~ Data Mining for dummies.

“They” finally figured it out.  The theory is that the only way to raise a dead economy is with the dead.  So “they” killed Michael Jackson in the hopes that the resulting rush to buy and re-buy everything that Michael Jackson ever sang, wrote or touched would give the economy enough of a boost as to achieve “lift-off” where every other plan has left us with just left-off.  What bank would not fully finance the previously unknown (and secret) “Thriller - killer” album by Michael Jackson (studio edition on vinyl only).

The idea is that more than CD’s (who would buy anything on CD anymore?) and early Jackson 5 eight-track tapes one will have to buy a real record player to hear the Michael Jackson vinyl record and to play it backwards because that’s where Michael (J) records the time of his exact death and “who did it” and why and the secret is that it was the cabal or the NSA or somebody else like Al Queada himself; first name is “Al”.  You’ll have to buy the album to find out.

America is a bit begotten with her music.  An Anthem to Hiroshima (the song) cost us about 50 billion when 50 billion still meant something.  The lyrics were something terrible and there doesn’t seem to be a surviving recording of the sound itself, the “don” of the Piki-don, first the light flash, then the thunder - the audible portion of the audio.  I guess they didn’t have tape recorders in Japan then, or wire-recorders or soundstages set up to record the greatest sound on earth on vinyl.  Too bad.  The sound might have been marketable.  Sony Entertainment could have sold the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition (like Michael Jackson - “50”) of the boom caused by the bomb as sound history; forgetting all the real history and the real cost that went into each record.

I got to thinking about all of this as I was mining the Internet for data about something (other than the Michael Jackson story) that could take my mind off the Michael Jackson story when even fond memories of Farrah Fawcett in beach bare bathing britches wouldn’t do it.  I had no memory of such stuff, but the Fawcett obitufiers did, so I must have, so, so be it.  That’s what Data Mining is all about.  You remember what you’re told to remember, when you’re told, because you were shown and told in the beginning.  Data in, data out.  Why do “they” (like the NSA) really care just what you think when “they” put every thought in there (your brain) from Day 1?

I missed a step.  I will go back.  West Military Drive in San Antonio (in Texas) is where the new NSA Data Mining (Cryptology) Center is.  It is a storehouse for everything ever said everywhere.  They have all the Michael Jackson stuff, all the recordings, each telephone conversation and TV broadcast and live-concert tour and every word said backstage and on every cell-phone from every teeny-bopper within 5,000 miles of everywhere that Michael Jackson ever went.  Or that is what the NSA wants you to believe.  They are the definitive Michael Jackson fan club fan’s club.  But they are the Sam’s Club of fan clubs too; they do this for everybody rich and famous, collect everything - every word, record it and “write it down” for history - maybe make some money someday because they can always make or break every one with some new revelation from the past, from archives, from recordings made but never before released.

So you’re with me now.  So now we can go back to the Piki-don (the nuclear moment in English) at Hiroshima.  It took a lot of bad faith, bad money, bad science, bad intent to create that brief loud moment of sound on that beautiful blue August day in Hiroshima.  The American advertising (lies) called the city an Army Base, did not mention the Korean captives living there, said it would end a war that was already all but over.  The need for an “invasion” was the big lie; the fire-bombings had worked; there’s no need to occupy the ground when all the ground has been taken by the ravages of war.

So every Michael Jackson record and recording came at such a price.  He (Michael Jackson) was beaten and abused.  His “Dad” (his father) was a child abuser of the very worst kind.  Only the NSA knows all the bloody details, Michael J equivocates, hides the worst of it in his interviews; all the family does.  So his talent, his drive, his command performances are all just an act; an effort to just stay alive and reduce the pain; and relieve himself from the living hell of his childhood - a childhood he never had.  Every buck you paid made this bad dad rich, richer, richer than you or Michael ever was.  His “dad” got your money and got to enjoy it (not like Michael Jackson the freak).  Now aren’t you glad about where your money went when you fell in love with Mr. Jackson.  You were conned.  You made and make the case that “child abuse is good” - how else could there ever be another “Michael Jackson”?

Why blame Michael?  Now we know the truth.  He never had a life past age 10; he probably didn’t have much of one past age five - think of it as code - the Jackson’s “5” is when the real abuse that would begin, began.  Did he do it just for the bucks, Mr. Jackson?  Did he do it for the fame?  Did he do it to feel better about himself by making others feel worse?  These are things to think about the next time you listen to “Thriller”, get “Dangerous”, go for the “Bad World” way of things.

So what is it about this freak of nature that you like?  Would you trade your life for his?  Are these the values that you want or that you want to share now that you know the cause and the cost?  Give your MJ stuff away.  Don’t buy it used; don’t buy it new - it’s not new at all.  So this takes me back to the “new” facility on Marine One drive (I forget the address already).  The point is that just about everything one wants to know about someone was pretty much settled in the first twelve years of life (maybe 14 for some).  After that it’s just about repeat or waste; one doesn’t start caring at 20 if before that they never cared at all.  One won’t become a “killer” if they did not or were not “killed” before they reached 16, if not six.  I think that the NSA knows this.  It’s Data Mining for dummies.  The only thing they are really keeping tabs on is the children.  To what ends I do not know.

It’s too late for Michael Jackson though.  Someone might have said, “just Stop”.  A cop might have arrested someone.  An agent might have spoken up.  A “Teen” reporter might have asked better questions.  It’s been a long career.  Or maybe it is a bit like “bread and circuses”; we cheer the gladiators great pain, we honor them when they die.  We like to see them suffer before they die.  Some people can be so sick.

So where does that leave us this day?  We know that the NSA has every answer; but that in its search for “terrorists” they leave all the worst terrorists alone, like Michael Jackson’s dad, he’s left alone to do his worst and to go on each day like it were only the planes and bombs that mattered.  But then isn’t it the NSA that defends the nuclear bombs and bombers; keeps them safe; justifies their use?

These words will be recorded in the NSA files.  They can search for “Jackson”, Michael.  They can search for “donner und blitzen”.  They can search for “NSA” in an effort to find themselves.  Michael Jackson never did.  May he finally rest in peace.

[2009.06.26 / Friday - The Jackson Chronicles]

~ Declining fortunes in an age of indifference.

There is a difference between the word “age” and the term “time”.  I could say that this is a “time of indifference”; maybe it is.  But the word age has a better ring to it, it implies more things than time, it references the nation’s age or my age or the ages of the eons or of the Bible or of science (perhaps).  My problem is not so much with science as indifference.  It is an indifference bred by poverty which is bred by the accumulation and concentration of wealth; poverty is best seen as wealth undiversified, undistributed.  Poverty is stored wealth, nothing more.

The problem with banks is that they are a storehouse for money.  This is also the problem with bonds and with the modern way of stocks.  The money put away in vaults and paper (certificates) is not money circulated and saved, it is money stored.  Yes, the economists do have it wrong.  But that’s just me; I am inclined to always say that “they” have it wrong.

