A couple of Bots

Check out my two artificial intelligences, Emperor Norton and Mictlantecuhtli.

The Day After Tomorrow

Fire or ice? The promos for this film suggest both.

Don Bushote?

George W. Bush's antics seem comic when we read about them in blogs but they are grimmer than satire when we remember that this is no fictional character but a fool with a great deal of power in his hands.

Harding Truck Trail 2

Wishy Washy Joel?

Principled stands in the middle often get attacked by both sides as "sell-outs" to the other side.

Insert a Trite Metaphor about a Corral

I went looking for other stuff

The Great Library of Tlan

This afternoon, as I nicked the rough edges off some poems and vignettes, I wanted a pass to the Great Library of Tlan.

I Will Not Surrender My Joy

In my head I shall keep these images as the reason for my struggle.

What's Polluting Your Neighborhood?

Enviromapper can show you where the dumping is going on and the location of the nearest Superfund site as well as a host of lesser evils such as keepers of hazardous waste, smokestacks, and waste water dischargers.

Harding Truck Trail 1

Cowbird Morals

Stealth is not nearly as important as brazen insertion.

Chatterbox

For those with AIM or MSN Messenger, here is my contact information

An Epic Challenge

My name is on this list and I hope that you will add yours.

Homo Omnivorous

...our nearest relatives among the apes, such as the chimpanzees, have problems digesting meat without resorting to a lot of physical activity.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 24

Chaparral Hiking Tips

Those paths leading off the main roads and up steep slopes aren't "Indian trails". The Indians weren't so stupid as to make their life difficult. Those are Stupid American trails.

Haitian Proverbs

Conspiracy is stronger than witchcraft.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 23

Joplin Trail 2

The Lesson of Tito

Ours is not to eradicate but to compromise and aid them in compensating.

Joplin Trail 1

Santiago Trail 3

Paths of Light
Paths of Light is now at http://pathsoflight.us/blog/index.html Please change your bookmarks to reflect this....

Swarm and Splendor

The weird wildlife encounter of the day was a swarm of bees which covered an area the width of a basketball in the middle of the road.

Signs and Solitude

Like Maria of alembic, I discount these sightings as signs.

Why the Poor are Fat

"Our poor are fat" is a way of exculpating the rich from responsibility for the worsening state of affairs in this country.

Economic Rambling

Can we let the red states pay for all of it?

Insert a Trite Metaphor About a Corral

Rages at the world tend to be followed by a natural desire to stand up in the bilges of ship and sing at the top of one's lungs.

Studying for my Turing Test

Human: Do you support the war?

ALICE: I am in favor of all records being broken, at any time.

Savage Love on Fat

I'm looking for the thin man who used to be there.

Why I Love Her

"You have him well trained," said a woman to Lynn.

Paths of Light
I'm going to be moving Paths of Light over to the new server this weekend. There's a little there right...

School Records

That book is closed and I shall not open it.

Catholics and the Hanging Gut

Why not just feel good about the way we look?

Catholic Suttee

When martyrdom is chosen because of social pressure and not because of personal devotion, it becomes murder.

The Politics of Fat and Exercise

It had nothing to do with staying healthy, everything to do with eugenics.

Stephen Riddle Responds

It is increasingly hard for American Catholics on the Left.

Abu Ghraib and Nick Berg Explained

The language of pain is inexplicit yet profound.

Food off the Table

The machine moves on, oblivious to the people who it destroys as it grinds towards economic apocalypse.

A Pipeline of Atrocity

I continue to support Amnesty International's efforts to get at the truth.

The Trial

Yes, she persuaded them to rape her with a pool cue and a lighted cigarette as shown in the video.

Let the Disinformation Begin!

Trust them? Fat chance

Anti-War Films

The theme of both films isn't so much anti-war but anti-stupid-leaders who put people in impossible situations.

Off Trabuco Canyon

The noise of the OHVs sandpapered our ears as we climbed the 400 foot scarp to the first mesa.

Achilles the Heel

I am amused to find a new Hollywood attempt to tell the story of the Trojan War, sans the fidelity to the story told by Homer and everyone else.

Santiago Trail 2

Volcan Mountain 5

The Road Goes Ever Onward

I gained too much weight and didn't upload any new hikes until this past week.

Ecclesia reformada

I excommunicated the Catholic Church from giving me sacraments.

Alsirat.com

Due to network crud, we won't be seeing Alsirat back on the network for a couple of days, but it is coming.

Michael Berg: Enemy of The Right the Wrong

This demands a deep investigation of the Right's penetration into our government.

Nick Berg: The Video

What about the Iraqis blown to bits by our drones, our cruise missiles, our carpet bombing, our soldiers panicking in the streets of Bagdhad? I mourn Nick Berg, but I will not allow the prostitution of his death to make me forget them.

