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« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
Coleen is OK
August 31, 2005
I cruised by Coleen's blog last night in hopes that I would find a post by her in the aftermath of Katrina. I did:
it's kind of amazing how hard it is for me to relax and write while standing up. I am overwhelmed by all of this, all of this, you know, the unanswered and unanswerable questions like, when can I go home and do I have a home, are all of my loved ones safe, I don't know, I just don't know, and, it's a lot like my feelings of september 2001, I have worries about my friends and family members and concerns for my own safety and uncertain future and then I am caught up in a massive guilt attack because I am so lucky, I am alive and housed, clothed and fed, I am here, I am somewhere.
I was/am relieved.
Coleen, if you need to/can get out to Austin for awhile...I have a spare room and a whole lotta love for you, mama.
Yum! Food Blog.
August 31, 2005
I just found a great local food blog, the Austin Food Data Bank. The author is vegetarian, and he reviewed my favorite restaurant. Check it out.
Intelligent Design and Social Darwinism. Together Forever.
August 31, 2005
Q: What are the True Believers of "Intelligent Design" going to call "Social Darwinism"?
A: Why, it's calledcapitalism, of course.
A system that spends billions of public dollars on outer space transit, but cannot provide adequate funds for inner city transit, is no longer worth sustaining. A system that nurtures individual consciousness stressing the care of homeless pets, while clouding social consciousness to the reality of homeless humans, is dysfunctional and beyond repair. And a system that squanders billions on murdering foreigners and claims it is spreading democracy and peace should be characterized as what it is: criminally insane. And we may be the same, the longer we allow it to hide behind the high priced legal representation of corporate government that rationalizes these things as acceptable and normal aspects of life.
As opposed to collectivism:
Thanks to the philosophy of social Darwinism, white, well-bred intellectuals at the turn of the century had discovered that evolution’s peak had turned out to be, by happy coincidence, themselves. Darwin himself qualified his own thoughts on the struggle to survive to acknowledge the role of cooperation. Unfortunately, we have largely inherited our ideas on competition from the irresponsible extrapolation of one-sided ideas about survival in the wild, with poverty seen as the inevitable, if unfortunate, corollary of a universal law in which the weak are winnowed out by the powerful. By this logic, the latter are justified in grabbing what resources they can, while duking it out among themselves. This spectral notion has haunted everything from business management theory to classical economic thinking. It has both endorsed and trivialized the coercive character of capital-driven power relations. Kropotkin wrote of the mindset of his British colleagues in his 1902 magnum opus, Mutual Aid. “They came to conceive of the animal world as a world of perpetual struggle among half-starved individuals, thirsting for one another’s blood. They made modern literature resound with the war cry of woe to the vanquished, as if it were the last word of modern biology. They raised the pitiless struggle for personal advantages to the height of a biological principle which man must submit to as well, under the menace of otherwise succumbing in a world based upon mutual extermination.”
Now, which idea sounds more intelligent to you?
UNBEFUCKINGLIEVABLE.
August 31, 2005
(OK, I've reverted to shouting unintelligibly at my computer monitor. It really is time for me to "move it out, buddy."
Hurricane Katrina on AM Radio
August 31, 2005
Oh My Fucking God, please remind me to never listen to AM radio talk shows ever again during my long drive out to the country to pick up the children...or any other time.
If you think the wingnuts in the blogosphere are bad, you really don't want to hear the absolute insane nuts who are calling up talk shows with their bizarre rants about the foreign aid that is NOT being offered to us in the aftermath of Katrina.
Never mind that SOMEONE, in fact, really does seem to care very much about lower income Americans in the wake of this disaster. Hint: It's NOT Mr. Tamborine man. (Oh wait...you say that's a GUITAR?) The insane loonies don't even realize their desires for isolationism totally fucking contradict their insistence upon offering up more soldiers to the war machine in Iraq. Basically, we're only supposed to refuse to offer HUMANITARIAN aid...not, like, WAR aid. Or something.
Holy fucking shit. There is something very, very wrong with this country. My head is fucking spinning. I'm sure this post is not even articulate, because I am soooooo tired, but I had to just let it go before heading off to bed.
[links in this rant were provided by commenters on this post at Pandagon.]
Oh, shit...don't even get me started on the fucking Einsteins who were calling in to advocate that fucking "looters" be shot on sight. It was especially telling when one of the callers very CLEARLY enunciated the words "cotton-picking" in reference to "the looters."
Fuck. You know? Just fuck.
bahaha.
August 30, 2005
In Memorium
August 30, 2005
I've been debating with myself all day about whether or not I should write this post, not knowing whether or not it is any of my business as a mere acquaintance in spite of deep admiration. But The Badger family has been in my thoughts all day, and this blog is about my thoughts, so I guess that answers my dilemma.
My very deepest sympathies go out to Ms. Badge and her son. I can't even imagine what they are going through right now...what they've been through...what's to come. I wish I had more to offer than my words, and my tears.
If you have something more to offer, here is where you can go.
Music Meme!
August 30, 2005
Pandagon: Irresistible meme-age
Basically the meme is this--go to Music Outfitters, type the year of your high school graduation into the search function, select the top 100 most popular songs, cut and paste it onto your blog and then bold the ones you like, strike out the ones you hate, and leave alone the ones you don't care about or don't know.
1. Walk Like An Egyptian, Bangles
2. Alone, Heart
3. Shake You Down, Gregory Abbott
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
5. Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
6. C'est La Vie, Robbie Nevil
7. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake
8. The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range (I like the piano riff in this song.)
9. Shakedown, Bob Seger
10. Livin' On A Prayer, Bon Jovi
11. La Bamba, Los Lobos
12. Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung
13. Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House
14. Always, Atlantic Starr
15. With Or Without You, U2
16. Looking For A New Love, Jody Watley
17. Head To Toe, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
18. I Think We're Alone Now, Tiffany (I'm not striking it out because I can't see this song title without thinking about the Screeching Weasel cover of it.)
