while she sleeps
While she sleeps, I blog, wash dishes, water my plants, brush my cat, start going through my papers for tax time.
She takes several naps a day, now. Eats, goes to the bathroom, sleeps, eats....... "You're my mother," she says to me.
While I'm sorting through my mounds of unfiled statements, receipts, and slips of paper I can't remember why I saved, I come upon my ID badge from high school. It's my senior year photo. 1957. My thumbprint is on the back. It's a Civil Defense ID. It might be the only record of my thumbprint in case something happens to me and the only thing left is my thumb.
I also find a rubber-banded collection of ID badges from my various jobs with the NY State Ed Department. I look at how I've changed over the years.
At 57 I was ballroom dancing three nights a week and weighing in at 135 lbs. At 47, I was disco dancing into the wee hours and weighing in at 125 lbs. At 17, I was biking, walking, dancing, and was 105 lbs.
It's 2007. Extrapolating from the above, you would assume I would be 145 lbs. If only.
There's a Curves in town, and I've decided it's time to insist on time away from her, asleep or awake, to do something for myself. Like many people my age, I have degenerating disks, and I've just had several days of those periodic shooting pains that one gets with that condition. Exercise is the recommended treatment. I already take the suggested supplements. I've got to get off my butt and move it.
These days, as Ronni reports, being in one's sixties is not being old. My mother is old, and chances are that I will live to be that old.
And then it will be my turn to eat, go to the bathroom, and sleep, eat,.......
Although today it's so beautiful out, that took my mother for a walk up and down the driveway and then we sat in the sun.
Now she's sleeping. I'm blogging. And then I'll shred some of those old files I've been wading through. (It's not surprising that Ronni has just blogged about being inundated with paper). And then I'll figure out what to feed us for supper. And then I'll do the dishes.
And then she'll sleep. And I'll take two Advil. Maybe three.
Categories:
Harper's Tuesday
Below are some news tidbits you might have missed -- or, if you didn't -- are worth repeating for various ironic and absurd reasons. You can find out more, including the sources for the items by going here.
For its temporary embassy in Washington, D.C., the Iraqi government purchased a $5.8-million Tudor-style mansion across the street from the home of Dick Cheney on Massachusetts Avenue. The mansion features a built-in espresso machine, heated floors, soft pistachio carpeting, and a Jacuzzi.
Ted Wells, Scooter Libby's defense lawyer, gave his closing argument. “He's been under my protection for the last month,” Wells told the jurors, “now I'm entrusting him to you.” Then, he sobbed, “Give him back! Give him back to me!” Wells then went back to his chair and sniffled.
It was discovered that Abdul Tawala Ibn Alishtari, an indicted terrorist financier, gave more than $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We need to be careful,” said the NRCC in a statement, “not to rush to judgment.”
Scientists said “quasicrystalline” designs in medieval Iranian architecture indicated that Islamic scholars had made a mathematical breakthrough that Western scholars achieved only decades ago and concluded that ancient Iranian culture was very, very smart.
Twelve senior citizens on a beach excursion in Costa Rica during their Carnival Cruise Line vacations drove off two muggers, while a 70-year-old American put a third in a headlock, broke his clavicle, and strangled him to death.
With its new slogan “The Light is On for You,” The Archdiocese of Washington launched a marketing blitz that included ads on buses and subway cars, 100,000 brochures, and a highway billboard in an effort to get Catholics to confess.
After widespread opposition from residents of Utah and Nevada, the Pentagon canceled its plan to test a large non-nuclear bomb as part of Operation Divine Strake.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University confirmed that mothers suffering from heartburn are likely to give birth to hairy newborns.
Scientists in Senegal watched chimpanzees fashion spears from sticks and use their weapons to stab sleeping bush babies.
Thousands of spectators at the Rose Monday parade in Mainz, Germany, watched a float of President Bush being spanked by the Statue of Liberty.
Some very "interesting" news came out too late for this weeks Harper's Weekly. I can't wait to see how this whole thing plays out:
James Cameron's "The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries — small caskets used to store bones — discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.
If only.
Categories:
how do you know what's true
When you turn on the national and international news these days, no matter what channel/perspective you watch, you can't help wondering exactly what the truth is.
Why don't they just give a lie detector test to Bush and Cheney, and Tony Snow, and Libby and Howard K. Stern and whoever else might well be lying? And how about all of those supposed terrorists held at Gitmo? Couldn't we have avoided all of that mess that we got ourselves into by, instead, hooking them all up (one at a time, of course) to a polygraph??
Well, I guess it's not that simple, and a friend of mine from college, who was a polygraph operator for the CIA in Viet Nam, has a new book coming out next month that deals with that subject: Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner
Excerpted from the book description at Amazon:
John F. Sullivan was a polygraph examiner with the CIA for thirty-one years, during which time he conducted more tests than anyone in the history of the CIA's program. The lie detectors act as the Agency's gatekeepers, preventing foreign agents, unsuitable applicants, and employees guilty of misconduct from penetrating or harming the Agency. Here Sullivan describes his methods, emphasizing the importance of psychology and the examiners' skills in a successful polygraph program. Sullivan acknowledges that using the polygraph effectively is an art as much as a science, yet he convincingly argues that it remains a highly reliable screening device, more successful and less costly than the other primary method, background investigation. In the thousands of tests that Sullivan conducted, he discovered double agents, applicants with criminal backgrounds, and employee misconduct, including compromising affairs and the mishandling of classified information.
