Atlantis off the starboard bow

Sometimes we miss important things because we are shown something else. Now, that something else has validity too, or we wouldn't be pointed in that direction, the best action being to look everywhere and ye shall find - that is if you are interested in finding. I'm not talking intentional diversion here, I am speaking of trusted sources that want us to know what they are thinking about a situation. As always, we, the readers, are expected to make of it what we will. We've seen a lot of worthy sources slammed and you know, anything positive can be argued to its negative if you happen to be arguing truths with a good con, a better con than yourself. Me, I don't take cons well, I don't know enough about anything to be good at debating the opposite side from which I stand which means I will fiercely defend the side on which I stand. A case in point would be a site I visited until recently, recently because I've since removed any reference to him, where the author took it upon himself to point out rudely why the views belonging to a noted member in good standing with our little love community here were flawed. This pissed me off no end because it was a con job in action revealing that the con artist had never taken the time to examine our friend's views in their entirety as well as revealing the con artist's motive which was to make himself appear all knowing, all seeing which to the best of my knowledge are not exactly human traits. "Out of context" hearsay does not make a case. Another example that comes to mind is one friend with some literary weight slamming another friend's blog, a tome of nothing but hard truth on the basis that the author was a heh, spook, like who cares? If spooks are telling truths, sign me up. Whenever I run into these things, its hurts me, saddens me, to see that so many forget what we are doing here at all. Now here we are on a new post today and I'm planning on using a few links for a little more in-depth analysis and I want to make it clear, please read them with your own interpretations. Put aside hearsay and pay attention to the content. That is all I ask, make up your mind about the content under discussion for yourself. Perhaps it is best to let go forming any opinions at all and just digest the material. After you do that long enough, an opinion will come about on its own and it will be all your's, no one else's. And once you have opinions based solely on your own interpretation, you will have something fairly close to the truth. It almost doesn't matter where the information comes from as long as you've taken in a broad spectrum so that a bigger picture emerges.

Here is a typically large batch of binary numbers representing a terrible truth from a source that is somewhat questionable only because they do not, for the most part, pass the famous Wikileaks litmus test. Yet, I go there anyway and very often find something worthwhile in the mix, which today is this essay by Hirose Takashi. It is translated from Japanese and a little sketchy at first, but the message is completely clear. I liken all of us busy or not so busy human beings doing whatever we do, however we do it, to life in the final days of Atlantis. In doing so and seeing ourselves as compassionate people, can you put yourself in the shoes (gaeta) of the Japanese? Try it. Imagination is integral to compassion. Feel it? There they are, living inside the bizarre circumstance of globalism along with the rest of the developed nations and doing the best they can, as we do, with the little they have, as we do, going about the business of ordinary life, as we do, until one normal evening suddenly everything not sucked into the giant washing machine of the homicidal tsunami went up in radioactive steam. For real, my friends, as the evacuation zone widens, more and more human beings are getting the word, you can never go home again. Worse, this condition is growing exponentially as the Pacific Plate refuses to settle down and the globe is dotted with egregious cauldrons of death. Adaptation to instant annihilation is a state of existence we need to explore and grow comfortable with since there is little doubt it will happen, at anytime, anywhere, which includes it happening to every one of us. This state of existence presently binds most of the Japanese population, whether its on the schmooze or not. In fact, when it is not stated or understated, it is deliberate because in the event all the innocent and trusting simple folk get the idea they've been super-conned, who knows what could happen? A lot more people know subliminally what is going on than we realize, be assured the deniers have made a pact with themselves not to think about it. It doesn't exist. Nuclear energy is the way of the future. That much IS true since in the future entire continents will be uninhabitable.

We are already bumping up hard against what is coming, its too obvious for the outspoken among us to stay silent for long. We are seeing the death of species, the land, the oceans, its too much to destroy all at once, and too hardy while seemingly delicate. Life is fragile after all. Without an Earth-sized asteroid crashing into our planet taking everything out at once, the hit and run style we are witnessing commits its own suicide, here, over there, in front of you and behind you. It is a miracle you have been spared to this moment. But will you be spared in the next? If we look too long, or dwell on impending and current disasters too often, are we setting our own table for disaster? No, when we look as long as we feel is necessary, we invite compassion into our hearts regardless of what may or may not happen to us.

