Keeping Your Head in (All) the Game(s)

Here There Be Dragons

2012-01-28T01:20:00.000-08:00

Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations continue this week, in honor of the year of the dragon I offer several Chinese images along with a Welsh great lizard, only a single breastplate fantasy image and one film dragon.

Draco, voiced by Sean Connery, in Dragonheart.

The Olde Middle

2012-01-27T01:08:00.000-08:00

"On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history."
-David E. Campbell & Robert N. Putnam
NYTimes Commentary Aug. 2011

I've been saving that quotation in my blog queue since last August. Campbell & Putnam wrote a book - American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, the New York Times commentary piece was the beginning of their promotional tour. I considered reading the book after running into a number of other promo lectures and appearances last fall but the quote above kept bothering me.

I have thought about what it was exactly and today I hit on it. They have managed in a few sentences to insult and condemn anyone who seeks to stand against the status quo of the two party system. Too far right or too far left and you just repel the moderates and damage the party for years.

Well boys you are talking about the "moderate middle" that doesn't exist anymore. As the "middle class" fell, so did the "political middle" and the "olde middle" ain't coming back, at least not quietly and not in the hip pocket of republicrats. About the only thing "the middle" is good for anymore is for finding political apologists like Campbell & Putnam and tossing them on the scrap heap of olde political wisdom.

The game has changed gentlemen and you are still reading from the rule book of the "olde middle."

Kung Hii Fatt Choi

2012-01-23T01:12:00.000-08:00

The Chinese Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon.

It's Really Not All About Politics

2012-01-21T02:52:00.000-08:00

The System That Couldn't Count

2012-01-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

We hear these same platitudes each and every election cycle.

"Voting is your civic duty!"

"If you don't vote, don't complaint."

"Voting is our greatest right as free citizens!"

The problem is that "Your Vote Counts" are empty words if there is no one responsible enough to accurately and fairly count the votes. Once again we see, this time in Iowa, that addition is a really difficult task for some members of our society. And we seem to allow these math challenged people to run our elections.

Apparently Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus a couple of weeks ago but Mitt Romney got the boost going into New Hampshire when the counting in Iowa went less than perfectly. Now it seems that eight precincts in Iowa have completely lost their ballots so the republican party of Iowa is calling it a draw, a tie, a non-decision. But what we really have is an admission that there was no fair and legal vote in Iowa. Voters in 8 precincts have had their "greatest right" which they exercised as their "civic duty" - well for lack of a better word - 'lost' or perhaps 'taken away' or simply 'not counted.'

After all the sound and fury, after all the campaign noize and money spewed around Iowa for over a year, they couldn't count the damn votes. OK, so it was only Iowa. But need I remind you that we had a similar problem a few years ago in Florida, which led to the supreme court picking the president.

Now I am sure my liberal friends are waiting for me to go off on the current republican campaign to restrict voter access in the November election. Yes, of course, they are doing that - it's called politics. Need I remind you that the democrats feel you need only be breathing to vote, which of course leads to voter fraud on the other side of the shaky two-party scale. Sorry partisan folks, I just don't care. Why should I? Why should you? Have you not been paying attention - the vote is not fixed by who does or doesn't get to enter the sanctuary of the polling place; the vote is fixed by who does or doesn't do the counting.

It's all about the math and who is holding the abacus in a few key states. You trust this system? Really? Ask the voters in Iowa.

Closed for Today

2012-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

Much of the internet is dark today to protest a grossly overreaching bill in the US Congress. While the bill purports to halt online piracy, it does so at the expense of free speech and gives unnamed and unknown government agencies the right to shut down any part of the net they feel threatens whatever they believe should not be threatened. Egypt, Libya, China and other countries have attempted to shutdown free speech over the internet when those fine examples of democracy felt that their citizens should not be speaking up about the restriction of human rights.

This is not a justified cause of governmental authority and needs to be stopped. Email your senators and tell them you oppose Protect IP Act in the senate and contact your house member as they consider the Stop Internet Piracy (SOPA) act in the house.

Do It Tomorrow

2012-01-16T00:08:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow marks another in a year-long list of Occupy actions to bring economic sanity and fairness back to the American people. If you are in or around Washington D.C. please consider participating in any of the planned events for Occupy Congress.

Not in the capitol area, then take a moment to write to your elected senators and congresspersons and ask them to take the time meet with Occupy members who are there to make our needs known.

We can't all be there for every demonstration or every cause, but we can lend our support and our voice to those who are. Do It Tomorrow.

Find contact information for your congressional representatives.

And the Losers Are . . .

2012-01-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Results 2008 New Hampshire Primary

John McCain 86,571 7 delegates

Mitt Romney 75,546 4 delegates

Mike Huckabee 26,859 1 delegate

Ron Paul 18,308 0 delegate

Hillary Clinton 112,404 9 delegates

Barack Obama 104,815 9 delegates

John Edwards 48,699 4 delegates

Results 2012 New Hampshire Primary*

Mitt Romney 97,532 7 delegates

Ron Paul 56,848 3 delegates

John Huntsman 41,945 2 delegates

Newt Gingich loser

Rick Santorum loser

Rick Perry loser

*Only 12 delegates at stake reduced from 23 by the republican national committee for moving the primary up to January.

Speaking of relevance, the Jan. 31st republican primary in Florida already has more absentee ballots requests than all the votes cast in Iowa and New Hampshire combined.

2286 - number of delegates to republican convention

1144 - number of delegates to win nomination

37 - number of delegates decided thus far

20 - number of delegates committed to Mitt Romney

So how is it possible that Mr. Romney is now being declared the winner by so many knowledgeable sources or when did 20 become 1144?

Pie Chart Your President

2012-01-07T01:58:00.000-08:00

Mother Jones magazine has this really cool interactive tool that allows you to predict who will win, lose or draw each of the upcoming republican presidential primaries. They call it the GOP Primary Predictor: Play Along at Home. You can prognosticate on what percentage of the votes each of the candidates will get in all of the upcoming 55 primaries. Yes, I did say fifty-five.

Here is a list of the primaries along with my less than scientific commentary.

Jan. 3 Iowa - Santorum or Romney they don't really know yet

Jan. 10 New Hampshire - Romney wins big
Jan. 21 South Carolina - the last real chance to derail the Mitt
Jan. 31 Florida - 50/50 chance for Romney to wrap it up

Feb. 4 Nevada
Feb. 7 Colorado
Feb. 7 Minnesota
Feb. 11 Maine
Feb. 25 Mariana Islands
Feb. 28 Arizona - it's over, Romney wins both; everyone else quits
Feb. 28 Michigan - it's over, Romney wins both; everyone else quits

None of the remaining 44 primaries matter as far as the presidential nominations go

Mar. 3 Washington
Mar. 6 Alabama
Mar. 6 Georgia - March 6th: eleven states in one day with no meaning
Mar. 6 Idaho
Mar. 6 Massachusetts
Mar. 6 North Dakota
Mar. 6 Ohio
Mar. 6 Oklahoma
Mar. 6 Tennessee
Mar. 6 Vermont
Mar. 6 Virginia
Mar. 6 Virgin Islands

Mar. 10 Kansas
Mar. 10 Wyoming
Mar. 12 Guam
Mar. 13 Hawaii
Mar. 13 Mississippi
Mar. 13 American Samoa
Mar. 17 Missouri
Mar. 20 Illinois
Mar. 24 Louisiana
Mar. 24 Puerto Rico

Apr. 3 Washington
Apr. 3 Maryland
Apr. 3 Wisconsin
Apr. 6 Alaska
Apr. 6 Texas - Rick Perry who?
Apr. 24 Connecticut
Apr. 24 Delaware
Apr. 24 New York - sorry it was Romney two months ago
Apr. 24 Pennsylvania
Apr. 24 Rhode Island

May 8 Indiana
May 8 North Carolina
May 8 West Virginia
May 15 Nebraska
May 15 Oregon
May 22 Arkansas
May 22 Kentucky

June 5 California - largest single electoral state votes 3 months too late
June 5 Montana
June 5 New Jersey
June 5 New Mexico
June 5 South Dakota
June 26 Utah

Now I would be happy to be wrong about this, if only for the entertainment value a longer race would give to The Daily Show and Colbert Report. But my overall 2012 position remains the same - whether you are choosing the lesser of two evils or seven, you still get evil.

So You Believe This is a Free Country

2012-01-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

I am reluctant to say it, but if you are shocked by this story you must still be living under the impression that the government is on your side and that the USA is a free country.

Early this week the space occupied by Global Revolution was raided by the NYPD. The group for months has been aggregating live streams from the Occupy Wall Street movement and putting them out on the web. They operated for several months under a tarp at Zuccotti Park and recently moved to an indoor space in Brooklyn. A space that had been occupied (lived in, paying rent) for the last year by one of the GR members.

Suddenly on Monday the premises became "imminently perilous to life" according to the notice posted. On Tuesday the NYPD raided the site and arrested the members of GR who ran the video operation. Now if you have been to Brooklyn in the last twenty years you know there clearly are spaces perilous to life, probably scores of them within a block or two of the raided studio, but none of them were deemed so dangerous as to provoke a NYPD raid.

Could it have been a coincidence that the Occupy Wall Street live streaming team was operating from that location? Surely they weren't targeted by the NYPD on orders from the mayor, the governor or homeland security. No that could never happen here in the land of the free.

Move along folks, nothing to see here; which is why the NYTimes has yet to report this story even though they have done pieces in the past on the video team from Global Revolution.

The Real Iowa Numbers

2012-01-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

Romney wins in Iowa but Santorum finishes incredibly close in a great moral victory. Ron Paul hangs in there while Bachmann and probably Perry step out of the race. That's what you could hear all last night and all day today on every "news" show you could dial up. But let me point out just three numbers to demonstrate just how ludicrous it is for "the greatest democracy on the planet" to select it's leader this way.

122,255

-that's how many Iowa voters showed up to caucus last night; over five times that many people were at the Rose Parade on Monday, why not let them vote?

677,508

-that's how many Iowa votes John McCain got in the 2008 general election, last night about 18% of that total caucused and were the object of all this media attention. Less than 1 in 5 probably voters bothered to go to a caucus. Oh by the way McCain lost Iowa to Obama 54% to 45%.

59,934,814

-that's how many Americans voted for McCain in 2008; last night .24% (1/4%) of that number boosted Romney, Santorum and Paul but ended at least two and possibly four other presidential campaigns.

Iowa - Is this really how we want to select the "Leader of the Free World"?

New Hampshire next, then South Carolina.

God Bless VespuciLand.

Happy New Blog Year

2012-01-02T01:34:00.000-08:00

I apologize to those who miss the old light-hearted posts, I liked them too. I really don't want to do a Lenny Bruce and become mired in the endless crap of American politics but... this is going to be an interesting even a historic year in the U.S. Should that not turn out to be true I will get off the political sinking ship as fast as a congressman talking to broke lobbyist. Until then...

Good news for those who are not so fond of all the political commentary, the italicized opening above represented my thoughts early in December when I was planning my year end blog break. Since then I have been thinking about this here blog and I can honestly say I haven't come to any striking conclusions. So for now, I will continue with whatever wanders across my consciousness. I am giving myself another month to ponder what's it all about going forward.

