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Friday, March 04, 2005

So I'm thinking maybe I need an IPOD now as I filled my bag this morning with my Jimi Hendrix cd collection so I could listen to that song that it turns out wasn't even by Hendrix.

I'm listening "Electric Ladyland" and the song playing "Come On, Part 1" and I'm having flashbacks to stoner parties in high school and college. I haven't listened to Hendrix in a long, long time, and damn, the music is good, bitchin' really even it's just a tad too dated. But then a classic guitar riff never quite goes out of style does it? And I'd forgotten how good the bass lines are on his songs as well, pretty funky really considering it's classic hippie rock-n-roll.
I've been thinking of this song all morning that I heard awhile back on a TV show that I was watching. I thought it was a Jimi Hendrix song, but it wasn't. It's by a 60's group I've never even heard of called The Chambers Brothers, and the song is "Time has come today".

Here are the lyrics.

Time Has Come Today
performed by The Chambers Brothers

Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can't put it off another day
And I don't care what the others say
'Cause they say we don't listen anyway
Time has come today, Hey!

The rules have changed today, Hey!
I have no place to stay, Hey!
And I'm thinkin' about the subway, Hey!
Love has gone away, Hey!
And tears have come and gone, Hey!
Oh my God, I have to run, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!

Now the time has come, Time!
There's no place to run, Time!
Might get burned up by the sun, Time!
Well, I've had my fun, Time!
Well, I've been loved and put aside, Time!
And I've been crushed by tumblin' tide, Time!
And my soul's be psychedelicized, Time!

Now the time has come, Time!
There are things to realize, Time!
Time has come today, Time!
Time has come today, Time!

Time!

Now the time has come, Time!
There are things to realize, Time!
Time has come today, Time!
Time has come today, Time!

Time!

I was in a good mood this morning, can you tell? I even danced around at 7:30 am to my favourite 60's I want to fall in love song "Get Together" by The Youngbloods. Haven't done that since the late 90's. I think I'm ready to fall in love again.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

More disturbing information from this national health care report.

Between 850,000 and 950,000 individuals are infected with HIV in the U.S, an estimated quarter of who are unaware that they are infected. Each year, about 40,000 people acquire HIV infection. Since the use of the drug therapy to treat HIV infection became widespread in 1996, new AIDS cases declined among the mid-1990’s to 2001, but then leveled off in 2002. Since its emergence 500,000 Americans have died from AIDS, including over 16,000 in 2002.

AIDS incidences and death rates vary by race and ethnicity. Blacks make up 12% of the population in the U.S., but they accounted for 50% of the new AIDS cases reported in the U.S. in 2002. Hispanics also have higher AIDS incidence compared with whites. AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women 25 to 34 and black men 35 to 44.
I'm summarizing a report on National Health Care at work, when I ran across the following paragraph: Are you just a statistic in government health report?

Over 40 million people aged 18 to 64 had a mental disorder in the past year, and about 20 million had a serious mental disorder that substantially limited activities. In 2003, about 16 million Americans age 12 and over were heavy alcohol drinkers and about 54 million had a recent binge drinking episode. About 20 million people aged 12 and older were illicit drug users and about 71 million people reported the use of a tobacco product. The direct costs of mental disorders and substance abuse amounted to $99 billion in 1996; lost productivity and premature death accounted for an additional $75 billion.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

I just found out some disturbing news about my former meditation teacher. Talk about my world being rocked. He was someone I respected and trusted for his knowledge and wisdom and his spirituality. What was even more disturbing is one of the people involved was someone I knew and that without knowing it, I was part of the drama. Not that I knew what was going on, but I was there during the events she described in her allegations. I was there, I knew the names of the people involved, and yet I was ignorant to what was really going on.

Other people I know have corroborated the allegations, people I also trust. Talk about freaky! This all happened almost 15 years ago, and I'm only finding out about it now because I just happen to google my former teacher to find out if the group had a website.

In the shower this morning, I felt such a loss of identity that for a few seconds I didn't know who I was anymore. That group and my teacher had been such a part of who I was, who I became, and who I am to a large extent today.

The only good part of the whole incident, if there is a good part, is her allegations gave me insight into incidents that I had observed and that had happened to me 15 years earlier that at the time I didn't know how to comprehend or even process. Incidents that were so baffling to me that I never told anyone about them, not even my best friends. The only people who knew about the incidents I saw that particular year were in Bali on vacation during Gulf War 1.

Talk about a part of your self dying like a snake shedding another layer of skin. And why now? Why did it have to come out now? It's not like I was looking for it, it wasn't like I thought my life was damaged greatly by what happened.

A friend said I must have been traumatized by it because I've kept it secret for 15 years. Was I? I don't know. In my mind, I don't think anyone who wasn't there in Bali, who wasn' t part of the group, who didn't understand the group dynamics I was a part of would have understood it. I barely understood it myself. I lived through it yes, but some incidents in life I think are never meant to be understood, may be are never meant to be processed. Until last night, until today.

It feels like a veil was lifted, and that maybe I'm old enough and mature enough to deal with mentally what happened. I don't know. I keep going back to something I've always thought was nice but have never ever experienced for very long; ignorance is pure bliss.