Beatlicks: Last Generation of Campers

Subject: Beatlick TR3: Glenwood here we come
Date: Aug 26, 2009 12:40 PM

Last night Beatlick Joe and I sat outside to watch the sky. It was too dark to see the cow patties but we got lucky and missed most of them. I haven’t really spent that much time looking at the stars since Joe and I took that sailboat trip out of Zihuatanejo to Mazatlan, sailing beneath the Southern Cross. I couldn’t even find the Big Dipper, but in my defense the stars were so numerous that it was lost in the masses.

You know if you look up into the sky long enough you will definitely see something that makes you want to scratch your head. Joe and I both saw a little red star that seemed to pulse and quiver around, not really travel, but definitely move incrementally in all directions. We watched the blinking lights of airplanes traverse the whole horizon and the summer heat lightning illuminate the sky off towards Silver City.

Next morning we pulled out and learned a lot more about the Bubbles at the Ranger Station. The Bubbles don’t exist anymore – dried up years ago. All our information was too old truthfully. We also learned from the rangers that the road to the hot springs was closed because of squatters.

Apparently a small enclave was living there and word got out that an infant had died up there. Upon further investigation it was discovered that the people were poaching long horn sheep for sustenance. They were run out and the road was closed forever.

The young female ranger that came to our campground told me squatting is still a problem. She had a work crew back near the springs to clear brush recently when she discovered an intact “house” that someone had constructed for themselves out there. Now for her own protection she’s not allowed to go back there to work.

She also said the rangers who work in this area do not restore the hot springs after a flood. So maybe the person in that “house” is the one who attempted to restore one of the pools. Or maybe the person whose blanket I now own did it. The smaller pool near that camp was by far the cleanest and best being constructed all out of rocks without mud.

That camper who left the blanket had sustained himself or herself with a twenty-pound bag of organic oatmeal. I know because the bag was left there as trash along with the blanket, pan, backpack and tarp.

So, only problem campers, floods, and a need for constant restoration, it’s easy to see why these campgrounds can be cut from the Federal budget or simply diminished to hiking trails. In this economic climate it’s just a matter of time – especially when there is the pristine Cat Walk hiking experience fifteen miles down the road with only picnic grounds to maintain.

Beatlick Joe says we are probably the last generation of campers.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela Hirst

Peace on the Home Front

[From Bill Harris in response to As the World Turns: America Left Behind (Pacific Free Press, Bellaciao 9/6/09). See his blog “Peace on the Home Front” at http://antinomian-peacenik.blogspot.com.]

Debaters debate the two wars as if Nixon’s civil war on Woodstock Nation didn’t yet run amok. One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights or to Cuba for political prisoners. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under banner of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.

The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. There’s trouble on the border. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. God didn’t screw up. Canadian Marc Emery sold seeds that enable American farmers to outcompete cartels with superior domestic herb. He is being extradited to prison, for doing what government wishes it could do, reduce demand for Mexican.

The constitutionality of the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) derives from an interstate commerce clause. Only by this authority does it reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Official policy is to eradicate, not tax, the number-one cash crop in the land. America rejected prohibition, but it’s back. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment. Father, forgive those who make it their business to know not what they do.

Nixon promised that the Schafer Commission would support the criminalization of his enemies, but it didn’t. No matter, the witch-hunt was on. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA halted all research and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period.

The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. Denial of entheogen sacrament to any American, for mediation of communion with his or her maker, precludes free exercise of religious liberty.

Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.

Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers decreed that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.

Beatlick Travel: San Francisco Hot Springs

Subject: Beatlick TR2
Date: Aug 25, 2009 1:01 PM

Rattlesnakes and the Elusive Bubbles

Next morning we were up early and headed to the trailhead of the San Francisco Hot springs. A cursory look at the hiker notes gave warnings of the rattlesnakes so we had our walking sticks in hand and heavy boots on foot. It was sunny and hot already with a slight cool breeze. Beatlick Joe has been researching the elusive Bubbles hot springs for five years or more. We have found the two small pools on a trail that is relatively approachable, but never the Bubbles.

According to his information the Bubbles pool is about half a mile further downstream of the two pools we are familiar with and you have to cross the San Francisco River a few times to get there. It’s a fairly arduous hike but fine for us, we can hike six miles without blinking. We came to the first river crossing and Joe decided to stay on the eastern side of the river where the Bubbles are. That made me nervous because I knew what to expect taking the old path, but as usual, the minute I get comfortable with anything Joe will always push the envelope to constantly challenge me. So rather than go it alone the old familiar way, I had to fall in line behind him.

Soon we came to an abandoned campsite. Underneath a tarp was a really nice Indian blanket. We made a mental note of the camp and decided to come back and get that nice blanket.

When we came to the first river crossing I changed into my plastic shoes and Joe put on some sturdy sandals. This way we easily walked in the river. Well we hiked and we waded, we crossed the river and hiked some more. For over three hours we looked for the
Bubbles going further and further back into the woods. We saw numerous indications of serious flooding in the last five years and I began to have serious doubts that the Bubbles exist anymore. We only gave up when we hit a trail where the rattlesnakes made themselves apparent with a loud rattling.

“That’s all the information I need,” I said and made an about face. I looked back at Joe; he was woefully looking back at the towering rock face ahead. I know he was still visualizing those hot springs.

“Go ahead if you want to; I’ll wait here for you here.”

He was still determined to go.

“Don’t you want to take those sandals off? At least put your boots back on so the snakes can’t bite your ankles.”

He paused.

“Well, I’ve waited long enough to give them a chance to crawl away,” he said and then he set out again, still in his sandals. But on his second step a rattlesnake alarm went off with such alarming intensity that it seemed only prudent to turn back.

So we retraced all our steps and crossings back to the familiar San Francisco pools and we were shocked at what we found. The trail we had taken five years ago was completely obliterated; even the tree where we hung our clothes was gone. The brush was so compact and dense that we walked upstream and took an alternate path back to our campsite.

Obviously interest in the springs has fallen off so greatly that the trail has disappeared. First bureaucrats made it so difficult to reach the springs (once you could drive there but the road is now blocked off), then the floods and Mother Nature have taken their final toll.

Someone has haphazardly tried to rock off the pools again, but they are so much smaller and funky that I didn’t dare step foot in them. The bottoms were solid mud.

Now it was a wonderful hike, we tramped around for over six hours, and it was fun encountering all the cows along the way, but I doubt we’ll ever pass this way again. Just like the campgrounds are fading away, so are so many of these natural wonders. The gifts of nature blocked off from hikers and tourists, the land leased to ranchers, slowly these natural blessings are fading away before my eyes.

On a lighter note we do always come away from the San Francisco Hot Springs with something. Once I found a stylish pair of black sunglasses with rhinestones at the pools. Once at the campground Joe found a good pair of tennis shoes and he used them for work shoes for months. This time we found that abandoned campsite with an empty backpack, pot, and the Indian blanket underneath a tarp. I kept the blanket. It will take a while to get all the goat heads and cockle burrs out of it but I am pleased with it and consider the hike a grand success even though we never found the illusive Bubbles.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Mansel: Media from Dante to the Lost and Found

Chris Mansel's new blog: Media From Dante to the Lost and Found uses
the blog technology as well as any I have seen. Chris mines the net
for a range of interests so broad it is difficult to believe one
person covers all this terrain, and he has compiled these excerpts and
links in a little over a week. We can only imagine what the site will
be like in a few months.

Jake Berry

Explore for yourself at:

http://mediafromdantetothelostandfound.blogspot.com

Beatlicks: On the Road Again

Subject: Beatlick Travel Report 1: Out of Las Cruces
Date: Aug 20, 2009 9:52 AM
Out of Las Cruces

This time pulling out of Las Cruces for the open road seemed like a small miracle. So many commitments and obstacles are behind us, but it’s a long time coming and I am grateful, just grateful to finally be off.

The van has been officially blessed by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church! Then Father Gabriel threw a few drops of rose water on Joe and me as well for good measure. We had a final meal with our good friend/mechanic/greatest enabler Michael Elliott in Old Mesilla. On the way out we stopped in at the cultural center to pay our respects to Denise Chavez, Joe’s old college friend. Then we were gone.

We drove west toward Deming to stock up at Wally World, then picked up Highway 180 toward Silver City and beyond to the San Francisco Hot Springs Campground. When we started smelling skunk and seeing signs to watch out for elk we knew we were headed towards the wilderness. On roads like 180 you can drive for hours through vast distances unchanged since the wagon trains went through. We saw the occasional small road left, due west to Arizona, and hardly a car passed us by.

Right before mile marker 58 we turned into the San Francisco Hot Springs Campground, just at sunset. The campground is now host to a herd of cows. We set up camp without disturbing them too greatly, got out the crackers, peanut butter, pepperoni and beer. I took the time to really look at one of those cows, as it was looking at me, just luxuriated in that moment taking the time to really look at that sweet gentle cow. And it will be rewarded for all its sweetness and gentleness by being eaten. Sad, but they are delicious.

After the cows settled down there wasn’t a single sound. Stillness. No barking dogs. Radios. Sirens. Weird. Joe got out his hand cranked radio and we picked up this awesome station 107 playing all the old 70s and 80s music. It was all those love songs that used to make me so sad back in the old days when I was a single parent, so lost and lonely. But to hear all those songs now, with Joe so near, just filled my heart.

