Bush, vacation king

1833.....13769

President Bush is sometimes referred to as King George. And why not? He and his neocon buddies like to think of America as an empire rather than a democracy. Also, Boy George is the vacation king. Since he took office, he has spent nearly a year of that time vacationing just at his estate in Texas. That doesn't take into account the time he spends vacationing elsewhere. His current month plus at the ranch is his 49th vacation . And he was there just prior to the terrorist attack on 9-11. Yes, Mr. Home boy had information that an attack on the US was being planned but he went on vacation anyway.

I just read that George also takes two hour lunch breaks every day and doesn't "do" nights or weekends. Naturally the Republicans do their best to cast a mushy, golden glow over the whole thing. His press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Bush's latest vacation is "a time, really, for him to shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds." Really.

Then why won't Vacation King listen to what's on Cindy Sheehan's mind? Is it possibly because she'd like to see his ass impeached? She's the mother of the National Guardsman recently slain in Iraq. She went to Texas to confront Bush. I guess Cindy hasn't heard that nobody confronts Bush. Nobody!

If his so-called "meetings with the folks" were ever anything more than photo ops with very carefully screened audiences, a meeting with Cindy should be the one. But no. Instead, federal and local law enforcement officials halted her advance toward Bush's 1,600-acre estate.

Bush could hold a town hall meeting. Really. He could shed his coat, radio prompter, and bullet proof vest, roll up his sleeves for real and put his hand out to people, people other than in a hand-picked crowd. But he'll never face people who are angry, hurt or frustrated by the bogus war he started, his support for traitor Karl Rove or any of the other impeachable offenses he's committed. Instead, our self-declared "War President" poses for manly photos of himself chopping wood and driving his truck, pretending to be the all American guy he never was and never will be. We need real leaders, not playboy wannabes, greedy spineless senators, lackey judges or media whores like Robert Novak who are only too happy to support treason for the promise of a buck.

A Newsweek poll released Saturday shows that only 34% of Americans still approve of Bush's handling of the war. These are undoubtedly the idiots that only their news from Fox & company. Folks in the heartland are sick of your bullshit, Mr. Bush, and guess what? The whole country is the heartland, not just your medicated, pie-eyed followers. Since you left for your 5 week vacation, 34 more Americans have died in your war and 27 more have been injured. What are you going to do about that?

Bush - missing in action

1829
 
President Bush left Tuesday for his ranch in Crawford, Texas. It's his 49th vacation there since he took over the j_o_b. This time he'll be gone 5 weeks, the longest presidential retreat in 36 years! Retreat is right. Forget about the war, our dead, the world. Since "Mission Accomplished", George Bush is in full retreat from his personal, number one shit tsunami, Treasongate.

Just how much has this clown been "on vacation" during his presidency? First off, it's estimated he's at his ranch 20% of the time. Then there are his frequent visits to other plush hidey-holes like Camp David and his parents' compound in Maine. And for that round the clock protection, he takes mind-numbing drugs to help him keep his cool. All in all, Dubya is out of his office (and mind) what... 25, 45, 75 percent of the time?

But you can bet Treasongate has got Bushy Boy's attention. He absolutely cannot afford to lose Karl Rove. "Turd Blossom", as Bush affectionately calls this criminal master mind, is his "brain". So what does Dubya do? Like always. Duck out and leave matters to Turd Blossom, the dirtiest player to ever run country. Seems nearly everyone in Washington is under Karl's thumb so it's a crap shoot how all this will play out. However, one thing is certain. None of these thugs will look good with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.

Republican Jesus

Submit and then submit again

It's not that I haven't published before. It's just that it's been a long time. Why I stopped is a bit complicated and not a subject I feel like going into at midnight. I have been published. I have been a publisher. I stopped. Now I've started again. For that Bill Cowee, impresario of Ash Canyon Poets, gets a lot of credit. He's very encouraging. So today my yield was one poem and I'm still running on it. Then tomorrow and tomorrow I can do it all over again.

So far my labors have returned a submissions guidelines from Five Fingers Review, a magazine published in San Leandro, CA. They only accept submissions from June 1 to August 30th and require that you send a SASE if you want to know the issue's theme. I'll save you the trouble of writing. This time it's Intersecting Word and Image. Sounds interesting enough. Look em up online if you want to know more. Besides poetry, each issue contains fiction, essays, interviews, translations, and visual art. They're next.

