From outside the box

Scott McLellan is pure scum. This guy helped to sell the very spin, lies, and cover ups he is now exposing in his book. This mea culpa/profit venture may cleanse his conscious as well as fill his coffers, but it will not change the fact that Scott was as much a part of the most costly American hoax to ever be perpetrated on it's citizens as was Colin Powell and every other insider who took part in this mass deception.

Remember Robert Kardashian, the lawyer who helped to get OJ Simpson acquitted of murder? After all was said and done, Mr. Kardashian said in a 1996 ABC interview that he now questioned Mr. Simpson's innocence: ''I have doubts. The blood evidence is the biggest thorn in my side; that causes me the greatest problems. So I struggle with the blood evidence.'' Scott's doing the same thing, killing two birds with one book....cleanse the consciousness and make a few million.

Isn't it a funny thing that many liberals knew at the time what Scott is now saying about the lies behind the selling of the war as well as the outing of Valerie Plame? Now mind you, the liberals I speak of are not Washington insiders, we are not politicians, mind readers, conspiracy theorist's, or computer hackers....some of us are simple working folks from a little town in Northern California. And yet everything we said (along with millions of other democrats) about how this administration handled the invasion of Iraq, how they were lying and manipulating the facts, is slowly coming to light. I've got old copies of letters to the editor to prove it.

There will be more Scott McLellans and George Tenent's stepping forward in the years to come. The whole truth will come out. And the funny thing is, when it does, and when there is not a shadow of doubt as to what really happened, those patriotic intellectuals who are still engaged in defending Bush's policies and lies will attempt to change their own personal history. They will say that they knew about the cover ups and lies and that they never really condoned the war, they were only supporting the war on principle because it was the best way at the time to deal with terrorism. And they will convince themselves to believe that. They will have to, how else will they live with themselves if they believe that they are the ones who helped to keep the war going. How could they sleep when the dots are finally connected and the truth is known that trillions of dollars have been wasted, thousands of lives destroyed, limbs lost, suicides, insanity, all the evils and horrors of war, was all for NOTHING? I'll tell you how....you change your history. Or you do like Scott McLellan and say that you were a victim, the people you trusted betrayed you. And when you do, I will be there to remind you that many of us were not fooled, that we saw thru this hoax from the very beginning. And we spoke out as you called us unpatriotic and accused us of siding with the terrorist's.

Right now, many of you are desperately clinging to the hopes of some semblance of a victory in Iraq, although you cannot clearly define what victory is or even who we are fighting. I'd bet that many of you are beginning to come to terms with the ugly truth and are secretly hoping a democrat wins the presidency, gets us out of Iraq, and then, whatever happens over there (as a result of us going in, not leaving), you will be able to blame that president and say that if we had just given it more time or had McCain been elected, we could have finished this thing, we could have had victory! In fact, if your smart, you'll all vote democrat, otherwise you just may have to deal with the uglier reality of trying to win an unwinnable fiasco of a war as well as all of the side effects....escalating debt, recession, more American death's, and the fact that no matter what we accomplish military wise in Iraq, they will always be a fundamentalist nation and they will in time reject any kind of governemnt that resembles democracy or attempts to give freedom to all of it's citizens.

As a liberal I am more than willing to be the fall guy, to be part of the change that gets us out of Iraq, regardless of the consequences that follow, and allow you right wingers to wave your fingers in disgust for the rest of time, and talk about how close we were to winning the war had Barak and his merry band of unpatriot's not intervened and caused our defeat. We are willing to give that to you. Somebodies got to save you from yourselves.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joel Stein:
Make it a gay-old time
C'mon, senior citizens, vote for same-sex marriage -- it's the future.
May 30, 2008

Dear old people,
I'm addressing you specifically for two reasons. First of all, you're the only people who still read the newspaper. Second, this November, your vote on a proposed California constitutional amendment will determine whether the state again bans gay people from getting married. That's because, according to a Field poll released Tuesday, while the majority of Californians under 50 support same-sex marriage, only 36% of senior citizens do. So your vote could very well overturn the wishes of everyone else because, as with newspaper reading, you're the only people who vote. When you guys die, we're going to make all of our political decisions by asking questions of a Magic 8-Ball.

I get that gay people make you uncomfortable. You didn't have gay people when you were growing up. Instead, your straight selves and your straight friends enjoyed straight nights out at Gilbert and Sullivan operettas before coming home to put on Liberace albums and watch game shows starring Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde. If my life were as dominated by gay culture as much as yours was, I wouldn't like them either.

I know that picturing gay people having sex skeeves you out. But if that were a test for being married, we'd have a constitutional amendment pulling your marriage license at age 60. In fact, you and the gays have more in common than any other demographic groups. You both like watching old movies, cleaning your house, playing with other people's kids and cutting your hair too short. You could start a successful chain of gay-old boring day-care centers.

Despite all your discomfort, I'm asking you to take a leap of faith and trust the younger generations on this one. I know you don't think we've done so well with the movies and the ladies' clothing, but our scientists also invented lots of new medicine without which "Larry King Live" wouldn't have enough commercials to stay on the air. And where would you be then?

Remember how your parents felt about desegregation? And how their parents objected to women's suffrage? And their parents felt about indoor fire? This may seem different, but it isn't. Gays are going to be fully accepted by society. You can either slow that process in a desperate attempt to keep the world safely the same, or you can help expedite that change and get to see what the future will be like.

Look, no one blames you. The reason you're uncomfortable with same-sex marriage is simply that gays were closeted when you were under 45. A study done 10 years ago by Stanford neuroscientist and MacArthur Fellowship genius grant recipient Robert Sapolsky found that by middle age, people reject new things. He found that if a new genre of music emerges after you're 35 -- like rap -- the odds are greater than 95% that you're going to hate it. Or, if you were a non-Asian Midwesterner who was over 39 when sushi came to your town, there's less than a 5% chance you now frequent sushi bars. In my study, based solely on my father, by age 68 the odds are close to 100% that you'll respond to every e-mail with a phone call.

I already can relate to your desire for stability: I hate blogs and reality TV because they require me to change my comfortable career and learn just how complicated Denise Richards' life is. (Dogs and pet pigs? How does she keep it together?) And I fully expect that in my dotage, my grandkids will tell me to stop my carnivorous animal-killing ways and to recycle my own urine. And I won't like it, but I hope I still feel alive enough to exchange comfort for excitement.

So I'm asking you to vote against all your wisdom and experience. I'm asking you to trust that the history of social change is full of uncomfortable lurches toward improvement through inclusion and equality. I'm asking you, at least while you're in the voting booth in November for those five minutes -- or in some of your cases, 10 to 15 minutes with the help of a volunteer -- to pretend you're cool with gays.

Also, you should know that rap isn't that bad. In fact, I've posted a list of songs at latimes.com/rapforgrandma called "Rap for Grandma." You can listen to them with the help of your grandson. You know, the one whose girlfriend you for some reason never get to meet.

jstein@latimescolumnists.com

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At the risk of sounding like a total nut case here, I'm going to write about something that has always been quite fascinating to me....my committee. But then again, if I'm a nut, we all are, because we all have this committee. The committee I'm talking about is a group of characters that reside inside of my head. They advise me, temp and coerce me, chastise me, motivate me, warn me....they basically keep me on course. Intellectuals of higher learning and understanding than myself may call this committee the sub conscious, logic, Id, or whatever the proper term is for our inner guidance system, however, I prefer the more colorful image of a committee of characters residing in my head, always arguing and making deals with each other to keep me in line.

