How Long

Comment from a friend:

Heavens. Life is such a crap shoot. One never knows how long one has to screw up or make amends…

Well I feel like dirty laundry
Sending sickness on down the line

Independence

So somebody pinches your nerves of self-image. Says you aren’t nearly worth what you think you are. Says you need lots of help. Says I have the solution.

But you’re going to have to work through me. And only through me.

And without me, you are nothing.

Basic mantra of bad therapy.

Of bad relationships.

Of many religions.

Catholics acknowledging sin every week; can only get clear through the Catholic process.

Someone says “slave to Allah“, proudly.

This created dependency, that manifests itself in fundamentalist contempt for the essential worth of an individual.

How you live, not how you are whipped by ritual and fear. Not how you are threatened.

Great Spirit and the treasuring of the person. No “do this, or the Hellfire for you”.

Or maybe the Father Fitz message, Catholic in context, but not Catholic in attitude.

Need to be wary of any movement that says you need to be saved, and only through me/us/it…

But never you…

And never the slaver.

Different History

From “Leadership hot unofficial topic”, by Sheldon Alberts, National Post, February 17, 1999, p. A7, in relation to a convention of the United Alternative, a precursor to…

…the question of who might lead a new small “c” conservative party in Canada will not be discussed in any official form at this weekend’s United Alternative convention. But conference organizations expect the leadership issue will be the hot topic in the corridors of the Ottawa Congress Centre, where almost 1,400 delegates are gathering to debate the formation of a new political entity…

But critics like Stephen Harper, a former Reform MP, predicted this week that the United Alternative’s final outcome will be manipulated to ensure the Reform Leader [Preston Manning] emerges on top. Mr. Harper, who is also touted as leadership material, will not attend the convention.

The way it comes
The way it goes

Less of you

So many ideas, and where they come from.

Such as Mad Men, in the episode “Meditations in An Emergency“, as spoken by Peggy Olson:

One day you’re there and then all of a sudden there’s less of you.

And you wonder where that part went, if it’s living somewhere outside of you.

And you keep thinking, maybe you’ll get it back.

And then you realize, it’s just gone.

Written by Matthew Weiner and Kater Gordon.

When you learn who you once were

Following

How others create the path

To where shade is needed

Ready to show where the stones should go.

San Miguel Haruth

From the Globe and Mail, February 17, 1947, p. 1, as reprinted in the Globe and Mail, February 17, 1999, p. A18:

800 Illegal Entrants Put on Deportation Ship

Jerusalem, Feb. 17 (Monday)(AP)–Approximately 800 would-be immigrants to Palestine, all lacking immigration certificates, were transferred today from the refugee vessel which carried them into this port under British destroyer escort to the ships which will take them to detention camps in Cyprus.

Their ship was the San Miguel, but its name had been changed to “Haruth”, the Hebrew word for Freedom. It was brought into Haifa Harbor late Sunday after its interception off Tel Aviv.

Its arrival and the announcement that two brigades of the British 6th Airborne Division had been ordered to conduct trans-shipment of the illegal immigrants to Cyprus stirred Jewish leaders to call a one-hour general strike for today as a protest and to plan court action on their behalf.

Some told Hebrew-speaking reporters that six of their company had been wounded, two by gunshot, when the British naval boarding party took over the refugee vessel. Earlier, it was reported at the Athlit Detention Camp hospital that four of the San Miguel passengers, one a woman and one a 14 year-old girl, had been admitted for treatment of bullet wounds.

The ship, which was reported manned by an American crew and officers and sponsored by an American Jewish group, was sighted last night 27 miles southwest of Tel Aviv. It was the second in a little more than a week to attempt to run the British immigration blockade on the Palestine coast.

A curfew was placed on the Haifa port area, as was done prior to the transfer of 650 Jews from La Negev on Feb. 8.

The deportation ships Ocean Vigor and Empire Haywood arrived in Haifa harbor a few hours after imposition of the curfew. The Vigor had brought 700 Jews from Cyprus to Palestine Saturday, and was en route to the island when it received orders to turn back.

Two Jews jumped overboard when the Haruth was intercepted, but were rescued, an official statement said.

New York Time Special to The Globe and Mail, Copyright

Jerusalem, Feb. 16 – A legal fight to prevent British authorities in Palestine from removing 800 Jewish illegal immigrants, whose ship was tonight being escorted by the British Navy to Haifa, will be made before the High Court in Jerusalem tomorrow.

The application will be filed on behalf of the Jewish Community Council for writs of habeas corpus calling on the Palestine Government and the British authorities to show cause why the immigrants should not be allowed to land.

So after the Holocaust, so many trying to get to something seen safe and

Already Gone

Make Iraq pay for war, U.S senator says

Paul Koring, Washington
The Globe and Mail, August 2, 2002, p. A9

Rebuilding a post-Hussein Iraq as a civil, democratic society could could hundreds of billions of dollars, take a decade and require large numbers of troops and civilian specialists to stay on for years, a U.S. Senate panel was told yesterday.

And one senator suggested that Iraqis might be required to pay for the transformation of their society and the rebuilding of the country’s shattered economy, as well as any war to topple President Saddam Hussein.

“As part of our plan for Iraq, in addition to identifying the political leadership and the coalition and building democracy, we’re going to run the oil business…we’re going to run it well, we’re going to make money, and it’s going back to help pay for the rehabilitation of Iraq,” Senator Richard Lugar said.

Mr. Lugar, a senior Republication on the Senate foreign relations committee, acknowledged that his suggestion was “provocative”, but said “It’s not economic imperialism.”

Iraq sits on the world’s second-largest oil reserves, after Saudi arabia and at full production could generate vast wealth…

Although the Bush administration insists it has made no decision to wage war to topple Mr. Hussein, and that other means remain as plausible options–including diplomatic, economic and political pressure–the mood in Washington is increasingly bellicose and resigned to a lack of support from allies.

Winning the peace, building a democracy in Iraq, would be more difficult than winning a war, said Senator Joseph Biden, Democratic chairman of the committee. “In Iraq, we cannot afford to replace a despot with chaos”, he said…

The United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003.