This brings me to the subject of Parks and local government.  Most local governments have decided that they are broke, are poor, are left with so little that they are left with only crusts (meaning crusts of bread) when everyone else is eating fat (as in the fat of the land).  Government is feeling poor while they see everyone else as rich.  Government sees themselves as hungry when everyone else is seen as having mouths full of food.  “There is now no money”, is what the Park People said after failing to keep records that would have documented that they stole it (stole the money) when times were flush; but since (they say) times were never “flush” that means that they never really stole the money.  “The money just disappeared”, we have no record that it was ever stored and certainly none that suggest that the money was ever spent.

Buying bonds (federal, city, state, or local) is a statement.  It is yelling from the rooftops, “In government I trust”.  Believing in government is like believing in organized religion or in science.  There is nothing that can be proved except by personal experience.  No scientist can prove the existence of any other outside the life of his or her own brain; and even that conception is a reach as one can “prove” the death of others, but not that oneself will ever die.  Much of government is like a parasite living on a host, believing in the host, believing that the host will never get sick or die.  The people are the host, the collective souls of the body politic as determined by law and geography and political sub-division.  Nothing in the law refers to time.  All government is always assumed to be forever.

But, back to the park.  The park was built by private donation.  The government let the spit of land that it had been given as a public trust just languish.  Like money in the bank nothing good could come of it when just left to sit.  The land if developed would be a liability and an expense; it would require upkeep, it would require effort.  Idle money and idle land just require indifference; “nothing ventured, nothing lost”.  So a famous woman with money gave quite a lot of money to the City for the Park (to fix it up, or fix it, or make a place worthy of a name).  She dedicated the new and now named park to the memory of her husband, famous then and famous still for those who might remember history.  Most of us just forget.  The City forgot the promises they made, lost the check for the upkeep, decided not to keep up the upkeep for the park that was paid for private funds, “The land if developed would be a liability and an expense; it would require upkeep, it would require effort”, “that‘s not what we do”.

“We would keep up the park if we got more in taxes; but the taxes are not enough, so if you don’t pay (more), we will not play (anymore), and we will let the park die just like last time - “So there!”

So you wonder why the cities are dying.  You wonder why there is so little food that’s affordable to eat.  You wonder why the restaurants are closing and the Clothing Stores are closing too.  Don’t wonder any longer.  The citizen and the consumer is almost dead.  Everyone is “taxed out”, “maxed out”, and “stressed out” too.  There are no rich and famous people left to bail-out everybody else.  They garnered all the money and then lost it.  The poor (and most everyone now is poorer) have nothing left to pay; but they still would like their Park.

There is a park in your neighborhood, your community, your city.  Your park and my park are probably about the same.  If yours’ is well cared for and healthy count your blessings; if not, then be aware.  This thing is growing.  Your present taxes will never be enough until the host itself is dead.  There really is a “time” to law; not just an “age”.  If government cannot even maintain a park what difference does anything make?  You have your own guns, who needs police?  Water falls from heaven, only heaven and care can stop a fire.  The sewers and roads are crumbling; move out or just move on.  America is the City of Indifference composed of Cities of Indifference and no politics or mayor will ever “make it happen” because there is no money even for the parks.  And when it comes to the parks I draw the line.

So next time I WILL NOT pay my taxes, I will pay late or maybe nothing in time, on time.  There may be minor penalties, a little interest on money when there is no interest in time as it passes; as time slips away; as the time for a last minute save is lost (like the money for the park, lost as time is flushed).  Will you be the last one still paying taxes?  Will you be the poor one paying for the rich?  Is it about the bail-outs for the banks, for GM and all the cars and oil, for the parks?  I forget and I forgot.  What I still remember is that I can be indifferent too; embrace detachment; remaining attached to only those I love.  Who loves government?  Only those in it.  For the rest it’s just “advertising” and highly over-rated; did I say expensive - (government) “I don’t need it”; I can shop at home if I don’t loose my home to taxes.

Is there anything else left to say?  Oh yes, “Please save my park (if you want my taxes).”  But I think the opportunity for that has passed.

[2009.06.20 / Saturday - Rich and Poor]

~ Barry Soetoro and the scapegoat of silence.

People are getting tired of the scapegoating.  It has happened before.  People got tired of the scapegoating of the Nazi’s for their scapegoating of the Jews.  In America now there is no difference.  Are the “right-wing conservatives” no less a scapegoat than “the Islamic world” or the “Zionists who are Jews” or the “Christian Coalition”?  Is it the communists that are really bad, or just the North Koreans, or is it the gays and lesbians or just those that say that “gays and lesbians” are wrong?  Who’s right in all of this?  Is everything made better by insisting that your adversary is all (and always) wrong?  As Rodney King said, “Can’t we all just get along?”

So Germany was “Happy”.  I know it’s true because I have read the ads.  The ads appeared in Travel Magazine published by the NTA, the National Travel Association.  They had advertising offices in New York, London and Paris too.  None in Germany.  They carried ads for the Red Star Line and the USSR and other places like you might want to go - Japan even.  It’s so nice to think of where you might go on your hard earned depression bucks.  These ads you see are not from today, but from the mid to late 1930’s.  Not everyone was depressed or poor; there was still room on the Lido Deck for you - travel on the Italian Line in luxury and comfort.  Is it Columbus or Mussolini that will get you there?  I guess it is only a matter of opinion, an issue of politics, only an issue of religion if you have one left or if you really care.

But it seems that Germany got it right, “Don’t worry, be happy.”  There is really nothing wrong (so said the ads and the editorials and the spokesmen from the Chancellery or was it the Office of the President - Germany did have a President, a parliament, two houses, one was the “stag”, the other one the “rat” - it was the Reich-stag that failed us; the German Senate was not the “rat”; rat in name only.  There was so much division in the 1930’s; so many people each with their own issues; it was so difficult and complicated and so hard to know where to turn (at the time).  So (in Germany) some said “support the president”; let the people rule; have a fair election; the better party and party person will win; then we can have our nation back, have a new agenda, make the whole country better again and be happy for it.

Which brings us to the case of Barry Soetoro; some say he is the real President.  Some say that his transcript from Occidental College was released and that it was an “AP” story.  The “A” stands for April I guess because the story was first released on April 1st.  You get my point.  The story then was redated.  The story moved to May Day, to Law Day USA, to the day of Maypoles and parades in Moscow and memories of Castro and Mao on podiums above the tomb of Lenin; wax figure down below.  How much of all of this or any of this is just made up?  What do you believe?  Does it make a difference when it’s in the paper; when it is from UPI or AP or CNN or Fox?  Is Germany really happy?  Are you really happy now?  Welcome to the Lido Deck, you have one last chance; all the restaurants of Rome and New York and Paris are waiting - there are castles on the Rhine; come and see and spend your money.

