Reedy River Falls

I fully realize this is the umpteenth time I have posted photos of the falls, but I love them so much! During the spring, I try to visit about once a week or more.

Likewise, I know you've seen plenty of azaleas from me by now, but I simply can't resist them.

All photos from my Flickr page... And BTW, did you know that BY LAW you have to link back to Flickr? To your own photos? Hmph.

The Outing of Senator Lindsey Graham

Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet. The fanatics of various hues eye each other with suspicion and are ready to fly at each other's throat. But they are neighbors and almost of one family. They hate each other with the hatred of brothers. They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul. And it is easier for a fanatic Communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to be a sober liberal.

--Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

In this edition of DEAD AIR, we see that right-wing fanatics have attacked a moderate, although they are ostensibly on the same side politically. But as Eric Hoffer instructed us, the fanatic hates the moderate far more than he hates the fanatic who opposes him.

~*~


I haven't written about all of this yet, because I didn't know exactly what to say.

Certainly, I knew the day would come. I have written on the subject--admittedly mincing my words, dropping vague hints and otherwise hedging my bets. I wasn't eager to be sued. Now, I see that I could have written anything I wanted, and Senator Graham would have ignored me, as he is currently ignoring the extended media-foofaraw over his alleged homosexuality. I am currently kicking myself for not going whole hog, while at the same time, I worry about the vendetta being carried out by the nasty tea partiers.

(sigh)

I should have known, after Graham faced them down during last October's town hall meeting, that their last resort would be outing. South Carolina Democrats and liberals have been rightly fearful that another Strom Thurmond waits in the wings (and believe me, there are a parcel of em) to take Graham's seat. Although we heartily disagree with him on plenty of issues, we know how much worse it could be, and how much worse it certainly has been. (We also like having a moderate Republican in the senate, knowing he comes from the Upstate.)

I should have realized, it would be the far right, not the far left, that outed him. For one thing, the left doesn't really care what he does in the sack, we care about his politics. The major grudge GLBT activists have against him is that he has voted strictly anti-gay since his swearing in. This is truly galling, and the reason GLBT activists like Michelangelo Signorile are after him.

And so, here we are, at the moment of truth. What will Lindsey Graham do?

My advice to him is to continue ignoring this homophobic hoopla as long as possible. Any day now, he will be asked point-blank by the press. It's time for him to haul out that legendary charm, and WORK IT.

And while he's doing that, he can stop voting against his own people. Quietly and without fanfare. Just do it. Start withdrawing support from homophobic legislation, homophobic Republicans (Mary Matalin insists they ALL aren't homophobic) and homophobic activism. Just say no. Do not speak against gay marriage and make yourself look foolish, as Larry Craig so memorably did. Just keep your mouth shut, while depriving anti-gay politicians of your reliably anti-gay vote.

Always remember who did this to you--it was the right, not the left.

You owe them nothing. Not a damn thing, sir.

~*~

A few years ago, during some big local GOP fundraiser, Senator Graham's car got towed. Not a big deal, but I happened to know the folks who towed him. They described to me how he came in person (not like most VIPs, who routinely send flunkies/assistants) to get his car out of hock, all while making jokes about whether he had inadvertently parked in a Democratic spot. He shook everyone's hand, he told them to keep up the good work, enforcing the law ("even when it hurts!") by towing the cars that weren't legally parked. It's important work, and people don't often understand that, he told them. He thanked them for their hard work, thanked them for towing him. It's a dirty job, etc. And he smiled his trademark high-beam Southern Gentleman smile.

By the time he left the tow-yard, those guys would have handed over their firstborn sons to Senator Graham. They felt honored they had towed his car.

I also remember Lindsey Graham in the local Christmas parade, one of the few politicians who seems to enjoy riding in a convertible with Santa, various cheerleaders and police chiefs. He grins, laughs and waves, obviously having the time of his life, and the crowd always applauds him vigorously, waving back with undisguised enthusiasm, affection and aplomb. I have attempted not to wave back at him, since he IS a Republican....but this is simply impossible to do. As I have written here before, Lindsey Graham is one of the most charming people in the world.

