3:58 pm CDT


Stuff of sci-fi nightmares? An army of robots that reproduce

10:42 pm CDT
Taser Report

Judging by letters sent to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, opinion is divided over the recent Tasering of a pregnant woman in Seattle. Most have expressed outrage over the incident; however, a surprising number of persons blame the victim. Consider this letter:

It appears a couple of things got lost in our zeal to hammer the police. First, signing the citation is a personal assurance the offender will show up in court to pay the ticket, enter a plea of not guilty or whatever. If she declined to sign, that means she is not giving her word to respond to the court. What would you have done if you had been the cop?

What would I have done? Well, I would hope I would have enough sense not to Taser a woman and her fetus over a mere traffic ticket.

Irritating as it may have been to the police when this woman refused to sign the ticket or get out of the car, the fact is that she represented no threat. Tasers should only be used when there is a threat-and, even then, only if a less dangerous means cannot be used to subdue the individual.

Meanwhile, the death toll from police Taser use continues to rise ...

Canada:
Man dies after Taser incident outside Canadian bar

Florida:
Man stunned by Taser dies in jail

Arizona:
Assault suspect dies after police use Taser

Connecticut:
Man dies after Taser shot

10:42 pm CDT
More Questions ...

Keeping Hunter Thompson's death alive

1:47 pm CST
Fourth Reich News



Alert From Jews For The Preservation Of Firearms Ownership:
Real ID Act Passed: The End of America

Charlote Iserbyt:
Real ID = Major Nail in Freedom's Coffin

Meanwhile, several Republican and Democratic legislators are continuing the fight against the Real ID Act. Also, the National Governors Association is threatening lawsuits to fight the legislation:
National ID Battle Continues

And in airports throughout the country, we have this creepy development:
Travellers Must Have Retina, Thumbprint Scans or Face Jail

8:32 pm CDT
The "failure" of the US mainstream media to cover this matter speaks volumes:
Readers complain, but Wash. Post ombudsman mum on lack of coverage of U.K.-Iraq memo

8:32 pm CDT
Department of Homeland Fearmongering:

Ridge reveals clashes on alerts

White House Evacuated after Cessna Violates No-Fly Zone

Grenade near Bush was training device

5:32 pm CDT
My long-time friend and fellow artist Roy Tompkins writes in response to my post about last weekend's trip:

Having gone to high school in Refugio (and driven down many, many times over the years since leaving there in 1981, since my parents lived there until a couple years ago when they moved up here to Austin), I'm very, very familiar with that drive up and down 183 like that.

The missions were actually just piles of stones, ruins, but were reassembled in a very expensive fashion by some of the wealthier families of Refugio County in (I think) the 1950s or early 60s if memory serves. Mainly by the O'Conner family, a fabulously wealthy oil family of the area (Refugio had HUGE oil reserves until recent years, when the fields dried up). The O'Connors and many other families of Refugio were Irish immigrants that got land grants in the late 1800's, escaping the potato famine in Ireland at the time, or at least that is what I remember being told. Lots of Irish names there, like O'Brian, O'Connor, Reilly, Morgan, etc. The scrubby "worthless" land was soon the location of fortunes... first fortunes made in the area was kerosene discovery in the late 1800's, made many of these formerly peasant families very rich. (kerosene is lighter in weight than oil and is on the top of the oil) Later, when oil became a commodity, huge massive fortunes were made off the oil.

I went to high school with descendents of these wealthy families, from 1978-81. By then, the wealth in many of these families was spread pretty thin in some cases. Others like the O'Connors were so rich they were not part of normal society in the town, and their kids lived on huge ranches and had private tutors. They would hire local kids to be 'friends' for their kids, i.e., the parents paid to bring the kids to the ranch to play all weekend, that sort of thing-those kids were not allowed in town, they were all terrified of kidnappers etc., huge security issues, even in the 1940's, etc. Some of these rich families did go to the regular schools, these kids were privileged and spoiled, and always had new sports cars, lived in fancy houses, etc. In contrast, everyone else in the town is/was dirt poor, a HUGE gap, made for a strange place. Refugio had a very unusual amount of wealth for a town that small, I remember hearing on a per capita basis actually made it (in the 1970s) one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country, because the population of the entire county was under something like 10,000. If anything, it is smaller today, not much going on there now. Refugio itself has shrunk from 5000 when I was there, to 2500 or so today, I have heard.

Since then, the oil is gone now, and the families are winding down in a Gothic southern Tennessee Williams sort of way, it is kind of fascinating. The last & eldest O'Connor never had any kids, and died a few years ago; I'm not sure what happened to their sprawling ranch (the O'Connor ranch included almost all the land between Refugio and Victoria, some 40+ miles away) and remaining wealth, but I would assume it has been divided up into the hands of cousins, nephews, foundations, Catholic Church probably got most of it. Anyhow, the O'Connors were the family responsible for the funds & rebuilding of the missions near Goliad, hardcore Catholics are all the Irish there.