Off to the post office

Okay, I got one poem off today. For me, that's very good. My tracking system is still evolving and will be for a long time, I'm afraid. I'm experimenting with a couple different approaches. Excel for one and an online database called Writer's Database, which seems really fussy but I'll give it a little time. I'm certainly open to suggestions, if anyone has any. Who knows? I may end up using a little black book.

Tar pits, past and future now

There actually aren't tar pits on Wilshire Blvd. They are called tar pits, the La Brea Tar Pits, but in fact they are asphalt pits or "seeps". Tar is a man-made commercial by-product. Asphalt is a naturally formed substance.



There are asphalt pits bubbling up along Wilshire Blvd. It's pretty amazing, especially among the office buildings and self absorbed hubbub of downtown LA. The pits contain millions of bones from creatures and plant skeletons from the last Ice Age and the asphalt itself is the gooey remains of ancient sea life that flourished when the Los Angeles Basin was still submerged in the sea.


A sad scene that plays out on this exact spot to this very day.



In geologic time we are currently 65 million years into the Cenozoic Era but the asphalt didn't start sucking in its victims until a mere 40,000 years ago. I didn't know all this until today when we visited the La Brea Tar Pits but it helps put things in perspective, especially with so many fundamentalist wanks doing everything they can to usher in their pet version of the End Times.

The La Brea excavation site is well worth a visit. Definitely put visiting them on your short list.

Unfortunately, it appears that we are its most current victims.

LA, tar pits and all

We're back from LA after dashing down there over the weekend. I knew we were going just not when. Lee needed to pick up the bass but he wanted to get a room through Priceline. In the summer the hotels are inclined to wait until the last minute to make them available. Anyway, we made a trip out of it and had a great time. We walked the beach for miles, visited tar pits filled with fossils from the last Ice Age, hiked in the mountains, caught a street filming of a movie, ate dinner in an Indian grocery store, saw some really interesting work by artist Tim Hawkinson, and a few floor sweepings by Rembrandt all without ever leaving the city limits. I took lots of photos (naturally) but it's 1 am so that will have to wait until later.

Photofile update, Mexico journal

I just added a third page to my Mexico file. These are all photos I took on our travels there last year. So far I've only posted three pages but you might find them interesting. I'm in the rears with this project so more to come. In fact, I have to get busy. We're planning to go back there this fall then I'll really be behind. It starts here.

New Salad Fingers episode

On the bright side, there's a new episode of Salad Fingers by David Firth. I find him very refreshing. He's one of my favorite artists. However, if you've never seen an episode, it might be best to start at the beginning. As ol Pastry Pete says himself, he's not for everybody wha-ha-ha-ha-ha.....

Treasongate in Mordor

I know it's silly comparing the White House to Mordor. Melodramatic. Childish. Evil empires are always the other guys, right? And anyway, we're a democracy, aren't we? Apparently some think otherwise. According to New York Times reporter Ron Suskind, the Bush people consider themselves rulers of an empire. Add "evil" to that, and I'll go along in part. Treasongate is a peek at just how dirty they're willing to be for power. It's inconceivable but they outed a CIA undercover agent for personal political advantage. If it weren't so serious, I'd almost find it amusing how the conservative press and politicians are at fever pitch trying to discredit the story. It reminds me of the movie "Wag the Dog". Remember that one? Hollywood's comic attempt to portray the dark side of capitalist politics. The idea was people will believe anything if you sell them the idea long enough and with enough aplomb...as though the tail can wag the dog. Treasongate is the product of Karl Rove's regime and his signature game plan, shock and awe. It's like poop wagging the dog.

Merikans going along with it are like the Germans who went along with Hitler and his war. Looking back, it's inconceivable but now the same thing is happening in the US. Bush supporters are completely in denial about how evil this administration is. There's no excuse. Denial is voluntary ignorance. They're like people sitting in a burning house with paper bags over their heads. Too bad. Things will probably have to get even worse before they think about getting out and fighting the fire. In the mean time, the task falls to the rest of us.

