Just a quickie

Today was better. Decided to think a little more rationally than last night. Although, I had a practice quiz for the Gateway test (takes place tomorrow--Ahhh!) and nearly fell asleep in the middle of only question 22! It was an easy quiz, and it does count for a grade, but I just could not think very well through the next 50 problems, and sort of didn't do so well. But at least it didn't count for much for my overall grade. And neither will this gateway (as compared to the Finals) which is about the equivalent of an ISAT. And the rest of my day went pretty slow. But has gotten better as it goes. (yay!)

Mr. Cowman

Days have been rough on me lately. And I hardly get any sleep...when I do, it's restless. I don't eat much either....but I don't have much of an appetite lately anyway. I keep procrastinating everything til the very absolute last minute, and therefore not able to do my best in them. And I'm really exhausted lately...for what seems, no reason. Just so tired.. but cant sleep, and don't have time to either. Can't get up to do anything, and can't stay still enough to get rest.

Lot's of things seem unreal to me. It is hard to explain. But I can lay there thinking, and everything literally becomes a dream. Moving here, leaving my friends.. family...Evan not with me...Emily growing up so fast. Of course many, many more underlying things that I wouldn't say here, or to anyone. Just everything is unreal to me. It's like I'm in a dream, and I'm going to wake up out of a coma one of these days and not remember anything but this dream. Just so unreal to me... that I have a life, a love, a family, a name, a person.

I'm trying to forget the past.. and I'm doing......okay with that. But I'm not doing okay with not worrying so much about the future, or more importantly, the present. Someone said to me once...."well..The thing is EVERYONE gets a time when he/she feel lonely, left off, depressed, stressed, hurt, helpless... but people are different...some of them just go through it...and next day they forget about it" Well.. I would forget, but each new day brings new stresses, new problems to cope with.

Now, why can’t I just be happy? I love those days when I can just be so happy I could fly. Just so content with myself and my life, that I can do everything I love, I can be patient, I can help, I can play a game with my little sister….With seemingly only one thing I cant do; stop smiling, stop loving to death, everything.

I like those days. They come every so often. More so in the past couple months than ever before in my life. I want that everyday. But for some reason…the “choosing to be happy” thing isn’t working for me. Am I doing it wrong? I’ve just got too many holes in me right now. I keep trying to plug them up, but the holes are as unique as snowflakes. Nothing will fit right except its original occupant, or the occupant it is meant for. So should I just give up on that? Okay, it solves nothing either way. I just need to get things out of me. I think. I don’t know it that’s the problem or not. But it’s part of it. I need to stop trying to keep too much in one bottle. Because there’s only one size and it’s going to inevitably break if it’s packed too tight. Every new unbroken bottle is just the same. Same size, same desire to break with too much pressure. One of these days, if I don’t do anything to help myself, I’m going to run out of new bottles altogether. So the real question is…What is it that gets me up every morning?

"a man destined to hang, can never drown, a man destined to drown, can never burn, a man destined to fry, can never, ever, ever die, in any other way than frying..."

Samson and Deliah from the inside

You are my sweetest downfall/ I loved you first, I loved you first/ Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth/ I have to go, I have to go/ Your hair was long when we first met/

Samson went back to bed/ Not much hair left on his head/ He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed/ And history books forgot about us and the bible didnt mention us/ The bible didnt mention us, not even once/

You are my sweetest downfallI loved you first, i loved you first/ Beneath the stars came falling on our heads/ But there just soft light/ Your hair was long when we first met/

Samson came to my bed/ Told me that my hair was red/ He told me i was beautiful and came into my bed/Oh i cut his hair myself one night/ A pair of dull scissors and the yellow light/ He told me that i'd done alright/ and kissed me till the morning light, the morning light/ and he kissed me till the morning light/

you are my sweetest downfall/ i loved you first

--"Samson" RegSpek

Do you think I am right in the meaning I got of this?

Us

Clever genius....

