The Balmorhea Progressive

Balmorhea Hail Storm; West Texas April 11, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:07:00 +0000

In the video collage above, that white stuff on the ground is hail, not snow. In some places it was 4 inches deep. I parked under the covered area of Blanca's drive-thru convenience store (see photo below) and began taking shots. The couple and their smiling daughter in the video were under the covered area in the car ahead of me. Everyone was excited to the point of giddiness. I'm sure it was the violence of the storm, it's thundering hail, combined with the ozone in the air, that produced such intense excitement in everyone.

Photo taken under the drive-thru, Balmorhea Grocery

When the storm let up I drove out to my friend's house to check on her. On the way I passed the Catholic church, their extended lawn covered in hail stones so thick it looked like snow. Then I drove past Carrasco's and on to I-10. The freeway was covered in what was reported to have been 4 inches of hail.

Later, at Carrasco's, an employee showed me the video she took standing in the parking lot. Her video had captured what appeared to be a rotating wall cloud, the initial stages of a tornado.

In the collage of photos I presented in the video above, the elderly lady in the pink nursing scrubs is my friend, Rosalie Dominguez, 80. The pink farm house is her's. Wind-driven hail broke out 3 windows on the north side of her home. The men working on her windows after the storm are her son, George, and his father-in-law.

Rosalie had remembered the tornado in Saragosa several years ago and it heightened her terror during the storm. I'm sure other townsfolk had the same traumatic flashbacks during yesterday's hailstorm, a storm that pounded metal roofs with such violence that it drove some people to the inner rooms of their homes seeking safety, and others to their storm shelters.

The last two shots in the video collage are of Rosalie's house at a distance with the Davis Mountains in the background.

The video below was captured by storm chasers north of Amarillo where four-feet of hail accumulated in some places, closing down highways and stranding travelers.

The Texas Panhandle had it much worse. In the photo to the right, a Porter, Texas fireman stands next to 4-ft drifts of hail north of Amarillo.

Mike Zito 12 Step Music Fest 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:25:00 +0000

The Heart Sutra

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:20:00 +0000

Sit, find the rhythm and breath with this. Let all thinking go and just be aware.

Hsing Hsing Ming -- Verses on the Faith Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 19:57:00 +0000

Verses on the Faith Mind

Hsing Hsing Ming

by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an (Kanchi Sosan) Third Zen Patriarch

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because of the subject (mind);
the mind (subject) is such because of things (object).
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult,
but those with limited views
and fearful and irresolute:
the faster they hurry, the slower they go,
and clinging (attachment) cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things (your own nature),
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
This is one Dharma, not many:
distinctions arise
from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
The are like dreams of flowers in the air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong:
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be release from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion,
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered straining ceases.
Doubles and irresolution's vanish
and life in true faith is possible.
With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty , clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind's power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination
are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, `Not two.'
In this `no two' nothing is separate,
nothing excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or
diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands
always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Don't waste time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things:
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.

Bum Phillips -- Looking Back

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 15:26:00 +0000

Rock House Fire -- Attack from the Air

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:34:00 +0000

Click here to view individual photos and commentary.

West Texas Wildfire; Balmorhea, Fort Davis, Alpine

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:44:00 +0000

Click here for individual photos and commentary that accompanies this series.

It ain't dark yet but it's gettin' there

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:32:00 +0000

I think of America (this is my county)
And it breaks my heart.
We had so much hope in our youth
Yet our dreams fell apart.

They kept right on killing in our name
And telling us lies about freedom
While they plundered the world
And parceled out fiefdoms.

I know it's an old man's lament,
But they too are hearing the call.
Yes, we'll all go down together,
As the leaves begin to fall.

Today, a young man said to me,
"I think of America and it breaks my heart.
How can we be feeling this hopeful
Yet so threatened from the start?"

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The Dangers of "Fracking" and Wastewater Recycling

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 07:05:00 +0000

Wastewater Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process

By IAN URBINA of the New York Times
Published: March 1, 2011
"As drilling for natural gas started to climb sharply about 10 years ago, energy companies faced mounting criticism over an extraction process that involves pumping millions of gallons of water into the ground for each well and can leave significant amounts of hazardous contaminants in the water that comes back to the surface." [...]

"More than 90 percent of well operators in Pennsylvania use this process, known as hydrofracking, to get wells to produce. It involves injecting water mixed with sand and chemicals at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas. Between 10 percent and 40 percent of the water injected into each well resurfaces in the first few weeks of the process.

"Many states send their drilling waste to injection wells, for storage deep underground. But because of the geological formations in Pennsylvania, there are few injection wells, and other alternatives are expensive. So natural-gas well operators in the state have turned to recycling."

