An Open Letter to Other Drivers on California's Highways and Byways

Dear Sirs (or Madames, as the case may be):

Now, let me preface what I'm going to write by admitting that I'm not perfection-in-a-bottle when it comes to driving... Had I been asked that question two and a half years ago, however, I might have indicated that I WAS. The awful truth is, though, that two years ago last July (at the age of 57), I had my first car accident as the driver of a vehicle that resulted in a total loss.

I forgot that one of the front tires was of a different width than the other three because, earlier the previous day, I'd had a flat and the spare was from an older, differently sized set. I took a very sharp turn at a good clip (no faster than I'd taken similar turns many times in the past with no ill effects, however) and that tiny bit of more width in that one front tire caused the entire vehicle to flip. (I think about two times, although I really wasn't counting at that moment.)

To my credit, I didn't hit anyone else or even damage anyone else's property. It broke BOTH of the axles on my Jeep, though, the fire dept. had to cut me out and I'm now sporting a titanium hip because of it  -- but, I digress...

Nevertheless, this letter is to all of you other drivers -- men, women, young and old -- whom I encounter as I go about my business on a daily basis on the roadways of Northern California.

First, to the many of you who drive Volvos (Volvo station wagons, especially):

Yes, yes... Congratulations for purchasing such a safe automobile. Very shrewd of you.

Allow me to remind you, however, that driving an automobile with the best safety record on the books does NOT mean that you don't have to look both ways before pulling out into traffic or that you can take up half of the oncoming traffic lane in addition to your own around blind curves.

"Volvo" is NOT Swedish for "I now have super-powers". It DOES mean that whomsoever you run into with one will most likely come out on the losing end of the altercation -- unless, of course, it's a Mac Truck which may, in that event, prove to be your "kryptonite".

Speaking of so-called "safe drivers", I have a bone to pick with all of you... If no one has told you before, please, allow me to enlighten:

You see, the words "agonizingly slow" and "safe" are NOT synonymous. In fact, going 45 mph, even in the slow-lane, on a California freeway is anything BUT "safe". In fact, it's just the opposite of "safe"; it's very, very -- well -- "UNsafe" because those of us who don't live in your little fairy-world drive something called THE SPEED LIMIT.

I know you probably think of the speed limit as some kind of "loose suggestion"; however, the rest of us who live in the REAL California think of it more as an "absolute". So, when we come up from behind at about 70 mph to find you putting along at 45, it causes us no end of complications.

And, before you say "that's YOUR problem", imagine, if you will (this shouldn't be too difficult because, if you're the kind of driver I'm addressing, it probably happens to you several times a day), a scenario in which a car has roared up behind you at a much faster rate of speed than you.

Your first indication that something might be amiss would be the screeching of tires as the other driver brakes furiously. (This is a sound with which you've probably grown quite familiar.) Now, imagine the other driver glancing around furtively, desperately searching for an escape route to avoid rear-ending you, only to find a semi tractor-trailer rig taking up the only remaining lane. With no other way out, your Volvo then becomes the recipient of the full brunt of the impending impact.

You see? It really can become YOUR problem in the blink of an eye.

Which brings me to a word I'd like to impart to you regarding the use of "the brake" in all high-stress, impending-impact situations. That word is: DON'T.

The brake on your automobile is NOT a "life preserver" or magic foot-pedal that will save your life if stomped upon. In fact, in 99 out of 100 dicey situations, hitting the brake is the LAST thing you should do -- especially in a case like this:

You're about to turn left in an intersection on a green arrow when you see another vehicle entering the intersection from the opposite direction that has obviously either not seen the red light or some mechanical reason prevents it from being able to stop.

In instances like this, braking to a halt leaving your vehicle broadsided ACROSS the intersection and then staring open-mouthed at the oncoming vehicle in terror is NOT going to help you. What you SHOULD do is HIT THE GAS and get the heck outta the intersection BEFORE the other vehicle reaches your position. Simple as that -- collision avoided.

(This actually happened to me. Not "the other car hitting the gas and clearing the intersection" part; the "other car hitting the brake then staring at my approach in terror" part. Needless to say, collision NOT avoided.)

More impacts have been avoided by getting up some quick speed and then STEERING AROUND an obstacle than have ever been avoided by hitting the brake.

In my old VW bug, I once came around a one-lane blind curve with sheer 25-foot drop-offs on both sides to find a huge, older-model station wagon stalled and blocking the entire lane. Instead of trying to stop (which would have been completely useless), I floored it and steered around the station wagon with only about 4 feet or so of solid ground on one side of the wagon to work with. For a split-second, I swear both driver's side wheels -- front and back -- were turning in mid-air. I credit speed and my ability to accurately steer the vehicle (along with the fact that VW bugs had solid metal "plates" welded onto their under-carriages which were notoriously helpful in adding "lift" -- so much so that they had a tendency to become "hydrofoils" on wet pavement) with saving my life that day.

