"Endless Love"

As much as I'd like universal, single-payer health care for everyone, a vibrant and affordable educational system for every citizen who wants to avail themselves of it and other amenities the richest nation on Earth should be able to provide, let's face it, under the reality of an American empire in decline, with limited and dwindling resources and national wealth, we just can't afford it. Our representatives are making the difficult decisions we need them to make in our best interests, i.e., screw everyone's health care, education and social well being! We need to squeeze out the remaining value the dollar has left to buy bullets, bombs and ballistics.

Just wondering....

Taliban ramping up for their welcome of Obama's additional troops to Afghanistan?

Just wondering....

...if there exists somewhere a parallel Universe similar to, but slightly different from, our own? A place where maybe there are connections between events like President Truman's "firing" of General MacArthur's gone-rogue-insubordination in Korea in 1951 and President Eisenhower's acquaintance with U.S. armed forces extremist commanders with his warning about the military-industrial complex to the JFK assassination on the eve of his policy plan announcement to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam by 1965?

This comes to mind on the eve of President Obama's future plans for Afghanistan and the anticipation he will increase, not reduce, U.S. troop levels in a kind of 'throw-him-a-bone' placation of his rogue commander there, Stanley A. McChrystal.

I imagine history in that parallel universe somewhere out there is basically the same as it is here. That's because people there, due to their proximity to us here, are just as dispassionate as we are. With one exception -- over there they are aware of the connections that drastically influence their history like false flags, coups and stolen elections (subtle or not) as a means of influencing their nation's policies. Of course, knowing but being complacent about it, they do nothing to change things. Just like here. (There's probably another universe a little further removed from both of ours where I like to imagine people do!)

There is, however, one other glaring difference between their world and ours. Knowing the why of how things came to be as they are, people there do not suffer speculations of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists as we do here.

But should we ever suffer a twinge of suspicion there is something more here than we know of influencing things to manifest into realities often unpleasant -- keep it to yourself or, better yet, banish the thought! It's better to just wonder.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

With apologies. I sent my editor Sam on an internet search
for an image of a turkey. This is what he came back with. Sorry.

As we gather with family and friends for another day of Thanksgiving, I experienced a moment of nostalgia as I recalled a memory of a comedian from my youth. A comedian more of my parents generation actually, he would always close his occasional TV specials with his theme song, Thanks for the Memories.

Well, I'm thankful Bob Hope is no longer among us. That's because what triggered his memory was an updated version of his old theme song I stumbled across on a website called "The Nothing Store."

While this newer rendering laments things the way they were, I intend it not as a downer on this very special day. Rather, let us remember all we've enjoyed and taken for granted in the past as we celebrate another Thanksgiving amid cherished ones with a dose of*America's Team*, the Green Bay Packers, and anticipate the ritual carving of another turkey that will ensue.

Spare today any negative nabobism of an America past this version of Thanks for the Memories may suggest. Save it instead for the pre-dawn lines tomorrow outside Wal-Marts, Targets and malls everywhere as we grapple for the remaining scraps of the memories we have to be thankful for.

Thanks for the Memories

Thanks for the memories
Of things I can't forget, debt I now regret,
Our wondrous years in Boomland and Wall Street roulette.
How crazy it was.

And thanks for the memories
Of dawn at Wakiki, McMansions by the sea.
We had a pad in DC, where we partied, spent and lobby'd.
How lovely it was

Many's the time we feasted,
And nary's the time we fasted
Oh well, it was swell while it lasted
And we did have fun
Now it's done

So thanks for the memories
Of how we used to buy, shopping on the fly,
Of barbecue and lobster stew, tax-free dinners on the sly.
How giddy it was.

Yes thanks for the memories
Of Greenspan and Bernanke, reality in the tanky.
I long for another bubble, but was it really worth the trouble?
How foolish I was.

And thanks for the memories,
Every day I wake up, wondering why the crackup,
Then I see, the laugh's on me, it's a sham economy.
How silly it was.

But, thanks for the memories
Of every laugh and thrill. I've been through the mill.
I've lived a lot and learned a lot, you left me broke and still;
I miss you so much.

Thanks for the memories
Of drinking the whole fifth, of books that were a myth,
Tonight the way things look, I need a book by Adam Smith
How brainy he was.