I hit the top bunk early; it was a long and hot drive. I went to sleep with Joe saying, “Pamela you should see all these stars!” I peered out the screen window from my bunk and saw the sky looking like fireworks in freeze frame.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Mansel: Smoke Over The Mountains of Santa Cruz

...

wildfires burning stretching from tree to tree
horrors in ashy decay, dark paths coming soon
birds flying away, fireman dug in backs against the sea
california and the mountains of santa cruz

c-130's passing overhead, the pilots' home ablaze
possessions held overhead over highway smoke
cameramen focus on the children running away
scavengers move across police lines that broke

authorities say make way for the politician's motorcade
they've brought a six pack of bottled water and sincerity
not since the boys in the backroom and promises made
have the politics been so cut dry and full of clarity

chorus:

lives are in danger but in other news
no injuries reported from sky views
There's smoke over the mountains of Santa Cruz
There's smoke over the mountains of Santa Cruz



- Chris (christophermansel@hotmail.com)

COMMON SENSE: NATIONAL HEALTH CARE

[JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.]


By Jack Random


Tom Brokaw: Is health care in America a privilege, a right or a responsibility?
John McCain: I think it’s a responsibility.
Barack Obama: Well I think it should be a right for every American.

Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008.


“Health insurers and drug makers have showered members of the 111th Congress with millions in campaign contributions over the last four years, with a special focus on leaders who will play major roles in shaping health-care legislation, according to a study to be released tomorrow.”

Dan Eggen, Washington Post, March 8, 2009.


The reason we do not have national health care, like the reason we cannot control military spending and the reason we remain dependent on foreign oil, can be summarized in one word: money.

No, it is not the cost of national health care that prevents us from achieving what every other advanced nation has already achieved for there are no objective analyses (as opposed to those paid for by the healthcare industry) that fail to find billions and trillions in savings compounded over the years of implementation.

It is rather the money that is piped into the political system by private corporations with a vested interest in preserving a cash cow that prevents us from achieving this fundamental goal: affordable healthcare for all our citizens.

We have heard the numbers ad infinitum ad nauseam. We hear Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats cynically attempting to transform the healthcare debate into yet another attack on illegal immigrants. It is a strategy as old as the Appalachians and as useful as a three-legged ass: Divide and conquer. We don’t want to pay for them. But we are paying for them. We are paying for them in every crowded emergency room in every public hospital across the nation. As long as medical ethics and the laws of common decency compel doctors and nurses to treat the ill and needy it will always be so. We should want it no other way if for no other reason but that we may find ourselves or our loved ones in the circumstance of need at some time in our lives.

Few among us are so wealthy that we could bear the cost of a major operation or a prolonged illness without generous assistance. It is then when we are most in need that we invariably discover the shortcomings of our healthcare system. Every insurance agency and every corporate care provider has a staff of skilled professionals dedicated to defining the limits of our coverage and protecting the profit margin.

It is only common sense.

We do not need any more statistics or case studies to tell us what we already know. We only need a healthy dose of common sense – the kind our grandparents had before the system pumped them so full of drugs they can hardly think.

Common sense tells us that profit motivated corporations may be good for selling toys and trinkets but they are poorly designed to protect the health of our citizens.

Common sense tells us that when corporations profit from illness and dependency they have no incentive to promote wellness.

Common sense tells us: the larger the pool of coverage, the lower the costs for all. The very concept of health insurance is that those who are well will pay for those who are in need. Insurance companies strive to represent only the healthy. Should you ever have a need you are placed in a separate group (high risk) and rates quickly become impossible to pay.

Common sense tells us denying coverage to those who need it is a practice that has no place in the healthcare profession.

Common sense tells us that when our medical and pharmaceutical industries are in the business of making money, they will sell us drugs and treatments we do not need and deny us remedies that do not pay.

Common sense tells us that an unregulated “free market” health and medical care industry, like the financial institutions before them, will follow the path of greed and avarice until it breaks the bank and the system crashes unless meaningful reform is enacted.

It is unfortunate that our Supreme Court with a corporate bias perhaps unprecedented in history has zealously protected unlimited corporate contributions to political candidates and office holders under the guise of “free speech.” The same court (only the names have changed) that refused to recognize a fundamental right to vote (see Bush V. Gore 2000) has defined monetary contributions as constitutionally protected speech.

Common sense tells us that politicians will serve the hand that feeds them rather than the interests of the people they represent unless public outcry is so overwhelming it threatens their hold on power.

I do not know all the particulars of the Obama healthcare proposal but common sense tells me this: The medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industry and their lackeys in congress would not be fighting so hard to defeat if it was not a meaningful step in the right direction.

One last caveat: The Obama proposal is not National Health Care and that is unfortunate. That is the goal and this reform even if it passes will fall well short. But common sense tells me we have to take the first step before we can take the second.

The first step is what is commonly referred to as the public option. Let Joe the Plumber and all those like him who secretly or openly decry Social Security and Medicare as a socialist conspiracy take the private option and let them pay the price.

Common sense tells me the public option will win.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE IS A COLUMNIST FOR THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS – WORLD EDITION. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

Beatlick Joe & Orwell's Down & Out

I read this book by Orwell recently and extracted this story about a drug deal. Joe Speer.

Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933 by George Orwell

George has a friend Charlie who tells him a story about a rich miser named Roucolle who came to a bad end through putting his money into a wildcat scheme. One day a Jew appeared with a first-rate plan for smuggling cocaine into England. The miser was approached by a Pole willing to put up 4,000 francs if Roucolle put up 6,000. His innards churn at the possibility of making a small fortune from the happy dust and yet he was loath to risk the money. After much cajoling he at last slit open the mattress where his money was concealed and handed it over. The Jew delivered the goods and promptly vanished. Such deals are risky because of spies in the quarter or chicanery.

The next morning the police raided the hotel and began working their way up the floors. A packet of blow was on the table with no place to hide it and no chance of escape. The Pole wanted to throw the nose candy out the window but Roucolle would go to prison rather than throw his money away. The miser had an idea. He had a dozen tins of face-powder. The powder was thrown out and the cocaine substituted and left openly on the table. The police arrived and searched the flat to no avail. As they prepared to depart the inspector noticed the tins.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Face-powder,” said Roucolle, moaning and groaning. The two men were arrested and led off to the police station. A tin was sent to be analyzed. When the results came back from the lab it was determined not to be a drug.

“Mais, alors, what is it then?”

“Face-powder.” Roucolle and the Pole were released at once. They had been double-crossed. The Pole was glad to be off the hook but the old miser was livid. Three days later he suffered a stroke and died of a broken heart.

Prayer for Peltier: July 28, 2009

A Message for AIM: Please post for immediate release.


The American Indian Movement (AIM) and AIM-WEST of San Francisco invites you the general public for an early morning SUN RISE PRAYER VIGIL and RALLY on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 calling for the Freedom of Leonard Peltier.

On Tuesday, July 28th the US Parole Commission in Lewisburg, Penn. will review the case of Leonard Peltier, held in prison for over three decades. This is the best opportunity Leonard will get during his entire period of incarceration to a fair review of his case before the US Parole Commission. The whole world is watching and waiting!

Please join with us in solidarity with Leonard, his family and relations, friends and supporters from around the world on this day and let us pray for an open mind, and to let the healing of America begin.

The general public is invited to join with us in San Francisco at the Federal Building 450 Golden Gate Avenue for an early morning SUN -RISE PRAYER VIGIL beginning at 6 am until 3 pm. All Drummers and Singers, Dancers, Community Youth and Elders, solidarity organizations and NGO’s are urged to join with us to celebrate this special occasion. Religious groups and social movements are also encouraged to attend this spiritual gathering and stand together hand in hand, burning sacred sage, being of one mind in Peace calling upon the US Parole Commission to finally release Leonard Peltier from three decades of incarceration for a crime he did not commit!

There will be special invited speakers, and the media and press are welcome to cover the event.

The public is encouraged to immediately call today the office of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, in SF at 415-556-4862 to remind her to write a letter to the US Parole Commission by July 14th just as she did in August 1993 to Attorney General Janet Reno (see attached) asking for a review of the circumstances behind this case in view of discrepancies in handling it’s process. Congresswoman Pelosi is also invited to address the VIGIL on July 28 in SF if she happens to be in the CITY. The SF County Board of Supervisor’s are also encouraged to come and support these efforts for Leonard’s release from prison.

This is a peaceful and non-violent gathering on behalf of Leonard and his family and to always be respectful and honorable in seeking his freedom. For more information call at 415-577-1492.

Thank You All My Relations!

Antonio Gonzales
AIM-WEST Director

eltonyg@earthlink.net
www.aimwest.info
www.aimovement.org

BEATLICKS FINAL REPORT: Raining Oil in Texas

Subject: Beatlick final travel report
Date: Jun 27, 2009 7:00 PM

Beatlick Joe and I arraived in Las Cruces before midnight Friday the 27th and snuggled into the corner of the Wal-Mart parking lot where Joe used to work.

This seems like a good time to close my reports for now. We'll be house sitting in Las Cruces most of the summer with little to report. We'll be reporting from Taos NM later in the summer and I want to document going solar with the van next winter before we head out for Mexico.

Thanks to all who have helped us along the way. We're enjoying our new laptop wi-fi compatible, it's making life a lot easier. The van made it back in great shape, no problems whatsoever except getting pulled over in Texas for not having a light over my license plate.

Also one weird thing that happened to us in Texas, we were less than 100 miles north of San Antonio I think when I had to ask Joe, "Is it my imagination or is it raining oil?"