This brings me to a question: Why do so many of you with very small, compact cars act like you're steering a school bus?

I see you every day, swinging 10 feet out to the left to make right turns. Look: Your car isn't that big or that long that you need to cross over into the oncoming traffic lane in order to turn right into your driveway.

And, speaking of right turns --

The rest of the world behind you would really appreciate it, if you're going to be turning right, if you'd move over TOWARDS the right shoulder a little before you actually execute the turn. See, while you're stopped waiting for pedestrians to cross or traffic to clear, the rest of us are stuck behind you awaiting your pleasure. If you'd move a couple of feet over to the right BEFORE you get to the place where you're going turn, we could get around you and go on our merry ways. Thanks a BUNCH.

Now a word about center, so-called "suicide lanes" (well, actually TWO words): USE THEM.

In its infinite wisdom, the highway department created those center lanes as a kind of "no man's land" wherein one can not only BEGIN left turns but, END them, as well. They did this to assist the flow of traffic (also known as "all us other guys") so we wouldn't have to sit there waiting behind you while you seek that perfect "Zen moment" during which to execute your left turn.

Conversely, you don't actually have to wait for ALL of the traffic coming and going in both directions to clear BEFORE turning left onto a street that has a "suicide lane". That's the beauty of it, you see... You can wait for the traffic lanes NEAREST to you to clear, then turn into that middle lane, wait for the traffic that's going the same direction you're now going to offer a break and then MERGE INTO IT, thus completing your left-hand turn. I realize that, before they invented that center lane, everyone had to wait for cross traffic in both directions to clear before they even attempted to turn left but, they've had those center lanes for, oh, at least 25 YEARS now. Do us all a favor. Keep up with the times, wouldja?

And speaking of keeping up with the times, wouldja pick up a newspaper or listen to a news broadcast every once in awhile? The reason I ask this is because vehicle laws sometimes CHANGE and, if you don't keep up with what's happening at LEAST on a yearly basis, you may be violating some new law the DMV cooked up and not even KNOW it. Case in point:

California recently enacted a law that says if you're windshield wipers are on, your headlights have to be on, too. In other words, if visibility is bad enough that you must run your wipers to see to drive, you should have your headlights on to make YOU more visible to everybody else. This law has now been on the books for almost two years but you wouldn't beLIEVE the amount of people I see going down the road every DAY in the pouring rain with their lights off... (I flick my lights at them and they just stare at me like I'm insane... **sigh**)

In California for many, many years, you didn't have to stop and wait for a school bus to unload passengers if you were on the other side of the road going the opposite direction. I guess that didn't work out so well for somebody's kids 'cause they changed the law so that, now, cars on BOTH sides of the road have to stop but, for the first year or two after that law went into effect, self-righteous but totally WRONG drivers were STILL honking their horns at drivers obeying the new law -- even to the point of accelerating AROUND them, shouting and shaking their fists (and other appendages) as they went. The only reason they don't do that still is because law enforcement agencies made a practice of following school buses around about six months into the new law and aggressively ticketed violators.

Cell phones and bicyclists I'm not even going to ATTEMPT to talk to you about at this time. I'll save that discourse for another day (or FIVE).

Thank-you for your kind attention, happy driving and have a very nice day (you putzes...).

If You Know That Hertha & Cernunnos Love You, Click 'Share'

I was not raised in a religious household -- Okay, in truth, my mother was an avowed atheist whom I never saw set one step inside in a church in my life. I, on the other hand, can't remember a time when I didn't possess a definite "spiritual" (if not "religious") side to my nature.

I can remember attending various churches with my little girlfriends when we were of grade school age. I went more as an alternative way to spend my otherwise uneventful and (for an only child) somewhat lonely Sundays than as a novitiate, however. In my youth (depending upon my "best friend du jour"), I attended Methodist Sunday School classes and Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran and even Catholic and Pentecostal worship services.

When I turned 14 or so, my mother "got religion" and became a Buddhist and it was about that same time that I -- having studied most of the major religions on the planet on my own -- decided that Wiccanism/Paganism was about as close as any religion could come to being the one that made the most sense to me. The fact that Wiccans had a male god that ruled over autumn and winter (Cernunnos) and a female deity that held sway over spring and summer (Hertha or Habondia) seemed to answer quite nicely the "if God made human beings in 'His' image, what about women?" question for me. To my young, logical mind, either there HAD to be at least TWO deities or there was one and s/he was a hermaphrodite.

I opted for the former...

In traditional Wiccanism, Hertha is the "Earth-Mother", the "All-Mother" -- nurturer, healer and the embodiment of the feminine principle. She is depicted as voluptuous and surrounded by the colorful flowers of spring and the ripened fruits of summer. She has dominion over women, children, the moon, the home and hearth, domesticated animals and those places on the earth relating to flowers, gardens, orchards and the like -- places cultivated by the hands of humans.