I play with these characters like a child might play with a doll. Over time I change their appearance, I dress them in various garbs, they might even get a haircut. Sometimes one of them gets replaced with an updated version. Sometimes one of them goes into a deep sleep for months or years at a time. Some of them I like and some just piss me off. Sometimes I try to get rid of the ones that anger me, but sooner or later, they usually come back. Allow me to introduce you to my committee.....

The loudest character on my committee is one I call the "Jewish Mother". She lets me know when I screw up, she's very good at guilt tripping me. I've tried to kill her off, but she just won't die. I do have to say though, she seems to get quieter as I get older. Thank God for that.

Another character, one who had more influence when I was younger but seems to be fading with time, is one I call "Woody Allen". He's the one that tries to shake my confidence, he tells me I'm not worthy or I'm not good enough to try something. He was very prominent when I was younger and dating a lot. He still speaks up now and then, but I've gotten pretty good at ignoring him.

Then there's the character I call "The comedian". He tries to point out the humor in everything. Sometimes he gets me into trouble because I might laugh about things that aren't that funny to other people. He's important to me though, because he keeps me from taking myself too serious.

"The Warrior" is an interesting guy. He's big and muscular, and doesn't like to take any shit from anybody. He too has gotten me into trouble because he's always ready for a good fight. He's a good guy to have on my side, I just have to control him and not let him control me.

The "Intellectual" wears glasses, looks like a nerd, and like the others, is always vying for my attention. He thinks he's smarter than he really is but he comes in handy when I have to say something "smart" or when I buy something big at Costco and have to assemble it. Him and the comedian will often pair up together. They make a good team. When they are in balance, the humor comes out smart and the smart comes out with a dash of wit.

The "Artist" sits near the head of the committee. He seems to have a big say in everything I do. He is always reminding me to be creative. He believes that life is art. He pushes me to write music and poetry, take pictures of nature, speak from the heart, and mostly.... just to always walk my own path. He encourages me to see the beauty in everything as well as the detail and hidden meanings. Whenever I sit down to write, he reminds me to always "speak your truth"!

One of my least favorite characters is "Angry man". He shows up now and then in my writings as well as when people do stupid things on the highway. I know that he only exists in relation to my own unresolved childhood issues. As I age and come to terms with the pains and abuses suffered in my childhood, angry man seems to be getting quieter. He still makes a showing now and then but I've learned to cut him off when he gets too loud. He never gets the last word in anymore. Someday he will be gone altogether from the committee or at least relegated to a small corner in the very back of the room.

A character I have come to terms with and even grown quite fond of as I learn to appreciate her influence is the "Female". She gives balance to the warrior, she soothes the angry man, and she is the heart of the artist. The "female" is one of the most important characters on my committee because she keeps the male characters in balance. There used to be a character called "macho man" but she kicked his ass out a long time ago. She has taught me how to gently hold a baby, write a love song, and appreciate animals and sunsets. She teaches me to nourish as well as respect all of life. Because of her, I would rather sit down and color with a four year old than watch a football game.

One of my favorite characters is one I call "The Old Indian Sage". He is the wise one. I try to listen to him often, he always steers me in the right direction. He is quite serious and yet, always has this little grin on his face. I credit him with how I try to live my life in general....take things seriously but always see the humor in every situation. He is my higher self, my soul. He never listens to the other characters, he knows he is smarter than they are. When I was younger, he would get silenced often, especially by Woody Allen, Angry Man, and The Jewish Mother. Now days, he always has the final say.

My favorite character, maybe not the most important, but my favorite, is "The Scientist." There have been so many times in my life when I was not sure which way to go, or what to do about a certain situation. Whenever there is an important decision to be made and I am not sure which is the right decision, I simply put on my white lab coat, roll up the sleeves, and become the scientist. The scientist doesn't claim to know what is right or wrong, but he isn't afraid to experiment. When I moved to Chico, when I had my first child, when I helped my parents thru death, whenever I changed jobs or started a new risky business, I put on my lab coat and just "got to it"! The scientist often makes mistakes, but it's ok because he understands that much of life is an experiment. He doesn't listen well to others advice because he likes to figure things out for himself. The scientist is often timid but always inquisitive and curious enough about the outcome that he isn't afraid to try new approaches. All that I have in my life, any wisdom I may have come to and most of what I have learned has been because of the scientist. Whenever I am at a crossroads in life and am not sure which direction to take, I just put on my lab coat and take a step forward. I always forgive myself in advance of whatever the outcome may be because, after all, I'm just experimenting, and if I get it wrong, I'll try something else and I'll keep trying until I get it right! I always keep that lab coat close by.

There are other characters on my committee but their not all worth mentioning. These are the important ones. Some of you will read this and know where I'm coming from and others may write me back with the name of a good psychiatrist. It's all in fun. I think it helps to give personalities to the inner workings of your psyche. But if you do, and if there's a nagging Jewish Mother somewhere in there, shoot the bitch. You give her too much credibility and the next thing you know you'll be force feeding everybody who comes into your home as well as guilt tripping your grown kids for not being married with kids already!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"There is no evil in the world, only lost disconnected souls."

"disconnect".....to sever or interrupt the connection of or between; detach:

Western thought and Christian doctrine is based on the idea of separation and disconnection. We are separate from God, we are separate from each other, all things are separated by space and time. It's hard to let go of ingrained belief's, even after they've been dispelled. The illusion of separation will be a particular hard belief to shake from our collective consciousness because, although things are not always as they appear, we tend to believe what we see. And when we look around, we see "over there" as a separate place from "over here". But in reality, is it really separate? Could it be that over there and over here are but different "expressions" of the same thing?

Separation would be a reality if there were such a thing as a finite particle, but there isn't. As science delves deeper into the world of sub atomic particles they are finding that the smallest particles, ones that they once thought were solid mass, are nothing more than wave's that are vibrating at different frequencies. And these "waves" are interwoven and connected thru out the universe, without a break, making up the "fabric of creation". There is no "solid" anything in the universe. We are all, everything is....a mass of vibrations....pure energy! Different wave frequencies create different particles which create atoms. Every atom is different. Atoms combine to make up molecules. Molecules, depending on their atomical structure, combine to make up different elements, and different elements....well, in the end this is what makes a rock something different from a flower.

This idea that everything vibrates fascinates me. I spend about half of my waking hours thinking about it. The implications are endless. What is it that is vibrating? Where does the vibration begin? What powers this energy? Of course the obvious answer would be God (although there is a religious connotation to this word, I'm going to use for lack of a better word)....But what does this say about God? What does it say about our relationship to "God"? Maybe the bigger question should be....What does God say about us? You could almost say that when God speaks, the universe vibrates. When pure energy (God) vibrates, things happen. One of the things that happens is....us.

So if we are all connected by this universal energy, then the idea of separation is just an illusion. Could it be that we are an extension of God? Could it also be that everything in existence is but an expression of God? If this is true, then one has to ask the question....What is the difference between us? What makes you different from me, why does everybody see things so differently? I believe the answer lies in "consciousness". Consciousness may be the underlying force, the "Godness" that motivates energy into vibration and vibration into "stuff"....the stuff of the universe.

