My Favorite Summer Fruit As A Verb

Sylvia Plath:

Blackberrying

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks ---
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

Only The Crazy Sweetness In The Head

Listen.

If Not You, Who? If Not Now, When?

Ava Lowery is a teenager. She's written a video letter begging Americans to get up off their asses and stop George Bush before he ruins our country even more than he has already done. The one part of her letter that I disagree with is the part where she says that protestors are getting arrested for expressing their views. The pity, Ava, you brave maiden, is that too few of us are getting arrested for protesting this coup. We owe you better. We owe all of our children and grandchildren better. We need to be out in the streets.

Young Feminists Writing Interesting Stuff

The Mad Melancholic Feminista had a post up that does as good a job as I've ever seen of explaining how intelligent conservatives can vote for Bush.

The problem with the analogy is that Bush isn't simply insisting that everyone wear clothing made from hemp. He's killing people, destroying the planet, impoverishing whole populations, and raping the treasury. Shit, I'd hate to give up my collection of silk Hermes scarves for hemp, but it wouldn't violate too many of my deeply-held principles. But promoting torture and empowering theocrats is simply not in the same league, even if the man does give you a nice tax cut and that's what you think America is all about.

Still, MMF does some of the most interesting writing, week after week, on the web.

Run For The Hills! Powerful Women!

is it just me or, in recent weeks, has the NYT been publishing an amazing amount of ignorant, sexist blather? First it was girls keeping boys out of college. Then it was a paen to the word "slut" and the way that it used to keep women in line. Then it was the fault of the women's movement that there are (suddenly! this is a totally new phenomenon!) some men who don't care too much for work. Today, it's the picky women refusing to marry nice men without college degrees. And, of course, it's Hillary Clinton.

I'm probably going to wear out my keyboard typing this between now and the '08 election, but I am sick and fucking tired of Hillary Clinton getting bashed for the very things that, in a man, would be praised as skillful statesmanship. So the same media that keeps telling us that Dems will die unless they hew a patch down the center, manages, without even blushing, to assert that Hillary Clinton's centrist politics will, they're not sure how, but they're sure SOMEHOW, be a huge detriment to her political ambitions.

That's not the worst of it though. WTF is this all about: As a woman, she could be subjected to especially intensive scrutiny of her suitability as commander in chief, making her position on the war central to her 2008 prospects. Why, NYT? Why? What is it about being a woman that will subject her to "especially intensive scrutiny of her suitability as commander in chief? Tell me why a woman can't be commander in chief? Women have led armies and navies from Boedica to Joan of Arc to Elizabeth I to Margaret Thatcher. When they're not hinting sotto voce that being a woman will make Clinton either too scared to use the army or will have her pushing the nuclear button on days when she's having hot flashes, the media is busy criticizing Hillary for being a ballbuster, a tough cookie, a steely-nerved dame. Talk about heads she wins and tails she loses. If you don't have a penis, ANY excuse is a good one to beat you with, regardless of how consistent or inconsistent it may be with the other excuses they beat you with. After all, you're a girl. You can't play.

If you're going to make sexist assertions, back them up or at least admit that they're sexist. Would a black candidate be subject to especially intensive scrutiny of his or her suitability to do anything? Were there components of the job that being a male subjected George Bush to especially intensive scrutiny over? Just stating this kind of bullshit as if it's completely understandable common wisdom gives it power. It's total bullshit. Shame on the NYT.

Up Is Down, Hot Is Cold, Slavery Is Freedom, And Other Lies The Media Tells

Jamison Foser, writing for Media Matters has up another of his well-reasoned, carefully-documented posts about the false stories that the media tells about progressives and liberals. The whole thing is very good and worth a read, but the following made me yell, "Yes!", thereby scaring Miss Thing.

Why, then, would the Post portray a move by Democrats "to the left" as having dire consequences? Putting aside the Lieberman/Lamont race, polling seems to suggest that Democrats in general might face far more disastrous consequences if they were to move to the right. Indeed, we should be seeing media speculation about whether Republicans will move towards the center or whether they will maintain their out-of-the-mainstream positions, "consequences be damned." Whether Republicans will move towards the center -- and, thus, against the Iraq war -- or maintain their extremist positions.

A Priestess Of The Great Mother Earth

This past Wednesday was a pretty incredible day for me. I won a really big case that I've been working on for the past five years and the amazing Atrios linked to a post of mine. We all need days like that once in a while!

