In the early 70s in Palo Alto, I played major psycho drama games with major figures in the area.  The theory was don't just cry in your beer get into the action of it.  Suicide--down comes the rope.  We used lights, music, and some pretty talented actors to derive the  "truth" of the moment.  It was in an old church with deep red shag carpeting and at least 50 people gathered in a circle.

We played I have no medicine for you about once every six months as a way of experiencing our progress or lack there of.

This weekend I again watched 60 Minutes on why Denmark is so happy and we aren't.  Below the fold I will draw the parallels.

Tonight on Charlie Rose in discussing Obama's bitterness quote, the last of the program raised the issue of Gore coming to the floor at the convention.

Also Charlie Rose did show Obama addressing the same bitter issues in 2004 with out the pressure and fatigue of totally comapaigning.  It was interesting that he played the clip after the discussion so that there was no analysis of it by the group.

Gore issue below the fold.

I have heard that term used for many things--love, obscenity, good policy, bad politics, etc.

I am an feminist and I have waited all my life for the right woman canidate to lead this country.

Tonight, I saw the first woman I want with my whole heart for president.

Obama and Sebelius are and will be undefeatable.

This is the lead story on the LA Times today.  I am not calling it a present but a blessing.  It is nothing that has been given but a recognition of what is only fair.  What is only fair today is a blessing.

The court backs rights of the insured.

The unanimous decision by the 4th District Court of Appeal to Santa Ana is the latest blow to California insurance companies and the way they handle policy cancellations after patients get sick and amass major medical claims.

I often think the top grossing movies and especially those that break records tell us something.

We are told everyone buys Will Smith.  And science fiction movies are the top money makers.  This is Will's third.

What I saw and felt below the fold.  I found this movie genuinely frightening--what I least expected.

I feel everyone knows the story it is only the perception that changes and therefore this could be considered a spoiler.

One of the great rule of relationships is believe what they tell you.  Don't project and don't hold out hope.  When they are not into you; they are not into you.

Rove totally played games and Rose let him.  Not one hardball follow up question asked.  Sort of layed out the bloggers can and do write anything because they are anonymous, no one would say such things to your face or in a letter.  Translation: it is rude to tell the truth and stick to the facts.

I actually had real tears running down my face and I am still surprised--the tears caught me by surprise.  I think I am beyond beyond feeling anything most of the time.  I have been manipulated so many times by so many things, I am just numb.

So I am glad I cried, it means I am not as numb as I think.  That I can still care about principles with empathy and cry.  I cried over Boston Legal, which I watch because you never know what they are going to do.  Currently, it is my number one TV show and tonight they just uped the ante by ten.

One of the things I read all the time is that being poor in the US is really no hardship.  That all the poor have TVs, ipods, computers, etc.

I also see that by the polls on this site only about 10% of us are considered poor.  So maybe contrasting and comparing what we are really talking about or putting some kind of decription of how we live in poverty for some of us then and now is an appropriate discussion.

If Al Gore asked you to sacrifice to save the planet, what is it you could not give up?

As an Army brat, I traveled the country in the 50s and 60s and everywhere I went they graded on the curve.  What that mean essentially is that the top 5% got an A and bottom 5% got an F.

In the 70s this became a no no.  Was it because it was politically correct or did it serve a real purpose?

I have been thinking about this because of Jeff Fieldman's diary about us picking each other to pieces rather than the repubs.  Does this have anything to do with the ways we percieve education and ranking?

Did the 5% create such resentment, that the US population is willing to cut its nose to spite its face in seeking canidates in leadership with very little competency other than rhetoric?

It was synergy yesterday that a front page diary was about crows.

I have been studying and living with birds on and off for about 25 years.  So I am just beginning to know something.  I was inspired by Alex the African Gray whose recent death we mourned here.  I will write my Alex story below the fold.

Right now my crow has a broken wing.  It completely launches to one side and does not even fold up.  There is no blood and no obvious wound.  I have not tried to move it at this point.  I have had the crow now called Ebony for the fifth day today.  I know how to cut flight feathers so it would not drag.  He is on an elevated perch so it does not touch the ground on the perch.  He has gotten down and walked around dragging it and ignoring it.

Can I do anything to fix it?  I do know if it stays this way he will never fly again.

California has the strictest animal laws in the nation.  Taking him to a vet means the vet has to report me and animal control will come and take him and kill him.  There is no appeal and it is the end of the story.

This is a heads up for Moyers program tonight doing interviews on what was right and what was wrong with the 911 investigation.

Maybe this will raise it to legal discussion status on Kos.  I am watching to at least take notes on what is substantially agreed on ineffective investigation on 911.

