30.8.08

Obama, here we come!

Oh...it makes sense. Off shore drilling, Alaskan pipelines and a cheerleader to go along with it. The Republicans....who have always generated their votes from the unintelligent readers....have done very well. And to boot, she was a Ron Paul supporter. And, she can shoot an AK 47.

Can't beat that! I wonder if she can bake an apple pie? Read the Hungry Caterpillar? Change the oil? Juggle eggs? The Boston Marathon? Speak Japanese? The Iditerod?

Allahu akbar. This plot thickens. "Like Right On!"


Two hurricanes heading in, snow in September in the Rockies.

Life is an illusion...and what an illusion it is.








Uh oh.

When Rivers Change Their Minds

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the flooding as a national calamity.

When the swollen Kosi river burst its banks in Nepal just north of the Indian border, it changed course, flowing through a fresh channel 75 miles to the east that has no protective embankments.

The river traditionally swells to a flood peak in October.

In 2007, monsoon floods killed more than 2,200 people across South Asia and left 31 million others homeless, short of food or with other problems. The United Nations called last year's floods the worst in living memory.

23.8.08

Miss Lonelyhearts



Each trip to the small balcony
on the seventh floor

of the Hilton Garden Inn
is a recognaissance mission.
All night long babies
are being birthed,
all night long ads
are being answered
by the anonymous.

There's a flurry of baptisms
going on in the suburbs,
a flurry of orgies right next door.

Aren't Nancy Grace's twins adorable!


All night long I return
to tell a story
to myself that only
I seem to know.
And so do they.
No doubt about it,
the city is full tonight
of scoundrels and light.
Full of itself, pounding
itself to pieces, generators
grind warm air and noise

into a diamond chaos.
This is Laos or Prague.
This is Central and Indianola.

20.8.08



August 2008

"And the flood couldn't take it down neither,
it just kept melting." -Ode to Seven

19.8.08

Israel is nobody's friend except Israel.

Israeli operatives evacuated from Georgia after Russian "pre-emptive" strike. And that is exactly what it was...the same type that Israel boasted of in years past.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010230.html


"There was an atmosphere of war about to break out. We received basic background about tensions between Georgia and Russia, but most of what I learned came from talking to the soldiers. From my point of view, the battles of the past few days were to be expected."

The Israelis, who were stationed at bases throughout the country, were to carry out battalion-level infantry and reconnaissance training. "Israel Ziv and Gal Hirsch would come from time to time and watch us in action, but we managed day-to-day operations ourselves," L. said.

L., who trained a Georgian reconnaissance unit, says the troops were high quality. "It's not the standard we know in Israel, but when we left them they were at a good level. They took the training very seriously. There is a wider age range than in Israel, from 18 to 35, but they function very well. Over the past few days I've been following the news and I think they grasped a little of how to use strategy, like we taught them. It looks like we did a good job." L. refuses to discuss the weapons they trained the Georgians with, but he says the program was approved by Israel's Defense Ministry and included no classified information. "We taught them counterterror and house-to-house fighting, but that was very basic."

The trainers left Georgia in April. "I don't think the Georgians would start fighting as long as the Israeli forces where there," L. said. "Once, when tension was high after Russia shot down a drone, we were evacuated to Tbilisi."






Nothing Is Safe






Let Israel Die in its Rage. For what it has done to the nations of the world. For what it has done to Georgia.

16.8.08

Israel-Georgia defeated by Vladmir Putin

Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that "the results of the war are evident even today, in both the military and political fields in Israel." He said Israel is facing the worst leadership crisis in its history.

"The entire front line of the army's brass stepped down because of the war. Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia and they too lost because of him," his eminence said.

For the past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping the Georgian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice

Hirsch, a brigadier-general in the reserves, served as commander of the Israeli Army’s Galilee Division during the war and resigned in its wake. In recent years he consulted the Georgian army on the establishment of elite units and rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.

"Relying on Israeli experts and weapons, Georgia learned why the Israeli generals failed. What happened in Georgia is a message to all those who accept that Washington entangles them in adventures, miscalculated wars and dead-end confrontation. In the end, the US (administration) will abandon them because its interests are above anything else, just as they did to their allies in Lebanon.”


From this week's speech by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah:

http://jnoubiyeh.blogspot.com/2008/08/sayyed-nasrallah-we-must-overcome.html
Forbes and Hall

I met Forbes and Hall in South Charlie. They were in lockdown together because, I am told, they tended to have fights with others in all the other pods. The first day I noted that they tended not to cooperate. They both dropped their pills and they both turned to the side so that I could not see them swallow. This is incredibly important in Jail Medicine as some meds are used as poker chips and some are actually snorted. They trade them for various things within the pods.

Inmates have money in their accounts which their family and friends send to them from the outside. It is used to buy a visit with the doctor or a toothbrush at the jail commissary. At an incredibly inflated price I might add. Pills are quite valuable in the economy of jail. Psyche meds are free and probably the most valuable of all. Crazy inmates get medicated regardless of their ability to pay. Otherwise, a standard drug like tylenol costs ten bucks a month...a small fortune to an inmate.

Forbes and Hall are black men. I cannot describe what it must mean to be black in a Southeastern Arizona jail. They are the extreme minority there whereas in other areas of the country or even the state, they would most likely be in the majority. Not that it matters all that much because once you are in jail, you are in jail. All things are relatively equal. The old and the young, the male and the female, the junkie and the murderer....all live in the same way i.e. in a hellish condition.

On Tuesday I arrived to South Charlie and barked out the usual, "Meds, bring water!" and noted that Forbes was outside of his and Hall's room and sitting downstairs on the concrete picnic tables that are de rigueur in jail. He was smiling and I greeted him with a salaam wa alaikum.