There is a very useful interactive that accompanies the New York Times article that explains really quickly what the process of injection into "fracked" wells involves as well as the environmental risks, risks that are not being discussed with the people likely to be effected the most: Chemicals and Toxic Materials That Come With Hydrofracking

Read the complete article at the New York Times.

Earthquakes Reported This Morning Northeast of Big Spring; Is Fracking the Cause of Recent Shaking in the Area?

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:25:00 +0000

BALMORHEA: In the early morning hours in West Texas, we experienced two minor earthquakes, one at 3.1 and the other at 2.5. They were centered at 32.897N, 100.833W, east-northeast of Snyder. Given that earthquakes are relatively rare in this area, some environmental activists have assumed that they might have been caused by "fracking."

The link to Snyder above and the graphic below opens to Google Maps where one can readily see on the satellite shots below scores of lite-colored drilling sites on the West Texas plains. The maps are centered on the coordinates given for the quakes.

View Larger Map

Here is the report:

On Sunday, 2/27/11, the Balmorhea Progressive published our initial report on "fracking" in the area, "Increased Drilling for Oil & Gas, "Fracking" and Condensate Compression Stations; Are We Safe?"

In Pecos, on 2/23/11, there were widespread reports of shaking. After complaints began to pour in, the answer that citizens were eventually given, was that the blasts and shaking were being caused at a research facility southeast of Pecos where automotive testing was being conducted. Unreported was the fact that the company reported as responsible for the shakes, Applied Research Associates, also does defense research and research in the "physical sciences".

Pecos Residents Concerned About Blasts Around City

Meron Berkson
CBS 7 News
mberkson@cbs7.com
February 23, 2011

Pecos, Texas - People around Pecos are complaining about loud noises that cause buildings to shake all over town.

The noise comes from a research facility nearby and while it’s been quiet for about a month, those blasts are set to start up again soon.

"I thought it was an earthquake or something," said a local gas station attendant.

"Kind of like an airplane breaking the sound barrier," said Peggy Walker, a Pecos Resident.
Another resident, Arcadio Baeza told us, “It's a weird feeling,"

They are among many still feeling the after effects of the blasts coming from explosive operations testing being done by the Applied Research Associates at the Pecos Research and Testing center.

"I just heard a loud noise and the mirror on my wall moved a little bit."

"Our building shook not knowing what it was, really thought it was an earthquake," Walker said.

Apparently, with no intended irony, the report continued:

And as Pecos Mayor Venetta Seals explains, these blasts came as a shock to the city.

The mayor was later quoted as saying:

"They had said that this was all taken care of. That there shouldn't be any problems and it was a few days after that when the windows here in Pecos were rattling," said Seals.

After a few more anecdotes from concerned citizens, the report moved on to reveal an even deeper level of concern expressed by the Pecos mayor. If the news report accurately reflected the meaning and context of her statement, Mayor Seals was apparently neither aware of the implications of her comments nor the nonchalance with which she spoke them:

Mayor Seals says that these operations could continue for years, but if the city still feels the effects of the blasts, she expects more complaints to keep coming in.

In fact, the Applied Research Associates at the Pecos Research and Testing center, located near the farming community of Coyanosa on Farm-to-Market-Road 1450, is surrounded by fracking sites, some even closer to Pecos than the facility itself.

This leads one to wonder if the answers given to Mayor Seals by administrators of the testing site were completely forthcoming. Is the testing site connected in any way to the oil and gas drilling in the area? Is the concurrence of fracking, the earthquakes to the northeast near Big Spring, and the ongoing testing at the ARA facility coincidental?

Below is a satellite closeup of a possible fracking injection site. Zooming out, one can see scores of drilling sites east of that location along with several associated fracking injection ponds.

View Larger Map

More will be revealed as we trudge the road to happy destiny....

Increased Drilling for Oil & Gas, "Fracking" and Condensate Compression Stations; Are We Safe?

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:23:00 +0000

Drilling rig south of Pecos, Texas

BALMORHEA: Recently, I've noticed a significant increase in oil and gas well drilling platforms along highway-17 between Balmorhea and Pecos. I began to wonder if the increase was the result of hydraulic fracturing technology ("fracking") that allows for the release of oil and gas in strata that was formerly difficult to access, such as shale. Then I spoke with an oil field worker who informed me that, indeed, the oil and gas companies have begun "fracking" in West Texas.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process with environmental risks. It is known to contaminate ground water through the kind of leakage that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster as well as to produce toxic condensates from chemicals used in the process that accumulate within the well bore itself.

