Salvation -- so near, yet so far away.

OK, my blog editor Sam, a "dog" to most other people, besides editing this blog, is great at protecting the property. So this morning when the doorbell unexpectedly rang as I was in the middle of frying an egg for my breakfast, he lived up to our usual expectations.

Jarred from his anticipation of another breakfast "treat," Sam raced to the front door in extreme protest. But then the strangest thing happened. After opening the door, Sam, completely enthralled by our 'intruder,' fell totally silent.

You must realize that most often I cannot hear a person speaking because of Sam's endless barking protests at the unwelcome visitor. But this young woman heaped Sam with admiration and praise and, suddenly to my amazement, Sam sat down, listening intently. 

Staring out at the very pretty, soft spoken, young blond as I squinted in the blinding light looking for her halo, I managed to contain the roll of my eyeballs upon realizing she was hawking Jehovah Witness-ism.

Asking what other part -- "besides dalmation" -- Sam was, the young woman answered her own question before I could respond.

"He looks like a hound. A greyhound!" she said. Our previous three dogs being greyhounds, left me dazzled beyond amazement at her insight. Feeling my legs give way, I immediately sat down on the floor next to Sam. Peering out at her behind the protective door, we now hung on her every word! 

Suddenly, the stranger's spell I had fallen under was broken by a crackling sound from behind me in the kitchen. It was the sound of my egg over cooking on the stove in the background. Just before my conversion!

In the nick of time, at the expense of my now sacrificed soul, the young woman's charm had been disspelled. Happily, my marriage -- much like my sizzling egg in the frying pan back in the kitchen -- had been salvaged!

Tonight, however, I am sad to report, Sam is now a Jehovah Witness.

Approaching the 9th anniversary.....

.....of our war against Afghanistan (this Thursday, October 7th), I thought the following cartoon appropriate. Honestly, I'm getting really jazzed about it because next year's anniversary will mean we have surpassed the length of time it took the former USSR to lose their war there.

But, as we now know, for the U.S., it's really not about winning wars, especially bogus trumped-up ones, anymore is it? In fact losing is good, very good, especially if our resolve is strong, to stay the course of Operation Enduring Freedom (or whatever patriotic, glorious bullshit tag it's now labeled) because that only means we will have to stay indefinitely or (glory be --) forever!

So "Happy Anniversary" to the U.S. And  may you enjoy many, many more. When it comes to losing, you're the biggest winner!

Originally penned in 1975, I like this cartoon, if only because
it has a timeless quality applicable to any number of situations.
One could even expand it as metaphor for the entire human race.

Diner glut -- or follow-up to yesterday's blog

Yesterday's blog about our stop two weeks ago at Johnnie Meier's "Classical Gas Museum" in Embudo, NM and his latest restoration project, a 1950's era 8 stool diner manufactured in Kansas, is still "haunting me." That is, DK, long-time reader here at Dada's immediately recognized the Google online image I chose at the end of that blog as example of a diner as one that she had sent me a photo of over 3 years ago. It's in Winslow, AZ, and she was bemused by it's simultaneous display of "OPEN" and "CLOSED" signs  in its windows. (Me too! Thanks, D.K.)

D.K.'s diner photo, Winslow, AZ, 2007  - same diner that appeared in yesterday's blog

Well, this morning I happened across another 8 stool Valentine Diner similar to the one Johnnie Meier is restoring. It's a 1940s model located on Route 66 (that's I-40 to you 'interstate boomers'), 30 miles east of Albuquerque, in Edgewood, NM.* It's owned by Jerry Ueckert, who said while contemplating his restoration project, "it occurs to me that I’d like to pick it up on a whim and transport it to car shows, events, parades, etc. Here's a "pre" photo of it from 2006.

And below is an exterior photo of the same diner as in appeared some 21 months later in 2007 (interior was still in need of 'salvation'). I'm making a note that next time we're anywhere near Edgewood to see if it's still there.

I'd share this with Johnnie Meier, but no need. You see, that's because I'm just a Route 66 neophyte. Johnny Meier of Embudo, NM is past president of the New Mexico Route 66 Association! Johnnie knows what's happening on Route 66.

(* "Ueckert’s diner is one of at least five Valentines on the Mother Road. Other examples can be found behind Bill Fernau’s Phillips 66 station in Chandler, OK; next to the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK; across from La Posada in Winslow, AZ; and at Twin Arrows, AZ.")

ON THE LOW ROAD TO TAOS: A STOP AT JOHNNIE MEIER'S 'CLASSICAL GAS' MUSEUM IN EMBUDO, NM.

After working 30 years at one of the country's premiere national scientific laboratories, Johnnie Meier took  an early retirement. I don't know exactly what kind of work Johnnie did as a scientist up at the lab. What follows is what I like to imagine he did at the lab: he developed better detonation triggers for nuclear weapons with which to blow up stuff.

That's what I imagine anyway, only because in retirement, Johnnie's now doing the exact opposite -- salvaging and preserving a segment of Americana being ever more rapidly consigned to and consumed by the dustbin of history.

