The Bad Actor

Fairy in my garden

2011-10-23T13:25:00.001-06:00

sunflower at UNM

2011-09-21T10:04:00.001-06:00

Untitled, a photo by rraabfaber on Flickr.

celphone photos

2011-09-21T10:02:00.001-06:00

Untitled, a photo by rraabfaber on Flickr.

I'm digging the hell out of playing with cellphone photos. Some cool shit.

Farmageddon

2011-08-22T10:05:00.002-06:00

Check out this movie trailer.
I hate to be alarmist, but.... No, wait! I love to be alarmist. I haven't seen the film in question, but I like to see shit like this exposed. The independent family farm is in jeopardy, my peeps. Stand up and fight back.

Farmageddon movie trailer

2010-05-14T21:27:00.002-06:00

2010-04-30T11:10:00.001-06:00

http://mikif9735.justfree.com/

The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started.

2010-04-15T18:59:00.001-06:00

2010-04-13T21:25:00.001-06:00

2010-04-12T19:22:00.001-06:00

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2010-04-12T09:05:00.001-06:00

2010-04-07T19:36:00.001-06:00

2010-04-01T10:49:00.002-06:00

2010-03-14T18:49:00.001-06:00

abq west sunset mar142010

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2010-03-11T15:49:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-08T18:34:00.001-07:00

sunset on the sandias

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2010-03-08T18:08:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-06T13:02:00.002-07:00

La ropa para la lavadora de los banos.

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2010-03-05T12:40:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-03T17:46:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-03T17:43:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-03T17:42:00.001-07:00

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2010-03-03T14:27:00.001-07:00

Big Simon. The perpetual lurker.

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2010-03-03T14:23:00.001-07:00

none whatsoever.

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I got a Kindle for

2009-12-28T10:47:00.001-07:00

I got a Kindle for christmas. Atsa Nice!

How Y'all Doing? The passing of a NM Legend.

2009-11-14T09:31:00.001-07:00

(AP Photo/Jake Schoellkopf, file)

Bruce King is dead at 85. Our only three-term Governor, King is the man who New Mexicans of my generation equate with the office. He’s also the guy we think of (aside, possibly, from Manny Aragon and Ray Sanchez) when we think of New Mexico politics in general. He was a keen-witted cowboy politician with all the folksy charm of Andy of Mayberry. King was famous for entering a restaurant and shaking hands with everyone in the place, offering a "How y'all doing?" or a "Good to see you again" -- even years after he left office.

An article in the Santa Fe New Mexican says that

"Many who remembered him Friday described King as a far cry from today's slick politicians, someone who stuck close to his country roots and his cowboy hats, once riding his horse to the state Capitol in a move to both save gas and attract a little publicity for the state's tourism industry."

King was the governor who brought Intel to Rio Rancho. But he was also the man-in-charge during the infamous Santa Fe Prison riots in 1980 in which 35 inmates were butchered.

King was also a cattle rancher in Stanley, NM. For years when I heard of the famous King Ranch, I thought it was referring to Governor Bruce’s spread, and was confused when I saw that Ford had released a King Ranch edition of one of its pick-ups. The place ain’t that big.

(So for those who don’t know, THE King Ranch is in Texas and takes up something like ¾’s of the state.)

The decade in seven minutes

2009-11-12T08:59:00.001-07:00

Wow.I'd forgotten about a lot of this stuff. And that whole Elian Gonzales thing? I thought that was... well, I don't know when I thought that was.

Les Paul Dead

2009-08-14T09:47:00.002-06:00

Another legend has joined the pantheon in Rock and Roll Heaven. Les Paul is dead at age 94. (June 9, 1915–August 13, 2009)

Lester William Polsfuss, (a.k.a. Les Paul) was a musician and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar, which "made the sound of rock and roll possible." He is credited with inventing or discovering many recording innovations including overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects, and multitrack recording.(Source: Wikipedia)

So, yeah, he didn't INVENT the electric guitar, but he was one of those handful of pioneers that brought the electric sound to public attention. Funny that even as late as the 1960's the sound was shunned by purists, with Bob Dylan being called a sellout and a traitor by the die-hard folkies.

We really don't think much about it today, but what would our world be like today if the electric guitar -- and amplified sound, for that matter -- had not been invented? What was it about a screaming guitar that fueled the imagination and fired up a generation or two? Would Woodstock have been remembered 40 years later if Jimmy Hendrix had not played the Star-Spangled Banner left-handed on a right-hand strung Fender? (and later set it on fire?)

It might even be argued that the world might not be quite as America-centric as it is were it not for our Rock Musicians. It sounds like the ravings of an over the hill rocker, but in truth it bears examination. As much as our Hollywood stars did for the cause, it was our electric musicians that took who we are to the world -- in a way that the British Invasion never could. While bands like the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, etc are not "from around here," I believe they came here because of what America represents. Had it not been for the ready acceptance of the American audience, those bands would never have made it elsewhere. Hell, we made modern music what it is, for better or worse.

RIP, Les. Rock In Peace

Today I Feel....

2009-08-07T21:38:00.003-06:00

Nah. Just kidding. Wishful thinking.

I think what makes this painting for me is the feet of the guy in the front. That angle they're on.
"People in the Sun" Hopper(1960)

Today I Liked This Art

2009-08-01T13:10:00.002-06:00

I found both of these on This Isn't Happiness

contact from an old friend....

2009-07-25T13:09:00.005-06:00

Recent contact from an old friend prompted me to dig through some old photos and writing. This was me back then, still in my early 20's and a size 29 waist
In the late 90s, after my second marriage had collapsed, I sat and wrote out a set of letter/poems to my various exes, which examined aspects of the relationship; where it went bad and what was good. Here's one.

The Last of the Polish Mohicans Polka

“If I was a trapper I would pay a thousand pelts
just to sleep with Pocohontas and find out how she felt.”
~Neil Young

You were last of the Polish Mohicans,
standing barefoot in the swirling eddies of
Albuquerque on the Vistula, can of Miller in your hand.
A Connecticut Yankee,
Scooter-trash,
Tattooed peacock,
Dart-tart, Cocktail Jockey,
Sweet-cheeked, Silky-haired,
Downy delta, sugar tit,
Leather-jacketed goddess of love!

You jerked me up down off on
and six ways from Sunday
my rebound baby brown-eyes
left my wife for parts unknown
to tan your tawny pelt
no-tell motel so discrete
‘cause your Ma is shittin’ kittens
“keep that man out of my house!”
Backseat mesa boogie
jammin’ gears to get to work late.

Autumn’s sins and winter winds
we keep each other warm.
In Spring you up and dumped me
for some yellow-headed coke boy
‘cause you said you “needed more space”
to “sow your wild oats in” so you
left me twistin’ in the wind
spinnin’ fast towards a fumbuck
and I don’t know why you swayed
me back then like you did, kid.

Nearly fifteen years from them days
gets real hazy thinking ‘bout you
and what the thrill was then but
I guess like all the others
I can’t help but sit and wonder
what it would o’ been like Zhay-Zheets
to be eighty-two and with you
ridin’ shotgun as my bride.

A few years back, I was taking a poetry-writing class at UNM. It was late winter -- a crisp day -- and I was driving through town. The clouds had moved in and were dropping. It reminded me of that time and I pulled over and knocked this one out.

301

It was a day like this,
with skies of cold grey felt
and flurries settling on the city,
that you, in your thigh-high boots
and poured-into jeans,
and me, in my alpaca overcoat
and snappy black fedora,
called in to work,
pleading some bullshit excuse.

Me and my Pride & Joy
roared down from the heights
in a rumbling El Camino
with throaty mufflers
and radio cranked for Stevie Ray Vaughan.

We whiled away the hours
at a little out of the way place,
enjoying its warmth.
Drinking pitchers of Stroh’s.
Eating bowls of green chilé
spooned into flaky sopaipillas.
Feeding endless quarters
into the jukebox, playing Sea of Love.
Throwing game after game of darts
on that windowless afternoon.

Time slowed as I watched you take aim.
Your long brown hair
flowing like a river to your waist.
The beauty of your concentration
as you aimed and let loose, easily
hitting your needed 19 in a game of 301.

I believed, in that moment,
that we were happier
than we’d ever been before.
And sadly, I knew, happier
Than we ever would be.

©2007 Rick Raab-Faber

Murdoch, the cigarette-munchin' pup

course stayin in million $

2009-07-12T17:15:00.001-06:00

course stayin in million $ home eases da pain.

In that part of the

2009-07-12T17:12:00.001-06:00

In that part of the Bible Belt where they punched the extra holes to make it fit better.

2009-07-11T17:50:00.001-06:00

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testing from my new phone.

2009-07-07T08:39:00.001-06:00

testing from my new phone. It's the shizz.

you had to be there

2009-07-05T13:29:00.004-06:00

This photo came from elsewhere. I don't know who she is, but the picture reminded me of a certain smell of a certain brand of cigarette on a certain day -- decades past -- with a certain humidity and a certain lighting and a certain hopefulness in the air due to a certain glance from a certain girl; a certain feeling that life might just turn out alright.