Of these toxins -- and there are hundreds -- perhaps the one that poses the gravest concern to the public is radioactive pollution of the ground water. In recent months, radioactive contaminants in the City of Houston's tap water caused by "fracking" led to the shutting down of at least two of the city's major water wells.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has provided a data base that reports the level of radiation in the water supplies of most of the cities and municipalities in the state. The data base for the Town of Pecos can be accessed here. Balmorhea gets its water from a different source than Pecos -- The Madera Valley Water Company (pdf). The figures for water supply radiation for Balmorhea are here. Currently, both the Pecos and Balmorhea numbers are within legally prescribed ranges; nevertheless, with the increase of "fracking" in the area, it is wise to monitor the levels on an ongoing basis.

It should be noted that while the testing data for this area in West Texas is within legal limits prescribed by law, the safest radiation levels have been determined by environmental monitoring groups, not subject to corporate and lobby-driven compromises with the federal government, to be ZERO pCi/L (picocuries per liter).

The sudden increase in drilling in West Texas may in fact be due to contingency planning by the Pentagon, as reported by investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, a retired naval intelligence and National Security Administration analyst.

February 24, 2011 -- Renewed "chatter" about a possible U.S. military attack on Iran

WMR's sources in the national security establishment are reporting on "chatter" that they are hearing about a possible U.S. military attack on Iran in the autumn, with October or November the likely months.

Although such chatter about U.S. military action against Iran has been heard before, the current talk comes amid two significant developments.

First, U.S.-backed regimes in the Middle East and North Africa have either already been ousted or are in danger of being overthrown. With U.S. clients Bahrain and Saudi Arabia under domestic pressure, talk of a U.S. attack on Iran, which would be popular with the Bahraini and Saudi regimes, tends to bolster those regimes.

Second, WMR has been informed that U.S. oil companies are drilling 1200 new oil wells in west Texas to raise U.S. domestic oil production. The companies have been told by the government that they have a 12 to 18-month window to drill new wells and a 24-month window to achieve maximum oil production. In the event of a U.S .military attack on Iran, oil exports from the Persian Gulf would be severely impacted.

WMR has been told that oil storage containers are currently being built in west Texas to hold the oil extracted from the new wells. Within the last three months, a number of oil exploration and support services personnel have arrived in towns all over west Texas. More significantly, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel have also arrived in west Texas in support of the oil drilling operations. --Wayne Madsen

If the above report by Wayne Madsen is confirmed, then we can expect the same safety exemptions applied in order to expedite oil and gas production which led to last summer's British Petroleum Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

More to the point: following the increase in drilling over the last several months, I noticed the installation of at least two condensate compression stations that can be seen from state highway-17 just north of Saragosa. Increased levels of toxic condensate is produced by the "fracking" process, which is probably why we are seeing an increase in the number of condensate compression stations in the area like the one pictured below.

Condensate compression station north of Saragosa on state highway-17

I did some research on the toxic emissions produced by these stations and I’ve become very concerned. Benzene, an extremely toxic hydrocarbon that causes cancer, is just one of the emissions associated with condensate tanks. When I read that I was taken aback, in fact, I was near shock.

The usual means of disposing of the condensate that is collected in the drilling process is by tanker truck. I don’t know were the toxins are taken; I haven’t gotten that far in my local investigation. But the thing that has me really concerned more than anything else is the use of flares to simply burn off emissions separated from the condensate with post-burn-off hydrocarbons deposited directly into the atmosphere.

This flare is not burning cleanly

Today, I emailed my concerns to UT Law Professor Tom McGarity, of the Center for Progressive Reform, a friend who specializes in environmental law. This is a clip of what he wrote back:

"If the flares are burning pure methane and are burning it cleanly, the emissions will not be photochemical oxidants (ozone), but it appears from the photos that they are not burning cleanly. Most natural gas has some sulphur in it in the form of mercaptans. The mercaptans themselves are highly toxic. The flares, if they are burning cleanly, should destroy the mercaptans, but will convert them to sulfur dioxide, which is a pollutant that can pose hazards at concentrations above the national ambient air quality standards."

The efficiency of flares in this process is questionable, but the general process of condensate compression is by no means efficient either. Infrared thermography cameras have been used to document escaping emissions that can't be seen with the naked eye. In addition to benzine and other toxic gasses, high levels of ozone are also a byproduct of the condensate compression process.

December 6, 2010; BBC World News

From today's New York Times:

"Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers"

A summary of the above article, published on today's front page of the New York Times, was provided by Rocky Kistner for the Huffington Post. A clipping of his analysis follows.

"Today The New York Times published an important story about the environmental and health impacts of natural gas production in states across our country. Everyone should read it for themselves, as well as watch the excellent video companion, and review the leaked documents that The Times has posted on line. Among the report's findings:

"Hydraulic fracturing waste contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known and is sometimes hauled to sewage plants that cannot safely handle it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water. Because natural gas drilling waste is so toxic, NRDC last year asked the EPA to update the current rules governing oil and gas waste, which were written in the 1980s and leave oil and gas waste completely exempt from rules that oversee hazardous waste.

