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Tulia. Still. (or, Justice: Texas Style)

April 30, 2003

This editorial in today's Austin American-Statesman just has me totally...flabbergasted:

Among those still in prison is a 61-year-old Swisher County hog farmer afflicted with severe diabetes. He was the supposed kingpin. There is a young mother, Kizzie White, whose two children have had maternal guidance and love taken away from them for more than four years. There are several others in prison who just want to move on with their lives and get out of Texas.

Even though the state's star witness, Tom cman, has been thoroughly discredited and indicted on felony perjury charges, Tulia defendants must remain in prison.

Hi. I live in Texas. Please nuke us.

Love Your Veterans...

April 30, 2003

Educate yourself about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and understand that the war will never be over for those who served:

young soldier nodded his head, listening, thinking the thoughts he then spoke: "I just hope that these people can find it in their hearts to forgive us, and that they know it was an accident."

Then Spc. 1st Class Bill Scates of Oklahoma City spoke. "I had to look that woman right in the eyes," he said, "and I felt so horrible for her. I've got a little girl."

His rage began to boil. "I'm constantly angry over what happened with that family. ... I'm pissed off at my chain of command for not putting up signs in every language (at that checkpoint), to warn 'em. Normally I'm a talkative guy, a happy person, — but I've been real quiet lately, because I'm so pissed off. I'm thinking more and more I'm so frustrated, so angry, I want to choke somebody ... constantly."

Not to mention the PTSD that is no doubt rampant among the Iraqi survivors.

coupla notes & the great cockroach massacre

April 30, 2003

I'm just feeling good this morning because it rained and because I just heard from ms. Pear about our madcap adventure (I'm calling it the mad mama tour of zero three) & she is, in fact, NOT flaking even though I Had premonitions of flake yesterday (so much for my psychic abilities).

But not much to say other than that right now. I've been goofing all morning, flirting with sleeping in, but unable to because I share the bed with a silly angel who woke up and demanded "good booby, mama?" And neither of us were going to go back to sleep after fully waking to the sounds of all of those damn birds.

Should I tell you about the great cockroach massacre? I swear to you that I am not THAT much of a slob. Well, I'm kind of a slob, but I'm sure there are bigger slobs out there with less of a fucking cockroach problem. Suffice to say that I Have had to box up all of the books that I was formerly keeping in my bedroom because all of a sudden there were a bunch of the little (did I say LITTLE? these bugs are actually anything BUT little...which is why I can't smash them with shoes...they make a crunching noise that turns my stomach something fierce) fuckers eating my reading materials. Like i'd wake up in the middle of the night and it sounded like MICE in my room. I think it has something to do with the huge-ass oak tree outside of the bedroom, and the fact that the house is totally not sealed to the outside world. & I was starting to think I should fumigate, but the guy I work with pointed out that these roaches (which are actually water bugs or palmetto bugs, I think) would just cough a lot and run from the building, only to come back later once the fumes died down and I think he's probably right.

So, anyway, what DOES kill them is peppermint dr. bronner's. And the day after I cleared the bookshelves of books, they were all exposed and out in the open saying "Where the fuck's my cover!" and I opened fire, ignoring the fact that I really hate to kill any living creature (I ignore that a lot when it comes to fucking roaches) and I got...well, I won't give numbers, but I got a lot of them before I finally turned off the light and went back to bed in a noticably more silent room.

I think c was traumatized, though...I'm hoping it's not permanent.

& now you know why I've been so tired lately...it's because I've been up battling roaches at night. I think I have won, though. Last night was practically roach free. I think the trick is that I'm just going to have to get rid of all of my freaking earthly possessions so they will have nowhere to hide.

So, great. I co-exist with zen master cockroaches. Could my life be any more surreal?

vacation

April 30, 2003

While discussing my impending journey to DC with L today, it came up that L is feeling a little apprehensive about the trip because he will miss the children so much. While the cynical side of me thinks he's just saying this so I don't get overly bratty about the fact that he gets 2 weeks of sweet unadulterated adulterated freedom from children and I get to drive for days in a smelly van with my smelly kids, I do, in fact, believe that he misses us when we go (and I say "us" even though he claims that I am an adult and therefore he does not miss *ME* when I leave. I choose to disbelieve him on this one, but don't tell him I told you so.)

At any rate, after admitting to his tendency to pine for the children, he issued a challenge to me. He claims that I will not accomplish anything remotely useful if he takes the children out of town for 2 weeks. He claims that I would spend that time moping around the house feeling lonely. I, on the other had, feel that a 2-week vacation from children would lead me to be wildly productive in one form or another. While I might not accomplish tasks or chores, just the IDEA of being in the house ALL ALONE for two weeks STRAIGHT is enough to bring me to a near-orgasm...and I might just feel that it's completely productive to lay in bed and bath and luxuriate in absolute cherished silence the entire time. That would be highly productive.

Sure, I might miss the children on occasion...but considering I have not had a break from them for over 2 years (not since I used to travel when I worked for Kinko's. And well I remember being able to stay up until all hours in hotel rooms watching MTV and other such forbidden delights, like an unshared bed with non-pee stained blankets. Holy. mother. fuck!) I think I would get by.

So, the point of this all is that L is threatening/offering to take the kids to Mississippi for two weeks upon my return from DC. My concern is cy's nursing - I don't want him to wean. I'm thinking that it won't kill me to wait a year or so for weaning to happen first, but I could not. stop. thinking. about it all day today, and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with a nursing toddler being separated from boobies for an extended period of time. Is it likely that he will wean?

Gah. I mean...you know what I mean? TWO WEEKS. That would be so very rad.

country profiles

April 29, 2003

I thought this page of the bbc site was pretty interesting. Of course, take it for what it is, a major news conglomerate's idea of history, etc. Still, it could come in handy in the future.

Patriot Raid.

April 29, 2003

Just in case you need anecdotal evidence to prove that the Patriot Act is fucked...this article does a fine job of drawing the picture. Unfortunately, it's true:

explained that we were just eating dinner and asked why we were being held. We were told by the INS agent that we would be released once they had confirmation that we had no outstanding warrants and our immigration status was OK'd.

In pre-9/11 America, the legality of this would have been questionable. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized."

"You have no right to hold us," Asher insisted.

"Yes, we have every right," responded one of the agents. "You are being held under the Patriot Act following suspicion under an internal Homeland Security investigation."

The USA PATRIOT Act was passed into law on October 26, 2001 in order to facilitate the post 9/11 crackdown on terrorism (the name is actually an acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.") Like most Americans, I did not recognize the extent to which this bill foregoes our civil liberties. Among the unprecedented rights it grants to the federal government are the right to wiretap without warrant, and the right to detain without warrant. As I quickly discovered, the right to an attorney has been seemingly fudged as well.

When I asked to speak to a lawyer, the INS official informed me that I do have the right to a lawyer but I would have to be brought down to the station and await security clearance before being granted one. When I asked how long that would take, he replied with a coy smile: "Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe a month."

We insisted that we had every right to leave and were going to do so. One of the policemen walked over with his hand on his gun and taunted: "Go ahead and leave, just go ahead."

Truly wonderful. I really want our police forces to have that much power. After all, they have been so good at handling the power they already do have with aplomb and consistency, right?

parentingriffic!

April 29, 2003

So, I'm having one of those "challenging" days, probably to balance out the excellent times over the past few weeks. m has been on his best behavior, and, really, that can only last for so long before something starts to give. c's just generally being a challenging troublemaker lately, and that has been consistent today.

At the playground today, I watched m lay prone on the ground for about an hour and a half while K kind of ignored him to play with other kids. I don't think K did anything wrong, but she WAS ignoring m and that DID hurt his feelings. I think it was justifiable and valid for K to play with other kids AND I think it was justifiable and valid for m to be upset about that. The challenge was to support each of the kids AND point out that maybe there was a better way to handle things.

For m, I kind of told him that K wasn't being intentionally mean, and that she's not obligated to only play with him when they are at the playground. I also pointed out that he was making a choice to not have any fun, and that K was not responsible for that decision. It didn't get him up off of the ground, but I felt like I had fulfilled my duty as a parent.

I also apologized to him for having pushed him away the week before when he was being extra clingy at the playground. Apparently, m is going through some sort of awkward social phase where he's having difficulty connecting with other kids. I'm sure he'll make it through OK, but I have anxiety about L's prophecy about the need for school-type socialization being fulfilled. It's for that reason that I was attempting to push him away from me last week, in hopes that he would find another kid to play with and stop clinging on mama. I realize now that he will venture forth again when he feels secure, and he probably needs some extra reassurance from me to get there.

On K's part, the friends she was playing with had to go back to the classroom, and I found her marching up to some guy and giving him a big shove and SPITTING ON HIM and giving him what for about how he's always mean to girls and how he's a big bully. I have to admit, I was somewhat impressed. He shoved her and spat back, but she held her own, so I saw no point in intervening. I had no idea whether this was playful fighting or serious, because everyone was seeming to smile about it, but I was keeping a close eye on the situation, just in case.

Later, K came running back to me, saying we HAD TO go home because this guy was being mean to her. Going home was not an option, as I had promised L some hours of peace and quiet so he could get some work done. I explained to K that I had witnessed their earlier scuffle, and that it was difficult for me to defend her when she started it. But I told her that I was watching and that if this kid started anything with her I would certainly intervene on her behalf, now that I was aware that it was unwelcome. I also had to explain to her that this kid (I think I actually called him a jerk) was running around having fun, while K was choosing to let him get to her and having a bad time. I told her, while it's not ok for him to directly bully her, and that she should definitely call upon me to help her so we could get him to stop, at this point, she was allowing him to have power over her that he should not have had. Again, I reassured her that I would make sure she was safe if she wanted to play, but going home was not an option, and the playground is big enough for everyone, etc., etc. I'm not altogether sure this was the best solution, but it was all I had at the time.

I also mentioned to K that she might want to try to mend some fences with m, who, I explained, was feeling left out because she had been playing with other friends. I told her that I didn't think she did anything wrong, but that m was pretty upset & maybe she should try to talk with him.

Finally, K got up and started playing with some other kids, and the bullies who were picking on her actually had the fucking nerve to taunt ME. She had told them my name, apparently, and they were having great fun running to within earshot of me, saying my name, and then running away so I would "not know" who had said this. I tried ignoring them, but they were doing it for about half an hour and I finally got irritated enough that I calmly walked over to the playground and said "Hi. Is there something I can help you with?" "No." Said the fucking brat. "OK, great...I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone, then...I'm trying to hang out with my kids and relax here." "OK." She said. I could tell she was a little shocked that I had said anything & I'm not sure if it would have been better to just ignore them.

At this point, K was trying to apologize to m, who was running away from her and sticking his tongue out at her (sigh)...and K chased him right into her own trap, where the evil bully guy saw her and immediately started chasing her (without having been prompted to do so by anything K did) and calling upon the entire playground to "Chase her! Chase her!" while K screamed and WAS NOT laughing. I jumped up shouting. I was SO angry I thought I was going to fucking throttle this kid. I just said "NO! SHE DOES NOT WANT YOU TO CHASE HER!" He didn't hear me at first, but damn he was ashamed when he realized that I was yelling at him. I hate to shame the kid, but he was being an asshole, and I will not allow a kid I am watching to be bullied like that. K should be free to use the playground without being afraid of being yelled at and chased after, damnit. And the supervising teacher was just sitting there...I suppose because this shit happens all of the time. I remember it well. I remember running in fear from the boys on the playground, laughing, because it didn't do to act afraid - it only made it worse.

At any rate, the kid stopped chasing her, and then they went inside, and then K lost her charm on her necklace, and cy fell down and started crying, and K kept trying to apologize to M, who continued to act like a butt to her until I finally got frustrated and told him that if he stuck his tongue out one more time he wasn't going to get his computer time for the day...which I KNOW was probably a bad parenting move, but at this point I figured I was heading straight to parenting purgatory if not outright hell anyway.

So, here we are. K is pouting on the couch, m is looking at his Puzzlemania book, c is fiddling with his "battat" toy & I can't remember when the house has ever been so quiet. It's unsettling.

I'm going to meditate on this one and try to figure out what I did right and what I did wrong, but I hope I don't have to learn from my mistakes, because I really don't ever want to have so many issues pop up all at once ever ever again.

Corporate Rights vs. Human Rights

April 29, 2003

Lisa has an excellent essay up about the rights of corporations:

You know, we've got a lot of dumb people in this country, and by and large, they vote Republican. Think about it. Who gets the KKK vote? Who gets the fascist patriot movement vote? The anti-gay vote? The anti-woman vote? The uber-intolerant-Christian vote? The anti-poor vote? The anti-peace vote? The anti-worker vote? The anti-teacher vote? The anti-environment vote? The anti-democracy vote? The anti-Social Security vote? The anti-civil liberties vote?

This underbelly of American democracy doesn't appreciate that political free speech shouldn't get you fired, and in the case of The Chicks, corporations shouldn't be permitted to rally up vitriolic protests against them.

[link courtesy of Seeing the Forest]

bahahaha

April 29, 2003

Stressmagnet asks all the right questions.

Aaron's back

April 29, 2003

Although it might be a temporary revival, mr. hawkins is back posting at uppity-negro.com. I hope he figures out a way to keep posting. It almost seemed for awhile there like uppity-negro was a community blog, and Aaron was our lovely host. I know, I know...that's a totally nerdy thing to say, but the house was always hopping, there was always good conversation, and Aaron is DAMN funny, DAMN smart, and just...DAMN! you know?

So...Aaron, love...do what you gotta do, but rest assured that you will be sorely missed if you choose to shut it down.

You gotta love good ole Rummy

April 29, 2003

He adds new meaning to the word "evasive" and just makes me feel so very fucking proud to be living in a free fucking country, where our politicians are True Representatives of the people:

Rumsfeld: "I mean, I'll answer. The president announced a policy. It has been tested and looked at legally, and we are proceeding on that basis -- that the people gathered in Guantanamo we would prefer not to hold. We would like to have arrangements with other countries that they would take their nationals on a basis where we could get future access to them, in the event additional intelligence comes up, and where we have reason to have confidence that they would not simply release people that are a danger to the lives of American men, women and children.

"Now we're keeping them down there to keep them off the street. These -- this is a worldwide network that -- the al Qaeda is, and these folks and the Taliban were part of that and were fighting in Afghanistan and killing people.

"We have them in Guantanamo, they're being examined and interrogated by an interagency process. The president has several ways he can proceed. He can put them into an Article 3, United States Article 3, our Constitution, court; he can establish a military commission and try them that way; or he can keep them for the duration of the war and keep them off the street so they don't kill other people.

"Now, everything that is being done is being done legally and properly. And this constant refrain of 'the juveniles,' as though there's a hundred of children in there -- these are not children. Dick Myers responded to that. There are plenty of people who have been killed by people who were still in their teens.

Like the article states in its opening paragraph:

The Pentagon has now admitted it is holding, and interrogating, children aged 13 to 15 in its secretive Cuban prison camp. But Donald Rumsfeld says that's O.K., because these kids are so dangerous they bend the laws of space and time and become "not children."

What else can I add to that? I wonder if the children who were oppressed by the Hussein regime were also...not children. & what the fuck does QUANTITY matter when we are talking about individuals lives? Whether it's 1, 5 or 100...it's still minor children being held in a prison camp. NOT. IN. MY. FUCKING. NAME.

Feeling. Some. Anger.

April 28, 2003

I wholeheartedly agree with Julian's assessment over at Stand Down of this article :

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."

Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.

If weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason for war, what was?

This kind of bullshit might be ok to some of my fellow Americans, but it doesn't fucking fly with me. If our leaders feel that it's necessary to "stretch the truth" so they can have their way with public policy ON MY DIME, then they shouldn't fucking be doing what they're doing. If our ELECTED SERVANTS OF THE FUCKING PUBLIC can't gain the support they need for the actions they take by telling the truth about their motivations, then that brings the validity of those actions into serious question.

Which is why I CONTINUE to call bullshit on this action and why I have not wavered in my anti-war stance.

UPDATE: Elaine linked up this article, which says it far more eloquently than I have.

Wal Mart and Moyers

April 28, 2003

I don't subscribe to Mother Jones, so I don't have access to the entire article here:

Given its staggering size and rapid expansion, Wal-Mart increasingly sets the standard for wages and benefits throughout the U.S. economy. "Americans can't live on a Wal-Mart paycheck," says Greg Denier, communications director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). "Yet it's the dominant employer, and what they pay will be the future of working America." The average hourly worker at Wal-Mart earns barely $18,000 a year at a company that pocketed $6.6 billion in profits last year. Forty percent of employees opt not to receive coverage under the company's medical plan, which costs up to $2,844 a year, plus a deductible. As Jennifer McLaughlin puts it, "They're on top of the Fortune 500, and I can't get health insurance for my kid."

[...]Angered by the disparity between profits and wages, thousands of former and current employees like McLaughlin have started to fight the company on a variety of fronts. Workers in 27 states are suing Wal-Mart for violating wage-and-hour laws; in the first of the cases to go to trial, an Oregon jury found the company guilty in December of systematically forcing employees to work overtime without pay.

Of course, we all know that Wal-Mart is evil and they screw their employees over, but reading this article reminded me of one of the segments on a recent Moyers show about overtime pay and flex time. There's a lot of information on the topic at the link provided.

If you aren't watching Moyers, you really should. He is my hero.

Now that's just FUCKED UP.

April 28, 2003

This site certainly LOOKS sincere:

Empower Peace seeks to build a worldwide network of high school students and teachers committed to breaking down cultural barriers and misperceptions through open dialogue. Our goal is to bring about a climate of mutual respect and understanding by exposing youth to their contemporaries from abroad.

Empower Peace also hopes to assist teachers worldwide by enabling their students to learn firsthand about people and countries that they may have only experienced in schoolbooks. Furthermore, through videoconferencing and the Internet, Empower Peace hopes to create an arena where students all over the world may engage in a dialogue sharing insight into their cultures, customs and live styles.

Empower Peace hopes to develop a worldwide network of educators committed to empowering their students through participation in this program.

And then, if you do your homework, you discover that this project is being undertaken by The Rendon Group:

The Rendon Group is a secretive public relations firm that has assisted a number of U.S. military interventions in nations including Argentina, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Panama and Zimbabwe. Rendon's activities include organizing the Iraqi National Congress, a PR front group designed to foment the overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), John Rendon described himself as "an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

"Through its network of international offices and strategic alliances," the Rendon Group website boasted in 2002, "the company has provided communications services to clients in more than 78 countries, and maintains contact with government officials, decision-makers, and news media around the globe."

Kind of makes you wonder where the money is or something. Power? What is it that keeps these groups operating from both ends of the spectrum?

Maybe it's just plain old propaganda:

A February 1998 report by Peter Jennings cited records obtained by ABC News which showed that the Rendon Group spent more than $23 million dollars in the first year of its contract with the CIA. It worked closely with the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an opposition coalition of 19 Iraqi and Kurdish organizations whose main tasks were to "gather information, distribute propaganda and recruit dissidents." According to ABC, Rendon came up with the name for the Iraqi National Congress and channeled $12 million of covert CIA funding to it between 1992 and 1996. Writing in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh says the Rendon Group was "paid close to a hundred million dollars by the CIA" for its work with the INC.[2]

(This post was brought to you courtesy of this week's spin of the week at Guerilla News Network)

Digital Empowerment vs. Workforce Development

April 28, 2003

(this was originally pubbed on Saturday, but I posted so much crap yesterday that it has fallen down the page & I wanted to put it back at the top So I remember to rewrite it.)

So, basically (&without revealing too much classified information) here are some thoughts on the meeting I had yesterday at the LBJ school of Public Affairs with some doctor so&so or other and a few of my co-workers.

What seems to have been the gist of the meeting was they're trying to get a huge grant to undertake a project that will provide NGOs with a wide array of open source tools that will help them to do their jobs. The odd thing is this entire idea was framed within the context of using blogs as a means of creating easily updated & versatile portals into public service sites & communities. The goal is to work backwards providing the clients of non-profits & NGOs & small GOs a stair-step approach to becoming familiar with and literate in the front-and-back end applications in the process.

So, basically, this guy was saying that he gets paid about 50 times as much as I do to come up with the same idea as me. Hahahhahaha

OK, so I"m exaggerating a bit, but I have been attempting to get my bosses into the idea of using blogs both in our workplace and in the classroom to accomplish some of our unaddressed goals. I'm glad that now that Dr. Soandso has shown them the importance and validity of this, they might actually help me to take action.

Of course as always, my reason for desiring to do this and the party line in my organization differ dramatically & I really do wish my nice boss was working with me today so I could corner him and fire questions at him.

