Live wire, dead wire....an update on 'the death of Dada'

Sometime between my last post "Live Girls, Dead Girls," and Thursday afternoon, Dada's went from "Live Wire" to "Dead Wire", i.e., we unexpectedly lost connectivity of all three computers, our Vonage phone, and two iPod Touchs. (The latter of which I probably miss more than all the rest.)

Please note, our cable man is due within the next hour or two but, with one computer connected only (our Mac) and the other two PC's out, I'm thinking it's OUR problem, not Time Warner's. Hopefully if that's the case, the Time Warner man can give me some hints to where my problems lie (electronically, not psychologically).

Needless to say, my current computer problems have interrupted my 'perfect life' and are now dominating my waking hours as a kind of reminder that control is not something we always have. 

Back soon -- I HOPE!

Live girls, dead girls

JUAREZ

Downtown Juarez at the Hollywood Club where there are found
"LIVE GIRLS"

Outskirts of Juarez where there are found
"DEAD GIRLS" -- las muertas de Juárez

(shown here, being commemorated with pink crosses)

For years, the ongoing death toll of young women (most between the ages of 12-22) in Juarez continued to mount with the public's shock and shame at the seeming helplessness of Juarez authorities to do anything to stop, let alone solve, them.

More recently, the news of disappearing and/or murdered women has been eclipsed by the inabilities of the Juarez police, joined by equally helpless federal police and the Mexican army to do anything to curb the growing violence of the ongoing drug gang war.

But the murder of young women has not gone away. It has only been overshadowed by the 1,609 murders in Juarez last year. As an article in yesterday's El Paso Times by Diana Washington Valdez reveals, the deadliest year for victims of the endless Juarez femicides was 1995 in which 48 lives were claimed. However, as we learned from Valdez, the number of women killed in Juarez in 2008 was 86!

*****

(Dada note: Just before posting this, I received an e-mail forwarded to us from a Juarez friend in what may be another tragic story unfolding of a beautiful young 13 year old Juarez girl. It was accompanied by her photo along with a desperate plea from a parent to anyone who may have seen her since her disappearance two weeks ago. Sadly, this is a story that is all too common in our sister city just over the border.)

As if Mexican forsenics wasn't fun enough....

THAT MEXICAN DRUG WAR
JUAREZ:

Santa Muerte, the celebrated Mexican Saint of Death continues to light
candles for those souls being harvested in Juarez's endless drug war.

Tuesday: Two Mexican state police officers riding in their police truck are shot and killed. Sixty shell casings are found at the site of their ambush. Just bad shot assassins or a sign of improving economic cartel times? (Dada note: Average rounds expended to assassinate someone in the last 2008 Juarez drug war murders was five shells per victim.)

In the same vicinity and time frame: Three bodiless heads are found in an ice box. Elsewhere, nearby, a headless body is found in a canal.

Total homicides this day: Five? Six?

Such are the increased challenges facing forensics specialists in the ongoing drug war in Juarez, just across the border from its sister city, El Paso. (Dada wonders if matching headless bodies and bodiless heads makes the work more interesting for those investigators who enjoy solving puzzles?)

Santa Muerte encouraging a cross-country runner in Juarez to take
up smoking. Due to the short life expectancy of men in the drug war
city, lung cancer among smokers there has been totally eradicated.

Thursday's New York Times ran an article on the El Paso/Juarez border region entitled Two Sides of a Border: One Violent, One Peaceful. In the past year, murders in the El Paso's sister city numbered 1,550. "Worse, other violent crimes — carjacking, extortion, armed robbery — have surged as the beleaguered authorities struggle to respond to daily gun battles."

Sunday's El Paso Times reported the latest number of Juarez murders in the past 20 hours: Eleven.

Cows declare an involuntary fast against factory farming

(photo courtesy of El Paso Times)

Friday morning, about 3:20 a.m., a suspicious fire broke out among the hay stacks at the Big Sky (factory) Dairy halfway between El Paso and Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was the second such suspicious fire at the dairy in recent months.