"Scientists from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are alarmed and warn that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. The Times reviewed thousands of documents, including never-reported studies by the EPA, and has posted many on its website.

"Air quality in rural western areas in Wyoming has failed to meet federal standards for air quality and have experienced levels of ozone higher than those recorded in Houston and Los Angeles. This has since also occurred in Utah. I have also blogged previously about toxic levels of benzene and other dangerous poisons found in other communities near natural gas operations.

"Chidren and adults are experiencing severe illness from living near natural gas production facilities (the NYT interviewed families in Texas and Colorado), including asthma attacks, dizzy spells, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, and nosebleeds. There are families reporting these and additional symptoms, including serious neurological and other illnesses, in other states as well. I've blogged about children waking up covered in blood and families whose doctors have ordered them to evacuate their homes. There are also families across the country reporting drinking water contamination they suspect is linked to hydraulic fracturing and leaks or blow-outs in natural gas wells.

"Sickening birth defects, deaths, and other serious illnesses are occurring in livestock that are kept near natural gas operations. Government scientists are investigating birth defects in the tragic deaths of baby dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico--as they should, but not one is investigating the birth defects and other abominable sicknesses in animals that are suspected to be linked to natural gas operations and may be entering the human food chain across the country. Can someone explain that?

"More than 1.3 billion gallons of waste-water was produced by Pennsylvania natural gas wells over the past three years, far more than has been previously disclosed, and most of this water -- enough to cover Manhattan in three inches -- was sent to treatment plants not equipped to remove toxic substances in drilling waste, even though some of the waste contained radioactivity levels more than 2,000 times the drinking-water standard.

"State regulation is insufficient to protect citizens. The NYT found that, from October 2008 through October 2010, Pennsylvania officials usually gave companies only written warning for violating the law -- not a fine. And when there are fines, they are practically meaningless. Companies paid an average of about $44,000 each year--a tiny fraction of the several million dollars it costs them to drill one well. It seems that it is easier for companies to pay a fine than to do things right."

~*~

Stay tuned; I will be posting follow-up reports as more information becomes available. --Cliff Hammond

The Untimely Death of Haskalah; Lamentations for Palestine

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:27:00 +0000

Minerva by Vedder-Highsmith

Far of'n the steeps of Galatia
There lived fair maiden Haskalah
Her torches kissed Eurasia
Seen dancing in the Light

Suitors 'cross the Rhineland
As far the south to Marrah
'Mong whom Mose' ben-Maimon
Appeared the shinning knight

Far 'way the darkened Templars
Guil'd in capes of Mallah
Like stealthy Edmund Kemper
Set off to bring the night

Yet glowing fore the Pale
They found the beauteous Haskalah
And covering Her with veil

Left the land in blight

They sailed to far off Palestine
The Lotus of Dharamshala
Across the strait of Byzantine
They blasphemed Her sacrifice

They came in ships to Haifa
And cursing fair Ramallah
Dragged out the ghost of Kaifa
Pretentious of their rights

In the rubble of Al Aqaba
They buried sweet Haskalah
And calling on El Abba
They put away Her Light

Through dreams She strikes as lightning
Our Lady of Carmela
Lamenting Love so frightening
Yon Zion sleeps the night

Cry out from domes of sapphire
Oh criers of Haskalah
Proclaim Her open shire
Turn Zion to the Light

"Your Bride is only sleeping,
Ben-Maimon," cries Haskalah
Zion is but weeping
Ashkenazim brought us blight

How beautiful on the mountain
Are the feet of fair Haskalah
Let Glory from your fountain
Your Kingdom is of Light

Moses Mendelssohn

Playing For Change -- Latest Episode: Imagine

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:21:00 +0000

Ave Maria

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 21:39:00 +0000

2010 Balmorhea Homecoming Parade Balmorhea,Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 02:46:00 +0000

Future Team of Balmorhea Bears
The West Texas Little Rascals

2010 Balmorhea Homecoming Parade, Balmorhea, Texas

Click-on the link above to see the entire on-line album

Click Here to See Entire Album On-Line
Better Quality Photos for Download as a Public Service for Bears, Boosters & Alumni

Christian Anarchism

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 23:11:00 +0000

Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Earlier this month, I finished the book, "The Kingdom of God is Within You," by Leo Tolstoy. It is an incredible book filled with truth and insight about the nature of government and society. It has been labeled by some a treatise on Christian anarchism that exposes the true nature of the teachings of Christ, as elucidated in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere in the Gospels.

In this light, the political anarchism of intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky can be better understood and appreciated; but it must be differentiated from that of Tolstoy's exposition of that of Jesus of Nazareth.