The Soetoro story is false.  False too is the White House denial, office of the President spokesman; he too lied; found a scapegoat; ignored the truth and facts.  The real transcript of Obama from Occidental College has never been released.  Like every other record the facts remain forever sealed.  Some think that it is better this way, better for “happy Germany” and better for the President, and better for the country now that it is moving in a new direction; no complications; “leadership principal will make you free” if work does not make you free first.

I wish I could join the celebration.  I wish I could believe that peace and prosperity and simplicity and order have finally come.  I wish that Germany and all her people could be really happy, no conflict, no scapegoating anymore and no scapegoats to scapegoat for their scapegoating.  I guess we are all Germans now; good Germans who know what is right and that everything is right and glad that we know that left is right and that all the confusion is now gone.  But in reality I don’t think the confusions gone; I can’t join the celebration; I see too much to fear though I do not fear myself.

So is Lenin embalmed, preserved in wax, or just wax himself or in body or in the corpus that is on display?  Does it really matter now; 100 million gone through his tomb; 500 million more who stood over it or watched?  Was the Red Star Line really better?  Was it really a question of a better ship?  I do not know.  I never traveled then and I’m not sure if I should travel now; not overseas at least, not on ships - do airships count - is a dirigible really better?  Who really are your fellow travelers, or are YOU the fellow traveler?

I stood right next to Khrushchev once.  I was so close I could almost touch him.  He was passing by in Afghanistan in a big parade, a caravan of cars, Russian or Soviet flags flying.  His hat was off as he was waving; he always waved with his hat but he did not wave at me.  Our eyes met, he looked a little startled as I was standing there above him on the policeman’s perch and he was just sitting in a car; a limousine yes, big yes, but just a car just the same.  My cold-blooded American eyes met his; but not with hate.  He could see by my dress that I was not Afghan - how could his security force allowed such a lapse?  Under his command Russian boys younger than I had been efficient killers, killing Germans at the front in Stalingrad; saving the Great Republic, the Soviet, or whatever else it was called (or whatever else it was called then in that time of crisis and peril when almost all seemed lost).

Do we put away the past or do we embrace it?  Do we remember or do we forget?  Do we fight for or against Lenin, or Stalin, or Hitler or is just FDR?  Do we have any heroes left, or now, or are they all just villains; people gone astray that led us astray or at least only did their worst?  With names like Osama, Obama, Barak, Bush or is it Barry - is it really that different now?  What if it is “how we think” and not “what we think” that matters.  In the battle for hearts and minds is it the content or the process that really counts?  Which is more important - is it our beliefs; or is it how we come to have them?

Will you turn off your TV now?  A little silence, please.

[2009.06.18 / Thursday - Happy Germany]

~ Meaning the health care plan and also meaning moving forward.

In the previous post I made the case for “militarized medicine”.  I made the case that said because we are at war, because there is a Stage 6 world-wide pandemic, because we have nationalized GM and every one seems happy, and that the health and safety of our citizens should be the first concern of national interest and defense; that for all these reasons and more; be it resolved that something meaningful must be done.

Unlike Obama I would not just kick the tires of the current “car”.  The reality is that the system needs more than just “reform”.  Obama does not go nearly far enough; he has so little taste for combat; he talks a whispered talk and then frequently does almost nothing after all.  His supporters want “vision” and more than vision they want action; they want forward doing not just forward thinking.  It’s about movement not just words.  With that said, I present my plan.

“Community Service” as an idea was all the rage when Obama ran.  He can start with health care.  Volunteers can donate time to go door to door to identify the health care needs.  Volunteers can enter data, make lists, be digitally correct in documenting the people and places where the safety net has failed and is not so much a net as a snare; something in the way between a person and their health.  Others can volunteer to wash-up; to be trained as nurses; to be drivers for those too poor to drive and in too poor health to walk to the nearest hospitals and public health care clinics.  Others can clean and paint.  Still others can make lists of What to Eat, what not to eat, can talk about the connection between good food and good health; maybe how to diet, how to cook with less by spending less and by buying foods that are better.

The next thing that the President might say is that “we will buy your medical equipment now”.  The offer the first week would be at full price; the second week a little less, the third week maybe market.  Doctors, hospitals and clinics could sell what they had at such a profit; retire from the “business”, be available for service to humanity like the old medical creed always said, “Service before self” or “do no harm” or something like that as those words now are so seldom said.  Even during the Great Depression doctors still made housecalls; they traded doctor services for eggs; they helped people with little money; they did not just attend the rich.

After a month of organizing, cleaning, painting; getting a list of names; gassing up the cars; accepting offers of doctors and hospitals ready to sell their equipment and not just their services the first real change would be made.  The President would announce that VA Hospitals and the Indian Public Health Service facilities would offer medical care of last resort.  The care would be free to all who came and all who needed it.  The volunteer cars would help people get to “there” (from here).  The lines of course would be long; volunteers would be needed.  The President would invite the idle doctors to come and help; community service with pay; things would begin to turn around.

A blog is not the place for all the details of the plan.  The rich would not ever want to wait in line.  The rich do not care what premiums they pay (for better service), for faster service for someone who knows them by their first name and rubs palms and shoulders at the club.  Sure premiums would go up as the people drifted off to elsewhere.  But the employers would be happy; more pay for less insurance coverage; get sick and drive a little - we both would save a lot.  “Why didn’t someone do this long ago?”, is what some would say; it could have happened in the sixties when so much other good stuff seemed to be going on.  There were so many “Free Clinics” then; pharmaceuticals dispensed, not just drugs.  You have your history all so wrong.  I was there and I remember too.  I swear it seemed to work and that was when it was 100% volunteer time and expertise; in a time when people cared.

So how much money could be saved with a health system dedicated to the advantages of wellness and not the profit to be made from people sick?  This blog is not here to give you all the answers.  It is here to encourage you to think for yourself.  I just present ideas.  You do the rest.  Are you thinking now?

There is no need to settle for a health care “something” that is something less than the very best.  And it must be best for everyone, not just the employed, not just the rich, not just the lucky who have savings and good health.  Saving should not be about sickness or medical misfortune.  Savings are for the aftermath, not to pay for the disease.  Bad things do happen, but the bad thing should not be the care; the cost; the catastrophic cost of a ‘for profit’ system that has both failed and gone mad.  Are you getting mad now.  Are you ready to begin the fight?  Now do you know why this is a “military” type campaign?  Free universal health services should be the cost of war, and the price of peace too.  We can make it happen.  You can make it happen (before you die).