"It seems to be raining oil." I don't know what was going on but the air became so acrid and then a thin veil of oil was all over the windshield. We had to roll up the windows the smell was so bad. I can't believe what ever was going on out there was even legal. No one could live with that atmospheric condition for long. But we were out of it in about five minutes.

We spent one night in Austin at a poetry open mic. What a town of talent, Austin, the best town in Texas.

Well happy trails to all, peace and love. We'll be seeing you all later on down the line.

Beatlick Pamela

Mind of Mansel: 4th of July

"July 4 and there's fireworks in the skies, too many flames to follow like bullets piercing sandy eyes, half an ocean, quite a world away as the political mandala turns, erupting and spinning bodies of spent flesh will be burning, the constitution is locked away and never saw bloodshed, never saw the nightmares in a soldier's head, emergency rooms fill up with accidents, helicopters with wounded, blood for blood."

Chris Mansel

Beatlick Travel Report: The Nashville House

Subject: Beatlick TR: Out of Nashville
Date: Jun 17, 2009 6:39 AM

Just a quick report to say the Nashville episode is over, the house is completely restored, and my tenants were painting as I pulled out of the driveway. As much as I hated coming to Nashville, my heart was breaking as I left. It was so good to see all these old friends, and you really learn who your friends are when you need as much help as I did getting my mother's home back in order. New bathroom, new roof, and I personally loaded 10.000 pounds of roofing debris along with Joe, my sister and her husband, and a 10-year-old boy named Austin. He works with his dad the roofer and he worked as hard as anybody.

Plans are to arrive back in Las Cruces by the 30th of June, next day will be my birthday. And to all those we didn't get to see, time just slipped away.

It's raining AGAIN and I am full of chigger bites, memorances of Nashville.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Subject: Beatlick TR: All but the money
Date: Jun 7, 2009 2:34 PM

My little house looks so much better. Couldn't have done it without my sister and brother-in-law who got all the helpers. There is a new bathroom, the house has been pressure washed and sparkles, the sidewalk is fixed, the back porch repaired, the floors are beautiful, the kitchen sink has new drains and paper in the cupboards, and I have only the roof to go and that requires getting paid by the insurance company.

This has been my most discouraging hurdle and I can't help remembering my friend Dana admonishing me: Let's see how far the new pollyanna attitude (my words) will be serving you in a couple of weeks and believe me I am being tested.

The insurance company would have me believe that they mailed me a check twice, that it is lost in the mail, and that they routinely mail out thousands of dollars in checks without registering or tracking them.

I'm waiting on a check that was supposed to have been sent May 28. Then the agent tells me the check was returned to her office. Excuse me. I didn't return it. Did the post man put it in the wrong box? No way to know. She says she put it in the mail on Wednesday. By Saturday there is still no check and she mailed it from Nashville.

So now I am dealing with this stress, this kind of cancer creating stress that occurs when you are getting jacked around and have no recourse. I call Friday, no check, and she informs me she is going on vacation. She'll "red flag" my account and I can speak to the manager on Monday. This is Sunday and I have truly struggled to keep my composure over this when I believe this woman is insulting my intelligence.

So I am at an impasse for now. I won't even be able to oversee putting on the roof as I have my commitments back in Las Cruces. So here I sit. The house is ready, all but for the roof and siding, and no money.

Down but not out.

Beatlick Pamela

Subject: Beatlick Travel Report: The house rents!
Date: May 31, 2009 6:21 PM

Spending that time out on the Slabs in California taught me how to live without water. I needed that knowledge. Today for the first time in a month I took a bath in my own house and used the toilet! We have come such a long way and that poor plumber has suffered plenty right along with me.

I was the first one under the house, been under there at night in the dark with a flash light, daylight too, making SURE, seeing for myself what the situation is. There is so much to learn about the water. When you turn it off, turn off the water heater first, or you will burn up your water heater like I did. And when you turn it back on, the water I mean, do it gently. We had the toilet set, the sink ready to go, turned the crank on the water meter and blew out a pipe under the house. So it was three more days getting that fixed. I crawled under the house again and found the leak - discouraging - but we persevered.

I have worked hard to keep my good attitude and it has paid off. I have scrubbed every square inch of the house giving it all I've got, and waited, waited patiently. As I was cleaning the floors in my mother's room, one millimeter at a time, I heard some voices calling from the front door." Did you get my email?" my cousin Joan called. And there walked into my house the answer to my prayers. Joan is on my mailing list. She had brought her niece and my second cousin once removed, on my father's side of the family as we say here in the South, who is looking for a house. She loved my house, I loved her for loving it, and the for rent sign has been taken down!

I still have to get a roof on and get the aluminum siding fixed on one side, and then I can turn the keys over. The house will be let on July 1, my birthday. My father Howard Kennedy Adams, bought the house in 1949. My new tenant is a Kennedy, too. My sister and I cried in each other's arms thinking how happy it would make my mother to know a Kennedy is back on Kipling Drive. Actually my sister said my mother has probably orchestrated the whole scenario from heaven. Maybe so.

I hope to be back in Las Cruces for my doctor's appointment on June 23. It's hard to believe how this all has turned out. I really didn't worry that much, just keep trusting and keeping the faith, and doing all I can to expedite the situation. I couldn't have found a bottle with a genie in it to offer me free wishes and chosen a better couple to rent to. They have an English bull dog and the next door neighbors have an American bull dog. Maybe there will be some puppy love going on before long.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Subject: Beatlick TR: Nashville work continues
Date: May 23, 2009 6:14 PM

Deep in Nash country the work continues. I still wonder at the fact I am here and with so much work ahead of me. Little did I suspect that the work would be so great or that I would have thousands of insurance dollars to help me see it through. My little house has had a hysterectomy, the bathroom work continues. I didn't know to turn the hot water heater off when I shut off the water so I discovered yesterday that the hot water heater has been ruined. I casually mentioned it to my new old neighbor Joel who along with his wife has moved back into his house next door to me after eight years. It's hard to say who has the most work ahead of them, Joel or myself. His house was really trashed.

He was at my front door this morning to tell me he could fix my water heater. I didn't even know he was a heating and air conditioning technician. I just can't believe my luck. I bought two new elements for a few dollars and the system was back up and running within a few hours.

My sister and brother-in-law brought the woman who is redoing the bathroom floor over this morning. Yes a female and she has got an enviable tool belt I'm here to tell you. My sister helped her out last month so she has ripped out the toilet and sink and redone the bathroom floor for NOTHING. Can you believe this stuff? My brother-in-law has been beside her every step of the way, brought over the plumbers, and went to Home Depot for all the building materials. It is all so amazing.

As we work on the house the van is parked FEMA trailer style in the driveway and that is where we sleep at night. Every time I walk down the hill to the store I retrace the steps that I walked to elementary school. Yesterday evening I stood at the very place where my father's body flew out of his car and hit the ground when he was struck and killed by a truck driver in 1956.

This is some kind of accounting for me, it's traumatic and sad to see the house in this shape. This little plot of ground is all I have except for my van and the burial plot next to mama out at the cemetery. So I am trying to make things right, make mama proud. Like the bathroom. The problem there was that the big pipe where the toilet is supposed to be connected has been six inches too far below the floor, I guess for sixty years. Someone put something like a coffee can on top of the pipe and stuffed old newspapers and plastic bags around it to prop it up and then they set the toilet on top of all that.

Poor work, crap work, no wonder it never worked right all those years. I also found up there are four layers of shingles on the roof. Three is the legal limit. Again somebody took advantage of mama, did a poor job. I can see mama now out in the yard complaining, "I'm just a poor old widow woman."

So it is a long haul to get it all right and it is stressful to wait all this out but I believe I am doing it with a small degree of grace. I have learned and continue to learn if I just stay calm and believe in the best it is all going to work out. I'm going through something here, a mourning for the past, I can hardly find any distinguishing landmarks around the old neighborhood anymore. I'm not young anymore and time has moved on. Proust says all those memories where just little slivers of time, moments now lost.

I have a wonderful new world on the road to get back too and I am eager to begin, but not yet, not yet.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE: The Iranian Uprising

In 2003 the Jazzman proposed a March of Silence to protest the war on terror in an essay entitled Code of Silence (The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume 2: The War Chronicles). More recently I posted a fictional account of a March of Silence in a political novella posted on Buzzle.com (A Patriot Dirge by Jack Random). I was fascinated to see that the Iranian election protests adopted that tactic to great effect.

The following is an exchange in response to "Something Happening Here: Iranian Elections and Funding the War" posted on Bela Ciao and the National Free Press - World Edition:

The truth is the US is funding the Iranian unrest.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1543798/US-funds-terror-groups-to-sow-chaos-in-Iran.html

The truth is there is not a dimes worth of difference between the parties in DC and anyone who still believe there are two parties is foolish. And if you still don’t believe that, ask Jonathan Turley.

The truth is Obama is just another puppet for the powers that be- the powers who controlled bush2, Clinton and bush 1.

The truth is the US Congress is subservient to israel and AIPAC.

While all this ’new awakening’ sounds nice on the surface, the truth is people are deeper in sleep than they were during the bush crime spree in the last 8 years. Anon.

---

While I am sympathetic to your general point of view I think you’ll need better documentation to support your assertions. The source you cite in support of your view that the US is funding Iranian unrest is dated February 2007. There is widespread recognition that the Bush administration had secret operations in Iran (such as funding fringe militants as cited here) but we do not have documentation that those ill-conceived operations (reminiscent of our backing jihadists in Afghanistan) were continued under Obama. I would not be shocked if they were continued but documentation to that effect would be powerful. I would hope that Obama is smarter, wiser and more scrupulous than the Bush Neocons.

