no, really, i ♡ you....

[click image]

.

There are spots in all these hours that are so deeply satisfying, it makes me want to go set rocks in a certain little ceremonial pattern. Do one of my little earth meditations. Maybe build one of my miniature bonfires with blades of dry grass and itsy twigs. Something that absorbing. In one or the other of the latter in the alchemy/social engineering section—actually, I think the latest, number seven—they are talking about education and saying things with which I so deeply, and necessarily secretly, identify, it sounds like karma petting me with dharma. It strikes me that it's the same old problem. I'm on another planet, or from one.

But there are CLUES in there that can mean the difference between life and death to you, so if you still won't listen, at least try to remember there have been clues laying around you did not pick up.

I'm gonna try not to post too much for a few days, but... well... we'll see how that goes....

.
love, 99
.

test the power of your heart

[click image]

.

Keep Julian Assange in it all day. Let's see what we can do.

.
love, 99
.

happy birthday

[click image]

.

We will always love you.

.
love, 99
.

i know it's mad

[click image]

.

But I want all my windows and doors open. That dream I had in one of my three-hour sleep shifts upset me in a place that does not translate out here such that you could understand.

I was running into his bathroom to take a shower, but he got there before I could get clean and he hollered at me my most crushing defeat in utter dismissal. I ran for my big canvas bag of things and had great trouble finding them in a huge dorm. I was going to get all my stuff together, ready to leave, to be banished, and go back and tell him I wanted one more chance, knowing he would give it to me if I would but do the work it would involve, but the bag I was sure was mine was turning into someone else's and a young blond thing was sweetly reminding me these were her items and I should not be going through them. I was confused at first, but then saw she was right. I apologized and struck out to ask for my chance, but there were people screaming for help, wedged into crevasses and caves and locked into stocks or hung up on pegs, wailing, wailing wailing. One of them was demanding my help for his/her daughter who was about to give birth but was going to do it such that it would kill her or the baby and it was going to happen any second and I was screaming, screaming, screaming, "DIAL 911! DIAL 911! DIAL 911!" as I saw someone being yanked bodily from encasement in the side of the cliff, like an elephant from an Anasazi ruin, or a grub from a tree trunk....

I awoke with a blazing feeling in my throat and sinuses that also pushed out through my ears... a sort of burning cross from the base of my neck to the top of my head and out both ears. My muscles and nerves were on wrong, too, and my heart had lit out for a circuit of interstellar space. I decided against immediate witlessness. Going to put it off for a while and do other things first. That's when the fighter jets started blowing out everyone's ears.

In the last day I have slept three and been up for three, slept three and been up for three, slept three and been up for three, slept three and been up for three. This is a distinct change from that marvelous early to bed and early to rise thing I got to enjoy for a couple weeks. This is my life... and all my windows and doors are wide open on a cold January night. I am clad in a LOT of very warm clothes... and stalling still on the witlessness to make room for a bolt of insight instead.

.
love, 99
.

i love you

[click image]

.

I do.

.
love, 99
.

he was so much older then

[click image]

.

This song has been playing in my head for over a week. I'm sure you haven't even forgotten it since I posted it a few days ago, but I'm trippin' on this song completely supplanting anything as seasonal as, say, well, Jingle Bells. I think I was in Junior High when I first heard him singing something, and it thrilled me... made my cheeks pink... and it felt very strange, a scandalous secret—something—I didn't know what—probably, no, definitely not something I should mention to my mother. His voice was booming all through the clubhouse by the public pool. Scantily-clad people, mostly young, but mostly older than I was, were all around and Eric was getting to me, all in this secret cosmos nobody else touches—well, nobody knows how to enter—but I was afraid it was going to show anyway. I was afraid people could see, that there would be some blinking neon tag to alert them to this sort of feral urge filling up my air. So when the song was over I was relieved... and grieving. Luckily, the songs they were playing were on a short rotation so I got to not miss him again for a few minutes a couple more times that day.

I was already an old hand at having crushes on men, starting right with Harry Belefonte and Liberace and Korla Pandit when I was three, but very chastely and prudishly—having not mentioned my crush on John to anyone because I thought it wasn't okay to be in love with a married man—opting for George for public purposes—not being remotely inclined to adore Paul—my sister being ALL over the Ringo thing—but Eric was definitely an entirely other kettle of fish. Kept my yap immovably shut about it, I did... and I know you don't find that remotely credible, but the great thing about never keeping yer yap shut about anything is that nobody can ever tell what you aren't mentioning. I'm a veritable Everest of secrets that will never pass from me to any inhabitant of this world. But I figgered the coast was finally clear to admit at least this. I think my first bona fide case of the hots for anyone was Eric Burdon, an older man... and it was still some years before I ever stayed in proximity to any case of the hots for anyone at all.

