Grey Matter Flatulence

Been awhile since I've had a rant......

2010-07-29T13:16:00.000-04:00

Things I'm ranting about this season: Divisiveness amongst citizenry and how the media seems to ignore slander and libel. I'm just saying...: if I were Van Jones, I'd be suing for defamation, or libel or slander. Maybe he's got more heart than I, but he shouldn't have had to leave his post.
Water; yes, it is illegal to collect rain water in the state of Colorado (and some others as well). I sure hope that citizens of CO put out their rain barrels and someone tests this law in the courts. The day that this government, or any state, can claim to own the rain is the day that I decide it just may be time to leave the country.
Built in Obsolescence: sick and tired of making purchases that are crap and break. From Aveda products to appliances - everything is made in China where it seems no one cares how well something is constructed. $150 coffee makers that break after 4 months, water filtration devices that last about 60 days, clothing that comes ready to shred..... if a business wants my dollar, they best start paying attention to engineering. I can build better stuff in my basement with duct tape and bubble gum.
Speaking of duct tape, why didn't BP send down the robot army and wrap the wellhead with freaking duct tape? It probably would've worked better than heavy mud or tennis balls. And if you buy gas from BP stations, or any BP affiliated products, then you are responsible for dead seabirds, oiled coastlines, and burnt sea turtles.
Accept your responsibility or get real.
Citizens United vs Fed. Election Commission: yes, this ruling by Roberts' conservative and misleaded supreme court was heinous. May we mention a tiny bit of silver lining to that cloud? It's easier to sue a citizen entity than it is to sue a corporation. Now we just need someone with deep pockets to file the first suit.

Tea Partiers, (I do prefer Teabaggers, it suits them), are personal agenda idiots.
They either will find a common agenda, or they will go the way of the Indiana Republican primary: too many candidates for a game of musical chairs. No one wins.
And Sarah Palin: an artifice (to say the least) created to further her own ambition while using everyone and everything around her.

The weather: HAWT. We told you so.
Water: expensive enough for you yet?

USDA Organic Food Certifications and Organic Sugar: Buy local. Know your food producers - visit their farms, volunteer to help so you can see what they do.
The organic label means little these days, it can be bought just like every politician out there (with the exception of maybe Russ Feingold).
STOP CUTTING DOWN RAINFORESTS TO GROW ORGANIC SUGAR - we see you. And we don't want to hear about how your sugar plantations are helping the poor of south america.
They'd be helped more if they were shown that sustainability and eco-tourism pays more than does sugar.

Sugar laden soda, fast food taxes: PLEASE do tax soda and fast food. It does nothing for human health to consume these things and if the garbage food was more expensive than REAL, HEALTHY food, people would eat healthier. When soda and greasy burgers are cheaper than a pound of broccoli or a sack of tomatoes, its a sure bet that folks will be eating cheap. If we can create laws against adults smoking while citing the health of children, then certainly we can remove sugary drinks and snacks from schools. I pay taxes and am tired of seeing kids who are so heavy they can run and play like a child should.

Lastly, will everyone please stop talking about RACISM. It isn't just racism that is the problem, it is discrimination against the poor, the disenfranchised, and the ignorant. It is politics of gender too and if you think I'm wrong consider this:
since 2008 when the economy tanked, more men have lost jobs and have had longer unemployment times than did women. What does this say about employment? The Lilly Ledbetter equal pay for equal work act was long overdue. What we should've seen coming was the response of business to Lilly Ledbetter: fire the men who make larger salaries, hire more women (for lower start wages), wait until the men are really hungry and offer them jobs at wage women previously earned. Now everyone makes the same salary and no one got raises.
Thanks big business! We knew we could leave it to you!

Since when can corporations cast votes?

2010-01-26T12:04:00.003-05:00

So I am watching Keith Olberman ranting about the fact that "major news organizations" were too busy reporting on John Edwards' love child" and basically ignored the Supreme Court striking down the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform legislation by declaring that Corporations are essentially "ENTITIES", and as such as entitled to free speech under the constitution?

I am speechless. I am thoroughly convinced that the U.S. government should be declared legally insane. What do our tax dollars get spent on? One branch of government circumventing the will of another branch of government. And the tax payer once again gets the shaft. We can now count on corporate interests subverting every campaign they can with their dollars.
Perhaps they'll use the money they saved on raising working womens wages to match male workers wages to finance their own campaigns of lies, innuendo and mud slinging.

Rant du Jour - FREE Gifts

2010-01-20T14:41:00.003-05:00

About 9 months ago I began receiving US WEEKLY magazine in the mail. Funny, I didn't (and wouldn't) subscribe to that kind of trash. But there it was in my mailbox every week. At first, I tried to get the USPS to send it back saying there must be some kind of mistake. The USPS is not interested in stopping mail that is delivered in error - they are interested in keeping their jobs - so no help from the USPS.
Knowing that US Weekly is the kind of junk that most of my neighbors would enjoy, I started giving it to a neighbor who lives on gossip about celebrity culture. Over time, I got tired of taking it to her mailbox - it isn't like it was a quality gift or something I was giving her, but it did warrant at least a HELLO when our paths crossed.

So, over the months, I simply took to tossing the magazine into the recycling bin. Unread. I mean, who cares about so and so's 6 pack abs? I got stuff to do.
Then, I started receiving bills from US Weekly.

Getting billed for trash made me angry. I began a campaign with email messages. To be fair, I guess there was a response - automated. Still, the trashy rag kept showing up in my mailbox.
I started again with second campaign. Hunting for the magazine's impressum only took most of 10 minutes as it is barely there - buried on the last page, at the bottom of the page, in tiny font, is the legally required impressum. But there isn't any good contact info.... hmmmm.
Online I find that there is a hint that US Weekly may be owned by Rolling Stone Magazine. What a huge letdown. An institution from my contemporaries - and here it is, the owner of celebrity soft porn.

Finally! I get a phone number. I call US WEEKLY. 3 Days later I am no closer to finding out where US Weekly got my name, who started the subscription, etc.
I try again, this time threatening legal action. AHA! Someone with a pulse and connecting synapses on the other end of the phone! And yes, my "subscription" was initiated by...... LIVE NATION TICKETING.
WTF!?????
Yes, well I did buy tickets for Michael Franti and Spearhead last January from LiveNation. Those same tickets barely paid the band - most of the charges were taxation/entertainment fees, administration fees, and fees on fees because it seems to be a good idea. As if Live Nation wasn't making enough money as middleman on fees alone - they had to sell my name (or add it to their corporate marketing list).
So, does Rolling Stone own Live Nation? How is Live Nation tied in to US Weekly?
Will I ever buy another fecking concert admission from Live Nation? I think I'd rather pull out my toenails with a tweezer.

BTW, the "subscription" is canceled. At least I won't be subjected to naked torsos and 6 pack abs as I reach for the Hagan Daz and wish that winter was over.

So How Callous am I?

2010-01-20T13:10:00.004-05:00

America empties its collective pockets for Haitian earthquake victims. Faster than you can say "Katrina", tens of millions of dollars have been collected to enrich the coffers of corporations such as Pepsi (Aquafina) and Coke (Dansani), those ubiquitous suppliers of bottled water. Never mind the empty bottles, what about the carbon footprint just getting it distributed, whether in Haiti or Honolulu?
A moot point you say in the face of the suffering in Haiti. But, Haitians have been suffering for years; mostly from different forms of exploitation - colonial or governmental (or lack thereof). What have Americans been seeing for all these years if Haiti seems to be a new problem? American Idol hasn't been on all that long....

So, what exactly is my beef other than with CocaColaCorp and PepsiCo? Maybe it has something to do with our ostrich like belief that bottled water can save a nation in distress while we do nothing to conserve the water that we bequeath to the next generations. Perhaps my callousness stems from my belief that rather than the empty promises of the spiritual hereafter, organized religion has done nothing for desperate countries like Haiti, other than with hold birth control and reproductive choice.

Over population is a looming issue with implications that many nations have yet to understand. If times be tough now, imagine how tough they'll get in the future when rich nations find that water is so expensive we hoard it for ourselves alone.

As we viral humans expand to all reaches of the planet, we displace the niche life that has developed in our absence. Ever where humanity walks, nature suffers.

While we extend our generosity toward the stricken of Haiti, how can we assure that population that it can go forward? Do we rebuild their world with the same technologies that have devastated ours? Or do we add insult to injury by delivering on the same empty promises that we make to the next generations?
What hope for Haiti when we can't seem to reach out to our own future?

To answer a question which I don't think is anyone's business; No, I have not donated to Haitian Disaster Relief. But I have donated to International Programs dedicated to conserving wetlands and aquifers. I donate money to conserve land where wild things can thrive - not to build tent cities and support corrupt political systems.

The people of Haiti should project their anger where it is deserved, on their own government, not the international effort to bring them aid. The people of Haiti perhaps have lived on "island time" too long and allowed their regimes to dictate their expectations.
If civil unrest can unseat efforts to assist the dying and sick, why not direct that same anger at the people who allowed a nation to sink into such despair in the first place? If Haiti is to survive and rebuild, it will be through the efforts of Haitians, not relief efforts.

The Universe, playing tricks of Irony

2010-01-20T12:07:00.005-05:00

And to think, by the time Scott Brown appeared butt nekkid in Cosmopolitan, I had quit reading it because it had become insipid.
Yesterday, the universe decided to play the ultimate trick of irony on the millions of people who have waited years for better access to health care: a Republican actually took the state of Massachusetts' Senate seat. Kind of goes to show how narrow it is to think that it's always about "location, location, location". Although, even I was a bit surprised at the end to see that Boston isn't a Democratic town anymore. Nope, it won't be business as usual.

It is a blow to many who have waited patiently for regulation, or just access to health care, not to mention so many who will simply 'fall through the cracks' because their situation is not dire enough to 'merit' statistic. America routinely sacrifices its elders on the altars of youth; today, "retirement" is forced before access to Medicare is possible. With unemployment continuing to rise, fewer and fewer Americans will be able to afford health care just when they find they need it most.
If I believed in conspiracy, I'd be adding this one to the list. It all smacks of employers using ageism to oust workers, reducing health care costs, just at a time when the workers' health begins to decline.

And all because the FEW wish to control reproductive issues, keep their portfolios healthy with a still viable investment option, and, don't trust their government enough to submit to a plan instituted by same.

We can raise tens of millions of dollars for relief efforts in Haiti where the local government is all but invisible in the face of the disaster (and have let the people of Haiti down yet again); but we can not accept any change to our own tax status long enough to endow everyone in our own country with access to health care.

America is full of enigmas, not the least of which is its' citizens.

Take Care with What You Wish For ....

2010-01-20T11:41:00.004-05:00

To establish my personal belief: every person who does a specific job should be paid the same for their work regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. Equal Pay for Equal Work was a no-brainer, long overdue, and a lay down victory for the Obama administration.
But, could anyone have foreseen the effect that HR 2831 would have on the American workforce during the last 18 months?

In August 2006, it was reported by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), that: "Women’s Employment Falls More Than Men’s In Wake of Hurricanes
IWPR Report Finds Deep Segregation in Gulf Coast Labor Market by Sex and Race". While female workers took the hard hits in 2006 (without the benefit of HR 2831), the same can not be said for our current unemployment rate.
The New York Times (NYT) reports that while layoffs surge, women are surpassing men in the workforce.
How very convenient for corporate policy to see that it is easier to fire all the men than it is to raise the women's salaries to that of their male counterparts.

As an old adage goes, be careful what you wish for, you never know how the universe will conspire to bring it all about.

I sincerely hope that American men won't be expected to be compensated in the future as they were in the past. No, their status as workers has now been lowered to the same as women had held exclusively before Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Yes, men and women alike will now earn the same money for the work they do. And the corporations will have found another loophole in which to leap for shareholder profits.
Never mind that without the worker, there are fewer consumers.

Old Dogs Learning New Tricks

2009-07-05T15:51:00.003-04:00

I wasn't much interested in setting up a Twitter account prior to the June elections in Iran. Like much of the International community, I found the news coverage of the rallies in Iran, before the elections, to be a sign of movement from Nationalism towards International citizenship.
Much of the West ignores the reality of Muslim divisions, sect differences, and, most importantly, of political moderation, or lack thereof. For those of us who make a point of exercising our planetary citizen status, all of the elections, from Lebanon to Honduras have been interesting to watch, as well as thought provoking.
In America, the election of Barack Obama as president signaled a shift of power from European ancestry based control, to immigrant and youth control. For me, as well as so many others, this was refreshing as well as invigorating.
The potential for similar shifts of voting blocks in other nations is great. For instance, in Israel, Arabic Israelis and Palestinians in Israel will soon out number Hebrews. The significance of that is enormous as Israel's leaders may have figured out with their willingness to now discuss the "two state solution". In many ways, like other pundits, I see it as too late for Israel to offer the two state solution to Palestine. Palestine, if current population growth trends continue, will undermine its position by accepting toe "too little, too late" two state solution. If Israeli Jews wish to remain the majority party in Israel, they will have to enforce draconian voting laws, keeping Palestinian and Arabic Israelis from the polls.
The educated populations of our world are settling more comfortably into the role of international citizen. They realize that without moderate and tolerant views, Humanity may not be able to survive on our planet. That without compromise and clear goals from all nations, we probably can not solve our biggest problems such as climate change, poverty, water and energy demands.
What happened in Iran was not in vain. Another mindset has emerged in the Muslim nations that is not about condemnation or control of or through, religion; it is about proper stewardship of resources so we can continue to work toward alleviating poverty, ignorance, disease and intolerance. Sooner or later, the will of the majority will be impossible to ignore and the people who feel disenfranchised by election results, will be moved again to shift the balance of their power.
What happened in Iran caused me to Twitter. What happened in Iran made me think about what happened in America in 2000 when Bush, Rove and Cheney stole the election for president and were successful at their bloodless coup. Instead of taking our passions and protests to the street when we were told that the recounts were illegal and the will of the people was invalidated, we retreated to our living rooms and to the safety of the media propaganda dream machines. Considering the Iranian people who left their homes and possessions to voice their outrage at their government and were dealth with extremem violence, while Americans were threatened with labels such as "Traitor", or "Terrorist"; and decided not to risk their material comfort to accuse the Bush regime, I have once again been humbled by the resilience of the human spirit.
No, Iran, your protests were not in vain. Next time, you will need a leader, a true Leader who will take you all the way to the seat of your new democracy (if that, indeed, is what you choose). In the meantime, gather your wits, re-examine your purpose, and prepare for the next opening - for surely it will come.

Bird-ness

2009-06-10T10:00:00.002-04:00

I don't write about my "kids", Sunkist and Mojo because, well, I would rather play with them than spend time writing about them. Looking at that last sentence, I realize that I am playing 'chicken' - I don't write about the parrots because I don't want to seem mushy and silly and 'bird-brained'. I also think that committing things to words diminishes some of the magic of what goes on.
I just spent 24 hours reading "Wesley the Owl" by Stacey O'Brien, and I've come to realize that perhaps I should write about my relationships with the birds - anyone who spends so much time with their companions, has insights that can be useful, and endearing, to others.
Sunkist is my love. He came from a big box pet store and the decision to allow myself to fall in love with him (thus buying him) was made unconsciously. I had been haunting pet stores and taking sketch pad and pencil with me to draw parrots. I was always interested in their anatomy - and once I began to learn about wild birds, parrots seemed a natural progression. What I never counted on was how much I could love such a tiny bundle of feathers. Sunkist is now 9 years old and it is human nature to think of the future. To think that he will not be with me forever is a dark spot I'd rather not explore.
Mojo is the baby. She is difficult to deal with sometimes as she is now coming into sexual maturity. She is a different kind of conure than Sunkist is; smaller and even anatomically different. Mojo has a kind of smell about her that has gotten better since she first came into our lives. She is nippier than SUnkist ever was - she did not love me like Sunkist did (before I ever brought him home). But I love Mojo almost as much as I love Sunkist - she is sweet in her own way, and she is very responsive to affection and patience.
Sunkist, fell in love first with my hair. As a 'bappy' he would nestle into my hair and poop down my back. I loved the nestling and would put up with the poop for that sweet snuggling. Sunkist began talking quite soon after coming home.
It's said that parrots mimic rather than reason - those platitudes are obviously uttered by people who don't have parrots living in their home.
Parrots reason, logic and then express themselves in a manner which a human companion can not explain away as mimicry.
Parrots wind themselves in a tight loop around your heart and not even the most passionate human lover could be as intuitive about emotion as my Sunkist.

Overcrowding? Or new extended families?

2009-06-05T16:42:00.002-04:00

Much has been said about our society being bereft of the benefits of extended family.
With the necessity of dual incomes, many parents find that getting their kids into day care, often premium day care, is beyond their economic reach.
But America, as well as urban Europe has fallen under the spell of promised personal space, and privacy. Not only do we find it convenient to have others care for the kids while we work, often many middle aged people find themselves putting their parents into nursing homes or assisted living for the same reasons.

2008 heralded a trending change in these habits as the economy collapsed and many middle aged working people found that their adult children were losing their jobs, and with the jobs, their homes, and finding a need to return to 'the nest'.

Americans deride immigrant families that 'crowd' living spaces. Americans find it inconceivable that married adults share a bedroom with their children, and sometimes, parents. Apartments rented with the idea that they hold 2 or 3 people oftimes are home to 8 or 10 people. In rental cases, this is enough to get a family evicted.

Much of suburban, and some urban, areas have thrived as communities with Homeowner Associations. As such, the Associations build into their organization sets of covenants with hopes that by enforcing same, property values in these areas can be maintained, and often made to increase. these covenants often adjudicate the number of residents allowed in a home. They stipulate that a single family house be a specific size, with space for a set number of vehicles, and have governance controlling land usage.
As families weather the financial crisis around the globe, they find it convenient, and sometimes necessary, to move in one house together to offer support during unemployment, as well as care to children and aging parents.

In some circumstances, if people made these choices freely, without the pressure of joblessness or economic hard times, they would be considered to be pioneering a new age of extended family, and applauded by sociologists. While in Homeowner Associations, situations such as these can lead to restrictions on how a owners property is used - rendering an extended family pariah.

Sometimes change comes about not because of serious contemplation, but of financial necessity. That is the case in what is now becoming a growing trend in families which are living under one roof.
Can we not simply accept that as our society changes, we begin to see habits which had no place in our community before? If we can applaud those who make decisions freely, without pressure, can we not applaud, or at least be empathetic towards those who make decisions based on economic need?
It is time we stop oppressing what is often viewed as de-evolution. It is instead, time to consider that combining families under one roof is not only conserving resources (and money), but it is enriching the very families who thought they were moving in together out of financial need rather than social commentary.

Lets all get together for a big Group Hug!

2009-06-05T13:42:00.002-04:00

Are we humans wired to be part of a clique? Is it essential for us to form group identities and rely less on our individuality?

I've been playing around in a rather large community for the last six months. It is tied to one of those Ask.com websites which were, as I understood it, originally begun as a jump point for researchers. Well, as it goes, the site has, or actually was when I joined, a big group of cliques which play off each other for fun, or, depending on your point of view, fan the flames of divisiveness.

I am actually having a hard time sticking to my goal of hanging with the site for the length of a year. This is not an uncommon goal in my observations of culture and people. Once I decided to spend 1 year watching 2 soap operas trying to understand the phenomenon. I can't say that I ever got much insight from that experiment, but I did stick it out (which says quite a lot about the state of Question and Answer websites.

