Tuesday, January 10, 2006

In praise of the reign of rain (with apologies to victims of S.A.D. - Seasonal Affective Disorder)





















Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day,
Little Johnny wants to play.

Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never show your face again.

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A newcomer to Seattle arrives on a rainy day. He gets up the next day and it's raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that. He goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and asks out of despair, "Hey kid, does it ever stop raining around here?" The kid says, "How do I know? I'm only 6."


I am in a fairly small minority (of one?) on this. I have met several other NW natives who will reluctantly confess they like the rain too. After three weeks of rain, it feels cozy.

Rain imposes a certain rhythm on the world--the fantastic, incessant drumming and thrumming. Roostertails, mud puddles, downspouts funneling gallons of water a minute, the amazingly clean air, the glossy sheen varnishing the landscape, the muffled traffic and industrial sounds--I love everything about it. Rain reminds me of home, and family, of writing, listening to music, reading, and drawing. It feels like an old friend. They say in Seattle it's either a rain day or a drain day. At the moment we're trying to rain AND drain. The rain is winning. It's always there in the background, that wonderful, rhythmic drumming. It's a winter soundtrack.

You may have heard of the Alaskan tribes that have 400 words for snow? The Great Inuit Snow Hoax started in 1911 when anthropologist Franz Boaz mentioned that the Inuit—he called them "Eskimos," (the derogatory term for eaters of raw meat)—had four different words for snow. With each succeeding reference the number grew (or heh heh, snowballed), until it settled in at 400 words. The linguist Steve Pinker says they have no more words for snow that your average kid in Minnesota: "Counting generously, experts can come up with about a dozen." For rain, I only come up with a handful of synonyms in the northwest: showers, drizzles, sprinkles, flurries, precipitation, mist, precip, drencher, downpour.

It has rained every day in Seattle for the last three weeks. It is supposed to. And yet, transplants and locals alike complain about it every day. And we're not even close to the record (1953, when it rained 33 days straight).

The cumulative effect wears on people, and the land. My yard, which has already sprouted a small spring or two (e.g., the water table has nowhere to go but up). The yard is approaching 100% saturation. Walking across the lawn is like tiptoeing across a bowl of pudding, with the grass almost floating on top of a substrata of jiggling, barely solid mud. Even worse are the edges of the hills themselves. Seattle is largely a bunch of hills, separated by lakes, rivers, and canals. I live in the North Beach neighborhood of Ballard, on Crown Hill. Puget Sound is a ten minute walk down the hill. It is around the edges of these hills that things begin to liquify, slide, and tumble.

"We've reached a threshold for saturation."

Last week, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) issued an advisory that more rain could trigger slides in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. "The gradual buildup of rain makes it hard to predict slides," said USGS spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna, "because the soil is so soaked that it takes only a little rain to prompt a slide." "We've reached a threshold for saturation," she said.

I don't want the hills to slide into the sea, but I could easily enjoy another month or two of this. Break out your wacky sun lamps, bumbershoots, and parkas. Trudge in for your seasonal affective disorder treatments. In a few short months, it will dry up nicely. And I will miss the rain.
---o0o---

Monday, January 09, 2006

Alien Lore 59 - Abductees, extraterrestrial sex, and "The Stockholm Syndrome"


One embattled psychiatrist, John Mack, M.D., argues that alien abduction cannot be understood in the western rationalist tradition of science.

Dr. Mack, of Harvard Medical School, is a long-time champion of alien abductees and a paranormal theorist. His 1994 bestseller, Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens, drew wide attention with his argument that the men and women he has debriefed have indeed been abducted (and molested, or worse) by aliens.

Dr. John Mack says abductees often come to love their alien captors.

This behavior in hostages is known as the Stockholm Syndrome. The most famous example is Patty Hearst's behavior following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Despite waking bruised and rodgered, these abductees say their feelings for The Greys transcend temporal human bonds and lead to a sense of enveloping oneness with the universe that approaches the ecstatic sage of some religions.