The deal is that, for some fucked up reason, our organization & apparently all orgs in the same line of work, are forced to construct curriculum in the context of workforce development. The assumption being that our poor, long-suffering, un-and-under-employed clients are chomping at the bit to compete for jobs that are only available to the privileged and/or well-connected anyway. Never mind that in the trenches it's apparent to me that a) these "poor downtrodden" folks are perfectly capable of internal compulsion without external reward AND not only that, there just aren't enough jobs to go around anyway.

It would seem that the people in power don't need to worry too much about this, as they have already ransacked the system to the point where these same people have literally no voice in government. Where corporations rule & no corporation seems to be the slightest bit interested in adding more payroll to the bottom line, it seems completely ridiculous to justify the existence of programs like mine by standards of "workforce development." So whenever that phrase comes up in converations with my associates, it becomes exceedingly difficult to not quite visibly stick my fingers down my throat to evoke the gag reflex - regardless of the prestige of the surroundings and host.

What we need IN ACTUALITY (and I know the word "reality" is a novel idea for my collegiate (read "overly-educated") co-horts (and it was amazing to me that the very person who scoffs at the fact that nice boss and I do not have degrees is the same person who was needing lay-person explanations of the concepts being discussed at the meeting.) Anyway...in ACTUALITY what we need is an empowered and vocally active citizenry to help right the wrongs of the current system.

The sneaky thing is that this goal can be accomplished using the same tools as our so-called workforce development angle.

Just to give you a brief explanation of all of the issues, in my mind, a community technology center ought to be addressing:

Level 1:
Provide proliferate broad-band cutting access to cutting-edge computers and software. This is not, as Michael Powell has alluded, replacing the digital divide with the Mercedes divide...because what we are actually addressing is the class divide, and you can't bridge the socioeconomic class divide when the majority of people who are already laps behind are shoved into barely drivable jalopies with the rest of us lap and re-lap them in our screamed-out ferraris.

Level 2:
Get people interested in and over their fear of computers through empathic and effective training programs and services. This enables people to better and more accurately participate in such a diverse range of activities as reading the news for free, finding interest groups & communities with like needs, and even operating new electronic voting machines with greater accuracy (and/or protesting their existence when they are shown to function in a way that is counter to the best interest of the people.)

Level 3:
Train people not only on basic applications such as MS office, but also on practical application of the computer as an educational/informational tool. Develop media savvy and discernment among underrepresented populations, broaden the bases and shine up the bullshit detectors. Open doors to community groups and provide consulting in how computers can be used for advocacy and sociopolitical advocacy.

Level 4:
& this is one we are so far missing, but this is also one that could, potentially, fed the other 3 as giving people a voice online & creating communities for a wide-variety of underrepresented groups will make the other steps more self-satisfying. Who the fuck wants to join a party already in progress that you weren't invited to & at which people are busily actively and passively excluding you? It's important for everyone to have their own safe space at the table...their own plate from which others can't steal, but is able to be shared from with discretion. Currently underrepresented groups need to be allowed to create a strong online presence & this can be done partially using blogs. We have tried this with HTML classes, but the learning curve is such that it makes it nearly impossible for our clients to nurture the power of their voices. Blogs involve a one-time investment in time to create the code for the template, (and not even necessarily, as premade templates are widely available) and endless applications for content creation.

And, in my experience with blogs, the more you create content, the more you learn about the coding, and then, eventually, the more likely is there to be interest in more of the server-side functionings.

This is where the revolution will happen. Opening the 'net to those who are currently disenfranchised and disempowered by a system that knows damn well it's perpetuation both relies on and is a result of this disempowerment.

If we can sneak people in through this back door before it, too, becomes usurped by the oligarchical media conglomerates, we may have a fighting chance

**I'm probably going to work on this article quite a bit (meaning, mostly, removing my snide analogies and adding some references) and submit it to my organization to hopefully help them to understand that workforce development is a very short-sighted goal. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I just need to say one more thing.

April 28, 2003

My dear husband has spontaneously sprouted a bleeding heart and has decided that it's imperative that our primarily outdoor cats be kept indoors through baby bird season (this was prompted by the adorable baby blue jays he found on Friday...pictures forthcoming). While I think it's incredibly crushworthy (I hate it when I get a crush on my damn husband) that he is doing this, it's also a pain in the ass, as Bela, the grey kitty, has spent the last 72 hours caterwauling like she's in heat. L has deduced that she's actually saying "prowl! prowl! prowl!"

& if i don't go to bed and get two closed doors between myself and this damn cat, I'm going to start throwing things at her.

wait...first I have to say that the now defunct full bleed was linked up at two blogs that have resulted in an inundation of hits there & I am so so bummed that I can't redirect people here. But, oh well. Maybe there's enough halfway decent writing there to keep people occupied until they figure it out.

A Busy Week...

April 28, 2003

K. So those of you who are convinced that I'm just another one of those hip slacker types should know that I actually have a very busy week planned this week. Filled with meetings and stuff...like, as in, I will actually have to work.

Here's the rundown, as i need to add these things to my spiffy new PDA (since now I don't have the old "Well, if you would GET ME a PDA, I would be able to REMEMBER all of this stuff" excuse anymore.)

Monday
-Our regularly scheduled every-other-week meeting from 3:30-5:00
-An HTML curriculum meeting from 6-?? (this means I need to run to work after the meeting and try to remember all of the stuff I had thought needed changing)
-There's supposed to be an anti-war meetup at Flightpat at 8, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Tuesday
-Meet with David about creating blog curriculum

Wednesday
-Just my normal every day work stuff.

Thursday
-Meet with the people who are doing the workforce development training (This means I have to spend some time looking through the instructor guide they gave me and identify what should be changed to better suit our curriculum)

Friday
I'm off work, bub

Saturday
-Taking the day off to participate in the Showdown in Texas

Sunday
Off work again

Monday
-Blogging/open source meeting

And I am just CERTAIN I'm forgetting something. Several somethings. And, of course, this does not include all of the fun adventures I have while wearing my mama cape during the day...those adventures would be:

Monday
-Stay at home and attempt to clean up the house a bit

Tuesday
-Unschooler park day

Wednesday
-Young Explorers co-op

Thursday
-Austin Area Homeschooler Park Day

Friday
-We'll probably have a nice hike

Saturday
-I'll be busy at the showdown

Sunday
-Dunno yet. Maybe I'll go to the library.

Shit. That's a full week. I should probably attempt to get some sleep. Nighty night.

I lied

April 27, 2003

The previous post wasn't my last post for now. This one is. hahahaha.

I'm about to leave the glorious un air conditioned splendor of my workplace and head back home where the children are hyper, the husband is grouchy, and the lawn needs to be mowed (or is it mown? Or does anyone really give a fuck?)

But I would like to say that it's been a successful day in that I found a pair of used Addidas for 5 bux at Savers, and it feels good (albeit very strange) to be wearing a pair of shoes with arches. I'm sure it will make the mile long hike to the bus stop a bit less painful, and I'm sure these shoes are more breathe-worthy than my non-leather boots, which should make anyone who has to smell my stinky feet on a regular basis quite happy. These shoes are leather, but they were used, and after about 15 years of debate with myself over whether it's ethical to wear used leather shoes, I think I've resolved that it is. That anything used is ethical. & if you don't agree, you can shove it...and then come back to me when you've spent 15 years thinking about it.

Um...what else?

I mapped out the route to DC and back using mapquest. It's subject to change, but it's looking like I'll be going from Austin to Memphis, Memphis to DC, DC to New York (?) New York to Chicago, Chicago to Champagne...and then back to Austin. There might be more anchor points added along the way, but that's what I've got for now. I think the kids and I can do 16 hour days, provided we're not in the car more than a few hours at a time. That would give us 12 hours of car time interspersed with several hour or so long breaks. And if I plan right, I can even take breaks at parks and forests rather than stupid old rest stops.

Hope everyone had a good day today. I was planning on getting back into reading up on war news, today, but apparently I am still needing a break from it. I had a relaxing meditation last night after the kids went to bed. I turned off all of the lights, lit some candles and incense, turned on some music...and then turned off the music and luxuriated in the darkness and silence. I felt good. I feel good. Truly happy. And I want to savor that for the time being before I throw myself back into the things that make me angry.

Next week is the showdown in Texas...and, while Mr. "Not the babysitter for the Revolution" is refusing to watch the children any more than usual, I do have 5 hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to spend on the streets, creating a presence of resistance deep in the heart of Texas.

One more, and then I think I need to go home

April 27, 2003

OK, m would never ever EVER go for this, but I'm one of these people who enjoys learning about all of the rules of grammar that I make an almost conscious effort to violate ruthlessly on a regular basis. To that end, this site is pretty fun.

Teachers for Social Justice

April 27, 2003

Damn...this makes me wish I was in Chicago...but it's a good resource regardless.

The megaPenny project

April 27, 2003

I thought this link was interesting.

(yes, I'm still cleaning out my inbox...there are like 4000 e-mails in there.)

Wildlife Art

April 27, 2003

I need to get radical homeschoolers dot org back up and running, so I can link up awesome websites like this one. Basically, it's an interactive journal site that allows you to choose your inspirational nature image and music, and write down whatever you feel about it. Amazing stuff.

Cleaning out my inbox

April 27, 2003

I found this link about the worldview of a 5-year old Waldorf-homeschooled child, as illuminated during a conversation following the viewing of the movie Powaqqatsi:

So how, if they don't have anything, can they be better than us?

"Because they DON'T HAVE ANYTHING. They are only busy. They work all day, together - everyone was helping everyone. Even the small children like Zynnia (2) carried things, heavy things to help the people."

Yes, I saw that but I still don't understand why or how that would make you say they are 'better people'.

"They are not spoiled with too much. We have everything and we are spoiled because I never carried anything heavy."

Would you like me to give you heavy things to carry?

"I would like to help. I would like to work. I would like to help everybody!"

& from the same e-mail list, but on the evil side of the spectrum, there is a link to this site.

Road Trip Planning...

April 27, 2003

I'm starting to get the fever for this road trip idea, and I've made some preliminary plans for how'm going to get there. It's looking like I can keep it affordable if I spend 20 bux or less a day on food & I canNOT purchase any extras like souvenirs and whatnot, which I'm pretty good at resisting, provided we can make it to a visitor's center and get our free map to remember where we've been and all.

L's all anxious about me traveling alone, which is weird because, um, I did drive to Portland OR and back by myself a few summers ago, and I took a trip to Chicago by myself one winter. With the kids both times...not to mention all of the other modes of travel I've used to get me and one or both of the children from point a to point b over the years. I'm not worried. In fact, this should be easier than the Portland trip and the Chicago trip because cy's actually able to walk well and m's used to being a big brother and has been a big help with keeping cy out of trouble around the house. I'm very fortunate that m is the oldest, because he's totally safety conscious. All I have to do is tell him an activity (such as hitting his brother in the backseat and making all sorts of racket, for instance) is dangerous, and he generally stops. hahahahaha. Let's just hope I don't abuse that too much (ex: "m...talking is very dangerous. Please don't say anything for the next 50 miles" - which I'm SURE I used at some point in the mountains between Montana and Idaho.)

Speaking of which, the route I want to take will go right through the Appalachians. I'm going to see what Mapquest has to say about that, and I realized that the atlas I'm using to plan things is from 1995, and there might be some new roads by now...so that needs to be one of the purchases I make in preparation for the trip.

We need to pack light if we're going to be traipsing back with a car full of people, but I think I can deal with that. I might see if I can borrow a rooftop luggage carrier from someone, but it seems like I'll be staying places with washers and dryers and stuff, and I don't mind being stinky for days if it's for a good cause. hahahaha.

So, here are some of the things I need to do get ready for the trip:

• L needs to do the damn taxes so I can be SURE that we're getting an adequate amount of money back

• I need to get the brakes done on the car, and make sure my cutey mechanic feels that the car is roadworthy

• I need to get a new jack, since the old one is crapped (I should probably do that sooner than later, as I'm currently driving around without a jack.)

• I'd LIKE to get a fancy-pants mp3 player with car kit (this is one of those luxury items that suddenly has become a seeming necessity.)

• I need to either add roadside assistance to my insurance policy, or I need to sign up for a triple A membership before it's too late to activate it before the trip

• Thankfully, I have enough luggage, coolers, water bottles, and various other incidentals (like a car charger for my celly & an adaptor for other electric devices) to get us through. So there's not much BUYING I need to do, but I would like to get a few very portable toys for the kids & some things that make eating on the go a little easier like sippy cups (which I do not have at all. How weird is it that cy has never really used a sippy cup before?) Maybe I'll exchange some of our toys with some other families so the kids have something new to play with on the road. Sticker books, magnetic puzzles, and sewing cards would do the trick, too. m, ever the trooper, has always been a pretty content little traveler guy, so I'm mostly worried about cy.

• I need to come up with a few good recipes for basic foods we can eat on the road. PB&J is the obvious choice for something cheap and simple, but it's also messy. Trail mix, nuts, veggies and fruit...and lots and lots of garbanzos. I bet we'll be really pleasant to be around by the time we get where we need to go.

• I'm probably going to just use disposable diapers on the trip. We've been using them a lot lately anyway. Ever since the dryer broke and we started keeping disposables around the house, L's been getting pretty reliant on them. It pisses me off, but it's a pretty minor thing to get aggravated about. There's just not going to be room in the car to tote around a bunch of cloth diapers & it's only 2 weeks, so I'm not going to sweat it. I'll make it up to mother nature somehow.

• The dog. L doesn't want to watch her while I'm out of town. I can't bring her with. I need to find someone who will take care of the dog. I'm hoping this won't be a too much of a problem.

• I still would really like to convince L that it would be more realistic for us to rent out the back room of the house rather than let him use it for his giant computer room/office. It would ease my mind a great deal if I knew we were going to be getting a steady flow of extra money every month. As it is, I'm losing 100 bux a month, as I will not be babysitting K over the summer.

It really seems like I'm forgetting something, but I don't think I am. I guess after having done this a few times, I've accumulated the tools I need to make the trip go off smoothly, particularly the know-how, esp. with regard to what I need to bring and what I don't need at all. I'm trying to decide if I should bring the computer along. It'd be good to leave it behind, but I might need it for something. Who knows. I'll just wait and see how full the car is and decide then.

I'm still crossing my fingers hoping that the money comes together and everything falls into place, but if I get 500 or so bucks from my employer to put toward the trip, and if my travel partners who are coming home with me don't flake (you hear that, ladies? NO FLAKING!!!) it seems totally do-able & not just that, but it seems like it would be a mistake to NOT do it.

(& I just realized that I have a check for like 250 bux floating around here somewhere that I was going to use to fix the dryer...but I can just use the clothesline instead until we get more money, so I can use that for the trip. Just a little priority shift is all it takes for me to get what I want.)

Crush Mix

April 26, 2003

Hey...I only have one potential crush candidate for May. What gives? I know my hit count dropped by like half when I moved over here, but where is the love, people?

That said, I have finally solidified the crush mix for those lucky people who allow themselves to be subjected to my obsessive attentions for the month. Here's a song list, in case it interests ya:

Chumbawamba - Look, No Strings!
The Cure - Just like Heaven
REM - Superman
Mission of Burma - Forget
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love?
John Coltrane - Just for the Love
Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line
Cibo Matto - Moon Child
Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
Pretenders - Back on the Chain Gang
Dog Faced Hermans - How We Connect
Mazzy Star - She's My Baby
the Cramps - Can't Hardly Stand It
Dead Can Dance - Persian Love Song
PJ Harvey - Who Will Love Me Now?
Pogues - A Pair of Brown Eyes
Stereo Total - Ich Libe Dich Alexander
Nick Cave - Brompton Oratory
Stereo Total - Love With the Three of Us

As with all things I promise, I'll get it to you when I get it to you. And apologies in advance for the long delays. hahahaha

frickin frack!

April 26, 2003

It's like I have to have mafia connections to figure out how to sign my freaking child up for a sports team around here. I've been searching endlessly for some sort of webpage that says something like "registration for this sport occurs on this date at this time" and I got nothin. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Sigh.

I guess I'm going to have to use the good old fashioned telephone machine on this one, folks. Time for the phone-a-phobe to step outta her box.

(speakingawhich...I think I might have found another long lost friend while snooping through internet white pages & I might have to try calling that number, too)

UPDATE:

You think I'm gonna need to blow this guy to get information out of him? Here's the e-mail exchange:

I wrote:

Hi,

I have a 6 year old son who would like to join a soccer team, but I can't find information about when and where registration happens. Can you send me some information, please?

Drucilla Blood

He replied:

All depends where you live.

Um...ok. So I suppose I'm going to have to send about 20 gazillion e-mails just to sort all of this out. Have park district youth sports not discovered the advantage of, say, brochures and websites? Handy informational things? ARRRRRGH!

UNbefuckinglievable

April 25, 2003

Yomama sent me to this article:

Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding her son.

"He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This woman just assaulted me.' ... He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge."

She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal charges for an act of war upon an American.

I suppose it wouldn't have helped for her to squirt them all in the fucking eyes...

A coupla random thoughts.

April 25, 2003

Today I was walking around, noticing tree trunks. And, I dunno if it's just this weird spring kinda romantic buzz I got going, but damnit, tree trunks are SEXY. Has anyone else noticed this?

And also today, I chanced to attend a meeting that basically justified the amount of time I've spent blogging when i shoulda been working. Which is to say that blogging is going to probably become more a part of my job than had been the case previously & I might even get to blog about work on my own work blog. Pretty nift. & also, I'm going to be writing a curriculum for a blogging class & I'm hoping I can do that while I'm in DC with some of my favorite bloggers on earth...so they can help me and stuff. We can confab. Innat what business people do?

On the way out of the building at the LBJ school today, my boss (who also does not have a degree) got a dirty look when he said "See...we're so much smarter than these people." which was basically true, for him at least. He probably knows way more about the stuff we discussed today than the people who were doing the discussing.

Anyway, it was a good day, and I got to do lots of walking around, and even though it's like 5 million degrees outside, I hardly broke a sweat.

More on non-monogamy

April 25, 2003

Suzanne brought up some cogent points in her response to my earlier post about monogamy and anarchy (or autonomy would actually be a better way to put it.) And, in fact, one of the things I wrote in my paper journal earlier this week that never made it to electric is this:

& don't think I'm not aware of the irony in the fact that hte very yearning to be intimate with everyone might actually be the thing that leaves me alienated by so many. Ha ha!

There's a lot in my history that would attest to this fact, and I actually naturally came upon a way of coping with my mad desire to love everyone. For so many years, I actually thought it was a bona fide pathology & many have told me as much as well, but now I see that it is a valid method for coping with the disparity between my desire to be intimate with a large amount of people, and the social construct of monogamy that prevents it. Wanna know what it is?

I don't have sex!

Wow. All those years of saying no because I knew once I said yes I was somehow obligated, and I never wanted to be obligated. & now that I'm older and have a more mature attitude about sex and actually desire sex, it's STILL preferable for me to abstain from sex rather than close myself off to other people. Which is not to say that I ALWAYS abstain, but I most always do, and I'm fairly sexually monogamous...if that makes any sense.

How cool. Thanks for helping me knock that one out, Suzanne. I'm sure I'll talk more about this later, but for now I'm remembering fondly the wonderful sleepover parties I used to have...a different man each night tucked up in my warm bed, telling stories, laughing, and snuggling in gleeful autonomy.

Madcap adventure.

April 25, 2003

So, I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with one miss lorraine last night, who is altogether too frequently ABSENT from the computer, but who also haps to live in the DC area where I'm hopin hoping hoping to be come end of June.

And the best part is that word has it Ms. Pear has alluded to a desire to traipse back to Austin with me, having hopeful adventures all the way home. Including maybe a drop-in on miz insane.

So, we're kidnapping Lorraine and the three of us mamas and our respective broods are going to hop in the car and drive and drive and no doubt laugh and laugh and have one hell of a time. Don't you wish you were us?

I just told Lorraine fuck it...if my car breaks down, I'll just have to move in with her and adam and live there forever. Bahahahahahaha. How rich do I feel to know such delightful people?

Meanwhile, I'm having a hell of a blast at artery & you really should join up and throw down some spontaneous prose/poetry/wordart/play with us. It's really quite fun to do & I'm hoping it's fun to read, as well.

Anyway, look...it's another beautiful day (is what I used to say very emphatically to c every fucking morning two years ago when my world was crumbling & all I had was my own damn optimism to get me through. & looky now, it's the first thing I think when I open my eyes. Hows that for some hardcore brainwashment) & I need to go wander around in it. Hope you are all well.

Stupidhead (by m)

April 24, 2003

Today I HARDLY argued with dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, I KIND of liked lunch. Duh! I ALWAYS kind of like MEALS. Really! Lunch is a MEAL...that's a snack. Beause, ahem, it's called lunch because it's in. the af-ter-noon. Blah blah blah! ::sigh:: ::giggle::

AND breakfast was TOTALLY good! Besides, I always like pancakes and that's what's for breakfast, blah blah blah! And I played THREE hours of computer. Two on dad's shift, one on mom's shift. And they were ALL on Fox kid's pack 2. I love that game! Especially mini-car racing & hyperball! Dad played Alchemist. Duh! Dad REMEMBERS. HOW. TO. PLAY. IT! Blah Blah Blah...yadda yadda yadda. Duh Duh Duh.

