Mika proudly sports her first place ribbon (left) following her 1st place win in her first dock diving competition.
Mika is my daughter Shannon’s Malinios. Dock diving is not her only talent, as she has been trained to sniff out drugs.
Congrats to both Shannon and Mika!
In suit, ex-workers accuse Blackwater founder of murder
Posted to: Blackwater Military News
© August 4, 2009
Two men who worked for Blackwater allege in a federal lawsuit that Blackwater founder Erik Prince or his agents murdered one or more people who were planning to provide information to federal authorities about criminal conduct by the company and its operatives in Iraq.
The two are identified in court papers only as “John Doe #1” and “John Doe #2” because, they say, they fear violent retaliation themselves for making the allegations.
“John Doe #1” identifies himself as an honorably discharged U.S. Marine who joined Blackwater, the Moyock, N.C.-based private military company now known as Xe, and deployed to Iraq to guard State Department and other American government personnel.
In his sworn statement, he says he observed “multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force.”
“John Doe #2” identifies himself as an American citizen who worked for Blackwater and affiliated companies for four years.
“On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince’s employ,” he says, “Mr. Prince’s management has personally threatened me with death and violence.
“In addition, based on information provided to me by former colleagues, it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct.”
In his statement, he says Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. (click on link for entire article)
[these allegations are troubling but certainly I’ve not had a good feeling about Blackwater for a number of reasons. If this is true, it even dwarfs my already poor view of Blackwarter]
In suit, ex-workers accuse Blackwater founder of murder | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com
“Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
Sometimes I think constraint writing must be when my mind is drawing a big goose egg when I’m trying to write. Of course this isn’t what is generally considered as constraint writing. Janet Holmes has an interesting comparison between the twitter of today and the telegraph messaging of the 19th century. Check it out on Humanophone 2.0
Copy of The Philosopher’s Club came in from an Intra-library loan program. This is an out of print book that I need for later this month. It’s out of print & only was published in hardback used copies are running between $37 - $120 so I was fortunate to be able to come up with it in time. It’s the first book of Kim Addonizio who is an awesome poet.
I must confess that as I’m writing this I’m watching Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D List. She is so outrageously riotous. Ok, I really should be writing.
“The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences.” ~ Arthur Rimbaud
Oh what a week! I won’t go into the long and the short of my week, but I will say that it seemed more of the former.
Outside of my own immediate personal space the week has truly been something else.
Looking for a weekend of productive writing and less insanity.
Those four words underscore the advice offered by Tara Jepson writing on writing for Examiner.com. This was an accidental discovery but one I wanted to share with readers because it certainly demonstrates an opportunity for all of us who write.
If I could reduce this article to simplest terms it would be realizing that “art begets art.” Perhaps not a novel idea but sometimes when we are struggling with where to go in our work we often overlook some of the best opportunities for prompts and sources of inspiration… the art of others. Article Here
