"When a child is shown a sparrow, the child will never see a sparrow
again"

Chuang Tze

A bad omen

The good doctor apparently gave up. R.I.P Hunter S. Thompson.

Our New Intelligence Chief

So, the new fella that will be whispering in the commander in chief's ear happens to have a stunning record in Latin America of ignoring widespread human rights violations.

Below is some background about Johnny during his time in Honduras click here to see more

Honduras
During his tenure as US ambassador to Honduras, Jack Binns, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, made numerous complaints about human rights abuses by the Honduran military. In one cable, Binns reported that General Alvarez was modeling his campaign against suspected subversives on Argentina's 'dirty war' in the 1970s. Indeed, Argentine military advisers were in Honduras, both advising Alvarez's armed forces and assembling and training a contra army to fight in Nicaragua.

When the Reagan administration came to power in 1981, Binns was replaced by Negroponte, who has consistently denied having knowledge of any wrongdoing. Binns claimed he fully briefed Negroponte on the situation before leaving the post.

In These Times writer, Terry Allen described Negroponte as a "zealous anti-Communist crusader in America's covert wars against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua and the FMLN rebels in El Salvador."

In a biographical profile Foreign Policy In Focus reported that "on Negroponte's watch, diplomats quipped that the embassy's annual human rights reports made Honduras sound more like Norway than Argentina. Former official Rick Chidester, who served under Negroponte, says he was ordered to remove all mention of torture and executions from the draft of his 1982 report on the human rights situation in Honduras. In a 1982 letter to The Economist, Negroponte wrote that it was 'simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras.' The Country Report on Human Rights Practices that the embassy submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took the same line, insisting that there were 'no political prisoners in Honduras' and that the 'Honduran government neither condones nor knowingly permits killings of a political or nonpolitical nature.'"

As ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, Negroponte played a key role in US aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and shoring up the brutal military dictatorship of General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez in Honduras. Between 1980 and 1994 U.S. military aid to Honduras jumped from $3.9 million to $77.4 million. Much of this went to ensure the Honduran army's loyalty in the battle against popular movements throughout Central America. [9] (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/20/1411203)

Hey Austinites

If ya'll's are bored this weekend, checkout the indy conference that will be happening on the UT campus. The conference is focused on the global indymedia movement and its related trappings. Starting on Thursday night the legendary Indian journalist P. Sainath will speak in the Bass Lecture Hall at 7 pm. There are classes on Friday and Saturday. Then, on Saturday afternoon Democracy Now's Amy Goodman will give a keynote address.
With workshops by the name of "Citizens' Radios as Peace-builders in Colombia" and a Radical bike tour to top off the whole dog and pony show, how could you go wrong?
For what it's worth.

I'm just a passenger

So, I'm firmly entrenched in my new company at present. It is an interesting contrast to my time back in the Jing. The HR lady was talking to me about purchasing stock and 401(K)'s while I have zero guarantee that I'll survive the night. Albeit, I will go to sleep with the secure notion that I'll open my eyes in the morning, but what a presumption! I mean just because that has worked for 22 years suggests nothing about my chances of survival this particular night. Maybe everything will change. Dunno, not really paranoid, just curious about the unknowability of the time of my own death... Anyway... how did I get on this? Oh, right, I have a job these days and it's actually quite fun, as odd as that may sound. I get to play around with computer code all day and try to make things work. I liken it to the position of a elf or silver smith, except that rather than fashioning neat looking bows and arrows or amulets, I'm helping non-profit agencies improve their efforts at raising money and recruiting members. The company has developed their own beast of a software tool that they give their clients access to. I have been charged with understanding the intricacies of said wooly beast. So far so good.
I seem to recall feeling uneasy about the prospect of joining the ranks of corporate Amerika, but alas, the necessities of eating encroached on my bubble, and I suppose my notions of detached equanimity are all the more informed for this experience. Despite my past apprehension, it's not so much the experience of working that weirds me out as the subcultures I have inadvertently joined as a result of this decision. Exhibit A: I am now a commuter. As mundane as this might sound, it is probably the oddest part of my new corporate foray. 15 minutes to work, 40 minutes back. At times doing battle with motorists, at other times grinning stupidly at them in my rear view to see what kind of response I might elicit (overwhelmingly more positive than what I expected.) One hour for lunch, crammed in with so many other folks who've found themselves in similar situations and are too preoccupied to talk about it. 10 minutes on each hour to smoke or drink cranberry juice or relieve myself. It is a remarkable sight to see such waves of humanity, convinced they're searching for something so distinctively different from the jackass next to them, when actually everyone just wants to get home. That's probably why they went to work in the first place, because they wanted a home to come home to. Despite the trappings, we all really just want somewhere to be naked... Speaking of, does anyone know the laws concerning driving while nude? I know it's a crime in certain states to drive without shoes, but what about pants? Anyhow, if that rings a bell with anyone, gimme a holla'.
So, life has found myself cohabiting with Aga which has been incredibly entertaining. We actually just found a house on the east side of Austin and will be having a party soon where people will receive liquor if they bring shit to put in a house, like lamps, and rugs and paintings of dogs playing cards. The house is down the street from the local office of the ACLU and a soul food kitchen. I'm elated as is Aga, but we've gotten into a running argument concerning the nature of the elements that life directs towards our reality bubbles. Our recent housing switch has been less than typical and there have been myriad complications, legal and financial surrounding it. Aga, taking her rational and metered approach to the situation, has been considering the whole range of possible scenario's, best case and worst case. I Myself, not inclined to think so much, have been inclined to believe that our new cohabitational situation simply resides on the horizon in the temporal dimension and the only thing that needs to happen is for time to pass, allowing the inevitable to manifest. Methinks enlightenment lays in the center, but as the teachings of the great J.R. Bob Dobbs are concerned:
"Remember, 'Bob' is not a 'doer', but a 'letter,' He LETS things happen. What is about to happen is, by perpetual magick coincidence, exactly what he desires. The Plan he has HAS ALREADY COME ABOUT; it simply has yet to make itself apparent."
Shalom

