unraveling my tapestry

This was their life

2010-11-08T05:14:00.001-08:00

Today I was trying to remember a quote about Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Turns out it was by Mark Twain: "In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?" What led me to this was quote was a reading of the bio of "E. M. Forster, A Great Unrecorded Life" by Wendy Moffat (I also want to read the unexpurgated autobiography of Mark Twain, vol. 1 was just published). What amazed me about Forster was the altering of my view of his life. Virginia Woolf, whose writing I admire, had her opinions of Forster (who was a friend) upended for me because of Moffat's book. Until I read that, I always remembered Woolf's comments on her friend ( "E. M. Forster the novelist, whose books once influenced mine, and are very good, I think, though impeded, shrivelled and immature" and her diary entry with Forster in mind, "The middle age of buggers is not to be contemplated without horror."). When I considered Forster's cessation of writing fiction and his hiding away of his gay writings, I always thought of him as a sad man who avoided his own truth.
Since reading the book, I find Forster a man who did abandon fiction and not publish his gay-themed stories and novel, but who grew in his concern and involvement for the world, broadcasting on the BBC during the war, attending international writers' conferences to address the world's peril that led up to WWII, and saving his work that dealt with homosexuality until such time as it would be received as not sensationalistic, but a reflection on his life and desires, as well as the gay life that existed before it could "speak its name."

OK, so what does Mark Twain and his Boston, New York and Philadelphia statement have to do with this? Forster's life was filled and interconnected with so many people, Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Paul Cadmus, George Platt Lynes, etc. What a wonderful crowd of creative types.

Of late, I find myself drawn to biography; Before the Forster book I read a book called "My Queer War" about a gay soldier serving in WWII (and meeting Picasso and Gertrude Stein when stationed in Paris, connections again, right?); now I am reading Justin Spring's "Secret Historian," the life of professor, tattoo artist and sexual renegade Samuel Steward (also filled with connections, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Kinsey, andGeorge Platt Lynes to name a few)and Frances Osborne's "The Bolter," the scandalous Edwardian woman, Idina Sackville, which ties in to Virginia Woolf and that crowd.

I feel lucky (and sometimes a tad jealous) of my friends who maintain a creative level in their lives. I have been feeling uncreative and need to reconnect with that part of myself. Once I decide in what direction to go, I'll let you know.

Hi, I'm a Tea-Partier

2010-10-31T05:28:00.000-07:00

Video games and marriage?

2010-10-20T04:31:00.001-07:00

I got to thinking about the “sanctity” of marriage (interesting that the definition of sanctity in addition to the word holy, uses the word inviolability).

The thought process started as I was watching a video Cataclysm Cinematic Intro(World of Warcraft)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq4Y7ztznKc&feature=youtube_gdata while waiting for some files to upload to our large file format method of transfer.

I don’t know how I got from the video to marriage, but some of the steps were these:
Why in games and their movies are the societies quaint, often medieval-looking, when they have technology (and magic) to create warriors and weapons that fit the WMD category? Do we credit/blame Tolkien and other story/myth creators (and Joseph Campbell)?

Is it a comment on our tribal-mindset past as our world moves ahead in its ability to create technological methods to destroy while the distrust of ‘the other’ remains in us?

Somehow I got from there to the idea of using another’s idea to build on and from there to the idea of someone objecting to their ideas being used (perhaps because on my way to work I was looking at a blurb for a book on intellectual property while remembering the Harry Potter/Willy the Wizard lawsuit).

From there I jumped to the Supreme Court case (not a difficult jump, yesterday I was reading an item from the New Yorker that commented on the activism by the current SCOTUS’s conservative justices) about Fred Phelp’s and his Westboro Baptist crew protesting at military funerals. (For the record, I totally disagree with Phelps and his crew’s position and have some problem with their right to protest, but not based on my disagreement with their views. My issue is why they have the right to protest without restriction when people going to voice their opinions in political convention cities are restricted to ‘free speech zones?’ This is because of my firm belief that the First relates to Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” which is based on Voltaire’s statement "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.")

I recently read about the LGBT issue with the current administration’s talk of support but arguing for laws that are anti-equality. Part of me can see a law professor’s reason for dealing with the law in legal fashion, but do not consider it activism when a judge applies Constitutional principles to overturn wrongful laws.

Combine that and the right to free speech and disagreement, and the religion-based statements about marriage between one man and one woman, allowing marriage equality undermines the concept of marriage, etc.

Having been in 3 serial relationships in my life, I don’t define sanctity for other people, nor do I demand that they define/base their relationships on my terms/beliefs. While not Christian, I do like the Golden Rule concept and therefore I expect the same courtesy for freedom of thought be returned.

Finally (and luckily the 13 large memory files were now uploaded) this led to my thoughts on sanctity and how one-man-one-woman has certainly had some problems in upholding that concept (on another somewhat personal note, in an extended family with 13 grandchildren for one of my grandmothers, only 2 are in their original marriages).

So, in our celebrity-obsessed culture where movie stars testify before congress on the plight of the farmer and sell us everything from political opinion to aspirations to a similar lifestyle, here are some famous people with their examples of the holy estate:
• 8 months - Jennifer Lopez and Cris Judd wed October 2001, split July 2002. (Another Jennifer Lopez marriage to Ojani Noa – wed February 1997, split March 1998 – lasted13 months.)
• 8 months - Elizabeth Taylor and Nicky Hilton May 1950, split January 1951.
Famed bride Elizabeth Taylor got a jump on her string of weddings with her first marriage to hotelier (and grandfather to sisters Nicky and Paris Hilton) Nicky Hilton. 19 year-old Elizabeth reportedly said about the wedding, "I have a woman's body and a child's emotions."
• 7 months - Courtney Thorne-Smith and Andrew Conrad wed June 2000, split January 2001. They couldn't even make it to when their wedding pictures were infamously published by Instyle Magazine in February/March 2001.
• 5 months - Shannen Doherty and Ashley Hamilton wed September 1993, split February 1994. [Shannen Doherty also married Rick Salomon (of Paris Hilton sex tape fame) wed February 2002, split November 2002 for a total of 9 months.]
• 5 months -Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman wed November 1998, split March 1999. Like Britney and Jason, these two were wed in a quickie Vegas wedding. Rodman initially tried to get an annullment after nine days of wedded bliss, but the two managed to stick it out another four and a half months.
• 4 months, 24 days - Charlie Sheen and Donna Peele wed September 1995, split February 1996.
• 3 months, 15 days - Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage wed August 2002, split November 2002. (Lisa Marie Presley was also married to Michael Jackson wed May 1994, split December 1995 for a tally of 20 months.)
• 32 days - Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman wed June 1964, split July 1964. 32 days (and I am not sure which I sympathize with more as to why it didn’t work out)
• 30 days - Drew Barrymore and Jeremy Thomas wed March 1994, split April 1994. (Drew Barrymore also married Tom Green wed July 2001, split December 2001, a length of five months.)
• 9 days - Cher and Gregg Allman wed July 1975, split July 1975. Kids, another example of why you've got to watch out for those Vegas weddings. Just three days after divorcing Sonny Bono, Cher and musician Gregg Allman spontaneously flew to Vegas in his Lear Jet to wed. However, she reportedly soon discovered that his drug and alcohol problems were too much for her, and filed for divorce after only nine days.
• 8 days - Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips wed October 1970, split November 1970.
• 55 hours - Britney Spears' and Jason Allen Alexander wed January 3, 2004, split 2 days and 7 hours later.
• 6 hours - Rudolph Valentino & Jean Acker wed and split November 1919. (The jury's still out on whether Britney's marriage was shorter than famed lover Rudolph Valentino's. After just six hours, the bride locked Valentino out of the honeymoon suite! He soon gave up and headed home. However, they didn't finalize a divorce until 1922.)
• And, least we forget, a 1-m-1-w marriage is holy for both
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQTe47cR-Ws&feature=related

Addiction?

2010-10-02T18:01:00.000-07:00

A quote in an e-mail from Bill (“Reading is the last act of secular prayer.” - Richard Powers) and a Facebook post by Deborah (“Once you learn to read you will be forever free." --Frederick Douglass) made this happen. Reading is my crutch, my education, my solace, my inspiration, my fear, my religion and my basis for home decoration; in other words a big part of my life:

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
Mortimer J. Adler

A library is a hospital for the mind.
Anonymous

Read books. They are good for us.
Natalie Goldberg

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
Gaston Bachelard

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.
Henry Ward Beecher

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
Groucho Marx

Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

Read in order to live.
Gustave Flaubert

Don't join the book burners. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
Joseph Brodsky

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books.
The true university of these days is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.
Atwood H. Townsend

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature,
to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.
Mccosh

Life happened because I turned the pages.
Alberto Manguel

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.
It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
S. I. Hayakawa

The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library.
Ashleigh Brilliant

I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me.
I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke in me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.
Malcolm X

Man ceased to be an ape, vanquished the ape, on the day the first book was written.
Yevgeny Zamyatin

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.
Virginia Woolf

When the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerers and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards -- their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble -- the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading. (1932)
Virginia Woolf

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
Henry David Thoreau

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.
Thomas Carlyle

For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past,
the reason why men lived and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
Amy Lowell

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape.
It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
Arthur Christopher Benson

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry.
Emily Dickinson

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Logan Pearsall Smith

A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.
Thomas Carlyle

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Marcus T. Cicero

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges

I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.
John Keats

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
Lady M. W. Montague

The libraries have become my candy store.
Juliana Kimball

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
Ray Bradbury

He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.
John Milton

One half who graduate from college never read another book.
Herbert True

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
Chinese proverb

Read, read, read.
William Faulkner

When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
Desiderius Erasmus 1466-1536

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
Austin Phelps

My home is where my books are. (1909)
Ellen Thompson

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Henry Ward Beecher

Books do furnish a room.
Anthony Powell

Reclaiming the flag and all it stands for this Memorial Day

2010-05-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

(Video credit: Google video)

I was reading Slate.com today and one article was about flag flying: "'I fervently believe the glorious Star-Spangled Banner should wave over our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard heros [sic]. President Obama wants to raise the rainbow flag of the homosexual rights movement over them,' read a recent fundraising letter from the conservative Family Research Council. I don't want to be associated with people who fly the flag, metaphorically or otherwise, to telegraph their cause; the Stars and Stripes has become so freighted with assumptions that it seemed almost safer to me to avoid dealing with it altogether. There was nothing I felt I needed to prove, to friends, neighbors, or anyone else.
"But I put it up. The flag was big and unwieldy, so I was a little self-conscious as I tried to screw it into the base. Despite this, it felt familiar, almost as if I'd been doing it my whole life and was merely trying to recall the best method.
It didn't feel like a political act. In fact, as I surveyed my work, I was surprised and moved by the sense of satisfaction that came from reclaiming the flag from partisanship."

This took me back to review the flag in my past:
As a Boy Scout, I learned about when and how to fly and fold the flag;
As a student of history, I learned about the U.S. role and suddenly realized that that thrill I felt when I saw the flag was gone.
As a war protester, I read about people angry that "hippie scum" were contemptuously sewing the flag onto their clothing.
As a resident of Washington DC, I lived near a Marine base and saw them exercising in the morning, some wearing flag running shorts.
As a government worker, I saw political appointees wearing flag lapel pins when an administration who said, as reported by CNN and other media, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
And in the following election, I saw candidates being charged with not really loving their country because they did not wear the flag lapel pins (to say nothing of them being admonished for not holding their hands over their hearts when the national anthem was sung -- something I have never thought was required).

So, Now I'm showing our flag this holiday, remembering those who fought for our country, whether the wars were just or not (and whether they were heterosexual or homosexual), as a symbol of all of us, not just those who politically agree on issues.

(Cartoon credit to: Philadelphia Inquirer)

As Carl Scurz (Union Army General, later US Senator, and US Secretary of the Interior) stated: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”

I heard the news today, oh boy

2010-03-28T03:38:00.000-07:00

Since this post is sort of about bathrooms, here's one fact:Most toilet flushes are in E Flat.