It is interesting to note that regardless of the community, one will always find scammers, cons, frauds, spammers and predators. I, myself, having had a bit of a run in now and then with those kind of people, tend to stay out of situations which divulge any personal information about myself. Yet, I am always surprised at how people who profess to be so smart are so quick to accept some contrived story from a person they do not know.

In less than 6 months, I have come to recognize that the site is mostly insipid stuff - questions asked with hopes that 'friends' will raise said question into hierarchy by assigning 'points'. The questions do not have to be important, relevant or even interesting. They simply have to catch the attention of other people who have "points" to give away.
Now I find this a sad state of affairs -- research is limited to websites like WIKI which is also contributed to by people like me, some benign, some clique-ish who might, or might not, have anything useful to add to an entry.
What happened to the days of using the internet to research "real" topics, administrated by "real" professionals? Have they all been delegated to subscription websites? Is it really true that in order to access real information, a person has to pay for it?

Subrubia Is Swell

2009-06-05T13:27:00.000-04:00

What's so great about living in the suburbs anyways? It might be a nice place to raise a family; the streets are quieter and assumed, safer. The houses are roomy and allow for personal space. The yards are large, rather private, and nice for kids to play in.
The schools are often better (depending on tax base). Suburbs generally have convenience shopping, can be walkable, and, in the case of Homeowner Associations, there is a certain level of control that exists in how homes, yards and space is maintained.
But America's suburbs, like much of the rest of our country, are homogenized. The ubiquitous fast food emporiums are draws to busy working parents. Play time for kids is often confined to Gymboree establishments that promise play, music and fun - and can be compared to every other Gymboree across the country.
Life in the suburbs is convenient, and if a family finds that it needs to relocate for one reason or another, to hop from suburb to suburb is not so different or alien.

Life in the suburbs is mundane. Culture is non-existant on a real level. Oh, each suburb may have a town center, with an art gallery or two, fabric shop, craft store (more chains), an intimate little dining establishment.

One can be certain that life in the suburbs will throw few 'curve balls'. In other words, there won't be too many surprises. If the suburb is chosen based on socio-economic factors (and most of them are), the potential resident is apt to find a suburb which leans towards their own religious, political, and financial mores. Neighbors will live in a house just the same as the next house; they will attend church in the community; children will all attend the same schools; and most of the residents will vote for the same candidates.
There will be very little in the way of independent thinking.
Perhaps this is desirable to the parents of young children who wish to shelter their kids from the "big bad world" and the people who live in it. It is easier to control your children's direction when you can control who they see, where they go, what is available to them. Safety for kids is great when the children are young. But without independent thought, without outside challenges to their morals, their beliefs and their education, how can we expect those same kids to grow into self sufficient, innovative, creative, adults?

Growing up in a large city presents so many risks for young people. I remember the first times I saw, or was the target of, a "flasher", and the response of my parents when I inquired about the motives of such a person. I also recall living across the street from a city park where community theater, art classes and physical activity were available to me each day. I learned to ice skate at a city park, I learned to play softball, I was in small theater productions, I created mini-masterpieces in art class. I also recall growing up knowing that a number of my neighbors were 'gang members' who hung out at the park at night. These were often the big brothers of our neighbors; and contrary to what one might think, these same gang members were often the people who looked out for us littler kids.
I developed a unique sense of independence as a kid being able to ride city buses.

In Response to Censorship, Responsibility, Self Esteem

2008-03-24T16:21:00.002-04:00

In response to someone anonymous who commented on "Tits Up"; I was happy to see you leave a link and to hear comments from someone in the business (so to speak) of physicality.
I know of a young woman who is a dancer who spends the bulk of her money on clothes from VS ... more power to her - as long as this is what she choses to do - from an informed mind set.
I think you missed a bit of my point - most of my beef with VS is not that they sell a dream to those who can't get off without one; it's that the dream is being sold only to humans who like women. Women who like men can only have ribald "Fun" if they go to Chippendales? Where are the male eye candy in the store front windows, in "Fashion Shows", or on TV? If a male is shown in some sort of stage of undress, it is generally a joke aimed at his workman's smile.

I am pissed at what looks like backsliding to this old feminist.

No one ever said that this should not be allowed, or that should not be allowed. Isn't it misogyny to only find safety in the exploitation of women? Yeah, the old question always was and probably always will be: If the woman choses to exploit herself for money, isn't her own business? Yes, I say it IS her business - as long as it is her business alone, not that of her pimp. As long as she has explored her options and she feels that the occupation of sex worker is for her - then by all means - work away at an honorable and needed profession.
However, there is no balance to how our society views sex, gender and open minded pleasure. No, it is doled out by a culture that does so in a puerile fashion - giggly, behind the hands, look at me be "naughty", exhibitionism.
How droll.

RE VS: Someone is going to exploit those with low self esteem - it might as well be VS or someone else will or is already doing it too. The sad fact is that no one should be made to feel that they are less valued because of their body.

As my spouse always likes to say "There is an ass for every saddle".
If a person is concerned that they do not have a 'partner' who loves them, they must first examine who THEY themselves are before they can look for that partner who completes them.
Yes, you stated it; taking responsibility for being a WHOLE them and being happy with that whole person.

Not to change the subject, but yes, to change the subject:
Do you find that religion allows people to NOT be responsible for who they are - after all, no matter who they are or what they do, they have been 'saved'?

Gender Disrespect, or Low Self Esteem?

2007-12-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

Why are so many people dis-satisfied with who they are?

After numerous false starts to this blog post, I open with the above question: is it true self dis-satisfaction, or is it reactionary immediacy that brings people to spend huge amounts of money, and risk unhealthy side effects by changing their looks?

With sarcasm and humor I approached this topic because as a woman of middle years I too find that I spend more time being concerned with this wrinkle or that streak of gray in my hair. I often justify this by saying I have lived with this face and hair for 55+ years and I am taking observant steps at retaining the looks that I have appreciated all of my life. Yet is are my small vanities the same as augmentation or full plastic surgery? Is taking care of what you have the first steps to altering who you are? I personally don't think so - I think there is a line to be drawn between keeping up your appearance and altering it because you can not stand to live in your body.

Is it disrespect for gender that rushes women to breast enhancement? Is it disrespect that makes people think that they must look one way or another? I recently watched a program about employment opportunities in China. The program followed one young professional woman who believed that she had reached the Chinese equivalent of the glass ceiling in her career. The reasons had nothing to do with her gender, they had to do with her appearance. The woman profiled believed that the competition in the work place was so fierce, in order to get ahead in her field, she would need to have exceptional looks. In Chinese white collar hierarchy, that translates to "a more Western look". The woman in the program under went plastic surgery to improve her skin, give her eye folds more of a westerners look. She also had extensive cosmetic surgery done to her mouth, so her 'bite' would not be so prominent.

The problems of dis-satisfaction with who we are are not confined to the United States. Plastic surgery and body enhancement is a bigger business in Asia than in the USA or Europe. How did the Chinese so quickly come to the same spot as American woman have? Is it pursuit of money that makes people desperate to conform to whatever the populist concepts of 'beauty'?

Does this have anything to do with beauty at all?

No one, especially when young, is perfectly happy with how they look. People with curly hair pay to straighten it. People with straight hair pay to curl it. People with too little hair seek to thicken it, those with lots of hair seek to reduce it.
And no one likes their body when it first goes into bloom. However, many of us grow to appreciate who we are, we like our small physical idiosyncrasies, we embrace our individuality. Once we develop our own sense of style, we become more ourselves.
We do not understand how so many people can be searching for the perfection that is truly, nonexistent.

It is difficult to ask of Americans, who have been pampered for decades from whence comes this dis-satisfaction when China, the land of equality for all comrades has fallen prey to the same problems. If China was not able to instill self worth in it's citizenry, how can it be expected of 'gotta have it now' Americans?

Tits Up

2007-12-08T15:25:00.000-05:00

Somehow the topic of TITS has been pretty high on the list of many people these days.

My friend Staci Backauskas of Tampa emailed to talk about something she was working on, an essay about a promotion being done on either a TV or radio station in Tampa FL. The promo, actually a contest, has the dubious title of "Jingle Jugs".
Apparently, 12 "lucky" women will be chosen from all entrants, to receive breast augmentation, just in time for the Holidays!

Where to start, where to start....

A local group of concerned mothers, calling themselves The Carmel Moms, have appealed to Victoria's Secret to tone down the soft porn look of their display windows in a local walking mall. The "Moms" are concerned because they do not wish to explain the clothing on the mannequins in the store windows to their toddlers or preteen kids. The Moms also believe that while trying to teach their kids sexual values, it is hard to do so when sex and what to wear when or to have sex is confronted by those same kids in the ubiquitous store front windows. Personally, censorship is a touchy issue. I don't like being censored and our constitution says that we all have the right to free speech. I am not sure if that right extends to inappropriate clothing choices being flaunted in malls though. My take on this is if the clothing can't be worn in the mall, then it doesn't belong in the store window at the mall. It is inappropriate attire for that time and place - so why market it out in the open. Surely, every adult man and woman knows that Victoria Secret sells intimate apparel.
They also know that if someone wants to pump up their tits, (or lack of them), they can buy just such a product at Victoria's Secret (VS). I have never been able to purchase anything from VS other than panties. But since I can buy a half dozen pair of panties at a department store for what one pair from VS costs, I don't shop at VS. Not personally having a lack of breast, I don't need a pump up bra. VS is, in my opinion, one step away from having breast augmentation. It is a cry from women who feel they have missed the tit bus to get on board.

Why is it that so many people are so utterly dis-satisfied with their own selves that they would endanger their lives with breast implants anyways? And when did immediacy take precedence over common sense? Will those same plastic surgeons that implant fluid filled bags in the chests of American women also help those same women hold those droopy bags up in 15 years? Will they help those women deal with backaches that come from tits that are too big? Or will they help with the medical costs when those bags deteriorate and fill the chest cavity with saline solution or silicone?

Now we'll take this one step further: recently I read a blog by someone who said "I am now officially a FATTY. At 150 pounds I now qualify as a FAT person". Is this idiot for real? Well yes, HE is. He is considered part of obese America at 150 pounds. Now, honestly, the author did not say how tall he was. Unless he was REALLY short, there is a chance that he isn't fat at all. He is simply succumbing to the labels being applied to those of us walking the earth whose thighs touch each other. Or who have tits, or hips or an ass. I am not talking about people who can't get up because they are considered by the medical professions as "morbidly obese". I am talking about real people - people who might be five and a half feet tall and weigh about 150 pounds. 150 pounds on someone of that height is about a size 12, maybe a 10. Until recently, a size 12 was considered NORMAL.
My conspiracy soaked mind has begun to believe that "FATTY" is a label invented by people who used to be called things like BEANPOLE, or SKINNY, or TOOTHPICK, or QTIP.
Yeah, you people who are SOOO 'thin' are still beanpoles. And how funny are you all going to look with tits as big as mine perched on your chests?

Why is it that when I walk into a womans clothing store, I can not find shirts or 'tops' that are cut generously enough for my tits? My tits are not humongous. They are cup size C. Yet, stores such as J. Jill do not carry tops that button over my tits. Clothing THAT HUGE must be ordered from the catalog. Hey, come one - are you stores afraid some fucking beanpole is going to come in and be offended that you sell clothes for FATTIES? Can someone tell me where all the breast augmented women are going to be shopping? If a cup size C is just too big to stock in a retail store, where will all the DD cup enhanced women get shirts to cover those jingle jugs?

Are Americans so disenchanted with intellect that they willingly trade it in for foolishness? Is what we are, less important than how we look? What about liking yourselves? Is that too much to ask? Can we please stop dissing those with things we'd like to have, as being less than we are - even as we scurry about trying to lay our hands on those very things we have laughed at and labeled? BTW, keep your hands off my tits as you hunt for the perfect pair. I may not have much use for them, but they're mine and I like them and have never wished for others. I could hope the same for you and yours but my gut tells me that this is just the beginning.

Next, we'll talk about face lifts - you know, those things ALL the celebrities (and the wanna be celebrities) are getting which make them look like their made of plasticine, or at best, like they are suffering from Bells Palsy.

Plague then and now

2007-10-24T17:37:00.000-04:00

What more can the ancient past teach us about our future? Plague in medieval times was the pandemic that people fear now and media uses as scare tactics.
Often archaeologists work in quiet solitude rendering the minutia of artifacts into living and breathing history.
With the advent of DNA gathering and study, archaeology is a whole new field of study - one that may give us insight into how some populations fair better than others in the face of pandemic.

http://www.archaeology.org/0711/abstracts/blackdeath.html

Still Happy to Not be a "Mother"

2007-05-13T18:18:00.000-04:00

Some anonymous person left a comment on my poem "Mother's Day" about how sad it was that I did not have love in my life and could write a poem such as that.
Here's a bit of news for you: I am still glad not to be a mother. And that has nothing to do with being loved or loving in return.
If all of your life is wrapped up in children, then I feel sorry for YOU. You have never self actualized.
Additionally, these days, it is almost irresponsible to procreate because you need love. The world is already over populated with people who can't or won't admit that they are using resources faster than they can be replenished.
So the next time you want to sit in judgment of someone else's choices regarding having and making children, consider what you can do to alleviate overpopulation, over use of natural resources and how you intend to afford to raise kids in todays climate of Bush Economics.

The New Collosus - 2007

2007-03-19T14:38:00.002-04:00

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
~ Emma Lazarus

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on em
Thats what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death
And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard
~ Lou Reed, from "Dirty Boulevard"

1
Oh Land of plenty and home of the free
that gave birth to pilgrims and innovators,
opening horizons to children of the blessed, like me:

Where is your mercy, your compassionate acceptance
of those huddled masses and homeless
now echoing with hushed tones of grievance?

The veneer is fading from the face of our fathers
as the rich get richer and the poor get their
tongues ripped out in the wave of profiteers and new fuhrers -

which the "greatest" generation fought to eliminate.
Where is the compassion which opened the arms of
the new colossus whose lamp no longer illuminates?

Hunger and illness litter streets once paved with gold
empty eyes and hearts filled with despair and longing
for a land of milk and honey which made them emboldened

to cross rivers and oceans, risk death and separation
only to land on cold shores with little opportunity
outside what was left behind and abandoned.

Raise your lamp high, perhaps the light will blind
those coming to these shores to look for a living wage
and conditions better than substandard , or red-lined

by industry and cheap labor. In fields and in factories
they toil for their family's well-being
picking lettuce and grapes and strawberries

thin, polished women in large SUVs shop at upscale
markets in communities manicured by the sweat
of their brows. For minimum wage they daily travail

while at night suburbanites sleep in sheets of percale
believing they've brokered the best price for labor.
Elected officials seek to assail

the tenuous hold on life immigrants have,
talk of walls and guards and jail
for those who believed what lady liberty promised as salve

for the dispossessed. This nation, sweet land of liberty,
now bought with the currency of the elite,
no room in the melting pot for a new decree.

Part 2
The children of our nation now outfitted for war
by lying politicians and corporations anxious
for stock holder accountability, greed, to the core;

of values once held in highest esteem
parlayed like collateral in a new economy
that buries all thought of the American dream.

Alone on a proscenium stage of inspection
by past allies, and those forced into
subjugation, now at war with the bedouin,

replacing one monster with another, civil
war and death to economies in the name of
oil and sweet inside contracts, wearing the laurel

wreath of failure. Young people promised higher
education in exchange for their homage to flag
and memory. In sand and death they become mired

in your new democracy ideals and citizens believe
what is expeditious today, false security and
homeland pork spending in the name of what can be achieved

in that land of sand and sun and sunni / Shiite self hatred.
Blood and red hand prints of women and children
printed on walls, like graffiti left from hennaed

sorrows. While in Cuba, subterfuge and torture
seeks to pull secrets from prisoners like thorns from feet
while denial of human rights float free of the zephyr

of news. Hide the coffins of the dead
returning home; cover them with flags that will not
wave in a vacuum of dissent and dread.

What cost our democracy to the world?
To citizens lost because of vendetta
ultimately, what flag will show unfurled

in this new world order?
In the new democracy?
In the darkness now descended upon us?

***

"My country 'tis of thee
sweet land of liberty
of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!"
~ Samuel Smith

Lasting Impressions

2007-03-19T14:38:00.001-04:00

Before sunrise, with walking stick in hand, I begin to hike the trail leading to the pond's bridge. Brushing large, be-dewed spider webs from the path, I lighten my footsteps so as not to frighten the sandhill cranes into flight. The morning air smells 'peat-y': I notice a new path cutting across the trail and into the bog. Long, pale hairs stick to brush stands waterside. Somewhere, a white tail deer is splashing across the flowage.
Approaching the bridge I slow my steps knowing there are two crane 'colts' somewhere in the tall grass. As the sun vigorously comes up, it lights the young, tight headed cat-tails decorated with still sleeping dragonflies. Sleeping there, the dragonflies' emerald eyes do not close but glint with an green iridescence in the sun.

I take a seat on a large rock on the west side of the bridge, the silence is tangible. Splashing on my left in the deeper part of the pond are pickerel; they are heading to the lake; their journey is a slow one across shallow creeks which disappear into dark stands of cedar. Somewhere on a farm over a mile away, a rooster voices indignation.

The Door County peninsula is a rock outcrop of granite and limestone insulated between the shores of Lake Michigan and the bay of Green Bay. At it's very tip, it says hello to lake Superior; this is where it gets it's name: Death's Door - watery graveyard for many ships.
A decade or so ago, some enterprising group of naturalists began an experiment to determine how water is exchanged from Green Bay to Lake Michigan. Dyes were dropped into the waters of Green Bay as it enters the limestone cliffs on the west side of the peninsula. Some time later, as it washes through the porous rock of the peninsula, the dyed water exits on the Lake Michigan side. This is a special place of deer, martin, badger, bear, coyote, fox, raptor, crane ....

A child growing up on the peninsula might feel confined by it's isolation and neglected by fast paced advancement that happens elsewhere. An adult introduced to Door County will likely fall in love with it's beauty and freshness. In 1990 I married into a family which held 80 acres in the center of the peninsula. The tracts of land included field, forest, flowage, seasonal pond, bog and a wonderful sand hill - home to the namesake cranes who returned yearly to nest and raise their young.

Crane 'colts' are whimsical creatures of hill and swamp. Omnivorous, they consume anything that is not too big. Frogs, other bird eggs, salamanders, bugs... dragonflies. Hines emerald dragonflies, whose flashing green eyes capture my attention this morning.

Returning to my walk, I come to an area that is densely treed with cedar and white pine; the ground is dry and covered in pine needles, cedar rosettes and dwarf lake iris. There is a hollow sound to the path here; proof of the presence of that limestone sponge beneath. Tiny toads live here too; I am careful not to step on them as they lazily leap out of my way and into an open area where the ground is covered with tiny wild strawberry.

As I exit the pine and cedar forest, the cranes see me. In unison they begin to call - to trumpet in voices loud enough to wake those who chose to sleep in back at the farmhouse. One crane takes to the sky and is suddenly above me, scolding me for the interference. The other crane leaps into the air over and over, while moving southward towards the swamp. It wants my attention; the colts must be close by.
I see the colts everyday from the farmyard with my binoculars. I have no desire to disturb them or the nest area. I head back on the trail and towards the pond.

In the six years of walking the trails of the property, I have seen more wildlife than I ever had before in my 40 years. I have heard warblers sing and pileated woodpeckers try to dismantle cedar homes on the cliffs over looking the bay. I have watched as the cranes stage migration on farm fields they share with dairy cows as they come out of the mist on a chilly autumn morning. Now, those paths are closed to me. Instead of a private family sanctuary, they are home only to the Hines, to the cranes and the pickerel. And they will stay that way as they are now protected by TNC. The timeless quality which gave my heart such joy now belongs to the future of the creatures that live there and the trees which sweeten the air and the birds which serenade the sky.

