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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now substitute the word 'mailboxes' for 'flowers', and we'll begin this short post.

In '06 the US Post Office Commission, for not the first time, jacked up the rate of postage, which was then a hop to .42cents.

They also babbled, for not the first time, that somebody should make job cuts in the ranks of living-wage letter carriers, clerks, mail handlers, drivers, and such. 

The inner-sanctum top management of the Post Office complied with this and more. Not satisfied with chopping heads, they peeled up tens of thousands of curb-side neighborhood mailboxes. Man, it's a drag. Just look around. They're gone. Just like that. A piece of Americana. Now thanks to job cuts, the dagger turns around and stabs again. The box you remember, the one that was handy, is gone forever.

'This will save labor, as we already chopped back the letter carrier ranks', they said.

Now tens of millions drive further and use millions of barrels of gas to drive to their post offices so they can drop first-class mail into the box.

The dichotomy is tragic--if more people went back to hard-copy stamped letters, the postal employees would be more secure, as the volume they handle would stay, if not large, steady.

Instead, the sort centers wade in piles of bulk-rate crapola (junk mail) and somewhere the postal honchos are laughing.

Prayer, though, is for the heavier stuff, the rot, the darkness, the hauntings, and the never-going-away of very bad things. Prayer seems to be designed to handle that which we can't accomplish, reach, or resolve on our own. It can deliver a twist--it usually does--where what we think we can't handle we end up finding we can...but with some other deeper and more directed challenge.

The actual figures that the people I ask to pray end up praying to (God, Jesus, et al) are the ones that I've had pretty difficult times reaching (I always think in terms of God and skip the other two parts of the triune faith, but I'll refine that below). That's pretty ordinary, though, for this sort of effort for lots of us. They say I'm not alone here, and I believe it. If I'm really hurt, and a lot of people relate to this, it's hard to be the one actually praying. That I know a few people who have no compunction whatsoever to praying for me is great; this is because if it were up to me to dial up praying alone, at least thus far in my life I've found this to be true, my words would be as hollow as the echo-y caverns that my wounded feelings and sprit inhabit.

I got hung up on a simple dichotomy I fixated on, oh, a good twenty years ago and ever since: God's omnipotent, and God's omnipresent. As such, he knows all (as in, good and bad) and is everywhere (good and bad) and by logical deduction, he creates all things, good and bad, with the notable inclusion of situational crapola. So with these maxims locked in my mind, heck: if I told you I've ended up blaming him or at least shying away from his powers (as in, he creates everything, good and bad) for, well, twenty years or more--considerably more as I think about it--when times get tough, I'd be telling you the truth.

My brain's powerful logic fueled by it's powerful horsepower, when it comes right down to it, has no qualms fathoming the mysticism required to believe in a higher power and the good that comes from having one. Trouble is, given the undeniable maxim of above's 'he knows all things' and 'creates all things' then my brain's logic takes right back over and pins it on Him, which in theory takes it off of me (wrongful blame's been a challenge for me for the last couple of years) and slings it back on him. That's pretty wierd, but it's logically cubic and igneous-rock solid.

As my ace in the hole, I have begun asking others who don't rationalize in such a (male) logic manner to pray for me or, preferably, to pray to break these terrible spells enshrouding me in this darkness and fear.


SLIGHT CAVAET: Hey, writing helps more than a bit. I'm mighty glad I 'journal', which happens to be in the form this 3,000-page blog full of posts and sometimes burst out of my mind faster than I can get to this PC and type. I've been authoring this blog for over two years now, with a good thirty to go, or until somebody invents something beyond the PC. I'm fearless with regard to content, and fearlessness sort of bolsters my character and keeps certain fears at bay. No mind, though--there's nothing prayerful about this component of me at all.

I could wrap this up with a tag: 'I really can feel the prayer working in me and around me' but I'd be lying through my teeth. The swirling waves (are they swirling, or is it more like a 'washing over'? I have always wondered just how to describe how prayers that are made on my behalf feel) of the prayer are going on out there, and they're being launched on my behalf. Of this I can only be certain because of the sheer high integrity of my 'warrior' people out there helping me.

I just can't see them or feel them. CLINCHER: Faith is believing in that which you can't see. Faith, my most PAIN IN THE ASS hang-up component of the power of prayer..man, I've been reaching for it for most of my life. Thus far, no cigar, really. As a suitable replacement, Kharma's the best 'trick' (recall: Kharma = doing stuff for others and then it somehow comes back to me) --along with simply asking others, are the best substitutes I've ever found, and pending some sort of mystical breakthrough in my mind's part. My logic combats my faith too tenaciously for me to do anything other than humbly ask for--and get--help from really cool people who understand.

I was lifting stuff for one job and then was on a job where I lifted more, and well, in a word,

OUCH.

That was about three weeks ago and it's about worked out. I weaned myself off muscle relaxers (that I begged for) and in my next life, I should like to be a creature without thighs. Plant kingdom member, perhaps. :) 

SIDETRACK: In a wild moment of realization when I saw the intense eyes of Timothy Geithner (that's 'TIMOTHY', not 'TIM', by the way), when I was a yearling manager at a checkprinting company. He came to the Atlanta corporate office where we aspiring young managers were being indoctrinated (yet, as I recall, not entirely too well-paid), and visited with us about banking stuff. I don't recall the topics he covered, but he was talking and I harkened to the projection, albeit not forcefully loud, of his then-slightly accented communication style. None of us had ever even seen a Dartmouth grad; this boosted him on our 'ratings scale'.

