"Say hello to my little friend."

What a crazy world this is! I've been sucking O2 for 58 years beneath these azure skies, listening to the electrical whirling of the wind flowing over the slopes of the Rockies to the West, and onto the plateau upon which I sit, here on the South Plains, and I've seen some really weird stuff in my time.
(Oh god, I'm sounding like a character out of a Dickens novel ["heh, heh, heh," he mumbled, a thin line of drool dripping off his stubbled chin. "I've hauled a lot of coal, pushed a lot of brick and snaked a lot of pipes in my day, boy!" Cough.])
So where was I? Oh yea, time, the planet, this life I've been given and all the weirdness that's manifested itself both inside and outside my head. But, here we are all the same. The planet spins through space at 16,000 mph (give or take), hurtling through the void in a circular (elliptical) path around the star that sustains our lives, and so many of us have so little to say or do or to give. It makes me sad to think that people complain about the most mundane, unimportant (to me), materialistic "things" while the rest of us are treading water fast as we can just to keep our noses above the oblivion line, beyond which we dare not cross.
My back hurts. My head hurts. My hands hurt. My heart hurts. Everything hurts!
Yea, yea, yea. So what? My love, she's a peach, and her pain erupts like Vesuvius – powerful, inexorable, annihilating pain that seems to never cease. Yet, somehow, she presses ahead and tries to see the beauty in life. She focuses on the few important things in her world (her daughter, her mother and father and sisters and in-laws and all those nieces and nephews and cousins and grand-uncles and -aunts). She focuses on the love that people share and the compassion that lifts her spirit enough to cope with the agony of opening her eyes in the morning. Sometimes it's too much and she crumples to the floor, overwhelmed and exhausted from the struggle. But she always finds a way to pull herself across the floor, to grip the edge of a chair and haul her body up and onto the seat.
And there are doctors who've actually said to her "But you shouldn't be feeling THAT MUCH pain!" or "it CAN'T be THAT bad." Idiots!
Some physicians are so small-minded and so invested in the political, bureaucratic bullS($@ that they've lost, or never had, the true calling that I believe physicians ought to know in their bones: which is to say, empathy, tenderness, informed, careful treatment aimed toward creating a postive environment in the patient's mind, which is the key to healing ANYTHING.
Some of these SOBs could care less. For many so-called doctors, it's all about sense of power they presume to hold; the power of life and death.
Or they concern themselves with the ability to pay cash for a two-week trip to Lisbon or Tahiti, or with that red-haired nurse (she's such a cute little "thang") who jumps at his (or her) every beck and call: "yessir," "yesmaam," "nosir," nomaam," and "right away, sir/maam."
Power and fortune are devices used by angels and demons to manipulate the ignorant and greedy, because they are such potent lures in the soul-thrashing business.
But that's neither here nor there, I suppose.
What I mean to say is, this world is an amazing and wondrous place and to ignore the infinite possibilities that linger in the ether, within anyone's reach if they dare, is to die long before you take your last breath.
What I mean to say is, whatever you do, do it well, do it completely, do it for yourself and for one other (at least), and do it until you know you're done.
Then, move on.
I've spent long, silent hours hitchhiking across this vast nation. In my youth, I made the choice that put on the road of uncertainty and danger, rather than the bland, predictable future my father pictured for me. But that's not really true either. My father, likely as not, never pictured a future for me. He was too busy. Too involved with football, baseball and basketball scores, and too tied-into social climbing to divert his attention from that frosty beer can and the tinkling glass of scotch next to the spread of cards on the green baize tabletop to spend precious time on musing about his son's future.



But I can't tell you what it was like to be the son of a drunken, Irish sportscaster who loved women so much, he married six of them (at last count) and managed to somehow wind up alone, dead, in a motel bed somewhere in Colorado.
C'est la vie.
I never understood that he chose a life that took him exactly where he wanted to go, too.
And despite the seeming awfulness of it all, far as appearances go, well, that just didn't much matter to him. He lived a "wild and crazy" life for as long as his liver would take it. And when his string ran out, well. There he was. Dead on a bed, alone, with a field of empty beer cans peppered about the room.
At least that's how I picture it. I wasn't really there. But it seems plausible to me.
Wyoming. There's a state of mind! The sky stretches further than the eye can conceive, so the eye freaks out and lands on any solid matter that breaks up the empty canvas, as it were.
