~~~~~~GRIEVING PARENTS ~~~~~~ HOLIDAY MEMORIAL SITE
bekah's got a menorah here. missin' my girl...

- posted by barbara @ 11/30/2003 05:31:00 PM

 
CEMETERY GATES - Bukowski, Charles
The Laughing Heart

Your life is your life, don't let it be clubbed into dank submission, be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is light somewhere, it may not be much light, but it beats the darkness.
Be on the watch, the gods will offer you chances.
Know them, take them.
You can't beat death, but you can beat death in life sometimes, and the more light there will be.
Your life is your life, know it while you have it.
You are marvelous, the gods wait to delight in you.

haven't read a whole bunch of Charles Bukowski, but this is my favorite anyway. :) the gods wait to delight in you.
- posted by barbara @ 11/30/2003 05:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
sunset in new mexico july 2003

- posted by barbara @ 11/30/2003 01:55:00 PM

 
rory pouts in MD

at andy's grad [incidentally i asked rory and he wants me to post this picture]
- posted by barbara @ 11/30/2003 01:53:00 PM

 
Subject: ugh
From: "andy" - my journalist/sailor son

so im at fort meade again. ugh. fortunately they have
a plane ticket for
me tomorrow and i somehow managed to fit all my crap in
my bags (except some
clothes i dont really like anyway). so im only here to
get away from here.
i stayed in a hotel last night cus i lost the number to
EZ cab. i have my
old room for tonight, but my old roommate is nowhere to
be found. he doesnt
have orders yet, or at least his stuff is still here,
but im figuring hes
out making the most of his four-day weekend. im just
e-mailing cus i know
how you like to know im okay and what not. well, take
care, ill try and
e-mail you tomorrow or the next day when i find out
exactly what ive gotten
myself into. love you
Andy

the sign of the journalist, on andy's uniform
:)
- posted by barbara @ 11/29/2003 06:16:00 PM  0 comments

 
happy thanksgiving!
cooking for the first time since bekah's murder, in a rather disheveled state, but still, we will be eating:

roast stuffed turkey
mashed potatoes and gravy
candied yams
cranberry sauce
biscuits
sweet pickles
whole ripe black olives
broccoli
pumpkin pie with whipped cream

until we're too stuffed to move. :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/27/2003 09:42:00 AM  0 comments

 
Random Foo Pictures - Rumor Mill - Kerri Oke
CC's latest movie nears completion. :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/26/2003 10:48:00 AM  0 comments

 
Bush Watch
Allan Duncan writes: 'Turns out that some of the money al-Bayoumi received was from Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi Ambassador Bander Bin Sultan... The money then ended up in the hands of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi for monthly living expenses while they rented rooms in the home of the FBI informant. The checks from Princess Haifa were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush... So it appears to me, that the redaction of the Saudi information from the 9-11 Report had more to do with covering the President's own ass from the embarrassing fact that his own uncle was part of the Saudi money trail that enabled two of the hijackers to crash a plane into the Pentagon, and very little to do with jeopardizing our national security at all.' Was Princess al-Faisal's account with J. Bush & Co., the Riggs subsidiary 'for high net-worth individuals' -- that is headed by Jonathan Bush? http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm"
- posted by barbara @ 11/26/2003 10:45:00 AM  0 comments

 
Massive Head-wound Cory
he's feeling good, and the baby is days away. made my night, to hear this wonderful news and see this growing family so happy.
- posted by barbara @ 11/25/2003 10:30:00 PM  0 comments

 
untitled november 2003



john's eyes
- posted by barbara @ 11/25/2003 01:01:00 AM  0 comments

 
Current results for bush
wow, the poll's still out there! i took it off my blog months ago because i was getting an error. well it might be a good time to restore it what with a new president to be elected next year...okie dokie. lemme see if this can be done.
- posted by barbara @ 11/24/2003 09:38:00 PM  0 comments

 
glitter and sky

- posted by barbara @ 11/24/2003 09:21:00 PM  0 comments

 
FTAA IMC | New Photos of Nikki Hartman Shot in the Back...
is my worst case scenario already happening? this woman, shot by police for protesting. where is my country?!

story with pics this is the firsthand account of a protester who was right next to Nikki Hartman when she was shot.

