Israeli Cluster Bombs, Thanks to the United States

I am proud to be an American because we make the most sophisticated weapons in the world and use them to spread Peace, Freedom and Democracy around the world. I am especially proud that we sold them to Israel for use in Lebanon because it is obvious to me how useful they are for densely populated urban areas. If you kill the children who don't recognize bomblets and use them as toys, then you kill off future enemies. Brilliant logic.

To think that my dream as a youth was to live on a Kibbutz for a few years. I am not even Jewish but I read a biography of Golda Meier as a child and greatly admired her and the story of the Jewish State. I suuport thier right to exist as a Nation but I also support the Palestinian right to a nation. I do not support the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

What prompts this post? The New York Times article a few days ago that mentioned the cluster bombs and todays news that the United States in investigaing the alleged 'improper' use of the cluster munitions. What a joke, what a huge, giant joke on Israel and the United States. What the hell will the Israeli's do? Take care of the families they have killed? Provide medical care and plastic surgery? Actually APOLOGIZE for turning into terrorist themselves? Who will investigate the investigators? Who will watch the watchers? Most of all, who will protect the innocents?

Before I am assasinated by supporters of Israel let me rush to say that I know and empathize of many dissenters witin the ranks of the army and the civilian population. To the rest of Israel please look into the mirror to see what you are doing and have become. Please resist the influence of the United States although I recognize the close ties and financial support we provide. But who the hell are we to tell Israel what to do? I guess we do it to everyone else on the planet so why not Israel yes?

Why don't we stop making cluster munitions . . . but for a society based on profit and capitalism that would be anathema. Nothing like spreading Peace, Freedom and Democracy around the planet is there people. I am ashamed to be an American, ashamed of Israel, ashamed of Hezbollah (what idiots to kidnap two soldiers . . . an act without honor, meaning or utility!). Time to fire and retire the genius who ordered that peculiar debacle. For that Israel bombs Lebanon to the tune of three billion dollars of damage. Of course the United States will not lift a hand to assist - I'll bet on that.

Hey, anyone think this may interfere with my chances of being hired by the Department of State? Ha. So if you read this far thank you. I feel useless because all I can do is write and work and speak out. Would it be more useful to go over and work as a nurse? I don't know. Maybe someone in the world has a suggestion, an idea, some faint bit of hope they can offer not only to me but to the people who are suffering.

Thank you for reading.

David

A Measure of Humility . . . .

The last anonymous comment referenced feeling guilty for wanting. So let me correct and clarify that what I meant to say was that I had not been found lacking in humanity. Then I will quickly correct my statement to be more accurate and admit that many times I have acted in a prejudicial manner unbecoming the ideals I strive for. I'll continue to fail of course but my successes will hopefully outweigh my failures. It all depends on who judges, who bears the final responsibility for looking into our souls. So I hope this communicates my original intent. It sure sounded good when I read it at first and then to obviously fail so badly! Ha, THAT brings a measure of humility at least does it not?

I will admit to great wants. I see nothing wrong with that - we are human and as such are are subject to biologically determinants. We want safety, companionship, sex, food, things and so forth. I want so much at times yet when we lead a well examined life - what real needs exist? Most of mine are filled. Yet I still want, sometimes unreasonably at that. In retrospect my last post seems a bit trite and seemingly attempts to elevate myself above others by saying I have not been found wanting. Yet by saying that, I disprove myself. Ah, the luxury of words!

With that I will conclude for my next rant and rave about our poor excuse for a government.

Thanks for reading.

David

Trying to find meaning . . . .

. . . is a difficult task when our own lives are sometimes lived in such narrow pursuit of individual goals. For me it means to work three days a week in Pediatrics (which I love) and to pursue my goal of becoming a nurse practitioner through University of California at Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Toward that goal I also have to work two days a week with a Doctor and attempt to keep up with the associated homework and reading endemic to the program.

Meanwhile, many people do not have clean drinking water or enough food. They subsist on less than two dollars a day (I often spend that much on coffee in a day) and millions are dying from AIDS and neglect of the so called 'first world' countries like the one I live in (the disUnited States).