Of course, I played with c and c tortured me, and of course I did THREE CHORES, plus brushed my teeth. I mean, BY MY SELF!

The end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OOOOOH...new toy!

April 24, 2003

(pardon me while I have some Quality Time.)

Sometimes you just gotta read Abbie

April 24, 2003

This entry just cracked me up...but the whole blog is a work of sheer genius. Here, Abbie the Cat describes certain, er, procedures:

the treatmtnt at the hostpial is not one i would recommend to a friend or acquintance first you get a shot and get real sleepy and when your guard is down thats when they jump in with a big frily collar that makes your head stick out and then that's when they put a tube where a tube shouldNOT GO amnd I MEAN THAT emphatically

m Picks

April 24, 2003

Since it seems to be a m kind of day, I thought I'd post a couple faves of the moment:

His favorite joke (mine, too)
Why was 6 afraid of 7?
Because 7, 8, 9!

His favorite poem (Blueroses' Gaby will like this, too)
The Bells of London

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's

You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's

When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I'm sure I don't know,
Says the Great Bell of Bow.

(& this is m's fave part)

Here comes the candle
to light you to bed.
Here comes the chopper,
to chop off your head.

(insert wild gales of laughter.)

m Woke Up First.

April 24, 2003

You know there's been some sort of crucial universal shift when m is the first one to wake up in the morning. But that's only because c didn't wake up at his usual 7:30 time this morning, for once. It's too bad I had a godawful nightmare last night and couldn't get back to sleep. I was actually so freaked out, I crawled into L's arms and started crying. I'm a wimp about nightmares, but thankfully I don't have them very often. I can't even remember what it was about, but it was just...frightening. It left an afterscare. Something about home invasion and biting dogs and on top of it all a broken heart (to boot). How very odd. The funny part is that I remember in the dream they took everything & left my laptop. BAhahahahahaha. See, had I actually thought about that last night, I would have just laughed instead of cried, but I think maybe the reason I had the dream was more to drive me to L than to freak me out or make me laugh. Which was OK. I probably need to try to be close to L more than I do. Perhaps there's hope after all somewhere in there. I'm not counting on it...but it's a possibility.

So anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. m woke up first this morning, and like the little butt that he is, he instantly said "OK everyone! I'm awake! Time to get up!" That kid would FREAK if we woke him at 7 when we normally wake up. I just lifted my arm up from the bed and pointed to the door. (YOu should know that m, in an act of civil disobedience, has proclaimed that he's going to be sleeping in the family bed until I let him start playing Age of Empires again. hahahahaha.)

It didn't take me long to get up after him. No sense laying there being kicked by a half-awake c. So, here I am, and the cool part is that m is "babysitting" c for half an hour as one of his daily chores, so I have time to read and writing and whatever WITHOUT having to find something to distract c with.

I think I could learn to live with m waking up first.

More Arguments against Monogamy

April 24, 2003

My Ideal Partner:

• Is a man
  
• Is a woman
  
• Is neither a man nor a woman
  
• Is both a man and a woman
  
• Is tall
  
• Is short
  
• Is in between tall and short
  
• Likes to talk
  
• Savors silence
  
• Listens
  
• Is not afraid to tell me to shut up (and can do it w/o animosity)
  
• Knows when I'm lying, and knows when to let me get away with it
  
• Demands the truth at all times
  
• Has strong hands
  
• Has weak hands
  
• Has no hands
  
• Can encircle me
  
• Knows when to get the fuck out of my way
  
• Lets me win
  
• Holds me accountable
  
• Kicks my ass (NOT literally)
  
• Is an absolute mystery
  
• Is completely open and honest
  
• Takes care my children
  
• Takes care of me
  
• Knows that I can take damn good care of myself
  
• Is independent
  
• Likes to be pampered
  
• Kisses my ass
  
• Is completely sincere
  
• Totally agrees with everything I say and do and stand for
  
• Is not afraid to argue with me
  
• Is not afraid to be argued with
  
• Is not afraid to be agreed with
  
• Raises counterpoints without coming off as being intentionally confrontational
  
• Doesn't care that I am frequently intentionally confrontational
  
• Knows that I'm always secretly smiling through the confrontation
  
• Does not feel judged by me, even when I'm being judgmental
  
• Can deal with the fact that I'm easily distracted
  
• Knows how to get me to focus when necessary
  
• Can laugh with me
  
• Can laugh at me
  
• Can be laughed at and with
  
• Can just laugh...for no fucking reason at all
  
• Is handy
  
• Lets me take care of things.
  
• Has a soft voice
  
• Has a loud voice
  
• Moves gracefully
  
• Is a big dolt
  
• Thinks I'm cool
  
• Thinks I'm a total nerd
  
• Loves me for my intelligence
  
• Loves me for my sense of humor
  
• Loves me for my freak
  
• Has brown eyes
  
• Has green eyes
  
• Has blue eyes
  
• Likes to travel
  
• Likes to stay home and take care of the pets while I travel
  
• Earns an honest living
  
• Stays home and makes art all day
  
• Is intelligent
  
• Is wise
  
• Makes a lot of mistakes, but learns from them
  
• Is creative
  
• Is thrifty
  
• Gives
  
• Takes
  
• Is predictable
  
• Is spontaneous
  
• Can cook, and does
  
• Can clean, and does
  
• Is an artist
  
• Is a poet
  
• Is a thief
  
• Is a businessperson
  
• Wants to hug me
  
• Wants sex
  
• Wants to snuggle
  
• Wants to sit in the same room as me and read books, silent and distant
  
• Just wants to lie next to me and listen to the doves
  
• Lets me run off at the mouth
  
• Knows when to shut me up with kisses.
  
• Knows when to placate me
  
• Knows when to beat a hasty retreat.
  
• (...)(and I'm sure I'll be adding to this list all day)
  

My willingness to compromise:

• Practically not at all

(It's not that I don't know what I want. It's just that I want everything. hahahahaha)

Things that make me very sad.

April 23, 2003

I can only avoid the war news for so long before I go and read something like this, and I feel the bile rising. There simply has to be another way. Because shit like this is unacceptable:

For some of the younger men of Cyclone Company, it is hard to piece together war memories into a coherent story. "Did this look like a war to you?" asked Spc. Royce Arcay, 26. "I've never been to a war, but it sure didn't seem like what they put on TV.... It's just kind of weird looking at dead bodies. They don't look real. I never thought I'd see dead bodies like that, or body parts."

Bodies killed by the powerful 120-millimeter main guns of an Abrams M-1A1 tank, or its mounted machine guns, don't lie in quiet repose with neat red circles for wounds. They are mangled, blown apart and burned beyond recognition.

m 3000

April 23, 2003

We played with flashlights in the hallway, blah blah blah. I even made TWO reports.

Number 1: It was about how a rocket gets off the ground.

Number 2: How the sun comes up and the sun goes down and the moon comes up and the moon comes down.

Then we ate lunch. But while we were playing with flashlights, I even made a cartoon about dinosaurs for mom! Can you believe it? Even T. Rex! My favorite! I mean, whoah! Dinosaurs are so cool!

Well, lunch was even better than that. Cuz you know me, I've been STARVING these days. But now I'm luckily eating some garbanzos. Mm. They're DELICIOUS.

::sigh:: I've also been tired today, so I took a nap while dad was watching me. Ah. And of course, my baby brother has been torturing me. Cuz, you know c, he is SO BAD!! I mean, if you meet c, and you're, you know, whoever's reading this that's a man better not go near c because...he thinks EVERYBODY'S dad! I mean, he just LOVES men!

My favorite uncle is Uncle Robert. ::sigh:: ::sigh:: We used to have a, you know, someone that rented one of our rooms for a long time. His name is Adam. Room. Dad's room. We got some money from him of course. DUH! That's what room owners that didn't live in our house before DO!

Blah blah blah...la uh ug. ::burp:: ::giggle::

Well, there's one more thing I have to say "blahlajaljflkajl;jeon asfinesi"

::giggle::

(m pretends to pass out.)

::giggle::

oh, this is the REAL thing I had to say. I'm GLAD this is a REAL house I live in. AND I'm glad I'm the nicest kid in it. Duh! Of course! ::giggle!!!!!!!!!!!!::

I'm having one of those days...

April 23, 2003

Where I could just go on and on and fucking on. And I believe I have, in all of the various outlets I've provided for myself. This is the kind of day that I really SHOULD skip work and go hang out at k8s house and have mad arm-flailing conversations with her about life and love and lifelong love, but she's out of town, I'm 'fraid so you poor saps are just stuck with me. bahahahaha mwahahahahahahahahahaha.

Um, anyway...today was the perfect day for the Boatman's Call which I threw into my little portable CD player to listen to on the way to the bus stop. It's grey and windy and absolutely lovely outside, especially when one considers the summer that is looming on the all-to-near horizon. So, I listened to the Boatman's call, trying hard to not think about that monstrosity that Nick Cave released recently that I've been able to listen to for exactly 20 minutes total in the 4 or 5 attempts I've made of listening.

But Boatman's call is the perfect compromise for those of us who want Mr. Cave to live forever, and continue to put out music. It's surprisingly mellow, gorgeously lyrical, and heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The entire CD is a testament to love and it's myriad stages. It contains some of the most wonderful love songs, as well as one of the sexiest few stanzas in the history of music, from "Brompton Oratory":

And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe

A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips.

No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, babe,
Of bringing me to my knees.

Just. Absolutely. Lovely.

So, the damn fine day continues and will continue as I'm here at work, where I always manage to enjoy myself. & my stomach growls, but I just might go get myself a sammich or something.

Another kick ass day

April 23, 2003

So in spite of the ominous beginning to the day, which came in the form of an accusation that learning doesn't happen here. (as in, a certain fellow habitant of the house hinted broadly before leaving "Great! Everyone is up! Now start homeschooling." As IF, dude.) But anyway, disagreements about what homeschooling looks sounds acts or tastes like aside, the naysayer made his exit, and the kids and I proceeded through the day with a typical amount of controlled chaos, and more than a little bit of fun. Actually, I say this quite proudly, the boys spent the first half of the morning fighting for my affections, and there was much dancing and merry making before I finally tired of that and, conveniently, they found a flashlight and spent about an hour making light shows in the darkened hallway.

I participated in this for a little while, long enough to hear m perform an excellent essay on the solar system, and act out a movie about dinosaurs. We need to write this stuff down, and papa's main complaint seems to be that the boy doesn't do enough writing, so probably later we'll sit down and write them down here or in his little journal. I just don't want to make it a chore to write, and I have a strong sense that, like reading, writing is something that just naturally occurs, and will start happening when the child is damn good and ready, just like everything else that child chooses (or doesn't choose) to do. What I'm saying is if I make it a requirement, it's a damn sure way to ensure that he absolutely hates in. & mr pighead (& in spite of our differences, I say this with the complete knowledge that I am, in fact, MIZ pighead in the flesh...therefore our children are pigheads to the nth power (b/c who knows how many pigheads have preceeded us hahahahaha).

At any rate, I was amused and amazed by m's perspicacity on the subjects reported, and was feeling a bit redeemed about the educational choices we've made. Sometimes you just have to pay attention to what's happening around you. Close attention. To note the progress.

Anyway, after that, and a couple of hours of tumbling and tickling interspersed with my insane need to write write write whatever thoughts happen to pop into my head (and I've taken to writing on paper for the most part, for I fear that I will come off and insane and obsessed if I chose to write everything down here) I found myself in the living room alone and the house...strangely silent. I held out for as long as I could before checking on them, and found both of them laying on the bed, with m reading library books to c. Both of them content as could be. It was glorious. Absolutely.

m's been an angel all day, and I'm glad of it. I needed a break from that other m that comes to visit on a regular basis and attempts to dominate the household with his loud and or aggressive behavior.

Right now, they are enjoying a snack, and I'm thinking about curling up with birdy boy afterwards and perhaps having a tasty nap of my own before embarking on the walk to the bus stop in the rain. I'm looking forward to all of it, as well as what comes next.

Completing the thought...

April 23, 2003

The connection between monogamy and the capitalist system alluded to in the previous post just occurred to me as I was giving birdy c more raisins. It's about the fallacy of scarcity. In a system of capitalism, we are taught to compete because there is "not enough" (and yet there's no limit placed on the expenditures of those individuals and societies which are deemed "successful")

It's the same way in love. We are taught to fear competition in love, because we fear there is somehow not enough to go around. Maybe I'm just easily satisfied, but there's plenty as far as I can see. Plenty to give and plenty to get. It's just a matter of figuring out how to loose the shackles of insecurity that this scarcity myth clamps down on us.

On a side note: it always cracks me up that if I express love to a man, it's somehow a threat to whatever other relationship I or they happen to be in, yet I love my female friends as deeply, and there's no perceived threat. Why is that? Is it heterosexism at work, or something else?

The crash

April 23, 2003

I suppose now would be a good time to note that the crash of hopelessness mentioned in the previous post occurred in the form of an e-mail from my travel partner stating that she will probably not be able to get the time off from work, so she is most likely unable to go with me. Blah. Bah.

So I'm back to square one on this road trip thing, which pretty much leaves me begging for money. So if ya got any to spare, go ahead and hit the paypal button and contribute to the roadtrip fund. My nice boss is finagling with the budget, trying to get us as much money as possible for the trip, so we'll see what he comes up with & hopefully it will all work out.

& Damnit...unless something goes horribly awry with our taxes, I'm just going to go. I'm tired of going back and forth on this one. We need to get out of here for a little while, and, while my travel partner is super cool and nice, the thought of going with just me and the kids sounds like a fun and exciting adventure. Too good to pass up.

Monogamy and Anarchy

April 23, 2003

I had a few conversations today that got me thinking about monogamy, and, after reading and posting something I wrote awhile back about absolute spiritual liberation:

I see a bird overhead and needn't envy for I, too, have wings. My wings sprout inwards. I am grounded, but forever soaring inside. My feet chained by gravity, but my soul unbound. Yes, bird AND tree. roots extended upwards to the sky. Unfettered, unhindered, inencumbered by the shackles of weighty obligations. I soar, and leave all of this earthliness behind me. The empty vessel serves as a ship upon which I sail, inside out. I am wasted, spent, but so alive, so breathingly free. All around me is mine with which I might do as I please. And all I please is to leave it unchanged. To allow it all to be as unhindered as I am. I give my surroundings the freedom to exist an doccur in its natural order so that I may truly understand the magic of life's undulations. Waves that can wash in fortune or grief. It is all positive. All change is worthwhile. It all brings about new life.

I started thinking about those bread crumbs again. (That quoted piece, by the way, is only a segment of one of what I think the best things I have written in my entire life, and I wrote it like 8 years ago, so I better get cracking...although I do have a tendency to ALWAYS think what I'm writing in this moment is crap, and then go back and read in disbelief that I actually have any talent whatsoever...but anyway)

You know what I mean about bread crumbs, don't you? Those little things we save that remind us of the path we're supposed to take in life. For instance, one of my favorite things about the above-quoted piece is that the initial Tao te Ching quotation was something that I wrote down on a piece of paper when I was like 10 years old and taking some sort of weird philosophy summer class for some sort of gifted program. I am quite certain that the thirty spokes thing made only a marginal degree of sense to me at the time I wrote it down, but I thought it was purty and deep, and I think I was just discovering boys at the time, so I'm sure I thought it would impress someone that I knew some of that philosophizing stuff.

Pack fucking rat that I am, I saved that slip of paper for years and years before I found it one day and wrote the "endtro" as a capstone to a zine I was doing called bAnal Probe. The issue was all about cages, and had a picture of a caged bird on the cover. It's one of my favorite issues of all time, and it's one of my favorite pieces.

And I keep going back to it. Like many things I have written. I am fortunate to have been blessed with the good sense (or rampant egotism) to save almost everything I have written, and there are times when reading over that stuff can save my sanity. I have a tendency to go shooting off in one direction or another...unabashed unabaiting joy, or doomgloom depression, and I frequently need to center myself. I'm thankful that the 8-years ago me thought to throw that little bread crumb out for myself, and that I have been able to keep the birds away from it long enough to find it tonight, when I needed a little centering for fear of zooming right off the edge of the earth, as sometimes happens when sheer hopelessness collides with chronic bliss.

So, anyway, that's what I mean by breadcrumbs. I'm gonna talk about what the hell this all has to do with anarchy down below. Just click that little more text button there if you wanna read further...

OK. Here we are. Anyway, what I'm thinking is this. And what you might not know is that my current marital situation is not so good. I mean, as L is a man who I loved enough to have children with, and as L is a man for whose talents I have great admiration and respect, it's difficult for me to talk about this. I don't want to violate what little trust is left between us, but truth be told...things are in a shambles here. I would love to love him completely and earnestly and unrepentently. I once did. But he's somewhere else right now, and I'm sure he feels the same about me. And this is about all I feel comfortable saying about the situation without compromising his right to privacy.

But I've been struggling with the idea of monogamy for awhile now, in the context of my relationship with L, as well as in the other relationships I've had in my life. And I have not yet been able to understand the point of monogamous relationships. It seems to much like restriction of love to fulfill some sort of weird social code that doesn't really have validity. Monogamy does not ensure eternal love, nor does it ensure a cohesive family unity. If anything, it would seem that the protectiveness and jealousy that frequently is part and parcel with monogamy would undermine these things.

For myself, I feel like I was born with an inordinate amount of love, to the point where, as I've said before, I find it difficult to not go around hugging strangers on the bus. I can't believe I'm the only person who feels this way, either. I don't think I'm all that special. I feel like many if not all of us were born with unending joy and love in all directions, and I feel that the more we are taught to stifle this, the more dissatisfied we become. When I'm here with L and he is depressive or pissy, past the anger, past the sadness at having lost him somewhere, beyond all of that resentment is this great urge to just be able to hug him and tell him he is so loved, without having him give me that look of utter disbelief. And I do love him, so very much. But not just him.

I think it's tough. I think monogamy is somehow connected with the social system we've constructed, but I'm not sure how. And I think I'm going to continue to struggle with my feelings about it until I figure it out.

In one of the conversations I had, I was talking about how "monogamy in action seems to be some sort of weird social experiment in the restraint of love." and the other person responded "or the ultimate expression of love." Which, I gotta hand it to him, is a very romantic notion, but a little too blood sacrifice-y to me. At the same time, I gotta say that I dunno what the answers are, but I have the same feeling about monogamy that I get about capitalism. Just because it's the current standard of business around these parts, does not necessarily mean it's the only way of doing things.

This is not to say that I want to go around sleeping with everyone I meet. However, I have a very strong need to form bonds with people. With many people. I always have had this urge & I'm pretty sure if I were to say this out loud in front of a therapist, I would be diagnosed with a pathology when the truth is that I just think people are really fucking cool, and I want to be imbedded in as many people as possible. And how can one do that with this monogamous partner breathing down her neck and getting all jealous and stuff. And how can one do that without pissing of the partners of the people one wishes to form bonds with?

It seems like a construct to me, rather than a natural urge or desire. I have it, too. Don't get me wrong. I'm as jealous as a mother fucker when it comes to my monogamous relationships...but I question that. I question the validity of that jealousy when, really, freedom means freedom. There's no such thing as restrictions of freedom, and how stupid is it that we would expect someone we love and care about to restrict the stuff that makes them lovable and worthy of care?

I'm still thinking it over. It's something I've mulled for some time now, and I'll probably be mulling it for the rest of my life. But as I stand on the edge of what could be the end of my relationship with my husband, I'm starting to wonder about the wisdom of embarking on any more relationships that have those implicit restrictions placed on them. I'm feeling like I need to put more thought into what I truly want out of my interactions with other people. I've always kind of felt like I have paired up with people just because if I didn't, someone else would, and then I would never have access to that person again...and I think that's kind of a sucky way for us to treat each other.

Why I love Chris.

April 23, 2003

Mostly because I can have conversations like this with him:

lgbdozer: my children
lgbdozer: are still
lgbdozer: AWAKE
lgbdozer: I am going to kill them both.**
chris: bad mommy
lgbdozer: and eat them.**
chris: when i was a babysitter
chris: i had a good trick
lgbdozer: you killed and ate the children?**
chris: i would spin the kids around till they got real dizzy then put them in bed
lgbdozer: chris
lgbdozer: ?
chris: ?
lgbdozer: these are my children we are talking about.
chris: LOL
lgbdozer: they don't fall for that makin' em dizzy shit.
lgbdozer: Rank amateur
lgbdozer: ;)
chris: hahahaha

**Disclaimer: Neither Drucilla Blood, nor any of her conglomerates or subsidiaries advocate the killing and eating of small children.

my pal r@d@r

April 22, 2003

I'm kinda taking a break from writing about current events so I can regain some energy. I'm sure I'll be back to my old ranting and raving self pretty soon, but until then, mr. r@d@r is doing a fine job of reporting over at his little corner of surreally dot net. That'll be ten demerits, mr. r@d@r, for not tracking back to blogs against war. Don't make me have to stop this car, now.

