PEARLS FELINES TOILETS AND CENSORSHIP

We know what happens when governments ban words, books and activities.

The words and books will be said and read.

The activities will be enacted.

In the older days of television, the words toilet (the actual word was W.C. meaning water closet) and pregnant were banned, but neither toilets nor pregnancies vanished.

Penis.

Ass.

These can now be said on AM radio and on the TV.

Vagina.

WATCH OUT!

This is considered a dirty and unmentionable word, as students at John Jay High School found out in an open mic session.

Three female students were reading from Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues".

Here is where the word vagina occurred:

"My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country."

At my high school we didn't even have a school newspaper.

Some students (one whose parent was a teacher at the high school), stole mimeograph machines and printed their version of (in this case) an underground newspaper.

Words are weapons and, as Florence Becker Lennon once told me, "Every word was once a pearl."

Ban words and you ban pearls.

And thought.

Shakespeare would not have been able to fashion all of his wonderful puns and poetic writing without the freedom to use all of those pearls...

Whenever, whatever and wherever he chose.

School officials at John Jay High School are a bunch of felines (I won't write vaginas or pussies).

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

SAND THROWERS SMOKE BLOWERS EXORCISMS AND INDICTMENTS

The only way to stop the war, as Sen. Russ Feingold understands well, is to cease all funding for the ongoing tragedy. But the majority of Democrats, already preparing for the next round of elections, aren't about to step up and represent their constituents.

The Democratic Party exerts the same hawkish fervor as the Republican Party. Indeed they have proven that despite the overwhelming opposition to the war nationwide they will not do a damn thing to end it.

Joshua Frank

***

Scooter Libby: Guilty.

Dick Cheney: Hiding.

The Long War President: Looking over possible designs for the new ranch (getaway) in Paraguay.

The World of Terror

Is

Bigger...

Better…

And

Badder.

The boys with the toys…

In the Pentagon…

Are sending out

More and more orders…

As fast as they can…

To buy more and more toys!

Soldiers and civilians in Iraq are dying for…

What?

Saddam is gone.

WMD were gone.

Very few terrorists in Iraq are foreigners.

Insurgents have been home-grown and home-sown by an unnecessary, deceitful and premeditated Pre-Emptive war.

The Decider’s strategy is the same:

Keep Smoke 'em out in Iraq so they don't come…

Here!

But...

Afghanistan has become a dream come true for drug lords (and the Taliban!).

America, the world's number one user, is getting more fixes.

Wal-Mart shoppers are still getting what they want.

Yes, prices are higher for oranges, gasoline and avocadoes...

But sacrifice is required in the global war on terror.

Radicals, Extremists, Terrorists and Evil-Doers have what they need:

An occupying Super-Power that won't go home.

And so the Radicals, Extremists, Terrorists and Evil-Doers are expanding their own crop of killers…

And in time there will be enough of them to invade the Invader's Homeland because…

The Homeland's borders and ports are very easy to penetrate...plus…

EVERYONE WILL BE WATCHING TELEVISION!

It will be a piece of cake.

Dick and the Decider have it all planned.

Dump the Deceitful and Perpetual WAR that they

Designed and Premeditated

Onto the Democrats!

If they want to cut and run

When we have cut and run…

Then let them!

But

Until then…

It will be…

Kill and Spin…

Spill Blood and Win!

UNTIL

THERE

IS

VICTORY

AND

THE

JOB

IS

DONE!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

OF MICE MEN AND COCKROACHES

WHERE MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE, THE RESPONSIBILITY RESTS WITH ME.

George W. Bush

***

It isn't the artistry of John Steinbeck.

It isn't about mice and cockroaches.

IT'S ABOUT MEN.

It's about the souls of men...

or one should say...

MEN WITHOUT SOULS.

Perhaps that is a little too sublime...

IT'S ABOUT HUBRIS and OVERWEENING ARROGANCE.

The Bush administration that foisted and fibbed the Iraq War upon the American people and the World...the Bush administration that couldn't (and wouldn't) save its own people (who were begging them to!) right after after Hurricane Katrina (and for many days later)...this is the same insane administration led (& lied) by Dick and the Decider.

It is these same two men of Skulls and Bones who should have been on top of the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Hospital...

In the same neighborhood where they work and live!

