Trailer of The Queen

Go.See.This Movie.Now.

Swear to Boedicca, if Helen Mirren doesn't get an Oscar for this, I'm going to take a hostage. There is no "one" amazing scene in this movie (although the Stag of England comforting the Queen of England comes very close), it just builds and builds into an amazing movie. Helen Mirren eats the screen. By the end of it, I was sobbing like a baby.

Piss-Poor Management

Atiros has a post up about how President Pissypants, who is pissed at former aides who helped Watergate journalist Bob Woodward paint a lurid portrait of a dysfunctional, chaotic administration in his new book, "State of Denial."

In the obsessively private Bush clan, talking out of school is the ultimate act of disloyalty, and Bush feels betrayed from within.

"He's ticked off big-time," said a well-informed source, "even if what they said was the truth."

Let's set aside for a moment the irony of a junta that leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent in order to punish her husband for daring to disagree with them getting their panties in a wad over -- well -- leaking. I think this incident provides a great deal of insight into a deeper problem with the Bush junta than their mere immunity to irony.

We've heard over and over that Bush surrounds himself only with yes-men and yes-women, with people who tell him only what he wants to hear. That's a deadly management strategy. No matter how much these clowns wish that they could create reality, they can't. Reality, that unforgiving Bitch Queen, will always out in the end. A manager who won't let his own people tell him when he's wrong is none the less wrong. He's simply destined to learn that he's wrong through, well, often through leaks. What your subordinate can't tell you to your face, s/he can leak to a reporter who will make sure that you read that you are wrong in the morning paper. That's what's going on here and that's what we see going on with increasing frequency.

Consider how the Baker Commission is now leaking like a sieve, even though the Bush consigliere (and I don't mean Mr. Botts) insists that it won't make a report until after the elections. Jimmy's talking to the press, warning Bush that the intervention is coming, because, apparently, he can't pick up the freaking phone and talk mano-a-mano with the man whose (s)election he ensured. Consider how career military men and life-long Republicans have to talk to Democratic committees in order to get in front of the cameras and say that it's past time for Rumsfeld to be sent off to cheat at squash at the old folks' home and as far away from the Pentagon as it's possible for him to be sent. Consider how neither Denny Hastert nor anyone else on the Hill even considered for a moment warning Bush that he had a rove Congressman, about to screw his one remaining constituency, the batshit crazy God-Hates-Fags fundies. Most managers, except for the completely insecure ones, would rather get bad news from their own people and in private rather than read about it in the news.

But his inability to hear bad news isn't Bush's only managerial flaw. Closely related to this flaw is his inability to ever admit that he's not omnipotent, that a course correction might be needed. He just can't do it. I guess it brings up traumatic memories of an over-martinied Barbara Bush whacking him with a belt and making him say over and over, "I was wrong; I was wrong; I was wrong." And, you know, if you're never going to admit that those tax cuts were a mistake, that Rumsfeld needs to go, that the planet really is dying from greenhouse gases, why should some underling risk his/her career by giving you news you don't want to hear? Instead, Bush just heads out and keeps catapulting the propaganda: Saddam was involved in the attacks of September 11th, we're safer now than we were before, there's no such thing as global climate change, abstinence education works, anyone who gives me bad news hates me, etc., etc.

It would be funny, if this now-enraged dingbat didn't have his finger on the nuclear button.

Thanks, Sandra Day!

Something Nice

Via Witchvox, here's another reasonably accurate and respectful article on Pagan Pride week. One of the main reasons to hold a Pagan Pride week, other than to give Pagans a chance to get together is to help the rest of the world to realize what Pagans are -- and aren't. It's pretty fucking disgusting, though, to hear about food banks that would prefer to have their clients go hungry than to accept food from Pagans. I'd love to know if some of those food banks were run with faith-based tax dollars.

Remember What A Big Deal The Republicans Made Over The Clintons' Failed Land Deal?

It's an ill wind that blows no good and the downside of Mastrugate has been that it's forced G. Felix Allen, Jr. off the front page. Now, there's news that

For the past five years, Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), has failed to tell Congress about stock options he got for his work as a director of a high-tech company. The Virginia Republican also asked the Army to help another business that gave him similar options.