As a result of Atrios' link, several other folks linked to my post as well, which I also appreciated. (There's some irony here -- I can blog day in and day out about the dangers of global climate change, overpopulation, the fact that America has been taken over by a coup; I can post transcendent poetry or write long, link-seeded posts about sacred spaces in the modern world; I can rail against sexism -- and I wonder if anyone even reads what I write, but post a silly picture of Darth Vader and, blam!, my hits go through the roof!, but, hey, I'm happy for the hits however they happen!)

One of the people who linked to me was a nice, young man named Jake who lives in my wonderful city of Washington, D. C. Jake says that he's obnoxious, but it's difficult for me to imagine how anyone who loves Toni Morrison could really be obnoxious. He posts interesting, well-reasoned discussions of important and varied topics, and I agree with him on most of the topics he's got up on his blog. And, he clearly has a sense of humor, or he wouldn't be linking to silly pictures of Darth Vader!

Next to the Pastel Vader, Jake wrote: "Credit to this lady, who is a *sigh* 'witch' and 'priestess of the Great Mother Earth' apparently. Oh well. " Now Jake was, sans the sigh and the "Oh well," quoting from my profile, which, along with his link to my blog, was a nice thing for him to do. But his comments on the silly picture got me to thinking.

Just the day before he sighed about the fact that I'm a witch, Jake posted on the Mel Gibson drunken anti-Semite fiasco and he made a very good point. Jake said, "If your inclination is to downplay the severity of what he said, try imagining that he said 'niggers' instead of 'Jews,' then ask yourself why what he actually said is any less despicable."

What happens if we apply that same sort of imaginary exercise to Jake's comments about my religion? I doubt that Jake, or anyone else to the sane side of despicable whackjobs like Mel Gibson would ever link to a post by a Jew and say: "Credit to this lady who is a *sigh* 'Jew' and a 'rabbi at Beth Israel,' apparently. Oh well." Nor can I imagine anyone linking to a post by a Catholic and saying: "Credit to this gentleman who is a *sigh* 'Catholic' and a 'priest' with the 'Jesuits,' apparently. Oh well." We can keep going. Who would link to a post by a Buddhist nun and say: "Credit to this lady who is a *sigh* 'Buddhist' and a 'Buddhist nun,' apparently. Oh well"? Or: "Credit to this gentleman who is a *sigh* 'Methodist' and a 'pastor at the Church of the Holy Cross,' apparently. Oh well"? Enlightened, polite people don't disparage other people's religion that way, any more than they use the word "nigger" -- regardless of how much tequila they may have consumed. (I'm not talking here about criticizing specific actions that members of various religions take. When the Southern Baptists tell their members not to waste time cleaning up the environment, when evangelicals try to impose "Intelligent Design" on the rest of us, or when the Taliban makes it illegal for women to work, I'm more than happy to criticize them for those actions. In the immediately preceeding post, I rail at the xians for their historic and continuing attacks on science.)

Yet, Jake's comments about my religion -- meant to be mildly disparaging and to indicate that I'm sort of an embarrassment to the liberal blogsphere -- aren't really any different than those often used when writing about Wicca. I had occasion not too long ago to note that in an otherwise respectful obituary for a prominent local Wiccan, WaPo described her as a "self-proclaimed" witch -- but I've never seen an obit for a "self-proclaimed Catholic" or a "self-proclaimed Jew." And the mild disparagement, the rolled-eyes, the quotation marks, and the voice laden with irony would be problematic, even if they didn't have real-world consequences. But they do.

They translate into the Veterans Administration dragging its feet for 9 years on requests to approve the Pentacle for the gravestones of fallen Wiccan soldiers, even though they've approved symbols for everything from an atom for atheists to the Angel Moroni for Mormons to a symbol that I am not sure how to describe for a faith I've never heard of: Soka Gakkai International - USA. They won't deny it outright, anymore than a polite young man like Jake will actually call me a crackpot or a devil-worshipper, but they sure as hell have no intention of giving Wiccan soldiers the same respect that they give to Catholics, Jews, Moslems, atheists, and members of the Church of World Messianity (Izunome).

They translate into Wiccans staying in the broom closet at work for fear of not being taken seriously. They translate into parents afraid to teach their religion to their children for fear that they'll get teased or disciplined at school. And they translate, at some level, into a disrespect for the concepts that Wiccans hold dear -- the sacredness and imminence of Earth, the value and divinity of the Sacred Feminine, and the holiness of sex.

When I ask myself why Wiccans are subject to the "quotation marks" and eye-rolls that polite people like Jake would never apply to a Moslem worker fasting through Ramadan or to a Jewish attorney who speaks up at a prehearing conference and notes that she won't be able to attend a trial set for Yom Kippur, I think it has to do with the feminist nature of Wicca.

