Dedicated in loving memory to the late Max Scheer, Editor, entepreneur, and former boss at the Berkeley Barb-1969-71

Some are called. Few ever have the courage to answer.

The Used Kharma Lot Weblog

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May 28, 2007 Today is Memorial Day, and other than it being a national holiday, I seriously question whether few of the current generation remember the reason people still commemorate the wartime fallen unless they have a relative buried somewhere. According to national tradition today, this is a four day weekend, to be spent in idyllic pursuits, gamboling among the lakes and rivers, playing in the National Parks. Is this the generation that will ignore and eventually break the tradition of Memorial Day? It seems like a decent question, but one that I cannot answer. If you were to take a national poll on what people did this weekend to commemorate the fallen soldiers from the wars, how many people would you guess actually plan to pay homage to the dead on this Memorial Day? If your guess is less than 50% you're closer than I was, according to a national survey. According to the survey, performed in 2007, approximately 49% of those surveyed stated they would be taking the time to honor wartime dead. Only 49%? My God, that is a national travesty.

I remember hearing Memorial Day called “Decoration Day”, since it changed its name as part of a formal Federal Holiday declaration performed during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, a time I remember quite well. How utterly ironic this is in retrospect, since I was actively involved in the anti-war movement during that time. The heritage of Memorial Day/Decoration day stems from the war between the North and South, strange as that might seem to some, but if you look up the history of Memorial Day, you quickly will learn that many, if not all the traditions we honor today hail from the period of time just after the Civil War. Some historians still refer to the Civil War as the Great War, which also seems an anomaly since, in my view of life, there has never been a war that was all that great.

May 13, 2007 I took a step today, one that I truly may regret more than any I have taken in my life. I decided to leave my limited involvement in Bluegrass Music in Spokane behind me, all because of one man. There is no doubt in my mind that Detective Jim Faddis of the Spokane Police Department, and coincidentally the head of the popular Spokane Bluegrass band, Prairie Flyer, will ever miss the hundreds and hundreds of hours and resources that my family has injected into Bluegrass Music, or the many bands whom we have supported for years. In fact, I seriously question if, in six months, anyone will ask where we disappeared to, but we are disappearing.

About five years ago, I considered Jim Faddis (then of Barley Brothers) to be a close personal friend. Then came the murder of Roger Erdman, and my wrath descended upon, among others, the Spokane Police Department. The only problem was, at that time, was I made a few allegations that were not entirely truthful in the heat of the moment. Hell, it took the SPD nearly six months to realize what I had written. But purportedly the insolent, crooked former police administration told Jim he could no longer talk with me. At least those were the words Jim spoke to me by phone.

Earlier this month, I gave Jim Faddis an ultimatum, something that few people would ever want to give a high-ranking police officer. Either he had to sit down and discuss matters with me, face to face, about his phone call to me, and about how I should deal with our once-friendship or I would simply practice a policy I learned from Buddhism, the Policy of Avoidance.

In the policy of avoidance, according to the Buddhist belief, you simply avoid those with whom you have unresolved issues and/or contention. When no answer arrived, other than a slap on the back at a public gathering, I simply have begun withdrawing from any events that Jim would normally attend. The list is quite extensive, but we have already begun finding new places, new musical events for our energy and support. However, now a lot more people know about it, which is truly how the policy works. If you tell enough people, they will begin to ask themselves where they actually stand, and eventually perhaps it will resolve itself. In the meantime I have other Bluegrass friends in six other states, so I never am at a loss for music nor friendship.

Not to mention I have discovered some fantastic songwriters in Spokane that I didn't know that well, so the summer is promising, indeed.

October 4, 2006 I once lived on the edge of an Amish community in Central Indiana, which is why the news regarding the shooting in a Pennsylvania Amish country strikes me as a bit other-worldly.

Can you imagine life without Dr. Phil? Oprah? The evening news? Sitcoms? If this staggers your minds, living your lives without the hallmarks of a so-called modern life, then perhaps you understand how much trouble as the members of the news media are having with the Amish folk, who want no part of modern living or no part of our modern-day life, including the garbage we call television today.

For the most part, none of the victim's families, their friends nor other members of the Amish community in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania have consented to news media interviews, and nearly 48 hours after the hideous crime came calling on a small one-room school house set deep in Amish country, no one from the news media have gotten close enough to get pictures of the crime scene. None of the families are clustered around their televisions, with vapid anticipation waiting to see someone they know appear on the evening news.

When the giant satellite news trucks descended like a band of giant insects onto a pasture, implying they had a right and destiny to be intrusive and to peer into cloistered lives that are lived with simplicity and grace, the Amish families impacted by a particularly grisly set of murders have closed ranks, refusing any contact with the vapid news broadcast networks.

It has been almost as if the Pennsylvania State Patrol recognize that they are in the presence of something precious and delicate, because even they are refusing to allow access to all but close friends. There will be no live broadcasts of tearful relatives, mournful-looking family members or statements made through hastily-called press conferences. What is even more respectable, the tears shed for the innocents killed in the schoolhouse will be shed privately within the community, not in public for all to see, and that is as it should be.

Perhaps this hideous murder of innocent young girls in an Amish schoolhouse will be what it takes to finally push our government to making our schools safe for children, but do not hold your breath in anticipation. One place where the news media have the story accurately written in the annals of American history is that the Federal budgets for school security has been eliminated over the last few years. Thanks to President Bush's misplaced set of criteria and priorities, the most innocent in our midst are also the most vulnerable to the depraved, sadly sick and demented in our midst.

