Hillary On SCOTUS

["W]hen I am president, I will treat the health and well being of women and our constitutional rights once again as true American values."

Read the whole thing:


The Court took a dramatic departure from decades of rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and [that] recognized the importance of women's health. Let's be clear: this allows the government to dictate to women what they can and cannot do about their own health.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed with this decision and warned, "This cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

When the Senate debated the nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court, I spoke out on the Senate floor about the danger they posed to our constitutional liberties, including the right to choose. I urged my colleagues to reject them, and I voted against both of them. Yesterday, unfortunately, we saw the consequences of failing to stop their confirmations.

The decade of work that the far right has done to chip away at our rights was paid off in this Supreme Court decision. They worked hard to gain the presidency and the Senate so they could shape a Supreme Court that rewarded them by putting a narrow ideology above our constitutional rights. In their ruling, the conservative majority even used right-wing code language, referring to obstetricians as "abortion doctors."

There's one way we can respond: redouble our efforts to win the White House and more seats in the House and Senate. We need a president who understands that the best way to protect women's health and reduce the number of abortions is to expand access to family planning -- not to threaten doctors and patients. We need a Congress that will say no to rolling back the rights of women.

And here is my promise to you: As a senator, I will do everything I can to make sure women can protect their health, and when I am president, I will treat the health and well being of women and our constitutional rights once again as true American values.

Now, more than ever, America needs a woman in the White House.

Yeah, What The NYT Said

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

He had no trouble remembering complaints from his bosses and Republican lawmakers about federal prosecutors who were not playing ball with the Republican Party’s efforts to drum up election fraud charges against Democratic politicians and Democratic voters. But he had no idea whether any of the 93 United States attorneys working for him — let alone the ones he fired — were doing a good job prosecuting real crimes.

He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik. Mr. Gonzales failed to create the most rudimentary standards for judging the prosecutors’ work, except for political fealty. And when it came time to explain his inept decision making to the public, he gave a false account that was instantly and repeatedly contradicted by sworn testimony.

This junta is full of lying, incompetent, assclowns. And these are the people who get to tell me what I can and can't do with my own body? I.Don't.Think.So.

I am at ur tablz, pwning both of u.

Hat tip to Holden from First Draft.

Wednesday Rumi Blogging

Some Kiss We Want - Rumi


There is some kiss we want with our whole lives,
the touch of spirit on the body.

Sea water begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language-door and open the love window.
The moon won't use the door, only the window.

Converting Living Mountains Into Beer Cans -- Not Bright.

Poetry Will Save Your Soul

Oddly, on this cold, late Spring week of the new moon near the end of Aries, Pagans all over the web are quoting Mary Oliver. My circle of women has an expression: "doesn't know that she's a witch" to describe women like my favorite poet.

Deborah Oak quotes Oliver:

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

while buying garden Gnome Chomskys.

Meanwhile, the Furious Spinner links to another of my favorite Oliver poems, one that got me through one of the most difficult times in my life:

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(West Wind)

I have been reciting this poem to myself, affirming my belief that Summer will come, corn will come, the unknowable will touch the buckle of my spine. So mote it be.

I'll add my own personal Oliver, which I've posted before, to this Pagan homage to Oliver on a difficult week:

When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox:

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

-- Mary Oliver

You can be young when Death comes for you, as were the students at Virginia Tech, and as are so many students in iraq. You can be old, as was Kurt Vonnegut the other week, It doesn't matter. What matters is whether you end up having simply visited this world or, whether, like Oliver, you spend your time as the bride, married to amazement; as the bridegroom, taking the world into your arms. Go take the world into your arms. It's lonely for you.

The Goddess Wept

Discussing the lives lost at Virginia Tech (so many fewer than are lost daily in Iraq), Robin notes that:

It's okay to weep; the Gods themselves wept, bitterly.

Robin reminds me of one of the things that I love about Pagan polytheism. Yes, the gods and goddesses did -- they did -- sometimes, weep bitterly. They longed sexually, they were angry, they were helpful, they were seekers of wisdom, they were lovers of longing. Meanwhile, they ordered the seas, hunted the groves, carried messages between the gods, made the Earth flourish.

Last night at the dark moon, my circle called to Diana, who pretty much decided that she'd just as soon stay in the forest hunting stags as mess around with men. Diana, who, once she knew what she wanted, simply went out and got it. She could be petty, if, for example, you happened to gaze upon her by mistake. But for our small group of women on a cold, windy, late Spring night mere blocks from the Capitol, she represented the ability to go out and get what it is that you want. I love Goddesses like that.

Our sweet sister Nancy led the ritual, her clearest and best since she was injured on the job a few years ago. It was lovely, and doubly-so because she led it and led it with such a sure hand. We huddled in E's warm living room, with incense, warm cups of tea, warm cats, Salem chocolates, and (the most important part) with each other.

I am a loner, like the Virginia Tech shooter, like Diana. But, like Diana, I have a group of women who hunt with me. I am more grateful to them than I can say. More in debt to them for their concentration, courage, presence than I can express. More able to be who I am because they share with me who they are.

I love these women.

How Can The Human Body Be Indecent?

Jim Morrison's widow tells America's wang to suck the big wazoo. Witches, her post reminds me, don't get mad. They get even.

Hat tip to Fielding Melish at Eschaton

Ya Think?

From today's EEI Newsletter:

Retired Officers Say Climate Change Now Matter of National Security

Eleven retired senior U.S. military officers said in a report that climate change endangers U.S. national security, Greenwire reported. CNA Corp. organized the study by the officers, who included Adm. T. Joseph Lopez (Ret.) and Gen. Anthony C. Zinni (Ret.).

The report recommended stepped-up U.S. efforts to reduce the effects of climate change and a change of direction in U.S. military policy to include realizing that "climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame. Economic and environmental conditions in already fragile areas will further erode as food production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and large populations move in search of resources." All of these related effects, the officers noted, have the potential to destabilize governments worldwide.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., have introduced legislation (S. 1018) that "would require the daily National Intelligence Estimate to assess the security risks from climate change," the newsletter noted.
Los Angeles Times , April 17; Greenwire , April 16.

The Bullshit Isn't Working Anymore, But, By Now, They're Addicted To It

This is perhaps too obvious to be worth blogging about, but a significant factor in both the rise and the currently-occurring fall of the American rightwing has been the fax machine.

