When Doves Cry

¡Hola! Everybody…
Today: a song... and then I get all pedantic on your ass!

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-=[ When Doves Cry ]=-

Why do we scream at each other/ this is what it sounds like/ When doves cry…

-- Prince

A pair of doves, male and female, decided to share a nest together. In autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they worked hard to gather them and fill their nest. After some time, however, the nuts dried up and shrank. This caused them to take less space and give the appearance that there was less -- filling up only half the space.

Well, when the male dove noticed this, he got pissed off and said, “After all that hard work we went through gathering these nuts and now you’ve gone and eaten half of them you greedy bitch!”

The female dove, hurt by the accusation, answered, “I didn't eat them! All the nuts are here, they've just become smaller.”

The male dove could not be persuaded and became even more furious. “If you didn't eat them,” he asked in an accusing tone, “then why are there less?!! Don't get all brand new on me, you fat skank!” Consumed by his rage, he pecked at the female dove with his sharp beak until she was dead.

Several days passed and a heavy rain fell, then nuts got wet, reconstituted, filled up, and again there was a full nest of nuts. When the male dove saw this, he was ashamed and thought, “She didn't eat them after all. I killed her for no reason.”

Throughout the forest, you could hear his cries of grief, “Where are you, where have you gone?”

* * *

There are many people who are lost in a cloud of confusion. They pursue pleasure as if it could last forever and don't understand that life -- by its very nature -- is impermanent. People often do as they please, in the process breaking important boundaries and prohibitions, and later they feel remorse and grief. What purpose does that achieve? They are like the dove that mistakenly killed his mate.

Pedantically Yours,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [When Doves Cry]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Today: an actual sermon. LOL! and a song...

* * *

-=[ When Doves Cry ]=-

Why do we scream at each other/ this is what it sounds like/ When doves cry…

-- Prince

A pair of doves, male and female, decided to share a nest together. In autumn, when the nuts were ripe, they worked hard to gather them and fill their nest. After some time, however, the nuts dried up and shrank. This caused them to take less space and give the appearance that there was less -- filling up only half the space.

Well, when the male dove noticed this, he got pissed off and said, “After all that hard work we went through gathering these nuts and now you’ve gone and eaten half of them you greedy bitch!”

The female dove, hurt by the accusation, answered, “I didn't eat them! All the nuts are here, they've just become smaller.”

The male dove could not be persuaded and became even more furious. “If you didn't eat them,” he asked in an accusing tone, “then why are there less?!! Don't get all brand new on me, you fat skank!” Consumed by his rage, he pecked at the female dove with his sharp beak until she was dead.

Several days passed and a heavy rain fell, then nuts got wet, reconstituted, filled up, and again there was a full nest of nuts. When the male dove saw this, he was ashamed and thought, “She didn't eat them after all. I killed her for no reason.”

Throughout the forest, you could hear his cries of grief, “Where are you, where have you gone?”

* * *

There are many people who are lost in a cloud of confusion. They pursue pleasure as if it could last forever and don't understand that life -- by its very nature -- is impermanent. People often do as they please, in the process breaking important boundaries and prohibitions, and later they feel remorse and grief. What purpose does that achieve? They are like the dove that mistakenly killed his mate.

Pedantically Yours,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (It's Too Much to Hope for)

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today is the Dominican Day Parade. I will be there as the [un]Official Parade Culo Inspector... LOL

I don’t know if the following was written by a Buddhist, but it sure does capture the core Buddhist POV on pain and suffering...

* * *

-=[It’s Too Much to Hope for ]=-

It's too much to hope for a life without pain,
It's wrong to expect a life without pain,
For pain is our body's defense.
No matter how much we dislike it,
And nobody likes it,
Pain is important,
And,
For pain we should be grateful!
How else would we know,
To move our hand from the fire?
Our finger from the blade?
Our foot from the thorn?
So pain is important,
And for pain we should be grateful!
Yet,
There's a type of pain that serves no purpose,
That's chronic pain,
It's that elite band of pain that's not for defense.
It's an attacking force.
An attacker from within
A destroyer of happiness
An aggressive assailant on personal ability
A ceaseless invader of personal peace
And,
A continuous harassment to life!
Chronic pain is the hardest hurdle for the mind to jump.
Sometimes it is almost impossible to jump,
Yet, we must keep trying,
And trying,
And trying,
Because if we don't it will destroy.
And,
From this battle will come some good,
The satisfaction of overcoming pain.
The achievement of happiness and peace, of life in spite of it.
This is quite an achievement,
An achievement very special, very personal,
A feeling of strength
Of inner strength
Which has to be experienced to be understood.
So, we all have to accept pain,
Even sometimes destructive pain.
For it is part of the scheme of things,
And the mind can manage it,
And the mind will become stronger for the practice.

