News
surprise. not
- posted by barbara @ 5/31/2003 04:06:00 AM  0 comments

 
...cause you've been to the hollow...
- Laura Nyro, Lonely Women


what do i know

perhaps I'll never manage
better than bittersweet
maybe no matter what I say
my heart will stalk you like a criminal

what do I know?
So little, so much. I know the hollow
Sweet daughter, I know the hollow

Maybe I'll wake up one morning
Next to a man, crazy about him,
Maybe two hours or even two minutes will pass
Before I recall my bereavement

maybe when I do, I'll smile still,
Think to myself, think to you, what do you think?
Did your mom do good?

What do I know
So much, so little, spaces
Beyond space, places that are not.
Sweet daughter, I know the hollow

Maybe ten years down the road
I'll pop the cork off a bottle of honey wine,
Share it with your grave on the 6th of July,

Just me and your grave,
And your wise soul waiting for wisdom
To place me beside you
What do I know?

So little it's nothing. So much it is all.
Baby girl I know the hollow, and thanks to you,
I learn the full


amen
- posted by barbara @ 5/30/2003 09:16:00 AM

 
Critiques for Chapter Explanation

One loves such validation! and i've been needing it; i read the book review yesterday and today picked up a resource book for writers hoping to publish. the odds against it are approximately astronomical based on what i've seen so far.

so i was discouraged...then i was flipping through my book this evening and [hallelujah] was inspired ... hopefully it has been good work i've done here today. it's getting close to completion.

so i added a chapter and i need a quotation for it; something about faith. i checked my email first of all and here's this wonderful compliment from a fellow poet...i'll go read some of his work now. that's how we encourage and validate each other. but mostly that's how we get them to read and appreciate our poems. lol

here is the poem that this reader described as "perfect" but for one word:

Chapter Explanation

the early raw
skins of feeling/primal
the skins of youth
pelted by truth
uncowed, wild, vital

the young dare to care
freely, feral
first acquaintance with pain
first appearance of fear
first awareness of peril
- posted by barbara @ 5/26/2003 05:17:00 AM  0 comments

 
affordable justice

he's in LA, his name is Derek, and he writes pretty interestingly...:)

i'd blogroll him but now that i have actually paid american dollars to the keeper of the blogroll, i can't get into the site. piss me off, and i know it's my own doing somehow.
- posted by barbara @ 5/25/2003 08:43:00 PM  0 comments

 
An Open Letter to Lieutenant Layne McDowell : LA Indymedia Frankly I'm ashamed that George Bush is even American, let alone that he's from Texas - but this is hardly a critical statement. The fact is, he's an idiot. One of the biggest idiots around and the worst President of all time, according to veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas. Lambasting our leader was considered fun and entirely appropriate until the Twin Towers fell. Now, all of a sudden, it's considered unpatriotic to voice any dissent against him? Are you kidding me?
- posted by barbara @ 5/23/2003 11:29:00 AM  0 comments

 
BBC documentary exposes Pentagon lies: The staged rescue of Private Jessica Lynch

this is a long but fascinating study of the recent war and its press coverage. every adult in the world should read this story. these are our sons and daughters being KILLED to push the agenda of a cockeyed administration.

PEACE
- posted by barbara @ 5/23/2003 11:21:00 AM  0 comments

 
Rockford Register Star Online - Local & State


Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

i didn't read the entire address, but i just wanted to quote this part of Chris Hedges's commencement speech, because he touches on a reality - well, a potential reality - that i never imagined i would be entertaining as a possibility in my lifetime. we are just too, too close to having the tyrant at home.


andy first considered joining the military in 2000 - i remember talking to him about it prior to the election and saying, "wait till after the election, because if bush wins he's gonna throw a war for sure." well, bush didn't win, but he did throw the war, and i have a sick feeling that it will not be his last.


at the time, andy sat tight; he graduated from rancho del mar, a continuation high school mid-june, 2001, and was awarded a $300 scholarship for college. he signed up at Harbor College.