Merikan's are responding to Treasongate with things like "Kerry lost. Get over it". Talk about stale rhetoric! These guys must be huffing glue. Pathetic doesn't begin to describe them. The Republican Party, the corporate media whores and their stooge followers are morally, spiritually and ethically bankrupt. Naturally they're all doing everything they can to shore Rove up. He is their ace in the asshole. For the moment Bush & Co. rule from the Land of Shadow. So be it. They are too dense and arrogant to consider the notion of karma i.e. the law of cause and effect. But it's simple. Even they are subject to consequences. They have really fucked up and at some point, some Smeagol will destroy their magic ring. Like they say, it's not a question of if, it's only a question of when.

FIRE ROVE, mister president

They laughed at Bushie Boy. They called him a dilettante, a wastrel, a trust fund baby, but Bush had dreams and the money to buy them. That's where mercenary Karl Rove, aka Turd Blossom, comes in.



Like any disease, Rove is most effective out of sight, but given an inch, he stole the horizon. Over the years Turd Blossom has metastasized, transforming the Republican Party into a modern day Mafia. People who are a threat are either embarrassed and contained, like Senator John McCain,
or simply squeezed out and left behind. Ethics, fair play, even the truth seem powerless before Rove's assault. He is not hampered by morals.

The lesson for the kiddies? Crime pays. Today Turd Blossom, as Bush calls him, is the co-president of the United States of America. Karl is the brains. He has the power. He is the Commander-of-the-Chief of the United States military and puppet master and moral conscience of the Republican Party and its evangelical foot soldiers. Everyone is on the payroll. Not bad for a leech. Put simply, Karl Rove is a sociopath and we are all fucked.

Or is there a slim, slight, nearly impossible chance that Treasongate, Rove's outing of undercover Valerie Plame, might have...oh dare I say it... consequences? Like Nixon's Watergate, it could bring down their house of jokers.

excerpt from:
Rove: out of White House, into jail?
by Tim Wheeler

WASHINGTON —

“Bush’s Brain,” a political biography of Rove by Dallas Morning News reporters James Moore and Wayne Slater, reveals that Rove’s political skullduggery dates back to 1970 and was an important factor in the ultra-right’s rise to power in the U.S.

Rove was a Young Americans for Freedom operative working for the GOP in Illinois that year. Posing as a Democrat, he infiltrated Alan Dixon’s campaign headquarters in Chicago a few days before its official opening. Dixon was a Democratic candidate for state treasurer who later served in the U.S. Senate.

Rove stole campaign letterhead and made up a fake invitation to the Dixon opening with promises of “free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing.” He distributed 1,000 copies at soup kitchens. Hundreds showed up. Richard Nixon’s chief dirty trickster, Donald Segretti, went to jail for similar acts in the Watergate scandal.

In 1972, Rove was executive director of College Republicans. He and an accomplice, Bernie Robinson, organized 15 conferences to train youth how to campaign for Nixon’s re-election. Moore and Slater write that Rove “could not resist instructing his young audiences on dirty tricks — pranks, he called them.”

At an August 1972 seminar in Lexington, Ky., Rove, “with considerable delight talked about campaign espionage, about digging through an opponent’s garbage,” Moore and Slater write. “This was the summer of the Watergate break-in, with the first revelations of a scandal that unraveled the Nixon presidency.” Rove and Robinson “even specifically mentioned the Watergate break-in in their seminars, not as a reason to avoid campaign espionage, but as a caution to keep it secret.”

Decades later, Rove, chief strategist of George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, destroyed Bush’s main Republican challenger, Arizona Sen. John McCain, by leaking a racist falsehood that McCain had fathered an “illegitimate Black child.”

When Bush and Cheney saw their lead disappearing in Florida in the post-election battle, Rove recruited 250 goons to terrorize election officials to halt the vote count.

“Documents released to the IRS 19 months after the election show that the Bush team spent over a million dollars to fly operatives into Florida and another million to pay their hotel bills. The effort also relied on a fleet of corporate jets owned by people like Enron chairman Kenneth Lay … and Halliburton, where Vice President Dick Cheney had served as CEO. … Karl Rove, working with James A. Baker III, put it all together.”

