From Ben Smith’s Politico.com blog:
In a new ad, Americans United for Chance and AFSCME press their attempt to make Rush Limbaugh the face of the GOP and to cast Republicans as rooting for failure.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
taking the long way home
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This blog is still under construction, as is my life. Physically, I have finished moving into my new home; but I haven’t yet moved the rest of me.
Over on Facebook, David Rogers posts a note about the music albums that changed his life, and he challenges the rest of us to list our own. It occurs to me that, while there are no albums that actually changed my life, there are albums that are very clear audio markers for significant parts of my life.
As I’m putting together that list (it’s not finished yet), what I come to realize is that the songs from my childhood were not on albums; they were on 78 or 45 vinyl records. The first two popular songs I remember were played by my Aunt Helen on a crank-up phonograph:
Nature Boy by Nat King Cole
and Paper Doll by the Mills Brothers
Of course, then there were the crazy lyrics song, like (as close as I can remember)
Chickory Chick chala chala chekerloroni anifilanika folicka wollika can’t you see chickory chick is me.
Meanwhile, in the background as I blog this, my almost-seven year old grandson is listening to Vampire Weekend.
I guess home is where the music is.
I’m not here today; visit me at TGB
I’m the elder storyteller at Time Goes By today. I invite you to visit me there and read about my charm school experience.
The Son’s Blog Migration Report
b!X here, jumping in briefly to explain that we’re in the midst of a migration from MT to WordPress. That basic transition is finished, but there are settings to be tweaked and eventually a theme to install and debug. But for now, the blog itself should be working, and permalinks the same. For the time being, commenting is turned off. All old comments — both internal to MT and external from Haloscan — have been brought along for the ride, so nothing should be missing.
a good day for a poem
It’s snowing outside, and I’m marooned here with my mother and brother for another day. Mom is sleeping, exhausted just by getting up to eat. My sciatica is acting up and I have a pimple blooming on my chin. (That’s such a perfect metaphor for who I am!)
Several weeks ago, I waded through my stacks of poems and picked out a bunch of short ones to blog once a week. Of course, they are waiting for me in my new home, but I won’t be back there until tomorrow.
But today seems like a good day for a poem, especially after reading my daughter’s poignant post of yesterday.
So, instead of one of my poems, here’s one of Jim Culleny‘s — because it seems like a good day for this particular poem.
DUST
by Jim Culleny
by Jim Culleny
A restoration of faith
(if only for moment)
makes that moment great
and raises dust.
Dust? Don’t wait.
Dust drifts and settles but can be shaken off.
We do ourselves a justice when we shake our dust.
Once it’s shaken off, work we must
to raise more dust.
Change raises dust.
In our metier (before we return to it)
dust is a must.
Well, mom’s up. So much for engaging with the world of the internet.
lessons from the future
Mike Brotherton, scientist and SF writer, lists this among the reasons he likes science fiction:
Seeing sides of humanity possible in no other way. How would we react to the discovery of aliens? Or aliens much smarter than us? Aliens with different belief systems and good reasons for having them? Or technology that gives us opportunities and challenges we’ve never had before? Or we will have, but not yet?
As an avid science fiction reader for more than 50 years, I continue reading sci fi novels because they push the boundaries and bonds of my attitudes about societies and beings very different from what I’m used to. They challenge me to examine my beliefs about how to deal with uncompromising adversaries.
Contemplate, for example, the following descriptions of alien cultures whose values clash with those of most of the inhabitants of planet Earth:
Considered within their own ethos, the Aalaag are extremely just masters — mistreatment of their human “cattle” by one of their kind is a serious offense. But they demand obedience and a rigid code of conduct that rankles the human spirit. Actually, the Aalaag are a conquered race themselves, fleeing from some unnamed but awesomely powerful enemy that took their home worlds. They are in essence warriors, tall and proud, each with a collection of personal arms and possessing a Spartan outlook on their condition. Every single Aalaag views duty as the highest virtue, and all duty is directed towards one day regaining their lost worlds. The races they themselves conquer are used to exploit resources in support of this ultimate goal.