Maybe consciousness individualizes itself which produces the many awarenesses we call you, me, that tree over there, that rock, or that furry thing running around. So if all of existence is but different levels of consciousness, and consciousness is the force behind all vibration or creation, then it would be possible that we are all taking part in creation. Quantum physics is discovering, as well as proving, that sub atomic particles react according to how they are viewed. Science has discovered that you cannot separate the consciousness of the viewer from that which is being viewed! If the universe is responding to how we are viewing it, or even thinking about it, then we must come to terms with the fact that we may be affecting everything we look at, think about, concentrate on, or wherever we chose to direct our awareness. The implication here is that we just might be responsible for what we experience because we might be creating that experience weather we realize it or not! It's like there's a dance going on and everything in creation is dancing with everything else in creation. The name of the dance could be called "Action and reaction".

I see these as realities that we are all aware of to one degree or another. The greater our awareness to this "connection", the greater our capacity for compassion and empathy. We empathize with something because we relate it to ourselves. When we see a part of our self in somebody else, other creatures, or even the planet for that matter, we know that what we do to each other, we do to our self. When we lack all awareness of connection, we lack empathy. It's easier to harm something when we have no awareness of our connection to that thing we are harming.

There is no Satan running around causing us to do terrible things to each other. There is only the lack of awareness to "connection". The good part is that consciousness, like all of life, is in a constant state of becoming something more. To me, this is what evolution is. What we do not understand today, we will understand tomorrow. Life appears to be designed to give us the experiences we need to evolve, to become more, and in that process we come to understand connection. First, our connection to each other, then our connection to all of existence, and finally, our connection to God or "the source".

Nothing is disconnected. Nothing can ever disconnect, the universe was not set up that way. There is only the illusion of disconnection. This happens because we lack the awareness to see what really is. We might partake in the illusion of separation, of being disconnected from everything else, but "everything else" never disconnects from us. "God" being the source of all that is and having infused it's own Godness into all of creation, cannot disconnect from anybody or anything anymore than the clouds can disconnect from the rain. I believe that mankind is in the process of realizing this connection on a grand scale. If enough of us come into this awareness, we just might survive our technology phase. War and environmental destruction would slowly be eliminated as we promote greater cooperation, understanding, and compassion between ourselves as well as nature. On the other hand, we can choose not to realize the truth of connection and we will continue down this path of self annihilation. We can "come together" or we can "fall apart". Love and understanding connects us. Power and fear separates us. We have free will, it's up to us.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I mentioned on my last blog that it felt cool enough to take the dogs to the tree farm today without fear of the snakes being out. I was wrong!....just about stepped on a 3 foot gopher snake. If your one of the regulars who enjoy going to the tree farm....watch out! Guess it will be late next fall before we go there again.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Various thoughts....

I saw the new Indiana Jones movie last Friday. I have to say that it was a bit of a let down. With a team like Lucas and Spielberg, you'd think this would be the best blockbuster in years....Didn't hold a candle to Iron Man. Harrison Ford's acting was weak, the script was cheesy, and the action scenes were a bit drawn out, but done well. The ending was like "Close Encounters" meets "X Files". I recommend seeing it because Indiana Jones is an American institution, just don't have your expectations too high.

I had dinner at the Diamond Hotel a while back and ordered the scallops. For $25 I got three small scallops in a bowl of noodles. I've had this experience before at this restaurant. For such a comfortable and warm environment, you'd expect better than this from their expensive menu.

Saturday evening I hosted "fight night" at my house. Had Chuck Epperson, his wife Nannette, Sid Walker (fiddle player extraordinaire) and his gal pal Shelly over. We watched UFC 84, a paid per view octagon fight. Afterwards we sat around and jammed for an hour or so. Three guitars, a fiddle, and everybody singing as best we could considering we had put away three bottles of cabernet (which was why nobody cared how it sounded). I've played music with Chuck and I've sparred with Chuck, did both off and on for years. Being that Chuck Epperson is a world class 7th degree black belt in Kenpo Karate with over 30 years of instruction under his belt, I can testify to the fact that it's more fun to jam with him than it is to spar with him....and a lot less painful!

Thank God spring has cycled back around again. Walked out and got the paper this morning and just stood in my driveway taking in the soft breeze ruffling thru the trees and the wind swept clouds passing overhead. The air always feels oxygenated and alive on these kind of days. Took the dogs out for a drive in my little "Ford Think", my new electric car. It only does 25 miles an hour, maybe 26 with a good tail wind, but we had a great time cruisin the streets of Amber Grove. Funny how everybody smiles and waves when your in one of those things.

I guess it's the last day of the Silver Dollar Fair. I'm so grateful that my kids are old enough that I don't have to do "fair duty" anymore. As I've said before, I'm thankful to live in a community that supports events like the Silver Dollar Fair, but even more thankful that I don't have to go there.

Well, I've still got most of the day ahead of me and not a thing I "have" to do. Aren't those the best kind of days? Since it's cool outside, I think I'll take the boys to the tree farm. My little schnauzer got bit out there by a rattlesnake last summer. He survived ok, after two days in the hospital and a $1400 vet bill. So I'm careful not to take the dogs there when it feels warm enough for the snakes to be out....but today feels safe, and it's one of our favorite things to do. So why am I sitting here writing when I could be outside in this glorious weather? Later.....

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our government has become very efficient at sanitizing war. When war is sanitized it becomes more palatable, and war should never be palatable. War should always be disgusting. War should always be an unacceptable alternative except in the most extreme situations. War should always be a last resort. A last resort for going to war is not because somebody was harboring terrorist's or lying about having certain weapons. A last resort is not going to war to get rid of a dictator or to spread democracy.

It's easy to support war if you've never been in one. It seems that the biggest proponents, the loudest voices for the war in Iraq, are coming from folks who have no idea what they are talking about. Most of them do not have any kids fighting in the war, they have never fought in a war, they have never visited the front lines of a war, they do not know or understand the violence and the horrors of which they so easily write and spout off the virtues and importance of.

I could never condone a war or be willing to send somebody else's kids to die in that war, if I was not willing to fight myself or send my own children. I do not care about age, gender, or state of health. If a situation is serious enough that people need to go and die, then we should all be ready to go and die. So I ask the question: how many of you right wing war mongers are willing to go to Iraq and die or send your children there to die or be maimed or mentally f..ked up for life! It's really a very basic primal question and if you were really honest about the answer, most of you would just shut up and quit promoting this war from the safety of your computer or radio sound booth.

I already know the right wing response to what I just said. It goes something like this....Sadam was behind 9-11. Sadam gave safe haven to terrorists. We gave Sadam every chance in the world to let the inspectors finish their job. Sadam could have just left the country and this war would have been avoided. This war is necessary to protect your family from terrorist's. We fight them there so we don't have to fight them over here. Were fighting for our freedom.

To the arm chair war mongers I ask this question. Which one of these propaganda spin lines would you die for? Which one of these lies would be worth your 20 year old skipping college to go get his left arm and right eye ball blown off of his body for?

