phil - Geekforce - We're geeks, dammit!

Saturday

07Mar2009

If You Always Tell the Truth…

Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 5:46PM

....you never have to remember anything.

That holds true, and that holds true if you're sprayed with concetrated forms of alternative accounts of the truth. Stick to the original truth, then, and you'll never forget it. Your enemies, while not quite admiring you, will simply know that you know. It's all that you ever need to know.
.....

Otherwise good people can sure be funny, and they don't like it anymore than I do...a simple lie has to be covered by a lie which will become woven around another lie that muffles the tiny whimper of truth that's buried under a huge heap of slime. I'd never be able to keep all that straight, all the covering lies...in normal natrual self-defense of the buried truth, one pretty much has to know the motivations and movements, if any, of the accususations and accusers that need to keep the truth swathed in a bunch of horseshit. In my case, there never was any movement by the other side, and so their side stood still, entirely uninterested in peeling back the layers of muck, but still I waited, and waited, waiting...

Anyway, the issue's over, I guess. If anybody would have moved over there, it would have happened by now. In books, the News, the Bible, or in Greek mythology distortions like this have a way of coming around. They sure come around in television episodes of shows where there are detectives walking around interrupting people at work and chatting things over trying to get their man. Things sure come around that way. It's not too different with government investigators looking in on firms, and it's how real-life crime investigations work. The process extracts the truth and any obstructive means to cover it becomes evidence against the culprits.

All this stuff here will come around, too. Truth has a pesky way of staying rigid and strong. I may be in my seventies by the time that happens and my scourge is lifted, but things will sure come around. I intend to smile and keep on being happy between now and then. We couldn't move forward for the longest time, but with all that other crapola out of our way...

...I'm going to keep digging life and telling the truth, and I'll never have to remember anything, no matter how close I remain to the tellers of slander and the lies they're wrapped around.

phil |

2 Comments |

Geek Therapy

Friday

06Mar2009

My Guest Radio Spot: Busted Families, Venus, and Mars

Friday, March 6, 2009 at 11:44AM

And I quote:

There's a certain amount of 'thick-skin-ness' a blog writer needs to be successful at, well, just writing stuff.

I grew tired of how difficult it was to post to my old 'Busted Families' category; Americans automatically go 'venus/mars' on the topic of divorce, and worse, they 'go singular', as though it's only them or only me. Wrong-o. I scaled-down that category a while back and voila! My hate mail went down. The topic's incredibly hard to tackle in any kind of commentary, including this one (radio). It's full of angles and emotions.

That doesn't say that the message doesn't need to travel far and wide.

The stark fact is this: divorce in America and it's incredible inpact in the latter 20th century now spawns half an entire generation of young people, so llike it or not, the topic's not only relevant, it's on fire. I constantly forget, though, that when I write people take it all personally--which is the wrong approach to take. Even more powerfully, the American-specific chasm between genders on this issue makes forum, other than that of lawyers who get PAID to keep forums held to only within their arena, virtually impossible.everything having to do with the system. The 'Mars' side doesn't deploy the personal attack. I don't set automatic 'spam' settings to comments tht hit my plain-jane blog, but I've learned in these cases I have to be pretty careful regarding the cacaphony 's' or 'f' words that appeared courtesy of these guys. (laughs in studio)

If it helps, and why would it?, I've received reams and paragraphs of columns from guys, who don't attack me at all but attack anything and

Folks, a guy (me) fingering a growing MONSTER of a societal paridgm is NOT misogynistic. My biggest accusers of this? Married women, who are blessed with intact families. Go figure. They are happy, though--rightfully so--that it's us here, and not them.

host: 'I know, yes. Venus and Mars'

Right. Yea.

