Air

Fire

A Word To Those Who Oppose The War

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few.

~Shelley

Christianist Attacks on Democratic Pagans

Jason, at the Wild Hunt, has a disturbing story of a Pagan politician being singled-out for harassment and intimidation by a group of Christianists.

Rita Moran is the Chair of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee in Maine. She runs a local bookstore, Apple Valley Books, that sells Pagan books, including books related to Pagan parenting, a popular topic among Pagans, most of whom converted to Paganism as adults and are now having families that they want to raise in their religion. Moran is also a member of the Immanent Grove, a gnostic circle.

A group that goes by what I consider to be the unAmerican name The Christian Civic League has put up a web page with information about Moran's political postition and her religious beliefs, including the terrifying fact that she sells books for Pagan parents. The Christian Civic League helpfully provides lots of contact informaton, including Moran's address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. We all know the purpose of that.

Moran reports that: My primary concerns are financial. When this happened, I "zeroed out" the donation total on our county Dems website (http://www.kennebecdems.org). There has not been a single donation since I've been "outed". I'm even more concerned about the loss of business here at our bookshop as Michael Hein's attack turns to even more vicious rumors. I guess what I'd ask from the community is whatever support they can offer. Tranquil energy, book orders, donations to our county committee if you wish to recognize that aspect of my community service. Thanks all..."

I don't have much to add to what Jason said in his post. I just think this story needs to get out. This is an attack not only on Pagans, but on Democrats, as well. It's also, as Jason notes, part of a deliberate campaign to make it impossible to hold office in America if you don't belong to one of the two main Abrahamic cults. Fuck that shit.

Send the Kennebeck Dems some love.

The Shock Of Communion

As a scholar of Caribbean literature writes, again of the Vodou rites: "This experience of election [possession trance], its shock of communion, is not evidence of psychic disruption, or proof of pathology, but rather a result of the most intense discipline and study. Not everyone can be possessed, for not everyone can know how to respond to the demands and expectations of her god." So the ecstatic rites of these diaspora religions were not mad orgies, as whites often perceived them, but deliberately nurtured techniques of ecstasy, derived from ancient traditions.

~From Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy by Barbra Ehrenreich.

January 20, 2009 May Be Too Late

From today's EEI newsletter:

Climate Change Forging Unusual Unity in European Community

American Prospect Co-Editor Robert Kuttner, in an op-ed published by the Boston Globe, said the normally fractious politics of the European Union have turned into cooperation on the issue of climate change: "European governments have invested heavily in alternative energy technologies, and induced utilities to rely increasingly on renewable sources. This not only cuts greenhouse emissions, but produces a market for new technologies, making such nations as Spain and Germany export leaders in advanced windmills and solar panels."

The European focus on climate change has sharpened this decade for four key reasons, Kuttner noted: The Stern report on the financial costs of climate change; "the failure of French and Dutch voters in 2005 to ratify the proposed new EU constitution (which) left Europe's leaders struggling to find a common project to restore momentum and unity, and they found that in climate change; the assumption of the rotating EU presidency this year by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a former minister of environment; and the Bush administration's earlier unwillingness to accept climate change science, "where Europe has earned the right to lead and to relish its leadership."
Boston Globe, op-ed , June 25.

Thanks to the Bush junta's hatred of science, Spain and Germany have jumped ahead of us as producers of windmills and solar panels and Europe has seized the lead on issues of global climate change. America has been harmed in so many ways by this junta. We need to get rid of them now.

Everywhere

Plato's Ghost Can Bite Me

What Then?

His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed with toil;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

Everything he wrote was read,
After certain years he won
Sufficient money for his need,
Friends that have been friends indeed;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

All his happier dreams came true -
A small old house, wife, daughter, son,
Grounds where plum and cabbage grew,
Poets and Wits about him drew;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

`The work is done,' grown old he thought,
`According to my boyish plan;
Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught,
Something to perfection brought';
But louder sang that ghost, `What then?'

~Yeats

My New Name For A Blog

What Jane said.

If you’ve got a blog, no matter how small, please put up a link. It actually takes a ridiculously small number of books (relative to total sales) to push a book to #1 on Amazon and that plays a big part in his ability to get on the NYT best seller list and gain wider notice and recognition for the tremendous amount of work he did to put this book together.

Glenn shows up every day for us. Let’s show up for Glenn

Goddess knows, I've got a small blog and that's ok with me. I'm always going to be a boutique, more appealing to a small crowd of interesting people than to a larger crowd. But if you like what you read here, please go buy Greenwald's book. He completely rocks.

It's what a patriot would do.

Earth

And everyday, you walk around on top of it. And when you ground, this is where you sink your roots into. And, sometimes, if you're like me, you forget just how magical it really is.

Go

But Also Because We Are A Rich Country

From Today's EEI Newsletter:

Zero Emissions, Carbon Capture Highlight Norwegian Planning

Norway plans to be the first "zero-emission" nation by 2050, E&E News PM reported. In announcing a goal of reducing GHGs by 10 percent within five years and 30 percent by 2020, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said: "Norway has a particular responsibility regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in part because we have been producing hydrocarbons, that is to say fossil fuels, for a number of years, but also because we are a rich country."

Elements of the plan include a ban on oil-burning stoves; increasing the use of biofuel by 7 percent by 2010; a quota system for the transport industry, subsidies for green energy providers, reforestation, tolls for city drivers, and a ban on throwing away recyclable goods. Agence France Presse quoted Norges Natur og Ungdom environmentalist Lars Haltbrekken as saying: "In the best case scenario, we will have in 2020 the same greenhouse gas emissions we have today. In the worst, we will be emitting more in 2020."

