BEAUTY IS NOT OPTIONAL

Hello Journal, hello any readers who still might meander by this abandoned mine of a journal.  I sent a link to this post of mine on The Blue Voice, and she loved it so much I thought I'd put it here in the hopes others might see it.  I've been posting heavily over there on the issue of the Refuge and the budget bills in both House and Senate.  The House's dropping drilling in the Refuge was a big step, but the battle is far from over.  It's still in the Senate bill, and once the House gets a bill together in some form, there will have to be a reconciliation between the two.  Keep up the pressure on your members of Congress, let's defeat this proposal entirely.  And I thank you.

Post from The Blue Voice

Beauty is Not Optional
“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with clasped hands that we might act with restraint, leaving room for the life that is destined to come.”
Terry Tempest Williams

This is a photo from a spectacular photgraphic collection on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by Subhankar Banerjee. Please look at these photos; send them to your friends. Send them to your members of Congress. They are sublimely beautiful glimpses of the place that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska (an oil drilling enthusiast) calls empty and barren. Mountains, tundra, caribou herds, snow geese, lakes, autumn color, delicate spring flowers in the snow, native people and their age-old ways of life.
This beauty speaks for itself. Banerjee has brought things I will most likely never see close enough to deeply touch my soul. We cannot let this place be ruined. No amount of oil is worth this. The areas of oil extraction on the North Slope have had some 500 oil spills since that area was opened. Let's leave this one untouched.

Start here, World Without Borders, to read about Banerjee, then click on the photograph to go to the ANWR page. Many resources to access there, or if you are in a hurry, you can go directly to the photos here, Arctic Refuge Series.
"The Arctic Refuge belongs not to the multinational corporations and their minions in public office but in public trust for our inheritors; indeed, for all mankind around the world." --Peter Matthiessen, from "In the Great Country," in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land

ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER

Because I want this to get the widest possible reading, I'm cross-posting this from The Blue Voice to this journal.  After I'd written the piece I discovered another site, The Coming Influenza Pandemic, a blog devoted entirely to news and information on this subject.

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WHAT THE HECK IS A PANDEMIC?

Probably everyone else knew this, but I'm just finding out that this has been "Pandemic Flu Awareness Week" in the blogosphere - Oct. 3 to 9, so I'm not quite too late. This is probably the reason for all the recent news coverage on the avian flu. I've certainly become aware, thanks to the daily headlines - "pandemic" is a pretty scary word. So, I had decided I needed to get down to some serious research on the subject. And just about the first thing I found had everything I needed. Everything we all need.

The site is the Flu Wiki. And your first question may be: What the heck is a "wiki?" From the site, their answer:

A Wiki is a form of collaborative web page that allows anyone (including you) to edit any page on the site. Wikis offer collaborative problem-solving, and allow diverse, decentralized participation. The open nature of the wiki format has shown itself able to develop surprisingly effective and sophisticated products, such as the Wikipedia. Whether it will work to fashion new solutions to a complex public health problem remains to be seen. This is in the nature of a grand experiment. We hope you will join us in it.

Please check this out. All I have read indicates that we are as unready for an epidemic of this flu (or, okay, a pandemic) as we were for a hurricane like Katrina. This wiki is full of answers to our questions, scientific information, things you can do.

The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies. Our goal is to be:

• a reliable source of information, as neutral as possible,
• about important facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
• a venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a pandemic does occur
• a venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems.

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BACK TO THE FRIENDLY POSSE AT AOL

And now it is September, and glorious halcyon weather, with blue skies and warm breezes all day, cool nights that are prefect for sleeping.  I'm finishing up my third week back at work, teaching every day, all my classes full to the brim.  We're having a surge in our ESOL student numbers, mostly due to Korean families coming in increasing numbers.  They are at once a difficult and an easy group to teach - very willing and anxious to learn (easy), already very educated (easy) but shy and unwilling to open their mouths (difficult), trained in their country not to ask questions or "bother" a teacher (for me ultra-difficult, I thrive on questions - it's how I know they're thinking, learning), afraid to make mistakes (again, very difficult). 

But these are the loveliest of people.  Before South Koreans started coming to Delaware in large numbers, as they are now, I had no aquaintence with this nationality.  Now I am in love with every one of them.  Darling people with big hearts, willing to help and share, devoted to family and to higher education for their children, hard-working, and amazingly loving.  They don't stay in this area long, is the only problem.  After their time of indentured servitude to the chicken processing plants is over, they move on to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, large urban areas with Korean communities and good jobs.  As soon as I get to know a student, or a whole student family and become really close to them - they move on.  My heart keeps getting broken. 

The past two weeks have been full of so much sorrow and anguish about the effects of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast.  It has been a time of pain for everyone, I know.  If you knew and loved the city of NOLA, you surely mourn for its devastation.  My sister in Dallas is helping with the refugees who have gone to that city, filling her car with bottled water and Pampers to take to Reunion Arena.  This is a crisis that will not be quickly finished or forgotten.  Those who have been displaced may never be able to go home, or at least not for several years.  I've written at The Blue Voice about my thoughts on this, you can read some of them here:  Of Refugees, Pampers and Beer.   I've also been writing on the connection between this violent hurricane and unnatural causes, namely climate change as a result of our pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, this is one of those pieces, The Semi-Random Nature of Weather.

My heart is tired of contumely, why don't we have an adminstration that can bravely and manfully accept and acknowledge their faults and failings and pledge to make things better - instead of this bunch of whiny beaureaucrats (that can't possibly be how you spell that, can it?  oh well, I'll check later.)  who can only duck and cover? 

So, I've been missing my AOL posse pretty badly, and am determined to spend more time here where it feels warmer and safer than out there in the big blog world.  I need a little down time from all the hollering and yelling.  I love The Blue Voice, love my fellow bloggers, and most of the commenters.  Not all of them, however, that's for sure.  I've learned to simply ignore the raving right wingnut voices when they make their wacko comments and be grateful for the thoughtful comment posts of many others.  I do miss the friendly spirit here, and the way I can just ramble on about nothing or anything.  As in this post.  And more to come.  Hugs and kisses to all. 

PLEASE DO COME BACK!

Here we already are in August, the month of crape myrtles in flamboyant pink/fuschia/deepred bloom, cicada music rising and falling in the heat, the Perseid meteor showers, family company and birthdays.  It took the summer so long to get here, it's hard to believe it's almost over.  Teaching summer classes made it all go by in a haze of lesson planning, paper reading, lots of iced coffee and not much fun.

I seem to have all but abandoned this journal, as well as my other AOL journals.  Again, with teaching two summer intensives I only had time to blog at The Blue Voice.  I hadn't thought it would be like this, that I'd have to make such a hard choice.  Being part of a group presses my Responsibility button, and I have felt the need to keep my end up.  I thought that readers who cared about the environment would come and read my posts at the Voice, but with only a couple of exceptions, that does not seem to have happened.  If you are reading this, but not coming to TBV and reading my posts, I'd love to have you explain why - what is keeping you away?  We have a new format, the posts are no longer strung out to their full size on the front page - you don't have to plow through the entire length of posts you may not care to read (though of course I would hope you'd want to read them all!) to find one you are interested in.

Anyway, there are several series I have done there that I want to link to, make it easy for AOL readers to just come read those entries - because they are things that I think are important.  I will begin with the two Exxon entries, fervently hoping that I have not completely lost those readers who used to come here for environmental news.

