Finding Ballast

I have been away, fighting with myself, pulling back into a quiet life for some days, to regroup and start fresh another day, building a more solid ground from which to spring forth and again try anew to not scare myself back into hiding. I've quit feeding the squirrels and birds, finding I had created a killing ground for the neighborhood cats, leaving some of my cherished critters severely damaged. Today I must shoot photos of vintage. I will be back in full force, hopefully soon, after this time of introspective thought and hopefully self improvements, taking longer walks through the park, being less obsessive with my vises, and learning to center myself, to find needed ballast, so that I don't fall over as I learn my new walk out into the world.

Outside the Box

Here I am feeling fragile and insubstantial in my new smaller self, starting another day. Thinking how all of the creative energy inside of me, is now concentrated into a more compact package, and how it makes me feel so much more vulnerable.

I am thinking of the horrid drug company commercials during the news last night, which I try not to watch, unless it is positive news, so I sit there with the clicker ready to change the channel or mute the sound, whenever nastiness appears...the commercials should be outlawed. There really should be a law against them! I mean really! One for Lipitor, I think, shows graphically blocked arteries and talks of heart attacks, and even after an episode is over, all those cells can still get caught in the veins and bring on another, so you better get on Lipitor and stay on it, or you will probably die. What kind of bullshit is that to be feeding into the minds of the American public!? Aimed at making us all paranoid and drug dependent so they can make more money! Not a word about changing diet and exercise and projecting good health into our lives, not a word about trusting your body to work with you and create a new healthy life. No public service there, just negativity and paranoia.

On my daily vintage hunting I have the joy of driving by the Pharmacy lines at the local CVS, now queuing up to five to ten or more cars at a time, where they now have about 12 employees always in house to satisfy the drug dispensing needs of the myriads of customers driven by their paranoia to purchase what they think will bring them longevity and peace of mind, so they can eventually experience their retirement that they spend their whole lives preparing for when they should be living their lives instead.

I watched a PBS documentary on a family with kids the other day, who have spent their early married life and child bearing years sailing around the world. All the kids were born on board their boat, and have never known any other life. They are now building their own home up on the coast of Maine, so the teenage kids can see what living on dry land is like and go to schools with others their own ages. The mother and father met early on in life, on a distant island, where they were both busy escaping from the programmed go to school, get a good job, save during all of your working days, so you can start living when you retire, and do all the things you have always wanted to do. They say they never bought into that, and are wildly condemned by friends they had earlier on who did play the game as prescribed. How wonderful and life confirming! I felt vindicated for all my worldly anti-establishment living and moving about, mixing it up, and not ever really buying into the classic prepare for death rather than live bullshit. I also play the game differently and do have a unique story, which I have been diligently creating while being unconventional and totally irresponsible in the eyes of the normal middle class. This is what I am thinking, busy writing a post about being Bohemian, soon to publish it here. It needs refining. Have added some stimulating Bohemian site links to my favorites for you to enjoy.

Our Stories

Last night Ant and I watched "Australia" together, a stunning movie with a story so full of depth and beauty one can get lost in it's sweeping scenes and complex characters. So seldom do epic movies like this come out. I don't know why that is, but we thirst for them always. One line in the movie struck me more than others.

In the end, all you really own is your story. ~The Drover

The Australian Aborigines base their lives on their stories and dreams, and how rich is that? Truly we could learn from them. Another quote I love is:

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Fox Visitor!

I was just closing the curtains in our living room, and one of these beauties walked right up on our back deck straight towards me with me standing dead still, came within inches of me on the other side of the glass and pranced off the deck to the left right next to the house and into our bushes then under the wood fence. Cool! I grabbed my camera and went outside but he was long gone. Lots of woods and a marsh around us. Took this picture off the net with permission, someone else had one around their house and took it. Cool!

Fear of Frenzied Blooming

Much added here since first posting.

I don't know what to do with myself..was too heavy for so long. My son said last spring, about a year ago, "Mom, you've been fat for twenty years". He wasn't being cruel, as we were laughing and joking with each other, so in that context, it was really funny! I always felt that my weighty condition was a sort of new phase and it was on it's way out the door always. I had never really looked at it's longevity. Hmmmm. So I started saying that, " I've been fat for twenty years" and it sank in...wasn't depressed about it..just amazed. The rest of the story I have already blogged about so I won't go there again, but now I am a small size 12 and I don't know what to do with myself.

I always thought on some inner level that the weight was a cushion between me and the world, afraid of my own power when I had been skinny and all the trouble it helped to get me into. Life's bumps had made me fearful and so I drew back into myself. Now, I feel more vulnerable and thin skinned, like I am almost too flimsy and crushable, the world too close in around me. No wonder I put on that safe coat of fat. Grrrr. Now, I am reconstructing a life trying to bring into sync my crazy fun inner self with my outer world. I have a smallish outer world...not really so small now that I think on it. First, communicating with my daughter, daughter-in-law and son surely brings so much richness. My vintage treasure hunt is a daily obsession where I run into like-minded acquaintances, then creative photo shoots, refining photos in Photoshop and listing on line. I am working on my new Vintage Lucy site with my daughter, getting it ready to launch soon....There is the packing and shipping, which I take great care with, then the post office where all the clerks know me and we chat about our daily lives. The book store is a favorite, another endless treasure hunt there, books, movies and music are three of my passions...and the grocery, forever finding new sumptuous no-fat delicacies. I take walks every morning, and feed squirrels and birds. The critters see me and they run towards me. The neighbors get a kick out of that! I have friends I have met over the net through my business..Chris in Australia...we have been writing back and forth for years now, sharing family joys and sorrows. New family members and old friends found through Facebook are emailing...taking a break from Facebook right now. I needed a break. There are a couple of old friends I talk with and see occasionally. I have started painting again. That's a biggy! And...there is this intimate little blog, where I am attempting to share my life's journey! Just last week I started networking with local meet-up groups, and if I am not too shy I will follow through and maybe meet some new friends.

Now that my kids are grown and off doing their thing, one still at home but gone most of the time, I am alone with myself, and that is fun and I do enjoy it...I have my birds to talk to. I have had groups of friends before, some that stopped by often, just walking in the door and hung out doing their thing while I worked in the studio creating my jewelry...sometimes they sat with me and we jabbered. I do miss that and I guess that is what I am looking for. That would bring things into sync! I don't miss the arguing with spouses that felt me too happy and accused me of not fulfilling their needs, as they weren't happy. I don't miss that at all, and will certainly never go their again. I love being able to come and go to and from a happy home, to decide what I will do at any given time, make muffins, work, watch a movie, and when my son is home I must consider what he is doing. But...he is my darling son and I will do that for him. He makes no demands on me and never accuses me of not taking him into consideration, and he is considerate of me as well. It is symbiotic and quite enjoyable as we banter back and forth with each other, saying I love you, have a good day, be careful and things like that. making fun of each other and laughing about our inconsistencies, quirks and seeming inabilities to bring about the changes we so desire in our lives. Our final parting comment is usually, "you can't help stupid"...and we do see the stupidity in ourselves. Ha! What's a human to do, but continue on and be forgiving of one's self, every day all day long, and hold your head up high and try to move forward.