-- Jonathan Wilson-Fuller

What is even more remarkable about this piece is that it was written when Jonathan was only nine-years-old! Read more about him (click here)

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [The Full Catastrophe]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Americans work to damned hard! People? When you’re freakin’ dying, I guarantee you will not be overcome with regret for not spending more time at the office. I need to move to Europe or some shit like that...

* * *

-=[ The Full Catastrophe ]=-

Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man. So I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.

-- Zorba the Greek

Those of you familiar with the author, Nikos Kazantzakis, are probably familiar with this quote. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MSBR) Clinic named one of his best books on the subject of using Buddhist mindfulness meditation to address stress, “Full Catastrophe Living.”

It’s an interesting proposition: using all of life -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- as grist for the mill. I hear too many people talking about how they want to remove “negativity” from their lives. I question the notion to ignore/ remove at least 50% of your life. Actually, I’ve tried this and I’m here to tell you that living in a sensory deprivation environment (otherwise known as solitary confinement -- true story), is not all it’s geared to be.

I mean, I’m not saying we go out of our way to create or engage “negativity,” but why turn away from it? Why not use it? For those that garden, turning away from the perception of negativity is a lot like refusing to use manure, or compost to cultivate your garden. And what is negativity anyway? Sadly, negativity is oftentimes some shit or someone you don’t like. And no matter how much you try to turn away from negativity, everywhere you go, there you are -- with all your own negative baggage. If you perceive it as merely negative, whatever it is, then no amount of turning away will do away with negativity because you are creating the perception of negativity in the first place.

Check this out: every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal. That means negative situations too. No, it doesn’t mean it will all be pleasant and the sun will be shining all the fuckin time. What? Didn’t you get the memo?!! Santa Claus doesn’t exist and life is tough sometimes. Sorry to break it down in such a cold manner. LOL Honestly, I see a lot of unrealistic expectations from the adults of the world. It seems many of us actually believe spending our lives running from unpleasant feelings and clinging pleasant ones is a viable life strategy.

It isn’t...

People will disappoint you, the fates will conspire to fuck up your plans, your kids will sometimes never appreciate your sacrifices and not all women will allow me to screw them in the ass.

And??

Shit, I just watched the hot new Shakira video and I’m really upset the bitch got all freakin skinny! What happened to the really curvy Shakira?!! You can play the marimba on her fuckin ribs! I mean, she still gotta lil bootie, but she must not be hangin’ out with Latino/as because she would be force-fed in Columbia, Puerto Rico, or almost any other Latin American country! But all that is not going to ruin my day...

Shit happens and she doesn’t even answer my calls.

I’m not saying I should deny my feelings. I am actually saying we all should do the opposite: feel your feelings completely. Feel the full catastrophe of your life. What happens to anger, sadness, fear, hate, and envy, lust when you stop trying to categorize / analyze them and just fuckin feel them? What happens when you invite the negative as well as the positive and embrace both as a mother would embrace both a good and bad child? I’ll tell you what happens: you become free as you are healed and made whole.

All healing is essentially letting go of fear. Playing the run-around game based on your likes and dislikes is in reality fear-based living. Try it one day: stay with the hurt without giving in the compulsion to attach a story to it. What we often do is we substitute neurosis for suffering and that just makes it all a lot more painful. Add stress to pain and you have suffering. Let me break that down:

pain + stress = suffering.

I think that’s also a good formula for neurosis.

All healing is actually a release from the past. Now here’s where it gets a little tricky. People will rightfully point out that there is a process that leads to letting go, that leads to grief. The thing is this: how many times must you do the process before you start getting it without having to go through all the stages?

