How's your BS detector?

If you would like a refresher in basic logic—say, for the sake of dealing with all the distortions and untruths floating around in the political arena these days—then you may find a lovely summary by Liberal Jarhead at Bring it On! I highly recommend it.

Here is one of Jarhead's introductory paragraphs:

There’s nothing wrong with disagreement, and a good debate leaves everyone involved better off for having had to consider other points of view and reassess their own. But for that to be true, the disagreement has to make sense. What I’m talking about here has nothing to do with honest, reasonable debate and everything to do with substituting ugly emotions and closed-mindedness for thought and real argument.

—The BB

Thought I'd disappeared?

A reasonable inference. I have been doing other things than blog of late. Transition is the keyword.

My Monday-to-Friday life has been full of transitions, assisting an office as its functions were split between two entities and two locations, traveling with the smaller portion, and providing continuity and cross-training.

My weekend life has seen me say goodbye to my dearest work in the Bay Area and end a position I had held for 10.5 years.

I have just completed my sixth course at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley as part of a postgraduate program.

I have been writing fantasy fiction in the past few months, picking up a thread I laid down 31 years ago. Four full stories are emerging from this and I am at the halfway point in the one that launches the entire series. It has only been in my head for over three decades and is finally coming into text. A huge challenge and great fun.

And on the larger stage, I have celebrated my sixtieth birthday by purchasing a new home in Albuquerque, after a lifetime lived in my native California.

All right, "transitions" is an understatement.

I am excited and have dubbed the sixties as "the decade of adventure." T. S. Eliot said that old men should be explorers.

That's the news in a nutshell.
The BB

It must be springtime

With the red-breasted robin (Turdus migratorius, or migratory thrush) perched outside, spring must surely be here. I ignore the vernal equinox as the announcer of season because in the San Francisco East Bay more certain signs are the blooming plums and Magnolia tulipifera which blossom by my feast day (Conversion of St Paul, January 25). The robin may be seen through the blinds in this shot I took this morning.

I noted this as several robins have been showing up lately and I do not recall seeing them outside my window in prior years.

Church, State, and Theocracy

I have been posting an essay/extended meditation on the way of Jesus versus the way of Caesar on the church blog for St Cuddy's (St Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland). Rather than crosspost--because I am a technopeasant and have no idea how to do it--I am simply linking the installments here.

Satan's Throne
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

'Shrooms on the lawn

These seem to have popped up in the past couple of days.

Speaking of the last couple of days....
Yesterday a great egret flew by in front of my place, a sight I had never seen from my office window before. I used to see them all the time when I worked next to the Aquatic Park in Berkeley, but not it is rare. They are such beautiful birds. I have no idea how to interpret such a sign but I know I was blessed by it.

The BB

January 29, 2006, Sunset

Northumbrian Pilgrimage 1997

During the Summer of 1997 I was blessed to spend two weeks in Durham, England, for a seminar on Celtic spirituality and modern mission. We stayed in the Bishop's Castle, which is now a dormitory for University College of the University of Durham. Across the green from us sat Durham Cathedral, site of the shrine of St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and the tomb of the Venerable Bede. The entire complex has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

We had day trips to Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Hexham Abbey, Wearmouth and Jarrow, Hadrian's Wall, and other sites related to Northumbrian history and the Celtic and Saxon saints who flourished during a rich age of cultural and spiritual cross-fertilization.

The timing of posts related to this extraordinary pilgrimage is related to my having a new scanner and being able to scan the photographs I took back then, along with having a bit of down time to do it. The posts themselves are at the blog for St Cuddy's and I am merely providing links here, but I wanted friends of the Byzigenous Buddhapalian to have easy access to them.

May blessings from the Creator abound in your lives and the prayers of St Cuddy support you.

The BB

Lindisfarne / Holy Island

Lindisfarne Priory-Part 1

Lindisfarne Priory-Part 2

Hobthrush Island

Lindisfarne & Durham Architecture-Part 1

Lindisfarne & Durham Architecture-Part 2

St Mary's Parish Church-Lindisfarne

Lindisfarne / St Mary's

The Chi Rho Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels

St Cuthbert foretells a death

Cuthbert becomes a bishop

I will update this if and when I have some more. Happy journeying to all weblog pilgrims!

