Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives by Jeffrey Howard

Coming soon. Order now. This book, according to my sources, is excellent. Jeff Howard is a star.

George W. Bush is Lincoln the way Dan Quayle is Jack Kennedy and the way Fox News is News.

"Note to Bret Baier: Lincoln wasn’t 'hated' when he left office. He was assassinated just after being re-elected by an overwhelming margin." Fox News: Bush Is ‘Really Reflecting On His Place In History,’ Trying To ‘Equate Himself’ With Lincoln

Bush Bunch Told At Least 935 Lies To Spend Billions, Kill 4,200 Americans, & Maim a Bunch More.

"A higher percentage of our wounded soldiers in Iraq are surviving their injuries compared with other wars, thanks to the miracles of modern science. But the injuries are more gruesome, thanks to the miracles of modern weaponry. It's hard to think about the quality of these maimed soldiers' lives without feeling sick." War Is Hell by Peking Duck

“‘. . . the Center for Public Integrity's report, Iraq-The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War, that lays bare at least 935 lies told to the American public by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and their hirelings whose deliberate falsehoods have cost us billions of dollars and more than 4,200 American lives, at least 60 of them from Arkansas. . . .It's tragic that nonprofit organizations such as [the Center for Public Integrity], rather than our major newspapers, have assumed the role of aggressive watchdogs.”" Even A Blind Hog by Jonah

Don't Help The Poor Even If It Would Help Us All. Jesus Christ Again! He'd Be Rollin In His Grave If He Hadn't Jumped Out.

"’...A tax rebate that includes low- and moderate-income working families that don't earn enough to owe income tax would be 24 percent more effective as stimulus than a rebate that leaves these families out . . .But, today the House reached a Tentative Deal on Economic Stimulus Plan, that excludes both food stamps and unemployment benefits.
‘Republicans immediately cheered the deal as ‘tilted toward taxpayers’ and avoiding ‘extraneous spending’ on unemployment benefits, food stamps, or infrastructure projects, which some Democrats had said should be included in a stimulus package.’" NEW ZANDI ANALYSIS FINDS REBATES MORE EFFECTIVE AS STIMULUS IF THEY INCLUDE LOWER-INCOME WORKERS from Patti.
I don't know who's in the picture. Probably Ma & Pa Kettle and their brood who would have just squandered their rebate on groceries instead of Chinese stocks if they had been given one.

Happy Birthday Yet Again Bobby. Here's To You & The Mouse.

To A Mouse by Robert Burns 
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

Oh God. You Aren't Omnipotent Are You?

A Palestinian girl in Gaza.
See, Gaza under siege: Israel cuts off fuel supplies

"You're Going Straight to Hell" by Betty Bowers

"We can still dream that one day all God's children will live in a community where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, or their gender, or the language they speak, or the rantings of insecure shrews who stigmatize them as deviant because they are different, but by the content of their character." Being and Nothingness by Jonah

Speaking of hate in the name of God, truth can be stranger than fiction.

Dead Man Walking (Or Sitting)

S: How often should I do sitting practice?

T: Every day for the first decade or so.

S: I'll be dead before the first decade or so passes.

T: You're already dead.

Huckabee To Romney & McCain-“If Your Heart Ain’t in Dixie, Keep Your Ass Out.”

HE DON'T COTTON TO THAT DAMN YANKEE CONSTITUTION NEITHER.

See, also, Worlds Biggest Liar Competition.

This Takes Me Back. My Daddy Used To Sing "What'll you have? Pabst Blue Rock Ribbon" When He’d Rock Me To Sleep.

To this day, when Mary and I have the neighbors over to watch the fights, we follow the routine shown here.

Relationships Are Hard Work

Communication & flexibility are the keys. If this poor couple had simply talked it over, they could have sold their vehicles and traveled by shank's mare. The savings would have allowed them to have both beer and make up and probably saved their relationship.
Thanks to Sammy & Judge C.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was Born On This Day In 1929.