It’s not about Africa, or Iran, or Indonesia or some other better and distant place.  We need volunteers here in America and a President with a better plan.  We need health services set up next to cardtables; people helping people right out there on the street.  We need a new era of home practitioners and mid-wives and people who can help make other people free.  Money is not the answer; but when it comes to money the government can help; after all they own it all, all the money.  It has Caesars name on it; the money belongs to Caesar so let’s see what he can do.  Let Caesar heal the sick and raise the dead if he can do it; with his science; let him start today or let us just forget about Caesar and all his ghosts because it isn’t Caesar that is ever going to make it happen.  Go for it Caesar!  Here is your big fat final chance.

I get angry in my words.  But I will make no apologies for missed opportunity.  Choices will make you free if they do not kill you.  Good choices are always better than the bad.  In your heart you know what is right; don’t let fear make you not do it.  Good change makes things possible, small change means nothing.  If it is a marriage between people and their government then the words are “in sickness and in health”; that is the promise - the government should keep it.  Health care NOW!  Are these just platitudes or is there a real message for REAL change?

When will Obama move to make you free?  Do you know the answer?  When will you move yourself?

[2009.06.16 / Tuesday - The Plan]

~ Looking at the words, it’s the “subsidy” part that needs to be left out.

When I was young, or younger than I am now, I was on the debate team in high school.  Needless to say, if you have read my other posts, we are talking Reno here (but it could have been San Rafael or Seoul).  My Junior year the national debate topic was “nuclear weapons” and whether they should be controlled.  My Senior year the topic was “socialized medicine” and whether it should be adopted in the United States.  Things haven’t changed much in the ensuing 40 or more years; and that’s the problem.

A good argument cannot be made for “cost” if you take the two issues together.  That was the problem at the time (in the sixties).  We debated one issue one year and the other issue a year later.  That was wrong.  We should have debated them both at the same time; it would have given a better perspective.  One could have pointed out that it was nuclear weapons that were unaffordable to the government, not health care.  One could have said that the cost of a “universal umbrella” of free medical care would cost less than the “nuclear umbrella” of nuclear bombs by which the US sought to make lives safe.  But, lets get back to basics.

If the US had have agreed to the control of nuclear weapons then; then neither North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, or any other country except for Russia, the USA, Britain, and France would have the bomb.  It could have happened.  Our news would look a little different.  There would be no North Korea headlines and no Iran headlines and no interest in the Iranian elections like there was no interest in so many countries so many times before.  Why are we so interested now?  The nukes are the only real answer; we don’t give a royal darn about third world free elections - that’s only Jimmy Carter stuff, and he’s half dead now isn’t he?  Would better medical care save his life?

So that is the point now isn’t it?  One standard of care for Presidents and another for the foot soldiers in the field, the little person, the children of the poor.  My parents were poor; so why not add my name to the list.  My mother suffered from bad teeth all her life (always too expensive to fix, food was too expensive too during the Great War and during the Great Depression and at a few points in-between.  Kind of like now; bad food makes for mal-nutrition, too many chemicals that can kill you in the food supply.  My mother died of cancer; medical “hacks” that could only hack off half (or all) her breast and leave her with no psychological advice, no prosthesis, no Betty Ford Clinics then.  Why does it take a President or his wife before things ever move forward or begin to get resolved?

Socialized Medicine might have saved her life and in turn might have saved mine; or made mine so different.  She had so much to offer; only 54 years of age when she died.  My life too might have been so much more “productive” had there been medical care, not just scavenging through the bushes buying treatments here or there as money would allow, as “jobs” would allow.  There’s no insurance when one has lost their job - the current system is just one “make no work” project.  People contribute so much more when they are healthy.  Isn’t that obvious?  A healthy life should be like a Passport; available to or mandatory for every citizen of the state.  It’s the least the state can offer.  “Life, liberty and happiness are all impossible when you’re injured or you’re sick; when your teeth ache, or when you need cataract surgery or glasses so you are not blind.  I have been there.  Are you with me?  Are you with me, yet?

Single payer care is not the answer.  There should be no “payer” in the pay.  All medical care should be free.  There should be no “subsidy” to any “private commercial enterprise”; that entrepreneurial endeavor should be over; medicine should not be a “business”.  Medicine is about helping people; about health.  It is that simple - “helping people through health”.  Money-motivated doctors are the ones that need help themselves; it is such a sick concept, money and medicine, it is so sadistic to profit from the pain of others; to hope that the collective medical need gets greater so that ones future and ones income gets brighter still.  Grow the unhealthy population to “grow the industry” and grow the need for medicines, medicines, and other endless medical care.  Aren’t you so glad you are healthy?  Pay in because you are made to fear the worse.  Medical insurance is based on fear and greed.

Is it a “subsidy” that pays each Army scout in the outskirts of Afghanistan?  Does that person work for a corporation or for the people?  Is it “service” that the person offers or is it just fair pay or is it “just the way it is”.  If the government can own and run GM there is a bigger enterprise that really is too big to fail.  The enterprise is the health of this nation.  The nation may be broke, like the current health care system is broke; but, the health of each person can be fixed.  A nation half well and half sick cannot stay or stand; I cannot stand the concept.  Do not the injured and the ill have rights?  Should other civil rights have a price tag; should an insurance policy be necessary; should other civil rights too be dependent upon a single-payer subsidy?  It would be profitable, but oh so wrong.  It should not be about all the freedom that money can buy like it is now with the freedom to live a free and healthy life.

The broader question is what is the legitimate function of government.  Does government exist to distort and convolute the social life to make a path for business, for profits for the few, under the theory that everyone benefits from the concentration of money in the hands of business?  Most businesses have so little imagination, so little caring, so much disregard for what is good in man and I mean good in women too.  Or does government owe to each citizen that it claims the right to life, to health, and to help in the case of injury, bad teeth, poor eyesight too?  Is it like the Nazi eugenics, kill the poor and hungry with medical experiments that do not work while you steal all their money and let the healthy live because the healthy had the money to move away from all the mess (or supported all the mess because it was so profitable to profit off the victims).  The medical experiment that is not working is the system in place today.

So in 1965 I was mostly right.  Good medicine would make a better future.  Good medicine will make you free.  Good medicine is free.  And if the AMA and all the other doctors don’t like it?  Well, they are just such a sorry lot, no guts or good wishes, a pathetic bunch of sadists; I could go on a bit, but I won’t just now.  Let me put it this way.  If you don’t believe in VA Hospitals and Military Medicine then you can’t believe in war.  They say the system works; it can get better, but basically it works.  I had military medicine when I lived in Korea, I was a civilian then; trust me - the system worked.  Why should I expect so much less now?  Maybe it is not about Socialized Medicine, maybe it is a matter of national security and national defense - Military Medicine for everyone, every doctor and every nurse is signed up; they can still wear their greens and whites; the medical hospitals and clinics are nationalized (like GM) and the health of the nation is insured (assured) and all without insurance and pathetic premiums to pay and convoluted policies to read.  One size fits all.  Are you with me now?  Join with me now.