The Psychlos don’t just conquer planets. They don’t just conquer galaxies. They conquer universes. Only they have the secret to instantaneous teleportation. And one of their biggest operations is the Intergalactic Mining Company, which knocks natives back to the Stone Age and then systematically strips their planet of all available ore, almost down to the very core. Oh, and the Psychlos find cruelty to be “delicious.” The crooked — even by their standards — Security Head of Earth is named Terl and he is scheming to get rich by “training” native humans to do some illegal mining for him.
As humans are a culture of individuals, as ants are a colony culture, the Fithp are a herd culture. [snip} — and being herd creatures, they do not understand the concept of diplomatic compromise… you either dominate or you submit.
….these tongue-in-cheek tales of derring-do and human ingenuity in the face of human diplomatic incompetence have sold quite well for many years. In most of them, there is an insidious plot behind whatever the current weird aliens are doing that is being masterminded by the Groaci. No slouches at the diplomatic bargaining table, the Groaci are nonetheless almost incapable of dealing squarely.
Although the “worms” are the most visible face of the Chtorr, what we have here is nothing less than the attempt of an entire biosphere to conquer Earth.
Sometimes there is no way to compromise with “alien” beings and cultures, and so the decision is to go to war with them. But is that really the only solution?
A friend of mine from college, a retired CIA polygraph examiner who has written several books on the subject, emailed this article from February 3rds New York Post.
After my post yesterday about wanting to bring back the “banned” movie Song of the South, I hesitate to share my views regarding what the Post piece by Ralph Peters suggests about the way we (America) deal with our “alien” enemies.
But Peters, while beginning his piece with a rather shocking assertion (that motivates you to read the whole article), ends with these statements that contain some common sense:
The point isn’t to argue that Afghans are inferior beings. It’s just that they’re irreconcilably different beings – more divergent from our behavioral norms than the weirdest crew member of the starship Enterprise.
As an analytical exercise, try to understand Afghanistan as a hostile planet to which we have been forced, in self-defense, to deploy military colonies. How do the bizarre creatures on that other planet view us? What do they want? What will they accept? Is killing us business, pleasure – or both?
Are there tribes among these aliens with which we can cooperate? Which actions of ours inflame the alien psyche? What will the alien willingly die for? What does the alien find inexplicable about us? Must we preserve a useful climate of fear?
Do we intend to maintain our military colonies out there in deep space? For how long? Can the angry planet ever be sanitized of threats?
Of course, there’s more in play than images of our “starship troopers” combating those alien life-forms that call themselves “Taliban.” This exercise is just meant to break our mental gridlock, to challenge our crippling assumption that we’re all merry brothers and sisters who just have to work through a few small understandings.
This is a “war of the worlds” in the cultural sense, a head-on collision between civilizations from different galaxies.
And the aliens don’t come in peace.
This is what’s bothering me: America (or rather those in power in America) seem to believe that it is this country’s right to go out and convert those “alien” cultures to our version of capitalistic democracy That missionary zeal (as all missionary zeal does) generates dislike and distrust — and even hatred, in the case of the Taliban — among those we consider “others.”
Sci fi novels present a variety of “what if” scenarios in which the protagonists have to learn to survive — despite, within, or alongside of — disturbingly “alien” cultures.
Maybe someone should suggest to Obama that he assign a sci fi reading list to his international and military advisers.
remembering “Song of the South”
I’m thinking of one of my favorite childhood memories, as a result of the post today on Time Goes By where there are mentions of many of the songs that were the playlist for the first decade of my life.
I can remember being about 8 or 9 years old. It is a warm, sunny summer day, and my cousin Dianne and are holding hands, skipping down Chestnut Street and singing
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Mister Bluebird on my shoulder
It’s the truth, it’s actch’ll
Ev’rything is satisfactch’ll
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!
