Nora Metzger Jones, June 29th, 1950

I admit, this is my birthday. Number sixty in the count on the great wheel of life. It is also Nora Metzger Jones' birthday. Sixty for her too, wherever she is. I met Nora at St. Louis University in 1969. We were both in the Honors Program, along with Jack Raymond Jones.

Jack was a pretty charismatic figure in those days. Eventually there came to be a group of people around Jack. You know, it was the sixties, and there was a lot of free thinking ripping around the general atmosphere.

We ended up in a semi-formal group, that Jack liked to call his "gesalt". Not gestalt, now. He left out the T. Why? At this late date, I am not that sure. But, knowing JJ he had a perfectly good reason. Anyway, we were college kids. Vietnam War was still going. Nixon was president. It was a wild time, for sure.

There were a few women who became involved in this scene. Monica Schaeffer, we called Monica Hippie. She had been the valedictorian of her class at Rosati Kain, the catholic girls high school on Lindell in St. Louis. Her mom was a teacher with the university, and she had a bunch of siblings.

And there was Becky McGovern, a good catholic girl from Peoria, who had been going to high school in Brussels, Belgium, where her father worked for Caterpiller Tractors.

Needless to say, all of the available women paired off with someone, and sex was had. Nora hooked up with Jack himself. That turned out to be a fateful event for all concerned.

Nora's folks came to town, during year two at SLU. They had Jack's records pulled by the Jesuits. You could do that in those days. They told Nora, she would have zombie children with Jack; that they would be retarded. They said they wouldn't pay for anything and she had to leave the man.

Nora, being Nora, not only didn't leave JJ. She married him, and had his child. Now, she had had an abortion earlier in this story arc. And it was neither cheap, nor good. This was pre-Roe v. Wade. And the procedure cost $700 and was performed by a mid-wife.

Naturally, it didn't go well. So, that summer, the summer of 1970, after I had married Becky McGovern, Nora married Jack on the 4th of July. We were all quite radical, but none more so than Nora. But what people forget, is that the radical lefties of the sixties were extreme patriots. So, the 4th of July. And Nora swore that she would conceive that night. To make a child for the Revolution!

And being Nora, she did. Unfortunately for the poor little thing, Nora went into labor at just six months, and after forty hours gave birth to Emil Zapata Jones. He lived a couple of months at Children's Hospital in St. Louis. And then two more months, with Jack carrying him around.

Nora was completely flipped out by this. I don't think she ever got over it. The last time I saw her, in the early 90s, she was still with Jack. I am sure they will always be together. Maybe even in another lifetime.

I loved Nora, for good or ill. She fucked over everybody to some extent, for what seemed to her passionate and good reasons. I hope she is well today, on our birthday, here in another millenia. May she find the Lady's mercy.

Why Are We In Vietnam? Er, Uh, Ahem, Afghanistan?

Politics
Although I have always have a few political opinions (always), right now everything in the greater sphere boils down to the oil spill and the tragedy that it is for us all. I don't think most people really understand how deep this one will penetrate into the zeitgeist. I wish Obama well, but he actually isn't a superman who can swim down and cap the bastard. And he's inevitably hampered by the Republicans who are dragging their heels on everything, hoping to win back the House in the fall. If that happens then what change there has been will grind to a crashing halt.

President McCain
Still, you have to ask yourself, aren't you happy that McCain isn't President? Things are bad enough in Afghanistan without Johnny Boy committing another hundred thousand troops. I remember 1965 entirely too well. I saw McCain on tv yesterday and he basically said, pretty much out right, that Nixon lost Vietnam because the country forced him to say when we were going to leave and so the enemy waited for us to go away. I suppose this means that if McCain had his way, we'd still be in Vietnam, still keep trying to keep people in power that would do what we want. And what would we have gained from that? What did we ever get for those 50,000 dead American men and boys and women and girls who we sent over there, many against their own will, to fight and die? What did we get? What did we purchase with all that blood and treasure? Will someone please tell me?

And why would going on with that war have been a good thing for this country? See, people like McCain are absolutely committed to a macho ideal that you have to win, at all costs. These are the people that ruined sports, that made the athletes take steroids. These are the people that screwed the financial world to the wall with stupid derivatives, taking wild chances with everyone else's money. So they could win, you know. Win. It's all about winning, and its only about winning.

There is just no range in american thought anymore. It's all that slippery slope way of putting all arguments. I blame the gun lobby for starting this thirty years ago. But there is no doubt that the american right wing uses this tactic without a thought as to where it takes us. I just wish Bill Buckley were still here to see what he hath wrought.

Jimmy the Dude

I'm pushing sixty hard, here. The days accumulate once again. It is summer solstice, longest day/shortest night of the year. There has been too much rain, people. But, we take what the world is and live with it, as best we can.