Suffering, my friends, is optional.

Love,

Eddie

Winter

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’m grappling with a personal issue right now...

The following is something I wrote several years ago.

* * *

-=[ Winter ]=-

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

-- Albert Camus

If you pressed me, I would tell you outright that I absolutely despise winter. I detest the cold, the short days, the layers of clothing, and the claustrophobia of confined spaces. But if I look deeper, I also know that there’s a lot I appreciate about winter: I love the changing of the seasons and how they mark the passage of time; the coziness of a cold Christmas morning (a barbecue in Christmas?!! No way!!!); the excuse of not going anywhere because – “Dayum! -- it’s cold outside!” I like the fact that winter allows you to get dressed to the nines when you go out to socialize.

I find that people who live in temperate zones -- where there is a winter, think faster and speak more clearly than their southern peers. Heck, you have to think fast -- it’s a matter of life and death! LOL!!! I remember when I first moved south, I kept thinking people were talking with their mouths full. Okay, okay, I realize this is a bit of northeastern snobbery, but you get my drift.

Yeah, there is much to appreciate in winter.

Winter also allows one to become more introspective, to reserve energy and look within. Sometimes the seasons mirror the emotions we grapple with: we suddenly see or sense opposite emotions within ourselves. The cold of winter presses in on us and we may feel tested by it’s sharp bite.

Yet, when we think we cannot bear a moment longer, we find a force within, an inner reassurance that comes like a summer breeze and says we do what we must. Perhaps it comes in a moment of despair, and we realize we have made it this far -- that we are quite sturdy. In our deepest sadness about the loss of a love, we may find a more meaningful relationship with something more powerful -- a “Higher Power.”

The winters of our lives may tempt us to curse the cold and darkness. Similarly, the opposites of our lives may tempt us to struggle with them. One side may be very clear and obvious while the other side is dark and hidden. When we are open, these extremes become equal teachers for us. As we think about the seasons and our feelings today, what opposites do we find? Whatever the answers, perhaps today we can remember that we have an invincible summer at the deepest part of the winter in our lives.

The Risk of Self-Blame

I just want to take a brief moment to bring into focus an issue I have found to be prominent in our culture. Many people have turned to meditation (and diet and exercise, too) for its physiological benefits and have benefited enormously. However, we are all going to exit this planet through something we call death. It’s a fact of life that people forget all the time.

Currently, there seems to be a notion that if we eat right, exercise, meditate, and use visualization well enough, we will live forever. It is obvious enough that our health habits do make a huge difference in the length and quality of our lives, but it is important to remember that even the greatest saints left their bodies -- often from heart disease and cancer. Yet I don’t remember a single one regretting that it would have never happened if they’d meditated better, imaged or exercised more vigorously, or turned down that last ice cream cone.

Still, the tendency to blame ourselves is always rearing its ugly head...

This is just plain narcissism -- a resurrection of guilt and blame. To think of illness as a form of punishment and healing as a reflection of our goodness traps us further in the cycle of suffering: the attachment to pleasure and the aversion to pain.

If we go still further and believe that the state of our bodies reflects our self-worth, we are truly doomed to suffering. The only definition of sin that makes any sense to me is this: any thought or action that strengthens the ignorance of our own intrinsic goodness. We are healed when we can grow from our suffering, when we can recast our suffering as an act of grace that leads us back to who we truly are.

Love,

Eddie

Life and Fairness

¡Hola! Everybody,
I’m heading out hopefully to move the bulk of my stuff today. My driver flaked out on me at the last minute yesterday because he had to work, so I’m counting on someone I don’t know that well. Wish me luck…

It’s cold again today, but we really can’t complain, it’s been a mild winter here with very little, if any snow. Two-three weeks and I’ll be whistling my way to work, watching the leaves make a comeback, my dick getting hard at yet another promise of spring.

Now watch us get a record snowstorm two weeks from now! LOL

* * *

-=[ Life Ain’t Always Fair ]=-

I’m working with a young woman who just got out of a ten-year prison sentence. Her crime? She beat her husband to within an inch of his life. Actually, she thought he was dead and that’s the only reason she stopped beating on him. Her husband had systematically abused her for about fifteen years, almost from the time she had known him. Throughout those years, she suffered broken bones, bruises, humiliation, and emotional and psychological abuse. Through it all, she managed to get a college degree and several good jobs in the financial sector.