After achieving containment of the blaze by the five fire departments that responded, it was concluded there wasn't enough water in the entire Chihuahuan desert between New Mexico and Texas to extinguish it. As a result, it was decided to let the fire burn itself out. As of Saturday night, it is still burning. Estimated cost of the damages have been set at $400,000.

The cows at Big Sky, bearing a strange resemblance to Palestinians in the Gaza strip, are subjected to overcrowded conditions in land plots ankle to knee deep in manure where their herds are reduced to their only reason for existence -- to eat between milkings (which in Gaza equates to "eat between killings"). The remainder of their time they are free to stand around (or lie) in their own excrement the rest of their days awaiting their next dinner.

Some conjecture Big Sky cows may now be in some kind of unwilling, yet sympathetic, fast in their support against the conditions they are forced to endure their entire lives!

As for the $400,000 in hay that was to feed them but is now going up in smoke instead, and those who would say, "That ain't hay!" Dada can only respond in support of the cows, "Bull!"

*****

My last serious post...

With a new administration in place, I think I can lighten up now and get a little more flippant about things like the impending Greatest Depression ever, global warming, WW III, and Homo sapiens' inevitable extinction at our own hands. But before I do, I'd like to extend one last serious acknowledgment to the old hard line republicans feeling the crunch of minority-hood now barreling down upon them.

That said, I salute those republicans holding up the confirmation of President Obama's nominee of our new Attorney General to be, Eric Holder! In the forefront of that pack of renegade "family-values republicans" is my own senator, John Cornyn, who obviously has missed the historic lesson of inevitability of Texas' own Alamo!

Note, nominee Holder apparently has some genetic mutant mental gene that thinks water boarding is torture which forbids him from reassuring republican defenders of the Bush looters, rapists, and murderers that he would rule out prosecutions of said pack of plunderers.

So, in my last serious blog, to my own Texas senator John Cornyn and his brave republican souls defending America's shriveling morality as experienced by us and the rest of the world so well by the now departed members of the Bush administration these past eight years, I'd just like to say, "Way to go Cornyn!"

Sobering up.

I don't feel like organizing my thoughts today. Just rambling. The past three or four days have seen the most welcome inauguration diversions and the much anticipated departure of the Bush crime syndicate.

I don't know whether it was Obama, myself or someone somewhere else who first emerged from all of yesterday's noise and euphoric distractions, but by late morning (Mountain Standard Time), I felt sobriety overtaking me. It was accompanied by metaphorical news of Senator Kennedy's luncheon seizure a mere two or three hours after I'd posed the question to Sam, "I wonder who of the three - Cheney, Kennedy, or McCain - will still be with us this time next year?"

And then it was time for lunch. Mrs. Dada, due to a prior commitment, was unable to join our small triumvirate of folks on a short jaunt into New Mexico; to a local Mexican restaurant with a legendary reputation for its food. A reputation that has survived its founder. A reputation Dada finds doesn't die easily, although it probably should. It was a luncheon trip I had suggested the prior evening during an intimate End-of-Bush get together with friends.

The tone over lunch was set by the recent news from a U.S. Joint Forces Command report that Mexico is on the verge of collapse. One of our meal's members, "Peter" (aka "the Unabomber - sans the violence"), is a resident of lawless Juarez. He shared with us his observations on the extreme loss of commerce to Mexican's from an almost total boycott of tourists from El Paso's sister city.

Peter explained how once busy street vendors, and stores and bars have been deserted by tourists. I'm "the last gringo in Juarez," he remarked. Thinking that had the ring of a good book title, I told him so. Peter agreed, but said so far it would be but a short story. I suspected, however, if U.S. visions for Mexico's future are right, it will become a book.

The tenor of the meal had been set. Dismal economics would dominate, so I further dowsed the flavor of our repast with news of the latest derivative funds manager who mysteriously vanished a couple days ago after missing a $50 million payout to his investors. (His abandoned car was located in a Sarasota airport parking lot, but he and the $50 missing million have not.)

I followed that with a little seasoning from China where I'd read the industrial base is so miserable, some displaced factory workers there were being retrained in the skills of raising rabbits!

