Deep Thoughts~whats in ,on my mind and whats out there. - sagefever's Blog - Bakersfield.com

Thankful

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:05:25 PST

It is that time of year again for reflection and I wanted to say “Thank You” to one and all.

This site both inspires and confounds me , often within minutes. LOL Nonetheless you all challenge me~ some more than others ~ and each of you give me gifts, if I have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. The like minded remind me I am not alone and those who are not so like minded remind me to critically look at my beliefs. Those who inspire me to be more nuance….what a treasure and a teacher you are. It can get crazy at times, maddening even…but each adds a element that I appreciate. Eventually. ;-P

I am thankful for the insights, the humor and the unique skills we all bring.

For the friends I have met and for those who often remind me of, without a doubt, aspects of myself that I would like to ignore.

I am thankful for memory~ both kinds ~long lasting and swiftly fading.
I am thankful for life, it’s experiences and the mind/heart to navigate this thing we call living.
I am thankful for the great good fortune to be born now and in this place.
I am thankful for so much… Tomorrow dawns again full of promise and full of despair. Without those twin emotions how would we know a thing about ourselves and this world?

Enjoy this day and all the others that come.

Jagels Retires

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:05:47 PST

It is official : Ed Jagels is out of the building.

Read all about it on Yahoo

The Womans Conference~ 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:59:29 PDT

There is a great session right now with Annie Lebovitz ,her photos and end of life experiences. Beautiful.

This afternoon a session with Shriver,Edwards and St. James,who have all suffered loss, have a session called Grief,Healing and Resilience.

Live stream here

Men Who Stare At Goats

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:20:37 PDT

I caught wind of this film about 7 months ago and apart for those poor goats( no real goats were harmed in the making of the film) this looks like a good time. We all need a good laugh now and again.

This is a link to Huffington Post video that shows the real men behind the story.

Opens November 6th.

Birthday

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:50:40 PDT

If it were winter, those deep dark frigid days could let me pretend
That this cold around my heart was a natural thing
I tell myself, the shattered pieces of what I used to be clutched tight
That it is getting easier
That your memory is fading
That this pain is less
That I am strong
That I can bear never caressing the nape of your neck
(Because you are too old to hug, so you claim)
As we sit and talk about your day
I tell myself these lies and others
But again this morning
The shattered nerve memory, the voice over the phone line
All come back just like that night
It is nightmare time again

All my theories, all the things I use to endure this
Lay shattered at my feet ready to be reassembled
The ultimate horror~ and the grace ~ is that I do survive
The unseasonable temperature, way to warm
Allows no pretense this is anything but what it is
I will never see you
Hold you, hear you, touch you
Again

Time does not heal all things
But that is as it should be
A life is worth remembering, worth crying over
Worth laughing over~ there will be time for that latter
Today you took your first breath
Changing me for ever and for good
I hold you to me until my last breath

A Counterpoint To The Race Card: Acknowledgement and Healing

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:17:06 PDT

Imagine that scene in the movies: You have had your last meal; you are walking down that long corridor with a holy man intoning prayers. They place you in the chair, wet the cloth, lay it upon your head, attach the wires and the warden says the last words you will ever hear. Electricity surges through you until you are dead. Now imagine you are completely innocent.

From such a bleak start, it may be hard to believe, but this is a story of hope, redemption, and healing for both a family and a nation.

Tom Joyner sat down with Professor Louis Gates as a participant in the PBS documentary African American Lives 2 last year. Mr. Joyner, a radio talk show host knew little about his family. He was about to find out why his mother moved away from their home in South Carolina and never spoke of her brothers. They had been wrongly convicted of a murder~ astonishingly for the time 150 white residents had asked the Governor for a commuted sentence, but it was denied. Last Wednesday, October 14, 2009 they received a full pardon. Justice was finally served after 100 years.

Read all the details of this touching story here.

Chaos:Remember to say I love you.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:37:22 PDT

Christopher ~ Oct. 19, 1970 ~ April 13, 2004...till soon son.

I am always reflective this time of year, recalling both of my boys days and the love we share.
The truth of these words: “No one gets what they deserve~ we get what we get” has come home to me yet again. The sad news of a friend facing the chaos of this life reached me and illuminates the truth of those words.

She has lived a good life, never smoked, drank, ate well. She did all the things that make a life healthy and well lived. One of the fresh faced girls with clear eyes and a ready smile, she might have served you ice cream at Dewars, until the road led her to Alaska. There she gave birth to a girl who now attends collage in New Zealand. Bright child with a brighter future, both of these women have wide vision and the courage it takes to act on that vision. Our world has been the better for them. There is more about this woman to say~ but I want to hold that close to me now ,kept secret in my soul , as I send her courage and blessings out loud.