It's time to use the charm, Senator. The Southern Gentleman that you so graciously embody, is being put to the test. It's time to rise above your critics. It's also time to remember who you are, and who they are. To put it very nakedly and very bluntly: They are people who would kill you if they had the chance. They want to eliminate gay people, and by labeling you gay, they have placed you in their (figurative, but possibly literal) cross-hairs. Please be careful. As you have learned, these people don't play fair.

And as always, stay tuned, sports fans.

From Brooklyn to Bob Jones University...

I was attempting to psychoanalyze the tea-partiers, when someone helpfully Twittered this article from New York magazine, titled Clash of the Bearded Ones, Hipsters, Hasids, and the Williamsburg Street.

All I could say was: Whoa.

Simply change the names of the principle protagonists, and it could be right here in Greenville; instead of "Hasids"--insert "Bob Jones University"--and you have the ongoing Culture War of Greenville. It's utterly amazing how little difference there is between the two groups, right down to the clothes.

Fundamentalists have so much in common, regardless of the religion in question.

Like the Brooklynites, we also have the situation of the new arrivals... the oodles of mega-trendy folk moving into lofts converted from old textile and cotton mills. Who worked in those mills? The BJU people's kinfolks, that's who. As I also wrote here, it can be particularly galling to be called a redneck and priced out of the town you built, as well as the actual neighborhood you grew up in. This feud is also about class and class-mobility; global vs local, and a host of other issues.

As my regular readers know, I dislike the Bob Jones people, and I doubt I'd get on any better with the Hasids. But they were there before anyone else... and I think that does count for something. (We seem to believe that it does count when discussing Native Americans, but not when discussing fundamentalists who have lived in one locale for a long period, and made said locale the desirable location it has now become.)

From the article:

The hipster incursion began in the late nineties and was first written off as a fluke—some strangely dressed types poking around the abandoned warehouses and factories. The initial reaction, says Isaac Abraham, who has lived in the neighborhood for 58 years after emigrating from Austria (“Schwarzenegger country!”), was indifference. “Maybe the red carpet wasn’t out for them, but they came in masses and there was no objection from the community. Everybody went on with their daily lives.”

But after a while, says one Hasidic real-estate developer, “People started talking to the rabbis—‘Hey, something’s happening, all these young white people are moving in.’ ” When the Satmars [Brooklyn Hasids] realized that the Artisten—the Yiddish name they used for the bewildering newcomers—were there to stay, something like panic set in. Rabbis exhorted landlords not to rent to the Artisten, builders not to build for them. One flyer asked God to “please remove from upon us the plague of the artists, so that we shall not drown in evil waters, and so that they shall not come to our residence to ruin it.’’ Rabbi Zalman Leib Fulop announced that the Artisten were “a bitter decree from Heaven,” a biblical trial.

Yowza, it's the same language! And the same concept: a war with the Domestic Evildoers.

The hyper-conservative Bob Jones folks (and their fellow travelers) are especially fond of this Old Testament verse: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."--II Chronicles 7:14.

They wear it on T-shirts and everything. If you were watching the various news networks' coverage of the recent tea-party rally in Washington D.C. (which they memorably held on the 15th anniversary of Timothy McVeigh's terrorist mass murder... aren't they just so cute with that shit?)*... then of course, you saw the t-shirt multiple times.

More from the article:

[In] 2007, came the bike lane, part of a citywide push to make streets more cycling-friendly. As bike lanes go, it wasn’t as plush as the ones springing up in Manhattan these days; it wasn’t even as nice as the one on neighboring Kent Avenue. But Bedford is Williamsburg’s main thoroughfare, and the pathway immediately found a thriving clientele. Morning to night, boys and girls whipped by Hasid minivans on their fixed-gears, hoods and hems flapping, thoughtful produce rattling in the baskets. It’s not that people didn’t bike down Bedford before, but the lane threw them into relief, marked them as a category.

