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At a recent conference in Beirut on “What to Do about Palestine,” I got interviewed by a local TV station regarding my views on the subject — whereupon I immediately went off into some really long, rambling rant about injustice, fascism and neo-colonialism in the Middle East. “Keep it simple, just use sound bites,” someone there advised me. Okay. I could do that.

So here’s a list of some of the key sound bites that I came up with (hours too late however — I’m not really good at thinking on my feet):

1. Israeli neo-colonialists have spent the last 67 years (as well as almost a trillion dollars) on waging their sleazy War on Human Rights, both inside and outside of Palestine — and yet they are still losing that war. “Losers!” They can’t even manage to defeat a bunch of rag-tag Palestinian kids seeking freedom while armed only with rocks and knives. (Then I made the universal “L-for-loser” sign on my forehead at this point).

1.a. Palestine has become the Israeli neo-colonialists’ Vietnam.

1.b. In these morally medieval times, thank God that a few of us human beings still have ideals and still strive for justice.

2. Just think how beneficial it would be for the citizenry of both Israel and Palestine if they just got rid of their Zionist neo-colonialist gestapo leadership and concentrated on, wait for it, TOURISM instead. Some of the most holy sites in the world are in this area. I’d go there in a minute if I didn’t have to wade through all those scary-looking SS guys, miles of checkpoints and fascist-like concentration camps first.

2.a. Israeli neo-colonialists have blatantly and illegally seized numerous Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy places and have totally screwed up the spirituality of all three religions. This shameless and deliberate dissing of Yahweh, Allah and Jesus totally sucks eggs.

3. Palestinians now have their very own Joan of Arc — or is their very own version of the Disney princess Merida? Or both. Ahed Tamimi, a brave 14-year-old Palestinian girl from the Occupied West Bank, spoke to us at the conference. She was electric and determined to end the brutal Occupation of her country. “I can no longer stand by and watch Israelis continue to steal our land — sitting, swimming and playing on our land and yet treating us like we have no right to be there.” Here’s a video of her: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/613344042140440/?theater

4. If the Israeli neo-colonialists plan to keep up their current rate of oppression in the Occupied Territories (let alone realize their fondest hope of expanding Greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile), then they are going to have to bulk up their army bigtime really soon. And so they have two choices: Either hire Blackwater mercenaries like the Americans and Saudis do, or else draft up more homeboys.

4.a. I’m thinking that they’ll choose the latter option — in a effort to keep their storm troopers Aryan. And if that happens, then it’s the ultra-orthodox youth who will be forced to start serving as the gene pool. This is gonna cause a big mess that will split Israeli citizens right down the middle. http://news.yahoo.com/israel-law-renews-hot-debate-army-ultra-orthodox-041045115.html

4.b. “Divide, conquer and colonize” has long been an Israeli Zionist technique in Sunni-Shia-land. http://original.antiwar.com/Dan_Sanchez/2015/12/21/war-is-realizing-the-israelizing-of-the-world/ But will this technique work as well for them when it is Israel itself that is also being split into pieces by its endless War on Human Rights?

5. Israeli Zionist neo-cons got their asses whupped bigtime back in 2006 after they attacked Lebanon. It was a total rout. But now the Israeli neo-colonialists are at it again — attacking Syria via their proxies Saudi Arabia, Turkey, America and ISIS. And they’re still getting their asses whupped. Yes, the current Israeli high commanders appear to be “Losers” abroad as well as at home. Remember how badly they lost their proxy wars on Iran and Iraq? I rest my case. http://blackagendareport.com/palestinians_resist_zionist_terror

5.a. War is the Number-One cause of climate change pollution in the world today — and because of all these endless wars in the Middle East, we’ll all probably be dead from planetary pollution by 2028 anyway and then who is occupying what won’t even matter any more.

5.b. One of the main reasons that Israeli thugs arm and support ISIS thugs is that all those creepy psychopaths in ISIS, by claiming to be Muslims, give real Muslims a bad name, including the poor abused Palestinians who are only trying to protect their children and homes. But this Zionist plot is backfiring because rabid Israeli neo-colonialists have ended up giving real Jews a bad name too. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34286-conference-of-the-herds

6. I loved the hotel where the conference was held. I loved Beirut.

7. We delegates also toured two television stations (Al Manar and Al Mayadeen) that have recently been banned in France because of their accurate reporting on various actions of the Israeli Occupation forces. So much for free speech in neo-Vichy France. But, hey, I got to be on TV!

Link to more info on Al Manar: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/after-bombing-al-manar-tv-keeps-on-broadcasting-sign-of-hezbollah-resolve/

Link to more info on Al Mayadeen: http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/8056

8. On the street in Beirut, you can usually spot members of Hezbollah by their fashion choice: Levi’s 501s. However, Palestine’s Joan of Arc chose to wear skinny jeans.

9. The food on Alitalia airlines is not so good. But they do have great in-flight movies. When we flew over Turkey, however, I just kept hoping that President Erdoğan wouldn’t shoot my plane down too.

10. Israeli neo-colonialist Occupation forces are no more Jewish than ISIS members are Muslim or those blood-thirsty Bush-Obama military-industrial-complex creeps in Washington are Christian. Blasphemers, the whole lot. Just ask Jesus, Mohammad (PBUH) and Abraham!

