Just for fun, I went looking back to see what I might have posted on February 8 in some past year. To find a post for this day I had to go back to 2003. The title of the post is Countdown to War and in it I link to this still relevant article about the shrouding of Picasso’s Guernica.
Excerpt:

Guernica pales before the images we see every day of the war that actually did go down.

When I moved into my brother’s house, I got rid of a lot of my big old shabby furniture and bought a few shelf-based pieces that I could use for a variety of purposes and that are easy to move.. After all, I’m not going to live here forever. No, I’m not.
One of the pale oak bookshelves I bought now serves as a storage space for the seeds I plan to start soon and some small potting containers. Above it, between the sunny windows where it’s located, I have hung my one free-form crochet hanging and other objects I like to look at. The top shelf of the bookcase holds various icons that I find empowering. Some might call it an altar, although that’s not how I interpret it because I surely don’t pray at it. But I do, on occasion, stand it front of it and feell surrounded by a sense of peace.
I wanted to cover the storage areas of the shelves, and I didn’t want to put up a curtain. So, instead, using a size 11 knitting needle and Lily cotton yarn in the “Rainbow Delight” color, I knitted two panels and double crocheted the top edges so that I could weave a curtain rod through the openings. I used a plain garter stitch and knitted it lengthwise so that the rows go up and down instead of across.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with the result:

Several years ago, I blogged about the making of the freeform crochet item that I’ve hung over the bookshelf just above an icon of A Kwa Ba, the Ashanti primal goddess. I’d like to make another, different and larger freeform crochet wall hanging someday. I’ve been putting away various yarns in shades and textures of blue. (Hey, Andrea, maybe someday you can send me any scraps you have that you’ve spun – blues, grays, off whites will work.)
But for now, I have to content myself with knowing that if I managed to create one once, I can surely figure out how to do it again.

Why we are the bad guys, synopsized by Harper’s Weekly

So, I’m thinking — what if we used the $100 billion more that Bush wants to spend on the war and allocate $100,000 to every Iraqi family who wants get out of the country in order to help them relocate to Syria or whatever country is willing to take them. Let the United Nations use some of that $100 billion to hire ombudsmen to work with the families and the country to which they would be moving to use the family’s allotment to establish housing and businesses and/or find employment. Some of the emigrating Iraqi people and some of the American soldiers who are interested could also be trained and paid to act as ombudsman for the émigrés.
Get all of the non-Iraqi fighters out of Iraq and turn the battleground over to the Iraqi factions. They will have to figure out what to do – fight to the finish of or find a way to compromise. Either way, the non-warring citizens of Iraq will be safe, the American soldiers will be safe, and the $100 billion of our American tax dollars would be used for positive rather than destructive activities. And the Iraqi idiots who want to fight with each other can be left to war amongst themselves.
And then make sure our Homeland Security and FBI and CIA people concentrate on tracking down whatever terrorists are out there as well as in here. And then the National Guard can be available to help our own citizens it times of natural disasters and other large scale emergencies.
Oh, I know. ” It’s the oil, stupid.”
Unimportant news you might have missed (excerpted from the same Harper’s Weekly):

It’s 11 degrees outside at this very moment, but that’s not the cold I’m talking about.
Two days ago, my mother started sneezing. Yesterday morning, she woke up with a red and drippy nose and red, watery eyes. And so I went after that big bad cold with my Kalilily foolproof cold cure — or rather a lower dose version of it for my 100 lb. mother.
Zicam swabs in the nose every three hours. Emergenc-C Cold Cough and Flu twice a day, and a dropperful of Echiancea and Goldenseal extract twice a day. And an aspirin after dinner.
She woke up this morning with all symptoms gone.
As for me, I’m being protected by daily doses of a new product for which I am part of a market test. I get free ColdMD for 16 weeks and have to report each week on how I’m doing.
When I was visiting my grandson a couple of weeks ago, he had a cold and managed to wetly sneeze right in my face a couple of times. I never caught his cold.
The ColdMD tablets are pretty big, and I usually can’t swallow such big pills. But I manage to get these down just fine.
My mother’s cold is gone in three days and I’m still cold free.
Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about that big bad cold outside, where the wind chill puts it down to -4. Yes, that’s minus 4.