Conservatives tacitly agreed a few years back to all use carefully-scripted talking points, often faxed to them by Grover Norquist or Karl Rove. John Stewart illustrated the result in his famous video-quilt of one conservative talking head after another calling John Kerry the "most liberal Senator ever" over the course of a few days and a raft of tv shows during the 2004 presidential campaign. The strategy has been successful, with a compliant media almost always picking up the talking point, using the conservative catch-phrase, and suddenly finding an "issue" that only really existed in Norquist's twisted little mind. The Democrats never seemed to figure out how to defend themselves against the fax attacks, nor how to play the game themselves.

But I think that the success of the strategy carried, as is so often the case, the seeds of its own destruction. I was reminded of this point by this post from Media Matters, describing how conservative radio host Neal Boortz jumped on the recent rightwing talking point that blames rap stars for denigrating women (because we know how the rightwing just loves itself some women's rights) as a foil to deflect criticism of Don Imus:

Will we finally end the denigration of black women through rap music? Personally, I think its jealousy. ... I mean, on the part of the rappers, because, you know, I mean, look at black women, black men. Who are the higher educated, who has -- you know, is there a higher percentage of black women in college or black men? Black women. Moving up the corporate ladder -- black women, black men? Black women."

The problem, as MM points out is that Boortz himself recently said that "former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) 'looks like a ghetto slut,' for which he later apologized."

Lots of Americans were already figuring out for themselves the point that John Stewart emphasized: that what they were hearing was really just a talking point, not serious debate about an issue nor something that the speaker even really believed. The effectiveness of the blastfax talking point is further undermined when it's so easy to show that the head doing the talking, see above re: Boortz, is being completely inconsistent. Americans don't, after all, think that what's happening in our country should be reduced to the level of seventh-grade sophistry.

Boortz also "responded to a statement released by Media Matters for America President and CEO David Brock identifying Boortz as one of many sources of bigotry in the media by asking, '[T]hat George Soros-funded group Media Matters, who are they going to focus on next?'" The MM-is-funded-by-George-Soros talking point is an old one and one that MM and others have shown to be completely false over and over again. Boortz knows this and neither he nor any of the other rightwingers dutifully repeating this lie have ever, to my knowledge, offered ANY support for their assertion. (We'll leave for another day the slimy anti-Semitic tactic itself. Even if it were true that Soros, a liberal contributor, did fund MM, that wouldn't make MM's points less valid.)

Live by the blastfax, die by the blastfax. By now, conservatives are so used to grabbing the prescribed talking points (never mention MM without saying that it's funded by George Soros) and blabbing them, that it's become completely irrelevant to them that a talking point may be completely untrue. Not just a point that they've neither considered nor with which they necessarily agree and not just a point that's inconsistent with one that they parroted before and not just one that's hypocritical. Untrue. Fake. False. A lie. A deliberate lie. We saw this during the 2004 campaign, as well, when Tucker Carlson kept asserting that John Edwards had made his fortune as a personal-injury lawyer specializing in "Jacuzzi cases." As Atrios noted at the time: "This was an allusion to the horrific disembowelment of a young girl who'd been sucked into an open swimming-pool drain. When informed of the facts behind his cruel phrasing, [Tucker] snapped, 'Oh, I know. I've heard that.'"

I know that these folks think that they "make their own reality," but reality doesn't work like that. Reality works a lot more like a boomerang. And you can't lie all the time and not expect people to eventually figure out that you're a liar. And once people decide that you're a liar, they begin to ignore you and to look elsewhere -- for information, for leadership, for policy. We see it in the polls showing that no matter how many times the junta asserts that we need to stay in Iraq, Americans want us to leave. We saw it in the 2006 election when, even with Bush himself chanting the talking point that if the Democrats took control of Congress the terrorists would win, Americans put the Democrats in control of Congress. The talking points aren't working any more.

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Licking Aspirin. It's Not Enough.

Goddess Chant

I will not die.
I am love and I abide.
Deeper than the ocean,
Higher than the sky.

Art by my gentle friend, Nine Ravens.

Happy B/day, Margot!

It is the nastiest, coldest, least-welcoming Spring that I can remember.

The April Dark Moon is rain-dotted, cloud-skudded, colder than April is wont to be. Seeds aren't sprouting, the wind has been a merciless Ban-Shea, trying desperately to tell us -- Something. It is cold, and dark, and nasty and the wind-chime that my madly creative friend K gave to me is singing, singing, singing, saying -- Something. I want to be in bed, sleeping, preparing for tomorrow's work of meeting, conference call, writing, writing, writing. But, the moon is dark.

So I am, instead, outside, on the deck, surrounded by the roses and gardenias that I have planted in between snowstorms, guarded by the oak trees, the old, old oak trees, naked, whirling, whirling, whirling, dancing, whipping my rain-misted hair back and forth and up and down and all around me as I -- well, as I do a dance to the dark moon. And to the Goddess of the very dark moon. As I lift my goblet to Her, as I cry wild poetry to her, as I, well, as I shiver and cry to her.

My Lewellyn calendar tells me that today is the birthday of that deliberate and scholarly Aries Margot Adler. When Charlene Spretnak first informed me that there was a name -- witch -- for what I was, Margot Adler told me that I wasn't the only one. Her magical book, Drawing Down the Moon, taught me, well, taught me to dance naked outside in the nasty weather, taught me to hang on for almost ten years, taught me to believe that I'd find others of my kind.

The prayer that I recite every morning -- "I am a manifestation of the Goddess. Mother, help me to grow into my better self. It's all real, it's all metaphor. There's always more" -- comes, in large part, from Adler.

Adler wrote about people who believed that Wicca was a religion of ecstacy. She wrote about Wicca as a sensual gathering of women with different needs and different goals, but similar skill sets. She wrote about Discordians and Asatru and Dianics. She wrote poety that still chills me and she wrote about some stuff that was embarassingly silly. What she did was to write about the reality of Wicca.

I am more grateful to Margot Adler than I can say. Hail, Dama! Many blessings on your natal day. May the Goddess bring you many happy returns of the day. Ivo! Evohe!

A Media Culture That Idolizes Voyeuristic Violence

What Woody Guthrie's Guitar said

When you throw 300 million people together in a dog-eat-dog competitive society, with declining resources, artificial scarcities, and zero-sum rules for everything from kindergarten to love and sex;
and then put at the disposal of the frantic, obsessive creatures scurrying around under the ultimate pressure of "success" in this insane environment--it's not just school/job/love, it's the REST OF YOUR FUCKING LIFE--
virtually unlimited fire-power, and a media culture that idolizes and is saturated with voyeuristic violence, SOMEBODY (what are the odds? 1-300,000,000; lottery odds) is gonna crack...

Now add to this the fact that everybody in the game knows--at some level, and despite acre -feet of denial--in their heart of hearts, that they are not only doomed but disposable.