Gone all the fantasies:
That government knows best, the Founders laid to rest.
That the blessings of prosperity do not flow from precious liberty.
How true we now know.

Yes, it's a fallacy
That grown-ups never cry, baby, that's a lie.
We had our bed of roses, but forgot that roses die.
And thank you so much.

Okay, next up -- Emerald Lake in Eastern British Columbia!

Still digitizing old slides at a leisurely pace - this, one of the lesser known
(un-named?) Canadian Rockies' lakes (because there are more spectacular
photos to be had at lakes like Louise, Morraine, etc.?) Oh, and I've come to
realize: In the Canadian Rockies, one needn't be a photographer to steal
incredible natural photos. One only need a camera loaded with film
(or endless digits)!

I've found digitizing old slides a pleasant distraction from all the wonderful health reform negotiations being bandied around in D.C. Also, in the past week or two, "ideologue" is a term I've heard slung from left and right.In that some of those arrows scored direct hits upon my reality tunnel from centrist democrats believing a baby step is better than a giant leap and from the right attacking centrist democrats and leftist leapers saying any step is too big, I am glad I have bolted from the skirmishes.


So as testament in the faith I have in my government to convince us that any reform as underwritten by the health, insurance and pharma industries is progress (those very industries that will yell and scream reform is an effrontery to free enterprise and the *American Way* despite the $ millions the industry has spent to purchase our government and write the vast majority of the pending legislative versions of a bill that will reap special interests $ billions more, save for a few crumbs tossed Americans to convince us they "care"), I step aside, assailing instead the celluloid of old 35 mm slides.


I realize the danger from being apprehended and charged as a deserter from the cause of health reform should I be caught. But as we continue to attach health care to the work place (until you lose your job, then what?), make it mandatory for uninsured who can't afford to feed their families, let alone set aside dollars for health insurance (thank God California and other states are emptying their prisons in this budget crunch depression -- it should make space for those required to purchase insurance they have no money for), and further erode Roe v. Wade without a courtroom, etc., let us give thanks we have representation in D.C. on the take from $pecial Interest$ insuring our health and economic futures while attacking the small minority aiming their sights a little higher!

In that we're all ideologues when it comes to certain issues we are passionate about, maybe I can interest you in some slides from Emerald Lake in Eastern British Columbia next?

"Something incredible is waiting to be known" (or maybe there is, or are, a God, or gods)?!

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known" ~ Dr. Carl Sagan (via Barbara Shomaker, who is a friend through Facebook I have never met and otherwise don't even know)


I love synchronicity, coincidence, and chance (like these latter two when they present something significant like the former that leave me scratching my chin in bewilderment over their meaning -- if any).


Much earlier today while shopping I had one of those little moments that left me remarking to my store cashier, "Maybe there is a god!" ( I'm consternated whether to capitalize that or not because I'm not sure if my experience was a sign from "*The God*" or Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and revelry who, if you see, you should remember is always in the company of female nymph followers and goat-men satyrs in a perpetual state of sexual arousal. But I digress.


Let me explain. Having gone shopping around 6:00 a.m. to avoid swine flu exposure from the pig pandemic populous, I found myself in an express lane checkout line with a sleep deprived clerk. We visited as she checked. I pointed out the 40 lb. bag of birdseed in my cart. She acknowledged, but being sleep deprived forgot to scan as we talked about her kids getting both flu vaccinations yesterday. That, and the noxious cloud we had both walked through entering the store as it escaped the truck that was sucking spent cooking oils from the store's fast food chain. (I noticed on my way out the truck's tank-side sign saying it also sucked septic tanks too!)


But there was a problem. Among my purchases was a bottle of cheap Merlot wine the scanner would not recognize. Apparently, in Texas on a weekday morning, you cannot buy such an item before 7:00 a.m. - to protect sleeping citizens from OD'ed winos from the night before.


"What time do you have?" asked the cashier.


"Six fifty-four," I said.


During the course of my checkout she scanned again, then re-rescanned the Merlot, hoping my watch was slow. No such luck.


"Forget the wine!" I told her. "I'll get some next time." (Thanksgiving was still a week away.) I thanked her for trying.