One in our party who had lost an enormous amount in the stock market over the past year sighed, saying, "There's no use selling now." She may be right - selling low is never a good thing - but I flashed a devilish grin and assured, "But you could lose much more this year." I don't know why we couldn't talk of fluffy stuff like the movie "Bride Wars," who will win the Super Bowl, or those cute Obama daughters during yesterday's pomp and circumstance.

Most likely I won't be invited to lunch again for a long time.

Dada file photo: The City Market of San Miguel, New Mexico (in
purple). A bright spot 'neath an economy of gathering storm clouds?

If there was one positive, it was the short jaunt we took after lunch up the road to the City Market in San Miguel, NM for a brief visit with its owner, Estella. Having previously blogged her difficulty in maintaining a small town grocery store against the onslaught of Wal-Marts, etc., I was pleased to learn Estella's determination to keep the store alive is even more resolute than last time. "I'm now accepting food stamps. This has helped. Especially with more and more people on them." she said matter of factly.

I added, "And with the price of gas destined to rise again, this makes shopping locally cheaper!" Estella agreed. Once in awhile, in darkening times, it is possible to find a little light.

Returning home I opened an e-mail from a bank where I have a CD. It had the assuring subject line that my money was safe with them. They were soliciting more deposits by advertising CD rates that had fallen 1.33% for the same amount/time period as a CD I'd renewed with them just over two months ago (which had renewed then at a rate 1% lower than the CD it was replacing)!

But it was late afternoon when I heard a remarkable thing: Over the airwaves came the "D" word used for the first time as in, 'we may actually be approaching, or in, a Depression'* because, despite the best monetary efforts of the government, the economy no longer reacts with any positive response.

And I wondered how soon the banks will be charging us to hold our money for us? How much longer the Dada's have to enjoy the shelter and warmth of a house? Or, who the hell would want to go out for a *pleasant lunch* with Dada.

But most puzzling of all? Who the hell in their right mind would want to be president of this humongous mess?

* Depression is capitalized here and the rest of forever because Dada feels it's going to be a Great One. (The Greatest One perhaps.)

Loose thoughts...

*BEST BUY* SUGGESTIONS:

With Circuit City closing all stores by early this
spring, now may be the best time to get that largest
screen Sony HDTV and other big tag items. (Hint:
Opt for the No payments til 2010 if still available.)

SERVING IDEAS:

For that special last meeting of the departing Bush
cabinet and other high ranking administration officials.

FROM YESTERDAY'S LOCAL TRAVELS:

VISIT TO THE BIRD SANCTUARY

Yesterday on the west side of El Paso we had an hour or so to burn between lunch and an early evening movie. We decided to spend it here, at the Keystone Heritage Park Wetlands, Botanical Garden and Archeological Site. Arriving around 4:00, we learned the park's wetlands and botanical gardens closed at 2:00, the archeological site at 2,000 (B.C.).

However, I was able to photograph some of the wintering birds through the locked fence. But seeing there were only a small number of what appeared to be seagulls present was disappointing. The Canadian geese apparently prefer wintering closer to the International Airport runway.

SO WE DECIDED TO LOOK AT
POSSIBLE FUTURE HOMES

I got pretty excited when we discovered this close knit little neighborhood nestled right against the Mexican border. The second "house" on the left was currently vacant.

But Mrs. Dada was quick to remind me that, after we lose our house, how are we to even begin to pay rent on the nicest house on the block here? Realizing she was right, I re-resigned myself to that *dream spot* under the freeway overpass just three blocks from our current home.

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY

Before heading to the mega multi-screen theater we discovered what appeared to be the facade of a small movie theater from an earlier time. It turned out to be a new liquor store instead. Browsing, I discovered and procured some rare ales for these parts, to include a Stout from Deschutes Brewing in Bend, Oregon.

I suspect when the economy totally collapses people, no longer able to go to movies, will find nostalgia in sating their increasing need to drown in drink from this little *theater* reminiscent of better times. (Although I'm not sure how many liquor stores will survive either.)