 Four of the many, many preserved gas pump lights at the Classical Gas Museum, Embudo, NM

What follows is a short clip of Johnnie's latest project: restoring a prefab diner like so many that sprang up across the country 60 or 70 years ago. It's Meier's plan to have this beauty fully restored, operational, and open for business by the spring of 2011. But artifacts of Route 66  in need of salvation take heart, i.e., note Johnnie's business plan at the conclusion of this brief video! 

Video by Dada

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dada's Diner Notes: As Meier told us, the diner being restored in the video was made in the 1950s by the Valentine Diner Company of Wichita, KS. I grew up at a time when these little gems were far more plentiful.

All my life I mistakenly thought the word 'diner' applied to any little eatery smaller than a decent sized restaurant. But it was during my visit with Johnny Meier I learned the only true diners were those prefabbed elsewhere and shipped to their final destinations. The diner pictured below is an example of a Valentine Diner similar to what Johnnie's may look like by next spring when fully restored.

After World War II, diners were seen as "an attractive small business opportunity." As Answers.com tells us, "From the mid-Twentieth century onwards, they have been seen as quintessentially American, reflecting the perceived...egalitarian nature of the country at large." 

McDonald's, Burger Kings, et. al., likely explain why so many little diners have vanished, along with our egalitarian delusions. 

***********

THIS IS A STICK-UP!

 Graphic background - glass balls, courtesy of 

Jackalope  Santa Fe and photographer Dada. 

Received some great bumper stickers last night during dinner 

with  friends just back from Guerrilla Graphix in Albuquerque.

On the road to Taos: Stopping in San Antonio, NM for a green chile cheese burger and a hot dog.

"Would you mind if I just made a general announcement to the whole restaurant instead?" was Mrs. Dada's question after the waitress suggested she visit each table of hungry lunchtime diners there, seeking to taste firsthand the reputation of a world renown green chile cheeseburger.

"Yes, that will be fine," the waitress consented.

Meanwhile, outside Manny's Buckhorn Tavern, the parking lot's asphalt was absorbing the mid-day heat as its overflow cache of cars played catch with the sun's rays, bouncing them between their metallic surfaces in an increasingly frantic game of hot potato. I was sitting in one of those cars, attention focused on a black topped Colorado convertible with windows rolled tight, waiting for Mrs. Dada's return. Fortunately, she had left me some water to drink.

Back inside, Mrs. Dada located a central spot in the Buckhorn from which to launch her message to all present. "Excuse me," she began, "but someone here left their dog in a car outside with its windows rolled up." She continued, explaining that, for travelers unaccustomed to the fierce heat of the desert, that could mean a sudden end to a beloved pet.

Moments later in my rearview mirror, I watched as a lone man exited the Buckhorn, heading toward the black-topped Colorado convertible. Next followed Mrs.Dada shortly behind him. She had just finished a brief 'conversation' with the female companion of the man enroute to his sealed convertible.

"I left the windows down,"  the woman said, perhaps more to save face than dog. "Besides, I left him some water," she added.

Same as Mrs. Dada had done for me. Too bad they didn't leave the engine running with the air conditioner on too. Just like I had been enjoying while waiting for my master to return.

Return from Taos, pt. 1

One of 37 reasons I love New Mexico:

Nice signs

Sign outside Henningsen Fine Art 

Gallery & Gardens, Taos N.M.

Sign outside Johnnie Meier's Classical
Gas Museum, Embudo, New Mexico

Wow, great party!

Hate to leave, but it's way past my curfew. Sorry I'm gonna miss the late arrivals, Palin and her gang. But just so you know, I'll be glad to come back after your "Shindig!" ends to help clean up the mess. Have fun while  it lasts!

Let's quit pretending. Just abolish Labor Day!

America 2010: There'll always be a need for custodial services jobs

 if you're not fortunate enough to have one in the defense industry.

Of all U.S. holidays celebrated, Labor Day is the one I find most offensive.  Not because it celebrates the hard fought for (and many won) concessions by America's organized labor forces, sometimes at extreme sacrifices to include lives, but precisely because of  the exact opposite -- the total vilification and decimation of the American labor movement that fought for such benefits as higher wages, employer-provided health insurance, pensions, holidays and paid sick leave. In its heyday, the gains made by unionized labor pressured non-union shops to increase same for their workers, resulting in a strong, secure middle class. A middle class now in a state of putrefaction.


Deliciously ironic is many, many of those Americans celebrating Labor Day with friends and family in backyard gatherings or at parks, waterfronts and mountains around barbeques and mini beer kegs this weekend are folks who agree with such polls as a 2007 one conducted by Gallup that ranked Ronald Reagan as the 2nd greatest president in U.S. History -- just behind Abraham Lincoln! Ironic because Reagan himself, twice president of the  Screen Actor's Guild union and supporter of Poland's Solidarity union led by Lech Wałęsa, was big Kahuna as buster of the U.S. Air Traffic Controller's union, firing 13,000 of its members in 1981 and giving encouragement to all industries struggling under the yoke of American middle class enhancing unions to follow his example.


From the heyday of organized labor that once represented 1/3 of all private workers in the U.S. in the mid-20th Century, unions today represent less than 8% of those workers. Unions are dead and the middle class is following them in growing numbers in a grand march to graveyards across America.