Guess I will just have to leave much of the year and work in places that don't have the help they need. I am sick of supporting killing with my tax dollars paying for weapons in Iraq and to give to the Israeli's to kill innocents in Lebanon. Do I think Iran should not do the same? Hell yes.

So I sit here in forced solitude in a library at an institute of higher learning at last and at least learning solid, reputable and useful skills that will truly benefit people. I choose to do so regardless of religion, race, ethncity or anything that confounds the freedom of someone in need. I have my prejudices people, let us just see if I alone can overcome them in my darkest hours when systems and the laws of man are utterly failing. Only then can the true measure of a man or woman be taken. I pray that I will not be found wanting. As of yet, I have not.

Updates, Bohemian Grove, U.C. Davis Nurse Practitioner Program

Somewhat hard to believe on one hand that I have not posted anything since April. Then again, given changes in my life, not hard to believe at all. I resigned from Palliative Care after working there for one year. Great work and even greater staff but I am happy to have had the experience and think that I may eventually come back to it. My hardest night? I lost five patients in five days, one each day. The sixth night while driving home I hit a Racoon and killed it. As I dragged it off the road I finally broke down and cried for awhile. Guess I could only take so much.

For the past two months I am now a Pediatric Nurse and am so at home and happy it is hard to believe. I love my work and my coworkers. It is a bit disconcerting to be the only male but my coworkers are wonderful people, fun to work with and oh so very competent. They are great teachers and I do my best to be a great learner.

In addition to that change I also began the Nurse Practitioner program at U.C. Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. A distance learning program, I only have to be in Sacramento once a month for a few days at a time. The pressure is for self-discipline in studying, reading, being online by yourself with no weekly/regular class time to reinforce learning. The FNP program is incredibly concentrated, professional and life changing. I feel at home and can only hope I will survive - I usually do - but this program is a tough but very supportive apprentice model program. I begin working with my preceptor in September at least two days a week.

Schedule wise it will be hellish. This last week I was in Sacramento for four days, worked for 5 days straight, one day off, pediatrics one day and at present am working as a an RN at the Bohemian Grove. Sunday I leave for Sacramento where I have the FNP program from Monday (our first midterm for 30% of the grade) till Wednesday upon which I return and work for five days straight. Ow!

The Bohemian Grove . . . not like what you read on the net it is a different world. Overgrown boys many of them but underneath the surface are often very sharp people. To meet them is to confront your prejudices about what people are like . . . not so easy to hate (or love) when you begin to actually meet people and share food and drink with them. It is like a large boys camp with lots of alcohol. People either get it about being here or don't. You don't get it if you try to make contacts and become a power whore. You do get it if you reserve initial judgement, strive for acceptance (while remaining aware of people's foibles and follies!) and do not try to suck up to people. After all as I say in medicine, we all bleed and suffer pain. At that level . . . we are all equal. I have my reservations and critical thoughts about being here but I will admit to having fun with the fire and medical staff, loving the food and getting an education from the lectures and talking to the so-called 'Bohemians'. My Great Aunt Winonoa Tomonoczy was a TRUE Bohemian and I will argue these guys unto death and destruction that this is so and they are simply and only pale imitations of what it meant to be a Bohemian, wild, fearless, daring, truthful and full of life (and sometimes of yourself!).

With that, Adieu.

Civil Disobedience Next?

With so much frustration evident in many of my post and my anger at the course of this administration and hence this country . . . I find myself wanting to take some kind of action instead of my constant whinging about. I can complain all I want and I do as you, dear reader, have no doubt surmised.

In the end though, what type of civil disobedience is effective? Effective in the sense of affecting change and not just fulfilling my selfish desire to whinge more publicly. This is about my own sense of disaffectation to be sure but I do know that people are suffering and dying because of American actions at home and abroad.

Is civil disobedience any more effective or efficent at being a 'change agent' (gotta love that BS talk!) than writing?