Several major anticipated shifts in my personal life have been sidetracked, put on the back burner or discarded completely. So life that was planned to be in flux is more likely to be in stasis.

Wait! I'm sure I can be more convoluted than that...

The more things change the more they stay the same

Is it just me or does everybody see

The new improved tomorrow isn't what it used to be

Bon Jovi

2012

2011-12-31T00:05:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for the New Year to all of my readers. Thank you for taking time from your life to stop by and share in a few of my thoughts, babbles and meanderings. I will be back come Monday with an reimagined version of Keeping Your Head in (All) the Game(s).

Holiday Visuals

2011-12-29T01:41:00.000-08:00

The Occupy Movement has recently kept me away from sharing the interesting visuals I find while surfing the web.

Juxtaposition

Elephant Hawk Moth

Dandelion Bear/National Geographic

green

---

thanks for these Sandy

Silhouettes

2011-12-26T09:36:00.000-08:00

May Your Day Be Merry and Bright

2011-12-25T03:00:00.000-08:00

In the Meadow We Can Build a Snowman

2011-12-22T01:38:00.000-08:00

Winter Solstice

2011-12-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

A Joyous New Year to All

December 21st 9:30 PM PST

December 22nd 12:30 AM EST

5:30 AM GMT

Colored Pencils

2011-12-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

Public Art

2011-12-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

Awhile back before my blog was consumed with the Occupy Movement I was collecting images for a series on Public Art. These are a few I had queued up - enjoy.

trompe de l'oeil

yes, faux lego

The Last Six Months Out My Window

2011-12-14T03:15:00.000-08:00

I wish I could put into words how dramatic this nightfall was. Every aspect of the Bay, the Bridges, The City turned shades of grey. Everything became crystal clear, the water of San Francisco Bay was a sheet of granite. Before the nightlights took over the view was frozen in whites, greys and blacks.

These are all shots from the Berkeley apartment

where I lay my weary head each night

here the Golden Gate Bridge

from ten miles away

sunsets come in shades of purple

whiter shades of pale

grays & greys

the black paper silhouette SF skyline

I wrote about a few weeks ago

Another Year End Pause

2011-12-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

"I must say lately I've been feeling a bit consumed
by all this writing."

For the past several months my blog has been dominated by the Occupy Movement. Elsewhere I have had myself on a very strict writing routine on another project. I have not been using the blog as a creative outlet as much as I have in the past. It would seem that my relationship with this blog is changing.

Last year I took a year end break from blogging, I am going to do somewhat the same this year. So for those who have not been fans of the political writing, there is some good news - I really hate to discard content I've had on hold the last few months, so I have half a dozen visual posts queued up for your viewing pleasure between now and the new year.

Enjoy!

---

As I look back the number of blog posts per year has risen steadily since I began here nearly five years ago.

In 2007 I wrote 40 blog posts, mostly about poker.
In 2008, I was up to 56, still mostly poker
In 2009 there were 160 posts and I made the shift away from poker.
I was up to 186 posts in 2010.
2011 will reach over 240 daily offerings before we hear Auld Lang Syne .

While I take the remainder of '11 off from actively writing the blog, I am also going to reconsider how I want to engage in this exercise with myself and with all of you going into 2012. My first post of the new year will address whatever plans I hatch over the holidays. I have been tempted to start a second all political blog but again that would take away from my other writing for which I might actually get paid.

I know I have been single minded and a bit harsh over the last several months, I literally have been Occupied. So no more politics (here) until 2012.

Peace,

Tim

Some Personally Occupied Perspective

2011-12-09T03:29:00.000-08:00

Call this my penultimate post of the year, check back Sunday for more on that.

I want to look at the four major points I have discovered in the past two months that are driving the Occupy Movement, the Tea Party and me personally.

I. Income Inequality, which for me is better expressed as Opportunity Inequality. The land of the free and the home of the brave has become a rigged game. Wall Street and Washington DC have conspired to put the American Dream so far in debt that none of us will ever have the opportunities our national government was originally formed to preserve and defend. We must tear down those institutions that are too big to fail, because only the nation deserves that label and if we do nothing - the nation will fall.

II. Money in Politics. This one has surprised me. I really had no sense of just how angry the overwhelming majority of citizens are that the government has been bought. Everybody knows it. Everyone is mad as hell about it, except those doing the buying. Once again we see the coalition of greed between Wall Street and elected officials. It has got to stop or we will get the same result - the nation will fall.

III. The Main Stream Media. No one trusts them anymore. No one. Several of my conservative friends gave up on Fox News because they just knew the news would be slanted every single day on every single story. CNN may actually be worse with Wolf Blitzer's breathless excitement over the endless stale parade of republican debates and new polling results. The good news is that the internet provides so many avenues of excellent on-site sources for news and commentary from the thoughtful to the extremely paranoid. Everyone can tune in the ultimate in Free Speech.

IV. The Department of Defense. For me, defense spending has been at the heart of our budget problems for decades. Do you realize the United States still maintains a force of nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea nearly 60 years after the military conflict ended. Not to mention huge bases in Germany and Italy staffed and maintained since WWII. Just last week Barack Obama agreed to huge new military expenditures for a U.S. presence in Australia.

To put it simply. We are not the police force for the world. We should not be. The U.S. Constitution is not a blueprint for the world. There actually are other cultures different from the one we know and they are not for lack of a huge military inferior to ours.

Cutting the U.S. Defense Department by 25%* would fully fund programs in health, education and research; including government seed monies for research and development to reassert the U.S. economy on the world stage. But we can do none of these things if we keep dumping billions of dollars into foreign wars that drain our resources not to mention maiming and wounding our military.

*By the way, none of the DoD cuts should come out of veteran's benefits for medical services or counseling.

V. Other issues. Yes, there are more. You probably don't agree with my top four. The Occupy Movement is about facilitating all voices; the needs and demands of those voices. Occupy is a call for deep change—not temporary fixes and single-issue reforms—this is the movement’s sustaining power. Here are some things you can do to get involved.

-and here is an analysis of Occupy from Mother Jones that is worth considering even if you haven't been in a tent in twenty years:

"The occupations provided a catalyst, but the most interesting conversations haven't taken place in the camps via the human mic. They've happened among the millions of people who found that kids in tents were quite effectively articulating their own sense of abandonment. What comes next is the question that should occupy us in 2012, and beyond."

Medical Marijuana (9): DEA & Me

2011-12-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

Several readers have pointed out that my series on Medical Marijuana lacks a final report. Sorry, you're right, here we go. I want to deal briefly with the politics of pot and then I will summarize my own experience with using marijuana to control my chronic back pain.

First the legal/political issues. Marijuana prohibition is bigotry. Bigotry against people in pain, patients recovering from chemotherapy, those suffering from arthritis, glaucoma and literally scores of other illnesses and medical conditions. Such prohibition is also contrary to the expressed views of freedoms we allegedly hold to be self evident in this country. Both politically as well as scientifically we know this to be true:

"In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care."
US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition," (September 6, 1988)

The prison overcrowding problems in this country would disappear tomorrow if we released those persons who are serving time for simple possession of marijuana. The war on drugs is a failure for its inclusion of marijuana as a drug. There simply is no scientific evidence to prohibit the sale and use of cannabis; there is only fear and that fear is destroying lives unnecessarily.

-----
As to the results of my own experiment with marijuana as a pain reduction tool, I must admit to negative results. You see using cannabis alters perception in a variety of ways. For those who do find relief from pain the use of marijuana often provides pain free or pain reduced responses that cannot be obtained from other pain relievers including narcotics.

On the other hand, marijuana does make some individuals more physically sensitive. Unfortunately I fall into that category. Marijuana heightens my sensitivity to all somatic stimuli including pain. I do not experience more pain with pot but I am more aware of the pain I have. Not a good outcome in my case.

So for me, the medical marijuana experiment has had an negative outcome. I will be sticking with other forms of pain intervention both pharmaceutical and other non-traditional interventions.

-----

Previous posts in this series:

Medical Marijuana (8): IRS Attacks
Medical Marijuana (7): Dosage
Medical Marijuana (6): A Conundrum
Medical Marijuana (5): The Patients
Medical Marijuana (4): Botanical Chemistry
Medical Marijuana (3): Human Experimentation
Medical Marijuana (2): The Dispensary
Medical Marijuana (1): An Inquiry

NOT Occupying Obama

2011-12-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

"Obama's hope of somehow harnessing the Occupy Wall Street movement as a left-wing of the tea party is a pipe dream. Obama was yesterday's messiah. He has turned out to be a false prophet and his erstwhile supporters are out for revenge."

That's the final conclusion of a short article on Yahoo! news. For those in the Occupy Movement it comes as no surprise. Conservatives will probably believe that it's just more propaganda because for them Occupy is an Obama election strategy. For the liberals this is a chilling message and therein lies the truth from my corner of the political landscape. The president and the democrats are not going to be able to mobilize the energy of the Occupy protest in 2012. Not a chance.

Yes there are voters at the camps and in the marches who will pull the lever for Barack but not nearly enough for him to win. And this is not merely youthful defection from a cause that simply could not have possibly taken over D.C. in what is now still less than three years in office.

The facts, as seen around the tents, is that Obama didn't really try. He is, as many of us expected, just another politician. His entire career has been about compromise and the center, which as it turns out is not a viable strategy when the other side will not budge. The republicans vote as a bloc, descent is not an option in that party. They have become a bloated intestinal blockage in the American system and they think nothing of destroying the country if it means they get their way. Obama's reaction to such obstinate, obstructionist policy has been to make more pretty speeches.

We have been listening, which is one of the big reasons there is an Occupy Movement at all. This is not an anti-republican or anti-democrat protest. Remember it began as Occupy Wall Street. Not Occupy D.C. This is about the criminal actions taken by greedy, heartless bastards at the expense of everyone else in the country. Hell, everyone else on the planet, they nearly destroyed the world wide economy with their avarice.

The hard numbers on the ground are not with the president. Certainly not the 99% and not the 50.1% either, not with the anti-majority tilt of the electoral college. But fear not liberals, have hope independents, stay alert middle class, lower class and even the few patriots in the financial elite - there is another way.

More on that other way later, I promise.

Speaking Truth to Power

2011-12-04T21:29:00.000-08:00

LINK

See what happens when someone from the main stream media gets the opportunity to tell the truth and they actually do it! We seldom see this level of honesty from inside the corporate media monopolies . Or is the wall beginning to crack? Are the 1% losing their stranglehold on what gets reported? Remember when Walter Cronkite, 'the most trusted man in America,' turned against the Vietnam War live on the nightly news...

Here is a link to a calmer explanation from Dylan Ratigan about the facts behind his rant.

And if you really want to delve into the current worldwide economic crisis (aka: depression) might I recommend one of my favorite economists Steve Keen. Here is an interview he did last week with the BBC. There is a video and a transcription; I recommend reading over listening because he makes many points worth pondering several times over.

