A year or so ago, I ran into a song by Mike Doughty, called "Fort Hood." Interesting guy, Doughty. Son of a Vietnam vet, he grew up on military bases. Later on, he became the lead singer & moving force behind Soul Coughing, the great stream-of-consciousness-poetry-dada jazz band of the 90's. He was also a heroin addict during those years.

A few years back, he went solo, kicked heroin and began doing different stuff. Very different.

Like "Fort Hood."

I loved this song as soon as I heard it. He took the chorus from the 1969 song "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In," and dragged it dancing & singing - and still bubbling with hope - into the middle of a song about PTSD. He named the song Fort Hood because that base, those families, had suffered the most losses in the recent wars.

I'm not sure I can bear the argument coming, about why this happened. The endless expert argument about these wars, and them foreigners, and what happens to soldiers and why, and who hated who & who was at fault. 

As for how they died at Fort Hood today, and why.... Well, the experts & the screamers are gonna have to sort that out without me.

Because today, all I can think of is how those who died, especially the young ones, should still be living. And that now, they're gonna miss the joys of their young adulthood. That's the loss Mike Doughty sang about, and that's a loss we can all understand.

So let's sing along. Sing along with Mike. For all the kids that got lost.

And let the sunshine in.

* Update * Some of the kids...

- Jason Hunt, 22, Frederick Oklahoma, voted "most Quiet" in his Senior class

- Michael Pearson, 21, Bolingbrook Illinois, trained to deactivate bombs

- Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago Illinois, 3 months pregnant

- Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel Wisconsin, enlisted the day after 9/11

- Russell Seager, 51, Racine Wisconsin, worked with vets with PTSD, Doctorate in Alt Medicine

- Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan Utah, engaged

- Kham Xiong, 23, St Paul Minnesota, father of 3

- Juanita Warman, 55, Independence Missouri, PhD

- John Gaffaney, 56, Serra Mesa California

- Michael Cahill, 65, just returned to work after heart attack 

They were rivers of fur, pouring over the grasslands. Until the ground just  

               fell 

               away 

beneath their feet. 

And after that, all that was left to them, was to fly. 

Stand here with me, and watch. Soak it in. Waterfalls of fur, muzzles wet-biting air, fore-legs cycling, scratching at the sky, but alas... NO ENTRY.

No stairway for flesh and fur up here, no skyway 'cross the chasm. You can't live up here - not dressed in hoof and horn. 

In the 19th Century, Buffalo outnumbered people on this continent. Over the Earth as a whole, buffalo outweighed humanity. Back before the gun and the horse, the Blackfoot - and the other great Nations of the Plains and the Prairies - learned how to live with, and from, the buffalo. In their quest to perfect the hunt, they created a technique which lives on today, more than 6,000 years later. They searched out the many low ridges and sudden sinkholes that broke the Prairies and the Plains, looking for one with just the right characteristics - cliffs just low enough to be invisible to the buffalo when in flight... but just high enough to break their legs if they fell. Were pushed. "Jumped." 

Buffalo Jumps. 

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Tetrachromatic Vision.

Birds can see in the ultraviolet.

Red, green, blue... and ultraviolet. "Tetrachromatic" vision.

Whereas we can only see three.

Our brains, our words, our beliefs are all hard-wired to the idea that what we see... is what is real. If we can't see it, it doesn't exist.

I can see what you're saying.

The problem is that what we see - and thus, what we think is real - is limited. Only part of the picture. There are all sorts of wavelengths out there - radio waves and microwaves and X-rays and gamma rays. But not only don't we see them, we don't even recognize our close cousin - ultraviolet.

Light... that we can't see.

But it's out there. Bouncing off things, headed straight back at our eyes. We might like to blink it away, refuse to take it in. But in it comes. And still, our heads, our brains, can't make sense of it.

It's happening to you right now.

We filter, distort, what everything "looks like." What is.

Birds can do better. They can see large stretches of ultraviolet light. Which means every bird we see, the colors we know so well - we're seeing differently than the birds see themselves.