But, as usual, these two thugs still dissemble and blame others, whether it is WMD, yellow cake, smearing and revealing a CIA operative (and then pretending NOT to know), torture, eavesdropping etc.

Somehow this thought comes to mind:

These two persons are not much better than cockroaches.

Mice have biggers souls.

Investigate and Impeach now.

PROTECT THE HOMELAND!
FIND THE REAL TERRORISTS IN AFGHANISTAN...
AND BRING THE TROOPS HOME FROM YOUR BLOODY WAR IN IRAQ!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

BARNS GRASS AND HARDWOOD FLOORS

I have never been too fussy about where I could sleep.

I have slept on bamboo mats and hardwood floors.

I slept on a water bed one time and didn't like it.

I slept on the grass at Harvard and at the University of California.

Harvard was really just a daytime snooze, and when a campus security guard woke me up, he pointed to the sign that said STAY OFF THE GRASS.

I thought the sign meant something else.

I spent one night in a house in Florida where it was wall-to-wall people.

I spent my night in the bathroom and wrote poetry.

In the morning I asked a guy named Space Cowboy:

"What time is it?"
He wiggled his finger to follow him.

I did.

He opened the refrigerator door.

Then he opened the top freezer door.

He took out an alarm clock and said:

"Time is frozen."

Remember the scene in Easy Rider where Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper smashed their watches?

I purposely went watch-less to make my experiences back then seem more timeless.

It worked.

But back to the places where I've slept.

I slept on the side of a mountain in Aspen the weekend that I hiked to the Conundrum Hot Springs.

I remember the sad, creaking sounds of trees as they swayed in the wind.

In Central City I went on an overnight horseback ride with a girl from Chicago.

Our guides were real cowboys and her friends.

After I rolled around most of the night on a rocky mountainside, one of the cowboys fired a rude rifle into a beaver pond to wake up the sleeping campers.

I woke up alright and was real annoyed by the noisy reveille.

Another toothless cowboy cooked steak and eggs.

Water for coffee was dipped out of the same water where drinks had been kept.

I think it was this water that made us all sick, but it could have been the food.

The main guide of this cowboy crew asked me:

"How was breakfast?"

I replied:

"Not too good. I just threw up!"

He was not happy with that news.

I said a few more truthful words, and Mr. Honcho said:

"Why don't you say that in English!"

I did.

I told him,

"Occupy you!"

Of course, the first word was not occupy, and it began with the letter F, but its etymological meaning was still the same.

The girl from Chicago jumped between us (he was holding the rifle) and said, "Boys, don't fight."

We didn't, but it was a close call.

Just before I went to Afghanistan to teach English at Kabul University, I slept a few months on a hardwood floor in the Pearl Street apartment in Boulder.

I slept here in order to pay less rent than the other tenants.

One winter in Boulder I rented a barn for $25 per month.

This is when I had a cat named Frieda and her children that I named Rufus and Snowball.

They would happily come and go from the barn, jumping out of the window just above my bed to leave and return---at all hours of the night!

Frieda ran away for good after I scolded her for bringing a dead squirrel into the barn.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

DICK CHENEY IS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Dick was preaching to the choir today.
And he was preaching the same old sermon (Not the Sermon on the Mount).
Dick isn't shooting any lawyers these days, but he is shooting off his mouth about pouring more blood into the sands of Iraq.
Afghanistan should be the central focus of the U.S. empire and its mighty military right now, but Dick and The Decider want to continue to jog on their tragic treadmill of insanity.
Dick is beholdin' to Halliburton, so the "show" must go on in Iraq.
Dick, as so many have already noted, is quite delusional.
But both The Long War President and Dick are in massive states of denial.
The Decider's approval rating is 29%.
Maybe there should be a Federal Law that says a president must resign when his approval rating dips below 30%.
In some countries the populace might have already gotten rid of a big, lying leader who took their money to start an unnecessary war.
But Americans are glued to the Wheel of Fortune and American Idol (or dozens of other vapid programs).
Forget any revolts.
Bush and Dick will never resign, nor quit the mess that they generated in Iraq.
They will just make others the heirs to their errors.
Both are quite content to leave office in 2008 with their nefarious nest eggs, and leave the quagmires to a new administration.
Some gifts just keep on giving.

