Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

i sing of Olaf glad and big


i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel (trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms (first knocking on the head
him )do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf (being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president, being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ (of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

~E. E. Cummings

Picture found here.

To Die a Free Woman

This.

So when Comstock and his fellow inspectors showed up at her cramped residence on West 23rd Street with a warrant for her arrest, Craddock steeled herself anew. "I wish to fight right through to a finish," she wrote her lawyer shortly afterward. "All I ask is that you use me in the most effective way possible." As an unabashed sex reformer and a mystic founder of her own Church of Yoga, Craddock was to Comstock a twice-damned purveyor of obscenity and blasphemy. He wanted to shut down her whole operation—the distribution of her pamphlets, the delivery of her lectures, even her face-to-face counseling sessions. "I am taking my stand on the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," Craddock countered, "guaranteeing me religious freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of the press."

Craddock could do little more than watch as Comstock conducted his raid. Scanning the shelves of her private library, he found sixty-one books and 536 circulars worthy of removal, all of which he could use as evidence against her before once again pulping such filth. A heavy-set man with mutton-chop sideburns and creased blue eyes, Comstock had been at this for a while, having led the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice since its incorporation in 1873. For three decades now he had been frustrating the designs of shady booksellers, sketchy impresarios, dime novelists, condom distributors, abortion providers, birth-control advocates, and taboo-breaking artists. Imbued with a strong sense of Christian discipline from his Connecticut youth, he had further honed his self-control through prayerfully resisting the temptations of army life during the Civil War—the whiskey drinking, coarse language, and tobacco chewing that marked the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers. "Boys got very drunk," Comstock noted of his army mates at one point in his diary. "I did not drink a drop. . . . Touch not. Taste not. Handle not."

"She thought her only option at that point was suicide," Schmidt says. "That that was the only way she was going to die a free woman."

That oddly keeps on being the only choice they leave us.

I'll just add that having my carefully-collected and painstakingly-archived books rifled by a fundie would pretty much do me in, as well.

Picture found here.

My New Name for a Blog

What Sia Said.

I already hated flying. In my lifetime, it's gone from a glamourous adventure to almost a mind-numbing pain in the ass. Frankly, I don't care who sees me naked. I'm an old woman who's had a number of surgeries; if it gets your rocks off, well, have at it. And as a breast cancer survivor I've been touched, squeezed, cut, poisoned, and examined so much that it's difficult for me to get too worked up.

But I'm fucking sick and tired of giving up my rights to a bunch of patriarchial nutjobs, made frantic by the fact that some other patriarchial nutjobs attacked a commercial building. Security theatre is for children. And I am not a child.

Kali, fuck; could we all act like Americans for a change and quit letting Osama win?

Picture found here.

My New Name for a Blog

What Athenae Said.

Also: Patriarchy. You're Soaking In It.

Picture found here.

Well, Ignoring the Problem Doesn't Seem to Be Working

My New Name For A Blog

What Athenae Said.

Yeah, everybody's losing their jobs, there is nothing the boss man can't do and walk away from scot-free, your years of service to a company barely get you a shrug when you're shoved out the door, so far, so good.

Yeah, the rule of law's been destroyed, we basically live in a police state, Miranda rights no longer mean all that much, there's nothing the authorities can't do and walk away from scot-free, so far, so good.

Yeah, it's getting harder and harder to breathe, the ocean is filling up with oil, nobody gives a fuck about the polar bears, everyone has asthma, there's something in the drinking water the town said was safe and now the kids have cancer, so far, so good.

Yeah, the guy we elected to end the wars and close the torture prisons isn't doing that so much, Congress is still full of assholes, our state legislators are too busy gobbling corporate knob to take our calls, our school boards want us to worry about if Jesus rode a dinosaur and if our kids can't read it's because they just don't want to enough, so far, so good.

Yeah, poverty and ignorance have been institutionalized, walled off, and called the acceptable price of living the way the top five percent live while the parts of the city the tourists don't visit might as well rot for all anybody gives a damn, so far, so good.

Go read the whole thing.

Picture found here.

The Best DiL In The World

Patriarchy longs to set up a rivalry between Mothers of Sons and our Daughters-in-Law; it's one of patriarchy's most toxic myths. My mom and her mother-in-law (my paternal grandmother) managed to dislike each other and to snipe at each other for decades and decades, to neither of their benefits, making my dad pretty miserable in the meantime. (Sometime, I'll tell you the story of the year's-long Battle of the Thermostat. It's not pretty.)