Exxpose Exxon, Exxpose Them!

A Tiger in Your Think Tank

 

THE UNBEARABLE BURDEN OF BEING

This piece is cross-posted from my entry at The Blue Voice today.  It is so important that I want it disseminated as widely as possible

The Environmental Working Group today released the results of a study on the "body burden" of pollutants found in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. I have written before, in my AOL Journal, of the burden of industrial pollutants we all carry in our blood, tissues, nerves, brains. It was previously thought that a blood barrier protected babies in utero from the toxic substances we all bear. This study shows how untrue that assumption is.

In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.

This study represents the first reported cord blood tests for 261 of the targeted chemicals and the first reported detections in cord blood for 209 compounds. Among them are eight perfluorochemicals used as stain and oil repellants in fast food packaging, clothes and textiles - including the Teflon chemical PFOA, recently characterized as a likely human carcinogen by the EPA's Science Advisory Board - dozens of widely used brominated flame retardants and their toxic by-products; and numerous pesticides.

Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied.

Results of the study, a chart of the toxins and their possible effects on a developing fetus, implications for the future of our children and our children's children, are all laid out in these pages on the EWG's site, as is the unescapable conclusion that many increasing childhood problems: autism, asthma, leukemia, childhood brain cancer, ADD and ADHD, are the results of these embryonic toxcicities.

Those who have obsessed so diligently over the legality of abortion need to sit up, read this report, think about the fact that the chemical industry largely depends on "voluntary" regulation, rather than seriously regulated federal standards - and call upon the usual villains in environmental disasters: industry and government, to immediately pay attention to the millions of pounds of chemical materials liberally used in so much that we come in contact with in daily life (including, incidentally, the burning of coal, gas and oil, these carbon emissions are part of this infantile body burden too). What can be wrong with us as human beings that we have allowed such a situation to happen? Why are people worrying about birth control and pregnancy termination when we are well on our way to creating generations of young humans who will have the options of never reaching adulthood, living a damaged life, or developing problems early in their adult life resulting from events in their embryonic development?

This report has overwhelmed me with grief and fury. A commenter on previous posts of mine tells me that the environmental movement has been "hijacked by modern day socialists," that it is a cover for those wanting to destroy our capitalist society. What I have to say to that is - good. (Not that I put the slightest credence in such nonsense.) The sooner I can see the collapse of a society that values financial profit for the chemical and energy industries over healthy life for both unborn and born babies and children, the happier I will be. Please read this entire article, I beg of anyone who visits this blog. Please become an activist in any way open to you. Write your congresspeople, write the heads of industry, avoid as many of these products as you possibly can - most of them are entirely unnecessary anyway. Within this story lurks the Teflon story, which may or may not have surfaced to common awareness. A story for another day. This is enough for now.

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

It feels as if I've moved out of the AOL journal community, since The Blue Voice started.  Much of my time has been spent researching and posting over there, the rest is being spent teaching and trying to learn how to use the equipment in the new language lab at school.  Not to mention gardening, and family visits.  But I miss my AOL family, I miss writing here.  It's too non-fiction over at The Blue Voice, and I'm a storybook loving person.

Last week one of the boys, his wife and their two darling children flew in from Denver.  They spent a day in D.C. sightseeing, then drove to Chincoteague, where we met them on Thursday afternoon.  I only stayed that one night and the next morning, then came home to shop for something to put in the fridge, mow the lawn, make the beds - in general get the place ready for guests.  They came here on Saturday evening, left Monday morning to return home.  It was a lovely time for all of us.  I haven't seen these kids for over two years, and it was high time I did.  G has flown out to Denver several times since we were West together, but I, for one reason or another, have stayed here.

I love Chincoteague, but am worried about all the condo building that seems to be going on there.  It is the last of the sleepy little beach places in the area  (Rehoboth Beach once was a sleepy little beach town, now it's a nightmare), unspoiled, quiet, peaceful, real.  Okracoke has that too, unlike Nag's Head and other Outer Banks areas.  Many shops and restaurants in Chincoteague have closed, yet at the same time there's all this condo/townhouse building going on.  Hard to tell which way things are going.

Here's a few photos from the weekend, these are at the beach up here.  I have some from Chincoteague, but not downloaded.

Rachel and Daddy

Rach and Sam, beach enchiladas..

Sam putting on his shoes.

Rachel the artist.

Pretty cute, huh?  All of them.  I may do one of the whole family (Mom isn't in any of these.) when I get the Chincoteague pix ready to put into posts. 

EYES WIDE OPEN

I posted this in The Blue Voice several days ago, but I really want people in the area to be aware of it, so I'm posting it here too.  I know there are windmills readers who live close enough to Philadelphia to trek in and see this exhibit next weekend.  I'll be there volunteering on Sunday, so come see me too!

Eyes Wide Open

Here's an announcement for anyone living within a reasonable drive of Philadelphia. Of course, this is being held on the July 4th weekend, so no drive anywhere in the whole country will be reasonable. Anyway, on this weekend, from the first of July through the fourth, the Eyes Wide Open Exhibit will be back in Philly. It was there last July 4th also.

This exhibit is a project of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization committed to social justice and human service. I will be going, with two friends, to volunteer to help the organizers with the exhibit on Sunday, July 3rd. Please visit the site, there is much information there. The exhibit has been traveling since January 2004, at which time there were 504 pairs of boots. I can't imagine how the necessary number of empty boots will fit on the Mall two weeks from now. Information on future travel for the exhibit is on the site. You can see photos from previous places it's been, as well as read notes and comments in the journal.

This is the exhibit information:

About Eyes Wide Open
Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee's widely acclaimed exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq war, commemorates all the lives lost.

The exhibit includes a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty; a field of shoes and a wall of remembrance to memorialize the Iraqis killed in the conflict; and a multimedia display exploring the history, cost and consequences of the war.

Exhibit Location:
Independence Mall and Visitor Center
Market Street between 5th & 6th Sts.

THE SPIRAL DANCE

It is the Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year, the shortest night.  I have never entered into the spirit of festivity surrounding this seasonal celebration in the way I have the Winter Solstice.  Summer is always so full and busy, bursting with life and activity, visits from family, work in the garden - yet this day is the high point.  From here on, the light diminishes, the darkness gains on us, imperceptibly at first, until it culminates in the shortest day, longest night, in December.  It's a lovely rhythm, really, the turning of a wheel, over and over again. 

Sometimes I think one reason we have let the earth get into such a mess is that as industrial society took hold, we moved further and further from contact with Nature and her rhythms and revolutions.  How many of us keep track of the phases of the moon, the constellations visible in different seasons, the timing of the tides, the amount of rainfall in a given time?  Perhaps farmers and fisherpeople still keep in touch with these cycles.  The rest of us are just trying to rush from urban setting to urban setting, in the confines of our cars.  Using my bike as transportation is helping me get out of this to some degree, gardening is also a way of moving closer to natural cycles of growth and ripening.

Once upon a time this was a day of great festivity, it's the fabled "midsummer" of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Magical things can happen!  It was celebrated with bonfires, dancing, feasting.  It is a time for marriages and pledging of troths - this full moon is called the "honey moon," and from this comes the post-wedding tradition called by the same name.  With the advent of Christianity this day became the feast of St. John the Baptist, and the bonfires were incorporated.

