading.
I'm a multi-tasker.
At 7:30 I walked downstairs to the kitchen area to meet Robert, my new case manager (he's been here a year next month, but I still consider him my new case manager), to help start cooking our Thanksgiving meal that we would be having later in the day. I helped him move different food items into the kitchen, and took one of our two turkeys out of its plastic bag. John, Robert's new boss, was there and he took over the turkey preparation. He just threw some butter and salt on it and stuck it in the oven. No stuffing inside this year. That's what happens when men are left in charge of cooking. No finesse.
I cut up some onions and celery and mixed that in with some stuffing mix with butter and chicken broth. Then a couple of ladies showed up and took over.
There I was mixing up the stuffing and one of the ladies said, "I'm going to make the stuffing."
What was I? Invisible?!
I had places to go so I let her take over.
I let them use my can opener. They didn't have a good one. They never do. They always want my can opener. I let them use it even after I left the building, telling them if they lost it I would literally starve to death because I wouldn't be able to open any of my cans that I have up in my box.
I have lots of cans up there. I collect food. I have enough food in my box to feed a small sized regiment of Afghani militiamen. Women too.
Some of my food is frozen.
I told Robert that I was leaving, but I would be back. I told him I was going over to the LA Mission because, "I told Kirk I'd be there." He laughed.
The Kirk I was referring to was Kirk Douglas, the actor and father to Michael. He was supposed to be hosting the LA Mission's Thanksgiving dinner, but I didn't see him. Perhaps he was ill.
He's getting on in years you know.
Just before 9:00AM I got in line on Winston Street, behind the Mission. They wouldn't start serving until 10:30 or so, and at the time I got there the line stretched to Wall Street, then south to 5th. I stood there with some nice people, men really, although there were families in line nearby, mostly Hispanic ladies with little kids. I had brought a book with me to read ("The Hobbit"), but did not read from it. I was having too much fun watching everyone.
Tea was given out by the Mission people. Then later a couple of guys handed out breakfast sandwiches, consisting of an egg and sausage pattie stuck in a hamburger bun. That was very nice of them, and totally unexpected. Since I had already had a nice breakfast bagel earlier, I did not eat my breakfast sandwich, but rather put it in my jacket pocket to bring home.
I still have it! I will eat it later this morning after I get back from walking over the 6th Street Bridge.
I'm looking forward to it.
I have a tamale too... from last Saturday, when the tamale people gave it to me.
I don't know when I'll eat that. Probably before next Saturday when I expect to get another.
One Mission employee, a large black gentleman, slowly walked down the line and loudly preached to us about how he was saved, or something. I didn't really pay attention. Another man gave out toys that he had purchased across the street at one of the wholesale toy stores they have there. He was mobbed by mothers and kids who wanted toys. He was very nice to do that.
Soon the line moved. Mission employees monitored the line which is a good thing because many people will try to cut in line if given half a chance. Some tried anyway, but were politely turned away.
I hate people who cut into lines, I really do. There's a special place in Hell (that doesn't exist) for them.
When I finally entered the dinning area we passed by where all of the so-called celebrities were filling Thanksgiving dinner plates with tasty Thanksgiving food. I didn't see Kirk. Perhaps he was ill. As a matter of fact I didn't recognize any of them except for one, our lovely friend, Jennifer Love Hewitt. She was splashing mashed potatoes onto plates.
Lovely Jennifer has been mentioned three times on Joyce's Take. I don't know why, she just has. Live with it.
Once she was the main character in this short story, entitled, appropriately enough, "Love."
http://joycestake.blogspot.com/2009/03/love.html
And then we discussed her television movie, "The Client List," when she played a nice message therapist.
http://joycestake.blogspot.com/2010/07/client-list.html
And we celebrated her birthday last February here:
http://joycestake.blogspot.com/2011/02/happy-birthday-jennifer-love-hewitt.html
Jennifer and I did not talk even though I am a big fan of hers as I've documented earlier. She was actually sequestered from the masses of homeless by a metal barricade. She and her celebrity friends just dished out food which were taken by other volunteers to the tables where the homeless people ate. As far as I know she had no contact with any homeless people whatsoever.
I sat down at table number 14 and ate my Thanksgiving lunch. Turkey (white meat) mashed potatoes, string beans, a nice dinner roll, some sort of cranberry sauce, and a small piece of pumpkin pie. Very traditional. I finished and left the area, being offered a free blanket on the way out (I refused it as I have too many blankets as it is). I quickly walked back to where Jennifer was still handing out mashed potatoes as I don't get a chance to see her very often... in person. Hardly ever as a matter of fact.
She's very pretty... for a girl, and she's very good at sloping out mashed potatoes onto plates. You could tell she'd done this before. Perhaps she had slopped out the mashed potatoes I had just eaten. I don't know, and will never have any way of knowing. If she did I wish she would have slopped them somewhere else rather than directly onto my turkey.
I had to slide them off.
She left while I was standing there watching her. She slopped her last mashed potatoes, spoke to someone beside her, then took off with her assistant (who looked suspiciously like Chloë Sevigny), walking back into the bowels of the Los Angeles Mission.
Perhaps we'll meet again one day.
I left too. Walking down to 6th Street I discovered my neighbor, Darrell, at the bus stop on 6th and San Pedro. We waited for the bus together.
And don't you know, my Arch Enemy, Hardy ( http://joycestake.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-hardy-ruined-my-life.html ), walked up and joined us. He was holding a gallon bottle of Clorox Bleach.
Darrell asked him where he'd been.
"Playing dominoes with Erin."
"What," I exclaimed.
"Playing dominoes with Erin. She give me this bleach."
SON OF A BITCH!
I hadn't seen my lovely ex-case manger for weeks, although I communicate with her regularly through the Email machine. And here she is seeing my Arch Rival apparently on a regular basis. I became very jealous, and wrote this to her via the Email machine when I got back to my box.

Dear Ms _ _ _,

So I waited in line behind the LA Mission for two and a half hours for a nice turkey dinner. I didn't see Kirk Douglas, but I did see Jennifer Love Hewitt. She was dishing up mashed potatoes.

And then on my way back guess who I ran into... my Arch Rival... Hardy. And guess where he had been.

You've been seeing him and playing dominoes with my Arch Rival behind my back! And giving him presents of bleach!

What is it about him that you find so appealing. His devil may care swagger? That must be it, the bastard.

Jennifer Love Hewitt wouldn't treat me like you have.

Now my weekend will be ruined because I am now forced to commit Seppuku, the Japanese form of ritual suicide by disembowelment.

I hope you're satisfied.

Nice knowing you,

Richard Joyce

A bit dramatic I agree, but it got my point across.
She did not respond. She did not respond to the two other Emails I had sent to her that morning either (one of them a nice E Thanksgiving Card). She must have been too busy playing dominoes with Hardy to read my Emails.
SON OF A BITCH!
Now I'm forced to commit Seppuku for God's sake! You know how hard that is?! And it hurts, and is quite messy.
Anyway, they hadn't began to serve the Las Americas Thanksgiving dinner yet. When they did I did not eat, but brought 4 plates of Thanksgiving food back up to my box where I will eventually consume it greedily. I have turkey, I have stuffing, I have one roll. I have macaroni and cheese that my house manager, Edwin made. I have beans with beef chorizo that my neighbor Denise made. I have something called cranberry relish, that looks kind of weird. I have all kinds of stuff.
Around 3:00 I went to the Central Library to pick up a book they were holding for me. "Legacy of Secrecy, the Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination," by Lamar Waldron and our radio friend, Thom Hartmann. I'm going to read it (or try to, it's very... big) because Thom said Leonardo DiCaprio is going to make a movie from it. Robert De Niro is supposed to be in it as well. We shall see.
And then I started writing this. I'm writing it right now. It's now 6:34PM Wednesday the 23rd in real time and I'm watching the Rachel Maddow Show, with the lovely Melissa Harris-Perry guest hosting. She is a professor of political science at Tulane University, which implies she's pretty smart, which she is. She should have her own show on MSNBC, if you don't mind my saying so.
She's also very pretty... for a girl.
Anyway, what do I have to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. A lot of things really. I'm alive, most of the stuff in the universe is not. I'm self aware. Again, most of the stuff in the universe is not. 99.9999999999999999999999999% and more of the universe does not know it exists. Our sun does not know it exists yet without it we would not be here.
I'm relatively healthy, which is a good thing. My lovely sister, Cheryl is suffering from some major health problems, and I worry about her, and may soon pack up and move out to Bullhead where she lives to be with her.
We shall see.
I'm grateful for Jennifer Love Hewitt. She's very nice I'm sure. Just don't bring any snakes around her because I know she doesn't like them. Big snakes. Maybe she doesn't mind little, cute ones.
I'm grateful for my invisible cat, Herkimer, who is always a comfort.
I'm grateful for my can opener.
I'm grateful for my niece, Keri, and grand nephew, Jaxen. I'm grateful for my friends, and my ex-case manager Erin, even though I have to commit Seppuku now. God damn it!
And I'm grateful for you, dear readers, with whom with I'm never lonely.
Have a great Thanksgiving dear readers, and I'll see you on the other side.

NYPD... Wall Street's New Private Security Force, The Militarization

2011-11-23T04:03:00.000-08:00

New York Light Show

Seattle

Dorli Rainey

Jennifer Fox

UC Davis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9afrkXmDMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6AdDLhPwpp4

"The individuals who linked arms and actively resisted, that in itself is an act of violence. I understand that many students may not think that, but linking arms in a human chain when ordered to step aside is not a nonviolent protest." -UC Berkley Police Capt. Margo Bennett, statement justifying the use of pepper spray on protesting students.

"Violence is an extreme form of aggression, such as assault, rape or murder." -Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology, American Psychological Association.

The mayor didn't want any media to record the event and tried to limit their access, but pictures and videos were taken despite the wishes of the mayor and police.
The NYPD raided Zuccotti Park at around 1:00AM. Police like to do that. Wait until the subject of their operations are asleep, or otherwise helpless, to increase the cardiac arrest factor a hundred fold before they come in to deliver hell.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters had been in the park for almost two months, and Mayor Bloomberg apparently had decided their first amendment rights had expired and it was time for them to go.
“New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself,” the mayor said. “What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that.” He said the protesters had taken over the park, “making it unavailable to anyone else.”
The mayor had taken it upon himself to determine what the OWS movement was doing in the park when the goals of the movement were consistently and intentionally ill defined to cover a broad spectrum of issues that face the country, and he was just dead wrong on his second point. Anyone could enter Zuccotti Park at anytime. The police were doing it everyday.
The mayor also cited unsanitary conditions and health issues as to why the park need to be evacuated. I hate to be the one to break it to the mayor but there are a lot of places in New York that aren't clean or safe. And these issues existed in Zuccotti because the city did not provide portable toilets or items that would have eased the discomfort of the protesters and assuaged those concerns for their health, as they do here in Los Angeles where it's civilized. Instead Bloomberg made the decision to make life for the Occupy movement as difficult as possible, having earlier removed generators that helped to keep the protesters warm in the upcoming winter.
Couldn't have that.
In the early hours of November 15th the police not only broke up the camp and evicted the movement, they destroyed their personal property as well, tearing apart and sawing through tent poles, ripping tarps, etc. When the park reopened later that day the NYPD made sure no one that came in would be staying there for very long.
Ironically Mayor Bloomberg's actions taking physical form through his NYPD, from pepper spraying helpless young women, to mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere, the general heavy handedness of the tactics used against the protesters there and around the country, and the final eviction itself, has galvanized the movement, its supporters in the United States and around the world, and strengthened its sense of purpose making it stronger, as evidenced during the November 17th "Day of Action," which sparked an round-the-clock series of activities, rallies, and protests throughout New York, including subways, public parks, major intersections, and... the Brooklyn Bridge (where a remarkable light show was provided to them from some enterprising members of the movement, on the blank face of the Verizon Building (pictures above)). Demonstrations took place not only in NYC, but throughout the country, marking the two month anniversary of the movement, including 500 demonstrators here in L.A. who disrupted morning traffic downtown as they marched through the Financial District where by coincidence the banks happen to be.
Between the day of the eviction on November 15th, and the "Day of Action," on the 17th, the following article appeared on the Common Dreams site, written by the author Ted Rall, entitled "Our F— You System of Government, Anti-Occupy Crackdowns Highlight Lack of Services." I happen to have a handy link to it right here:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/16-11
Some might say that Ted is being a tad cynical, and I say yes! Delightedly so. He is also being very truthful.
And I also love the little logo that runs with the article. I'll present it below and dedicate it to Mayor Michael Rubens Bloomberg.

But let's continue, shall we?
"What could be more central to Occupy’s guiding philosophy than the idea that the rule of law has been subverted by corporate interests? In collusion with government functionaries and beyond meaningful accountability from the public, these interests have created a separate realm of law for themselves — one that orients the financial and political systems in their favor, to the detriment of everyone else. If this is indeed true, and the law itself is marred by a systemic corruption, then law enforcement — manifested physically in the form of police officers — is an appropriate focus for a social movement seeking redress of grievances... It is not good that NYPD officers now live in a world where coherency of argument is no longer even an aspiration. Having spoken to over a hundred police officers throughout Occupy Wall Street, about 70 percent respond to queries by saying nothing at all, another 15 percent grunt or mutter something inaudible, 10 percent make some kind of dismissive remark, and the remaining 5 percent are willing to have a human conversation.
If this is the reality of police behavior at a political demonstration in downtown New York City, what has happened to the reality of policing? The NYPD, ostensibly tasked with maintaining public order, has proven that it cannot handle political dissent without exerting anything less than military-style force. For two months, it has continuously abridged the rights of citizens to peaceably assemble, and of journalists to document these assemblies. It has lost its claim to legitimacy." -Michael Tracey in Salon, Nov 18, 2011
I often wonder about the type of person, or personality, that seeks out a career in law enforcement. I see the program "Cops," and other shows like "Alaska State Troopers," and just before these individual officers get down to doing their police business, they usually talk about why they wanted to become police officers in the first place. They also usually cite a desire to help others as a main motivator. But I wonder.
The job pays well. At about $37 bucks an hour, plus liberal amounts of overtime... that's a real living wage... not enough by far for me to put my life on the line, but enough for others to maintain a more than comfortable lifestyle.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not what you would normally call a coward. But I value my life as it's most likely the only one I'm ever likely to have, and I don't intend to waste it in any high risk job, or unnecessary war dreamed up by old chicken hawk men in Washington D.C. And that's why you won't find me climbing any mountains, or entering a steeplechase soon.
Having said that we do need police because there are lots of bad guys out there that do need to be dealt with.
I think potential police officers are attracted to the job because they know they will gain a certain amount of power and authority over others. That's one possible motivating factor. Their authority to arrest is exceptionally intimidating. So is their power to kill, seemingly with impunity.
There are other motivating factors involved I'm sure, but one can't deny the above. And there are good and bad cops, as there are good and bad people in society (please excuse the simplicity of the terms "good" and "bad"). Some may indeed enter the force with the idea of helping others.
But others do not. The police who evicted the OWS protesters were following orders, not helping others who were merely exercising there legitimate right to protest given to them under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The cops who used excessive violence to harass the demonstrators were not "helping others." They were sadists abusing the authority given to them. There were police who actually enjoyed and joked about inflicting pain on these unarmed, fellow American citizens, some of these citizens veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, having fought for their country to return to it and be confronted with this assault on their fundamental rights, rights that they thought they had been fighting to uphold.
"Much of the problem is rooted in a rigid command-and-control hierarchy based on the military model. American police forces are beholden to archaic internal systems of authority whose rules emphasize bureaucratic regulations over conduct on the streets. An officer’s hair length, the shine on his shoes and the condition of his car are more important than whether he treats a burglary victim or a sex worker with dignity and respect. In the interest of “discipline,” too many police bosses treat their frontline officers as dependent children, which helps explain why many of them behave more like juvenile delinquents than mature, competent professionals. It also helps to explain why persistent, patterned misconduct, including racism, sexism, homophobia, brutality, perjury and corruption, do not go away, no matter how many blue-ribbon panels are commissioned or how much training is provided."-Norm Stamper, ex police chief Seattle Police Department
Speaking of Seattle, we've all seen the iconic picture of 84 year old Dorli Rainey by now, self described "political activist and all-around troublemaker," as she emerged from a crowd of protesters a week ago Tuesday in Seattle after being pepper sprayed in the face by police.
Good job SPD. I hope you're proud. But thanks for creating the circumstances for the creation of that photograph which paints an explicit picture of your, and by extension, the brutality of the nation's police.
Yesterday the story of Jennifer Fox came to the national forefront. A 19 year old pregnant homeless girl who had been staying in the Occupy Seattle camp simply because she didn't have anywhere else to go. As the police moved in on the protesters November 15th she cried out that she was pregnant. "I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out." Inexplicably one police officer kicked her in the stomach, and another hit in the same area with his bicycle, then pepper sprayed her for good measure. Fox claims that a few days later she became ill, and when checked by doctors she was told they could no longer hear her baby's heartbeat, at which point she miscarried. The baby she would have named "Miracle," was no more. Here's a video tape of her awaiting the ambulance November 15th.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3F1ItGFF9sQ
The story and video are chilling enough, but read down at the comments section dear readers, for some of the publics sociopathic responses. It makes me ashamed to be an American.
The police have gotten a whole slew of new toys to help control crowds provided to them with lots of money from the anti-terrorist efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, and manufactured by the defense industry. All supposedly non-lethal of course. From old fashioned baton beating, to rubber bullets, the famous pepper spray and mace (now in convenient fire extinguisher size), to tasers, sound cannons and heat rifles.
As the lovely Rachel Maddow suggested Monday night on her program, since police departments have all of these new "non-lethal" weapons, the very fact that they are supposedly non-lethal gives them the incentive to use them more, and thus the use of brute force in handling any given situation increases.
Unless of course they're being video taped while doing it.
Lately some police are caught in the act of using excessive force and are paying the price of public scrutiny, although not usually commensurate with the degree of offense, for example being placed on administrative leave for chemically attacking unarmed, peaceful individuals. If you or I were to spray paint someone with mace, tear gas, or pepper spray we'd most likely become intimately familiar with the inside of a jail cell.
By now we've also seen the November 18th video of campus police at UC Davis, here in California, calmly and methodically pepper spraying a group of students protesting tuition rates, sitting on the ground, arms linked. If you haven't seen it you need to get out from under that rock. Here it be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WmJmmnMkuEM
The next day UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said the decision to use pepper spray was made at the scene.
"The students had encircled the officers," she said. "They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out."
Really!? If that were true why were the police pepper spraying the students who were sitting rather than those who were supposedly surrounding them? Beats me. I bet you it beats you too, dear readers.
The police officer who used the pepper spray, a Lt. John Pike, Chief Spicuzza, and a few others involved in the incident have been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation.
Goooooood.
UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who authorized police action, has been asked to resign, which for now she refuses to do.
But I call for her resignation as well. Someone in this world must be held responsible for illegal and ill-moral actions, or you know what happens? These actions will undoubtedly be repeated because there will be no consequence for doing so.
That's the whole purpose of punishment isn't it? To discourage the repetition of the action that caused the initial punishment.
The National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee and the Partnership for Civil Justice filed requests the other day under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) asking the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and the National Parks Service to release "all their information on the planning of the coordinated law enforcement crackdown on Occupy protest encampments in multiple cities over the course of recent days and weeks."
According to a statement by the NLG, each of the FOIA requests states, "This request specifically encompasses disclosure of any documents or information pertaining to federal coordination of, or advice or consultation regarding, the police response to the Occupy movement, protests or encampments."
Those in the Federal government implicated in denying protesters their 1st Amendment rights, Mayor Bloomberg, Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle, the UC Davis Chancellor, and some others, all of them should resign as those who used or authorized unwarranted violent actions from the police they control, and they should be held accountable for their actions, and not just pass the buck to the civil judicial system where the tax payers ultimately pay the tab (these cases will undoubtedly wind up in civil court anyway, but the perpetrators should still be held responsible).
That's why everyone one who breaks the law should be held accountable, from the offices of CEO's on Wall Street who caused the financial crisis and who have not been brought to justice by the Obama Administration, to the administrations of past presidents of this country who authorized torture and caused unnecessary wars. If we do not, significant change we can believe in is unlikely to occur.
Although the attention span of Americans and the national media has shrunk to a little more than a couple of minutes in recent years, we need to keep in mind it took years for the civil rights movement to see results, for Gandhi to oust the British from India, for the Vietnam war to end after the American citizenry had had enough of the war mongers nonsense.
For the OWS movement to have a lasting affect, which is it's goal, it too will take a while.
So for the media, the Fox Propaganda Network, Republicans, police and their corporate masters, get used to it. Occupation Wall Street isn't going away anytime soon.
Not until you change. Not until the country is returned to the people.

http://www.alternet.org/story/153134/caught_on_camera%3A_10_shockingly_violent_police_assaults_on_occupy_protesters?akid=7874.204705.85C4ya&rd=1&t=8

http://www.care2.com/causes/retired-police-captain-calls-violent-cops-corporate-thugs-
video.html

And then there's this from our friend Naomi Wolf:
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/441-occupy/8561-how-to-get-the-cops-to-protect-you

NYPD... Wall Street's New Private Security Force

2011-11-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH_YbBHVF4g

Over the weekend I revisited one of my favorite films from the seventies. Francis Ford Coppola's Kafkaish homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film, "Blow Up" (Antonioni's first done entirely in English, and one of my favorite movies of the sixties), "The Conversation."
"The Conversation," stars Gene Hackman as surveillance expert Harry Caul, a 32 year old Harrison Ford fresh off his big break in "American Graffiti" (and who had an uncredited part in Antonioni's second feature done entirely in English, 1970's "Zabriskie Point), an uncredited Robert Duvall as the victim of a murder plot, and sweet, little, innocent Cindy Williams ("When the red red robin comes bob bob bobbin' along... along"), from "Laverne and Shirley" (and "American Graffiti" for that matter), fame, who turns out to be a desperate murderess (the flash back scene of her giving her husband (Duvall) a kiss then turning away as her lover shoves a plastic bag over his face from behind to suffocate him is quite chilling, and reminiscent of Coppola's Godfather movies (interestingly enough "The Godfather II" and "The Conversation" were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1974. "The Godfather II" won)).
The is an intense character study of Hackman's character, Harry Caul, a murder mystery switcheroo, and deals tangentially with the subject of surveillance, legal or illegal (the subject is considered more fully in what could be said the sequel to "The Conversation," 1998's "Enemy of the State," again starring Hackman, with Will Smith). Caul is hired by a private entity (Duvall) to record a conversation between two people in a public area, which he does successfully. It remains unclear to me why Caul was even needed to perform this act considering the amount of, and sophistication of the surveillance applied to Caul himself by the agents and inheritors of the said private entity after his death.
In any case I mention the above film because it does concern the issue of surveillance, which of course brings us to the New York Police Department's use of surveillance in dealing with the Occupy Wall Street Movement in Zuccotti Park before they were forcefully removed November 15th.
Articles such as these:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153073/%27go._leave._you_can%27t_be_here%27%3A_what_happened_when_i_tried_to_investigate_the_connection_between_the_nypd_and_brookfield_properties%2C_zuccotti%27s_owners/
and:
http://www.alternet.org/world/152954?page=1
And:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153160/nypd_snoop_declares_zuccotti_park_a_%E2%80%9Csoft_target%E2%80%9D_for_terrorists%3A_really__?akid=7881.204705.4Xmf1e&rd=1&t=9
by the journalist Nick Turse point out succinctly the amount of scrutiny the NYPD put upon the OWS movement. It implies police resources were devoted to the demonstrations to the point that other locations in New York City suffered from a lack of police presence, it also points out that though it was apparently alright for the police to surveil the peaceful protesters it was not okay for law abiding citizens to surveil the police.
Why?
The answer is someone was very frightened, and those who were frightened are the so-called 1 per-centers, the power elite, whose power structure appeared threatened by the application of human and civil rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States.
And who are these police working for anyhow? The citizens of New York City? Doesn't seem that way. The citizens of New York were the ones occupying Zuccotti Park, who again were legally pursuing their rights guaranteed to all of us (supposedly) in our Constitution. Are they working for Mayor Bloomberg? Nominally to be sure, so who is he working for? The citizens of New York City? Doesn't seem that way. The citizens of New York were the ones occupying Zuccotti Park! We must remember that billionaire Bloomberg is a product of Wall Street, the stated target of the occupiers.
So who are the police working for? It seems that a lot of them are working directly for Wall Street firms, as is suggested in the above articles.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/10/financial-giants-put-new-york-city-cops-on-their-payroll/
The tax paying public foots the bill for the training of new police officers, their upkeep, uniforms, weaponry, and are given the authority to act in the name of the city and state, for private interests, who use these officers as their own security forces against the very public who subsidize them. Speaking about Kafkaish! Even some in the police themselves understand the irony involved:
"When the program was first rolled out, one insightful member of the NYPD posted the following on a forum: '… regarding the officer working for, and being paid by, some of the richest people and organizations in the City, if not the world, enforcing the mandates of the private employer, and in effect, allowing the officer to become the Praetorian Guard of the elite of the City. And now corruption is no longer a problem. Who are they kidding?'"
In a display of Wall Street's immense arrogance, the New York Stock Exchange was sued in 2004 in the Supreme Court of New York County for illegally taking over public streets with no authority to do so.
Judge Walter Tolub said in his opinion that:
“…a private entity, the New York Stock Exchange, has assumed responsibility for the patrol and maintenance of truck blockades located at seven intersections surrounding the NYSE…no formal authority appears to have been given to the NYSE to maintain these blockades and/or conduct security searches at these checkpoints…the closure of these intersections by the NYSE is tantamount to a public nuisance…The NYSE has yet to provide this court with any evidence of an agreement giving them the authority to maintain the security perimeter and/or conduct the searches that their private security force conducts daily. As such, the NYSE’s actions are unlawful and may be enjoined as they violate plaintiff’s civil rights as a private citizen.”
The case was eventually dismissed on appeal as a higher court overturned Judge Tolub's ruling. It appears the higher a case is taken in the judicial system the more the judicial system sides with the power elite all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States (Citizens United being a prominent example).
What kind of society does this kind of situation indicate?
"From what I’ve seen, it’s a society in which a somewhat surly, armed man sitting 25 feet up in a little metal box spying on people, protected by a similarly armed, perhaps slightly confused, young man in a car, would be considered odd and unnecessary. The fact that New York City is now a place where you’re not supposed to notice such things, much less question them (and, if you do, you’re questioned for it), says a lot about where the United States is as a society and why, perhaps, there are hardy souls braving the cold in Zuccotti Park to build a new one," says Turse.
But the protesters are not in Zuccotti Park anymore. They've dispersed for the time being in New York after being forcefully evicted by Wall Street's minions, the NYPD.
Which brings us to the subject of tomorrow's post, the increasing militarization of the country's police departments, a militarization whose focus are those the police are sworn to protect.
Us. The 99%. The very 99% the police are themselves a part of.