Insert a Trite Metaphor about a Corral

Thank you, George W. Bush, for keeping us on the "numb-em-with-ghastly-images-until-they-don't-move" track this week.

A Day of Silence
Today is dedicated to the memory of Nick Bergand the thousands of other victims of the War in Iraq....

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 21 and 22

Zulch Auto Works
There really was a Zulch Auto Works in San Bernardino, a brick cube to the west of the freeway, to...

Incident in the Dining Room

So proud to be better than me is he of the fat lower lip and chocolate frosting curls.

Nick Berg

This is not a time for a pacifist to change his mind about war.

To Expatriates and Citizens of Other Nations

If you care about the war in Iraq, start caring about the activists, the poets, and the free voices who strive to live joyfully despite the harshness of these times.

Politics and Poetry

We who write political poetry can easily fall into the hackneyed and pustulous, foully cute, start to sound like a militant version of Hallmark Greeting Cards.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 20

A Gong-Tormented Sea

All my life, as I've moved in an agonized trance among you, I've heard you say "Joel, you have to consider other people's feelings. You have to consider other people's feelings."

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 19

Principles of Climbing Hills

You cannot rush the ascent of a mountain and still love the mountain.

Teaching Fear

It was only seven inches long from nose to tail, one of this spring's first kits.

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 18

A Garter Snake

When I heard a continuous hiss without the tiny foot steps and without the heavy-bodied pushing of the grass, I looked immediately....

Fundamentalism is Overpermissive about Fat

"Oh, I eat very little," you hear them say. Then you see them, with their plates piled high at a smorgabord and you know that most of them are liars.

The Sun and The Moon

Did men seize on the Sun out of Womb Envy?

Feminism: Mahayana and Hinayana

Young women, be careful who you oppose.

Multiculturalism: Hinayana vs. Mahayana Ideologies

The kind of multi-culturalism that I celebrate begins with the individual.

Five Pillars

One should fight with Muslims as one should fight with Christians: return to the roots of the religion and ask them why they are perverting it with hatred.

Insert a Trite Metaphor for a Corral

"This page will not be fouled with the dirty pictures of American military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners," said Natalie, aptly pointing out that torture is a kind of pornography.

What Kind of Writer Am I?

So much one can gather from answering only three questions

Black Helicopter

A faint wasp-shape, the color of a bluebottle, passed maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred feet over my head.

Post-Modernism vs. Democracy

I agree that the motives of post-modernists are admirable, that they do rightly perceive biases that white male scientists often bring to the study of human behavior (in particular), and that there are other ways to knowledge; however, I do not like the way that they have opened the door to sloppy thinking and some very wrong takes on the nature of human life and the Universe that threaten to undermine and destroy all that our parents and grandparents struggled to establish for the good of all the children of this country of ours.

Certainties

....it took ambivalence to be that way. I don't think I want to return to that kind of open-mindedness.

10.5 and 200

This fanciful idea of California falling into the sea trumps the public interest over the reality of the flooding of our lowlands all over the world.

Change

Every day that I get to feeling better about myself, one more person leaves my life.

Viva Cinco de Mayo!

This year, as the United States embarks on its own adventure in the Middle East, I hope that we will remember Cinco de Mayo and grant to the Iraqis the same right to choose that we expect all Americans to enjoy.

Focus on the Family

Family is the beginning of compassion, not the limit.

Neither Pro-Life nor Pro-Choice: Merely for noncriminalization

I support the Woman above both ideologies.

To Mike Golby

It's tiring as hell to do so and then hear that I am not doing enough, that because I am not hammering at this twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, I must be just "another American".

Jeremiad against the Purblind

This peace that I see is dearly bought by others.

Choice and Depression

We dwell on what we don't have or we become monsters who press to have all the choices available to them so that a "mistake" can be easily rectified by a different purchase.

Bout Number 3

Juan Peron ran out of luck.

No longer could he champion the Argentine.

Martyrdom 8: The Buddha

You don't promote enlightenment by inciting pain. You merely increase the level of suffering in another person's life until she gives in.

A Premise for Poetic Appreciation

All poets

speak to and from the same soul.

Reference Books Meme

This meme originates here.

SQL!

Can anyone recommend a good SQL editor?

Death on the Internet

....the blue Pacific

endless and unperturbed

Fragile Women

I am getting tired of fragile women

The Beeman 1

The Swarm 2

The Bee Man came just before five. He'd cleared out seven hives before he came to ours.

The Deserted Heartland

The culture that produced Sherwood Anderson, Willa Cather, and others is dying.

Self Pity and Dumb Luck

Thank you Sam and Bert for the gifts you gave me and the other OC poets this week.

Bully Saints and Ugly Anti-Americans

The time may be coming when an idiot acts on those advices and I am conscious of the fact that I might be one of those lined up against the wall. I'd rather die there than as a mocking expatriate in a neo-European suburbia.