MR. HEKMAYTAR

It's a new name to learn.

All those foreign, un-pronounceable names of people and places we've had to learn ... Struggling with them, I'm amazed at the way names roll off the tongues of newscasters. The first few times I heard "Al Quaeda," it was pronounced differently by various announcers.

I'm still not totally sure -- is it "Kay-da" or "Ki-da?"

So who is this Hekmatyar person, and why is he suddenly important?

Reuters news said: "Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a vicious, brutal, devious warlord. He could also be one of America's tickets out of Afghanistan."

(THAT got my attention! Afghanistan to me is a fire and brimstone hell where we shouldn't be -- where we're stuck, mired like other countries have been. Has anyone ever won a war there?)

Here's more (more tricky names and places), gleaned from other major news sites: "Shamshatoo Camp, just outside Peshawar has always been the most tightly organized and disciplined Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan. The only law within its boundaries is that of Hezb-i-Islami (the Party of Islam), led by the notoriously ruthless warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar."

(Apparently, Hekmaytar is a well-known killer. When the camp was his main base, people of Peshawar saw corpses floating in the canal that runs next to the camp, and knew they were the bodies of Hekmatyar's enemies.)

Washington knows all about him. They've been contacted by Hekmatyar's spokesman and told that Mr. Hekmatyar will have to be reckoned with, if America wants to wind down the war in Afghanistan.

Referring to the Party of Islam's 15 point peace proposal to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, that calls for a total U.S. withdrawal by the end of the year, the spokesman, Mohammad Daoud Abedi, (another name, a California businessman), says, "We have decided to make conditions right so that international forces can leave with honor."

So "WE" is Hezb-i-Islami, the Party or Mr. Hek? Is this good news, or is it a threat?

General Petraeus has told the Pentagon, "You make peace with your enemies, not your friends." Other officials in the Pentagon agree with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who recently, declared, "It's too soon to begin discussing peace in Afghanistan."

What do "we the people" think?

I'm pacing, circling, dizzied with wishing, hoping, praying we end the endless war and get out of there. Why is it important that we leave Afghanistan with honor? Does honor mean we've won? Does winning prove we're more powerful than the Taliban? Does it say the Taliban has lost?

Win? Lose? In the eyes of which beholder?

Is it important because it proves -- sort of vaguely -- that the UN Forces have power, and must be dealt with? And an honorable exit will -- perhaps, maybe -- postpone other terrorist attacks?

Has terrorism terrorized us to such an extent that we let men die, so that we are winning, when we are not? Does war make the other guys our enemy? But we are their enemy!

For God's sake, for America's sake -- TAKE AWAY THE WORDS! SAVE THE LIVES!

SANDRA B.

A wall of women is around her, right now, hushing and shushing the invaders.

Who are the invaders? Everyone -- friends and relatives with advice.

And the media with a foray of questions, predictions, opinions (from other celebrities), and breaking news (confessions from adulteresses who insist they're involved). And the paparazzi trespassing with cameras and their own hungry eyes peering into her bedroom, and the doings of her husband Jesse J., who convinced her that she could love-him-trust-him-rest-her-mind, dispel her aloneness.

And he probably isn't what she thought he was.

I don't need to know the real story or the full story.

It's what love is. You can't control whom you fall in love with. You can try. But being in love is being out of control, and even IF, at moments, you perceive something you don't want to see, even IF a voice in you whispers that something doesn't feel right -- if you're in love, you cannot pay attention.

I wouldn't want to be a woman who has never experienced that.

And it's impossible to imagine that Sandra B, with her ability to be fragile subtle, funny, tragic, intense, logical, or impulsively illogical -- a woman who can DO and BE anything and has the intelligence to read scripts and know what roles to try -- it's difficult to believe she wasn't aware of the possibilities that her husband might be unfaithful.

So, did she make a horrible mistake? Blind herself to his vulnerability, his need for success, gratification, adulation? We will never know.

I don't trust anything we've been told, I don't trust the utterances from needy-greedy other women who have a chance now, to make themselves into an "name."

We like you Sandra Annette Bullock, admire you for your talent, and magical abilities to understand and represent so many aspects of what a woman is.

(That's the message I'm sending her -- she doesn't know me, I don't know her, I'm just part of the wall of women thinking about her, wanting to reach out to her.)

Handle it, do with it what you do when you take on a role -- breathe your way into feeling out what Sandra B. needs, wants, wishes, and can do.

DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ

I don't care about Iraq's democracy.

I don't trust it,

I don't like the lives lost, the money gone, in order to achieve this (important? ) change.

Skimming the good things, I keep reading about bad things.