Crows, are not pure Black... to other birds. They have great splashes of color. Robins with their Red breasts, Blue Jays, Snowy Owls - we've got them all wrong.

We failed in one of the first tasks we were given. We've misnamed them. Mistaken them for what they are not.

Birds see everything differently - plants, animals, sunshine, the sky. They're all colored differently, once you can see into the ultraviolet.

Even the expressions on our faces look different, if you could see as birds do.

Our minds can't grasp what it's like to see in the ultraviolet, because we're locked into seeing the limited color range we're used to. It's not like you can just add another color to the mix. Nope. All the relationships between the colors, all the shadings and patterns, all the brain cells we use for vision - they all would need to change. Each of us color blind, blind, to what is right there before us.

Oh yeah. And all those skin colors we think we are? Black and white and red and yellow and all that?

Wrong. We aren't any of those colors. Not really.

None of us know what color we really are. At least, not in the eyes of God. Nor in the eyes of Science.

Fade to black?

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This man serving communion through the wall at the US-Mexican border reminds me of my friend. 

Or rather, he reminds me of a friend of mine from twenty-odd years ago. My friend had it all. Brilliant. Well-spoken. Funny. Kind. Tall too. He had a fade-away jumper that floated on air, and he blew past defenders like smoke through trees. At the start, all I knew was that he was from La Jolla, Ivy League, and seemed to have the Royal Jelly. But after his time with us, we all knew where he'd end up. In politics. Either at, or somewhere near the top. 

This man serving communion today, is not the young man who was my friend. For starters, this man's body is older. I talked to some scientists, and they tell me this man's body is made up of a quite different mix of atoms. Atoms seem to have come & joined him, from many places, people & times. Atoms from mammals that once danced in front of the jaws of dinosaurs. Atoms from Gandhi's own smile (as well as from that famous loincloth.) Atoms from recent immigrants, now lying cold & dead in the Mexican desert. 

Others tell me his spirit has also changed. Not just in relation to God, since he went from being an agnostic to becoming a man of the cloth. But also in relation to those people, the ones in the picture - the ones on the other side of the wall. Now, I don't know the right word for their relationship. It's not as complete as a "joining," nor so limited & mechanical as a "connection." But whatever it is, it's as real as the fact that all those atoms keep moving, swapping places, refusing to be hemmed in (or out) by age, sex, race, religion, color or creed. Heck, atoms aren't even hemmed in by species or substance.

So, the same man, yes. But also... changed. Changed because he chose the path without the red carpet. Traded it in for 20 years in the desert. But changed most deeply because, when he came to a place of division, a wall - he decided to reach across it, take a hand. And not let go. 

The place where he's serving communion is Friendship Park, down on the beach, where San Diego meets Tijuana. Once it was a place where families divided by the border could join together for meals, anniversaries, births, deaths, celebrations. They could touch, talk, handle babies, pass news on, keep hope alive. A place that straddled both sides of an invisible line in the sand. A line scratched by some men who felt the need to divide the lives of others. In the 70's, the place was made a park, and a monument placed there, by Pat Nixon, marking it as a place of Friendship. Later, the border became a fence - but you could still see, touch, talk through it. Permeable. 

But now, the Bush Government - citing Homeland Security needs - has seized the land. They've overridden all relevant laws, denied any & all public approvals & consultations, ignored birds & animals, and are slamming shut the door on this meeting place for the families of California, and Mexico. By building a massive wall - 3 walls in fact, with a wide 'No Man's Land" in-between. This very week in fact, they've reached the stage of painting numbers across the very heart of the Park itself, to direct the bulldozers. Tens of millions of dollars spent, just on this stretch alone, to.... 

Well, I'll let the wall speak for itself....

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Bumping home in the cab. Broke my toe, and since it's -40 out, no way I'm walking home. Tried that yesterday. Two & a half miles home, in that cold. Thought I'd "test the foot." Somebody should test my head. Anyway, cab rides can be interesting.