MIA

2007-03-19T14:36:00.000-04:00

Apparently I have not blogged here in some time. That's what happens when you get greedy and have accounts at way too many communities.
Well I have been prolific lately. Too prove it, I am posting two new pieces, one poem and one essay.
Life is good.
:)

Laura and Phil

2007-01-11T17:23:00.000-05:00

My friend of many years called me to tell me that her husband is dying of cancer and has perhaps six months to live. One of the first things she said to me is: "I am going to be a widow."

Those seven words were spoken in a similar fashion to: "I had fish for lunch.", or, "I am going on vacation." It was quite matter of fact. What else was it that I heard in her voice?

My friend Laura has been married since 1968. Laura and her husband Phil have had their ups and downs over the years. I met both of them when my ex husband introduced us in 1970 - you remember what 1970 was like; we all partied like it was 1999. Laura and Phil are both six years older than I. We were all on the forefront of the hippie years. To call us all dysfunctional would be kind. Dysfunction followed us all, like shadows. Some of us walked away from the druggie lifestyle. Some of us did not.

Laura and Phil spent a couple of years separated while Phil languished in jail for possession of drugs. Laura, never one to wait patiently, began an affair with another friend while Phil was incarcerated. The affair was known to many of us in our circle of friends, yet it was discreet. However, Laura's first child was a product of the affair.
When Phil got out of jail, he and Laura took up where they left off. No one was condemned in those days for 'fooling around'. Fooling around was something everyone did, some of us were more careful about it than others. These were the days pre-AIDS. Phil and Laura may have been reunited, but their habits did not change for many years. As long as there were drugs to be had, many of the people in our circle of friends did them. I do believe that a few of us had the sense not to fall completely into the drug trap. Phil, Laura, myself and my ex husband never got into injecting drugs. A good thing; it may have been pre-AIDS, but Hepatitis was rampant.
When all the fun, and home brewed drugs began to disappear, pharmaceuticals were eagerly chased. These made for interesting times; they were legal, they were cheaply had and it seemed that every doctor wrote prescriptions for them. In hindsight, although I don't recommend drug use to anyone, todays alternatives are not much different. There are drugs to make you sleep, drugs to make you thin, drugs to give you an erection, drugs to make you not feel pain or depression. Some things never change, except that now, all those drugs are advertised on the nightly news ....

Laura and Phil rode along on this train of drugs and existentialism for years. When the effects of the drugs began to take their toll on their children, they distanced themselves from most of them, and many of the people who had been part of the circle of friends. In the mid 1970s many of us, a bit more mature and needing to move on, took jobs and blended into regular society. We would all still see each other now and then, but weekends were not spent on speed highs at which no one slept and things got a bit out of hand. I've heard it said that the hippies all went to work for IBM; there is a line in an old Eagles song that goes something like this:
"I saw a Deadhead sticker on a cadillac". In my case this was almost true; I went to work for a Fortune 500 company, it could be said that I started late on my career goals. Phil got a job too, and began working as an engineer in the city. In those days, engineer jobs in high rise apartment buildings were very cush. The hours lent themselves well to the ex-druggie and there was lots of freedom as long as the work needed to be done was accomplished.

In 1980, AIDS raised its ugly head and we lost more friends to infection from dirty needles. In 1982 I lost track of Laura and Phil as I left my ex-husband to find a more upwardly mobile life.

It was years before I connected again with the old friends and by that time most had either died, were in jail, moved away or went 'straight'. When I saw Laura and Phil again, they had bought a house in the suburbs, were raising their two boys and except for a bit of marijuana, had stopped doing drugs. Life became pretty normal except for the fact that we survivors seemed to have Xray vision of a type - we saw through the ordinary, we reached beyond the suburban life of our parents.

Since 1982, it seemed that although Laura and Phil had stopped doing drugs, they did not grow. They did not seek beyond the home and sheltered life they built for themselves. It was a sad life in which they both missed those party days - the days of staying up all night, all weekend, of excitement and enthusiasm. They missed the companionship of the circle. Now and then, someone would return to the city for a visit and we would all get together and talk about who was doing what, where they lived, how many kids they had. Eventually talk got around to things like: "Remember when we all went out and did such and such with so and so". "Remember when we had the head shop on Lawrence Ave?"

More years rolled by....

When I married my current husband, it was mostly Laura who I remained friends with. Phil seemed to have lost a lot of his life juice. He became withdrawn, he didn't want to go out much, do much other than watch TV when he wasn't working.
It was like he came down from a heavy weekend of speeding and never quite found his natural energy again.
Laura and I would talk about things; she always hinted at being rather unhappy in her life. Her health suffered, Phil's health was not what it once was. Phil was abusive, or so she claimed, he wasn't interested in sex anymore, he spent too much time at work. The two boys were no longer boys anymore, but they still lived at home and were a drain with their constant drama and angst. It seemed that "Empty Nesters" would never be something that Laura and Phil would experience. One of their sons was diagnosed as having some sort of mental disorder, probably brought about by Laura's drug use when she was pregnant. The second son, Phil's child, showed great promise, but he too grew up in a home where lack of energy or enthusiasm for life was never ending; he had no goals, no dreams, no desires.

A point in my life came when my husband, (who was never part of that circle of friends), and I decided it was time to move on with our lives. A circumstance had greatly changed our lives, and the direction we had been taking. We moved into a smaller, nicer home, put some money into it, renovated and decorated it. It was pretty nice - quite the change from my hippie girl years. More and more I found myself divorced from the remaining friends from so long ago. But Laura and I still stayed in touch.

A couple of years ago, out of the blue, Laura called to tell me that Phil had lung cancer. She was worried about him, he was taking chemotherapy and not doing well. Her words and predictions about his health were dire. But Phil hung in there - two years of radiation and chemotherapy, medical marijuana and part time jobs.
It was last summer that Laura told me that the cancer had returned and Phil was terribly ill.

When Laura called today to tell me that Phil was put into hospice, that the doctors had told them there was nothing further they could do for him and at best he had six months to live, she told me she was very sad.
Now, I understand sad. It is sad to watch anyone die, and sadder still to be the principal caretaker of someone who has a terminal disease. But what was that sound in her voice as she told me she would be a widow soon?

Was it relief that Phil would not have long to suffer? Was it relief that she would be free of the weight of caring for him after these years? Was it perhaps that she could see some change coming into her life?
After all, unless both a husband and wife die at the same moment, we all are destined to be either a widow or widower. Perhaps it is best that this happens while we are still vital enough to seek another lover. Perhaps the long death that is anticipated is worse for the one who lives than it is for the one who dies.

I remember going out with Laura and a number of other girlfriends long ago on a Friday night. We used to all like to dress up and go out together to nightclubs and dance and drink and flirt. Most of us did nothing more than flirt. Others of us did much more than flirt. I guess it could be said that we tested our desirability in the marketplace of the singles bar. Laura was one of those.
One night, there were six of us women out for fun. We all agreed to stop drinking and leave the club by 1 AM and go out to breakfast, then go home. All of us but Laura were at the appointed place at the right time. Laura had come to me, hanging on some disco boy and begged me to wait at the restaurant for her. She was going to have herself an adventure.
Hours later, disheveled and looking radiant, Laura showed up at the restaurant. We were all beginning to worry a bit about her - as well as wonder what our husbands would say about being so late. It was the last time we all went out together. It may have been the last time that Laura felt desired as a young hot babe. I don't know. It never mattered.
Just as it doesn't really matter now, except that I wonder about the despair in the house where Laura and Phil still reside.

One of their children, the youngest son, Phil's son, still lives at home. Laura has been progressively falling apart for most of 10 years. Knee replacements, hip replacements, carpal tunnel surgeries, you name it - Laura has probably had it.
My husband and I have thought that some of Laura's problems could be summed up as due to lack of attention from Phil. Lack of self esteem too, Laura never had it in spades anyways, and as she has aged, it seems to have taken a vacation.

So what is in the words "I am going to be a widow."? Am I hearing a sadness that such an integral part of her life is going to soon be gone ... maybe when passion is gone from marriage, the comfort of a long time friend still remains. Is that what Laura will miss? Will she miss the companion that knows her so well - in fact, knows her so well that he can ignore who she is for years?

I hope that Phil's death doesn't drain Laura of that life force she once had. That same life force which made her cavort with disco boys and have affairs and dance all night. I hope that at the end of it all, Laura is not lost to despair or anger. I hope that all of the years of caring for Phil, for their kids, which weighs on her today, is replaced by a measure of security and satisfaction.

The words: "I am going to be a widow" are words that we all might be uttering one day. And who can say how we will feel about them as we say them?

Twas a night B4 xmas

2006-12-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

Twas a night B4 Xmas..... by Jody Kuchar
With Apologies to Clement Clarke Moore and Lewis Carroll

Twas a night around christmas and all through the town
most lights were turned on, houses dressed up like clowns;
Duke Energy rejoiced and counted killowatts
with hopes that customer checkbooks were not tied in knots;
the children were shopping online with credit cards
with visions of UPS trucks dashing through yards;
And Dad in his jockeys and I in my thong,
were careful not to spill the contents of the bong,
when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed without my pajamer.
Away to the window I flew like a flash
tore open the curtains and threw out my stash.
Rising up in the sky a star to the east
a feeling inside, I turned into the beast;
suppressing that feeling, try as I might,
to my spouse I called out "Tonight is the night!"
We dressed in mere seconds, our attire all black,
this was no hour, to be in the sack!
With stealth and with silence we slipped out the door
down the stairs, cross the carpet, and over creaky floor;
into the moonlight we crept and we crawled
we knew it was time for a nativity to be mauled!
"On Darlin! On husband! On Wife, oh you Vixen!
Now dash it, now prance it, now on with our mission!"
Across darkened churchyard we gamboled and gyred
we stealthily made our way to the seasonal byre.
There were camels and love sheep and cows all aflutter,
there were wise men and virgins and Joseph, feeling buggered.
and there in his manger, the silent child
soon would he know how it felt being defiled.
We pushed and we pulled until he just toppled
"It won't be for long that you feel coddled!"
We placed one wise man on top of another,
the third one was positioned to bugger his brother.
The camel was made to fellate the sheep
red lipstick we placed on the cow - she looked cheap.
Our mission accomplished, the manger in tatters,
laughing so hard, we put stress on our bladders.
Across yards and lawns we headed for home
on the way, just for sport, we molested a gnome.
Inside the house we tore off our clothes
while peals of laughter from us arose,
the children long sleeping heard naught a thing
it wasn't long 'fore the phone started to ring,
t'was the Reverend Longsermon and his missus in tears
it seemed someone had stolen their christmas eve beers.
we raided the cookies, had warm tea with rum
"what a joke is this christmas and Santa's a bum
let's go back to bed, on each other start pawing!
let's go back to bed and wait until dawning
when the neighbors all shuffle on down to the church
won't they be surprised, their manger's besmirched!"
We sprang to our mattress, our sheets now all cold
our eyes were quick closed, the night was now old,
this story is long and this story is gripping
we've had lots of fun Nativity Tipping!

Elections Day is almost upon Us

2006-11-02T16:23:00.000-05:00

I do try to stay positive and keep my cynical side on a leash. However, with elections almost upon us, I urge everyone to get out and unelect the politicians who have blatantly instituted unconstitutional measures as a means of procuring their own victories and agendas.
In March of 2005 I wrote a letter to protest Wisconsin legislature AB63, a bill that was termed "Election Protection". Wisconsin Bill AB63 was passed, and additionally was adopted and passed by most other states in the USA. The bill guaranteed protestion of "legal" elections by requiring all voters to have a photo ID in order to vote. The photo IDs that were required were to be obtained through state agencies; they could be driver licenses, work permits, or state issued IDs. The photo IDs were not given freely to all citizens; to obtain an ID, the cost (paid to each state agency) was anywhere from $2.00 to $10.00. I reprint my letter here as I felt then, and still feel now, that AB63 and its counterparts are in direct violation of our constitutional rights, as stated in the 24th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1964):
"The rights of citizens ... shall not be denied or abridged by the United States of any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax"..

Get out and vote people! We need to take our country back and not allow ourselves to be misrepresented by an outlaw administration intent on undermining our freedom, rights and status in the world community.

March 17, 2005

Wisconsin State Senator Jeffery Plale
RE: Assembly Bill 63

I find it very disconcerting that while we send American citizens in harms way in Iraq to secure voting rights for Iraqis, we in this country are experiencing vast gulfs in the ways which voting takes place among our own citizens.
According to jsonline.com/news/racine/feb05/302687, the instances of voting fraud in the state of Wisconsin during the elections of November 2004 were minimal. Additionally, it would appear that there have been a paucity of poll workers to oversee and process the elections. While current procedure exists to under staff polling places, we are asking that the DOT absorb and administrate the issuing of and renewal of Photo IDs. It is estimated that the yearly cost of this could reach as much as $1 million. Bill AB63's supporters have added a provision that would allow the state to use Help America Vote Act to recoup up to $250,000. annually for costs it incurs for original issuing and renewal of Photo IDs. This seems like irresponsible book keeping.
A proposal like requiring photo IDs blames the voters for the problems rather than the election officials and makes it the voters problem to fix the system. Any
further impediments to the process must be placed on the election officials or the local governments that run the elections. In a time when we already struggle with voter participation, we must not add an unnecessary hurdle for voters to jump.
Even the hint of voting fraud should be embarrassing to Americans with family members in Iraq. But before we legislate reform, shouldn't we first actually understand the issues at hand?
Only one instance of fraud in the state of wisconsin has been proven and prosecuted in the state's history. In the September 2004 primary election, a student voted in both his home address and his school address in a different county. He had a photo ID.
AB 63 would create new problems, limiting the ability of the elderly, poor and students to exercise their right to vote. These are folks who might not have a drivers license and would have great difficulty getting a state-issued photo ID from somewhere, particularly before the election. Drivers' licenses do not state whether a person is a convicted felon or even a U.S. citizen. They often are valid even if they do not show a person's current address and if a person has moved. In short, they prove very little.
Investigations into potential voting fraud are far from complete and thus far have yielded no evidence of fraud in Milwaukee or anywhere else.
We need to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. The newly suggested legislation would make it more burdensome for voters. Why should we trade the basic democratic elements of our process for overly cumbersome requirements that do nothing but discourage minority and elderly voting?
Questionable addresses, make up less than half of one percent of the total votes cast in the city of Milwaukee. Computer and clerical error account for a very similar percentage of error in cities across the state and country.
Issues such as incorrect information being given by poll workers and election observers has not even been addressed with the introduction of AB 53, while misinformation resulted in scores of voters being turned away from polling places.
Ab 63 is an unconstitutional poll tax on those whose grasp on the franchise is currently most vulnerable: the elderly, the low-income, the homeless, and the handicapped. Individuals could lose time and wage compensation, as well as pay bus or taxi fare in order to obtain an unnecessary ID. The current cost of an original Photo ID issued by the WIDOT is $9.00. If the only reason that a person would be required to have a Photo ID is for voting, then the fee for the ID proves to be a poll tax, and is therefore unconstitutional.

24th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1964):
"The rights of citizens ... shall not be denied or abridged by the United States of any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax".

AB 63 also likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act by imposing discrimination against minorities. Several states have unsuccessfully attempted to enact more rigorous ID requirements. The Michigan Attorney General found that the Michigan Election law requiring voter identification either by photo ID or by signing an affidavit, was unconstitutional. The Attorney General stated that this would impose economic and logistical burdens on the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and those who do not possess photo identification. Additionally, AB 63 will completely strip a homeless voter's right to vote via corroboration, simply because that person lacks an address or a photo ID and would no longer be able to use corroboration to vote.
*NOTE: Nearly one third of all homeless persons are veterans.

I would like this letter to serve as my vehement opposition to AB 63 and ask that all citizens concerned with democracy in the state of Wisconsin do the same.

Condo Cowboys

2006-10-29T13:22:00.000-05:00

When I had decided to organize a team for the local AIDS Walk, I also addressed the difficulty that some people face when asked to fundraise. I lack no skills in this task, however, many people, especially women, have a hard time asking people for money - their own or someone else's. To assist my team in collecting pledges, I wrote up some 'talking points' for them; a variety of facts about HIV/AIDS, which they could use as a source for talking to people about HIV/AIDS. To do this properly, I needed to research some statistics for myself. What I found did not really surprise me, but I knew it would surely surprise others.

Reported new cases of AIDS have increased by 33% in the age group of 50+, and that statistic represents a span of two years, not an over all percentage. This fact alone was not just a surprise to people, but also a source of amusement. Apparently the old axiom of believing that people your parents' age don't engage in sex still exists among today's more 'enlightened' young people. Given some thought, the fact that AIDS is growing among senior citizens should not be a surprise to anyone.
In Florida and Arizona, there are six widowed or single women to every man in that age group. Today, people over 50 enjoy better health and younger looks than did their parents. With the advent and availability of Erectile Dysfunction medications, any 70 year old male can be called a "Condo Cowboy" too. Yes, senior citizens not only date, but have more opportunity to do so than do 40 year old singles. However, the once freeing state of being past menopause has given many of the dating and sexually active females of this age group a sense of safety. Where educated safe sex should be practiced, denial based risky sexual behavior is resulting in new cases of AIDS exploding into the senior communities.

The current administration in the United States has duplicitously enforced a message of monogamy and abstinence as a reliable means of disease and birth control. In doing so, it has committed a disservice not just to youth, but to all segments of the population. Furthermore, this "message" is preached to the youth of America, within the confines of public education (and government funded education). If AIDS is not discussed openly among everyone, how will segments of the population no longer attending schools become aware of the risk of HIV/AIDS?

Not to flog a dead or dying horse, the recent Foley brouhaha has brought to light something that should have been obvious: the Republican party, like any group, is just as "guilty" of sexual high jinx as were the prior occupants of the White House. But here similarities end: the holier than thou attitudes which dominate Republican politics had no place in the Clinton administration.
Turn on prime time television and what you will be assaulted with is mixed messages that seem to go hand in hand with repressive sexual politics. Prime time is full of desperate housewives, men in trees, and youth oriented advertising all using sex as the sole reason to purchase products. It is a sexy world out there with zero responsibility for safe intimate congress.

Yes, the current political climate can be directly held responsible for the lack of information, or for the extent of misinformation about HIV/AIDS and STDs. It is fully responsible for our parents, or grandparents thinking that the worse thing that could happen to them while engaging in risky, unsafe sex, might be an unexpected pregnancy. It is not only time to bring the facts about HIV/AIDS into the public eye, it is more than overdue to educate every human being in this country about HIV/AIDS and the effect that AIDS could have on not just our economy, but on our health care services, health care workers, families, communities and all humanity. Hiding ones head in the sand of Florida or Arizona will not prevent AIDS. Understanding how AIDS is spread and what constitutes high risk behavior will prevent AIDS.

The Great Poundcake Fiasco

2006-10-24T16:22:00.000-04:00

My in laws left yesterday after spending a weekend with us. Note the absolute joy in my words as I inform you of this. Actually, I am not alone with my less than ecstatic attitude; Sunkist, after having to stay confined to cages for the entire time, actually bit me on the cheek when I freed him from his imprisonment. And he drew blood. You know he wasn't happy.
Husband and I have spoke of the toll having parents around can take on grown children.
When the in laws came to visit during the summer, and the yard was open and the pool inviting, there was space to get away from each other. But with the weather cold and the yard basically closed for the impending winter, the only place to go for some solitude was the bathroom. Grab a book, pull up a bench, turn on the ventilator fan so it sounds like serious business is taking place in there, and enjoy 20 minutes of peace.