So as we celebrate another holiday this coming Monday, let's cancel once and for all the hypocrisy of hoisting a tall cool one before that second game of family beach volleyball played amidst wafting aromas of burgers and ribs in some phony pretense of honoring labor. The Labor movement  is dead!


Call it by its rightful name, whatever you decide,  be it a tribute to deregulation, free markets, free trade, "Wall Street Day," or a  recognition of tax cuts to the rich that supposedly benefit their less fortunate underlings with the trickle down jobs that still remain after those that have fled offshore; jobs for lower pay and less benefits. But please, please (!), don't call it Labor Day.


Oh, and  by the way, it'll be a holiday without pay! It's what we've earned. It's what we deserve.

"There's a monster on the loose"

"America, where are you now?" 

line from Steppenwolf's Monster, 1969

"Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner we can't pay the cost

'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into the noose
And it just sits there watchin'"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, an' for a wee bit o' nostalgia, 

please click on Hit & Stay below.

 

Update on zombieland: America's roving street scanners. Or, "Bend Over, Let Me See You Shake a Tail Feather!"

"People are dying in bunches everywhere but here." (Frank Quinn, the undertaker in the movie Get Low being released nationwide in theaters today).

But what if Frank Quinn is dead wrong? What if those Quinn mistakes for living are already dead? As in a nation of zombies? My newest inspiration for such thought is an item from "Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans". It's just another morsel upon the growing heap of snowballing evidence for such.

Seems body scanners appearing in airports this summer have met with no resistance from an insouciant public re their vanishing constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties. Taking it to the streets by local security and law enforcement agencies seems the next logical step. Body scans from roving vans of unsuspecting citizens will probably meet with similar nonexistent public opposition.

Maybe I'm over estimating the grisly state of the American mind. Maybe instead of a nation of zombies we're but a nation of frogs. As one commenter to the aforementioned article suggested, "Is this not the boiling frog syndrome? It’s the gradual erosion of the rights of law-abiding citizens."

Well that brought to mind another Dada Redux from "The First (and last) Annual  International Blogfest  of Past  Dada Dalliances." Entitled  "Reconnecting with the fine art, the  slow cooking of Frogs and hats as a statement of fashion (or other stuff)" and written nearly four years ago under the Bush regime, it appears as relevant, if not even more so, now under the Obama regime. If you haven't seen it before, might I recommend it, if only for the stunning look at the French symbol for revolution, the Phrygian cap,  as modeled by yours truly at its conclusion.

And now, just in case my comparison of Americans as a nation of zombies was spot on, I'd better go. The sun's coming up!

We come "in peace and friendship"

....Over the weekend, Iran unveiled its new Karrar drone bomber that can be armed with two 250-pound bombs or one 450-pound guided bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling it an "ambassador of death," went on to assure all that what should be taken from this newest Iranian weapon is its "main message of peace and friendship."

Iran's Karrar will join other unmanned aerial vehicles (UEV's) such as Britain's "Taranis" (named for the Celtic god who rained down thunder upon the Earth in the accompaniment of lightning )...

...and the United States' Hellfire missile armed, peace inspiring, "Predator" and "Reaper" drones (or as Dada likes to think of them, "Democracy by Death").

************

It is Dada's only hope we can fill the skies globally with these ambassadors of "peace and friendship" before humanity blows up the whole damn Earth.

(Oh, and here's wishing one and all much "peace and friendship!")

EPA, FDA, WTF (!)

Dada ponders, "Are they trying to kill us?" From the  following link:

Did you catch this headline in yesterday's news?

Oil droplets imperil Gulf food chain, USF studies show

Y'know what I can't help but think of when I see headlines like these:

Dispersants don't increase toxicity in Gulf, EPA scientist says

FDA Says Eat Gulf Seafood; Some Doubt Smell Test

I think of these:

GROUND ZERO: AIR QUALITY; U.S. Agency Not Protecting Public Health, Officials Say

Hearing Brings More Debate Over Ground Zero Air Quality

When Breathing Is Believing; New Yorkers Doubt E.P.A. Credibility on Air Safety, but Truth Is Complex

Public Misled on Air Quality After 9/11 Attack, Judge Says

I guess 9/11 gave some people a fear of mosques and other people a fear of government health assurances.

Dada Redux, or the first in the First (and last) Annual International Blogfest of Past Dada Dalliances

I don't know how many years men across the nation have had the option to buy an electric shaver with settings for 15 different skin sensitivities. I don't imagine any of us has ever seen seen anyone with 15 different faces that would require such diversity in a shaver. Granted, we've all known a few that are two-faced....

Continue reading Awaiting the triple seal of freshness

Quote of the Day

Support for global warming is seasonal. ~ (thanks to R.H. for this one)

Back to the Stone Age

From the Union of Concerned  Scientists:  "Well, it's August 9. The people who are supposed to be representing our interests in the nation's capitol have gone home for the summer, and they've left us, once again, with no plan to rein in our country's global warming emissions. It's unlikely, given the November elections, that the Senate will take on this issue again come fall."