To be continued.

Salvation Diary Fifty Five

2011-11-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

"My name is Rick, and I'm an alcoholic (Hi Rick!).
A counselor friend of mine who I work with told me that once I got up here I'd forget everything I had come to say. He said I'd be lucky to get out, 'Keep coming back!'
Now at least I've got that over with.
One year ago and a day I was a homeless person. I was broke and destitute. Dirty and smelly, with no clear idea of how to turn things around. I lived in Central Park, and I was drinking a fifth of Bacardi light every day. If you remember we were in a middle of a heat wave last September. My major activity during the day was to follow the sun, or rather, to keep under the shade as the sun passed overhead. In the morning I'd be on the west side of the Park drinking a cup of coffee, and by the late afternoon I'd be on the east side finishing off my bottle. Usually around ten or eleven in the morning, I'd make it to the Vons supermarket and shoplift the booze and a couple of packs of cigarettes. If I could I'd also get a book to read to help pass the time. I was reading Tom Clancy as I recall. And that was all I needed. I would spend the rest of the day trying to keep in the shade, drinking, smoking, and reading. I was very lonely because homeless people don't talk to each other very much. No one else will either. Those who do talk to you, you can't trust. I was also very scared.
I had lived there a little over a month when it came to me that I couldn't spend my life doing this sort of thing... I didn't see much of a future in it. So I went to the Salvation Army.
During my first week there I came to realize I could never, under any circumstances, safely take another drink for the rest of my life. If I did, I would surely wind up back in the Park, sicker than I was before.
Having come to that realization, I set about doing everything I could to arm myself against taking that first drink. I attended the lectures the Sally provided, the meetings and panels from H&I. I talked to counselors, mine and others, who may have had something I could learn. I went to outside A.A. meetings, probably not as many as I could of, but I'm not perfect and don't pretend to be. I wrote an account of everyday I stayed sober. And I read books about our disease of alcoholism and chemical dependency, and of recovery. A lot of books.
And I went to work. The second day I was in the Salvation Army I was put on the front desk in the residence, and I've stayed there to this day. From that location I could view the program from a unique perspective; the client's view of what was happening-- of what it was like to go through a program, working all day, and attending mandatory meetings at night, the fatigue, the anxiety, the pain, and the hope. I could see the program from the staff's point of view, the economic necessity, the business that as a by product helps to create new lives, and can also destroy them, the illusion of substance, the politics, the meager power plays, the egocentricities. I looked at all of this stuff, and said, "So what? We're all human. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody has victories." What it came down to was we were there to help each other stay sober.
At my position on the desk I saw all the successes and all the failures. Too little success and far too much failure. But that is part of the nature of our disease and of recovery. For a lot of us repeated relapse is required before we come to the point where we just can't take the misery, and a significant period of abstinence is our only viable option. And after we're abstinent for a while, sobered up for a while, hopefully we can begin to learn that it's not enough. That not drinking is only the first part of the answer. That we have to reeducate ourselves and learn how to live and feel, because we don't know anything about that when we first stop drinking. We may think we do, but we don't.
And that is what I've tried to do. Find out for the first time how to live and feel. Some would say to grow up. And I'm still very much learning... as we all are. I can now say that I know that it is possible to live and have fun without drinking and using drugs. To live a life that has meaning. To do anything I set my sights on, achieve any goal. All I have to do is not drink.
My job has helped me to stay sober. Writing has been therapeutic and has helped me stay sober. Counselors or sponsors have helped me to stay sober. The program, and you people have helped me to stay sober. And those that have failed, that couldn't make it this time around and relapsed, those that I've had to dismiss from the residence I work in, have all helped me to stay sober.
Many things have helped.
And life is wonderful today. I try not to create too many problems for myself. This may seem kind of boring to some, and maybe it is, but right now that's just the way it needs to be. If problems equate to excitement, then my life has already been exciting enough.
One of the many benefits that we find in recovery is that we can meet a lot of people and make new friends. Many of my friends are here tonight. Friends that I hope to keep for a long time. We brought over a van full of guys from the center, a few of them expressed a desire to see me get this cake. To see that it really can happen. In their lives as well as mine.
Thank you for coming gentleman.
My friends Ron Collins and Ron Cooper are here. R and R. My good friend Tom Rotsch, my good friend Hugh Hogle. My friends Scott Cremer and Richard Reyes. My counselor friends Barbara and Cathy. Thank you so much for being here. I can't tell you how much it means to me. Cathy, although not my own counselor, nevertheless, has taught me so much about myself, about other people, and of life, all in a very short time.
Thank you. I will never forget and will always be grateful.
I feel as though I had just won an Academy Award.
There are two people who are not here that I must mention. Mr. Robert Vasquez, my boss, my mentor, and good friend. From his example I have learned a great deal. How to cope, and how to act, and how to live life on life's terms with clarity and purpose, and how to have fun while doing it. Important lessons indeed.
And Ms Bobbie Yenour. My friend for as long as I can remember. My childhood guardian. My big sister, my aunt, my cousin, or whatever. A very close friend of the family. She, along with my new friend Jeanette, stuck with my through some difficult times I had during earlier attempts at recovery. Bobbie, after I had failed again, first got into contact with an officer of the Salvation Army, who subsequently called me while I was in a lonely, little motel room in Bullhead City, Arizona, which led the way for my introduction into that organization.
To both of these people I owe a great deal.
Two very special ladies are here. Hi Jeanette. This little lady walked into my hospital room when I was in detox. I looked like hell, with tubes and things running into my arms. I had never seen her before and didn't know who she was. She said, "Hi! My name's Jeanette, and I'm a friend of your mothers!" She would continue to visit me through that twenty eight day program, making sure I had toiletries and cigarettes. She even paid my rent one time, so I could have to have a place to go to safely relapse, because unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. And Jeanette saw that too. Along with Bobbie. I imagine it was quite horrible to witness. She would soon start to do what my mother had learned to do through Al-Alon. To let me wallow in my pain and degradation.
Dear Jeanette, I'm so glad you are here tonight. You have seen me at my worst, and tonight at my best. Everything that has happened to us before was necessary to get us where we are now. Tonight is a form of amends that I can make to you. To show you that you did not waste your time, and to prove to myself that I am worthwhile.
And the greatest amends that I can make tonight is to the person I've hurt the most. My mother. She has driven here from Bullhead City to be with us. She came to give me my cake. On October 31st, 1955, Halloween, she brought into her home a four day old alcoholic baby (adoption is so much worse than marriage; you can't divorce your kid). She has suffered much because of me. I'm not saying it was all my fault, I can't take credit for that, but a large part of it was. I didn't wake up one morning thinking it would be fun to become an alcoholic and make my mother's life miserable. I can accept blame for not understanding that help was available when it was offered, even when it is within the nature of the disease to resist treatment. I accept full responsibility after understanding the liklihood of my being an alcoholic and what the consequences of that condition were, and my repeated refusal to do anything about it, thereby continuing to hurt many people for a long period of time.
For that, and for many other things, mother, I am truly sorry. I love you, and I never maliciously tried to hurt you, but I have done so sometimes out of ignorance and compulsion. I'm afraid I was very cruel.
I could pay you back the money I owe you. Indeed, I must attempt to do so as part of my recovery program. But that will mean little to you. So I make this amends, my mother; to tell you again I am truly sorry for the pain and misery I have caused to be yours. The countless nights you have lost sleep worrying about me. For the heartaches and frustration, for the crushed dreams, for the hopelessness. For this I apologize. And I give you this year. The year in which your son has finally grown. This year far exceeds any other attempt to effectively deal with my disease. This year much has happened and much has been gained, but it's only a start. Just as each morning is a start of a new day, the fight continues. Fortunately for the winner the prize is great. I have now begun to live mom. To have a life. And that, I know, is what you always wanted for me, that would ease your mind the most. This is my amends to you.
Thanks for being you and sticking with me.
Life is wonderful and exciting. It can also be a miserable bitch. The choice is ours.
I opt for the wonderful exciting part. I've had my share of the other.
And now that I've got my one full year of sobriety, now that I know there is life without alcohol and drugs, now that I can finally take the responsibility to add meaning to my existence... where will I go now?
I'M GOING TO..." On and on.
That's what I felt like saying, and that's what I really meant.
But time did not permit.
The meeting's speaker was a lady from Palm Springs, and I'm sure she was a very good speaker, and had lots of interesting things to say, but I must admit I had trouble listening to her. I was feeling so good that my mind was in a jumble. Folks sitting nearby congratulated me and shook my hand. A slice of birthday cake suddenly appeared over my right shoulder and I grabbed it and took a cursory bite or two. Soon the meeting ended, and "A Vision for You," was recited.
As one everyone stood, arranging themselves in a circle while holding hands (Cathy on one side of me, my mom on the other), then spoke the words of the Lord's Prayer.
Then the meeting was done.
As we made our way outside, Cathy rushed over to Ron Collins who was still trying to avoid her. They chatted for a while, shook hands, then she returned to me. In the parking lot my mother, Jeanette, Cathy and I talked. My mom and Jeanette were thoroughly impressed with this talkative young lady. She soon dismissed herself, saying she would be running a half marathon tomorrow morning in San Pedro, and needed to get to bed.
Jeanette drove us back to the residence. Ron said goodbye to her and my mother. I said goodbye. At the last moment my mom wanted to take my picture (moms are like that sometimes). She took it, than as she was about to get back into the car she looked at me and said, "Do you know what happened on this night twenty four years ago?"
I had no idea and told her so.
"Your father passed away."
I had forgotten on what day of the year he had died. My mother's own father passed away almost one year to the day before my father did.
Too much death for us poor humans to bare.
My mom and I hugged and kissed and said we loved each other. Then she got into the car.
Jeanette started to back out of the parking lot. She stopped, rolled down her window and motioned for me to come near.
"Is Cathy your girlfriend?" she asked.
Women are so nosy and sex crazy. That's all they ever think about.
"Well..." I answered.
"Well, she's a girl, and she's your friend, right?"
"Yeah. Exactly."
"She's wonderful."
I agreed with her. Cathy is a wonderful girl, and I wish only good things for her.
Cathy and I would never go out again. We would hardly ever speak. It seemed to be the way she wanted it. When we did bump into each other we would smile and say hello, then quickly go about our business.
I survived. As a matter of fact I flourished.
Jeanette backed her car into our parking lot curb planter.
"Watch out for that curb there, Jeanette."
"Now you tell me."
Then they were gone.
Almost immediately Robert "Hang'em High" Vasquez drove up in Red Shield 4.
"Joyce!" he yelled through the cab window. The men who had been at the meeting piled out. "Just the man I wanted to see. You always seem to be at the right place at the right time. It's positively uncanny! Is your mother still here?"
"No sir. She just left."
"Good. make my rounds for me please. I have to pick up Montgomery from County Hospital."
"All right."
"I'll be back," then he too was gone.
I walked into the residence and went through the place, making sure everything was safe and secure. I noticed that the kitchen was open and asked Columbus Davis, the duty desk man, about it. He directed me to Keith Davis in the canteen.
I walked in there and saw a bunch of guys standing around one of the tables. Keith Davis, the new cook, had made a birthday cake in my honor. It was a rather large pan cake that had been turned upside down for some reason. Icing on the bottom. The men gave a weak chorus of the "Happy Birthday" song, then I sliced the cake and everyone enjoyed a piece. It was lemon and yummy.
After a while I went up to my lonely room and got lonely. I was also suffering from a mild adrenaline rush. I looked at the present my mom and Cathy had given to me. I opened up the book of nighttime meditations and sought out the day's entry. This is what was written there, by Amy E. Dean:
The cure for grief is motion
-Elbert Hubbard

Anniversaries of death, separation, and losses are difficult times. We can be feeling fine one month and then suddenly feel tremendous sadness, pain, and anger during the next. A quick look at our calendars may reveal a reason for our feelings, for we may have experienced something particularly trying at the time.
It's okay to relive an event and our feelings about it, as long as we don't wallow in the past or try to use the event as a reason for all our present difficulties. Grieving is a process that can proceed only when we are in motion.
How do we get in motion? We can imagine we are sitting in a small room of horrible-smelling cigar smoke. We can sit there and feel uncomfortable or even nauseous, or we can leave the room. That's how we get in motion- by simply getting up and moving.
Tonight I can move out of my chair of painful memories. I can think of ways to get in motion and cure these sad feelings. Then I can relax and have a peaceful night's sleep.

I thought about my dad a few moments, then got up and left the residence.
I walked through the park, up to Colorado Blvd., and lost myself in the sights and sounds, the hustle and bustle of the people of the street. I would meet a couple who had attended tonight's meeting. They recognized me and asked me when I would go to Disneyland. I told them I didn't quite know. In a week or so maybe.
Eventually I would return to the residence, go to my room and have a peaceful night's sleep. In the morning I would start a new day.
But before I entered into blissful sleep, I will peek out under the covers and let my dear readers know that we have successfully reached the end of this tale. For now at least. Perhaps I'll write and we'll meet again. I hope to continue to like myself, and hope to love myself (whatever that means) and keep on doing good things for me. I will go to school and learn unfamiliar things. I will also learn from the people I meet. I will try to help other alcoholics and drug addicted people. I will stay alone for a while, but at last find a nice girl and have a wonderful life with her for a time. A life filled with meaning.
It's very simple.
All I have to do is not drink.
And you, dear readers? Thank you for your patience and hardy endurance. I will think of you often.
And always... wish you well.

The End

Richard Joyce

Salvation Diary Fifty Four

2011-11-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

September 13, 1991 Friday Day 367

Another donut run this morning. I was up at 4:30 and ready to go by 5:00. This time I was navigating for our newest duty driver, Vernon Gearring. As we traveled through the early morning inky blackness, Vernon told me how he'd gotten to the A.R.C. Another story of drug addiction crushing a promising career opportunity in sports. The Denver Broncos had been interested, but... shit happens.
I switched shifts with Robert today so I could have the night off. Tonight I would receive my cake for one year of sobriety.
The day shift went remarkably well. Not much for me to do, and no supervisors to deal with. With Major Johnson on vacation, Ed Reitz, Clarence Orion, and Ernie Sens were rather difficult to locate, even when there was reason to look for them.
So I wrote all morning, taking breaks anytime some problem came up or needed attending to.
After work I went to my lonely room and relaxed for an hour or so. I was a little tired from getting up early for the last four days, and staying up late at night. Things like that tend to tire me. When I got up and started moving around again I felt fine, like I'd slept for six hours. Bright, refreshed and sassy.
While taking a nice shower, I practiced the speech I would make later in the evening after I took my cake. I had known basically what it was I was going to say for about two weeks now, and I had been delicately refining and editing it for that period of time. Tonight was show time though, the real thing, opening night, and I didn't want to get nervous at the podium and fall flat on my face. Not with my mom there (she had driven in from Bullhead yesterday, and was staying at Jeanette's house in Van Nuys), not with Cathy there, and not with the guys from the residence there. So what I wound up doing was put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself, because none of those people would mind or wouldn't understand if all I managed to get out was, "My name is Rick, and I'm an alcoholic," and walked back to my seat. But I had more to say than that and I wanted to say it right, so I ran through the short speech twice while in the shower, and once while dressing. By the time I got my clothes on I had it down pretty good. I realized it would be quite harder doing it in a room filled with real people rather than alone in my room, but I'd done all that I could to prepare, and left it at that.
I walked out front, onto the parking lot they have out there, and smoked a cigarette... I don't know why. I looked around, but no one was doing anything of interest. I felt a little awkward because it suddenly seemed that my new shirt was too big for me, but nobody else noticed and I soon forgot about it.
Close to 6:00 now, I went to the basement, to the video game area, and sat in an empty chair right behind Marvin Smith and Roger Collins, who were busy using the two television sets. Roger was playing "Starfinder," and Marvin was watching "Highway to Heaven." I didn't say anything to them, I just sat there, watching the backs of the two men, and smiled benignly whenever they looked back over their shoulders to see what I was up to. They were trying to figure out why I was sitting there, why I wasn't saying anything, and why I kept smiling at them every time they looked at me. Their degree of tension mounted steadily. I was playing a game with them though they did not know it. One thing that was in my favor was that all three of us knew that for as long as I sat there no unauthorized cigarettes could be smoked because the assistant manager was right behind them watching their every move. I knew that they had been smoking down here. The little six once styrofoam cup half filled with water that they had been using as an ash tray was in plain sight.
They knew that I knew.
I was slowly driving them insane.
My strategy soon paid off. Roger was the first to crack. Turning off his Nentendo game and clutching his walking stick, he meandered off toward the rear of the bowling alley. By the time he was ten feet away, I jumped into his vacant seat and smiled more broadly at Marvin, unnerving him. Marvin, correctly figuring I wasn't going anywhere soon, made his exit moments later.
I am now used to this insociable reaction to my presence, to this form of ostracism. It no longer bothers me. Smiles disappear as I walk down crowded hallways, and conversations dim until I have safely moved past. It's no big thing anymore. Besides, this influence I have over others has helped me, as it was now when I needed as little distraction as possible.
I took a few minutes to find the video chess cartridge. It was hidden away in a drawer and looked as if no one had used it for awhile. I popped it into the video game machine, turned on the T.V., and was set to do battle.
If this were a work of fiction I'd be tempted to write that I beat this infernal machine just to keep things up beat. I will honestly report, however, that I gave the device a good game, one move away from checkmating my opponent for half the duration, until at the end, it defeated me soundly.
The pox on it!
After cursing vigorously, I got out of my chair and walked to the atrium. I stood by Noah's empty cage for a minute or two, then returned upstairs.
I was hungry by now. I had a cheeseburger with an egg at the canteen. I was splurging. I sat next to Ron Collins (who was eating a burger of his own, although eggless) and Gilbert Salinas. Ron would be coming with me to tonight's meeting. He would freeload a ride with my mother, myself, and Jeanette. He would see Cathy there, whom he had been trying to avoid. Cathy would confront him and chastise him with much enthusiasm, due to his attempts to avoid her (it never pays to avoid women). They would part with a hug.
I was in the lobby at 7:20, when my mom and Jeanette came walking in the front door. I greeted them and gave each a hug. They had presents for me. I like presents. My mom gave me a video tape she had made from whatever old home movies she could come across. I assumed I was in there somewhere as a small child. I was an alcoholic even then, but didn't know it. It would be a big surprise for me.
My mom also gave me a present from my sister. A calendar for 1992. One of those little square jobs with a different sheet of paper for each day of the year. After the day was over, or just before you went to bed (which ever came first), you were supposed to tear off the top sheet and the next day's piece of paper would be all ready for the next day. On this particular calendar, each sheet of paper representing one of the 365 days of the year, had a word printed on it, with that words spelling, pronunciation, definition, and an example of use in a sentence. This type of calender was supposed to help one with their vocabulary, which is important for people interested in writing things... like me. How thoughtful of my sister, and the good folks at Webster, the dictionary people, who made the calender in the first place.
My sister also sent a letter letting me know how proud she was of me.
Jeanette gave me a book. "Even Eagles Need a Push," by David McNally. This is what was written on the inside jacket:

This book is about success, your happiness, your work, and your dreams.

It is about your power to create what you want for your life.

It is about discovering a true sense of purpose, the contribution that only you can bring to the world.

It is about integrity, dignity, and the value of being true to yourself.

It is about courage, determination, and commitment.

It is about love and appreciation.