this is too much. too too much. and in iraq american children dying every day. sometims it just feels like evil is going to take the day. no.

PEACE. END THE OCCUPATION. REVIVE THE BILL OF RIGHTS. GIVE ME BACK MY COUNTRY.
- posted by barbara @ 11/24/2003 02:39:00 PM  0 comments

 
Fanta Shokata
you could provide the dialogue for your own commercial too. intriguing, and CC's is funny.
- posted by barbara @ 11/24/2003 02:06:00 PM  0 comments

 
IN MEMORIUM

Frank Bales, 03-25-19 to 11-23-68, and Marie Bales, 12-28-25 to 11-23-80

Your daughter remembers, and loves you. thank you for taking such good care of bekah and watching over andy in the navy.

love forever
- posted by barbara @ 11/23/2003 04:16:00 PM  0 comments

 
flag day 1981

there are very few pictures of me i like. this might be one. i was getting married. it was a long time ago. i have changed a lot since this. hehehehe, here, i'll show how much:

i'm the one wearing sunglasses. :) this picture is closer to most of the pictures i've ever seen of myself. i've seen enough for now by golly...
i keep remembering one thing about that wedding day. actually a few things. we got married at home, a second floor apartment in redondo beach, on flag day. heat wave. it was about 110 degrees in our dining room. the crowd numbered 20 including us, john and bekah, and the rabbi. and these pictures were taken in the children's room. you can just see one ear of john's life-sized bugs bunny in this picture; i must have edited out the full version. our wedding portrait as i recall has us standing in front of a huge framed portrait of mickey mouse.
it was such a solemn occasion after all. lololol
- posted by barbara @ 11/22/2003 01:46:00 AM  0 comments

 
house

- posted by barbara @ 11/22/2003 01:39:00 AM  0 comments

 
sunlight on water in the everglades

november 2003
- posted by barbara @ 11/21/2003 09:56:00 PM  0 comments

 
Argument In Parking Lot Results In Fatal Death
this is an actual headline from the LAPD. a fatal death. not a healing death or a curing death or an injurious death, but a fatal death.

i don't know whether to laugh or cry. the story itself is terrible. . .a woman ran over another woman in a rented van in a public storage parking lot. their male friend yelled at her to stop, but she'd inflicted mortal wounds before she did. she then became hysterical and left the scene.

i don't get why the killer's name is not mentioned here. maybe because the victim's family had not been notified when the press release was rushed out. anyhow. the victim and killer had an argument just before one drove over the other.

c'mon, people now, smile on your brother everybody get together try to love one another right now.

right now.
- posted by barbara @ 11/21/2003 04:04:00 AM  0 comments

 
WWW.ICOCNEWS.COM
an interview with flavil r yeakley, jr, author of the discipling dilemma.
- posted by barbara @ 11/21/2003 03:36:00 AM  0 comments

 
Yahoo! Search Results Pictures of President Grant
i edited the actual search term to fit in my title box. Yahoo! Search Results for Picture's of MR.President Grant is what it really said. but dig it! barbtries a blog is first on the list.

i am laughing. doing laundry. and i apologize to any/all of my [one to three] faithful readers for having been a no show. i have been working this week after having been out of town last week, and otherwise, sleeping, i guess? it's been a long time since i did the 8 to 5. so been sleeping about 8 to 6...not leaving much time for blogging or even email. today i looked finally and had 121 new messages, an all-time high as far as i know. and only about 115 were spam.

just kidding. only about 110 were spam. :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/20/2003 10:50:00 PM  0 comments

 
The League of INFP
she commented on my blog and so i visited her site...one of the first things i read is how INFP's can be so misunderstood...yep.

yepyep. even in this blog i have mentioned that in my life i know i have been misunderstood...but i'll have to read further here to know if we are truly on the same page.

flew from FL to MD today. now it is 11:30 or so eastern time, which means it's about 8:30 my time. sure does feel like bedtime, though...vacation going great, pictures later.
- posted by barbara @ 11/12/2003 08:38:00 PM  0 comments

 
Hell for Halliburton
Major contributors to US President George Bush's election war chest have been awarded around US$8 billion in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington-based US Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reported on October 30. Companies that coughed up a total of at least $500,000 to elect Bush have benefited.