Greenwire reported that Norway will test carbon-capture technology in 2008 at a refinery in Mongstad, Norway. Statoil will use chilled ammonia to capture as much as 80,000 tons of CO2 each year from flue gases or from a new combined-cycle plant under construction nearby. Alstom Power Systems designed the CO2-capture technology, Greenwire reported, quoting President Philippe Joubert as saying the project "represents our mutual commitment to both the [chilled ammonia] technology and society at large."
E&E News PM ; Greenwire , June 22.

Kind Of Says It All

From today's NYT:

Church leaders say they are frustrated by Catholic politicians like Rudolph W. Giuliani who say they oppose abortion but do not want to impose their beliefs.

Here's a clue, fucktards. This is not Tenth Century Europe. This is Twenty-First Century America and you don't get to impose your evil, woman-hating ways on the rest of us. Now go bugger an altar boy.

*************************


And for the sake of my blood pressure, we'll just ignore the article's opening line: At first glance, Rudolph W. Giuliani should be an appealing presidential candidate for observant Roman Catholics. Sure, sure, other than, you know, having been twice-divorced and having lived openly in sin with several of his mistresses. Other than that. And his condoning a war that even Ratzi the Natzi says is immoral. Other than that, he's the best Catholic candidate EVER.

Air

Water

Fire

A Matter Of State

Ken MacLeod explains the flaw in Tony Blair's plans for post-prime-ministerhood. Ken's theory might make sense, if the antichrist weren't already alive and well at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And, I think Neil Gaiman already wrote this book.

Gardening In Urban Spaces

Good Magazine has two related articles concerning gardening as a subversive activity. The first, Horticulture Jamming discusses how Cadres of illicit horticulturists, equipped with hoes and shovels, have been venturing into the [London] night to plant guerrilla gardens -- carefully landscaped areas in the small open spaces that cities build to beautify the landscape but then so often leave fallow. The movement, cultivated [cute, heh?] online by 30-year-old Richard Reynolds, . . . has spread throughout the United Kingdom . . . . Missions require reconnaissance, strategy, and stealthy gardening, and each successful planting strikes a blow for a more refined metropolital aesthetic.

The second article, Parlor Park explains that Verde Coalition, a Los Angeles non-profit turns grim scraps of public land -- like bus stops, traffic meridians, or dangerous street corners -- into welcoming public spaces. In Los Angeles, where many low-income communities enjoy almost no park space, a new "living room" cheaply and quickly creates a mini-sanctuary from the fast-paced and sometimes ugly reality of the city. The article describes how the addition of a few benches and flowers to an empty lot induced locals to hang out there, making the drug-users and prostitutes who had been using the space look for other locations.

I'd love to do some guerrilla gardening within the context of a ritual, maybe charging the plants and other objects before doing the actual planting so that they could release peace, healing, pleasure to the surrounding area. Perinnial herbs would be great, as they'd come back year after year, will grow even when neglected, and often provide food for bees and butterflies.

Treason Is A High Crime. Impeach Bush Now.

Two months before the Iraq war began, President Bush received detailed and comprehensive secret reports warning him that the likely result of an American-led invasion of Iraq would be increased support for Islamic fundamentalism, deep divisions in Iraqi society, high levels of violent internal conflict, and guerrilla warfare aimed at U.S. forces.

Yet in spite of those analyses, President Bush chose to supress those warnings and conceal that information, and instead he went right on conveying to the American people the absurdly Pollyannaish view of highly questionable and obviously biased sources like Ahmed Chalabi, a convicted felon and known swindler.

~from The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

Worse, he went ahead with his vanity war, which had no justification other than Rove's desire to make Bush a "war president." If there was ever a clearer case for impeachment, I'm unaware of it.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Some of Akhmatova's best-loved poetry was inspired by her experience of standing in line with other women outside a Soviet prison, waiting to see a loved one -- in Akhmatova's case, her son.

Epilogue

II

Remembrance hour returns with the turning year.
I see, I hear, I touch you drawing near:

the one we tried to help to the sentry's booth,
and who no longer walks this precious earth,

and that one who would toss her pretty main
and say, "It's just like coming home again."

I want to name the names of all that host,
but they snatched up the list, and now it's lost.

I've woven them a garment that's prepared
out of poor words, those that I overhead,

and will hold fast to every word and glance
all of my days, even in new mischance,

and if a gag should bind my tortured mouth,
through which a hundred million people shout,

then let them pray for me, as I do pray
for them, this eve of my remembrance day.

And if my country ever should assent
to casting in my name a monument,

I should be proud to have my memory graced,
but only if the monument be placed

not near the sea on which my eyes first opened --
my last link with the sea has long been broken --

nor in the Tsar's garden near the sacred stump,
where a grieved shadow hunts my body's warmth,

But here, where I endured three hundred hours
in line before the implacable iron bars.

Because even in blissful death I fear
to lose the clangor of the Black Marias,

to lose the banging of that odious gate
and the old crone howling like a wounded beast.

And from my motionless bronze-lidded sockets
may the melting snow, like teardrops, slowly trickle,

and a prison dove coo somewhere, over and over,
as the ships sail softly down the flowing Neva.

~March 1940

The photo above shows relative lined up outside abu Ghraib. One wonders how many women stand in line outside prisons in Iraq and one wonders how many would stand outside Guantanamo, were it not impossible to do so. Akhmatova speak as eloquently for them as she did for the Black Marias and the howling old crone. Send Amnesty International a few dollars in her memory. Say a prayer for political prisoners everywhere.