head: north
No, that's not traveling instructions.
For months I was having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep. I didn't want to take prescription sleeping pills in case I had to get up in the middle of the night if my mother needed my help.
Listening to novels I downloaded to my MP3 player from my library helped me to fall asleep, although still not fast enough. I tried Melatonin and also Valium. I tried listening to calming music and slowing down my breathing. Sometimes it all worked, but more often it didn't.
Oh, I know there are all kinds of other tricks to promoting sleepiness, some of which, like warm relaxing baths, I don't have time for since my mother goes to bed so late, and I have a shower and no bath tub anyway.
One night a couple of weeks ago, after tossing and turning, watching the clock as it moved slowly from hour to hour, in frustration I threw my pillow to the foot of the bed and slept feet-to-the-headboard. I slept great for the rest of the night.
I kept sleeping that way from then on, and my nights have become much more restful.
With my head at the foot of the bed, the top of my head points to the North. HUH? you might think? SO?
When I Googled "sleep with head north" I got a bunch of similar explanations, the following of which is the most clearly spelled out:
Sleep with Your Head Facing North
And, obviously -- unless you have a particularly unusual body -- your feet facing south. This aligns your body with the magnetic field of the planet, bringing your own energies into harmony with those of the Earth. Sound like a pretty bizarre theory? Try it. You'll see what a difference it makes.
On the other hand, an ancient Navajo taboo supposedly warns:
Do not sleep with your head pointing to the North or you might die.
North is the direction of evil and dead people lie that way..
Of course, it doesn't help my insomnia that I tend to rev up my brain by blogging late at night.
The way my small space is set up, I can't reverse my bed; so I will continue sleeping upside down.
If you have trouble sleeping and you try pointing your head to the North, let me know if it works for you. Hey, it's cheaper than sleeping pills.
Categories:
fire and ice
Fire and Ice
....Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
A "Last Days on Earth" special on ABC's 20/20 tonight pretty much mirrored the bases of Frost's metaphor. As a matter of fact, if natural forces are behind our ruination, they will probably start with fire and end with ice. If we are going to be the agents of our own destruction, we have a few additional choices, including plague.
That's the Big Picture.
On Countdown tonight, Keith Obermann eloquently confronted the current agents of destruction in our national picture. You can hear him and/or read his courageous and moving delivery at Crooks and Liars.
As theonetruebix posted not too long ago:
If the problem, for the terrorists, is our freedom, why is America's response to stop using it?.
Categories:
Another Harper's Tuesday
Just what you've been waiting for the bits of news no one hears on the news. Check out Harper's Weekly for off-beat snapshots the whole big war picture. But, meanwhile, here are some snips from other world views:
[Washington Post] F.D.A. representative Dr. Janet Woodcock said that selling the Plan B contraceptive over the counter would transform it into an “urban legend” that would tempt adolescents to create “sex-based cults.”
[Washington Post] The International Rescue Committee announced that more than 200 women were sexually assaulted in refugee camps last month in Darfur.
[Reuters] In Kenya, U.S. Senator Barack Obama agreed to be tested for HIV,
ABC News] President Bush cautioned against placing too much importance on the upcoming one-year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.[San Jose Mercury News]
Advanced Cell Technology, an American biotech company, successfully created embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos.[Financial Times]
The mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, announced his intention to make his city the “toughest place on illegal immigrants in America.” [Washington Post]
Australian scientists announced plans to issue oral contraceptives to kangaroos.[BBC] Existing home sales hit a two-year low,[Forbes]
Microsoft filed suit against two “typosquatter” companies under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which prevents companies from exploiting suggestively similar domain names.[The Register]
Venezuelan customs officials confiscated twenty U.S. diplomatic mail bags containing airplane ejector seats, explosive charges, and 180 pounds of chicken.[New York Times]
Chinese law enforcement officials cracked down on striptease performances at funerals in Jiangsu province, arresting five and setting up a hotline where people could report “funeral misdeeds.”[Reuters via Yahoo News]
In Diss, England, Gwen Dorling, 102, enjoyed the services of a stripper for her birthday,[BBC] and Edward Rondthaler, 100, of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, attributed his longevity to cold showers.[CNN]
“Super-sized” yellowjacket nests were infesting southern states,[Montgomery Adviser]
In Coushatta, Louisiana, nine black students were sent to the back of a school bus to make room for white children.[The Shrevport Times via Drudge Report]
In Sorrento, Florida, a sixty-year-old man was accused of biting a six-year-old boy's genitals after the child refused to stop touching himself,[Local6.com] and an English woman capable of climaxing forty times per day was convicted of benefit fraud.[The Times of London]
Young people were loitering in the nude in parking lots in Brattleboro, Vermont.[Boston.com]
Lordy, Lordy. How crazy are we crazy humans going make life on this planet???