First, although it has a familiar and thus unsatisfying ring to it, the most viable long-term route to preventing mass atrocities is to use remaining U.S. leverage to bring about a political compromise that makes Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds feel economically stable, physically secure and adequately represented in political structures. This is consistent with the position of leading U.S. generals and the members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, who have stressed that there is no military solution to Iraq's meltdown and urged the administration, the Iraqis and regional players to reopen broad-ranging political negotiations.
Although critics of withdrawal do a masterful job of painting a grim picture of the apocalypse that awaits, they offer no account of how U.S. forces in Iraq will do more than preserve a status quo that is already deteriorating into wholesale ethnic cleansing. Although more than 115,000 U.S. troops have been in Iraq for the last four years, about 3.8 million Iraqis have fled their homes and at least 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing each month. It would be nice to think the surge of troops to Baghdad would help to staunch the flow. But with only one-third of the new troops on duty at any given time in a city of 6 million people, they will have no more success deterring the militias intent on carving out homogeneous Shiite or Sunni neighborhoods than U.S. forces have had to date. About 74% of Shiites polled and 91% of Sunnis — the people who have the most to fear from genocide — would like to see U.S. forces gone by the end of the year.
Many of those who say U.S. troops should stay in Iraq to prevent genocide are the same people who for political reasons refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the calamity unfolding on our watch. The same people who modeled a war on best-case scenarios are now resisting ending a war by invoking worst-case scenarios. But after years of using the alleged needs of the Iraqi people to justify U.S. political postures, it is long past time to use the leverage we still have to actually advance Iraqi welfare.From How to stop genocide in Iraq
Offering the carrot of U.S. withdrawal may be the best way to end ethnic cleansing in Iraq.

By Samantha Power/latimes.com/March 5, 2007
[SAMANTHA POWER, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning " 'A Problem From Hell': America and the Age of Genocide."]


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

MY LOVE WAS CANDY APPLE RED

Its color was candy apple red.
The helmet was the same color.
I had to have it.
It was like a beautiful woman.
It was my Juliet and I was her (its) Romeo.
When "she" left I felt empty.
I couldn't get it (her) out of my mind.
She (it) was something called an X-6 Suzuki Hustler.
Within days I figured out that I had enough cash saved to obtain Juliet.
But I had to have a signature from a parent.
My mother was absolutely against it.
But my persistent begging finally got me her approval.
A roommate gave me a ride to the store.
I held the stash of cash in my right hand and waved it outside the car window.
I finally would have Juliet.
I bought her.
I rode her.
I rode her in rain, sunshine and snow.
I commuted from Denver to Boulder to attend classes at C.U.
One time, when temperatures were below zero, I was riding Juliet on the interstate, going around 65 mph, when a little old lady pulled out in front of me.
She paused and then stopped.
Then she moved a little and stopped again.
I said to myself (and to the little old lady) "Please go, stop or go back".
But she didn't.
I gripped Juliet's arms and pulled her to the left.
I missed the little old lady, but now I couldn't slow down because my hands (which did have gloves on) were "frozen" to Juliet's arms.
My hands had become paralyzed from grasping so tightly when I turned Juliet.
But we made it.
Juliet and I didn't hit the little old lady.

One other time I was out for a joy ride on Juliet.
We were in Boulder's Sunshine Canyon.
We were coming around a bend on the mountain road.
A Mustang was behind us.
I wanted to "show" the Mustang just what Juliet could "do".
I accelerated to stay in front of the car behind us.
Then...WHAM!
Juliet and I slid on the loose gravel and hit the side of the road.
(I would find out later that a motorcyclist had died a few weeks earlier at this very spot when he went over the side of the mountain.)
I still have the scar on my back from this accident.
After this, I was banished from Juliet.
We parted ways.
But we both lived.


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

DOLLARS AND BOMBS

More than just bombs fell today.

The Dow fell 416 points.

I don't have any stocks.

I just know about things like how much I have to pay for milk and eggs and gasoline.

Am I living in a recession or depression?

I really don't know.

If I had millions and millions in stocks I suppose I would know a lot more, and be a lot more concerned.

I do know that China is America's main banker.

The old joke used to be Made in Japan; but Made in China is no joke.

It is a stark fact.