--excerpt of broadcast trascript from when I was a guest blog writer/reader on 'Weekend Edition', KWMU FM, (UMSL) August, 2005. My turn came up and was over with in about four minutes, a cool moment in the sun.

phil |

1 Comment |

Busted Families

Thursday

05Mar2009

My Kids: It’s Been Quite a While

Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 8:47AM

Yesterday I went to the StL airport to pick up my son Nathaniel who's been overseas. It's the first time I've seen him since basic training in the pine woods of S.C., way back in the spring of '07, which was back when Renae and I had only been together a couple of months.

He's the same ole' guy, smiling, and in the car on the way home so he could see our new house in Alton, we caught up a bit. He was jet lagged after something like 27-or-so hours in the air (Afgh-->Kuwaitt-->Germany-->Atlanta---StL). It was an immensely powerful moment when I saw him coming walking down the plank towards the open area past the gate checkpoint at the airport.

Now I'm thinking he sleeping (I just described yesterday) and his older sister Bianca's coming in today. Dylan's here, up from AR with his mom and stepdad. We were over at my former mother-in-law's, whereupon she fed us and my former sister-in-law was there too. What an advantage--no, a gift--to have it all fall into place for his moment in time, which shall stay frozen for me. I haven't had all three of my kids in the same place for a very long time! It's time to catch up.

phil |

Dar al-Kalima College Reaches for the Sky and Stares Down the Wall

Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 4:28PM

Geographically remote from the West Bank, and far north of Gaza's recent fury, East Jerusalem, a mixture of some Christians and mostly Arabs now, technically counts as an occupied territory. A year or so ago I shared some things about East Jerusalem’s Birzeit University, the Arab conterpart of Israel's Hebrew University across town, not more than a mile from the site of the territory's newest school, Dar al-Kalima College.

Multiethnic/multireligious philanthropy has come from a seeminly unlikely source. Borne from of the talents, works, and funding from America's Lutheran Church/MO Synod (LCMS) a completely new college with utilitarian aims shines yet more hope in this occupied territory. Dal al-Kalima College building's are nearing completion and their first new graduating class conducted commencement exercises late last fall. The class size, like the school enrollment, is small. College guarantees absolutely nothing -- except to give money to the college and work hard -- and the same, Americans seem to be finally figuring out, is the case here. At Dal al-Kilima, indingenous (read: walled-in) families endure unemployment that's been in the thirty-percent+ range since before the latest graduating class members were born. Christians and Arabs alike leave East Jerusalem because they can, and when they leave they generally don't return. Enough with the obvious, though.

Dal al-Kalima, currently accredited by the Palestine Authority Council with conference of an associates' degree, is an art school. It's programs are in filmmaking, ceramics, glass-making, all provide, as the course catalog describes, 'alternative endeavors' (Add: tourism development, a stalwart aim in achieving economic stability and sufficiency in East Jerusalem, is taught here as well). I applaud the LCMS, seldom credited for spearheading efforts in the alternative and NEVER credited for their remarkable religious tolerance typified here, with making this crowning contribution. The school plans on becoming university-accredited, passing what Americans would call a 'junior college' to a full-fledged university. Once the LCMS-sponsored construction's completed the student body will rise and the charitable subsidies from sustaining donors will keep things afloat nicely. The site shows tuition and fees--in the currency of Jordanian Diner (JD--I think that's pretty cool because we don't ever see that monetary expression) and adjusting to USD and comparing to US Community Colleges, the cost/credit hour is about the same as would be found here in the Midwest.

phil |

Beaten Up, Beaten Down: Tank’s Down

Friday, February 27, 2009 at 12:15AM

Keep a blog stalled and it'll stall. Keep it stuffed with fresh material and it'll mosey along.

Just what is a blog supposed to do? Hit count? Hone jounaling skills?

(by the way, 'journaling' is spelled 'journaling'. Occasionally systems' software's spellcheck doesn't always stay true to form)

Whatever it does, this engine's dry. I'll get it back. Maybe. The equinox is less than two weeks away. Maybe then. Maybe not. My tank level's really low.

phil |