In preparation for the visit, husband was talked into baking a pumpkin poundcake by myself. This suggestion was not without personal agenda as I love pumpkin and was anticipating my first pumpkin confection of the season. Saturday morning, before the arrival of the visiting parents, husband was in the kitchen baking a cake. The house smelled fabulous! Pumpkin-y and spice and warm ... very nice on a cold day.
When it came to be time to take the anxiously awaited poundcake from the oven, it seemed to look a bit flat to me. As minutes passed, the poundcake began to settle and oddly, the butter seemed to be separating from the cake. I commented how the cake reminded me of a fallen souffle, or that perhaps it needed more flour. Husband thought that the pumpkin might not have been good. Bravely, we all stood around the center kitchen island and tasted the crunchier bits of the cake and it was sweet, but tasty. However, it soon became apparent that it was much too heavy to eat.
That evening while exploring our local Wild Oats market, husband was convinced to try another poundcake. We bought the cream cheese, more eggs, flour, pecans, and vanilla. Sunday morning husband started to bake cake number two.

Praline Pecan poundcake is amazingly sweet - normally. And everyone was looking forward to an awesome dessert after dinner. While the cake was in the oven, I began to prepare the evening meal which included egg dumplings. Now this is my recipe and I've not shared it with husband before. Since he was kind of hanging around watching the progress of cake #2, I asked him if he wanted to learn to make dumplings. He eagerly said yes.
Going to the pantry cabinet with a large bowl and a measuring cup, I began to measure out the flour for the dumplings. It was at this point that husband said, "Is that the flour? Then what is in the cabinet?" I turned to look at him and said "which cabinet?" He pointed to the spice and sugar cabinet. It was then that I understood his cake failure ....

In his eager ness to escape the immediate presence of his parents, husband invaded the kitchen with one thought in mind; to make a good cake. He didn't think about the ingredients, if he had he might have remembered that the flour is where the flour has always been and the sugar is with all of the other sugar products.

Two poundcakes and not one good enough to really eat. In fact, after tasting the crumbly bits again, I began to have a stomach ache from all of the sugar.

Of course, the poundcakes were flourless. Sans flour. Instead of flour, husband measured out two cups of powdered sugar. No wonder those fallen cakes were so sweet.
And no wonder that he thought we had run out of 'flour'.

It would have been hysterically funny except that poundcakes cost about $15 a piece to make. Well, it was funny - after I found something else to eat.

Sayonara Sushi-ga

2006-10-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

My pet fish, Sushi, committed betta-cide by jumping out of his habitat and landing on the hardwood floor.
Taken just as this sentence, it sounds pretty funny. There is a PBS commercial that airs quite often of a gold fish doing just this; jumping out of its bowl. But the goldfish has much better luck than Sushi had. It jumps from its bowl into a large water container, a puddle on the street, off a canopy and into some other wet environment, eventually to find its way to a body of freshwater. Sushi, on the other hand, landed on a dry floor and his little fancy fans stuck to the floor.
Now the really funny part of this story is still to come; Sunkist who was in his cage while this happened and who was in full view of the fish bowl, actually saw the whole thing happen.
I was on the computer (ahem) and Sunkist really said "Fish". But I ignored him. Sunkist is always saying something and generally it isn't as benign as "fish". And unless he says something really funny, or I am interacting with him, I do ignore much of it. Why I didn't key on him saying fish which he never says unless we are visiting Sushi, I do not know.
I left the studio to check on the visiting cat who was eating in the garage and when I returned I saw something on the floor that looked rather unsavory. Actually, it looked somewhat like a piece of poo.
Not knowing where random poo would come from, I got a piece of paper to pick it up when I looked to my left and realized that the fish was not in his bowl.
I looked at the poo like object and began to discern dry eyes and even a bit of movement. I picked poor Sushi up and put him back in his bowl ... he was still alive.
It was pretty awful because he was so messed up I knew he would not survive. How does one kill a fish that is/was a pet? All I could do is flush him down the toilet like ... well, a piece of poo.
It is sad.
Sushi taught me that the sport of fishing is not as cool as I once thought it was. he also taught me that fish actually crave attention even though they are in a different environment than we are.
Poor Sushi.
I won't be getting another betta for awhile.

Think twice before hiring Aaron Payne, Inc.

2006-10-02T17:10:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of ratting on bad business practices, as well as bad business policy, I want to share a bit of information about a guy who is a programmer in Indianapolis, Indiana: Aaron Payne.
Earlier this year, Mr. Payne expressed interest and enthusiasm about working with me on the eZine ScribeSpirit. I had recently moved to Indiana and had not set up a network of people. In fact, I still have not set up much of a network.
Mr. Payne agreed to develop a web site for ScribeSpirit at a much reduced rate.
In fact, the fee that Mr. Payne charged for the work he did do was about 10% of the cost he would normally charge to a company.
Scribe Spirit is a not for profit project started in 2005 by myself and 6 other people from around the globe. In January of 2006, after a failed attempt to create a site that allowed literary and visual art work to be published bi-lingually, I disbanded the project and looked around for alternative means of keeping it alive.
After Mr. Payne generously and excitedly agreed to work in collaboration with me on a new site, I agreed and committed to investing my money in same. We began to work together to plan the site.
An IT person, or programmer is just that. A person who develops websites and maintains them. At no time did I ever agree that Mr. Payne would have access to the content manager of the website. The website is devoted to literary and visual arts; I am, and have been the sole editor. As editor, one of my jobs is to make sure that all work presented on the website is correct. Additionally, that all work has been approved, or released for electronic publication by the submitting authors and artists through legal contract. As editor I do not tell the programmer how to do his job, and as expected, the programmer does not tell the editor how to do her job.

From the beginning I might have suspected Mr. Payne's motives as he would always remind me that in the past he has submitted work to ScribeSpirit which I, as editor, had rejected. When asked about the nature of the rejection, Mr. Payne agreed that the rejection was done compassionately. He also indicated to me at the time, that his reminders of the rejection were all in good fun.
Mr. Payne may be a programmer, but he is certainly not a writer. Mr. Payne may have some talent in the art of painting, but he is no Picasso.
These facts have little to do with him accepting a job, being paid for that job and ultimately refusing to fulfill his obligations as web developer.

Mr. Payne and I began our business relationship in February of 2006. Mr. Payne refused to do any more work for ScribeSpirit in August of 2006. This makes Mr. Payne liable for fraudulent representation. It also hints at out right theft.
In addition to accepting the job of web developer, Mr. Payne was offered and accepted the position of Vice President of Unity Illuminata, Inc., the parent company (also not for profit) of ScribeSpirit. This position was not forced on him. Misrepresentation of the position never occurred. Mr. Payne was informed from the onset of his acceptance of the position of Vice President that the position was non-paying. He was also informed that the position carried with it specific duties outlined in the legal by laws of the incorporation papers.
Mr. Payne, after accepting this position for less than 30 days, has neither submitted his legal resignation, nor has he fulfilled the obligations that the position carried with it.

Aaron Payne has dishonored a trust, broken a verbal contract, and technically has undermined an international project that enjoyed a readership of upwards of 10 thousand readers per month. Mr. Payne has proved that greed and unsportsman behavior is more important than human unity and collaborative efforts.

Aaron Payne has also shown his true colors on a personal level. When presented with the legal facts of the situation, Mr. Payne could only accuse me of "getting my legal pen out", and his comments about that were "Unbelievable". Mr. Payne has been in abject denial about his role in the situation which has developed since he refused to work on the website, and since his refusal to comply with the responsibilities of the position of Vice President of Unity Illuminata, Inc. Instead of using logic to work through conflict, Mr. Payne has resorted to name calling and has refused to acknowledge his part in the inevitable dissolution of the project known as ScribeSpirit and the fledgling corporation, Unity Illuminata.

It is the purpose of this entry to advise anyone considering using the services of Aaron Payne, to consider carefully what you are entering into and with whom. It is the advise of this person to anyone considering Mr. Payne as a web developer, to make sure you have a legal contract with him before paying him for any services. Also, anyone considering working with Mr. Payne, should be sure to have said contracts witnessed by either an attorney or a public notary.

AIDS WALK 2006

2006-09-28T16:20:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of years since I last signed up to walk to raise funds for AIDS awareness. I stopped walking because in my last home state, the walk took place in Milwaukee. It was well attended, however, it was also a target for the Christian right hate groups to come out and all but assault the walkers. You might say I was 'chicken' when I stopped walking. But it was not fear of the hate groups which made me stop, it was fear of myself and my response to them that made me realize I needed to stay at home or risk either going to jail or getting the crap kicked out of me.
I became violently angry with the people who came out and stood, like a gauntlet, at the end of the walk site and jeered, pushed, screamed, sounded air horns, threw paper propaganda ... These people had been trained professionally on how to be as disruptive as possible and how to physically abuse the walkers without actually crossing the line of "Assault".
Now you might ask why I would get so angry about this and rightfully so. The truth is that many of the people who gave up their time and money to support this cause did so as families. There were children with parents who raised money and walked to fight the effects of AIDS. In the truest sense of community responsibility and of committment to a cause, these people, all of the walkers, were giving it up and doing the best they could in the name of humanity and compassion.
And there some idiot church leaders were with bus loads of 'protesters' confronting the walkers. Some of the protesters would come right into a walkers personal space and use their abdomens to push the walkers off the path. While other church people would condemn the walkers to hell or some other nastiness for supporting "Faggots and Queers". The sad thing is that many of these church members were African Americans.
And women. Two groups who are in the highest growing populations of new AIDS cases.

I did try to reason with some of them at first. This tactic did not work. These people were not there to be reasoned with. They were there to spew hatred and intolerance and express their ignorance to not only the walkers, but to the world.

By the end of that gauntlet, I was enraged. That was bad for me, physically and emotionally. I thought that I could do more by working quietly in my own community, or volunteering at Hospice. Yes, I could do that type of work, that SILENT work.
Whenever my husband and I went to serve dinners or help at hospice, we did do good work and were appreciated for it. But it was silent work - we educated no one, we did not alleviate intolerance or hatred.

This year I am walking in Indianapolis. Indianapolis is not known for its tolerance to much of anything - however, Indianapolis has found a way to exclude the type of protesters from the grounds of the AIDS Walk. For this I am profoundly thankful.

I know from friends that this vocal and violent form of protest against all things AIDS happens everywhere in the USA. It happens at memorial services for people who've died of AIDS. It happens at fund raisers.
It is a disgusting side bar to the freedom of speech that certain segments of our population can legally harrass (legally 'assault') participants in philanthropic endevors. This year I hope to complete my walk (without collapsing in an old lady heap) proudly and without having to encounter the negavity of past walks.

If you would like to support me, or to just make a donation to INDIANA AIDS FUND
I invite you to visit the links below and do just that. When the registration tent rings those bells for huge donation totals I want to be able to feel like the sound will travel around the globe. I am proud to be doing this - proud of all the people I know who have lived with AIDS, all of the people who work tirelessly to assist those whose lives have been changed by AIDS. And I am also proud of all of you who read this, are activists for AIDS education ... your hearts are big and no doubt, full.

Website: http://www.indianaaidswalk.org/
ScribeSpirit Team page (for donations): https://www.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=160020&team=1486269

To forgive is divine

2006-09-18T17:36:00.000-04:00

I am trying to forgive someone who has broken a trust. It is not always easy to do that. Sometimes things happen to us for specific reasons. The trust breaking was the last straw of a process that has been happening for about 5 months. Being practical, I understand that by having someone else break a contract with me, I do not have to shoulder the responsibility to end something I have alternately loved and hated.
Maybe the thing that bugs me most is the trust breaker is a business person - at least he calls himself that. And he took my money - cash money - and only 6 months later declined to provide the service he agreed to provide.
I would love to call him out. Name him in public. Shame him in public. I have not and will not do so.
To do so would be to drop down on my belly and crawl in the mire of the sewer that he occupies. It might also justify the charming names he has called me and the lies I know he tells of me. I prefer the higher ground. You know, that place where one can look down on the rutting human mass of misery. Also, being practical, I decline from damaging my karma (such as it is) with demeaning words about someone's inability to rise to their potential. And rise from the ashes of their damaged childhood.
People can be so small and petty when they have no reference for themselves. They can point fingers and create discord and blame others for their capricious actions. Ah, how satisfying it is to this one or that one to blame someone else for things that happen or do not go their way. But deep in their souls the bitterness grows until like bile, it comes up to choke them when they try to move on with life.
I suspect, other than taking my hard won cash, I have no reason to be angry with the small and petty person who did not honor their commitment. I do not want to continue the ScribeSpirit project. I do not want to enter into a business agreement with the federal government that may be like a marriage: easy to get into but painful and expensive to extract ones self from. Yet at the end of the day I am saddened to know that people will try to hold a good project hostage to their desire for control and a little bit of power.
I also feel that I have a responsibility to others from making the mistake of trusting this person as I did. For paying him money and making agreements that he may not keep, or from being the ruin of another interesting and successful project.
I will have to work that out with myself.
For the time being, let it be said that next time you or someone you know is looking for an IT person to work with, beware of those who can not get beyond their own problems in order to solve yours.

Conversations by eMail

2006-08-09T16:14:00.000-04:00

I want to post the following bits from an eMail conversation I had with Richard Kearns of www.aids-write.org

The topic is not just relevant to people with HIV/AIDS, but it is relevant to every human who has ever feared committing to love because of fear of loss.

Richard:
I was at a marketing focus group about an AIDs prevention campaign a
while ago. there were some straight young "kids" -- early 20's -- same
age as high-risk gays -- and they just didn't get it about safe sex.
Gay sex was what needed to be safe sex. Safe sex didn't apply to them.

I finally had to ask, "What would you do if you fell in love with
someone who had AIDs? With someone who was HIV-positive?" They blurted
out silly things like, "Well, i hope when the time comes that I might
have to make a decision about it, and I'll be prepared."

"So, in otherwords, do nothing and hope for the best. All you're going
to end up being is another infected person."

At least they had the good grace to be stymied.

But there stands the battle.

Then Richard asked me: What would you do if you fell in love with someone who had aids?

My reply:
My friend Ron has spoke of this before, about how difficult it is to find a
wonderful ("perfect") partner.
And he has wondered if it was AIDS that made them run the other way, or
some other thing - (Ageism?, etc.).
I had no good answer when the topic first came up. But I have one now:

We are promised nothing more than this day. Not ever. This moment is
what we have. And if in this moment love comes to us, does it matter
what baggage that love carries?
Whether we be gay, straight, young, old, happy or sad, we are destined
to live a limited time in this world. What the method of our demise
might be can not be foretold to potential lovers.
If I were to fall in love with someone who has cancer, or has the
genetic tendency for cancer, would it matter? Why should our future
death intrude on our present loves?
Life is too short and uncertain to deprive oneself of love because of
the fear of losing that love.
We all lose loves. Whether it be to death, or another person ... love
comes and love goes.
That we love at all is what keeps us human, connected and at peace.

Richard:
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Here are my blessings. They are two secrets that go along with the post.

1. I fall in love with a new HIVer, a new person with AIDs every day.
2. It’s no different than falling in love with anyone else.

namasté

--rk

If it flies, it dies

2006-07-26T15:30:00.000-04:00

Not many people are lucky enough to be able to call an employer a friend. But for a brief span of years, I was one of those lucky few.
For almost four years, I worked for two guys who owned a small specialty car dealership. They would buy used cars at auction, or from private parties, renovate the cars and resell them.
The 'two guys' had been friends from early childhood. The business principal, Bill, inherited the business from his father. Bill's partner Shawn had been close to the family, indeed lived with the family during his formative years. Shawn, a nice looking man is straight. Bill, a tall, thin blonde, was gay.
At any given time, there would be 50 plus vehicles on the property of the business. In addition to buying and reselling cars, the business also did mechanical, body and upholstery work on vehicles sent to them by outside sources. The portion of the business facilitating repairs was relatively new, but all of the sources for vehicles were associates of Bill's father who died in 1994.
The town in which Bill and Shawn lived and did business was a very small town; actually an agricultural area at least 40 minutes from the city. Everyone there knew each other and each others business. Bill spent most of his adult life trying to keep his sexuality private. At that, for the most part, he was successful.
During the time I worked with Bill and Shawn, I dealt with a number of issues pertaining to employment, including corresponding with the state about terminations and the reasons for same. Mostly, people would lose their jobs for insubordination or driving without a valid drivers license. But one instance particularly stands out in my memory.
Two new men had been hired to work as yard crew. Most of the other staff knew each other well, and most also knew that Bill was gay, but too, they did not care. They all treated Bill like he was a kid that needed protecting. And until Bill admitted to you that he was gay, it was never mentioned. It simply did not matter to those of us who cared about him.
When the two new men started working, immediately they began a campaign of hateful, discriminatory behavior. They would meanly mimic what they thought gay guys would act like; they patted each others butts and minced their walks, they spoke, when they could be heard, in lisps. They also said some pretty ugly things about homosexuality. They also were lousy workers and within a few weeks of being hired, they were fired.
It was my job to respond to the state when they applied for unemployment. And respond I did. I charged them with sexual harassment, and inappropriate behavior in the work place. I thought these charges were enough to keep them from collecting unemployment from a business that they only worked at for perhaps 15 days. I was surprised to find that the charges I made were ignored by the state and they were granted unemployment benefits based on time they had worked within that calendar year. It was my first experience with how the local governments deal with shitty behavior on the job.

I resigned from my position with the company when a family tragedy led my husband and I to the decision to sell our home and move. But I, as well as my husband, remained friends with Bill and Shawn.
Shortly after my resignation, Bill moved from the state he had lived in, to Arizona.
And on a subsequent visit and dinner at our home, he revealed to my husband and I that he didn't think he would live much longer as he was suffering from AIDS.
I am not sure when I first figured it out. I knew that Bill was sick before he came to tell us. I could tell from his appearance and his reluctance to come back to the place where he had lived. I had always known he was gay, although he never told me outright. But our conversations were not typical of a boss and administrator, nor of a man and woman who happened to be friends. We talked about interior design, color, of music and dance, Elvis (Bill loved Elvis' music), about so and so and how cute his butt was. It wasn't necessary for Bill to tell me he was gay, not that it mattered. Bill was Bill and that was good enough for me.

Bill knew that I was a bird watcher and he would tease me all of the time about wanting to shoot the hawks and owls that came on the property and pooped on his cars. He used to tell me: "If it flies, it dies". I would act offended and freaked that he would shoot birds, and he would act like the rifleman ... it was a silly game, but it was our game.

Once Bill moved to Arizona, we saw less and less of him. I would hear from Shawn about Bill's health, about how he refused to take his medications because they made him ill. I would hear about the friends he was making in Arizona, how they were kind of nasty, not of high caliber. Slowly Bill stopped staying in touch and refused to answer his phone, mail or respond to cheesecakes sent to him for birthdays (Bill loved cheesecakes).
When questioned, Shawn thought that it was the people that Bill was associating with that caused him to withdraw. I countered that Bills behavior was similar to drug users; he didn't seem interested in his old life, or friends. He just wanted to stay with the crowd he was running with. Shawn vehemently denied that Bill would be using drugs. Even when confronted with druggie behavior, he believed that it was people, not drugs, that was driving Bill to act as he did.

