BlogShares - barbara bales - Portfolio
BlogShares - barbara bales - Portfolio
cool - without knowing my ass from a hole in the ground, except, buy low sell high, i have grown the worth of my portfolio to a million bucks. lol - if it was this easy in real life, wow. i'd be on it.
- posted by barbara @ 6/30/2003 07:42:00 PM  0 comments

 
simple

- posted by barbara @ 6/30/2003 07:14:00 AM

 
barbtries a blog
barbtries a blog
okay, who knows how i go about complaining to google??? i opened
up my blog today and there on the top? an ad for bush.

wrong.

anyone but bush for president. barbtries supports just about
any-fucking-body you can name for president in 2004 but,
EXCEPT, the current gw bush, who should not even be president.
- posted by barbara @ 6/29/2003 09:44:00 PM  0 comments

 
Stop Smoking QuitMeter - QuitMeter.com
Stop Smoking QuitMeter - QuitMeter.com

i blogged somewhere and they had this quit-o-meter, and since i do plan to quit, about two years ago, and continue to plan to quit, in about six months, i need to save this link. i will HAVE this meter on my blog! when it means something.
- posted by barbara @ 6/27/2003 02:42:00 PM  0 comments

 

last taos painting

just a note...wanna ping blogrolling and not get slapped...there's more to it than that but nothing that needs be written. other than i can be an ignoramus one second a sage the next. enjoy zee week - ends ya.
- posted by barbara @ 6/27/2003 01:00:00 PM

 
sylvia's old man liked it

sylvia's grave


the shoes bekah died in, on 9-24-05
another reason i know my girl was murdered: her shoes light up
WAS a close up on the card i painted for vic with the letter on the reverse...today i received a note of thanks through the mail from Vic. He'd mailed it through the cemetery office and included his phone number; i'll give him a call after a while.

i almost didn't do it; Vic wrote, "You made our day, Syl & Vic"]

:) thanks to those who responded to my pleas for advice.
- posted by barbara @ 6/26/2003 05:48:00 PM

 
blogchalk
This is my new blogchalk:
United States, English, barbara, Female, 47, poetry, pool,, poker. :)
- posted by barbara @ 6/26/2003 07:25:00 AM  0 comments

 
new pics

bekah and andy circa 1987 or 1988


Cindy Sheehan, los angeles 10-28-06
- posted by barbara @ 6/25/2003 06:27:00 AM

 
You LIve Your Life As If It's Real
You LIve Your Life As If It's Real: "I'd rather have them sacrificing on behalf
of our nation than, you know, endless
hours of testimony on congressional hill."


love in trees

George 'Dumbya' Bush Jr. is attributed by Ray for supplying the many examples of gw's communication skills. to read them from ray's blog scroll past jeopardy. one or so more:

Oftentimes, we live in a processed world—
you know, people focus on the process
and not results.
I promise you I will listen to
what has been said here,
even though I wasn't here.

he's a regular yogi bear of a public speaker, eh? funny. yet president. wow


my vote for most beautiful girl in the world, my daughter, bekah
- posted by barbara @ 6/23/2003 08:55:00 PM  0 comments

 
Webshots Community - barbtries's Photo Home Page
Webshots Community - barbtries's Photo Home Page

see paintings, mostly, and one picture of bekah. i think lol
- posted by barbara @ 6/23/2003 01:42:00 AM  0 comments

 
shit
shit

- posted by barbara @ 6/23/2003 01:27:00 AM  0 comments

 
Cliff Notes on a Dream: the poem may come later
06-22-03

Slept. And overslept.
Dreamt. A lot. Pith, slogans, people.
Dreamt about "Sheila." Being tapped by the police.
Dreamt about "Sasha." Being followed by police.
Dreamt about moving. To places vacated in haste.
Dreamt finding the bug. Disguised as a spider.
Dreamt confronting the spies. One was Paul Sorvino.
The other not sure. Brian Dennehy? Tom Selleck? Bruce Willis? Sargeant Friday?
Not sure. Not Rambo.
Dreamt a poem. Recall the title.
Some of the Things that Go On
When Your Child is Murdered.

amen
there's more. I may capture a poem from this after all...

Dreamt taking wrong turns. Tires sliding on slick.
Dreamt lights turning red. Targets on bicycles.

Dreamt cats that multiply. The goodness that saves.

Dreamt rescues and tortures. Tortures and saves.
Dreamt fear from a distance. Overcome and controlled.
Dreamt peace as a pipe-dream. As a friend on the phone.
Dreamt trash left behind. Was the clue to the future.