According to CPI, most of the 10 largest contracts went to companies that employed former high-ranking government officials, or have executives with close ties to members of Congress and even the agencies awarding their contracts. Major contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the Bush administration without competitive bids.

this is outrageous. patently so. this story and dozens more like it - more every day - should be front page news, lead-off story news. where are we as americans if this shit can be allowed to go on and on. i think we lost the fourth estate - that's journalism, right? well, third or fourth [i might be wrong], it's just not independent anymore.

it's not even about getting the news to the people. nope. it's about ads, and money, and a snip snip here and a snip snip there, what'd you hear? JLo may not marry after all. the final episode of the matrix trilogy is FRONT PAGE NEWS. it's not? sorry, i thought it was. last week in a neighborhood in los angeles, four young men were murdered within 19 hours. didn't even make the LAPD's press releases, never mind the NEWS! yeah, there were fires, but if there weren't, something else would serve to keep the public from learning that they live in something that cannot accurately be called a civilization.

it's been years since i looked at the front page. never did much, except with the "local smut," the daily breeze...i did not concern myself with global news while my children were young. after my divorce in 1987 i became a sports fiend for a minute or so, til the strike. now i can't remember whether a team plays baseball or football...if i were to go back to reading the sports, it would only be because as i recall sports writers are by and large entertaining writers. after the strike i picked up the paper for the calendar section, the book review, the funnies, and dear abby. i loved jack smith enough to buy the times just for his column.

during gw's daddy's war, the gulf war, i became a glutton for news, turning on NPR in the car and actually reading the A section of the LATimes from cover to cover. CNN of course was ubiquitous in every house. then the troops came home, wave after triumphant wave, and naively i thought, wait up, dudes, still have a despot to kill. by and by it sank into my thick skull: saddam was not only going to survive the war, he would retain power.

but those weeks when i actually believed my country had gone overseas to save the world from an evil that could conceivably end up masterminding another holocaust did provide an education of sorts. after reading the los angeles times A section from front to back i had to acknowledge that contrary to my pie-in-the-sky protected suburban girl perceptions of life upon earth as being fair and peaceful, the truth was that war was going all the time. coups and invasions assassinations and exiles, wars, wars, wars. it's actually not a small world, as it turns out. it's so big that at any given moment, somewhere a war was going on.

by and by my life exploded; from may 1995 to april 1996 i was unemployed and without a place of my own, almost entirely disenfranchised. fortunately i had a sister and brother-in-law, two brothers, and friends. we pulled through. i completed a computer training course and got a job on sunset boulevard which pretty much held my interest [yeah right - i just don't even have enough time, energy, or words to hash through all the personal dramas from '96 to '01. even without them my job sucked all my concentration so thoroughly there was hardly time for the bathroom, let alone the news, which just seemed to go on somewhere else, somehow]. got my own place, though i never did get custody of andy again...we don't need to go there.

as if that wasn't plenty to turn me off the news, some show called "survivor" became such a humongous hit the seasonal results were literally reported on the front page of the LATimes. i've never watched a single episode of that or any of the so-called "reality" shows. not true. i watched the MTV show the "real world" [that's what it was called right?] for two or three years. but the "survivor" type shows, where there is a competition involving self torture or humiliation in front of the masses or whatever, i won't watch.

i will not watch. i am not a lemming. marshall mcluhan - not certain on that spelling - was a genius. as i gazed at the headline and picture of the first winner of "survivor" through the kiosk glass all i could think is "the media IS the message." i had other things to think about. they may or may not have been more uplifting than reality tv, but for me they were preferable by pounds and yards. with the exceptions of taxicab confessions and real sex? sometimes.

and i'm TARRED. Tarred to death of it all...and slap mah fingers, cause i did not even know i was sitting down to write a fucking autobiography! and at that, not even getting to the day that slit my life in two, july 19, 2001...i just knew i hate gw.

but i love bekah - :)
Andy's in the navy now and rory and i will be attending his journalism school grad next week. we will be intrepid as of sunday morning 11-09-03, when we fly to florida to visit my dear friend and blessed benefactor, solange.after that, fort meade, MD, for a couple days. andy hates MD so much he booked a flight home that leaves the east coast before rory and i. BUT i get a 1 1/2 layover in las vegas! gamble....

- posted by barbara @ 11/08/2003 04:37:00 AM  0 comments

 
Lying Media Bastards-We're Just Working Till the Day We Decide We've Had Enough...