Cernunnos, on the other hand, is the solar, male deity also called "The Horned One" (NOT to be confused with "Satan" which is a strictly Christian invention) and he embodies the masculine principle. He has dominion over autumn and winter and is often depicted as a neolithic huntsman in deerskin -- right down to the antlers and cloven hooves. His domains are untamed, barren-type places --  places with brambles, weeds, rocks and such -- and he has dominion over the wild, untamed, savage animals of the earth..

This world-view fit so perfectly into my thinking --  male and female, yin and yang, dark and light, summer and winter. Just traveling down the road, one can point out the green, flower-strewn strongholds of Hertha as one passes by, as well as the briar patches and rocky canyons and cliffs of the places sacred to Cernunnos. I embraced the Wiccan philosophy completely... It also had the lure of all things magick: Herb-crafting, spells, divination, mind over matter, healing, psychic powers, so, what was not to like about it?

But this all took place in the mid-to-late 1960s in a small, Northern California town. There were hardly any Jewish people in our town -- much less Buddhists and Wiccans. I can still remember the reaction I got one day when a small group of my girlfriends was discussing which denominations their parents belonged to. When it got around to me and I was asked "what" my mother "was". I said "She's a Buddhist" -- and (in the immortal words of Arlo Gunthrie) "...they all moved away from me on the bench, there. Gave me the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty stuff like that..." For the most part, I kept my preference towards Wiccanism to myself through high school.

In those days, however, nobody knew "what" ANYBODY "was", really -- religion-wise, that is. The only teacher's religious denomination that I can recall knowing throughout all my years of schooling was a 7th grade science teacher who was a Catholic. The only reason we kids knew he WAS a Catholic was because he showed up one Ash Wednesday with ashes still smudged across his forehead from mass that morning. Otherwise, people just didn't discuss their particular religious preferences. It was considered too personal a thing to bring up in anything less than very close, intimately-acquainted company -- a matter to be strictly kept between the individual and his or her chosen "god". The only religious group that went around actively trying to recruit members was the Jehovah's Witnesses and nobody I knew liked them very much -- mostly because of their austerity with their kids in not letting them have Christmas presents or go trick-or-treating on Halloween. That and their strange assertion that, no matter the state of decomposition at the time, during the future "rapture", people's physcial bodies were going to rise up out of their graves and walk around. (Which has always conjured up a horrifying image in my mind...)

But, even the Jehovah's Witnesses didn't press you to join after you let them know that you had no interest like many Christians do today and I, for one, grow very weary of seeing "God" and "Jesus" plastered all over Facebook and such. I'd like to go back to keeping our religious preferences to ourselves here in the United States -- just like we used to but, I have a feeling that it will take more than simply requesting it to bring that about.

The only way I can see that might eventually work with some of these "militant Christians" would be if all of us belonging to the other religions would start saturating social websites like Facebook with OUR little quotes and sayings all day, every day. I'm of the opinion that this is the only way to get the seemingly ENDLESS preaching to stop: Give 'em a taste of their own medicine and keep it up for as long as it takes them to get the point.

I can see it now! Statuses like:

• "I'm not afraid to post this showing my devotion to Cernunnos and Hertha. Click "Share" if you feel surrounded by Pagan love. Blessed be..."

• "Put the 'Rah' back in Rahmadan! "Like" this post..."

• "Ganesha loves me this I know because the Bhagavad Gita tells me so..."

See, I think if we gave the Christians a taste of their own medicine, seeing OUR gods' names everywhere they looked, they might get as annoyed as WE are and they just might keep their religious views to themselves in the future.

Hey, it's worth a try...

We've Seen it Before and We'll Probably See It Again (Unfortunately)

Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Let me tell ya sumpthin' 'bout this here "Gay Marriage Issue"... Now, we had this same darn thing back in the Sixties. It was the same crap. There were pissed-off folks lined up on one side of the street sayin' black people oughtta be able to eat at the lunch counter same as anybody and there were fat, white women in mu-mus with curlers in their hair on the other side of the street screamin' "We ain't gonna let no n*****s into our school!"

See? Like I said: The same crap then as now...

They eventually did, you know... Integrate the schools, that is... Something that, today, we take for granted. We take for granted that all the kids who live on the same side of town are going to attend the same high school -- wasn't always so. And, when they  finally DID integrate all the schools, it wasn't a matter of simply opening up the front doors and letting everybody in -- oh, no -- it took reams of court orders and a fairly large presence of National Guard for quite some time to make it come about.

