On Killing Bees?

 

A recent article reported an effort to justify an initiative to kill bees in an area where they were “over populating?” I’ll have to think on that to justifying options presented, but . . .

OH!

I now see.

It be what it be.

If the bee don't be

Can we be without the bee

The bee didn't be because we be

Often we be because the bee did be

Long before be be needing bee to be.

This be too much for me.

I need my bee 'n

I'll be fighting for my bee to be!

Bee and we

Be needing bee

To be.

'S all.

 

President Obama Wins 2012 - Tod und Verklärung

 Gotterdammerung: Twilight of the Gods (Last opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle)

Leitmotif: Recurrent themes running through the four operas in Wagner’s Ring Cycle
Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration): Tone Poem for Orchestra by  Richard Strauss

It began as he stepped on the podium and allowed the tuning of instruments to continue.  He looked into the distance and measured a rising tide that began flooding the arena.  His eyes moved to his first chair performers, The Wife and children.  In a short riff, they were established as a leitmotif that had traveled with and through him during his continued journey.  A crescendo began to rise as he moved to his core.  This was the foundation designed to maintain and support the moving parts.  These were the voices which persistently reestablished themes and missions of the movement. 

It would seem as if somewhere in the past, at some point, someone said, “This is the score.  These are the instruments. And here are the numbers you play.  You don’t improvise.”  There was buy-in, discipline, and the will to win.

There was Joe Biden, introduced on a strong downbeat and given levity to improvise and perform at will.  In the crescendo that followed was another unspoken yet strident undercurrent that continued resonating.  Who, having heard it, will forget the word?  Arithmetic!  It was heard once, echoed and remained a background four stroke riff.  It functioned as accepted truth to spoken and unspoken questions.  On this night, there was a warm feeling on realizing that President Clinton probably backed off and again allowed President Obama the evening.

The concert was a litany of four years with great frustrations, but greater successes in many areas.  As it continued, and people began to see and understand what had been accomplished, with so little cooperation from “the other side,” a crescendo began to rise.  With total control of momentum, and nuance, there were times of quiet awe as well as explosive response.  It remained measured until, by design, the crescendo of the moment reached its peak.  It held for a while and then dissolved.   People turned and looked into each other’s eyes.  There was quiet acknowledgement and accepted peace. Old and young faces, some with prayerful hands folded, others embracing, or sitting with a head resting on another shoulder.  There were those looking into the distance, unfocused, accepting and quiet.  Asian, Hispanic, White, Black, all those bodies looking, saying, first softly to themselves, “We did it.”  Then, they exploded.  

In back rooms, another dynamic began as voting counts continued to roll in with blue waves breaking up red sands.  Properties, lives, identities were being unraveled, lost and unrecoverable.  Heads looked up into flaming skies, and with wailing voices cried aloud, “Why, God?”  “Why, me?”

The God of Reason took a graceful moment and allowed the leitmotifs to reveal themselves.  Simple short strophe sounds.  No Latinos, No Blacks, No Asians, No Young People, No Jobs, No Colleges, No . . . .
The Death and Transfiguration has begun.                                                                              

 

The Sparrow

It was to be a good day
Several weeks overamping with work
Trains of thought lost while straining to multitask
Reading books, articles, posts
Losing them all in a rushing flood of perceived critical things that must be done
Important only to me

I took a day to play some tennis
Score 4 to 5
A hard serve that I return down the line for a winner
The opponent says, “The Bird.”
I’m lost.
He repeats, “I hit the bird”

I look down the court near the net and see a small grey lump on my side of the court. I approach, and find a small sparrow. It is lying on its side with one wing extended and the other immobile. It breaths faintly, I can see the small beak, closing ever so slightly, but it is moving. I reached down to touch it, and then pulled back, thinking if I touched it, and my scent bonded with it, it might not be able to return to the gaggle. Taking a piece of cardboard I was able to place it on my racket. I moved toward the pro shop to get a small box in which to place it, noting all the while that it was trying to breath. As I passed players of the next court, they noted it for the first time. One asked, “What happened?” I replied, ‘My friend hit it with his big serve. I think he stunned it.”