I've also been at that water crossing when it is rising and had to detour. The detour I did was to go to Shiner, Texas; it is a nice side trip, but it is long. That bridge at the missions used to flood too, but they built a new one that is higher years ago, so I think that one isn't supposed to flood any longer. They used to shut it down & route you to Shiner back then. Seems like there's a few other flood spots too all along that route.

Anyhow, just got me thinking/rambling. I know that Gulf coast pretty well. I've stayed in those same little divey motels down there too, but it's been years!

Later,
Roy

P.S. I'm NOT part of one of those Catholic families, darn it! I was part of the poverty class in Refugio.

7:51 pm CDT
The War

British memo: U.S. data manipulated for Iraq war

Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan

Michel Chossudovsky: Was the Death of Marla Ruzicka Political Murder?

7:06 pm CDT
Taser Report

She refused to sign a traffic ticket:
Police Used Taser on Pregnant Driver

7:04 pm CDT
The Texas Ghost Lights Conference

If you are interested in the strange phenomena of "ghost lights" such as are seen in Marfa, Texas, and many other places throughout the US, then you will not want to miss the Texas Ghost Lights Conference which will be held here in Austin, Texas, on June 11. Speakers include: Paul Devereux, Nick Redfern, James Bunnell, and Rob Riggs. My good friend SMiles Lewis will be the moderator. To find out more about this event follow THIS LINK.

6:48 pm CDT
Intermission is over. I'm back after a long weekend at the coast ...

We left Austin around noon Friday under sunny skies, traveling south on 183, listening to Alex Jones on the radio till the micro FM station faded into static. Diane reached into the CD box without looking and pulled out our first musical selection of the trip: Frank Sinatra. We agreed to make all our CD selections this way; no indecision, no trying to figure out what we were in the mood for-just randomly pull out a CD with the expectation that it would be the right thing to play ...

In Lockhart we bought barbecue (last time we were there we stopped at Smitty's, this time Kreuz's) and took it to a roadside picnic area south of town. The traffic roared past as we fattened ourselves on sausage, ribs, and brisket. Then, back in the car, as we headed down the highway, Diane reached into the CD box. Bob Marley and the Wailers began playing "Rastaman Vibration" as we drove through the oil-smelling town of Luling ...

After Luling, we drove through Gonzales and crossed the winding, twisting, serpentine, meandering etc. Guadalupe River, then crossed it again down the road, then (if I'm not mistaken) crossed it a third time. South of Goliad, we crossed the San Antonio, then passed Mission Espiritu Santo on the right and, farther down the road on the left, Presidio La Bahia (always a startling sight, those somber stone walls of the Spanish 1700s overlooking the modern Texas rural highway). We decided to stop at La Bahia on the return trip ...

It was green, wooded, rolling landscape all the way to Refugio, then the land flattened out and the sky expanded; we were now on the coastal plains. We crossed Copana Bay, rolling down the windows to breathe the fragrance of the ocean, and thrilling to the first sight of palm trees, fishermen, boat docks, and ragged bait shops. Naturally, the Tao of CD Selection led us to select (out of 40 CDs) the Beach Boys singing "Surf City" ...

Soon, we reached our destination: Rockport. We checked into the 1930s-era motor court, Village Inn, and freshened up. I mixed a martini (Beefeaters, no cheap gin tonight) and sat on the wooden balcony, looking out at the bay, enjoying the fresh, cool wind ...

In the morning we went to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. We paid our five-dollar entry fee and drove with windows down through a landscape unmarked by power lines or anything of human hand (except of course the road and occasional signs): pure sweeps of grassland and saltwater marshes, soft rounded contours of wind-sculpted oaks, and the glistening Matagorda Bay on our south side. This is where the Karankawa roamed (and ate their enemies' hearts), also where (they say) the pirate Jean Lafitte buried treasure ...

We stopped at a lake and walked out onto a wooden platform. In the water drifted dark rugged chunks of what at first looked like wood. Then we noticed the chunks had eyes-eyes reptilian and ever watchful; they were the partially-surfaced heads of alligators, we realized-silent eating machines cruising the lake, surfacing and submerging, surfacing and submerging, slowly, and always watching ...

We drove on. At another observation point we focused our binoculars on various long-legged-long-necked birds wading in the gray bay water: cranes, egrets, herons. Then Diane tapped me on the shoulder and whispered that we were being watched too. I turned in the direction she was pointing: two does were staring at us, heads poking up over the tall grass, brown eyes curious, also cautious. I slowly stepped towards them. One promptly turned and bounded away in a few graceful movements, disappearing into the grass. But the other remained, more curious than cautious, then disappeared as I took a few more steps ...