He said, "What?"

I said, "I am a muslim. Salaam wa alaikum."

Forbes' face lit up like a plastic tree at Christmas. He said, "Hall is a muslim!" By then he was standing and looked quite excited. I imagine that I did too. It isn't any secret but many black men find Islam when they are incarcerated and I was banking on that possibility when I greeted Forbes. He told me, "Hall doesn't want his medication."

I began to climb the stairs and Forbes kept pace behind the guard and myself. He was quite animated and was saying some things that he often heard Hall say like in'sha'allah. I knocked on the narrow window and said, "Hall! Salaam wa alaikum Hall!"

Hall was, as is his usual, laying underneath the gray woolen blanket with his face to the wall. When he heard me, he shot up in the cot like a bullet. And he smiled. It was the first time I'd seen Hall smile. Usually he is withdrawn, angry and never utters a single word. I saw his teeth for the first time. He was shocked. I wasn't. I was however happy at this discovery albeit not happy that a muslim is in jail.

The next day I went to Hall's room with the same female guard who had related to me the story of her wayward cousin whom she hadn't heard from since her Arab husband had taken her "over there". She was excited as well..that Hall was a muslim and wanted to be in on the action between myself and Hall. She is the guard with a God Given smile. There are all types of prison guards you know...some of them are fabulously kind. Some are not. Some are sadistic as hell but I'd have to say the kind outnumber the sadists and keep them in check at the County Jail.

Hall came to the door and greeted me as is the custom and I returned the greeting. I asked him to show me his Quran. Although Hall had been refusing his meds for a couple of weeks, now he wouldn't dream of missing the opportunity to greet me. I felt the same way and looked forward to each interaction.

He went to his cot and brought out the Quran which he kept wrapped in a clean white towel. He presented it to me and I noted it was the Barnes and Noble variety which is often the only type of Quran a person can find in the United States. I mean to say, most do not know where to go to purchase a "real" Quran.

A "real" Quran must have in it the actual Arabic text alongside of the translation. This Quran that he showed to me is mass produced in the United States and is translated...how to say it? Loosely. It is presented as one would present a paperback novel and as if the Quran could be read in the same manner as one reads a "story". Which is not the case with the Quran.

I asked the guard if Hall could have visitors and Hall immediately replied "I don't have any visitors but I can have them." I said I would try to find a way to visit him and bring him a Quran that has Arabic text beside the English translation. I still have a few extra copies from the class I taught over a year ago.

I asked the guard about the Chaplain and whether or not he was employed by the jail. Apparently, that is a luxury that jails don't provide. Chaplains must raise their own funds and do not get paid for their services within jails.

I ran into the Chaplain just yesterday. I will have to admit, I'd seen him a few times before that and something about him didn't sit well with me. I cannot say what it is that bothers me about him but something does. I introduced myself and asked him about getting a real copy of the Quran to Hall. He said that Hall already had a Quran. A Quran that the chaplain had brought to him as he (the chaplain) serves the needs of "all" the denominations found in the jail. Or, he said, he finds muslim or jewish members of the community who can address the needs of special members in the jail population.

Now. Trying to explain something about Islam to a fundamentalist Christian...well. It is not very easy because truth be told, I am not allowed to insult a Christian in any way nor am I allowed to try to make him believe what I believe, understand what I understand. Of course most people know that fundamentalist Christians do not practice the same policy. They are out to convert anyone and everyone. I explained to the chaplain that for a Quran to be a valid Quran, it has to have the actual Arabic text in it.

The chaplain said to me, "But Hall can't read Arabic."

I said I know he can't. That isn't the point. Christians...most of them anyway...simply do not understand the gravity of translation of sacred texts and the printing of the same. It's a matter of policy to muslims. Not all of course but it is for those who understand the literal nature of the Quran, it absolutely is.

The chaplain told me that if I wanted to pass a book along to Hall that he would have to evaluate it prior to giving it to him.

I said to myself...oh brother! And if I could, I would have said to the chaplain:

And you are?

...to be continued.

14.8.08

The Juicy Parts of Islam

Accompany my zeal on the path, O Ta'ir al-Quds,
The path to the goal is long, and I new to the journey.
Leave not this stage without the company of Khidr,
There is darkness ahead; be afraid of losing the way.

You know, we muslims are alot more exciting than just a few fatwas and stonings. There is so much to know but until one passes through the requisite stages that seem to be drudgery and self denial, one doesn't get to understand the phenomenal states of consciousness that cannot be related (very well) to anyone who hasn't experienced them. It is the Not Yeti, maybe later! type of thing. Until you actually know the Yeti, you will inevitably fail to establish the existence of the Yeti to others. And no...the Yeti is NOT Allah. Not at all! Sure...it is possible to hint and tantalize those who haven't achieved certain abilities (an audience), but more often than not, it fails in one way or another to convince. Achieved...for lack of a better word because at the end of the day, clearly.....getting to the peak of success isn't something one chooses to do. Completely the opposite...it is the Why Me? Why Not Me? type of thing...one is chosen. One doesn't know why necessarily but one may begin to know why over time...that one is taken into another realm which inevitably changes their human perception into something vastly different that the ordinary "frame of mind", "worldview", etc, etc, etc.

