DRIVING WEST

ROAD TRIP !!! For real, honest and true, I am finally leaving tomorrow for the Lone Star State.  I've only been talking about it now for several months - so I forgive anyone who doesn't believe me.  It's a thunderstormy time of year to drive west, but the good news is that gas prices are steadily going down.  I actually filled up the Matrix tonight for $1.85 a gallon.  Don't know how prices are looking in the middle of the country, I should have been asking folks in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas. 

First stop is Dallas, where I have a sister and her family, as well as my oldest and dearest friend.  One of my nieces is in a play on Friday, final performance from Shakespeare camp - so if the Force is with me all the way, I'll be there in the audience to embarrass her with my cheering.  We'll meet another sister, and the nephew (Rob) who was recently here visiting, in Austin for the July 4th weekend: swimming, fireworks, barbeque, beer, you know - exactly what Thomas Jefferson would have done if he'd known there was an Austin (there's always been Austin, hasn't there?  somewhere?) Then I'll spend a few days in San Antonio, looking for low carb Mexican food.  On the way back north I hope to spend at least half another day in the Austin area, at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center.  This is the closest to heaven I'll get, in any life.  It's Ladybird's legacy to us, and my favorite place on the planet.

The whole thing will take about ten days, and I don't know how often I'll get online.  Not very, is my guess.  While I'm there to visit the kids, that's what I want to be doing.  I will miss Journal Land, both posting entries and reading my Journal Friends' thoughts and observations.  So - don't say anything interesting until I get back.  Okay?  Don't have too much fun without me. It's so hard to getback In once you've been Out for a while.  Hard to catch up on everything and everyone.  Love, peace and fajitas - hasta la vista, amigos!

WHAT, MERCURY, AGAIN???

Yes, again - because this morning BushGreenwatch tells me that:      "Tomorrow marks the last day for the public to comment on the highest-profile battle in years between the Bush administration and advocates of public health. The administration is under court order to finalize the first-ever federal regulations to reduce poisonous emissions of mercury from power plants--the largest uncontrolled source of mercury pollution in the U.S."

This was one of the topics on Bill Moyers NOW this past Friday,  they made a strong case against mercury.  I have posted about the dangers mercury pollution poses to pregnant women, developing fetuses, babies, young children, before.  Yep, several times.  But we're down to the wire now on doing something about this.  Halting Dubya's "base's" ("the haves and have mores* ") ability to make the regulations concerning all our lives.  read today's BushGreenwatch bulletin, then go to MercuryHurts.org to send a letter to the E.P.A. about this legislation.  How could taking action be easier? 

*The more I contemplate this GWB quote from F9/11: "This is an impressive crowd, the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." the more pissed-off I get.  It may be showing up in future posts, as appropriate places to insert it appear. How can the millions of people in this country striving to make mortgage payments, put food on their families' tables, hold a job in the world of downsizing and outsourcing hear a quote like this - and not want to start a revolution?  In any "coalition of the wild-eyed" I guess you need to count me in!

FRAMING MICHAEL MOORE

Yesterday afternoon G and I, and a whole lot of other folks - even here in this quiet backwater of the world, sneeringly called "Lower Slower Delaware" by those north of us - went to see Michael Moore's new opus Fahrenheit 9/11.  All shows the first two days were sold out - we had to buy our tickets well in advance - the lines snaked through the lobby, out the door, down the mall.  I suspect that many of you who read this journal have also seen it in the past couple of days, or will see it soon.  I really didn't think it was possible to be any angrier than I have been for well over a year now.  Well, hey, I was wrong.  The movie really didn't contain any new information for me (anyone who reads Old Hickory's journal with any regularity, as well as all those other political blogs, and nonmainstream news sources listed in my links knows most of this stuff all too well), but seeing it all put together, right in my face, was unbelieveably powerful.  And here I have to comment on the brilliant use of music in this film, it adds as much commentary as Moore's voiceover, or any of the spoken words.  No wonder the Junta in Washington is scared of Michael Moore.

Here is a link to Joel Bleifuss' article "Framing Michael Moore," from In These Times, which  speaks of Moore's movie, and refutes completely Michael Isikoff's (although he is, in the current issue of Newsweek) right to say ANYthing about much of anything, as far as I can see. If you don't have time to read the entire article, here is Bleifuss' conclusion, no way I could say it better:

Fahrenheit 9/11 is an amazingly powerful documentary. Moore collects skeins of archival footage—a young George W. driving across country, Paul Wolfowitz slicking his hair back with spit as he readies for the cameras, Bush addressing a fundraising dinner: "This is an impressive crowd, the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

Moore weaves historic documents together with his signature vignettes—two Air Force recruiters bamboozling youth into the military, the mourning mother whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, and members of Congress running away as he asks them tosign up and enlist their children in the war.

Through these, Moore constructs a penitential sackcloth for a president who has no clothes, and who, come November, will, electorate willing, be out of office. Thanks, significantly, to Michael Moore.

Yes, Fahrenheit 9/11 is propaganda, in the same way the nightly news is, or the front page of your daily paper. It’s just that Moore is more upfront with the point he is trying to make. Critics contend that Moore is framing the president. Not quite. He builds his case with the president’s own words, numerous damning facts and the testimony of those most affected by the war.

What the critics of the film are really outraged about is that Fahrenheit 9/11 could have an effect on the presidential election. After breaking records in New York, the movie opens Friday, June 25, and on Monday, June 28, MoveOn will host an evening of nationwide house parties. The parties, more than 1000 of them, will culminate in a national online town meeting with Moore.

To fight back, some unknown person or organization hired the PR firm Russo, Marsh & Rogers of Sacramento, California. The company, which has strong ties to the Republican Party set up a Web site, MoveAmericaForward.org, to attack Fahrenheit 9/11. The PR flacks who managed the site encouraged:

Americans who found in Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11 an attempt to undermine the war on terror, to let movie theater operators know about their objections. Think about it… If you walked into a Wal-Mart store and saw they were selling merchandise that attacked the military, our troops and America’s battle against Islamic terrorism, wouldn’t you complain to the store manager or write a letter and ask that they not sell that product because it was undermining our national effort?

Others on the right aim to counter Moore with a movie of their own making, Michael Moore Hates America: A Documentary That Tells the Truth about a Great Nation.

That will be a hard sell to anyone who sees Fahrenheit 9/11, which makes clear that Michael Moore loves America. It’s the Bush administration he can’t stand.

This soulful gentlemen is Wendell Berry, one of my personal Icons.  he is a farmer, a writer,  a poet, a thinker, a true environmentalist.  I have just read an interview with him in Sojourner Magazine online, and i want to share it with you.  Sojourners is an organization of "Christians for Justice and Peace" that i visit from time to time to remind me that all Christians are not John Ashcroft, George W., Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, the guy whose name i forget who shows up everywhere with signs that say "God Hates Fags", etc.  Their magazine is actually an excellent source for intelligent reading.

i thought about posting the whole interview here, but maybe you're getting tired of reading other people's words where i'm supposed to be writing.  little time recently for original thoughts, i'm afraid.  besides, my thoughts and words could never come close to Berry's.  this is an exceptionally insightful piece, the interviewer's name is Rose Marie Berger and she's right on her subject's wavelength. Berry talks about everything from the Kentucky farmland where he lives, to corporate takeover of everything, Thomas Merton,  Christianity and the Bible, his own writing, and language in general.  in case you don't think you want to take the time to read the piece, let me give you a few tastes.

On Jesus, and his example:

But Christ was quite explicit, for instance, about his pacifism. You can't be more explicit than "Love your enemies." He did run those people out of the temple, but he didn't kill them.