Congressional rules require senators to disclose to the Senate all deferred compensation, such as stock options. The rules also urge senators to avoid taking any official action that could benefit them financially or appear to do so.

Those requirements exist so the public can police lawmakers for possible conflicts of interest, especially involving companies with government business that lawmakers can influence.

Allen's stock options date to the period from January 1998 to January 2001 when Allen was between political jobs and had plunged into the corporate world.

An Associated Press review of Allen's financial dealings from that era found that the senator:

_Did not have to look far to find corporate suitors, joining three Virginia high-tech companies he assisted as governor. Allen served on boards of directors for Xybernaut and Commonwealth Biotechnologies and advised a third company called Com-Net Ericsson, all government contractors.

. . . .

_Twice failed to promptly alert the Securities and Exchange Commission of insider stock transactions as a Xybernaut and Commonwealth director. The SEC requires timely notification and can fine those who file late.

_Kept stock options provided to him for serving as a director of Xybernaut and Commonwealth, but steered other compensation from his board service to his law firm.

In interviews, Allen and his staff sought to play down his corporate dealings, saying they were a good learning experience but did not lead to extraordinary riches — except for a quarter-million-dollar windfall from Com-Net Ericsson stock.

Allen's office said he sold his Xybernaut stock at a loss and has not cashed in his Commonwealth options because they cost more than the stock is now worth. The senator also said he saw no conflict going to work for companies shortly after assisting them as governor.

"I actually got no money out of Xybernaut. I got paid in stock options which were worthless. Commonwealth Biotech asked me to be on their board. Glad to do it. I learned a lot on their board and enjoyed working with 'em, and they seem to be doing all right, I guess," Allen said.

Apparently, theres a double standard. Dem deals are fair game whether or not they make any money. Republicans don't have to follow the rules as long as there's "only" a quarter of a million dollars profit involved.

For the love of Persephone! Would the national Dems PLEASE get down here to the Old Dominion and help Jim Webb win? This state could make the difference between a Senate where Darth Cheney casts the deciding vote and one where he's irrelevant.

Hat tip to Richard at Eschaton.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova


And the just man trailed God's shining agent,

over a black mountain, in his giant track,

while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:

"It's not too late, you can still look back



at the red towers of your native Sodom,

the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,

at the empty windows set in the tall house

where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."



A single glance: a sudden dart of pain

stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .

Her body flaked into transparent salt,

and her swift legs rooted to the ground.



Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem

too insignificant for our concern?

Yet in my heart I never will deny her,

who suffered death because she chose to turn.


From Poems of Akhmatova, by Anna Akhmatova and translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward.

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

I've blogged this poem before, but it continues to intrigue me. What is it about looking back that endears Lot's wife to Akhmatova?

The Catholic Church Recruits The Speaker Of The House

Marwa-The Young Sudanese Poet


In Sudan, the systematic rape of girls like Marwa and of women is a widely-practiced method of warfare.

In March a shaikh told the UN that, in Mornei in Western Darfur, up to 16 women per day were being raped as they went to collect water in the river bed (wadi). Women had no choice but to continue to go to collect water despite the threat of rape, because they feared that their men would be killed if they went instead.

The extent of the problem has yet to be fully established, as one refugee woman in Chad told an Amnesty International researcher in January: "women will not tell you easily if such a thing happens to them. In our culture, it is a shame, and women will hide this in their hearts so that the men do not hear about it."

Women make up a disproportionate number of internally displaced people, who have sought refuge in urban centres in the region. There they come under the control of the Janjawid and government forces and are at continued risk of sexual attacks. They also suffer chronic food shortage because of the Sudan government’s delays in allowing humanitarian access to the region. Currently only an estimated 50 per cent of internally displaced people have access to humanitarian assistanc

Wish You Were Here

Would the humans on this plant just stop this shit right fucking now?