However, no changes in the mental health care system, no matter how widespread, would ever bring a single one of those lives back in Pennsylvania, since according to what little is known about the man responsible indicates he was a good father to his own children, a upstanding member of his community, and well-respected by his neighbors. In other words, he was a "sleeper", a man with no criminal record and no history of mental health issues prior to the murders. According to an FBI representative here in Spokane, there is virtually no defense against such a person who wants to commit a heinous crime if they have not been profiled as having criminal tendencies in the past.

There are unconfirmed allegations that, as a child himself, the shooter was sexually molested as a child, but in retrospect, with the violence and dead children, it seems we truly cannot undo the sins of the past. Can we LEARN from them? Based upon President's George Bush's dismal record as a lame duck President, a dismal failure at being a leader of any significance, it would seem unlikely.

That, my friends, is the greatest tragedy of all, for if we do not learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them over and over again.

Whose children will die next?

May 27, 2006 It's been over a year since I last updated this set of pages, and I suppose some are probably shaking their heads and shaking their finger my way. As I stated on the front door of Kharma, I have been in what amounts to a state of mourning since George W. Bush, Jr. was able to purchase the Presidency of the United States, and since that time Bush has demonstrated his arrogance and a total lack of awareness about the meaning of history by waging war against Islam and against the middle class of the United States. In his august guidance and with the complete sacking of the Social Insecurity system, the poor and elderly have begun a horrifyingly steep descent into a Stygian hell of health care not even I could have dreamed possible a decade ago. There are some in this country who are talking sedition or even worse, to undo the bindings that holds this country together, which is nearly as troubling to me as the internal combustion engine of the radicals who are opposed to Bush's policies.

History has foretold, at least in one form or another, the war in which our nation is currently and soon will be further involved. History has suggested our war with Islam will be the last war, and the lessons of war are we have nearly the same odds that we will lose as we will win. From a moral standpoint, based upon the beliefs on which our country was founded, we have no business whatsoever interfering in the affairs of any sovereign nation, regardless of how distasteful their government might be. Moreover, our government has no right to search, seize or spy on Americans, as our forefathers saw to it to place that in the list of basic freedoms which we hold so dear. Unfortunately, we have no such freedoms, anymore. In fact, I see little to no moral precedent for what our country is doing.

On the other hand, despite my vow of non-violence, anyone who speaks of sedition or advocates the overthrow of our country becomes my enemy, and from within my belief in non-violent action, I will do everything in my power to prevent their actions. Those of you who know me on a personal basis perhaps still do not realize how seriously I take such matters, and that I will willingly surrender what is left of my life, if need be, in the defense of liberty. That has never changed.

In the interim, I have been Empire Building, something for which I am not necessarily well-equipped, but something which I have historically been successfully been able to do throughout my sixty years of life. Of course, being totally-honest about who I am or am not, I could not have done any of my current phase of Empire Building were it not for Bob Kirkpatrick, who over a decade ago taught me by example, how to run Unix/Linux. Thus far I have passed his legacy onto four other people, each of whom I have taught to become self-teaching.

So what else is new? The Usenet news server still is running, and according to an old friend I met last night, his favorite cigar newsgroup still perseveres. Most of the old faces that once brought life and laughter to the Used Kharma Lot newsgroups have departed for other pastures, leaving a vacuum in their wake that perhaps is as troublesome to me as other things in my life, while a few of the “old timers” still drop by from time to time to see if I have stepped on my sword yet. Sometime soon I will be migrating the news off my public IP address and putting it on Cutting Edge's network. It will still be news.kharma.net, but it will be in a new location, with much-better technology and more bandwidth than I can offer it. I have Cutting Edge Communications to thank for that, as during my phase of Empire Building, we have been collaborating in a number of unique and different ways.

Unfortunately, most of my writing these days consists of rather dry and uninteresting material, such as manuals and other technically-oriented fare, although I have recently been writing fiction once again, as of late. Perhaps my next project will be to post some of those stories, including several extensions to the Tales of Pearl Street, as well as several Tales of the City and a handful of other children's fiction where the public can see what I do with what little idle time I have these days. After all, Empire Building takes a lot of resources and time.

April 18, 2005 Once, a long time ago, I had an encounter with an angry old brown recluse spider who had been quietly living out his life beneath my wood pile behind my house. In the late spring, as I finished off the last half-cord of firewood, I uncovered their nest, and not being really terribly concerned about the nest of spider webs I found, I carried an armful of dried firewood into the house in preparation for what I thought would probably be my last fires of the winter, as by then, the mornings were well into the forties and low fifties. Most mornings I didn't need a fire to drive the chill off, instead taking my morning coffee out on the deck facing the morning sun.

However, the next morning, as I grabbed an armful of wood from the firebox, I was bitten twice by a brown recluse spider, who hung on doggedly until I was bitten pretty good, judging by what happened later that afternoon, when my leg became swollen up and badly inflamed. I eventually ended up with a pair of permanent scars which I bear to this day.

That was nearly twenty years ago. Two weeks ago, I was bitten a multiple number of times by what appears in retrospect to be a hobo spider, another necrotic spider indigenous to the Inland Northwest. Being twenty-some years older, and by now, living with Type-II Diabetes, the results were far more dramatic than in my previous contact with a necrotic spider, as this time I have had to submit myself to the care of a wise and caring doctor, undergo several shots for several days and take antibiotics for 20 days. Along the way, I had cold sweats, fevers, chills and some of the wildest nightmares of my entire adult life, all while portions of my leg continued rotting away-- after all, that is what necrosis means, or didn't you know that? In the words of my doctor, I just came close to dying of systemic infections caused by the spider bites.