So, I don't know just yet what to do with myself, but I am meet for the task and sure I will find my way, if I can just calm down enough to apply me to it all. Complimenting the rich life I have with new characters, creating the spirit/physical balance I am so on fire to find. Funny how writing enlightens the self (Ari says blogging makes inner thoughts, so easily lost in our minds, more real...creating through publishing an urgency of action)...now I can see more clearly just how very full and rich my life is. The only thing I am lacking is close physical friendship. Friends like Chris, only near by...not tucked away down-under in far off Australia where I can't spend precious moments in her actual presence. I love emailing with her back and forth...but how special would it be if she were close by? My son is skeptical, as he says I am too unique, but Chris says she doesn't see it that way. She says the best of friends can be quite different from each other, so I am hopeful. Now I just have to get out the door! I am bursting like a flower in bloom in a very fast time lapse movie, and feel like if I am not careful all of my petals with just fly off into a crazy outward frenzy and I'll be a shattered stem bedraggled and wilted wondering what the hell happened!

Darkness Softens

Maybe I could do better someplace else,
maybe someplace other....
The early night time beckons,
showing things unfelt,
during daytime hours,
so brash and unrelenting.
Glorious night time,
Everything softens,
shadows are long and sweet.
Maybe I could do better,
if I weren't me,
like I find myself,
forever struggling,
When there is no need.
Why is that?

The Holocaust in Over by Avraham Burg, a review

I haven't read this book yet, but I did see him on PBS and I will definitely purchase a copy my next trip to the book store. Avraham Burg is brilliant, and I thought of this book after a comment left by an anonymous someone to one of my posts about what is going on in Israel...so here is a bit of it, with a link to the total review.
Book Review: ‘The Holocaust is over’
Monday, 22 December 2008
By John Mearsheimer

For American readers, the great virtue of Avraham Burg’s important new book is that he says things about Israel and the Jewish people that are hardly ever heard in mainstream discourse in the United States. It is hard to believe how stunted and biased the coverage of Israel is in the American media, not to mention the extent to which our politicians have perfected the art of pandering to the Jewish state. The situation got so bad in the recent presidential campaign that journalists Jeffrey Goldberg and Shmuel Rosner—both staunch defenders of Israel—wrote pieces titled “Enough about Israel Already”.
Let’s hope that The Holocaust is Over is widely read and discussed, because it makes arguments that need to be heard and considered by Americans of all persuasions, but especially by those who feel a deep attachment to Israel. The fact that Burg wrote this book also matters greatly. He cannot be easily dismissed as a self-hating Jew or a crank, as he comes from a prominent Israeli family and has been deeply involved in mainstream Israeli politics for much of his adult life. Moreover, he clearly loves Israel.
Burg makes many smart points in his book, but I would like to focus on what I take to be his central arguments. His core message is that Israel is in serious trouble at home and there is good reason to think that things could go horribly wrong in the future. He emphasizes that Israel has changed greatly since 1948. He quotes his mother on this point: “This country is not the country that we built. We founded a different country in 1948, but I don’t know where it’s disappeared.” Israel today, he writes, “is frighteningly similar to the countries we never wanted to resemble.” Talking about Israel’s shift to the right over time, he makes the eye-popping observation that “Jews and Israelis have become thugs”.

Just another day

I woke up this morning with sparks firing in my brain, like at the end of a live wire severed in an electrical storm, flipping wildly about in the street, stopping traffic and killing service to hundreds of homes. I tried to return to sleep but could not, thus here am I. "Write. write", the inner voice said, so I will write. I do feel so very blessed to be on Earth for yet another day. I have noticed as I go about my daily things, so unimportant really, little tasks, supplying the refrigerator, stocking the cupboards, paying bills and seeking vintage, always and forever seeking vintage, that I feel like "Wow, I am a part of this! I get to dance in this dance and play with all of these folks, animals, trees and rocks. Good God, how special is that?!" I have fed the squirrels, the rascally fellows, and the birds, and turned on the indoor light by the finch habitat. The looping video of the California coastline waves and wildlife is doing it's thing creating magic, if set at just the right volume, of transporting me to the mornings I woke up from sweetest slumber on the screened in porch of my grandmothers cabin at Spirit Lake Iowa, where I was gifted to go for only two weeks a year during my somewhat sad childhood. Those times are for another story, to be told at a later date. I did not feel this way for so long after Gannon's passing, so the feeling is very profound to me now. I used to wake with an extreme sense or foreboding that, I suppose, only a mother who has lost a child or experienced some great life trauma can know.

The mind is a treasury of memories waiting patiently to be tapped. I have the coziest bed, fluffy pillows and layers of warm vintage blankets and Morgan, my plush stuffed dog. I pray often for those not gifted with the same...always feeling that no matter how the day goes, I have this to return to....warm sweet coziness and safety. Around my bed are pictures given by my children and freinds, the Eiffel Tower in the 50s from Ant, a downtown mural by Ari, a Mexican religious scenic mini-cabinet from Shira, an antique elephant bank from Gannon... many things that matter just to me...a photograph of an eclipse of the moon from 1938 and a little shelf where I keep books in favor at the moment, a cabinet with a door showing a dragon scene burned into it by Ari...a card Ant gave me full of loving words, a book of amazing Australian scenes from Chris...just two walls for me, my sweet corner, with the other two walls hung gloriously in vintage, the trappings of my life, waiting for my further attention. Beckoning, but not in a mean way...just there, waiting patiently for me to photograph them and put them in the spotlight where they will be in their glory for a few days to months, looked upon as possible cherished things, too enticing to let slip by....Do you suppose that they have a secret knowledge, at least on a molecular level, of their true longing for that station? We thinking they are just inanimate objects, these draping cloth fabrics fashioned years ago, worn maybe once or many times, by those that have passed from Earth's rich experiences. How can anyone not be attracted to owning and wearing them yet another time? I go out into the hall, outside my bed chamber, and there be shelves filled with yet more vintage beauties. To the right is my vintage studio, with shelves on all sides and my mannequin, sweet friend that she is, forever waiting for my trans formative talents bringing her to life on the internet, different hair styles and poses with all the lovelies presented so perfectly on her. Do the atoms dancing in her structure not delight in their small part, lovingly showing the glory of times gone by? I take a break and feed the squirrels nuts on the deck...listening to Rosie next door talking skittish Spanish to a friend on the phone. She likes to sweetly sing as she does her mothering homemaker tasks. Birds are singing inside and out. I come back to write more, and the birds, the parakeets dive at me as I touch my fingers to the keys. Down the hall further, as I traversed the distance from my bed, my son, Ant, sleeping late as it is his day off. Then the bathroom with framed antique photos of the sea shore and Mexican gourd masks on the walls....on to the stairs that brought me down to the main floor and my best friend computer where I spend half of my waking life, generating the sustenance that maintains this all. Can it be so? Ant is awake now, laying himself languorously upon the couch, the movie "Dejavu" playing, replacing my ocean charisma. What magic is this all? How can I be so blessed?

Which crazy bitch am I?

Lynn completed the quiz "Which crazy bitch are you?"