I was crazy for Robin Williams. I mean I was beside myself crazy for Robin Williams. He was at College of Marin while I was still in high school, but also going to College of Marin. A mutual friend tried to get us firmly introduced at least three times and each of them lasted about a heartbeat longer than it took Robin to say, "Hello 99," and I bolted. Yes. Literally. I ran. Finally, he did an entire performance—alone on the stage—for me—alone in the audience—while the rest of the cast and crew were striking the set from a soon-to-be-famous play they'd just wrapped at the seminary theater in San Anselmo, and the director/teacher was screaming for him to quit dicking around and help backstage, and Robin just completely ignored him, despite the mounting threats of failing grades and invisible career future. By that time, I'd been having a great deal of trouble with the avalanches of male attention from every direction, and most of it not remotely pleasant, so it was just right at that remove. I could stay, not run, just the two of us... with audio from the irked director backstage. I can tell you that he was every bit as good then as he has been since you've gotten to know him. All during my private audience, I was dazzled that he was as riveting and funny and sad and convincing as Red Skelton, mourning that Robin Williams should be famous as though the world had already passed him over when he was only, what? Nineteen? Twenty? I can't remember the exact year. I think I suffered this for at least two full years... maybe longer.

I saw him at the industry screening for Beverly Hills Cop years later, but I grinned and ducked when he recognized me, instead of finally getting to talk with him, because I was in the middle of being freaked out by Hollywood and men, again, big time. I was down there, staying with my newly extremely important type friend and her husband. Always an ordeal. It was fun going to movie screenings at the studios or the big nights at the big theaters. It was fun seeing so many movie stars. But the society was always outright appalling. And I was having to watch what that pit full of vipers was doing to someone I'd loved for a long time... not pretty... and I was catching all kinds of peripheral action from people in various positions in the industry... and most of it was SO shallow and SO venal and SO much vanity and falsity was dripping from every encounter that I usually stopped having any fun after two days or so. Except it's really stupid to go all that way to see your friends and stay only two days.

Earlier that evening I'd been at UCLA with my friend who was doing one of their classes by professionals for film students and there was THE MOST HANDSOME MAN IN HUMAN HISTORY in the elevator with us after class. OMG, it surpasses my powers of description, for sure, to give you that picture. OMG, OMG, OMG. I'm NOT exaggerating. He was with an older professorial type man... a professor and his assistant, thought I... and he was giving me the tractor beam treatment with those incredible eyes the whole absurdly-slow way down. I mentioned to my friend as we neared her car in the parking lot that I thought that fellow had to be the best-looking man of all time. She mentioned she'd noticed he thought pretty highly of me in there too... and shame he's that old queen's gigolo.

Sheesh. How to pop my bubble in a big ass hurry. I resolved not to believe her, but just a little later, there he was with the same old queen at the big to-do at some huge old theater, I think just the night before Beverly Hills Cop would be opening to the public, and still staring at me with the same longing as in the elevator earlier. Then, and while this one was still locked-on, Sean Penn's head popped up like a periscope breaching the sea of people making their way in for the screening, and he was giving me that look—truly unmistakably—too. I'm trying to think if I ever in my life saw any man bursting with that much testosterone. I don't think so, and, well, that's saying something, okay?

I didn't like this much. I was having a very bad time. I was EXTREMELY upset from just breaking up with my lover of five years, what you might call "wrecked" in fact. My friend's oldest daughter, also a dear friend, was right in the middle of making it abundantly clear to everyone in her life, everyone in LA, that she was a drunk of transcendental aspect, humiliating me at least half as much as she was humiliating herself. I'd been having a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful few moments with Edward James Olmos out by the pool in the back of a house where a very large party was in full swing, when someone at whose zipper she would not stop tugging came staggering out to beg me to get her out of there. End of the first truly enjoyable moments of my visit so far. I had NO idea where we were and now had to drive someone too drunk to even point the way home. Her mother had just the day before been a RAVING bitch about my innocently mentioning what I'd thought of a movie to someone who knew I was staying with her, shocking me down to my toes. I mean, she'd gone postal... over nothing at all... over something I still can't quite fathom would impinge upon her life or reputation in even the most minute way. Then went postal again when I brought her daughter to her house in that condition, even though I'd had no choice because I'd only been lucky enough to recognize a road I knew led to her house, not having the first part of a clue where her daughter lived. I'd've done better to just drop her at an all night diner and find the nearest freeway home. So, having already been there for a week of this action by the the night of the screening, I was a bloody wreck, all things considered, and completely unhappy about now going to sit in the specially-roped-off-for-bigshots section whilst there were these two fellows with their radar locked on me, and my hostess in such a freakishly irascible state of mind.

