April Showers

I've been so busy this month until now, that I'd barely taken notice of what time of year it was. April was never a very significant month for me until a few years ago, when it became a time of milestones. Six years ago my mother died, as part of a nexus of events which threw my life into chaos for a year or more and changed everything forever. A year ago, I had to have Ms. Johnson put to sleep. It was also in April three years ago that I discovered the Atlanta Soto Zen Center, an event which over time led to the changes in my own life and the lives of other Zen practitioners in Nashville which are probably the biggest stabilizer in my life today. Then there was this year's NZC retreat.

I came to this realization last night while watching Storm Over Mount Blanc, a surprisingly gripping 1930 German movie, my favorite so far of Dr. Fanck's mountain films - starring among others Leni Riefenstahl (of course!) and Ernt Udet (who was, interestingly, Germany's number two flying ace in WWI, behind Richthofen, of Snoopy fame). The film is an amazing depiction of man against mountain, all the more interesting when you realize that there were no stunts, in the modern sense, and no special events. Real mountain, real glaciers, real athletes.

The film itself is full of storms, and it was after the movie, when I went to bed early, that the real storm moved in. I've always loved storms, but I was rarely uneasy; the tornadoes last week did damage to the homes of people I know. Which seems to be the metaphor for current unease about these Ratzaz Diaries, among other things.

I think I began this blog because I felt isolated. Maybe a bit because I still felt, in the aftermath of my mother's death two years before, I still needed someone to talk to, and although I had some people I cared about in my environment, I had to go out of my way to carry on an intelligent conversation. That is, I was surrounded by nutball right-wing Christians and nonthinkers of every stripe at work, and I was frustrated in my search for the "spiritual" path I was looking for in my return to Buddhism a year earlier. The earliest Ratzaz Diaries entries (go look!) were rants against Christianity and the Bush administration. I think everyone finally figured out the Bush administration -- eight years too late, at least -- and I rarely hear from the Christians these days, or at least the oppressive variety.

So the Ratzaz Diaries lacks a focus -- instead of lashing out, it is more likely to celebrate. Which is okay of course. But there's a more insidious issue; I have friends now, and what is more, because I still seem to be the main communications outlet for the Nashville Zen Center (since inability to communicate is probably my biggest gripe about the people I now call my friends, which is not bad, considering how I felt about most of the people in my environment 3 1/2 years ago when I began) -- I find myself being (shudder!) careful about what I say.

Because I never wanted to be a spokesman for anyone but myself. I never want my own opinions to be mistaken for the opinion of a group, especially the NZC, or any of my Zen teachers, or even of my friends. And I find myself in a position in which it's hard to make that distinction easily. My principal Zen teacher, Michael Elliston, has encouraged me to let my zazen take me where it takes me, even if it's not where I thought I was going. And in many ways, the way I would express what I've learned so far would not fit into any Buddhist text. Thanks also to Brad Warner, for writing the book which brought me back to Zen from the particular angle of learning from practice, and not approaching "from the top down" -- from theory. That has made all the difference.

I still shudder at almost every dharma talk. Except for rare, brilliant moments, like Saturday night April 11 at Penuel Ridge. But more on that some other time.

And really, my personal opinions are not as strident as they were in late'05. I voted for Obama, he won, and though I don't agree with a lot of what the present administration is doing, I really hate to think what could have happened if the Republicans had remained in power. Indeed, it is the failure of the Obama administration to pursue and punish the villains of the previous one that is my biggest peeve with it right now; I conceptualized and then failed to write "Leon Panetta at Nuremberg."

I had a "friend" from one of these "Buddhist" events who really wanted me to write about politics. And I did. And when months later I wrote of rediscovering my own ethnic and cultural heritage, she decided that I was some sort of White Supremacist or something (which was not at all based in what I wrote) and decided not to be my friend. Which of course she never was; I can't imagine every excising a true friend from my life for any opinion they might hold. And strangely enough from that episode, the Zen practitioners came to my defense. Which tells me a couple of things.

First, that I find myself sharing more of parts of myself with my fellow Zen people only. And that's a little scary really, because I never want to be seen, or to think of myself, as withdrawing into some sort of closed group, especially of others who share my opinions on something. But it's not really that -- it's the ability to see clearly I cherish, and at this point it's the people who've been practicing zazen for a while who can do that,. The "Buddhists" without the essential practice can never see that, because they've simply exchanged one set of delusions for another. I never said any of the things that my false friend thought I said; she was simply incapable of seeing what I was really saying.

But a part of me is not really content to let the Ratzaz Diaries go on being a shadow of its former self. So you tell me: can I continue to say what I really think without having my words be taken as the twisted manifesto of the Nashville Zen Center? I really don't mind driving people away from me personally, if they don't understand me. I do dread the thought of fucking with someone's zazen practice because they mistakenly take me as some sort of leader, and think that my thoughts have anything to do with the totally personal development and "blossoming" they can realize through their own practice.

I even thought of abandoning this blog to the lotus-sniffers and developing another anonymous blog to get a little more virulent. Opinions?


Photos courtesy of Sharon Bogner.

Nashville Zen Center Spring Retreat '09

If I ever needed a reminder that zazen is a physical practice, I have it this morning. Every muscle in my body is sore - sore in that way that makes it hard to move when you first get up and send you right back to bed til you convince yourself otherwise. I mean, I've been on a physical fitness binge (for me) since about mid-February, working out (step aerobics and yoga) since the third week of February, and I was probably more sore this morning that at any point in that period.

The occasion was the Nashville Zen Center Spring Retreat at Penuel Ridge Retreat Center, just out of town here toward Ashland City, out in the country where the cell phones work slowly, if at all. I had looked forward to and dreaded this one. It was the bookend to a transition period in the Zen practice of both myself and the NZC, the "[" to a "[" that began with the legendary (in my own mind) Empty Well retreat in March of '06 that also happened to feature Brad Warner. I knew that the outreach I'd made to the Atlanta Soto Zen Center the month following, had made all the difference in my own Zen practice, and I wanted to see if the NZC had been revived as well. It has. The transition period is over, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Since it's Zen, there's nowhere else for it to go, of course. But still...