But marching outside the White House last week were demonstrators with signs reading, “Bush, keep your promise: Fire Karl Rove.”

Tonopah, NV

I pass through Tonopah on a regular basis and have photographed it a lot. Here's a few pictures I took on my most recent visit.



Tonopah is in the center of the drain. I happen to enjoy the place but then I like lost worlds.



Strange and sad as they may be, they have interesting stories to tell.

Submitting poetry

I don't know why I have such a block against submitting poetry. I know it's "good enough". Total crap gets published. The big boogie fear of rejection is not my problem. Plus I promised myself, and a few pushy friends, that I'd start submitting after the writer's conference, as though that were a reason to wait. Now that's over I have no excuse. Plus I'm having neck and elbow surgery pretty soon and then I won't be able to do anything for a while. So got to get busy..........

....okay then....



Before I begin I have a confession to make. I'm a poet but I don't like writing or submitting, not poetry. Not anything. Clearly I prefer images. I can't seem to do a post without including at least one. Take these, for example. They're from another day I intended to write. I went to Comma Coffee for a change of scene but instead of writing, I photographed the place again. June has a flare, you have to admit. The whole place reeks of ambiance even if it is across the street from the Nevada State Senate.

Okay. I'll get busy now. I don't know why I have to write about it???

Oh. one more thing. Never mind. Why do I do this to myself?

Never mind.

Until next year

Whew! It's over. The Juniper Creek conference was wonderful, but it was a lot of intensity crammed into one tiny little weekend. It's Tuesday and I still feel like I'm slogging back across mud flats after being swept out by a huge wave.



It was great seeing people I met last year. Nice meeting new people. I learned a few things. I got some good feedback, good direction.
Gayle Brandeis was especially helpful. Thanks again, Gayle. Plus we sold enough copies of Ash Canyon Review to pay for the next two issues! Also, I picked up several new poetry books and journals: Hard Night by Christian Wiman, The Dumbbell Nebula by Steve Kowit, a couple of issues of The Sierra Nevada College Review, three issues of Caveat Lector, and a copy of Quercus Review. I've scattered them around the various places I sit for quiet and a cup of coffee. I've got some good summer reading ahead of me.

The best part of the conference for me however, was that my daughter attended it. I don't mind saying that, besides being a completely cool person, she is a wonderful writer. Contrary to popular opinion, moms are not disqualified from objectively knowing things like that! It was so incredible being there together as writers, friends and mom and daughter. It really doesn't get any better than that!

Juniper Creek Writer's Conference 05

We're mid-way through the writer's conference. Last night Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry Magazine, gave a nice keynote address. He addressed the pitiful irrelevance poetry has fallen to over the last several years. I couldn't agree more. The journal is the oldest in America and, since receiving a 200 million dollar endowment from a dear departed reader a couple of years ago, the richest. Maybe they'll be able to up the stakes a bit. I hope they manage to stay independent doing it. He mentioned he recently wrote an article critical of a government writing program offered soldiers returning from Iraq. He said for about a month after that his life was very uncomfortable, a bit like having Tony Soprano mad at you.

One of my poems was a finalist in the poetry contest and Christian is critiquing it in his workshop today, which is cool. I"m looking forward to hearing what he has to say about it.

Bush and the good ol boy network

What lies will Karl Rove cobble together now to save his ass? I'm sure it will be very creative. He is, after all, the master strategist that has guided Bush & Co. through so many scandals it's hard to keep track. Too bad he works for the dark side. He's a talent, that one.

Naturally, Bush flipped flopped on his promise to dismiss anyone involved in the Plame scandal. No surprise there. Bush needs Rove like the feet need the brain. Bush couldn't find his way to the bathroom without a instructions from Karl. And who better tends to Bush's chronic disorder, foot in mouth disease?

I'm so glad I don't have a television. I don't have to not watch what's not being covered by the right wing propaganda machine Fox and the other media whores parading as legitimate journalists ....... the truth about Karl Rove and Co. and his revenge on people telling it. Karl says black is white, evil is good, shit is ice cream....the media reports it and Amerrrkans believe it.

In WW2 traitors were executed. How times have changed. Now Republicans crucify Clinton for a blow job while Rove blows off the CIA and national security and gets the president's personal protection.