Fraud was 40% in the first election. In this second election. it's estimated at (oh goody) 20%.

But the Sunni guy who opposes Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's gang (they call it his "coalition") thinks there's an élite counter-terrorism gang run by Nouri al-Maliki.

"It's totally political," whispers an aide. "If the Prime minister's a terrorist, why didn't they get him before he was elected?"

Oh? So who is "they?" I guess "they" is the power behind the power, the guys who make the decisions, but "they" seems to be some hidden group (coalition?) with NO names.

Mmm ... That's sort of, kind of, hard to applaud.

Anyhow, Bush set up "troops to be out end of August." Obama set up 50,000 support troops to be out by 2011.

Oh goody?

Vice President Biden said, "Democratic Iraq will be one of our great achievements."

Boo! I admire Biden, but boo! Is this achievement worth the death of Americans, the blotches of poverty that we have throughout the United States, because money we spent over there was money we needed to spend here?

I read somewhere that Iraq has 6,000 candidates for 325 seats in their parliament, and some 86 parties are taking part in the election. If that's good news, a hopeful sign, than I am a -- a dumb jerk?

(Well, maybe I am.)

Meanwhile,. U.S. soldiers are there. What's going to happen when they're gone?

Chalabi, an anti-Saddam guy we've supported, is gaining stature. Is that good or bad, and do I care? I'm worried about anti-Obama guys killing hope in America.

Joe Biden is an optimist. Others, who are delighted by the progress in Iraq, have their fingers crossed.

My fingers are crossed for us. Will we become the united, United States again soon?

CHILD IN THE PICTURE

I saw this in an advertisement that wasn't selling anything, except "Doctors Without Borders."

She's in Haiti, intensely concentrated, listening to the heart of a child.

The intense concentration of the child ... is he seeing something, feeling other hands that patted him, remembering someone, or is he seeing his mother lying on a pallet nearby?

We continue to hear about Hollywood people who are deeply involved, committed to helping homeless, devastated Haitians re-start their lives -- with food, and shelter, and much needed medicine.

The televised celebrity events are old news, forgotten publicity that tugged on one's "heart strings" in the way that famous performers know how to do. Today, I found some names to thank with a mention -- actor Jimmy Jean-Louis, actress Dania Ramirez, former NBA player Cliff Robinson, director Paul Haggis, the well known actors Josh Brolin, Diane Lane and Madeleine Stowe.

The picture haunts me because of the countless children in Haiti (and all over the world) who are lost -- so huge a number that being haunted is ... well, it isn't meaningless, but it's seems like self pity. How often have we seen parents and families mourning, sobbing, and watching them, we sense that they are crying for themselves -- weeping because they feel so helpless.

The picture and the look on the child's face tells me DO SOMETHING.

I didn't include actor Sean Penn in the thank you mention list -- he's in Haiti --what he's doing there is huge.

The 7.0 earthquake happened on Tuesday January 12 at 10.04.53 Eastern Standard time. The epicenter was 15 miles W.S.W. of Port-Au-Prince.

Penn arrived 9 days later, January 21, accompanied by 11 doctors, and a business person named Jenkins, with whom he has established a Haitian relief organization. He brought 1000 water filters. He said, "The idea of us being here is to make sure the aid gets to them."

He's s been in Haiti since then. He's worried because the rainy season is coming and thousands sleeping in the tent cities, where he's sleeping, will lose even that.

WHAT CAN I DO? Hold the picture of the angry child and the Doctor in my mind?

I'll hold it in my mind, keep it on my mind until l think of something I can do.

Right now I'll send money to the Jenkins Penn Haitian Relief Organization -- click here if you want to donate to them.

BEETHOVEN

This was a post last June when JC-Beethoven was learning songs for Hal Prince's new show; but now Beethoven's working on "Scottsboro Boys."

DISAPPEARING ISLAND

Here's a picture of a small, un-inhabited island in the Bay of Bengal.

It disappeared last Wednesday. India and Bangladesh both claim it belonged to them.

The head oceanographer at Jadavpur University, in Calcutta, reported that a satellite image indicated that the island was no longer visible, and sea patrols confirmed it.

An official in India's foreign ministry told New Delhi newspapers that the island was gone, and asked that his name not be used, explaining, "I am not authorized to speak on international disputes."

Bangladesh officials were not available for comment.

I found four very brief articles on the Internet that said the island was gone.

"Gone..." It takes a second to translate "gone" from a feeling of death into what it means when an island that was on the map in the atlas, completely vanishes.

India called it "New Moore Island." It was 2 miles long and 1 ½. miles wide. Bangladesh referred to the island as South Talpatti.