Fretting the rain

April 22, 2003

The old mood was starting to take a nosedive b/c the weather is not conducive to park play, and then I remembered it's T-U-E-S-D-A-Y! And I can go visit sweet Rosa Maria over there doing time at meywrench.

So lunch, then meywrench, so's I won't have to nurse this joy hangover alone. And maybe I can make a dent in Of Wolves and Men, which is one of my most favorite books of all time. yippee!

Top of the morning...

April 22, 2003

I tell you, I have no idea what business I have being up this early in the morning, but at least the conversation is good (on one side, anyway). c's first words of the day were "I mista c" and, after pausing to consider, "you mista mama!" and erupted into a volcano of giggles.

That's right, my little elf. You just start the day with laughter and everything seems to fall into place.

(I can't believe how frequently I forget that nothing else matters.)

I still really love my job

April 21, 2003

It's been a long time since I went on and on about how great my job is. Today, I opened the door of my li'l office to find a beautiful and fragrant yellow rose in a fluted vase on the desk. A thank you for working some extra hours at the special event that I spoke of earlier. How very sweet.

But it's not just that, it's the clients. It's the conversations with the people I work with day in and day out. It's the fact that everyone is so nice and appreciative and willing to share their trials and victories with us. It's the fact that last week one of our favorite clients was dying in a hospital and his wife continued to come to class, I think because it's just a nice place to be, and today he's here with her, tired but here learning. And I think that's so fucking inspiring. Our clients are so inspirational to me. And it's good to have a place where I can be among adult human beings who struggle and succumb and overcome and have such a diverse array of histories and experiences. And they think *I'M* teaching *THEM*!

It's absolutely a blessing. I'm feeling incredibly blessed today.

Road Trip

April 21, 2003

It's looking pretty damn likely that I WILL in fact be going to DC near the end of June. We WON'T be shooting over to Chicago, though...which at this point is fine. by. me. We might instead go exploring around that part of the world to see what we can see. I have a brother in Joisey and a soulbrother in Boston and far flung friends, I'm sure, I'm not thinking of yet.

Anyone between Austin and DC and anyone in the northeast can e-mail me and give me contact info so we can go get caffeinated together.

And cross your fingers for me. It's not yet definite, but if I don't talk myself out of it, I think it's pretty damn feasible.

This is interesting...

April 21, 2003

Now that I've finished reading the book, I'm totally missing my meywrench pals. And to think I only just last week scoffed audibly at my management assistant for expressing morbidity over the conclusion of his role playing game.

dja-ever have a book that affected you that way? What was it, so I can add it to my reading list.

And my kingdom (and a blog crush) for someone who can create a meywrench gang blog along the lines as those bush and co blogs.

This is so m.

April 21, 2003

(click to make it big)

I can totally picture m sending letters to Amnesty International about the totalitarian regime (led by a brutal dictatorship, no less) that is our home.

More Boondocks here.

Artery

April 21, 2003

I set up a free-form stream of subconsciousness prose blog for a coupla few anonymous friends of mine. If yr into that kind of thing, you can find it here. I was thinking about adding more people if anyone wanted to be added, but the two work so well together that I don't wanna now. But you can comment in prose if you'd like.

More Crushing

April 21, 2003

I have a major crush on rudolph the red hayduke and seldom seen smith. Someone needs to make a fake meywrench gang blog and I'd be all over that sucker.

This is all.

ABC's of Anarchism

April 20, 2003

The ABCs of Anarchism

Conclusion
There is a certain social process which is known and very visible but perhaps not acknowledged as much as it should be. It is that one where a new idea or an old one in new form, is accepted by a minority, while the majority is shouting treason, rubbish, kook, communist, anarchist, capitalist, or whatever is a term of abuse valued by that society--infringer--and they develop this idea, at first probably in secrecy or semi-secrecy, and then more and more visible, with more and more support until, guess what? What? This seditious and impossible wrong-headed idea, becomes what is known as... what? ...received opinion and is loved and valued... what? ...by the majority. What? What?
Conclusion
Look people, you heard it on the radio
I get...
You seen it on the TV show
Uh oh
OK, A B I O C O C C C...
OK, OK, you better listen to me good, 'cause this is the ABCs of Anarchism
A B C OK
We'll be singin' when we're singing
We'll be singin'
Where have the tele-tubbies gone?
I get knocked down but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me
I get knocked but I down but I get you're never gonna keep me
Get, never gonna keep me, but I get up again
I get knocked up
Piss, piss, piss, piss
I wanna be be be be be
OK OK OK
anarchy
You better listen to me good, 'cause this is the ABCs of anarchism
ABC
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result
I want to tell you about anarchism
Conclusion
Guess what?
I want to tell you about anarchism because I think that it is well that you should know all about it
Everything I want, is true
It's your responsiblity now to see that I get what I want
Conclusion
Guess what?
I want to tell you about anarchism because everything that you have heard about it is wrong
Got it? Wrong!
Because they can come back to you and say
Who can say what it is?
I want to tell you about anarchism because I believe anarchism is the finest and neatest thing that has ever been invented
There's no right and wrong, there's only people's arbitrary desires
I want to tell you about anarchism because anarchism is the only thing that can give you liberty and well-being and bring peace and joy to the world
You just have to remember whatever people think is right, is right, even if it isn't
So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I'll tell you what I really really want
So tell me what you want, what you really really want
I want an... an... an...
I wanna tell you in such plain and simple language that there will be no misunderstanding me
Facts?
But hold on a minute, just wait wait wait wait wait
Conclusion
Before I can tell you what anarchism is
I don't remember
Whiskey drink the country bunny tele-tubbies boutique located in Laurelwood across from Oak Court mall
Vodka drink the tele-tubbies childrens boutique located in Laurelwood across from tele-tubbies mall
Lager drink certain men getting their way
Cider drink the anarchy childrens boutique located in bunny country country bunny
Big country bunny
Drink drink drink drink
We've never promoted some kind of cliched stand obviously not too... whatever
But hold on a minute, just hold on a minute, just wait, wait wait wait wait
Before I can tell you what anarchism is
Anarchism is not not not not
Conclusion
Just never ending you know it's just going to continue to continue until they win and beat us down into a pulp
I get we won't let that happen well one function here
I get knocked down well we won't let that happen
I get, I get
At its best times, this nation has always had as its true source of political energy well among those citizens among selected places who took it upon themselves to act
Conclusion
Anarchism is not robbery, murder --were they framed--
Anarchism is not a war of each against all --were they friends
I get
Anarchism is not mobs or disorders or chaos
It is not, not not not, who can say what is?
Being involved in something like this, I tell you, it can strip the hope right out of you
You stop really looking the beast in the face day after day and you see what the problems are and you do all those good things you're taught to do
You write your member of congress you you write letters to the editor you you go out and vote you it makes no difference
Anarchism actually is the opposite of all of that
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
Pinky winky
He sings the songs that remind him of the good times
Good times
All the tele-tubbies were feeling very very happy
He sings the songs that remind him of the better times
Where's my head?
Let me think
No, I dont' keep it under the sink
Drip drip drip
I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America
Get rid of... and start over... either Republican or Democrat
We gotta get something to change the system somehow
I don't know how
I don't know how
I don't know how
Alright people
Alright people
You must avoid government and democracy
Would they prefer anarchy?
The founding fathers hated two things--they hated democracy and they hated monarchy--and they saw to it that we would have neither
Anarchism means that you should be free and no one should enslave you or rob you or...impose their will upon you
You just have to remember whatever people think is right, is right, even if it isn't
Then tell me what's right
What's right...
If you don't know what right is, then you don't belong in this country
That's what's destroying this country, a lot of damn flapping mouths
Anarchism means that there should be no war, no violence
This doesn't matter
No monopoly
This doesn't matter
No poverty
How can they not expect the government to regulate us?
Because we can't regulate ourselves
And no taking advantage of your fellow man
Somebody has to
The ideal were included, the ideal is a completely fragmented, atomized society, where everyone is totally alone, doing nothing but trying to pursue created wants
And our wants are created, it's known that they're created
Don't you know the difference between up and down?
Oh sure!
I get knocked
I don't think you do
No?
But I know something that'd help you?
Yeah?
I know a song all about up and
Down
Anarchism means living in a society where all men and all women are free
Where we all equally enjoy the benefits of an ordered and sensible life
Have you got that
Have you got that people
Conclusion
He drinks a whiskey drink
Uh oh
He drinks a vodka drink
Uh oh
He drinks a lager drink
If you succeed and achieve your goal with people, then great, the strategy worked
If not, switch your viewpoint, there are no absolutes, turn to some different people
You just have to remember whatever people think is right, is right, even if it isn't, and try again
Have you got that people?
Have you got that?
Conclusion
Have you got that?
Free, free, free
Conclusion
It is evident to all alike that a great revolution is going on among us
That there are two opinions to its nature and consequences
Conclusion
It says a great deal positively
I don't think you'll find citizens in the street who agree with the positive aspects of
Would they prefer anarchy?
Conclusion
This is your friendly stupid weatherman reminding you that when they can't have their anarchism I have to make it right for them, every time, how 'bout that?
Would they prefer anarchy?
Ha ha ha, I don't know

[lyrics by Chumbawamba, Negativland, and various samples]

Advocating for Overthrowing the Government

April 20, 2003

You hear it all the time these days. One side shoots off "Well this is Bush's war, and these deals with his cronies are absolutely corrupt at best." Then the other side responds with "Well, when Clinton was president, there was this, that, and the other."

Meanwhile, those of us who think both sides are bullshit steel ourselves for the inevitable.

They don't even realize it, but they are advocating for an overthrow of the system. Overhaul, override, overthrow. No shit. Both sides are equally corrupt. I choose no sides. I choose overthrow.

And so does our media, they just don't realize it yet.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

April 20, 2003

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[wilfred owen]

Holy?

April 20, 2003

"Those hedonistic terrorists are getting what they deserve," opined one older neighbor with a prominently displayed flag on her lawn. She had just returned from her Baptist church service where she prayed for President Bush to prevail. Later she will take advantage of a sale to buy her grandchildren some new back packs for their school backs. "Lord knows, they sure get plenty of use." I nod. She says: "God bless you!"

What else can I add?

Voice mey

April 20, 2003

So Jhames has a couple of audioblogs up via voicemey. I hope this audioblogging thing catches on, because I totally love hearing peoples' voices. The big question is, though, do I really want everyone to know that my recorded voice sounds like a 12-year old boy?

ode to a boy with a name like mine

April 19, 2003

Tonight I wrap my mind around you like I wrapped the phone cord around the fingerof my 17 year old self the night you called I was reading Dante's Inferno and really not getting it but I pretended I was when we spoke and equally mysterious words rolled off your tongue.

I told you to rescue me, and suddenly you arrived. Taller than I remembered. Leaner. You were the quintessential punk with a shock of mohawked hair...or were you bald? Or had your hair grown out then? I misremember. It's a blur. But that night my mother offered to feed you and you told her "That's OK, I don't eat food." and we skipped off to the park in the gazebo where you sang more words to me and I think we kissed but I was careful to keep you away from my neck...

...because I remember you and A and the millions of hickeys. The year of bandanas to cover your love bites...

And I remember when I first met you you were taller than I could imagine. Tall and lean and the quintessential punk rocker because I'm sure then was when you wore the shock of a mohawk at the top of your head and I thought we should be together because you were a boy with a name like mine.

And I remember we did not get together, and that was OK because A was your aesthetic opposite, and you were perfect together. And me and S danced alone on the dancefloor the day we invaded McGreevies on a holiday and no one was there but us.

And I remember you called me from somewhere surprising. Was it a military camp? Were you staying with a brother or relative? You quoted whole scenes from It's a Wonderful Life. You told me you were going to lasso the moon, and I had no fucking idea what you were talking about until years later when I actually sat down and watched the movie for the first time.

I always underestimated you. Perhaps it was because I was certain that skinheads didn't write poetry. But you were poetry, and that confused me. I don't think I understood any of the people I knew then, they and you were fantastic dreams too soon unfolded. I didn't have the capacity to fully appreciate.

Did we kiss that night in the gazebo, or am I applying a patina of romance to an evening of pleasant befuddlement and humor? Was I dreaming the rings of hell and the ring of the telephone?

You disappeared that night and faded into eternity. And I never did finish reading that book.

TV Turn Off Week

April 19, 2003

Zeebah reminds me that next week (!) is TV Turn Off Week. Time to throw that puppy in the nearest closet for as long as is humanly possible.

Thanks for the reminder, Zeebah!

(do you think it would be considered cheating if I still watched moyers at my friend's house?)

My feet stink

April 19, 2003

My feet stink because I was traipsing around in the water yesterday. It's fucking hard to use stones to cross creeks when you've got 30 pounds of baby strapped to your back...and the one time I attempted to yank cy out so he could cross on his own, he threatened to drink creek water, and then spent about 30 minutes attempting to throw all of the rocks in the forest into the creek.

So, anyway, how'm I going to deoderize these damn boots is what I want to know. They are currently the only pair of shoes that I own.

(and yes, this does happen to be the best thing I can think to post about on a lazy Saturday afternoon at work. Maybe I'll think of something more exciting tonight...but I'm thinking I'll spend the evening scheming over a new layout, as Ms. Julie has offered to redesign me! Yay!) If anyone has any suggestions for features, let me know.

It worked.

April 19, 2003

Awhile back, on a whim, I posted this entry in hopes of finding lost friends. And, apparently, I've found a lost friend who has chosen not to reveal his or her identity. I'm kind of convinced that I know who it is, but I'm enjoying the mystery. Cheers, L. I'd write a pithy poem in return, but it's late and I'm tired...and I haven't even read the news yet.

Oh, speaking of news...I think I'm going to go ahead and import the full bleed templates to this blog tomorrow, with apologies to Zelda. If I can figure out another way to make this site more accessible, I will, but I can't deal with not having two sidebars to work with. I'll be brushing up my html skills as I work on fullbleed.net, so I'm hoping I can at least figure out how to make the font scalable for you here.

I have a rant brewing about privilege and the assumption that non-action need not be defended, as well as some words about issues of privacy in a public space, but I'm afraid they will have to wait until later, as well. At some point, I'm going to go back through my archives and write down all of the things I have said I'm going to write about and actually write about them. And contact with a person from my past, of course, makes me yearn for some time to work on the novel.

An Excellent Day

April 18, 2003

I just got back from our hike at Emma Long park. We did the 2.5 mile trail - me, with cy in the backpack, m, and our dear faithful dog, Twyla. It was a great day for a hike, not too hot (although it could have been a little more cool) and breezy, with well-timed cloud cover just as we entered the clearing. I feel great. Refreshed. Damn hungry, and tired...but the good kind of hungry and tired. The kind that sends me off on my mama time with a clear mission of coffee, a snack, and some good reading time.

And right now, I'm reading The meywrench Gang, so you can bet there were all sorts of ideas racing through my morbid mind as I passed by some bulldozers that were sitting on the side of the road on the way to the park. Hahaha.

So, anyway, yeah. I'll probably have more to say later, but for now I'm off to revel in some caffeinated solitude. Enjoy your day!

Anarchism

April 18, 2003

Well, shit. It was 1 AM immediately following a post that described my frustration with constantly having to defend myself that I was asked to defend my position on Anarchism.

OK, I'll bite, but only a little...as I have something to say about Andy's comment to quoted here:

I do, however (you knew this was coming) wonder how you can accept anarchism as a valid system when rational agents exist that would abuse the rules of the game. Sounds like the making of the structures of government - sound like, at best, libertarianism.

Thoughts?

Specifically referring to the last post, I have to say that the "rational agents that would abuse the rules of the game" are not rational at all. It is my belief that the need for power is an aberration that is derived from our absolute lack of power, and it must be identified, rooted out, and actively counteracted.

In a society that seeks to empower the minority by disempowering the majority, it's no wonder that so many would seek to abuse power when they get it. In a society that seeks to create a fundamental balance of power, these issues would not be as widespread. It is, of course, nearly impossible for the unimaginative to conceive of this, as you have lived all your life within a system where power and control are the modes of exchange. The unimaginative attempt to place an anarchist society in the same context as our so-called democratic society.

My issues with my family reflect the difficulty in dealing with people (myself included) who abuse power and control, but it also reflects the necessity of overturning this system to create a more harmonious existence. It is a difficult process...and some might consider it impossible. Some tell me that I should give up, perhaps out of empathy for the difficulty that I face, but some also understand the importance of the family unit and the desire to set things right.

Balancing these things is crucial to my spiritual well-being. It's the way I'm wired. I'm in touch with that, and being in touch with that has helped me to understand that it's quite possibly the way many more people are wired, and that we are living lives that go against our fundamental nature.

There is much more that I can say about this, but I have a headache, and I need to take the kids on a hike. That's a start, though...if anyone wants to jump in and add to it. It's kind of raw, so there may be things that I am willing to reconsider. But, Andy, I am definitely not a libertarian. I definitely believe that human beings are capable of reversing the damage that years of authoritarian government has wrought in order to self-govern with compassion and community as a basis. And I detest corporate interests and their stranglehold on desire too much to ever defend a "free market" system.

Dear Mom (and family)

April 18, 2003

I'm writing this letter to explain myself to you, although I don't feel like I should have to explain myself to anyone who truly cares about me. And I certainly don't expect any of you to explain yourselves to me.

I'm writing this letter because there are serious problems with my relationships with all of you, and I'm tired of feeling like I need to somehow try harder or do better with these relationships. I'm tired of feeling like the problems with our relationships are my fault alone, and that all of you can continue doing what you do while I am forced to change and or conform to your standards. I certainly don't expect any of you to change or conform to my standards.

Where do I start? First, let me tell you some things about myself that you might not know. I guess I can begin by saying that I am an anarchist. In fact, it took me until this year to realize that saying I'm an anarchist describes me best politically, personally, and spiritually. I believe that people should be free to do what they want to do, provided what they want to do does not infringe on the rights of others. I believe that I have this right, and I believe the others in my life have this right. I believe that my husband has this right and that my children have this right.

The difficulty in this belief is in recognizing where I have been taught to desire control over situations, and in exterminating my desire for control. I strive to eliminate the need to exert control over the people and things in my environment which are not meant to be under my control. In this endeavor, I am not perfect, but it is crucial to my spiritual make-up to continue trying.

Another challenge inherent in my views on spiritual, political, and emotional anarchism is the absolute necessity of complete honesty and absolute justice. For people to succeed in self-government, there must be a basis of honesty. And for families to succeed in peaceful anti-authoritarianism, there must be a core of trust and authenticity. For an individual to be fully free, there must be an understanding that a worthwhile goal is something that may never be achieved, but must always be kept in sight. It is for these reasons that I am constantly questioning, constantly fighting, and constantly holding myself and those around me accountable for their actions. It's who I am.

I'm not sure how much any of you are aware of who I am or what I believe. I get the feeling I am vaguely confusing to many of you, and at the same time, no one has ever really asked. I also feel as if there are assumptions about the things I value that interfere with our ability to get along as a family. I feel like I need to tell you that the one thing in my life that feels hollow is the fact that I don't have a cohesive unit of blood relatives. I have friends, I have loves, I have so much joy, but the distance from the people I was raised by and with can be corrosive and, at times, debilitating. There are times when I feel as if I am adrift without an anchor, in spite of the fact that I know I am strong and capable. I have an intense sense of family, and I feel a great deal of remorse over the fact that my children do not have consistent contact with their relatives, as I did not have consistent contact with mine.

At the same time, I feel there has been a great deal of injustice, mistrust, and deception in the family, and because of my core beliefs, I am unable to simply swallow these things and go about my life pretending it is not so. I feel as if I am expected to ignore serious wrongs which have been done to me. And I feel as if those who wish me to keep these things to myself are asking me to do so because they have had what they consider to be more serious wrongs done to them. I feel as if you are telling me that, by comparison, my childhood was so much better, so I have no right to complain. And at the same time, I feel as if some of you might be feeling like by complaining I am somehow minimizing the significant difficulties you all have faced.