El Pintor

2009-05-31T20:32:00.001-06:00

El Pintor
A deadly still evening in Albuquerque. Which meant nothing really. ‘Still’ was relative, even the deadly variety. There was always some noise. If it got too quiet, someone could be counted on to shoot someone else, or start a fire, or crash a car – anything to get the sirens going. Not that it took anything more serious than a stubbed toe to land the EMTs, a ladder truck, a pumper, the Haz-Mat team, the Bomb Squad, a half-dozen APD squad cars, and the Fire Chief on your doorstep, but most Albuquerqueños didn’t like to take chances. “If it’s not worth doing right, do it wrong” was their motto.

On this particular still night, 34 year-old Edwin Lujan was walking his wife’s AD/HD-afflicted Jack Russell Terrier , Cutie Pie. It was 9:52 pm. Edwin Lujan knew this because he kept checking his watch. He wanted to get home in time to watch The Simpsons reruns and the dog was not taking this walking endeavor seriously.

“Dammit, Cutie Pie!” he hissed. “Hurry up and poop!” He felt acutely embarrassed over calling the dog by its name and using the word ‘poop’ in public. He was mortified that one of the neighbors might have heard him. This was a transitional neighborhood in Albuquerque’s heights, primarily auto mechanics and construction foremen who were doing as well as most mid to upper-level management at other firms. Edwin, the manager of a temp-services office, was the only male on his street that did not work in the trades, and therefore felt inadequate. He stopped, listening quietly to hear if any of the neighbors were out, working on cars or just slurping beers in their yards.

Skish! He looked around frantically. Skish! There were no street lights here – he couldn’t see who was hissing to him. Skish-Skish! Ahead, a cinder block wall divided a neighbor’s yard from a bike path that ran along one of the city’s arroyos. Skish-Skish! He gingerly peaked around the corner. Two teenagers, known on the street as “Spud” and “Li’l Cheeto,” were busily tagging the wall with spray-paint. Skish-Skish! Cutie Pie barked. The teenagers turned to look at Edwin.

“Wuddafug you looking at?” one asked him. Edwin ignored the question. He was busy gazing in fear beyond the young men to a form moving from the shadows. The teenagers followed his gaze, turning around. The form carried a Mossberg 590 pump-action police-issue riot shotgun. And wore a mask. One of those halloween masks that just cover your eyes. He also wore a painters’ hat. And painter’s coveralls. And a cape. And, before anyone could laugh at his ridiculous appearance – chuck-CHUNK – he ripped off a perfectly executed one-handed cocking of the shotgun and leveled it at the boys. They stood motionless, staring at him. Then Li’l Cheeto started to step back. He spoke to his friend but his eyes stayed on the shotgun.

“He ain’t gonna do shit with that gun, Spud,” he whispered. “We can just walk aw-” The shotgun roared, blowing a small depression in the ground next to the no-longer-confidant teen’s feet. Edwin thought he would wet his pants, but managed to hold it in. Cutie Pie, however, jerked the leash free and ran for home. The form chambered another shell. He reached into a back pocket and withdrew two large zip-ties of the sort police use for temporary handcuffs.

“You,” he said, indicating Spud. “Tie your amigo’s wrists with this. And do it right.” When it was done, the form walked closer. The shotgun pointing at Spud, he forced the now bound Li’l Cheeto to his knees then pushed him over into a patch of dried goathead thorns. The young man howled. “Now you,” he said. “Face down, hands behind your head!” Spud did as he was told. Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder, the form knelt on the small of teenager’s back. He pulled both hands back and slipped the second zip-tie around Spud’s wrists and pulled it tight.

“OK, Rembrandts. Let’s take a look at your work.” From his belt he pulled a large 4-cell Maglite and focused it on the tagged wall.

“Citizen,” he said, calling to the dazed Edwin. “Citizen,” the form called again. “I’d like you to help me evaluate this artwork.” Edwin walked over and stood beside the masked man. The names “Spud” and “Li’l Cheeto” were scrawled on the wall. Somehow, “Spud” had been misspelled.

“You call that ‘art’?” the form asked Edwin Lujan.

“Not really. You?”

“Nope.” The form turned to the handcuffed boys. “The jury has spoken fellas. This show has closed.”

“What the hell?!” one of them yelped. “You can’t do this! You ain’t no cops!”

“No,” said the form. “I’m not the cops. I’m…” He paused for dramatic effect. “El Pintor!” From a pocket on the inside of his cape he withdrew a pair of swimmers goggles. With his toe he rolled the first tagger over on his back. He bent down and placed the goggles on Spud’s face.

“Wuddafug?!” yelled Spud. He couldn’t see anything. He could however hear the sound of a steel ball rattling back and forth inside of a can of paint. “What are you doing, sir?” he asked at little more quietly – and respectfully.

“I’d advise you to hold your breath,” said El Pintor. Spud did as he was told, just in time, as the vigilante started spraying the youth pink – bright, vivid, Barbie pink – from head to toe.

Ten minutes later, El Pintor helped the teens to their feet. “I hope you have learned your lesson about violating other people’s property,” he told them. They ran off, still cuffed.

“I can’t believe you actually painted them,” said an awestruck Edwin Lujan. “That was totally awesome!”

“Oh, I didn’t paint them,” said El Pintor.

“But, I saw the pink–” Edwin started to say.

“Paint’s too easy to clean off. No, that was a special industrial-grade dye. Completely harmless – aside from the social stigma of having bright pink skin for several months.”

Book Review: The Memory of Running

2009-05-26T20:13:00.002-06:00

I just finished reading “The Memory of Running,” the first novel by Ron McLarty. It’s friggin’ brilliant, in my view. The story is about Smithson “Smithy” Ide, a 43 year-old drinking, smoking, self-described overweight loser. He is seemingly friendless and on a lifelong downward spiral.

The story opens with Smithy’s parents dying as a result of a car crash. A few days later, Smithy finds that his sister—who disappeared years earlier—was found dead in Los Angeles; her body being held on the county’s tab as she was homeless.

Smithy sets out, almost by accident, to recover his sister’s body, leaving his home in Rhode Island. The twist is that it is on his 35 year-old Raleigh Bicycle and the scene that begins it all is an absolutely hilarious downhill plunge.

The story—published in 2004—follows two tracks; one in the “present day” of 1990, and one in the past. The latter describes Smithy’s relationship with his crazy (literally) sister, Bethany, and gives us a glimpse of one family’s struggle to deal with a young woman who is not quite crazy enough to be institutionalized full-time, yet not sane enough to be left on her own. Smithy tells us briefly of his time in Vietnam, and how he came to be wounded.

We also—through both tracks—learn of Smithy’s relationship with his next-door neighbor, Norma, who has had a crush on Smithy since she was six.

Smithy seems to remain a “loser” through the story, and things just never seem to go completely right for him. Or do they? McLarty serves us up several moments that make us wonder about the nature of “loserness.”

McLarty’s Smithy has drawn comparisons to Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield, and even Yossarian. I guess. Holden Caulfield certainly. For me, the similarity is in the style and subject matter. I found “The Memory of Running” to be very reminiscent of a John Irving story. Irving’s tales are filled with events that are, not necessarily impossible, but usually improbable. (I’m thinking specifically of the girl who lives in a bear costume in “The Hotel New Hampshire.”)

At 338 pages, it’s still a fast read. The dual tracks make it a real page-turner, as each chapter becomes something of a cliffhanger. The story is by turns, funny and horrifying. Smithy is constantly beaten down by the world, yet never seems to take it personally.

I highly recommend this book to fans of John Irving, Wally Lamb, Ann Tyler.

Product Details

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (December 29, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0670033634
ISBN-13: 978-0670033638
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Average Customer Review: 167 Reviews 4.2 out of 5 stars

Roaches for Blogging

2009-05-25T18:38:00.001-06:00

The last place i lived was a single story four-plex that had a roach problem—not from a cleanliness issue. It was just in one of those parts of Albuquerque (like around the arroyos) that tends to have roaches. We have many areas of town were, at night, they just come out across your lawn and hang out on the patio.

Anyway, in this apartment, I would get an average of 4 to 8 of them come in through a crack under the baseboards in the bathroom. They didn't get in my food or bedroom. I only ever saw them in the bathroom and the hallway.

So I made a deal with them. I left a compost heap out in the back by the patio. Then i laid down the law with them. I would leave them the heap to hang out in, but if they came in the house, they were mine.

For a couple of months the roaches held up their part of the bargain. Every now and then, some young punk would wander in. I'd apologize as I'd scoop them into the dustpan. "Sorry, dude. You know the rule." then I'd dump it in the toilet and flush. I figured that, survivors that they are, roaches could probably hold their breath for a while. Or not. It was their choice entirely.

In the whole course of the thing, I came to some sort of cosmic understanding of the little buggers. I wasn't revolted, or angry, or freaked out. They were just insects; Foreigners who'd crossed my borders. They had different customs than me.

Eventually, we'd meet up in the hallway in the wee hours as I stumbled to take a leak. "Take a hike, pal," I'd mumble. And that was that.

Ants Understand the Greatest Mysteries in Science (But Not the Stock Market)

2009-05-20T07:00:00.001-06:00

(From Utne Reader Online)
5/15/2009 5:57:42 PM

by Bennett Gordon

Ants and the Stock Market.