But here's my all time favorite in this week's Harper's Weekly:
Katherine Harris, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida, told a Baptist newspaper that “if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”[Washington Post] .
Categories:
on the radio
What do you know! Bob Dylan's on the radio. He's got a regular show on AOL Radio. Check it out here. I didn't know. But Dean Landsman did, and he sent an email out to the "gwazillion" names he has in his email address book, just in case we might be interested.
I'm posting it here in case you might be interested.
Bob Dylan. On AOL Radio. Who woulda thunk it?
Listen to his new album, Modern Times.
Categories:
surrounded by old pantihose
Not just pantihose, but regular stockings too -- you know, the kind you have to hold up with garters ( the kind attached to girdles; of course, if you're younger than 40, you probably don't know).
Every time I open one of her dresser drawers, out pops a baggie full of them. And not the kind of baggie with a zip lock that keeps the items inside from spilling out. Oh no -- these baggies are either the cheap kind that you're supposed to use a twist tie with (but she doesn't) or they're bags that something else originally came in. Nude, taupe, tan, beige -- an ecru avalanche.
Most of them she never wore, and these days she mostly wears socks. Knee-highs if she decides to force her feet into the more dressy shoes that are the culprits in the irritation of her hammertoe and bunions. No use trying to convince her not to wear those aggravating shoes. THEY ARE HER SHOES! SHE PAID FOR THEM AND SHE WILL WEAR THEM! There's no point in arguing with her; getting her upset only intensifies her dementia.
In anticipation of the day when I can clean out all of those assorted nylon tubes, I did some Googling to see how I might recyle them.
This site is a hoot to read through. -- but I'm looking for some actual practical uses.
The best ones I found are on a site called The Jewish Woman. Among the nylon tips were these, my favorites:
• Hand buff a wood floor to a beautiful shine with a pad made by inserting a folded bath towel into an old nylon stocking. The stocking will get snagged, so gather up plenty of old hose.
• Old nylons make perfect applicators for stains, varnish or polyurethane, especially in places a brush can't handle.
• Keep an old pair of pantyhose in your trunk to use to tie down the lid of your car trunk if you have something bulky to carry.
• Need an extra-large rubber band? Cut around the elastic top of an old pair of pantyhose. Two of these, crisscrossed, work fine when bundling newspapers or magazines. Use one to hold a bag in place in a garbage container, too.
• Make your own inexpensive softball that won't hurt kids or furniture: stuff an old sock with pantyhose and sew the top closed. Stuff dolls, pillows and toys, too, for softness and washability.
• To find a contact lens on the floor or carpet, cover your vacuum nozzle carefully with a piece of nylon hose to keep the lens from being drawn in. Gently move the nozzle over the floor.
• If it's difficult to scrub your back when bathing, center a bar of soap in an old nylon stocking and tie knots on both sides of it. Holding one end in each hand, seesaw it across your back.
• Carry some old nylons in your camping kit. In an emergency they can be tied together and used for rope. They also make good bags for children to put their collections in.
• Store plant bulbs in the foot of a nylon stocking and hang them high to dry.
• When you've gathered pods from your garden for seeds, pull a nylon stocking over them and hang to dry. When dry, shake, and the seeds will fall to the toe of the stocking. Cut off, knot and store.
• If your skin is sensitive to a wool sweater, line the sleeves by tacking in the legs from old nylons.
• Old nylons make good ties for tomatoes and other plants because they're strong, yet won't damage vulnerable stalks.
• Strain lumpy paint through an old nylon stocking. Some interior painters strain all paint this way.
For alternative uses for all kinds of used objects -- i.e. dryer sheets, emory boards, coat hangers, candle stubs, etc. etc. -- check out Mrs. Fixit's.