11. Israelis can visit California without a visa any time that they want. But can I visit Gaza without a visa too? Never gonna happen. But then California is not a concentration camp. http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2015/12/uk-activists-clarion-call-civil-societies-around-world-expel-israel-united-nations/

12. Israeli neo-cons disguised as the American Israel Education Foundation, a tax-exempt AIPAC clone, just treated 57 American congressmen to a free tour of Israel. However, when these same 57 congressmen were also offered a free tour of Palestine by the Free Palestine Movement, not one of them accepted it. http://freepalestinemovement.org/2015/12/12/57-congress-reps-taken-to-israel-who-do-they-really-represent/

12.a. AIPAC: Giving Jews a bad name since 1951.

Are these hot soundbites or what! Bam!

PS: All the sound bites expressed here are my own. However, unlike most American mainstream media sound bites, my sound bites are actually based on real, on-the-ground, provable eye-witness facts. Eat your heart out, MSM!

PPS: Why am I being so freaking hard on Israeli neo-colonialists? That’s easy. It’s because I love justice — and always have, even when I was a kid. And there is nothing more unjust than what is happening to Palestinians right now. Just imagine how you would feel if, like them, you had your land, your safety, your peace of mind, your freedom and your children stolen from you and then were accused of being a “terrorist” for simply wanting it back.

PPPS: Not even one of the Israeli and American empire-seeking neo-colonialists and neo-fascists who might read this report from Beirut are going to agree with me on any one of these soundbites. But then what does their measly opinion matter when Jesus, Mohammad (PBUH) and Abraham all agree with me. Humph.

Constitutionalism and Collegiate Town Rogues

Having been a seminal part of the development of “CopWatch” before it was CopWatch, I have an abiding interest in the patrols of the police in Berkeley.  The police come in several jurisdictional flavors which keep the concept of venue fluid and confusing. Venue has to do with the jurisdiction you sue in and in Berkeley can be used to dismiss cases with prejudice and no chance to refile in the proper “place”.

CopWatch was initially just a Doctor of Criminology and a newly minted lawyer wandering Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley around People’s Park with a professional curiosity as to “just what the hell were the cops doing” and stopped to ensure constitutional behavior.

I have heard the cute ploy of a federal takeover of local investigations in order to stall and run the statute of limitations out and thus allow the alleged miscreants to fly free (just happened recently in San Francisco).  Works for cops particularly well when they need to find a way to prevent prosecution. Better than the “I was afraid” defense.

In Berkeley, the home of the “Free Speech Movement” things are a little out of resonance. Let me explain.

There has been an homeless protest at the Berkeley Post Office that  morphed from OccupySF and was beginning another encampment in front of the Berkeley City Hall. All the big names got involved but the two young people arrested found that the lawyers don’t work for free and shucks, whaddya want anyway.

They had to plea (to what?) and take a stay away order from City Hall (where the City Council meets) and the government offices of the civic center (except to pay fines?)

I can’t believe the big names do not see the constitutional issues that include being barred from objecting to the police behavior, laws or attempting to give suggestions at a city council meeting that, instead, could lead to jail time. So much for freedom of assembly let alone free speech.

Apparently this is not the Berkeley of the 60’s or even the 80’s.

Mike Zint said there were over sixty homeless being housed in tents and protected at the city hall protest and that represented about 7% of the counted homeless.  “Seven percent and how many has the city helped?”

Now I get to do some more “for free” work as the housies and officies can’t figure how to help or take the time to research the law.

Someone with a bar license (who is not homeless)  could represent (spend some money and show up in court) on behalf of the constitution. Is it unconstitutional to have  stay away orders from civic government and/or deferred prosecution to keep informal probation on a person?

Anyone see a violation of Fourth Amendment rights of shelter and  the police just entering (unzipping a tent) without a warrant to arrest for a misdemeanor with no special circumstances?  The tent city wasn’t going anywhere unless the police broke the law.

So the police are the hired hands of the bunkhouse boss. The “elected” representatives have no idea of civil rights for the homeless and allow the persecutors and oppressors during the “holiest time of the year” .

“The night before Christmas and all through the city, not a toilet was open and that’s pretty shitty.” Mike Z.

If the people will not exercise their rights they may have justifiably lost them but if the people exercise their rights and find the avenues of peaceful protest blocked and barred what can you eventually expect?

In the town where we fought for free speech, free teach ins, free peace and free parks are we ready to pave over People’s Park and move the poor out to the dumpsites where they cannot be seen?

What madness to live the past and be blind to the present hypocrisy of freedom without free speech and the sanctity of a home depends upon a corporate definition of a house. Or even a “person”.

This is my Holiday column. Play the fervor of sixties again, Sam.  Play it for me.

Recently, GOP candidates used up over three hours of prime-time TV arguing about how to protect Americans from terrorism. “Blow everybody up east of Atlantic City!” seemed to be the general consensus that the Repubs came up with. However, during that entire program, not one of the candidates even mentioned the fact that millions of innocent Americans have already been savagely murdered in their beds by a vicious terrorist set lose in the very heart of our homeland — and that would be sugar! http://dailymuslims.com/2015/12/09/terrorism-the-indefinable-word/

Even as we speak, thousands of helpless and unprotected Americans are being mercilessly picked off one by one by plain old common everyday sugar and its substitutes — and yet no one is holding any TV debates about that.

In the last year alone, 75,578 Americans have been bumped off by sugar-induced diabetes — while in the past few decades only approximately 182 Americans have been killed by actual human terrorists with weapons (including Oklahoma City and San Bernardino).