What would be funny, were it not for the two weeks of living in pain, would be the name of the spider that got me which, when translated from the latin, means “aggressive household spider”. Having just met one of the tiny pale tan hobo spiders living in my basement today, I cannot consciously think of a name more applicable to this species of arachnid. A spider about the diameter of an AA battery tried putting “the moves” on me and nearly caught me sleeping at the wheel. Somehow sensing my presence in the room, and knowing my innermost desire to eliminate all of its species from the planet, this tiny little scurrying menace turned fully toward me, waved its tiny tentacles in my direction, and then ran at me with amazing speed. Boom! One minute it is walking away from me, the next minute it has acquired my leg as a target and is very aggressively heading in my direction.

SPLAT! One shoe meets one aggressive household spider. The final score, SPIDER 0 DAVE 10, well except for the fact that I've spent two weeks and change in agony, and never had the privilege of meeting the spider that actually got a piece o'my flesh. Necrotic spiders, such as the hobo or the brown recluse, can make you really sick in a big way, and you may not even know it when they bite you. You have been warned.

March 29, 2005 The news server running on Kharma's domain has been upgraded today, and although there are those who are asking why I bother, much less why I waste the bandwidth I pay for on Usenet news, the answer is neither sublime nor even nearly so uncomplicated as it might seem. I do it because I want to, and if it pleases me, and I pay for the services it runs over, no one else should ever question the reasons why it is there. It is, in my humble opinion, the last bastion of the unwashed masses on the Internet, as everything else, from web pages to Web logs, is either owned by or controlled by faceless entities with corporate agendas. The last great American cowboy, in my opinion, probably would read Usenet news if he/she knew of its existence, as it is the last bastion of free and open expression left in a knee-jerk society of mindless number crunchers. So long as there are people such as Connie Pierre and Frank Reichert who need access to it, news will run off Kharma until my last dying gasp of air. I do not have to agree with either of their philosophies or lifestyles; simply support their RIGHT to express themselves.

March 10, 2005 The news this last week has been largely that the drought, which all the farmers and people who actually live on the land, have known about for months and months, suddenly became apparent to most of the “city folk” who are, for the most part, ignorant of the relationship between a loaf of Wonder Bread and those attractive wheat fields to the west and south of Spokane. That is because the price of hard wheat, which is one of the primary portions of the food chain, is about to rise through the roof. In fact, there is hardly any portion of the wheat crop that isn't being bid hot and heavy in the Boards of Trade, with wheat futures that were purchased last fall now worth double, and in some cases, triple their original value. While I've never been a fan of stocks and bonds, much less the crop futures, I am very much a man of the land, and such technical documents as the Washington State Report on Relative Moisture Content are very much of interest to me.

WITH THE SNOW PACK AVERAGING 26 PERCENT OF NORMAL STATEWIDE, THE state Department of Ecology could declare a drought emergency as early as this week. (Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 7) The National Weather Service says summer-like conditions will prevail for at least another week, and could hang around all spring. Forecasters also say it is too late to hope for any help from late-spring snows. The situation is reminding many climatologists of 1977, which would make this summer the worst drought in a generation.

It gets even worse than that. Anytime you let the Department of Ecology in on anything newsworthy, they develop a knee-jerk reaction and immediately form a study group to make certain the problem is verifiable, studied with maximum effectiveness and a maximum of bureaucracy. Our Governor (is she really?) has stated to the news media that she will be declaring a drought in Washington State within the next 24 hours. That means she has already made up her mind.

I could have told her there is a drought, and I could have saved all that money she has spent on the bureaucrats.

March 2, 2005 Ye Gods, but I have been sick! Of course the folks of the medical malpractice community all come rushing in the door of awareness shrieking that my sickness is entirely my responsibility, because I smoke and tend to overwork myself, and hence they owe no obligation, whatsoever, to help me in a meaningful way whenever I fall down on my prat. However, in all fairness to my doctor, Dr. Carolyn Hendrickson, she doesn't take our conversation that direction. Instead, she smiles at me with those lustrous big eyes, and truly does the best she knows to keep me living to fight yet another day with the best medical technologies available to her. Hell, it's only the first time in my adult life I had a doctor that actually cares about me. That, by itself, is the biggest condemnation I could ever lay at the feet of the medical community. Most physicians simply don't care about their patients. When I first came down with the disease from Hell, I knew enough to get some antibiotics and hie myself off to bed because I had a bad fever. I couldn't breathe because my lungs sounded like someone dragging a tin can full of rocks behind them in the passing lane on the freeway.

Two shots, a bottle of power pills ten gallons of various juices and five days of bed rest later, I'm propped up in the corner, fully functional but still taking it easy. I worry about the Bob-a-Doo, who has the same thing, only worse, because as a victim of Rockwood Clinic, he doesn't have a doctor that gives a damn. In my opinion, the Rockwood Medical Clinic here in Spokane practices what I believe is “voodoo medicine”. They might as well have a team of witch doctors jumping up and down and making a racket with various rattles, for all the good they do their patients. They hurt my Suzie, and were never held responsible. They ignored an old woman with a broken leg in front of me, and had I not made a big stink about it at the time, I'm sure she'd still be sitting there waiting for them to dispense something to help her with the pain.

In that department, I am extremely fortunate in having a doctor who cares. It makes all the difference in the world.

February 22, 2005 Based largely upon what little I see on the tube, I have drawn the conclusion our entire nation is obsessed with how each of us look at the expense of what we have learned. At age 59, I don't suppose there is a lot I can do about my appearance, which is perhaps why I reserve my very best derision for the “extreme makeovers” one encounters on the television. Do any of the shows ever re-visit a house that was once featured on an extreme makeover? Wouldn't it be absolutely hilarious if, after all the improvements and money invested, six months later the house that had been made over simply slid right back into the state of degeneration where it started? Of course, the other question that remains unanswered is have you ever noticed that none of the housing that gets chosen for renovation is in the urban ghetto? Any black families chosen for urban renewal by these programs are always safely located in upscale nearly all-white neighborhoods. Now you know why I'll never be a success story in an ultimate makeover show on TV.