John's first book was Of Spies and Lies: A CIA Lie Detector Remembers Vietnam. According to one reviewer, who also says This book is so good I have added it to the select list of intelligence reform books recommended by the Council on Intelligence:
The entire book is a gem. While I do not relish factual and temperate evidence that our clandestine operations in Viet-Nam were largely a sham; that we were the useful idiots to local authorities using us as a cash cow and tool of vengeance on their personal enemies; that most of our officers were drunk or adulturous or incompetent or all three at once; that our top agent really did not have the access he claimed to have but was simply a high-quality channel for his uncle to sell information collected from various local and mostly open sources--all this is depressing. It is also instructive.
While John was discovering painful truths about Viet Nam, an eventually-to-be friend of mine was a student in college protesting that war. I met him years later when he became my therapist, my mentor, and a good friend.
Today, Ed Tick, through his Sanctuary: A Center for Mentoring the Soul, is doing groundbreaking work in helping individuals, particularly soldiers, to deal with PTSD. He currently is featured on the website of Voices in Wartime for his grassroots project Soldier's Heart.
Ed's books, War and the Soul and Sacred Mountain: Encounters With the Vietnam Beast force us to look deep into the dark destruction that war rages on the very center of our humanness and sanity.
Both John and Ed use their experiences and their narrative talents to expose truths about war and its trappings that most of us would not have a chance to learn about. They know what's true. Believe me.
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VIRGINITY SOAP??!! WTF!
A blogger in Saudi Arabia tells of a scam that takes us back to the fantasies of men in the Middle Ages -- and in their middle ages -- when the virginity of their women was one of their prized possessions.
Read Lori's post in her blog, Sand Gets in My Eyes, where she reports:
According to Peaceful Muslimah, the soaps are indicative of a larger problem in the Middle East (and likely other parts of the world), where a woman’s virginity is her most important asset." Unfortunately in many Muslim societies, as well as non-Muslim underdeveloped nations, there is an extreme pressure brought to bear on women's chastity. As I recently discussed here, lack of chastity or even the perception of it can lead to fatal consequences. So is it any wonder that Muslim women are willing to go to extraordinary measures to maintain the appearance of the virginal bride on their honeymoon."
[snip]
I did some checking, and the soaps are readily available throughout the world, thanks in large part to the internet. The idea is that the soap’s astringents “constrict and tighten" , creating that coveted "look and feel" of virginity.
One manufacturer boasts their product is...."Used and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of women in the Middle East and Asia, it has brought back youthful passions, rekindled sensual yearnings, and completely intensified sexual experience.”
Ha! What a lot of bunk!
Her entire post includes more links and info. It would be great if others would post about this issue as well.n I have cross-posted it at
Blog Sisters.
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fame and infamy
At various times in my life I have made the statement that I'd like to be either famous or infamous. I didn't care which. I've always known that my cavalier attitude was part of my rebellion against the constant maternal caution not to embarrass her, not to call attention to myself in any negative way.
Of course, there were also times in my life when I've stifled myself -- you know, the expectations of family, employers. The need to keep being paid a salary is a great motivator to behave.
The great thing about combining retirement and blogging is that I no longer have to worry about keeping a job, and I have a forum wherein I can risk becoming either famous or infamous. (Not that I'm either, or expect to be either. But I'm free to not care -- unless I choose to -- if someone doesn't find me acceptable.)
I no longer have to worry about my "permanent record," unlike the two bloggers who resigned from John Edward's presidential campaign because of something they posted on their blogs.
Reid Stott over at photodude.com has a realistic post about the situation in which those bloggers found themselves, explaining:
It’s like the phenomenon of someone who was “fired for their blog.” No, they were fired for saying or doing something they shouldn’t have. It just happened to be in their blog. But a blog is not a buffer from the real world. Your words there count just as if you’d said them to someone’s face, with the difference that they are archived for a very very long time
Rafe Colburn, in his post on "your permanent record," adds another dimension to the issue:
This certainly comes into play when I'm involved with hiring people. I can find out more about anyone from their blog archives than I can by interviewing them. In interviews, people usually tell the interviewer what they think they want to hear. In other contexts, they are usually less circumspect. When I find I may work with someone, I look for blog posts, messages to mailing lists, comments on blogs, Usenet rants from a decade ago, and anything else I can find. There's more to anyone than their persona on the Internet, but more information is almost always better than less.
All true. All true.
But not for me because I'm retired, and I'm wearing purple.
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the business of photos
I like to play at taking pictures. This one I took on my walk yesterday. "Snow sculpture," I thought.
It's not a great photo, but, as I said, it's one of the ways I play.
Taking really good photos -- unique, creative, aesthetic -- is both an art and a craft.
b!X has become very good at it.
So has my daughter, who has just launched her online photo business, 1505 Photovisions. Among her many subjects are the birds of Western Massachusetts, and she plans to offer a series of notecards with their images.