The Hour After

2011-12-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

Photographers call the light just before sunset - "the magic hour." The low, saturated illumination makes for memorable images. From my perch high above Berkeley with the panoramic view of San Francisco Bay I have a slightly different take on the lights of the evening. I often walk in the neighborhood during that last hour of waning light at sea level but I like to get back to the eighth floor for the view that follows. You see after the neighborhood down below falls into darkness the sky is still bathed in color up here. Sure sometimes the fog blots out the light or the sun sets into a marine layer but tonight was one of those meteorologically perfect combinations of light and high cloudless sky.

At this time of year the sun sets directly behind the skyline of San Francisco. For a time the city is backlit in brilliant orange that slowly darkens to blood red. The skyline appears as if cut from black silhouette paper and the bridges stand out with only their lights to define them.

Tonight the air was calm making the clarity of the scene so acute, as if an opthamologist were flipping another lens tweaking ever more intensity into the picture with each passing moment. At times like these I feel a strong sense of loneliness, not so much that I am alone in the world but rather that there is no one sharing this brilliant visual sensation. As if the sight were really too much for one person to behold. Shared vision, shared awe.

these are not my droids, nor my photos

Occupying Creeping Bureaucracy

2011-12-02T01:14:00.000-08:00

"OccupySF follows consensus process. Peoples Reserve CU and OccupyMission are not organs of OccupySF,

as they exist out of process."

That's a recent tweet communication from someone regarding the organizational structure of Occupy San Francisco. The statement is both twitter-speak and Occupy lingo. I will translate:

As with many non-hierarchal meeting structures, most of the Occupy groups use some form of consensus building process in order to reach decisions. For one such process you can view this short youtube video. The intention is not to get stuck in the old leader/committee/elite decision making process. Everyone should be involved with an equal voice no matter who you are or when you joined the movement. So ...

"OccupySF follows a consensus process." There are often local tweaks and twists to the process but the basics are usually the same and Occupy San Francisco uses just such a decision making process in the General Assembly (GA) meetings and in sub-groups created by the GA.

"Peoples Reserve CU and Occupy Mission are not organs of OccupySF." The Proposed People's Reserve Credit Union and the new encampment in the Missions District are not extensions of the original Occupy San Francisco @ Justin Herman Plaza organization. They are separate entities functioning under their own forms of decision making arrangement.

".. as they exist out of process." These are the key words that prompted my post today. The author means that both of these offshoot organizations weren't not created via the consensus process within OccupySF, therefore they exist outside of that process and are not authorized nor formally condoned by Occupy San Francisco.

Fine. I do not disagree with the content of this tweet and I acknowledge the difficulty of communicating anything in 140 characters or less. So I have no issue with the original author. I do, however, have a big concern about that queasiness anyone including myself felt upon reading "as they exist out of process."

Insider speak is necessarily exclusive of those who don't know the secret handshake and don't have the decoder ring. We can excuse that in a twitter communication or a brief email but there is a more serious hidden agenda here, I would be interested if you had the reaction I did.

Did you find the communication strident? Did it sound vaguely like - "we have rules and if you don't follow the rules you are out." Should the 99% already be broken into ten groups of 9% or ninety-nine consensus meetings of 1% each? Yes there does need to be some sense of order and some means of processing the hearts, minds and feelings of members but guidelines become rules, rules become laws and laws lead to exclusion not inclusion.

Recent Images from Occupy

2011-12-01T02:13:00.000-08:00

"It's the Inequility Stupid!"

2011-11-30T01:38:00.000-08:00

"Some people question the validity of the "rebelious" artists who made big money - they are accused by revolutionary purists of being a part of the system, and for being rich. I do not share that feeling - I think that it's OK to make big money - it's OK to become rich if it's based on creating a real value - art, inventions, services of products. What is not OK is a legalized systemic swindle - and that is what we are against..." - Roger Waters

I lifted the title for today's post from a Mother Jones article It's the Inequality Stupid! it has several graphic representations of just how large and pervasive is the wealth gap in the United States. You think you know because you feel it every day but when you see the numbers graphically you have to wonder why anyone in the 99% isn't with us on this.

Here's another interesting piece, this one from the Washington Post, they call it The Big Lie. The big lie is that our current financial mess was caused by Washington and not by Wall Street. Now the reasonable assessment is that there is plenty of blame to go around. But the perverse explanation goes like this - Congress made the banks lend to borrowers who could not afford to own those houses. What a lot of people seem willing to overlook is that it was not the home loans that brought on the financial crisis. No, it was the packaging of those loans into fifty and one hundred million dollar portfolios and selling them to pension funds and other financial institutions with false ratings. Then creating a secondary market buying and selling derivatives on those suspect loans.

Now when exactly did Congress passed legislation demanding that Wall Street banks create such risky investment products? What Congress did or rather didn't do was regulate. I know that is a dirty word for conservatives but you can't have it both ways. If government is the problem and they didn't do their job, then the problem was not enough regulation and enforcement. If Wall Street was the problem then who was supposed to stop them - the government? If so, how without regulation?

The Tea Party wants to blame it all on big government and Occupy Wall Street - well the name does say it all. But do we really want to have another good versus evil standoff here? Isn't the country already locked into inaction by the republican/democrat divide. Please take note that both Washington and Wall Street are promoting the divisions between conservatives and progressives, they want us divided because united we scare the hell out of them.

So hug a liberal, kiss a conservative or at least talk to each other. Keep your eyes on the real target - "It's the Inequality Stupid!"

The Truth About TARP

2011-11-28T01:24:00.000-08:00

"The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing."

You owe it to yourself, your children, your retirement savings, your home and your sanity to take fifteen minutes to read the analysis from Bloomberg.com, which provides for the first time the details of the 2007-2009 financial bailout of the U.S. banks. Over 29,000 pages of documents were obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. The U.S. Federal Reserve resisted releasing these documents, the government clearly does not want you to know the truth about how much of the taxpayers money was used. Remember the $700 Billion dollar number - that was how much Congress approved for the Bush Bank Bailout in 2007. Want to know the real number for all the bailouts under both Bush and Obama including the secret monies that neither President approved - $7.77 Trillion. What the heck, it's only one more zero.

No more grumbling about Obama's spending or the Fed's 'Too Big to Fail' policies until you read this article.

Here's another little teaser:

“When you see the dollars the banks got, it’s hard to make the case these were successful institutions,” says Sherrod Brown, Democratic Senator from Ohio. “This is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and OccupyWall Street. There are lawmakers in both parties who would change their votes now [on bank regulation].”

The Attack on Occupy

2011-11-26T01:52:00.000-08:00

I'll bet there are some Occupy campers who are a bit tired of having old hippies telling them stories about the Vietnam War protests. But there is a subtle distinction I have not heard voiced yet - here is it. When we were protesting against the war in the late 60s and early 70s most of our parents were not with us. For them the United States at war meant World War II, pretty hard to be against that war when on the other side was Adolf Hitler. My father's reasoning on Vietnam was - "our boys are fighting and dying over there and we need to support them." In my late teens I was protesting a war, at that same age he was in one, so was everyone else in the country.

But in the 60s the "adults" did not make a distinction between the fighting on the ground in Vietnam and the insane policy in Washington D.C. which was also based on WWII mentality. The flag waving obscured the questions of policy and any rational basis for what we were doing in Vietnam.

Flash forward to today, we are all part of the 99%. We are on your side, marching with you against some incredibly over the top reactions on the part of local police, mayors and governors. But listen carefully to your elders about this because it really has very little to do with what the local mayor wants. These marching orders are coming from Washington. The good news is that you have struck a nerve, they are afraid we will wake up too many of the 99% and it will cost them their places of privilege.

For anyone who doesn't believe Washington, the Department of Homeland Security and yes, Barack Obama are not behind the militant crackdown on Occupy. Here is an article from the Guardian for you. For those who believe as I do that this is an organized repression, the article is most enlightening.

Black Friday

2011-11-25T04:05:00.000-08:00

Tryptophan Hangover

2011-11-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

The 1% President

2011-11-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

Sure the 1% would have been happy with Mitt Romney, but the Perry blunders followed by Cain's loose zipper gave the super elite the chance to push their real guy - Newt. The timing couldn't have been better, the holidays are upon us, people will be distracted from the endless republican debate schedule and then BANG! January and the first presidential primaries. Newt could be the nominee by Valentines Day. Under even the most competitive circumstances the nominee will be in place after Super Tuesday March 6th.

Unfortunately then the conversation turns as it always does to the better or worse of two terrible choices. My liberal friends will once again say "but if you don't vote for Obama we will get Newt!" And my conservative friends will say - "sure it's that gas bag Gingrich but otherwise we are stuck with another four years of Obama."

John McCain! John Kerry! Al Gore! Bob Dole! Michael Dukakis! Walter Mondale!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I will step off the path,

And chose a new future
that will make all the difference

(apologies to Robert Frost)

Images for a Monday

2011-11-21T01:57:00.000-08:00

And now a word from the Right

2011-11-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

One of my conservative friends challenged me to send him an Occupy article from the "main stream press" or better yet from something he actually reads. OK Chuck, how about Forbes Magazine; I've seen that in your office waiting room, so read this.

And as for a view from the left... I strongly disagree with the conventional wisdom that the Occupy Movement needs to have stated goals, even a legislative agenda. Here is a well researched article from Salon.com that lays out the reasons for Occupy staying away from politics as usual. I strongly recommend not only this article but the numerous embedded links that will walk you through the differences between contemporary American politics and a true citizen's movement against the current institutionalized two party stagnation. The article is really worth your time as it fully illuminates the strength and depth of the Occupy Uprising.

political cartoon - Mike Lukovich

Saturday Art Returns!

2011-11-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

and the students at UC Davis

Do You Agree with the President?

2011-11-18T01:51:00.000-08:00

Today the first few paragraphs from a very interesting article found in Rolling Stone magazine:

The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."

Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"

The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"

The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Reagan.

Read the full article here: If you are a Republican you are required to read it; for everyone else it is merely informative and at times fun.

For those who sympathize but don't understand why someone would volunteer to be arrested, read this account of one woman's experience at Occupy Oakland. Then pull out an old blanket or two and take them down to your local Occupy encampment, winter is coming.

[Private/Public note to one of my very best friends on the planet - stop skipping over the links I post here, you need to read them.]

---
art and primary article from Rolling Stone Magazine

Occupy Rant - 11/16

2011-11-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

The first question usually is: "What do they want?"

Dutifully we walk our newly awakened friend through the Occupy saga. If they are a conservative acquaintance this comes with a big dose of dispelling the rumors and lies they have gleaned from Fox News or Ann Coultier. If you get your information via Rush Limbaugh, I simply ask you to lose my email address and crawl back in your cave, some people really are too stupid to live.

Yes, I am a bit annoyed today.

I saw Tom Brokaw on Charlie Rose last week and when he was asked about Occupy Wall Street he said all the right things but ended with "what is their end game?" There it is. A seasoned and rational news anchor with over 40 years experience, too damn lazy to take an hour to figure out a grassroots movement that is transforming the entire Middle East and is now prepared to change America and most of the Western world.

Take some responsibility. Educate yourself!

First step, you're already here, I have been writing about Occupy for over six weeks - Read My Blog! Then send the link to a friend.