As with each one of us, the news of death is a harsh reality. The finality of it all is the one truth we cannot escape. The hope is that the treatment will buy her one year…the dream is five years. She wants to see her child again and I know that feeling all to well.

No one gets what they deserve; they get what they get…
Just this once I hope she gets what she deserves.

Hubble New Images~ Beautiful !

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:46:40 PDT

The Hubble is back up and these new images are being released. The "butterfly" is my favorite, but like a certain potato chip, it is hard to pick just one. Go here to see more.

Western End of Station Fire Under Control

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:28:04 PDT

"Near a large shade tree where crews get their twice daily briefings, firefighters set up a makeshift memorial for Capt. Tedmund Hall and Specialist Arnaldo Quinones. The fallen firefighters helped save about 60 members of an inmate fire crew last Sunday as flames approached their camp when they set a backfire that allowed the group to get to safety. The pair died when their truck plunged 800 feet down a steep mountain road as they sought an escape route."

The rest here

Say a prayer for these firemen this weekend~

Send positive thoughts to those still on the lines,to the families and friends of the fallen.

If the bickering stops for a moment...someone may actually see this.

Death Panels are Real: So is Everything Else (hummor)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:52:12 PDT

The folks at Funny or Die have done it again~ see the clip here. Warning: May upset some people.

A light hearted attempt to get us all~ left,right and in the middle~ to laugh just a little. :-)

What makes a Nazi a Nazi ?

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:20:13 PDT

I normally do not do the cut and paste tango ~ but this column embodies what has been on my mind ~ we do not respect each other anymore,we respect history even less.

Those two things combined will bring down this country faster than anything or anyone could.

I am sick and I hope you are too. Sick of demonizing "the other".

Here are the words of Mr. Pitts~

What makes a Nazi a Nazi? We all need a history lesson on the topic

By LEONARD PITTS JR.

lpitts@MiamiHerald.com

I hope this column makes you sick.

See, we'll be talking about Nazis, something many of us are doing lately. Indeed, just this week a fellow named Joseph e-mailed me about a caller he heard on a radio show. The man, vexed over healthcare reform, likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler. Asked why, he said, ``Hitler took over the car companies, then healthcare and then he killed the Jews.''

Said Joseph: ``I almost swerved my vehicle off the road when I heard that.''

But the caller is hardly unique. Google ``Obama + Nazis'' and you get almost seven million hits. Nor is the phenomenon new. Substitute President Bush's name and you get nearly 2.8 million.

An invasion of sorts

Even granting that many of those hits are benign, it seems obvious the Nazis have invaded American political rhetoric in a big way. As in Rush Limbaugh declaring healthcare reform ``a Hitler-like policy,'' swastikas popping up at protest rallies, a poster depicting Obama with Hitler's mustache and a pamphlet that says: ``Act Now To Stop Obama's Nazi Health Plan!

It's important to remember that the Nazis are passing out of living memory; U.S. soldiers of that era are said to be dying at the rate of 1,200 a day. Which makes it too easy, I think, for a nation of notorious historical illiteracy to remake the Nazis as some kind of all-purpose boogeymen for slandering political enemies and scoring cheap rhetorical points.

So I thought it would be good to make you sick, i.e., to spend a few minutes reminding some and teaching others what you invoke when you invoke the Nazi regime.

For the record, then: It was Nazis who shoved sand down a boy's throat until he died, who tossed candies to Jewish children as they sank to their deaths in a sand pit, who threw babies from a hospital window and competed to see how many of those ``little Jews'' could be caught on a bayonet, who injected a cement-like fluid into women's uteruses to see what would happen, who stomped a pregnant woman to death, who once snatched a woman's baby from her arms and, in the words of an eyewitness," tore him as one would tear a rag.''

Ideology over reason

That's who the Nazis were, ladies and gentlemen -- those obscenities plus six million more. They were the triumph of ideology over reason and even over humanity, the demonization of racial, religious and political difference, the objectification of the vulnerable other. And the authors of a mass murder that staggers imagination, still.

You would think, then, that where they are invoked to draw a parallel or make a point, it would be done with a respect for the incalculable evil the Nazis represent. You would think people would tread carefully, not because of the potential insult to a given politician (they are big boys and girls) but because to do otherwise profanes the profound and renders trivial that which ought to be held sacred by anyone who regards himself as a truly human being.