If you or your child has ever experienced the horror of war, I will listen to your opinions. I will take serious what you have to say and consider it. In the end, I may not agree with you because being in war does not necessarily make you philosophically right about war, but still, you have earned my respect enough for me to listen. To the rest of you I say this....You don't know what you are talking about. You are like the welfare recipient advocating for higher taxes. You are like healthy 20 year old who says euthanasia is always wrong. You are like the rich person, born into wealth, who says he understands what it's like to struggle to put food on the table or pay $4 for a gallon of gas. You are like the Catholic priest who provides marriage counseling to his parishioners. You are a hypocrite and a fake. You speak of unspeakable horrors from the safety of your homes. You condone others to suffer things you can not begin to imagine because of your own gullible ignorance and arrogance. You chose to see dots connected that have never been connected. You see war as a "policy" or an "issue" and not as the ugly reality that it is. You accept this war because it has been promoted by your affiliated political party knowing damn well that had the opposite party been in power and promoted the same lies to get us into the same war with the same results, you would have been screaming foul louder than most of us from the left has about this war. You right wing arm chair war mongers disgust me as much as the perpetrators of this war because without your constant promotion of this war and your ditto head mentality of going along with everything you have been told about this war, we would not be there today. You have helped to sell this war. You have enabled this war to continue. You can keep pushing it or you can stop it. When ALL of the people have decided that enough is enough, the so called "leaders" will follow.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have this theory that every person has at least one "Super Power". OK, maybe super power isn't the proper way to describe it, maybe "special talent" or "expertise" or "awesome ability" fits better, but I prefer the term "Super Power". A "Super Power" is something you do better than anybody else you know. It's like a gift, something your just born with. It can be your special ability to attract money or women, maybe it's an ability to grow things, maybe you make people laugh just by looking at them, or maybe you have a special ability with numbers.

My mother had super powers when it came to baking. She never measured anything, she just threw stuff together, what ever she could find around the kitchen, and it always came out perfect. She did this with bread, cakes, cookies, meatloaf, and things that had no name for what it was. She did however have one flaw in her cooking....walnut shells in the cookies. Everybody knew that when grandma made cookies with walnuts in them, you proceeded very carefully with small bites chewed slowly or you might die.

I have two super powers. One of them is the ability to tell the time without looking at a clock and be right on the mark. I can even do this in the middle of the night. Often I'll wake up and guess the time before I look at the clock and I'm usually within 10 minutes of the true time. Is it genius? Is it a clock in my head? I Don't know, it's probably more like a "Rain Man" thing because I do like my underwear from K-mart, definitely gotta be K-mart.

My other super power is the ability to get great parking spaces everywhere I go, no matter how crowded it is. I can do this at the movie theatre, the Sports Club, downtown on Thursday night when there's farmers market going on, or at any crowded restaurant parking lot. It's like God always saves me a place. I don't know why He doesn't like to see me have to walk very far, but I can tell you this, He makes up for it in other areas.

This brings me to what I call "Anti Super Powers". We all have them as well. There's a part in the movie "Places in the Heart" where Sally Fields character meets up with an old friend, a black slave played by....can't remember his name. But she says to the slave...."Moses, you look real good!" The slave replies, "Yea, I got a deal with God. He lets me look good on the outside but I gotta feel real bad on the inside." So you see where I'm going with this. My greatest anti super power is picking a line to wait in. I'm talking about lines at the grocery store, movie theatre, anywhere that you have a choice as to which line you want to get in. We usually pick the shortest line, right? Well that never works for me. If I pick a line where there is two people in front of me and the other three lines all have seven or eight people, they will all get thru before I do, guaranteed every time!

My other anti super power is the ability to make my phone ring simply by picking up my guitar and getting into a good groove or sitting down to write a blog. My phone will go for hours without ringing but as soon as I start doing something where I want to be able to focus my attention, it starts ringing constantly until I'm finished with my project. It's kind of like how your door bell rings whenever you get into the shower. Some folks call these things Murphy's law. I call them anti super powers because they are more like a gift or an ability. I swear, if I'm waiting for somebody to come over and they are an hour late or I'm starting to wonder if their going to come at all, I just get in the shower, then they show up. Even if I'm not expecting company, and say I decide I want somebody to come over, I just take a shower. Me wet = door bell rings.

When I was younger, I had a lot more anti super powers than I do now, but I learned how do deal with them. I learned how to fool karma, as Earl would say. I once possessed the ability to make things disappear. I was especially good at doing this with pens, guitar picks, and reading glasses. I don't know where they went, but it seemed that no matter where I put them, when I needed one of them, they had disappeared. So I figured out a way to fool karma, and it worked. I bought 200 guitar picks, 50 ink pens, and 20 pairs of reading glasses. I scattered them around my house, on every table top and in every drawer. Problem solved. I never want for a pen, a guitar pick, or reading glasses. Once I realized how well this worked, I started doing it with anything that I needed but couldn't find. Anytime I can't find something, I go shopping. I've done this with scotch tape, scissors, telephones, Kleenex boxes, cork screws, nose spray, measuring tape, and screw drivers. In the Shaw house, you will find dozens of these things all over the place.

So when people say to me "Golly Joe, you have such an amazing power for finding parking places! How do you do it?" I respond with, "Yea, I got a deal with God. He lets me park close, but he makes up for it when I get in line!"

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In rhythm I watched the trees bend
To the song of the mighty north wind
So I grabbed me a branch
To join in the dance
All I got was a slapped on the chin

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is a true liberal? What is a true conservative? These are great questions and they need to be asked from time to time because of their constant state of flux. My Dad was a conservative man who had his own ideas and opinions on everything, and he was not afraid to express (preach) them to anybody who would listen and often, even if you didn't want to listen. My father, like so many from his generation, was a direct descendent of European immigrants. Many of these folks came here in the 19th century because they wanted more out of life than what the old country could offer, and they weren't afraid to work for it. My parents generation came along in the early 20th century. They grew up working from the time they were old enough to walk and talk, many of them being forced to drop out of school early to help make ends meet. They lived thru two world wars and the great depression, often with copious amounts of off spring to provide for. The conservative values they lived by did not come from somebody preaching to them on the radio, they were a result of their own blood, sweat, and tears, as well as having experienced hunger and poverty, not to mention the fear of what would happen had they lost the second world war.

So I understood their love of country, their respect for the flag and what it meant to them, their need for traditional family values (because those values meant survival of the family), and their devotion to religion as well as their fear of God. And I'd bet that most of the liberal baby boomers came from similar roots. And I'd also bet that most liberals of my generation still hold many of these conservative values near and dear to their hearts, I know I do.

The point I'm making here is that many of us liberals get it, we understand the conservative mind set, it's where we came from, it's a part of who we are. I understand the anger conservatives feel when they connect liberals to many of the social blunders that have taken place over the decades. I'm talking about things like illegal immigrants getting welfare and health care, over taxing working class people, political correctness getting carried away to the point that you can no longer call something what it is, too many social programs, placating terrorists and their fundamental beliefs so as not to offend anybodies religion, and expecting the government to solve all of our problems. If I thought for one second that liberals were propagating these blunders, I would drop my political party in a heartbeat!

A little history, thru my perspective....

