Satan's Den Exposed
The David Parker Ray Story
True crime book about a
criminal sexual sadist and cohorts busted in kidnap, rape and sexual
torture cases in New Mexico
By the Desert Journal's award winning investigative reporting team of Bill
Johnson, Fred Mramor & David Pierre
The
United States has become an empire, a superpower depending primarily on
a military that expends more money than the rest of the world’s
countries combined. The U.S. has planted more than 700 military bases
throughout the globe, NOT counting our homeland bases.
The U.S. has more than
1.8 million military personnel, nearly a half million Defense Department
civil servants and more than 200,000 local hires. The size of our
military’s holdings covers more than 685,000 acres overseas and nearly
30 million acres worldwide, making the Pentagon the world’s largest
landlord.
According to
GlobalSecurity.org, World Wide Military Expenditures amount to $1.1
trillion, of which the United States is expected to spend $623 billion
in fiscal year 2008, including the near $142 billion for the Global War
on Terror. U.S. military spending exceeds what all of the other
countries combined spend on their defense.
As a comparison, the U.S.
spends ten times more than the second biggest military spender, China,
which reportedly expends about $65 billion, and 12 times more than
third-place Russia with its $50 billion military spending.
In two purported Axis of
Evil countries, as President Bush so deems his top enemies, Iran spends
$4.3 billion and North Korea spends $5 billion on their defense systems,
both of which are much less than one percent of what the United States
spends on its military.
People, wake up, did you
hear what I said? We are being asked every year by our Congress and
President to increase the waste of more of our dollars to occupy the
world as an empire, NOT as a promoter of freedom and democracy. Simply
put, democracies do NOT send their militaries out to conquer and occupy
the world, they merely help the oppressed to rise up and overcome
tyranny. And notice I said the word “help.” I didn’t say “orchestrate
war and occupy” as the Bush Administration has done so readily and on
false pretenses.
The fact of the matter,
America has grown beyond anything imaginable in terms of its military
might. Its premise is that we gain strength through our military,
rather than gain strength through more peaceful means. And now, because
of failed presidential policy and lack of congressional direction, our
military will strike regardless whether there is an imminent threat.
Just strike at anyone anytime anyplace!
Folks, this is ALL wrong
and shame on America. Shame on us who fail to stand up and say, “Enough
is enough!” We must stand up to Bush and the Military Industrial
Complex and the War Machine. We must tell them, “No more money, no more
wars, no more bases overseas, no more waste, waste, waste…”
If we continue on our
course, we will find ourselves in much the same predicament that
Imperial Japan found itself when it decided to invade the United States,
starting with Pearl Harbor. But the simple fact is that Wall Street
investors are profiting off the horrible wars it and its darling main
stream media promote. Folks, this is blood money, it’s treasonous for
our Commander in Chief to send our men and women off to die in an
illegal war, a war fraught with dishonor, secret prisons, torture and
the death and injury of innocent men, women and children.
We could spend our money
at home, bring our troops home from around the globe and have real
homeland security without the goons profiting off misery. This is our
country and we must take it back from those who seize it in the name of
Empire. Let’s strike back, let’s end the Empire. Let’s return to
America, the land of the brave, rather than remain the world’s police
force and oppressor. Let’s end Empire!
World - $1,100 billion or $1.1 trillion
– 2004 estimate
Rest-of-World (all but USA) - $500 billion – 2004 estimate
TOP TEN SPENDERS
United States - $623 billion - FY08 budget
China - $65 billion - 2004
Russia - $50 billion - ???
France - $45 billion - 2005
United Kingdom - $42.8 billion – 2005 est
Japan - $41.75 billion – 2007
Germany - $35.1 billion – 2003
Italy - $28.2 billion – 2003
South Korea - $21.1 billion 2003 est.
India - $19.0 billion – 2005 est.
ALL OTHER MILITARY
SPENDERS
47 Countries spend between $1 billion
and $18 billion
141 Countries spend less than $1 billion
Iceland has no defense expenditures
Sao Tome and Principe reported among lowest at $580,000
INTERESTING NOTES:
Cuba reported at $694 million – 2005
est.
Afghanistan - $122 million – 2005 est.
Iraq - $1.3 billion – 2005 est.
(posted
2-10-08)
<<<
>>>
...King
of Nothing
What Is Mike
Tooley Thinking?
Recently a birdie told me that my former
competition in Truth or Consequences referred to me as King of Nothing
during a newsroom conversation a few years ago.
That's right, Truth or Consequences
award winning fire chief and The Herald wannabe publisher Mike Tooley
said that Bill Johnson - me - is the King of Nothing.
I got used to former Herald editor Jim Streicher's
name bashing that was aimed at my weekly newspaper, Desert Journal,
during his tenure and the tradition being carried on by his predecessors
to call my rag the Desert Urinal and later seeing in Jim Fielder's
novel, Slow Death, in quoting prosecuting attorney Jim Yontz, rantings
that dubbed us the Deserted Urinal. And oh, there was the time my
primary care physician told me to my face that I was nothing.
But the King of Nothing label really got to me this
time and I thought it deserves some rebuttal and admonishment.
So, this King of Nothing - namely Bill Johnson,
publisher of the multiple award winning Desert Journal weekly newspaper
from 1995 to 2003 - got Mike Tooley's brother Bob nominated and inducted
into the New Mexico Press Association's Hall of Fame in 1998 and this
same King of Nothing presented said award to Bob's widow, Maureen, in
front of 300 cheering journalists at the NMPA convention. With all
due respect to Maureen Tooley and her family, including son Paul and all
of the nice Tooleys in the clan: HERE'S TO NOTHING!
Actually, this message is to Mike Tooley - you were
one hell of a great fire chief and you should have stayed out of the
newsroom and left the job of publisher to real professionals, like
Maureen and Paul.
As for me, this King of Nothing is going to fade into
the sun and let his light shine brilliantly.
<<< >>>
(posted 12-16-07)
...Movie
indicts media for not informing
To whom were
Americans listening?
The new movie "Lions for Lambs" starring Tom
Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, which opens nationwide this
Friday, Nov. 9, indicts the media for not informing, yet the Desert
Journal was screaming all along about stupid wars and the country's
shift to a police state.
According to a Nov. 4 review by Carrie
Rickey, Inquirer Movie Critic for Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, "Lions
for Lambs indicts the media for not informing, students for not
performing, elected officials for not leading, and the country for not
educating its youth."
Lions for Lambs is starring Streep as a
skeptical journalist, Cruise as a U.S. Senator selling his military
initiative in Afghanistan and Redford as a professor prodding a passive
student toward activism.
Cruise, Streep and Redford all appeared
this morning (Wednesday, Nov. 7) on the ABC Network's Good Morning
America show where they said press people and political leaders have to
answer tough questions about the way our country has been moving since
the attack on America on Sept. 11, 2001.
Although I haven't watched the movie
yet, I agree that the press must answer tough questions it refused to
ask the country's leaders as they catapulted us into war in the Middle
East.
I remember the horrors of 9-11, the
televised violence of jet aircraft crashing into our nation's iconic
structures (The Twin Towers & Pentagon) killing thousands of Americans
on our own soil, and the Bush Administration's eventual response to
attack al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. It seemed
that almost every American brought out their flags, displayed them on
their cars or business and residential windows, and honked for Jesus to
do justice in the Muslim world. I remember my own newspaper's
coverage of local events, including patriotic events with lots of color
guards marching and flags waving and lots of singing of the national
anthem and America the Beautiful. No one seemed to flinch over
Bush's war in Afghanistan. No one seemed to know then that it
would be a stepping stone for the god-awful war in Iraq.
But despite the purported lack of
intelligence to even support war in Iraq, most Americans cheered the
Bush & Cheney Gang along their path to destruction while I and the
Desert Journal chose to listen to the truth about the facts that there
were neither weapons of mass destruction nor al Qaeda operatives in Iraq
at the time that Bush made his war there. We were listening to Joe
Wilson (husband of CIA agent Valerie Plame) who determined there was no
attempt by Iraq to purchase nuclear-weapon's grade plutonium in Africa
and to United Nations weapons inspectors, including a retired U.S.
Marine sergeant, who warned there were no WMPs in Iraq. But no one
wanted, or it seemed no one wanted, to listen to the truth...
The Desert Journal weekly newspaper
operated from Sept. 15, 1995, to May 9, 2003, on a marginal shoestring
budget. We often had to overcome obstacles, including fierce
competition, low budgets, and sleep deprivation to get the paper out
week to week, but the Iraq war eventually was the culprit that crushed
our spirits. When we decided to report on the new Peace Center in
our town, when we criticized President Bush for his lies and treason and
editorialized against stupid wars, we lost half of our circulation and
thus lost the revenue base we needed to continue operating our award
winning rag. We closed our doors about two months after the Iraq
war began.
Having been a longtime crime beat
reporter but mostly on the local level, I could not stand and watch the
national press corps ignore its duties so I tried to take up the slack
and echo the little voices of dissent that were being ignored. But
being a small newspaper and losing our base subscribers because of our
stance against the war, no one was listening and we lost numerous
friends. After all, a newspaper that tells the truth has no
friends (I don't remember who this quote is from). And no one
believed the statement of Benjamin Franklin or of another one of our
founding fathers, "Those who would sacrifice our freedom for safety (or
security) deserve neither."
But that's besides the point. The
point I'm trying to make now is that the Desert Journal does NOT have to
answer the tough questions being asked in the movie "Lions for Lambs."
We did our job, or at least tried to do our job, to inform the public on
matters of great importance, locally and nationally. For proof,
just scroll down on this page and read the various dated articles I
wrote and also click on the links that take you to other pages where my
articles stand as a testament to my beliefs and convictions. Also,
I'm going to watch "Lions for Lambs" as soon as possible to ease the
pain that I and countless thousands of anti-war protestors have been
feeling the last four years and eight months since the Iraq war began.
<<<
>>>
(posted 11-7-07)
...End the Iraq
war now!
Neo Cons
embolden the enemies within themselves
The American people spoke last November when they
elected a Democratic Congress to do the job of ending the war that
President Bush started in Iraq four years ago and continues in spite of
surmounting opposition. But idiots on the conservative right
continue to derail the majority of Americans' wishes by staying on their
failed course in Iraq. But it won't be long before the Neo Cons are on the
"cut and run."
They say the liberal left is
emboldening the enemy by demanding an end to this most ridiculous,
stupid war. To the contrary, I say it's my opinion they have
emboldened the enemy within themselves to bring about their own self
destruction. Never mind that they worsened the polarization
process that is keeping our great nation divided.
Their behavior is self destructive
because they are simply wrong. And a wrong will never make a
right. They declared Iraq an "axis of evil" and planted false
intelligence in the minds of an already weakened Congress to go along
with their demented, sick plans that began in the White House, NOT in
the Pentagon. They falsely declared that Iraq was an imminent
threat and that Iraq was planning to attack America and its interests
abroad with weapons of mass destruction.
