Not Good Bye Cruel World

Maybe there are Bloggers who announce that they have come to the end and are retiring from posting, that the Blog is over. Maybe they write a last post summing everything up and saying farewell, but that seems rare. It seems that most just run out of steam, post more and more infrequently, and one day the post is their last. Most often, it probably doesn’t seem that a final post is one, when it goes up; it’s just that it turns into one. Something lets the air out of the tires. The battery dies. Things fall apart. The blog becomes a corpse. The blogger walks away.

There are by now probably millions of corpse blogs. Some might have a single brave entry announcing what is expected to come next, but didn’t. Others have thousands of entries, series of essays about various topics. The posting stops. The end. Corpse blogs are like ship wrecks on the bottom of the ocean: you can find them if you search, but nobody works on them any more. They’re visited only infrequently and then only by divers who like wrecks.

Is this blog about to join the under sea wreckage? Your Bloguero fears it’s so. He didn’t post for two months and didn’t miss it. He didn’t feel compelled to announce any of his opinions to his readership. What a surprise. Instead, he wrote many haikus and posted them on Facebook. That is fun. It will continue. But writing a blog post? Your Bloguero cannot give assurances. Sad. He wishes he could.

Your Bloguero notices a potential pattern here. In the old days, he wrote a listserv denouncing the death penalty. There was no last post. Eventually the listserv had no new original content written expressly for it, and was used only to transmit links your Bloguero’s blog posts on the topic on this blog. Then there was nothing. The last post there was in September, 2011. Your Bloguero posted frequently from March, 2002 until June, 2006, and only sporadically thereafter. Then he just stopped. It wasn’t because he stopped fighting state killing. No. It was something else.

This blog, The Dream Antilles, began in August, 2005 and has now had 1460 posts. But it’s been silent for 2 months. Your Bloguero hopes this isn’t the last post. But he can’t say it won’t be. Just in case, thanks for reading The Dream Antilles. Thanks for your comments. And thanks for being there.

Part Two: Where's Your Bloguero's Dough?

(Amig@s, you will recall yesterday's banking drama in which your Bloguero learned to his surprise and horror that, alas, five of his accounts had been emptied. And they all said they had no dinero in them. You might want to check that out before beginning today's installment

Last night was a sleepless one for your Bloguero. He couldn't figure it out how so much money could be so swiftly syphoned from all of his accounts. It did not help that his bank has no 24-hour contact number. It did not help at all that he had to wait until after 8 am to contact someone at the bank to find out what in the world had happened. Your Bloguero knows this part of the time space continuum too well: the more he wants time to pass, the slower it crawls. Call it Watched Pot Syndrome. Call it anything you want. Your Bloguero was crazed, sleepless, fearful, anxious. Not sleeping

Instead of sleeping, Your Bloguero reviewed in microscopic details all of the potential causes of his loss of all of his money. He had not confirmed that the funds were actually stolen even though all the accounts were zero or minus. Maybe they were just seized by the IRS or Big Brother or Mr. Boh. On one hand, maybe it was a hack. Maybe it the eBay and payPal transaction in which he bought of all things not now needed an antique bottle opener? Or maybe it wasn't a hack and it was your Bloguero's fault in some regard and Agents of Government or other nefarious force had restrained his accounts. Was it some transgression he had committed in probating his father's estate? Was it some tax he owed in a distant state a decade ago? Was IRS and everyone else unwilling to give him prior notice of their horrendous acts? Maybe even some crazed creditor of someone else had mistakenly restrained every penny he had. These thoughts, these fantasies are not conducive to restful zzzzz's. No. Au contraire. They are the entry level for insomnia, anxiety, shallow breathing, horror and maybe (if it was something your Bloguero did) shame. Ouch. Double Ouch.

8 am found your Bloguero staring at the second hand and dialing.

This is what he learned. His money was not gone, it was being held. By the bank. And they were quite willing to give it back to him instantly. But did he know that somebody had actually tried to steal his money and that the bank had foiled the attempt? No, he didn't know that. He wished he knew it yesterday, but he's happy to know it now.

The details: somebody sent an email to your Bloguero's bank using his usual gmail address. They followed it up with a phone call or two and some request to wire money to an account in South Carolina. Your Bloguero knows no one in South Carolina. Period. To your Bloguero, South Carolina is something you fly over. It was once where South of the Border was.