Do not forget, we ARE a nation legally at war.  Every civilian is on the front, check at the airport and you will know I’m right.  So why not go that extra mile and make health and medicine and helping a military affair; let’s face it - the peacetime solutions just didn’t work.  And now it it’s a national emergency everyone.

[2009.06.16 / Tuesday - Socialized Medicine]

~ The “holocaust” clarified.

The favored term in the Jewish Community for the holocaust is Shoah.  I refer to the excellent article on Wikipedia.  So why is it not the “Shoah Museum” where the shooting happened?  It would be a better name; the museum would perhaps not have been noticed by the greatest generation nut; he would be a “holocaust denier” left alone in a world that understood.  But, most in this world do not understand.  We mix images and words together and get confused and forget whatever point we might have been making as the first point.  The expression that comes to mind is, “The point is lost”.

Some facts cannot be lost.  Fact one is that the “six million” figure of Jews killed by the Reich (or greater Reich) is pretty much indisputable.  There is one simple source; it is the Nuremberg Tribunals set up and run by the US Government to try the Nazi “war criminals” after the war.  If there is one surviving institution that I believe in as the world falls apart and changes it is the integrity and sincerity of these tribunals.  I first saw newsreel footage of them when I was six.  I probably watched every one (every newsreel, every foot of film ever taken and made available to the public).

One does not have to look far to find a culprit, a qualified if not “good” witness.  The man is Rudolf Hoess (Hoss) himself.  He was Commandant at Auschwitz / Buckenwald for the entire time except for the time between December 1st / 1943 and May of 1944 when he was “Chief Inspector” of all the concentration camps and the labor camps which through the concentration camps were constantly fed slave labor to feed the German end of the second world war.

Do not Google Rudolf Hoess unless you know about Rudolf Hess; Hess is a different man, third highest in the Reich, not third highest in the holocaust.  I think Hoess (there) is number 1, not just “following orders” but doing what no person in their right mind would do regardless of all orders; any orders; from any person or any state.  How can one kill one million human beings or more?  Truman only killed half that many and he had the benefit of “law”, not just a “state secret” - or do I have my history mixed?  When everything is a secret or done in secret how does anyone know what is going on?

The testimony of Hoess was signed “without compulsion” on April 3, 1946.  He testified before the open court (the Tribunal) on April 15, 1946; although April 20th would have been a better date; a birthday gift to the Fuhrer after he was dead.  Why do we remember such things (and not “forget”)?  Read the transcript (on Wikipedia and elsewhere); there can be no “denial”; these things happened; end of case.  Or is it?

Is it possible that the Nuremberg Tribunal was a bit political or tainted?  In the era when water-boarding is all but accepted, “expected” and death by hanging might mean piano wire in a person’s mind is it possible that “Hoess” not “Hess” was coerced a bit, signed things that others wanted him to say, stretched the truth to try and save  a savagely stretched neck.  Is it the death or the manner of the death we find revolting?  I quote and invoke the sentiment of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen who has written much about the Holocaust.

To clarify things a bit lets say that the Shoah is about the Jews and the Holocaust is about the Pagans (Greek word with root of “fire”); the pagans here are all the others - gypsies (Roma), 7th Day Adventists, Communists, Monarchists, religionists, and all those others that did not “go along” and were persecuted or were exterminated or were by means or other means caused to die.  The “Reich” is the nation-state and all it’s people; Germans everywhere (just because they were “German” as Goldhagen so clearly says); and the Reich is the greater Reich which means all the conquered territories and those that joined “without compulsion” and those groups that tried to join, but did not succeed in doing so, but killed too in the cause; those in the USA and Britain and Argentina and in Mexico and also in Japan and count too the Holocaust Museum because apparently neither the killing or the holocaust is over.  There are still Germans everywhere.  When will that last “not great war” be over????

So now you see the difference.  The “Shoah” began about 1920 and ended about 1948; six million Jews did die of all causes and tribulations; in all the disease and artificial plagues (that were so unnecessary); in all the camps both German and American and British on Cypress before those left moved on to Palestine; some too, died in Palestine before 1948, before 1944, before 1940.  But let us not forget the small numbers of Shoah survivors from the USA; there are those that died of beatings, from persecution; from the “home-grown” US Nazi’s of the thirties that were everywhere - not just Madison Square Garden - who let them use the Garden for their messages of hate?

But the “Holocaust” is another matter.  The holocaust continues; it is the “endless war”.  The holocaust knows no metes or bounds; it is an attack upon a museum, an attack on Israel, any defense of Palestine; any vote cast for the government of Iran.  If you attack the banking system (the Federal Reserve of 1913 even) you are a “Holocaust Denier”.  If you think that 9-11 was not an Arab plot you too ‘deny the holocaust”.  How far does this thing go?  It is not a museum in DC; the holocaust still lives; just ask Mr. Goldhagen; he makes a powerful case.

Daniel Goldhagen contends that it was not just the Nazi government that made “it” happen; it was the Germans themselves who “did it” just because they were “German”.  All Germans are bad, always were, says Mr. Goldhagen, “there is no German whose soul is not diseased, who is not tyrannical, sadistic…”.  (page #397 and Notes page #595 #53 - “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” copyright 1996 - Vintage Books Edition).  Is this not “hate speech”?  Is this what it means to “never forget”?  Is it going to be necessary to prove through DNA mapping that one is not “part German” in some dark future so that one can avoid the camps of retribution like the walled ghetto of Gaza wherein are interned the Semitic race of folk that are Arabs; are not Arabs Semitic too?

So we stand confused.  We use words that have so little meaning except that we know what we want and what we mean while we sow the seeds of confusion among others.  Stop already; we’ve had enough.  Do I speak for others or just myself?  I did not wish my life to be of endless war.  I know too much and have seen too many recreations of Nazi’s, of bootjacks, of Swastikas put up on flags put up on buildings as if it were Hollywood’s only fare.  The Holocaust is over.  I’m not German enough to ever let it happen again or “too German” to let it happen to me or do you too believe that there are no “good Germans” and that every German must die?  The old testament is so out-dated.

It is important to note that Mr. Goldhagen wrote a “Forward to the German Edition” that leaves the reader with (in 7 separate pages) very different conclusions about people and their government than the other 625 pages suggest.  These points don’t seem important to non-German readers which suggest that they are “apologist” not by nature, but only to the degree that the apology might ameliorate the good and increase the sense of an hereditary guilt.

Mr. Goldhagen’s words here are important though, though misdirected.  The words should appear on the walls outside Jerusalem, in the Army training manuals of the JDF, in each village throughout the West Bank and in each nuclear bomb storage area everywhere in Israel, “all people are created equal (it is not true that) humanity is composed of a hierarchy of races that are differently abled, owed different moral obligations, and are inexorably in conflict with one another.”  No, I am wrong.  These words should be posted everywhere; in every synagogue, temple, and church; in every park and plaza; in every airport and other public place where people mingle; on every website even.