Luckily, I don't believe the lies that patriarchy tells, and, besides, Son married a woman so cool, so grounded, so kind in every situation, so witty, so kick-ass, so generous of spirit, so Alia-of-the-Knife in the courtroom, so beautiful, so creative in the kitchen, and so flat-out-fabulous as a mother, that I simply adore her.

Today is important to our family not so much because it's Valentine's Day, although we love Valentine's Day, but because today is DiL's birthday. I'm lucky that she came into the world and lucky that she married Son. She's a true Aquarian and I love her very much. Her birthday this year has been marred by the snow; none of us could get out and shop as we wished. But I hope that she knows that we love her and I thank the Goddess for her every single day.

Fuck the lies of patriarchy. Two women who love the same guy ought to be good friends.

Happy birthday, DiL!

Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What Echidne of the Snakes Said.

Picture found here.

Ladies, Lots Of Luck.

Interesting article in the WaPo about the strict punishments Rome is handing out to women who dare to question their second-class status in the catholic church.

Shortly after being punished, she attended Mass at her local parish with her sister and mother. She was forbidden to take Communion, but her mother and sister decided to share their hosts with her. Other parishioners dropped pieces of their hosts into her hands. By the ritual's end, her hands were full.

And, you know, fuck that priest. How fucking dare he reduce that woman to standing there with empty hands, filled up with crumbs from others?

Interesting that the WaPo capitalizes "Communion" isn't it? I'm certain that "Cakes and Ale" would get the same treatment. No, I'm not.

Picture found here.

I Stole This From Twisty

New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion

And I'm down with all of it, as soon as guys have to do the same thing before they jack off.

I'm Speechless

It takes a lot to leave me so flabbergasted that I can't think what to say:

Bible verses inscribed on Marine rifle sights with tax dollars.

I'm going to re-think that whole "drink less" resolution.

Gus has the details.

Logic And Consistency Are Too Much To Ask

Dear Cardinal,

"Pagan" -- I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Muslims are conquering Europe because Christians have become too selfish and pagan to defend the spiritual heritage of the continent, a Vatican cardinal said this week.

Miloslav Vlk, who has served as archbishop of Prague since 1991 and was considered as a successor to John Paul II, launched an outspoken attack on Christians living in Europe and accused them of allowing Muslims to "Islamise" the continent.

He warned that Europe would "fall" to Islam if people continued to deny their Christian roots.

Of course, Europe has has a Pagan "spiritual heritage." Kali on a cucumber sandwich, if Cardinal Vik were doing his job, wouldn't Europeans be flocking to xianity? Wouldn't the Moslems who moved to Europe observe the love, warmth, charity, and joy of the xians and long to convert? Maybe Europeans don't like child abuse, pederasty, and cover ups?

t was Muslims and not Christians, said Vlk, who were shaping the spiritual outlook of Europe. "The Muslims definitely have many reasons to be heading here. They also have a religious one – to bring the spiritual values of faith in God to the pagan environment of Europe, to its atheistic style of life."

In a separate interview, a second cardinal criticised Islam for repressing religious freedom.

Which, you know, is true in some places, but, pot, kettle, black.

Cardinal Tauran: also commented on the Swiss referendum to ban the construction of new minarets, and seemed to approve of the outcome. "Naturally it is necessary to harmonize construction with the atmosphere in which it comes to be a part, with the city landscape, the cultural context, and the complex of the laws and norms that regulate the life of the society."

Which is odd, because that wasn't the church's position when it built xian churches on sacred Pagan spaces, nor when it built Spanish churches in North and South America.

How Did We Get Here?

I Love That One

May The Goddess Guard Her. May She Find Her Way To The Summerlands. May Her Friends And Family Know Peace.

Some news stories make you burst into tears.

Mary Daly, hugely influential Goddess scholar, widely-read feminist, and a woman whose writings rocked my world and changed my life, is dead at 81. I disagreed with a few of her ideas about sexuality, but she taught me most of what I know about the poison of patriarchy. She lived her ideals, making academia back down once, and quitting rather than violating her principles when the religious right went after her. Just how much the catholics hated her is made clear in catholic "culture"'s post on her death:

Daly’s feminism grew more radical over the years, and her attacks on the “patriarchy” of the Church evolved into condemnation of most Christian doctrine. Her many books often carried outlandish titles, pointing to the extremism of her thought:

Gyn/Ecology:The Meta-Ethics of Radical Feminism
Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage [her autobiography]
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy
Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big.

