What Bloggers Are For.
What I quote below is from J.D. Lassica's website. And, of course, here I have to mention how much b!X's Portland Communique exemplifies what bloggers are for. Well, not this blogger, but, well, you know -- we all have our places in the blogcontinuum. At least b!X does, for about another month. Then, unless there's a financial miracle, he's got to get a job that pays his bills.
As I started to post, this (with link added) from Lassica's New Media Musings:
On tonight's Daily Show:
Jon Stewart: Can you seriously talk about what's really going to happen at the debate tomorrow?
Ed Helms: Oh-kay. This is the report I'm going to file. 'The two candidates exchanged pointed barbs about our Iraq policy and the war on terror. Sen. Kerry made strides toward shedding what some of his analysts call a patrician image, yadda yadda yadda. But the president, by his plainspoken words, was more effective in communicating his vision by --'
Stewart: Ed, I'm sorry. You've written your report as though it's already happened. This is --
Helms: I wrote it yesterday.
Stewart: You write your stories in advance, and just put it in the past tense?
Helms: Yea-ahh. We all do. That's -- all the reporters do that.
Stewart: Why?
Helms: We write the narratives in advance based on conventional wisdom, and whatever happens we make it fit that storyline.
Stewart: Why?
Helms: We're lazy? Lazy thinkers?
Stewart: But what happens if actual news happens?
Helms: That's what bloggers are for.
Media criticism in a nutshell -- sad and true
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Eisenhower supports Kerry
This from John Eisenhower's essay in Truthout, originally published in the Manchester Union Leader.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
The fact is that today’s "Republican" Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word "Republican" has always been synonymous with the word "responsibility," which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.
and
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.
The most intelligent and knowledgeable Republicans understand that the Bush administration is leading our country down the road to Armageddon and are brave and patriotic enough to tell it like it is. The rest? Well, it's that two-inch pipe view of the world -- if you don't look at it, you don't have to see it. And if you don't see it, it must not exist.
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International Very Good Looking Damn Smart Woman's Day
I don't know if that's an official day for celebration but it should be. So thanks to my BZ Sister Angie for sharing this with me. WOO HOO!
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming,
WOO HOO - WHAT A RIDE!
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VOTE WITH THE FACTS
And get the facts here.
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Somewhere out there.....
.... I've become P. Diddy's nemesis. Check out the comments on my post innocently hawking my son's Vote or Die t-shirts, which he's been selling at cafepress.com/voteordie for the past several years -- along with Vote or Die hats, sweat shirts, mugs and....thongs!
Somewhere out there young potential voters are saying some very unkind things about the well-meaning Crone. Ah well. Such is always a possibility when one sticks one's neck out into cyberspace. But, really, kids, I have nothing against P. Diddy and think his effort to rally young people to vote, using the resources his fame and fortune provide, is commendable.
Now, if you leave a comment here, will you please try to leave the dumbed-down grammar behind??? You can do better than that!
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see? touch? hold? have?
That's what my toddler grandson asks when he notices something he wants to explore. Usually he gets to third base, and usually that's enough. His curiosity is satisfied. Once in a while, when the fourth request gets denied, he gets a little assertive. Well, after all, he's only human.
I'm thinking about how the step-by-step process his mother has taught him as a way to move out into the wider world, to expand his horizons, while still respecting the fact that others exist in that world too, is going to benefit him greatly as gets older. He's not afraid to go after what he wants. And he understands that he can't have everything he wants. What he can have, though, and what he pursues, is information, experience, understanding. That comes first before ownership. And it's often enough. Often, it has to be enough.
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This is dedicated...
This is dedicated to all of those determined mothers of bright, curious, engaging and engaged toddlers. I don't know how you do it. And, if you get sick, well, I sure hope that you have family around to help out.
I'm home for two days before I go back out to Massachusetts, again, to help out my post-appendectomy and current bronchially infected daughter, my grandson fightng the beginnings of an ear infection, and my son-in-law -- just into his second week in a new job -- possibly strep throated.
I'm megadosing B, C, E, and Zinc. And I'm stocked up on various Zicam products, which, as far as I'm concerned work like little miracles.
This is also dedicated to that grandmother I chatted with in Toys R Us who had her grandson in a shopping cart even more loaded up than mine. "Aha," I said. "Another doting grandmother."
"Well, yes." She replied. "But I'm also his guardian. My son died last year."
What I have to deal with is nothing compared to that.
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Is this war holy and just?