This hue and cry over who can legally marry whom isn't new, either. Blacks and whites weren't allowed to intermarry in many states when I was a kid and, even in the states where they were allowed to get married, they took their lives in their hands to do so and appear in public. Opponents of racial intermarriage were fond of saying things like "Dogs don't mate with cats, ya know" and "you'll never find a zebra mated to a rhino" as deluded "validations" of their opinions -- never allowing such facts as, "unlike 'dogs and cats' and 'zebras and rhinos', black and white humans are members of the very same species" to become problematic for them. (A more accurate correlation would have involved the mating processes between different colors of dogs or different breeds of cats -- which occurs most of the time.)

Today, you'll hear those with objections to "gay marriage" say things like "homosexual behavior isn't 'natural' because you won't find any animals doing it". Statements like this are just as problematic for opponents of gay marriage as the above was for opponents of inter-racial marriage.

First, it ignores the fact that humans ARE animals and the even more problematic fact that most other species of animals DO engage in such behavior. In fact, over 1,500 different species of animals have been observed engaging in homosexual behavior with a few species -- such as dwarf chimpanzees -- openly engaging in it throughout their lifetimes. Homosexual relationships between male killer whales are known to last much longer than their heterosexual counterparts and, in many species of ducks and geese, females will even lay eggs in the nests of homosexual male couples -- leaving the hatchlings to the two males to raise (which, we are learning, they appear to do better than heterosexual couples of the same species).

In fact, one biologist has said that only those creatures that are "asexual" -- in other words, ones that don't engage in sexual behavior at all -- do NOT (at least occasionally) engage in homosexual behavior. There IS a type of related behavior that other animals don't seem to engage in, however and that's "homophobia".

Now, in the end -- in the final analysis -- some people are always going be what they call "resistant to change" and a lifetime of  observation of human behavior tells me that the reason isn't because their lives are so perfect and wonderful -- so much so that they don't want to upset the apple-cart -- like you'd expect. Nah... My theory is that they believe their lives (from their perspective, anyway) really do suck but, as long as there's another faction -- some other group of people -- they can point to and say  "Hey, look! Their lives suck even more than our lives suck!", they've got something (no matter how irrelevant or how petty) that empowers them on some deluded level.

My theory flies in the face of most of the social psychologists and behavior analysts of the world who would maintain that it is the members of the ruling classes -- those living in the lap of luxury in their social stratum -- who are the most resistant to changes in the status quo. That may be but, at least they have the intelligence not to show it. That's why you don't see scattered bands of old geezers out there, wearing tiaras and Armani suits, carrying correctly-spelled protest signs.

Getting back to the point that I'm attempting to make here, allow me to state the following:

One faction of human beings trying to dictate to another faction what their lifestyle choices should be is inherently "wrong". It's wrong because it forces the assumption that one group's choices in lifestyle follow some type of "universal rule" of correctness which then facilitates the branding of anyone in disagreement with that "rule" as guilty of aberrant behavior. 

Lifestyle choices are just that: "Choices". If there were cut-and-dried rules to choices, they would cease to be choices and even the most conservative and orthodox of religious adherents among us agree that human beings have been divinely endowed with something called "free will" that confers upon each one of us the ability to decide for ourselves how we are going to live our lives. This is never more true than for those living in a country that claims concepts like "freedom" and "liberty" as the basis for its existence.

The History Channel's "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed"

The History Channel's "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed"

As a consumate fan of "Star Wars" and a devout acolyte of history and mythology, this History Channel production held the promise of containing special appeal for me and, in this regard, it did not disappoint.

The stellar nature of "The Legacy Revealed" was due in no small part to the fact that it was directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Kevin Burns in close association with Lucasfilm, Ltd. as well as the History Channel and contains generous helpings of interviews with numerous experts and scholars in the fields of mythology, religion and history. In addition, it was nominated for three Emmy Awards in Non-Fiction: "Outstanding Special", "Outstanding Writing" and "Outstanding Direction".

As most of us were able to discern from the very beginning, the "Star Wars" collective has always represented a rather broad exposition of the timeless struggle of good against evil; however, "The Legacy Revealed" pointedly connects specific dots between characters and events in classical mythology, actual events in human history and the George Lucas series of films for us in an eminently understandable and easy-to-follow progression.

For avid students of mythology like myself, "Revealed" points out specific parallels between typical, ancient "hero's journey myths" such as those expounded by Dr. Joseph Campbell in his book "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and the characters of Luke and Anakin Skywalkers. Like the Sumerian Gilgamesh, the Greek Achilles or Odysseus, the Jewish Moses and even the Christian Messiah Jesus, the young Skywalkers begin as common, humble -- even oppressed and enslaved -- children who, pressed by circumstance and the universe-shattering events around them, eventually rise up to become consumate warriors only to have their respective paths to power diverge at critical junctures in their lives. While the slaughter of his adoptive family spurs young Luke toward his fateful role as a Jedi knight fighting to see the triumph of the good side of The Force (a metaphor for the cosmic or divine energy prevalent in the teachings of many religions), the murder of his mother puts young Anakin on the road to his eventual conversion to the "Dark Lord", Darth Vader (which is also faintly reminiscent of Satan's Fall from Grace).

