Syria's President

Syria's President

fiction
edward w pritchard


Along with the Nationalism toward homeland goes strong paternal feelings toward one's President. Here I what I wrote before on President al-Assad of Syria.

ADBRIGHT

MONDAY, JULY 23, 2012

big deck/ more on Syria

big deck

fiction
edward w pritchard

Near the souk but not within the souk the lanes are narrow, not meant for large vehicles. Big deck is  a 1981 Ford stretch van, white with a sliding side door leading to four rows of uncomfortable seats. A very ugly carriage but she has supported me for thirty years as my taxi here in Damascus. This week, I have been using big deck as an ambulance during the uprising here in Damascus; being a poor man I have been forced by circumstance to charge my fellow citizens who are suffering terribly during the violence for my services and those of big deck as an ambulance.

At the hospital the chief surgeon ordered me to take one lone passenger to an outpatient clinic for recovery. It was an eight year old girl whose eyes have been hurt badly in an explosion and was temporarily blind. I am being paid to sit with her during the day until she can return to the hospital for further surgery on her eyes to restore her sight. I had a lot of trouble getting big deck and the girl through the narrow alleys south of the souk here in Damascus. Of course adding to my troubles is the potential of violence caused by the uprising. Many commercial ambulances are reluctant to entering some of the areas of the violence and I have been making more money than usual. The chief surgeon at the hospital paid me three hundred Euros to transport the girl and has promised me another 700 Euros when I return with her in three to four days.

The clinic where I brought the girl is for wealthy patients recovering from surgery in normal times. Now the clinic is mostly empty, because of the violence there is little elective surgery being performed. The little girl is nearly alone here and all of the other patients are adults. To keep her company and myself busy, for I am being paid to sit with her, I have been reading to her. The only book for a child I could find here was an American story for girls, Nancy Drew " The Bungalow Mystery". My English is now poor although I attended University in New Jersey over fifty years ago.

I continued with my reading. I had to be careful. Although the girl's eyes were heavily bandaged like all children she knew when i was skipping parts of the novel and she would call me on it. As she was ill I did not want to upset her so I read carefully.

The unexpected prow--ler

"An embezzlement case! Nancy was excited. What she wondered,"

I stopped suddenly for in my concentration on the book I had not noticed our Syrian President enter the room.  He was standing next to me smiling and nodding at me. He had come to visit the little girl.

He asked me if he could read for a moment. Taking the little girl's hand our President continued the Nancy Drew story.

" what she wondered did her father want her to do."

Nodding very slightly to me our President put the book down and still holding the girls hand and talking softly to her now in our language he began to review her medical chart that he had apparently  carried into the room.

I watched our President intently as he read. He was a tall handsome regal man and I was very proud of him and proud to be a Syrian.  Gently placing his spare hand on the girl's face he looked at the skin around the bandages, touched at her neck, I think taking her pulse.

As quickly as he had entered the room our President handed me the book, bowed to me ever ever so slightly and exited the ward where the girl was laying.

I still remember that meeting in the hospital as one of the most important days of my life.

end

Nancy Drew
" The Bungalow Mystery"
quoted page 45[ chapter 5]
Book #3 of series
by Carolyn Keene
Grosset&Dunlap

mystical thinking

mystical thinking

fiction
edward w pritchard

Mystical thinking has replaced magical thinking as mine latest life force. Course I miss the ease of a life lead in honor of magical thinking as it had a naturalness to it. A neither this nor that non dualistic patina, the shining light in the eternal night of darkness that guided my stumbling on the path to nowhere. Then being and nothingness were neither this nor that to myself and I. Merely did this entity preservere till fortune dealt a timely, lucky hand of cards this Way.

Mystical thinking takes preparation and rigor in following the deleted stages of a difficult physical regimen of selfless sensual and spiritual purgation. Night after dark night one is hungry, cold and alone. But eternal joy, should it happen, that we will hear and see when understanding, reason and the senses are negated. What sights shall we behold?

Meanwhile, patiently must the non self wait in timeless duration for the reunion without entity within.

where will be the American Bastille

where will be the American Bastille

fiction
edward w pritchard

Where will be the American Bastille?

Will it be in a housing project in Saint Louis after another child is hit by a stray bullet?

How about a few million gun owners acting in unison?

Or maybe at a colossal wall in Texas separating us from Mexico?

Will the American Bastille be an electronic message denouncing the Administration with four million Likes in one minute?

