Slampaign

Fahrenheit 9/11 is propaganda. But that’s okay. It definitely propagates a view. Propaganda is centuries old. For one powerful group to accuse another powerful group of using propaganda is a non sequitor. It is logically inconsistent for one group to accuse another of something it also does. That would be to invite scrutiny of its own faults. Not smart. It is unfortunate that such divisiveness has become de rigor, but left leaning propaganda is a most pragmatic approach for the Democratic supporters to employ.

There does seem to be a group of people including the likes of Kenneth Starr and Donald Rumsfeld who have an ideological agenda that is orthogonal to essential ideals within The Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights. That ideology happens to mesh with certain international corporate agendas. Push ahead with the agenda at all costs, no matter whether it is supported by the people, consistent with our governmental and justice system, or even a viable agenda. In this approach, these “leaders” waged an intense propaganda battle and the US media supported these men by widely and repetitively disseminating their views. Unfortunately… success of such behaviors tends to escalate those same behaviors. Essentially “The Right” is getting a taste of its own medicine from the Moore movie.

Moore spins like mad, but he spins from fact, he insinuates from a stable groundwork to a very specific viewpoint that has an agenda: get Bush out of office before he destroys America and everything we Americans still believe it stands for. Welcome to the Democratic version of propaganda. Call off your Rumsfelds, Starr’s and Buchanan’s and stop Bush and Cheney from lying and employing liars, and the left will then consider reigning in Mike.

Had the media been more journalistic and less pabulum-spewing in the last few years, Moore’s movies would have received little attention. But Moore is a very talented film-maker and an effective counterpoint in the point / counterpoint argument that began long ago… “Jane, you ignorant….”

But this isn’t Saturday Night Live and the laughter is ending… there have been more than enough “anomalies” pointing to:

lies
disinformation
misinformation
covert agendas
illegal activities
cover-ups

and

massive conflicts of interest

made by or within the Bush administration to warrant independent council and congressional investigations.

I personally can’t stand the divisive partisan crap that has become business as usual… but I understand why various groups have arisen to do the dirty work that the namby pamby Democratic Party would not do. The slander machine that the Republican Party has employed for well over a decade is reaping its reward. Its technique is now ubiquitous.

I personally am neither Right, Left, nor Centrist. My views don't map onto the normative models. In my view, escalation in hostility, violence, and propaganda is not the answer. I personally don’t think any extant strategy will solve the problem. Intelligent, compassionate people are so drawn into this particular mode of thinking that they forget there are other equally valid world views that we could construct. So… all I can say is that we need to work from entirely different perspective. I still encourage moving toward an ethically (not religiously) grounded egalitarian transformation. Mr. Moore isn’t helping us directly move toward such a place. But we need to live long enough to begin this transformative process. We have a better chance of do that if we get Bush out and begin dismantling his works.

We people who were kids who grew up to the background music of the Age of Aquarius might have enough people with an alternative view of what could be, to make a difference and nudge the trajectory off its current truly DEADend path.
So, I encourage you to act: Vote -- that is essential. Figure out how to motivate others to vote. Don’t let elected officials get away with business as usual. Demand an inquiry into the charges made in Fahrenheit 9/11. Refuse to be quiet.
Ask questions. Demand answers. Asking questions is patriotic. Being timid isn’t.

What conflicts of interest exist in the President's Family's relationship with the Saudi Royal Family,
as well as in the Vice President's continuing relationship with Haliburtan.
Has the Bush administration consciously and maliciously lied to the American people?
Did the administration obstruct justice or allow obstruction of justice when they spirited the Bin Laden family out of the United States before they could be questioned?
And just for good measure... how about an investigation of the Jim Crow activity in Florida?

We aren’t sheep. We’re primates. Primates sling dung.

Bones... Lovely, O'Keeffian, and in the Desert

I know, I know... I shoulda blogged yesterday... but I was too busy getting back to Tucson... It'll be nice to not have to spell Tucson for hotel/motel staff now that I'm back in the land of c before s. That's tuck -sahn. Yes, I arrived safe and sound. And much enriched by stopping in Santa Fe my last night on the road. Was at the O'Keeffe Museum within minutes of its opening Thursday a.m. to see the current rotating exhibit Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place -- June 11–September 12, 2004 It is the best collection of her landscapes you will ever see. The video is quite well done, informative, unless you yourself are a biographer of her life. The audio tour only made up a few non-words--horizontality--that jolted me away from the information and into critic mode.