Walking to the parking lot I was thankful the cooking oil and septic sucking truck had moved away from the store's entrance like a vampire shunning sunlight. I was so very glad.


As I loaded my purchases into the car, I remembered the birdseed: Had I been charged for it? Scanning my receipt showed no sign of birdseed. Feeling badly about the 40 lbs. of it I hadn't paid for, I had no option but to return to the store.


In the same checkout line with the same tired clerk, we verified she had forgotten to enter my purchase into the computer. She thanked me for my honesty but then had me questioning it when next she asked, "Do you still want that Merlot?"


Checking my watch, I was pleased to see it was now 7:03.


"Yes!" I responded happily. She obliged.


And then I said, "Maybe there is a God(s)?" as she looked at me with a hint of confusion.


Musing on my way back to the car with paid- for-birdseed and wine I pondered my question, which only prompted me to ask another, "But if so, which one(s)?"


From the smell of spent cooking oil (and septic tank extractions?) that accosted me on the way into the store, I suspected it was Bacchus and his ever present goat men satyrs. But, truthfully, I never saw the nymphs who are always supposed to accompany him too. (Damn!)

It's not often something I read makes me laugh out loud. This did! (And I'm sure it will be all over the internet soon, if it isn't already.)

HELL EXPLAINED BY

A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on University of Arizona
chemistry mid- term.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor
shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course,
why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic
(absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some
variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we
need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate
at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a
soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. There fore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different
religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
religion, you will go to Hell.. Since there is more than one of these
religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we
can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as
they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase
exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell
because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and
pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand
proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year
that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take
into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two
must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already
frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen
over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is
therefore, extinct...... ...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the
existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept
shouting

'Oh My God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

(Note: After posting this, thinking it possibly too good to be true, I "Snopesed" it to determine if it was: Answer -- It is. Too good to be true, that is. According to Snopes it's been on the internet since at least 1997, with origins dating as far back as the 1920's. Still, it didn't stop me from laughing aloud. But it poses the question, "So where have I been these last 12 years to be encountering this story only now for the first time?)

I been trippin' lately!

Last week while reading the sales papers in the Sunday Times, I came across a scanner that converts 35mm film to digital images. Having a bunch of old slides and no projector, which I loaned out several years ago that never came back home, I decided to digitize our slides, toss 'em out afterward, and lose the aggravation of our missing slide projector.

As a result, I have been traveling up the coast of California and Oregon in what has been a pleasant trip down Memory Lane for the most part. Some of these slide are over 30 years old and nostalgia really rears its head when we see family who are no longer with us.

As for the scanner and process involved, I am quite pleased. Here's a few of the old slides. These are from a 1978 trip the Dada's took from El Paso to northern Oregon. I felt a little like a salmon swimming upstream to the headwaters of the river of my hatching. Only difference, when we finally arrived at that spot (in Hillsboro, OR), Mrs. Dada and I didn't spawn.

Feeding the squirrels at Point Lobos. (Note to PETA: I now know
I really shouldn't have and will not next time there. I promise!)

I've loved dalmations forever. At the Carmel Mission, we came across this one sunning
amid the passing tourists. I was immediately drawn to him, not just because of his breed
but his religion as well. He may have been baptized Catholic just like me, yet I'm assuming
he never made his first communion. (Same as me!) But the Padre there told me this
dalmation sometimes attended mass on Sunday. Sadly, that's where our similarities ended.

San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts. I am always reminded of an encounter

Mrs. Dada and I had here 7 or 8 years earlier (for which I have no slide, but
do have a photo somewhere). It was an early Sunday morning at the Palace
and it was deserted until we came upon a small child of three or four feeding
ducks. Behind her, dressed in a stately black overcoat and matching fedora,
stood a man we presumed to be her grandfather. Over the years I've come to
believe the name of that young girl was Michela. That's because the man watch-
ing over her at pond's edge was a person I was very familiar with. I had
lived the first year and a half under his reign as mayor of San Francisco.
It was Joseph Alioto. We exchanged greetings and I came away with a bit of
film that developed into a beautiful photo of Michela Alioto-Pier (I think).

