well, how to choose among the offerings of the season.  how about this one, a quote from the very reverend Pat Robertson about his anointed president, dubya:  "The Lord has just blessed him.  I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it.  It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad; God picks him up because he's a man of prayer, and God's blessing him."  now, aside from the terrible syntax, just think about this. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad?  hello?  what strange brand of religion is this, anyway?  well, far more clever pundits have already commented on this quote, and i give you Robert Scheer from Working for Change, and Matt Bivins, of The Daily Outrage.  while you're at Daily Outrage go back a few entries and read the one where he talks about Laura's revelation to Tim Russert that her darling hubby did not pen the sweet bit of doggerel verse that awaited her on her return from her European trip last summer.  Matt has a good time ruminating on which White House gofer got the assignment of writing the "my lump in the bed" poem and how he or she went about this task.  it's fun, yes, but does this administration have to lie about everything? even the doggerel?

 

where the grapes of wrath are stored

if you don't already have a subscription to Salon.com, it's time to get one.  i think mine is up for renewal soon, and you bet i'm renewing it.  this article is an example of why i now feel i can't possibly live without Salon.  as we go through the coming year leading up to the election, this is one of the places where i know i will find news and opinion that won't be found too many other places.  this article, "Avenging Angel of the Religious Right" will blow your socks off.  about a man i've never heard of, Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. (if you are Bruce Miller you will know him, living in CA and reading everything published on the face of the earth), a SoCal millionaire now bankrolling the possible schism within the Episcopal Church, after having bankrolled all kinds of other delightful efforts within his home state.  this one comes under the heading of "know your enemies," though Max Blumenthal has managed to write the article in perfectly even, seemingly objective, terms.  i'd pay my ridiculously low subscription rate for this one article alone.  go there, do it.  now.

Concatenation

my current project is one i cribbed from fdtate at Progressive Musings, yet another journal, this one solely for links.  there just isn't enough room on these AOL journal sidebars for all the links i have accumulated.  so i'm assembling them by category and putting them in entries in the link journal.  then i'll put the categories on the sidebar, and have hundreds of possibilities!  it will mean an extra click to get to a link, but i think that's bearable. this is an ornery job, especially since my journal has not recovered from the latest problem (utility buttons not working, inability to enter, read comments, yada yada yada) and i have to work around it.  i've only gotten two entries done so far, Comadres Y Hermanas, and AOL Journalers.  Obla-d, honey, if you're visiting the windmills and miss your journal-link, just want to let you know, you're in "Comadres y Hermanas" now. 

anyhow, that's what i'm doing, as well as trying to get stuff outside ready for the reeeeelllly cold weather that's moving in tonight.  it's been so mild, i've neglected things like taking in hoses and covering the herb garden with evergreen branches.  guess i'll take the swags off the doors and turn them into garden coverings. 

The Incredible Lightness of Children

this picture is from the mid-December trip in to D.C. to visit with sisters and children.  these are the children in question.  holding a seance?  telling fortunes?  in their own movie?  the last, for sure.  under the tutelage of the oldest of the trio, my darling niece N, the two littler girls dressed up that afternoon and evening in an endless series of costumes, then descended from the second floor to present...sometimes a short ballet, sometimes a playlet, sometimes simply a little mise-en-scène.  N used to do the very same when she was a younger, and only, child.  now she has a little sister and a cousin, she gets to be producer, director, costume designer, scriptwriter.  it was one of the more entertaining evenings i've spent in the theatre recently.  we see the actors and director relaxing here for a spot of drawing and coloring in M's room.  M lives in DC, N and L came up from Texas,  for a holiday visit and because their parents were going to the Simon/Garfunkel concert.  we, alas, had to return to the delmarva to finish up the semester on monday, so no concert for us.  my sisters and their husbands enjoyed it enormously, for the Texas contingent it seemed to have been worth the trip.  for me, the performances by The Nieces were, as the Master Card ads say, priceless.

Absolute Friends

it's one of those days when everything seems to connect...here is an interview with John le Carré in Salon Books.  his novel Absolute Friends will be released in this country (it's already out in Britain) next week and if you have read bruce miller's lengthy review/analysis of The End of Evil   (as i commanded you to in the previous entry), you will see what i mean by seeming to connect.  the interview is by Laura Miller, and from some of her questions to le Carré it would seem she has been scared by the fanatical idealism shown by our neoconservative leaders in that book.  as well as, of course, in many other places and events.  i have loved le Carré for as long as he's been writing, and he just seems to get better and better.  he certainly is getting more and more outraged by the leaders of both his country and this one.  so, i await this book with eagerness and trepidation. 

Imagine the chutzpah

i'm doing 1000 things at once today, it's the beginning of reentry to the real world.  one of the things i've just done is read Old Hickory's eleven part (yes, eleven!) review of The End of Evil, by Frum and Perle.  my own title to this entry is my opinion of anyone who could name a book, let alone a whole system of world-planning, by such a title.  yet they have.  and i urge anyone who browses my journal to leave immediately and go read bruce's eleven parter. 

today begins the fingerprinting and photographing of most "foreigners" entering U.S. airports.  a procedure which slots neatly into the thinking of these Charters of World Destiny.   this is fanaticism at a level as scary as that of militant Islam, in my notsohumble opinion.  thank you, bruce, for this extremely thorough analysis.  to anyone who hasn't heard it yet, it's a real wake-up call.

A Zen New Year to all

The sun rises, the sun sets.
Watch it and see.
River and moon,
Pine trees and wind,
All old poems to me.
Who needs words for the New Year?
                               -Tao Kai (1065 -1123)