...shall serve to permanently close the blog known as "Random Musings, Cont'd.".
The Research phase of this project is now irrevocably concluded.
The author wishes to express his heartfelt thanks toward the innumerable real persons whose invaluable participation in this project to date is exclusively responsible for any good which may ever happen to arise on account of the project's existence.
Any and all faults and shortcomings exhibited by this project to date are solely attributable to the author, who gladly accepts the full weight of responsibility -- moral, ethical, and legal -- in particular, for the participation of certain persons with neither their prior knowledge nor their informed consent. Without exposing these persons to any further public scrutiny, the author yet wishes to express his sincere regret for any unforeseen ill effects which may have resulted on account of their unwitting inclusion in this project, and apologizes with none but the deepest gratitude for all of those upon whose backs the ethics of any new communications technology era, but especially the nascent electronic bitstream world of our own day, are hammered out.
This project's author may still be reached via electronic mail to jmwzqdest505 at gmail dot com (minus "zqd").
13 December 2010
05 December 2010
Yay! Documents.
This beats Draft Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statements, hands down, any day. (Sure is nice to be out of the news-gathering organization, so that now I'm actually subject to the first amendment, and quite free to have and voice my own opinions.) :^) :^)
As for sending kids to school across the border, ask my mother about that. As for relocating, well dear reader, lemme just suggest that next time you see someone with Chihuahua plates drivin' all weird on the freeway, instead of chewin' 'em out, just think of 'em as refugees driving in unfamiliar traffic, give 'em a little space, and see if your own driving doesn't improve measurably. ;^) ;^)
To continue:
In other words, a good portion of the 6,262 murders the Mexican Attorney General's office connected with organized crime in 2008 must be counted as little more than collateral damage in the Mexican government's own counter-narcotics "successes", won with support from the US. (I wonder how many of those murdered managed to remain "essentially insulated from the violence, though not from its effects" while getting killed. Amazing what we stupid Mexicans can do. Too bad for me I'm really just one-quarter Mexican; speaking just for myself, I'm pretty sure that getting killed might actually kinda hurt!)
Returning to the first quote's definition of "cartel violence" as "being characterized by. . . a callous disregard for the potential for collateral damage", I would posit that it's fair to ask whether the US government considers the Mexican government itself to be a cartel, or else acting as cartels' security forces.
A little website you may have heard about -- wikilieaks.ch -- seems to be releasing a whole slew of classified diplomatic cables from US Embassies abroad -- over a quarter of a million of 'em -- in what they're somewhat predictably calling "cablegate". Not all at once, but in stages. You might have heard oh say on NPR or something about how wikileaks seems to be coming under fire. First they lose their DNS servers' support, then PayPal stopped processing donations to their site, and on December 1st US-CERT issued a warning about supposed Wikileaks-related phishing scams, blah de blah. Since I'm sure I'd only strike some very well-informed reader as a wee bit paranoid were I to so much as suggest that wikileaks may be coming under pressure as a direct result of their releasing sensitive information contained in these documents, I won't even go there. Hell! For all I know, the document I've been reading (which I link to below) is just a clever forgery, and I'm just really kinda stoopid to take it so seriously.
Now I ain't all expert at readin' embassy cables, but here's one little link I hope folks living down here on the border might find interesting.
The Battle Joined: Narco Violence Trends in 2008, from the US Embassy in Mexico City to the US Secretary of State, summarizes -- well, the title pretty much says it. The cable expresses concern over the potential for US Government agents serving in Mexico to face violence at the hands of battling drug cartels. While I'm sure a lot of what's mentioned here is quite common knowledge, I still found several things of particular interest, especially where the logic seems (to my judgment) just a little bit shaky.
Here are some random selections from one who believes that words do have meaning, and matter.
Beyond its broadened scope, the nature of cartel violence changed in 2008: organized violence was characterized by significantly increased brutality, a callous disregard for the potential for collateral damage and more frequent targeting of soldiers and police.
The cable's own definition, above, of "cartel violence" and "organized violence" as "being characterized by. . . a callous disregard for the potential for collateral damage" is crucial, if we wish to understand the language in which this report is couched.
Transshipment points, anyone? Is this really a surprise to anyone? Hmm -- how about targeting reporters?
The surge in violence along the border stems largely from the intensified struggle among cartels over a few lucrative land crossings to the U.S. In particular, the January 2008 arrest of cartel leader Alfredo Beltran Leyva sparked a serious rift among the Gulf, Juarez and Sinaloa (Pacific) cartels, which is being played out viciously in Ciudad Juarez.
Transshipment points, anyone? Is this really a surprise to anyone? Hmm -- how about targeting reporters?
Cartels have also expanded their use of violence to intimidate. Beheadings and the prominent placement of dismembered bodies in public places, relatively rare two years ago are now common throughout the country. The late night grenade/shooting attack on our consulate in Monterrey was obviously designed to send a message, although no individual or group has ever claimed responsibility. More explicit was the January assault on the Monterrey offices of Televisa, accompanied by a message telling the broadcaster to do a better job reporting on corrupt public officials. Attacks such as these remain sporadic so far, and we have insufficient indications whether they mark a new trend or not.Gee, I dunno. I guess we could ask the photographers at El Diaro -- that is, if reporters' lives even matter. :^| :^|
Despite these sporadic attacks, Mexico's drug war continues to primarily impact security forces and those linked directly or indirectly to the drug trade. The civilian population in some urban areas along the border remains bunkered down with some of those who have the money either sending their children to school in the U.S. or relocating entirely to minimize risk. In much of the rest of the country, though, the civilian population not involved in the drug trade remains essentially insulated from the violence, though not from its effects.