And to tell the truth, it hasn't been a period of transition for the NZC -- it's a rebirth. We started with seven people who spent the night at Penuel Ridge on Thursday to set up, hit a dozen on Friday and it just got bigger and better from there. Most of the people who came, stayed. The people who made up the old NZC just didn't get the concept of a retreat, and used to drop in for a few hours, say, on Saturday when the wife didn't have them busy clearing the garage, and that was it. But I'm really proud of our new people. And I'm proud of us for rebuilding the NZC the way we did it. We made it real, with no compromises. If you want to start a "Zen" group these days, it's easy to do, especially in a town like Nashville with very little background of authenticity in Buddhism. I mean, there are Vipassana and Tibetan groups which have real teachers, with all that that entails, but if there's been a real Zen practice, it had to have been before my time here. It's easy to fool the hungry, and people have done that, exploiting the "Barnes and Noble Buddhists" (thanks for that phrase to one of our new members) by offering them more Talky Buddhist Shit. If you've got the money, you can jet off to France and join up with the Thich Nhat Hanh Army of Pablum, or you can just get your ordination out of a cereal box; it doesn't matter.

For our newcomers, we offered the unrelenting: seven to eight hours a day of zazen. We had two very different teachers: Taiun Michael Elliston, Atlanta Soto Zen Center Abbott,  who built a real Zen school in Atlanta over thirty years ago, and who is the head of the Silent Thunder Order, the disciples of Soyu Matusuoka; and Brad Warner, author of three books starting with Hardcore Zen through his latest, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, head of the Dogen Sangha, the disciples of Gudo Nishijima.  We had originally planned the retreat with Elliston Sensei, who had to pull out due to an unrealized prior commitment, and was able to make it up only for Saturday night and Sunday, for our Jukkai ceremony.  Meanwhile, Brad was coming through the area, sort of, and happened to email me after the retreat dates were already set, being available just at the right time.  Of course I said, hell yeah, and the Monsters of Zen retreat was on.

I was a little scared of this one. I couldn't handle another failed retreat at Penuel Ridge, especially with Brad present again.  And the idea of having the two men whom I consider my teachers both present, if the new NZC had failed to appear in droves like the old one did, would've been just too much.  But I had nothing to fear.  By sticking to the real practice -- by leaving the armchair Zen of the old NZC and refusing to be seduced by the New Age crap and the "all is one" Unitarianism of the blenders -- we attracted the real people, the genuine article.  And in attending their first Zen retreat, our new people made it work.  Our first-time Tenzo pulled off the whole operation (which means running the meals and the housing) better than a lot of veterans I've seen.  And Zen happened.

I was able to make a few modifications I thought would help.  A little Yoga stretch every day.  A good hiking Rinzai-style kin-hin on Saturday afternoon when the rain stopped (possible the best remnant of the NZC old school).  But for the most part we didn't pull any punches on the zazen, which is why I'm so damned sore this morning.  And our new members are too: Congratulations, you've found the real practice.

There's more to talk about.  The semi-impromptu Q & A session Saturday night with both teachers was about the best I've ever seen anywhere, especially for the nubies.  And I was reassured: doing right, is right, even when it's hard, even when at first people don't understand.

The pic at the top is not from this retreat; it's from the ASZC March '08 zazenkai, with these same two teachers.  I'm waiting for someone to send me pics from this one; I just couldn't wait to get this up.  Congratulations, guys.  I won, you won.  More soon to come.

And come see Brad at Davis-Kidd in Green Hills tonight at 7.  I understand there will be a guitar involved.

"Stripped" - Leni meets Rammstein!

OK now, this is such a strange coincidence that I just had to post it. I just finished watching Disc 2 of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, which is Olympia: Festival of Beauty (Disc 1 was released separately in theaters as Olympia: Festival of Nations). If you missed that blog, shame on you; it was one of the more important recent ones, to me. Anyway, I pop in my latest Netflix disc of Rammstein music video, and in the seventh one I stark recognizing the scenery.

Yep, not only is "Stripped" the first Rammstein song I've ever heard in English, but the video itself is 100 % Leni - from Olympia! Just to show you that great art is eternal...

Although this is not my favorite Rammstein song, they do a good job with the movie footage. This is for those of you who complain that there's not enough nudity on this blog. Enjoy!

Return to the Black Diamond Sutra

I woke up this morning with the intense conviction that I need to make more room in my life for myself and my art.  But I have no art.  Such, I guess, is the nature of dreams.

Most people would probably think that this "realization" is nothing but another expression of selfishness.  After all, I have more "room" in my life than most people.  I live alone; I have no family except some stuffed mole-rats, since the passing of Ms. Johnson, and I've gone to great lengths to keep it that way.  I see my father maybe every other week and although I enjoy his company, I find myself resenting the time I spend trying to read through the blaring TV.  My job is stupid, as I think all jobs are probably stupid; I just got lucky enough to dispel the illusion of career early enough, to eternally bask in the pointlessness of meaningless labor.  I have recently re-committed to my physical exercise routine, which is probably the most important thing I can do at this point in my life, although the exuberance I discovered when I started it twenty-three years ago is hard to find these days, and I am probably fighting a rearguard battle against the deterioration I see in myself and those around me, more than trying to advance, as I was all those years ago.

Then there's the Zen stuff.  I both look forward to and dread the Nashville Zen Center's Spring Retreat at Penuel Ridge over Easter weekend.  My role as a Zen "leader" and organizer began almost exactly three years ago, at a largely failed though strangely rewarding retreat at the same location, with the same teacher.  I've belabored that occasion enough herein.  At this point, I long for a retreat, but I dread the role I'll have to assume in this one.   I long for the simplicity (from my lowly participant's point of view) of the retreats I discovered in Atlanta just three years ago, driven there by the farcical nature of what passed for Zen here.   I long for the time in which I could spend that adversary but always productive time with myself, without dealing with the maintenance of others.  

But no, I have to organize, and lead and produce, and to what end? I have no desire to teach Zen, and no qualifications to do so.  If people can only sit up straight and sit still, Zen will teach itself.   I have enough compassion to want others to have the opportunity I have found, the framework within which to do what they need to do.  At this point, I have no real interest in being a part of that framework.   Atlanta should give them all they need, and there are others here to carry on that spirit here.  I just want to go back where no one knows me, as a student, and sit quietly.

This Easter weekend, anyone who truly seeks will be able to find.  They have Michael Elliston and the ASZC for the aforementioned framework, organization and competence.  They have Brad Warner, for the primal spirit and need to know, the work that brought me back to Zen in the first place.  They who do not find what they need at this event -- I have nothing further to offer them.

Me? I want to go back to the mountain films of Arnold Fanck and Leni Riefenstaller.  I find inspiration in strange places of history in these days.  Germany in the twenties and thirties of the last century - the American Civil War (the real one, expressed so well in The American Heritage History of the Civil War, not the tripe you read these days about Lincoln freeing the slaves.  Lincoln was a pompous politico, and the freed slaves can go to hell).

