A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case. The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets. ... Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman. “They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.” After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without ever having been charged with a crime. full story

This is outrageous. The blocking of a trial with spurious claims of "state secrets" is, in my opinion, tantamount to an admission of guilt. This crime is even more blatant by the fact that this German citizen was flown to Kabul — an occupied territory of the United States. Does anyone really doubt who's in charge in Afghanistan or Iraq? The crimes of puppet governments are crimes of the puppeteer. It is a further crime that Khaled el-Masri cannot peruse justice in an American court and it is likely that neither those who kidnapped and tortured him nor those that ordered the kidnapping and torture will ever be extradited to stand trial in Germany.

Poll #927955
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Astrology:

Is God benevolent or malevolent? Does God love us? Is God wrathful?

These questions are fitting to ask of some man with a flowing grey beard that lives in the sky, but they are unanswerable as to God as All.

God is not only the sky above and the ground below and all that dwells in those places. God is not only everything we can touch, God is more.

God is all creation all destruction. God is life and and God is death. God is the bleeding wound and the passionate kiss. God is the roar as well as the silence.

God is all beliefs and doubts. God not just the concept of heaven and hell, but the concept that there is an above and below. God is the ideas we think as well as the air we breathe.

God is all emotions. God is all love and all hate. God is all benevolence and all malevolence. God is all wrath and all forgiveness.

God is our mathematics and our law. Our fears and our courage. Our arts, our poetries, our languages and the metaphors behind them. The truth as well as the lie.

God is energy and matter. God is the motion of the falling rock as well as the rock that falls.

God is the Happening that is the Becoming. God is what was, will be, and has been. God is even that which is not, has not been, and will never be; if what is not, has not been, and will never be is but thought.

God is the All of Everything, the Universe of Universes. This is why there can be nothing greater than God. No threat needed, no coercion. There can be none greater than All that Is, because anything else is simply part of the Everything.

purpleglitter and I buried Squeaky and Piglet this morning. We placed them with Isobel so they can fly off together.

I haven't been well today or yesterday. I'm still in shock that they are both dead. Hearing purplelgitter gasp upon finding them. Seeing them there. I don't believe it. I am still waiting to wake up.

Feeling like my life is a dream isn't an state in my life, but what is less constant is the forceful will to wake up. Wake up to what, to where. I don't know. But somewhere my birdies are and everyone else is and everything is the "way it should be". But the way it should be never was, there is only the way it is.

Squeaky and Piglet and Isobel too are all okay. Though their bodies may have been fragile, they are not their bodies and they will never cease to be. I will miss them, they have flown off with a part of my heart with them.

I saw my endocrinologist today. As normal, she renewed my prescription and had my blood drawn. As part of the exam, she asked if I had any leg swelling. I mentioned the oddness behind the backs of my right knee and elbow and that my primary care nurse thought they were lipomas, but that I was doubting that assessment. She took a look at my knee and agreed that there was not a lipoma there. She suggested they might be ganglion cysts, but wasn't so sure because they appeared too lateral in form.

She suggested that I see a rheumatologist for a more specific diagnosis, but that my primary care nurse would have to give me a referral. I told her that I doubted my primary care nurse would, as she doesn't believe anything I say; to which my endocrinologist replied "She'll believe me.". At least I'm getting someone to believe something health related isn't in my head.

When I was 18 I wanted to have my surgery by the time I was 25. I wanted to get it done while I was young and could then enjoy my youth without having to deal with a body I did not want.

I waited a long time. Now I am 32 and I wait no longer. This is not because it has come to pass, but because I believe it never will.

when i was homeless i could not stay in a shelter because i am a tranny
i felt not part of the society around me
i most hated the goody goody
the "proper and respectable"
i lurked in the shadows and stole from the shops
i snuck into buildings (trespassing) for warmth and sleep
i was neither proper nor respectable
but i felt my stealing and trespassing reasonable
i still believe they were
but the "proper and respectable" never will

i carried a lot of anger as i walked the darknesses
looking at the happy faces heading home burned my eyes red with fire
it has been long time to let go of these ancient angers
and to look now with clear eyes

i am outside me now
i see how that anger still taints my political views
i identify with the underdog
the downtrodden
i inherently distrust the proper and respectable
in the current conflict in the middle east
the palestinians and the lebanese have gone through much more strife and hardship than i ever have
and israel is the "proper and respectable"
this adds a layer of distrust to whatever it does
bush’s support drives that home
the bush administration has mastered the self-righteousness "proper and respectable"

i must observe that my emotions play in my political beliefs
my views may or may not be wrong
and after exploring them my view may or may not
but it is important for me to explore those biases
and what blindnesses those biases might be producing

if one cannot question oneself
one does not have an open mind

"There is none righteous. Not even one."