According to the London Assembly of Liberal Democrats, London has been outfitted with over 500,000 surveillance cameras. Other put the number much higher at 1.4million cameras but nobody is telling what the real number is. Another few 10,000 cameras have been installed in taxis and police cars as well.
America Blog reported this and added: You can imagine my surprise after I paid my 50pence to use the public bathroom, walked in and found myself staring at not just one but three ceiling mounted video surveillance cameras. I had to get real close to their enclosures to convince myself that I wasn't seeing things. Not only was it really there, but it was a Pan-Tilt-Zoom model with a microphone to top it off. Must get some great noises coming from there. It has also been reported that London officials are now installing cameras with speakers to allow them to talk as well as see and listen. Perhaps its just me, but I had absolutely no idea that this was legal anywhere, let alone in downtown London, UK. Sure I knew that London has more cameras per square mile than any other country on the planet, but in bathrooms?! How are they getting away with that one? It is appalling!
But the iPhone has an ap for the noise part, You can call up 30, 60 or 90 seconds of flushing sound. Don't you love technology?
Next bathroom issue to tackle, as the blog No Parental Discretion notes, is people who don't flush.

Questioning some "family's values"

2010-03-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

I just took a break from a two-hour-a-day e-mail habit that was sucking the joy from my life by causing feelings of anger, unease and frustration at our current state of political division. I would read, provide stories in an email with some comments and share with a group of readers who asked to get the daily post. Just as I noted why I was taking a break, I then read the following on one of the sites I still visit:
Pam's House Blend: Gay Teen in Georgia Kicked Out by Parents Over Bringing Boyfriend to Prom: Derrick Martin, a gay teenager from Georiga who was inspired by the Constance McMillen cancelled Prom story in Mississippi, asked to bring another boy to prom. His request was approved by the School Superintendent.
A happy ending for the Bleckly County High School student, right?
Wrong. Derrick has been kicked out of his home by his parents now that his story has hit the media:
because of the media attention, Martin's parents have kicked him out and the teen is staying with a friend, he said.
It's appalling this is happening to a brave, bright young man who simply wanted to take his boyfriend to prom. Derrick seems to be remaining strong and is proud of the stand he took, saying:
Maybe (other gay students) will think if Bleckley County will let them, maybe my school will.
I can only say how proud I am of Derrick Martin for the stand he is making and how angry I am at his parents for kicking him out.
I have to agree with Pam, the boy took a stand and, for those who say gays cannot be compared to other groups that face discrimination, I ask how many other minorities do you know who are sometimes rejected by their own families.

Going too far (hat tip to Huffington Post)

2010-03-25T03:42:00.000-07:00

Protests continue, and make me look back on the protests I took part in as tame and whimsical frolics, compared to what is now happening:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that officials from the FBI and Capitol Police briefed Democrats on how to handle perceived security threats.
Hoyer said at least 10 lawmakers who feel that they are at risk of harm are getting attention from the proper authorities.
"Tea Party organizer" posted what he thought was Tom Perriello's (D-VA)home address, encouraging people to harass the lawmaker at home. The address ended up being the home of Perriello's brother's family, but the activist, Mike Troxel, took it in stride, saying, “I was a journalism major in college, so I have every reason to believe my research is accurate.” Laugh if you want, but this is precisely how the "journalism" works, circa 2010.
CBS News reported: "Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing mother f***er... I hope you bleed out your a**, got cancer and die, you mother f***er," one man says in a message to Stupak.
"There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill," a woman says in a voicemail, "and all of those thoughts that are projected on you will materialize into something that's not very good for you."
Health Care Reform opponents reacted with dignity and maturity by calling for a fatwa on socialist windowpanes. The call went out from some "militia leader" named Mike Vanderboegh, who said: "“We can break their windows...Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”
Station WHAM (Rochester, Niagara Falls) reported: "Last Thursday [Louise Slaughter (D-NY)] received a chilling recorded message at her campaign office. 'Assassinate is the word they used…toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes.'"
Representative Louis Gohmert (R-Tex.) was apparently disturbed enough by this past weekend's events that he decided to call for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and return to state legislatures the right to appoint Senators.
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyom.) got a little bit ahead of himself when he accused Representative Jim Matheson (D-Utah) of casting his vote for health care reform in return for his brother Scott Matheson getting appointed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The only problem with Barrasso's logic is that Representative Matheson voted against health care reform.

Wiley Drake, a pastor from Orange County sent an email out to his parishoners "telling them that all 219 Democrats have been placed on the “imprecatory prayer list.” That means that these churchgoing folks will be asking for God to kill those who voted for the reform package, in accordance with Psalm 109, which reads, "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership...May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

Sarah Palin has suggested targeting Democrats in swing districts. Her map of the U.S. is decorated with crosshairs as to where those districts are.

A Twitter post on Sunday,by a Solly Forrell became internet famous for tweeting: "ASSASSINATION America, we survived the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. We'll surely get over a bullet 2 #BarackObama's head." He followed that up with "The next #American with a #clear #shot should drop #Obama like a bad habit."
A series of tweets by Jay Martin lead off with 11 F-Yous followed by "You should be assassinated @ Barack Obama" and other posts, as noted by Gawker: http://gawker.com/5498712/meet-the-obama-death-tweeter-who-will-be-arrested-today

Going too far . . . and now further

2010-03-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

Vandals hit at least five Dem offices nationwide, threaten to ‘assassinate’ children of pro-reform lawmakers.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that several Democratic offices around the nation had been vandalized in the days surrounding the House health care vote. Vandals have struck the Tuscon office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the Monroe County Democratic Committee headquarters in upstate New York, Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Niagara Falls office, the Knox County Democratic headquarters in Ohio, and the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita, KS. The local Rochester ABC affiliate now has more information on the upstate NY vandalism, including an assassination threat against the children of lawmakers who voted for health reform:

No one was inside when the brick was hurled through the Democratic Patry Headquarters on University Avenue. Attached was a note quoting conservative Barry Goldwater: “Exremism in defense of liberty is no vice”.

Slaughter has been at the center of the push for reform. Last Thursday she received a chilling recorded message at her campaign office. “Assassinate is the word they used…toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes.”

I am amazed how angry, frustrated people can be manipulated by demagogues.

I want my country back

2010-03-20T17:50:00.000-07:00

Tea Party protesters were in town. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a "nigger." Henry Waxman (D-CA) was called a "liar and crook." James Clyburn (D-SC) received racist faxes and a noose at his office. And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. The escalation of threats of violence as noted in the sign to the left, seen being held aloft by more than one protester at the rally, while Republican Reps. Steve King (IA), Michele Bachmann (MN-the banner on her campaign Website read, ""Michelle Bachmann - Amaricas Congress Woman." Hopefully a dictionary was found and a correction made), and Mike Pence (IN) spoke to the tea party crowd, along with actor Jon Voight. I have nothing against protests, having taken part in a few myself over the years, but if you want to make statements, use your voice to talk about the politics not the race or sexual orientation of the politicians.
The Web site Free Republic carried a number of the reactions to the Capitol Police closing the capitol and Congressional office buildings. Most notable to me among the comments was this one:
"We are now oppressed by a tyrannical oligarchic government. These potentates will ignore every aspect of the Constitution, which they recognize in name only."
I guess the idea of the government reforming health care was the proverbial straw for these people after warrantless wiretaps, screened attendance at public political events, torture, and rendition.
I wonder if they have any concept of civility in government or even interest in a democratic process?
Then Bill and I watched the Patricia Neal/Andy Griffith movie "A Face in the Crowd" and I saw that the time is ripe for an updated remake. If you've never seen the movie, a nobody gains public attention, realizes his entertainment value has an affect on people, uses it to advance his career and then becomes a demagogue, attempting to manipulate and control people he really thinks are ignorant sheep. I can think of a few people who fit that description in today's political media.

Am I Murray Burns or Austin Powers

2010-03-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

I started this blog some time ago, after a few years of perusing the Web for news items and posts that caught my eye. Somehow the daily email I send out that contains articles about politics, spirituality or culture never migrated to here.
Then a crisis of creativity came up in my life -- mainly the lack there of. As a graphic designer, I have always enjoyed my career but find the limitations of it constrictive -- focus groups, design by group, etc. I still enjoy my job but, watching Bill create videos, Web pages, etc. with a real opportunity to express himself makes me realize what I miss (and what I am jealous and frustrated about).
This boiled over when I started writing something to put here (Bill was redesigning his Web page and putting in a link -- OMG, I haven't updated this since December of last year, even a quarterly blog makes this due NOW!).
As I started to write, I felt more like I was creating a trauma list (something a therapist had me do to help me focus on the impact of events in my life), and two figures came to mind: Austin Powers and the idea of wanting my mojo back and Murray N. Burns (A Thousand Clowns: whose line "Neighbors, I have nothing to say." makes me worry -- what if that is me?
Hopefully it isn't so this and other personal and creative aspects of my life are a new focus (hey, resolutions made at the new year often are dropped, but has anyone studied the longevity of March resolves?
Of course, I am still me, so as I try to be a more consistent blogger, politics might creep in every now and then.

2009-12-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

“The disappointment of manhood succeeds the delusion of youth” - Benjamin Disraeli
New years eve and I find myself after almost a year of hoping for change wondering if it can ever happen. My disappointment in the current political situation was confirmed in a lunchtime discussion in which hope has turned to a taste of bitter defeat, in a country where the party of the people has sold out to the party of business; triangualtion used in the last decade has moved the left to the center while the right has remained in position, if not moving further right and my view of the future is more than bleak (hence the Centralia, PA photo). I now envy my friends who have chosen to ignore the political and immerse themselves in their art. Their choice, while not terribly valued in this society, at least gives them some fulfillment instead of despair.
Tonight a friend posted a Tennyson quote about the bells ringing in the New Year: "Ring out the old, ring in the new/Ring, happy bells, across the snow/The year is going, let him go/Ring out the false, ring in the true" and all I thought of in response was Poe's The Bells:
Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten - golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle - dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale - faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: -
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Either I need to adjust my meds or forget caring about politics and pay attention to my own art.

I know, it's a minor irritant and there are bigger problems out there, but . . .

