Burning The Red Cross

Once again, problems with the Red Cross, only this time it's not entirely their fault. The scope of the Katrina disaster was so great, they outsourced a lot of their volunteer work to private contracters, who took advantge of their positions to enable their friends to collect money targeted for homeless Gulf Coast residents. The majority of this fraud came from a contact center in Bakesfield California. The Red Cross, and the contributors, and of course the victims, were defrauded to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least.

The Red Cross itself came under scrutiny when it failed to deliver a large portion of contributions it received in the wake of 9/11, saying it should keep a portion of the money in the event of futue disasters. There was a big stink raised over this, and the then diector, Dr. Bernadette Healey, ended up resigning her position.

This in itself should have brought national attention to the problems with this dinosaur, behemoth organization, which went to it's overall structural integrity. It's a problem that's been around a while, one which I have personal first hand knowledge of. I had an uncle, now deceased, who was a sergent in the Viet-Nam era, in the Air Force, stationed in Thailand. While there, his wife had a baby, that died soon after birth. He had no way of getting home, and so turned to the Red Cross. He was told they could not help him. As a result, he would have not been able to make it home to be with his wife at their childs funeral, had he been unable to borrow the money. Luckily, his father, my grandfather, was able to wire him the money, and so he made it home.

He had not been there four hours when a representative of the Red Cross approached him at my grandparents house, offerring his condolences, and assurring him if there was any way the Red Cross could help, he should let them know. He told them to go to hell. I guess he had more integrity than I do, I would have accepted the offer, putting the confusion down to an example of bureacratic bungling and red tape.

But that's just the point. When you deal with any large organization, even a charitable one, it gets to the point that overhead expenses become the primary concern. By the time all this is taken care of, there isn't that much left over for the actual services the organizations are suppossedly meant to perform. I'm afraid that way too often, red tape becomes more of a convenient excuse than an actual reason.

But in the case of this latest example, where the Red Cross is not the actual culprits, the question becomes, how hard can it be to vet the private contactors to ensure they are reliable and trustowrthy? Even with the reasoning that action had to be taken quickly, there should have been some kind of oversight of the contractors.

At least, the Red Cross has promised swift action will be taken to violate the offending parties. Here's hoping they don't bungle this job.

Tea And Cookies

No more Yahoo Groups. No more questionable web-sites. In fact, very few web sites. Period. When it gets to the point you can't even trust the New York Times, you know the world is spinning out of control. So, what exactly am I talking about? I'm talking, of course, about spy-ware. Those little malicous and certainly not so sweet things called tracking cookies that enter your system, ostensibly for the purpose of tracking your internet browsing, at times merely to iform the site of the number of browsers they have attacted, at other times for more nefarious purposes, liketo send you ads and pop-ups.

Over the last week, I disabled at least thirty of these pesky critters, and incidentally also disavbled the cookies for this site. For a bief time, therefore, I had a problem logging onto Blogger. But now, just for now, the problemis solved. It would help if Blogger were to identify the name of their tracking cookies so a peson could know what not to delete, should they be detected by such agencies as MacAffee, and others whose sole purpose for existence is the disabling of cookies, worms, viruses, and trojans.

Frankly, if I had to do without Blogging, it would be well worth it, if it meant peace of mind. And who the hell needs Yahoo anyway. A clue-nothing in this world is free, and that damned sure includes free e-mail. And so, from now on, anytime I am in contact with my Yahoo Groups, even the one I own, Paganbitchslap, and the other I moderate, which is Voting Pagans, well, it's just going to have to be through this Blog. If they want to bitch and moan or otherwise give me some hell, they'll just have to come on this Blog and post their comments here.

Like I told someone else, I've become the Howard Hughes of computer viruses. For good reason. So I might as well tell you now, in case you haven't all ready learned it. If you ever get a sudden pop-up purporting to be from Microsoft, and it tells you that as the result of an error, your Windows willbe shutting down, and you may as a result lose your work, approachwith caution. Do not click on any of the links in this message, as it is probably not actually from Microsoft, though it certainly looks like a legitimate Microsoft message. More than likely, it is a forgery, a worm known as the Sasser worm. Here is what you should do if you receive this message.

Go to your control panel, click on Start, and then Run
Type in CMD, press Enter
A window should appear, in which you should type Shutdown A, then press Enter

This should prevent the infection, or eliminate it. However, if you have Windows, you should install every update Microsoft makes availiable, and do everything you can to prevetn this scourge. Some programs take a long time to download, and rventhough it isn't really necessary, I can'thelp but watch the downloading process. A bit like watching grass grow, or snow melt. Or, if you're not like me (obsessive) you can simply minimize the window and go on about your business. Me, I just can'thlp myself, so I simply brew a strong cup (or two or three) of hot tea, have a cigarrette (or three, or four), and just sit back, and watch. And watch. And watch.

And count my blessings. After all, if these hackers were really all that smart, they would be able to come up with a way to get into your system that wouldn't slow you down, wouldn't crasdh your system, and more improtantly, in a way in which they couldn't be detected. A way in which you wouldn't even know they are around.

But, of course, they are around. So be aware.

Yule-And The Coming God

As Yule begins tomorrow, I might take some time off for meditation. It is quite possible I might not be back until January, though hopefully I will be back well before then, if for no other purpose than to answer comments which I hope to have. But I may not post any new blogposts for a week or two, just so you'll know in advance. Also, I'm in the process hopefully of making some changes. Once these changes come about, hopefully I will be enabled to improve the quality of this Blog somewhat, as I will have more time to devote to it. But, we'll see. Nothing is for sure as of yet (is it ever?) but I am keeping my fingers crossed in hopes of some big, positive changes on the horizon.

But before I sign off, for the time being, I will leave with the following astrological aspects. To those of you interested in ever new ways of attunning with the deites, this may give you an invaluable guide to starting out with the beginning of the Wheel of the Year. What could be more appropriate than by attuning with the newly born God by way of his own astrological chart drawn up to coincide with his birth? Of course, I don't have the tools to draw up a chart, but at least I have here the pertinent planetary positions and aspects.

Sun enters Capricorn at 8:34 p.m. This marks the exact time of the birth of the God, and will give you a clue in establsihing his ascendant, or rising sign. I don't have an ascendant chart with me handy, unfortunately, but I think it is probably either Leo or Virgo. Either one is important, but especially Virgo, as this might well put it (ascendant) in conjunction with the moon for the day.

The Moon incidentally enters Virgo at 2:38 a.m. It so happens that the Sun and the moon are trine throughout most of the day, and maintain a slight trine, which is a beneficent aspect, at the exact time of the solstice (sun enters capricorn).

ALso, again through most of the day, the moon is in trine with the planet Mars in Taurus (8th degree), and in fact the Sun, Moon, and Mars form what is known as a Grand Trine, which is a greatly positive aspect.

Unfortunately, there is also in the chart of this new born God a Grand Cross, which is as follows

Jupiter-Scorpio, 11th degree
Saturn-Leo, tenth degree (retrograde)
Neptune-Aquarius(15th degree)
Mars-Taurus-eighth degree

Note that Mars, in addition to being involved in the Grand Trine, is also a part of the Grand Cross. A cross is a multiple square aspect, and is considered adverse. It can be a source of strength, however, if handled positively.

Another aspect that is noteworthy is the one between Uranus (Pisces, 7th degree) and the Moon is Virgo. This aspect is called an oppossition and is very powerful. In addition, Uranus is sextile Mars, which is a positive aspect. It is not however sextile to the sun as there are too many degrees of seperation between the two.

Jupiter, I should add, is trine Uranus. This too is of course a greatly beneficient aspect.

Mercury is in the ninth degree of Saggittarius, forming a square with Uranus, yet also forming a trine with Saturn.

Pluto in the 24th degree of Saggitarius seems to be unaspected.

Venus is stationary in the first degree of Aquarius. It will soon be going into retrograde motion.

The Northern Lunar Node is to be found in the ninth degree of Ares, the Southern one being therefore in the ninth degree of Libra. These lunar nodes are important as they determine the dates of the eclipses. They will move slowly, in the oppossite direction of the planetary movements.

I will have to do more research in order to ascetain the ascendant of the God. And when I can be certain, I will post accordingly. But if you wish to use this system, it definitely has it's advantages, as it can provide a uniuely individual way in which a person can detemine which deity might be more conducive to attunning with in this coming year.

It may vary from person to person. A lot will have to do with your own astrological chart, and how compatible this chart would be with yours. Of course, it requires some rudimentary knowledge of astrology (which unfortunately is an apt description of my own) but a basic knowledge of your chart in relation to this "chart of the God" can help you in a divinatory way attune with the diety that is most proper for you.

Anyway, until the next time, Blessed Be-and damn, I'm dizzy.

Success Of The Year

No, it is not the Iraqi election, as it is way to early to tell just exactly how long that will last, if at all. Nor do I really care. As one person who is sick of American meddling in foreign affairs, and who feels that America shoud take care of Americans first-and, by the way, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, etc., etc., etc-I feel in dire need of medication every time I hear thenauseating news that reminds me yet again of how we have remained so entangled in foreign problems to the detriment of caring for our own.

Hopefuly, if htis does not change, there will come a time when I can acquire the medication prescribed for nausea, and al ther as wel, at a fraction of the cost that it currently is. And for once, I actuallyhave to thank none other than-George W. Bush.