The problem with these people, these wanna thieves, is that the branch manager knows your Bloguero and has for years. And she (your Bloguero is flattered by this) said that she doubted that the emails she received could be from El B. Their syntax and word choice was awful. Plus El B usually calls on the phone when he's screwed things up.

Anyway, after taking the information, the branch manager called back the person who was supposed to be me AND HAD MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. And she quickly determined that said person did not know El B's Mom's maiden name. So she, the bank branch manager, took steps to protect his money. She froze every last one of El B's accounts. Said she, "I'd rather have you have a sleepless night than lose your money." Your Bloguero concurs with this.

So the would-be thieves didn't get a penny of El B's money. He is totally filled with gratitude for his bank, his branch manager, and her entire crew.

And this morning, after taking various steps to safeguard his identity, no he did not by a new Luchador mask, your Bloguero went to visit some policemen, who are really very interested in this because, living in a small town, the investigators know your Bloguero and they know the he thinks they are incompetent. El Bloguero has shown them more than once why he thinks this. Your Bloguero hopes that justice prevails.

So although some of the commentators to your Bloguero's earlier essay opined that "this doesn't sound good," El B is here to assure you that all is well. He still has his money.

Now he hopes that the miscreants are caught and tried for identify theft 1st degree and attempted grand larceny. And he hopes that there is something he can do next week to express his gratitude to the bankers who truly saved his bacon by being alert. All gratitude to them.

Where's Your Bloguero's Dough? He Wants It Back!

Your Bloguero's brain is about to explode. Where is his dough? He wants it back. Yes, he knows he's repeating himself.

Your Bloguero was going to write an essay about how none of us has any privacy at all from Government or from Corporations, and that maybe the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence on privacy interests needs to be upgraded because of relatively recent technological advances. And disclosures brought about by Edward Snowden. Your Bloguero was going to carry on about how the supposed innocence of collecting megadata has been transformed by technology, and how conceptions of what privacy means need to be reconsidered. But then your Bloguero got hacked. Yes, he did get hacked.

It's odd. At about 1:08 ET today the bank called on your Bloguero's casa phone to say he should call them as soon as possible. Your Blogueo was working so he didn't get to the phone until after 5 pm, when banks are closed. Your Bloguero figured he bounced something, made some stupid error they wanted him to fix. It is after all a small town, local bank. He's made mistakes before. So your Bloguero went online to see whether he could transfer some funds to fix whatever bookkeeping error might have cropped up.

That Internet visit was like plunging head first into Alice's rabbit hole. Join your Bloguero in fantasy land.

Wow. Your Bloguero discovered on the web that the five accounts he has were all empty or overdrawn. Jeepers. How, your B wonders, could that possibly have happened?

Was it the small Ebay and payPal transaction your Bloguero made last night? Did that provide data that allowed the withdrawals?

Was it those blank checks your Bloguero had delivered to a colleague in Mexico so that monthly expenses for a project could be paid?

Was it his spouse doing something odd in Germany with an ATM card or check?

Was it his son, who is in Mexico? Did he do something?

Was it documents he threw in the garbage at his house, at his job?

What is it? There is no clue at all on the bank web site. Just huge red minuses. And what the red minuses signify: no money.

Hmmm.

Your Bloguero finds himself in the middle of an unfolding mystery. The following voicemails: the bank president (told you it was a small town bank), the branch officer who called at 1:08, two lawyer friends No information. Friends called your Bloguero back, they say he needs to call the Bank Prez. In other words, it's a loop.

The bank does not have a 24-hour number to access a person. Or a even a machine. This is hard to accept in the 21st century, but that's how it is. The 24 hour fraud number allows one only to turn off one's credit or debit card. If your Bloguero reaches the bank prez at home, what can he do? He has no access to the "system" from his home. Why? That would be insecure.

And so, your Bloguero finds himself on paper much, much poorer at the moment. And much in doubt as to where his money might have gone. And anxious. And fearful. And of course, upset and angry.

No doubt the story will unfold more in the morning. It better, says your Bloguero. It better lead to the money is returned.