2009-12-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

Whats Up with TV and Choice: What decade are they living in?
We now get to choose our energy provider, our phone and internet provider, our health care providers and insurers, etc. So what is up with cable and satellite TV, which offer the U.S. population little choice and then only as package deals (perhaps à la carte is just too French sounding)?
There was a bill to give viewers real choice (Canada has it, the argument here is that the lesser watched stations would have funding problems without the packages. So, isn’t there a problem there with the idea of an open market?) introduced in Congress in 2007 by Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Jeff Fortenberry (R, Neb.) but it has never made it out of committee. Wikipedia states this:
There has been a recent push to create laws that force cable providers to allow consumers to purchase individual cable TV channels "a la carte," i.e. to allow them to pick and choose which channels they would like to have available in their homes. This is not likely to occur until digital cable television becomes popular (someone needs to update Wiki and let Congress know about the fact that it happened, that’s why all those people with analog TVs got the converter boxes that the government sold cheaply), although technically, analog cable television would be sufficient if all channels were scrambled, as it is very difficult to notch out individual channels from a cable TV line without scrambling. For example, many cable providers have a "basic plan" consisting of local channels and a few national cable networks; and an "economy basic" plan consisting of local channels only. Both plans are supplied on the same cable, but the cable company can filter out the expanded channels to the "economy basic" subscribers using a low-pass filter which filters out higher channels. Notch filters are available which can filter out a "notch" of channels (for example, channels 45-50 can be "notched" out yet the subscriber can receive channels below 45 and higher than 50). However, to do this individually for a single subscriber who wants many "notches," would be very difficult unless a scrambling system is used requiring a set-top box. These problems are alleviated with the use of digital cable, which requires a set-top converter box. This converter can be programmed remotely to allow or disallow access to channels on an individual basis. The use of IPTV (i.e., delivery of television over an internet or IP-based network) makes it even easier, since the provisioning of channels can be fully automated.
The current cable and satellite delivery systems provide an opportunity for networks that service niche and minority audiences to reach millions of households, and potentially, millions of viewers. Since a la carte could force each channel to be sold individually, many of these networks could face a significant reduction in subscription fees and advertising revenue, potentially driving them out of business. For these reasons, cable/satellite providers and programmers are reluctant to introduce an a la carte business model. Others however believe that by allowing a less expensive entry point into the cable marketplace the a la carte option would actually increase overall sales through the addition of new subscribers. Often when programming distributors would like to sell channels a la carte they are prevented by contract from the program who force an all-or-nothing approach.
Of course a recent article in Harpers on “Understanding Obamacare” by senior editor Luke Mitchell gives a general intro to competition and notes:
The idea that there is a competitive “private sector” in America is appealing, but generally false. No one hates competition more than the managers of corporations. Competition does not enhance shareholder value, and smart managers know they must forsake whatever personal beliefs they may hold about the redemptive power of creative destruction for the more immediate balm of government intervention. This wisdom is expressed most precisely in an underutilized phrase from economics: regulatory capture.
When Congress created the first U.S. regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1887, the railroad barons it was meant to subdue quickly recognized an opportunity. “It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of railroads at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal,” observed the railroad lawyer Richard Olney. “Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things. It thus becomes a sort of barrier between the railroad corporations and the people and a sort of protection against hasty and crude legislation hostile to railroad interests.” As if to underscore this claim, Olney soon after got himself appointed to run the U.S. Justice Department, where he spent his days busting railroad unions.
The story of capture is repeated again and again, in industry after industry, whether it is the agricultural combinations creating an impenetrable system of subsidies, or television and radio broadcasters monopolizing public airwaves for private profit, or the entire financial sector conjuring perilous fortunes from the legislative void. The real battle in Washington is seldom between conservatives and liberals or the right and the left or “red America” and “blue America.” It is nearly always a more local contest, over which politicians will enjoy the privilege of representing the interests of the rich.
We are hosting an Oscar party in March, and since we have no cable/satellite connection, I have been researching them. Why do we still have to buy a package? Every package has something I know I will not watch (here is a Direct TV 200+channel choices called Choicextra sampling):
BTN: not gonna watch it
BET: not gonna watch it
Bloomberg: not gonna watch it unless it is work related
BYU: never gonna watch it, even if Romney runs
CBS College Sports: not gonna watch it
Centric: doubt if I will watch it
Christian Television Network:
Church Channel:
CMT: Country Music Television, maybe, but rarely. I did like “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue,” when was that a country hit?
Current: Since I am a bit over the 34 year old top of their target audience range, probably won’t watch it
Daystar: Woo-hoo, another Christian station,
Discovery Kids: Since this target audience is 20 years younger than Current, probably won’t watch it
ESPN, ESPU, ESPN 2, ESPNews: 4 that I doubt will get airtime in our house
EWTN: Like I want to watch Papal events, etc.
Fox Business: I doubt it.
Fox News: Fair and balanced, I decided not so . . . not gonna watch it
Fox Reality: Reality tv, what a joke. I remember when it was reported Liza was postponing her reality show so they could rehearse.
Feul: Extreme sports? I watched it once with Hans & JD, when we were in a hotel, but doubt it will get air time at home unless they are visiting
GALA: Unless I decide to brush up on my Spanish, doubt it will be watched on our set
GEMS: Shopping channel? I thought we Americans were going into a frugal stage
God tv: Not on our tv
Golf Channel: Sorry Tiger, but even with the sexual scandal, not on our tv
Gospel Music Channel: Unless there is a Mahalia marathon, I doubt it
Great American Country: Hmmm, the Grand Old Opery. Nope, would rather rewatch Altman’s “Nashville.”
GSN: Unless I really get hooked into reality series, dating and casino games or video gaming, I doubt this Sony and liberty station will see the inside of our screen.
Hallmark: OK, maybe if they rerun the Anne of Green Gables series or another of those sentimental movies I fall for from time to time
HTN: Another chance to brush up on those high school and college Spanish courses
Home Shopping Network: see GEMS above
Hope: Just reading the description: Find peace, power, and purpose for your life. Hope Channel provides inspirational and educational programs for the entire family. Can they spell treacle?
Inspiration Channel: They add patriotic programming to faith oriented programs. No thanks, I think I would rather celebrate my country without the filter of what sounds like more syrupy coating.
Jewelry televisions: Hmmm, do I need a tiara? Nah.
Jewish life: Perhaps, after all I liked “For Your Consideration”
Lifetime: When I want to get in touch with my feminine side, maybe.
Military Channel: Maybe, but I need to know more about what they tell about battle, etc. and who wrote, advised or approved it.
MLB: Baseball 24/7/365, Does it ever offer a 7th Inning stretch?
NBA TV: Unless they go back to those shorter uniforms, read the next item.
NFL TV: Look even as newspapers are folding their business section into their news section (which at least might be considered an honest way of noting what really makes the decisions in this country) and their book reviews are no longer even a Sunday supplement but tucked into some other section, they still have a Sports section. Me not having to subscribe to these channels is not going to break them.
NHL TV: read the prior comment.
NRB: Historic Christian faith for inspiration and enlightenment. I thought there was a conflict between the church and the Enlightenment. I know there is a conflict between most churches and me.
Sprout: PBS pre-school channel, with JD entering the school-age years, unless my son and his fiancée decide on kids . . .
QVC: More chances to shop, not in our house
Shop NBC: see previous comment
Soap: I liked the movie with Sally Field
6 Sonic stations: OK, I sometimes like Latino music but not often enough to watch even 1 much
Speed: auto, boating and aviation enthusiasts. That leaves me out.
Spike: Why do I feel that this station aimed at modern man isn’t really all encompassing?
Style: Even with DC approving marriage equality, I don’t think this is for me, unless they run Wedding Wars (which was a really stupid movie, so bad that I loved it, and own it, so not even then)
TBS: Why am I wary when something calls itself family-oriented
TCT: “a worldwide television network bringing the bet in Christian educational, news and entertainment programming to your home daily.” (or not, in our case, not)
Tennis Channel: Rarely.
The Sportsman Channel: Again, rarely if ever.
The Word: Free and multi-denominational (as in different religious beliefs or Catholic and Baptist?). Even if so, probably never in our house.
Trinity Broadcasting Network: Uh, no. Never.
Tru: Real-life excitement? Doubt it will be clicked much if ever, we don’t want to get flustered.
TV One: African-American adult lifestyles. Again clicked rarely if at all.
Univision: Spanish practice again.
V-me: And again.
World Harvest Television: To preserve and promote the traditional American value system – sounds like a plot to me.
And the Listening Opportunities via XM:
Backspin: Hip hop. Not hoppening.
Cinemagic: Listen to movie soundtracks. Maybe if they have the movie music I like. Gosford Park anyone?
HipHop Nation: Does anyone still read “The Man Without a Country?”
Kids Place Live: I’m not a kid anymore.
Praise: While the one about Southern gospel might get me to listen for some early groups, this one probably will never get a click.
Strobe: More Hip Hop
The Message: Christian pop. Hate to burst that bubble, but nope.

So, 67 out of 200, and a lot under the XM that I left in the list but doubt will get air play in our house.
What about Congress giving the subscribers a break in cost, instead of welfare for stations that might have to face cutbacks or closing?

Where was Google?

2009-12-02T03:54:00.000-08:00

Since the early 1990s, December 1 has been recognized as World AIDS Day. This year, I wasn't online too much, I was attending a funeral of an aunt. However when I got home, my partner (whose brother died of AIDS) commented that Google recognizes almost every thing with a tweak to their logo but was silent about the day of focus on the on-going AIDS situation. Why with all these previous manipulations of their logo did Google ignore December 1?

Somebody's Watching

2009-10-25T03:57:00.001-07:00

I read, alot. Some say too much, it helps keep reality at bay. However, today reality hit me in the face again, this time with the question of the right to privacy.
One book discussion group I participate in read John Twelvehawks "The Traveler."

While the group found the book written more like a movie script than a novel, the idea of always being watched tied in to the questions circulating about the domestic warrantless wiretaps under the "war on terror" guise.
Then, last week, I got my copy of the New York Review of Books and read this: Who's in Big Brother's Database? by James Bamford: The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency by Matthew M. Aid, Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00: On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America's equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges's "Library of Babel," a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world's knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined.
Unlike Borges's "labyrinth of letters," this library expects few visitors. It's being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency—which is primarily responsible for "signals intelligence," the collection and analysis of various forms of communication—to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital "pocket litter." Lacking adequate space and power at its city-sized Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is also completing work on another data archive, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome.
Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015."[1] Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story.

And the New York Times ran this item just today: Ever-Present Surveillance Rankles the British Public by Sarah Lyall: Poole, England — It has become commonplace to call Britain a “surveillance society,” a place where security cameras lurk at every corner, giant databases keep track of intimate personal details and the government has extraordinary powers to intrude into citizens’ lives.
A report in 2007 by the lobbying group Privacy International placed Britain in the bottom five countries for its record on privacy and surveillance, on a par with Singapore.
But the intrusions visited on Jenny Paton, a 40-year-old mother of three, were startling just the same. Suspecting Ms. Paton of falsifying her address to get her daughter into the neighborhood school, local officials here began a covert surveillance operation. They obtained her telephone billing records. And for more than three weeks in 2008, an officer from the Poole education department secretly followed her, noting on a log the movements of the “female and three children” and the “target vehicle” (that would be Ms. Paton, her daughters and their car).
It turned out that Ms. Paton had broken no rules. Her daughter was admitted to the school. But she has not let the matter rest. Her case, now scheduled to be heard by a regulatory tribunal, has become emblematic of the struggle between personal privacy and the ever more powerful state here.

Needless to say, I have reread "The Traveler" and the next book in the series (The Dark River) and just started the third (The Golden City).
Paranoia or worrying about the right to privacy?
Right now I am not sure, but I keep thinking of the Benjamin Franklin quote:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Trying to end on an up note, I remembered the Sly and the Family Stone song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2umAZNVZvns

Who's Wearing PJs

2009-10-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

(with a nod to Undergear for the pj image)

Two items from msnbc on yesterday's march in Washington.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33268417#33268416

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33268417#33268417

There is a lot that the man in the White House has to deal with, but as one person noted, he had the time to go to Copenhagen to try to get the Olympics in Chicago, so he should have time to live up to his campaign promises.

For LGBT, the hate crimes bill that has been considered in the Congress since from a quick search 2007 is one step, but there is much more needed. ENDA, and end to DADT and DOMA.

Politicians want our money and our votes. We want equality

Now, can we talk about who wears pajamas?

"I grow old

2009-10-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"
A few days ago a friend posted some of T.S. Eliot's 1915 poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html), which was one of my favorite poems from my high school English days. The Facebook posts took off in silly directions and I didn't think of it until today when I was reading this week's New Yorker, and came across a notice about kylie minogue who had a hit with the song Locomotion in the 1980s finally touring the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcPofgs7vSs
Nice to hear an old song redone
Which reminded me of another version of the same song by Grand Funk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSQOeQakExU&feature=PlayList&p=EEE6A473BCF6E70E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17
That took me back to the first time I heard it on a record. Little Eva, the record version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su8weltdZQE
which, of course, had a different sound to hearing it on tv shows of the era. Little Eva on tv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5OoQadZTPk&feature=related So I investigated where it came from and, like the inspiration of this blog, we have Carole King to thank for the song, done here recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hdMbr1rZic&feature=related
Made me remember a friend's win of a singing contest in a Philly Black Pride. Josh sang Killing Me Softly and in his blog (http://justjoshfunk1.blogspot.com/) he referred to the Lauryn Hill version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KpeCk6NyZU), which made me remember the Roberta Flack rendition (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpNdMIAnKko)of the song by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel. I mentioned it in a comment on Josh's blog, and someone said I was nasty to do so. I just thought he would appreciate the info on another version. Oh well, perhaps in my old age, I rely too much on history. At least my hair isn't thin. But, do I dare to eat a peach?

An apology, for the wrong reasons

2009-09-17T04:06:00.001-07:00

In an earlier post, I noted an email I got from my cousin. In it she sent a photo of Obama carrying a book and ran on about his reading The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria (and the email noted he also was a Muslim). I usually ignore her political and religious notes, but had to respond to this one, since the book examines a world that is facing a number of rising economies and how the U.S. will fare in the future.
Here's a brief review: "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
My cousin sent an apology, but only apologizing if she "offended" me, ignoring the really offensive part: the ignorance and malice in the matter she forwarded.