Now this man, precisely ONE YEAR apart from my birthday (that means he's a Leo, a summer child of, in his and my case, fire) and his plan, like the initial secretely-contrived bailout, will utilize banks' processing mechanisms. Again, that's saying that Uncle Sam will dip a cool trillion-plus scoops of hard ice cream through a drip coffee maker. On Wall Street, things don't always trickle down.

Again, don't get me wrong. I have three veiws here:

1) Wall Street scrambled all over billions of government bailout money to cover their losses due primarily--I said primarily-- to their own boneheadedness. Mortgage credits, 'coupons redeemable for morgage payments for the MORTGAGERS to redeem with Wall Street banks, was rather a better way to go. Congress didn't seem to think so. Imagine the wonderful impact just 2-3 coupons your family--particularly ARM-mortage families--could have made for homeowners not only 'on the edge', but for families on tight strings and absurd/normal credit card debt.

2) Geithner--and trust me--isn't even 1/1000% of a dummy. He knows how things work. Trouble is, he almost knows too much how things work. On the other hand, he didn't make the rules, he inherits them. Wall Street's been driven by deal-making as much as it's driven by the 'World economy' (A MAJOR oversimplification). He's used to getting his way (though only one year my elder, he's a deserved honcho on the cobbles of Wall Street). A note on Wall Street: since this republic chased away the pesky British, bankers have been the movers and shakers. Teddy Roosevelt called them 'the robber barons'. Carnegie replied: 'you should have had your people call my people', a bankable quote (ouch!). Stuff worked out then, and it'll work out now. Point being, the Geithner''s no lollipop (Aug 18 Leo that he is, he'll light some fires under some butts, raising ire along the way) and though the distribution methodology of the immense taxpayer dollars is going through the second most effective channels it can, the robber-barons won't allow it any other way. Does he understand mortgage banking industry well enough? He better. He sure did back in '90 when he described it to our rapt group, a time when he was living in Africa (New Zealand?) somewhere. I recall his tan complextion, which I neglected to mention above.

SIDETRACK II: And spare yourself the angst of his tax liability that was in the news during his confirmation. I myself, instead of writing this, should be completing my amended '06 return where I flubbed on MY taxes for an exemption I shouldn't have taken for one my children. $47k for Geithner is like $900, my liability, for me. Young Mr. Geithner's YOUR Treasury Secretary now, an absolutely thankless job to begin with, so let's support him like you should support leaders of this whole mess. They need you in their corner; and Geithner is no exception to this.

Finally, if we can't have credit coupons to use against even a couple of months off of our mortgages (in the form of a flat dollar amount in a remittable coupon would be the most sensible) then by God, taxpayers simply NEED the money in a stimulus check, helping the foundering American retail economy and a plethora of other segments of the American economy. Credit card banks, though the fat-cat daddies of the bailout proceed pocketers ...

(save for the mighty AIG firm-they REALLY passed along their mess to us; see my post about the story of that firm)

... have rather busied themselves jacking up interest rates on over seventy million personal credit card accounts. This month's New Economist said it was more than 95 million family consumer lending accounts, which is probably more accurate. Consumers' TANTAMOUNT priorities are:

1. Get their house payments (more) caught up if the loans are teetering under strains of horrific job losses and wildly inflating Adjustable Rate Mortgages, the interest rate levels of which which should subside by '10 when lenders fully cast off to Uncle Sam. Geithner explained this in only a couple of sentences, but we caught his meaning;
2. Pay down at least SOME of their consumer revolving accounts paid down NOW..BEFORE they begin charging harrowing double-digit (starting with a '2') interest rates;
3. The new 'Stimulus Bill' that Geithner's toiling with may well provide 'poison mortgage' coverage (see below) for lenders; that's his marching orders, anyway. It's also his only real choice, given that lenders, pocketing bailout money or not, aren't going to be dissuaded from first cleaning up the PILES of messes they created;

I just repeated, in a roundabout and more colorful way, Geithner's short post confirmation press conference speech. I read between the lines along the way. 

RISKS OF THE FINAL BILL's PASSAGE: Banks like Chase and B of A still won't spring open the housing market/mortgage industry. After all, they haven't yet This apparently isn't gong to happen via doling out funds to Wall Street who instead of relieving the mortgage credit dilemna, covered their funky so-called 'poison' loan portfolios that shouldn't have been issued firstly, and shouldn't have been swapped around and/or buried by investors secondly. Another risk is the continuation of the trend that banks aren't doing their part. The story is shaping up differently--this example being just one--of Jay Rockefeller's family bank, National City, gobbled by PNC Bank (that stands for Pittsburg National Trust), less than a month after PNC deposited a few billion of that bailout money. #6 gobbles up either #9 or #10, depending on how you interpret NC's income statement. So still we have a case of the REAL engine-driver here: the inexorable tide of yet two more CEO's getting rich, but this time quite literally off of our bailout dollars, obviously serving their personal interests and not ours. (Sigh). That's those pesky Robber Barons at it again, and you can't stop them. Welcome to the machine.