Archive for January, 2009

For any of you who are used to visiting the Forum (button at main page), expect a void for a bit.  The forum crashed yesterday, and there was some sort of major data corruption issue.

Tables of members were lost completely and a few other things, but we thought we had it back up and running.  Then today, a cascading pile of errors began accruing, and members who had re-registered found inoperative passwords.  There were auto-password notices like mad; but the new passwords did not work.  We don’t know what the issue is….we cannot seem to find it.

So the boards are being deleted to be completely rebuilt.  I will let everyone know here, so they can re-register yet again.  Our service through Hostmonster has no apparent issues at their end, and other SMF boards we see and moderate or administer are working fine; it was only the WOTF message boards for whatever reason.  The board is up within a hour of being deleted, but we will be stomping bugs for a couple days.  And yes, everyone must re-register.  Please re-introduce yourselves as well!

We are saving the avatars, though individual who “brought their own” will need to re-work that when we get back up and running.  The messages will all be gone as well.

Well, maybe it is right in some way?  New President, new beginnings….

The New Moon is coming.  Usually, each month at that time, I check all the counts for US and Coalition dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and update the prayer/counting beads on the monument at the center of the Labyrinth.  I clean the beads, make sure they are all there—since ravens and crows sometimes steal a small, light strand just for the sparkle.  December is the exception since family Yule keeps us busy.  So January is always a labor of love—but lots more labor than usual.

This year more than ever!  I examined the 5400 beads and brought them inside to wash them.  To my dismay the shell beads and the faux coral strands were deteriorating and fading very badly and I decided to replace them completely.  So, having heard of a super bead store called Shipwreck Beads, we drove down to see if we could afford the necessary thousand or more beads.

I am not a bead-crafter.  But if I was, I would have thought I died and went to a beader’s heaven!  I got beautiful and colorful glass and ceramic beads to replace and repair battered strands.

And I got little ceramic skeletons to use as the counters for each hundred–each “century” of dead troops.  So they are little prayer bead centurions, as in the days of the Roman Empire when a centurion commanded one hundred men.  Not totally unlike a modern day company commander.  So, this weekend, in preparation of next week’s New Moon, every strand was re-strung.  Every battered, stripped glass pearl was replaced and all the shell beads.  I strung the beads in groups of 200 so they would be too heavy for the corvids to steal; and there is a little skeleton counter for each one hundred.  Every tenth bead, like a squad leader on the strands, is bigger or a different kind—this made my keeping count far easier.

The new strands are beautiful and bright, for a beautiful and bright new year.  The older strands that were not replaced are clean and re-organized, but keep most of their original character.  All the beads that have been sent to me by friends have been retained in the strands, usually as that special tenth bead.  Now, I used up almost six pounds of new beads———let us all hope that I don’t need many more!  My hope for the New Year and a new President is an end to all this war!  The re-stringing was completed in time for the Inauguration of a new President and a new era!

Sorry I am a bit late, it has been a very busy week and weekend.  The released names from the last moon phase period:

Maj. Brian M. Mescall, 33, of Hopkinton, Mass., Army – Afghanistan – IED

Spc. Joseph M. Hernandez, 24, of Hammond, Ind., Army – Afghanistan – IED

Spc. Jason R. Parsons, 24, of Lenoir, N.C. Army – Afghanistan – IED

Staff Sgt. Justin L. Bauer, 24, of Loveland, Colo., Army – Iraq – IED

Pvt. Sean P. McCune, 20, of Euless, Texas,  Army – Iraq – non-combat cause

US Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel R. Bennett, 23, of Clifton, Va., died in Afghanistan as a result of a non-hostile incident .

Sgt. Marquis R. Porter, 28, of Brighton, Mass. – Marine – Iraq – nonhostile incident

Marine Travis Mackin , 22, of the UK died in Afghanistan in an IED attack

Cpt Tom H. J. Sawyer,26, of the UK died in Afghanistan in an IED attack

Cpl Danny Winter, 28, of the UK died in Afghanistan in an IED attack

I cannot check my usual list for coalition dead in Iraq—the site seems to be down for the time being.  My apologies until I can update the list.

A few years ago, standing in line to turn in a prescription, I overhead the conversation of two men in front of me.  The one in an orange fleece vest said to the other, “Yeah, I pick up my boys tomorrow after school and they are psyched, Man.  I have tickets to the Monster Truck show!  Their mom would be pissed, of course, but she can’t do shit about it cause it’s my fuckin’ weekend with my sons.”  The other man congratulated him on his parenting coup de gras over the ex-wife.

I could barely keep my mouth shut.  What a pair of assholes, rednecks and imbeciles, I thought.  I hate the Monster Truck phenonmenon, even the ads send me swearing from the room.  The idea of destruction for the sake of destruction being entertainment infuriates me.  Unlike the old style fair-standby, the Demolition Derby, no skill whatsoever is required.  Just a monstrous gas-guzzling piece of hideousness that drives up a reinforced ramp and crushes normal commuter-sized cars in metallic screeches and breakage magnified with loud music.  What the hell is that, a symbol to the sheeple of what will happen to them if they fight the “Big Boys” of wealth and governance?

Yet, all this post is naught but a rant about a pet peeve, to be ignored by those willing to “live and let live” telling me “different strokes for different folks” as I furiously rave on and on and on.  Right?

