PERSONAL NEWS #60
On Monday morning, June 20th, I arrived for my catscan appointment 15 minutes early. Allowed for enough time in case I got lost in finding the place. The clinic is located in the Tribeca section of downtown Manhattan. An area I don't visit that often. In fact, last time I was in the area was summer 2003. Once at the clinic, I filled out all the paperwork, and then waited almost an hour. Good thing I brought a book to read. One thing I find annoying about doctor or clinic visits is all that damn waiting. Don't know why they over book appointments. Since the catscan was for my lung area, I only had to remove my upper garments, and then put on a hospital gown. The whole catscan experience took about 20 minutes or so. My lower back got abit cramped, as did my left arm from having intravenous needle in it. Made it back to the office just before 11am. Precisely the time I told my bosses I'd be in the office. That afternoon, via an email, I learned there was to be a Norm Siegel Campaign volunteer meeting at 7pm. It was being held at Bar 9 on West 53rd Street. I'd been to this place before, back in the winter, for a DFA meetup. Really cool joint to hangout. The volunteer meeting was about how to approach voters, tell them about Norm's campaign and prime NYC areas for petitioning. My schedule over next two weeks or so would cut back on my being able to help petition, but I signed up to help out with phone banking et al. Tracey D hosted the meeting and about 8 to 10 people showed up. Overall a productive day, even at work.

Wednesday, June 22nd, was another follow-up visit with my doctor regarding the catscan results, etc. Saw Dr Richheimer again, along with another doctor, whose name I can't recall. [Glad I didn't have to deal with Dr Rodriguez.] My vitals signs [damn nurses] were checked and Richheimer was happy to see the rash all gone. Hell yeah, so was I, and I didn't have to take the medication anymore. Another test they performed, while I was there, was an EKG. The heart et al was doing just fine. The bad news is that I have Emphysema, due to "heavy toxins", while working in Wall Street area after 9/11. Both doctors wanted me to see a lung specialist and an appointment was set up for June 29th.

QUOTE OF THE DAY ... The media no longer ask those who know something, to share knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it. Serge Daney [1944-1992] French Film Critic

On Thursday, June 23rd, I participated in the DoP District Team Leader conference call, which Kevin hosted and I took notes/minutes. Besides Kevin and me, only four others joined in call. One of which was a fellow DoP member [Joe]. We started off the call with a quote from President Eisenhower. Jordan mentioned Fossadella, who was Secretary of State under the 1950s Eisenhower years. We team leaders need to contact the congressperson or scheduler, in our district, and get an appointment to talk about the Dept of Peace bill. [Must be done before Peace Conference weekend of September 10th.] There was abit of a discussion about the recent delivery of the "Peace Alliance" DVD we all received. We all agreed the basic content was pretty positive and not too flashy. Emphasis, during the call, was on listening to what our government people have to say and slowly incorporate DoP bill into the conversation. Good overall call and Kevin is proving to be a fine host.

P.S. Hopefully Blogger.com can fix things so my "sidebar" shows up on the left side of webpage and I still cannot add Jpegs stored on my computer. Sigh! Anyhow, more "personal news" to come ... stay tuned.

[DUCHESS NOTE – Special thanks to Tim Shera, NY State District Team Leader for DoP, and Kevin Fagan (board member of NYC DoP) in sharing this Psalm. As Kevin said … “Seems as if it was written with us ‘Peace Angels’ in mind.”]

Psalm 122
I rejoiced when I heard them announce,
"The time of warfare is past.
No more will brother hate brother
or violence have its way.
No more will they drown out God's silence
and shut their hearts to his song."

Pray for peace in the cities
and harmony among the races.
May peace come to live on our streets
and justice within our walls.
With all my heart I will pray
that peace comes to live among us.
For the sake of all earth's people,
I will do my utmost for peace.

Sean Bean on Silent Hill
Source: Edward Douglas
July 12, 2005
http://comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=10340
"While talking to ComingSoon.net about Michael Bay's The Island, in which he plays the evil geneticist Dr. Merrick, Sean Bean dropped a few details about his upcoming horror film Silent Hill, based on the popular video game. Bean is best known as the warrior Boromir from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings and he also played the bad guy in Jerry Bruckheimer's National Treasure.


Bean doesn't play the bad guy in Silent Hill, but instead, he plays a father and husband to Radha Mitchell, trying to find his wife and child. Since he hadn't played the game, he didn't know how it compared, but he did think fans of the game will appreciate it. "I think the game is quite psychologically demanding, because it's not about chopping people up," he told us. "It's about using your brain, and I think this will be really good because Christophe Gans, the director of 'Brotherhood of the Wolf', has given it a really quirky, bizarre feel, very spooky and sort of like a European genre film." [Sean Bean (left) at the July 11th NYC premiere of the new film THE ISLAND. He plays Dr Merrick.]

He went on to tell us about the plot: "It's about this place called Silent Hill,and our daughter is kind of disturbed about it. She keeps mentioning it, and she's trying to get out of the house and go there, so my wife decides that it might be a good idea to take her there to confront her fears. She gets involved with a very murky and dangerous world, very creepy, which is all in different time levels, as well. I'm in the real world and I'm trying to find them, but we're on different planes, so it's quite interesting, because I can hear her, but I can't see her. The way he shoots it is just constant fog and cobwebs around the Silent Hill world, while the real world is more normal." Oddly, he also plays the father and husband in a British thriller called The Dark with Maria Bello, which he said was also quite disturbing and ghostly. "It's quite funny that I'm playing a concerned husband searching for my daughter twice in a year." Maybe these two movies will finally allow Bean to break away from his typecasting as the bad guy. The Island hits theatres on July 22, while Silent Hill, is scheduled to come out sometime in 2006".