Someday, when I have time to spare, I'll have to gather up all of my used "stuff" and put it all to good re-use. Right now, time to myself is more valuable to me than anything I can think of.
The trick will be how to extricate myself from all of those old pantihose.
Categories:
more neocon flim-flam
From FactCheck.org:
Bush supporters falsely quote Lincoln as advocating arresting, exiling or hanging members of Congress who damage military morale in wartime.
Summary
Supporters of President Bush and the war in Iraq often quote Abraham Lincoln as saying members of Congress who act to damage military morale in wartime "are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged."
Republican candidate Diana Irey used the "quote" recently in her campaign against Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, and it has appeared thousands of times on the Internet, in newspaper articles and letters to the editor, and in Republican speeches.
But Lincoln never said that. The conservative author who touched off the misquotation frenzy, J. Michael Waller, concedes that the words are his, not Lincoln's. Waller says he never meant to put quote marks around them, and blames an editor for the mistake and the failure to correct it. We also note other serious historical errors in the Waller article containing the bogus quote.
Categories:
the not wanting
There was a time when I wanted. And what I wanted, I worked to get. Or played to get. Whatever it was, the wanting of it fired my spirit, made me make the moves toward the pleasure of getting.
But there is no point in wanting these days because wanting without the freedom to go after what I want hurts more than not wanting anything at all.
And so I don't want anything at all. Nothing.
Categories:
bloggers' laments
Turn on your speakers and identify.
This one pointed to by Stu Savory. (Wish I had the lyrics to it).
This on posted by Maudie. (Grab a kleenex first.)
This one posted on Stereophile.
Categories:
words and music
This is about two movies with words and music -- two very different movies, yet I have to admit that I was enthralled by both..
The first is actually called "Words and Music," and I tuned into the Turner Classic Movies channel because I thought my mother would like it. Of course, as usual, her attention span ended in a half-hour, and I was the one who became thoroughly engrossed in the words and music of this 1948 musical.
A fictionalized look at the lives of the famous songwriting team, Rodgers and Hart, it's a film filled with famous Hollywood names, many of them playing themselves: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Mel Torme, Perry Como, Lena Horne, June Allyson..... Gene Kelly dancing "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue!" [ DROOL!] Mickey Rooney plays Lorenzo Hart, giving lots of (I'm sure fictionalized but neverthless fascinating) insights into how the lyrics for some of his most famous songs might have originated.
The other movie, filled with a totally different genre of words and music is "The Lost City," beautifully (I think) directed by and starring Andy Garcia. This movie is a love song to the city and the country of his heart and soul -- Havana, Cuba. The cruelties of Batista, Castro, and Che Guevera rip into the tapestry of 1950s Cuba, a land richly textured by the music, dancing, and culture of its diverse people. One of the comments about this movie is that it offers A Dialog that's been lacking for 50 years. While the "dialog" to which this comment refers is about the politics of that time and place, the writing itself is also full of compelling dialog.
Words and music. Love those movies.
Categories:
rub your roast
My son and what he does in his spare time. Click here, then click on the image, -- but first make sure your speakers are turned on.
Categories:
Harper's Tipsy Tuesday
To hell with Hezbollah and its daily headlining. Sometimes it's important in keeping one's spirits up to be reminded about life's more fun-damental absurdities.. The following are excerpted from Harper's Weekly Review:
Colombia began exporting its big-butt queen ants (Hormiga culona), which taste like juicy popcorn when toasted.