Back in the sixties when most baby boomers were coming of age and beginning to look at the pros and cons of the conservative values we were raised with, there was a war going on, much like the war going on in Iraq today. And my generation was taking a very close look at this war because we were not only being asked to go to Vietnam and maybe die for the cause, many of us were being forced to. The problem was, nobody could give a clear reason about why we were in Vietnam. The best we could get was that we were there to stop the spread of communism. Now we were all raised being told communism was a very evil form of government. But we dared to question the motives of our government because by the middle sixties, we were also finding out that much of what we had been told up to that point in our lives by our parents, churches, government, the whole establishment, was a lie. All those wonderful values we were raised on were rideled with lies! They said the Beatles were satanic, rock and roll was evil, smoke pot and you will go insane, nuclear explosion?....no problem....just duck and cover, sit too close to the TV and you'll go blind, breast feeding was considered immoral (really!), pregnant women were given diet pills (speed) by their doctors to keep their weight down, they couldn't show toilets on family television shows (I don't know, you tell me), don't go swimming right after you eat or you'll get cramps and drown, commit a sin and go straight to hell, masturbation will make you cross eyed (now that one might have been true...I knew this kid who....never mind, doesn't matter), the point here is, if they lied about everything else, maybe they were lying about the war too.

It's no wonder that my generation took our traditional values we were raised with and threw them out the window! We experimented, we tried to create our own values.....we were right about the war, we were wrong about drugs. We were not as smart as we thought we were at the time, we screwed a lot of things up, but for the better or worse, we changed things. Some of us burned out, some went full circle and in the end found Jesus, some just got lost, but many of us, anchored by the basic moralities of right and wrong that we were raised with, went on to become the foundation of the progressive movement that has helped to shape the democratic party into what it is today. I believe the sixties was the birth of modern day liberalism.

Liberals have always stood for social justice, compassion for the poor, and middle class working families. And this has gotten us into a lot of trouble. When you take an issue like welfare (or any government give-away program), which was never meant to be a way of life or a give out to the able bodied (or illegal aliens) among us, and allow a whole beauracracy to build around the giving away of something, these agencies tend to expand and promote their own agendas, in part to justify as well as enhance their own existence, and possibly, in part, to avoid law suits. Soon they become out of control spending monsters and because they were created based on a liberal idea, the liberals end up taking the blame for the practices of these dysfunctional agencies.

Democrats see taxes as a necessary contribution we must all make in order to have highways, education, military, etc. The government is a tax and spend institution. That's what you do with taxes, you spend them. Liberals like to see our tax dollars spent back on us, the people. We create institutions within the government to do just that. That does not make liberals anymore socialist than a republican who sends his kids to public schools or calls the police in an emergency. Half of this country runs on social programs, it's how we set things up a long time ago.

The modern day liberal does not condone big government, higher taxes (on the poor and middle class), enabling dysfunctional and able bodied individuals, open borders, free social services to illegal aliens, or a weak military. We also do not respond well to being motivated by fear. We do not like being forced to live according to conservative morals. We tend to listen to science over religious dogma. We are patriotic and love our country. We think war should be a last resort. We believe in the power of negotiating. We want our government to be fiscal and operate within it's means. We think elections should be run fair. We believe that government should be criticized, analyzed, and held accountable. We believe large industry should be regulated because when left to their own devices, they will place the almighty dollar over the welfare of people every time. And we believe the environment is worth protecting at any cost.

The baby boomer liberal was raised with conservative values. Some aspects of those values were just stupid, but most of them were based on common sense, love of God and country, and survival of the family. We need to incorporate those values, the real values of honesty, integrity, and self empowerment, into the new democratic party. We need to acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them. The republican party once stood for many of those values but choose to abandon them. They allowed government to get too big, they bloated the national debt, they sided with big money, and because of the patriot act, they have ventured too far into people's personal lives. Many of the values that used to define the GOP seem to be up for grabs. If the republicans ever reconnect to those values, the real ones that have defined America and made it the greatest country on earth, and the democratic party refuses to stand up for them, I'll change my party.

Maybe I'm out of touch, maybe my philosophy of what a true liberal is, is just my own fantasy. But I hear it in Obama and I hear it in Hillary. We shall see....

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was driving down W. 8th Ave. this morning and couldn't help but notice how neglected the roundabout's have been. When they were building those a few years ago, I mentioned that they were just glorified flower pots. I was wrong....they don't even have flowers! Personally, I don't like roundabout's but since we got em, we should keep them up. The city spent millions upgrading W. 8th Ave., it doesn't make sense to leave these things go to weeds.

Why doesn't the city promote an "adopt a roundabout" program, like we do with stretches of freeway? A particular business would adopt a roundabout for a certain period of time, keep them clean with pretty things growing, and in return, the business gets to put up a sign on the roundabout.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I remember when I was growing up, how certain kids were over protective of one or both of their parents. Besides being overly protective and sensitive, they often bragged about how cool or wonderful their parents were, usually their father. It didn't take me too many years to realize that more often than not, the kids that did this had often been abandoned by that particular parent, or worse. Later in my life, I came to see this same kind of relationship with conservative folks who were overly patriotic and protective of their country. It started during the Vietnam war (or that's when I first became aware of it) with those "America, love it or leave it" bumper stickers.

In a recent blog I pondered over why we can't use force as well as dialogue in dealing with terrorists. And I have to ask the same question here....Why can't you love America, acknowledge all that is great and wonderful about it, and on the other hand, be willing to admit where we have made mistakes and be critical of policies you think are wrong. Blind patriotism gives a free ticket to our leaders to do whatever they want to as long as they put the right spin on it to make it palatable. Just as every child who has ever been abandoned or abused by a parent must sooner or later acknowledge the reality of their past before they can heal emotionally and move on, so must we as Americans be able to admit our past and present aggressions. In doing so, along with acknowledging the great things our country stands for and the good we have done around the world, we evolve from "blind patriotism" to "true patriotism".

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There is a very fundamental difference between McCain and Obama when it comes to dealing with terrorists. One says power and strength, the other says negotiate and dialogue. This could very well become the issue that most defines the difference between the left and the right in the upcoming election. Personally, I don't quite understand why this is even an issue. It should be a no-brainer.

When Obama talks about having dialogue with the enemy, he is not ruling out the use of force. When McCain talks about using force, he seems to be ruling out the use of dialogue. Why not do both? Isn't that how Kennedy got us thru the Cuban Missile crisis?....dialogue with a back up of force if needed?

We have tried the cowboy mentality. If George Bush had ever done anything right, if any of his policies proved to work, I could understand McCain saying that we need to stay on the same track, to give it more time. We need a president who realizes that the course we have been on has been a failed course and it's time we try something different. We need a change of direction, to say the least.

Personally, I don't think John McCain is going to be four more years of George Bush. I think he would be a much better president, but he would only be better at administering the same basic policies that have gotten where we are today economically and with this war in Iraq. More trickle down economics, same borrow and spend policies, ignoring the infrastructure, weak on education, weak on the environment, policies that encourage the outsourcing of jobs, no head way in promoting oil independence (other than to drill in our parks), and no new ideas to get us out of Iraq. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe he would be four more years of George Bush.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The temperatures starting to swell
It's too hot for May I can tell
Global warming perhaps
Is melting ice caps
If that's true, were all bound for hell!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The most influential state supreme court in the nation, dominated by republican appointees, has ruled in favor of gay rights advocates"....