The Retrograde Metronome

Gnus and views
and baby Kangaroos;
Fillets and skillets
and soldiers in very odd billets.

There once was a bearsy named Boris
Who questioned a tree in the forest,
"Can a teddy bear fly?"
"We don't know, silly guy,"
Replied the required Greek chorus.

As the rain still continued to drizzle
And the bull dribble piss from his pizzle,
The wind softly soughed
As the cannon was stuffed,
But when lit, all the fuse did was fizzle.

With that we conclude today's intro
Thought we're not really sure what we meant, so
We will quit while ahead
As the ungrateful dead
Haunt the vacuous spaces al dentro.

You've been great! Thank you all! Good night!

PES
18 February 2006

Well, I just thought my whimsy output had been way too low of late and this bubbled up while sending an e-mail to a friend.

Light Perpetual

Lois Barloon, my beloved stepmom-in-law, passed into larger life today. May her soul and the souls of all the departed by the mercy of God rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon them. I shall miss her.

More Autumn

Plumes in the breeze
Monet comes to San Ramon, California
San Francisco Building, Albuquerque
Business park colors
Spare splendor

Autumn in Albuquerque

Shrubs springing amid river rocks
Motley leaves
Ash branches
Los Sandias
Ash leaves turning

The turning of the velvet ash

A few weeks ago I arrived in Albququerque, New Mexico, to work for my main man, Smokey Bear, once again. I am now on assignment with the Albuquerque Service Center of the Forest Service. Within the first week here I noticed ash trees, which probably identifies me with a small minority of the population. Botanists, arborists, landscape gardeners, lumberjacks, wood crafters, and tree lovers in general are probably the only folks who would recognize an ash tree but I grew up in Fresno, California, a city named in Spanish for the ash tree. In Fresno it is the Modesto ash; here in NM it is the velvet ash.

The trees were green when I arrived. A month has passed and they are bright yellow. The picture above is a close-up taken a couple of days ago. Along with the ubiquitous cottonwoods, the golden aspens in the Jemez Mountains, and scrub brush in general, the ash gives me a sense of place. Of course, the most prominent landmark here is the Sandia Mountains to the east of the city.

Let's out the WHIG

The White House Iraq Group is responsible for diverting this nation's energy and resources into an illegal and immoral invasion of another country, plunging it into chaos and setting it up for civil war. Isn't it time their deliberations were made public?

Check it out:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) today introduced a Resolution of Inquiry to demand the White House turn over all white papers, minutes, notes, emails or other communications kept by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

"This group, comprised of the President and Vice President's top aides, was critical in selling the Administration's case for war," stated Kucinich. "We now know that the Administration hyped intelligence and misled the American public and Congress in their effort to 'sell' the war. After over 1,900 American troops have been killed in Iraq, it is long past time for this Congress to ask serious questions about WHIG and its role in the lead up to the war."

A Resolution of Inquiry is a rare House procedure used to obtain documents from the Executive Branch. Under House rules, Kucinich's resolution is referred to committee, and action must be taken in committee within 14 legislative days.

"For two-and-a-half years Congress has sat on the sidelines neglecting its oversight responsibility when it has come to Iraq," continued Kucinich. "We owe it to the American people to hold this Administration accountable and to find out the truth."

--From Afterdowningstreet.org

You may take action to urge your Representative to co-sponsor or support this resolution here.

Thanks,
The BB

New life...hmmmm

In the last post I mentioned that classic sign of new life: doves billing and cooing and building nests. It seems my deck has become a favorite hangout for the randy birds and my! but they do soil the places they hang out.

Beware what you rejoice in.

BB

Donkey's years, I know

Can I honestly say life has been all that busy? Too busy to post? Yes and no. For a while after the previous post I was very busy at work. Then the contract came to an end and there was time to post. Instead I have been busy either reading other people's work, mostly political, and traveling.