on 07-19-01, his 21-year-old sister Bekah was murdered. andy was working at a movie theatre at the time; after school started he quit his job, and very soon thereafter, he quit school.


i don't know what he was doing at night, but for a while there andy was spending the better part of every day in bed. so he joined the navy, even though bush is president and a warmonger who does not give a rat's ass about the humanity.


the thing i find the most scary about gw bush is that there is nothing that i would put past him, nothing at all...up to and including martial law, nuclear war, etc. i think the most chilling moment for me since he strongarmed his way into the presidency was when he was quoted saying [or maybe he was videotaped and recorded saying this - i never have been able to watch him or listen to him so i dunno], "If you're not with us you're with them."


i just never thought i would hear such an unAmerican statement coming out of the mouth of an american president.


- posted by barbara @ 5/23/2003 05:17:00 AM  0 comments

 
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

a look at the TOC, or part of it:
Table of Contents



Introduction -- AMERICAN CALIGULA (47,195 bytes)

1 --- THE HOUSE OF BUSH: BORN IN A BANK (33,914 bytes)

2 --- THE HITLER PROJECT (55,321 bytes)

3 --- RACE HYGIENE: THREE BUSH FAMILY ALLIANCES (51,987 bytes)

4 --- THE CENTER OF POWER IS IN WASHINGTON (51,699 bytes)

5 --- POPPY AND MOMMY (47,684 bytes)

6 --- BUSH IN WORLD WAR II (36,992 bytes)

7 --- SKULL AND BONES: THE RACIST NIGHTMARE AT YALE (56,508 bytes)

8 --- THE PERMIAN BASIN GANG (64,269 bytes)

8-b --- THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION(46,903 bytes)

9 --- BUSH CHALLENGES YARBOROUGH FOR THE SENATE (110,435 bytes)

10 -- RUBBERS GOES TO CONGRESS(129,439 bytes)

11 -- UNITED NATIONS AMBASSADOR, KISSINGER CLONE (99,842 bytes)


- posted by barbara @ 5/21/2003 09:16:00 AM  0 comments

 
MADD Online: MADD Honors Victims on 15th Anniversary of Nation's Worst DUI Crash, Unveils Federal Plan

it's the attack of the killer inferiority complex! AHHHHHH screams away the writer. who said that? is this depression, grief, laziness, low self-esteem, or just a realization, that i'll never be that good?

or will i be that good? i began a book in 1996, gawd only knows what's become of it. it reflected my belief at the time that after six months of commuting from lancaster to torrance, california, daily, there was no reason left why i [me, barbara bales] should not be the nation's if not the world's next twenty dollar guru.

and the damn book was just all over the place, from personal issues to how to drive. one 'chapter' was titled the con game. i had lost my home, my job, custody of my son [bekah too, but that was her choice, a choice that facilitated some of what came later]. i had become so gratuitous i thought the world was telling me to die and it was sheer cowardice that kept me breathing. rory was still with me but i figured that was only because nobody else wanted him...as i neared the completion of my [computer] schooling, i began to wonder how i would ever get a job.

surely at that point in time i was among the most worthless - least worthwhile? - humans on the planet. a zit on the face of the earth. a series of events, primarily catastrophes, had piled into my life boom-boom-boom, and exploded it, and now i was supposed to get a job? my confidence was zilch...so i developed this theory about confidence, probably something others have always known and taken for granted, but which i had to develop under stress.

having so thoroughly failed i wondered why anyone would want to hire me. on the other hand i excelled at my courses and now had skills that people needed. i took all the classes on how to present for interviews, etc. and decided that confidence would just have to begin with a lie: the lie of my own confidence in myself.

i imagined walking into an interview with all the confidence a professional who knows her services are necessary and worth money would exhibit. visualized responding to the interviewer's questions with absolute confidence in the veracity of my position. concluding the interview with a handshake. it was during this handshake that the change would take place.