19. Mony Mony, Billy Idol
20. At This Moment, Billy Vera and The Beaters
21. Lady In Red, Chris De Burgh
22. Didn't We Almost Have It All, Whitney Houston
23. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2
24. I Want Your Sex, George Michael
25. Notorious, Duran Duran
26. Only In My Dreams, Debbie Gibson
27. (I've Had) The Time Of My Life, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
28. The Next Time I Fall, Peter Cetera and Amy Grant
29. Lean On Me, Club Nouveau
30. Open Your Heart, Madonna
31. Lost In Emotion, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
32. (I Just) Died In Your Arms, Cutting Crew
33. Heart And Soul, T'pau
34. You Keep Me Hangin' On, Kim Wilde
35. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites
36. I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), Aretha Franklin and George Michael
37. Control, Janet Jackson
38. Somewhere Out There, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram
39. U Got The Look, Prince
40. Land Of Confusion, Genesis
41. Jacob's Ladder, Huey Lewis and The News
42. Who's That Girl, Madonna
43. You Got It All, Jets
44. Touch Me (I Want Your Body), Samantha Fox
45. I Just Can't Stop Loving You, Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett
46. Causing A Commotion, Madonna
47. In Too Deep, Genesis
48. Let's Wait Awhile, Janet Jackson
49. Hip To Be Square, Huey Lewis and the News
50. Will You Still Love Me?, Chicago
51. Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac (reminds me of being at the swimming pool)
52. Luka, Suzanne Vega
53. I Heard A Rumour, Bananarama
54. Don't Mean Nothing, Richard Marx
55. Songbird, Kenny G
56. Carrie, Europe
57. Don't Disturb This Groove, System
58. La Isla Bonita, Madonna
59. Bad, Michael Jackson
60. Sign 'O' The Times, Prince
61. Change Of Heart, Cyndi Lauper
62. Come Go With Me, Expose
63. Can't We Try, Dan Hill
64. To Be A Lover, Billy Idol
65. Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
66. Breakout, Swing Out Sister
67. Stand By Me, Ben E. King
68. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Genesis
69. Someday, Glass Tiger
70. When Smokey Sings, ABC
71. Casanova, Levert
72. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
73. Rock Steady, Whispers
74. Wanted Dead Or Alive, Bon Jovi
75. Big Time, Peter Gabriel
76. The Finer Things, Steve Winwood
77. Let Me Be The One, Expose
78. Is This Love, Survivor
79. Diamonds, Herb Alpert
80. Point Of No Return, Expose
81. Big Love, Fleetwood Mac
82. Midnight Blue, Lou Gramm
83. Something So Strong, Crowded House
84. Heat Of The Night, Bryan Adams
85. Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You, Glenn Medeiros
86. Brilliant Disguise, Bruce Springsteen
87. Just To See Her, Smokey Robinson
88. Who Will You Run Too, Heart
89. Respect Yourself, Bruce Willis (Oh my fucking god...I had totally put this song out of my head until just now.)
90. Cross My Broken Heart, Jets
91. Victory, Kool and The Gang
92. Don't Get Me Wrong, Pretenders
93. Doing It All For My Baby, Huey Lewis and The News
94. Right On Track, Breakfast Club
95. Ballerina Girl, Lionel Richie
96. Meet Me Half Way, Kenny Loggins
97. I've Been In Love Before, Cutting Crew
98. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right To Party, Beastie Boys (although admittedly, at the time, this song totally clashed with my straight-edge leanings.)
99. Funkytown, Pseudo Echo (a friend made a brilliant mix of this song, alternating between the Lipps, Inc. version and the Agitprop version. I don't know if I even ever hear the Pseudo Echo version, but I know that I liked this song in 1987)
100. Love You Down, Ready For The World
Looking at this list, it's actually amazing how many of these songs I totally don't recognize. Especially when you consider how much music I *did* listen to in that era, being forever plugged in to my portable listening device, and always ready to trade tapes and mixes. I was so immersed in my little subculture that I rarely listened to the radio, and so I got through the year relatively unphased by all of the crappy music out there.
I graduated early in December of 1987, but the rest of "my class" graduated in the summer of 1988. I'm frankly scared to look at that top 100.
People are the best part of nature.
August 29, 2005
Much of my vacation was spent traveling down dusty, under-utilized roads. We managed to avoid most major cities, and the cities we did visit were few and far between & relatively sparse.
So when I arrived in Austin via IH-35 coming south from Waco and witnessed the vast sea of cars with their harried drivers, I was amazed at how easily I made the transition from dusty desolation to frantic fecundity. I just started staring at all of the cars surrounding me, amazed at the lives that were contained within each. With all of the memories of my own journey fresh in my mind, I couldn't help but wonder what types of adventures were bubbling beneath the surfaces of all of those people.
Returning from a 5 day road trip in an un-air-conditioned car and still seeing the beauty in the people around you would indicate that the vacation was, indeed, a success.
Nature
by Michael Franti
Sitting in the green grass
watching the strange
world of ants
Nature!
at the beach
watching rocks smash
into pebbles
and whisper into sand.
people often ask me
"Michael, if you love
nature so much,
why is it that you
live in the city,
where the only green grass
and crushed rock
is being smoked
through a pipe?"
Well I look at them
and I tell 'em
"Cause people live in the city.
And people are the best part of nature."
So the next time
you go to
a shecky club,
put on your
shecky hairspray,
put on your
shecky make-up,
remember that
people still eat
people still think
and people still defecate
No matter how hard,
we try to dehumanize,
and deanimalize,
with ID numbers
credit card numbers
Social Security numbers
PEOPLE
are the best part
OF NATURE.
people are the best part of nature
people are the best part of nature.
Boxer v. Beagle
August 29, 2005
When I got home from vacation, I opened the front door to let the dogs romp in the front yard while I unloaded some items from the van. My boxer ran and sat in the van to watch me unload. The beagle took off running down the street and didn't even flinch or look back when I called her.
The next day, I was bringing groceries in and I accidentally left the screen door unlatched. My boxer stood in the doorway with a glazed "Which way did he go, George" expression on her expectant face, while the beagle, once again, took off running down the street; pointedly ignoring my calls.
The beagle digs under the fence. My boxer lays and waits by the door. The beagle pees in her crate. My boxer waits patiently for me to wake up and does the potty dance by the door. The beagle slinks around as if we beat her on a regular basis. My boxer never leaves my side. The other night, a few of us walked over to the park across the street in the middle of the night. I left the beagle at home because I knew she would just totally run away. The boxer came with us and stood near us like a sentry, in spite of the fact that she's deaf & couldn't hear me call her back if I needed to.
They are both adorable, sweet dogs. However, I have come to the conclusion that I will run far away if anyone ever offers to give me a beagle again & I will always be a huge fan of boxers.
Coley and "the Ladies"
August 28, 2005
Somewhere in the middle of New Mexico I broke down and decided to get an honest-to-goodness meal in a restaurant*. I walked into the waiting area and turned to the hostess to give her our name & find out how long it would take to get a table.