A week in Albuquerque for reconnecting, recreation, and discernment. Time with my ex is always well spent. The week was both intense and wonderful. The intensity was belied by time spent chilling, but that does not mean lots of "processing" was not taking place.

The first treat was a night in Santa Fe, dinner at the SantaCafé followed by a stunning performance of Mozart's Lucio Silla at the Santa Fe Opera. This posting would be too long if I allowed myself to ramble about the brilliance of the production. The singing was superb, the music not as dramatic and memorable as later Mozart but still lovely, the costumes outlandish but fun, the staging surreal and effective, and the dancers were not only effective but also quite hot. The palette of the production was thoroughly neutral: black, white, many shades of gray, silver, and highlights of blood red. The threat of violence was everpresent, from the opening rope dance with its obvious bondage representing life under the Roman dictator Sulla, to the effective use of stage blood gushing, not from a body but from the pierced back of a chair upholstered in white. Improbably as it was, the ending was a happy one, inspiring some of us to wish a certain powerful person in our own time would repent and change course.

The second treat was another trip to Santa Fe, with a day of rest in between, for the Spanish Market with its panorama of arts in the traditional of craftwork from the Spanish colonial days of New Mexico. Leather, tin, and iron work; retablos and bultos (portraits and carved statues of the saints); straw inlays and woodcarving; hand woven textiles--all of it quite splendid. Qualities of workmanship and inspiration varied with the artists, of course, but there were some pieces that could move one to contemplation and others to esthetic wonder. Moments of this experience qualified it for Sunday worship and communion with the divine, so no guilt for playing hooky from church this Lord's Day. The adjoining Contemporary Spanish Market had its own variety of works, some of them delightful and some of them stunningly beautiful.

A dinner party featuring many vegetables from the garden allowed me to see delightful persons I had met before and to meet some new ones. Food and company were both excellent. Another dinner gave me the chance to reconnect with our fellow godparent, my sister-in-law's sister. Meals are such wonderful ways to be together, and breakfast and Spanish conversation with the lovely Susana rounded out visiting.

The third major outing was a drive to Ácoma where we took the walking tour of this millenium-old pueblo. I felt especially drawn to the cemetery and all the generations of ancestors whose remains lie there. Another time of non-liturgical prayer and communion. As in the San Francisco Bay Area, I could not help noticing the presence of the ravens and zopilotes (turkey vultures), who have played a major part in my psychic energy in the past year. The day was stunningly beautiful, the sky vast, the sun brilliant. The continuous residence of a people for at least ten centuries in one place, ever re-inventing their limited space and struggling to maintain their unique identity: humbling and fascinating.

There was also househunting and I saw places I can visualize myself inhabiting. The question was finally settled; I am going to move to Albuquerque. Much will need to be done--tons of packing and sorting before my current home can even be staged for sale; moving arrangements; finding employment in New Mexico. The initial goal is simply accomplishing the move and getting stable employment. When I have some financial stability (and the cost of housing is a major driver in this), then I can address other issues: finishing my doctoral program, exploring new avenues of ministry, deepening and broadening my expression in liturgical arts. Creating new social circles and developing new roots, of course, and learning how to stay connected with those I leave behing (something I have historically been terrible at), negotiating that new relatedness by which my ex and I rejoice to be near each other while not being too near.

Ah, newness. So this is why those carrion birds have kept appearing in my life, cleaning my psychic carcass for something new! And the doves that arrived outside my window this spring, harbingers of new life and fertility. What now comes to birth in me? I do not know. But I feel good about taking the steps and making the changes.

Well, how was that for catching up? More later.

The BB

Something It Has Never Been

Something It Has Never Been
By Daniel J. Webster
Article in The Witness, Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The Anglican Communion has been evolving for 150 years. It continues to. It likely is turning away from Richard Hooker and more towards Oliver Cromwell.

