Going to work

Some days going to work is like this. other days it being stuck in 160 km of traffic jams.







So I learned to be happy with both.: either the views or the radio and solitude before the rush of people

Capital punishment

Capital punishment is wrong. Living by the rule of 'an eye for eye' to me is barbaric. Thousands are on death row in the US. 130 people have been released from death row because they were found to be innocent after new evidence came to light. The ACLU and the people signing the petitions, writing letters to their newspapers have just, at least for now save Troy Davis' life. He is more than probably innocent and without people demanding justice for this man he would have been executed. Just two hours before his scheduled execution the United States Supreme Court saved Troy Davis’s life. The hope is that they will now hear his case. To me it is not about guilt or grace, atonement or innocence, we just should not have capital punishment. Killing is killing also when a justice system orders it. Lets have a moratorium on the death sentence.

Roma

It is one Rom, the people are Roma, just as the Sinti they are are gypsies. There are 10 million Roma, living all over Europa. They are as the Sami a people without state. The Sami are spread over 4 countries: Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia. The Roma have to content with a lot of intolerance towards them even when they are citizens of the country they are living in, having the nationality of the state in which they live like Poland, Italy, Rumania, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro.
It has been proposed in Italy that if a person from a non EU country comits a crime that if that person is illegal or irrgular his/her punishment would be aggragavted because the illegality would constitute an aggravating circumstance. That seems wrong. We are all equal and the law should be just and the same for all.

The new camp

Here life is squeaky clean. The Rom gypsies are healthier, their feet are dry, the kids have a table and light and can do their homework.



There are house searches at night between 2 and 3. The kids wake up, are scared and cranky.



When asked whether they were happy the women acknowledged their better conditions but said they were like 'birds in a cage'. At midnight the gate is closed, if they need to go out early the have to ring and will be let out.



Cameras are every where. What is the balance between clean and free?

Roma camp

If you make it till 67, then you are old as Methuselah here in one of the nicest cities of Europe. The Roma people, specially the old, the young children and women in general have serious health problems.
This shed without windows is home to a family with 10 kids: no windows, a leaking roof, no water, no electricity.

This is the kitchen outside on an open porch. In winter they bring in a home made stove to keep them minimally warm.

People work, this man was doing some metalwork and was not disturbed by the visitors, the press or the rain.


In their best suits in front of their best home.

Give them back the water and electricity: they pay for their utilities. The 300 kids in the camp go to school but can't make their homework without light.

Quote

Some states have very sophisticated mechanisms and techniques (like NGO's, civil movements and elections) faking democracy.

You better start making a list now...

Late Summer

In my other life late summer is more like early autumn, nothing warm and Indian about it. Normalcy of work and paying the bills tries to settle in. Yet my desert wildness of tumbleweed and locoweed still lies in me.

The road ahead

It is the season of taking leave, friends are strewn into the four directions. Sometimes it may seem a road is closed but roads are also opening up... That is the way it.
My friends of this side of my life, take care. Friends on the other side of my life, brace yourself, I am almost back. Dogs, it's walking time!

What if?

What if my mother instead of teaching me as a first expression You cant have your cake and eat it, she would have said Every cloud has a silver lining. Would I have been more mellow, simpler, more optimistic, less rebellious, stubborn and complicated. And would that have been a good thing?

Mythology

Who are the people that turn an election campaign in a mythological struggle: Mc Cain the hero. Thus he transcends the human condition and is privileged. An essential role in this is played by a fairy, nymph or semidivine woman who shares his adventures. Our moose hunting snowspirit could be just the one who shows him how to gain possession of the symbol of immortality and long life in a big white house.
How does one campaign against fairytales. How do you touch people with the reality of their own life and strugles. Maybe just by being real, staying the progressive course and not playing games, really caring about the people you speak to. Certainly not by whipping them up into a rightful, heroic frenzy in a web of amnesia, lies and distortions and the scenario's of unconscionable scriptwriters.
Get out of their dream, dream your own, construct your dream and choose for peace... be a healer.

The continental divide

Planing the wood, putting down the boards to complete my kitchen floor and having varnished and resanded the floor twice, gave me a lot of time to think and meditate about the post convention state of the USA. I am sad, full of melancholy for this country, which feels like a continent divided.
The Rep's came out with the most conservative, evangelical right platform ever, with open disdain and scorn for the Dem's. I felt the Obama speech was unifying, bringing people together, addressing their needs and how to deal with aliviating their burdens. The other side spoke about the contenders, portraying one as a hero, fit to be a leader even if there is no program and the other as one every footbalmam in the every small town can relate to... Drill, baby drill's points of view are so extreme in what they call pro-life that they would prefer to let a mother die to save a child, in the process taking away a spouse and a mother of prior children. What repulses me most is the constant use of the phrase 'Evil'. As if we do not have good and bad tendencies within ourself, as if 'evil' is an outside force. Naming something evil, puts one in the camp of the 'good' and seems to allow all means to destroy it. That to me is not a state of law: prisoners have civil rights, pro-life to me means ending the war, the illigal occupation, ending the silence about the bodybags coming home to grieving families. What do you dream about Mr President? Do you see other futures besides destruction, death and anhilation? I have always advocated non-violence and non-violent conflict resolution. That will lead to more understanding and unity and hapiness. Troops home now.

Bat cave

Arizona skies at Guano point define width and depth.
Out of the bat cave guano was gathered and the steel structure let people down and filled wagons up.





The river is the Colorado, running red, because of the rains upstream. Technically at this point you are out of the Grand Canyon Park, yet the natural phenomenon is bigger than the park.


I never could comprehend the vastness of it all. Yet I have seen the canyon at different places and altitudes, slowly I am beginning to get a feel for the changing colors and the overwhelming ever changing majesty.