Wicca, especially modern American Wicca, has male adherents but it is overwhelmingly a religion composed of women members and is overwhelmingly a religion that -- as a religious belief -- values women and their bodies. For most Wiccans, to honor a woman, to honor the processes of her body (all of them, from birth, to maidenhood, to meses, to sex, to menopause, to death, to decomposition) is THE SAME (just as for a Catholic, eating the bread and drinking the wine at Mass is THE SAME as partaking of the body and blood of Jesus) as honoring the Earth, which is, for us, honoring Divinity. In a reversal of the situation in most religions, most of our "clergy" are women -- priestesses -- rather than men -- priests. And, unlike most, but not all, of today's major religions, Wiccans specifically worship Goddesses. They conceive of divinity as feminine (sometimes, Dianics, for example, exclusively feminine and sometimes, Gardnerians, for example, feminine along with masculine).

And women, and what they do, and the matters with which they concern themselves, have always been subjects of condescension in our society. It helps men to feel superior and -- more importantly from the patriarchy's point of view -- makes women feel inferior, silly, scared to speak up, embarrassed to tell their truths.

The notion of real witches -- of women who claim to exercise power, who aren't afraid to go into the dark and do what they do outside of established churches and society --that notion would, if taken seriously, be threatening to people (both men and women) living securely within the patriarchy. So it's safer, psychologically, to roll your eyes, make fun, and insist that any woman who calls herself a witch is some gentle, lonely old crackpot, rather than a Priestess of the Great Mother Earth and all the chthonic power that implies. The process of disempowering such women in the public's mind is not a new process. There's a reason that powerful Pagan women were first depicted as "temple prostitutes," and then consorts of the devil who were tortured and burned, and then into the ugly old woman who hates beautiful young women and must be killed by a prince, and then into a green-skinned harpy who could be dispensed with by a bucket of water, and then into a "self-proclaimed witch" or a "*sigh* witch."

So, tonight, I'm going to cast a circle and create sacred space, going between the worlds and reminding myself that what happens between the worlds affects all the worlds. I'm going to call the quarters and Hecate and ground myself to do magic. I'm going to light incense and I'm going to raise energy. I'm going to direct that energy into our world and visualize it undermining the patriarchy, bit by bit, creating a world where a woman can be "a witch, a mother, a grandmother, an eco-feminist, a lawyer, a gardener, a reader, a writer, and a priestess of the Great Mother Earth," and where she'll no more be disparaged for being a witch than for being a mother, where being a Priestess of the Great Mother Earth will be as worthy of respect as being a lawyer or a gardener or a writer or . . . . Well, you get the idea. And, I'm going to call for blessings for Jake, who I think is, far from being obnoxious, a smart, funny guy who writes well and who would no more consciously ridicule my religion than he would rail against "the Jews" or call anyone a "nigger."

So mote it be.

Archimedes

The Associated Press is reporting that: Previously hidden writings of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being uncovered with powerful X-ray beams nearly 800 years after a Christian monk scrubbed off the text and wrote over it with prayers.

Over the past week, researchers at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park have been using X-rays to decipher a fragile 10th century manuscript that contains the only copies of some of Archimedes' most important works.

. . .

"We are gaining new insights into one of the founding fathers of western science," said William Noel, curator of manuscripts at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, which organized the effort. "It is the most difficult imaging challenge on any medieval document because the book is in such terrible condition."

. . .

On Friday, members of the public watched the decoding process via a live Web cast arranged by the San Francisco Exploratorium.

"We are focusing on the most difficult pages where the scholars haven't been able to read the texts," said Uwe Bergmann, the Stanford physicist heading the project.

Born in the 3rd century B.C., Archimedes is considered one of ancient Greece's greatest mathematicians, perhaps best known for discovering the principle of buoyancy while taking a bath.

The 174-page manuscript, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, contains the only copies of treatises on flotation, gravity and mathematics. Scholars believe a scribe copied them onto the goatskin parchment from the original Greek scrolls.

Three centuries later, a monk scrubbed off the Archimedes text and used the parchment to write prayers at a time when the Greek mathematician's work was less appreciated. In the early 20th century, forgers tried to boost the manuscript's value by painting religious imagery on some of the pages.
. . .

"We will never recover all of it," Noel said. "We are just getting as much as we can, and we are going to the ends of the earth to get it."

Nice job xians. It's been you against science and history for as long as you've been around.

More info here:

Archimedes Palimpsest

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

She Was Asking For It

Someone please get this asshole off the air.

