I am hanging out outside with Bridgette and Paul and a couple others, we're in California. Suddenly Bridgette says, "watch out, it's coming." No one really knows what to think at her random outburst, then the ground begins to shake. A small earthquake. No one is hurt. I don't even wonder that Bridgette seemed to be able to predict it before it came. A little while later we're somewhere not too far from there, we can see the ocean. Again Bridgette says, "it's coming." This time I know what to expect, and my heart starts beating a triple beat. I throw myself on the ground and try to brace myself. The whole world begins to move. The sound is deafening. This one is much different from the other which had lasted ten seconds and only rumbled beneath my feet. As I try to keep still and braced, a great tearing crash seems to erupt from directly underneath me. I am moving now, sliding. I look to where I am headed and see a massive cleft in the world. Like in the cartoons, I am scrabbling wildly to find a handhold. Another crash behind me and the world tilits once more. I am still sliding but in a different direction. When I turn my gaze to my new destination I realize that I am trapped completely and will soon end up spiralling away to the center of the earth. And then I start awake. My heart is truly pounding in my chest. I am totally freaked out and have to intentionally calm myself to find my way to slumber again. And I wonder, can Bridgette really do that?

I will admit this comes from an Artvoice cover story so is maybe less than creative journalism on my part, but it is still worth mentioning. A US official in Iraq wrote this memo to his superior officer, outlining some of the critical flaws in US policy before and after our so-called victory: . It is definately a good read. The summary article by Jason Vest does an excellent job of summing everything up: . Basically it reveals just how precarious our position in Iraq is today, and perhaps more tellingly, how many high-ranking officials within and outside of the Bush Administration accurately predicted the many shortfalls of our plans. We have fucked up big time, and unfortunately it is the Iraqis (and our enlisted men and women) who are to ultimately pay the price. I can only hope, though without much optimism, that the omens of Vietnam we see and hear everyday don't become reality.

Choice advocates from around the country gathered in Washington DC to voice there opposition to Bush and his anti-choice views. It was the largest gathering of its kind since Roe v Wade was first argued before the Supreme Court in 1973.

Key issues included:

-The winner of the 2004 presidential election could be responsible for appointing two or more Supreme Court justices, and abortion rights supporters fear Roe v. Wade could be overturned if President Bush fills those vacated seats with like-minded conservative justices.

-Last November, Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, a law to end certain late-term abortions.

-President Bush signed into law April 1 the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which states that when a criminal act causes harm to a pregnant woman the suspect can be charged with a crime against the fetus as well.

This one's a "classic" and everything. Whoo-hoo. The Immoralist by Andre Gide is a tale of a wealthy young intellectual who experiences a near-fatal illness and then begins to see life from a much altered perception. He questions subjects such as morals, culture, and art and begins to wonder if what he has been taught to understand about life has any bearing on actually living. Despite it's "classic" status it was an enjoyable short (only about 100 pgs.) read. Instead of rambling more, I will offer a few of the passages that struck me as especially prescient. The work is presented in first person as the narrator, Michel, describes the adventures of the last couple years of his life to old friends, therefore unless indicated these are the musings of his mind as he progresses on his journey.

-on poets, philosophers, and such:

"At first I hoped to find a somewhat more direct understanding of life in some novelists and some poets; but, if they possessed that understanding, I must confess they hardly showed it; it seemed to me as if most of them weren't living at all, but were contented with seeming to live, and almost considered life as an annoying obstacle to living. And I couldn't blame them for it; and I won't affirm that the mistake wasn't on my side.... Anyway, what did I mean by "living"? That is exactly what I would have liked someone to tell me. This group and that spoke deftly, about the various happenings of life, never about what motivates those happenings.
As for the few philosophers, whose role it would have been to instruct me, I had known for some time what I could expect from them; whether mathematicians or Neo-Kantians, they kept as far away as possible from reality, which might disturb them, and were no more concerned with it than the algebraist is with the real existence of the quantities that he measures."

-and on what they were/should be (this one comes from a man who has already "learned" of real life as Michel now understands it to be:

"'Do you know what makes dead letters of poetry and especially philosophy today? It's because they're detached from life. Greece created idealism directly out of living reality; so that an artist's life was already a poetic accomplishemt in itself; a philosopher's life was an activation of his philosophy; so that, in addition, mingling with life instead of being unaware of one another, philosophy nourished poetry, poetry expressed philosophy, and they had remarkable powers of persuasion. Today beauty no longer acts, action is no longer concerned with being beautiful; and wisdom operates on its own.'"

and more about the same topic (ie: intellectuals in general):

"...most of them think they can't derive anything good from themselves except by restraint; they're only satisfied with themselves when they're disguised. Each one strives to resemble himself least of all. Each one chooses a pattern, then imitates it; in fact, they don't even choose the pattern they imitate, they accept one that's already chosen. And yet, I think, other things can be read in man. No one dares to. They don't dare to turn the page. Laws of imitation; I call them laws of fear. People are afraid of finding themselves alone, and they don't find themselves at all. This moral agoraphobia is hateful to me; it's the worst kind of cowardice. And yet it is only when alone that people are inventive. But who here is trying to be inventive? Whatever a man feels to be different in himself is precisely the rare thing he possesses, the thing that constitutes each man's wotrh - and it's that very thing they try to eradicate. They imitate. And they claim to love life!'"

-on culture:

"'...I depicted artistic culture as an emanation from a given people, like a secretion that at first is diagnostic of a plethora, a superabundance of health, then immediately co
ng
eals and hardens, cutting off all direct contact between the mind and nature, hiding the diminution of life beneath the persistent semblance of life, an unyielding sheath in which the confined spirit languishes and soon withers, then dies. Finally, carrying my train of thought to the extreme, I stated that culture, which is born of life, becomes the killer of life."

-this can't be the first time it was said, but:

"'A man thinks he owns things, and it's he who is owned..."

In all, this book is much more than a description of Michel's attempt to rid himself of morals. The word "morality" is used to express everything made by man and constrained by man's rules. Michel constantly bumps into these rules and by breaking them reaches a state of being he never expected to encounter. Alas, once there he finds that living without the rules is, while more pleasureable at times, more difficult by far than conforming. Where does the purpose of living come from if not from society? Searching for one's own answer to that question is perhaps the end in itself. I automatically distrust those who claim they've already found it (or at least more than partial bits of truth), isn't there always more? And I exit with a nod to Michel as he utters this last query to his listeners, a pessimistic ending if ever, but one that reveals that for all of Michel's so-called immorality, he still bears some burden, if not quite guilt, for his knowledge.

"What frightens me, I confess, is that I'm still very young. I sometimes feel as if my real life hasn't begun yet. Rescue me from this place now and give me reasons for living. I can no longer find any. I've won freedom, possibly, but what for? I'm suffering from this freedom that has no purpose. Believe me, it's not because I'm worn out by my crime, if you wish to call it that - but I must prove to myself that I didn't claim more than what was due to me."

Let's rock out!