Everett Ruess

When the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is. July 12, 1933 to Waldo Reuss, from Chinle, Arizona.

In Dave Alvins song about Everett, he wrote, “They’ll never find my body, boys, or understand my mind.”

But they did find his body, and, to me, I think it’s a shame.  Everett Ruess was a true wise man. Though he died at the age of twenty, he left wisdom for the ages. He drew pictures, wrote poetry, and disdained city life. He was born to wonder the southwest, making friends everywhere he went. His body should have been left where it lie, near Comb Ridge, in Utah. Such was the mystique about his life and death, that to exhume his body for DNA testing smacks of a sacrilege.

One of his poems:

Onward from vast uncharted spaces,
Forward through timeless voids,
Into all of us surges and races
The measureless might of the wind. […]

In the steep silence of thin blue air
High on a lonely cliff-ledge,
Where the air has a clear, clean rarity,
I give to the wind…my pledge:

”By the strength of my arm, by the sight of my eyes,
By the skill of my fingers, I swear,
As long as life dwells in me, never will I
Follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104042648

Dave Alvins song: Everett Ruess

jammer5

The Birthers

The Birthers is a group of right-wing conspiracy theorists committed to undoing the 2008 presidential election by trying to prove that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Some in the Cast of Characters:

Alan Keyes — an American conservative political activist, author and former diplomat, and perennial candidate for public office.  Keyes lines include these:  “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Obama is a radical communist, and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it’s true,” Keyes told a reporter from local station KHAS-TV. “He is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.”

U.S. Army major Stefan Frederick Cook — made news when he refused deployment to Afghanistan on the grounds that President Barack Obama might not be a natural-born citizen and therefore is constitutionally ineligible to give orders as commander in chief.

Dr. Orly Taitz — Cook’s lawyer and she refers to the Obama administration as the “Gestapo-SS establishment” on her blog. She extends the metaphor with an ugly call for investigation and execution: “They all should and would be tried in Nurenberg (sic) style trials for harassing, intimidating, blackmailing and terrorizing fellow citizens, for defrauding the whole country. Patriots of this country didn’t fight and defeat Nazi Germany to end up with Obamas, McCuskill (sic), Soros, Brunner and the rest of this squad.”

Orange County Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake — served as Keyes’ VP nominee in 2008 and Taitz’s first plaintiff in the Birther lawsuits. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because a few months ago Drake announced that he was praying for Obama’s death after his prayers for the death of Kansas abortionist George Tiller were “answered.” He has been offering “imprecatory prayers” against “the usurper that is in the White House…B. Hussein Obama.”

A recent scene:

Dr. Orly Taitz, and her frequent plaintiff, Ambassador Alan Keyes, appeared on CNN to debate the issue.

Before going on air, Keyes had his eyes closed as if in prayer while Taitz was jumpy and pie-eyed, like a patient off her meds. Anchor Kitty Pilgrim then went through a thorough 3-1/2 minute dismantling of the Birther arguments, including the long-ago issuance of Obama’s August 1961 certificate of live birth, its validation by Hawaii’s Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, and two birth announcements published in Honolulu papers. (Both FactCheck.org and Snopes have published detailed investigations and refutations of the non-scandal.)

Asked what more he needed to be convinced, Keyes’ response was an instant classic in the clueless overconfidence of conspiracy theorists: “Some evidence.”

All this might be laughable, if there weren’t deadly serious hyper-partisan hatred behind it all.  Read more here.

fnord

Monday, 07/20/09, Public Square

It does make a difference!  We can decide what kind of day this one will be.  Let’s decide together that the glass is definitely half full!  🙂

New week and with our positive attitudes we’re gonna make it a good one!

fnord