Liberty in Low Light

This past week I have been subjected to stories and images which have dug into scars, designed specifically to tear them open, to make them fresh, to make them worse.

These stories and images aren't designed to heal, rather they are designed to make their indelible mark on the psyche of anyone within their reach. A media storm endeavoring to keep the machine in motion by preying on empathy.

Call me heartless, call me a bad American, I don't care. Our liberties have been consistently trampled on for ten years, culminating in a decaversary which has made the news media slobber all over every one of us.

You may fall for it, you may fall in line to pay your respects to the traveling chunks of wreckage, buy the books, gobble up the coverage, and, quite possibly, you may have your identity as a global citizen drawn on a backdrop of two iconic buildings, photographed with the rising sun, creating a religiously enticing image. Add an eagle and a flag, and you have an industry of bumperstickers, memorial flags and yellow ribbons.

I can't take it anymore. I am sickened by it.

A beam from the World Trade Center and a chunk of stone from the Pentagon came touring to my area this week. Of course, the news was there. Also, there was a line of people there to view these bits of wreckage. When the news reported this, several images and words disgusted me beyond anything I have seen or heard lately.

One was a woman grasping the wrist of the very small child she was holding in her arms, and making that child touch and stroke the chunk of concrete as it were a holy relic. She was speaking to the child as she did it. I have no idea what she was saying, as it was just a backdrop to the reporter's story. The image, I suppose was included to pull at someone's sense of loss. After that was a man stroking and patting the steel beam pulled from the tower's wreckage. I had to shake my head at the utter meaninglessness of the actions.

As I was digesting these images, the story went to an interview of a woman and her child. This child, as the newsperson reported, is officially the youngest survivor of the attacks. He proudly declared that he is only "alive today because god has a special purpose for me".

My heart and stomach fell to my feet. I know an adult, most likely his mother, has told him this all of his life. But that did not stop the bilious feeling I had toward that child at that moment. How utterly selfish for anyone to believe such rubbish in the wake of nearly 3000 deaths that day, and the thousands of other lives which have been lost fighting over the attacks.

Did those people not have a purpose? I think the children, wives, husbands, parents, and friends of all those lost on that day, and every day since would disagree. Was the only purpose in these poor dead people's lives to make the rest of us feel lucky? Was the only purpose in their deaths to fuel the machine?

I don't know, right now I don't know much except I am sick from all of this. I am sick of the media leading us down these paths, telling us how we should feel, asking the victims families how they feel just to make a story. Just as sick as the day I walked through Lower Manhattan and was assailed by a man trying to sell me a "Ground Zero Guide" for two bucks. There was another man on the corner across the street doing the same. Sick, I tell you.

I'm sick of the machine that makes money off of this terrible day, while spending tax dollars feeding itself, and creating images to make Americans fall in line, to create patriotism, and to bring fresh tears to the cheeks of people who are absolutely tired of cryng.

I created a few images, last year, of my days in New York. You see, though I am D.C. born, though I have been raised nearly exclusively on Army bases around the world, though I now live in a deep Dismal Swamp, New York has been my city. I love New York. I have spun dizzily while looking up between those two iconic towers, I have walked the streets and absorbed the essence of the city. I feel the loss.

I don't need to be reminded in the name of Liberty. Please, have mercy.



'Liberty in Low Light' painting by Darla Vaughan



TwittaBomb

I had to become a landlubber for a while, then once I had the ability, I decided to surf again... I tossed my keyboard in and started paddling with the free joyfulness of a body who has been denied her fiber-optic ocean for too long.

Quickly, however, it became clear, that one of my favorite wave riding coves, a little lagoon I discovered and named the DarlaV, southward on the Great Twitter Coast had been converted into a tourist trap... and it was all my fault!

When I had started surfing there in that pristine and still lagoon, I thought wouldn't it be great to invite some like-minded people to my fairly large and empty swampy lagoon, so we could surf and share and exchange ideas together.