I think we have lost a lot in losing touch with these ancient days that brought together so many elements, celebrating the fact that our lives, too, are part of Nature and her cycles.  To learn more lovely lore about Midsummer's Day, the Summer Solstice, go to The School of the Seasons.  This BBC site also has loads of interesting information.  Sadly, on this the longest day, I am so tired I'm thinking of going to bed soon after I eat dinner.  But perhaps next year I'll get into the spirit of things, harken back to my Celtic roots, and arrange a bonfire on the beach, add my energy to the sun's energy, and hope we can return to a life in synch with Nature.

CALLING HOME

Poor windmills journal, you must feel so left-out and abandoned.  This week of beginning The Blue Voice has been so hectic - adding the beginning of summer school and a flying trip to Washington has only made it crazier.  I have neglected everything else in my life while we've been getting TBV up and flying:  the garden, the animals, reading anything but political stuff.  This really can't continue.  The deal was, there are eight of us on this group blog, so we could each post one day a week.  At a minimum.  Well, I have posted nine entries so far this week, and everyone else has done at least that many, I think.  If not more. 

I'm going to refer you to my post on TBV for my impressions from the Conyers hearing and rally.  There are actually two posts, the second is about the letter Conyers wrote to the editor of the Washington Post yesterday.  The coverage was abysmal, at least in the major papers. 

We made it through the ten days or so of heat wave without putting on the AC at all, and I feel very proud of us for this accomplishment.  The weather broke sometime on Thursday, and is now as pleasant as one could wish.  My lettuce is starting to  bolt; we can't eat it as fast as it is ready.  The tomato and cucumber plants have blossoms, the peppers are trailing behind. 

I have done several articles on TBV about global warming, and will be doing more soon.  It is wonderful to see comments from AOL journal friends over there, but I am missing reading and writing here.  Shall I put links here to my articles on that blog?  Those looking for environmental postings might want them, I don't know.

RALLY ROUND THE RESOLUTION

June 15 - This is actually a P.S. to the post that follows.  There are changes in time and location for the D.C. hearing tomorrow.  As follows:

On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room HC-9 of the U.S. Capitol, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.The hearings had been planned for the Democratic National Committee offices because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee had refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member to use a large room on the Hill.  However, the Democrats did have access to a small room in the Capitol, and Congressman Conyers has decided to move the hearings there.  This does not indicate any change in position from the Republicans.

 

Members of the media will be welcome, but citizens in town for the 5 p.m. rally at the White House will have difficulty getting into the 2:30 hearings.  The DNC will serve as an overflow room, so people can still go there: theWasserman Room at 430 S. Capitol St. SE.

 

AfterDowningStreet.org encourages people, instead, to spend the afternoon lobbying their Congress Member and two Senators, and paying special visits to the offices of Congressmen John Conyers and Maurice Hinchey, Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, and Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to thank them for their leadership.  Recommended talking points can be found in a one-page document at the top of After Downing Street.org.

 

Original Post from yesterday:

From After Downing Street, a very current Need to Know site, please note this announcement:

"On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Wasserman Room at 430 S Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C., Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

Later on the same day at 5:00 p.m. ET in Lafayette Square Park, in front of the White House, a large rally will support Congressman Conyers who plans to deliver to the White House a letter addressed to President Bush and signed by over 500,000 Americans and at least 94 Congress Members. The letter asks the President to respond to questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes. On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the Downing Street Minutes, recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair that describes an American President already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also describe apparent efforts by the Administration to manipulate intelligence data to justify the war. The June 16th hearing will attempt to answer the serious constitutional questions raised by these revelations and will further investigate the Administration's actions in the lead up to war with new documents that further corroborate the Downing Street memo."

I really will be there, going to drive in to D.C. after teaching my first summer school class on Thursday. I can hope for this to be an historic occasion, and furthermore, an old friend from university days will be one of the speakers.

If you live anywhere within driving distance of D.C., please come support Rep. Conyers and his efforts.  If you live elsewhere in the country, check on the After Downing Street site for rallies to be held in other cities to back up this one in the Capital.

WELCOME, OUR DOOR IS OPEN!

It's Monday morning, June 13th, and the gang of eight is thrilled to announce the opening of our group blog:  The Blue Voice.  Please come visit - today and often.  We have many friends in J-land whom we hope will remain friends on blogspot, commenting on our entries and participating in lively political discussion. The blog looks gorgeous, thanks to the efforts of Mara and Marcia Ellen, and I think people will be entering first posts throughout the day.

COMMENTS UPON COMMENTS

The comments in the past two entries are becoming more interesting than the entries.  And the dialogue between Lisa's journal entry, A Parable, and my entries is also pretty interesting.  So, what I'm going to do right now is post an email I received from Lisa - commenting on my comment to A Parable. 

         "The Man is not Saddam...the bad heart is Sadaam. The Man is Iraq. The Warrior (the US) has cut out and thrown away the old heart (Saddam) and tried to put a new one in its place, one that is not big enough to do the job. AND the Warrior completely discounted the ants (all the disparate splinter groups that make up the region) when he decided he was the one to do the job on the Man. (BTW, the People From the Faraway Land, though perhaps acquainted with the "bad heart," did NOT know the Man--the actual nation, history, and people of Iraq.)

My point is not so much the intricate details of the relationship between the bad heart and the Warrior, but that the Warrior undertook a task of his own free will, without investing the proper forethought or research. Now he is in the fix he is in, and he has a choice to make. What should the Warrior do?"

Thank you, Lisa.  And now I'm going to post here my comment on her journal, which never got posted there because it was too long for the character limits.

         "yes, Lisa - I had meditated more on the story, after reading it a couple of times, and did realize that The Man was the country of Iraq - you may agree, or not, that there is some confusion in the second paragraph. it was not the country of Iraq that began to act strangely and aggressively, it was The Leader, that is to say - in your version, the heart of The Man.

well, anyway - leaving the parable aside, and speaking in real terms about this situation: i, no more than anyone else, have no idea what "we," which is to say, the government of this country, should do now. That is the real horror of this situation. This war was started with no idea of what it would turn into - although whynot? plenty of people prophesied that just exactly what has happened would happen. they were not listened to. This war is only part, although a huge part, of the years of lies, deceptions, wrong-headed policies of an administration guided by neo-conservative wonks, the oil industry, and religious maniacs.

the countries of the middle-east are so complicated, their thinking so different from ours, that to hurl billions of dollars and the lives and futures of thousands of american troops into this war because the Project for a New American Century thinks the only way of the future is for the USA to be in total control and domination of the entire area - is in and of itself grounds, and then some, for impeachment of this president, vice president, and most of congress.

i feel so impotent, so full of rage, so full of pity and horror for what we have done to the country that was the Cradle of Civilization. I have no idea what The Warrior should do now. Stop viewing himself as a Warrior, for perhaps a beginning. View himself as merely another citizen of this vast and complicated world. Stop pouring the billions and billions of dollars into war and the machinery of war, and start trying to understand the rest of the world, not dominate it, help the millions of people who languish in poverty and wretchedness into some semblance of a decent life. Bring the troops home, put in a peace-keeping force, with members from other countries, send in the NGO's (not Halliburton) to help rebuild the society that has been so devastated."