Although Tolstoy more or less independently developed his thinking on the active non-violent resistance that is at the heart of Christ's teaching, after his first edition, entitled "What I Believe," he was introduced to the writings of the American Quakers, William Lloyd Garrison and Adin Ballou, both of whom deepened his understanding and led to the current edition entitled "The Kingdom of God is Within You."

Quaker activist William Lloyd Garrison

Quaker activist Adin Ballou

According to Tolstoy, over time ALL governments become despotic despite the forms they take, whether democratic, republican, socialistic, fascistic, communistic or monarchic. Their first act of state is to secure their own power against the people, whom they perceive as a threat because of the human propensity to form groups that seek their own interests.

Given over to a basic anxiety regarding holding onto power and status, they rely upon violence or the threat of violence to achieve their ends.

Despite all their glorious and benevolent promises enshrined in constitutions and legal systems, the incipient function of all government is to preserve and protect itself. The institutions of police and military forces are given the mandate at their deepest levels to protect government and the elite who empower them.

Only after they have secured their own power do governments act outside their borders to extend the goals of its merchant and upper classes through commerce and adventurism. All foreign policy and commerce is underwritten by the ability and willingness to employ violence.

Persian miniature of Sermon on the Mount

Dependence on violence and aggression is treated as a given by all forms of society, whether primitive or post-modern, despite all efforts by the few, at least thus far in history, to initiate lasting transformation. Our greatest sages have recognized this limitation in our current level of spiritual evolution and so have directed their teachings on transcendence to those called, few being chosen, for these are noble truths.

The principle of violence is upheld by all social institutions, including religion, whose essential betrayal of the teachings of Christ is to ignore through specious reasoning his core teachings on active non-violent resistance to evil. This core teaching was never meant to be parsed in a way that would justify the use of violence by the state.

Indeed, the Kingdom of God is within us, hidden from those who have no eyes to see, no ears to hear; thus, it is the refuge of all who perceive the Light of Truth.

Those "of the world" who cannot or will not come to this Light of Truth, sadly, remain caught up in the bondage of suffering at the whims of social trend and the mundane attachments of the ego. All denizens of current forms of society are subject to their governments' use of violence in all the forms it takes to achieve for its apparatchiks and the elite they represent ever expanding power, status and wealth, even at the cost to its own people and neighboring nations.

This lust for power, status and wealth is the dysfunctional attempt by all to allay the existential angst we suffer in the absence of faith.

The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch

"Look at the birds of the field. They do not reap, nor sow, nor gather in barns. Yet their Heavenly Father feeds them. Therefore, resist not evil with violence but with love, for there is nothing to protect from thieves, no life to protect from murderers and enemies of the state that does not already extend beyond all limits of measure, united in the Universal Essence." [paraphrased] --Yeshua ben-Yosef

Words of Kindness This is what should be done
Be the one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburned with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life,
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outward and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.

-Guatama Siddhattha Buddha

Sit and Breath: Everything Changes and Nothing Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:15:00 +0000

The Jewish Kapos and the Tragic Manifestation of Trans-Generational Introjection

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Victor Frankl

The famous psychiatrist of the 60s, Victor Frankl, was a Holocaust survivor. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he devoted the entire first section to describing life in the concentration camps from a personal psychological perspective. The thing he most noted was how human personalities were driven to extremes. Some became altruistic, some became sadistic. The camps brought out one's deepest fears, anger, hatred, love, gentleness, kindness, compassion, sharing, duplicity, thievery, surrender or hope of survival. But despite the brutality in the external world, Frankl recognized that the mind was free to transcend the suffering through the discovery of personally significant meaning.


A Kapo brutally managing fellow prisoners*

Introjection at the pathological level is described by psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists as a psychological defense-mechanism formed as a reaction to extreme external threat by hostile individuals in one's environment. It's most notable presentation occurs in the prison system or in prisoner of war camps. Introjection is a phenomenon of the psyche wherein the ego takes on the persona, values and behaviors of the oppressor through identification, thus mirroring the personalities of the perpetrators in an attempt to "belong" and so escape from or reduce the anxiety produced by the threat. It is a survival mechanism. Unfortunately, in such traumatic settings as the Nazi work camps, its unconscious force drives a person to treat others as their perpetrators would treat them. In many cases, extreme fear and anxiety expressed in the staged process of introjection can propel an individual into realms of brutality beyond that of their perpetrators.

The Jewish "kapos" of World War II Nazi concentration camps are an extreme example of the tragic manifestation of introjection. The most brutal among their peers and obsequious to their captors, they were selected by their Nazi overseers to serve as guards over the camp work-crews and to enforce docility and absolute compliance upon their fellow prisoners.

