The Court of the Crimson King

Demo Derby

Dramatic Scene From The First Balkan Race (1929) - Ivan Kolev

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that our elected leaders are playing an infantile game of chicken in the current debt crisis. And the American economy is all set to careen right off the road. I blame both sides for the stalemate and believe that with the lack of tractability on either side, we will probably be in a default position in another week. I find myself longing for the good old days, when bipartisan groups like the Concord Coalition sought to cultivate acceptable middle ground in our quest for fiscal solutions and sanity.

I do blame both sides for the current crisis and performing the necessary forensics regarding just how we got to this place is far easier than formulating a ready solution. Democrats and Republicans need to solve this problem like two sensible divorced parents might agree to raise their child. We don't have to like each other but lets put the knives away and figure out what's best for the kid.

First let's look at the issues. When Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, there were 7.8 million americans over the age of 65, with a life expectancy for a male 65 year old male of 78 years. There is expected to be 70 million plus baby boomer Americans on our shores this year. The growth of the entitlement programs is clearly unsustainable. We will not be able to provide status quo services at current levels for our graying baby boomers without putting a serious hurt on the more productive younger workforce by way or taxes. Or we find a way to change the paradigm.

I am going to try something different today and not indulge too much in the blame game. Republicans had major gains in the last mid term election. Who can blame them for feeling like they have to show something tangible to the constituency who fairly elected them? They rode a tea party horse into the battle and they won. I may not care for it but it happened and we need to respect their loyalty and responsibility to the people who elected them.

Disregard the fact that this was all supposed to be about the economy and we are now faced with a concerted social attack on abortion and birth control and homosexuality the likes of which we have never seen. This is their moment and they want to make something happen. The sides are so evenly balanced and the tipping point so minute, that who can blame a party for shoving it down each other's throat when they get a decent chance?

The problem I have is the über-piousness on the part of the conservatives. All of the current predecessors to the current president raised the debt ceiling, Bush II seven times. The conservative god Reagon raised it eighteen times. It has been raised thirty eight times since 1972. Is it really time to start sounding righteous? While liberals have a giant log in their eye regarding our capacity to maintain entitlement levels and careen down the path to socialism, conservatives have an equal mote in their own eyes about their role in getting us here.

Obama was handed an incredibly bad hand, the worst recession we had experienced in nearly eighty years. A recession largely born from conservative programs to deregulate, look the other way and provide fat tax cuts to our diamond Jim Brady cronies. All that Jack Kemp supply side  stuff, what do we have to show for it? Or you can take the easy and ridiculously unfounded position and blame everything on Fannie Mae. Those with short memories need to be reminded that Clinton handed his successor a surplus which Republicans insisted be given back to the American people as a tax cut. Then we started spending like drunken sailors.

***

Jim DeMint was chortling the other day that Obama would say uncle and sign it. Republicans today said that he will sign a short term deal rather than nothing at all. Obama is pissy and stamping his feet and indulging in his own tough guy gamesmanship. It's a big poker game right now. No one is behaving like an adult, it's all a who has the biggest schlong contest. Very immature, very stupid and the reason why we are about to drive right off the cliff. That nasty part of the divorce when we would rather get a really good lick in and hurt somebody real bad than even live. Maybe both sides need a temporary restraining order. Because right now we just look at each other and get sick.

Fearless

Ten Years After

Fire Arts

The Fallbrook School of the Arts is concluding Fire Week. The school and foundry had a glass blowing exhibition all week and a bronze pour last night. A huge chunk of Fallbrook came out and everyone had themselves a great time. We looked at resident artists Michael Stutz and Christopher Pardell's works in progress and people off the street were given an opportunity to blow glass.

Mike Reardon took the great shot I show above of Ironhand and Brandon Roy in their space suits during the bronze pour. Their collaborator is the metal artist Peter Mitten. Brandon has been making wonderful bronze bells in a japonism style and teaching sand casting.

The foundry is a wonderful repository of found objects that are visually stimulating and worthy of retinal capture.

My photo group traipsed over today and took a bunch of shots. We walked over to the stone carvers' pavilion to see what they were doing but everything was pretty dormant after the big night. If you have never seen bronze being poured you might try to catch the next event in September.

Redemption © Robert Sommers

Dancing squid bowl dish in Hakodate

Imagine eating someone you just met at the Mos Eisley cantina on planet Tatooine...

I Don't Need No Doctor

Captain Queeg

Congressman Allen West has issues. The man's behavior in the past has been borderline psychotic. Of course that makes him an ideal candidate for a leadership position in the Republican party. Most literate people have heard about West's latest kerfuffle with fellow Florida Congressman Debbie Wasserman Shultz but let me break it down for you just in case.

Wasserman Schultz was on the house floor earlier this week and took issue with her colleague, albeit in a fairly modest tone.

“The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries, unbelievable from a member from South Florida,” Ms. Schultz said in a speech on the House floor.

West, on hearing about the speech, flipped out, calling her “the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the U.S. House of Representatives” for having the temerity to challenge him. “Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige,” he wrote. West added that “from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior.”

He concluded by saying that “you have proven repeatedly that you are not a lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!” and signed off with: “Steadfast and Loyal.” He went on by calling her a coward and refused to apologize for his rant.