When I turned back around, Coley was resting his head in the lap of a bespectacled woman with a similar build to mine. She and her friends were laughing, and Coley was obliviously sucking his fingers until he noticed me standing there looking at him. He lifted his head at that point, and, completely unabashed, walked over to me grinning and held my hand.
"You got the wrong mama, bud" I said.
The people in the party Coley had adopted laughed.
"I knew it wasn't you, mom. I just love the ladies!"
*I'm proud to say we only did one restaurant meal (aside from the meal we shared in the home of my dear friends Ray and Maggie) and one fast food meal at Sonic when I was at the end of my rope.
Cindy Sheehan to speak in Austin
August 28, 2005
Cindy Sheehan speaking in Austin! Cindy and other Gold Star family members and supporters have been holding a vigil outside President Bush's ranch for 3 weeks waitng to ask him "for what nobel cause did their children die in Iraq?" 5:30pm Wednesday 8/31/05 Austin City Hall Plaza 301 W. 2nd St. Austin, Texas 78701 (park at the City Hall garage enter off Lavaca) Arriving from Crawford Cindy will be kicking off a bus tour across America culminating in her arrival at the National March for Peace taking place in Washington D.C. on 9/24/05 Lets give Cindy a warm Austin welcome PLEASE help by forwarding this announcement to at least 20 of your friends and your lists
Oh, I SO want to be there, but I have to work & I don't think there is any way I can get out of it. If I "call in sick" they will all totally know, and it will inconvenience several people.
So, please go on my behalf. Please?
The Disease? It's called capitalism
August 28, 2005
Evil Mommy linked to An interesting article about the fact that our country is going down the fiscal toilet that really just ends up veering widely off the point:
Canelon sees echoes in the rise of obesity: a pervasive I-want-it-now attitude no matter what the consequences. To her, debt's a symptom of disease, and one that's spreading.If she's right, the government is sick, too.
It would be amusing to me how eager journalists (and others) are to insert fat people into an argument as an example of laziness or moral ineptitude if I wasn't a fat person who considers herself to be neither lazy or morally bankrupt. It's an example, basically, of what I was talking about in the post below. My ailing bank account (along with all of my friends who are equally ailing), just like my fat body, are signs of my inferiority. I need to just squeeze out a couple of hundred dollars of savings a month, and I will singlehandedly save the US economy.
Note that the article doesn't even discuss the billions of dollars we are spending on the war in Iraq, not to mention the beneficiaries of that investment.
Sorry...I veered of track there a bit, as well. My intention was to point out that oftentimes obesity, like financial mismanagement, is caused BY rather than the cause OF poverty. Just as the wealthy have access to better, healthier foods, and time for better, healthier, consistent exercise...they also have buying power which gives them the OPTION to save so future generations of their wealthy children can remain wealthy or become wealthier while future generations of the poor have to struggle to stand still.
The Rich MAKE the laws, they don't ABIDE by them.
August 28, 2005
Amanda linked to an article that atrios linked to yesterday:
"I don't think you should be so `rah-rah' for a war that you aren't willing to send your own family members to,'' said Rose Gonzalez, 30, of Somerville, whose mother, a state employee, was deployed to Iraq in January.``If he thinks the war is so just and so important and we shouldn't pull out, then he should encourage his own sons to go."
and made an excellent point about privilege that Sally, in comments, really distilled for me in a way that made the whole argument applicable to all the ways in which the rich exempt themselves from their own laws...or rather, create oppressive rules/laws that they know that they will never be obligated to adhere to.
I think it was actually Amanda herself who responded "That's a tough concept for an 8-year old" when I told her about the conversation I had with Monk about theft and class. I am sure she didn't intend to imply that I shouldn't give the explanation to Monk, and she was certainly right that it's a tricky thing to explain. However, when Monk said to me "I know why poor people steal, mom." with an authoritativeness that implied that rich people do not, someone had already taught him the opposite lesson. The double-standard is so fucking pervasive that somehow my relatively media-free 8-year old has already been taught his first lessons about crime, visible punishment, and pseudo-moral exemption.
To universalize this particular link, abortion, too, is one of those "Not For My Kind Of People" issues. Not because rich women can avoid getting pregnant (although, as I am convinced that republican men are just awful in bed, it might be easier for rich women to do just that) but that the means to terminate a pregnancy for a rich woman is never in question, and it's not REALLY abortion when you are rich.
I'm sure there are a good number of ways that you can apply this rule of lawlessness. War. Theft. Death Penalty. The so-called murder of the unborn. Drug Abuse. It's not just that it's easier to get away with things when you have the means to do so; it's that if you believe in the meritocracy (which I doubt anyone REALLY does, so you just have to pretend to believe it as earnestly as possible) damnit it sure justifies a lot of bullshit if you can just say "I earned my privilege through hard fucking work, and those others just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and keep chugging along."
Edited To Add: Suzanne mentions via AIM: "just reading your post re: theft and class and remembering that I once worked for an ObGyn Dr's group in a very rich part of SF and the abortions were called Therapeutic Dilation and Curettage or TDC's. Women were scheduled for these all the time."
Adventures in Grocery Shopping
August 27, 2005
At the grocery store today, I ran into an old client of the community techology center where I work. He laughed at me, because my shopping list was composed in orange crayon.
What he didn't realize was that it was the shopping list for the party I'm having tonight, and the items on the list were:
- limes
- limeade
- tequila
- triple sec
I left it in the cart for someone else to puzzle out.
10 Things I Learned While On Vacation
August 27, 2005
- According to J, if I ever want to take a job as a long-haul trucker, I would probably kick some ass. In all, I think I logged 40+ hours of driving time in 5 days.
- One grumpy mama and two tired children make a trip to Camp Casey as the last stop of the journey not fun at all.
- The word "penis" when repeated like a mantra by a four-year-old who thinks all of the stalagmites (or is it stalactites? Or maybe both) in Carlsbad Caverns resemble giant phalluses...echoes. And it displeases the other visitors.
- My children are miraculously capable of sitting in the car for hours and hours at a stretch and keeping themselves occupied without implements of entertainment. The few distraction toys I bought went largely unused. I knew this about Monk, but it has been several developmental stages since I last traveled with Coley and for a borderline hyperactive child, he did really, really well. Except, of course, for the penis talk in the Caverns. Did I mention I got reprimanded by a stranger for that?
- Always practice setting up the tent before 8 at night at the campground to the tune of a bear huffing and snorting somewhere in the forest.
- As a corollary* to the above, when sleeping in the front seat of the car, sleep on the PASSENGER side.
- To further the riff: Nothing is more comforting than rolling down the window of the car at 4:30 in the morning to hear ABSOLUTE silence...broken only by the sound of a cougar snarling.