People are always talking about the first church. The real first church was that gaggle of people who followed Jesus around. We don't know anything about them. But he apparently didn't ask them what creed they subscribed to, or what their sexual preference was, or any of that. He fed them. He healed them. He forgave them. He is clear about sin, but he was also for forgiveness.

On genetic engineering of crops:

I think that the real reason for genetic engineering is to put absolute control of the food system into corporate hands. They don't want anybody - farmer or urban consumer or anybody else - to have anything whatsoever that they don't buy from a corporation at the corporation's price. In other words, economic totalitarianism is the goal. And I don't think the difference between political totalitarianism and economic totalitarianism is worth lingering over. If you're not economically free, if you don't have economic choices, you're not free.

The conclusion of the interview, words that apply to today in such an immediate way:

We're a pretty bad species in a lot of ways and in other ways a pretty good one. We can become a warrior civilization and live by piracy; on the other hand, we're capable of lovingkindness, of genuine affection, of generosity, of friendship, of peaceability, of forgiveness and gratitude. It's a question of where you want to put your influence, how you want to apply the little means that you have. It's too easy to say that country people are provincial and prejudiced, as if the worst things that humans are capable of hadn't also risen up in cosmopolitan, highly sophisticated, urban civilizations. That's just a passing of blame. If you can blame it all on people out in the provinces then you don't have to worry about what's going on in your urban neighborhood or in your urban soul.

One of the oldest human artifacts is the trade route. People were trading in obsidian and other rare things long before history. So we know there's going to be trade, we know that you can't isolate a culture and keep it going without cultural interchange. You can't live without influence, you can't live without change, you can't live without trade.

The serious question is whether you're going to become a warrior community and live by piracy, by taking what you need from other people. I think the only antidote to that is imagination. You have to develop your imagination to the point that permits sympathy to happen. You have to be able to imagine lives that are not yours or the lives of your loved ones or the lives of your neighbors. You have to have at least enough imagination to understand that if you want the benefits of compassion, you must be compassionate. If you want forgiveness you must be forgiving. It's a difficult business, being human.

It's a gorgeous piece, i hope you have time to read it all.  then go get a book by Berry, and spend some time absorbing his amazing nature.  this man is a national treasure.  in my book journal i have posted two of Berry's poems, "Manifesto" being one of my absolute favorites.

SUSSEX COUNTY FOR KERRY

 ALL RIGHT!! Our group has its webpage up and running at last.  please come visit and read about our fabulous activities this weekend.  of course, i've already told you about them here in previous entries.  but still, this is OFFICIAL, ya know?  also, click on "links" in the sidebar and you'll see what our Issues committee contributed to the site.  i have to modestly say that it was my idea, and since the committee so far seems to consist of me and the Chair of the committee, you see that we're working.  i had a bunch of much more radical suggestions, well, so did Joanne, but we toned it down to this.  it's so much fun to be working with people who feel as - what's the word here? enthusiastic?  rabid?  desperate?  anyway, it's great.

and here, my darlings, is WHY we're desperate, rabid, etc.  i found the link to this in justcherie's journal  (a great journal if you don't already know it) but maybe you haven't read it yet.  even if you have, read it again.  how could ANYONE think any part of this prospectus is a good idea? 

Published in the April, 2004 issue of the American Prospect W.'s Second Term: If You Think the First is Bad... by Robert B. Reich  

Musings about a second Bush term typically assume another four years of the same right-wing policies we've had to date. But it'd likely be far worse. So far, the Bush administration has had to govern with the expectation of facing American voters again in 2004. But suppose George W. Bush wins a second term. The constraint of a re-election contest will be gone. Knowing that voters can no longer turn them out, and that this will be their last shot at remaking America, the radical conservatives will be unleashed.

A friend who specializes in foreign policy and hobnobs with subcabinet officials in the Defense and State departments told me that the only thing that's stopped the Bushies from storming into Iran and North Korea is the upcoming election. If Bush is re-elected, "[Dick] Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld are out of the box," he said. "They'll take Bush's re-election as a mandate to wage the 'war on terror' everywhere and anywhere."

The second term's defense team will be even harder line than the current one. Colin Powell will go. Condoleezza Rice will take over at the State Department. Rumsfeld will consolidate power as the president's national-security adviser. Paul Wolfowitz will run the Defense Department.

Domestic policy will swing further right. A re-election would strengthen the White House's hand on issues that even many congressional Republicans have a hard time accepting, such as the assault on civil liberties. Bush will seek to push "Patriot II" through Congress, giving the Justice Department and the FBI powers to inspect mail, eavesdrop on phone conversations and e-mail, and examine personal medical records, insurance claims, and bank accounts.

Right-wing evangelicals will solidify their control over the departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services -- curtailing abortions, putting federal funds into the hands of private religious groups, pushing prayer in the public schools, and promoting creationism.

Economic policy, meanwhile, will be tilted even more brazenly toward the rich. Republican strategist Grover Norquist smugly predicts larger tax benefits for high earners in a second Bush administration. The goal will be to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, dividends, and other forms of unearned income and move toward a "flat tax." The plan will be for deficits to continue to balloon until Wall Street demands large spending cuts as a condition for holding down long-term interest rates. Homeowners, facing potential losses on their major nest eggs as mortgage rates move upward, might be persuaded to join the chorus.

In consequence, Bush will slash all domestic spending outside of defense. He will also argue that Social Security cannot be maintained in its present form, and will push for legislation to transform it into private accounts. Meanwhile, the few shards of regulation still protecting the environment and the safety of American workers will be eliminated.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will surely step down from the Supreme Court, possibly joined by at least one other jurist, opening the way for the White House to nominate a series of right-wing justices, a list that could easily include Charles Pickering Sr. and William Pryor Jr. After Chief Justice William Rehnquist resigns, Bush may well nominate Antonin Scalia for the top slot -- opening the way for Scalia and Clarence Thomas to dominate the Court. Such a court will curtail abortion rights, whittle down the Fourth and Fifth amendments, end all affirmative action, and eliminate much of what's left of the barrier between church and state.

Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, meanwhile, will have four more years to fulfill their goal of transforming American democracy into a one-party state. Congressional redistricting across the nation will make Texas' recent antics seem a model of democratic deliberation. Automated voting machines will be easily rigged, with no paper trails to document abuses. Changes in campaign-finance laws will permit larger "hard money" donations by corporate executives and federal contractors who have benefited by Republican policies.

Finally, the Federal Communications Commission will allow three or four giant media empires -- all tightly connected to the Republican Party -- to consolidate their ownership over all television and radio broadcasting.

Nothing is more dangerous to a republic than fanatics unconstrained by democratic politics. Yet in a second term of this administration, that's exactly what we'll have.

Robert B. Reich, secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, is a professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University.

Copyright © 2004 by The American Prospect, Inc.

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NATIONAL AIDS TESTING DAY

This is a picture of an AIDS Memorial Quilt display on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., a pretty awesome sight.   the newest 1000 blocks of the Quilt are on display in Washington starting today and continuing through the weekend, to accompany National AIDS Testing Day.  To learn more go here, a place to click for more information about this weekend's display is the first thing you'll see on the site.  before you leave the opening page take time to read the statistics in the crawl bar at the bottom of the screen. any of you who live close enough to D.C. to get there sometime this weekend, it's worth the trip.  i'm going in on Sunday to spend some time there, remembering friends who died from this plague,  among whom is a baby that a friend of mine fostered until his sad little death.  he and all his brothers had been infected by their drug-addicted parents.  this is not a disease of the guilty, as some would have us believe.  this is a disease that affects all ages, all races, all genders, all sexual lifestyles, a disease that is destroying entire peoples on the continent of Africa.  with all we have to think about and work both for and against today - let's not forget this killer is still among us.