Meanwhile, the mighty shuck and jive train keeps a rollin' as if Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow, its only a day away. Lots of money and a purchased judiciary make fine insulators from fate, temporarily I might add. Holograms, stunt men and tinseltown special FX don't have feelings or intelligence. You can, in your hour of need, like now, just tune it all out. Oh indeed, you have that magical ability unless you are being gang-raped in the hoosegow while under interrogation from hired mercenaries. Sometimes it appears our masters of the Universe would like us to feel sorry for them and sympathize with their shameful platter of impossibly difficult decisions. And certainly, it must be a hard thing to save the people, keep everyone calm, satisfy their needs, feed the hungry, the poor, if that was actually the case except its not. The Judas' shortcuts are too easy and convenience IS the hallmark of western democracies. These so-called democracies are the exact opposite of true democracy, which we could have had and will not live to see. We could have been great, we could have done it right, we could have had peace on Earth and good will instead we exist in a flimsy multi-generational toxic bubble readying to burst.

If you have ever seen some of the Discovery Channel documentaries on how life began you would be awed that we turned out in the forms we did. We could have taken any form, or shape, we could have had two heads for example although Nature is not random, Nature is too efficient knowing two heads would spend a lifetime trying to kill each other for sole control over the one body. Evolution an interesting concept to dwell on while you are struggling to keep your one head above water, what a silly little world we have made to play on, how cleverly ergonomic we are with our digitized hands built for survival the same way Mountain Goats' hoofs work for their survival and birds/insects wings allow them to fly to nutrition atop the tallest trees, but those fingers of mankind are useful for molding weaponry, pulling triggers, yanking the joystick, slaughtering whole families and thumb texting, overdeveloping and then calling in the wrecking ball, rather like building little communities with those tiny German toy blocks in the mesh bag complete with farm animals, schools, work buildings and clock towers. It was fun, wasn't it, until somebody came along and jackbooted it all sky high. Well, it wasn't permanent anyway, nothing is, with the exception of course, being love.

There is a remarkable Oak up in the mountains where we live, it has grown itself around an old stag, a former Oak, now a Woodpeckers' acorn bank. I previously posted it uncropped when the emphasis was on the newborn Lambs. Only lately have I stood under it to figure out just exactly what happened there. The whole ensemble stands as living proof that Nature has a will of its own, and yet the ignorance and lust of humans in this tawdry epoch never gave it the credence it deserves and now it is too late. This is no longer a matter of revolution against tyrants or undergoing a revolution within ourselves. Mankind has no power over the Tectonic plates. And, hey, while we're at it, tell me what power mankind has over the sea? As a longtime sailor I can tell you what we used to tell ourselves in dread weather, no land in sight, radio broken, lost in uncharted territory, down to half cup of water per day, dreaming I was on land and waking to see sunlight pouring in the hatch above my bunk knowing the dream was a brief escape from the living nightmare, you can survive the sea, but you can never master it. Which is very much the same place we find ourselves today, on or off land, wherever you happen to be. You might survive disaster, but you can never control it. Interpret that any way you want interspersing any conditions lying in the minefield of these times.

I recommend seeing a beautiful Mongolian documentary, The Weeping Camel. You can watch it in full at the site. Leaving our roots behind and following along with the nonsense of unlimited growth and progress while warring against those who do not participate, is just one, but likely the dominate fault causing our demise. The truth is we're not good enough to deserve this planet. We didn't love it enough, and now we are losing it.
Sayonara

Oaks and Lamb photograph, c. 2011 Deep into Artlife West
Weeping Camels Photograph by Juliane/nationalgeographic.com

darkness before the dawn

There used to be an amusement park ride called the Mad Mouse. There were bright colored two person mouse cars, someone belted in front and someone belted in back, on a roller coaster-style track, high up, sliding waaay down, the whole experience at breakneck speed. The Apocalypse kind of reminds me of this ride. We paid with our lives and we can't get off once it's started. This ride will jerk you around, take you to the top and dump you on a downhill race to the bottom only to careen sideways into a detour where the track abruptly ends, you back up and then you're gone again, faster, higher, twirling into a downward spiral, slamming into another detour, yanking back suddenly to the main track and so forth. It made a lot of people sick and sometimes pretty angry. I didn't really care for it either and went once to see what all the shouting was about and again, to confirm it was as bad as I remembered.