- Downshifting is our friend, even in an automatic transmission (thanks, J!)
- You can see the white sands and the pine forests and the caverns of new mexico, and the four year old will remember...the hotel room where he got to watch cartoons all night.
- Somewhere along the line, I became a coffee snob to the extent that I can tell when coffee tastes yucky, but I don't care enough to let it effect whether or not I will drink it.
- There's no toilet like home toilet.
Clearly, I'm too loopy to count to 10.
*I have always always always wanted to use the word corollary in a sentence. I hope I did it right.
Graffiti: Political, Self-Expression, Both?
August 26, 2005
Hello again from Living on Less. I'm a guest here. (I'm really just here to rummage through Dru's drawers and try on her shoes... :))
Graffiti has been in the news recently here in New York City, because an art project to decorate simulated subway cars by graffiti artists was quashed by the mayor and then resurrected by a court order. You can read all about it in Soul Imperialist's very cool blog.
And you can read my post on graffiti, along with some quotes from Jeff Chang, author of the book Can't Stop Won't Stop: a history of the hip-hop generation, in my blog: here.
Do Your Part
August 26, 2005
Those who read my stuff at Bark/Bite know that I'm not much of an activist cheerleader--more of a stand-on-the-sidelines-and-bitch-about-the-opposition-leader. Yes, I have at times used my not so bully pulpit to advocate specific actions, but generally I'm content to just use this space to sharpen the prodigious opinion-shaping might of my writing skills.
However.
As I boldly asserted recently, I think we're at a turning point. Or at least a potential turning point.
Or, still more accurately, a potential tipping point. With major public opinion shifts like the withdrawal of support for a petro-imperialist war, we don't get a slow, steady shift of mass political consciousness. What we get is a maddeningly slow, steady erosion, followed by something that galvanizes the opposition, and then a landslide.
We saw that in 1968 with the Tet offensive. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong lost tens of thousands of soldiers killed, and inflicted only a few thousand of casualties on the South Vietnamese and US armies. Yet, it became known as the Tipping Point of US support for the war, largely because Lyndon Johnson's administration had been consistently lying to the American public about how well the war was going. In the rosy picture that they had been painting, the Communist forces weren't remotely capable of mounting an offensive of that size, or winning the victories that they did. The victories were all overturned relatively quickly, but the US public had been stunned by the ability of a supposedly down-and-out opponent to overrun entire cities.
Sound familiar? Well, this time, the Tipping Point doesn't have to come in the form of a massive offensive by a supposedly defeated enemy. After Tet, the slow erosion turned into a landslide--after Johnson "lost Walter Cronkite" in the month after Tet, the rest of the public seemed to follow quickly. Today, we may well be looking at our own tipping point.
Bush never "had" Cindy Sheehan, but he did have millions of Americans who are having their ideological and symbolic worlds rocked by the sight of one Gold Star Family member after another standing up and saying "This War is Wrong." You can almost hear the gears whirring: "Criticizing the war is...bad. Mothers of Dead Soldiers...are good. But criticizing the war is...un-American! But Mothers of Dead Soldiers are the ultimate Americans...Does. Not. Compute." And all of a sudden, a new political reality dawns: you can be for the troops, for America, and still think the war was a horrible mistake with no good end in sight. You can love apple pie and baseball and still think that Bush sent this country's children over there to die for at best, a colossal misjudgment, and at worst--lies, greed and oil.
I promised to write about my visit to Camp Casey on Sunday, and I still haven't been able to sit down and process it, but here's one image that I will probably be describing to my grandkids one day: a tall, powerfully built soldier wearing camo pants and a red and gold "USMC" shirt stood with a bugle, standing in front of a small field of white crosses. While the hippies, the freaks, the anarchists--and significantly, the mothers and fathers of fallen American soldiers and the soccer moms and the just plain folk stood in a circle, he played "Taps" for over 1800 men and women who will never come home.
Now, unless you are among the most reality-proof ideologues of the pro-War faction, you have to admit that the scene described above does not exactly smack of anti-Americanism, troop-hatred, or treason. Even if you completely support both the war and the president, it's getting harder not to admit the possibility that people who oppose the war may actually be decent, hard-working Americans who just happen to have a different political opinion. I think once that possibility spreads, it's going to have a catastrophic effect on support for the war.
So--back (finally) to the activist cheerleading. I am going to ask all of you within the sound of my (virtual) voice to commit, right now, to do at least one concrete thing to help push us past the tipping point--it'll all be downhill from there. But we've got to get over the hump, so please, please, please pick one of the following and do it:
- Drive out to Crawford in the next three days. Just stand and be counted. It's not that far, and it's not really that hot.
- Make a donation to the Crawford Peace House--they're the ones paying for the giant tent and the sound system and the food service for 500. And goddamn, that was the best potato salad I have ever tasted in my entire life. No kidding.
- Make a donation to True Majority and/or Gold Star Families for Peace, so that they can keep people following Bush around the US like a human ball and chain. This is sooo gratifying to me personally, since it's the realization of what I came up with on my own and thought was an impossible pipe dream.
- Figure out something on your own: display a sign, call a friend, write a letter to the editor, call up a radio station.
Jesus Christ forgive me for veering close to idealistic twaddle, but dang it, we really can make a difference here, if all umpty-seven million of us who think--and have thought from the beginning--that this war was a tragic blunder simply speak up. The old saying is that "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good [wo]men do nothing." Well, sometimes the opposite is true. I swear to you, this time all that is required for the triumph of good is that good people do something.
So go do it, for Chrissake!
Eating In vs. Eating Out
August 24, 2005
Hello all. I'm a guest here, squatting over from my blog, Living on Less, where I've been recently posting some drawings. Today's are about eating in instead of going out to eat: here.
r@d@r guestblog no. 1
August 24, 2005
greetings ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. r@d@r here, watering the dog and taking the plants for a walk.
i might have some intelligent things to say over the course of the next few days, but to start out, here's what i've been reading over the past couple of days:
- greg palast ably puts the continuing hugo chavez embroglio into perspective. found at metafilter, where jefgodesky ties it all together in a neat little package.
- a comment that blew my mind over at my blog; apparently, the poster was serious.
this list will grow as time allows. enjoy!
~ r@d@r, of ex-lion tamer
Keeping it Going
August 24, 2005
Robert from Bark/Bite here, guest blogging for the inestimable Dru. She asked that I help keep the blog going in her absence. So far, I'm failing impressively, but today I'm at the keyboard in her stead, having been motivated by a most validating discovery.