Check out her online gallery, and if you know anyone looking for photos or photo notecards, send them her way.
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the powerfully stupid
No, I'm not talking about Dumbya this time.
I don't know why I hadn't heard about this before, but I just followed a link from Jeneane's post dealing with education and found out about Julie Amero, the seventh grade substitute teacher in Connecticut who is facing 40 years in prison after pornographic popup ads came up on her computer screen during a class in 2004.
Karoli at Odd Time Signatures explains the case, including the following:
When I first read about this story, Amero was on trial. I assumed that the defense would show that the ads were clearly the result of a spyware/adware infection and she would be acquitted. My shock went deep (along with just about everyone with an ounce of understanding about how malware works) when she was convicted of multiple counts of exposing children to pornography. My outrage is just as keen, knowing that she was not permitted to introduce evidence of a malware attack because the defense failed to do so at the pretrial phase.
Amero and her husband are broke. A sad result of these specious accusations and mockery of a trial: Amero was 4 months pregnant when she was arrested, and lost her baby as a result of the stress. A miscarriage of justice, truly.
Karoli's post links to a site that quotes the following from an article published in the New York Times:
Brian Livingston, editorial director of Windows Secrets, an electronic newsletter about the Microsoft program, said in an interview, “Prosecutors should be chasing the maker of these spyware programs, not hapless teachers who have nothing to do with the images.”
Ms. Amero’s husband, Wes Volle, was emphatic in saying she was clueless about computers and was in over her head once the pop-ups began. Mr. Volle, a graphics designer, accused the school system of sacrificing his wife to deflect attention from its own failure to install effective filters on its computers.
The ignorance that permeates this case is layers deep, and at the bottom is the defense lawyer who obviously didn't understand the fundamental relevance of how internet technology works and apparently never brought it up at pre-trial. And, for a school administration to be that ignorant of howproblems with internet technology can run rampant is truly a dereliction of duty.
An artcle on alternet.net explains the problem clearly:
Adware, spyware and other infectious software are known hazards to security and privacy -- and when lax cybersecurity meets anti-porn hysteria, a mailware infection can even land you in jail. Malicious coders are getting more sophisticated all the time, but law enforcement and the criminal justice system aren't keeping up. A criminal conviction can hang on the difference between a deliberate mouse click and an involuntary redirect on an infested computer. Too often, even so-called experts can't tell the difference.
There is a website to help Julie Amero and her husband raise the money that they need for their defense against the kinds of powerful people who are so ignorant about what is perhaps the most significant technological/educational/cultural phenonemon of this generation that their stupidity results in a tragic miscarriage of justice.
I have become used to people I know in real life not knowing much about the Internet and not knowing anything about blogging. But they aren't lawyers or teachers or school administrators. They join AOL and learn what icons to click to use their email account occasionally. They are, as it's said, out of the loop, and they don't care. It's all just too complicated for them to bother with.
But the people with power to destroy the lives of others because of their ignorance -- well, it's time they start caring and start learning.
Categories:
The Queen of the Big Time
The lesson we can take from
her life is to be open to wonder,
to look at the world as she did
at the end of her life, as a
garden of possibility.
The quote above is from the end of
The Queen of the Big Time, a novel by Adriana Trigiani.
I have finished all but one of Trigiani's novels, and this last one, Roccoco, is next on my reading list.
You don't have to be Italian to find yourself immersed in Trigiani's families, but if you have strong ties to any European immigrant culture, her stories are bound to resonate with you.
Trigiani creates characters that are neither heroes nor harlots. In their struggling humanness they are a compelling reminder that life is what it is, despite what we might have dreamed or hoped. And yet that can be OK too.
[The garden image above is used with permission from the photographer, Melissa Volker]
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"reeled in for questioning"
According to a piece in my local newspaper yesterday, sea lions and dolphins are being trained to by the Navy "to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers" who may be tempted to float by naval bases without benefit of a boat.
The piece, reflecting what was reported here, goes on to say that
...sea lions have been trained to carry special "cuffs" in their mouths, attached to long ropes. If the animal discovers what the Navy calls a "rogue swimmer," the arresting sea lion officer can clamp the cuff around the swimmer's leg. "The individual can then be reeled in for questioning..."
I'm just thinking -- suppose those sea creatures are even more intelligent than we supposed. What if they decide we're not the good guys.
My local paper also had a short article (also reported here) about a partially mummified man's body being found in a chair in front of his still-on television set. Apparently he had been dead for more than a year. A report from someone about a burst pipe brought police to the residence. What a world!
And, tucked onto the travel page is a bit about the city of Paris starting it's own blog, www.voiceofacity.com, where 10 Parisians give visitors their insiders view of the City of Light.
And now, back to the "what a world!" perspective, here in New York State, the number of moral conduct cases against teachers has doubled over the past five years. Full story here.
They say that all kinds of "immoral" conduct has always gone on, only there weren't the kinds of mass media capacities for instantaneous comunication before. And mistreated individuals feel freer to speak up these days. Maybe that's all true, but I still think we are a civilization on the downslide, taking with us the natural processes that keep this planet alive. We are doing our part to rev up the Big Entropy on the way to the Big Whimper.