Next, get yourself a twitter account, it takes two minutes to set up. Follow the posts from #Occupy #OccupyWallStreet and #Occupy_Together plus your local Occupy protest group, they are simple to find. Fresh new articles and reports will be linked in the twitter posts and you will have plenty to read to answer your burning question: What is this all about?

But wait! Why can't I just tell you? Well, it's complicated. This is a big country and an even bigger world. It's all tied together in a even more complex economic system. But you want the short, dirty, nasty version - here goes:

You are a victim. You are a victim of an economic system that has been rigged for you to fail. The unchecked greed of a small segment of our country has conspired with the government to hoard so much of the nation's wealth that they nearly collapsed the entire world's economy a couple of years ago. We, all of us, bailed their butts out and now they are preparing to do it again. "Our government" has been so corrupted by corporate money and the lobbies of big business that it will not regulate them to prevent another crisis. Europe is on the verge of an economic collapse which will be followed by civil unrest and riots. The rule of law will break down and the entire planet could well be plunged into a depression that will last for decades. Indeed, there will not be a full recovery within any of our lifetimes.

Think this is paranoia. You need to pay attention. The U.S. Congress is about to miss it's own mandated "Super Committee" budget cutting deadline and yet they will do nothing about the federal deficit for another year and a half. The Republicans are intentionally doing nothing to support economic recovery because they can use the bad news to defeat Obama. On the other side, Obama is a talking head with sweet words and no clue how to actually do anything to control the vicious greed of Wall Street. The suits on Wall Street and the CEOs in the corporate boardrooms continue to drain money and jobs from our economy yet Congress will not pass any regulations to prevent what happened just three years ago from happening again.

The Occupy Movement wants to force the government to respond to the extreme prejudice the American economy gives to corporations and the super wealthy. The word is "force" not "ask" not even "demand." For now the Occupy Movement is attempting to use non-violent tactics to force the government to act. How long that will hold is anyone's guess.

Once again, the whole world is watching. This time they are also hoping and praying that the United States of American gets it right because if we don't, if this economy collapses, there will be no place on earth that will not follow us down the black hole.

That's what Occupy is about - Care to join us?

Us vs. Them

2011-11-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

Even using non-violent tactics against the establishment does not mean that thoughtful, liberal politicians will not respond with violence. Mayor Quan of Oakland admitted in an interview with the BBC that she had participated in "a conference call with 18 other cities" on how to end the Occupy encampments.

If you think these local city mayors are not taking orders from higher up the political machine chain, you just don't follow American politics closely enough. But here's the point - all these attacks do is give fuel to those small number in the protests who want to be violent. Throw one of us to the lions and three more step forward and one of those is not a non-violence player.

This is going to get more and more ugly. More arrests, more injuries and eventually there will be deaths. The police will resort to murder in defense of America's parks. But, of course, this has nothing to do with tents or parks or any physical aspect of Occupy. "They" are afraid we might succeed and their rape of the American and World economies will be stopped. It is all about money, power and greed. Those with all the stolen riches are scared and they are sending their minions to stop us.

They will not.

Occupy & Baby Boomers

2011-11-14T02:50:00.000-08:00

Email President Obama.

Today's Read

2011-11-13T08:08:00.000-08:00

"Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun."

Yes, today's must read comes from the New York Times, so my conservative readers will know it must be left wing propaganda. But give it a read anyway, you might find as others have that we share a lot more in common these days than ever before in our lifetimes. The article has a historical bent about how we got into economic troubles in the past and how we dug ourselves out.

The article is called The New Progressive Movement

Remember I read all of the articles you send me, so you owe yourself this one.

Questions for a Conservative Friend

2011-11-12T02:37:00.000-08:00

OK, I really don't understand. I've tried, I've listened; but I just don't get it. Perhaps my friends and readers on the right will explain this to me. Rather than write yet another "left wing" litany of the evils of the corporate takeover of American; here is a letter to a good, very conservative friend asking him some specific questions about his life. All responses, comments and chortles are welcomed.

Dear Alex,

Please help me understand your position, I really do want to understand. I enjoy our back and forth politically charged emails. But if you don't mind, I would like to get serious for a moment and ask you to explain to me why you still hold the economic beliefs you do.

Four years ago when you activated your retirement plan you bought that great place in Arizona and put your St. Paul house on the market. I know that had been your retirement plan since early in the 90s when you refinanced the Minnesota home, consolidated your debt and started your business. I understand that was a 15 plan you had that was both well thought out and financially viable. You didn't take some crazy negative amortization refinance loan, you got a solid 30 yr. fixed rate and took the extra cash out of your house to start your business. The plan was to sell that house and put the equity into the Arizona place so you could retire without a mortgage.

Now, however, you have two houses, two mortgages and thankfully a long-term tenant in the St. Paul place. But both properties are underwater, even that beautiful St. Paul house is worth less than the mortgage you refinanced nearly 18 years ago. You didn't take a loan you weren't qualified for, you always paid on time and I know you would never walk away from either property. As you have said many times - a mortgage is a contract and you honor your debts.

Someone(s) clearly screwed with the real estate market.

Then there is your retirement. You sold your business for a nice chunk of cash and a ten year payout based on the profitability of the business. But the economic collapse means that business has done poorly under new ownership. I know you have been advising the young guy who bought it and I know he is working his butt off to stay in business, but as a consequence of the double down economy your retirement nest egg is producing almost no income for you. You started taking social security even though your well thought out retirement plan was to wait to do that until you were 70.

Someone(s), perhaps the same someone(s), screwed with the economy.

So here are my questions. You worked hard, made a solid financial plan and the bottom fell out. But you are a smart guy, you know why this happened, you know who got rich, yet you still support them.

Alex, you are not one of the 0.1% who got richer in the financial collapse. You aren't one of the 1% or even the 10%; you are a middle class guy who did everything right and then got screwed by a system rigged to make other people rich at your expense. So why do you still support them?

Why do you oppose taxing the uber-wealthy? You aren't one of them and never will be. You know they stole your retirement and everything you worked years for. You have kids, you know how they are suffering because of the greed of Wall Street, yet you still act like corporate America is honest, straight forward and has your best interest at heart. You are too damn smart to actually believe that, so why not start acting and thinking in your own best interest?

To get your retirement plan, your life plan, back on track the financial corporations, banks and yes, Wall Street have to be brought under control. The unregulated free market screwed you and you are not the type of guy to just take something like that lying down. So, yes your dyed in the wool republican ethic got you where you were three or four years ago, but those ideas no longer serve you. So my question is:

Why not change?

Vote Obama? Hell no! That's just a different sleeping pill.

Support Occupy. Join the millions of Americans who have been screwed over my a non-responsive government that has clearly been bought and paid for my corporate America. Get this country and your retirement plan back on track. Stand Up! Speak Up! Don't let the olde right vs. left noize get in your way. Keeping us quiet is what the rich need. Making those Occupy camps go away is exactly what the rich want and they are paying their politicians to do exactly that. So I ask again:

Why not change? Why not act in your own self interest? You worked for your piece of the American Dream, why aren't you pissed at the people who stole it?

Penn State vs. Cal

2011-11-11T00:34:00.000-08:00

Getting a college education should be about expanding your view of the world; about obtaining facts and opinions different from your own and thinking critically on those new ideas. So I have a reading and writing assignment for students at Penn State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

First for those Penn State students who participated in the riot Wednesday night in College Station. Here is a link to the Grand Jury Report on Jerry Sandusky, your former Penn football coach. Your assignment is to read it, all of it and then write a letter of apology to the Penn State Board of Trustees. Last night you lashed out with anger and the destruction of property in support of a rapist, a pedophile and those who kept silent when they knew of this monster's crimes against children.

You should be ashamed.

Next, for the students are UC Berkeley who were peacefully protesting at that same hour and were attacked by elements of the UCB police force and the Alameda County Sheriffs Department. Your reading assignment is this report on the May 4th (1970) Shootings at Kent State University. Part of your university education should be history in context, what you did yesterday, what you will continue to do today and tomorrow is going to bring a response from the establishment. The response is likely to be violent and therefore not under anyone's control on-campus or off.

I applaud your zeal, I stand with you. I was there yesterday and will be back today, but I do not intend to sacrifice my health or my life to the armed minions of the 1%. I want you to be informed of exactly what it is you may face during the Occupy protests. Please read the Kent State report and be prepared.

For everyone else - Remember Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Sandy Schreuer and Jeffrey Miller.

Four Dead in Ohio - May 4th, 1970.

Teach Your Children Well

2011-11-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

Parents are you feeling more and more like part of the 99%? Well, here is something else you need to think about, if you have kids away at college. Might I strongly suggest you contact the University administration and make it clear to them what your opinions are on the Occupy Movement. I was on the University of California at Berkeley campus yesterday afternoon when the riot thugs from Alameda County attacked peacefully demonstrating students. The riot gang then went away only to return around 9:30 PM and started instigating all over again.

Read one student's ordeal.

Up until now I have not even used the word "cops" when referring to the local police but those riot geared pigs were there today only to inflict pain and beat heads. I don't know what the Cal Regents were thinking or not thinking but calling out the same armed forces who attacked the demonstrators in Oakland last week was clearly not one of their more thoughtful moments.

Need we remind UCB officials and any other college or university administrators of the consequences of mixing armed militia with the student body.

False Words, False Hopes

2011-11-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

"Last month protesters took to the streets across the country to demand their universal rights, a government that is accountable to them and responsive to their aspirations." - Barack Obama

To all my liberal and moderate friends out there. Before you even consider voting for Barack Obama again - watch this video. Listen to his words. Is this really the person you want leading your country? Perhaps a better question might be: Is this really the person who is leading anything at all?

Video

Don't look away - Watch the video.

Another Must Read

2011-11-08T03:28:00.000-08:00

"It is vital that the occupation movements direct attention away from their encampments and tent cities, beset with the usual problems of hastily formed open societies where no one is turned away. Attention must be directed through street protests, civil disobedience and occupations toward the institutions that are carrying out the assaults against the 99 percent. Banks, insurance companies, courts where families are being foreclosed from their homes, city offices that put these homes up for auction, schools, libraries and firehouses that are being closed, and corporations such as General Electric that funnel taxpayer dollars into useless weapons systems and do not pay taxes, as well as propaganda outlets such as the New York Post and its evil twin, Fox News, which have unleashed a vicious propaganda war against us, all need to be targeted, shut down and occupied. Goldman Sachs is the poster child of all that is wrong with global capitalism, but there are many other companies whose degradation and destruction of human life are no less egregious." Chris Hedges TruthDig.com

There are several 'must read' articles every day that I would point out to you or are sent to me by my readers and friends. Yesterday's piece by Chris Hedges is one of the "must, must reads."

It will particular appeal to those who you know are part of Occupy but haven't quite had the light turned on yet. Circulate it to everyone who needs to engage in this protest against the greed and lack of humanity that threatens us all.

To Encamp or Not to Encamp

2011-11-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

One of the major obstacles to the Occupy Movement is going to be - winter. There may have been a reason that the cultural upheaval in the Middle East is called the Arab Spring. But we're here and winter is coming. So let's say it flat out:

"Basing a once in a lifetime protest on fragile tent encampments, in February, in the Northern Hemisphere, might not be the best laid strategy to topple wall street and reform the world's financial institutions."

