So, Turkey’s Prime minister Tayyip Erdodan threatens Syria with war over said “accidental” shelling of a southern province. So one asks the question: putting the tragic loss of the five Turkish civilians who lost their lives t in the shelling, could a full-scale response from Turkey’s superior military be better timed? While Assad’s forces may, for the moment, have superior military resources, could he really be expected to maintain a multi-front engagement with both the rebel forces ( who are already enjoying Turkish zones of safety) and actual engaged Turkish forces?

No, they can’t. which begs the question: is Assad’s forces so inept that they’d (intentionally or otherwise) risk a direct retaliation from Turkey’s military?

So far, Russia and China have blocked any direct response (economic or military) from the United Nations. One hardly needs a degree in political science to understand why. That said, could Turkish intervention (obstenibly justified) be the solution the United Nations and the U.S needs?

On a very different note, the Rock and Roll hall of Fame has finally come to their senses, at last promising the chance for one of  rock’s most talented groups a WELL DESERVED chance to FINALLY be inducted into their halls. I for one can’t wait to see them perform live here in Alpharetta November first.

Been listening to the Alan Hunt show from – I believe – nearly the beginning. Picked up with his discussion of the paucity of choices the Republican party faces. According to recent poll Trump and Huckabee top two choices. Tore Trump UP as candidate in context of his greatest strength -and he gives Trump due credit – being a the penultimate “snakeoil salesman.” Played excerpts from interview with Trump  re the role of faith/religion in his life. It’s worth listening to as it proves Hunt’s point: Trump is in this for the opportunity to continue the branding of  what is undoubtedly one of the greatest ego success stories of the age. As Hunt concedes, being a megalomaniac hardly precludes sincerity, or passion. Ego is, however, as ego does. It’s very success depends upon it being accommodated, fed. If anyone should even go so far as to compare Trump’s energy, passion, to that of Reagan…Trump lacks the poise, hair, and, most importantly, the humility. In Spades.

While discussing Trump Hunt noted the persecution Obama would have endured if he’d made similar (vapid and cow-towing) comments. Speaks to the waste of time the Birther argument represents. Only to go on to tear at Obama’s intent to raise taxtes; the nonchalant attitude. The administration’s policy of  bending over to kiss their own shoes in a disgusting show of the worst form of political-cultural pandering.

It was was Hunt’s discussion Islam’s place in Western society, ie America, that was most arresting. Starting with France’s enacting law prohibiting women from wearing burkas in public, Hunt’s advice to America is simple: close the borders, and not with malice. Rather, with the sad acknowledgment that our two cultures simply can’t get along, so, so long.

It’s brave, well though-out. Brash. Worth listening to.

Seasonal transitions in Atlanta; if you don’t like the weather etc et al. Snowpocalypse in January. 71 degrees first week of February. April Fools day high of 60, the ten degrees a stark diffrence in the shade, even beneath bellies of Spring birch, leaves the color of mint…Pine pollen. If you suffer Spring allergies yer fooked.

I don’t.

Topical.

Right. It’s been a while. No excuse. Back again, at the prompting of my own Muse, Rider, and Shee. Back to putting Gathering Spirits in context. Topical.

Spring in Atlanta. Dogwoods. Dogwoods in bloom. Dogwoods in bloom lining winding medians for miles along otherwise empty business park parkways under a new moon; white petal bellies bathed in sodium light.

Letterman interviewing James Franco; guy’s got a refreshingly honest sense of humor, referring to his chances of winning Best Actor against Colin Firth, and in context of him hosting the awards.

Fair enough.

Where was I? Spring. School. Kids flooding to Florida. Leaves on trees again. Green. Green.

Sex. No. Yes. Flesh. That is, more of it. Or the promise of such. Out tonight, in Midtown. Popular watering hole off Piedmont just before the park. Small crowd, the regulars shuffle in, as it were. Sparse. I blame it on the weather, temperature having dropped the past several days, Friday was cool as well, the sun never completely breaking the could cover it remained cool into the evening. My point: economics. If we;re going to be in a patio paying for drinks on a Friday sunshine and cerulean skies are a prerequisite for our investment. A splash of ultramarine for the ladies and olive for all in the forces and we;re good to go. And 68 degrees at least.

Being Atlanta we will get it. Days of it. Days and days of blossom falling, honeysuckle, sunlight drying on pavement, dust, car exhaust, the Braves (or not), rain (or not).

I want to go camping. I miss it. It suddenly pisses me off that I’ve given it up, havn’t made the time for it.

LOL Shee camping…That would be something. Shee and friends. That would be something.

Spring. Atlanta. Facebook. Gathering Spirits. Facebook. Is it just irony that Google email doesn’t recognize Facebook as a word.