(Below is an article written by my friend and former therapist, Edward Tick. It deserves to be shared widely. And so I leave it here as my last post before I leave town for a few days.)
The history of civilization is, in large part, a history of the causes, practices and consequences of warfare. Scholars count approximately 14,600 decisive wars in 5,600 years of recorded history. James Hillman declares “war is normal.”
Human beings kill aplenty but rarely without reason. Most of us have psychological and moral resistance to killing and must be supplied with transcendent purpose and whipped into some kind of frenzy to launch the act.
Today’s Iraq war is no different. The causes and practices of this war are not unique and are not solely about the dilemmas they purport to address.
The Civil War’s carnage was to end slavery and preserve the Union, World War I “to end all wars,” World War II to defeat Hitler and save civilization, Korea and Viet Nam to halt falling dominoes and save the world from Communism. This war, we are repeatedly told, is a war to defeat terrorism and the international Axis of Evil, cleanse the world of savage dictators, and protect ourselves against imminent dangers. All these reasons sound transcendent and of pure intent.
In fact, President Bush is replicating an ancient and archetypal pattern as irresistible as the flood of blood that follows it. The causes, intentions and purposes of the Iraq War seem to replicate the pattern of the Just or Holy War as it has reappeared throughout history.
The Just War doctrine, usually traced to Biblical origins, began when the Lord, “a man of war,” led the Israelites from slavery to freedom, granted them the right to take lands from the pagans, and devoured, destroyed and subdued their enemies. In Greek history, Zeus the sky father was god of battle, dispensing victory. Athena protected civilization and gained victory through strategy. Ares and his sister Eris fueled the lust for slaughter itself. In northern European mythology, too, the Norse gods' and heroes’ sacred task was to resist for as long as possible the forces of darkness that would eventually devour the earth. The beliefs about war were similar in all these traditions at the roots of western civilization. In all cases, war was directed by a divine power that chose rulers, favored warriors, and used war to further its own purposes in history.
Christianity inherited these traditions. Paul preached that earthly rulers were divinely appointed and properly determined what was good. Subjects must follow their will; leaders could use the sword to enforce it against domestic or foreign resistance. Augustine codified the Just War requirements: a leader has legitimate authority descended from God and must wage war for a just cause and have good intentions.
George Bush and his supporters claim to meet these requirements. Mr. Bush preaches that this war is against the Axis of Evil, protects America against imminent attack, punishes an evil-doer and rids the world of weapons of mass destruction. It is reported that Mr. Bush, like his antagonists, is a fundamentalist who believes he has been appointed by divine authority to conduct this campaign.
We now know there are no weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq did not have the capability or intention of directly attacking the United States. It is true that Saddam was a mad butcher of his own and other people. But there are many such butchers, and the United States, far from being committed to cleansing the world or punishing them all, in fact often ignores or aids and abets them. Just War theory states that these are unholy alliances and the world is correct to hold us accountable.
Augustine holds that wars are to be condemned if their intentions arise from the lust to inflict harm, gain revenge or procure power. With the overwhelming destruction and abuse we perpetrate, 9/11 forever invoked as our vengeful cause, corporations landing multi-billion dollar contracts and the world’s oil supply at their heart, are our intentions pure? Mr. Bush does not answer these charges but resolutely repeats his claim to the godly principles. He invokes Holy War which, as it always has, drives the citizenry into frenzy.
In Holy War, combatants became possessed, irrational, fearless, and bloodthirsty, terrors on the battlefield and off. Ares and Athena drove their favored warriors to frenzy. In northern European traditions warriors became the berserks of Odin, from which our word derives. In the Middle East, Jehovah and Allah still possess their warriors. During war the entire citizenry leans toward the berserk -- hungry for vengeance, blind to facts, fueling politics and actions with meanness, falsehood, and savage instincts that triumph over reason while leaders inflame our madness for political and military ends.
In Holy War the chain of power descends from its origins in Divine Principle through our leaders and to the people. We believe that our leaders guide us toward transcendent work and to do good we must follow and serve. Democracy grants the people their only power in the chain – by vote or action to grant or refuse legitimacy of rule to the ruler. We have only our vote left to determine whether “we the people” believe.
(Ah, yes, Vote or Die.)
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Family 911
Daughter had emergency appendectomy last night. Son-in-law just started new job on Monday. I'm heading out to MA. Be back whenever. Hope mom makes it through the next few days alone.
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Someday..