THIS 'N THAT

Whirling, not so silently, in space has been taken to a whole new level.  i spent all of yesterday afternoon in an Issues Committee meeting, and then much of last night getting handouts for different events made up and printed out.  of course this group has no money to go to Staples and use a color copier, so we volunteers are using our printers to churn out color copies of stuff.  Things really cranked up all of a sudden around here.  we have this Democratic Book Party Friday evening at a place in Dewey Beach called Books and Coffee, to go with the flow of Bill Clinton's bio release - and one of our members has gotten Jim and Sarah Brady as guest speakers for the event!  

On Friday afternoon, thanks to our organization and the Rehoboth Beach Film Festival folks, Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11 will be opening here in Lower Slower Delaware at Midway Movies between Lewes and RB for a run of two weeks!  one of only 500 theatres in the country where this is happening.  i thought i'd never get to see it!  we will be handing out Kerry stuff at the movies, and maybe even setting up a voter reg table in the vicinity.  after months and months of bitching and whining, it feels so good to actually be DOING something!

On a different subject entirely, John Scalzi has some interesting thoughts on an anniversary activity for us AOL journalers.  Evidently Journals started in August of last year.  i didn't gear into it until September, but that's hardly an issue.  go read this entry in his journal and see what you think of his ideas.  evidently there's also other thoughts afoot out there in J-land, that i must investigate.  i will do it and report back.  although if you know stuff that i don't please pull me into the loop.

And then, on to yet another subject - this is a column i found in the Washington Post yesterday and really liked.  after all the hooha about Reagan's "optimism" and the way the current campaigns are starting to pick up on this as a refrain, these were refreshing words:

The Trouble With Optimism

By Michael Kinsley
Tuesday, June 22, 2004; Page A17

Everyone agreed during the recent Reaganalia that one of Ronald Reagan's best qualities was optimism. For Reagan's longtime supporters, optimism is a key element in the official hagiography. He lifted the atmosphere of doom and "malaise" perpetrated by his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. For those who did not especially admire the late president when he was alive, this was something nice they could say in all sincerity, instead of or as an introduction to what they really thought of him.

Reagan's death took what was already a festival of optimism in American politics and turned it into an orgy. Optimism has long been on every short list of "quintessentially American" qualities. After Reagan's two sweeping victories, it became a great cliche of political analysis as well: The more optimistic candidate almost always wins. This insight is like those studies showing that the taller presidential candidate almost always wins (the 2004 election will be an interesting test of that one), with the crucial difference that you can't do much about your height. By contrast you can ladle on the optimism all you want. Thanks to Reagan, optimism is considered an essential ingredient of any presidential candidate's public self-presentation. They all say they have it; their opponents accuse them of lacking it. A typical American politician would sooner admit to being a bigamist than a pessimist.

The climactic TV commercial in President Bush's spring saturation bombing campaign against Sen. John Kerry is titled "Pessimism" and begins with Bush declaring, "I'm optimistic about America because I believe in the people of America" -- a sentiment that would work just about as well the other way ("I believe in the people of America because I'm optimistic about America"). The ad then attempts to out Kerry as a pessimist, based on the evidence that he talks about the Great Depression. "One thing's sure," Bush's ad notes. "Pessimism never created a job." Meanwhile, Kerry is running an ad titled "Optimists," asserting that he is as optimistic as the next guy.

Could there be an emptier claim made on behalf of someone hoping to lead the United States of America than to say that he is "optimistic"?

Optimism may well be part of the American character, but it is pretty insufficient as either a campaign promise or a governing principle. If the objective situation calls for optimism, being optimistic isn't much of a trick or a distinction. If the objective situation calls for something closer to pessimism, the last thing we want is some Micawber whistling past the Treasury Department.

It's a bit of a cheat for the incumbent to accuse his opponent of pessimism. By the very nature of elections, the side in power is going to argue that things are going well, and the side in opposition is going to argue that things are going badly. It is awfully convenient for the side in power if the canons of optimism forbid any assertion that things are going badly -- even if they are. That, of course, is the whole idea of Bush's optimism offensive. Kerry has brought up the Great Depression to point out that Bush, as of now, is the first president since then to suffer a net loss of jobs. Bush says the important issue here isn't the loss of jobs, or even the truth of Kerry's statement (which he doesn't challenge) but the very reference itself.

No one starts out as an incumbent. In 1980 even Ronald Reagan saw bleakness and defeat everywhere. The greatest alleged success of Reagan's presidency -- victory in the Cold War -- is widely misrepresented as a triumph of optimism. Even if you credit Reagan for that victory (which I don't), the rhetorical theme of his military buildup was pessimism, not optimism. It wasn't that communism just needed one last push, it was that communism was triumphing throughout the world. Democracy was in peril. The Soviets were on the verge of nuclear superiority. Complacency -- misplaced optimism -- is what the Reaganites accused their critics of.

As recently as the 2000 election, today's President Georgie Sunshine was eager to spread pessimism and gloom. And apparently he remained optimism-deficient until recently. What else can explain the job losses of his first three years as president?

We don't want a president who sees the silver lining in every cloud. We want a president who sees the cloud and dispels it. We want someone who will make the objective situation justify optimism, not someone who is optimistic in any objective situation. If optimism is hard-wired into the American character, it should be especially important to have someone sober at the wheel of the car. Of course, such clear-headedness is a hopeless ideal. But it is odd that politicians of every stripe now promise that their vision will be clouded.

And if forced to choose between a leader whose vision is clouded by optimism and one whose vision is clouded by pessimism, there is a good case that pessimism is the more prudent choice. Another name for pessimism is a tragic sensibility. It is a vivid awareness that things can go wrong, and often have. An optimist thinks he can pop over to Iraq, knock Saddam Hussein off his perch, establish democracy throughout the Middle East and be home in time for dinner. A pessimist knows better

 

 

WHIRLING SILENTLY IN SPACE

I spent the weekend in kind of a fugue state, due mainly to total wipeout fatigue from the week of Too Much Fun, also due to the most beautiful weather yesterday.  if we always had that kind of weather i think we'd all be saints.  the sky was southwestern blue, a light breeze, temps in the seventies.  in the morning we worked in the yard, then when we knew the Beachgoing Public would be leaving, we went to Cape Henlopen and took a long long hike along the shore.  i'd be totally sane if i could walk by the ocean for hours every day.  maybe.  i think.  sort of, anyway.

today was pulling life back together, shopping at SuperFresh, Concord Pet, and Staples, for yes, staples, for all of us: people, animals and computer.  the Kerry group is having a Democratic Book Party at Books and Coffee in Dewey Beach Friday night, to coincide with the release of Clinton's book.  there'll be all those other books too, that have come out in the past year or so, trying to let the world know the sea of duplicity in which this administration has been swimming.  so the Issues Committee is trying to get some stuff together for handouts, and to recruit more members for the group.  i'll have voter registration training on Thursday, and be ready to register folks this weekend.  i'll be busy with all this for most of the rest of the week, but hope to find some time to read and catch up on everyone's journals. 

the idea was to take the summer off to try to regroup myself, but i don't seem to be exactly relaxing!!  i'm determined not to get into a position where any of this political stuff can stress me out.  i'm going to remain a drone, a worker bee, and not become the head of any committee.  so far i have succeeded. 

BACK TO VIRTUAL REALITY!!