Categories:
we called and they came
The cousins. Fourteen of them representing three generations. They came, yesterday, for a birthday lunch with my mother, who turns 91 today.
They came with flowers and cookies and photographs. They came with delicious Polish babka, three kinds of home made pierogi, and good spirits, wishes, and love.
We notice that we are mostly female -- not suprising, since we have always known that our clan is a matriarchy. The only males at the party were my brother, a first cousin, and a cousin by marriage (who took a videotape of the rest of us gathered around my mother singing both Happy Birthday and Sto Lat. ) Only the older ones of us remember the words to Sto Lat, the Polish version of "may you live a hundred years." When my generation is gone, so will go the memory of those words. Our kids have married into other nationalities -- great for genes, not necessarily so for native traditions and languages.
We were a noisy group, but then we always are when we get together. My mother, being somewhat deaf, couldn't sort out background from foreground conversations; she sat in her favorite rocking chair and watched and smiled.
She is the oldest of her clan. Here is a photo of her with the youngest in attendance, her great grandniece, Olivia.
Today, she's very tired, a little disoriented. She keeps reading through her birthday cards, crying because she misses my dad.
I have blogged before about how, as I get older, my ties to my family become stronger. Before my cousins left for home yesterday, we shared emails, vowed to get together at least several times a year. My mother is the last of her sibling generation, which, when they were all alive, held family gatherings at the drop of a hat.
Now it's up to us. The cousins.
Categories:
Do you know who the King of Spam is?
From This Week:
The King of Spam
The London-based anti-spam group Spamhaus has identified the world’s most prolific spammer. He is a shadowy figure in Ukraine who calls himself Alex Polyakov, the name of the Soviet spymaster in John le Carré’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Authorities say Polyakov started out in porn spam; he now hawks products ranging from Viagra to too-good-to-be-true mortgage deals. His favored mode of operation is to use “malware” to turn PCs worldwide into zombie bots that churn out millions of his pitches every day. Polyakov has something in common with five other of the world’s worst spammers: They all hail from the former Soviet Union. Experts say the region’s strong technical schools, low incomes, and shoddy legal systems provide the perfect breeding ground for superspammers. Polyakov has surfaced only once. When an anti-spam program written by a programmer named Darren Brothers was interfering last year with Polyakov’s business, he phoned his nemesis. Brothers taped the conversation. “You’re killing my business!” Polyakov said. “How much money do I have to pay you?”
Apparently spam is becoming one of those things people are learning to live with -- like death and taxes.
Tougher law enforcement could help. The Federal Trade Commission has filed about 25 lawsuits under the Can-Spam Act, and federal courts have awarded civil penalties totaling more than $10 million. But critics say those numbers barely dent the economics of the spam industry. Some spammers send out more than 200 million messages a day; they turn a profit if less than 1 percent of their recipients respond to their come-ons. Besides, many of the worst spammers live overseas, beyond the reach of U.S. law.
Actually, SpamFighter (there's both a free and a cost version) works pretty well on Outlook Express to filter out most of my spam. A few do get through, but not in the numbers that used to before I downloaded the software.
Categories:
birds in trees
My mother and I sit at her window next to the bird feeders and watch the tiny creatures battle the storm. It is so windy that they are often blown backward even as they try to fly forward.
"How beautiful!" she says over and over again as the three male cardinals flit from feeder to snow to tree to fence, struggling for a solid perch to wait their turn for the goodies I have left out for them. There also are three female cardinals, and I watch as the genders take turns waiting in the tree from which one of the feeders is hung. I notice that they don't use the feeder that is right outside the window. Too close for comfort, perhaps.
There were dozens and dozens of birds here all morning, braving the pellets of sleet to feed their all consuming energies. I wonder where they go to get warm. I have never found any of their nests, but the woodland here is thick, so that's no surprise.
The sleet turns to rain, the rain to snow, the snow to sleet, and the winds turn the bird feeders and the trees into rollercoasters. But the birds hunker down on the branches, still hungry. Hungry and determined.
I will go now and throw some food on the frozen snow for them.
And then, hungry and determined, I will sit at the window and eat my lunch.
Categories:
goodbye Typekey; hello Haloscan
In an effort to NOT discourage legitimate commenters, I have switched from Typekey comment manager to Haloscan. That means you don't have to register anywhere to leave a comment. This might not make any difference at all to the number of comments I get. On the other hand......
for want of a bee
"During the last three months of 2006, we began to receive reports from commercial beekeepers of an alarming number of honey bee colonies dying in the eastern United States," said Maryann Frazier, apiculture extension associate in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences in a written statement distributed by the university. "Since the beginning of the year, beekeepers from all over the country have been reporting unprecedented losses."
[snip]
In total, honey bee pollination contributes about $55 million to the value of crops in the state. Besides apples, crops that depend at least in part on honey bee pollination include peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.
The above from here.
They say it could be pesticides or some organism that is running rampant because of an upsetting of the natural balance.
We humans are the scourge of the earth. We are also a very weird unbalanced species. The following from Harper's Weekly, to which you can link to check out sources.
Donatella Versace told Hillary Clinton to stop wearing pants.