“But Jane,” you might ask, “what about 9-11?” Nah. 19 Saudis with box-cutters and seven dancing Israeli “art students” in Jersey don’t count as terrorists — because, as everyone in America has learned the hard way, if Saudi Arabia and Israel are involved, nobody is allowed to call it terrorism. But I digress.

My main point here is that terrorists are few and far between in America these days — but sugar is lurking everywhere, behind every corner, ready and extremely willing to kill us dead at the drop of a hat. And not only are sugar “sleeper-cells” hiding out in our junk food and desserts and sodas and Halloween candy, but also in our cereal, low-fat yogurt, soup, fruit juice and even our baby food. Yikes!

And sugar is far, far more likely to kill you than Saudis with box-cutters or Israelis dancing the Hora to celebrate the Twin Towers getting blown up. http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/israeli_spies_911.htm

Apparently sugar does all the things that are bad for us that fats have always been accused of — such as clogging our arteries and making us “fluffy”. Fats have been unjustly taking the rap for sugar’s current heartless and indiscriminate reign of terror. Humph.

But next you might ask, “How do you know all this information about sugar and why are you bringing it up now?” Because of in-flight movies of course! I just watched “That Sugar Film” while flying to Paris on Delta. http://thatsugarfilm.com/film/watch-now/ And what I learned about terrorism from that movie was far more scary than what I learned from watching the Republican debate on the subject (if you don’t count the fact that every presidential candidate there wanted to basically blow up the world). http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/18/republicans-are-so-bullish-on-war-that-30-percent-would-bomb-a-fictional-country

PS: Have a happy holiday, everyone — and please watch out for all those sugar plum terrorists wielding cake-cutters! And make it your New Year’s resolution to give up sugar and sugar substitutes before it’s too late.

The announcement that Bruce Jenner (as reported in the new issue of  Star Magazine) has recanted and no longer wishes to become Caitlyn was a relatively easy matter that was rectified by a new press release from his press agent.

Sharla Delacroix aka Belle Starr has often tried to explain to this pundit about the misinformation and consequences of rash decisions and medical charlatanism. It doesn’t matter if they tell you that you are malformed or that things can be undone, Sharla says, “We are all just experiments to them”.

Sharla has tried to counter the public’s extreme degree of ignorance due to malfeasance by the mainstream media and it’s reporters. The process, contrary to any reassurances is not reversible.

The emotional damages are always ignored  or minimized and a horrible possibility exists that the most likely result to undergo the surgery will be suicide.  Not what the doctors promised as the result that they sold to anyone who was questioning.

Could Jenner’s lightening-bolt Christmas announcement been cleverly planned as part of a long -term publicity campaign?

It remains to be seen what the editors of Vanity Fair and Glamour will have to say about Jenner’s change  of heart. But will he now become a GQ model? It’s not bloody likely he will be named “Hottest Woman of the Year” by Esquire.

The image of a supportive and loving family is a little skewed. Not all those who undergo the operation have the resources to help the family become more accepting. Should we even accept this situation?

Sharla says, “Not a single one of us is real.  Not a one of us is going to menstruate or become pregnant.”

Sharla’s views on the topic are far ranging and extensive and would take a full-length book to explore adequately. Have the places that provided the surgery reversed their policies regarding transsexual surgery or sex-reassignment-surgery?  We understand that several of the pioneering institutions no longer offer that option.

Editors and reporters have been rather squeamish about this topic.  The fact that it is being propelled into the mainstream media’s pop culture coverage at Christmas time is only going to add to the titillation factor.

Jenner has provided new holiday season fodder for the late night talk show opening monologues that was inappropriate for a new war in Syria, Jihad at Christmastime and the American institution of a crazed lone gunman going on a shooting spree.

We never really did expect to see Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Cigar Aficionado magazine.  Maybe it’s not too late?

Sharla has also suggested a column on the celebrity license to commit manslaughter guilt free.

If Ru Paul has a TV show will Bruce do a guest spot?

Now as we don our gay apparel it is time for the disc jockey to play, The Kinks “Lola”, The Who’s “I’m a Boy” and Lou Reed “Take a Walk on the Wild Side”.

Now we have to go buy some stocking stuffers.

Have a FABULOUS holiday season and that everyone tells you

“YOU LOOK GORGEOUS!”

Aloha until the next column.

“Why on earth are you going to Beirut?” asked my neighbor.

“I’ve been invited to attend The Global Campaign to Return to Palestine’s annual conference being held there,” I replied. This is going to be a really big deal — but only if I find a replacement babysitter for my ten-month-old granddaughter Sofia while I’m gone. Done!

On the plane flight over, I watched “Straight Outta Compton” — and all that police brutality onscreen got me right into the mood to talk about all that police brutality in real life that Israeli neo-colonialists inflict on poor Palestinians daily as they too are thrown to the ground, humiliated and jailed for no reason, just like Dr. Dre and Easy E. But I digress.

“How do I get to that bombsite where a market was blown up by ISIS a few weeks ago?” I asked various conference delegates from Nigeria, America, Tunis, Sweden, India and Argentina. They all shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads. Er, “Taxi!” Every taxi driver in Beirut should know where the bombsite is, right? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/world/middleeast/lebanon-explosions-southern-beirut-hezbollah.html?_r=0

So the taxi guy drives me around south Beirut for at least 15 minutes. Searching for the bombsite? Nah. Searching for a gas station. The gauge was on empty. “There is the market,” he finally says. Where? I can see nothing, but still get out and start walking around — through a busy working-class neighborhood all alive with ordinary people coming and going. Why would ISIS ever want to throw a bomb here? It would be like killing people in Paris or San Bernardino. The people here are salt of the earth.

