The Discipling Dilemma
This book tells the true story of the fraud that is the icoc, or as i refer to it, the "kip mckean and cohorts cult."
- posted by barbara @ 12/27/2002 11:39:00 AM  0 comments

 

My daughter Bekah and me, april 1980

a blessed holiday to all...:)
- posted by barbara @ 12/25/2002 12:10:00 AM

 
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Music | Clash star Strummer dies

News after all. I blogged it because this story doesn't mention my personal favorite, "Train in Vain."
- posted by barbara @ 12/24/2002 09:42:00 AM  0 comments

 
happy birthday to my sister!

happy holidays to everyone!

no time to blog! must shop! must wrap! must be awake for many many many hours!

have a happy hippy christmas y'all...:)

Peace on Earth Good Will Toward All
- posted by barbara @ 12/24/2002 09:32:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sportmart Paintball Buyer's Guide
what andy wants for christmas. do you think it'll be like computers, and get cheaper over the years?
- posted by barbara @ 12/21/2002 07:28:00 AM  0 comments

 

wet wet
- posted by barbara @ 12/17/2002 02:48:00 PM

 
FREE Stichomancy Readings
what i rolled today:
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland:
let it drop. The one whose cash rolled farthest away took it up and threw it against the wall in such a way as to make it bound back as far as possible. Each did this in turn. The one whose cash bounded farthest, then took it up, and with his foot on the place whence he had taken it, he pitched or threw it in turn at each of the others. Those he hit he took up. When he missed one, all who remained took up their cash and struck the wall again, going through the same process as before. The one who wins is the one who takes up most cash.

and this afternoon bekah's father and i were persuaded to let the bars out of the suit for what seems almost an insult. the law says what it says, and the bar owners and bar flies in san pedro, california, are not paradigms of honesty and virtue. i mean that's just my experience.

i've been working; outside, it's been raining. where am i? in 9 days it will be christmas. then the day after that, it'll be over again. for 18 years i worked at a small glass shop in Gardena, where we gathered daily at a card table in the shop for lunch. one december 26th back in the day, when i had plastic and all and the living room was half carpeted in presents because i spent about ten percent of my annual income on christmas, i felt so clever and witty when i reminded my coworkers, "Only 364 days left to shop!"
:)
bekah and her older brother back in the day, probably 1984
- posted by barbara @ 12/16/2002 08:46:00 PM

 
FREE Stichomancy Readings
i practice stichomancy as a means more of meditation than divination. shakespeare hasat some point. i'm sifting through ashes seeking gems. courting wisdom looking to recover all the way to vital and happy. and it's easy to go off on tangents. 'nough fo been incredibly insightful for me, and many is the time i have opened my shakespeare to a sonnet or a passage that spoke directly to what was troubling or unsettling me at that time.
on christmas 1999, Bekah gave me a "Deepak Chopra Desk Calendar." every day has a [supposedly] pithy quote from one of the most popular coffee table gurus around. since she was murdered i write much of my diary as a letter to my daughter...when fallow, or feeling empty about what to write, i open up the calendar to a random page.
is it ironic? or just kind of funny...as philosophy or even pop psychology, does he attempt theosophy? [and what exactly is the meaning of the word theosophy?] chopra is exceedingly weak at providing insight meaningful to a bereft mother of a murder victim. some of the quotes have left me essentially contemptuous because of their "all is well with the world" basis. it is as if in chopra's universe there is no such thing as murder.
but that's okay, because the point often is also just to vent. too much rage and angst and grief is taxing to the body and the mind and possibly even the soul...though that last, i believe and certainly hope i am right, is up to that soul.
in other words i have much rage and angst and grief. but for my soul i want to overcome with love. make the grief smaller than me, so that i can live, really live, in peace with it...allow the rage to dissipate without destruction of anything being necessary to that...grow into my angst and let it grow into the sorrow of the spirit's true wisdom.
i've been through some hard times in my life. probably the single thing i like the most about myself is that i have always made the effort to learn and to grow from my experience no matter how painful it was. i've sincerely tried to reflect clearly on every why for every terrible thing or situation i've ever found myself in, and have not disowned my own culpability when it became clear to me [not always right away].