This is one of my favorite sayings of the Christian Bible because it speaks to something beyond Christianity, beyond religion. There are no perfect good people. Everyone is flawed and everyone does bad things sometimes. No person on this planet is a holy bastion of goodness. No one. Not me. Not you. No one. Period.

Good is not something one can become, it is only something one can work towards. It is in our nature to do bad things and we cannot be the perfect beings of light, but we can strive for that. We can keep improving and working toward that. We can consciously try to do fewer bad things and more good things. Acknowledging that we have limits is not an excuse to not push those limits.

When one becomes filled with the glory of righteousness and goes forth and fights in that righteous glory, one is deluded. Each of your enemies is made of the same stuff every one of us is. They are flawed, as every one of is of us is.

This is important on more than a personal level. A society or a movement fails when it is decided that unjustifiable actions are warranted against other groups on the basis that those groups are considered evil. It is very easy to consider your enemies evil. Anyone can do it. Therefore, the moral standing of the enemy cannot be a justification for horrendous action.

determinism
can i say it is not so?
we are what we were meant to be
it's all been worked out
we've gone through the pattern a thousand times
and a thousand more well shall play this out
nothing ever changes

free will
where is this not?
no force of action
we free to move and shape our lives and our destiny
where we go, we choose to go
we effect change
we are always in flux

neither view is exclusive of the other
the universe is of both place
both "realities"
we are bound to our destinies and the shapers of them
future is unwritten and yet pre-scripted
we can neither change nor can we stay the same

look upon lies, there you will find the truth
look upon the broken, there you will find the hope
look upon nothing, there you will find everything

Waking up and posting in the middle of the night I am after being sick most of the day. Although I tend to love the rain, I think the cold steady drizzle finally got me.

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Tomorrow I see my therapist for the first time in 5 weeks. There will be a two month gap coming up when I go to Ontario for July and she is on vacation for August. At this point, the gaps do not bother me. I seem to get along just fine without therapy, and am still questioning the point of even continuing it.

My skepticism about therapy at this point has nothing to do with my current therapist, who is the best that I've found to date. My skepticism is simply due to the fact my doubt that the asymmetrical relationship offered by therapy is able to provide me with benefit at this point.

I have many people in my life that I'm on a more even standing with whom I can talk freely with, and I trust their advice and insight more simply because we have two-sided relationships. I know them more. I know their biases, backgrounds, and beliefs. I know them at all, in fact. The vary nature of the relationship with a therapist prevents that level of trust and understanding.

The one-sidedness of the relationship with a therapist can be incredibly useful for some people in some situations, and I've found it helpful at points in the past. However, for me here and now, I don't think it's working. It may be time to move on.

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Now I go back to bed.

Why do I care?

It's not like anything is real anyway.

I am not of this world.

This is not my place.

There have been times I have allowed myself to believe is my home.

But it never was and I've never truly been here.

The eyes I look through are distant from me.

They are windows to a place apart.

What purpose is there in visions lost?

I no longer see the light.

I wonder ever there ever actually was a light.

Or if it too is an illusion.

Through the winds, my queen calls for me.

Home.

Far away.

All forgotten still.

Echoes of what never was.

eyes always opening
the world has never been what it was, the future is found in forgetting the past
the brazil tree grows when an agouti forgets where it hid its nuts
likewise our dust will grow the ages come as the wind forgets our names

will you walk with me along the sky and watch the flicker in the frames
what is out of tune and void of hope is yet a blessing to those who fall outside the lines

i've seen the truth and i believe the lies

Poll #637038
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Have you ever lied about something because you thought the truth was so outrageous no one would believe it?

There is a difference between suggesting people take steps to keep themselves safe and blaming the victim.

There is a difference between the way things are and the way things should be.

There is a difference between people who say "you wore slutty clothing, so it's your fault you got raped" and people who say "keep an eye on your drink".

There is a difference between vigilance and paranoia.

There is a difference between the belief that people who rape are unlikely to willingly stop doing it and the belief that women are responsible for rape.

Over the past year or so I've had to come to terms with a new reality: I regularly pass on the street. I no longer stand out or am harassed by random street-corner hoodlums. Passing privilege is not something I'm used to. I'm still tensed up when I'm out, expecting someone to start in on me. But, it just doesn't happen anymore. I am very hesitant talk to people or respond if they talk to me. I try to scoot by with my head slumped over watching the ground. I still feel meek and scared, even though that is not an appropriate reaction to being out in familiar relatively safe areas during the day. Even when there is no one nearby that I could reasonable view as a potential threat.

I'm having a tough time processing this. I know the streets still aren't completely safe, but they have gotten a whole lot safer for me than they used to be. I feel a mix of happiness, disbelief and guilt. Yes, guilt. I worry that by not being as visible, I'm ma