I’m not trying to be coy, but I wish that I had the stamina to sit here and write about all of the things I think I’m going to write about as I haul myself out of bed every morning — not the least of which is some sort of personally perverse take on a popular Christmas count-down melody, that, for me, would include “one partial denture, two hearing aids, trifocals glasses….” You get the picture.
I picked up my hearing aids today. It’s not that I can’t hear; it’s rather that I don’t hear well enough to catch what people are saying (especially if they’re whispering) in certain circumstances. I have the little digital buggers in right now. They’re so tiny that you can’t really notice them in my ears. Of the parts that go down into my ear canals, the right one is red and the left is blue. Heh.
(Now if I could only get my almost 89-year-old mother to get a pair, I could be heard as well as hear.)
Speaking of the Red Right, I wonder if all those who voted for Bush are listening to this proof of yet another of Dumbya’s immoral, sinful, and unpartriotic acts (taken from the ACLU web site):
…The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.” The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from “On Scene Commander–Baghdad” to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized…
Speaking of those who voted for Bush, as I was driving out to visit my grandson a week or so ago, I caught part of an essay on the public radio station (WAMC) delivered by Libby Post, who is a gay activist in my local region. I’ve known about her for years because we have a mutual colleague/friend. I love her essay on bumper stickers, which is posted here if you’re inclined to read the whole thing. It begins with:
I pulled up behind a car at a toll plaza the other night. As a fan of bumper stickers myself, I always read what’s ahead of me.
A smile crossed my face as I saw the familiar purple, “The Goddess is Alive and Magick (spelled M A G I C K) is Afoot” bumper sticker. For a moment, I harkened back to my early feminist years in Albany, when a group of women, who called themselves Crones, recognized the Goddess as their spiritual leader and would revel around a raging fire, some with shirts off, while a full moon shone in the black sky above.
My misty memories came to a screeching halt as I scanned another bumper sticker — Bush/Cheney 2004. It was like someone scraped a needle across the mental recording in my brain-you know that sound.
It’s obvious why the beginning of Post’s little story caught my attention. Crones aren’t a lesbian invention, you know.
For the rest of her essay, Post speculates on how it might come to pass that someone might have two such philosophically opposed bumper stickers on the same car.
I have never put bumper stickers on any of my cars, but maybe I need to rethink attitude about that:
Our cars are a way for us to make statements about who we are-not only the models we choose but the bumper stickers we use to adorn our four-wheeled friends. A close compatriot could never really understand why anyone would deface a car’s design with a bumper sticker. She’s come around. I explain it this way . . . there’s nothing better than looking in my rear-view mirror and watching someone read my bumper stickers and digest my politics. At the very least, it’s a literacy lesson, at the most, it’s an opportunity change someone’s mind.
And, god and goddess know, there are plenty of minds that need to be changed.
It’s helpful to know where certain minds stand on certain issues — like Social Security, for example. (I just got my Medicare card in the mail!)
A new weblog has been created to compile data on how members of Congress stand on Bush’s hope to privatize Social Security. The Save Social Security weblog is looking for input from anyone who has information that needs to be added to their database.
Well, if I had “world enough” I would give it to b!X so that he wouldn’t have to give up his community-empowering weblog. Of course, if the people of Portland can’t figure out a way to put their money where their mouths are……
And, if I had time enough, I’d blog some long and many-linked piece that would start with hearing aids and end with genetic engineering, since I heard something on the radio about a couple, who already have two girls, finding a doctor who will ensure that their next child is a boy.
And then, in contrast to that story of ultimate consumerism, is the story on Dateline the other night about the American surgeon who loves poetry.
As a specialist in corrective surgery for children with neuro-muscular disorders, Dr. Roy Nuzzo had seen many images of children who find it difficult to walk, to stand, even to sit up comfortably. He’s often asked to view tapes and make recommendations on difficult cases. But receiving this tape, he says, was a miracle.
One tape had been sent to his New Jersey practice from a small mountain village in Mexico of three children with cerebral palsy. Dr. Nuzzo evaluatedthem, prescribing small measures to improve mobility — until he saw the last child on the tape. Dr. Nuzzo believed that major surgery was required to straighten that child’s body and save his life. So he sent off a request for X-rays. A few weeks later, a package arrived from Mexico. The X-rays inside confirmed his diagnosis of a life-threatening deformity, but the envelope contained something life-affirming as well — books of poetry, written in both Spanish and English.
The poems, one of which I’ve posted below, were written by Ekiwah Adler-Beléndez…the son of an American father and a Mexican mother. In a native dialect, “Ekiwah” means “warrior.” He’s been battling cerebral palsy ever since he was born in 1987, 10 weeks early, weighing less than two pounds.
POETRY II
Why do poets die of hunger
more than once a day?
I watch your naked body
as I watch the flames;
everything you were before
has been stripped away.
Why do poets walk the weary road
and lie drunk in a dark corner on the floor?
You are silence, my lady;
from your womb words are born.
Restless lovers play among the stars;
they seek you,
know every line of your face unknown.
They want to take refuge
in the silent folds of your heart;
yet their lips ache to draw words
as you paint the skies.
And to all, a good night.