I could have entitled this post “relatives and friends” but that’s not as catchy. And I do love metaphors.
As I get older, relatives seem to become more important. I’m not sure why, since I still feel closest to those friends who continue to breathe inspiration, warmth, and support into my life. And that includes blogger friends . And, of course, my long-time women’s group (who I don’t get to see much of any more).
Today, the mail brought some photos of a batch of my cousins (I have a slew of cousins), some of whom have moved to Florida and some of whom often visit those who have moved to Florida. The photos show them tanned and smiling, even my younger cousin whose hair is growing back after an intense bout with major breast cancer. She looks perkier than ever, with her growing-back hair short and curly. “Come down and visit us in Paradise,” they tell me. Ah, if only I could.
I’ve never felt I had much in common with my cousins besides blood and the shared memories of our young years growing up together. My life went in a different direction from theirs. But whenever we get together, I laugh so hard I have to run to the bathroom. I don’t always make it. They know how to enjoy themselves. They know how to relax. And it’s all contagious. As we get older and become the “elders” in our clan, we find ourselves coming full circle.
We live too far apart to get together these days, but we have begun to email more, reminding me of the thickness of the blood that binds us.
LIving as I isolated as I do, I seem to have forgotton how to make friends, even blogging friends, and that’s something I have to put more effort into. Instead of complaining that I don’t feel connected any more, I need to reach out and make or keep connections to friends.
And so I thank those of my readers who left comments on this post.
Maria at Alembic is someone whose blog I used to read all the time. Her writing is lyrical and personal and compelling. It’s my fault that I’ve lost touch with her, and I’ve already begun to renew the connection.
Rebecca, of Pocahontas County Fare, is a blogger I hadn’t heard of until now, when I linked over to her site. She blogs about poetry, knitting, her cat, the land where she lives, fiber arts — so many of the things I also blog about. Why hadn’t I discovered her before this? She obviously discovered me!!! I’m certainly going to get to know her in the days to come..
Elayne Riggs is a blogger I’ve read on and off since I started. (She introduced herself as Elayne with a “Y”; that’s how I still think of her.) She works hard and blogs hard and spends a lot of time reading the blogs of others. Another friend whose creative air I need to breathe more of.
Full circle, back to “blood,” I’m waiting to see if b!X (my son), who designed and hosts my weblog, can switch my comment feature from Typekey to Halo Scan — thus making it easier for readers to leave comments and for me to filter out comment spam. Maybe the conversations can start again.
I’m feeling a little more optimistic today about both blogging and breathing.

Both Hillary and Nancy are playing the “mommy” card.
Accroding to here, excerpted:

I know that a lot of people don’t like Hillary because she’s such a political animal. But her “mamisma” gives her a balance the guys don’t have.
Harriet Rubin is the author of The Mona Lisa Strategem: The Art of Women, Age, and Power.
Now, there’s a book I’d like to own.

I typed this whole post in last night. But it was after midnight, and I accidentally lost the whole thing.
Those of us who started blogging more than five years ago still remember those blog-golden days, when we not only posted every day — as bloggrandaddy Dave Weinberger suggested — writing ourselves into existence; we also read each other’s blogs and left voluminous and numerous comments, fueling continuous debates about everything from gender bias to blogging ethics.
Last night I grew nostalgic for those blogolden days, for the community I no longer seem to have, for the lack of any comments/discussions in my posts, for the necessity to blog late at night when I don’t have to worry about taking care of my soon-to-be 91 years old mom. (Her birthday is in a couple of weeks.)
This recent post at BlogSisters only made my nostalgia worse, reminding me of what’s been lost as we early birds aged — or should I say “evolved” — as bloggers.
I check the BlogSister’s roster to see who’s really still blogging from the bunch. Rox Populi seems to be the most recent one who’s opted out of a personal blog for other venues. Zeeahtronic and Esta Jarrett seem to be MIA.
My biggest sadness rests in the fact that I don’t get comments anymore. That means this site is no longer a conversation; it’s just an ego trip. And that’s not enough reason to keep it going, especially if I’m just writing about things that only interest me.
So, I sit here wondering if it’s time to move on, move out. Maybe I just don’t have much to say anymore, my life being so confined.
Of course, I could write about that ordinary man I saw crossing the street in front of my car carrying a witch’s broom. He had just walked out of the “Awareness Shop: Esoteric Consultation” place in front of which I had to stop to let him cross. An ordinary man — slightly balding, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker — carrying a witch’s broom. I wondered if he might have bought it as a surprise for a friend who wanted one. Or maybe he was planning to do a ritual cleansing of his own. Or maybe it was a symbolic gift for someone — a metaphorical message that meant “get on your broom and ride out of my life.”
I guess I could have written about that.

…Ivins’ use of salty language and her habit of going barefoot in the office were too much for the Times, said longtime friend Ben Sargent, editorial cartoonist with the Austin American-Statesman.


“She was just like a force of nature,” Sargent said. “She was just always on and sharp and witty and funny and was one of a kind.”

Molly Ivins is gone.
She liked to walk around barefoot when she worked at the NY Times.
She was the first one to call Dubya “Shrub.”
I wish I had even a fraction of her talent and her courage.

The above from Harper’s Weekly. Also, the below:

And this from The Week.

I wonder if Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson would like to emigrate to America, become a citizen, and run for president here. (Heh. We know she’d never get elected!)