2009-09-15T03:58:00.001-07:00

Years of cruising the Web from Huffington Post to Democratic Underground to Talking Points Memo, with a diversion to Joe.My.God, Towle Road and Pam’s House Blend for gay-related news, and suddenly, on Sunday, I stopped. A simple reason, I was off to PA to take my parents to a family reunion. With a glass or two much wine the night before, a late wake-up call from the dogs and a mother-imposed deadline (“We have to be there at noon”), I didn’t have time to post, so I just directed my mailing list (Madame Thérèse Defarge's Knitting News -- renamed when my own email carrier rejected my daily titles as possible spam Madame Thérèse Defarge's Knitting News – what can I say, in addition to the degree in graphics, my first degree was in English Language and Literature and Dickens is an author who ranks up there, just not quite with Didion or Fitzgerald) to my often neglected blog, along with those readers who only want to be BCC’d because of their jobs here in a very political DC.
Then today, I once again got up late with Bill (or, as I referred to my partner in the Knitting News, Bill-at-home to distinguish him from the other Bills who were on the mailing list) getting up early, so I didn’t have much computer time (my own choice, it was nice to just relax with a cuppa and then get ready for my day at the office (not that I am efficient, I still had to call B-a-h to read me a list that I was supposed to take to work but left on the table where my books and mail and whatever ends up).
Tonight, we chose to break our habit of Netflix and Bill is reading and listening to music. I chose to catch up (in addition to not posting my morning news-read and (sometime) comments, I had not had time to read my Sunday Washington Post or New York Times).
My mistake, the addiction is still there and I was jones-ing to draw attention to items I usually send via email:
First, I missed some e-mail reader input:
CLSB sent a Slate article on health care: Do American Doctors Get Paid Too Much?
And David sent an email from San Francisco where he is visiting his brother about a Chronicle letter to the editor (in its entirety): “Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst durning President Obama’s speech was outrageous. If I had been there, I would have thrown my shoe at him.”
And, favorite Frank Rich’s NYT editorial was another excellent piece (but aren’t most of his?): Obama’s Squandered Summer “Obama recently stated, ‘My job is not to be distracted by the 24-hour news cycle.’ … After a good couple of years of living with the guy, we know the drill that defines his leadership, for better and worse. When trouble lurks, No Drama Obama stays calm as everyone around him goes ballistic. Then he waits — and waits — for that superdramatic moment when he can ride to his own rescue with what the press reliably hypes as The Do-or-Die Speech of His Career. Cable networks slap a countdown clock on the corner of the screen and pump up the suspense. Finally, Mighty Obama steps up to the plate and, lo and behold, confounds all the doubting bloviators yet again by (as they are wont to say) hitting it out of the park.
So it’s a little disingenuous for Obama to claim that he is not distracted by the 24-hour news cycle. What he’s actually doing is gaming it for all it’s worth. “ Meanwhile, according to Rich, a certain damage has been done – to Obama and to the country.”
And my sometimes-she-is-spot-on and sometimes she-is-over-the-top-trying-too-hard-for-cleverness Maureen Dowd was the former, as she wrote about racism in the recent political actions: “Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.” Which I immediately linked to another Sunday NYT’s article (Politics and the Age Gap) about how Obama and health care aren’t making it with those who have government-run coverage, the voters over 65 who, covered by Medicare, are speaking out against reform (and, as one blogger noted, some were even using their government-paid wheel chairs to attend the weekend protest against Obamacare.
Joe.My.God posted his weekly must read, “This Week in Holy Crimes:” Over the last seven days....
California: Pastor James Ray Guerrero charged with molesting "two young relatives" beginning when the boys were 11 years old.
Italy: A yearlong Associated Press inquiry uncovers 235 male victims of priest molestation.
Connecticut: Father Michael Jude Fay dies in prison 18 months after being convicted of stealing $1.3 million from his congregation. Fay spent the money on luxury trips, imported cars, jewelery, and shopping sprees at Saks, Nordstrom, and Bergdorf's.
Ohio: Pastor Hence Hamblin charged with gross sexual imposition for fondling underage female.
Florida: Pastor Rodney McGill sentenced to 20 years in prison for mortgage fraud.
Arizona: Pastor Charles Carfrey sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing congregants, including an underage female.
Mexico: Pastor Jose Marc Flores Pereira surrenders after hijacking an Aeromexico jet, telling authorities he was "on a divine mission" to protect the country from earthquakes. A total of 104 passengers and crew were on board when Pereira took over the plane by falsely claiming he had explosives.
Kentucky: Registered child molester of an 11 year-old boy, Pastor Mark Hourigan to be ordained as the preacher of a local Baptist Church. Parishioners unsurprisingly described as nervous.
Pennsylvania: Pastor Dennis Spangler charged with exposing himself to 13 year-old boy.
Washington DC: Pastor Jennifer Michelle Brennan charged with ten counts of sex with a minor. Brennan is a "youth minister," of course.
This Week's Winner-
Tennessee: Pastor Henry "Defender of Marriage" Lyons has been defeated in his bid to retake the presidency of National Baptist Convention. The three-times married Lyons was convicted in 1999 of stealing $4M from the organization, but totally wanted to run the show once again. He used the stolen money to buy luxury homes and support his mistresses (plural!), but after five years in prison he felt God had called him to lead the 7.5 million member organization one more time. Almost 20% of National Baptist conventioneers agreed and supported Lyons' failed bid.
J.M.G also posted a link to a YouTube video: A musical montage of hate
And the weekend rally in DC has some passing or posting a photo to show just how many teabaggers there were.
Unfortunately, the image used is years old, as the American Indian Museum should be in the photo if it was taken this past weekend. While there was a crowd, it stretched from the capitol grounds to 3rd Street, not to 17th Street as the photo shows.
On the gay-related news, I didn't even have to go to the blogs, the NYT editorial touched on the problems LGBT people have with employment discrimination: "It is remarkable how little progress gay people have made securing the basic protection against discrimination on the job. In 29 states, it is still legal to fire workers for being gay."
And, finally, my only rarely-aroused sports interest noted that while the WaPo almost could have tweeted their coverage of my alma mater's 28-7 win over Syracuse, the NYT gave the early-in-the-season seventh place Nittany Lions a quarter-page article. Seems like my political-preference-paper was, at least this past weekend, my athletic supporter too.
Maybe it's the fall-like weather (doesn't start until next week, right?), but sleeping in has taken some time away from my news peruse. Maybe I'll get back to it once I catch up on my sleep.

Protests, Signs and an Email

2009-09-13T04:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a day of protest in DC, with teabaggers coming to town to demonstrate their unhappiness with Obama (interesting that a lot of their signs were anti-Democrats and Obama when the fiscal bailouts they were protesting were started under the previous administration).
They also were opposing the proposed health care reform. It was here that I found the signs most revealing. Many of them were the typical death panels will go after grandma and Obama with Hitler's moustache, ideas and images that have gotten lots of coverage. Others were confusing:
How does this protest link Obama's health care or government spending with the twin towers that we should never forget? How is Obama's health care related to the large image of Terri Schiavo, also with the never forget slogan? Wasn't that the case of the Republicans in the government trying to intervene against the wishes of her husband and what he said she would have wanted and wouldn't some counseling have been preferred over diagnoses made via video tape for political gain instead of patient care?
I have chosen two signs that really made me wonder about their carriers:

Here I was focusing on the hands off sign in the front of the image. I find it amazing that this line is being used by Michele Bachmann who is anti-abortion. Is there a contradiction in this? I can't speak for the sign carrier, but the question does come up whenever I hear the statement or see signs like this.

The second image is about the sign on the far right referring to freedom and security.
Again, I wonder about the views of the sign carrier toward establishing free speech zones, screening attendees at public events based on assumptions about their political views, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps, kidnapping and rendition, and, of course, advanced interrogation and torture.

Finally, I recently got an email from a cousin. She and I have had quite a few political discussions, which end with agreeing to disagree, but this posted message made me angry as well as feeling despair for the future:

"An 'eye-opener" photo. And I checked the authenticity of this on "truthorfiction" site, and the photo is authentic. It was taken by Doug Mills for the New York Times when Obama was i Bozeman, Montana. (surprise this got out, New York Times is LIBERAL)
This will open your eeyes .. What does Obama read?
"The name of the book Obama is reading is called "The Post-American World" written by a fellow muslim. Post-America -- the world After America???
"Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal to expose Obama's radical ideas and intent for this country!
"photo verified by snopes"
Usually, I don't respond when I get emails like this, I have never been able to convince my cousin that Hillary probably isn't a lesbian (and what if she would be?) so what's the point of wasting my time and raising my blood pressure? However tis time I had to make another (probably futile) attempt:
And what's the book about? From a review: "The author sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination."
Zakaria, a U.S. citizen, was educated at Yale and Harvard, is editor of Newsweek International and writes weekly on foreign affiars. He was also a supported of Ronald Reagan and initially backed the Bush invasion of Iraq, although arguing that it should be a UN-sanctioned invasion with a much larger troop count. His book, that President Obama is reading, is concerned with how his chosen country can continue to prosper in a global economy where other countries are taking the lead in the production of goods and services.
Unlike other countries (for example Germany), the U.S. chose to devest in manufacturing (where the profits were averaging only 4 or so percent) and put its economic future into a deregulated finance system. Look where that got us, lending institutions that were concerned with only maximizing profits and a populace hoping to cash in on one or another bubble, using their inflated real estate to keep up with rising costs, while their wages stagnated.
Meanwhile, a lot of the rest of the world became centers of manufacturing (look at China as an example). As a result, I don't know about your things, but my cell phone and one of my toilets (ironically an American Standard, ince when most U.S. citizens say American they mean U.S., discounting a lot of the other countries that occupy this continent as well as the continent that is South America) was made in Mexico, my car in Sweden (although over a year ago the U.S. company that owned Volvo was planning to sell it b ut I can't find any reference to a sale), my TV in Japan and my keyboard and mouse made in China (as was the landline phone), my stereo from Canada.
Don't even let me commence on the "fellow Muslim" part of the forwarded message or the liberal media notation.
See why I worry about the country?

A quote, three pictures and disappointment

2009-09-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

“I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not  me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”
-Hamlet, William Shakespeare (This quote came to mind, perhaps as a result of the latest Shakespeare portrait issue that made the cover story of the Sunday Washington Post Magazine and has to include a nod to Hair, since whenever I hear these words, I cannot escape the era of my coming of age).

As I become more entangled with reading and reacting to things political, I find my sense of humor failing. Under the last administration, I could understand why that was so but now it is for an entirely different reason, it’s not the politicians (although I feel a sense of disappointment that is growing), it’s the people.

I see so called Christians ignore their call to charity toward one’s fellow man and not judging others.

I see people who complained about political protesters turning town halls from civil debates/discussions into rude shouting matches.

I see some religious leaders calling for the death (through natural causes, of course) of elected officials and others so consumed with homophobia that they turn funerals into protests.

I remember the adage that you get the government and society you deserve.

I guess it can all be summed up by Linus from Peanuts: “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.”

Made My Day

2009-08-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

I try not to be too negative, but Thursday morning pushed me over the edge.

First, my dogs were up and raring to go much too early, my Windows Vista computer decided in the middle of an email to do an update that there is no stopping (they now do save the material, even if you haven’t, but when you reopen it you can’t place a curser, you have to do a select all and paste the word in an entirely new mail document). Of course, there is the on-going ant issue. Before they only appeared in the spring, this year they have stayed with us into the summer with no signs of stopping their invasion, even with trying a thousand home remedies and dual ant traps.

However, things didn’t really start to go downhill until I left for work. The DC Metro is still running slower trains around the area where there was an accident, which impacts my 40-minute each way commute by increasing it about an hour or more for to and for fro. Today, however, was even worse. The train on the platform (which usually doesn’t happen) was full and just sat there for quite some time.

In an announcement (why do public transportation systems purchase PA systems that sound like the adults in Peanuts TV specials if they have colds and were unwrapping throat lozenges wrapped in really crinkly paper?) something was said about a train that had broken down. I then assumed (yes, I know the saying about that word) that my wait was because of that.

A train finally arrived and I rode into town (on a humid morning with no air conditioning in the car) to where I switch trains. That was when I heard the announcement again (maybe those sound systems work better in enclosed spaces, this second announcement was clearer) and discovered that the mechanical difficulty was not a train on the tracks for my first route, but on the lines I was changing to.

Even then I soldiered on, not even too upset with the woman who was pulling her suitcase on wheels (since when did they replace messenger bags or briefcases?) and cutting people off, causing 3 people that I saw to stumble on the caboose she was towing.

