today's blood pressure reading

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

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

more of the same

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

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

like a snowball down a mountain

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

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

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

keep the phone lines humming

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

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

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

THE FERTILE CRESCENT

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

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

deep in the heart? of texas

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

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

a good time will be had by all

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