Suddenly some guy on a Vespa pulls up beside me and shouts, “What you want! What you want!” I try to ignore him. “Police!” he cries next. Yeah sure. But then it turns out that he actually is the police. I stammer and stutter and try to make sense about what I am doing there but I am shaking as well as being my usual dazed and confused self.

“I’m looking for the bombsite,” I finally manage to spit out. “And souvenir T-shirts.”

The cop scrutinizes me closely like a bug on a pin for a few minutes then says, “Follow me.” And he takes me straight to the bombsite. But there was nothing left to see in terms of damage to buildings. But rows of photos of victims had been set out. And flowers. Lots of flowers. Tears came to my eyes.

Then the policeman kindly parked his Vespa and walked me back to my hotel — which turned out to be only four blocks away. And he also took me to a T-shirt shop, but the T-shirts there were all used, ragged and piled up in huge ugly bins. “Sorry,” I said, “but they have to be new. Gifts for my family. That sort of thing.” And then I went back to my hotel. Never did find any souvenir T-shirts in Beirut.

PS: If Americans are really serious about stopping terrorism and ISIS, all we have to do is stop supplying all these bad guys with weapons, food and Toyotas. It’s as simple as that. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/16/a-blind-eye-toward-turkeys-crimes/

PPS: After the conference was over, the delegate from Nigeria returned home and was immediately shot and killed by Nigerian army thugs, obviously for daring to support Palestine. “Straight Outta Nigeria!” Hey, that’s what you get for supporting peace and justice these days.

None of us must ever forget that whenever and wherever it comes to standing up for human rights against powerful neo-colonialist bullies, we all can be thrown to the ground like Ice Cube — or like Palestinians. But still we must do it, no matter what the risk, if we ever expect to be able to live with ourselves. In these troubled times of out-of-control bullying by the military-industrial complex, each and every one of us is now being forced to become the next Dr. Dre — or Patrick Henry. “Give me liberty or give me death”. http://www.globalresearch.ca/illegal-slaughter-camerons-bombings-of-syria-equals-blairs-iraq-war-crimes/5495268

PPPS: “Kill another human being, end up in Hell.” It’s the law. Even if you are a neo-colonialist or in the army or a cop. Especially if you are a neo-colonialist or in the army or a cop.

I just read somewhere that human bodies cannot detect dangerous levels of radiation at this time because, in our evolutionary past, there was never a need for detecting dangerous levels of radiation around us. Thus none of us are human Geiger counters today — even though, after Los Alamos, Dimona, Chernobyl and Fukushima, I sort of wish that I was one.

And the same principle can be applied to the detection of lies told to us constantly by mainstream media. Our very lives never used to depend on whether or not we could detect lies on TV. We are not human lie detectors either.

For us human beings, the mainstream media these days seems to have become like some kind of pervert who promises to give us candy if only we step into his white van.

Take our elections for instance. We are constantly lied to and told that corporate trolls, if elected, will serve our interests in Washington and not those of Wall Street and War Street. And then our economy goes bust and our sons and daughters die in endless wars for greed. And we’ve been lured into that white van once again. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/15/putin-gives-kerry-a-chance-to-pull-back-from-the-brink/

Another lie we are constantly being fed is that racial and cultural diversity is dangerous and we must always hate and fear “The Other”. Also not true. Take Paris for instance. All we hear about Paris recently is that there are gangs of terrorists loose in the City of Enlightenment — but when I got hopelessly lost in the Metro on my way to Montmartre recently, the racial and cultural diversity in the subway was intense. And yet we all just got along.

At the gigantic labyrinthine Chaletet transfer point, there were over a thousand people making thousands of choices between at least 20 different train platforms and approximately 50 different trains going to over 200 destinations in Paris. I was lost, desperate and aghast!

“Just get on a damn train, any damn train,” I told myself, but finally decided to ask someone instead. But who?

A thousand people were all rushing by me — and they all appeared to know exactly where they were going. I was the only eye in this hurricane of humans. And there were people from all over the freaking world rushing by me. Caucasians, Asians, Arabs, Black people, tourists.

Yet nobody was carrying a Glock, Kalashnikov or Uzi — or even fighting with their fists.

Nobody was even angry.

Nobody was not getting along.

These people all had places to go and reasons for getting there — and none of them had the time or the inclination to not get along. Eventually I found my way to my correct Metro platform and train, and eventually I even arrived in Montmartre. But the impression stayed with me — that we’re all being lied to. People of all races, religions and cultures actually really can get along.

And if we don’t finally start ignoring the mainstream media’s barrage of lies (the main intent of which seems to be selling more and more weapons — from Sandy Hook to Saudi Arabia — no matter who gets killed), then we can all come to expect reports of constant violent deaths in the Paris Metro instead of just hurried commuters trying to get along.

The choice is not up to the mainstream media. The choice is up to us. To step into the white van or not.

Modern medicine seems to be enthralled with itself and it must be admitted that the AMA rules trauma and war medicine but knows little of epigenetics, nutrition or positive neurolinguistic “programming” which is simply harnessing the stimulus-response Skinnerian model to the rational mind and will of someone undergoing rehabilitation.

Doctor Samuel Hahnemann is the “Quack” who brought the washing of hands into the modern hospital and office visit when he noticed that childbed fever, that resulted in so many young mother’s deaths, was controlled and stopped by simply washing one’s hands before and after attending one patient and then another.