Again my train waited before moving, long enough that the car was filled, seats and standing room. The man who was standing directly in front of me had a backpack that was threatening my head if he shifted any closer, but (luckily?) he started to move, stepped on my foot and realized he was too close to the seat that was occupied by me and another commuter.

As I arrived at my stop, I was self-consoled, at least I had a seat on both trains I rode to work. Then I got to the escalator to leave the station and that was it. Unlike NYC or Boston, where musicians are allowed to perform inside the subway stations, DC’s Metro does not provide performance space. Performers often locate themselves right outside the entrances/exits to stations, with instruments and cash collecting device close by. Today, of all days, my stop had a man with his portable keyboard singing all about surrendering himself to Jesus.

Jesus. My thoughts exactly.

Happy 50th Bill!

2009-07-27T08:04:00.001-07:00

2009-07-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

While the neighborhood we live in has it’s share of crime, except for an incident of graffiti on our garage year ago and being help up about 4 blocks from home (also years ago and a reason I haven’t gotten jury duty over the past 6 years), we have been rather lucky. Bill did report one weekend I was away that he was watching tv and someone was turning the front doorknob, but except for the incidents mentioned. . .

There was trouble with landscaping plant destruction caused by a group of kids who gathered at the house next door (while they lived there, the best summer we had was when the neighbor’s son, a young teenager, seemed to be in some juvenile detention). I think they gathered there because the parents were extremely lax (one neighbor told me that when the boys set a dumpster on fire, the father drove them away so they wouldn’t be there when the police arrived. This was the same father who one Sunday when I was up earlier than usual was coming up my walk, reaching down for my home-delivered newspaper just when I suddenly opened the door—he claimed he was going to bring it to me but since our door only has small windows at the top and it isn’t possible to see through them, suspicious person that I am, I doubted his statement).

Our oldest dog Schubert, back in his younger days, did cause someone trying to break into a neighbor’s tool shed to give up. I had taken him outside before leaving for work and he noticed a stranger in the fenced back yard next door and started barking, I went in and called the police, but by the time they had arrived, Schubert’s noisy warning had alerted the intruder and he had fled.

This all leads to last night, when we had the cats at the vets for treatment of respiratory infections. Schubert, who is much older and in stable but fragile health, requires a special prescription diet. We purchase the canned kidney-friendly food the vets. I bought two cans and we paid for the cats’ treatment and left. Arriving home, Bill carried the larger pet carrying case (a two-handed job) and I carried the two cans of dog food and the smaller case. I had the keys to unlock the front door so, after entering the enclosed porch, I placed the cans on a pillar and unlocked the door so we could release the cats into their house.

This morning when I went to feed the dogs I remembered the cans on the porch but they were gone. Someone had spotted the cans, came in the screen door and took them. I hope at least the specialty food will help someone’s dog’s kidneys.

I also guess we have to put a lock on the screen door and remember to not leave anything on the porch.

But this all leads me to the Gates/Crowley/Obama issue over the Gates arrest in Cambridge. A lot has been said, and who called the police "nosy." I would hope that if two men were trying to push open our front door, some neighbor would call the police.

2009-07-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

A lot of attention has been paid to Sarah Palin and her rambling resignation. Comments range from rumors of another ethics issue, to a first step for a 2012 run, to calling her a quitter who can't finish a task, to a New York Times editorial saying that if Obama represents meritocracy and the ivy league as a stepping stone to power, Palin represents democracy and the idea that the common (wo)man can achieve success without those trappings. My only issue with that is that her showing of knowledge of political matters is not evidence of a thoughtful study of those issues, but an emotional response.

I don't know what person used the Obamafication site available on the Web to create the image I included with this post, but I want to thank them, it expresses just how I feel about someone good at manipulating people for political gain without really understanding the need for statesmanship in leading.

Hung

2009-07-05T06:11:00.001-07:00

This week’s New Yorker has a review about the new HBO series of my title’s title, created by husband-and-wife team of Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson, who also wrote three of the first four episodes and are executive producers.
Nancy Franklin, the reviewer, concludes: “It’s not yet possible to tell where ‘Hung’ is going—I’ve seen four episodes out of the season’s ten—but at this point it reminds me a little too much, in tone and substance, of a couple of recent high-concept cable series, in which characters, with an ease that is supposed to strike us as questionable and yet understandable, cross the line between legal and illegal, making us ask ourselves whether the line is in the right place. You’ve got Showtime’s ‘Weeds,’ in which a respectable adult turns to drug dealing. You’ve got AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad,’ in which a high-school teacher turns to drugmaking. And you’ve got Showtime’s ‘Dexter’ (a forensics expert who’s also a serial killer) and Showtime’s ‘Nurse Jackie’ (a drug-addicted R.N. who steals pills from the hospital pharmacy and uses while on duty). ‘Hung’ is timely, but strangely superficial. It doesn’t really examine the American dream; it just tickles it.”
This got me to thinking about that legal/illegal line and the way things are now. A TV show about crossing the line is sort of light weight in timew when financial institutions used the rewriting of what was legal (with deregulation) to achieve what is often thought of when you hear the words “the American dream” -- getting rich. Of course you still have people like Madoff who use the old-fashioned, illegal methods, too. And that is where we get to the American passion for outlaws [although I wonder if it is a sexist infatuation, we seem taken with “bad boys” but ” (the phrase only calls to mind a Donna Summer song) except for a few “bad girls” – a character on another HBO show, Brenda on “Six Feet Under” and her sex-compulsion is the only one I can come up with quickly – women outlaws are not as featured/exploited to create the romance].
I recalled the New Yorker review when I read Frank Rich today in the NY Times: his take on the financial crisis, Bernie Madoff, Wall Street and “Public Enemies” the Johnny Depp/Christian Bale new movie about John Dillinger. In his editorial Rich refers to “Dillinger’s Wild Ride,” by Elliott J. Gorn, a professor of history at Brown University. In Gorn’s book, Rich says “you learn that ordinary law-abiding Americans even wrote letters to newspapers and politicians defending Dillinger’s assault on banks. ‘Dillinger did not rob poor people,’ wrote one correspondent to The Indianapolis Star. ‘He robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.’”
Given the cult fiction of romance around outlaws and the current state of affairs, maybe “Hung” is what’s needed: a tickler for America’s dreams with a sexual hook that drags in our naughty focus on that natural thing, sex; A chance to escape the uncontrolled life and fixate on someone who is as helpless as we feel, using his “talent” to screw someone else, revenge for how we have been screwed.

Mist of Morning

2009-07-03T01:54:00.000-07:00

The mist of morning rises
I wake to find you gone
leaving behind just memory
while you, your self move on
sunlight softly filters
through strands of willow tree
wind-tugged, gently echoing
things that used to be

It’s Death . . .

2009-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

. . . screamed Jessica Rabbit, hanging from a hook, facing the noozle of dip that will be her demise if it hits her.

Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Fayette Pinkney (one of the 3 degrees, of ‘when will I see you again fame’), Sky Saxon, Gale Storm, the man who came up with the concept of the cell phone (big as a brick, weighed in at about 3 pounds and cost almost $4,000), and now my old boss from when I worked in Boston.

Update: Karl Malden and Mollie Sugden:

Pictures of the gone world 11 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half so bad
if it isn't you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician

Or, as Mark Morford put it: . . . life is a wicked inscrutable orgy of love and compassion and survival instinct, shot through with pain and longing and death and suffering and far, far too many arguments . . .

A faint within a faint within a faint until it disappears?

2009-06-13T04:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I read about the Obama administration’s DOJ submitting a brief against a law suit that challenged the Defense of Marriage Act. As I was reading the numerous items posted from the main stream media, to political blogs (http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/late-night-roundup-on-obama-and-anti.html), to LGBT blogs, I was reminded of a quote by the head of the Human Rights Campaign: After attending a meeting at the White House , HRC’s Joe Solmonese told the New York Times while the gay rights agenda might not be “unfolding exactly as we thought,” he was pleased. “They have a vision,” Mr. Solmonese said. “They have a plan.”
Given the DOJ’s brief on DOMA, which the administration notes is the law of the land and the DOJ job is to defend laws passed by Congress (AmericaBlog, a political blog with a gay presence notes differently:” In fact, George W. Bush (ACLU et al., v. Norman Y. Mineta – ‘The U.S. Department of Justice has notified Congress that it will not defend a law prohibiting the display of marijuana policy reform ads in public transit systems.’), Bill Clinton (Dickerson v. United States – ‘Because the Miranda decision is of constitutional dimension, Congress may not legislate a contrary rule unless this Court were to overrule Miranda.... Section 3501 cannot constitutionally authorize the admission of a statement that would be excluded under this Court's Miranda cases.’), George HW Bush (Metro Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission), and Ronald Reagan (INS v./ Chadha – ‘Chadha then filed a petition for review of the deportation order in the Court of Appeals, and the INS joined him in arguing that § 244(c)(2) is unconstitutional.’) all joined in lawsuits opposing federal laws that they didn't like, laws that they felt were unconstitutional.”), gay groups are angered that once promised a lot by the Obama candidate, they are seeing little delivered and a lot of same old same old.
Now this might be just a naïve reaction to a typical political situation, candidates and office holders rarely seem to be the same person. However, given that Obama’s main appeal was for change, the same-old-same-old indicates a failure by the president.
http://origin.dailykostv.com/w/001841/
And,getting back to Solmonese’s statement about them having a plan? I thought of the scifi novel DUNE, in which the characters were always on the look out for (and planning their responses to) “a feint within a feint within a feint.”
Some note that the DOJ went beyond just saying DOMA is law, they chose to use judicial decisions on cases about incest, that DOMA saved the government money, that DOMA doesn’t discriminate and that civil rights for gays are not akin to civil rights of blacks and other minorities.
So while Mr. Solmonese might feel there is a plan within their plan shown by this action (as well as their continuation of the discharges through DADT), beyond the anger over this issue, I notice in my reading and discussions that the LGBT community’s support for Obama is growing fainter and fainter. But there seems to be little concern among the administration.
Is this change or a continuation of a typical Democratic reaction? While, as the DOJ paper seems to say, our rights are not be equal to other minority rights, the Democrats seem to put us in the same place as other minorities (but put in much less effort to woo us except for election-time) – we are the only party that offers you any hope. The party knows (and has repeatedly used) the knowledge that LGBT citizens have no other party to give voice to promises to them. Promises of things that, if and when elected, they do not deliver.
An article in the “Village Voice” on this topic starts off, “Obama Defends DOMA, Pisses Off Gay People: Boy, this is turning out to be a shitty Pride Month” and goes on to list all the setbacks happening during (and some enacted by) the Obama administration The piece ends with “Oh well, enjoy the parade!” And that reminds me of times when gays took to the streets for reasons which the now social parades were started.
But they have “free speech” zones for those kinds of actions now. And, since the DOJ in the month it released this opinion also had an in-house employee event celebrating “Pride,” maybe they allow us to decorate ours (I almost said they would decorate it for us, but, according to this DOJ paper, discriminating against equal rights for gays saves the government money – except when DADT kicks out highly skilled members of the military that we have paid to train) with rainbow flags and other gay-related images, after all, we do have such a flair for the fabulous.