Saturday Goddess Blogging

There's the "Story" of Cerridwen:


Once there was a witch named Ceridwen, and she had two children. The one, her daughter, was as beautiful a child as you could ever hope to see; the other, her son Morfran, was so ugly, ill-favored and stupid that he sickened everyone who saw him.

Ceridwen was grieved that Morfran was so horrible, and resolved by her magic arts to make him into such a great bard that no-one would mind his ugliness. She began to cast a great spell. Many were the plants that she cast into her cauldron, many the incantations said over it. An old blind man named Morda was set to keep the fires burning beneath it, assisted by a young boy, Gwion.

The Cauldron of Wisdom and Inspiration must be kept boiling for a year and a day, and then the first three drops from it would impart ultimate knowledge to the one who drank them. But the rest of the liquid would be deadly poison.

Long labored Ceridwen, roaming far to find the rare and exotic herbs she required, and so it chanced that she fell asleep on the last day of the spell. The boy Gwion was stirring the brew when three drops flew out onto his thumb, and they were scalding hot, so that he thrust it into his mouth to stop the burning. Instantly, he had the wisdom and inspiration of ages, and the first thing that occurred to him was that Ceridwen would be very angry.

He ran away from the house of Ceridwen, but all too soon he heard the fury of her pursuit. Using his new magical powers, he turned himself into a hare. She turned into a greyhound bitch, and gained ever more on him. He came to a river, and quick as thinking became a fish. She became an otter. He leapt from the water, and in the middle of his leap became a bird of the air. The witch Ceridwen became a hawk. In desperation, he looked down and saw a pile of wheat. He dived, landed, and as it scattered he turned into a single grain. Then she landed and became a hen, and pecked at the grain until she had swallowed Gwion.

Soon after, Ceridwen found herself with child, though she had lain with no man. When she realized that the baby was Gwion, she resolved to kill it, and Morfran wanted her to also, in revenge for his not becoming a bard. In due course, the babe was born, and Morfran would have slaughtered him on the spot, but the mother said no, because it was the most beautiful child ever seen. But she took him and, sewing him in a bag, set him adrift on the ocean.

And, Then, There's The Mythology of Cerridwen:

Cerridwen ("White Sow", or "White Crafty One") is the Welsh grain and sow-goddess, keeper of the cauldron of inspiration and goddess of transformation. Her son Afagddu was so horribly ugly [that] She set to making a brew of wisdom for him, to give him a quality that could perhaps overcome his ugliness. Every day for a year and a day She added herbs at the precise astrological times, but on the day [that] it was ready[,] the three magical drops fell instead on the servant boy, Gwion Bach, who was set to watch the fire. Instantly becoming a great magician, the boy fled from Her wrath, and as She pursued him they each changed shape--a hound following a rabbit, an otter chasing a salmon, a hawk flying after a sparrow--until finally the boy changed to a kernel of wheat, settling into a pile of grain on a threshing-floor. Cerridwen, becoming a black hen, found him out and swallowed him down.

Nine months later she gave birth to Taliesin, who would be the greatest of all bards.

Called "the White Lady of Inspiration and Death", Cerridwen's ritual pursuit of Gwion Bach symbolizes the changing seasons. Her cauldron contains awen, meaning the divine spirit, or poetic or prophetic inspiration. Her link as the Mother of Poetry is seen in Her reborn son Taliesin, and in the Welsh word that makes up part of Her name, cerdd, which also means poetry.

Cerridwen signifies inspiration from an unexpected corner. Plans may go awry; projects may change. Do not be too quick to hold a project to its course--instead let it take its shape as it will.

The name, itself, is pronounced ke-RID-wen. It is of Welsh origin, and its meaning is "fair, blessed poetry." [In] Celtic mythology, [it is the] name of the goddess of poetic inspiration [and] the name of the mother of the legendary sixth-century Welsh hero Taliesin. . . . Ceridwen is a rare female first name

So, ok, it took me all of two weeks to get to focusing on a goddess of poetry. Shoot me, pursue me as a hawk, swallow me up as a piece of grain. You knew that when you picked me up and warmed me at your breast.