Venezuelans were spending their oil money on Scotch whiskey, [The New York Times] and American guitars were dominating Japan. [MSN]
In Thailand, a preoperative transsexual named John M. Karr claimed to have been present for JonBenet Ramsey's 1996 death, which he called “an accident.” [The New York Times]
Benedict XVI complained that being pope is “really tiring” and emphasized that “seeing the funny side of life” is crucial to his ministry. [Yahoo! News]
It was reported that U.S. military recruiting violations rose in 2005, as did the number of troops discharged for homosexuality.[Washington Post]
Houston's rising crime rate was blamed on refugees from New Orleans, which has been gripped by a baby boom.[The New York Times][Breitbart.com]
Officials in Canton, Ohio, decided that a 13 percent pregnancy rate among its high schools' females justified moving beyond an abstinence-only approach to sex education, [LA Times][Local6.com] and a secretly pregnant 21-year-old in Florida went into labor, sneaked out of her parents' house, crashed her car into a canal, then delivered standing up in the wreckage. She named the baby Myracle.[Palm Beach Post]
Doctors in India speculated that the birth of a one-eyed girl might be attributable to her mother's exposure to Cyclopamine, a cancer drug derived from wild corn lily that causes cyclopia in sheep.[Wired News]
South Korean DNA tests on tissues obtained during a 2003 hysterectomy indicated that a Frenchwoman was the mother of two rotting infant corpses found in a freezer at her home in Seoul, but she and her husband denied any relationship to the dead babies.[Digital Chosunilbo]
Sir Mick Jagger lost his voice, [The Daily Mail] a Chicago ice-cream-truck driver was shot dead behind the wheel,[Local6.com] and a tree in Texas was mysteriously spouting water from its bark.
And, on the home front here in the mountains, at various times during the day, I found that mom had dressed herself in two pairs of slacks, three blouses, and two different shoes. She never sits down for more than 15 minutes. She walks. And walks. And rearranges dresser drawers and closets. Her language center seems to be affected most of all; she thinks she's using the correct word for what she wants, but, for example, when she wanted a "kleenex today", she asked for a "cushion." It's getting more and more frustrating for both of us.
I feel the need for a respite coming on.
Categories:
those small miracles
It's those small miracles that keep me going.
The one enchantingly irridescent baby skink who lives somewhere near our cement steps and who somehow survived the snake who prowled the area not too long ago.
The new green growth at the tip of the one piece I broke off and stuck in dirt from the 35-year old cactus (inherited from a former lover who was moving) that I had carted along on my last four moves and finally chucked into the woods because I was sure it was dead.
The avocado plant I grew from a pit whose tips I had pinched back and thought I killed that is now sprouting two new branches.
My garden's yellow pepper plants nipped early in the bud by deer? squirrels? now two feet tall and budding again.
My spunky chubby cat who comes when I call her, no matter where she is outside, and who continues to try to teach me her meowy language.
Life responds to patience and tenacity. So I order lily bulbs to plant in the fall, seeds to start indoors in winter.
My mother has two days of partial awareness, responding to both a visit to a priest staying briefly in the area who was a close friend of both parents and also to a visit from our cousins from Florida. And then she has two days of rummaging through her closets taking out all of her clothes, forgetting who we are, wandering around her three small rooms looking for ....... something. First she's cold and puts on layers of blouses. Then she's hot and tries to take off all of her clothes.
We have eaten the last of the tomatoes that I was able to salvage from the beleaguered plants. They were deliciously satisfying small miracles. I am awaiting the blooming of the resurrected peppers.
I have always been tenacious. Now, I am learning patience. A small miracle.
Categories:
aging fast
s I was uploading photos from my cousins' visit, I took a good look at my own image and realized just how many more lines and wrinkles I've developed in the past year, how much older I look, how much more tired -- how fat my upper arms have gotten.
So I took a look at how I've changed over the past half-dozen years. I am quickly developing the face of an old lady, and I don't like it one bit. Feh on caregiving!!
Categories:
George Soros calls me friend
ell, me and the millions of others who got his email asking me to share his message with my colleagues. Since it's a message the point of which I share, I will share it. Here:
"Wall Street Journal
”A Self-Defeating War”
By
George Soros
By George Soros -- The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence.
Unfortunately, the "war on terror" metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. But the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defense.
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
• First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
• Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.
• Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
• Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.
Mr. Soros, a financier, is author of "The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror" (Public Affairs, 2006.
Categories:
will she or won't she
emember, that is. Remember the cousins who are coming to visit on Wednesday. Last month, she remembered them. Tonight, she doesn't seem to.
She hasn't seen the couple in more than 20 years. They are in their 80s now and live in Florida -- are stopping by on their annual drive to visit the wife's family.
On Friday, we will take her to visit the Polish priest who was a good friend of my dad's -- gave him those Last Rites. The priest is filling for a colleague who is on vacation this week and whose parish is in the next town. My mother says that she doesn't remember him either.
I'm hoping that she'll remember them all when she sees them -- when they talk to her in Polish and anchor her in the past that they shared.