The Satmars were incensed. Hasids are prohibited from looking at improperly dressed members of the opposite sex, and some complained that the women cycling through their neighborhood were an affront. “It’s a major issue, women passing through here in that dress code,” Simon Weiser, a Hasidic member of Community Board 1, told the Post. “Most Hasids have acclimated to living in New York,” says Sholom Deen, a semi-lapsed Hasid who, since 2003, has been publishing a blog called Hasidic Rebel. But each fresh bit of modernism—the Gretsch Building, the bus ads for Sex and the City—tends to touch off an uproar, he says, and the bikes were something new altogether: “It’s a direct intrusion.” The city, having spent $11,000 on the bike lane, appeared to encourage that intrusion, and the cyclists themselves seemed, if not improper, impudent. It felt like a seniority issue. “How long have you lived in the community that you now want to make the rules and totally ignore my opinion, when I’ve lived here for 50 years?” Abraham says. “You just got here. You either offer to help and do as the Romans do, or …”—and here Abraham goes into a spirited, if odd, impression of a spoiled young man—“ ‘I live here now. I lived here for ten years, and now I’m going to make rules for the entire community!’ ”

For a full year, the city seemed to ignore the hipster-Hasid war. Then, on December 1, 2009, came a sudden announcement. The Department of Transportation—under Janette Sadik-Khan, the bike-friendliest commissioner it’s ever had—was going to rip up “a small portion” of the lane between Flushing and Division Avenues, fourteen blocks in all. The deal to remove the lane is said to have been quietly brokered as far back as last April. Just about everyone’s assumption, including that of more than a few Hasids, is that Michael Bloomberg had needed the Satmars—who tend to vote enthusiastically and in a single block—in the upcoming election and that this was an easy bone to throw them.

On December 1, a crew of municipal workers descended on Bedford, sandblasting the lane and its stenciled biker figures off the asphalt. The next day, a group of three bike activists—Quinn Hechtropf, Katherine Piccochi, and a man we’ll call Ben—had an idea. That Friday night, around 3 a.m., they hit the street with aerosol cans and handmade stencils. According to Ben, more than a few Satmars saw them paint. “As they walked by, I made sure I said hello, explained to them that we’re not vandalizing the street, and asked if they wanted to help,” he says. “At first, they were a little standoffish, but a couple of guys had a sense of humor about it.” But by Saturday, fresh snow covered the group’s efforts, and the painters, encouraged by the adventure’s relative ease and cheered on by myriad bike blogs, decided to finish the job Sunday night.

Yes, a war over a bike lane. (You really need to read the whole thing!) I could easily see the same thing happening over on Wade Hampton Boulevard, which is why there will never be a bike lane over there.

And then, there is this side-account of some guys in a deli:

Right now, on a slow Thursday afternoon, the talk of the deli is Rachel, an 18-year-old Hasidic girl who “went off”—the local term for breaking with tradition.

“She got a huge tattoo,” reports Baruch Herzfeld to a gangly copper-haired cook in full beard and payess.

“No way,” says the cook, ecstatic. “No. Way.”

“Seriously. She shows it if you ask, too. Right here”—Herzfeld points at his thigh. “So fucking hot.”

The cook just grins.

I think this is what strikes abject fear into the hearts of all fundamentalists, and the author of the New York piece, Michael Idov, goes straight for it. I am thinking of that old hippie/biker bumper sticker: We have come for your daughters. Yes, this is the heart of it, and Idov knows it:

Herzfeld grabs his iPhone and opens Facebook, searching for photos of Rachel. The Hasidic Facebook is its own phenomenon, a parallel universe where the prim girls you see on the street in turban hats and snub-nosed forties shoes post their bikini snapshots and glamorously lit studio pictures. Herzfeld enthusiastically scrolls through his four-figure friend list, picking out the hotties for us to look at. “Esther. Hot girl. Her father is super-religious. The interesting part is how many friends they have. Look: 273 friends. Most of them are Hasidic guys.”

...

It is the undercurrent of thwarted lust beneath the Satmars’ pious exterior that’s causing the tension with the Artisten, Herzfeld believes (“Orthodox is you don’t want to look at a girl in a bathing suit. Ultra-Orthodox is you want to close down a beach”). And it’s also what will bring about the sect’s downfall, he says.

Herzfeld is convinced there’s a massive generational split within the Hasidic community...