I remember the example of the folks from Plowshares that snuck onto a U.S. Navy submarine base and started bashing the subs and I think managed to pour blood on them? Actually I am fairly sure I am compacting multiple episodes - I'll research it and figure that one out.

I received the post from my unknown Fijian friend who responded to my last post. Vinaka Ratu! I will be reading your blog soon. Ring me dua na siga if you come to Sebastapol or Santa Rosa. Levu na kai Viti eke! Gunu yaqona?

News on my job front - I am transferring out of Palliative Care and in a few weeks will become a Pediatric Nurse. I am very exicited about the move and all the learning I have ahead of me. I'm good with the kids but really have to develop my technical skills.

More later gang, all the best to all of you.

David

Do see this Film! Fiji still calls my heart . . . .

I finally got to see Reel Paradise tonight on this rainy and cold Northern California coast. We are all so sick of the rain yet once this film began it took me away and back to some of the best years of my life (and I have had so many and will have more!). It immediately had me howling with laughter, crying with homesickness and angry at the injustices faced by both the Fijian and the kaivulagi's who dared to run a movie theater in Fiji for free. I applaud that kind of courage, strength, insanity and bravado . . . in short, my kind of people. I even sent them an email, a crazy thing to do here in America, to people who you may never meet but I don't care. After a shared Fiji experience they will (I hope) understand my crazy offer to put them up in my house no matter what or when or where. They will understand because after Fiji, that is just the way it is (and should be).

Wow! Listen to me go on.

But here it is folks - do you dare to dream? Have you lived your life to the fullest and taken risk that you ache to do in your heart of hearts? Can you look at your life without major regrets or after examining your life regret that you did not live it the way you wished? Did you do something that matter? That you care about?

That is what Fiji was to me as a Peace Corps volunteer. I will never have to wonder about those questions when I am 90 years old. I'll know that I did something with great meaning, that mattered (at least to me and some Fijian friends). I could only hope that others can do the same.

After viewing this film I believe that the Pierson family had such an experience but what is more I believe that if you watch this film it will encourage you to pursue a dream or 'wild idea' that you have always wanted.

To me, this is what movie making is all about, educating, entertaining, showing people the differences in the world and making us wonder about what life is, is not, could be, what was and what will be. I may wax too poetic but however I may babble on . . .

See this movie!

It will touch you if you have an open heart. I'd work for this crazy man anytime to make films that matter.

Hoping you can live that life you need and want . . . .

David

Journal of the Mental Environment

Aloha - having just received my latest issue of Adbusters I wanted to be sure to mention it here. Always a challenge to read, to some of my sacred cow beliefs, I strongly believe, enjoy and love this magazine, the people behind it but especially the ideas that so beautifully, violently, gently and energetically burst into bloom on its beautiful pages.

Do check it out people! I think that most conservatives could not challenge themselves to read this but most people could and should. I take my own advice, I read some conservative rags and scarily enough, sometimes I like a few ideas here and there if they were tweaked - don't ask which ones . . . I have no idea.

At any rate, it is late now and I have my Pediatric Advanced Life Support class all day tomorrow!

One last thing, saw a bumper sticker the other day that said . . .

Frodo lost, Bush has the One Ring

Malama pono.

Keep em in, keep em out, what immigrants!?

My girlfriend’s daughter attended one of the many rallies held across America this last week regarding the various issue around immigration and the Bills addressing it.  She was concerned that we would be angry at her for missing some classes at High School.  My reaction was somewhat bemused – she did not know whether it was a Congressional Bill or a State Bill and mentioned Governor Schwarzenegger.  To her credit, she had gone online the night before and done some research so there may be some hope.  I am proud of her having a conscience at the age of 15 (almost 16) as I think back to myself at that edge I shudder in realizing I don’t remember having a conscience.  I was 15 in 1975, definitely against the Vietnam War and was/felt betrayed by President Nixon and his cohorts for that war and Watergate.  However, I was also the son of an Air Force pilot with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (who retired in 1973) and was raised somewhat conservatively.