I find my motivation now in a dark beauty it appears I can only pursue within as, I found over twenty years ago; the undefined (except by me) spiritual practice that I named the Polishing of the Black Diamond within, the mythological adherence to an unwritten Black Diamond Sutra that finds its expression in music dance, and a fine edge of adrenaline, a Sutra that exists not even in my head, for it finds no words, just a feeling a tendency -- a straining toward art in one who finds himself without the skills of artistic expression.  I am a failed musician, a writer who's never had the patience to generate a work of substance, a worker of words who's fallen out of love with them.  Because the vision I have sits on the edge of a dream; I can almost see it, but I can't bring it to you.   I have the additional benefit and advantage of having had philosophy fail me a long time ago.  Perhaps it is life itself that is the only true work of art, at least in my case.  Certainly, i can't see my obsession with diving to the bottom to bring back the black pearls of beauty and wisdom which transcends expression, as anything else, unless it is pointless madness.  And if it is, well then, the world is mad and will be no worse for my labors.

So, then, when these travails are done, then they are done.  There will always be, while I must live in this society, a modicum of working to fulfill the goals of others.  But I need to remember this time when I feel too trapped by the demands of enterprises I have accepted as my own, when they are not.  I need to pursue this dream, where the pursuit is the dream itself.  I have spent the good parts of my life getting to this place where no one else is; they need not try to follow me now, because there are minefields at every turn, and I have no yearning to go back for them.

A beautiful darkness beckons.

The little pic above is a poster from The Holy Mountain (1926), the first of German silent film maker Arnold Fanck's mountain films to star Leni Riefenstahler. If you'd rather watch the stuff you usually watch, no skin off my nose, as they say.

Roxy Saint

I, like a lot of people, discovered L.A. musician/filmmaker/actress Roxy Saint on Zombie Strippers, a brilliant zombie movie parody (featuring Jenna Jameson as a Nietzche-reading lead dancer, that really deserves it own blog). Roxy plays Lilith, the Goth stripper, and I was drawn to her when I noticed that a couple of the soundtrack songs were credited to her. In the movie, Roxy has a powerful screen presence, and I wanted to see more.

I wanted to put this blog entry up last week, but I was split between two videos -- "Rebel" above, which is my favorite song from the Underground Personality Tapes, her 2004 dvd movie/video collection, or "Firecracker" below, which is my favorite video from the collection. I elected to open with the hook. But watch "Firecracker" to see what she does with video.





I can't resist the dark power of these videos. Roxy fronts an L.A. based band, and appears to be about to come out with another release; check her out on her site RoxyRoxy.com, or the videos on YouTube; the aforementioned dvd is available through Netflix.

Roxy Saint represents the hottest, sexiest aspect of the sex, drugs, rock and roll, vampire goth porn culture, that strangely enough sends to find its best expression on the streets of Hollywood, amongst the palm trees. I wish I knew more about Roxy, but you'll have to research along with me. Here's the antidote to your Sunday morning church or your puffy cloud Buddhism. The videos of Roxy Saint are a good way to make your way through the world of darkness alive and still make it to work on Monday morning. Just make sure to wipe the bloodstains off your oxford cloth. Enjoy!

Olympia: Remember the Body

I think that probably the stupidest criticism of any movie I've seen in that of the reviewers who have claimed that Leni Riefensthal's movie Olympia is fascist because it glorifies physicality. I've actually seen that. I mean, the movie is a documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, obviously held in Nazi Germany three years before the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of war in Europe. Obviously, the Nazis are in full parade. and in fact the film was commissioned by Hitler to glorify his party and his people. And it's understandable if the modern viewer is made uncomfortable, even if fascinated, by the marching soldiers and the ever-present swastikas. The film features quite a few shots of a smiling, healthy-looking Hitler who was obviously enjoying himself, laughing and cheering the sports. Without the hindsight of history, and the images of the later, depraved and desperate-looking Hitler we're used to seeing, the film wouldn't be quite as... strange.

But it's a beautiful film. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Riefenstahl's movies were all commissioned directly by Hitler himself, and were made free of oversight of the Goebbels propaganda machine, which turned out a fairly lifeless product. At this point I've only seen the first part of the movie, which is quite lengthy and was released in two parts. Olympia: Festival of the Nations is a full two hours long and ends with the marathon. But it's another piece of Riefenstahl's genius. It opens with a lengthy video montage which begins with the ruins of the Parthenon and builds through classic statuary of the athletes of the Greek games, and movies to artful sequences with models representing the modern athletes (or maybe the athletes themselves, I'm not sure. Riefenstahl, an athlete herself who qualified to represent Germany in cross-country skiing but opted to make the film instead, appears uncredited as one of the nudes). I would've posted a video from YouTube, but the only version I could find was re-cut with Vangelis in lieu of the original music, and I think this art deserves to be seen, as made.

As everyone knows, the Nazi's intended this Olympics to serves as propaganda for the German race, and the irony is that it was the success of Black American athlete Jesse Owens which was its big story. The Germans do well, though. And I've seen nothing in the film derogatory of the other races involved. The marathon which closes part I was won by the Japanese, with a Brit in second. In view of Riefenstahl's work as a whole, I find it hard to believe that she was a racist. A thrall of Hitler, yes, as were many, until disillusioned by later events. But it's pretty clear to me that at least for the artist, this film - which is indeed art - was a celebration of the athletic celebration of the human body, a subject to which Riefenstahl was quite close, and that was for her, as it should be for all of us, a celebration of the human spirit.

I can't let this go without mentioning that this film, a good fifteen years before TV, was the advent of modern sports coverage. You really should see it, for its groundbreaking methods as well as for its artistic beauty, and for its fascination as history. It takes you into a part of the life and the soul of 1936 quite unlike anything else I've seen. And it leads me to want to investigate further certain oddities - why no Russian athletes? And anything that motivates us to reduce our ignorance is worth our attention.

And, to get back to that idiotic reviewer's comment with which I opened: It's a sad critique of our intelligentsia that someone could say that a celebration of athleticism is fascist. And it's said that anyone could hear this without being offended, as a human living in a human body. I'm no athlete, but I do work out frequently for the pure joy and immediateness of the human experience. I've been doing various forms of cardio since about 1986 when I was 28; at any age when a lot of people are starting to let themselves go to seed, I truly got in shape for the first time in my life, and experienced a level of consciousness, awareness and benign brain chemistry that I've tried to maintain, more successfully at some times than at others. When I've lost that practice, things go badly wrong. Just recently, I've thrown a good part of my energy in that direction, and with the resulting new clarity of mind, am not surprised that the rest of my life has improved. I've been doing yoga for about nine years, not because I'm good at it, but because I'm bad at it. It's the experience of being here, now, that comes from becoming our bodies rather than just inhabiting them, that makes the human experience a true one.