Instead of its happy face, WalMart might as well have one big, yellow five-pointed star and four little ones on a red background.

I worry about how much money the U.S. owes China (and Japan).

What if China closes their banks?

I guess they won't and can't, because we buy so many things from them.

I am also frightened by thoughts I have about the value of the dollar.

Will we soon be pushing dollars in wheelbarrows to buy a gallon of milk?

But in the long run (or the short run), I suppose the health of our planet is a larger thing to worry about.

We don't have to worry about money if there's no food to buy.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

WAR IS PEACE

With nearly 70 percent of the American people against this draining and bloody war, along with scores of prominent former high ranking military, diplomats and national security officials, why is Bush so stubborn, ignorant and intending to end his Administration on January 20, 2009 mired in the infamy of the Iraq quagmire? Madness, refusal to admit mistakes and wrongdoing, and the willingness to violate domestic laws and international treaties.

Hold Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to the rule of the U.S. Constitution. Commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. In the meantime, the public should demand their resignation. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew resigned for far less "high crimes and misdemeanors." What is at stake here is the global position of the U.S.A. and its own national security.

Ralph Nader


***


I went to Iraq
To
Make a big wreck---
I went to Iran
To
Make Armageddon!
I'm the Decision Maker---
I am the Decider---
I am your Long War President!
I tax the poor and middle class
To make sure the rich get their free pass.
I am your conqueror for two more years---
I am your commander-in-chief of fears!
You'll have to adjust to my new plans of war---
There is this one and a couple hundred more!
Don't get blue---
Don't sniff glue---
Don't start your darn cryin'---
It's just a few more dyin'---
To get my job done---
'Til oil there's none!
No turbaned Taliban---
No Atomic Iran---
Will end my new Way Forward---
To War, Peace and Victory!



IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

LETTER TO A FRIEND ON THE IRAQ WAR

Having failed to finish off Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Washington now finds itself fighting Qaeda-affiliated groups on multiple fronts, most recently in Somalia. Al Qaeda’s comeback in Pakistan is a devastating indictment of Mr. Bush’s grievously flawed strategies and misplaced Iraq obsession. Unless the president changes course, the dangers to America and its friends will continue to multiply.

At a crucial moment, the Bush administration diverted America’s military strength, political attention and foreign aid dollars from a necessary, winnable war in Afghanistan to an unnecessary, and by now unwinnable, war in Iraq. Al Qaeda took full advantage of these blunders to survive and rebuild. Now it seems to be back in business.

The New York Times
Editorial
Al Qaeda Resurgent
Published: February 25, 2007


***

THIS HISTORY HAS NOT BEEN LEFT OUT OF TEXTBOOKS BECAUSE IT HASN’T BEEN WRITTEN.

9-11 AND THE PRE-EMPTIVE IRAQ WAR ARE TOO RECENT TO HAVE DEFINITIVE HISTORIES WRITTEN YET.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THIS BATTLE AGAINST EXTREMISTS, WHO ARE NOW EVEN MORE EXTREME AND BIGGER AS A RESULT OF BUSH’S [FAILED] FOREIGN POLICY, IS UNCERTAIN AND EVEN MORE DANGEROUS BECAUSE OF HIS PRE-EMPTIVE INVASION OF IRAQ.

DON'T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS UNTIL THEY ARE COOKED.

ON THE OTHER HAND, BETTER COUNT THEM BEFORE THEY'RE COOKED SINCE THEY MAY BE CREMATED AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE BY THE DECISION MAKER IN IRAQ AND IRAN.

My father fought in World War II. I am aware of his patriotism, bravery and sacrifice. I am thankful and grateful for what he and all of the other men and women did who fought to defeat Germany's and Japan's armies.

My father would not, however, now applaud or condone what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and all of their minions have done in order to go to war with Iraq.

I believe my father would oppose staying any longer in Iraq.

Afghanistan is now nearly back in the hands of the Taliban, surrounded by Opium poppies that supply the world with most of its heroin.

Afghanistan was a legitimate war.

But, gentlemen, this Iraq war was a lie based upon lies.

It is a far different thing from World War II.

Entire countries were fought in World War II!

You can be defensive (and defend) George W. Bush's foolish, fallacious and wrong decision to go to war with Iraq, but defending this president does not rid us of the genesis of his illegitimate war that now has us in the crosshairs of more extremists and more Jihadists than before his pre-emptive invasion.