There were no permanent structures on it, but India sent soldiers to hoist its national flag there, in 1981.

One of the online articles mentioned that another island in the area, Lohachara, disappeared in 1996.

I've seen pictures of homes on Fire Island and in the Hamptons losing most of their beaches, and houses that are in danger as well, and islands have disappeared in the Everglades, so why do I pay attention to a tiny, hardly ever used place on the other side of the world?

Maybe because my house feels as if it's in danger ... When the street is attacked by jack-hammers my house shakes. When trucks lower and drop onto the street, with a bang, huge steel plates, my house shakes. I worry about our electrical fixtures disconnecting, our sewage pipes cracking, and our plaster walls, which already have cracks.

Would that some worrisome places in my mind, not large thoughts, but troubling ones, could just vanish, disappear, un-heralded, not mourned, in the way New-Moore-South-Talpatti did.

For instance -- global warming is not so slowly changing the depth of the seas, which are washing away land, and submerging other small islands. Some endangered species are already gone. People all over the world have lost homes, and most of their possessions, because of rain, earthquakes, tsunami, and whatever else that's making the weather into an angry, punishing enemy.

Is this the story of the forty days and forty nights of rain, and Noah having to build an ark -- the same story with different numbers, different meanings to how long is a day, how long is a night and what protective something can be our ark?

When it happens to homes and land in the Hamptons, Fire Island, or Florida, with visions of the luxury, wealth and the casual "fun" the owners have, I don't feel very concerned.

But the disappearing island -- hardly noted -- is noted by me and mourned, with me quietly wondering where are we heading and what does this mean?

MILITIAS

Whew!

What's going on with the Michigan Hutaree Christian Militia?

My shoulders are up around my ears!

It's a nightmare. I want to wake up, but I'm having a hard time.

These guys in this picture -- they're wearing camouflage, aiming their guns. They're quoting the bible -- not just talking about Obama as the anti-Christ --they're proclaiming that he is!

We're got arrests, FBI raids in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and suburban Chicago, rounding up other members of the group, a federal indictment calling the Hutaree an “anti-government extremist organization” intending to “levy war against the United States.”

The Michigan Hutaree Christian Militia is charged with seditious conspiracy, planning to kill a local policeman, kill people who came to his funeral, use weapons of mass destruction, (roadside bombs). Conviction could mean life imprisonment.

The Hutaree is one of 127 armed "hate groups" in the US. In 2008, when Obama was just a candidate, there were 42. When he was nominated, the Hutaree and other militias began to conduct military-style training.

The accused nine Hutaree -- David Brian Stone, his family, and five members of the group are being held without bond until the court determines the bond.

It's hot news on TV and the Internet.

I can't bear to hear it, read it, see it -- it's not okay -- I can't turn the page in my mind. I can't turn off what armed militias mean to me, and sit back and wait for more headlines, or hear what my favorite commentators say.

For more than a year -- good Lord, it's almost a year-and-a-half ... Ever since Barack Obama's election, people have been using their voices, their energies, expressing (every day more wildly, freely, uninhibitedly) their thoughts -- their fears, disappointment, frustration -- chanting about death panels, abortions, vowing not to obey the laws, belching, spewing out their outrage, ugly anger, shocking invective.

It's out of control and getting worse. Pro-Gun people are carrying guns openly into Starbucks, buying guns for family members, steely-eyed focused on the right to carry holstered handguns everywhere in daily American life. "Hey, " they say, "An un-exercised right is a right LOST, and the Anti-Gun lobby's furor over the presence of guns near the President is an attempt to reverse the normalization of guns!"

Have they forgotten (maybe they don't know) that U.S. Agencies still have the right they got during the Bush years, to assassinate Americans who are involved with terrorism? Oh sure, of Of course, there are rules -- a committee's permission is needed, but what committee, who's on it, why hasn't the signed G.W. Bush "Intelligence Finding" (that's what the law is called) been nullified?

With rules and laws being ignored, being broken everywhere, I'm trying to push away the sense that stuff is closing in on us, and we're racing, rushing, toward doom.

How can I do my day-to-day work, do good things, fun chores, and open new "cans of peas" (show biz lingo for finding new ideas) when I have to bang doors shut to keep out black thoughts about what's happening.

And black is BLACK -- my sense that the war against the BLACK man running the country is shutting out, closing off, common sense.

We have to be able to live and work and breathe together.

Have we forgotten how?

We'd rather be right about Health Care, and politics, than be alive?

"No, of course not," I tell myself, but I'm not sure that people on the other side of the fence will even agree with me about that.