January 16, 2005 Kharma's news server is having major difficulty with the new news feeds. I have sought for over a decade to provide a free text-based news feed without having the resources to do so. Somebody once must have said “...there is never enough bandwidth” because that has been the story of my life. When I finally get the news feed adjusted to where I am pulling most of the significant technical newsgroups, I run out of bandwidth to serve it. It is that, or something else entirely breaks. There are a lot of people who ask the rhetorical question “Why bother?” but my answer always has been, “...it's something I do”. As of this morning, I'm trying to see how much Usenet news I can fit in my humble DSL pipe.

November 5, 2004 Although we are very much in the preliminary stages of this change, we will be bringing the Libertarian newsgroup, spk.liberty_nw back online within the next few weeks, as Frank Reichert has contacted me in e-mail and shown interest in firing up the newsgroup, once again.

October 29, 2004 The first tangible fingers of winter just scraped across the chalkboard of the Inland Northwest the last few days, bringing with them a touch of frost, even in the valleys and low-lying lands surrounding Spokane. As I was driving across Fourth of July Pass early this morning, I pulled off at the summit and pondered what kinds of signs and hints nature was giving me about the coming winter. No sooner than the conscious thought crossed my mind in a moment of introspection than a small herd of deer, including several pregnant does, delicately crossed the Interstate, their tiny hooves making a clacking noise against the weathered concrete of the roadway. There have been unprecedented deer sightings, even collisions between deer and automobiles in the Spokane area, over the last six months, which tends to make me think the deer are moving rapidly down into the valleys. Given that I believe deer, like most feral animals, somehow are able to sense Mother Nature's weather patterns before they arrive, I cannot help but predict that this winter will be mean-spirited and full of things that make men and women my age ache in their bones.

October 8, 2004 What a wildly unpredictable summer this has been. The madness and mayhem began with a highly-announced trip to Nebraska to meet, for the first time, with my son, Greg, and bond with various members of Suzie's family. For someone who never really had a close family of any kind, suddenly meeting over 30 inlaws, outlaws, sisters and brothers of Suzie's huge family was quite a shock. I have never quite gotten over some of the changes that took place during the “pilgrimage” to Nebraska, since I wasn't certain from the beginning, that I could even fulfill my promise to Suzie that I would deliver her to Lincoln, Nebraska from Spokane by car in less than 25 hours, let alone that, just prior to leaving, the tiny town of Hallam, Nebraska, where I apparently have distant relatives, simply ceased to be from an F5 tornado that whipped through town just as we were preparing to leave.

Setember 16, 2004 The 13^th annual meeting of The Used Kharma Lot Board of Directors took place, and aside from a few minor changes to the roster of web sites we host for free, the only comments offered by those upon whose guidance I rely were something like “Where the hell did you go this summer?” to “God, you're getting old”. I plead guilty on both counts, whenever confronted by friend and foe alike. There are some days when I simply laugh at myself, for I am, indeed, getting older. However, like good wine, there are always unseen and unsuspected improvements that come over time. Use accordingly.

June 10, 2004 Thanks to President Bush's economic policies, the most vulnerable of the mentally ill in Spokane County soon will be unable to obtain mental health care by any means. Bush altered how Medicaid benefits are paid out, hence none of the long-term mentally ill will have any resources on which to draw. Perhaps wiser minds will look back on this time in history, such as they are doing with the late Ronald Reagan, and choose to remember Bush's greatness and leadership in a time of war. However, I will never forget the number of truly innocent people, the mentally ill, who are left at the mercies of savage animals on the streets of Spokane and beyond. I guess that probably will make me politically-incorrect, but then I also remember Reagan's role in Iran-Contra, and accord the lack of memory on so many in the news media to their wasted youth. Eventually someone will look at the issues of the mentally ill and call a spade a spade, but not so long as George Bush is in the White House.

June 5, 2004 It has been a long sad week, after returning from the sheer bliss of Montana and an unnamed Bluegrass Festival. It is somewhat startling to me that, at age 58, I show no ill effects from having stayed up nearly half the nights I was there singing and playing guitar until dawn, and in one instance, even later than that. Yes, children, I didn't stumble into the motor home and a short nap on Thursday until nearly 9:30 in the morning. One of my absolute favorite times, the Sunday Morning Gospel jam, was especially good this year, with a family of first-time visitors who sang some of the most delightful old-time gospel music, much of which I grew up singing. There were 141 motor homes and travel trailers registered this spring, with in excess of 20 first-time visitors. Unfortunately, due to a minor problem with a family from Libby, the festival is now an invitation-only event, which shouldn't provide that much of a problem to most folks reading this, but still it should be stated emphatically that once again, the festival retained its crime-free status. In days we created a town nearly as large as Libby, Montana, and made music for over a week, yet no crimes nor violence took place. Now you know why it became invitation only.

It should also be noted that this was the first year that, due to my prolonged stay in Montana, I had to check my servers in Spokane remotely. Thanks to some really professional people in Libby, I had access to a wireless connection, and was able to not only do my daily maintenance tasks, but was able to rectify a minor problem on a Spokane server in between sessions of playing Old-Time music. The only way things could get even better than that would be if I could play music here in Spokane while working at my job.