Well, except that last night on January 16th in Tacoma Washington, at the Tacoma Dome a SIX YEAR OLD BOY DIED watching one of those shows.  A piece of metal flew over the oh-so (not) protective barrier and hit him and an adult man beside him.  The boy died pretty much on the spot, bleeding profusely.  Some people left, shocked and shaken, but the show went right ON.

That’s right, they didn’t even end the show.  The continued on their rock ‘em, crush ‘em merry monster truck way while a man screamed “My kid is dead!”  No mention was  made of the mother.  Was she there?  Or was this the divorced dad’s revenge and “being the cool parent” moment again?

It really doesn’t matter, does it?  Teaching kids that monster machines crushing perfectly innocuous smaller machines is just part of the American love affair with the automotive world, right?  Was it worth even one child’s life?  Did we learn a lesson here?  And yes, me, the bad old pagan, used a Biblical reference in the title; because amidst cries about America’s decadent, evil ways—this old student of all religions couldn’t help but hearken back to legends of child sacrifice.

What more lesson does anyone need.  Destruction destroys.  Eventually, and usually, the thing most beloved.

Going to join a crowd here….celebrating the NON-miracle of Capt. Sullenberger successfully water-landing his Airbus 320 in the Hudson River of New York City.

Thank Sulley!  You won’t hear anyone in this house saying “Thank God” because it was a calm, well-trained, former Air Force pilot doing his job competently and consistently that saved the lives aboard that jet.  He responded to having his engines whacked by Canada geese by looking for a safe place to set down.  He didn’t crash into a city or try to reach a runway he would never achieve with no engine.

The media is frothing about miracles, as is the major of New York—but the real “miracle” is that after eight years of frantic fear-mongering, nobody panicked.  The passengers held it together, the pilot heroically checked his plane walking through deep cold water not once, but twice to make sure nobody was left behind.

And as the plane rested in the river, as if posed for scenery-surreal shots, ferries and other boats rushed in to pull the passengers off the wings and raft-door slides so they didn’t have to spend long in the frigid water.  That saved lives and no doubt about it.  I was not there, New York is not my city—I have only been there five times in my life; but I am proud of the city’s response.  I am proud of the pilot and his crew.  I am proud of the passengers staying calm and helping each other de-plane.

This is getting it right; not succumbing to fears.  It is just the perfect example that Americans CAN still get it right with calm certain action under stress.  It encourages me.  I hope it encourages all of us as we try to make right what the last eight years have made wrong.

Someone tell me why individuality and difference—diversity, if you will, is good in snowflakes, but bad in people?  Because when I look back at the last eight years, that seems to be a big part of the message.  There are not many ways to be a loyal American, only the way of agreement.  There are not many ways to be a good spiritually alive person, either; only the lock-step of sex-phobic right wing religion.  There has even been a dire increase in the idea that there are not many ways to LOOK American: you need to be white so everyone can be sure you aren’t a terrorist merely passing yourself off as black or Hispanic!  There are not many ways to be, period.  The last eight years in America felt a bit like being the contents of a large dairy’s homogenizer.

Let’s all raise a glass (or several, and not all full of the same thing), to a new President’s Inauguration and going back to the idea that difference is a good thing.  There is nothing wrong with synthesis, resulting from discussion and melding of various bits and pieces; but the forced steam roller homogenization of the last eight years needs to end.

Make like a snowflake!  Be different and proudly so!

(photograph copyrighted and courtesy of Pickled Jester Photography)

I said I was going to not rant about political stuff until I could catch my breath, right?

:::::::::sucks on inhaler:::::::::

Ok, just a short shot.  I see Sarah Palin is complaining about her tumble in the political hay being less than wonder-fun for her.  You know what, she is desperately trying to keep herself in the public eye.  IGNORE her.  She wants to stay ever present in the news even if only by bitching about how unfairly used she has been.

That WILL be my last mention of her, btw.  She isn’t worth the typing time.  So, I lied, I did a mini-rant.

Yes, I have pulled my head inside. I am deleting political mail without so much as a peek.

I am limiting my news exposure and intentionally not going nuts to blog about it.

I am even posting less to the associated message boards on this WOTF website.

I am tired, run down, asthma-out-of-control and grouchy.

I have ten pounds that MUST simply be beaten off my body, and would like to send a companion ten with it; not for appearance so much as to not need a new set of leathers if this crap continues!

I have been sick enough the last four months to lose much strength and flexiblity and now intend to be utterly selfishly centered on getting myself back at the top of my game.

You may all expect to be deluged with more personal posts for a while, and the only duty maintained stringently will be the Walk, the Lists of the Dead, and the charities I continue to support to support the troops in ways that do not involve killing more of them!

Allergies and asthma suck, ok?  That is all.

Suddenly, I cannot comment at half the blogs I read.  Why?  Because apparently some internet change-hell had decided that gmail does not exist.  All I get at Alternate Brain, the Sandbox and elsewhere when I try to comment is that my email address is invalid.

WTF?  Did I suddenly get even more computer stupid, or is there a glitch someplace?  Someone please tell Gordon and Fixer I did not stop caring about their posts, but I am rendered voiceless.

Really, Mr. Bush? You think the big deal about what went wrong after Hurricane Katrina has to do with whether or not you flew down to Louisiana in Air Force One or not? That is what it was about? Where you were mattered?

And you are “disappointed” there were no weapons of mass destruction? That is how you sum up the years of death and destruction that occurred in Iraq on your “deciding”?

Seriously? Dude, it is not about you. It is the lives you destroy while being so self-involved that your big worry is where you are and how it looks. Profanity just fails here, George….you are too stupid to hit.