Then one day she couldn’t take it anymore and she snapped. She’s thirty years of age, but she looks like she’s fourteen. She’s very pretty, petite, soft-spoken, articulate. I wonder how all that rage could’ve been contained in such a small form. She’s been having a tough go at it, because she can’t find a job. We call it the “collateral consequences” of incarceration: having to pay for your crime even after having served your sentence. Millions of people will never be able to vote, for example. We call that disenfranchisement.

She was crying the other day in my office, telling me that life isn’t fair. She can’t get a job because she has a criminal record. Sometimes I sit with her and I think to myself that she’s right. As far as I’m concerned, she shouldn’t have gone to jail in the first place.

People, mostly people ignorant of the term, like to use the word karma as if it meant retribution. It doesn’t. The Buddha called the workings of karma one of the “four unconjecturables.” We could drive ourselves crazy speculating on how it will play out, he said (Anguttara Nikaya 4.77). But I won’t get into karma today; I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

The fact remains that life is not always fair. Neither are people, ourselves included. Sometimes we are taken advantage of. Sometimes we do all the right things and still wind up on the short end of the proverbial stick. Sometimes we’re hurt though we may have acted cautiously. Others may be generous to us and yet we take advantage of their kindness. Or we act with good intentions toward others and our efforts go unappreciated or misrepresented.

That life is unfair is a given. It’s a fact of life that challenges us to do the psychological work to grieve for the losses associated with unfairness. It also challenges us to do the spiritual work necessary so as not to become vindictive. Both of these together equal the unconditional acceptance to the unalterable fact that things aren’t always fair: you win some, you lose some.

It’s easy to be “spiritual” and forgiving, wise when things are going right or when you’re dealing with easy-going, caring people. Anyone, even an asshole, can do that. The real challenge is to meet our losses with an open heart, with a commitment to act and think compassionately toward others, especially when they test our patience or willfully hurt us. Some people, lacking self-love mistake what I’m saying. Being open and cultivating compassion when faced with cruelty does not mean we allow ourselves to become victims of abuse. It means we simply allow ourselves to be what we are when we are most loving – vulnerable. Any relationship can have deeply painful moments in it. A mature person knows that closing off and building false walls is dangerous to their sensitivity and that remaining too open is dangerous to their boundaries. A psycho-spiritual maturity allows us to walk the middle path where a willingness to be open is tempered by a healthy maintenance of boundaries. We can seek amends when others treat us unfairly, ask for redress, and if that doesn’t work, we let go and our hearts do not close. Letting go has the effect of opening the heart.

It is also a given that human beings live on the default setting of retaliation. It takes a conscious effort to override this default setting. We have to customize our factory settings. Our ego’s favorite sport is retaliation, but if I accept you as you are without protest or blame, I am then not driven to get back at you as your judge and executioner. My client is one of the more powerful teachers of this given of life’s unfairness. Though she has been abused by individuals and society, her heart remains open. Just recently, I have been able to take her out of a dangerous city shelter, living with other women in a transitional home. And though she has no money, is faced with stigma and can’t get a job, she comes to my office and accompanies me when I go to speaking engagements. She uses her pain and suffering for the benefit of others and her life is infinitely richer because of it. Knowing what she’s gone through, I don’t know if I would have the spiritual dignity to act as she does, with an open heart.

I do know her example takes away all my excuses and that’s the power of the teaching she embodies. What about you? What’s your excuse?

Love,

Eddie

The Beyond Help Series (Acceptance, Pain & Suffering)

¡Hola! Everybody,
OK… I guess most of you already know, but my "surprises" have to do with work and living arrangements. It’s official, I am now director of my project and was given a substantial raise to boot. In addition, I will be moving to a new place this weekend. The new place is temporary; my roommates are two sisters, one of whom has a nice ass! They’ve agreed to have me as a roommate because a clergyman who apparently sees through my insanity for my Original Self and approves, recommended me. I’m looking to move into my own place by the end of June if not sooner.