But in modern America, unfortunately, rhetoric often starts over the top and goes up from there. So fine, George W. Bush is ``a smirking chimp.'' Fine, Barack Obama is ``a Chicago thug.'' We have a Constitution, after all, and it says we can say whatever we want. It doesn't say it has to be intelligent.

Historical amnesia

And yes, you are even protected if you liken Obama or Bush to Hitler. Yet every time I hear that, it makes me cringe for what it says about our collective propensity for historical amnesia and our retarded capacity for reverence. Once upon a lifetime ago, six million people with DNA, names and faces just like you and I, were butchered with gleeful sadism and mechanistic dispatch. Six million people.

You and I may no longer respect one another, but is it asking too much that we still respect them?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a link to the Miami Herald.

Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:09:56 PDT

I was amazed by this~ hope you enjoy!

Kseniya is a young artist,embodying the WW2 German invasion of the Ukraine.

Patrick Duffy & the Crab watch American Idol

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:37:57 PDT

If you have not caught any of the Duffy and Crab clips~ search them out.

This one is just in time for all you Idol fans.

Health Care Changes For "Dummies"

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:17:25 PDT

Someone mentioned the need for a "for dummies" book about the proposed (and half formed as of yet) health care changes. I found this on Yahoo news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_fact_check

Bear in mind the usage of words like "might". Also the proposed changes are still being worked on with at least thre bills floating around now...so the end result will be different.This fact check does lay to rest some claims and raises others.

I am concerned about costs~ but I'd like to see an analysis of the cost of bankruptcy due to health care needs and the cost to fund change.

Synecdoche,New York~A Challenge

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:21:26 PDT

The film reminds me of an excellent Fusion meal~ you know you have just experienced a unique satiating repast…but just what it consisted of eludes you. There is that take home bag of leftovers to dissect at leisure full of savory flavor and intriguing memories.

Synecdoche, New York ~ written by Charlie Kauffman is also the directorial debut of one of the most brilliant screenwriters of our times. As always, the writer/directors subject is the mind and his plot is how the mind interacts with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams. It is simply a film about life, a study of human beings and a film about you. Alternatively, it is a pretentious pile of * excrement*.
I loved it. It requires real work from the viewer, a second, and third viewing are prerequisites to get a grasp on what you have seen ~ and felt. You have to be in the film to become an active participant, the sinew as it were, holding the scenes together. What scenes they are.

Some reviewers after watching the film spent a week in bed drinking, they became so depressed. Others found it bittersweet, an inspiring look at the impermanence of life. I am leaning toward inspired~ but this is a DVD I am definitely buying.

For those who lament the dearth of deep adult movies~ this ones for you. For most popcorn blockbuster summer hit movie fans~ give it a pass. If your like me~ a film devotee ~ it is worthy of your attention. I guarantee you will either love it or hate it. :-)

This from Roger Ebert’s review~ “Here is how it happens. We find something we want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes, American Girl dolls, a handful of rice, sex, solitude, a trip to Venice, Nikes, drinking water, plastic surgery, child care, dogs, medicine, education, cars, spiritual solace -- whatever we think we need. To do this, we enact the role we call "me," trying to brand ourselves as a person who can and should obtain these things.

In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and define how they should behave to our advantage. Because we cannot force them to follow our desires, we deal with projections of them created in our minds. But they will be contrary and have wills of their own. Eventually new projections of us are dealing with new projections of them. Sometimes versions of ourselves disagree. We succumb to temptation -- but, oh, father, what else was I gonna do? I feel like hell. I repent. I'll do it again.

Hold that trajectory in mind and let it interact with age, discouragement, greater wisdom and more uncertainty.”

Kauffman’s previous screenplays include Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Human Nature.
The cast gives stellar performances: Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis and the special Dianne Wiest…a dream team of women actors. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, as is Hoffman’s custom he shines on screen.

Here is a tidbit for you~ Marcel Proust’s multi- series novel Search of Lost Time has a reoccurring character named Dr.Cottard, based on both Proust’s father and on the Cotard who gives the name to the delusional syndrome. Connecting the dots is what engages the movie viewer~ or drives you mad…

For the word curious, a definition: Synecdoche~ A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword).

As for pronunciation~ there are conflicting results:(sin-neck-doh-kee), (si-nek da-kee) and the natives version (sin-ECK-duh-kee).

Connect the dots has never been so hard.

Rated R because this is a film about life it contains sex, blood and poop~ not excessively or gratuitously but part of reality. It runs 2hrs and 4 minutes…but lives on inside you.