But Iraq already had been contained
after the first Gulf war in the 1990s and its weapons of mass
destruction already had been dismantled or buried. Bush & Co. also
falsely declared that al Qaeda operatives were staging an attack from
Iraqi soil. But all Americans now know these declarations of the
Bush Administration were phony - not one of the 9/11 terrorists were from
Iraq and no traces of support from Iraq to al Qaeda have been
substantiated. But the idiots staged a costly war anyway and
continue it today to the tune of nearly a half trillion dollars.
And what did the Iraqis get in return?
Sure, they lost a horrible dictator but what else did they get?
Prisons, torture, death, destruction and now civil war and suicide
bombers and a broken government.
And what did we Americans get for our
money? Thousands of dead sons and daughters and thousands more
maimed, wounded and injured for life. The only ones who profited
were the ones who poured blood money into Bush's reelection campaign -
you got it, our glorious military industrial complex - Halliburton,
Boeing, etc., etc., etc. - who have managed to bully us Americans into
believing that they have all the answers to our safety and protection
needs. They have made it a multi-trillion dollar industry and it
must be stopped! Remember the proverb: Those who live by the sword
shall die by the sword. And thus: those who grow weapons of mass
destruction shall be mowed over by their own plows.
Well, do they actually think we believe
their stupidity? Do they think that by engaging my brother, an
employee of a Department of Defense contractor, to angrily and rudely
poke a two-pronged barbecue fork just inches away from my eyes would
make me think that they have my safety interests at heart? Do they think
that I would bow down and say, "Yes, you are my loyal friend and
protector," and that I would ease up on my position opposing the
unlawful, unwarranted war in Iraq and kiss their asses?
Who do they think we are?
We are BOLD AMERICANS who stand
up for what we believe and last November we told them to end the
god-damned fucking war in Iraq! So let's do it, let's end the war
and impeach tyrants Bush and Cheney and all of their cronies for acts of
treason against the American people!
<<< >>>
(posted 3-3-07)
See also the below articles and
links to other related stories:
...Strike
three, Bush's out!
Iraq war makes
America unsafe
Strike
three, President Bush is out! If not on the truth, then on the
negligent handling of our great republic. But I personally believe
his longstanding assertion that our messy war in Iraq has made us safer
is pure baloney nonsense.
I'm neither sheep nor follower of the
Safety Czars that rule the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), but I
commend the 16 United States intelligence spy services that reported
today in the New York Times, "The Iraq war has made the overall
terrorism problem worse."
The confidential intelligence report
was made known to the country's top officials last April whilst Bush &
Company continued to bash the anti-war and peace movement, stating that
their war to liberate Iraqis has made the United States of America that
much safer than before the terrorists' attacks on America on Sept. 11,
2001.
These are the same liars who lied about the reasons
for going to war against Iraq including: 1) the imminent threat that
former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass
destruction that endangered American interests here and abroad; and 2)
because Iraq was aiding and abetting terrorists like Al Qaeda.
There were no such weapons found, and until our invasion of Iraq in
March 2003, there were no Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.
In the NY Times top headline story of today (Sunday,
Sept. 24, 2006) ) - titled "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism
Threat" - intelligence officials asserted that "Islamic radicalism,
rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the
globe."
But instead of admitting to their mistakes, Bush
people - including Congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico's 1st
District and a member of the House Intelligence Committee that had
access to the report long before its public disclosure today -
continue to sound off their trumpets, urging Americans to "stay the
course" in what I believe is an illegal occupation of a sovereign
country. They will say that I and other peace movement advocates
are emboldening the enemy. But who needs enemies with leaders like
that? America deserves much better than that!
As a longtime crime beat reporter, I recognize
criminal acts and I am supposed to report them. But let's just say
I'm echoing what other truthful journalists here in our country and our
globe have been saying for a longtime but to which our leaders refuse to
admit, that they made a big mistake in the war on terrorism by attacking
Iraq. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a nuisance and a tyrant of a
dictator, but Iraqis could have dealt with him if that was their
priority.
Hell, I don't even know of any legitimate or any
recognizable liberation front effort in Iraq that even asked us for our
help in the first place. Maybe there was one, but I don't remember
Iraqis asking us for our help.
If Iraq wants western style democracy, well hell,
they could do that themselves - what do they need us for? Even
Iraqi leaders branded us as occupiers, so why are more than 140,000 U.S.
soldiers still there today, some five years after Bush claimed victory
in deposing King Hussein's forces? Duh, the idiot president sent
them there to stay... Let's just get them back home safe and
sound, and quit adding fuel to the fire of the jihad movement.
But mostly as responsible citizens, let's get rid of
the Congress and leaders who continue to embrace war, the same people
who don't love their children any more than they do their stupid wars,
by voting them out of office this November. Maybe it's our
children they hate, not their own, because there just aren't that many
of them in the war.
<<< >>>
(posted 9-24-06)
See also the below articles and
links to other related stories:
...More
spin from the deceivers
I
have heard the Republican leadership's recent spin on their deception
concerning the Iraq war. It seems that they are blaming the
Democrats for voting along with President Bush's folly in the first
place; and secondly they're saying that there are lies out about their
falsehoods. Now if that isn't spin, what is it?
First off, I heard Senator McCain, Republican of
Arizona, say Sunday morning something about Bush's exoneration because
it's the intelligence analysts who are saying now that the distortion of
the truth occurred as the result of faulty intelligence reports -
specifically regarding the false claims about the presence of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and about Iraq's now-deposed leader
Saddam Hussein pursuing a nuclear weapons program and acquiring yellow
cake uranium from Africa.
Apparently, according to the Bush spinsters, fact
finding was not a job that the CIA did at the time Bush was making up
his mind about these false reasons for going to war against Iraq.
Instead, confusion, deception or distortion are to blame for the faulty
intelligence given to our Commander in Chief before he decided to invade
and occupy Iraq, according to the GOP spin doctors.
Now, if these good "neo-conservative Christian"
leaders knew anything about the truth, they would confess their sins of
arrogance and repent of their crimes against humanity. First,
these so-called Christians need to read their own Bible, where it says
Satan or the devil is the father of all lies. ALL LIES...
This means that if CIA intelligence officers came up
with the lies, good Christian leaders would discern the deceptions and
realize the truth in prayer - however, they must pray for God's
guidance, not Satan's.
But I don't believe for a minute that the CIA is at
fault. I sincerely believe that the policy makers on the Hill
manipulated the war into existence - first by concocting faulty
intelligence and then bundling it into their package to be delivered in
the way of the President's "State of the Union Address" to Americans in
January 2003, two months before the invasion.
Then came the lies about al Qaeda terrorists being
present in Iraq. The truth is, most of the terrorists who were
involved in the 9-11 bombings of America in 2001 were citizens from
Saudi Arabia and NONE of them were from Iraq. So, why were our
leaders taking out vengeance against Iraq when the 9-11 terrorists
originated from elsewhere? Oh, duh, this is just another one of
their lies, huh? Most of the insurgency - bombings and suicide
bombings - inside Iraq now is admittedly committed by insurgents within
Iraq, NOT by terrorists originating outside Iraq.
I think my readers get the picture. The truth
was within reach all of the time - it just did NOT fit our leaders'
agenda for war. They cherry-picked the intelligence (or unproven
rumors, also known as "lies") to justify their plans for war. Then
they dragged hundreds of thousands of our good fighting men and women
over there to do the tyrants' dirty work - and that was to clear Iraqi
oil fields of an enemy presence - it had absolutely nothing to do with
liberating Iraq and bringing about a democratic government.
If "freedom" is built on a foundation of falsehoods,
surely it will fail as Iraqis take their destiny into their own hands
and create their own future, unless they realize a need for their
liberation in the first place. Perhaps this is one reason why the
United States should abandon its military occupation of Iraq. It
certainly is, however, NO excuse for America to abandon its
responsibility for fully aiding Iraq in its post-war reparation.
The lessons learned about the folly behind the Iraq
war should be a great signal why we should not engage in preemptive war
without fully proving an imminent danger (otherwise known as Bushism,
which is equivalent to anti-social, pathological, annihilative behavior
spawned without justification). An imminent "threat," however, is
NOT enough reason to engage in war no matter how large the threat
sounds...
There should be proof positive that a specific
country is in the process of starting an invasion against our country
before Congress - NOT the President - declares war. And it should
be Congress, NOT the President - who declares war and guides the
Commander in Chief into action.
As for the congressional Democrats who have repented
of their idiocy - supporting Bushism and Bush's war against Iraq - and
are now seeking accountability from the President, I say to them to keep
it up and don't let truth and justice fade from the American landscape.
Otherwise, Americans will have to hold you accountable for not doing
your job.
NOTES
REPENTANT CONGRESSMAN
U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) announced this
week (ending Nov. 19) that he thinks U.S. policy should shift away from
the military occupation of Iraq, despite his support of the initial
invasion, and that troops should begin an immediate pull-out.
Murtha said American troops are at danger, especially considering the
escalation of casualties over the last two and a half years (or since
Bush declared victory). VP Cheney retorted, calling Murtha, a
Vietnam veteran with the highest award for courage - the Congressional
medal of honor - a "coward." And some of the Democratic leaders -
Senator John Kerry, D-MA, included - said they are against an immediate
pull-out. Analysts say the American occupation of Iraq could last
as long as nine years, the average length of time it takes to squelch
insurgencies. But Murtha says the American presence in Iraq is of
no use, that troops served their purpose there and now should leave as
Iraqis themselves solve their own problems and build their own future.
He says considering how he and other Congressmen (and the public) were
deceived by the Bush administration, he can no longer support a failing
cause, that America is now at greater risk with terrorism than ever
before. He says, however, he doesn't think the Bush team was
deliberate or intended to use faulty intelligence as a basis to go to
war against Iraq. This editor, however, believes the deception was
intended all along, that Bush and his team acted like hungry wolves out
for the kill. And the sheep were the American people as their
trust was betrayed, and severely so. Does no one dare call it
treason???
NON-REPENTANT CONGRESSMEN
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) at a recent
function spoke favorably about America's occupation of Iraq and
then pointed out that America's moral fiber is built on liberty and
justice. I believe he had omitted the part about TRUTH - that
there is NO freedom and there is NO justice without TRUTH. I
admire Sen. McCain for standing up to his peers in the Republican party
and presenting anti-torture legislation to ban the use of torture of
prisoners in America's custody; however, I cannot say I admire his
eloquence when he omits TRUTH from one of America's strong traits.
Perhaps that's where our country is headed - blind justice and loophole
liberty where the GOP plays GOD and to hell with the rest of us.
A LEADER WHO IS MISLEAD
MAY BE DEEMED A MISLEADER
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) said on "Face the
Nation" Sunday morning, Dec. 4, that the President's plan to withdraw
American troops from Iraq is contingent on the "progress" that is made
there and that Kerry believes such a plan is doomed to failure.
Kerry said that troop withdrawal should begin immediately with the
removal of 20,000 of the 160,000 troops now stationed in Iraq to show
Iraqis our good faith that we are NOT there to occupy their country.