Here is more about Irfan from the Shia perspective. Knowing this or at least reading this might assist some to understand how many things on this blog work. How the poems differ from other types of things and how seemingly meaningless events can actually make sense if put into the right perspective...say...in short stories. Short stories are great for demonstrating Irfan in a practical way. Poems on the other hand....or rather "poets" tend to abuse their rights of gnosis. It could actually be said that this is the negative capability that so evades description even by the most well read and well educated of writers and poet spooks. The abuse of gnosis by poets or rather, the imitation of gnosis by those without the spiritual preparation for actual gnosis, results in a state of poetic confusion.

This is a link for the Ahl Bayt digital library which I use probably more than use anything else save for the Boolean Quranic search engine out of Stanford (because of its convenience but not for its accuracy in translation):

http://www.al-islam.org/LWM/

"In the spiritual methodology of 'irfan, much mention is made of the heart and the states and happenings it will experience, and these experiences are known only to the wayfarer of the path during the course of his struggles and his journey on the path, while other people have no idea of these states and happenings."

Al-Kafi relates that one morning after performing the dawn prayer, a young man (Harithah ibn Malik ibn Nu'man al-'Ansari) caught the Prophet's eye. Lean and pale, his eyes sunken, he gave the impression of being unaware of his own condition and of being unable to keep his balance. "How are you?" inquired the Prophet . "I have attained certain faith," the youth replied. "What is the sign of your certainty?" the Prophet asked.

The youth replied that his certainty had immersed him in grief. It kept him awake at night (in worship) and thirsty by day (in fasting), and had separated him from the world and its matters so completely that it seemed to him as if he could see the Divine Throne already set up (on the Judgement Day) to settle the people's accounts, that he together with all of mankind were raised from the dead. He said that it seemed to him that even at that moment he could see the people of Paradise enjoying its bounties, and the people of hell suffering torments and he could hear the roar of its flames.

The Holy Prophet (S) turned to his Companions and told them, "This is a man whose heart has been illuminated with the light of faith by God". Then he said to the youth, "Preserve this condition you are in, and do not let it be taken away from you." "Pray for me," the youth replied, "that God may grant me martyrdom."
Not long after this encounter, a battle took place, and the youth, taking part, was granted his wish and was martyred.

13.8.08

Irfan
..on the way to Pirtleville Prison

I've been reading a little lately....a book by Karen Armstrong titled,
The Battle for God which according to that link can be bought for just one cent! Amazing.

I used to appreciate her work alot more than I do now but all the same, the book has some engaging insights into the historical events that have led to the current revolution in Islam. Ms. Armstrong has always had a fondness for us Shia even if it is the case that she discusses things from a decidedly outsider POV. She is the closest a non muslim person can come to actual understanding of Shia logic and practice. It is her discussion about the knowledge of Irfan which the late and great Grand Ayatollah Ruyollah Khomeini possessed and utilized to formulate what is now known as the Shia Revival that led me to want to read a bit more about this mystical doctrine.

I realized that I could tell the computer a thing or two about Irfan myself. Maybe not what real scholar could say but all the same, I wanted to document a few of the mystical things that I've seen over the past few weeks.

I was on my way to my duty station in Douglas and passed by a bus on its way to the state penitentiary which is just outside of old Pirtleville. I've heard that out there, they do not give the inmates shoes because without shoes, the prison is a virtual Alcatraz. The desert cannot be crossed in shoes let alone with bare feet. In fact, one of my professional associates who is the head of what we call "Jail Medical" for Cochise County told me that he cared for an undocumented Mexican who had given up on his journey across this no-man's land called the Sonora Desert because his feet became so swollen and infected inside of his shoes that he opted to be caught instead of continue with his group. Ed told me that the man arrived the first day to have his feet soaked and dressed, and he was so p0lite and so thankful only to return the next day in leg irons and multiple guards all with stun guns aimed at his person. Turned out that the man was a known Cartel member and had lots of human blood on his hands. His feet did get better and more than likely he was on the bus that I saw just about a month ago on the road to Pirtleville and Perdition. He had tried to walk right into the country alongside the indigenous and the pious. What incredible audacity!

Why was I so alarmed however, at this bus? I'll tell you why. Because it was a Dick Cheney, Inc. bus. Lanny, my good old friend and correspondent would truly appreciate the horror I sensed when I saw Wackenhut painted in big broad letters across the sides of the bus. Wackenhut! The folks that brought us the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster. You can read a bit about it in a sanitized version here:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14325

Now...how on earth did I find myself in the company of such folks as those who build and maintain penitentiaries!


The etymology of the word is as follows:

(c.1421, "place of punishment for offenses against the church," from M.L. penitentiaria, from fem. of penitentiarius (adj.) "of penance," from L. pænitentia "penitence". Meaning "house of correction" first found 1806 (originally an asylum for prostitutes). Slang shortening pen is attested from 1884.)

..from the word "penitence": c.1200, from O.Fr. penitence (11c.), from L. pænitentia "repentance," from pænitentum (nom. pænitens) "penitent," prp. of pænitere "cause or feel regret," probably originally "is not enough, is unsatisfactory," from pæne "nearby, almost." Penitent (adj.) is attested from c.1375; as a noun meaning "one who is doing penance," it is attested from 1412.

I have found many things during my morning stints in the County Jail. I have discovered a whole world that I never knew existed. A world full of those seeking penance from those whose record isn't all that great either. Is it any wonder that there is recidivism?

I have also been discovered by a few of the people there. Just yesterday, an old man approached the jail building as I stood outside having a smoke. He looked at me and I at him and he said, "Now that is certainly a God-Given smile you have! You ought to take it down to the department store and sell it!" I was utterly charmed and then, I realized...he knew me. He somehow told me the truth because perhaps I needed to hear something about the way my face might appear to others. I am very certain that what goes through my head on a daily basis would shock and surprise others if they actually could read my mind. I try to guard myself carefully because what I know might certainly alarm them...or maybe not.