I am also hopping that this will begin a serious movement to reopen the investigation.

Two important diaries today is grannydoc's satellite spying and meteorblades' the master narriative.  One represents the issue of trusting the government and the other America's place in the world due to our exceptionalism.

This diary is an attempt to add more perspective on these diaries based mostly on historical records of the blackmail of the American government as policy.  The major source for this diary is THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT published in 1997 by Seymour Hersh.

The leaders of the democratic party have often been just as corrupt as the republican party because those in power usually share economic idealogy and are juggling for the power to implement their personal fortune and future.  Only the "little people" are targeted to keep reality from invading the master narrative and from objecting to surveilance of those thinkers who might deviate from protecting the wealth of the 1%.

The only way this changes is from the dissemination of knowledge.

When I became a teacher in the sixties, I made it a point to see the top grossing movies because that is what my kids and their families were seeing.  I also decided to lay all judgment aside and just watch.  

I have read that Radio City had to have their seats reupholstered after showing Snow White to so many kids who wet their seats from fright.  I have also read that extensive studies have been done showing that today's most didicated environmentalists saw Bambi under age six.

So I have always recognized the power of movies to motivate and imprint.   And Willis just creams the administration with this movie and he was once and maybe still is a Reagan advocate.  What the movie does best is disbelieve.  After the fold.....

Panning is what a movie does to place you in context of the big picture on the screen.  It is a non verbal analysis of what you see and make judgments on whether you know it or not.  Panning is what makes set design so important.  In a single room, the colors chosen, the art presented, the presence or absence of items such as books or mirrors, furniture, rugs, blending or contrasting--all of these non verbalized decisions reflect the core of the character being portrayed.

The most troubling part of SICKO to me is what it tells the world about my country.  What surprised me is that the world in general already sees and knows more about us than it seems we do or are willing to admit. Michael Moore pans the hospitals, the waiting rooms and the streets.

To reduce it to a visual; we are a big, fat, ugly kid with very little manners or morals; but the adults around us pity us and realize that we are doing what we can in a limited environment.

I do not know how to link to a former diary but I posted one last night about how the sippy cup is a test on the willingness of the American public to be bullied.

In the diary I found out that the mother involved was a secret service agent.  That has yet to be revealed on the MSM I have been watching.  The MSM yesterday constantly replayed the tapes from the airport asking the public to decide is she was harrassed or was harrassing.

Today, she is personally interviewed.  When they told her she would have to give up the sippy cup because of the water in it.  She offered and attempted to drink it.  They refused to allow her to drink it and told her they were going to confiscate the sippy cup.  It was the only one she had and the only the thing the baby had to drink out of  and so she refused.  They followed her with three different employees in order to confiscate her sippy cup.

My question would be is a sippy cup, particularly an empty one, a dangerous weapon?

This is a test make no mistake about that.  America seems to take some of her biggest tests with no sense of its significance.  Water or koolaid in the sippy cup?  Miss your plane and clean up your mess.  Then STFU. End of test.

No that is the administration of the test.  In three days the grade will go on our permanent record.  A for absolute apathy will get another test soon.  F for fucking the public far beyond acceptance will get no recorded grade but a make up in the future.

In LA the scene of the woman, baby, and sippy cup has been on multiple times with the narrator asking is this woman being harrassed or not.  Did she drop or pour the water out?

I have been watching because I am getting wise to these pushed pulled tests.  Are you?

I went to Barnes and Nobles this morning to finally buy Gore's book.  At the entrance are two Hillary books which look remarkably alike.  One is written by a pair of authors and one by Carl Bernstein.

I sat down and read Carl's for a couple of hours.  I cannot afford to buy it right now.  But this is the book everyone needs to read.  It names the names dates and places.  It has 553 footnotes, plus endnotes, plus websites, and detailed list of interviewees.  Carl has worked on this book for years and it is almost six hundred pages.

I think it is balanced because he says a lot of things about Hillary that reinforces my belief she is not the right woman to be the first female president.  Everyone should read the book to get a clear picture of the last twenty years.

Read the shock below:

Watching Mathew's program tonight, Bob Woodward threw up an unusual trial balloon in my humble opinion.

He essentially said, with the primaries being front loaded and decided by February, it leaves a long time for the public to have both buyer's remorse plus pure boredom.

He also said that while it is obvious that the Republicans are not content with their choices, it is quite possible that the Democrats may be the ones with buyer's remorse.

Then he said Bloomberg and Hagel are standing back and observing this.  What floored me is that he said they have a billion dollars to support their decision.  Then the talk turned to egos and billion dollar backing.