So why would republican appointed judges rule in favor of gay marriage? Simple....to get an initiative on the ballot in November, fire up the right wing base, and get them out to vote. Why is nothing ever as it seems in politics?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dictionary.com describes "phobias" as.... "A persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous". So basically, phobias make no sense, and yet most of us have dealt with one or more of them in our life. I have had three of them. I have confronted them all, one way or another, but still they affect my life. I think I can say they have been down graded from phobia to mild fear. My three phobias were snakes, flying, and public speaking.

Fellow blogger Tina Hoover once said that all fears were based on a lie. That statement speaks volumes. My worst phobia was snakes, and it was actually my easiest to deal with once I decided that I no longer wanted to be afraid of snakes. Now first off, let me explain why I know this snake thing was a phobia and not a rational fear.... I was just as much afraid of a grass snake as I was a rattle snake. The idea of a snake hurting me had nothing to do with my fear. My fear was based on the lie that snakes were evil. I'm not sure where that lie started for me, maybe because my mother thought they were evil and passed it on in my formative years or maybe because the bible relates snakes to Satan. My personal theory why so many people have a fear of snakes is because they represent ultimate bondage. They are bonded to the earth more so than most other creatures and we, as spiritual beings, have an inner desire to break free of earthly bonds, to reach out for the heavens, to fly, and to "elevate" to a higher existence when our body dies.

Several years ago I decided that I was going to put an end to this fear. Now here I was, in my thirties, and had never touched a snake in my life. If somebody brought one into a room, I was gone in a flash. I got sweats just looking at a picture of a snake! So I carefully planned a way to deal with my fear, something that I figured would work for me. I knew a girl who had a pet python and I told her what I wanted to do and asked if she would be patient enough to work with me. This was going to take about 20 minutes by my calculations, and it did, it really worked!

She bought the snake over in a bag. Actually, I had to pick her up because she didn't have a car and we had to get the snake, which was at a friends house, who had been "snake sitting". I remember staring at the bag wiggling around on the front floor board of my truck as I drove, praying to God I didn't get into an accident and have that thing draped around my head. Later on, in the comfort of my living room, I asked her to take the snake out of the bag and just hold it while I sat across the room and watched. Once I felt comfortable with that I moved closer. Soon I was a couple of feet away, just watching how it moved around her arms. Next I put on a thick pair of ski gloves I had and touched the snake quickly with one finger. So far, so good....Soon I was stroking its long body, and after a few minutes, as she held it, I let it slide over my hands. The gloves were a great psychological factor because in my mind, I wasn't touching the snake, the gloves were. After I got used to this, I took the gloves off and started again by doing a quick touch. I remember being surprised that it's skin was actually dry and not slimy as I had always imagined. Soon it was crawling over my hands, with my friend in control holding it. I could feel how it's muscles constricted and contracted which was basically how it moved. In just a few minutes, the snake had gone from being evil to being just another animal. I remember walking around the house holding this five foot long snake saying "Look at me, I'm holding a snake!"

Of course the snake was never evil. That was just my perverted perception. They've been around on this earth longer than man has, so they belong here at least as much as I do. I still jump a little when I see a snake in the wild, but they no longer spook me like they once did. And although I can comfortably hold a snake now, I can't imagine ever having one for a pet. I'll take a dog any day over a snake.

That day I learned something about phobias. I learned that they do not have to control our life. They have as much power over us as we allow them to have. I also learned that if I could conquer one phobia, I could conquer three phobias....but that's another blog for another day.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Edwards endorsement is late
There's a reason that he had to wait
The reason you see
Is he just wants to be
The next secretary of state

Posted by Joe Shaw at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You are a "dog person" if you do at least 5 out of these 10 things for your dog/dogs........

1. Feed your dog human food/treats at least once a day.

2. Let your dog sleep on your bed.

3. Take your dog with you in the car whenever possible.

4. When you have to leave your dog at home, you explain (to your dumbass dog) in detail where your going, when you'll be back, and then you apologize for not taking him/her.

5. You skip a chance to get away for the weekend because the "right person" isn't available to watch your dog.

6. You can't walk by another dog without petting or talking to him/her.

7. Give more to animal causes than to human causes.

8. Leave the air conditioning or heater on all day for your dog when he/she is home alone.

9. Put bottled water in their water bowl instead of tap water.

10. Besides his/her regular name, your dog has a last name and at least two nicknames.

I must confess, I do all ten, that's how I came up with these. I really gotta get a life.....

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hillary's lost all her clout
It's time for her to drop out
So get over your trauma
Step aside for Obama
And go home to New York and pout

Anybody got one to share?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's another year of war
And I still don't know what it's for
What started as billions
Is turning to trillions
Can we afford to keep spending more?

Posted by Joe Shaw at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's another year of election
The economies lost it's direction
The republicans push
For another like Bush
There must be a better selection

Posted by Joe Shaw at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems that every place I've lived in Chico I have had the barking dog curse. They are always next door or right behind me. I'm not talking about dogs that bark every now and then for a few minutes and then shut up, I'm talking about dogs that bark for hours at a time. I've oftened wondered what these dog owners would think, how tolerable would they be, if I went outside and started screaming "hey, hey, hey" as loud as I could? They'd call the cops on me in a heartbeat, and rightfully so. The thing is, even if I did that, I still wouldn't be as loud or wall piercing as their screaming canines. So why is one acceptable and the other is not?

I have complained to neighbors about their barking dogs in the past. Sometimes I have gotten results and often I have been ignored. I have never called animal control because I believe neighbors should be able to work out their differences without getting authorities involved. Maybe it was my own guilt over the noise I put my own neighbors thru back in the seventies when, in the ignorance of my youth, I used to have band practice in my living room, and we were loud. Maybe on some level I have felt it was my karma, later in life, to be on the receiving end of noise pollution. But then again, back in the seventies, we always got the cops called on us.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I turned Shaun Hannity on this afternoon as I was driving around, just to get my periodic dose of right wing....what's the right word here....stop and think....be nice....talk! Yea, right wing talk. Anyway there's a caller debating him about the Reverend Wright comments and Shaun is really taking Obama to task over things his former minister has said....we all know the story, right? When Shaun is finished ranting, the caller asks him what he feels about Rush Limbaugh and his "campaign chaos". Just to explain if you haven't heard.... Rush has been getting his brain dead ditto heads to vote for Hillary in the primaries in order to keep the primaries going right up to the end and hopefully have a democratic melt down at the end because of how close the two candidates will have been....typical Karl Rove right wing underhanded politics at it's worst.. So anyway, the caller asks Shaun his feelings about Rush doing this and Shauns reply was...." Rush is just practicing free speech." Oh, I see. And were supposed to take these guys serious? Shauns statement is so ridiculous on so many levels, I don't even feel like spelling it out.

I am bound and determined to keep my cool during this election. But when I hear stuff like this, it gets hard to keep quiet. I've just got to quit reading and listening to right wingers.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's always a risk to try something new, propose a new idea, or suggest anything that goes against the status quo. But aren't we lucky that there have been folks throughout history who have done just that. They have always been the bold few among the masses who did not listen to smaller minds. These innovators, scientists, authors, artists, adventurers, explorers, inventors, musicians, philosophers, and new age thinkers were not swayed by the closed minded masses who did not have the capacity to understand their vision. Had it not been for those bold visionaries who were not swayed by ridicule and harassment, we would still be living in the dark ages.

