Vagina Sonnet

Is 'vagina' suitable for use
in a sonnet? I don't suppose so.
A famous poet told me, 'Vagina's ugly.'
Meaning, of course, the sound of it. In poems.
Meanwhile he inserts his penis frequently
into his verse, calling it, seriously, 'My
Penis'. It is short, I know, and dignified.
I mean of course the sound of it. In poems.
This whole thing is unfortunate, but petty,
like my hangup concerning English Dept memos
headed 'Mr/Mrs/Miss' - only a fishbone
In the throat of the revolution -
a waste of brains - to be concerned about
this minor issue of my cunt's good name.
- Joan Larkin

Water

My New Name For A Blog

What NTodd said.

Some Good News

From Today's EEI newsletter.

Analysts Say Costs of Solar Systems to Drop Dramatically, Quickly

Worldwatch Institute and the Prometheus Institute of Cambridge, Mass., have developed an assessment that shows the costs associated with bringing solar projects on line will drop dramatically in the next several years, UPI Energy reported. Wrote the newswire: "Global production of solar PV cells, which turn sunlight directly into electricity, has risen six-fold since 2000 and grew 41 percent in 2006. Although grid-connected solar capacity still provides less than 1 percent of the world's electricity, it increased nearly 50 percent in 2006, to 5,000 megawatts, propelled by booming markets in Germany and Japan. Spain is likely to join as a major market in 2007 and the United States soon thereafter."

Janet Sawin, a senior researcher at Worldwatch who wrote the study, was quoted by the newswire as saying: "Solar energy is the world's most plentiful energy resource, and the challenge has been tapping it cost-effectively and efficiently. We are now seeing two major trends that will accelerate the growth of PV: the development of advanced technologies and the emergence of China as a low-cost producer."
UPI Energy, May 22.

and

CO2 Emissions in U.S. Decline for First Time Since 2001, EIA Says

The Energy Information Administration has said that CO2 emissions tied to climate change have declined for the first time since 2001, the Washington Post reported today. The newspaper also said it was the first time that "it has gone down since 1990 while the economy was thriving."

. . .

Wrote the Post: "A number of factors helped reduce emissions last year, according to the government, including weather conditions that reduced heating and air-conditioning use, higher gasoline prices that caused consumers to conserve, and a greater overall reliance on natural gas."

EEI spokesman Dan Riedinger said an increased demand for natural gas could prove costly over the long term, according to the Post. He was quoted as saying: "Investment in advanced coal, carbon capture and storage, and a host of other technologies is essential to making and sustaining significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
New York Times , Washington Post , May 24.

Wow

Angela has a great post up and some amazing pictures of the first pentacles on headstones in Arlington Cemetery. How amazing to see the symbol of my religion on my coreligionists' headstones.

Do It Now

Freeway Blogger's Simple and Effective Plan to End the War.

Earth

Fire

Get In On The Ground Floor

From today's EEI newsletter:

New Mexico College to Offer Degree in Wind-Farm Maintenance

Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, N.M., will offer a two-year associate's degree at its North American Wind Research and Training Center in wind-farm maintenance, the Amarillo Globe-News reported. Mitsubishi, Clipper Windpower, and Florida Power and Light Energy helped the school develop the curriculum. Mesalands Director of Public Relations John Yearout was quoted as saying: "We started the curriculum in the fall of 2006 with an online course on the basics of wind energy. At the last board meeting, the total curriculum was approved. You can get an associate's degree or certificates in certain areas."
Amarillo Globe-News via the fort Worth Star-Telegram , May 22.

My New Name For A Blog

What the Mad Melancholic Feminista Said

Water

We Could

We could live sustainably upon the Earth, honoring Her in everything, including our reproductive activities.

We could eat organic food and animals gently raised and honorably sacrificed.

We could treat our few children as great gifts, the responsibility of all within the global village.

We could help each of them to realize hir own gifts and reasons for visiting this plane.

We could treat our seas as great mysterious forces, aligned with the moon and populated by avatars of wonder and beauty.

We could spend some of our time sustaining our bodies and much of our time enjoying our years of incarnation in a garden of triadic sex between sunlight, water, and chlorophyll.

We could experience music as sex, sex as art, and work as the culmination of all.

We could build buildings that grace Mother Earth herself, set just far enough apart from each other to allow the wind to carry seed and the birds to fly free.