To which Dada would only add:  "And don't expect them to do anything after the November elections either, owing as they will be to those who got 'em (re)elected, i.e., the monied special interests they will again go to Washington to serve.

(Note: August has become Dada's favorite month. That's because it's the month I feel safest from  terrorists  who do me grave harm, i.e., my "elected" representatives who are on a month long  recess.)

But lest I appear too harsh the critic of our government, let us stand in august admiration of defense secretary Robert Gates' proposal to slash $100 billion from the Pentagon's budget bloat over the next five years that he has come under increasing criticism of from someone -- I don't know who -- Americans out  of work, out of homes, out of hope? (I don't think so.)

Gates plans to cut civilian personnel and contractors saying "he also will terminate other Pentagon agencies, impose a 10 percent cut in intelligence contracts and slim down what he called a 'top-heavy hierarchy' by thinning the ranks of admirals and generals."

Not to get too excited, however, trying to decide where to spend those defense cuts dividends, like for schools maybe, affordable health care, desperately needed  infrastructure repairs and upgrades, etc., etc. No? Why? Well, as we learn, much of  Gates' freed up savings will go instead toward the purchase of more troops and weapons!
 
I think it important that we look at our government as a mega corporation, its most profitable product being the production of misery and devastation,  not just overseas, but domestically as well. That seems to be the last best thing we manufacture here anymore.

As Rachel Madow opened her Monday night's show saying something like, imagine commuting to work at 120 mph on your Chinese bullet train while reading of American communities tearing up the pavement of drastically deteriorated roads they can  no longer afford to repair and reverting them to gravel or, as "Purdue University's John Habermann, who organized a seminar about the resurgence of gravel roads titled it 'Back to the Stone Age' " in a recent Wall Street Journal piece.

Dada enjoys our government's  inability to move forward and address the future, a dire and darkening one, that so desperately demands action but which instead goes largely ignored by our impotent representatives in favor of endless partisan squabbling for political advantage instead of confronting it with hard decisions and difficult actions so desperately demanding to be made as our event horizon called extinction bears down upon us faster than a Chinese bullet train.

Meanwhile, this past week we got advice from Stephen Hawking that if we are to survive, humanity must leave the Earth within the next hundred years! That's pretty damn arrogant, coming from the species endangering or massacring all life on Earth, including its own.

Considering the outside possibility we came here from Mars -- or  maybe not -- we should leave Earth as it becomes what Mars already is -- a burnt out hulk that may have been a former life giving garden. For what, the next planet that might support our survival until we trash and destroy it too?

Well, I have news for Hawking and others with such high-minded advice: Don't look to this nation to lead us where you think we should go. It's a tad too late for that. If we were ever even capable of such a grandiose scheme, it's now off the table. As Russia burns, smolders and smothers and China, India, and Pakistan drown, while we slowly and surely poison our wellspring of life on Earth, the seas, and world hunger grows, we're too distracted fighting one another and jockeying for political position to care.

Oh, yeh, and reverting paved roads to gravel ones.

Taking It To The Streets, part deux

Mrs. Dada's been very busy the past two weekends, remembering!

Last weekend Mrs. Dada was in Santa Fe on Friday and Los Alamos on Saturday to attend events preceding the 65th anniversary of the only commercial-industrial strength use of nuclear weapons in war: those dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, and three days later on Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945.

Below is her YouTube video of (Col..) Ann Wright, retired, most noted for having resigned from the State Department in protest of the U.S. March 2003 invasion of Iraq, speaking in Los Alamos last Saturday, July 31st.

This past Friday (8/6/2010) Mrs. Dada was in downtown El Paso, outside the new federal building remembering the victims of Hiroshima.

On Monday, a remembrance ceremony will be held in the same place  for the 65th anniversary of Nagaski's devastation.

Taking It To The Streets, part I

How I spent my Saturday: Picketing along with Mrs. Dada the Family Dollar store's abuses of their employees and their worker's rights.

Eric Murillo, organizer, with brief statement of the purpose for
Saturday's demonstration at a local El Paso Family Dollar Store.

(Video courtesy of Mrs. Dada)

Dada outside El  Paso Family Dollar store (photo by Mrs. Dada)

Editor Sam meets his maker

Sammy Cincos attended Saturday's Humane Society mural unveiling where he "met his maker," terrific artist and muralist Stephanie Conroy.

Held in conjunction with the Humane Society's annual fund raising telethon, I'm still having to convince Sam his contribution to the very successful fund raiser was but a small part of -- not ALL of -- the over $110,000 raised by this event! 

 

Congratulations to our HS's director, Betty Hoover and the El Paso community, for a most successful effort on behalf of the many dogs and cats in need of homes!!

Sam (and Dada) with Stephanie Conroy after the unveiling of her

Humane Society mural. (Sam was very pleased with his placement

in the art work among all the wonderful dogs and cats depicted --

right in the center! ~photos by Mrs. Dada)

By the time we remember it will be too late

"To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson-that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors."
president Ronald Reagan - March 21, 1983

Russian humor to help us through

As more and more of us awaken to the fact the brief, *glorious rise* of our upstart American nation, from an 18th Century pack of rabble rousing revolutionaries to 21st Century empire in utter collapse (save for our unwitting leaders hell bent on charging head-on toward the oblivion of unforgiving history), I thought it might be nice to take a step back for a moment, to distract us with a little humor as we slide from most envied nation on Earth to nation most feared or hated.