And the thing is, even though we understand history and what many of these individuals (progressives) endured to enlighten and advance the world, we still continue to ridicule new ideas just because we don't understand them or because they threaten to change the established "truth" that we are comfortable with. As the saying goes, you can't put a 10 pound idea in a 5 pound brain. But isn't it funny how 5 pound brains eventually accept the results of the 10 pound ideas once they are proven or after the finished product has won mainstream acceptance. They have to accept them at this point or they would be the ones who stand outside of the mainstream or status quo and that is a place that closed minded thinkers are not comfortable being in.

It is a fact that when you approach a new idea, try out a new theory, or test a whole new way of doing something, you are going to be wrong sometimes, you make mistakes, you get lost, and you hit walls. A true visionary is never discouraged by failure, but rather encouraged to try a different approach. Sooner or later they get it right or sometimes their just plain wrong and they never figure it out. Sometimes they take an idea so far and then it's left to somebody else later on to carry it further. The 5 pound folks are always quick to jump on the failures of the visionaries with their "I told you so" mentality because they do not have the vision to see what possibilities lie behind the failures plus it is very important for them to be vindicated so they can continue to justify their own lack of vision and limited imagination.

Mainstream thinkers are victims of their own illusions. They say that they are open to progress and new ideas, and in a way, they are. Their illusion is this.... they do not realize that they are really only open to the progress and ideas that are within the perimeters of what already is mainstream acceptable i.e. advancements in cancer research, new types of televisions, new wireless technologies, etc. But when it comes to areas that require a philosophical or spiritual change of view, they draw the line, that is until the unthinkable becomes the thinkable. For example....40 years ago yoga, meditation, herbal nutrition, hypnotherapy, and chiropractic healing were considered new age boloney, but now that they have proven themselves, they are mainstream acceptable. So the question is, were the ones who pioneered these areas 40 years ago kooks because they were defined as kooks or was it the ones doing the defining who were in reality defining themselves as reality challenged, denigrating, play it safe, sightless simpletons who lacked imagination and vision. They walk among us still.

So before we ridicule things like quantum physics and string theory that postulates that there is nothing solid in the universe and that intelligence may be permeating the whole fabric of existence, or reincarnation, plant consciousness, water crystals, flying saucers, multi dimensions of reality, tree huggers, auras, the healing (as well as the destructive) power of harmonics and vibrations, animal intelligence, psychics healers, astral projection, plant fairies, or anything else that threatens our comfort zone of reality, it might do us some good to remember that there was a time when much of what is now known or accepted as truth was just as far out an idea as many of these things are today.

And here's the thing....a lot of new age and progressive ideas may, in time, prove to be a bunch of crap. But we don't know what we don't know, therefore we shouldn't be too quick to ridicule something just because it challenges our set beliefs. Just as the Greek mathematician Erotosthenes knew and was able to prove the earth was round over 2,200 years ago, there are those among us now, as there always was and always will be, who understand things that many of us believe to be absurd. That is, until the absurd becomes the acceptable, thanks to those who have the vision, fortitude, and courage to manifest the absurd into mainstream acceptable realities.

One last point....Timothy Leary was a visionary when he said 40 years ago that the whole world should get high on drugs, but his vision proved to be wrong. Al Gore has a vision about global warming. George Bush has a vision about Iraq. Visions need to stand the test of time. I may one day eat crow over my belief in global warming or my stance against the war in Iraq. I honestly hope I do. I want to be wrong about global warming and I want some good to come from the war in Iraq. My views of today, like anybody who has a view or a vision, may prove to be sightless and dimwitted in some areas, and visionary in others. I try to keep an open mind. However, I speak out vehemently against the war because George Bush's vision involves other people dying, not to protect our country, but to promote his own agenda which seems to change every few months. Visions and agendas cannot be justified when other people have to die for them.

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dr. Masura Emoto, author of "The Hidden Messages in Water", has been experimenting with and photographing water crystals. He freezes water from different sources like lakes, ponds, rivers, as well as different types of drinking waters and then photographs the individual ice crystals. What he has found is that the purer the water, especially water from sources where it is in constant motion like a river or a stream, makes for more luminous and defined crystals than waters from stagnant sources or even chlorinated water. He has even experimented with applying different types of music as well as saying different phrases to a glass of water before freezing and photographing it. Water that has been exposed to classical music or to positive words like "love", "health", or "energy" make better crystals than water that has been cussed at or exposed to heavy metal music.

This has to be significant when you consider that our bodies are made up mostly of water. Our muscles are 75% water, our blood is 82% water, our lungs are 90% water, our brain is 76% water, and even our bones are 25% water. We all know that stress, emotions, and much of what is going on with us mentally affects how we feel physically. If water is changed by how we think or by being exposed to different types of vibrations, could it be that water is the connection between these things and our health?

Reading this book made me think about the ancient tradition of blessing water. I used to make fun of "Holy Water", or the idea that a priest could spout off a couple of Latin phrases over some water and somehow that made the water "holy". Now I'm wondering if there isn't some degree of truth to this ritual.

Dr. Batmanghelidj, who has been experimenting with the health benefits of water for years, has found that pain can oftened be cured just by drinking two glasses of water. He experimented with over 3,000 people and had positive results with every one of them. He believes that Unintentional Chronic Dehydration (UCD) contributes to and even produces pain and many degenerative diseases, which he says can be prevented and treated by increasing water intake on a daily basis. It sounds too simple, too easy to be true, but his contention is that the medical establishment suppresses this knowledge because there isn't any profits in it. That wouldn't surprise me. I also tend to trust his research because he isn't selling anything....not bottled water, not purifiers, nothing....he's just trying to get this information available to the public. Here's a link to his web site....WaterCure | The Miracles of Water to Cure Diseases

I never was one to carry a bottle of water around with me everywhere I went. However, after a bout with kidney stones a few years back, I can say that I take my water intake more seriously these days. And I can honestly say that since I have been drinking more water, I rarely get sick anymore.

Here's another testimony to the healing properties of water I would like to share with anybody who is open enough to try something new....About 20 years ago, during the summer, I had a flu/cold type of thing going on that I just couldn't shake. I'd get better for a while and then it would come back, it went on for weeks. One afternoon I went with some friends to Butte Creek for a dip. I remember how good it felt to just sit out in the creek and let the water run over my neck and back. I did this for about 30 minutes and when we left the creek I immediately noticed that my flu symptoms were gone....and they stayed gone. A few years later it happened again, a cold that just wouldn't leave. So remembering my last cure by sitting in a creek, I decided to try it again, only this time I went to Chico Creek because it was closer. I didn't care if the cure was psychosomatic or whatever, if it worked once, it might work again. Well guess what? It didn't work. A few days later I decided I would try going to Butte Creek instead because that was where I was cured the last time. And guess what? Instant cure again! 30 minutes sitting in the Butte Creek fixed me right up, knocked out the cold and fever. Of course this only works if your sick in the summer time. I think I would take sickness over sitting in the Butte Creek in the winter time.

So what is it about the Butte Creek? And why a creek? I know there is gold in the Butte Creek and there is not in Chico Creek. Could it be the minerals? Could it be the colloidal properties of the minerals that allow them to penetrate your skin because of their small size? I don't know, but I know that it has always worked for me. For the last month or so I've been dealing with a sore and swollen foot. I've had a blood test and x-rays and everything checks out OK. So this morning I decided to try the magic creek cure. This was my first day of soaking my foot in Butte Creek. I'm going to try soaking it everyday for a week and see if I get results....I'll keep you posted.