Intriguing! The ability to remain essentially insulated from violence, without remaining essentially insulated from its effects, must either demonstrate an extraordinary resiliency, completely unique in all of human history to Mexico's current civilian population, or else an exquisitely obfuscatory turn of phrase, the possible reasons for the employment of which must be due to causes which I can not readily discern. At any rate, the imputed ability of Mexico's civilian population to remain uninsulated from the effects of violence, while remaining insulated from the violence itself, seems to me to break the chain of causality, which (unless I misunderstand) dictates that effects flow from causes, and never arise independent of causes. (But then, what does little old non-degreed me know about highfalutin' intellectual shtuff like Prasangika-Madhyamaka logic?)
As for sending kids to school across the border, ask my mother about that. As for relocating, well dear reader, lemme just suggest that next time you see someone with Chihuahua plates drivin' all weird on the freeway, instead of chewin' 'em out, just think of 'em as refugees driving in unfamiliar traffic, give 'em a little space, and see if your own driving doesn't improve measurably. ;^) ;^)
To continue:
Increased confrontations between security forces and criminals is one explanation for the increasing killing of security forces personnel. GOM authorities argue that killings are no longer just score-settling among bad cops, but increasingly the consequence of the government's aggressive fight against the cartels. Some analysts we have spoken to agree. However, they also note that with few exceptions the majority of deaths are not the result of direct confrontations. They argue that the crackdown on police corruption has put compromised police officials in the position of either being prosecuted or breaking their established agreements/arrangements with the cartels. Hence, some of those who presumably choose the latter course are being punished brutally. (See MEXICO 2371, 3498)
So, hm. Let me see if I'm reading this right. According to unnamed analyst sources, "compromised police officials" face the choice of prosecution under Mexican law on the one hand, or brutal punishment (up to and including murder) by cartels on the other.
Sure sounds to me like the cartels are more powerful than the Government of Mexico. :^) :^)
As for Drug Trafficking Organizations' (DTO's) threats to US Government (USG) assets in Mexico:
Wow. Sounds almost exactly like what I've heard from some of our boys who've served in Afghanistan and Iraq about translators working for US Forces there. How long 'til US assets in Mexico have to change their names and places of residence on a regular basis? I wonder.
Let's see. The counter-narcotics efforts of the weak (not to say corrupt) Mexican government (GOM) are directly supported by US foreign policy's longstanding preference for attempting to control the supply side of this underground economy's equation, while doing little (if anything) domestically to address demand other than criminalizing end-users. Wow! I guess our Diplomatic corps are just really gosh-dern lucky that the guys headin' up this multibillion dollar international enterprise aren't smart enough to figure that one out! "No, really -- it's OK", the report seems to say, "they may be drug cartel kingpins, but it's really OK, 'cause at heart, they're just stupid Mexicans".
Sure sounds to me like the cartels are more powerful than the Government of Mexico. :^) :^)
As for Drug Trafficking Organizations' (DTO's) threats to US Government (USG) assets in Mexico:
While the cartels have not yet directly targeted USG law enforcement or other personnel, they have shown little reticence about going after some of our most reliable partners in Mexican law enforcement agencies. Ten close DEA law enforcement liaison officers have been killed since 2007, seven of whom were members of Special Vetted Units. Similarly, within the past two years 51 close FBI contacts have been murdered. More than sixty of Mexico's best law enforcement officers in whom we have placed our trust and with whom we have collaborated on sensitive investigations, shared intelligence and in many cases trained and vetted have been murdered by the cartels. We do know from sources that cartel members have at least contemplated the possibility of doing harm to both our personnel and institutions, but we frankly don't know enough about how DTO members think and operate to know what factors might trigger a decision to mount such an attack, but the potential threat is very real.
Wow. Sounds almost exactly like what I've heard from some of our boys who've served in Afghanistan and Iraq about translators working for US Forces there. How long 'til US assets in Mexico have to change their names and places of residence on a regular basis? I wonder.
We assess that the threat to U.S. personnel could increase if the violence continues to escalate and more high-level government officials and political leaders are targeted. Also, a reaction may be triggered if traffickers perceive their losses are due to U.S. support to the GOM's counter-narcotics efforts. We will continue to monitor potential threats to U.S. personnel from organized criminal gangs and be alert to information that suggests drug traffickers increasingly see the U.S. hand as responsible for their losses.
Let's see. The counter-narcotics efforts of the weak (not to say corrupt) Mexican government (GOM) are directly supported by US foreign policy's longstanding preference for attempting to control the supply side of this underground economy's equation, while doing little (if anything) domestically to address demand other than criminalizing end-users. Wow! I guess our Diplomatic corps are just really gosh-dern lucky that the guys headin' up this multibillion dollar international enterprise aren't smart enough to figure that one out! "No, really -- it's OK", the report seems to say, "they may be drug cartel kingpins, but it's really OK, 'cause at heart, they're just stupid Mexicans".
If you believe that, I've got some Miracle Salve to sell ya.
The implication that traffickers do not in fact perceive their losses as stemming from US government support of the Mexican government would seem to assume that Mexican drug traffickers are extraordinarily stupid, despite their previously acknowledged ability to exact retribution against compromised Mexican officials whom the government of Mexico is apparently either powerless or unwilling to protect.