For now, though, there are only questions. They all boil down to this: any illusion your Bloguero might have about the security of his data (or his money) is utterly misplaced. Both are not secure. At all. Any illusion your Bloguero might hold about his privacy is also utterly misplaced. He has none. Absolutely none. Your Bloguero wishes it were otherwise. Sadly, it isn't.

Maybe this is the start of your Bloguero's living a life in which he fully accepts that there is no security of data or money or privacy. That's all fine. In the interim, however, your Bloguero wants his dough back. And after he publishes this essay, he doesn't want to see a zillion advertisements for banking. Or security.

Yes, but where have you been?

Oh my. Your Bloguero's existence in the pixelated world is fading. Let him explain. This morning he noticed that he had not posted here in more than two months, the longest time ever. This, after 1445 posts over many years. And not even an explanation. Or a warning. Cue feelings of abandonment, violins, perhaps sadness and maybe even (sigh of Hammond organ) guilt. Shudder.

Maybe this is because blogs are so old school. Maybe they bear the same relationship to those old listservs and email chain letters that DVDs have to cassettes, old technology that improved only slightly on even older tech. Maybe social media (yes, your Bloguero is on FB and Twitter) have stomped out in rapid fire 140-character phrases all of the work it takes to post to a coherent entry to a blog. Maybe the wise crack has supplanted more developed thoughts. Maybe spontaneity (and not readiness) is all.

Maybe this is because, as your Bloguero once opined here, he wanted to get out of his chair, push back from the keyboard, avert his eyes from the screen and participate in the outside world, to have adventures as he bravely put it. And no, he declines to write about these adventures, thoughts, experiences here. The details of your Bloguero's personal life have never been the subject of this blog, and he doubts that they are the proper subject for any.

Maybe this is because your Bloguero spends every workday writing and when the day draws to a close, the last thing he feels like doing is even more writing.

Maybe this is because your Bloguero is forbidden by his present occupational activities from discussing politics or legal cases. Your Bloguero thinks this is not the greatest reason for his absence.

And so, your Bloguero offers you, dear reader, this: an apology for a prolonged, unexplained absence. Your Bloguero feels a bit like the father of the protagonist in the great children's book "Henry Bear's Park." The father is a balloon ascensionist. One day he flies off, leaving Henry to tend the park where they live. No explanation. No forewarning. Such a departure is probably inherent in his life's activities, in ballooning. And then, one day, he returns. Will your Bloguero return? He assumes we will all find out in due course.

Tonight's Visitor

I have a cold. I fell asleep early with the cat. She smelled of tuna.

I was awakened by a ruckus downstairs. I went down to see what was the matter.

I turned on the porch light. There was a huge gray wolf standing there looking at me through the door. And evidently it wanted to come in. So I opened the door.

This turned the cat into a hissing, spitting pincushion. She jumped to the top of the cabinets and screamed feline invectives.

No matter. I don't blame her.I decided to go back to bed. What else could I do?

As I expected, the wolf followed me up the stairs.

I got back in the bed. I told him, ”Please let me sleep. I need to rest and to dream."

Evidently he understood me. He put his huge gray head in my lap and closed his eyes. I put my hands deep in the soft fur under his ears and rubbed. It was thick and very soft. I also stroked him between his eyes at the bridge of his nose. His head was big and heavy, and soon he was sound asleep and breathing slowly.

In the morning he will be hungry. I will be, too. I hope he likes eggs.

The Nemo Blues

Your Bloguero is in the kitchen (he aint got no shoes) with the Nemo Blues.

Nemo. What a diminutive name for a colossal northeaster. A name that's cute, like that small pixilated fish. You would think that the media fear mongers would come up with something like Stormzilla or Stormpocalypse, something that would excite and fit, but no, whoever is in the storm-naming department: Fail. And/But your Bloguero digresses. The short: there is a lot of snow outside. And it's cold. And everything is closed or closing: the trains, the airports, the restaurants, the saloons, the roads, the markets, the convenience stores. And the idea is that the snow will continue all night, and the wind will blow it around, and in the morning, there will be lots of snow on the ground and it will still be falling. Things will remain closed. Road crews will earn overtime. You can make French toast with the milk and eggs and bread you ran out for yesterday.

Your Bloguero says, "Let it snow."