On the "dimes worth of difference" (a citation of the Counterpunch book?) I am again sympathetic. My hope is that the dime makes a difference and that Obama will eventually prove transformational in the FDR sense. I would be interested in reading Turley’s comments on this point. The hope here is that the Turleys of the world will engage the system as independents or third party candidates — not in the traditional symbolic run for the White House but in a realistic targeted run for congress. (If Ventura can win a governorship, why not Turley for the Senate?)

On AIPAC’s influence in congress, it is a powerful lobby but my own opinion would fall well short of the assertion that congress is subservient. There is a progressive movement in Israel and in the Jewish American community. We need to support them and work toward defeating politicians who place the demands of the Jewish right over the needs of their constituents. Jazz.

---

Okay how about this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twitter

The Obama administration, while insisting it is not meddling in Iran, yesterday confirmed it had asked Twitter to remain open to help anti-government protesters.

The company had planned a temporary shutdown to overhaul its service in the middle of the night on Monday but the US state department put in a request to postpone this.

Many protesters have being using Twitter to spread information about rallies and to share news.

or this:

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/proof-israeli-effort-to-destabilize-iran-via-twitter/

"....Anyone using Twitter over the past few days knows that the topic of the Iranian election has been the most popular. Thousands of tweets and retweets alleging that the election was a fraud, calling for protests in Iran, and even urging followers hack various Iranian news websites (which they did successfully). The Twitter popularity caught the eye of various blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch and even made its way to mainstream news media sites....."

....article continues.

People have been whipped up into froths before to bring about social change. One only need look to Russia, China and Cuba to see what ’popular revolution’ can really mean beneath the rhetoric. People protesting is nice and all, but let’s look at the source of the instigators.

What troubles me most is all the US has the gall to be ranting about election fraud in Iran. Where were these "election vigilantes" in 2000 and 2004 when the presidential election was given to the loser? Hmmm?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken a hard line against Israel, its incessant meddling and it’s self-proclaimed ’right to defend itself’ by slaughtering others in obscene disproportionate measure, particularly Palestinians. Israel’s constant and tiresome insistence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon has been proven to be false numerous times. And we haven’t even touched upon the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons which it will not allow UN Inspectors to verify. Israel is not even a signatory to the NNPT. Hypocrisy is their hallmark in this matter.

That Israel and the US are meddling in the affairs of Iran is about as obvious as it can get and particularly because of the timing (an election). I don’t recall seeing any mass protests prior to the election. one would think if the people were really so dissatisfied, they would have been out in throngs at any time, not just during an election.

What the world really needs to wake up to is the fact that destabilization is the order of the day. It’s been this way with Iraq and Afghanistan. it was never "weapons of mass BS" nor nuclear quest, nor ’democracy’, nor anything else. It is and has always been destabilization of the region in order to destroy the countries so as to exploit the resources, namely OIL and GAS and for the benefit of the US/ISRAEL.

Regarding the dimes worth or difference. I have little faith in the power of a dime these days. I believe with my eyes. It’s safer that way. Anon.

---

Once again we are largely in agreement on the greater picture but we disagree on the finer points of the situation in Iran.

I am aware of the "Twitter Revolution" and the fact that the US State Department requested that Twitter remain open to facilitate its use in Iran. In my judgment that is meddling and it was a mistake but it is a far cry from sponsoring Black Ops and instigating violence as the Bush administration did.

I am no defender of the Israeli government. They will do everything in their power (without risking US sponsorship) to destabilize Iran. Ultimately however anything that has the mark of Israel or America will backfire because in the age of information technology it will become known and the people of Iran (like the people of any nation) will recognize and reject it.

The question remains who/what is behind the mass electoral protests in Iran? You believe it is foreign intervention (Israel, Britain, the US). I believe that while there is certainly some level of foreign meddling the uprising has its roots in the will of the people.

We are in agreement on the hypocrisy of America crying "election fraud" after the elections of 2000 and 2004. We are largely in agreement on Iraq and Afghanistan. We are in agreement on the hypocrisy of Israel (and the US) on nuclear policy. We are in agreement that Israel’s actions against the Palestinians are criminal. We may not however be in agreement on our assessment of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From my perspective, he is no friend to the Palestinian cause. He is a front man for hardline Islamists who use anti-western and anti-Israeli rhetoric (however justified) to manipulate public sentiment. Though he is only a figurehead, Iran and Palestine and the cause of peace in the Middle East would better served without him. He is a holocaust denier, a political opportunist and a firebrand. Enough of Ahmadinejad! The Supreme Ayatollah may save his "presidency" but he has lost the people and his credibility on the world stage. Jazz.

THE TERRIBLE TIMIDITY OF BARACK OBAMA

By Jack Random


When little George Bush “won” re-election by a sliver over a weak (read: senatorial) Democratic candidate, he claimed a mandate and vowed that he would spend the political capital he had earned. That was the pinnacle of audacity and arrogance yet given the nature of the opposition it was more than sufficient.

Little George escalated the war in Iraq. He pushed a crooked prescription drug scheme through Congress and called it health care reform. Caught with both hands in the cookie jar spying on millions of American citizens in flagrant violation federal statutes, he bullied Congress into letting him off by legislative fiat.

The former president never suffered any overt signs of timidity or lack of confidence though the record will show both he and the nation suffered by his actions.

Four years later Barack Obama was handed a real mandate on a bold promise of systemic and transformational change. Tragically (thus far) he has failed to seize the moment, yielding ground on every issue and every policy, losing the high ground where morality resides on principles that should never be compromised.

The torture debate should have ended with Dick Cheney in a glass booth as a defendant in a war crimes tribunal, not with his televised rebuttal of the president, accusing Obama of sacrificing the security of the nation. Cheney is preaching to a very small choir – the loyal 25% who explain evolution as the product of a scientific conspiracy, who still believe Al Qaeda was in Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction were secretly smuggled out of Iraq on the eve of Shock and Awe. Cheney does not deserve a microsecond of the nation’s time outside a criminal courtroom.

By contrast, Obama has the overwhelming support of the people yet he is wasting it by appeasing the fringe followers of Dick “The Shadow” Cheney.

The question of torture was settled decades ago when we signed on to the Geneva Accords and applied its conventions to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. There were no exceptions to the prohibition of torture. There were no provisions for an executive override of habeas corpus. There were no excuses that pushed back the hand of justice.

Torture is a crime against the human soul, waterboarding is torture, and those like Dick Cheney who openly defend the authorization of torture have freely confessed their crimes. Under these circumstances, in a nation founded on law, not to prosecute is a dereliction of duty and complicity after the fact. As a legal scholar Barack Obama knows this yet he allows himself to be cowed by the likes of Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and the talking airheads of Fox News.

In his speech at the National Archives addressing the false dilemma of the Guantanamo Bay detention center Obama declared: “This is the toughest issue we will face.”

I would have thought it infinitely tougher to commit more troops to the burgeoning disaster of the Afghan war. I would have thought it far more difficult to sacrifice single-payer health care to the insatiable greed of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. I would have thought it more trying to throw gays in the military under the bus. I would have thought defending Bush policies on state secrets, military tribunals and habeas corpus were all more difficult decisions.

But no, in the calculations of Obama and his political team, closing Gitmo as promised is somehow gut wrenching. The statement is astounding in that it reveals the president’s state of mind. If closing Gitmo was a moral or legal decision it would be open and shut. As a strategic decision it’s a slam-dunk. The only complicating factors are political, suggesting that a decision measuring the moral fiber of the nation is being taken solely on political grounds.

What are the implications for this presidency? What does it mean when the president will not risk any amount of political capital to uphold a straightforward moral principle? It means that Leonard Peltier (a political prisoner framed by the FBI) will die in a federal penitentiary. It means there can be no assurances that our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan will end any time soon – indeed, even under Obama’s watch.

It means that we will have to read the fine print on all Obama initiatives, including health care reform, trade policy reform, gun control, environmental protection, civil liberties, on and on.

It means that Obama is essentially no different than any other politician and that is simply not good enough for the times we are confronting. It means that Obama either sold out or he is not the man we thought he was.

It was reported that our president lost his temper in a White House meeting of the minds with human rights leaders. Someone apparently had the audacity to suggest that Obama was continuing the policies of the Bush administration. I was glad to hear that he still felt passionate about something but I would feel far better if he vented some of his frustration on those who very nearly destroyed the nation and who now seek to train him to their will.

I would feel better as well if he directed some of his political capital at those members of Congress – particularly members of his own party in the Senate – who have proven more adept at obstructing progress than in supporting the president’s agenda.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE IS A COLUMNIST FOR THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

In Death, Placidity (for Susan Sontag)

by Chris Mansel

in a room with Susan Sontag as she progresses
in the steps of death, she talks
I can't copy it all down onto my hands
so I shave my head and continue
her words are like reptiles being born
to a world of Breughel's, ancient one moment
then black the next

her mouth has lost her shape
so I must depend upon the regurgitation
around the room are hundreds of photographs
momento mori

I fall asleep and find when I awake she is gone
crumbled in the clothes she was wearing is a journal
it contains notes about her lives
if you touch the words on the page there are sounds
her voice fills the room and the photographs lean in
to embrace
it's a beautiful moment then I discover I am forbidden to leave

Susan in the photographs begins to wither, to age uncontrollably
far older than when she was alive
her voice is gone and the photographs
still move in

I control my breathing and prepare myself
for what happens next
I open the journal and read aloud
the more I read the more I become older
soon I am a part of the journal and the photographs are caressing me

I open my eyes and there is Susan
wrapped in a shawl and standing on the beach
as the gray waters come in and out

- Chris Mansel

(christophermansel@hotmail.com)

Jake's Word re: Unsung Casualties of War

None of the founders wrote or spoke more eloquent, or more important, words than these. When will we learn that the aggression in our nature does not need to serve the killing machine?