I joined Facebook recently. Mainly to access prom pictures from New Hampshire. Once on it, I got all sorts of connections going on. I think it's a good thing, though I can see that it can be easily abused. Still, it's one of those things that the numbers are against.

Part of what happens in this new world, is you are abruptly faced with bits of a previous life. Are you a different person now? Is the person you are suddenly reconnected to a different person? What does it matter? Why must it mean something?

So anyway I ran across my friend, Jim Kuhnlein. Jimmy the Dude. Jimmy and I shared an apartment in the summer of 1969. Neither of us had a job, we had very little money. The apartment was the $15/week ashtray. So called because it was filthy and we all smoked in them days. I remember crawling around, looking for change, so we could go get a pack of marlboros.

We ate a lot of hotdogs, cooked over the open gas flame of the tiny stove. The place actually had several rooms. We were storing a lot of people's stuff over the summer between year one and year two of college.

Mainly we stayed up at night. It was mighty warm during the day. We smoked a lot of hashish that Magic Michael dropped on us when he visited from Louisville. We talked a great deal about women and both of us lusted after the fifteen year old little sister of our friend Monica Hippie, Maria. She was a sweetie, but out of our league, not to mention too young (remember however that we ourselves were only 18-19).

I can remember taking psilocybin with Jimmy that summer and watching the sun come up on the dome of the catholic cathedral over on Lindell. Man, we were horny.

I spent that summer writing a novel, It Seems So Long Ago (title courtesy of Leonard Cohen). It was an apocalypse novel, set in a post-nuclear war america. It was written in an extreme surrealistic style that was later ruined by John Knoepfle. Too bad, it was jolly fun. And pretentious? Oh my.

Jimmy had long hair, and a good mustache. He also had a great cape, and a good hat with a bronze and aquamarine hat band. And boots. Let us not forget the boots. There was a reason Jim was known as "the Dude". He had great clothes I think from working for a clothing store in, maybe Ohio?

Later on Jim married his high school sweetheart, a woman named Toni. And they lived in Middletown, Ohio, just down the way from Dayton. I think they lived in Dayton, too. In any case, I drove over there a number of times when Joel was little, with Becky McGovern. Later they split up. So many of the couples from that time did.

Anyway, I ran into Jimmy on Facebook and there was his picture. And he doesn't really look much different for it being 30-40 years later. He lives in Kansas City area these days and is married to someone named Pandora. She seems nice to me. I hope so. Jimmy was a very sweet guy. He had all of the Stone Poney's albums and worshipped Linda Ronstadt. Phil Dick, the sci fi writer, had that same trip re Lindy Lou.

I remember Jimmy telling me about the Magical Mystery Tour and Paul is dead in one of the stairwells at Walsh Hall, when we both still lived in the dorm at St. Louis U.

May the Lady bless him and his Pandora. May the Lady's love and Her mercy be sung for us all this strange time in America.

Israel Blows It Yet Again

Image via Wikipedia

So the legitimate government of Israel, using lawyer-speak, caused an act of piracy to take place in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. They sent their thuggish military down ropes onto the Turkish ships that sought to get passed the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Upon arrival, amazingly enough, the people on the ships felt they were being attacked! So they fought back! Israel said they had all kinds of serious weapons, and that justified the Israelis using deadly force. A bunch of people were shot dead. None of them Israelis, of course.

So, this then creates this question in my mind, does the government of Netanyahooo, as I like to call him, believe that they are allowed to board and capture any ship sailing in those seas, as long as they proclaim, in advance, that the act is lawful? What about the pirates off the eastern coast of Africa? Can they then legitimize their activities by proclaiming those ships passing through as running a legally defined blockade? Where does this end? Is there a rule of law among humans, or is it merely the rule of the most powerful in the situation?

I think this was an amazingly stupid thing they did. It pretty much plays totally into Hamas hands. The war for public opinion in the world is being utterly lost by the Jews. The whole thrust of their current state is headed towards a terrible dissolution. So sad, too. What a bright shining star Israel used to be. And the palestinians, with their stupidly held statement that there could be no state of Israel, they were always the bad guys for most of the world. Now the situation has turned. If the palestinians were smart they would go all ghandi at this point and start starving themselves to death. That would be much more powerful than blowing themselves up.

Of course it is absolutely true that the Palestinian Authority is the enemy of Hamas, and it is true that the Egyptians don't like Hamas either. So Israel may have felt it had some cover for what it did on Monday. Unfortunately, the way it was done has given the victory completely over to Hamas. Just like the Gaza War did in the months before Obama became president.

See, Bibi Netanyahooooooooo, he thinks he is winning, because at home people are becoming ever more paranoid and rightwing. Unfortunately, we have to live in the greater world. The time is fast approaching when the USA is going to back seriously away from the Israelis. Israel has many nuclear weapons, so no one will ever take them down by force. But, psychologically, they are in a ruin now. Eventually they will become South Africa to the rest of the world and therein lies the ultimate extermination of the "jewish state". In fifty years there won't be one. And the rightwingers will have wrought this.