May 25, 2004 Finally! The much sought-after date is here, the date in which I pack myself into the motor home and leave for portions of Montana. I'll be gone from tomorrow until a week from Sunday, and for the most part, as I have already informed nearly everyone who has the misfortune of being in my personal mailing list, I simply will not be answering e-mail unless it is from clients. I will spend most of my day writing, and when I am not engaged in that, I will be listening to and performing music beneath the trees. Although for the last few years, this has become an bi-annual event, once each spring and fall, this particular summer is made even more complicated by the fact that, no sooner than I return from Montana, I will be planning and leaving for parts of the Midwest, on a sojourn to visit my son, Greg, and Suzie's parents. Since the other day, a tornado flattened an entire town, Hallam, Nebraska, 20 miles south of where Suzie's parents live, I'll be taking along my sure-fire anti-tornado spray, just in case one of those dreaded twisters even THINKS about looking my way. One spray out of the patented four foot-tall spray can, and those dreaded funnels turn to butterflies, I am told, although I'll concede it, like the mythological bullshit spray used on politicians and other unsavory characters from City Hall, is largely untested. To date, unfortunately, BS Spray hasn't worked yet, but there is always hope.

May 17, 2004 I'm truly looking forward to my coming trip to Montana. The last two times I've attended Pasture Pickin' in Libby, I've had stories that were the logical outcome of that trip published in various magazines and literary journals, most of which came with a small stipend for my literary style, if you can call it that. I'm packing my trusty road machine, a laptop, and plenty of Zip disks, optimistically thinking I might actually FILL a 100 megabyte disk with my writings while sitting beneath the trees. Two of the stories weren't even about the music at Pasture Pickin' at all, but about some of the wonderful, old-time traditions that I have come to expect of Dale and Dorothy Berg. One was about a man who traveled hundreds of miles in a battered red Chevy Luv Pickup truck to attend Pasture Pickin' armed with little more than his collection of harmonicas and an ice chest to keep his beer cold. He ended up having what amounted to heat stroke from sleeping in the August heat in the back of that pickup, unfortunately. However, the line of those attending the festival wove down the halls of the hospital in Libby, waiting to see their friend. He fortunately fully recovered, and is expected to attend this year, once more providing some of the best harmonica music in the Western States. Of course, you can see some of the festivals past by going to http://www.pasturepickin.com which is the website I created and maintain for all those good times I've enjoyed. It is truly one of my places in the heart.

May 16, 2004 I am still somewhat puzzled at the fact I achieved recognition from The Local Planet, our only underground newspaper of its type, here in Spokane. I wrote what I would term a dirty little ditty about the purposed ban on smoking in public buildings, which not I not only got paid for its publication, but the promise of future writing tasks. The possibility that I could be writing frequently in the future for The Planet actually is much more than I had ever hoped for. Perhaps, as I have said before, I can make a difference, after all.

April 20, 2004 I am somewhat remiss in writing in what's new, simply because most of the disposable time I would otherwise spend on this, the online musings which are simply my own, I have spent on other writing projects which may or may not be suitable for public consumption. Sometime after I return from Pasture Pickin', I will have to update the web page a bit, as there are a handful of new stories to be posted, and I'm even in the throes of changing the format of the old web page to something people don't snicker about. Unlike most people reading this, I have more projects that I have axes to chop them into little, more-manageable pieces.

April 12, 2004 The day started with a sense of resignation when I learned from my brother Paul that my mother passed away early this morning at approximately 7:00 AM CDT in Kankakee, Illinois. It probably would startle some that think they might know me that I haven't seen my late mother for over 35 years, for as some of my family members now are admitting to themselves after years of silence, I am a victim of ritualistic child abuse. My father for years had an ugly habit of beating me over insigificant slights, often embarrassing the entire family with his outbursts. By the time I was 16 years old, there was nothing left of my involvement with my family, other than with my grandparents who, until their deaths, were constant mentors to me in many ways. Despite a promise I made myself several months back, when I first discovered my mother had Alzheimer's Disease and was slowly fading away, that I wouldn't spend a lot of time on the matter, because she was very much a stranger to me, I found myself reflecting on our somewhat tortured experience together as son and mother. Still, despite the momentary pause in my otherwise hectic day today, I accomplished nearly everything I had set before myself as goals despite the occasional feelings of loss. I have many friends in this life. Some understand me better than I understand myself, at times, while others presume they know me and say little more of the matter. The test of time is, in my quiet moments, how many of my friends' faces I can recall in my conscious memory with just a thought. My mother hasn't been there, in my memories, after decades of simply trying to forget the past. What a sorry thing to have to say, but I know, from hundreds, if not thousands of interviews with victims of child abuse, I am not alone. If I am proud, it is because I beat the odds. For 63% of all victims of child abuse themselves become abusers, and to date, I have never abused a child. Perhaps that is little consolation, but it is something I cling to on nights such as these when my sense of the past falters slightly.

April 10, 2004 Here it is, nearing 2:00 AM in the morning, and because of a number of equally minor factors, I cannot sleep. I spoke at length with my son, Greg, tonight, and informed him that my mother is dying of Alzheimer's Disease in a Midwest hospital. Given the fact I haven't seen nor communicated with my mother in nearly 30 years, I'm sure neither Greg nor anyone else in my family, extended nor immediate, really expects much of me when mom finally succumbs. According to the latest report from the hospital, it is now a matter of days or perhaps even hours, as in keeping with her living will, they have unplugged her feeding tube, disconnected her from the respirator and are simply waiting for the inevitable. My two remaining brothers are handling her affairs, and given the situation, I would accomplish nothing positive by flying to be at her side, because as part of the disease, she would never recognize me, no more than she would recognize either of my brothers, both of whom she has seen in the last two years. It might be considered callous or perhaps cruel, but I have mourned more for members of my extended family who have passed away than I will mourn the passage of my mother. Her relationship to me was largely a conditional situation. I owe her my thanks for raising me, but given the intolerable things that were allowed to happen to me at the hands of my step-father during my upbringing, it is much easier simply to let go of the past.