the ephemeral electoral mystery machine

"U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is currently gathering original co-sponsors for her proposed bill to abolish the Electoral College system for the U.S. Presidential Election, and to replace it with a direct vote for the Presidency, according to Feinstein press secretary, Adam Vogt."

The perennial issue of one of the most ludicrous, anti-democratic components of our political system is about to come back up for consideration. In the event that you would like to see a direct and proportional system of electing our president, now would be a good time to contact your senators and suggest they sign on.

The universe, it seems, does not lack a sense of irony

On Dec. 20, a United Parcel Service driver was involved in a crash on an icy road near Keene, N.H., suffered a head injury, and was taken to Cheshire Medical Center, where tests were to be performed, except that the required machine for them was broken (though parts were on order). After checking the status of the order, hospital personnel discovered that the parts had been shipped and were in fact in the crashed UPS truck, and someone was dispatched to the scene of the accident to retrieve them. [Keene Sentinel, 12-20-04]

That there Ego's a wily one...

"There are numerous sidetracks that lead to a distorded ego centered vision of spirituality. We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spirituality when instead we are strenghtening our egocentricity trough spiritual techniques. This fundamental distorsion may be referred to as spiritual materialism." (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche)

Some accompanying considerations for tonight's State of the Union Address

From a NY Times Editorial

If you've lent even one ear to the administration's recent comments on Social Security, you have no doubt heard President Bush and his aides asserting that a $10 trillion shortfall threatens the retirement system - and the economy itself. That $10 trillion hole is the basis of the president's claim last month that "the [Social Security] crisis is now." It's also the basis of the administration's claim that the cost of doing nothing to reform the system would be far greater than the cost of acting now.

Well, the $10 trillion figure is the closest you can get to pulling a number out of the air. Make that the ether. Starting last year, as the groundwork was being set for the emerging debate, the Social Security trustees took the liberty of projecting the system's solvency over infinity, rather than sticking to the traditional 75-year time horizon. That world-without-end assumption generates the scary $10 trillion estimate, and with it, Mr. Bush's putative rationale for dismantling Social Security in favor of a system centered on private savings accounts. The American Academy of Actuaries, the profession's premier trade association, objected to the change. In a letter to the trustees, the actuaries wrote that infinite projections provide "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances and indeed are likely to mislead any [nonexpert] into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."

As it often does with dissenting professional opinion, the administration is ignoring the actuaries. But that doesn't alter the facts or common sense. If the $10 trillion figure is essentially bogus, so is the claim that Social Security is in crisis. The assertion that doing nothing would be costlier than enacting a privatization plan also turns out to be wrong, by the estimates of Congress's own budget agency.

Over a 75-year time frame, Social Security's shortfall is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at $2 trillion and by the Social Security trustees at $3.7 trillion, a manageable sliver of the economy in each case. If the shortfall is on the low side, Social Security will be in the black until 2052, when it will be able to pay out 80 percent of the promised benefits. If it is on the high side, the system will pay full benefits until 2042, when it will cover 70 percent.