Then the telephone rang. Rang, and Rang.
Rory stood next to me. Missed it by a second.
Woke up. Got my messages. Overslept, missed a party.
Have an angel waiting for a call...
Have a Happy Birthday card to make...
Have a baby girl to thank...thank you Bekah.

One question: how can a dream full of a thousand people
not Bekah still be a dream about Bekah?


Love. Peace. Happiness
amen

Notes: "Sheila" is a friend whose husband was murdered about five years before Bekah. "Sasha" is a friend who is fighting for her life. Fighting ovarian cancer, that is.
- posted by barbara @ 6/22/2003 01:33:00 PM

 
The ICC Discussion forum #7079.176
The ICC Discussion forum #7079.176

Rah rah rah! Sis boom bah! Cheers.
Let's hear it for the never-beens who have very likely learned more about this "church" than probably any current member knows. And really this post should be directed toward TOMREITMANN:
Because you would not be a member! If you knew what I know, and you DEFINITELY would know that kip McKean is dangerous to your spiritual well-being. Has always been and will not have it any other way.
Barney this is not for you but for the member who approaches the discussion with the narrowest of all possible mindsets: "where do you go to church?" and attempts to invalidate your efforts and essentially, presence in context with his "church" by saying you have never been a member.
I don't think the Nazis fell because the Nazis decided they'd better. I think it took people who were not associated with Hitler and his henchman to bring that evil down. And before you protest that the comparison is invalid because kip cannot begin to approach the evil of Hitler, just stop and reflect on how quickly you would dismiss another adult intelligent caring human being because that person is not ICC or at least "christian." not very christian, that kind of elitism, is it?
Guess what? I have never so much as attended a bible study conducted by the ICOC. I don't go to church, and won't. I don't believe in a cognizant god, or that the bible is anything other than a book, written by humans. Inspired humans, no doubt, but see, I am a poet. I am often inspired. I don't even know how it happened that I am infused with the muse and the ferment to write poems. I may think that it only happened because the gods and/or goddesses of poetry chose to manifest through my pen, but that is beside the point. The point being I wrote a poem, I think it is good and maybe even important, I would like for you to read it. This is human interaction, sharing, caring. I would no sooner attempt to strip you of your spiritual beliefs than I would stop writing poems. And I can't do that; I know, because I tried.
My beliefs do not match yours but deserve as much respect as yours do. For the record I have subsisted in hell for almost two years; nothing anyone ever says writes preaches exhorts references will ever convince me that there is a worse place than earth without my daughter. I do not subscribe to the myth of jesus, though I do believe that jesus preached a way for humans to treat each other that constitutes an ideal for which I strive. This is not the d- tree, no. It is the golden rule.
What I wonder is, having stated my beliefs, do I now shrivel, melt, screech, and disappear? I am still a good person; this is who I am. If I did not care deeply for persons who are to this day being victimized by the destructive cult run by kip McKean and his cohorts, I would not be here. I would not even know the ICC existed. Ironically enough I had already tried and dismissed organized religion, as an answer for me, years before one of my best friends fell into the ICC.
I respect your right to hold the beliefs that you do. I deserve the same respect. As revolutionary as this may sound, I am an intelligent, thinking person, and have arrived at my beliefs honestly and with not a little bit of work, or suffering. I think it was jesus himself who said "blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see god." all the legalism, rebuking, blah blah blah, leaders, disciples, specials, blah blah, are NOTHING if jesus was correct. And what living person has the authority to naysay jesus? Kip McKean? He can kiss my ass.
Barbara


note to blog readers who may be going What? - it's a destructive cult attempting to crash and burn and being kept alive by artificial means. the same means that made it be. the above is a post to the ICC Delphi Forum.
- posted by barbara @ 6/21/2003 12:38:00 AM  0 comments

 
BlogShares - barbara bales - Portfolio
BlogShares - barbara bales - Portfolio

okay, i JUST THIS SEC sold some shares for an obscene profit. but when i did, my net worth sunk back below the $400,000 level.

ah well. it is fun to go there and see my virtual self going from pauper to princess. :)
- posted by barbara @ 6/20/2003 06:36:00 PM  0 comments

 
HELP!
HELP! Should i give him the card?
tomorrow is Sylvia and Vic's 60th wedding anniversary....

two graves over and one above from bekah lies Sylvia, Vic's wife. Sylvia died on 04-01-02. Vic was married to Sylvia for 59 years. At first I thought, "he doesn't know what to do with himself without her," but now, as over one year has passed since Sylvia's death, i think perhaps it's just love.