You may say I'm a dreamer
but I'm not the only one…

Somewhere out there, and in our hearts, he is waiting for us to join him.


On May 13, 2009, at 11:45 PM, Jack Random wrote:

If we gave as much time, money and effort to creating viable institutions of international justice as we have given to the perpetuation of war we would find that there is a growing community of nations on all continents, of diverse cultures and faiths, that are eager to join us. There is no demand for war so great that it cannot be overcome by the dispassionate and equal administration of justice.

From The Untold, Uncounted and Unsung Casualties of War.

Beatlick Travel: Lower Ninth in Nashville

Date: May 11, 2009 11:01 AM

Beatlick Joe and I pulled into Nashville this week during another pouring rainstorm. The rain has followed us all the way from Houston without letting up one moment it seems. Nashville is sodden.

We spent a few days with Joe's brother Paul catching up before I actually went across town to see my little home. I wasn't prepared to find my own little version of the Lower Ninth Ward right here in Tennessee.

My old neighborhood is devastated. I am still in shock. My house sits in the middle of four empty homes all in a row. I would say 20 percent of the homes in the neighborhood are empty with grass overgrown on the lots and storm damage from a recent tornado. One house on the block has been a burned out shell for months. Really, really sad.

My little house is sad. The bathroom will have to be gutted because of the leaking toilet, but I have to say I am really touched by what a good job my management company Barrett Realty has done, with what they have had to work with. I was impressed that they had varnished the floors. That seemed exceptional to me with all they must be dealing with because there is so much real estate for rent and sale around my neighborhood.

So my sister comes over and we take a deep breath and just try to figure out how much we can manage to do independently. Here comes one neighbor over to offer help. My sister's friends come by and offer more help, big help.

With all their care I have already managed to get the yard mowed, trees trimmed (that was a big deal I couldn't have managed on my own), and a tacky little fence torn down. I need roofing, aluminum siding, a new sidewalk, and new back steps. All are in a serious state of deterioration. I have an appointment with my insurance agent this week and then I'll know more about what I have to be responsible for and what might get fixed by insurance.

In keeping with my new policy of minimal worrying I haven't really felt too overwhelmed, just sad, at what lay before me. I cleaned out the attic and put a big for rent sign in the front yard. This wasn't done before because the house was empty and there was a fear of vandalism.

But once the sign was up and neighbors saw some signs of life around the place they began inquiring about the property. Now listen to this, also in keeping with my new found strokes of good luck, a man walked over from across the street, his wife's mother lives there, he takes a look around and says he would like to rent the place, plus DO THE REPAIRS HIMSELF!!!

Well this is beyond all reasonable sense of good luck as far as I'm concerned. I could maybe get to just walk away from all this and leave it in someone else's hands, get back to Las Cruces in time to house sit, and be on my merry way.

So right now I am just waiting to see if this interested party will meet all the requirements for my management company. I'll spend this week dealing with the insurance man and we'll just see what unfolds. But again I am humbled and really relieved so far.

We are slowly looking up old friends. Last night Jamie Givens, as I have called her a world class poet/traveler and wandering Sadhu, came over with a huge meal. We have a friend spending a few days with us, his family has a resort in Monterey, Mexico, that we hope to visit one day, and it was great to be able to spend some time with him and give him a little shelter from the storm. So the four of us feasted and laughed, held an impromptu poetry reading and invited the neighbors over. It all has worked out so well. I'm not sure why I was so resistant to coming home. So far it's been awesome.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Beatlick Travel: Natchez Trace to Nashville

Date: May 6, 2009 6:31 PM
The Trace

We pulled out of Louisiana so stuffed with crawfish, oysters, beignets, and pralines that I have serious doubt of being able to get into my blue jeans now. We made it to the Natchez Trace Parkway slogging through even more rain. The Trace is over four hundred miles long, a non commercial highway with a 50 mph speed limit and no trucks or billboards.

It began as a buffalo trail, then an Indian trading path, and finally in the 1800s a road for Northerners such as Kaintucks and Tennesseans to return home after poling their crops down the Mississippi on rafts. It stretches from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, and its hardwood and bottomland forests were rife with robbers and murderers in the old days.

Even today the dense forest looks intimidating and it isn’t hard to imagine Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson, even Hernando de Soto riding their horses up the Trace. It is still a raw land unencumbered with modernity. Before we had hit mile 51 we saw the most incredible sight - an great American bald eagle. I have seen eagles before in Kodiak, Alaska, and out in the southwestern canyon lands, but nothing like this one. It was enormous with a white head and feet, or claws, I guess. He was hunkered over a small carcass and swooped off majestically as we passed by gape-mouthed at the wing span.

Buzzards are prevalent as well as there is no end to the fresh supply of road kill comprised of rabbits and oppossum. Throughout the whole trace we encountered wild turkeys, blue heron, and best of all the red birds. I haven’t seen them in seven years out west. Guess they don’t get that far. My sister and I consider redbirds signs of our mother, who loved them so much. “They don’t mix with the other birds; they keep to themselves,” she always claimed.

So as reluctant as I am to return to Tennessee the little redbirds tell me, “It’s gonna be alright.” The trees, so tall, hard, and erect, remind me of the Church of Christ deacons, looking down on my 15-year-old self, judging me, criticizing. But before long the whole scene turned to a green French voile tapestry. The trees patterned until they became aristocrats with curly wigs piled high on their heads, toes extended, turned just right, pirouetting, bowing.

But I am intimidated a little bit to go home. The south did me no favors. Yes, it made me the woman I am, but I am forged from tears and pain, not joy. Forged from struggle not allowance. I honestly believe there is too much blood in the soil of the south. Too much pain has been gleaned from the backs of slaves, from downtrodden poor. Out west it is so clean, so open, so pure. Just pour your self out in the red sunset. I don’t look forward to this trip, but I will go.

We camped about 100 miles south of Tupelo, Georgia, birthplace of Elvis. The bullfrogs are deafening out in the tupelo, bald-cypress swamp. It rains and rains. We are so pleased that our new van is water tight. We sleep uptop now regardless of the weather.

Next morning we just went for it and plowed on down the highway to Nashville. Last night we slept at Joe’s brother’s home. They haven’t seen each other in seven years.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

SOUTER, SPECTER & FRANKEN: EXPOSING THE FECKLESS DEMOCRATS

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.


By Jack Random


I’ve got news for the talking heads: Nobody cares about the party identification of Arlen Specter. Nobody cares about the resignation of Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Nobody cares about the revival of civil war in Iraq or the expansion of the Afghan war to Pakistan. Nobody cares about the lost identity of the Republican Party – as if the Democrats have found one.

What do we care about? We are beginning to worry about the Swine Flu (which we blame of course on Mexican immigrants) but we really don’t care much about anything else but our jobs, our homes, our diminishing wages and vanishing benefits. To bend the phrase of political operative James Carville: It’s the stupid economy.

It is as solid a truism as any in politics: We care most about those things that affect us most directly. It is as unfortunate as it is true for those things we do not care about can affect us more profoundly than those we do. Two years ago nobody cared about bankruptcy laws when our brilliant legislators tailored those laws to the interests of banks. Nobody cared about regulating Wall Street until the housing crisis cut our financial legs out from under us. Nobody cared about trade policy when Bill Clinton made it a bipartisan mandate and began in earnest the process of exporting American jobs and deflating American wages.

There are issues that we should care about, issues that do not make headlines or dominate the commentaries of talking heads, and issues that are profoundly important to the future well being of the nation.

In and of itself, the defection of Arlen Specter from the Republican Party is not such an issue. It is about as important as the child rearing habits of Britney Spears or the foibles of a runaway bride. Anyone who believes that the balance of power has shifted because the letter following Senator Specter is a D rather than an R is living in a fantasy world of wishful thinking. Specter’s voting habits will remain the same. He will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act. He will support free trade. He will push for unlimited military spending. He will oppose a progressive, pro-labor nominee to the Supreme Court. In fact, if Specter prevails as a Democrat in Pennsylvania and if he is rewarded for his defection by assuming a chairmanship of the subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education then we may consider this defection a defeat for working people and a net loss for progressives.

In contrast, the resignation of Justice David Souter has profound implications for the future well being of the nation. The appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, despite early hopes for judicial balance, have created the greatest corporate bias in Supreme Court history. From the Lilly Ledbetter decision to the ruling that allowed public interest laws to be used for corporate development, the Roberts court has laid down no precedent stronger than corporate supremacy. If this trend is allowed to continue we will be faced with the greatest obstacle to restoring the rights of labor in modern times.

Of course, David Souter was a friend to the common man. There was no greater disappointment in his career than the infamous and disgraceful decision to short circuit democracy in Bush V. Gore 2000. His replacement will only restore the imbalance that currently exists on a predominantly anti-labor court. One can only hope that Reagan appointee Antonin Scalia, clearly the most radical conservative influence on the court today, at age 73 will retire before the second term of Obama but it appears that next in line are the moderates John Paul Stevens at age 89 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 76.