Peter Faust, a 45-year-old acupuncturist, says he endured years of sexual probing by The Greys. Following hypnotic-regression sessions with Dr. Mack, Faust concluded that he is yoked to a female alien-human hybrid with whom he has multiple offspring. He said he "realized we're not alone in the universe. There are beings out there who care about us. But getting to this point is a long, arduous journey, with a lot of people who want to deny your experience."

Many abductees tell stories of displaced sexual desire and romantic fantasy. Some of the alleged victims have had hysterectomies, and yet they tell of alien insemination and being forced to conceive an alien child. Are they mourning lost fertility or fearing lost sexuality? The unpleasant aspects of imagining forced sex with an alien are played down, and the emotional satisfactions played up. Many women fall in love with the male aliens who have lifelong relationships with them, and father their hybrid children.

Some UFOlogists contend that abductees who perceive their experiences negatively do so because they themselves aren't spiritually advanced enough to truly understand what has really happened to them. Persons treading on a higher spiritual plane tend to have positive alien encounters, and those who have painful experiences are troglodytes. Whitley Strieber voiced this theory in his book, Majestic: "In the eyes of the others [the aliens], we who met them saw ourselves. And there were demons there."
---o0o---

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Links to the best of the original art on All This Is That

Collage: Happy New Year, Republicans!
Painting: The balance of power tilts
Painting: The President's Head Explodes During A Press Conference
Drawing: Teaching a horse the missionary position
A Company Photograph
Photograph collage: Donald Rumsfeld
Flag No. 16
Painting: W
Drawing: Lines
Sixteen Panels

Collage: Five Presidents
Painting: The Grey landing party
Painting: The nudist beauty pageant
Easel painting: A Jury of your peers
Painting: The spooks from the C.I.A.

Painting: The missing link
PaintingL The tyrannosaurus steps into history
All This Is That Poster
Painting: Cyclops
Painting: The 28 men who run the world

Painting: Self portrait
POTUS 28: President Woodrow Wilson - The President Who Short-Circuited & POTUS 28A: President Edith Wilson - An Alternate Portrait
Painting: Movie Love scene
All This Is That: Jack Drawing: Faces No. 467
All This Is That: Hobo Signs
Painting: Cyclops 2
Faces No. 407
Painting: Abduction
Another All This Is That Poster


The Grey
Priest Cartoon
Poster for The Seattle Sledgehammer Murder Movie
Chou En Lai collage and painting
New Years
Painting: General Douglas MacArthur
Heroes And Villains No. 20--> Two More Catholics--> Keelin Curran & Pope Alexander VI a/k/a Rodrigo Borgia a/k/a "The Bad Pope"
Heroes and villains no. 10 --> Ma Barker and Elizabeth Gaskell
Heroes And Villains No. 7---> Two Bald Guys--> Hideki Tojo and John Glenn
Heroes And Villains No. 6--> Jerry Garcia and Tokyo Rose (aka Ikuko Toguri)
Heroes and villains no. 4 --> Jeffrey Dahmer and Daniel Boone
Heroes & Villains No. 18--> Joni Mitchell and Maier Suchowljansky (a/k/a Meyer Lansky)
Heroes and villains no. 1 --> Adolph Shcikelgruber Hitler and Lyndon Baines Johnson
Flag No. 19