We never know, morning by morning, whether she will wake up remembering or not. "Where's my mother," she sometimes asks, sometimes asks in tears.
"Do you know who I am?" I ask her on those vacant mornings. "You're my mother," she says. "Where's my brother, Teddy?" she wants to know. She always remembers her brother Teddy. And her husband. The people who took care of her before her memory began its dulling decline.
I remember well that young man cousin (he was eighteen when I was three), holding me by the hand, showing me the cows and chickens, giving me rides on the tractor, and letting me pick strawberries that I would eat still warm from the ripe fields. We have been emailing as of late, getting to know each other again for the first time.
I'll bet our cousins can make her remember. They will make her laugh and tell her the stories she has forgotten about the good times on the old farm, where all the uncles and aunts and cousins would gather at least once a summer for a week out of the stifling city. And the adults would sit around at night and sing all of the old Polish songs about a homeland far away but not forgotten.
What I remember most are the smells -- fresh hay piled in the barn, hot strawberry jam being ladled by Ciocia Steffa into the dozens of Mason jars she sealed with melted wax, warm milk straight from the cow, tilled fields wet from a day of rain.
What, I wonder, will she remember.
Categories:
three cheers for Sears
hile I am anti-this-war, I am not unilaterally anti-military. Granted, we currently have a screwed up military system, and, on top of that, the individuals who have been rousted out of their regular lives and sent out to shore up the rapidly exhausting fighting forces across the world are really getting short shrift (if they even manage to come back to get it). Employers of reservists who are called into active duty are required by law to make their jobs available to them if/when they get back. But often these reservists (and therefore their families) lose their health and other benefits and wind up taking pay cuts if/when they get back.
Sears, however, is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years.
According to snopes.com,
"Sears is indeed one of the employers who take additional steps to show support for employees involved in serving their country (either in the Reservers or the National Guard) by guaranteeing the continuance of their civilian pay (for up to 60 months) and allowing continued participation in life insurance, medical and dental programs. Many other companies, large and small, do the same for their workers, but as one of the nation's oldest and largest employers, Sears (acquired in 2005 by Kmart) gets the publicity for setting a prominent example.
Categories:
if only
I lifted the above from here, where it was posted by my ol' blogpal, Lorraine O'Connor.
Categories:
no Lawrence Welk world
hat would Lawrence Welk think of the world today?
What makes me be thinking about Lawrence Welk, you might wonder. I'm not much the Lawrence Welk type -- all that flag waving an hymning. Don't mind the ballroom dancing, though, but the accordian music and the Lennon sisters I could live without.
I sat with my mother this evening and watched a DVD From Lawrence Welk to America with Love. She, of course, was entranced by the "big band" music and the harmonious singers. I couldn't help notice how old everyone was -- especially the audience. I mean, they looked even older than I am.
If you didn't live through the 40s and 50s, then you have no idea how patriotic we all were during those years. We all believed that America was the greatest country in the world, and like Superman, we would always defend "truth, justice, and the American way."
We were a white bread country, at least on the surface. For those of us on that surface, it felt good to be proud to be an American. We believed we were the good guys. Lawrence Welk was a good guy. He honored his parents and his family; he believed that God had blessed him; he loved America.
I wonder if he would still love what it has become.
Categories:
extremes
ast week she slept 18 out of 24 hours every day. This week, it's just about the reverse. Her moods swing to the extremes. At first, she's weak and panting, eyes almost closed, unsteady on her feet. She won't sit, won't lie down. She walks -- small baby-steps. Hands, nose, and feet like ice. Then suddenly she's smiling, wants to dance, strolls around her room, pokes through closets and drawers. And then she sits, head in hands, mumbling softly, but I can't understand a word she's saying.
After six hours of this, I have a meltdown. An extreme meltdown. Six hours is all I can take; then I need a break to do something. DO SOMETHING other than baby-sit someone I can't even have a conversation with but can't ignore to keep my mind and hands busy. My sib has to take over. I sit myself down in front of my sewing machine and do some mending/adjusting/hemming. Sewing calms me down because I have to focus on what I'm doing, block everything else out.
This has been an extremely frustrating day for me. It's 11:30 p.m. and she's still not asleep. But I sure want to be.
Categories:
is "Jew" the same as "Israeli"?