That's when I spotted Robin. Eddie Murphy was all slumped down in a seat behind me and to my right, trying not to be noticed or something, and Robin and Christopher Reeve had just come up to him to give him shit about being such a big chicken. Robin's eyes got wide with recognition and started pointing at me. I couldn't face the famous person thing with him by that point. I just couldn't. Who the hell could even tell how my big shot friend would have taken that. Maybe yet another breach of important person's friend's protocol that it seemed to me she was just making up as she went along. Much as I've always wanted to finally be able to sit down and talk with him, not be so frightened by love to even speak, I just grinned at him and slunk down in my seat as though still too shy to say anything. There's only so much of this noise I can take and, even though I could take much more then than I can now, I've NEVER been able to take much of that. I was a wreck.

And that turned out to be the end of my friendship with Ms. Big Shot's eldest daughter. The end of my wholeheartedness with Ms. Big Shot. The end of any willing existence within the boundaries of the LA Basin... hell... of Southern California... at all. I could not parse the notion of the most gorgeous man of all time being so clearly heterosexual and yet a gigolo for an old queen. I still try to think of other excuses for him staying glued to the old guy and yet ravishing me with his eyes and psychic energies. Maybe the old queen was his wealthy uncle and wouldn't have stood for his nephew squandering a visit by going off with some babe...? There are other explanations. Whatever. That creepy notion put a soaking wet rag over the inclination to find out one way or another. And, yep, if I'd've so much as twitched an eyebrow, Sean Penn and I would have missed the movie. No question. Luckily for everyone, he took no for an answer, despite the force of his interest. Heh. That was then. NOW, for sure, I wouldn't turn him down... well, I don't think... possibly... conditions permitting.... I didn't know there was a BRAIN and a HEART behind all those hormones. I do now.

Heh. Too laaaaaaate.... :o]

I bet you I'm never going to run into Robin Williams again. I bet I'm never going to get the chance to describe to him the size and shape and nuance of my girlish spiritual obliteration over him. How the chemistry or the cosmic wind or whatever the hell does that to someone had me zapping with the tao over him.

I'm sure I've told you a lot of this before... and I can't remember if I told you about all the rock stars and the drug dealers before either... but whatever I told you before, you didn't know about my thing for Eric Burdon... how it intersected with everything that came after... what it did to me when I was young.

.

Oh, oh, and I went off so far down the garden path that I forgot to mention the whole reason I reposted this song. It's been playing in my head for a week. The reason I broke down and posted it to begin with. Right. Well last night I found it on the website of someone I really admire like crazy. Do you suppose he got it from me? Was it psychic? Or cosmic? Just another completely accidental synchronicity?

Maybe something splendid is nearing.

.
love, 99
.

great day in the morning, heroes, heroes, heroes

[click image, good documentary, one hour]

.

Here is a fabulous piece I missed in all the chaos of my travels and linked here for us by jo6pac. I am thrilled to see this because I heard him talking on the subject last week and it kind of depressed me, BUT the man decided to READ THE CABLES, and that made him decide to think harder, see more deeply and herewith he amends himself. Hear me, progressives. Philip Giraldi had a typically jaded take on it and came out publicly with it, but had the guts and heart to look into it for real and amend himself. He writes for The American Conservative... and, yes, I am telling you that is a bigger person than I have found in so-called "liberal" or "leftist" or "truther" circles. Bless his heart. My kind of countryman.

Leaks and Leakers
by Philip Giraldi, December 09, 2010

Call me Saul on the road to Damascus. I have seen the light. As a former intelligence officer, I was initially appalled at the leak of a quarter of a million classified documents by someone who had responsibility for protecting them. I was highly skeptical of the entire WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning saga but following the leaks has convinced me that there is a lot of material that deserves a public airing to demonstrate to the American people how Washington is pursuing a senseless policy almost everywhere in the world. I have been particularly mortified in reading the accounts of meetings of US Ambassadors and Undersecretaries of State with their foreign counterparts, encounters revealing an unbelievable arrogance derived from the Bush Administration dictum "you are either with us or against us." Persian King of Kings Darius addressing his satraps could not do it any better.