59 and still naïve

2009-06-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday and, after a subway to work reading of a review in the 'New York Review of Books,' I realize how innocent I still can be.
The book, “American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Woman Who Shaped Early America” by Edmund S. Morgan (Norton, 278 pp. $27.95) sounds like an interesting read and I hope to acquire it soon.
What struck me in the review was the author’s take on 300 years of American history that argues that a small elite group at Philadelphia created a fictional organism known as “We the people,” and that all successful government must be based on fiction.
As for representational government, Morgan’s analysis is that “Popular government in both England and America has been representative government, and representation is the principal fiction by which the larger fiction of popular sovereignty has been itself sustained.”
He adds, “All government, of course, rests on fictions, whether we call them that or self-evident truths.”
The reviewer goes on to note Morgan’s further comments: “Like all fiction, political fictions require a willing suspension of disbelief by those who live under them.”
And finally, Morgan states: “The sovereignty of the people was an instrument by which representatives raised themselves to the maximum distance above the particular set of people who chose them. In the name of the people they became all-powerful in government, shedding as much as possible the local subject character that made them representatives.”
Those of you who know my obsession with politics might wonder at calling myself naïve. I daily rant about things I feel are politically unjust or just plain stupid (to say nothing of the distractions that distract and cushion so many people from realizing just what is going on). As I read the review, in which Morgan makes his case and, while recognizing that all government requires consent of the governed and that people accept “plausible opinions to support consent” even though they are “at variance with observable fact,” Morgan considers the idea to work; straining credulity, but not breaking it.
So, my naivetes is in thinking that there is a way to make politics and government actually work.
So, while I know reading Mr. Morgan’s book will cause me to become angry and disillusioned (but I still will read it, it sounds intriguing as he reminds us that his heroes are those “who went their own way against the grain, regardless of custom, convenience, or habits of deference to authority. . . the Americans who sassed their betters and got into trouble, the people for whom the Bill of Right was written.”) I fall back on historian Howard Zinn: “No form of government, once in power, can be trusted to limit its own ambition, to extend freedom and to wither away. This means that it is up to the citizenry, those outside of power, to engage in permanent combat with the state, short of violent, escalatory revolution, but beyond the gentility of the ballot-box, to insure justice, freedom and well being,” as I continue my Quixotic mission.

Holy Wars

2009-05-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed at his church.
At an afternoon news conference, Wichita Police confirmed that a suspect, a 51-year-old man, had been arrested for the murder of Dr. George Tiller, reports KSN-3 News: The suspect is currently facing one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault for threatening onlookers who tried to intervene.
The AP adds that according to a Wichita city official says a suspect is in custody in the shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller.
The city official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. The official did not provide additional details.
An attorney for Tiller, Dan Monnat, says the doctor was shot Sunday as he served as an usher during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church. Monnat said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time of the shooting.
Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas doctor whose clinic received national attention for performing late-term abortions, was shot to death as he entered his Wichita church on Sunday.
"Members of the congregation who were inside the sanctuary at the time of the shooting were being kept inside the church by police," the Wichita Eagle reported, "and those arriving were being ushered into the parking lot." Media reports said the suspected killer fled the scene in a blue Taurus. Police described him as a white male in his 50s or 60s.
Tiller has been among the few U.S. physicians performing late-term abortion, making him a favored target of anti-abortion protesters. He testified that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats. His clinic was the site of the 1991 "Summer of Mercy" protests marked by mass demonstrations and arrests. His clinic was bombed in 1985, and an abortion opponent shot him in both arms in 1993.
Huffington Post also reported the killing and added documentation on cases since 1993 of abortion-related violence:
_ May 31, 2009: Prominent late-term abortion provider George Tiller is shot and killed in a Wichita church where he was serving as an usher. The gunman fled but a city official said a suspect is in custody.
_ April 2007: Authorities say Paul Ross Evans placed a homemade bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center in Texas. A bomb squad disposes of the device, which contained two pounds of nails. There are no injuries.
_ Oct. 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian is fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. Militant abortion opponent James Kopp is convicted of the murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
_ Jan. 29, 1998: A bomb explodes just outside a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic, killing a police officer and wounding several others. Eric Rudolph later pleads guilty to that incident and the deadly bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He justifies the Alabama bombing in an essay from prison, writing that Jesus would condone "militant action in defense of the innocent."
_ Jan. 16, 1997: Two bomb blasts an hour apart rock an Atlanta building containing an abortion clinic. Seven people are injured. Rudolph is charged by federal authorities in October 1998.
_ Dec. 30, 1994: John Salvi opens fire with a rifle inside two Boston-area abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding five others. Sentenced to life without parole, he kills himself in prison in 1996.
_ Nov. 8, 1994: Dr. Garson Romalis, who performs abortions in Vancouver, Canada, is shot in the leg while eating breakfast at home.
_ July 29, 1994: Dr. John Bayard Britton and his volunteer escort, James H. Barrett, are slain outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic. Barrett's wife, June, is wounded in the attack. Paul J. Hill, 40, a former minister and anti-abortion activist, is later convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
_ Aug. 19, 1993: Dr. George Tiller is shot in the arms as he drives out of parking lot at his Wichita, Kan., clinic. Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon is later convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
_ March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn is shot to death outside Pensacola, Fla., clinic, becoming the first U.S. doctor killed during an anti-abortion demonstration. Michael Griffin is convicted and serving a life sentence.
Using their religious beliefs to declare a holy war on doctors who perform abortions. Can they say jihad? What is the difference, except the root religion?

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I got a phone call about the televised national Memorial Day celebration. The caller was upset that the focus was on the Civil War, which led her to believe there was a definite attempt to draw a parallel between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. This led to my thinking about the similarities between the two men, one of which is Lincoln suspended habaes corpus and Obama recently urged Congress to amend the law to allow the indefinite detention of people who are believed to be terrorists. A lot of skilled writers have commented on the Obama comments, and legal minds are working on the issue from a number of persepectives (reminding me that lawyers are not necessarily concerned with justice -- remember, it was lawyers who wrote memos that led to charges of torture)
Sometimes, of late, I wonder if I bought into the myth of American values: rule of law, democracy, freedom, protection of minorities? Perhaps I am just being naive -- considering the history of the country.
Today, last night's conversation came back, as I received a phone call that my 84-year-old father was taken to the hospital very early this morning.
My father and I achieved a friendly relationship over politics, although we approached issues from totally opposing sides. However, one thing he taught me and showed me in our discussions, was his respect for my opinions, different as they were from his (and interestingly enough, what he referred to as more parallel with his own father's politics). Maybe I have to credit dad with instilling those values in me.
So, it's Memorial Day, and my dad, who was in the Army Air Corps in WWII is in the emergency room. I wait by the phone, and think about the personal and the political.
The personal is fact: concern for my dad. The political is a question: an expatriot is someone who chooses to leave their country What is it when you feel your country has left you?

“The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”

2009-05-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

The title quote is from Jung.

Bill Maher recently had a segment on his show about torture, questioning if we should investigate for fear of giving the Bush/Cheney supporters a cause for coalescence:

Bill Maher May 8, 2009 Panel Two - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

For quite some time, in a morning email I create (Madame Therese Defarge’s Knitting News) I have included torture items from the news and blogs I read as well as my reaction to the topic [a recent headliner until swine flue (or H1N1, if you prefer) bumped it off page 1].

I avoided putting it into the blog because it is a rather complex issue if you get into the “making us safer” v “abandoning our principles argument. However, this morning as I was doing said daily screed, I read a comment by Seymour Hersh about boys in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq being sodomized by their guards/interrogators with the evidence on video tape that has yet to be released. Mr. Hersh has a very good record of investigative reporting that breaks news which later is confirmed by other reports.

Sodomy between consenting adults is one of the many variations of sexual activity and a choice.

Sodomy as a means of punishment/questioning is an abuse of a person’s body and a crime. To put it simply, it is a form of rape and torture.

Arguing that the investigation of torture would lead to a solidification of the rightwing and a resurgence in their popularity (for being willing to do anything to keep us safe) is a poor excuse for ignoring illegal activity, particularly in a country that claims to be a nation of law.

Under international law the Spanish courts have started an investigation into U.S. abuses in Iraq and elsewhere as we fight the “war on terror.” We have sacrificed much of the world’s view of the U.S. -- our conduct during the invasion of Iraq and the photos and reports of prisoner treatment, rendition, enhanced interrogation, etc. Wouldn’t it be better if we confronted our own actions, instead of ignoring the issue and having the world call us to task.

While polls show that a slim majority of Americans do not want such an investigation, if a law has been broken, is it not a matter of concern if we ignore that lawlessness? In the Maher video, it is pointed out that we often do just that, with references to another issue with legal/illegal questions: the financial crisis and in rebuttal, I particularly love the turning of the concept of being for ‘Law and Order,’ often a cry of rightwing idealists, into a reason for investigating.

When the issue is one that we have accused others of being culpable (the Nuremberg trials, the trials and convictions of Japanese soldiers charged with torture in WWII), and investigaged our own troops in past conflicts ( the investigation – called a white-wash by some – into abuses inflicted by U.S. soldiers during the American-Philippine War 1899-1913, the investigation into My Lai during the Vietnam War), can we now choose to ignore the evidence that we have all seen, and hope that the problem will go away?

Richard Cohen, a well-known Washington Post editorialist defends former Vice President Dick Cheney, in speaking out for enhanced interrogation techniques as why we have remained safe, saying his willingness to speak remind Cohen of memories of late-night college discussion about the "‘free man’ -- not politically free, mind you, but free of bourgeois cultural restraints. (The once-important writer Jean Genet, a former petty criminal and prostitute, was often cited).” College free-wheeling discussions have their place as do analyses of “Crime and Punishment” or “American Psycho,” but the topic discussed in a dorm room, a class room or a book discussion group is very different from a civilized country’s actual interrogation techniques.

The argument that terrorists do it, so we are justified is answered by a childhood memory of a mother’s “if your friends jumped in front of a speeding bus, . . .” as well as the more logical approach of they are called terrorists, we are not.

And ;the issue goes on and on, as the arguments become more and more nuanced and less directly related to the actions taken in the name of our country. After some time, the idea of looking forward as opposed to taking responsibility for past actions will seem even more appealing. As Lillian Hellman said, “We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It’s considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell upon them.”

So, to avoid charges of political retribution being met with retaliation, are we to ignore atrocious, criminal acts; to look forward not back?

We also have to remember what George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And if we repeat and condone enhanced interrogation and torture enough times, of course all in the name of national security, how long before it becomes a part of our national character.

Sharing a recipe

2009-05-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Life has been hectic, what with yard work here, yard work there
and working 9 hour days

Today, I turn to sharing a recipe I love

The Eastern European Way:
Schav
This flavorful cold Russian soup was a favorite of the Jews of Eastern Europe.
Ingredients:
2 quarts water
1 lb. fresh sorrel, washed thoroughly, stemmed, ribs removed, coarsely chopped. Ribs and stems tied securely in a bundle.
Kitchen string
3 eggs
1 egg yolk, cooked
1 tsp. lemon juice to taste
½ cup sour cream
Bring water with sorrel leaves and bundle of ribs and stems to a boil in a nonreactive saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20-30 minutes, until leaves are soft and starting to lose texture. Discard bundle of ribs and stems. Lightly beat eggs and egg yolk with a fork in a large bowl. Slowly beat in the hot soup. When four cups soup have been added, trickle egg mixture back into the saucepan, beating constantly. Pour soup back and forth between the pot and bowl to cool it more quickly. Let cool and refrigerate until cold. Stir in lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste just before serving. Serve with sour cream.

My way:
Go to grocery, ethnic/kosher aisle
buy manischewitz schav
dice scallions, slice a peeled cucumber
place scallions and cukes into a bowl, pour in schav
add dollops of sour cream
some people add a hard boiled egg halved or quartered
eat this delicious cold soup

I am so excited, I got this to make some lunches at work this week, easy and I have loved it ever since I was introduced back in NYC by my co-worker Janice

1 pitch, 3 Topics, 5 Photos

2009-05-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Before I start to write, I just wanted to put in a plug for University of Wisconsin Press's My Diva, 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them

My partner, Bill Fogle is one of the essayists, the book launch is this weekend and it is available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Bluebells:
Yesterday, during a lull in the rain, I did some chores outside and discovered that the bluebells I planted a few years ago have finally decided to bloom. I had to show them to Bill and we talked about the scene in Howard's End when Leonard Blast (played by Samuel West) walks all night and is shown in a field of the flowers. A pretty flower and a really good movie.

Torture:
I decided not to go into the torture issue, before the flu (call it swine or call it H1N1)it has been covered extensively in the press, on blogs, on the radio and tv (from the many sides of the argument). However, I did want to talk about my sister and Ann Coulter's comment about enhanced interrogation: Coulter said the techniques used by the CIA and are similar to older siblings harassing their younger brothers and sisters. Sis, thanks for not doing the water board thing. Was it because you knew you'd get in trouble for swamping the bathroom floor?