And I wonder, what do others have to say in answer to Lisa's anguished question:  "What should the Warrior do?"  We already know what Mark (from his ferocious comment on one of the two previous posts) thinks.  So, that's okay Mark, you don't need to weigh in again.

PUTTING HUMPTY DUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN

Re my two previous entries, and some comments in the last one, I'd like to refer you to a couple of other AOL writers.  One is in the form of a parable, in fact - that's what it's called:  A Parable.  Lisa agonizes in this little story over what she wrote about in her comment to my entry - fixing what we done badly broke. The other is from one of J-land's best progressive writers, and is called: Iraq:  It's Not as Though They Weren't Warned, and it's full of things to ponder.

I'm a little too busy enjoying my weekend and getting ready for The Blue Voice  (Coming Monday!  Which begins right after midnight Sunday!)  to have much else to say here.  Except, please, begging now, pretty please, pleeeeze - click on the link for StopGlobalWarming in my sidebar and sign this national petition. Those of you who as yet have not.  And so many thank you's to those who have. 

PITT ON DOWNING STREET

As an addendum to my previous post, The Smoking Gun, I give you this, just received from Truthout.org, by William Rivers Pitt.  Truthout is one of my almost-daily must-reads, and this essay is a definite must-read for all of us. Link is at the end of the post.

From the end of the essay:
"This moment is described as the tipping point. Large majorities of Americans, in every poll, believe the Iraq invasion was unnecessary and the casualties thus far inflicted to be unacceptable. For the first time, the poll numbers show that a clear majority of the American people no longer believe that George W. Bush is keeping them safe. Bi-partisan coalitions are forming in Congress to demand that the US withdraw from Iraq and give that nation back to the people who live there, and those coalitions are edging towards majority-sized numbers. Legislation has been presented demanding withdrawal, and more is in the offing.

    And now, the Minutes. Tomorrow, the Minutes. Every day, the Minutes, until there is a reckoning."

Please go to the preceding entry and sign the Conyers letter to the President.  Let's move towards a reckoning together.

  After Downing Street

SMOKING GUN

This is the text of a request from MoveOn.org, requesting signatures for John Conyers petition asking that Bush give us some answers on this "smoking gun," the Downing St. memo.  Bill Clinton was impeached for deceit far less nationally and internationally far-reaching than this.  This story actually broke almost a month ago. It's time some serious attention was paid.  There was a, sort of, article in the NYT yesterday touching on this issue, but little attention has been paid to it in the mainstream press. Please click the link to sign, and pass this on to your internet friends.  As always, thanks a million.  For more, go to this site created specifically to get some action on this situation:  AfterDowningStreet.

From MoveOn:  Subject: 500,000 signatures needed today to expose Iraq lies

Hello,

I'm writing to ask you to join me in signing a MoveOn PAC petition demanding real answers from President Bush regarding the "smoking gun" Downing Street Memo.

To help get the truth about why we invaded Iraq, please sign this letter today.

http://www.moveonpac.org/tellthetruth/

The Downing Street memo is called a "smoking gun" because it contains the minutes from a British cabinet meeting in July of 2002, 6 months before the war began. During that meeting high ranking British officials reported that the Bush administration admitted it was already determined to invade Iraq, and was "fixing" intelligence about WMD's to justify the war.

This, of course, contradicts everything President Bush has told us about how he chose war as a last resort, and made that decision because he thought he had solid intelligence about the Iraqi WMD threat.

Bush has refused to even respond to the memo, but after Tony Blair's visit this week the pressure is really building. Representative John Conyers of Michigan is gathering 500,000 signatures and comments from American voters to take directly to President Bush at the White House gates and demand real answers. Please sign today and help get out the truth.

http://www.moveonpac.org/tellthetruth/

Thanks!

YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUT OF TEXAS....

This sudden onslaught of summer weather brings out the downhome Texas roots in the girl - drinking iced tea (with mint from the garden) out of a big ol' Mason jar, saying "tar" instead of tire, "farstone" instead of Firestone (I use these words in particular because of a spectacular tar, I mean, tire, blowout in the pickup yesterday), closing up the blinds and shades to keep the dadblasted sun out of the house in the middle of the day.

We kept our oil bill down this past winter, even though it was a colder winter and the price of oil was higher, by dint of keeping the thermostat on "freezing" most of the time. We wore lots of layers, used quilts to wrap up while reading or watching TV, and tried to keep moving as much as possible. It's much more difficult for me to be hot than to be cold, so I don't know how long we can keep our summer climate-control resolutions. Namely, to use the AC as little as possible. Right now it's in the mid-nineties, and with the heat index factored in feels like the high nineties. So, Mason jars of ice tea and lots of fans happening here. Could I do this if I were really still in Texas?  Hmmm, don't know - it would take extreme devotion to principles and immediate access to a swimming pool.  Is a swimming pool environmentally damaging? 

We're doing this not just to keep utility bills at a sub-astronomical level, but to try to do our infinitesimal, antlike bit to slow the planetary climate disruption, also known as global warming.  While I was researching some stuff, I came across this article in The Green Guide, The Cutting Edge of Cool.  It gives lots of information on AC systems and options, incliding this, the one we are going for:

"According to Energy Star, cooling accounts for nearly half the energy used by the average home during the summer.

 Ozone Depletion
Conventional refrigerants are carbofluorocarbons (CFCs) that deplete the ozone layer. Today there are a number of less-harmful-CFC and non-carbofluorocarbon refrigerants.

Cooling Options
The most efficient and environmentally friendly option is to not use AC. There are a number of low impact strategies for keeping your house cool. Since the discomfort of a hot day is often the result of the house absorbing heat, keep the heat out and keep the house ventilated.

No AC
• Fans use 90% less electricity than AC.

• Shades help keep heat out of the house: keep them closed during the day and open at night.

• A ventilated attic lowers the temperature in the house.

• Open windows allow for cross ventilation.

• Trees on the west side of the house can provide shade, cooling the structure."

So, any of y'all who haven't yet done this, please click on the StopGlobalWarming link in the sidebar and sign on to the Virtual March on Washington.  It's amazingly fast and easy, and maybe in the end it will do some good.

THE BLUE VOICE, UNMASKED

 COMING SOONER!

So, okay, what is this Blue Voice business anyway?  I hope you're asking yourselves that question.  You are, aren't you?  Because if so, you will be happy to know that I'm about to give you the answer!  The Blue Voice is a new blogging project outside of AOL.  It's a group project of some of J-Land's best progressive political writers who have joined forces.  There are eight of us involved in this:  Old Hickory, SottoVoce, TankGurl, Neil's Journal, Life as it Ought to Be (Marcia Ellen), De Profundis, Random Thoughts, and me, the windmills. 

Some of these folks are saying goodbye to the AOL journals linked above, but will be writing with the same humor, honesty and intelligence at the new group blog.  Most of us will be keeping our AOL journals, and will be getting less sleep as a result. 

The Blue Voice will debut next Monday, June 13, and you'll find the link to it in all of our journals.  Please come visit, please leave comments, please engage in this dialogue with us.

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

 COMING SOON!

World Environment Day, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program, has been held every year since, I think, 1972, in many different countries all over the world.  This is the first time it has been hosted in the USA, and it was San Francisco that hosted a plethora of events surrounding the one day.  The events were from June 1 through June 5, and included the Green Cities Expo.  Mayors from cities around the world came to discuss what can be done to make our cities greener and more liveable.  Check out the whole thing here.  This is the Green Cities Expo link.   