We are in a little lull right now, while one Apocalyptic disaster unfolds planet wide another is brewing, poised to shrink Fukushima as we exhaust ourselves racing ahead of simultaneous eruptions, i.e.; the crises of corruptions gone wrong, miscalculated, underestimated, excused, weakly justified, but lucrative and layered with complex levels of extreme profit. I am shell shocked, not about anything you would assume, but about the stunning, spectacular, overwhelming stupidity and lack of foresight which has created a world of in your face greeeeeeeeed. The hypocrisy knows no bounds and Iran has a lot of oil.

Who in their right mind celebrates the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War for example? Oh, yes, let's make a parade, bring on the fireworks, let's tear down the drapes and make velvet frocks with corsets laced tightly by our beaten, whipped, raped and Stockholm syndromed human possessions and then let's drink the fruited wines they made us and lie in rows upon the railroad tracks of ancient Terminus, now a gentrified shopping mall turned tourist attraction. A century and a half after the ugly facts, we come to find the same Wetikos hangin' round, still, working the same old stories of hate and paranoia. Its all too much for the love people, I can't imagine how the rest of you are handling the latest developments. I can barely open the plastic box anymore. To visit news sites or hear the pundits screeching in the background between grotesque, high pressure come-ons must be what it is to be insane, all of it mashed together as one long monotonous vision of obsequious fakery. Who do they think they're fooling? The burger set? Maybe as that set gorges its way to the recruitment hooks and perhaps a short half-life is a better life than the life of victims, children, elders, ordinary shack dwellers who never knew the land upon which the dust twists daily is Terminus all over again. At some point, lies backfire bringing on karma, Bring it on. The wait for love people is agonizing because we feel it coming, in spite of the decrees and altruistic covers designed to keep us in rags so our pockets have irreparable holes through which every penny dribbles out as if the single copper cent lying in our tracks is a sign around our necks "Take it, take it all, and take me too." Whenever I check in with the little box, its amazing to see everyone at it still. I ask why? What are you looking for that you don't already know? Perhaps you are looking for something you don't know, something impossible and suddenly, sigh, there it is. Hmmm.

How many nuke plants exist on Planet Earth? And is each a foil for Earth shattering weaponry too? Or just some of them? Like the allies. How would we know? We would not. Especially when every headline is about prostitutes' skeletons and sports doping or Charlie Sheen or heh, the movements taking place on the campaign trail. Or the budget deficit. That's a favorite, hunh. That'll keep all those nosy armchair economists glued to their screens, keep their noses out of things that really matter cuz we down here in Loveville don't have any economy left at all. When the Wetiko plan finally comes into full bloom, we'll go first because our entire lives have been gradually stripmined to make room for the gargantuan wallets of Monopoly (tm) money. Don't look now, but the little people everywhere, the love people, the love people in-training, the good and the innocent have either lost everything held dear to them or they are in the process of having it forced away through torture, radiation, disease, through lack of awareness, empty pockets and various interesting schemes in which the person victimized is not a consideration, never was and never will be.

Frankly, I confess to holding out some exceptionally small sliver of faint desire that there would be some vague turnaround of humanity by now, as in a general collective-unconscious looking for the bright side, oh, how foolish of me. In fact, what has been our collective life since the awakening of the Bu-ad godzilla is now our zeitgeist-in-full, rounded out, obtuse and obese. This is the way it is. Today and evermore until no more. And being that it is this way, what, I ask you, is there to look forward to? Ah, yes, at last, the plantation overseers are back in the saddle whipping the steed faster this time aided by monster technology and mushroom clouds. Dare you let on your anguish unless you want to see the new evaporation tool microwave your entire existence into instant ash and minuscule sprays of blood and mucus running in rivulets down that velvet dress.