Yes, for my award of success of the year, I am referring to none other than the Prescription Drug Benefit which is this year in the process of being implemented. Finally, those seniors who are o limited incomes will pay far less than they have previously been forced to pay for their medications. In some cases they may have to pay nothing at all. How could this not be appreciated, epecially i view of the fact that way to0 many seniors have had to juggle so may different expenses that at times they have been faced witht he choice of going withut food, or going without needed medication.

Yes, I know it is a boondoggle. Yes, I know it is a massive government entitlement that wil doubtless get more expensive with time. Yes, I understand that it will doubltess be a cumbersome bureaucracie ripe with red tape and countless other problems. And finally, of course I am aware that it is going to add to the budget deficit, and the national debt, if not eventually addig a tax burden on the middle class.

On the other hand, it is something. For years, the Democratic party has bitched and moaned about medical care reform and the need for prescription drug venefits, yada,yada, yada, while all the time they knew they would never get it passed through the Congress, past all the Republicans and conservative Democrats. It was a sure fire vote getter for them from their individual constituencies, one they knew they could count on without really having to worry about delivering on it.

Then Bush and the Republicans came along, snathched away this issue, co-opted it right out from under them, and actualy did something about. It was one of the few, maybe the only instance, of pure political genius on the part of George Bush, though Karl Roves fingerprints can probably be found on the panties. He paid off a liyal constituencie, the pharmaceutical industry, in a way that went beyong their wildest dreams, and did so in a way that sought clevcerly to peel away appreciable layers of Democratic support among the elderly.

Most importantly, for all it's problems, despite the potential cuts it could face from a Congress desperate to establish some semblance of fiscal sanity (unfortunately, again, on the backs of the poor), this is a program that will actually help the people who most need help. The poor, infirm, aged senior citizens who may now actually have a chance for peace, who now may have some hope for a bit more of a comfortable, even a semi-healthy, lifestyle.

It will need some tinkering, I am sure, over the years. There will need to be improvements made. But at least it is a start, finally, at solving a problem, a new beginning that has been long overdue.

Heroes Of The Year

Without a doubt, to me it would have to be a group of people known as The Minuteman Project. Yes, I understand they have been much maligned as racist, and maybe to some extent some among their number are just that. But on the other hand, their deeds have revealed a fundamental truth about American national security, especially as it appies to the situation along the Mexican American border. It is non-existent.

It has been said that the security along the porous border is difficult, and that putting the National Guard at the border would only be a band-aid solution at best. As long as people are willing to come here and work, and can find work, and as long as there are employers willing to hire them, there is little we can do about it, and actually we shouldn't worry that much about it. They take jobs that Americans for the most part are unwilling to take, and they pay taxes and Social Security. This, it is claimed, balances out the expense they add to the social sevices safety nets of the various states. Even the crimes committed by them, it has been said, have been greatly exaggerated as to their overall impact. Sure it is a problem, but patience and undertanding is called for, not overreaction and nationalistic xenophobia.

But then Elliott Richardson, Democratic Governor of New Mexico, himself of Hispanic origins, took the unexpected step of declaring New Mexico to be in a state of emergency due to the problem of ilegal immigration. The Democratic governor of Arizona followed suit. Though Arnold Swarzzeneggar of California resisted (after floating out the idea as a trial balloon) as did the Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, it was obvious that the problem was far from minor.

The Minutemen stepped up to the plate, and up to the border, and within a short period of time, the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico came to a virtual standstill at that part of the border at which they positioned themselves. And the did all this without force of arms, with no true legal authority.

As is the case of many heroes, they were derided, ridiculed, and even villified. But they held firm, and made their point. They were American citizens, standing up for their right to protest a policy they found reprehensible, that of the governemnts all but turning a blind eye to the constant flow of ilegal immigrants into the United States, all for the purposes of attracting cheap labor and cheaper votes, and satisfying the political whims of Vincente' Fox, who condescendingly told one of the few concerned Congresmen of the U.S., Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, that the American Southwest situation wasn't about a nation-it was about a region.

The meaning was obvious. Fox and his cohorts in Mexican government and business feel they have a right to the American Southwest, and if the truth were known as much else as they can peel away as possible. And they are doing it with the blessings of American buinesses and politicians, who for the most part can't see past their own narrow immediate self interests. And the American people, for the most part, are ignored.

The Minuteman Project was a thumb in all of their eyes, and a thorn in their sides, and put a pox on al their houses, at the same time. They deserve to be commended-not assaulted.

Known Villains Of The Year

Notice the caveat-KNOWN villains of the year. The worse villainy, after all, is often perpetrated in the shadows, as all too often it could never flourish in light. It could well be though that the greatest of these potential villains may be in the process of being brought forward. They are those buiness interests, those real estate developers, and their allies in Louisiana State and Local government, to say nothing of the Federal Government enablers, who seem to be in the process of holding out on reconstruction projects in New Orleans-especially in the nearly all black, poverty ridden Ninth Ward-in the hopes that these properties can be condemned and confiscated, and turned into whatever the developers have in mind, which will of course be for their own profit. All of which will naturally leave the legitimate citizens of these areas homeless and totally bereft of properties. In fact, they have been told they have a year to repair their properties, and rebuild. One look at the area, even over televisions or through still pictures, will tell you immediately how daunting, how impossible, such a task will be. So, with all this in mind, we keep these folks in reserve, while we from here on out focus our attention, while not yet leaving New Orleans, yet expand to the surrounding Gulf area.

And the winner of this well deserved though understandably uncoveted award is-the American Oil Companies. As a group, these animals qualify as bottom feeders of the worse variety. Again, the most desructive vilainy is often perpetrated in the dark. So, when the oil companies tell you that it is a matter ofthe markets deciding the price of oil, and that the supply, due to the disruptions, just doesn't meet the demand, and that this is due also to manipulations of OPEC in combination with ever increasing needs from such countries as India and China, and that the lack of oil refineries is yet another culprit, all thi is very true.

Unfortunatley, the truth is often used to disguise a lie, and this case is a blatant example of that. In an effort to cut costs and increase profits, it was decided long ago to limit refining capacity, one of the main reasons there have been no new refineries buildt since the 1970's. Also, fuel efficiency standards, which could be and should be higher, have been resisted for years, also having an indirect impact on limitations of suppies.

The end result-more profits. Plus less expenses, which lead to even more profits. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to a lesser extent Wilma, then, weren't disasters for the oil companies. They were windfalls. They were blessings in disquise. And they took advantage of these disasters in such a way that their profits were higher, much higher, than in previous years. They could have taken appreciably less profits by maintaining their prices at reasonably higher levels than before the disaster (to make up for the lack of supply and to ensure that it didn't all too quickly run out in affected areas) and still made higher profits than in previous years.

Their excuse? They had to satisfy the demands of their investors, first and foremost. Plus, these increased profits were needed for investments in future refining capabilities, and further exploration and development. The usual goobledygook, meaning nothing, and probably soon to be forgotten.

They aren't the only problem of course, there has been political reasons for the lack of refining capacity and decrease in exploration and development, some valid, some not. And of course there are the manipulations by OPEC. But for the most part, the oil companies have been way too eager to maintain inordinatley high profits by whatever means necessary and to crush out any competition in the meantime. There are only five major oil companies and they form a kind of cabal. There is no competition to speak of. Just kind of a non-trust trust. An undertanding among friends, more than a healthy competition. Kind of like when the Mafia back in the old days divided up territory and tried to keep things copecetic. Only in this case, these guys are all friends and neighbors, so to speak, in an exclusive neighborhood with tight zoning standards that they control, with the help of government agencies and intimates in that government-Vice President Dick Cheney comes especially to mind.

These are the guys that, to a great extent, have been in control of aiding the Vice President in deiciding on energy policy, for the last five years, in secret, without any scrutiny from the press or any other intersted and concerned citizen or group.

They are more than just vilains. To me, they are evil incarnate. And Bush and Cheney, are no more than their paid stooges.

Failure Of The Year

Your first clue would be, he gave a speech Sunday Night on American television sometime around nine o'clock. After five years as President, and six as Governor of Texas, you would think that an alumnus of Yale, to say nothing of Harvard Business College, would know how to give a speech. You would think at least he would have the gestures down, and they wouldn't look so wooden, so stiff, so-well, obvious, I guess.

Then again, this guy isn't really used to having to give a speech where he actually admits to any kind of mistake,to any kind of, let us be plain-fuck up. And that's what it all comes down to. The quality of this speech is almost symbolic of the problems with this President, and this Administration. It's just one big fuck up.

The amazing thing is that it took so many people so long to catch on. But shit happens, and it took one cataclysmic national disaster, in the form of Hurricane Katrina, to show this President, and this Administration, for the bumbling fools that he and it is. Once that occurred, then everything else started to become ever more clear.

But, the really amzing thing about the Bush Administration is that it actually has turned out to be a walking picnic of woes. There are four different kinds of bad governments. You have those that are made up of liars and thieves. You have the ones that are sinister and repressive. You have the ones that are wrong headed and arrogant. And finally, you have the ones that are just blatantly incompetent.

It is rare that you will find an American Administration that doesn't contain, on at least one level or another, some aspect of at least one of these failings. In fact, I would say it would be almost impossible to not find at least some degree of one of these faults in even the best of them. In way too many cases, unfortunatley, you will find an appreciable degree of two of these failings. Then, there is the thankfully extremely rare case, when an American Administration will contain as many as three of these failings, in a couple of cases to a significant degree. The Administrations of Buchanan, and Nixon, and Harding, may possibly be three eamples of Administrations that contained three eventually crippling shortcomings.