April 04, 2004 With all the other changes that have come in our lives, the decision by my wife, Suzie, to write her first book has ranked right up near the top of incredible events of the last year. What has made this such a preposterous event has to be the level of national support the book is receiving even before the final chapters are written. The History of Floriography has achieved more acclaim in the first three months of writing than both my books at the same respective time. Floral designers, florists, floral wholesalers and well-renown players at the highest levels of the floral industry all are clamoring to read the latest chapters, and want to help support Suzie in her endeavor. Although some of the rough drafts of chapters have appeared in various Used Kharma Lot newsgroups, the greatest part of the authoring process sits in various directories scattered across my network, as the process of research laboriously goes on almost on a nightly basis. Not only has Suzie attained a considerable level of Spokane-local notoriety in her efforts, several world-class editors, promoters and literary agents, having read the early rough drafts, have also joined the fray. Based upon my experience, it is unheard of for a first-time author to have such a following of professionals eagerly supporting and aiding her cause, but at every turn, there is someone, either from within the floral industry, or from within the literary industry, wanting to climb aboard and become part of Suzie's invisible team of supporters. To myself as a writer who has struggled mightily for each achievement I've attained, it has been just plain fascinating watching Suzie grow into being a writer, albeit one with her own built-in support group.

April 1, 2004 How ironic! It's April Fools Day. Originally this page was to be just a means of keeping everyone updated as to changes and events taking place on The Used Kharma Lot. However, a lot of that has changed over the last six months of my life. Especially now that the Cowles have taken a sudden urgency to their highlighting of local weblogs in Spokane, I decided to convert this simple little page of updates into a hand-rolled weblog of my own, always in the hope that someday someone will look back on this time and realize the Cowles don't ever do anything unless it serves their own lucrative but questionable purposes. If you look through the lens of their list of weblogs in the paper, both on line and in print, you'll never see a weblog that has any but the most glowing terms to say about Riverpark Square. Therefore, this page has become a weblog solely to represent those people in Spokane who recognize the Cowles culpability, their greed and most of all, how much of the City's resources they have stolen from us all to build Riverpark Square. That, unfortunately, is no joke whatsoever. If you want an April Fools Day joke, you have no further to look than Stacey Cowles himself, in my opinion.

March 29, 2004 Having spent the last few months watching transfixed as the Spokesman-Review has “rethought” their image, including a series of smarmy self-serving little articles about River Park Square and its parking garage, and having read a great deal of the hard-fought information available on Camas Magazine's fact-filled web site camasmagazine.com, I have some pretty accurate knowledge of the true situations surrounding the Cowles and their incestuously dirty little deals. Where before, it was difficult, if not outright impossible to get facts from the Cowles regarding the deal, itself, suddenly now they are warmly forthcoming with all sorts of what we are reassured are “the facts” surrounding this ugly bit of business that has so alienated so many, and cost the City of Spokane billions of dollars. Betsy Cowles and her brother, Stacey, have a virtual vice grip lock on Spokane's news media, controlling not only the primary newspaper in town, but KHQ-TV, as well. What news they don't want to cover never gets heard, in most cases, and what misrepresentations they want placed in the public's collective mind, has always been placed before our eyes as if it were factually-accurate. Most of what has appeared in print regarding the Riverpark Square deal by the Cowles was flawed in a number of ways, including accuracy. What is appearing now, in print, in the Spokesman-Review is what I would term “damage control”, and nothing else.

March 13, 2004 It's been awhile since I last updated the What's New page simply because there have been too many other projects, any of which have been capable of grabbing and retaining my attention. I am continuing to withdraw my support from bluegrass music in Spokane, while increasing my support of music in general, in other ways. One of my most-recent additions in the latter category is the recent creation of http://www.pasturepickin.com for dear friends in Montana, and the termination of various other web sites associated with bluegrass music in Spokane. In the immediate near future, I will be performing a site-wide overhaul of The Used Kharma Lot web site, itself. Figuring prominently in the change is a conversion from using Microsoft Publisher to Front Page format, without losing a lot of the “flavor” of the site, itself. My talented and delightful step-daughter, a graphics designer for a huge mega-site retail outlet in Chicago, will handle the graphics and logo development for me, thus improving the overall visual appearance. In the next two months, as the season at the Longhorn Barbecue Open Mike Night (http://longhornopenmike.spokane.wa.us concludes, the web site will be deprecated and eventually closed as part of further withdrawal and disinvolvement from bluegrass music in Spokane, while a number of other music-related web sites are already in the planning stages. Stay tuned for new developments, which will be announced here, first, before they are implemented.

January 22, 2004 The web sites johnpowersformayor.com, net and org have all been deprecated and their domain names removed from the local DNS. These three web sites were deliberately purchased as a means to harass and otherwise confuse the campaign of the former emcumbent Mayor of Spokane, John Powers, who simply let his campaign web sites expire, thus putting them up for sale. It must have worked, because Powers not only had to purchase new campaign signs and a revised campaign web site, but he also lost by a substantial margin, although my candidate, Tom Grant, also lost to former Senator Jim West. Powers' web site, at the peak of the campaign, received thousands of hits each day, and was recognized, in print, as a spoiler gambit by no less than the Spokesman-Review, despite my continued insistence that Betsy Cowles is one of Spokane's villains.