POTUS No. 9 - Wm. Henry Harrison, The drive-by President
POTUS 34: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower - A Most Detached President
POTUS 38: Pres. Gerald R. Ford - Pardon Me, Mister President!
POTUS 16: Pres. Abraham Lincoln - The Most Beloved President?
Painting: Lines 2
POTUS 42: Pres. William Jefferson Clinton - The Comeback Kid
POTUS 35: Pres. Jack Kennedy - Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye
The peacekeeper robot
Heroes and villains No. 49: Mario Cuomo and Ann Coulter
Heroes And Villains No. 40--> Larry Rivers & Lucrezia Borgia (a/k/a The Duchess of Ferrara), Daughter of Heroes And Villains No. 20, Pope Alexander VI
Painting: The UFOs approach warp speed
Painting: Judge Alito
Heroes and villains no. 38 - Eleanor Roosevelt and Lee Harvey Oswald
Painting: Alien Landing part No. 2
Painting: Bipolar
Painting: Meet the new boss
Heroes and villains no. 35 - Doris Lessing and Typhoid Mary
Heroes and villains no. 34 - Mata Hari and Dr. William Carlos Williams
Heroes and villains no. 32 - John Lennon and Carrie Nation
Heroes and villains no. 31 - Nina Simone and Lynette Squeaky Fromme
Painting: The Wheel of progress
Heroes And Villains No. 29--> Phyllis Schlafly & Peter Jackson
Heroes And Villains No. 26--> Two People born in 1893--> Anita Loos & Joachim von Ribbentrop
Heroes And Villains No. 25--> Congresswoman (and 1972 Presidential Candidate) Shirley Chisholm & Senator Joseph ("tailgunner Joe") McCarthy
Painting: A Grey Visitor
Painting: Grey Alien No. 7
Painting: The battle for Rohan
Heroes and villains no. 23 - J. Edgar Hoover and Billie Holiday
Potus No. 33 - Harry S. Truman (The buck stops here)
Potus No. 17 - Andrew Johnson - The Worst President Ever?
Potus No. 39 - James Earl Carter
POTUS 15: President James Buchanan, The Man Who Left A Divided Country And War For Pres. Abraham Lincoln

Painting: U.S. Flag
Potus No. 8 - Martin Van Buren

Potus no. 21 - Chester Alan Arthur
Potus No. 2 - John Adams
Painting: The return of the king
Potus No. 43 - George W. Bush
Mosaic of George W. Bush
POTUS 13 - Pres. Millard Fillmore: Another Partial Term President
Potus No. 37 - Richard Nixon and the comedy of errors
Potus No. 10 - John Tyler, the first accidental president
POTUS 12: Pres. Zachary Taylor - The President Who Mostly Closely Resembled Mel Brooks
Seven Year Art Project - No. 12
Painting - The Invasion

Seven year art project no. 10
Seven year art project - no. 9
Easel painting: The flash
Easel painting: Bluehead
Easel painting: I read the news today
POTUS 32: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The Man In The Wheelchair Who Lifted The Country On His Shoulders; The Only POTUS To Win Four Terms
Painting: grey alien from Zeta Reticuli
Painting: Adam and Eve
Painting: Gomorrah
Mosaic
Painting: Chancellor Hitler
---o0o---

Tom DeLay turns tail and steps down as Majority Leader


It seems fitting, somehow, that the guy who used to make his living as an exterminator ended up as the exterminated. Tom DeLay has been taking a lot of point blank shots from people he prevously wouldn't have deemed fit to kiss his boots. Those shots have escalated into jarring body blows. In the end, the ex-Majority Leader admitted the inevitable and abandoned his battle to hold on to the House leadership. Heh heh. You can read a less partisan version of the day's events here, on MSNBC.COM.

Facing an apparent sea change in Republican politics, DeLay, the one-time poster boy for the conservative revolution, threw in the towel yesterday under intense pressure from a Republican Party bitch-slapped, ambushed, and hamstrung by an unending parade of devastating news that continues unabated in 2006--an election year for every member of the House!

"I have always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land," the Texas bad boy told fellow Republicans in a letter. There were shouts of jubilation from the Republican side of the aisle when they read the news. Not from us: Democrats hoped he'd continue his pointless and factionalizing fight until election time.

Delay went on in his letter to say "I cannot allow our adversaries to divide and distract our attention." The royal we is in operation here. "Our adversaries" are merely the prosecutors vying to put Delay behind bars.

Until yesterday, Tom DeLay insisted he would reclaim his rightful position after clearing his name. And then Black Jack Abramoff turning state's evidence drug him even further into the mud.

Reps. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the GOP whip, and John Boehner of Ohio, a one-time member of the leadership, want the job, along with two or tree others.

Speaker of the House Hastert said he expects elections to be held when lawmakers return to the Capitol the week of Jan. 31. Congress had put off resuming until late January in hopes Delay could put his troubles behind him. Heh heh.

Democrats, poised to take control of the House in November, twisted the knife around a bit:

"The culture of corruption is so pervasive in the Republican conference that a single person stepping down is not nearly enough to clean up the Republican Congress," said Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader.