After revisiting memories of old Bay Area stomping grounds, I encountered
slides of vineyards, wineries and redwoods before landing in a batch taken in
the little town I lived the first three months of life before moving with family
to Los Angeles. Here then, is a picture of the backside -- the riverside -- of that
part that today bears the name of "Old Town." This is Florence, Oregon,
ca. 1978. While I loved growing up in southern California, I sometimes wonder
how different everything might have been had the family stayed in Oregon.
That's a question likely answered in a parallel universe somewhere, I suppose.

Converting old slides into digital images has been a pleasant diversion from our nation's warring and whoring these past few days. In fact, think I'll begin another trayful now!

Ahhh, memories! (apparently of banks too small to succeed)

I can't decide which scares me more....

The post-9/11 world our trumped-up war reactions are trying desperately to materialize as reality....


or, reading the labels on the foods we buy at our local super markets....

Example of a EULA*

So where lies the bigger threat? From without or within? Or both? (Never mind....I just remembered the economy, the defense budget, health care, unemployment, etc. etc.)

[Dada note re "EULA": As a child I had a relative named Eula. Today that name has taken on an entirely different connotation, not as a kindly aunt who might send you a book such as "The Yearling" on your 9th birthday, but as an "End User License Agreement." Now quick, secure your home from any seeds that may grow and propagate if they should come in contact with dirt on your property, lest you receive a visit from the FBI and end up doing twenty-five to life in San Quentin as a result.]

Dada confesses his opinionostomy!

Polidectomy: A polidectomy is the surgical removal of that part of the brain's prefrontal lobe housing the source of all reactions to political activities outside one's body that may positively or negatively impact the well being of a person.

For those few regular visitors to Dada's Dally, I have a confession to make: I didn't go through with the polidectomy to end all thoughts political within me which I alluded to some months ago. Anyone who has since continued reading Dada's has already surmised that.

But to be totally up front with everyone, I have another confession: On October 22nd, I did undergo a radical opinionostomy, to wit:

Opinionostomy: a surgical procedure used to create an opening for negative opinions on topics such as politics and economics such that they are released from the body before being expressed orally. Opinionostomy refers to the procedure where a portion of the respiratory canal is opened just below the larynx, allowing opinions to be carried out of the body before being verbally expressed.

Before going further, perhaps a bit more explanation is called for here. While it's only been two weeks, each day I become more and more impressed with the results of this procedure -- and pleased! What the surgery did was create a small opening as noted above for all political opinions, positive and negative, to be siphoned off the windpipe before reaching the larynx from which they would normally be expressed aloud.

Instead, a small tube removes such expressions. They end up in a small, expandable, rubber bladder-like bag secured beneath my left arm. I'm pleased to report -- as the healing progresses -- I am becoming less and less expressive on more and more issues that used to rile me daily, sometimes to great extremes. And -- I am still able to go bowling, shoot billiards and hoist an ale with my left arm (so long as I don't allow the bag to overflow)!

Well, that is, until today when, instead of emptying my bag once or twice, I had to suddenly excuse myself seven times when pressure building from the rubber bladder in my armpit became too tight for the shirt I was wearing to contain.

Hopefully today was just an unusual day.

...Thank god for this procedure. While having to excuse myself to relieve the pressure building in the bladder under my left armpit seven times today, I was at least spared the embarrassment of expressing opinions outloud by simply flushing them instead.

I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the news of Wall Streeters getting the H1N1 flu vaccine before people in high risk groups? That and the Fort Hood shootings.

See, before my opinionostomy I probably would have blogged, "What the fuck will it take before people wake up?" But that's an opinion and, thank God, I am now able to simply flush them down the toilet when my bag gets full.

Exposed! Dada seeking alternative ways out.

From The Telegraph comes this amusing story of a man caught in the act with another man's wife.

"Love cheat Sun Meng has been given the cold shoulder by his community after picture of him
cowering naked on an air conditioner were posted online by a furious husband. Photo: CEN"

"My family is ashamed and none of my own neighbours will talk to me any more," said Sun.

"I know what I did was wrong but I was afraid he would kill me.

"People are even laughing at how I look naked - but I have to point out it was a very cold day," he added." (Probably a reference to the Seinfeld episode where George experienced *shrinkage*.)

***********

(NOTE: Today's blog above is but an exploration of different directions.)