In Washington state, proponents of same-sex marriage pursued legislation that would annul all connubial unions still barren after three years.
Austrian federal police uncovered a child pornography ring involving 2,360 suspects in more than 77 countries.
a Philadelphia city councilman proposed the adoption of rubber sidewalks.
A study conducted at the University of Chicago found that 14 percent of American doctors thought it was morally acceptable to lie to their patients about treatment options.
A British Muslim high school was under criticism for using textbooks that depicted Jews as apes and Christians as pigs, and predicted that all non-believers would be condemned to hellfire.
Categories:
getting really old is a bitch
Don't get me wrong. I admire eldergloggers like Ronni Bennett and Marian Van Eyk McCain who set great examples of how dynamic and influential individuals over 65 can be.
While Ronni is right in championing elder pride and publicizing elder capability, the truth also is that there is a reason for the stereotypes of the little old lady and man who hold up the checkout line because they pay for their purchases in small change, try to get rambling conversations going with the checkout person, take forever to wheel their carts out of the supermarket door, and drive as though there are no other cars on the road. I always seem to be just behind them at checkout. My point is that there are many numbers of older elders in every community who try everyone else's patience.
For four years I lived with my mother in an upscale Senior Citizen building (250 apartments) that also housed the town's Senior Center, which offered all kinds of great programs, from dance to discussion, as well as the kinds of banal activities Ronni cites. I got to know lots of the women (the population was mostly female) who lived there. A large number of those I knew eschewed any of the activities in favor of sitting around the lobby and complaining. I found that the women I knew who were over 75 -- probably because of the dependent and housewifely lives they led before they lost their spouses -- had no interests outside of their aches and pains and piddling gossip. Those elders who had active intellectual and/or physical lives before reaching 70 (barring any severe illnesses) always seemed to be able to find places and ways to stay lively. But where I lived, those were in the minority.
I will be 67 next month, and I think I can still kick butt pretty well on any number of fronts. But in ten years or fifteen years (or maybe even before; who really knows) I might well be one of those annoying old ladies at the checkout counter. It won't be that I plan to be or want to be. Rather it will be because I am the victim of whatever the aging process will be doing to my mind and body.
So, while we're telling the world that we are still a contributing force in society, we should also remind the world that most of us who will manage to live long lives might well find our force severely diminished. We will need compassion and comfort and understanding and patience.
As my Polish grandmother (who died in her early seventies) used to say, "Staroszcz nie radoszcz." Which, loosely translated means getting old is a bitch.
Nevertheless, somewhere before life's last wanings, there is, for many of us, a rich eldertime that is both Ronni's and Marian's focus, and this piece captures it all beautifully.
Categories:
Sunday downslide
she loves to dance so every night we put on the easy listening channel on cable tv and I lead or she leads. she follows almost perfectly. I'm perfecting my lead very nicely with her as my partner. she will be 91 next week, and she still asks where and when we can go out dancing. she doesn't always know where she is or how to get to her bathroom, but she knows how to dance. we laugh really hard when we trip over each other's feet (which doesn't happen to often, but when it does, we start giggling and can't stop). today I laughed a lot with three of my former work colleagues (women) who came down to spend the day with me. we howled over the silly things we did and silly things we do. made so much noise we thought we'd get thrown out of the cafe where we had lunch. shared endless anecdotes about the kids we know and love and mates and how we spend our days. complained about getting older. unlike many of the elderbloggers I read, I still color my hair, wear make-up, and am addicted to fashion. I have to make sure that my hair covers my ears so that my pretty-much invisible hearing aids don't show. they looked at the things I am knitting and reminded me that I could sell them for a good price. someday I might, when I have the energy to deal with record keeping. I am overwhelmed with ideas for what to blog about. she will be 91 next weekend and my brother began inviting some of our cousins to come up for lunch and now there will be more than a dozen and guess who gets to do all the preparation. my cat is too fat. I weigh too much. I am going to ignore valentine's day. my four and one-half year old grandson uses words like "apprehensive" and uses them correctly in context. next month I will be 67, WTF!
after a survey of 1,000 American women found that most valued their favorite clothes more than sex, and would gladly abstain for 15 months in exchange for an entire new wardrobe.
A world that’s 7 to 12 degrees hotter will require a lot of adaptation, said Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post, but right now, we have no real alternative. “The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution.” About 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels. With India, China, and other parts of the Third World rapidly developing, worldwide output of carbon dioxide will likely grow from 26 billion metric tons to 40 billion metric tons by 2030. ..... Politicians who blather about Kyoto, or “cap and trade” schemes for carbon dioxide emissions, are simply “grandstanding”—pretending to be addressing climate change, when they aren’t. “That’s one truth too inconvenient for almost anyone to admit.”
The U.S. simply can’t admit how badly it has behaved, because the consequences would be disastrous: criminal charges, trials, “and a complete breakdown in morale among intelligence officers.” No, the return of justice will come only “after Bush has left office.” The next president will make redress. He—or she—will have to apologize to el-Masri, “or else the guilt will truly belong to America, and not just to the Bush administration.”