I think that this guy West has some serious woman issues. We know from his past that he has significant anger issues that border on sadism and suffers from major lapses of judgement.

***

Allen West is a 49 year old freshman congressman from the 22nd District in Florida who was a Lt. Colonel in Iraq for the U.S. Army. West lost his command and retired after an investigation was held where he was found to have directed the brutal beating of an innocent Iraqi policeman that culminated in him firing off a couple rounds right next to the poor guy's head. From Wiki:

While serving in Taji, Iraq, West received information from an intelligence specialist about a reported plot to ambush him and his men.[11] The alleged plot reportedly involved Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, a civilian Iraqi police officer.[11] West, who was not responsible for conducting interrogations in Iraq and had never conducted nor witnessed one, had his men detain Hamoodi.[11] In the process of detaining Mr. Hamoodi, soldiers testified that Mr. Hamoodi appeared to reach for his weapon and needed to be subdued.[11] Hamoodi was beaten by four soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion on the head and body.[12] West then fired his pistol near Hamoodi's head,[11] after which Hamoodi provided West with names and information, which Hamoodi later described as "meaningless information induced by fear and pain."[11] At least one of these suspects was arrested as a result, but no plans for attacks or weapons were found.[11] West said "At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It's possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi."[11]

West was charged with violating articles 128 (assault) and 134 (general article) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During a hearing held as part of an Article 32 investigation in November 2003, West stated, "I know the method I used was not right, but I wanted to take care of my soldiers."[12] The charges were ultimately referred to an Article 15 proceeding rather than court-martial, at which West was fined $5,000.[11] LTC West accepted the judgment and retired with full benefits in the summer of 2004. Asked if he would act differently under similar circumstances again, West testified, "If it's about the lives of my soldiers at stake, I'd go through hell with a gasoline can."[13]

From "An Oath Betrayed:

“… West promptly sent his soldiers to arrest Mr. Hamoodi. They beat and shackled him and loaded him into their vehicle. When they arrived at th base in Taji, Iraq, they threw him off the Humvee. A medic cleared Mr. Hamoodi for questioning even though his ribs had been hurt by the beating.

Soldiers took Hamoodi to an interrogation room. Colonel West told interrogators that they had one hour to obtain information or he would come down and do it himself. Hamoodi was kicked and beaten by four soldiers for forty minutes. During the latter part of this interrogation, Colonel West sat facing the prisoner with a cocked pistol on his lap that he would occasionally point at Mr. Hamoodi. Colonel West tells how he became increasingly angry and threatened Mr. Hamoodi’s life. In a sworn statement, a soldier reported that West told the prisoner, “I have come here for one of two reasons: one, to get the information I need, or two, to kill you.” A soldier displayed a knife and the translator told Mr. Hamoodi that his toes or fingernails would be cut off if he did not tell the truth. An apalled soldier left the room after reminding West of the Geneva Conventions, an appeal that West rejected. Finally, Colonel West had his soldiers blindfold Hamoodi and escort him outside, where six soldiers surrounded him with guns as the interrogation continued for another fifteen minutes. A translator told Hamoodi, “If you don’t talk, they will kill you.” West counted down from 10 and shot in the air. Two soldiers forced Hamoodi’s head into a barrel. West did another countdown and, angling his gun close to the prisoner’s head, fired into the barrel.

Hamoodi became hysterical and “admitted there would be attacks and called out names.” A physician’s assistant then examined him and found bruises but no serious injury or bleeding. Colonel West’s violation of Army interrogation regulations was investigated and charges were filed against him. West then asked to retire. Ultimately, he was removed from command, fined $5,000 and allowed to retire with benefits.

West may have thought that he did the right thing and that any war abuses he may have committed could be justified. In September 2010 he spoke in defense of a group of U.S. military personnel known as the "Leavenworth 10" who were convicted of war crimes. Veteran Richard Allen Smith wrote a nice article about West's behavior in today's HuffPo.

Fellow misogynist Rush Limbaugh came sliming to the congressman's defense today regarding the spat with Schultz. From NewsMax:

“So what did [Wasserman Schultz] do? She ran like a little crybaby to all these other left wing women of the Democrat party to help her out, and they start returning fire that West is the racist and West is the sexist and so forth,” Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh discounted the accusations of Wasserman Schultz and her supporters that West’s comments were sexist, and even went so far as to define feminism as a singular liberal cause that exists solely to defend legal abortion.

“I don’t think they’re to be taken seriously,” he said. “They are liberals. Their concern for womenhood is really a concern for liberalism. We all know that. Feminism is not really about women’s rights. It’s about the sacrament to the religion of liberalism, which is abortion.” 

The noose tightens...