LEWES CANAL

And mighty exhausted from Real Reality i am, too!!  exhausted, and a little lonely, gotta admit.  it was a wonderful visit, we all agree, but i'm glad i have a week to rest up before i head for Texas and the next kid visits. 

the last time i posted i thought Rob and i were heading to B'more to have some fun.  Hah!  we were headed to the worst traffic tie-up i've experienced since i used to live in the Boston area.  where traffic tie-ups are legendary.  this one was in Maryland, a good ways before the Bay Bridge, extending all the way TO the Bridge.  in the 90+ heat.  i'm not known for my patience in traffic - but i endured this for about 45 minutes, then took an opportunity to make an illegal turnaround (Authorized Vehicles Only) and head north on 301to almost Wilmington, then west on 95.  so by the time we got to Baltimore itself we only had time to see the USS Constellation (a very cool sailing vessel from the 1800's which began as an anti-slavetrade boat, then was a warship for the Union during the Civil War), spend some time in the Discovery Channel Store (his choice) and grab something to eat at Harbor Place.  then it was off to pick up G at BWI and head back across the Bay. 

Tuesday Rob and i went to the fishing pier at Cape Henlopen State Park.  it was a cloudy day threatening rain, so the plan was to fish a while, then go see Harry Potter 3.  however.  i couldn't pry him away from the fishing.  he chose staying out there with all the other smelly guys over going to the movie.  i'd had enough of the fish pier, so i went grocery shopping and came back and got him. almost four hours out there and HE STILL DIDN'T CATCH A SINGLE FISH.   after showers, clean clothes and G getting home from work we went to eat at the Chinese buffet and play mini-golf.  much to my surprise he'd never played before and just exploded with delight the whole time.  i'm afraid my sister (who is a single mother) doesn't know how to locate her inner teenager.  okay, i just deleted a whole paragraph of expansion on that subject.  no need for elaboration.  anyway, we had a blast.  and the amazing thing is that, by a very slim margin, i won our game!  i SUCK at anything resembling golf.  i promised to take him to play again when i come to San Antone.  also to take him to all the movies we didn't see because of obsessive/compulsive fishing.  the only one we saw was Shrek 2 the first day he was here and it poured.  i highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.  it's one i'll see over happily, several times. 

Wednesday (are you worn out yet?) was the big day though - the day we went out in a head boat to REALLY fish.  (to prevent a misapprehension here - i have done no fishing thru any of this.  it's purely a spectator sport for me.  and a mighty boring one at that.) it was another lousy day, not just threatening rain, but raining.  did that stop the trip from happening?  don't be silly.  it was the highlight of this kid's life so far, i think.  rain, wind, waves so high the spray came INTO the cabin where we sat for the trip out to the fishing grounds.  a half-day trip was all i could stand AND afford, and felt a lot like eternity.  what can an allday trip out even further possibly be like?  yes, yes, i have learned that fishing is obsessional - those who do it can't get enough, okay, okay.  the fish to be caught were seabass, and Rob actually did catch three of them.  they were too small to keep, but he felt very good that he broke the evil spell he'd been under all week.  the weather got worse on the way back into Fisherman's Wharf,  turning into what i was afraid would become the Perfect Storm.  the captain had virtually no visibility and had to slow the boat down to a crawl.  the captain, interestingly enough, is a special-ed teacher at a local high school during the rest of the year.  we had a good talk while the fishing was going on.  (Picture at top of page is Lewes, from which the boats go out the canal to the Bay and then the ocean. Lots of osprey nests along the canal.) 

if anyone's eyes are not terminally glazed i could rave on about the storms yesterday evening that delayed Rob's 7:30 p.m. plane home from BWI until 11:30 p.m, and spending eight hours (we got there at 4:30 because i was worried about traffic, getting thru security, etc) in an airport with a hyperactive teenager with nothing to do but eat.  but i won't say much more than that.  i'd given him a deck of cards before we left the house, Just In Case - and it proved to be a lifesaver.  we played gin with a couple from Phoenix for quite a while, then he played blackjack with some guys for a lot longer.  he's very social, and instigated both of these activities.  if he'd had any money left to bet he'd have wiped out these men in a flash.  he wasn't even the dealer, and he got 21 time after time.  while he played blackjack i read the New Yorker fiction issue. 

an airport terminal during a time like that is an interesting anthropological microcosm.  all flights were delayed for hours, or cancelled til this morning.  it brings out the best and/or worst in everyone.  we were lucky to find folks who opted for putting up with adversity by having a beer and playing cards, sharing newspapers, cell phone chargers (mine almost ran out and i didn't have my charger with me  - who knew? - but people were just so willing to help each other out), laptops, etc.  when Rob's plane finally left at almost midnight i left the terminal stepping over prone bodies camped out with pillows and blankets from the airlines - the unlucky souls whose flights wouldn't go out until this morning.

and i got home to my bed a little after 2 a.m., playing annoying talk shows and oldies stations all the long dark way home to keep myself awake.  singing along with Bonnie Raitt and screaming at Howard Stern are good ways to keep from running off the road.  today is a Hospital Day for me, and then the Kerry folks here are swinging into high gear and i'm afraid i'm going to have to do some work! 

 

LOVING RAY CHARLES

From the NYT this morning, a fitting tribute to Ray Charles:  

Loving Ray Charles
By BOB HERBERT

Published: June 14, 2004



E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

ing the song, children . . .

In the summer of 1962, when John Kennedy was president, Ed Sullivan was the C.E.O. of Sunday-night television and the word Beatles still sounded to most Americans like a reference to insects, the airwaves were all but overwhelmed by Ray Charles's soaring country ballad "I Can't Stop Loving You."

It was an amazingly popular song. But it was almost a hit by, of all people, Tab Hunter, not Ray Charles. That's right, Tab Hunter, a champion ice skater and one of the blandest pop stars it's possible to imagine.

Charles recorded the song first, on the now-legendary album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music." But neither he nor the executives at ABC-Paramount Records, which put out the album, expected the song to be a hit. For one thing, an earlier version by Don Gibson had gone nowhere. But disc jockeys started playing it, people loved it and Tab Hunter pounced. He put out a single that copied the Ray Charles album version almost note for note.

ABC had to scramble to put out its own single. In his book "Ray Charles: Man and Music," Michael Lydon described ABC's frantic effort to shorten the album version and get it distributed as a single. He quoted the arranger Sid Feller:

"If Tab Hunter's record had gotten any more head start, Ray's record would have been lost. Even though Hunter was copying us, people would have thought we were copying him."

Once Ray's single was available, said Feller, "Tab Hunter was finished."

I was in a taxi in Boston last Thursday, heading to Logan Airport, when I heard on the radio that Ray Charles had died.

For someone who had grown up with his music, as I had, who had gyrated to it in moments of fierce adolescent ecstasy, and listened to it with the volume turned low on some of those nights that no one should have to go through, it was like hearing about the death of a close friend who was both amazingly generous and remarkably wise.

Even as youngsters in the late-50's and 60's, my friends and I knew that Ray was special. He had a shamanistic quality. We understood that his music, like life, was both spiritual and profane. And we reveled in the fact that it was also unquestionably subversive.

"I Got a Woman," which debuted in the Eisenhower era and remained a force in the popular-music culture for years, had an irresistible gospel feeling that moved with tremendous power toward a culmination that couldn't be anything but sexual.

Whether he intended to or not, Ray had opened fire on two very distinct cultures at one and the same time: the white-bread mass culture that was on its guard against sexuality of any kind (and especially the black kind), and the black religious community, which felt that gospel was the Lord's music, and thus should be off-limits to the wild secular shenanigans that Ray represented.

But here's the thing. Ray Charles's music has touched so many people so deeply for so many decades precisely because it is religious. Listen to the way he transforms "America the Beautiful" from an anthem to a hymn. Listen to the joyous call-and-response of "What'd I Say?" or the slow majestic lament of "Drown in My Own Tears."

Ray's music envelops the willing listener in a glorious ritualistic expression of the sweet and bitter mysteries of life without the coercion, hypocrisy or intolerance that is so frequently a part of organized religion.

