Kitten on a Turkish windowsill

100_1233
Originally uploaded by richjamison9.

One of Rich's photos from somewhere in Georgia (the country, not the state) - I just love this little sweet cat, so oblivious to the intrusion.

Deteriorata
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.

Avoid quiet and passive persons unless you are in need of sleep.

Rotate your tires.

Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys
Know what to kiss and when.

Consider that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three lefts do.

Wherever possible put people on "HOLD".

Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

Remember the Pueblo.

Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate.

Know yourself. If you do need help, call the FBI.

Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you;
That lemon on your left for instance.

Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls,
Would scarcely get your feet wet.

Fall not in love therefore; it will stick to your face.

Carefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan,
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.

For a good time, call 606-4311.

Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog
Is finally getting enough cheese;
And reflect that whatever fortunes may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Sioux City.

You are a fluke of the universe.

You have no right to be here, and whether you can hear it or not,
The Universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore make peace with your God whatever you conceive him to be,
Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin.

With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.

Give up.

--From the National Lampoon Radio Dinner album

Rich Jamison, moving too fast to see

Rich Jamison moving too fast
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

Go look at them now!
(Ricardo has posted more photos from Turkey)

Quantum Quirk

Ten thousand miles away

another continent

a different life

the push pull effect is still clear

weird action at a distance

Einstein called it

quantum quirk

we’re neither together nor apart

your cut hurts my finger

your failure breaks my heart.



In the quantum world of our

drifted lives

entanglement between us remains

giving mass to my

insubstantial body.

Your face is foggy

with time and distance

the downward draw of gravity

distorting the image

in our mutual mirrors.



Beyond the melting edges of the present

our tiny lives are frozen

in quantum

superposition

love-not love

you’re both here and there

mine and not mine

alive forever and

already dead.

from Quark Soup, by magdalena ball

PS I like the poem, but I don't mean to
imply that Rich is in any danger...or
any other coincidences due to juxtaposition.

This guy says he has pored over thousands of NASA images and has found seashells on Mars. Sure looks like he's right - also evidence of dried seabeds, indicating a dried-up ocean on the Red Planet.
LINK to story

May there be peace when we meet

P1010008
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

Elder's Meditation of the Day August 11

"May there be peace when we meet."
--Audrey Shenandoah, ONONDAGA

The Elders tell us the greatest gift we can seek is peace of mind, to walk in balance, to respect all things. For us to do this, we must have peace within ourselves and peace within ourselves cannot come unless we are walking the path the Creator would have us walk.
Sometimes the tests on this path are difficult, but we know that
each test makes us stronger.

Oh Great Spirit, I ask You to whisper Your wisdom in my heart. You
are the only one who knows the secret to peaceful living and the mystery of harmony. Teach me of Your peace, understanding and
balance and guide me onto your good path.

To Walt Whitman in Heaven

Things that look good and aren't: high fashion,
Manifest Destiny, limp wires the electrician thinks
are dead till he grabs hold and then, O Infinite—
coursing-through-finite—thank God his spastic dance

is only a shock—one yelp and he shakes
it off. Not so easy for the girl next door
feeling her first kiss begin to fester
as the young man's buddies drive by hooting

and one calls out, how far did ya get? Whadda
we owe? It's enough to make everything
look bad. So, a list then of what turns out
to be good: the loud-mouthed parrot

down the block that scared off two robbers,
the junior prom I spent alone in my room
reading you, Walt Whitman, your great
barbaric yawp entering my mind like salt

water coursing through fresh, stinging my wounds,
till every image was sharp—the lunatic,
the lily-faced boy in the makeshift hospital,
contralto, runaway, cloud scud, your voice

whispering through sea spray to ferry crowds,
just as you feel, so I felt ... What doesn't change
and remain, remain and grow strange? The lace
bodice from my mother's slip my daughter

now sews onto the cuffs of her new jeans,
the crooked front tooth that has traveled through
how many kisses from my mother's mouth
to mine, and on to my son. What is a list?

The neighbor girl goes through her catalog
of moves under the hoop—sky hooks, lay-ups,
fall-away jumpers. Long after dark, she's out there
dribbling her heart on the asphalt, tossing it up,

nothing but net. Painful, yes, but how else
will she get to that sweet agony within,
your great loitering contradictions? She dodges
and spins, as if shedding a skin, steps around

the driveway to keep the motion light flaring
as she passes from shadow into Technicolor,
banks a shot, jabs the air to cheer herself on,
point guard, center and crowd all in one,

and I almost see you in the dark,
on the fringe, though I can hardly say what
you mean, in the sweet mysterious night vapor
hovering over blacktop and lamp-green lawn.

by Betsy Sholl from Late Psalm. © The University of Wisconsin Press.

Galloway: 'The Violence Will Go On'

George Galloway has spoken out in support of Lebanon, saying he believes Hizbollah is justified in attacking Israel. The Respect MP also lambasted media coverage of the war and said the UN resolution means nothing.

LINK - for Video
You have GOT to watch this before it gets pushed down the memory hole. It is exceptionally memorable. A high-ranking British elected official (member of Parliament, in fact) positively disassembles a Zionist interviewer who is as aggressive and prepared as you might ever see. 9 minutes and worth a hundred times its bandwidth.

You won't see anything like this on American TV. In fact, you won't be seeing any elected American official handle himself this adroitly or, even, take his position. Proof that even Britain, as tightly held by Zionists as it is, has far greater freedom of speech and broader news reporting than does America. Sky News is owned by Rupert Murdoch . Murdoch owns Fox News in America (the "We decide - you obey" channel).

http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,31200-galloway_060806,00.html

Datura in Turkey

datura
Originally uploaded by richjamison9.