January 14, 2004 The Used Kharma Lot got a much-needed upgrade this morning, converting from the old and often saturated 256 Megabyte DSL line that has been in place for nearly seven years, to a new, faster 1.5 Megabyte line. The news server, which has been a tortoise during the daytime and marginally fast at night, suddenly is running at its full capacity 24/7. In fact, the server is so much faster than before, I will have to purchase some additional RAM for the primary server, itself, and possibly even diversify the number of servers from its present two to three or perhaps even four, as part of the further expansion of the existing Kharma.net domain.

December 15, 2003 As you can see from the Kharma Lot's front page, I've decided to proceed in orderly fashion with some limited disclosure as to (1) what I knew, (2) when I knew it, and (3) why I couldn't tell anyone what I knew, once I tried to talk with authorities. The assertive word there is tried, because I made repeated overtures to give full disclosure. My cell phone records, which were subpoenaed, unquestionably prove that I tried. When the cops lied to me, attempted to play the “heavies” with me and bungled the evidence, my cooperation with them ended. From that point forward it was a gamble, on my part, that they would get enough evidence inside the missile silo to point to the killer(s). Justice was done, and Ralph H. Benson is going to prison for 31 years, 8 months. Given his age, that's about a life sentence. As another friend of mine frequently says, “Just right”. Barring a successful court appeal, it is over. If I had to do it all again, I would. Nobody kills my friends, nobody.

December 8, 2003 Well, the Christmas Season is upon us, and as has been my habit for over a decade, from now until Christmas Day a lot of my expendable time will be spent writing about Christmas from a number of different perspectives. Most of the new stories will appear in Usenet news in used_kharma.chat, although I may cross-post the pieces to other newsgroups, depending upon how satisfied I am with the stories, themselves. In addition I am working on getting Frank Reichert re-connected with the spk.liberty_nw newsgroup as he is the rightful heir to that, after all. When I'm not working on client projects, or attending to either of these projects, I'll be setting up The News, an index of newspapers and periodicals available on line, with the permission of its founder, Val Workman, who has ceased the operations of The News earlier this year. It will contain links to as many on line newspapers and periodicals as possible, and notes about their operation (subscriber-based or not) as are known at the time. In addition, there is a new news feed pouring into Kharma's news server, so it is possible within a week, perhaps less, that you will notice an increase in the size and density of the newsgroups list. However, there are other strategies planned for even the news server, as time will tell. Stay tuned...

November 12, 2003 Finally, it's over. After repeated complex negotiations between my attorney and the powers-that-be, I testified before the jury in Davenport, Washington last week, and my involvement in the investigation of the murder of my friend, Roger Erdman, is at an end. While there are a lot of comments being made on the news server, until very recently I hadn't considered how or what to say on a web page about the last year of my life. However, that is all about to end, within the next few weeks. Roger didn't deserve to die, and if the cops had been doing their jobs properly, I wouldn't have needed to even be remotely involved. Instead, against the very set of principles I espouse, I was forced to commit a number of minor crimes, and only then did I discover how Roger had been killed, mutilated by a man, Ralph Benson. After losing a number of good friends, being falsely accused of a number of different improprieties, and becoming a pariah to many people I once trusted with friendship, I think the entire story is fit for a web page. It will be coming. I've never wanted anything more in my entire life than to tell the story, unexpurgated, uncensored (yes, I even censored myself) as it has been. It's time for some payback. It won't bring Roger back, but perhaps it will put this sad episode in my life to rest, finally. Watch for it. It should appear once the jury in Davenport renders their verdict.

October 14, 2003 I made a mistake. I expect the stories and tales page to be updated within the next week, not within hours as I said. Sorry. I'm anxious to get this done, as there are a number of new tales I'm working on that will be included in the mix. (Postponed due to preparation for testimony)

October 13, 2003 Updated the front page, the what's new page, and the who am I page, all in one sitting. New stories will be posted in a highly-revised story book page in proper html format within days or perhaps even hours. <sigh>

October 11, 2003 At last!!! The new look-and-feel of The Kharma Lot's main web page is beginning to take shape. There are over half a dozen new stories that will be posted in the next 72 hours or so, a change in the front page, and yes, Greg, I changed the date this time so you didn't think your dad was a slacker.

October 8, 2003 The Used Kharma Lot's primary server blew a power supply early this afternoon, thus setting off all kinds of alarms. The primary was down for approximately ten minutes while I replaced the failed unit, and then again later, when I went down to install an extra case fan. Walking into the server room in the basement now reminds me of visiting the hairdresser up the street when all sixteen of their hair dryers are simultaneously in use.

October 2, 2003 I'm beginning the make some of the long-promised changes to the web pages, and still haven't managed to fumble-finger anything yet.

September 28, 2003 Egods! I'm finally getting around to fixing the web page, and updating some stuff after over a year! Don't get your shorts in a knot just yet, as I haven't decided just what I'm going to do with the venerable Used Kharma Lot just yet. Watch here and I'll announce the new arrivals as they come about.

September 20, 2003 After a long dry spell, probably due to the stress I have been under over Ralph Benson's murder trial, I suddenly found myself last night writing fiction again, for the first time in over a year. However, for the moment, I probably will not be posting it on Usenet news until I am satisfied with the results. However, it felt as if a load had suddenly been taken off my mind. It HAS been a long, long time.

September 6, 2003 Since the beginning of the summer, I have watched as one after another of the music web sites I created and deployed have quietly ceased operations at their owners' requests. It should be pointed out that the only music-related web sites I still host belong to personal, trusted friends. My wife and I have been the subject of some considerable back-stabbing behind-the-scenes over the last six months to a year, and we simply have ceased any involvement with most bluegrass music as interpreted by Spokane groups as a result. We are horrified at what various people have said about us, but we learned from our experiences.