As an aside, I met Henry Kissinger the summer of 2005.  It was not a personal meeting but there he was face to face with a few people and for a few hours.  He could be nice enough if he wished but appeared taciturn and none too friendly.  I heard through very reliable channels that he tends to treat his staff fairly badly (except for the pay I can only imagine).  Imagine treating the people who are tasked with protection badly!  That makes me laugh, foolish boy.  It was a very weird experience to meet the man who consorted with the traitorous Nixon in lying to the world about Cambodia and who was linked to the right wing military coup in Chile and everything else on the historical record.  He won’t travel to a lot of countries because he is afraid of being arrested for war crimes.

I digress though.  I told her that we were not angry but from now on to speak with us first before just unilaterally deciding to attend a protest.  I also told her that I was proud she had a conscience and that she was willing to accept whatever consequences may exist regarding her not attending (or ‘cutting’) classes.

This was a tremendous opportunity, opening the door for a discussion about what immigration is and to examine our own attitudes toward immigrants and people different from ourselves.  I admit great ignorance about the different immigration bills but let me state that like it or not, immigrants are here to stay, legal or illegally.  Many Americans are descended from immigrants.  How they enter the country and what benefits they receive should be up for debate but not their right to stay, live, eventually vote and receive the benefits of health care.  Many contribute so much to this country and they should benefit if they are participatory members of this society.

I passionately reject the racist radical Minutemen who take it upon themselves to patrol the border and assist the border patrol.  At the same time, I would strengthen the Border Patrol significantly with more personnel, equipment, training and an eye toward safety.  I embrace a workers program (similar to the ‘Bracero’ [?] program during the 1940’s – 60’s).  Let’s face it people, if all the workers were deported we would have a labor shortage on our hand quickly and all those strawberries, fruit and lettuce we eat would be in short supply.  It is very true that immigrants work in jobs that most Americans would not take . . . I would not work in the fields for 10 hours exposed to pesticides, sometimes abusive bosses and live in miserable conditions.  

This touches upon much larger issues.  Americans have one of the highest living standards in the world that has long been known to be unsustainable.  Another issue is that the world population is skyrocketing and there are (and will be) too many people on the planet so resources will become increasingly strained and scarcer.  We can only compensate so much with technology (and for the Americans that is our greatest weakness – unbending faith in technology).  No wonder the poor Norte Americanos feel so threatened.  Pigs at the trough want everything they can get.

Nothing like ending on a happy note!

Veronica are you still out there . . . .

Nigerian "Friends" say, "Everything is all Right!" and my Proposals for America

I don't know who they are and who is the funding behind them but this group ran a full page ad in todays New York Times with the overall message that everything is all right in Nigeria. That is almost as funny as me saying that everything is all right in America, no problem, don't worry, be happy. Stick your head in the sand people and pretty soon you cannot breath.

The April 3 Edition of Newsweek has a very informative article on Africa and some of the challenges the countries face. I want to send all of us Americans there for a month each. Yeah brother, maybe change would happen.

My Proposals for America
My proposal, as the want-to-be leader of America, is that each American child in High-School automatically spend one year abroad living with a family in another country. It would NOT be a European country with a high standard of living. The host family would send their child - an exchange program - but mandatory. It would be fun to send all the Southerners straight into the Blackest parts of the human world . . . Africa, the South Pacific, South America. White with Blacks, Blacks with whites - you get the idea and you must spend a year abroad to graduate.

My next proposal is that each family in America only be allowed to own a maximum of two cars per household. I predict the automobile companies would assasinate me as soon as possible. There goes the economy stupid! Nonetheless, we must move away from automobiles and an oil-based economy. It is too late, but what the hell! In the long run though, perhaps it is better to encourage mass consumption even more as as to enhance, encourage and facilitate the seeds of our destruction - not only of our economy but the ecosystem?

Another proposal is universal health care for everyone living in America. Smoking would be outlawed and the tobacco companies shut down and thier leaders locked up and forced to work in the oncology wards with smokers as thier only patients. People who smoke, drink to excess and otherwise abuse themselves would be penalized (how I have no idea). We already have universal health care - it is called the Emergency Room (and people wonder why it is so expensive?!).