Puddles

Just look down at yourself in the reflection...imagine its looking up at you. Forever looking upward. Forever holding silent conversations in their eyes. Watching your opposite expressions. Watching those coincidences. Don't look away; can't look away; tear yourself away...only to look upward again. Only to jump to the next sea and start all over again. Enthusiam growing at each new leap. At each new upward glance, falls another drop. Another drop.

'...listening to the sound of heavens shaking; thinking about puddles, puddles and mistakes.'

Never give up loving unless you have to/ Never give up loving unless you must/ 'Cause it will haunt you in the future/ It'll try to crawl in your bed at night/

Never leave your lover unless he makes you/ By being cold and awful mean/ Even then, you'll probably always miss him/ He will visit in your dreams/

Names and dates and faces/ Places you were happyI'll never fall, never fall like that again/ I'll never fall, never fall like that again/ I'll never fall, never fall like that again/

Names and dates and faces/ Places you were happy/ I'll never fall, never fall like that again/ I'll never fall, never fall like that again/ I'll never fall, never fall like that again/

Never give up loving unless you have to/ Never leave your lover unless you must/ 'Cause he will haunt your empty heart forever/ 'Til your body turns to dust/

I want you, I want you, I want you

"You"-- Regina Spektor

trying to decipher what's written in Braille upon my skin...

That feeling comes...indescribable as deja vu, but lasts long enough to turn you mad. What is it you're looking for? What is it that leaves you groping through the dark searching without eyes? What are you supposed to find, see, feel, do....? All you know is it must happen, one way or another.

Some people say it's impossible to find something without without having any knowledge of it except that it exists. But I must disagree. Even if you cannot see it, feel it, hear it, taste it.....even if you dont know where or how, why or even what...you'll find it if it's meant so. So don't stop trusting yourself, don't give up on that feeling....as strange as it feels. No matter if it brings the fear of the unknown. Chances are it brings the intense curiosity as well.

Dont let go.

"The light is there, and colours surround us. However, if there were no light nor colours in our own eye, we wouldn't perceive such things outside of us." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Raymond Kraft

December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously.

At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.

On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military time.

In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.

President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.

The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.

"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.

The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.

In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of, Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.

America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...," and indeed, it was.

President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.

Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5 kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.

Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.

On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.

"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk, "See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems, but if you look at the times and courses..." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time...," he trailed off.

The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.

At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about 100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour. The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair, the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry, where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.

The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.

They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage. Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.

At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.

Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.

Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.

Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.

It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.

Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.

Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.

Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to finish packing," he replied.

"No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big. I fear. No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.

"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.

"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead. Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place. Prestissimo."

"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.

"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."

The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.

"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had sobered up his elated mood considerably.

"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."

"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in about six weeks. I don't know. he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."

The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.

Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both coasts during the week immediately after disaster.

Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they would cut off its head.

By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter millions of people in third world countries starved to death.

The America era was over.

"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."

"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike, ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies, Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.
"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."

"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."

"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." -- David Frompkin, Boston University

History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall, as much by blunders as by victories.

The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls.

"Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to
create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit.
Soldiers usually win battles and generals get the credit for them. You must not
fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. If
they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots." --Napoleon Bonaparte

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." --Albert Einstein

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."--Malcolm X

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." --Isaiah, II:4

An escape

I meant to write more, but I've simplified it....

In the end, everything will be okay. If everything is not okay, it is not the end.

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak" --Hopi 'Indian' saying

Just need a hug

Today started out fine, beautiful weather. But by now, I'm just exhausted. Someone hit a transformer today and the whole campus lost power for an hour or so, even byington. Yet we had to stay and continue to work in the dark. With the windows, the lighting was fair enough..... for people with good eyes! Some teachers don't take in account everyone personally, why is that? True, a person can only do so much. But can't possibly expect so much out of someone who cant see!

The bus I'm taking is getting too overcrowded...a lot of the middle schoolers get on that bus at one of the stops, and after that...it's just terrible. Hot and crowded, with people sitting on eachother and sitting or standing in the aisle or even the stairwell! Literally stepping over childrens heads to get out the door. Not to mention having to carry a bag full of textbooks......well...I suppose I cant complain, some people have it worse.