It is notable that what passes for moderation on the Supreme Court would easily pass for conservatism in almost any other context. The court like the United States Senate has become a conservative institution because senatorial Democrats only insist on judicial qualifications and temperament while Republicans demand ideological loyalty.

If the defection of Arlen Specter is to have any positive impact whatsoever it is this: He will refuse to join his former colleagues in blocking a well-qualified Supreme Court nominee on the basis of ideology alone. If Specter and his ilk in the Senate use their standing to push Obama’s nominee to the middle ground, then we have lost a battle that will play out for decades to come. If Specter is to be welcomed into the Democratic fold, this is the price he should pay. If not, the party should support a true pro-labor Pennsylvania progressive in the 2010 election.

Unfortunately, that is not the kind of hardball the Democrats are accustomed to playing. Truth be told, the Democrats (particularly in the Senate) are very comfortable with a corporate bias on the Supreme Court. After all, it is the corporate interest they truly represent. By and large, the millionaire club of that regal body is the corporate interest.

That is the reason we cannot expect too much of our government. Much has been said of the lost identity of the Republican Party but we are about to learn that the Democrats, with dominant control of both houses of Congress and the White House, is equally lost when it comes to philosophical grounding. The Republicans are supposed to be the party of corporate interests. If we are politically aware at all, we expect them to represent the wealthy first. But the Democrats are supposed to be the party of labor, the party of the common people, and the party of social responsibility.

What we are about to witness is a party stymied by its own divisions and a government snarled in toothless compromise. Politicos argue that the Republicans have closed their doors to mainstream Americans and there is much to support that point of view but the Democrats, in opening their doors so wide that the Arlen Specters are welcomed without condition or expectation, have lost touch with their modern roots. They are no longer the party of Franklin Roosevelt. They are the party of the consummate compromiser Bill Clinton.

I expect very little of the new Democratic government. Until now they have had an excuse: the protocol of the Senate, the 60-vote requirement to force cloture. But they have not fought too hard to get Al Franken (the Senator-elect from Minnesota) seated, have they? They have not opposed the procedures that allow forty Senators to obstruct the business of government as distinctly anti-democratic – in fact, many have defended it.

Soon Franken will be seated nevertheless and with Arlen Specter the Democrats will have the prized 60-seat majority in the Senate. If they fail to act, fail to enact comprehensive and universal health care, fail to push through a bold green initiative, fail to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, fail to roll back the Free Trade mandate, fail to resolve the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and fail to restore our civil liberties, then they will stand exposed as the feckless corporate loyalists they truly are.

To paraphrase comic Lewis Black: The Republicans are the party of bad ideas and the Democrats are the party of no ideas.

The time must and surely will come when independent voters will look to independent candidates for a chance at real change. Until then we will continue to wander in endless circles, playing the blame game and dodging responsibility, while the nation declines and the planet cleanses itself of its human pestilence.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE IS A COLUMNIST FOR THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.

An Open Letter to President Obama on Behalf of Leonard Peltier

*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*<+>*


Dear President Obama,

On behalf of myself, friends, family and literally millions of people all across the United States and the world, I am writing you today concerning an urgent and heartfelt request: to consider the case of Leonard Peltier. For thirty-three years Mr. Peltier has been incarcerated in various American prisons for a crime that there is ample evidence to substantiate he did not commit. For thirty-three years Mr. Peltier, his lawyers and supporters have appealed to the powers that be in Washington to re-open, to re-try the case of the U.S. vs. Leonard Peltier. For thirty-three years these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Now, at age 64, Leonard Peltier is approaching the end of his life and is in poor health, and those of us who are interested in Native American issues of social justice are trying one last time, when hope has returned to the American spirit and we have a president who espouses transparency and equanimity of policy and practice, to appeal to your sense of compassion and justice in a case that for many represents an opportunity to finally bridge the gap of broken treaties and broken trust between the First Nation peoples of this country and their government. We truly hope that with your new administration and its progressively positive attitudes of equal rights for all peoples, races, religions and economic status, that a time of reconciliation has finally arrived and some of the injustices of the past can be put right, with critical bridges crossed and war wounds healed.

Rather than laying out the long history of the case of the U.S. vs. Leonard Peltier, I prefer to point you in the direction of Mr. Peltier’s book My Life Is My Sun Dance, a book he has written that was published in 1999 to universal acclaim and rave reviews (see enclosure), and which I had the great honor to edit. This book contains his full account of the events surrounding his arrest, his trial, his incarceration and the more than twenty-three years that followed. Also, you might want to consult your colleagues Senator Inouye and Gov. Bill Richardson on this case, as they are familiar with it and are supporters of the world-wide movement to reconsider, re-try and release Leonard Peltier from his incarceration as a political prisoner, wrongly convicted.

To this end I would like to ask of you a favor by granting an audience to Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th-Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Great Lakota Nation, and myself, that we may deliver a message to you on behalf of all those concerned people around the world who have worked--by marching in protest, by contacting their representatives in government, by signing petitions, by writing letters, by working for his legal defense--so hard for Mr. Peltier’s freedom. We would be happy to meet with you, Vice President Biden, Sec. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Inouye, Jodi Archambault Gillette from the Office of Inter-governmental Affairs and anyone else you feel would appropriately need to be involved in such a meeting and any discussions that might occur to shed a brighter light on this matter. Such a meeting, we believe, would not only be a true sign of your willingness to begin a dialogue with Native peoples on issues of overlooked urgency and importance, but would go a long way, in good faith, to showing us that Democracy and Justice still have a meaning in America.

Mr. President, it is with great hope and great expectations that my colleagues and I await your word in response to this letter of inquiry and appeal. Not only does the future of Leonard Peltier depend upon it, but also our hopes for a greater nation where there is truly liberty and justice for all peoples, including First Nation peoples.
Respectfully yours,

Harvey Arden
Washington, DC
with assistance from
Thomas Rain Crow
newnativepress@hotmail.com

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Beatlicks Travel: A Long Road to N'Orleans

Beatlick TR: Not in the desert anymore

Next morning the skies are still gloomy. There is so much moisture in the air that neither Joe nor I look like ourselves. Joe’s hair is a mass of curls the size of quarters and my hair is looping out like it has been set on juice cans. Over coffee we debate the route this time. Now I know I can hang with the big dogs on the interstate with safety and confidence, but is that the best route.

Me: I just can’t decide what’s better.

Whatever you say.

I just can’t figure out what’s the best decision.

You’re the one who wants to drive on the interstate.

I just want to make a good decision. Which way is best for the van. I don’t know whether to wear the van out on the interstate and get there faster or wear me out taking the slower roads.

Whatever you say.

Joe, you are bringing absolutely nothing to the table. Don’t come back six hours later telling me you could have turned here, you could have turned there.

But already the noise of the trucks was droning in my ears. We had one more chance to pick up a route to Highway 90. Finally Joe gets out his map and we decide to pick up Highway 14 before we hit Lake Charles.

And I keep my mouth shut as we passed through a few small communities posting 30 mph. But within 20 minutes we were in some beautiful Louisiana low country which looks like Holland with a series of levies and dikes in a big agricultural area. I’m happy and the van purrs along. We enjoy the bucolic scenery as the seagulls begin to proliferate. Joe’s curls build higher and higher upon his head. We’re not in the desert anymore.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Beatlick TR: Broke down in Bayou Vista, LA

Clouds were breaking up and the sun was getting hot as we passed through Patteson, LA, nearing Morgan City. We are beginning to realize we might make New Orleans before dark. In my thoughts I was already shopping at the French Market when I stopped at a red light and couldn’t get the transmission back into gear.

Well it finally happened – breakdown. After all those hours on the road to San Diego almost incapacitated with anxiety, now I have an eerie calm about me when real trouble hits. Somehow I know this will turn out alright if I just keep- my wits about me, keep calm. A few things are going in my favor.

I am directly across the street from a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Thank goodness I didn’t take the interstate. Pamela Hirst, roving reporter, goes into action. First I find a cop in the Wal-Mart parking lot and ask him if he knows of any VW mechanics. No luck but he gets me the number of a nearby transmission shop. Very helpful. The policemen are usually the first ones I approach when I’m in trouble like this, especially in a small town. And he couldn’t have been nicer. “Call the station if you need us,” and Officer Bryant gave me his phone number.

It was 4 p.m. on Saturday. I called the transmission shop knowing it would be closed. It was. So we gave up on accomplishing anything before Monday. Our luck held. We went back to the van and I was actually able to put it into gear. I put the van in reverse, turned the key, and it lurched backwards. I was able to back up to the red light. When the traffic got sparse I was able to put it in first and bolt across the street into the Wal-Mart parking lot. Sanctuary until Monday.

Further questioning of Wal-Mart customers gave me more leads. Someone told me about a mechanic on down Highway 90. “Do we both have to walk there?” Joe asked. Of course not.

So I walked about three miles to the next town of Berwick. I headed out thankful to have something to do. When I got there all I found was a tire store, closed of course. Then I walked across the street to a bar to investigate. Bingo. I left the bar within 20 minutes with the names of the best foreign car mechanic and tow truck driver in Morgan City. I called AAA and learned I wouldn’t have to pay for the tow either, Excellent.

So we settled into the Wal-Mart parking lot for the weekend. We learned quickly about the local flora and fauna. Overhead the parking lot is full of squawking seagulls. Both of us got attacked by red ants when we made the mistake of walking off of the pavement and into the grass and in the drainage ditch right in front of the store I noticed something of a sizeable proportion splashing around as I walked by. Later I saw a nutria, a giant water rat about the size of a beaver, out basking in the lush green grass as all the traffic passed on Highway 90.