On their own, ants are pretty dumb. It’s not their fault: Their tiny brains don’t allow for a lot of intelligence. Taken together, however, ants are some of the most evolutionarily successful animals on the planet. They account for an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the biomass of all the land animals on earth. And they didn’t get that big by making a lot of mistakes.

“Individually they’re totally incompetent,” ant expert Debra Gordon told Radio Lab, “but as colonies they do great things.”

Scientists are questioning how such an individually unintelligent animal could make so many correct decisions collectively. Though ants have a queen, the queen doesn’t order around her subjects. In reality, they exhibit an amazing ability for nonhierarchical, collective decision making.

They way ants, bees, and some fish naturally make decisions, according to Susan Milius writing for Science News, is “all about quorum.” The animals will often send off little scouts, acting individually, who report back to influence the groups as a whole. Some ants have been observed throwing other ants over their shoulders and dragging their fellow ants off to build consensus for ideas. Eventually, with individual persistence, collective decisions are made.

How those decisions are made represents one of the biggest mysteries in science, mathematician Steve Strogatz told Radio Lab. In nature, order can simply materialize from disorder. Strogatz points out that scientists (and Creationists) grapple with the question of how this happens, but still don’t understand.

The collective decision making occurs in humans, too, in ways that are little understood. “Human groups deciding as a whole have scored spooky triumphs,” Milius writes. In one test, people were asked to guess the weight of an ox. Individually, every guess was way off. Together, the median of the guesses was within 10 pounds of the correct weight of 1,198 pounds

If humans are able to exhibit such accurate collective decision making, how could the stock market and the real estate crisis go so horribly wrong? The problem, according to Stephen Pratt of Arizona State, is that ants don’t have a stock market. “If they did,” he says, “we could rely on them to have figured the whole thing out.”

Proud to be Canadian

2009-05-19T19:18:00.002-06:00

British newspaper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:

Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The Sunday Telegraph' LONDON :

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Lest we forget.

I done did it -- and gave the speech to boot.

2009-05-17T16:42:00.000-06:00

Here I am at the convocation, giving the undergraduate speech. I've got to say that the whole thing was one of the most awesome moments in my life. Here is the speech....

I have always been something of an armchair polymath… with a little interest in all subjects … and just enough knowledge of them to be dangerous… or dangerously annoying. I was one of those guys who informs you … against your will … about the most inane things: like that Cashew nuts are part of the Poison Ivy Family, or that fluorescent methyl salicylate is why you can shoot sparks off your teeth when you bite a Wint-o-green Life Saver.

I guess it’s a bit surprising that a guy who knew about so many things performed so horribly in high school. In fact, it was only in my art classes that I got A’s. The rest of my grades were poor…. Not even good enough for the guidance counselor to suggest vocational school…. College was never an option back then, and I wound up the next 15 years in a series of low-end, low-wage jobs... Soldier… Cook… bartender… day-laborer… cab driver.

Eventually I managed to turn my artistic side to good use took a nine-month crash-course in production art, and bluffed my way into a series of graphic design positions including managing the art departments of several different regional retail operations.

But, as much as I enjoyed art and being creative, Graphic design wasn’t living the dream. It was not what I wanted to be when I grew up.
This is something we all come to grips with at some point. As children, we all want to be a policeman or a fireman or a nurse or an astronaut, or Brett Favre…. Well, maybe not Brett Favre.

The point is we all have plans, hopes, and dreams, and often as not, we don’t see them come to fruition.

As a child, I wanted to be a sailor, like Popeye. Later, I wanted to be a veterinarian. In middle-school I was a fan of Jacques Cousteau, and wanted to be a marine biologist.

While graphic design wasn’t, as I said, living the dream, it did provide enough money to get by on.

Earlier I referred to myself as a polymath. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a polymath is, basically, a person whose knowledge is not restricted to one subject area.

And because of my interest in so many different things, I always said that, when I retired, I was going to spend the rest of my days in college, taking classes…This was my new dream.

A friend, tired of hearing this idle threat, asked me why I was waiting until retirement? Why not now?

Well, as one of the truly great philosophical minds of our times, Homer Simpson, said, “I’m no Super Genius. Or are I?”

Sure, I knew why the Dutch wore wooden shoes, but I also knew that I was no super genius. I had doubts that anything had really changed over the nearly thirty years since high school.

Nonetheless, at age 45, I began a fairly remarkable journey. I took the tests, and, started at TVI taking core classes and building up credits to transfer to UNM.
I was a single parent, working full-time—a forty plus hour work week, and I was carrying 12 to 16 hours a semester, going to classes at night and on weekends. A pretty hefty schedule, and in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting great successes.

But a strange thing happened. I started getting A’s. Though at first I laughed at it as a fluke, I began to realize that, yes, I could do this! After the few two semesters, the grades began to become something of a personal competition for me. And then I made the Dean’s List! I never thought such a thing could be possible.
I wasn’t sure what my end goal in college would be, I’d thought about the school of architecture. What happened, though, was that I took a class…for fun…in Creative Writing… and I liked it… And I did really well in it. My instructor, a UNM grad student, encouraged me to pursue writing.

I realized that I did not—by any stretch of the imagination—possess the math skills needed to pursue my dream of being an architect. But I did possess the skills I needed to pursue another dream.

See, ever since I can remember, I’ve written stories. It started with “The Death of a Toad,” an autobiographical confessional-style tale written around age 8. It continued with the stories I wrote and illustrated as a wannabe comic book artist in my pre-teen and teen years. It continued on as an adult, in journals and letters to friends, telling stories and recounting adventures. The fact that I could do those things well … never had occurred to me.

In the years since coming to UNM, I’ve had the greatest encouragement from all of my professors, leading me to grow as both a student and a writer. My senior honors thesis was extremely well-received. I was awarded the Vicente Ximenes Scholarship for graduate study, and UNM’s Creative Writing MFA program has honored me in its acceptance of my application for this coming Fall Semester. My dreams of a continued life in academia have also been realized.

No one is more surprised to see me here than me. A whole new sort of dream has been presented to me and I am going to live it. Now at 50, I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. Thank you

____________________________
And here's my son, Gabe, who came out to see me. This was the first time I'd seen him since he went out on the road last summer.

It's That Special Day

2009-05-16T06:33:00.003-06:00

It's 6:33 on a Saturday morning. Today is graduation day. I'm sitting out in the workshop, editing my speech down and thinking about what got me here. Five years of work coming to a culmination and I have oddly ambivalent feelings about the whole thing.

Today I feel...

2009-05-14T08:06:00.001-06:00

As a new feature on the Moonpie Chronicles, we are introducing the wildly unpopular "Today I Feel..." series. THe rules are pretty simple and only Vance and I can play, so tuff darts, buddy!
With a little bit of this thrown in...

Winding it down

2009-05-14T07:55:00.002-06:00

I'm off in less than an hour to take my final final exam (in math) and I'm finished.

I'll be graduating summa cum laude and have been asked to give the undergraduate address at the convocation. That's on Saturday.

Following that there shall be reveling and much merry-making. And booze.

Today I Feel.....

2009-04-30T21:05:00.000-06:00

OK, and this one too

2009-04-27T12:37:00.001-06:00

Another Daily Kos post....

Questions to that half of Texas' Republicans
by kos
Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 08:31:31 AM PDT

So we now know that half of Texas' Republicans want to secede from the United States. So I have some questions for that crowd:

* Are you flying an American flag? Because you don't get to do that when you cry and take your ball home.

* Do you have a bumper sticker that says, "These colors don't run"? Because it sure looks like you're running.

* Do you still pretend that your party is the "Party of Lincoln"? If so, what part of Lincoln exactly, would that be?

* Since you've spent the last eight years saying "America, love it or leave it", is that an admission that you don't love America? Because we liberals? We loved it and stayed, even when your idiot of a president was trashing the place.

* Was your patriotism (My country, right or wrong) so skin-deep, that it depended 100 percent on the guy in the White House?

* That $200 billion Texas got in defense contracts between 2000 and 2007? No more of that. No more Ft. Hood. No more NASA. No more federal largesse. You okay with that?

* You do realize that the Cowboys will no longer be "America's Team", right? Though they'd dominate the two-team Texas Football League (TFL).

What a great time to be a liberal

2009-04-27T12:34:00.002-06:00

The following is from the Daily Kos---

Mocking is all the GOP deserves
by kos
Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 01:02:04 PM PDT

Ha ha. Remember those dumbass RNC members pushing a party resolution demanding the Democrats rename themselves the "Democrat Socialist Party" because, well, Republicans have nothing left to offer the political debate except for insults? The DNC responds:

"I'm going to pass on marketing advice from folks who hadn't fully thought out the implications of using tea bags as a brand," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan. "But what's clear is that when you're devoid of leadership, devoid of ideas and your only answer is to say 'no' to change, it's not surprising that angry, fringe elements take center stage at the Republican Party."

Remember when people used to take the Republican Party seriously? And remember when Democrats used to cower in fear? Now everyone mocks them with impunity. It's fun! And it's all that party deserves, as even some Republicans concede:

To make the "Socialist" designation something approximating official party policy is plainly not the direction preferred by Steele or other top Republican officials — and it’s spurring grumbling toward Bopp’s band of conservatives.