Okay, I don't get it... First of all, President Bush declared
victory in Iraq a mere two months after the war began in March 2003, so
why the hell is our military still there more than two and a half years
later? This is not a trick question and I think I can answer it
without inquiry. The purpose of an American military presence in
Iraq is exactly what was predicted by the Russian media Pravda before
the war with Iraq began - that the Bush Administration planned a
military occupation to seize and control Iraq's oil. It had
nothing to do with terrorism or any perceived threat made by Saddam
Hussein to destroy America. These were just excuses and NOT
justified reasons for going to war. I don't believe that faulty
intelligence is the reason for the President to make bad decisions -
otherwise one might say that a leader who is mislead and acts on faulty
intelligence is a misleader. A president who misleads should be
removed from office for reasons of malfeasance or negligence in carrying
out the duties of his office and primarily for violating the public's
trust.
I usually don't like the self-righteous
statement, "I told you so," but I did tell the American public
nearly two and a half years ago that the Bush Administration's reasons for going to war
against Iraq were predicated on lies.
These very lies and my exposure of them have cost me
dearly, in terms of losing my business of running a weekly newspaper in
a small town whose thinking was, and probably still is, "Our Country,
right or wrong - love it or leave it..." never mind whether our country committed just and
righteous acts in Iraq or anywhere around the globe as a shining example
to the rest of the world... With images of American soldiers
torturing Iraqi prisoners floating around the globe, I doubt that the
good ol' USA is considered "credible" when the President says that his
real purpose for invading Iraq was to engage in bringing about its
freedom.
Freedom from what? I ask. I say the war against
Iraq was all about raiding the U.S. Treasury and giving it all to Daddy
War Bucks and his friends and political cohorts.
Now the weight of justice is on the Bush
Administration with the recent indictment of Scooter Libby, Vice
President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, for perjury in the CIA leak
case. This particular case is just the start in exposing what
really happened in the White House before it finally decided to go to
war - and unjustly so - against Iraq in March 2003.
It took courage for Chief Prosecuting Attorney
Patrick Fitzgerald some real guts for doing the right thing, but I also
believe it's just the beginning, not the end product, of the
investigation into the White House's obstruction of justice - that
indeed it was covering up the truth - that its basis for war against
Iraq were lies - that indeed Iraq had NO weapons of mass destruction to
hide - especially under the close scrutiny of the United Nations weapons
inspectors - and that Iraq was NOT pursuing a nuclear weapons
program.
The allegation is that the Bush Administration
cherry-picked intelligence - in this particular case, non-intelligence -
to justify its reasons for going to war against Iraq. Then
it discredited its critics for trying to expose the truth. The
Bush Administration has betrayed the truth and the public's trust and
it's time for the goons to confess to their treasonous acts - namely the
wrongful deaths of more than 2,000 American military men and women they
sent off to war in Iraq. Never mind the other war crime atrocities
such as the thousands wounded, and the casualties suffered by Iraqis and
the immense destruction to their country.
<<< >>>
(posted 10-30-05; revised 10-31-05, 11-2-05)
...Physician, heal thyself
I'm no doctor,
but I'm an expert on myself. I'm almost certain that most
people bring illness upon themselves, and I'm no exception to the rule.
In fact, what I have to say isn't new or isn't news,
it may be only self-evident to me and no one else. It however is
worth sharing the information with those who may benefit by using it.
First off, I'm not going to tell everyone about my
health. I will say this however, I was obese.
Notice the past tense, I said "was." Because
now I've shed nearly 65 pounds of pure blubber and have only some 15
pounds more that I wish to lose. That's right, I had a big fat ass like
a lot of other people who fail to recognize the value in exercising or
working out. But I have and I now enjoy exceptional health, not
only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well.
After a mere six months of swimming regularly about
five times weekly I have managed to burn calorie upon calorie, and it
seems also that I have snubbed fat-related ailments, including laziness
or general tiredness. I have more energy to use for the little
ones at home. Truly, I have healed myself and given myself an edge
on life.
So, there is no real secret to the success of healthy
choices brought about exercising. It's a matter of deciding
to do it, to stay at it religiously. People may find my workouts
in the water "boring" but the fact is that if they're gaining pounds,
they most likely are leading their own "boring" lives.
So, I'm going to tell you how I did it, because maybe
you'll benefit, maybe not.
I usually work out early in the morning up to about
an hour and a half five times weekly. I'm a natural born swimmer
who loves routine, so I most always never waiver from my workouts, which
amount to just more than two miles per session.
Specifically, I swim eight times 200 meters
alternating freestyle, backstroke, freestyle, breaststroke, free, back,
breast, free; nine times 100 meters alternating back, breast and free;
nine times 50 meters alternating the same three strokes; nine times 25
meters (sprinting and alternating ditto); and 125+ meters stretching
and/or sprinting; for a grand total of 3,300+ meters.
So, that's it in a nutshell. It's all up to
you. You can be a couch potato or you can make a much healthier
choice by exercising, whatever you desire, biking, running, walking,
swimming, even golfing or bowling or whatever it takes to get you from
in front of your boob tube to sweat and shake off the pounds. I
did and I know you can too.
<<< >>>
(posted 7-20-05)
...The death of greatness -
The rebirth of something greater
In memory of Greg Riley,
Jack Vance and the truth
Perhaps this story
about the death of greatness should be a tribute to the lovers of truth.
To all of the Greg Riley's and Jack Vance's and
whoever else was an avid reader of the Desert Journal weekly newspaper,
I salute you - you are what made the Desert Journal great, and so now is
the time for your recognition. I'm sorry however that we cannot
revisit you in print; online will have to do...
I'm sorry I didn't get to show up for your funerals
or memorial services or burials, but I never could make any sense of
your deaths, like today I also cannot see the sense in my step-daughter
Gina's strange death last June.
Not long ago Greg Riley's brother Rob told me about
how Greg had collected every issue of the Desert Journal since its
inception a decade ago until Greg's death a few years ago. My
heart melted upon hearing Rob's kind words about Greg's admiration for
what I and the Desert Journal were doing - going up against two longtime
established competitors.
Now I realize it was people like Greg Riley and Jack
Vance, who died in anonymity, that the Desert Journal was created for -
people who loved the truth and didn't like to be told anything but the
truth, at least when it comes to the ramblings from newspapers and other
news media.
But the truth is, the truth is dead in Truth or
Consequences; the truth is dead in New Mexico; the truth is dead in the
United States of America because American journalists have either been
snubbed out of the picture, or took their share of payola to defy their
duties in upholding the "free press" and "free speech" provisions
provided by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States
of America.
I won't say all American journalists are inactive -
many have gone underground or started their own news services, many of
them online - and I won't say all news media are tainted, but the
major ones - like the television networks - are. If they repent of
their sins - God bless them, I wish them well.
The real jest of this article is that the John and
Jane Doe's and all the lovers of truth will suffer at the hands of
shoddy journalism. Their news diets now consist of
everything that isn't journalism - the mythical dream lives on in
America - the dream that someday you can be great nonetheless is
diminishing.
And so was the case for the Desert Journal - its
lovers of truth died natural deaths and so did their favorite paper of
yesteryear. The online version is barely a tribute or replica of
the real McCoy, but at least some voice is crying out in the desert.
You might hear me, you might even know me, but what I most scream about
in the middle of the night and day is that none of us really want the
truth to be damned; but in reality someone like me - a longtime news
reporter, photojournalist, editor and publisher - recognizes that the
truth is certainly NOT a marketable commodity.
And on that note, the rebirth of something greater -
you need not have a market to disseminate the truth. On that note,
the Desert Journal business is dead; did I say dead? Yes, indeed I
did.
The Desert Journal Online no longer sells anything -
no classified ads, no display ads, no nothing ads, no paid links,
nothing that incurs payment, except for our book, which we promote and
sell - Satan's Den Exposed - The David Parker Ray Story. I
have gotten rid of the business side of Desert Journal Online because it
generated NO business and all of our longtime printing contracts had
died natural deaths.
So the business is dead, but what else? I guess
I and my website are all volunteers. Non-paid volunteers.
And I have a vision that one day I will either be a part or a founder of
a new association of journalists, editors and publishers who love the
truth to be told around the globe. The Internet is a great place
for exactly such a venture, so stay tuned and watch for that special
rebirth of something greater.
<<< >>>
(posted 2-21-05)
...Unfinished business – Four more years of
tyranny
Although I suspect
fraud on a grand scale in the presidential election of a mere 10 days
ago, I doubt allegations will go any further than first base since now a
Republican majority owns it all – the White House, the Halls of Congress
and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Never
mind that the Grand Old Party stole the election from the majority of
voters with the Republicans’ pumped up numbers, or uncounted Democratic
votes, or Democratic votes that mysteriously turned Republican in heavy
Democratic precincts, like those in Florida and now I suspect it in New
Mexico too. Or never mind the Democrats in Republican precincts where
Republican election officials refused to allow their names on the voter
rolls.
But
speaking as an independent who voted mostly Democratic in the last
election, I am disgusted like millions of other Americans and billions
of other citizens of this earth that we will have to put up with four
more years of tyrannical Republican rule, which this time will get way
out of hand because they purportedly own it all.
The
fact is, the country is more divided than ever and those voices that
turned up a few decimals in the last election will be louder and clearer
than ever before the peak of the 2004 presidential campaign. Don’t
expect me to raise my white flag any time soon – I’m going on the war
path in the name of truth and justice even though a few dragons breathe
fire down my neck hoping I wither away and die, politically speaking, of
course.
It is
my hope that the Republican plutocracy dies before the end of the next
four years so that we may be spared of ungodly perdition, like being
subjected to the rule of the rich and greedy who will become richer and
greedier off the fruits of our labor.
But
what has become even clearer to me is that we cannot wait to see the
kind of damage Republicans will do to our country, because it may become
irreversible and unfixable after they seal our fate and future in their
sticky wet cement.
So
let’s look at the obvious outcomes of another four grueling years of
rule by the elitist punks who really have no business ruling us:
The
first and foremost concern will continue to be Iraq. Never mind that
President Bush lied to, and ultimately fooled, the American people into
believing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction when the
intelligence community was trying to tell us, “NOT,” or that now-deposed
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was harboring and aiding and abetting the
terrorist organization al Qaeda that allegedly was responsible for the
9/11 attacks on America more than three years ago – another lie proven
false because these terrorists were neither Iraqis nor Hussein’s
friends.
That to
me, folks, was grounds for impeachment on charges of treason – for
sending our young men and women off to a war that was not justified by
any reasoning or truth. Now I believe that anyone who voted for Bush in
the last election is also guilty of complicity and treason, and not just
plain old stupid ignorance because despite the watered down versions by
big news media, which stand to gain with a reelected Bush in the White
House, the people had access to plenty of truth on this matter and
refused to act on it. Bush also lied to us about the amount of money
that would be spent on his war with Iraq and the length of time our
young men and women would be fighting and sacrificing themselves in that
god-forsaken country.
Secondly, you can say goodbye to Social Security, good healthcare for
the poor and elderly and nearly 75 percent of Americans who cannot
afford the kind of healthcare Congress gives itself, and to our jobs.
Republicans say they plan to cut taxes for the middle class but indeed,
if their plan for privatizing social security becomes realty, look out
baby boomers, there will be no one paying into social security to take
care of them when they retire.