Really we had a good time. We finally got to start sleeping in our upper bunk. This doubles our living capacity at night and really makes the van comfortable. In the course of the weekend a few people stopped by. One really old heavy set man in a big expensive truck with a little dog by his side stopped. He wanted to tell me he was looking for a small camper himself.

“My wife has left me and now I have to start all over,” he shrugged.

I mentioned I was broke down and he told me about a nearby mechanic, wanted to drive me over there, but I declined. He wanted to know if I was traveling alone. I guess he didn’t see Joe. I said no. I thanked him for the directions and bid him adieu after he basically divulged his life story to me.

Before too long a VW bug pulled up in the next lane. I waited a few hours for that guy to show up but he didn’t know a mechanic, did his own work, and went to Baton Rouge if he really needed help. Oh well. I passed the time sprucing up the van, giving it the message I hadn’t given up on it, doing the Sunday crossword puzzle, and organizing our gear.

When in situations like this I never rest until I know I have done absolutely everything I can to be my own best advocate. So I pressed on. In a while I asked Joe if he wanted to enjoy the Sunday afternoon sunset and take a walk in the neighborhood to see if we could find that mechanic. I could get the number maybe off a door or a sign. Somehow I had the feeling that just the right person was out there for me, I just had to find him or her. In these cases it’s always best to deal with a real VW person. Most commercial shops and parts departments aren’t set up to deal with VW issues. We pressed on.

The old man’s directions were a bit sketchy so I asked more questions of the neighbors washing their cars, putting out the garbage cans, and watering lawns. We finally arrived at a big garage in the neighborhood, no signs, a lot of cars outside – and lo and behold – a mechanic sitting in the doorway reading a parts magazine. I approached him.

His name was Randy. His garage was filled with dune buggies, little race cars, and motorcycles. He said this was his hobby shop, he wasn’t a business, but he was willing to help me. I had found my man.

Randy is a monster truck mechanic. He has traveled all over America working the car show circuit and recently retired. He was well familiar with VWs being an old hippie. He put us in his truck and we drove off to a parts store, no luck, it had just closed, but he went back to the van and checked out the situation.

I need a clutch cable. So for now we are currently parked at Randy’s garage in Bayou Vista, LA. If we don’t get a cable from the O’Reilly parts store, and that is looking unlikely, then Michael is going to send us one UPS. So for now we have a good place to park, food and drink is within walking distance, and we are thanking our luck stars. It’s all good. We’ll get to New Orleans maybe by next week. The Jazz Fest is still going on.

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

Date: Apr 30, 2009 4:27 PM
In the last five days I have been through some right of passage in the tiny town of Bayou Vista, LA. I am never going to spend another moment frightened or worried about breaking down. I have fallen into loving arms here in this town and we are so humbled by our fortuitous experience and the obvious unforeseen forces which guide us.

My van broke down within five blocks of Randy Jenkins, who has traveled America as a mechanic on the monster truck circuit. He also works on Nitro Harley motorcycles and his son was one of the top "pilots" not racers in the country.

I needed a clutch cable and I decided to take the path of least resistance, allow Randy and his neighbors to take us under their wing, and just wait for Michael, my mechanic in Organ, NM, to send me a cable. As it turned out it would have taken just as long for O'Reilly's, an auto parts store next to Wal-Mart, to get me the part. As it turned out the auto parts store would have cost me $80 and I don't know if that included overnight air freight or not. Michael mailed me the cable for less that $30.

Randy set us up at his shop where we urban camped for five days. His neighbor Tim invited us to his house everyday to eat, shower, and pass the time. Last night we enjoyed a crawfish boil. Randy's girlfriend Wendy was one of the first female crane and big rig operators here around and about Morgan City. She was a real trailblazer in her day. She and I went blackberry picking along the RR tracks yesterday. They were our dessert last night after all the sausage, crawfish, corn, potatoes, and red onions.

Randy got us back on the road this morning and took NO MONEY. I just can't believe the warmth and generosity of these people. We insisted on at least providing them with one good meal, as we did. But they have given us so much more than we gave. From now on I will see breakdowns as opportunities.

It took less than two hours to get to NO. I am hooking up with my old girlfriend I used to live with down here. She drove down from Atlanta and I'm gonna call her cell as soon as I finish this report. We are urban camped at the Nix Library on Carrollton Ave. We parked here on our first VW tour right after my momma died. It's like coming home. Hope we can get away with it again. Looks good.

Happy Trails to all
Beatlick Pamela

Beatlick Travel: Lightning Storm in Houston

Ooh that smell. Can't you smell that smell? Wet pavement on the open road. How long has it been?

Well down Highway 90 my navigator Beatlick Joe Speer signals turns to roads that are getting smaller and smaller. I'm getting tireder and tireder.

"Isn't there a more direct route than this?" I ask. Then switching into alpha bitch mode: It's been three days, 700 miles, and we're not making any progress.

"Well, I thought you wanted to go to Palacias, Texas, and get BBQ.

"I only said that because you wanted to take the coastal route. Besides I already got BBQ." (I couldn't wait and grabbed the first opportunity for some of that great dry Texas BBQ, so unlike the wet sloppy kind back in Tennessee.)

Neither one of us was taking responsibility for the route we were on. And again, not having consulted the map, I had no conception of the extra time and miles it would take to retrace our old path along the Texas coastline. Needless to say we never made it to the coast.

Fortunately we were serendipitously close to Highway 59 heading due east and a straight shot to Houston. We nipped at each other for a few more miles until we took a break at a beautiful picnic area.

I passed an hour doing my yoga exercises, Joe chilled in the van, and we were both in much better moods when we headed out again in the late afternoon, planning on about three more hours on the road and stop on the east side of Houston, hopefully missing some heavy traffic.

The rain had been teasing us all day long and picked up about the same time we hit the 12-lane 210 bypass around Houston. Six lanes one-way of course. We head in. The van is driving effortlessly and we are snug enough. The rain intensifies as night comes on and the sky starts to fill with maxi-bursts of lightning that illuminate the entire curve of the horizon; the lightning bolts must be at least 30 miles long.

I am taking it all in stride and we just start to joke about it, how much worse could the driving conditions be? That’s when the windstorms began. It was like a race car arcade game where you are trying to stay in the lane, but the road is so wet you can’t see the markers; all the tail lights of the cars are twinkling, competing with the lightning bolts overhead; and the big rigs roar past leaving a wake of water as they swoosh by.

By the time we got to the opposite side of Houston, pulling up a long incline, I think we hit a small tornado. I felt like I was “Three Years Before the Mast” heading around Cape Horn in a gale storm. But my little van was giving its all. I had all the power I needed, thank God, to accelerate evenly with traffic, but the spray and the sheer density of the rain sheets finally turned everything opaque, the color of cement. I couldn’t even pull over because we were along a construction corridor and orange cones blocked my path.

I should have pulled over anywhere, but I was waiting for the most opportune pull off. It didn’t come Cars were beginning to line the sides of the highway now as I slowed down, still hardly able to make out anything between the psychedelic light show in the sky, all the red taillights on the road, and the vast amounts of water that were drowning out my vision.

And just at that moment when I saw a sign for an old weigh station turn off one mile ahead, another gush of water from a passing rig submerged me and the engine stalled. I stomped the accelerator and the engine held. All this time an eerie calm is over me. After all the anxiety I felt driving out in the mountains anticipating the danger that never happened, here in this truly dangerous situation I am calm, determined.

The weigh station exit came up at last and I was finally able to pull over. I puttered along in first gear finding nowhere to turn in because the lane was packed with other vehicles, at least 50 or 60. We were almost back onto the highway when I found one tiny space in between two big rigs. I pull in. I have been driving for 14 hours.

This was the night we were anticipating sleeping uptop in the van. But no chance of that now. Unfortunately I had already placed the bedding up there so in the gales we had to lift the camper top and pull out our damp down comforters. But only a little damp. They would work.

We fixed up the bed to look out the side window. The rain and traffic are a real show out there and my body is vibrating so intensely that there is no way I will go to sleep for quite some time, so I just snuggled in to watch the light show. I tell Joe, “I feel like I have been struck by lightning. I feel electric.”

The rain beats down relentlessly, the water gushes past the window horizontally, and the lightning bolts appear like bursts of bomb shells. It’s WWII out there. The noise of the rain, the trucks, the lightning crashes all pass through me. My body resonates. I am safe, I am warm, I am anointed!

Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela

A Story About the War

by Chris Mansel


I was writing a play, about a man who went blind
in the middle of a war. He crossed the lines over and
over till he was shot through the back.

He slept until the bullet dislodged itself and he awoke
and he could see again. He climbed a mountain and there
he saw a single dove fly into a stone and not come out.
He stood there until a bullet dropped from his hands and
rolled down the mountain and into a stream. The next day
the dove brought the bullet back to him. The dove dropped
the bullet into his hand and started to bleed. The man closed
his eyes and flew away.

He flew over the soldiers dying on the battlefield, he flew over
the wounded, and the peaceful skies. As he dipped his wing feathers
dropped from his mouth, and a quiet fell over the land. His eyes rolled
into his head and the peace he felt was disturbed when he landed amidst
a battle. His body was insulted by the machinery of war and there was
hardly anything left.

The next morning a solid red dove came to pick at his remains.


