A while ago, I mentioned reading two books by an author whom Jeneane Sessum had cited in her blog: psychotherapist Dr. Terrence Real.
Here

My newspaper today features the arrest and imprisonment of Rich Ring, a local guy who was one of 43 protesters arrested for trespassing at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., last November. They and 10,000 others demonstrated against the school’s links to civilian massacres in Latin America.
When Rich entered the U.S. prison in Lewisburg, Pa., on Sept. 10 to serve three months, he was joined, nationwide, by 27 others, from a doctoral student in aviation conservation and two Colorado college kids to a pair of Franciscan friars, some teachers and a laborer from New Jersey. All told, protesters have served 40-plus prison years over the past decade seeking to close the school, which is now called The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
“I don’t see this as a liberal issue by a long shot,” Rich said. “If the average American on the street knew what this school was doing, it would be shut down in an instant. It’s completely against American values.”
In the same newspaper today, a column by a guy with whom I went to college who echoes what I’ve said before here. In the middle of his column about Bush and Iraq, Fred LeBrun says:
Where are the marchers, bug-eyed and shouting slogans, getting us all worked up on one side or the other?
Say what you want about the debacle of Vietnam and the sad era named for it, but public opinion was active in every shade, from beginning to end. Americans were dragged through that conflict screaming at each other, pulling hair in every direction, like one big, barroom brawl that just went on and on.
That was a painful process, but still time has shown an essential purpose was served. In the beginning, public policy was shaped by the same paranoid right-wing thinking that seems to be inspiring our current President, but by the end, it was the views of those reviled protesters in the streets beaten silly early on by the cops and construction workers that took hold and prevailed with the American people, and we got the hell out.
There’s not enough of us risking our comforts to try to change our country. And that includes me.

The rhetoric and bad politicking is revving up for the November elections. Too often, liberals (of which I am one) make the same mistake that b!X criticizes in this post.
The same level of idealism with which he drives me crazy sometimes is what also motivates him to verbalize such an important concept with such clarity. We should all ditto to the larger world what he wrote to some of the liberals of Portland.

We all know about the information explosion. I find that there’s also a connection explosion. The longer we live, the more people we meet, the more individuals we add to our list of friends, the harder it is to find the time to keep the connections going. Anita Bora is a blogger I encountered early on in my blogging career, and one whose weblob always seems to be chock full of interesting snippets, the links from whicn I’m inclined to follow, comment on, etc. etc. Suddenly, it’s two hours later.
Over the months since I discovered Anita, I accumulated an extensive list of blogs I like to follow, and I lost track of her.
And then she telephoned me today. From India. Just to chat. And the connection is vital again. So, thanks, Anita. I’ll be showing up in your Comments again, so watch out.
And tonight I’m having dinner with one of my best friends (and roommate) from college. It has to be more than a decade since we’ve seen each other, since she lives on Long Island now and doesn’t come up this way too often. She’ll be in Albany for the weekend at a statewide conference of School Board members. I think she stood up for me when I eloped to get married (isn’t it awful that I can’t even remember for sure!!??). We keep in touch — sporadically — via email. I can’t wait to see her and catch up on all the gossip from the contigent of my old sorority sisters who live near her!!
Next week I’m going to have lunch with a local Blog Sister whom I’ve never met in person. Circles. Cycles. Spirals. Life.

In reality, bloggers have real bodies. From what I can tell, many of them are pretty young. And healthy, too, it seems to me. And, when you

Now, this is a “religion” that makes sense to me these days. I especially like the Ten Computer Commandments — although the other directives are right on as well. Oh Yeah!
Thanks to bIX for pointing to it.

My grandson snoozes on his mother

I’m heading out toward Boston tomorrow to take my mom to see her great grandson for the first time. Even at 2 months, he’s starting to look like a little boy instead of a generic baby. My mom and I are going to stay over one night at a motel, since there’s really not enough room for both of us now that they baby’s here. Of course, my mom’s already complaining about having to stay in a motel, so I picked one near Bloomingdales, where I promised to take her shopping before we leave the area.
And also before we leave, we’ll be picking up three pizzas to take home from this little place in Jamaica Plain that my mom insists is the best pizza she ever had. (And she lived most of her life just outside NYC. Go figure.)
No sooner did I finish editing last month’s Dance Scene magazine, then I find myself in the middle of editing the next issue. We’ve come up with some innovations for the magazine, including running a condensed serialized version of an original mystery novel set at a ballroom dance weekend. The novel was written several years ago by one of my former Significant Others (with considerable editing help from me) whom I had taken to a ballroom dance weekend. Needless to say, the main characters are loosely based on us. Heh. I guess that’s one way to get noteriety.
So, now I’m off to get stuff ready for the trip. Of course, we’re loading ourselves up with food, stuff for the baby that I can’t resist buying, and all of our “support systems” (hair curler, makeup, medications etc. etc.). It gets worse as one gets older.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the best idea I’ve heard so far about what kind of 9/11 memorial it would be appropriate to establish in NYC.

I had a root canal done today by an archconservative endodontist who is a great fan of Rush Limbaugh and listens to his talk radio show all day