April 19, 2003 The Used Kharma Lot turns a whopping ten years old tomorrow. It all began as a BBS on April 20, 1993 which ran for over three years from both Springdale and Clayton, Washington before being converted into a real Internet domain in early 1997. It has been through three different servers, six hard drives and numerous hardware upgrades. Through it, thirty-seven people, including musical groups and associations, have gotten free web pages with no tricks, and currently has 34 actual users who regularly receive e-mail, and over 100 IP addresses who regularly drop by to read Usenet news. Some say it is outdated or no longer has a purpose. I say to these folks, then go somewhere else for your Used Kharma. See if you can even find an outlet in these days of the politically correct. 'Nuf said.

April 19, 2003 After consulting with many of my friends, it is with profound regrets that early today I filed to have the domain name http://bluenoterounders.spokane.wa.us turned off. According to all the principals involved in the band, they are no longer viable, have no plans of performing again as a group and are defunct. I am so sorry to see this eclectic group of people, all of whom I call my friends, break up, but then isn't that what bands nearly always do?

April 18, 2003 My friend Bob, no doubt taking pity on me for having a pathetic logo, whipped out a new Kharma Lot logo earlier this evening, hence Kharma has an almost-new look. Having a new look, however, would be verboten, as this is very much more than ever the Used Kharma Lot.

April 18, 2003 Another new musicians' web page went up this afternoon, this time from Moses Lake, Washington. It is called Swing Music (AKA http://swingmusic.spokane.wa.us . It is owned by Alan Troupe, who is part of The Moses Lake Bluegrass Festival. This is not that festival's web page, however.

April 17, 2003 Taking time to swallow the lump in my throat, I politely asked a bluegrass band, The Bluegrass Conspiracy, closely associated with the INBA, if they would like a free web page from a really good web server I know. The jury is very much out debating. If this goes through, it could spell a dramatic improvement in all our lives.

April 17, 2003 I received notification from the throne of The Riverfest Co-ordinator of Riverfest Bluegrass Festival that after two years of free and friendly service, my services will no longer be needed. Thank you for playing. What those responsible for this turn of events don't know is I am physically going to Kamiah to see for myself how this came to pass; who said what to whom?

April 12, 2003 The web server was updated today to the latest version. I now have a giant fly-swatter and I'm looking for bugs or hackers, and not particular which comes first.

April 5, 2003 Another new musician's web page went up this evening, this one for Bruce Ainslie for his fascinating vibrant band Sidetrack which is very much making the rounds these days. Sidetrack is very much a growing enterprise, with a number of gigs coming up, some of them in familiar places. Go to http://sidetrack.spokane.wa.us to catch up on the latest news.

February 10, 2003 After some consideration, and a lot of double-talk, tonight I shut down The Fletcher's home page http://fletcher.spokane.wa since someone in their group has apparently been bad-mouthing Kharma all over the place, and I don't know nor care who it was. If I give someone something for free for three years, the least they can do is acknowledge the gift instead of listening to a malcontent who carefully crafts his lies and lack of experience to make it all look innocuous and factual.

January 1, 2003 Another musicians' web site went up last night, this time for the Longhorn Barbecue Open Mike night. Go to http://longhornopenmike.spokane.wa.us to watch it grow. Yes, Martha, it will grow pretty quickly, even for my humble outfit, considering I never got a degree in web design.

January 1, 2003 I have reviewed the input returns regarding the Musicians Calendar and Database, and the results were pretty impressive. I got over 25 positive responses from 8 different mail servers, with one Spokane-specific mail server blocked.

December 15, 2002 I am performing an evaluation of a number of different products, including the Musicians Calendar and Database, the abstract mailing list, the musicians' mailing list and various other products. Results should be posted here by January 1, 2003.

October 5, 2002 I finally crawled out of my sick bed this morning to see if I would live. I've been on-again-off-again trying to avoid catching pneumonia for about a week and change, and today I think I may have survived to live another day. Given all the web pages I have, I'll probably be working on the web server for at least another two or three days to catch up. If things disappear, it means an upgrade is underway. If things disappear and never return, it means I died of pneumonia. Send your collection of dandelions from the summer to mark my gravesite, please.

October 3, 2002 My delightful wife Suzie has her very first own web site! Although there isn't much there, right now, it's destined to become a virtual information booth of floral design here in Spokane. Although it will target other floral designers from throughout the Inland Northwest, anyone can “drop on by” and get helpful hints and ideas from the incredibly beautiful work Suzie does with flowers and other living things. Drop by http://floraldesign.spokane.wa.us for a visit and watch things grow.

October 1, 2002 There is a new Usenet news server being built for Kharma really soon now. It's installed in the rack downstairs, is up and functional, but first I have to get healthy enough to complete it. It should be much faster, and with the latest Red Hat software upgrade, should be secure ...until the next hack, that is.

September 26, 2002 If you are searching for ideas or want to give input to the changes that need to be made to our local government, you might want to drop by http://abetter.spokane.wa.us , a bit of a catchy web page name. There are some really good ideas coming forward from the membership of the group, and of course, you are always welcome to attend. Minutes, meeting times and information are all on the web site.

September 20, 2002 For the first time in the nearly twelve years Kharma has been in existence, I have had to firewall the usenet news server to prevent one or more persons who use an Icehouse dial-up account to access the internet from reading the news. If people who have dial-up accounts through Icehouse would like to read news off Kharma, you'll need to contact me in e-mail so that I can issue you each a username and unique password. I apologize utterly for any inconvenience this may cause you, but there isn't a lot of alternatives. Someone betrayed my trust.