Then when I finally walked all the way down to my house, I found it locked...of course...no one home and the spare key wasn't where it should have been. This was half good and half bad. Bad, because I was left out there for an hour not knowing if something had happened or not, and good because it gave me some thinking time :) Knowing me, when I'm thinking like that, I start doing a few things like...poping my knuckles ( I know... bad habit) or drawing all over my hands. So, that's what I did....a design on my hand, began as a 'happy holidays' intended snowflake... but snowflakes are too simple. So it soon morphed into some kind of faceless creature coiling around my hand, fingers. Becoming a story in my mind.

But the night should go better...there's a rainbow out side and its just started sprinkling again.

"If you think that taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don't, you're simply ducking your responsibilities"
--Ann Richards

"And I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occured to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught." --Georgia O'Keeffe :)

The Kettle

Ahhhhh!! Black Friday. Unlike all those idiots ( wink) , I went for Black Saturday and managed to obtain absolutely nothing! Of course, aimlessly wandering while engaging in a most interesting conversation with a guy I hardly know (met on the bus ??) and not even trying to take advantage of the holiday sales by wasting....errr... I mean spending all my money on 'gifts' that'll only turn out to be for myself in the end anyway....get's me nowhere. It's truely fascinating to see what people will do to get those discounts these days!! Sleep in the parking lot of BestBuy for a week!! Trample over eachother for a household appliance! People just become mindless monsters, dont they? :P Of course, there are upsides to having those mad, mindless monsters as friends....."Hey, I spent the night, and got just what I wanted, but while I was there, I figured...what the heck, a 1 gig thumbdrive for 15 bucks, I'll buy three!" And there you are, a 'gift', and you didn't even have to wait in line.

And to think, in some parts of the world...people are reacting the same way (trampling eachother, sleeping in the cold, waiting hours in line) just to get the necessities.........exp. food, uncontaminated water.

And....AND....With all those people rushing to go shopping, only one in hundred have enough time to stop and drop a quater in the old man with the bell and the Salvation Army uniform's box.

Cornucopia

Tak, Meerci, Kansha shimasu, Danke, Shukria, Xie xie, Gestena/Nais, Grazie, Gracias....Muchos gracias, Thank you. (All I can think of off the top of my head). Thanksgiving. I think the holiday has lost its meaning for most people. All it is to them is a day off to watch football and stuff your face. And you know, you think about the story...and it has become more mythology than reality. I highly doubt they even had turkey! So what does turkey have to do with anything? What does football have to do with anything? Macy's Day parade has got such extravagant floats that have absolutely nothing to do with the original meaning(Snoopy?). I am not so sure that when Abraham Lincoln signed to make this a holiday he meant for it to be used how it is nowadays.

Okay okay...yea, the traditions that have developed are fun and loved. But really...All people have to do is think about the name of the holiday. Thanksgiving. Thanks---giving. Giving--thanks... lol, I just hope that everyone stopped for a minute to thank their God(s), their neighbors, friends, family, or even complete strangers who do you good. Hardly anyone says thank you anymore. Just so used to being given so many things. But someone does something as simple as holding a door open for you, hearing a 'thank you' from you could mean the world to them. Could just make their day. Maybe that's a little miscalculated, but you never know, do you? I mean, What harm is it going to do? How much energy does it take to say those two simple words? So.... we're too lazy/busy to say thank you, but not to busy to blab on and on about how much better we are than the next person.

Anyway, I love Thanksgiving time, even though it's being a little over-run by Christmas. It's just a great holiday, just reminds me to be grateful every other day of the year too. As cheesy as it sounds, we should all just take the other persons hands and say thank you. Just say thank you. Even if they laugh, it means something to them whether they show it or not. Heck, everyone needs their self-esteem boosted every once and a while. :P

So....Thank you, Creator, for everything you've given me. For this earth with its beauty and its pleasures and its horrors. For sunrises and sunsets. For having pain, and more importantly for having the ability to love. To the Ancients, Dua netjer en ahk!

How to save a life?