And so, as we become increasingly more irrelevant, I thought I'd turn to our friends and former enemies, the Russians, who experienced the collapse of their Soviet Union on the heels of their tragic failure to conquer Stone Age Afghanistan a mere two decades before us; to borrow from them some of the wonderful humor of our nascent Russian family members who were still able to laugh despite their impending doom.

What follows are a few old Russian jokes I've taken the liberty of modifying for current American relevance (or, as previously noted, irrelevance?). With apologies if they're not as funny as the joke the United States is becoming globally. Transitions such as we are undergoing can make humor a wee bit difficult. But it's important, I believe,  we retain  a sense of it much as our Russian brothers and sisters during their demise.

~~~~~~~~

Here, then, they are:

How do you relate to the government in Washington?
Like a wife: part habit, part fear and wish to God I had a different one.

Two Gulf Coast citizens meet while strolling on a tar-balled beach.
'How's life?'
'Fantastic.'
'Do you read the papers?'
'Of course! How else would I know?'

What sort of a job should you take, so as never to be unemployed?
Climb up on the Statue of Liberty and watch for its return.

In 2008 a man ran through the streets of Washington shouting: 'Cheney is a swine!' He was seized and given twenty-one years: one year for defamation, and twenty years for leaking state secrets.

~~~~~~

Okay, so it's typical Russian humor born of their historical flirtations with seemingly endless pessimism.  Finding the humor in it is their talent.

Are you paying on a house you bought for $300K that's only worth $210K (for the moment)?

Shadow inventory. The shadow inventories of repossessed homes banks are holding is the total number of homes foreclosed on (seized by banks) minus the number of repo'ed homes the banks are  actually trying to sell or unload on the market. Example from table above: As  of 7/16/2010 Cook County, IL (Chicago) had a total 28,829 bank repo'ed homes. Of those, 1,292 were actually on the market. The difference equals a shadow inventory of  27,537 homes sitting idle, off the market.

Can you imagine what would happen to housing prices if all those shadowy houses were put on the market by banks? The government can. The Fed can. And the banks especially know. Many of them would face insolvency.

Meanwhile, as foreclosures for 2010 are on a pace to exceed one million homes, the article by Mike Whitney entitled, A Decade of Declining House Prices claims,  "The housing depression will last for a decade or more."

"This is by design...The bursting of the housing bubble wiped out the middle class...baby boomers are not nearly as wealthy as they believed. We're a nation of paupers."

Indeed. This is by design.

"Top pickup artist shares secrets of flirting," or Dada's blending of the old in-your-face with the simplicity of modern sincerity

Let me preface what I'm about to say with this: Later this month, Mrs. Dada and I will celebrate our anniversary. This will be another of those landmark ones. Our 40th! I love her dearly and I know of no more perfect mate for me. So Tuesday evening, to celebrate her mother's 86th birthday, why was I out back in the parking lot of the Italian restaurant we'd chosen for the occasion hitting on a perfect stranger? It was an innocent accident. Really! At least let me try to explain.

I don't think the article in that morning's newspaper entitled "Nation's top pickup artist shares secrets of flirting" had anything to do with it. Well it didn't resonate with me on a conscious level anyway, at least, while reading it over my second cup of coffee. But maybe later that evening in the parking lot out back of the restaurant -- on at more subtle, subconscious level -- the article reared its ugly head?

Whatever. With the author's pronouncement the age of the consummate pickup artist and his "ridiculously horrible" flirtatious lines is dying, he concluded the best opening line is becoming one of genuine sincerity; a simple "Hello, my name is .... " is gaining acceptance as the curtain falls on the "anti-gimmick, anti-pickup line era."

So, as the trash bin of hackneyed pickup lines overflows toward the event horizon of its own demise, Dada may have accidentally stumbled upon one last great opening for the desperately disconnected among us. It went down just like this:

We were to meet friends for dinner. Of the six of us, three had birthdays within four days of one another. Being a long walk from the parking lot to the restaurant, I dropped Mrs. Dada and her mother off near its front door. I then went to park the car out back and rejoin them inside.

After parking the car, I scanned the lot for our friends vehicle. Looking for their new car, a Kia Soul, I concluded they hadn't arrived yet. While I'd never seen a Soul before, I knew it was something on the order of one of those cool, unusual looking 'cars' ala a Nissan Cube that has people who encounter one for the first time asking themselves, "What the HELL is that?"

But I didn't have to wait long. Spotting a quirky looking vehicle pulling into the lot, I immediately turned my back on it as I quickly extracted my Flip video-cam from my pocket. As the car pulled into a parking space, I whirled around aiming my camera directly at it as I approached, waving to our friends inside while recording  their reaction. As I grew closer, however, I seemed to remember the new Kia Soul was white, unlike the copper colored one I was approaching. Closer, I could see an "H" logo on its front (as in Honda; as in Honda "Fit").