Which does not mean I don't support you and I will continue to march with you and donate supplies to the encampment. But at my age I am simply unable and unwilling to spend this winter in a tent.

Yes, I know we are all "one lost job away from being on the street" but that is simply revolutionary rhetoric for most of the 99%. We are mostly two or three or more steps away from being homeless. We're older and yes perhaps softer or simply less adventuresome. Fine, not everyone will be in a tent come the new year.

But might it not make sense, where possible, to move Occupy indoors for the winter. Yes, that raises a lot of problems. Yes, that makes it easier for the reigning government to control and even raid the encampments. But there are abandoned buildings in most of the encampment cities. Buildings that can provide shelter and even utilities for the Occupy encampments.

Surely in some, if not many cities the local politicians would dearly desire to trade a city public space for an abandoned building. Teach-ins become easier with heat, media coverage does as well. Yes, there are logistical issues; not to mention negotiating with "the man." But this is all new ground for all of us - flexibility seems to be one of the natural characteristics of the Occupy Movement. So, shall we explore the reality of a tent city in winter before it's actually upon us?

Class Warfare

2011-11-06T01:08:00.000-07:00

"It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be." -Warren Buffett

We hear a lot of sound bytes about class warfare these days. Yes, most of it comes from conservative politicians. This is what politicians do, they craft a message in ten seconds or less and then pass it off as thoughtful insight into the American psyche. Conservatives are no more guilty of this than Liberals, the right wing is simply better at it.

On the matter of class warfare there are really two rather obvious positions. First from the left: "Are you nuts? You think the Occupy Movement is a call to begin class warfare? Hell the rich have been at war with the poor for centuries, it's only recently that they have taken on the middle class as well." There really isn't a lot more to that argument, either you think the rich prosper at the expense of the rest of us or you don't. I have seen very little movement on the right in response to the arguments, facts and/or figures that have come out time and time again in the last six weeks.

The other argument is a bit more nuanced. It begins by suggesting that the essential democratic economic premise is simply that anyone can become wealthy in America. This endeavor requires some set of character traits that involve hard work, a great business plan and leadership skills. The argument further says that things like tax breaks, low corporate taxes and government subsidies are available to every business and that taking advantage of what the market offers is what the free enterprise system is all about.

What both arguments fail to address, of course, are the people involved. There certainly are many wealthy Americans who use their capital for good through charities and other philanthropic deeds. A primary example would be Warren Buffett quoted above. But Mr. Buffett also knows that if the economy were thriving, if the middle class was not burdened with foreclosures, joblessness and shrinking retirement funds; if those things had not happened, he would be making even more money with his investments.

But back to class warfare. Is it getting worse? Yes. Does Occupy suggest it will get even more so, Yes. The facts are that much of the newly created wealth in America is stolen money. The simple facts behind the mortgage crisis that pushed the entire globe off this economic escarpment is that banks in the U.S.A. made horrible loans to unqualified borrowers. Then they packaged these loans to sell to pension funds and other financial institutions while, wait for it, paying off credit rating companies to grossly overrate the potential value of these hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans. Finally, after selling the loans, the banks bet on the predictable foreclosures and sold the debits short. They lied about the creditworthiness of the loans they sold and then turned around and bet those loans would go bad.

Criminal fraud pure and simple. And people suffered in all segments of the community but those are the bottom with the least ability to recover got hit the hardest. But truth be told, there would be no Occupy if the pain hadn't climbed so high and hurt so many.

We are the 99% and we all got hurt by the greed of Wall Street. Otherwise there would be no encampments, no protests, no 99%.

So is there real class warfare happening in the United States today. Yes and it's going to get a lot worse if the political demagogs of both parties don't start listening soon.

For a somewhat different slant on class warfare, stuffed cabbage and Jimi Hendrix you might want to read my friend Arlene Goldbard.

Just a Question

2011-11-05T08:21:00.001-07:00

Don't

2011-11-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Economic Numbers

2011-11-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

Some random numbers from recent polls of American citizens.

54% of Americans agree with the Occupy protesters.

73% of Americans want prosecutions of the Wall Street executives who brought on this crisis.

86% say that Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington D.C.

68% feel that the rich should pay more in taxes.

Are any of these polling numbers reflected in how your representatives in congress are acting? No. Then you're going to vote for someone else next election, right?

How do you feel about the whole economic upheaval of the last several years?
25% consider themselves to be "upset" about the financial mess.
45% are "concerned" about the country as a result of this crisis.
25% is just flat out "angry".
3% simply screamed at the question.
2% wept.

You've all seen the numbers about how much of the total wealth the top 1% have or how much that number has grown. But even stunningly shocking numbers are often not as compelling as words.

Total wealth of the top 0.5% of Americans is more than they will ever need in a hundred lifetimes.

Total net worth of the bottom 10% of Americans could double and still be below the poverty line - a disgraceful shame for the richest democracy in the history of humankind.

bridge to the Port of Oakland 11/2/11

Strike! - November 2, 2011

2011-11-02T00:36:00.000-07:00

4 PM Peaceful

6 PM Unified

10 PM Unfortunately with a few fools.

2 AM and then the cops became the fools

Political Rorschach Test

2011-11-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

This test has a 99.4% accuracy rate in predicting your deepest feelings regarding your innermost political positions on social and economic issues.

Ready?

Look for a moment at the five individuals in the foreground of the photograph above. Look at each face for five seconds, take in the emotional and cognitive meaning of those expressions.

Now, does the composite mental imagery you have remind you more of:

A) the Occupy protesters

B) the United States Congress

If you answered "A" you really need to get out more into the real world.
If you answered "B" you are correct, move to the head of the class; crowded up there isn't it?

If you answer "both" you are far too cynical, eat some chocolate.
If you answer "neither" you are just the sweetest lil pumpkin on the planet, stay the hell away from me.

Holiday High Hopes

2011-10-31T02:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took down the Halloween cartoon I had in the blog queue, it just didn't seem like the time for frivolity; then I found this.

The World Turned Upside Down

2011-10-30T01:14:00.000-07:00

This from the NYTimes: "Like many of his mayoral colleagues nationwide, Mr. Reed [Mayor of Atlanta] openly expressed frustration with the [Occupy] protesters’ methods."

Quoting Mayor Reed - “The attitude I have seen here is not consistent with any civil rights protests I have seen in Atlanta and certainly not consistent with the most respected forms of civil disobedience.”

Only in the distorted world of American politics could an African American politician criticize protestors with a convoluted phrase like - "the most respected forms of civil disobedience."

What exactly is the mayor referring to? Does he expect Martin Luther King in a suit and tie to lead every Occupy march? Or perhaps it's the lack of sanitary facilities at the encampments. We could solve that problem with dual public bathrooms, you know protester and non-protester or the 99% and the 1%. I wonder if the mayor would have any issues with those separate but equal facilities.

What we have here is yet another co-opted politician sucking at the corporate teat and seeking to justify his actions by invoking some set of rules about appropriate protesting. Did I miss that lesson in my high school Civics class? The Approved Rules of Protest 101.

What I didn't miss was the facts on the ground that any politician can be bought and paid for. Welcome to the Club Mayor Reed, you know it used to be an all white club, now it's simply all wealthy and their well paid lackeys. Why not bring out the fire hoses and the dogs. Is Bull Connor still alive?

Today's History Lessons

2011-10-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

*Between the hours of 8AM and 10PM, at low volume, when convenient for those in power. Other restrictions may apply. The terms of this offer are subject to change at any time. Failure to comply with new terms, whether or not notice has been given, may result in penalties, including by not limited to: fines, confiscation of personal property, physical restraint, imprisonment, injury and death.

Franklin photo credit: Belasfotos (thanks Sandy)

Los Angeles Supports Occupy

2011-10-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby stands in SUPPORT for the continuation of the peaceful and vibrant exercise in First Amendment Rights carried out by "Occupy Los Angeles"

Read the entire text of the resolution from the Los Angeles City Council here.

Coordinated Attack on Occupy

2011-10-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

They orders have been sent down from the top: "Stop these Occupy people now!"

How else do you explain the recent escalations from formerly liberal mayors and their police forces? Tear gas and flash grenades in Oakland. Overwhelming force in Atlanta. Extreme violence in Melbourne. New eviction notices in San Francisco. Raids always midnight to 4 a.m. Reporters being cordoned off from the intense action and then, in the case of Oakland, tear gassed in their roped off media safe zone.

Don't think that it's just the police and government officials. The mainstream media is complicit as well. Take the Washington Post, you know the newspaper that broke the Watergate story that brought down Richard Nixon. Take a look at how they covered the Police attack in Oakland.

Orders from the top: Discredit and disband the Occupy camps before they get any more traction.

So, what are you doing to support these people? Have called city hall? Written an email to the mayor, the governor, the president. Let them know you do not live in a police state. We are so quick to condemn the actions of dictators in Egypt, Libya and throughout the world, but we tolerate in silence the same actions in our own cities.

You can do something or you can remain silent while local uniforms beholded to the top corporations enforce the law and order they need to maintain their control of this country and it's wealth.

Your choice. Doing nothing is the same as choosing the side of the oppressors.

Thought for the Day (10/26/11)

2011-10-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

Police Escalation in Bay Area

2011-10-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

There has been a clear escalation of the tension between local governments and the various Occupy encampments in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last night OccupyOakland was hit with a highly coordinated police raid, including tear gas and "non-lethal projectiles."

All three photographs in today's post are the result of such 'non-lethal' action by law enforcement.

What local politicians and law enforcement don't seem to understand is that they are not simply attacking a couple of hundred kids in tents. They are going after the ever growing number of supporters the Occupy Movement has behind it. Every act of violence from the police grows the anger, the frustration and the numbers of Occupy supporters.

And yes, government sanctioned violence will lead to a violent response. There is simply no way to control all of people in the streets. Violence radicalizes those who sought only to peacefully protest the obscene government complicit greed that is destroying our society.

These are easily learned lessons from history. These are easily learned lessons from the Arab Spring of this year. But once again the government cares more about the rules of running a city park, then the cries of the people they are supposed to serve. This is going to end well but in the process a lot more people are going to get hurt. Wake Up and smell the tear gas Mr. Mayor. Step in now Governor Brown. How about some action to back up all those pretty words Mr. President.

How Can We Have a Leaderless Revolution?

2011-10-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

The mainstream media continues to ask:

"What is Occupy Wall Street about?"

"What do they want?"

"Where are their demands?"

"Who are their leaders; who do we interview?"

We should expect those questions from people who are hearing about OWS for the first time. But the media is (or was) about journalism, going after a story, doing some research and easiest of all - reading other media coverage of a potential story.

Unfortunately what passes for mainstream media today is infotainment and not journalism. Which is why we are still getting "What is OWS about?" questions from even some previously responsible sources. Caitlin Dewey writing for Kiplinger recently asked the wrong questions in this article. Her lead read: "I went to the Occupy D.C. protests hoping to find a movement. Instead, I found people to disorganized and idealistic to actually change the things they they criticized."