Really, it's true. The sky in Wyoming seems to bend over the horizon, whispering "follow and I'll drop you into me." Hard to express how that sky effected me. But it did.
That and the big empty plains, cracked with washouts, crevices, ditches and prairie dog holes.
The high school kids would drive out into the prairie late at night and fire a few rounds from their 30-30s at an unsuspecting antelope or deer or whatever critter moved into their headlights. That was a big Friday night in Casper!
Wahoo!
But I digress. Don't I?
Some people are mysterious without meaning to be. Some people are mysterious because they're trying so hard to be. And some people are mysterious because they've got no reason to exist, and that's REALLY mysterious, to me.
College courses are tearing at my guts, sand-blasting my teeth and clawing my facial muscles so they tic and twitch as my eyes begin to blur and my mouth grows dry from the fear.
It's a terrible thing, this business of learning. It's a terrible and awesome thing, not to be trifled with in the least, I assure you. Walk softly and carry a GIGANTIC STICK if you dare venture into those woods, my friend. For the marbled halls of academia are home to the most powerful juju ever conceived by anyone's mind, human or no.
Hell, I can't even tell you about it 'cause I'm shaking so hard right now. Whew!
Once, an Indian (American native, if you get my drift) with a head that stretched from the mountain range to the West over to the glittering light of Venus up there in the inky night sky, once rattled my cage just for the helluvit.
These are the moments I'm trying to define so you don't have to, my friend. So you don't have to.
And by the way, "Happy Halloween" and "Happy Thanksgiving" and "Merry Christmas," too.
Swish, gargle and spit.

Please, would all you officious political pundits who're striving mightily to derail any substantive debate about America's healthcare system just draw a few clear, unequivocal lines in the proverbial sand? Why not honestly state that the GOP's Conservatives want to deconstruct Social Security and use the funds to bolster the military; that they want to do away with Medicare and Medicaid along with ALL social programs funded with federal dollars and pump that revenue into the military and related industries; and that GOP politicos crave power at least as much as Democrats, and, some at least, seem willing (perhaps anxiously licking their chops is a more apt phrase here) to destroy our system of government to gain it.
While right-wing talk show hosts rant about petty, inconsequential topics (i.e. President Obama's address to the nation's schoolchildren), elevating supposition, prediction and tea leaves to the status of "fact," debate on crushing issues that this country is facing is drowned out by the white noise of the baseless claims and unfounded charges casually thrown out by hard-right Conservative "beards," who're protecting the badly roughed-up Republican Party from too much scrutiny by spraying the airwaves with streams of obfuscation and vitriol directed at the president, the Democrats, and anyone who might ask a thoughtful question about finding solutions for the serious problems our country now bears.
The media mindlessly regurgitates mangled versions of "historical facts" asserted by loud-mouthed Conservative operatives as it laps up the gaffs, kerfluffles and snafus committed by celebrities and high-profile people. And subsequently, it neglects to provide us one iota of analysis, research or substantive, provable facts that support the outrageous claims being bellowed on our airwaves.
And when any scurrilous lout on the right finds himself in hot water for foot-in-mouth disease, well, he or she is immediately accorded "sainthood" by the GOP lapdogs.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who yelled out, "You lie!" during President Obama's recent speech about the healthcare bill before the House, (Wilson, apparently, disbelieves the president's claim that the healthcare bill will not cover illegal aliens), has been anointed "America's greatest living statesman," by Ann Coulter, as rabid a neo-con as one will find in the public arena today. And many people simply nod their heads in agreement, not thinking for a second about checking the facts or pursuing alternative paths to information on the subject.
Granted, Democrats in today's federal government are bunch of spineless, aimless sheep who've offered little in the way of original ideas and even less in terms of the courage of their convictions.
And though the GOP is foundering in a sea of incoherent voices, it has no lack of audacity in presenting narrow views about the role government should play in the daily lives of Americans.
I'd simply like to hear some coherent dialogue, both for and against, the proposed reform of America's healthcare system. I'm sick of the vacuous fury and empty thunder.

The GOP's tired old ad-hominum attack strategy is still effective, though, thankfully, far less so than it was 20 years ago, or even eight years ago.