Asked why he is in such a hurry to run, Obama tells Kroft, "You know the truth is I'm not. We have a narrow window to solve some of the problems that we face. Ten years from now, we may not be in a position to recover the sense of respect around the world that we've lost over the last six years. Certainly, when you look at our energy policy and environment and the prospects of climate change, we’ve gotta make some decisions right now. And so I feel a sense of urgency for the country."
saw this huge woodpecker as I was heading down the driveway today -- big plumed red head, looked like the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. I've counted five different kinds of woodpeckers around our property. also the usual junkos, chickadees, jays, cardinals, mourning doves, titmice (or is it titmouses?), wrens...... we have our own aviary. endlessly hungy winged things. I feed them. I feed everyone.
Categories:
retreat into shadow and silence
Categories:
on this day 3 years ago
Just for fun, I went looking back to see what I might have posted on February 8 in some past year. To find a post for this day I had to go back to 2003. The title of the post is Countdown to War and in it I link to this still relevant article about the shrouding of Picasso's Guernica.
Excerpt:
In the old days, the one UNTV camera could be guaranteed not to embarrass, say, American Ambassador John Negroponte, by backdropping his statements with images of screaming women and children, but with the world's new interest in the UN, the hordes of outside TV crews there may be less discreet. So Guernica has joined the statue of Justice in Attorney John Ashcroft lobby, covered in blue drapes to hide her nakedness. Together they make a potent metaphor.
One almost wonders how long it will be before, disguised as an art project, someone wraps the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, shrouding it from toe to torch...........
Guernica pales before the images we see every day of the war that actually did go down.
Categories:
yarn improvisations
When I moved into my brother’s house, I got rid of a lot of my big old shabby furniture and bought a few shelf-based pieces that I could use for a variety of purposes and that are easy to move.. After all, I’m not going to live here forever. No, I’m not.
One of the pale oak bookshelves I bought now serves as a storage space for the seeds I plan to start soon and some small potting containers. Above it, between the sunny windows where it’s located, I have hung my one free-form crochet hanging and other objects I like to look at. The top shelf of the bookcase holds various icons that I find empowering. Some might call it an altar, although that’s not how I interpret it because I surely don’t pray at it. But I do, on occasion, stand it front of it and feell surrounded by a sense of peace.
I wanted to cover the storage areas of the shelves, and I didn’t want to put up a curtain. So, instead, using a size 11 knitting needle and Lily cotton yarn in the “Rainbow Delight” color, I knitted two panels and double crocheted the top edges so that I could weave a curtain rod through the openings. I used a plain garter stitch and knitted it lengthwise so that the rows go up and down instead of across.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with the result:
Several years ago, I blogged about the making of the freeform crochet item that I've hung over the bookshelf just above an icon of A Kwa Ba, the Ashanti primal goddess. I’d like to make another, different and larger freeform crochet wall hanging someday. I’ve been putting away various yarns in shades and textures of blue. (Hey, Andrea, maybe someday you can send me any scraps you have that you’ve spun – blues, grays, off whites will work.)
But for now, I have to content myself with knowing that if I managed to create one once, I can surely figure out how to do it again.
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another hellish Harper's Tuesday
Why we are the bad guys, synopsized by Harper’s Weekly
The U.S. director of national intelligence released a declassified version of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq; the report found that "the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict" and that "widespread fighting could produce de facto partition." Iraqi refugees were flooding Syria and Jordan, where they now account for 5 and 12 percent of those countries' total populations, and a massive bombing in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad killed 130 people, making the attack the second deadliest in the country since the March 2003 invasion. In Hillah, where a further 45 people were killed, a police officer attempted to smother the blast from a suicide bomber. "He hugged him" said a witness, "and the explosives tore apart both bodies." The U.S. military announced that insurgents had shot down four helicopters in the past two weeks in Iraq, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack Iran, and President George W. Bush asked for an additional $100 billion to fund the United States's wars through the end of the current fiscal year. Detainees at Guantánamo Bay complained of "infinite tedium and loneliness," and a German court issued an arrest warrant for 13 CIA operatives involved in the abduction and torture of a German citizen.
President Bush staged an impromptu visit to the Sterling Family Restaurant in Peoria, Illinois, but few of the diners wanted to talk to him. "Sorry to interrupt you," said Bush. "How's the service?"
So, I’m thinking -- what if we used the $100 billion more that Bush wants to spend on the war and allocate $100,000 to every Iraqi family who wants get out of the country in order to help them relocate to Syria or whatever country is willing to take them. Let the United Nations use some of that $100 billion to hire ombudsmen to work with the families and the country to which they would be moving to use the family’s allotment to establish housing and businesses and/or find employment. Some of the emigrating Iraqi people and some of the American soldiers who are interested could also be trained and paid to act as ombudsman for the émigrés.
Get all of the non-Iraqi fighters out of Iraq and turn the battleground over to the Iraqi factions. They will have to figure out what to do – fight to the finish of or find a way to compromise. Either way, the non-warring citizens of Iraq will be safe, the American soldiers will be safe, and the $100 billion of our American tax dollars would be used for positive rather than destructive activities. And the Iraqi idiots who want to fight with each other can be left to war amongst themselves.
