Valyermo 6

The peace of the garden could have been Eden.

What are We Going to DO about Illegal Citizens?

If those who live here without INS approval are "illegal aliens", then those who do not register for the draft are "illegal citizens".

An Alabama Recall

Riley, who is a devout Christian and a man of conscience, read a theological paper that discussed the Christian's obligation to the poor. His tax reform would have shifted the tax burden off the backs of the working poor and onto the backs of the wealthy.

Is Ahnold a Shoo-In?

If you vote for him, you give him license to be these things. It means that you are an accessory to his boorishness, his arrogance, and his stupidity

Fogbound
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

Valyermo 5

California Poetry Anthology
More than a few of you are poets. If you are a California poet, you should know that the deadline...

Vote against the recall, vote against vagueness

Arnold refused to take part in candidate debates. He has ducked hard questions. This suggests that he either has a secret plan that he knows the voters will detest if he told it to them or he has no plan at all. Both are sound reasons to vote no on the recall, vote against this opportunist.

Sign of the Cross

I never managed to quite shake the Catholic out of myself. Not that it is such a bad thing.

A Monastery Festival

One of the wonders of the Catholic Church is that when you go to any large event -- be it Easter Vigil Mass in a metropolitan cathedral, a monastery festival, or a bingo game -- you inevitably witness a genuine diversity of people.

The Dream Act

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is a major co-sponsor in the Senate.

Lights Out

I can forgive the electrical company, but when this computer of mine fails me, that's personal!

Political?

I don't have time for people who don't have a clue about what they are doing, who don't make an effort to understand the criticisms that are lodged against them, who don't ask themselves "what have I done here?"

Why History Needs to be Revised

There's a dangerous myth here: that what is said once must only be repeated, never tested.

Vile to Write About

I record even that which is vile to think about.

Edward W. Nottingham

Let's get back the right to say "sometimes what's good for business screws everyone else".

Inhabitant of B&N

When no fewer than three people asked me if I lived in the place tonight, I decided that enough was enough: I'm not showing until Wednesday.

Good News for Islamic Womanhood

>. Islam has shown that it is perfectly capable of righting its own wrongs.

Goodbye Kiril

I hate to break a silence in this manner

The Gutless Agnostic Pacifist Speaks Up

Every Christian blog needs it's token agnostic!

Another Hummer Dinger

All this and $50 plus a day fuel bills! Just from going to the office!

A Deceitful Disease

The hardest part of being sick with a cold is arising in the morning with the feeling that it is all past, then feeling the phlegm build up during the course of the day until you are spitting yellow mustard in parking lots and public bathrooms.

Questions for Bill
Bill Hopkins of Prairie Point has asked for an interview: In what ways is your garden like quilt? Is any...

Tours in the Skin

I suggest that the solution is reinstate the capital gains and estate taxes for those in the uppermost income brackets.

Driving

The act, however, is simple, and I can do it sitting down.

Which Do You Choose?

We will be an egalitarian, race-blind society when the son of the President of the United States gets the job he deserves pumping gas instead of getting pushed up because of his connections.

I Walk Past Enron

Oh my God, I thought. Enron in shorts and a t-shirt

Cough cough

Good topic, but I'm worn out

Visualizing the Recall

A Dark World and Wide

Gravity pulls you down toe-ways

as the shout to your rear comes

surfing on the wired zeer of wheels.

Compassionate Conservatism? Ha!

Yes, I am sure that a recently laid off industrial worker making $35,000 a year (the supposed family average for the United States -- poverty level for a family of four living in metropolitan California) is going to jump at the chance to pick grapes and lettuce for much less.

How Trustworthy is This Factoid?

Yes, I should trust the same media which failed to investigate the truthfulness of the President's rationale for war (among other things) when it relates a factoid about illegal aliens on the eve of a California election.

Class Warfare

Talk about serving up a lie a'brochette!

Not Surprised

Because I was a little dizzy from all the Ventolin in my lungs and fluid in my ear, I had her drive home. Enroute she asked me "Notice anything different?"

Authentic Happiness Quiz
The Authentic Happiness site is designed to accompany the book by Martin E.P. Seligman. When you join, you take a...

Perverse Children's Books
I think this deserves no further comment....

Frostless at Midnight

The cop cars at John Wayne Orange County Airport reflected the bland orange mocha lamp shine. The burning metropolis jumped up and left its singe in the sky.

Give Me Hyperactivity or Give me Death

I think I nearly died last night.

Buddhism and War

During the heyday of Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent, emperors such as Harsha of Kanauj and Dharmapala of Binhar and Bengal waged wars of expansion quite avidly, despite their faith.

Econo Eyes
Get these cool glasses and you, too, can see the total reality of the Economy!...

Are You a Self-Defeating Democrat?
This cartoon from The Village Voice might well describe you. If you see yourself in any of the panels, it's...