The longer I practice zazen, the more I am struck by the experience of no longer living in my head, but in my body and in the world around me. Personally, I think the value of a good exercise program, one which involves meaningful movement rather than just flailing to work the heart muscle, is underestimated in Zen, and that any good retreat should involve some yoga or some dance or some martial arts or step aerobics or something just to shake the head and body loose and keep us aware. Sadly, many of us who are drawn to philosophy and its kins are so dominated by logos, by the demon Language, that we can't experience ourselves and our worlds in any other way. If it were up to me, we'd throw the books in the fire and learn to tango. Haven't you had enough words?

I just noticed that Olympia: Festival of Beauty has gone, between yesterday and now, to "unavailable" on Netflix. The censorship continues; alas, I have to buy another beautiful film from Amazon.

So, if you can find a copy, go see this amazing work of art. And get some exercise. Truly live in yourself and in your world. Shut up. Touch something.

Leni Riefenstahl

I stumbled into the remarkable life, art and career of somehow on the internet, and saw a remarkable biopic about her before I saw the full versions of any of the films she made. I write this blog entry with some trepidation, not having seen the films for which she is best known and most infamous - Triumph of the Will, her record of the 1934 Nazi party Congress in Nuremberg, widely known as the most powerful film ever made; and Olympia, her documentary of the 1936 Olympics (which, as you may or may not recall, were held in Berlin and featured the amazing Black American athlete Jesse Owens). I decided to go ahead and write this before seeing those films, based on The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) and two of the films she directed which are, uh, less controversial, and try to reserve my judgment on those other works til I've seen them in their entirety.

I'm wondering if Leni is one of those artists whose biography ultimately overshadows her art. Her life story is in itself fascinating. The first link above is an excellent wiki bio, but to summarize: Leni was born in Berlin in 1902, and not only saw but was a part of, an amazing period in history. She started as a dancer, and attracted the attention of German director Arnold Fanck, who after he found her made her the star of most of his films. Most of early early acting career was in silents, of course. She specialized in a genre known as mountain films. It's fascinating to watch clips from those movies and realize that she did her own mountain-climbing and that all of those scenes are real!

What amazes me is how quickly Leni rose on her own; with Fanck's help and learning from his style, she begun to direct her own films - in the 1930's The first film she directed is the most beautiful black and white film I have seen to date, bar none. If she had done nothing else, Leni should be revered for The Blue Light (Das Bleu Licht), a 1932 film she directed and in which she plaid the lead role. The Blue Light is a fairy tale set of course in the mountains; based on an old German fairly tale which was later incorporated by the Brothers Grimm, it concerns a girl who is perceived as a witch by villagers, who lives high in the mountains in a cave of beautiful blue crystals. Her contact with the villagers leads to the ruin of all, and is seen by some as a foretelling of the then imminent future of Europe. Probably not, but it is truly gorgeous.

Like most Germans in the 1930's, Leni was enamored with emerging politician Adolph Hitler. This is not the place for a discussion of the historical and socio-economic inevitability of Hitler's rise; the parallels between 1930's Germany and the current world situation are way too much for this little article. The uncontroverted story goes that Hitler was also a fan of The Blue Light, and upon meeting Leni, he asked what her goal was. She replied that she wanted to make great films. Hitler replied, "I want you to make them for me." And to all indications, she did.

Leni is known by some as the Mother of Modern film. From what I've seen of Olympia, I can understand how it changed the filming of sports (and thus modern sport itself) forever. The reason I haven't seen Triumph of the Will is that it isn't available on Netflix. Amazing how we, in our supposedly free society, will censor a film on the basis that it was propaganda for a political party and a government that we see (justifiably, of course) as opposed to freedom! Are the folks at Netflix truly afraid that Hitler will rise again, based on this film? That must be some amazing propaganda! I understand that the entire 1934 Nuremberg rally was staged around the film itself - I can't wait to see it.

Leni herself denied that she was an active Nazi, the girlfriend or collaborator of Hitler. It's certainly true that if you were a German in that period, if Hitler wanted you to make films, you either made films or ran like hell. And if you're the true artist that Leni was, if you're going to have to make a propaganda film, you'll make the best damn propaganda film you can.

From her bio's (and I intend to read more, as I intend to see more, as my fascination is ongoing), history disputes Leni's lack of complicity. The reports indicate that she was starstruck by Hitler and continued to support him well into the war. On the other hand, her career as a war correspondent for the Nazis ended abruptly when she protested the abuse of some Polish peasants (if you weren't a favorite of Hitler, that kind of protest got you dead). Another interesting point: all Nazi propaganda including films was under the aegis of Goebbels, but Leni was responsible to Hitler only. Thus the massive budgets and films made carefully with time and care.

Leni was widely seen as a Nazi collaborator, though cleared as such by the tribunals after the War. She was banned by Hollywood and by film companies worldwide, and never released a film after the War until Tiefland, made during the War but not released until 1954. Tiefland is another very visually interesting film, made under the harshest and most bizarre of historical circumstances. Its filming moved from Spain where it was set back to Germany, for obvious reasons when War broke out. Leni herself plays the leading role -- remember that she was around 40 at the time -- which was obviously written for a much younger actress, because all the actresses she wanted were unavailable. It's a disappointing, although very interesting film, mostly for that reason of casting. Leni has also been reviled for this film because when she requested extras, she got concentration camp inmates, most of whom later died at Auschwitz. She denied this, and how much she knew at the time of course will always be unclear.

Despite the ultimate blacklisting, Leni lived on until she died of natural causes just after her 102nd birthday, in Germany. In her middle age, she had turned to still photography and produced a remarkable body of work on the Nuba, an African tribe she adopted. Her last film was of undersea creatures.

I really can't recommend the aforementioned biopic enough, for a portrait of a remarkable woman. Leni got her scuba-diving certification at the age of 70 by lying and saying she was 50. As an athlete and an artist, a strong person from a strong time who emerged as the strong female that even Camille Paglia probably never had the guts to praise as a ground-breaking feminist, Leni's place in my personal pantheon is ensured. I'll let you know more after I see some more films, read some more books.

Interesting, one of the works I keep running across in my research on Leni is a book called The Films of Leni Riefenstahl, by David Hinton, a professor (and I believe, Dean of Students) at the Watkins Film Institute (or whatever it's called now), here in Nashville. Mr. Hinton, whom I know somewhat, is also a leader of a Buddhist group here, and I intend to try to pursue a discussion on the subject with him when I eventually get further into my research on this fascinating artist. I'll let you know.