And then make sure our Homeland Security and FBI and CIA people concentrate on tracking down whatever terrorists are out there as well as in here. And then the National Guard can be available to help our own citizens it times of natural disasters and other large scale emergencies.
Oh, I know. " It's the oil, stupid."
Unimportant news you might have missed (excerpted from the same Harper’s Weekly):
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced that global warming was expected to heat up the atmosphere by 4 to 7 degrees within the next century, and the Bush Administration suggested that scientists find ways to counteract greenhouse-gas emissions by blocking out the sun. "Possible techniques include putting a giant screen into orbit," suggested the White House. "[Or] thousands of
tiny, shiny balloons."
"Hot" patients who had recently received medical treatment using radioisotopes were setting off Homeland Security radiation detectors, and the U.S. market for female-arousal liquids continued to grow.
Japanese Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa apologized for calling women "birth-giving machines."
Hospital staff in Yekaterinburg, Russia, were gagging crying babies.
Rubber genitals were stolen from the set of the new "Hannibal" movie.
Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was awarded France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and was kicked in the head by a camel.
The Indian Army was preparing to hunt down man-eating leopards in Kashmir, and elephants in Thailand were head-butting and robbing trucks.
An Australian man sold his life on eBay.
After it ransacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Washington, D.C., residence, a small black bird was captured in a brown bag and released. "She kept thinking to herself," said a spokesman, "'Quoth the Raven, Nevermore."'
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beating the big bad cold
It's 11 degrees outside at this very moment, but that's not the cold I'm talking about.
Two days ago, my mother started sneezing. Yesterday morning, she woke up with a red and drippy nose and red, watery eyes. And so I went after that big bad cold with my Kalilily foolproof cold cure -- or rather a lower dose version of it for my 100 lb. mother.
Zicam swabs in the nose every three hours. Emergenc-C Cold Cough and Flu twice a day, and a dropperful of Echiancea and Goldenseal extract twice a day. And an aspirin after dinner.
She woke up this morning with all symptoms gone.
As for me, I'm being protected by daily doses of a new product for which I am part of a market test. I get free ColdMD for 16 weeks and have to report each week on how I'm doing.
When I was visiting my grandson a couple of weeks ago, he had a cold and managed to wetly sneeze right in my face a couple of times. I never caught his cold.
The ColdMD tablets are pretty big, and I usually can't swallow such big pills. But I manage to get these down just fine.
My mother's cold is gone in three days and I'm still cold free.
Unfortunately, I can't do anything about that big bad cold outside, where the wind chill puts it down to -4. Yes, that's minus 4.
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my fiber arts passion
Because color isn't enough. Because there has to be texture. Because you can combine those two elements into something to wear. Wearable art.
After all, there are just so many blank walls available after you hang up all the photos of your family and friends.
A friend of mine emailed me recently about some books she was reading that approached knitting as meditation. For me, that's just what knitting, crocheting, and sewing are -- a way to calm my mind and surround me with serenity.
I have constructed several items of my own design over the years, and I'm working on more. Since this kind of activity is even a greater part of my life that blogging, I've decided to begin putting together a page about my fiber art experiences, which will have a link in my sidebar.
I was inspired to start thinking in that direction by my fascination with Rebecca Clayton's multi-faceted blog, Pocahontas County Fare, which reflects Clayton's many passions. Usually I post here about politics, caregiving, and assorted other issues and events that cross my screen along the way. (And if b!X ever has a chance to explain how I can get my "categories" to show on after my posts, I will have a way to organize access to those topics.)
While I've posted a few pieces about my knitting and crocheting projects, I really haven't given the kind of blogspace that reflects just how much a part of my everyday life playing with fiber arts is.
I used to sew most of my kids clothes when they were little (even b!X's). The last real original sewing project I did resulted in a quilted jacket that was so labor intensive and came out so beautifully that I don't think I can equal anything like that again. The project was an assignment for the one quilting workshop that I took, wherein we used a sweatshirt as the basis for quilting a jacket. Because it was my first try, I used a yellow sweatshirt that I found in a dollar store. The jacket I created was unlike anyone else's in the class, since they all followed traditional block-style quitling. And, unlike my classmates, it was a total improvisation as I went along. I had no final concept in my head about what it was going to look like.
The only thing I don't like about my jacket is the yellow backing. Otherwise it's the most self-designed item I've ever put together. Instead of using the sweatshirt sleeves as the backing for a quilted topside, at the last minute I decided to knit the sleeves and sew on crocheted strips at the collar and hem, picking up a color from the fabric. I also sewed on a crocheted pocket. I used six or seven different fabrics, no piece larger than the black squares with the flowers. I also did free form machine quilting stitches over the whole front and back.
I haven't tried another quilting project since, mostly because I don't have a large enough expanse of space and a large enough expanse of time to devote to such a project.
And so these days I'm mostly knitting and crocheting because I can work in a small space and in small segments of time.
What an appropriate metaphor for my life right now -- finding small satisfactions wherever and whenever I can fit them in around my mom's schedule.
I made the quilted jacket five years ago, when I was able to live outside this box. I can't imagine ever doing anything like this again.
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blood and breath
I could have entitled this post "relatives and friends" but that's not as catchy. And I do love metaphors.