Who wants to read about crap like that? No, no, no, just kidding.
It was a very appropriate gift to give to an alcoholic person celebrating staying sober for an entire year. I'm looking forward to reading it.
After putting my gifts in my room, we collected Ron Collins and proceeded to the St. James Church in South Pasadena in Jeanette's car.
We arrived about fifty five minutes early. Barbara Grothe and her husband were already there. We sat next to them. Whenever we decided to get up and move around we would use sobriety chips (30 day, 60 day, 90 day, 6 months, and beginners chip) to mark our seats.
The church was fairly empty when we first got there, but soon filled, and would eventually get to be a standing room only crowd of anywhere from 100 to 150 sober alcoholics. Except for my mom, Barbara and her husband, and Jeanette, who (as far as I know) are not of the alcoholic persuasion.
Besides Ron Collins, some other of my friends came as well. Ron Cooper, John Jimenez, Hugh Hogle, and Tom Rotsch. Even Joe Leberthon was there, the slug. Robert dropped off a van full of guys from the residence, although he himself did not stay. At 8:20 I walked out to the parking lot to see if anybody else I knew had shown up, and to smoke a cigarette. Cathy came out of nowhere, smiling at me, and looking beautiful in s sleek black pants outfit. We hugged each other and I would get a couple of kisses before the night was finished.
I took her inside and showed her where we were sitting, and introduced her to my mom and Jeanette. We then went out to talk to her before the meeting began. She had a gift for me too. A Hazelden meditation book, entitled, "Night Light," which offered a different thought or idea to meditate upon each day of the year. It was very nice.
She's still having problems with her cats, but her car seems to be fixed now. Tomorrow, her day off, she will wake at five and drive to San Pedro (the "Pearl of the Pacific") and run in a half marathon. I told her she was half crazy. She agreed.
All too soon it was time to go in. Cathy and I took our seats. Cathy to my left, my mother on my right. What a nice seat I had, right between my two favorite ladies.
The meeting was called to order. Steve, the meeting's secretary, greeted everyone there, and the show started. Robin read the opening prayer, Todd, a portion of chapter 5 from the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," and Gary the Twelve Traditions.
When they finished Steve returned to the microphone and said, "It is our custom to celebrate birthdays at this meeting, and for every three hundred and sixty five days of consecutive sobriety a birthday cake is given. If you wish to take a cake, please see me at the beginning of the meeting. We also give out medallions with your name and the date of you last drink engraved on them." He held up a plastic bag of unclaimed medallions to prove that this was true. "The medallions will be ready to pick up one week after you take your cake. We ask that those celebrating their birthday to please make their comments brief, due to the number of cakes being given out tonight."
I looked at Cathy and said, "There goes half of my speech."
"Our first birthday tonight," Steve continued, "is for one year. The date of this gentleman's last drink was September eleventh, nineteen ninety. It is for Ray D., and Ed will give him his cake."
At once the room was filled with applause. A bikerish looking young man, wearing black leather pants and vest came to the podium, followed by an older fellow (Ed presumably), conservatively dressed, with thin and graying hair. A lady seated the right of the podium lit the single candle atop a large formidable looking and colorfully decorated birthday cake, and handed it to the older man, who in turn presented it to Ray. Ed held it until Ray blew out the candle, and then set it down on the table in front of the cake lady, who would prepare it for the next cake taker.
This is what Ray had to say:
"My name is Ray, and I'm an alcoholic."
Everyone in the room said, "Hi Ray."
"It feels great to make one year. I'm here. I'm fine. He shrugged, "Thanks a lot."
Simple and to the point.
Then he sat down while everybody clapped.
Steve got back up. "Our next birthday is also for one year. The date of this gentleman's last drink was September twelfth, nineteen ninety...." I nudged my mom and said, "That's us." She was a little nervous too.
Steve continued, "It is for Rick J., and his cake will be given to him by his mom, Susie."
Everyone clapped as my mother and I threaded our way up to the podium. The cake lady lit the candle and passed the cake to my mom, who held it up to me. With some difficulty I managed to blow the damn thing out, and everyone applauded again. My mother set the cake down and moved to the side. I moved up to the microphone and bent forward to speak.
This is what I said:
"My name is Rick, and I'm an alcoholic." It was good that I had the presence of mind to remember to say this. Us alcoholics when addressing the audience at A.A. meetings are heckled mercilessly if we forget to.
I looked out at the crowd. "There's so many peeeoople here! There's not this many people here on Tuesday nights." the group responded to my meek tone with a good laugh, as I had hoped. I felt more at ease and continued.
"One year ago I was a homeless person, destitute, dirty, with nowhere to go and not knowing what to do. I then entered the Pasadena Salvation Army's Adult Rehabilitation Center. Like a typical alcoholic... I've now taken over the place..." another laugh, "and am employed by the Army as an assistant Residence Manager."
"I have a lot of friends here tonight. A lot of guys from the center. I didn't have any friends a year ago. Today I hope to have friends and to keep them because we can do that in recovery... have lasting friendships."
I looked at my mother. "And mom, this night is for you as much as it is for me, for this is the only kind of amends that I can make to you that has any real meaning, to help make up for all of the crap I've put you through. Thank you for being here."
"Thank all of you for being here," addressing the audience again. "And now that I've got my year... I'm going to Disneyland!" This got the biggest laugh (what a ham). My mother and I made our way back to our seats. Cathy gave me a big hug.
Two other people, a woman with seven years, and a man with seventeen (show offs), also took their cakes. I tried to listen to what they said, but I was too busy reveling in the afterglow of my achievement, and the relaxed feeling that came upon me now that my part in the proceedings were finished.
Most of those there told me they liked what I had to say. People I knew, and some I didn't, told me this on that evening, and for a couple of days to come.
The following is what I would have liked to have said, given the time. This is what I practiced in the shower:
"My name is Rick, and I'm an alcoholic..."

To be continued:

Salvation Diary Fifty Three

2011-11-01T15:21:00.001-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

September 10 Tuesday Day 364

Russell "Hoops" Burke is back! My spiritual guru. The first thing he said to me was, "Hi! Hello. How ya doing?"
Russell had been in New York visiting his Father "Hoops Sr.", and stepmother. His father is very ill.
"My dad has about a week to live," Russell told me. "I left before the funeral. Naw, I didn't want to stay for that. My step mom, she wanted me to stay, but I didn't wanta. She understood though."
Russell has his old job back in the residence... mainly due to Ernie Sens not wanting him in the warehouse.
"He'll wander off and fall into the compactor," Ernie says.
After having greeted Russell I spent most of the morning taking care of normal business; writing, and studying from the "American Red Cross Standard First Aid" book.
After Robert left for the weekly gratuity board meeting, I changed clothes and worked out in the basement, then showered, dressed in some nice street clothes and was back at the desk by the time he got back at 2:30.
I hung around the desk talking to Robert until it was time for me to go to school.
This would be the first time I have attended a college class in over fifteen years.
It all went rather well actually.
There were mostly young people in the class, of course, but I did not feel particularly out of place. Emotionally we were all about the same age.
The teacher, a man maybe a little older than I am, took roll, then asked how many present were not registered for the class. About half the room raised their hands. He asked if those individuals who had just finished raising their hands would go out into the hall with him so they could discuss their future. He was merciless. Only two out of the twenty or so that had left with him returned to audit and participate in the class.
Our assignment for the day was to compose a five paragraph essay; consisting of an introductory paragraph, three sustaining paragraphs, and a closing paragraph. We were to fill in this sentence, "I believe _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, is the biggest problem facing America today." Then continue the essay.
It was hard. When you haven't been to school in fifteen years you kind of get rusty thinking up whole paragraphs and all.
I endured and wrote about the American drug policies.
After I turned in my paper I began the real hard part of my school day... battling the mob at the book store. I was lucky to get out of there in one piece.
For two paperback books, "The Bedford Handbook for Writers," by Diana hacker, and "The Dolphin Reader," an anthology compiled by Douglas Hunt, which probably could be found in any retail book store for $9 apiece, cost me over $45, so I was both roughed up by the crowd and skinned by the cashier.
I got back to the residence earlier than I had expected due to the short duration of my first class. Jill was still there and waiting for me. Well, not actually waiting for me, but she was still there, as beautiful as ever. I told her that I was now a student. She said, "Congratulations," and then began talking to someone else. I feel that if I were to tell Jill that I had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, she'd say, "Very good, Richard... Jack would you see if Miguel Wisenthorpe is ready for counseling."
I went to the canteen and had a piece of leftover pizza.
Always a glutton for punishment, I would talk to Jill again later. I would say this to her, "Thank you Jill. Friday night I will receive my cake for staying sober for an entire year, and I hold you, and your timely group counseling sessions directly responsible."
This got me a great big gorgeous smile, and a "Thank you, Richard. Maybe you could advertise for me."
At 8:00, about ten of us piled into Red Shield 4 and drove into South Pasadena to the St. James Church. This was the old A.A. speaker meeting I used to attend on occasions, six or seven months ago. I went there tonight because I had been told last Friday that I must arrange my birthday cake for next Friday at this meeting. When I found the cake person for this Tuesday night meeting, he told me that what I had been told was a bunch of hoowie, and that all I had to do was tell the Friday night cake person before the meeting started that I would be taking a cake that night.
Smells like a classic runaround to me.
I'm not going to worry about it. Whatever happens happens.
I stayed for the meeting even though I was awfully tired. And like most times when I don't feel like staying at a meeting I find that I'm really glad that I did.
A lady who had eight years sobriety was the five minute speaker. She began to cry as soon as she reached the podium. She kept saying over and over what a rough time she was having and how this was the only place she had to go to.
My heart went out to her of course. This was just another example of how life's problems still exist even after we stop drinking and using drugs.
She will pull through.
I will pull through any problems I come to face... and life will go on.

September 11 Wednesday Day 365

Cathy gave me a call near 8:00 this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. However, the reason she called was not so pleasant.
She told me she would not be able to come in tonight. Her sick car had finally died on her. Her ex-brother-in-law would be able to fix it after she got off work, so she would not be in.
Also her cats are trying to kill each other once again. This is causing her to lose sleep, so she's having a pretty hard time of it right now.
Robert, sensing that this was the only time I'd have to talk to Cathy this week, promptly walked into the office where I was speaking to her and demanded attention. Today was one of his days off. Robert usually spends a total of five minutes in the office on his days off. Five minutes in forty eight hours. It is a tribute to Robert Vasquez that he would pick the only five minutes that I am likely to be in a private telephone conversation within those forty eight hours to come in and ruin it. The man is uncanny.
Uncanny.
By the time Robert, with some sprinkling of mercy, departed , and I got back to Cathy, she said, "Well, I have to go now. I do want to be there when you take your cake. Try and save me a seat. Bye." Click.
I did tell her that I would miss her tonight. She didn't respond.
Oh, I don't know. Every time I think about her now, I get tired.
I spent most of the morning writing. Near 1:00 I went upstairs to my room and changed into my swim trunks. On my way to the basement the elevator stopped at the first floor and Roger Shriver, one of our janitors, and Kevin Rockoff entered. I felt a little silly standing there in nothing but my trunks. Neither of them made any comments though. Instead, Kevin looked at me and calmly told me that our V.C.R. had been stolen again.
"What?!"
"It's missing. And Gene Mance had Schimmele watch the desk for him while he took off carrying a big box."
This is the story. Mance, my daytime desk man, asked Jerry to sit at the desk for him (not an uncommon practice), while unbeknownst to Jerry, he used the V.C.R. key to unlock the V.C.R. box protecting the V.C.R. from theft, and disconnected it from the wall plug and T.V. Curtis Carter walked in on him while he was doing this, but didn't think anything of it, Mance being a desk man and all, a position of some authority and responsibility. Curtis had been looking for me, and continued his search. Meanwhile, Mance locked the box back up, returned the key, then went to the kitchen and and asked our newest cook, Keith Davis, if there were any boxes around. Keith told him to look outside in the alley, which Mance did. He found a suitable container, went back to the T.V. room, slid the V.C.R. out from the back of the wooden box, placed it in the box he had found in the alley, found a pillow and placed that on top of the box with the V.C.R. in it, took it and walked right past a smiling and affable Schimmele, out of the residence, disappearing down Fair Oaks Blvd.
Curtis saw him leave, and thinking something may be up he checked the V.C.R. box and found it empty.
When I returned to the desk (after putting my clothes back on) I checked out the situation (Schimmele was sitting in a daze, muttering, "I let him walk right past me... I let him walk right past me") and tried to call my supervisor, Dr. Ed Reitz. Ed wasn't around, so I left word to have him call me as soon as he returned. I called Ernie Sens and told him what happened, and that we'd need a new V.C.R. and desk man. After he finished chuckling he let me know that shouldn't be a problem.
Soon Ed called, and I told him what happened. He instructed me to call the police and file a report. I called the police and they said they would send someone over. Kevin and I checked Mance's locker. It was packed full.
The whole thing didn't make much sense. Mance's clothes alone seemed to be worth more than what he would get for the V.C.R. Nothing else made any sense either. This guy didn't seem to care at all about covering his tracks, and was seen fooling around with the stolen item just before it was stolen. He left his work station one hour before his shift was due to end, walking casually down the street in full view of at least a dozen Salvation Army personnel while carrying a suspicious looking large box with a pillow on top!
The police came. The same cop who was here when Noah was stolen. We told him what happened and showed him Mance's picture from our files. The policeman took some notes and left.
Nothing more to do about it. Ken Hockett had expressed a desire to come to the desk and seemed like a good candidate. I asked Ernie about it, and he agreed. End of case.
I read from the "Writer's Handbook" in the afternoon, and got things ready for chapel.
At chapel, I was to read the responsive scripture. I had practiced the section earlier and was having a bit of trouble pronouncing the word "propitiation." A ridicules word. For the first time I sat with Clarence Orion, Ed Reitz, Frank Corona, and Ron Collins, behind the podium facing the congregation.
I felt kinda silly up there.
I managed the responsive reading quite well, and after the service I set up the chapel's anti-room for Barbara's new Wednesday night relapse prevention workshop. Then I went downstairs to my semi private bathroom and smoked an unauthorized cigarette (I started smoking again at about eight o'clock last night).
As I entered the elevator to return to the desk my name was called over the loud speaker.
"Richard Joyce to the front desk immediately! Richard Joyce to the front desk immediately!" is what it said.
As the elevator door opened I saw Mr. Mance standing by the desk, still donned in his dress white shirt and black trousers (desk apparel). His tie was undone. I approached the desk wearing a bland expression, and Rockoff explained that Gene had come for his personal possessions.
"Okay," I said. "I'll go get them."
I took the elevator to the basement. In the baggage room I placed Gene's clothes into a wheeled bin, but hesitated before bringing them up. Ed Reitz had disappeared somewhere in his van right after chapel, but was expected back within twenty minutes. I returned to the desk, found Mance outside smoking a cigarette with the man who had driven him here, and told him he'd have to wait until Ed got back before I could release his belongings. I walked away before he could say anything. I didn't feel like listening to any of his bullshit and arguing with him. Gene is an older black man with an ugly temperament (he'd been forced on us at the desk by the "Powers That Be and Don't Know Any Better"). I'd seen him go off on Columbus Davis a week ago for no reason, and just didn't want to deal with any violent crap. Not if I could help it.
I went to my office and debated whether or not to call the police again. Gene made up my mind for me by coming in and saying, "I don't know what all this waiting's about, Rick, but I gotta ride, and he's gotta... oh, here's Ed now." He'd seen Ed drive up through my office window. Mance went out to meet him.
I was thinking to myself that this guy must either have a tremendous amount of nerve to come back here and demand his clothes when he and I both knew he ripped off the V.C.R., or was just immensely stupid, severely demon possessed, desperate, or all of the above. Any of which could also make him dangerous.
I called the police. They told me someone would be out right away. Mance was looking at me through the window as I talked to them. He didn't look too happy.
He came back to my office with Ed. Ed said, "This man wants to pick up his clothes. Do we have them?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Okay," Ed said. "Give them to him."
"Alright."
As I passed Gene he asked me who had packed his stuff. I told him Rockoff had. Gene seemed satisfied (everyone trusts Rockoff for some reason, probably that baby face of his, and that genuine niceness I've mentioned. Interestingly enough, Kevin's ex wife called his fiance today, all the way from New York. She was trying to cause a little trouble. She told Rockoff's new love that she (his ex) was currently pregnant with Kevin's baby, which was a rather peculiar thing for her to say considering Kevin's been right here with me for at least the last eleven months), but still grumbled, "Everything better be there too."
I went back to the basement. Ed followed me a minute later and I told him I had called the police. He approved, then left. I waited ten minutes, then took Mance's stuff up to the lobby.
The police were there. Ed, Mance, and a lovely short policewoman were just going into a counseling room as I wheeled up with the clothes.
"So all my stuff is here?" Mance asked. I nodded yes.
While the situation was being discussed in the counseling room, Gene's friend took his clothes and put them in his car. After he finished, and much to my horror, he drove off! I immediately worried about the center's legal position, and Mance's reaction when he found out I had let someone else take his clothes without his permission. I did not believe the police could arrest Gene without catching him in possession of the stolen V.C.R., and he would be wanting his clothes.
I needn't have worried. After ten minutes a handcuffed Gene Mance came out on the arm of the lovely police lady, followed by Dr. Ed Reitz. As Mance passed, Kevin and I let him know that his buddy had taken his things. He seemed happy about that, so everything was cool.
The police promptly took him away.
Ed told me that while the three of them were talking the word came over the officer's radio that Gene had four outstanding warrants out on him, hence the arrest. Three for theft, one for assault on a police officer.
End of story.
I don't know if I wish this guy well. He seemed to be basically a mean and selfish individual, and I just don't understand men like that.
Women either.
Wanting to get out of the residence for a while I drove some of the guys to an outside A.A. meeting at the Woman's Club in South Pasadena. I had attended a couple of meetings at the Woman's Club, but had never driven there. After taking a wrong turn and innately driving through some mountainous back roads for fifteen minutes (with eight or nine men each shouting different and wrong directions to me, some intentionally just because they liked the ride), we found the club, and I dropped them off.
Back at the residence, I talked to Cathy's answering machine for awhile. I asked it how it was doing, and I told it to let Cathy know that Barbara would give her a ride Friday night if she needed one.
Back at the Woman's Club to pick up my charges, a man walked up to my driver's window and began staring at me. Usually I would find this rather annoying, as I did this time... at first.
Dennis Smith looked at me with a great big smile on his big face. I rolled down the window and we shook hands. He was still at the Grandview recovery home, and I am still at the Salvation Army. I told him about getting my cake on Friday, and he congratulated me.
"Wow! This is great," I said. "You've popped up just in time to make the end of the book."
He laughed. "You're still writing it?"
"Sure. It ends Friday night."
"Can I read it then?"
"No. After I put it through the word processor, then you can read it. Maybe I can still help you to get laid."
We said goodbye and I drove off. He looked good, and it was good to see him.

September 12 Thursday Day 366 1 year

Well... it appears that I have made it. That we have made it, dear readers.
One year... not a whole lot of time really. A whole world of time for me.
The day started early. Four thirty in the morning. I was making my first trip to pick up the morning's donuts at Tastee's and Honeyglaze. Richard Hendrickson navigated while I drove. It was fun. We listened to the news program they have on the radio while we drove. We heard about the police shooting a mentally disturbed (whatever that means) person nine times in the back, even while the man was lying face down on the ground.
The man died.
Such is life.
When we got back to the residence we each had breakfast (SOS), then went our respective ways. I went upstairs to my bathroom and brushed my teeth, I then walked across the hall to my room and put on a tie. At the desk, in my office, I began to write. I would continue to write, off and on, throughout the day and night, finally finishing up at around 10:00PM, before I went on my rounds and after I got back from the park.
At 3:15 in the afternoon, Red Shield 4 became available and I scooted over to USC General Hospital to pick up Roger Collins. I was very tired by this time, but still had the hardest part of the day before me.
It was Richard Bennet's night to go to Skid Row and talk to the people there, and he asked me if I would lead his substance abuse class in his absence. I backed off. I told him I would do it next month, and I will if he asks. I sat in on the A.A. panel for about half of it, listening to a young Jewish woman tell her tale of woe and terror involving the Bohemia of San Francisco.
Everyone has a tale of woe and terror. We need to listen to them.
Robert returned from his day off visit with his family in Upland just as the panel let out. Rockoff (the little scuzz) hurled himself into the parking lot so he could be the first to give him the news of the Mance affair, thereby robbing me of the chance of monitoring Robert's initial reaction. He and I talked about it in our office for awhile, among other things. I mentioned that I had one year of sobriety today, and he congratulated me. He told me how difficult it was for him his first year, a one day at a time type of theme, and I realized once again how hard and different it is for all of us.
After Robert and I finished talking I put on my jacket and told my new desk man, Ken Hackett, that I was going to check the trailer, and that I'd be back in a bit.
I slowly walked from the residence, east on Waverly, then north on Fair Oaks. I crossed the southwest corner of Fair Oaks and Del Mar to the northeast corner, which is the southeast corner of the Park, my destination. I choose a diagonal path across the length of the Park, passing the lawn bowling greens, up until I had walked almost to the opposite corner from the one I had entered. There was a picnic table there. I sat and lit a cigarette. I looked around the empty and dark block long expanse of trees and grass punctuated here and there with pools of light spilling from strategically located lamp posts located along the asphalt paths. There were a few people about. Some talking, hidden in shades of darkness, others behind me on Raymond Ave., walking up the paved sidewalk to the lights and noise of Colorado Blvd. Only one man walked as I did, almost aimlessly along the various walkways within the Park itself. He was taking his time, looking around.
Not much had changed in the Park since I had last sat here, since I had taken my last drink at this spot one year ago. There were now three picnic tables instead of two. That's about it. It still felt lonely and empty.
But I didn't feel that way. In the last year I'd come to at least like myself, this new person I've become. Or at least I have begun to know this new person, which drugs and alcohol had masked so well. I can learn to like him. I definitely feel like a participant in life now, rather than just a spectator. That I can make choices that really matter, that I can maybe help others like myself, while helping myself at the same time. That I can now be good to myself, and that I matter.
I've never felt that way before. It's a good feeling. I recommend it. It's a feeling I'd like to keep, and I can make the decision to do that now as well. I care about a lot of people now, all of the guys who have came to the center, all of the different counselors and staff, all of the men and women who have come and gone these last twelve months, and a lot of those people care about me, and that feels... real, real, nice.
The Green Hotel to the north of me, with its great parapets and lighted windows, still reminds me of a huge castle out of some fairy tale. What secrets it must hold.
I hope I have shared well most of mine.
And I wonder what the next year will bring.

Salvation Diary Fifty Two

2011-11-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

September 6 Friday Day 360

I had set my alarm for 5:30. When it sounded I got up and turned it off, went back to bed and got up three hours later.
When I did finally get up I walked into my semi-private bathroom and smoked an unauthorized cigarette while contemplating my next move.
I returned to my room and donned my swim trunks. Looking awfully sexy, I made my way to the basement and exercised for about half an hour, then returned upstairs to take an unauthorized shower.
After lunch (beans and franks), I asked my friend, Jerry Schimmele, if he would like to take a walk with me to the mall that they have here in Pasadena. It being his day off, he agreed.
We didn't go to the mall at first. It was being circled by too many helicopters, so we decided to go to the Bank of America in order to cash my massive paycheck.
At the mall, Jerry went to buy our weekly Lotto tickets, while I explored Miller's Outpost in search of jeans. I found two pair that I liked. Although they were on sale I wound up paying more than fifty dollars for them. I shouldn't complain. They'd cost a lot more if I were in Moscow, if I could get them at all.
Jerry didn't want to buy anything, and I didn't want to spend anymore money, so we left the mall and began our journey back to the residence.
We met three hungry Mountain Trolls on the way, whom we had to trick into open sunlight to get by, where they turned to stone.
Stupid trolls.
We passed Joe Leberthon in the park, as well. He was sitting down in the soft grass with his girlfriend. We did not see her face. It was buried in his lap.
Joe said this to us,"Hey Jerry, I bought some speed from your son." He smiled after saying that.
Jerry replied with perfect grandeur, "Sure. Probably some hookers too!"
Jerry's son, Garth Schimmele, had at one time been a whore monger.
We walked on.
I was writing in the dining room, and drinking from a glass of ice water, when Ron Cooper came up to me.
"Rick, I've got an idea for you," he said. "I know you're a bachelor and all. What about Cathy?"
"What about her?"
"She's a real nice girl. And I don't think she's been with anyone for three years. I kind of noticed some eye contact between you two last Wednesday, and thought you should get together."
"You do?"
"Sure. She's a really together person, and she's real cute! I'd go after her myself, except she's my counselor and all. I'd kind of like just to have her as a good friend. Know what I mean?"
"Oh yes."
"So what do you think? About Cathy I mean."
"I think she's a wonderful girl. I like her very much."
"I knew it! Now that I know how you feel, I'll try to put in a good word for you."
"You will?"
"Sure. She's real nice. The two of you would be good together."
"You think she likes me?"
"Yeah. Don't worry. I'll fix it up for you."
"Well, thanks Ron. I really appreciate that."
"No problem."
I went upstairs to put my notebook away. I sat on my bed a moment thinking, and then to the desk to start my shift.