James Murdoch is in a heap of hurt. Some very credible sources say that he had full knowledge of the Gordon Taylor payoff and had directly seen the soon to be famous "for Neville" memo. Parliament wants to know if they were lied to. After you've thrown a few of your mates to the sharks it's every man for himself on the remaining lifeboats. And this from the Sydney Morning herald:

The Guardian reports a US senator has called for an inquiry into News Corp's alleged corporate bullying in America. Frank Lautenberg wrote to US Attorney-General Eric Holder asking him to take into account a 2009 civil case in which it was claimed a News Corp subsidiary, News America Marketing, had hacked the computers of a small competitor, Floorgraphics, because it refused to be bought out.
Floorgraphics' owners testified that they were told by News America's chief executive, Paul Carlucci: ''If you ever get into any of our businesses, I will destroy you. I work for a man who wants it all and doesn't understand anybody telling him he can't have it all.''
News America conceded that someone using its computer addresses had accessed Floorgraphics, but suggested it was the lone work of a disgruntled employee.
The Australian newspaper has also reported a former journalist for the Daily Mirror, saying show-business reporters on that paper routinely intercepted voicemail messages when he worked there from 1998 to 2000: ''For everyone to pretend this is some isolated activity found only at the News of the World is ridiculous.''

Thinking Is The Best Way To Travel

Get your links here.

Got a few interesting links this week from you people. Helen blogged about the undecipherable Voynich Manuscripts which are quite fascinating and I have never heard of. Bijou sent a Politico post by Joe Scarborough on the debt crisis which is pretty spot on. Renée sent this Huffpo opinion about needing a rich guy to start a third party. Hudgins forwards Nobel laureates dissing on the balanced budget. And this on the FAA. I found this article on our narcissist in chief and his fellow dems' worries that he will once again cut them out of the herd quite enlightening.

***
A woman named Christine sends this over: Hi Blue heron,

I bumped into your blog today and was wondering if I could get your opinion on a diet/fitness app I am working on right now.
 Basically, the main problem with being fit and eating healthy is motivation and willpower. It's such an abstract goal that seems overwhelming. It seems the best way to counter this is to make it into smaller, winnable games.
 So my app makes living healthy, eating healthy, and fitness into a RPG game, where users earn points, "level up', and earn badges as they accomplish their health goals. Every time they add something healthy like whole greens, and veggies to their food log, they earn points. Every time they complete a workout, they earn points. As they achieve more and more, they'll level up and unlock badges...
 Of course, to appeal to people's need for achievements/progress, I'm also adding charts, and graphs to show their progress... I think people love that sorta stuff. The whole idea is to shift people's attitude towards healthy living as fun, and enjoyable. And there's gonna be a web version for those that don't own smartphones.
 What's your opinion on this idea? Would you want to know when I'm done with it? ^_^

Thanks so much!
Christine

Gee, Christine, I don't think so. You really don't want a big fat guy like me for a poster boy...

***

I really like the new hit map, it seems to show hits that my old feedjit map would hide, since it allowed people to turn themselves off. However, I am still waiting for my first hit from Antarctica. If you can link me to the poles and get a screen shot (mac - shift, control, 4) I would be much obliged.

***

Shawn sends this cool link on some great new music out of Pakistan. WildBill turns me on to www.fark.com. Hudgins has us parahawking over Nepal. Kit Bacon with a cool link from the San Diego Pride Parade.

Shawn sends his favorite Thai campaign poster,"Look what kind of animals you elected to office."

I also got this somewhat scary manifesto and link from anonymous from a friend who shall remain anonymous and had the following gmail colloquy with him:
me: not sure about them - bit conflicted - dangerous kids with matches
he: What did OUR parents (well, ...most people's parents anyway!) say about the 'Flower Power' generation???
me: We didn't destroy private information. I just don't dig their act. They are judge and jury.
he: I seem to remember a few offices of the 'Draft Board' in flames and I was in Chi town during the Dem convention!
me: Don't think it was ultimately constructive.
he: Agreed. But the awareness it brought about to the stultified society regarding the issues at the time did contribute to the changes in attitude nation-wide. Whether people agreed or not with the 'agitators', it made them examine their thoughts on the matters.

Finally, Bob D. sends this over:

Starship Trooper

Viva Estados Unidos!

Immigrants obtaining free clothing at the Fallbrook Food Bank

I was reading the local paper today and something got my nose out of joint. A twenty five year old Escondido man, José Vigil Carbajal, was just arrested for the third time since November, according to police reports. Evidently, Carbajal was deported after each of the three arrests, in fact he has been deported fifteen times by latest count. His police record includes four convictions for drunk driving, two for suspended driving and one hit and run.

Carbajal is unfortunately not an exception around these parts. Operation Joint Effort, the program that teams local law enforcement with the Federal Customs and Immigration authorities, has arrested 539 illegal immigrants who had been previously removed for the United States and were either fugitives or criminals or convicted criminals. A cop was assaulted by a large group of men that included illegals in Vista this week. A Border Parol agent was attacked here in Fallbrook on Sunday.

This kind of behavior really fries me. When my wife's car was broadsided by the illegal alien who had no license and obviously didn't even know how to drive, the cops wouldn't even bother ticketing and going after him, the chances of penalty and restitution being so distantly remote. Now we know that drunk driving is a horrible offense committed by people of all nationalities but in these parts many of the incidents happen to involve illegal aliens.