It transcends cultures. It transcends genres — gospel, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, country, pop. At its best, it is raw and beautiful and accessible, a gift from an artist who bravely explored regions of the heart and soul that are important to all of us.

Comparing himself to the early rock 'n' rollers, Ray said, "My stuff was more adult, filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll."

Maybe that's why so many people were surprised to hear last week that he was only 73. In the obituary in Friday's Times, Jon Pareles and Bernard Weinraub wrote, "Even in his early years he sounded like a voice of experience, someone who had seen all the hopes and follies of humanity."

My friends and I all felt we knew him. He seemed as familiar as someone who'd actually hung out with us. An old friend. And it's hard whenever an old friend slips away.  

BUT WHERE OH WHERE ARE THE FISH?

Hey there y'all - just dropping in for a minute to let you know i'm still alive.  in need of a blood transfusion, but alive.  i'm type O+, in case anyone wants to volunteer.

fifteen year old boys sure can eat.  i remember this now vividly.  ours have not been fifteen for a long time, so i've gotten out of the habit of remembering how much constant food it takes to stoke their engines.  yesterday Rob partook in a youth fishing tournament, but didn't catch anything.  he had lunch there, but afterwards needed pizza in order to keep going.  then there was supper.  then we were both so tired we fell asleep watching a X-Men (imagine) and slept for TWELVE HOURS.  i haven't done that in, i don't know - a really really long time.  i see that the cure for insomnia is a teenager on vacation on my hands.  today we kayaked for hours, he fished  - i watched birds and turtles.  there were wild roses and sweetspire growing on the bank, pickerel weed and water lilies growing in the water, the air smelled of flowers and river, the sun came and went, i blissed out.  Rob again caught nothing.  this is bad.  he has to catch a fish before i put him on that plane.

tomorrow we're heading back to Baltimore, G's plane comes in at 5 p.m.  Rob and i are going to spend the day at the new Maryland Science Center and Harbor Place until it's time to pick her up.  i'll be so happy to have her home, and she's had a great time with the grandchildren.  OMG, it's almost 11, i have to fall in a heap.  another day, another maraton of eating and activity.  but hey - how about this, this evening he watched Moby Dick, the old film with Gregory Peck as Ahab.  and loved it.  i find this somehow very comforting.

SINGIN' THE BLUES

Ray Charles died yesterday, at the age of 73.  This is my idea of somebody for whom we should have a National Day of Mourning.  A great, great musician has left the building.  I, for one, will miss him far more than I would any ex-president.

Yes, i'm still here - waiting for G to be ready to go to the airport.  in the meantime, reading news and journals.  for more on dissenting views of the current Reagan sanctification, check out Old Hickory's Weblog.  I particularly liked this entry, but if you go back a ways there's a ton more, with lots of links too.  i don't know how Bruce manages to do what he does with his journal, the amount of posting, the amount of reading and research and linking he must do to keep on top of things the way he does - it's truly phenomenal.  he also seems to do his research in several languages besides English.  so, if you're not doing a daily read at Old Hickory, it's high time to get started.  you'll be a better person for it.

i went to another Sussex County for Kerry meeting last night, signed up for two committees:  Voter Registration and Issues.  voter reg is self-explanatory, but what is (are?) "Issues?"  i'm not entirely clear, but i see it as researching Kerry's positions on issues of the election, distilling them into short, readable chunks for the folks who'll be doing PR and Events to use as talking points.  there's also doing some position papers with more information for people who'll be doing longer press releases and correcting misinformation that appears in the press, on TV, etc.   any of you progressives out there who'd like to help me out with this, or have any ideas - just holler. 

there's also a straw poll election being conducted on AOL, here's the link on the Elections page.  you can vote there once a month.  Kerry is currently leading in this, admittedly small, sample of the population, in all but three states:  Utah, Mississippi and Alaska.  i vote anywhere i can, including online polls, so i've done my June vote.  check it out.

TEENAGE SUMMER FUN

Tomorrow i'm taking G to the airport (BWI) where she'll head for a long weekend in Denver, visiting the sons and the grandkids.  while at the airport i'm also picking up my fifteen year old nephew who's coming in from San Antonio to spend a week here with first just me, then both of us. 

so, for the next week i'll be seeing teenage movies, puttputt golfing, kayaking, fishing, going to the beach, and who knows what else, with The Kid.  i'll try to get a journal entry in from time to time, but don't expect any significant efforts.  if i can manage to keep my brain working i'll be happy.  this is a guy who never wants to stop, he can keep going endlessly.  he and his mother, my sister, need a break from each other  (she's a single mom, he was adopted as a special needs kid at the age of almost 7) for a while, and G and i have loved this kid from the moment we first saw him.  we were instrumental in his adoption (my sister was seriously ill at the time the home placement was happening, so we spent much of that winter in San Antonio, making a home for him) and feel a real connection.  he has a lot of  "issues," as you can imagine - and being fifteen is hard enough all by itself.  so, wish us all a peaceful visit - and some real fun.

i don't think i can stand being away from J-land for the whole week, so i hope to be checking in on journal assignments, and stuff in general.

I BEG TO DIFFER

I am so fed up with all the Reagan idolatry going on everywhere I turn - it seems to me that the country has had a case of mass amnesia.  Is this the same Ronald Reagan of the Iran-Contra mess?  the same president who totally ignored the AIDS crisis that blossomed on his watch?  whose time in office created a deficit unmatched until the present administration came along?  They want to put him on MOUNT RUSHMORE?  on the ten dollar bill?  Enough already. What is going on here?  So it was a great relief to encounter this editorial on alternet.org this morning.  For what it's worth, I present it for consideration here.

Ronald Reagan: Still the Teflon President?

By Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher
June 8, 2004

The death of Ronald Reagan has become yet another reminder that news organizations often turn sentimental at the death of a former leader, no matter what legacy he or she leaves behind.

Reagan's death, especially following the tragedy and torture of Alzheimer's disease, likely struck editors and reporters with a responsibility to go easy on the former president. Few, after all, protested the sacking of the CBS television movie about Reagan a few months back.

And the man did win two presidential elections, the second by a landslide, and led a rebirth of a Republican party that had been rocked by Watergate and other scandals. But let's not forget that the often-mocked Bill Clinton accomplished much the same for his party, and despite the Lewinsky disgrace, left office with approval ratings higher than Reagan's (and no federal budget deficit, to boot).

So the overwhelming praise for a president who plunged the nation into its worst deficit ever, ignored and cut public money for the poor, while also ignoring the AIDS crisis, is a bit tough to take. During my years at Brooklyn College, between 1984 and 1988, countless classmates had to drop out or find other ways to pay for school because of Reagan's policies, which included slashing federal grants for poor students and cutting survivor benefits for families of the disabled.

Not to mention the Iran-contra scandal, failed 'supply-side economics,' the ludicrous invasion of Grenada, 241 dead Marines in Lebanon, and a costly military buildup that may have contributed to thebreakup of the Soviet Union (there were plenty of other reasons too) but also kept us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, besides leaving us billions of dollars in debt.

And should we even mention the many senior Reagan officials, including ex-White House aide Michael Deaver and national security adviser Robert McFarlane, convicted of various offenses? What about Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, indicted but later pardoned by the first President Bush?

Paying respect is one thing, and well deserved, but the way the press is gushing over Reagan is too much to take, sparking renewed talk of putting him on the $10 bill or Mount Rushmore.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz noted today that when the media, back in the 1980s, dubbed Reagan the "Teflon" president "it was not meant as a compliment." Apparently, he is still the Teflon president, even in death.