I wrote quack because he is also the Father of Homeopathy.  Childbed fever fatality is an iatrogenic cause of death. A quack just like Pauling for Vitamin C or Kreb’s who no longer gets credit for the citric acid cycle in the mitochondria once called the Kreb’s cycle. (He came up with Laetrile and the rest is history).

Iatrogenic disease and death are those conditions occasioned by doctors,  nurses, hospitals  and staff-caused conditions. Health care in America is not what it used to be.

Neither is rehabilitation. Assisting a dear friend after a stroke I was able to observe the nutritional incompetence of giving high sugar items to diabetics recovering from a stroke. Add grilled cheese sandwiches to already high cholesterol patient and see what happens.

There is no mention of trace minerals and all that junk DNA that actually protects the gem cell DNA and is not just a mucous around the whole affair. For that matter it is the naturopaths who are pioneering epigenetics and the new healing of ills associated with diet and habits: through a family’s generations!

It is not just maternal mitochondria and protoplasm but also a propensity, if you will, to be sensitive to certain habits and conditions in the familial tree. In other words, the discarded theory of the  passage of traits acquired by  habits of your forebears is coming back to explain acquired conditions based on what your mother and father did with their habits to their epigenetic sheaths that changed the expression of the germ cell DNA. What your parents did may be the clue to your having diabetes because they did, or allergies, or…

Zinc. That’s right, zinc is what my family was sensitive to and deficient in which left this columnist susceptible to hernia. Ran in the family and hurt like hell.  Called a hiatal hernia and it progressed to Barrett’s Esophagus. Fennel Seeds and vegetable liquid lecithin got me through the night and turmeric was a big help in my self-healing as I became a Naturopath and passed the exam at the American Naturopathic Medicine Association’s Annual Conference tin 2004.

My parents smoking habits ( they quit before I did)  did not help the deficient zinc situation one bit.

Can you believe that iatrogenic fatalities are the third most common cause of death in the US?

If you can believe that, maybe you can understand the cash cow model of medical rehabilitation and the services so often ordered by your doctor who a partner in the radiologic suite or laboratory or what have you that you are sent to, to continue treating and fleecing you as long as possible. (“Insurance pays for it all” or “you have too much money”, is what they all chant). I don’t have enough money is closer to the truth.

Additional procedures will outlast your ability to pay for them.

I was astonished to see  first the infantilization of a patient to complete dependence and the staff was very nice. Too nice and dangerous when you do not consider the diet  and metabolic systems (especially now that The Oakland Tribune reported Tuesday that California groundwater is polluted with … toxic uranium !).  Could Fukushima be any part of this or is it just a leaky station somewhere?

After infantilizing the the surrogate mother’s womb of the hospital becomes in a self-absorbing mood and begins to rehabilitate to the point of total dependence and lifelong necessary care. Cash cow. Easy street when it is $300.00 a day and cafeteria food in grade school in the fifties was better than the swill they call a meal.  One told me of peanut butter sandwich, rice soup and some sugary dessert. Actually, that’s when he consented to my “kidnapping” him and transporting him against medical advice to a secret location where Jim went to work on him.

Jim is one of the most courageous people I have known.  We started as casual friends and being radicals – but rather different from each other.  Years later I meet my friend after he has broken his neck in Belize and given up by the establishment as a quadriplegic. Jim is stubborn and “stole” medical lectures at Stanford and pushed himself for years and now walks.  He walks a little funny but he definitely is not a quad or paraplegic.

He is, now, part of a couple of hippies with compassion and intellect bringing walking back to a mutual friend and I think he (or we) should be rehab coaches.  He is especially inspiring and should be everywhere known for the hope he can give to those who have been paralyzed. He is truly inspirational for those attempting to walk again.

We did it with dedication and soul, with  rhythm and no blues. It begins with appreciating and tapping your toes and never ends if you pass on what you have learned.

UPDATES
Nothing new reported on Shrimp Boy. But my street informants have supplied documents showing this is a Tong War between Hong Kong and Shanghai.  The new Shanghai Tongs are the ones helping sell condos in Bay View for US Visas to Chinese financiers.

Only know of one candidate for Chief of Medical Marijuana Bureau in California. Who will Governor Brown appoint?  Stay tuned on this one.

Musing Aloud: Trump should tap Jesse Ventura for his running mate.
I am just an incurable idealist.

Doctor, Doctor, Mr. MD-can you tell me what’s ailing’ me…he said Yeh. Yeh. Yeh and sent me a bill .

That’s it for now but next column will recall the early days and promises that the computer revolution would deliver.

Aloha!

Like all good Americans the World’s Laziest Journalist has left a long stream of failed get-rich-quick schemes in his wake as he sailed through life.  Every year at Christmastime we realize that a song about Christmas , will, with a bit of luck, deliver a royalty check every December.

Recently, Armstrong and Getty noted that the classic crooners become popular again with certain Christmas standards.

Presumably, Sid Vicious would become nostalgic listening to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. The WLJ has endeavored to hook up with a musician to collaborate on a perennial Christmas tune. There are at least two efforts to have a song titled Christmas in Jail so why not go it one better and write Christmas in San Quentin?

Is there a market for a tune “I’ll Jihad at Christmas”?

One of the highlights of our excursion in Australia was listening to Johnny Cash’s album Live from Folsom Prison in the record finder store in Fremantle W.A. The farther you get from Folsom, the better the album sounds.