He was still in his 30's when he was assassinated, but still made it to the mountain top. He knew his time was short, but died without fear for the greater good. I'm sure there are people of his stature walking among us now, but I'm not sure who they are. This is from Dr. King's last speech.

Get Ready for the Bard Burn's Birthday Next Week With "Ode To A Haggis" & "Scots Wha Hae."

If You Can Afford Health Insurance, You Probably Don't Need It.

"Need health insurance? Please fill out this questionnaire. If your answers show that you are likely to use health insurance, we will send you to the special Impossibly Expensive Health Insurance Pool, that you will not be able to afford." from Health Insurance? U.S. kills 101,000 of "it's own citizens." from Patti


“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” Jesus, Mathew 25:45

Though Virgil Sees Neither, Race & Gender Are Still in Political Play

Like Stephen Colbert, I do not see color. I don’t even see gender. The fact that I am currently supporting John Edwards who is, I am told, a white male is pure happenstance. With most of us race and gender are still issues. Erica Jong recently said "The flaying of Hillary Clinton shows us we can take nothing for granted. We need to break that tough, annealed, glass ceiling with the barbed wire over it. And we need to break it now. If this is the politics of gender, so be it. We need a politics of gender in this country. Obama is a good man who will only get better. Youth is on his side. Perhaps Hillary will appoint him to the Supreme Court where he can counter that embarrassing Clarence Thomas. Perhaps he will be President in 2016 or perhaps, even better, Michelle Obama will be. They have nothing but time. Hillary's time has come." Seeing Sexism by Erica Jong.
Erica may be right. I hope Hillary is coming into her own and becoming a relatively honest statesperson. Maybe she will now say and act upon what she believes without an inordinate amount of concern about the political winds. If so, I’d be for her. I would love to see Obama on the Supreme Court. He could counter the embarrassing Thomas, the embarrassing Scalia, the embarrassing Roberts, or the embarrassing Alito. (For those of you who see color, he, at least , could counter Thomas & Roberts. I don’t know whether he has any Italian in him or not) I doubt that Obama wants to be on the Supreme Court right now. He'll be President some day unless he falls hard. I'll support him this time if Edwards continues to fade and Hillary doesn't show some true character. Whoever is nominated could, blindfolded, appoint a better Supreme Court justice than the four mentioned above.

Hillary's Gone. Everest Still Here. Still a Good Show Sir Edmund. Wish They Had Stopped After You.

Sir Edmund Hillary died today at age 88. Mount Everest had changed since his climb. “‘It is hardly mountaineering; more like a conducted tour,’ Sir Edmund Hillary told reporters in Katmandu in 2003, celebrating the anniversary of his and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's historic 1953 climb of the 29,035-foot summit.
‘Commercial climbing has developed, with many inexperienced enthusiasts, dozens of aluminum ladders, thousands of meters of fixed rope,’ he said. . . .He lived long enough to see the Himalaya, once an impossibly isolated region, become a popular destination for anyone with the tens of thousands of dollars it costs to join a commercial expedition to the highest peaks.
‘I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top,’ he told a newspaper in New Zealand in 2006, after a young British mountaineer died high on Everest after dozens of climbers passed by him and did nothing to help.” After Hillary: Commercialism, Courage By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA

The Gentry Arkansas Police Department To Impersonate Dead Deer. Indiana Itchin To Follow.

A Wisconsin judge ruled that that a dead deer is still an animal for the purposes of sex because the “primary focus” of the law was “ protecting sexual morality in the community, and not necessarily on animal protection." The ruling is one small step toward stemming the tide of this nation wide problem. Indiana state officials say that sex with dead animals is about to surpass in-person voter fraud as the state's biggest law enforcement concern. Indiana Bureau of Investigation agents are considering preemptive strikes like those planned by the Gentry, Arkansas Police Department.. Gentry officers will pose as dead deer and other dead critters in local parks, on roadsides, and on the internet. A city official said " I certainly hope that having sex with dead animals is against the law in Arkansas too, but if it is not we will form a committee to push legislation to outlaw it in the next session. We have to be proactive to protect the morality of the community. Our civilization depends upon it. If you let one guy get away with poking a dead deer what is to stop the entire state from doing the same thing? This could lead to destruction of the deer population! There is also a discrimination issue here. While males can do dead deer females can't. A clear double standard if men, through the simple expediency of killing the deer first, can enjoy the profound pleasures of screwing a carcass without risk of criminal punishment.”
Angus McGregor, though he continues his crusade for tolerance of consenting cross-species relationships, believes that the the perpetrator should be charged with rape since a dead deer is incapable of consent. He also stated that necrophilia is “against the laws of God and nature.”