But the Bush Administration may indeed go down in history as the first to be infected with all four of them. Take the war in Iraq. Lies, deceits, manipulations. Wrong headed and arrogant, even when faced with the facts that things did not go exactly according to plan, to say the least. Sinister and repressive in the way that any opponent, real or perceived, to this ill-conceived adventure, was treated either directly or indirectly, through political attacks and slanders, all too often with the aid of a cowed and in some cases a bought and paid for press.

Luckily, for the country, and maybe for the world, the Bush Administration contained that one final, fatal flaw of incompetence, in some cases outright stupidity, that caused it to come crashing down a lot quicker than it ordinarily might have. The incompetent way the Iraqi War has been bungled was really an eye opener in the face of Hurricane Katrina. Before the Hurricanes, and the incompetent way the government responded, it was a relatively easy process to blame the media for reporting overwhelmingly negative news about the Iraqi War and insurgency. It was a simple process to accuse the Democrats of playing politics (especially since in a good many cases a lot of them probably were).

But now the truth is out. Bush is a liar, a charlatan, a fraud, a cheat. He is an arrogant megalomaniac with delusions of Messiahhood, if not out and out godhood. And he is obviously incompetent. It is only right that he has taken to saying lately that the responsibility for the various mishaps rest at his desk. For, in fact, far from merely being something that just sounds good and proper and humble, the awful truth is-it's the awful truth.

God Of The Year

This was an easy one. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Floods. Who else?

Poseidon. What the hell got into this God this year? Now it's easy to imagine a Christian would hop on this, and tell me, "this is not a god fit for worship". They would point out how angry and destructive would be such a force, more in keeping with the temperament of a demon than a god. They would assure me that Poseidon actually does not exist, perhaps. Eventually, of course, a good many of them would turn right around and say that the natural disasters that have afflcited our planet this year is "the will of God"-theirs, of course.

My only reply to all this would be that, well, what is reality, and what is a God? To me, a God is pure energy, a force of nature, one that permeates the universe, including mankind, and thus a good deal of the gods make-up goes into the make-up of humankind, and indeed all of life. So to that degree the deities are all very real. They are a part of us, of the world, of the universe, and in my opinion you ignore them at your peril. Not that they expect you to worship them in the traditional meaning of the word worship-in fact I would submit they have no real desire or need for this. But attunning with them can be beneficial in getting in touch with our own lives and true selves. Attunning with the energies of the deities therefore can help us achieve our goals in life and become the kinds of peoples we truly want to be. It takes work, and self-discipline, and practice, but it is worth it.

Sometimes it requires a sacrifice, and here I don't mean to imply any kind of a blood sacrifice, but simply a sacrifice of giving up something we might want, for our own good, to stop smoking, stop drinking-or to stop some other bad, destructive habit, such as, for example-

STOP POLLUTING THE EARTH!

Now of course, the negative aspects of years and years of pollution can't be undone overnight, or even in the course of a decade or two, or three. But the evidence of global warming is becomming more explicit every year, and now perhaps has manifested in ways that augurs ill for the next following years. Some say this could be the start of a cycle that happens every now and then, and that industrial pollution and all the other human caused ills that afflict our planets environmental health, add very little to the process, if at all.

Excuses. Nothing but rationalizations, the same that have threatened forrests and added to Mercury in drinking water, all in the name of keeping the economy srong and vital, a Hobsons Choice which is actually unnecessary. Reducing emissions from autos and industrial plants, for example, can actually add to the economy by providing opportunities for growth and expansion of businesses into these new frontier areas of science and technology. It would be a simple matter to subsidize industries in order to offset the costs of research, and tax breaks for this purpose, provided those breaks were legitimately used for these reasons, would be fine and appropriate.

The problem is, it would interfere with the immediate bottom line, and would interfere with meeting the immediate concerns of investors. It would make us less competitive. Of course, this is nonsense, and if there were any legitimacy to these concerns, they could certainly be worked out. But that's not the problem. The problem is greed.

Therefore, the poisons of our industrial and other wastes are continually dumped into the air, into the water, and there seems to be no let up in sight. Even if the naysayers are correct, that all this pollution doesnt add anything substantial to the cycle of warming which has evidently given rise to these natural disasters, it is obviously not good for the health of the planet, and those of us who live thereon, to be continually subjected to the posioning of our environment.

And if they are wrong, the implications are obvious. The trend is going to be reversed over a period of years, but only if there is a reduction-not an increase-in industrial pollutions and auto exhaust emissions and other culprits. As for Poseidon, you can expect him to throw these kinds of tantrums I fear for quite some time to come. The disasters of this preceeding year was just a slight warning compared to what could be ahead.

No, that's not a positive way for a deity to act. No, it is not compassionate and loving. But hey, he's a God. What do you expect-miracles?

Garbage In-Garbage Out

Goddess Of The Year

The Goddess Of Compassion, by whatever name you might prefer to call her, has been busy this year. Starting with the Asian Tsunami, and ending with the Afghan earthquake. And a whole lot of shit in between, most notably, at least from an American perspective, the Gulf Coast hurricanes, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

Of course, the presence of the Goddess is severely lacking in a good many people, and her absence from their lives stood out like a sore thumb, at least during the height of the Gulf Coast disaster brought about by Hurricane Katrina.

A good many of the people of our country rose to the challenge and were quite admirable in the way they exhibited the Goddesses presence in the form of donations, in many cases not only of money, but of time. Some even took people into their homes. (Frankly, I wouldnt have done this).

A good many people, unabashed animal lovers, went out of their way to rescue animals, pets that had been abandoned to what would certainly have eventually been a sorrowful fate. Although many animals lives were lost, a great many more were saved. Some people even refused to leave their pets behind. Very commendable, and admirable, in my own opinion. This I probably would have done myself, and would like to think I will, if ever put into such a position. How could I go off and save myself when the animal I purport to love, depending on me for it's welfare, it's survival, watches helplessly, begging as I go off into the distance, to safety. Nope. Not me. I'll go right ahead and die with it. If that sounds crazy, well, okay, too bad. But you see, I happen to like animals better than people anyway, and so,without further ado, I reveal the Goddess of The Year, the Goddess who epitomized the utmopst in this year of compassion, not only for mankind, but for all creatures great and small.

Artemis. Who else? True, Artemis sanctions the killing of wildlife for food and clothing, but at the same time mandates responsibly doing so, in a manner that the species is thinned out without being in danger of extinction. But htis can hardly be considered as wholesale cruelty and callousness, such as that which was sanctioned by the likes of Bill O'Reilley, who opined that the residents should be forcibly removed from their homes, if they tried to remain to be with their animals. When one woman e-mailed a complaint to his show over this callousness and asserted that she herself would remain, O'Reilley said forcifully, "And you would die, Maddam"

Duh! Get with the program, O'Reilley, and all so likeminded. What the hell is life lived with a guilty conscience. To you, they are just animals. To us, you should have known and have hopefully by now learned, they are our friends and companions. Nothing less.

But of course when you are dealing with peabrains who make their living running their mouths, or government agencies, you can't expect much in the way of compassion and understanding, as their lives are all too self-absorbed, evidently, to warrant any time for love and companionship.

The Power Outage

A word about something that happenned just yesterday, a power outage that blocked out power in the entire area. All the homes, restaurants, everything. From roughly eleven o'clock in the morning to some areas, and finally by 12:30 the entire area was out of power. Until five thirty last night, when it finally come back on. I had gone out trying to find out if anybody knew anything, as even our phone was out. Luckily, saomebody cleaning a store parking lot told me that the power would be back on at 6:30-if we were lucky. Right about that time, I ran into a woman out awalking with her kids, trying to find something to eat. She had just called, and was told the power would be back on about 7:30. I felt somewhat better, so I tried to go to the store to buy some balogna, being told bythe girl in the lot I could get it if I had the exact change. Butthen the manager said everything was covered up. It was pitch black in tere, so I just said to hell with it and went on back home. I kept my clothes on, including a winter vest and coat, and crawled under the covers. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, and was about 29 degrees.

Finally, the power came back on, at about 5:30. The disaster was over, including worries over the potential disaster that worried me more than anything else-the prospect of a refrigerator full of spoiled food.

The girl in the store parking lot had told me that a transformer had blown at the main power station, but other than that I really didn't know anything. But I figured that this had been coming for quite some time, as for the last couple of months it seemed that the heat had to be turned up higher than usual before it would even come on, and stay on. But I found out just today, that evidently it wasn't a problem that had been building up after all. In fact, it may have been a problem, that, with jut the slightest bit of precaution, could have been totally prevented.

The cause of the problem, the reason the main transormer had blown, leaving the entire town without power for five hours or more?

A squirrel had gotten into the power station and into the transformer, shorting it out. Doubtless this small, unfortunate, and seeminly insignificant animal never knew what hit it. But everybody around here sure felt the effects. Kind of ironic, when you stop to think about it.

God Of War

Last night I watched on Spike TV the Video Game Awards, hosted by Samuel L. Jackson, and featuring such luminaries as Charlize Thereon, who received an award for best female performance in a video game for "Aeon Flux". ALso present, but for just a brief appearrance, was Keifer Sutherland, who introduced the new video game "24" based on the popular Fox Network Series in which he plays Agent Jack Bauer. He seemed strangely out of place in the affair, coming in for just a brief appearrance from offstage, and then leaving. You could almost hear him thinking, "get me out of this house of lunatics".