The next quote is stated in support of acknowledging, though not without reservations, "considerable truth to the assertion" that the Calderon administration's counter-narcotics "successes" are partly responsible for the surge in violence seen in 2008.
According to collaborative sensitive reporting, the January 2008 arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva split the Pacific Cartel, and accentuated antagonism between that DTO and the Gulf organization which caused the spike in violence in Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Baja California (see also MEXICO 1766). In addition to these rifts, frustrated traffickers have turned to kidnappings and extortion to compensate for the loss in drug-trafficking revenue, expanding their reach and impacting a greater number of bystanders who have no involvement in DTO activities. These kinds of impacts bring home to ordinary Mexicans the nature of the struggle here.
In other words, a good portion of the 6,262 murders the Mexican Attorney General's office connected with organized crime in 2008 must be counted as little more than collateral damage in the Mexican government's own counter-narcotics "successes", won with support from the US. (I wonder how many of those murdered managed to remain "essentially insulated from the violence, though not from its effects" while getting killed. Amazing what we stupid Mexicans can do. Too bad for me I'm really just one-quarter Mexican; speaking just for myself, I'm pretty sure that getting killed might actually kinda hurt!)
Returning to the first quote's definition of "cartel violence" as "being characterized by. . . a callous disregard for the potential for collateral damage", I would posit that it's fair to ask whether the US government considers the Mexican government itself to be a cartel, or else acting as cartels' security forces.
Followup questions? If the answer is "no", then "what constructive role does the US see the the Mexican government playing in Mexican society, given that it engages in cartel-like behaviour?" If "yes", then "why should the US government support the Mexican government's counter-narcotics efforts, thereby essentially taking sides in what amounts to an internal struggle between warring cartels for control of lucrative narcotics transshipment points?"
05 November 2010
Three hours 'til New Moon...
...and everything around me's permeated with a sense of peace.
Twenty-one people came to the Spanish-language meditation, teaching, and discussion at the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Center tonight. It was a flawless -- and I *do* mean *flawless* meet!
I made tea and pink lemonade and someone else stepped up to pass around bowls of peanuts to everyone with visciously hot little "Takis" snack taquitos garnishing the top. And yet, at the end of the night, I had only the cup from which I had drunk tea to wash. Someone else brought two kinds of chocolates and passed them around. Another brought miniature muffins. Everything was freely shared (including the work -- or was it play?); and the conversation was *sparkling*, punctuated at its end by a collective peal of laughter that swept through the room like a Dublin pub's craic. Nobody left hungry, thirsty, or, as far as I could tell, in *any* way dissatisfied.
Ever the consummate kindergarten teacher, David entertained one of the two wonderful little boys who were there with his drawing on a whiteboard. I showed the same boy, later, how to make a paper crane when he began to get restless -- as always, I got to watch him start to "get it" about geometry (e.g., folding not just "in a straight line", but "in a straight line between two points"). Thus was I reacquainted to what an amazing thing it is to *watch* new concepts blossom into fresh realizations in the innocent mind of a child.
Incense burned throughout, and people lingered in happy discussions all throughout the center afterward. Someone else vacuumed the shrine room while I emptied trash; and, as always, David set up cushions and desks as they'll be needed next. Someone (I'm not even sure who) stuck around a bit after everyone one else left just to make sure that both David and I made it out safe and sound, the center securely locked up. The place was left as close to spotless as I have *ever* seen it, and all the work was shared in a profoundly joyful cooperative spirit which I like to think is the very embodiment of the concept of "Sangha" in its phœnomenal manifestation.
What Dickens might call "impoverishment", and what several generations now of translators of ancient Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan texts into Western languages have awkwardly borrowed the Christian term "renunciation" (and by default extension, its underlying concept) to describe, I much prefer, in the spirit of Don Schraeder, to simply call "living simply that others may quite simply live". It more than has its share of charms -- and now that I'm *finally* drawing close to accomplishing it, I am strongly disinclined at every turn to do *anything* which might unduly complicate my life. Strongly disinclined, indeed!
I knew that's what I wanted when I moved to Albuquerque, but my plans for living simply in that complicated continental crossroads of a town went very far off course between a combination of my own acquisitive spirit and nearly magnetic attraction to exquisitely, even exotically complex displays of every kind of controversy ever known to man. Throw in about as much "fame" as a person of my constitution can take without shredding every fibre of integrity: the stage is quite well set for a brilliant purge. I speak not on the scale of fireworks nor meteor showers, but on the scale of white dwarves going supernova, if not galaxies nor galaxy clusters.
I can now say -- with absolute honesty -- I have given almost everything I own away. Not always gracefully or graciously, I'm sure; but caught up in torrential whirlwinds of illusion, fragile ego -- mind? -- grasps at utterly ludicrous straws trying to preserve not itself but even its mere self-perception. Never again -- *never* again do I intend to follow after chains of grasping that lead (in time, with constant reinforcement) to moving unplayable pianos several times between a string of outrageously oversized, overpriced rentals, while human life itself is held less dear than empty husks of vintage radio cabinets. The car and this laptop my mother gave me are both useful tools to accomplishing whatever it is that I set my mind now to accomplish, but they are not me, they are not any part of me, nor am I them, nor any part of them.
Needs? A third pair of socks would be nice, but I'm in no great rush to go shopping for them. Lots of things "would be nice" (for which you may well read "would *seem* nice"), but -- no! Everything I "own" fits very well into the car, which takes me anywhere the road may go (and a few places it does not).