've been wanting to write something about this issue, but, being neither one or the other or both, I felt I shouldn't.
However, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, written by a practicing Jew, put it out there in a way I respect and understand and support.
I wasn't looking for this kind of piece. I went over to check out my blogfriend Tamarika and linked to this post of hers, which led me to this blogpost.
Andrew Benjamin, a professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, ended his article in the Sydney Morning Herald with this:
"Until Jews are prepared to articulate the need to sever the identification of Judaism and Israel, anti-Semitism will flourish. Until Jews are prepared to argue that the Holocaust and its legacy is not the province of a nation state, let alone a justification for Zionism, our responsibility in relation to the dead will continue to be betrayed. We should demand better of ourselves..
Thank you, Professor Benjamin, for answering my question so clearly and honestly.
Categories:
another ecclesiocratic coup
he following from an email from non-blogger myrln, who is also an avid Red Sox fan. When I saw this reported on television, at first I thought it was a joke. But, NOOOO. We are becoming just like our own sworn enemies.
"Okay, I'm pretty tolerant about people's religious persuasions, figuring everybody makes mistakes and has the right to screw up their minds in their own ways. But I've now had it with christian fundamentalists cuz they're screwing with BASEBALL! I learned yesterday that to boost attendance it's been a practice for awhile for minor league teams in the south to sponsor what they call "faith days (or nights)." Fundamentalists hold a religious rally at the ballpark, with bands, singing, and testimonials by players who share the faith. Then they have the game. Now it's spread north, as the Buffalo minor league franchise has scheduled such events. And even worse, it's now spread to the MAJOR LEAGUES! The Atlanta Braves have scheduled 3 "faith days" at the their park for this season.
Now, never mind these christian events are not matched equally by judaic, islamic, hindu, buddhist, taoist, atheist events (and may be insulting to those on that list), what's really important is that they're in BASEBALL STADIUMS where they play BASEBALL (and hold occasional rock concerts). It's bad enough they do the "God Bless America" bit before the 7th inning at Yankee Stadium (since 9/11 -- which it's time we began to let go of, huh?), what's next prayers and pledge of allegiance along with the national anthem before the game? when the home team's got a potential walk-off situation? when we need the opponents to strike out? My God (no, strike that), my word, where will it end? Will the Catholics want to serve holy communion? Will the born-agains want to hold baptism for a batter in a clutch situation who decides he might need some extraterrestrial help?
Nononononono! Out of baseball, you right-wing wackos! Go to the wrestling world -- yeah, good wrestling with evil. It's a perfect fit for you.
Just had a great image flash: catholic priests roving up and down the ballpark aisles. "Hey communion here! Get your holy hosts! How many over there? Three? You gottem!".
If you'd like a visual and aural reinforcement to the sad state of our United States, go here.
Categories:
Happy Harper's Tuesday
The following are some odd pieces of news, excerpted from here.
¤ the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee reported that law enforcement agencies were powerless to prevent the super-rich from cheating on their taxes
¤ the London School of Economics determined that good-looking couples are 36 percent more likely than their ugly counterparts to have female offspring
¤ a Chicago woman was suing Borders Books after she was "permanently disfigured" in a toilet seat accident
¤ in China 50,000 dogs died in Yunnan province when government-authorized "killing teams" crept into villages at night and beat the dogs to death
¤ a laser-equipped research aircraft owned by NASA was being used to locate woodpeckers in the Mississippi Delta
¤ at least 25,000 chickens died in Indiana from the heat, and geologists in Ohio were baffled by the earthquakes in suburban Cleveland
¤ bungs, drugs, and wholesale cheating were declared to be the norm in all major sports.
AND THAT'S JUST THE GOOD NEWS.
Categories:
is it generational?
t times, my son and I disagree when it comes to contemporary culture. That's not surprising, of course. We have different life experiences, and it's common for different generations to see things differently. It's always been so. I won't even get into Elvis Presley.
And so I left the following as a comment on his post about the recent research on the the negative effect on teenagers of today's music that glorifies sexual degradation.
"The "causes," I would imagine, are complex, and music that degrades sexuality and females, I imagine, is a contributing cause -- as are the overemphases on sexuality in the media, the glorification of violence in video games, the lack of parental guidance and involvement etc. Hormonally saturated teenagers are ripe for sexual experimentation and even exploitation. This culture's media doesn't give them much in the way of healthy models and encouragement.