Was the president of the USA at this amazing event?  Did he care to show how important the environment is to him and his administration?  (He SAID it is important to him, I KNOW he did, in some campaign speech, didn't he?  He couldn't have been lying, could he?)  The first time this event has been held in the United States seems worth officially marking to me. Ummmm, no I don't think GWB was there.  Al Gore was there, however, and gave a kickass speech which lasted an hour.  Among other things he said this: 

"We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the earth, a transformation of the relationship between our species and the planet," Gore warned. "Is it only terrorists that we're worried about? Is that the only threat to the future that is worth organizing to respond to?"

Oh Al, if only you had campaigned with such passion. 

Come on, folks - click on the sidebar link for StopGlobalWarming and sign the petition.  Let's see what Journal-land can do to pump up the numbers.

SAVING PUBLIC BROADCASTING

   COMING SOON

Some good info for those concerned about the future of Public Broadcasting, as you will know from a previous post that I currently am.  Here is a link to an essay excerpted from a speech Bill Moyers gave at the National Conference on Media Reform last month.  Here's the full text of the speech (including remarks on how Nixon tried to do away with CPB) if you want to read it all.

If you are aware of all this, don't have time for the reading, and just want to vent your spleen by taking action, here's a link to a petition calling for Kenneth Tomlinson's resignation.  Let's let Washington know how The Public actually feels about this.  As Bill Moyers says:

"I was naïve, I guess. I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House. But that’s what Kenneth Tomlinson has done."

 

MEMORIAL DAY VIGIL REDUX

For those of you who read my Memorial Day Vigil story, especially those who were kind enough to leave comments about the story in the local paper - I want to let you know that the paper published all the letters that people from our group wrote to them.  There were no letters from the other group, evidently.  They also published this

"The Cape Gazette apologies for a photo caption in the May 31edition concerning the silent vigil held in Lewes, May 29, to honor those who have died thus far in the war in Iraq.  The caption stated 'Lines weren't drawn in the sand, but Savannah Road separated the silent vigil from the supporters of the troops.'  We did not mean to imply that those participating in the vigil are unsupportive of the troops."

under the "Corrections" section on the second page of the paper. as well as a column about a guy who had driven down from Dover to see the vigil.  This guy was a vet, and had hated the VN protesters, but now believes the protests shortened the war and seems to feel that what the silent vigils are doing is a good thing, bringing awareness of the cost of war into the public eye. 

Before I leave this subject, I'd like to show you the last comment to that post about the Memorial Day Vigil.  It's from my sister, who was visiting with her family, all of whom attended the vigil with us.  You will see that we really are related. Connected not just genetically, but in philosophy and thought.  It's so nice to be able to have this connection in a family.

Where oh where to begin.  

I am the "sister", Rosie, at the vigil, that earnest, few moments we spent remembering the dead and wounded from all wars and in particular this recent war, ongoing, in Iraq.  

We are entitled to remember our American brothers and sisters who have served in the military in our peaceful manner.  Those people across the street are entitled to their opinions and to voicing their opinions, but they are not entitled to attack us for our views either verbally or any other way.

I agree with the entry which said we who advocate peace should carry American flags.  I couln't agree more.  I said so last Sunday whilst we stood with our prayer flags.  We need to assert our Americaness in a way that everyone understands.  

The American troops in Irag are the relatives of pacifists as well as hawks. Surely, no one in their right mind could imagine that only the hawks are "supporting" them in love, prayer, and yeah, even tax dollars.  Putting a ribbon shaped sticker on your car that says "We support our troops" might  presuppose that we do not all support our troops.  Such a supposition is profoundly incorrect.  The women and men in Irag are supported by all of us:  we fear for them, we pray for them, we want them to come home safely.  

It may be the case that few in the current administration can put a real face to any of the troops and do not support them with love or prayer, because most of those in Irag are from working class families whose parents are not in the halls of Congress or in the Oval Office.  The decision to send innocent men and woman to kill and die in Irag came from a ruling elite interested in power in North Africa and West Asia not from mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers grieving for their family members.

ONE PLANET, ONE PEOPLE

Well, my my - global warming is making the welcome screen at AOL!  Looks like the most important issue of the day has finally moved from eco-geekdom to the mass market. The article is reporting on a new atlas from the U.N. on the occasion of  World Environment Day, hosted for the first time in the USA, in San Francisco.

Changing Planet Revealed in Atlas

The devastating impact of mankind on the planet is dramatically illustrated in pictures published Saturday showing explosive urban sprawl, major deforestation and the sucking dry of inland seas over less than three decades.

The atlas is composed of satellite photos of the planet, taken over the past three decades.  It's graphic evidence of the changes we have wrought, most of which amount to devastation. 

"If there is one message from this atlas, it is that we are all part of this. We can all make a difference," U.N. expert Kaveh Zahedi told reporters at the launch of the "One Planet Many People" atlas on the eve of World Environment Day. 

This title may be too one-worldish for many in today's political atmosphere, but it is the only true message.  This is something everyone now breathing needs to heed and start taking action.  Here is one action that may or may not call some national attention to the issue of global warming.  It is a virtual march on Washington, and you can check it out here.  If you decide to sign up for the march, please do me a favor and do so via this link, which is my personal page.  This will credit me with having spread the word about this action.  I'd like to at least catch upwith Leonardo DiCaprio in number of "friends" signed on.

TOO MUCH FUN WAS HAD BY ALL

Sorry not to have gotten back to the rest of my weekend story sooner.  This is the Family Fun portion of the event!  My sister and family just live in D.C., so we try to get together as often as possible.  G and I had a birding trip at Prime Hook on Saturday morning, with a naturalist from Cape Henlopen St. Park.  We mostly listened to warblers and other songbirds in a forested part of the park, as the canopy was too high and thick for much sighting, but after that G and I went north up the Delaware Bay to look for shorebirds.  Of which there were many many, feasting on horseshoe crab eggs.  The D.C. guests arrived late that afternoon, in time to play with the dog in the yard, sit and read, have a big healthy salad for supper. 

On Sunday morning we went in to the beach for an activity we'd registered for at Cape Henlopen - seining in the Bay, with a junior naturalist.  This was an activity for children, but I have to say all the adults got just as excited about it.  They  took turns dragging a couple of big nets through the shallow water, or used handheld nets to scoop up water and stuff.  Then they examined what they'd scooped in the nets, put what was interesting into a wading pool filled with sea water.  At the end of the scooping and saving, the naturalist had everyone gather around the pool while she talked and explained about what they'd found.  You could tell the little naturalists from the rest of the kids - some of them were so interested and so full of questions and ideas.  Everyone had a fabulous time, including yours truly.  I'd never seen a pipe fish before, a relative of the seahorse, and they caught two tiny ones.

After a yummy lunch in Lewes, we walked over to the Vigil, about which I've written extensively in the previous entry.  With pictures.  There was an archeological exhibit, early DE history, being held behind the museum, so after the vigil had ended we segued over there and spent some time while M played colonial children's games with other kids.  Because our lunch had been so healthy, we felt it necessary to go back to the bakery and have cappucino and pastry - it was, after all, a holiday!