Even at our most dysfunctional individual levels, both David and I exhibit a dynamic complementarity which serves each of our separate needs rather well. We don't finish eachother's sentences -- that's no more of a trick than looking like your dog. We share dreams, and even (I would openly say) visions. That's not a hackneyed turn of phrase or bad attempt at poetry. It is our literal, experienced, and very deeply *shared* reality.
I would write more, but honestly, I have far, far too much, far too better to do with my nowhere near sufficiently ample time. Life is short and its repetitive-enough-to-be-downright-boring tendency to "be difficult" is no more than sea salt in the beans.
This much I know. The beans that I just ate may not just be the best I've ever made, but even the very best that I have ever had. Even engrained habits -- even "ancient traditions" die, or are at least transformed beyond their blind adherents' wildest imaginings.
There is no turning back.
So be it.
Twenty-one people came to the Spanish-language meditation, teaching, and discussion at the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Center tonight. It was a flawless -- and I *do* mean *flawless* meet!
I made tea and pink lemonade and someone else stepped up to pass around bowls of peanuts to everyone with visciously hot little "Takis" snack taquitos garnishing the top. And yet, at the end of the night, I had only the cup from which I had drunk tea to wash. Someone else brought two kinds of chocolates and passed them around. Another brought miniature muffins. Everything was freely shared (including the work -- or was it play?); and the conversation was *sparkling*, punctuated at its end by a collective peal of laughter that swept through the room like a Dublin pub's craic. Nobody left hungry, thirsty, or, as far as I could tell, in *any* way dissatisfied.
Ever the consummate kindergarten teacher, David entertained one of the two wonderful little boys who were there with his drawing on a whiteboard. I showed the same boy, later, how to make a paper crane when he began to get restless -- as always, I got to watch him start to "get it" about geometry (e.g., folding not just "in a straight line", but "in a straight line between two points"). Thus was I reacquainted to what an amazing thing it is to *watch* new concepts blossom into fresh realizations in the innocent mind of a child.
Incense burned throughout, and people lingered in happy discussions all throughout the center afterward. Someone else vacuumed the shrine room while I emptied trash; and, as always, David set up cushions and desks as they'll be needed next. Someone (I'm not even sure who) stuck around a bit after everyone one else left just to make sure that both David and I made it out safe and sound, the center securely locked up. The place was left as close to spotless as I have *ever* seen it, and all the work was shared in a profoundly joyful cooperative spirit which I like to think is the very embodiment of the concept of "Sangha" in its phœnomenal manifestation.
What Dickens might call "impoverishment", and what several generations now of translators of ancient Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan texts into Western languages have awkwardly borrowed the Christian term "renunciation" (and by default extension, its underlying concept) to describe, I much prefer, in the spirit of Don Schraeder, to simply call "living simply that others may quite simply live". It more than has its share of charms -- and now that I'm *finally* drawing close to accomplishing it, I am strongly disinclined at every turn to do *anything* which might unduly complicate my life. Strongly disinclined, indeed!
I knew that's what I wanted when I moved to Albuquerque, but my plans for living simply in that complicated continental crossroads of a town went very far off course between a combination of my own acquisitive spirit and nearly magnetic attraction to exquisitely, even exotically complex displays of every kind of controversy ever known to man. Throw in about as much "fame" as a person of my constitution can take without shredding every fibre of integrity: the stage is quite well set for a brilliant purge. I speak not on the scale of fireworks nor meteor showers, but on the scale of white dwarves going supernova, if not galaxies nor galaxy clusters.
I can now say -- with absolute honesty -- I have given almost everything I own away. Not always gracefully or graciously, I'm sure; but caught up in torrential whirlwinds of illusion, fragile ego -- mind? -- grasps at utterly ludicrous straws trying to preserve not itself but even its mere self-perception. Never again -- *never* again do I intend to follow after chains of grasping that lead (in time, with constant reinforcement) to moving unplayable pianos several times between a string of outrageously oversized, overpriced rentals, while human life itself is held less dear than empty husks of vintage radio cabinets. The car and this laptop my mother gave me are both useful tools to accomplishing whatever it is that I set my mind now to accomplish, but they are not me, they are not any part of me, nor am I them, nor any part of them.
Needs? A third pair of socks would be nice, but I'm in no great rush to go shopping for them. Lots of things "would be nice" (for which you may well read "would *seem* nice"), but -- no! Everything I "own" fits very well into the car, which takes me anywhere the road may go (and a few places it does not).
Even at our most dysfunctional individual levels, both David and I exhibit a dynamic complementarity which serves each of our separate needs rather well. We don't finish eachother's sentences -- that's no more of a trick than looking like your dog. We share dreams, and even (I would openly say) visions. That's not a hackneyed turn of phrase or bad attempt at poetry. It is our literal, experienced, and very deeply *shared* reality.
I would write more, but honestly, I have far, far too much, far too better to do with my nowhere near sufficiently ample time. Life is short and its repetitive-enough-to-be-downright-boring tendency to "be difficult" is no more than sea salt in the beans.
This much I know. The beans that I just ate may not just be the best I've ever made, but even the very best that I have ever had. Even engrained habits -- even "ancient traditions" die, or are at least transformed beyond their blind adherents' wildest imaginings.
There is no turning back.
So be it.
18 October 2010
I don't have the luxury...