There are so many wonderful images, it is impossible to choose, but...

Here's one of many hundreds of photographs that Rich is taking now in his travels through Turkiye.

I felt that this one was taken for my benefit - it is a datura plant (jimson weed) such as we have prospering in lush abundance here in New Mexico. One in particular threatens to take over my entire patio, and I have to fend it off with the clippers.

It was astonishing to see that Turkey has much the same vegetation as we do here - it all looks very comfortable and familiar, despite the exotic locale - it feels like home.

waiting for customers at the bazaar

waiting for customers at the bazaar
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

just to tell y'all, we went to istanbul
and to the mediterranean coast of Turkiye

it was fantastic, like being in a movie
we loved the people, country, food, amazing
time-warp wonderland

please check out the slideshows
choose a set on the right -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindalupowitz

new construction

new construction
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

"So bleak is the picture...that the bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the twentieth century." Philip Shabecoff, from Sunbeams, The Sun magazine 6/06

Yes, they have started constructing four consecutive wallboard
palaces between us and the mountain - one is 5 feet from my
bathtub. Quite disheartening, and a lengthy lesson in tuning it out --everywhere I have gone in life, I am followed by bulldozers and thebeep beep beep that means they mean business.

full moon with cloud

full moon with cloud
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

wild cloud with full moon june 06

View from terrace

View from terrace
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

Hotel Bebek Istanbul, looking down from terrace to waterfront restaurant

Window in Side

Window in Side
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

side, near antalya (sih-day) on the Turkish mediterranean

Cat on roof

Cat on roof
Originally uploaded by chickenlilnm.

March against War


An article today in the Albq Journal says -
If the Iraq War is so unpopular, where are all the protestors?

They're out there...Where is all the media coverage?

This from Truthout reminds us that March is the time for marching, according to David Swanson. The cherry buds and articles of impeachment will be emerging soon in Washington. On the Gulf Coast, Mardi Gras hangovers and media interest in hurricane victims are wearing off.

FOCUS | David Swanson: March
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031106X.shtml

I am going to post a retrospective piece, from the first pages of my own blog, C. Little, no less - It was a brief description of a tiny peace protest, in Corrales NM, that took place in March 2003. I have been blogging for 3 years now.
Noah is 4-1/2 years old. Jody is in Qatar, again. Still. Ariana is completing her nursing degree. Robert heals the sick and raises the dead in Corrales. This morning, there was snow and today fierce winds rattle our windows. The Ides of March are upon us. Wars rage on.
___________________________________________

Rain is falling, after a long time of no rain, changing the world.
It is a sad day; a war is happening, undeclared but imminent.

We had some rain on Sunday, after we stood a little while out
by the road with a group of about sixty people from our small
community, holding candles in soda cups, trying to keep them
from flickering out in the wind.

It was not a spirited rally, and not enough people felt like singing
old protest songs--We Shall Overcome or Give Peace A Chance...
We know peace has no chance, that it is flickering out in the darkness.

Still, a memory of peace was among us, the old folks and little kids
that were there, standing there, for no reason but to do something,
feel something. Hoping that our fears will be unfounded, assuaged...

Two women were talking in the dark, I don't know if they knew each other...
I know them both. Once we were mothers at the family school, once we
were playing with new babies.

These women are married to men who have been wounded, though not by war.
One husband was paralyzed in a ski accident, and is still in a wheelchair.
The other has a degenerative brain disease, a frontal lobe mystery.

This quiet man told us that he took a sign "No War For Oil"
out to the intersection and stood there for a few hours, while
many cars drove by, and mostly everyone ignored him, would not
even look at him.

He came to the vigil with his candle, and his kids, and his
wife who says she hardly knows him anymore. He sang softly,
"This little light of mine...," pretty much by himself.

It began to rain, and the people ran to their cars and
went home, with melted candles and broken hearts
over a war we cannot stop but can only hold up a little light,
and hope it will be enough.

____________________________________________________________________

Lou Dobbs on CNN is actually attempting to bring up some of the connective
tissue underlying the US-Dubai ports problem. Namely, the Boosh family and
the bipartison across the board corporate corruption that has been going on
for a long time..but anyway-- this video is certainly surprising, coming from
CNN: check it out - Carlyle Group - Bush family ties to UAE

Here's the video:

Peanut Butter sandwich

Noah having a *smawich* - January 2006

UN Grabs Great Smokeys

This is the kind of story that really confuses me.
It sounds terrible - but then maybe it is good - but...
it sounds terrible!

I don't know what to think.

One thing for sure, it is important we know about these
kinds of things so we don't become too trusting of the
entities that purchase and control our wilderness.

Would it be better to use the land for... a weapons lab?
What are the alternatives? I do love the ideals of
the Earth Charter, which Lolly so loved. Is it really a
plot? Is it all a plot? Oh dear.


http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49100

then there's this report from Michael Klare via TomPaine.com on Alternet -
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/33243/

The Coming Resource Wars
America's closest ally has announced that climate change has ushered in an era of violent conflict over energy, water and arable land.

It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major London address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy. Climate change, he indicated, "will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer" -- and this will "make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely."

...Although speculative, these reports make one thing clear: when thinking about the calamitous effects of global climate change, we must emphasize its social and political consequences as much as its purely environmental effects. Drought, flooding and storms can kill us, and surely will -- but so will wars among the survivors of these catastrophes over what remains of food, water and shelter. As Reid's comments indicate, no society, however affluent, will escape involvement in these forms of conflict.

We can respond to these predictions in one of two ways: by relying on fortifications and military force to provide some degree of advantage in the global struggle over resources, or by taking meaningful steps to reduce the risk of cataclysmic climate change....