It is two a.m. here in Northern California and I have mouthed off less intelligently than I have planned - as usual. Still, my timing on Nigeria was not bad this time. My proposals for America are partly driven by my unending ability to rant and rave ad nauseum about the State of America and our leaders. All too easy to do and remain a hypocrit as one of my only readers pointed out. So I thought it would be good to put some of my extremist views out on the chopping block - views better suited to be enacted by a dictator perhaps, but my proposals still. A dictator because the American people would never give into them - they prize their individual freedom to such a great extent they cannot see it is taking this country to a place of no retreat, hope or redemption.

I may have some interesting ideas but at least I won't bankrupt America and turn it into a police state with a populace convinced they are under siege and living in a constant state of fear, mistrust and hatred of the 'outsider'.

Thanks for reading and remember to ask yourself this . . . .

what the hell are YOU doing for your world, neighbor and fellow human being?

I like to THINK I do good but sometimes it may be as simple as helping people that don't want help. In the final analysis, I am just as irrlevant (I absolutely LOVE that word) as the next person.

Charles Taylor and the Corruption of Nigeria

While driving home from the hospital tonight I heard that Charles Taylor has escaped his posh seaside villa in the vacation wonderland of Nigeria. I remembered back to my wonderful but naive days at UCLA where I had a great Professor - Richard Sklar, whom I admired very much and was a good influence on me (teaching me to see past the surface to what leaders do and not what they are saying). I had high hopes for Nigeria at some point. Now it seems that the whole country is a magnet for corruption of the highest order - government ministers stealing millions with no worry at all of being caught. I know the local people are suffering tremendously while most of the leaders at the state and National level are criminals, liars, thieves and braggards.

Yes, I know I am not from Nigeria but so what? I am from the United States where we simply hide and institutionalize our own corruption on a massive scale. I am not saying we are better than Nigeria.

What set my diatribe off is the sheer brazen audacity of Nigeria colluding with Charles Taylor and he escapes so easily. The man is a butchering pig who is guilty of warcrimes. He must be stopped and brought to justice by his own people. The trouble is that most of Nigeria is so corrupt there will be nothing done by them.

The definition of corruption? It is an action taken with the full knowledge that it is wrong and should not be done. But money talks and BS walks as we so eloquently state in America and that is what happened in Nigeria.

A good thing about Nigeria? Sure, the New York Times had a great article on the Guinea worm in Africa. Nigeria is a leader in this respect and is making great strides against this age-old pest. So of course the Nigerian people are not all guilty or bad. The corruption is so entrenched that nothing will get done at any level of the goverment without bribes and gifts to lubricate the way.

I have no constructive idea to offer, only criticism. I will propose this - that the United States stay the hell out of other countries except in instances like this. We should bring the entire intelligence agency (NSA, CIA, NRO, you name your favorite) apparatus to bear on war criminals like Mr. Taylor and that scum - Radovan Karajic (another pig). We should send in Delta, Rangers, whatever task force de jour of the day is and take them and thier lieutenants before the Hague to be tried for war crimes. Sure ain't legal people but I am angry enought to propose this right now. Guilty of cultural imperialism? Damn Straight - at least this time.

Thanks for reading and I hope those idiots in Serbia and Nigeria read this. They way they operate though - I could be a dead man, but I flatter myself methinks.

President Bush is a Laughingstock

Not only is Bush a LIAR of unprecedented proportions along with his bedmate Rumsfeld and Wolfie, he is a joke of man to boot. He is talking out of his rear end only, using doublespeak. While things are getting worse and going to hell in Iraq, he is trying to convince the American people that things are actually, really, really, really getting better! It really is 1994 all over again - thank you George Orwell.

So the lies keep coming and coming, the administration building their case for war and continued interference in another State's affairs by accumulation of detail and weaving it into a tapestry of lies, deception and deceipt. When will the American people stop bending over for Bush?

Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush are men without honor, empathy, a conscious or sympathy except for thier own selfish, traitorous and dangerous agenda. They are destroying America, lock them up, try and execute them.