Just the love so many of us [myself top of list] will never accomplish: the forever love, the TRUE marriage of souls bound for always. I've comforted myself through multiple heartbreaks that at least i know i have it in me. but at 47 - realistically, it seems pretty unlikely in this life.

and that is not actually the point here! the point is that Vic comes to the cemetery every single day, to this day, every day, faithfully. he brings a lawn chair and a little boom box and plays old standards like "Sweetie Pie" and when he leaves he tells Sylvia he loves her. As of a month or so ago, he writes her a letter every night.

Vic and I have gotten to know each other a bit. I think he's a terrific man...today i went to the cemetery for the first time in like two weeks...that's the longest i've ever gone without visiting bekah's bones, and crabgrass had taken hold all around her headstone, giving me about an hours' worth of work. i said some poems and prayers to bekah as i worked, until Vic came by...and then i just murmured them, low, because i had missed being near her bones and was kinda distressed at the mess.

before he left Vic shared with me that tomorrow would be their 60th wedding anniversary. i came home and painted him a picture, and wrote this letter, and - you would think a mother like me would be the total authority on boundaries, huh? - but is not so. i don't know if i should give it to him...what do you think?

thank you for your wisdom bloggers...:)


on the card:

"who said til death do us part? Your love transcends the grave and continues to brighten a dark and cruel world."

Sylvia/Vic Mazeltov ... l'chaim!

June 20 1943
& always

Happy 60th ... Your love is special in this world, and rare.

the letter i just wrote to Vic and dunno if i should give it to him! :

06-20-03 To Sylvia's Old Man :)

Your faithful attendance to Sylvia speaks volumes - libraries! - about the woman you love. I am completely out-of-line you might be justified in slapping me! But we do share something very personal - grief - and I am touched and encouraged by the "TRUE LOVE" testified to by Sylvia and you...
Sylvia, your wife of 60 years and always, I think - and believe fully Love Does Not Die. So think she's celebrating this milestone with you, with JOY because Love's payout is joy.

You know you will always love Sylvia...don't doubt she will always love you.

I had my girl for 21 years 13 days and our losses differ in a lot of other ways...but a widow I know and a bereft father taught me something - they didn't know how much it meant, because at the time I was enclosed in Grief so massive it could have consumed me.

My friend widowed at 25 years old, telling me 5 years later that her husband is around her and the kids all the time...I said don't you need to let him go? you're too young, and she said, "Oh, I live FOR my husband." My friend who killed his 18-year-old son's murderer when the court failed justice and went to prison for it said to me as I cried bitterly over what the court did to my girl: "Now, go live for Bekah."

I am telling you this 'cause I think Sylvia might, by and by, arrange for you to meet a woman, who might just make you laugh or at least laugh at your jokes, and might ease your loneliness down the road...and I wanted you to know that Sylvia is with you and loving you and it is all good...with love Bekah's mom Barbara
- posted by barbara @ 6/19/2003 05:30:00 PM  0 comments

 
You LIve Your Life As If It's Real
You LIve Your Life As If It's Real

for some reason i was under the impression that the book [Ulysses by James Joyce] was deadly boring so i never even attempted it. not saying necessarily that this snip'll talk me into reading it. lol but i did learn something today. now i know my teacher wasn't kidding when he said this table set for "the dead"

A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table, and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin, and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting, and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.

was all about sex and not much else. learn something new every day. thanks again ray...:)
my comments didn't take but i have a blog so they'll get taken bygawd. lol

i'm so glad to feel better...now, to take five cats to be sterilized before it is too late...:)
- posted by barbara @ 6/19/2003 09:28:00 AM  0 comments

 
sick 'n proud
eh. been sick, half dead, strange dreams, what does it mean? thinking, i'll never be well again. that sucks. i've never been the best of patients, probably because i am so short on patience! and then there's my imagination.

it's my sinuses, they are damn near as chronic as my back but i am oh so loathe to see a doctor about it. because all my life, whenever i had a complaint that recurred or didn't go away in a day or two, there was always [no exceptions that i can recall] a man standing there with a knife saying, "let me make it all better..."

so. resolution: get thee to the acupuncturist! i bet they can help with these damn sinuses too.

so what has more or less kicked me out of it: my son. my after-today-no-longer-a-5th-grader son, rory. apparently kids don't graduate from elementary to middle school: they be promoted! :) Rory was promoted today and his mother learned via the promotional ceremonies that he not only made the prinicipal's honor roll, he made the president's honor roll.


yeah, that president. the one i don't hardly claim and cain't really stand! it's ironic, isn't it? my child makes the president's honor roll and the president is a bush - go figure. in the meantime, the following is what i want printed on my headstone [i wrote it about 6 years ago]:

Irony and Epiphany
Together build the frame
That holds the canvas of my soul,
Which love and wonder claim.

giggle. and YEAH!!!!!!! RORY! ! !