...of anonymity. Of course, I never really did, but I am being very much more careful now what all I put online -- hell, even on my own damn hard drive. So far, I'm *pretty* comfortable with what little I've seen coming mirrored back my way. Yeah, I've done things (mostly in the traditional privacy of bed) that I wouldn't want up in lights on Times Square, but I'm not terribly worried, either: at least for the most part I'm not a raging asshole, dangerous sociopath, or anything else of that nature.
Opinionated, yes -- but strongly held opinions and beliefs, weakly expressed, are snakes lying in grass. Usually, I'd rather just piss off some self-important piss-ant moron (you're interim director of *what*, again? Since when have *I* cared if you are the fucking Governor?) than pretend to be "undecided". Or pretend that right is wrong? Fuck you, have a nice day, ain't gonna stick around to crash and burn with ya.
Life is more honest that way. And very sorry as I am to have to say it, the simple fact is I've known outlaws with far greater personal integrity -- from their direct communication alone -- than important and supposedly "respectable" public personages in positions of very real power.
The old saying goes "knowledge is power" precisely because knowledge passes from person to person through words. Words have power, precisely because words have meaning. In this context, "meaning" might be defined as mutually agreed-upon referentiality.
Those who twist words' meanings -- those who lie -- abuse power. And abuses of power must ultimately be exposed -- not by some personified ideal of "justice" but quite simply from cause and effect. I can say "4 = 5" 'til the cows come home, but the first time I try to make change for a dollar, I'll be screwed.
By the same token, those who comminucate clearly, directly, and correctly must ultimately be heard. It's not that they will have "their day in court" or "the last laugh". Vindication doesn't right past wrongs, and has nothing to do with either justice or revenge. Vindication quite simply prevents future error: "4 = 4" needs no elucidation. It very simply *is*.
So much for eloquence and rhetoric. So much for style. So much, indeed, for questions of opinion and even of personal experience.
I do wish I knew what ever happened to Ken F. Montoya. I really was completely terrible for him, and definitely owe him an apology for the unkind, even cruel things I thought and said both to and about him. I hope he is alive, and well, and very, very happy.
The day is *very* fast approaching when everything that anyone has ever said or done online is effectively permanent record and common knowledge.
In the mean time, I must admit -- it can be lots of fun to just sit back and read and write and watch people guess what's "really" going on when you deliberately leave lines for them to read between. A good way to quietly make distinctions in one's mind between who is wheat and who is chaff. Unfortunately there's a *lot* more chaff out there than wheat. I guess that's what you would expect in any complex, living organism like the planet Earth that's overrun with a virus like post-industrial humankind. Not that I don't know who my real friends are, you understand -- it's just amusing to infuriate the ones who are puffed up, and good to get as much as possible on public record showing why what they're saying is bunk.
By all means, be my guest, and feel free to comment.
Opinionated, yes -- but strongly held opinions and beliefs, weakly expressed, are snakes lying in grass. Usually, I'd rather just piss off some self-important piss-ant moron (you're interim director of *what*, again? Since when have *I* cared if you are the fucking Governor?) than pretend to be "undecided". Or pretend that right is wrong? Fuck you, have a nice day, ain't gonna stick around to crash and burn with ya.
Life is more honest that way. And very sorry as I am to have to say it, the simple fact is I've known outlaws with far greater personal integrity -- from their direct communication alone -- than important and supposedly "respectable" public personages in positions of very real power.
The old saying goes "knowledge is power" precisely because knowledge passes from person to person through words. Words have power, precisely because words have meaning. In this context, "meaning" might be defined as mutually agreed-upon referentiality.
Those who twist words' meanings -- those who lie -- abuse power. And abuses of power must ultimately be exposed -- not by some personified ideal of "justice" but quite simply from cause and effect. I can say "4 = 5" 'til the cows come home, but the first time I try to make change for a dollar, I'll be screwed.
By the same token, those who comminucate clearly, directly, and correctly must ultimately be heard. It's not that they will have "their day in court" or "the last laugh". Vindication doesn't right past wrongs, and has nothing to do with either justice or revenge. Vindication quite simply prevents future error: "4 = 4" needs no elucidation. It very simply *is*.
So much for eloquence and rhetoric. So much for style. So much, indeed, for questions of opinion and even of personal experience.
I do wish I knew what ever happened to Ken F. Montoya. I really was completely terrible for him, and definitely owe him an apology for the unkind, even cruel things I thought and said both to and about him. I hope he is alive, and well, and very, very happy.
The day is *very* fast approaching when everything that anyone has ever said or done online is effectively permanent record and common knowledge.
In the mean time, I must admit -- it can be lots of fun to just sit back and read and write and watch people guess what's "really" going on when you deliberately leave lines for them to read between. A good way to quietly make distinctions in one's mind between who is wheat and who is chaff. Unfortunately there's a *lot* more chaff out there than wheat. I guess that's what you would expect in any complex, living organism like the planet Earth that's overrun with a virus like post-industrial humankind. Not that I don't know who my real friends are, you understand -- it's just amusing to infuriate the ones who are puffed up, and good to get as much as possible on public record showing why what they're saying is bunk.
By all means, be my guest, and feel free to comment.
15 October 2010
Off radar.
It's a month to the day I went truly "off radar", tonight. Not as easy as it sounds in today's electronic age. But not hard, either. Especially not after you've become accustomed to living without internet access for months at a time, and cellphone access is only just a little bit more dependable. Basically, I told *no one* where I was going. *No one*. Hell, I hardly hatched the plan myself before I hit the road. And when I did, I took the battery and SIM card out of the cellphone a friend had loaned me.