As a Baby Boomer himself, George Lucas' familiarity with the themes of WW II and his coming-of-age in the turbulent times of the Sixties are, as "Revealed" points out, evident -- right down to the Empire's Army's use of the iconic Nazi colors of black, white and red -- throughout the "Star Wars" series of films. When we see the nearly never-ending, tightly grouped, precision-drilled ranks of the Evil Empire's "battle droids", we cannot help being reminded of those huge quadrants of Hitler's goose-stepping troops we have seen march past the lens in the jerky, black and white images of vintage newsreels. (Lucas even calls them "storm-troopers".) With the historical theme also of the Republic of Ancient Rome (the peoples' representatives are even called "senators") sprinkled generously throughout -- right down to the "Ben Hur"-like pod races.

Of course, in each and every hero-myth, there must be a "villain" and "Star Wars" has no shortage of them. From the Evil Emperor to Darth Vader to the "Sith" to Jabba the Hutt, we are treated to a vast array of characters whose ultimate goal is the destruction -- or conversion to evil -- of our heroes. "Revealed" delights us when it points out the similarities between Jabba and the dragons of many Celtic myths. In such myths, it is the dragon's job to hoard both the damsel and the gold. Who could forget the scene in "The Return of the Jedi" of Carrie Fisher in that metal bikini?

The mentor (a word first coined in reference to "Mentor" who watched over Odysseus's son, Telemachus, in Homer's epic tale "The Odyssey") relationship -- a near-fixture in hero myths -- is well represented in "Star Wars" by the roles of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn and carry all of the necessary elements. The mentor must not only instruct the hero in the ways of warfare, philosophy and politics, it is the mentor's duty to present to the young apprentice the object that represents his destiny. For King Arthur, of course, this object came in the form of the magic sword "Excalibur" but, for the young Skywalkers, it is a light saber -- the tool of a Jedi knight -- which Obi-Wan calls "...an elegant weapon of a more civilized age...". And, as in any hero-myth, the mentor must, before the greatest test the hero must face, also necessarily vanish or die (which all of the above-referenced mentor characters in the "Star Wars" films eventually do) -- leaving the young apprentice to carry on the essence of his mentor's teachings within himself ("Use the Force, Luke...").

Another element present in a vast majority of hero-myths is the role of "jester", "hanger-on" (or "chorus" as in the tradition of the Greek tragedies), whose job it is to provide comic relief to the intensity of the dramatic plotline and/or make observations/comments on the events being portrayed. These roles are well-satisfied in "Star Wars" by the characters of Jar-Jar Binks, C3-PO and R2-D2 (a duo which resembles to a great degree the comedy teams of old such Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello or even [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis).

There are, as "Revealed" points out, however, themes within the "Star Wars" series that are unique and specific to comparatively modern (and nearly exclusively American) culture:

Tom Brokaw observes that character of Han Solo (a "loner type", as his name implies) is an archetype of the "cowboy", outlaw or gunslinger and calls all of the "Star Wars" movies "Westerns of the future". The Cantina Scene in the first episode also speaks to this interpretation.

After the battle on the fiery, lava-filled planet Mustafar (a place straight out of the Hell of the pages of Milton's "Paradise Lost"), a mature Anakin Skywalker is virtually raised from the dead by an extensive operation that makes him more machine than man -- a theme immediately reminiscent of Mary Shelly's monster in "Frankenstein".

A particularly pleasing (to me as a woman, anyway) modern "spin" that runs throughout the series is the fact that the "damsel" characters on the far-flung planets of "Star Wars" are neither helpless nor weak (as is so often the case in traditional mythology). In the very first episode, it is Princess Leia who -- when she, Luke, Han Solo and Chewbacca are pinned down by enemy fire -- grabs Luke Skywalker's blaster and blasts a hole in a grate covering an access panel to the Death Star's garbage elimination system, saying to Han Solo: "Someone has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, Flyboy."  The "evil empire" is conspicuously devoid of women: The reason being, "Revealed" asserts, because there are none of the elements that the female archetype usually represents -- such as "life", "nurturing", "grace" or "light" -- in it, Even the name of Queen Abudahla's planet, "Naboo", is mythological in nature: Nabu was a Babylonian goddess of wisdom and, so, she is the "Queen of Wisdom".

"Revealed" also draws a parallel between the brother and sister characters of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and the Greek mythological twins Apollo and Artemis.