Damn fine idea! so I started searching... Lo! and Behold the amount of people who thought a lot like me. Atheists and artists and writers and weirdos and strangers and wildmen of the night and day dreamers in the sand.

I followed and was followed...
Look at all the people, plenty of room for them, too. So many interesting people with day to day bits that remind me of myself... so many who dedicate their time to bringing me the links that tell me who's beating down liberals or atheists. Links showing me artworks for sale and books and blogs of interest.

Ahh, look at them all, so many more came and tried to come in... Some weren't real and got real spammy and were turned away instantly (don't let the door hit ya)..
Many were people that found me in searches and if they met the criteria, pro-atheism, artsy, liberal with a GOP aversion, well... they made their way in.

I enjoyed surfing around with everyone, even if sometimes it was a little overwhelming when all I wanted to do was read a little good morning chatter with the day to day bits people and see what's new.

Then it happened

My life got turned upside down when a friend-cum-landlady turned on me and I had to pull up roots, decided to take a wild jump, and landed in my eden.

In the process, as I have blabbed about via text message to the cove on Twitter Coast many, many times... I didn't have a way to get my keyboard down the pipeline.

Och... then I couldn't vet new surfers properly. I would take a few minutes to open the gate and let em all in.

And then... it happened. I mainlined for the first time from my sublime and peaceful eden. I paddled in on  my keyboard wearing my surfing outfit of a halfslip and wifebeater tee, only to find a fucking resort strip in my cove.

Robotic people furiously tweeting links to everything under every rock, leaf and moon! The day to day bits gone.

Atheists doing nothing all day but dog religion to the point of obsession so much so that it makes the whole idea of being without god a moot point. no self reflection on an unwasted life.

Writers who say they are writing, but all day tweeting links to 'How to be a better writer' instead, or just promoting their book with no reflection on daily writing life.

Political junkies who are so angry at the other side, they don't realize they are part of the problem when they don't know the word compromise and talks constantly demeans the other side for demeaning them first. waaaa. Buying into the scare tactics and spreading it like dead wood spreads a wildfire at the slightest breeze.

Blah, blah, blah... It was dark, and cranky and furious and inhuman... just as bad as what they are railing against.

I love my tweeps I have come to know through the day to day bits, the burnt toast and bike rides, my favorites are when they can sum up exactly how they feel about a any hot subject or news catastrophe with one or five well thought out tweets... in their own words. I think those opinions are the ones that hold the most weight with me.

So I took out my grenade harpoon, and started taking out all those impersonal link tweet robo meme surfers. I kept them in a small bar and grill down the coastline called The Lists and Search Club.

So far I have cut 300 with the grenades... now I'm down to trolling, one by one to see if they have what it takes...

Originality, the day to day bits, intelligence and humor. Why am I even telling you this? Why don't I just do it and do it quietly? Because...I really think people need to chill the fuck out.

One way to do it is not let the build-up of a decade of internet hyperactivity paralyze your thinking, and overload your circuits.

Word.

ps I also did it with my email account. All the junk I have subscribed to over the years, gotta go-gotta go!

To Be At My Own Fingertips

I can't stress enough how forcing myself to go without internet, as well as actually not being able to have it even if I could at times... was an eye opening experience.

I lived as a child before the 'information age'. This didn't mean I was without a craving for information. Forever reading... at the library, through my mom and dad's library filled with encyclopedias and our National Geographic magazines, discarded school textbooks.

Then this thing... AOL a way to get on the world wide web. This... google... ask it anything. Look at this extraultralglobalicious information portal... hooked-up.

You know I was, and am, and so glad to have it back.
All these stupid little phones and tablets and such just doesn't cut it for my X-Gen sized mind.
To be able to be me, and to find me... wherever I want to find myself is so visceral, I have to have it.

Glad to be back,

I have so much to tell you...

a yellow rose watercolor/sketch. Not much time for artwork lately. It depends on how you look at it. I see the work I am doing on the new (old) house as a work all on it's own merit.

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