A while ago, after reading about Cindy Sheehan, I wrote a post (which Dru was kind enough to link to) about my vision of Camp Casey following Bush across the country:
And suddenly I had this image of a crowd of grieving mothers, fathers, children, trailing behind Bush everywhere he went. He would have to drag them around the country behind him like a human ball and chain. Like Jacob Marley, with his tangle of chains and cashboxes and ledgers. Far from escaping his sins, he'd be condemned to drag them along behind him.
Well guess what, boys and girls? It's happening. It is happening as we goddamn speak! I am sooo juiced by this. Not because it totally validates my artsy-fartsy Dickensian vision of Bush trailing the debris of ruined lives around behind him for eternity, but because I think it's quite possibly the most articulate form of anti-war protest we have ever seen in this country.
Why do I think this? Well, besides the fact that it's captured the national--and international (for what that's worth)--attention, it does exactly what any non-violent protest should seek to do. It puts the Powers That Be in a no-win situation.
Non-violent protest seeks to politically and morally out-manuever the Powers That Be by putting them in a position where they must either agree to your demands or accept the moral and political fallout of your protest. Fifty people singing "We Shall Overcome" with all the energy of a funeral dirge creates no political or moral fallout for the Powers. An encampment supporting the mother of a fallen hero who demands to speak with the Commander-in-Chief who sent him to his death on false pretenses has moral and political fallout.
Multiple mothers (and other relatives) of fallen heroes gathering at that encampment, supported by military veterans including veterans of the current fiasco has a lot of moral and political fallout. But multiple camps springing up wherever Bush goes--now that's got some potential.
President Bush plans visits around the country during his five-week vacation, hoping for friendly media coverage away from Washington. But a member of Gold Star Families for Peace can dog him wherever he goes, demanding he meet with them to explain why their family members are dead.
And it's not just the Gold Star Familes that are being flown around the country like rock stars that Bush has to worry about. No, thanks to him, there are Gold Star Families all across the goddamn country, and in any given location, some of them will oppose the war--or at least demand accountability from the man who led their children to their deaths for greed and lies. He went to Salt Lake city, in the most Republican state in the country, to find a friendly audience. What he got was over 1000 protesters led by a Gold Star Mom. He went to small town Idaho to avoid the urban Liberals, and got protesters with 1800 white crosses, including a Gold Star Mom with an 8 month-old son who will never know his Daddy.
Like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, who "By showcasing their grief in public...turned their motherhood and their bodies into political tools to hold the government accountable for its actions," Cindy, the other Gold Star Families, and the veterans and supporters who stand with them are forcing Bush (really Rove, who calls the political shots) to either give in to their demands or allow the public disapproval to build and build.
I don't think that it's of the same magnitude, but this protest is definitely on the same scale as the television images of African-American children being knocked down by firehoses in Alabama. It's a image that's changing minds, that's making a physical and visual spectacle of the--well, "violence inherent in the system." Seriously--that's a good way of putting it, and there's at least one prominent scholar who argues that's what Christ did--expose the violence inherent in the system by demonstrating his beliefs and convictions publicly.
Well, I promised Dru I'd keep the post under 1500 words, so I'll stop here. But I'm convinced that this could be the beginning of the end.
Here is where I hand it over...
August 22, 2005
...and hope the guest bloggers keep the site running while I'm gone.
I've had a sort of good news/bad news week all week. The latest event went like this:
Bad news: J has to come home from our trip early because his boss had a family emergency and he's the only other admin that can cover for him.
Good news: Housesitting problem? Solved.
Ah, cripes. If you hear loud screams of agony emanating from round about Elephant Butte, NM around midweek...it's me trying to set up J's posh tent all by myself. I was really looking forward to traveling with him for longer than a day, but I guess this just means he will have to come with us to New Orleans in November. (He just yelled from the other room "Sounds like [you are] blogging!")
I'm a packing, cleaning, list making, list checking off maniac...and then I'm off. When I get back, I'm going to post all of my zany lists and my road trip planning advice for you, in case you are at all curious about how an totally anally retentive freak goes about such things.
Wish me luck! And have a great week.
Last Call for guest bloggers
August 21, 2005
I am seeking guest bloggers, so anyone who wants a platform from which to spout off for the next week should email me ASAP and let me know where you are coming from. If you have a blog, send me a link...if you don't, tell me something about yrself that is interesting.
Limited time offer. Don't miss out!
OK. This made me cry.
August 20, 2005
One of my Soldiers in Iraq was Roger Turner. We gave him a hard time because he always wore all of his protective equipment, including three pairs of glasses or goggles. He did this because he wanted to make sure that he returned home to his family. He rode a bicycle to work every day to make sure that he was able to save enough money on his Army salary to send his son to college. At Camp Anaconda, where the squadron briefly stayed, a rocket landed inside a tent, sending a piece of debris or fragment into him and killed him. On Monday night, August 16, you ran down the memorial cross erected for him by Arlington West.
Thank you, Perry Jefferies.
[link provided by robbroccoli on flickr.]
This is how they justify it.
August 20, 2005
The more I look at this image, the more it disgusts me. I'm not sure what the person who decided to compose this sculpture was thinking*, but it is absolutely, horrifyingly dehumanizing. It totally distills for me that patriarchy is as fucking harmful to men as to women, because here, the view of a man (because soldiers are nearly always men in the eyes of the patriarchy) is a gun and boots...and a hat. There is no need to mourn the death of soldier, because soldiers are merely implements of death.
It's so fucked up, and it's why people can stand across the street from a war memorial waving signs that state so glibly "Freedom isn't Free" while the family members of soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for their freedom mourn, collectively, with those of us who wish not to ask anyone else to make that sacrifice for us.
And not to belittle non-mamas out there, but this is where my mama spirit comes out and I feel absolutely fiercely protective of the psyches of my boys. My boys are not guns with boots and helmets. My boys are NOT implements of death. And my boys are NOT faceless, nameless, "honorable" "heroes" that exist to pay the price for ANYONE'S freedom.
Freedom IS free. But the road to freedom has been invaded by pernicious robber-barons who want us to pay a price for what is inherently ours...all of ours...to enjoy.
*I've been informed that this is actually a ritualistic way to "honor the dead." I'm not sure if the person who informed me of this was trying to justify it or not, but I don't see how the fact that it's a tradition minimizes or negates the fact that it's totally dehumanizing.
Mama Bear.