Democrats must gain 15 seats in November to win control of the 435-member House. A year ago that seemed like a hopeless pipe-dream. Today? It seems inevitable.
---o0o---

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Ir's not fascism when we do it

click to enlarge

In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism." Click here to read or download an interesting PDF pamphlet on the 14 characteristics and their current analogues... It's just a little spooky!

1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4.) Supremacy of the Military
5.) Rampant Sexism
6.) Controlled Mass Media
7.) Obsession with National Security
8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.) Corporate Power is Protected
10.) Labor Power is Suppressed
11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14). Fraudulent Elections

---o0o---

D.C. Bar disagrees with rules on sex with customers, considers masturbation and other alternatives

The leadership of the Bar Association in Washington, D.C. objects to rules barring sex with clients outright, according to a news story from The Associated Press.

The bar insists their objection to a rule proposed for D.C.'s 80,000 lawyers doesn't mean they approve of lawyers engaging in sex acts with their customers. No, no, no!

Instead, of an actual rule, the bar would like a warning that sleeping with clients could create a conflict of interest.

"At the very least," one spokeswoman said "sleeping with the clients can lead to problems with billings. It's hard to perform aggressive billing on a company when you've been thrashing around naked all night with one of the principals. Or their husband or wife!"

Another spokesman insisted off the record that the bar was considering urging its attorneys to use masturbation as a first line of defense. "It may not solve the problem, " the spokesman said, "but it takes the heat off for a while." "We've also asked our attorneys to make wider use of the many commercial escort services available in the Washington-area. "
---o0o---

Friday, January 06, 2006

The Republicans begin to eat their young, self-immolate, and rat out their brethren



According to Time Magazine, convicted Congressman Duke Cunningham wore a wire when talking to friends and associates. . . He agreed to wear a wire after agreeing to cooperate with a corruption probe. Click on the link for details...
---o0o---

Johnny Cash: lyrics for "What Is Truth?"

When this song came out, in 1970, it was an inspiration and a shot in the arm. After Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee" in 1969, that AWFUL "An Open Letter To My Son" (click here to hear that tune in a previous post) and tunes like Barry Sadler's "The Green Berets," it was a relief to hear a song like this, from the "older generation." During those dark Nixon war years, with J. Edgar Hoover running wild, where hardhats and Hells Angels beat up hippies and other peace marchers, it was good to hear one of the country stalwarts defend "the kids." Johnny was on our side.


What is truth?
by Johnny Cash, 1970

The old man turned off the radio
Said: "Where did all the old songs go?
Kids sure play funny music these days!
And they play it in the strangest ways
Everything seems so loud and wild
It was peaceful back when I was a child."
Well, man, could it be the girls and boys
Are tryin' to be heard above your noise
And the lonely voice of youth cries:
"What is truth?"

A little boy of three sittin' on the floor
Looked up and said, " Daddy, what is war?"
"Son that's when people fight and die."
The little boy of three says,"Daddy, why?"
A young man of seventeen in Sunday school
Is being taught the golden rule
By the time another years gone around
It may be his turn to lay his own life down!
Can you blame the voice of youth for asking:
"What is truth?"

A young man sittin' on the witness stand
The man with a book says, "Raise your hand!
Repeat after me, I solemnly swear"
The judge looked down at his long hair
And although the young man solemnly swore
Nobody seemed to hear anymore
And it really didn't matter if the truth was there
It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair!
And the lonely voice of youth cries:
"What is truth?"

A young girl dancin' to the latest beat
Has found new ways to move her feet
A young man standin' in the city square
Is tryin' to tell somebody that he cares
"Yeah, the ones that your callin' wild
Are gonna be the leaders in a little while
This old world is breakin' to a new born day
And I solemnly swear that it will be their way!
You'd help that voice of youth find:
'What is truth'!"