Thus begins my friend Dan's article on the Anglican Communion after the 13th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham. While proud of the presentations by the American and Canadian provinces, I am distressed by other developments. There are those in the Anglican Communion who would like to see a centralized canon law, which I see as a move toward the centralized model of the Roman Catholic Church [which is ultimately monarchical]. At the latest ACC meeting it was decided to admit the Primates of the several provinces as ex-officio members of the Council. This gives the exclusively male clergy at the highest level of hierarchy inordinate presence and power at these meetings. I was horrified to learn of the move, though I grant the convenience of timing ACC meetings and Primates' meetings to coordinate for the sake of communication.

I want to urge our friends to read Dan's article by clicking on its title above.

Minority Voices Excluded in House of Reps

Have you seen the video of Sensenbrenner adjourning a hearing (illegally?) in violation of House procedures?

Howard Dean Speaks for Me

I find fence-sitting Democrats to be a liability when we are a minority in a society that is rapidly losing its minority voices and with a government that seeks to quash minority voices and minority rights.

Howard Dean, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, is willing to take unpopular positions (opposition to the war in Iraq before the American people wised up to its specious reasons and lack of strategy and resources, for example) and to speak out with passion. While the MSM ("mainstream media") rolled their eyes and endlessly played the tape of his famous yell/roar, I thought he was simply an energized rallier of troops who was willing to show enthusiasm--and thank God for that!

Of late he has dared to publicly state the obvious, that the Republican Party is basically white and Christian, and refused to back down. Why should he? This statement is so overwhelmingly true that protests are pure hypocrisy. Sure some persons of color have contributed to the GOP in significant ways (though why they would do so I have no idea, with the exception of the anti-Castro Miami Cuban community). But what is the impact of Republican policies on minorities? It's not pretty.

More controversial was Dean's comment about most Republican leaders--note, not most Republicans--not having done an honest day's work. Please, can't anyone speak in hyperbole anymore? Today we would lynch Jesus on cable TV and in the newspapers just for his teaching methods! What is the underlying truth behind Dean's statement? That the GOP does not represent the working class or the interests of the working class. All one has to do is look at the shift of the tax burden from the wealthiest to ordinary working folk, the cuts in social services which are most needed by those who do not have large cash reserves, the crisis in medical coverage and the rise in bankruptcies for medical expenses (now more difficult to file for, to the delight of the banking and credit industries), the mandating of school testing without matching funds to accomplish it, and reduction in environmental protections (which disproportionately affects those who cannot afford to live where the water is purer and the air is cleaner).

Just to pick one egregious example from the GOP, George W Bush ineffectively pursued a number of failed business ventures, relying on bailouts from his father's wealthy friends to salvage them, made money on a baseball deal funded by a large amount of money from taxpayers, executed what can only be a profitable bit of insider trading (for which he was not prosecuted by the SEC but neither was he exonerated), and then rode into Washington on a fraudelent election in November 2000. Now he tells us how hard it is to be president in spite of his spending over 40% of his time in office on vacation, poses as a rancher though he is terrified of horses, and cannot take time from his busy schedule to attend the funeral of a single troop killed in Iraq. Never misses his workouts though, even when the White House and Congress are being evacuated.

I signed the petition saying that Howard Dean speaks for me.

So did Barbara Lee.

So does Harry Reid.

So does John Conyers.

So does Nancy Pelosi.

Compromise with extremists is another form of yielding to terrorists. America is under attack, attack by the leaders of the Republican Party and conservative Christian extremists. I will say no more to keep this a "family-friendly" forum.

Please add your signatures to the petition if Howard Dean speaks for you. Thank you.
The BB

With Smokey Bear, one of my childhood icons. After living almost six decades, I still find posing with Smokey a total rush. And remember, only you can help prevent forest fires! 

I was not on vacation

My apologies, friends and browsers, for the long absence. Life got very busy as I found myself working full-time for the Forest Service (crunching numbers, though some of you know my secret fantasy of being a ranger leading folks on nature hikes) and juggling two part-time jobs. One was the church and the other was theological tutoring (which I love). Toss in the Thursday night class I was taking in Berkeley and there was neither time nor energy to keep a blog going.