But feeling dissatisfied about the sexual inappropriateness of my sister to myself and bringing it up does not make me any less sensitive to anything anyone else has suffered in the past. And bringing it up in hopes of talking it through does not make me a whiny victim who is choosing to dwell upon the past. The fact that I am bringing it up and being told to keep quiet about it is actually more painful than the fact that it happened in the first place. As a human being, I have the need and the right to mourn for loss, and bringing up the inappropriate acts of my sister was my attempt at bringing it out in the open in order to figure out what it meant for me and how to get over the feelings that remain with me as a result of what happened. Instead of being given the opportunity to come to terms with this event, the event was instantly minimized in a very cruel and insidious way, and I felt very violated once again as a result of how this was handled.

And so, for the past 2 years, I have sought to come to terms with the fact that I may possibly lose my entire family over an event that I had no control over. An event that was about control over me. An event that has gone unrectified and that has not been apologized about even though I know my sister is aware that this is the cause of the disharmony in the family. I have been blamed. I have been accused of wrongdoing. I have been shunned. I have been asked to "forgive and forget" and to "stop making mountains out of molehills." I have been called selfish. I have been cursed out by the very person who caused all of this disharmony in the first place. I have been disowned by one of the people I had thought understood me the most of any of you.

Meanwhile, I am watching my children grow older without having contact with the main part of the family. I am dealing with a marriage that is less than ideal, and attempting to maintain what composure I have. I am dealing with a loss that is greater than I would ever wish on anyone else.

There are two warring factions inside of me that do not rest. On one side is the part of me that is so proud of who I am. The side that remains strong and struggles and has a fierce conviction for all that is just and righteous. The other side is tired, and wishes I could just shut up and relent for a little while. This side wants to wrap myself in mainstream culture and be able to go through an entire day without having to disagree with anyone about anything. This is the side that wants to convince me to keep my mouth shut and pretend that all is well so that I can relax and enjoy the things that other people seem to be able to take for granted in life. But this side is not my nature. It's not what I'm about. I simply can't keep my mouth shut and allow people to continue to delude themselves and others.

And I fear that being who I am may cause me to lose the people who are supposed to love me unconditionally. And I want with all of my heart for this to not happen, but I can't change who I am to please you or anyone else. Apparently, not even myself.

Sincerely,

drucilla

My mom

April 17, 2003

My mom sent us a lovely easter bucket of goodies. Popcorn and peanuts and pretzels and such. It was very thoughtful, so I gave her a call to thank her, and let m talk to her for a bit...and then c...and then back to me.

Of course, when m spoke to her, he went on and on about how evil I am because I have declared a week-long ban on Age of Empires. He was playing the game entirely too much, and not spending any time engaged in other activities, so the game went up, and m has not stopped complaining about it since. (I still sort of think he should not be playing the game at all, but I hate to place that kind of importance on a computer game that's not altogether irredeemable, however, there have been bans placed on other games and activities that have become too influential in all that m does, so I didn't feel it was out of line to impose a ban on AOE.)

Anyway, so m told mamaw that he was going to run away from home because I banned the game. And, of course, Mom found it necessary to tell me this when I talked to her again, even though I could hear the whole conversation while m was talking to her.

She told me that I should "get him involved in little league" or something. Of course, growing up, the answer was ALWAYS sports. All of us were forced to be in some sort of sporting activity or another and, while I'm not averse to m being involved with sports, there are two things that make that difficult 1) we don't have a lot of spare money floating around to sign him up and/or purchase equipment and 2) generally these things happen in the evening when L's in charge, and he has not traditionally been interested in chauffering the children around.

When I mentioned contingency 1 to my mom, I was met with a gasp "What do you mean?" She queried. "I thought your job was going really well."

First of all, there would be no way she would know this, as we do not speak on a regular basis. And second, once again I'm stuck having to explain that "going really well" does not necessarily mean "rolling in dough." And, while I enjoy working where I work a great deal, I certainly do not have money to burn. And I'm so fucking sick and tired of the implication that is and has always been an undercurrent in my relationships with my family that if I'm not earning enough money, I'm somehow a failure.

I played this game with them for awhile. I believe it's one of the things that kept me at my corporate job for so long. I was so busy competing with the other members of my family. I think I was trying to prove to them that I could be successful even though I did not get a degree like they expected me to. And I think I always had the idea that they all were expecting me to fail. Waiting for me to fail, even.

Wow. I think I'm going to cry here. This is good therapy.

At any rate, when I finally realized that I was not cut out for the corporate world, and how very very miserable I was attempting to fit in someplace I was obviously not welcome, I think I also abandoned that competition I was engaging in with the other members of my family, and it wasn't long after that that things really fell apart. I came out to my mom about the fact that my sister used to masturbate in front of me when I was a small child, and I was quickly and I believe intentionally alienated from the family.

Anyway, in addition to the questioning of my income status, my mom also barbed me about homeschooling today. "Are you still homeschooling him?" She asked, in much the same way she used to ask me if I was "still" a vegetarian...as if it was something that I would finally grow out of. As if it was something I NEEDED to grow out of.

And ideas of shooting over to Chicago after my trip to DC kind of faded a bit at that point. I realize that some of these feelings that I'm getting about the subtext of our conversation are just "hunches" and it would be best to talk with her and explain why these sorts of comments make me feel unsupported and misunderstood, but the fact is that I don't have the energy to have that conversation with her. So my choice is that I either endure her comments and the subsequent feelings of inadequacy, or I avoid her altogether until I'm ready to really talk with her.

I wonder how deep this rift with my family goes, though. I mean, it appears that I have violated some very deeply-held beliefs simply by being who I am and staying true to my own values and beliefs. I don't call her and question her choices or decisions in life, and it's insulting to me that I should be questioned and judged by them. I'm pretty damn happy. I feel like I'm doing some wonderful things with my life. There are definitely some problems with certain aspects of the way I am living, but I am comfortable with the way I am handling even the most challenging situations in my life.

Damnit, I'm doing my best. There's no reason why I should have to come away from a phone call feeling the way I'm feeling right now.

Sometimes I really wonder about my fellow humans

April 17, 2003

I posted this over at hooha last week:

My pal r@d@r lobbed this one my way:

At this point, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.) demanded that her words be stricken from the record as inappropriate. You might think that Mrs. Cubin then would have realized she had equated African Americans with drug addicts and apologized as profusely as possible. Instead, she told Mr. Watt, who is African American, that she wanted "to apologize to my colleague for his sensitivities." When Mr. Watt noted, correctly, that it was not a matter of whether his feelings were hurt but of "using words that are insulting to the entire African American race," Mrs. Cubin declined the opportunity to back down. "Mr. Chairman," she said, "I do not withdraw my words."

Where IS the outrage? I guess everyone was too busy celebrating the liberation of the Iraqis to notice that things still suck for people of color in America.

And I got this response today:

Maybe there is no outrage because on the scale of things that are really sucky about the world, the words of a single ignorant person don't rate nearly as high the toppling of a government that would routinely chop off the ears of dissenters.

And I have to say that I am sick to fucking death of people implying that we need to shut up because some regimes are so horrible that speaking out results in barbaric punishment. It's the most ignorant and idiotic argument you can make. I can think of no other way to describe it.

Does someone want to help explain to this idiot why this shit doesn't fly? Because, frankly, I'm all outta words right now, and I'm not feeling particularly patient OR nice.

More of that there juxtaposition

April 17, 2003

Awhile back, Chris at Letter Never Sent posted this link:

FEARS that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the end of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US administration. It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's invaluable archaeological collections.

The group is known to consist of a number of influential dealers who favour a relaxation of Iraq's tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. Its treasurer, William Pearlstein, has described Iraq's laws as 'retentionist' and has said he would support a post-war government that would make it easier to have antiquities dispersed to the US.

And then, last night I found this article, which contained this excerpt:

Archaeological officials in Baghdad took reporters through the museum today and pointed to what they said was clear evidence of professionalism on the part of some looters: the use of glass cutters, the bypassing of reproductions in favor of valuable originals and the carting off of major pieces weighing hundreds of pounds.

Coincidence?

blog crush

April 17, 2003

If you would like to be my blog crush next month, feel free to e-mail me and let me know why you are crushworthy. If I decide you are worthy of my attentions, I'll send you a mix tape or CD (sometime in the next year or so) and feature your link here right smack at the top of the page. Plus, I'll tell all of my friends how cute you are.

They Really Just Don't Get it.

April 17, 2003

The pro-war crowd has been spending a lot of time bitching and moaning about the fact that people are putting "property over people" when discussing the looting, sacking, and burning of the historical artifacts of Iraq.

This is either a blindly ignorant or intentionally misleading position to hold. I still haven't figured out if the pro war crowd is stupid or just really invested in allowing themselves to be misled and/or to mislead other people. I'm honestly not sure which is worse.

The reality is that thousands of people have now died as a result of the war, and the people who have survived are now having to witness the destruction and debasement of their culture. They are being humiliated and condescended to. They are being shot and killed. They are being disempowered. And they are not happy about this.

When people complain about the destruction of the Baghdad museum and the burning of the Baghdad library, they are complaining about cultural imperialism. When I read about the burning of the Baghdad library today, I was reminded of the article I read yesterday about the American company who has been awarded the contract of rewriting the history of Baghdad replacing old pro-Saddam curriculum (it has yet to be decided who will rewrite the textbooks). This is no less disturbing than the deaths that occurred under the Hussein regime or the deaths that occurred in the ousting of that regime. We are talking about a culture that has been in existence for thousands of years, and we are talking about the obliteration of many of the most valuable cultural artifacts.

And we are talking about the fact that all of this was forseeable and absolutely preventable, and it was not part of the "war plan" to prevent it, and that makes me fucking sick. This is really just another example of the racist nature of our intervention in Iraq, because if we are not interested in preserving the culture of the people we claim to want to liberate, we have no fucking business being there in the first place.

If you want to pretend that the shock and outrage about the destruction of historical relics and the disgust and dismay about the deaths of thousands of Iraqis are somehow mutually exclusive, go right ahead. I think most rational human beings understand that it's not mutually exclusive, but CUMULATIVE. And what it adds up to is that we will not win this war, because all that is left of the flimsy pro-war rhetoric is the liberation of the Iraqi people, and you can't liberate a people by obliterating their history.

UPDATE: I made the initial finger-pointing in this post less specific, out of fairness. It's not just one idiot accusing the anti-war crowd of paying too much attention to the looting. It also occurred to me this morning that these are the same fucking people who freak out when someone burns a fucking piece of cloth, so they have no room to talk about putting symbols or objects before people.

This is kind of out of character...

April 16, 2003

I don't normally pay much attention to what actors and actresses have to say about current events, mostly because I'm not a big "fan" person. But this speech by Tim Robbins is so powerful, I just had to link it up. Thanks to Elaine for sending me there.

For all of the ugliness and tragedy of 9-11, there was a brief period afterward where I held a great hope, in the midst of the tears and shocked faces of New Yorkers, in the midst of the lethal air we breathed as we worked at Ground Zero, in the midst of my children's terror at being so close to this crime against humanity, in the midst of all this, I held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good could come out of it.

I imagined our leaders seizing upon this moment of unity in America, this moment when no one wanted to talk about Democrat versus Republican, white versus black, or any of the other ridiculous divisions that dominate our public discourse. I imagined our leaders going on television telling the citizens that although we all want to be at Ground Zero, we can't, but there is work that is needed to be done all over America. Our help is needed at community centers to tutor children, to teach them to read. Our work is needed at old-age homes to visit the lonely and infirmed; in gutted neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and convert abandoned lots to baseball fields. I imagined leadership that would take this incredible energy, this generosity of spirit and create a new unity in America born out of the chaos and tragedy of 9/11, a new unity that would send a message to terrorists everywhere: If you attack us, we will become stronger, cleaner, better educated, and more unified. You will strengthen our commitment to justice and democracy by your inhumane attacks on us. Like a Phoenix out of the fire, we will be reborn.

And then came the speech: You are either with us or against us. And the bombing began. And the old paradigm was restored as our leader encouraged us to show our patriotism by shopping and by volunteering to join groups that would turn in their neighbor for any suspicious behavior.

By the way, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today (yeah yeah...I know!) and this speech made him absolutely LIVID. Must have touched a nerve.

c on Toast

April 16, 2003

mama: Would you like some toast?
c: Yeah! Toast! Aw-wight!
mama: (hands c slice of bread)
c: (puts slice of bread on head) I have Hat!
mama: c...are you going to eat the toast or wear it?
c: Wear it!

Well, this is fucking frightening.

April 16, 2003

It became obvious after Iraq ingloriously surrendered to coalition forces of the USA and Great Britain: no country could feel safe without nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Nuclear, or any other kinds of the weapons of mass destruction can not serve the 100 percent security guarantee either. However, if an arsenal of a state is capable of causing considerable damage to a potential aggressor, the latter will at least have to think twice before attacking. Apparently, the American aggression and the imperial ambition of the States pushed the world towards the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other kinds of arms. There is nothing good about it, although one has to get the maximum advantage of current circumstances anyway.

This year might be a year of record sales for the Russian defense industry.

Yeah. I have to say that I feel much, MUCH safer now than I did before we obliterated the Iraqi regime. /sarc

Feeling the Burn

April 16, 2003

I was up until way too late last night playing with the control panel of the new domain. Wow. I'm in nerd heaven, and I'm just a nerd poser.

I have a new e-mail address, wanna test it out? Pretty coolies, eh?

I still haven't decided exactly what to do with the main index of fullbleed dot net. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. hahaha. I'm sure last night is the first of many sleepless nights spent playing with my nerd control panel, and pondering what to do with my little corner of the web.

Is there any hope for me?

You Must Read This

April 15, 2003

Klondike Kate breaks down the War on ANWR:

As thirsty America sucks down 20 billion barrels a day, even if we could use all that was drilled in the Arctic Refuge, it would be less than a days' worth, although oil industry puts that estimate much longer, of course, used in combination with imports--to anywhere from six months' to several years' worth. But by that time, the flora and fauna would have suffered irreversible, irreparable damage. And there is more oil than that off the Florida coast. (Oh wait. That's where the "other" Bush lives. Never mind. He probably wouldn't want to look out his window at oil derricks.)

It's just an excellent post. Her permalinks don't work, but you will find it. And even if you don't find it right away, you can probably spend some time there and learn something anyway.

Democracy in Action.

April 15, 2003

"We were at the market place near the government building, where Juburi was making a speech," said Marwan Mohammed, 50. "He said everything would be restored, water, electricity, and that democracy was the Americans.

"As for the Americans, they were going through the crowd with their flag. They placed themselves between the civilians and the building.

"The people moved toward the government building, the children threw stones, the Americans started firing. Then they prevented the people from recovering the bodies," he told AFP.

At least 10 were killed in shooting at Mosul. Link via Iraq Body Count.

What Really Matters:

April 15, 2003

Iraq's scavengers have thieved and destroyed what they have been allowed to loot and burn by the Americans — and a two-hour drive around Baghdad shows clearly what the US intends to protect. After days of arson and pillage, here's a short but revealing scorecard. US troops have sat back and allowed mobs to wreck and then burn the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Information. They did nothing to prevent looters from destroying priceless treasures of Iraq's history in the Baghdad Archaeological Museum and in the museum in the northern city of Mosul, or from looting three hospitals.

I'll give you one guess at what our forces have chosen to protect.

wow. Advice, please.

April 15, 2003

We're kind of close to fixing the issues at surreally. I say "we"! I mean, kd is kind of close. I'm just kind of trying to comprehend her e-mails and hanging on for the ride. That woman is so damn smart, and she's having to do all sorts of digital acrobatics to save full bleed.

The good news is that she just set me up with the domain name fullbleed.net! Yay! So, that leaves me wondering what in the hell I'm going to do with the main page there. I love being here with the randomwalks folks, but I have to keep stuff running over there because of all of the subhostees. So...hm. I'm kind of at a loss. And when I'm at a loss, I always end up asking everyone else around me what to do. It's my nature. So...what would you do with two blog spaces, one of which is kind of a portal into a bunch of other blogs? Should I make fullbleed.net a group blog? What should the theme be? What do the fullbleed blogs have in common that we can all blog about? Perhaps I can do like we did with blogs against war and just turn mt inside out so you can get a glimpse of everything everyone is saying inside of fullbleed and choose whose site you would like to visit? Perhaps I can make it a themed group blog like "we have brains" and suggest weekly topics for people to write about.

I have no idea. I guess I should ask the subhostees what they think, and go from there. I also need to redesign, and I'm kind of thinking I should just bite the bullet and figure out how to redesign the damn thing myself. It just seems like such a time-intensive thing, and I would much rather spend that time writing. So, I'll ask again if anyone is interested in designing a template or two for me. Something basic with three columns that I can re-adapt to serve multiple purposes. Or, perhaps I should just do some searching on some template sites.

I have an essay in my head that I would like to write about today, but it will have to be later today when I'm at work and not distracted by children. I'm thinking about the cost of war in deaths of civilians versus deaths of soldiers. I did some basic research on it awhile back, and it's been sticking in my craw ever since. I woke up thinking about it this morning, and I try to write about the first thing I think about in the morning, but I need to limit my time here so I can clean up the house and go out and have a picnic at the park later.

I hope everyone has a lovely day.

Road Trip Angst

April 15, 2003

For awhile there, I had allowed myself to become convinced that my road trip to DC was NOT going to happen. The boss lady told us in a meeting that the budget wouldn't allow for it, after all, and I spent a few weeks consoling myself with the idea that I probably shouldn't be gallavanting around the country in the financial state we're in anyway.

But now it's looking like we WILL be reimbursed for travel, and I'm feeling angstful about going anyway.

The thing is that I won't be traveling by plane with the rest of the crew. For one thing, I really don't like air travel anymore, and I actually haven't since before 9/11...although I do have a great deal of irrational fear of flying tied up in there, too. For another thing, I really need to bring the kids along on this trip, and I can't afford to pay for air fare for all of them.

But I can't really afford to drive, either.

The word is that I will be reimbursed for the amount of plane fare that everyone else is having to spend, and I will have 20 bux per diem food budget for the 3 days we are in DC. The problem is what do I do about the remainder of the 14-17 days I am on the road.

One thing is certain: I need a travel partner. If I have a travel partner who can share expenses, I am almost positive I can go. Particularly if we can rent a van for about what the plane fare would be. I'm scared that if I drive my car, something will go horribly awry and I have no money to fall back on for repairs at all. None. This frightens me. But then, I'm always telling m that fear is OK as long as you don't let it prevent you from doing things that are enjoyable. I hate to be a total hypocrite, but it's difficult to discern where prudence ends and phobia begins.

I can also call my mom, who I'm sure will be glad to see the kids, even if she might not be thrilled to see me. I don't know if she has any money to kick in, as I'm sure business has been bad for her, but I know she will do what she can to help us get there, especially if we are going out of our way to do so.

I really want to take this trip. I think it will be excellent for the kids, and it will be good for me to get away from L for a little while. Of course, he's causing a lot of my financial angst for several reasons, but we won't go there right now. Suffice to say that a nice vacation is in order, damnit.

There's the small issue of the tax refund. It might very well be quite large. We're going to file late and pay someone to prepare the taxes for us. I guess if that is large enough, then I won't have to worry...but, I'm sure I will find a way to worry anyway.

I just keep thinking about how much I would love to hang with Lorraine and Adam and my dear Ms. P, and it would be such a shame to miss yet another opportunity to take a trip like this. I've talked myself out of three big road trips now, and I think it's really just time to let it go and see what happens. But I just can't shake the fact that it feels like a really. bad. idea.

The Trouble with m

April 15, 2003

I'm having a terrible time keeping m entertained these days. The child stays up until 1 or 2 in the morning, and spends all day demanding that I stop whatever I happen to be doing and play with him. If I do not, I have to hear whining and bitching about how bored he is.

The thing is that I feel like he relies on other people for entertainment way too much, and it disturbs me. There are days that I give in and get down on the floor and play with him for hours, and he STILL can't deal with it when it's time for me to do something else like make lunch or clean up the kitchen. It's starting to drive me a little bit batty. He absolutely refuses to play by himself. When I am not directly interacting with him, he will sometimes spend hours just buzzing around me trying to get me to pay attention to him, and it's not like he is deprived of attention.

My solution is that I'm going to have to go out and find some cheap and/or free outside activities to involve him in. I'm joining the UU church to give him more kid-focused time without me present, I'm going to look into getting him on a baseball team or a bowling league even if it costs a little bit of money (and most likely L will have to take him to the practices, as I work in the evenings) and I'm trying to find some volunteer opportunities for us on Friday mornings. We were hiking on Fridays, and that's fun, but I think it would be more rewarding for him to be involved with volunteering. I'm thinking we could start out at the animal shelter or something like that, something that involves instant gratification.

The other thing that's happening soon is that K will no longer be hanging out with us. At least not for the summer. I have mixed feelings about this. While it has been difficult for me to deal with K's presence in our home, I really like her. That sounds so weird, I know. m really likes her, too, though...they are the best of friends, and I know he will miss her while she is gone this summer. I'm going to have to fill that space with other activities.