I haven't officially ended my "on the road" time as I haven't done my summary labyrinth walk. Got back last night at about 9:30 p.m. local time so as to briefly overlap with my husband before he took off for the Phoenix airport at 4:30 this a.m. to fly back to Northern Indiana to attend a 50th birthday celebration several of his high school buddies are throwing for themselves and their buds at a go cart track. Rented it for the whole day. 50! Not really a Late Boomer although he likes to consider himself such.

So I'm back into Mom mode. I'm at a wired coffee house, It's A Grind ( check out their history of coffee) while waiting to pick up my daughter from a teen night at a Water Park. Its speedtest follows:

2004-06-19 01:30:01 EST: 1046 / 672
Your download speed : 1072064 bps, or 1046 kbps.
A 130.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 688909 bps, or 672 kbps.
Figured I might as well post a blog.

I hadn't read The Lovely Bones, the audio book I listened to yesterday and the day before, but I now understand why it was a best seller. It is an enchanting tale though based in tragedy and violence. I didn't realize that "Susie" the narrator and murder victim was a Late-Boomer and that much of the book was set in the 70s. Highly recommended. Sebold knows how to write.

All this talk of bones makes me think of how dangerous this time of year is to the desperate people who try to cross into the U.S. and who often end up dead, abandoned by the Coyotes without water, sometimes still locked in vehicles... Just a quick look at Border News shows how much danger these folks are in. High speed chases, horribly crowded filthy conditions... and those are the "lucky" ones who make it through the desert. Ah... yes, I'm back home in the Primeria Alta, that fragile but stunning beautiful land that I'm so lucky to know as home. This trip has juxtaposed so many unexpected and wonderful elements, the geographies of deserts and swamps will stand iconic in my memory as summing up this mid-life trip... there is wonder everywhere in this here and now that is all we ever know.

Oryx and Crake

Hey Ho. Writing from Oklahoma City… Wednesday a.m. from a Panera. No internet connection last night. Lucky I found a place to sleep... third try was a charm. I wanted to go west to Pueblo CO and walk a labyrinth there and drop down again, but I can’t risk the weather and time that could be involved… so I compromised and walked an 11-Circuit Chartres style labyrinth near Kansas City at Unity Village… and then dropped down through KS and OK… I find the more complex 11 circuit labyrinths to be conducive to far better walking meditations for me than the shorter 7 circuit classic style. I got a late start yesterday as I had to find an internet connection and determine the route I would take and which stops I could still make and which I’d have to drop. Finished listening to Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake yesterday. The language in the book is exquisite. The story is compelling. All the soul deep questions one asks in a lifetime are there. Her voices are so real.

Today I drive I40. Tomorrow I hope to stop and see the new rotation of O'Keeffe paintings at the gallery in Santa Fe. I would love to roll into Tucson tomorrow night and see my husband for a few minutes (overlap with him as I told a friend *wicked grin*) before he flies out Friday a.m. But I may not make it all that way.

Today I will listen to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.


I have much to report and little time to report it. My head is filled with ideas and I've been heavily thinking about cycles, friends, discoveries, omissions, endings, beginnings, connections of the heart, family, wings, labyrinths, purpose, inspiration, synchronicity... haven't yet blogged about Ray Charles and Joan Osborne's Spider Web so read the No Georgia On My Mind No Morereview on the Relish page instead.

The trip to Indiana was great... only a couple minor bumps. Great research and great connections made. More later on that.

Oh yes, haven't commented on Ronnie Raygun's passing either... perhaps that in and of itself is a comment.

Time to move on. Oh... almost forgot...

2004-06-16 12:11:21 EST: 757 / 201
Your download speed : 775365 bps, or 757 kbps.
A 94.6 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 206010 bps, or 201 kbps.

This download from the Panera on the NW Expressway in OK City.

Land O Goshen....