But for the most part, you could appreciate the bond that united this disparate group, made up of A-List actors and actresses, gangsta rappers, rock musicians, and computer gang geeks of all races and ages. Gamers all.

I felt drawn to watch the two hour special out of curiosity concerning the game "God Of War", an offical site to which I have provided a link in the title. From what I have read on the site, Ares appears to be every bit as maligned on this site as he has been throughout the God's history, including by the ancient Greeks. He is the bloodthirsty, excessively violent, and yet cowardly and craven, God who is the personification of the act and carnage of war. Of course, all of the Gods and Goddesses of ancient Greece had their positve as well as their negative aspects, and unfortunatley Ares more positive aspects have been long lost, forgotten, from history.

So shrouded in mystery has he become, in fact, that his true name-Enyalios-has almost been forgotten, and has survived only due to Homer's inclusion of it in "The Illiad", although the name appears there as the name of a son of Ares. Originally, Ares, or "Areis" was more of a title that was used by all the male Gods, in Mychaenaean times. Homer seems to have adapted it for current use of the God with whom it has become identified, more for poetic reasons than anything. Throughout the work, is repeated the phrase, "Ares, bane of man".

I have never been much of a gamer, though I have played on occassions, and I have no idea how the game "God Of War" goes, although I have been told it is excessively violent, in keeping with Ares' nature. It came under scrutiny, along iwth others, in a recent meeting of people who seem to be overly concerned with the detrimental societal aspects of gaming on the young. All the usual suspects were there, including Democratic Connecticutt Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate Joseph Lieberrmann. Without getting too far out on a tangeant, for the purposes of this post I will ocnfine myself to one word- PARENTING!

At any rate, I can only assume, for the time being, that you fight a variety of figures, from human to half hiuman, to the animals of the bestiary. One of the characters that is particularly popular in the game is the "Hydra". Naturaly, the farther you go in the game, the higher the level of difficulty is likely to be. If you conquer all your foes, I suppose you come face to face with Ares Himself.

I have had some experience with this God, so I speak with a little bit of authority from here on out. I tried to invoke him once, and he didn't appreciate the gesture. He appearred to me in an explosion of fire and smoke, which I extinquished from my cauldron, luckily before too much damage was done. But the heat and the smoke from the heated essential oil, along with the steam from the extinquishing water, left the imprint on my ceiling that I can only describe as the perfect portrayal of the God, looking down on me with a hateful sneer as he leaned on a long spear, one hand on his hips.

My landlord of the time accussed me of actually trying to paint picutures on my ceiling. I lied, telling him that I had been frying chicken and the smoke filled the house and caused the image. At any rate the image remained up until the time that I moved. Years later, the ceiling collapsed due to the constantly leaking roof from the floor above, I was told, though whether that room was affected I am unsure. If not, he might well still be up there, glaring down with his malicous sneer at whoever now abides there.

At any rate, I have indeed had my experiences with this God, and therefore I can say that, if this game is at all true to the Spirit of this God, and his actual nature, he is not to be defeated by any mortal warrior, no matter how powerful , brave, or how highly favored and by whom.

In conclusion, if you want to go all the way in this game, and achieve the ultimate victory, I have a suggestion that is certainly worth a try. If you ever are able to rise to the level that, having defeated all other foes, you find yourself in the presence of the God Of War-

Bow down.

Metal Radio

I thought I would share this link, for now I will just keep it here. But be sure and check it out, and let me know what you think of it, if you are a metal fan, that is, of course. At a later date, I will put it in the Links Field. I intend to update the Links Field at a later date, and I would in the meantime request that if any of you have noticed a problem with any links I have currently put up, to let me know. I am becomming a regular Howard Hughes when it comes to concerns about viruses, spam, and now, spy software, and I don't want to inadverdantly be the cause of any problems.

Also, when I add new links, I want them to be something that would be of interest, and yet be something that would pretty much be something you wouldn't ordinarily think about. Fro example, it wouldn't make much sense to put a link up for the New York Times, or somehting else similarly well known, as anybody that would be interested would know how to find those sites to begin with.

Whereas something like this new link I just discovered for metal radio, which was provided by a fellow member of a Yahoo e-mail Group, might escape notice if it wasn't provided. I am proof of that. I am a fan of heavy metal, though I am of an age group that ordinarily wouldn't be considered a member of that audience (and that's the closest anybody is going to get to me telling them my age), and yet I would not have thought about it had this person not turned our group onto it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the link, which is in the post title.

Pluto-World Of Darkness And Magic

Well, tonight may be a Full Moon to remember, for while the Sun is in oppossition to the Moon tonight, it is also in a nearly complete conjunction with the dark planet, Pluto (within just one degree). Should be a great night for magic, as Pluto is a planet of immense power, despite it's tiny size and great distance from the sun, and from us.

Most astronomers long ago decreed that Pluto is a fairly insignificant place, and I have always felt that this was a shot fired across the bridge of astrology, the quirky and somewhat disreputable cousin to astronomy. True, the tiny planet, the smallest one in our solar system, was discovered due to disruptions noted in the orbit of the giant planet Neptune-which is four times the size of earth. Neptune, it so happens, was discovered the same way, by disruptions in the orbits of it's nearest neighbor, Uranus, which is even larger than it.

So whatever this as yet discovered planet was that was causing this disruption in the orbit of Neptune was undoubtedly of considerable size itself, right?

Well, no, not really. Until recently Pluto was considered the second smallest planet in the solar system, slightly larger than Mercury, when it was first discovered around 1930. However, by the 1970's, it was ascertained that Pluto was even smaller than had previousy been believed. You see, up until this time, astronomers had not been looking at Pluto alone. They had been looking at Pluto alongside what turned out to be it's moon, (Charon it was later named, after the mythological ferryman to the Underworld of Hades, or Pluto, and Persephone).

As it happenned, so distant was Pluto, and so small, that the two worlds together created the illussion of being just one planet. Or was it a planet? Due to the peculiar eccentricities of it's orbit, many considered that Pluto may have at one time in the long ago past, been a comet. At any rate, it was certainly too small to have influenced in the slightest way the orbit of Neptune. There must have been something else that was respnsible for this. The inadverdant discovery of Pluto was simply-a coincidence.

Wel, it has been going on seventy-five years since the planet, or comet, was first discovered. Astronomers have perused the solar system, just recently discovering what is apparrently an even smaller planet, or perhaps a mere asteroid, which in an earlier post I nicknamed Minerva-yet this tiny little world is even farther from Neptune, and as if that weren't enough, it is orbiting the sun at a higher plane than all the other planets, which orbit on the same plane. So Minerva is not a sufficient explanation for the past disruptions in Neptunes orbit. Nor has anything else been discovered that can offer up a reasopnable explanation.

But the question remains-how can such a tiny little planet, perhaps no more than a third the size of the planet earth, have such a disruptive effect on a planet such as Neptune, which is four times earth's size. And the answer to that question may well be found in the planets little moon, Charon.

Consider-our moon is roughly one seventh the size of the earth, and has been said to have a great effect on the tides of the oceans, and possibly has an electromagnetic gravitational pull, and effect, beyond just this known fact. At one seventh our size, the moon does indeed seem to pack a powerful punch. Were it not for our moon, earth would not be the same, in fact, it is hard to envision just what it would be like.

Yet, no one has seemed to have noted that Charon, the planet of Pluto, is ONE-THIRD the size of Pluto. To illustrate, imagine if our moon were two and a half times the size it is now, what the effect on our planet might be. The disruptions in the atmosphere would be constant, no doubt. There would probably be constant earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes, and even constant volcanic eruptions. The constant energy release into the atmosphere would be staggerring, and doubltess this would have an extended and permanent effect on the gravitational pull of the earth itself.

The point is, what if this might not equally apply to the planet Pluto. It would depend, of course, on exactly what the overall make-up of the planet is to begin with. After all, there has to be something there in sufficient quantitiers to have any kind of effect, to begin with, right? Well, there can be two ways of inferring this, actually. To start out with, we go back once again to the disruptions in Neptunes orbits that lead to Plutos discovery. The other point of inference is the simple fact that, after all, Pluto is maintaining enough of a gravitational pull to support a moon one third it's own size to begin with. These two starting points are as good as any, and I would maintain that position until it is proven otherwise.

No one really knows for sure if Pluto is even cold or not, it is just assummed it is due to it's distance from the sun. It is said that Pluto is probably a small planet or former comet made up of frozen methane, for the most part, with possibly a small amount of frozen oxygen, ammonia, carbon, and maybe just a smidgen of water ice. But no one knows for sure. No one has ever had a probe close enough to know for sure even what the surface looks like, to my knowledge. Unless it is something fairly recent, there has been nothing done to establish even what the surface of the planet is like, let alone what it's interior is made up of.

Although I would hazard a guess that more than likely the planet is severely cold, it is possible that it could be warmer than currently thought, or at least could contain pockets of warmth. It could at least be hot in the interior.

My own mental image of the planet is that it might well be something very similar to Iceland, with constant eruptions of frozen geysers, though made up mostly of frozen methane. There could be fairly high mountaneous areas on the planet which could be the result of these constant eruptions. A beautiful place, yet dark, foreboding, even terrible.