With the bird on my racket, taking care not to touch it, we went into the pro shop where we found a small box, into which we placed it. I noticed the bird was breathing more strongly, but one wing still seemed immobile. The second wing fluttered a tad and stopped. A small crowd gathered. Jokes flooded as comments on the power of my friend’s ace, became the catalyst for jokes. The pro shop attendant talked to the sparrow, tried to coax it to life, and commented on what might happen if it was simply place on the ground. There was a fear it might be killed by dogs or other critters.

A fluttering sound in the shop caught our attention. The bird broke free from the box, and flew to the ceiling where it rested atop the florescent lamp. There it remained for a few minutes as we all watched, applauded and commented. Minutes later, it flew out the door, and settled in a tree. We applauded again and watched as it became lost among the branches and leaves. There was such joy among us all. The gleam on the face of the pro shop attendant as she looked up with tears in her eyes. OK! So it got to me too!

This could be a very good new year. I did not give one thought to my critical tasks for the rest of the day. What a gift, that bird. So small, and yet so . . .

The Plunger

I’m beginning to experience the fallout from this financial catastrophe for both me and my clients. For the first time since I started my business, “high end” clients are paying me with credit cards that are maxed out. I wake up in the middle of the night and start second guessing decisions made years ago about how to manage business, finances, etc. Funny thing, two years ago I was right. There were models I had always used. No longer.

I looked at some of my investments and note some have decreased in excess of 40%! I was never rich, never poor. Today, I am moving toward a condition where I look at frugality as a necessity for survival, rather than something with which less fortunate have dealt. The Bush Machine and his cronies have punked the world with a rusty stake, little ceremony and no lubricant. It reamed Europe, Asia, the mid-east and everyone it touched.

The Machine, functioning as the Grande Parent Placenta cemented his three banks, gave $850 billion to a tethered puppet for distribution. Working as Grand Pimp, this puppet doles out booty to bitches complicit in the dissolution of our entire financial infrastructure.

The first tier Bitches hire their stable of sub-whores to “resolve the financial issues of the day”. The Grand Pimp creates the perfect loop. They use the booty to purchase for themselves the residue of our former riches. In computer speak we call this a loop.

I don’t understand how anyone with simple cognitive capability cannot see and feel these thrusts as they are being reamed up the psyches of kneeling supplicants. If you refuse to see the curtain that reveals the brothel, the next thing you feel will be the plunger.

One of the earlier statements by the Machine regarding the bailout-cum-rescue was,”We need to get the money working now. We can look at regulating and controlling it later.

Funny thing, that! The first financial crisis was answered by a check in the amount of $300 for everyone, with the admonition, “Go out and spend it. Let’s get the economy rolling again.” The second crisis upped the ante to $600 with the same admonition. Now we were ready to go to the Big Show! Let’s give a gift of $850 billion to the major players who had lost it. The new subtext, “We’ll tell them we will use it to restore the economy. But, let’s just hold it a while.”

Rape always hurts.

Fly on the Wall

“Good job! We Got’em”
“Right where we wanted them . . .”
“They never saw it coming.”
“They saw it, but didn’t know what it was.”
“Like watching a kid doing a handstand on a basket ball.”
“Opps! Missed that landing! Ha! H!”
“Pick yourself up, son. “
“You can go at it again”
“But, we’ll keep this ball. Hahahahahah!”
“How did we do it?”
“You know the old saying. Keep ‘em barefoot, hungry, scared and pregnant and they’ll follow you to hell!
“You can’t talk like that today.”
“Just a metaphor”
“SHHHHHHHHHH! Quiet. He’s coming.”
“He’s speaking.”
“He looks good, don’t you think?"
"Yeah, he's got that look"
"That's ma' prez."

HE moves to the podium, pauses until the hushed silence. He speaks in a soft almost inaudible voice.