Some newspapers, at least, have readily acknowledged some of his many shortcomings in editorials, even if it's only a fraction of their overall rosy review.

The Philadelphia Inquirer stated, "Yes, he butchered facts, invented anecdotes, indulged White House chaos, and seemed dreamily unaware of the illegal deeds done during Iran-contra. He was guilty of all that, as well as union-busting, callousness to the poor, a failure to grasp America's multicultural destiny." The Boston Globe, meanwhile, declared the "Reagan legacy also includes the improbable Star Wars' missile defense proposal and the shameful Iran-Contra scandal. And the humming economy was energized in large part by deep tax cuts and heavy military spending that together produced crippling budget deficits. Reagan did little to advance such goals as education or civil rights."

The New York Times recalled, "Mr. Reagan's decision to send marines to Lebanon was disastrous, however, and his invasion of Grenada pure melodrama. His most reckless episode involved the scheme to supply weapons to Iran as ransom for Americans who were being held hostage in Lebanon, and to use the proceeds to illegally finance contra insurgents in Nicaragua."

Had you read the Washington Post, you would have found, "A lot of people were hurt by these policies, a fact that in our view did not weigh heavily enough on this president. His intermittent denigration of government, and of people who depended on government services, fed into and bolstered hurtful and unfair stereotypes."

For me, however, the Los Angeles Times, which had the advantage of following Reagan from his first days as California governor, seemed to offer the best assessment, declaring that his administration had far more problems than most other papers admitted.

"As president, Reagan was genial, ever-smiling – ignoring unpleasant facts, idealizing hopeful fantasies," the paper's editorial said. "The mark of Reagan's presidency was paradox. Having campaigned as an implacable foe of government deficit spending, he left office with a federal debt that was nearly triple its level when he was inaugurated. He succumbed, as Bush has, to the fallacious 'supply side' economic notion that government revenues rise if taxes are cut."

The L.A. Times continued, "Hero though Reagan was to so many Americans, his legacy is marred. Economically, the Reagan years were epitomized by a freewheeling entrepreneurialism and free spending. But the affluent got more affluent and the poor got poorer. The number of families living below the poverty line increased by one-third. The Reagan administration's zeal for deregulation of industry helped create the savings and loan debacle, which left taxpayers holding the bag for billions of dollars in losses."

Still, the fact that enough other papers all but glossed over his troubles concerns me. Newspapers, especially on the editorial page, are looked upon to give fair assessments of politicians, especially one as powerful and impactful as Reagan. And yet we see The Las Vegas Review- Journal rewriting history in defending Reagan's poor economic practices by blaming Congress: "Critics will no doubt point to ballooning budget deficits in the 1980s, ignoring the fact that Congress refused to implement the lean budgets the Reagan administration proposed and instead went on a spending spree facilitated by the overflowing federal coffers triggered when the president's tax cuts pulled the country out of its economic doldrums and led to unprecedented growth."

Among the worst, however, was The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, which also apparently likes to ignore the facts, in claiming that Reagan "took full responsibility" for Iran-contra. When was this? When he continuously claimed not to remember his involvement?

Maybe that is just what happens when people die. The death of Richard Nixon 10 years ago – the last U.S. president to pass on – also sparked positive reviews of many elements of his life, but his Watergate legacy and other lowly acts often held center stage. In Nixon's case, however, it was hard to ignore such an obvious downfall.

In Reagan's case, his genial public persona, and Alzheimer's end, may have made it more difficult to knock down a popular leader, despite the fact that some argue Iran-Contra was a more impeachable offense than Watergate.

Maybe it's to be expected that the press, when covering a leader's death, will take a kinder, gentler approach. But in the interests of fair, accurate journalism – something that has become a leading issue in the media today – no former leader should be above a frank, complete, and balanced assessment.

Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is senior editor for E&P.

"ONE OF LIFE'S MOST AWESOME ASSEMBLAGES'

NORTHERN FUR SEALS    (Picture from Nature Conservancy Magazine)

Another story about the interconnectedness of all things in nature, and how our particular species (the human) is not doing a great job of fitting in.  My monthly online Nature Conservancy Newsletter arrived in my mailbox this morning, with this story about the wildlife decline on the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska.  The story is long, but utterly compelling.  The efforts the tribal people who live there are making to try to save their astonishing variety of wildlife are wonderful.  That they have to make such efforts is heartbreaking.

DOD'S NEED TO PROTECT US FROM MIGRATORY BIRDS???

If you didn't read my post preceding this one (All Creatures Great and Small), i wish you would.  and then read this, today's alert from the Bush GreenWatch site.  the Dept. of Defense is not as impressed by the mysteries and miracles of migration as i am, evidently.  in fact, the whole thing is just an inconvenience to them.  i wrote about the DOD and its environmental attitudes earlier this year, in February, in a five part series called "Crimes Against Nature." (the link here is to one part of the series only, you can click back through the rest of it.)  a link is provided at the end of the Greenwatch article for comments to try to keep this rule from taking effect.

Proposed Rule Fails to Protect Migratory Birds from Military Actions

Last week the Bush administration proposed a rule that would free the Department of Defense (DoD) from federal environmental regulations that protect migratory birds, and allow the military to make its own determination of whether its actions were causing harm to wildlife.

"It's the fox guarding the henhouse," Peter Galvin, conservation director for the Center for Biological Diversity, told BushGreenwatch. "When are they ever going to find on their own that their activities are causing a problem?"

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule, published in the June 2 Federal Register, allows for the "incidental taking" of migratory birds by the DoD during military readiness training. While it also requires DoD to develop "appropriate conservation measures" if proposed military activities would "have a significant adverse effect on a population of migratory bird species of concern," it allows DoD to determine whether any such adverse effects are occurring. [1]

The DoD has asserted that adhering to environmental protection laws compromises military training and readiness. However, a General Accounting Office report in 2002 found that the Pentagon could not substantiate this claim.

The bigger question, said Galvin, is why the DoD is allowed to operate under different rules in the first place. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), enacted in 1918, covers the United States' commitment to four international treaties -- with Canada, Mexico, Japan and Russia -- to protect numerous migratory birds and their habitats.But in 2002, Congress granted the DoD a temporary, one-year exemption from the MBTA under the premise that environmental regulations interfered with the military’s ability to ready itself for battle.

During that year, the administration was to come up with a plan to minimize the killing of migratory birds during military training exercises. The newly published rule was due out six months ago -- last December.

"Should DoD be exempt at all?" asked Galvin. "We think the answer is no. This rule is merely a euphemism for gutting environmental protections."

Until the new rule takes effect, the DoD will continue to benefit from its previous, blanket exemption.

The military’s push for an exemption stems from a case in which the U.S. military conducted bombing practice on an island in the Pacific that is a key nesting site for migratory birds, including frigatebirds, red-footed boobies and Pacific golden plovers. The public interest law firm Earthjustice successfully argued in federal court that the bombing exercises violated the MBTA.

The case further raised the ire of conservationists when the Pentagon argued in a legal brief that conservationists actually benefit from the military’s killing of birds because it helps make some species more rare -- and "bird watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one." [2]

President Bush has since nominated the attorney who made that argument, William Haynes II, to a seat on a federal appellate court.

###
TAKE ACTION
To comment on the proposed rule, contact: DODMBTARULE@fws.gov. Comments are due by July 30, 2004.

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

 

Some of you know by now that I am an amateur birder – I think I’ll probably always be an amateur, because there is no end to the learning in this field. One of the greatest challenges and delights for birders is the identification of shorebirds, although I’m beginning to see that it’s not as difficult as it once seemed. It takes time, experience and a friend who knows them well going with you often.