You are one fierce bitch. You are very independent and will take no bullshit from anyone but your personality is actually sort of quiet and shy. You are a natural beauty and you are very comfortable with your femininity. You don't feel the need to overdo it or go out of your way to fuss over your looks. You don't want to distract people from what you stand for and the talents you possess. You are very idealistic and will go to any extremes to stand up for what you believe in even if it creates controversy and people don't understand. Relationships can be hard for you sometimes because men feel threatened by you but time again they come running to you and realize that you are actually very sweet and motherly....until they cross you.
Very flattering and right on...but I don't turn into a psycho when crossed, I just disappear very very fast! I think I like it.

A Happy Mother's Day

I had a mother's day once that sucked and has plagued me for years. Gannon was calling me incessantly from detox. He was drugged, as they do that to them there, while they bring them down. He was a mess crying out for me all slushy and frightened. By late afternoon I was so destroyed, I finally had to turn off my phone, which was like stabbing him. What the fuck kinda Mother's day was that? I have never been good at tough love when it comes to my kids, though he told me later, that when I did tough love him, it was a good thing. There is a time for tough love to end, and that time did come. I brought him home here to live, and although it was very rough going there were so many good times to cherish when he was doing well, and I am thankful for them, so very thankful. I know I have said lots of this before...you get it raw as it comes to mind, so please forgive the repetition. Now, today, six years after that Mother's Day and four and a half years after his passing I am bound and determined to have a happy Mother's Day, for I have healed enough. One of the cards sent to me when he passed, said, I hope you find the strength to be brave and continue on without him. It is okay now, I feel so good knowing he is finally safe in the arms of the kind, all pervading love of the Universe, that thing we all call God, that which is all of us together, embodied and not. I feel Gannon around me sometimes, though I know he is busy. I feel connected to him and know that though presently we are in different dimensions, we are not far from each other, and will be in each other's close presence soon enough, so I am brave and going on. I know he would want that, as my children with me still, want also. I can look at his picture now and feel no pain, just sweet missing and lots of love. That is a good thing, don't you think?

My daughter wrote in an email to me a couple of days ago,"i was talking about you the other day to some friends and said i thought you were having the opposite of a mid-life crisis - you're having like a midlife catharsis!" And I thought, Yes! We did it all backwards, but we did it! I wrote her back saying,"I think that is why I am feeling so spatial and being me...we’ve never all been okay before. That’s pretty weird...most families start out okay then go through shit. We did it the other way round. We did the shit first, then are growing to be okay". Then she wrote, "exactly! that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. i think we're very strong. That's why i always say i have no regrets and wouldn't change a thing. i am who i am because of my experience. i know way more about a lot of heavy shit than a lot of more sheltered people i know - and that's not bad, it's a good thing, having that knowledge and strength.
i love you!!ari :) ."

Life goes on. Sounds trite, but it is true. A new Mother's Day, a fun Mother's Day, full of warmth and thankfulness for such a rich, exquisitely bumpy life, never boring always amazing. I now feel the wonder of it as I never have before. Ant and I are watching "Walk The Line", Johnny Cash's victory over Heroin and addiction, a happy story in the end. It is good to know some do make it through, even though far too few.

Okay, I'm outa here for now...off to make Mother's Day berry muffins and prepare strawberries for shortcake, all fat free and so yummy you wouldn't believe it! Keep on truckin' you Mom's out there!

next day: It was a wonderful day! I made the muffins and the short cake, a big salad, baked potato pieces glossed with olive oil. Ant and I watched movies together and I didn't work on vintage at all, or even think about it...no work some days can be revitalizing. Bravo! I did it! A Good Mother's Day!

Old Love Letters

C.S. Lewis said: "We read to know we are not alone."
What about all the digital blogs and Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages? Won't it be strange when the people that are writing them are all gone from this Earth? Like so many of the books now left to us? it's all so new now, so recent...but it won't always be so. It will be part of the Earth's heritage, and those that are left will be able to piece together all the parts, creating some kind of cohesive picture of what was, cross referencing it all...it will blow their minds, or maybe it will be common place to them by then...who was writing what when about the same things, how many were affected by events, stories and books. Cyberspace is it's own huge world, blossoming outward from our inner thoughts, leaving traces that will never be forgotten.

I have a large shoe box of hand written letters Mom gave to me, still with the original tie she placed around the box (I replaced the box tastefully as the old one had fallen apart), inside an old dried corsage, bits and pieces of sweet memories, folded brittle pages of love's dearest thoughts carefully placed in envelopes that traveled thousands of miles over war torn seas, sent between my parents when Dad was on the first Enterprise in WWII, obsolete communications, no digital traces there. Where should they be? Where will they find their home? Cherished written words in real ink on paper...no digital life. Writing words is trans formative...as I write my feelings grow fonder of them, and I forget why I am mad, my sad feelings fall away, like dust brushed from a shiny surface waiting to be released into the sun's reflections once again.

Memories like jealous children

I was just writing to a long lost friend and lover, who has found me through Facebook, of all the places and experiences I want to write about...and here it is in a rough form, taken from that email. I may revise this post as time goes on and will use it as a sort of outline for future writing:

My travels inspired by an innate need to eat up life as fast as I could, plus the added bonus of being my own rep, selling my hand crafted jewelry to galleries and at juried shows allowed me long periods of time in Minneapolis, Rochester(born and raised there), Gaylord on the flat desolate plains and many other places in Minnesota, Fargo, ND, the Badlands in South Dakota, Wyoming (the desert and the great rolling hills with their herds of free running antelope, the Detroit ghettos, NYC, Boston, Portland and Gloucester in Maine and the Maine coast..... Lakeland, Denver, Boulder, Vail, camped in the Rockies at Aspen, all in Colorado....Pittsburgh, Rochester and Ithaca, NY, Chicago, St. Louise, New Orleans French Quarter and the gulf coast, Peoria....Key West, Sanibel Island, Orlando, and so many other fun places in Florida, like the Everglades.....lived outside of River Falls, Wisc on a farm with no phone, heating with only the wood we hand cut and chopped, Sarasota and extreme Miami (hanging in the glamorous city, Coconut Grove, Little Cuba, and the black ghetto), Ptown and Wellfleet on Cape Cod (when the Aids Epidemic was just starting and had no name yet), Northampton, Ma. (where I am now), Fayetteville, NC and on a commune in Northern Mn. and in bizarre Bemidgi, hung with the Kingbird family on the Red Lake Indian Reservation and shared Powwow drum times with them while living there, visited family on the Cherokee Res in NC ....so many artists and intense folks living full Bohemian, quirky lives in many of those places, so rich and amazing. Funny how one runs into old weird friends who travel between some of those towns/cities, enclaves of rapid moving thoughts and artists. My kids are steeped in it...through me and/or on their own (Ari has traveled overseas extensively), being exposed to all kinds of people and thoughts from all over the world, though I haven't been out of the states. A friend once told me that I have covered more ground than most Europeans do in a lifetime..but I still hope to travel over seas! I have so much to write about...A life unwritten is lost and unshared. I know how I treasure books. I always am reading and my life is so much the richer for experiencing what others have been though and their thoughts on it all...if I keep writing just maybe I can cover most of it. Funny thing though, as one writes, more memories come to mind, bubbling to the surface, waiting to be acknowledged and attended to, like jealous children. "Do me now!" "No, me!" How does one work them all in?

