Fiona McCann
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'Our souls are love, and a continual farewell'
Ephemera --William Butler Yeats  "YOUR eyes that once were never weary of mine Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids, Because our love is waning." And then She: "Although our love is waning, let us stand By the lone border of the lake once more, Together in that hour of gentleness When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep. How far away the stars seem, and how far Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!" Pensive they paced along the faded leaves, While slowly he whose hand held hers replied: "Passion has often worn our wandering hearts." The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once A rabbit old and lame limped down the path; Autumn was over him: and now they stood On the lone border of the lake once more: Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes, In bosom and hair. "Ah, do not mourn," he said, "That we are tired, for other loves await us; Hate on and love through unrepining hours. Before us lies eternity; our souls Are love, and a continual farewell." Painting by Palestinian Ismail Shammout Found at Annie's Letters |
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A wee bit of prison humour
 There is a happy land, doon Duke Street Jail, Where a' the prisoners stand, tied tae a nail. Ham an' eggs they never see, dirty watter fur yer tea; There they live in misery - God save the Queen! --Duke Street Prison The Glasgow Story |
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togetherness!
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My old music :)
So, my da was one of these people who no matter what he was up to, he liked his music and endeavoured to foist it off on anyone in earshot. As he had a rather weird taste which I attribute to the cousins who had emigrated to America, we all grew up listening to things from across the pond that we might not have heard ordinarily. My da also inherited a taste for classical music, and I can clearly remember Tchaikovsky's cannons booming repeatedly as Da played the 1812 Overture. I much preferred Mozart and the melancholy-ness of Beethoven, but the aggressive nature of the classical kept us all hyper. 'Tis a wonder I grew up as sensitive as I am.  At any rate, the playlist I am giving you here is on a Blogsome website which allows the posting of such. I didna even test 20six because this looks cleaner anyway.  Playlist |
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Rescuers struggle to save stranded dolphins
Lee Glendinning Guardian Monday June 9 2008 More than 20 dolphins have died and several others remain stranded after swimming up a river in Cornwall, in what rescuers have described as the biggest mass stranding of marine life for 27 years. Coastguards were alerted at 8.30am today after a visitor at a nearby guesthouse noticed a dolphin that appeared to have beached itself in Porth Creek, near Falmouth.  Dead dolphins recovered from Porth Creek, in Cornwall. [Photograph: Adam Gerrar/SWNS.COM] When they arrived to launch a rescue operation, many more dolphins had become stranded. It is thought the first dolphin may have sent out a distress signal that lured the others up the river Percuil. "Initially, one swam up and got disoriented in shallow water," said Neil Oliver, from the Falmouth coastguard. "It put out a distress call and it looks as though the others have followed and thought 'We'll find out what's going on'.'' Divers, the fire brigade, conservationists and lifeboats were taking part in the rescue mission. Dave Nicoll, a lifeboat helmsman, said: "It's a horrible scene of carnage with bodies everywhere, but we are doing our best to help and will continue to support the expert groups. "We have been trying to help those who are alive and have already succeeded in getting five back into the water. We think the pod have been attracted by the cries for help from those that are stuck in the creek." A spokeswoman for the RNLI said three volunteer lifeboat crew members had managed to help five dolphins back out to deeper water. Many dolphins were already dead when they arrived and others were struggling in the shallow waters. Tony Woodley, the national spokesman for British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said the charity would put all of its resources into the rescue operation. "We haven't seen a stranding anywhere near this scale since 1981 when pilot whales were beached on the east coast. This is extremely rare. We are warning people that many will die but we may be able to save some." It is understood the creatures are striped dolphins, which are not naturally a coastal breed. Woodley said they were ocean-going and had probably followed fish that were feeding on a large algal bloom in the area. "Logistically, a rescue like this is a minefield. It is very difficult to manage. You have to get all the dolphins together; if one or two leave the river system they will just come back to rejoin the main social group." |
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Tomgram: William Astore, Militarizing Your Cyberspace