"This was engineered by a bunch of people who ought to be involved in College Republicans, not the RNC," complained a well-connected Republican sympathetic to Steele. "It’s not that they’re not well-intentioned, but it’s just juvenile."

IMG_2996

2009-04-25T21:47:00.001-06:00

IMG_2996
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

A goose sitting her nest along the Rio Grande, near Alameda Bridge

IMG_3021

2009-04-25T21:46:00.001-06:00

IMG_3021
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

Another shot below the bridge

IMG_2994

2009-04-25T21:45:00.001-06:00

IMG_2994
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

Taken below the Alameda Bridge. I liked the mix of reflections and grafitti.

One last official bit of news.... for now

2009-04-25T14:22:00.001-06:00

I just opened the letter from the English Department awarding me summa cum laude based on my thesis "Not What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up: Stories of the American Working-Class In a Post-9/11 Economy." I'm quite pleased.

What is the message?

2009-04-25T12:49:00.002-06:00

What are they saying here? Fight with Canadian Forces? or Fight alongside Canadian Forces?

2009-04-25T12:27:00.000-06:00

Goosage

2009-04-25T11:56:00.001-06:00

I like to walk my dog down around Alameda Bridge. I spotted this goose for the first time about three weeks ago, sitting on an little bit of island, twenty feet off the bank. It didn't occur to me that she was sitting a nest until last Sunday when we went back and she was still there. I'm anxious to see the goslings now. Anybody know how long it takes?

Heart of the City

2009-04-25T11:50:00.002-06:00

I guess when most people think of "the heart of the city," they think of a vibrant downtown area. They certainly don't think of the mockery of downtownery* that Burque boasts. For me, the heart of our city is the Rio Grande bosque. (The Sandias are the lungs, downtown is the spleen, and Cottonwood Mall is the diseased colon.) There is something about having this natural area that is surrounded by development that is oddly comforting ad therapeutic. For those of us transriparian commuters, there is a daily jolt of nature as we cross the bridges, looking up or down river and seeing that stunning beauty, hearing that call.

For me it's also a reminder of the impermanence of our time here. Of all cities, Albuquerque is one that is in a constant battle to keep from being reclaimed by the land. There is a semi-circle of land, across the road from Cibola High School and just down the road from me, where I walk the dog most mornings. As we walk through it, we leave tracks, shoe prints and paw prints. There are invariably a series of criss-crossed trails from the three jackrabbits that live there, along with those of lizards, quail, roadrunner and deer mice. On the mornings after a windy evening, we find the tracks erased, trash and debris lie half-buried.

The above photo was shot about two miles from my house. There's a McDonalds and a Pep Boys, and a Hooters less than a mile away. I don't know. Like I said, I find it comforting to know that I can just zip down there and get a dose of sanity. I think we need to have more green areas -- more mini-Open Spaces -- scattered throughout the city. Reclaimed lots that are seeded with a few native species, but otherwise left to revert to their natural state.

That's all I got.

*Yes, I've just coined a new term there. "Downtownery" Dibs on it. "Downtownery" is (c)2009 D. Chingadero Sr. Esq. All rights and Alrights! reserved.

Modernity

2009-04-25T11:47:00.000-06:00

I ran across this photo on the Tumblog "This Isn't Happiness" and it reminded me of a thought I had a few weeks back.

Right now, in my pocket, I have easily this many albums -- maybe more. Plus a novel. And several dozen radio programs.

Imagine telling this bootlegging fellow that I could carry 20 continuous days worth of music, PLUS some TV programs, PLUS a movie or two, PLUS four or five novels, PLUS a telephone, in one pants pocket? Back then, you might have been able to put the phone receiver in your pocket, but when I was a kid, our phone was wall mounted. And you had to dial the phone -- 10 miles each way!.

And he's probably jazzed because he's going to get 45 minutes of crappy sound on one side of a reel-to-reel.

I'm not trying to sound like some old coot who thinks that these spoiled rotten kids today are, uh, spoiled rotten. I think the fact that I can carry all that in one pocket totally kicks ass and I take complete advantage of it!

But I was also thinking that, back in the days of the 45rpm record, listening was a much more interactive experience. You didn't click on a playlist and tune out what you were listening to. You sat there and listened to a two-minute record and then you changed it. And you did it with friends. And maybe, when the record was new, you could get the adapter to still stay in the record, and you could stack a few on the changer. but it was still not much more than ten or twelve records.

Homage to Roy Orbison
by Irene McKinney

If I can touch the voice of Roy Orbison
singing "only in dreams" and if I can

swallow the sweet pudding of his song
then why shouldn't a piece of music

fill in for human contact? Maybe it does
for a second or two, but life is long, or we are,

in our minds, and the singing we do gives us
a taste and not a meal. And what would

happen without it? Would we reconcile
since there would be no contrast, no lift of

Roy's dulcet tones to guide us up to immense
heights of one-pointed ecstasy? So why not sing

as hard and deep as we can? Why not feel out
the song-nerve and trace its trajectory?

I think that in the voice's rise
and wail we finally wake and hear the voice

of an angel. "Sweet dreams baby" Roy throbs.
If so, we go past abrasions and promontories

of broken stony sounds, and emerge up here
where the guitar is a guru, and where Roy's

sweetness is the rule and his sense of form
shapes up this shard-filled life. "Move on

down the line." So there, do it, dance in
a strange way and who cares. When the

listeners judge by their sweetness gauge
and their sucked-in breath at "crying over

you," will anyone care that he dyed his
black hair and had false teeth? I thrash

and shout like a teenage girl for the duration
of the song. "I got a woman mean as she

can be." (I think that's me.) He told me
that anything I wanted he would
give it to me, and you know? He did.

From Writer's Almanac for Saturday Apr. 25, 2009 "Homage to Roy Orbison" by Irene McKinney, from Vivid Companion. © Vandalia Press, 2004.

My MFA Journey: TAship offered

2009-04-21T20:09:00.002-06:00

This is sort of putting the cart before the horse chronologically, but here goes.

For those of you who are not familiar with the workings of a Creative Writing MFA program, your goal is to get through it spending as little money as possible. Ideally, you will get paid to do it. One of the prime ways this will happen is to get awarded a Teaching Assistantship. (Note that programs like UT Austin, which has the Michener Fellowship, pay you — I believe about $20,000/9 months — to go to school and do nothing but write! These are pretty rare, however, so most people go the TAship route.

I got my letter today from UNM, offering me a TAship. This was, I got to tell you, a major relief for me. The deal is fairly good, and this is how it works. The agreement stipulates that you teach two course sections per semester. However, for the first semester, you teach English 101 and take a Pedagogy class (Freshman Compsition) which is treated as though you are teaching. In the second semester, you teach two course sections of English 102.

After that, depending on your reviews, you may be allowed to teach other lower lever writing courses, including 200 level creative writing. Or, you may opt out of teaching a section by working in another assistantship position.

For your dogged service, you get FULL TUITION REMISSION. That’s right. You don’t pay for school, and that is pretty rockin’ in my book. Especially for a degree that is not a known money-maker. But wait! There’s more! Because if you order before midnight tonight, you’ll also receive this handy SALARY. It’s not huge, but it’s not too bad. (I haven’t mentioned this yet, but until a year and a half ago, I was making $50k a year — this is a bit of a dip for me.) But that’s not all, because they’re also giving me FREE HEALTHCARE! (Which was the other thing I lost when I quit my previous job.)

Now, that being said, teaching classes is not a walk in the park. I’ve heard people say that it was a major strain on their learning experience. Some might say it’s almost worth it to pay for the school, but here’s my take on things. For the first three and a half years that I was in school, I worked full-time and managed and managed an advertising department. I was even a single parent for the first few years and kept a decent GPA through the whole thing.

I think I can handle it.

It's Official

2009-02-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've always been a big fan of the word Official. But like in the "Official Secret Decoder Ring" sense.

But today's news is Official, but not in that sense. Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from the director of the Creative Writing Program at UNM to let me know that I'd been accepted into the MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)for next fall. This was a huge relief for me as I'd been sweating it out.

The next step is to somehow get awarded a teaching assistantship, which means that A.) I won't pay any tuition, B.) I'll get paid about $20K for two semesters, and C.) I'll have health care again. In other words, I'll get paid to get a Masters degree. Of course I will have to teach English to a bunch of college freshmen, but hell. I can do that.

I hope.

Great Quote

2009-02-25T12:40:00.001-07:00

"You only had to watch Bobby Jindal's hopeless effort to be the new, racially inclusive face of the Republican Party-it was like having Dougie Howser, M.D. follow Hugh Jackman MC."

Tina Brown on The Daily Beast

It's Unofficial

2009-02-20T13:00:00.001-07:00

Since nobody ever reads this thing anyway, I can give out this unofficial news:

I've received unofficial word that i have been accepted into the Creative Writing MFA program at UNM for the fall of 2009. I still have to get the official notice from graduate admissions, but that's the word on the street.

And, of course, I have to get the funding.

The lights on the bus

2009-02-05T09:01:00.002-07:00

The lights on the bus are flashing in time with my music. Corpus Christi Bay. Cool.