A large part of the impact of "Revealed" upon the viewer is due to the calibre of the professional experts who add their thoughts to the documentary by way of short interviews or vignettes throughout. A very partial list reads like a virtual "Who's Who" of academia, media, politics and literature:

• Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Stephen Colbert, Linda Ellerbee
• Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich
• Joan Breton Connelly -- American classical archaeologist and Professor of Classics and Art History at New York University
• Steven Galipeau - Marriage and Family Therapist
• Mary Henderson - Author of bestselling books on American Theater
• Edward L. Hudgins - Director of Advocacy & Senior Scholar for the Atlas Society
• Dr. John C. Lyden - Editor of "The Journal of Religion & Film" and author of "Film as Religion"
• Dr. Carl A. Rubino - Computational Linguist, Typologist and author of "Alternative Universes: Literature, Ethics, and the American Dream"
• Joss Whedon - Screenwriter, Director, Producer, Actor, Composer

The insights that "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed" brings to even the most "Star Wars"-savvy among us are truly fascinating but, even for those who have never attended a Star Trek Convention, the subject matter shows us the direction -- in a broader sense -- of modern theater and film and is very much well worth the watching...

 

I AM AN AMERICAN... (Poem)

I am an American…




Within me,
the blood of Texas martyrs flows
as one with the brave warriors
who massacred them.

Within me,
diligent Celtic kinsmen
and industrious Teutonic lines
are forever married.

Within me,
the nobility of the Cherokee,
practicality of the Scots
and Irish defiance lie.

Within me,
souls of the victims
of the Great Influenza Epidemic
                                                     live on.

Within me,
the epic war deeds
of a band of ragged Marauders
                                                     are kept.

Within me,
two celebrated families
of revered jurisprudence
                                                     are rendered.

Within me,
are mixed the vivid histories
of England, Scotland, Ireland,
Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri.

I am an American
 
                             and I am not alone…

TO KIM (wherever he may be) AND TO THE RIPPLES HE CREATED...

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. -- George Lois

The year was 1966. I was 13 years old and the Hippy Movement was bringing people from all over the world to a point about 50 miles south of the small town where I lived to witness its birth on the corner of Haight Street and Ashbury.

When the very first hippies moved in that anyone in our neighborhood had ever seen up-close, included among them was a little, red-haired girl (about two years old at the time) whom I came to know as Elizabeth, her mother, MaryAnn, and her step-father, Kim.

MaryAnn immediately got a job as a waitress on the lunch and dinner shifts at an Italian restaurant downtown, while Kim was a late-night cook at another restaurant several blocks away. The differences in their work schedules left a few hours on a couple of nights during the week when neither of them was available to take care of Elizabeth and I was fortunate enough to get the babysitting job.

How I loved their house! MaryAnn and Kim had all the cool records (real, vinyl ones) of the time: Sgt. Pepper, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Additionally, Kim was a crafts person and artist of extraordinary talent.

Fascinated, I would spend hours watching him, learning how to make the beautiful things that he made with his hands. When I think back on it, I can appreciate how patient Kim was with me -- an eager, curious teenager who followed him around -- questioning his every move.

One day, I found him in the hallway between their kitchen and bathroom making a colorful collage that covered the ceiling and both walls. Amazed, I asked him how he created it.

Ever-tolerant, he patiently explained how he cut photographs from magazines and album inserts and the like and glued them together create a collage.

Holding up what looked like a small can of paint, he told me, “This is the stuff you need to make collages that last. It’s called Varathane® and it’s what they use on roller skating rink floors. It’s kind of expensive -- this little can costs more than a whole gallon of paint -- but, if you brush on several coats, one layer at a time, and allow each of them to dry completely before applying the next one, the surface will be hard, durable and washable and it will keep the colors from fading. It’s the best stuff there is!”

I couldn't wait to spend some of my babysitting money to purchase my very first can of Varathane® that summer to make my own collages. I’ve used up many, many cans of it since then...

On another occasion, I remember admiring a mobile that Kim made out of pieces of driftwood and shells. As was his practice, always, with me, he took special pains to show me how it was constructed, explaining how I could create one like it.

Kim, MaryAnn and Elizabeth moved away a couple of years later. I have no idea what happened to them but I couldn’t even begin to tell you exactly how many, many collages and driftwood mobiles that I’ve made in my lifetime (I’ll be 53 next month).
 
Recently, I happened to be driving past the apartment building where my mother I lived in the late 1960s and noticed that the apartment next door was open and a couple of men were working inside.

I’d long been curious to find out if a large collage that I’d made on the garage wall when I lived there in 1968 might still be there, so, I parked my car and hailed one of the workmen. He turned out to be the building’s current owner.