Every single time the Wetikos turn on their campaign shows, I've always thought, hey, its too soon. You might have noticed its never too soon. Decades before the actual festivals begin, the presidential hologramed hopefuls are plotting four, eight, twelve years ahead. In between the vast, colorful ,nauseating, corporate-funded, chain-linked urban takeovers, we get to see our falling rock stars show themselves to never have been worthy of all that adulation. Is big business to be adulated? Must they leave us too early like Stevie Ray and Bob Marley in order to get out from under the giant Earthmover's dirt dripping claws? Leaving us to stand alone in shock and awe cherishing their memory, we point still to their example, how is that different than martyrdom? Surely there are secrets there too, better we do not know. We have too much already bringing us down and deeper. Why has no one come forward to state unequivocally we are in the thick of the energy wars, which are different than the turf wars of old in that those wars ended, why hide the motivation now, everyone knows what's up. Ten days ago I bought cheap gas for $4.09 pg. If that isn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what is. Who knew so many multitudes of so-called humans are pigs. Lipsticked. Armed to the teeth. Sporting comb overs resembling wet, used mops upside down over their skulls, perhaps that is a Wetiko thing to the tune of here today, gone tomorrow. Dancing with the stars, falling off the stage, who will Lady Gaga sue? What do you think Bristol pays in property taxes? Out of who's pocket? Do these ahem, people have underground bunkers equipped for twenty four thousand-years worth of privileged living? Listen, if you don't, you'd better think about what you're doing.

Often I ask myself who is driving this ship and what happened to them that they grew up with SFbrains, why would they parade and preen before media portraying themselves in possession of expert opinion, a deluxe opinion, the opinion of better, more skillful, superior, more worthy persons? That somehow they were finely crafted human Bentleys of excellence with extra-prescient perception where everyone apart from them is unworthy, evil, atheistic, witches and warlocks, to be feared and eliminated, out of sight, out of mind? Are they all abused children acting out, finally in position to "get their's"? That they were so ill-treated in youth ruined any possibility for the existence of compassion or clarity of values? No, it isn't that. I've known personally too many people with horrible back stories and lingering scars of abuse and found them to put truth to the idea suffering creates enlightenment, so deeply feeling, so deeply understanding of the plight of others for abuse to be a core reason. More likely it is obsessive power corrupting, creating laws by the minute overriding other laws created by competing powers, all of it designed to enrich and self-sustain while creating even more control, always selectively blind to the consequences because once tainted it turns to permanent stain out of all proportion to the original act - like Ponzi schemes, like serial killing. There can be no turnaround from here, its gone too far. It is illogical to trust planting a garden and going small and local as a means of fending off nuclear winter lying not too far in the future. Its not us driving this ship my friends, unfortunately the Captain rammed the iceberg out of choice and should the ship right itself, who is to say the first mate won't attempt to complete the effort? When you see these Wetikos making their Wetiko claims inspiring hatred, prejudice and egging on the Gods of war, you see a frightened little freak worried they will run out of gas in the dark on an unlit overpass crumbling into a swift moving river, wide and deep.

postcard from Planet Backwards

We may have been transported to another planet while we slept.  A planet where everything appears as it was when you went to bed, but the rules are different.  The certainty is gone, nothing can be counted on to be what you thought it was, including mirrors which show only your preening representative-self, but these mirrors now imported from somewhere gawd only knows, are part of the new, New World lifestyles we all lead helplessly where right is wrong and black is white.  I've said it before and will say it again, no one is immune.  I'm quite sure you know how it goes, these sudden spring days give us a nostalgia, a screen door barefoot kind of summery happy sadness, something deep within the heart wants to go home again, but we don't really know where home is anymore.  Perhaps it never was real considering how much is being revealed in the present, perhaps it was only a lyric in a song you resonated with or an artwork that spoke to you in a way that touched you and you reminisced about something hazy that was just a dream on your way to partake in continuing the dream as if it was endless.  And then, BRRRRIIING BRRRRIIING, the cell woke you up with a scam call, an 800 number announcing BofA was here to help.  As if anyone needs that kind of help.  "Your social please."