Breather

Well, since I posted here last I've gotten enough of the things done to which I'd (over-) committed myself, to at last do a few things for myself. The much-debated and agonized-over Nashville Zen Center website is now up, warts and all. Yeah, I stretched the pics. Deal with it. Where's your website? But at last, with the help of someone who understands the tech, I managed to use some free software where it wasn't supposed to go and created a dark and timely expression of what we feel to be our group's true nature. So go see the original face of the NZC.

Our April retreat is now for real. It's set for April 10 - 12 at Penuel Ridge Retreat Center, near Ashland City. Brad Warner has committed to being there pretty much the whole time, and to stay over for a book-signing at Davis-Kidd the Monday after. I'm pretty sure he'll be more than willing to sign copies of Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma (his third book) - or I'm sure the other two). Plus, our own teacher, Taiun Michael Elliston, Sensei, from the ASZC, will be around for the last part of the retreat and initiate some brand new (or used) Buddhists. If you're interested in the retreat, which involves 7 to 9 hours a day (at least) of zazen, you'd better let somebody know soon.

Plus, I got sucked into doing some financial stuff for the NZC, and let me warn you now: whatever else you do, if you're thinking about opening a bank account, DO NOT do it at Bank of America. They lie to you, and they suck ass. Consider yourself warned.

By the way, the NZC MySpace page is up and running. So come be our friend. You don't even have to practice. Your loss.

Oh, yeah. My own life. My job has actually gotten tolerable, as jobs go. And in this economy, that's OK. I'm pretty lucky; most of my friends still have jobs, and the ones who don't aren't trying too hard. I'm pretty tired of trying to help people who don't want to be helped, with jobs or otherwise. It's your life; live it.

I've been trying to tell people for several years now that things were going to get Different. Strange. But most of them kept living in their heads, breathing in flowers, breathing out kittens. The one day you run out of puppies and kittens. Now what?

But when I have to do too much of this stuff which is external to the core of my life, no matter how rewarding it may be, my own life suffers. I'm not gonna miss any more workouts (back to the hated YMCA; I love my instructors, hate the institution) or any more morning zazen. The main mistake that most of my smarter friends, and sometimes I myself tend to make is, they tend to live in their heads. Live in your body. I've got a lot of slack to make up in that regard. I was quite aware of it not so long ago, but life needs constant tending.

What else can I say? I'm gonna try to blog more, but I don't feel like political rants at the moment, and the Zen stuff is what it is. I'm trying to read a book which is a dialogue between a bunch of scientists and philosophers and the Dalai Llama because my Zen teacher recommended it to me. So far both sides are a full of crap; we'll see if it improves. I was much better off reading Njal's Saga. So read that, and watch Tideland and Zombie Strippers. I'm sure I'll be more verbose later, after these blisters heal....

Oh, and you must start downloading and listening to Aural Apocalypse. Music for the Final Days. More on that later.

Oh, and here's some Zombie Strippers for ya.

Allt är Slut

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The founder of a U.S. Muslim television network has been arrested and charged with murdering his wife by beheading her, the network's Web site and local media reported.

Muzzammil Hassan, founder and CEO of Buffalo, N.Y.-based Bridges TV which launched in 2004 with a mission to show Muslims in a more positive light, was charged after reporting the death of his wife, Aasiya Hassan, 37, on Thursday night.

After Hassan, 44, told police his wife was at the Bridges TV offices, in the village of Orchard Park, they found her body there, beheaded, The Buffalo News reported.

Authorities said Aasiya Hassan, with whom Hassan had two children, had recently filed for divorce and had an order of protection mandating that he leave their home as of February 6.

He was being held in a county detention center charged with second-degree murder.

"Our deepest condolences and prayers go out to the families of the victim," a statement on the network's Web site said on Monday. "We request that their right to privacy be respected."

"There had been problems before and there had been prior incidents of physical abuse," Corey Hogan, whose law firm Hogan Willig represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding, told the newspaper.

"Name of the Game" by Badfinger (song by Pete Ham)

If you were a Badfinger fan, or if you missed them and want to be, you should watch the slideshow. If not, just give yourself a chance, lie down in bed in the dark and listen to this, over and over like I did when I was 15. Pete Ham was another great lost soul; I won't be beleaguered if you won't find out about him.

I have nothing else to say to you about this. Lie down in bed, listen to this, over and over. If you don't cry, I won't bother.

Or if you want a more straighforward love song, the following is the best power pop rock riff ever written (Hans?):

The End

If some strange, theoretical alien historians were to write the history of planet Earth, they would say that it all peaked out by 1970.

The generation that produced Jim Morrison made the final decision to destroy the Earth, by omission. Go figure.

I was a child in 1970. I would've been 11 at Woodstock. I didn't know what was going on. But I did.

Hunter Thompson was there. He saw it all. He knew. He put a bullet in his brain in 2005.

It could have all changed, but it didn't. It could have all been avoided, but it wasn't. We're living in the Aftermath.

Jim Morrison died in a hotel room in Paris in 1970 of a heroin overdose. Jim wasn't a junkie; he was a drunk. There's a big difference, no matter what the 12-step zombies tell you. Pamela Morrison fought a legal battle for five years for his estate; she won. She was dead within two weeks.

I'm not telling you to follow Jim's path, or Hunter's. It would mean nothing. You're too late.

If you're alive in 2009, and you're old enough to remember the Real Times, you know you're living in the Endgame. Unless you're seriously deluded enough that you're still part of the problem.

If you're under 40, you were born into a meaningless world. I'm sorry; I didn't do it. This is the Aftermath. I can tell you how to address it. I can't change it.

Taking It Personally: A Bit More About Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate

Sunday's blog rambled all over the place, as a result of which, while discussing Brad's book, I omitted a pattern or collection of coincidences that really brought it all home to me. I doubt that these trivia will add to anyone's understanding of the book (though they might tell you more about me, upon which subject, if you have been reading this blog for a while, you are unfortunately becoming an expert, against your will). Maybe it's an explanation of how, when something comes home to you, it comes home in a big way. Maybe it's just a rare (again, for me) illustration of how having had some connection to events in a published work, however minimal, gives a bit of insight. Maybe it's because I become so obsessed about my own issues that I see them everywhere.

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma does clear up a couple of factual questions I (we?) had. When we'd met Brad the first time here in Nashville, chronicled herein, Brad's wife Yuka was one of the unexpected joys of our retreat; she helped our fledgling retreat cook get through three days' worth of overly complex vegetarian, Japanese and Thai recipes, sent us gifts afterward (and Nat, where are all those chopsticks? I'm sure the food has gone bad), and generally was a ray of sunshine at that odd and pivotal event. I'd noticed she wasn't mentioned much in his blog anymore, or at the 2008 ASZC retreat he led [and that link has a version of last blog's pic with me in it; see I was there]; I hated to see it confirmed that she was really gone. Hope things are going well for her.