Oh, Watertiger?

Ha, ha! Watertiger imagines that she can top my Cute Darth Vader post! I, however, am not to be outdone! Is this, or is this not an interesting combination of creepy and cute?

Two Atoms of Hydrogen And One Atom Of Oxygen

Environmental News Network has a good roundup of global conflicts related to water. For example: Sri Lankan jets pounded Tamil Tiger positions on Tuesday in a battle to regain control of a rebel-held water source for about 50,000 people.

Here are . . . flashpoints for potential "water wars" some experts say are looming:

INDIA AND PAKISTAN

- The six rivers of the Indus basin flow from Tibet into India and Pakistan via Kashmir's disputed mountains and valleys.

- Recent disputes over new projects have seen Pakistan accuse India of violating the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, which gave India control over three eastern rivers, the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, and Pakistan the three western flows, the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

- June 2006 saw fresh talks about the Wullar Barrage, a navigation lock India wants to build on the Jhelum. Pakistan says the dam will let India control waterflow into the Jhelum. India says it needs it to aid river transport.

- The dispute, one of eight issues in the Composite Dialogue Process, has seen 10 rounds of talks since 1988.

And: EYGPT, SUDAN AND ETHIOPIA:

- The Nile, the world's longest river, is the main source of water for nine countries in the Nile basin: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo.

- Eygpt and Sudan's 1929 Nile Waters Agreement, which divided up water use, is now being challenged.

- Ethiopia, where some 80 percent of the Nile's waters originate, said last year that it wants to take more water. It accuses Egypt of blocking overseas aid for irrigation projects. Egypt says calls for change amount to a "declaration of war".

- In July 2006 a Nile Water steering committee met to discuss Ugandan and Tanzanian plans to use Nile waters in massive hydro-electric power stations and irrigation projects.

Let's not engage in hyperbole; these aren't yet "water wars," even if Egypt is calling Ethopia's demand for more water from the Nile a "declaration of war." No, it's not war yet. But water wars are coming, as sure as we're sitting here. There are too many people and far too little potable water on this small planet. What we're already seeing to some extent, and will see more of before we see actual water wars are water refugees. Which will cause the water wars.

Summer Days, Drifting Away, But, Oh! Those Summer Nights!

Environmental News Network reports that:

America in recent years has been sweltering through three times more than its normal share of extra-hot summer nights, government weather records show. And that is a particularly dangerous trend.

During heat waves, like the one that now has a grip on much of the East, one of the major causes of heat deaths is the lack of night cooling that would normally allow a stressed body to recover, scientists say.

Some scientists say the trend is a sign of manmade global warming.

A top federal research meteorologist said he "almost fell out of my chair" when he looked over U.S. night minimum temperature records over the past 96 years and saw the skyrocketing trend of hot summer nights.

From 2001 to 2005, on average nearly 30 percent of the nation had "much above normal" average summertime minimum temperatures, according to the National Climatic Data in Asheville, N.C.

By definition, "much above normal" means low temperatures that are in the highest 10 percent on record. On any given year about 10 percent of the country should have "much above normal" summer-night lows.

Yet in both 2005 and 2003, 36 percent of the nation had much above normal summer minimums. In 2002 it was 37 percent. While the highest-ever figure was in the middle of America's brutal Dust Bowl, when 41 percent of the nation had much above normal summer-night temperatures, the rolling five-year average of 2001-05 is a record - by far.

Figures from this year's sweltering summer have not been tabulated yet, but they are expected to be just as high as recent years.

And it is not just the last five years. Each of the past eight years has been far above the normal 10 percent. During the past decade, 23 percent of the nation has had hot summer nights. During the past 15 years, that average has been 20 percent. By comparison, from 1964 to 1968 only 2 percent of the country on average had abnormally hot nights.

"This is unbelievable," said National Climatic Data Center research meteorologist Richard Heim. "Something strange has happened in the last 10 to 15 years on the minimums."

Yet, as today's WaPo noted that: OVER THE PAST two weeks, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has held a pair of truly senseless hearings on global climate change. The purpose was not to figure out how to cut carbon emissions. It wasn't even to discuss the science of global climate change in general. Instead, the purpose was to pick at a single study of global temperature patterns, the so-called "hockey stick" graph -- a trend line that purports to show a sudden and dramatic increase in global temperatures in the 1990s and therefore looks like a hockey stick. The graph is hardly central to the modern debate over climate change. Yet the subcommittee has investigated the scientists who dared produce it and hounded them for information. Now that a study of the graph by the National Academy of Sciences has largely backed up the hockey stick findings, the committee has been holding hearings to attack it some more..