The three friends I was expecting were but a lone female, now being accosted by a stranger with a video camera! I quickly stopped recording, gasping desperately for apologies in the deep ended pool of humility.

In a wonderful blend of old and new, i.e., those tiresome forward, sometimes bordering on aggressive, advances versus their modern successors of honest sincerity, Dada went from (video cam) in-your-face bold to the humblest groveling for forgiveness (sincerity) within the same second.

And it worked! "You didn't seem threatening or dangerous," was my victim's reassurance. Very greatly relieved, we walked to the restaurant together sharing  pleasant conversation.

One caution to anyone taking inspiration from this incident to hook up with someone before they even make it out of their car in  the parking lot: Note, my accidental victim did not call police on her cell phone. She did not arrive with a boyfriend or husband! Nor, and probably most important, she was not packing heat. (Or at least didn't see fit to use it.) Attempt this at your own risk!

***** CODA *****

**Once back home, I went to view the video of this incident. To my surprise I learned the camera didn't actually activate when I turned it ON! Hence, when I discovered this woman wasn't our friends I mistook her for, lurching quickly for the camera's power button to shut it OFF, I actually turned it ON. The result being a record of our conversation as we walked to the restaurant during which I learned, among other small talk, she was from Idaho, got 40 mpg doing 85 mph in her Fit  I'd mistaken for her 'Soul.'**

Survival of the fittest, or "culling the idiots"?

Please, please -- Gulf Coast  beach goers -- endanger your own health if you must, but don't injure or kill your kids  prematurely. They have their whole lives ahead of  them. The following WKRP (Channel 5, Mobile -- Pensacola) news video should be required viewing for anyone  planning a beach visit!


WKRG.com News

See HERE for further discussion re toxicity levels (parts per million) discussed in this video. (Unexplainably, the last water sample exploded before chemical analysis could be completed. High concentration of methane offered as a possibility.)

It's that time of year again....

As has become my custom each year when another 

birthday rolls around, I take out the following  and read

it again. It's become a ritual. It's meaning remains intact.*

Fisherman's Wharf,  Monterey, acrylic on canvas

On my fiftieth birthday, I walked along a beach in Monterey,
unable to assimilate the impact of living a half century. It was a
lovely morning. The jagged coastline matched its white sand
and massive rocks against the reverential green of the pines
high on the hills behind me, and shifting breakers seemed able
to translate designs of the past into the present. Misery and
mistakes of the past were flushed by the foam into forgiving
visualizations-long, ironic progressions from the Depression
years of the 1930s through the forty years of economic recovery
that followed, almost a historic lottery of opportunity. Out of
all that had happened in the fifty years, war and technology
were the most memorable. In my life so much had come so
soon and often that I was never able to completely assess, only
adjust to change no one seemed fully to understand. I realized
how, decade after decade, in the wake of revolving prosperity
and cultural upheavals, I had come to resent Prophetic
pronouncements that I was entering a glorious Space Age. It
was a promise that permeated everyone's thinking, though few
knew what it meant. Too many forces were beyond public
control and there were too many paradoxes: industrial waste
seeped out of the ground, yet responsible officials often
disguised the cause. Futurists promised extraterrestrial
colonies, yet rail and bus transportation were deplorable.
Trillions of dollars were spent on militarism that afforded less
and less protection; murder rates doubled; school systems went
bankrupt; and farm yields exceeded historical record, while
millions suffered from a lack of wholesome food or any decent
food at all. I could never decide if this was the fallout of
progress or the sins of vested interest. Whatever the source, it
couldn't be ignored. That day in Monterey, I was not only a
disenchanted liberal but a fifty-year-old figure on a beach who
instinctively knew that in order to do more than just survive, I
would have to guard the hope of larger life and avoid the
invisible suppression that threatened to bury me in ambiguous
submission. There on one edge of the Pacific, I realized
ordinary journeys were over. The only new
frontier was within.

* With apologies to the author of the above whose identity 
I have failed to find. It's in a book somewhere in the house.
Should I locate it, I shall properly attribute this piece. ~Dada

Cometh the Fall.....

Dada note: As we approach another "election season," the two sides of the same party will once again vie for control of our Congress. With the aid of  mainstream media, many Americans will be passionately distracted by or involved in the contests of who will win them, who will engineer us down the final stretch of track to our ultimate train wreck. 

Fresh pig's faces in the same old lipstick. All in the guise of  "change."

But as 2012 approaches, Dada's psyche is feeling the weight of impending doom. It's not just the mysterious Maya and their ominous damn calendar I have  to thank. Much of the  credit must be given to our White House and its other governmental branches languishing in total corruption or ineptness with any number of extreme catastrophes looming as a result of their governance over such things. Little things like our impending total economic and environmental collapse, World War III, etc.

As the American Empire fades toward its final flame-out, then sinks beneath the horizon of history, I've decided (in the absence of an asteroid, solar suicide, shifting axis, nuclear winter from an exploding Yellowstone or super bug virus) to plead our case for mercy to those succeeding us:

Open letter to our old enemies and new friends:

To Israel:  Please understand why we had to cut back our blind support of your apartheid policy against Palestinians and your manic obsession to blow Iran off  the face of the Earth. Since our little Persian Gulf fiasco in support of your war on Iran that cost our navy the majority of one carrier group, and with the resulting shut down of all oil supplies passing through the Strait of Hormuz that supplied the world's most formidable (now energy parched) naval, air and military land forces, we've had to drastically scale back our global dominance ambitions, to include your U.S. military aid subsidies.