Really Caitlin you went to find a movement and couldn't locate it standing right in it's midst? Methinks the problem is not with Occupy but with your sight or rather lack of insight.

If you are a journalist or just someone who wants to know what's going on with Occupy, try this article from Daily Kos. You might be the gist from their lead: "If you are a political pundit and you still don't know what Occupy Wall Street stands for, you are an idiot."

This really and truly is not rocket science, in fact, it takes a profound effort not to understand what is going on in Zuccotti Park and in cities throughout the country. Pay attention - these people are trying to take the country back for all of us.

The 'Leaders' we need to worry about are not those who will emerge from Occupy but those that already hold the strings on Wall Street and in Washington. Leadership removal is much more critical than leadership replacement.

Thoughts for the Day (10/23/11)

2011-10-23T02:12:00.001-07:00

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

---

We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Pogo

A Shaky Golden Gate Sunset

2011-10-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

Today a break from what one reader has called my "unrelenting reliving of those political hippy years of long ago." That's not my photo above but it is as close as I could find to last evening's sunset. Twice a year the sun passes behind the Golden Gate Bridge, at least is does from my windows in Berkeley. Yesterday was one of those, it takes about six days for the sun to complete it's transit behind the bridge north to south in the fall and south to north in the spring. Most of those sunsets are swallowed in the persistent fog banks of San Francisco Bay or an offshore marine layer. But once in a great while the sky is clear enough for the sun to set into the ocean and outline the twin spires of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then the sky flares orange and backlights the bridge. Very spirit lifting.

On another 'note from nature' - no earthquakes today. Yesterday, there were two; not particularly large, 4.0 and 3.8 but the first one was just under 2 miles from my apartment and the second less than a mile. I've been in bigger quakes but not quite this close. From up in my 8th floor perch I can tell you there was definitely some rockin' & rollin', water splashin' plus tennis shoes, wallet and keys were set out before I went to bed last night.

[Morning update: spoke too soon, three aftershocks overnight - 1.3, 2.5, 2.8.]

Violence in the Occupied Streets

2011-10-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Is the question will violence happen in the streets again? or is it - when will it happen again?

Nixon is not in the White House but Obama hasn't really stepped up yet to lend his support to non-violence. The silence from the commander-in-chief is deafening. Leader of the free world, the author of "Change"; where is his voice? Instead local mayors and sheriffs are reacting with different measures of police action.

We hear the argument that the Occupy encampments and demonstrations are very good at self-policing. In my recent experience that is true. But this all has happened fast. It's been just over a month. The Vietnam War protests went on for ten years. The Kent State massacre happened in 1970, a full two years after the anti-war movement had driven Lyndon Johnson from the presidency. But five years before the end of the war.

The police are different today. They are part of the 99% even if some of them wear 53% buttons. They see the underside of the American economy everyday. They know how many actual welfare freeloaders are out there and they know how many of the poor were once where they are - just one layoff from being out of a job.

Still when crowds come face-to-face with batons and riot-gear very, very bad things can happen. Some local cop is going to be too tired, too frightened or just a reactionary prick and all hell is going to break loose. There are going to be casualties in this Occupation. On the other hand, there are also going to be a lot more badges, uniforms and military decorations on our side this time around.

tin soldiers and nixon coming

we're finally on our own

this summer I hear the drumming

four dead in o-hi-o

Thought for the Day (10/20/11)

2011-10-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

"It [Occupy, 99%, OWS] rightly puts the focus on the economic institutions rather than on the politicians who are merely their lackeys. The countless grievances may not constitute a coherent program, but taken as a whole they already imply a fundamental transformation of the system. The nature of that transformation will become clearer as the struggle develops. If the movement ends up forcing the system to come up with some sort of significant, New Deal-type reforms, so much the better — that will temporarily ease conditions so we can more easily push further. If the system proves incapable of implementing any significant reforms, that will force people to look into more radical alternatives." - Bureau of Public Secrets

Open Letter to My Apathetic Friends

2011-10-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

"i have managed to live 57 years not caring - i feel less stressed than the average American - i was never under the illusion that the government cared about me - i am sure the government doesn't care about me so i am not disappointed when they do yet another thing to fuck with me - i expect to be fucked with and since i don't pay attention to the news, i don't even know when i am being fucked with, and i simply don't care. it is the way of the world. government fucks with the people."

Those words come from a very dear friend of mine, a friend of over 30 years. She regularly reads my blog and comments privately to me at least once a week. Her words are in reaction to my latest series of political posts on the Occupy Movement.

I recognize that many millions are not involved in the political process for precisely the reasons she gives. But feeling powerless is not simply a reaction to the way things are. No, in fact, the systems of government, commerce and finance actively attempt to persuade us to become apathetic. Occupy Wall Street and the OWC spawned encampments around the world are ever so slowly beginning to frighten the fat 1%. "They" are, in turn, reaching out to their politicians and other elected and appointed officials, like police administrations. "They" want this potential disruption to their rigged system to stop before it reaches critical mass.

Too late!

So what I say to my apolitical and apathetic friends is this - you can help us and help yourself, in some very simply ways. Emails written from home make a difference. Donations of food, clothing, books, cleaning supplies - all help the Occupy encampments.

But more importantly, I ask you to take seven minutes to watch the TED talk I have linked to below. Trust me, just a few minutes will get you to think very differently about your active choice to be apathetic. The same few minutes will also serve as a reminder to liberals, conservatives, centrists and nearly anyone wondering about the extent of corporate complicity in the manufacturing of inequality around the world.

TED Talk: The antidote to Apathy (7 mins.)

Thought for the Day (10/18/11)

2011-10-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

". . . the rise of the social-welfare state was a response (often of market-oriented liberal democracies) to the threat of popular revolutions, socialism, and communism as the frequency and severity of economic and financial crises increased . . . Any economic model that does not properly address inequality will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy. Unless the relative economic roles of the market and the state are rebalanced, the protests of 2011 will become more severe, with social and political instability eventually harming long-term economic growth and welfare."

Nouriel Roubini writing at truth-out.org

Talking About Occupy

2011-10-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the single most important action you can take right now is to talk to someone about the Occupy movement. Two tactics come to mind. The first and the easiest is to find out if your friends, your political allies have heard about Occupy. If not then you must engage them with the facts, not the mass media message. Only about 50% of the population has heard of Occupy right now, so basic information needs to spread. Be the spreader.

The second conversation is more difficult but much more productive to everyone - have the conversation with someone who disagrees with you. Doesn't matter if you support Occupy or are against it. Doesn't matter if you don't have all the information, facts, figures and spin. Just begin the conversation.

I am engaged with several people. One card carrying liberal democrat, an ardent Obama supporter, who sees the Occupy demonstrations as helping the republicans. On the other side I trade long emails with a man whom I respect as open, honest and well informed. He is also an arch-conservative and is currently rereading Atlas Shrugged as a guide to everyday living. A third conversation is with an old college friend who actually has worked inside the Washington beltway for many years; his predictions in '08, '04 and '00 were right on the money, I value his insider observations. By the way, his prediction at this stage of the presidential scrum - Romney outwaits the republican fringe candidates, wins the nomination and defeats Obama for the job.

I learn from all of these conversations, that's why I started them. My arguments are both refined and tempered by engaging with a variety of opinions. I am still searching for a strong middle of the road friend to take up yet another back and forth exchange.

Please talk to someone, even a whole bunch of someones. And write, don't let the corporate media sway your opinion with their propaganda. It is not true that Occupy lacks a clear message; it is true that CNN, Fox, NYT and others don't want to hear that message because it puts them squarely in the crosshairs.

Talk about Occupy. Write to the sources of power and information. Engage in Your Democracy. It was the Arab Spring but we are entering the American Autumn and the American Winter and by next spring - everything could change.

Here's a link to what Occupy has accomplished in the first month.

10/10 Open Letter to My Liberal Friends
10/12 Open Letter to My Conservative Friends
10/14 Open Letter to my Friends in the Center

political cartoon from The New Yorker

The Day After

2011-10-16T02:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was October 15th - the first worldwide day of the Occupy Movement.

Rome, Italy: (100K-200K) Riots or near riots - tear gas, burned cars, smashed windows. Demonstration possibly hijacked by 'Black Bloc' instigators.

Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, Berlin, Moscow, Madrid: - peaceful.

New York City: the home of Occupy; lots of marchers, lots of marches. Yes, some arrests but one has to wonder when those are necessary and when its just the power structure flexing their old stereotypes.

San Francisco: bigger (10,000) and longer lasting protest with several marches still going on into the evening.

Berkeley: My first hand report from the streets of Berkeley, California. A couple of hundred for the noon rally. SF and Oakland drew much bigger crowds but this is Berkeley so I am a bit surprised that there were not more older protesters here to support Occupy. The crowd did grow as the afternoon wore on.

Thousands show up to Occupy Las Vegas

High estimates from the left: 951 cities in 82 countries
Low estimates from the right: a few dirty hippies with no coherent message

thanks to Pauly for the graphic

The Real Art of Protest

2011-10-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

All of today's images come from

TRAP: The Real Art of Protest.

Open Letter to My Friends in the Center

2011-10-14T01:06:00.000-07:00

You are the friends I am most concerned about. The middle class has taken a double edged beating in this financial meltdown. You lost homes, pensions, jobs, buying power and you paid for it. In the past this country has helped those at the bottom of the ladder; maybe not enough and always not soon enough but help was there. You, in the middle, have paid for that assistance and mostly you complained little or not at all.

Today, you need the help and Congress is fighting over whether emergency relief funds for flood and tornado victims is really a priority in this country. I know there are survivors of Katrina who will tell this this is not a new way for our government at act or lack action. But the help needed today is more basic, more at the core of what our national government has become. We are no longer looking out for the 99%. Those at the top are prospering, not breaking even, not hurting a bit like everyone else. They are increasing their fortunes each and every day; turn on any one of the market watching television channels - on Wall Street the recession is long over; profits are up, bonuses are up. And nothing is trickling down.

"Don't raise their taxes" we are told, "they won't create jobs if we raise their taxes".... Well we haven't raised their taxes, where exactly are the jobs? Where are the bank loans to small businesses? You want to see this 'trickle down" economics in action - take a look at the cartoon on my last blog post.

Sorry, I got off on a bit of a rant there. So let me ask, do you honestly feel your government cares about you? Right, I agree. So get yourself a twitter account, listen to what is being said in those Occupy encampments. Those aren't all kids out there. It's you, it's me, it's everyone who wants America to be what it once promised to be. With Liberty and Justice for All, there shouldn't be a price tag on Freedom.

Occupy America!

---

10/10 Open Letter to My Liberal Friends

10/12 Open Letter to My Conservative Friends

Open Letter to My Conservative Friends

2011-10-12T01:56:00.000-07:00

To my many conservative friends - take a good look at those cartoon birds - you are not on the top rung. The game has always been rigged - a bit. But now those at the top are criminals, not high achievers or entrepreneurs or small business owners - criminals. And yes you are downstream, downwind and downhill from their greed. Don't believe that? Well then the top birds have you right where they want you.