Generosity and sentimentality are required themes for a  new Christmas standard. Naturally, cynics are pushed to the brink with all the Christmas tunes but then along comes New Year’s and they can start with a clean slate.

Various and sundry get rich-quick-schemes from the past will provide fodder for future columns.  It is sufficient at this point for curmudgeons to remind themselves that every schmaltzy tune is a reminder that with some musical talent and a little work they could have insured themselves with a lifetime supply of  royalty checks at that time of the year when money is in short supply.

Pop tunes provide rich Google bait opportunity for pundits. We think  for this season Peace, Joy and Love that “Men Who Stare at Goats” should replace “It’s a Wonderful Life”. We think it could challenge “The Big Lebowski” as a pop culture favorite. Summer inter has heard that George Clooney is going to run for Governor in California – is acting before becoming governor becoming a California tradition?

The hot rumor at the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory is that the group will name radio pundit Alex Jones as their choice for “man of the Year”.

“Son of a Bitch” is a new song about stopping drinking. What’s to prevent it from becoming a recurring melody on the air at Christmastime?

The holiday season is jam packed with distraction and time consuming chores. We’ll jump the gun and wish all our regular readers a Happy Holiday Season. For those who are looking for a worthy charity to support, we will humbly suggest the Miami Project which is seeking to find a cure for paralysis.

We’ll be back next year with the usual cynical comment about the inevitable election of Jeb Bush.  Until then, talk radio will try to convince voters about a indisputable choice to commit their obligation to help choose the nation’s next leader. We tend to compare the process to a magician “forcing” a card on a volunteer from the audience.  It’s a trick!  The choice is never in doubt as the volunteer picks the card that the magician has preselected .  It’s fun and entertaining and keeps journalists and pundits employed.   Stay tuned.

Now the Disc Jockey will play Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” and Bing’s “White Christmas” and “O ,Tannenbaum” .

Have a bountiful holiday season.

To paraphrase that current Geico ad on TV, “If you are a writer, you write. It’s what you do.” And I certainly live in an age where there is a hecka lot of stuff to write about. In this day and age of lies, greed, bluster, neo-fascism, economic collapse, ecological disaster, radiation danger, war-mongers and brinksmanship, words practically write themselves. For a writer, “It is the worst of times, it is the best of times.”

I just may be lucky enough to be in a position to chronicle the end of the world.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about Paris.

I’m here on a 24-hour layover between Berkeley and Beirut. But 24 hours in Paris is always far, far better than no hours in Paris at all. Paris in the winter is lovely. There’s not a big flood of tourists and I only got lost on the Metro twice. But I had such great plans for my 24-hours here. Wanted to go to see Montmartre where so many Impressionist and Cubist painters lived and worked — and to the Musee D’Orsey where their masterpieces are on display.

Wanted to go to the Paris conference on climate change and to the Batachan concert hall where one of the most recent mass shootings took place.

Wanted to eat in a fancy French restaurant.

Wanted to follow the Lonely Planet’s advice and take a literary stroll past the garrets of Orwell, Hemingway, Stein, Miller, Nin, Joyce, etc. Wanted to visit Shakespeare & Company and 27 rue de Fleurus.

But the the sad remnants of a particularly virulent stomach flu kept me from wanting to eat anything, jet lag kept my brain on hold and the obvious time limitations held me down. But still and all, Paris really is a movable feast and I did arrive at the COP21 climate change conference just in time to barely miss California governor Jerry Brown give a talk on “Big ideas to connect landscapes, climate and development”. Brown certainly knows all about development! I didn’t need to go all the way to Paris to learn that. I could have just toured West Oakland.

But mostly I just walked around the Arc de Triumph neighborhood, soaked in the ambiance, ate croissants and listened to people speak French (and also a whole lot of other languages too as a result of the insane brutality of the then-and-now French empires having shaken so many residents of the world loose from their homes).

There is certainly a lot to write about in Paris. I am so glad that I’m here.

The real scourge of modern society is the effect of programming and algorithms on the structure of thought.  To reduce reasoning to zeros and ones, yes or no and black and white is to encourage perpetual ignorance and unforgiving idealism that has no compassion nor capability of distinguishing nuances that the real world encompasses.

The Law is supposed to be a healing art and profession.  The tangled perceptions and occurrences in the lives of us all make each entanglement the subject of unique definitions.

For instance, this morning I heard the report on KCBS news radio about a man driving without his lights.  He never had a ticket and when the officer returned to let him off with a warning he was snorting (or about to vacuum) a line of cocaine.

Later, I go by an open storefront on Shattuck in Berkeley of a deli with a man at the door and his pants down.  Was he urinating? defecating? (Was he even aware he could be arrested for a sex offense?) The post office restrooms are just a half block away.  Toleration is not compassionate. Toleration seems to be a euphemism for ignoring others.

Ignoring others has led to where we are, wallowing in fear and ignorance. Ignore and ignorance must have the same root.

It has been said, I’m told, that ignorance is bliss.  If so, why are so many angry?

Confused? Semantics has a wonderful saying, “The map is not the territory”. This means that the colors aren’t the real color and mountains are different than depicted. Same for words. Words are not the thing (or person).

The Common Law is based upon reason and what a reasonable person might do in this or a similar situation and then how far the acts and mental state are to be evaluated as being in concert or too negative to allow.  What is allowed is the subject of politics. (More on that when I can discuss Medical Marijuana and addressing iatrogenic fatalities in a future column (Google Hint: top five causes of death)).