The WikiLeaks plus Manning story has truly revealed that the US government will do anything necessary to silence its critics, legally or illegally. The way in which it is orchestrating a highly questionable international effort against both WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is despicable. There exists a sharp divide between those who believe government secrets should always be protected at all costs and those who believe that secrecy in government exists only to conceal official misbehavior. Obviously there is a middle ground hidden somewhere between the two, but those who favor the narrative that accepts that there is a nefarious government in Washington ruthlessly manipulating a world empire have pretty much gotten it right. The documents and the Obama Administration behavior together tell the tale.

There is an enormous amount of hypocrisy in those who are defending the government’s right to over-classify and deny access to the information that has been used to justify going to war, among other crimes. Insiders in government have no qualms about abusing classified information as long as it suits their purposes. Dick Cheney used insider secret information to "out" CIA officer Valerie Plame to punish her husband. The White House leaked intelligence that turned out to be bogus to Judith Miller at the New York Times to make the case for going to war against Iraq. George Tenet, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote a book called In the Eye of the Storm, which earned him in excess of $4 million. He worked in a SCIF (which stands for sensitive compartmented information facility) run by the defense and intelligence contractor SAIC and had access to all of his classified "papers" to help him write the book. Bear in mind that he was retired, with no official status at the time, was writing something for profit, and was using freely provided government resources to turn a buck. There was apparently no problem in his using classified material.

Unauthorized release of classified information and what becomes of it was also the focus in the trial that was terminated in May 2009 of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, AIPAC employees who passed sensitive intelligence to Israeli government officials and to Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post. The very same people at the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard who are now calling on the federal government to declare war on WikiLeaks and to summarily execute Julian Assange were at that time complaining about the fact that Rosen and Weissman had been charged with a crime because "everyone" passes around classified information in Washington. Particularly to Israel, which is okay because it is an ally (which, in fact, it is not). Apparently the talking heads at the Wall Street Journal believe it is all right to trust classified information to the kleptocrats in Tel Aviv but not to the American public, which has been footing the outrageous bill for the bloated and ineffective intelligence and diplomatic communities during the past ten years. Newt Gingrich meanwhile is calling Assange, who has threatened no one, a "terrorist." By that standard what should he call former officials like Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz who started a war that has killed hundreds of thousands?

Specialist Manning is undeniably a whistleblower, though the government will try to portray him as someone engaged in espionage. Whistleblowers should be encouraged as a check on irresponsible government and should be protected by law when they reveal something that is either illegal or unconstitutional. Government is intrinsically opposed to such transparency, recently and increasingly using the states secret privilege to deny whistleblowers their day in court. Daniel Ellsberg did the right thing when he published the Pentagon Papers about Vietnam. Sibel Edmonds did likewise when she revealed details of foreign espionage and influence buying in the United States. Stories about CIA torture, renditions, and secret prisons as well as accounts of Army thrill killings and the goings on at Abu Ghraib all originated as leaks and were needed to reveal the war crimes being committed by the US government in its hideous "global war on terror."

Contrary to the message emanating from the chattering media, WikiLeaks has embarrassed many but it has neither killed nor endangered anyone. Washington’s relationships with most foreign nations are based on mutual interests and they will continue in spite of concerns expressed by Hillary Clinton and others. And the positive far outweighs any potential negatives. When WikiLeaks revealed how US helicopter crews had recklessly targeted and killed civilians in Iraq, a story originating with Manning, it was a good leak, showing just how dirty and amoral the American initiated war in Iraq had become. Likewise, its release of bundles of documents relating to the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan served a good purpose in revealing that the US government was lying about both wars and ignoring its own intelligence analysis to continue to blunder around like a blind elephant in a small room. As the documents continue to appear they tell a tale of how the American empire is run and how, like an iceberg, most of it is concealed beneath the surface, hidden from public view. Manning took it upon himself to release the hundreds of thousands of secret papers, reportedly because of his belief that the diplomatic documents expose "almost criminal political back dealings" and explain "how the first world exploits the third, in detail." He was right to do so. The American juggernaut must be stopped and the transparency provided by Manning and other whistleblowers is the best weapon to accomplish that.

My only remaining concern continues to be the possibility that WikiLeaks itself has an agenda beyond exposing the machinations of an essentially duplicitous government. If it does that will presumably emerge eventually, but for the present WikiLeaks is providing a necessary service. I do not know if Julian Assange is working for any intelligence service, as has been alleged in some circles. It does seem to me that the release of documents so far has been selective, but perhaps as more of them surface that impression will vanish. I have heard that the newly formed US cyber command aided by the Israelis is behind the hacking campaign directed against WikiLeaks and its servers, particularly ironic as President Barack Obama has several times extolled the freedom of the internet. Apparently that is only true if it is hosting criticism of Iran or China.