On Monday, after a Mexican lunch here in Georgetown, we went back to Lewes and the fishing docks - where we boarded the Adventure II and set out for a Dolphin Watch ride.  After we got down the canal and out past the harbor walls, we were in the midst of a herd of dolphin - they were everywhere, all around the boat, out around us in every direction.  They swam to us, under us, around us;   they leaped in the air, they swam on their backs - we even heard some of their singing.  My sister put a lifejacket on M as soon as we got out past the harbor - and rightly so, because she could easily have jumped right over the rail in her excitement and enthusiasm at the sight of all those creatures.( I may have pictures from this soon.  Oh for a digital camera.  We use an old Minolta, get them developed and put on a disc.  It takes entirely too long in this era of instant gratification. )

It was the best dolphin watch I've ever been on, and it's something I love to do.  Both sons are coming with the grandchildren this summer - we may see more dolphins yet!  I like to do it on my birthday too, it seems a wonderful way to celebrate being alive.

We took a beach walk after the boat ride, and came home to grill ribs and eat another fantastic supper.  The family left after lunch on Tuesday, and we all consider it a weekend to remember.  We memorialized those who have died, and celebrated life in many ways.  It's alllll good, baby.

MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIAL

Soon after the war in Iraq began, one lone woman started standing on a street corner in front of the museum in Lewes, DE on Sunday afternoons, holding signs protesting the war, praying for peace.  In the years (years!) since that beginning, this silent vigil has grown to be a weekly event, bringing usually a small but devoted number of people.  Eventually, the silent peace vigil attracted a counter-group on the opposite side of the street - a group wearing VFW caps, waving huge American flags, sporting large bellies and loud voices.  Their counterdemonstration is anything but silent - they play loud music, shout obscenities, hold crude and ugly hand-lettered signs.  On the most recent anniversary of this war, when I attended the vigil, the numbers on opposing sides of the street were just about equal, twenty or so.

For the Memorial Day weekend Sunday vigil, a much larger event was planned:  participants spent many days lettering prayer flags with the individual names of the 1600-plus American military personnel killed in this war, then attaching them to cords that stretched between bamboo poles.  On Sunday they worried that they wouldn't have enough participants to hold the poles with the names.  Eighty people showed up.  Including our little contingent of five:  myself and G, my sister, her husband, their 7 yr old daughter. (Bear in mind that this was the middle of the day, Sunday of the opening holiday of the season, with perfect beach weather.)

 

The line of people stretched way past those holding the names.  There were also beautifully done black and white handheld signs with merely the numbers:  numbers of Americans killed, numbers wounded, numbers of Iraqis killed and wounded. 

It was a group encompassing all ages, races, lifestyles, religions, levels of education, it included pacifists and military veterans (not always mutually exclusive);  it was a silent group gathered to pray in whatever format, for those who have died, been injured in body, mind and spirit, for their families who grieve for them, and for those still engaged in this most foolish of wars. 

The group across the street looked like this:

and sounded even worse - you can almost see the sign in the upper righthand corner, it says "Honk for Democracy."  So, their homeys passing by in pickups, SUVs or really really big/loud motorcycles honked.  And honked and honked.  For democracy?   Well, I suppose so.  It is, after all, democracy that lets us stand on opposite sides of the street, giving vent to our radically different views of things.

The local paper had a group of photos, and reported Sunday's event thus:

"Each Sunday a silent vigil is held in downtown Lewes to honor those who have died in the war in Iraq. For Memorial Day, 1,600 flags were flown in honor of the war dead. This vigil is countered with a rally across the street each week. Clockwise from above right, disabled Vietnam veteran Art Wheatcraft and Kathy McCusker show support for the troops. Eleven-year-old Andrew Fagg show  support for the troops along with Michael Stein and James Fagg. Vietnam veteran Peter Schultz takes part in the silent vigil to honor those who have sacrificed in Iraq. Lines weren't drawn in the sand, but Savannah Road separated the silent vigil from the supporters of the troops May 29."

The emphasis is mine, showing how, in the mind of the Cape Gazette reporter, crude signs, yelling and waving flags shows "support for the troops," whereas silently and respectfully honoring those who have died or been injured is.......what?  Well, we don't know, do we?  

 

We brought home the flags that my niece and I were holding at the end of the vigil, and they are now fluttering in the breeze by the front garden.  Until the names fade and the strips of cloth turn to shreds, the wind - the breath of nature - will carry many silent prayers and blessings on its wings:  the hope of peaceful rest for the dead, peace and enlightenment for us, for the world.

That's G in the tied-dye shirt on the left, M (niece) in front of her mother, who is obscured by flags, and her daddy in the blue t-shirt behind her as well.

GRAND OPENING: SUMMER 2005

We have had a beautiful and memorable Memorial Day weekend.  My sister, brother in law and niece came out from D.C. and spent all three days with us.  They just left a few hours ago.  I am working on an entry, with pictures, about the silent vigil we all attended in Lewes on Sunday.  Lots of pictures, so it will take a while.  It may take a couple of entries to talk about all the fun we had this weekend.  Just want to say here that I hope everyone else also had a rest, a moment of solemnity, and a good beginning to this summer. 

TOM HAS HIS UNDIES IN A TWIST

Later the same day!   Since posting my previous entry earlier this morning, I saw this article on AOL News.  Yep, them Reps can really yell when it's something that gets on THEIR nerves.  Do they have a clue how the rightwing talk shows routinely defame everyone they even imagine or dream is a - gasp - "liberal?"  With absolutely no factual basis for anything.  Sure, they do.  But they LIKE that.  See Tom have a tantrum, whine, Tom, whine.  I do hope NBC won't take the Newsweek way out, and make a big "retraction" and apology.

PERILOUS TIMES

I've spent some time in the automobile lately, especially yesterday -when I traveled to Annapolis to do holiday weekend grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Yes, we live near the beach, so we usually get holiday weekend visitors. It's the D.C. family coming to hang out with us, cheer us up, attend the peace vigil with us on Sunday, go to the beach, eat, and play.

So, I enjoyed my roundtrip, listening to various NPR stations as I drove. Where else but on NPR, the Diane Rehm show to be exact, would I hear a discussion on stemcell research – conducted in civil, sane, intelligent fashion? That then followed by an interview with Andrew Bacevich, a West Point grad, a VN vet, currently a foreign relations professor, who has just written a book called The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, which is decrying the new American militarism, not celebrating it  (Tom Engelhardt has also written about Bacevich and his book here.) The interview brought up many points that I have pondered myself, and made me hope that this is a book that will get wide attention. I’m not much of a nonfiction reader, but I just might check this one out.

Later I heard part of Day to Day, where Elizabeth Arnold was discussing the latest miraculous find, the Mt. Diablo Buckwheat flower in California. Nowhere else on my radio dial would I ever hear such a thing.

Meanwhile, I have been hearing cries and whispers of the government’s displeasure with NPR, and its "leftist" slant. I haven’t had time to investigate this until recently, and when I did it made my hair stand on end. I’ll give you the link to one article which has given me waking nightmares since I read it. It’s on Salon.com, so you need a subscription or the daypass to read it, but it’s worth reading every word.