bekah's death. that is the hardest thing ever, and i cannot seriously imagine anything worse happening. if i lost another child that would make it worse for me - but if i had to lose a child ever at all not one of my four children being that one could make it any worse or any better. sometimes i make a point of how i lost my "only" girl, but in reality if any one of my three sons had died instead of bekah it would not be better. they all own all of me, all of my love and devotion, forever. if the circumstances of her death were different it might ameliorate or exacerbate my suffering to an extent, but only to an extent. because people were not meant to bury their children.

i was going to transcribe what i wrote to bek the other day...and i will r now

bekah in the news ,,,
- posted by barbara @ 12/16/2002 11:57:00 AM

 
Where Justice, Where Eternity

Eternity shines Just at the next
Crook in the road,
Don’t you know?
Justice shrinks manipulated
By humans
Allergic to Time
Falling clumsily over
Large stacks of green
And shies into Eternity –
There she reigns Justice and
Her dispensement is
Warm.


contemplation
© Barbara Bales 2002
- posted by barbara @ 12/15/2002 06:49:00 AM

 
MANUEL MARCOPULOS LOPEZ III
a beautiful poem by Kahlil Gibran speaks to me this day...thank you eleni. Manny's mom.
Love. Peace. If i did not believe in love i could not hope for peace. Hope lives somehow, don't ask ME how.

- posted by barbara @ 12/13/2002 12:41:00 PM

 
COURTTV.COM - TRIALS
In CA, the term "abandoned and malignant heart" is found in the definition for second degree murder. I find it amazing that in our society the actions of this man are not found patently to be those of an "abandoned and malignant heart."
how many innocents have to die? in group a couple weeks ago another bereaved mother and i were saying out loud what we had both wondered to ourselves: maybe every person will have to know this loss before things change. maybe every family will have to know from the inside what it feels like to lose a young, beautiful, intelligent, innocent son or brother daughter, mother, sister, father, before things begin to change.

i dunno. just wish they'd change already.


Rebekah-Marie Bales Zask
07-06-80 to 07-19-01
King Solomon: Justice will never be achieved until those who are not injured by crime are as indignant as those who are."
- posted by barbara @ 12/10/2002 10:12:00 AM

 
You LIve Your Life As If It's Real
Happy 40th Birthday to a wonderful writer.
- posted by barbara @ 12/09/2002 08:33:00 AM  0 comments

 
so we had a mediation. something required by the appointed judge in the case. by the time it was over i was, to my chagrin, pretty much certain that we will not get a trial in the civil case either. also that lawyers represent themselves primarily. a necessary evil that's what lawyers are.


if i had not retained a lawyer, would i be better off in this lawsuit? i don't know and doubt it.


but once again i found myself feeling cut loose in the cruel world. so miniscule, so destined to lose and to fail.

and then it's practically christmas. i made notes in my diary when i got home, attacked again from within by that ineffable despair-laced exhaustion. i call it soul exhaustion; at counseling yesterday my therapist called it the broken heart that sometimes kills bereaved parents of homicide victims.


there is a possibility of collecting relatively small sums from the bars and then they will be out of the case. this is fine with me; i know who murdered my daughter. i know she did it after pouring much alcohol purveyed at these establishments down her throat. also after having worked at and fired from both bars. the law that held such establishments liable was operative for a few years, i guess, but then was profoundly diluted by another law i believe is known as the Dram Act. it just essentially says that although they sold the substance that intoxicated the party, they didn't pour that substance into the party. therefore they are not parties to the crimes that followed the intoxicated state of the party that paid them to serve her the intoxicants.


anyone in the mood for a party?


both ben's lawyer and my own ever so casually mentioned that they would just appropriate all of the money the bars are willing to sacrifice for their freedom from this lawsuit. for costs don't you know.


it is apparently the lawyers' opinion that we can get $10,000 from the bars. my share of that would be $5000; my attorney has already requested costs in the amount of $719. assuming that the $5000 is duly remitted by the bars in question, my lawyer's share of that money is one-third, or roughly $1667. Adding the $719 that has already been requested equals $2386.


so basically my lawyer wants $2614 for future anticipated "costs."