August 20, 2005
t r u t h o u t - Cindy Sheehan | Hypocrites and Liars
One thing I haven't noticed or become aware of though is an increased number of pro-war, pro-Bush people on the other side of the fence enlisting to go and fight George Bush's war for imperialism and insatiable greed. The pro-peace side has gotten off their apathetic butts to be warriors for peace and justice. Where are the pro-war people? Everyday at Camp Casey we have a couple of anti-peace people on the other side of the road holding up signs that remind me that "Freedom isn't Free" but I don't see them putting their money where their mouths are. I don't think they are willing to pay even a small down payment for freedom by sacrificing their own blood or the flesh of their children. I still challenge them to go to Iraq and let another soldier come home. Perhaps a soldier that is on his/her third tour of duty, or one that has been stop-lossed after serving his/her country nobly and selflessly, only to be held hostage in Iraq by power mad hypocrites who have a long history of avoiding putting their own skin in the game.[...]
Camp Casey has grown and prospered and survived all attacks and challenges because America is sick and tired of liars and hypocrites and we want the answers to the tough questions that I was the first to dare ask. THIS is George Bush's accountability moment and he is failing ... miserably. George Bush and his advisers seriously "misunderestimated" me when they thought they could intimidate me into leaving before I had the answers, or before the end of August. I can take anything they throw at me, or Camp Casey. If it shortens the war by a minute or saves one life, it is worth it. I think they seriously "misunderestimated" all mothers. I wonder if any of them had authentic mother-child relationships and if they are surprised that there are so many mothers in this country who are bear-like when it comes to wanting the truth and who want to make meaning of their child's needless and seemingly meaningless deaths?
I think it was when the (irony) brigade of bikers passed by our shuttle on the way back from Camp Casey today that it really hit me: They are afraid of women*.
And not just that, but they are afraid of a field full of middle-aged women who are mostly dressed in pink, wearing floppy hats (description courtesy of Amanda) and carrying flowers.
I can tell they are afraid, on account of they sent the rebel right-wing biker boys (in leather). The counter-rally across from the peace house was populated by about 20 people. The two organizers sat regally atop horses while men bleated into the microphone, calling Ms. Sheehan a prostitute, and attempting to impugn her character based on the fact that her husband "is divorcing her."
I had promised Amanda (and myself) that I wouldn't respond to the counter-protesters, but that was just too fucking much. "My husband divorced me, too" I mumbled. A man dressed up like a civil war soldier (?) whispered out of the side of his mouth "It happens sometimes. It's a total non-sequitor. Would you like some water?" and while I thought that was "mighty kind" of him (as they say around these parts), drinking winger water would have been a bit too much like drinking kool-aid.
And, besides, there was better sustenance at Peace House.
The woman who was driving the shuttle when the biker brigade passed us by was just an ordinary woman..."not an activist" she told us. She was just inspired by what Ms. Sheehan was doing down in Crawford and booked herself a flight down from Portland, OR to see what she could do to help. She kept talking sympathetically about the difficulty the locals were having in coming to grips with the "invasion" of their town by all of these people. I kept thinking about how irony-impaired do the folks of Crawford have to be to get shotgun-waving pissed about a handful of protestors peacefully gathering on the outskirts of the president's compound, and not understand why there's an insurgency in Iraq and why it might not have much at all to do with terrorism.
The guy who drove the shuttle TO the campsite described himself as apolitical before the 2004 elections, when he realized that it was so obvious that GW was lying about the war that he realized he couldn't remain silent about it any longer.
Story after story. Town after town. OR, NM, PA, MA...represented. When I tried to delicately point out the phenomenon of the age and gender of the main organizers and volunteers running the show at Camp Casey, our middle-aged female driver disallowed my euphamism. She said, bluntly, if I may paraphrase: "Yes, we're mainly a bunch of middle-aged women out here, and that's not what the media is portraying." And then she proceeded to show us a good swimming hole close to Peace House, in case we needed to cool off. I couldn't help but think that, well, she was mothering us a bit.
Folks, what's happening out in Crawford is revolutionary. Make no mistakes about it. Regardless of how it is portrayed or how it may be co-opted, what we are seeing is the power of women. & if a big, bad, right-wing biker boy wants to challenge my authority, I just might take a big ole rolling pin to his head...or start talking about my period. And like garlic to vampires, he would probably just turn his big, mean old, loud, stinky small penis compensator motorcycle around and go back to wherever the hell he came from.
(pictures added to the meet with cindy set...does anyone want to donate money so I can upgrade to flickr pro?)
*I'm also convinced that all wingnut men are just godawful in bed, but that's another post altogether.
2 new flickr sets
August 20, 2005
I finally uploaded the pictures from the vigil.
and I went ahead and added a set of pictures by cole.
I have no idea why I am still awake. I got places to go tomorrow. And much to do this weekend/week.
Let's hope the weekend gets better.
August 19, 2005
This morning I woke up to receive my children, and the ex was talking before I even opened the door. "He's been howling in pain over his tooth, he has an abcess and it's infected and you need to take him to the dentist right away."
Well, OK.
He had been to the dentist a month ago, and they made an appointment to have some cavities filled (let's talk later about the politics and implied morality of dental hygeine, ok? Because I have to say that I never would have thought that a child needing dental work would have ever made me feel like I was the lowest form of life on the planet. Never mind the dental work that *I* most likely need, and the fact that I felt like I had to hide my teeth from the childrens' dentist) and then they called my ex to cancel the appointment, not realizing that my ex doesn't tend to pass on messages & finally they called me a day or so before the appointment to say they needed to refer me out & I figured that it was senseless to deal with it before the vacation because appointments are generally taken 3 weeks out or so.
At any rate, I did not realize that Monk would be howling in pain. But there he was. Howling. And there I was, trying to bring him in to the dentist who referred us out because they lost his file and couldn't refer us until they found it and all sorts of twisted logic.
But I ended up getting an appointment, which was good. The appointment was at a dentist in freaking ROUND ROCK, which was not-so-good. I was stuck in a traffic jam that was so godawful (mind you, my van has no a/c) that I nearly attempted to jump the curb and careen down the hill to the access road, but I stopped myself.
We managed to make it to the dentist without me killing anyone, and they are super nice, but they are also telling me that Monk needs way more work than the other dentist seemed to think he needed. And it just so happens that the ex has chosen the insurance plan that doesn't really cover much of anything, which I think is really freaking clever of him. Basically, we get a 25% discount on dental work, which means we'll end up paying, oh, WAY more than I can afford, rather than way FUCKING more than I can afford.
Thankfully, Monk doesn't need all of the work at once. Today he really just needs to have a tooth extracted. Well, he actually needs to have a tooth extracted AND have some spacers put in, but the spacers can wait a couple of weeks and they are, conveniently, the most expensive thing on the menu.