I’m excited about being given the reins to this project, which has become my baby anyway. This also gives me more motivation to return to school and finish my graduate studies. I’m looking that perhaps five years from now, I’ll be doing more organizational consultancy work, or working for a foundation or think tank.

The negative side is that I won’t be as interactive in my blogs. I was specifically informed that I would need to decrease my blogging activities ::grin:: I will always post daily, but I won’t be as interactive in terms of spreading my smooches and attempts at seduction all over 360 (and Multiply).

On the more positive side, I will be looking to travel more, as my speaking duties will likely increase. So if I’m coming to a town near you, we’ll connect and I’ll give you a vaginal massage (first session free).

* * *

-=[ Acceptance, Pain & Suffering ]=-
“Pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding.”
-- Kahlil Gibran

Early on when I fist began picking up the pieces of my life, I came upon the phrase suffering is optional. Like most new things, I didn’t understand it at first, but a friend just told me to keep showing up for life. Today, I make a distinction between pain and suffering. Because of the way we use language, whenever we come face to face with a problem, our first impulse is to fix them. We try to get out of the quicksand. In our external world, this problem-solving approach is effective most of the time. Being able to figure out how to get out of undesirable events, such as being preyed on, deprivation, pests, or natural catastrophes is essential in securing our place as the dominant species on the earth.

However, it is also unfortunate that we try to use the same “fix it” mentality when it comes to understanding our inner world. When we encounter painful psychic content within ourselves, we often resort to what we always do: fix it up and sort it out so we can get rid of it. The truth of the matter is that our inner lives are not like our external world. For one thing, humans live in the context of a history, and time moves only in one direction, not two. Psychological pain has a history and, at least in some respects, the heart of the matter doesn’t entail getting rid of something. It is more a matter of how we deal with it and move one -- evolve.

The acceptance in the title is based on the perspective that, as a rule, trying to get rid of your pain only makes it worse, entangles you further in it, and eventually makes it more traumatic. In my post on Emotional Quicksand, I illustrated how meeting the suction force of quicksand with tension only makes you more stuck in the quicksand. Our psychological lives are a lot like that. When you’re engaged in fighting for your life, living your life is actually pushed aside

The alternative -- a little dangerous to say aloud because at this point it can be misunderstood -- is to accept pain. Acceptance, as I am using here is not the same as self-defeat; neither is it tolerating and putting up with your pain. It is very different from that. In fact, that type of negative acceptance is a far cry from the vibrant form of acceptance of the moment that I teach.

For now, try to think of throwing away the impulse to meet power with power, tension with more tension. Pain is an inescapable fact of life. However, I define suffering as pain mixed with tension. Pain can be accepted and even used to transform our suffering. However, if we’re adding tension to pain, then we’re suffering. Pain is pain -- it’s there. We have what’s there and then we have what we bring to the table. Add tension to pain and you have deep suffering.

Most of us haven’t had much training in the active form of acceptance that I attempting to illustrate here. I want to ask you to keep an open mind and thank your mind for whatever it says this term means, but don’t try to pigeonhole it right now. This for of acceptance is difficult to describe, and learning to be willing to have and live your own experience is something I will focus on a little later in this series. In the meantime, be patient and open -- as well as a little skeptical -- about what your mind might right now be guessing what I mean.

Love,

Eddie

Beyond Help Series, pt. III

¡Hola! Everybody,
It's amazing the turn-out I observed yesterday here in The City. people were coming out in droves. especially noticeable were young people from all demographics. This is good.

* * *

-=[ Beyond Help, pt. III ]=-

“We all know sometimes life’s hates and troubles/ Can make you wish you were born in another time and space/ But you can bet you life times that and twice its double/ That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed/ so make sure when you say you're in it but not of it/ You’re not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called Hell/ Change your words into truth and then change that truth into love/ And maybe our children’s grandchildren/ And their great-great grandchildren will tell”
-- Stevie Wonder, As

It’s the beginning of February and most of the people who made New Years resolutions have stopped trying completely.

Let’s start from a different assumption today. To live is to know suffering. Let’s drop for the moment the assumption that left to their own devices, normal human beings are happy and that it's only the "abnormals" that experience disruption of peace. Let’s assume instead that suffering is normal and it is the rare person who learns how to create peace of mind. If you’re wondering why this is so, the following is an attempt to uncover this puzzle.