My grandparents came to this country legally, learned the language and took an oath of citizenship. They obeyed the laws of the land. They did not burden the social welfare system. They didn't think that a hospital was a place to obtain free medical services. They didn't think that they had an e-ticket to the social welfare state. I dropped off food at the Fallbrook Food Bank last week and for some of the patrons it is like Christmas every day. I realize that immigrants (and illegal immigrants) work at jobs that your typical american feels are beneath them. That without immigrants our agricultural industry would be in a world of hurt as would the restaurant business and many other sectors. But that does not give them carte blanche to illegally cross our border seeking a better life and then to dictate the terms and conditions of their residency.

I was watching an immigrants' march in Georgia last month and got pretty steamed when I heard a marcher say that they had worked hard enough to deserve citizenship. If you break our laws entering this country, I don't see why you should ever get the chance to become an american. I am totally against amnesty for lawbreakers, no matter what administration offers it. Do we not have a right to police our borders and reserve certain rights for law abiding citizens?

I am not anti hispanic. If you have a green card or are a guest worker or bracero and you want to go through the same path to citizenship that our forbearers went through, beautiful. I have no sympathy for the Pulitzer Prize winning author who admitted to being an illegal last week and now can't get a driver's license and risks deportation. If you broke the law, adios. I share the disgust and have little sympathy for those that do not respect our borders, come over illegally, have an anchor baby and then wail about being separated from their children. You broke the law, accept responsibility for your actions. Respect our border, respect our laws. Call me old fashioned.

The Moving Sidewalks - 99th Floor

Early Texas psychedelic band that included guitarist Billy Gibbons, later of ZZ Top.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

Mavis Staples

Today

I've received a few things to share from readers this week. And then a quick shpiel. Kim Smith sent me this neat picture that her friend Robyn took.

***

Speaking of pictures, my camera club's blog is coming along nicely, check out Redneck Shutters.

*

Kerry B sends over this epistemological broadside.

BELIEF


It's said that Any Thing Is Possible. 


If that's true, it means absolutely no thing can be ruled out, including all the apparently impossible things.


According to the I Ching it's not possible to describe the Tao in words. 


If any thing is possible though, it definitely is possible to describe the Tao in words.


I completely believe any thing is possible. 


No one can prove me wrong in that belief, nor can any one prove me right.


I don't completely believe in any thing, except that any thing is possible. 


That's my only unassailable position. 


Every thing else is a matter of probability. 


Of course I could be completely wrong, but probably not.


copyright 2011 Kerry Brown

*

Robert DeGoff emailed this sweet little cartoon.

Sweet home, Alabama for you know who.

Long version, Low Spark for Shawn.

Get Ready for Deli Guy.

Gentle Giant Freehand for Kerry J.

***

I have been following the News Corp scandal with no small amount of glee. Not because I think that they will be able to lay a hand on Murdoch, I honestly don't think they will. News Corp is now too craftily woven into various governmental power structures for me to think that it will ever be brought down for its crimes and misdemeanors. 

What I find interesting is that this crisis really gives a person an opportunity to see what kind of man Rupert Murdoch is. Call him the anti Truman - the buck never stops here. Of course, he will admit or accept no responsibility for the scandal, it was caused by some little people that he trusted, who let him down and who he will not name. And the puny little News of the World, the 167 year old red top at the heart of the Dowler scandal was after all only 1% of his News Corp. empire.

Does any one actually believe that his other properties have any stronger set of principals? Surely not Fox News, the only truly partisan news organization I have ever seen in my lifetime. Don't most executives take responsibility for whatever happens on their watch, not blaming the problems on anonymous underlings. A real leader.

I heard a report yesterday that Sean Hoare's personal papers were found in a bag tossed in a parking garage several miles from the scene of his death. A mere coincidence, I am sure. Authorities say the death is not suspicious. Couldn't have anything to do with fingering high level News Corp sources or Scotland Yard, could it?

If nothing else, we have received a momentary glimpse behind the Murdoch curtain. A man who walks into the Prime Minister's office through the back door, what was it, twenty six meetings in five months?  One of his ex employees was spilling on NPR yesterday, talking about how NewsCorp stories were fabricated, how young children were grilled by ruthless reporters against their parent's wishes, how "christmas weepies" were fabricated..

There is a general stench around this man and his whole empire. Five hundred dollars per ping and the bosses could get you into anyone's voice mail in minutes. Because the police were in their pocket. Bought and paid for. Millions doled out in hush money to keep the stories, as son James so brilliantly put it, in the box. I love what the resigning head of Scotland yard said, "You didn't expect me to go through the bin bags myself, did you? Because they merely trumpeted the Fox company line, never trying to ascertain just how many people had been hacked and injured.

Rupert Murdoch would not be able to spread his deceitful message and play his nasty tricks without the help of enablers like Tom Perkins of Kleiner Perkins or a bevy of people like Juan Williams or Alan Colmes willing to reach for the bag of silver.

People said that he was apologetic. Humble. Genuine even. I think that the whole debacle is completely scripted. Sociopaths have no facility for contrition. Sorry that he got caught I will buy. His defense is calculating and intended to compartmentalize.