From: Tom Dispatch.com June 05, 2008 10:49 am *This article has many onsite links within it which you can access by clicking the top link Be depressed. Be very depressed. You thought that cyberspace -- a term conjured up long ago by that neuromancer, sci-fi author William Gibson -- was the last frontier of freedom. Well, think again. If the U.S. Air Force has anything to say about it, cyber-freedom will, in the not so distant future, be just another word for domination. Air Force officials, despite a year-long air surge in Iraq, undoubtedly worry that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's "next wars" (two, three, many Afghanistans) won't have much room for air glory. Recently, looking for new realms to bomb, it launched itself into cyberspace. The Air Force has now set up its own Cyber Command, redefined the Internet as just more "air space" fit for "cyber-craft," and launched its own Bush-style preemptive strike on the other military services for budgetary control of the same. If that's not enough for you, it's now proposing a massive $30 billion cyberspace boondoggle, as retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore writes below, that will, theoretically, provide the Air Force with the ability to fry any computer on Earth. And don't think the other services are likely to take this lying down. Expect cyberwar in the Pentagon before this is all over. In the meantime, think of cyberspace, in military terms, as a new realm for nuclear-style strategy, with its own developing version of "first-strike capability," its own future versions of "mutually assured destruction," its own "windows of vulnerability" to be closed (while exploiting those of the enemy), and undoubtedly its own "cyber-gaps." In fact, it looks like the national-security version of cyberspace may soon be a very, very busy place. Noah Shachtman, who covers the subject like a rug at his Wired Magazine Danger Room blog, recently noted that Comcast, the country's second-largest Internet provider, "has just advertised for an engineer to handle 'reconnaissance' and 'analysis' of 'subscriber intelligence' for the company's 'National Security Operations'" -- that is, for the U.S. government. ("Day-to-day tasks, the company says in an online job listing, will include 'deploy[ing], installing] and remov[ing] strategic and tactical data intercept equipment on a nationwide basis to meet Comcast and Government lawful intercept needs.'") Ain't that sweet. And it shouldn't be too tough a job. As Shachtman also points out, "Since May 2007, all Internet providers have been required to install gear for easy wiretapping under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act." Sigh. Those who don't learn from history are bound to… get ever more bloated budgets. Tom Attention Geeks and Hackers Uncle Sam's Cyber Force Wants You! By William J. Astore Recently, while I was on a visit to Salon.com, my computer screen momentarily went black. A glitch? A power surge? No, it was a pop-up ad for the U.S. Air Force, warning me that an enemy cyber-attack could come at any moment -- with dire consequences for my ability to connect to the Internet. It was an Outer Limits moment. Remember that eerie sci-fi show from the early 1960s? The one that began in a blur with the message, "There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission…." It felt a little like that. And speaking of Air Force ads, there's one currently running on TV and on the Internet that starts with a bird's eye view of the Pentagon as a narrator intones, "This building will be attacked three million times today. Who's going to protect it?" Two Army colleagues of mine nearly died on September 11, 2001, when the third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, so I can't say I appreciated the none-too-subtle reminder of that day's carnage. Leaving that aside, it turns out that the ad is referring to cyber-attacks and that the cyber protector it has in mind is a new breed of "air" warrior, part of an entirely new Cyber Command run by the Air Force. Using the latest technology, our cyber elite will "shoot down" enemy hackers and saboteurs, both foreign and domestic, thereby dominating the realm of cyberspace, just as the Air Force is currently seeking to dominate the planet's air space -- and then space itself "to the shining stars and beyond." Part of the Air Force's new "above all" vision of full-spectrum dominance, America's emerging cyber force has control fantasies that would impress George Orwell. Working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Department of Homeland Security, and other governmental agencies, the Air Force's stated goal is to gain access to, and control over, any and all networked computers, anywhere on Earth, at a proposed cost to you, the American taxpayer, of $30 billion over the first five years. Here, the Air Force is advancing the now familiar Bush-era idea that the only effective defense is a dominating offense. According to Lani Kass, previously the head of the Air Force's Cyberspace Task Force and now a special assistant to the Air Force Chief of Staff, "If you're defending in cyber [space], you're already too late. Cyber delivers on the original promise of air power. If you don't dominate in cyber, you cannot dominate in other domains." Such logic is commonplace in today's Air Force (as it has been for Bush administration foreign policy). A threat is identified, our vulnerability to it is trumpeted, and then our response is to spend tens of billions of dollars launching a quest for total domination. Thus, on May 12th of