Taxes by Corporations on Us and Other Suppressed Stories

Do you want your local cable company deciding what is fit for you to see and what you should not see (like the European press and this weblog)?

What a Day for a Daydream

No, today was not for daydreaming. It was for fighting the world and doing my darndest to feel better.

2000
Entries: 1706 Comments: 2000 The 2000th commentator was Yule Heibel! Horns blow! Drums roll! Joel wheezes!...

Dream
Someone used the word "turkey" in an article or on a news broadcast. It was all over the news. Centrist...

International Date Rape

La Belle France is right to keep her legs crossed here.

Interview by Jenny

Writing is a terrific thing to brag about, but it's hard to do.

The First Hour

Boadicea comes to lie on me, but whenever I cough, she jumps off. She doesn't know that a cough isn't a scolding, I think.

Snort more Nitrous?

Just to see if I could score one up on Yule, I went looking for a web page that would describe the sinuses and explain what they are there for.

How's My Cold?

Please wish it the worst of luck in the days to come.

Constancy in Loss

A constant has been established. There is no time to waste.

Scenes

I'm not fully adept at the moment of ridicule.

The Blessing of a Cold
I woke up with a sore throat this morning. It cheered me up. Now I have a reason to loaf...

Supply Side Jesus

Word is that the National Review has referred to it as "low, stinking satire", a chorus that I will undoubtably hear when our current affair discussion group meets next month.

Overheard at Arby's

"This job," said the Latino, "is a job. It's hard, very hard."

Bedtime
I started to leave the screen up so Lynn could read what I wrote in the morning. But she's in...

Trolled

They did a good job, I have to admit.

Statistics
Entries: 1692 Comments: 1990 Who will be my 2000th commentator? Stay tuned!...

Rain

I wish the air was heavy with the explosive scent of the dust stirred up by the pregnant droplets bouncing off the earth.

Conservative Affirmative Action?

I actually think this is a great idea because students instinctively hate professors regardless of the tradition.

Mexican Gardeners and Middle Class Copouts

we claim that we want this end to illegal immigration. So why don't we seek lifestyles that are less dependant on lawns and nonnative shrubs?

Big

If I could give six inches of my height to anyone else, I would.

Real Men Don't Use Tin Cans

I bet Denis Boyle has never eaten acorn gruel! That's a real food of the land.

The Heart Again

Could it be that sometimes the heart is in control of the pen and deceives us so that it can proceed in its rank and broken way uninterrupted?

Singles

I listened in on the singles group after the writing group tonight. They had a guest speaker who barked up his book which had something to do with men and shoe sizes.

Frida and Me

It can be hard to take photos that reflect your feelings.

Fill

Fill.

The Other Road

I loved literature: I got As in high school and scored a 5 on the AP literature examination. Writing was what I did well.

Roach Alert
Michael Kasa believes that blogs exist for publicizing his get-rich-quick schemes. This one doesn't, Michael. I deleted your message and...

Begging Off Again

Tonight is not for painful remembrance.

Monumental
They should build a statue to this man. He'd make one hell of a fountain!...

Sin
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

Mothering and Work Among the Futurists

What a future! Can't we think of another?

A Bar

I don't know what to write on this topic except that I know that Judy Reeves has this thing about cowboys.

Wesley Clark

I am hard pressed to think of a former general (other than Washington who suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion) who waged war while President.

The Body as Wound

Early Buddhists likened the body to a wound. It oozed from nine orifices (twelve in women) and gave pain.

Messages

If I refuse to be terrorized, what power do they have over me?

The Buddha Meets Ötzi

Taking a walk in a cemetery with the Buddha, I think, would give us a different sense of what death and continuity are all about. The place I'd really love to visit with him is the cryogenic crypt where they keep Ötzi the Ice Man.

Another Perversion of Founding Thoughts

It seems to me that the CC has hit on a way to bring moneychangers into the virtual temple.

Past Lives and Reincarnation

Eighteen years ago when I was out of work and searching for answers, I invested in a "past life regression".

Post Nine Eleven

We often say 'Live for today'. That's America's problem these days. We're all still standing at the Battery watching the twin towers come down.

A Voice in the Darkness

I've learned to beware of rouged over faces in women and cunningly coifed hair in men. I don't trust the person who always knows me before they know anything about me.

Jokers in The Memory

Memory's a funny thing, like a Las Vegas dealer throwing out cards, some blank, some marked.

Very Popular with Himself
The top spender in the recall so far is Arnold Schwartzenegger ($6,333,351). His largest contributor is himself at $4,050,000. To...

Too Far and Not Far Enough

The Media went too far by broadcasting the scenes of the World Trade Center attack over and over again until people were crawling under their coffee tables, screaming as they thought they heard the Bernoulian screech of wind riding over the wings of jets plowing into their neighborhood.

Another Shocking Photo from the Front

A Feline Citizen's Militia member stands ready to do her part in the War on Terriers.