This storm made worse because our local NPR station, WAMC in Albany, is on fund raising, and has been since Monday. They are trying to raise $1 million dollars. C'mon say it like Mini Me. In other words, there is no soothing regular programming. No. There is fundraising. There is asking for money. And a drawing now for a deluxe Miele vacuum cleaner. Your Bloguero did not make this up.

Your Bloguero suggests TCM movies, or Netflix streaming, or reading. Or CineMoi. Or Pay per view. And rum. Rum with lime in it and whatever else you might have. Look: you're not going anywhere. Not now, not tomorrow morning. You are home. You cannot leave. May as well make the best of it.

The only thing your Blogero lacks at the moment is El Bloombito's hablando en Espanol cerca el nieve y la tormenta y no estacionar en las calles. Your Bloguero knows this is coming, and he's waiting for it. Gleefully. The language is going again to be a casualty. Just wait.

Stay warm, stay tuned.

The Count of Monte Cristo and the Scarlet Pimpernel Saved My Life

I know, confessions are so out of style. Forgive me.

When I started school, I began my struggle against authority. Put simply, I hated school. I hated my elementary teachers. I hated the rules (sit in your seat, raise your hand, do not talk to your neighbor etc). And I had absolutely no intention of obeying any of them. If the teacher asked me to try to write with my right rather than my left hand, I resisted. If the teacher asked me where my homework is, I shrugged. If I was asked to read about Dick and Jane and their dog, I rolled my eyes and delayed. I said, “I can’t. Please ask somebody else.” If I were asked to do anything, I politely refused. Back then, they didn’t give people like me a diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder. No. We were just rebellious. A problem. Bad. Defiant. And ultimately, we were predicted to become punks. To become convicts.

So, of course, I became a punk. It was almost preordained. Why not? It seemed to me when I was in junior high school that the worst guys got the best, hottest girls. The worst guys were the most popular. The most exciting. So, it made sense, to hang out with Nicky and his friends, to smoke behind the school, and to hope beyond hope that one of the many blossoming girls who were attracted to bad guys would take an interest in me. This made complete sense to me.

Somewhere along the way, I learned to read. Maybe it was my second grade teacher, the young Ms. Sinahopolis, who was new that year who made sure that despite my being completely uncooperative and defiant and on a campaign of total resistance, I could read. I’m not sure how she did that. She didn’t tell anyone I could do it (that would have been shameful to me). But she made sure I could read whatever I wanted to. Once she found out I could actually do that, she more or less left me alone and stopped bothering me about everything else, which, of course, I would refuse to do on principle. It was as if by reading, I had earned an amnesty from authority.

My defiance, however, didn’t end in second grade. It continued until I was in junior high school, the ninth grade. I hung out with Nicky and his pals. I did what they did. I smoked. I cursed. I drank beer. I committed minor crimes. I shoplifted. And I hoped beyond hope that one of the girls in the class would be interested in me. And, of course, I continued taking the risks that my friends felt were essential to being in their group.

One day there was a car with keys in the ignition at the curb near the school. Nicky and I and two other friends were wandering around. We didn’t have anything to do. We were looking for excitement. Nobody was around. But we saw the car. And the keys. And we all had the same idea at the same time: let’s go for a ride. Of course, none of us could drive. No problem. We jumped in the car, Nicky got in the driver’s seat, cranked the engine, and off we went. For about 500 yards, when to my utter surprise, he drove the car into a parked car. Not good. I can hear myself saying, “I thought you could drive.” “Yeah, so I did I.” “Then let’s get out of here.”

Right. The police arrived immediately, as if they were waiting for the crash. They dragged all of us into the black and white car with the blue lights. They pushed us around and threatened us. They said with smiles on their faces, “You kids are in trouble. We’re going to take you home.” I leave this anecdote with my mother saying, “Wait till your father comes home. Go to your room.” Not good. What today would be characterized as “child abuse” was expected, if not demanded in such cases.

When I was in eighth grade, I was constantly I trouble. All kinds of trouble. With the school. With the cops. My rebellion continued. Everybody who was a grown up was a jerk. And the enemy. Teachers, especially. Cops, especially. I seemed to be constantly in detention. Or suspended. Or being driven to my parents’ home. Or pushed around by donut eating cops. And this being brought home by the gendarmerie always led to big problems.