Or an American soldier walking off the line in North Korea done in by the paranoia?

Will it be an older person opening his mail and silently reading another high handed proclamation from the capitalistic establishment about why the cost of living is jumping skyward again?

Where-ever and whenever the American Bastille [1] occurs please don't behead the Governor-he was just doing his job the best he knew how at the time.

[1] french citizens July 14, 1789 beheaded the governor in charge of the Bastille when they broke down the doors of the hated State Prison.  I am glad I wasn't there. I so detest mayhem, disorder, lack of civility and violence; whether in the classroom, the streets or the prisons.

the lost ace in the hole

the lost ace in the hole

fiction
edward w pritchard

You never know when you gonna need that lost ace in the hole.

Then, not now, worse not better.

Ace in the hole kaput, old deck gone missing.

Game finished

Consensual integrity

Consensual Integrity

fiction
edward w pritchard

There is the fact and then there is the motivation.

So many sins follow from the original motivation to let nature take it's course, the children to grow properly to adulthood, maintenance of the status quo, following the biological course of reality. Sin being later accountability for previous actions to maintain the status quo by omission from timely intervention.

Should we bear moral responsibility for not taking negative action to rectify an acknowledged fact dictated by another mover that will effect parties without legal capacity to contract or survive as independent agents? Speaking here of minor children. Some not then yet born.

We must bear moral responsibility for our actions but do we have negative responsibility for our omissions?

Don't count your sins resulting from biological dictates to maintain the species, to procreate offspring. When it comes to accounting for sins gentleness is sweet reasonableness.

Be slow to Judge. People can be good and not perfect.

Sometimes only parts of the story were told. Selective integrity compartmentalizes the truth.

One can not have endless responsibility for an act of consensual integrity.

Lord have mercy on us all.

the American angst of having fallen from the middle class

the American angst of heaving fallen from the middle class

fiction
edward w pritchard

In my case the American angst of having fallen from the middle class is cushioned by the not totally uncomfortable old vinyl padded seats of the reliable cross town number 19 bus that I sit on as I head downtown to make war with the good government employees at the social security office concerning my need to pay for additional premiums for medicare part D prescription coverage so I can continue to be a good consumer of pharma services now and into the future. As the trusty old bus bounces along from stop to stop I hang on to my American dreams by using the shiny metal poles designed to cushion a sudden stop should the bus driver collide with anything or accelerate or brake too aggressively. Despite being in a constant rush to get from the initial pick point at any of the low income grocery store stops, to the metro/greyhound central terminal master Bus station downtown I have never experienced a bus driver being involved in any type of traffic altercation. Sometimes  a concerned driver will let a homeless type passenger or obviously poor student ride for free to maintain social order I suppose. To me, bus drivers seem like pretty good folks, especially the women drivers. I tolerate their smoking outside the bus when ahead of schedule because I assume they have a stressful job and life.


The bus is fifty cents a ride for the elderly and it appears that anyone can get for $2.50 an all day bus pass so you can go from the unemployment office, to the Medicaid, or social security offices for Medicare like me, or to the county health offices for mysterious other social services related to mental health and american angst. Fifty cents a ride is a good price to ride the eight miles to downtown from where I stay. I still have change in my pocket to buy an overpriced $1.75 20 oz. diet mountain from the vending machines designed to give the low income folks easy access to the varieties of American consumer culture. I am usally hit on by someone asking for money for groceries or to donate to their church next Sunday; probably as an older white guy I am not one of the stereotypical sub class types and appear an easy mark, or it could be a tribute to the local Goodwill Stores where I purchase one of half a dozen very nice, warm wool over coats that I wear about in Winter. Necessary, when I ride the bus since the local bus stop with the glass seated enclosure is 1350 steps on my garman from my abode.

The good thing about the metro bus is it gets about town rain or shine so I can reach downtown in snowy weather unlike the suburban local school buses near my house which only move about the streets of our area on clearer days. At least where I live metro bus drivers get less snow days off than Public school bus drivers from what I can unscientifically surmise from riding the metro bus past the school bus parking lot the last few snowy days. Probably school bus drivers aren't involved in decisions to close the suburban schools on wintry days, such decisions being left to school administrators and teachers unions I would imagine.