September 7 Saturday Day 361

Upon awaking I read a little, beginning my day slow and easy. I read from Luke, and then some of Vonnegut's "Jailbird," novel, and some from "Imperial Earth," by Arthur C Clarke. At 9:30 I dressed and went downstairs.
I had talked to my mother last night, learning that my Uncle Lester seems to be improving... eating more and gaining some weight. Tough old bastard. I was also told that my beautiful little niece has gotten into trouble again at school (my niece is nothing if not consistent). My mother said she would drive up Thursday afternoon.
Very good.
Things are going rather well right now. I'm quite happy.
I wrote until lunch time, and after I ate I went to the park to lie in the sun. An hour and a half this time.
Upon returning, I had just enough time to shower and dress before going to work.
I walked to Music Plus in the evening to get the weekend's movies. "The Rookie," with Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen, and "Goodfellas," a Martin Scorsese film, staring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci. I played the Eastwood movie tonight for the boys.
Kevin Rockoff will be leaving the residence on Monday. He'll be moving in with Wolf Pandolfi, sharing living expenses. He seems to be doing well in his new job. Good for him.
I wish him well.
Hobart Rodgers has been seen staggering around the local area recently. Jim Dockens can't be far away. Apparently they've been boozing it up pretty good down at the park south of the residence (not my park), getting sick really fast.
I wish them well too.
I drove the guys to the Alano Club A.A. meeting, then brought them back when it was over. That's my job. I get paid for it.
Still, it was nice to get out of the residence and drive around.
Along the way I stopped at Vons and bought some microwave popcorn.
After my ten o'clock rounds I sat in the office and browsed through the "American Red Cross Standard First Aid Workbook." I would need to know all of the information that was in there by September 21st, in order to pass my American Red Cross Standard First Aid class. Tonight I learned all about emergency action principles and rescue breathing. Important things to know if you have asthma and find yourself in an emergency.
I then wrote for about an hour.
Just before midnight (the Witching Hour) I fixed myself an unauthorized egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin in the canteen. I then ate it. It was good.
After midnight I returned to the canteen and popped my microwave popcorn. I also grabbed a diet coke, then retired to the small T.V. room and watched "The Rookie," a typical Eastwood/Sheen film, with lots of gratuitous sex and violence.
After the film I said goodnight to Wolf, then went to bed.
I dreamt of the fungus monsters on Mushroom Island.

September 8 Sunday Day 362

Up at 8:00 for chapel where things went reasonably well. Not too much fumbling around with the collection plate. I changed clothes afterwards. They were unlikely to change themselves.
Then off to the American Legion building in South Pasadena. Ron Collins was absent yet once again due to a 10:00 Rams game. Robert drove Brian Montique and myself, plus Art Dean and Jim Shelton, who needed a lift to the Transition House.
Jill, Robert tells me, has moved to a different location, and hasn't given anybody her new address, so it would be little use to cruise her neighborhood in hopes of espying her, or making licentious bird noises outside her windows.
At the meeting I sat next to a man named Jack. An older gentleman who I had first met at last week's meeting. A very open and friendly person. He told me that if we drink long enough alcohol adversely affects us in three distinct ways.
"First," he said, "it affects our memory. Then... I forgot the other two."
He introduced me to the day's speaker, an Irish Catholic person, who used humor extensively throughout his talk, making that forty five minute period very enjoyable.
I walked back part way with Skip Fennel. We parted ways at the liquor store at Fair Oaks and California, where I purchased seven dollars worth of Super Lotto tickets. I can do that now because I am an employed person and receive massive paychecks.
By the time I got out of the store Brian Montique, Richard Reyes, and Scott Cremer came walking up. I joined them.
We chatted as we walked back to the residence. Somehow we got onto the topic of relationships.
"Man, these guys be hunting that pussy all the damn time!" Cremer exclaimed. "How can you get sober like that? I made a promise to myself that I would not get into any kind of relationship for at least six months."
"Shuusssch! Did you hear that?" I asked.
"What, Joyce?"
"The sound of the entire world's female population sighing with relief."
"That's very true," Scott thoughtfully replied. "I've wrecked some real emotional havoc in my day."
Haven't we all.
I changed into my sexy swim trunks back at the residence, then walked to the park to lie in the hazy sun for one and a quarter hours listening to some classic C.C.R. on classic radio.
At 5:00 I viewed a repeat episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation." while reading parts of the Bible, the Clark book, and the co-dependency book.
Then I made my way to the small T.V. room to grab a seat for the evening's V.C.R. movie, "Goodfellas." A remarkable effort of Scorcese's.The film was disturbing when one realizes that it was based on a true story, and that some of the people depicted really did live that way (and continue to do so), which really is no way to live at all. All of the people in the film either wound up dead, in prison, or in some witness protection program totally dependent on the tender mercies of the United States government.
I felt like walking after the movie. I walked down an almost empty Fair Oaks Blvd. to the Los Tacos shop. There, I ordered three tequitos with guacamole to go. When they were ready I took them and ate them while continuing on to the Vons supermarket, where I purchased some multi-vitamins. Nine bucks for almost a whole year's supply. Not bad.
I also attempted to buy another Super Lotto ticket from the Super Lotto machine they have there, but it wouldn't accept my money.
It just was not meant to be.
When I returned to the residence I went up to my lonely room and read of the life of Jesus Christ in a historical context, which upon reflection, is probably the only way we should look upon the life of Jesus Christ, or anybody! I read about him while watching a repeat episode of "Cheers." After "Cheers," was an episode of the show "Monsters," that I had not seen before, and which starred Juliet Mills. I fell asleep half way through.
I woke briefly at 2:00AM, and flicked off the T.V., then knocked out again.

September 9 Monday Day 363

Rosh Hashanah, the Hebrew year 5752 begins today.
To celebrate I got up early and had breakfast (scrambled eggs and ham) with Robert. We each jovially swapped old Rosh Hashanah stories.
Afterwards I returned upstairs to my bed, exhausted from my celebratory efforts, and slept for a little while.
At 8:00 I got up, slapped myself awake, changed into my sexy swim trunks and hitched a ride on the elevator down to the basement and exercised for twenty six minutes, then hit the showers.
Soon I was in the lobby, writing my little heart out. Wendy came out from the counseling room once or twice, but had no smiles for me this morning.
Women are like that. Sometimes they smile, and sometimes they don't.
I wrote there in the lobby until 10:30, then I put my pen and notebook away, and dashed off to the bus stop to catch the 256 north. I departed the bus directly in front of the office of Dr. Campbell, the credit dentist.
Being basically very vain I had come to get my teeth bleached. I hoped that by bleaching my teeth most of them would get as white as my shining new front cap. I was unaware of how the bleaching process worked, or how much pain to expect once I was strapped into the dreaded chair of torture.
I soon realized I had little to worry about. They took impressions of my upper and lower arches, then sent me on my way telling me to come back next week. The most painful procedure they administered was to relieve me of a one hundred dollar bill.
The Pasadena mall was my next stop. I needed to buy a new shirt to wear on Friday night. Well... I didn't need to, I wanted to. And I did, I bought one. A nice light blue one. Very nice. On sale too!
I stopped by the warehouse record store to check out their Jethro Tull collection. I was not impressed.
Finally, I treated myself to a "Maxi-Steak" sandwich, just for the pure sweat hell of it.
I walked through the park on my way back to the residence, and wrote again, in the lobby. Wendy was still there much to my surprise and delight.
And before she left for the day, she gave me a nice smile and asked how I was. I told her that I was fine. We talked about school briefly, and "Romeo and Juliet."
In tonight's repeat episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation," Tasha Yar and Mr. Data both got laid. To each other!
Good for them.
Seems to be a lot of sex going on on board the Enterprise lately.
I finished the co-dependency book that Cathy had lent to me. The author, Melodie Beattie, has a lot of valuable things to say within it, and she says them quite well. I'm very glad that I read it.
At 10:58PM I had my last drag off of my last cigarette. I'm finally going to give them up for good.
Really!
At 11:00, I changed the channel on my television to 28, and turned down the volume. Then I snuggled into bed nice and cozy, and watched Part 6 of "The Mind." The episode dealt with depression.
At midnight I was so depressed because I had quit smoking I had to roll over and go to sleep.
I dreamt of riding the range in Marlboro Country.

Salvation Diary Fifty One

2011-11-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

September 1 Sunday Day 355

So... we're back to September.
What an odd month. Very hot during the day, nice at night. I don't believe I've done anything significant in September... until now. 354 complete days without a drink of booze, fix of heroin, snort of cocaine, whiff of marijuana, or the introduction of any mind altering chemical in any way, shape, or form.
Except for nicotine and caffeine of course. Maybe next year. Perhaps having my teeth bleached on the 9th will provide a motivating factor to quit smoking.
I still have a few days before the year's up. Today began at 8:00. After my alarm sounded I heard Robert and Roger in the bathroom getting ready for chapel. They had both been awake for hours, but they each independently decided that right at the time I woke and needed to get washed and dressed would be a good time to hog the washing facilities.
Scum, both of them.
At 8:15 exactly they left and I moved in. I kicked out a janitor, then had the place to myself.
I sat next to Schimmele in chapel. After the service began I noticed that Kevin Rockoff was not present. He must have been in bed, tired from his all night job guarding a dairy. I shook Schimmele's hand while saying, "Congratulations, you're now an usher."
Much to his eventual regret he did such a fine job that Clarence Orion decided to make him permanent.
Ron Collins wimped out and did not go with me and Brian Montique to the Sunday A.A. meeting. He wanted to watch football instead.
Ron told me last night that he didn't think he would be seeing his counselor Cathy anymore. As an employee he doesn't have to.
I think I know why Ron doesn't want to see her, but I'm not allowed to tell. I'm not even allowed to let on that I know. It would embarrass him and I don't want to do that.
I like Ron, and he's my friend, but I worry about him sometimes.
The A.A. meeting was a good one with a fine speaker. Skip was there for me to talk to during the breaks. I've been showing up long enough that I can't help but meet others as well.
I went to the park for an hour. I listened to songs 364, 363, 362, and 361 of the KLSX Top 1000 Labor Day Weekend Countdown, while reading some more about co-dependency.
One guy in the park set up a PA system and played Christian religious propaganda and music as loud as he could. He danced around as he did this. He had a lot of nerve invading my space in a public place like that. I felt as a non-smoker must feel in a movie theater surrounded by a bunch of kids smoking their brains out. Finally the police came over from the other side of the park, where they had been busy harassing some poor homeless people, and told this dancing idiot to turn the music down.
When the police went away he turned it back up again.
I ate dinner back at the residence. A big meatball sort of thing with yams and green beans. It was good. I hadn't eaten all day, so I was hungry. At the time a block of warm cement would have tasted good. I poured blue cheese dressing over it to spice things up a bit.
I watched "Star Trek, the Next Generation." A repeat episode dealing with the question of what it is that we find love in others, what is important to us? Is it the exterior, or the person that they really are?
I think it's both, and in varying degrees.
I then fell asleep for awhile, but got up in time to get a good seat for the Sunday night V.C.R. movie, "Wild at Heart," a delightful film from David Lynch... his version of "The Wizard of Oz." Laura Dern was perfect. Nicholas cage was funny, and William DeFoe... frightening.
Some might say the movie was sick and deranged, as is David Lynch.
They might be right.
He is also one of the most original and inventive filmmakers around.
Still, there's no denying the man is disturbed.
After the movie I returned to my lonely room and played with my word processor and printer. I got it to print all I had to say in about half the space I used to.
Nifty, but hard to read.
After I got tired of that I ate some unauthorized tortilla chips and salsa, then got into bed and watched a rerun of "M.A.S.H.," while reading Arthur C. Clarke. I soon slept.
I dreamt of alien wearing black rubber gloves.

September 2 Monday Day 356

Labor Day! Oh Boy!
I was so excited about it that I made an unconscious decision to celebrate by sleeping in until noon. I didn't wake until Robert announced over the P.A. system that a special holiday V.C.R. movie, "Dancing with Wolves," would be shown at 1:00.
I would have attended, but the idea of watching Kevin Costner dashing around in the midst of a herd of mechanical buffaloes didn't seem to appeal to me.
After a nice shower I went down and had lunch instead. Very tasty luncheon meat sandwiches, with a piece of baked chicken, and corn-on-the-cob.
I smoked a cigarette outside in the parking lot, then went back to my lonely room and turned on my word processor and printer. I would continue to play with these two devices for most of the evening (very exciting), and actually write the sequence just before Day 1 starts, at the beginning of this book. I wrote it directly into the processor, without first forming it in long hand.
I felt exhilarated seeing it in print.
The word processor gets the page numbers all mixed up though. I'll have to check into that.
At 5:30, I was standing in the parking lot talking to Schimmele, when Tommy Bommarito walked up and said hello. He looked a little weather worn, but otherwise fine. His job these days is to stand near freeway exits or entrances while holding a sign proclaiming he was a homeless person who needed food or cash donations... preferably cash. His sign also lets the passing folks know that he is diabetic.
He tells me that he pulls in about forty five dollars a day, tax free. A lot more than I make. He let me know some of the trade secrets, like the need to look ragged, so people will believe that you're actually homeless, but not to ragged, or they will be afraid to come near you and pass you right by.
Tommy's not even really homeless. He lives in a sober living house not too far from the center.
He told me that he sees Reuben Perez every once in a while. Reuben's not doing as well as Tommy is. Reuben lives in an abandoned house close to where Tommy lives.
Reuben of course is also diabetic, just like Tommy, but Reuben doesn't seem to be taking care of himself. He's a physical wreck, Tommy told me, skinnier than he is, and that's very thin. One of Reuben's arms is paralyzed. He refuses to seek help.
For most of us the road is a rough one until we seek help. Even after that it's still rough for a time.
Tommy soon left to catch a bus, and I returned to my lonely room to watch a repeat episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation." Capt. Picard got laid in this one.
Good for him.

September 3 Tuesday Day 357

Good old Jim Docken and Hobart Rodgers took off again this morning. They got the itch and had to hit the streets one more time. They left Eddie Acuna behind this time, thank God. They must have thought he would have slowed them down.
Or Eddie's gaining some sense.
My friend Carlos Noble became an employee a week or so ago. He's the dock foreman now. The same position he held when I first met him in Canoga park almost two years ago. He should do well. He's experienced, and is familiar with the in-house politics of the Salvation Army.
At least he's not a driver, though I've seen an awful lot of dock foremen come and go.
Wayne Dubois, on the other hand, became a driver, or had become a driver, because he was fired today for refusing to pick up a doner's select garbage, telling the doner he didn't have the time and he'd have to schedule another pick up. I guess he was in a hurry to get somewhere. The doner was rather upset over this turn of events (quite often doners will take time off work, or their busy lifestyle activities, in order to be home when the truck arrives to pick up their trash), and called our dispatch office and filed a complaint. Now Wayne is a beneficiary again.
Reuben Smith's tan is fading. At least that's what I keep telling him him. It drives him crazy.
I call him snowball.
I had a good morning while working. Got everything ship-shape in the office, then wrote a lot.
I exercised in the weight room after work, then watched an interview of a KGB officer on PBS in my lonely room.
I sat with Richard Bennet at dinner. He said I looked much happier then I had for the last couple of weeks. He had been worried about me. I let him know I had been a little preoccupied lately, but that I was alright now.
Ups and downs. Our lives are filled with ups and downs. The trick in life is to try to keep the amplitude down to a minimum.
I told Richard that I felt fine and that I had good things to look forward to. School was coming up soon, and a year's sobriety the next week. I told him I had already memorized what I would say when I took my cake for 1 year.
"You'll forget it," he said. "You'll be lucky to get out, 'Keep coming back!'"
I watched "Star Trek, the Next Generation," and then read. At 8:00 "Nova," came on channel 28, the PBS channel. The show involved the 1989 Neptune (and it's cool moon (about 35 degrees above absolute zero) Triton) flyby of the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The program was narrated by Patrick Stewart, who of course plays Capt. Picard on "Star Trek, the Next Generation." You know, the guy who got laid yesterday.
I read some more, and munched unauthorized tortilla chips.
At 11:00, Part 3 of "The Mind," series came on channel 28 again. It discussed how aging affects the mental processes, and how each of us (human type people) are affected differently by growing older. Alzheimer's disease was mentioned.
I thought about my grandmother.
I think I could suffer anything except losing my mind. It's the only thing I think with!
Use it or lose it I guess.
If I were to lose my mind, would I know, would I realize that it was happening?
Have I lost my mind already?
Am I now totally insane without realizing that this is the case?
I must consider this.

September 4 Wednesday Day 358

A good day. Lots of things done. Like my laundry. Got that out of the way for another week. Very important.
I spent my morning (because it is mine) taking care of the usual paperwork, writing, securing janitorial supplies, and sitting with the man from Abbott Laboratories, who had come to service the ADx machine. We'd been having some problems with it. In the end he replaced a lamp and told me that everything would be okay now. Or hunky dory. I had no way of testing his supposition however, because Abbott had been late shipping us the reagent chemicals we need to operate the machine. In the mean time I'm up to my ears in what is getting to be some very stale urine.
I did my laundry, as I've said, in the afternoon. I also exercised, read from the Bible and the co-dependency book that Cathy had lent to me. I also searched about half of the lockers looking for errant towels. Found some too.
Counselor Charity made a rare appearance tonight at chapel. Barbara was there to. And after chapel... Cathy.
She was a tad upset that Ron Collins had excused himself from her caseload so abruptly. She told me she felt kind of abandoned. Well, that's Ron for you, the Heartbreak Kid. Ed Reitz gave her a whole bunch of new clients to help ease her abandonment crisis. A white supremacist, a young black man who considers himself that upon which the universe pivots (how absurd, when in actuality I am the center of said universe), another man who was in need of a Big Book, and her regular, Ron Cooper. She was kept nice and busy.
After she was finished we had a nice talk. Then she left. We waved to each other as she drove off.

September 5 Thursday Day 359

In difference to Mr. Steinbeck's contention that Thursday's are sweet, in my opinion, these particular days of the week, which come around with sickening regularity, suck. Almost nothing good ever happens to me on Thursdays.
Wednesdays aren't all that hot either, but at least Cathy comes to complicate my life and confuse me.
At least there's that!
Just after lunch I had to break up a fight between two of my desk men, Columbus Davis and Gene Mance. They were calling each other "nigger," and stuff like that (it's probably a good thing that they're both black). Ridicules. I never did find out what it was about.
Just as things settled down I noticed a civilian standing at the desk. I asked him if I could help him, and he told me he was our next door neighbor. He said that every time his wife opened her kitchen door to let some air in, our gardener, Don Robinson, would sit down a few feet away, smoke cigarettes and stare at her. He told me it was getting to be annoying. I could belive that.
I went with him outside and around the building, and sure enough, there was Don, squatting against the side of the residence, smoking, and looking right into the lady's kitchen. I chased him away, directing him to not use that particular spot for a smoke break anymore.
The ADx guy came out again. After running some controls he told me the machine was fixed... again. After he left I ran some samples using the cocaine assays, and got the same "Insufficient Reagent" message I had gotten before. This time from a brand new pack of reagents, so I had to call the Abbott customer service center in Dallas to have the technician come out again.
Meanwhile, the urine accumulates and ripens.
We had to clamp down a bit on all of the contraband coming in the front door when the boys come home from work. They're taking advantage of the fact that Corona and Parsons are letting them have underwear for personal use, and bringing it over directly from the warehouse to the residence. Today when they came back I had Columbus confiscate all of the T-shirts the guys carried in. We discovered that they were not only bringing back underwear, but various types of white polo shirts with collars, white T-shirts with printed pictures and lettering, and numerous other items as well that couldn't quite qualify as undies.
Naughty boys.
I had taken Roger Collins to and from the hospital before lunch so he would be ready to open the canteen at 4:00. At 5:15 he came to tell me he couldn't walk on his foot and wouldn't be able to work. Roger is a pain in the ass. Ed McNicol was not around, so I had Jack Crossley work in the canteen.
Jack did a good job really.
Ed Reitz came over after dinner to tell Anthony Rutherford that he had one week to make arrangements to move out. Anthony, at any given time, has half of the house ready to kill him. Anthony has a certain disdain for social interaction.
The evening's meetings went well. About fifty guys crowded into the small T.V. room for the CA panel when two sharp looking ladies showed up as the speakers.
Later I ran cannabinoid tests on all of my urine samples to at least get something done with all of the yellow fluid. Cocaine remains the only test giving me problems.
Richard Bennet left late after finishing his counseling sessions. "Each one took a long time tonight," he let me know.
"You mean they actually had some issues and problems they're trying to deal with?" I asked.
"Yes."
"I hate that when that happens."
He smiled, and said, "So do I."
I went to the canteen near curfew time and... er... borrowed forever, two eggrolls from the leftover late dinners, heated them in the microwave and consumed them
And at 10:48P.M. exactly, I drank my last cup of coffee.
I'm giving it up.
After Eddie Gillespie came to relieve me I went to my room and switched on channel 28. I watched Part 5 of "The Mind," concerning pain and healing. My feet began to hurt while watching it, so I turned it off and went to sleep.

Salvation Diary Fifty

2011-11-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 27 Tuesday Day 350

Robert had taken his car in to have it fixed. The mechanics over at the Mobil station (the same station where I purchased my morning coffee, and later in the evening my dinner, when I lived in the Park) are "Saddam Hussein's cousins." according to him. They replaced his thermostat. Then everything was "A okay," and in tip top condition, they assured.
As soon as Robert returned with the car it began to leak water.
"What causes that?" he asked. "Is that normal?"
"My car did that once," I answered. "Just before it blew up."
So this morning he took it back to Mobile station again, and was told he may need a new water pump.
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," he says.
I returned to work. I had a wonderful day until 1:30, when I thought I'd be very efficient and get some urine samples analyzed before my shift ended in an hour.
The ADx machine gave me a lot of false results, wouldn't read the bar code instructions correctly, and was generally mind fucking me. I over reacted by getting intensely angry at the rest of the world, and was in a rather gruff mood for the remainder of the afternoon.
After work I exercised, then napped, after which I felt much better.
Jill came in at 6:05 for her 5:45 group counseling session. I made sure I was down in the lobby when she arrived to see what she was wearing.
Her blue dress. My favorite.
I spent a good deal of the evening playing with my word processor and discovering the various printing styles available to me through the printer. I composed another short letter to my mom, and printed it six times, each using a different format, and mailing them all for her inspection.
After I finished I printed the first page of this book. It looked very nice. Clean and clear.
As I read it I remembered all too well what it felt like on that morning a hundred years ago. I didn't care for that feeling.
Writing this is going to be harder than I thought.

August 28 Wednesday Day 351

Wolf Pandolfi knocked on my door at 3:30, waking me up. After fumbling my way to the door and opening, he told me that someone had broken into the thrift store, and one of us had to go over there and watch the place until reinforcements arrived in the morning.
This is how I started what turned out to be a very long and miserable day.
I really don't want to talk about it. One reason why I don't want to talk about it is because I don't understand women. Not one little part of them (except that their air breathing mammals, similar to me, but only in a physical sense). And because of that I find myself left angry and confused.
The reason of course is Cathy. She came tonight, and hardly said a word to me. After she had finished for the evening, I gave her back her copy of "Under the Influence," and thanked her for it, and offered her a copy of one of my favorite works of non-fiction, "The Dragons of Eden," by good old Carl Sagan. She almost bit my head off in her refusal, stating something about how I didn't understand how little time she had to read with her busy schedule and all.
I was shocked by her vehemence, and angered, and decided to distance myself from her by making my usual ten o'clock rounds early. While I was gone she completed her paperwork, got in her car and drove away.
Very strange.
All I ever gotten from this girl are mixed signals. One moment she wants me to call her, and when I do she doesn't answer her phone or return my messages.
Women!
I swear I will NEVER, EVER, go out, or try to get close to another FEMALE again.

NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope I've made myself sufficiently clear on this matter.

August 29 Thursday Day 352

Well, well, well.
Today was probably the worst day I've had since I've been here.
I woke in a foul mood, still trying to figure out what I had done to Cathy to offend her.
Not being able to remember anything specifically I attempted to figure out women in general.
Hopeless task.
Even when one knows the secret of feminine allure and love, one still does not know all the answers.
Far from it.
I had a nice long work day to look forward to, which cheered me immeasurably. Seventeen hours of fun and joy.
The thought of work... or even working, does not usually bother me, but today I did not feel like doing a damn thing. And when you don't feel like doing anything and you've got seventeen hours not to do it in- - it gets pretty depressing.
Even so I forced myself to write for a little while in the morning. I got that done at least. Then I resumed The Whitney Strieber novel, "Majestic," but couldn't keep from thinking about Cathy.
I was occupied by those thoughts all morning, and I couldn't concentrate on any other subject for very long, and I had no real interest in running the Pasadena Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center.
But I didn't drink and I didn't commit suicide or anything, which is a very big step for me (I usually drink and commit suicide during abandonment episodes). I thought about drinking, I'll admit that. I thought about walking away, chucking the whole place, going over to Vons and getting a bottle, going straight to the Park (because if I drank, I'd wind up there anyway), and try and forget all of my horrendous problems.
I considered it for about thirty seconds and discovered that I just didn't have any problems except for this one, none that I didn't have to drink over anyway. If I did want a bunch of problems, BIG PROBLEMS, the fastest way for me to get them would be by taking a drink.
I was tired from lack of sleep and in a confused mental state, so I napped after lunch. When I woke a couple of hours later I felt much better, but still had Cathy on my mind. I decided to do something about it. I'm an adult after all. I should be able to verbally communicate to this lady how I felt. The thought of continuing throughout the day, through next week, without getting this straightened out was intolerable.
So I called her and left a message on her answering machine. I was honest, telling her that if she didn't wish to see me she didn't have to. I just did not want any bad feeling between us, any animosity. I told her I would tear up her telephone number and never call her again (ah, the drama!). Then I told her I hoped her cats were okay, and that I thought they were good cats. I hung up then.
A message designed to administer guilt and demand sympathy if I ever heard one.
Of course her damned answering machine cut me off about half way through my plaintive plea for attention.
Things continued to go bad for me. Roger Collins had gone to his weekly doctor's appointment at U.S.C. County Hospital, to have his leg scraped (pretty sickening image, I agree). Ed Reitz had taken him there. When Roger called to be picked up shortly after lunch, Ed had gone to a Lion's Club meeting, making him unavailable, and there were no other vehicles around. The problem of getting Roger back from the hospital was put off and eventually forgotten, all of us kind of hoping Roger would fend for himself.
Later, at around 4:30 or so, I noticed that the canteen had not opened, which meant that Roger had not returned. Roger later claimed that it was impossible for him to walk the relatively short distance to the nearest bus stop, so he just sat there, waiting for someone to come and pick him up. Left to his own devices he would gladly sit there all night just for the change in routine, allowing him to miss working in the canteen as well.
Ed and I decided to go and get him. We drove to the entrance of the outpatient clinic where Ed had left him. He was no where to be found. We assumed he had tired of waiting and hobbled to the bus stop.
We were wrong.
As if timed, upon returning to the residence Roger called and said he was waiting at the emergency room exit. I told him to get on a bus and get back here or I would kill him. Ed said, why not let Curtis Carter, who had just been hired as a driver the day before, drive over to get Roger. Curtis said, sure, he'd go, but he wasn't sure how to get there. I got volunteered to show him, and once again found myself at the imposing and bleak medical facility.
The ride there was very interesting. I actually feared for my life. Curtis could not seem to keep the large van in any one particular lane while on the freeway. Other cars nearby, fearful that the lumbering van might careen into them, busily honked at us. I thought that if I wound up dying during this trip, Cathy would feel bad about spurning me.
We made it though. Roger was there, insipid as usual. We returned to the residence, and Roger took his sweet time opening the canteen.
Jack Crossley, who had been left in charge of everything while I was away, looked dazed, shocked, and confused after trying to get three different 12 Step meetings started at the same time (AA, CA, and Overcomers Outreach (a Christian AA program)). I gave him a hand when I got back, and together we managed to salvage the evening.
After the meetings and the canteen closed, and things in general had died down a little, I went to the sample room to run some tests. Actually I wanted to use the phone in there, as Cathy had called earlier and I wanted to call her back.
She explained why she had appeared angry the night before. She said she had wanted to explain yesterday, but she couldn't find me.
It had something to do with some kind of medical condition she experiences at times. About 12 times a year. I didn't really understand.
For getting so excited about the whole situation I felt like a stupid, insecure, little turd (women will do that to you).
But Cathy is a wonderful girl and made me feel a lot better by explaining to me some things about lack of communication and misconstrued signals. She said she would never intentionally do anything to hurt me, and her reasonableness was at once uplifting and captivating. She had been having a very hectic week herself, and had been dealing with a lot of issues. I listened quietly to what she had to say.
Things were back to normal between us... she wouldn't let me get a word in.
So we're friends again and I feel a hundred per cent better. She's a genuinely decent lady.
And so cute!
I reached my bed a half hour after midnight with the knowledge I would now sleep well.

August 30 Friday Day 353

For about thirty minutes at least. Eddie Gillespie, Bard of the Streets, knocked on my door at 1:10 in the morning. He told me the thrift store had been broken into again.
Some silly man had been observed by a passing motorist throwing a rock through the store's glass door. The motorist subsequently called the police.
I nice thing for the motorist to do.
Meanwhile the burglar helped himself to a portable television set, which he took across Del Mar Blvd., and hid in some bushes. He then returned to the store and began to browse through the men's clothing section. That was what he was doing when the police arrived (who had been at the park harassing homeless people) and arrested him.
Just as the police escorted this individual to jail, Eddie appeared from around the corner and was informed of what happened. Then Eddie came and told me.
I in turn got dressed and informed Mr. Vasquez.
"Aawh shit!" he exposed.
I told him I'd stay up and keep an eye on the residence while Gillespie stayed at the store. Robert said I didn't have to stay up, but didn't put up much of an argument when I reminded him that someone had to stay awake in the building as a fire watch and to wake the cooks for breakfast.
He told me he'd relieve me at 4:00.
I walked over to the store to survey the damage. The police had returned the stolen T.V. I plugged it in and began watching Steve McQueen in Henrik Ibsen's "Enemy of the People," a play I had once acted in back in high school.
Eddie went back to the residence to eat his dinner.
As I ate a Three Musketeers Bar, the picture on the television screen snapped into another dimension, making the actor's faces look like pastel dummies.
The hapless burglar would not have gotten much for the set I'm afraid.
When Eddie returned we rigged a large table to the hole in the thrift store's front door and tied it in place. I then went back to the residence.
I went to the canteen and turned on the T.V. they have in there, to catch the last of "Enemy of the People," and made myself some scrambled eggs and a hamburger in the microwave.
After eating, and the movie ended, I sat behind the desk and read until it was time to wake the cooks, drivers,and desk people.
They didn't want to get up.
At 6:15 (my 4:00 relief person did not materialize) I went back to bed and slept until noon.
I woke tired and hungry. I showered, dressed, and walked to Laos Tacos to dine on some tequitos and enchiladas.
Upon returning to the residence I wrote until it was time to work yet again.
Nothing much to do on my shift. Robert had gotten the gratuity early and had paid the men at lunchtime, so I fiddled around, reading and writing for most of the night. At about this time, half way around the world, communism was drawing a last breath in Russia.
I spent a lot of time trying to get the ADx machine to work properly, but it wouldn't cooperate. It kept trying to pretend there were no samples inside when there were.
It was in denial.
After my shift, after midnight, I read for awhile about aliens, then slept.
I had strange dreams of wild rides at Disneyland.

August 31 Saturday Day 354

Nobody broke into the store last night so I had a fairly normal night's sleep. Besides, I told Eddie to wake Robert up if anything happened.
I slept late, until 10:00AM. Then I smoked an unauthorized cigarette in the bathroom, then read in my room until lunchtime (chicken fried steaks).
Robert requested that I go get the weekend's V.C.R. movies, so I dutifully walked over to the Music Plus and picked out "King Ralph," because Ed Reitz told me it would be a good movie to get, it being a nice comedy and all, starring John Goodman and Peter O'Toole. For myself, and anybody who cared to watch with me, I got David Lynch's "Wild at Heart," with Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern. Ever since "Easerhead," I've been a Lynch fan.
Robert looked at the "Heart" tape upon my return, and said, "Don't get anymore porno, Joyce."
I went to the park for an hour, listening to the radio, and reading about co-dependency.
Back at the residence, after a shower, I wrote until my shift began.
Then wrote some more. Then I did all of the paperwork that needed to be done., then finished the "Majestic" novel. Whitney Strieber certainly seems to be sure this planet is being visited by an intelligent something. Maybe he's right, who knows?"
But probably not.
I allowed Curtis Cater, the week's duty driver, to go out with his girlfriend, so I drove six of the guys to an outside A.A. meeting. This was the first time I had done this. I think I'll do it more often as it was fun driving around Pasadena on a Saturday night. Lots of people walking around Colorado Blvd.
After picking up these same guys after the meeting, I made my rounds, locked everything up, then wrote in the office. In fact, that's what I'm doing right now. In real time it's now 10:49PM and 33 seconds, by my watch, which for this book is the only time that matters. As soon as I finish writing this I will go outside to have a cigarette and shorten my life about a month. After that I will come back inside and read some more about co-dependency. Near midnight, when Wolf Pandolfi comes, I may have to throw some people out of the program. I don't know yet, I hope not. It all depends on everyone getting back in time and if they're sober when they get here. At midnight, Wolf and I will lock the doors and turn off the lights, and shoo everyone upstairs. Then I will watch "King Ralph," in the small T.V. room. I will invite Columbus Davis to watch it with me, but he will refuse, saying he has to get up early. That's true, he does have to get up early. He has tomorrow's morning shift to contend with. So I will end up watching the video alone. After one hour and thirty six minutes, plus five minutes or so for another cigarette, I will close up the T.V. room and return the tape to the office. Then I will say goodnight to Wolf who will be dozing behind the desk. I will then go upstairs to my lonely room, undress, set my alarm clock for 8:00, get into bed and go to sleep.
My first dream will be of Cathy. Later I'll dream about Cal Tiki, the giant, immortal blob monster.
Such is life.

Salvation Diary Forty Nine

2011-11-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 21 Wednesday Day 344

Clyde Foster has returned to us, making it his third time here. It's good to have him. Let's hope that he can stick it out and accomplish whatever goals he might have.
Kevin Rockoff went and got himself a job as a security guard. He starts tomorrow at 10:00AM. Tomorrow's his birthday. He'll be 33.
Happy birthday Kevin!
He tells me that he's going to marry his mail order Indian princess January 10th.
Good for him.
I attended a safety meeting in the afternoon. Ernie Sens was there, along with Clarence Orion, his wife Pattie (the Major's secretary), Frank Corona, Charles Parsons, Bill Richardson, and Dennis Cunningham. We talked about safety. We decided to become earthquake prepared, to have fire drills and a building evacuation plan in case of emergencies. We also decided to send me, Frank, Clarence, and Charles, to a Red Cross CPR class. We're going to learn CPR and other life saving procedures. Maybe we'll be able to save someone's life and become heros.
I had a headache. I took some Extra Strength Tylenol tablets. The headache went away.
I walked outside to smoke a cigarette after chapel and talked to Marvin Smith. I asked him how it was going. He said slow. He is our bailer. His job is to bail up all the clothes that the Salvation Army collects but cannot resell. Cardboard boxes too.
Marvin told me that it was the slowest day he'd ever had.
"Really," I said. "Just think. Of all the days I could have picked to ask you how it was going, I picked this one, the slowest day you've ever had. What are the chances of that happening?"
"Yeah, in eight months..."
"Eight months! That's almost like... two hundred and fifty days, isn't it? What are the odds? It must be something like two hundred and fifty to one, Marvin. And I beat the odds! We beat the odds Marvin. You and I, because I certainly couldn't have done it without you..."
On and on.
The coup in the U.S.S.R. has been smashed. Civil resistance, world opinion and scrutiny, and no clear plan of what to do with the power once it was acquired, doomed the attempt to failure almost from the very beginning. That country has a rough road ahead. I wish Mr. Gorbachev well.
And Cathy came tonight, and was still very upset about Spotty. The kitty may have a fever.
Cathy tells me, she herself, has not slept well for two weeks, and hasn't had much of an appetite. I gave her the benefit of my vast storehouse of veterinary knowledge, cautioned her to take care of herself first and generally tried to reassure that everything would be okay. That, along with the cat book I had given to her previously was about all I could do. I can't solve her problems for her, nor anybody else's, but I hope I can be of assistance if she wants me to be.
Then I sent her on her way.
Then I made sure everything was nice and tidy in the residence before we put the place to rest for the night. I counted money, organized counselor's lists, adjusted ledgers, locked doors, and put out the dog. After everyone was in I performed my last nightly chore, going through all the dorms, I tucked everyone in nice and tight, offered a comforting word if needed, listened to problems, and told an occasional bedtime story until the men's eyes drooped shut and they drifted off into gentle slumber.
Then I made my way to my lonely room, undressed, did two thousand butt naked push and sit ups... then I too dozed.
Tomorrow we would do it all again.

August 22 Thursday Day 345

Today, we did it all again.
And did it well.

August 23 Friday Day 346

Cathy gave me a call last night. I have a note to prove it.
At 9:30PM, I came to my office from the sample room, where I had began a batch of urine tests. I was there to finish up some paper work.
I found a note on my desk which said this, "Cathy 920 RKC." I asked myself what the "RKC" might mean. I said, "What the fuck does 920 RKC mean? Was Cathy maliciously marauded by 920 cases of renegade Royal Krown Cola?"
I asked Jack Crossley, the duty desk man, if he had taken the message.
"Uaaaah... no," was his considered reply.
I showed him the little piece of paper with the message scrawled on it, and asked him who had put it on my desk.
"Uaaaah... not me."
"Well Jack, this wasn't here when I left my office. That tells me that someone put it there, probably a human being in close proximity to our present location. They placed this piece of paper on my desk, after taking a message from this phone here, or the one on my desk. Now who do you think this person might be? Have any idea at all Jack?"
After several minutes I was able to wrangle from Jack that Roger Collins had briefly watched the desk while Jack used the restroom. I went in search of Roger and eventually found him out front smoking a cigarette.
"Did you take a message for me, Roger?"
"Yes."
"Well, what did she say? Did she say anything?"
"No. No message."
"Well, what does 920 RKC mean, Roger?"
"She called at nine twenty, and just asked if you would call her back. I put my initials there so you would know who took the call."
"What's your middle name? Kevin?"
"Yes."
"Thanks Roger."
I called Cathy from up in the sample room. She just wanted to tell me she had taken Spotty to the vet, and that the cat had been given an injection of antibiotics and seemed to be feeling better now. Spotty and Pee Wee are friends once again, and Cathy is relieved.
I too, was very relieved.
We talked endlessly (twenty minutes) about this and that. She gave me some useful pointer regarding the school registration process I would be going through. She asked me to give her a call sometime.
This morning I got up early, collected my paycheck from Robert, then caught a ride with Harold Eversley and Joe Brown to the bank.
When I got back (returned), I found Robert in one of the small T.V. rooms taking a driver's safety test from the video machine. He had just started (began) when I walked in, thereby giving me the rare opportunity to distract him.
The test is given (administered) to all employees who may, for one reason or another, come to use one of the Salvation Army's vehicles. There are 33 filmed driving episodes, each with a potential hazard that the test taker must identify, and then choose the most correct response to avoid injury or accident (one out of four possible answers). A correct answer scores 3 points, the least desirable response gets you a big fat 0. It is necessary to get as many numerical points as possible, hopefully gaining enough points to pass the test. One must pay strict attention to the recorded driving scenes or one will miss important clues and potential hazards.
Robert's comment when the first scene appeared: "I can't see anything!"
I had taken the test two days ago, scoring a 74 out of a possible 99.
Robert, when finished, somehow managed a 104.
Really!
Robert would have other problems associated with driving this day. Last night his new car overheated. He has determined that the thermostat was responsible, and made arrangements to replace it.
As I was leaving for PCC to register for class, Robert called me over to make a deal. He would drive his car over to the Mobile station to have his thermostat replaced, and I would follow him in Red Shield 15, pick him up, and he would then take me to school.
It sounded like a good plan to me, and probably would have worked out just fine if he hadn't locked his keys inside of his car.
Upon discovering this fact, he said, "Well I'll be go to hell!"
He took me to PCC using Red Shield 15, and then went to El Monte to buy more bus tokens for the center. Later he had one of our many car door technicians open his car with a Slim Jim so he could retrieve his keys.
Further into the evening he would lock himself out of his room.
I got to (arrived) at school fifteen minutes early. I found the class I wanted was still available, and was happy about that. I smiled mischievously.
At two o'clock I got in line and registered. It took about thirty minutes of mostly waiting around to complete the procedure, and cost me $26.50, but other than that, the whole ordeal was relatively harmless.
I'll be going to school on Tuesday afternoons, from four until seven.
I got a free photo I.D. too.
I returned (got back) to the residence in time to start work at 3:30 (three thirty).
John Swisher had got a visit from the paramedics while I was away. He would be on bed rest for the entire weekend.
He is the new As-Is Yard supervisor, and has a tendency to work too hard in the hot sun, and into such a frenzy that he tends to collapse quite often.
He's nuts.
I also talked to Ernie Sens at dinner. We discussed the upcoming CPR class I would be taking.
"You know," he said, "those dummies they use are really sophisticated now. You start giving them artificial respiration for fifteen minutes and you begin to get emotionally involved. As they start breathing on their own... you really want those dummies to make it."
I spent most of my shift reading and writing. I thought about how much I wanted to give Cathy unnecessary artificial respiration.
It had been a good day. I had enjoyed every minute of it and felt fine.

August 24 Saturday Day 347

I continued to feel good this morning. I woke up and yawned. I reached over and grabbed my copy of Vonnegut's "Jailbird," and read two chapters, read a couple from the Book of Luke, thumbed through "Co dependent No More," a book Cathy had lent to me, then got up and took a nice shower.
I wrote downstairs for a while in the lobby, until lunchtime (chicken patties), then went to the park for an hour and roasted while listening to vintage Elton John.
After a second shower, I slid down to the canteen and got myself a nice cup of coffee and continued to write until it was time to go to work.
There wasn't too much to do when I got there. I fiddled around mostly. Robert Vasquez was roaming around, so I kept myself looking like I was actually doing something worthwhile and constructive.
Robert seems to spend more time in the residence on his days off than when he's working.
Or is just my imagination?
At eight o'clock I called Cathy's number. I wanted to say hello (pitifully force myself into her life), see how Spotty and Pee Wee were doing, and tell her of my registration experiences. However she was not at home. I talked to her answering machine instead. Her answering machine sounds suspiciously like Cathy.
I copied down some passages from Nan Robertson's, "Getting Better," then started another Whitney Strieber novel, "Majestic."
There had been some kind of Jazz festival during the day, up on Colorado and Fair Oaks. It continued on into the evening as well. I had not checked it out because I did not wish to become part of the crowd today, but a lot of our guys did. A couple of them got a little too festive and blew positive on the breath-a-lizer. One of them told me, "I swear Rick, all I was doing was kissing this girl. Her alcohol flooded breath must have been inducted into my lungs!"
I wished them well.

August 25 Sunday Day 348

Another wonderful day. My God, I'm glad I don't drink anymore!
Cathy did not return my call so I had no plans for the day. Regular Sunday routine for me
During collection in chapel, Clyde Foster, who was helping me with the middle section, kept passing his plate down the same isle I was working. What would happen was the two plates would collide in the center and stop, which took an inordinate amount of time (while the confusion abated) for the process to resume.
For some reason this happens almost every Sunday.
Ron Collins wimped out like a little snot (as did I last week), and did not go with me to the Sunday morning A.A. speaker meeting at the American Legion building in South Pasadena. I did though, and had a very good time.
During the coffee break a girl by the name of Gary sat next to me, and we talked about how nice it was to be sober. She's a cocktail waitress.
Women seem to sense my natural strength and sexual prowess, and flock to me (fantasy).
A retired judge of the state Supreme Court was our guest speaker. He now works part time as the announcer at Dodger and Rams games. He related that while still a Municipal Court judge and attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, he was approached by a woman wanting her court card signed (a verification of attedance at a 12 Step meeting mandated by a court). He told the lady that he would be happy to, but he was not the meeting's secretary.
"No, but you're the bastard that sent me here!"
When she returned to his court he discovered that she had been to exactly twice the meetings he had stipulated she attend.
"Why did you go to this many meetings?" he asked her.
"Because of you!" she replied. "I started to like the meetings so much that I resented the fact that you made me go to them. So I went on my own!"
After the meeting I walked to the residence with Brian Montique, then went to the park for an hour.
After dinner I took in the sights and sounds of Colorado Blvd> on a Sunday evening. There were many women giving me the old eye (extreme fantasy).
I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how my word processor worked. I managed to make a file, and named it "Sal." The file consisted of the first three sentences of this memoir.
Near eleven, thoroughly exhausted and confused, I went to bed.

August 26 Monday Day 349

For some reason I woke up thoroughly confused. This is a natural state for us recovering alcoholics and drug addicted individuals, and should be expected.
I shook my head several times, in a vigorous fashion, and became oriented once again.
A little while later I got up, went to the bathroom and smoked an unauthorized cigarette. I changed into my yellow swim trunks and went to the weight room to lift and pull on heavy objects with lots of density for about thirty minutes.
After I finished I returned to my room and changed into street clothes, then wrote in the lobby.
Wendy came in, looking fresh and beautiful, with long, flowing blonde hair (how many blondes are there in the world, do you think?). We talked a little about school registration and Shakespeare (and not necessarily in that order), then she got sucked into the counseling vortex.
As I headed upstairs to put my notebook away I heard Robert bawling out Roger Collins, accusing him of smoking in the bathroom because he had found my cigarette butt in the toilet. Apparently it had survived the flush.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" Roger exclaimed.
Later Robert informed me that he would be on the lookout for any unauthorized smoking in the bathrooms.
I told him, "If I find'em... Bam! Out they go! Won't even give 'em time to pack their bags. All these smokers should go downtown to Seventh Street and Towne (Skid Row), where they belong!"
"Good man," he mused. "Of course they'll probably let them back in the next day. But that's neither here nor there... it's our job to kick them out."
After lunch (chicken nuggets again), instead of going to the park, I went to the movies. "Dead Again," had just been released, and I thought it might be worthwhile.
It was. I thought I knew who the killer was from the first scene, but the writer threw a curve at the last minute and it turned out to be someone else. The film explored reincarnation, a subject I have a lot of problems with, but what the hell, it was a very well made film, a triumph for Kevin Branagh, it's star and director. The black and white footage was very stylish, and the opening scene was particularly effective.
The female lead wasn't too bad either, who ever she was. Wonderful actress, she may be British. She had the kind of face (a beautiful one at that) that looks familiar even though you're sure you've never seen her before. Very interesting.
I may have fell in love with her... secretly.
I think I'm positive of it.
Later on I caught a ride with Harold Eversley to the mall. Harold had given me a tip that Miller's Outpost was having a sale. Indeed, I found a shirt I liked for $20. I bought it, and walked back to the residence.
At dinner, the cooks brought out a little birthday cake for Jerry Schimmele. He was fifty eight years old. I had bought him a card the day before. "I'm not giving you a funny birthday card," the printing on the front proclaimed. On the inside it said, "The fact that I'm giving you a card at all is funny enough."
Jerry is a good and reliable friend and therefore open to as much abuse as I can muster.
I included a ten dollar bill within the card because I'm such a nice guy and all.
But not genuinely.
I was all set to watch another exciting episode of Steven Spielberg's "Tiny Toon Adventures," when I noticed that it had been preempted by a stupid Dodger baseball game.
The Dodgers probably lost. I didn't watch it to find out. I played with my word processor some more, and got it to do some more tricks.
Barbara was now back from her two week vacation in Montana. She said it rained almost the entire time she was there. Now she was free to return to her relapse prevention duties.
We discussed using other mind altering chemicals besides the ones we normally like to abuse, as a precursor to total relapse. Wanting too much, and omnipotence, were also labeled as slippery behaviors or attitudes.
I spent the rest of the evening playing with my word processor again, and my printer. I managed to print a short letter to my mother, thanking her for getting me the device, while demonstrating its various abilities.
Getting it to work was quite simple really. Like most things in life, all one has to do is read the instructions.
It's finding the right instructions that's the hard part.