This is a problem I run up to again and again regarding Bush policy, that I can agree with their publicly stated goal, but I think that this goal is just a facade to cover up plans to dominate by force for the benefit of the few.

jake discusses a recent speech by gwbush. history's worst president. i had to thank him for reading the speech; i tried, but couldn't get past the first paragraph. i actually hate the man. never even met him. to listen to him speak or read words that i know he said is just more than i can sit still for.

PEACE. END THE OCCUPATION. END THE BUSH REGIME. FREEDOM.
- posted by barbara @ 11/08/2003 03:11:00 AM  0 comments

 
11-30-01
so. this is what i wrote after bekah's father, brother, stepmother, and i were sat down in a room in long beach with my MADD advocate, the detectives who made the murder case against rambo, some of the other LAPD who responded to bekah's death and/or her killer's arrest, district attorney nicholas rini and a fat southern cop in uniform who was apparently enlisted by either the police or the da to try to make us say "okay" that bekah's killer would do four years in prison and get away with murder. it never got okay. i have a call into rini since yesterday afternoon...no response. i'm falling over from the shock of that. right.

all the raving and writing i have done since the day my girl was killed. all the studying and reading and forcing myself through every page, every letter, every punctuation mark of the traffic report, the hospital records, the autopsy report,the murder book, all of it [i did not and will not look at any of the 243 photos obtained by the police that night, and never saw bekah again]. all the trips to 25th street and even on down the road to pv drive east and the killer's destination post-murder. the death certificate and its little insult. the depositions and their big insults.

all the intense overnights cross legged on the bed i no longer slept in, thinking, thinking, writing, writing. before this plea bargain was reached in November 2001 my life was devoted to achieving justice for bekah...as if i had any power or sway to that end, at all. i did not, do not. but i tried, yeah. two letters to the da, one signed by her father, stepmother, and me, the second just from me and my perspective as the child of a drunk. i slaved over the letter we all signed for at least two or three days; i don't think i have ever in my life tried so hard to get it right, to put out all the arguments in case he missed one or two, to make sure he knew that bekah should still be alive and that her killer needed to go away bigtime. like for life...for murder.

and yet it was just yesterday that i realized that there is actually a logical, sensible reason i've never been able to shake the feeling that rambo pointed her car at bekah that night. when it hit me yesterday, it hit like a truck of insane. i went to the phone and began calling people to bounce this - epiphany? what is the word for a terrible epiphany? - off of someone i knew would be sane. because i did not know that about myself. but today, i think i am sane. i guess i'll never know why this simple reality never occurred to me for over two years after bekah's death.



the scene illustrated contempt more than anything, to me, i think...two chalk boxes marking where her shoes had landed, near the curb on the other side of the street from her car...about 100 feet away, in the median, bekah's blood. not all of it; just the "large pool" described in the police report. just enough so that six months later we could still see the spot.

it may have been a month, maybe less, before the day i called the detective to admit that i could not stop thinking she pointed her car at bekah. the news and police report both documented a speeding car, on the wrong side of the road, no headlights. he asked if i had any reason to believe that bekah may have known rambo; the answer was no. i literally thought bekah was communicating it to me from the other side [she is an excellent communicator after all]. but yesterday, for the first time, i realized, if rambo was driving on the wrong side of the road before she killed bekah, bekah would still be alive.

bekah looked before she crossed, and was close to the opposite curb before rambo scooped her up with the front left part of her car. i know that bekah looked, because she never had an accident in all her years of driving [sixteen year old girls driving for the first time are statistically 100 percent likely to have an accident within the year]. the only injuries she ever got growing up were a concussion because of MY bicycle-riding when she was still in diapers and a broken nose at 4 because she tried too hard to keep up with her big brother and went face first into a concrete bench. nothing after the age of 4. bekah looked out for herself.

rambo was traveling in the same direction as bekah; in other words, Bekah's car was pointed in the same direction and she had pulled to the curb from the same lane rambo was driving in. if bekah had seen a car traveling toward her in the opposite lane, she would have never stepped foot into the street in the first place. she would have just let the car pass and then cross. bekah's crossing when she did tells me that rambo was traveling in the correct lane as bekah began to cross. she had time to get to the other side of the street; she did get to the other side of the street. she should have been safe, but she trusted the driver to stay in her lane.