The Virgin:
There is a Calexico restaurant where a woman at the griddle noticed a likeness of the Virgin Mary. The griddle at Las Palmas Mexican restaurant has been taken off the stove and is now displayed in a room that is quickly filling up with rosaries, flowers, votive candles and other offerings.
When I read about this I thought of Romper Room and Miss (fill in whatever name of the hostess was in your area) ending the show with, "Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic mirror, tell me today. Have all my friends had fun at play?" She would then lead into, "I can see Scotty and Kimberly and Julie and Jimmy and Kelly . . ." just add "and the Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord."
I quickly moved to communion additions: After serving the host, the priest or minister could ask, "you want home fries with that?"
Then I saw the photo and, well, um...

...it sort of looks like a butt-plug to me.

Stand by me, music for your Sunday enjoyment

2009-05-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

A Sunday spent browsing the Web and I came across this: This cover of "Stand By Me" is recorded by completely unknown artists in a street virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track-vocals and guitar-recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott-a blind singer from the French Quarter-added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley’s base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz’s added some metal percussion to it.
And from there, it just gets rock ‘n’ rolling bananas: The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones.
A way to erase borders through music: http://playingforchange.com/

Playing For Change Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Onward Christian Soldiers

2009-05-02T14:07:00.001-07:00

Before I begin, I want to mention my use of Harpers magazine for some information. My subscription to that magazine is worth much more than the annual rate I pay. From the Index to the indepth articles, I find it an invaluable tool and it is one of a few publications I really recommend.

That being said, thanks to Facebook, today’s topic is religion and my opinion thereof.

However, before I get to that, I thought I would discuss figures of speech. "Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader" another book in our bathroom contains many useless facts that always capture my attention. One of the topics discusses common phrases and where the originated. For example, “to give someone the cold shoulder” actually refers to the English hint to guests who overstayed their welcome. A welcomed visitor would be served a delicious hot meal, but a guest who overstayed his welcome or who was unexpected would get a cold shoulder of mutton.

“For the birds” was from city streets before cars. The visual and aromatic emissions of horses contained undigested oats, which attracted English sparrows and other small birds. So, the worthless meaning of the phrase really means it’s horseshit.

I remember an art class when we had to illustrate phrases, so I posted one of the ideas from that class as today’s photo.

Now to the day's topic: One of my interests is spirituality, but I have a dread of organized religion, which I think squelches the spiritual by regimenting it into a “you have to agree with our tenets or else situation.” True religion should be tolerant but that rarely happens. Religion, since it is based on faith, often resists being challenged by reason, so it allows people to put their prejudices and dislikes into a religious sinful category.

One of the quotes about religion that I find telling is by Anne Lamott: "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." Think inquisitions, crusades, religious pogroms, jihad, the recent survey that showed that those who attend church most think the acts of torture carried out on “terrorists” were acceptable, etc. Oh, and don’t forget the Middle East. I have read books suggesting even monotheism gained power when secular rulers realized that the concept of one God could be used to argue for the concept of a supreme earthly ruler.

So you get religion mixing into politics . . . (think Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Concerned Women of America, Westboro Baptist Church, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, Christian Coalition of America, American Family Association, the American Center for Law and Justice, and don’t get me started on the Mormon Church‘s recent funneling of money into states where marriage equality was a topic).

I believe there is a spiritual side of life, but that it is for each person to find individually. If a group of people hold the same spiritual beliefs, let them form an organization. However, the beliefs and opinions of that group are applicable to the members of the group and should not infringe on my beliefs or intrude into my life. I believe a society can be moral without being religious.

So, back to Facebook -- I listed spirituality as an interest. Unfortunately, the site is one of those sites that cues into certain words users say about themselves and those are the focus of ads aimed at your page. I wondered why I was getting Christian debt solution and dealing with Christian anxiety ads, until a friend who is into clarinets noted that he gets music related ads. For someone who works in marketing and knows all about target advertising, I can sometimes be a bit thick when I get home and relax. (I also suggested that the former not be solved by robbing the offertory and the latter not be drowned in extra sips of communion wine--maybe the ads will now stop).

Of course the exchange took place on Facebook, so suddenly an old friend with whom I just reconnected was asking if I really did list Jesus as an interest. [From my answer (which involved Dick Cheney and Jesus) I realized I had to become a fan of something on the same site, namely sarcasm, like it matters.]

My friends know that I read a lot. When I read about religious groups in Harpers magazine, I worry: “The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.”

Now I get messages about attempted religious infiltration of the armed forces in a message from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation: Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt, an evangelical Episcopal Navy chaplain got himself court-martialed and kicked out of the Navy for appearing in uniform at a political rally, against orders. Mr. Klingenschmitt recently requested that people call their local Christian radio stations and ask them to offer this 60-second prayer: “Let us pray. Almighty God, today we pray imprecatory prayers from Psalm 109 against the enemies of religious liberty, including Barry Lynn and Mikey Weinstein, who issued press releases this week attacking me personally. God, do not remain silent, for wicked men surround us and tell lies about us. We bless them, but they curse us. Therefore find them guilty, not me. Let their days be few, and replace them with Godly people. Plunder their fields, and seize their assets. Cut off their descendants, and remember their sins, in Jesus' name. Amen.”

Barry Lunn is head of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Mikey Weinstein is president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Harpers recently had an article about the evangelical Christian radicalization of the U.S. military, focusing on Weinstein's organization's opposition to this. I read about Mikey Weinstein being an Air Force cadet who reported anti-Semetic comments and faced retaliation from other cadets in the form of beatings. Thirty years later (after he served as a JAG, and then in the Reagan White House) his son was also a cadet at the AFA, and told his father about being called a “fucking Jew” by cadets and officers.

At an event held at Fort Bragg to promote his book Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom, retired three-star general William Boykin (a founding member of the Army’s Delta Force and an ordained minister) commented on the MRFF statement: "Here comes a guy named Mikey Weinstein trashing Petraeus because he endorsed a book that’s just trying to help soldiers. And this makes clear what [Weinstein’s] real agenda is, which is not to help this country win a war on terror.”
It’s satanic,” called out an audience member
"Yes,” agreed Boykin. “It’s demonic.”

Weinstein responded that he considers Boykin a traitor to the oath that he swore, which was to the United States Constitution and not to his fantastical demon-and angel dominionism. He’s a charlatan.”

Weinstein 's organization has drawn attention to the Christian Embassy video that led to a DoD investigation. He was also instrumental in getting the Air Force academy to adopt classes in religious diversity and has drawn attention to proselytizing officers at a number of bases. One G.I. who was threatened when he declared himself an atheist, was allowed to live with theWeinstein family. The Harper's author notes that this might not be the safest place as Weinstein's picture window has been shot out twice and a swastika and cross were scrawled on his front door. He has had dead animals thrown on his porch and beer bottles and feces thrown at his house.His mail often contains threats and negative comments:
“You little bald-headed fag, what the fuck are you doing with an organization of this title when the purpose of your group is not to encourage religious freedom, but to DENY religious freedom?.”
After he was on CNN; “You are costing lives by dividing military personnel and undermining troops. Their blood is on your hands,” reads another; and anti-Semitism raises it’s head: “Once again, the Oy Vey! Crowd whines. This jew used to be an Air Force laywer and got the email”—a solicitation by Air Force General Jack Catton for campaign donations to put “more Christian men” in Congress, which Mikey made public—“just one more example of why filthy, hook-nosed jews should be purged from our society.

“In the military, many constitutional rights that we as civilians enjoy are severely abridged in order to serve a higher goal: provide good order and discipline in order to protect the whole panoply of constitutional rights for the rest of us.” One of those rights is free speech: a soldier in uniform can’t endorse a political candidate, advertise a product, or proselytize. That rule is for the good of the public – no one wants men with gun telling them whom to vote for – and for the military itself. An officer can tell a soldier what to do, but not what to believe.

This was also in Harpers: “Jesus Killed Mohammed:” Sergeant Jeffery Humphrey served in Iraq. His squad were part of the 1/26 Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division. The group to which he was assigned all used code names and called themselves “the Faith element.”Easter Sunday, along with the morning chow, the 109th National Guard Infantry dropped off a video of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” and a chaplain to sing the film’s praises.Rather than watch the video, Humphrey chose to take trash to the garbage pit. When he returned, the five-ton that the 109th had used to deliver the food came back, running on rims and spewing flames. The location, Samarra, had been quiet for a month except for some Iraqi reaction to the vandalizing of mosques by spray-painting crosses, something that Humphrey’s unit had been warned about.All of the rest of Easter was spent under siege. As ammo ran low , 4 vehicles were being used to drive away from the compound in an attempt to draw enemy fire. Humphrey found his lieutenant and a couple of sergeants snickering, they had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter to paint in Arabic script across the front of the vehicle: “Jesus killed Mohammed.”

Then I read about current officers in the military:

Major General Johnny A. Weida, commandant at the Air Force Academy, who made its National Day of Prayer serviees exclusively Christian, also created a code for evangelical cadets: whenever Weida said “Air power.: The cadets were to respond “Rock, sir.” A reference to Matthew 7:25 (KJV: “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”).

Major General Robert Caslen, commander of the 25th Infantry Division in 2007 violated military ethics by appearing in uniform, along with six other senior Pentagon officers, in a video for the Christian Embassy, a fundamentalist ministry to Washington elites.

Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, the Army chief of engineers, has also lent his uniform to the Christian cause, both in a Trinity Broadcasting Network tribute to Christian soldiers called "Red, White and Blue Spectacular" and at a Billy Graham rally, televised around the world on the Armed Forces Network, at which he declared the baptisms of 700 soldiers under his command as evidence of the Lord’s plan to “raise up a godly army.”

What men such as these have fomented is a quiet coup within the armed forces: not of generals encroaching on civilian rule but of religious authority displacing the military’s staunchly secular code. They claim to not be a conspiracy but a cultural transformation, achieved gradually through promotions and prayer meetings, with personal faith replacing protocol according to the best intentions of commanders who conflate God with country. They see themselves as spiritual warriors—“ambassadors for Christ in uniform: according to the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (15,000 members at 80% of military bases with an annual growth rate of 3%) and as “government paid missionaries” by Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry.20 Percent of active duty personnel claim no religious preference (the general population polls at 16.1%). 22% identify as evangelical or Pentecostal. 19% are Roman Catholic, 20 % as Christian, 0.33% Jewish and 0.25 Muslim.

Air Force Lieutenant General (retired) Bruce L. Fister, the current executive director, feels the “global war on terror” is “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude.”As jihad has come to connote violence, so spiritual war has moved closer to actual conflict, “continually confronting an implacable, powerful foe who hates us and eagerly seeks to destroy us,” declares “The Source of Combat Readiness, an OCF scripture study prepared on the eve of the Iraq war.

Another OFC Bible study, “Mission Accomplished:” (and was the Bush banner on board the ship a coded message for believers?) warns that victory abroad does not mean the war is won at home. “If Satan cannot succeed with threats from the outside, he will seek to destroy from within,” asserts the study, a reference to “fellow countrymen” both in biblical times and today who practice “spiritual adultery.” “Mission Accomplished” supports the wallbuilder inNehemiah 1-6, and calls for a wall within which church and state are one: “With the wall completed the people could live an integrated life, God was to be Lord of all or not Lord at all.” The study encourages military Christians to bring this Lord of all to the entire armed forces: “We will need to press ahead obediently, not allowing the opposition, all of which is spearheaded by Satan, to keep us from the mission of reclaiming territory for Christ in the military.”

In addition, Harpers points out: After a recent scandal at the Air Force Academy (2005 reports of Christian proselytization), the Air Force now claims to have reformed, but the academy recently brought in three Christian evangelists who proclaimed that the only solution to terrorism was to “kill Islam,” and Christian cadets informed the article’s author that they operate covertly.

The academy commander, Lieutenant General John Rosa told an Anit-Defamation League that his “whole organization” had religion problems and that restoring constitutional principles to the academy would take at least 6 years. Rosa then retired and became president of the Citadel. Rosa’s replacement, Lieutenant General John Regni, spoke over the phone with the author of the Harper's article, who asked: “How do you see the balance between the Free Exercise Clause (of the constitution) and the Establishment Clause?”Regni responded by saying, “I have to write these things down. What did you say those constitutional things were again?”

Regni will be replaced this summer by General Mike Gould. Nicknamed Coach, Gould enjoys public speaking and is famous for his 3-F mantra: “Faith, Family, Fitness.” He once advised his 104 Pentagon subordinates to read and live by Rich Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Life.”