For four and a half beautiful hours, I *knew* nobody knew where I was or what I was doing. I wasn't being recorded or monitored, tracked or even just plain "needed". Probably no one *cared* where I was off to, what I was doing -- but that isn't the point. After living in an increasingly tightly controlled environment for months on end -- I won't *quite* say I was "held" (though I sure did make getting out next to impossible at times!) because, in truth, I never was -- it felt insanely good to be out on the road yet one more time, albeit driving on a doughnut spare and lacking the customary passenger-side front window.
I'm sure I'll wonder quite a lot in coming months and years what ever happened to the eleven or so guys whose names I've written down one place no one can ever get to 'em. Those would be the eleven with whom I think it's fair to say I formed fairly intense emotional bonds, and I don't believe for a minute that there is a villain among 'em. Oh, to be sure, there's one guy who I *think* is a dangerous sociopath. But one in eleven's not bad for a group of guys stereotyped as the dregs of society, if not the root cause of society's ills. And, to the best of my knowledge, that one guy was pretty well out of commission when I saw him last.
And now I'm living a sort of "underground railroad" existence out of a friend's house. I've got no cellphone, so that's not a problem. I do have email, and access it pretty regularly. Truth be told, it's kind of like living in a cave -- tucked away from the world, "on retreat" I believe the monks call it. Difference is I'm free to pop my head out whenever and wherever I please. Money's an issue, but only for those things you can't get without money (gas, tobacco, and usually, food). One *very* long-dreaded betrayal came, alas, to fruition; but like all before, provided nothing more than a harder and more concrete realization of my own real resourcefulness. (Suffice to say, I must *not* spend *any* more time around people who lie than is absolutely *required*. Terrible things happen whenever I do.) All of that being said, I've got a nice little circle of acquaintances and friends even now who do know where I am and what I am doing. Simply maintaining that network is (dare I say) something of an accomplishment.
And actually, it's not a bad existence! Still no hot water, but I'm developing ways to get around inconveniences of that nature. The food we have may not be terribly exciting, but there's more than enough to eat. The house in general might be a mess, but I've got my own little corners of sanity cleared and set up so I can use them as a base of operations, daily. And, aside from the money, I can *truly* say for the first time in my entire life that I'm *mobile*. Shit hits the handbasket? I'm out. Maybe another state. Hell, maybe a whole other damn country. I can slip away like *nobody's* business.
Not that I'm in any rush to leave. Indeed, very far from it. (Not that I'm in any rush to "accomplish" something, either -- though I probably could with the nearly monastic conditions.) For all its privations the life I live now is very much indeed what I would have wanted when I was, oh, say, seventeen. I'm living with someone I care about deeply in a beautiful house in the best neighbourhood in town. Food's easy enough to come by and there are no wild animals or enemies about. The neighbourhood is fairly active but it's mostly quiet when it needs to be. There's stuff to do, places to go, people to see, but next to no pressure to do, to go, to see. Perhaps most importantly I am free to sit, to study, to get up and move about, to do whatever I feel that I need to do whenever I feel that I need to do it. I'm actually very much at peace here, and feel no need (for the time being) to move along to my next grand adventure. Winter is coming, and as sure as I knew at the first migraring raven's caw over Albuquerque that I'd soon fly South myself, even though Spring's 'round the bend, I also know that now's the time to gather in what all I've got and do the sort of work that's always best when done indoors.
No regrets.
None whatsoever.
For four and a half beautiful hours, I *knew* nobody knew where I was or what I was doing. I wasn't being recorded or monitored, tracked or even just plain "needed". Probably no one *cared* where I was off to, what I was doing -- but that isn't the point. After living in an increasingly tightly controlled environment for months on end -- I won't *quite* say I was "held" (though I sure did make getting out next to impossible at times!) because, in truth, I never was -- it felt insanely good to be out on the road yet one more time, albeit driving on a doughnut spare and lacking the customary passenger-side front window.
I'm sure I'll wonder quite a lot in coming months and years what ever happened to the eleven or so guys whose names I've written down one place no one can ever get to 'em. Those would be the eleven with whom I think it's fair to say I formed fairly intense emotional bonds, and I don't believe for a minute that there is a villain among 'em. Oh, to be sure, there's one guy who I *think* is a dangerous sociopath. But one in eleven's not bad for a group of guys stereotyped as the dregs of society, if not the root cause of society's ills. And, to the best of my knowledge, that one guy was pretty well out of commission when I saw him last.
And now I'm living a sort of "underground railroad" existence out of a friend's house. I've got no cellphone, so that's not a problem. I do have email, and access it pretty regularly. Truth be told, it's kind of like living in a cave -- tucked away from the world, "on retreat" I believe the monks call it. Difference is I'm free to pop my head out whenever and wherever I please. Money's an issue, but only for those things you can't get without money (gas, tobacco, and usually, food). One *very* long-dreaded betrayal came, alas, to fruition; but like all before, provided nothing more than a harder and more concrete realization of my own real resourcefulness. (Suffice to say, I must *not* spend *any* more time around people who lie than is absolutely *required*. Terrible things happen whenever I do.) All of that being said, I've got a nice little circle of acquaintances and friends even now who do know where I am and what I am doing. Simply maintaining that network is (dare I say) something of an accomplishment.