The danger, to all of us, in the meantime, is that Queen Esther (Sara Palin) may get elected to be president of the US. This would set up the confrontation and war that might lead to true nuclear disaster. Palin clearly believes her own hype and thinks that G-d, to use the jewish terminology, has chosen her to bring this about.

I think far more likely, there will be some exchanges of nuclear bombs between various states in the Middle East. I think both Jerusalem and Mecca will be destroyed in the next fifty years. Adieux ancient symbols of who is supposed to be G_d's people. I certainly am glad I am not one of those people. Look what you get for it? Hatred, enmity, fear, stupidity. You get the chance to be responsible for the death of millions. Sort of like those fascists in the third reich. And anyone who doesn't vote against Palin is exactly like those who ignored the rise of that nasty little austrian in Deustchland. You will bear the responsibility for all those who die at their hands.

So, you have that creep in Iran, and he'll have some bombs here pretty soon. And you have that creep in Israel. And then there's the creep in North Korea, trying to hang onto power by tightly controlling those sad people. And think of how bad things would be if McCain were the president now? Think how terrible everything would be.

The only thing worse, would be his assassination by some xtian fanatic "patriot", to give the reins of power to Sara Palin. Queen Esther.

Will this come to pass? You'd better hope not. With SP in the white house, in a few years they would stop calling it Pandora's Box and start calling it Palin's Box, because she will have loosed the most terrible woes upon the world. She might be the one to lead the species to its suicide.

Not the most optimistic of times. I wonder how stupid the Israelis can be? They have consistently lost every conflict they have been in since Bibi came to power. Oh, they win militarily. But what do they get out of it? The Vietnam War showed us that conflicts these days are just not about territory and power. They are about the will of all the people across the world. Good luck to us all.

And in the singing and the playing of human kind can be found the Lady's mercy. And in the violence and the hatred can be found Her tears, and Her impatience. Yes, I believe that the force that creates the universe and all within it can and is impatient with chosen stupidity.

I am a patriot. I am against committing suicide in the name of any given idea. I love the world and I am grateful to the Lady for the opportunity to be part of this beauty. How hard is it for my fellow humans to see this?

Rich Men, Never to Enter Heaven

Image by P5ychoP3nguin via Flickr

How pissed are we all? Very, of course. British Petroleum is screwing the whole country, and the entire civilization, and the cowardly men who run the company are weaseling out of responsibility for any of it. When all is said and done, this catastrophe is specifically the work of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, the two worst traitors this country has ever produced.

They absconded their sacred responsibility to take care of this great land and instead spent their time being afraid of those losers in Afghanistan. Think how much worse the damage from the oil industry is going to be, compared to the damage from the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001?

Meanwhile the government reveals itself as essentially powerless and in thrall to the vested interests, to use an 18th century term. The rich men and the international corporations have overruled the democratic process here in the United States. Although we elected a strong, determined man, it is now shown that no matter his skills, the companies exercise veto power over the entire government.

We discover the agencies that should have protected us were actually in league with those they were supposed to oversee. And we know that this is true across the board. The government of the United States is essentially powerless when it comes to the rich corporations.

Where are we headed? Between this disconnect, and the fact that the revolutionary spirit is entirely held by people who think lowering taxes is going to make a difference, I should think things are going to get very hairy here in the body politic in the next ten years.

Meanwhile, the single interest folks, the anti-abortionists, the gay activists, the anti-tax people, play their pathetic little games. And these games only serve to suck the energy away from the real problem at the heart of things: Politicians are not concerned with the whole of the country anymore. They only give a crap about themselves, and keeping their access to the major league dollars that stand behind these groups and the corporations and also the labor unions.

I don't really see a way out of this. Recently an old friend of mine wrote me, speaking of the islamic world, and the subject of honor killings (specifically a young girl stoned to death) and said, how could we ever solve this problem, we are too far apart. Thinking about that, I come to realize, having read the comments section at Free Republic, that there is no way the bridge can be built between those rightwing republicans and myself. There is no longer any common ground. We are on opposite sides.

Where does this lead? It can't be good. Just like western culture and the third world medieval values of the middle east, there is no where for us to agree. So, is it then ultimately a struggle to see who wins?

If so, I see this country fragmenting, and in its fragmentation, I see not just the rise of the fascist state that is China, but also the rise of other fundamentalist, fascist groups, across the entire human world.

But it may not make a damned bit of difference. We may be actively pursuing a course that will kill off the human animal. This would, actually, be the best possible outcome for the rest of the natural world. In so many clear ways, this species that we are, has become a liability for the natural world.

So, is the moral choice a kind of unconscious suicide? Is that what is really going on? Gotta wonder.

Meanwhile, I am absolutely certain that in nature itself, the Lady's breath, lies the mercy that makes this existence an act of grace. Embrace Her.