That's what happens when you vote for Republicans. That what happens when Diebold steals elections and we don't riot in the streets. That's what happens when the corporatists take over America. (And, just in case you harbor some small amount of doubt as to whether or not that's happened, go read this.)

Peace. What A Lovely Idea.

What the PoetryMan says.

Women And Art:The Guerrilla Girls Were Right

My friend Nancy, aka the witch most able to make a cab materialize when you need one, gave me Women and Art: Contested Territory for Lughnasadha. She bought it at the newly-renovated National Portrait Gallery, which I'm itching to go see. The book is written by Judy Chicago and Edward-Lucie Smith. It's reminding me how much I love Judy Chicago. Some choice excerpts:

Women are a colonized people. Our history, values and . . . culture(s) have been taken from us . . . manifest most arrestingly in the seizure of a basic and most precious"land", our own bodies. ~ Robin Morgan, 1992

If men had babies, there would be thousands of images of the crowning. ~ Judy Chicago, 1992

The reconceptualization of the female body from a symbol of sexual and spiritual power to an object under the control of men . . . graduallly led women themselves to image their bodies from a male perspective. ~ Riane Eisler, 1995

When Does It Stop Being News And Start Being Just The Way Things Are?

WaPo reports on the heat wave, caused by global climate change, that's hovered over DC today. Before you even read the article, you know what it will say: record heat, record electric load, blackouts throughout the area, people dying. Ho hum. James Brotherton, aka the world's dumbest meterologist, says: "It would be very unusual to see another heat wave of this scope," he said. "I wouldn't expect to see anything like this again this year."

James, James, James. Get used to it. Unusual is the new usual.

Mr. Boortz Is Cordially Invited To Bite My Ass.

MM has the dirt on this slimeball. What a fucking elitist creep. You know what kept me from working for the minimum wage all through college while I was a single parent supporting an infant son? A union. Boortz: FOAD.

PS Boortz is wrong that most people earning minimum wage are teenagers. Anybody know what percentage are women?

Speaking Truth To Evil

Senator Clinton Makes Rumsfeld Squirm at Iraq Hearing

Now, now, now, little lady. Don't trouble your pretty little head about this. The generals and the president made this decision. Who are you going to believe, SugarTits, us, or your lying eyes?

Thanks to CoT-Colbert's Apprentice at Eschaton for the tip

PS Hil was wrong to vote for this war, but she rocks calling out Rumsfeld, aka the personification of evil.

Explain To Me Again How We're Fighting To Protect Our Freedom

Good for Americans United for Separation of Church and State which is stepping up its support for Wiccans who want their religious symbol, the Pentacle, allowed on their military gravestones and memorial markers. AU's recent press release states:

The VA permits only the symbols they have approved and included on their National Cemetery Administration's list of emblems of belief to be used on headstones, plaques and markers. The symbols of 38 groups have been approved, but the Wiccan pentacle is not among them.

Backed by Americans United, Stewart and the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, are working to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the use of the pentacle on government-issued markers at public and private gravesites and memorials for Wiccan soldiers. Most recently, Fox filed a request with the VA in January of this year. Officials with the National Cemetery Admistration responded, but refused to tell Fox when they might complete action on Circle Sanctuary's application.

In June, Americans United sent a letter to VA officials, citing case law and asking them to approve use of the symbol. Observed the letter, "The National Cemetery Administration's failure to recognize the Wiccan Pentacle as a valid religious symbol constitutes unconstitutional discrimination against the Wiccan faith and its adherents. Indeed, there is absolutely no legal support for the Administration's practice of maintaining a list of officially-approved religious symbols much less its exclusion of any religious symbol from the officially provided markers for military gravesites."

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, noted that the first application for approval of the pentacle was filed by a Wiccan church nine years ago.

"There is simply no reason for officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs to continue dragging their feet over this matter," Lynn said. "Religious freedom means all religions, and it's time for the department to stop discriminating and institute a policy that respects America's great tradition of religious diversity."

Americans United plans to appeal to the Department of Veterans Affairs again as well as ask Congress to investigate the matter.

Crone Affinity Group

Deborah Oak makes me wish that I were at witchcamp.

Lunacy

I like this article from the NYT about getting energy "from the restless sea." I like to think of it as power from the "moon, the inconsistent moon, that changes monthly in its orb," with apologies to the Bard. The Moon, after all, is what powers the tides. Of course, it's good to make them monitor for impacts on fish, but this source of energy has a lot of potential to provide power without emitting greenhouse gases.