Then there were some weird little geographical links to Brad's life that I found both just odd and insightful. Of course anyone who read Hardcore Zen knows Brad's basically from the Cleveland area, and I'm from Nashville. My mother was from Ohio, and grew up there and in Texas. So it was interesting to me to discover that Brad has family in Knoxville, TN, whom he regularly visits (which we knew from trying to match schedules with him, but he talks about it in the book so I can mention it here). I went to UT Knoxville from 1975 - 1979, so I know that turf, or did. What got me about his one geographically is that his parents, prior to the events of the book, had been living in the suburbs north of Dallas. Now, a lot of people have relatives in Dallas, but my mother's sister's family had all grown up in a suburb of Dallas which used to be called Lewisville, though I think their little segment has now been split off as Highland Village. Another little split-off part of the same incredibly overdeveloped suburb is what used to be a little country junction that had no name when I used to visit here, but which is now known as Flower Mound, which is apparently the location of the Funeral Home which had Brad's mom cremated. Another weird turf I know.

The final geographical coincidence (I won't count L.A., where lots of people live for a while. I lived there for about three months and didn't like it much either, except for the beach and Hollywood) was Mansfield, Ohio. It shouldn't have surprised me to read about Zero Defex playing a show there, since it's just up north of Cleveland on Lake Erie, but still, it's where my mom grew up before her mother remarried and moved them to Texas. Of my mother's Ohio relatives, I remember mostly a bunch of retarded-acting guys in white wife-beaters pulling up in campers to occupy our lawn in Manchester, and this one real pervert. But I do remember Mansfield.

But the one real factual-world resonance of this book for me was the job situation. Now, in this dying economy, as the U.S. moves into the sunset, it probably seems like anyone with a job shouldn't complain about it. And I shouldn't be either, as when it's gone I don't know how I'll ever find another. But still.

Of course, Brad was luckier than me. His job situation in the period covered by the book was indeed deeply strange; as the lone US employee of an overseas corporation that shifted management as soon as it sent him here, he had a position with no real duties or direction, no input or power to get things done, but a continuing duty to report. This was already his situation, apparently, when I met him in early 2006, though I didn't realize the scope of it til I read this book. Actually, his situation, though it must have been frustrating since he really did want to help promote Godzilla and Ultraman in America (and note that the names of his employer and the trademarked entities are disguised in the current book, though not in the previous ones or his blog; legal advice from the publisher, NAL?), sounds really sweet in some ways. He was being paid by the Japanese company to live in L.A., write his books, set up his Zen teaching operation, and then he was free (and somewhat funded) to travel all over the country promoting his books and trying to help shitty little Zen operations like we were in 2006. I'd kill for this kind of funding with freedom.

I, on the other hand, also have a job that makes no sense. I quit my previous job last fall,, in despair at falling commissions and the ridiculous situation of trying to work in a department headed by the managing attorney's mother. I was just about ready to start looking for another one, about a month later, when I got a call out of the blue, from the HR person of the company for whom I now work(?), based on a resume I'd forgotten I had online. So yes, those things actually do work, randomly. They wanted to hire me to start a new commercial department specifically for a new client. It paid enough at the base to minimally pay my bills. As the job market had already deteriorated, though not to its present level, I thought I'd better accept.

However, the new client fell apart within weeks after I started the job. They've never really been able to find anything for me to do since -- I keep getting minor projects assigned, which get yanked away about the time I get them organized and running. Most of the time I have nothing to do at all, and as of this week I don't even know where the last set of files I was working, have gone. I'm supposed to get some work which had been brought in for me but foolishly placed somewhere else, soon. I guess. Yesterday, with my old files gone, I had nothing to do at all until I jumped in on the project with the busy people amongst whom I sit.

Otherwise, mostly I've been surfing the internet. Repeatedly, and compulsively. Which, if you work with internet disabled like a lot of people do, sound great. But not for eight hours a day. As that old commercial hinted, you really do get to the end of the internet. Plus, the situation is not such that I can concentrate on doing anything like writing this blog. I tried it once, and it didn't turn out too well.

But now, I'm getting reassigned, and they're going to move me. And where they're putting me, I might not have the internet. And if that happens and they don't give me a full workload, I'm going to go stark raving bonkers.

See, unlike Brad, I'm not free to roam all over the US. Or even all over Nashville. I just have to sit there. It ain't zazen.

I can't complain, really. I'm sure that everyone in management knows I've cost a lot more than I've brought in, which is essentially nothing, ever since I've been there. And they still keep me; it's like they don't know what to do with me but don't want to let me go. Which is a good sign, of course, and speaks well of them as humans. And I still get a paycheck, which is a lot better than a lot of my friends, these days, although I don't know how long my employer will see fit to keep it that way if I can't make them some money, which is what I'm used to being very good at doing.

But enough about me....

At this point, Brad Warner is still scheduled to be one of the leaders of our Easter Weekend Zen retreat, so if you're interested, watch this blog.......

No, the silly little click inside arrow on the pic of the book above doesn't work. Believe it or not, the only picture of that book cover I could find on the internet is that little one from Amazon. Sorry. But you can go to the real link in the text and buy the book.

Imbalance in Balance

Having developed the habit of writing these little articles, when I don't, stuff just builds up. Which is alright, because if I don't write it out and pay attention to it, it goes away. It does leave me with all sorts of mixed messages about what to write when I do write, though.

Yesterday morning I had one of the crashing sinus headaches I still have, although very occasionally, now. When I was in my teens, the things would come one occasionally, and be relentless -- made me want to pound my head into the dirt. They peaked out the winter I spent in Vermont in 1979 - 80; I had one that went on for days at a time. I'd get drunk to make it go away, and then of course I'd have the hangover plus the sinus problem -- I finally went to a emergency room, got shot up with some goofy drug that made me puke but made the headache go away. They finally stopped when I moved to California that next fall; lower humidity? Different allergens? Dunno. But although they come back occasionally, they've never been like they were then.

Anyway, I missed what must have been a kick-ass day at the NZC. The monthly 5 a.m. sit used to be one or two people at the most, maybe 2 1/2; I understand there were seven people yesterday who came and stayed for the whole thing. And there was a book study afterward! Sometimes it feels good when your effort pays off, even when you're not around to reap the rewards in person.