When I asked him about the collage, he assured me that it was still there -- adding that he’d replaced nearly every, single piece of sheetrock in the building over the 20 years that he’d owned the place, but, somehow, could never bring himself to tear out or paint over my collage. He said:

"From the first moment I saw it, I knew it was a very special work of art. It conveys the essence of the 60s so well -- those were turbulent, frightening years and, yet, in some ways, they were also wonderful, magical years... And you say you were only 16 when you made it? Amazing... I've always wondered about the artist."

He added that he believed that the present tenants were home at that moment and offered to go ask their permission for me to enter the garage to view the collage, if I wished. I jumped at the chance.

As I stood before the artwork that my young hands had fashioned so long ago, I ran my fingers gently over the pictures of surfers, flower children and newsmakers of the time – many of which I’d forgotten about long ago – and tears came to my eyes...

I could hardly believe that my collage was still there – that is, until I remembered the coat after coat of Kim’s Varathane® I'd dutifully applied to it over the several days following its completion.

“That’s how you make a collage that lasts,” I whispered to myself, wishing there was some way to let Kim know that -- through me -- his art had survived for all these years.

The skills that Kim taught me didn’t end with me, either. Over the course of my life, I have passed-on what he taught me – setting many other pairs of young hands in motion.

I’ve taught strangers, friends and even the children of friends -- many previously feared to be irretrievably lost to crime, drugs and despair -- how to make collages and driftwood mobiles.

I’ve seen children’s relationships with their parents strengthen as they hunted together along a beach for just the right pieces of driftwood to make their mobiles or thumbed through old magazines together looking for the most colorful pictures for their collages.

To think that it all began in 1966 with one young man who had the patience to teach the means of his arts to a pesky teenager who was so eager to learn. Even now, like slow-moving ripples across time and space, the influence of Kim’s art and humanity continue on their way across the surface of this huge pond we call Life...

And who can say just how far into the future those ripples might eventually extend or, in the end, how many people's lives will have been forever changed by them?

I cannot say. I am merely grateful to have been included in one small wave. . .

 "30"

 

 Photo above: A section of my kitchen cabinets showing a little of the collage skills that I learned from Kim -- along with some craft tricks inspired by him like the old silverware bent and made into handles.

If the verdict in the Scott Peterson murder case didn't scare you, it certainly SHOULD have...

Thinking back, it seems like it happened so long ago, so much has gone on in the world since then...

On March 16th, 2005, in a crowded courtroom in Redwood City California, Judge Alfred A. Delucchi formally sentenced Scott Peterson (accused of murdering his wife, Laci Rocha Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner) to death by lethal injection pursuant to the jury's November 12th, 2004 guilty verdict.*

To say that the trial was "highly publicized" would be a gross understatement. At the time, the Scott Peterson murder trial amounted to more like a chaotic, emotionally and media-fueled feeding-frenzy. It was the daily grist of water-cooler tirades, the opening story of hundreds of nightly news broadcasts worldwide and the platform of countless soapbox sermons.

Curiously (to my mind, anyway), unlike the O. J. Simpson trial before it, the Peterson trial proved no fodder for debate. Almost without exception, the court of public opinion appeared to have tried, convicted and sentenced Peterson before the actual opening arguments even began.

99.9% of the world seemed to agree that Scott Peterson was guilty; however, seemingly utterly alone in my trepidation, I questioned (and continue to question to this very day) just what crime the People's evidence proved "beyond the shadow of a doubt" he was guilty OF...

There is no question that the murder of wife and soon-to-be mother Laci Peterson (and her unborn son) was a callous, heinous and brutally inhuman act nearly beyond the ability of words to express it. There is also no question that Scott Peterson was proved to be a liar, philanderer and adulterer and that he appears to be morally bankrupt -- completely lacking the empathy and capacity for emotional attachment commonly found in most human beings -- while simultaneously exhibiting an overabundance of predisposition toward self-gratification and ego-centricity.

Fortunately for most of us flawed human beings, however, there are no laws on the books anywhere in these United States that prohibit possessing these traits in whatever measure. We all have flaws (mostly minor ones, thank goodness) but rarely are we put on trial for them as Scott Peterson was.

In the course of viewing the myriad court and law enforcement related dramas that we watch on television, we are often reminded that, in a court of law, it is real, concrete evidence that convicts the accused -- not personal opinions, innuendos, questionable personal philosophies or even past or present associations. Rather convictions should result from real, solid, forensic evidence and/or testimony by eyewitnesses or electronic means (photographs, videotape, phone recordings, etc.).

I submit that, based upon that premise, Scott Peterson should never have been found guilty of violating any law in the land because, in fact, the one piece of evidence submitted by the Prosecution in the case against him was circumstantial at best and as thin as the width of one human hair...

The Peterson case was fraught with problems from the start with stops and starts, precarious, borderline dismissive actions and questionable jurisprudence:

There was the change of venue from Modesto (Peterson's hometown) to Redwood City because of a perceived inability to provide an unbiased trial in an environment already saturated with high-running emotions. This fact alone speaks volumes as to the potential for consequential inadequacies in fair representation.