In December of 2005, Shawn called me to tell me he was in Arizona with Bill, who was in the hospital, in a coma. Shawn said that Bill was dying of AIDS, but that he had caught something called Valley Fever which was a result of his use of Meth, his compromised immune system and his life in hot and dusty Arizona. According to Shawn, Bill had been using meth for 18 months or so which he was getting from his associates in Arizona. Shawn was shocked that Bill was using drugs - previously Bill condemned drug use. He had to be convinced by his medical team to use Marinol for his appetite and anxiety - that is how opposed Bill was to drug use.

I, on the other hand was not surprised at Bill's use of drugs. His depression over aging, about losing his teeth, his hair, too much weight all caused him sorrow. We had briefly talked about the cruelty of the gay community when it came to appearances and ageism.
On December 6th Bill died due to complications of AIDS, valley fever, heart failure and coma. He left behind no lovers to speak for him, little family to stand for him. His life, which could have held promise and perhaps educated others to the pain and lonliness he suffered, seemed to be wasted.
A young man, a lovely man, who never believed he would live past 30, who died just after his 40th birthday, whose wings carried him around this country and the world.
Yes, Bill seemed to prophesy his own saying: "If it flies, it dies".
Bill flew, he laughed, he partied, he danced and he gave endlessly to anyone who asked. Yet the gift he could've given, which had no monetary value, he withheld.
Bill did not love himself, could not admit to the world who and what he was.
For those of us, his friends, that he left to mourn him, we will always see him soar.

AIDS is a societal problem, not a religious agenda.

2006-06-19T16:08:00.000-04:00

I get very angry each time I see the possibility of legislative action which discriminates against anyone. Even though our society is full of offensive people who have committed very offensive crimes, even these people are protected by laws which guarantee their rights will not be violated while police investigate their actions, or while they are incarcerated, or after they have served their prison sentence. Yet our country, which also guarantees the rights of humans, is embroiled in a battle of religious agenda against free thinking people when it seeks to undermine the rights of others based on sexual preference or disease and illness.
The very framework of our constitution is in jeopardy when we are coerced into thinking that we will not voice our opinions for fear of alienating people who wish to legislate another group into oblivion.

I do not know many heterosexual people who will talk about AIDS. I do not know many heterosexuals who will admit that they know someone with AIDS or have lost a family member or friend from AIDS. Especially here in Indiana, but true in Wisconsin as well. I am finding that more and more often, it is a topic that people do not want to talk about. And I don't mean the intolerant fundamentalist types most people associate with AIDS ignorance and condemnation. I mean EVERYONE. The few tolerant humans I have met here do not talk about it and tend to give a polite cough and change the subject when it comes up. At best they contribute nothing to the topic.

A very good friend who has lived with AIDS for over 20 years, speaks eloquently of how he continues to survive somewhat well. I attribute his longevity with HIV/AIDS as having to do with 2 factors: one, he was in the absolute right place (job wise) when he was diagnosed and he had better information than many. He was fortunate to be working with a major pharmaceutical company who was in the forefront of developing AIDS medications. Two, he takes care of himself and keeps close to his medical team.
'Taking care of oneself' is a strange term. Does that mean that one is careful in action? Or that one makes certain they see their medical professionals regularly?
Health care for many people in America is a tenuous thing. People cling to jobs that degrade them, underpay them, take them away from their families all in order to maintain some form of health insurance. People who live with AIDS are compromised in their health everyday. They suffer from numerous maladies, not the least of which is tolerance to the medications they must take to survive. And what if they can not afford these medications? Or if they are too unwell to continue working? Will the USA legislate them to suffer because the religious agenda condemns people with the AIDS virus?
I do not know how my friend stands straight after seeing the devastation in the gay community. I believe that the grief of losing so many friends, lovers, acquaintances might actually cause one to be beat into the ground. Sometimes that is how I feel when I think of how many people that have been killed because of ignorance, lack of medical care, lack of will, etc. I do not know how it must feel to take so many meds each day. I do not know how it feels to have to watch each morsel of food that one eats. Frankly, I feel very fortunate to know him, hear his life stories and see his courage.

I am shocked at the people (intelligent, medical people) who are saying that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. I do not know what they are thinking. I have read some of these theories, especially lately and am really amazed that anyone in the medical field could be that irresponsible.

AIDS is growing fastest these days among the African American female population.
There are many reasons for this; little of which has to do with the sexual orientation of African American women. Yet, in the populations of African American churches, AIDS, fundraising for AIDS and people who have AIDS are not just ostracized, but they are condemned. My personal experiences with Fundamental activists have been so ugly, I point my finger at our law enforcement agencies which stand idly by while people who have obviously been trained to be disruptive and volatile all but physically assault those involved in AIDS fundraising events.

As far as fundraising or advocating, that is in an individual's heart. The amount of people (at least in the USA) who do either thing is small. The number of people who believe in and volunteer for anything is small. The number of people who care about educating themselves beyond the mandated public education system is rather small compared to the overall population.

The United States government has created a political platform based on HIV/AIDS
and those who live what has been termed "high risk" lifestyles. This platform is the gravy to a populace who increasingly prefers ignorance over education, condemnation over compassion, and fundamentalism over fiduciary concerns.
AIDS is an epidemic. It is not a passing phase in the blink of human development.
In the US alone, medical care for those with AIDS and insufficient health care could amount to staggering sums of tax dollars. But instead of education, political agenda attempts to sway the minds of the ignorant with abstinence based rhetoric rather than actions which would decrease new AIDS infections. Instead of educating the youth of this country with honest information about AIDS prevention, we stifle the young and the religious with talk about unrealistic views and 'innocent' victims. Instead of providing realistic preventative measures, we expect people, even those who are incarcerated, to be cognitive of the benefits of abstinence.

This is not a wise recourse for a country which built itself on the foundations of freedom and pioneering spirit. We can not continue to be a world leader while turning a blind eye to the source of eradication of a disease. We can not continue to be a financial giant when we ignore the consequence of letting a viral epidemic empty the coffers of the federal government while pandering to a small, but vocally intolerant segment of the population. We can not ask of other countries to do anything which we in this country aren't fully prepared to do ourselves.

In the 1950s it was taboo to talk of things that were 'not polite'. Over the last 60 years we have expanded our conversations to include even the most personal of subjects. Yet, in 2006 it is still not 'polite' or acceptable to talk of our deceased friends, our afflicted friends, lovers who have died, family members who have died of AIDS. The caveat to this is the Ryan Whites, the millionaire basketball players, or those "innocents" who got AIDS while having dentistry work done or receiving a blood transfusion. If I must be subjected to Erectile Dysfunction ads while watching a movie or checking my emails, then YOU, whoever you are, can listen while I talk of those who have been sacrificed to the politeness which this society masks itself in.

The Marble

2006-06-02T20:02:00.000-04:00

The Marble

On a recent walk through an old horse carriage roadway (now an utility easement unavailable to vehicular traffic), my husband came across a lovely antique marble. The marble isn't even round, in the way of antique marbles, it has variations to it.
It is a cat's eye green marble and what was probably once clear glass is now slightly milky. There are some scratches in it; who knows how long it may have lain in the dirt of the carriage way, or how many fierce rainstorms tumbled it through the ravine? It is a lovely reminder of times gone by, of childhood played out and transferred to the indifference of adulthood.

Much of this country can still boast places that cars can't go. Where people rarely go because their cars can't take them there. The particular easement that my husband went walking on lies at the bottom of a steep ravine, or canyon, which until recently had been full of scrub trees. In the 1940s, electricity lines were run to the community the ravine is part of, effectively shutting of the rights of horse drawn carriages to use it for transport of goods and ice delivery. And for the most part, other than the Amish people, after the 1950s the United States became a car culture. Indiana, home of the Brickyard Race Track and almost the car center of the country, claims the highest number of cars to people in the Midwest.

Within the past 3 weeks, the utility company which owns the easement rights to the old roadway, began to clear cut most of the canyon area in order to avoid falling trees from damaging their utility poles and lines. The people who live on the canyon have enjoyed a rare bit of wilderness as their private back yard for years.
Now that many of the trees have been felled, they also realize that this action may allow them to not lose their electric power next time a large storm comes through their area. They are sorry to see the trees go though and wonder if they will ever see the number of song birds that had graced their lives before the trees were taken down.

"Trees are the poems that the earth writes upon the sky". That is a line which I created and used within a watercolor painting of a tree shape that I did some 10 years ago. Before I began the painting I came to realize that as much as I loved and valued trees, I did not know much about them. I bought some books.
The favorite of my tree books is like a Roger Tory Peterson bird book. It is called "Trees of the Eastern United States" and like a bird book, it shows maps of where specific trees are more prevalent, characteristics of those trees, leaf shapes, bark texture and average height and girth for each species. I study these books on a variety of occasions, especially when a particular tree catches my eye. When preparing my sketches for the tree painting, I spent hours in the forest on the shores of Lake Michigan drawing saplings and learning how the different species of tree grew. If I thought I loved trees before, once I began to know them, I felt an entirely different kind of love for them.

Back to the marble and the trees. When we cut a tree down, we may do so for a variety of reasons; the tree may be a nuisance tree, destructive to house or person.
A tree may be diseased or infested with parasite which threatens the health of many trees. Sometimes trees are cut because they are in the way of someone's plans. I can understand cutting trees for all reasons other than the last one. I could never see that a tree was 'in the way' of a plan of mine. In fact, it seems to me that trees should be part of every plan when considering building something.

As I turn the green marble over in my hand and look for the milky essence of it, I think of how many trees may have bore the initials of perhaps the owner of the marble. I consider how many of the trees might have been climbed by boys and girls as they tried to see their canyon from a higher vantage point. I think of the green leaves and the smell of thunder and lightening on the air turning the trees to giant wooden lungs for this planet. I can not turn a tree over and over in the palm of my hand as I can turn the green marble. But I can wonder at how trees are the grace of this planet and how they dance in the breeze and bend with the winds of storms, and of change.

Trade in that Dirty mind for an Open Mind - Part 3

2006-05-31T18:46:00.000-04:00

I was twenty when I met a gay couple, the first I had met who were openly gay. At first I was curious about their lives; as I got to know them better I began to enjoy their company. They were the most 'normal' couple I had met in three years. Conventional in their relationship, with rather strict roles, they seemed more settled and closer to a loving family than any of the hippie types who I had been associating with. Other than meeting gay or lesbians as I traveled across the USA, I had little contact with the 'alternative' lifestyle community for many years.

In 1991 I went to work at a summer stock theater. Most of the staff were gay as were the numerous actors in the show the theater was producing; 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'. What a time that was! Each night the festivities began after the show, and often included an impromptu disco, fabulous food, lots of dressing up (for everyone) and loving time spent watching the autumn aurora borealis on the shores of Lake Michigan.
I spent three years working at the theater from beginning of May until mid October; each year brought me new friends, new fun and a fresh way to see life. In those three years, I was never looked at as being an outsider even though I was married, in a heterosexual union.
In my second year at the theater, some of the actors did not return to play in the various productions. I began to hear about their deaths from AIDS and at that time, I felt the loss of each of their lights from this planet.
Over the years I have remained friends with all of the people I met at the theater.
Some have moved on to other things; theater management, movies, producing, television. Almost all travel for their work and so I see them less than I would like to, however we still communicate and visit as often as possible.
As an artist and writer I have added many other GLBT friends along the way. Each one has become a beacon for me to measure the values and morals of a true equal society. I am not speaking about a hypocritical closed society, but a society that values the skill, talent and commitment of each individual.
Not one day has not passed when I worry about my friends and how our society has marginalized them, demonized them, demoralized them and eradicated the equal rights that every citizen is entitled to based on the constitution of the United States.

Heterosexual people often do not socialize with other people who are not like them. Actually, most people tend to stay within the realm of their own personal comfort, economic status, professional status and sadly, religion.
The past five and a half years has seen more damage done to the constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States than has been seen since before the civil war.
It is my observation that every society needs a scapegoat. The USA has begun to use GLBT people as the new scapegoat. Gender and Race are now legislated by laws granting specific rights to women and people of color. Until legislation is created and implemented in every state of the union, and in federal courts, I believe that GLBT people will continue to be the new scapegoats for America.

I must ask: why would sexual orientation eliminate an entire class of people from the same protections and rights as every other citizen? When our federal and state governments do not recognize EACH AND EVERY person in this country as having equal rights, are we not saying that a the denied group is not a citizen, is not entitled to equality?
It is consensus that this attitude springs from religious zealotry. I do not know if this is the case; it seems to me that one can have faith in their god of choice, yet not marginalize others for their lifestyle. The historic Jesus never spoke of discrimination against anyone. It seems to me that it would be a just thing if each person who practices discrimination, hatred or inequality against any person for any reason should be judged based on their own actions.

I can see why some people would feel discomfort outside of what they call their comfort zone. Some people are homophobic because they are not sure of their own sexuality or they may even fear it. Others may feel as they do because they have no connection to it, never having known a 'respectable' alternative lifestyle person. Still others feel moral outrage at something they have been told is wrong.
Whatever the reason, it is the obligation of every thinking, reasoning person to do whatever is within their power to educate those who are open enough to listen.
And for those who are too narrow minded to accept, much less care about GLBT persons, there is another tolerant human. Those of us who are self actualized and accepting of all are duty bound to lift our voices with the hopes that we are louder, we are more spiritual, we are more responsible for setting right what has gone horribly wrong.

Who are you to discriminate?
Are you better?
Are you brighter?
Are your teeth any whiter?
Ah, so you say
your sword is mightier.
Pull down your hood,
we who are free
chose not to see your face.

Let me ask:
Were YOU born a native of this land?
there are no natives
of this land.
We all had to come from somewhere
sometime.
And we all came from the same
beginnings:
we all came
out of Africa.
Does that disturb you?

Why do you believe
that what others chose
undermines your choices?
How is your marriage
threatened by a
marriage of
he and he
or
she and she?

How is your life threatened by
the color of a person's skin?
The name by which they call
on god?
The place where they were born?
The food they eat?

Who are you to discriminate?
What gives you the right
to sit in judgment
of others?

Who are you to deny
others
of the same rights
which you feel
are yours
by virtue of
your conditioning?

Who are you to judge
how free someone is?
To control their
reproductive freedom?

Who are you to discriminate?

Where do you draw your 'power' to
discriminate?
You say: The Bible.
I say,
read it again -
Jesus never said
Hate your brother, hold back
your sister, keep food from
the people, keep money in
the temple, be strong - seek
power.
You say: the Qur'an.
I say,
read it again -
Mohammed never said:
kill children and
mothers/fathers
of those who do not
believe in me.
You say: the Talmud.
I say,
read it again -
the commandments are
ten,
mind your own life,
and I will mind mine.

Who are you to discriminate?
Are you the hypocrite?
Are you god?
You answer "no".
I say live -
live again
and give others
the right to do
the same.

Poem, © L. Jody Kuchar, 2006

A Rant about Indiana

2006-05-23T18:07:00.000-04:00

Mommy, are we there yet?
It's been 7 months ago that we moved from Wisconsin, a truly northern state. First note of grace, weather improvement. Second note of grace, health care system - which indulges it's patients with "spa hospitals".

Where oh where is the Mason Dixon line? I was led to believe that in the civil war, indiana was a "northern" state. Yankees one and all.
Yet today the preponderance of rebel flags used as window treatments in homes across the city belies that northern heritage.
In the USA, only 4 states in the union have not adopted, or put on the legislative books, an anti-hate law. Those states are (not surprisingly) North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Hey! Indiana. Whats up with that? Do the residents of Indiana enjoy being in the company of the most illiterate, er, under-educated states?

Well shocking as the last fact may be, even more shocking is that a girl like me, born and raised in Chicago, is still fighting for equal rights based on gender. I am a modern suffragette living in a backass state. Why would I make this claim? Oh let me count the ways:
Upon moving here and transferring home and auto insurance, (which in WI had been either jointly in my husabnd and my name, or individually in the case of auto insurance), all of our insurance was simply put in my husband's name. We do not have John Doe Insurance, we have a nationally recognized, long established insurance company. When the final policies were received by me in the mail, my hackles immediately raised and I called what would come to be our new local agents' office. When I asked that my auto insurance be put back in my name and not my husbands', I was asked "What difference does it make whose name it is in. You're insured aren't you?" Comments like this make a woman don her boxing gloves. It wasn't long before this problem was solved to my satisfaction, yet, it should never have come up. Each individual, regardless of gender, is entitled, HAS THE RIGHT, to hold their own, autonomous insurance policy.
Shortly after getting the insurance issues straightened out, I headed for the BMV to register my car (read: be bled to death by taxes) and get my IN drivers license.
Doing these tasks made me realize a number of things, but in the interest of not digressing, I will cover only one thing for now: it is the option of the BMV to provide voter registration to people applying for and getting new drivers licenses. This option was never mentioned to me (Gasp! Women VOTE???), yet it was not only offered to my husband, it was recommended and handled in an expedient manner. Oh no, women have to go to the County Court House (counting on MapQuest to not get a newbie lost) and present every paper known to humanity to get a humble voting card.
Being the founder, president and owner of a small not for profit organization, my next step upon moving was to register this business organization with the secretary of state. I blithely wrote a personal check from a joint banking account which has BOTH MY HUSBAND AND MY NAMES imprinted on the check face. Into the snail mail with the forms and check to the office of Todd Rokita. When the response form was returned by mail, it was not addressed to myself, the business owner and person filing the form, but it was sent to my husband as his name was on the personal check. You may ask if perhaps he had signed the check or the form. And my response would be NO. His name appeared NOWHERE on the form, or as the signatory for the check. Yet it was the MALE that the SOS office recognized. How could they do that if his name did not appear on any of the papers? It would seem that disregarding the form, some clerk in the SOS office took longer to read the face of the personal check and chose the MALE name as the principal applicant.
Maybe people in the SOS office should stop reading personal checks and pay attention to the forms that are being filed.

I'll stop ranting now about equal rights in this state. I'd like to rant more, as other things have come up, but there is a lot of ground to cover here and enough is enough. Suffice it to say, IN has 3 big strikes against it with feminists. And to think, equal rights is guaranteed to each human in this country - I guess that means we females have to fight for them every day.

You know I could get to like it here if I didn't have to deal with misogyny and intolerance. Where might these two traits come from? I hate to do this, being the non-confrontational kind of woman that I am, but I'm doing it anyways - I think it is the Moral Majority, the Christian Right, the Holier than Thou, Read the Bible, family values crap that has sadly infected the rest of this once free nation.
You know the type - they dictate to the family based on loose interpretations of a book that is grounded in myth and legend. Anything to keep the man the head of the household and the woman tied to the ox-plow.
My husband used to work with a guy who has recently quit his job and moved to a state much like IN in order to follow his minister and keep his family under control.
This is Bush-ism thinking. So the country goes, so the family follows. I can't wait for the backlash of young people who will be so disgusted with the hypocrisy and control imposed on them for so long they will break free of it with a gusto not seen since the 60s.

Ok, lets talk about culture. Indianapolis is gaining a reputation for being very arts oriented. It is all the talk in travel magazines, and rightly so. Indiana can be proud of the wonderful venues available for mainstream artists. It also is developing a nice little counter culture, a fringe element, as it likes to call itself. I simply love Mass Ave and its restaurants and galleries and theaters. All fringe-y, all good.
And Fountain Square is pretty hip with the art scene as any first friday will illustrate. Lots to see, do and talk about.
But damn people! Lets not all think we are qualifying for NASCAR or Brickyard pole positions! I thought I had never seen drivers as crappy as those in WI. That is until I lived here for a month or so.
When I applied for my drivers license, I had to take the rules of the road test, which I almost did not pass because I thought that much of the stuff on the test was so wrong. Like the two second rule for allowing space between your car and the one in front of you. TWO SECONDS!?? Like, One - Two? You have to be kidding right? Nope, not kidding. People, let me tell you this: you know why your cars look like shit and drive even worse? Because you over drive them. you drive too fast, follow too closely and are too anxious about being FIRST! First in the door of a store, first off the line at a traffic light, first at what ever it is you perceive as more important than safety. Get a clue Hoosiers, lighten up on the gas pedal. Price of fuel is going up and you keep pounding on your cars. No wonder you can't afford to go anyplace other than grocery shop. You don't know what being conservative is really about.
Being conservative is not about hating Planned Parenthood, Gays and Lesbians, people who don't go to church. No, being conservative is about using less, pushing less, fighting less, keeping an open mind.