And for the record, I believe this is true of Bob Jones University also. I've lived here for 22 years, and I've heard a lot of gossip; some of the kids can't wait to break loose, and don't waste any time doing it.

The internal inconsistencies certainly don't help, such as telling the faithful that Catholicism is evil, then paying the Church around a million dollars to get your son a Ph.D. from Notre Dame (?)... or claiming that Mormonism is an evil false gospel, all whilst backing a Mormon for president (?). Bob Jones (like the two Rabbis Teitelbaum of the Brooklyn Hasids) has one standard for himself, and another for the faithful. Very cultish, but seemingly acceptable to the cult. Go figure. One hopes that after awhile, they will wise up.

In any event, I am surrounded by conservatives, and I can feel their hostility towards the hip, young newcomers. I can also feel the derision of the newcomers, as they take for granted the beauty and good manners of the upstate, carefully crafted and cared for by the same people they despise.

Stay tuned, sports fans.




~*~


* Another internal inconsistency: we have tea-partiers claiming to be for law and order (or what Abbie Hoffman used to call Lawn Order), and openly celebrating a mass-murdering terrorist of 168 people. I ask you, would lefties be allowed to say "whoops!" and wink at the camera in the case of such a "coincidence"? Ha, not hardly. Why didn't they change the day of the rally? Obviously, this was intentional. Thank God, Bill Clinton didn't hold back.

Contemplating my obsolescence

I haven't had as much time to blog, because I've actually started hiking again. I started slow, and I am now up to about an hour and a half before I completely collapse. My beloved azaleas are in bloom, and it's a beautiful spring!

My goal is to someday be able to climb a real mountain again. At this admittedly-slow rate, it will be at least another year, but I am fervently hoping for next spring/summer... and I promise if I ever again get to the top of Table Rock, I will take oodles of photos for DEAD AIR--so you will all believe me!

~*~

As I said in this post (fabulous music awaits you at the link), the kids used to ask me the names of songs... but yesterday, I had to ask one of them. As you all know, it is impossible to Google lyrics from an instrumental song, since they have no lyrics. (sigh) Stranded, desolate and desperate... the pretty music plays on and on and you can't ever find it again. One 60s-era instrumental arrangement, in particular, has been haunting me for several months now. Upon hearing it again, I scurried over to the work-area of said young person, who then held his handy-dandy iPhone up to the speaker broadcasting my long-lost tune. Held the phone up, said the old lady, amazed...do you believe that shit?

Answer, within about 10 seconds: Cleo's Mood, by Junior Walker and the All Stars. (I have helpfully provided the long-lost song for you below. You knew I would.)

And that's what I mean about becoming obsolete. My musical memory is certainly no match for an iPhone application! Somehow, it makes me feel sad and exhilarated, all at once. I guess this is how the old mule skinner felt when he saw the Model-T Ford: Wow.

Just for that, adding Muleskinner Blues to our mix. (Just listen to her hit them high notes!!!)

~*~

Believe it or not, it was once considered pretty radical stuff for a woman to sing this song. (Notice she is careful to say she is a lady mule skinner.) Typically, Dolly takes a classic male song (about a male occupation!) and makes it totally her own, singing it far better than any man, with that Tennessee-wildcat soprano of hers. I've always loved this!

And for the record: It does not get more country than this, so if you don't like country music, do not listen. Really.

Mule Skinner Blues - Dolly Parton



~*~

My long-lost Motown instrumental! Brought to you by... the wonders of modern technology!

(Is this the coolest thing you ever heard or what?)

Cleo's Mood - Junior Walker and the All Stars



~*~

Last, but not least.

I grew up with this song, and I always think of it when any coal-miner is hurt. Dedicated to the miners in West Virginia, and their families; I'm sure lots of people are thinking about these words right now... and my prayers are with them.

Dark as a Dungeon (written by Merle Travis)

Oh come all you young fellers so young and so fine
Seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine
It'll form as a habit and seep in your soul
Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal

Well it's many a man that I've seen in my day
Who lived just to labor his whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

And pray when I'm gone and my ages shall roll
That my body would blacken and turn into coal
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miners digging my bones

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mine


Dark as a Dungeon - Dolly Parton

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open, was surprisingly wonderful. How rare to find an athlete with such articulate self-awareness. His memoir thoroughly convinced me that he really does hate the game of tennis, the game brutally forced on him as a child. Unfortunately, he can't quite stay away from it either, because it is the thing he knows how to do best in the world; the thing that makes him feel in control (as he never was during his childhood). A fascinating contradiction, and likely one that many child-stars have experienced.