The folks at NewsCorp said that they did have a code of conduct, around here somewhere's, it was purposefully made small because who ever reads the damn things anyways? Now there will be a big show of pomp and circumstance as the new big shot independent lawyer comes in to institute the new company ethic, I can't wait. Unfortunately the fish rots at the top. This current scandal is not a big enough of a game changer to have any effect at all. They own 40% of the radio market, a lion's share of the print and nothing can stop them short of a silver bullet or a wave of a crucifix. There will always be a large segment of the viewing public stupid enough to buy the bullshit.

Sauron has been unmasked, he can never again look pleasing in human form. Beware the hand of the Dark Lord.

Dominance and Submission

Steve Miller

Strange Apparitions

Magdalena © Robert Sommers

I am not really a superstitious guy. I have had my share of paranormal occurrences come down the pike but I really don't dwell on them too much, being a fairly rational guy. Lately though I have been doing some thinking...

***

Maybe the craziest story I ever heard was Mike Doyle's. Mike was a world champion surfer and artist whose mother lived in my town. Mike was living in Cabo and called his mom one day, a wild, outsider artist and friend of mine who we in town affectionately called Mama Doyle. Mike told me that his late aunt answered the phone. The woman had been dead for several years. "Who is this," Mike asked? "It's your mother," came the reply, but Mike knew something wasn't right. His aunt had answered, not his mother. Planes, trains and automobiles, he raced back to town. He discovered his mother had expired several days prior and according to Mike, before his phone call.

***

The woman was in my gallery last month talking about her trip to France, which included a brief stay in a building that used to be a convent. She woke up to find a holographic nun standing with a stern look at the foot of her bed. In the morning the hosts asked her about her sleep, which she confided was pretty miserable.  "Oh, did you see her?" the hosts casually inquired. "The Mother Superior?" She told me she got creeped out and got the hell out of there.

***

I found this story on Robert Hunter's long untended site Hunter Archive, in his Library of the Uncanny section. Louis B. wrote it in August of 2001.


In the spring of 1978, I was living at home with my parents and sister. One morning, my sister told my mother and I about a strange incident that occurred to her the previous night. She said that she was laying on her bed on her stomach reading a magazine, when she felt a hand on her back, and the hand moved down her back until it got to her rear end, at which time she said it pressed down hard. She reached around, thinking it was my mother and she said she felt flesh. When she turned to see who it was, she said she saw an old woman kneeling by her bed. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and when she looked again, it was gone. My sister was very upset by this experience, and I told her that it had to be a dream that seemed very real. She was very adamant about it, convinced it really happened and couldn't have been a dream. Without any recent deaths in the family, or any previous experiences of this nature happening in the house, I was convinced it was a dream. The subject was dropped.

That night, just as I had gone to bed, something extremely disturbing happened to me. I had just shut out the light and was ready to fall asleep, when I realized that my bed was shaking! I remember pressing my hand down hard on the bed, to make sure it wasn't me shaking. The bed was definitely shaking!! I sat up , and at the foot of the bed, there was someone standing there! I couldn't make out if it was a man or a woman, but it definitely was the outline of a human being, and the reason I could make out the shape was there were light particles bouncing around in the shape of a standing figure! I think when I sat up, I actually scared it, because it backed away from the bed and just sort of faded away. It's a little hard to describe - It didn't disappear, or go through the wall - It just faded away! It took a while to fall asleep that night because I didn't know what it wanted or why it was there!
The next morning, I told my mother and sister about what happened and my sister reminded me of what had happened to her the previous night! I had completely forgotten about her experience but now I realized that she didn't have a dream. For some reason, there was a ghost in my house but I didn't know why. When my mother heard these stories, she told my sister and I that she understood what was happening here. It seems that our neighbor's mother had died recently, and not long after her death, her daughter-in-law, who was friends with my mother, told my mother that the old lady had a lot of bedsheets that hadn't been used and wanted to know if my mother wanted them. My mother took them, and she claimed that while washing them, she got a really creepy feeling, but chose to ignore it. After washing these sheets, she put them on my sister's and my bed. The same day she put them on our beds, the weird things started happening. "That old lady doesn't want you to have her sheets", my mother said. She immediately gathered up the sheets, threw them in the trash, and the "visitations" immediately stopped. My mother was right. The old lady didn't want us to have her sheets. It's been over 20 years, but I still shudder when I think about what happened to me and my sister. I've had a number of paranormal experiences in my life, but that one is definitely the eeriest.

***

Juleen works for Leslie. Her mother died in November. This is her story of her mother's haunting.

We lived in our home for eight months with no incidents. But shortly after my dad came out to stay with us after mom's passing, strange stuff started happening. My two children and I first experienced seeing a petite figure in the shadows, about 5'3" or "4 but never showing us her face. 


One day about two weeks later our dog started barking uncontrollably at about 2:30 in the morning. She never barks so I got up to check both around and outside the house. Gage, my son came inside a few minutes after I did, very shaken up. He asked me if I was in the living room talking to him when he was quieting the dog? I said no and he told me that a woman's voice has said "Come closer, come closer now!" Gage freaked and none of us could go back to sleep. Gage heard footsteps for the rest of the night and we watched the bathroom light turn itself off and on several times without human help. 