Here
are the simple facts: 60 years ago, there were 20 workers to pay for the
social security of one retiree; now there are only from 2.5 to 3 workers
per each retiree receiving social security benefits. The Republicans
want young people to opt into private plans, meaning they would be
allowed to use some or all of the money they pay into social security to
instead pay for a private retirement plan. This means that as a
privatized program progresses, there will be far fewer workers to pay
for current Social Security beneficiaries since Congress already ripped
off Social Security funds and left a many empty promises to pay their
IOU notes.
But
that’s okay, there will be far fewer jobs for Americans to feast there
eyes on as Republicans continue to give fat tax breaks to corporations
who outsource our jobs, taking them to foreign countries that have few,
or no, protections for laborers and the environment, or by bringing in
foreign nationals to take up the low-end service jobs that Republicans
have bragged about creating the last four years of their term of rule.
So,
naturally, fewer good jobs means far fewer Americans will be able to
afford healthcare insurance. And don’t expect them to get on public
assistance, Medicare or Medicaid - Republicans will be using our welfare
money to feed the super rich.
One
more point: why should Americans trust private retirement plans,
whereby they dump thousands of their dollars into a stock market that is
doomed to crash anyway and leave them penniless for their golden years.
Just look at the Enron scandals of a few years ago (my mother
personally lost $20,000 of her hard-earned money to the Enron crooks),
and the insurance company scandals of today. It’s clear and simple – to
get ahead or to even survive these days they must cheat and must rob the
national treasury because in realty there is nothing in this world to
sustain their greediness and desire for more, more, more.
Lastly,
but not the least, there is the issue of unity that Bush has bragged
about creating during his current four-year term. Never before has this
unity been further from the truth. It doesn’t exist. Blind Republicans
refuse to acknowledge the truth. The house is divided despite the fact
that the majority of Americans have lost their voice in the White House
and in the Halls of Congress and Justice. And Republican leaders and
officials caused most of this division through their negative, hateful
and fear mongering campaigns.
Here is
what we can expect the next four years:
Giant
news media that catered to the Bushwhacking of America stand to make
great gains as the Bush administration and new Republican Congress
soften Federal Communication Commission rules and other regulations on
the consolidation of broadcast media. They do not think that the
American people own the airwaves and therefore have no business
regulating airwave activity. This is big media’s reward for dumbing
down America by resisting the truth, by refusing to report the truth
about the tyranny that has surmounted against the American people and
their way of life. The ultimate sacrifice is that Americans can expect
far less diversity from all forms of news media – newspapers, magazines,
TV, radio, and even the internet - and will be exposed to the Republican
bully pulpit for at least another four more years.
Trial
lawyers will disappear from the face of the earth as Republicans get rid
of their purportedly “frivolous” lawsuits against healthcare providers
and corporations whose shoddy products or workmanship injure and kill
Americans. So, with the suppression of trial lawyers will come other
great atrocities, such as the regime’s abuse on our other constitutional
bill of rights since there will no trial lawyers to protect us against
their unmatched power. And the courts will be stacked with
Republican-thinking judges who uphold the abuses by the rich and
powerful. There will be absolutely no one to police the corruption;
after all, any enforcement attempt will fail since the
Republican-appointed courts will side with the Bush administration and
his corporate junkies.
Let’s
see, who else is on Bush’s and the Republicans’ hate list?
*
Proponents of abortion rights - The moral minority might bring about a
reversal of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, thus repealing
women’s right to choose and ultimately creating a class of new felons
and inmates - (who knows, their imprisoned whores?).
*
Proponents of gay marriage – Just imagine the increase in the welfare
load when the state seizes the children of gay couples after imprisoning
gays for violating some phony constitutional provision that upholds
straight-only marriages. Who’s going to pay? Are Republicans with all
of their purported compassion going to raise these children themselves?
*
Democrats in general – Expect the Republicans to make new laws that
create new classes of felons to decrease Democratic voting rolls or to
prevent Democrats from adding new people to their voting rolls.
In a
nutshell, I guess I feel I’ve done my duty by voting against Bush in the
last election, although I’m greatly disappointed that my candidate of
choice, John Kerry, didn’t win the presidency.
Every
Democrat and independent or other voter who did so can laugh in
Republicans’ faces after their failure to make America safer and more
prosperous for all Americans the next four years. I certainly expect
failure, based on the last four years of failure that a purported
majority (I still think their numbers were pumped up and in the end it
may prove to be that or some other forms of fraud) created while
purportedly unifying the country through their politics of fear and
hate.
<<< >>>
(posted 11-14-04)
...Why Bush must go home
and Kerry
should be elected
Since the national strategy of preemptive strikes
erupted into war with Iraq more than 18 months ago, I have been hell
bent on seeing George Bush getting exorcised from the White House.
But now
that I’ve been exposed to the good graces of being on the other side of
the fence on this issue of blowing up people with weapons of mass
destruction, siding against the war hawks, I feel more intensely than
ever about the need to remove President Bush from office.
As I
wrote before other journalists got on the band wagon, I believe that
Bush’s reasons for declaring war against Iraq were groundless and went
against his pre-presidency campaign that he would not be a nation
builder.
But my
main point of contention for dissent is that Bush is a dream basher, not
a dream builder. The experiences of my life during his presidency the
last four years are proof of bashed dreams.
Examples:
* As
the owner of the Desert Journal weekly newspaper for nearly eight years,
I was forced to decide in May of 2003 to cease operating, due mainly to
the failing economy and Bush’s decision to go to war against Iraq.
Although Desert Journal Online still exists, it does so with a
shoestring budget, literally.
* Later
in 2003 bankruptcy occurred and we lost our home to foreclosure.
* In
June this year, our daughter Gina - at age 21 and mother of three - died
from a massive infection in spite of seeking help.
Need I
say more, as a businessman I failed. I also suffered the loss of my
family’s home and I still grieve for my daughter.
Need I
say more. No four more years for Bush. If I failed as a businessman
and homeowner and vigilant father, he failed too as my leader…
As an
independent voter, U.S. Navy veteran and family man, I am tossing my hat
over to John Kerry and John Edwards, Democrats who will serve the
interests of the American people and NOT destroy American dreams…
<<< >>>
(posted 9-28-04)
…Hello,
Albuquerque! Where have you been all of my life?
Bill
Johnson
Editor
& Publisher of Desert Journal Online
Well,
actually I grew up the latter half of my childhood and also attended
college here.Although I
was born in Pasadena, California, my roots are grounded deep into
Albuquerque.
Both of my grandfathers, Roy Johnson and Joe
Dailey, moved to Albuquerque after World War I to take advantage of the
healing dry climate for their tuberculosis.
Grandma Clyda (Wilson), Roy’s wife, was a
native of Albuquerque – her parents were from Del Rio, Texas, and
Tucson, Arizona, and met halfway in Albuquerque, settling here.
Grandmother Elizabeth (Vogt), Joe’s wife, was
from Ohio and loved to sing and dance her early days as an entertainer
and I remember her playing the piano ever so sweetly.
Joseph L. Dailey came from a long line of
attorneys in Indiana and was one himself, practicing corporate law
mostly, and had served as a state district judge in Bernalillo County.As a corporate attorney he helped Conrad Hilton build his second
hotel in Albuquerque and he also assisted in the formation of labor
unions.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt hired Joe Dailey
in 1935 to work for the Resettlement Administration and as a deputy
director of one of its divisions, my grandfather helped to create the
federal government’s first loan program for the farmers of the Great
Depression.He apparently
also helped the Administration in the acquisition of the Bosque del
Apache National Wildlife Refuge just south of Socorro and San Antonio,
NM, in the mid 1930s.He died in 1957 and his wife died in 1978 at 78 years old.
Grandfather Roy Johnson was coach of the
University of New Mexico more than three decades.UNM’s Johnson Gym, later named Johnson Sports Center, is
named after him.The giant
picture of him still hangs in the entranceway. He had retired in the
early 1950s and died in his late 90s in 1989.Clyda died several years later.
My parents are Patricia D. (Dailey) and S.R.W.
Johnson who split up when I was age nine.Mom worked first as a social worker and later as a health care
planner for the State of New Mexico, retiring in the mid 1980s, and Dad
worked for Los Angeles County, California, as an appraiser.He now resides in Hemit, California, with his wife, my
step-mother Lorraine.
After retiring from the state, my mother became
president and executive director of the American Association of Retired
Persons (AARP) and was honored with the induction into the Silver
Horizons New Mexico Senior Hall of Fame in May 2002 for her superb work
in the community.
Mom raised four boys, Greg, Mart, me and Bert,
listed in pecking order respectively; we’re all in Albuquerque now.
Greg works for Boeing and his wife Clara owns
Team Athletics Supply on First Street NW.They and their family still live in the house on Tulane SE where
I was raised.
Martin was injured in an auto accident in 1971
and is a paraplegic who at one time (about 1973) was featured in an
Albuquerque Journal story headlined “The Odd Couple” – a story
about a paraplegic (my brother) attending to the needs of a
quadriplegic, Glen Yamashita, who was injured in a motorcycle accident
almost the day after he moved to Albuquerque to coach a swim team, the
Heights YMCA Aquatic Club (HYAC), where I had been a member since I
first moved to Albuquerque in 1963 until 1972 when I graduated from high
school.Martin now lives
with Bert on Sims Street SE.
Bert is an editor at Channel 13 News, where he
has been employed many years, including as the sports anchor and noon
anchor.
…Why
Albuquerque
My mother’s broken hip brought me out from the
desert of Truth or Consequences on March 19.I have been caring for her and helping with her rehabilitation
since then at her condo in downtown.
My wife, Teresa, now lives with her daughter and
grandchildren in Truth or Consequences and we visit frequently but most
of the times she comes to visit me.
I was born Sept. 17, 1954, in Pasadena, CA, and
attended a private Episcopal school five years (nursery through third
grade) in Sierra Madre, CA.At
age five I became a member of the Huntington Swim Club.
As for my history in Albuquerque, I attended
Bandelier Elementary from the 4th to 6th grades
from 1963-66; Wilson Junior High from 1966-69; and Highland High from
1969 to 1972.
As mentioned before I was a competitive swimmer
with HYAC, which was coached by Bill Spahn most of the years I was
there.Spahn is now the
women’s swim team coach at UNM.I
also swam for the Highland High Team and in 1970, my sophomore year, the
team won its last state title, beating Los Alamos by a mere point or two
in the last event of the state meet.
I recently took up swimming again, taking
advantage of Albuquerque’s year around swimming pools, and now swim
more than two miles daily.The
last time I swam seriously was in Albuquerque in 1986 when I last lived
here for a brief year seeking employment with numerous news media,
including newspapers and radio and TV stations, but netting no job.
After I graduated from Highland in ’72, I
joined the U.S. Navy and eventually I became a hospital corpsman,
working my last three years at the 12th Naval District (Oak
Knoll) Hospital in Oakland, CA.I
worked in the Pediatrics Ward one year from 1974 to 1975 and my last two
years were spent in the Metabolic Research Ward of the Endocrinology
Lab, which was operated 50/50 by the Navy and University of
California-San Francisco.
During my stay in Oakland, I met up with Glen
Yamashita, who had quit coaching HYAC in Albuquerque to return to his
parents’ home in Berkeley, CA.I
had also practiced with Glen’s father’s swim team, the San Pablo
Swim Club, for a while.Glen
and I became good friends and I spent a lot of my time off with him and
his family.