“I told you we could do it!”
“First, we we create plans and have them in place.”
“Then, we create subtle incremental victories.”
“These victories are measured and controlled by the management of fear indexes”
“For example, children should go to sleep worrying about things they never heard of nor understand”
“As we move toward our goals, anxiety becomes a part of the physical and psychological barometers by which we leverage our victories.”

A hand is raised to ask a question.

Q: “Sir, when or what was the first Victory.”
A: “The ground was laid several years before I arrived on the scene. All implementation plans were laid out. All we needed were the incremental Incidents.” The first Big One! The Hole in the Ground.

Long silence. Mutterings throughout the crowd

"What was the Hole in the Ground?!
“Was? Still is!
“Matter of fact, there were of two of them.”
“Oh! I get it.”

Q: “Mr. President. Exactly, where are we now”
A: “The last hand is being played even now. The surprise you heard of, expected, and doubted is here. Today their hands will fold. With one last full house, look at what we have accomplished.
We Privatized Social Security, education, health care, and highways
Cleaned out the treasury with a jackpot $700 billion dollars Golden Parachute
We managed it with no legal or private oversight
We passed legislation to protect Our Managers from any form of criminal culpability, and this protection is grandfathered to include any previous acts.
We made permanent the tax breaks that continue to stimulate the economy and created Three Banks that will manage our empire
We have shuttered descent by nationalizing the National Guard and sending them to fight terrorists abroad
We shut down avenues for dissemination of information that runs counter to our objectives
We then privatized the military and they can now be deployed anywhere in the world, either at home or abroad.
Recently we have deployed some of these good men to political rallies, voting places and other disruptive demonstrations that ran counter to our objectives.“

"I saw a picture of a building at the Los Angeles Times recently. It had a quote from Patrick Henry. He said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without papers, or papers without a government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Mumblings heard from the crowd“Patrick Henry? Who’s He?”
“I donno”
“Jefferson! It was Thomas Jefferson who said that.”
“He rewrote it.”
"He didn't rewrite it, he just didn't remember it"

Chuckles from the crowd. President Continues.

I disagree with Patrick Henry. A great American but , , ,
“Huh, Huh, He’s doing it again.”
“So?”
“I believe, with most of the American people, that the press has been the enemy …”
“What’s this? Where is he going with this?”
Scattered applause heard throughout the gathering. The President raises his hand for quiet.
“We have a need to erect a monument to some of the brave men who are now guarding our borders, polling places, university campuses and retention centers throughout our great country. This quote from Patrick ….”
Shouted from the crowd
“Thomas Jefferson! You $$%^@head!

A commotion in the midst of the crown and a small huddle of uniformed soldiers are seen headed toward an exit. A hushed silence ensues.

“This quote from Patrick Henry! . . . From Patrick Henry!. . . It will be replaced by a monument to the Guardians of our Freedoms.”

A commotion in the midst of the crown and a small huddle of uniformed soldiers are seen headed toward an exit. A hushed silence ensues

“There is one last thing. Some of you might be aware that there was a clause inserted into a bill and signed by the House and the Senate during the period of the creation of the Patriots Act. It gives the President the power to declare a National Emergency. In such an event, he can suspend the constitution, declare Marshall Law, and suspend the powers of the Supreme Court as well as the Congress. The National Emergency will continue until The President, in his wisdom, determines that stability has been restored. “

“I was going to wait until October, but What the F(*_&$%$%! “
“If you'll pardon me, I have to go and . . . give some.”
“God bless you and god bless America! “

The President looks at the body of his followers and then tracks them to his left. He espies an insect crawling up the wall. Irritated, he points to a minion who immediately produces a can of mace and dispatches the fly with one sweep. As fumes drifted toward The President he turns, walking back down the red carpet.

Soto voce mutterings throughout the room

"What just happened?"
"Ah dunno! Whadda you think?"
“Did you see McCain on TV today.”
“No.”
“He might have had a little stroke”
"When’s October?"

Lend me a dollar

Shot: Daddy, where are you going?
Dad: Out to make a dollar.
Shot: Oh. Can I borrow a dollar?
Dad: Can you pay it back?
Shot: Ah, no, I don’t have any money.
Dad: Well, if you borrow, you have to pay it back. And if you take it from me, you go to jail.
Shot: So, what can I do?
Dad: You should have asked if I would give you a dollar.
Shot: OK. Will you give me a dollar?
Dad: Maybe you’ll approach it better next time.