- posted by barbara @ 6/19/2003 04:20:00 AM  0 comments

 
Massive Head-wound Cory
Massive Head-wound Cory

it was on blogshares, and i bought shares. then i had to go see what was that all about. because bekah's death was caused by a "massive trauma to the head" and i had to know what this dude's "massive head wound" referred to.

not an acute injury as it turned out: it's melanoma. cory's blog covers the innocuous first doctor visit last year to the decision five days ago to undergo aggressive chemo and radiation, since he does not have enough scalp to remove the melanoma with a satisfactory margin.

throughout his blog this man's tone is incredible for the absence of self-pity or fear. Cory, you are amazing...send healing energy toward cory; his wife's having a baby in december and will want her husband healthy...
- posted by barbara @ 6/13/2003 03:58:00 AM  0 comments

 
MP3.com: Rebecca Lynne
MP3.com: Rebecca Lynne

Listen to "Incomplete."

this is the great thing about the web, and blogs. now i know about Rebecca Lynne and have heard her sing, thanks to william

thank you william...it is a beautiful song. the title reminds me of something my sister mentioned while delivering her impact statement to the back of bekah's murderer's head on 02-15-02. Of Bekah, she said, "She wasn't finished."

second cool thing: i have been RE-introduced to MP3.com, which is actually a very cool place.

vive la internet and blogging buds.
- posted by barbara @ 6/13/2003 01:04:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sugarfused
Sugarfused
deb's a southern belle who almost always shares some great literature with her readers, and a mover and a shaker in the world of blogshares.

today out of the blue i was notified that i had been given a gift of 200 shares of deb's stock - is that cool or what? thank you, deb!

check her out.
- posted by barbara @ 6/12/2003 07:07:00 PM  0 comments

 
This is Your Story - The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
High Water
George is taking a hiatus, or a powder...no more high water. where will i get my news without george?

will miss you

This is Your Story - The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed - to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington - the same Grover Norquist – has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" – one of the states – "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.

It is the most radical assault on the notion of one nation, indivisible, that has occurred in our lifetime.

last i looked the name bill moyers was pretty mainstream. what i hope is it means there will be listeners.

i dunno about hope. how it maintains within this aging blob of me. but it actually does. maybe i know; maybe it is love.

pink
- posted by barbara @ 6/12/2003 01:03:00 PM  0 comments

 
thoughtcafe.com
The Hero and the Coward in Me
if I survive this horrible affliction that the devil has bestowed upon mankind ~ I will not salute any war protester ~ for he is not my brother ~ but I will not spit on him ~ for I too want all wars to end
by my friend joe mccarthy

- posted by barbara @ 6/12/2003 03:01:00 AM  0 comments

 
News Comes to Iraq
WTF Is It Now??
Both the U.S. State Department and commanders of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq are scurrying to come up with rules for the proliferation of media suddenly blossoming in the absence of Saddam Hussein's reign of censorship and repression.
- posted by barbara @ 6/12/2003 02:53:00 AM  0 comments

 
new blog this! bookmarks available
BLOGGER :: Dano FAQ: "BlogThis!"

and i even found them after approximately an hour of searching.
- posted by barbara @ 6/12/2003 02:32:00 AM  0 comments

 
BlogShares - Barbtries a blog

i'm a blogshares corp. now. it should be interesting, hopefully informative, and a fun diversion. that's how i'm approaching it anyway.

- posted by barbara @ 6/10/2003 12:54:00 AM  0 comments

 

bekah zask, my daughter

TOMPAINE.com - Opening America's View That brings us to the crux of the matter. Bush makes absolutely no allowance for the possibility that we may be wrong, and he has no tolerance for dissenting opinion. If you are not with us you are against us, he proclaims. Donald Rumsfeld berates our European allies who disagree with him on Iraq in no uncertain terms, and he has a visceral aversion to international cooperation, be it with NATO or UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan. And John Ashcroft accuses those who opposed the USA Patriot Act of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. These are the views of extremists, not adherents to an open society.