Right now, this is what our schedule looks like:

Mondays: This is our stay at home day
Tuesdays: Unschooler park day
Wednesdays: Young Explorers co-op
Thursdays: Austin Area Homeschooler park day
Friday: Hike and usually we go to my friend Megans for Moyers show in the evening (m is supposed to "babysit" the little kids while we watch)
Saturday: I work all day
Sunday: another Stay at home day.

This is what the schedule will look like with these changes:
Monday: Perhaps I can arrange some sort of babysitting/playdate exchange on this day
Tuesday: unschooler park and swim day
Wednesday: young exploreres
Thursday: AAH park day
Friday: Volunteering twice a month/hiking twice a month
Saturday: ??baseball game or bowling??
Sunday: Church group.

This seems like so incredibly much right now, but it really seems like m needs the activity. He's learning a tremendous amount just by virtue of being a kid who is curious, and I'm fortunate that we don't have to do any sit-down enforced learning right now, but I almost wish he would allow me to establish some sort of routine inside the home, rather than forcing me to get us out of the home more.

The dumbest thing is that I stopped going to the library for a long time, and he stopped reading. We have tons and tons of books here, but he just gets tired of them, I think. Right now, we are reading the novel based on the Star Wars Episode 1 screenplay, the first book in the Redwall series, and he has a few other books that he's working through. He won't let me read the books about Iraq that I checked out from the library, but he will read the books about the Skylab, and a couple of other non-fiction books that I checked out. He actually pretended to vomit when I asked him if he wanted to read Harry Potter. He has somehow convinced himself that Harry Potter is the dumbest thing in the world and he will never let me read it to him, even though I'm dying of curiosity to see what all of the fuss is about, but too involved in my own books to even think about adding it to my reading list.

It's hard to have such a headstrong child. I hope it turns out to be a blessing, but right now...just feeling my way through all of this...it feels like an awful curse!

The Looting of the National Museum of Iraq

April 14, 2003

I just heard John Malcolm Russell, an archeologist who specializes in Mesopotamian artifacts, break down in tears while being interviewed on The World.

Judging from the number of times he has warned about the very situation we're witnessing now, I can understand why he's upset.

In answer to the question (paraphrased) "With all of the Iraqi citizens who are suffering and dying due to the Coalition invasion, isn't it a little insensitive to be thinking about the artifacts that have been lost" Russell responded that the Iraqi people, some of whom he is close with, and hasn't heard from, also have reason to be concerned about the preservation of their history." Russell called the situation the most catastrophic destruction of archeological artifacts in all of history. He hopes Colin Powell was not just blowing smoke when he talked about the need for the coalition forces to take responsibility for the lost artifacts.

I hope so, too.

It's yet another example of pisspoor planning on the part of the people who planned this. And another example of why I continue to oppose this war and all wars.

Just curious...

April 14, 2003

Has there ever been an analysis of the fact that the word "patriotism" is based on the "patri" prefix, which means, essentially, "father." Patriot means, at its root "One's own father."

I dunno about you, but I don't really have a father, and I'm not looking to replace him with the image of George Bush and the other idiots who are running this country. I'm a MAtriot. I believe in the mothers of the world and the children they nurture, and I yearn with all of my heart that the fathers of the world can learn to consider the lives of the children they seem to be so willing to sacrifice.

While doing a search on this topic, I came up with this article, which is kind of interesting, although I only skimmed. I need to look into this further.

And, by the way, I thought I had cleverly coined the word "matriot" but I'm thrilled that there's already a matriotism movement in place.

A sign that your 6-year old might be playing too much "Age of Empires"

April 14, 2003

The magnetic letters on the refrigerator now spell "El Cid"

I'm going to post a picture as soon as the batteries in the camera are recharged.

Planned Hopelessness

April 14, 2003

I've been having discussions with a client of mine which, at first, seemed to center around a basic disagreement about war, and have since turned into agreement about our social structure which leads to war, but disagreement about what to do about it.

In short, I'm hearing my client - a person who I care for and respect a great deal - tell me that "my side" has no hope of winning, and although he feels that I have the moral upper-hand, he would much rather be fighting on the "winning team."

My response to this, internally, is a deepened sense of respect for my fellow Americans, as I'm sure this man is not the only person in this country who is, basically, feeling pretty damned hopeless and disenfranchised. It says a lot to me that a human being who I view as having good intentions and a lot of heart is so easily prepared to condone actions he views as immoral and even reprehensible rather than bear the burden of ostracism for standing up for what he feels is good and right.

This is a person who has worked hard all of his life, and has, by artifical standards of success that most U.S. citizens compare themselves to, achieved very little. I don't view him as such, but I'm hearing that's how he views himself. "No matter what happens, I still have to drag my ass to work every day, and I'm too tired to fight for the losing side." Is basically what he tells me.

My external response to him is that I intend to do his fighting for him. My belief is that there is a large and silent majority of people like him who are unable to or unwilling to navigate all of the propagandist crap that is hurled at them and therefore they find it easier to wave their American flag and hope for the best.

It is for these people that I continue to fight. To fight against the war machine. To educate myself about the injustices that are apparent if you only dig under the most superficial layer of bullshit. To speak out against greed and inequity.

Friday, I attended a lecture put on by the University of Texas. The topic of the symposium was "Information and the War on Terror." The one lecture I was able to attend was by the CEO of Stratfor, whose name I have conveniently forgotten. I'm sure I will write at length about all of the things this man said that pissed me off, but the underlying theme of his lecture seemed to be: War is a horrible atrocity, but there's no other solution, so we must persist. He is convinced that we will continue on to Syria, Iran, Turkey, anywhere there has been or will be terrorist cells (and one of my huge arguments with his lecture was that he seemed to be forwarding the notion that Osama Bin Laden is the head of terrorists everywhere and that there are not terrorist organizations that AREN'T affiliated with him, which is utter bullshit) - and, again, he doesn't think this is such a good idea...he's not even sure we can "win" (and if someone can define for me what "winning" means in the context of war, I will personally send you a cookie) but, since there really are no other solutions, he feels we must persist. He also stated that he felt the only end to the Israel/Palestinian situation will be absolute annihilation and slaughter of one or the other. Again, there is no other solution, and therefore, they must persist.

Hopelessness.

That's what we are being sold. Some people are cynical enough to buy it whether they stand to benefit from it or not. Some people are just too damned busy getting by to fight against it. It gets shoved into a corner of the psyche and left there to fester.

At the lecture, one of the participants questioned the need for our country to embark upon one pre-emptive war after another. He said "If there is no forseeable end, and we can't really be assured of victory, why not just do nothing."

The speaker really had nothing intelligent to say about this (I was amazed, actually, at how poorly the speaker handled all of the questions, as he was obviously a very well-educated, articulate man. His premises were just fucked, and any time anyone questioned one of his basic concepts, he either refused to answer the question ("I don't believe what you are saying is reality. Next question?" or he replied without actually answering the question at all). I think he said something to the effect of "Just because we can't know the outcome, doesn't mean we shouldn't embark on a solution. And in a sea of bad choices, you still have to choose.")

I think he's catastrophically wrong on this point. You DON'T have to choose. My mama always told me "When in doubt, do nothing," and it's always been good advice.

The problem is that those who are making the choices don't stand to lose anything. There are no negative consequences for making a bad choice, so they will continue to do so. There are potential consequences for making no choice, so they avoid making no choice. But none of the people who are making the choices (and manufacturing consent for those choices) will suffer for them. At worst, they will lose their position(s) in government, but they're not the ones running the show, anyway, and their positions in government are expendable to them. At the end of the day, they will all be living the lives of the wealthy and privileged, and the people who have to sacrifice for their choices will be dead and/or buried in debt and still more hopelessness...

And hopelessness breeds apathy, and apathy is what allows this system to continue.

Remember that, as you hear reports of dead Iraqis and comfort yourself with the assertion that "It had to be done. There was no other way." The ability to wash over thousands who are dead and dying is either an extreme form of racism, or abject and wanton hopelessness.

Many of us believe that there are "other ways." That it's OK to "do nothing**." That we don't need to bend to the will of the status quo. That each and every Iraqi life lost is a crime that George Bush and his cronies are guilty of committing. Likewise, each and every "coalition" death. And we will not stop fighting until this fighting stops.

**by "do nothing" I, of course, do not mean do NOTHING. I mean do not engage in warfare but rather attempt to make things right by setting an example of a successful benevolent democracy and continue to build relationships with regimes we can influence so as to have the credibility that would allow us to intervene peacefully or mediate a peaceful intervention in cases of severe human rights violations. It's a more gradual solution, but it is, indeed, a viable solution. Far more viable than engaging in expensive (in all respects of the word) warfare. Warfare that is expensive to the people, but very lucrative to the corporations who are, conveniently, running the show.

How much of this am I supposed to have to endure?

April 14, 2003

This morning, I woke up to cy pinching, rubbing, and poking my arm. I tried to tough it out for as long as possible, but after about an hour of it, I finally had to ask him to please stop. He did stop, but he immediately started to pull my hair, and when I asked him to stop that, he went back to pinching and rubbing and poking my arm. I finally had to get up because it was driving me insane.

How much of this do I have to endure? I mean, I feel like I am constantly telling this child to stop touching me, and that can't be good...but he also is way more touch needy than the average child and it simply drives me batty. I am not even exagerrating when I say that he literally has to be touching my bare skin whenever he's within touching range, and he doesn't just TOUCH, he pinches, pokes and rubs.

aaaaaaarrrrrrrgh!!!!! Mama can't take it!

Tell the Truth

April 14, 2003

Seriously. Have you ever had a job where you felt like you were way way smarter than your boss? Well, that's pretty much how I feel now about the fucking President of the United States. Never before has there existed a president who is so obviously controlled by other interests, and who is totally unable to even fake his way through. I'm starting to understand why so many political figures have acting backgrounds.

This afternoon, I was listening to the radio, and they aired a brief sound bite of George Bush talking about Syria. He blurted out some nonsense, and then also blurted something to the effect of "They have weapons of mass destruction, too." And it was so fucking obvious what this is the start of that I wanted to scream.

Look, if you are in support of our current regime than I need you to explain something to me. How can you stand the lies? It is so obvious that the government is actively deceiving the public, and I find it totally indefensible. If the public support is for the war (and for whatever might come next) what is the point in fucking lying. Tell the truth. Let the people know what the plans are. Let the people know what they are fucking supporting here. Let there be no question.

UPDATE: Just stumbled across this article, and I thought it was an interesting precursor to the other article I quoted in this post. It almost seems as if our government is engaging in bully wars. Nah! Couldn't be!

"I really don't want that type of place here."

April 13, 2003

War protesters have called on Mr. Bush to abandon plans to topple Saddam Hussein. And, they believe, developing a peace center in Crawford will help their cause.

Mr. Wolf, a contractor who lives on a farm near Rockwall, said operating the house would be a collaboration of area peace activists, including members of the Dallas Peace Center.

Sitting on three lots, it has enough space for a planned independent media center, prayer center and a lavish peace garden.

Well, Crawford Texas...looks like yr going to have to get used to those damned outsiders.

And, does this sound like a weirdly veiled threat to anyone else:

In Washington, White House Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the organizers of the Crawford peace center have a right to express their opinion.

''If the people of Iraq try to speak out,'' he told the newspaper, ''they have their tongues cut out by the brutal regime.'' [source]

oh and they have a blog, too.

Wings

April 11, 2003

[picture by kenneth patchen]

Wings

Somewhere in wartime
She lost her heart
They came back heroes
with wings on.

This was not romance
Nor glorycide
Back with white feathers
and wings on.

Ask her to tell you
She'll tell you something
A story of time
stopping.

Ask her to show you
She'll show you something
Pretty gold medal
with wings on.

And if you go there
Know why you go
Don't let them sell you
Those wings on.

[lyrics by Dog Faced Hermans]

Lorraine.

April 10, 2003

I really do love Lorraine. She's great. Today she wrote an excellent piece about religion and prayer and war, and she linked to the newest Get Your War On.

So...what are you waiting for? Go on. Get.

The Status of Surreally...

April 10, 2003

I'm starting to feel like I need to just move in here at randomWalks and use my surreally space for some other purpose whenever it's up and going again. I kind of like it here. I'm not getting nearly the amount of traffic I got over there, but I'm trusting that will change with time.

So, next time I am able to log in and access my surreally templates, I'm thinking I'm going to just copy and paste the old design over this one...or if someone out there really likes to design templates and wants to redesign this site for me, that'd be cool, too. It'd be nice to personalize this site a bit more. I think I need 3 columns, for one thing, so I can see the most important links and recent comments both near the top of the page.

Anyway, yeah. So that's the status of the surreally thing. It's a bummer that I can't access any of the surreally blogs unless I'm on high-speed access, because some of my favorite bloggers are over there. But it's kind of cool to hang with my randomWalks pals over here.

OK. I'm starting to feel a bit too geeky for typing this, so i'm just going to publish it and be done with it.

Oh, wait...first I'm going to make one of those listy things about stuff I've been brewing in my brain to write about:

• Had another EXCELLENT conversation with my pro-war client at work. He's an amazing man, and I think he pulls the best conversations out of me. Yesterday our discussion touched on corporate interests, racism, apathy, God, and hopelessness. I can't wait to write it all down, but I have to wait, because cy is climbing dangerously on the arms of a chair and it's quite distracting.

• I have a bunch of links about the ratio of civilian deaths to military deaths throughout the years. I'm hoping to pull some sort of commentary together out of it.

• I want to write about what's going on in Israel these days.

• I also want to talk about the idiocy at A Small Victory. Someone has actually minimized the current state of chaos in Iraq by saying something along the lines of "what's a little looting? The Iraqis are free..." or something. I can't believe that they actually believe their own bullshit, but I suppose it's comforting to think that everything is groovy...even when it most certainly is not.

• It is sounding like the liberation honeymoon is over. They're using the word "anarchy" to describe what's currently happening in Iraq. I prefer the more accurate term "violent chaos."

• I also want to talk about the word radical, for Espy...

• AND I want to write a bit about how all of the pieces seem to have fallen together for me in just the past year or so. How I've lived on the fringes of radical movements for half of my life, and how suddenly everything I have read and observed all my life has started making sense.

• OH, yeah...and last night I was listening to an AM talk radio show, and i actually heard a caller say that we need to invade Saudi Arabia and iran next. This is very frightening to me. How about you?

I hope everyone has a beautiful day. Let's all hope that order can be restored to the lives of the people of Iraq, and that they can experience true freedom and sovereignty as soon as possible.

Juxtaposition

April 9, 2003

I'm discovering that it's really not enough to listen to the news a snippet at a time. I think that's why so many people have a difficult time "following" politics. I mean, aside from the fact that the media propagates out and out lies, it's a soundbite world, and soundbites don't tell the whole story.

For instance, you might encounter one of the items I'm about to link to and think "wow, that's pretty fucked up."

But juxtaposing the two news items paints a grim picture of the aims of our government.

First, there's this:

Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has circulated one amendment that would eliminate the sunset provision in the anti-terror Patriot Act that passed in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and greatly expanded the government's law enforcement powers.

Hatch wants to eliminate the law's Dec. 31, 2005, expiration date, a move that some civil liberties groups contend would embolden the Justice Department in its use of the sweeping anti-terror law.

And then...there's this:

First the Americans killed the correspondent of al-Jazeera yesterday and wounded his cameraman. Then, within four hours, they attacked the Reuters television bureau in Baghdad, killing one of its cameramen and a cameraman for Spain's Tele 5 channel and wounding four other members of the Reuters staff.

Millions of Americans celebrated the as-yet-to-be-seen liberation of the Iraqi civilians today. Yesterday, someone commented on one of my posts at hooha that they are glad they are in the majority because that means they don't have to pay attention to what I have to say. With this kind of weird relationship that Americans seem to have with truth and justice, I really am afraid of the amount of freedom my fellow citizens are willing to sacrifice to a government that no other country can keep in check.

The juxtaposition of current events and history paints a larger picture that few people who support the war choose to look at. This is unfortunate, as it leaves them with a snapshot solution that is detrimental to all of us.

Bomb Them All.

April 9, 2003

While this is certainly one of the more compelling "liberation" successes, I'm still having a great deal of trouble with the "bombing for freedom" ideology. Here are some links about human rights violations against children around the world. Shall we bomb them all? Free the children! Bomb their parents! It sounds like a sequel to the movie Wild in the Streets.

Betraying the Young: Human Rights Violations Against Children in the US Justice System

Human Rights Violation and Children

FINGERS TO THE BONE: UNITED STATES FAILURE TO PROTECT CHILD FARMWORKERS

Amnesty International reports on the Torture and Mistreatment of Children

Honduras

INDONESIA: A cycle of violence for Aceh's children

PARAGUAY Conscription: Recruitment of children, routine ill-treatment and unexplained deaths.

Sierra Leone: Childhood - a casualty of conflict

(I found this tidbit while looking for information about where, exactly, Sierra Leone IS: "With the support of the UN peacekeeping force and contributions from the World Bank and international community, demobilization and disarmament of the RUF and Civil Defense Forces (CDF) combatants has been completed. Reestablishment of government authority throughout the country is slowly proceeding and national elections took place in May 2002." So...wow. I wonder how many bombs they used in that peacekeeping mission)

Unicef Statistics

There are so many more links, but I'm getting depressed and I need to get some sleep. Maybe I'll add to this list later, and perhaps we can all work on drafting a letter to our pro-war friends who have suddenly found themselves in the position of being advocates for human rights, so that they know where to go for information and to take action that DOESN'T involve dropping bombs on cities.

(I'll leave it up to you to research the current US policies with the countries linked here. I'm sure it's a mixed bag.)

Lets just hope the pro-war zealots remember their sudden bleeding hearts after
the bombs have stopped dropping. Perhaps one good thing that might come out of this war is that people who never gave a fuck about anyone else's rights (except, of course their own right to drive an SUV on good old 'murican highways) might possibly start paying attention to what many anti-war protestors have known about for years and years. Things are fucked all over, people. And we can't possibly bomb them all. In fact, it could be argued (and I have and will continue to argue) that our current action in Iraq is very detrimental to our potential as a peaceful liberator for these other nations that desperately need some help, and preferably not in the form of a MOAB.

I'm very glad those Iraqi children are now free. I can only continue to hope that children everwhere can be brought to freedom through peaceful means which do not jeopardize their ability to live the remander of their lives in freedom. (WARNING: graphic images in that last link. Do not click if you have a weak stomach...)

The importance of Dissent.

April 8, 2003

I was talking to a woman at the park today about radicalism and dissent. The conversation started with a comment I made about the fact that my son had agreed to let me read him Zinn and Chomsky to counterbalance the fact that he plays Age Of Empires way more than a child of six should. I let him play the game because it really is giving him a good deal of historical information about war and the various ages and empires, but it provides a very narrow reference point.

The woman I was speaking with had no idea who Zinn and Chomsky are. She said she had heard of Chomsky, and she kind of was suspicious about my mentioning him. I'm sure she had heard that he was "bad" somehow, but she wasn't clear on how. So I was explaining to her who Zinn and Chomsky are, and the conversation turned to the topic of radicalism, and what it means.

I feel the need to clarify before continuing. I feel very blessed to have so many great people to interact with on a regular basis. I feel extremely fortunate to have people in my life with whom I can have a confrontational and argumentative discussion and NOT end in outrage and anger. I truly mean this. The conversations I have lately had with people who disagree with me about politics have all ended with warm feelings, and this is such a tremendous thing. I really feel like I'm making a great deal of progress when I can have a discussion with someone who I know will not necessarily change their mind based on the discussion, but who is open-minded enough to exchange ideas with me regardless.

Anyway, as I was saying, the conversation turned to the topic of radicalism (by the way, don't you just love that our DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE states: ""That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall most likely effect their Safety and Happiness."??), and then to the topic of anti-war protests. I don't think my friend realized that I am, in fact, an anti-war protestor when she said something like "I don't understand why these anti-war protestors are congratulating themselves on their bravery. There's nothing brave about protesting the war, and they're really just causing problems for people. It would be more brave for them to use the system to make their statement."

I had to take a deep breath before diving into this one. The funny thing, is I actually felt myself screwing up my courage to admit to her that I am, in fact, an anti-war protestor, and that I do support civil disobedience as a valid form of protest. Bravery is a strange thing.

I suppose, in some peoples' minds, protesting the war - protesting against anything for that matter - is an innocuous enough thing to do. And I definitely don't walk around patting myself on the back for the work that I do. However, to say that it's not courageous to speak your mind, or to take action that could result in jailtime (and in some cases, brutality) is dismissive. Certainly it's courageous for people to stand up for what they believe in, in spite of very vocal and, at times, aggressive disagreement from people who hold the opposite view, particularly when the people with the opposing view feel emboldened by their "majority" status.