okay. today i still think i am sane, but i do feel a bit like woody allen in that movie where he can't let the subject of JFK's assassination rest. in my case now that i have done this i can let the subject go.

after i have a word with nicholas rini that is.

- posted by barbara @ 11/07/2003 01:55:00 PM  0 comments

 
simple


Bush must swallow his pride on Iraq - www.theage.com.auMore Americans have been killed since the war ended than during the war itself.

i was pretty sure this was the case. sadly.
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2003 09:59:00 PM  0 comments

 
Gardena Man Enters Plea, Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Coach’s Traffic Death
A Gardena man pleaded no contest today to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and was sentenced to a maximum 10-year prison term in connection with the traffic death of a South Bay wrestling coach, the District Attorney’s office announced.

Deputy District Attorney Bradley McCartt said Ricardo Pena, 23, entered the plea late this afternoon when he appeared before Torrance Superior Court Judge Thomas R. Sokolov to have a date set for a preliminary hearing. Judge Sokolov sentenced Pena to the maximum 10-year term. As part of disposition of the case, a charge of second-degree murder and two driving-under-the-influence charges were dismissed.

i blogged about this case a few months ago. this 23-year-old ran a red light and caused the crash that killed a 21-year-old. the press release says that murder was charged after "an extensive investigation," but i never read that he left the scene, or that there was any evidence that he willfully ran the red light, or what-have-you. as i mentioned before, this guy is the epitome of who i thought would be stewing in jail the day after bekah was killed. a young man. stupid, drunk, shit!

i don't know this person or the specifics but i wish i did. i play pool in league, in a bar i've been going to since 1987. a couple months ago a friend from the bar, a man i've known for years just from the bar, confided that he had killed one of his best friends when he was young and drunk. i think he said he was 21, as was his friend. this guy is generally jocular and lighthearted, but he knows i lost my daughter to a drunken driver and i think he was thinking, "I'm as bad as the person who killed barbara's daughter, i'm barely fit to tell her this..."

but i said, no. you did not murder your friend, you fucked up royally, but i can't cast aspersions when i've been a drunk driver myself more times than i can count. [no more] - but bekah was murdered. this is so crystal clear to me. it amazes me how often people assume that i must be overstating or crazed with grief or what-have -you. no, no...my friend looked at me more soberly than possible considering the beer he still drinks, and said, "I deal with that every day. Every day of my life." and i know he does.

rambo as far as i know still refuses to admit she is the cause of bekah's death. as far as i know still feels sorry for herself and bad about the dent in her mother's car. still denies her alcoholism, or that the nature of the "upset" she admits to while roaring down 25th street on 07-19-01 was pissed. enraged, seeing red, mad enough to kill.
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2003 01:45:00 AM  0 comments

 
Attorney Charged With Attempted Murder
gee, i wonder how this will turn out. i notice, looking at the DA's press releases, that cases like bekah's show up at arraignment, but are never followed through. in other words cooley wants readers to see how tough he is on crime, charging hit and run drivers with murder when appropriate, etc. but since no one gets convicted, because his office bargains away all these cases, the outcome is not reported.

this may be a premature accusation. but i'll go ahead and put it out there anyway, because that is how fucking sure i am that i am right.

the DA told us that bekah's case was to be vertically prosecuted, "high profile." nicholas rini left messages on my phone: "I'm calling to discuss your daughter's murder."

so. i did discuss this at counseling as well. lately i have a huge urge to either call him, or show up at his office or in court even, or to ask if i can buy him lunch, and tell him hey there's nothing more I can do, now I want to know.

everything i want to know. because her father is not calling me back. the clock is ticking. and my daughter's spirit, sometimes even now, it cries for justice. rambo's not going to be charged with perjury regardless of how blatant and infuriating her lies. she'll be left with her denial and her memories of two years in prison. i'm sure they were just hell on her.

bekah will still be dead. so. my counselor said go for it. i said i know i cannot have satisfaction but it would be something just to make him squirm for a sec. it was one of the rare times i saw him actually show indignation when he said, "Yes, do it, make him squirm."

DA's need to know what they do sometimes...that families of innocent victims do not go deaf dumb and blind, and that wildly disparate sentences for practically identical crimes don't make sense, that when they enlist the family of a victim as parties to a travesty of justice with their spin and their lies they do grievous wrong, that they are bound ethically to tell the truth and should do so, even if it might leave their case open to a challenge by the victim's family, etcetera.