It was about this time that Nicky’s older brother, Carmen, saved my life. Said he, “Man, you got to read about the Count of Monte Cristo. Massive balls. And, the best part, the guy gets even with all the mfers who messed with him.” "Really?"

I didn’t ask Carmen how he knew about this book. He himself was blazing a path toward incarceration and being constantly in trouble. But he was older. So, incongruous as it was, I said, “I’ll get it out of the library.”

Oh my goodness. First of all, I didn’t read novels at the time. And this was a hefty one. But, since Carmen was what would later be reverently called an “original G,” some diligence was required on my part. Some respect. So I had to read it. Oh my goodness.

Here are the two important things about the Count of Monte Cristo from my perspectdive. First, he gets falsely imprisoned, so he has to escape from prison. It takes 14 years, but the way he does it is brilliant. He gets thrown in the sea as if he were the dead body of his friend and teacher. A zillion points for outsmarting authority. A zillion points for having balls. Second, he gets even. He completely destroys the three people who lied about him and got him imprisoned. He’s patient about this. And methodical. And he completely and thoroughly gets even. Yes. Perfection itself. Justice for screwing with him.

When I finished this, it was as if I were no longer living in Newark. I was somehow living in France in a century or two ago. I loved that. Well, I thought, that was great, that was a great ride, I bet there are other books that will take me out of here, out of my life, out of everything, and bring me to some distant, all absorbing, far away place. Stories that are gripping. Stories that satisfy me. The Count doesn’t knuckle under to authoritarians (like teachers, like cops). No. He’s like me. He accepts their constant abuse and conniving, and then, and then the best part, he gets even with them. He inflicts justice on them. He gets his complete and total revenge.

The book rocked my world. I told Carmen, “Wow, that was an incredible book. Do you know of any others that are as intense? I love it.” He said he didn’t. No problem. I went to the library. I found the librarian. I said, “Excuse me. I just read The Count of Monte Cristo, and I loved it. And I wonder if you can recommend some other book I might like.”

The librarian smiled. He said. “Let me think.” Then he said, “Did you like the escape or did you like the revenge or what?” “Yeah, all of that,” I said. “I like all of it. Especially the escape. The Count had guts.”

“Oh,” he said. “I know. I bet you’d like The Scarlet Pimpernel.” “The what?” “The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Oh my goodness. So I lugged the Scarlet Pimpernel home. What a crazy, unusual story. But I loved it. The Scarlet Pimpernel is secretly saving French nobility from execution on the guillotine, and obviously, there are those who want to capture and kill him. Even his wife doesn’t know that he’s the Scarlet Pimpernel. He’s a secret agent. He is embedded in English and French society. He, of course, is very well disguised, and he repeatedly escapes notice. Even from the guy who is dedicated to finding and killing him. He even appears as an old Jew, and is severely beaten in that disguies, but he doesn’t reveal his secret, who he really is. The guy has incredible balls. And he’s really smart. Ultimately, he escapes to England with those he has saved. In other words, he succeeds in outsmarting authority and lives to tell about it.

What an incredible story! The guy is doing all of these incredible things, but nobody can figure out who he is. It’s better than Bat Man or Superman. You have to be a moron not to know who their secret identities are. This guy takes all of that to another level. Even his wife can't figure it out.

That story broke my head open. I mean: look at some of the incredible things that could and do go on in the world, that I believe can go on, that are so much larger, so much more profound than my little life being a junior high school punk. Being a “hood.” Being a wise ass. My life is going to get me locked up. Or hurt. And for what? I’m not saving French nobility from the guillotine, I’m not getting revenge for my unjust imprisonment. I’m just fighting everybody all the time. I’m just breaking whatever trivial laws there are. Because I can. Because I want to. It’s like in the movie. Marlon Brando is asked, “Hey, what are you kids against, anyway?” He replies, “What have you got.” That’s me. What have you got. I'm against everything and I'll fight about it, too.

So I stopped. And I started reading. I spent hour and hours and hours reading. And I am delighted at all of the time I have spent in so many other worlds. These other worlds saved my life.