And the lonely voice of youth cries:
(Spoken)"What is truth?"
---o0o---

An Open Letter To My Teenage Son

No wonder we were crazy in the 60s. This "song" was a big hit on AM radio. A lot of parents thought it was a smart piece of writing (as opposed to, say, smarmy, reactionary claptrap). It was just flat depressing. But then that's the way it was. I remember a lot of heated arguments with angry adults, and teachers and Sunday school teachers over the war and protesting and burning draft cards. I even witnessed an actual father-son fight over the war. I tracked the song down to http://www.fugly.com. You can listen to it on your PC, or download it... Click here to listen.


An Open Letter To My Teenage Son
by Victor Lundberg

Dear son:

You ask my reaction to long hair or beards on young people
Some great men have worn long hair and beards
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
If to you long hair or a beard is a symbol of independence
If you believe in your heart that the principles of this country
Our heritage, is worthy of this display of pride
That all men shall remain free
That free men at all times will not inflict their personal limitations
Of achievement on others,
That demands your own rights as well as the rights of others
And be willing to fight for this right, you have my blessings

You ask that I not judge you merely as a teenager
To judge you on your own personal habits, abilities and goals
This is a fair request and I promise that I will not judge any person
Only as a teenager if you will constantly remind yourself that some of my
generation judge people by their race, their belief or the color
of their skin and that this is no more right than saying all
teenagers are drunken dope addicts or glue sniffers
If you will judge every human being on his own individual potential
I will do the same.

You ask me if God is dead
This is a question each individual must answer within himself
But a warm summer day with all its brightness
All its sound, all its exhilarating breathiness just happened
God is love. Remember that God is a guide and not a storm trooper
Realize that many of the past and present generation
Because of a well intended but unjustifiable misconception
Have attempted to legislate morality
This created part of the basis
For your generation's need to rebel against our society
With this knowledge perhaps your children will never ask
Is God dead?
I sometimes think much of mankind is attempting to work Him to death

You ask my opinion of draft card burners. I would answer this way
All past wars have been dirty, unfair, immoral, bloody and second-guessed
However, history has shown most of them necessary
If you doubt that our free enterprise system
In the United States is worth protecting, if you doubt the principles
Upon which this country was founded, that we remain free to choose our religion
Our individual endeavors, our method of government
If you doubt that each free individual in this great country
should reap rewards commensurate only with his own efforts
Than it is doubtful you belong here

If you doubt that people who govern us
Should be selected by their desire
To allow us to strive for any goal we feel capable of obtaining
Than its doubtful you should participate in their selection
If you are not grateful to a country
That gave your father the opportunity to work
For his family to give you the things you have and you do not feel pride
Enough to fight for your right to continue in this
Manner than I assume the blame for your failure
To recognize the true value of our birthright

And I will remind you that your mother will love
you no matter what you do, because she is a woman
And I love you too son
But I also love our country and the principles for which we stand
And if you decide to burn your draft card
then burn your birth certificate at the same time
From that moment on, I have no son
---o0o---

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Disaster: Explosion Rocks The White House and Capital Hill

click image to enlarge

An explosion named Jack Abramoff rocked The White House and Capital Hill yesterday, causing extensive damage with more to come. Much much much more.
---o0o---

The Abramoff virus spreads, multiplies, and mutates - is this the big one?


"The octopus of mayhem," Chris Matthews called the Abramoff scandal-crimewave-disaster tonight. Everyone complains that nothing sticks to this Administration. And with every new outrage it kind of seems like they're right. Here we go again. This one seems to be heating up with a little more intensity and butt-puckering fear among, possibly, scores of largely Republican congressmen. Huh huh huh. Delay, Hastert, and The President have even returned some money. Not all, but some.
---o0o---



President Bush unloads Abramoff contributions

Like many other politicians today, The President's re-election campaign is unloading the (now) dirty money they received from Jack Abramoff.

President Bush's re-election campaign is giving up $6,000 in campaign contributions connected to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who faced more guilty pleas as part of a broad-ranging political corruption investigation. Even that dirtbag Tom DeLay hucked his Abramoff money over the fence to a charity.

I do note, however, that the Bush campaign is keeping more than $94,000 that Abramoff "raised." Only the $6,000 came directly from Jack; the rest of the money came from his organization. And they talked about Bill Clinton parsing words. . .

Click on the title of this post to read the entire sordid story...
---o0o---