The United States should not be mounting a huge international campaign to silence WikiLeaks, nor will it be successful. Nor should it attempt to "regulate" the internet, which is the inevitable next step. And the attempts to personally punish Assange, which might succeed, are a measure of how low America and its allies in Europe and Australia have sunk. He has broken no law even in an age of Patriot Acts and Military Commissions and the charges against him in Sweden appear to be a set-up. Once upon a time there was a rule of law in the United States and a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but no longer. Ultimately WikiLeaks will rise and fall based on its credibility and its ability to tell stories that are being suppressed elsewhere and that the public believes should be heard. WikiLeaks must be allowed to speak.

I wish you everything good, Philip. Thank you.

.
love, 99
.

i love you

[click image — link fixed]

.

I do....

.
love, 99
.

decency itself

[click image]

.

I know you were brought up to think THIS is where decency prevails, but I'm pretty sure you can't cite a recent case of it here that comes anywhere near what Iceland is doing.

.
love, 99
.

snap out of it

[click image]

.

I just ripped out the bulk of the propagandistic blather from a rather long AP piece on Ahmadinejad's outrageously intelligent take on the root cause of poverty. You can go read the whole thing, but, I'm not kidding, they're just tickling every outright FALSE idea ever implanted in your unsuspecting mind and this is the bit that actually says something important:

UNITED NATIONS — Iran's president on Tuesday predicted the defeat of capitalism and blamed global big business for the suffering of millions....

The clash of visions at the U.N. anti-poverty summit drew a line under the stark differences on easing the misery of the one billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.

[Ignore for the moment the egregious understatement of the egregious problem.]

More than 140 presidents, prime ministers and kings are attending the three-day summit which started Monday to assess and spur on achievement of U.N. targets set by world leaders in 2000. The plan called for an intensive global campaign to ease poverty, disease and inequalities between rich and poor by 2015.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ... took aim at capitalism and called for the overhaul of "undemocratic and unjust" global decision-making bodies, which are dominated by the United States and other Western powers. While Ahmadinejad didn't single out any country, he said world leaders, thinkers and global reformers should "spare no effort" to make practical plans for a new world order — reform of international economic and political institutions.

"It is my firm belief that in the new millennium, we need to revert to the divine mindset...based on the justice-seeking nature of mankind...now that the discriminatory order of capitalism and the hegemonic approaches are facing defeat."

.

And to be replaced by Beelzebub himself... I mean, face it, you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.

.

BE AFRAID....

.
love, 99
.

from a tea partier to lift my spirits

[click image]

.

Poppa would have LOVED it to bits. I love it to bits. I love my tea partier friend to bits.

I just do NOT understand why people can't LOOK at stuff like this, realize their mistake about their so-called politics and do the right things. I do NOT understand why people can't listen to supposed lunatics and find where their good faith efforts may have led them to their ideas, EVEN if we don't share them. Have you ANY idea how much actuality gets by you this way? Do you realize the richness and satisfaction missing from your life is just waiting to be filled in by someone you CALL a nut or an enemy?

It's truly as though some can't bring it to mind, let alone take to heart that these so-called bubbas have all kinds of intelligence and taste and humor and humanity that are to be adored by any who would but cease looking at them as though they were cartoons.

.
love, 99
.

they've finished restoring the bedroom

[click images]

.



I feel some trepidation.

I think they may have taken too much Vincent out of it.

Don't forget his letters.




.

me and gorgeous go window shopping in mendo world

.
.
.
[click image]
.
.
.



Friends for over thirty years, and roommates in our youth, she left me to go end up getting married to some hunk. Typical, typical. It's a girl thing.

Anyway, she came up to see me while I was doing my Harley watching trip, and was greeted by a barely-recovered poisoned woman and a little old lady whose daughter had run her out of her own house. It was a very soap-opera-like visit, but we did get to go into town and hit the art galleries, and she got in some good picture-taking adventures early in the mornings while I was still dead to the world. I also made SO much spaghetti that we ended up eating it for three days. Good thing she's my BFF or she mighta felt rooked.

Of course, we got a LOT of chocolate in there, too, and so it wasn't a total wash.

I was so glad to see her, I could have just started hugging her and never stopped.

.

congratulations chelsea

[click image]

.

The circus should soon be over.

.

i whisper to myself

[click image]

.

... maybe I'll be making love with you on my deathbed....

Iroquois passport dispute raises sovereignty issue
By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 52 mins ago

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – An American Indian lacrosse team's refusal to travel on passports not issued by the Iroquois confederacy goes to the heart of one of the most sensitive issues in Indian Country — sovereignty.

