Monday, November 24, 2008

Tired of Waiting for One Twenty Oh Nine?

It is cold and damp and rainy - Ohio has the climate of a forgotten family cemetery. If I am going to be confined to a cemetery I'd rather it be in the dusty cremains of a desert than this putrid place. Gas prices here are below in some places 1.60 US$ a Gallon (still not Metric - yet! coz weez ameerigunz an i-litter-irate)

.....To escape the Ohio pollution, damp, mold and mildew smells that makes me want a road trip until I think about what a dark rather miserable time of year it is for North America in November. I would have gone on a road trip this year late summer or early autumn but Exxon and the Bush II Administration had other plans in other places which is not all what the Grande Olde Par-tay really is all about. At all... and most Republicans today don't even know that which isn't very Republican of them - just ask those two hillbillies out of Wasilla who went on a Neiman Marcus spending spree recently - they wouldn't know either.

....(Speaking of which I was always obsessed by her hands - almost as much as she was - those beauty pageant claws - which she would never expose as all ball jointed and curled up arthritic and veiny - so she always had these odd hand gestures going on quite independent of whatever non-sense was coming out of her tele-prompted mouth. (you know just to keep her hands and fingers looking straight so she'd appear younger - a woman's age as you know is clearly exposed on the back of her hands - Like a mans age is revealed in his beard - which is why vain Westerners are obsessed by being clean shaven. It's the type of thing cheerleader - Drop Dead Gorgeous or the Hairspray pink elbowed beauty contestants worry about in photo ops - is the Vaseline still on my teeth? ...are my hands and fingers straight and not curled up? ...feet together, no static cling - hate that on camera and could someone please refresh my Aqua Net stat! I love making fun of her so much I almost voted for her to be the new national punching bag-hag.

I am devising a scheme to rejuvenate this country in six months - just sue the Bush Administration - Cheney and the Haliburtons and the like - and make Exxon and Marathon provide private health care for all Americans and those even just passing through - the way European North Western Medicine and Health care works on a national government level instead ours will be corporate-o-cratic-automatic. Companies like those record (ree-cord not re-cord) massive profits by the second. They can continue to do so - even - tax free - but they will have to provide First World Health care, Housing and Education to anyone who needs it out of Patriotic obligation to the Nation that bred such a corporate-entity at such great national social expense. Plus they will have to begin a public works project nationally to restore pedestrian infrastructure to all US cities where it was removed to benefit the Auto Industries greedy desire to make us all dependent on cars and auto ways. Waistlines will return and chronic illnesses will subside and the Prozac generations will be no more. And they must provide real education - not this quasi religious crapolla that has swept the school hallways since Reagan - And I mean Education - no more phenomenal student loans to get through the University to curse you into poverty when you start a job until retirement if you stay healthy - but the school entrance (and exit) exams are murder of course - so no more faux educated Bush II types can get an education that they can't really absorb - less waste. Perhaps just the threat of obligation to The Vampiric Corporations like Exxon et al's human responsibility will be enough for them to stop stonewalling Democratic measures to make these basic first world standards available to all Americans for the first time in their wealthy assed history.

My biggest gripe about this whole two party national self abuse system is that these Fake Republicans cause so much damage in a very short time - that when the Democrats get their turn - they can only push the mop around all that bloody decay and never have the chance - in 40 some years of actually building any of the great notions that are inherently interesting about the Democratic ideologies (notions which invariable self corrupt because greed runs through human veins not blood). We haven't seen in my life time what the Democrats can do that is good. but then neither have we seen what the Republican can do that is good. Anyone here remember WWII era Republicans who didn't want to get caught up in European linguistic and racial quagmires who would have scoffed at present day Middle Eastern sentimental ones? So we need a revolution to chuck out this system. Bring in a Castro type - Singapore is a successful Dictatorship - the Republican/Corporate-o-cracy is an unsuccessful economic Dictatorship - and they never really step aside when they aren't in office - see the Ken Starr Clinton Character Assassination years if you don't believe me. Ask a dead Kennedy man in a seance. So this is why I am anti-American - this model - this experiment - doesn't work - it is a self loathing sort of game of unhappiness with no results except for warmongering. Would some please stand up and say so.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Random images

Someone fearlessly unafraid of color. The Purple facade along the alley behind Summit and Hudson.