my phone was disconnected yesterday. my daughter, still dead. christmas is less than 3 weeks away and i have 3 living children a daughter-in-law and 2 grandsons; am i crazy? i want to SEE some of that money.


this is what i think i will tell my lawyer tomorrow: take the $2386 and half of the $2614. that would leave me $1300. i am so far behind. my car could be towed anytime i park it on a public street because although i paid the tags i didn't get the tags: it flunked smog twice, and i don't have the money to make it pass. i have already been ticketed for that, and not having proof of insurance [i think i had the insurance when i was pulled over though].


both his lawyer and mine somehow without coming right out loud and saying, "let's go for $10,000, understand you won't ever see a penny of it," told us exactly that. so i said make it $15000 i need money. shortly thereafter they were pulled out of the room by the mediator and when they returned my lawyer said, "we're done for today."


the lawyers could tell i was not ready to roll over quite yet so they ended the discussion telling me to sleep on it.
christ i feel manipulated. manipulated by fear. the fear of making a mistake; that is the fear the lawyers feed.


on the other hand, i have resolved not to embody the victim mentality and if i let them walk all over me i will be the picture of bitter self-pity.


what they want me to KNOW is that the bars will not pay more than $10,000, if they will even pay that much. what i want THEM to know is that if they will pay $10000 they will pay $15000. i know that is a reasonable statement more often true than not; but those lawyers they got to me they did.


i work in a medical-legal capacity and have had an eagle's eye view of the PI [personal injury] process as it played out in hundreds of cases in the past 6 years [not counting the past year during which i was on disability due to my daughter's murder].


none of those cases involved a wrongful death. most of them did involve falsified or inflated claims. several were plainly fraudulent. in almost every case, a claims adjuster somewhere decided that it was more cost-effective to pay than to risk a decision in a courtroom.


why are our own lawyers lowballing us and trying to instill the fear of the claims adjuster into the parents of the wrongfully dead?


i sat there and listened to ben's lawyer take credit for what he characterized as a stroke of genius on his part [suing the bars] when in fact they had already been sued, by me, through my attorney. so much for switching lawyers. necessary evils that's what they are. help
- posted by barbara @ 12/06/2002 02:36:00 AM  0 comments

 
Memorial Page Seven
When it feels new again. that's when i go surf the web in search of victims and read story after story of how they died and how their loved ones deal with the going on.
There was a mediation in the civil case today. i scribbled in my diary after returning home.
12/5/02
You must fight for a positive denouement; You must not expect it to amount to anything

you must
fuck it. i prayed to my girl, prayed and begged. When i am assertive i lose. when i roll over i lose. If i fight i lose.

talk about a loser; i live in the obese body of the world's greatest.

the only thing i don't lose is weight. every other loss equals poundage.


in 20 days, christmas.


i hate christmas, rambo, and lawyers. not necessarily in that order.


ooooh...sigh.
unfurl this impossibly tight snarled elastic that is my brow.

breathe the chakras, pray amen
remember love and sunrises and smiles.
this sea of bile is too rotten to swim in,
and the waves will never subside.
step outside of it, just, oh, just!
just try. amen


where is glee, who made me the designated butt? when did it all go wrong?
Is my heart still present, and does it
wear sorrow like a diaphanous sheath?
Does it beat regularly; where is my strength?
Should i really spend time counting, naming,
repeatedly disclaiming all of these enemies
to my vitality?


Where do you be?
Did you hang tight to my faith, recognizing
that they would gorge themselves upon me,
peck, peck, peck incessantly
like lice-ridden pigeons, pigs and rats with their
custom-made-for-me disease?


I'll hold you girl. I will hear in dreams and linger there too.
How I love you, baby girl!
Not only does that dwell in the eternal. It means more than those bastards ever, ever could.
amen

- posted by barbara @ 12/05/2002 09:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
Bush Watch

get scared. be informed. let me be ignorant, though...

eh. not quick enough...my next click included the following information regarding homeland security: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
- posted by barbara @ 12/05/2002 08:23:00 PM  0 comments

 
The real meditation is ... the meditation on one’s identity. Ah, voilà une chose!! You try it. You try finding out why you’re you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voilà une chose!
Ezra Pound


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There amen

Pray – meditate. O goddess of compassion bless us in our state of pain and fear. Let us recall the sunrise and the eternity of Love. And Bekah-la your mother longs for you and always will. amen

I’ve concern. Love. Wishes, to be provident and also just to write. Not to be dead, though my faith keeps growing that I hold the key via this unnamed state. That of the bereft mother. Bereft mothers have no tiny knowledge of a place otherwise peopled only with the dead.