No, I don't want to destroy the system and neither do most of the Occupy protesters. What we want is a fair system that doesn't favor the obscenely rich. Do you really think that you could, if you really wanted to, and tried hard enough, really get on that top rung. Well, you can't. You don't have the secret decoder ring with the IRS codes or the lobbyist or enough stolen money to get there. And besides they don't want you up top with them. You see you're not white enough or male enough or already rich enough; and you're just not self-centered and greedy enough or you wouldn't be reading my blog.

Yes the TARP bailout got a lot of the money back into the U.S. Treaury. Indeed if you don't count AIG and GM, there was a profit of sorts. Meaning if you jigger the numbers enough, TARP (or the Bush bailout) worked. That is, of course, if you forget the tens of thousands of families who lost their homes in foreclosure and the tens of billions of dollars in lost pension fund capital. Yes, your retirement fund was decimated by those Wall Street crooks who got their butts bailed out.

So coming around the big circle of economic policy from your side, you are going to be meeting a lot of us coming around from the other side. I hope you will take some time to talk and to listen because all the Occupy demonstrations are saying is -

"The American Dream should be available to everyone, to whatever extent they want to participate and work for their own personal piece of the dream. And, oh by the way, those who have it all don't want you to have any of it."

Let's talk - How about we meet at the independent coffee shop nearest to the Occupy encampment.

Link to the Open Letter to My Liberal Friends

Open Letter to My Liberal Friends

2011-10-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

If you remember the Civil Rights marches and have wondered would that ever happen again -- it's happening now.

If you remember the Vietnam War protests and have wanted to influence the course of the nation that strongly again -- you can do it now.

If you have been frustrated by the WTO opposition -- this is different.

If you have ever wanted to get involved or get involved again in a cause that really had the chance to change the world and not simply support another worn politician -- the time is now!

The Occupy movement has taken hold but it will need your support to sustain itself and grow. Feeling too old to camp out in a park, that's OK those who do need your support. They need food, clothing, a place to shower, books and ideas.

Yes, I know you really don't want to bring down the entire system like they do. Does this sound at all familiar? We didn't crash the system when we ended a war but many of those in the streets did want revolution.

Revolution today for many of us means bringing back a fair chance for everyone to achieve whatever part of the dream they desire to go after. A level living field. Sure the kids in the tents are already wary of being co-opted by MoveOn and "other liberal politicians." So what. That's no reason not to get involved, get engaged, get out there if only on the weekends for the big protests like this coming Saturday October 15th.

Read: Think Occupy Wall Street is a phase? You don't get it

Read: Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now

Remember the day Nixon quit.

The day the troops left Saigon.

Not that old. OK remember when the G8 protests didn't work. Remember the frustration that nothing was within our control

Well it's a new day, the Middle East has had it's Arab Spring. Get on the bandwagon for the American Autumn and Winter, those kids are going to need mittens.

Email CNN and MSNBC and the Journal, the Times - let the media know they cannot ignore this story. Rupert Murdoch does not control the news. Social Media is making this all happen much faster.

One final thing, if you don't have a Twitter account, get one. It takes three minutes and you will be in touch with what is happening in the streets again.

Occupy Berkeley!

2011-10-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

Today Occupy Berkeley at Bank of America on Shattuck and at People's Park.

"...now that the richest 1 percent have backed the rest of us into a corner — a corner without health care, decent wages and jobs that are not in danger of being outsourced — we have no choice but to organize and fight. Leaders in Washington have shown they won't champion progressive reforms unless pushed." --tampabay.com

Medical Marijuana (8): IRS Attacks

2011-10-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that legally operating medical marijuana businesses cannot take normal tax deductions like rent, payroll, security or equipment. The IRS cites a 25 year old law passed under the Reagan "War on Drugs" that was meant to deal with traffickers in drugs.

Harborside Health Center here in Oakland is cited as "a model for the industry" but the CEO is quoted as stating that either the IRS ruling is gets modified or Harborside will be out of business. The 90 day appeal window is now open but one has to wonder if the federal government headed by a supposedly compassionate liberal will not continue on the course of prohibition and infringement on the rights of citizens and in this case seriously ill citizens.

Here is the full MSNBC story.

Occupy!

2011-10-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Arab Spring - American Winter?

2011-10-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

"It is pretty safe to say that the U.S. military-industrial complex and other oppressive U.S. industrial complexes will ultimately fail."

I'm depressed. No, not clinically morose; I won't be needing meds or any talk therapy but you might. You see my low level depression comes from my observed belief that the "greatest country in the history of the world" is doomed. The United States of America is a fraud. We do not represent of the people, by the people and for the people, at least not anymore. But more depressing we can't do anything about it. The filthy elite has so corrupted the economic and political systems that any intervention is impossible. The U.S. is owned outright by a minority, who control the media, the politics and the means of production.

My depressive resignation has been building for a very long time. I have been advocating for third party voting for many, many years. In fact, I embraced the "none of the above" political principle in 1973. It was my way of being a small part of the solution and not part of the apathetic problem. I was fully prepared to once more bury my real feelings about the bitter, nasty truth of the American capitalist society and advocate for third party votes again in 2012.

But recently I have come to feel that there might be another way. I have begun to see light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. However, we are going to have to embrace the reality that such a transformative light will only shine through holes we bash in the walls of our present cocoon.

If you relate to the disgust I feel for wall street, corporate greed, the flaccid list of republican presidential candidates and the ineffective smooth talking head currently in the white house, then I ask that you take ten minutes to read an article I found:

How Anti-Authoritarians Can Transcend their Sense of Hopelessness and Fight Back.

I cannot recommend this article more strongly, consider this post as my pitch for you to get involved, this is my membership drive. I am not asking for a donation but for a few minutes of your time. Read the article - Stop accepting that someone else owns our country.

---

Art: baciar.com

Pandiculation

2011-10-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

pandiculation \pan-dik-yuh-LEY-shuhn\, noun:

an instinctive stretching, as on awakening or while yawning

Yes, humans do it too; but these guys are so much more expressive.

not everyone appreciates being photographed

OK this is just showing off

Cousin Leo

one tiger

two tiger

three

Class Action Lawsuits

2011-09-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

I guess today's message is that common knowledge is not always quite as widespread as you might think. Fairly sure I have mused in the past about just how litigious our society has become when several firms can run national tv spots to buy out your structured settlement. I mean everybody sues everybody else for anything and everything and apparently there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people being paid off over time on court ordered awards.

Then there are the class action lawsuits. A whole bunch of people ban together and sue one company, corporation or a whole slew of them. Sort of sanctioned gang on gang thing with everyone in suits. A legal donkey of a very different color.

I was at a party recently where a man was talking about being part of one of these classes in a legal action. In fact, he was just about to sign the papers to join the lawsuit and several other men were telling it was a lawyer's scam and he would never see any reasonable compensation. The gentleman was not interested in hearing such words and the discussion slowly degenerated in alcohol-fueled boy talk. I had zero interest in offering up my two cents worth of knowledge and/or opinion, however later I was introduced to the gentleman's wife and she was still apologizing to anyone who had been in earshot of the earlier heated boyz quarrel.

I asked if she were comfortable with being part of the class action and she said she really didn't know enough about it. I made a recommendation to her then and I will make it to you now should you ever be in such a situation. Here it is:

I am not a John Grisham fan, if you like him read Scott Turow he's a much better author. But that is not my advice - if you are anywhere near a class action lawsuit or know someone who is then read The King of Torts by Grisham. It is an easy read and an honest indictment of the legal scam that attorneys have made of the class action lawsuit. At least you will know the species of snake you are getting into bed with.

Taking the Temperature of a Writer

2011-09-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's writing task was to rework the opening chapter of the novel I am working on. Capturing the reader's attention quickly was the order of the day. I began the rewrite with the image of a icy drinking fountain, you know the ones that can make the water almost too cold to drink. The chapter is set in the early morning just after dawn on a crisp spring day. I struggled with that image and the fifteen hundred words that followed for most of the daylight and into the early evening.

Yesterday in Berkeley was a warm day, September is often the hottest month of the year here. Now by hot I mean maybe a couple of days of 90, but more likely some mid-80s. Officially it reached 84 yesterday. As I have oft mentioned in the past, my wall of windows faces due west, which means that around two in the afternoon the sun has begun to blaze into my nest. I tweak the blinds and switch on my fans but for a few days each year it gets downright uncomfortable in here. Yesterday was a borderline day, as long as I kept a fan directly on me as well as minimal clothing I was within my tolerable range of heat/mass/body index. So I sloughed on with the chapter.

By early evening my creative energies had been drained and with mild dissatisfaction I put the chapter to bed for the night. I slipped in the land of Morpheus sometime after midnight with the windows wide open, I didn't pull the comforter over me until sometime in the wee dark hours. This morning I opened my eyes to a grey day outside my windows, the marine layer had moved in overnight and temperatures had plummeted. After pulling on several layers of cotton I was at my desk reediting the chapter.

Metaphors and images that had hidden from me yesterday snapped into view. In a scant hour I had reworked the entire piece and captured the words that should enrapture an audience. It's still well short of noon and chapter two beckons. What a difference a day makes.

Today's lesson: If you are going to write about the Sahara Desert, better not to attempt it from Boulder, Colorado in February.

Camouflage

2011-09-28T03:28:00.000-07:00

From 1975 to 1990 I lived in and around the South Bay neighborhoods of Los Angeles (Manhattan Beach, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Palos Verdes & Hermosa Beach). One of my friends then was an older gentleman who hung out at the beach bars I frequented. Charles was a storyteller, he was also a kind and gentle alcoholic. Nearly all of the beach bar denizens knew him as a regular but most thought his stories came out of the bottle. I learned that Charles had a really tough time in his golden years but I also discovered that he had a Ph.D. in literature that he got after first earning two engineering degrees. I liked to listen to him and didn't much care about the "truth" of his stories.

One day I took Charles down to Long Beach to visit his daughter. On the drive down he said:

"You know during the war if you took this street south you could drive right under the camouflage netting the defense department put up to hide the airplane plant from Japanese bombers."

"That must have been a lot of netting," I said.

"Oh yeah it went on for several miles," he replied.

This must have been 1982 or thereabouts when I heard this tale, no internet to go look up the veracity of the many tales he told. Besides I wasn't at all interested in proving him right or wrong. So imagine my surprise when I got these photos from a friend a few days ago, showing the vast camouflage netting the military put up in Long Beach to cover the Boeing plant. The shot above is the before photo, this next one is the after.

Here are a few more shots.

Underneath the netting

Treetop level

Hangar below

In one of the articles I read I found this line: "you could head south down Carson St. and drive right under the huge canopy." It was that same Carson St. forty years later that Charles and I were driving on the day when he told me the camouflage story.

Addendum: I am told that there was a similar camouflage set-up in Pasadena at the Lockheed plant and that some of these pictures might be from there. But who cares about a little mix-up in a good Charles story.

A Webcomic

2011-09-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

When I got the third recommendation for xkcd website ("a Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math and Language") I thought I should take a look. About every other offering is way too techie for most normal humanoids, but they do come out with some real gems, like the Green Sci-Fi cum Literati panels above.