A few days later the three of us were playing a game in the living room when the dog once again went berserk. She was yelping and scared and wouldn't come out from under the kitchen table. As I bent over to console her I heard a voice talking to me on my left side. I turned around, thinking my daughter was there but there was no one in the room. This aberrant behavior lasted several days. The washing machine would start and stop on its own. Everybody in the house was pretty freaked out.


I talked to my father. We all had experienced all we could take. "Knock it off, Nancy, we've had enough!" he loudly snapped in the hallway. We never had another disturbance.

***

Leslie lost her mom last month, something that is hard to deal with and has left a considerable sized hole in our life. Leslie was doing laundry the night before last, matching the socks on the green and lavender quilt in our master bedroom. One black sock had lost its mate and she stuffed it in the sock drawer. She searched but couldn't find the lone straggler and finally went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When she came back into the room it was sitting alone right there in the middle of the bed.

She and Juleen have also reported strange taps on their arms from unseen forces this week. Both of them independently.

If any of you have any similar stories to share, please spill.

I'm So Afraid

Blast Condolences

The Blast would like to send out special warm and fuzzy thoughts to a couple of our most loyal and favorite readers who made an unfortunate little mistake.

This anonymous couple invited a new shirt tail relative to come and stay at their nice pad and well, now they just never want to leave. In fact they have been informed that the new guest might be able to change his or her schedule to stay through august.

My understanding is that my pals are about ready to chew their arms off at the stump in order to rid themselves of the new pesky relative.

People, company and fish both stink after three days! We all know this, we have all heard it a million times. When you invite someone over to stay be emphatic about the limited duration of their prospective visit. For all you know, their life could actually suck so bad that your scene seems like an idyllic palm studded island replete with the ninety two virgins and the whole shebang. Shoo them back to their miserable existence before you have to call the pest control service.

A week actually living with someone you love can sometimes destroy the relationship, I won't go into particulars, I am sure that we have all been there. So the fact that you share a few x chromosomes or common friends and relations just ain't going to cut it. And a word of advice - when someone needs to crash on the couch for a night or two, don't be too nice. They might decide to never leave.

When you have to plan a vacation in the midst of a houseguest's visit in order to escape, you may have let things go a little too far. Love you guys.

Hellbound Train

We have mined a lot of musical genres here at blast radio. At last count I have plumbed delta through chicago blues, some beebop, acid rock, bluegrass, soul, funk, western, a smattering of classical when we needed lifting up, bubblegum, british invasion, the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, protest, Woody Guthrie, Garage, disco, some eighties, rhythm and noise, reggae, folk, big band, crooners, world beat, ska, female psychedelic, singer song writers, gospel, swing, jazz, new wave, punk, skiffle, r&b, polka, ranchera, Harry Partch, pretty much the whole gamut. Heck I have played Abba and BeeGees. But there are a couple of notable exceptions. I have not done a lot of heavy metal. No ranchera or banda. Very little rap or hip hop. Weak on southern rock. Not a lot of major 7th yacht rock of the Wildfire, David Gates and Bread ilk. Not any hair metal of the Poison variety. Little art rock of the Yes, Genesis, Crimson, Asia persuasion.

With these holes evident in my game I will try to do some patching in the coming week. I am definitely open to suggestions. We are in some dire need of a few rock chestnuts. Those of us who came of age in the seventies need no longer feel ashamed of our ill timed musical birthright. Visualize the ford Econoline van with the bong spilled shag carpeting and the little porthole window and lets get this party started.

I need some seventies anthems like this one that can stand on their own two feet without ridicule. Give me a hand. Listen to your innermost Marshall Tucker and help me out. I will not embarrass you, I promise. Will see your Freebird and raise you one Ronnie Montrose.

Bury your mistakes

As a news junkie and a person who favors journalistic integrity I have to admit that the News Corp scandal is just too good. Over the top. Out of the park. The scandal has now brought down most of the senior management at NewsCorp with son James Murdoch surely soon to follow. Both senior officials of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard have resigned and the Cameron government is swaying desperately and precariously in the storm. The company narrative of the phone hacking as the work of one deranged employee has been shown to be complete rubbish and poppycock. This article from the New York Times today gives you a pretty good idea of the top brasses manipulations and prevarications in dealing with the scandal the last few years. The everybody else is doing it defense.

Today word comes across the pike that the initial whistle blower in the case, Sean Hoare, has met his unfortunate demise in Herefordshire. Hoare fingered his boss at News of the World, Coulson, to the feds. Death not suspicious, 'tall, according to the police, of course. Might be a good time to bring in old George Smiley. Or has he retired again?

I decided to see how the Wall Street Journal, that eternal beacon of conservative America and News Corp. lion was taking the news. This is today's opinion, with my annotations in red. It is titled News and its critics, A tabloid's excesses don't tarnish thousands of other journalists.

When News Corp. and CEO Rupert Murdoch secured enough shares to buy Dow Jones & Co. four years ago, these columns welcomed our new owner and promised to stand by the same standards and principles we always had. That promise is worth repeating now that politicians and our competitors are using the phone-hacking years ago at a British corner of News Corp. to assail the Journal, and perhaps injure press freedom in general. British Corner? As in, how can you tarnish a whole empire for the sins of one little paper? Of course no one at Fox News or its proxies on this side of the lake would ever behave that way, the company having such a strong adherence to ethics and propriety. Politicians and competitors. This is all a big political stunt by our enemies and competitors. And an attack on us is an attack on press freedom everywhere. The old victim card. Please...