the false confidence i exuded would have over the course of the interview translated into true confidence in the person with whom i interacted. such that when we shook hands following the [amazingly successful they want to offer me $50 thousand bucks a year right this minute] interview, real confidence flowed from him into me. i speculated that with each successful interaction, my own confidence would grow, prospective employers would be able to see from a mile away that they needed this here woman, and so on, and so on, and so on.

i was working within a month of graduation, and had a full-time permanent position in a dentist's office on sunset boulevard a month after that. Bales Law is true...hehehe

so okay screw this killer inferiority complex - i CAN TOO write! right? write...right? wr.....

bekah's 1st birthday
- posted by barbara @ 5/20/2003 11:16:00 AM

 
In Reversal, Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off Instead, top American and British diplomats leading reconstruction efforts here told exile leaders in a meeting tonight that allied officials would remain in charge of Iraq for an indefinite period, said Iraqis who attended the meeting.

so we were there in the interests of peace, eh?

it is hateful to be chagrined at the actions of your own country.
- posted by barbara @ 5/17/2003 01:23:00 PM  0 comments

 
subversivetalk:week149 Anyway, here in the good old U.S. of A. some are trying to use the 'self-hating' brand of forced conformity upon those who would choose to protest the insane, criminal and evil policies of the insane, criminal and evil Bush Administration. Lots of warmongering, greed-addicted, truth-challenged buffoons like Rush Limbaugh are calling those who would dare protest Presidential Perdition as being Anti-American. Can you believe that? Dissent is anti-American. (These cretins obviously have no understanding of American history and the internecine battles of Jefferson/Adams/Hamilton/Madison etc.)

yes, i am an american. yes, i protest the warmongering of the president, who i believe to be an idiot without a clue. no, that does not make me an enemy of my country.

bumper stickers from a page hopped to via subversive talk:

NO BLOOD FOR OIL - DROP BUSH, NOT BOMBS! - PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS!
END CAPITALISM AND GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.......
SUPPORT THE TROOPS BY BRINGING THEM HOME!

PEACE.
- posted by barbara @ 5/16/2003 06:33:00 AM  0 comments

 

abstract love
- posted by barbara @ 5/13/2003 01:16:00 PM  0 comments

 
Night "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." Carl Jung


Night

I want to prowl the night like an energetic ghost -
Want to plumb the facts out of the past
to hug the night like
Night hugs the desert
As if it could last -
When the day holds sway
I want to know
I did not waste
in the hours before

I'll be
the Night blooming jasmine
I'll be
the Cactus at dawn

In the heat I'll be
Sand or sweat
salt or sunburn
not gone.not lost.
not diminished
day does not take a history
light does not sour me, nor erase
energy the night
insists upon lending me.

© Barbara Bales 1987-2003 all rights reserved

by the way, everything i said about hpphoto home practically was BS...they'd changed their ways a lot...but you can still have a free online photo album, more than one in fact, and if you wish to share it you send an email to anyone you wish to share it with. never mind "barbsaid" - barbsaid shit she didn't know was wrong...:l
- posted by barbara @ 5/12/2003 12:16:00 PM  0 comments

 
Writings by Solange

The book is here! check it out, buy it...enjoy. The author, someone who made life possible over the past year.
- posted by barbara @ 5/12/2003 04:54:00 AM  0 comments

 
hpphoto.com: home

this morning i checked my email to discover that my box was full and why? because i received some pictures of a friend's children that were too big for the limited amount of space i still have in my box [i save a lot of mail].

a link woulda been better. there are a number of places online that will let you make a photo album from your own pictures for no money. hp home is one of them. to see MY photo albums, go to the site, ask to view "barbtries"'s pictures, and when prompted for a password type in "barbsaid." voila

anyone who can email pictures can do this instead. if you don't like hp photo home, try yahoo, or aol, or webshots...at webshots you can see the paintings i've uploaded. hp is good because they give you an option to use your pics for auction pages; i use mine for my blog.
- posted by barbara @ 5/10/2003 06:41:00 AM