But certainly powerful, and a conjunction with it is always something that is noteworthy, especially comig at a time of the Full Moon. When performing magic, it is always wise to take note of the various astrological aspects which might come into play, and those involving Pluto are certainly no exception.

I am not a believer in extraterrestrials, insofar as their purported presence on our own planet is concerned. However, this statement comes with a caveat. If there are extraterrestrials that have visited or are visitng us now, and those extraterrestrials do indeed come from some point within our own solar system-Pluto would be the most likely point of origin, for the reasons I have mentioned. Because of the power involved in this tiny and deceptive, seemingly insignificant, dark and assummedly cold little world, nothing can be taken for granted where it is concerned.

It's power, incidentally, has long been asserted by astrologers as being not only great, but disruptive, and potentially destructive. That would certainly be in keeping with the nature of my theories about the dark world. It's power has long been considered dark, in some cases sexual, in some cases aligned with death and destruction, and in some cases it is seen as catharthic.

Whatever the case, it is a power that should not be ignored, and, utilized properly, especially in conjunction with the magic inherent on any full moon night, such as tonight, it can certainly lend a beneficial edge to any magical working.

Of course, some might say, well, even if what you say is true, and Pluto does have enough power to influence Neptunes orbit, that is a far cry from being able to influence us here on earth, and especially the sun. I would remind you of the one scientific fact of which you should be aware. Any action causes an equal and corresponding reaction. In other words, the pull of the sun on the planet Pluto itself will of necessity cause an effect on the sun itself. And that will, of course, have an effect, if only a slight, imperceptible one, on us. Naturally, the heavier a weight that you pick up and carry, the greater effect on your muscles, right? It's the same principle. But even the carryng of a relatively light weight will have an effect. And so it is with the effect of the sun on Pluto, and vice versa, and inadverantly, on us.

No, it is not an effect that can be predicted, like in the absurdly ridculous newspaper horoscopes. It is not even an effect that can be measured. But it is an effect that is there, and it is an effect that, if you wish, you can utilize for your own, hopefully positive, benefits.

Yule Nog

This is my own special eggnog recipe, and I will warn you before hand it is quite extravagant, and complicated, but if you want to give it a try, I promise that it is well worth the effort. It accomplishes several tasks. For one thing, provided you are not adverse to alcoholic beverages, it is a perfect Yule drink. For another, the high that you will get from it is delightfully intense, and yet joyously mellow. If you do sleep while intoxicated on this drink, you will experience lucid dreaming like you could never imagine. And the dream should be pleasant, extremely so. In fact, even a dream that ordinarily would be classified as a nightmare will be a pleasant experience. Finally, when you awake the following day, no matter how high you became the night before, you will not experience a hangover, in fact, you will feel refreshed and renewed, possibly like never before. This is probably due to the way in which the concoction coats your stomach. Once you peruse the ingredients, it will be easy to ascertain the reason for this. And so, without further ado, following is a list of the ingredients.

Before I give theingredients, however, I shoud say that you should insure that you have the proper equipment. Large mixing bowls and mixers (yes, electric mixers, as with this recipe, mixing by hand may not be good enough). Also, insure that you have a sufficiently large cooking implement to hold a large mixture. Something that would of necessity cover two burners on the stove. Finally, insure that you have an adequate number of large jars for refrigeration, in case you of necessity have to cook the Yule Nog the day before it is to be used. And now, on to the ingredients.

1. three small boxes (or two large ones) of Jello or some other name brand vanilla cook and serve pudding, along with the amount of milk called for on the boxes directions.

2. two cartons of large eggs, each containing twelve eggs, for a total of 24 large eggs.

3. three 16 oz. cartons of ready made Kool Whip, or some other name brand, of whipped cream. (or three pints of whipping cream)

4. One cup of sugar

5. One eight ounce glass of whole milk (in addition to the milk you use to make the pudding)

6. 1/2 tespoon of ground nutmeg or cinnammon.

7. one fifth of Baccardi's Light Rum.

Okay, the first thing you want to do is seperate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Once you do this, you need to use just a portion of the cup of sugar in the egg whites, which you will beat until they form a maranque. Once you do this, place the merenque in the refrigerator for the time being.

Then, place the remainder of the sugar (you should have at least three fourths of a cup left) into the egg yolks, and beat them with the sugar until it is all well blended.

Then, cook the three small boxes of Jello vanilla cook and serve pudding over the stove according to the directions on the package. Once it is finished cooking, keep the pudding on low hear, uncovered. Once you have finished doing this, add about a half cup or so of the pudding to the egg yolk/sugar mixture, and mix well. Then, you will need to transfer the egg yolk/sugar concoction to the pudding and stir until it is all well mixed.

Then, you will need to add the whipped cream. Of course, if you use the whipping cream, you will need to whip it and then place it right away into the mixture. Stir until it is all well mixed.

Then, you will need to add the merenque made from the egg whites to the remainder of the mixture. Again, stir until it is all well mixed.

Then, it is time to add the eight ounces of milk.

By this time, the mixture should be cooled sufficiently that you can begin adding the Baccardi's Light Rum. And I specify this brand in order to discourage the use of an inferior brand. Also, do not use-repeat DO NOT USE- 151 rum, that is just too much for this recipe. Yet, an entire fifth of the regular strength Baccardi's Light Rum is perfect. Add the entire amount, but slowly, stirring it as you add it, ensuring the proper mixing, as always. Be certain though that the mixture has indeed sufficiently cooled before you add the rum, as too much heat can have a detrimental effect on the alcoholic content. If it is just slightly warm, that should be fine.

Finally, you add the 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg or cinnammon. You are now ready to serve your Yule Nog. This will make quite a large amount, which makes it perfect for parties or large gatherings, and if you are so inclined, for Yule celebrations-be they of the pagan or the secular variety. The entire amount can be refrigerated, and will be good for a few days, if any appreciable amount is left over. Don't count on this, by the way. At any rate, I discourage freezing the Yule Nog, as it loses it's consistency by freezing (as everything freezes but the alcohol, which will settle to the bottom of the jar, seperated from the remaining ingredients).

As I said, this should not be a concern, as there is likely to be very little left over the following day, if any at all. If you are a Wiccan or Pagan, and a practitioner of magic, this recipe is perfect for attunning with the deities for Yule. You may ritualy bless the ingredients, one at a time, and then the entirety of the Yule Nog when it has been completed. I like to call upon the Goddess and invoke her blessings on the Yule Nog, as a symbolic kind of mothers milk by which to nourish the new born God who dwells amongst us all on Yule. And, when drinking, it is certainly appropriate to visualize the Goddess and the God, and to attune with their energy, their divine powers, by way of the Yule Nog.

If you prepare the mixture before your Yule celebrations, it might be a good idea to prepare it the day before (but no more than that), and insure that you have the proper amount of jars with which to keep it cold in the refrigerator. When your Yule gathering begins, there would certainly be no better way in which to bind your Wiccan/Pagan comunity to the deities than by way of my Yule Nog. And I promise, a good time will indeed be had by all.

Training The Enemy

Somebody really messed up bad time when it comes to Iraq, and it seems like the mistakes have just been coming in a steady stream, with no apparrent end in sight. So what are we to do? Stay the course just doesn't cut it anymore, and there seems unfortunately to be no real plan for victory. So we just hear empty assertions that we will eventually begin drawing down our forces. In time for the '06 elections, of course.

But we shouldn't, we are told, announce any kind of timetable for withdrawal, as this would embolden the enemy, who would bide their time until the appointed date. Then, all hell would break loose, and the nation of Iraq would quickly collapse, would disintegrate into armed conflict between the various factions.

Nevertheless we are assurred that we will eventually achieve victory, and then our troops will come home. Before that, however, we have to assure that the Iraqis are able to vote for their government, whatever that turns out to be, and then, perhaps most importantly, we have to insure that the new and hopefully permanent Iraqi democratic government is able to defend it's self and it's people.

Seems reasonable enough, on the surface. Yet, we have been there now for roughly two and a half years, and as of the last count, the number of Iraqis that are able to stand on their own as a fighting force number roughly one battallion-of 800 men. This out of a total of about 160,000. Ponder that for a moment. Out of all the various members of the Iraqi army, police, and security forces, only 800 of them are of professional enough calibre of training and discipline as to enable them to stand and fight without any help from the U.S. military.

It sounds crazy. We should have by now trained far more Iraqis than this. Some assert that had we received the aid from NATO that we requested along these lines, the training would have been more successful. There are just not enough American troops to do the job of training the Iraqis while conducting the bulk of the combat.

Still others would assert that as long as we are there, the Iraqis really have no incentive to fight, they would just as soon us do their fighting for them.

Both of these are valid theories, and I am sure there is a great deal of truth to them. But I dont think it quite tells the whole story. For some time I have thought there is something that seems to be missing, some answer that is just below the surface. Suddenly, it hit me just what the problem might be.

Consider back to the start of the first Gulf War, which Saddam promised would be the "mother of all wars". Iraq had something like the fourth or fifth largest military in the world at that time, and they were considered to be one of the finest fighting machines in existence at the time. Of course, by the time the fighting started, it became quickly obvious that this was more or less hyped, greatly so. The coalition lead by the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush soundly defeated Saddams army and his so-called elite Republican Guard. It was indeed a humiliating defeat, despite Saddams laughable assertions of victory, based on nothing more than the first President Bush's wise decision to not go into Baghdad to oust the dictator.