Before we get into the specific topic of red knots and horseshoe crabs, some words about migration. It is one of the true mysteries and miracles of nature. If you haven’t seen the documentary film "Winged Migration" yet, please proceed at once to wherever you obtain your DVDs or videos for home viewing, bring it home and watch it. Invite your kids to watch it with you. It will show you what I’m talking about. Seldom do I feel that a film is a life-changing experience. For me, this one was.

There are two yearly migrations, in spring and in fall. It’s the spring northbound journey I’m looking at here. This is a hurried trip: millions of shorebirds driven by hormonal urges fly nonstop for forty to eighty hours at a time, at speeds well over forty miles an hour, at altitudes of 18, 000 feet, for thousands of miles until they reach their summer breeding grounds. On this journey north the birds depend on staging areas to survive. Staging areas are food-rich stopover areas where the birds gather for several days to two weeks and ravenously feed, depositing layers of fat that fuel the next leg of their journey.

I am currently living near one of the eight major staging areas for migratory shorebirds in the United States: the Delaware Bay. Delaware and New Jersey are important staging areas for many shorebirds, and, because of that, important birding sites for serious and amateur birders from around the world. The food that provides this rest stop for the birds? Freshly-laid eggs of the horseshoe crab.

So, now we come to the red knots and the horseshoe crabs, as I promised with the pictures yesterday. The mysteries and miracles of nature are all tightly interwoven, something we humans often neglect to take into consideration. Thus, the fact that the spring shorebird migration takes place at the same time as the mating and egg-laying of the Limulus Polyphemus, the horseshoe crab. This creature is all on its own one of nature’s miracles. Older than the dinosaurs, it is a member of the group Arthropod, and has more in common with spiders and scorpions than with crabs. They congregate along the DE Bay in late April, early May. The female swims to shore with a male in tow. She scratches a shallow hole in the sand and deposits thousands of eggs. The male send out a jet of sperm to fertilize the nest. The eggs of this primitive-looking armored creature are full of fats and lipids, the very food the birds need for their long-distance flight.

Red knots fly from the tip of South America to our Bay beaches, a 4,500 mile trip. It takes the birds about the same amount of time it would take to drive from Lewes, on the DE coast, to Los Angeles. They make this trip without any staging areas, short stops to rest only. By the time they reach our shores, usually in mid-May, they are very thin and hungry. (I’d be pretty hungry if I drove from Lewes to LA without eating, I’m quite sure. Although I would have expended very little energy, so I wouldn’t be much thinner. If you watch Winged Migration you will vividly see the energy it takes to beat those wings. Think of running from Lewes to LA w/out eating! ) They eat and rest for ten days to two weeks, and at the end of this time have more than doubled their body weight.

Red knots (Calidris Canutus) are short-necked, stocky shorebirds who breed in the high arctic regions. The North American birds nest and breed in Alaska and far northern Canada after making their amazing flight north. Here at the Delaware Bay staging grounds scientists from all over the world are studying the red knot population, as they also are in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. In both places the population has sharply declined. In Argentina in 2000, 52,000 red knots were observed. Two years later, the number dropped to 26,000.

Many other shorebird species stop at this staging ground, but the redknot makes a good indicator of the health of all of them because it is one of the largest, has such a long migratory route and puts on such large amounts of weight here. Their decline could be an early signal of trouble for many other bird species. Scientists suspect that the main reason for the decline is the thinning of the horseshoe crab population. More than ten years ago Bill Hall, a marine education specialist at the University of DE, began to track a decline in horseshoe crabs. Hall’s Sea Grant program has a terrific website where you can learn about this truly astounding denizen of the deep. Here you will learn the many uses they have had over the years, from fertilizer on the fields in colonial times until the present times, to biomedical wonders currently. We owe most of what we know about the function of the human eye to studies of the compound eye of the horseshoe crab. The creatures also contain a substance called chitin which has wound-healing, antibacterial, tumor-inhibiting, and waste-water treatment properties. It makes me want to go back to school and start all over again as a marine biologist. (More can be found on this whole topic here.)

Their diminishing numbers have been blamed on watermen, as they are used by commercial fishermen as bait for conch, catfish and many other fish and their commercial harvests in this area have more than doubled.

Wild creatures, including birds, are losing habitat at an enormous rate all over the world. Anything that depends on coastal property for the continuation of life is in big trouble. We humans want the beaches for our condos, golf resorts, tennis clubs, marinas. We also want our livelihoods if we are commercial fishermen. If we are seafood eaters we want our blackened catfish and conch fritters, don’t we? We also want our medical miracles.

What’s the answer? There is some good news here: three years ago federal fisheries managers set up a protected thirty-square-mile sanctuary for horseshoe crabs at the mouth ofthe Delaware Bay. This year a ban was added on harvests from the water and from the shore from May through early June in Delaware and New Jersey. Officials in these two states and nearby Maryland also dramatically cut annual harvest limits. New Jersey’s Audubon Society wants the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the red knots as an endangered or a threatened species, which would force a recovery plan to be drawn up. Such a plan would affect beach replenishment, limit disturbance in feeding areas (as is now done with the plovers during nesting and breeding season), and put more controls on horseshoe crab harvests by the fishing and biomedical industries.

However, the Delaware Bay is the largest oil transfer port-of-entry on the East Coast. An oil spill of any magnitude here would be devastating to the hundreds of thousands of shorebirds dependent on the horseshoe crab eggs. We had a small one last year, a large one can always happen. The Delaware River and Bay are also growing increasingly more polluted from the industries along the banks.

The International Shorebird Survey (ISS) gathers data from both amateur and professional researchers which they supply to a number of refuges, works with governmental and conservation agencies on specific shorebird conservation issues. The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) is a voluntary collaboration of private and government organizations committed to protecting shorebirds and their wetland habitats. Wetlands for the Americas is expanding programsin South America, the wintering grounds for most of our migratory shorebirds.

You can help by supporting agencies like the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council with your donations. If you are a birder you can keep accurate field notes and forward your counts to the ISS. You can look for colorbanded shorebirds, try to record the complete band combination and be sure to note the color of the leg flag (Delaware’s color flag is pale green) .

Perhaps the first step in helping to save nesting, breeding and staging habitat is for all of us to become aware of how important it is. It’s why I said invite your kids to watch Winged Migration with you – you can’t start too early to foster awareness of the interconnectedness of the world around us, of the miracles and mysteries of the natural world. Ask your kids (as well as yourselves!) to ponder questions such as these raised by Arthur Morris in Shorebirds, Beautiful Beachcombers:  how does a young Pectoral Sandpiper raised in central-northern Russia find its way to Argentina? How does a baby American Golden Plover elude a hungry arctic fox? How does a driveway-raised Killdeer chick evade the wheels of the family car?

And – what does a returning Willet think when it finds that the marsh it bred in last year is now a shopping mall?

Some of the information for this article came from:
Shorebirds: Beautiful Beachcombers, by Arthur Morris  and from "Birds' decline not a good sign: Scientists converge on Delaware Bay to study links between horseshoe crabs, migratory birds" by Molly Murray, Wilmington News Journal Online, 5/26/04.

The Nader Factor

I just received from Democrats.com an interesting site and petition which connect with something i've been worrying about a lot.  and it is indeed, the Nader Factor.  most polls show that Bush and Kerry are neck and neck,  except for the fact that Nader has that odd 3, 7, 5, 4 percentage of the voters.  we risk having the very thing happen in november that happened in 2000.  so, this is an attempt to unite progressives, greens, and democrats behind Kerry, to keep that ghastly scenario from delighting the heart of the monster manipulator, Karl Rove.  here's the site: TheNaderFactor.com, and if you just want to go directly to the petition and sign it, here it is.