As Doug pointed out, everybody should read this article. i am encouraged by it myself - the author is a conservative philanthropist who argues that gw bush is a threat to an open society:

The United States cannot create a global open society on its own. No single country can act as the police officer or the benefactor of the entire world. But a global open society cannot be achieved without American leadership. This means that the United States must engage in international cooperation. It must be willing to abide by the rules it seeks to impose on others, to accept its share of the costs and, most importantly, to accept that other participants are bound to have other opinions, and other states other national interests. The United States will always have veto rights due to its weight and importance.

Here is an alternative vision of America's role in the world. It is the vision of America leading the world toward a global open society. Such a vision is badly needed. After September 11, President Bush has managed to convince the country that it is unpatriotic to disagree with him.
- posted by barbara @ 6/07/2003 04:56:00 AM  0 comments

 
May/June 2003 The American media failed the country badly these past eight months.

longer than that, i'm afraid...but i am encouraged that it appears as though some mainstream media is beginning to get a clue about the war, its reasons, and gw bush.
- posted by barbara @ 6/05/2003 12:46:00 PM  0 comments

 
Nth of Pril

everybody's moving...now it's pril. so now i know :)
- posted by barbara @ 6/05/2003 09:48:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sugarfused
Deb's moved...she asked me about "colors" - it's watercolors on dry paper. thanks for asking; i will update my blogroll now...:)

geometrical
Eulogy for Bekah
I have been seeing in geometrical shapes lately. I think it's a sign for me to start painting....

So Bekah wrote in her diary on 06-23-01, less than one month before she was murdered. I never painted before Bekah died; i'm a poet, that's where my art, words are my medium, i cannot draw...about a month or so before Bekah's 22nd birthday, my friend Glory talked me into buying some paints and brushes and paper. It is therapeutic.

Glory how did you know? because she said, "oh, you need to paint." she did.

On Bekah's birthday we dedicated her headstone and i delivered a rather long sermon. It basically just covered my personal spiritual beliefs and how it is that i believe i may effect an actual recovery from my loss, live again before i die. at the conclusion i said that when i get out of hell i "will live for bekah, live, as if Bekah is perched on my shoulder living it too...."

About two weeks later furiously painting and sometimes even liking the results, i realized that painting constitutes a fulfillment of that pledge. if any painting i make pleases anyone i thank bekah. because i daresay she does more than perch on my shoulder; she guides my hand. sometimes...when the painting pleases.
- posted by barbara @ 6/04/2003 10:09:00 AM  0 comments

 
Police seek break in hit-run case

In this story a survivor of a hit and run driver expresses his bafflement and rage after being left for dead on the 405.

i still say that "hit and run" is inadequate when the "object" that is "hit" is human. Language is powerful stuff. When the same expression that describes a driver knocking over a stop sign and driving away is employed to tell the story of a human being left dead or dying in the middle of the road the end effect is that the human is reduced to a thing. Maybe that explains in part why my daughter's murderer got off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist compared to Bekah's loss of her entire life after 21 years and 13 days. Not to mention Bekah's family's and friends' loss. Her unborn children who will never be. This world is a darker place without her. "Hit and run" just does not express.

- posted by barbara @ 6/03/2003 09:09:00 AM  0 comments

 

colors
- posted by barbara @ 6/02/2003 03:07:00 PM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: Drug Czar Propaganda Stalled in House Committee An effort by House Republicans, led by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), to explicitly enable the Office of National Drug Control Policy to use its billion-dollar anti-drug advertising campaign to engage in partisan campaigns against political candidates or voter initiatives that favor drug legalization has run into a buzzsaw of opposition on Capitol Hill. The measure, part of the authorization bill for ONDCP spending, was supposed to have been voted on in the House Government Reform Committee Thursday, but has now been delayed at least until after the Memorial Day recess because GOP and Democratic members could not reach a compromise on the controversial language.

they never cease to amaze me
- posted by barbara @ 6/02/2003 12:31:00 PM  0 comments

 
bounce

it seems I've
taken up residence
on a terrible trampoline,

a ragged, dangerous bouncing
platform of pits and falls
and sickening sends

into thin air
won't hold me, refuses.
like every man I ever loved -

like the rocks at the break-
water disturbed by a storm,
moving, deceiving,

pretensing a comfort
they will never afford
threatening at each

breech of my feet
to rip like an overused bungee cord;
with each stress applied

it comes more alive, more malignant,
malevolent, proprietary, that
much closer to owning me.
- posted by barbara @ 6/01/2003 04:16:00 PM  0 comments