I am way too familiar with Fulton Lewis Jr., having been forced to hear him raving on through much of my childhood and adolescence. My mother (having come from an Irish FDR democrat background in her youth, became a rabid nutso rightwinger as she went through life, for reasons that I never managed to fathom) insisted on listening to his program no matter what time it came on. In the car on family trips, in the kitchen during dinner, in the kitchen while I was in forced labor doing the dishes, etc etc etc. If the new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a protegé of his, we are in for some unhappy days ahead.

It’s not just NPR of course, it’s also PBS. The wonderful show NOW, which Bill Moyers made into my Friday night addiction, is the main thing in their gunsights evidently. G’s theory is that they want to destroy Public Broadcasting entirely – we who support it with our contributions will no longer contribute if Britt Hume and Bill O’Reilly join up.

"Fair and balanced" -- the McCarthy way"
CPB head Kenneth Tomlinson, who is leading a jihad against "liberal bias" in public broadcasting, and one of his two new ombudsmen both worked for the late Fulton Lewis, a reactionary radio personality associated with Sen. Joe McCarthy

Why is it that there is no official outcry and complaint about all the TV and radio stations that have a totally undisguised "rightwing" slant?  If it were not for NPR and a couple of jazz and retro rock and roll stations, I'd have no reason to own a radio anywhere.  If Public Broadcasting goes "Fair and Balanced" there'll be NOplace for news and information except the Internet.  Are we next, folks? 

POST-NUCLEAR FALLOUT

I posted several times last month about the dangers to the environment of eliminating the judicial filibuster, taking the "nuclear option" as it was called.  The dangers of giving the Republican Senate carte blanche to shoo in some of the most dreadful foes of the environment to a position where they can make decisions for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.  As I'm sure everyone is aware, the nuclear option was averted, in a bipartisan deal which at first glance had me yelling obscenities at my computer screen.  However, I have calmed down now, am able to sit up and take nourishment and read some thoughts from saner minds on this.  The fact that William Myers was not one of the judicial candidates in the deal was a huge relief to me, though the three candidates in the deal don't smell much sweeter. 

Here, from Bush GreenWatch, are some reassuring comments from one Doug Kendall, executive director of Community Rights Counsel.  I can believe this guy because his group worked with Earthjustice on "Judging the Environment,"  a project highlighting the environmental stakes in this judicial nomination battle.  I linked to the project often in my entries on this whole situation, and will continue to do so if/when I write more about it.

TWO THRENODIES AND A PSALM

I

It is not approaching.
It has arrived.
We are not circumventing it.

It is happening.
It is happening now.
We are not preventing it.
We are within it.

The sound of its happening
is splitting other ears.
The sight of its happening
is searing other eyes.
The grip of its happening
is strangling other throats.

Without intermissions it spins,
without cessation we circle its edge
as leaf or crumb will float circling
a long time at the other rim
before centripetal force
tugs it down.

II

The body being savaged
is alive.
It is our own.
While the eagle-vulture
tears the earth's liver,
while the heart-worm burrows
into earth's heart.

Extremities, we are in
unacknowledged extremis.
We feel only
a chill as the pulse of life
recedes.

We don't beat off the devouring beak,
the talons. We don't dig out what burrows
into our core. It is not
our heart, we think (but do not say).
It is the world's, poor world, but I
am other.

III

Our clear water
one with the infested water

women walk miles to
each day they live.

One with the rivers tainted with detritus

of our ambitions,

and with the dishonored ocean.
Our unbroken skin
one with the ripped skin of the tortured,

the shot-down, bombed, napalmed,
the burned alive.

One with the sore and filthy skin of the destitute.

We utter the words
we are one
but their truth
is not real to us.

Spirit, waken
our understanding.
Out of the stasis
in which we perish,
the sullen immobility
to which the lead weight of our disbelief
condemns us,
only your rushing wind
can lift us.

Our flesh and theirs
one with the flesh of fruit and tree.

Our blood
one with the blood of whale and sparrow.

Our bones
ash and cinder of star-fire.

Our being
tinder for primal light.

Lift us, Spirit, impel
our rising
into that knowledge.

Make truth real to us,
flame on our lips.
Lift us to seize the present,
wrench it
out of its downspin.

- Denise Levertov

CAPE HENLOPEN, ALMOST FULL MOON

High tide coming in with May's full moon,
the flower moon/fish moon/milk moon,
we walked on the beach as the sun went down
and the moon came up - waves washing around our feet,
water in up to the dunes and still rising. 
Dolphins leapt and swam and jumped out in the water,
a group swimming north and a group swimming south. 
Colors of sky, water, dunes, too many to name, a swirl of
soft blues, mauves, greys, darker blues, whites,
dune grass green, soft slope of sand,
we the only humans on the beach, for us alone tonight
this gift of endless reaching beauty.

ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTION

I know that many of you who read this journal are MoveOn.org members, and so have probably already received an email advising you of this action.  You have probably already signed the petition.  For any readers who are not MoveOn groupies, this link will take you to a petition to your senators, to which you can add your own comments before you sign and send.  The letters and comments are being delivered to Senate floor as the storm rages on, some are being read aloud on the floor.  Be a part of this historic action, send this info on to your online friends, or post it in your own journal.  If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?

And thanks.

WAKE UP TO THE WARM UP, EXXON!!!

The first link below will take you to a letter to an Exxon board member which you can sign and send on, adding your voice to those who would like them to pull their heads out of the sand.  If you'd like to read more about this issue, click the "tell me more" link at the end of the post. 

Turn the heat up on ExxonMobil!

ExxonMobil, the most powerful oil and gas company, continues to fight the shift toward a clean energy future. While the consensus within the scientific community on global warming only gets stronger, ExxonMobil remains the leading funder of climate skeptics and their political maneuvers have stunted attempts to curb global warming for the past decade. ExxonMobil's unwillingness to build a low-carbon future is only furthering the dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.

You can help by sending a letter to ExxonMobil board member, Dr. Michael J. Boskin, asking him to lead ExxonMobil in a different direction, one toward a clean energy future. 
Tell me more

 

THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE

Because I've spent a lot of time this week in my yard, the subject of grass is much on my mind right now.  A lot of the yard is not what could technically be called "grass."  There's a good deal of clover, a large contingent of dandelions - though far fewer than other years  - many violets, some wild strawberries that will never give up their domain, and, indeed, some grass.  We've lived here going on eight years now, and nary a chemical pesticide or fertilizer has touched the yard or the gardens during that time. It all looks much better than it did when we bought it; many of the weeds have been choked out by the grass, which is thicker and stays greener through the summer than it did the first couple of years.  I mow with a plug-in battery-operated electric mulching mower, leaving the clippings to mulch into the lawn.  In the fall I also mulch most of the leaves in situ, and they too go to fertilize the ground. 

I'd like to share some good information about organic lawn care with you, from some of my favorite sites.  NRDC publishes a monthly bulletin called "This Green Life," and the current one is about green lawn care.  Here's the basics from that bulletin:

EIGHT STEPS TO A SAFE AND NATURAL LAWN

1) Check your soil's pH. It should be 6.5 to 7. If it's too acidic, add lime; too alkaline, add sulfur.

2) If the soil's too compact, aerate it to ensure good air and water penetration. An aerating machine can be rented from many garden stores, or use a hand aerator if your lawn is small.

3) Apply compost to condition and fertilize the soil before planting. If you plan to buy, rather than make, your compost, check the composting guide in the links for tips on how to tell good from bad.