It has been reported that a society is judged by it’s treatment of children and elders. The United States, from what I have seen, fails.

In a recent matter in Probate Court regarding a conservatorship several troubling aspects became more than apparent and indicate a judicial corruption coupled with appointive and elected offices and officers such as to take one’s breath away.

Available proof exists in abundance of  the drugs a child might arrange through the current crop of “pill” doctors to be prescribed for their parent in a scheme to create the illusion or bring  the onset of dementia-one that destroys the seat of memories and new brain cells: the hypothalamus!  Benzodiazepines in response to unnecessary anxiety from thyroxin when no clinical hypothyroidism is indicated are a known problem.

After 9 months of this therapy (cute, n’es pas?) the parent is taken to another “doctor” for more and finally the “doctors” declare the parent senile and with dementia and incompetent.  Induced diminished capacity.

Of course, the other vultures stand by.  New scheme or old? You be the judge.

First, why wait for my inheritance if I can take control of my parent and their assets? Clever children everywhere are waking up to the fact that elderly parents might “waste” their inheritance.

If you have the funds the game gets more fun for the rich kids. Dig it: they get a conservatorship mill to crank up. Some of the children feel left out by one or some of their other siblings. Revenge and excitement like  an old Greek play or Shakespearian history begin to unfold and the particulars can be quite shocking.

The mill has lawyers, real estate agents, appraisers, financial planners, trustees and, most importantly, conservators ready to fleece the old darling who has been pharmaceutically muffled. (Sometimes, the Red Star Elder Rescue Service has been able to get an elder  off the drugs only to watch the court system accept the corrupt schemes as long as they can “dip their beaks” as well into the elder’s “assets”.)

This happened, in essence to Bill Graham’s orphanage mate. The Judicial system is broken.  I watched the court reporter pack up and leave off taking transcripts for the case despite having sat and court-reportered through the previous eight matters  which, as the one to be unreported, were of the same theme – Trusts.

The unreported minutes have included the appearance of a retired judge (who is not subject to Judicial Performance Review but perhaps the bar and certainly by history)(Is it true a U.S. Senator  has a relative in the same or similar pharmacuffs?).

The retired judge was sitting at the request of the Chief Judge , after the Chief had denied a temporary order and was sent in to give a certain outcome to a certain troublesome lawyer and make a statement to that lawyer. The order was Granted. Conservatorship of a competent and lucid eighty plus year old was Granted.

That is how they hamstring good lawyers:they punish their clients!  ( Google Hint: .theguardian judge-bias-corrupts-court-cases)

But, back to the present trust case without the transcripts.  That Judge Granted with modifications: covering forgery, legally insufficient and unclear passage of title while shielding the fiduciaries, past and present, from liability – generally dusty and cleaning – and failing to actually file a substantive order, just the title. The Attorney General of California should talk to the Lieutenant Governor of the State of California about this.

Breaking news in Berkeley includes the homeless and my friends at the protest around City Hall and the Berkeley Post Office. The camp was broken up but the agents of the government unzipped Mike’s tent to arrest him in a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment strictures against unlawful and unreasonable searches and seizures. They went into a structure without a warrant ( I have counseled that a tent and the shelter it provides is a homeless right to shelter and privacy under Supreme Court decisions like Griswold v Connecticut and hence a protected “home”).

This could get Mikes name in the annals of the US Supreme Court.

Next time I will give you some inside on the “Shrimp Boy” case in Federal Court in San Francisco. (And my email from his defense lawyer thanking me for the help.)

In the meantime, is it fair for the Federal Government to use a non-cannabis state to call into a pro-cannabis state and set up a business in order to arrest and charge someone for money laundering, conspiracy and drugs ( herbs?) ?  Ask Kamala Harris.   Ask Leland Yee. No, better, yet, ask Ed Lee about Conroy being assigned to supervise San Francisco Federal attorneys  in charge of snaring someone.

Do States rights also apply to counties and Siskiyou County disallowing all medical marijuana? Isn’t this likely to cause different standards for medical care in different states and counties?

Question Authority! Cue up Queen, “We are the Conquerors”.

This column is hereby adjourned until the same time and place next week. Aloha!

The summer intern was waxing nostalgic about the time in 1960-something there was an opportunity to help lick the whipped cream and strawberries off of a brand new car “It would help my new novel if I could get a photo of that car and that happening at the Longshoreman’s Hall Flux Fest”.

Most people think that the lost art of photo research has been made simple with the invention of the internet-not so!

The WLJ (World’s Laziest Journalist) has encountered one photo of a stunt held in conjunction with the liberation of Paris in WWII.

A cowboy-pilot flew a B-17 through the open legs of the Eiffel Tower. Repeated searches of the internet have been unproductive. Alas and alack, some of the most fascinating photos from the last century are missing from the internet.

Have you seen the photos online that appear to show George HW Bush at Dealy Plaza at the same time as the Kennedy Assassination?

Karla is currently marshaling material for an autobiography and would love to locate a snapshot showing the only time Janis Joplin ever performed in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, at which she was present without a camera. Does anyone have any picture of Belle Starr with Chet Helms? (Bill Graham? )

Even any photos of Belle with Wavy Gravy would be helpful if any such photos exist. (Is anyone old enough to remember Sergeant Sunshine or any photos in the public domain. (R.I.P. Carol Doda)

For that matter, are General Hershey Bar or General WasteMoreLand still alive? How about the guy with the 5 foot pipe who came to all the love-ins?