It's not right. It's got to stop....they're just making everyone hurt, frustrated, angry, negative, sad, depressed. It has go to stop! If they can't do it themselves....like they had thought from the beginning...thought that it would be perfect, average...thought that it was what they wanted.

Apparently it wasn't.

I think....hey.. it's none of my business...But no, it is. I have every right to step in. It affects me very much. It affects people I care about. Whether me stepping in does any good or not. I could try the magic word...maybe knock some sense into both of them. But I don't think it will work, with her at least.

Maybe this is why I've had such problems with them. Because they're being so attracted to this house. It's not me.....it's that they come, and because I'm one of those people who get so drained by letting everyone come to me, vent on me, feed off of me, they take advantage.

Maybe this is why I'm here? To cure four people, to save two...from what seems..their biggest mistake as of yet.

Pink sky

I saw the most beautiful sunrise this morning.

Chasing Cars

The whole newest CD is great...Eyes Open

Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.

Within you I lose myself...Without you I find myself...Wanting to be lost again.

"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden." --attributed to Claudia Ghandi

"The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected." --Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

No Regrets

You know, I am really happy where I am......I think so. I mean, I know so. Everything's almost perfect. I suppose nothing can ever be 'perfect', (wishful thinking) but it can sometimes get pretty damn close.

This is my little adventure. I got a head start and chose to face the real world before I was forced to face the real world. Rebel me. You do it that way, I do it this way. But I'm happy with it. It's hard sometimes....really hard. I know it's the best thing for me now though. I have no regrets.

Sometimes I lay there, thinking about how horrible it is..how much I miss a person...several people. How much I miss a way of living, and yet...can't stand the thought of going back to it. How scared I am to move forward...jump out to people, discover new hights, discover new possibilities, new emotions, new pains. An experiment.

Sometimes I lay there, thinking about how wonderful it is. All of the new people I meet. All of the new ideas I come across. The unimaginable amount of variety in the world. The colors, the sounds, the lights, the people, the thoughts, the world. I'm where I'm supposed to be. After so long. Someone once told me that... "...if it is what you are supposed to do, then it will happen..." or something to that effect. But the meaning was there. If it is where I'm meant to be, where I'm supposed to be, where I'm written to be....then I'll be there. If it is what I'm supposed to do then I'll do it. I cannot honestly say I believe in chance, coincidence. So I believe I'm here for a purpose...or at least to find a purpose. I don't know yet...but I'm loving it. Loving letting my spirit do what it has always urged to.

Make Love, Not War

Oh no...here it is again, elections. Julie, don't get yourself started on this now....politics. Yea, well.. I've been yellin at the TV for the passed three weeks. Jesus...Tennessee's the worst of them! Harold Ford and Bob Corker.......I read about Ford's ideas on the plane over here last June.........phhhff...I do not like him. He even looks like the sleazy, car-dealer type that's just gonna rip you off. I strongly dislike all of them with a passion. Maybe I'd vote for the one person who doesn't put out these terrible ad's and commercials bashing harder and harder every time on the other guy. You know what I'm sayin? :)

Lemme just say, this government IS FALLING APART!! Why don't we just fire the whole damn bunch in Washington and start out new?? A person can only be given so much power for only so much time before it totally distorts and changes (usually, for the worse) their very being. When people talk about our government.... you just wanna say, "Yea......Wait a minute.....we have a government!??"

Okay, yes...I can give them at least some credit, as no one is gonna like a president, or government, during a war. But then, that word 'war' comes up. People talk about what we're doing over there in Iraq like it's a fight for our freedom, for our rights as a nation......Wait, what? No one is taking over our nation. And you said the reason was oil? No wait, you said..it was to help liberate Iraqi people....or....did you say it was to help cleanse the world of terror? Find nuclear weapons? I'm confused, Stop changing the cause! Why are we over there, killing innocent people on both sides? Clear answer please. Let's not allow this to become the Vietnam war again. Let's not allow it to be the beginnings of WW3.