I'm sitting under a tree on a green space just off SR 15 in No. Indiana... at Goshen College. I'm hoping it is a campus wireless that I hooked into. Oh well.... I'm on anyway. Imagine my surprise at finding a wireless connection at a Mennonite College... just a hop, skip and a jump from Amish Acres Tourist Trap as well as the thriving metropolis of Elkhart-- I decided I'd just do some clutter clean up on my laptop while I ate lunch and waited until the appointed time to pick up my mother from her friends house. My mom is almost 90, doesn't drive, and keeps my brothers hoppin' with her needs for groceries and routine errands as they live near her. Me being 1500 miles away makes me think I need to make sure she gets to do other stuff when I'm here and can haul her around. So today I dropped her off at the appartment of a friend she went to High School with in Etna in the 1920s. There are very few people she knew well back then who are still alive. I was glad she could still make the trip. The aging parents thing is a different sort of process than I ever really anticipated. I think it is because I didn't think a parent would still be living at age 90. Modern health practices have changed all our lives profoundly. Of course our "refusal to accept aging" that we are so often accused of is a product of this change as well. No one is yelling at the "Greatest Generation" for living so long!

Ah well... back to work.

Whatever network I'm on has the following info (for you techies)

2004-06-07 14:04:11 EST: 278 / 1100
Your download speed : 285456 bps, or 278 kbps.
A 34.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed is much faster than down.. have you tweaked?
Your upload speed : 1127404 bps, or 1100 kbps.

Back Home Again....

I'm sitting in a Panera Bread at Jefferson Point in Fort Wayne, IN. Connect info at the bottom.

Wrote the following at an ISM Historic Site earlier today:

"I am sitting quietly, alone, looking into the garden of the Gene Stratton Porter Historic Site, a garden Gene started and was recreated under the last curator’s hard work and guidance. Too late in the year for wildflowers and the songbirds have to compete with motors on boats racing around Sylvan Lake. But the air is still a peaceful one. Clouds in the sky but blue shows through the fluff and even sunshine breaks through for a few moments at a time. My laptop is on a concrete patio table behind the Wildflower Wood Cabin that Gene had built after her Limberlost dried up to the point she could no longer study wetland birds and moths. Chipmunks are scurrying around behind me, and a young rabbit is nibbling away to my left. At least 5 species of birds can be heard in the canopy above…. Most are at mid-level canopy, though as I walked down from the parking lot, past the grave site of Gene and her daughter Jeannette, hawk startled and shot up from the ground to the high canopy.

I’m here because of family. Families motivate individuals within them. In my case they have and continue to motivate me to move on. After only an hour or so today I felt compelled to come to the quiet and heavenly scented place that a woman from a hundred years ago who intrigues me carved from the woods by this lake, albeit a man made lake."

Okay back to the present at the coffee shop. My older boomer brother was the one I had the argument with... amazing how the kid inside us can pop out so easily. It just takes the right trigger. My brother wanted me to defer to him as I would have as a kid unless I wanted "pounded." But as a woman in her late forties no way, no how I'm deferring to anyone! Especially not my stupid fart faced brother. (Sorry guess I'm not acting very mature either.) Anyway... childhood wounds can so easily surface at times. I wonder what our wounds our "cohort" shares and which trips our angry switch in a lot of us. Certainly not the selfish classification that I don't think we deserve. Nor the refusing to grow old with grace crap. Where do they get this stuff? I guess the whole society is just so competitive that many folks have bought into the we have to war with each other mentality. If we are busy fighting with each other we can't put that energy to work positively and concretely. For example... a late-boomer friend, Wes, who runs the Austin group turned me on to Freecycle. Check it out. It is the posted link for this entry. Won't make an entry tomorrow, maybe Monday.


Speed test for wireless (download isn't too shabby):

2004-06-05 19:51:24 EST: 1182 / 355
Your download speed : 1211356 bps, or 1182 kbps.
A 147.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 363886 bps, or 355 kbps.

Purdue or Per Don't

I'm at The Village Coffee House in West Lafayette, IN and it is a slow connection (see below), but a most tolerable environment... And the coffee is good. Purdue is wireless but I'm not sure that I will be here long enough to make it worthwhile to register as a guest and get a passworded account.

2004-06-03 11:49:30 EST: 81 / 99
Your download speed : 83043 bps, or 81 kbps.
A 10.1 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 101852 bps, or 99 kbps.