Bundle of Joy and Sorrow

He wore red sandals and bib overalls,
tanned stripes on his chubby little feet,
long blond hair halfway down his back,
a brown men's dress hat even in the heat.


Walking free and making friends,
he charmed everyone at art fairs,
other artists coming to meet us,
the proud parents with no cares.


On the big flat board we painted,
He played with cars and trucks,
loved Winnie the Pooh and poetry,
"bundle of joy and sorrow" was the crux.


That song I knew was his about him,
I knew not why then.

More Israeli Violence

Unbelievable Israeli treatment of attempted non-violent protests against the West Bank Barrier is bringing to world consciousness even more stunning reality. When will it all stop? I know I said I wouldn't bring up the Palestinian situation again...but I can't keep that promise, as it is the biggest human rights violation on the Planet right now. Please look into it and make your voice heard in some way. You could talk with your neighbors and friends about what is going on over there, write to your congressmen, and support the many Jewish human rights organizations that are working to end these atrocities. We don't hear about it much on the news...one could wonder why. The abused become abusers. The cycle must end.

Sharing...I don't know why.

Saturday-morning...clear and sunny, and it should get into the 80's today! (an aside... Hi Chris!) I have photos to shoot and work on...so not much time to play today. Have fed the squirrels and birds, put the California seaside continuous looping DVD into the player...had my coffee and such. Am posting this photo of little Gannon and me. It's been at my computer work station for eons, as is the one of Ari being eaten by a starfish..will post that one later. It always feels good to share something here in this sweet blog space before I start work...sending it out into cyberspace in combinations of zeros and ones...I don't know why.

Smart Squirrels!

I feed squirrels and birds daily...an obsession and my giving-back preference at the moment. Today they show how smart they are! :O)

Posts coming soon

I have started today to write of our family ancestry leading into my involvement with the Kingbird family on the Red Lake Indian Reservation and at pow wows in northern Minnesota in the 70s. I also want to mention the Native American Indian Rock Band, XIT, which I was introduced to(not personally) through them. Nihaa Shil Hozho (I Am Happy About You) is my favorite song, but all of their songs are truly amazing, as are all traditional drum songs by the Kingbird singers.

Also...I am now writing a poem of all the good things I can remember about my childhood with just a hint of the bad underneath mentioned. Will post that soon after I refine it.

Bear Visitor!

Yesterday I had a visitor! I always feel blessed when these things happen. :O)

My son, Anthony

The real Ant, not clowning
A Goofball by nature
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Happy Easter, Ant!
You be Stylin!
He was modeling a zoot suit for a new store
I want to open on line, The Ugly Store!

Apology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used to be scared of being found,
so many spooky memories around,
will he or she find me,
and rub my nose in it,
all the things I did,
that were not so nice?
I never meant to hurt anyone,
but stepped on others while having fun,
thoughtless acts,
indifference,
making others insignificant,
feeling forgotten,
and maybe used by me,
as I rushed free.
I am sorry for all of this,
so if you find your way,
to these words,
please accept my apology,
I am truly sorry.

A Paragraph from Ari

A paragraph for Lynn about her animals.
12.22.00
Ari Moore

First, a description: Four. The first, a dinosaur, an allosaurus I believe, with a green house gripped in its mighty jaws and wearing blue and white striped shorts. Second, a glow in the dark frog, suitable for filling with water and squirting at people. Third, a yellow cheering creature I know is Pokemon. Fourth, a black and white spotted dog, howling at the moon.

Second, an interpretation. The house belongs to an old English gentleman named Allistaire Rhys Brien. He was smoking his pipe one evening by a roaring fire when some big teeth poked through his window and uprooted the whole thing, parlour and all. “Goodness gracious me,” he huffed, and went back to his pipe. The frog, the Pokemon effigy, and the dog took one look and went back to their respective occupations; squirting, cheering and baying at the moon, respectively.


That is all.

A Great Artist has Passed

Art is our heritage, we came as creators, and that is all that we are. Our lives are the pictures we paint, the songs we compose, the books we write. None of us can pretend any otherwise. The lowliest of the lost, the grandest of the known, all are busy about the joys and sorrows of creating. If we all could only see it as so, then maybe we would be more inspired to get it right, to know that it mattered, to know that each one of us matters just as much as the next. It is not about creating security or wealth, and that should not be the rule by which we measure each other or ourselves. Richness is a thing of the spirit.

A good friend of my son's just set himself on fire inside his locked car. I didn't know him personally, but my son says he was a hard worker and one of the best car salesman in the business, and a loving father. I have met him a couple of times, and he was a beautiful, gorgeous man, who radiated kindness. My son says there were over 250 people at his memorial gathering. All who write of him or talk of him tell of his magical personality and how he lit up any room he was in. Brad Burnett was a truly great artist, and created a beautiful picture, of which I am sure he is so thrilled to be aware of now, as he rests safely in the loving and all-forgiving hands of the Creative Force of the Universe. I hope his loved ones can take solace in this.

In Bhutan, they have a Minister of Happiness who cares for all citizens and their individual states of mind, so Michael Fox tells us. Denmark is known as one of the happiest countries, because they don't expect any thing like the American Dream. They ask for little, just some life comforts, and so they are satisfied with just that. They are happy! Wouldn't it be grand for all of us to remind each other often of how wonderful each and every one of us is? Virtue attaineth, and nothing else attains anything at all. We may make mistakes to find the raw stuff of virtue, but even those mistakes have major virtue in that they are valuable stepping stones, the darker rich hues of the pictures we paint with our lives.

Husband and Cat Tales

Robert went to pick up the body of Gannon's cat, who had passed away at the vet's. He wanted to bury him in our back garden. I was out of town selling jewelry to galleries so he had no transportation. The cat's body was stiff and all laid out flat in a plastic bag. He put it inside his coat, and hitch hiked back to town. The tail was hanging out the bottom, although he was trying very hard to be discreet, so as not to discourage any would-be drivers. The ride came, and the driver freaked a couple of miles down the road when he noticed Robert was sitting sort of angled keeping his body straight to accommodate the stiff cat inside his coat, and then of course too, there was the tail that had flopped out over his lap. The man stopped the car and Robert walked back to town the rest of the way.

I had tea and breakfast in bed with baby Gannon and our cat Gorsch, reading a book as per usual, when the tea spilled. Glenn came running in when he heard me shout and, picked up Gorsch and rubbed her back and forth in the pool of tea and blankets. I was stunned! "What the hell are you doing?” I shouted. Gorsch had worked free, growling and hissing as she ran off. He said, "The cat peed in the bed!" Poor kitty!

My Ami, Florida

When Gannon was about three years old, we had a living room full of stoned hippies, watching the flames flickering in the fireplace. Someone was talking to me about Miami, and Gannon who could hold his own in most adult conversations, even at that tender young age, became indignant. He said," it's not your Ami, it's Lynn's Ami. Such a child he was.