And actually, it's not a bad existence! Still no hot water, but I'm developing ways to get around inconveniences of that nature. The food we have may not be terribly exciting, but there's more than enough to eat. The house in general might be a mess, but I've got my own little corners of sanity cleared and set up so I can use them as a base of operations, daily. And, aside from the money, I can *truly* say for the first time in my entire life that I'm *mobile*. Shit hits the handbasket? I'm out. Maybe another state. Hell, maybe a whole other damn country. I can slip away like *nobody's* business.
Not that I'm in any rush to leave. Indeed, very far from it. (Not that I'm in any rush to "accomplish" something, either -- though I probably could with the nearly monastic conditions.) For all its privations the life I live now is very much indeed what I would have wanted when I was, oh, say, seventeen. I'm living with someone I care about deeply in a beautiful house in the best neighbourhood in town. Food's easy enough to come by and there are no wild animals or enemies about. The neighbourhood is fairly active but it's mostly quiet when it needs to be. There's stuff to do, places to go, people to see, but next to no pressure to do, to go, to see. Perhaps most importantly I am free to sit, to study, to get up and move about, to do whatever I feel that I need to do whenever I feel that I need to do it. I'm actually very much at peace here, and feel no need (for the time being) to move along to my next grand adventure. Winter is coming, and as sure as I knew at the first migraring raven's caw over Albuquerque that I'd soon fly South myself, even though Spring's 'round the bend, I also know that now's the time to gather in what all I've got and do the sort of work that's always best when done indoors.
No regrets.
None whatsoever.
03 October 2010
One last night in Albuquerque.
At least for the immediately foreseeable future.
Drove up thanks to David totally at the spur of the moment to retrieve some books from Matt's house before he leaves and sells the house. Housesat this summer for him -- unforgettable summer, another story for another time. He wasn't there when we arrived at around 5:41 PM so we met Remo and Jason at Barnes and Noble -- now we're watching "Squidbillies" and going slightly bonkers. Jayme (who I haven't heard from since shortly after my father died) is online and I'm waiting to hear back from Matt, whose mother's in town. David's called his friends in Deming and New York and I finally found Charles' number and left him a voicemail from David's phone.
Weasel says it is a "highly connected night".
I'm inclined to agree.
Drove up thanks to David totally at the spur of the moment to retrieve some books from Matt's house before he leaves and sells the house. Housesat this summer for him -- unforgettable summer, another story for another time. He wasn't there when we arrived at around 5:41 PM so we met Remo and Jason at Barnes and Noble -- now we're watching "Squidbillies" and going slightly bonkers. Jayme (who I haven't heard from since shortly after my father died) is online and I'm waiting to hear back from Matt, whose mother's in town. David's called his friends in Deming and New York and I finally found Charles' number and left him a voicemail from David's phone.
Weasel says it is a "highly connected night".
I'm inclined to agree.
Only ten days between posts...
...and I can't help but feel I am *finally* starting to build up a fresh head of steam.
Went to a party last night at an El Paso landmark -- the Fairview Apartments. Designed by (you guessed it!) architect Charles Henry Trost. After attending the opening, Friday evening, of the El Paso History Museum's new exhibit, "El Paso: The Other Side of the Mexican Revolution", it was uncanny (if you will) to practically relive one of the moments featured prominently *in* the exhibit: specifically, the viewing from rooftops of the first Mexican revolution from the relative safety of the Hotel Paso del Norte.
Of course I wasn't charged admission last night, and it was unreal -- but in a *good* way -- to reconnect with some of the artists and writers and musicians I knew way back in the mid- to late-'nineties, when we'd spontaneously congregate in front of what was (at that time) a Plaza Theatre boarded up against vagrants of both the human and avian variety in order to drum off the echoing cavernous walls of a once grand city long forgotten and mostly gone dark, resigned to despair. But, as always, because I am who I am and there's nothing anyone can do about that, I connected less with the wonderful people around me (and it was a *lovely* party, I assure you) than with the place itself.
The Fairview Apartments is one of those rare, still-extant apartment buildings from the day when Apartment Building names (like words in general) still tended to have some semblance of actual meaning. To this day the Fairview commands a sweeping, grand, panoramic view from the neighbourhood called Sunset Heights down into the Rio Grande valley itself -- unlike Albuquerque's Sandia Heights, not at the distance of some miles -- at the scale of mere meters. The entire neighbourhood is less "landed" on top of surveyors' imaginary grids than something which sprung up organically from the sheer sandstone cliffs of the giant Rift Valley, precisely where the watershed finally narrows down to a gap between mountain chains which gives this "Northern Pass" of a city its name.
Nothing could have been more natural at the time this place sprung up than that it should consist of an exquisite balance of imposing mansions always stopping just the right side of "ostentatious", mixed in with plainer but no less proud common single-family housing, and apartments which would credit any great city on earth. One can only imagine what that view was like when the Building was platted, laid out, constructed, and first lived in. The vast, careening swath of the unpredictable and flood-prone Rio Bravo with its constantly shifting sandbars, its over-abundant Tamarisks, invasive Russian Olives, and better loved non-native cottonwoods trailing a ribbon of abundant green between two cities born as one, joined at the heart, cut apart imperfectly during raging adolescence by the scalpel of language and forceps in the form of law.
Those crude incisions never fully healed, and not unlike that street in Vicksburg -- antebellum mansions just upslope on the East side, shanties on the West draining down to the Mississippi -- but on an infinitely grander scale, they threaten to fester long enough on both sides in different ways to leave no more than irreducible traces for future archaeologists of a society cut down in time by its own unstable bifurcation between not enough "haves" and teeming masses of "have nots".