Tutoring ended, as did the semester, and I am beginning to feel as normal as normal ever gets in my life, so I’m back…and badder than ever.

I have long enjoyed textile arts, whether viewing what can be done with fabrics and threads and yarns or actually sewing myself. In the past month I have launched into knitting, an activity that is at once creative, productive, and relaxing. Being a total beginner has rarely stopped me from trying things, though I do need to take some knitting classes. Still, I have managed to do stockinet and garter stitches and even some yarnovers. If you did not want a scarf for Christmas, too bad, folks.

Years of dining at Fatapple’s in El Cerrito have been a joy, a habit, a form of social comfort. They have also faced me with Skein Lane across the street, a shop dedicated to knitting, crochet, and other crafty things to do with strands of fibers. I have visited it just to enjoy the sensual pleasure of all those colors and textures, but now it has become a den of temptation, akin to bookstores and art supply houses.

Caution: Sudden Change of Course

Although my political reading on the internet is less intense than it was leading up to the November election, I still try to follow national and international politics on a daily basis. We are, I believe, in very dark times and Sauron must be stopped, so gather together, whoever you in a contemporary fellowship of the ring may be, we have a task before us. May love, friendship, persistence, courage, and truth sustain us.

I was not convinced that we needed to invade Iraq while watching the current administration’s single-minded pursuit of exactly such an action. The case was never adequately made and we clearly were not doing it as a last resort. I will grant that the threat of force may well have been necessary to convince Hussein to permit inspections, but when the inspections were finally working we cut them short. Though my human weakness for self-righteousness is tempted to gloat and say, “I told you so,” it is quickly overwhelmed by deep sorrow that the United States should pursue a course so wrong on so many levels.

Now, of course, we and the Iraqi and Afghani people daily pay the price for our willful behavior. We abandoned the pursuit of bin Laden and the securing and rebuilding of Afghanistan to divert our forces to Iraq, which had no direct links to al Qaeda and none to 9/11. We have relinquished any moral authority we may have had in our flouting international law, the Geneva Conventions, and common decency in our treatment of prisoners. We have ignored the lofty principles enshrined in our own founding documents. We have thumbed our nose at the community of nations. The White House has thrown away the international good will that came our way after the brutality of the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, manufacturing a war is nothing new on the face of the globe and Citizen Hearst certainly knew how to drum up conflict. Nonetheless, watching power coalescing ever more in the hands of a callous kleptocracy is sickening. The undermining of American democracy by those who have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution sickens the heart.

The Downing Street Minute confirms what many of us always suspected: that Bush and company were determined to attack Iraq and would manipulate information to do so. Other strands are woven in as we just learned that Bolton, W’s nominee as ambassador to the UN, forced the ouster of the man heading the international inspections for chemical weapons in order to render inspections ineffective and preclude a peaceful resolution. The world now knows that Hussein did not have the alleged stockpiles of functional WMD. And the President of the United States lies to the American people and the world.

Reporters and pundits are careful not to word it so strongly, but the documentation of his saying things that are not true is solid. Does he intend to deceive or mislead (which would move speaking things untrue into the category of lying)? Given the ability of the human heart and mind to deceive the very self, perhaps he believes he speaks truly. I believe he usually does. But I do not think it is accidental or coincidental that he repeatedly says one thing and does another (All Children Left Behind, Dirtier Air Act, etc.) or that he tries to create impressions that so clearly fail to square with facts (the purported crisis in Social Security, the role of Hussein in international terrorism, the radical redistribution of wealth from the working class to the ownership class). He said the intelligence committee had declared Bolton’s activity all right after examining papers requested by a different committee, but the intelligence committee did not see the papers and two members of it had only seen summaries. They indicated that even what they saw raised grave concerns, and their committee had no jurisdiction over the nomination. I say he lied, deliberately trying to weasel out of admitting that it is the secretive White House that is obstructionist in the machinery of government though its acquisition of increasing power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches of government—and at the expense of our democracy.

Well, I just needed to get that rant off my chest.

More interesting and edifying topics ahead….

The BB