Miami Odyssey

This morning, and a beautiful one it is, crisp clean clear air and lots of sunshine, I am thinking of my first adult travels. I am reading the "The Red Leather Diary" by Lily Koppel and thinking on Florence, the writer of the diary, and her travels to Europe as a young woman where she was often on the sexual menu. Last night on PBS I watched a special about Chuck Close, Philip Glass and other artists in lower Manhattan during the 60s. I wish that I had gone to NYC or to Europe, but instead, in an effort to shed my small town Mid Western naiveté, I flew by myself to Miami, Fla. (in a jet, not with my psychic abilities. Ha!). I chose Miami because it was big and in a warm clime, and I thought it sounded glamorous. Three high school friends were planning on making the trip with me, but they all found other things to do. My dear friend, Sue, went to Denver. I wrote about her in an earlier post. I had a sort of friend in Miami. We were not close but hung with the same crowd in school. She was a stewardess and ready for a new room mate.

I got off the plane and took a cab to the apartment she shared with other stewardesses. A motley bunch, a bit shallow and unfriendly, but, Hey, it was a place to start. I had $350 to my name. They hooked me up with some old creepy rich guy who hung with notables. He chaperoned mini-skirted-sexy-sweet me to a party my second night there. All the flying females were in the air, and I was the only girl available. We drove for a long time through alien, scary city streets to a penthouse on Biscayne Blvd. in down town Miami. There were high society sorts in flashy mod clothes, mini skirts, jewels and Lulu, the actress from "To Sir With Love" was there, a lavish split level living room, with full length windows facing the bay. Culture shocked, I managed to compose myself as I meandered about on very shaky legs, one sleazy guy after another, and some real hotties of both sexes approaching me and flirting, for I was obviously on the sexual menu. The night wore on and I wondered how I would ever get back to the apartment. There was a huge over-decorated condo down the hall shown to me, and offered, but only if I wanted my very own sugar daddy along with it. I was given three choices for that most inauspicious position. I didn't take the offers, wondered about the attached parking garage freaked and lost as the party broke up, until one 40ish garish slime ball took pity on my obvious state of disorientation and rejection (I had not panned-out appropriately), deposited me in his car, and drove me back to fly girl bizarre world in the early morning light, not without trying to feel up my thigh as he drove, in one last attempt to unfreeze the ice burg. I was shedding my little girl naiveté fast.

The fun didn't stop there. I found myself on a huge white yacht within the next week, being wined and dined with other pretty young things, all of us in bikinis, by a dozen or so 80 to 90 year old Mafioso types. Then onto Miami beach clubbing it with my new roommate, where I continued to be on the menu. There were gatherings in our apartment of professional mafia card sharks (my roommate's man was a dear, sweet card shark from Chicago), just back from big games throwing thousands of dollars in cash about on the floor just for fun, heartless parties at our single's club apartment in South Miami...and many more bizarre experiences too numerous and tedious to mention happening along the way. I had an affair with a sports-car-driving, sexy, college bound Cuban, who returned to Miami to try and win me back only after I was pregnant with my first child from my high school beau (who had returned from Viet Nam to make bi-monthly trips to visit me) and ready to exit Miami and it's charms for a stint as an army wife in North Carolina. I might have had higher quality experiences if I hadn't chosen such a ultra-grotesque city, where everyone goes to let their hair down and misbehave. New York or Europe with other artists would have been kinder and possibly more productive. The life choices we make. Throughout all of this my work as a lowly sales girl, then a fashion coordinator at Burdine's kept me in limited funds. What a kick. I had set myself apart, and no longer had easy bonds with the girls in my home town, not that I had ever had many.

"We be Spirit" Babbling

Still trying to extricate myself from the physically oriented world, no news is good news, or as Ben Stein says 90 percent of us still have jobs, and that's a good thing! I find it curious that though the pundits tell us the world economic disaster is brought on by lack of faith in the system and negative feelings around the issue, and yet all we get in the world news is how much everything sucks. It seems if we humans were only half bright, we would use the news to flood the world with positive news about the financial situation and bring about world prosperity. But....as my son says, "you can't help stupid". Then we have the medical systems of the world, based mainly on what medical science has to offer....very little main stream consciousness raising with reference to mind power, faith in one's body to heal itself, and just what a grand thing it is to opt out of the greed-based Medical Systems of the world. So much more to rant about here, but my tea is done steeping and I have to do a photo shoot...so will add more later, about being a spirit based human fueled by the higher powers, instead of a self-limiting physically based human lost in an archaic dead system that no longer works. Tune in and drop out, we hippies used to say, and I am still working on it. It's hard going when there is so much programming everywhere taking away our freedom of thought. Time is short!

Not really...there's plenty of it! If we aren't here on Earth, we'll be elsewhere working on stuff. All is well. Why is it that we humans spend most of our lives trying to secure ourselves against all sadness and tragedy, when they are a big part of what we came here to experience and learn from. You can't paint a picture without shadows and dark deep accents of some sort, or it has no depth. We are afraid, so we try to batten down the hatches, when we should be busy about the business of finding within ourselves the strengths we need to work through the bad times along with the good. Most of modern day business is about securities, how comical really. When we find a cure for one dis-ease we must of course find another to replace it, to maintain the proper level of tension in the picture we are painting. Yet, we beat our heads against the same brick walls time after time. How futile.

We have the drug companies trying desperately to make us paranoid about our bodies, so that we will run to the doctor for all sorts of tests, to secure our health, when there is no such thing. The funds from the drugs and tests they say we need fuel our own slavery to this physical system. We live in such an amazing realm, so full of diversity and lushness, truly a miracle every day! How water, air and the elements combine to create this phantasmagorical Earthly existence that we perceive, magical in essence, yet we get caught up in mundane things, not taking the time to actually see, and certainly never considering how vital it might be to teach our children the same. "Look inside yourselves", all of the holy writings say. That isn't some flowery rhetoric. Just as we can look out into the sky and question what we see and what it is all about, so we can look inward, as the world there is just as big and full of wonderment, and I'm not just talking about molecules and atoms, but about spirit and the places we go during our sleep to recharge for the next day. We discount that, saying it is only dreaming. Yet you would think that since we spend one third of our time there we might consider how very important it must be, that our very physical world depends and springs from it, the spirit world. I have gone there, out of body, and that is not hokuspokus, it's just as real as being awake on the physical Earth. I walked around and felt the walls, the air and the ground with my non-physical senses and remembered it all very well when I snapped back into my body. I talked with those there and they said, "She's visiting, astral projecting" and they talked and laughed with me. I was as alert and aware of myself there as I am here as I type.

Every day I think physical on and off...then say, ooops, I forgot....and pull myself back on track. I create my world with my beliefs, not the other way round, the world creating itself with me an innocent bystander. Be very careful what you think, as the more you think it, you give it energy enough so that it springs into your physical realty. The more you worry about losing your job, the more likely you will be to lose it! There are many mansions inside for us to investigate and delight in. Think on the Australian Aborigines and their dream time beliefs, the ones we haven't had the pleasure of wiping from their mass consciousness yet. We try so hard to get rid of our lost spirit base, by annihilating it in every civilisation we come in contact with. We are afraid of it, our lost connections.
I wonder when string theory and alternate realities will open the doors to our lost abilities, when we will start to find ourselves once again, and quit with the sad games of greed and acquisition we now base our world upon. Seth says until we learn how to time travel every planet we go to will be uninhabited, as we will either get there before or after others like ourselves have been there. He also says we don't need machines to fly. We just think we do, therefore we must make the machines to carry us, when we once roamed freely through this world and others as spontaneously as we breath. The Holy writings predict the end of this age, the world as we know it. Out of the turmoil will come the Golden Age. I hope I live long enough to really see it popping loudly, louder than it is even now with global warming and ice caps melting. It does excite me and make me filled with happiness knowing it to be so. I have had longtime lovers that knew each other, and they told me their biggest mutual complaint about me was that I was too happy! Ha! I Like that.