I sent the above message from my phone this morning. I was listening to Robert Earl Keen's "Corpus Christi Bay" on the iPod, and the emergency flashers on the bus I was waiting for were flashing in perfect time. I kept expecting it to drift off, like how sometimes your turn-signal and the one of the car in front of you will be in sync, but after a couple of clicks, nada. But it did it through the whole song...

Christ, I need some sleep. Only three weeks into the final semester, and I'm fried crispy.

It takes a lot of effort to go to my classes each day. I feel like just giving up.

I heard from one of my professor's today that they are in the process of reading MFA program applications. He felt certain I was in the very top group, but the question had to do with how many students they were going to admit. Usually it is 3-5.

I heard from another professor a few weeks ago that there were questions about the program in general for next year due to some internal struggles. Jesus, what a bunch of fucking babies! Grow up.

I got accepted at Chatham Colege in Pittsburgh, and I'd love to go, but we just can't afford to leave NM right now.

Where the hells the ice cream?

Black Swan author's rules for living

2009-02-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
Avi sez, "Nassim Nicholas Taleb, gadfly author of The Black Swan, gives his 10 rules for surviving an unpredictable world with dignity."

1 Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2 Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3 It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4 Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5 Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

6 Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

7 Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

8 Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.

9 Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10 Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest

2009-02-04T20:05:00.002-07:00

This is some trippy shit. As a writer, I'm extremely interested in fiction theory and the effects of story on the human mind.

This article,Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest,lays out how when a reader really grasps a story, areas of the brain associated with... Ummm... Oh just read it.

Sayings of the Jewish Buddha

2009-02-03T08:52:00.001-07:00

If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life; with the first sip, joy; with the second sip, satisfaction; with the third sip, peace; with the fourth, a Danish.

Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing. Do not wish for perfect health, or a life without problems. What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single Oy.

There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.

The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame.. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao is not Jewish.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as a wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such rounded shoulders.

Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.

Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.

The Torah says, Love your neighbor as yourself.. The Buddha says, There is no self. So ... maybe we're off the hook?

Truth in Advertising

2009-01-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

Incoming Jesus

2009-01-19T19:28:00.002-07:00

I intercepted this the other day. Interesting.

Incoming not Jesus, the force of a smart bomb

gone dumb crashing in on that school yard around

yonder fields of wars gone past

yes, another incoming

projectile of conscious holds the retreating

armies

some children are killed

we are so very sorry

comes the voice from the distant hill

promises promises never the sounds

of incoming trash

two down the chute

and the classroom rumbles

death and destruction covered up

by the pentagon squares

collateral damage as common

as dandruff in the generals hair

incoming jesus

please do not repent

for bodies go up

what strangers will come back to us...

Ketchup

2009-01-19T19:25:00.004-07:00

These were some taglines I came up with when some friends and I were going to make a commercial for a contest for Ketchup.

1. Ketchup. It’s what’s for dinner.
2. Got Ketchup?
3. Ketchup. The other red condiment.
4. Ketchup. The condiment of your life.
5. Ketchup. The fabric of your life.
6. Ketchup. A better idea.
7. Ketchup. Ram tough.
8. Ketchup. Hot dogs wanted.
9. Ketchup. Bet you can’t eat just one.
10. Ketchup. Life’s a condiment.
11. Ketchup. For a great night’s rest.
12. Ketchup. Friends don’t let friends eat mustard.
13. Heinz. The ketchup that made Milwaukee famous.
14. Ketchup. Think Different.
15. Ketchup. The real thing.
16. Little known fact. Both Albert Einstein and porn-star John Holmes guzzled Ketchup as children.
17. Ketchup. Better red than dead. (with a picture of Chairman Mao.)
18. Ketchup. What a condiment was meant to be.
19. Come on Ketchup! Move your bloomin’ arse!!!
20. I’ve always relied on the ketchup of strangers.
21. You need some ketchup very very badly.
22. Ketchup. It’s really gross if you see it made.
23. Ketchup. Only 200ppm of insect legs!
24. Ketchup: Hitler hated us!
25. Ketchup. A sure cure for the hiccups, short-term memory loss, and athlete’s foot.
26. WWKD? What would Ketchup do?
27. WCKD? What CAN’T Ketchup Do?
28. Ketchup, duct-tape and WD-40 – a complete tool kit.
29. Ketchup. Without the ‘k’ it’s just ‘etchup.’
30. Ketchup. It’s like a vegetable only runnier.
31. Ketchup: You could fill your baby’s bottle with it and put him down for a nap. Of course you’d probably be arrested for it, but that’s what parenting is all about.
32. Blood. It’s like fake ketchup only it keeps you alive longer.
33. Couldn’t you just go for a nice big steaming bowl of Ketchup right now? Of course you couldn’t. That would be disgusting.
34. In a fight, would you really rather have a bottle of ketchup or a jar of mustard? That’s what we thought. Ketchup: We’ve got your back, Jack.
35. Ketchup. Your fish can’t live in it, but then, why would they want to?
36. Ketchup. It’s like salsa for white folks.
37. Ketchup. You can even put it on food!

Great Quote

2009-01-10T10:11:00.003-07:00

I just ran across this and I thought it was one of the best quotes I've read in a long long time...

"It was so awful it would make Jesus drink gin straight from the cat dish."

~Anne Lamott

2009-01-06T09:35:00.003-07:00

2009-01-04T09:05:00.002-07:00

Our dog, Deja, on a hike on the Rio Grande.

La Esposa thought she looked like an Alien Space Dog. I had just pushed up the highlights and pushed back the saturation.

Sandia Mountains viewed from the Rio Grande

2009-01-04T09:02:00.001-07:00

I shot this when I went hiking with the dog and the boys just before the New Year.

Photos

2009-01-04T08:22:00.003-07:00

This old Ford wagon belongs to my father-in-law. He keeps it parked in the living room.I thought this came out pretty well, one of those at-first-glance-it-looks-real sort of things.

Happy Winter

2009-01-04T08:12:00.003-07:00

This is by Hendrick Avercamp. I'd never heard of him before today. It appears he did a lot of winter scenes set in and around Amsterdam. I'm digging his stuff because it looks similar to Pieter Brueghel (the elder) who is probably my all time favorite painter (thought I love Renoir nearly as much.)

Ourosbouros

2008-12-31T10:21:00.004-07:00

This is a second draft of a short story I wrote for one of my creative writing classes. It started as an exercise in writing a rant about a pet peeve. In the end though, it seemed it needed a little more motivation and I added in the Pyramid Scheme angle.

___________________________________________________________________

The store was situated opposite an eight-story retirement center for “active seniors.” It was 10am and the residents were trekking across the road towards the Albertson’s, like turtles returning to the sea after laying their eggs. The ones in the walkers were only barely crossing the dashed yellow line in the middle of the road when those in the Rascal and Hoveround electric wheeled chairs were jockeying for position at the automatic doors. Millicent Vibrato noted them with mild disdain. Live with Regis and Kelly must be over, she thought, as she wheeled the pink Cadillac into the grocery store parking lot.

She sized up the “Compact Car” parking space. It was a tight fit and she briefly considered heading for the next nearest space, three cars further down the line. “No. I am not parking out in East Bhumphuk, Egypt,” she told herself determinedly, as she slid the huge boat of a car into the closer of the two slots. There was not enough space to easily exit the car and she had to suck her stomach in to squeeze out the door, mashing her breasts as painfully as any mammogram she’d experienced. A tiny corner of jagged metal on the door frame created a long rip in her new blouse, a blob of greasy dirt on the rocker panel smeared across the back of her white stockings. She was determined not to let this stop her. The bag she carried—one of those screened nylon affairs used to carry particularly pampered dogs—stuck between the car door and its frame. She tugged and it released with a violent jerk. Her arm swung back, the bag arcing through the air and hitting the neighboring car with a thump. She peered cautiously into the bag. No harm—no foul, she thought as she turned towards the store, tripping over the cement parking stop and laying herself out firmly on the asphalt. Struggling to her feet, she observed with not a little dismay, the large globs of chewing gum and, what was quite possibly, phlegm, which now dotted her clothing.

Inside, she fixed her face as best she could. She’d had to walk the length of the store twice to find the restrooms—tucked away as it was through the double swinging doors marked “Employees Only.” There were only minor dirt smears across her cheek and a slight scuffing on her chin. It was the mascara that had run, as she wept over the great muck-up the whole thing had become, that had made the biggest mess. If she had known the makeup was not waterproof, she would have purchased some from a real store, and not taken it from her own stock.

She and her husband, Theodorus “Ted” Vibrato, had built one of the largest multi-level marketing empires in the region. They did them all; Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, Avon, Melaleuca, HerbaLife, Mia Bella, Pampered Chef. And not one at a time, either. Once Millicent sold her first box of SA8 detergent (“It makes water wetter!”) to her sister, she was hooked, and within a two-week period, she’d added the makeup distributorships. When, after a mere four months, she got her pink Mary Kay Cadillac, Ted quit his job as assistant evening-manager at the Dollar Store and joined her. They quickly signed up for the other programs, with Ted helming the vitamin, cooking, and candle arms of their network.