Make every website not a hate-site.

[2009.06.14 / Sunday - Shoah]

~ “Never let a crisis go to waste”, Rahm Emanuel.

There are somethings very strange about the shooting that happened just the other day.  It’s troublesome.  And I think the word is “t-r-o-u-b-l-e” as in trouble in River City, USA.  Where to begin?  But just the same let’s think about this thing.  It’s not about Holocaust Denial, it’s not about 9-11 Truth, it’s not about the 1913 Federal Reserve, Ron Paul, or right to life.  It is not even about Sarah Palin.  Those are all just the “spins” that Rahm Emanuel and others want.  They want the focus to be on Buckenwald (the visit four days before) and not on Cairo (the speech six days before).  They want the focus away from the Federal Reserve and the banking bail-out and away from the mortgages closing and the American family going bust.

It’s not about being Jewish, being Christian; being Hindu, Japanese, Moslem, African, or Jain.  It is about Israel, about Zionism, about Empire and about a 22 caliber rifle.  It is about a member of “the Greatest Generation”, age 89, and all the myths that go with that generation.  It’s about a PT boat, not PT 109; but a real captain hero like the President (Kennedy, not Obama).  It’s not about black and white.  It is about shades of grey and shades of color and shades of flags flying falsely in the mist.  And maybe it’s more about health care than anything else.  Let’s start with health care.

I think everyone in America knows about the closing of the mental hospitals under Reagan.  The plan to put the nut cases out on the streets; to let then drift around, camp on grates, publish grating propaganda.  A lot of the guys were US Vets, damaged by the war, the camps, the marching and the killing and the fighting and the killing and the killing and the dying and the holocaust and now you get my drift about impressionable young men associating the dying and the killing with the need to “Win the War”.  Didn’t we enter the war to save the Jews from Germany?  Isn’t that what the holocaust museum tells us?  Isn’t that what “D-Day” was all about and why Obama was in Buchenwald on D-Day laying a wreath instead of with the Queen at Normandy remembering the “Normandy Invasion”?

If this nation were to have good health care at public expense then Mr. von Brunn (not Von Braun) would have been locked up, getting the professional care he needs, learning to live with war and not trying to deny it.  He did earn medals.  He was the captain of a PT boat like a president once was.  He could not afford the medical care that JFK could.  End of Story (I wish).

Now let’s turn to Wackenhut.  It is about the second largest security force in the nation.  They have more members than the National Guard.  Wackenhut and Black Water; does that ring a bell?  Are all Wackenhut guards black?  Not really.  Would a white Wackenhut guard have let him in?  I don‘t think so.  But the scene is so simple, “white racist kills black guard”.  One shot (to the head I guess); one perfect shot by a guard that has already let 2,000 people in but this one is carrying a gun (a rifle even) and needs help opening the door (he’s 89 years old by gosh).  Door opens, guard gets shot, does not see the gun under the coat worn on such a hot day in DC.  Oh sure, but lets read on.

The rifle was just a 22, small bore; but we will get to that.  Or was it “22” where we were at last week when talking about Air France flight 447?  I forget, or do I?  Anyway, the 30 caliber (larger bullets) of the two remaining Wackenhut guards gunfire (raining gunfire according to reports) fail to kill him, meaning Mr. von Brunn.  Were these other two guards “white”; what’s the point of firing and always missing?  There are 1,000 children in the building and the Wackenhut guys don’t shoot to kill?  What is this?  Where were the Capitol Police outside?  Are there no telephones, no alarms?  Is this a holocaust waiting to happen or just a museum?  None of this makes sense.

I’m not an expert on guns, but I can read.  It’s a bore; or about the bore.  Some say a 22 can’t kill you.  Others say certainly, “Yes it can”.  The advantages are the “quiet” shot, so good for assassinations, bullet to the head or it does so little damage.  But what about the “BOOM” that everybody heard.  It was a big “Boom” (not “Bang”).  So did Mr. Von Brunn have a bomb?  Did he blow up the lobby if not himself?  What about the “boom”; let’s talk about the boom and not Ron Paul and not the website and not the false props, but the real props that speak so loudly for themselves.

So what police force or military force or lone gunman was ever caught dead planning a battle, a war, a devastation and carried in only a 22 caliber rifle?  War would cost so much less.  The gun shops would be so much less profitable.  One man could carry three rifles, not one, weight about the same.  Black Ops could carry brown butts, not just black nosed subs.  Maybe that’s North Korea’s secret; invade the South with 22’s (22 caliber rifles), move faster, not weighed down by all that automatic and semi-automatic high rate of fire stuff.  Does not the Pentagon know this?  Or is it the “white, racist, Jew-hating, gun-nut”, that does know this?  Or is he just an 89 year old patsy?  Is von Brunn just a patsy?

It may have been the “Wrath of God”.  It was a Mossad operation, circa 1972.  Mossad went all over Africa and the Middle East (and the world even) killing people with 22’s (22 caliber weapons).  They knew that people would notice; it was their signature, the bullets left their mark.  My question is did von Brunn know this?  Was it on his website (“hate site”) before “they” took it down?  Was it in his secret writings “Kill (even) the best Gentiles” is what the Talmud said (still says somewhere).  Is that “hate speech”?  What do we do with words of hate?  But the real question is did Brunn know about Mossad; or was it just Mossad that knew about Brunn?  And about the “22”.

So we have a “22” on the first, another on the 10th .  The 20th would make for “66”, but would that make things too obvious?  Or is it “obvious” what they want?  The whole “Nazi” “Rockwell” right wing is probably just an Israeli false flag operation; it discredit’s the truth and makes for lies.  It makes the Zionist Israel hating Palestine cause ever stronger; “your enemy can be your friend”, let no group or crisis be wasted, trust no one?  Hate will not make you free.

So lets spin this thing toward health care.  We need health care for the masses; mental care and physical care and hospitals for the sick; clinics for the poor; elder care and children’s care.  Let there be no racial divide.  Let in people of every color.  Let lack of money make no difference.  Let it be said that von Brunn told us so; insisted on it; did what he did so that we would understand how important such care might be.  It’s just a thought.  If you don’t like it, I still have my other answer.  It’s more disturbing though and will cost a whole lot more money.  Think about it; then decide.

[2009.06.12 / Friday - The Holocaust Museum]

~ So what does 6-1-1 have to do with it?

So it seems that the chatter is up.  There are rumblings in the markets, both stocks and stocks of oil.  There are rumblings about the AF 447 being a Al Qaeda affair, passengers this time, not bombs.  The rumblings continue in Korea (though you may not hear it).  The rumblings move across Iran; Israel is so unhappy; would rather have Osama than Obama.  Add to this the digital affair (mandatory conversion that is coming) and the Stage 6 world-wide Pandemic (declaration) and I think you have it all or maybe just have none of it.