The rights of Native nations to govern themselves independently has long been recognized by federal treaties, but the extent of that recognition beyond U.S borders is under challenge in a post-Sept. 11 world.

After initially refusing to accept Iroquois-issued passports because the documents lack security features, the State Department gave the team a one-time waiver.

But leaders of the Iroquois Nationals squad announced Saturday that a last ditch attempt to persuade British officials to recognize their passports had failed, meaning the team wouldn't play in its last scheduled game.

The team has maintained that traveling on anything other than an Iroquois-issued passport would be a strike against the players' identity. But the British government wouldn't budge in denying team members entry into England without U.S. or Canadian passports, keeping the Iroquois Nationals from competing at the World Lacrosse Championships in Manchester in the sport their ancestors helped create.

"Any documents or IDs we put forth recognizing our members should also be recognized by the federal government and other governments," argued Sanford Nabahe, a member of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone, who — like many in the American Indian community — closely followed the Iroquois' passport dispute. "The (federal) government has given us that autonomy."

The Iroquois, whose members mostly live in New York, Ontario and Quebec, along with the Hopi and Western Shoshone are among the few American Indian nations in which members have had a form of their own passports.

The understanding that the Iroquois Confederacy's lands are independent from the U.S. is taught early on in school, team member Gewas Schindler said Thursday as the team waited out the dispute in New York.

"You know that as a young person that you are sovereign, that you are not part of the United States," he said. "We were the first people here."

The National Congress of American Indians, based in Washington, D.C., has advocated on behalf of the lacrosse team, urging British officials to allow the members entry into England on their Iroquois-issued passports.

But some say the team's adamant position has gone too far.

Michael Smith, a Navajo living on the Southwestern reservation, said it's important to note that the Iroquois live in the U.S. on land he and his father fought to protect as Marines.

The Iroquois land isn't recognized globally as a country, so the team's efforts have been almost futile, he said.

"You're flying overseas," he said. "Get your U.S. passport and go kick some butt."

Luanna Bear, a member of the Tulsa Creek Indian Community, part of the larger Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma, said anyone who travels abroad should have the proper documents.

"A lot of tribes don't want to lose their identity, so that's what they're trying to keep," said Bear, 48. "But I believe you have to follow all laws."

Some Montana and Wyoming tribes have discussed issuing passports, but none has taken that step, said Gordon Belcourt, executive director of the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council.

"If you're acknowledged as a government-to-government entity, there should be an opportunity for them to issue their own passports and visas," Belcourt said.

Previously, tribal members who lived near the country's northern border faced no problems when traveling between Canada and the U.S., he said. Now, tribal members, along with other travelers seeking to cross the country's borders, must adhere to stricter security guidelines.

"With 9/11, everything changed," Belcourt said.

In recent months, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been working with tribes to develop tribal ID cards with enhanced security features. Those would be good for arrivals in the U.S. only by land or sea but couldn't be used in lieu of a federal passport. Twenty-five tribes already have or are working toward formal agreements.

Robert Holden, deputy director at the National Congress of American Indians, said the Washington, D.C.-based group is hopeful the use of secured cards could be expanded to allow tribal members to travel abroad.

"It would have all the secure attributes that a passport would have, certainly a record of membership of that respective nation," Holden said. "So why would it not be accepted beyond the borders of the United States and accepted internationally?"

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., also has urged the federal government to work with other countries to develop internationally recognized travel documents for American Indian nations.

Like the Iroquois' view of lacrosse, Hopi belief is that running is a gift from the creator, said Bucky Preston, a Hopi from the reservation village of Walpi in northeastern Arizona.

Preston said passports that have been issued by elders in his tribe have represented what it means to be a sovereign people — being honest and sincere, and having faith and belief in the creator, along with concern for all creation.

"I can understand why they're standing strong on this," Preston said.

Among the Hopi, passports in the form of an eagle feather, sometimes tucked in a buckskin-covered pocketbook, have been issued in the past by elders to only a select few. To have one means you've been entrusted to carry messages from the Hopi people to other parts of the world.

Few have been issued and the man most well-known for having used one for decades to travel internationally died in 1999, said Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.

Preston knows of only one man who still has a so-called Hopi passport. But Preston said he is not physically able to travel anymore, and Kuwanwisiwma doubts access to other countries would be granted given increased security measures.

"That's the reality of today's situation where the tribes continue to be dealt with on this relegated status and subject to the power of the United States government," Kuwanwisiwma said.

Maybe I will be making love with him as soon as I fall asleep.

Fuck Britain. Fuck the United States. Fuck wasichu. Fuck the lies. Fuck wasichu. Fuck wasichu. Fuck wasichu.
.

soon to be cindy blackman santana

[click image]

.