Notice how the conservative or right-wing talk show hosts constantly sneer at President Obama as "the anointed one," and how they state that, once opposing viewpoints are presented to Obama, "he just can't take it."
The Republican Party is using the oldest trick in the book to deflect notice from the fact that none among its number have offered a viable, realistic option for the most pressing problems facing our nation today.
No healthcare plan – other than the same recycled "personal savings accounts" proposal floated back in 1993; no plan for Social Security's long-term survival, no plan for America's future as a major power in a world that's suffering from religious, racial, and economic violence, with no end in sight. Republicans offer no solutions for the issues of youth pregnancy, rampant STDs among teenagers, an over-priced, over burdened healthcare system that IS NOT the "best in the world," as the GOP cheerleader/talk show hosts are fond of repeating.
Nothing concrete or workable is coming from Republicans in Congress, so their political strategy boils down to attacking individuals' personalities – arguing against "radical change" that Obama's "Marxist" administration is "trying to ram down the throats of the American people." Never mind that it was a Republican president and Republican Congress that led us down the road of government bailouts. This crass policy that relishes demonizing individual politicians is dangerous and harmful, not only to the person being attacked but to the body politic in America. The thoughtless drones (read Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et al) whose voices seem to dominate the radio airwaves and Fox TV, whose talking points are crafted by hardcore GOP politicos – not from their own minds – don't give a damn if the nation falls apart or dissolves into civil strife of the highest order. For them, I believe, it's all about ratings, ad revenue and self aggrandizement (most important).
The talk show fat cats who robotically regurgitate the vacuous GOP talking points du jour have nothing of substance to discuss. Rather they simply sneer at and ridicule Democrats' ideas and proposals, regardless of the issue. And at this junctue in our history, ad hominum logic applied to politics is insanity, especially in a nation that's struggling with widespread job loss, international threats from all quarters, an economy that's still teetering on the edge of depression and a healthcare system that's gone crazy! We the people need leaders who lead, courageous politicians who put the nation ahead of personal gain. And, not least of all, we need HONESTY inside our government. So, if what you want is leaders who resort to name-calling, ugly slurs aimed against individuals and silly, sophomoric criticisms aimed at character assassination, not reasoned argument, then the GOP is the party for YOU.
But if you hope that America will rise from the slag heap that President Bush II left us, if you pray that the nation will begin to see new jobs created and embrace renewed hope for a strengthened American patriotism, as well as a desire for scientific and educational excellence and a society that values its children and its aged, then you might want to go another way, politically speaking. I'm not suggesting that the Democratic Party is the only option, either. Of course, Libertarians and Independents are out there, and some have great ideas. And maybe, just maybe, someone could come up with a fifth or sixth alternative political party that could give the old two-party system a run for its money. What matters to me is that the nation makes a course correction NOW, not later, and that the new course includes the aforementioned objectives. We really do have to come together to "form a more perfect union" or what union we now enjoy, I fear, will fly apart, overburdened by political leaders whose stock-in-trade is 100 percent bull$@*!, bitterness and empty rhetoric. Have a great weekend :)

Just a quick post because I'm hazy, lazy and downright beat from driving to Fort Worth and back in one day ... whew!
Anyway, just saw Peter Jackson's preview of "The Lovely Bones" and it looks creepy and beautiful. Also checked out a trailer for a flick titled "Grace," which looks truly horrifying.
Have a great weekend one and all.

Well, it's a sad and bleak fact that the economic condition of America the beautiful is, to say the least, sick. Oh, the spin doctors are grabbing hold of any "good" news to blazon across the headline spaces, "Economy is on the mend," or "Jobless rate slows," etc.
But people represent the statistics and people are suffering terribly because of lost income, lost homes and wrecked marriages (although that might not be directly related to the economy). I'm among the unemployed and let me tell you, it's a bitch! Seems to me that the more specialized your career skills, the less likely you are to find a job in a timely fashion.
Because I paid nearly $40,000 to earn that sheep skin which proclaims me a journalist, my options are so slim as to be non-existent, especially since I've decided to stay in Lubbock with the woman I love.
Recently, on "The Today Show," I heard a man who had double-digit years invested in a career with a city's mass transit system. His held a specialized, technical job position and a record that is impeccable. But he cannot find a job in his career field after nine months of diligent searching. Of course, at some point (once the unemployment insurance runs out) he'll have to take any job, a 7-11 clerkship or a Wal-Mart greeter gig just to put food on the table – if he's able to hang on to a table. It's sad! And it's bad! And it is what it is.