BP: Wounding My Mother, Wounding Pachamama

It begins as helplessness. Nothing more, nothing less. I watch as oil spews from BP's well into the Gulf of Mexico, killing sea life, destroying the ocean, ruining the breeding grounds near the shore. The Gulf of Mexico is becoming a vast petroleum gumbo garnished with oil soaked sea birds and drowned turtles. I watch this. I wish that all of the wise men and women of the world could find a solution, could stop the flow. But as the time elapses, and the 48 hour periods to know whether the flow can be stemmed mount up, it should be obvious to me. There may be no solution. At least not for the foreseeable future. And by then, by then what even BP is calling a "catastrophe" will be that much more enormous. That much more irremediable. The leak will have killed much of the Gulf of Mexico, and unchecked, it will continue to kill.

Keith Olbermann thinks that Obama should show more anger about this. That, he thinks, will show people that Obama is with them. Or something. Personally, I have more than enough unproductive anger about BP. I don't need it to be mirrored. Or extended. No. What I want is internal. I want to understand what BP is doing and has done to my interior landscape. I want to come to terms with that. And to comprehend it in this way, I use what I know: I look at the mythic, and I look at myself. It's Shamanism 101.

Please join me on this voyage.

Have I ever seen anything like this before? Have I ever seen my Mother Earth, Pachamama, Santa Madre Tierra so wounded and killed by one of her children? I've been thinking about the BP leak as a wound that will lead to matricide, the death of our Mother.

I've found two myths that seem to apply. There are doubtless others. I offer these two as a beginning point.

In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the salt water ocean, mating with the god Abzû to produce younger gods. ... Later when Ea's son Marduk creates problems for her yet sleeping god youngsters by playing with sand storms and tornadoes, she conspires to retaliate by creating eleven frightening monsters and erecting her son Kingu as their general, but this plot fails when Marduk slays them all including Tiamat herself. From Tiamat's body the world is formed, land and sea.

Wiki

Marduk kills his mother. Marduk, who plays with things that should not be played with, sandstorms and tornadoes and deep sea drilling, kills the primordial goddess of the salt water ocean. And the world is far different because of her death; it then has both land and sea. Marduk's killing his mother is a cosmos shifting, future changing event:

Tiamat possessed the Tablets of Destiny and in the primordial battle she gave them to Kingu, the god she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host. The deities gathered in terror, but [Marduk], first extracting a promise that he would be revered as "king of the gods", overcame her, armed with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear.

And the lord stood upon Tiamat's hinder parts,
And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.
He cut through the channels of her blood,
And he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.

Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablets of Destiny, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon.

Is that what we have done? Has the BP leak changed the Gulf of Mexico, the oceans, and the entire world in ways that cannot yet be comprehended? Is that what we are watching and are helpless to change? Put another way, are we Marduk?

Another myth. If you think of the Earth, Mother Earth, Pachamama, Santa Madre Tierra as a living, moving, thinking, conscious being, our planet, our Mother, what is this horrible gaping wound that has been done to her? What is this deep puncture to her insides, to her womb, to her intestines that is now leaking her precious blood and bodily fluids into the Gulf of Mexico? What kind of grave injury have we given to our Mother that is now spurting her life force, her blood into the ocean, creating huge plumes of oil and death as it flows?

How do I confront the bleeding out of our Mother? Bleeding I am unable to staunch.

And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.

I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field...

Ezekiel 16:6 - 7

It's an ancient prayer. Some call it the Bleeding Prayer. "When I came upon you polluted in your own blood, I said, 'Live. Live, like the plants in the field.'" It seems to fit the present disaster: uncontrollable bleeding of our Mother that is beyond our ability to check. Our engineering and governmental resources just aren't up to the task. If there's a solution, it's obviously in another realm, of Spirit.

For the past month, I have written extensively about BP and this disaster. What I notice about my writing is that it's angry and I have been making a sharp, bright line between BP and the rest of us, including myself. On reflection I now think that one of the reasons we are so ineffective in handling this disaster is our shadow and the degree to which we have tried to suppress and disown our inner BP. My inner BP: my tyrannical, know-it-all, powerful, greedy, reckless, patriarchal, secretive, dishonest inner BP. As I write this sentence, I think, "Wait. BP is the fourth largest corporation in the world. It's not even a person. You're not like that, at all. You love the Earth." A thought that to me is first rate evidence of my own shadow and of the existence of an inner BP that has neither been acknowledged nor honored.