In the otherwise empty Albertson’s restroom, Millicent sighed. At 39, she was too old for this shit. She told the mirror as much as she worked to wipe the eye makeup off. She tucked back a few strands of red hair that had escaped from beneath her streaked brunette wig, gave her skirt and blouse another quick brushing and returned to the store.

A pirate ship-shaped cardboard display of spiced rum and bottles of cola guarded the entrance to the liquor section. The one and three-quarter liter rum bottles were stacked in the form of the ship’s sail, the colas serving as its cannons. A life-size accompanying cut-out of a pirate captain asked if she had “a little Captain” in her. She snickered. At the sales meetings they held for their downline, Millicent always introduced Ted as “The Captain.” Part of her purpose in coming to this store this day was to purchase a pregnancy test. If her suspicions were correct, she really did have a “little Captain” in her. Nonetheless, the cardboard pirate’s bold stance made her think that perhaps rum and cola should become her signature drink. It could make a daring statement about who she was. As she selected a bottle of the rum, the display teetered like a drunk on roller blades. The bottles shifted precariously and then tenuously settled. Millicent scurried away as fast as she could to the pharmacy.

For five years, the Vibratos worked tirelessly to build their domain. They struggled to fight against the popular misconception that what they were doing involved a so-called pyramid scheme. “Of course it’s not a pyramid,” Ted would tell potential new members as he drew a diagram on a white board with a dry-erase marker.
“Pyramids are illegal.” He would draw a star, indicating himself and Millicent. Then beside that, two more stars, one above the other. Then next to that, four stars, and so on. “See?” he would say, with an enthusiasm that bordered on religious zealotry. “These levels are side-by-side—in a sideways triangle! In a pyramid scheme, they are one level under another.” Despite this horizontal movement concept, members recruited by the Vibratos were referred to as their “downline.”

Their mantra was “Each One Reach Two,” and so they did. Every member was required to recruit at least two more members. At its peak, Milli-Theo Enterprises, as the business was called, was thirteen layers wide, and had over eight thousand associates in its downline. Peak earners became members of the elite Diamondelle Inner-Circle Club®, receiving exclusive audiences with the Vibratos to ask questions about what it was like to be able to take off to any country in the world on the pink Mary Kay jet, or to set sail to Amway’s exclusive island nation at a moment’s notice. At these audiences, the men talked about golfing at St. Andrews and deep-sea fishing with Fidel Castro. The women members (the Diamondelle-ettes) wanted Millicent to tell them what it was like to wear a new designer original every day and hang out with other shining stars of the multi-level marketing world, or to not have to stand in line for anything. And she never tired of telling them.

The heck-on-wheels grandparents that Millicent had observed when she drove up to the store were now in line at the lone open register, their baskets piled with Little Debbie cakes, and bottles of Mogen David wine. It was behind a group of them that she found herself, juggling her bottles of cola and rum, several pregnancy testing kits, and her animal carrier. In front of her, an old man sniffed at the air. It seemed he had detected a precious flower or, possibly, a fresh-baked cinnamon roll. He rotated the captain’s chair of his off-brand mobility device to have a better look. The effort was hampered by a slipping, flesh-toned eye patch which he continuously slid back into position. With the working eyeball—rheumy but apparently functioning—he ogled her, taking in the gaping tear in her blouse.

He smacked his gums. “Dollface, I’ll be danged if you’re not the hottest thing since sunburn.”

Get a grip, gramps, she thought. You’re old enough to be my grandfather. Hell, you’re old enough to be my grandfather’s grandfather. At the front of the line, the cashier chattered loudly with each shopper. It appeared she knew them—along with their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren unto the tenth generation—by name. Each decrepit patron was buying only three or four items and the checkout time was averaging a minute and a half per item as chit-chat, excavation of exact change from tiny clasp-purses, or the writing of personal checks dragged the process out. Adding insult to injury, three times so far, the cashier had called for a price check on the same item. She checked her watch. There was not much time left before Ted would be taken into federal custody.

The Vibratos’ fairy-tale-dream-come-true life took a turn the day they got recruited into an exclusive new MLM plan. It was in the Sky Lounge of the Sheraton Hotel in Kowloon, where they were enjoying a plate of fresh oysters and champagne after speaking to a conference of their newly developed China downline. A well-dressed African approached them—a friendly, almost familiar face. Thrusting out a lanky ring-bedecked hand, he introduced himself as Dr. Clement Okon, a Nigerian businessman. He was a member of an MLM plan known as SPREE, whose program was designed for the “best of the best.” He’d heard them speak that evening, he said, and felt Ted had what was needed to really take off. Furthermore, since the Vibratos’ already had an established downline, they were naturals. Over several more bottles of champagne, Dr. Okon explained the plan, drawing a series of diagrams on the tablecloth. Millicent didn’t quite understand how the plan worked, but Ted nodded excitedly. All she gathered was that it involved mortgages. As a member, you made no-money-down low-interest mortgage loans to families unable to attain conventional mortgages. After a month, you sold the loan to your downline for a tidy profit. After another month, they could do the same and, like any MLM plan, everyone up the line got a percentage of the sale. It was a win-win/can’t-miss deal.

The line of geezers with walkers behind Millicent in the grocery store was extended up the Plastic Wrap/Aluminum Foil/Waxed Paper aisle. She fumed silently. There were twenty people in the line and only one register open. She vainly searched for a manager, but none were in the store. She believed the head of a man on the cell-phone appearing through the front window—now on the third cigarette since she’d first spotted him—was the manager, but she had no way of attracting his attention.

It was in early 2007 that Millicent began to suspect something was wrong. While they were still sending money to their upline, via Dr. Okon, the money from their downline was disappearing. She scanned their financial records and ran a few graphs on the computer to see if there was a trend. There was. Exactly one day after they’d sold their first loan, their finances began to level off and then drop, then rise, level, drop. It was a monthly cycle. Before calling Ted, who was in St. Louis signing paperwork on a dozen new loans, she did some research—she Googled “SPREE.”

Sometime around 11:00, Millicent’s turn in the checkout line was imminent. From the locked office at the front of the grocery store a fresh-faced cashier walked out with a cash drawer. Oh, like Hell, Millicent thought. Like Hell you are going to hold up me up while you switch out drawers. She was ready to get nasty now. But the new cashier set up at the next check stand. Millicent watched as the woman placed the drawer in the register and began cracking various paper-wrapped coin tubes open. She applied several coats of lip-balm, ran the rubber-belt a few feet as if checking its tensile strength, rotated her neck, ran in place, touched her toes, cracked her knuckles, and put on fresh lipstick. Finally she flipped the switch lighting her check stand number and announced, in a voice displaying cultivated boredom and disdain, “I can take whoever’s next.”

“Hi, Mill,” Ted said, when Millicent called him with the news about their fluctuating finances. “Make it quick. Were just finishing up and I—.”

“Stop,” She yelled into the phone. “Do not sign anything.”

It took a few minutes to get Ted to realize she wasn’t playing around. SPREE, she’d found out, was an acronym for Sub-Prime Real Estate Enterprises. Yes, she had told him, like the companies in the news that are filing Chapter 11.
“OK,” Ted said. “It’s OK. I just signed these new contracts. Just flip a few more loans to the downline and we’ll be—.”
“Oh, Ted, it’s worse,” Millicent wailed. “Dr. Clement Okon is in our downline!”
“In our downline? And our upline?”
“Yes! We recruited him in Macon last year. No wonder he looked so familiar when we met him in Kowloon.”

Millicent’s own cashier, after talking nonstop for the last thirty-five minutes, had now become a mute, possibly a deaf one. She picked up the bottle of rum and ran it over the scanner. Then again. And again and again and again. Millicent mentioned that the sign on the display she’d gotten the bottle from read $25.99. The cashier ignored her in the manner of a pediatrician who has listened to one to many mothers’ diagnoses and began dragging the barcode across the scanner even harder, determined to come to her own conclusion on the price. All good things must come to an end and, sighed heavily, she picked up the intercom. Giving Millicent a sideways glance, the woman turned her back, as though on a personal call. She shrieked into the microphone her need for a price check. Rather than simply say what the item was, she summoned a zitty bagboy from the back of the store. Millicent and the cashier looked down the aisle to watch the boy’s meandering progress toward the check stand. The fifteen people in line behind her, now wobbly on their walkers, glared at Millicent.

“It’s like that snake that eats its own tail or something,” Millicent said when Ted returned from St. Louis. “It’s a circle. All our money is just going in a big circle. The trick is that we have to catch it while the largest amount is ours.”

One might have thought the rum bottle was a relic from an alien spacecraft the way the bagboy examined it, turning it every which way. “Where did you get this?” he asked her. She suppressed the urge to tell him “from the seafood department” and instead directed him toward the display where he spent the next five minutes looking for the neon pink 1 x 2 foot sign with the price written in bold marker.

The boy returned with the news. “$25.95.” The cashier made no effort to stifle her smug grin as she keyed the price into the register. “Saved you four cents,” she noted.
Millicent hoisted the animal carrier onto the counter.
“Is ’at your purse?” the cashier asked in awe.