We then went to the movie. Gathering from the huge lines outside, a ticket of which gained you access to one of three other lines inside, if the economy is hurting locally, the movie houses haven't felt it yet.

It's not all bad news!

Well, just another week like so many that have been unfolding for months now at the end of the Bush administration. I see where Circuit City just announced this afternoon it is closing down its remaining 567 stores. Net result? Its 30,000 employees will lose their jobs.

But not to fret. It's not all bad news.

Maybe those workers can get jobs building nuclear powered aircraft carriers and attack submarines. I see where we just launched another aircraft carrier to fight terrorism last weekend. Christened the George H. W. Bush, it came at a cost of $6.2 billion. Subs and AC carriers count as infrastructure, right?

Mall or Meds? Who cares? It's the Soldier Family Care Clinic - a $42.5 million
center at Biggs Army Airfield scheduled to be in operation by mid-2010.
(Courtesy of El Paso Times and Beaumont Army Medical Center)

Thank God for Defense spending with all the Circuit City's and KB-Toys closing down. Why, in today's El Paso Times there was a picture of the ground breaking for Fort Bliss' latest Family Care Clinic. At a cost of $42.5 million dollars, we are told it will have the distraction of a magnificent view!

That's all part of $5.3 billion the government is spending here on Ft. Bliss! (Yes, that's $billion with a "b" as in beaucoup $bills.) I can see where this war on terror is a real boon to the local economy. May we never win it!

Finally, I learned late this morning Tom is dead. Tom was a contractor who did some tiling for us and remodeled our bathrooms in recent years. But he was also a friend. In his mid-fifties, he was suddenly feeling very poorly these past few days. Currently doing some work in the home of a nurse, she urged him to see a doctor. But he just passed her suggestion off. That's because Tom didn't have insurance.

Tom's wife, who had lost her job several months ago, recently found a new one. But the health insurance she could have purchased through her new employer would have cost more than she was making.

Tom did nice work. And I'm not saying if he had had insurance, he might still be alive today. Yet one has to wonder.

Anyway, I suspect Tom and his wife saved a bundle by not having health insurance. Of course, it may have come at a cost. His life.

But hey, such is the way of life in America, right? Yet I can't help ponder if Tom might still be alive if he were Canadian, English or a Swede?

Israel: stretching it really, really thin

Israel - stretching it thin

For we who support the state of Israel, having long since spent the political capital earned it by those most unfortunate Jews who experienced interment and/or extermination firsthand in WWII Nazi concentration camps, I have but one question:

How much more political credit must we extend and how much more political capital will we LOAN / GIVE to these bastards hell bent on emulating Hitler so that they may continue exterminating Palestinians? Huh?

And, to pour salt in the wounds of the rest of the world, on 1/15/09 the Israelis bomb the shit out of the UN Headquarters in Gaza and say,

"Whoops, so sorry, that was a mistake!" (The Israeli goverment's polite way of saying, "FUCK ALL OF YOU!" - so reminiscent of the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty in the eastern Mediterranean in 1967.)

(As our new secretary of state Hillary is probably thinking, judging from her senate confirmation statements earlier this week, "Wow! How ballsy! Send 'em some more F-16's and white phosphorus.")

*****

Addendum from the one who should be Secretary of State:

Dennis Kucinich speaking on the floor of the House - “Using US planes, helicopters and munitions to attack a wounded, starved and thirsty civilian population of mostly children trapped in a box called Gaza has become acceptable, perhaps because we have already accepted the deaths of over one million innocent civilians in Iraq in a war based on lies…When we recognize the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, when we come to grips with the reality of suffering on both sides, we may yet find a way to save ourselves.”

(Dada likens concentration camps vs. the Gaza strip to penned chickens vs. "free range" chickens. While "free range" is easier on our consciences, in the end they basically all share the same fate.)

The Shrinking World of George W. Bush

A gaunt, worried Dana Perino is booked, fingerprinted
and mug shot in Minneapolis. (photo by Dada)

DATE: 14 September 2009


WHERE: Minnesota

WHEN: Midnight

WHAT: A state issued war crime indictments law becomes effective. Following the January, 2008, lead of tiny Brattleboro, VT - the first - "to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution," Minnesota becomes the 19th in a list of cascading states to enact similar legislation since Bush's departure from office on January 20, 2009.