I'm headed out of the old industrial North End, down the big boulevard to the Legislature, past the park there, the one with the little statue of William Stephenson. Hometown boy. His story starts small, seemingly not enough to warrant a statue. World War One, just another kid who signs up, gets gassed. But at least he stuck it out. Came home, started his own hardware business, based around some can opener he'd seen in England. Did well, made some money. Typical "little guy does pretty well" story. Not worth a statue though. Even a little one.

But when World War Two rolls around, he becomes something else entirely. A Man Called Intrepid. Churchill's representative to FDR. The guy who helps create MI5, the OSS & the CIA. Part of the whole story around breaking the Enigma code, he also sets up Camp X to train the Allies' secret agents, saboteurs, commandos.

And is apparently the guy Ian Fleming says he built James Bond around.

But in this town... no 007 hype. Even though Stephenson was real, helped win a real War, against real Baddies.

Most of us live in nowhere towns like this, or nowhere parts of bigger towns. And no matter where we are, we tend to think of ourselves as everyday, normal, people. Little people. The Media & the Politicians & the Rich & Powerful like to support us in that self-image. Once every 4 years they preach that it's all about the little people in the small towns, but after that... it's 24/7 for the Big Boys.

Bumpbump, bumpbump, BANG... pothole. No way to ever stop these streets from frost-heaving, I guess. People here complain about the roads, and the cold, same as anywhere else. But they know they're well off not to have to face the cold head-on, full-blast, like earlier generations did. Hard to imagine, the Ukrainians & the Mennonites, the Germans & the Poles, the Brits & the French, who'd spilt so much of each other's blood, coming here, living together. Wintering in sod houses on the open Prairie, or freezing cold shacks in the cities. But when you're little people, and you live half-buried in the ground & half-exposed to a Nature that big, that raw, it humbles you a bit. You learn how to keep your head down, to pull together. You leave the old shit in the old country's latrine.

And you learn how to wink. Like, if you're a guy lucky enough to be named Homer, and with the good fortune to be born halfway between Moose Jaw & Swift Current, and the treble true blessing to be Mennonite - well, you know that's pretty much a one-way ticket to Forgotten-town for you. But if you work hard, and you're patient, and you give your kid a better name, like Matt, maybe someday he'll get lucky, and get to make cartoons on TV. And then he can slip a wink inside the jokes he tosses into all those little towns & little peoples' homes. Like so -

This is what I'm thinking about, bouncing along in the cab, through this funny little town. Funny little city, I should probably say. 730,000 people, that's the size of places like Scranton, Youngstown, Syracuse. This one perhaps most notable for the fact that it's the world's coldest capital city. Yep, Moscow & Stockholm & Anchorage & Ottawa are cold. But this place is colder. Not unexpected, when you're 6 hours drive North of Minneapolis, 3 hours North of Fargo. They hired some hotshots to re-brand the region a few years back. Some wit/arse suggested "North of North Dakota." The branding experts from NYC didn't smile. But we did.

This past week though... -40 windchills, every day. -40 being where Celsius & Fahrenheit meet, nod stiffly, and snowshoe on in silence. Too cold to take off the gloves & shake. Cold that makes your breath freeze & fall to the ground. Cold that makes your eyes water, then flash-freezes them shut. This year, I've learned this kind of cold makes new fillings hurt like hell. Nice touch. Coupla years back, it fell to -70 Fahrenheit with the windchill. Walked to work in it, 2 and 1/2 miles each way, just so I could say I did it. 

Ummm... "I did it?" About as smart as "testing the foot."

Now what I hope you're thinking at this point is, "Wow. Not many rich people, powerful people, sexy people, smart people, are gonna rush to a town like that, right?" Right. But it does make the place a good test-zone for what human beings - regular little people - can do for themselves.

And obviously, for starters, they have to find ways to amuse themselves in the mornings. Pet Coffee Tricks, for instance. 