Millicent did some calculations and figured out when their money should be back at its peak. They had a custom-built program for their computer which showed them the current status of their entire network, upline and downline. All they needed to do was sit on the computer and when the funds went through, transfer them to a different account and shut down the network. Which is what Ted was doing the night the Treasury Department kicked the door in and arrested him for running a Ponzi scheme—more commonly known as a Pyramid Scam.

He called Millicent from the jail. “I’m innocent,” he hissed. “I watched the money move. When it hit Clement Okon, it disappeared. He took it out of the loop. No money, no evidence.”

She went to the bank to withdraw bail money for Ted, but the account was frozen. She called a few members of their immediate downline for help, but was met with repeated silence. In desperation, she dialed a contact number for Clement Okon, the Nigerian businessman who seemed to be the source of their problems. The phone rang, clicked, rang again.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation, Western Regional Office,” chirped a young woman. “How may I direct your call?” Millicent hung up.

“Biggest damn purse I ever saw,” the cashier said. Millicent unzipped the bag and reached inside. Her hand shook as she pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. Ted had bought it at an auction of Hemingway memorabilia; it was the very one the great author had used to commit suicide. Millicent had to saw off the barrel in order to fit in the carrier, and now she thrust it at the cashier. “Fill it up,” she snarled. She waved the gun at the other cashier. “You too.” Both women opened their drawers and began withdrawing cash and checks. The store manager passed by, talking on a cellphone. He put a hand over the receiver and, in a stage whisper to Millicent’s cashier, informed her he was going out for a smoke.

What she would do next, Millicent Vibrato didn’t know. She hoped the registers held enough money to at least get her safely a state or two away from here. Surely she could pick up a job. Maybe get into a downline. She’d heard of the remarkable income to be had selling pre-paid legal services.

Copyright 2008 Rick Raab-Faber

Haiku

2008-12-26T16:19:00.005-07:00

Flakes of snow flutter
Sandhill crane pair flies onward
The cold sends me back in

Yeah, I know. Cheap. But I was just out on the deck at work and... well, that's what happened. I believe that that is what Haiku is supposed to be about. Things we see in the natural world.

Support Amnesty International

2008-12-11T08:13:00.001-07:00

2008-11-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

2008-11-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

Espaliered Apple Tree

2008-11-25T16:45:00.004-07:00

I like the creepy effect of this shot. I've been very interested in the quality of light around dawn and dusk in New Mexico this Autumn. This shot was, of course, tweaked a bit, though not much. Mainly, I pulled the light up a bit, sepia-ed it (or desaturated) and added the blur at the edge.

A Deer in the Target

2008-11-23T15:28:00.002-07:00

by Robert Fanning

I only got a ten-second shot,
grainy footage of the huge deer
caught in the crosshairs
of a ceiling security camera, a scene
of utter chaos in a strip mall store,
shown on the late local news.
The beautiful beast clearly scared
to death in this fluorescent forest,
its once graceful legs giving out
on mopped floors, think Bambi
as a faun its first time standing.
Seeing the scattering shoppers,
you'd think a demon had barged
into this temple of commerce,
as they sacrificed their merchandise,
stranded full carts and dove for cover.
And when the aisles were emptied
of these bargain hunters, who was left
but an army of brave red-shirted
team members, mobilized by
the store manager over the intercom
to drive this wild animal out.
I wager there's nothing on this
in the How to Approach
an Unsatisfied Shopper
section in the Target employee handbook,
but there they were: the cashiers
and stockers, the Floor Supervisor,
the Assistant Floor Supervisor,
the Store Manager,
the Assistant Store Manager,
the District Associate Manager,
the District Supervisor,
the District Assistant Supervisor
and visiting members from
the Regional Corporate Office,
running after it, it running after
them, bull's eye logos on their red golf shirts,
everyone frenzied and panting: razor hooves
clattering on the mirror-white floor tiles,
nostrils heaving, its rack clearing
off-season clothes from clearance racks.
All of them, in Target,
chasing the almighty buck.

"A Deer In The Target" by Robert Fanning. Reprinted with permission of the author. Borrowed from Writers' Almanac

Free Range Kids

2008-11-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

“Increasingly, American children are in a lose-lose situation. They’re forced, prematurely, to do all the un-fun kinds of things adults do (Be over-scheduled! Have no downtime! Study! Work!). But they don’t get any of the privileges of adult life: autonomy, the ability to make their own choices, use their own judgment, maybe even get interestingly lost now and then.” The L.A. Times

What do you think?

Here's a post from a blog called Free Range Kids (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-the-subway-alone/) by a woman who let her 9 year-old ride the subway alone in NYC.

As a parent, I know it's hard to let go and not panic whenever the kids are out of my sight. (hearing is not such a big deal). But is the world really that different from when we were kids? Or is it just "Different"?

The Happy Dumbing Of America

2008-11-20T16:50:00.001-07:00

January 22, 2007
Source: New York Sun

Maybe we've been pointing to the wrong culprits when we attempt to assign blame for the dumbing down of America. (What is it this week — too much testing in the schools? Working mothers? Fox TV? It's hard to keep track.) It is quite possible that…

Read the article here: http://www.nysun.com/new-york/happy-dumbing-of-america/47126/

I'm out of the closet: I admit it. I'm an Archer's Addict

2008-11-20T15:35:00.003-07:00

The Archers is a radio soap opera -- the world's longest running -- on BBC4. I listen to it via a podcast from itunes.

The show is about the residents of the fictional town of Ambridge and... Oh, hell. Here. This is lifted straight off the BBC Archers site.

What is The Archers?

* The Archers is a radio soap opera set in the fictional English village of Ambridge. It provides contemporary drama in a rural setting.

What will I hear?

* Ambridge is portrayed as a 21st century village, with all the pressures of modern rural life. You'll become involved in the characters' personal and business struggles, love affairs - happy and troubled - and village activities. And there are plenty of lighter moments too.

Who is it about?

* Several of the main characters are farmers: David and Ruth Archer at Brookfield Farm (dairy and beef), their cousins Pat and Tony Archer who farm organically at Bridge Farm (dairy and vegetables), and well-off Brian and Jennifer Aldridge at Home Farm (arable, sheep and deer), the biggest in the village.
* The Archer family is related to the Aldridges and to several other Ambridge families, including the Hebden Lloyds (riding school and vet), the Pargetters (stately home owners) and the Woolleys (retired business people).
* And there are lots of less well-off characters. Most of them live and work in and around Ambridge: on the farms, in the local pub (The Bull), at the village shop, the swanky Grey Gables hotel or St Stephen's church. Others might be found in the nearby market town of Borchester.
* Full details can be found in the Who's Who.
* And there are family trees for the main families .

How can I hear it?

* The 13-minute episodes are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 every day, Sunday to Friday at 7 pm, repeated the next day at 2pm (except Saturdays). There's an omnibus edition of all the week's episodes on Sunday morning at 10.15am.
* BBC Radio 4 is on 92-95 FM, 198 LW, and on digital radio and television
* You can also listen online , or get the programme sent to your computer in a podcast.

Anyway, it is highly addictive. Unless you are a total anglophobe, which many American's are.

I guess I should mention that I'm not an "official" addict (that is to day that I haven't actually paid my £10.00 to Archer's Addicts. There is also an alternative club known as the Archers Anarchists, whose motto is "The Archers are real - there is no cast."

It's Presshah Time!

2008-11-18T08:34:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving is only a week away. The semester is nearly over. I'm not sure if that's where the pressure is coming from or if it's just because I've got a lot going on/due this week.

I had a 13 page short story due this week -- though that got turned in last week, but we are critiquing it in class this week. I've got a quiz in my Hitchcock class today (Hitchcock is a hard word to type.) This afternoon I've got a meeting with my advisor and tomorrow a meeting for an independent study course I'm trying to get into for next semester. I've got another 100 pages to read for tomorrow on a book that I haven't found all that good. And, of course, there are more things coming up.

Roll into all that that I'm feeling sick (bronchitisish)and heading towards a bout of depression, and, well, there's my life.

Autumn Leaves 2

2008-11-17T13:04:00.001-07:00

Autumn Leaves 2
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

The colors, though they are in the brown mustard range, are still pretty stunning.

2008-11-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

Rio Grande from Alameda Bridge, Albuquerque, NM
November 15, 2008

2008-11-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sandia Mountains from North Beach, Corrales, NM
November 15, 2008

2008-11-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

SITREP:SNAFU

2008-11-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

It’s been kind of a rough day. Spent most of it trying to fill in the last bits of a short story that is due tomorrow. I should have insisted on doing it last weekend, when the squeezes family was here, but I was being the good guy and hanging.

The story itself kind of depressed me. Well, that and the weather. And my friggin iPod, when I pulled it out of the little charger/remote player thing we’ve got, froze up. It won’t reboot or even shutdown. And there is still glass in my ass from when some punks smashed my windshield at Halloween. And it’s time to start looking at next (final) semester’s classes. And it’s also time to get my grad school applications in order. And the bank just hit me with an NSF fee. And I’m practically broke.

I feel trapped. Not in my life with the squeeze, but in life in general. (This is all the result of that story, and the one I wrote before that, no doubt.) The economy’s got a lot to do with it. I just found out that the last place I worked has filed Chapter 11. The place before that folded. The place before that filed Chapter 13. My resume looks like shit.