A nine eleven refuge camp tapestry tribute - once a controversial e-bay item - now worthy of rethinking and reconsidering.
Some US state department Mosques of America calendar for 2009 -- highly collectible -- extremely hard to get a copy of. Not available for the taxpaying masses - I sure do want one but gave up on trying.








Benoit, Bender, Ben, BJ, Bendahar - many names - many guises but from the same great men of Walt Whitmans civil war era soul reincarnated for these post 20th century times - lost like the rest of us in the retail snake pits of America and their unnatural geography of parkinglots to nowhere. Some say Ben fell off the cover of a 1950 or 60's male physique pictoral from the days of sidewalk newsstands - back when most towns and villages had a pedestrian infrastructure. I say souls like Benoit were the stuff that inspired Leaves of Grass to not just be written but published in more free-thinking times than today.
Ben is hard working - destitute - working poor - devoted animal lover for discarded house pets much like himself - a local hero for homeless cats and dogs around OSU. Guys like Ben deserve a tax exempt status until this country can resolve its working poor control matrix/3rd world inducing shock doctrin-ette economic dilemma. Bens landlord defaulted on his buildings mortgage and you think Ben has money for a new rental deposit - utility changeovers and a rental moving vehicle - and in this wintery temperature.
Ben is just another all too human non-Joe variety example - like the rest of us - of the idea of United States American - too bad this country is over-run with economic and political Vampires who are ruthlessly feeding on lives such as Bens - draining guys like Ben to exhaustion - for nothing more than greed. Shame on you America - Shame on you and your Big first world Exxon economy creating third world domestic nightmares for most Americans (South, Central and Northern).
We still demand all the money you Exxon political types stole from our impoverished lives in the last 24 months with gasoline inflation prices. Let the economic Vampires drain humanity to death and extinction so they can then just feed on themselves.
I wanted to read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine after seeing the book product placed with the character Tara in True Blood; couldn't find a word about how all that Naomi Klein writes of all applies to the example of the Shock Doctrine idea playing out in Gaza and the West Bank fragments of a once beautiful and multicultural Palestine.
It has been said that the Palestinians will not be freed from the Vampire clutch Israel has on them until the Americans are freed from the Vampire clutch that the international Zionist economic cartell has on us here in the US: Well, that won't be happening in time for that miserable concrete wall around Bethlehem to be torn down by Christmas this year.



Monday, November 10, 2008

Don't Let Healthcare In This Country Make You Sick

The following essay is about my recent experience with a central Ohio Doctor who astonished me with her extraordinary determination to listen and help me rather than inflict her profession on me - as most doctors do in the shortest amount of time possible for the greatest amount of money possible.

Dr Elarossi is actually located quite far from where I now reside yet I prefer the drive because she is quite possibly the best doctor I have known in North America. After living overseas in a country with actual healthcare I became used to affordable doctors who spent as much time as possible with me the patient neccessary to see me get well.

The US healthcare system is designed to keep people coming back which is an inherent flaw of the for profit US healthcare model. People in the US deserve better and Dr Elarossi knows this. It is my opinion Dr Elarossi is doing her part with what she can within our current healthcare crisis of greed to continue the art of practicing medicine ethically for those who seek her out for help.

I found my way to Dr Elarossi quite by chance and now refer everyone I know in need of an alternative to the current healthcare crisis of disregard and neglect to her. We here in central Ohio are extremely fortunate to have her here working on our behalf. Dr Elarossi has a patient and impeccible bedside manner steeped in modesty; her communication is based solely on a pragmatic devotion to science and the art of medicine not business. She spent a great deal more time in counsel and consideration with me during my appointment which is unheard of in the states now for sadly way too many decades. To her credit Dr Elarossi doesn't treat my condition as a single issue but treats my body as a whole state of being with a body, mind, soul and spirit ethic. For all this Dr Elarossi deserves in my opinion an award and recognition for her unique approach to medicine despite being locked into a medical economic structure that unfortunately creates a control structure of chronic treatment for dis-ease.