this year, the Air Force Research Laboratory posted an official "request for proposal" seeking contractor bids to begin the push to achieve "dominant cyber offensive engagement." The desired capabilities constitute a disturbing militarization of cyberspace: "Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root access to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms. Robust methodologies to enable access to any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware…. [T]echnology… to maintain an active presence within the adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected… [A]ny and all techniques to enable stealth and persistence capabilities… [C]apability to stealthily exfiltrate information from any remotely-located open or closed computer information systems…" Stealthily infiltrating, stealing, and exfiltrating: Sounds like cyber-cat burglars, or perhaps invisible cyber-SEALS, as in that U.S. Navy "empty beach at night" commercial. This is consistent with an Air Force-sponsored concept paper on "network-centric warfare," which posits the deployment of so-called "cyber-craft" in cyberspace to "disable terminals, nodes or the entire network as well as send commands to ‘fry' their hard drives." Somebody clever with acronyms came up with D5, an all-encompassing term that embraces the ability to deceive, deny, disrupt, degrade, and destroy an enemy's computer information systems. No one, it seems, is the least bit worried that a single-minded pursuit of cyber-"destruction" -- analogous to that "crush… kill… destroy" android on the 1960s TV series "Lost in Space" -- could create a new arena for that old Cold War nuclear acronym MAD (mutually assured destruction), as America's enemies and rivals seek to D5 our terminals, nodes, and networks. Here's another less-than-comforting thought: America's new Cyber Force will most likely be widely distributed in basing terms. In fact, the Air Force prefers a "headquarters" spread across several bases here in the U.S., thereby cleverly tapping the political support of more than a few members of Congress. Finally, if, after all this talk of the need for "information dominance" and the five D's, you still remain skeptical, the Air Force has prepared an online "What Do You Think?" survey and quiz (paid for, again, by you, the taxpayer, of course) to silence naysayers and cyberspace appeasers. It will disabuse you of the notion that the Internet is a somewhat benign realm where cooperation of all sorts, including the international sort, is possible. You'll learn, instead, that we face nothing but ceaseless hostility from cyber-thugs seeking to terrorize all of us everywhere all the time. Of Ugly Babies, Icebergs, and Air Force Computer Systems Computers and their various networks are unquestionably vital to our national defense -- indeed, to our very way of life -- and we do need to be able to protect them from cyber attacks. In addition, striking at an enemy's ability to command and control its forces has always been part of warfare. But spending $6 billion a year for five years on a mini-Manhattan Project to atomize our opponents' computer networks is an escalatory boondoggle of the worst sort. Leaving aside the striking potential for the abuse of privacy, or the potentially destabilizing responses of rivals to such aggressive online plans, the Air Force's militarization of cyberspace is likely to yield uncertain technical benefits at inflated prices, if my experience working on two big Air Force computer projects counts for anything. Admittedly, that experience is a bit dated, but keep in mind that the wheels of procurement reform at the Department of Defense (DoD) do turn slowly, when they turn at all. Two decades ago, while I was at the Space Surveillance Center in Cheyenne Mountain, the Air Force awarded a contract to update our computer system. The new system, known as SPADOC 4, was, as one Air Force tester put it, the "ugly baby." Years later, and no prettier, the baby finally came on-line, part of a Cheyenne Mountain upgrade that was hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. One Air Force captain described it in the following way: "The SPADOC system was… designed very poorly in terms of its human machine interface… [leading to] a lot of work arounds that make learning the system difficult… [Fortunately,] people are adaptable and they can learn to operate a poorly designed machine, like SPADOC, [but the result is] increased training time, increased stress for the operators, increased human errors under stress and unused machine capabilities." My second experience came a decade ago, when I worked on the Air Force Mission Support System or AFMSS. The idea was to enable pilots to plan their missions using the latest tools of technology, rather than paper charts, rulers, and calculators. A sound idea, but again botched in execution. The Air Force tried to design a mission planner for every platform and mission, from tankers to bombers. To meet such disparate needs took time, money, and massive computing power, so the Air Force went with Unix-based SPARC platforms, which occupied a small room. The software itself was difficult to learn, even counter-intuitive. While the Air Force struggled, year after year, to get AFMSS to work, competitors came along with PC-based flight planners, which provided 80% of AFMSS's functionality at a fraction of the cost. Naturally, pilots began clamoring for the portable, easy-to-learn PC system. Fundamentally, the whole DoD procurement cycle had gone wrong -- and there lies a lesson for the present cyber-moment. The Pentagon is fairly good at producing decent ships, tanks, and planes (never mind the typical cost overruns, the gold-plating, and so on). After all, an advanced ship or tank, even deployed a few years late, is normally still an effective weapon. But a computer system a few years late? That's a paperweight or a doorstop. That's your basic disaster. Hence the push for the DoD to rely, whenever possible, on COTS, or commercial-off-the-shelf, software and hardware. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's only the Pentagon that has trouble designing, acquiring, and fielding new computer systems. Think of it as a problem of large, by-the-book bureaucracies. Just look at the FBI's computer debacle attempting (for years) to install new systems that failed disastrously, or for that matter the ever more imperial Microsoft's struggles with Vista. Judging by my past experience with large-scale Air Force computer projects, that $30 billion will turn out to be just the tip of the cyber-war procurement iceberg and, while you're at it, call those "five years" of development 10. Shackled to a multi-year procurement cycle of great regulatory rigidity and complexity, the Air Force is likely to struggle but fail to keep up with the far more flexible and creative cyber world, which almost daily sees the fielding of new machines and applications. Loving Big "Cyber" Brother Our military is the ultimate centralized, bureaucratic, hierarchical organization. Its tolerance for errors and risky or "deviant" behavior is low. Its culture is designed to foster obedience, loyalty, regularity, and predictability, all usually necessary in handling frantic life-or-death combat situations. It is difficult to imagine a culture more antithetical to the world of computer developers, programmers, and hackers. So expect a culture clash in militarized cyberspace -- and more taxpayers' money wasted -- as the Internet and the civilian computing world continue to outpace anything the DoD can muster. If, however, the Air Force should somehow manage to defy the odds and succeed, the future might be even scarier. After all, do we really want the military to dominate cyberspace? Let's say we answer "yes" because we love our big "Above All" cyber brother. Now, imagine you're Chinese or Indian or Russian. Would you really cede total cyber dominance to the United States without a fight? Not likely. You would simply launch -- or intensify -- your own cyber war efforts. Interestingly, a few people have surmised that the Air Force's cyber war plans are so outlandish they must be bluster -- a sort of warning shot to competitors not to dare risk a cyber attack on the U.S., because they'd then face cyber obliteration. Yet it's more likely that the Air Force is quite sincere in promoting its $30 billion "mini-Manhattan" cyber-war project. It has its own private reasons for attempting to expand into a new realm (and so create new budget authority as well). After all, as a service, it's been somewhat marginalized in the War on Terror. Today's Air Force is in a flat spin, its new planes so expensive that relatively few can be purchased, its pilots increasingly diverted to "fly" Predators and Reapers -- unmanned aerial vehicles -- its top command eager to ward off the threat of future irrelevancy. But even in cyberspace, irrelevancy may prove the name of the game. Judging by the results of previous U.S. military-run computer projects, future Air Force "cyber-craft" may prove more than a day late and billions of dollars short. William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He currently teaches at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. A regular contributor to Tomdispatch, he is the author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac, 2005). His email is wastore@pct.edu. |
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Baby rhino born at Dublin zoo
Breaking News.ie 04/06/2008 *There is a really cute video clip of the new baby on the article which you can watch full screen.  It's not exactly the pitter patter of tiny feet but Dublin Zoo's latest arrival has been meeting the public for the first time today.The newest addition to its animal family - a white rhino calf has been getting familiarised with its surroundings at the heart of the Phoenix park in Dublin.. The 70kg female was born last week, and zoo keepers say mother and baby are thriving. The rhino has yet to be named, but it is expected that a public competition will be launched to find a winning name. It is the first rhino born at the Phoenix Park zoo in fourteen years. |
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Never let them see you sweat
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A good thought
Yesterday I got this in my email:  '...the tiniest gesture -- a smile, a gentle look, a simple pat on the arm, a soft word -- can change a person's life. Before this very day is out, you are going to have a chance to live in that possibility. Look. Watch. See what this day brings you. And be ready.' I believe this holds true for all of us and for every day! |
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What about it?