(During his presidency, Vermont is the only one of 50 states George Bush never visits.)

Minnesota's new law, similar to the those of Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, is expanded to include indictments against Bush cabinet members and staff as well; as accomplices aiding/abetting in the commission of acts of high treason and international war crimes.


WHEN: 12:37 a.m


WHERE: Concourse B, Northwest Airlines gate 19, Minneapolis St.Paul International Airport, Minnesota

WHO: Dana Perino, fourth and final White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush

WHAT: Awaiting departure of her flight to Denver, CO. Due to inclement weather, the flight has been canceled.

WHERE: At the Northwest Airlines check-in counter, an alert NWAL employee and life-long democratic party member, accidentally spots the name "Dana Perino" on canceled flight 137's passenger manifest. She promptly alerts airport security to a possible fugitive on Concourse B.

WHEN: 1:37 a.m.

WHERE: Minneapolis Police Headquarters: A gaunt and physically shaken Dana Perino is booked on suspicion of high crimes and treason. She is finger printed. Her mug shot is not exactly a glamor shot.

WHEN: Later that day. Bush, Cheney and others learn of Perino's Minnesota detainment. Bush smirks, laughs, and is heard to say, "Caught where she shouldn't have been, huh?" It's one of his jokes that will become increasingly rare in the months ahead.

WHAT: Encouraged by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-RI - "yes, I know, ironic last name, isn't it?") independent criminal review of activities of the outgoing Bush administration since the new legislature convened in January, plus the first state's arrest of Dana Perino (there will be three more in states she got caught visiting she shouldn't have, eighteen more states enact war crime and treason laws against the former Bush administration.

Is the U.S. slowly regaining its former reputation as a "nation of laws"?

(* Watch for possible future arrests as Dada is able to channel them.)

Killing terrorists 900 at a time (whoops, that includes civilian men, women and children)!

On the way to school, children watch terror raining from the
skies. (NOTE: It is alleged white phosphorus burns have been
experienced by less fortunate Palestinians, i.e., the survivors.)

Q: What is one Israeli life worth?

A: 47 and 1/3+ Palestinians*

*based on the current death toll of 900 Palestinians killed since the attacks on Gaza in 2009 vs. 19 Israeli civilians since 2002 when the rockets attacks on Israel first began.

Whoops! A few of the kids who will be absent
from school today, er, make that absent for the 'rest of time.'

*****

How Israel (and its U.S. lackeys) exterminate terrorism:

"Death to America, death to you white America, the word America is insult, indignity, I hate you Americans, the day I stop to hate you I am a non humane, you are the evil itself, the word America in our memory is synonymous with unpunished atrocity, brutality, cruelty, sadism, racism, when I hear the word America, I see before me evil, inhumanity, indifference, fat ass, fat "consciences", fat every thing, every thing is fat when I hear the word America." ~Anonymous

(The above a response to Ron Paul's Information Clearing House article, Weapons Killing People In Gaza, Made In USA.)

And from a list of U.S. congressman who voted against "Israel's right to self-defense" (there are only five - has America totally lost it's moral compass? [hint, "three letter word beginning with "Y" - if you still don't know the answer, Dada suggests you "Buy a vowel! Get a clue!"]) as listed over on Dr. Melissa Clouthier's website. (Hint: She is not a Palestinian sympathizer.)

Apparently, every 47.3+ Gaza residents who have suffered the imposition of trying to survive by plucking grass growing through cracks in the pavement for their famiy's next meal haven't the same right as one Israeli to defend themselves. Their only right appears to be acceptance of the slow genocidal deaths of their families by starvation.

Isn't it better they suffer the more merciful and sudden eradication from the shell of a tank or missile from an overhead U.S. built jet instead? "Nuff said!"

Moving up in the 'New America'

I don't know much about Kevin Fitzpatrick, age 60, other than he lost his job in November. He was living in Las Vegas at the time. And I know nothing about what kind of job it was he lost or how long he'd been working at it.