In a patriarchy, where access to acts of love and pleasure depends upon access to guns, power, and "success," it's not surprising that acts such as today's happen; it's surprising that they don't happen more often.

I'm conscious of not aping the mistakes of the Dobsons of the world, of not blaming my particular demons for everything that goes wrong in the world. But when this turns out to be an honor killing, who is going to be surprised? Patriarchy, pace Robin Morgan, ruins people with penises, too.

A Writer

Ken McLeod on how to write:

It was while I was writing my second novel, The Stone Canal, that I was shown a very good trick. It's a difficult one to learn for yourself but once you've been shown it it's very easy and you can then do it for other people. The way I learned it was this. I was working at Edinburgh University and I had one novel published and I noticed that the writer in residence, Andrew Greig, was a poet whose work I had much admired. So like any shy student I took a sheaf of poems I'd written over the years and left them in his pigeon-hole, pencilled in an appointment for about a week later and tiptoed away. When the appointment came round and I met Andrew Greig I found he was a sound chap and he quite liked my poems. The longest and most pretentious of them you can find in last year's Novacon special, I'm sure Rog Peyton can sell you one later. More importantly it turned out that Andrew Greig lived about ten minutes walk away from where I live and about thirty seconds walk from the local pub. You can see where this is going. I introduced him to all my skiffy friends and he introduced us to the Scottish literary mafia. And to Shirley Manson, which impresses a lot more people, which is why I take every opportunity for name-dropping.

Anyhow, one evening in the pub I showed Andrew a few pages from Chapter 2 of the manuscript of The Stone Canal, and he read through them and showed me the good trick. He took a sharp pencil and worked over a few paragraphs, crossing out phrases and sometimes whole sentences. He called this removing the fluff. The effect was indeed like removing fluff from a record needle. (If you don't know what that means, ask someone older.) Once he had shown me how to do it I could do it for myself, and since then I've shown other people how to do it.

Another good trick was what he called the massacre of adverbs. You go through your text and take out as many adverbs as possible. You can drop them or you can replace the verb with a more precise one. 'He ran quickly.' No, it's: 'He sprinted.' If you have a word processor, you just use 'Find' on ell wye space ('ly ') and ell wye stop ('ly.'). This works. There are entire genres where people don't use these techniques, you know. There's some minor character in fiction, I forget the novel, but the character is a novelist and she writes historical romances 'full of rapes and adverbs.' Imagine an Arthurian fantasy novel with the fluff removed and the adverbs slaughtered. It would more like Chandler than Mallory. 'That Morgan dame was fey.' 'Down these mean glades a knight must ride.'

As it happens, one of the books I read partly for pleasure and partly for research for The Stone Canal in fact does read like a historical novel written in the hard-boiled style. It's called Njal's Saga. Here's how it begins: 'There was a man called Mord Fiddle, who was the son of Sighvat the Red. Mord was a powerful chieftain, and lived at Voll in the Rangriver plains. He was also a very experienced lawyer [...]' The femme fatale of this saga is a woman called Hallgerd. Here are the descriptions of her. At the beginning she is a little girl her playing on the floor, and: 'she was a tall, beautiful child whose hair hung down to her waist.' A little later:

'We now return to Hallgerd, Hoskuld's daughter, who had grown up to be a woman of great beauty. She was very tall, which earned her the nickname Long-Legs, and her lovely hair was now so long that it could veil her whole body. She was impetuous and wilful.' Somehow that last bit doesn't come as a surprise.

Later still, Gunnar meets her at the Althing:

'Hallgerd was wearing a red, richly-decorated tunic under a scarlet cloak trimmed all the way down with lace. Her beautiful thick hair flowed down over her bosom.' These six sentences are all the description you'll get of her. And from them you quite understand why two of her husbands have already been killed and why there are a lot more men murdered before the story is over.

You could definitely take advice from someone worse.

Like The Manson Family, But With Cleaner Hair

Early this morning my brilliant friend E, guestblogger extraordinaire and author of the Second Best Football Blog in the World, sent this article to me. I'm only now coming up for air and getting around to sharing it, which is the fault of the people with whom I work who fail to understand the concept of "a calendar" rather than E or Bill Maher. (And, yes, I realize that Maher can be a phenomenal ass. But when he's right, he's right.)

It turns out that the Justice Department is entirely staffed with Jesus freaks from a televangelist diploma mill in Virginia Beach. Most of them young women with very little knowledge of the law, but a very strong sense of doing what they're told. Like the Manson family, but with cleaner hair. And more inappropriate purses. And even more embarassing web pages.

Actually, and I've been blogging about this for quite some time, the Bush junta has staffed almost every level of every governmental agency, department, and cabinet with Monica Goodlings -- true believers whose allegiance is to a Christianist state and not to the United States of America. They're going to be sitting there waiting for President Gore or President Clinton or President Obama, ready to undermine everything that the president tries to do. And government employees are notoriously difficult to remove. Think Defense, EPA, NOAA, Treasury, Education, Labor, Interior, etc., etc.

I hope the Dems have a plan for addressing this.

There are, of course, elites and elites. There are elite lawyers who went to Harvard on scholarship, hoisted themselves on their own shoelaces, and who wind up at DOJ where they prosecute bad guys. And, then, there are elite legacies who go to Yale because that's where their daddy went and who grow up to fuck over the entire planet. Perhaps we need two different words to describe these two different things.

Kansas, get the fuck over it.

A Witch's Work

I live in Northern Virginia, where a not inconsequential number of kids wind up going to Virginia Tech. Driving home tonight, I passed several xian churches that had signs up saying: "Prayer Service for Virginia Tech. Tonight 7:30" or words to that effect. It seems to me that there are times when the organized churches do a better job of this sort of instant response stuff than do our disorganized Pagan selves, although, Goddess knows that our disorganization is one of the things that I most love about us.

Someone once said that a witch's job is to help to turn the wheel, and round and round the wheel must turn. Someone who understands how to do it (and who has the training to do it) needs to get on those grounds sometime soon and do the necessary energy work. Witches all over the place need to send healing to the school, the students, the families, the souls of those who one minute were sitting in class and the next minute were bodyless. We all need to be doing more, on both a mundane and a magical level, to decrease the level of violence in this overcrowded, over-armed, partiarchy.

And, while it's true that, for example, more than thirty people die everyday all over America (hell, probably just all over Virginia) due to environmental pollution, it's still so shocking to us when one of these outbreaks of madness kills so many, all together, at one time.

Ground. Breathe. Ground again. Breathe again. Light some incense. Ritual tonight at 7:30.