nicholas rini deserves to hear it from me, i think. i can be strong.
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2003 01:25:00 AM  0 comments

 
NaNoWriMo.org : Viewing profile
this be me. if you click and read the excerpt i'd sure appreciate feedback. be brutal! i mean if i deserve that. . .thank you. i will reciprocate? :)
- posted by barbara @ 11/06/2003 12:51:00 AM  0 comments

 
my newest turtle
smokes incense
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 11:21:00 PM  0 comments

 
underwater

- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 11:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
JCCHASEZ.NU
so i went in search of details, again...ann white's killer was 21. her same age, bekah's same age. he had no prior dui's. he had apparently been acting weird and angry before he killed the young woman. like rambo,

who was 32 years older than her victim.

again i just can't get it. at 53 you are supposed to know better. why would a young person get 14 more years for the same crime as a middle-aged person?! it does not make sense. it does not make sense.

oh, well. sorry if i bored anyone obsessing about something i can't do dick about. i want to get someone else outraged, i think. i want there to be someone, maybe already on this planet, maybe yet to be born, to survive because bekah did not, by virtue of a raised consciousness i made happen.

i guess. and must vent or be insane.
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 03:05:00 PM  0 comments

 
waiting for grief counseling to begin
To List the Woes
- my daughter was murdered
- my friend is dying
- my country tis of thee no longer about liberty
- murder
- justice and lack thereof
- Nicholas Rini and why i want to call him, or better yet, just STAND in front of him.
- my windshield broke
- i have high blood pressure
- my...i will save the last one for privacy's sake.
- losing trust

....

If I stop in the art store and buy
One peacock blue, one coffee brown,
Does that mean I need to paint
A field and a sky?

I take it as a yes, and say,
Bekah leads me to art so I
Must make what my hands say
She tells me to. Okay.

So across the wet paper flows
Peacock blue, a sky, tobacco
Brown, a field in Autumn.
Then I'm cuddly warm. She knows.

What she makes me know.
There is Art in doing and being.
In sleep canvases with plots
Roll before me, a movie slow.

Though it could be a nightmare,
It could be sweet, it is in color,
And even when she is never seen,
Bekah is always there.

I might feel afraid or feel brave,
People die or are threatened film
Noir style; saved like geese in the movies,
In the morning I am the saved.

So I paint. I scribble. I am
an artist today, a poet, a novelist.
I am an advocate, a protester, a grandmother,
I am, I am Pop-eye, I am.

....

think that one either needs much work or to be mercifully abandoned...but it set me on a train of thought. connected. Jung why did you have to hate jews? i know there will be no good answer, because my children were/are jews and all my reasons have to do with love.

but maybe anti-semitism is not a good reason not to study jung. i still read ezra pound, a fascist. in a station of the metro...but i will not study hitler.

...

and my counselor walked up, said, "Ready!" so i followed him into the place, sat on the couch and raved for an hour or so. he said jung was indoctrinated before he became brilliant. this is still problematic for me, because i grew up in torrance, ca, a very racist place to grow up, and by the age of 10 at most and maybe even 5 i was a bleeding heart. i don't even claim to be brilliant [only nearly so - wink]. how did i get to be this-a-way?

eh. flood flood flood. if the governor of CA could be recalled because of the dirty tricks of the rich white men who ran enron and the country, can't gw bush be recalled for killing the young men and women who are our children/grandchildren/future, etcetera? the etcetera representing all the other unnecessarily dead.

switch gears: it pisses me off no end that i cannot find the news story anywhere on the web. also seems unbelievable, since i heard it on the radio...at any rate. that was monday and this is wednesday but by tuesday apparently it had been buried really, really well. there is a pop star by the name of justin timberlake, right? and he was on a radio show - last year i believe - and a fan, a young woman named Ann White, who was two days away from her 22nd birthday, was run over, dragged about a block, and dumped by a mad man in a car. he was charged with murder and allowed to plead no contest to approximately the same felony Rambo [the woman who murdered my daughter 13 days after her 21st birthday in much the same manner] pled no contest to.