Later, as we drove on, we saw a feral hog and her three striped hoglets rooting in the clearing of a thicket by the road. We stopped and watched them; the mother hog looked at us and gave out a long growly grunt, suggesting we leave ...

Back in Rockport, we took our lawn chairs to the beach: I sat watching the wind surfers while Diane sculpted something in the sand. I assumed it was a standard sand castle, but when she called me over to see her creation I saw it was a woman's face with strands of seaweed for hair and seashell shards for eyes and earrings and a cigarette in the corner of her mouth ...

In the evening, we went to the Boiling Pot where the waitress placed bibs upon us and we ate plump oysters on the half-shell and a table full of Cajun-boiled shrimp and crab, all washed down with beer. Then, back in the motel room, lying in bed, I opened a book, read one paragraph, and fell asleep ...

Next day, as we headed home, it rained. We decided it was too rainy to stop at Presidio La Bahia. But, just before we got there, the rain let up. So we stopped there after all. We drove to the back of the presidio (its walls more somber than usual on this gray, drippy day) and went first to the graveyard. We parked and walked to the grave of Fannin and his massacred men: a grassy mound of earth topped by a monument bearing their names. From far away came the sigh of cars on the wet highway; otherwise, the tapping of rain from the tree limbs like tears on the ground, and silence ...

Then we went to the presidio, paid our entry fee, and walked to the chapel. There, we lit a candle for all patriots, dead and living and yet unborn-then stepped out onto the quadrangle ...

Unlike the much-better-known Alamo, there are far fewer tourists at La Bahia (on this day we were the only ones); also, unlike the Alamo, La Bahia looks much as it did in 1836, and is not in the heart of a major city. Therefore, as we walked the grounds where the executions occurred, we could more easily visualize the past. The year 1836 did not feel long ago at all, but rather, felt immediate; it was instead the year 2005 that seemed distant. And it seemed, too, that all the people who had lived and died here-Texian, Indian, Mexican, Spanish-still dwelt here somehow ...

All of which was confirmed by the kindly woman who runs the gift shop. Before we left, we talked to her and, with no prompting from us, she told us that La Bahia is haunted with ghosts ...

Strange lights have been seen on the grounds at night, she said; also, friars in black hooded robes have been seen wandering the grounds and praying in Latin, and a woman in white sometimes floats through the graveyard while babies cry from their graves, another woman (in black) sobs in the chapel then disappears before anyone can console her, and mysterious singing can be heard in the chapel as well, and doors unlock themselves, and invisible hands pull the pony tails of unsuspecting tourists ...

None of this, she told us, did she believe when she began working there. Then, one day, alone in the gift shop, she heard voices-and was unable to find the source of those voices. Another time, while parking her car outside the presidio, she saw a man in nineteenth century garb seated on one of the benches. She glanced away, then a moment later looked back and he had vanished ...

But the strangest apparition of all, she said, was the face of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna that appeared in the fireplace one day. "It's still there," she said, "if you would like to see it." We very much wanted to see it, so she led us to the fireplace. "There," she said, pointing ...

I put on my glasses and bent down, but all I could see were the haphazard brush-strokes of white plaster inside the fireplace. But she showed me that those patterns were not so haphazard as it seemed on first glance; if you looked very carefully, I learned, you could see the epaulets on a uniformed man's shoulder, and his profile. "It looks exactly like the portrait of Santa Anna in the other room, doesn't it?" she asked. We answered, politely, that it did indeed ...

We bought some postcards and a book about the place, then left the ghosts of La Bahia behind on the hillside and resumed our journey home. No sooner had we done so than the rain returned with a vengeance. Thunder boomed and Diane saw a bolt of lightning hit a power pole in a spectacular shower of sparks. Then, a few miles south of Gonzales, the traffic ahead came to a stop. We saw the cause: a patch of highway was beginning to flood. And yet, cars and trucks were plowing across ...

I pulled over and watched, just to make sure the passage could be accomplished without being swept off the road. (It does not take many inches of water for this to happen.) I saw that, not only could it be done, it was being done. But it could not be done for long, because the rain had not stopped and the water was rising. Also, on the other side of the road (the southbound), cars were having a more difficult time of it; we watched as one car tried the crossing and was carried a ways into the slightly less deep northbound lane (ours); the driver got his car under control and finished the crossing in our lane ...

It was a tricky business, no doubt about it, and no way around it either (the alternative being a three-hour detour); and it was a matter of knowing when to cross, and knowing when to hang back while someone in the southbound lane made a more perilous crossing, and also knowing your car ...

I got back in line, waited my turn, then jammed my hat down onto my head and gripping the steering wheel like the reins of a horse crossed that small (but growing) body of water as if it was the raging Guadalupe itself ...

Once across the water, we drove on. Reaching into the CD box, Diane pulled out Creedence Clearwater Revival (Who'll Stop the Rain?). We listened to it as we rode towards Austin. The sky was clearing and we were almost home ...