Charge Of The Goddess -- Just Because

(How revolutionary are they: the words "Praise Her" sung in a church? As revolutionary as it gets, that's how revolutionary.)

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


Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names:

Whenever you have need of anything, once a month, and better it be when the moon is full, you shall assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of Me Who is Queen of all the Wise.

You shall be free from slavery, and as a sign that you be free you shall be naked in your rites.

Sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in My Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit and Mine also is joy on earth.

For My law is love is unto all beings. Mine is the secret that opens the door of youth, and Mine is the cup of wine of life that is the cauldron of Cerridwen, that is the holy grail of immortality.

I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal, and beyond death I give peace and freedom and reunion with those that have gone before.

Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold, I am the Mother of all things and My love is poured out upon the earth.

Hear the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of Whose feet are the hosts of Heaven, whose body encircles the universe:

I Who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters,

I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.

For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.

From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

The Denigration Of Women Sells

Gwen Ifill -- the ONLY woman at a tablefull of men -- and whom I often fault for being too "balanced," tries to explain it in syllables of one word or less that Timmeh can understand. You go girl. You go.

Photo found here.

Seamus Heaney Blogging

"Whatever You Say,
Say Nothing"
(1975)

I.
I'm writing just after an encounter
With an English journalist in search of 'views
On the Irish thing'. I'm back in winter
Quarters where bad news is no longer news,
Where media-men and stringers sniff and point,
Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads
Litter the hotels. The times are out of joint
But I incline as much to rosary beads

As to the jottings and analyses
Of politicians and newspapermen
Who've scribbled down the long campaign from gas
And protest to gelignite and Sten,

Who proved upon their pulses 'escalate',
'Backlash' and 'crack down', 'the provisional wing',
'Polarization' and 'long-standing hate'.
Yet I live here, I live here too, I sing,

Expertly civil-tongued with civil neighbours
On the high wires of first wireless reports,
Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours
Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts:

'Oh, it's disgraceful, surely, I agree.'
'Where's it going to end?' 'It's getting worse.'
'They're murderers.' 'Internment, understandably ...'
The 'voice of sanity' is getting hoarse.

III.
"Religion's never mentioned here", of course.
"You know them by their eyes," and hold your tongue.
"One side's as bad as the other," never worse.
Christ, it's near time that some small leak was sprung

In the great dykes the Dutchman made
To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus.
Yet for all this art and sedentary trade
I am incapable. The famous

Northern reticence, the tight gag of place
And times: yes, yes. Of the "wee six" I sing
Where to be saved you only must save face
And whatever you say, you say nothing.

Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:
Manoeuvrings to find out name and school,
Subtle discrimination by addresses
With hardly an exception to the rule

That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod
And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire Pape.
O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod,
Of open minds as open as a trap,

Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks,
Where half of us, as in a wooden horse
Were cabin'd and confined like wily Greeks,
Besieged within the siege, whispering morse.

IV.
This morning from a dewy motorway
I saw the new camp for the internees:
A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay
In the roadside, and over in the trees

Machine-gun posts defined a real stockade.
There was that white mist you get on a low ground
And it was déjà-vu, some film made
Of Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound.

Is there a life before death? That's chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
We hug our little destiny again.

Driving An Ice Cream Truck To Iraq

What res ipsa loquitor said.

I think res may have left out a few. Walter Reed. People put in charge of distributing birth control who hate birth control. No child left behind. No-bid Haliburton contracts. Osama still walking around free as a bird. Abstinence education. Terry Schiavo. I'm sure that you can think of some others.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

To the Londoners

Time is now writing with her impressive hand
Shakespeare's black play, his twenty-fourth.
What can we do, who know the bitter taste,
but here, by this leaden river, re-enact
those tragic lines of Halmet, Casear, Lear? --
or maybe guide, as an escort, to her tomb,
child Juliet, poor dove, guide her with songs and torches;
or play the Peeping Tom in Macbeth's windows,
trembling no less than the hired murderer,
Only not this one, not this one, not this one --
this one we do not have the strength to read.


~1940

~Photo found here.

Twisty Is Just So Goddamn Good

Twisty,

Please don't ever stop doing what you're doing. It's so very, very necessary. Go read the whole thing.

I find that feminists of the empowerful, slo-mo kickboxing variety are sometimes impatient with women who have been publicly screwed over by the Establishment. These feminists seem actually to be critical of women on the wrong end of a beatdown. Their motto is that the wronged women should open up a can of whup-ass on the thugly oppressor. Otherwise, men might take it into their heads that women can be kept in line with intimidation. According to these feminists, the women who cry uncle have allowed themselves to become “victims rather than people.”

But look here. Who are they trying to kid. Women can be kept in line with intimidation, and the whole world knows it. Aren’t people who have been raped and intimidated and harassed and threatened with death “victims”? What the fuck is wrong with that word? It describes the situation perfectly.

Do you guys get, I mean actually get, that our society is a patriarchy? Patriarchy isn’t just a gimmick for a blog. It really exists. There are actual implications. Do you get that a patriarchy is predicated on exploitation and victimization? It’s not a joke! It’s not an abstract concept dreamed up by some wannabe ideologue making up catch-phrases while idling away the afternoons with pitchers of margs. Exploitation and victimization is the actual set-up! A person is either an exploiter or a victim, or sometimes both, but never neither.

This means me! This means you!

This means that, until patriarchy is smashed, we ain’t got a chance.

Meanwhile, do you guys see that there is no other possible outcome, in a society based on exploitation and victimization, than for the Don Imuses and the Daily Koses of the world to shit, frequently, on members of the lower castes? Shitting on the lower castes is a privilege built into the system. When exercised with macho aplomb, it attracts advertisers. It creates prestige. It makes money. It entertains the masses.

If, by some Stone Age fantasy-world turn of good fortune, our society had not been permitted by the clumsy aliens of the planet Obsterperon to devolve into a patriarchy, Kathy Sierra wouldn’t have done anything wrong. The Rutgers basketball team wouldn’t have done anything wrong. They would have just been human beings, doing whatever the fuck they felt like doing.

But it is a patriarchy. And in a patriarchy, where women are the lowest caste, a public woman is always wrong. Which is why Sierra and the basketball players and lard knows how many others over the millennia have been victimized by a gazillion patriarchy-enthusiasts. These women attempted publicly, in a society in which they are devalued as dirty jokes, hysterics, babymommas, and receptacles, to behave as sovereign human beings. It is one of the first laws of patriarchy that insubordinate females should be jeered at and harassed, from the moment they dare, as members of the sex caste, to step into the gray subumbra of proto-celebrity, to the moment the last blurb is written by some feminist blogger who criticizes their behavior as victims-who-let-the-terrorist-manbags-win.