Take for example the fifties. The media, the movies, and the music all presented a Beaver Cleaver view of life. Our music teased us with "A White Sportcoat and a Pink Carnation." We were brainwashed into believing that this was what life was.
A lot happened between then and now, and while lots of it was positive and healthy -- as it applauded the acceptance and enjoyment of sexual energy -- that energy wasn't linked to violence or degradation (at least not in the general culture; there have always been subcultures).
Just as we in the fifties were faced with the possibility of being brainwashed into idolizing a false innocence, kids today are even more intensely and overwhelmingly faced with the temptation of being brainwashed into idolizing the other side of the sexuality coin.
I'm not sure there's any solution to this diemma. We don't want censorship, but, on the other hand, whereas I, as a parent, had, I think, considerable influence in helping my kids form their values, I think today's parents have a much harder time competing with the predominant teenage culture in guiding their kids. It can be done, but it takes a whole lot of effort, and, even then, too often parents lose the competitive edge.
It's very discouraging, really. We're moving into a world that sci fi writers have always predicted: violence, sexual brutality, environmental breakdown, fascism. We're almost there.
Is sexually degrading music the cause? Of course not. But it is a factor and an indicator and a great worry to many of us who have watched various facets of life on this planet continuously degrade over the past sixty years.
I was listening yesterday to a CD of Neil Diamond's songs, and I especially always like, and am remembering now in the context of this post, his lyrics to "PLay Me." What a wonderfully sensual song. Lusciously sensual but not overtly sexual. And then there's "Longfellow Seranade."
See the difference between then and now?
Categories:
My personal DNA
Put your cursor on each block to find out what it means.
Or go here to see the whole profile.
Categories:
looking back
ust for the hell of it, I went back and looked at the posts I made on this blog in August four years ago. I notice that I linked to a lot of other bloggers back then; I don't do that very much these days. I just write. I guess that's because I seldom have the time to read other bloggers -- even the ones I really appreciate reading, like Tom Shugart, who is back after a too-long hiatus from blogdom. My life was so totally different four years ago. Just about everything has changed. And I can't even remember the last time I linked over to Blog Sisters, where I was once one of the leaders of the pack.
Categories:
something's happening
he sleeps more hours during the day than she spends awake; she never bothers to get out of her nighclothes. At least that's how it's been for the last two days. I don't know if she's just recuperating from the stress of the hospital visit or if something else is going on. She eats and drinks, but very little. The diarrhea has reversed itself and now there's nothing coming out. Something is happening. Her doctor is away on vacation this week. We're on our own.
It's a bizzarre feeling -- all of a sudden having all of this time to myself. I spent hours this evening trying to learn more tips from Mandarin Meg's website, looking up true type fonts, making some letters into images. I was unsuccessful in in putting in her codes that would let me put an image in the middle of text; I spent hours playing around with the her code, but I couldn't get it to work. This is how I play when I'm left with unexpected free time.
This afternoon, while she napped, I went outside to check on my garden -- do some watering and deadheading. Oddly enough, there are some tomatoes ripening on vines that are barely there, what with the plague of pests we've had all summer. Even though the bottom branches have been infested into ragged brown stalks, tomatoes are still popping up farther up on the wilting vines. Where there's life, there's hope.
Over in the back of the house, where my little statue of Pan (that I've hauled around with me through several moves) nestles among the leaves of melissa officinalis, the gregariously ubiquitous cinquefoil finds its way into Pan's muddy crotch, providing much unnecessary modesty to the smooth stoney satyr and inches its way toward my patch of wildflowers, which I planted from seed and still doesn't sport anything near a bloom.
I have been somewhat partial to Pan ever since I saw this painting at the Clarke Institute in Williamstown, MA. You can't see the expression on the poor goat-footed guy's face, but it is pure "panic." He looks like he's quite a bit concerned about what those nasty nymphs are going to do to him. Of course, my little cherubic Pan, chipped and bird-splattered, innocently playing his pipes to waken the fertile earth, will never know the neediness of nymphs. Nor will he feel the greediness of the creeping cinquefoil. He doesn't know that something is happing.