So, I sign off and pay up. They bring me back to where he's waiting for the procedure and this place is the funniest damn place you have ever seen. Have you been to a pediatric dentist lately? There are TV's on the ceiling over every chair, and the kids are plugged in with headsets and zoning out to cartoons while the dentists hover over them. It's like pod people material. It's really freaking bizarre. Monk doesn't even pay attention to me when I'm talking to him because he's so absorbed in cartoon watching.
So, then, I'm sitting in the office and I get a phone call from someone who I asked to do a favor for me like a week or so ago...and she's calling to let me know that ooops! She forgot to call, but she can't do the favor. And she has a really good reason and I'm not pissed off or anything, but I'm really wishing she had told me that, like, a week ago. Or even, you know, more than 2 days before I need her to do me the favor.
Anyway, everything seemed to go smoothly after that. I had a good laugh about it all with Pansy and then J. J is totally amenable with my neurotic list-making, by the way, which cheers me up tremendously, even though I'm nervously eyeing my newly-taxed-with-dental-expenses budget. I would just cancel the fucking trip, but it would totally destroy Monk to know that his teeth ruined our vacation plans. See, he has that whole dental hygeine/morality thing internalized, too...at the age of freaking EIGHT. I had to tell him, because I KNEW he was thinking it, that he wasn't a bad kid just because he has some cavities. He seemed relieved.
By the way, the tooth came out, but the tooth fairy is going to have to visit papa's house for once. Monk even wrote a note, reminding said fairy that the going rate for one tooth of Monk is $9, based on the funky-ass accounting methods the tooth fairy has established around these parts (each tooth earns a dollar more than the tooth before.)
So, yeah. Everything was all settled. I did a little shopping for the trip. Lines are longer than normal...people are a little weirder. It's a full fucking moon, isn't it? It is. Full enough, anyway.
I come home, happy to finally be bringing this day to a close, and I walk the familiar, well-worn path from where I always park the van to my front porch, carrying a few bags of groceries and sundries...and I run face first into a fucking spider web.
The fates are conspiring against my vacation. I won't let them win.
Damnit.
Oh My God I Love the Rude Pundit.
August 19, 2005
All over the right, the attempts to destroy Sheehan are getting increasingly desperate and repellent, from dragging out her divorce documents and the liens against her property to saying that she "endangers" the troops (damn, you'd think lack of body armor would be doin' that, but then, fuck you - if you speak of it, our troops'll die). But that image, of the mother, outside, in that no-wonder-everyone's-goin'-insane heat of Central Texas, is far more powerful. When you hear her voice, it ain't the crazy rantings of the so-called loony left. It's the calm, reasonable tone of the righteous. And that's what's so fuckin' threatening to the bullies.Goddamn, it feels good to pound that weakling into the dirt until you hear the weakling's sobs and cries of mercy. But what happens if the weakling gets up, brushes off, and dares you to take another shot? That's the way the bullies crumble.
thankyouthankyouthankyou.
On NOT flying solo
August 19, 2005
A summary of my last few vacations reads like this:
June, 2003 - Drove the kids to DC by myself, stayed with friends, attended a conference for work.
December, 2001 - Drove the kids to Chicago by myself, stayed with family, hung out.
August, 2001 - Drove the kids to Portland, OR by myself, stayed with various friends and family on the round trip (up through OK, CO, WY, MT...over through ID...down through OR, CA...over through AZ, NM & home) hung out, had mad adventures, proved that I could do it, damnit. All by myself.
Nov., 2000 - Flew to Chicago with newborn Cole, escorted by my sister, stayed with family, attempted to pull my life together for 3 months while on maternity leave to get away from a husband who left me but, like, wouldn't actually move out.
Previous to these trips, I took a few trips to Chicago by plane and by train, just me and Monk, to visit with family.
The pattern here is that all of these vacations have been pretty much planned and executed BY ME. Perhaps flying solo isn't the word, because I did have passengers. But the passengers were more like baggage than co-pilots.
In fact, the last time I traveled WITH someone was back in 1997 or 1998 when me and my VERY MELLOW friend Shani drove out to Wilmington NC for the WE Festival, with a young Monk in tow. We got along great, and had no problems. I've, in fact, done a lot of traveling with other people and have never had a problem. I think the fact that L refused to travel after one road trip early in our relationship has caused me to believe that I'm somehow an undesirable travel partner...but I know this is not true, based on history.
But I'm out of practice. I'm out of practice when it comes to the fun parts of sharing travel with someone else and I'm also out of practice on the challenging parts of sharing travel (like, oh, navigating bathrooms in questionable areas with kids in tow. I should link to the essay about my portland trip that is all about the toilets we visited.)
This trip should be interesting. It's definitely going to push my relationship with J in new and exciting directions. We are going to have to communicate with each other in ways we don't normally communicate. Normally, I'm so tired of making decisions by the time I get with J - he makes most of the decisions when we are together. With traveling, though, I'm the queen of itineraries and lists. Normally, I'm totally talkative when we are together. When traveling, though, I tend to retreat into myself and reflect on my surroundings.
I'm psyched about this adventure. It has been too too long since our last journey, and I hope this is the first in a series of successful sojourns. I'm hoping to hit New Orleans in November, Chicago maybe in the Spring, and Portland Maine in the Autumn of 06 or 07. If J and I can make it through this trip - maybe I'll even have a partner for all of those.
Standing in for Cindy
August 19, 2005
In case you haven't heard, Ms. Sheehan had to leave Camp Casey to be with her ailing mother. Believe it or not, I've already read a post from some asshole who claims that "Cindy Sheehan killed her mother." Ah. It never ends.
At any rate, Cindy has a state senator standing up for her in her absence:
Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, had hoped to meet Sheehan and offer her support. Instead she will serve as Sheehan's surrogate at the growing Iraq war protest outside President Bush's ranch.Lourey's son Matthew Lourey, an Army helicopter pilot, also was killed in Iraq in May. Matt Lourey, a career Army pilot, was shot down in action north of Baghdad.
My thoughts are with Cindy and her family, and all of the other families who are still standing down in Crawford, demanding accountability for their grief. They are encouraging us to join them. When are you going?
What the Fuck?
August 19, 2005
Prep courses ready kids for kindergarten
Hank is four years old, and among the worries that prompted his mother to enroll him for two lessons a week at the Sylvan Learning Center here is this: Hank was behind on his scissor skills.