Do you get the implications? Even the feminists — we’re as poisoned by establishmentarianist dogma as anybody else — operate under the patriarchal paradigm. Thus, even some feminists think we ought to criticize Kathy Sierra for not taking her reaming like a man. We recognize that victimhood does not equal personhood, but beyond that we’re constrained by some dim twilight denial. We can’t believe, even though it is true, that victimhood the only available outcome, so we say insane things like, “don’t act like a victim, you idiot!” But for chrissake, what do we want from her? Do we seriously think she can take down the dominant culture by “standing up” to it, with only a few wan ‘you go, girls’ from the sidelines to mark the occasion? Without a revolution to back her up, all the whup-ass in the world will only get her locked up.

Do you get it yet?

Without revolution, the oppressor won’t stop oppressing. Without revolution, there is no happy ending.

Separated At Birth?

Dr. Evil's "romantic companion," Frau Farbissina and

Paul Wolfowitz's "romantic companion," Shaha Riza.

Hmmm. Has anyone ever seen Dr. Evil and Paul Wolfowitz at the same time?

Saturday Rumi Blogging

Is it your face that adorns this garden?

Is it your fragrance that intoxicates this garden?

Is it your Spirit that has made this brook a river of wine?

Hundreds have looked for you, and died searching in this garden,

where you hide behind the scenes.

But this pain is not for those who come as lovers.

You are easy to find here.

You are in the breeze and in this river of wine.

~Rumi

Saturday Goddess Blogging

Nut

Amy Sophia Marashinsky says that:

Nut is the Egyptian Goddess of the night sky, also known as the Great Deep, the Celestial Vault, who daily gives birth to the sun each morning, then consumes it again each night. . . . Painted inside the inner lid of a sarcophagus, she mothers and protects the dead on their journey.

Marashinsky adds that:

Nut's twinkling vast dark vault stretches out in your life to remind you to open to mystery. . . . The Wise Woman knows [that] there is much in the universe that will remain a mystery and leaves space for it in the weaving of her life. Nut says [that] the way to nurture wholeness is for you to trust that the mystery [that] you let in will be exactly what you need for your journey to wholeness.

Hail Mystery of the Night Sky! Hail Nut!

Art found here, here, and here.

This Culture Has Been Destroying Its Landbase For 6,000 Years. That's Not Very Smart On A Finite Planet

DRF

What Thers said, although he's taken to changing his blog as often as John McCain changes his position on Bush and fundies. watertiger, meanwhile, has made John McCain into her own personal traveling yard gnome.

McCain is, as arabella at Atrios says, done, ruined, and fucked.

I Can Drive As Little As Possible, But I Can Look For Other Levers, Too

Thermodynamic Whoopee

May The Goddess Guard Him. May He Find His Way To The Summerlands. May His Friends And Family Know Peace.

Miniver Cheevey says all that can be said, I think, about the passing of Kurt Vonnegut. I'll just say that Vonnegut's cautionary tale about a woman who was trying, like many Americans, to build a life that made sense out of items that she'd purchased at a gift shop, turned my life around 180 degrees at a time when it truly needed turning around. And that has made, in Frost's words, all the difference.

Two Months Back In The Middle Of March

I love this poem; I've loved it from the first day that I read it, almost twenty years ago. I live a curious life, grounded physically on the East coast, but grounded business-wise and, in many ways, intellectually, on the West coast, in the land of Califia, the Amazon Queen. On both coasts, April is a month of such liminal spaces, perhaps this year more than in many other years. Frost (the poet, not the personfication of cold), old man that he is, captures this so perfectly when he says: "The sun was warm but the wind was chill./You know how it is with an April day/When the sun is out and the wind is still,/You're one month on in the middle of May/But if you so much as dare to speak,/A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,/A wind comes off a frozen peak,/And you're two months back in the middle of March."

What Frost says at the end has guided my life in important ways, as well. "[Y]ield who will to their separation,/My object in living is to unite/My avocation and my vocation/As my two eyes make one in sight./Only where love and need are one,/And the work is play for mortal stakes,/Is the deed ever really done/For Heaven and the future's sakes."

You've been there, haven't you? Where love and need are one, and work is play for mortal stakes? To me, that's a classic definition of the practice of law, but I guess that it's the definition of any job that you love.

How did Frost know so much? What was it about the daily practice of chopping wood and writing poems that taught him to be so wise? And wouldn't I love, at some level, to be a tramp in mud time?


Robert Frost - Two Tramps In Mud Time

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay

And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Just Watch

When these e-mails are found and, believe me, a forensic computer specialist can find e-mails you never dreamed that s/he could find, it's going to turn out that at least some of them dealt with warrantless domestic spying on the Kerry campaign, other Democrats, and members of the media. I'm saying it now so that when it happens, I can say "I told you so."

To Use Your Gifts Every Day In The Service Of Your Landbase

I was talking with two of my witch friends last night about daily practice and what it's for and how it differs from group ritual. Diane Sylvan says, and I agree, that daily practice is crucial to spiritual growth. Sure, you can be a "festival pagan" or a "Sabbat witch" and there's nothing wrong with that. But for many, that's not enough. And the answer isn't necessarily to work for better and more magical festivals or Sabbats (not that there's anything wrong with that), but to engage in a daily practice.

In an ideal environment, everything that we do, from the moment that we wake up, through getting on the metro and standing in such close proximity with our fellow humans, through doing the work that we do, through eating a meal, through going to the gym, through falling asleep -- everything -- would be a part of our "daily practice." Every step that we took on Mother Earth would be taken consciously, would be taken as a blessing upon the Earth, would be an act of communion with the
Earth.

But, you know, it isn't like that. For me, at least, what prevents life from being like that is my monkey mind, the one that starts chattering a few seconds before I wake up and says, "Shit. I forgot to take the trash out last night and now it's raining, but I have to get the trash out because I've got people coming over for dinner tomorrow and I want the back porch really clean and I also have to stop at the dry cleaners to pick up the tablecloth and I have to get flowers and, oh, shit, I have to go to the bank, I think I have a conference call at 5:00 this evening and that means that the dry cleaners will close before I get home so I have to stop on my way to work and I wonder if I can get all of those memos read so I'll be ready for the conference call; X is going to be on that conference call and, you know, X was pretty shitty to me at work yesterday and I wonder what to do about it, X was shitty to me just the way that my father used to be shitty to me and I remember the time that my father said . . . ." Not too much communion going on with Mother Earth as a listen to my monkey mind while brushing my teeth, feeding the cat, carting the trash out in the rain, and dashing to work.