I'm thinking about the recent events trying to separate my own conclusions from everyone else's observations.  The problem seems to be that so many windup clacking dental jaws make their definitive pronouncements on these situations which muddles us and it takes a lot of silence and a good amount of disgust before strange new worldie ideas come creepin' round.  In the midst of this jibber jabber, we forge on with our normal routines, so following my own advice, I make a point to remember fleeting thoughts no matter how absurd because after all, absurdity is rational on Planet Backwards.

To begin with, I labored for years upon years under one set of inviolate basics and as I matured, I took it for granted everyone else matured mentally and spiritually as well. Oh, ho ho.  I blew off the Clinton years as a single parent which takes up a lot of attention and time leaving one somewhat ill-equipped to peer into the mysterious direction our world is taking, so when 2001 came along, and the bullhorner kept harping on attacks, I was stunned.  Did he mean war?  Had we not grown beyond that?  What?  That's video game nonsense, comics, sandbox bullying.  He couldn't be serious! However, obviously we had already been transported and 2001 was the wake-up year we debarked as unwilling hostages, searched and tagged into Planet Backwards.  Was it AD, BC, or NWO time?  We can't know for sure, that's one of the chief hallmarks of this joint, nothing is what you are forced into pretending it is.  Let's take this BP hit for example, didn't they used to be that gas station outfit with Swiss-style greenie graphics?  On Planet Backwards, they are a ludicrously wealthy and universally powerful energy provider which appears to possess enough chutzpah to claw a hole in the tectonic plates holding our previous planet in place.  And you know what that means, well the plates kept a movin' and a shiftin' until all those tender, flaming tectonic platters overlapped on top of each other and BOOM, there went Japan. Tragedy of all tragedies, Japan proved itself just as ill-equipped as I was to peer into the direction the wonderful wheels of progress had taken them.  During all the years they should have known better, they were desperately balancing non-existent yen from a bone dry piggy bank rather than thinking about their rice paper villages despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocols on Climate Change.  You have to imagine those very intelligent people that studiously researched the issues got an education that may well have saved their once exquisite paradise given the opportunity to speak truthfully where it counts.  Somewhere there are some sad human beings, disoriented and displaced to shelters asking themselves why they took no for an answer.

Then I think about us, what an unholy mess was made of that sweet dream, guaranteed to get messier.  Where does it end, you'll notice it is not even paring off, not in the slightest.  Is everyone supposed to be homeless?  They say this year is a bad one for housing, the word is foreclosures this year will beat all the previous years.  Our economy is still in the toilet and the cowardly laureate only worsens the wound with a little altruistic interventionism which when you think about it, isn't this exactly what ignites the bubble bath?  Well, around the hallowed dinner tables where pundits are not allowed, a big fat dose of grisly war is just the right prescription for an ailing economy.  From Planet Backwards where war is peace, our telescopic star gazers hint stubborn Col. Qaddafi may have given the interventionists (ridiculous label alert) the gift of continuing consumptive prosperity.  Does slave labor in China make those gilded plastic coffins for export?

Maybe it would have been more clever to save this entry for April Fools' Day, but many bloggers actually write posts in advance, and with the never ending advent of technology one simply clicks the mouse and posts appear at some exact time and date of their choice.  I always wondered on every April 1st, who is the fool?

the Kids are alright

Amos keeps an eye on his family from the big house

Mother Scarlett watches too

The sheep are doing very well.  All the kids are behaving like human children, busy, curious, enchanted, hungry, frolicking, joyous.  They never just walk, they leap and hop.  These particular sheep really have it good on Planet Backwards.  If we just had wool coats and three-chambered stomachs, we could graze our hearts away too, never having to worry about anything other than staying dry in rainy weather.  Although, with their extreme super-coats, rain water bounces right off.  The day pen was moved much closer this morning and they are practically grazing at our door.  I moved my drawing table right up to the corner windows for some gesture drawings of these guys.  Gesture drawings are quick, (one minute is too long) rough pencil sketches for the purpose of loosening one's hand as well as improving the eye's understanding of anatomy so that you learn to see what IS and how it feels, rather than what you thought it was or surmised how it felt.  Any art school worth its tuition fees spends the entire foundation year on Nicolaides gesture drawing techniques with live, nude models.  This is known as Life Drawing 101.  If you don't get to do this, you are condemned to spend your years on Planet Earth doing scritchy scratch on ruled notebook paper.  Heh, I am a purist. not.