Damn. Love is sublime. Aye, aye, aye, mi corazón....

.

i went roiling off to bed before midnight

[click image, a fabulous actor I never knew could sing....]

.

Had been drunk for a good part of the evening. I had THREE great big huge margaritas out to dinner with Mom for Dad's birthday. Luckily, she didn't drink that much and she was driving. Also, luckily, I'd had a very big chicken breast sandwich and fries so that much booze didn't kill me. But I was good and sober again by the time I hit the hay.

I was dreaming of Arthurian Knights and their gallant feats of right over might. I was seeing for the first time some of the secret deeds of deepest antiquity taking place and needing to translate the images into something that would bring you the truth. It was like being a movie editor. I was seeing these men and their horses and their deeds about which no one in the world knows and trying to transfer snippets of the sight into video, into imagery, into a workable presentation of the beautiful truth to give to the world.

I was becoming so joyful in the feeling of the power to do this that it woke me up and sent me in here to my mother's not-a-computer to tell you about it. I snapped wide awake from it at 3am sharp.

I was going to be able to TELL you the answer to life, the universe and everything in images instead of numbers. You were going finally to know the beautiful truth that was channelling through me from the depths of spacetime to save the world. I did not stop to marvel at it. AS it was being shown to me I was working already to to turn it into YOUR vision, YOUR sight, YOUR elation and release from the benighted bumbling of consensus. My only part in this beautiful truth was getting it from my eyes into yours... and I'd known how to do it! Was doing it. And the happiness was so intense it woke me up at the stroke of three.

I was splayed naked on the cement slab in the guest room and grinding my face into my pillow so hard I think my nose might have moved several inches closer to my left ear. I also sort of had myself in a wrestling move I believe they refer to as a "choke hold". It was very elegant and involved getting part of my pillow jammed so hard into my windpipe that I know for sure whoever gives points for that action would have marked me very high in the suicide slumber division of the Olympic Self-Wrestling Trials.

I got to hug my Poppa at last. He couldn't stay awake too long on his big day, so it wasn't enough for me, but it still felt like heaven to just be there, just take him out of the crazy ward and sit on the patio, eating cookies and helping him sip on his favorite soda... just sitting and touching him.

I also found out the completely fantastical hallucination upon which my younger sister's twenty-year quest to make my life miserable has been based. OMG! It may have been better NOT knowing all that time because at least then I could think I must have done something while in a trance that wounded her grievously. I certainly never did any such a thing of my own accord and while I was awake in my own skin and not transported onto some plane where fairy soap-opera bitches descend from their airwaves to loose their perfidies on their highly imaginatively vindictive little sisters, but I guess I never realized until tonight that it could have its "basis" in a type of revisionism SO transcendental that it no longer holds any congruence with actuality whatsoever. The power of thin air.

But I saw Arthur's Knights saving the world tonight.

I don't know if I can even get it all across if I become a great movie director or novelist. I think I need to be able to just blast the beautiful truth directly from this end of this mind to that end of this mind, so you can at last know.

.

i really do need to thank you guys

[click image]

.
It is so wonderful to have days when I get so many cool links from you that I don't even get part way into my daily rounds before all hell has broken loose here. On top of that, my dear friend, Dale, to whom I have been griping about the stupid affront of my student daring to call himself an international dressage competitor—amazed as I am at the strength of my negative reaction to seeing a video of him strutting his appallingly bad stuff in front of a crowd of adoring fans—and you haven't had to endure even a quintillionth of it—WHAT in the hell difference does it make if that many more hours of my youth turned out to be wasted, anyway?—anyway—whut? Oh, yes, Dale sent me the text you can find at the image link, and it made me happy... not, albeit, that I wholly agree with it....

One of the first things on my to-do list from my teacher was to pluck out all my different personalities, name them, write stories or plays with them as characters... basically kill them off one-by-one if I couldn't clock them all with one punch. There were about nine of them, if I recall correctly, and I don't exactly recall anything so correctly as we have seen, and the pack leader I named Tish... short for "Morticia". Do NOT fuck with Tish. The rest of them are dead, or off somewhere I can't hear them, but Tish is going for immortality. She's paralyzed, must be wedged up against the foundation out my window here, or something, because I can still hear her.