Well, I do admit, we couldn't stand by and do nothing while hundreds of our people were killed...but where's the evidence that we're attacking the right people? And besides, if terrorism is the cause for all this, then why are we only in Iraq? What about all those other countries.....We can group all the countries who have terrorists hiding in them into 2 words. THE WORLD. Heheh...I find it kinda funny how America defines "terrorist(s)" as a person or group of people who commit acts of war without actually declaring war. But....if that's true, then.....couldn't America be considered a terrorist? Well....yes and no... I'll give us that much. We didn't really declare war..and yet we did, but on terrorism itself, not on Iraq or anything/one else. How can we blame a region, a country, a race, a religion...? For one thing 'Jews' were never the cause of anything, and neither are 'Muslims'. Those muslims that claim to be taking quotes from the Qu'ran and saying that Islam teaches this or that, or what the true meaning of Jihad is... "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." They're just taking those quotes out of context! That last quote....(Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.) The New Testament, Matthew 10:34. It's just the same. You can make it mean anything you want it to. I am not taking sides or defending any one side..I'm on my own side. I'll support a person for who they are, not where they come from, not their religion, not their race.

I just disagree with Bush, he's up to no good. Sometimes he acts and sounds like he thinks he's God or something. And we've got 2 more years of this?? Seeing how far we've gotten now, you begin to wonder what sort of disgusting world we're going to live in by then, and whether or not it will be able to be mended.

I wrote this big long opinion essay on America's law process, freedom of speech concerning the 14yr. old girl who was pulled out of school and interrogated by our secret service. Maybe I'll add some of that, although, I cannot mention everything that I had written there as....it deals exactly with that girls case. They'd hunt me down for saying some of those things. But I personally do think it's a good idea that they did investigate a little bit on that girls comments, but they did not need to go so deep as they did. Nothing even as drastic as taking a girl out of class to question her (and without her parents knowing/consent??). If I were president and people were posting things like, "Kill so and so"(me). Then, yea.. I couldn't help but be a little worried. But the thing is, a lot of people in America and all over the world feel this way and express it in different ways...so you just can't start of a brouhaha about a 14 yr. old's myspace carrying nonsense threats, especially since the law here..(one of the reasons we are AMERICA...america the free....america the great...) says specifically, "FREEDOM OF SPEECH". Can you really put limits on freedom without it changing the whole meaning of the word? Signing up for president includes stuff like this, you've got to be aware that no, not everyone is going to magically love you, and yes, there will be hundreds of empty threats.

Look, no one get the impression that I hate my country, no one get the impression that I'm with the "terrorists" or "extremists" or whoever the hell else is the bad guys here. I do love my country, my country is great! It's beautiful, the people are beautiful. I can have patriotism towards what America originally stood for. I can pledge allegience to that America....not to one president, or one government, or this new america that has formed. It's dying. It's kind of sad. And the people in high places that actually have good sense about what is happening talk about it, yea. ...and they have the capability of doing something about it, they have a strong word but....do they use it? No...of course not.

I just look around at what's happening. I look pretty deep into these things, because I know things are hidden, either by people in higher places, or by your own steriotypical, judgemental, brainwashed mind. Force myself to see the truth no matter how much I might not want to. Take a step back from the painting, stop pressing our noses so close, trying to see the details when taking a step or two back shows it all to you. I just wonder how it'll be in a year...two...three...5...10. If we keeping going the way we are, I don't know if I want to be alive then. But..I suppose, look on the bright side of things....even in war. Even in war, there is beauty.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'--Theodore Rooseveltte

There never was a good war or a bad peace. --Benjamin Franklin

For everything there is a season, And a time for every matter under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to seek, and a time to lose; A time to keep, and a time to throw away; A time to tear, and a time to sew; A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate, A time for war, and a time for peace. --Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