Also during my Navy stint in Oakland, I attended
English classes on base offered through an extension program of Merritt
Junior College in Oakland.My
professor, John Summersette, PhD, Chair of the English and Journalism
Departments, was such an inspiration that I decided to attend classes on
campus for a semester and eventually I would study journalism and chose
that area for my career.
One time John told me I shouldn’t go into
journalism because he thought it might destroy my creative spark.We became good friends over the years and his death in the mid
1980s greatly saddened me.
After my honorable discharge from the Navy in
August 1976, I returned to Albuquerque to attend UNM and in 1979 I
earned my BA degree with my major in journalism and my minor in mass
communication.During my
college days, I was a regular contributor of news articles and
photography to the New Mexico Daily Lobo, a publication of UNM.
The year before and the spring right after I
graduated from UNM I planted trees in the forests of New Mexico and
Arizona for contractors based in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.Gypsy life in the mountains was rough and the cause for many
injuries and illness, including pneumonia while planting in the Kaibab
National Forest just north of the Grand Canyon.
Tom Chism, now an Albuquerque attorney and
musician with a rock band, helped me to get my job with the Evergreen
Nursery in Santa Fe in the spring and summer of 1980.I always justified the Desert Journal’s use of paper – a
product of timber – because I must have planted at least 100,000
ponderosa pines during the two years of planting seasons and felt
entitled to use some of the resources I helped grow.
In September 1980, I landed a job with the
Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) in San Francisco where I became
the co-editor of The Tenderloin Times, a community newspaper in the
Tenderloin District that once was the crossroads for cattle going to and
from the shipping dockyards on the Bay.
I finished my year with VISTA and returned to
Albuquerque in 1981 to land a short sales job with the New Mexico
Independent on Central, which eventually went defunct on a $100,000 loan
and shut down a year or so after I left.
In February 1982, I moved to Truth or
Consequences to work for the Sierra County Sentinel and KCHS Radio
Station. I remember
starting pay was $125 a week and eventually the owners boarded me in
their mobile home next to their radio station.
In October 1983 I went to work for the Las Cruces
Sun-News as a police beat and general assignment reporter and in
September 1985 I returned to Albuquerque for a year.
After my misfortune not finding a job in my
field, I returned to Truth or Consequences in November 1986 to again
work for the Sentinel and KCHS as editor and news director,
respectively, for nine years.
I met my wife, who was hired as a secretary in
the Sentinel office, in May 1989 and we got hitched in November the same
year.Our boss, Neil Baird,
a Baptist minister, married us.Teresa
has two children from a former marriage, Joshua and Gina.
Joshua is now attending New Mexico Tech in
Socorro where he’s studying mechanical engineering and Gina has
brought to our family three beautiful grandchildren, Paris Ann, 5,
Veruca (Vuki) Violet, 21 months, and Stewart Ray (born April 10 this
year).
Anyway, Teresa and I continued to work at the
Sentinel/KCHS until August 1995 and three weeks later on Sept. 15 the
Desert Journal weekly newspaper was born with its first issue in print.We continued to own and operate the weekly tabloid more than
seven and a half years or until May 2003 when the economy fell through
the floor and we no longer had resources to continue its operation.
This is what one of my reporters, Fred Mramor,
had to say in a letter of reference he just wrote for me in my bid for a
temporary part-time position teaching or assistant teaching at UNM:
After
working as a reporter for the Desert Journal in Truth or Consequences
for over six years, I have found Bill Johnson to be a most dedicated
news reporter, editor and publisher.
Bill
stressed thoroughness, fairness, accuracy and objectivity in every item
he wrote and published and demanded the same of his reporters, even when
the exercise of these standards jeopardized the Desert Journal’s
much-needed advertising revenues and Bill’s personal friendships.
Stories
and editorials I wrote, which exposed Bill’s friend and former Truth
or Consequences City Manager Sam Isom’s incompetence and tendency
toward self-aggrandizement, cost Bill his friendship of many years with
Mr. Isom.
A
story Bill wrote and published covering his friend and physician Dr.
Jesus Gonzalez’s arrest for driving under the influence not only cost
Bill his friendship with the good doctor, but also earned him a bullet
through the newspaper office’s wall.
Bill
Johnson and the Desert Journal garnered the enmity of a few public
figures, in addition to numerous awards from the New Mexico Press
Association and the appreciation of newspaper readers in Truth or
Consequences and Sierra County - many of whom have said they miss the
paper and hope for its return to the local newsstands.
The
odds may have been against the commercial success of a third weekly
newspaper in a small town that desperately needs a third and independent
voice, but Bill gave it everything he had, through many sleepless nights
for almost eight years, until all resources to continue publishing the
Desert Journal had been exhausted.
Bill
Johnson will bring a wealth of knowledge, experience and integrity to
any organization that employs him and is deserving of the best position
the world of professional journalism can offer.
Fred
Mramor
Truth
or Consequences, NM
Since my newspaper folded more than a year ago,
I’ve been busy making this website – Desert Journal Online
(established in May 2001 with the help of our web guru, Vic Arvizu) –
a regional and statewide powerhouse.It won the New Mexico Press Association’s Better Newspaper
Contest Best Website Award in 2002 and 2003, with judges being from Utah
and North Dakota, respectively.
In August last year the Desert Journal hit
another milestone with the release of its first book, Satan’s Den
Exposed – The David Parker Ray Story, after a four and half year
probe.More than half of
the contents of the book was written in 1999 and I and my staff
reporters, Fred Mramor and David Pierre, won first place for
investigative reporting in the NMPA’s 1999 Better Newspaper Contest.
In fact, the Desert Journal and its staff won a
total of 34 awards in numerous journalism categories during its
seven-year membership with the NMPA from 1997 to 2003.Another award that I and my wife received -- our first award in
1996 after being in business only a year -- was from our readers for
“honorable journalism recognition” and was presented by then-mayor
Lois Reaver-Black at our second annual open house.
So, here I am in Albuquerque and I am wondering
who in my past will come out of the woodwork and cross my path to bring
back memories of yesteryear.
I am strongly considering relocating the entire
Desert Journal operation to Albuquerque.
At present I maintain the online news service and
my wife and I also publish a Realtor’s guide called Plaza Realty
Times, a quarterly tabloid, for Plaza Realty of Elephant Butte.We had also published the Sierra County Realtors Homes and Land
Guide, a quarterly magazine, for four years with the last issue in
November 2002.
One of my goals that I hope to achieve is to
rebuild my business so that I can regain my reporting staff and
accomplish creating great works of journalism in the Land of
Enchantment.So, I’ve
been busy studying marketing, my major weakness in the news media field,
so that I can get a comprehensive program going for this website.
Besides all of the freebie stuff – information
services including numerous articles and photos and news archives –
paid services we offer include:
·Classified advertising.
·Online display advertising.
·Text link and graphic link ads.
·Sales of our electronic book, Satan’s Den Exposed –
The David Parker Ray Story.
·E-book publishing for deserving authors (we’re not a vanity
press).We can also prepare
PDF files for books to go to the printer.
·And whatever I can think of to make a buck to grow this
website and its scope.(I
might try to sell a few of my desert rocks that I’ve been collecting
over the years in New Mexico and Teresa might try to make some bookmarks
to sell).
We just renewed our business license in Truth or
Consequences and if necessary and we begin to sell in the Albuquerque
market, we’ll get a license here too.At present the Desert Journal is homeless and surviving in only
cyberspace but hundreds, if not thousands, of people visit us daily on
the Internet.So far this
year we’ve had more than 760,000 hits (Awstats) – we are well on our
way to breaking our last year’s record of 1.5 millions hits.
I consider Desert Journal Online to be a
statewide online news service because it caters to all four corners of
the state, plus some.
My dream is to make Desert Journal Online a
Southwestern regional powerhouse based in New Mexico, complete with a
reporting and sales staff.It
just might be possible to do this from Albuquerque, but geographic
location is not necessary in any event to accomplish this goal – it
could be done anywhere within the Southwest region or even from outside
the region.
Also, I would like to help in the establishment
of a global press whose only gimmick is truth and justice for all and
whose bottom line isn’t only money, money, and more money.A strong and truthful press is essential to justice, freedom
and democracy.For without
the truth, there is neither justice, freedom, nor democracy.
<<<
>>>
(posted
6-2-04)
...Fear
not, no more
For some reason I was born into this world to face and conquer fear.
My
first encounter was with the supernatural world of the subconscious
where goblins haunt the minds of toddlers.At age three, I cast away my first demon using a technique I
would later learn is called de-sensitization.
My
demon was a human skull with eight leg-like limbs (also bones) attached
to the base of the skull where the neck would be, looking much like the
configuration of a spider.I
would be lying in bed, usually waking from a dream, and the spider skull
was brightly illuminated – its skull and bones shone in the darkness -
as it lifted off from atop my dresser and started to crawl in mid-air
towards me.
Upon my
first encounter, the spider skull reached no more than a foot away from
the dresser before I started screaming in the middle of the night for my
older brothers to protect me.“Help,
Help,” I yelled and I recall jumping out of bed to get away.
But
each time the spider skull appeared, and it showed up many times, it
would get a little closer to me – several feet from the dresser, then
halfway across the bedroom, then over the foot of the bed… closer,
closer and closer - before I started screaming and/or jumped out of bed
to summon my brothers.
Then
one night I did nothing but lay there in bed and watched as the spider
skull made its slow descent from the dresser until it literally got into
my face.It then
disappeared forever.Poof!
De-sensitization
is a process of letting go of fear a step at a time by getting closer
and closer to the fearful object.It
is a practical tool used by psychologists and psychiatrists to help
people get over their fears, whether it’s a fear of snakes or height.It’s just that I discovered this technique at a very young
age without anyone’s help.
So,
children encounter bullies one time or another and I had my fair share
blocking my pathway as I was growing up and I managed to survive all of
them.The idea was never to
shirk away from fear, to instead encounter it with vengeance or blow it
off – yes, ignore it when necessary – until it’s no longer a
threat.
So,
this brings me to the next point.I
think we need to employ this anti-fear technique on a grand scale today
throughout America.
It
seems that the politics of fear is the overriding technique and method
of our government to control its people.Instill fear into the people so that they do exactly what you
want.
And
this politics of fear leaves no room for freedom, democracy, or even our
republic to survive as the purveyors shroud their activities in secrecy,
all in the name of “national security.”We are supposed to trust their judgment and promises to make the
world, or at least our country, safe, not knowing exactly what it is
they do because no one seems to be accountable for anything.
These
safety czars peddle their concepts and loot the treasury, not for our
safety or our health, but for their own or for their corporate
buddies’ like the oil companies that recently received millions of
dollars in taxpayers’ homeland security funds to employ security
measures at their oil refineries and plants.All of these companies are earning billions of dollars in
profits, so what’s with the grants?Just call it welfare for the rich and forget about all of the
welfare mothers, they need to suffer immeasurably for all of the evil
they bestowed upon the pocket books of neo-cons, who really never paid
their fair share (and under Bush are paying nearly nothing while taking
our jobs overseas).
