TONER LOWE IN NY

 (Photo by Christopher Ginnaven)

TONER LOWE: Washington Square Park -- brief moments of some early mornings and late afternoons -- somehow transforms to a Renoir. Sunlight transposes trees, lampposts, landscape and people with a rainbow brilliance stunning the psyche. This was one of those afternoons, and I was ambling the winding walk, mesmerized by it.

Then I heard a loud yelp of pain from behind me, and Renoir suddenly morphed to frames from “Sin City”. Some casually dressed guy was hitting a woman half his size. With his fist. I’m no gentleman, but I seem to have the human’s innate sense of justice. I moved quickly the some 10 yards to them.

I heard a voice, my voice, commanding, “Stop.” Not a yell. A firm order like I used to hear from Yip Man, my Wing Chun teacher in LA. The guy turned toward me. He was a hulk, a la NFL defensive end, actually a handsome Nordic type. And he was angry. I was two feet away from him now, and he telegraphed a punch. He shouldn’t have.

My right hand, open thumb and fingers, cuffed his throat. Not enough to kill him. Limited to my old Special Forces days, it would have. But my later learning Wing Chun had instilled me with a clarity and peace in motion that’s hard to explain to a non-practitioner. I had been able to combine that with my raw, lethal techniques, adjust my strength and impact to the occasion.

This only took a second. The blow’s strength lifted him to his toes, almost off the ground. The impact didn’t crush his windpipe, but shut off his air, making his eyes bulge like a crawdad that just bit into a hook. He made a sound like the first breath of a commode flushing. Then he collapsed at my feet.

I bent down, studying him, making sure I’d done nothing lethal. He was gasping, limp as jelly.

“You fucking brute! You killed him!” It was the woman he had been beating. She pushed at me. I stepped away and she bent down, taking the hulk in her arms.

“No, m’am,” I replied. “He’ll recover. Are you alright?”

Her head raised. Her left eye was cut and closing, and her jaw was swelling. Her right eye glared at me.

“You fucking brute!” she repeated.

“Have a peaceful day, m’am,” I said softly. Then I turned and walked away, looking for Renoir.

TONER LOWE IN LA

TONER LOWE: He didn't say why he wanted to meet. But he needed to see me soon, and in secret at an out-of-way place. He chose a rooftop downtown. As I waited, I studied the two giant construction cranes hovering like praying mantises over the rising new hotel, and at the horizon's spine, and sunset flaming through clouds like a furnace of molten fury conjured by the gods...

TONER LOWE: I tailed Snidley on the Red Line, keeping my distance. He exited in North Hollywood, walking quickly and entering a drab-brick two-story office building gouged between a couple of lanky palm trees. While I waited I studied the far-off San Gabriels. It had snowed overnight, coating them with a glaze seeming almost mystic in the hazy sunlight -- a muscular sculpture of pearl and shadow...

TONER LOWE: Ever since I read how they screwed homeowners with subprime loans leading to the 2008 crash, I’ve shunned Bank of America. But a friend had keyed me to an art display in their downtown LA building. I bit, and on a muggy Friday stood on their slick floor with bare white walls studying a lower-ceiling-sized fiber net sculpture like a glowing aqua vortex. At its base a wrinkly dressed singer – flashback to Cat Stevens – strummed his guitar, the sculpture altering shades with each chord.

The corner of my eye caught a blonde figure in lavender, floating like a graceful scarf in gentle breeze toward the fiber art. I glanced to verify loveliness, then focused back on the sculpture. But I noticed the scarf began winding my way. Still, my gaze stayed on the artwork and singer. Then suddenly the fragrant fist of Chanel stunned  me, and close to my ear I felt the warm whisper:

“Mr. Lowe…I need your help.”

"...a sense of God-consciousness..."

I received an Islamaphobic email yesterday. This was my immediate response:

"Islam has a strict moral code that also encourages generosity and concern for the disadvantaged (the mustad'afun, or oppressed) and the development of a sense of God-consciousness (taqwa) that pervades the whole of life. The world is regarded as a sacred trust (amana) from God for which humanity will be required to render an account. The world should, therefore, be properly cared for, not exploited."

from New World Encyclopedia (Sounds kind of like Christianity, doesn't it?)

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Islam

Among Islam's one billion worldwide, there are small groups of radicals who want to control and kill. Just like there are some insane Christian radicals who want to control and kill--like the head of the Air Force Academy who was punishing Jewish cadets for not becoming Christians, and Christian military chaplains who were preaching to young soldiers that our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were Holy Wars, a modern crusade against Islam.

I worked in New York with all kinds, including faithful Muslims who worked hard, didn't complain, and were appalled at 9/11, which they lived through like all others in Manhattan.

This radical propaganda of making all Muslims out to be terrorists is ignorant and fear-based--which the Military-Industrial complex loves and hopes to keep making billions from in its endless "war on terror" that Congress and presidents support.

You'd best be more concerned about a Congress and president that supports this, that approved legislation that can have the military arrest anyone in the world, including Americans, if the president considers them "suspected terrorists"--the term the government uses also for countless secret drone attacks that kill civilians, including innocent women and children.