Ebay Changes & I Want a Puppy!

Hi everyone! I have been adding links to all of my 500 Vintage Lucy at Ebay listings, as they have changed their formats once again, adding more bells and whistles that we don't need to slow the loading of pages, and now my old links have disappeared. It really sucks! So if I am not writing much these days is is because I am stuck in Ebay hell.....Techs Gone Wild! I must work this week with my sweet daughter on my new site or I will surely go insane! Grrrr!

I have been really wanting a puppy, a tiny dog, so I don't have to pick up giant poop for the rest of my days. Gannon's sweet guinea pig, Pris, passed away last November and now I have no furry little thing to love and be loved by. On the TV show "Sunday Morning" Ben Stein just did a fabulous thing on "Get A Dog" and it played in the background as I work here at my computer. Wow! It's just coming at me from all sides. I am waiting for a puppy to show up at my door, as I know it will be mine to have and hold and keep! He/she will be out in the big world alone and looking for me. Oh, sweet Puppy come to me! Then Ebay, the economy, creepy people and all things crappy about Earthly existence will fall away as I pet my sweet puppy and take it for walks. I have a stuffed dog, Morgan, but he isn't very responsive no matter how much I cuddle him.

Rockabilly Swell

I had a sweet dream,
he was Rockabllly swell,
I could only reach that far,
far enough to hold him,
my arms wrapped around,
walking arm in arm.
I asked if he had any idea of how much I loved him,
he answered he had made a mistake and then I ran,
not wanting to hear him with regret,
wanting only to hear he was happy now,
no longer in pain.
I had a sweet dream,
he was Rockabilly swell,
Time reminds, does not heal.
Other contact,
remember being in his fire presence,
I try to reach that far,
talking and calling and waiting,
for another hipster taste
the door of sleep
opening inner worlds,
all jive as we wait.
Is he with Joe & Joey, rockin'?
with Johnny walkin'?
No time passing, no time there,
The sweet dream world of crazy,
no harsh corners and surfaces,
fluid being, wild dancing,
all things new, thought creating,
colors making sound,
our home.

News / Daily Bummers

Withdrawing from the News has been good. I find my spirits lifting! Natasha Richardson has passed from Earth...so very sad for her family. I adore her in "The White Countess". It is one of my favorite movies, though the near loss of her child to another woman stings a bit, as I have been there. Her triumph over adversity in life and in the movie is inspiring. Not bad news, but sad news that she has left us.
Death is transformation. Just the other day I got a glimpse of my son in a photo, and experienced a fleeting moment of happiness. I was timidly curious, as most often what I have felt in the past was a tragic sense of loss and sadness. If you break down the word "miserable" you get miser-able, holding on to things which are not ours, the pain of that. I am trying to realize how fortunate I was to know Gannon for 35 years, to remember the good times and all of the magic he was. To get it right. The cup being so full, not empty.

What is it about the human race, that we called the daily bummers news, that obsession? Why not the other way round? News could be all of the positive things that are happening in the world, the triumphs, where there is peace, love, consideration for all things. Would not the world be a profoundly different place?

Biologically Altered

The post I entered in the Times flu virus blog. Ain't it grand that the internet can hook us up, letting us know how long it will last and that we are not the only ones stricken. This nasty virus has been winding it's way through the US all winter.

We both came down with it about 5 days ago right after a bout of the respiratory flu. Our next door neighbor just told me he had it about a week before we were chosen. What fun! We can't blame him as we hear everyone is getting it, not that blaming would help but one does pull at straws at times like these. Chills, headaches, body aches, severe cramping, sometimes nausea and vomiting, relentless diarrhea, so bad there is no hope to make it to the bathroom in time, then you think you're better and it starts up in some way, shape or form again, usually with thunderous growling and rolling so loud you feel like you just might explode! So far today, I am drinking Newman's Own lemonade and getting away with it. I have high hopes! Now that I know this will last about two weeks we will be very careful! Yesterday my son ate a big beefy sandwich with his buddies at work, as he thought he was all better, and then on the way home from being out for the night he had to pull over and heaved like he never has before in his life, popping blood vessels around his eyes. He will be very careful for the week or so as well. Personally, I think we are all being biologically altered from the inside out to enable continued living in this harsh new world we have created for ourselves and these symptoms are just our bodies way of reacting to these necessary modifications. Not really but, Hey, it could be true.

Faith not Fear

It has come to my attention that I should not be watching the daily news, which I have been totally obsessed with. I had a taste of life without it when I visited my daughter last year. They have no cable and only watch movies. TV shows they like, they rent or buy. It was serene and I knew that I should stop with the news then, but it has taken until now to really hit home in my head. I do remember when I was a young hippie mother with my second husband we killed our TV and it did have an amazing positive result. If I am saying the mantra daily "I will not dwell on the unpleasant things in life" then why watch such crap, especially when it is continually seasoned with mind altering commercials from the drug companies with no other intention than to make us feel paranoid about our health, so we will run out and buy drugs we don't need for maladies we don't really have, and would be so much better off realizing the physical difficulties we feel throughout each day would have a liberating purpose if we followed them through to their ultimate conclusion, personal growth. Instead we lose that growth by paying into a system that does nothing other than demoralize us. Then we get more physical difficulties and need more drugs, or so we think. I've blogged my last here about Palestine...I've had enough. I do believe there is a greater plan working through it all, and I need not dwell on it so. The Palestinians will have justice.

I have been called a changeling, an old soul, a seeker, a seer, an emasculator, a feminist. I have been called worse as well, a drunk, a nut and the like. I have been told I am from another planet (by a Buddhist monk, as a compliment, so that wasn't so bad) that I unintentionally intimidate others, that I am selfish, impossible, intense, difficult and aloof. Some have been in awe, that I throw myself into the fires of life so easily...well, it hasn't been so easy. When people get to know me they most often like me even if my type of energy bothers them. I don't know what I am. I live a relatively private life, have not traveled outside the US, have not worked for any great causes, so I am no big deal. I never really wanted to be a big deal. (I should take that back..I did have dreams of making it big in NYC as an artist, but stopped on my way there to have two children in Massachusetts....two of my children completed that journey making it there. Ha!) I have raised, in a very bumpy fashion, three beautiful talented children, created a lot of quality art, and my vintage touches some souls, and that will be my legacy. What is a person but a stream of consciousness belonging to us all, just one picture of the myriad possibilities, no more or less important than any other. My daughter says I should blog because we Humans learn from each other, and so I do write. It also seems to be a release. I wish I had more responses, negative or positive, as it would be nice to know others are reading some of this, and maybe being affected by it.