Someday, I will finish and post the "About" page of this site, and put my whole fascination with Lilith out there. Lilith, Lilitu, Kali...
Meanwhile, I am curious to see what the new Sci Fi movie Darklight does with the myth. As the promo site says,
A secret society fights evil with evil in this atmospheric original thriller.
Shiri Appleby (TV's Roswell), Richard Burgi (The Sentinel, SCI FI Pictures' Decoys), John de Lancie (Q from the Star Trek franchise) and David Hewlett (Stargate Atlantis, SCI FI Pictures' Boa vs. Python, the indie hit Cube) star in this tale of an ancient demoness named Lilith, who has been captured by a secret society known as The Faith.
Her true nature concealed by a powerful spell, Lilith lives as a 24-year-old woman with no memory of her ageless past — until William Shaw (Burgi) of The Faith recruits her to help him stop the Demonicos, a rampaging monster that is spreading a lethal plague across the Earth and whose only vulnerability is to Lilith's unique mystical power, known as Darklight.
As the duo race to slay the creature, they unwittingly expose a treacherous conspiracy within The Faith itself. Lilith has the power to set things right — but now that she has been reawakened to her true nature, will she resume her own evil ways? Trusting her is a life-or-death gamble for humanity, but it's one that William Shaw has no choice but to take.
The title, "Darklight," is encouraging, since that's what is the power of that ancient mythic figure -- creator AND destroyer. Alpha and Omega. The movie is on the Sci Fi channel this Saturday.
I will tape it, but I'll also try to watch it, although I'll be at my daughter's, trying to help them unpack and settle into their new house -- while my grandson keeps getting into everything and I leave my mom home alone for a few days.
And such are my Alpha and Omega:
For the moment, I am sandwiched between them, holding on to what is light, leaving the dark to my past and to some distant future. There is no power in that kind of splitting of personality. But split I do. Because I am a groovy Grammy and a "good daughter." At least for now.
Someday I will welcome her back, that Lilith spirit, that Kali spin. darklight. lightdark. Joined. One. Watch out.
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Grannies Rule!
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bread and wine basics
We didn't talk about it -- that awful 9/11. The talk of others was all around us anyway; what could we say. What we know, we know.
Instead, my cousin and her husband spent their visit with us letting my mother talk -- show them reams of old photos, tell, again, the old stories. They made her laugh. We laughed together, remembering.
More than fifty-five years ago, my mother and her sister dressed me and my cousin alike. We both can still remember the outfits -- cute little rompers and seersucker short sets. Hand-in-hand, we skipped down the sunny hill between our houses singing "Zippety Do Dah!"
And then there was the time I went on vacation with her family, where we stayed with friends of theirs somewhere near Plattsburgh. The friends' daughter had a a small kid-sized cabin with mattresses on the floor, where three of us went off to spend the night, armed with flashlights, blankets, and enough munchies to keep us sated until dawn. Just as we were about to fall asleep, a bat started flying around. My cousin freaked out. I did too, but, after all, I'm six months older than she is, and I felt responsible. (I have a habit of letting others take responsibility unless there is no one else. Then I always amaze myself with my ability to step up to the challenge.) So, I wrapped a blanket around her head and got her out and back to the house. Then the other girl and I chased the bat out of the little house and we had a great time for the rest of the night.
My cousin and I laughed at our childhood adventures until we were blowing our noses and wiping our eyes. And my mother laughed with us -- for her, at 88, the best therapy of all.
We remembered the one summer I went home between college semesters and we hung around with a bunch of guys from New Rochelle and did hours of the "Slop" to the music of some band called "Kevin and Rockin' Saints." We rode on the backs of Honda-type cycles with guys that were going back to other colleges and we would never see again. And that was just fine with all of us.
My cousin and her husband brought bread and wine to share along with their stories. But not just any kind of bread. RYE BREAD. The kind you can only get south of the Putnam County border, where they live. Having lived in upstate New York for these past 45 years or so, I had forgotten what real rye bread tastes like. Rye bread with butter (well, these days it's Smart Balance). Rye bread with salami. Genoa salami. Ah. Now, that's a real taste of the good ol' days. A sensory reminder of those carefree days before we lost our innocence -- both personally and nationally.
In an odd sort of way, this day was, for us, an acknowledgment of the importance of that other 9/11 -- an honoring of the basics that keeps us grounded even through the most tragic of times -- friends, family, shared histories, hopes, laughter. Stories. And really good rye bread.