You'd best be reading these three well-researched columns:

http://www.clydefitchreport.com/2013/06/nones-well-thats-orwell/

http://www.clydefitchreport.com/2012/07/july-4-our-independence-versus-todays-emergency-powers/

http://www.clydefitchreport.com/2012/05/memorial-day-recalling-and-caring-for-our-constant-brave/

Artist Catherine Armbrust Activates The Lake Chapala Projects

Mixed media artist Catherine Armbrust—recent winner of The Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show 2014 “Gallery Visitors’ Choice” award at Indiana University—is preparing to return to Mexico this autumn to implement The Lake Chapala Projects. 

The Lake Chapala Projects seek to create sculptural installations and costumed performances that interact with the water and landscape of Chapala, Mexico.   

“The lake is an important resource for the state of Jalisco—providing income for fishermen, fresh water for drinking and irrigating crops, and a revenue base for tourism,“ Armbrust explains.  “Though a major source of life, the lake is in jeopardy for various political and environmental reasons and is a constant source of debate in the region. Thus the lake is the essence of the area, acting simultaneously as a symbol of both vitality and loss.”

Armbrust became concerned about this issue during a month-long artist residency in Chapala after receiving her MFA in Fibers from the University of Missouri in late 2012.  She is in the process of raising funds for this creative venture through her Lake Chapala Projects Indiegogo campaign. 

For more information, please see The Lake Chapala Projects pages online at:

www.catherinearmbrust.com

www.facebook.com/lakechapalaprojects

www.igg.me/at/lakechapalaprojects

Punxsutawney Phil Admits Secret Pact with Fur Industry

BREAKING NEWS -- Punxsutawney Phil, the roly-poly groundhog and master weather forecaster, confessed early Monday that his recent years’ predictions for longer winters have been a scam. 

Phil, in a called press conference, admitted his stretching each year's icy season was due to a confidential agreement with the international fur industry.

"After the economic meltdown of 2008, the woodchuck community got word that furriers were searching for more economical product to offer customers," Phil confided. "Their association approached me in secret, threatening to pluck us whistle-pigs in bunches and cart us to the tanning salons. I feared for all my furry fellows, so agreed to fatten the freezing season. 

“They stressed they wanted extremely frigid temperatures before and right after Valentine's Day. They believed that husbands and lovers would flock and purchase fur coats and stoles in droves during those few days, giving a solid economic boost to their companies. What could I do? I thought, on the one paw, it would save so many of my compatriots worldwide. And, on the other paw, we'd be answering Bill Clinton's '90s call to grow the economy." 

The international fur association's office refused to comment. 

However, Joe Namath called our offices to exclaim, "I love fur coats, but I'd never wear an outfit made of the hide of those scroungy rodents!"

The Love the Land Beaver Society issued a release at our deadline saying they were appalled by Phil’s secret agreement, but with reservations.

“We understand how hard it must have been for Phil, the pressure he must have been under,” said the society’s chair Mistle Toe. “We believe the key, now that the pact’s been revealed, is to jet Phil to Alaska, where odds are great he WON'T see his shadow when he comes out of the hotel his first day there. Then we can all lower the heat both on Phil and in our homes.”

END

Alabama Senator Calls for Banning Novel “Miss Carrie”

Book opposes legislatures controlling women’s bodies, Dump charges.

An Alabama state legislator has introduced a bill to ban the new novel “Miss Carrie,” charging that the book is ethically unchristian and rebels against legislatures’ rights to control women’s bodies.

“My chief assistant read the book cover to me, and complained that the title is actually a veiled reference to abortion,” Sen. Will Dump fumed during a called press conference at the state capitol on Monday. “Then, when my assistant explained to me what a veiled reference is, I just got so blamed mad I threw my cup of white lightning up against the wall…Wait! Cut out that part about white lightning, will ya?”

Dump—a south Alabama senator known for rabidly opposing un-American efforts to warp young minds through literacy, the arts, and public displays of opinion—said he has also filed a federal lawsuit against the new novel, hoping to ban it “in all 48 states, and those other areas we own, too.” He noted that he has requested to address the United Nations, seeking a global censoring of “Miss Carrie.”

“I was so mud-cat mad, I even called the CIA director, urging him to send a drone over Marion, Michigan…but don’t print that.”

Marion is the home of Parkhurst Brothers, Publishers, which recently released “Miss Carrie.” Asked to comment on Sen. Dump’s actions and statements, publisher Ted Parkhurst—after rolling on the floor laughing for five minutes—returned to the phone and said: 

“The novel is set in Arkansas during World War II. It’s a touching story of an orphaned boy's relationship with the inhabitant of a small town's ‘haunted house.’ It will keep you guessing, right up to the satisfying ending. But to say the novel and its title have anything to do with current politics, well…”

From there, the phone went silent, except for the sound of uncontrollable laughter in the distance.

Dump was later told of Parkhurst’s response.

“That makes me so garl-darned mad, I just accidentally ripped up my membership card to the Ku…never mind.”

Folks who read this story on the Internet should stay alert for a statement from Snopes, the fact-checking site. Sometime in the next two years, it will declare that--while Parkhurst Brothers actually has just published a touching novel called "Miss Carrie" set in Arkansas during World War II--this online report is a satire.