People, please. Let your children BE children.
not back to school
August 18, 2005
You know, we've been so busy learning and having fun around here, that I totally forgot that this week was the first week of public school. No worries, Redneck mother posted this reminder to the Radical Homeschool Blog
Lots of parents look forward to the beginning of the traditional school year, and I do, too, for my own reasons. With the exception of the annual pool party, it's like any other day for my family, which means it's tailored to our needs, wants and obligations. It's different every year. And because we learn year-round, it's not the start of anything for me except a delicious sense of freedom.We own our time. When it's time to go somewhere -- the dentist, Grandma's house, a vacation -- we don't have to ask permission or work around the school calendar or put it off because of tests. We take road trips in the autumn and spring. The boys don't scarf down lunch before a bell rings. Recess is a meaningless concept to people who spend half their days outdoors.
We actually start our "school" year around the first day of autumn. We have some planning that we are doing in preparation right now. We have definitely been hibernating this summer, and I'm ready to get the kids out and about more, and be more organized. Monk wants to learn how to skateboard, and he wants to get through level 3A in Singapore Math this season. He's also re-learning writing, which I think he's somewhat ashamed of, but I think it will pay off in the end.
Anyway, yeah. I should have realized school started when I heard the Pledge of Allegiance being blared out to our neighborhood over the intercom of the school across the street. We need to get the kites out, so we can lay on our backs in the schoolyard and watch the clouds (and our kites) floating in the sky.
hahahahaha.
Stickers!
August 18, 2005
Gah. This brought back some memories. I remember having the exact same stickers, with the exact same oil stains on the exact same kind of paper/folders.
[link via boing boing]
The Second Time This Week I've Been Proud To Be From Austin
August 18, 2005
News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | LOCAL NEWS | Walgreens must fill contraceptive prescriptions
Austin Walgreens pharmacies must fill prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception even if pharmacists don't want to.The order comes from a vote of the city council revising the city's contract with the drug store chain. The move makes Austin the first city to take such a step.
(the first time this week was when I saw the enormous crowd at last night's vigil.)
Living on Less Presents
August 18, 2005
Another great electronic mini-zine from asfo_del.
Putting the War On Trial
August 18, 2005
BBC NEWS | UK | Iraq families launch inquiry bid
The call for a judicial review is supported by the families of 17 soldiers who died in the conflict and one who killed himself after returning to the UK.The families want the prime minister, the Attorney General, Geoff Hoon, who was the defence secretary at the time, and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to be cross-examined about the conflict.
Amazing. Like Redneck Mother, I am wondering what the findings will mean here for us on this side of the pond.
And I wonder what the smug folks on the right are feeling about how "mental" Cindy Sheehan is now.
Vigil 2 - Statesman coverage.
August 18, 2005
Young and old, many old enough to have demonstrated against the Vietnam war, the Austin crowd took over the north end of the Pfluger pedestrian bridge over Town Lake.Signs and leaflets said the crowd was behind Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who started an antiwar protest Aug. 6 on the outskirts of Crawford in memory of her son Casey, a 24-year-old soldier who died fighting in Iraq last year. Symbolically, some women pushed empty strollers on the bridge.
Vigil.
August 18, 2005
Monk asked me today "What does vigil mean, mom?" I told him that it meant "to keep watch."
We bought candles and lighters and playing cards today on the way to the Lamar Street bridge. Unfortunately, I neglected to bring bottled water. Oh, sweet, fallable mama.
So, we go there, and the crowd was enormous. It was actually kind of unbelievable. Word was it was the second largest candlelight vigil taking place that night. I am a horrible judge of crowd numbers, but I would say it was larger than the last protest I went to, for sure. Climbing back up to pre-war size, if not larger. Which was heartening, but made it difficult to be a mama to my somewhat crowd-shy children. Hell, *I'm* crowd shy, myself.
We listened to the organizers congratulate themselves for a few minutes, and then we lit our candles. The boys became frustrated first because the candles wouldn't stay lit, and then Monk flipped out because he was thirsty. It was sort of my fault, because I brushed him off at first, telling him we would get something to drink on the way home, not realizing that he was the kind of thirsty that was going to lead to a breakdown.
And he broke down. And we left. I actually ended up having to lift him up and put him in the van, because he was threatening to stand by the side of the road in protest of the fact that I don't let him drink Sprite. Hahahaha. I tried to reason with him for like 30 minutes, and then I was like "awright. Mama has reached the end of her rope, and we need to go."
I think what's happening is that he's on overload now, so we are not going to go to Crawford on Friday after all. I think we all need to spend a relaxing day together before he goes to his papa's house for the weekend...and I'll probably head up to Crawford on Saturday...or hit Camp Casey at the beginning or end of our vacation.
Monk ended up making amends with me for his behavior, and we had a good laugh about it and played a game of cards. I wish the evening hadn't been totally ruined, but I did get some good pictures, and the visual effect of the crowd and candles was just stunning. I'm not even sure if my pictures can convey that, because it was dark when the candles were lit...but we will see. I'll post them to flickr later.
Now, I'm sleepy. I have about eleventy gazillion things to do to get ready for our trip and one day of work before my official vacation begins. Maybe I should actually get something done, but I think what I might just end up doing is going right to sleep.
Rewind.
August 17, 2005
I want to go back to something I posted yesterday in passing. The follow-up to the murder of Mr. de Menezes by officers in London.
Yes, I said murder. I said murder because they killed an innocent man, and then they tried to cover up the crime with lies, which would seem to indicate that they were aware of the fact that what they did was, um, murder.
The reason I want to rewind, though, is I'm curious if anyone has seen the right-wing response to this follow-up. Because they were all crowing about how innocent people don't run and whatnot, and they were justifying this whole policy of shoot first (seven times in the fucking HEAD) and ask questions later (when you are damn sure the only witness is dead.)
It's kind of hard to justify that now that we know 90% of the so-called suspicious behavior was a fucking lie, isn't it?
Cindy Sheehan said something in an interview about not paying her taxes and daring the government to sue her so we can put this war on trial. I hope the family of Mr. de Menezes has the wherewithal to do the same in London.
empathy vs. sympathy
August 17, 2005
I'm wondering...is it possible to feel empathy towards someone without feeling particularly sympathetic?
As in "I totally understand what you are going through, and I empathize" and "I also recognize that you are the cause of all of the shit you are now enduring, so I have little or no sympathy." Or "The only reason I understand what you are going through is because you forced me to go through the same shit for 3 years. I empathize, but I don't sympathize."
Is there a word for that?
Seriously.
Guest Blogging
August 17, 2005
Zwi