He was a medic in World War II, and then went on to serve in medicine for five decades. He's a painter, an athlete, a musician -- and a total trip to be around.  These days, I change his urostomy bag sometimes. He calls it a treat. I put clean sheets on his bed, he calls it a bit of heaven. Over the years, he's taught me more by example than by precept. Whatever lessons people seem to gather from his life, they somehow realize that he came by them honestly. He's got so much try in him. (Man, what's my excuse?)

At times like this, I think we need to be intensely competent, and deeply tender toward each other. We need to never give up on ourselves, or on each other.  It is an ongoing process, experienced profoundly at times of adversity,  I suppose, a process of becoming fully ourselves.  At times like this, we re-define what it is to be -- and to become -- a complete human being.  For each American generation to whom the baton of individual freedom has been passed, with luck, with the help of providence, with gifted human strategies for coordinated adaptation, life again backs our act.

Americans who have gone before us, that great cloud of witnesses like my favorite 82 year old, fought hard to live, and to be home to celebrate Independence Days.  They say to us, again and now: Help where you can, receive help when you must. Be that as it may, on whatever terms we may be given to live, they whisper silently: Live, my loves.

Let us pause to think about our touchstones today, and to remember the big try they planted way down deep.

In these heavy duty times, it seems scientifically correct to take a peace break -- one in which nothing -- not even the news -- can deter us from investing dedicated time to daily manage stressors, and to plan for some happiness, too.  I'm going to do Pilates today, meditate, and eat salads.  How about you, what strategies can you share? What gifts will you give to yourself today to lighten your load, and lengthen your life?

            Best, as ever,

            Tish

(to him)

he's such a big timer

but it took me a lifetime to get here.

Then he calls us probably a mistake

it was my heart

he played catch with.

I should break off for that

so he can choose me

Monday he suddenly found

 my love and faith are bound

(he said)

but me break up? nooo!

he apologized, so

I just got drunk

 Friday night

drove myself home

(my voice had died)

watermelon watermelon

 pineapple pineapple

(but not my feet, so I laughed)
 a jig's not a reel

he don't get it, fuggeit

my true love always will

(once)

when he feels me broken

(he called me a well-trained horse)

in the Great Unspoken

(but he explained it eight months later).

or perform an Irish reel onstage

nor have me dad walk down the aisle

or kiss above that leafy glade

(they cut it down).

But damn it, friend,

if we can't talk

of everything under the sun

and the sun,

I want us surely to break up

so one day we can meet again

and start our love

brand clean and new

(it's me heart you hold there

in your hands)

but would you choose

to dance again,

begin again, Finnegan?

Ponga las manos en la cintura.

You know you're smitten  . . .when it feels like the end of the world when The Person doesn't telephone you.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that you just spoke to them a few hours ago. You blush privately, feeling sheepish, but still loving how warm all the embarrassment feels inside your body. 

You know you're smitten when, pretending to be a grown up, you try to approach your monthly stack of bills and paperwork at your desk at home. You cling to your coffee mug with both hands for support, and for a goodly while, and, finally, you manage to clear your throat and sit up a little straighter.  Breathing deeply, you drop the first paper ceremoniously into a file, suddenly retrieving it. You realize that you have forgotten whether you are supposed to pay that bill, file it, or dispute it.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that you paid it twice, because you were smitten last month also. You swoon at your own idiocy, unable to recover from the latest lapse into reverie.

You know you're smitten when you wake up every single morning thinking about The Person.  Feeling adolescent at midlife, you vow to begin your day more maturely. Next morning, when They fail to appear before you in a vision at dawn, you feel betrayed, unworthy, un-ready to face the day without them.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that it was your idea to start your day without The Person in mind -- that you purposely and forcibly drove them off the front and center of your mental stage. You well up with tears at the truth of that revelation, begging The Person interiorly to forgive you, to come back, to never leave you again.

You know you're smitten when you converse aloud to The Person in your car, pretending that They are in the passenger's seat of your vehicle (placing your handbag in the back, to make room for them next to you).  It gets so bad that this morning you find yourself getting into the passenger seat yourself.  It becomes apparent after a few minutes of the car not moving a single millimeter that you had dreamily assumed that they would be driving today.

You know you're smitten when you write a blog post on the State of Your Heart-- a self mocking cry for help or commiseration. Your fellow blog mates hopefully sense that you're very sorry that you can't seem to write much politically these days -- your head seems to have turned to marshmallow.

Bowing your head, you hope that they will please kindly forgive you when they become aware -- when they come to realize -- at last, when they fully know . . . that you are smitten.   

 Then also, it can be a sensual and sexy season for loving our intimates -- for me, a special person -- and for you, whoever it may be, remember, friends, love unexpressed dies, so love them.