We could have time for silence.

We could make decisions in respectful councils where earth, and air, and fire, and water, and spirit, and animals and humans have voices and where the welfare of future generations was the utmost goal.

We could treat sex as sacred, women's bodies as manifestations of the Goddess, men as treasured husbands of the land, in the most literal sense of the word.

We could. We really could.

Art found here.

A Suggestion For Memorial Day.

The Memorial Weekend is coming. It's a time set aside to remember those who died for our freedom. A good time to freeway blog. Make the signs at your cookout and then hang then later that night.

CO2 Worse Than Predicted

From today's EEI newsletter:

CO2 Emissions Said to Have Surpassed U.N. Panel's Worst Case Scenario

CO2 emissions worldwide increased three times as quickly after 2000 than in the 1990s, Reuters reported, citing a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study co-author Chris Field, of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, said: "This paper should be a rallying cry." The study found the amount of energy needed to produce one unit of GDP is no longer declining.

Nearly three-quarters of the growth in CO2 emissions since 2004 has come from the developing world, especially from China and India, the study indicated. If accurate, the growth surpasses the most extreme scenario envisioned by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Reuters reported. Co-author Gregg Marland of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was quoted as saying: "This is at the core of how we live. We're just using more energy and being more consumptive. ... Putting everybody in hybrid cars isn't going to solve this one."
Reuters , May 21.

Earth

The Shack And A Few Trees

AFTER WORK
by Gary Snyder


The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog

I pull out your blouse
warm my cold hands
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the
hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood.

we’ll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
drinking wine.

You Can Never Say That No One Told You!

Atrios sends me to this rather amazing post at Think Progress which quotes Newt Gingrich, "unannounced" coughhehcouch Republican candidate for president, making the requisite wingnut genuflection at the shadow of Dead Falwell.

Think Progress reports that:

Gingrich claimed Americans draw strength from Falwell’s “life model,” and said that Falwell, who infamously called the 9/11 attacks God’s punishment on the United States, “bore witness to the Truth” and “knew this truth in his bones.”

But perhaps Gingrich’s most controversial remarks came in an interview after his speech, in which Gingrich cited the opportunity “to convert all of America.”

Gingrich said after his speech that Falwell’s death would not slow the Christian right’s efforts.

“Anybody on the left who hopes that when people like Reverend Falwell disappear that the opportunity to convert all of America has gone with them fundamentally misunderstands why institutions like this were created,” Gingrich said.


Wow. Just, wow.

You know, I have a standard rant that i give to women friends about men who say, 'You shouldn't waste your life on me. I'm not worth it. I'll screw things up for you. I'm no good for you." I always tell them, "You should listen to him. Don't fool yourself into thinking that he doesn't mean it. He's tellling you the truth." All I can say about Gingrich and the Republican Party is the same thing. Listen to him. He means it. He's telling you the truth. Pay attention.

These institutions, institutions such as Falwell's, which are tax exempt and, therefore, supported with the taxes that i pay and that you pay, were created to "convert' "all of America." Whether all Americans want to be converted, or not. Let's be clear about what that means. Even idiots like Gingrich (married 3 times, adulterer, xian in name only) and the scholastically-challenged sheep at "Liberty" (hah!) "University" (hah!) don't imagine that they can turn my witchy heart or your pagan heart to jebuz. They don't care. What they do imagine is that, at the point of the government's taxing power, or guns, or torture racks (no habeaus for "enemy combatants"!) or piles of burning faggots, they can get us to "convert" enough for them to be in complete control. If not, they can burn us as examples to others similarly disinclined to "convert."

Do you ever watch The Sopranos? Perhaps the second-most famous episode of The Sopranos is the one where Carmella, the wife of the mob boss, goes to a psychologist to talk to him about whether she should leave her husband. He tells her that she must leave him and must not take any of his money (not what she wants to hear). He says that it's blood money and then he concludes, "Whatever you do, you can never say that no one told you." That's how I feel about this throw-away comment of Newt Gingrich's. Whatever else we do, we can never say that no one told us. Their goal is to forcibly convert us and to control us forever.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Make An Effort To Remember. Or, Failing That, Invent

Sia has a much better memory that do I, and supplies this quote that I've been searching and searching for. I suspect that these internet tubes will make growing older less painful for many of us!