***

At least three British investigations into phone-hacking and payments to police and others by the now-shuttered News of the World tabloid are underway, with 10 arrests so far. News Corp. and its executives have apologized profusely and are cooperating with authorities. Phone-hacking is illegal, and it is up to British authorities to enforce their laws. If Scotland Yard failed to do so adequately when the hacking was first uncovered several years ago, then that is more troubling than the hacking itself. We said that we were sorry. We shut the damn rag down. It was up to the cops to catch us. Can we help it if they were so tractable after we paid them off, wined and dined them and eventually hired them as consultants. You actually owe us a favor for exposing the clumsiness and moral bankruptcy of the Conservative government.

It is also worth noting the irony of so much moral outrage devoted to a single media company, when British tabloids have been known for decades for buying scoops and digging up dirt on the famous. Fleet Street in general has long had a well-earned global reputation for the blind-quote, single-sourced story that may or may not be true. The understandable outrage in this case stems from the hacking of a noncelebrity, the murder victim Milly Dowler. It wasn't like the victim was anybody, after all. And everybody else does it.

The British politicians now bemoaning media influence over politics are also the same statesmen who have long coveted media support. The idea that the BBC and the Guardian newspaper aren't attempting to influence public affairs, and don't skew their coverage to do so, can't stand a day's scrutiny. The overnight turn toward righteous independence recalls an eternal truth: Never trust a politician. Once again, blame our competitors. If you think we are the bastards, you ought to get a load of their act. This happens to be the way that the game is played.

Which brings us to Friday's resignation of our publisher and CEO, Les Hinton, who ran News Corp.'s British newspaper unit during the time of the alleged hacking. In his resignation letter, Mr. Hinton said he knew nothing about wide-scale hacking and had testified truthfully to Parliament in 2007 and 2009. We have no reason to doubt him, especially based on our own experience working for him. Alleged? Eight people have gone to jail. People have confessed. Alleged?

In nearly four years at the Journal, Mr. Hinton managed the paper's return to profitability amid a terrible business climate. He did so not solely by cost-cutting but by investing in journalists when other publications were laying off hundreds. On ethical questions, his judgment was as sound as that of any editor we've had. He made us money. 

In the specific case of Singapore, he allowed the company to defend one of our journalists against a defamation claim through the appellate stage, despite the historically faint prospect of success. This is more than can be said for other British and American publications. In doing so, Mr. Hinton forced the Singapore judiciary to address significant changes in the law protecting honest journalism elsewhere in the former British commonwealth that the judges could have otherwise ignored. Sainthood must surely be awaiting right around the corner. And News Corp had to find a way to spend all that money from your rich Saudi Prince and investor.

Our readers can decide if we are a better publication than we were four years ago, but there is no denying that News Corp. has invested in the product. The news hole is larger. Our foreign coverage in particular is more robust, our weekend edition more substantial, and our expansion into digital delivery ahead of the pack. The measure that really matters is the market's, and on that score Mr. Hinton was at the helm when we again became America's largest daily. Not like those last skinflints who were paying our bills.

We also trust that readers can see through the commercial and ideological motives of our competitor-critics. The Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp. journalists across the world. Anyone who doesn't buy our line of shit must surely be a left wing anarchist.

The prize for righteous hindsight goes to the online publication ProPublica for recording the well-fed regrets of the Bancroft family that sold Dow Jones to News Corp. at a 67% market premium in 2007. The Bancrofts were admirable owners in many ways, but at the end of their ownership their appetite for dividends meant that little cash remained to invest in journalism. We shudder to think what the Journal would look like today without the sale to News Corp.You missed a period here at the end. Just because Corp. is abbreviated doesn't mean it is the end of a sentence. Hire a decent fucking proofreader with all of your great Fox resources. By the way noncelebrity is not a word. See paragraph three. ProPublica, wasn't it headed by one of your former top brass? Those damn Bancrofts who wanted to bankrupt this mean spirited little rag.

In braying for politicians to take down Mr. Murdoch and News Corp., our media colleagues might also stop to ask about possible precedents. The political mob has been quick to call for a criminal probe into whether News Corp. executives violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act with payments to British security or government officials in return for information used in news stories. Attorney General Eric Holder quickly obliged last week, without so much as a fare-thee-well to the First Amendment. Our first amendment rights trump your laws about U.S. corporations bribing foreign companies. 

The foreign-bribery law has historically been enforced against companies attempting to obtain or retain government business. But U.S. officials have been attempting to extend their enforcement to include any payments that have nothing to do with foreign government procurement. This includes a case against a company that paid Haitian customs officials to let its goods pass through its notoriously inefficient docks, and the drug company Schering-Plough for contributions to a charitable foundation in Poland. The act is simple. Rebekah Brooks says they bribed policemen. End of story.

Applying this standard to British tabloids could turn payments made as part of traditional news-gathering into criminal acts. The Wall Street Journal doesn't pay sources for information, but the practice is common elsewhere in the press, including in the U.S. Once again missing a period at the end. Again, everybody else does it, the child's defense.