SoBe

I had a rough week...really rough. But when all is said and done, it ends with me staying up all night with my sobe green tea, watching the most beautiful moon I've seen in a month climb across the sky. Thinking, how in heaven's name did I manage to get myself into another problem like this. Thinking, yea.. they're right, I am stupid, this is probably the stupidest thing I've ever done (Thinking now, hey, I might have a decent plot for that book now:) ). But you know, the more people bring me down.. push me farther, the more I'm motivating myself. Rather than taking it as another blow to the head, I think I'll start using it as an incentive. You say I'm stupid, well I'll prove that I'm not...(anymore, at least :p). Call me arrogant, insolent, cocky...whatever...ButI'm saying... I am a good person. I really am. I makes some bad mistakes... but with good intentions. I know the good intentions don't justify the mistake, the pain, the humiliation...but this is life; everything happens for a reason. In reality, there are no mistakes. There's only carrying out what was meant to be...enduring what one needs to. If there's no valid justification, save for "everything happens for a reason", for a mistake, it doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Now, I don't think anyone/thing can really be 'fixed', but can be made better...find an alternative security, an optomistic upliftment, and cling to it. Embrace the pain when it comes, but let it go when it becomes too much to handle. Just let it go. Those demons inside you are there and encouraged only because of and by yourself.

I know my problem is only nearing its end, but it's not quite there yet. There's still much more to sort out. But I'm getting there. Just ought not to get too comfortable yet. But I believe things are going to get better... They're going upward, not down. Tomorrow will bring better and new and good things. As will the next day and the next.

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. — Orison Swett Marden, american journalist

the only way

He sent me your log from the other night I think. I only had one of my addresses then. And duddums doesn't exist anymore, so the only reason I got your message was because he sent me the log...and I guess he wasn't thinking as I knew right away what it was just knowing you had taken them back from him. And thank goodness you did....it's funny how destiny comes around like this.....Whether you conciously knew why or not...you got them months before now.. probably just for this purpose. But it doesn't solve this. I am still stuck. And I really really appreciate you wanting to sacrifice everything so that I dont have to. But...this isn't your war....this isn't your rut. I got myself into this, and I have to pay the price. At this point...I'm still his...and I'm still twisting my words and trying to find a way out....I'll find a way... I promise, and it's not death. Just knowing that was his intentions through all of this....makes me not want to do it anymore. Motivates me more. But I'm sorry if anything happens, and I'm sorry to have gotten you all tangled in this too. You should not suffer for my mistakes. If I can't stop him, then yes... everything is ruined for me...I have an idea how i might weasel my way out of it.. but it will most likely never work, it is false hope. My only hope is that he stops his insanity and starts acting like the adult he is. That he realizes who I am... and that revenge is never right. And....overall...just leaves both of us alone...peacefully. If he doesn't....and if he does carry out his threats.. then...I'll probably never see you, talk to you...ever again.. or at least, not for a very long long time. But no need to look at this situation in a pessimistic light. Look at it with optimism...It'll work out fine and I'll talk him out of all of this...talk him back to sanity. But for now... I just have to be very careful...just have to obey. 831831831 syawla!

MG

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Direction of the Wind

So...school is back in now. Jump for joy. Got a few of my results back...but most won't come until Thursday at the
open-house.

I got a letter today...yes, good old fashioned postal. :) It was from my grandparents, in LV ( my mothers parents). It was very... uplifting..and encouraging. It was really good to know they still remember me, care about me, and pray for me. It turns out they're taking the "long route" to Cali. that just so happens to pass through Rexburg, Idaho. :'( They're the traveling couple now! Granpa just retired, so they can go wherever they want to now :D

I talked to Emily few days ago. "When are you coming home?" "I miss you" "Are you having fun at your other daddys?" "When are you coming home?" "Guess what I did today?!" "Listen to what Po did..." "When are you coming home?" awwwwwwww I miss little emmy. I think she just got a new haircut. A short little bob...perfect for her. :)

Evan is still alive, though even more sore than before. He actually competed in his track meet the Friday after his wreck. After running so long...it's just not helping him heal up. But I suppose he owes it to his coach...since he skips practice all the time. And good news for him, some friend of Greg's has a crappy old car..nothing works but the engine, but she's willing to just give it to him to use for school, etc. Hey, if it runs...then that's all that counts.

Well that's all that's going on in general right now... Hey! Look at that sunset....hmm....maybe I'll write something deeper later....