As I get older, relatives seem to become more important. I'm not sure why, since I still feel closest to those friends who continue to breathe inspiration, warmth, and support into my life. And that includes blogger friends . And, of course, my long-time women's group (who I don't get to see much of any more).
Today, the mail brought some photos of a batch of my cousins (I have a slew of cousins), some of whom have moved to Florida and some of whom often visit those who have moved to Florida. The photos show them tanned and smiling, even my younger cousin whose hair is growing back after an intense bout with major breast cancer. She looks perkier than ever, with her growing-back hair short and curly. "Come down and visit us in Paradise," they tell me. Ah, if only I could.
I've never felt I had much in common with my cousins besides blood and the shared memories of our young years growing up together. My life went in a different direction from theirs. But whenever we get together, I laugh so hard I have to run to the bathroom. I don't always make it. They know how to enjoy themselves. They know how to relax. And it's all contagious. As we get older and become the "elders" in our clan, we find ourselves coming full circle.
We live too far apart to get together these days, but we have begun to email more, reminding me of the thickness of the blood that binds us.
LIving as I isolated as I do, I seem to have forgotton how to make friends, even blogging friends, and that's something I have to put more effort into. Instead of complaining that I don't feel connected any more, I need to reach out and make or keep connections to friends.
And so I thank those of my readers who left comments on this post.
Maria at Alembic is someone whose blog I used to read all the time. Her writing is lyrical and personal and compelling. It's my fault that I've lost touch with her, and I've already begun to renew the connection.
Rebecca, of Pocahontas County Fare, is a blogger I hadn't heard of until now, when I linked over to her site. She blogs about poetry, knitting, her cat, the land where she lives, fiber arts -- so many of the things I also blog about. Why hadn't I discovered her before this? She obviously discovered me!!! I'm certainly going to get to know her in the days to come..
Elayne Riggs is a blogger I've read on and off since I started. (She introduced herself as Elayne with a "Y"; that's how I still think of her.) She works hard and blogs hard and spends a lot of time reading the blogs of others. Another friend whose creative air I need to breathe more of.
Full circle, back to "blood," I'm waiting to see if b!X (my son), who designed and hosts my weblog, can switch my comment feature from Typekey to Halo Scan -- thus making it easier for readers to leave comments and for me to filter out comment spam. Maybe the conversations can start again.
I'm feeling a little more optimistic today about both blogging and breathing.
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it's time for some major "mamisma"
Both Hillary and Nancy are playing the "mommy" card.
Accroding to here, excerpted:
Scoff if you will, said author Harriet Rubin in USA Today, but that would be a smart approach. After six years of “machismo” rule, the country may be ready for something else. I call it “mamisma”—femininity defined by “mature and maternal qualities” that appeal to men and women alike. Mamisma can make a strong woman—think Golda Meir—seem less aggressive, and thus, “nonthreatening.” Mamisma also suggests a degree of cautious wisdom that sharply contrasts with the reckless, frat-boy immaturity associated with machismo. It’s “seduction over divisiveness,” and “in a world run like a PlayStation war game,” some maternal maturity just might be “a nice antidote.”
I know that a lot of people don't like Hillary because she's such a political animal. But her "mamisma" gives her a balance the guys don't have.
Harriet Rubin is the author of The Mona Lisa Strategem: The Art of Women, Age, and Power.
Now, there's a book I'd like to own.
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those blogolden days
I typed this whole post in last night. But it was after midnight, and I accidentally lost the whole thing.
Those of us who started blogging more than five years ago still remember those blog-golden days, when we not only posted every day -- as bloggrandaddy Dave Weinberger suggested -- writing ourselves into existence; we also read each other's blogs and left voluminous and numerous comments, fueling continuous debates about everything from gender bias to blogging ethics.
Last night I grew nostalgic for those blogolden days, for the community I no longer seem to have, for the lack of any comments/discussions in my posts, for the necessity to blog late at night when I don't have to worry about taking care of my soon-to-be 91 years old mom. (Her birthday is in a couple of weeks.)
This recent post at BlogSisters only made my nostalgia worse, reminding me of what's been lost as we early birds aged -- or should I say "evolved" -- as bloggers.
I check the BlogSister's roster to see who's really still blogging from the bunch. Rox Populi seems to be the most recent one who's opted out of a personal blog for other venues. Zeeahtronic and Esta Jarrett seem to be MIA.
My biggest sadness rests in the fact that I don't get comments anymore. That means this site is no longer a conversation; it's just an ego trip. And that's not enough reason to keep it going, especially if I'm just writing about things that only interest me.
So, I sit here wondering if it's time to move on, move out. Maybe I just don't have much to say anymore, my life being so confined.
Of course, I could write about that ordinary man I saw crossing the street in front of my car carrying a witch's broom. He had just walked out of the "Awareness Shop: Esoteric Consultation" place in front of which I had to stop to let him cross. An ordinary man -- slightly balding, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker -- carrying a witch's broom. I wondered if he might have bought it as a surprise for a friend who wanted one. Or maybe he was planning to do a ritual cleansing of his own. Or maybe it was a symbolic gift for someone -- a metaphorical message that meant "get on your broom and ride out of my life."
I guess I could have written about that.
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