Allow me to close this post with sincere condolences, comfort and love to the Beageant family and to our brilliant and talented friends, Brian and Chickory, on their recent losses.  Joe and those adored Mothers (great women who raised great people) are free at last.  Praise Jah and His compassionate benevolence, when we have finally had enough He is there.

Listening to the wind

Flying in the very face of spectacular, breath-taking, unimaginable-if-you-aren't-in-it, triple whammy catastrophe, the Wetiko-infected push for more guaranteed disaster.  What does this say?  Have they not by now read any news, seen a TV, been party to a press conference, spoken with or heard another suit hand-wringing over le conversation du jour?  Not at all, they are busy showing off their spoils, ordering around the staff, meeting heart attack inducing deadlines por nada, slamming china coffee cups on the inlaid ceramic tile imported sideways from East Asia, I don't care what it costs dammit, they fail to notice when the radiation level creeps between the sheets.  That multiples of thousands are already dead or dying, dispossessed and locked into sure contamination, or is that kind of utter chaos just another day in the life?   It makes you want to cry. I remember during my sojourn in the desert, the Vets, the cowboy bikers, world weary and tired of it all, I was the person who took them to their VA appointments and waited until we could get out of dodge, back to Elephant Rock which had a natural trunk you climbed and sat up high listening to the wind.  When you are on Elephant Rock, there are no questions, silent knowings whisper about your body and blow across your face.  Most of these gentlemen were very ill from existing too long downwind the waste dump and from exposure to agent orange.  Some were cured (that means not healed) only to get worse.  Austin passed.  It was not a happy ending.  I recall him showing me a strange growth coming from his calf on which a four inch long tube of flesh had grown out like an unnecessary appendage.  We couldn't figure it out and yet, during his VA visit, they removed it in the examining room avoiding even a cursory explanation of what it was or WHY it happened, but everybody knew anyway.  It wasn't long afterward Austin went to Heaven.  Once the desert predators heard he was ailing, they were all over him like feeding vultures.  He felt he had no options and simply caved.

Is there any difference between catastrophic natural disaster and HAARP disaster?  Is there any difference between anthropogenic climate chaos and natural changes within a fluid Universe?  No, the outcome is the same, but there was once a difference, we had time then, time to change the course, set sail for calmer seas, pursue directions that brought joy to ourselves by bringing joy to others.  And now?  In stark contrast to what we could have been, we are silenced before the Great Tsunami of Evil.  Perhaps more than care to be known as evil enthusiasts actually follow evil doings the way Octomom followed Brangelina.  They never see themselves in that light.  They instead see themselves as interested patriots, active or inactive, using talking points interspersed with half-truths formulated as they finished the morning commute in their restored Porsche 911, entered the glass and steel monolith and huffed it over to the post, sipping Latte.  But for the love people, this isn't their cup of tea at all.  Nothing wrong with Latte, what is wrong is the direction that is being pursued only perpetuates more and worse evil.  At this moment in real time, evil has seemingly broken itself like dropped Limoges, each shard growing arms and legs in order to continue adding insult to injury, once, twice, three times is never enough no matter how ghastly the items on the evil checklist appear.  I try to remember what we hear and see is multiplied by the increasing populations everywhere holding remotes to a thousand channels of nonsense. thus nonsense increases in tandem.  This is heh, a special kind of growth.