I know you all want to be modern. You all love Chicago and the hipness and culture there. And you deserve it here too. But you'll never get it as long as your minds are narrow, your vision is shortsighted and you embrace the rebel cause.
No, you need a bit of sophistication. Maybe I'll stay here just long enough to give you all a bit of mine.
Then I'll be off to a new place with hopes that I won't have to work so hard to fit in like a normal person would in the northern states.

Taken Down a Notch

2006-05-18T18:25:00.000-04:00

Often when I post here, I do so with prepared material in a copy/paste way. Tonight that is not the case, this is free flow thought. Look out.
At the beginning of the month, I had the misfortune to be ill with a strange affliction that seems to be my fate; an infection of the salivary gland. This may sound benign; the truth is, it is anything but. I was so ill that when I finally did get to see a physician, he immediately admitted me to hospital. And you know you must be sick when the first thing they do after getting an IV line into you is mainline morphine. Oddly enough, even morphine did not take away the pain, although it did much to make me not care. The first thing I lost feeling in was my butt. So sitting upright in a bed for 36 hours was not a problem.

One thing about Indiana that I must say, the health care system here is amazing. I was lucky enough to spend four days in what I am affectionately calling the Spa Hospital. We're talking private room with ambient lighting, a flat panel HD TV, a computer in each room with high speed internet connections. Art all over the place, including handmade headboards or glass with pampas grasses embedded in them. This was some hospital.
But it was still a hospital with someone coming into the room every two hours, presumably to make sure I still had a pulse.
Funny though, I got more rest then I normally do get at home.
Which leads me to this: I am determined to not wear myself down again. To work fewer hours on ScribeSpirit, to work less around the house - or if you like, stop being a perfectionist bitch about things. Hard to do especially when you are changing a number of habits like reduction of smoking cigarettes (I'm down to about 6 or 7 a day), no coffee (but lots of chai), eating four times a day - little bits of food AND testing 3 times a day for blood sugar levels.
No, I was never diabetic before, but after being on heavy intravenous anti-inflammatory drugs (steroids), I developed crazy blood sugar levels which led to the 3 times a day testing.

When we get taken down a notch by illness, we have to stop denying that our lifestyles may not be the healthiest. And so, at 55 I am admitting that and trying to make some changes.

My opinion of doctors has changed now that I have been treated by some who are humane.... in Wisconsin, it seemed that the doctors may have gone to veterinarian school first, they treated everyone like cattle. Here that was not the case.
So doctors beware! I may start to trust you all a bit now.
Frightening concept.

Rants & Rambling by the Pythia of Carmel

2006-04-19T15:44:00.000-04:00

After my last dangle over the fissure, in a typically stoned mode of logic, I realized that pets are slowly taking over the world. Forget over population of humans, it's all the spare dogs and cats that will end up as masters on this planet.
Both dogs and cats have long been the staple of cartoon illustrators; useful tools who are drawn with moveable mouths which say such clever things. Yet we all know, yes, even those who have not owned canines and/or felines - they do not talk. Not one word. They do not ask for food with linguistic skill. They may practice extreme body language, like charades for pets, they have their way of letting us know that we are no more than human can openers. Yet they do not articulate anything other than what has become known as "bark-alerts".
You know bark-alerts; that annoying thing where Fluffy 5 doors down may see a squirrel out the back window, and begin barking. Soon, Spot who lives next to Fluffy sees same squirrel and takes up the cause. When Fluffy ceases to see said squirrel, Lance who lives next to Spot now envisions the grand chase and takes up where Fluffy left off. And on and on it goes until each and every dog in the neighborhood has announced the presence of the rodent with the fuzzy tail. And this is not so bad, unless of course, the dogs reside outside and begin the chorus while you are trying to examine the inside of your eyelids for light leaks.
Oh, and dog walkers are another issue. Most places there are laws about picking up your dog's feces. Dog walkers amble about sidewalks with plastic bags tucked into their clothing so they can pick up Muffy's droppings from your front lawn - but only if they think you or your neighbor might have seen Muffy leave them next to the mail box. As neighbors proudly walk their miniature Poodles, their Bichon Frise, their Yorkshire Terriers, I wonder to myself: "Oh wither the noble wolf?" Is it any wonder then that the wily coyote has taken to subterfuge, it can not abide being related to the useless and hairless Chihuahua. And no amount of clever, talking Chihuahuas will make me yearn for Taco Bell.
In San Francisco, California, the bastion of single, non parent humans, dogs are the symbol of status. There are more accommodations for dogs made in high end restaurants, boutiques and bistros than there are for the human inhabitants. Yes, you may want a Gucci frock that is costlier than a Rolls Royce and it is possible to take your pooch with you so as to make sure the matching haute couture frock you purchase for Fluffy, fits. To me, this is disgusting! I do not want to spend that kind of cash for an outfit only to find, once I have it home, that it is accessorized by canine hair. And why aren't dogs made to wear shoes and shirts as they go to that trendy bistro on the corner? Damn it, I have to wear a shirt - if they can be served without one, why shouldn't I?
On the island of Tarawa in the South Pacific, dogs are called Kang Kang. Roughly translated, kang kang means "tasty dog". And at this rate, a meal of dog might be easier to obtain than let's say, a salad. A friend of mine married a man from Kenya named Mike. Once they came to America, Mike was obsessed with the amount of space devoted to pet food, supplies, toys and accouterments that are available at every grocery store he went to. In Mikes words: "In Kenya, we only recently have gotten beyond eating stray dogs." Here in the USA, we take up the cause of doggie over population with 'Walk A Thons" that raise money to microchip and sterilize cats and dogs. Never mind those homeless folk living under the bridge, dog and cat fundraising allows one to be fashionable while the community watches these good deeds. See, no one knows, nor cares that you flipped that homeless guy at the side of the road a ten spot - other than the homeless guy who just might use it for a place to spend the night. Homeless guys living under the bridge do not lick your face when you get home at the end of the day. Well, maybe they might for a ten dollar bill - and then again, maybe you wouldn't want them to.

Don't take this the wrong way; I do not hate dogs. I have owned dogs. Dogs have served many purposes in the evolution of humanity. They have hunted with humans, guarded humans and been transportation for humans. But their day as co-hunters has passed. And in all but the remotest arctic outposts, dogs do not help humans transport from place to place. In fact, because of multi-dog households, the mighty SUV has supplanted the humble car on the streets of America. But dog ownership has passed to a new plane, one which speaks more about pedigree than security or companionship.

Now, I've barely touched on cats. People do not generally take their cats for walks. Cats are like pillows with fur, pillows that place themselves in various poses through out the house. First on the sofa and when that is covered in an inch of fur, they retreat to the bedroom, or your pillow. Double pillows ....
Cats are basically nice, pretty creatures who are credited with rodent removal (sans bark-alert) and NEVER would my cat eat an endangered songbird! No, my cat only goes out at night, when birds are asleep, therefore, it can not be a danger to anything other than mice, voles, other cats ....

On the other hand, companion bird owners are a far less numerous group than dog and cat owners. Why this would be I do not know. After all, dogs and cats can not say "Wanker" for the neighbor's children. Although both dogs and cats can be observed participating in the sport of wanking, neither of them can announce their intentions to wank. And believe me, a parrot that can say "Wanker" to the five year old next door is an asset to a person's peace and quiet. Parrot ownership is a tenuous relationship. And it has its ups and downs. First of all, a parrot is not owned by a human. The parrot owns the human. If you have a parrot, chances are you have no life outside cleaning up poop from expensive and well loved shirts.
It is the master plan of creation that insects and rodents were created to scavenge from parrots. Every morsel of food that a parrot partakes in ends up by various degrees on the floor, in the drapes, in the companion human's hair. Only to be shortly followed by insects who are drawn to it.
The up side to having a parrot in the house is that it can amuse it's human companions in a fine assortment of ways. For example it can say "Little Shit" just as your mother in law is joining you at the dinner table. And parrots are much less prone to begging for food. Just plop whatever it is you are eating into a parrot's dish and you will have an enchanted friend. And just like you and I, parrots really enjoy sitting in front of the television eating junk food! Plus they don't complain about the programming.

Mantra

2006-03-23T17:42:00.000-05:00

My new mantra: Almost Done. Almost Done.
It's said that the older we get the more difficult it is to learn new things. I don't know how true that is. Maybe it is true if you spend down time trying to forget what you did all day along. But for those of us who like to remember everything we do with clarity, learning new things is like the air that we breathe. I do wish though, like the hard drive of my lovely laptop, I could compartmentalize all the little bits of this and bits of that into organized drawers and files, to be pulled out as needed. Mostly this kind of thing doesn't bother me, until I lay my head on pillow and find that like a calculator, my mind tabulates information and runs it back at me in speedy display.
In six weeks I have learned some basic programming techniques which programmer 'friends' who have spent huge sums of cash in university told me couldn't be done. Perhaps it is the spending of that cash that made them think education is only gotten when paid to someone who has a variety of initials after their name. Obviously nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, we need to qualify the expression "Paid for". Hahaha. We pay for things sometimes in a currency richer than green paper - like blood or time. Although other than a couple of new wrinkles under my poor traitorous eyes, I see no lasting harm from pushing the envelope.

I am happy to be so busy. It has kept me from feeling a certain depth of depression about moving here which I still haven't completely reconciled with. I have met a few very good people. And then I have met many really creepy people - people who could give me nightmares if I weren't so dog tired by nightfall. People whose words are so ugly that they make me embarrassed for them - that such ugliness could be borne by humans.
Many years ago I excised some ugly language from my life. Not just gender based language, but language that I deemed offensive to racial makeup, sexual preference, education, socio-economic background. Language is a funny thing - we use it as a high form of communication, and we humans use it to disenfranchise others. Perhaps it is more about making ourselves feel better about who we are than making others feel bad about who they are. Whatever the case, ugly language serves no purpose other than to point out to others (me) that someone is lacking in self esteem. Yes, Indiana - one of the three states in the union which refuses to pass an Anti-Hate law. A state which would create prejudice in careers, housing, social services and other human needs based on a person's sexual preference. A state which prefers polling places to be in churches than in libraries or schools. A "red" state. A conservative state. EEEEKKKK. What am I doing here? Am I being tested to see if I can find the proper language to make people who don't want to see equality do just that - see equality and why it is necessary?

Yes, I get depressed about being here. Indiana has less than 2% of it's total landmass devoted to public spaces. I have hunted for a park to go walking in and with little success. Most of the city parks in my area are located next to industrial sites. I have yet to see a space of trees that has any sense of the wild. I have yet to find solitude among trees. Or to hear the silence of snow on bare branches, the birdsong of returning robins, my boots squelching in mud on a less traveled path.
I am wilderness bereft. I long for crane song. I long for a long walk in the snow or spring rain. I long so much for the rarefied air of Lake Michigan on my face, turning my hair to ringlets, my nose red, my cheeks raw. I long for silence and space.
I miss my last, small home. Here it is endless rooms; endless, dusty rooms beckoning to be dusted or vacuumed or to have the blinds opened. I miss the small space and economy of my Wisconsin home. I miss seeing the bulbs I planted in the front garden come up. I miss the snap of prayer flags on a windy morning. I miss Thursday night 'Salons" at our house where friends would gather and we'd call each other names like "republicat" or "democan" and talk about W and his daddy, the first King George and wonder where America would be in 20 years. I miss my artist friends and drum circles and the snippy way Judes would comment about so and so's new painting. I miss Olympia Brown U.U. even if I never joined, I miss the open-ness and acceptance.
Who knew Indiana could be this far north, yet feel that far south? I do not miss the woman I met at the hair dressers last week who said in a loud voice "I am SOOOOO not a coat person". I did chuckle though as I slid on my nice Norwegian jacket and headed out into the snow showers ....

OK. Is this a rant? Not really. Like I said, I've been busy, I'm learning. I am accomplishing stuff and I don't have time to think too much or feel sorry for myself. Hey, I have a home, food, warmth, clothes, a good man, a silly bird .... but dammit! I really am a simple woman and I miss that little simplicity I built in Racine.
That being said, when this darned pool opens and I can sit out side in the sun and read something great and absorbing, maybe, just maybe I will delete this rant and think about how I don't miss winter in Wisconsin.

Poetic Acceptance

2006-03-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I was introduced to an amazing woman from North Carolina, Erin Monahan. Erin was referred to me by another friend in North Carolina, Ron Hudson http://www.ronhudson.blogspot.com/
Ron has been a friend of the family here since we eMet on 1 Giant Leap's forum board, then later, met in person at his home and again in New Orleans in January 2005. Ron hooked Erin and I up as Erin was putting together a not for profit organization which supports Parents who have lost a Child. Once we exchanged notes on NPOs, Erin and I began one of the funniest online relationships I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. Erin is one of the funniest women that I know. She also happens to be one of the most courageous, tireless and empathetic human beings walking this earth. We had countless hours of fun making each other spew coffee from our collective noses with jokes, irony and personal views of everyday life.
When Erin and I met, she was pregnant. Even pregnant and weighted down by concern Erin proved to be an inspiration to me while I struggled to get fledgling ScribeSpirit off the ground. Erin started 'Poetic Acceptance' because she and her husband lost their daughter, Alexis Jade to congenital heart defect in 2001. The story of how 'Poetic Acceptance' was born is long and not mine to relate here, it is the story for Erin to tell. When Erin learned that the baby she was carrying this past autumn also would suffer from the same heart problems, I was amazed that the news did not knock her to the floor. Not only did she remain on her feet, fighting, but she had the strength, presence of mind and courage to continue on with her plans to initiate the support group as a NPO.
Sometimes when we think that our lives are difficult, that we don't have the will to continue with something, a situation or person will touch our lives and show us that our own concerns are small compared to the concerns and troubles of others.
This is how Erin has touched my life, and the lives of others.
As a poet, Erin is extremely talented. As a humorist, Erin can make stone laugh. As a human being Erin is a fine example of the strength and tenacity of women. If you are coming here to read this sorry blog, then put it aside for a time and visit the link to Poetic Acceptance. If you are not capable of doing anything material to help out or support Erin or other parents
caught in the cycle of loss and grieving, then just send positive energy - any of that will be greatly appreciated.
If you are easily touched and inspired, you will find Poetic Acceptance to be a spot that fills you with hope and vision.

My dirty little secret

2006-03-01T21:07:00.000-05:00

I love poetry, I really do. But I don't like writing it. Especially when it rhymes. It makes me crazy because after crafting a poem that rhymes, my brain childishly does rhymes for the rest of the day - with everything. It is internally irritating.
Never the less, I recently found myself visiting a website that is all poetry. I spent a week on the site, getting to know how it functioned, some of the writing there and lastly some of the authors. It was a good week, but I felt terribly guilty at the end of it because I know there were so many other things that needed my attention.
While there, I actually felt I needed to produce some poetry - it is difficult to say "I am an author" without proving it. So I did just that; I wrote poems on command. Really, this is hard work. Not bust your ass hard work, but hard enough so that at the end of the day, you know you had a mental workout.
Well, getting around to it, here is a poem I wrote last week in response to something another poet wrote about wanting to release a well cared for caged bird she met.

For Sensual Sorceress from Sunkist the most excellent parrot: "Rest assured, author of "Caged Bird", life indoors can be grand!"

My plumage shines so brightly
yellow, orange and green
kissed by the sun so lightly
while mama and I preen

My food cup's never empty
of vegetables and fruit
of endless sumptuous bounty
a psittacine tribute.

My baths are always taken
in a painted pasta bowl,
I flap my wings and beckon
other captive birdie souls

Brightly colored toys present
something to ponder on
hidden nuts and seeds -a pageant
of homemade bird bonbons

i've never known true freedom
my hatching was a plan
and while profit was a symptom
I was accepted in this clan.

My name is Sunkist and I'm cherished
and a companion every day
within this flock I've flourished
and play and play and play.

In the wild I'd live for five years
if I were lucky, six
but here I know and have no fear
I'll live to sixty-six!

Humans keep cats and dogs and fish
yet think I'm different than those pets
any pet unloved lives a life of anguish
yet here there's no regrets.

Just listen and I'll tell you
what it means to be a bird
in field, forest or bayou
our shrinking world is altered

The rainforests are being cut and burned
and food is getting scarce;
while within this flock I'm never spurned -
I'm loved - and happily well versed.

Hobie Hunting

2006-02-19T18:40:00.000-05:00

In 2002, my father in law George, suffered a series of T.I.A.s which are like mini strokes. What brought his attention to the condition, other than a terrible headache, was a sudden loss of vision, which was eventually diagnosed as Macular Degeneration. Georges vision has been declining since 2002; today he is legally blind and unable to do many of the things that he once did with enthusiasm. Among those things he can no longer do is the simple and peaceful act of walking through autumn woods and hunting for mushrooms. The following essay was written for and about George in celebration of Fathers Day and in appreciation for his kind and gentle spirit as he taught me the fine art of hunting 'hobies'.

Hobie Hunting, originally published in 1997, Door County Voice, Ephraim WI

After the rains, the lake air in the fall can be so crisp that it almost burns the inside of the nose; slightly freezing minute nose hairs which thaw later only to produce raw, runny noses. The ground is covered with leaf litter so thick you can not tell if you are on the path or off it and into the woods. We find perfect sticks, not meant for walking, but for prodding. We turn the decaying leaves over in a steady pattern, not dragging the sticks or digging into the leaves, but gently getting under the leaves and flipping them over to the same side as last time; and again and again, until we find just what it is we are looking for.

My father in law George, is descended from Czechoslovakian parents. He was the youngest of three children, born 1928 in Brookfield, Illinois. George began school at the age of six and it was then that he learned to speak English and from that time on, English became the language he read in, wrote in and spoke everywhere but home. George regrets not learning to write and read in his milk tongue, and when speaking about his childhood and remembering words for certain things, he admits that he has no idea how to spell those words. So he slowly sounds out the words for me, syllable by strange syllable.

George tells me he remembers picking mushrooms with his parents at the age of four. He says that his sister tells him that he accompanied his parents on mushroom picking expeditions to Kiwanis Park in Brookfield when he was eighteen months old. Today, George teaches me the traditional way of picking and drying hobies.

It's fall and the leaves have already turned in Door County. In fact, they are littering every inch of the ground after last nights heavy downpour. Today the air is not so crisp, but it is cool and the days are shorter and there was the October harvest moon last night. We walk off what we know to be the path in Peninsula Park. It is peaceful there now, the summer crowds have gone and the majority of the campsites are empty. Deer droppings lay where a tent once stood and blackened and half burnt wood sits in fire rings now vacant until next summer. The leaves here are not the brilliant red, orange and yellow, they are brown from the soaking rains.

Flip, flip with the sticks. Just on the edge of rotting logs and usually in the deepest leaves; flip, flip. I've learned to recognize the mushrooms that are safe, although I often stop and ask George if a particular hobie is good. I will not pick or eat puff balls as I see them as deformed and alien, bloated creatures of the forest. But these winter hobies are delightful gracing a grilled steak. These mushrooms are like shitakes. I do not know the English word for them, but George has taught me to call them jeepka. This is the Czech pronunciation of the word he remembers for winter hobies he and his sister love.