I'm trying to figure out how to expand my marketable skills, but the majority of available jobs in these parts that pay more than minimum wage are truck driving (requires a Class A driver's license), nursing and bank auditing. The federal jobs Web site listed about 20 bank auditor positions just here in Lubbock alone. Unfortunately, math was never my strong suit and a bachelor's degree in business administration would cost me another $20,000 and two years of struggling to get by on Pell Grants and Sallie Mae loans.
So far as retraining goes, I haven't come up with a viable plan yet.
I don't know why the media wasn't able to predict this meltdown two years ago, before it happened, but it's obvious to me that our news media is asleep at the wheel. Which leaves the electorate blindly fumbling around in the dark.
Good luck to all.

Watching the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma game and I think Brent Musberger must be going blind. The old goat couldn't call an accurate play when Batch or another Tech receiver clearly caught the football in bounds and had it knocked out of his grasp AFTER hitting the ground by the defensive player. It was a ridiculous call by the referees but an even more ridiculous call by Musberger because he got to watch it in slow-motion several times and never even mentioned that the defensive player landing on top of the Tech receiver knocked the ball loose AFTER the catch!
C'est la vie. Tech is struggling with the Oklahoma defensive line for the moment but Harrell needs to snap off a few quick-route passes for completions and put a scoring drive together and all will be well. It's only 7-0 Oklahoma at the moment. So if Tech can hold them to a field goal or better and keep the score close before the half than it's still ON!
But Tech must settle down and start executing plays on both sides of the ball. What's critical right now is that the defense must make a good play -- an interception would be excellent!
Damn! Oklahoma scored a TD on simple sweep run. Tech's defense looks logy, slow and clumsy right now. What's up? I wonder if it's not that Leach is cowed by his coaching mentor on the other side of the field and his weakness is being transmitted to the players???
Football is a weird freakin game!
Looks like defense is going to have to kick-start Texas Tech's game. The offense is disjointed and taking too long to develop plays. I don't understand why Leach can't figure out that he's got to call some fast-snap plays to break loose from the Oklahoma defensive attack. Every Tech play is taking way too long to develop and Leach seems content to allow it to go on at that pace, at least that's how it appears to me.
So GO DEFENSE!
OK. Now it's 21-0 and Oklahoma is having an easy time of it. Tech didn't come to play, apparently. Too bad. I really had hoped it was Tech's year after beating Texas and Oklahoma State. But right now, Tech looks like the old choke team of old. The teams whole season will be for naught if they get blown out tonight, and it's looking more and more like that's what's going to happen.
LIfe goes on. Go Tech!
Oh well. This game is all but over! And there's still a whole half to go yet. And Tech trails 42-7. Ugh! Oklahoma looks unstoppable against a weak, unorganized Tech defense. And Harrell and the offensive team is ineffectual and seemingly scared of the Oklahoma defense. Yup. It's the old Texas Tech Red Raiders that showed up in Norman tonight. Looks like the season will be 10-1 by the end of the game. And with such a pounding laid on the players, I"m not sure they can come back for the final game of the season. Hell, the way they're playing, a high school team could probably hold its own against the Tech team on the field tonight!
So, Happy Thanksgiving to all. And Happy Holidays, too!

Well, here we are in the waning days of the Bush presidency and the extent and breadth of the damage his Republican team has wrought on this nation is only now becoming clear to the vast majority of people. We the people ... what sadness that phrase evokes in my mind. We the people elected this man TWICE to lead us down a road of unfettered greed, rule by brute force, knee-jerk decision-making that created policies which eroded the Justice Department's credibility, indeed, its reason for existing, and military fiascos that cost thousands of lives around the world and here at home. We gave Bush unlimited power and he used it to spread the wealth among his personal friends, to undermine the Constitution of the United States, to steal the privileges and freedoms Americans have enjoyed since the turn of the century; he used presidential power to deliver death-blows to the body politic of the GOP, which will be long in recovering from the nightmare this president has bequeathed it. But it's not just the GOP that wandered off the track of democracy and into the fields of tyranny, fascism and autocracy. It was the electorate, we the people, who've placed our very lives in the hands of a team of men and women whose vision for the rule of America excludes most of its people participating in that rule. Bush had one agenda when he ascended to the presidency, and that was to prove he was tougher than his father, especially with regards to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, a brutish dictator in Iraq who dared to plot against the life of George senior. I believe that Bush 43 went into office knowing full well that, by hook or by crook, he was going to kill Saddam and make Iraq pay for the perceived indignity visited upon his family by that Middle East nation.