PBS~ Americas Best Television:Three Must See Shows

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:50:13 PDT

A few weeks ago I was a cheerleader for Fresh & Easy (keep working Cassie!).
This week it came to my attention that many of you do not watch PBS, so I thought I would switch uniforms, as it were, and bring a few programs to light that might interest you. PBS, is I realize, considered by some to be some sort of “commie’ front~ and I hope to show you just how very American PBS really is.
The first show is not very American, but it does feature our “cousins” across the pond and past does inform the future~ plus it is good fun! Last night I bid a fond farewell to Mystery Theater’s excellent series of Miss Marple, the fictional detective creation of Agatha Christie. Check those listings, many shows repeat and this series was very well done, a do not miss for lovers of murder, poison and plucky old ladies. Next week (Sundays 9:00p.m.), the mysteries continue with a new detective, more murder and mayhem.
Tonight at 8:00 p.m. ~ History Detective: This show accepts historical mysteries, things, places etc that ordinary people have and may be part of American history.
Tonight, a person submits a twisted piece of metal that story attributes to the famed airplane of Amelia Earhardt. It is fascinating the work that goes into verifying a pieces authenticity.
The site has a DIY section that allows you to find out if that autograph of Lincoln is authentic, a section on detective techniques and videos of past episodes.
Time Team America~ Wednesdays 8:00 p.m.~ my newest addiction, features a dream team of archaeologists armed with the latest in technology and techniques , who visit sites that need additional development. The episode that explored the Roanoke Islands Fort Raleigh, the first English settlement in America was fascinating. Each episode is presented in an entertaining and educational way~ not at all dry and scholarly.
This week’s dig is at the buried streets of New Philadelphia, the first town established by free African Americans, they comb the area for evidence of the schoolhouse where children learned.
The site for Time Team America has some great features: Site Reports that give all the details and a “Since We Left” section that keeps you up on what new developments are found at each site. For the budding ,or ancient wanna be archaeologists among us there is a section called Field School where you can find out if you have what it takes to be an archaeologist. There are also some video clips. I really recommend this one if you love history. If you have small children, this show will inspire them~ what child does not dream of finding buried treasure.
This next show I am excited about~ The National Parks: America's Best Idea. It begins on September 27th,at 8:00p.m.
Six years of filming in some of America's most beautiful locations, this series promises to be at the bare minimum a visual wonder. Burns says, “You think you know (about the Parks) but you don’t”. Six episodes explore our connection to the Parks, the people behind their creation and preservation, our connection to the land and the concept of democracy that the Parks represents. The 150 year history of the Parks is outlined with first person accounts, photos and historical documentation. The Parks story is our story~ full of tensions, conflict and yet a deep healing that only nature can bring. Check the site now for an preview video and when the series starts go back as Burn films always have an interactive and educational features.
Sure PBS has its political shows~ but those are not the focus of my post. These three shows, in particular, have no political bias, no “commie” agenda. They are just explorations of all things American.
I hope one will catch your interest.

You have to see This!

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:12:51 PDT

A shout out to Tina for finding this great YouTube clip~ after all the sad/bad news we have here lately ~ this clip shows some real joy! Go ahead watch this and try not to smile!

Tragedy: A Study in Dark and Light

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:49:01 PDT

Much was made over the weekend about the 40th anniversary of the sad death of a young woman. I made a comment about the young woman in question not being a saint and a princess in my book.

To further clarify I would like to present some people that do qualify as saints, princesses and a prince in my book. Not for dying at night tragically in questionable circumstances but for living selfless lives, quietly in dignity and dying needlessly at the hands of true monsters.

While it is true we do not know what the young woman might have done, for good or ill in this world, we all are trapped in this moment right now. The next breath is not guaranteed to any of us. This is not a dress rehearsal and any given moment maybe your last as Mr. & Mrs. Billings could have told us.

The Billings case has been in the news for days now. The couple famously adopted some 13 special needs children raising them along with their two biological children. Three of the adopted children had died, leaving nine to be in the home when the cowards entered and murdered their parents.

These thieves thought to rob the Billings wealth~ only to find a safe containing some prescription medicine, some jewelry and adoption records, birth certificates …the true wealth of this couple. In what the police describe as a well thought out crime with a gaping hole~ the security cameras that the parents used to keep track of that family, captured the brigands entering and leaving the home. What turned a robbery into murder we may never know.