While Saddam was contained over the course of the next ten years, he survived two uprisings that lead to mass slaughter by his Republican Guard, which along with the remnants of his army he rebuildt to as great an extent as possible.Yet, his influence was pretty much limited, at least by air, over the Sunni Triangle, thanks to the U.S. enforcement fo the No-Fly Zone established by the U.N., which also passed up to seventeen resolutions that it failed to enforce against the tyrant.

After a couple of retaliatory air strikes by the Clinton administration, whatever WMD Saddam may have been in the process of building up seems to have been destroyed, or at least was very well hidden, possibly even transported to Syria. Whatever the case, this was the main concern when George W. Bush decided (whenever he actually did so) to finally oust Saddam, a process that began in March of 2003.

This fear too did not pan out, and Saddams armed forces again were quickly decimated, or fled all together from the conflict. By the time three weeks had passed, the war was seemingly over, and Saddams statue had fallen. Saddams forces-the army, the Republican Guard, and the Fedayim Saddam-had faded into the woodwork. In some cases, they were actually told to just go home. Not the most brilliant move.

Ever since then, we have been fighting an insurgency of increasing ferocity, with greater and greater casualties as time goes on. And it doesn't seem to be a unified insurgency at that. In some cases it is made up of foreign fighters, from other Arab and Muslim countries, some of which might have a connection to Al-Queda, at leat one of which might actually be a branch of Al-Queda, and some which are more or less independant of any organizational structure or loyalties.

In other cases it appears to be a mishmash of former Saddam loyalists, the Republican Guard, the Feddayim Saddam, and others who are determined to restore and maintain the Sunni hegemony over the country that Saddam had for so long provided by way of the Ba'ath Party.

There are as well Shi'ite militia forces bound and determined to avenge the heavy handed rule of the Sunnis and to avenge the atrocities committed by the Ba'athists.

And yet, from time to time, it seems that all these disparate forces have conspired to target the American military forces as the common enemy. That is, of course, when they are not targeting the average Iraqi civilian, including women and children, subjecting them to the most vile and horrific acts of bloodshed by way of such atrocous actions as suicide car bombings and even by way of assaults on funerals, weddings, and most pernicous perhaps of all, on crowded mosques in the middle of worship services.

So it is easy to see why the Bush administration insists that we have to stand up a firm and stable democracy in Iraq, one capable of defending itself, before we can even think about leaving. That is probably the only thing they have gotten right in all this mess. They were certainly wrong about the presence of WMD's. They were certainly incorrect in their assertion that we would be greeted as liberators. They were incredibly naive in believing that the cost of the war and reconstruction could be met by the profits from the proceeds of Iraqi oil revenues.

Because of all these grandiose and incredibly shortsighted assumptions, they were even wrong about the number of troops that would be needed in order to maintain order in the country after the war was over.

Worse of all, perhaps, they have been arrogantly misleading, almost to the point of being pathological liars, to the American people, about everything. The majority of people don't believe Bush any more, and have little faith in the Administration to set things right. We can ony hope for the best. But at least you would think the military would be more than capable of training the Iraqi soldiers in order to do the job at hand. So they can actually have the skills, in addition to the raw manpower, needed to protect their own country.

So what is the problem? What is taking so long to train the Iraqi military and police and security services? Why have so few as of yet been trained at a professional enough level that they are capable of standing on their own, without any help from the U.S.? Obviousy we have to adequaely train more than one division, otherwise we will be stuck there forever. In fact, logistically, it is almost impossible to leave as of now, without some kind of rear guard protection. Otherwise, were we to leave too quickly, we run the risk of actually leaving the last to leave as, to all intents and purposes, sacrificial targets. Then what? What is taking the process so long that we have inadverdantly had to bring in the Natioinal Guard and Army Reserve Units to take up the slack, and have for a significant duration of this war at least, been forced to institute a kind of what has been termed "back door draft", keeping our militasry personnel bund to their duty beyond their ordinary terms of enlistment. In some cases, for up to three terms.

Because of this, our military is stretched thin, and recruitment of new recruits is down, though it has been asserted that re-enlistment is up. And it is even unsure as to whether this is a legitimate claim. No one knows what to believe any more. For all the money, the billions of dollars, and the American blood, that has so far been spent, with no real end in sight, shouldn't there be more Iraqi soldiers trained than this? If not, why not?

Careful consideration of the circumstances and the history lead to one possible, even probabal, conclusion. The Bush Administration, and the U.S. military, actually doesn't want to train the Iraqis to be able to fight on their own-because they are afraid of them.

Now I know that will be a particularly hard pill to swallow for those who consider themselves the typical red-blooded American patriot, and particularly those who have been instilled with a belief in the spiritual destiny of America as a beacon of democracy and the guardians of the rights of mankind everywhere. But how else to explain it? The Bush Administration has been wrong about just about everything else, including such Iraqi allies as Ahmed Chalabi, who while feeding the U.S. what appears to have been false information in order to drum up support for the ouster of Saddam, at the same time seems to have been acting accordding to some reports, as an agent of Iran.

The Bush Administration is therefore now in a bind, and doesn't really have any clue as to where to turn. Obviously the Iraqis are capable of being trained by the U.S. military, and according to U.S. military standards. That is just the problem. Particularly when it now, on top of eveyhing else, seems as though the military and police forces may have in fact been infiltrated by insurgents.

Were we to proceed with the training, as the Bush administration has assurred the country and the world that we will, we may in effect be training the worse, the most powerful enemy the U.S. has ever faced. Especially if the much touted coming Iraqi parliamentary democracy ends up falling apart, and is replaced by-what?

Inevitably, whatever that might be, it will doubtless be an entity that will hold no great gratitude, and cerainy no great and abiding love, for the United States of America. It is just impossible to say what it will be, actually, though we can hazard a guess. It is not all that difficult to envision a return to Sunni rule, by way of the reemergence of the Ba'ath party. It depends on the circumstances. Or even a coalition of Ba'athists with radical Sunni clerics financed by wealthy Saudis. The more likely possibility would seem to be an Islamic theocratic government headed by the majority Shi'ites.

There is also a possibility that the entire country would just fall into chaos, and bloody civil war, with involvement by Iran, Syria, and Turkey. This could cause conflagration throughout the Middle East, in fact, and could in turn effect the security of Europe, as well as the U.S. security and interests.

Ironically, a well trained Iraqi Army might be the only thing that could precvent this tragedy, yet at the same time such an army might be exactly what would bring about a blood-thirsty, iron fisted regime as bad, or possibly even worse, than that perpetrated by Saddam Hussein.

Such an Iraqi army might, in turn, quickly become the Frankensteins monster of our own creation. The resultant outcome could indeed lead eventually to the mother of all wars.

Or the granddaddy of all disasters.

The Reason For The Season

Christmas seems to mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Of course, there is the aspect of the day as the birth of the Christian savior. It is a day for the giving and receiving of gifts and spending time with friends and family. To many, it is nothing more than a day to get off work. It is finally a day to be dreaded by a great many people, who suffer through grave bouts of depression and anxiety, which are heightened by the season and heightens their sense of loneliness and isolation.

Christmas was actually a pagan holiday originally, and seems to have been adapted by the newly Christianized Romans from the old festival known as the Saturnalia. Saturn was an ancient agricultural deity from the ancient days of Roman pre history, and little is known concerning him, though he was falsely identified with the Greek Cronus. The Saturnalia was a joyous festival, in which gifts were exchanged and there was much merry making, banqueting, partying, and the playing of pranks. Work was called off for the entirety of the festival, which ran from the Winter Solstice until the following New Years Day. This may well have been, in fact, the original "Twelve Days Of Christmas".

Even slaves got into the act, and they were not only free of their duties for the duration of the festival, but their masters were expected to cook for them, and perform all the menial tasks to which the slaves were ordinarily consigned.

This was a popular, even a beloved tradition, throughout Roman history, so naturally it would be considered rash, to say the least, to atempt to bring it to an end, not exactly conducive to gaining acceptance of the new state religion of Christianity. And so the holiday was kept, and maintained as the birthdate of the Christian savior. And so, apparrently, everybody was happy.

As a pagan, of course I do not recognize the holiday as the birthdate of the Christian savior, I recognize the holiday-which actually occurs most years on December 21st-as a celebration of the Winter Solstice. As, in fact, the symbolic rebirth of the sun, and of the sun god himself. For it is on this date, the Solstice, that ancient people noticed the sun, which had been steadily declining in length of it's days, now suddenly started to once again re-emerge, as the days once again begin growing longer. The Solstice, Yule, of course, is the shortest day of the year, but also marks the period when each day now becomes successively longer, as the light and heat of the sun now grows progressively brighter and stronger.

On this day, the newly reborn sun god, in other words, is once again a new born infant, new born from the womb of the Mother Goddess.

It is, in effect, the true New Years Day, though most pagans consider Samhain (Halloween) to be New Years. This I consider to be the age old effects of marketing and the connection in the popular mind of Halloweeen with witches and witchcraft, and so in my opinion the adoption of Samhain as the Wiccan and/or Pagan New Year is quite simply incorrect. But that is my opinion, which I have to concede most other Wiccans and Pagans do not share.

But at any rate, Yule as a traditional holiday has been around for some time now, prior to Christianity, and I can afford to be generous in my gratitude toward the ancient Christians for wisely endeavoring to uphold the tradition, albeit in a somewhat corrupted version. As such, I for one have no problem wishing them or anyone else a "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year", nor do I have any hang-ups about being met with such a greeting at Department Stores and such. I most generally return the greeting.

