I've developed an informal style of writing ...

that allows me to skip back and forth in time fairly easily. Today I'm finding the present so compelling that moving back is less natural than before. Maybe some retracing of steps would help. Stopping to read back a few weeks may be in order. I've avoided doing that but choose to risk the possibility that I'm repeating myself on occasion by just plugging ahead. In the interest of continuing to simply stay with answering the dictates of my mind -- and going wherever memory takes me -- I'm hoping that I'm being coherent.

There are lots of feelings coming up around the weekend events. I'm sensing a burning undercurrent of anger, but have little sense of what it means. Of this much I'm sure, it rises from an "American" place and not from blackness. My outrage bears no color or age or race or gender. It simply IS. And now it's compounded by the knowledge that there is little I can contribute to change at this point in my life; a new feeling for me. Feeling disempowered is an unfamiliar state of being. Even when faced with the insurmountable, I don't recall feeling so helpless in times past. There was always the sense of unseen others sharing my concerns and acting in concert with my efforts. That seems to be diminishing. Feeling much more alone now. Stepping off the stage when I resigned from my state position has set new patterns that I'm not yet comfortable with. Haven't really identified the other cast members in this new production (smile).

The juxtaposition of the sight of those 10,000 markers of dead youngsters (18-22) sacrificed on the beaches of Normandy -- being threaded through with the barrage of coverage on the life, death, and times of former President Ronald Reagan brought things to the surface that I'd thought were safely buried. Within a few hours (as the archival footage became available), they were gradually crowded off the screen. The Reagan coverage was so disproportionate -- so overdone -- that my anger eventually forced me away from the television set and out into the sunlight of the day. Dorian and I drove down to the marina to watch the windsurfers -- always comforting.

Was reminded that the entire Reagan administration -- those still living -- are now back in the seats of power. This time with another empty suit sitting at the top of the pyramid. Why haven't we seen this and found ways to prevent it from happening? Cheney, Negriponte, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, North, Powell, Wolfowitz, et al, who brought us the death squads of Guatemala and El Salvador, the takeover in Nicaragua, the revolutions in Haiti, the invasion of Graneda and the killing of over 5000 innocents in Panama while capturing our former CIA asset, Manuel Noriega, and ultimately, Iran-Contra and the dramatic return of hostages as act three in the Reagan inauguration ceremony! Have we really forgotten all that?

Listening and watching the re-writing of history all weekend while realizing that no one under 20 has any idea of all that went before. Knowing that the times have eliminated all semblance of a free press and that we're being fed propaganda that can only be diluted if we have access to the Internet and through it the world press. And, that many who will vote in November still have no access to this wealth of information for economic reasons over which they have no control. And for those who do have access and control but have been dumbed down by a failing system of public education, so can't analyze the information that they do get. Such a complex set of issues ... .

Reagan's death came, mercifully for the administration, at a time when leadership has great need for deflecting the public's attention from the mounting problems in Iraq, several critical criminal investigations, charges of graft and corporate malfeasance, shouts of (what I suspect are inflated)tremendous job creation numbers, resignations in the C.I.A. top echelon, rebellion among moderate Republicans, queries about the disclosing of the identity of a member of the CIA leading right to the doors of the vice-president, and poll numbers that would (with all things being equal) predict disaster for a second term of office. We're going to be buried under Reagan nostalgia in every waking hour for as long as the corporate media can prolong it.

The dissenting voices are beginning to be heard today and that sound may grow in days ahead. This may provide balance, and herald the re-birth of the opposition. Maybe it will lend some strength to the effort to take back the airways by rescuing the FCC from Chairman Michael Powell et al, and the break the stranglehold that the pharmaceutical companies have on the FDA. Just maybe. The rape of Social Security and Medicare systems are now a fait accompli.

Meanwhile, I'm off to pick up my artist daughter from NIAD. She's working on a new 4'x 8' canvas that is so lovely! All brightly-painted butterflies and rainbows ... I'll shut down these background (samsara) voices until later. Really want to talk more about the merchant years, when I can quiet these voices enough to think more clearly.