Recently I had to take two buses without a transfer to pick up a borrowed truck for the day. It only cost 50 cents times two but although inexpensive buses take a while to get about especially if where someone works or is going is off the beaten path. Usually though most people who ride a bus to work are younger women, a little too heavy to walk far, again being unscientific when it comes to proper sampling techniques, I am sure that the extra two hours it takes to get to the McDonald's or dollar store for work makes for a tiring day after doing an eight hour shift on one's feet all day. So, even  if  McDonald's and the dollar stores aren't off the beaten path it still lowers anyone's net profit from working there if because of circumstance they are forced to ride a bus to work because they aren't in proper shape to ride a bike or walk to work or if they have others things to do after working besides walking  for two hours to go say eight miles or ride a bike for an hour to go the same distance. Also it would be a lot easier if they had a nice new car to drive to McDonald's to work. Taking a bus to work for most people I again without a proper statistical sample surmise is stressful in itself even though one hears a lot of interesting conversations on a bus, even an introvert like myself, and one learns a bit about the American angst of having fallen from the middle class that one doesn't realize riding about in a new car especially if one isn't fortunate enough to have another new car as well being driven by their hard working spouse to their well paying career work location. Again without a proper sample I notice that from looking and listening to people who ride the buses about town most of the bus customers don't seem to have a sufficient other in their lives, who has their backs in the good times and bad in life and have a well paying career as well, which although probably their fault, the bus customers, their fault that they are alone, they not having a proper car, nor a store of Capital, capital C, in the Bank, then that is for the lonely person on the bus, one of several indices that can lead to the American angst of having recently fallen from the middle class. I assume such a situation happens more often to introverts without properly chosen careers, a store of Capital in the Bank and successful life partners but such an assumption would be a sweeping statement which would be unscientific, being mere here-say [hear-say sic.] on my part. Speaking of hear-say evidence and improper rules of disavowed evidence in a court of law for this fallen American angel of the American angst to imply the estoppel evidence rule, to why him and other lower class bus riders deserve special consideration and subsidy because of the current lack of equity, inherent hardheartedness, and lack of opportunity  involved in the pursuit of happiness in the Capitalistic system is disingenuous at best as well as just plain naive considering that everyone knows that if one is forced to rely on a estoppel defense in a court of Law, that one has a weak hand and is bound to lose before the court, estoppel defense, being here, in this argument that recently life has gotten so much the harder resulting in more and more good people falling out of the middle class in America even though once in some golden age there really was equal opportunity for all; when in fact any Jury knows that such was never the case and as any good lawyer knows Judge's have a very short attention span when it comes to interpreting the fairness of anything involving Equity either in court or Society at large. Summary Judgment being then Some are Bound to Lose. Case Dismissed.

every life should have more than one act but no more than five

every life should have more than one act but no more than five

fiction
edward w pritchard

Every life should have more than one act but no more than five. What I am meaning here is how a baby's eyes that one has connected with express thousands of unspoken thoughts and sentiments instantly to the a-tuned lover/ receptor [1] and how scientifically other than light going in to those fascinating eyes to the babies brain no known scientific material process substance or ray/wave is actually coming out of those beautiful and intriguing eyes to the a-tuned lover/receptor who more often than not is performing the  ordinary, mundane task of caring for the " helpless" infant at the time of the mystic cosmic connection eye to eye in question; usually as the baby's Mother, but sometimes as dear old Grand Ma or Omey, Pa pa or just plain old ed. Prosaically that a-tuned connection between baby and grand-ma changes as baby matures and learns to communicate with language and predictably the nick names for Grandma change as the baby's masters the use of language and logical thought processes throughout the various " five acts' of a babies life.

The only other similar connection that old ed knows of that, that as expressed above, is, similarly non scientific and perhaps metaphysically/transcendent  apparent is with a Lover, but in that case, unlike with a Baby which a receptor can have more than one connection with other babies, perhaps half a dozen, including children descendants and other grand children, with a Lover that eye to eye mystery, connection, happens only once. The other times being strictly organic and materialistic.

Many attuned persons throughout time have sensed/experienced  the a-tuned lover/receptor eye to eye cosmic connection mentioned above in terms of " is there anything in iron clad reality and provable scientifically to suggest the actual existence of a soul, or spirit part of anything that survives the Body, after death" but alas such persons having the original sensed/ experience have never communicated the iron clad evidence after their death to  scientifically prove the conundrum. Still many persons living and dead heart felt-ed-ly  wonder if there is anything non material and scientifically provable that survives a defunct human after death.  Of course there are other forces involved such as time/tensed time  argument and as discussed recently the "selfish gene" theory [of Richard Dawkins], etc. etc.

1. original idea recently expressed by another