 
Avon Shopping

i've resumed selling avon after a 6-year hiatus. considering becoming an eRep.
- posted by barbara @ 5/09/2003 11:54:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sandhill Trek: A Public Space for Self Expression

he lists 14 characteristics of emerging Fascism:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

5. Rampant sexism.

6. A controlled mass media.

7. Obsession with national security.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

9. Power of corporations protected.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

14. Fraudulent elections.

eh.
9:03:37 PM
- posted by barbara @ 5/08/2003 05:58:00 AM  0 comments

 
Where is Raed ?Let me tell you one thing first. War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your “imminent liberation” anymore.

his blog had not been updated for quite awhile. his message is well taken. war sucks big time.

- posted by barbara @ 5/08/2003 03:38:00 AM  0 comments

 
South Knox Bubba
Preventing or correcting any one of the numerous voting irregularities could have given Gore the victory. And don't forget that Gore won the popular vote by 340,000 votes nationwide. If defendants could be identified there is enough circumstantial evidence that any jury in any court in the land would convict them. Election observers from South America would laugh at our process and the outcome.

And if you think it's crying over spilt milk and that us Democrat whiners should just shut up and move on, just remember that it could happen again 18 months from now. In fact, with "black box" electronic voting all the other shenanigans wouldn't even be necessary.

Any good American should be concerned, and would be derelict in not working to prevent rigged elections. Fair elections are the foundation of our freedom. If we are willing to ignore the problems (which still exist right here in my own county) and write them off along with the rest of our civil rights and liberties then we don't deserve freedom and democracy.

some details on the most recent presidential election in this, the united states of america.
- posted by barbara @ 5/06/2003 09:38:00 AM  0 comments

 
· Team Crack · - Things are changing...

Andy's best friend Jesse, web designer, brother of a working writer, poet at least once upon a time.

thanks for the mentions; i clicked on ALL the links! :)
- posted by barbara @ 5/03/2003 08:32:00 PM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: Q&A: Janeane Garofalo Won't Back Down
> By Elizabeth DiNovella, The Progressive
Garofalo: The mainstream media has, in my opinion, been so grossly negligent, so disturbingly devoid of authentic debate, and actual dissemination of information. They are, in theory, the custodians of fact, the watchdogs of government. That's the theory. At a time as important as this, they have absolutely rolled over to the conservative hawkish agenda.

i'm running late i think. this is probably old news. i had heard her name here and there and had no clue what the story was, and so now i am blogging it because i agree. in fact whenever the opportunity arises i make it clear that there is no longer any point to watching the evening news....

i tend to think it's a good thing when someone famous starts talking the truth, because then some people who might otherwise tune out to it may listen. so high fives Janeane Garofalo.
- posted by barbara @ 5/02/2003 08:10:00 PM  0 comments

 
andy at his boot camp grad with his grandpa frank, who graduated in 1941, gazing on appreciatively....

- posted by barbara @ 5/02/2003 01:58:00 PM

 
Taos Summer Writers' Conference

NEVER try to open two "blog this" windows at the same time.

i had a good story going on there. but damn, i got things i got to do! so maybe later, maybe never...i'm going to the writers' conference though. and i'll hopefully get to spend some time with a long time friend/former co-worker who lives there. his 17-year-old son was murdered a year before bekah was killed, almost to the day.

anyhow. so it goes. cyberspace is anointed with my unshared words...
- posted by barbara @ 5/02/2003 12:35:00 PM  0 comments

 

rory and i in the photo booth at the Adventuredome, Circus Circus, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 2003
- posted by barbara @ 5/01/2003 10:55:00 PM

 

may 2006: i'm slowly but surely replacing the placemarkers with
actual images, but guess what? whatever painting i put here originally,
i cannot recall, so i'll stick this one in - it remains one of my
personal favorites. someday i may go through my binder [i've printed
my blog all along] and stick in the correct picture
- posted by barbara @ 5/01/2003 03:59:00 AM