Salvation Diary Forty Eight

2011-11-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 17 Saturday Day 340

I woke up at eight. I heard people cleaning outside of my room. I couldn't go back to sleep so I arose.
I took my notebook and went to the lobby to try to write, but for some reason it was very difficult to do so. My head seemed to be filled with fog, and people kept coming to me and asking me questions.
Tom Rotsch came in to pick up his doll house from the hobby shop. It's really a big doll house, the second largest I've ever seen (old "Get Smart" joke). He came with a friend to take it to Richard Bennet's.
Tom seems to be doing fine. He told me that he had one rough day (tempted to use cocaine), but got through it, and has maintained his sobriety. That is tremendous news! He's been doing some freelance carpentry work, so he's making a little money, and his friends are being supportive.
Thank God! I was really worried about him.
After lunch I finished writing for a while and walked over to Music Plus to pick up the weekend's videos. "Misery," and "The Freshman," with Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick. Both had come out during the week. Both very good, but only if you like movies about shadowy Mafia figures, crazy farm ladies, and Komodo dragons (Burt Parks singing "Maggie's Farm" is classic!)
I just had time to make it to the park before my afternoon shift. A little Stevie Nicks (I'm secretly in love with her you know), and my absolute favorite Beatles (John Lennon) song, "Hide Your Love," came through my Mickey Mouse headphones.
After a quick shower I went with steady determination to work. The first order of business was to alert our new desk man, Columbus Davis, of my impending telephone call from Cathy. I told him that if I wasn't at the desk when she called to frantically page me, send troops out after me, fire skyrockets, do something, but get me to the telephone or else I'd have to shoot him.
So after dinner I went upstairs to have a nice unauthorized cigarette and brush my teeth. When I returned to the desk Columbus told me I'd have to shoot him.
"Why?" I asked.
"She called, and I told her to hang on, and Hendrickson wanted to key to four, and before I could call you, I checked and she had hung up." He was terrified.
But what choice did I have? I shot him three time with my father's German luger. Nine Millimeter.
After the body was taken to U.S.C. Medical I sat in my office and pondered this curious state of affairs. Why hadn't I gotten her phone number to begin with? Isn't that how it's normally done? And why hadn't she called back?
I continued to puzzle over this until about eight o'clock, when Cathy called and told me this had been her first attempt. I immediately signaled Rockoff to call U.S.C. and give Columbus the message that it was alright for him to come back... after he healed. Then I talked to Cathy for about fifteen minutes.
She was still having cat problems. Upon bringing her female cat (Spotty) back from the vets (after having been fixed), the cat instantly began fighting again with the male cat (Pee Wee). Ever since Thursday she's had to separate the two and this has caused her great consternation. From my own experience this type of behavior is unusual for cats who have previously been "buddy-buddy" for three years. Cathy's own veterinarian was of no help, telling her she may have to give one of them up. Cathy didn't want to hear that, and she's naturally upset (she hasn't been sleeping well). She's continuing to hope that time will rectify the situation.
I offered to postpone our date until things got somewhat normalized, but she said that she'd done about all that she could do, and staying in all day wouldn't help her much.
Such wisdom! And she's so cute too!
So tomorrow's on. I suggested some places we could go to, and we came up with the idea of visiting a botanical garden in Glendale, close to her home. She said she's been wanting to go there for a long time. I suggested dinner afterwards.
I wished her luck with her cats. She said she'd pick me up at two. Then we said good night.
I got through the rest of the evening as fast as possible. Columbus didn't make it back before curfew, so I A.W.O.L./A.C.O.ed him, poor bastard.
I dreamt of possums again.

August 18 Sunday Day 341

Wow! What a day!
It began ordinarily enough. My alarm went off exactly at 8:00, and I woke to some off the wall rock song I'd never heard before. I also heard Robert Vasquez rummaging around in the bathroom (he always hums when he's rummaging), so I stayed put in bed until I heard him clear out ten minutes later.
I showered and dressed.
Chapel went very smoothly. The Major is on vacation for a whole month, so everyone felt relaxed and cool. Clarence Orion, just returning from his own vacation, sang "Down by the Old Rugged Cross." His voice has a nice, low, soothing quality about it.
Cathy was to pick me up at two, so my options for the morning were open. I debated whether to go to the Sunday Morning A.A. meeting speaker meeting with Ron as I normally do. I'd have about half an hour before Cathy arrived. Or I could spend the morning fucking off, and be thoroughly prepared for my big date.
I did neither. Instead of going to the meeting, I had good old Robert drop me off at the mall so I could do a little shopping.
I bought a new shirt, being dissatisfied with all of the others I already owned. Then I hit one of the two bookstores they have at the mall and looked for a book about cats, hoping it would give me and Cathy a clue to Spotty's bizarre behavior. I found one that might be of some help and bought it. Then I walked back to the residence.
After taking a little nap I dressed casually, donning my brand new shirt. At 2:00 I was standing in the parking lot with my cat book and sport coat looking rather suave, and ready to go. She arrived a few minutes later, and we were off.
"Oh how sweet," she said, when I showed her the book. We drove into Glendale, to the Decano Gardens, an arboretum she had wanted to check out. The day was sunny and warm. I began to sweat a little while walking up and down the hilly terrain. She's a marathon runner and in great shape, and did not perspire. However, she told me she was out of shape, but it looked great to me.
And we talked. Walking through the sun drenched gardens we discovered each other. Usually on a first date (unless I've had a few) I feel kind of awkward, not knowing what to say and generally making a fool of myself. But not today. She is a great talker (as I've previously expressed), and she helped me along, putting me at ease. We talked about how I got where I was, and we talked about how she got where she was. I loved listening to her. She was very honest and direct, and the story of her recovery, of some dysfunctional relationships she's been involved in, and her alcoholism, to me appeared nothing short of heroic. I admired her as a beautiful woman, and a a human being. I didn't believe I'd met anyone quite like her.
Recovery is wonderful. Good things do happen.
And of course, how could I have not been in love with her ("It's so easy to fall in...)
I didn't tell her that though. Women don't like to be told that your in love with them on the first date. A woman told me that once.
We left the gardens and drove to her house to check on her cats. She lived in a lovely little guest house, nestled in the foothills of north Glendale, near the border of La Canada and Tujunga. It was a single room with space for a king sized bed and bookshelves in one area, a small living room branching out to the side containing a sofa, coffee table, and television. An adequate kitchen, bathroom, enclosed yard.
And two cats.
Spotty and Pee Wee.
Spotty (the trouble maker) was in her carrying case as we came in (not that she had any choice in the matter. She had been locked up in there all day). Pee Wee, a big calico, was prowling around.
Cathy was truly worried. The fighting between the cats had made her very nervous, making her lose sleep.
"Do you think I should let Spotty out?" she asked me. "I mean, maybe by your being here, it will be a distraction and they'll be too worried about you to fight with each other."
I told her that she'd have to let Spotty out sometime, then prayed that they didn't instantly attack me.
Spotty, a white female with black spots, crept out of her cage, crossed the room and sniffed at Pee Wee. Pee Wee gave a short hiss, then both of them ducked underneath the bed.
"That's the closest they've gotten together since she came back from the vets." Cathy was cautiously pleased.
The cats behaved themselves for the rest of the evening, not once trying to tear themselves apart.
Or me.
Thank God!
Soon we went to dinner, discovering a quaint little Mexican place nearby. A couple seated to our left began to burglarize our conversation, raving about what a great restaurant it was, and the quality of the food, and on and on. When the man began reminiscing upon certain wines he liked, Cathy and I both cut him off then continued our pleasant conversation. She wimped out and ordered an enchilada verde, while I, always the bold explorer, tried something I'd never had before, an enchilada mole (an enchilada with a very spicy chocolate sauce), which was very interesting at first (it sucked), but soon tasted, and looked like, pond mud.
Afterwards we returned to her house and watched some T.V., while continuing to talk. She asked me if I needed to get back to the residence soon.
"God no!" I told her. "It's nice to get away from there."
"I imagine it must be," she said.
I mentioned that for the last eleven months I had not taken a single overnight pass.
"Are you going to keep trying for a record?" she asked, and smiled.
"No," I answered. Then I reached over and kissed her. She kissed me back. I liked it, so I kissed her again. She kissed me back again. I continued kissing her (what used to be commonly known as making out), and she continued kissing me back, for at least eight or nine pages of frantic (and frenzied) kissing.
Then we played Scrabble for the rest of the evening (not really, but our respective mothers may one day read this).
She was so cute! And loving. She's was very warm and cuddly too! I felt so good to hold her.
We slept next to each other all that night, sometimes holding tightly to each other, sometimes not. I never felt so wonderful.
It made me forget all about the news we had seen on the television right before we went to bed.
On the other side of the world, Mikhail Gorbachev, probably the most important and influential figure in world affairs of the century, had been disposed in a bloodless coup as the chief of state of the U.S.S.R.
The hardliners have the country again.

August 19 Monday Day 342

On her way to work Cathy dropped me off at the corner of Glendale Blvd. and Broadway. Two minutes later I was picked up by the 181 and taken to Pasadena.
I was a little tired. I checked in with Robert when I got to the residence, to let him know I was still alive.
"I had you down as A.W.O.L. there for a while, Joyce. Then I remembered you're an employee."
I had a nice cup of coffee with Mr. Schimmele and the rest of the janitors before going upstairs to my room.
I tried to sleep, but it would not come to me. My mind was in overdrive. I relived the events of the previous day, over and over again, and was constantly preoccupied with what I would say to Cathy when I called her that night. I suffered fantasies of a delusional nature for the rest of the day... what our next date would be like, how our life would be like together, how many kids we would have, where we would retire, things like that.
I couldn't stop thinking about that kind of stuff. My mind was abuzz.
I was insane.
And can you blame me? There I was, this awfully lonely, very nice ( although not genuinely) and deserving fellow, who has been starved for affection for like the last two years or more, and then I met this girl who proceeds to turn my life upside down with her charming and penetrating wonderfulness.
What a sap!
My mind would not let me stop thinking about her though. So I got out of bed and went to the movies. I saw "Terminator 2," again, to get my head back into reality.
I couldn't sit still, and left about half way through the film. I was in a sad state for the rest of the afternoon. My head was in a cloud of anxiety and low key panic. I had no appetite. I did not eat all day, just chugging coffee and smoking a lot of cigarettes.
I hardly said a word during relapse prevention. All I could think about was Cathy and the call I would be making to her as soon as the meeting was over. I prayed that during the day her two cats had not slaughtered each other, and she had not returned to her home to only find flying fur, blood, and claws, thus spoiling her mood (what a selfish asshole I am).
When the meeting finally ended (ironically our topic had to do with recognizing relapse warning signs, such as, relying too much on others, breakdowns in daily discipline and routine) I walked over to the train station on the far side of the park for some privacy, and called her.
She let me have it right between the eyes.
Oh, our conversation was gentle and low key enough. I first asked her about her cats. They were still alive, but there was some fear that Spotty may be sick. The kitty was acting depressed. I told her to call the vet if it kept up. She asked me about my day, and I honestly related what had happened and my state of mind, expecting that she would enjoy the fact that I continuously thought about her (what a fool!)
But she was silent. And when she began speaking again her words came slowly and were well chosen. Essentially, she told me to get lost. That she had enjoyed our time together, and was glad I spent the night with her, but my attitude and voice must have set off some feminine alarm in her cute little head, and she began talking about her past relationships problems, and that she was just beginning to learn about being herself, and being independent, and that she felt that maybe for the first time worthwhile and comfortable in her own skin and did not wish to compulsively jump into some "relationship" and risk becoming enmeshed, and losing herself once again.
She told me we should continue to date. What she wanted was to act slowly and responsibly on a "one day at a time" basis, and see how things worked out.
You could tell how madly infatuated and swept off her feet she was by me.
But I found myself agreeing with her. My head cleared up instantly and at once I felt a hell of a lot better. What I could not understand was why I had not thought this out for myself, why I had instantly leaned toward mindless meshing and confused chaotic entanglement.
Because I was so lonely. What a sap.
Obviously I needed this lovely brunette short person with great legs, this thirty two year old woman of the world, to show me functional reality and how it worked. I'm glad she did, because I wasn't liking myself while thinking obsessively about her. I disliked not being able to keep my mind on what was going on during relapse prevention.
So thank you Cathy H. Thank you for setting me straight. Thank you for giving me back to myself.
And back to my loneliness.
Poor, poor, pitiful me.
Someday, somewhere, if it's God's will, I will find the one.

August 20 Tuesday Day 343

This morning I woke up feeling sick and insecure. So I went to work and began wielding perceived personal power unmercifully, which cheered me up right away. I A.C.O.ed twelve guys, put thirty on the Saturday work list, and threatened to write nasty notes to the mothers of sixty seven men.
No, not really. The men probably wouldn't mind being thrown out of here too much, but if I started writing notes to mothers they'd turn on me.
I plowed through the morning shift. Got everything done, and done well. So by the time my shift ended I wasn't feeling insecure anymore. Just sick. Kind of depressed, and not wanting to do anything. I get that way sometimes.
I was tired of watching mindless television, tired about hearing about Gorbachev (I voted for him you know) and the coup (which seems to be falling apart rapidly), tired of reading. I didn't even go down to see what Jill was wearing when she came in at 6:05 for her 5:45 group counseling meeting.
I did get hungry though. After "Star Trek, the Next Generation," I went to the canteen and consumed a cheeseburger. I happened to linger by the desk long enough for Jill to finish her session and come out. What a knockout! Absolutely mind boggling. And of course, she's a very nice person. I like her. I wish I could get to know her. I've known her for eleven months and haven't a clue what's beneath that cool facade.
Tonight she had a smile for me, which I needed desperately.
It's nice to have such a lovely, strange, tardy, and wonderful woman in my life.
I'm a fool for them.
I returned to my room to catch, "Halloween II," on television, starring Donald Pleasense, of all people. This film also helped to cheer me up. There's nothing like a good slasher movie to top off the evening.

Salvation Diary Forty Seven

2011-11-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 12 Monday Day 335

Lots of things to do today, so I dragged myself out of bed at 7:00, and by 7:36 I was sitting in the small T.V. room watching Part 5 and 6 of the "Homecoming," series, starring John Bradshaw. How to champion your inner child, and how to relieve a lot of repressed negative emotions and feel better about yourself. About halfway through the first hour long segment, Richard Hendrickson, the night crawler driver, came in and began to watch the video with me. At this time the T.V. picture went all to hell. All we could make out was what appeared to be John Bradshaw, or someone who sounded like him, walking back and forth in the midst of an intense snowstorm. I adjusted the tracking mechanism on the V.C.R., which did not help at all, so we figured, Richard and I, that either the tape itself was defective, or the V.C.R. heads needed to be cleaned. Having resolved this question to our mutual satisfaction, we sat back and absorbed what information the tape had to offer in it's audio spectrum.
Several others who happened, as chance would have it, to walk in on us hoping to to use the room to view morning cartoons, or "Leave it to Beaver," were openly bewildered by the sight of Richard and I steadfastly watching a moving fuzzball while being lectured about "having our needs met," "multi-generational dysfunctionality," and the discovery of one's own penis.
After the tape, I worked out for thirty minutes, made a phone call to my dentist, and discovered that the permanent front tooth that had been made for me was indeed ready. I made an appointment for later in the day. I had some nice lunch, then wrote until it was time to go.
This was the easiest visit to the dentist I have ever had. No face numbing injections into the gums, no biting probes or whirling drills. The dentist just came in and said, "Hello, how are you? How's the weather outside? Are you ready for your new tooth? " He then reached into my mouth, grabbed the temporary cap, yanked it out, shoved the new permanent cap into my upper gum, shoved a mirror into my face, and asked, "How does it look?"
It looked pretty good actually. A lot better than a chipped tooth. Or no tooth at all. The clean white color of the new crown didn't quite blend in with the other coffee and nicotine stained teeth, but maybe they would learn from it. Overall I was very happy. I can smile now without having to stick my tongue up the front of my mouth, like some love struck cow. After a year and a half that feels pretty good.
On the way out I asked how much it would cost to have all of my teeth bleached. This process would brighten my remaining choppers.
$300 total. I told them I'd get back to them.
On my way back I stopped at the mall. Roger Collins wanted me to pick up a new battery for his watch (Roger will be returning to the canteen this week. His obsequious behavior at the desk has been just too much), and I needed a new belt. All of the belts I get from the thrift store seem to disintegrate once exposed to fresh air. I got the battery, found a belt at the Broadway for $21.00 ($21.00 for a single strap of cowhide with little holes in it), then made a pass through the two book stores to see what was what.
Tom Clancy had a new book out. Being the thrifty (cheap) individual that I am, I'll wait for the paperback to come.
I browsed through the Psychology Section and came across a copy of Frankel's "A Search for Meaning." I bought it as a gift for Cathy, a thank you for turning me on to John Bradshaw. That's what I wrote on the inside cover, "For Cathy, Thanks for turning me on to Bradshaw." I hope she hasn't already read it.
Upon returning to the residence I wrote and snoozed for a while, waiting for the Relapse Prevention Workshop. I was awfully hungry, but was not supposed to eat until later in the evening so my new tooth could anchor itself properly in it's new home.
Barbara had the nerve to abandon us last Friday and take a two week vacation. She's gone to Montana of all places, to visit some property she and her husband own.
That's the problem with owning property. You always have to go visit it.
Anyway, while she is gone Carlos and I were delegated to oversee the relapse group. When I called the meeting together, Reuben Smith told me that he made made an arrangement with Barbara excusing him from the meetings. I strongly suggested that he attend, not that I didn't trust his word... well, I guess that was it exactly, I didn't trust his word. We're well aware of Reuben's penchant for utilizing untruths to his own advantage.
I was a little nervous, this being the first meeting, or group I was directly responsible for. But things went fairly smoothly and rolled right along for the entire hour. Reuben was even (although slightly coerced into it) awakened from his stubborn silence and made some substantial contributions to the discussion. All in all I was rather pleased.
Later in my lonely room I broke down and began reading the actual instructions for my new word processor and printer.
It was if a veil had been lifted.

August 13 Tuesday Day 336

Eleven months down, one to go!
And then on to the rest of my life.
One day at a time of course.
It feels great to have eleven months sober. Something about the number eleven. It has a regal quality about it. Eleven. "I have eleven months today!" Sounds pretty good doesn't it? "How are you, sir?" "Why fine, thank you. I have eleven months today."
They didn't give me the day off or anything because of it. You have to get malaria or something before you get a day off around here.
So I got up at 5:30 and went to work. I wrote quite a bit in the early morning, up until 9:30. Then I found some time to get some actual desk work done.
One's priorities must be in order.
Ben Driscoll came back into the program today. Don't ask me why they didn't refer him to another facility that might really help him rather than take him back in here. Good worker I suppose.
Major Johnson reminded me, while I was over at the front office harassing the bookkeeper for more canteen cards, that we were expecting approximately twenty five visitors for tomorrow's chapel service. A big time gospel singer guy, Andre Crouch, had consented to perform for us, and I had to make sure he and his entourage were fed, and had time to set up. No problem.
Columbus Davis would stop being our laundryman and replace Roger Collins at the desk. Gary Christensen would take over in the laundry.
At 1:00PM Gary told me that he was missing 30 towels. According to out new towel policy established by Major Allen, no one should have a towel in their locker during working hours. I gathered the locker keys and made a little inspection, finding 35 lockers with towels in them.
Some with more than one towel.
Pretty exciting stuff, I admit.
When I got off work, and after watching "Tiny Toons Adventures," and because Charity was here, I went to the lobby to continue reading the book that she had lent to me. She would know by this action that I was really reading it. She noticed this and sat down next to me and we discussed the book. I told her that generally I did not think the book was particularly fair to Eastern religions and philosophies, that they were in fact, depicted as being evil. She said that some of them were evil. After discussing all of the battles the demons and angels were involved with in the book, and how each entity had the ability to influence mortal men, she told me that demons were real, that she had in fact seen one while in the act of being delivered. I assume she meant while in the act of being converted, or saved in the Christian sense. I wasn't about to argue with someone who's seen demons.
Charity is a singer. She's going to sing tomorrow night too.
Jill came in at 6:00 for her 5:45 group counseling session. I did not have the time to stay and chat, since "Star Trek, the Next Generation," was about to begin.
I read and watched television up in my lonely room for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow would be a busy day, and I needed my rest.
I did have one, very nice, coconut covered donut to help celebrate my eleven month anniversary. One and a half really. Not exactly on my diet, but...

August 14 Wednesday Day 337

We're being attacked by the possums again. They're everywhere.
Andre Crouch, the big time gospel singer who was supposed to have performed with Charity and her singing brothers and sisters at chapel, couldn't make it because his flight from Norway had been delayed. Charity and her siblings put on a marvelous show in his absence. They sang their little gospel hearts out, God bless'em. . It was thoroughly appreciated.
I watched the last of the tapes that Cathy had lent to me. More John Bradshaw of course. I now feel I've reached my saturation point with Mr. Bradshaw. He can be a little grating.
I did learn quite a bit from them, and I was glad Cathy had lent them to me. I even came across some unique pickup lines, such as, "Oh baby, I want to get into your boundaries," and "Let's bond."
Speaking of Cathy, in accordance with my new found sense of freedom and independence, I had planned to be courteous and friendly this evening. I would give her the book I had bought for her, but not go out of my way to be ingratiating. Just act normally, enjoy her presence and the presence of everybody else around here, like I usually do. But because of Ron Collins being asleep when Cathy was ready to talk to him, I somehow wound up taking his place, and Cathy and I, finally, had a nice long sit down conversation. We talked about the program at the center mostly, how the residence operates, and my small part in it. I found out that she likes to run, and has in fact finished three marathons. I myself cannot stand running, but do it sometimes because I'm told it's good for me.
We talked for a good thirty minutes, and would have talked longer if Robert hadn't chose that time to return from one of his many and varied outings, yelling and screaming, "Where's my desk crew? Has everybody abandoned their post?" (apparently Jack Crossley had stepped out for a moment) So I left the lovely Cathy in order to placate my disgruntled boss.
After he was settled down and briefed, Cathy was ready to leave, so naturally I offered to escort her to her car. We talked some more out there in the parking lot. She told me that she had had a veterinary emergency the other night. Her unfixed female cat had gone into heat and was viciously attacked by her neutered male cat.
She gave me two more books to read, then it was time for her to go home.
"Well... I guess I'll see you next week," she said looking up at me from car window. She hesitated, and looked (radiant) kind of expectant.
If this wasn't an opening I don't know what was.
"What do you do on Sundays?" I asked.
"I have my home group to go to, in the mornings."
"Because I was wondering if you'd like, maybe we could get together. Ah I like you a lot and would like to talk to you some more."
"Well, how about in the afternoon."
"That would be great."
I asked her to give me a call sometime Friday or Saturday night while I was working to make the final arrangements.
I asked her to drive safely before she left. We smiled at each other, and then she was off.
I was very happy.
I don't remember dreaming that night, but when I woke up in the morning, I felt very, very good.