Bush & Rove - liars and traitors

George W(ar) Bush is a liar, a flip flopper, a promise breaker and a traitor. Karl Rove's treason has been exposed, still Bush refuses to cut him loose or turn him over to authorities. Why? Because, as he said today...

"Any individual who works here at the White House has my confidence. Everybody who is working here is helping us to advance an agenda, and that includes Karl in a big way."

Decoded, Karl Rove is the mastermind behind Bush's media success and it does require a genius to keep this idiot afloat. Too bad. America is getting reamed by loose lips and flaming assholes.

Karl Rove - mission aborted?

Excuse me while I go over the facts. Karl Rove leaked the secret CIA identity of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame. He did this to send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth. What truth was that? That President Bush lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. That President lied to get support for his invasion of Iraq. Bush was then, and is now, a liar. No surprise to me. I think the guy's psychotic anyway. Now Karl is taking the rap. What a stand up guy. I don't think so. Karl Rove is a rat bastard. He's merely being shoved in front of the oncoming train by the other, bigger rat bastards. Bush is the commander-in-chief. He's responsible for this mess. If ol' Commander Codpiece hadn't been so busy trying to cover his ass with lies none of this would have happened. Impeach the bastard! In fact, send em all to Guantanamo. After all, they are all traitors.

If the Dems let this one slip through their hands, send them too.

Polar Astronomy

Tony Travouillon is a scientist who works in some very exotic places. He also posts wonderful photos from his travels. His field? Polar astronomy. My god! I get instantly dizzy thinking about what the stars must look like from the South Pole. At least check out Dome C. There are some amazing pictures of walls of translucent blue ice, and fun ones of baby penguins and snoozing seals.

How many bombs is enough?

Saddam didn't have any WMDs but ever wonder just how many nuclear weapons the United States actually has? Hands down, we have the world's biggest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Any is too many but Bush & Co. certainly don't agree. Why should they? They make huge, private profits building, selling and buying them "for" us, to us. How many bombs do Americans currently "own"? Ben of Ben & Jerry's demonstrates the extent of America's nuclear arsenal in this very well done video. Bush doesn't want you to think about it so it must be important.

Merrily we sail along

I found this photo on a site about a hawk, Pale Male, who lives with his family on a ledge of a building along New York's Central Park. It's urban wildlife photography at it's best. Lincoln documents other critters as well, including this duck family. I think this photo is hilarious. It's not posed. They live in Central Park, not a zoo or an animal trainer's compound. I wonder who's in the boat behind them. Maybe it's a race and there is a crack team of sparrows manning the challenger craft. Or again perhaps it's a pigeon couple on a date. Notice the New Yorkers in the background. Nothing fazes them.


Ps. This month's Vanity Fair magazine includes an article on Pale Male and his mate Lola in case you want to read their story.

War

Nothing, not even victory
will erase the terrible hole of blood:
nothing, neither the sea, nor the passing
of sand and time, nor the geranium burning
over the grave.

~ Pablo Neruda

Karl Rove, American traitor

Given Bush's tendency to trip on his dick, keeping his presidential image on track requires a wizard. Up until now, Karl Rove has been just that man. He is a master of perception management, seducing public opinion with newspeak and doublespeak. I suspect he is the anonymous "senior advisor to Bush" who bragged "we are an empire now." Karl is the administration's number one expert empire builder. He is ruthless and it's worked. As the anonymous senior advisor bragged, "you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"


Unfortunately for Karl and the boys, some people have been keeping up with the lessons. Seems Karl Rove may be the one who revealed the cover of the undercover CIA agent to the media or at least approved the deal. That would make him a traitor. What's that old saying from World War 2? Loose lips sink ships? Which side are these guys on? Bush commits our military to Iraq, a country that wasn't a threat until he invaded it, and "someone" in the White House outs a US undercover operative who just happens to be investigating who is buying and selling weapons of mass destruction.

Heil Bush - Independence Day speech

A restricted gathering of about 2,000 carefully picked people listened to Bush's Fourth of July speech today aimed at promoting his bullshit war.

President Bush waves at Independence Day
celebrations at West Virginia University
in Morgantown, W.Va. - AP photo