In a narrative illustration of the absoluteness of poverty in the camps, Frankl wrote that as their cigarettes ran out, many of the men would save the last one and keep it hidden for weeks. It represented the sole luxury left to them. One could tell when a man had given up when he smoked that cigarette. Death soon followed from disease and starvation.

Some survivors, though deeply wounded spiritually and psychologically, went on to make the best of their lives, deepened with compassion. Others later dealt with their suffering by becoming vengeful and bitter.

70-years later, the scars of suffering are carried into their children's and grandchildren's generation. One can see it nakedly expressed in the Zionist Movement and in the treatment of Palestinians where sadistic brutalities are acted-out -- racism, murder; ethnic cleansing of the land, the stealing of Palestinian water, systematic destruction of their homes, illegal acquisition of their farmland and possessions; the concentration, isolation and containment of the Palestinian people; collective punishment -- much of it acts of revenge as much as war crimes committed by wounded souls who have no conscious awareness of the racism they have introjected and externalized from previous generations who suffered the inhumane trauma of genocide which they now project onto others. It is a sickness that Frankl might describe as the national neurosis of Israel. What now seems to be the majority population of Israel is composed by Ashkenazim, many of whom have inherited an identity of victimhood, a people that cannot really be described as survivors; but rather, as a people unconsciously living as angered and pathologically cruel victims of history, acting-out the traumatic anxieties or their ancestors. No one can describe their condition as "free."

But there are others who find identification with the suffering of their neighbors and can see in the treatment of Palestinians the violence and evil perpetrated by a new generation of fascists, a generation of Jewish Nazis who now hold in their hearts the power of displaced anger through a false revenge, the vile and vicious power to dominate, the raw power of violence formerly inflicted upon their grandparent's generation by an oppressive WWII racist Aryan generation of sociopathic authoritarian leaders and their right-wing authoritarian followers. These with hearts of compassion can see the incongruity between the myth of The Promise to those made righteous by The Law and the reality of fascist nationalism.

The pathological introjections of their grandparents have continued inexorably, exploiting the Jewish motto, "Never Again," in order to prosecute a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Tragically ironic, the crimes against humanity now perpetrated by Zionists in the name of Der Judenstaat not only cast a pall of shame on Jews throughout the world; but far worse in proportion, they are being suffered by a generation of Palestinians who will communicate their victimization and anxieties to their own children for generations to come. It is the karma of generational suffering, a momentum of ignorance and lost innocence.

Yet, we must remember that not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. The authoritarian mindset of the current Israeli government can not survive history because it is unjust. As Martin Luther King put it, "The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."

The therapeutic remedies of Victor Frankl involve the transformation of this traumatic existential suffering into constructs of meaning and release. Israel certainly is blessed with such compassionate ones of the priesthood of transcendence. One can only guess that their absence from the public life is the result of social oppression by the cruel zeitgeist of Zionism.

*Image supplied from a Facebook collection by Patrick Mac Manus

Work Camp Survivor Victor Frankl Explains Logo-Therapy:

Sky Pilot

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:17:00 +0000

I dedicate this song, "Sky Pilot," to one of my favorite writers and mystics, Leo Tolstoy, who wrote "The Kingdom of God is Within You."

We should never let institutional religion and it's lying clergy lead us to war. They will rationalize false limits upon the commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." They will equivocate, attempting to convince us that our nation is chosen by God, and thus, that war is our sacred duty.

We should never let greedy oligarchs and their lying corporatists trick us into sacrificing our blood and the blood of our children for their self-aggrandizement and lust for power by claiming their cause is the cause of liberty, justice, freedom, or to spread democracy. Indeed, they hold close their own definitions of these words.

Resist not the force of evil nor any of its perpetrators; rather, love your enemies and do not to them what you would not have them do unto you.

"Sky Pilot" by, Eric Burdon and the Animals

~*~

The Magnificent Migrants

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:27:00 +0000

You may not have realized this, but
SUPERMAN IS AN "ILLEGAL ALIEN"
living anonymously among us.

NOE REYES from the state of Puebla works as a delivery boy in Brooklyn New York. He sends home $500 a week.
Photo by DULCE PINZÓN

I stumbled across an amazing series of photographs today on the Foreign Policy website. The accompanying story, by the photographer Dulce Pinzón, forwards the theme of immigrant workers as heroes.

Her photo essay is brief and inspiring. Dressed as various superheroes, her subjects-in-masquerade, accompanied with a brief tag-line for each, tell a story of survival and heroic contribution to family, a story hidden from scrutiny by their anonymous public personae. Pinzon, however, brings a hint of the real truth of their lives into view using the simple metaphor of the superhero in costume so that we can appreciate the brothers and sisters, not unlike ourselves, struggling for a living here among us.