That's about all I know of Kevin Fitzpatrick, other than he eventually left Las Vegas and ended up here in El Paso.

I'm not exactly sure of his feelings, of how destitute or desperate he might have been feeling but yesterday, Kevin Fitzpatrick decided, would be the day that would change his life for the better. That's because Kevin Fitzpatrick decided to rob a bank.

And so it was that around 12:45 he walked into a neighborhood branch of Bank of America, went up to a teller's window and asked for cash. After some discussion, Kevin Fitzpatrick was seen leaving the teller's window to return to his car outside. To write a note. Perhaps to better put into words on paper what he had been unable to adquately convey in conversation to the teller.

Note completed, Kevin Fitzpatrick returned to a teller's window. I don't know if it was the same teller as before, but the teller refused his written demand.

That's when Kevin Fitzpatrick went over to the customer's waiting area and took a seat. As the police pulled up to the bank, he went out to meet therm.

The newspaper article described him as "down and out."

But Kevin Fitzpatrick's plan to improve his lot in life this Friday afternoon had been successful. That's because he can now count on three square meals a day and a roof over his head. And these days that's more than millions of Americans can count on.

**********

Little house parties versus big balls!

When are Americans to realize when it comes to the rapaciousness of our D.C. representatives, republicans::democrats = steam::water vapor.

Hence, it’s always small change for the wee folk Moveon.org thinks should be reveling their asses off in house parties across the nation on January 20th as the ‘haves’ and ‘have mores’ are groping one another with their huge balls.

(The foregoing is from a Dada comment to an excellent piece I read this morning over on Las Cruces, NM's own Grass Roots Press. Entitled Big Change Gives Way to Small Change, it is concise yet extremely powerful! Written by the publisher/editor of GRP, I am reprinting it here (sans the author's permission).

************

Big Change Gives Way to Small Change

January 7, 2009

By Steve Klinger.

I’ve been nudged a couple of times now to host an inauguration party for Barack Obama. Moveon.org says progressives are aching to celebrate and they’d love to come to my house. Maybe it’s time to get that guard dog we’ve been thinking about.

My feeling of relief on election night, which translates into appreciating right now that at least no one is urging me to host parties for McCain and Palin on Jan. 20th, included a few waves of near-elation. The moment was historic, the reversal of national fortune monumental. But two months removed from that lightheadedness, it’s hard to summon the requisite enthusiasm to actually…celebrate.

First, I think we need to get Obama a new slogan; Change We Can Believe In was effective for the campaign, but it sounds a little vapid these days and oh so passé. Let’s face it, Big Change, that sent millions of naïve voters to the polls in November, has given way to small change. With a cabinet full of Clinton appointees (including a very notable Clinton), and an economy that seems to burrow deeper into the shitcan by the day, I think it’s time Change underwent a change.

So here are some suggestions for festive banners and signage on Inauguration Day:

Change We Can Subsist On
Change We Can Panhandle For
Change We Can Spend
Change We Can Borrow
Change We Can Steal

The truth is that while Wall Street got free rides and golden parachutes, the oversight for the financial bailouts has been so lacking that the banks are refusing to tell the taxpayers who wrote the check, what they did with the money. They sure aren’t lending it, and the jobs section of the classified has pulled a vanishing act. The auto industry is on life support (as well as fed support), the stock market is still tanking, the newspaper industry is gasping for air, real estate continues to founder, and now the president-elect is talking about reviewing entitlements as the country looks at trillion-dollar-plus deficits. I don’t know how many zeroes that is but I think it means that anyone under 50 can forget about retiring.

Meanwhile, Congress considers an economic stimulus package of unprecedented proportions. If, that is, they can ever decide what to do about Roland Burris and Al Franken, which situation has given Harry Reid a chance to prove once again that he is the majority-leading invertebrate in the Senate and by far the lamest excuse for an elected official among the legions of LMGSC Democrats now in Washington. (In case you already forgot, that’s Large Mouth Gelatinous Spinal Column Democrats.)