Chris Mansel (christophermansel@hotmail.com)

Beatlick Travel Report: Las Cruces to Marathon TX

Beatlick Travel Report: Aguirre Springs

With a conflicted heart I am pointing my van east toward Tennessee. My little house back there is minus tenants still and my sister called me in tears over the condition it was in. So to honor the home I inherited from my mother I will go back and take care of some business. Hopefully it won’t take too long, but I’m not worried about it, whatever it takes.

So out of Albuquerque we headed south back to Las Cruces to get our 3,000 mile checkup.

The tune up worked out perfectly with Beatlick Joe’s long held fantasy of hiking Baylor Pass. We delivered the van to Michael and he drove us out to Baylor Canyon, not far from his house, and we just hiked back to our camp. It’s a sort of iconic, right-of-passage kind of hike for Las Crucens and the trail parallels Augustine Pass on Highway 70 as it heads east to White Sand Missile Range. Having heard so many people talk about it over the six years we’ve lived in Las Cruces somehow I gathered that it was a really long hike. So I planned in my mind for all day.

We set out fully bundled up in leather jackets, gloves, scarves, and warm caps. The wind was intense and clouds were already gathering when we set out at 11 a.m. The Organ Mountains are young with sharp, jagged promontories juxtapositioned erratically alongside each other. As one ascends the more barren western slope all of the plains in full view below spread, spread wide, to reveal the curve of the earth.

You can see the highway far below, ribboning its way south towards the El Paso. The endless horizon is edged in the aubergine purple haze of distant mountain ranges that must have looked insurmountable to early settlers.

Nearing the crest the beauty of the mountains becomes even more evident as more details emerge. Ancient lichen formations appear as French Impressionistic daubs of pastel. I saw green, chartreuse, orange, and brown lichen. Tiny little mountain wildflowers trembled at our feet bravely facing tiny little faces to the sun, so delicate.

Just like Heidi we began to shed clothes as we kept going higher. I brought an empty backpack just so we could stash the heavy jackets and sweaters if need be. On the path I didn’t see much life beyond the plant life save a few doodlebugs, some ants, and one little songbird. I didn’t see it but I heard it. By the time we actually arrived at Baylor Pass I was back into all of my gear, the wind was brutal and cold, sucking up the warmth out of the atmosphere. The gusts challenged us to stand much less linger at the top of the pass but we had to take the time to look first west then east, just to comprehend the enormity of the view.

The land gently lolled down eastwardly towards the White Sands Missile Range and on to another endless mountain range opposite the western one. It’s hard to imagine seeing any more land mass at one time except from an airplane. The winds slackened off on the opposite side and we nestled up against some warm rocks reflecting the warmth of the strengthening sun.

We were astonished to arrive back at our campground in three hours. The trek was no wheres near as formidable as we had imagined and we felt so happy and accomplished to have made it so comparatively effortlessly.

Our tent has proven to be so enjoyable. The winds are severe on this weekend. Michael found this tent for us as well. It’s sturdy canvas, bright yellow with a deep blue roof, and a happy little striped front flap. It was custom made for VW vans, but it can be all zipped up and stand alone as well. The 8’x10’ interior seems spacious to us. I took the mattress off of our upstairs bunk to create the bedding. We have this portable feather bed given to us by friends in Las Cruces who worried we wouldn’t be warm enough on the road. It’s just one big enormous sack of down feathers. Not tufted at all. You shake it out and fluff it so that it billows down onto the mattress like a big marshmallow. When we lay on it at night it seems to expand like yeast, oozing away from us to seep towards my candle altar. I am constantly pulling it back like the tide, but it is soooo warm. In the morning we see all the tiny little feathers in our hair and one our clothes. They cheerfully float around all inside the tent. With two more down comforters on top of us, it’s cozy!

We have our sleeping arrangements and backpacks on one side of the tent; two chairs and a table, the camp stove, pots and pans, on the other. I keep a red plastic tray in front of the zip up door at night laden with candles, lanterns, and an oil lamp, all lit up until they glow and emulate the warmth of a little home hearth. I love it. The wind howls, the tent quivers with the strain but holds firmly, and we sleep like babies in the womb.

Happy Trails, Beatlick Pamela 4.20.09


Beatlick TR: A Ukrainian Easter

My mechanic Michael Elliott is my greatest enabler. Without him we would never be realizing our dream. He’s not just a mechanic; he has an aura, an awareness of spirit that makes us trust him completely. When we arrived at his house we found him as usual with a lot full of vans. I “have lust in my heart” as Jimmy Carter phrased it, for the teal blue 79 Westphalia. But that one’s out of my price range and besides I do love my van with all its flaws because I know Michael built the engine and did all the hard work on that particular van with us in mind. So there is a connection there.

He also has a 1967 blue-and-white VW bus, another 1968 one, and a red 1969 Westphalia, “Westie” as they are called. When I was looking for my van we couldn’t even find one for sale. These buses offer a freedom most folks can appreciate these days. He can be contacted a germancars@q.com.

Michael also found the tent attachment that goes to our van. When we come to Organ for a tune up we just set up the tent and camp for a few days in Aguirre Springs campground while Michael works on our vehicle. He also invited us to a really special Easter celebration at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We have gone there before with him, it’s a beautiful small chapel and I was eager to give some thanks. So we all planned for the unique service.

First - it was a week later than most services. It started on a Saturday night at 10 p.m., with three, count them three, hours of chanting and singing; all along with incense being swung all about, a candle ceremony, and contemplative walk outside and around the chapel.

At 1 a.m. there was a feast and celebration. Baskets of bread, wine, sausages, cakes, you name it, were all spread out. I started out with the celebratory shot of apple brandy someone was passing around from the “old country.” Just like white lightnin’. The people there were so interesting, from Russia, the Ukraine, England, and multiple places in between. There were two priests and a monk. These guys were so approachable, so ordinary, they created such an ambiance of humor and acceptance that it becomes quite evident why this tiny little church is growing. We three had a ball.

Then Michael went out to the parking lot and climbed into his van, we followed and got into ours, and there we slept in the church parking lot. Next morning we headed over to the WalMart parking lot.

The van drives like a dream, stronger than it has ever been before. I've got to take care of some details in Las Cruces like renewing my tags and paying up my car insurance before we can take off. That gives us a perfect opportunity to go to the El Palacio reading before heading east.

Our route back to Tennessee will be a southerly one, following Highway 90 through south Texas, way south. Then we are going to head to the New Orleans Jazz Festival. I'm going to revisit the old mansion turned into a hostel, that I used to live in and help run down in the Bywater District of the Ninth Ward.

Happy Trails, Beatlick Pamela 4.20.09


Beatlick TR: Gage Hotel, Marathon, TX

We pulled out of Las Cruces with aching hearts as we said goodbye to so many good friends, made the poetry reading at El Palacio on Tuesday night, and hit the road on Wednesday.

It was a great drive picking up Highway 90 out of Van Horn. I saw a red-headed buzzard, something I've never seen before, and a herd of some weird looking antelope/deer sort of creatures. There were so many in a herd, about 30, that I wonder if someone is raising them like cattle. Don't know.

We made it to Marathon, about 250 miles, in six hours or so. The Gage Hotel there is a great place, a former mansion of some cattle baron, now a swank yet still rustic hotel. What is so great is you can go into the lobby, hang a quick right past the receptionist, and enjoy the TV room with those great overstuffed leather couches and chairs, with a hugh wagon wheel type chandelier overhead. Cable TV. When you get lucky there is no one in there and it's a great place to watch TV. We caught some late night antics last night between Jon Stewart and Keith Oberman.

We took a walk past the old mansions in the area and came upon this really original place called Eve's Garden and B&B. I quote from there website:

Eve’s Garden is an organic Bed and Breakfast and Ecology Resource Center, located in the beautiful high mountain desert of West Texas, at the gateway to Big Bend National Park, in Marathon, Texas. Eve’s Garden is a research level organic gardening demonstration site and an urban hacienda, combining to provide a comfortable Bed and Breakfast environment and a conversational forum to address issues regarding the ecology we live in.

Every effort has been made to combine elements of “art”, “architecture”, and “ecology” in the layout and construction of this unusually progressive piece of work. A large amount of recycled content, strawbale buildings, paper adobe/fiber cement buildings, high Mexican contemporary color treatments, and a focus on locally produced food, conspire to create an aura of thoughtfulness.

“Thoughtfulness” — this is our goal — to motivate our guests to pursue the projects they have in their minds, and recognize that they can make a difference.

Well the site and lot are certainly different. It looks like a movie set with all these podlike structures like so many big mushrooms in various stages of completion, and painted garishly in bright colors to look like crayola mosques. In the back of the lot are enormous stacks of drying concrete blocks, building materials, cement mixers, and about a dozen projects going on simultaneously. It's quite a site in this tiny little town.

The van is running like a dream, the strongest it's ever been. I just can't believe my good fortune. I'll have to do 250 miles every day to get to the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. That might not happen, but the trip will be great regardless. I am going to report on my return to the old mansion I used to work in when it was renovated into a hostel. It was in the Ninth Ward, the Bywater diststrict, near the canal.

I'm told the Bywater area didn't get hit as bad as the Ninth Ward on the other side of the canal. We'll find out. There is a tease of rain in the air and clouds today. Can't remember the last time I got rained on. And I don't think I'm going to be cold anymore. We slept on top of the covers last night at our urban campsite across from the Gage Hotel.

Happy Trails, Beatlick Pamela 4.23.09