Love the quotation marks, you jerks. Those titles seem anything but outlandish, these days, thanks, in large part, to Dr. Daly's courage over the last few decades.

The subtitle to my blog, and, indeed, the purpose of my life -- Undermining the Patriarchy Every Chance I Get -- are in humble homage to Dr. Daly. I will call her name at Samhein. What is remembered, does not die.

Photo found here.

You Want Outrage?

As a member of religion about which people often say "grossly abusive or insulting things" that "cause outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion," (never mind that the person making the statement is often a member OF my religion), I'd say the Irish atheists have this about right:

SECULAR campaigners in the Republic of Ireland defied a strict new blasphemy law that came into force on New Year's Day by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The law, which was passed in July, means blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros.

It defines blasphemy as ''publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted''.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has said the law was necessary because while immigration had brought a growing diversity of religious faiths, the 1936 constitution only extended the protection of belief to Christians.

But Atheist Ireland, a group that claims to represent the rights of atheists, responded to the legislation by publishing 25 anti-religious quotations on its website, from figures including Richard Dawkins, Bjork and Frank Zappa.

Michael Nugent, the group's chairman, said it would challenge the law through the courts if it was charged with blasphemy.

Mr Nugent said: ''This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

. . .

''Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.''

Mr Nugent said the group's campaign to repeal the law was part of a wider battle to create a more secular republic. ''You would think that after all the scandals the Catholic Church endured in 2009, the introduction of a blasphemy law would be the last thing that the Irish state would be considering in terms of defending religion and its place in society.''

More here.

Here, BTW, are the 25 blasphemous quotations. They include some good ones:

Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

and

Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”

They left out HecateDemetersdatter, who said, "Fuck you, Padrick, you woman-hating, Celt-hating, nasty slave."

Picture found here.

Hat tip to my amazing friend NYM.

Every Chance I Get

A really wonderful new friend of mine pointed me to Starhawk's latest essay in the WaPo's "On Faith" series. It's so good, that I'm going to reprint most of it here, before I comment on it.

Q: Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? In his Nobel speech, was President Obama right to speak in these theological terms about war? He also stated that 'no holy war can ever be a just war.' Do you agree or disagree?

Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? The problem with that question is that when we answer 'yes', we end up in a world where there is 'just war'--just war as an ultimate solution to every problem, whether it be terrorists, international diplomacy, drugs in our streets or bugs in our gardens. War becomes the default setting for all of our responses. War becomes the measure of manhood and the definer of strength. War constrains our imaginations and limits our intelligence.

A chemical farmer sees a bug in his field, and declares war. Out come the poisons and the sprays, the herbicides and the neurotoxins, dangerous and costly.. Kill the enemy! The result--poison on the vegetables, beneficial insects die, some pests always survive, making the problem worse.

An organic farmer sees a pest, and says, "Hmmn, here's an interesting piece of information. Something in the system is out of balance. Perhaps some mineral is lacking in the soil, that's weakening the plants. What can I do to shift the balance, to create conditions that will favor the beneficial bugs that will keep the pests in check?" Result--increased fertility, clean and nutritious vegetables, bright flowers growing among the fields, reduced damage to crops and increased health for farmworkers and consumers.

Our policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan, for decades, has been that of the chemical farmer--kill the enemy, and anything else that might happen to be in the vicinity, including civilians and potential allies, and when resistance develops, apply more of the same, regardless of cost. Then call it a 'just war'.

Imagine what our policy might be if, instead, we were guided by the maxim of the clever politician Harry Seldon from Isaac Asimov's classic science fiction novel, Foundation. "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent."

We might develop a policy more like that of the organic farmer--looking for the underlying forces that create the imbalance, that favor the development of terrorism and anti-U.S. sentiments. We might look for ways to support and favor the elements within Afghani or Iraqi or Iranian society that make for health, resilience, and liberty instead of employing the force that creates a perfect habitat for resentment, hatred, repression and terror. We might have supported and protected our Kurdish and Shiite allies after the first Gulf War instead of abandoning and betraying them. We might support the women's organizations in Afghanistan who, even under the Taliban, struggled heroically for women's rights. We might look at the model of Otpor, a student group who successfully overthrew the dictator Miloscevic using nonviolent resistance--with some strategic help and funding from outside. We might support the nonviolent resistance among the Palestinians, pressure the Israelis to lift the stranglehold siege on Gaza, to restrain their use of disproportionate force and to recognize that their true security can only be gained when Palestinians also have peace, security, and a just recognition of their human rights.