To Cuba (and Venezuela): Please -- PLEASE! Don't get discouraged because of our seeming belligerence to your generous offers of medical supplies and doctors for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or your discounted heating oil to New Englanders in the winter of '05-06. Don't think we didn't appreciate your offers of help. Being America, it was a pride thing (but, truthfully, we could have really used it!). 

But you can both play very significant roles in easing the shock of our slide into the Third World by continuing your offers of aid and a moral compass (until we can relocate our lost one) in support of the onslaught of our ongoing/upcoming catastrophes. Our Empire's global domination aspirations really exhausted our domestic quality of life and standard of living to the point it all broke down. So, be patient, we need you! You can teach us how to live better with less.

To China: With your impending economic and military superiority after you cut our purse strings, rather  than succumb to the temptation to blow the shit out of us because of the now worthless IOUs that financed our follies which you were left holding, remember America once dominated global manufacturing but chose, as the empire we were, instead, to farm out to you the manufacturing base that once made us strong. Growing our profits while you grew the world's biggest industrial mega-state. Mostly because of your cheap slave labor wages. All we ask is you return the favor. We are a nation now in desperate need of jobs, i.e., trust us when we say, we "Will work for food!"

And to our old World War II ally and cold war buddy, Russia. Please know our president, Ronald Reagan, was a wee tad demented and really just kidding when taking credit for bankrupting your Soviet Union, for "tearing down that wall," for labeling you as that "Evil Empire." He was just joking. After all, didn't we follow in your Afghan footsteps to the place where empires go to die? Doesn't our brotherhood in that same club count for something? (Oh, and now that our space program is grounded with its future up in the air [no pun intended], if we continue to have NASA astronauts whose futures are up in the air too, could you please give 'em a lift up to the ISS once in awhile since we no longer can afford to lift them up there ourselves? [National poverty can be such a bitch, huh?])

"This painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress, is an allegorical representation

of the modernization of the new west. Here Columbia, intended as a personification of the United States,

leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels; she holds a

school book. The different economic activities of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing

forms of transportation. The Native Americans and wild animals flee." (Atttribute: Wikipedia)

And finally, to our fine, fine neighbors to the south, our Mexican brothers and sisters:  Listen, we were just kidding with you, too, in our war against you in 1846. President Polk had, under pressure from special interests, succumbed to the concept that we had some kind of divine right or manifest destiny that could only be satisfied by expropriating California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and part of Wyoming from you by provoking you into a war. We hope in your resumption of the control over those lands, you think kindly of us, remembering  when we took them from you we allowed Mexican citizens to stay. We ask that you consider that and not deport Americans of  those former U.S. states to places like Kansas and South Dakota which are in extreme states of economic crises/collapse themselves. 

Thank you for your considerations in these most difficult of times. With fondest of feelings to all our new (and former) dear friends from the new United States of America -- now smaller, sleeker, still broke and impoverished, but using far less oil now (because we have no other damn choice!).

 

   

The peace movement is dead -- new strategies needed -- suggestions follow

Awesome ~ to see it coming before it hits you!

CAPTURED: Staring stony-eyed into the face of their futures!

BP "spill" witnesses: It's accomplices, beneficiaries and victims:

(L to R ~ Dick Cheney, Lamar McKay, Thad Allen, Bobby Jindal, 

Ken Salazar, Joe Barton, Rachel Polish, George Bush, BP, Barrack

Obama, Tony Hayward, standing next to Gulf Coast residents (with 

weight on their head), and the rest of America (at the very end).

Illegal videos?

Many have suspected, others have known for some time, Washington is but a front for the interests of industry. The Supreme Court with its majority of corporate whores just recently reconfirmed this to any in doubt.

During the environmental catastrophe now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, the extent and ramifications of which cannot yet be fully known, let alone "appreciated," one would hope our government could at least step forward and appear to have as its primary concern the sea and land biomes now under threat of extreme destruction or total extinction. But such is not the case.

Call it what you want, but I think toady or sycophant aptly describes Washington's roll in this unfolding event, i.e., that of British Petroleum's boot licking lackey. BP continues its control over the crisis, has deceived the public regarding its extent, ignored EPA's order to halt use of  Corexit, "conceded" to Obama's tough $20 billion escrow fund demand for damages (that many now see as a means for BP to cap off liability claims against the company which could otherwise bankrupt them), and which continues to tighten control of media access to the affected areas with stiff monetary and penal penalties for those caught trying to more closely glimpse the reality of the situation.  

To get some idea of what may actually be unfolding outside the "official storyline" of those in control, it's become necessary to lean on those willing to take the risks to share with us some insight to possible affects of the poisons being unleashed upon us all.

