My Achilles Heel

Tweet

You don't realize how important and delicate your Achilles tendon is until you damage it, which I did on my bicycle just about two weeks ago. It is the largest tendon in the body, it supports all of the body's weight every time you take a step, it normally doesn't get a lot of blood flow so it can take a long time to heal. The most extreme damage requires surgery and other than than it needs rest and maybe cold compresses.

Fortunately, my injury was nowhere near surgery. In fact, after the pedal hit the ankle and the initial jolt of pain, I shook it off and went on with my ride. It was days later that it got sore and troublesome. What I Iearned about it on the Internet was this was the type of pain that I should listen to rather than fight through, so I did my best to stay off my feet [and on the computer] for the next week or so. When it started to wear my patience, I decided to have a doctor take a look. I scheduled an 8am appointment on Friday and got out of the Venice Family Clinic just in time to catch a shuttle headed for LAX.

As one way of making some desperately needed money, I was looking forward to selling some DVDs at several  events over the weekend, so in anticipation of that, I put together two new video collections on DVDs while I stayed [mostly] off my feet.

Each focuses on an "Arab Spring" uprising that became an armed struggle and a revolution. They are, of course, the same two struggles that have consumed much of my attention in the past year, the revolutions in Libya and Syria. Both are collections from the YouTube videos I have used in my diaries at the DailyKos over the past year.

I realize that not everybody can see these on-line, and now with some of them, nobody can see them on-line. I started downloading and preserving the YouTube videos I've used in my reports when I noticed that some of them were starting to disappear. They would generally be replaced by the stark message that "This video is no longer available because this account has been terminated." I think YouTube should change that message, terminated is a bad word to use in relation to activist videographers in Syria.

These two new titles are now available at Linux Beach for $12.95 each. They are the first of a number of volumes along these lines that I plan to produce.

Roseann Barr spoke at a Peace & Freedom Party rally at the Church of Ocean Park in Santa Monica on Saturday. It was a lively event and well attended, in fact, so well attended that there was no room for a separate table, although the PFP allowed me to put a stack of my most important title, Vietnam: American Holocaust, on their table.

While that event had the best attendance, I spent most of the weekend in a booth I rent at the Peace Fest organized by ICUPJ and a number of other Los Angeles peace groups. That took place at the Iman Center in Culver City on Friday, Saturday and Peace Sunday. I saw old friends, met some new ones and had some great conversations. Attendance was less than expected and so were my sales. After I paid the booth fees there was very little profit to show for the effort but even the fees went to a good cause.

I know that I am largely responsible for my current predicament but I have no regrets. I spent a month delving into unpublished files obtained by Wikileaks, and doing that research and writing resulted in Barack Obama's Courtship with Bashar al-Assad and the release of 26 new documents by Wikileaks. That 16,000 word effort exposed the little known and largely secret dealings between our present government in Washington and the murderous one in Damascus over a three year period. When I saw that it had been re-published by uruknet.info, a Middle East website that I have read and respected since the start of the Iraq War, I knew that it was starting to have an effect on the dialog seeking a solution to the violence in Syria simply by revealing what had been hidden and that is far more important than any hardship I might face.

The bottom-line is I still really need your support. With rent due now in a matter of days, I am still trying to piece together the nut to pay it. I have some handyman work I will be doing later today and tomorrow, and I have good prospects for computer consulting work going forward. I often think that if I got a nickel for every time someone watched Vietnam: American Holocaust, I would be on easy street, but even though Google runs ads against it, they won't allow me to, so after 400,000 free views on YouTube, I feel that I am being forced to withdraw it to the pay-per-view market.

More than I ever have before. I need your support to help Linux Beach continue the work of getting out the news and views of myself and others that may not turn a profit but are part of a dialog that is essential for humanity going forward. If you are in a position to make a contribution is this work, no matter how small, I urge you to do so. [I am channeling Amy Goodman here.] You may make a contribution safely via PayPal to Linux Beach here. Tax deductible contributions towards the completion of our film in progress, Vietnam: People's Victory, can be made through our fiscal sponsor, "From the Heart." Checks can be made to "Linux Beach" and sent to the address below. Even if you can only afford to buy a DVD, that would be a great help. Don't you know a school or library that still doesn't have a copy of Vietnam: American Holocaust, or anything else that tells the anti-war side of that story, on its shelves? That film, graciously narrated by Martin Sheen, which Ron Kovic called "essential viewing for all Americans" is available at Amazon, and all my titles, including the two new ones, are available at Linux Beach.

In Solidarity,

Clay Claiborne

Linux Beach Productions
Venice, CA 90291

Click here for a list of my other blogs on SyriaClick here for a list of my other blogs on Libya