The New York Times is often described as being our nation's paper of record, meaning that it is trusted above all others to deliver the news of the day. They have recently suffered many blows, the most covered being the Jason Blair "scandal". The truth is that Jason Blair was the least of their problems. In a self-accusatory article (you need a membership), the Times has tried to come-clean over it's coverage of the Iraqi WMDs. Since the prewar attempts of the Administration to build the case for war they have been on the bandwagon, parroting lines and calling on official sources as often as possible. One of their top correspondents, Judith Miller (Democracy Now! has been talking about her for months and months now), was at the forefront, delivering "news" about the developing story. One of her most frequent sources was Ahmad Chalabi the now scandal-ridden friend of Bushco who has apparently taken everybody for a ride. The question now is whether this will incite some real change. Was the admission of guilt a lame excuse to soothe ruffled feathers or is it the precursor to a new-era of truth-telling? We shall see, though as usual I have little optimism.

I am being deliciously devoured by the tongue of Hermann Hesse. He makes me ache. I truly hear the surly call of waves splashing their foamy essence upon kelp-encrusted rocks. I fly with the gaze of a young man finding his soul in opal-green glaciers. The boom of reverberating waterfalls cleanses my soul of worldly tedium.

I used to sit in the park for hours and read this one short story (novelle to be exact) over and over. It was called Iris. Everyone should read it, though I can't guarantee that the English translation delivers its true beauty. It's the only story that I've read out loud to myself. He writes so beautifully that I need to hear each word roll off my tongue to savor its meaning and relation to the text. The first whole part is solely composed of a boy experiencing the delights of his mother's garden. As the name implies, he is particularly obsessed with the iris. He stares into the depths of its goblet and imagines himself transported into a fairy realm, walking between the rows of golden stamen to reach the farthest reaches, where unspeakable glory is enthroned. It's a moral of growing up, of learning the lessons of childhood, forgetting them while gaining adult experience, and realizing that what was lost is the only thing worth living for. Just thinking about it takes me to such a special happy place... ahhhh. Bliss, true bliss.

cursion, that is. My long semi-lost friend Brian has reappeared in the localhood. He is performing in a little town called Auburn, just a hop, skip, and 100 miles from here. He's doing a fabulous rendition, I'm sure, of Forever Plaid, a whimsical musical comedy taking you down memory lane, that is, if you're over 50. The show was sold out by the time we got there so we had to forgo the pleasure. We did have a very fun minication in an obscure region in Western NY. I have to pause for a minute, thundastorms are ablarin'. Back in a jiff.

Wow, the booms and crackles are amazing. Very stormy lately, we drove through one last night on our way back from Syracuse. Anyways, we picked Brian up in Auburn and went to eat in Skaneatles (prounounced: skan-atlas), which is a little finger-lake resortish town with many orange-dyed yuppies in mini-skirts and prom-decked teens. We ate at a place overlooking the lake which was quite pleasant; food wasn't half bad and the beer was pretty tasty. We got back to Auburn and had a couple hours to spare and decided to hop on down to Syracuse to do a little bar-hoppin'. We got to one bar and it was raining and Syracuse appeared to be an even more run down town than Buffalo so we headed home. We spent the night on the floor, it was not as fun as it sounds.

The next morning I said tootle-oo and break-a-leg
to Brian and we headed home. It was good seeing someone one from so long ago. We had such strange memories and gossips to share: who's married, pregnant, divorced, gay, in music, alcoholic...etc. Old friends are good to have. We decided to jaunt over to Seneca Falls because Paul insisted we had seen it and it was great. I remembered it only vicariously through its historical significance as playing a major role in the "women's movement". We got there and it was a nice enough town but there weren't any falls to speak of. We drove a while and realized we were halfway to Ithaca and I remembered what Paul was talking about: Taughannock Falls. This is actually pretty cool. It's a gorge right outside of Ithaca that was shaped by glaciers in the ice-age (so the placcard illuminates). They are the longest falls in NE America. Whoopie. We got a couple pics. Matt took most of them and claims copyright, so look to his journal.

Overall it was a great weekend. It really felt like a vacation even though it was just a weekend. Not too expensive, not too far, just perfect. Now, of course, it's back to the grind. At least I have fond weekend memories to carry me through.

Look out belooooowwww! Ker-splat! What is it? a little pigeon shit on your shoulder? Nope, it's the germ-warfare suicide pigeon . This is way cool. From the makers of James Bond we get the latest in the arsenal of stupid military tactics...

"The project was one of several suggested by the committee, which included at least four daring new uses for the pigeons in the event of a new, and probably nuclear, war. Military planners recommended: "A) Modernisation of balloon equipment for drifting pigeons silently into heavily defended areas. b) Possible dropping of pigeons by rocket. c) Training of pigeons to fly into searchlights armed with an explosive charge. d) Pigeons (plus foil or suitable equipment) used for radio location interference."

Here is my artistic rendering of a suicide-bomber pigeon:

bad taste, I know :)

I also like that the faq page is now in the front, kinda welcoming-like, but think that maybe the page should be subdivided so you can read about it, but also find out What's New. That way it's good for oldies and newbies alike.

the man at zoar, wasn't killed [inlink]paul,914[/inlink], but jumped to his death . They found a suicide note at his house and his parents said he had a history of depression. Well, I am glad at least that it wasn't a murder, since it's our favorite place to go in the summer. What a way to go. A few seconds of flight. If I ever killed myself I think I would do something similar, maybe out of a plane though.

Also, the black pastors defending "traditional" marriage from gay attack make me sick [inlink]paul,915[/inlink] [inlink]terry,119[/inlink]. The right to marry isn't a civil right? What about the right to marry a white woman if you want? Would you pastors mind if that right was denied you? It's just disgusting to me when minorities fight against each other when we should be together fighting the system keeping us all down.

Liz your dream sounds freaky. Especially the part about grandma. She shouldn't be hanging out in your scary dreams, she should be knitting and baking pies, not scaring you at the foot of the bed.

I had a dream this morning involving two other estrippers, paulnotpaul and trisha. It was very strange. We were packing or something, more like not packing since we kept forgetting what we were doing. The weirdest part of the dream was that paulnotpaul was wearing my body and i was wearing his. I don't know why, just that it was true. It wasn't quite fair cause he (in my body) was naked and I had clothes on. Anyway we were trying to pack the stuff and there seemed to be more and more stuff. Oh yeah Ronnie was somehow in the dream too and she had these white furry raver-type pants that she gave me. And trisha and I held them on top of the refreigerator and painted them jellow with spray paint so that I could wear them. Somehow the dog got into the paint and turned it all red (on the top of the refrigerator mind you) but then it was cool cause the red and yellow kinda looked like some strange cubist painting.