“”A funeral service for the couple drew hundreds of mourners to Pensacola's Liberty Church on Friday.
At a graveside service later, church pastor Buford Lipscomb read from a letter that one of the couple's daughters, Missy, had written, referring to her parents and her own newborn son.
"We will tell him how the world wept with the injustice that took you from us," the letter said.
Several of the couple's younger children released balloons with messages attached.
"Words do not express the pain they feel in their hearts or great loss of this incredible couple," Lipscomb said of the family.
"They loved their children beyond anything else.””

More here.
The couple’s daughter has decided to take her remaining nine siblings into her care.

I wonder in 40 years time how many will mark this tragedy? Two wonderful giving people struck down for greed, pure and simple. The inspiring true story of a young woman and new mother, taking on such responsibility, joy and pain…

Blessed be to her and her young husband.

I Now Have My Doubts about President Obama

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:45:00 PDT

Not!

But I thought this was pretty funny.

Changeling:A review of the movie and history

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:18:47 PDT

We often hear about he good old days, about a “better time when we all ____”, fill in the blank. I recently ran across a movie~ while expertly acted, directed and filmed ~ chilled me to the bone with the true “real story” behind it. It does come with a man of God as a key character, but it reflects the whole of society with its devils, saints and simple people of courage.
It perfectly illustrates why the good old days are seen through the proverbial rose-colored glasses, while some may have had ideal pasts, there is always a dark and twisted side to life.
Changeling~~ Directed by the incomparable Clint Eastwood, with Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, John Malcovich as Rev. Gustave A. Briegleb, Jeffery Donavan as the police Captain Jones. There are several young actors who give credible performances but Eddie Alderson (Matthew Buchanan on OLTL) brings to life Sanford Clark, the young nephew and the key to the case. As Gordon Stewart Northcott ,Jason Butler Harner gives a chilling performamce. SPOILER ALERT.
Called into work suddenly on Saturday, March 10 1928 Collins leaves her son alone only to return to find him missing. At the time, a missing person report could not be filed for 24 hours, so the next day the search begins in earnest. The LAPD is under fire for being corrupt, with the good Rev. Briegleb leading the crusade, and after 5 months the LAPD produces a boy they say is Collins son. At the reunion, covered by all the news, Collins takes one look at the boy and proclaims him not her child. Needing some good press desperately, the police convince her she is mistaken, grief has clouded her “mother’s heart” and the captain tells her to take the boy home to “try him out for a couple of weeks”.
She does and returns with dental records, teacher and Doctor statements to back up her assertions and the Captain promptly uses “Code 12” interment to put her into the L.A. County Hospital psychiatric ward.
Through a series of events, the case unravels before the eyes of the LAPD, only to reveal a brutal series of abductions, molestations and murders of up to 20 young boys. One Gordon Stewart Northcott is arrested, tired and sentenced to hanging~ all the while maintaining his innocence, especially in regards to Walter Collins, Christine’s young son. During this time the corruption and scandal, surrounding this case has led the city Council to investigate the LAPD, the misuse of “Code 12”, and change is wrought by the tribulations of Collins.
The day before the execution Northcott wires Collins. If she will come see him, he will tell her the truth before he meets his maker. She arrives and he refuses, going to the scaffolding with the secret.
Christine Collins never gives up looking for her son. Some five years later, a boy is found who tells of a harrowing escape from Northcott~ an escape made possible by Walter Collins. In the escape attempt, the boys are separated so the fate of Walter remains uncertain to this day. Christine Collins never gave up the search for her son. Not for the kids~ but I recomend this movie highly. I also recomend finding out more anout the real story.
The Truth Behind the Movie~ the movie does veer from reality somewhat. Northcott’s mother, Sarah Louise, aided and abetted him in these crimes. She was spared the death sentence, given life but was released after serving only 12 years in Tehachapi State Prison.
The reforms depicted in the movie did take place, but unfortunately, the Captain behind the injustice kept his job and never paid Collins the money she won in a civil suit against him. The real suffering,pain and humilliation this woman suffered is unimagineable.
As a woman, seeing this story in the year 2009, all I could think was “Huh? How did they ever imagine they could get away with this?” Fortunately, the movie shows exactly how they could and would have~ if not for the extraordinary courage and love of one mother. Christine Collins is a hero and it is sad to see how history almost lost her story.

Dark and evil things have been humans constant companions,thankfuly so has good ~ it would do us all good to remember that in “looking back”.

For more on Collins and the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders see here.
For the Wiki impaired the article is heavily referenced from L.A. County records, the Times (both New York and L.A.), and several other sources.