So daily practice for me is a time to do the sometimes quite difficult work of silencing my monkey mind and focusing on what matters. Of course, one should be able to do that on metro, surrounded by hundreds of morning commuters or while dropping off drycleaning. But I find it helpful to have a separate room with an altar, to light candles and incense for Younger Self, to sit and ground, clear my chakaras, say the Ha prayer, and then meditate. If I want to work some particular magic, this is when I'll do it. If I've promised someone that I'll light incense for them, this is when I'll do it.

But it strikes me that what Jensen is talking about in this clip is also a daily practice. A daily, moment-by-moment being present to what our landbase needs and a commitment to do that. To do whatever it takes. It may take sitting at an altar and doing magic to protect the Earth. It may take walking to work instead of driving. It may take radical change and it may take subtle change. But what we have to do, as Jensen notes, is whatever it takes. Saving the Earth isn't like horseshoes or hand grenades; just trying isn't enough. Using your gifts in the service of your landbase, and doing it every single day, is a daily practice, every bit as much as praying or meditating. Even if, not that this is ideal, you do that with monkey mind chattering madly the whole time.

Jensen's discussion of the difference between hope and commitment is important in this context, as well. You can hope that you'll grow spiritually all day long. You can add it to the list of things that your monkey mind chatters on about and chastises you for not doing. You can hope that you'll find the time and the discipline to keep doing it, but that won't help you to grow spiritually. What will is realizing that, as Jensen says, you have agency, and then putting your butt on the yoga blanket in front of your altar every night, whether you feel like it or not.

The two forms of daily practice aren't mutually exclusive, in fact, they support each other and the better that you get at one, the easier that the other is likely to become. And, vice versa. If you were to spend your life using your gifts to care for your landbase, if you were to do whatever it takes to make sure that the Earth is habitable, what would you do differently every day? Will you start today?

It Would Be Funny If It Weren't So Sad

Twisty illustrates the patriarchy and explains why women won't be allowed to invade Iran.

A Poem For Thursday

Confessions of a 26-year-old Female Porn Writer


I write porn for a living.

I am not talking about erotica.
I am not talking about literature.

Oh, I write that too, the serious stuff
the literary stuff
the stuff I can't show my mother but I can take to class
the stuff, sex stuff, that I can put on the net
that I can sign my name to
that I can be political with
that I can try to change the world with
try to get people talking
about sex
get them thinking
about sex
get them hot and bothered and hard and dripping and
admitting
that they like sex
like reading about sex
like thinking about sex
like talking, out loud, about sex.

That part's easy.

All right, it's not easy.
It bothers some people
and shocks others
and my mother now has something she can hold over me
until the day I die -- look what you're doing to your father!
But I have literature on my side.
I have a book in respectable bookstores
I have a reading at B. Dalton
I have an ISBN number
I have this book in the Library of Congress
and so I can tell you with confidence that this is serious literature
serious shit
and the ACLU
and the feminists
and the lesbians
and the whole left-wing is pretty much on my side.
That is a formidable army.

The porn is another story.

Let me tell you about the porn.
I write it for Puritan, for Sizzle, for Red Light.
I'd write for Penthouse if they'd buy it;
I might even write it for Hustler.

The porn is not about sex and character
The porn is not about sex and stylistic variation
The porn is not about literary explorations of sexuality.

The porn is just about sex.
The porn is just sex.

The porn is cocks and cunts and breasts and thighs
The porn is thrusting and dripping and pinning her down
The porn is holding her hands up above her head while
he fucks her brains out
and she fucks her ass
and you, yeah, you, fuck her mouth and then come on her face
The porn will fuck her until she is used up and exhausted
and still wet, still dripping, still hungry for more.

The porn is not politically correct.
The porn is not ethically correct.
The porn that gets me off
is hard and strong and dripping wet
and is emphatically
non-consensual

The porn is unsigned, unnamed, practically unknown
The porn is a cursed untouchable in the civil rights world
the ACLU shuns it
the lesbians read it in the dark, under the covers
the feminists want to burn it
and the left wing is embarrassed that it exists.

That is the kind of shit I write.
That is the kind of shit I don't put my name on.
That is the kind of shit that I do mostly for the money
which would make me the worst kind of whore
the kind who'll fuck anything, anywhere
if it pays well enough, no matter how dry her cunt is...

But my cunt is not dry.
My cunt is dripping.
I am rocking in my chair,
writing those fucking words,
those devoid-of-literary-aspirations words
those mostly for the money, but partly for the sex
words.

And I am hot
and wet
and eager
and dying

And that
is what makes it all
worthwhile.

*****
M.A. Mohanraj
May 18, 1998

Go, Barbara!

It's old news, but I love it so much.

Elections have consequences.

Hillary Sends An E-Mail

When our children are young, we teach them to dream big and reach for the stars, and that if they work hard enough they can accomplish anything.

This year the Rutgers women's basketball team defied the odds and lived up to their dreams, providing inspiration to every little boy and girl beginning to pick up a ball or open a book. These remarkable young women reached the pinnacle of success and won the hearts of basketball fans everywhere with their grace, skill, and poise. They are role models deserving our praise -- and our support.

Don Imus's comments about them were nothing more than small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism. They showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere.

Please join me in sending the young women of Rutgers a message of respect and support. Show them that we are proud to stand with them and for them.

Click here to send a message to the Rutgers team.

Hail, Aradia!

There's Land. And There's People Who Are Hungry.

The Polution Information Site.

Sweet Shiva on a Saltine. Go here and enter your zipcode. Find out EVERYTHING environmental about where you live, where you work, where your kids go to school, where you're thinking of moving.

Hat tip Kim.

Tiny Penis Disease

It always brightens my day when a man completely gets it. Paul Waldman, a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America and author of Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success shows in this Alternet article that he completely gets it.

Last month saw Al Gore's triumphant return to Capitol Hill -- the once-ridiculed candidate now acknowledged as a visionary and treated with long-overdue respect. But the most remarkable moment of Gore's hours of testimony in both houses may have been one in which he wasn't even involved. It shined a light on both the changed atmosphere in Washington today, and the fear and loathing that that change is bringing on.

The most confrontational part of the day came when Gore was being questioned by Oklahoma senator, famed global warming skeptic and former chairman of the environment committee James Inhofe, in a battle of wits that was not exactly an equal match. Inhofe had trouble getting Gore to answer questions the way he wanted to, and kept interrupting him and complaining about the limited time he was given.