"What are these called again?", I ask and George replies, "Jeepka".
"Say it again and slowly please." He does so and the 'j' sound is soft like the French name, Gigi. The emphasis is on the last syllable with a hard 'k'.
"Jeepka", I repeat as I imitate his actions and flip, flip, flip.

Down my own path; flip, flip. At the edge of log and bramble I think I see a small velvet head peeking out from under a brown crepe oak leaf. I drop to my haunches and move leaves gently with my hands until I uncover the little brown cap and many other near it. The jeepkas aren't just brown, but they are pale stemmed with a small, tight, tan head, with the hint of a dark brown center on the cap. The underside of the mushroom, the spore gills are a darker, luminous brown. And the entire mushroom is soft; softer than baby flesh. Softer than a wren's feathers. I take half of what I find and put them into a brown paper bag I carry with me. I can see George bent over in the woods a few campsites away and I know he has found jeepkas too.

That evening, at the farm, on old newspaper at the kitchen table we shake the contents from the brown paper bags. All of the mushrooms look alike, that same soft texture. As they tumble from the bags, a dark heady aroma fills the kitchen. It is as if the garden walked through the door and shook the dirt of its feet. The mushrooms are sorted, mostly for size as quality is determined as they are picked. George cleans them one by one with a small paring knife. He cuts the bottom from the stem and runs the knife gently around the edge of the cap to remove the flange like frill, then lays the mushroom on an old window screen kept specifically for this task. He uses chairs from the kitchen as props and places them in front of the wood burning stove, and sets the screen on the seats of the chairs so air can circulate around and under the mushrooms. They will remain in the screens overnight. George will turn them once, and in the morning they will be dry, then stored in old cardboard oatmeal containers with holes punched in their plastic lids. I have seen these same mushrooms in gourmet shops hung like streamers. Like strings of Czech beads, they are strung on cord and dried and sold.

The season for jeepka is short; they need rain, a full moon and cool nights. Each year, George has about one week to find, pick, dry and store enough memories of leaves and woods and crisp air in oatmeal boxes to last him until next autumn when he begins the process of hobie hunting again.

Good People

2006-01-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

I'm done talking about Scam Artists and thieves like Scott Ransopher (couldn't resist one more shot.. haha). If anyone reading my blog has comments, don't email me with them, add them to this blog. Anything you all might have to say could be helpful to the next person who experiences this kind of abysmal behavior.
What I do want to talk about are some of the exceptional people who I eMet over the 2 days I devoted to trashing Mr. Ransopher's chick magnet techniques.

First of all, if you are a writer there is an excellent website that is devoted to writer resource. It is Todays Woman.net. The administrator of this site is Ms. Rose DeRocher, an overworked, but highly appreciated facilitator who spends whatever time she has leftover after being a mother, homemaker and wife, to the betterment of ePublishing. Ms. DeRocher provides through her website invaluable information and opportunities for the new writer and professional writer alike. Todays Woman posts internet and publishing scams, advice and general help for anyone interested in or embarking upon the act of getting their work into the publics reach. Additionally, she is a kind soul who has a delicious sense of humor. The URL for Todays Woman is: http://www.todays-woman.net/

My next accolade goes to Richard Irwin, the administrator for Creative-Poems.com. Not only does Mr. Irwin possess a sense of humor, but he also is excited about poetry, an oxymoron in todays visual media saturated world. Anyone who is looking for a responsive and friendly place to ePublish their work can not do much better than using this homey little site. Richard has an good feel for what he'd like to see Creative-Poems become and the right submissions might just be the one that gives the site and Richard a bit of inspiration. The URL for Creative Poems is: http://www.creative-poems.com/

Another good soul in my personal war with copyright infringement is in the guise of Mary Koeppel. Ms. Koeppel is a professor of English at a university in Florida (lucky Mary! thinks this winter weary woman) Her website, Write Corner, also offers legitimate contests and writing competitions. Mart also tossed her considerable copyright knowledge and internet savvy into waging war against the Plagiarist Scott Ransopher. Mary's website URL is as follows:
http://www.writecorner.com/koeppel.html

I want to wind this up with a special thanks to all of the individuals who worked with me as well as those who worked independently to make sure © (copyright) is a symbol that has some meaning beyond a special series of keys on each of our keyboards.
I also want to thank people like Ann Young who was the first person to alert me to the problem of Mr.Ransopher's plagiarismm. Ann too is a poet whose unique voice is a collection of words about those intangibles which can not have a value placed on them in the world of monetary worth - her poems are about her family - past and present. To Ann, her words are an expression of continuity of family. Imagine someone trying to steal and own someone else's family history ....

SCAM ALERT! Scott Ransopher SCAM ALERT

2006-01-24T18:06:00.000-05:00

Recently someone I had never heard of before emailed me with the information that a poem which I had written in the 80s and which was published in 1996, had been plagiarized by a guy named Scott Ransopher. After a bit of googling, I found Mr. Ransopher's websites which numbered about half dozen. Sure enough, my poem, and hundreds of others from various poetry anthologies were listed on his sites with Mr. Ransopher's personal copyright. At first I was kind of angry - not real angry because I don't do poetry contests and rarely doodle with poetry at all anymore. Yet, there it was, my poem on his site with his name ...
Poems are just words. You know those common things that we use everyday. We all speak them, we all semantically are similar in our use of them. Poems are just words; words arranged in the cadence of an individuals voice: from experience, loss, exploration or longing. Poems are personal expressions of deep feeling that can often not be voiced in 'polite company'.
My poetry is no different; it matters not the subject of the poem, whether it be about a long lost cat, a mother, a father, a child, a lover ... My poems are just words. Cut the poem up in pieces so each word is on a separate piece of paper, toss those pieces of paper into the air and watch them come down and land in a pile of - just words.
The plagiarizm was extensive. One entire list of poems was the full contents of a book called "American Voices, Summer 1996" and published by Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum, Inc. Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum is no longer in business. They ran competitions for poetry; many poets entered, few actually 'won'. Those that won were featured poets in the lovely hardcover book. Those that did not win were offered publication for a sum of money. All poets who had work included in the book had to pay for the book. They were also offered space for a biolgraphy and photo. Since my poem was not new, and didn't really mean much as far as value, I did not have to pay to be published as it 'won' and was publised for nothing. Not being into vanity publishing, I did not opt to included my biography or photo. Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum actually went out of business due to a variety of reasons, one being that they could not get enough people to pay for what is known as 'Vanity Publishing'. My suspicion is that they compiled another anthology which in the end they could not pay to print. If they had collected money to do the publishing, and they did not publish, they would have earned the title of scam artist.

The anthology my poem was included in contained a lot of bad poetry. It contained some very good poetry too, but most of it was amateurish and even incuded the poetry of children. Children do not write professional poetry - does this give you an idea of the over all quality of the verse?
Enter Scott Ransopher, alledgedly an adult male, who has taken the poems, one by one, and in the exact same order they were printed in, has typed them all into a document which he then uploaded to his websites and copyrighted as his own.
In the amount of time it took him to type them all out (the publication in question was not online, therefore not available to a copy/paste function), Mr. Ransopher could have written very bad poetry of his own. Instead he stole the words of children, of grieving lovers and parents and children. Of the faithful, the bereaved owners of pets, the people who stand in wonder of nature ... All of these words - which expressed the many life experiences of the authors - and he stole their words.

While this entire thing was happening, I refused to even type this pathological humans name online. I was dead set about giving him any more exposure than I was sure he would already be getting. It is a week later and in the span of 7 days, Mr. Ransopher's own thieving voice has been silenced. I must say that the response from everyone other than Too Big To Care Yahoo was amazing. The number of other poets, ePublishers, editors, professors, and others that came out in defense of copyright was astonishing. And through it all, with careful consideration, Mr. Ransopher did not glean one bit of publicity that could be deemed useful to his purpose.

Many people speak of the internet as a vast wasteland of stay at home, introverted, shy people. Yet what I have found can almost be divided into two groups. True movers and shakers and then the stay at home subterfuge people. It is difficult at first to tell who is going to fall into what category. Believe this: the internet is full of some pretty amazing people as well as some pretty petty people. And I am lucky to have met more of the former than the later.

If you are a poet, there are a number of things you can do to protect yourself.
One thing is to copyright your work and register it with the Library of Congress. The easiest way to do this is to accumulate enough work to make a chapbook, which can then be registered as one item. It doesn't matter whether you are registering a book, or a piece of haiku. The cost for registering something is $10.
If you write short stories, always register them. Especially if you are going to enter them into contests and competitions.
If you are a visual artist, always mark your work with a copyright.
There are websites devoted to copyright issues for the USA. And copyright is not the same around the world. If you live in or work in another country, check with an attorney or a copyright website to find the laws regarding copyright. You can use a search engine to check for the copyright laws in your country; Google has innumerable articles listed about copyright law in the USA and around the globe.
And frequently check the internet for your work. Goggle yourself, your poem's title, the title of a story, the name of anthologies ... Goggle away until your fingers hurt.
Don't' let anyone steal your words, your experiences or the expressions of your soul

The eZine

2006-01-12T13:41:00.000-05:00

It has been about 11 months since I had this greymatter flatulence moment and created the concept of an international eZine. From conception to official independent launch, the amount of things I have learned is innumerable. From teasing offerings of writing and art from authors and artists, to soothing ruffled egos, I believe that for the moment, my 'wetware' is as full as it can get. It may be time to archive some of it to an external device and then - go on vacation.
In the middle of this interesting project, my husband, parrot and I have relocated to another state: also a huge undertaking considering laws vary from place to place as does culture. If my ass had grown from too much chair sitting I might understand this feeling of heaviness. But it hasn't just my big old head (or what's in it) has expanded. This should be a good sign - small ass, big brain. But no, I am wrung out, tired, and wondering if this zeppelin will keep flying or if some small thing will 'ma gavte la nata', "let the air out".
You know, they say that it's not so much the destination, but the journey that is so interesting. And in this case, I really do agree. Now that the site is up and having some visitors, I want to sort of walk away, run away, ignore and divest myself of the responsibility of keeping interest from waning.
So many things have been neglected while I attempt to make this eZine function and fly; my appearance, my house, my visual art, my writing, my sex life ... you name it and I have neglected it. And all for no pay.
Which leads me to the reality of looking for a job. Now that ScribeSpirit has launched, I kind of want to get out of the house. Between the launch of the site, my new locations improved weather and me feeling isolated, I have been looking for a job.
I am not sure what I am thinking ...
OK. So I try some of the online resume building software. Interesting. Based on the information I have loaded into the software, I am now being offered full time managerial positions with companies as diverse as Insurance and Stock Brokers, banking institutions and Carpet Cleaning franchises. All pay is much better than offered in Wisconsin and also Chicagoland (which, by the way, is undergoing a union busting party all its own). But I don't want a full time job, nor do I want a job that requires me to relocate, or to travel more than 10 miles from my home. I want a nice, tidy part time job where perhaps I might meet people now and then, where I don't feel responsible for staff. After all, I am already responsible for a staff scattered across the globe. No, a part time job would suit just fine. I do not want to have to hire help to clean my house, I do not want to eat prepared food from questionable grocery stores or go out to eat 5 days a week. I do not want the household tax status to reflect a significant leap in income resulting in larger tax payments. All of those negative points only take money OUT of the pocket, they don't help increase income one bit.
Bah! My resume looks like it's made up. Nineteen plus years of accounting/bookkeeping experience, 5 years theater administration, 5 years office administration and management, 8 years of collections experience within the framework of financing, ten years of visual arts, 20 plus years of literary arts, 15 years of design principals, and add to that the eZine credits. And I haven't mentioned education yet which is as diverse and odd as my work background.
However will I find something suited to my talents and skills and that I can live with going to do 3 days or so a week?
And do I want to?
I am learning that I can not take a vacation from the eZine right now. Nor can I ignore it for a day or two. In cyber life, a day or two without "hits" can sound a death knell for an online project. So how do I please myself and fulfill my needs while doing all the stuff I do?
I have no answer. I do wish that the brain drain I feel would go away. I wish I was inspired to paint or make something for the house. But I have artist/author block. Brain constipation. Not all at in line with greymatterflatulence.

VortexHost? I think NOT

2006-01-03T12:32:00.001-05:00

So time for another rant about another company that makes promises it can not or will not deliver on.
This time I want to bash a bit on a webhosting group called VortexHost.
If anyone reading is unlucky enough to have a service agreement with this bunch of losers, I feel sorry for you.

On December 20 2005, I registered for service, or 'signed up' for service with VortexHost. In good faith I provided them with
personal financial information which was used to extract payment for the services I signed up for. Granted, this was not a
large sum of money. But it was money, my money to be exact, which by the way, I watch like the proverbial hawk.

The services I was signing up for was a basic webhosting service which was to accommodate the website which I and some friends were building for our eZine project ScribeSpirit. ScribeSpirit was due to launch it's new redesigned website on December 31st, a fitting start for the New Year.
After confirming my order, I heard nothing back from Vortex, but I passed on 'the keys to the kingdom' to ScribeSpirit's web development staff for the launch.

On New Year's Eve, just as we were beginning the launch process, it came to our attention that the services or "account" that I had paid for was not yet activated. For 11 days Vortex had my money yet provided no services. In a small panic, I contacted Vortex via email and support and asked them to activate this account. Now on New Years Eve the minds of most people are on one thing; party time! I expected the same from Vortex, but since this is a west coast based company, I thought perhaps they might not yet all be in a drunken stupor. I 'high priority' messaged Vortex and about an hour later received a message from someone with Vortex that they had not activated my account because they were waiting on a response to an email they said they had sent which indicated they could not give me a shell account with the services I purchased.

First of all I never received an email indicating that Vortex could not accommodate the needs of ScribeSpirit. Secondly, if they had my money and my order, why not activate the account and iron out the details later?

Needless to say, after much delay, the staff at Vortex was able to sneak out the new years eve door before activating the account.
When I say that I sent someone a nasty gram, I do not mean that I have cursed, made accusations or threatened ... I mean that I sent a message that left little doubt to my legal stance and the company's policies. I did sent a Jody nasty gram, but only after spending most of New Years Eve being frustrated by promises that had not been kept.

New Years Day I received my response from Vortex. I should add at this point that the person representing Vortex Services name is Justin Reel.
Justin coldly informed me that Vortex was unable to provide service for ScribeSpirit. He also informed me that he had deleted my personal information from Vortex system and also refunded my money.
As of today, VortexHost has not refunded my money and now face legal ramifications for their refusal to provide services while charging me for same.

Apparently they do not know the rule: Never piss off a writer. Or a person with a blog, website or public soapbox.

OF course, let me end by saying: all of the information provided in the above post is true and verifiable. And it is also my own opinions and beliefs. As an American citizen I am exercising my right to freedom of speech by expressing this, my opinion.

Getting the Business from BIG corporations

2005-12-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

I think it may be time to start a list. I love lists, they remind me of things I have to do, of things I need from the store, whose birthday is in a particular month, AND they also remind me of things I sometimes forget about in the face of convenience, like which corporations I believe are scamming customers.
Since I've already had a personal rant about Walgreen, who I still think has no business deciding whose prescriptions they can or won't fill, I think they will be at the top of my list. The truth is though that I have moved to another state and I don't know if Walgreen has rethought their corporate policy which allows pharmacists to decline filling birth control pill prescriptions based on the pharmacists religious beliefs. I probably should look into that - but I've been busy - probably trying to find agreeable businesses to purchase things at - like other pharmacies to use. Actually, if I thought Wisconsin was bad with the religious zeal, I obviously did not know what was in store for me by moving to Indiana. If one more person blesses me, I will give them a reason to do so, like sneeze in their face or something similarly distasteful. I never accept anything from people who I don't respect.
On to my newest bitch - Barnes and Nobel Bookstores.
I love books. I admit to using the hated Amazon dot com and the big box book stores. Hey, they have long ago put mom and pop bookstores out of business so there is little choice anymore for browsing bookshelves. Really I don't shop at big box bookstores all that much since it is close to impossible to find anything other than "Popular Fiction" or the hottest non-fiction titles, you know the self help crap books whose covers promise a better job, a sexier core, tastier dinners or a tempestuous sex life. Most of what I want to read isn't carried by B&N or Borders or any of the big chain booksellers. This week, while out of town, I found myself with a few minutes of spare time, an urge for a chai latte and my laptop. I headed for
Barnes & Nobel where I knew all of my instant gratification urges could be fulfilled.
Chai in hand, I headed for the tables where Barnes and Nobels advertising proudly announces, I was promised instant WiFi access. Certainly, B&N provides instant WiFi for those who are equipped to use it, but they do so at a price. I did not know this. Nor did any of the other people who sat at the other tables around me. At least they did not know they would have to pay for online WiFi use when they came to B&N with visions of internet in their heads. No, this is not a joke - when you try to log onto the internet at a B&N you will be directed to a site that is their provider. It happens to be a spin off of SBC. This site informs you that you must open an account with the provider, or enter a "Use Card" number in order to surf. I tried to use my Mac to circumnavigate this problem and to no avail. Even as a user of SBC Global I could not access this B&N, SBC powered provider.
So folks, if you think B&N is a free lunch, or at least a cheap date - buy a coffee and it's for real - get over it because it isn't.
In fact, I'll bet that if I had consented to paying for internet time, B&N would be sending me boat loads of spam and trying to get me to become a member of their frequent buyer discount program. Oh, you didn't know about that? Yes, for a fee of $25.00, Barnes and Nobel will sell you discounts on book purchases.
HAHAHA
So where should I go now when I feel the need to hold paper books in my hand? The library? At least I know what's in store for me there - Homeland Security checking out my leisure reading.
It's a fucking crazy world and I am not happy with it.
Goodbye Barnes and Nobel! Goodbye Walgreen!
Whose next in line for the corporate shit list?????
Probably Starbucks. But everyone already knows they charge to use their WiFi too. It's not enough that we pay way too much money for their shitty coffee, but we'll pay for something that floats around in the air too.

Ties which bind us

2005-11-22T14:46:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday, during some rare 'down time' I watched a program on PBS 'Nature' series about the rescue volunteers who assisted with saving the pets of evacuees in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. To say I was moved would be an understatement; I would be happy to report that I must be much less hormonal these days as I did not weep. Which is not to say that this program wasn't heart wrenching. We've all heard about the work being done independently by veterinarians and humane societies in NOLA. But to actually understand why the animal tragedy occurred and then to see how some very dedicated and passionately moved people responded was enough for a relief weary human to dig deep into the wallet and send cash to help.
Since our recent move to another state, my spouse and I have found that we are without the network which we had built over 15 years in our last state of residency. When it came time for the long awaited (and desperately needed) November vacation,
we found ourselves canceling due to the lack of a parrot sitter. Since we love our parrot, even in his extreme bad moods, we could not with clear conscious subject him to some of the paranoia currently sweeping the USA about Avian Flu. And if that were not enough, there are numerous other disease and transportation issues surrounding companion birds that we found too risky to chance.
Given this circumstance, to learn that the people of New Orleans who were under evacuation orders were told they could not take their pets with them has again made me feel lucky that I live with choices about how to deal with lack of boarding opportunities.
My father and his wife, who live in Punta Gorda Florida lived through hurricane Charley in August 2004. The towns of Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda were close to being wiped off the map from the fury of Charley. But even under evacuation orders, many residents chose to stay in their homes rather than to trust that their pets would be OK. Some of those same people lost their lives while trying to save their pets.
Animals are funny creatures. We know that animals have ways of knowing when 'bad weather' is approaching. Yet, I will admit, I am not sure I would want to be locked up in a shelter with numerous frightened and smelly animals. But then, I would resent that anyone would doubt that my parrot is as much a member of this family as say, Grandma or grandpa is to yours.
When our governments, local and national, reject the need of humans for their companion animals, they also make a statement about what is important to a good life. Even though I wouldn't want to share shelter space with pitbulls, I now understand that the value of companion animals can not be measured in fur, fins or feathers.