My friend and I exchanged ideas about this. She wasn't really convinced that inconveniencing and interrupting were the best ways to change peoples' minds...and I'm not convinced that inconveniencing and interrupting are methods of protest that are necessarily meant to change minds but to make a point. There are plenty of other forms of protest out there that are useful for exchanging ideas and "changing peoples' minds" (although I really don't believe that minds change like that. I don't talk to people to change their minds, but to exchange ideas...a change of mind takes a lot longer than I can afford to invest in a specific individual, but I'm happy to contribute my small part if someone is willing and open to be educated on my point of view.)

Anyway, there were some things we agreed on, and some things we agreed to disagree about, but something came up in the discussion that I think was a revelation to both of us:

What protestors are doing is very important to the preservation of free speech. It might be annoying, it might be condemnable, it might even piss people off. But, damnit, it's absolutely crucial that people continue to exercise their right to assemble and agitate peacefully as much as possible. If no one did, how easy would it be to erode that right and/or take it away altogether? In fact, many people say that there has already been a great deal of erosion in the right to assemble, considering protestors are forced to get parade licenses and have to work with the government and the police prior to being "granted" the right to assemble. There's actually a great deal of red tape involved in exercising your right to assemble peacably, and that, I'm pretty sure, is different from the way it was during the Viet Nam war....which was the last time that protests were as large and as coordinated as they are now.

So...brave freedom fighters? I guess that's open to interpretation. However, protestors of any ilk are certainly doing a very important thing for the continuation of democracy. We are exercising muscles that, if left unused, could very possibly atrophy, leaving our democracy damaged and ineffective.

[crossposted on hooha.us]

Aw Damn...

April 8, 2003

I got an e-mail with this alleged Natalie Maines apology and I so hoped that it was true, but alas it is not.

And most important of all, I realize that it's wrong for a celebrity to voice a political opinion, unless they're Charlie Daniels, Clint Black, Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell, Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Travis Tritt, Hank Williams Jr, Amy Grant, Larry Gatlin, Crystal Gayle, Reba McEntire, Lee Greenwood, Lorrie Morgan, Anita Bryant, Mike Oldfield, Ted Nugent, Wayne Newton, Dick Clark, Jay Leno, Drew Carey, Dixie Carter, Victoria Jackson, Charleton Heston, Fred Thompson, Ben Stein, Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Bo Derek, Rick Schroeder, George Will, Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly, Joe Rogan, Delta Burke, Robert Conrad or Jesse Ventura.

It's too bad the Dixie Chicks can't be more like Franti. Can I have a fan moment and gush about the fact that I got to shake Michael Franti's hand when the Beatnigs came to Chicago waaaaaaaaaay back in, like 1988. They played a show with DOA (!) and NOMEANSNO (I think...all of the shows run together in my mind) and it was so kick ass. I'm so glad that through all of these years the man has stayed true to his ideals.

Oh, and someone is clamoring about my posts at kd's blog, so I'm probably going to go post there tonight. Someone give me a really radical topic to post about so I can piss off mr. or Ms. "curious".

I can't even tell you how depressed this makes me.

April 8, 2003

I spent the entire day playing with the children outside at the park. We had a picnic, we flew kites, we relished the freedom that not having to go to work or school during the day affords us. We met, talked with, and played with friends. We laughed, we argued, we told stories and sang songs.

And then I came home and got online, which was probably not the best idea, but I was waiting for K's mom to pick her up. And I read this article [via randomwalks]. And I really...just want to throw up.

"I think they're cowards," Boggs said of the parents or Fedayeen paramilitaries who send out children to the battlefield.

"I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and keep ourselves safe."

The boy he killed was with another child of around the same age when they reached for the RPG and came under fire. Boggs thinks the second boy was also hit but other soldiers think he escaped and that he dragged his friend's dead body away.

I love my children. I'm horrified that children would be used in warfare, but I'm even more horrified that we knew that children would be used in warfare before we started this war. There's very little justification that can be given for the killing of 10 year old children. It doesn't matter if they intended to do harm. It doesn't matter that they are being forced by "the enemy" to participate in warfare. What matters is that we knew that this would happen when we went in...

...and that didn't stop us.

For those who will continue to say "That's war." My response is that we need to come up with a more appropriate name for it. It's really not war anymore. It's slaughter. It's...it's a word that is so harsh it hasn't even been invented yet. I'm at a loss for what this kind of reality is called. But I do know that I don't want it to happen in my name.

Sustainability

April 8, 2003

Serendipitously, after waking this morning with the thought "War culture, like capitalist culture, is not sustainable...and I need to write a post about that." I log on to find that Suzanne has posted in comments this quote by Arundhati Roy:

"The 'American Way of Life' is not sustainable."

I had an excellent discussion last night with a client of mine. He was arguing for the war. I, of course, was arguing against. He is an ex-military man, very smart, media savvy, all that stuff. I have a lot of these discussions at work, and they are always peaceful in spite of the strong opinions held.

The funny thing is that every person I discuss the war with is clear on the fact that a) this is not a humanitarian mission, and b) it is, indeed, about the oil. And they don't care. They think that's a worthwhile reason to have a war or many wars.

After an hour of heated debate with this man (who, by the way, is also a very, very nice and sweet guy with an EXCELLENT sense of humor...which makes arguing so much more fun) we shook hands, hugged...and I gave him a few links to some sites that might give him more information. He left that night, telling me he was going to do some research and he'd "come back tomorrow for round 2!"

Here's what I'm going to tell him tonight. Quite simply, war is unsustainable. It's yet another example of the "American Way Of Life" which is completely impossible to sustain.

It's an answer to the eternal question of "If we don't fight wars, how will we maintain our way of life in light of world crises?" The answer is...how long can we continue to apply a solution that is expensive in human lives, in freedom, in money, and in resources? It's the same thing as the socialism/anarchism vs. capitalism argument. Somehow, it's pie-in-the-sky to point out that we simply can't continue the way we are...and yet it is perfectly logical to apply a solution that is absolutely not sustainable.

Here are some other arguments I heard last night:

"Well, war is what our country was founded on" (in response to my assertion that freedom was what our country was founded on)

"This is the way it's always been." (in response to the powerlessness of the poor, and the fact that our government is run by corporations)

"We needed to eject Saddam Hussein." (and this is where the insustainability of war argument comes into play because, again, you can't just bomb every single nation where human rights violations are occuring. We don't have to power or the money to do this.)

"You are living in the best country around. I know...because I was in the military and I've traveled a lot." (My counter argument to this is always the same...it's mere accident of birth that I am here in the US as opposed to elsewhere. Not to mention that much of the reasons why developing nations are not great places to live is BECAUSE of the U.S.)

My client friend was so respectful of my opinion, and kind of amazed that I had so much information. But he was totally open to hearing things, and I was amazed that he was so accepting of some of the things I said. We both agree that the nation is run by corporations. We both agree that 9/11 happened at least in part because of the way the United States conducts itself in foreign affairs, although he INSISTED that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. We both agreed on many, many things, but he kept insisting war is the answer and/or there's nothing we can do to stop the plutocracy, and I kept insisting that we can, we MUST, and we will.

In the meantime, another person was in the room with us saying some stuff that absolutely horrified me. This person knows enough about the war to be dangerous, and is very Christian. I respect and admire this person a great deal, but it's difficult to navigate discussions with him without throttling him. One of the things he said with respect to the fact that no one will know what the REAL answers are until 20 or 30 years from now was "I don't believe I will get the answers until I die."

This is probably a whole other post altogether, but I'm really thinking Christianity should be outlawed about now. What the fuck is this mindset that we need not take responsibility for the horror we bring to this world because we're busy living for the next one? OK, I know...many many Christians believe in being decent in this life, too...but why do I keep encountering the weirdos who twist the religion in this way? I don't care what religion you belong to, you are on the PHYSICAL plane right now, and you have the ability to support things that cause PHYSICAL (and spiritual) damage. The answer is simple...don't fucking support these things.

The answer is that waging war after war after war benefits no one and hurts everyone. It's one of those short-term thinking things. Obviously some very wealthy and powerful individuals benefit in the short term, but if you look at the long-term effects, it's not a viable solution.

I wonder what my friend is going to say when I tell him I'm a pinko commie bastard?

P.S. I'm probably not going to be around much today or tomorrow. I might be able to get some blogging done while I'm at work in the evenings, but otherwise I'll be running around with the kids and going to that work event tomorrow. Can someone please make sure we're not overrun with idiocy here? Thanks. And please feel free to talk amongst yourselves. Funk power. Over and out.

P.P.S...another thing the "other person in the room" said was that we shouldn't care what Europe thinks about the war because, and I quote "They are just itty bitty countries who have no power over us."

Um...ok, dude.

Next time I have an argument with a client, I'm going to send this person away first. I'm realizing that my only moments of rage during the argument occurred as a result of his ignorance.

A couple last things before bedtime.

April 8, 2003

I'm seriously considering pesticiding my house. The fucking gigantic roaches are bad enough, but today there were more than a couple of termites wandering around aimlessly in our living room. What the fuck? I mean, yes...I happen to be a slob, but we've been much better about the dishes and other things. Why do I have to contend with these disgusting bugs. And yet...it's just so wrong to spray poison in the ground under our house. So very wrong. So...I dunno. I don't want to continue to share this house with unwelcome guests, but...

I guess I wish there was a way to set up a little house in the yard where all of the gigantic roaches and termites could cavort merrily and without fear. OR I wish there was a pesticide that I was certain wouldn't poison the ground for years to come (the cumulative effect of all of the pesticides in this neighborhood must be awful, because I KNOW our neighbors have roaches, too...There's just no way they would all be here and nowhere else.)

So...yeah. It hasn't been a very fun day here. Between the various insects that I spend my days dodging and screaming at, I had a funny little keystone cops-esque episode where the naked baby was outside with m, and when I ran inside to get the laundry out of the wash to hang on the line, m yelled "mom! c's playing with fire ants!" I quickly ran outside to save my baby from certain death, only to find that there were not freaking fire ants. However, I felt like it might be a good idea for c to actually be wearing clothes and stuff, so I brought him inside to get him dressed, and found the dog ON THE FUCKING TABLE eating some remnants of bread that were left over from breakfast. While shooing her down and trying to control my rage (I don't know why, but I get SOOOOOO fucking angry at that damn dog. Sometimes it feels like my teeth are going to break from the jaw clenching. I mean, she MUST KNOW that she's not allowed on the table, and yet she persists. Any time ANYTHING remotely edible is up there, and she is unsupervised, she will get on the table. I have seen her with her snout deep in a cup, desperately trying to lick up the last drops of soy milk...and she has broken untold numbers of glass dishes in her zealous haste) anyway, while I was shooing her down and containing my desire to throw her out the window, the naked cy ran back outside and the whole fucking thing started all over again.

I really, truly love my life. But days like this...I can do without.

Now, I must go to bed in hopes of adjusting my body clock to this week's fucked schedule. Wish me luck.

And have you visited blogsagainstwar.net? I'm really loving having access to so many excellent anti-war posts at my fingertips every day. Since I have so little time these days to do any significant surfing, it helps to have all of the good posts in one place.

m (and random bitching.)

April 8, 2003

Today when running an errand with m, he said this to me:

"Every night I shed my head and grow a new one, because my skull keeps getting bigger and bigger, so I have to keep growing new heads."

Apparently only part of his head comes off at any given time, though. I asked. Actually, I think I said something like "So, does your head just spontaneously pop off and then grow back?" And he responded "No! Only part of it comes off and then grows back again right away."

Later in the evening, he was playing a computer game and he said "There's a mistake in this game. There's a woman catching fish, and the game keeps calling her a fisherMAN. She's not a fisherMAN, she's a fisherWOMAN!"

These two little revelations almost make up for the fact that it's almost 1 in the morning, and the little nerd is still running around demanding things of me. At one point, I had him trained to not expect full-service mommy past 10:30 at night...but lately he's demanding full-service mommy until midnight or so, and he does not give me a moment's peace when I'm trying to write or pay bills or any of the 12 million other things I have to attempt to cram into the last few hours of the day before I flop exhausted into bed.

OK, while I'm on a roll, can I just say that I FUCKING HATE daylight savings time. All of our internal clocks here are completely screwed up. And to make things worse, on Wednesday I have to be at a work event at 7 O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING. This means I have to wake up at SIX so I can pick up my interns at SIX THIRTY. Yeah. Right. As if I will actually be functional at that hour. And L wants me to bring m along. Um, honey, the child doesn't wake up until 10 or 11 most mornings, I am NOT going to be able to get him out of bed at 6 AM.

I have more ranting and raving that I would like to do, but I want to catch the prerecorded news broadcast. Perhaps I will come back. In the meantime, if there are any Christians out there, can you reveal yourselves? I'm starting to loathe the Christian religion due to various things that I've been hearing lately, and certainly there are decent Christians out there who can remind me that it's not all about deferring your responsibility towards humanity until the afterlife.

Thanks.

Holy Shit.

April 7, 2003

This article was linked up at this blog, and...what the FUCK?!

In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army V Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water.

It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage, which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks, as an opportunity.

It reminds me of a news report I saw yesterday (I was at work, and watching CNN, which I don't get at home) about prayer services on the front lines. No religion other than Christianity was mentioned. Could it be that Christianity is the only religion that soldiers choose?

And Christians wonder why their religion has a bad name. If I was a Christian, I'd be out in the fucking streets every day protesting the abuse of my faith.

UPDATE:
This article is fucking depressing, although FINALLY someone gets it right:

"It's completely inappropriate to have the Army put on a revival meeting at a military base, and that is the bottom line of this event," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.

"This is a particularly bad time to have the Army appear to be promoting Christianity," he continued, "in the middle of a war with a Muslim country."

link via Eschaton

On Stupidity and Heartlessness

April 7, 2003

I woke up this morning with the thought running through my head that the majority American public is either very short-sighted, extremely ignorant, blindly nationalistic (this is NOT a good thing, and if you think it is, you are a complete idiot) or some combination of the above.

I was thinking about the fact that 80% of the rest of the world's people (and this includes the populations in the other member nations of the so-called "coalition of the willing") think that a war with Iraq was and IS a bad idea. It kind of frames the whole fucking argument whenever someone tells me that I'm insensitive to the plight of the Iraqi people, or that I need to provide the solution that our VERY WELL-PAID government officials are choosing to not discover. I tend to think "OK, IDIOT, if I'm so malinformed and/or reactionary, would you discount practically the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD as such? And when there's 80% resistance to the actions of basically one nation, within whose borders there's 70% approval, wouldn't you tend to question what motivates the citizens to approve? Do you THINK that MAYBE the U.S. might be coming across as SOMEWHAT dictatorial to the rest of the world?

I heard something HILARIOUS yet subtle on the news last night. I can't remember what show it was, but I'm certain it was on PBS. The host of the news show was interviewing someone about the current war, and the host asked why Russian hadn't climbed on board with Bush and Blair, as it would have given them excellent position as "pal of America." The interviewee said something to the effect of "Well, considering the Russian public is largely opposed to the war, and it is a democratic country, Putin couldn't merely disregard public opinion for political gain."

Remind me...what percentage of the American public was opposed to a non-UN sanctioned war with Iraq?

This is what democracy looks like? And you wonder why the rest of the world is more than a little bit pessimistic about the motives of the U.S. in the rebuilding process?

Disinformation

April 6, 2003

Visiting one of my regular reads, I was shocked to find a post that talked about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. That wasn't actually the most offensive thing about the post, but I was shocked that someone I respect could perpetuate such a reckless revision of reality without appearing to even blink. This was all explained away, of course, among the comments, but I'm still sort of reeling from the witnessing of revisionism in process.

For instance, another bit of revisionism, if I may pick on the same post for awhile, is this assumption that all anti-war activists consider troops to be "baby killers." There's a fine point I have to make here. Two of them. Number one, in a very real sense, the troops ARE baby killers. Hate to tell you this, Julie, but some of our troops are, in fact, killing babies. To imply this is not the case is dishonest and dismissive. Babies are dying because of the bombs we are dropping and the guns we are firing.

However, for me to call an individual soldier, whoI would imagine is pretty much shellshocked, scared shitless, and fighting for his or her own life a "baby killer" would also be propagandist and dishonest. Rather, it's the administration and the system that keeps the need for warfare in place that is responsible for the deaths of the babies. The system turns our young men and women into baby killers, and it's a reality that our troops will need support in getting over. The psychological damage that results from warfare like this is unimaginable to me. I believe our system, however, enables people to gain moral distance from the issue of dead babies, and that's what enables this kind of killing to continue. (someone needs to remind me to write the post I've been meaning to write about how the United States has really become a corporatocracy, and therefore does not need to worry about advancing a true moral or ethical front.)

The question arises why I feel that protesting is the equivalent of supporting the troops when the troops chose to be there. It's a valid question, and it's easily answered. I think it's a form of suicide to join the military with the idea that one will engage in warfare. Just as I would not hold the noose for someone who was contemplating suicide, I refuse to stay silent about the war. Just because someone chooses to join the military does not mean I have to support that decision. I don't respect the job they are having to do right now, but I do respect that for most military personnel, refusing to do the job would be no different for our soldiers than it would be for the Iraqi soldiers. Also, I don't believe our military was created for the purpose of engaging in pre-emptive invasion/occupation warfare (although that seems to be all we're doing of late) and I don't believe all of the people who join the military do so with the full knowledge of the possibility of combat. I don't know that I believe that we do not need a military at all (I'd like to believe it...but I certainly can't believe it now that we've pissed off the entire fucking world) but I do believe that there are other ways of employing troops without engaging in invasion/occupation warfare.

It would be absolutely hypocritical for me to join the ranks of the idiots who opposed the war before it started, only to snap to attention the minute it began. I feel sick to my stomach when I think about the reality that's discussed in this article. About how easily public opinion can be brought to order, and not only the current, but also the potential harm that can be done with that kind of power.

Anyway, this post started off as a post about disinformation, and the rampant revisionism that happens every day in the war coverage. I was watching Fox News the other night, and the little teaser ad for the war coverage had a quote from a report that has since been proven untrue, and I can't believe that this is allowed to continue.

And I keep watching conversations at the Agonist, and Atrios, and other places, and everyone is so quick to jump on the "I told you so" train, only to be proven wrong almost immediately. NO ONE knows what is real and what isn't, and no one will know until 20 or 30 years from now.

This is why it's important for me to fall back on a moral/ethical opposition to warfare. It's just plain wrong to kill people. And the devaluing of human life that occurs the world over won't stop until we find less violent ways of resolving the crises of humanity.

Oh, and wouldn't hurt to completely crush capitalism, either.

Trying hard not to talk shit about a certain person...

April 6, 2003

But...have you ever known someone who, no matter WHAT they say, comes across totally smarmy and. just. wrong....?

I really have made a concerted effort to get along with this person, but every time I'm forced to read a freaking e-mail, much less be in the same room with her, I feel like I'm going to vomit...and then I just want to throttle her.

I don't think I've ever disliked someone so intensely in my entire life.

Command Post

April 5, 2003

I tried reading the command post for news, because I heard a rumor that they weren't including any fucked up right-wing ranting rhetoric there, but I made the mistake of viewing the comments on this post, and I felt incredibly embarrassed about the amount of publicity that site is getting, and how people must view blogging based on their exposure to that site.

Hey, world, not everyone considers all muslims to be a "horrible cult." At least not any more horrible than the cult of Christianity that is currently running our country.

I'm tired. I'm really tired of dealing with the racism and ignorance of culture surrounding this war. I wish people would just shut the fuck about their centrist politics and read a fucking book for once in their stupid lives.

As far as "name me one war that hasn't involved Muslims" - I'll go you one better, fuckwad. Name me one that doesn't involve Christianity. I'm sure the numbers would be about equal.

But, of course, when you're standing on a fucking MOUNTAIN of privilege, it can get really difficult to see the lay of the land.

UPDATE: This is one site that seems to have a lot of information about the Muslim faith. Being non-religious by nature, I can honestly say that the rhetoric on this site sounds no different to me than the Christian rhetoric. An interesting page of links specifically adressing terrorism is here, including this site that talks about suicide bombing. I'm going to read some of these articles later tonight.

I'm with Europe.

April 5, 2003

This link came from this really cool blog. It's about the European view of all this damn God talk that's happening in our white house. I could not agree more. In fact, I don't even think the fucking God Freaks realize how much they slip their savior into the public space without even giving a thought to the idea that some of us do not believe in their God. I could really rant about this for pages, but instead I'll send you to the article. I'm too pissed to really think clearly right now.

Bush's firm faith, rooted in an evangelical Protestantism that reflects an important voter bloc in his Republican party, has also prompted questions in mainstream U.S. media about how much it colors his stand on Iraq and his war on terror.

In his speeches, he has asked for guidance from "the loving God behind all of life and all of history," hinted he believed there was a "divine plan" for the world and warned Americans that "we are in a conflict between good and evil."