Dulce Pinzón writes this introduction to her photo journal:

I was born in Mexico City in 1974. After college at the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico, I moved to New York to become a photographer in 1995. I'd grown up in a middle-class household; my dad owned a construction business. But after my savings ran out in New York, I had to do service work to get by: I worked as a waitress and a nanny, and realized how difficult it was to be an immigrant. Initially I had a student visa. Before I got my green card, I also had to go back and forth across the border every six months. It was a very humbling experience.
Meanwhile, I worked as an English teacher and a union organizer, helping Mexican immigrants with various issues, like landlord-tenant disputes. Through this work, I got to know many Latino workers in New York. I wanted to share their experiences, but not the story we usually hear, if we hear of them at all. In a sense, Latino workers in New York are hidden -- hidden in kitchens, hidden inside houses. Most of the U.S. national news about immigration is very sad: bitter political disputes in Arizona, or images of desperate immigrants trying to cross the border. So much pain numbs you.

It is easy to overlook the practical contribution of immigrants to American society, as well as the enormous financial contribution they make in sending remittances home. A lot of Latino communities survive on that money; some say the sum of remittances even surpasses the income we get from selling oil, in the case on Mexico.

I saw a Spiderman costume in a store in November 2001, and that's when everything came together in my head. Comic-book superheroes have an alter ego, and so do immigrants in the United States. They may be insignificant or even invisible to much of society, but they are heroes in their homelands.

Many of the people I photographed for this series, between 2004 and 2009, were my students or people I worked with as a union organizer. We had a friendly relationship; they trusted me enough to give me their real names and how much money they send home. It was very important to me to include that information. My work is a tribute to them.

The photo essay, containing nine photographs, can be viewed here. Beware the subtle humor contained in them.

"Dulce Pinzón is a photographer working in Mexico and New York." -- FP editors

~*~

Weekend Tornado in Ft. Stockton Threatened Balmorhea

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:59:00 +0000

Sunday, 5/23/10; Balmorhea, West Texas

With weekend campers still enjoying the Lake late Sunday afternoon, the Bamorhea Fire Department was alerted to an approaching super cell that contained a tornado. The tornado had touched down in Fort Stockton and was reportedly heading west along I-10.

The last reported location of the tornado was at Hovey Road, nearly midway between Balmorhea and Fort Stockton. The Fire Department volunteers deployed at the crest of the road crossing the dam at Lake Balmorhea and waited.

When the storm hit Fort Stockton early Sunday afternoon, it caused a blackout in surrounding areas, including Balmorhea, that lasted until 10:00 AM Monday.

At the time of the electrical blackout, this editor, camera in hand, headed east on I-10 following a utility vehicle that I assumed was heading to the site of the disruption. As I neared the Hovey Road exit darkly ominous clouds came into view, accompanied by a rainbow.

I noticed in the rear-view that the utility truck, which I had passed by then, had pulled to the side of the road. This was an intuitive indicator that danger lay ahead, so I stopped as well. Winds were picking up and becoming fierce. I got out and began taking photos of what turned out to be the super cell that later caused alarm in Balmorhea among the emergency team. It had begun to rain.

As the dark super cell continued to approach it's clouds became more and more ominous looking.

I took a chance to slip by northward with the super cell on my right. When I got to Hovey Road, 18-wheelers were pulled over and banked against the protective hill at the top of the exit road as the storm passed on their right on the other side of the hill. Suddenly, a very heavy rain ensued and the storm began to shower us with pea-sized hail. At that, I thought I might be in danger so I headed back home, south on I-35 as soon as my intuition told me it was safe. My concern was that the super cell would cross over the hill.

When I exited the storm, all became calm again and the sun was shining in Balmorhea. I headed for the lake where I was sure that I could get a view toward Ft. Stockton from the top of the dam. I could only see the leading edge of the storm high up.

At the dam I stopped briefly to talk to the emergency crew who were keeping a close eye on the storm; then I headed out across the dam looking for an unobstructed view.

The clouds were not quite so ominous anymore and seemed to be heading northwesterly now. They would skirt north of Balmorhea, relieving us all. Before doing so, and as the sun went down, the cell begin to present itself, lit by the sun, in golden glory. Underneath the thunderhead, there appeared an angel formed in clouds that seemed to be holding the heavenly clouds on its shoulders, much in the manner that Juan Diego must have experienced in visions at Guadalupe.

You can click-on all of the photographs above for a larger view.
~*~

Balmorhea Native Publishes: "Bad Biscuits and Ugly Women; A Roundup of Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:29:00 +0000

This June, Liz Kingston Bettle, born and raised in Balmorhea before going off to college at Howard Payne University, published a collection of humorous short stories and anecdotes, many of which relate family stories and childhood experiences growing up in West Texas. The following is a review from The PR Web:

Bad Biscuits and Ugly Women, A Roundup of Stories

This collection of short, humorous tales offers a lighthearted diversion.

Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) October 30, 2009 -- Liz Kingston Bettle, of Lampass, Texas, has compiled a collection of many humorous stories in Bad Biscuits and Ugly Women, A Roundup of Stories her new book from Dorrance Publishing.

Some of these tales were passed along from family members while she was growing up in West Texas, and others were personally experienced while encountering the vagaries of military life with her Marine Corps husband. In recent years, while relating these stories to contemporary friends and relatives, Mrs. Bettle has frequently been encouraged to record these tales on paper so that other people might also relish their delightful humor. From funny sayings to actions that didn't make sense, everyone should find a story to relate to or laugh over in this collection. Readers may read these brief stories one at a time when looking for a smile, or read them all at one sitting for a good time, but either way, they should be prepared for hearty, good-natured amusement.

A native of Balmorhea, Texas, Liz Kingston Bettle currently lives in Lampasas, Texas, with her husband of forty-five years, George Richard (Dick) Bettle. She graduated from Balmorhea High School and earned a B.A. from Howard Payne University before working as a chef, floral designer, and secondary school teacher. She is now retired and enjoys collecting swan figurines and Indian artifacts.

Bad Biscuits and Ugly Women: A Roundup of Stories is a 66-page paperback with a retail price of $8.00. The ISBN is 978-4349-0263-4. It was published by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more information or to request a review copy, please visit our virtual press-room at www.dorrancepressroom.com or our online bookstore at www.dorrancebookstore.com.

If there is not a copy of this quaint example of Texana in the Balmorhea Library, I will donate mine.

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Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:53:00 +0000

Curanderismo

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:15:00 +0000

Christ in the Desert, Benedictine Monastery, Abiquiu, New Mexico

Last weekend I met two graduate students from the University of Texas. They had a flat tire on I-10 returning from a weekend at the famous monastery in Abiquiu, south of Taos, New Mexico, Christ in the Desert. I met and talked with them at Jim's Tire Shop in Saragosa, Texas, close to Balmorhea.

One of the stundents is working on a dissertation in Southwestern Culture. We began talking about Ojinaga and a famous curadero, Don Martin. A curandero is basically a cross between a Native American medicine man and a Catholic lay saint/healer and represents a phenomenon known to anthropologists, philosophers and theologians as synchrotism.

In the case of the famous curandero of Ojinaga, Don Martin is reportedly an ancestor of the "diaspora" of the San Carlos and Ojinago people visited by Cabaza de Vaca in the late 1530s [cf. painting left]. De Vaca was known by oral tradition to the Native Americans of the region as a spiritual healer; both his religion and his healing arts are said to be carried on by the curanderismo tradition.

The following article can be found on the Ojinaga Home Page, writen by Bryant "Eduardo" (also known as "Pancho") Holman, which provides information on Don Martin and curandisos like him.

CURANDERISMO
by Bryant "Eduardo" Holman
When I first came to live in Ojinaga, I immediately became intrigued as to how much the people here are influenced by what is almost an obsession with what we might term the supernatural. I came to find out that this fact is almost the cornerstone of the culture here, and that this is really the norm throughout Mexico. It amazed me that anthropologists and writers seem to have missed the point on this issue, by and large.
In the course of studying this phenomenon it finally became clear that the only way I was going to really understand it would be to befriend an actual curandero, and thus I came to seek out and to know Don Martín. I have since discovered that he is quite famous both here in Ojinaga and in the San Carlos region, besides having a large following all around the area of the "diaspora" of the Ojinaga and San Carlos people in the United States.
[continues....]
~+~

Jay Oates - Balmorhea

noreply@blogger.com (Bailey Wu Xiang) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:35:00 +0000

From the Odessa American:

Jay Mosley Oates
February 24, 2009 - 9:07 PM

BALMORHEA - Jay Mosley Oates, 94, of Balmorhea, died Monday, Feb. 23, 2009, at Hospice House.

Services are scheduled at 10 a.m. at First Baptist Church of Balmorhea with Roy Bird officiating. Burial will be at Balmorhea Cemetery. Arrangements are by Pecos Funeral Home.

He was born in Toyahvale. He was an engineer.

SURVIVORS: Sons, Charley Oates and Jay Harold Oates, both of Balmorhea, and John Oates of Abilene; 10 grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and one great-great-grandchild.

Jay was my friend and next door neighbor. He was the first person to welcome me to Balmorhea. He gave me a tour of his deceased wife's rock shop and we talked for hours. The last time I saw him, he had come to the front door dressed immaculately in pressed blue shirt, khakis and suspenders. Handsome and debonair, he was so clean he sparkled. I will always remember him.

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