“Under the rubic of free speech and the twisted idea of separation of church and state there has evolved more and more anti-Christian bias in this country, “ claims Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William McCoy in his book Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel. Making a case for religion, and he prefers Christianity, for a properly functioning military, McCoy writes that wrong beliefs will “bring havoc to what needs cohesion and team confidence.”

General David Petraeus, formerly the senior U.S. commander in Iraq and now in the top spot at U.S. Central Command, running operations for the country from Egypt to Pakistan wrote a blurb: “Under Orders should be in every rucksack for those moments when Soldiers need spiritual energy.” Petraeus claims his comment was supposed to be a private communication between one Christian officer and another.

Military Religious Freedom Foundation suggests that he is promoting an unconstitutional Christian exceptionalism as we are fighting Islamic fundamentalists who are telling their soldiers we are waging a modern-day crusade.

How did the military get that way, Scienceblog says, in part . . . “ The next turning point occurred in the waning days of the Reagan Administration, when regulatory revisions helped create the fundamentalist stronghold in today's military. A longstanding rule had apportioned chaplains according to the religious demographics of the military as a whole (i.e., if surveys showed that 10 percent of soldiers were Presbyterian, then 10 percent of the chaplains would be Presbyterian) but required that all chaplains be trained to minister to troops of any faith. Starting in 1987, however, Protestant denominations were lumped together simply as "Protestant"; moreover, the Pentagon began accrediting hundreds of evangelical and Pentecostal "endorsing agencies," allowing graduates of fundamentalist Bible colleges-which often train clergy to view those from other faiths as enemies of Christ-to fill up nearly the entire allotment for Protestant chaplains. Today, more than two thirds of the military's 2,900 active-duty chaplains are affiliated with evangelical or Pentecostal denominations. "In my experience," Morton says, "eighty percent of the Protestant chaplaincy self- identifies as conservative and/or evangelical."

Somehow the song title I used for today’s blog, sung in the Evangelical United Brethren Church (later merged with the Methodists) my family attended as I was growing up now sounds like a threat.

2009-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Towleroad notes that the Victory Fund reports that Stanford Law School professor Kathleen Sullivan's name is being mentioned as a potential nominee to fill Souter's position on the SCOTUS: "Sullivan's name appears on lists compiled by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and numerous law blogs. She is the founder and director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and served as dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 to 2004. Sullivan has filed amicus curiae briefs in some of the most important Supreme Court cases involving LGBT rights including Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas."

You can become a fan of Swine Flu on Facebook. I bet it has a lot more fans than H1N1.

Somehow, reading about the flu I remembered the picture of my grandson so I posted it today.

Speaking of Facebook, I just found out that, according to the quiz “Which Tim Burton Character Are You?” I am Sweeney Todd and I have had something happen in my past which makes me constantly long for revenge or justice. I am wise, have my own specific talent, which I use in more ways than one. I love adventure and take risks yet are careful and prepared for what happens. Thank God I wasn’t Pirelli.

The New York Times notes that with the choice of Carol Ann Duffy as England’s poet laureate, the post held by such poets as Dryden, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Ted Hughes, the honor went to a woman for the first time. It only took 341 years.

Various news outlets are reporting the VP Joe Biden will visit Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo during the week of May 18. I wonder how he will get there,since he has recommended not flying.

Harvard has closed the dental school’s treatment clinic and the university suspended classes at all three of its major schools on the Longwood medical campus as a precaution after a thirdyear dental student developed a “probable case” of swine flu.

Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has appeared in a National Organization for Marriage ad, speaking against marriage equality. She also told "Today Show" host Matt Lauer that she was attacked for giving her opinion that she will do whatever it takes to [rptect marriage. The New York Daily News notes she feels “. . . the National Organization for Marriage basically just respects, yum, you know, marriages and people who support it.” The News has a poll asking what readers think of her cause and today the votes show the lead response was: “She just needs to stop talking and go away.” Meanwhile Miss USA pageant officials feel she has become an opportunist, releasing a statement: “In the entire history of the Miss USA, no reigning title holder has so readily committed her face and voice to a more divisive or polarizing issue.” The pageant officials also note that she seems to have forgotten her commitment to the Special Olympics as she speaks out against marriage equality. In other news reports, it has been noted that while she put truth over a tiara, she has not been totally content with her God-given attributes, as she accepted support from pageant officials who paid for breast implants just prior to the competition.

I work in marketing but sometimes I wonder about the profession: Wizmark is a a one-of-a-kind, fully functional interactive device for urinals that can talk, sing, or flash a string of lights around a promotional message when greeting a "visitor". The large anti-glare, water-proof viewing screen is strategically located just above the drain to ensure guaranteed viewing without interruptions. The Web site does not say if they are motion or moisture activated.

Back to the my obsession for unraveling day 2

2009-04-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker has an interesting article, “So Long, Pardner” that notes the April 15th tea parties (taxed enough already) which were attended by a couple of hundred thousand people. (Many of whom I don’t think will see their top marginal rate go from 35 to 39.6% since they don’t make over a quarter of a million dollars, in fact most will get a reduction, so what were they protesting?)

The magazine focuses on Governor Perry of Texas and his being at a tea party talking about opting out of the union. It appears, according to the NYer, Perry has confused his facts a bit, when Texas joined the U.S. it was not with the option to opt-out, but with the option to divide itself into five states. It seems Perry would need either a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling to leave.

The magazine notes that if the idea spreads and Texas leaves, taking the former Confederacy with it, Texas would lose a bit (it currently gets $0.94 back from the feds for every $1.00 it pays) but other southern state currently living on the dole would lose out (South Carolina, for example, receives $1.35 for every dollar it sends the federal government).However, the newly formed “Federated States” (Confederacy having too much baggage, according to the NYer) could get on with the business of protecting the sanctity of marriage, mandating organized prayer sessions and the teaching of creationism in schools, clearing out their death rows via increased executions (currently, while they conduct 86% of the executions in the U.S., meddling judges often keep prisoners alive and so crowd southern prisons), and giving the theory that eliminating taxes increases government revenues a fair test.

I think they might have a bit of a border problem with Mexico, however. I am not sure if the border security amount is factored in to what Texas gets back from the government or if that is viewed as a federal expense.

AmericaBlog mentioned that, when asked about gay marriage, Miley Cyrus: "Everyone deserves to love and be loved and most importantly smile."

"Jesus loves you and your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! That's like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz he's gay and that is wrong and very sad!

"Like I said everyone deserves to be happy."

"God’s greatest commandment is to love. And judging is not loving."

"I am a Christian and I love you - gay or not - because you are no different than anyone else! We are all God's children."

AB noted that the American Family Association released this in response: “Such statements will send the wrong message to our children who are influenced by this teenage megastar. Parents need to realize that Cyrus is not the positive role model she was once thought to be.... Clearly she is confused and does not understand the Bible.”

While checking one of my online email account, I see that Mexico has closed down all non-essential businesses because of Swine Flu. Earlier today I read that the industry lobbyists were concerned that the name of the flu would impact the pork products. They urged it be called 2009 H1N1. The Associated Press reported that the outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, according to an Israeli health official.

CNN notes that Carrie Prejean, Miss California has continued her time in the spotlight by appearing in a commercial for the Nation For Marriage. The ad says that “Gay marriage activists attack people for supporting marriage because they don’t want to debate the consequences of same-sex marriage. They want to silence the opposition.”

YouTube has the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1DWVTJ_gBo

A number of sources reported on Joe Biden’s recommendations about the Flu on NBC’s Today Show. The Veep said he would tell his family to avoid going anywhere in confined spaces. His office explained that “If people are sick they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways.”

Somehow, that doesn’t seem to be what Joe said. I don’t think there was any mention of his advice being given to a sick family member, just to members of his family.

I wonder what happens in DC where thousands of people who work for Joe’s government take the subway to and from work every day.

“Where were you all last week?”

“Joe told me not to ride the subway, so I stayed home.”

Google News reports that Microsoft says Vista taught them valuable lessons to ensure that devices and applications run smoothly on it’s new operating system. I hope this means my Microsoft word processing program will stop crashing my Microsoft Windows E-mail.

If the shoe fits . . .

2009-04-29T17:51:00.001-07:00

Shoes?

I usually write about politics, but as I transfer from my daily e-mail about events and issues I find I am focusing on something else. For the day of my first unraveling blog, shoes occupied a considerable portion of my thoughts and actions this morning.

Waiting for the dogs to finish their breakfasts (acting the role of enforcer, as some greedy members of the pack think nothing of pushing others away from a dish and gobbling extra rations), I picked up one of the books we have for bathroom reading (that is one of the purposes of that room, isn’t it?): "The Deviant's Pocket Guide to the Outlandish Sexual Desires Barely Contained in Your Subconscious" by Dennis DiClaudio (Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2008, ISBN1-59691-409-2). And I read about retifism (your common shoe fetish): "Looks like it's going to be another cold, wet day. You can hear the sleet hitting the windowpanes from here. Don't get out of bed. Call in sick. . . .stay here and snuggle. Wrap your arms around her and hold her close to your chest . . . the love of your life . . . this gray suede high-heeled boot that has brought you so much happiness."

Mr. DiClaudion goes on to say that there "... are two kinds of shoe fetishism. One is 'Oh my God, that shoe is so cute; I need to buy it!' and the other is, "Oh my God, that shoe is so sexy; I want to run my tongue along its corrugated muddy sole."

He also calls attention to the subset of Retifism called Altocalciphilia, "the attraction to high-heeled shoes."

Altocalciphilists are sometimes interested in when "... the long and sharp heels are often used to inflict pain upon submissive men--most popularly in the genitals."

OK, so what does this have to do with my first blog?

Getting ready for work, I put on my shoes and discovered that I had mixed two pair, both black lace-ups. Luckily the mix-up came to light (literally, as I left the darker bedroom into the hall) so I was able to do the conventional and wear a matching set. I did, however, remember a "Vanity Fair" cover which featured David Hockney’s feet: while his shoes matched, he was wearing different colored socks, something I have wanted to do but find difficult as men’s accessories have tamed down to basic black, brown, grey, argyle, beige, tan, or white, at least when well-made socks are being considered.

Art and Altocalciphilia aside, I have always noticed shoes (I understood "Serial Mom" and her problem with the Patty Hearst character wearing white shoes after Labor Day). I even took time in my mostly-political-e-mail-daily-event to note my distaste for the toe-cleavage-showing , high-heeled, pointy-fronted styles women were wearing a few years ago (sorry, Jimmy Choo and other designers, they reminded me of talons and also made feet look enormous).

Maybe my attention to shoes is a harkening back to the late 60s/early70s, my coming of age and Andy Warhol’s career history.

Who knows? I just find shoes an interesting visual (think of Bette Davis coming down the gang plank in “Now Voyager,” the transformed Charlotte Vale’s first public appearance starts with her spectator-clad feet, also highlighted mid-film in partner Bill's YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1EDVnySxoU).

Co-workers have commented on my vocal appreciation of lady’s footwear. I just like to look at well-made, stylish shoes (yesterday on the subway in a preview of summer heat to come, I also noted that there is something about a woman in a beige linen or cotton summer dress that can say stylish and sophisticated to me as well—and reminds me of Irwin Shaw’s “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses”).

Speaking of coworkers, yesterday I also noticed something on the job. During a rather poorly executed fire drill/actual emergency (who knows which of the two, all I know is it was one in which the elevators did not work and no alarm sounded), my office-mates and I rendezvoused at the assigned check-in, gather-to-be-counted-safe, street corner. Two of the women were wearing platform sandals, the sight of which flashed me back quicker than an acid memory to the 1970s, when that style made one on its many comebacks.

Then, living in NYC on a very small salary, I still had the money to purchase a number of pairs of platform sandals (one of the differences between the 1970s and now—trendy, sartorial splendor of the platform variety for our lowest extremities was designed and sold to both women and men). I also had platform saddle shoes, platform blue penny loafers (a real find on sale at Bloomingdales), and even platform clogs—with cork platforms and multi-color, striped leather uppers.

So, while the thought of a spike heel in my genitals brings no pleasurable anticipation of pain, there is something about shoes that affects me. I guess it is up to my/your imagination to untangle this unraveling.

And, to return to the political (what I usually obsess about), basically Arlen Specter was dealing with a shoe issue, too. As the Republican Party’s acceptable principles became smaller and smaller, a number of people found that they no longer fit.