The last time the liberal press demanded a media prosecutor, it was to probe the late conservative columnist Robert Novak in pursuit of White House aide Scooter Libby. But the effort soon engulfed a reporter for the New York Times, which had led the posse to hang Novak and his sources. Do our media brethren really want to invite Congress and prosecutors to regulate how journalists gather the news? It will be you liberals' ass next, you can count on it. We are doing god's work and anyone who questions it, is obviously part of the evil empire.

***

Phone-hacking is deplorable, and we assume the guilty will be prosecuted. More fundamentally, the News of the World's offense—fatal, as it turned out—was to violate the trust of its readers by not coming about its news honestly. We realize how precious that reader trust is, and our obligation is to re-earn it every day. XXOO

The late Sean Hoare

Bitches Brew

Gnarly Shame

Like many towns in America, the Main St. I work on is fighting for its collective life. One of the freshest things to happen to Fallbrook in the last year is the opening of a small wine bar called the Gnarly Vine. The Gnarly Vine is a great place to decompress in the afternoon with a nice reasonably priced glass of wine. Very pleasantly appointed and a civilized experience in a sea of barbarity. Good cheeses, spanish olives, serrano, all very wonderful. Nice jazz and blues collection.

Unfortunately it looks like the place might be on its last legs. Yesterday the owners were served a termination of lease notice by their nasty, manipulative, harpy of a landlord, who decided that she wanted the place for her own twisted pursuits. She wanted them to move to a different location not covered by their liquor license. They refused. It is a real tragedy because they have invested a fortune of their own money in the place, which was a dump when they moved in and I am told they have always met their financial obligations.

I have had bad history with the landlord myself, history that I don't need to go into. I will just say one thing. When I bought my building I spent $20,000.00 to purchase parking spaces in the lot near the library so that my customers would have a place to park. This woman has spent the last forty years poaching parking spaces, being too cheap to ever pony up her contribution.

I hope that John and Lura can find a new place although it is very difficult to find restaurant space in Fallbrook at the present time.

It hurts because their place was really nice and just coming into its own. It really was starting to help us downtown. May a house fall on a certain so and so's legs.

Lila Downs

La Esmeralda de Sangria

Length overall: 371’ Beam: 42’8” Draft: 19’8” Hull: Steel Rig: Four-masted barquentine Year built: 1952-54 Home port: Valparaiso The world’s second largest sailing ship, Chile’s Esmeralda, 353 feet long with a mast height of 165 feet, was launched in 1952. The four-mast barkentine, capable of twelve knots under engine power, is armed with a quartet of 5.7-centimeter rapid-fire guns and has participated in OpSail 1964, 1976 and 1986.

You may remember the magnificent four masted ship on the horizon last week on our voyage to pour Ruth's ashes into the sea. I was listening to the news today on NPR and learned something about the boat and its ignoble history. She is a four masted barquentine of the Chilean Navy named Esmeralda. They call her the White Lady. The steel hulled vessel is the second longest and tallest sailing ship in the world. This boat was built in Cadiz, Spain in 1954 and is the sixth Chilean ship to bear the name Esmeralda.

In fact she has a rather sordid history. According to reports by the United States Senate, Amnesty International and the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Esmeralda was used as a floating torture chamber for dissidents and political prisoners from 1973 to 1980. This is during the reign of Dictator General Augusto Pinochet, who aided by the United States government, successfully plotted and carried out a coup to kill and usurp the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende.

In 1973, Maria Comene was held as a political prisoner on the ship for 10 days."It is a bad boat," Comene says. "A boat where blood was spilled."

It is suggested that over 110 prisoners, seventy men and forty women, were kept on board, subject to rape and genital shocks and brutal beatings. It is said that the British priest Michael Woodward died as a result of the brutal interrogation and torture he endured on the rigger. A good synopsis of the ship's bloody history can be found here. The Amnesty International document here.

The ship's captain says no one was tortured and besides,"Our work isn't to go around worrying about what happened in Chile so many years ago. It is to look towards the future," he says.

No one wants to look at the past. Deny until the event is a distant memory and then call for a look to the future. The Rupert Murdoch defense. Nuremberg. Eichmann. Custer. The chilean soldiers were just doing their job, just following orders, keeping the world free from communists, even democratically elected socialists.

People do need to move on, but penance can only take place after the truth is established and acknowledged and actual contrition is present.

"In Chile, people try to avoid talking about the past. The youngest generations believe the world began with them; anything that happened before they were born doesn't interest them."Isabelle Allende

***

I was talking to a friend about the relatively new South American restaurant in Encinitas, Q'ero. He had visited it and really enjoyed it. I told him that I had not had really good luck with food from this region. Never developed much of a taste for guinea pig. This restaurant actually features Peruvian cuisine. The last time I had Peruvian food I learned a very valuable lesson. Never talk politics with the chef until you have received your food.  This chef/owner in San Francisco was a good friend of the dictatorship. There were about twelve of us, after a show at the Concourse. The food came out with a half inch of salt poured over the top. Completely inedible. We left. I learned something.