BURNIN' DOWN THE HOUSE

Here, from Salon.com, is the beginning of an article about, and interview with, David Catania, a former "shining star" in Washington, D.C.'s Republican Party.  The article is titled "Burning Down the Log Cabin" as he was (is?) a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group I have never in my life understood.  Should you be unaware of the group, it is an organization for gay/lesbian Republicans.  Oxymoron?  You'd think so, but no, they exist.  And apparently they didn't actually disembark from a ship in Roswell, New Mexico and spread from there across the country.  Their website looks pretty good, actually, sounds like people I could get behind, maybe?  My feeling is that it's like any other Republican organization:  people who can say:  "I got mine, how YOU doin'?" Although this guy sounds almost like a real person.  Here's the beginning of the article:        

June 3, 2004  |  President Bush's decision to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage continues to have unintended consequences inside the Republican Party. The latest fallout came last Thursday when the openly gay District of Columbia councilmember David Catania, who is credited with pumping new energy into the often dormant Republican Party in Washington, resigned his leadership position after the party chairman refused to certify Catania as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Catania remains, for now, a registered Republican, but he says he will not vote for Bush.

"I've spent six and a half years trying to build this local party," Catania told Salon. "This was not an easy decision or one I came to lightly. But in the end I just couldn't see any way I could stay."

D.C. Republican Party chairwoman Betsy Werronen, along with other party leaders, according to the Washington Blade, a gay weekly, had "picked Catania and other local gay Republicans to run on an uncontested slate of delegates and alternate delegates to the Republican Convention in New York City in late August. D.C. Republicans elected the slate at a party caucus that same month. Werronen also appointed Catania to represent the D.C. GOP convention delegation on the party's national platform committee."

After Bush moved to support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Catania announced that he would not support Bush for reelection. On Thursday, Werronen, who had described Catania as a "shining star" of the Republican Party, stripped him of his delegation status. He then walked away from his D.C. party leadership position, fed up with the national party apparatus and what he calls "this cabal of [Republican] geniuses who have cooked up ways to exclude Americans."

It's a painful separation for someone who was personally summoned to Austin, Texas, in 2000 to share some face time with candidate Bush. During the primaries Bush refused to meet with the openly gay Log Cabin Republicans, who had endorsed his rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But after effectively securing the nomination, and anxious to bolster his "compassionate conservative" credentials, Bush in April 2000 invited a handpicked group of 12 gay activists to his Texas campaign headquarters. Designated a GOP "Maverick" for being under 40 and raising more than $50,000 for Bush, Catania was among the so-called Austin 12. Thanks in part to their hard work, Bush won 25 percent of the gay vote in 2000, or 1 million votes, according to exit polls.

A white councilman in a city whose population is 75 percent minority -- and a Republican elected official in a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 9 to 1, Catania is used to operating as the odd man out. But he says the Republican Party, and specifically the form it takes during reelection mode, has become intolerable for gays. "The fact of the matter is, there ain't no there there anymore," says Catania. 
               
The article is 4 Salon pages long, so you'll need either a day pass or a subscription to read the whole thing.  I regard this as Catania coming to his senses; it seems a hopeful thing to me.  If, indeed, there are other highly placed gay or lesbian folk in the Bush organization let's hope this will serve as an example to them.  It can't be a comfortable position at this moment in our time.  Clearly the Log Cabins don't want this entirely negative amendment placed in the Constitution.

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On the other hand, this essay reflects mine and my partner's thoughts on the subject of marriage.  i've tried to say this before, but never succeeded in such an articulate setting-forth of ideas as i find here.  this essay is from Common Dreams:

Why We're Not Getting Married

by Martha Ackelsberg and Judith Plaskow

We love each other, and we've been in a committed relationship for nearly twenty years. We are residents of Massachusetts. But we're not getting married. We fully believe that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry, and we celebrate the fact that a significant barrier to our full citizenship has fallen. In not taking advantage of this new right, however, we can more comfortably advocate for the kind of society in which we would like to live.

Those who have fought for gay marriage have made clear that, in the U.S., important benefits are tied to marital status. Over 1000 federal benefits attach to marriage benefits relating to social security, inheritance, tax status, child custody, and the like. Further, other significant benefits most notably, health care are often linked to marriage. Opening up this status to gays and lesbians makes an enormous difference to those in committed relationships in which at least one partner has access to benefits or resources to share.

But focusing on the right to marry perpetuates the idea that these rights ought to be linked to marriage. Were we to marry, we would be contributing to the perpetuation of a norm of coupledness in our society. The norm marginalizes those who are single, single-parents, widowed, divorced or otherwise living in non-traditional constellations. As the language of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision itself makes evident, a focus on gay marriage can reinforce a dangerous tendency to definea particular form of family as the "basic unit of society."

Seeking expanded benefits through marriage also contributes to what amounts to the increasing privatization of responsibility of caring for children, the elderly, the ill and disabled. Thus, the Massachusetts decision argues that gay marriage is good for society because children ought to be raised by two parents. But such arguments can be, and have been, used to justify repressive "marriage promotion" policies that attempt to control and punish single mothers receiving welfare benefits. At the same time, they lead us to neglect our social responsibilities to provide adequate child-care, day care, elder-care, etc. that would allow all adults who want to work to be able to do so. And a focus on increasing the numbers of people who can get access to health or retirement benefits through their spouses can easily lead us to ignore or deny our societal responsibility to provide basic health care and old age security to all our citizens, regardless of marital status.

It's not easy to walk away from these benefits especially in a world in which they don't come easily. We are fortunate, in that we do not need to rely on one another's employers for our health coverage, and this allows us the luxury of deciding not to marry.

Nevertheless, as feminists and as lesbians, we have considered ourselves to be part of social movements that were modeling a variety of ways to be in the world, and to be in meaningful relationships, other than through marriage. At this moment, when there is so much focus on celebrating the right to marry, we want to hold up a vision of a society in which basic rights are not tied to marriage, and which there are many ways to organize one's intimate life, marriage being only one of them.

Judith Plaskow (judith.plaskow@manhtattan.edu) is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College in New York, and Jewish feminist theologian. She is the author of 'Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective', and co-editor, with Carol P. Christ, of 'WomanSpirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion' and of 'Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality'.

Martha Ackelsberg (mackelsb@smith.edu) is Professor of Government and Women's Studies at Smith College, Northampton, MA. She is the author of 'Free Women of Spain: Mujeres Libres and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women' and numerous articles on feminism, families, and social change.

LONELY AS A CLOUD

the last of our holiday company departed a little while ago,  leaving me alone with the dog and the cat.  G, of course, is at work. now it will be just our little household for a while, until the next company shows up.  we had my adult niece and nephew from Rhode Island, and my youngest sister with her daughter from D.C. visiting for this long weekend.  a fabulous time was had by all, i have to say.  we ate exquisite food, played games, took a long walk on the beach Monday after everyone else had clogged the highways heading home - a long walk in the blowing fog, it had poured earlier (which sent all those other silly people home early), and it was gorgeous and cool at the beach.  we read stories, gardened, shopped, ate free Ben and Jerry's ice cream, talked, laughed, drew pictures, cooked A LOT, washed A LOT of dishes, and just downright enjoyed ourselves.  when family is good, it's really good, nothing better.  this was good.

now our little dog is moping by the back door, hoping someone will come back - he hates when company leaves.  he'd like to have a house full of people at all times.  this is a picture of him, not moping, but you can see that he might look really sad when  he wants to. 

 

i've got to get caught up on journal reading, not to mention news reading.  i'm sure all kinds of things happened while i was making shrimp salad and trying to convince my nephew not to get his lip pierced (i wasn't successful, but at least he's going to wait until he gets back home to do it.), so i guess i should check in with reality.