Our children, grandchildren and their children will be GROSSLY AFFECTED BY THIS CURRENT WAR.

If anything, Iran and Iraq will have to fight each other. Maybe even Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia and other countries may have to fight each other.

Let’s leave.

If it gets better, than we have won.

If it gets worse, who has lost?

What was the purpose for going to Iraq?

Let’s protect ourselves here in our own country.

Let’s have the necessary weapons and defensive measures to keep the radical extremists out of our country.

Let’s use the money to re-build America.

(Securing Canadian and Mexican borders would help!).

Let’s keep a strong national guard at home where they belong to help America and Americans.

Let’s have an expedient go-to-the moon equivalent program to develop alternative fuels IMMEDIATELY.

Bush has been giving us his gas about such programs for six years (while Dick Cheney met secretly with his oil tycoon buddies in secret meetings, “developing” America’s energy policy.). Previous administrations also gave their promises. But the oil cartels had them under their thumbs.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

NEWS FLASH!

Forget whether Iran will soon get shocked and awed, or whether America will leave Iraq.
The more important questions of the day are:
When will James Brown and Anna Nicole Smith get buried?
Brown has been dead (and outside of his grave) since Christmas day.
Both Smith and Brown's bodies are not as important as their money.
No wonder the world is at war.
Whether dead or alive, the human race will never stop fighting over such things as petroleum, land and money.
I was well-prepared for today's absurdities and tragedies...
I minored in Existentialism.



IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

IT IS A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT FULL OF SOUND AND FURY SIGNIFYING NOTHING

AFTER MY MISSION WAS ACCOMPLISHED

IT BECAME A SLOW BLEED THAT

WAS WILDER THAN THE WILD WEST

AFTER MY SHOCK AND AWE

AND MY BRING 'EM ON

AND MY SMOKE 'EM OUT

I STOOD THEM UP

UNTIL THEY STOOD DOWN

TO CLEAR, BUILD AND HOLD

A NEW WAY FORWARD

TO GET MY JOB DONE

UNTIL THERE WAS

VICTORY!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

MORE FOLDEROL

“The strategy has barely had a chance to begin working.”
Tony Snow
White House Press Secretary
February 18, 2007


***


After four years of occupation in Iraq, Tony Snow is not describing the Iraq debacle accurately.
It is again the same old BushSpeak ranting the same folderol.
After 500,000+ dead Iraqi civilians and over 3,000 dead American soldiers; after two million Iraqi refugees (and counting); after thousands and thousands of injured American soldiers; after almost $500,000,000 wasted…the “strategy” began its work a long time ago.

It just hasn’t been working.

More TERROR and TERRORISM are in Iraq now than when its dictator held the reins of power.

The "new" Middle East is a more dangerous powder keg now.

Afghanistan is worse than before and after the Long War President invaded it.
The consciousness (not conscience) of the Decision Maker Decider Long War President and Tony Snow (and their brains) remain buried in the sand (sands) of self-delusion and fabrication.
Each continues to say that the job is not done.
Is finishing the job going to produce more and more deaths?
No diplomacy and no political solutions?
A wider war?
There is barely enough time left to end this tragedy and misery.
But there is time to stop it.

NOW.


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

RFID SURVEILLANCE

I am now required to wear a RFID 24-7 at the high school where I teach.

I must be a danger to my students, because administrators want to know where I am and what I am doing at all times.

When I am reading poetry to my students, my RFID will let administrators know what poems I am reading.

If I leave the school building, the principal can track every movement that I make.

If I show the movie 1984, my principal will already know.

(This film is in the school library, but very few people realize that it contains frontal nudity.

The film is in black and white, not Technicolor.)

The world of George Orwell developed quickly.

Huxley's Brave New World also came about quickly.

Nanotechnology, Robotics, Biogenetics and computers will combine to give us...what?

Miracles or monsters?

Both?

Or will any of this ever happen if the world finds itself at war (again), using its newest and most deadly weapons?

Who knows?

All I know is that I am in the bathroom right now, and my RFID is still on.

When will I ever be alone again?

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

RECYCLE THE PRESIDENT

He's getting that "look" again.