I have watched myself over the last two years, come out into something new, so I am a changeling once again. I wonder at all that I have been through, put myself through, and how very heart-breaking and difficult some of it has been, all so that I could learn and be a better person. Now that I am 60 (I wish it hadn't all taken so long and that I was younger still) and finally able to look at myself in a mirror again and actually see someone I know, that I can again hear the birds singing and wonder at the world without feeling impending doom at every turn. How amazingly fucked up I have been through so much of it and how it has affected my personal image presented to the world. Change is a big thing, though it shouldn't be. It should be so natural, so fluid, but we bind ourselves up against it, fearing it. Anyway, I know I have had that tendency and still do, because you see, I am a slow learner. No matter that I hit myself continually up against that wall of fear I never seem to get over it. We must have faith that all will turn out well...faith, not fear.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

There is always hope

Weeping, sorrowful lost thoughts,
trailing over the morning sun as it shows itself in my window,
always trying, trying to make sense of it,
the sad thoughts settle heavy and stuck,
like heavy boots stuck in mud.
Wish that I could fly beyond,
never feeling like lead,
Wanting always to stay around,
stay on Earth's solid ground,
Don't dwell on things sad,
pick up and move on,
remember times smiles abound.

How Many Chickens?

Today it feels like spring, almost 60 out there! I have really felt the cold this year, as have dropped a few sizes....I always think of it as how many chickens I am not carrying around, assuming each chicken weighs about 3 lbs.. I won't say how many I left by the wayside, as that is just too personal, but it has been many! It all started out with severe pinching in my right side, along with some back pains and occasional indigestion. Every now and then it would happen, and I thought it was just part of getting older. Then last summer I had a really severe attack and almost ended up in an ambulance....but came out of it just before they carried me off, stuffed me in and drove off to the scream of sirens and many hundreds of bucks trailing along behind into infinity. I pride myself on having worked it out with my body, to get really scared before the pain let up to save my pocketbook that shocker and yet bring about the necessary changes. Funny we be that way, creating crisis to bring about change. Tiz the Human way, right?

The Chinese term for crisis is "danger-opportunity."

With the help of a family member who had had a gal bladder removed a year before and a Doctor family member's helpful concern, and of course the trusty always-there-for-us internet, I was on my way to recovery and a much thinner self. I changed my diet drastically. It was called the gal bladder attack diet, basically no fat, cucumbers, green beans, and celery, lots of beets, aloe Vera juice, apple cider vinegar and apple juice and lots of fruit and no fat whole grain breads. Most of the symptoms went away and I was dropping weight like a snowman melts in the sun. I would carefully add a few natural healthy goodies to my diet as directed, then in the fall I was tired of the reoccurring minor back aches, so went on line and found gal bladder cleanse testimonials. Very exciting!
I did two organic olive oil/lemon juice with Epsom salts chaser cleanses, about three weeks apart and dropped thousands of stones. The body acts so much more efficiently when it can produce bile as it was meant to. Pretty amazing when gal bladder surgery is the third most common surgery in the US and costs upwards from 12,000.00. My ingredients had cost under 20.00. And....I could go on and on about the American Medical Profession and the Drug Companies but I want to keep this post relatively light after all of that Israeli stuff of my earlier posts. So, I took a lot of clothes to the Salvation Army and bought some new clothes...mostly at thrift stores, my favorite. I found a pair of 50s never worn ankle high dark purple/brown leather boots that fit me perfectly and are my dear friends these days, and plaid flannel lined jeans! Ohhh, are they nice! I have been living in them since Christmas time when I bought a pair for everyone. I bought them long so they have a big 3 inch turned up flannel cuff, very punky. Anyway...it's been fun and I am so looking forward to Spring without all of those chickens around and more cute clothes. Yay!

Israel's authoritarian transformation

Israeli riot police in Haifa at a Gaza solidarity demonstration, December 2008. Oren Ziv

What is happening? How bad can things get in a supposedly modern civilized country? The world should be more concerned about this friendly country gone rogue than they are with Iran, since this tiny country creates nothing but justified Arab hostility for all things western, including the USA as we continue to fund Israel. Read all about the Israeli War Machine. Just as I feel deeply for the Palestinians, I also feel deeply for the Jewish population in Israel and what they are all going through at the hands of the government they have created, and pray they will find a way to turn things around before it is too late. Very scary.

Answers to Palestian Issues

This graphic says, "We are all Gaza" and is shown in support of the Palestinian people.

This two part post needs some work, but you have it in the rough for now.


A personal note: The Palestinian issues are very upsetting for me. It all makes me so angry I could spit. America tax payers are supporting Israel! When I first watched the movie, Munich, I enjoyed it as I actually felt good seeing Palestinians suffer. I felt it was just desert after 911, as I blamed the Arabs for same. My daughter and Jewish daughter-in-law told me there was more to this issue than I was aware of, and that there was a human rights movement in Israel in support of the Palestinians. I never consciously wished to become aware of same...it came to me, and the horrors of it do not leave my mind. Most of daughter-in-law's family live in Israel. Her cousins have served or are serving in the Israeli army as demanded. It is my understanding that her family also believes that the Palestinian Human Rights are being horribly violated there. My daughter-in-law and I have talked of these things. We talked of the abused growing up to be abusers, and how the cycle must be broken.
* Check out the PBS video, Journey to the occupied Lands.

So I have to suppose from your answer that if your mother suffered a cavity search while trying to visit her relatives, or that your sister's home was demolished with one days notice, or that you were beat up mercilessly by Israeli soldiers while trying to graze your goats on ancestral lands as you have done since childhood, that you would not also feel like becoming a suicide bomber? What about the thousands of Israelis that are working for human rights against their governments treatment of the Palestinians? Do you think them all idiots? Have you ever watched a video of what the Israeli soldiers are actually doing in Gaza and the West Bank? If you had would you really think the USA could learn from that kick-ass country? I certainly hope not.


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What!? yes, the Israelis did tear down some of their settlements and forced their citizens to leave, including most of Gaza....By the way...they did not remove all settlements/people from either territory.

In August 2005, Israel had forcefully evicted illegal settlements in the southern Gaza Strip but retained control over the borders, the land, the airspace, the coastline and the underground water. Reality is that 1.5 million people in Gaza have been living under Israeli occupation since 1967.

Very commendable. I have seen the videos, and they are heart wrenching and certainly make one feel for the Israelis in those situations, although the settlers acted like criminals in light that they were being asked to leave in a peaceful manner by their own elected government, to right wrongs that had long been perpetrated against the indigenous population . One would hope that the Israeli Government was planning to continue the process to remove ALL illegal settlements. I think not. More likely their government knew that if they made token efforts, the peoples of the world would see them and think them righteous and leave alone their continued expansionist policies. One video shows Israeli settlers from the US stating that they have to expand into those lands as there is not enough room for them all unless they do, and that the holy writings of history say they are the true owners of those lands. The Israeli maps do not even show Gaza and The West bank... the land is ALL ISRAEL WITH NO PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES SHOWN. Consider that the settlements are illegal in the first place, and that the Israeli government felt that if they gave up some settlements that they would be vindicated, and then could continue their confiscation of other Palestinian lands in the West Bank in a grand scale along with their superbly inhumane occupation of Gaza. Israel uses every Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists act to justify their continued expansion into the already severely limited Palestinian inhabited areas, and that is exactly what you are buying into. Israel has created the terrorism vented against itself, cavity searches (do you now what that means?) at checkpoints, Israeli soldier brutality and demolition of Palestinians homes and many more human rights violations too numerous to mention. This violence will not end until human rights are restored for ALL peoples in the holy lands. Do you really think that thousands of Israelis involved in the Human Rights Movement in Israel are just barking up the wrong tree? B'Tselem, just one of the any Israeli groups working for Human rights, even supplied Palestinians in the West Bank with video cameras to document the horrendous human rights violations. Do you not think they really know what is going on at the hands of their so-called righteous government? I don't think we are getting the same information, but it is all there, readily available for all those that wish to seek it out.