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." --Albert Einstein

All the sounds of the earth

Music- The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as though melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. Vocal or instumental sounds posessing a decree of melody, harmony, or rhythm.

Music, music, music...everyone loves music. If they don't, then there's something seriously wrong with them. I bet it's been implanted in the minds of humans to gain pleasure from some kind of rhythm or sound since the time of Adam and Eve. It just amazes me when someone can tell me they "don't like music". I think it's physically impossible not to like it, unless these people are deaf...

Music is everything, it's fun and exciting, sad and depressing, meditative, sentimental, mesmerizing, an incentive...it's in every sound your ears take in. It's nature as well as synthetic. It can calm you, heal you, hurt you, teach you. What more can you ask for in one simple thing?

I love it when you hear a sound, beat, or song that just grips you with its riveting sonance. It's got a hold of you. It's embedded in your mind. It drives you crazy trying to find it again, and when you finally do, you just can't stop listening. I love the definition of sound; Sound- 1- Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing. 2- Transmitted vibrations of any frequency 3- The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in the air or other medium.

I've never looked it up, but it must have everything to do with phi, hey? If it is what makes something appealing then it must have something to do with it. I know that scales in music come straight from the fibonacci series...but what about sound itself?

But all in all, none of that matters. Not how or why...just the fact that it is. And thank goodness it is, because it provides the best/easiest escape from the world save death.

In my dreams/ I'll always see you soar above the sky/ And in my heart will always be a place for you, For all my life/ I'll keep a part of you with me/ And everywhere I am there you'll be.-- Faith Hill, "There You'll Be"

"If music be the food of love; play on.".......Way to be blunt, Shakespeare, way to be... :)

All things are difficult before they are easy

So...I think I've finally settled in down here. Yes, I have come to live here with my dad for a while....not sure how long. But I think it'll be good for me. I'll be free to explore.....find myself, maybe. Anyways, it's good to be able to start out new with a blank slate. I'm not sure how it'll all turn out in the end, but I hope it will be good. I do miss Evan, and My mother.. and my friends... and a lot of other people, and it sounds like a lot of things fell apart after I left. AHHH the guilt. :(

But it'll be okay...it'll be fine...be optimistic, Julie, you're doing something for yourself for once. (cept.. there is a part of me that says I'm here to get some greatly needed order in this house.)

My dad took me out last night, we went to see one of Alexia's shows....Samara happened to be a guest performer, and was fantastic. There were a few of the dances I really liked. Mostly the fusion ones..Veil, Arabic/Indian w/cybals, Arabic/Spanish, Indian Bollywood(w/Chaaiya Chaaiya!!), and the Oriental....Anyway, it was all good. And It was really awesome to be able to see the famed Samara from New York.

Well, no insight for today...Just talk about my boring life....

"I finally feel like I am alive again. I feel so good. To be able to step outside anytime, to feel the sun directly on your face — to see the whole sky. These are luxuries that we just don't appreciate every day." (Ex-hostage Jill Carroll)

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

What’s there to sing about…?

What is there to sing about? There is singing when babies are baptized; when you celebrate a marriage; men sing as they work; soldiers sing as they march into battle; and there is singing when people die. I have always found something in life worth singing about. For that I cannot apologize.........

............When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is!

oh

Jeez..I need to get up to date on this thing...

On Fire

Tell you where you need to go
Tell you when you'll need to leave
Tell you what you need to know
Tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you knows
Says more than what you've heard
So much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

And you're on fire
When He's near you
You're on fire
When He speaks
You're on fire
Burning at these mysteries

Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything You are
Give me one more chance to be...

Cause everything inside looks like
Everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

When I'm on fire
When You're near me
I'm on fire
When You speak
And I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries
these mysteries...

I'm standing on the edge of me [x3]
I'm standing on the edge
And I'm on fire
When You're near you
I'm on fire
When You speak(Yea)
I'm on fire
Burning at these mysteries...

I'm standing at the edge of me,
Standing on the edge of everything I've ever been
And I've been standing at the edge of me, standing
at the edge