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Fewer, Better Things

Our lives are full of things. Disposable distractions,

Stuff you buy but do not cherish, own yet never love.

Thrown away in weeks, rather than passed down for generations.

Perhaps things will be different now. 

Wiser choices made with greater care.

After all, if the fewer things you own always excite you,

Would you really miss the many that never could?

- The De Beers Family of Companies

Just in time for Christmas, the world's largest diamond producer, De Beers, is doubling its U.S. advertizing budget. And one totally great thing is that they're going to re-run that "Hands" ad, which was, they say, "the most enjoyable & persuasive television commercial EVER."

No half-measures from these lads. "The ad blitz is expected to reach 97 million U.S. consumers, or nearly half the adult population, at least 6 times each over the holday season." Whoo-hoo! That's bringing out the big drill bits. And it'll be "Backed by a powerful & targeted combination of national & local television." Which, in turn, will be "Backed by the highest levels of print media EVER, including 128 full-page color insertions in the New York Times, LA Times & Wall Street Journal." And that backed by the same in "Magazines of authority and stature, such as The New Yorker, Fortune, Forbes, The Economist, Time, Newsweek, Business Week." And all of this "synergistically linked with a highly-targeted online campaign covering rich media, e-mail and search engines." And no way they're forgetting their "premium online partners."

So you all can stop worrying about De Beers, and the hard economic times they're facing. They're big boys. Pros. They've done their polling & consumer & focus group homework. Which says - GREAT NEWS... FOR DE BEERS! - that 46% of Americans who already own diamonds say they want more. Let's say that again, shall we? THEY WANT MORE! Well... ME TOO! Right now, I'm checking out their...

Marie-Antoinette Yellow Cushion Ring!

                   Damn! This thing is so SMOKIN' hot, it deserves 24 point font!

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 "12,000 years ago... In a cave, 12 miles from Nazareth...."

I'm reading to the Ice Weasels again. Most stories, they don't like. This one, they're wearing it out. Or rather, wearing me out. 

It's time-consuming, and a bit frustrating, because I know that they can read. For instance, just this afternoon I sat with Sir Charles Kerwallop-Bollock while he tabbed back & forth through the 87 plastic-encased pages of the "Operating Instructions for a Pioneer PDP-4360HD Plasma TV" (translated by one Sulaiman bin Bedlam of Kuala Lumpur), and lemme tell you, Chuckie's paws were a blur. 

See, Tech manuals are easy, 'cause there's no emotional content. You see a Weasel reading one, and the only unusual thing you'll notice is an excess of drool. The only thing they "feel" is a straight-up surge of information on how to dismember these suckers. After the info's been absorbed, comes the metallic disembowelling, and devouring.

But stories? No chance. They won't touch 'em. When they want a story, they haul one over to me, plunk themselves down in a circle, hold each others paws, steady themselves, and ask that I read it to them. And then, if they like it, reread it. And reread it again.

The problem with them reading directly is that the Weasels respond, quite actively, to what they read. They'll act out the moods, the conflicts, the twists & turns of the stories. They call it "dancing," and sometimes it's got that feeling to it. They bounce along on their toes, little paws held up in front of them, bobbing up and down, and it's kinda cute - sortof  B-52's, Love Shack. 

But the dancing tends to "escalate" with the quality of the story. The more twists & turns, multiple characters & (better) multiple personalities, bad puns & cosmic haha's, made-up spacemen & inside-outskie parallel universes get thrown in - the faster they rev.

Most news stories, TV shows, sitcoms, Hollywood movies - to them, that crap might as well be a Tech manual. They get the message, of which there's always & only ever one per story, and respond accordingly. They spit. Throw old appliances. Hurl. Heckle. "Caaaaaaaake," they mock.

But a good story - well, those are dangerous. Huck Finn gets 'em running around in a circle, whooping like mad, doing this aerial somersault thing that's quite impressive, even if it does end up with a lot of blood & bandages. You escalate to Alan Moore, and they'll start gnawing themselves, then the neighbors, and by the end, I'm damned hard-pressed to call the sight of a couple of hundred Ice Weasels clawing at their own flesh "dancing." 