Which is in a way, good. When I started going to Atlanta in early 2006, I went because I needed something real in Zen that was lacking in Nashville. When I saw what was there, I wanted to bring it back both for the benefit of those who prior exposures to Zen were somewhat less than, and for myself, so I'd have a good context to sit in. I never wanted to be any kind of a leader, much less the public face of anything. But such things happen. And now I can step back from it; except that I still need to rebuild the website, and promote the new MySpace page I just set up for the NZC (and you should all befriend it!).... but the efforts of others are coming into it now. Nat was always there, and he's a much better front man for the thing than I could ever be. Too many skeletons in my closet.

Coming out of one of those headaches is kind of like a hangover. No energy. I went to my dad's house in Manchester, ate fried catfish, and read most of Brad Warner's new book. I'd bought ten copies for the NZC, and I probably should have checked it out myself, but no fear: Brad's stuff just gets better and better.

I've written about Brad's stuff before (I think you can search for it in here?), so I won't reiterate, but his first book caught me right when I was trying to come back to some form of Buddhism in later 2004, when I think I was finally coming to terms with the death of my mother, eighteen months earlier. The main criteria I have for "Truth" from a teacher is when the teacher says something that I've come up with earlier, myself, and thought it was original to me. At least that way I know it's true, for me. And if I'm not the only one to see it exactly that way, maybe there's something to it. Brad's not the only one with whom I've had that experience; often I've heard my teacher Michael Elliston voice thoughts that I've had. But Brad's the only one to do it in writing. Repeatedly.

Brad's first book, Hardcore Zen, for which he is known, was basically a compilation of blog articles edited together, with some filler articles written at the behest of the publisher. Not that it wasn't a brilliant book, filled with exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. His second book, Sit Down and Shut Up, is a more conscientious attempt to integrate views into Brad's own life with his observations of some of the Shobogenzo, Dogen's life's work. The book is again, excellent, but a little labored in the application of the Shobogenzo to the Zero Defects reunion.

But in Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate: A Trip Through Death, Sex, Divorce, and Spiritual Celebrity in Search of the True Dharma (don't make me say it again), Brad has finally come into his own as a teacher, I think. His resolve by the end of the book -- as he puts it, to be an asshole for life -- is perhaps better phrased as a determination not to be dissuaded from expressing what he perceives to be clear truth, by the expectations of others. Brad came under attack last year, and the year before, from that microcosm which is the Buddhist blogsphere, for his articles on Suicide Girls, as well as his unexpected appointment as Nishijima's dharma heir. He's making it clear, that after a year in which he witnessed the death of his mother and grandmother, the end of his job and his marriage (and we'll miss you, Yuka!), he's going to express what he sees. And that certainly is an attitude which a self-labelled punk-rock guy needs to come back to.

It's really reassuring to know that I'm not the only one turned off by flowery New Age Buddhism (Brad's parody of the "Zen" practice in which one intones, "Breathing in, I breathe flowers; breathing out, I breathe kittens" remind me of why I no longer participate in the Nashville Buddhist Festival). It's nice to know that someone else whose opinion I respect feels a need to address imbalance, not by neutrality, but by supplying an opposing force.

Weekend before last, I went back to Atlanta to the ASZC for one of the zazenkai events I love most. The winter zazenkai's are small events. It's usually cold and miserable, and not many attend, but those who do are the ones who've become my friends. This month's retreat was led by my friend Gareth, who after many years of practice has finally gone through the ceremony it takes to become a novice priest in Zen. Four of us went down from Nashville - a record!

Gareth's theme for the retreat was balance. Honestly, I couldn't see how he was going to make this theme work. I can certainly see the concept of balance as in sitting erect, as in zazen -- when one becomes erect, one maintains equilibrium. But it seems to me that things that most people are trying to make balance -- their outer lives, their various roles, etc. -- are illusory, conceptual and self-defined. One should be able to balance them by saying "Presto! Yer balanced!" Since even the concept of the self is fluid, what is there to balance?

I'm really not sure I understand, to this day. But I do know that as long as there is a Brad Warner to counterbalance every Thich Nhat Hanh aficionado, there is balance in my world.

Despite the caption, the picture at the top was actually taken at a retreat in Atlanta in March, 2008. I should know, I took it. The label is Brad's, from his website. There were actually three of us from Nashville at that retreat: Nat, Ana and myself. Nat had told Ana to guard the car, and then disappeared himself. Hence, none of us are in the pic. But we were there. Honest.

Guest Blog by Jim Lydecker: Obama's Two Largest Problems

I really have to agree with this one, for the most part, and the last paragraph is the real kicker. The question then, is, "How?" A real cliffhanger, this one. I'll come back and comment later, so check back...


Obama’s two largest problems to face
By Jim Lydecker
Napa, California


January 30, 2009




The election of Barack Obama as our 44th president is considered by many to be historic as Obama is the first non-white to hold office. I, for one, never saw race as the issue – I was brought up in New Jersey, perhaps the most multi-racial/cultural place in the world. And my parents never tolerated any racism/sexism/ageism.

This election was historic in another way: Never has a president taken over under so many converging crises’ of unprecedented proportions. If Obama gets us heading in the right direction, he’ll go down in history as great a president as FDR or Lincoln. But if Obama’s unable to change course, then there’ll be those who’ll vilify him and this is wrong.

If America fails we have no one to blame but ourselves. Since the 80s, we have elected officials on all levels, national, state and local, who pursued unsustainable growth economies. Starting with the S&L scandals and continuing through artificial bubbles of the past 15 years, our leaders looked the other way when paper wealth created artificial wealth which was bound to collapse.

While unemployment marches toward Great Depression levels and wages plummet and businesses fail, never has so much of a nation’s wealth been in the hands of so few. The collapse of the housing bubble wiped out a disproportionate amount of what’s left of the middle class’ wealth. And when there is less to spread around, the result is the standard of living has to be proportionately lowered. Don’t expect the wealthy to live any less a standard of living than what they are used to: Recessions and depressions always transfers money into their pockets.

In a growth economy, most people think the way out of this mess is doing what got us here in the first place: Grow. In an essay in the Register about a year ago I said, “A growth economy is known as an economic oxymoron. It hastens the inevitable demise when a draconian contractual economy will take place regardless of what we do.” Well, the draconian contraction is upon us and our shrinking planet and its dwindling resources makes growth not an option.

Throw an exploding world population in the mix and do we have problems.

Our leaders need to take us down paths, no matter how painful, when circumstances demand. For any semblance of our economy and civilization to survive, we’ll need leaders of extraordinary courage, intelligence and forethought to pull this off. If Obama is going to do this, he has two hugely unpopular problems to deal with on the path to survival.