There was a time
when you were not a slave,
remember that you walked alone,
full of laughter,
you bathed bare-bellied.
You may have lost all recollection of it,
remember...

You say there are not words to describe it,
you say it does not exist.
but remember,
make an effort to remember,
or, failing that,
invent.

Monique Wittig

Wicca made a lot of us remember, and then, we've gone on to invent. I love the invention.

On The May Blue Moon, Do Some Magic For The Bees

Sex, Lovers, And The Valentine

by Dennis Arthur Dames
Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Pleasures of the body and soul unite…
In a union between a man and woman… day or night
It’s a time of expressions… where individuality rules
And sessions of connecting, and unifying reign supreme
Sex is an experience that is desired perpetually by lovers…
It is the magnet that attracts, and pulls two together in a profound and unique way…
Sex is mysterious, and it is the language of a spiritual culture…
One that is grossly misunderstood…
Lovers know what it means… sweethearts hold it dearly
It is the gift between a male and a female… not to be taken for granted
Sex is the natural source of life, and its fruits are appreciated by so many.
It is truly sacred…
There is no playbook for sex, because it’s a matter of personal desires…
Sex in the morning, for lunch, for dinner or between breaks…
Whenever the time, enjoy it… take it in strides and do it right
Keep coming… the appetite
Do not be shy in your expressions… give your lover all that you have to offer
Watch out for the missed opportunities, they are gone forever
Do not allow external forces to wreck your sex life…
Always be a lover to your lover
Find time to kiss, hug and explore your sweetheart’s landscape
Slowly enjoy the foreplay
Be your wooer’s friend… without end
Sex is wonderful… it’s something to defend
Sex is pure… in the sea or on shore
It’s the wet dreams… and the erotic moments
It’s the battery that charges a dearest soul…
Sex is something blissful to behold

Teenage Feminine Divine

In comments at Eschaton, Moonbotica alterted me to this interesting article about the growth of Wicca among younger Brits, especially young women.

A study of teenagers and their consumption of books, magazines, kits, film and other media found that there are some 700,000 internet sites for teenage witches. The Pagan Federation claims to have several hundred inquiries a week from young people, and has set up a network for those under 18.

"There has been a noticeable rise in the number of young people identifying themselves as witches," said Denise Cush, professor of religious studies at Bath Spa University.

Perhaps most interesting are the study's findings concerning the reasons for rising number of young witches: According to Professor Cush's report, based on interviews with witches aged 18 to 24, it is the attitude to women that most attracts them: "Paganism and witchcraft appealed because of their clear feminist credentials and absence of homophobia. A main attraction is the positive valuation of women in comparison with other religions."

Certainly for me and many women of my generation, Wicca's positive attitudes towards women, including and exemplified by its worship of Goddesses, was a huge part of Wicca's attraction. Interestingly, I assumed that other religions, especially the three main Abrahamic cults, would gradually improve their attitude towards women and the feminine divine, thereby depriving Wicca of some of its attraction for women and slowing the growth of Wicca. I was wrong, xianity and Islam, in particular, have, if anything, gone backwards in their attitudes towards women and the divine feminine over the last twenty years or so.

The article concludes with some discussions with young British witches and their reasons for being interested in Wicca now range from "My mother's a witch" to "My family is xian and that didn't speak to me." You'd have been hard-pressed to find a woman in my generation who could honestly (sixties' dubious assertions of long-lived family trads notwithstanding)have given the first reason to explain her interest in Wicca. It's going to be fascinating to watch the development of this religion over the next generation. How big can a religion grow when at its core it is based upon lack of organization, freedom, and an absence of dogma?

PS: How cool a name is "Bath Spa University"?

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

To the Many
I -- am your voice, the warmth of your breath,
I -- am the reflection of your face,
The futile trembling of futile wings,
I am with you to the end, in any case.

That's why you so fervently love
Me in my weakness and in my sin;
That's why you impulsively gave
Me the best of your sons;
That's why you never even asked
Me for any word of him
And blackened my forever-deserted home
With fumes of praise.
And they say -- it's impossible to fuse more closely,
Impossible to love more abandonedly. . .

As the shadow from the body wants to part,
As the flesh from the soul wants to separate,
So I want now -- to be forgotten...

September 1922
-- translated by Judith Hemschemeyer