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
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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.
new space
My new blog design might not be ready yet, but my new “work” space in my new Massachusetts residence is.
power and priorities: what are Obama’s?
(No, I’m still not officially back, but this was something about which I just had to post.)
Democrats are giddy at being back in power. But I will suggest that being in power is all about priorities. One should watch carefully to see what the priorities of the new administration are..
The above is from an piece in the Huffington Post by Ian Welsh, What Obama’s Nixing Family Planning Money Tells Us
And what it’s telling us is that Obama’s priority seems to be bipartisanship at any cost.
From PlanetWire.org:
Obama was reported to have asked Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid, to drop a provision that would enable states to provide family planning to low-income families without having to seek permission from the federal government. Other outlets said he was “distancing himself” from the provision as “not part of” his $825 billion stimulus plan.
According to the news tonight, the plan just passed by the House is, indeed, lacking support for family planning. And the Republicans didn’t vote for it anyway.,
Providing these family services might not seem very important in light of the priority to restore some economic stability to our faltering capitalistic system. However, an increase in unplanned pregnancies in all of those individual “little pictures” would put a drain on the economy on its most fundamental level.
According to PlanetWire,
…the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research and policy analysis, points out that Medicaid spending has long proven good for the economy. In its own study in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found publicly funded family planning would save the federal government $200 million over five years by helping women avoid pregnancies that otherwise would lead to Medicaid-funded births.
Publicly funded clinics provided contraceptive services last year that helped women avoid 1.4 million unintended pregnancies that would have resulted in 640,000 unintended births and 600,000 abortions. Without these services, abortions would have risen by 49 percent, the Guttmacher Institute says in a statement.
Having worked for a Senate Majority Leader in New York State, I am well-aware of the horse trading that often goes on to get major legislation passed, and so I understand why Obama might have chosen to sacrifice a part of what he wants in order to get Republican approval — not just for this stimulus package, but for other legislation still to come.
Well, you made your choices and took your chances, Mr. President, and it didn’t work.
There’s still hope, though. The Senate can put the family services request back into the stimulus plan legislation and then send it back to the House, where the Democrats can just go ahead and pass it again in the form in which they should have passed it in the first place.
Or the family services request can be incorporated into the next stimulus package, which is sure to come soon — although some legislative bill writer will have to be pretty creative to figure out a way to include it in with shoring up the banking and housing industry.
Whatever the strategy, President Obama needs to put his power behind making the family services request as a priority.
Sorry, Keith
I’m not officially back yet, but I couldn’t help posting this one.
I once blogged that if I were going to be marooned on a deserted island, the one guy I would want to have with me is Keith Olbermann.
Well, sorry Keith, but Brian Williams has outdone you.
I watch his NBC Nightly News show every day; I like his delivery.
.
For the second time I watched him on David Letterman’s Late Show. He wowed me the first time, and I was not alone
This time clinched it. Williams just doesn’t deliver the scripted news with clarity and style (and he has a great smile). He has proven that he has a comic delivery, timing, and intelligence that is far better than any comic I’ve seen on television.
He had everyone howling.
I wonder if there’s a Brian Williams Fan Club.
Resettling
While b!X is working to move this blog onto Word Press, I am surfacing to announce my upcoming redesign and resurrection.
I have completed my move from the mountain to the valley, both physically and metaphorically. And now I have to figure out who I am now that I am where I am. It will not be the first time I reinvented myself, although it might be the last.
In the meanwhile, you will be able to find me at Time Goes By on January 26, where I will be guest blogging for Ronni Bennett while she takes a much deserved blog break.
Stay tuned.