Monthly Archives: August 2006

head: north

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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.

fire and ice

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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?.

Continue reading →

Another Harper’s Tuesday

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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] .

on the radio

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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.

surrounded by old pantihose

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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.

more neocon flim-flam

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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.

the not wanting

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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.

words and music

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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.