And so he did!
To number the evils visited on this nation by Bush and his administration will take decades of scholarly investigation and hard work to unveil the darkly cloaked secrets that he and his cronies wrapped 'round their policy-making process. If the "we the people" were to be privy to the sub-rosa meetings that developed the Bush doctrines and guiding principles, we probably would never sleep again!
But maybe we'll survive this president, yet. Of course, he still has a couple of months to exercise his unique brand of unfettered lunacy at the helm of state, so anything is possible. Perhaps he'll decide to launch nukes against Russia or Iran before his exits the world stage, just to prove to the world that he had the balls to do it. It would not surprise me.
But if we make it to Barack Obama's inauguration and beyond, hold on to your hats, 'we the people.' We're in for a really bumpy, thrill-soaked ride, I think. But what I hope for is a president who will hold steady to the Constitution's guiding principles and the moral spirit of our nation -- a spirit that I believe holds dear the least among us, the poor, the unfairly convicted, the wronged and discarded, the needy and the weak. If we, as a nation, cannot find our deeper impulses that spring from our spiritual relationship with the world, the universe and with one another, then we are doomed to die of our own hands.
No doubt about it. But if we can, once again, gain hold on our better natures, our instinct to do "good," to share, to lift up, to be the good Samaritan, to lead with love AND strength, with wisdom AND conviction, to be human beings who bear the mutual responsibility of life on this planet, then we might begin a new era in America and not only survive, but flourish and grow stronger than ever, as a nation and as individuals.
We must come together in bonds of mutual self-interests. We must embrace unions in our businesses, we must embrace health care for all our citizens; we must embrace freedom as a living concept made real by our tolerance and acceptance of others' viewpoints. We must submit when wrong, and stand tall when right. We must be willing to suffer the stones of criticism and derision that always greet the true and the honest. And honesty, above all, must become our guiding beacon in this world of intrigue and terror. Our honesty is at the core of the principles that created the Constitution. The men who gathered together in those frightening days of liberation from England by force of arms somehow knew, by intuition or predilection, that to form a bond between themselves and 'we the people' that honesty would be the rudder by which the ship of state would steer. Without honesty, our government is an enemy to the people. Without honesty, our government is a dark stalker whose motives are destruction and craven power for power's sake.
I shed tears when Obama won the presidency. Emotions long-dormant in my chest simply overwhelmed me (to my surprise) and I sobbed and quietly cried for all the pain and suffering born by American blacks and whites and Indians and Japanese and all stripes and colors in the name of freedom and democracy. Obama holds a promise of reclaiming the America that once evoked pride and admiration in the hearts of its citizenry. But, as he himself has said, that promise is ultimately in our own hands; ours to fulfill or lose forever.
I have deep empathy with our president-elect, and I hope and pray that he will get a break at critical moments during the coming historic challenges and events that will undoubtedly face him. But my deeper hope is that the 'we the people' that is our nation will rise up again, rise up wiling to bear the weight that gravity bestows on opposing forces, and it's a weight that boggles the mind! We, as a nation, have the power to destroy this planet. We have the power to level all nations, burn to cinder all oceans, lakes, mountains and plains. And if we forget this true fact, we will edge ever closer to the brink of that destruction. With weapons such as ours, total destruction is too easily accomplished. Just push a button and, voila! The deed is done.
We must acknowledge this fact again and again, and recognize the potential horror of it. Bush has strained the moral fiber of our nation to the point (almost) of rendering it beyond repair. And without a moral compass to lead our journey, human frailty will take the helm, and that will be the end of us all. For human frailty is all too predictable. It invariably chooses the impulse to act over the reasoned process of solving problems through deduction and insight, cooperation and determination.
If we continue to move along the trajectory laid down by Bush's administration, we will without a doubt destroy ourselves and all that life has become in our time.
But if we take up the burden of statesmanship and thought, if we decide to solve the world's problems, not simply beat them into submission, perhaps we will survive.