So what, as Lenin said, is to be done? I invite you to join me a small ceremony. I will make a small altar to my inner BP. I will put on it things that remind me of BP or that I identify as BP or that have something to do with my inner BP and drilling and oil and accidents and destruction and recklessness. I will acknowledge these many things, and I will consider how it is that they have helped me live and exist in the world, in my life, the benefits they have given me in the past. And then, when I understand and can feel how that is, I will honor each of these aspects of BP that I find in me. I will thank them for being of assistance to me, for helping me survive, for helping me grow and succeed. And then I will commit them to the fire and release them.

I invite you to join me in this.

Why No Web Counters? Why'd You Remove Them?

I took all of the web counters and anything that resembled one out of the right margin of this blog. Why? Because I'm not competing with anybody, and I'm apparently going to continue writing this blog whether or not documented, huge masses of people read it (there's evidence that many, many people read this).

I don't have a hidden counter somewhere. This feels good to me: I'm not imitating the capitalist bloggers, I have no intention of figuring out how this blog can make money, I am not going to have advertising, I'm not selling anything to or for anyone. To me this feels like a recognition of just what this blog is. Nothing more. No aspirations. Just what it is: decent writing about eclectic topics. Something to be enjoyed.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

On Going To The Woodshed

Today at dailyKos and docuDharma, I posted an essay saying that I was taking a break from posting at those two sites. I'm not saying I will never post there again. Hardly. I'm just taking a break from them. I'll still post here. This, I think, will free up some valuable time for me.

Also, I'm going to be very careful of how much time I spend writing for this blog.

I expect to be able to keep on putting up essays. You'll see how this goes, and I'll report about it later on. And maybe, later on, I'll also elaborate about why I'm limiting my blogging activities and what I hope will come of it. Please stay tuned.

Three Years In The Dream Antilles

The third anniversary of this blog, The Dream Antilles, is in three weeks, on August 3, 2008. This is the 317th post. And this is a very brief introspection on the past three years.

What began as a way to promote my vastly underselling 2005 novel, The Dream Antilles, morphed first into a lit blog, and then took on aspects of a political blog, and finally blossomed into an eccentric collection of commentaries on whatever strikes me as something I would enjoy writing about.

When I initially began, I hoped there would be tons of comments on my essays. There aren't. In fact, there are hardly any comments at all. But I know that I'm not the unheard vox clamatis in deserto because there are two web counters in the right column of the blog, and they tell me there have been about 10,000 page views in the past year. Let me put this in perspective. Some blogs receive more than 10,000 page views in an hour. Those who read this blog around the world are far, far fewer. But they are nevertheless readers to whom I owe my thanks for reading and my appreciation when they bookmark the site and when they return, even if they generally don't stop to write comments.

Because I nevertheless wanted to read comments, I wrote diaries first at daily Kos, and then I began to write at my favorite group blog, docuDharma, cross-posting from The Dream Antilles. I found docuDharmaniacs a delightful, diverse, interesting, fun group. Kossacks not so much, though I sometimes still go against my instincts and cross-post there. Many of the resulting comments are disappointing to me. Regardless, docuDharma satisfies my desire to receive (and write) comments even if this blog doesn't.

Why do I keep on writing? You could ask as well why I keep on breathing. It's something I do. Unlike many of my favorite writers, Garcia Marquez, Roberto Bolano, Ricardo Piglia, I don't live in a place where there is an established, literary cafe culture. I can't go out this evening to my favorite cafe and find the other writers with whom I've been hanging out to discuss my latest ideas. Or theirs. So in a way, The Dream Antilles is a kind of substitute for that interaction. It's something that I do even though I'm working on another novel. Blogging is like a conversation that can always be resumed.

Will I continue? Of course. Going on and on isn't something new to me. Before I blogged, I began to write a long serious of essays on the death penalty and my opposition to it. I started in March, 2002, more than 6 years ago, and there have been 186 essays. Those essays are distributed by yahoogroups to more than 120 readers, but I have written fewer and fewer of them as I began to blog. Lately, I've been taking my blog posts on that topic and sending them to the listserve.

What's my favorite part? I just loved writing the recent essay about Salicornia. Stories like that just light me up. I learn something. I get to think about something new. I get excited. I hear the inside of my head say, "Wow!" I just love it.

Thanks again for reading. And special thanks for making the 3 Year Anniversary of The Dream Antilles possible.