It is one of those days when all seems right with the world. My cousin, ten months younger than I, is my best friend. Our mothers, who are sisters, often dress us alike. We have a close extended family. World War II is over. Rationing has finally ended, and we have just seen the Disney movie Song of the South — the first Disney movie that featured live characters interacting with animated ones.
–the simple, heart-warming story of a boy, a girl, and the person of Uncle Remus himself, who becomes a living personality. Set in the nostalgic memorable days of the late nineteenth century, the story enacted by the living players take place on a lovely Southern plantation. It is a deeply moving, romantic account of a lonely and bewildered boy, left to his own devices when his father, an aggressive Atlanta newspaper editor, is caught between domestic responsibility and political challenge
At least that’s how the Disney camp described it at the time. And, at the time, it enchanted me. Uncle Remus (the live, storytelling character) was a poor man, an old man, and a black man in a post Civil War America that offered few opportunities for him to better his life. Uncle Remus enchanted me with his humor, his compassion, his wisdom, his wonderful animal stories, his optimism.
However,
The animal stories were conveyed in a manner in which they were not deemed as ostensibly racist by many among the audiences of the time; by the mid-20th century, however, the dialect and the “old Uncle” stereotype of the narrator, long considered demeaning by many blacks, as well as Harris’ [the author] racist and patronizing attitudes toward blacks and his defense of slavery in his foreword, rendered the book indefensible to many. Without much controversy the stories became less popular.
Several years back, some people began to think that it’s time to bring back the Song of the South, bring it to a much different audience, an audience that lived through the Civil Rights movement, an audience that celebrates Black History Month, an audience that can view the Song of the South through the lens of history.
Those who have criticized “Song of the South” have claimed that it makes slavery appear pleasant or pretends that slavery didn’t exist at all. Nevermind the film is set in the years following the abolition of slavery. I always have thought the movie offers a good, honest representation of the lives that some black Americans lived in a time that really existed.
I would love to see Song of the South again. I’d love to see it with my grandson, who has grown up without being hampered by old stereotypes. I’ll bet he would love Uncle Remus for the kind and entertaining man he is. At least he is, still, on the disintegrating film locked up somewhere in Disney’s vault.
So, I’m signing this petition to get the film released on DVD.
Here’s a look at Uncle Remus and his pals.
the opposite of learning
I’ve decided that the opposite of learning is forgetting.
Several mornings a week, as I sit at the table and drink my daily vitamin shake, my six and a half-year-old grandson gives me a memory test. Sometimes he shows me each of his little die cast airplanes and sees if I remember the name of each. He has dozens, and he knows them all. Sometimes he sets up his dinosaur models and tests me on the names of each of those. Each time I remember a few, but I forget the names of most from day to day — even though he names each for me, speaking very clearly and explaining the distinguishing features of each.
As he learns, I forget.
On the other hand, as he learns, I also find out about all sorts of bits of information that I didn’t know and didn’t know that I didn’t know. Of course, I forget most of it, but, at the time when he is explaining to me that whale sharks eat plankton, I find it interesting, both that I never knew that and also that it doesn’t matter that I never knew that.
I forget. He seems to remember everything, and I think it’s because being home schooled enables him to pursue learning about what interests him, whether it be tornadoes, fossils, war planes, or road construction. And, at the same time, he’s learning that math, science, history, reading and writing are necessary to his understanding of what interests him.
His mom posted a unique perspective on what she has discovered that is important for kids to learn on her own blog.
We are definitely a bunch of avid learners in this extended household. Unfortunately, I am forgetting as much as I’m learning.
Hopefully, my son, who is on a learning curve regarding moving this blog to WordPress, will soon finish the job so that he can then forget it.
Soon. My new look will be up soon.
And, with it, a new photo of me, which my daughter is going to take for the little blurb about me that is going to appear in Vicki Howell‘s upcoming Craft Corps book.
And you thought that I was just a blogger. Live and learn. Except for me. I live and forget.