Do you
think those dollars are trickling down to local governments to meet
their homeland security needs?Do
you think police and firemen are better off since 9/11?
Hell
no, local governments have been applying for these monies since 9/11 and
still they wait while less money actually becomes available to them
because taxpayers’ resources are being pilfered off and put elsewhere,
like into Halliburton’s pockets. (Do I smell kickbacks somewhere? –
Just call it corporate contributions to the Bush re-election campaign).
The
point is that you can’t trust a government shrouded in secrecy that
uses the politics of fear to justify it while it handles trillions of
our dollars without accountability.To blindly trust their fear and hate program is to succumb to
tyranny.
For
example, to justify war against Iraq, President Bush and his
administration told Congress and the American public that Iraq harbored
weapons of mass destruction and intended to use these WMD against us,
and that Iraq was in league with the terrorist organization, al Qaeda.
Neither
one of these assertions have proved factual and Congress and the
American public bought Bush’s lies because they failed to look beyond
the blindfolds and because they bought into the politics of fear that
support billions of dollars going into wasteful programs that are
supposed to deliver us a “safe” world without any accountability
whatsoever.
Further,
the Administration led us to believe that war against Iraq would be a
cake walk but look where we are now – more blood has been shed since
May a year ago when Bush declared the war was over and billions and
billions of more of our dollars will be spent to occupy a country that
doesn’t want us or our brand of democracy and freedom.
Then,
to make matters worse, American troops are caught in the act of
flaunting their torture of Iraqi prisoners, including the rape of a
12-year-old girl, all apparently condoned by the Administration that is
purportedly “liberating” Iraq.
Hitler
used politics of fear and spread a hate virus that resulted in the
genocide of 6 million Jews, 22 million Russians and millions of Gypsies
and other Europeans and Americans who he deemed a threat to his empire.How far will Americans let Bush go with his doctrine of fear
and hate?Isn’t it time
we tell the Bully Bush to come out of his tree?
<<<
>>>
(posted
5-26-04)
...Let
cattle roam – leave
the
Diamond Bar alone!
Whoever says
drought is the cause for moving cattle off the Diamond Bar Allotment of
the Gila Wilderness Area is simply in error.
Ten years ago, before the current
drought conditions persisted, the U.S. Forest Service had already
decided to cut the number of cattle to be permitted on the Diamond Bar.
So Kit and Sherry Laney’s livestock
business was cut from 1,200 head to 300 head.Now, more than 10 years later, the USFS is impounding and selling
the cattle as the result of a court order and upon the demand of
environmentalists, all despite a memorandum of understanding that the
USFS signed off on with both Catron and Sierra counties that gave the
two local governments lead agency status over all issues dealing with
land use changes.
Catron County had already lost 300
logging jobs in the name of preserving “pristine, old growth”
habitat for the allegedly declining and threatened or endangered Mexican
spotted owl.The only way
to get the USFS to ease up was to flash the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) in the faces of the Feds since the Act provided for
counties to become a partner in all federal land use decisions affecting
the specific counties.
So what went wrong in the case of the
Diamond Bar allotment being shut down?Was it a lack of diligence on the part of the current local
authority?Is it a wait and
see type game?
I’ll never forget the day when the
Laneys approached the Sierra County Commission more than a decade ago to
speak of their troubles with the USFS changing their allotment permit,
forcing the Laneys to downsize their business.The commissioners then were afire and asserted the same rights,
following the lead of Catron County (the allotment or ranch is in both
counties, with most of it in Catron County).
Just recently taking up the cause
again, Catron County is blaming environmental organizations for the
demise of the Diamond Bar allotment.They contend that the U.S. Forest Service is hog tied to the
court order to remove and impound the cattle.Catron County has been on the brunt of losing revenue every time
the Feds make adverse decisions involving public lands in Catron County
and so naturally it’s in the county’s interest to defend what little
economy it has.
The real horror is that most
controversial land use decisions end up sitting in court for years while
attorneys get fat around the belt line eating off their miscarriages of
justice.They have no idea
what it means to be a good environmental steward, as the Laneys have
been through the years observing the “no mechanized travel” rules of
the wilderness.No one
realizes the blood, sweat and tears that these ranchers go through
season to season to ensure they live up to the environmental standards
imposed upon them.And no
proof has been presented to contradict the fact of their good
stewardship practices.
Yet a federal court can dictate poor
management practices for land managers such as the USFS, BLM and other
federal agencies that oversee millions of acres of public domain,
multiple-use lands.Multiple-use
means that not only hunters, bird watchers and tree huggers have access
to public lands.It also
extends to ranchers.
But the multiple-use concept is
whittling away as more and more so-called critical habitat is declared
restricted or limited, locking out ranchers and loggers alike from
federal forest reserves that have long been home to cattle allotments,
even before the creation of the gigantic federal bureaucracy that has
consumed and destroyed thousands of livelihoods.
Not even the President of the United
States seems to be able to stop the workings of the agencies that are
under his authority.The
problem seems to lie in the fact that decisions are ultimately made in
court, with or without scientific evidence to back up claims.And so far, environmentalists have not convinced me that the
Laneys’ cattle are creating a mess in the wilderness.
So what’s so bad about the cow
foraging in the wilderness?I
never had a problem with any such encounter.Not even when I played a role in conservation planting thousands
of trees in Southwestern forests.I
always seemed to think that cattle are part of the landscape, especially
in New Mexico with all of its open rangeland.
Cattle usually just do their thing and
once in awhile they get a sense of adventure and wander off – but
they’re manageable.Open
rangeland is far better than the crowded, unsanitary feedlots and
dairies that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) find
good reason to contest.On
that note, the courts should leave alone the cows and let the Diamond
Bar Allotment hear some hearty moos again.
<<<
>>>
(posted
4-2-04)
…Independent
editor endorses
Dennis Kucinich for President
I believe U.S.
Representative Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, should take his message all of the
way to the top and continue the good fight, whether as President or as
Congressman - he most likely is the best man for the job because he
meets my criteria of integrity.
He's honest - he didn't let the Neo
Cons fool him over their lies as for the reasons for going to war
against Iraq.He is the
only candidate for President in Congress who said NO to the masters of
deception.Dennis Kucinich
stood up to the Military Industrial Complex on behalf of his
constituents!
He's the main batter for the people of
Ohio for good sound decisions based on what the people want or need, not
bowing down to Big Business interests.
I believe Kucinich is a fighter for the
people, as he also told the GOP-led Congress that the needs of the
people should NOT go secondary to the whims and wants of the Military
Industrial Complex.
That is who we need in the White House
- someone who can say No to Special Interests and someone who can say
Yes to the Will of the People who endeavor for a Free America, not
through her brutal strength, but through her compassion and love for
mankind.
This is my official personal
endorsement as an Independent for Dennis Kucinich for President of the
U.S.A.May God Bless his
presidency!
<<<
>>>
(posted 1-20-04)
...The
Safety Czars are busy
making
freedom obsolete
And
they’re breaking into our wallets doing it
QUOTE
- “Those who would trade safety for freedom deserve neither.” -
Thomas Jefferson
The Safety Czars in the White House and Congress and throughout the
Military Industrial Complex and corporate America are wreaking havoc on
the Constitution of the United States of America with promises that
they’ll make our world a safer, more peaceful one.
Trillions
of dollars already have been spent on defense in this country, but did
that stop terrorists from flying jet aircraft into the World Trade
Center’s Twin Towers of New York City and into the Pentagon in
Washington, DC, causing more than 3,000 deaths and mass destruction?
No is
the obvious answer.The
only thing that stopped terrorists from flying a fourth aircraft into
the White House were the passengers who were alerted on their cell
phones about the other suicidal bombings and took it upon themselves to
stop the terrorists.And
they did so sacrificing their lives.They or their heirs should be the ones earning the billions of
dollars defending our country, not the useless military industrial
complex.
But the
Safety Czars argue that these Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks are cause
to pour more of our hard earned money into their coffers to safeguard
so-called American interests.So
how shall we define American interests when it seems that everything
that spells our interests, especially in foreign countries, end with the
word Corporation?
The
number one marketing tool for these pundits is fear.They instill the fear of the devil in you until you scream
for their protection.What
we need is protection from them.
We
would come up with an endless list if we were to look at all the fear
and safety products and services that drain more and more money out of
our pockets and put our hard earned resources into the hands of the
greedy: insurance for the auto, home, health and life (not to mention
everything else) is only one example of paying protective mob money out
of our pockets to less deserving corpses.
There
is also police protection: lawmakers seem to think they’re compelled
to pass a new law every time someone breaks the law when there are
already enough laws to ensure adequate tools for prosecuting criminals.The lawyers, judges and court system cash in.
Fire
protection is well worth it as long as firemen on the payroll are
getting paid enough - we’ve seen what happens when they don’t.It’s the same with police protection - you only get what
you pay for.
I think
you might be getting the idea by now - without fear, they can’t shove
their products and services down our throats fast enough or we can’t
buy them soon enough before something else new pops out of the wild blue
yonder.
Now,
what have I got to sell you that might ensure your safety and protection
from harm’s way?
Let’s
put it another way – I’d rather face all of the threats, dangers,
evil and vileness than pay another red hot cent to the Safety Czars who
say they need more and more and more to eradicate an unsafe and
dangerous world.
Whoever
said the world was supposed to be safe?Safe from what?Their
dinosaurs!I say we need to
be safe from them - the Safety Czars - as their only result has become a
grab for more power and in finality, tyranny and oppression and ungodly
wars and violence.
At
home, for example, their Patriot Act has done more harm than good in
protecting American interests.The
Patriot Act (should be the “Very Unpatriotic Act”) makes a big mess
of our Constitutional rights – rights that these Safety Czars have no
business touching, not one of them!
The
first American interest in my book – the Constitution – is freedom,
not safety.Safety measures
should come only as a necessary means to protect our Constitution from
tyranny, not some perceived threat that in the long run doesn’t pan
out and the result is the death of innocence.The killing fields of Iraq are evidence of how these Safety Czars
deserve neither our respect nor our money to do more harm to our real
American interests.
The
real solution to eradicating fear is to become prepared through
education and training.Why
do our education dollars go to instilling fear in school children when
these same dollars could be used for confronting those fears head on?But if we don’t get results in the classroom, then we as
parents could start at home.
The
real defense of Americans has more to do with individual choices to
secure one’s happiness and to push tyranny out of sight, out of mind.We could start learning the martial arts at age two, start
learning firearm safety and use at age five, start learning how to
protect ourselves from the millions of types of criminals at age seven,
start learning how to protect ourselves to be good consumers and learn
how NOT to become victims of consumer fraud (including all of the safety
products and services the Safety Czars are selling us) at age 11, and
learn how to create our own internal defense systems in house at age 13.
We
could also do without the military industrial complex by forming our own
state-run militias and in time of REAL emergencies and war, pool those
resources to defend our borders.And
everyone could get involved with our defense in one way or another.
What
outside our borders constitutes American interests is really American
greed; otherwise those corporations or multi-national corporations that
are American-owned can come home and bring real economic opportunity and
security by providing jobs to Americans.