Nor do I have a problem with trees in public parks being adorned for the season, and with them being called what they are traditionally called-"Christmas Trees". Of course, I know they are or were originally called Yule Trees, or maybe were an outgrowth of the long ago burning of the "Yule Log" which seems to have been an ancient European tradition of the Celts, or perhaps of one of the Germanic and Scandinavian tribes. I don't know and it doesnt really matter. The point is, I am not offended in the least by any of the traditional public displays or recognitions of Christmas, nor can I imagine any other Wiccan or pagan that would be, not any that have a modicum of good sense, at least.

I don't even mind the traditional Christmas religous displays, the manger and wise men with baby Jesus and all that. Why the hell should I care? Yet, evidently somebody seems to mind, and so a controversy has been erupted, one which may have been magnified by forces on the Far Right in order to gain political points (or in view of recent events to keep from loosing them) with an incensed general public. For, the reality is, like it or not, the majority of Americans are Christians, and I have no doubt the majority of Americans always will be Christians. Frankly, this suits me fine in some ways. It does provide a bulwark against radical Islam, or for that matter against the more suppossedly moderate form of that vile religion.

Yet,there are those who for no real good reason think they have to come down against any public display of Christianity. Well, I resent this, as a non-Christian, for a number of reasons. For one, it puts me on the spot, as Christians who know of my pagan beliefs automatically assume that I side with these radicals. Well, I do not.

For another, it gives just that much more fuel to the fire started by those Far Right radicals, gives them ammunition, as it were, to use against not only pagans, but against any Democratric politicans, or supporters of any kind of progressive or liberal cause. It gives them just one more wedge issue with which to infalme the gullible against those of us who would otherwise stand to gain their support. A sure fire way to convince a person to vote against their own best interests is to appeal to their vanity, or their fears, or their prejudices-or their religous beliefs. In the case of the latter, the more heartfelt and yet superstitous are those beliefs, the better.

Christians are bad enough when they are confronted just with the facts of other religions, of the existence of them. They are bad enough when confronted with the simple reality that those of other religions have the rights to practice their religions in peace. This is enough to make them shout and moan and bitch about a so-called "war on Christianity". That and the fact a good many people just don't share their values. I know I don't always. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. So what!

All I know is, America is suppossed to be a country that is founded on certain key principles, and one of these principles is two pronged. On one aspect, you have the freedom of religion, and the rights to free religous expression, while at the same time it is against the law for government to support any one religion over another. That seems perfectly clear cut to me. Christians have as much of a right to their traditional holidays as any other religous group, and this should be respected.

The ancient Christans long ago learned the value of respecting traditions. Hopefully, the modern Christians of today are not adverse to learning those same lessons. Nor should anyone else be.

Abortion

I have come to the conclusion, once again, that Christian conservatives are all pretty much completely full of fucking shit, in at least some ways. Now I could write a book about this topic, so for the time being I'll just stick to one topic-that should keep this rant from getting too out of hand. The topic, of course, is the Christian view of abortion. Naturally, they are against it, and what is even more maddenning, a good lot of them, maybe even the majority of them, are agaisnt it no matter the circumstances, can not find any reason whatsoever where the procedure could even slightly be justified. And, if they had their way, of course it would be outlawed. Oh, they will tell you they would merely seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, which wouldn't exactly outlaw abortion, it would just make it a matter of states rights. Of course what they don't mention, or if they do it is rarely, is that once Roe v. Wade were overturned, they would send an army of lawyers to every state of the union and pour unmentionable sums of money into political action committees the sole purpose of which would be to convince (bribe) state lawmakers into outlawing abortion in their individual states. No state politician would be spared their hypocritical posturing. Every state Senator, Representative, Governor, etc. would be constantly deluged and beset with entreaties from numberless voters egged on by their ministers, rabbis, imams, and priests, and all the lay members and parishioners and activists that could possibly be mustered. The issue would be far from settled, it would in fact be more in your face than it currently is,than it ever was before, and would in fact be an impossible hindrance to any real work being done on any other issue, as so much time would be taken up on just this one.

Violence directed at and by both sides would be ratcheted up. There would be an increase in clinic bombings, in physicians and staff attacks and murders, and in some cases I fear the riot police would have to be called. The television stations would be even more saturated with advertisements from both sides. It could get so bad, in fact, that a new Congressional law might have to be passed which would of course necessitate yet more series of legal wranglings and court procedures, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

And all for what? Because a bunch of moronic hypocrits think they have the God given duty to protect the unborn. So what happens or what would happen if all the unborn were saved from the oh so evil abortion clinics? In a good many cases of course, they would be completely forgotten, and in all too many cases relegated to a life of privation, of poverty, in some cases even destitution. A good many of them would doubtless become criminals, and live entirely criminal lives. A good many of them could conceivably spend three quarters of their precous, God-given lives behind bars.

For every potential Einstein or Mozart that might be saved, there could be at least an even number of Hitlers and Mansons. But even this is incidental compared to the one aspect that makes the Christian conservative concern for the unborn so illogical from the Christian point of view.

According to Christian dogma, at least according to most Christians beliefs, any unborn human, and as far as that goes any child below what is termed the "age of accountability", who dies before reaching said age of accountability, will be guaranteed an eternity in heaven, an eternal immortal life of blissful ecstasy in the company of the saints, the angels, Jesus, etc. What more could anyone ask for? What more could anyone hope for?

Yet, by the same token, most Christians adhere to the belief that the majority of humans who reach the Age of Accountability-are destined for hell. Not necessarrily predestined on an individual level, only that it just so happens that most of these people will end up going to hell. "For narrow is the path that leads to salvation, and few there be that walk thereon" to paraphrase the scriptural saying, "but broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that walk thereon."

In other words, Christian conservatives are, according to their own beliefs, according to the tenets of their own faith, trying to "save" fetuses in the womb from an eternity in heaven, and ensuring that-in the majority of cases-they end up squarely in an eternal state of punishment, an excruciating torture and misery known as hell.

It has occurred to me at some point this would be a good topic for a dark comedy, a play in which a sanctimonious self righteousd hypocritical Christian dies and to his dismay finds himself in hell. He pleads for mercy from God, who sends Christ along with a number of beautiful, happy looking, cherubic spirits, who inform him they are the spirits of those the former minister, while living, saved from the abortion clinics. They all tell him of their lives. One was a rake, the other was a good person all his life, one was an addict, and one was even a murderer. "I murdered my best friend, James Wilmore," he explains sadly, "while in a drunken rage. But I turned from my sins and became saved by the grace of the Good Lord, Christ".

He notices that Christ merely looks at him quizzically as the others assert that they too were saved, and now are happilly assurred of an eternity in heaven.

"Then why am I doomed for hell, Lord?" the preacher asks. "have I not prophesied in thy name, have I not cast out demons, and performed good works in thine service"

"Depart from me" Jesus answers sadly but firmly, "For I never knew ye."

Suddenly the minister finds himself in a pit of hell and is surrounded by vengeful demonic creatures, more than twenty of them, who inform him that they are the spirits of the other people the minister had saved from being aborted. "If it were not for you, one hissed, I could be in heaven right now, but thanks to you this is where I must spend my eternity, tormented like all the others with excruciating heat and sickening vile odors, and demonic beings torturing us as a way to take their own spite out on us due to their own sufferring."

They then start out toward him, and he runs in horror, falling and cutting himself as sickening tastes and odors assail him along with the stiffling heat. He finds a brief respite in a cavrnous room, in which there is one other person who suffers, who cringes in fear and terror, like himself. The minister assures him he need not fear, that he is being tormented just as he was.

"What is your name?", the man asks the minister. The minister tells him, then asks him what his name is.

"James Wilmore", the man suddenly hisses.

And so it goes. Of course, I firmly believe that most people don't put enough thought into their positions to realize just how incongrous they can be. Most people only do what they are told. And of course most in the Republican Party support this position, not because they are so concerned with doing the so-called "will of God", but because, in my opinion, this is just a good way to insure there are as many chumps as possible to fight in the wars and slave for the corporate bosses.

Abortion should stay safe, legal, and hopefully rare, because hopefully one day life will be worth being born into. The way things stand now, however, if there is truth to the theory of reincarnation, and if there is any chance of me coming back into this sorry fucking mess, please-don't do me any favors.

Nor am I in any sense overly concerned about the aspect of so-called "abortion on demand". I look at it this way. I love to eat pussy, but unfortunately there ain't nothing that smells worse than a pussy on the pill, or a pussy that has been fixed. I don't like the saddle, I like to ride bareback, as they say. And no one, surgeon or otherwise, is getting near my balls with a scalpel, if I can help it. So that leaves just straight, unprotected sex.

Now you tell me-am I the kind of person who needs to be bringing a child into the world? I dont think so.

Hostages

I swear, even though I am liberal on most issues, most ofthe time, there are a good may liberals that damn well make me ashamed to admit it at times. Case in point: Christian Peacemakers Teams, four members of whom are now held hostage in Iraq. By the time a good mnay readers of this Blog get around to readingthis post, there is a good chance that one or some or all of these four may have been seperated from their heads.