August 15 Thursday Day 338

All I really wanted to do today was to get through it as quickly as possible. The sooner the day ended the sooner I would be able to talk to Cathy Friday or Saturday night. And I wanted to talk to her very much.
I must say my mind was a little preoccupied with thoughts of her throughout the day. Whenever I wasn't doing anything at all, or while attempting to use my last three surviving neurons to figure out canteen cards, janitorial supplies, or measuring the softness of the ice cream served in the canteen, my thoughts always returned to her and our last conversation. I thought about what we could do on Sunday, and what I would say to her when she called.
So much for detachment.
What if she tells me that she forgot all about her usual Sunday afternoon hair washing ritual and can't make it?
Bullshit! She's just not that kind of girl. If she didn't want to go out with me she wouldn't have accepted my invitation.
Our own minds sometimes make us worry needlessly.
See how weird men are.
Of course women aren't any better.
I managed to get through another seventeen hour shift. It got rather tiresome getting on into the evening.
Richard Bennett came into my office complaining to me about Ed Reitz (both of these guys really crack me up), and about how he feels an increase of racial tension in the house.
I see no indication of this.
That doesn't mean it's not there.
I had people complaining about the temperature in their dorms, either too hot or too cold. A maintenance problem. I had people complaining about having to get haircuts. I had people complaining about Roger being back in the canteen taking his bloody sweet time serving food. I had people complaining about whatever they could find to complain about.
But I handled it with cool efficiency and dispatch. All part of the job.
I was very happy to see eleven o'clock come around.
Eddie Gillespie, theological magician and emissary, poet, man of leisure, and my friend, has consented to be our night security relief person. He appears out of nowhere near curfew time on Thursday and Friday nights, and then, his mission completed the following morning, he disappears back into the mists of time from whence he came. He doesn't have an address, and no one knows where he lives. Quite odd for a security person, admittedly. I am also required to breath-a-lize him at the beginning of each shift... another unusual requirement. But I'm glad he's here, and I'm glad he's okay.
Ed McNicol did not return from a two day pass. I had to A.C.O. him. Many of us here think the possums got him and took him away to Possum Land (more than likely he's all drunk in his brother's apartment in the Green Hotel).
And as I was laying in bed thinking again about how wonderful Cathy is (this is getting really sickening, isn't it), I realized something about our last conversation together.
I got to talk!

August 16 Friday Day 339

Ed McNicol managed to escape "by the skin of my teeth," from the cavernous den of the red eyed, malignant King of the Possums. "There were millions of them," he said. "As far as the eye could see."
Ed told me his story. On his way back from visiting his brother at the infamous Green Hotel, he was waylaid by three shifty looking possums dressed as fandango dancers. They systematically dragged him underneath the ground and held him captive, waiting to be sacrificed to the Great Possum God Rudolfo.
Being a fair possum, and one who liked to gamble now and then, the King of Possums offered Ed one chance of reprieve. All Ed had to do was answer the secret question.
"Ask me!" Ed gasped.
"What is the average flying velocity of the swallow during its annual summer migration?"
"What? The European or the African swallow?"
"Ahhh, well now, I'm not sure..." the ugly beast sat hard in thought. Nothing like this had never happened before, and during the ensuing melee that transpired while trying to straighten the matter out, Ed ducked out the back door and skedaddled back on to the residence.
We still had to take two dollars from his gratuity for coming back late from pass, no matter how ingenious his explanation. We chastised him harshly too.
After listening to Ed's story, witnessing the several long and shallow scratches along his arms and face that he offered as proof of his ordeal ("Possum love bites," Ed claims), I did a little writing, then went to the park.
While there I began yet another book that Cathy had lent to me. "Under the Influence," by Dr. James R. Milan and Katherine Ketcham. I learned from this book that my alcoholic nature is probably due to "a liver enzyme malfunction which results in a buildup of actaldehyde throughout the body. In the brain these large amounts of actaldehyde interact with brain amines to create the isoquinolines. These mischievous substances may trigger the alcoholic's need to drink more and more alcohol to counter the painful effects of the progressive buildup of actaldehyde.
"Heredity is clearly implicated."
Well that's good to know! I'm certainly glad that I didn't have anything to do with it.
Clearly there are other factors besides those found within the biological sciences that create a predisposition toward alcoholism and drug addiction. There are many factors involved with the psychological, sociological, and environmental composition of the addict, as well as the physiological contributions to the etiology of the disease. But a generally well understood physical predisposition toward alcohol addiction should help to alleviate much of the guilt and shame we alcoholics suffer as a direct result of societies misunderstanding of this complicated condition.
The main point of all this being we didn't ask to be this way.
During my shift, after the Friday afternoon madness, I finished reading Charity's book and continued reading Cathy's while waiting desperately for her to call. Cathy that is. I thought to myself many things; about how awkward and fumbling my invitation to her was, and how she must think I'm a raving looney. But most of all, why didn't I ask for her number instead of having her call me?
Women don't like to call guys you know. A girl told me that once.
By ten o'clock she hadn't called, so all of my hopes and dreams rested on tomorrow night. Kevin Rockoff and I ordered a Domino's pizza with mushrooms and extra cheese, consumed it with relish, finished our shift, then retired for the evening.
Possums filled my dreams.

Salvation Diary Forty Six

2011-11-01T14:55:00.001-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 7 Wednesday Day 330

Overall, I believe today was rather sad.
A couple of very nice things did happen though. First let me point these out.
My counselor, Richard Purdy, dropped in this morning. He has shaved his beard. He is now beardless. He also can't seem to find a job. "Resumes are everywhere," he tells me. He did have one offer, to counsel adolescents, but refused the position on the grounds that he'd "wind up killing most of them within the first half hour."
So he asked Ed Reitz if he could come back here and counsel once a week, and Ed, being the lazy scum that he is, said sure.
Ed even had the nerve to state that he needed more counselors to help take the load off of him. My God! The man can never be found when you need him, he constantly combines his Monday's and Wednesday's 6:30 and 7:30 group counseling sessions into one so he can take off early, or lets Barbara take them so he can split altogether, or just out and out cancels them! Lately he's been showing AIDs videos in his groups. We've had about three combined AIDs videos within the last month. Learning about AIDs is fine, of course, except that learning about AIDs is not the reason why we came here.
Ever since his sister-in-law came to this country from the Philippines, Ed's been acting like a madman.
The second good thing that happened today was that lovely lady Jeanette came by and dropped the printer off that she and my mom got into their lovely heads that I needed.
Panasonic!
Oh boy!
She also brought with her about 2,500 sheets of special computer paper. Now I am forced to learn how to use all of this stuff.
On to the sad part of this day.
My good friend Tom Rotsch, one of those genuinely nice men, took about all he could from his supervisor, Frank Corona, and walked off the job, going over to the park to cool off. In the forty or so minutes that he was gone, Ernie Sens called and told me, "As of twelve noon, Tom Rotsch has been terminated. His behavior is intolerable." Tom came back to my office and I had to tell him that he'd been fired. He appeared to take it well. He certainly was not mad at me. I let him know I would look after the beautiful doll house he had been working on for months, which was intended for his little girl. A 3 foot by 2 foot handmade structure, that stood a good 2 feet high. He had almost finished putting the shingles of the redwood roof on. I would make sure nothing happened to it, or his other possessions.
The third to last thing he said to me was, "I really feel like punching that Mexican drunk out," and the second to last thing he said was, "But I will not drink or use over it."
The last thing he said to me was, "Rick, hold my guitar and books for me. I just punched Frank out." He had to repeat that statement because after he said it the first time, I said, "Whaaaatt?!"
He then took off as fast as he could, before the police got here.
See what I mean about clients becoming drivers. Tom, like Dennis before him, didn't even want to be a driver in the first place. He was perfectly content to keep working in the Carpenter's Shop. But Frank and Ernie wooed him away with a lot of "we really need yous," and "please help us outs." A bunch of crap! They needed him so much they gave him the boot the first time he told them what he thought of their feverish slave tactics.
Tom had been planning to begin Trade School next month, and be our night relief man on Thursdays and Fridays, then work nightcrawler on the weekends. . Now that's all shot to hell.
And the second sad thing that happened today... maybe not sad, but very frustrating. Or maybe it is very sad.
Cathy. I didn't get a chance to talk to her hardly at all. She took forever with her clients, counseling them I suppose, and didn't finish until 10:30, and then I only had the chance to return her two books and thank her for their use. She had brought some John Bradshaw video tapes she lent to me. We discussed the books a little bit, and then she was off. She seemed to be in a hurry, not like someone who was interested in talking or getting to know someone else. More like I was one of her clients.
I guess she did have to go to work in the morning, and it was late.
Women!
As I said, she terminated the conversation and drove off, waving as she left.
I don't know, I just don't know. Maybe she's not the one.
She's awfully cute though.
Awfully.
I'll tell you two things; I'm not going to spend another week mooning over this little girl, and I'm not going to spend another week worrying about it.
Life goes on.
And one day, maybe, if it is my fate, I will find the one for me.
If I stay sober.
After Cathy left, one of the guys came up and told me that he had seen my friend Tom Rotsch standing on a street corner nearby, looking very dazed, and quite confused.
I wish him well.

August 8 Thursday Day 331

This morning I felt really good, better than I had in weeks. Liberated from the nagging feeling of enslavement by my emotional involvement with Cathy. I still adore her, but now realize that my desire to get next to her was changing me into something I'm not. I was becoming subtly manipulating (with no results!), and I'd really rather not be that way (especially with no results). If Cathy has a part in my life, well that would be fantastic (she's so cute!). But if she doesn't, she won't. I'm not going to kill myself worrying about it anymore.
I wish her well.
I wish myself well too.
Kevin Rockoff told me that as he was asking Michael Vallee and Charles Parsons for a clothes washer replacement for the residence, he smelled alcohol on Parson's breath. I passed this information on to Clarence Orion, but nothing will come of it.
Harold Eversley moved out of the residence today. He moved into a one bedroom apartment with his beautiful Ellie. He will still be working here as the head cook.
As he begins his perilous journey known as domestication, I wish him well.
Something seems to be wrong with good old Don Erwin. A paramedic unit needed to pick him up from the Transition House to an emergency room. No one knows why, or what happened. Clarence Bliss said, "If you ask me it's alcohol poisoning!"
I took two hours in the afternoon to watch a couple of John Bradshaw PBS sessions of "The Family," which were companion pieces to one of the books I had just finished reading. Cathy had lent these to me.
A curious idea came to me while I watched these videos. What if I had drank and used drugs not to anesthetize myself, but to actually expel the feelings I could not express while sober? A frantic attempt at release.
Probably a little of both. No answer is simple in this world.
Marvin Gardenhire, my friend and canteen relief person, managed to get something in his eye, so I drove him to the USC Medical Center. While he was there I analyzed a sample of his urine, along with four others, and found his to be laced with high levels of cocaine metabolites. So were some of the others, but they were brand new members of the program and were rather expected to be dirty, not like an old program graduate like Marvin. His last test before this one, done on July 4th, indicated a level of 0.01, barely there. Today's sample was that of a man doing a back flip into a swimming pool filled with the white powder.
Poor Marvin. I shall miss him.
Do I sound callus?
Maybe I'm getting to sound that way... to be that way a little.
But I definitely feel that the sooner Marvin faces up to the fact that he has relapsed the better it will be for him. The faster it will be that he can stop lying to himself and begin to deal with his addiction again.
Denial is a killer.

August 9 Friday Day 332

I slept in until about nine, then went downstairs to the lobby to write.
After getting dressed of course.
After lunch (cheeseburgers) I quarantined the small T.V. room and watched the last half of "The Family" tape Cathy had lent to me. Very interesting stuff. I have seen the process Bradshaw describes in which alcoholics and drug addicts jump straight from using those substances into a rigid religious or spiritual structure or program, giving up all responsibility for their own recovery, letting "God" fix them, thusly substituting one addiction for another. These desperate folks tend to ignore any aspect of the A.A. 12 Step program (despite the fact that A.A. has a huge spiritual component installed within it), cutting off a valuable source of help and placing limits on one's own chances of successfully recovering from their primary addiction.
After two hours of watching the tape my lunch had finished digesting so I went down to the weight room and worked out vigorously. Then I showered, read some from the "Book of Proverbs," and went to work.
The usual Friday afternoon madness ensued, and when it was over, at six o'clock I presented new client orientation to four men. Three of them had recently been here before. I dismissed them. Tracy Alexander was one of them, which means he was back for those of you readers who may have been worried about him.
Now I had just one person to explain the house rules to. His name was Ted. Robert Vasquez came in during the middle of my speech, so poor Ted got the rules from both of us.
About thirty minutes later the police came and took Ted away for child support violations.
Such is life.
I spent much of the evening reading a novel that Charity had lent to me. "The Present Darkness," by Frank E. Peretti. Adequately written, a very Christian oriented work, depicting lots of foul demons battling beautiful angels. Based on a true story she told me.
I will finish reading it since Charity lent it to me and thought I might like it.
Charity is such a nice person. I like her a lot.
After work I watched two more hours of Bradshaw. This time from the "Homecoming" series, in which he demonstrates some of his techniques to bring out hidden and repressed feelings caused by abuse within family systems.
One thing bothers me while I watch these tapes. One item that doesn't seem to be addressed, something of particular interest to me... what happens when a person begins to get better, begins to heal and gets in touch with all of the aspects of their past hurt, shame, and pain? After they are on the road to recovery, their addictions arrested, how do they come to terms with, how does anyone learn to live in and be accepted by a still very sick, very dysfunctional and greatly disturbed world?

August 10 Saturday Day 333

The first thing I did today was breathe. The second was to wake up. Then I got dressed. After that I walked around the block to the thrift store a bought a nightstand with three drawers for my new printer to sit on, considering the laws of gravity and all. With my cool employee discount it came to only $6.75. Very nice.
I carried it back to the residence and settled it where I wanted it, right at the foot of my bed on the west wall. I placed the printer on top of it and plugged it in. Several little lights began to shine from the control panel, a good sign. I patched the parallel feed line from the printer to the word processor (computer). It continued to sit there quietly.
Now all I have to do is read the instruction booklet and find out how all of this stuff works.
But that can wait until tomorrow.
I went to the lobby to write until lunchtime. Then I grabbed my blanket, radio, sunglasses, and the book Charity had lent to me and went to the park.
I felt very good today. Ever since last Thursday when I made up my mind to stop pursuing Cathy, stop demanding that she perform to some desperate fantasy of mine, I have felt... released.
And that felt rather good. I liked everything today!
Except for the things I didn't like.
It was nice in the park. Hot and sunny. Reuben Smith came out and sat down next to me after I had been there 37 minutes. I knew that it had been 37 minutes because Reuben asked me how long I had been there.
"Thirty seven minutes," I told Reuben.
He rolled out his little orange blanket and laid down and we talked for a while. Abruptly he said, "I'm going to tune you out now, Richard," and put on his Walkman radio headphones. I followed suit, and tuned him out as well.
I discovered that Reuben does not turn over when he lies out in the sun. He allows his chest (if you can call it that, it sort of looks like a shallow depression in a road) to tan deeply while his back remains completely white. This, coupled with the fact that he still wears his sunglasses while sun bathing has the overall effect of making him look decidedly odd.
At work, I read during most of my shift. I did sneak into the small TV room a couple of times to see parts of the Saturday night V.C.R. movie, "The Punisher," with Dolf (Dolf) Lundgren. One of Robert's picks. Stupid movie , but with lots of gratuitous violence.
One of Cathy's clients, Ray Trujillo, came back close to midnight and blew a .03. I wish him well.
After midnight when my shift was over, I retired to the small T.V. room and tried to watch two more hours of the Bradshaw tapes. They're very good really, and I recommend them to anybody who's ever been in a family. Maybe the reason I've felt so good for the last couple of days is because I've been finding out so much about families, my own included, and about myself as well.
I fell asleep a little more than three quarters through the first tape. When the static noise from the T.V. woke me I went to my room and to bed.
I had weird sex dreams.

August 11 Sunday Day 334

The days are getting hot, like they were in the Park a year ago. I was there this time last year. The nights were warm and it will be chilly, if not down right cold by the time morning comes.
All I had to look forward to a year ago was a lot of loneliness and uncertainty. The lot of the homeless. Today I have all sorts of good and interesting things to do.
But before I could get to those things there was chapel to contend with. I had no responsive reading to worry about this week at least. Just passing around the collection plate at the appropriate time.
It went smoothly.
Lots of pretty girls at the Sunday morning A.A. meeting at the American Legion building in South Pasadena, which always makes this gathering very... intriguing. Devon, the Newport Beach suffer girl, and Angie, the quiet brunette who starts us off on the "Happy Birthday" song each week (Birthday Songleading Chairperson), are Ron's and my favorites. Especially Angie.
The girls from Casa de los Amigos did not show up though, which was just as well since about half of our folding chairs seemed to be missing.
Are these two events connected somehow? Who knows for sure? One can only speculate.
Skip was kind of glad the Casa girls were not around. "Those Casa girls sure absorb a lot of sound," he said. He could hear better when they weren't there, he said.
Ron and I had an enjoyable walk back, telling each other stories about how stupid and fucked up we were when we used to drink alcohol. We laughed about it. Most people overhearing us, I believe, would think us sick, or at least very sad.
I went to the park for an hour. Reuben Smith came by after a while. He did not sit next to me today because the grass was too hard where I was, he said. We left together though, deciding it was getting too cloudy.
Damn water vapor.
I took a shower, then watched a great episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation."
I think this show should be mandatory for all recovering people.
I wrote in the lobby afterwards. Since Robert had picked the week's V.C.R. movie I felt no pressure to save myself a seat, or even attend.
I played with my new printer for much of the rest of the evening. I had gone to Vons earlier and bought some shoe polish, so I polished my shoes as well.
I haven't the faintest idea of how my new printer is supposed to work. I did discover the self test mode, after which being engaged the printer head went crazy and gave me a full page of every character the printer prints, in four different styles.
Very exciting.
About the dumbest Arnold Schartzennagger movie yet to be made was on T.V. I watched part of it of course. "Commando." 80 million guys shooting straight at Arnie and he never got even a nick.
Movie magic.
I read after the movie ended, until I felt tired. When I began to feel tired I turned out the lights and rolled over on my stomach.
I wondered what Cathy was doing at that moment, and I wanted her next to me.

Salvation Diary Forty Five

2011-11-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

August 1 Thursday Day 324

Well, well, well, another long day. I have decided to carry on at the Adult Rehabilitation Center of the Salvation Army here in Pasadena, instead of moving to Japan, where I've discovered there are a lot of monasteries.
Probably a wise decision on my part. Monasticism could very well just be another form of escape for me. Another way to hide my deep feelings.
Our visitors from Denmark left for home today. Nice people (freeloaders).
Mrs. Johnson gave me a box of stuffed animals and costume jewelery she got for free from Avon, to give to the Danish people as going away presents. I imagine they were intended for the children. They left some of this fabulous booty in the apartment after vacating, and I confiscated a stuffed lion, necklace, and ankle bracelet, to give to my mother on Sunday, who in turn would give it to my beautiful, but precocious young niece, Keri.
I'm sure Mrs. Johnson would approve if I were to tell her.
Fat chance of that.
A couple of suspicious looking fellows have been hanging around the thrift store just before closing time, making the ladies who work there nervous. I took Anthony Bullock with me and went over there to see what was up. We only saw one guy hanging around, sitting in a blue Impala actually. I decided to call the police, but as I dialed the car drove off. The police said they were too busy molesting poor homeless people in the park to be bothered, so I told the girls if the guy came back to give me a call.
I spent most of the evening reading one of the books Cathy had lent to me. Very interesting material concerning family systems. Bradshaw describes the "courting phase," of a relationship, the "falling, or being in love phase," as "being out of your mind." I would have to say that is fairly accurate.
I had the unique opportunity to call Major and Mrs. Johnson at home when I knew they would be sleeping. Delta Airlines had called here at the residence to let us know Mrs. Johnson's 8:30AM flight had been canceled. Despite being woken, Mrs. Johnson (Jenny) was awfully glad I passed that little tidbit of info along.
And when I retired for the evening I thought about Cathy again, as I had found myself doing through a good portion of the day.
Why do I feel so much like a teenager thinking about his first date?

August 2 Friday Day 325

Come to think of it, my first date's name was Cathy. She was 14 years old and a model. A 14 year old model for God's sake. I used to write her letters and mail them "Special Delivery." That was fine until she wrote one back mailed the same way and my mom almost had two heart attacks thinking someone in the family had kicked the bucket.
This morning I got up at about nine and sat for a while thinking about what I would do until I began my big shift at 3:30.
I took a shower. It was the best shower I ever had.
After I dried off, I stole Reuben Smith away from Harold Eversley ("It's alright. You can have him," Harold exclaimed), and took him with me to see "Hot Shots," a new comedy starring Charlie Sheen, with Lloyd Bridges as the Admiral. It was ostensively about Navel fighter pilots.
ADMIRAL: "Why I've flown one hundred and ninety four missions... shot down every time. Come to think of it, I've never landed an airplane."
It was a fun hour and a half.
When I returned to the residence I worked out for a while, then went to work.
After the Friday afternoon madness abated somewhat, I was able to get back to the Bradshaw book on the family. Very interesting and valid stuff. Very real issues affecting each and every one of us. I'm glad that I've read this because my own research has primarily dealt with alcoholism and chemical dependency, not the etiology of possible causes of addictive behavior. "The disease behind the disease," as Bradshaw states.
Don't get me wrong. I still consider chemical addiction to be a "primary disease" which treatment must be first provided (abstinence) before any work regarding underlying conditions be attempted.
One other very interesting thing about reading this particular book is that Cathy has highlighted it much of it with a yellow felt pen. Either these passages held some kind of clinical interest for her, or they pertained to her personally, which I believe the latter to be the case from talking to her and knowing something about her.
Reading this has been very insightful.