Half alive half dead I commune with you and my vitality often is bequeathed to you because my acceptance of your death is incomplete. If I hand over all that I am to you it will not bring you back to earth. That is the part I have trouble believing.

Big trouble. Big love. Big longing. Big no. No, you may not have your daughter back. No, you will never lose her love. If you apply your vitality to life you will still have her love and she yours.

Believe. If I can believe that I be in a place that is not entirely here I can arrive back here empowered by belief that you are there.

You are there surpassing your mother in wisdom. Drinking peace sunning in love bathed in serenity. Your laugh is utterly unique. Nobody laughs like you do Bekah. amen

Bekah with her nephews.
- posted by barbara @ 12/05/2002 02:49:00 AM

 
The Kaged Artists Community

you can go here and have your eyeballs worn out on therapeutic type art sorta...by "Bekah's Mom Barbara"

disgusting, aren't i? in a minute i'm gonna be just like kathy lee gifford. no i am not. no i am not.
- posted by barbara @ 12/05/2002 01:35:00 AM  0 comments

 
Current results for bush
a whopping 63 percent of respondents agree that the president is a moron who should not hold the highest office in the land.

please vote if you have not thus far; my goal is a poll that is statistically meaningful...do you think 69 responses constitutes a meaningful number?

hmmmmmmmmmm.
satisfies me that what i already believed is correct. they own the media, spread lies, and make up their own numbers to feed to the hapless masses.
- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2002 03:17:00 AM  0 comments

 
SWiSH Movie - mysecond.swi - www.swishzone.com
- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2002 02:54:00 AM  0 comments

 
bekah with her crew - sorry about the faces but it would not be right to put them up here, right?
3-17-07: changed to picture of bekah in pv as my old server - and a lot of pictures - is history...

on the right you may observe the evidence of one of bekah's first post-death visits. it happened the night after she died, i believe, at her best friend's house. this picture had been given to bekah's best friend by her brother's then-fiancee, with a poem written on the reverse. several people were hanging around, mourning, and this picture was propped up on a table about a foot or so away from a lit candle.

it was July 20 - there was no breeze. the picture spontaneously erupted in flame, which was immediately extinguished. notice how bekah made as sure as she could that her likeness did not burn? oh that is so bekah...on the flip side, i have noticed as well, that not one word of the poem was burned.

just a picture of my girl when she was in high school, and an early entry to the catalogue of post-mortem unexplained phenomena and amazing small-world stories. the catalogue of bekah's mom's recovery....? ah, i dunno. but without the ways she found to let us know she's around, even to promote her own justice [i'll tell that amazing story in the future], i would be much worse today, i believe. i figure bekah, knowing me, realized that i would need these kind of amazing demonstrations of her continuing presence.

she's a good daughter she is, the best that's all. :)
- posted by barbara @ 12/04/2002 02:11:00 AM

 
NaNoWriMo.org : Home - Breaking News
So i fell approximately 45,000 words short. oh well. i still wrote over 4,000 words than i thought i would. hey. lol
it's all bile anyway. had to come out the way that kind of bile has to come out.
- posted by barbara @ 12/02/2002 08:15:00 AM  0 comments

 
Recovery from International Churches of Christ (ICC, ICOC)
a discussion of what has not happened and needs to happen in order for this organization to be considered an uplifting christian church as opposed to a destructive cult.
the rightcyberup site has some of the most extensive well presented information on the icoc, a destructive cult that now boasts somewhere in the neighborhood of five times as many EX-members as members.
- posted by barbara @ 12/01/2002 08:08:00 AM  0 comments

 
barbtries a blog
you gotta scroll down a bit, to 11-23-02, to see it. but i found a picture of my parents on their wedding day and that was after all the post to which it had to be attached. :)
- posted by barbara @ 12/01/2002 06:44:00 AM  0 comments