I'm deeply disappointed in Obama, because he is intelligent enough to forge such a policy. However, he operates in a country still controlled by a deep assumption--that strength equals force and violence, that a man who is reluctant to use force is less than a man, that a nation who refrains from wholesale slaughter is 'weak'. I can't help but think that his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan has less to do with the 'justness' of the conflict and more to do with the politics back home--an attempt to placate his right wing detractors and to look strong in their eyes.

In my futuristic novel, "The Fifth Sacred Thing," my character Maya says, "For five thousand years, men have been goading each other into acts of brutality and stupidity by calling each other cowards."

Until we confront that assumption, until we challenge our 'real men' and real women to embody a different sort of strength--the strength that nurtures, that heals, that uses intelligence and thoughtfulness and diplomacy to solve problems instead of brute force, until the thought of violence becomes abhorrent to us all, we will have no clear yardstick by which to measure any sort of justice.

I'll disagree only to the extent that I don't think it's the concept of "just war" that is the root of the problem. I think, as Starhawk's discussion of farming intimates, that the real root of the problem is the notion of duality -- the idea that there's nature and then there's us and we can war against some part of nature (say, a bug that eats our crops or a group of people who bother us, possess "our oil, live on "our" land) without warring against ourselves. Once you buy into the notion that we are separate from nature (and, thus, each other), then you need the concept of a "just war" to "justify" what you do, not only to plants, animals, and planets, but also to other humans. And that notion of duality, of "us" and "them," with "us" better than and, thus, "in charge of" "them" is bound up deeply in patriarchy, in the notion that men are better than and, thus, in charge of women.

Starhawk's right: Men have been goading other men into violence for thousands of years. Men, even intelligent men like Obama, would rather kill thousands of other humans (and we won't even mention war's impact on animals, plants, the Earth) than be called a coward. And women raised in this culture often agree. We need a new way to raise children that helps them to see themselves as a part of a beautiful web, not as separate from, and therefore "justified" in wreaking havoc upon nature, including other people. It's one reason that I try pretty hard to get G/Son out in nature, to help him to see the wonder of it, to get him to care for it. I don't kid myself that a few trips to the Nature Center completely counter a world that fills his head with Batman beating up bad guys (just war) or that had him convinced at age two that girls aren't fire fighters. But I will undermine the patriarchy every chance that I get. And I get a lot of chances.

May it be so for you.

PS: If you haven't read The Fifth Sacred Thing, you owe it to yourself to do so, right now. One of my all-time favorite novels.

Picture found here.

Woman Murdered In London For Being A "Witch"

The increased murder of women because they are seen as witches isn't confined to Africa and Asia.

A divorced father of three from north London stabbed his mother 21 times after becoming convinced she was a witch and had put a curse on him, a court has heard.

Kayode Kuye tortured and killed Christina Kuye, 69, because he believed she had ruined his life with a black magic spell, the Old Bailey was told.

I'm planning to do some personal magic at Yule to protect women from this madness. Will you join me?

My New Name For A Blog

What Susie Said.

I'll just add, though: don't think for a minute that the catholics wouldn't love to execute and jail women who have abortions. They just understand that, for now, that's unacceptable to most Americans. They'll get their camel's nose under the tent by first criminalizing abortion and then, once it's illegal, they'll begin to advocate for "stronger measures to ensure complete compliance." These men have never had a problem burning women at the stake.

"Your Excellency" my round, sweet ass.

Over And Over And Over And Over Again

It's odd, isn't it, how it's so seldom that men need to be paraded naked around a field?

Five women, including three widows, were forcibly brought to a field Sunday in Patharghatia village in Deoghar, about 350 km from state capital Ranchi. They were stripped and paraded naked and two of them were forced to eat excreta, police said.

"Sushila Kumahrin, Sagiran Beebi, Hafijan Beebi, Sujan Beebi and Gulnar Beebi were tortured to accept that they were witches and practise black magic. The incident took place at the instruction of a witch doctor. The witch doctor said that these women were practising black magic and were causing problems in the village," a police officer said.

. . .

In Jharkhand, women are subjected to different forms of torture after being branded witches. There are instances when women have been paraded naked, forced to eat human excreta and even killed.

According to official data, more than 700 people, majority of them women, were killed after being branded witches. The witch doctors manage to escape as people fear black magic if they are named. Yet they don't fear stripping and torturing women accused of practising black magic. That's odd, isn't it? It's almost as if there were some other explanation for what's going on.

Picture found here.