Its never them that take the hit, you"ll notice.  Its the people, the little people, many of them love people and love-people-in-training. The poor people just hanging laundry or riding a bike to collect wood for heat, children doing what children do, fishermen, farmers, the uncelebrated ones, the ignored, are the ones deemed expendable.  They have long been exploited in unimaginably gruesome fashion, most of which is unknown and through bubble aftermath which you might notice qualifies as a prolonged state of shock, and possess nothing of worth, just ask the homeless what happened that ruined everything for the remainder of their time on Earth.  What is more loss when you already lost everything and there are no means of ever getting it back?   For that matter, what is loss when you've been brought to your knees in acknowledgment of the existence of a superior man because you hurt so bad there is no other way to make it stop, and it didn't really stop, it just costumed itself as TBTF.  You have to wonder sometimes, if the secret societies have small scale plug-in Ferris Wheel desk accessories complimenting the leather armchairs complimenting finely polished rotating globes.  "Get Hillbilly on the phone sweetheart." Maybe this is so, maybe it is not, but the idea would not have come up if there were not some reason to think ...  High on Elephant Rock one accepts the state of all of humanity, the good, the evil are just life's infinite variety of vegetation.  Warning: you may go there in a typical everyday state of shock, but you will leave in love.

Who among us really knows what will happen, anywhere, anytime?  Apparently nobody  knows despite a handful of smug reports of warnings given which were apparently not actually transmitted to anyone not invested in catastrophe before whatever event occurs?  Now let's go back in time for a minute and recall the bodies floating in flood waters like unleashed rivers of blood streaming through New Orleans.  And the towers, or AIDS, yes it goes way back, there were always things happening somewhere on the planet and we became inured as if we were purified from conception merely by our nationality.   Well, not completely inured, it was a surreal confusion and no amount of tranquilizing  pronouncements made it right.  To my Father's credit, when I was freaking out after reading Sophie's Choice, he looked me in the eye and said "You think that was something, you should see what we did to the Indians", meaning Native Americans. 

In catastrophe, there are always earnest, well intentioned inventors desirous of fame and fortune with their solutions.  One of them managed to secure an interview on CNN yesterday with a Tsunami Ark.  His  ark holds (only) 50 to 70 people he says, but they are nothing more than floating orange capsules tethered to cement supposedly able to withstand tsunami force. Can you see it?  Its perfect, its time has come!  It is yet another layer of complexity gone wild to sustain the fantasy.  Right away you can punch a tsunami of holes in the plan, principally just how long and longer will these tethers become as the wave heights increase and what if these tethers are too short and for cryin' out loud, what tether can withstand the most recent tsunami doing drive-bys at every port around the shores of the Ring of Fire?  While we're on the subject, let us also mention the immoral developers who manage to arrange zoning approval to create entire towns which quickly grow into overpopulated cities on stilts to better retain a minuscule slice of ocean view which as an aside also determines property taxes.  What happened to preplanning?  If a tsunami aimed itself at Malibu or Montalk, there would be no more tinseltown players and no more beachfront architectural amusements regardless of how many orange arks dotted the sands.  Especially when the warnings were half-truths and speculations.  There is a weird part of human nature that gets lost in happy memories of better days when faced with the real possibility of immediate annihilation. That weird part is never taken into consideration because we are expected to snap to attention instantly at the ear-shattering blaring trumpets of the Schmooz.  Everybody Listen Up!  Shake, tremble and speculate!  You can always tell when someone is fear mongering because they tell you so up front, "Now, I'm not fear mongering, but ..."

Bella's little girls, 15 minutes into the world

Watching are Scarlett's twins, Arnie and Adele at two weeks

Stella working on a treat

As all was becoming a nightmare of Karmic return while in mourning for the Japanese villagers who in these crazy days cannot possibly look forward to a brighter day, I took Bernie out as usual and noticed Scarlett the Ewe, recent new mom, gathering her lambs about her in a rather frantic manner.  I rushed to see Bella, her sister, standing over two tiny wet charming puppy-size blobs of black.  Two females this time.  It was helpful I'd seen Scarlett's twins developing so quickly this week so I knew whomever was not able to stand up yet would be soon running and getting into everything that attracts their attention.  I spent more time again with Amos, the father, the Ram, as always, because I know as a brother being, he wanted to help, grazers are genetically designed that way, although he was kept in his penthouse to prevent backbreeding.  And of course, with Stella, the Mustang Princess, evermore lovely in mist and fog, glowing as her winter fur is brushed to a shine and her mane resembles Lauren Hutton's messy golden highlights... They all know me very well and are insatiably curious about my person-ness.  Not a single thought about anything else other than being witness in the magnificence of birth including amplified love and compassion for all species was the Divine antidote to whatever else is going on anywhere.