I returned to the building and unlocked the first door, called on my radio for door fifteen to be opened from the control center. The sound of those doors and locks ought to be enough penance for anyone but apparently it isn't. I gathered my medicines together, about a hundred or so little plastic bags filled mostly with antipsychotics, antidepressents and muscle relaxants and went to the control room to ask where I should begin. One of the younger guards who I like very much because of his kind and quiet attitude offered to do the central pods first. That would be the women and those men who need protection from the general population. Mostly sex offenders and two very old men in that pod. As for the women....well. What in the name of Allah are women doing in jail! Especially the little old one!

I finished those pods pretty quick and left the special handling meds for the guard to distribute. It is just too much trouble for them to escort me into the area with padded cells where they keep prisoners who might harm themselves or those who have most definitely harmed others like the two Koreans. These guys are wanted for a triple murder (an ex wife and her children) and arson by the California officials. These guys are also martial arts experts and apparently took down twenty Border Patrol officers before finally being handcuffed and taken to jail. They are so dangerous that when they move them within the facility, they have to have permission to do so from the Commander and they must be accompanied by specially trained SWAT teams.

So I went off to the North pods through door one and door two, calling for control to open them as I approached. The female officer there greeted me. She is also one of my favorites. I don't know why but I think it is her God-Given smile.

She told me to do North Adam first. I picked up my bag labeled NA, removed the paper clip in order to leave it outside of the maximum security pod so that it couldn't be turned into a weapon if it happened to fall from my hands in there and be left behind. I saw Rodriguez who was already looking at me through the window. Clearly these guys find anything and everything an exciting break in the monotony of their days in jail. I told him through the window, "Salaam wa alaikum!"

The guard asked me, "What did you say to him?" I told her that I was a muslim and that fellow had noticed the half gold coin I wear around my neck (upon which is inscribed There is only one Allah) and when he found out I was muslim, he greeted me in the traditional manner. So now I greet him each day with a Salaam wa alaikum!

I expected her demeanor to change but it didn't. Her face looked up and she said her cousin had married a man from Saudi Arabia several years ago. None of her family had heard from her since 9/11. I said, "Oh that is terrible. Sometimes the men in the Gulf and their families can cut Western women off from their families."

But she told me something extraordinary. She said that her cousin was a girl who was in and out of detention facilities, involved in crime and drugs. When she met the Arab man however and married him, her life changed. There was no more detention and no more drugs. She said, "So what if we don't hear from her. She's in good hands and if she hadn't gone there, she'd be here."

Meaning she'd be in jail. Like young Pilar Torres. Like the old woman who has to swallow ten pills for thyroid, for blood pressure, for the usual old lady ailments. Like Dizzy D who belongs in a mental institution, not in the Special Handling unit with two murderous Koreans. Like old Mr. Russel who swallows his two Lithiums each day and greets me with, "Hello Margaret. How are you today?" He insisted on calling me that from the very first day and made me remember his name not by telling me to do so, but by showing me how important each person actually is and actually saying so.

Peace starts between individuals. Irfan....well......I'll leave that for another day. Unless of course you realize that within this story there are secrets and between the lines there are signs for those who possess the ability to look beyond the material and into the spooky world of the unseen.

And heh...Dick Cheney, Inc. in charge of penance! I find that so amusing and I'm sure Lanny would agree. I find it even more insane that most people wouldn't have noticed that Wackenhut logo on the side of a dusty old Bluebird headed out towards Pirtleville. But I sure would. There are no accidents you know.

10.8.08

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish is dead at 67

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/10/news/Obit-Darwish.php

From: Beirut in Modern Arabic Poetry, an Anthology

An apple for the sea, marble narcissus flower
Stone butterfly, Beirut
Shape of the soul in a mirror
Description of the first woman, smell of early mist
Beirut is built of gold and fatigue
Of Andalusia and Damascus
Silver, seafoam, bequests of earth in the plumage of doves
Death of a cornstalk
Vagrancy of a fugitive star between my love and me
Beirut--I did not hear my blood before I uttered
The name of a mistress
Who sleeps across my blood, who sleeps

*******

Captives we are in this flabby age
Invaders have delivered us up to our kin
No sooner had we gripped the earth than our protector
Pounced on our weedings and memory
So we distributed our songs among the sentries
We found nothing to indicate our identity
Except our blood that climbs the walls and in secret
We sing:

Beirut our tent
Beirut our star

...Beirut the shape of shade...
She tempts us with a thousand overtures
And with new alphabets

Beirut our only tent
Beirut our only star

******

A grey horizon scatters in the distance
Circle paths of mother-of-pearl, not roads
And from Hell to the Atlantic
From the Gulf to Hell right left and center
I saw nothing but a scaffold
With one single rope for two million necks
I see armed cities of paper that bristle
With kings and khaki

******

I see cities crowning their conquereors
And the East sometimes is the opposite of the West
Sometimes the East of the West
Its image and commodity
I see cities crowning their conquerors
Exporting martyrs in order to import whiskey
And the latest thing in sex and torture

******

I see cities that hang their lovers over branches of iron
And drive away the names at dawn

At dawn the guardian of the only idol comes
With a million keys and one scaffold
What are we leaving if not a prison
What have the prisoners got to lose?
We walk toward a distant song
A first freedom
We sense the world's enchantment for the first time
The dawn is blue
And the air can be seen and eaten like figs

Is Beirut a mirror that we can break
To enter into the fragments
Or are we mirrors for the drizzle to shatter?

Beirut, markets hung over the sea
An economy that destroys production
To build hotels and restaurants
A government in a street or an apartment
A coffee bar that turns like the sunflower to the sun
Description of departure and free beauty
Paradise of documents
A seat in the plumage of a bird
Mountains that bow to the sea
A sea that ascends to the mountains
A deer slain by the wings of a sparrow
And a people that do not like the shade

*****

We burned our boats and hung our stars over the outer walls
We did not search for our ancestors in the family trees
We did not travel further than pure bread and our clothes of mud
To the mother-of-pearl of ancient lakes we sent no pictures of our fathers
We were not born asking...
We were born every which way
Spread like ants over a mat of straw
Then we became horses that pull carriages

We who stand in the line of fire
We have burned our boats and embraced our rifles
We shall awaken this land that rested on our blood
And extract our fallen victims from its cells
We shall wash their hair clean with our white tears
Pour over their hands the milk of the soul

******

We who stand in the line of fire declare:

Until the night shall pass We are in the trenches
Beirut eternal we gaze upon the sands

In the beginning we were not created
In the beginning was the word
And now in the trenches
A birth is being prepared

******

A moon shattered over the bench of darkness
Beirut is a lily of rubble
A first kiss
Eulogy of the Zanzalakht tree
Cloaks for the sea and the slain
Roofs for the stars and the tents
Stone poem
Collision between two nightingales hidden in the heart
A bereft sky
Thinking on a stone
A rose that can be heard, Beirut
A voice that separates the victim from the sword
A little boy who flung away the regulations and commands
And the mirrors---
Then fell asleep

Translated by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton



A Palimpsest in the Making

"The creature has always been out there, and it's out there still," says Sonam Dorji, 77, sitting on the pockmarked wooden floor of his small farmhouse. It's a cold Himalayan morning, and he warms himself beside a wood stove. The smell of burning pine fills the room. "If you travel the ancient trails, even today, there's a good chance you'll meet him."


Ah....yes....I met the Yeti once.

"Mountaineers brought back many of the stories, telling of strange footprints in the snow, of mysterious animals spotted walking on two legs, of tales their porters told around campfires."

"The great Italian climber Reinhold Messner spent years tracking yeti stories across the Himalayas and even caught a glimpse of it a couple times. But in the end, the truth was obvious to him. "All evidence," he wrote at the end of his travels, "points to a nocturnal species of brown bear.""

"So the yeti hunt was on. In 1954, Britain's Daily Mail newspaper sent out a search party. In 1957, a Texas oilman took up the chase. Three years later, Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary searched along the Nepal-Tibet border. In their wake came Soviet expeditions, TV crews, scientists and hucksters."

I cannot remember however....any of the climbers with which I climbed. What some do not realize is this. It isn't the Yeti that is forgotten. It is those who fail in the climb or haven't attempted it that don't see it. We the "partisans" often joke about those types who have not yet found him and say, "Not Yeti! Maybe later!"


The Ascent of a Sherpa


He was common, ordinary so to speak nothing special about him, the usual clothing worn by Sherpawarm, useful.Not thin coated. Engaged as he was in public debate he found it difficult to make a decision,whether to lead or to follow. It came down, in the end, to the need for enough diesel fuel for winter to pour into a certain kind of heater that escapes description universally.Twelve Nepalese were killed in Baghdad today, someone whispers to me. Not that it matters. So he put together some things: bread, cheese, Sherpa Foods, the usual fare and set out to rendezvous with the ten or so moralistically staunch climbers engaging him. Moralistic in that they insisted on the unusual. Very moral. We should say ethical but that is just not physical enough. They met and he collected the agreed upon Sherpa coin. No one knows what it looks like. It might be Chinese or in this case, Ben Franklin-like because of the universality of Empirialistic trade, so it goes in the impoverished world. Doesn't matter to us or to the Sherpa who Ascends. He turned to the leader of the group who had learned Sherpa Language easily enough, certain tough families of words useful to climbing: torch, fire, food, oxygen,death, liquor, book, socks, cold, die-ing (being a progressive form of the former), pain, mother, father, and of course, candy...he said, "I'll have to stay ahead of you all, I'm uncomfortable in the company of others." The leader was puzzled but agreed to this stipulation all the same. It must be some sort of standard in Nepal he thought, some sort of requirement."How will we follow then?"

"I'll leave my footprints in the snow of course." "Oh," the leader said, chastened at his own stupidity. The trek began the next morning which happens pretty early up there, finishes pretty late, with the Sherpa starting off at night, slipping out as fast as he could go, like an angel in the moon's glow, one mustn't dally on a short night.The moralistically inclined group set out, pleased to see the tracks well defined, deep and the weather pleasant, the mountaintopin view, achievable. Very optimistic,if you will. Occasionally they caught sight of the Sherpa, his head bobbing up and downin the distance, disappearing behind rocks, reappearing. The tracks were still quite good. The second day was much the same only the Sherpa was no longer in sight, the tracks slightly obscured by the light snows. Some of the tracks looked a bit altered, a yeti paw here or a goat print there, but that was expected. No one bristled yet. The climber at the end of the rope disappeared yet no one noticed, each of them caught in their own meanings, their own cold. By the third day however, the bristling was looking more like a forest fire, the cold was like a burning heat, the sun was no longer just the sun but an actual star, the sky was no longer so far away, the shells of gas, the rings of Jupiter, all of them somehow related.The tracks had completely disappeared and were replaced by paw prints: first a snow leopard then some kind of bird, a Wolf and finally, a palimpsest. The party finally noticed one after the other,the disappearances of the others until they were all gone and the final moralistic climber was left to himself and felt the Sherpa beside him, pulling him strenuously, dragging him, whipping him with a leather strap, the Sherpa's nails digging into his frozen flesh. He'd been there all along and had dismissed the members one at a time, disguised as a snow leopard, a yeti, a Wolf until he decided which one he could keep company with.

"Here we are." he said, peaceful and not very excited,he'd been to the spot how many times now,"How do you like it?"

"Die-ing," he replaced the form deliberately. The Sherpa deliberately replied, "Death."



8.8.08

About the Graveyard

The story of sin is written on the left hand. Sin is a great tale to tell if one has a proclivity for that sort of thing and a harrowing one if told by the victims. The greatest perpetrators tend to embellish their stories while the others simply tell it like it is. No falsification or intensification is necessary.

No telling what that makes the storyteller. A kind of accomplice perhaps or maybe it is the necessity of the social order and all of its requirements, the limitss of transparency that demand that there be writers in the world to tell the living about the dead.

She left them at about one in the afternoon in the middle of June. There was a note upon which was written "Don't worry, just left." And that is the last they saw of her. No one saw it coming except for her mother who always knew when those types of things were about to happen. An objective analysis of that would be that Mrs. Quaid had had something to do with the disappearance and she knew it. And Mrs. Quaid was careful about that when she finally reported it to the police two days later. She thought to herself, "What if she turns up dead? Will they interrogate me?"

The detective (in this case, one Madelaine Swan) would discover a great many things. Detective Swan had met the Quaid family once before when one of them had dialed the police during one of their outrageous scenes which were many but no one knew about any of the other scenes, there were no documentations or accounts except in the hearts of the Quaid family. The neighbors heard things but tended not to notice as all good neighbors do and anyway, no one seemed to be hurt after the noises died down. These things tend to happen nowadays.

There were stories alright. The Quaid family was normal in that respect or at least they thought they were happy in their own particular way. This is how they thought until they received the brutal little note from their middle child. It seemed to Mrs. Quaid that the darkness of it would never lift. One day she was a moderately happy, moderately successful working mother and the next, she was as dark as the skies on any page of a Russian novel, the type she used to read when she was just a girl.

Detective Swan wasn't really interested in the personal issues. She was kind but not the type of kind that needs to know about the sins involved. Superficial explanations were good enough for her and afterall, it isn't a crime to leave home at the age of nineteen. Mrs. Quaid envied the detective who must have been privy to some terribly useful data about the world, even though to her, the world was a small town with a population of only four thousand and ninety three.

Mrs. Quaid continued to suffer day after day under her own dark skies until finally she came to me and asked for a formal interview so that she could document the entire drama and make sure to herself that indeed it had happened the way she imagined it had. She requested that I keep it short and to the point but it has become difficult to tell the tale in straightforward terms. The convolution of it simply does not lend itself to the simplicity she hoped for.

The first thing she related to me was concerning a troubling phone call she had received moments before leaving her home on Garden Avenue to meet me for this interview. It appeared to be a normal solicitation from a man named "Dave". Dave was quite convincing until he said the word "corporation" and in that instant, Mrs. Quaid told him in no uncertain terms that she was looking for her daughter and that his phone call was unappreciated.

Mrs. Quaid was incredibly emphatic about including that detail in the interview. I asked her what it had to do with anything and she looked past me and out the window and said, "It all matters, every single detail. Please don't leave anything out."

She added that after she hung up on Dave, she went out into the back yard and heard a man calling out from one of houses on the hill, Tommy, Tommmy, Tommmmy.

"Perhaps you can make sense of it Ms. Rice." Her tone seemed almost desperate and I replied out of pity for her that I would do the best I could to help her find her daughter or at least, to understand it in some logical way.

"Logical? Logical! There is nothing logical about a daughter leaving home Ms. Rice. I assure you, nothing logical about abandoning safety."

She took off her sweater and picked up the cup of steaming coffee and sat down opposite me, a bit too close for comfort. I noticed a few scars on her wrist but before I could turn away she said, "Yes, I did that. I tried to kill myself in a Parisian hotel room many years ago. It's kind of funny you know. We were on vacation and the next day in one of the museums, we had to walk through an exhibit that was lit with black lights. The infection glowed and I showed it to the kids as if it would be an important lesson in the natural sciences."

I bent my head down a bit in order to conceal whatever look must have played across my face but it was of no use. She said it didn't hurt her feelings at all for me to react to such things. She knew by now that trying to show one's children matter of fact things like that isn't only unwise but completely out of whack.

"Why did you do it?" I felt emboldened by her candor and at that point my pencil was jotting down notes so quickly that they were difficult to read later. It didn't matter because this type of story doesn't come along everyday. People don't make up this stuff and it is quite easy to commit such things to one's memory. Perhaps as lessons or in fact, as parables.

"My husband wanted a divorce. I was completely unprepared for his announcement. Afterall, we were supposed to be on a family vacation. I took a few bottles of hard liquor out of the hotel minibar and locked myself into one of the bathrooms of the adjoining rooms. Inside there was a bottle of Nina Ricci and I smashed it and began drinking vodka and slicing. I tried very hard to succeed but I guess I'm just not the type to be successful at that sort of thing. Well, not then at least."

"What do you mean Mrs. Quaid? Did you try again?"

"Oh yes, but it was completely unpremeditated that time. I almost succeeded but was saved."

"Saved? By what exactly?"

"Well," she turned her face slightly away, "it's a very long story."

"But you said you wanted to tell me everything and that sounds like an important part Mrs. Quaid. I'm not being nosey you know. You want this don't you?"

"Well, yes. I do but I have told the story so many times to so many people that I hate to do it again. It is almost as if it didn't happen anymore. It is that far away. It's become mythological."

"To you at least. But maybe not your daughter."

"Hmm. Yes. It bothered her very much at the time and for many years after. She never even told me about it until she was almost thirteen. Apparently, I forgot to tell the children that their father had changed his mind and there would be no divorce. We went from France to New York and back and the whole time they were on pins and needles. I felt awful about that and I still do. To some extent anyway, as much as a person can regret such accidents."

She went on, "On our way back home from New York we passed through Paris once again. Our flight was delayed and they booked us into a horrible little suite outside of Paris. We made the best of it though, my husband and I. We were once again close and mindful of each other. We bought a bottle of white wine and then took a walk in a graveyard near our small hotel. We left the kids alone. She must have been horribly upset thinking that her parents were about to divorce and the three of them were left all alone in a place that was quite foreign to them."

"You seem to feel very guilty about that," I queried, not knowing really if she did. Something in her eyes however didn't match what she was saying.

"No. It isn't guilt Ms. Rice. Guilt isn't the word for it. The word for it might be prophecy."

"Prophecy?" I couldn't contain my curiosity. "Did you feel as though it was foreshadowing of some type?"

"Ah. So you know about my work Ms. Rice. I haven't written anything in years. I don't want to anymore, it is all too serious for mere poetry or story telling you know. For that matter, the word foreshadowing is a massive understatement for the real world and how it plays upon the mind of the writer, let alone the reader. It is a conspicuous crime if you ask me."

"What do you mean?" I felt a bit of guilt creeping into my voice.

"You know exactly what I mean. Please, don't feel bad about it. I've given you permission to talk about it, to write about it and to embellish it if you need to but I don't think you will. You are the first person and the last person I have ever told. I just do not want to take it with me into another graveyard you know."

Rain was beginning to fall against the window panes and Mrs. Quaid turned her head away slightly. I thought I saw a tear begin to course down her cheek but I couldn't be sure.

"Go on then."

"Well, I think she liked the matter of our divorce."

"What? You mean that? I can't imagine a child wanting something like that."

Mrs. Quaid tipped her head a bit and peered over her out of date glasses as if to say, quit bullshitting me sister. Just quit bullshitting me.

"Oh, I have proof. She was quite disappointed many a time when Ahmed and I would have a tiff. I'd threaten, he'd leave for a few hours and I'd exploit my children's sympathies in the worst ways. I didn't mean to but desperation is never easy to manage successfully. You try to play both parts but end up playing only one, no matter how hard you try Ms. Rice. No matter how hard you try you end up spinning a tenacious little web of deceit all around you and everything gets stuck in it. Just like this. There tends to be casualties. It can be quite unpredictable."

"May I say something Mrs. Quaid?"

"Certainly. I wish you would."

"Okay. You sound ambivalent to me. Very, very ambivalent."

"I guess I am. There's nothing wrong with being ambivalent if your heart is in the right place. I believe mine is. Or at least, I still want it to be."

"I get it. You mean..."

"No. Probably not. No one can know another Ms. Rice. Not at least in the way you are hoping. How can you know me if I don't even understand? Only Allah understands us Ms. Rice."

Bam. "Whoa. Are you muslim Mrs. Quaid?"

"Al'ham'dulliah. I am. We all are Ms. Rice."

I unconsciously began shaking my head. I didn't think it was noticeable but Mrs. Quaid took my hand and held it between her two. Her skin was rough and her nails were bitten right down to the quick. It was obvious she didn't care much about her looks anymore. I suddenly noticed that her sandals were quite worn out. I wondered how many miles she had walked in those shoes.

"Ten years Ms. Rice. I bought them for two dollars at a small store in my husband's village."

I tried to conceal my reaction once again but realized it was completely impossible. I felt as if I'd become her victim or a ghost as transparent as those in photographs.

"It's okay Ms. Rice. You are very young. You are also easy to read. Why do you think I chose you to write down this letter. You are an honest one."

"A letter? What do you mean, a letter? Who is it to?"

"It's to her Ms. Rice. It's to her."

The Quaid family moved out of town a week later. I don't know where they went. As far as I know, her daughter will never read this hard little tale but just as Mrs. Quaid was about to leave she said in a low voice, "We are all just waiting Ms. Rice. We all return someday. So will she. So will she and I know she'll be alright. A beggar told me so. I want people to know that, to remember it after I"m gone. It might be useful to some poor soul like me who is impatient. Or simply worn out from the length of the days and the trials."


7.8.08

Two or Three Wild and Crazy Sikhs

2.8.08

The Threat To National Security
or rather, insecurity.

"Everyone gets what they deserve." -my daughter Fatima

The first thing I made note of as I drove into South Lebanon for the first time after the Israeli Agression of 2006 was a billboard. It depicted in sillouhette, a man, a woman and a child. The woman was hijabi or "covered" from head to toe so her shape was recognizable. She was muslim. Not Christian, not Druze. Most definitely she and her family were muslim. The man was walking with crutches and was missing a leg. The words on the billboard said in Arabic, "Life Goes On".

It sure does.

We had to return to Lebanon in 2007 in order to say goodbye to our family in the proper way. We hadn't been allowed the opportunity when we evacuated aboard the USS Trent the year before. We had to see what happened up close.

Many people thought we were a tad bit crazy to enter such a dangerous area of the world where Israeli land mines were still lying in wait in the fallow fields and yards of South Lebanon. As a matter of fact, when we arrived at Heathrow airport news was breaking about the beginnings of a new conflict in North Lebanon in a place called
Nahar Bared or "Cold River". What can I say...the last time we passed through Heathrow, it exploded the next day. Ah heck, it's always exploding. I thought to myself as I stood under the television monitor near our usual old boarding gate at Heathrow, well, isn't that nice, another boneheaded US-Israeli Saudi-backed plan to destablilize little old defenseless Lebanon. Will they ever learn?


I also thought about the risk of returning and how there is no way in life to bargain with the fates. How that must appear to people who believe they are "safe" from terrorism or safe from salmonella or safe with their bicycle safety helmets on. How people in the Non Islamic provinces on the planet bank on things like FDIC guarantees. How they sue when someone dies in a plane accident. How they end up with OCD which is a newly discovered problem. Or rather, a newly invented problem that aims to explain away the anxiety people develop over time when they lack faith in the Creator, his creation and the knowledge that Allah already knows all about everything already because Allah exists outside the spectrum of events we call Time.

And what exactly is anxiety composed of? What does it mean and what does it have to do with the ancient word risk?

Anxiety can be understood by knowing what is missing rather than trying to understand what constitutes anxiety itself. Afterall, a person with math-related anxiety doesn't necessarily have OCD and everyone can have a bit of anxiety or alot of anxiety which is related to any number of ordinary to extraordinary human events. Apparently there are a range of functions of the human mind that exist to produce feelings of total safety and the complete absence of safety. Anxiety then is the absence of a feeling of security relating to something perceived to be outside of oneself.

Let's take a look at the word risk. According to my favorite on-line etymology dictionary, the word risk was Anglicized in the late 17th century:

risk (n.)
1661, risque, from Fr. risque, from It. risco, riscio (modern rischio), from riscare "run into danger," of uncertain origin. The Anglicized spelling first recorded 1728. Sp. riesgo and Ger. Risiko are It. loan-words. The verb is from 1687; risky first recorded 1826

But where on earth did it originate before that? I mean, it must have come from somewhere because the lack of safety in human lives and the need or desire to challenge that threat to national/personal security must have existed since the beginning of human self awareness.

What many people do not know is that the word risk actually comes from the ancient language which is still in use today (and by a growing number of people) called Arabic. The pronounciation of it is slightly more emphatic: ri's(eh)k. Like all Arabic words, it is composed of three consonants that can be altered via the use of vowel vocalizations that can vary from the deep gutteral to the nasally inspired. The literal meaning most widely used for the word risek in Arabic is "one's due bounty".

A good way to understand the concept of risek in Arabic is the story of a thief. The thief enters a house and takes away two hundred dollars in cash and valuables. It can be said that the thief "took his risk" by entering that house. The risk being that he would be discovered, arrested or even shot by the occupants. If the thief had waited, had he enough faith and security in the future which is completely unknowable to anyone, he would have realized that the two hundred dollars would have come to him in another way...perhaps through gainful employment or even a charitable donation. Or maybe it wasn't even his risek in the first place to have two hundred dollars. Maybe he was going to get a job and walk into the men's room and discover a bag with five hundred dollars which no one ever claims. He'll never know though will he? He'll never know because he "took" a risk which he shouldn't have taken. Hence the origin of the idea of "not taking risks".

Perhaps the greatest risk one takes is when one takes their own life in response to the uncertainties and unpleasantries of life or because their "OCD", that newly discovered "disease" becomes simply intolerable in their heart and mind. When someone places too much emphasis on the risk of falling off their bike and croaking the way non muslim people do, it is the case that they are simply too materialistic to understand the idea that tomorrow is always unknown. And even when people plan for something there are no guarantees that it will turn out the way that they expected. Like Iraq, like the Super Bowl, like a big mouthful of ham sandwiches like the kind Momma Cass Elliot was eating when she choked to death.

So there I was in Heathrow saying Why Me? And then saying, Why Not Me? It is absolutely me. Hope is all there is and risek too. It doesn't bother me much at all to be in a war zone. Lightning is a bit of a problem but bombs are just bombs.

Life goes on......or maybe not!

"And when those who disbelieved devised plans against you that they might confine you or slay you or drive you away; and they devised plans and Allah too had arranged a plan; and Allah is the best of planners." - The Ways of Ascent, The Glorious Quran


A post to Lanny Muss, my dear old friend from Cloud's Hill dated April 2007, one month before the Heathrow:

http://carmenisacat.blogspot.com/2007/04/with-apologies-to-lanny-ah-there-you.html


Days or weeks can go by you know without one shred of
evidence...then I find a woman who wants to be a Sufi.
Her door is graced with a tin replica of St. Francis
of Assisi. For whatever reason, my sister rescues
cats and wants to give them away, then posts her
persuit on International "Speak Like a Pirate Day".
What about that? It is interesting to note that the
day when I brought this lovely dog home whom we began
calling Zero and then settled on just Pooch...my
sister brought to me a cat which was later named Davey
Jones. Pooch wouldn't have it or rather, Pooch would
like to have it for his dinner..his former master must
have taught him that kitty tastes good. So I had to
turn old Davey Jones the beautiful gray kitten away.
Who ended up with my kitten? The same woman with St.
Francis, the sufi hopeful. I told her this but she
didn't grasp the importance of my speeches or what it
is I know about these kinds of signs that tend to go
unnoticed. All these things coming together in a
triangle of fate. So I said to my student of "sufism"
(seems that is what most people like to call Islam
nowdays in order to avoid the orneriness of the fine
print)...there is your sign..."YOU have my cat"..what
else is it that you require and how will I present it
to you? What about this Zionist thing and what would
that do to the finer details of this acceptance one
must abide by?