 Every morning I get an email from Neale Donald Walsch, who wrote the popular religious series of books called Conversations with God. Neale has now made a cottage industry of his popularity and runs online courses, seminars cruises and an internet store. I dislike people who turn religion into a business, however even these kind have some good points to make and some useful advice, so it behooves me to read whatever I can find that might prove beneficial to me. I suppose I should look at in this way: everyone has to make a living; Neal is no different. This morning's email said that he believed God wanted me to know this: '...that love is sometimes shown in the things you don't say, don't keep track of, and don't notice. The greatest kindness is often shown in letting things go. None of us is perfect, but we can all be perfect friends and perfect partners by allowing those that we love to be imperfect.' Just thought I would mention that. It doesna work though. You are seen as weak and stupid when you love no matter what. 
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TO LOVE IS TO SUFFER!
 "To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down."--Woody Allen |
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Tails with happy endings!
 Little Chelsie is only 6 months old, but she already has a past to be proud of. Not so long ago, she was a hungry, homeless kitten who happened to wander into Ann Bryant's garden in Westminster, California. Refreshed by three solid meals, she then went back out and rounded up her two brothers. Now they are all one happy family. (from the Page-a-Day Calendar of Cats) |
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Secret sharing
The fundamental dichotomy of so-called blogging is this. On the one hand, we want our secrets to be hush hush. Many times we seek to hide our identities, at least so that we cannot be easily tracked or stalked by someone unsavoury, should they take a notion to do so. Yet we have an overwhelming desire to share with the world, otherwise why else would we post ONLINE? In wanting to share, we want to get feedback. I'm presuming this because I know I do. Perhaps some of you dun care whether anyone reads it or makes note of you or not--but then why be on the INTERNET? You could easily keep a paper journal or just a note file on your hard drive. All the journaling sites I know specifically have provision for receiving comments. Some sites make it so difficult that you have to jump through hoops in order to make a responce. Some are too easy and get a lot of spam. But no matter what, it is always nice to know that someone somewhere has taken the time to read what you said and tell you how you have affected them. When it is your friends who are involved, replies become more problematic. I personally feel that when my close friends make entries, that it is my responsibility as their friend to eventually take a look and acknowledge it in some way. Perhaps this willna happen every single time, depending upon how often they post or how busy or depressed I am. :-p To not do so is to say to my friend, you are not that important to me. I have better things to do than to bother with your thoughts and opinions or whatever it is you feel like sharing. I have been told I take the internet too seriously. But to me, the people you count as friends on the net are ever bit as important as people in your real life, and sometimes even more so. Hand in hand with this ideal is the fact that if I share something with you that I feel you specifically might enjoy, and you refuse to consider it, then you are telling me you dun respect my judgement. It's like giving someone a treasured book for their birthday and having them toss it in the garbage without even looking at it. It's a bit of a slap in the face. There are some people whom I feel affection for who are completely different from me in tastes and abilities and interests. Yet because I care for them, I make an effort to familiarise myself with some of what they enjoy. The bible says it is more blessed to give than to receive, but once in awhile 'tis nice to be able to receive as well. |
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You can come out now!
If you will take a quick sprint over to Pete's blog, you can read about a book that sounds very interesting and thought provoking.  Yesterday I went over to user 'blackrat' because he was listed on the most read list, but what I found was a swan song in farewell to 20six. I was a bit put off. All of his arguments for leaving were familiar to me. I left 20six myself when it changed systems. I kept my old blog in storage, however, and even made a google search engine for the entries for everyone that were temporarily lost in the migration. I dunno how long ago I came back and worked at putting a new layout on my site. All my entries and archives were there. It looked nice. My computer just wasn't up to speed enough to handle the site. Now, however, I have the patience and the system to work with it, and I see a few people here I know, so I have decided to hang around and make a nuisance of myself. :-pI tried to persuade Steve from the old 'carnagevisors' site to come back for a visit, but he said no. He is sort of with me over at melodramatic.com. Steve was my best friend here. He still is one of my best friends. Aaaand, he has a beautiful cat!
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my head hurts
I was paddling about on the INTERWEBS and decided to row over here, and lo and behold I had a comment! It was from Pete (amillionpieces). You see, the last time I wandered over here was when I was fighting with my digital SO (significant other). I was despondent, depressed and anxious. I was resigned to a lingering loneliness and a virtual isolated existence. I was slinking back over here to have somewhere safe to be. But it didna last long. My SO and I always get back together, and especially now that I have finally learnt my lesson, which is to defer to him in every way possible so as not to annoy him as I do everybloodyone else. But anyway, today my head has kilt me all day long. I woke up this way. I have taken pain pill after pain pill, and I feel it has FED the pain rather than get rid of it. I long to just pass out, but it's difficult to lie down when your blood is doing a Niagra Falls impression in your ears. But anyway, I shall close this and see what has been going on over here this past week or so. ♥ |
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ugh!