I am living (for the time being) with David -- one of my friends from those old drumming days and he is wonderful to me. One might, a little more unkindly, but not inaccurately, say that I am living "off" of him, as I've yet to regain solid footing in this, my hometown, with the smuggler culture, with the train horns echoing both coming and going. He is an artist and substitute teacher, and subsists on a substitute teacher's wages -- and sometimes, that means things like "there is no hot water". This is indeed a source of annoyance to me, and my hygiene has certainly taken a hit for the worse these last several days. But for perspective, I need only walk out to the front sidewalk and look less than a half mile down the street to see entire neighbourhoods without *running* water.
So yyyeah. I found myself last night, perched on the balcony overlooking Juarez. No exceptionally dramatic shows of force on display at the S-Mart, no stray bullets going through City Hall while the council's in session -- just the usual lights -- which are signals? which just set back behind scant windblown foliage? Impossible to say. And of course amidst the wonderful party the one thought I couldn't get out of my mind: how many are going to die there tonight?
The El Paso Times put the death toll for murders in Ciudad Juarez alone, for 2010 to date alone, at over 2250.
Sometimes it makes me want to cross the Santa Fe bridge on foot in the middle of the night with nothing but a pen and notebook. But not knowing the language, and -- and -- and -- and -- I always come up with a reason not to do it that sounds better than "it's scary as fuck".
Went to a party last night at an El Paso landmark -- the Fairview Apartments. Designed by (you guessed it!) architect Charles Henry Trost. After attending the opening, Friday evening, of the El Paso History Museum's new exhibit, "El Paso: The Other Side of the Mexican Revolution", it was uncanny (if you will) to practically relive one of the moments featured prominently *in* the exhibit: specifically, the viewing from rooftops of the first Mexican revolution from the relative safety of the Hotel Paso del Norte.
Of course I wasn't charged admission last night, and it was unreal -- but in a *good* way -- to reconnect with some of the artists and writers and musicians I knew way back in the mid- to late-'nineties, when we'd spontaneously congregate in front of what was (at that time) a Plaza Theatre boarded up against vagrants of both the human and avian variety in order to drum off the echoing cavernous walls of a once grand city long forgotten and mostly gone dark, resigned to despair. But, as always, because I am who I am and there's nothing anyone can do about that, I connected less with the wonderful people around me (and it was a *lovely* party, I assure you) than with the place itself.
The Fairview Apartments is one of those rare, still-extant apartment buildings from the day when Apartment Building names (like words in general) still tended to have some semblance of actual meaning. To this day the Fairview commands a sweeping, grand, panoramic view from the neighbourhood called Sunset Heights down into the Rio Grande valley itself -- unlike Albuquerque's Sandia Heights, not at the distance of some miles -- at the scale of mere meters. The entire neighbourhood is less "landed" on top of surveyors' imaginary grids than something which sprung up organically from the sheer sandstone cliffs of the giant Rift Valley, precisely where the watershed finally narrows down to a gap between mountain chains which gives this "Northern Pass" of a city its name.
Nothing could have been more natural at the time this place sprung up than that it should consist of an exquisite balance of imposing mansions always stopping just the right side of "ostentatious", mixed in with plainer but no less proud common single-family housing, and apartments which would credit any great city on earth. One can only imagine what that view was like when the Building was platted, laid out, constructed, and first lived in. The vast, careening swath of the unpredictable and flood-prone Rio Bravo with its constantly shifting sandbars, its over-abundant Tamarisks, invasive Russian Olives, and better loved non-native cottonwoods trailing a ribbon of abundant green between two cities born as one, joined at the heart, cut apart imperfectly during raging adolescence by the scalpel of language and forceps in the form of law.
Those crude incisions never fully healed, and not unlike that street in Vicksburg -- antebellum mansions just upslope on the East side, shanties on the West draining down to the Mississippi -- but on an infinitely grander scale, they threaten to fester long enough on both sides in different ways to leave no more than irreducible traces for future archaeologists of a society cut down in time by its own unstable bifurcation between not enough "haves" and teeming masses of "have nots".
I am living (for the time being) with David -- one of my friends from those old drumming days and he is wonderful to me. One might, a little more unkindly, but not inaccurately, say that I am living "off" of him, as I've yet to regain solid footing in this, my hometown, with the smuggler culture, with the train horns echoing both coming and going. He is an artist and substitute teacher, and subsists on a substitute teacher's wages -- and sometimes, that means things like "there is no hot water". This is indeed a source of annoyance to me, and my hygiene has certainly taken a hit for the worse these last several days. But for perspective, I need only walk out to the front sidewalk and look less than a half mile down the street to see entire neighbourhoods without *running* water.
So yyyeah. I found myself last night, perched on the balcony overlooking Juarez. No exceptionally dramatic shows of force on display at the S-Mart, no stray bullets going through City Hall while the council's in session -- just the usual lights -- which are signals? which just set back behind scant windblown foliage? Impossible to say. And of course amidst the wonderful party the one thought I couldn't get out of my mind: how many are going to die there tonight?
The El Paso Times put the death toll for murders in Ciudad Juarez alone, for 2010 to date alone, at over 2250.
Sometimes it makes me want to cross the Santa Fe bridge on foot in the middle of the night with nothing but a pen and notebook. But not knowing the language, and -- and -- and -- and -- I always come up with a reason not to do it that sounds better than "it's scary as fuck".
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