Travels Plans Delayed

2011-09-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Today was to have been my jump-off day for the midwestern part of my fall road trip. However, once again my aching back has dictated a change of plans. I am back in Berkeley awaiting the results of x-rays and other tests. Then I expect we shall move on to an MRI and possibly a consultation with the USF spinal clinic.

I still hope to make some or all of my planned stops in the midwest this fall but I will be starting several weeks later than originally planned. Updates to those with spare bedrooms and awaiting dining rooms soon. To all my other readers - the blog goes on.

Professional Finger Painting

2011-09-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Medical Marijuana (7): Dosage

2011-09-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

As I explained last week, I have as yet been unable to balance the palliative benefits of pain reduction with the side effects of being high, baked, wasted, buzzed, ripped, faded and/or stoned. You see, as with most prescription drugs, "effects may vary." The problem is dosage. We humans are not the same, we react differently based on age, weight, metabolism, contents of stomach, amount of sleep you got last night, stress, the phase of the moon.

You get the idea, we do not react the same to any stimuli, we are unique creatures. So with Medical Marijuana the prescribed "dosage" is a bit of a guessing game. Let me give you a most recent example:

I bought a six ounce Chocolate Peanut Butter Hash Bar (product review below). Yesterday I split the bar with a friend, he has less acute pain than I and he is a long time recreational pot user. So we had two levels of discomfort and two very different histories of functioning while under the influence. Adding these additional variables would provide more data for my experiment.

But with Medical Marijuana there is a second issue regarding dosage - there is no standard for what constitutes a "dose". I can report without fear of contradiction that one patient's 1/2 dose is another person's full dose or quarter dose or double dose. Here is yesterday's dual test subject report.

The effects began fairly quickly (30 minutes) for both participants. Pain was effectively reduced for both in the one hour to perhaps mid third hour after consumption. However, the bar was labeled as being 1/4 to 1/2 dose and we split the bar equally. So according to the manufacturer we each had 1/8 to 1/4 of a full dose.

By late in the fourth hour I was supine in a cool, dark room contemplating the nuances of string theory as it applies to snack cheese. Somewhere in the fifth hour my friend found me and suggested that the dosage disclosure on the packing had clearly been set for elephants or small cetaceans.

So as for dosage - you will have to learn to titrate any Medical Marijuana products to your unique physiology and to the wildly inconsistent labeling of the various products. Also recommended in the early testing stages - stay home but pre-stock the kitchen with chocolate.

PRODUCT REPORT: Chocolate Peanut Butter Hash Bar

Ingredients: Sugar, Peanut Oil, Flour, Milk, Salt, Hash.

Notice the absolute absence of chocolate in the product. Clearly bad labeling, however, it was wonderfully peanutty; in fact, this is the best tasting product so far in the experiment. As noted above the package dosage disclosure is obscenely low and should be adjusted in line with other competitive products. On a cost per dose basis, this is an exceptional value. My next test of this item will involved dividing the bar into eight doses.

Previous posts in this series:

Medical Marijuana (6): A Conundrum

Medical Marijuana (5): The Patients

Medical Marijuana (4): Botanical Chemistry

Medical Marijuana (3): Human Experimentation

Medical Marijuana (2): The Dispensary

Medical Marijuana (1): An Inquiry

Osmose

2011-09-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Osmose - to gradually or unconsciously assimilate some principle or object;

Have you ever stopped to consider how many of your deeply held "beliefs" are not actually yours? Most of what we "believe" comes from one of two sources. The first and most prevalent is childhood. The old "Nurture" accounts for what most people think and believe about most everything. Indeed, the apple or in this case the moral and ethical center, does not fall far from the parental tree.

The second most common source of your belief system comes from the same source but involves a profound rejection of it; we often refer to this as the generational gap or simply being a teenager. In either case radical shifts in what we believe seldom take place much beyond our teenage years.

However, it is possible to change. One common adult period of ethical readjustment involves being the parent of one or more teenagers who are themselves inspecting and dissecting your professed beliefs. At times the teen years are as life changing for the parents as they are for the young adults.

But the point of the Borg Cube is to emphasize that many of our cherished beliefs have been gained through a process of slow accumulation. We take on the moral and ethical tenets of those around us. Society, peer groups, church, television, motion pictures, assorted role models, even advertising can shape your moral compass.

The obvious question at some point is: "Are your most embedded beliefs really yours?" Or did you just osmose them from your environment? Perhaps the direction of this influence is the other way around, the environment osmosed you. Come to think about it, you should probably come to think about it. Which may lead you to several uncomfortable conclusions, including:

"the unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

A Blogging Milestone

2011-09-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

This week we have reached a numerical milestone for this little blog. As of Friday morning we have topped the ten thousand page views per month level. This means that 10,000+ computers logged into the blog last month. Each unique log-in counts as one, so I don't actually have ten thousand readers, you probably account for multiple hits yourself.

I have excluded from the automatic counter my own computers and any commercial hits, like those from Google or Yahoo. Also excluded are hits of less than 10 seconds, no sense in inflating the numbers with lost surfers.

The bottom line is a big thank-you to those who read my scribbling. I appreciate your time and your interest.

PAGEVIEWS LAST MONTH

10,040

Friday Sept. 16 10:40 AM PDT

Thinking Outside the Box

2011-09-17T01:40:00.001-07:00

Today we cogitate beyond the cubic

Reagan's 1984 Landslide

2011-09-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite political exemplars when I argue for third party participation is the 1984 election - Reagan vs. Mondale. This was the most recent "landslide" in a presidential election. Reagan won, of course, but how you report the numbers can tell several very different stories. The way most of the media reported it was this way:

Reagan - 58.77%

Mondale - 40.56%

That's the total popular vote and yup that's a landslide. But what if we take a look at registered voters, then whopping winning number of 58%+ becomes:

Reagan - 43.8%

A landslide sounds like a huge win, a mandate from the people. Yet only 44% of the registered voters came out to support Ronald Reagan in his big win. I know, this is where someone says "Decisions are made by those who show up" or "If you don't vote, you don't get to complain afterwards." My alternate interpretation would be that the political process in 1984, so turned off 25%+ of the registered voters that they basically voted 'None of the Above'.

There is one more significant way to look at the final numbers in 1984 and that is the percentage of the Voting Age Population who supported Reagan in his reelection bid. Of those over 18 years of age the numbers are truly abysmal:

Reagan - 31.2%. Hail to the Chief!

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The last time I trotted out those numbers in a political discussion, someone asked me if current voting numbers were better or worse today. Being that this is a political question, I felt perfectly justified in ignoring the actual question and instead supplying a talking point from my crack campaign staff. Here it is just for you:

2000 Presidential Election

Popular Vote

Bush - 47.87%

Gore - 48.38%

Registered Voters

Bush - 32.02%

Gore - 32.46%

Voting Age Population

Bush - 24.12%

Gore - 24.38%

The Vast Wasteland

2011-09-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

The Boob Tube, The Idiot Box, White Noise, The Glass Teat, A Vast Wasteland. Criticizing television is the ultimate low hanging fruit. Even if you do have your own personal tv favorites, that still leaves you hundreds of channels and thousands of shows to loath.

Back in Berkeley my onscreen guide shows only the channels I receive. Yes, I am one of those types who actually reads the manual and does the full setup on my electronic toys. No shopping channels, no cartoons, block the foreign language channels, CMT is out; well you get the idea. My friends here in Lake Shastina have a satellite dish and their guide shows every channel with the all the channels they don't get dimmed but still readable.

The other day I was familiarizing myself with the options for evening surfing when I saw a listing for Perfect Boobs. What the hell could it be? A reality show? The Surgery Channel? Perhaps, a workout video. Turns out it was an infomerical for a revolutionary bra. But really can you imagine a time when Perfect Boobs might have caused an uproar in certain places if used in a tv guide? I went through the entire scroll for a Tuesday evening and found the following uplifting titles. None of these are porn channel offerings.

Brazilian Butt - another infomercial

Look Good Naked - exercise DVD

Sleep Sex - I have no idea

Drinking Made Easy - it was difficult because?

16 and Pregnant - reality show

I am not a fan of censorship in any form. I sympathize with parents who wish to protect their kids from certain content but I generally come down on the side of a free and open market of information. But should someone wish to make such an option available to parents would that mean having to censor the tv guide? I mean paid cable channels sure, even selected shows of course, but the channel guide?

Perfect Boobs really??? Next thing you know we will have little plastic containers full of unknown liquids that plug into electrical outlets and vaporize the chemicals to add odor to your house.

Lucubration

2011-09-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

lucubration \loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-\, noun:

1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.

About a third of my writing is done in the dark. Well at least at night if not actually in the dark. I discovered years ago that what I produce in the wee hours is of a different quality than my work product in the bright of day.

Sheer numbers tell me that I produce a lot more words on the page when writing during the day but they are of a very different flavor than my night writing. The emotive content, the big twists and turns come at night. Moving the story along filling in the linear details is a daytime activity.

Nocturnal work also contains a lot of marginalia both on previous sections and notes for future writing. There are times when the fingers just can't keep up with the ideas so I take lots of notes. This nearly always happens at night.

A new day of writing generally begins with reading yesterday's work. Words produced after dark often require a fair amount of daylight editing if only to fill in all the linkages for a potential audience. It's not stream of consciousness writing, well most of the time it isn't but methinks the collective unconsciousness rises closer to my waking world when the sun is on the far side of Gaia.

Silverhill Road

2011-09-12T02:46:00.000-07:00

Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Camelot.

My brief shining place was a stone cabin in Michigan located in the middle of a 20,000 acre state wilderness park off Silverhill Road. If you go there now a three mile section of that road has been returned to wilderness, grown over and grown in. The cabin is gone, torn down my the state just after I abandoned Michigan for California in 1975. But for two years, it was my Camelot.

Back in 1973 a good friend was living there, he was a park ranger. The plans to level the old cabin were in the works but until then someone got to live in the near idyllic setting. My friend was transferred and I got the cabin until the state brought in the bulldozer.

The old stone structure hugged a central stone fireplace that ran up through the second floor bedrooms. Across the narrow dirt road and far down the hill was the Crooked Lake campground. We were sheltered from even minimal intrusion of civilization by a huge hedge of violet lilacs, the smell in early summer was nearly overpowering as I lay in the front bedroom.

There was a small garden less successful than the wild asparagus patch nearby. We inherited a sheltie collie named Heather and my roommate brought his shepherd, Bo. I soon had Sam, Heather and Gisele who produced 9 kittens the second spring. Sam was the feline who trained me to pet him during the night.

When the trees were fully leafed out in the summer, the final two miles to the cabin were inside of a green tunnel with the trees on either side providing a complete canopy to Silverhill Road. In the fall the tunnel would darken and then burst into yellows, reds and silvers. There was a fairy circle of mushrooms in the meadow and a stand of lonely birch trees in the high pasture.

We had several big summer parties but the real highlights were the quiet nights in the spring, summer, fall and yes even Michigan winter. All the lights would be extinguished and the stars would burn brightly down on the small rise behind the cabin. I remember that rise for another reason but that is a story for another time.