There was once a time in the United States where individuals with the caliber of character that Dr Elarossi has were sought after - maybe not in the recent last century but certainly in the one previous to that - Citizens who stood up against the grain of a seemingly insurmountable sinister force because of their own personal convictions and determination to do what was right for other people without a voice - these were the people public monuments by local artists were erected on behalf of a community to tell their story of achievements. If this were a more gracious time then there would be some sort of monuments being considered for good people like Dr Elarossi.

These days, however, the only monuments being erected are by corporations for themselves or their accomplices who work on a corporations behalf and not for the voiceles humane level of life. One need only listen to National Public Radio to listen to the long litany of shameless self promoting "generous" corporations and individuals who wish to slightly benefit society only after they have greatly benefited themselves.

God Bless Dr Elarossi - if only there were more doctors this forthright in their persuit of the Art of Medicine then this country would be that much more a healthier, ethically, and morally compassionate place for all Americans and our guests.

If you think this is all too good to be true then check out Dr Elarossi for yourself. There are lots of good and excellent Dr's out there but few who are capable or willing to stave off the beast of capitalism from devouring good doctors patients from our current merciless healthcare system that rewards the rich and healthy and punishes the poor and sickly.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Yesterdays Hope Tomorrows Salvation













This image was from yesterday November 2...



Hope and Salvation oddly playing out on the State House steps and lawn in Columbus, Ohio. Last time I was there I got stoned with some state attorney type. But that was years ago.





Today, in another "bury my heart at wounded knee Indian summers day" gathering trapped in the cold air of the shadow of those sinister Reagan era mirrored facades; on a lawn that once looked unobstructed with boundless optimism to the wide open West. A lawn once designed to be a staging ground for Ohio democracy in the open air to play itself out in - now out of all proportion and reason with that claustraphobic inducing real estate shiny walls looming overhead...





The nice thing about bad architecture (and bad governance) is how easily it can be demolished. However, this country is more famous for tearing down the good. From a backdrop of a sturdy domeless rotunda that belongs that way as a unique, suitable and timeless architectural reference summing up the lame state of Ohio - the original unlimited outdoor space of early 19th century urban planners would have held in its arms todays Democracy happening.





How it seems impossible that we have all waited for forty-five years for a promise of the dream of Democracy to be fullfilled - can it possibly have taken so long? Are we so over due? It's not very often the words of a politician raise the hairs on my forearm and yield a scatchy and difficult lump in the throat that is hard to swallow or speak with. I really didn't want the public humiliation of tears streaming down my face when it was over not that it would matter in such an annonymous and annoying crowd - but I remained a man with no falling tears - but it sure wasn't easy. Thanks, God, for Barack's sophisticated and polite sense of dignified humor mixed with rugged optimism for the difficult times ahead. I only wish I could have been closer but then, who there, then, didn't wish that no matter where they stood.



Bicycled there without food or water - stood for too long - but would do it all again! If only for another chance at a possible hand shake or at least eye contact with a man walking through history unfolding around him fueled by hope.




Independent local cafe's, diners, shops and newstands would have jumped on the opportunity to turn a buck with todays crowd - the chain stores just remained oblivious rendering themselves redundant in their pervasiveness in a downtown defined by parkinglots and bankers business hours.



Politicians inevitably will certainly always disappoint in the obligations of compromise that society and governance require - they are only human supposeably - (well - occassionally - sadly too few that is - of those inhuman politicians which Plato warned us about from his Republic) - caught up in the nasty human equation of politics - but some are better than others.



Even from those pop music performance outdoor ampitheater distances something palpable was present despite all the "inconito" agents strewn about.



Bought a 15 dollar T-shirt!!!! Yikes what was I thinking - of a Matrix the movie poster twist - "That One" with Barack as "the Neo - the oNe" that one...



Sometimes the unreality of lifes persistant or perhaps incessant illusion is brighter than the rest.