I'm here at the heart of my journey. I'm writing a book on Gene Stratton Porter an Indiana writer who worked one hundred years ago. As is so often the case society makes images of people conform to expectations rather than reality and that is certainly what happened with her. She's known as a racist curmudgeon, and unfortunately she did write some things that were not at all appreciative of diversity... but we all reflect the culture we are indoctrinated into and "Heavens to Betsy" (I'm practicing my covert blending techniques) give her a break this was the midwest of 100 years ago... KKK country -- compared to her neighbors she was absolutely enlightened. Anyway I am intrigued by her business strategies, her natural history studies documentation of then disappearing (now gone) wetlands, and her influence on the environmental movement so I am "back home again in Indiana" and busy making contacts with curators, archivists, and editors as well as visiting friends and family... and writing up a storm. Not sure where I will head next... depends who is home and where I can find a free place to crash. I'm currently staying with the woman I studied with in graduate school... a wonderfully eclectic woman named Myrdene. Her most recent edited volume is linked above. She is one of the best minds on the planet. I encourage anyone who can read such intensely rich text to read her work, if you can't make it through that though, read volumes she has edited.

I'm off to work.

June already... My 99 year old neighbor says the passing of time just keeps speeding up. Wowza... and there is always more to do. I'm brainstorming all sorts of simply mad and totally obscure ideas on the road as I'm driving. And stopping and talking to friends I don't get to see even half often enough has been quite stimulating as well. I'm currently thinking about how to "help" a process along. When I was chatting with my friend Barbara (with whom I stayed when I stopped in Lawrence, KS), who is the director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I suddenly had the realization that the most critical omission of women in society is in the area of women's knowledge. We need a cultural repository for women's information. Of course there are the women's studies programs across the country but so much of what we women know we have to rediscover each generation as there is no one place that women consistently pass through in life. I think there need to be regional (or better yet) local centers where women can stop in and find out about women's stuff whether it be woman-centered history, health, writing, art, design, technology, spirituality, politics, economics and the like... but that are not feminist nor academic based. Hmmmm.... Of course this also relates to my Gene Stratton Porter research that I'm doing while I'm here... in addition to just writing my little heart out.

Anyway... I'm in Illinois now and trying to decided where I want my first of many stops in Indiana -- my old stomping grounds -- to be. It may be Indy, W. Lafayette, Bloomington, Sylvan Lake, Ft. Wayne, Columbia City, Geneva, South Bend.... who knows? It will depend on where I can find the best place to write and do research.

Right now I'm at a hotel in Effingham, IL that I got a deal on by stopping at a rest stop Tourist info stop on I70 which was staffed with a visitor services person who found me the closest place I could stay with wi fi access and that had a great discount promo going. Smart State policy on Tourism to get people to stay in the state. If she hadn't have been there I'd have driven another hour when I was really too tired to drive just so I could get to Indiana that was my goal destination for the day for no particular reason.

The speed test here showed pretty good connectivity:

2004-06-01 07:32:42 EST: 1934 / 626
Your download speed : 1980889 bps, or 1934 kbps.
A 241.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 641943 bps, or 626 kbps.

Time for coffee.

“Dodge City… Mr Dillon Mr Dillon… there’s been a…Oh how thrillin’!” Sorry taking just a bit of license with a Late Boomer memory. Or, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Colorado anymore…”That’s right… Kansas. I’m at at the Dodge House Hotel and Conference Center enjoying brunch and free wi fi connectivity. It is certainly a smart business move. I’m visiting towns and places I never would have stopped in without the incentive of free wireless internet access. Actually…the restaurant here doesn’t really have wireless access but the hotel does. Smart small towns will set themselves up for cutting edge technology asap and reap the rewards.

Speed test results from the lobby of Dodge House:

2004-05-30 14:05:11 EST: 470 / 209
Your download speed : 482033 bps, or 470 kbps.
A 58.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 214520 bps, or 209 kbps.


Might as well stay well behind the storm and stop and try to note the wonder of yesterday’s drive.

Santa Fe was a very nice but very quick stop. I suppose I’ve been jaded by the wealth of western treasures available in my hometown… fantastic scenery, artists and writers everywhere, dramatic vistas, skies that can take your breath away, and the intensity of light and vivid color. The O’Keeffe Museum changes exhibits on June 1 so I may well stop again on the way back. I had considered checking out a Labyrinth in Pueblo, CO, but no way was I going to drive into storms so I cut across CO 10 through what I can only describe as gorgeously desolate country. Then I fell down hill into Kansas.