The subway strike continues in the most indebted capital on earth.  The market (Dow) continues its euphoria, it is the come-back Kid; like Clinton on a ride, or is it just another and a more scandalous affair?  All it takes is a simple twit like Monica Lewenski to bring down the house of cards.  I see her now with kneepads walking toward the White House; is it a symbol or a sign?  Is she just an Omen, dressed all in black?  Do you dress in black?  What do you see and feel?  Am I so wrong?

It was Rockefeller that was warned by the shoeshine man that day.  He took his money out and went running while the shoeshine man ventured in.  The market will not make you free.  Dow 9,400 seems the top; could be just a week away, could be less or longer; life is so uncertain near the cliff.  The iso-sonics will change tomorrow when analog is dead.  All across America the big change comes; 80% of America won’t be watching because 80% of America has the “big TV” (cable and the satellites); the “new” energy is just not there, no change in coverage, no big news.

It starts at midnight this night.  Some will wait till 5 AM or 6 AM to make the switch.  Some will wait till noon, High Noon and the corral is not OK.  You will note the difference.  Things will not seem the same.  It will be all so unexpected; condition ‘red’, not the TGIF type Friday that you might expect.  Do I have your attention now; do you receive my signal; am I still too subtle in this wisdom and my warning?  Or do I jest?  Is it just the shoeshine man or boy just buying stocks?  Is anything related, connected; is anything a sign?

In the deserts of Nevada there are still those that observe the animals for their signs.  They have lived there the longest; fear winters that are the hardest; do not like to be ill-prepared.  From Zuni-land in New Mexico they once sent out delegations to the White Father who lived in Washington to warn him.  He would not listen.  After many years the effort stopped.  In Alaska the sea is melting; in Iowa the air is calming; in Rio the moon is rising; there is flooding everywhere.  My pine tree this year has so many cones and nuts, a bumper crop.  My neighbors trees too.  What does it mean?

If all is moved by the laws of science; then these things are science too.  If each act is predetermined then each act is also a sign and our science has failed us for not warning us if a warning (not warming) is what it is all about.  Do you think about these things?  Are you not human too?  Are animals and plants and ice (nine) not our friends?

The old theory is that there must be an intermediary between man and the God or gods.  On one side are the common folk, “above” them are the “higher” powers.  The Supermen or supra-beings or the center of it all moves in mystery (the theory holds) and it takes special men or special people (meaning women too) to understand and interpret things and tell the common person just how things are.  Some call these people “scientists”, some call them “medicine men”, some call them the “Great Houdini”.  Some call them “the prophets of old”, some call them “Wovaka” or “Ghandi”.  There are other names; many are women; “Mary Baker Eddy” seems to come to mind; or “Madame Blavatsky” - were they really on such a different tract or track?  I guess too, “Einstein” was one.

It is not the “Gods” that have failed us; it’s the “old” intermediaries that might not seem to work.  The world needs fresh blood; I don’t mean spilled blood; to make everything seem so new, and be so new.  We don’t need the “Priests”, the “Rock Stars”, the “Scientists” anymore.  We don’t need the “talking heads” to make us listen, to entertain us, to make us feel “closer to the Gods”.  We can get closer to God by ourselves, interpret nature our way, learn to bend the mind not just metals and plastics and silicon chips and high definition energy.  Where has all this physical manipulation gotten us?  More stuff, more pleasure?  Less of a life?  I think our lives have become the lesser part of our being because of it.

“Beware the 4th of July”; it is a point in time of a great transition; two hundred and 33 years; it’s later than you think.  I think that there will be a window.  August 19th or there abouts the window closes.  Is it six weeks or is it seven when 6 and 7 make one - the great experiment and all experiments must have an end.  Learn a little; analyze the data; try something new.  It’s the scientific way.

Or maybe it’s just that I always wanted to be a rock star.  Sing “Bad Moon Rising”, “Let it Bleed”, something really really rude (Mack the Knife) or something really, really nice - Somewhere Over the Rainbow.  Maybe it’s not about the music (so much).  Maybe it’s more about the message.  Music may not make you free.  Who is the Avatar of the birds?  I think I will think on that.  Which bird is at the wingtip; which one moves first in the whole flock?  Or are all birds really one, do they care for one another, do they just see the same thing and at exactly the same time (when they turn as flocks in flight)?

Maybe it is the birds that are so much closer to the God.  But do we talk of Doves, or do we talk of Eagles or is it some other kind of bird?

Perhaps we need to just “listen up”.

[2009.06.10 / Thursday - Attention Signal]

~ A wormhole to 100 years back.

I am always amazed by those that say that they don’t believe in God; in some higher power, in an intelligence beyond just reason.
There are these old postcards, see.  They were passed down; saved first, then passed down.  Some were collected, others bought.  But most were just acquired; sent through the mail by others to the person to whom they were sent, my grandmother, and she saved them and kept them as a record of her life.  Postcards are like a blog that way.  They pile up and in time the not short words build into a conversation.  The topics “you”, but it takes others to complete each page, to finish each verse, to remember what otherwise we might forget (or never knew).

It started with “Schloss Stolenfels”, a castle on the Rhine (Rhein).  I wouldn’t (read didn’t) know it; I don’t read German, took it for a few months in Afghanistan you know, Christian School taught German as a Christian language.  It was once I guess but then again history is complicated even though connected.  I’ve looked at these cards for years.  I never knew what they were really; just strange names in strange places that someone thought was worth a memory (no more).  So I started googleing; typed in each letter of each word, closed the quote (of the search) when necessary.  A world opened; the ruins still exist.  The USA troops crossed the Rhine but did not destroy it.  The Third Reich did not destroy it.  All the Castles on the Rhein seemed to be still there, no more ruined than in 1907 or 1912 or 1923; these postcards now seem so old.

The second card was “Die Loreley”, picture of a rock, a very big rock at that.  That’s all I knew.  There is a legend and a gate, ships pass by day and by night.  Liszt and others sing the tune, play the melody, sing the poem along.  A world opened that I had not known.  And then it happened.  Two young people playing violins, walking; walking by my house and playing.  The violin cases were suspended over their shoulders; a girl and a he - playing music, an amazing tune, notes from nowhere and everywhere and it took a minute to see the lady and the harp upon the rock and then everything was clear.  Loreley had spoken.  Loreley had reached across the space and ages and found refuge on my block for half a minute; then it (like the river) moved on.

I passed on to “Ehrenfels” (in Hesse) another taxation point where the commerce stopped as the river (traffic) was stopped and everyone stopped to pay their taxes.  The boats glide by now, no tariffs left to pay; the castles are in ruins (ruine) like the castle left in Qala Bist by the river, but still no boats.  Next card the Mouse House (once a place in Reno).  No, it is the “Mauseturm”, the Mouse Tower where all the mice came to scare the humans off, tower is no gone, but the Signal Tower is left to keep the name.  It’s an important spot.  It warns away the dragon.  The “Drachenfels” was next.  Now a word about Siegfried (not just a line) and Lord Byron and winged dragons and dragons teeth and blood.  Have they found the cave?  Was there an egg?  Is there a DNA or genetic match?  There is history in those hills and history too on each card.  And now the cards are posted.  The blog moves on.