Music Review

2008-11-10T10:53:00.006-07:00

I ran across this review today -- though it is a couple of years old. I've been a huge Springsteen fan for years and years, something that is no mean feat in a city like Albuquerque, where we only knew of The Boss by articles in Rolling Stone, or from covers by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.

As it happens, I'm also a folkie, and work as a research assistant for David Dunaway, Pete Seeger's biographer, so Ron Radosh's review of The Seeger Sessions in American Interest Magazine is doubly appreciated. Radosh has a conservative - or at the least cynical - bent to his review, saying of Springsteen,

Perhaps realizing that the song hardly says “U.S. out of Iraq”, which is how many have portrayed its message, Springsteen has added to his tour Seeger’s old anti-Vietnam War song, “Bring ’Em Home”, in which he sings, “If you love your Uncle Sam, bring ’em home, bring ’em home/ bring them home from abroad” (Seeger had sung “from Vietnam”). Springsteen is entitled to his views, and he has made them clear. But do his audiences really believe that the United States should pull its troops out of Iraq immediately? Do they believe, as Seeger used to, that the singing of left-wing and antiwar songs has the power to change American foreign policy? For those who are antiwar (and certainly at least a minority of Springsteen’s audience is), the song works as catharsis. But as before, even in the political folk heyday of the Vietnam War, most of the audience shows for the music; the performers, meanwhile, show up to make it—and to sell records.

Ummm... Yeah, Ron. I think his audiences do. Maybe not people who dislike anything after Born To Run, but certainly his newer fans. We've had enough of being pushed around. Enough of having our lives (both actual and metaphorical) being sacrificed on the altars of war and corporate greed.

I don't know what sort of magazine this American Interest thing is, but their current issue has an article titled When He Wins: Three programs for a McCain presidency by Lawrence Eagleburger, Newt Gingrich & Charles Hill. It's a hoot! A scary hoot, but a hoot nonetheless.

Totem Frankenstein

2008-11-09T09:55:00.003-07:00

Back in Chili, New York, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, my friend, Dave M., admitted to us that he'd sent away for the lifesize Frankenstein with glow-in-the-dark eyes. Unlike the paper model advertised on your site, this one was advertized as polyethylene. We were all amazed that he'd had the balls to order this thing -- I mean, we all always wondered how cool these things from the comic books could be... especially the lifesize Frankenstein with glow-in-the-dark eyes.

With the Frankenstein, we confused "polyethylene" with "polystyrene," the hard plastic that was used to make the football players for the vibrating football game we all had.

A few weeks after the order, we were hanging around in Dave's room. His mom poked her head in the door and handed him en envelope that had just arrived in the mail. It was a standard manila size and the return address was the same as the one he'd sent off to for the the lifesize Frankenstein with glow-in-the-dark eyes. We were all a little confused. How could you put a life-size 6 foot Frankenstein in an envelope?

He opened the envelope, reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of plastic. As he began to unfold it, we could see the face of a screen-printed green and black drawing of Frankenstein. I fell apart laughing and snatched it away, dancing around the room with it. It just hit me. "Polyethlene's not what they make the football players with. It's what they make Totem Trash Bags from!" The eyes weren't glowing though... until we shook out the envelope and found a little sheet with two round stickers of glow-in-the-dark material. I guess that the manufacturers saved money by not paying someone to pre-apply these -- thus passing the savings on to the consumer.

Frankenstein was renamed "Totem Frankenstein" and Dave and I (who were both budding cartoonists) drew many exciting and hilarious adventure with this new hero -- usually somehow involving him blowing down the street in the breeze.

(Thanks to Steve Conley for the reminder!)

Hrorscope: Taurus

2008-11-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Taurus April 20 - May 20

Enlightenment and confusion will both be yours this week, when a tree falls in the woods only to make the sound of one hand clapping.

From The Onion

Bring 'em home

2008-11-08T09:12:00.007-07:00

I'm writing here as a 6 year veteran of the armed forces. This crest shown here is from the 5th Cavalry Regiment, which I served in during the Cold War.

I want to say that I understand the desire of certain politicians to finish the job, that to leave now is to admit defeat. But I also want people to understand what they are asking of our servicemen and women... Wait. Let me rephrase that. We aren't asking them to serve longer. We are ordering them. We had a spate of young people who, in the patriotic fervor of the times, enlisted to help fight America's common enemies. We repay them for this by abusing them heart, mind, body, and soul. Sending them back, extending their tours, holding national security as a higher ideal over their health and families.

This somehow reminds me of the corporate Fat Cat who gets rich by the labor of his underpaid employees. Substitute "General Public" for "Fat Cat" and "soldiers" for "underpaid employees." Don't make me spell out the entire analogy, let me just say that it is easy enough for the corporate CEO to ask for extra hours from his employees for the sake of the company, when he's enjoying the fruit of that labor.

And after all is said and done, that Fat Cat is floating to safety thanks to his Golden Parachute, while the employee is stuck without health care and trying to live on unemployment benefits.

Lemmings in trouble

2008-11-07T08:21:00.002-07:00

I love this photo (as a photo.) See the related article at science.com. The little rodents, famous for pushing one another off cliffs as a way to control populations are now in trouble.

Some thoughts on change

2008-11-06T07:56:00.003-07:00

The following email arrived in my box today....

Worth passing around

Some thoughts on change:

In the late 1950s, most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive. When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said, 'Praise the Lord.' And when the young leader said, 'I will be for change and I'll bring you change'; everyone yelled, 'Viva Fidel!'

But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent, the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education, it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented, Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status. By the time the change was over, more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans.

Fortunately, America would never fall for a young leader who promised change without asking, what change? How will you carry it out? What will it cost America? RIGHT?

Remember these words from Thomas Jefferson 'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.'

To which I responded...

Back in the 1700's, most colonists living in North America thought the Colonies needed a change, and they were right. So when a group of patriots came along with an idea called the Declaration of Independence, every colonist was at least receptive. When the young leaders spoke eloquently and passionately denounced the old system, the press fell in love with them.

You think nobody asked those questions of Obama? You think he wasn't scrutinized as much as McCain? You think we need more of the same? Yeah, America is just floating along on a sea of prosperity and happiness, isn't it?

This is one of the weakest bits of propaganda I've seen in a long time. The Republicans couldn't get the Muslim label to stick, so now they will compare him to a dictator? It is as easy to compare the Bush administration to the fascists of the 20s and 30s, or the KGB of the Kruschev era. Please. Give me a break.

Death to the Consumer Culture

2008-11-05T23:21:00.001-07:00

IMG_1547
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

What a great title for this shot. Of course when I think of the little punks who stole the shopping cart and dumped it in the arroyo I get all pissy about the cost of groceries and the overhead that is created by this senseless vandalism. God, I'm old.

Rio Grande Autumn

2008-11-05T23:10:00.001-07:00

IMG_1576
Originally uploaded by rraabfaber

This is just a test to see how well posting shots from my Flickr account works.

I took this photo a week or two ago as the leaves were changing.... and the water was flowing.... and stuff.

When was the last time you heard this after an election?

2008-11-05T08:12:00.003-07:00

Crowds danced in the streets, wept, lifted their voices in prayer and brought traffic to a standstill. From the nation's capital to Atlanta to Los Angeles, Americans celebrated Barack Obama's victory and marveled that they lived to see the day that a black man was elected president.

Jubilation stretched into the early morning Wednesday in Washington, D.C., and a large crowd paraded on Pennsylvania Avenue with drums, balloons and a life-size cutout of Obama.

By 4 a.m., a few young revelers lingered among the reviewing stands being built for January's presidential inauguration.

"I heard that he won and I instinctively came here," said Hollis Gentry, 45, who lives about six blocks away. "I came down here to make a prayer... that we'll be able to change the nation and the world." (Source: AP via Breitbart.com)(italics mine.)

For so many years when the election's been called, we've heard people say "Thank God" as they breath a sigh of relief that the lesser of two evils did not win. For the first time in I don't know how long, people are saying "Thank God!"

'Change has come to America'

2008-11-04T22:30:00.002-07:00

Wow. I can and can't believe it happened. I honestly never thought it would happen in my lifetime.

But it's not just the race issue. It feels like here is a man who will be able to get things done. At the least, for a brief moment in time, we can have a sense of hope.

The Squeeze mentioned to me that she wondered how many people voted for him because he's black. I reminded her that it probably got balanced out by the number of people who voted against him for the same reason.

It may not work. It may all blow up and go to hell. But I felt like if we went with McCain, it was just a guarantee of that. It's slippery slope time. Time to tread lightly.

As of tomorrow, I will remove all political content from this blog, with the exception of this post and the Obama tag on the right-hand column. That one I'll keep up there until January 20th.

Picture of the Week

2008-11-02T08:12:00.003-07:00

From Wonkette.com comes this wonderfully crazy story of the Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies.

Here we have Christians seemingly praying to the golden calf (all grown up now into a bronze bull.)

Of all the things I've heard that signal a time of judgment for the church in America, this has got to be the most blatant.

Not surprisingly, this event is affiliated somehow with the Pat Robertson influenced 700 Club.