Little Hands

Between 1934 and 1947, my parents bore nine children. Many of my friends and associates are aghast when they consider these numbers. They ask the obvious question. Why?


Grandparents on both father's and mother’s side were slaves. Life expectancy was short. You secured yourself and your family by what you owned. In our time, at that time, the only thing you really owned, with which you could secure your life and the lives of your family, was your children. If you had a small farm, they were your farm hands. In the late autumn and winter of your years, they cared for you. When in harms way, they were your fortress.



My father was born in 1899, the youngest of eight or nine children. His survival instincts were honed at the foot of his parents. My mother was probably born between 1920 and 1925. She would never divulge her age. “Never ask a lady her age. That's rude!“ she said on more than one occasion when we queried her. I don’t think she really knew. She never knew her mother. She was raised by cousins. Shortly before her death, as she lay on her bed, never to rise and walk again, she revealed to me that one of her great sadnesses was that she knew what it was like to say, “Mother.” I looked at her, even then, soft, tan skin and ...


I was later determined that she was the descendent of slaves who were born, and or served on a plantation of Dutch descendents. Her maiden name appears to be Dutch. Slaves inherited the surames of the plantation owners.


During slavery, some of the more articulate and dynamic slaves became itinerant “preachers” allowed to move freely to the outlying plantations. They would spread the gospel, “Honor your masters today, and you will receive your reward in heaven.” I have a picture above my fireplace of my mother’s great-great-great grandfather, (I think that’s enough greats) with long beard, light brown skin, hat and jacket that makes him look more like a caricatured Quaker. He was one of those traveling preachers. Many of his and other descendents of those wandering ministers to the minions of yesterday are today, controlling and shaping the lives and psyches of their congregations with the admonition, “Suffer today. You will receive your rewards in Heaven.” That however, is discussion for another day.


My mother had soft tan skin, perfect teeth, and flashing eyes. It was the soft brown eyes that could freeze you on a spot and never release until she moved. Her voice was also soft and textured. When she spoke, we all listened, particularly if she did not raise her voice. If anyone dared to question her, she had a strong yet subtle mode that would stop us in our tracks – with one exception. One of my sisters, whom we simply called Sister, was the rebel. She tried to challenge mother, would not cry when spanked, when scolded to would try and engage in conversation with mother. She never tried that with Dad. But then, Dad knew her, as he did all his children. He knew when to let them run and when to tighten the reins.


The children were divided into two groups, the four oldest and – the rest. The four were a hierarchy that managed the house in the absence of the parents. When they were away, whoever was the oldest was in command. Casanna, because we could not pronounce here real name, was the oldest. She was more like Mother than Dad, stern, not prone to joking, and the early artist that I would later chaperone to piano lessons. I was second. Eula whom we referred to as Sister was third and Doris, who became Baby Sister, the quiet one, was fourth.Once, when I was probably 10, we received word that Sister had been hit by a bus while on her way home from school. It was later determined that she actually ran into the side of the bus, not the bus into her. She became, in some sense my strongest, closest bond among the siblings. She was probably the better athlete of us all, and throughout our childhood could be controlled by no one. More on this rebel later!


Another of my specials was Eva, of the small soft hands, with a soft pretty face like mother. She was four years younger than me, and I loved to pick her up and toss her toward the ceiling and catch her, tickle her, all the things that big brothers do to little sisters. We had little hand fights where she giggled with her childish little squeak. Even at a young age I could see her evolving agility to control people around her.

One of the great treats for the family was when Mother went to Sears to get patterns and materials to make clothes for the girls. She would return with all the goods, and a large bag of popcorn. She evenly distributed portions to all of us. Little Eva would wait until all we had gobbled all of ours. She would then eat hers, one grain at a time while we looked on. Her tiny hands would tease us with the little nibbles that we all wanted. She would not share.