In the summer of 1966, the WLJ was employed as a photo librarian  at the Associated Press Headquarters located in Rockefeller Center. The columnist was told that certain men in suits who borrowed some negatives would take them to a special photo lab where gigantic enlargements could be made so that “They” could see and identify people who were lurking on the periphery of anti Viet Nam War demonstrations.

Suddenly the meaning of events in the sixties are becoming crystal clear to the summer intern who exclaimed “That’s my novel.”

A Saint Paul’s vision is “Better late than never!”

Does the pop culture bookstore need another eyewitness account of the sixties?

There can never be enough of them which is why, eventually, the last living hippie will be a popular late night show guest.

After the viewing of a documentary about the Cockettes, the summer intern exclaimed “ No wonder I was not fitting in and my view was from the local not the mainstream media version of the San Francisco scene”. (Are any of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence still living after the demise of “Jack” Sister Boom Boom?)

The WLJ added some historical context with the tale of the WWII influx of discharged gay members of the military who were transported back to San Francisco and dumped there.

(The WLJ photo archives should include some negatives of the Jefferson Airplane performing in Golden Gate Park but unfortunately when an effort was made to shed worldly goods those negatives disappeared. Does anyone have any non-Jim Marshall photos to share?)

Where did the Berkeley Public Library get the image of Grace Slick with Janis Joplin? Is it in the public domain? Probably not.

Images of the anti Viet Nam war parade from Civic Center in San Francisco to Golden Gate Park where Crosby, Stills and Nash played would help spruce up the intern’s novel.

Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe did a marvelous job of describing life in ‘Frisco (the intern says “Don’t ever call it ‘Frisco! But Belle’s memoirs with numerous photo images will give them a run for their money). Belle asked, “Do any literary agents read your columns?”.

Has anyone other than the columnists ever encountered images of a fatal car verses pedestrian encounter that occurred in Paris in 1925?

If this column mentions Eddie Adams’ photo of the Saigon Police Chief shooting a Viet Cong in the head, most readers will be able to recall that particular image.  It would be an easy matter to pirate a copy to use with this column but tracking down the image owners to get permission to use it here would be an impossible bureaucratic task.

Missing snapshots can unlock floodgates of memories. Some of the missing images may surface years from now but novelists can fictionalize the details and proceed quickly to the next chapter.

“Nobody knows the stories we have”, was the summer intern’s explanation for the sudden compulsion to complete her memoirs as a novel. ( It appears that Karla’s campaign for Pot Czar has spawned the ire of Sacramento and the front page of Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle declares the Czar should not be a stoner but a techie. (Why not both? )( Karla was the first attorney in California to file a computer generated pleading.))

Hunter S. Thompson wrote his memoirs as a novel and hence eliminated the time consuming task of having the work fact checked.  Did the WLJ learn anything from H.S.T.?

What good does examining the details and motivations for the anti Viet Nam protest do for today’s audience?  George Santayana said, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it “.

The WLJ and the summer intern expect to provide photo and word coverage of any San Francisco-Berkeley based protest objecting to sending troops and drones to Syria.  Stay tuned!
(While collecting material to be used in this weeks posting we speculated about the feasibility of a convention of /for hippies while they are still alive and can come to it (at the Bill Graham”s Mole Hall Civic Auditorium?))

Now the Disc Jockey will play Fixing to Die Rag, Eve of Destruction and Son of a Bitch.

Have a “Those were the days my friend” kind of week.  AMF

j

“It’s not those freezing temperatures that make your feet feel painfully cold,” said my doctor. “It’s your heart. If you want your feet to feel warm again, first you’ve got to heat up your upper body’s core temperature.” Good to know.

Then I decided to go camping — as if my feet weren’t already cold enough. I wanted to commune with nature, be all macho and man up. Can someone like me, who is totally used to urban comforts and has perpetually cold feet, actually pass a huge human endurance test like this? Survive in the wilderness for three whole days in freezing weather? I was about to find out.

“Bet you won’t last more than an hour,” said my daughter. But I would prove her wrong! It’s all in the preparation, you know. http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2013/08/ms.html

First stop? REI and Sports Basement for a sub-zero sleeping bag, foot-warmers and warm socks. https://redfworkshop.org/made-the-empowerment-plan/ Then off to borrow a tent and a tarp and a lantern and some foam. Next stop? Went down to the homeless encampment and asked a homeless man how homeless people survive camping out in the freezing cold weather night after night.

“Basically? We don’t. People actually die out here in the streets.” That shut my mouth. https://www.facebook.com/First-they-came-for-the-homeless-253882908111999/

Someone else also gave me more pointers on how to keep warm. “Eat foods with high fat content. Gain weight. Eat ginger. Sleep on cardboard.” So I packed up plenty of eggnog and See’s candy. Pumpkin pie. Time to test my worth against raw nature. Be a survivor. “Naked and Alone”.

But then things started to go wrong. The car I rented was just so freaking huge that it scared me to drive it. I asked my son Joe along so he could drive but he could only get away for a day. Our GPS got us hopelessly lost in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The temperature started to drop perilously. And we ended up coming home after only an hour in the woods.

How do homeless people in America do it? Camping out there in the freezing cold night after night without the benefit of rental cars, tents, sleeping bags and REI? Simple answer. “They don’t.”

PS: I’m leaving for Paris and Beirut next week. Going there will be a hecka lot easier than camping! No tents or cardboard will be involved. https://www.rt.com/uk/322474-facebook-deleted-Paris-attacks/