So I rummaged through other cards; words and messages before my mom.  The Evelyn Buckingham missive was the next; 1942 and a flyer; fought against Hitler in the war, or the dragon, or maybe the Japanese.  Read the post from 1942 and you may know the answer.  I don’t.  I guess all dragons eventually earn their wings, no unkindness meant.  A few cards, a few more “posts” (you really get my message now); pick up one, put down the other, to each page there is a link.  And then there it was; one in twenty cards at most.  The card was from “Harry”, from Leonardville in Kansas to my grandmother according to the name.  She was not a mother then; not a grandmother then of course.  I was yet to be or not to be depending upon the card.  One hundred years ago exactly - June 10th , 1909; 9 AM in the morning in Kansas and the young man wrote, “I like you more than ever” to Filbert Street in Oakland, Ok Land (misspelled the name) but he knew it was in California, “Cal” is what he wrote.

“The home folks are OK”, he wrote.  It’s just a note; nothing more would ever happen.  My grandmother stayed in California, another boy or man in time appeared.  His name was “Guy”, not “Harry”, not just another guy.   I guess they all walked by today, Germany and Harry and all the singing; Guy and Hemme; a few strangers too.  Some people see only science, see just the plane>  I see only the connections, the ironies, the juxtapositions, the probability or improbability of it all.  Life is like a great equation; the biggest mystery in math; can their be math without the mathematician?  Is there a conversation or are you really just all alone?

I guess I will get the word on Charles; maybe dead, maybe still alive.  I should post more of the others.  Pictures and letters and postcards while there’s still time.  It is like the great conversion from Betamax to VHS from eight track tapes to DVD or flash sticks.  You make the call; but it’s not dial anymore, but I still get quite the answer.

Questions anyone?  I’m so glad you asked.

[2009.06.10 / Wednesday - Up the staircase]

~ It’s about water mostly.

My first trip to London was in January, 1963.  I was returning to the states from Khartoum next to the Niles.  My interests in London were what one might expect from the media parade, the newsreels about England and the war, the old movies that were old that those my age often thought were new.  It seems like only yesterday, now.  That’s what one gets as they grow older “old”; it’s not such a bad thing, this older thing.  Middle age is so highly overrated.

I watched Australia just last night, its on video now, quite the cult classic if not the rage.  The movie is like a modern Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles with a little Man Who Shot Liberty Valance thrown in, and Tarzan, and Ape Man (King Kong), and Tora, Tora, Tora with bad graphics and a bit of Bonanza tossed in too.  The good part is about “the story”, which in this case isn’t the movie plot but is the notion of the story as in every person is entitled to their story and that’s at the center of all of life.  Each story is (or should be) different; it’s about the “way”, not the “same” (ness) of everybody and everything.

How far from London I do drift.  London is not in Australia though there is a London there, another London; not the one with tubes.  The Tube was on my list.  There was only one “tube” then, the collective whole (hole) of the London Subway System, the Underground (the official name, subtle these Brits are).  I would have called it “the hole in the wall” or the “holes beneath the street” or the underground railroad or something more exciting, entrenched in mystery - maybe I would of seen the London subway as just a sewer with tracks; I know my history but I get ahead of myself a bit.

I stayed at a hotel at Piccadilly Circus, circus means circle in the Brit dialect.  It was in all the movies, I was surprised to see the colors there - it seemed so right in just black & white.  Madame Tusade’s Wax Museum was near by; then there was still only one, the London one, the original.  The Queens Jewels didn’t interest me; Prince Charles was (and is) my age, he looks much older, maybe has had a harder life.  I saw his mother in DC in 1958 or so; Charles didn’t come, I didn’t meet him, but that’s OK.  I guess he stayed home with the family Jewels, the carriages, the legality and the regality of it all.  I just walked to school, rode streetcars, stayed above the ground.

This post was going to be about the water.  It was going to elucidate the finer points of the theory, the planetary shortage, the difference between water as a commodity and water as a need (a use).  One does not often think of water as a commodity, an investment, as I hold (ie “own”) ten million acre feet of water; potable, the best - not in bottles, but the better for irrigation.  “Do you want to buy?”

Then I was going to go back to the cholera and plague and plagues of London and how they built the sewers underneath the town so that the rats might have their ways and passages and “rat holes” and be free to move around.  I was to write about the pathways and railings above but within the sewers and how someone finally noticed that when the streets were crowded the underground (sewers) were always clear, perhaps just the smell that kept all the people away (at bay).

So in London there are two sets of tubes; parallel or not so much, criss-crossing, or not so much, under and over (so much); one is the subway; the other is the sewer.  One tunnel system is full of trains; the other full of ***t.  The two are never too far away from each other; one for water and waste; the other is on strike.  So I finally reached my point - the London Subway Strike; but now don’t you think of it so differently?

My father brought me up thinking of water as sewer and sewers as a source of water.  He was a sanitary engineer; knew how to make sewer water drinkable, fully potable, as fresh as any mountain spring (the uncontaminated kind).  Water, like other messes, could be cleaned up.  The by-products recycled and even be put to good use.  It was such a revolting thought in 1958; I did not share it with my friends; everyone was flushing then and so grateful that it was “gone” - not recycled - not gone green - not just moved across town so tomorrow it could be brought back.  The sewers of London emptied into the river then, the river flowed to the sea, the sea was the English Channel, splashed up at Normandy.  So you get my drift and now know the drift of sewage - check the winds and tides.

I so do like the subways; deep holes; safe place from all the bombs.  There was that time and place the sea was breached, the subway flooded, so many Londoners were lost.  It was in a movie once, fictionalized version of “just the facts”, water pouring in (or was it sewage); the papers said only water (who will ever know?).  London is different now, though a bit the same:  Big Ben, Bobbies (water boarding), the two-deck buses are mostly gone, the big copper pennies are all gone.  Piccadilly is a real circus now, not just a circle, a tube stop where escalators take you down and down.  Don’t drink the water; or maybe do, or maybe it’s just water you already drank once before that moved from one side of the subway walls to yours.

There are so many good books that tell of all these topics.  You can find them (and the story) all across the web.  One has to know what one is looking for, or looking at, or how things work and how things sometimes don’t.  Anyway, I was just reading a post on water; South Korea it seems needs more; bought half the island of Madagascar to get it (the natives turned it down); Koreas water is mostly in the North.  Do you think that unification has half a chance?  Maybe it’s a Tale of Two Tubes and not Two Wars?

Or maybe, it is just my story.

[2009.06.10 / Wednesday - Down the tubes]