Italy has it's famous healing waters of Fatima. France has it's healing waters of Lourdes. I think we might have the same thing right here in Butte county. If anybody who reads this tries getting a healing in Butte Creek, I would very much like to hear about your results, if any. In the meantime....we should all develop a drinking habit!

Posted by Joe Shaw at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It seems that as we age, we settle deeper into habit's we've been cultivating our whole life. For example: I never did care much for parties or going places where there were crowds. Now mind you, I am not a shy person and I don't have any phobia's about being in crowds, it's just that these kind of events bore me. And it seems that the older I get the more they bore me.

I thank my lucky stars every year when the Silver Dollar fair comes around that my kids are old enough that I don't have to go there any more. I also avoid new years eve parties, most parties, mixers, street fairs, parades, food fairs, craft shows, just about anything where I have to fight my way thru shoulder to shoulder crowds. Now I understand that many of these events are good for Chico, and I appreciate living in a community that supports them. I also appreciate my freedom of choice to avoid them.

I'll tell you what my thing is with parties. Nobody talks about anything important at parties. Small talk is boring. Have you ever noticed when there is a group of people, small or large, having a conversation, how the conversation cannot elevate any higher than the most dimwitted of the group? You can be having a great discussion about politics or religion and then some idiot who is bored with the conversation (or just isn't getting it) will quickly change it over to sports or their aunt Martha's medical condition? When that happens, everybody has to pay attention out of common courtesy and the more interesting conversation that was going on gets lost. Group conversations flow kind of like water, always seeking the lowest common ground.

The thing about large gatherings is my sensitivity to vibrations, or group consciousness. Everybody feels this, some more so than others. It's like walking the runway at the Silver Dollar Fair and feeling the "crankster trailer trash vibe". It's not everybody, but still, it gets overwhelming. I think a lot of it is from the people working the fairs. Side note....I've always found it amazing that we trust the safety of our children when they go on these rides to the toothless cranksters who are working the controls as well as having assembled the rides! But in all fairness, I have to say that maybe it's not that way at fairs anymore, it's been a lot of years since I've been to any....On the other hand, I've experienced many gatherings where you look around and think to yourself, "Now these are my kind of people." I've felt that at events like the farmers market on Saturday mornings, a Moody Blues concert in Sacramento, or sometimes even in a crowded coffee shop. I don't think I would feel that at the Silver Dollar Races, a monster truck show in Redding, or a rodeo in Red Bluff. Not that they are "bad" people in anyway, there's just a group consciousness there that does not resonate with me.

Even when you "resonate" with a crowd, there's still the fact that you have to put up with being in a crowd. And like I said, the older I get, the more I try to avoid the crowd experience. Am I getting too set in my ways? Maybe. I like to think of it more like....life is too short to waste it on experiences that don't do anything for me, or....the older I get, the more I know what I like and what I don't like and I don't want to waste my time on what I don't like. To me it's not about how many experiences I can have but rather refining my life's experiences. It's not about the quantity of people I'm around but rather being with quality people. And this also applies to music, food, games, movies, just about every aspect of life. Life is about change and the law of change says that as you loose something, you gain something. Indeed we loose a lot of things as we age, but hopefully the things we gain out weigh in value the things we loose.

Posted by Joe Shaw at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sugar and Kato were middle aged canines when their "human" parents got married and moved their two families into one household. It was Sugar who came into Kato's world, a large house on a hillside of oaks and trails that sloped down to Butte Creek. Kato, a large male Akito, was slow at first to accept Sugar, who was a smaller gentle female. The first day he did one of those non-biting loud vicious attacks that male dogs do to establish their dominance. But Sugar, being of the superior gender, wasn't phased. She probably had a plan (or I'm just demonstrating my own inability to understand women) because soon she had Kato showing her the ropes.

It didn't take long before the two became inseparable. With Butte Creek out their back door and acres of property to run on, they spent their days exploring and playing. Although they were best friends, Sugar let Kato know right from the start that her toys were off limits. She created a hiding spot for her toys inside a hallowed out tree on the property. Kato tried every now and then to get to them, but Sugar wouldn't allow it, it was the one rule she had with Kato.

It didn't too many years for time to start catching up with Sugar and Kato. Last July Kato, who was 13 at the time, suffered a stroke. His family found him on the floor, half conscious, with Sugar beside him, crying like a baby. They rushed him to the vet, but because of his age and the damage from the stroke, it was advised that Kato be put to sleep. The family brought him back home to bury him on the property.

Sugar knew what had happened and was still crying when they brought Kato home. They took him down the hill and buried him by the creek. The next morning Sugar was nowhere to be found. After walking the property and calling for her, they checked down by the creek and found her laying on the soft dirt where Kato had been buried the day before. She stayed there the rest of the day.

The next morning Sugar left the house early to go visit Kato, but she made a stop on the way. She retrieved one of her toys from the hallow where she had hid them from Kato and took it with her, where she gently dropped it on Kato's grave. She spent the rest of the day there and when she left that evening to go back to the house, she left the toy. This became a daily ritual and soon all of her toys were spread out on Kato's grave site. Sugar grieved this way for several weeks. By the end of the summer she wasn't going to the grave as often, but she never took her toys back home.

Recently Sugar got a new friend in her life. Cali is a sweet energetic female pup who was rescued from the shelter. Thanks to Cali, Sugar is running around again looking and acting much younger than her 14 years.
I just met Sugar and Cali last week when my company started painting their home, out along the Butte Creek. I was almost in tears as their "human" mother was telling me the story of Sugar grieving Kato and why she adopted Cali. I haven't made the trek down to the creek yet to see Kato's resting place, but since we will be working there for a week or two, I'm sure I will. The Mom tells me there's still a couple of balls lying on Kato's grave. The rest of the toys have been swept away by nature over the last several months.

This story reminds me of how human-like animals can be. They grieve, they feel emotions, and they can have long term memories. If we all understood animals better, if we were more aware of the connection we share with them, that life force we have in common, the force that lights all of us up, perhaps we would treat them better. Perhaps we would realize that they are not here only to serve man, but to share the earth with man. Perhaps we would take our responsibility to the environment more serious. And just maybe, in the not too distant future, we will live in a world where there are no rodeos, no circus animals, no zoos, no bullfights, no cock fights, no dog fights, no animal testing, and maybe even a lot less of them on our dinner plates. Maybe....but I'm not holding my breath.

OK, so I'm using Sugar's story here, in part, to promote my own agenda of animal rights, it's a writers prerogative. But getting back to Sugar....I find myself looking forward to going to the job everyday where I am met with a wagging tail and a furry little smile. No I'm not talking about Howard, my on the job supervisor, I'm talking about Sugar. She's a sweet old soul, and I'm serious, you can really see her smiling! I hope Sugar has many happy days left, running and playing in the summer sun with her new friend Cali, before she is laid to rest along side of Kato, down by the creek. If there's a doggy Heaven, and I know there is, Kato's probably waiting patiently for his friend. In time Kato, in time....right now Sugar's busy.... she has to find a new hallow to hide her new toys from that pesky Cali....

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Posted by Joe Shaw at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)