To modern Wiccans, Ceridwen is She who stirs the cauldron of birth, and life, and death, and rebirth, and life, and death, and rebirth and life and, well, I think you get it. Her cauldron, symbol of her womb and precursor to the Romanticized/Anglicized Holy Grail, is where everything dead goes to be cooked down to its essence, which then, like the herbs in a bubbling cauldron (think soup pot if you don't have a cauldron), blend with the essences of everything else in the pot in order to create something completely new. A mere three drops of the wisdom contained in an understanding of that process is enough to impart wisdom that can overcome any handicap, wisdom that can transform a kitchen-boy into the greatest poet that the world has ever known.

We Wiccans chant, "One thing becomes another/In the Mother/In the Mother. One thing becomes another/In the Mother/In the Mother."

Now, as the year itself begins to die, as leaves fall from trees and are transformed into the earth from which new trees will grow, is a good time to think about Ceridwen. What parts of your life need to die and return to the cauldron, to the womb of the Mother? What change do you hope to see in the next year-and-a-day (the traditional training period before a new member could be initiated into a coven)? What transformations might wisdom work within you when it splatters, hot and unexpected, on your thumb? Who will be so angry to see you acquire new wisdom that they will pursue you mercilessly, changing, themselves, as they pursue you? Are you still willing to stir Ceridwen's cauldron?

Much, much more on Talesien here.

Compare And Contrast

In the reality-based universe.

In the Republican bizzaro make-our-own-reality universe.

Scared Of Xians

Wow. Check this out from the Huntsville Times, via Witchvox. That's Huntsville, Alabama, BTW

The woman who called me was concerned that I had given mention to a group who lets a group of Wiccans sometimes use their facility.

"Do you know they are witches?" the lady asked me.

"Yes," I said. "And Wiccans are hard to find because they're scared of the Christians."

The woman was silent for a long minute.

"And you're the Faith & Values editor?" she asked, sounding like she hoped I wasn't.

Yes, Ma'am," I told her, "but I don't write just about Christian values."

She was silent a long time more. I tried to think of something to make her feel better.

"They're good witches," I said.

The caller hung up.

The article, which I'm prejudiced enough to be surprised to see in an Alabama paper, goes on to note: In "The Cost of Certainty: How Religious Conviction Betrays the Human Psyche," Jeremy Young, a former priest who is now a family therapist, traces the worst sins of the faithful to their beliefs. Whether the Crusades for us Christians or the bombing of civilians by Muslims, the impulse to destroy or to limit others based on their beliefs seems to spring from obeisance to an inflexible, judgmental God, and from the believer's personal desire to know this God beyond any doubt.

Knowing God beyond any doubt, Young points out, puts the believer outside the bounds of faith.

Sam Harris, an atheist, wrote "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason," an exploration of how religious certainty leads to attacks on humans. His latest, "Letter to a Christian Nation," responds to the hundreds of letters he received after his first book, letters he found to be "murderously intolerant of criticism." He has written his letter-book to answer the worst of those missives. He diagrams how every religion, including Christianity, holds in it the seeds of intolerance and argues for a culture based on provable facts, not religious myth.

These books and the concerned caller brought to my mind the wisdom of Islam: "O people!" God says in the Quran, 49:13. "We made you into nations and tribes so that you may come to know one another and not to despise one another."

I suppose the lack of certainty, with some unfortunate exceptions coughwitchwarscough, is one of the things that I love about Wicca. So often, when some either/or question comes up, my answer is, "Yes." Is divinity immanent or not? Yes. Are the gods and goddesses real or are they representations of divinity in a form we can comprehend? Yes. Is everything relative or are there moral absolutes? Yes. My prayer every morning says "It's all real. It's all metaphor. There's always more. I'm off to add both of these books to my wish list.

The Party Of Hurting Children

Rosa Brooks explains that Foley was just taking the Republicans' policies to their logical extreme:

This combination of irresponsible tax cuts and out-of-control spending guaranteed that there would be little left over for the crucial social programs American children need, such as meaningful spending on healthcare, job-creation and anti-poverty programs.