Thanks to Dr. Steve & James The Bruce for this hot tip.

Happy Birthday Sammy

On our initial birthday we are born with so much time in the account of life. Each birthday there after we mark the passing of another portion of an ever diminishing but uncertain balance.
Death is the ultimate anesthesia, also effective against depression, alcohol abuse, anxiety and just about anything else that ails a body.
In fact it often can do wonders for a less that stellar reputation. Past social transgressions are often simply stripped away from memory. One can even expect an immediate enhancement in one's likeability and reputation in general. People who have not marked your birthday in decades or ever may well be expected to partake of your memory once you are cured of life, each remembering you as a dear friend, pure of heart, pious, generous, and selfless to a fault.
There are limits in the later regard of course but I suspect that you Sam can anticipate a fairly full recovery in these regards as well.
So just hang in there and let nature take its course. Our society has a habit of looking down on those who resort to self help in employing the ultimate remedy to life's problems. Just keep in mind that death cures life and all its ills and you will find the whole experience of hanging in there more palatable.
Happy Birthday Sam from James The Bruce

Change?

2008 Candidate positions on Health Care & on the Environment from Patti

American College of Physicians has this:
An in-depth analysis of issues important to ACP in evaluating the 2008 candidates’ health care plans.

Interviews from Grist: Interviews and info on the presidential candidates' energy plans and environmental positions

And from Rev. Sandi

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson

Chapter 1: I walk down the street. There is a large hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2: I walk down the same street. There is a large hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3: I walk down the same street. There is a large hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4: I walk down the same street. There is a large hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter 5: I walk down another street.

Too bad you died Portia. I'd have voted for you.

Fundamentalism & Mental Illness

"Since World War II, only the fundamentalist portion of the religious spectrum has grown, precisely because of the general ambiguity into which our age has fallen. What might be embraced as the greatest freedom to choose in human history instead stirs anxiety in many. Fundamentalism, be it religious or political or psychological is an anxiety management technique that finesses the nuances of doubt and ambiguity through rigid and simplistic belief systems. If I can persuade myself that the world is perpetually founded on the values of another, culturally limited, less conscious age, then I do not have to address the new subtleties of moral choice, the emergent capacities of women, the ambiguities of gender, sexual identity, and preference, and the horrors of nationalism, factionalism, and other tribal mentalities.
Of course people have a right to affirm any set of values that they have sincerely, experientially tested, but fundamentalism is a form of mental illness that seeks to repress anxiety, ambiguity, and ambivalence. The more mature the personality structure, the greater the capacity of the person, and the culture, to tolerate the anxiety, ambiguity, and ambivalence that are a necessary and unavoidable dimension of our lives. A culture that is immature, and believes its values besieged, will fall back into a siege mentality, a sentimental nostalgia for a simpler time, for simplistic black-and-white value judgments, and will project its own shadow by vilifying others.
The world is not black and white."
James Hollis, in Finding Meaning In The Second Half of Life
"Much of what I would call fundamentalism is really an anxiety disorder—which they try to solve by black-and-white thinking and projecting onto others. It's very unconscious, and it's very poor ego development. You can see how important it is for the ego to be strong enough to tolerate those tensions. When I can't tolerate them, I'll dump them on you. That's all projection. And projection is that which the ego is just not dealing with."
Was ist "das Ich"? An interview with James Hollis on Carl Jung by Amy Edelstein