Let them know, don't hold back. Phone them, flower them, hug and kiss them til the cows come home, apologize, propose, set the date, make it right, hold them tight.  You don't want to be lonely ... tonight. 

Love, Tish xo

Big Lies that You Must Believe

Michael Collins
Washington, D.C.

Because if you don't, the whole scam may fall apart.

In the first two parts of this ongoing series on The Money Party, we discussed the fact that there is only one political party in the United States, The Money Party. It has two wings, Republican and Democratic. That party represents excessive concentrations of wealth in the hands of corporations, other organizations, and individuals. They put up the money and get what they pay for every time.

They make sure that the election system is rigged to rely on money like a junkie relies on heroin. The system takes care of them. They don't have to obey the same rules that we do. Why? Because they're above the law.

The Money Party owns the mainstream media entirely. NBC is really General Electric, ABC is Disney, CBS was Viacom but now it's just the name for a mega-corporation, and Fox is News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch financial empire. That's why it's called the corporate media. They're publicity shops, "corporate communications divisions," owned and controlled by Money Party members.

Their job is to emulate George Orwell's "1984" by generating meaningless concepts that bind us to false choices.

It's a series of interconnected lies. Let's look at some of the key lies that we must believe to keep them in power.

Big lie 1: "We're the world's leading democracy." Not since Bush-Cheney took over. We're dropping fast. Maybe it has something to do with the Patriot Act and all that illegal wire tapping of U.S. citizens? Maybe it has something to do with a Congress that does nothing to stop an out of control president. Ratings on democracy show us behind 14 other countries.

Big lie 2: "Just let the markets handle it. The free enterprise system will work it out." This is supposed to appeal to our love of capitalism. Well, we don't have capitalism in the United States.

We have socialism for the rich and survival of the fittest for the rest of us.

When you hear about the wisdom of "the markets," you know that The Money Party is attacking some new law or regulation that might give us an equal footing and create real competition. The party can't stand free enterprise because it won't play any game that it might lose. Count on it. NAFTA - just let the markets handle it. Health care – it's the market at your service. Pollution – you guessed correctly, it's a "market thing. "We wouldn't understand." Dumping mercury in the Great Lakes, it all makes sense to the party.

Big lie 3: "There are two sides to every issue." Does that have anything to do with two parties? Where in the world did this come from? Who knows? But the corporate media rides this one into the ground.

Take climate change for example. Two sides, really? Well just about every respectable scientist in the world, at least those who get published in real science journals, says climate change is real, it's man made, and it's dangerous. The explanations are varied (many sided) but there's only one side of the larger issue if you want your children to survive. Climate change is a very real, scary deal. We're all threatened. But a correction might hurt their short term profits. As a result, the dangerous lies persist brought to you by The Money Party "communications divisions."

Big lie 4: "The federal government just screws everything up." Oh, like going to the moon, developing the internet, and providing health insurance (Medicare) for many times less overhead than private health insurance companies. The Money Party hates the government with a passion when it serves the general public. But when the federal government fixes competition so that only big money wins, when it ignores problems that might require some sacrifice, and when it prolongs a war for profits, the federal government is their best friend.

It's not a conspiracy. It's just what they do, what they've always done…further their own interests at our expense. There used to be some restraint to maintain appearances but the Money Party is now on steroids.

When you see some corporate news reader cock his or her head to deliver a "gem of wisdom," count on it to be a big fat lie, one that's essential to justify the theft of our well being for the interests of a very few, their bosses. They don't care because they don't have to. We're the ultimate donors to The Money Party through our hard work, time, and taxes.

The Money Party thinks that they own the country, they know that they own most of the politicians, and they're 100% sure that they know what we need to believe. These are just a few of the big lies that we hear all the time from the usual suspects. It's time to wake up, call their bluff, and take the country back.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

George Orwell

ENDS

Previously:
The Money Party – The Essence of Our Political Troubles
The Money Party (2) – Why We Get Such Lousy Leaders and How to Get Rid of Them

Permission to reproduce in whole or part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Incapable of speech or motion, except the sinking, the slow lowering down now of the entire body and being into the water: 103 sensuously perfect and glorious degrees of bubbling hot spa waters envelop me ...I am completely submerged, except my face and one hand.  Yes, one hand. The hand that supports a stem glass of an ice cold blended -- on and over rocks -- tropical admixture of my own design ... secret: cherry grenadine, fruit juices, freshly squeezed, and one tequila ice cube, a flotilla of frozen grapes and more secrets ...Taking a small sip and then another, I  feel a lightness and a sweetness flood over me. It's a primordial sweetness, older than words.