Behind the Recall
Gray Davis angered California voters, in part, because he did favors for special interests who gave large donations to his...

Aliso & Wood Canyons 2

Policy Change

Instead of banning them outright, I shall first attempt to close the thread.

InterNet Outage

There's not much to say. I am mainly posting this for the sake of those who come here looking for tomorrow's topic

Shocking Photo from the Front

He did say that he was spending another $87 billion for the War on Terrier, right?

The Presence of Pollock

Bill J. (who doesn't do art of any kind as far as I know) wants to be able to name the elements in what he sees and connect them to real world objects. I feel that there are things which are unnameable. The best art practices the presence of those.

Lesbians and Feminity

And it's entirely possible that the test is screwed up. It was correct 2/3s of the time. I wouldn't undergo transexual surgery with those odds.

Jesus and Miracles

Two thousand years after the life of Christ, Heresy is mainstream.

Califoracle

Funny. Scary as all hell, too.

Joel live from anywhere.

I want to tell you about the koalas I am seeing in the Blue Mountains, the chambered nautilus I fished up from the Pacific, the meerkats blinking in the African sun, the okapis swishing their tails in the Congo rainforests.

Bad Form/Statistics
Entries: 1653 Comments: 1932 Watching to see who will have comment #2000....

Uncautious Skepticism

It's a spin more worthy of saucer cultists than of an honest skeptic that leads Barbara Mikkelson to defend the gathering of the Saudis, to insist that they weren't flown out of the country while the airport ban was in effect, and to write off any testimony which confounds the facts as reported in a selected series of articles.

Gender Genie Feels You Out

In the wake of these revelations (more evidence that I have an enlarged clitoris), I went down the list of blogs in my daily walk. I discovered that according to Gender Genie, many people weren't what they seemed to be.

Self-Dating and Cancer

I think Zonker had the answer: "Hey, did you guys hear that self-dating prevents cancer?"

The Smell of Smoke

Under the arched live oaks of Trabuco Canyon Road, I caught the scent for a moment. Not sweet, not sour, not bitter. The odor of smoke.

Polygamy: A Descendant Thinks On It

If polygamy were legal, would I do it?

Aortal: Prairie Point

Bill Hopkins might be described as a "quiet man of the Left".

Between Dawn and Dusk

The time between dusk and dawn. My time. When I sit at the keyboard and open my mind like a vein and watch the blood dribble all over the place. Apologies to Sherwood Anderson for stealing his image.

But What Are They For?

There was plenty of complaining about what elements of the Left and the Right were doing wrong -- especially the Left -- but very little talk about what these self-professed Gen Xers actually stood for, except "We've got to bring the flag back" and "We've got to fight terrorism".

On Eavesdropping

I'm looking for the real voices, the real life that people lead.

Hatred: Institutional and Personal

Question ALL Authority, including Your Own.

Relativism is Not a Morality

Those who insist that cultural relativism demands that we declare two cultures to be "equally wrong" on any given issue are -- dare I say it? -- wrong.

Carpetbaggers Nearly All

This California Native isn't going to be hoodwinked. I'm voting for my own in the recall. The rest of them can just go back where they came from. Let a Californian govern California.

Five P.M.

From five until the first parent returns home to fix dinner and manage the kids, I enjoy silence.

More on the MECHA Smear

I thought I'd follow up on my MECHA views with a links to thoughtful blogs on the subject.

Aliso & Wood Canyons 1

Cinquain No. 18

I curled inside dreams,

a paper nautilus swimming

in blue.

New Features
OK, now for the boring stuff: We've upgraded to MovableType 2.64 I've added a Babelfish translation engine to the page....

News of The Other Recall

... the recall in Japan had it's own version of the butterfly ballot.

The MECHA Smear

The Right -- led by censorship king Bill O'Reilly -- has been flooding the airwaves with the accusation that Cruz Bustamonte and MECHA implicitly endorse the violent takeover and reannexation of the Southwest by Mexico. Note that second word: reannexation. The land we're on was Mexico's to begin with.

How We Spent Labor Day

I could not check into the motels, ride in the motorboats, or afford to hire a biplane to drag the message I wanted the beach people to see which was "You're being screwed!"

Cinquain No. 17

Write a December memory.

Labor day Roundup

While you were munching hot dogs in honor of the fact that as an American you are one of the hardest working and most productive people in the world, the Secretary of Labor announced that you're going to lose your overtime pay! Hooray! Hey, why aren't you cheering?

Labor Day

Trim the fat from the meat and from the corporate elite. Live healthily today. Celebrate your dignity as a working person who deserves better than he or she gets.

Sri Ganesh

Maybe it's a good thing that I've never performed the ritual that Nancy describes?

Read Yule! Read Yule!

Yule is another asker of impertinent questions, particularly where the issues pertain to materialism and life on the web.

Standards of Failure

"The community?" I ask. "Hell, I'm part of the community, too." And if I am smart, I just get back to work.