The result was predictable. From 2000 to 2005, the number of American children living in poverty went up by 1.3 million, and the likelihood that any given child is poor increased by 9%. (Incidentally, Washington, D.C. — the one region of the United States under the direct control of Congress — had higher child poverty rates than any state in the nation, with 32.2% of children living under the poverty line in 2005.)

Why I Love Twisty

Twisty is particularly good at catching the bullshit notion that male=normal. My own favorite example of this phenomena occurs at my firm every time they have to define "business casual." They basically say that it's slacks, dress shirts w/o ties or sweaters or polo shirts, and an optional blazer. Then they say, "Women should wear something comparable." I've been begging them for years to say that business casual is either some nice slacks with a blouse or sweaters or polo shirts and an optional blazer and that men should wear something comparable, but, so far, no luck.

Once In A While, A NYT LtE Hits The Nail Directly On The Head

To the Editor:

“A Complex and Hidden Life Behind Ex-Representative’s Public Persona” (news article, Oct. 5) is a treatise on the nature of the closet, where pretense becomes a way of life.

The risk is that deception becomes normalized, artifice takes the place of reality, and the ability to discern legitimacy is compromised.

Mark Foley is a particularly extreme example, but the closet is a dangerous place — for everyone.

Russell Granger
Brooklyn, Oct. 5, 2006

Ninety-Eight Point Six Is Likely Gone Forever. Welcome To The New Normal.

How many different ways are there to keep saying the same thing?

The Earth is dying. Did you ever see anyone die of a fever? Once, when my little brother was a baby, he got a fever that climed too high, too fast. He had convulsions from it. My parents got him to the hopsital at the last minute where they immediately submersed him in an ice bath. I believe that he's still seriously emotionally and physically scared by that experience. Well, Mother Earth has a fatal fever. We've run out of good options; the time to administer baby Tylenol and wipe brows with a cool cloth are all over. The only choice that we're left with is that terribly startling ice bath that saves the patient, although at quite a cost. Or, we can ignore the fever all together and watch the patient convulse and die. Oh, we depend on this patient for every breath that we take.


Today's LAT reports that: Rising temperatures in the 11 Western states from global warming will cause more pervasive droughts, a four-fold increase in wildfires and extensive die-offs in regional plant, fish and game habitats, according to a report Thursday by the National Wildlife Federation.

"The American West is truly on the front line," said Patty Glick, the federation's global warming specialist. "The latest science is painting a bleak picture."

To avoid the consequences of climate change, the 1 million-member wildlife organization urged national limits, following those recently adopted in California, on the greenhouse gases responsible for rising temperatures, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

The national appetite for energy, fed by carbon-rich coal, oil and natural gas, imposes a double penalty on the ecological health of the West, the group said. The search for fossil fuels -- drilling permits on public lands have tripled in six years -- disrupts fragile habitats, even as the rising levels of carbon dioxide alter the regional climate in ways that will make it impossible for many species to survive.

The federation report, called "Fueling The Fire," brings a regional focus to climate research findings from federal agencies, academic reports and science journals.

The researchers offered growing evidence that rising regional temperatures already have had an effect, causing warmer winters, earlier springs, less snow and more rain. That, in turn, has raised the risk of floods in winter and the likelihood of diminished water supplies in summer.

The winter snow pack, the source of 75 percent of the water supply in the West, has declined by almost a third in the northern Rocky Mountain region and more than 50 percent in the Cascades since 1950, the federation reported.

As the Western landscape becomes ever more desiccated, wildfires consequently become more common, more widespread and harder to control, experts said.

This past wildfire season was the most severe on record, said ecologist Steven Running at the University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation.

Keith Olberman Calls Bush A Liar

Just go watch.

Hiding Inside A Dangerous Cloak

Keith Olberman's prose often speaks better than it reads. Not tonight. Damn! I wish that I'd written this:

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

Minutemen Protest

Man, this does my heart more good than almost anything has in thirty-some years. This was how we used to do it back in the sixties. HatTip to pigboy at Eschaton

Ode to the Kilt

Oh. My. I need a moment, here.

Republican Traditional Values

Strange Fruit on George Allen's Trees