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Waxings / In Memory of Doug Cloud / Re: My friend, Doug |
Jun 28th, 2010, 1:33pm |
| Started by mitakeet | Last post by PJR |
My name is Paul Rimple. I lived in West Chester long ago and went to high school with Doug. For the past 20 years or so, from time to time, I’d wonder what had ever become of him, what was he doing with his life. And today, sad to say, I found out.
I moved to PA from CA and was a fish out of water as I had come from a tolerant environment and landed in a milieu of bigotry and had to adjust to this new reality. My neighbor friends were crude and judgmental and our friendship did not extend past the neighborhood. I was a loner for the most part at school and don’t recall exactly when I met Doug, but it was no doubt via our shared passion for photography (and our teacher, Mrs. Brown). We both loved hiking too and did some backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, somewhere near New Ringold PA, and took pictures like crazy, staying up late experimenting with multiple exposures of the full moon.
Doug re-introduced me to California via The Grateful Dead, a band I had known about back home, but wasn’t hipped to. He took me to a Dead concert and for the first time in two years I wasn’t surrounded by rednecks. It was a revelation. I started wearing a bandana and all that junk.
When my step-dad died, my mom and I had no reason to stay so far from our roots, so we packed up and returned to California. The only real friend I made – Doug – was surely missed. I loved his wit, sense of irony, tastes, interests… Even our birthdays were the same.
We exchanged a couple letters and photos and promises and then life did its thing. I was certain that he would not conform to the herd and would find a way to incorporate his creativity into his life, and live it on his terms. I am so sorry to hear he was tormented by the demons of depression.
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Waxings / In Memory of Doug Cloud / In Memory of Doug Cloud |
Feb 26th, 2010, 12:47pm |
| Started by mitakeet | Last post by mitakeet |
Doug lost his battle with his demons around February 24, 2010. He left is wife Brandy and his mother as well as a raft of friends who enjoyed his often bizarre wit.
Please feel to read any of these posts, comment on them or create new threads. If you wish to comment but do not wish to (or cannot, it requires a valid email address) register, you may use the username 'annonymousfriend' with the password (without quotes) of 'friendofdoug'.
One of the things Brandy mentioned was to donate in Doug's name to something related to bipolar (the disease he was suffering from). When I get details I will add them here.
As a by the by, for those of you who didn't know, I have collected some of Doug's writings over the years and put them on-line here:
http://sol-system.com/dcloud/ |
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| 3 |
Waxings / Politics / Obama's America |
Dec 21st, 2009, 2:22am |
| Started by torporchair | Last post by torporchair |
During the campaign we all heard Barack Obama tell us he would close down the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He is indeed following up on his promise, and the prison which has come to be known as the infamous GITMO will be closed down.
Instead of being held in Cuba, the prisoners will be moved to Thompson, Illinois, to a federal prison run by the Bureau of Prisons here in the "homeland".
It appears that Obama has curbed torture and reigned in the more outrageous means of seizing and holding people against their will, such as "Renditions", but exactly what the law is regarding these things at this time I don't know.
What makes me very uncomfortable and gives me the urge to buy a few paperback copies of the Constitution while I still can (for what that's worth...), is that we will still have prisoners being held without charges, and this will be here onshore. It somehow gives this illegal Federal detention a homey, legitimate feeling. Every child born after the day that prison opens in Thompson, Illinois, will grow up knowing there is a prison in Illinois where the constitution is worthless and, combined with the Patriot Act, looks like a legal black hole where anyone could be held indefinitely for any reason or for no reason at all.
What was I thinking when I allowed Mister Barack to hoodwink me with his sharp, clear and determined speech? Those eyes were looking into the distance, not at the camera. He was gazing somewhere, somewhere... Gazing into a new America. Smelling that new-car smell.
But who can deny, if GITMO is closed and re-opened in Illinois, our man Barry-Yackomo kept his promise to the word.
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| 4 |
Waxings / Politics / Re: If it Were Really About Toppling Evil Dictator |
Dec 21st, 2009, 1:44am |
| Started by torporchair | Last post by torporchair |
Currently my theory is shaping up this way: The war in Afghanistan is about building oil pipelines and natural gas pipelines, as well as means of transport for valuable minerals and ores of many kinds, across the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, giving that oil and other materials access to the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean. This requires, of course, that the United States remain in control of Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
Just where this oil and other precious material allegedly originate from I haven't a clue. Certainly that is my fault for not reading more.
I don't find it outrageous or insulting to me as an American that the war aims in Afghanistan are hidden and distorted from the public. I am finally too old to expect anything else from our Whitehouse regardless of which particular individual is behind the microphone. What we can expect are empty slogans, which is what we deserve as long as we are too lazy to look behind the curtain and see the Wizard of Oz.
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| 6 |
Waxings / Current Events & Thinking / Re: Cellphones known to be evil for years |
Jul 24th, 2009, 10:42pm |
| Started by mitakeet | Last post by mitakeet |
| It is practical to know if someone is talking on a cell phone in a car, but it is not practical to know that it is the driver doing the talking. I imagine that if you had a passenger and were gabbing on the phone you would be close to as alert as if you were talking with the passenger, so it might be OK if that were the case. However, since it seems 99% of Americans never drive a car with anyone else in it with them, it might be a worthwhile endeavor to set up phone traps (like speed traps) where they have a sensor telling them someone nearby is using a phone in a car and then look to see if they can find the person. The triangulation might not be good enough to identify a single car, though, but I am sure that entrepreneurs can find a way if they think there is money in it. |
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| 8 |
Waxings / Politics / Re: Glenn Beck: The $53 trillion asteroid |
Jul 18th, 2009, 10:15pm |
| Started by mitakeet | Last post by torporchair |
I heard Glenn Beck on the radio this week. What a clown. He has the few true points to hammer on (social security is broke, politicians are crooked, the Federal government is a swollen leach), but he is an egotistical self-styled Thomas Paine losing his voice and making a dope of himself while trying to scare us all into listening to what he'll say next.
What a moron! He blames Obama for things that have been happening for the past twenty years, as if these things were new! The man made me laugh, so that is a good thing. |
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| 10 |
Waxings / The Conscience of a Conservative / Re: Chapter Five |
Jun 19th, 2009, 8:07pm |
| Started by torporchair | Last post by mitakeet |
| It wouldn't shock me at all to find out that if you got a subsidy today, for the next 5-7 years you might be obligated to pay all or part of it off if you didn't follow their instructions. There are the same sort of strings attached to a lot of subsidies (we got one for fencing our sink hole so the cows don't crap in it). |
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