The first two videos are from Clean the Gulf Now. They were posted by courageous Jennifer Roth. I call her courageous because, while the video comes from a distance far, far outside the 65' blackout imposed  by BP (or Coast Guard -- in this case used synonymously), if  the dead martin shown hanging lifelessly from its birdhouse opening proves to have died as a result of  the oil "spill," she could be looking at hard time in  a federal penitentiary.

The second video she posted could prove equally incriminating. This time to Marine Bioligist and Toxicologist, Dr. Chris Pincetich. for his testimony against BP's (or I should  say the EPA's -- in this case I'm  again using those synonymously) alarming toxicity tests of the dispersant being used indiscriminately in the Gulf).





Finally, this last video is from The Sea Sheppard Deepwater Rescue Campaign taken at risk of  violating airspace restrictions and altitude limitations (?) imposed as Hurricane Alex had grounded air traffic over the  Gulf.



Maybe the BP escrow fund could reimburse any of the above three's court costs if brought before a federal jurist. After all, none of them would have been breaking the law if it weren't for BP itself.

DEAD DUCKS!

"Soaked and dying!" Oil "spill" second thoughts graphic my sixth sense told me 
 to make on the  third for the Fourth but not post til the official holiday, the fifth. 

ODDS AND ENDS:

In the WTF! category:

On  the Gulf: From the San Francisco Chronicle's website, National Incident Commander Thad Allen "has issued a blanket order that bans anyone from getting close to any spill clean up site, boom site, areas where there are clean up workers or any other oil disaster related area or persons effectively shutting down the first amendment rights of the media. The zone of exclusion is 65 feet. There was rumor that Coast Guard bosses wanted to impose a 300 feet exclusion zone but later relented to a 65 feet no trespass and exclusion zone."

Dada would just like to calm those few Americans still paying attention who may get upset over the SF Chronicle's hyperbolic claim of your First Amendment right's erosion:  Fretting is so unnecessary!

Please -- do not get all snippy over this. The fact that your government, via its National Guard bosses, willingly relented on their original rumored demand for a 300 foot ban shows their capacity to compromise. That's because, when said and done, the government did return 235 feet of the eroding amendment's guarantee to all Americans! 

One warning, however: to avoid violating your right under this amendment (and that could include bloggers writing or posting photos): Be sure to stay at least 65' -- 65' 6" is probably better -- from a dead sea turtle to safely avoid a Class D Felony, $40,000 fine and 6 months to life in Guantánamo.

CHILL OUT -- It's not creeping fascism (maybe?)! The government seizure of the first 65' away from our freedom to access oil spill areas may have been initiated because of the findings of Texas A&M oceanographer, John Kessler, who says the BP Gulf spill is 40% methane gas (versus the 5% of more normal oil deposits) and, as a result, methane concentrations as much as one million times normal background levels have been detected in some areas.

Hence, in an effort to prevent a mass panic, Washington may be simply trying to limit our exposure to scenes just too grizzly for public consumption. Say, like oil workers, clean-up crews or ordinary Gulf citizens who accidentally step into an undetectable, highly explosive, methane gas cloud while smoking.

Or our government may be trying to protect us from the worst case scenario, a tsunami and/or massive nuclear-like detonation that could actually trigger an extinction event. Sixty-five feet obviously won't save you, but a total free press news black-out might spare you from suspecting the worst, as the following History Channel video on methane explosion mega disasters explains.   

(Or "Goodbye New Orleans and/or Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, etc.!") 

 

Happy Fourth everybody! 

(Oh, that's like so yesterday, huh?)

 

 

Wishing all another "Happy Fourth!"

July!

A speckled crab in the process of dying, or metaphor 
for something else?  (Press-Register/Ben Raines)

 "I am made aware just how little people outside the coast understand the complete and utter devastation that is taking place right in our own country. If they did I hope that every American would stand up and demand .... that the federal government admit that the entire Gulf of Mexico is in its own death throes and demand they finally stop putting profit above our people, wildlife and environment. I know of no other way to say we are sitting idly by, as our world dies around us. And I mean “death” in the most literal sense possible. 


"Have we all become so complacent, so apathetic that we no longer regard nature, life...human life,  with enough regard to fight for it? What more must it take to outrage this nation??" 


~Jennifer Roth

'Nuff said

(click to enlarge)

Dada enjoys a piece of great irony!

The very day El Paso celebrated its designation as one of the nation's ten All American Cities (Mayor John Cook viewing the cake for the occasion in photo below)......

...El Paso's City Hall was struck seven times by gunshots, one of which penetrated the ninth floor office of the city's Assistant City Manager!

Dada feels secure that when  the bullets from El Paso's City Hall are recovered, it will be shown they were manufactured in the United States, proving beyond all reasonable doubt they were fired from Mexico! 

 (click to enlarge)

On lookers in Mexico looking toward the El Paso City Hall 1/2 mile to the east. (white building with a red steeple in front of it, left of center in above photo -- er, ahm, it's the building with the little  white 'hand' on its roof, or, ah, "How the hell did that get in there??!!).

According to this morning's El Paso Times, "El Paso police said the time the gunshots hit City Hall coincides with a shooting in west Juarez on Bernardo  Norzagaray Boulevard, which runs parallel to the Rio Grande."