First, Obama will have to redistribute the wealth. From the beginning, all civilizations failed when the majority of wealth was concentrated at the top. This nearly happened twice in the past hundred years when huge disparities caused revolutions, and these disparities were not of the magnitude of America 2009.

The Bolshevik Revolution took place in the Soviet Union leading to the hideous regimes under communism. The Great Depression swept FDR into office and with it his socialistic agenda. Two differences to remember is that FDR was elected while the Bolsheviks took over in a violent uprising but both effectively redistributed each nation’s wealth creating a more even playing field.

Obama is now taking the New Deal approach and this in itself is frightening: The stimulus program seems to be another way of saying “pork barrel.” Spending money we don’t have is what got us here in the first place. Bandaging a wound is pointless if unable to stop the hemorrhage.

The second, and biggest, problem Obama has to deal with is overpopulation.

We live on a planet of finite resources. Once the carrying capacity is passed, the standard of living and quality of life will decrease. Even if we were able to prime the engines of growth back to their previous levels, the high prices of things like crude, copper and steel will return and shortages reappear. Permanent/unemployed homeless, mass migrations, starvations, disease, war and social strife will become the norm. This does not have to be if the population contracts accordingly to contracting resources and capital.

We need to aggressively begin a negative-growth population policy immediately.

Looking at these two problems, Obama first must redistribute the nation’s wealth through a heavily progressive tax code on incomes above $1 million a year like FDR did. Tax breaks should be given to the middle class and virtually eliminated for those at the bottom. Otherwise America will face a revolution of such magnitude it will make Russia in 1917 look like a field of daisies.

And then Obama must take the lead in reducing the number of humans on the planet so the world has a manageable population. This is the intelligent, humane thing to do instead of allowing us to breed toward extinction.

How to Treat a War Criminal

In 1941, Hitler's whack job of a deputy, Rudolph Hess, in a truly odd historical incident, flew from Germany to Scotland. That's right, over the English Channel, in the midst of WWII, right before Germany invaded Russia. Some claim he was trying to broker a separate peace with England; it looks like a misguided attempt to save his own ass. Regardless, he was taken prisoner, of course, and was amazingly enough sentenced at Nuremberg as a war criminal.

Nuremberg, like the more limited tribunals following the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI (and arguably led straight to WWII through its leniency to the German command), ended in a wide array of convictions, but most of its criminals were pardoned or released early, by the '50's. After 1966, when Albert Speer (Hitler's architect) and Baldur von Shirach (Hitler Youth leader) were released, Hess was the sole inhabitant of Spandau prison, a sprawling compound in California. He died, supposedly of suicide, with an electrical cord around his neck, in 1987.


In 2001, as part of an overall Fascist clampdown, the Bush cabal opened Gitmo -- Guantanamo Bay prison camp, at a US Naval Base in Cuba. From then til now, hundreds of people have been held without trial on ill-documented charges of treason; 200+ remain. The United States military, under orders from BushCo, have behaved just liked the Nazi's, torturing their prisoner victims, in violation of the US Constitution and of every concept which underlay the philosophy on which this country was founded. About 500 of the prisoners have been released by the US before their situations could be examined by the Courts. Of those remaining, about 25 have been to Court; all but two have been released for lack of evidence to hold them in the first place.

In 2008, Barack Obama was swept into office as US President. I think you probably heard about that. He rode into office on a tide of very, very late American outrage about Bush's wars of imperialism; most Americans didn't react until it became clear that their own foolish spawn who signed up to kill foreigners for money, were being killed without benefit. Most Americans didn't turn on Bush until they saw that he was an incompetent totalitarian strongman wannabe.
What took so long for the little pig-like hearts of Americans to turn? If their God exists, may he forgive them.

Barack Obama was not my first choice for President, as my readers know. However, as you also know, I've been very impressed with something about him that his naive supporters seem not to have seen, and I sure couldn't see it for all the hoopla; he is a pragmatist, hard-schooled in Chicago, and he is getting shit done. And he seems to be doing most of the right things, with the support of most of the right people. Although the economic news is all bad, this less-than-a-week since the Inauguration, most of the political news is good. Bush's legacy will stain us for a long time to come, but Obama is doing what he can to turn things around.

With one exception.

Most of the pre-inaugural reports indicated that Obama intended to go soft on the war criminals of the Bush administration. This seems to be the case, and that is a crime itself, and a mistake.

One of the main reasons Hitler was able to come to power in the 1930's was the backing of the Worker's Party, which ultimately became the Nazi party, by the remnants of Germany's WWI military leaders, who felt betrayed by their civilian leaders and by the Treaty of Versailles. Not taking down these people, long term, cost millions of lives in Europe.

In addition, in the modern history of the United States and of the West in general, the main residence of social injustice is in the discriminatory administration of the criminal code, between the rich and the poor, a division which was prospered and widened under eight years of nutball Republicanism. The kid on the corner gets busted for a minor drug possession (pumped up into resale by insane Federal codes and boot licking State imitators), and goes to jail for twenty years to life. Bernard Madoff steals $50 billion dollars, ruins the lives of thousand and effects the lives of millions (and how suicides are, or will be involved?) and sits in his $7-million dollar apartment. How could it be more evident, between this and Obama's election, that the administration of "justice" is divided not among lines of color, gender or preference, but along lines of economics? The US government loves its rich and hates its poor, except when it is beneficial to symbolically embrace them.


Bush, Cheney, and all those who willingly followed their lead, the torturers for money, the psychopathic guards, and all their fans, are war criminals by any definition of the words, and need to be tried and convicted for their crimes against humanity. For Obama to let them go free, while your average street corner mugger and the drug dealer go to jail, may be an indication that the accusations of him levelled in the campaign for alleged elitism, may not be wide of the mark.

And don't talk to me about the philosophy of punishment. I have always maintained that vengeance has no place in government, that it accomplishes nothing and wastes money. I have always been opposed to the death penalty, because (as becomes clear now in the age of DNA), it can be an irreversible mistake. I merely say that, if a government takes it upon itself to punish, it must punish equally.

And yes, I can see why in this time of crisis, Obama wants to just move forward, and just let bygones be bygones. But that is not appropriate where the bygones are murderers, thugs and thieves, and he is leaving dangerous adversaries behind him.

Bush, Cheney and company are murderers, traitors, and more, and they need to be tried and convicted as such in a court of law. Obama has ordered the closing of Guantanamo, but not for another year.

Cheney won't live long in captivity. When Bush is convicted, I know of a nice, expensive facility that doesn't need to go to waste.

But why wait? I'm sure the cheerful folks who live there now would be welcome to hold him in their warm embrace for the rest of 2009.