(actually posted Jan 17th) Meant to post this last night, but, as is still relevant here goes…

Well, fuck!

That sound you hear?  The sucking of wind? It was that bell jar I mentioned in a previous post lifting last Saturday, just in time for also aforementioned Falcons’ Playoff game. Expectations were high; Atlanta’s collective sense of self-awareness/absorption equally jacked.

Of course the bell jar hadn’t been air tight;  we were aware of Tuscon.  My medium du jour that Monday immediately following the storm was over-the-air digital TV: WSB. I sat my happy ass on the couch and surfed as I let images and soundbites, updates, road conditions, children on sleds – though most on rubbermaid lids – school closings warnings from the DOT to PLEASE stay off the streets wash over me. I Drank coffee.

That grew old Tuesday- not the coffee drink part-  and I switched to the radio. am750. Boortz in the morning, some Hannity at night; immediately apparent that all too many all too eager to politicize Tuscon. Shocked? Hardly. Not my point. Point of character. On a similar more zeitgeisty front watercooler talk tuned to the Golden Globes (OMG it’s Johnny Depp!)  But make no mistake,  Saturday was about us.  We’d survived It. For thousands of parents, survived the extra week with their offspring.  In the same house. 24/7.

As a city Atlanta woke up last Saturday, finished with snow and ice, hungry for milk and bread for our souls, the morning air not quite as dry. We stretched. Fired up the cars and headed out beneath blue skies to Starbucks. Game day.

I didn’t. I’d stayed up late Friday, crashing on the couch for a bit more than really sleeping (which I will pay for ironically later that afternoon. Or not, depending on your point of view), working on my first post to Gathering Spirits.

So, puttering about…Intermittently checking FB, drinking coffee. Radios on. Still am750. Personal finance rolls into home gardening rolls into sometime around 12:30 pm when the show is interrupted to announce that Royal Marshall has died. Dead. Gone.

Over the course of the following hours, one after another, those who had been privileged to know him came on the radio. When, finally, Boortz came on and tried to talk my own heart broke. In the course of that Saturday afternoon I was privileged to hear a family come together to love and remember a man in who the very gathering his passing engendered was testament to his character as much as their loss. The hours of tribute to him no programming stunt. For a full day, obligatory weather and breaking news aside, Royal T Marshall was celebrated. Listening to the radio I was witness to a gathering of spirits. Part of it. Zeitgeist at highest calling.

The Falcons…well, you know how that went. I missed the game, actually. Slept through it. Such is life.

Go team. The bell tolls for thee.

Tired. Little to say, other than was an interesting week. Went bowling tonight, my first first date bowling, actually. Had a blast.

Other than that, I say Farewell Snowpocalypse, and congratulations on your success at taking a massive dump on our routine.

That said, must get to sleep. Get up at a decent hour. Go to Starbucks.

Rinse, repeat.

That’s the best way to describe the city, four days later.

Though the highways are by and large clear, poorly (sun) lit surface streets and shadowed landscaping remain treacherous, the ice coating having a second night to melt, pool, refreeze. On the way home today, waiting for the light, am stopped at the corner of Freedom Parkway and Boulevard. The empty field on my right is a single sheet cake of ice;  it’s surface catching the 4pm sunlight.

The drive home is about what I expected, took an over an hour, but no accidents, just a lot of other commuters leaving early, thinking the same thing: getting home before the ice creeps back across the highways and streets.

I’m more concerned about the drive in tomorrow morning. Fewer obvious signs of ice – more black ice – no margin for error and no shortage of idiots on the road. I will be leaving for work later, again.

SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011, Atlanta will remember ye. A day after the events in Tuscon you arrived, a great white bell jar. And, noses and eyes to windows many of us stayed up to see it fall. And it did, thickly, quickly. Though a wind attended it the sheer volume was such that as it fell, crossing in front of the light of streetlamps, floodlights in back yards, the effect was complete: Atlanta become one great snow globe. The bell jar lowered, and as a single media-enriched entity we compartmentalized Tuscon, not unaffected by any means, just…Self absorbed.

This IS Atlanta. For those not from the area (or having spent sufficient time herein) we Atlanta is the closest thing to SoCal/Hollywood this side of the Mississippi. Meaning,  significant movie/news/media industry presences. A “local” radio personality just announced he’s officially initiating  an exploratory committee for the feasibility of a run at the White House. A gloriously disproportionate number of not only attractive but intelligent women, from all backgrounds. We have the Falcons/Michael Vick. The Thrashers…The Olympics…World’s largest aquarium. The Walking Dead. When not self-absorbed at least self-aware. Self-conscious. A heavy peppering of the materialistic, if not shallow (as the two are not mutually inclusive).

But I’m digressing. Though to a point.