Started the day with Pearl Jam singing about thought police to get the karma consumer mentality of Santa Fe out of my head… and northern New Mexico is a land of Rock and the scenes do Roll… so it seemed fine. Then I found that little virtual heaven in what may well be the “the most remote town” in America after listening to Peter Gabriel’s Passion… the soundtrack to “The Last Temptation of Christ.” It is my very favorite driving CD. But when I began to get tired I popped in some B52s. Today, as I drive into the Bible Belt I just had to hear Annie singing about her “Missionary Man.” And of course I have been listening to the Beatles tell me that “We’re on our way home.” I’m having fun and learning too. World culture is coming, like it or not. For me it is good to hear tables of blue haired ladies talking about satellite service and cloning… even if they do say, “Oh it is over my head.” Speaking of blue hair… I can’t wait until I’m gray enough to have electric blue highlights in my white hair. Our Gen is going to give the phrase Blue Haired Old Lady a whole new meaning.

Haven’t really had time to catch the news but I hear significant Watergate Characters (from the good side) have died. Kids from this century will soon think of Watergate the way we thought about The Teapot Dome Scandal. The more times I cycle through the same things from the differing perspectives that accompany different stages of life the more I understand the importance of generational knowledge.

Time to get going again.

I think I fell into another dimension. I'm on a free wireless connection at Pennyrich International Cafe and Book Oasis Raton, NM. The town of Raton, NM on a free wireless connection is going to be one of the first communities to have a total presence in the virtual world. Don't worry the physical town will still exist. But the town will be completely wired... although it will be wireless. This is the future of the virtual world. Rich and Penny run this place where if you stumble in off I25 and they happen to be open they'll Penny will brew you up a cuppa for 54 cents. You can buy a book or card too... and... Rich runs what might look like a rinky dink computer repair shop... but as one of the folks involved with the creation of the predecessor of the internet (UU net for you folks who aren't in the know) he does a lot more than fix computers. There is a nifty "computer museum" on the premises. And for you techies... the connection here rocks.

Via http://www.dslreports.com/stest I got the following info.

2004-05-29 16:37:17 EST: 3774 / 2998
Your download speed : 3864656 bps, or 3774 kbps.
A 471.7 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 3070320 bps, or 2998 kbps.
test IP was to zianet.com via sprintlink.net

The background ambiance here is distinctly Christian so bag your profanity and have some respect if you do not share this belief. I have had a delightful time listening in on creation versus evolution arguments.

If you try to find this place it is in the same block as the Raton Theater but across the street.

I may post something about how small communities will lead the way in the next punctuated event that disturbs the evident equilibrium in how we've come to know the virtual world. That will be a significant change as until the "heartland" accepts something... it hasn't been truly integrated into the culture.

Rich is working on (his goal is) hooking up small town America under 25,000 -- just like Raton soon will be hooked up -- and the day will get here sooner than anyone thinks it will I suspect.

I should get back on the road... but this is such a trip! I love discovering the variations in the small town.

I may not post for a couple days... don't know when I will find more free internet access.

Hey all you later born Baby Boomers! An LBer Blog... sigh. I remember when an lb was something else. But time passes and I'm now finishing up on the first stopover of what I'm calling my "47" tour. Rather than have a midlife crisis I decided to take a solo road trip to celebrate my 47th birthday. Still cliche and somewhat predictable, but hey, I'm firmly in the middle of mid-life and I'm not ashamed of it. In fact I think it is rather cool. Beats the alternative as they say.

Anyway... I'll be blogging from coffee houses across the country that offer free wireless access. I'm in the Red Mountain Cafe in Las Cruces, New Mexico. 1120 Commerce Dr - (505) 522-7584. The site isn't up right now, but they assure me that it is usually up. I found 'em listed at Wi Fi Free Net It is amazing that even in the middle of the rural southwest I can find Wi Fi access. So if you are driving I10 or NM 25 area pop off the road and visit these good folks. I spent the night at the home of friends Kim and Ernie (also 47) and looked at fading photo albums from 20 - 25 years ago... when I was rail thin. Sigh. Good friends through the years... a very wonderful comfort and a blessing.

I need to get on the road... but I wanted to get the first blog of this journey up so I can let people know it exists. there will be more and more lengthy and probably off the wall posts when I'm not crashing with friends along the way and have the evenings to write.

I'm headed to Santa Fe now.