We need
to forget about all of the safety and protection hype and return to
simpler solutions that don’t involve us reaching deep inside our
pocket books to throw away everything we have to the Beast who will
consume us in the end if we don’t straighten up and take our destinies
into our own hands.
They’re
selling us a bill of goods to produce a new line of nuclear or other
weapons of mass destruction, again using fear to market their so-called
safety products, but what will happen when their own weapons blow up in
their faces?We need some
real solutions for bringing about world peace – not more war - if that
is going to be our mission.But
I say peace starts at home and not in the munitions factory.
<<<
>>>
(posted
12-15-03)
...Canadian
firm wants to drain EB Lake
Seeks
to recover lost, evaporative water
and
sell 392,000 acre-feet to Mexico
A
Canadian company doing business in New Mexico wants to cut losses of
water from evaporation at Elephant Butte and Caballo Reservoirs in
Sierra County and to sell up to 392,000 acre-feet of Rio Grande water
each year to Mexico, according to PRNewswire in an Oct. 2 article
entitled “Rio Grande Water for Sale.”
But Elephant Butte Reservoir
now contains less than 150,000 acre feet or less than half of the amount
that Dr. William Turner of Lion’s Gate Water wants to recover from the
drought-stricken reservoir where its water storage has dwindled to a
mere 7.5 percent of its 2 million acre-foot storage capacity.
Certainly 392,000 acre-feet far
exceeds the actual amount of water that has been evaporating from New
Mexico’s largest reservoir in recent years. In fact, this figure is
over-exaggerated even if the Butte were to be kept full of water through
the desert’s hot summer months.
As it is, Turner’s request to
the State Engineer’s Office would keep Elephant Butte Reservoir
perpetually drained well into the future or until an unusually wet cycle
occurs as was the case from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s when all of the
state’s reservoirs had ample supplies of water.But that is unlikely to occur soon as New Mexico’s typical dry
climate won’t allow it.
Lion's Gate Water applied last
June for all of the un-appropriated water that evaporates from the
surface of Elephant Butte, Caballo and Cochiti reservoirs in New Mexico,
according to the PRNewswire story.
Turner said the evaporation is
a waste and should be illegal and that if his application is approved
the water he saves will also be used for environmental restoration.
But forget the recreation boon
that Elephant Butte Lake State Park brings to southern New Mexico,
boasting some two million visitors annually to the state’s largest
state park. And forget about the tourism economy and all of the millions
of dollars already spent by private and government sources on
recreational facilities in the area.
The City of Elephant Butte
would die without a lake to fuel its economy. All of its boat and RV
storage businesses will turn into vacant lots with customers taking
their business elsewhere.
And what about the
privatization of Bureau of Reclamation lands around Elephant Butte and
Caballo Reservoirs, which Congress and the President authorized last
year? The 300-plus lease lots in question will surround what? A dry
sinkhole in the middle of the desert? Who will buy these lots at market
value without a lake?
The deaths of both Elephant
Butte and Caballo Reservoirs will result in Sierra County’s economic
doom. More bankruptcies will occur, more homes and businesses will
become vacant and the dwindling tax base will no longer support the
area’s over-bloated infrastructure needs.
About the only good that would
come if Turner’s application is approved by the State Engineer and
Interstate Stream Commission is that the dry lake bottom would allow
police investigators to probe more closely for possible David Parker Ray
homicide victims.
Searching underwater for bodies
has proved fruitless for state police divers who complain about poor
visibility at the bottom of Elephant Butte Lake, making such searches
nearly impossible. Without water, the police could comb through the silt
and sand for bones.
But even if no human bones are
found and the Butte’s reputation of being a fun, safe place for family
recreation is restored, what difference will it make?
In another century,
archaeologists could sift through the remains of what used to be
civilization in Sierra County.
<<<
>>>
(posted
10-8-03)
…Wanted
in America: A free press
Today
(Sept. 15, 2003) as I write this, my weekly newspaper would have turned
eight years old had it not been for an early termination on May 9 this
year. Nonetheless, the Desert Journal is eight years old today because
it still continues to operate its online news service established in
May 2001.
But
this column isn’t about the Desert Journal alone, it’s about anyone
and everyone who attempts their American dream by starting up a
newspaper. I congratulate Grassroots Press for taking to the press and
going online to contribute to satisfying America’s need for more
independently owned and operated newspapers and news media in general.
I find
Stephen Klinger’s objective most desirable in an age when monsters
gobble up and devour everything in their destructive pathway. His
efforts along with others scurrying for a piece of the American Dream -
in the wake of the Federal Communication Commission’s new ruling that
allows media giants to gobble up broadcast media (radio and television
stations), therefore reducing diversity and bringing on a “one
world” view (THEIR OWN) by those currently in power – should be
embraced if Americans truly believe in preserving freedom for the
individual (notice I didn’t say corporations).
Americans
can count their blessings, however, as MoveOn.org has campaigned to end
the new FCC broadcast media ownership rule and some 200,000 people have
petitioned Congress to reverse the tide by revoking the rule. Time will
only tell whether Congress will be swayed by corporate interests in this
issue, or by the people – their constituents - who own the public
airwaves.
But
even so, I’m disturbed by the fact that the success of a newspaper
doesn’t hinge on its ability to tell the truth; it hinges entirely on
market place values and the ability of newspapers to keep the truth out
of their readers’ news diets.
Klinger
even acknowledges this fact, having founded and operated the weekly Las
Cruces Bulletin for years before selling it a few years ago. I saw
Klinger last week in Las Cruces and I happened to mention that he seemed
to know quite well how to keep a newspaper running successfully for so
long at a nice profit. The problem, he said, is, “You don’t get to
say what you want.”
You
most certainly can say what you want but in the Desert Journal’s case,
it does no good to tell the truth in a town called Truth or
Consequences. Our motto used to be, “In hot pursuit of the truth…”
but eventually I took it off our banner to see how many people would
notice. TWO!?
Only
two people in a six-month period would take offense that their favorite
newspaper would hide its journalistic purpose – to expose the truth
where lies would otherwise rule the day. To say the least, I never did
put the slogan back into our banner. Pretty soon I should petition our
city commission to take the “Truth” out of “Truth” or
Consequences, because it is the name that keeps us poor here. Or change
the name “Consequences” to “Poverty” – Truth and Poverty go
hand in hand here.
So,
people generally want sugar-coated truth, which is probably a half truth
or watered down truth. The main corporate news media no longer operate
on the premise of giving the people what they need – or the things for
which they have a right to know – but instead give them what they
want.
This is
very confusing because when I think of American journalism and the
principles for which it represents, I never would have thought that
truth would be amiss. Not if you’re a publisher wanting an advertising
budget or any revenue just to operate.
I
admire Klinger’s and Grassroots Press’s new effort to bring TRUTH to
the people of Southern New Mexico and elsewhere in the country. I hope
more people continually put out more media that caters not to corporate
whims but meets the actual needs of the people to form a more perfect
Union. Without truth, a democracy or democratic republic is impossible.
Let’s
examine some of the causes for the Desert Journal’s demise:
Early
on before Bush’s war against Iraq, the Desert Journal stood against
aggressive acts – including all preemptive strikes – regardless of
an inferred threat. We also stood against any nation harboring weapons
of mass destruction and questioned the United States sanctioning of who
will have and who will NOT have them. We also acknowledged that war is
NOT good for children, but the might of our military industrial complex
depends on blood sacrifices (sounds like some kind of satanic cult at
work).
We also
questioned how a fort, which is supposed to protect America’s
interests – and I suppose that would include free trade – could be
allowed to restrict trade routes. Of course I was speaking about the
many area communities’ effort to open the road from Truth or
Consequences to Tularosa across highly restricted White Sands Missile
Range.
The
answer from our Congressman, Steve Pearce, after he got elected last
year, was that opening the road would not ever become one of his
priorities – in fact, he said he was dead set against it. I suppose
that’s because he wants to guard the highly secretive installation
that houses the live alien who survived the UFO crash near Roswell a
half century ago. We know that most significant technological advances
(including laser, computer miniaturization, genetics, etc.) in the USA
have come as a result of our government’s ability to get this alien to
divulge of his planet’s highly classified, advanced technology. So
goes the myth…
But the
point is, a fort is supposed to protect free trade routes, not destroy
them as did WSMR when it took millions of acres out of the public’s
domain for testing missiles and other weapons systems.
After
raising hell over these issues, including questioning Bush’s primary
reason for going to war – that Iraq harbored weapons of mass
destruction for use against the USA and its allies – and calling him a
liar for not proving it, and also holding Congress accountable for
permitting this liar to create war against the world, the Desert Journal
no longer exists.
I
suppose it was time, but literally sales plummeted and we had no choice
but to end our relationship with our readers, whose numbers also
plummeted during the last three months of our weekly newspaper’s
existence.
Nonetheless,
we have kept the online news service going and hope to continue
operating it as long as possible although it too, like Grassroots Press,
accumulates no wealth. In fact, Desert Journal Online is being
maintained like a hobby because I know the electronic press is the
future of American journalism and that someday it might be able to
flourish.
But
it’s ability to survive, like Grassroots Press, will depend on its
readers and its ability to eventually earn income so that it may remain
solvent and grow into something bigger and better. But it won’t happen
as long as there aren’t at least a few good Americans who have a
craving in their news diets for the truth.
<<<
>>>
(posted
9-15-03)
…President
stonewalling the public
I’ve never heard so much crap from the national news media than ever before
now in their attempt to fabricate a fall guy for President Bush’s
bungled speech about Iraq purportedly pursuing nuclear grade materials
from Africa for its weapons of mass destruction program as a means to
persuade Congress to support Bush’s justification for going to war
against Iraq.
Why
should CIA Director George Tenet be held accountable for the
President’s State of the Union speech? If George Bush is President of
the USA, why isn’t he writing and editing his own speeches? Or is he
just a patsy of the Military Industrial Complex?
And
what about Congress whose Republican majority wants to keep everything
hush-hush to avoid embarrassment because they were fooled and helped to
perpetuate the myth?
And for
God’s sake why doesn’t Congress want to listen to the facts? Why
won’t they hear what chief United Nations weapons inspector Scott
Ritter, a former officer of the U.S. Marine Corps who spent seven or so
years disarming Iraq through the inspection program, has to say?
For
those wanting to know the truth and facts behind Bush’s folly in
attacking Iraq on false pretenses – a fraud that is cause for his
impeachment – see Ritter’s recent statements during an international
press conference led by the Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield, MA, by
visiting the Center’s website at http://traprockpeace.org.
Ritter
contends the Senate won’t listen to him because his testimony of the
facts as an expert witness will embarrass certain senators, mainly
Republicans, never mind the entire Bush administration.
Ritter
also criticizes the national news media, as has this editor, for
disseminating and perpetuating Bush’s and his administration’s lies.
It’s as obvious as the light of day when someone gets caught with his
pants down.
…Empowering
the People
As a VISTA (Volunteer In Service To America) more than 20 years ago, I
found out it was not in President Ronald Reagan’s agenda to empower
poor people. In fact, the opposite was true – his agenda was to
empower only the rich (as though they needed it) – and the same has
been true under President George Bush Sr. and especially now under
President George Bush Jr.