he got 18 years. by plea bargain. EIGHTEEN YEARS - something resembling a reasonable prison sentence for what he did. rambo got 4 years. FOUR YEARS - something that is exactly a travesty of justice.

the radio station said something about the young woman - about her college, or something she had just achieved. mentioned that in two more days she would be 22. well, i can do that. bekah had celebrated her 21st birthday 13 days before she was killed, and when she was awarded an honorary posthumous diploma from brooks college, where she had just started her last year, her department head said that she would have been a valecdictorian candidate.

please understand, i am GLAD he got that much time. what i'm saying is rambo getting out of prison next february is SO FUCKING WRONG! bekah. bekah was not chopped liver.

i'll say it however many times it is appropriate. my daughter was not and will never be chopped liver, and her loss is a great, great loss.
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 01:39:00 PM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: How Many Body Bags?
Unless we are willing to trade the lives of U.S. troops and Iraqis for the obsessions of empire, we must end the occupation now.

WILL SOMEBODY LISTEN?!

I have a question for any reader better informed than myself: is it not true that the occupation has now cost more american lives than the war?

the crowd and the flags at my son's boot camp grad, great lakes, IL, april, 2003
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 10:41:00 AM  0 comments

 
picture4045.jpg (JPEG Image, 493x740 pixels) - Scaled (78%)
i want a labret. don't ask me why. i just got the urge yesterday; just saw one on a girl saturday; just want one.

my son [27 going on 80] says don't do it. i [48 going on 14] say, you just have to grow up. i say, you're still gonna love me. he says, yeah, i just won't go anywhere with you.

i want a labret and i'm too fucking old to do it. sigh. i think my jamaican friend should call me.
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 10:33:00 AM  0 comments

 
Reality Bitchslap
i left this comment just now, 4:39 am 11-05-03, regarding CC's observation that he HATES GEORGE W BUSH:
gw has much blood on his hands. i just watched Three Days of the Condor again today, do you know it? robert redford never looked better...anyway! it was made in 1975, and at the end he's looking at some CIA wacko and saying, "WHY?" then it hits: "Oil." the dude tells him in 10, 15 years, it'll be food, and the people "won't want us to tell them, they'll just want to eat." the terrible thing is, it's 28 years since that movie was made and it is still OIL. there were special forces in 1991 too, and saddam still lived. that's when i quit looking, because i believed then and now and that "they" wanted him alive so if and when they felt like doing so they'd have a convenient reason to throw a war. now they have, thrown the war, occupied the mid east, and it is still for oil. it truly sickens me, especially when i hear as you did about incidents that take out young who should be over here living their lives or at the very least defending a worthy cause.

so in the movie, robert redford buys a little time by telling his story to the NY times, and he lets cliff robertson know it. Robertson says, "you have no idea how much damage you've done," and redford says, with passion, "I hope so."

good movie. and timely still, considering.

sunset at redondo beach, CA, 11-02-03 [joyce's birthday]
- posted by barbara @ 11/05/2003 04:40:00 AM  0 comments

 
endofworld.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
endofworld.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
the end of the world is F - U - N - N - Y
- posted by barbara @ 11/03/2003 04:40:00 PM  0 comments

 
pelicans

yesterday at sunset flying in formation
- posted by barbara @ 11/03/2003 04:36:00 PM  0 comments

 
silent killer
i thought it was my sinuses as usual...horizontal for days, pain in my head. i had less energy than a dead dust mite. finally i dragged myself to the doctor. i was thinking i'd ask about having my head vacuumed out. when his assistant took my blood pressure i asked, as i always do, what it was. "140 over 102," she said.

"is that high?"

"it's not low."

when my doctor took it he got a reading of 136 over 106. he told me i'll probably be on the meds for the rest of my life.

i am 48 years old. my father died of a heart attack when he was 49. my mother died of cancer that galloped through her body after she suffered a catastrophic stroke at 54 [she was dead 5 months after the CVA]. my daughter died at 21 of massive head injuries suffered when she was run down by a pissed off 53-year-old drunken woman .

but i still want to stick around to hold my 11-year-old son's babies before i join her. so this was not good news.
- posted by barbara @ 11/03/2003 02:23:00 AM  0 comments

 
at the cemetery

boys play ball
- posted by barbara @ 11/02/2003 05:59:00 PM  0 comments