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Treasures in the Dust
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,..."
I try to stop thinking about the sad fate of my nation by trying to clean out my clutter, metaphorically trying, trying, trying to bring clarity to a nation mired in the clutter of lies.
On my overwhelmed bookshelf, three little booklets from The Pocket Poets Series published by City Lights that I've been carrying around since the 60s. An image of the cover of my little copy of HOWL and other poems by Allen Ginsberg shows up here, except I have 16th printing and not the first, which probably is worth something.
The other two in the old Pocket Book Poets Series I have are Pictures of the gone world by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Poems of Humor and Protest by Kenneth Patchen -- neither one a first edition either. I will take them with me on my next more; they've become icons, magic carpets into my personal past, reminders that the more things change, etc.
The other book that emerged from bookcase clutter, pages yellowed and crumbling, is a 1945 original edition of "The Wayside Willow," signed and dated by all of the members of the 1945 Klub Polski at Columbia University who translated and published the anthology.
I don't have time to read through it now. I'm not done with enough of the clutter. But I will, soon. Poland is a country that was, many times, swept up in the tsunami of others' histories and still managed to survive and to produce powerful writers from those painful processes. It's in my blood.
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Bush and Abortion
Media Silences Bush Abortion Story Pro-choice Guide Margaret Sykes reports.
Did George W. Bush get a girlfriend pregnant in 1970? Did she have an Abortion? Muckraker Larry Flynt says so, and he's always been right about politicians and their sex lives. Why is this story being ignored and even censored by the news?
Found the above here and am wondering if it's true.
It turns out that it's also reported here.
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Extreme Nausea
I tried. I really did. I put the RNC on CNN and tried to stomach all the GWB lies. And then I washed dishes, wandered around clearing up table tops, stood in front of the mirror and tried to decide if I should try a different hair style. Every time I wandered back in front of the tv screen, my stomach would knot. When Zell Miller came on, I took a crossword puzzle book into the bathroom and took a good dump.
Mostly, I couldn't sit still while that circus was in town. I paced, fumed, despaired. I escaped with a couple of glasses of Dry Sack and a dozen pages of Dime Store Magic. Only there's no escaping this terror of the reality of the Republican's determination to undermine everything American democracy was once noted for.
This morning, I read this at Truthout. (Maybe there is hope. I hope there's hope. What will we do if we have four more years of this Armeggedon leadership?)
From the Truthout piece, which is the Bush Is 'Unfit' to Lead U.S., Kerry Charges editorial in the NY Times by David M. Halbfinger and Michael Janofsky and the text of Kerry's speech last night in Ohio.
"Let me tell you in no uncertain terms what makes someone unfit for office and unfit for duty," Mr. Kerry said, turning to Mr. Bush. "Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead our country. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this country. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care for four years makes you unfit to lead this country.
"Letting the Saudi royal family control the price of oil for Americans makes you unfit to lead this country. Handing out billions of dollars in government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you're still on the payroll makes you unfit lead this country.
"That, my friends, is the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney - and that only begins to scratch the surface."
[snip]
Mr. Edwards, introducing Mr. Kerry, called the attacks on him amazing. "They'll say just about anything, won't they?" Mr. Edwards asked. "He wasn't wounded quite often enough, is that it?"
Reminding the crowd of Mr. Bush's acceptance speech in 2000, Mr. Edwards recalled how Mr. Bush had "over and over" said: " 'They have not led. We will.'
"Well, let me ask you, have they led us to more jobs? Have they led us to better health care for our people? Have they led us to cleaner air, cleaner water? Have they led us to better schools and education for our kids?
"Here's the truth. They led us from the edge of greatness to the edge of a cliff. And it's time to lead them out of town."
[snip. But what I saw on the Republican Lemming Convention, was countless thoughtless delusional citizens following the Bush administration over that cliff.]
When Mr. Edwards invited audience members to ask questions, one man suggested that the Democrats were campaigning too timidly, a criticism that many Democrats around the country are beginning to raise.
"You're up against the dirtiest fighters in the world," the man said. "If they hit you, you've got to hit back twice. How are you going to handle it the next two months?"
"There's a difference between how you fight and who you're fighting for," Mr. Edwards said, choosing his words carefully." It's one thing to engage in a lot of personal assaults, like some of the things we saw last night. It's another thing to fight with everything you've got for the American people and the people you believe in."
How do you fight the delusions of mindless lemmings?
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