These references may not seem so out of place in the United States, where all presidents say "God bless America" and "In God We Trust" is emblazoned on dollar bills.

But they stand out and sometimes even shock many Europeans who remember how German soldiers trooped off to World War One with "Gott mit uns" (God with us) stamped on their belt buckles.

May the Europeans save us from life in the United States of Ironica. Home of government, incorporated.

Just in case there's a billionaire in the audience

April 5, 2003

While chatting with Tish and Suzanne the other day, it came up that I'm a "good researcher." I really was kind of pleasantly surprised at this compliment. I really don't have much time to devote to this blog (although I pretty much steal time from other places, when necessary) and I feel that the research I get to do (skimming, mostly) could be much much more thorough.

So, in case there are any potential rich sponsors out there who want to hire me to research stuff all day, or who might want to send me to school for the rest of my life, let me know. I really love research, and I would definitely consider your offers.

hahahaha.

BTW - tonight I'm researching the history of Iraq, its social structures and it's constitution. Maybe I'll report my findings later.

Rueters News Feed

April 5, 2003

Someone on the bulletin boards at the Agonist site gave a link to the video feeds at Reuters. It reminded me why I'm not watching the news.

I'm not sure how anyone can listen to babies crying in hospitals with wounds all over their bodies and still think it's ok to continue doing what we are doing. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but we are killing human beings, we are destroying the psyches of the soldiers who are doing the killing...and don't forget the whole "alienating the rest of the world" thing.

I did catch some of CNN's reporting when I stopped to get something to drink at a local restaurant after today's protest. They were reporting on some sort of weapons cache that had been unearthed by coalition forces. I'm unsure of what their point was, but I couldn't help but exclaim out loud in a crowded restaurant "Duh! they have WEAPONS! We know this...they're fighting a war!"

I also heard some reports about this morgue that was discovered in Southern Iraq. 200 or so coffins. What I didn't hear was this:

Each coffin carried an inscription in Arabic, perhaps the identity of the person inside, and the bags were scrawled on with marker pen. Some of the paperwork appeared to date the "morgue" to around 1985.

So...it's quite possible that this morgue is holding the bodies of people who were killed while we were allied with Hussein. I wonder why CNN neglected to mention that little piece of information.

At any rate, I'm closing the news feed now, but if you have more of a stomach for this sort of thing, you can find it here.

I need to go nurse my sunburn and my sore throat, and then maybe have a long cry. I'll be lighting a candle tonight for the people of Baghdad.

So Busted.

April 5, 2003

A conversation I had with m after a discussion about what videos we were going to rent:

m: My LEAST FAVORITE Powerpuff girl is BLOSSOM. But you know who I like BEST...

Mama: Bubbles?

m: Yeah...who's YOUR favorite PowerPuff Girl, mom?

Mama: Buttercup.

m: Why? She's the toughest!

Mama: I know. That's why I like her.

m: AHEM! You don't like VIOLENCE.

(so busted.)

A promotion.

April 5, 2003

This post (permalinks messed up, but it's the post from April 1st) has convinced me that I no longer have a crush on Captain Catamenia. I now want to marry him.

[...]please send CNN an email that reads something like:

Dear CNN,

Please send out a reporter to be embedded in Captain Catamenia's ass. His perspective is worth pursuing and will offer some diversity to an almost useless station.

Thanks,

Conscientious watcher

Isn't he dreamy?

Natural Language

April 4, 2003

I've noticed recently that m is very conscientious about saying "him or herself" and "he or she." I really don't think I have ever made a conscious effort to enforce this language, and, in fact, I know I'm pretty bad about gender-specific language in general (particularly since I live in a house full of guys.)

I just think it's kind of neat. He still has a lot of "That's a girl thing" shit in him, but at least his pronoun use reflects somewhat of a lack of bias.

Innoculated City (a musical recap)

April 4, 2003

The soldier boy for his soldiers pay
Obeys the seargent at arms whatever he says

The seargent will for his seargent's pay
Obey the general order of the battle play

The generals bow to the government
Obey the charge you must not relent

What of the neighbors and the prophets in bars?
What are they saying in the public bazaar?
We are tired of the tune
You must not relent

At every stroke of the bell in the tower there goes
Another boy from another side

The bulletins that steady come in say those
Familiar words at the top of the hour

The jamming city increases its hum
And those terrible words continue to come

Through brass music of government hear those
Guns tattoo a roll on the drums

No-one mentions the neighboring war
No one knows what they're fighting for
We are tired of the tune
You must not relent

[lyrics by the clash.]

Does this seem absolutely suspect to you?

April 4, 2003

Or am I just totally jaded about our media and our military?

m-ism

April 3, 2003

Not to be outdone by his adorable baby brother, m has taken to exclaiming "JIMINY!" whenever he doesn't get his way.

This Interview Made Me Cry.

April 3, 2003

It made me cry because it made it sounds like U.S. soldiers are trying to maintain any sense of humanity they can. Amidst the shellshock and horror, some are clinging to the last shreds of human decency:

We all four of us started to cry and the Sergeant that six hours before wanted to give us a cup of coffee, came to us, a Sergeant Major of the American army and he started to hug us, he was crying. And he said, "Believe me, it's not all the American army, excuse me I love you, I am with you, excuse us, please and please and please."

It makes me sad because many of these soldiers are still children, and they are definitely not dogs:

Five soldiers went out of the camp, jumped on him and started to beat him and to kick him. We ran to his direction. They all put bullets inside the cannons of their guns, and they said if we move forward they shoot at us. We were standing like stupid guys. We saw our friend lying on the ground crying, hurting. They tied his hand behind his back. They took him into the camp. And after half-an-hour, they let him go, and came back to us all crying. And then came this Lieutenant Scholl. And he told us, "Don't mess with my soldiers. Don't mess with them because they are trained like dogs to kill. And they will kill you if you try again."

It made me cry because people seem so willing to forgive the U.S. SOLDIERS even, for their transgressions...for their lack of humanity. It made me cry because I wonder what kind of word these troops will return to, and what they will make of this world.

And, of course, it made me cry because of the torture of 4 independent journalists at the hands of people who are supposed to be fighting in my name, for liberation, no less.

The international press watch group Reporters Without Borders has accused the US and British coalition forces in Iraq of displaying contempt for journalists covering the conflict who are not embedded with troops. The criticism comes after a group of four "unilateral or roving reporters revealed how they were arrested by US military police as they slept near a US unit a hundred miles south of Baghdad and were held overnight. They described their ordeal as the worst 48 hours of their lives.

This needs to end now. We need to bring them home.

[link courtesy of Ampersand]

Affirmative Action.

April 3, 2003

Yo Mama has the goods on what you can do to defend affirmative action:

* Begin organizing a regional demonstration now for after April 1 and before mid-June, after which, the US Supreme Court will likely rule in the University of Michigan cases.

* Hold civil rights marches and rallies anywhere any of the US Supreme Court judges appear. They must continue to hear the voice of the nation that stands for affirmative action and integration. The judges will be speaking at numerous convocations at colleges and universities around the country.

* Come to the Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement at the University of Michigan over the weekend of May 30, 2003 sponsored by BAMN, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and other civil rights organizations.

I'll update this as soon as I find out when our local demonstrations will be.

And Small Hands could not have said it any better:

I read one blurb where the disappointed applicant stated that once she was denied admission into the University of Michigan, she lost all interest in a legal career. This is horse shit. What the fuck kind of lawyer does she think she'd make if one disappointment takes away her momentum? What the fuck example of perseverance is that? A legal career is full of disappointments. Big ones. One must be tenacious. I wouldn't let her ass in my law school either.

hooha...

April 3, 2003

kd has encouraged me to continue posting at hooha.us. I'm totally honored to do so. Today, I posted this. I wonder what I will come up with tomorrow? Maybe even more than one post...

It's kind of fun being a guest host of someone's blog.

On a personal note...

April 2, 2003

I'm seriously considering joining a church. Is that weird, or what?

and, completely unrelated but also personal...

Rebecca Blood has linked me up, listing me as her evil twin. I'm not sure about the "twin" part...

Takoma the Dolphin has a website...

April 2, 2003

Got this link from a comment to one of my posts at randomWalks:

I wanted to help out and make a positive difference in the world, but the shit has hit the fan. Not being human, and being an outside observer, I can speak with authority. Being a dolphin I can say that human leaders are hell bent on destroying. For what reason I don't know. I don't buy into this whole blame game thing, who did what first because at any point anyone can rise above the situation and try to stop the insanity. And by insanity I mean the cycle of violence you call life. I can not explain why your culture is so immune to other people's pain.

Too bad he came back.

Blog Crushing.

April 2, 2003

I intended to change out my blog crushes last night, but I couldn't access full bleed. I might get around to changing them out this morning, or later tonight.

Roni, Lem, and Nay, thanks for being my lovely crushes for the month of March. I owe you each a mix, and I'll try to send you an e-mail later today. I've set up a blogroll for previous crushes, so I can remember you fondly.

I'm now accepting applications for May. I am loving the new blogs I'm getting to see because of this silly contest, so keep those crush apps coming. Just e-mail me and tell me why you are crushworthy and I will consider you.

The Dalai Lama on War

April 2, 2003

This has probably been linked a thousand times, but I just found it:

Today, the world is so small and so interdependent that the concept of war has become anachronistic, an outmoded approach. As a rule, we always talk about reform and changes. Among the old traditions, there are many aspects that are either ill-suited to our present reality or are counterproductive due to their shortsightedness. These, we have consigned to the dustbin of history. War too should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Whenever anyone asks me "OK, Ms. smarty pants anti-war protestor, how would YOU solve the problem." I can't help but think that it's an evolution thing. The people who are being governed seem to understand that there needs to be change, but it's the people in power who resist this change because they stand to lose more. There's no simple solution to the world crises that we face, but engaging in warfare time and time again has not proven effective. It's time to try something else. It's time to establish a system of government that values all lives. It's time to lead by example rather than force.

Evolution or revolution.

As a parent, I know that I can't beat my children into submission, nor can I enforce rules on them that I myself am unwilling to follow. What I need to do is respond to their needs with empathy, to admit when I am wrong, and to set a positive example for them to model their behavior after. Not to mention that, as a parent, I have absolutely no business trying to parent other peoples' children, not to mention attempting to parent grown adults...particularly if I'm not parenting in a way that is consistent with everyone's values. Particularly if I can't even parent in a way that is consistent with my own values.

What the Fuck?

April 2, 2003

Can someone please tell me out of whose asscrack the people who are responding to these polls are crawling from?

Would you support the war if it resulted in the deaths of as many as 500 U.S. troops?

59% -- Yes
33% -- No
8% -- Not sure

As many as 1,000?

47% -- Yes
41% -- No
12% -- Not sure

As many as 5,000?

34% -- Yes
50% -- No
16% -- Not sure

Would you support the war if it resulted in the deaths of as many as 500 Iraqi civilians?

63% -- Yes
29% -- No
8% -- Not sure

As many as 1,000 Iraqi civilians?

50% -- Yes
39% -- No
11% -- Not sure

As many as 5,000 Iraqi civilians?

40% Yes
47% No
13% Not sure

yes, you are reading that correctly, people would remain more supportive of a war that killed as many as 5,000 Iraqi CIVILIANS than they would of a war that killed as many as 5,000 U.S. troops.

I really don't know what else to add to that. I really just don't get it. I'm having a "circular logic exploding brain" moment here.

Great. The Onion is now more realistic than mainstream media.

April 2, 2003

R@d@r linked up this Onion article, and I couldn't even read the whole thing at once because it was far too realistic for me. I'm noticing that a lot, lately...things said with ironic intent are too close to reality for comfort.

At this difficult time, President Bush needs my support. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld needs my support. General Tommy Franks needs my support. It is not my function as a citizen in a participatory democracy to question our leaders. And to exercise my constitutional right—nay, duty—to do so would be un-American.

I'm not sure if what I'm about to add even needs to be said at this point, but I'm going to say it anyway.

I've grown weary of hearing that people who oppose this war need to just shut up and support the action of our troops. I'm angry with the idea that opposition to the war waned the minute war was declared. I'm frustrated because this is the EXACT time when opposition to the war needs to be strongest.

Because the ENTIRE reason the Bush regime felt confident declaring war in spite of an overwhelming lack of public support for military action was because they knew that this fucked-up justification for rolling over and taking it would reign supreme among the American populace. They figured on acquiescence, as people were convinced that opposition to the war was the same thing as wishing the troops dead.

I know I've said it before, but I need to say again that opposition to this war is crucial and must continue. The decision to start the war was made in spite of our opposition precisely because the pigs in power have not been held accountable for their actions. it's the height of arrogance to assume that the people will fall in line in spite of reservations.

It's crucial that we hold them accountable for each and every death. This war was declared not only against the better judgment of the world, but also against the better judgment of the people who should have the power in this country. We need to remember that there was absolute opposition to sending in troops without approval of the UN, and that the American people resoundingly disapproved of the idea of what is now happening in our names.

We need to remember these things and be unafraid of expressing our displeasure and rage. We need to hold our leaders absolutely accountable in every way possible. We cannot let them continue blithely disregarding public opinion with the knowledge that there will be no political price for doing so. We must make their reckless disregard for our voices as costly as possible.

Does the seem tacky to you?

April 1, 2003

So, like I said earlier, there was a MURDER on campus here last week. A male student stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death in the hallway here, and then attempted to commit suicide.

Very traumatic stuff. Stuff that definitely should not be happening on a high school campus.

It happened on Friday, and the kids had to come back to school on Monday. Not only that, but one of my interns wanted to attend the funeral tomorrow and was told she had to stay in school and take a test. Hello? Can we let these children grieve here? Regardless of whether or not these kids were friends with the victims of this crime (and I feel the guy who pulled the knife is a victim here, as well) there needs to be some time to grieve. I'm feeling kind of disgusted with the "business as usual" attitude here. I'm feeling like this is being handled VERY inappropriately.

So, here's the thing that I find even tackiest of all. I just noticed that in the hallway there is now a poster titled "Early Warning Signs of Dating Violence." What the fuck? Can you not wait a fucking WEEK before making an example of these kids? Better yet, could you have maybe listened to this girl when she told school authorities that she felt unsafe? Could you have considered these things in advance and had HALL MONITORS for fuck's sake?

I'm kind of feeling like it's too late to slap a sign on the wall right now. Perhaps the school district could consider a dating violence educational week, but why NOW? Doesn't it seem like a horrible time to bring this up? Or is it just me?

Deconstructing my relationships

April 1, 2003

So, I did a little more thinking about my relationship with K, the little girl I babysit twice a week. I'm still convinced there are some problems with our relationship that are not necessarily my "fault" (and mostly due to the fact that her mom, who is a mama I totally love and respect, has WAY different boundaries than me) BUT I am kind of seeing a pattern in the frustration I feel with "K" and some of the frustration I feel with my kids. The difference is, with "K", all of that frustration gets packed into about 8 hours a week, and there's not a nurturing relationship built up around and threaded through to sort of cushion my frustration.

Here's the deal...I have problems with the relative freedom my children enjoy as compared to the restrictions that were always placed on me. At the same time, I feel that it is vital that my children be given as much freedom as possible...and sometimes the boundaries of this freedom are difficult to enforce.

This is not to say that I was confined to my home with no interaction with the outside world as a child, either. I had a great deal of physical freedom, very few actual rules restricting my movement outside of the home. But, due to issues of power and control within the home, I suffered what I think was a tremendous amount of repression and angst. And when I see my children express themselves in ways that I was never allowed to express myself, I'm filled first with joy in their absolute free will, and next in resentment for the childhood that I was not allowed to enjoy.

I'm sure this is common, and I'm sure my family would deny that I was ever repressed. Of course, my family also denies that I was molested, so I can't really look to them for any sort of realistic reassurance anyway.

But perhaps there is some good that will come from working through my feelings with "K" and exploring their origins. I feel a lot more free today than I have for a long time.

By the same token, something amazing has happened in my home over the past week. The tension that was so overwhelming, and has been so overwhelming for almost a year now, has suddenly broken. I'm not trusting that this is a permanent thing, but I'm also trying really hard to not do anything that will shatter the delicate balance.

I think what happened was that I became a crappy parent for awhile. I probably still am not parenting the best way I know how. I've been distracted and irritable with the children, spending way too much time surfing news sites and interacting via the blog and e-mail...and then spending time at protests and rallies rather than at home. My co-parent, in what I thought might have started out as a show of one-upmanship, began to parent in an exaggerratedly perfect way. The traditional reason for this is so he could give me shit about what an awful parent I am, but I think something amazing happened. I think in his attempt to be a perfect parent, he not only realized some actual benefit (the kids are TOTALLY happy that we are able to be in the same room together without screaming at each other, even though our relationship with each other is still unclear, and also there has been a definite increased bonding between papa and c, who now will eschew the affections of mama when papa enters the room. This might be a coincidental phase, but today papa said something to the effect of "Yeah...we've been having a lot of fun this past week. I have taken them to the park every day." - and for the year prior to this week, it took a minor act of God to get papa out of the house with the kids for any reason.)

So...what's happening now is that I'M feeling encouraged to parent more mindfully. I knew I would come back around anyway, these breaks in conscious parenting happen and it's best to not be overly worried about them other than to acknowledge they are there, that I am imperfect, and that there needs to be a balance struck. Not only that, but I'm feeling an increase in genuine appreciation for the man that my husband is, and a definite hope that there is a peaceful resolution of some sort to the problems that we have with each other.

Crossing my fingers.

Community anti-war March and Rally

April 1, 2003

There will be an anti-war march and rally in Austin on Saturday, April 5th beginning at 1 PM. This march is in solidarity with simultaneous demonstrations in Oakland, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

I hope to see you there.

Pitch.

April 1, 2003

So, I'm still having tremendous difficulty with the little girl I babysit twice a week. I've managed to maintain somewhat of a polite outer front, but her behavior and tone are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I know that much of this is my problem...and has something to do with the pitch of her voice, which is unfamiliar and intrusive to me (not to mention that ANNOYING baby talk that m is now mimicking, and it drives me fucking CRAZY!)...but there are also issues with boundaries that need to be addressed weekly. I've worked hard on separating these issues, but sometimes boundaries are crossed combined with the irritating pitch of voice, and it makes me question if my reactions are incorrect.

It doesn't help that I'm constantly questioning my own appropriateness and fairness. Is it right for me to expect an 8 year old to be polite in her requests rather than demanding? When a guest in my home wants an apple, should I expect someone of age 8 to ASK, rather than say "I want an apple now." or, when pressed, to use a falsely polite voice and say "Can I PLEASE PLEASE have an apple, please." I don't know. My expectations might very well be completely unreasonable. Is it wrong for me to feel somewhat ticked that she is constantly plotting pranks against me with m? Is it wrong for me to get ticked when they run through the house away from the baby and slam doors in his face as he toddles along behind them?

I kind of expect better behavior than that. More empathic behavior. But I've no clue, developmentally, whether this is a reasonable expectation. So I spend a lot of time quelling my urge to yell and be a bitch, and try to, as much as possible, talk in calm tones about the kind of behavior I would like to see. Other than that, all I can do is lock myself in the bathroom and pretend to read a book every once in awhile while I weigh what my response should be to any given (perceived) transgression.

Am i fucked up, or what?

c-ism

April 1, 2003

So, c really likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He's eating one right now. Except, for c, it's not CALLED "peanut butter and jelly sandwich." It's called "Peanut butter sandwich, and put the jelly on!"

I just think that's adorable, so I thought I would share.

Surreally Saga

April 1, 2003

So, as of right now, I can log onto hooha.us, but I can't log on to full bleed. I can't access surreally.net (where my blogs are located), surreally.org, or surreally.com. This is, according to kd (as I have no clue how these things are accomplished) due to a hack in the comments boxes that drives tons of traffic through the site and shuts things down (did i get that right, kd?). What a pain in the ass. I wish there was more that I could do to help out. I know I turned off html in comments awhile back, but I wanted to log in today to make sure no one has turned it back on. If you have a surreally blog, please either turn off html in comments or install the fix. I would like to have my blog back at some point.

Not that this is even related to why my blog is down. Full Bleed is down because of some other, unrelated problem...and there's no telling when it will be back up.

I miss my blog! Blogging here is fine, but there are many people who don't know I'm here, and I kind of miss the exchange of ideas.

ack. Anyway. I have to go make breakfast for the kiddos. I have my eye on the news, but all of the reports seem like the same disastrous nightmare over and over again. What's the point in even linking any more? We're fucked. Plain and simple. There will be a protest here on Saturday. I'm pretty sure it's a nationwide if not worldwide protest date, but I have a baby in my lap and can't search up a link. Take to the streets. Things will only get worse once our military hits Baghdad and is "forced" (through confusion or shellshock) to kill indiscriminately.

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