First let's think of how many problems human beings have that non human beings can’t even imagine. Consider suicide. It occurs in every human population, and serious struggles with suicide are shocking in their persistence. Throughout your lifetime, you have about a fifty-fifty chance of struggling with suicidal thoughts at some level for at least two weeks. Almost 100 percent of all the people on the planet will at some point in their life contemplate killing themselves. Even very young, newly verbal childre3n occasionally do. Yet we have very little reason to believe that any nonhuman animals deliberately kill themselves.

That basic behavior pattern repeats itself in problem area after problem area. The fact is that most human beings struggle, even in the midst of seemingly successful lives. If you doubt me, ask yourself this question: How many people do you know really well who don’t experience periods in which they struggle with serious psychological or social problems, relationship issues, problems at work, anxiety, depression, anger, self control issues, sexual problems, fear of death, etc.? If you’re like most people, a list of such acquaintances will probably empty.

Research into the scientific data on human problems confirms this assumption. Let me throw out a few random facts. About 30 percent of all adults have a major psychiatric disorder at any given point in time, about 50 percent will have such a disorder at some point in their lives, and nearly 8o percent of these will have more than one serious psychological problem. Americans spend huge sums of money in their efforts to alleviate psychological pain.

For example, even though their impact on depression is only 20 percent better than a placebo (too small to be clinically significant), antidepressants are a ten-billion dollar industry . It’s shocking but our consumption of antidepressants is so high that our rivers and streams have become polluted with them, contaminating the fish we eat (Streater, 2003). But even these statistic, sad as they appear, underestimate the extent of the problem. When people are given open access to mental health care, only about half of those who seek help are diagnosed with a serious mental-health disorder. The other half are having problems at work, or in their marriages, or with their children, or they suffer from a lack of purpose in their lives, what philosophers call “existential angst,” a strong persistent feeling of apprehension and anxiety.

Marriages, probably the most important voluntary adult relationship most humans enter into, yet about 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce and remarriages (who says people aren’t optimistic? LOL) are no better. The statistics on fidelity, abuse, and marital unhappiness show that the majority of marriages that do stay intact are based on unhealthy relationships.

I could go for a long time – easily. Suffice it to say that by the time that all of the major behavioral problems human beings face are added together, the fact is that it is “abnormal” not to experience significant psychological struggles.

Thought you were unique, huh? Nope!

And yet, how can this be? I guess we all heard the admonition to eat all our food because some poor child was starving In Africa. We could probably empathize with such a child experiencing horrendous conditions. But for most of us reading this, war, hunger, and deprivation is not a fact of life. Yet, in many areas, people who are more fortunate, intelligent, and capable are not necessarily happier than their less fortunate counterparts in other parts of the world. People who live in countries that have abundance are not necessarily happier than those living in less affluent societies. Again, how can this be?

Apply this question to your own life. Isn’t it true that the things you are struggling with and trying to change tend to persist, even though you’re competent in other areas of your life? Isn’t it true that you’ve tried to solve your problems, but have yet to come to find a real solution?

Indeed, I’m willing to bet that you may have already tried many solutions, and yet here you are where you started.

I’m asking you to keep these questions in mind as you read my rants. Why is human suffering so endemic, why is yours so difficult to change, and what can you do about it? Many o my posts explore these questions in detail. I think I can help some arrive to their own answers.

I’m not asking these questions from an arrogant or critical stance. I’m not going to blame you for your troubles, sending the message that your life would be fine if only you tried harder and got your shit together. That’s bullshit. You would be surprised how many people like to hear that shit. Moreover, you know why people like to hear that shit? Because they’re already beating up on themselves, that’s part of the reason why suffering persists. I’m coming from a perspective of compassion and identification; what you read hear comes from my own struggles and those of the people I work with. These questions are those I’ve asked myself, sometimes from the depths of despair. I believe that there is a way that provides an answer; and it is one that can be directly helpful to you.

Love,

Eddie

References:

Streater, S. (2003, October 17). Drug found in fish stir area concerns. Fort Worth Star-Telegram.