It has taken me two hours to make this post because I was having trouble getting the photos to appear where I wanted them. Even now, they're not where I wanted them, but at least they're somewhere reasonable. One of my my best virtues is perseverence. One of my worst faults is perseverence. I have a need to hang in there until things happen.
Categories:
gatorade and sippy cup
That's what's keeping her going (or, rather, NOT going). I bought a sippy cup a while ago at a dollar store, just in case she might need it someday. That day has come, and she's been sipping gatorade out of if all day. That's all she's allowed to ingest for two days -- that and an a strong antibiotic, since so far they haven't found anything apparent that is causing her diarrhea.
It was a bad morning, with her refusing to sit or lie down and insisting on walking, walking, walking. In desperation, I gave her some of my passionflower extract that I got from the health food store and that I use to calm myself down enough to fall asleep. Eventually, she actually relaxed enough so that we all could relax a little.
As for my toe, it's better today -- obviously just a bad bruise.
My garden's not much for harvesting this year. I keep salvaging tomatoes, but unless I find the time and energy to water what's there, the pickings will be even slimmer. My flower/planters are so dried out that I'm not sure I can save what's in them. Too much sun, not enough water. Not enough time to do the watering.
It's so hard to get all of those balances right.
Categories:
8 1/2
That's eight and a half hours in the ER. We left at 5 p.m. It's now almost 2 a.m. I haven't eaten since lunch, and I'm sitting here eating baba ghannouj with a spoon and drinking V-8 Fusion because it hurts when I chew because I had a tooth extracted yesterday.
Mom was severely dehydrated and we couldn't seem to stop the diarrhea. So they took all kinds of her fluids for testing, stuck a hydrating infusion in her arm, X-rayed her and did a CAT scan of her stomach and intestines. They didn't find anything that we didn't already know was there -- nothing that would be causing her to spend so much time sitting on the commode. So, just in case, they gave her an antibiotic and we loaded up on gatorade on the way home.
And just to make the day coimplete, as I was rushing around making sure I had her health insurance info and stuffing extra clothes for her in a bag, along with a water bottle, kleenex etc. etc., my flip-flop caught on something sticking out of her wheelchair and I did some damage to my second toe on my left foot. No time to worry about that, right?
At the hospital, my toe started throbbing; turning purple. I had the option of signing myself into the ER too and have my toe X-rayed, but that would have left my sib to deal with my mother alll by himself. My toe hurt and looked gross, but I could bend it and move it, so I figured it's just a bad bruise. I opted to tend to the reason we were there in the first place.
She is supposed to consume nothing but ginger ale and gatorade for the next two days. If she refuses to drink -- as she has been doing midst fits of dementia -- it's back to the hospital and back on the IV.
I'm wondering how they ever manage situations like this in nursing homes. It took two of us to manage the care of one of her.
I'm still hungry. But I'm also tired. I don't know which need I'll fill after I post this. Either way, it's been a hell of a day.
Categories:
Happy Harper's Tuesday
In addition to a well encaspsulated report of the murder, mayhem, and madness going on the Middle East, today's Harper's Weekly listed a few other items of odd interest, excerpted as follows:
-- in Minnesota people in zombie costumes were arrested for carrying "simulated weapons of mass destruction
-- hot weather killed 141 people (as well as 25,000 cattle and 700,000 fowl) in California, at least 170 people in France, Italy, and Spain, and dozens of racing dogs in Oregon, and shut down MySpace
-- two people in England were killed by a giant inflatable sculpture named Dreamscape
-- a school headmaster in China burned down 10 classrooms when the dog meat he was cooking burst into flames
-- Radiologists announced that many Americans were becoming too fat for X-rays
-- a man in Sumatra was squashed by an elephant.
-- poisoned pigeons rained down in Schenectady, New York
--- Texas was overrun by butterflies.
-- a man in Prey Veng province, Vietnam, killed a 76-year-old nun by strangling her with a krama, then attempted to assassinate a monk, while the victims slept at a wat
-- an influential Italian banker and member of Opus Dei was found dismembered under a bridge in Parma
-- doctors in India removed a 15-year-old dead fetus from a woman's womb
---------------
-- a verbally abused 66 year old woman commits fratricide in New Paltz, NY while 90 year old mother sleeps soundly in the next room
The itme above was not listed. But it might be someday.
Categories:
