scotty, beam me up, quickly please

right now i wish i knew how to put pictures in here.  i could begin this post with the photo accompanying this article by william rivers pitt at truthout.org.  pitt somehow manages to take the events of the past few weeks and string them together into a coherent chain.  i don't need to comment on his comments; just gaze upon this horrifying photo of a counterprotestor's banner, follow pitt to his conclusion.  see if my head rests easy on the pillow tonight. 

blessed be

a happy birthday to marcia ellen, aka the happy chica.  i envy her this wondrous birthday.  to the rest of us, blessed samhain. hallowe'en has always been my favorite holiday. as a child i could hardly hold still in school all day long, waiting for time to rush home, carve pumpkins, and disguise myself in some dark way.  witches were my favorite, with pirates a close second. i grew up in a time when trick or treating (in the neighborhood) by ourselves without parents lurking at the edge of the porch was still a safe possiblity.  skulking thru the dark in the company of other mysterious beings was the biggest thrill of the year, better than christmas or birthday.

aol has a puffy piece on the welcome page, with the "news" that witches are still among us.  this comes as no surprise to many of us, especially women who came of age during the feminist days of the 70's, when wicca was the feminist religion of choice.  you might be surprised at the witches among us.  NPR fans may not know that margot adler is a witch, and an author of some good books on the subject.  wicca is an ancient earth religion that has gone thru many transformations, whose adherents have suffered greatly at the hands of established religions and governments. this is a site to comb for history, contemporary practice, materials, etc. beliefnet, that general store of religion, has a section on pagan/earth religions with information, chats, columnists - one of whom is perhaps my favorite witch, starhawk.  she has linked her devotion to the earth with serious political activism, and her websites will take you off in many directions if you have the time.  if i could belong to a "religion" this would probably be my choice.  i've actually tried joining wiccan groups a couple of times, but i get the giggles in inappropriate places, i just can't be serious about some of the silly stuff....and, it starts smacking of Organized Religion.  so, i howl at the moon in my own way, i honor the earth and all Being (except, maybe, the current administration and fred phelps), i try to walk lightly. 

still a bitch, but always an interesting bitch

any of you old enough to know who camille paglia is might enjoy a trek over to salon.com to read today's interview with her.  she rehashes many of her old subjects: bush, madonna, rush, pop culture, and talks about the current offering of democratic candidates in a refreshingly critical fashion.  most of all though,  i enjoyed her thoughts on blogs.  a sample:

   "Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of.  Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose!"  ....and there's more!!!!  she has inspired me to change the description of this journal.

check 'er out, it's fun.  i used to really hate her.  but today i was mainly amused.  i'd love to take a class with her.  philadelphia's not all that far away......hmmmmmm.   

freedom from religion, please

it was Progressive Musings latest entry that sent me on this search. and a nasty one it was.  fd was musing on fred phelps' most recent assault on human decency, his unspeakably presumptuous plan to put an antimemorial into a public park in casper, wy, to "celebrate matthew shepard's entry into hell." (a note to la happy chica: phelps was carrying on his campaign of homophobic hatred long before this homophobic administration, but i agree the current atmosphere does nothing to check this violent madness) from his stronghold in topeka, ks, phelps and his followers routinely sally forth to picket and demonstrate at any major gay/lesbian event: conferences, conventions, yea, even funerals.  the motto of this man of the cloth is "god hates fags." yes, that's actually the name of his church website. you can visit this site and see for yourself a model of the obscene "antimemorial" they have in the works.  now in case you just got in from a planet in some far distant galaxy, you can go here to read about matthew shepard and a laundry list of other hate crimes, or here for more of the same. 

then, feeling sullied by being a resident of this planet perhaps, you could go visit the Freedom from Religion Foundation.  i don't think of myself as an atheist, but i find the Foundation's term "freethinker" a useful one.  their outline of the history of first amendment freedoms, the founding fathers, the constitution, separation of church and state, is concise and dispassionate.  i may print it out to use as a reference.

The Perfect Fire

some thoughts on the california fires.  horrifying and apocalyptic as they are, even they are not without political connection.  tom engelhardt, of tomdispatch.com, invited mike davis to do a guest piece which he titled "The Perfect Fire." some quotes from this piece:
  "This is a specter against which grand inquisitors and wars against terrorism are powerless to protect us. ... many fire scientists dismiss 'ignition' - whether natural, accidental, or deliberate - as a relatively trivial factor in their equations.  They study wildfire as an inevitable result of the accumulation of fuel mass. Given fuel, 'fire happens.'
   The best preventive measure, of course, is to return to the native-Californian practice of regular, small-scale burning........but the suburbanization of the fire terrain makes it almost impossible to implement it on any adequate scale.......as a result, huge plantations of old, highly flammable brush accumulate along the peripheries...of new, sprawled-out suburbs.  Since the devastating 1993 fires, tens of thousands of new homes have pushed their way into the furthest recesses of So Cal's coastal and inland fire-belts.  Each new homeowner, moreover, expects heroic levels of protection from underfunded county and state fire agencies.
    Fire, as a result, is politically ironic.  The voices of the recall roaring to the skies against the oppression of an out-of-control public sector.......now scream for fire engines, and 'big government' is the only thing standing between their $3 million homes and the ash pile."   it's an interesting perspective on issues facing CA's new governer. note that the area of the fires largely follows the geographical boundaries of the recall vote. the most interesting bit is the factoid that "fire insurance in California is 'cross-subsidized' by all homeowners." 
     those who build their homes, $3 million ones or shanties, in these locations are well aware of the annual possibilities for wildfires.  this one may be "the fire of the century," but it won't be the only one.  if these residents aren't willing to pay higher insurance premiums or higher property taxes to protect the dream homes they put directly in nature's path, what in the world are they thinking? 

where she was from

yesterday i picked up joan didion's new book, Where I Was From, at the library.  i requested it after reading the review/interview with didion by Andrew O'Hehir on salon.com last week. a quote from that article seems to me directly related to the matters brought up by mike davis in my first entry on this subject.  didion is a native californian, her family has been there for generations, she grew up steeped in the mythology of the state.  all of which is the subject matter of the book.  the quote that struck me, relating to current political events and natural disasters, is the following:

    "She sees a state whose history was poisoned at the root by a heritage of carelessness and hucksterism, whose residents have always been willing to mortgage the future for a short term payout, and whose myth of freedom and independence has always been funded, at mind-blowing, almost unimaginable expense, by the same federal government many of its citizens profess to hate."

I haven't started the book itself yet, but didion is one of my favorite writers.  she is one of the few nonfiction writers whom i read regularly and avidly, so i look forward to it. 

tripping through the blogoverse

it's still grey and damp, also cold.  feeling like the approach of winter.  this time change always puts me a little out of things for a week or two.  dark so early, the urge to hibernate.  and no hibernation possible.  coming home this afternoon i noticed how the remnants of color in the yard stand out against the grey sky.  the crysanthemums:  deep red, bronze, gold, deep pink, still vibrantly blooming; asters and some salvias still going; even the geraniums, different pinks, deep reds, still with color; and the crape myrtles, what leaves were left after Isabel, are bright torches of all the autumnal hues.  i need to clean out so much that is finished, get started mulching up leaves, get things into the greenhouse.  we've had one frost already, the really tender things turned black after that.  soon frosty nights will be the norm. 

have spent some time here today journeying through blogs, always discovering new ones.  i need to do some blogroll work, group some things together under one link again, when i can find the time.  i could have an infinite blogroll, the constant discovery of new sites is my favorite part of this activity.  having many interests is both a joy and a drawback, looking at political analysts and commentors, writers and poets, naturalists and gardeners, spirtual thinkers, and all those entirely sui generis bloggers takes me spinning through universe after universe. 

so, now i must get ready to race off to my evening class.  no deep thoughts, no outrage, no insight.  kind of low key, grey, muted....a late october feeling. 

watch Whoopi tonight, she's a good laugh.  with a political underbite that i love.  i'll tape it to watch when i get home.

rainy days and mondays always get me down...

and here we have them combined into one rainy monday.  it was a very monday kind of morning at school, we all seemed to have brainlock, me and the students.  so now i'm safely at home where it doesn't matter.  sad to have the weekend over, it was so perfect.  with our chincoteague trip canceled because of our friends' family health problems, we were contemplating going into DC for the protest rally and march.  exhaustion won out, however, and we stayed here on delmarva:  took walks, did a little birding, ate barbeque, read novels.  a mini-vacation.  some guilt occasioned by not going in for the demo, but it took me so long to recover from the one last march, i just couldn't risk that in the middle of the semester.  we sent our vibrations across the chesapeake to the demonstration.

something that i'm having trouble understanding right now is the big project for journal excellence awards, complete with nominations, categories, votes, and probably even campaigning. seems like lots of folks are gearing into this.  why?  aren't journals something we do for ourselves?  clearly some people are always better at things than others, but...so what?  seems to me that the listing on journals of others we like is a good way to disseminate good writing, or graphics, or humor, or political commentary (a category not even listed) or whatever.  i'm not understanding the impetus behind this vote.  how many aol journals are there?  so far i've found 7 of them i care to read with any regularity.  compared with the large number of blogs outside aol that i could spend day and night visiting and reading. it's an amazing blogistan out there, the new face of journalism. it's the linking to the larger world that i find worthwhile.  but i'm open to hearing other opinions. 

mark morford's suggestion for a happier life

i would have put this in the previous post, but for the character limit.  oh hated limit.  soon to be gone, as i understand it.  not soon enuf for me.  anyway, to lighten things up a bit here, though i think mark is totally serious - after his fashion - i give you this link to mark morford's sfgate column.  it certainly made me feel much better.

so much so that i'm out of here now.  off to enjoy the rest of this lovely weekend with my honey, in what's left of planetary beauty and delight.  may you do the same.  namaste.

that old-time religion

holy shit, too freaky.  everywhere i go folks are talking about this connection between the rightwing religous element and government.  i haven't checked in on the daily KOS lately, so just now i did.  and guess what?  yep.  a great thread going on re this very subject.  go browse around in this thread.  the RR's have linked to the discussion, so it gets interesting.  a later P.S.:  here's the link to the post that started the whole thing.  and an interesting list of links, which i am investigating.

i linked to a group of sites on religion and spirituality because of all this. clearly this is one i'll follow a while.  a little background on my own take on all this.  i grew up roman catholic, went to catholic schools all my life, including georgetown univ.  i actually spent a total of about 9 months in a convent of a belgian order, though this house was in texas.  then i spent a couple of years teaching in catholic schools.  longtime brainwashing, huh?  but my recovery was sudden, swift and total. i'm all over it now.  i have friends who remain in the church, even have friends who are priests and sisters in the church.  they are dedicated, spiritually and socially, to bettering life on earth for the poor and helpless.  i love and admire them, but consider myself a spiritual person, not a religious one.  buddhism has many aspects that i take to heart and practice, though i cannot truthfully call myself a buddhist.  i am reading and studying buddhist writers, and have quite a few friends doing the practice.  i am on a path, that's all. i firmly believe in the separation of church and state, in the right of people to practice the religion or spiritual direction of their choice, including that of no religious belief at all.  i believe that the direction that we are headed under this administration will lead us to a position little different than that of iran under the ayatollahs.  this is not and must not become a theocracy of fundamentalistic evangelical christian ideologues.  it must be stopped.  we must become aware of what's going on, and speak out at every level. 

 

how can i keep from screaming?

my newly discovered blog-treasure, the slacktivist, discusses the wal-mart immigrant roundup in this post, closely echoing my own feelings. the more i learn about this, and think about it, the angrier i become.  this is one company only, i have to assume it is just the tip of the iceberg. 

slacktivist also continues his comb-through of the Left Behind series on his site.  this morning i read joan didion's entire review/essay, Mr Bush & the Divine, not just the quotes in slacktivist's post.  it's long, but riveting in its pellucid exposition of just how scary this whole christian/right/highest-levels-of-govt association has become.  the first part of the essay will familiarize you with the story line for the books.  from there didion connects the dots from the rev. la haye et al to the rev. mr. bush et al.  despite the fact that joan didion's wry, dry humor (in the midst of horror) can always make me chuckle, the title of this post is how i felt as i read this piece.

last night on bill moyers NOW i listened to joseph c. hough, currently president of the union theological seminary, redeem christianity in its saner form.  the dialogue between these two distinguished gentlemen kept me spellbound with wonder and hope.  this morning i researched dr. hough online and came upon this sermon given, eerily enough, on 9/9/01. despite what happened two days later, his concern for the environment and the poor remains as relevant now as it was then.  he wants the banner of, not only christianity but all three abrahamic traditions, to be flown not for death and rapture and destruction, but for this:  life.  abundant life for all of creation.  yeah, man, let's listen to this guy.  P.S. i just drifted over to scalzi's journal and discovered his allusion to this very conversation on NOW.  here, from john's post, is a link to the transcript of the entire dialogue.

the wal-mart roundup

with a few minutes here at the end of the week, what am i doing in the language lab?  uh huh, journaling.  but i did a bunch of other stuff first, so it's okay, right?  sorted and filed a lot of student papers and tests, did some grading, had a long chat with one of the other ESL instructors on many subjects, including this one:  the immigrant roundup at wal-marts across the country yesterday.  i found out this morning that 10 of those arrested were here in Delaware, none at our local wal-mart but 6 of them in a town close by. it's the front page of the wilmington news-journal today.  one of my favorite bloggers (Body and Soul) has this entry on the subject with some interesting links.  she feels much the same way i do, that the real criminals were not arrested here.  those who pay their workers, whom they know damn well are undocumented and therefore have little or no recourse, less than the price of a sandwich per diem are heartless criminals in my docket.  it's unclear how close the ties between the company contracted to do the cleaning for wal-mart and their corporate employers were, but i'm ready to take bets on the subject.  all those who think wal-mart didn't know what was going on please see me after class.

deeper and deeper into the murk

a second post re what seemed to be just a passing mention in today's previous post.  the review and comentary on the Left Behind series in the slacktivist's blog. any of you who may be getting worried about the evangelical fundamentalist drift of our very government  (narrow sliver of separation seems to be all that's left between church and state currently) from the top down need to gear into this.  i went back to do some more reading on this blog, and will need to spend more time there when i can. begin with this entry.

 a few years ago, in a slacker time between Real Jobs, i worked in a local bookstore.  we were constantly reordering this series, restocking, selling, reordering, ad infinitum.  the series itself expanded at an alarming rate.  the shelf space it took up was ever encroaching on real books.  we never quite knew in what section to shelve it.  science fiction?  religion?  new age?  general weirdness?  certainly none of the fringe characters working in the store (musicians, poets, literature students, like that) ever read any of it to get a grasp of its drift. i only knew that it had to do with "the rapture." a concept that didn't really take up much space on my own personal hard drive.

finding out that tim lahaye's wife is the head of "concerned women for america" woke me right up. known to the irreverent as "ladies against women" this group is the main force behind "marriage protection week" and a lot of other idiotic crap.  the popularity of this series may have more to do with the way our leaders think than we have known.   i return to the comments of general boykin, for instance.  to the idea many seem to have (himself included) that dubya was annointed, appointed, elected, whatever, by jesus himself.  go back to the slacktivist and read this post where he quotes joan didion in the new york review of books.  this guy is a deeplevel christian,  with theological knowledge beyond the garden variety.  let's pay some attention to this.  now.

like trying not to breathe

this is just a journal.  just a place in virtual space where we all write ephemeral comments about this, that, and the other.  things come and things go.  today's big deal is tomorrow's dead letter.  so the fact that i've managed to stay out of here for three days is just another thing.  the fact that it was so oddly difficult is perhaps a matter for concern.  i know from reading others' journals that this is not just my phenomenon, that others are equally, or even more, addicted to reading and writing on their flat screens. but i did it, and now i feel so Left Behind  (to cop a title that is being discussed on a whole lot of blogs. the Lahaye series on "christian" "rapture" is being reviewed by the slacktivist and i've read at least three blogs where the "philosphy" is talked about. it's a phenom that leaves me stone cold, but the interest being kicked up here is in itself interesting.) and Out of Touch.  world events, national politics, zogby polls, wedding plans, indie bands, california strangeness, the constant soup of life and blogs roars on and on.  step out of the river for three days and you don't step back into the same river, no indeed. 

but here i am, and i got a lot of things done.  there are, always will be, scads more undone.  my hope is to work this journal into life the same way i do laundry.  do it when i have the chance, the odd interstices of time between things on the main menu, let it all hang out, hope there's clean underwear when it's needed. 

the 300 illegal immigrants arrested this morning in a sweep at wal-marts all over the country have the real stuff to worry about.  cleaning crews working for a contractor, cleaning up behind america's biggest retailer. if all the illegal immigrants doing the dirty work for america's big businesses were to disappear overnight what a howl of protest would ascend to the highest places.  don't tell me these businesses don't know what's going on.  it's in their best interests to keep it happening.   

down a hollow to a cavern

early morning dark, chilly, monday.  steaming cup of tea.  just a few thoughts here, so it won't seem as if i've disappeared in the manner of those despised journal starters-and-leavers.  don't know if it's my usual autumnal depression movin' in, or sanity catching up.  or what.  but i'm realizing the incredible amount of time i've been spending reading internet blogs, magazines, aol journals, etc, and then writing my own journal entries, is making me a candidate for a 12 step program.  i'm not reading much of anything else, not doing any other writing, not paying the attention to my classes that i should.  i'm not doing the necessary work to get yard and gardens ready for winter, not connecting with real friends in real time and space.  this is ridiculous.  my work takes up a great deal of time, that is necessary, that has to be.  but for this to be taking most of the rest of my time makes no sense at all. 

so i'll be making fewer entries here, though by no means abandoning my journal, nor anyone else's.  the amount of attention i've been paying to politics is also a factor.  daily outrage is turning to constant depression.  which helps nothing at all.  i'll be checking in here probably once, maybe twice, a week.  just not...several times every day.  for now i leave you this piece by ira chernus, giving sage and loving advice for taking Time Out, time to re-experience what should be our inspiration for dreaming the dream, for fighting the good fight.     namaste for now.

today's blood pressure reading

actually, the name of the album i'm listening to could serve as the subject of the entry.  an olla podrida of offerings.  first of which is a small disappointment.  we were supposed to meet friends from boston (actually one of them is a longtime friend from dallas) next weekend in chincoteague, VA for a weekend of birding, wildlife-refuge strolling and general life reconnection.  they won't be able to make the trip because of family problems.  leaving us to decide what we will do.  G would love for us to go to the refuge on our own and spend a quiet peaceful weekend. though i see the beauty of that choice, i am campaigning for heading to DC and the demonstration/march to be held by ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice.  there will be a delegation from Poets Against the War, reading poems near the washington monument pre-rally.  i attended code pink's rally and march in early spring, but my involvement with these current groups has been entirely virtual, including having a poem published on the poetsagainstthewar.org site last spring.

it's clear that we need more large visible protests in places that can't be ignored or overlooked. i just read this article that astronomically elevated my blood pressure, and am happy to offer you the same opportunity. it's one reason i want to see more large protests continue. yeah, let's keep dissent visible.  if they can shuttle small groups or individual protesters aside to "free speech areas" like this, we need to make sure there are so many people speaking freely that they cannot be hidden away. you are familiar with the first amendment, yes? you were, perhaps, of the opinion that this whole country was a "free speech area?"  after you read the story you will see how wrong you are.  not anymore, kids.  not anymore.

more of the same

if i worked on this journal the way i have read other people do  (first writing the entries in another program, like notepad, then cutting and pasting in to the text box) i could have put this in as my first entry on the subject.  but i don't think it really matters.  more on my favorite new institution, Marriage Protection Week  (okay, go ahead and read my previous post).  do you think we'll have one annually, now?  like secretaries' week, and so on?

this thing would be laughably minor if it hadn't gotten so much attention, hadn't been sanctioned by the head of the secular government, the (p)Resident.  you can go to the horse's mouth and take a look.  you will see that no major religious body is behind this event.  you will see a gloriously heterosexual happy couple on the opening page. you can continue into the site to read their "thinking." hey, if you want to, you can even sign the pledge. or, you can stick your finger down your throat. you can gag.  then you could go to an interesting article by chuck muth, president of a  conservative group called Citizen Outreach, in the las vegas sun.  he lists 10 reasons the Fed'l Marriage Amendment (you do know they're mulling over a constitutional amendment on all this?) is a bad idea.  as a conservative who wants gov't to intrude less on our lives he has some worthwhile points.  some scary ones too.  but take a look at #'s 3 and 4, and best of all:  #10.  then, if you still have stamina left, read john buck at democraticunderground for a sane and reasoned commentary.  a note to end on.  then go roast a chicken and light the shabbas candles.  Marriage Protection Week is over.

like a snowball down a mountain

so, it's friday afternoon, the week is over.  yes, my dears, Marriage Protection Week will officially be over tomorrow.  we, however, celebrate the end of every week on friday.  G and i are both home on fridays, the only weeknight neither one of us is teaching. often we cook a meal and light the shabbas candles, breathing a sigh of relief at not having to rush off to improve anyone else's lives. 

those of you in straight marriages.....do you feel better at having had a week protecting your sacred institution?  do you feel less threatened now by people like me and my partner, who have been together for over 22 years, raised two boys to splendid (and straight, yes, even married!) manhood, have conjoined extended families with grandchildren, nieces and nephews, greatnieces and nephews, with whom we often celebrate all kinds of holidays?  a recovered catholic and a relaxed jew, we have been married in no religion, authorized by no authority save our own, but we have survived, continue to survive, the slings and arrows of a longterm relationship.  there have been some doozies (slings, and/or arrows) too.  but here we are,  at the end of Marriage Protection Week, 2003, looking forward to a weekend of subversive activities like planting rose bushes, maybe taking a drive to look at autumn foliage, baking brownies, calling the kids, sleeping late, going out for sunday breakfast. 

to think that our domestic, entirely nonthreatening, existence as loving partners  (and that of so many many others just like us) freaks out a whole coalition of supposedly christian people (including that messenger from jesus himself, our president)!!!  it's enough, really, to make me rethink my image.  these people are on to something, yes, we are scary.  yes, living examples of the fact that it's possible to have deeply committed, important, lasting bonds in a relationship, a family, without permission or license from any Higher Authority, human or divine.  the possibility of being decent human beings outside religious or legal governance.  a scary scary thought. 

keep the phone lines humming

time to call your congresspeople, folks. email them, fax them, call them. the vote is going down within the next 48 hours.  congress will approve, or not, bush's $87 BILLION package for military support, and "aid and reconstruction" for iraq and afghanistan, probably by the end of the week.  by now you have surely read some of those articles detailing what this sum of money would do for health care, education, elderly concerns, etc. in this country.  i've even seen it broken down by state, the number of jobs that could be created, teachers that could be hired, cops and firefighters put into our cities and towns. 

so, returning to the subject of my previous posts....the destruction of iraq.  what sense does any of this make?  we destroy a country, then leave our own citizens in the lurch in order to rebuild it?  some of the democratic hopefuls want this package to be financed by calling back the tax cut to the wealthiest among us (those not hurting for health care, decent education for their kids, money for prescription meds, affordable housing, or simply...a paycheck).  several of them want it vetoed entirely.  a large portion of the money will go for military spending in these countries.  that imperative, termed moral, to "support our troops."  no amount of money is going to make these operations palatable to the troops discussed in an article on AOL's own newspage.  no amount of money is going to make this operation moral.  that goal was lost before it began.  i just can't stop returning to the orchard destruction in a desert community, the collective punishment of families, an event almost biblical in its echoes.  i am relieved to find myself in very good company, as you will see if you follow this link to read not just the post but the comments as well.

i've emailed and faxed.  now i'm going to the phone.  it almost calls washington by itself now.

THE FERTILE CRESCENT

this story, which i first found on Old Hickory's Weblog, has deeply captured my emotional imagination.  partly because i am reading a novel called Crescent, by a writer named Diana Abu-Jaber.  she has an earlier book, Arabian Jazz, which i will find as soon as i finish this one.  the story to which i refer is that of the destruction, by our own armed forces, of groves of date palms and citrus trees owned by farming families north of baghdad.  the story first broke (as have so many others)  in the british paper, the independent. it has gotten little play here, and i thank you, bruce, for bringing it to my attention.  the putative reason for this wholesale destruction is punishing the farmers who wouldn't inform on activists who might be living among them.  i went to riverbendblog to see if she had any further information or an indigenous viewpoint to share.  and of course, she has.  i can't find individual links for her entries, but this one is a few posts down. not just an account of tree uprooting and hacking, it is a paean to date palms, a glimpse into their importance to the people, their culture, their very lives.  it shows what an outrage this is, what a crude gesture of disrespect to an ancient and proud people.  have we learned nothing in all the years of the israeli/palestinian conflict?  actions such as these do not bend people into submission.  they have quite the opposite effect.  they generate hatred and sow seeds of determined opposition for years to come.  i am afraid we have destroyed much more than trees by this ignoble use of our fighting forces.

and, oh yes, the novel.  its title brings to mind the old nomenclature for the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the "fertile crescent" of our childhood history books. it is about a community of middle-eastern immigrants and students in LA, about love, food and poetry. the time is the period between the "gulf war" and whatever we are supposed to call this one. it is written in language so rich, so sensually evocative,  that the print scarcely holds still on the page.  

deep in the heart? of texas

the horse is almost dead, but i will continue to beat it for a moment.  matt bivens, in his Nation blog the daily outrage (oh, would that there were daily ONLY one. it's getting harder and harder to pick just one a day.  they are piling up thicker and thicker every where i look.) today writes on the texas republican chicanery.  he has a ton of links in the rant, including a washington post article and maps of the redistricting.  time to wake up, folks.  democrats, that is.  briars are growing over the castle while we sleep.  all our rage, our outrage, our umbrage, and we are standing still while the R's race to become The Only Political Party There Is. 

a wild wind started blowing last night, and continues through the day.  isabel stripped many leaves last month, this wind is taking many of what remained.  before they could turn color, alas.  it was hard to sleep last night, the wind banging these old windows, throwing small branches on the roof, rain against the panes.  it's cool and crisp, a day to fondle pumpkins at a farm stand. but me, i'm off to see yet another doctor about this bone spur.  a medical mystery tour i haven't mentioned here.  i don't believe in sharing medical sagas with any but my closest and most devoted.  and even then, eyes glaze over.  however, if i have surgery i'll have loads of time to journal.  time to bore myself and any invisible friends to death.  

a good time will be had by all

speaking of the texas observer, as i was in the previous post, they are sponsoring an event i'd give a lot to be able to attend.  molly ivins will be hosting a book-signing for paul krugman's new book The Great Unraveling, at threadgill's in austin.   some great austin institutions in those few sentences:  the observer, molly ivins, threadgill's.  paul krugman, of course, is not an austin institution, but he may become one after this saturday's event.  he may just decide to pack up and move to one of this country's really good cities.  despite the fact that the texas leg calls it home.  if you've been a molly ivins reader for any period of time you know what a circus that legislature is.  the city, however, is a fine place to live or just to spend some time. great music, great food, worldclass places to kayak, tube and swim, and - again, despite the legislature - home to some fine old-fashioned populists and progressives. 

oh monday, monday

yup, it's monday all right.  and yup, it's still all out there.  and more.  drove to school this a.m. listening to NPR, guy from the dallas morning news talking about the texas republican takeover.  while the entire country was focusing on california, my home state went down the tubes.  not exactly quietly, but without the attention a big blockheaded movie star attracts.  the texas democrats who kept trying to instill some drama into the situation in the lone star state drew ridicule and snickering instead of the respect they deserved.  i decided to do a little deep background on this whole republican blitz and found this article in the texas observer. it's long, but bears reading, even if you are not from, nor give a rat's ass about, texas.  what the TAB/TRM  (Texas Ass'n for Business and Texans for a Republican Majority) have done here will largely influence the outcome of the 2004 election.  the R's now control all the legislative branches of texas government.  not an insignificant trick to pull off.  and it was not done indigenously.  karl rove and tom delay's prints are thickly laid over the whole thing. 

but i had a fine weekend anyway.  ignored politicians and corporate interests (okay, i peeked at the headlines, i admit it) for two days and enjoyed my sister, my little niece, a visiting friend, some great thai food, the ocean wild with crashing waves during saturday's storm, sunday's bright golden sunshine.  it's that time of year when the back entry hall always has leaves on the rug and the squirrels are tossing acorns at our heads with deadly aim if we spend too much time in their territory.  we have one less pinoak this year since we took down the dying one in august, but the big one by the back of the house is brimming with nuts and the squirrels are doing their thing with them.  we managed to get the rest of the greenhouse put back together, thanks to R's determination and biceps.  the squirrels bombarded us the whole time we were working out there.  not to mention the mosquitoes.  time for a good freeze, say goodbye to the little stingers. 

the invitations overhead

stop reading headlines.  stop reading weblogs about the california recall elections. don't think about iraq, valerie plame, condi rice, haliburton or the 2004 election. stop thinking about how incredibly eff'd up so much is right now. for just a couple of days.  okay? go outside and smell the leaves.  listen to the geese.  read this lovely lovely poem by stephen dobyns.  try to have a restful weekend.  it will all still be out there, and more, on monday. 

like a clock whose hands are sweeping

past the minutes of its face.  and the world is like an apple.  whirling silently in space. eventually i'll run out of lines from the song for titles.  then maybe i'll start all over again. i too am like an apple whirling, sometimes silently, sometimes swearing loudly, in space.

too many things to do, always, and never enough time to do them.  i'd say i'm wasting time here, but it's one of my main pleasures currently.  writing, and reading the writing of others.  a moment to collect myself in some way. 

the week coming to an end, the hardest part.  dragging myself through the last few classes, especially the thursday night one. coming up in a short while.  too many people in the class, at such varied levels.  i've actually split off a smaller class who are essentially working by themselves with books and tapes.  i check in on them several times during the evening to answer questions, resolve disputes.  they are much more advanced than the others.  so, as a reward, they get ignored and have to work alone. but they're enjoying it and feel kind of special. 

i'm so worn out and depressed by paying so much attention to the political caca surrounding us in this country.  i have to take a little break.  really this time.  the truth is our lives remain pretty much the same no matter how much shit is all over the fan.  i need to take more note of my cat (molly) asleep in the sun in the rocker on the porch. she's the dearest cat we've ever had, and she's an old girl now. and the japanese chyrsanthemums coming into bloom in the front gardens.  the indian summer warmth and gentleness of these october days. R is coming with melissa on the weekend.  we'll go to the beach, breathe in the negative ions, scream at the waves. it's late enough in the season now that we can take honey (our dog) to the beach with us. maybe see the dolphins, if they haven't left yet for the south.  rain is in the forecast, but they never really know.  maybe we could get in a little kayaking somewhere with them.  eff them all, george, arnold, condi, donald, john, paul  (no no, not ringo, he's not in this group).  i'm paying attention to some better life forms for the next few days.  animals, flowers, children, shorebirds.  i've got to get myself back to the gaaaaarrrden. 

california dreamin'

well, it's been a difficult day so far, it has it has.  couldn't wait to get to the news from california, which was exactly the result i expected.  deplored, but expected. strange fruit to swallow so early in the morning.  then off to get blood drawn (at 7:30 a.m, for pete's sake) by vampire lab techs.  fasting never improves my mood.  my first class started late, because of the lab appointment, so i was racing the clock to take them through a review for a major test tomorrow.  one of my favorite students was doing an irritating trick i've several times asked him to stop  (when he is aware that someone doesn't know the answer, he mutters a wrong answer to them, and they usually take the bait and deliver the wrong answer.  he's very smart, and knows the right answer.  he just loves to mess with the other students' minds. i actually understand the personal entertainment value he derives from this trick, but it's not doing the others a bit of good.) and i totally lost it.  yelled like a fishwife (haridan, shrew, harpy, etc.  all those bad antifeminist epithets) at him. it was a really wrong way to handle it, and i immediately felt like shit.  i've never done that before in a class.  when the class was doing some written work i took him out to the hall and talked to him.  i told him he knew that he had to stop the behavior, but that i shouldn't have gotten so angry and apologized for doing so.  he sulked all through the rest of class.  i hope he's recovered by tomorrow.  this is a great kid, a young korean, smart as a whip, great sense of humor.  gotta get a better grip here, start sleeping more than five hours a night.

so, now i'm depressed by the california recall and by my own aberrant lack of control.  but calpundit has a pretty level-headed assessment of the recall, in which he includes a link to our own john scalzi's writing about the recall on his real blog, whatever.  the mild-mannered, lowkey scalzi of bytheway morphs into someone entirely more radical, loosed from the constraints of AOL.  really, go check it out.

ellen goodman is a mensh

several posts back i mentioned the ultrachristian ultraright's deep concern and social caring, nay, let's call it paranoia, on the subject of same-sex marriage (SSM). they want to make it the number 1 social issue in the 2004 election.  yeah, they even want to have the Constitution amended to make SSM like bootleg gin during prohibition, something so illegal and exciting that everyone will want queer eye for the straight guy to arrange their wedding.  so, wait, i got carried away there.  to counteract this total craziness we have, i am so glad, ellen goodman writing about her cousin adam's committment ceremony, a real jewish celebration, with rabbi, wineglass stomping (two of them), lots of family, food and fun. just go read it, it'll make you feel better.  okay, yes, it made me feel better.  and i needed it too.

words that jangle in your head

yes, feeling frustrated.  with many things.  most of them entirely petty.  like the techno problems with aol.journals over the weekend and evidently continuing into our monday.  i have clearly grown addicted to being able to post when and as i feel like it, and also to reading other journalers' entries.  seems like that's how it should work, no?  but currently that ain't happening.  ah, hardly a blip on the cosmological screen, really.  then there's the hot water line under the house that the terminex guy eff'd up when he was under there friday, which caused the hot water pressure to drop to nil on the weekend, though we knew not why at the time.  the furnace guys came on sunday (we have an oil-fueled hot water-and-heat system), scratched their heads and left.  i came home early from school today to wait for the plumbers, who found the broken line and fixed it.  we have the return of hot water.  we spoiled americans, unused to third-world conditions such as showering in cold water.  G actually did that last night.  not me.  i'm still dirty.

but we need to start getting used to third-world conditions.  i have just read two interviews with paul krugman, NYT op-ed columnist extraordinaire. he has a new book out, a collection of his columns.  i read krugman regularly, he is one of my voices in the wilderness. he writes on the lies, mistakes and downright treachery of this administration in his columns.  these online interviews are clear, concise and scary as hell.  the first is with kevin drum on calpundit, the second is from buzzflash.  krugman speaks of his and his friends' feelings about the future:..."we've looked at the news, and we sort of extrapolate the lines forward.  And there's this feeling of creeping dread."  he caught it in two words:  creeping dread.  if you don't yet have it, it's time to wake up, start paying some close attention.  please, even if you don't consider yourself "political" read these interviews.  we don't have the luxury of being apolitical at this point in our history.

about journals, some musing

i've noticed that some folks are very focussed in their blogs or journals.  mainly writing on one subject.  politics.  books.  gardening.  their weight loss struggles.  or, else, the journals are totally personal, more in the vein of written diaries.  today's events.  my love life.  funny stuff i'm thinking about.  and, some people seem to have multiple journals, focussing on one subject in each journal.

perhaps my multiple personalities can all coexist happily here. in the windmills of my mind.  my journal is named, not just for the song (and what a great song it is) but for the way i visualize my mind.  because that's how it is.  teaching, gardening, political raving, navel-gazing, poetry, fiction, all taking place in the same space, sometimes at the same time.  i have many political links, by far the majority of the blogs and sites i visit are political. but there are many other blogs and websites that i visit regularly, some classifiable, some sui generis. now i've got the gardening ones in order...the sky's the limit.  the scope, like the blogosphere, is endless. 

 

whirling silently in space

sheeesh.  have the rest of you had the trouble with this journal thing today that i have had?  unable to get to my own journal, when i get there can't make an entry because the text box is all eff'd up.  if i actually manage to make an entry it's full of the gd plus sign and i have to delete it to get the rest of the journal back into line.  come on, techies, not on the weekend!  but anyhow, here i am.  managed to do it by going off aol and coming in thru yahoo.  i read this method on someone else's journal.  so there.  why would that work?  i'm not the one who would ever know.

i had made an entry with my garden blogs and websites, which i was including on my blogroll as a link.  i edited the entry to add more sites, and when i tried to upload it there were those evil little +'s everywhere. ergo, i deleted it.  so, now i've got to try to get it back into an entry box and onto the journal.  but i did something much better all afternoon.  actually worked in the garden.  G and i both worked outside all afternoon on a pluperfect october day.  i got a couple of things planted, finally, in the space where the old composter was pre isabel. a butterfly bush and a patch of solidago (people don't like to say "goldenrod" anymore, because of the poor thing's undeserved rep as a cause of hayfever. so, solidago.  but, it's still goldenrod.  and still doesn't cause hayfever.).  they're both blooming beautifully right now, so hope this move won't disturb them too much. don't know if i'll leave them there, but for now it's good.  it should be a great site for things to thrive.  found many fat earthworms when i was digging holes.  we also worked in the big garden, pulling up bolted greens, finished tomato vines, and massive amounts of wire grass and other weeds.  it's allout war on these weeds now, for real.  we filled two barrels with icky weeds to go away in the town truck, and i chopped up the good stuff to put into the composter.  this new composter still seems huge, but it's well on its way to filling up.  everything smelled so good out there, and my hands still smell wonderful now.  i chopped up some bolted overgrown basil and some overgrown garlic chives.  i'll be fragrant for a while.

hunka hunka burnin' slob

before i went offline earlier i read email, and found one there from moveon.org starting an ad campaign to get the word out in california that electing arnold is a truly bad idea.  even if you don't live in california, as so many of us do not, you can help out with this.  go to the moveon site, scroll down to find the article about the ad and click in to get the information.  they want phone banks (from wherever) calling CA voters to talk sense, they are running ads all over the state.  you can be a telephone caller, or you can donate, at least you can send the info to anyone you know in CA. 

another place to log in for more ire and wrath on da man, is body and soul's wonderful weblog.  she has devoted most of her day to reading and writing about this alien phenomenon.  don't you just have to keep pinching yourself?  and asking:  "how can this be happening? how?  how? howhowhowhowhowHOW?"  and furthermore, there is evidently some proposal of a constitutional amendment to allow naturalized citizens to be elected president.  note bene, all ye who may not actually be taking this no-longer-a-joke seriously.  it's the only thing that's kept me from blowing an artery when i think about it.  i say to myself  "well, he's not a native-born citizen.  he could never be president."  holy shit.  what if he COULD?

a tunnel of its own

well, i'm avoiding dealing with all this crappy news that's everywhere.  the terminator as a political reality.  the unceasing need to spend money looking for nonexistent WMD.  more GIs dead in iraq.  but i can't help it.  denial or not, i know it's all out there.  thank god for mark morford.  i showed you the path, a couple of posts ago.  too bad if you didn't take me up on it.  great rant on the arnold situation in today's sending from mark. poor guy actually lives in the state currently at great risk of a ludicrous election result. the truth, however, is that the whole country will have evil repercussions if this republican stage-managed coup actually takes place 

in his newsletter mark also includes a nasty little news item on something that's hard for me to wrap my mind around.  the fact that the ultrareligous ultraright actually considers the issue of same-sex marriage (hereafter to be known as SSM) to be the number one social issue in the country for the 2004 election.  in a country where: jobs daily disappear down the toilet, millions of children have no health insurance and therefore little or no healthcare, old people have to decide between food or prescription medicine, where immigrants live in fear, where racism still reigns supreme in so many ways, pollution and planet-trashing run rampant, our basic civil and human rights are in deep danger,  these people think queer people LOVING each other is the #1 social problem?  from a woman named sandy rios, president of "concerned women for america" this quote:  "this is the very underpinning of civilization.  if we remove those foundations, our entire civilization will come crumbling down."  these women need to maybe start showing some concern about the fact that civilization won't have much longer to exist anyway if the USA continues to multiply our WMD and to destroy the air, water and soil our offspring will need to maintain their very existence.  get a grip, sandy. get an f'ing grip.

kickin' back

hoo hah!  it's friday afternoon.  a better than usual week, somehow.  good classes, not too exhausted.  "how can i keep from singing" winging out in eva's remarkable way, here in the gorgeous late-afternoon fall sunlight.  and, imagine this, i got blogmentioned on Old Hickory's Weblog!  oh frajous day, calloo calay, my fifteen minutes of fame have finally arrived!

it had been my ambition this afternoon to start getting my links in order  (a vaguely S/M ring to that phrase somehow. no, wait, of course.....it's golf! not chains, after all.) here on the journal this afternoon.  but, after this morning's four-hour writing class the korean gang had the rest of us (a few latinos, one turk, and me!) down to the Son's house in bethany for "lunch."  this was a potluck affair organized around ismail's jones for teriyaki chicken.  not a korean dish, but in the asian ballpark, what the hell.  good enough for him.  we had any number of foods i couldn't identify, all of which i scarfed down with gusto.  there was a noodle/sauce dish that was.....whoooo baby!.......fiery hot and kickass good.  yes.  this was not "lunch."  this was a major feast.  i may not actually need to eat again the rest of the weekend.

so, my ambition has cooled for serious work.  well, serious work for a friday afternoon, okay?  not really serious work.  and i'll have to start another entry anyway to have enough room.  blogfather scalzi tells me the entry character limit will be removed "in a few months."  why not just go ahead and remove it now?  huh?  it's great news, whenever.

later, the same day

lazy evening, surfing around.  actually did some cooking, G will be pretty surprised when she gets home from her Evenstart gig and finds real food waiting for her.  it's this fabu fall weather, gets my mojo moving again. 

had time to read through some of my favorite blogs and catch up on the news and views of the past few days.  which have been seriously busy.  spent quite a while on tomdispatch, juan cole, and Old Hickory.  the valerie plame blown-cover story seems to be the big one at the moment.  as it's been around in print and certainly in the blogsphere since july i wonder why it's just now grabbing this much attention.  how strange that this particular piece of nasty business may be the one to finally get some investigative juices flowing.  of course it is connected to the Nigerian yellowcake story, which got quite a bit of attention.  put them together they should spell trouble. for our friends in high places.  we can but hope. 

for some wildly entertaining reading on all manner of subjects, check out this guy.  need i warn you of some "adult language" (as they say before those "adult" programs on network TV) and "content?"  or can you handle it?  mark morford writes on anything and everything in his san francisco chronicle column, and will also send you an email newsletter which contains his column as well as many many other things.  the first article of mark's i ever read was one on the gwb "action figure," soon after i became aware of the actual existence of this doll. don't have anything in your mouth that you can spew any distance when you read this.  it's the funniest piece of total twisted rage i may ever have experienced.

running rings around the moon

the moon. have you been looking at it these past few nights?  at least here on the delmarva these delicious chilly nights it has been a huge golden crescent over the trees.  one of my korean students asked me last night when we were looking at the moon outside the Language Center: "teacher, what shape this is called?"  and so i got to say "crescent.  it's a crescent moon."  not a phrase you get to use often, unless speaking of the turkish flag. 

into the hot tub for the first time this fall last night, oh glory, glory hallelujah for my aching bones and joints.  and then sleeping like a rock, no meds, no nyquil, no racetrack mind whirling in the long dark hours.  just blessed deep sleep, with my cat curled in my armpit.  i may actually live to see thanksgiving.  a friend, long since dead of AIDS, used to say "if you make it to halloween you'll probably live til christmas."  he was of the depressive tribe himself, and knew whereof he spoke.  we lived in a group house in those days, a freaky band of characters, three guys and me. three of us both worked and lived together, the fourth sometimes worked somewhere.  i learned to love italian opera and the rolling stones with those guys.  i also learned that men don't, left to their own devices, clean bathrooms or kitchens until those places acquire a stinking crust of scum and muck.  so, after almost a year of cleaning bathroom and kitchen, i moved out.  it was great fun, but it was just one of those things.

(have i reached the witching hour of 2500 characters yet with my random ramblings?) on a cool grey afternoon with nothing urgent to do, i feel kind of mellow and relaxed.  noteworthy in itself.  for the moment i'm feeling quite good about most of my classes and very good about my students.  the stories they are turning in for Listening and Speaking class are delightful.  this morning i played the tape of Raouf Mama telling the story "How Chameleon Became a Teacher" while they listened raptly.  the assignment is to adapt a children's story from their country into english.  i edit it with them, then they are going to "tell" their story to the class.  most of the stories are turning out to be little morality fables of a very charming nature.