It's not the look of love.

It's not the look of war.

It's a smirking simulacrum that's saying: I've got more secrets and secret plans.

Back in full force are those facial twists and turns and smirking tics.

So is the doublespeak, mumbo jumbo and joking.

I get most uncomfortable when this president tries to be funny when he's being asked about Iraq and Iran.

It is unbecoming to be so amusing while bombs are exploding---flesh and blood are splattering---and precious lives are being lost.

What is so amusing and funny?

Power is an aphrodisiac.

You can see this when you watch the face of the Decider.

Have you noticed something else?

The Long War President snorts when he is irritated by a reporter's question.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

IT

BEWARE OF SUPERCHRISTIANS

Don't mess with the SuperChristian Pat Robertson or he might threaten to…
KILL YOU.
Pat Robertson’s smirking smile is itself threatening.
It is a good thing that the All-Knowing Almighty is an understanding and forgiving Supreme Being, or the self-righteous evangelist Pat Robertson might already be roasting.
Mr. Robertson and all of his blood-sucking brethren should pay taxes on the revenue which they spirit away in the names of God and Jesus.
Mr. Robertson does more than just work for God; he also works for the GOP, and frequently comments on geopolitical issues.
He thinks that he is a Mr. Know-It-All (Robertson not God).
Beware of zealots who think that they know it all and are always right.
The Great Decider Long War President also comes to mind.
Just don't rub these demagogues (not demigods!) the wrong way.

By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot © February 9, 2007
NORFOLK - One of Hampton Roads' highest-profile Christians stands accused of a not-so-Christian act.
A plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Pat Robertson says the televangelist threatened his life and that of his family at a legal proceeding Wednesday in the Norfolk federal courthouse.
The accuser, Phillip Busch, is suing Robertson for misappropriation of his image in the promotion of Robertson's protein diet shake.
According to a complaint Busch filed with the Norfolk police, Robertson entered a room in the courthouse Wednesday afternoon to be questioned for a deposition - an out-of-court form of testimony - and told Busch: "I am going to kill you and your family."

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

KARL ROVER DICK CHICANERY REDUX

The top secret document was helplessly floating in mid-air when multiple reporters simultaneously grabbed the document before it hit the floor, and the reporters then pondered whether to inform the White House (Karl Rover, Dick Chicanery & Others), who already were aware that the document could bring vengeance upon Joseph Wilson for his revelation of the truth about the Niger-Iraq Uranium falsehood…if only these reporters could think of something...Ah, yes...tell the world that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA...CALL Robert Novak (everybody trusts his word) and have him write a story about Mr. Wilson's CIA spouse.
Gee, did we think of this on our own or did the White House tell us?
Then confuse and contort, disassociate and discombobulate, throw curve balls and dirt balls...say this and that, then say that and this...whirling dervishes! Wolves in sheep's clothing!
(The American public could be fooled once again!)
Then hope that the independent prosecutor will heed some subtle warnings and promises to let the White House have their evil ways again.
(But let George cover our butts if anyone gets in big trouble, because Dubya always gets his way when he lies about anything.)
Time for some pretzels!


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

SUNBATHS AND MASSAGES

It was a condemned house in the jungle.

I lived in it with a couple who were planning to get married in the ocean…

Underwater!

Both were licensed massage therapists.

I had the convenience of receiving a massage almost any time I wanted to pay for one.

My room in the big house was right next to the sunny massage room.

I was not home most of the time, so clients (strippers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen etc.) had their privacy.

The house had a tin roof.

Bread fruit would fall and make loud, percussion noises.

A big avocado tree grew outside the front door and shaded the house.

We took our showers next to the avocado tree.

I often recall those cool and soothing showers that I took after a day on the humid isle.

Since the house was not close to any roads, I also relished taking sunbaths.

Silence.

Sunbaths.

These sunbaths were almost as calming as swimming in the halcyon ocean…a mere ten minute walk from the jungle house.

One night the termites decided to come out.

Their colonizing flights started as soon as I turned on a light (which I immediately turned off).

I quickly got inside my netted tent and zipped it shut.

The frenzied flights of the flying ants ended the next morning, and it was Paradise once again.

Gone are my sunbaths, massages and ocean swims.

I now live on the dry and gritty desert.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!