There was the shuffling of defense attorneys -- from veteran criminal lawyer Kirk McAllister to Public Defender Ken Faulkner to the pricey Mark Geragos -- each with its potential to "drop the baton", so to speak. In the last days of the trial, it seemed that Geragos was conspicuously absent (oddly coincidental to about the same time period of Scott Peterson's parents' announcement that they had filed bankruptcy due to expenses incurred in his defense).

More seriously, there was the nearly last-minute dismissal of two jurors -- one the jury foreman who, by all reports, was unquestionably the most detailed "notetaker" during the trial (and who, afterwards, confessed his predisposition toward a "not guilty" vote) and the other, whose alleged, momentary contact with the brother of the victim one day as all of the people concerned with the case filed into the courthouse (which could have been as an innocuous an exchange as excusing herself for bumping into him) was brought to the attention of the Court by, of all means, a "Court TV" videotape. So emotionally charged was the atmosphere surrounding this case, the dismissed foreman even cited actual "death threats" made to him from unrevealed sources which  contributed to his uncontested acceptance of dismissal from the jury.

One of the replacement jurors was even seen yawning -- presumably in boredom with the testimony being given at the time -- after being placed on the jury.

Adding to the melee was the attorney for witness (and fellow adulterer with Scott Peterson) Amber Frey: The flamboyant and outspoken Gloria Allred who, unlike all of the other participants, was not bound by the gag order prohibiting communications about the case to outsiders -- especially to the Press  -- a circumstance of which Ms. Allred took full advantage.

Ms. Frey's cooperation with law enforcement during the investigation surrounding Peterson is nearly legendary (a made-for-TV movie having been produced and shown on a primetime network). Unfortunately for the Prosecution, however, despite her repeated attempts via covert means to wrangle some statement -- any statement -- out of Peterson that might serve as a confession to the crime, Ms. Frey came up empty-handed.

When asked to be specific as to which aspect(s) of the Prosecution's case most influenced their guilty determination and subsequent death-penalty decision, copious media statements made by members of the jury after the trial ended cited Peterson's alleged "lack of [display of?] emotion", his penchant for telling untruths and his extensive contact with Amber Frey in the weeks following his wife's disappearance -- as well as a perceived lack of responsibility in protecting his wife and son from harm -- as deciding factors. Even by their own admissions, these factors were "hundreds of small 'puzzle pieces' of circumstantial evidence".

Fortunately for the entire American judicial system, "circumstantial evidence" has never been admissible for consideration in rendering a verdict in a U.S. court of law -- "fortunately", that is, with the glaring exception, it appears, of the Scott Peterson murder trial...

In fact, in support of their decision in the case, not one of the jurors cited the only real, solid piece of forensic evidence possessed by the Prosecution: The presence of a solitary human hair (determined by testing to have belonged to the victim, Laci Peterson) on a pair of pliers in a boat belonging to Scott Peterson.

Convincing argument could made that even this piece of evidence was entirely circumstantial.

One can imagine a hundred ways in which a single hair belonging to a man's wife could find its way onto pair of pliers that later wound up in his boat.

No testimony was ever offered claiming Laci had never set foot in the boat nor used the pliers. It is entirely possible she used the pliers at some previous and/or she was present in the boat (with or without Peterson) on many occasions and, during one of these occasions, her hair got on the pliers. There is simply no way to prove otherwise. This represents the textbook litmus test for "circumstantial evidence": A circumstance surrounding the evidence presented that could likely make it totally unrelated to the crime in question.

Yes, Scott Peterson is unquestionably a cold-hearted "cad" who cheated on his wife even as she carried their child in her womb and a liar, to boot -- but, try to imagine yourself in a similar scenario wherein you are absolutely, without question, NOT guilty of murdering your spouse...

Imagine, if you will, your local District Attorney dredging up every, single questionable conversation you have ever had with anyone about your relationship with your spouse and, indeed, the appearance of appropriateness of every relationship you have or have ever had with anyone.

Imagine just for a moment that law enforcement is scrutinizing every move you make -- no matter how inconsequential -- for the weeks and months following the shock of your spouse's murder under a microscope colored by their predetermination of your guilt and fueled by their great need to produce the perpetrator to quell the public's fear for its safety...

Ask yourself: Would the presence of one, solitary hair from my spouse's head on some object owned by me be enough to justify my receiving that lethal injection? If you are honest with yourself and the rest of the world, you must answer with a resounding "NO!".

The fact that Scott Peterson is where he is right now should give all of us -- each and every citizen of the United States -- cause to fear for our lives...


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* Actually "verdicts" since Peterson was convicted of first-degree murder under special circumstances for his wife and second-degree murder for their unborn child.