And Tom Robbins? Forget it. I won't read that shit to 'em anymore. It's like crack meets ecstasy meets, I donno, naked Natasha Kinski in Cat People. They're ecstatic by the Foreword, leaping & piling-on in great fur-heaps when the pleasure hits, carnassials gnashing & shearing in despair if it looks like the joy juice is gonna stop flowing, and at the climax, all those anal scent glands release, and the level of sexual & sensual arousal reaches heights probably only matched by a Pentecostal Girls Choir watching Elvis in leather.

Thus, the need for prophylactic measures. i.e. Me. Doing the reading. To them. And lately, they can't get enough of this one story. So I read them version after version, from the original scientific report in pdf through the mass media coverage, even throw in a couple of blogs. (They hate blogs. "Reading that TPM gruel again, are we multigrain?" Once they start in on the nasty stuff about "wanting to be Josh's boytoy," I tend to give in & read 'em whatever the hell they want. On the plus side, it does mean I'm fairly safe reporting on them here. Not like they're gonna read it.) Anyway. A riff in Time they've taken a liking to: 

"A new figure in humanity's history emerged last week when archaeologists announced the discovery of what could be one of the world's oldest known spiritual figures. After years of meticulous excavation just miles from Israel's Mediterranean coast, scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unearthed a 12,000-year-old grave that held the remains of a diminutive 'shaman' woman...."

"The grave is thought to belong to the Natufian culture, a nomadic society which existed roughly between 11,500 and 15,000 years ago. Located near other burial sites in Hilazon Tachtit, the woman's body was distinctly encased in a limestone enclosure, a tomb sealed by a rock slab that Grosman's team managed to lift in 2006."

Which got them pretty excited. Picture a stuffed furry animal, 4 feet tall, titanium teeth, Taser in one paw, blowtorch in the other, cartwheeling, and shouting in an extremely high-pitched chittering language. Now picture 280 of them cartwheeling, blowtorching & Tasering - each other - in perfect harmony, and you've got a show that would intimidate the Chinese Olympic Organizing Committee.

That's the gist of the story. If you're up for a long ramble, there's more. And if you don't know what an Ice Weasel is yet, well, that's damned sad. And you can look here. But meanwhile, it'll cost you a Rec for the rest of the story. Life is hard.

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Leapfrog. We've all heard it applied to Developing World countries, right? As in, these countries don't need to repeat every single step we took on our path to development. And we'd all tend to agree that it'd be good if they could leapfrog over the hellhole factories our grandparents worked in, brutal social practices like child labor, and the inefficient old technologies, like those big thick glasses with the ugly black frames.

The sexier version of the leapfrog idea says these countries should leapfrog over even our more recent technologies, go straight to cell phones & skip the landlines; or go straight to solar PV panels, instead of massive dams.

Most of us can see there's some sense in this. It's not a perfect idea, because sometimes the older ways are healthier or more efficient or more sustainable. But cell phones vs landlines, PV panels vs coal plants... I suspect most of us would nod at that thought.

In my mind, the leapfrog idea wants to bounce ahead of this image. Where it wants to go is toward imagining where we could leapfrog to. Because the actual game we played didn't just mean you had to bend down & hold a squat while the kids in the rear jumped over you. Played right, it would go on & on, a constantly-moving chain of kids, their positions always changing, the whole thing moving forward. That was the aim, to see where you could make the chain go, not just to replace the leaders with the laggards.

But there are counter-ideas that hold us back from seriously pursuing leapfrogging, for ourselves. Perhaps most powerful is the fact that we all know our social & economic & political world has produced some real problems. And the natural tendency is to look first to "fix" them... and not mess the good things up. Fix the bad, keep the good, right? And there's some damn good roots to this desire. Most valuable, that it expresses our desire to ease the suffering of those who're worst off in our societies.

We see how we are.

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