I canny find anyplace on the net that I feel entirely good about anymore. Maybe it's because the various places are associated with various people. :-p DUH! If it were not for the people, maybe everything would be all right. But then I would be blogging in a vacuum. Maybe that's the solution. Blog in a vacuum, read it yourself and forget about developing any kind of relationships because they only bring pain. The more intense and significant the relationship--the worse the pain. Why? Because people lie and tell you things you come to depend upon, and then, before you know what's happening, they run off and you are wondering what you did to deserve to be treated like a bag of garbage. Of course, net life is like real life. You get led down the path in real life too, and the results are disastrous. Many times people think that real life supercedes anything virtual, but I am one to take my net relationships seriously, so when someone I like on the net, whom I THOUGHT was fond of me also, decides to jettison the connection without a backward glance after a couple years, I feel horrible. How do you all handle this? |
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Come on a my house
I shall edit this old post so that it is unrecognisable. :-p It was made when I moved over to Livejournal at >>fuise<< but BEFORE I went over to another couple websites after that one. I was very happy on one of them, but I am being made sad by it at this time due to personal issues, so I have come back here like a wounded animal, to tend my hurts and hopefully get better. *sniff* [...extreme sympathy ploy...] I dun expect anyone to have any sympathy for me. I am beginning not to expect anything from anyone any more. I am just tired and disillusioned. My head is also killing me at this time. I wish it would go ahead and finish the job. :-p [9 May 2008] 
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Wrong targets
Several interesting stories in the news today. First, there was >>this about the poor firefighter with the serious facial injuries received when he was performing his duties and got hit by a missle thrown by some nob. This happens all the time where I live. The firefighters and paramedics will rush out to some place to save someones life and instead of people being grateful, they get together and attack the lifesavers and do them and their vehicles damage. Does this make any sense to you? I myself have had my life saved by firefighters and paramedics, and I will always be eternally grateful to them. Being from the North, I can understand the antipathy to the peelers, but in no way should this be extended to those who brave all kinds of dangerous situations in order to save lives. Would YOU like to go into a burning building and try to find someone in the heat and thick, choking smoke to drag them to safety? It's a dangerous, traumatic job and how people can attack those who do it exceeds my ability to understand. Everyday these men and women are out on the streets facing horrible situations just to save lives. When I read about them being attacked, I am totally disgusted and pissed off. Then there were all the stories about the >>Christian Brothers closing up shop in Ireland. All the stories have two things in common. They are quick to point out that the Brothers offered a superior education to those who might otherwise have never been able to get one, but more importantly to me they illustrate what bloody sadistic bastards many, many of the Brothers were in their treatment of the children. I didn't need the news articles to tell me this. I've mates who can attest to this in reality. So all I have to say to the Brothers is: good riddance, and about fecking time.
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get your act together
 'Love is the only shocking act left on the face of the earth'~Sandra Bernhard~ photo source |
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vision
 Yesterday afternoon at the bus stop, I was sitting on the grass behind the bench, trying to stay in the shade and catch some of the breeze, when I saw a man with a long cane swinging from side to side in front of him come walking up the street. He slowed uncertainly beside another waiting woman, and I heard her tell him which street he was on and which buses came by there. Then she had to warn him about the iron post in front of him as he almost moved head on into it. This sight nearly made me weep for the reason that here was a young man in the heat, not even sure what street he was on and unable to see to steer clear of obstacles that would hurt him. I thought of the young student I had a couple years ago who trained seeing eye dogs, and I wondered why this man did not have one, but I know that many blind people do not. Then I thought of myself and how I would wish for a dog if I were blind because you would feel so alone if you couldn't see and had to make your way through the city unaided. The old internal chant played in my head of how cruel God is to afflict his people with so many tragedies and sorrows and burdens. It never ends. I watched this man all the way to my stop. He sat in the seat with his eyes closed. I thought of how he would be unable to read unless he knew Braille and how he would probably not use a computer--at least not in the usual way. He was so young, and I wondered if he had always been blind. Maybe he was quite used to his condition, but it didn't look like it. It just made me sad. |
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