All Reid did was bluster about how Roland Burris, appointed to Obama’s Senate Seat by that other distinguished Illinois Democrat, Rod Blagojevich, would never be seated by the Democratic caucus, until he reconsidered, slapped Burris on the back, and tried to pin the problem on the Illinois Secretary of State, who hadn’t certified Burris, no doubt taking his cues from the Senate Democrats. Naturally, if Burris can’t be seated because he isn’t properly certified, the Republicans in Minnesota can use the same justification to deny Franken the seat he now appears to have won from Norm Coleman. Reid wouldn’t even touch that issue, declining to call for a vote on Franken’s seating. There’s a lot more, but Reid isn’t worth the effort to put fingers to keyboard.

Sorry, MoveOn. On Inauguration Day, I think I’ll skip the party and just listen to Rick Warren’s invocation, so I can be reminded again how unified our nation has become as we try to figure out a way to rescue the national Ponzi scheme known as capitalism by exporting democracy to some as yet undiscovered Third World market that doesn’t realize how much it needs Wal-Mart, Starbucks and McDonald’s.

************

I thought that was a great piece and it goes a long way to expressing much of what I often feel. And posting it here validates my last blog of 2008 wherein I revealed my New Year's resolution was to "be less cheerful" here.

But in that I've never kept a resolution I've ever made, that was more of a dare to myself that in breaking my vow, I actually would be less vile in 2009! I was sure - like always - I would have broken it by now. So far it hasn't worked out that way, with much thanks to the above reprint from Grass Roots Press.

But, on the positive side, it means I may finally end up actually keeping a NY's resolution! (?)

2009 - a time for sole searching

Suffering from the greatest Depression and in need of redemp-
tion, yet 137 miles from the spirtual center of Chimayo, NM,
Dorothy considers the offer of a local heeler: to opt for a new
sole or salvage the old soul she sold for pennies on the dollar.

*****

Let's get the hell out of Dodges!

Ok, that's it. Chrysler, get your shit together, pack it up, and get the hell out of town!

Of all the flippant-assed demonstrations of insouciance at the torrents of economic hardships (in part, of your own creation) inundating the nation, the world; for all the insensitivity you continue to demonstrate as regards growing energy shortages and shrinking options in the face of creeping environmental disasters ahead, you continue to crank out crap while on the government dole to prevent your own total financial meltdown!

And we're supposed to bail your sorry ass out! Huh?

I'm talking about having to endure those brainless commercials these past few days during 'breaks in the action' of bowl games across the land; of watching grown asinine men acting as prepubescent boys in your big *390 hp Hemi-powered Dodge Ram* 'toys' speeding across raw desert landscapes at 93 miles per hour, crashing through fiery explosions and narrowly missing fatal 12 ton swinging pendulums, inspiring American youth to follow the example of your idiot boy-men.

Please, Chrysler, it's time to fade into the pages of history with all others like yourself who lost touch with reality and overstayed their welcome. Time to pull your head out of the hour glass sands of time where it's obviously firmly planted and get the fuck out of Dodge! (pun intended, I guess)

[It is with no particular pride that Dada notes he lived in an age of dinosaurs.]

The Rose Bowl, "Pasta"-dena, California

A B-1 bomber delivers the highlight of Rose Bowl pre-game activities.

Ah, the excitement of football bowl games this time of year, always preceded by the presentation of the colors accompanying our National Anthem and, faithfully, some sort of appearance by our military in the form of an army parachute team dropping in, some Navy jets or an Air Force bomber flyover.

Yesterday, a thunderous pre-game cheer emoted from the Rose Bowl crowd after two B-2 Stealth bombers dropped low over the stadium as they sped past.

I know the enthusiastic cheers are most likely for the much anticipated game that is about to follow. But who in the crowd can't be a little awed by the military might roaring so low above them?

And perhaps the fans are a bit relieved, too, thankful that this display of military might on this day came to celebrate, not decimate.

But maybe it would be nice for festivity revelers to take a moment and give thanks while remembering those our bombers did. It's what makes America the great nation we are.