After some back and forth between Inhofe and Gore, the new chair of the committee, Barbara Boxer of California, put a hand on Inhofe's arm and said, "I want to talk to you a minute, please." After Boxer suggested that Inhofe give Gore the time to answer his questions, Inhofe replied, "Why don't we do this: at the end, you [Gore] can have as much time as you want to answer all the questions..." Boxer then interrupted: "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this," she said, holding up the chair's gavel. "Elections have consequences. So I make the rules."

Boxer spoke with appropriate authority: not angry, not loud but unmistakably firm. There was no doubt who was in charge in that room. You could almost see the steam coming out of Inhofe's ears, not only because he had been deprived of his power, but because he was deprived of it by a woman. She even held up the gavel, the symbol of that power, and practically taunted him with it. Freud couldn't have scripted it much better.

The response in some quarters was unsurprising. Michael Savage, whose hateful rants are reportedly heard by 8 million radio listeners every day, hit the roof. Referring repeatedly to "foul-mouthed, foul-tempered women in high places bossing men around," he opined that the image of a woman giving a man orders would lead to more terrorist attacks (or something like that -- it was a little hard to follow).

And it isn't only extremists like Savage who are having trouble stomaching the idea of women in positions of increasing power. We now have a female speaker of the House, and the strong possibility of the first female president; the prospect is sending some men over the edge. MSNBC host Tucker Carlson recently described Hillary Clinton as "castrating, overbearing and scary." Why Carlson looks at the junior senator from New York and immediately fears for the safety of his testicles might be something he and his therapist should explore, but he's hardly alone -- after the election Chris Matthews wondered on the air if Nancy Pelosi was "going to castrate Steny Hoyer." And Matthews has gone through a series of man-crushes on politicians whom he sees as super-hunky in their masculine ways. First it was George W. Bush, then John McCain and the current object of Matthews' affections is Rudy Giuliani. "I think he did a great job," Matthews said about Giuliani's tenure in New York. "And I think the country wants a boss like that. You know, a little bit of fascism there."

If Rudy ends up getting the Republican nomination, it will be because the GOP primary voters ignore his stands on hot-button culture war issues in favor of that little bit of fascism they crave. And if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, we can expect a virtual explosion of sexist rhetoric, every last drop of it based in fear and anxiety. She already gets described with a whole series of derogatory adjectives that don't seem to ever be applied to male politicians -- she is "ambitious" (unlike the men running for president) and "calculating" (unlike every other politician), to take just two. U.S. News recently noted that a speech she gave "was devoid of hard edges, contrary to her longtime image among critics as a harridan and a polarizer." She must have appreciated the compliment. Conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck admitted that Hillary Clinton's voice drives him crazy. "She's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?" he said. "After four years, don't you think every man in America will go insane?" (ABC News recently announced that Beck will be offering his insightful commentary on Good Morning America.)

For years, our campaigns have been marked by the "gender gap," the fact that Democrats do marginally better among women and Republicans do better among men. The gender gap in the 2004 election was actually relatively small -- John Kerry won women's votes by 3 points (51 to 48), while George Bush won men's votes by 11 points (55 to 44). But it is the fact that the latter margin is so much larger than the former that is worth noting. It is men, and white men in particular, who are so easily persuaded by campaigns like the one Bush ran, which can be boiled down to, "I'm a manly man, and my opponent is a sissy." Bush beat Kerry among white men by an astounding 25 points.

Should Hillary Clinton be the nominee, the gender gap will no doubt be bigger than it ever has been before. Part of this will come from some women who might have voted Republican (or not voted) casting their votes for her. But more of the gap will come from men fleeing from her, spurred on by the likes of Savage, Carlson, Beck and Matthews insisting that if you vote for a woman, then you must not be a real man.

One can't avoid noticing that as a group, conservative media figures are not exactly secure in their masculinity. Forever promoting war when they avoided military service themselves and doubling over to protect their tender parts every time a strong woman appears on their television screens, it's no wonder they are so impressed by politicians who may not be real men but know how to present a convincing facsimile of manliness.

Much of the audience that tunes in to the corps of overcompensating pretend macho men is just as insecure about their manhood, ready to cast a manly, masculine vote lest anyone raise an eyebrow at their choice for president. That doesn't mean that Hillary Clinton -- or any female presidential candidate, for that matter -- can't win. But if she goes around holding up any long, firm objects, a lot of guys' heads might just explode.

This story about Boxer fascinates me, not the least because even after she said to Inhoffe, "I want to talk to you," Inhoffe continued to try to just keep talking to Gore as if Boxer weren't there. I doubt there's a woman in the work world who hasn't experienced something similar. The result was that Boxer had to chide him: "Elections have consequences. You don't make the rules anymore."

Waldman's spot on when he notes that conservative men sure do seem terrified of that great big Vagina Dentata in their minds. I still think that Newt Gingrich's assertion that the U.S. should just bomb Iran in order to show Iran that "you're tiny and we're not" says as much about conservative men's real concerns as anything that I've ever heard. EVER.

Interestingly, I had lunch w/ someone on the Hill who was repeating the Boxer/Inhoffe story. I think it's going to become iconic. It's sort of like Pelosi telling Bush to calm down and quit issuing threats, as if she were gently admonishing the least-bright of her grandchildren. The women are taking control. They're going to start out, at least, gentle and firm. But for those like Inhoffe who persist in pretending that the women don't even exist, much less exercise any power, well, gavels have lots of purposes.

Really, conservative men, it's going to happen. We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. You'll like the easy way a whole lot better in the end. Trust me.

~Someone at Eschaton Comments linked to this article today and I apologize for not remembering who it was.

~Sigh~

Imus Is An Ass. Let's Hope That This Is His Macca Moment.

So it turns out that Don Imus, to whom I've never been able to listen for more than about 90 seconds and whose appeal has always completely escaped me (he just reminds me too much of the kind-of-creepy, dirty, homeless guy who crutches around Ballston getting angry at everyone for nothing and mumbling a lot to himself), but who is a well-known "media" person, has gotten into a bit of hot water for referring last week to members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."

That's such a disgusting comment that it's difficult for me to understand how any human being could say such a thing. "Nappy-headed" is intended to let everyone know that these young women are African American, but it's more than that. It's an insult to African American people for being African American, for being born with hair that isn't "good hair," nice, straight, blonde hair like all good Aryans, I mean, Americans are supposed to have. And Imus has rightly gotten into a shitload of trouble for it. WaPo says:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and about 50 people marched Monday outside Chicago's NBC tower to protest Imus' comments. He said MSNBC should abandon Imus and MSNBC should hire more black pundits.

Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP board of directors, said it is "past time his employers took him off the air."

"As long as an audience is attracted to his bigotry and politicians and pundits tolerate his racism and chauvinism to promote themselves, Don Imus will continue to be a serial apologist for prejudice," Bond said.