What I kept wondering is: Why does this work so well?

Yes, we know it's bad to harass children to death...but take a look at those boffo results. (Obviously, this is what dad was thinking, too.)

Granted, it doesn't work on every child prodigy... After all, there were three sons before Andre, who failed and couldn't deliver, forever regarded by their father as disappointments and losers. Andre felt the pressure, as another tortured child, Michael Jackson (fifth son, to Andre's fourth) certainly felt it. I also think of Mozart, Patty Duke and countless others, including even Agassi's two wives: Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf. (Agassi is so deeply defined by his childhood-prodigy experience, that I seriously doubt he could bond with any woman who did not in some way share it.) At one point, Shields refers to Jackson as "just like us, he never had a childhood"--and it is clear that the show-biz kids identify very strongly with each other; the psycho-stage-parent thing is its own unique gestalt. (To his credit, Agassi doesn't take potshots at the infamous Teri Shields, but I would have.)

Agassi's father, an Iranian immigrant and former boxer working in Las Vegas (extremely determined to hit the big time), started on him when he was tiny. Andre daily faced a machine nicknamed "The Monster"--shooting tennis balls at him at a furiously fast rate. And little Andre hit them back, over and over and over, hour after hour, day after day. These sections are very difficult to read, since they are basically an account of child abuse. But it's legal child abuse. The book introduces us to a whole world of tennis camps and stage-dads, endlessly haranguing and pimping the kids. It's grueling and horrific. The Florida "tennis camp" is like Basic Training; they even sleep in barracks and eat gruel, shipped out by bus to a local school for prearranged half-days, which guarantees the kids plenty of time to practice, practice, practice. Hours and hours and hours. Andre learns to channel his considerable anger over these circumstances, into his game. He becomes a very aggressive, precocious player and enjoys beating everyone who takes him on. As a teenager, the capitalists come calling, giving him the endorsements he needs to drop out of school (in ninth grade) and hit the road. For a working-class kid who has always lived hand-to-mouth, the money is jaw-dropping and intoxicating, and he is quickly hooked on the life of a star. He collects an entourage, and the real games begin.

My question for discussion is: Does this child-prodigy-routine work or doesn't it?

I offer Andre, Mozart and Michael Jackson as proof that their dads seemed to be onto something. And as long as stage-parents can produce these kinds of results? The Oliver Twist-tennis camps will still be in business.

Would he have won eight Grand Slams without his father's horrible machine, firing those endless tennis balls at him and teaching him to return even the strongest, deadliest serve at astonishing speeds?

Can we make champions without child abuse? Would Michael Jackson and Mozart have existed without child abuse? Of course not.

It's a paradox. We watch the champions, we watch the movies, we watch the stars, and we are dazzled... but we also disapprove of the process by which they learned to dazzle us.

I speak as one long dazzled by Agassi's return volleys. And now I ask myself: was I dazzled by the results of child abuse? Apparently so.

Andre makes us aware. He had the awareness forced on him, and now, he shares it with us.

How I spent Lent

First, I read Gary Null's book, Death By Medicine, which promptly gave me a kidney stone.

Well, okay, I know the book didn't, but it sure felt that way.

For those interested, my weight loss is going extremely well. I am told that actual numbers "trigger" people in various and sundry ways, so I will refrain from providing actual poundages. I will simply say that my BMI is now in the merely "overweight" category, and has exited the alarming "obese" category. I lost 10% of my body weight during Lent, which believe it or not, wasn't that hard. Now we are approaching the same weight I have dealt with my whole life, which likely will be hard. Still, I have to say, after being repeatedly guaranteed that a woman my age with thyroid disease SIMPLY CAN'T lose weight, I am glad to report that this is another myth. Yes, it is possible... and in fact (here's the dirty secret), I think it's far easier since I no longer have a surplus of estrogen coursing through my body, demanding that I eat to ensure the safety of my progeny. You know those deadly-serious cravings you get about 10 days before the end of the menstrual cycle? (I guess the time-span is different for everyone, but you know what I mean.) Well, I am happy to report that THE CYCLICAL CRAVINGS ARE GONE. Along with my estrogen, that is... which of course means there is a down side to everything.