August 3 Saturday Day 326

One year ago today Major Engels of the Van Nuys ARC searched through what he thought was my locker and found two empty half pint bottles of Seagram Seven (only maniacs drink Seagram Seven) that were not mine. He then had me terminated from that center and program.
Thus began my last (I hope) great relapse episode, from which I stumbled upon the shores of the Pasadena ARC a month and a half later.
This morning, immediately after prying myself from the steadfast jaws of Morpheus, I walked back to the Park from whence I came. This time though, instead of bringing a fifth of Bacardi (only desperate tequila drinkers drink Bacardi), I had my blanket and headphones. I had my cigarettes and book as well. That much had changed. When I once lived in the Park I spent my days drinking, smoking and reading.
I laid down on my flat and well muscled stomack (fantasy), propped myself on my elbows, and read from "The Family." I did this for the next twenty six minutes, until my poor elbows couldn't take it anymore. I then flattened out for four minutes, before flopping over for the next thirty, on my well chiseled back, while listening to Foreigner, Jethro Tull, and the Beatles.
I began work a little early. Got some writing done, taking care of the usual Saturday afternoon chores and paperwork.
Anthony Rutherford came into my office, tossed a five dollar bill on my desk and asked, "Can I have two canteen cards, Richard?"
"Well, let's see Anthony." I opened my cash drawer and looked inside. "Sorry. I don't have change. All I've got right now is one dollar bill and four quarters. You want three cards?"
"No." He took back the five dollar bill, rummaged through his pants pocket and pulled out a one. "Gimme one card then."
I gave him a card and took the dollar bill.
"Hey Anthony! Now I've got change. You want two cards?"
"You do? Gimme two cards."
I took his five and gave him back the dollar he had just given me, plus the dollar bill and quarters from the cash drawer, plus two more canteen cards. Anthony walked away from my office a happy and fulfilled man.
Things like this happen to me all of the time.
Ron Collins came into the office a little later and wanted to talk. He was depressed because he had just been talking to a lady friend of his named Patricia on the phone, which reminded him that he had no material possessions and couldn't go out on dates and have sex. He feels that because of his advancing age he'll never find any happiness, and that life has passed him by. I told him that he was doing what he needed to be doing right now, and if he was patient, things would surely get much better. He didn't want to hear any of that. He got mad at me because I refused to feel sorry for him.
Such is life.

August 4 Sunday Day 327

I sat in the third pew from the front during this mornings chapel service. A good spot for an usher. One can make it up to the podium and grab a collection pan real easy from there.
After I had seated myself I happened to glance at the service's program. I must confess I had not taken a look at it until that very moment, which accounted quite well for the feeling of utter horror and helplessness which fell upon me as I read my name printed next to the responsive reading section. I quickly opened the Salvation Army Songbook and found the portion I was supposed to read. I went over the section once, noticed I had to say the word "iniquities" about three times, and one "hyssop." No problem.
I did make a smooth entrance onto the stage, but I muttered the last line, and after finishing the usual one colum section I uttered the customary closing phrase, "May God add a blessing to the reading of his word," and walked off without realizing two paragraphs still remained unread at the top of the next colum. I had not finished the piece.
Many were happy to point this out to me as I regained my seat.
Life goes on. I did not drink over it.
Ron and I, along with my old roommate, Brian Montique, went to the Sunday speaker meeting at the American Legion building in South Pasadena. Skip was there. Ron was asked to recite the opening prayer, which he accomplished with distinction.
He's no longer mad at me he says. In fact, he thanked me for talking straight with him.
Friends are supposed to do stuff like that.
I did not go to the park this afternoon, even though it was nice and sunny. My mother and Jeanette came to visit me instead.
Jeanette is a lovely lady who I had not seen in over a year. A friend of my mothers, I first met her in a hospital room in St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank. I was kind of detoxifying at the time, that's why I was there in the hospital. I hadn't a clue as to who this short, smiling, little lady was, but she soon let me know, and gave me a carton of cigarettes, which I badly needed, and which made her alright in my book. At a time when I was very confused, scared, and anxious, she was reassuring, bright, and supportive. Her own son is a substance abuser, and at one time had gone through the very same ward that I was in. She and her husband Dick continued to visit me throughout my 28 day stay in St. Joseph's. They, my sister, and my close friend, Bobbie, were my only visitors while I was there. They supplied me with toilet articles, cigarettes, and other things I needed such as friendship and love.
They also saw me relapse a few times after I had checked out of the hospital. Once Jeanette and Bobbie came to visit me while I was busy isolating in my little bachelor apartment in North Hollywood. I was shit-faced, had in fact just finished setting my couch on fire, and was doing myself absolutely no good. I could hardly talk. It must have been very painful for them to see me that way, so they followed my mother's example and left me to my misery.
Which was probably a good thing. My transformation into a recovering sober guy was not pretty.
The last time I had seen Jeanette was a very brief occurrence in a motel hallway during my second to last relapse, after I had been unceremoniously thrown out of the Canoga Park A.R.C. She had come to my motel room, per my mother's instructions, to give me a new set of clothes to replace the torn, soiled ones I had been wearing. She knocked on the door, I opened it, she handed me the clothes. I did not invite her in. The room was filthy and I was naked. I had not let the maid come in since I had been there, nearly two weeks.
So it was good to see her today, me in my brand new, reasonable healthy state of mind. She was all bright, smiling, and inquisitive. She's always like that! I like her. I can relate to this woman. She is very caring and generous, we get along well, and I love her very much.
I gave Jeanette and my mother a tour of the residence. I also gave my mom a plastic bag filled with presents to take back to my beautiful and precocious little niece. Then we went to lunch. Rockoff happened to be sitting in the lobby as we were walking out, looking lost and vulnerable like a puppy, so I invited him along.
We went to Mijares, just west of the residence on Pasadena Ave. A stylish Mexican restaurant. I had enchiladas, Rockoff a burrito, quesadillas for my mom and Jeanette.
The ladies got it into their pretty little heads that I desperately needed a printer to go along with the computer I have up in my room. So after they dropped me and Kevin off at the residence they headed off to the Home Club to shop.
Typical female behavior.
Left to myself I went to my lonely room and read until I fell asleep. I slept right through, "Star Trek, the Next Generation," but got up in time to catch "Edward Scissorhands," tonight's VCR movie. A wonderful fairy tale film, done in pastel, directed by Tim Burton, of "Beetlejuice" and "Batman" fame. It was the kind of movie I couldn't wait to end because of the slow progression of the story in parts, and sometimes the outrageousness was just too hard to take. But when it was over I immediately wished to see it again. A beautiful and haunting musical score, and a cameo with Vincent Price in his last theatrical release before his death. Johnny Depp as Edward was perfect.
After the movie I walked to Vons and bought some devil food cakes, which I accidentally brought up to me room and greedily consumed. While I was consuming them I watched a stupid James Bond movie, one with Roger Moore, which dutifully put me back to sleep.

August 5 Monday Day 328

I kept waking in the middle of the night, for at least twelve times. I got up, went to the bathroom where I had an unauthorized cigarette, then returned to bed.
I made it to the lobby by ten to write a little. Wendy was there, counseling away, lovely as ever. I asked her how her weekend had been and if she had watched any football (exhibition games began last Saturday). She said, "Short and no."
After a cool lunch of Polish sausages, I continued to write until one o'clock. Then I put away my "The Mind" book, changed my clothes and worked out a little. Afterwards I went to the park for an hour or so. A good sunny day with a gentle breeze.
I ate some nice vegetables at dinner time. I was sitting with Barbara Grothe, Ron Collins, and Kevin Rockoff. Ron immediately began to tell Barbara the same sad story he told me in my office last Saturday. Barbara reacted pretty much the same way I had, by telling him that if he was patient things will come his way. Ron still wants everything on his own terms. "There's got to be a payoff," he said. We suggested personal growth and satisfaction as a payoff. Ron wants something a bit more material. Something that has weight and takes up space, like money or a new Cadillac. Barbara surmised that Ron's longing for instant gratification will probably cause him some misery. Ron agreed.
I don't understand this type of attitude, but I see an awful lot of it around here. Everywhere really. I don't let it bother me. Ron is a reasonably intelligent man who must realize the consequences of his actions, and who just doesn't care to do anything that can actually help him. He likes to complain and moan, and expects things to be given to him just because he's a nice guy who is getting a bit older.
There's not a whole lot you can do for people like this except leave them to their fate.
I was like that a lot when I was drinking, but never when sober.
Reuben Smith kept driving poor Carlos Noble crazy during relapse prevention by making annoying sucking noises while continuously tossing his juggling balls back and forth. Carlos couldn't take it and had to leave.
I hope he doesn't relapse.

August 6 Tuesday Day 329

I put Roger Collins on the Saturday work list. I enjoyed doing it.
During his shift last night Roger put up Wednesday's schedule on the bulletin board instead of Tuesday's, realized his mistake and refused to correct it, saying, "Oh Kevin will fix it in the morning."
He also screwed up the radio log, which in itself is not very surprising considering Roger had also turned the radio off, effectively eliminating the possibility of communication between the residence and any part of the outside world.
I do not believe Roger has his heart in his work.
After my big morning shift was over I worked out for a little while, the snoozed for a bit.
At 5:30 I was down in the lobby attempting to read John Bardshaw's "Healing the Shame that Binds You." Interesting book. This is the second book that Cathy has lent to me, and I was trying to finish reading it before she came tomorrow night. But Robert was hiding somewhere, as usual, and everybody and their brother kept asking me to stop what I was doing and sell them canteen cards.
Jill made it here by 6:05 for her 5:45 group counseling session. Charity was here also. She told me she was very sleepy because of all the meatloaf we fed to her at dinnertime and wanted to leave before seeing her last two clients.
It had too much sodium glutamate, she said.
I spent the rest of the evening practicing to myself what I would say to Cathy tomorrow night.

Salvation Diary Forty Four

2011-11-01T14:48:00.001-07:00

"Salvation" artist Amanda Milke
amandamilke.wordpress.com/

July 26 Friday Day 318

Payday.
I got up early to go and cash my big paycheck. I haven't had so much money in my pocket since a year ago last May. On the way back I walked through the mall and browsed inside one of the book stores that they have there. I found copies of the very same books Kathy said she would loan to me. I looked for others with a similar subject matter, thinking a book like that might be a nice gift for her.
Women like gifts.
So does everyone else.
I remembered that she had told me she had an extensive library though, so I thought better of buying her something in fear that she might already have it.
Oh well, my feeble attempt to purchase her affections can wait awhile.
I had a nice lunch (cheeseburgers), then went to the park for about an hour.
When I returned Jeff Pursell gave me a haircut. Not that I wanted one, but Robert had begun to call me "hippie boy," being his little way of telling me it was time to get my hair shortened.
After all, I must set an example to others.
Or so I've been told.
After that I went to work. I didn't feel like working. I felt much more like sitting up in my room and daydream of Kathy. But being the responsible alcoholic that I am I went to the desk and fulfilled my duties.
Not feeling like working ensured that my shift would be unusually hectic. Which it was. Everybody wanted something from me all at the same time. But I handled it. With apparent ease I might add.
Robert was busy washing his new car in the As-Is Yard. Hugh Hogle came back from Venice Beach with Reuben Smith and Harold Eversley, and was badly sun burned. He looks like a great big tomato, and said he didn't feel very well. And Kevin Rockoff says he doesn't like his new job, and may be coming back to us.
Good. He's my best desk man.
How selfish of me.
When things calmed down a bit I had time to take notes from the "Underground Empire," book, which will not be transposed here.
Read the book if you want to find out about it.
I highly recommend it.

July 27 Saturday Day 319

Last night was pretty bad for me. I felt kind of jumpy, and not too good. Like something was out of place. I sure didn't feel like working, but I've already said that.
My friend Darrell Sipp didn't have a very good night either. Certainly worse than mine. He was walking back from a friend's house, somewhere north of Colorado Blvd., when he was set upon (mugged) and badly pummeled by a group of young men looking for money. After taking a kick to the crotch and a few punches to the head, he escaped all of his attackers and made it back to the residence just before the midnight curfew. He gasped for breath and his face was very swollen. He felt he should go to the hospital, so I dropped him off at Huntington Memorial.
I saw him at lunch today and he seemed okay. He has a couple of lose teeth though.
A reminder of how hostile it can be out there.
Art's crazy people.

July 28 Sunday Day 320

For a while last night I thought that Rockoff might have run off with his American Indian girlfriend and gone A.W.O.L. His was the only key left in our key box when curfew time came. As you may remember, that is the primary way we determine if someone is in the building, by the presence or absence of their locker key. If we at the desk have the key, the person it belongs to is not usually in the building. Or vice versa.
So I went to have a look in Kevin's dorm, 41, bed A. There he was, all cuddled up with his favorite teddy. Apparently he had forgotten to sign in and pick up his key when he returned from his amorous outing. For doing so he shall be severely beaten today in order to assist him in remembering proper residence procedures.
Some gentlemen have tried to take advantage of the fact that we do not take roll call, or make a head count just after curfew. We find that it is really unnecessary to perform that laborious task. One man attempted to pull this trick just last night. He took off without leaving his key and stayed out for the night, no doubt believing we would assume he was here simply because we did not have his key. And he was right, we did assume that. It was his own roommates who unintentionally busted him this morning by asking us why he had not returned to his dorm the night before, thus alerting us at the desk of his absence. They'll say, "What happened to so and so last night?" or, "Was so and so AWOL last night? He didn't come back." "Can I change over to so and so's bed? It's empty."
Then we'll say something like, "Soooo, he wasn't in his dorm last night, was he? Thanks for letting us know." Then they'll turn away looking like they ratted out their mom.
Works every time.
Sometimes a person pulling this maneuver actually remembers to come back in the morning acting as if he had been here all night. They are the picture of innocence. We get their keys from them, their I.D. badges, and send them out into the world.
And we wish them well.
Clarence Orion went on vacation this week, so he dumped all of his usual Sunday chapel duties onto Robert, who attempted to dump them onto me. But I would have none of it. I feel kind of silly, or phony actually, going up to the pulpit and doing stuff for their services when I'm not even a Christian and all. But I do help out sometimes. I have nothing against the Christian Church (except those Spanish Inquisition guys. No one expects them), I'm just not a member.
I don't know that much about it really, the Christian Church that is. I should look into it further.
I have nothing if not an open mind.
Most of the time.
Anyway, Robert got stuck leading a singing session, plus the testimonials, plus the announcements and offering. As usual, I ushered.
"You did a wonderful job sir," I told Robert after the service. "And your voice is lovely."
He glared.
"Flattery will get you nowhere, Joyce."
Ron Collins and I attended our Sunday morning A.A. meeting. Ron pointed out that there were an amazing amount of pretty ladies around, some sitting right behind us. I ignored his excited chatter. Since I've now found Kathy, other pretty girls mean nothing to me.
This Sunday's speaker, and elderly gentleman with 45 years of sobriety (you have to be elderly to have 45 years of sobriety), talked non-stop at an even and constant pace for fifty minutes straight. But damned if I can remember anything he said. The monotonous twill of his voice disallowed any possible attempt to comprehend his speech.
I enjoyed the meeting in any case. I just like being there.
It's a good place for me to be.
On our way back we stopped at Los Tacos again and partook of some super burritos.
Yummy!
Ron paid.
Great!
He has received his first paycheck you see.
It is beginning to act like summer here in Pasadena, with the temperatures reaching well into the 90s. I sat (baked) in the bright sun for an hour, listening to rock and roll. Reuben Smith was doing the very same thing only a few yards away from me. He had gotten there before I had. He was lying face up with his sunglasses on, so now he looks like a racoon again.
I call him "Racoon Head."
When evening came I watched the Sunday night V.C.R. movie. "The Untouchables," having nothing better to do, being bored with reading and writing. Later, I read a little anyway, about the life of Jesus Christ.
At 9:30 I walked down to Vons to buy some shampoo and toothpaste. I also picked up some snack food, and salsa and chips. I would have an unauthorized pig out in my room.
Then I watched, "Monsters," and went to bed.
I had a good full day, and I had enjoyed it, but I was just marking time. waiting.
Waiting for Wednesday to come around again.

July 29 Monday Day 321

I went to the dentist today. Of my own free will. I even had to actually pay for it.
Since I have so much extra cash now, being a big time employee of the Salvation Army, I decided to have my upper front tooth fixed. A tiny corner of it had broken off, a remnant of my second to last relapse, when a sidewalk somehow reared up and hit me in the face. Since a year ago last May I've lived with a hole in my mouth, which I've self consciously tried to hide with the tip of my tongue whenever I smile, After today I hope to have my smile back, which should help to improve my overall self esteem.
And make me a much better kisser.
So I went to Dr. Campbell, the friendly credit dentist, and after the financial agreements were agreed upon, and the X-rays taken, Dr. Zu, (a distant relative of Dr. Campbell no doubt) went to work.
Oh, what a lovely experience. This time the doctor (masked as usual) took a hammer and chisel to my poor little defenseless mouth. No soft and gentle taps were applied either, these were great, long, sweeping, slams that jolted my entire body to and fro. I felt certain that at any moment his aim would vary and my life would be no more.
Then came the drill.
Next they shoved some purple plastic stuff in my mouth that I was required to bite down on while waiting for it to harden.
After a while he pried open my mouth, took it out and looked at it.
"Let's do another one," he said with evil glee.
After a couple of hours they "affixed" (I love that word) a temporary cap over the stump of my broken tooth. This shall serve me until the permanent cap is ready. They warned me that the temporary cap may fall out... and that I should not swallow it.
I'll try my best.
Now I can smile again. My smile looks very nice, I must say.
I just can't chew anymore. My bottom front tooth jams into the cap, not allowing my teeth to close.
And so it goes (Vonnegut).
I was in great pain for the rest of the day. I really don't want to talk about it.

July 30 Tuesday Day 322

My tooth felt a little better this morning. My gums are not as sore, so I guess I can continue this narrative.
Rico Montgomery came by, just after lunch, to pick up his stuff. He was released from County Jail this morning at 5:30. He looks alright. Imprisonment seems to agree with him. Apparently he'll be living with his girlfriend for awhile, at least until she gets tired of his jive bullshit.
Rico told me he saw Ben Driscoll while there in jail. Ben doesn't talk all that much, so Rico never found out why Ben had been incarcerated. Rico did say that Ben seemed to be coping pretty well, doing a lot of sweeping in the jail. Ben likes to sweep.
But then again, who doesn't?
Reuben Smith has been acting peculiar the last couple of days. More peculiar than normal. He's acting all sullen and uncommunicative, which is odd for Reuben. When Richard Bennett called him down for counseling, Reuben, who had been sleeping, came to the desk, looked at Richard and said, "That's all you wanted me for?" as he abruptly turned around and walked back upstairs. Reuben can be rude at times (most of the time), but this was exceptional. He's told others that he's sick. He won't tell me what's going on. I hope he's alright.
I spent the last part of my shift getting ready for the big Pacific Oaks College graduation ceremony being held this evening in our chapel. I made sure Schimmele and his crew got the chapel in order, and I made some signs which pointed out the way to the chapel and atrium, where a reception would be held for the graduates. I placed these signs in strategic locations, ensuring them being seen by the hundred and sixty expected guests.
I just happened to be in the lobby when Jill came in. She made a rare, early appearance, and was actually here at 5:45 for her 5:45 group counseling tonight, which accentuated her shinning sumptuous features, her pert but elegant nose, the lustrous fall of her eyelash, her crimson lips, her delicate earlobes and her come hither eyes framed in a cascade of exuberant red tresses. I did not see, or was affected by the vital, flowing way in which she crossed the room, her statuesque full figure, her shapely long legs. He fresh, clean smell mixed perfectly with a slight whisper of the erotic scent of her perfume. I saw none of that, nor did I notice the firmness of her ample breasts, her slim waist, the swell of her hips, the little mole on the right side of her neck, the adorable birthmark on the inside of her left knee. Her magnificent smile. Her lilting voice as she sighed, "Hello Richard."
She calls me Richard. Some do.
Her presence meant nothing to me, so I left the lobby and went upstairs to take a cold shower, after which I retreated to my lonely room, to read, and watch mindless made for T.V. movies for the rest of the evening.
I did manage to finish the Nan Robertson book, "Getting Better." A remarkable achievement, the book I mean. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who thinks they may have a drinking problem and are considering treatment, or joining Alcoholics Anonymous. Rarely have I seen the process of recovery depicted in such realistic and compassionate detail. Everything one needs to start the recovery ball rolling is in this book.
Except the desire to stop drinking.
Some current events are just screaming for attention today. It appears that the intense air bombardment of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War still left Saddam Hussein with viable nuclear weapon producing capabilites. We're told he'd been trying to hide them from the United Nation's inspectors in violation of the peace agreement. He's being obstinate. Very obstreperous in an obsequious manner. And now President Bush is talking tough, and we may find ourselves beginning the war all over again.
Terrific.
Some very well may ask, "Why did we stop the war before making sure Hussein was removed from power and could never be a threat in the region again?" Good question! One the President may find difficult to answer during next year's election (don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Bush I haven't particularly cared for any president since Garfield)
Yesterday it was reported that Hussein may still have chemical weapons as well.
He isn't letting us see those either.
Last week, what astronomers belive may be a planet with about 10 times the mass of Earth, a little less than the planet Uranus in our own solar system, may be revolving around a pulsar at 20,000 to 30,000 light years from Earth. It's located somewhere in the direction of the Milky Way's galactic center, in the constellation Sagittarius. This would seem an unlikely place for a planet to form considering a pulsar, or neutron star, itself is believed to be the remanent of a supernova, one of the most energetic and destructive events known in the universe. Certainly life would not be possible on a planet so close to a high synchrotron radiation source such as a pulsar. But if it is a planet, and it was able to form in such a hostile environment, then the likelihood of planet formation in other solar systems in general, throughout the cosmos, increases dramatically.
This would correspondingly increase the possibility that life would develop elsewhere in the universe.
And that would be a wonderful thing.

July 31 Wednesday Day 323

Kathy was here tonight. About the only thing I managed to do was to discover that she spells her name like this: C A T H Y. Short for... Cathy.
Jesus, I don't know how two sober people get together. It all seemed so easy when I was half sloshed. .
For one thing, I wasn't really in the greatest of moods. Tonight being the last Wednesday of the month, it was Birthday Night, which meant a bit more work for me, and having to spend time in direct contact with the Major. He being the boss, it's alway wise to spend as much time away from him as possible.
For another thing, that red headed guy I'd been seeing talking to Cathy in the parking lot a few weeks back, he told me he had been to the same Jackie Robinson Center that I had gone to, and this afternoon discovered that he was H.I.V. positive. I identified with the feeling he must have been experiencing and let me tell you, it was not pleasant.
And I can never talk to Cathy alone. There's always about ten guys hanging around who have nothing better to do than stand around and watch Cathy as I try to have a conversation. Most of them are not above busting into it whenever possible.
Jesus, I think I'm going nuts. Really!
We did talk a little though. She brought me a couple of books by John Bradshaw. She thought I might like to read them. I will. We also talked about family relationships for awhile. Real exciting.
Her clients are giving her a hard time, she tells me. My ex-friend, Ron Collins, walked out on her during counseling. Another of her clients just doesn't want to stop drinking, and another just avoided her all together. The poor girl can't understand why some (most) of the men here are so unmotivated. These guys are expert, big time game players, and Cathy can't quite comprehend that. I'm sure she's hurt when she doesn't seem to get through to them.
Oh well, some progress was made I guess. For my cause at least. She now knows that I was adopted at the crisp age of four days old, that I witnessed my father's fatal heart attack, that my mom is coming to visit Sunday, (I talked to her yesterday), and that I have Sundays and Mondays off.
I still haven't the faintest idea of what she feels about me. If she truly likes me, or is just making polite conversation to this idiot who won't stop talking to her. She's not giving me a clue.
Women! I swear! I'm seriously considering becoming a monk. And I believe I'm getting a headache to boot.
Then she was gone with the wind. Poof! Just like that. For a whole week. Another week of stewing in the juices of my own making, for roughly 160 hours, or so. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Next week! Next week I swear, so help me God, I will ask her out! Sink or swim, I need to know if my preoccupation will amount to anything. Will we become lovers, friends, acquaintances, or will she crush me altogether with a single negative response, my love remaining unrequited, dooming me to eternal loneliness and desperation.
By golly, I sure hope it's not the crushing part. I really do.
I will however find out one way or another.
Or will I chicken out at the last minute? Freezing up like the wimpy, whoosie kind of guy I secretly know myself to be.
Who knows?
Oh Jesus! Where's a good monastery?