I usually ignore her. But, when it gets hairy, I just have to grit my teeth. While reading this email from Dale, she was yelling, "Remember that military fucker who kept calling his son a degenerate peace faggot for having long hair? Well, a degenerate peace faggot [no offense to homosexuals] wrote that! Tell Dale not to be such an old softy!" She was chuffed about people letting themselves go to seed when it's so dangerous to your health... ME letting myself go to seed when it's so dangerous to MY health... NOT going to grow out of my size sixes ever again on pain of death by apnea... but I had to shut her up by reminding her that NOT EVERYONE who gains weight closes off their windpipes, lighten up, the sentiment is darn pleasant, relaxing and full of good will. What a great guy to send me that! She's out there imagining having use of her arms and legs again, I'm sure, but I told her she can spring instantly back to full lethality when a rapist breaks in or, say, Bibi Netanyahu crosses my path. Short of that, STFU.

So, anyway, I love you and thank you for throwing all these links in my path today.

I have the most amazing friends.

I'm gonna go cook myself a chicken breast and some string beans and if my usual haunts yield up anything interesting later, I'll let you know.

XOXOXOX
.

music

[click image]

.
Protesters seize troops in Thailand
AL JAZEERA | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010 | 17:49 MECCA TIME, 14:49 GMT

Anti-government protesters in Thailand have seized a train carrying about 70 soldiers and military equipment northeast of the capital, Bangkok.

The troops were travelling through the Khon Kaen area, a stronghold of the so-called red shirt protesters, when they were seized on Wednesday.

Hundreds of red shirts stopped the 18-car train from leaving a station 450km from Bangkok.

Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay, reporting from Bangkok, said negotiations between police and red shirts are under way to allow the train to continue after it was stopped.

"The red shirts say that those soldiers were heading to Bangkok as reinforcement for a potential crackdown on their protests which have been running for five months now," he said.

"The army though says these soldiers were in fact heading towards the troubled southern provinces of Thailand as part of a regular rotation of soldiers."

Protesters warned

Earlier on Wednesday, the Thai army said that it would use force to disperse anti-government protesters occupying Bangkok's main shopping district.

Action would be taken "considering the safety and lives of the people, and only when there is reason to do so, including for self-defence and in extreme cases", the government's Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation said.

The warning came after red-shirt leaders announced they would not march to the city's Silom financial district but instead stay at their main protest camp "indefinitely".

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, said on Wednesday that he is ready to negotiate with protesters but only when they agree to abide by the law.

Panitan Wattanyagorn, a government spokesman, said an attempt to negotiate is being hindered by illegal demonstrations in Bangkok.

For their part, the red shirts say they are willing to hold talks through a third party to avert bloody clashes with troops.

Speaking to Reuters news agency on Wednesday, two of the protest leaders said they would consider offers of dialogue, but not from the government.

"We believe a crackdown is coming before April 25 and we need to make a compromise," Kwanchai Praina, one leader, said.

"I will propose in a meeting later today that we consider house dissolution in three months."

However, Jatuporn Prompan, a core red-shirt leader, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that talks were "out of the question.

Base reinforced

The red shirts have been reinforcing defences at their base, and prepared homemade weapons including hundreds of sharpened bamboo poles and broken up pavement slabs.

An attempt by security forces to disperse the red shirts on April 10 erupted into the worst political violence Thailand has seen in almost two decades, leaving 25 people dead and more than 800 wounded.

The red shirts have been camped out on the streets of Bangkok since March 12, with the standoff causing widespread disruption, closing shopping malls, hotels and causing millions of dollars in losses for Thailand's vital tourism industry.

The unrest has taken a toll on the city's patience. Some residents on Tuesday evening tried to chase red-shirt protesters out of their camps.

Shouting "Kill them, kill them", several residents scuffled with a man believed to be a red shirt protester.

The red shirts consist mainly of poor rural workers pro-democracy activists who opposed the military coup that ousted the then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. They want parliament dissolved immediately and new elections called.

They believe Abhisit's government is illegitimate because it came to power through a parliamentary vote after disputed court rulings ousted two elected, pro-Thaksin administrations.
.

waiting for my old friend

[click image]

.
Trish and I were roommates back when we were in our twenties. I'd given up on roommates. What an appalling way to try to live in this world! I was SICK of bullshit knocking my life to bits every time I turned around. So swore off it.

Trish found a two-bedroom flat she was just crazy for, but couldn't afford, and begged me to reconsider. I will be grateful for the rest of time that I relented. We lived together for quite a few years and never once had even part of a fight about anything! It was total solidarity the whole time. When she left to go live with Scott, I thought I was going to die without her. I told her I'd rather she married me... that she could keep Scott as her boyfriend, but just stay with me. I don't have a homosexual cell in my body, but I meant that I wanted to spend my life with her. She is one of the miracles of humanity for sure.

I wish she'd hurry up and get here!

However. NOBODY can hurry up and get here. I live many hard miles from anywhere.
.