Imus was mostly contrite in his appearance with Sharpton, although the activist did not change his opinion that Imus should lose his job.

Which is all to the good, but I'm wondering where the outrage is over the second part of Imus' remark: "hos"? Because as sure as "nappy-headed" is used to insult someone for being born African American, "ho" is used to insult someone for being born with a vagina, instead of the "good sexual organ" -- a penis -- that all good Aryans, I mean Americans, are supposed to have. Maybe I just haven't seen it, but why wasn't NOW marching outside of NBC's office and why isn't Imus having to go pretend to apologize to feminist America?

Test

If this works, it's thanks to Molly Ivors. If it screws up, the fault is all mine.



Here's the great video that E mentioned over the weekend.

If It's Monday, I Must Be In DC

Many, many thanks to my brilliant friend, E, for filling in for me. We had a wonderful weekend in the mountains, cold weather notwithstanding. If you haven't had a chance to read E's posts, check them out. From net neutrality, to DC voting rights, to New Orleans, to some very hot poetry, she covered a lot of interesting topics. (Thanks, too, to my very creative friend K. who took care of Miss Thing and my plants!)

Meanwhile, happy second blogversary to The Gods Are Bored -- it's on my daily must-read list.

Also, while he's more sanguine about the Chrisitianists' ultimate goal (coughitissotheocracycough) Jason at the Wild Hunt does the best job that I've seen so far of explaining their current strategy and goals:

[W]hile conservative Christians would love to see a "real" Christian in office, it isn't nearly as important as planning for the future.

Youth movements like the militaristic BattleCry, the baby-machine politics of the "quiverfulls", and the slow take-over of military academies by evangelicals point to a movement that knows it hasn't reached its goal (yet), but hopes that the next generation just might. In the meantime, conservative Christian groups try to push laws on the state and federal level that will privilege the Christian majority without the violating constitutional rights outright. The ultimate goal isn't supreme political power, but massive cultural power that will ensure that any who do rise in politics can't ignore conservative Christian demands.

This is already taking shape. Not a single presidential candidate, no matter how liberal, dares to offend evangelicals (if they want to win). A Muslim congressman swearing in on the Koran instead of the Bible makes national news, and teaching the Bible in school is no longer seen as a fringe issue. What we are seeing isn't necessarily the coming of a theocracy (though I suppose all things are possible), but the makings of an entrenched Christian population that has a powerful influence over our daily lives. No need to get rid of our Constitution, after all, we are a Christian Nation don't you know?


What he has to say is especially scary when you consider that the Bush junta has stuffed the government at every level with Christianists.

Thanks, y'all!

I hope you all have enjoyed my guestblogging over the past few days as much as I have.

I know the topics have been a bit of a change, hopefully an interesting and informative one.

I now return you to your regular programming.

So until the next time Hecate takes some richly deserved personal time, ciao!

A Story for Our Times

On Saturday, September 30. 2006, Luis "Quike" Morales was bartending the closing shift at DC's The Argonaut. After closing up and cleaning up, he walked to his girlfriend's house about two blocks from the bar. At 5:30 am, he and his girlfriend were sitting on the front porch and, in a robbery attempt gone all the way bad, Quike was shot in the head.

Amazingly, he survived. After about two weeks in a coma, Quike woke up and found out that about half of his skull had shattered and would need to be reconstructed. Unfortunately for Quike, he works in the service industry, like about 23 million other Americans. And, in common with most of those people, he lacks health insurance, as our benighted country is pretty much the only advanced industrial democracy in the ENTIRE WORLD that refuses to provide universal health coverage.

Now Quike might be able to finance his expensive medical bills with credit - it's easy to get credit these days. But how long do you think it will take someone who gets most of his income from tips to pay off medical bills that are well into 6 figures? And thanks to the Republican 108th Congress and the credit card companies, declaring bankruptcy won't help. ("Consumer Protection Act" my sweet round booty.)

So what can you do to help?

1. Support gun control. Until recently, handguns were illegal in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, they're not in Virginia, and it's REALLY easy to get them there. And Virginia's only a bridge away.
2. Listen to Quike's story in his own words.
3. Support Universal Health Care. Support politicians who support universal health care.
4. Make a donation (securely, online, through Amazon.com) to help Quike pay his medical bills.

A Requiem in Four Parts

As I prepare to head to my second Jazz Fest in about 10 days, I wanted to take the opportunity to remind people that New Orleans - indeed, the entire Gulf Coast - still desperately needs our help. You see, Dubya still doesn't care about black people. Large sections of the city and the entire region have barely been touched in the almost 20 months since Katrina made landfall. FEMA's still fucking people out of their trailers. No one (coughcough Federal Government) is putting any pressure on the insurance companies to give people their goddamn money. The local economy is shredded. The three major local industries, shrimping (and fishing more generally), the oil industry, and tourism, are all still struggling to recover. Actually, between the oil-industry facilitated loss of wetlands and the hurricane damage, Gulf fishing may never recover.

So what can you do?

1. Inform yourself about what happened in August of 2005. Watch Spike Lee's excellent When the Levees Broke. Don't close your eyes.
2. Pay attention. For hundreds of thousands of people who are still displaced, whose homes are still destroyed, whose tight-knit families and communities are still dispersed, it ain't over yet. The Times Picayune won Pulitzers for their heroic hurricane coverage, and the paper remains an excellent source of news. And tell other people what you find out.
   
3. Support charities. No, not the damn Red Cross. Spend locally. There are lots of good options: the Tipitina's Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, the Musicians Relief Fund, Common Ground...there's an almost endless list of choices. You don't have to give $1 million (although if you have it lying around...) - many of these organizations can do amazing things with as little as $10.
4. Support wetlands restoration. One of the reasons the entire region is increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes is the tremendous loss of wetlands in the area. Mike Tidwell, founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and all-around righteous dude, has written an excellent book that lays out what's happened to date, the mounting dangers, and the possible solutions, Bayou Farwell. Mother Jones did a great piece on the book, and you can check it out of your local library.
5. Visit. The city - the whole area - is struggling to rise from its knees. You can help, and have a ball at the same time. Jazz Fest 2006 was my first trip back to the city after the hurricane. I had a fair amount of time to hang out in watering holes and talk to locals. I asked every person I met the same question, "What can I do to help?" and every one gave me the same answer: "Tell people we're open for business and to come visit!" And it's true, and you should. You'll get a chance to do good while doing well.

Laissez les bons temps roulent encore et toujours.

Sunday Poetry Blogging

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite a new thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones, and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

-- ee cummings