In recent weeks, I've been pondering, sometimes desperately, what to make of this blog. After four and a half years of wailing against prevailing winds I have concluded that the country will likely get what it likely deserves: a complete financial meltdown. Not that that's a good thing, but it may be the only way to arrive at something other than what we are currently "enjoying"; something other that we so desperately need.

The powers we chose a year ago to turn the ship around have simply made a big circle in the sea. Our ship's stewards chosen to save us -- incredibly! -- wear the same faces of those who imperiled us to begin with. And our ship's 180 degree course change has turned into a complete 360, i.e., we're back *on track* -- the same old course, the wrong course. That is unless one is to believe, as announced last week, the recession is over. With one exception -- it just doesn't include *you* (that's all of us) who have suffered most. Sadly, for anyone still in a Depression, the recession's end is a jobless recovery we are told.

Bullying Wall Street has had six months of bullishness. If you were foolish enough to miss it, where the hell were you? Too busy with the distractions of trying to find a new job? Keeping food on your family's table? Saving the roof over your head, or salvaging your old way of life when you could have been making huge gains in the latest Wall Street bubble of irrational exuberance?

And now come stories of the U.S. loosening missile technology exports to the economic controllers of our fateful financial future, the Chinese. Is this just some right wing bullshit to further stir the angst of fearful extremists? Could the ultimate irony be delivered some day by warheads of Chinese missiles killing millions of Americans with our own exported missile technology? I don't know and more and more, I care less and less.

Or how about the news of the Taliban declining a U.S. offer to "permit" the Taliban control of 6 provinces in the south and northeast of Afghanistan, if the Taliban will just allow us ("Oh Please, PLEASE!") to have 8 NATO bases there! Ask yourself, who's negotiating from a position of strength here? The Taliban or the world's last remaining *Superpower*?

All that aside, I enjoyed today's above lapse into an alternative means of escape.

It's that time of year again!

Dada, feeling the love.

Ah, another Halloween has come and gone. Last night the Dada's had the pleasure of sharing the eve with family in Oregon via Skype, seeing nieces and nephews prepping for trick or treating. My favorite costume was that of our great niece adorned in swim goggles, snorkel and draped in black with a large sign attached reading "Drowning in debt" covered all over with smaller signs of why, such as "lost my job, health problems, no insurance," etc. Dada admires such boldness in begging candy from strangers while imparting a message she considers important enough to remind them of our current state many would sooner forget. But, hey, what the heck, it's the state of the union for many, many of us.

But today is the first day of November, signaling the beginning of another season's display of humanity's purest expression of compassion and love for all things living! It begins, this first day of the new month, with The Day of the Dead when we, the living, honor those no longer with us, many of whom we deliberately sent away to *the other side*.

And so, with the official beginning of another such time where we drop our rifles (and our bombs) but not our guards, let us pause and partake of a crushing communal embrace of loved ones and enemies alike in a spirit that exemplifies the best of human qualities.

Let us give thanks for yet another season of love and reconciliation, if only for the next 6 or 8 weeks. It's time to set aside our petty lusting for mass annihilation of our brothers and sisters, to begin planning the annual gathering around a dining table, TV or tree, injecting another 40,000 warriors into Afghanistan, or anticipating again the line outside our favorite predawn Wal-Mart store before they open their doors at 5:00 for another Black Friday rushing crush of crowds dying to express their compassion and love for one another as only limited quantities of 19" high def TVs for $99 can do.

It is with such spirit Dada gives thanks. Thanks for being a member of the human family so filled with love and compassion for one another as this approaching season once more reminds us. Thankful we have been granted the stewardship of oversight and safety for all living things of the Earth as we partake camaraderie over turkeys and hams. One can only imagine the mayhem and chaos of the world were we not.

As we partake of this spirit, take care not to get too overwhelmed by it. Just let it flow over you like a rising tide. Let it pile on you. Enjoy it, but take care not to let it drown, smother or crush you. Such incredible feelings of peace and joy only last a few weeks. And we can all hold our breaths that long! Then it will be back to our work of building a better world as only we humans are the best -- and chosen -- to do!

Happy November everyone!

* Dada apologizes for reusing last year's graphic. So busy was he setting out traps to kill mice in the back yard, he didn't have time to manage a new one. "Peace on Earth to all living things!"