4) Apply natural fertilizer as well (since compost only has low levels of nutrients). You only need to fertilize your lawn once or twice a year. Fall and early spring are the recommended times.

5) When you mow, leave the clippings on the grass to condition and fertilize the soil further. The clippings will provide organic matter and half your lawn's nitrogen needs. It's helpful, though not necessary, to use a mulch-mower.

6) Mow frequently, but don't cut too much off. Most grass varieties do best at 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches high. Mow often enough that you never have to cut off more than the top third of the grass.

7) Water infrequently, but deeply. Early morning is the best time of day. Midday watering results in water loss from evaporation. Evening watering leaves your lawn soggy at nightfall, which puts grass at risk of disease.

8) Don't let the layer of thatch get deeper than half an inch. (Thatch is the dead plant material between the soil and blades of grass.) Remove the excess by raking.

If the lawn you currently have is looking puny after a long mean winter, Organic Gardening online has a wealth of tips on how to solve problems and have a greener, healthier, happier lawn.

Maybe you practice Safe Lawn Care, but you are surrounded by neighbors who get out the poisons as often as possible.  Chances are those poisons are not staying neatly in the neighbor's yard and air space.  If you have children or pets, or just like to enjoy your own grass by sitting on it, walking barefoot in it, or occasionally rolling around in it after a few still drinks - here's a site (Washington Toxics Organization) that will give you information you can share with those neighbors about just what they're doing to the world with all those wonderful chemicals.  You can also order the sign with which I begin this entry from these folks.  I'm getting two, one for the front and one for the back yards.  

And then, if your yard is really not at all suited for a green stretch of Victorian lawn (those buggers started all this, there was no such thing as "lawns" pre Victorian days), if it's wild and wooly and wants to be a jungle of sorts  - why not think of turning it into an offical backyard wildlife habitat?  Part of my backyard is just that, and it's full of rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, tons of birds, and I may not know exactly what all else.  The National Wildlife Federation has instructions and helpful stuff to get you started, and they will even certify you when you get it done. 

As I said in my Compost entry, we are all caretakers of some small piece of the environment.  Let's do it consciously.

"LIVE WITH IT OR CALL YOURSELF SOMETHING ELSE"

A jaw-dropping  story from the AOL news screen that illuminates a little bit of why I no longer consider myself a Catholic.  Or even, really, a Christian. 

Priest Denies Communion to Supporters of Gay Catholics.

ONE FOR THE BIRDS

As the Senate prepares for nuclear meltdown, the new "Energy Bill" wends its way through Congress, the roadless forest rule passed by Clinton is rescinded by Bush - leaving formerly pristine forests now open for logging and mining by the Fat Cats who control our government - we try to protect and enjoy what remains to us of natural space, land preserved as habitat for plants, birds, animals and as a glimpse of the wonders of creation for us, its sad destroyers.  Robin, of Midlife Matters, just sent around a wonderful post from her weekend in Ohio, and I'd like to share the birding trip G and I had Saturday.  We went with a small group led by a naturalist from the Cape Henlopen State Park Nature Center to a place we'd never heard of, Thompson's Island.  To get there we had to wend our way through a condo complex between Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach.  The preserve, which Richard - our naturalist - says is part of the State Parks land, encompasses forests, marshes and wetlands, and the banks of the RB/Lewes Canal. 

As we went through the first part of the forest, we heard many many birds calling, but the canopy was too thick to see much.  At one point the canopy opened up, and the warblers were so numerous we couldn't decide where to look first.  The canopy was high, and the sky a hazy grey that produces unfortunate backlighting.  Even so, we saw black and whites, American redstarts, a female summer tanager, yellow-rumps (butter-butts), one black-throated green, and pine warblers. 

When we got to the water there were many common terns gracefully looping and diving, yellow-legs, dowitchers, one spotted sandpiper on the mudflats, a couple of great blue herons, a green heron, a louisiana tricolor heron, clapper rails constantly heard in the grasses, but never seen.  There was a wonderful osprey sitting on a snag very close to us, guarding his nest in the marsh at the edge of the woods. Two osprey also flew overhead, one carrying home some lunch.  At one point, to everyone's surprise, a bald eagle flew overhead - quite low - going so fast it took our breath away.  He was on a very definite mission.  There were several pair of eastern king birds in the trees near the marsh, squabbling over territory, as it seemed. 

For me the best moment of the trip was coming across a pair of tree swallows building a nest in a cavity in a snag, just off the trail.  They were both flying in and out with strands of dried grasses, taking turns sitting on top of another snag in the sunlight, thinking about decor, I guess.  The male was so shiningly blue in the sunlight; I've never seen one so blue.                          

   Tree swallow on fence.

As we returned - an hour over the time we were supposed to have spent - through the woods we first heard, then saw, several red-bellied woodpeckers.  For a birding farewell, just before we came out of the woods into the parking lot, there was a red-eyed vireo flitting around in the branches right above us - we first heard, then saw it also. 

I'm sure I have forgotten some of what we saw  - G kept the list, and I don't quite know where it is right now.  Though we were very close to human habitation, and much too close to boats coming down the canal ignoring the "no wake" request, it felt magically apart from all that.  Had we seen no birds to speak of, it still would have been a wonderful morning.  But we saw so many, heard many more, got muddy feet, mosquito bites  (and G found a tick this morning, two days later, though we had assiduously searched our bodies for them ASAP), knew we were in a place that has been saved from condos, marinas, giant beach houses, kept safe for small shining birds to peacefully build nests in hollow trees.

SUNDAY SIX, YAWN

Yesterday we were birding all morning, and I will write about that pretty soon.  But right now I'm feeling very lazy, so am going to take the fun road and answer Patrick's Saturday Six.  Which now are the Sunday Six, whether that's okay or not.

1. How many scars do you have on your body?  Where are they?
 
Any body that makes it to my age without scars has not lived much of a life, is what I think.  I will only mention the outstanding ones.  On my right index finger, a large V-shaped scar from a broken glass when I was eleven, poorly stitched together by an intern.   Right palm and wrist, carpal-tunnel surgery scar. Left shoulder, a four inch scar from surgery to remove a bonespur on my acromium.  Small scars on my belly from laproscopic surgery.  Left elbow, inch long scar from putting elbow through glass door as a teenager.  Bottoms of both feet, scars from cuts obtained jumping off barn roof, landing on pile of boards, as a kid and never telling parents about it for fear of tetanus shots.

   

2. What is the last junk food you ate in such large quantity that you actually felt guilty afterwards?

       Is ice cream really junk food?

3. What is the closest spot to your home where you go when you feel like you need an afternoon escape?

      The beach at Cape Henlopen State Park, for a long walk.

4. Of those in your collection, what movie have you watched the most times?

      Shrek.

5. Have you ever felt discriminated against?  What about you do you believe led to the discrimination?

      I have to say no.  And this is true even though I am a lesbian.

6. RAPID FIRE QUESTION #3:  Have you ever hired a:
    a. Maid
    b. Lawyer
    c. Chauffeur
    d. Plumber
    e. Photographer
    f. Realtor
    g. Gardener
    h. Personal Trainer
    i. Psychic/Spirtual Advisor
    j. Mortician

        Lawyer, Plumber, Realtor, Funeral Home services.  Is there more to this question?  Hasn't everyone hired a plumber at some point?  Or else they don't have plumbing in their dwellings.