My
VISTA project, deemed one of the most successful in the ACTION
agency’s history, was terminated by Reagan’s dirty GOP politics
after the project succeeded in getting housing and rental laws passed
that protected the tenant, getting alternative housing for the homeless
built and overall enhancing the community and empowering people to
tackle the issues that prevented them from living the American dream.
These
projects were necessary because after Reagan became governor of the
State of California, he dumped hundreds, if not thousands, of mental
institution patients on the streets. If you don’t believe me, just ask
Darwin Diaz, “the guy who invented the monkey” who rose out of his
desperate state and took on the world to improve it for himself and his
homeless comrades.
But
today, under President Bush’s regime, unemployment is rising faster
than inflation, the federal deficit is growing astronomically because of
Bush’s wars in the Middle East and now Africa, good paying jobs are
disappearing, well-qualified white collar employees are moving into
blue-collar service connected jobs, thus displacing less educated
workers, and the result is that more people are becoming homeless.
I
suppose Bush will try to beef up the economy by creating more wartime
jobs through the gigantic, mushrooming Military Industrial Complex with
the extra billions of dollars Congress and the President are spending to
fight frivolous, unneeded wars, both foreign and domestic through the
new Department of Homeland Defense, which too is a fraud because it is
generated out of fear mongering and not of sound reasoning.
I
don’t know why they are calling Bush a neo-conservative. To me he’s
the most radical president we’ve ever had, especially with his
“nation building” policy in Afghanistan and Iraq and his pre-emptive
strikes (read invasion, aggression, military occupation, fascism) –
things he promis0ed he would NOT do before he became president.
The
people are going to have to empower themselves because this
administration is hell bent on creating the wage slave market all over
again in order to provide more cheap labor for Bush’s industrial and
corporate buddies (the greedy).
So, how
do we do that? We should get involved in the political process today.
Find out who will represent us the best in Congress and the presidency
and then push to get them elected.
If you
think the Grand Old Party represents you, you better think again unless
you’re among the top 10 percent of the wealthiest Americans.
And if
you think the City of Truth or Consequences, NM, is exempt, think again.
Today personnel of the City Utility Office told me more red tags have
been issued lately than ever before. These red tags with threats to
terminate utility service if not paid within three days go to people’s
homes where the utility bills are left unpaid.
A
higher load of red tags is an indicator that something is seriously
wrong with our economy.
And I
know of a blue-collar family with two small children (I’ll mention no
names) who are being evicted from their grandparents’ rental property
in Truth or Consequences because of their inability to pay excessively
high rent.
They
too may become homeless because America is not working in their best
interest and is doing the best it can to pass on a nightmare to
economically challenged and disadvantaged people.
The
Republican Party is proving to be an enemy of the people.
…On
worthless, incompetent management
One reason for Enron’s and other corporations’ troubles staying afloat
is middle management, upper management and chief executive officers who
are on the take. They over-bloat their wallets when instead they should
be taking a pay cut. They are truly the worst examples of greedy people
the world has seen.
I know
of a retired state employee who bought stock in Enron and lost her
$20,000 investment. This is a person who spent most of her life working
double time for meager pay.
Meanwhile
Enron CEO Kenneth Lay “took” millions from the corporation by
selling his stock just before it was discovered that Enron had
overstated its profits by billions of dollars. Enron employees by the
thousands lost their jobs and those who bought Enron’s stock got
screwed big time.
America
will have to reinvent itself, and do without middle managers, upper
managers and over-bloated CEOs if it wants to recover from its losses,
or its self-destruction.
I have
a lot more respect for those managers who pitch in a helping hand when
needed and never think they are better than the little guy because
ultimately it’s the little guy who’s paying their wages or making
them look good.
Who
built America? I only wonder but I know it wasn’t what we have today
– fascistic corporate bullies on the take! In fact, they are
destroying America and giving it a bad name.
…And
the greedy get greedier
Desert Journal reporter Fred Mramor reported this week he received Valor
Telecom’s phone bill which stated he owes $22.87 for basic service,
which had been $21.96 the previous two months.
Because
of the 91-cent increase he called Valor’s customer service line and
was told the Interstate Subscriber Line Charge had been increased from
$6 monthly to $6.50 a month and that 50 cents of his 91-cent increase is
for the current month’s ISLC increase and the remaining 41 cents was
pro-rated from May.
Mramor
said the Valor rep told him that the state’s Public Regulatory
Commission approved the increase.
Mramor
said also that the Valor rep told him that she thinks the old rate of $6
monthly had been in place for two to three years and that the Residence
Line Charge was increased sometime last year.
We were
wondering if the PRC commissioners are on Valor’s payroll because it
seems the PRC never says no to phone or insurance companies’ requests
for rate hikes.
The
Valor rep conceded that telephone rates are high in New Mexico. “I
said a lot of things are high in New Mexico especially when you consider
the kind of quality of life we have here,” Mramor told the Valor rep.
But
I’ll bet Valor managers and CEOs are living high on the hog with their
“six-digit” incomes.
<<<
>>>
(posted
7-22-03)
…MIC
wouldn’t exist
if
not for her ugly secrets
The United States Military Industrial Complex (MIC) would not exist today
if not for her myriad of untold secrets, including the one that just
recently leaked about MIC’s behavior 40 years ago.
The
United States used biological and chemical agents in secret tests on
some 5,842 unsuspecting American service members between 1962 and 1973
during the Vietnam Conflict. Not only did these troops risk their lives
in battle against a foreign power, they also were put at risk with their
very own government exposing them to “non-lethal” bacteria and in
some cases caustic chemicals.
This is
the same government these troops were fighting to protect. What a pay
back for their service!
MIC
would have us believe that they ensure our safety around the globe, but
neither safety nor national security is on MIC’s agenda for America.
MIC’s fallacy that it exists to protect the nation and her people must
be addressed by the American people.
MIC
uses its shroud of secrecy to release Pandora’s Box on the people whom
they are charged to protect and safeguard from harm’s way. None of
these troopers consented to be secretly tested. And who knows what kind
of health risks and mortality rates they face because these things
probably are safeguarded as MIC’s dirty little secrets too.
MIC
plays on the fears of Americans and instills paranoia in the people so
that it can continue playing its stupid war games, even against We the
People, all at the expense of guess who?
I
won’t be opening any mail from the U.S. Government any time soon, not
until MIC takes a bath and repents with full revelations about all of
its other unconstitutional and criminal activities that have been
shrouded in secrecy.
…MIC
all about making better war machines
While President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair make
incredible excuses about their inability to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq - the reason they invaded Iraq - MIC at the Pentagon
now announces a new WMD program of its own.
It’s
not okay for Iraq or other “rogue” nations, as Bush calls them, to
have their WMDs, but Bush and his partners at MIC have their plans to
proliferate America’s stockpile of WMDs, including a new bevy of
nuclear warheads for its already overstocked arsenal of nukes and other
conventional and not-so-conventional weapons.
And
soon they’ll be able to deliver their WMDs anywhere on the face of the
globe within two hours from the USA with the creation of the unmanned
“Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle.” This aircraft will prevent the need for
America to seek the blessings of war from any of its allies or to
establish military bases in countries surrounding a country targeted for
attack.
So, it
looks like Bush will do it alone in the wake of world opinion that he
has made his own country a rogue nation that must be dealt with. And
apparently Bush has threatened to cut off 50 countries from U.S.
military aid because they support the international war crimes court
that has numerous cases pending against Bush, MIC and the U.S. war
machine.
The
people of England are holding Blair accountable for his lies about Iraq
harboring WMDs capable of striking their destinations within 45 minutes.
But where are Americans in holding Bush accountable alongside Blair?
…The
national news media
bases
coverage on polls
The national news media’s coverage of the war on Iraq and its aftermath
apparently is controlled by the whims of polls, and not by the truth.
Britain’s
press does a much better job holding Prime Minister Tony Blair
accountable for his actions (hostile words) that led to the war against
Iraq, but the mainstream American press has waited until now to do only
a slight pittance of its duty holding President Bush accountable for his
lies to Congress and to We the People.
And, of
course, the American press is being controlled in every way by the
polls, rather than by its mandate to shine as a beacon of truth.
When
war against Iraq began in March, 85 percent of Americans polled
supported Bush’s actions, but now those figures have dwindled to 55%,
possibly because they can get their news from outside American circles
through the World Wide Web (internet). Don’t expect the national news
media to do anything, however, until those figures drop well below 50%
at the polls.
This
editor was educated in broadcast journalism and one reason I never
entered the TV world is because TV newsrooms are controlled by media
consultants whose Bible is the TV survey (polls) – and not by
professional journalists. These consultants worry more about the color
of a reporter’s hair and eyes than they do the truth.
I
suppose that’s why there’s so little truth today and why our
Constitution and our rights are constantly violated. The watchdog at the
Fourth Estate is sleeping and when he awakes he has got tons of goo
(veil of ignorance) to clear from his eyes.
…Rumors
of DJ Online crashing
Rumors that Desert Journal Online will
be crashing soon are just that – rumors!
People
obviously are confused about the facts:
DJ
Online is attracting more visitors than it ever did. For the last week
in June, the website’s statistical keeper Urchin 3.3 counted a record
high 3,084 visitors, which averages to about 441 visitors daily.
For the
month of June, DJ Online had a total of 11,348 visitors, averaging
378.26 daily.
For the
first half of 2003 (Jan. 1 to June 30), DJ Online had a total of 63,656
visitors with a daily average of 350 visitors.
We have
grown more than 150 percent with visitors since the start of 2003,
compared to our average daily visitation of 231 last year. With such a
growth rate, we can expect to grow by at least two fold (200%) by the
end of the calendar year.
So,
who’s going out of business?
…More
online developments
At present, Desert Journal Online is entirely free to viewers and no
immediate plans are in the works to make it a pay site. Visitors have
access to at least 2,850 files, including 2,640 photographs, which are
linked from our home page.
Altogether,
DJ Online has 3,722 internal hyperlinks (to pages within the website)
and 170 external hyperlinks (to other destinations outside of the
website).
It
could take days, weeks or maybe even months to take a look at everything
we have created online.
Since
May, several new sections have been added to the home page, including:
Breaking
News that highlights our most recent news;
Editorial
Page that contains my most current column, Van Velsor’s “Food For
Thought,” Lane Pack’s “SCEDO on the move,” letters to the editor
and more.
Sports/Outdoors
Page that contains “Fishing Report for Southwest New Mexico,” among
other goodies;
New
Mexico Arts & Culture Page, which lists art and cultural events
across the state;
Obituary
Page, which includes direct links to every name; and,
The
Writers Workshop Page, which contains contributions of short essays and
poetry, as well as news for writers, such as announcements for contests
and the like.
There
is also the Community Page that highlights special community happenings
and the mega Congressional Page that contains state, regional and
national news of general interest.
Furthermore,
stories from the Breaking News Page are made into Headline of the Week
pages at the end of the week on Fridays with the most recent week
appearing with links from the home page and which are eventually saved
into archives for future reference.
All of
these pages or sections are updated frequently – almost daily.
So,
who’s going out of business? Not Desert Journal Online!
Watch
for promotions in the future announcing how we’ve gone ballistic and
are shooting for the stars!