I just don't understand how people likethis think, but I'm trying, I swear. These are the kinds ofpeopple that will tell you that our enemies, the insurgents, the terrorists, the Ba'athists, whatever you want to call them, are merely in need of understanding, maybe even sympathy. And they go outoftheir way to denigrate any American citizen who disagrees withtheir point of view. Violence only begets more violence, they will tell you, and the only way to solve the worlds problems is not through violence or bloodshed, but through passive non-violent resistant.

Well, since their capture, after stupidly putting themselves in this position by going to Iraq, they will now have a chance to practice what they preach, as they are certainly not in any way capable now of offerring any other kind of resistance. Sometime tomorrow, their captives adivse, they will be executed. Unless, of course, the Iraqi insurgents demands are met, this being the release of all Iraqi prisoners in U.S. custody, be they in Iraq or elsewhere. Of course the U.S. government will not accede to this demand,nor should they-nor in fact can they.

Of course, it is all ready apparrent that the Far Left is spinning this in a way so as to put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Bush administration. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that this is actually an American and/or Israeli psy-ops operation, that the captives are in fact the victims of American special forces, cleverly disguised in black clothing and hoods so as not to be identified. Apparently, they feel that this is a way to inflame American passions further in favor of the war effort, and to make the spirit of the Peace Activist Movement, this one and others, dispirited, you see.

I don't wish this kind of pain and tragedy on anyone, but I am starting to be of a mind that the best thing that could happen here would be that, when the time arrives, only one of these people could be executed, as has been promised, his head slowly, cruelly, agonizingly painfully hacked off. After this, then, an American special forces team would rush in in time to save the remainder, with such quick and efficient overwhelming force that the captors themselves become the captive and are revealed to be, after all, Iraqi insurgents. That would make it pretty well cut and dried, wouldn't it? I doubt though that these kinds of people would learn their lessons. In fact, I would be more than a little surprised were they not to return to the exact same area of Baghdad in which they were captured. I have included a link to the groups website so that any interested can see for themselves how unreasonable, in my opinion, they are.

They have been around for awhile, insinuating their presence into places where they can only hope to get in the way, and when you get right down to it, accomplish nothing but put our troops in danger. They have also involved themselves in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, by preventing Israeli troops from firing on rock throwing youths, suppossedly. I don't believe the Israelis are now or ever have shot bullets from guns at kids throwing rocks. But this makes a good story, designed to win support-and financial contributions-as they probably do nothing but make pests of themselves and possibly endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers as well as they have our own.

No matter the outcome of this sorry spectacle, I have no doubt the group will continue, and will probalby in fact thrive even more than ever due to publicity from this affair. And those of us like myself, who oppose the war in Iraq, who are madder than hell at the Bush administration for the deceitful way they got us into this conflict, and for the incompetent way they have handled it from just about day one ever since then, are left in the ridiculous position of trying to justify our beliefs due to being lumped in with this extremsit fringe.

What can you say? For sure, they will continue, secure in their deluded beliefs that the Iraqi insurgents, the Islamo-Fascist terrorists and others of their ilk, can be reasoned with, with Christian faith, patience, love, humility, and understanding.

So if they really believe that drivel, I have one hell of an idea for them. Since human beings, no matter how fanatical, no matter how bloodthirsty-no matter how evil-can be reasoned with, given all this good love and understanding and tolerance..................

Try to reason with Bush! If it would work in time for the insurgents, shouldn't it work at least as well with him?

The Widow Of The South

There has been quite a buzz recently over the premier of a new book, the first one by author Robert Hicks, entitled "Widow Of The South", which tells the story-the true story, incidentally-of Corrie McGorock, and her role in the little known, but extremely important, Civil War battle of Franklin, which took place in Kentucky in November 1864. It was in fact this battle that may have played as decisive a role in finally bringing the war to a final conclusion as did the earlier fought and better known Battle of Gettysburg. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the North, in fact, and all told there were more casualtiers here than in the Battleof The Bulge, in fact possibly more than in anyother single American engagement. But it finally established, beyond all doubt, the security of Kentucky in Union hands, and thus pretty much wrote the final chapter of the long and bloody book. The only remaining episode of any real improtance, in fact, was the epiloque that occurred at Appamatox Court House.

Into this battle stepped the widow McGorock, who had lost three children and all told five family members to the war. Yet, the Battle of Franklin transpired pretty much in her own backyard. Her two story house sat rigth on one edge ofthe battlefield. Whatever the reason, she transformed her home into a hospital to treat the injured, the sick, and the dying, from both sides.

Hicks writes the book in the form of a novel, he explains, because the widow McGorock left no journals, no diaries, to concretize for posterity her motivations, her feelings, her day to day experiences and perspectives. As I thought abotu this, I realized that I migth in fact be able to suggest a motivation for him. She was quite frankly afraid that if she did nothing, her home would be taken over, vandalized, and possibly destroyed, while she could have conceivably been raped and murdered if thehouse fell into the wrong hands. Even ore likely, as long as her house sat in such a precarious position, there was always the possibility it could be the victim of stray bullets and cannonballs.

By transforming her house into a hospital for the wounded and dying, therefore, she was actually buying protection for both her property and her self. Perfectly understandable. Nor does it detract form the service she provided her countrymen, not inthe least, in fact, some years aftr the war was concluded, she took it a step farhter. She went out to the field which formed the periphery of the battlefield, and there managed to excavate the remains of some 1400 some soldiers. She saw to it they were provided a mass grave, with a respectable monument to mark the spot of their burial. So regardless of her motivations in the beginning, at least in the final analysis she had come to realize the gravity of the situation on a historical level, and probably on a spiritual one, and was moved thus to make this one final contribution to hisotry and posterity.

Her house still exists, incidentally, as well as the monument she was instrumental in erecting. It is an historica landmark, in fact, though it is in need of care, as it has seemingly been neglected over the years. A shame. I intend to read this book when it becomes availiable to me at my publicv libraray, and I would encourage everyobdy to read not necessarrily just this book, but eveyrhting they can on American history, both as pertains to the civil war and in other areas.

And I mean the real history, with all the warts, not the feel good bulshit that is politically motivated, and just as assurredly not the superpatriot drivel that is meant only to brainwash the gullible into believing they must support their government no matter the circumstances.

History has become a less and less important priority in public schools with the passage of time, and with the greater implementation of the global economy with all it's varied degrees of encroaching interdependance. American history, and in fact all history-true history- should be cherished and protected. This book sounds as though it will be an entertaining and engaging way to contribute to my own relatively respectable reservoir of historical knowledge, and I cant wait to read it.

Above Us Only Sky

Yesterday marked a sad milestone, the twenty fifth anniversary of the murder of John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment, which he shared with wife Yoko Ono in New York City, at the hands of crazed gunman Mark David Chapman. I would prefer actually to focus on Lennons legacy of music and activism. However, something needs to be addressed concerning the murder, which a good many have termed an assassination.

It was almost a sure thing that some would be shouting conspiracy, and sure enough, this happenned, with a variety of suspects being named. Sadly, but obviously, and sickeningly, Yoko was one of these named. Others included the Secret Service and/orFBI and/or CIA or some other branch of governemnt operating on behalf of the newly elected (though it must be pointed out, not then yet inaugurated) Reagan administration. Lennon it was suggested was jump starting his career, after a five year hiatus, and would have plenty to say about the direction his adopted country was beginning to take. Some even pointed the finger at the YMCA, a group with which Chapman had been affiliated.

Still, since Chapman is alive, and presumably still wants and hopes to be released one day on parole, one would imagine he would be more than conducive to offerring any information that might, along with a respectable show of remorse, grant him the parole he would naturally desire after twenty five years. Discounting the notion of brainwashing, I would suggest that this information would have been offerred up long ago or, dpending on the nature and identities of the conspirators, he would have been silenced long before given this opportunity.

No, Mark David Chapman is, in this case, I believe, the penultimate "lone gunman". Certainly he may have been inadverdantly influenced by certain factors that lead him on his trek to murder his one time idol, whom he now felt to have all along been a phoney, out for nothing more important, after all, than the money and fame so improtant to all artists.

The YMCA and his sudden attachment to them may have indeed been a factor, though an unwilling and unwitting one, as innocent perhaps of involvement as was Todd Rundgren, who had become Chapmans newest idol, and who in fact had been engaged in a running feud with Lennon, penning open letters which were read with bemused interest by a few, and seemingly ignored by Lennon himself.

It has been said that the reason the JFK assassination so readily and stubbornly lends itself to such a vast array of conspiracy theories is that the average person just can not bring themselves to accept that a person so important, so beloved by so many, so powerul on such a level, could find his life suddenly and senselessly ended by violence at the hands of a person who was, in the grand scheme of things, an insignificant gnat barely worthy of the name "man", if at all. There has to be another reason, a more complex explanation, they insist on some deep subconscous level. Life cannot be that random, that haphazard. Also, everybody loves a great mystery, to put it bluntly. The lone gunman theory is, in the final analysis, unsatisfactory on a variety of levels.

I disagree with this theory as it applies to the Kennedy assassination. There are too many mysterious circumstances, too many situations, which have not only never been answered, they have never when you get right down to it even been addressed.

However, as it pertains to the Lennon murder, this might well apply to those who still hold forth to the theory of some vast conspiracy to silence the former Beatle. In fact, I am sure of it. Barring some startling revelation or confession, therefore, I would hold firm to the belief in Mark David Chapman as the lone gunman. The only conspiracy he was involved in was the one he plotted with the voices in his head.