And, to answer your comment "Judenrein".....Jews could have been living peacefully in Palestinian territories, including Gaza, if they respected the Palestinians and their property, but they don't and you know it. The Israeli soldiers evict them from their homes, settlers move in and take them over or demolish them, just one of the many horrid human rights violations. The Jews now control more than 3/4 of the Palestinian lands through occupation. I think they have shown that they can't be proper neighbors and are incapable of sharing lands, and that is one of the many reasons a two state solution is the only answer.

In answer: A lot has happened since 1922, that the maps of Israel do not show. Time goes on and new mandates are made, like Partition. Do you think denial of the progression of events helps to create peace? The Palestinian Territories should be shown out of respect for truth and history.

Our New Obama Government at Work

Oh Happy Day! We finally have our US government clearly speaking out against Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people! It's a start! I LOVE OBAMA, though I am disappointed that the earmarks in the spending bill are being left in with Obama signing it anyway, understanding the urgency of the bill I can see why this is happening however disheartening it may be.....

President Obama will sign spending bill despite earmarks, top aides say

by Philip Elliott | The Associated Press
Monday March 02, 2009, 6:18 AM

President Obama will sign spending bill despite earmarks, top aides say
President Barack Obama will break a campaign pledge against congressional earmarks and sign a budget bill laden with millions in lawmakers' pet projects, top administration officials said.

Obama budget chief Peter Orszag and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel signaled that the president would hold his nose and sign the $410 billion spending bill.

Orszag said: "We want to just move on. Let's get this bill done, get it into law and move forward."

Said Emanuel: "That's last year's business."

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This is long, but too valuable not to present.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday blasted Israel's plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as a violation of its international obligations and "unhelpful" to Middle East peace efforts.

"Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the 'road map'," Clinton said, referring to the long-stalled peace plan.

"It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem," she added at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Clinton said she planned to take up the issue with the incoming Israeli government, which is expected to take office in the coming weeks.

Israel has in recent days issued orders for the demolition of 80 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem it says were built illegally.

But Palestinians say they cannot receive proper building permits from Israeli authorities, and the planned demolitions are means to assert Israel's control over the disputed city.

Clinton also displayed strong public support for Abbas. "The Palestinian Authority is the only legitimate government of the Palestinian people," she told the news conference.

The Palestinian president has steadily lost support at home, particularly
after a year of inconclusive peace talks with Israel. At the same time, his Islamic militant Hamas rivals, who seized Gaza from him in 2007, are widely seen as emerging stronger from Israel's recent military offensive against them.

Abbas, meanwhile, was expected to ask Clinton to push Israel to freeze West Bank settlements and open Gaza's blockaded borders.

Senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leader was seeking a tougher U.S. stance toward Israel and would raise specific Israeli construction projects in Jerusalem with Clinton.

"The main point is that the Israeli government needs to accept the two-state solution and ... that it stop settlement expansion," Erekat said, hours before the meeting.

Abbas was also expected to tell Clinton that the Palestinian Authority would not agree peace negotiations unless Israel agreed unequivocally to a two-state solution, Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee.


A day after pledging the new Obama administration would always protect Israel's security, Clinton delivered a message of support for
Abbas' Palestinian Authority and repeated that the U.S. was committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.


During her visit to Ramallah, Clinton met briefly with young Palestinians studying English, and announced a U.S. initiative to help poorer Palestinian students attend four-year Palestinian universities and give grants to other Palestinians to attend U.S. schools.

"For a Palestinian state to be prosperous, accountable to its people and be able to live up to its obligations in the international community, it has to have more people who can do the job in the 21st century," she said.

The Palestinians are watching closely for signs of change in U.S. policy toward their conflict with Israel. Even Palestinian moderates were disappointed with the previous administration's failure to take Israel to task for accelerated construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Clinton: 'Economic peace' is futile without diplomacy

Clinton was critical on Tuesday of the "economic peace" plan of Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu and said that an economic initiative without a political solution had no chance to succeed.

During a meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak the Secretary of State said that Israel must do more to open the border crossings into the Gaza Strip to larger amounts of humanitarian assistance so that civilians there could get some relief. She also appealed for a broadening of the list of items that it considers "humanitarian aid," and called the humanitarian situation there problematic.

Last week Haaretz reported that messages had been relayed from senior U.S. officials signaling the Secretary of State was angered by the delays in the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and the apparent obstacles that defense officials here raised over the types of goods that they considered essential to minimize civilian suffering.

During her meeting with Netanyahu, Clinton said that it is important for Israel to consider whether the closing of the crossings may be more harmful than it is useful.

In addition to her meeting with Barak, Clinton also met with President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Benjamin Netanyahu and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

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The Israeli Jerusalem Municipality is still continuing its colonization policy in East Jerusalem in the form of demolishing Palestinian homes under the pretext of building without a permit. Obtaining such a permit is close to impossible as it is forbidden for the Palestinian resident while it is easily obtained by the Israeli colonist. Israeli occupation authorities make their utmost to create hurdles and obstacles to make life impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites. The goal is to attain its overall goal and objective of making Jerusalem without any Palestinian presence in it and making it purely Jewish. The situation is expected to get even worse after the winning of the racist Nir Barakat in the recent municipal elections. He ran on the promise to build a new colonial neighborhood between the French Hill and Anata under the pretext of “solving the housing crunch for Jewish university students and the newly-wed.”[1] He also made it clear that he was proud of the backing of MK Avigdor Liberman who is known of his anti-Palestinian stances and his continued campaign to ethnically clines everything that is Arab.[2]

As part of the municipal campaign, Israeli occupation bulldozers carried out, without any prior warning, a vicious demolition campaign against Palestinian building in East Jerusalem as four houses and a wedding hall were demolished leaving at least 26 Palestinians homeless. These demolitions raised the number of Palestinian structures demolished in Jerusalem since January 2008 until the end of October 2008 to 65 Palestinian homes. The total number of demolished rooms is 183 rooms while its total area reached 7,170 m2. More than 392 Palestinians have become homeless including 234 children whose only guilt was that they are Palestinians who were denied permits by a municipality that cannot resist devouring Palestinian lands in Jerusalem.

All Americans should be concerned about this issue and write Obama and the present administration in support of our efforts to end this travesty and give all support possible to the Israeli Human Rights Movement. One can understand, though not accept, third world countries and the horrors that go on in them, when there is no stable government elected by the people. The Israeli government is not third world, and yet it have been allowed by the International Community to continue eating up the West Bank and destroy Gaza while they are at it, not to mention the cavity searches at checkpoints and brutality of Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories that the Palestinians are made to endure by this supposedly civilized people. Why isn't this all in the world news more, and hardly ever in the US network news services?