Assembling Mark Foley

Shocking history of the earth


....reading this early morning from John McFee's "Assembling California", the beautiful and fascinating story about the forces of nature and the geology of the west coast. Bits and pieces of this amazing story have been coming together over the last two hundred plus years like the pieces of ocean floor and island arcs that docked, from the plate, diving under the continenent, scraping the Islands, along with some of the ocean bottom, well off spreading centers, moving eastward out of lava centers in the Pacific, whose west coast was once Utah, an ocean front Arizona and the like.

McFee and his geologist buddies have traveled along I-80 from Western Nevada, past Tahoo, across the Sierras, spending a lot of time in gold rich canyons and taking side trips all the way from Arizona to Cyprus and more, through exotic terrains locally. Finally the far west coast, with the exciting events going on along the St Andreas Fault, re-defining the coastal domains of the continent. He tells all about the strike slip fault which will bring Los Angeles up next to San Francisco some day.

The action goes along in slips and starts, as the Pacific Plate, riding on the slippery mantle, fueled by unknown engines, pushes northward, grinding against the North American Plate. It is a continuous surge, but is only felt in the quakes that shake the land every so many years. The elasticity of resistance and release are at work. The longer the time between releases, the greater is the force and destruction of the catch-up shifts. LA is on the Pacific Plate, San Francisco on the North American Plate. Right on the dividing, at that. The fault goes through western San Francisco, and out to sea around Golden Gate. If things go on as they are now, the two cities will be side by side, and eventually, LA will be in Alaska, and SF will be in the tropics!!!!

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Jumping in crazy attention-deficit confusion, Public Radio comes on and talks about the case of Representative Mark Foley, and his indiscretion by way of expressing his attraction to a former page boy. Via e-mail, no less!!! The hidden fault in the biological make up, like the hidden St Andreas under California, causes an earth quake like rumble, which may bring down the House. Literally! This happens all the time. Monica Luinsky is neither the first or last object of these inconvenient, or annoying lusts and desires the human heart seems to manufacture in many of us, with no respect for ability, talent, personality, color, creed, wealth. Out of step with prevailing mores, they are suppressed as much as possible. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with them. The mechanism of confession, one of the sometimes good institutions associated with the Catholic Church, is a great help if used correctly, in dealing with these "defects of character", as those in 12 step programs know it. But many times there is an eruption, an earthquake, whose magnitude is increased. Reputations go down the drain. The plug pulled, for better or for worse. Protecting the innocence of our young is harder and harder to do, and in truth, they have to grow up fast, and learn to deal with these facts, so shocking when the ideal world manufactured by Disney and company, Sesame Street, etc, Mr Rogers and his neighborhood, is in our collective conscience. Put there from birth, almost. Fighting off unwanted attention must be learned sooner and younger. Most of have had to deal with it, even way back then. Sin did not begin when we were in grade school!!!

Has all of this been going on forever? Has a lot of dirt been swept under the carpet all along? It seems that now there is an increasing avalanche of sexual revelations coming to light. Straight and broke-back. (It has been said that if every person who has ever had a same-sex desire or encounter in their life, would turn bright red, it would be well over 50 percent glowing rouge!!!!) The record shows that in the Foley affair, the man was known as a helpful friend to the pages in congress, lending an ear, giving them encouragement. The Times records statements of appreciated kindness from some ex-pages, both sexes included. There is a lot to learn yet about the human heart, the contradictions of being a human in this crazy world...... But an earthquake occured in Washington and Foley was swallowed up!!! With the usual tut-tuting and moral posturing of those around.