And I feel great (sans kidney stone), and my left knee stopped hurting!!! (Right knee? A stubborn lil sucker!) I took the kidney stone as a symptom of rapid weight loss, as gallstones can be also.

After reading Gary's scary book, I decided to avoid doctors, since I knew exactly what they would say anyway (I typed medical records, including nephrology, for a good long while) and realized they would use this golden opportunity to test me to an obscenely-expensive fare-thee-well. No tests, no crap, no sirree Bob!

I figured: 1) it probably was a stone, from the symptoms and likely cause and 2) ain't nothing you can do about it except take their nasty toxic drugs and wait for it to flush out. (I also knew that I should go to the ER if I started running a fever, which was virtually impossible while sweating non-stop, as I was.) So, I opted for what I tell my customers: literally gallons of dandelion tea and magnesium citrate. It passed within a day, but it was um, quite memorable... and during this unpleasant time, I locked my keys in my car while it was running and had to call Mr Daisy away from work (he was unusually kind and sympathetic about my stupidity!)...

~*~

If you think it's easy for a big-mouth like me to shut up for 6 weeks, you are RIGHT. Thus, I didn't.

I commented here (Alas, a Blog) on the newest pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church, and called on the Pope to resign. Of course, no one seriously replied to me (as they never do over there)... but I needed to post that somewhere to get it off my chest immediately.

Easter Sunday, woke up to more infuriating news that the whole scandal has been reduced to "petty gossip" by the Vatican.

(((Daisy yowls for emphasis)))

~*~

One of my favorite spiritual books, The Joy of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche which I also posted about here. It's a wonderful study guide for the layperson to use!


I had two genuine moments of all-encompassing karuna during Lent, that took me by storm. I was startled and unprepared. They were only a few minutes or so in duration, but they were overwhelming.

I was reminded of a passage from the William Butler Yeats poem, Vacillation (and such a perfect title):

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

I felt great compassion for everyone on earth, even the people I dislike most. Maybe especially for them; I could suddenly see how they had become the people they were. I could see their suffering, and how they/we have bent ourselves into all sorts of unreasonable shapes and angles, to avoid that suffering (which of course, causes even more).

In both cases, in both instances, I was left very shaken by this awareness. I felt myself almost deliberately withdrawing from this consciousness in the last instance: But I don't want to feel compassion for bad people! And I was fighting my own awareness. Concurrently, I realized I was withdrawing my request for enlightenment by fighting the compassion. My ego, my innate desire to feel superiority to others, my desire (need?) to dislike others, all defilements rooted in the material world, fought my desire for enlightenment.

And I heard my deepest self's incredulity: But isn't this what you wanted?

Ego replies: I don't WANT to feel compassion for evil people, they don't deserve it!

Deepest self: Do you deserve it?

Ouch! I remembered the Eucharistic liturgy, and the specific request that God not grant us what we truly deserve. During the (endless) Good Friday liturgy, and subsequent Veneration of the Cross, I took note of the role of the laity in the liturgy: we are the ones who shout "Crucify him!"... it isn't someone else who does it.

Give us Barabbas, not this one!

Do we forget our role in the Passion? Why do we think it would be any different if He returned now? We would do the same thing, all over again.

Look around, we do it all the time.

~*~

Glad to be back. Hope all is well with you, and please take note of my new moderation policy, inspired by people who would tell me getting an abortion is majorly right-on and terrific, but chew me out over trying to prevent a heart attack. No more, folks. New sheriff in town, etc.

I loves you guys and I missed you!!! (((sobs)))

Happy Easter!

And the angel spoke to the women, saying, you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth.

He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.

~*~

A Dead Air tradition revisited.

After the Goldrush - Prelude

[via FoxyTunes / Prelude]

Art by John Pitre. Song by Neil Young.