The 'Nature' Program also talked about the effects of Katrina on the New Orleans Zoo, which luckily was spared the brunt of Katrina's damage. But the animals in their wisdom began to have behavior issues shortly after the storm. The zookeepers invited some of the National Guard members who were on post to do zoo walk throughs and immediately the animals began to show signs of returning to normal. The daily give and take of animals at the zoo and the people who visit them was restored and when that happened the animals normalcy was also restored.

During two of my visits to NOLA, I have visited the Aquarium of the Americas. The Aquarium is quite a special place. The number of animals and the exhibits there were not to be found any place else in the USA. The jellyfish exhibits were possibly the best in the world. During and after Katrina, the staff at the aquarium were also evacuated because the National Guard could not guarantee their safety. When the staff were allowed to return, they found utter devastation of life. The power could not be maintained so the animals in salt water tanks died due to extreme heat, lack of food and water filtration/aeration. The few creatures that did survive, the penguins, parrots and otters were emergency airlifted to other zoos in the USA. Were it not for the dedication, passion and empathy of a few individuals, it is certain that none of the animals would have survived. In particular a NOLA cop who was assigned to duty at the aquarium managed to be most instrumental in saving the penguins. The cop's name is John and if John should ever read this, I would want him to know that his actions will remain with me for the rest of my life.

After months of watching the sadness and feeling the loss of what was NOLA, I have pretty much been tapped out for donations. But if anyone who reads this and cares about animals can still do so, please pick an organization that is instrumental in helping either the Zoo, the Aquarium or the Humane Society to send money to. These are the unsung hero's of the animals of NOLA. And too, these same people are often the ones who lost their homes, have had their families scattered and will probably not be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with the same cozy warmth as the rest of us will.

Trade in that Dirty Mind for an Open Mind - Part 2

2005-10-25T19:11:00.000-05:00

Recently this year, the PBS children program "Postcards from Buster" featured a visit with two families which were producers of Maple Syrup. The families in question were non-traditional families. Not having seen the program, and at the time of this article, not having received a reply from my inquiries to PBS, I can only paraphrase the situation as I have heard it. In reality, the familys that were featured were gay, One household consisted of two men with their children. The second family consisted of two women and their children. During the program, the word "gay" or "homosexual" or "lesbian" was never mentioned. Nor was mention made of the arrangements between any of the people involved. The families were presenting their jobs: making maple syrup and taking care of their maple trees.
Margaret Spellings, Bush administration Secretary of Education, requested that this program be axed from the PBS lineup as it presented views contrary with the Bush administration policies. Since our federal government is still contributing funds to PBS through tax payer funding, the censorship agenda is still followed. The Bush administrations view was such that PBS, in presenting such family arrangements, was instilling in children the belief that homosexuality in any form was acceptable and normal, and therefore, the program should not be shown or aired as childrens programming.

While most would deny it, many people have dirty minds. Their imaginations conjure imagaes which are salubrious in nature. While asking that dirty minds be kept in check is simply another form of censorship, one must wonder if people don't have enough to keep their minds occupied by something other than sexual innuendo.
When I hear about a couple who has been married for 60 years, I certainly don't entertain notions of their sex lives. And when hearing that there are 30 plus members of a mixed gender commune living in Colorado, I don't waste my time thinking about who has sex with whom.
It is a limiting way of life to imagine what one can not know. Or to impose upon others an individual's own morals.
How can we evolve our species and human necessities when our very steps are dogged by small minded - and dirty minded questions?
What do neo-conservatives make of the new ‘communes’ of senior citizen Florida, in which retired middle income women will contract the purchase of a home for shared living? Will the Neo-cons call them lesbians and condemn their choices? And what of young people who struggle for years to pay off college loans and need the shelter of shared living arrangements to afford to live on their own?

As a society we need to become more accepting of others and not live to question the choices of those who walk in ‘other shoes’. We need to realize that while we might live in a traditional family unit, there may be a point in time where this can change and we too might have to move in with someone who is neither lover, blood relative or same gender.

For more on PBS Progarm, “Postcards from Buster”, program #39, and an interview with Margaret Spellings, visit:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june05/spellings_4-7.html

Trade in that "Dirty Mind" for a more Open Mind

2005-10-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

When I was in my thirties, a series of unfortunate events led me to the conclusion that financially, it was near to impossible for me to continue to live alone in a rented apartment. It was time to find a room mate.
While attending university, I lived in a room mate environment; I rented a room at a less than full fraternity house on campus. As a single female, I found this to be a very interesting arrangement, a house full of single men and I the only woman. It did not take long for me to realize that yes, men tend to live like bears in caves, and the shortsighted female can on occasion ignore this fact. But in my thirties, a frat house was not an option. I surveyed my personal landscape for likely room mates.
Eventually, I chose to move into a larger apartment with a single man who worked second shift. This seemed ideal as my job hours were typical 9 to 5.

We began this room mate relationship with the clear understanding that we would not be seeing much of each other because of our different schedules; this was very acceptable as I was happily dating a number of men while maintaining a serious sexual relationship with another.
It never crossed my mind to explore any more of a relationship with my room mate other than, well, room mate. As convenient as this situation was for me, it definitely had it's retractors. My father, who I did not allow to influence my decisions, looked upon this arrangement as "questionable", while other people, mostly family members, snickered behind their collective hands. Friends, who I thought might understand the situation as well as understand me, were the worst of all. They did not mince words with their forecast as they asked again and again if I and the room mate were "sleeping together". Since the apartment had two bedrooms, one of which was occupied by my furniture, it would seem that this question was moot. When I told everyone an emphatic "No" to the questions, they hypothesized that it would "only be a matter of time" before the room mate and I started a sexual relationship.
For me, this was highly offensive. I had a sex partner, a darned good one. One that did not share my bed, require his clothes to be washed or dinners cooked. Why would I consider messing up a nice, tidy arrangement like that with a live in lover? And if I was moving in with a sex partner or boyfriend, why, I'd just have said that. The consensus of friends and family was doubly bothersome as it seemed that while voicing their own thoughts, they were commenting on my morality, which I might add, was no ones business but my own.
The arrangement ran its course; in less than two years, the room mate went his way and I went mine. But in the span of time we shared space, things went as I predicted: we did not become lovers, we did not part as enemies, the time we spent in each others company served to keep us, and our future lovers and spouses as friends which we remain to this day.

When I look back to that time, I realize that the things that were said to me, the fears expressed by my family, were not necessarily a judgment on my morality, but perhaps only a reflection of the choices of those same individuals. What worked for me, may not have worked for them. They might have seen a close member of the opposite sex as a handy bed warmer on a cold or lonely night. They may have walked down that road themselves before and were revealing their own past choices or regrets.

I also come to wonder at an age that does not allow platonic relationships without passing judgment, and I wonder if those who do point condemning fingers aren't guilty of more than negativity - perhaps they are the owner of a "dirty mind".
A "dirty mind" is a funny thing. We can all laugh at an off color joke, yet many people are quick to judge anyone who they think is living in a sexually gratuitous manner. When did the behavior of unrelated adults begin to absorb so much of our attention? And how many people find that a clear option for them may be unavailable because of familial pressures and opinions?

The 1950s were considered to be a repressive time in the history of North America. Times were good for the returning WWII veterans and they were welcomed home with full understanding that all they did was good and well intentioned. Veterans enjoyed many benefits provided through their service to their country, such as education bills, housing grants and job placement. The 1950s saw the largest housing boom in the history of this country; could that have been the source of the belief that traditional family was the only life and that each American should be able to buy a home of their own?
Even in today's climate of in your face reality, it is difficult for some segments of society to accept that lifestyle is different for each person.
In many ways our culture demands that we all live within the narrow boundaries of what is correct and right in the eyes of the majority. It is not uncommon for the basic liberties of our constitution to be denied to anyone living outside of the accepted norm.

From Cheesehead to Hoosier

2005-10-17T13:54:00.000-05:00

Recently, after much angst and whining, I relocated from Wisconsin to Indiana. My husband, whose salary is considerably larger than mine, works for a very large corporation which decided he would be better used working in another state. We had been talking of moving anyways, but were interested in a warmer climate and in a future timeframe - like retirement.
Since both of us were originally from Chicago, even after 15 plus years, we were never really at home culturally in Wisconsin.
Please don't get me wrong - Wisconsin is a beautiful state with much land devoted to public use and parks, the people of
Wisconsin have had the foresight to dedicate huge tracts of land to conservation. Which is why we considered moving there in the first place. But the people of Wisconsin traditionally are from agricultural beginnings, although this is not so much the case any longer. There are still family farms and miles of corn, sorghum and wheat, but more and more Wisconsin is becoming the land that wants to be like Chicago. It is competitive, anxious for it's future and bitter about what it sees as the high cost of living. It is also somewhat shortsighted in so far as it does not recognize that it is it's own fault, by virtue of population growth, that costs are rising.
On the other hand, Indiana is for me, an unknown. My father's family is from Indiana. But we lived in Chicago and the difference between how we lived and my distant relatives lived kept us from becoming close.
When informed about relocating to Indiana, I envisioned endless corn fields and a paucity of trees, a strong tie to the past through history and heritage and a loneliness I did not look forward to.
On our first excursion into Indiana to house hunt, my preconceived notions were almost proven correct. Our first realtor, a misogynist, narrow minded, Walmart shopping red neck, did his best to show us (with pride) new housing developments which happily claimed close ties to the farming community. It looked like corn stalks and I would become intimate. I was devastated. Not that there is anything wrong with corn, after all, central and south American indigenous people survived with maize as their primary food source for thousands of years. But I am an artist, and a temperamental one at that and prone to fits of needed mental and visual stimulation. Which was not to be found in the vast fields of corn.
Our second trip to Indiana and a new, cosmopolitan realtor was much more familiar. We saw miles of shopping malls full of the brand names we knew. Shiny malls with full parking lots of gleaming cars and minivans. Looked like northern Illinois.
This wasn't much better, but at least the choices of restaurants were more suitable to us.
"Moving house" as my British and UK friends call it, is hell. From the loss of privacy from the first moving estimators to the endless packing my life took on a feel of the surreal. The first thing to be gone was the sanctuary of home. With realtors and potential buyers coming through the house, it seemed like from the time I signed on with a realty company, the house was no longer mine.
Now, it is almost 4 months later and my first admission is that I am exhausted. Not tired, but exhausted. I don't want to deal with the minutiae of 'the last electric bill' or transferring insurance, paying vehicle registration fees and establishing new services. Prior to the physical move, friends reminded me of the stimulus of fresh decorating new configurations of furniture. Well, I'm tired of that too.
Today, with map in hand, I ponder the choices for new stores, new neighborhoods, new back roads that want discovering. Yes, a move can be refreshing. Yet I wonder at career choices which determine where we live. Wasn't it just the opposite a scant few decades ago? Didn't we all find jobs in our neighborhoods and communities? It was the rarity rather than the norm, that people traveled for their jobs. Now a career dictates where we live and how we live and the community we move to. If one is relocated once, chances are, relocation will happen again. And once on that treadmill, employers "suggest" suitable areas for living - based on resale value of homes.
I am fortunate as I have no children which needed uprooting and introduction to a new school and to new friends. I can not imagine what the difficulties of relocating with school age children are. And then, is this a fair and equitable way to live? What about the spouses of relocated employees? Many people need double incomes today, and many spouses want to have careers as well. Being self employed, and employed online (a virtual job, so to speak), I can in essence go anywhere and still do what it is that I am good at. But in families where both husband and wife work, someone is going to have to give up their job, and friends and community. Is there no consideration for the spouses of relocated workers?
Life has become very complex when one can not rely on settling down in a home that one has made their own. Or keeping the friends they have made, the social lives they have built, the community of closeness that so many of us count on.

Within a couple of months, the agony that I felt at the prospect of moving will be a dull memory. The home I have moved into will be personalized and it will feel like it has always been mine. Yet, the specter of having to do it all again in a few years may haunt me until my husband retires or finds another job.

Garden as Metaphor

2005-06-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

Like a kite
a buzzard soars
across my April sky
sun filtered through immense wings as
the winds of spring guide his flight
on skies painted
with scudding clouds

As long as there have been Gardens, they have been a metaphor for Life. From the first harvested grains of wheat, barley
and hops, humans have seen the earth and what grows from it as an understanding of birth, fertility, death and renewal.
Our springs are joyous celebrations of the awakening, our summers bear the fruit of the crops, autumn brings an end to
the cycle while winter gives the deep sleep of death. Yet each spring our hearts rise with the flowing sap, the smells of awakening soils, with the appearance of shoots and buds, the songs of mating birds. We feel the chains of our cold
inhibited lives fall from our limbs and like the burgeoning plant life, the sun's energy can be felt within our own legs and arms and minds.
We each remember, at differing times of the year the sweet and juicy taste of a sun warmed tomato and anxiously await to experience that taste again.
Life is like our garden. We grow to a maturity of the body which sings siren songs of longing and desire. We abandon dreams for the warmth of another spirit joined to our own, even with full awareness that we are promised no more than
this day.

In the garden we set the rows for beans and spinach, for tomatoes and squash, for tarragon and basil; our backs ache,
the plants thrive, their beauty admired dressed in evening dew. We nurture the garden, give freely water and food as it is required knowing our dedication will be compensated when we again have the taste of sweet, juicy tomato dripping from
our chins.
All is transitory, yet treasured in the garden. Why then do we not treasure life in the same manner? We hold ourselves separate from that which we love, with the hope that when it is gone, our wounds will not be so deep. Why do we not nurture all that is life; our loves, our neighbors, those who we may never know, yet who may be the light of the world?
We can no more expect from a squash plant an ear of corn. Why then do we expect the impossible from life? We hold
our loves to standards that are often unattainable, our disappointments mount, we can not be in love with such confined, unchangeable organisms.

Yes. autumn holds sadness as it is a sign of the oncoming winter sleep of death. But we expect it, we know we can not
hold it back any more than we can hold back the night and it's veil of stars or the ocean and it's vast volumes of water. When death is upon us, upon our loves, we raise fist to sky and ask of our gods "Why?".
If our gods had mouths to answer, surely they would say "How not?"
Should there not be joy in dying just as there is joy in being born? Should we not stand in awe of the fruition of children leaving home and finding a place in the world that is their own?
A great gear wheel turns the earth and spins our planet on it's axis: ever changing are the seasons and the gifts they bring
to us. Our fortune is not to be found in taking only what is expeditious today, but in feasting on it's variety and ever changing menu.
Like the soaring buzzard of spring, I find equal joy in the angel wing print of a night hunting owl in the snow outside my door. When I think I have lost sight of the buzzard, or the owl, when I close my eyes and see with my inner vision I find
they both live at the core of my metaphor for life.

An Owl in My Yard

2005-06-14T16:47:00.000-05:00

The end of winter on the shores of Lake Michigan; cold fogs with gray, sodden skies. At season’s end the scenery is drab. Accumulated mud from melted snow mounds and wind blown trash that hangs in bare branches as tattered facsimiles of summer’s lush foliage. Each morning I carry two gallons of hot water to the bird bath; one for cleaning it, the other to fill it. An aluminum covered electric coil sits in the round bottom of the bath, the resident birds reward me with their continued presence. I remove bird feeders from hooks and take them inside the garage to clean and fill them. Chickadees watch and call from the branches above me. Darting to the lower branches, they anticipate a fresh feast of suet and seed.
Whenever the temperature rises enough to avoid frozen sinuses, I join them under the canopy of an ancient, gnarled pine in the front yard. With a scarf wrapped around my face and frost growing on the wool under my nose, I try to remember August.
When the late winter snows come, it is a psychic blow. It had seemed that winter was loosing it’s grip on the yard; only yesterday I felt the wind just that much warmer. The snow falls thick and fast, piling up on whatever things are in the yard; the old Sunday buggy, the bird bath, the sundial. My small world takes on a surreal look and I can’t identify the lumpy shapes of my own possessions.
The tap water from the faucet is icy cold; I set it to boil for tea. Wrapped in a shawl and warmed by the steamy kitchen, I curl my hands on the hot, round mug, I breath tea steam.
With sketch book and pencils I take a chair at the dining room table before the open curtains knowing I will be inspired by visions of sculpted snow on the Sunday buggy. I slip into a cold reverie, tracing the graceful lines of the iron hardware on the antique buggy. The contrast of black metal and blue white snow is irresistible, unidentified shapes loom in the shadows of snow blown places.
Miniature landscapes in monotone emerge as wet and heavy snow continues to fall in silent and steady waves. There, in the back of the buggy, in a depression of snow is bare wood; no, it is something else. Something inside the wagon; sheltering from the blown snow. Standing closer to the window does not help, the heat of my own breathe fogs the window with condensation. Wiping the glass with my sleeve, I can see something small and brown and huddled. The object does not appear to be moving, I watch for quite some time before I detect the slightest motion. Slowly the top of the object begins to move, oddly; until suddenly it reveals a small face from which blaze the most amazing yellow eyes. With an unblinking angry gaze, the owl holds my eyes to it’s own. Snow clings to it’s feathers lightly, yet the owl seems dry. Undisturbed by my discovery of it, it seems not to mind at all as I fetch my camera and take pictures until I run out of film. The owl never moves. Hours pass as I watch the owl and the owl watches me.
My encyclopedia suggest that owls roost during day time. I had never seen an owl in our yard before, could it be hunting mice out by the bird feeders? In color and pattern I could liken the owl to my tabby cat. The feathers are not simply one color laid over another color; each feather contains stripes and hues, which when seen with all of the other feathers resembles fur as much as anything else. The feathers are ‘puffed’, full and slightly raised, allowing air to gather between the many layers. I imagine that this is how the owl stays dry. I can not see the toes, it seems that the creature has been here for some time, the snow has piled up around it, it seems to be sitting in a small depression of white. Under the wagon are melted spots, like a welder has dropped hot solder; small, the size of a quarter, whitewash, barely visible in the snow.
It is mid-afternoon and I have read all the information I have in the house about owls. Shouldn’t the owl be seeking cover during this storm? Raptors which I had observed in the past were increasingly wary of my presence, but this owl did not seem to be disturbed.
I was aware of a local nature sanctuary and thought that a call to them could help answer my owl questions. After more than a few phone calls later, I located a woman from the City Zoo who suggested that I attempt to carefully capture the owl and that if I was successful, the owl was obviously not well and she would see to it that someone from her network of people pick the owl up and deliver it to a Raptor Care Center.
The task of capturing seemed easy at first. Back to the reference material I read that Owls are fierce! I collect a large bath towel and leather gloves from the garage. I prepare a cardboard box. I step outside in the owl’s frigid world.
It is windy and very wet. Nothing stirs either on the snow covered ground or in the trees. The owl and I are alone in the yard, the Sunday buggy between us. At my first attempt to grab it, it jumps from the wagon to the ground where I fear it will run or flap it’s wings to the street. I position myself between it and the road. It moves with surprising speed over the snow on large feathered feet as I walk toward it, bath towel open and forming a barrier which I hope will help keep the owl cornered. It is so angry it hisses at me. I am surprised it is so fierce while still being obviously too sick to fly. As I come closer and it knows capture is imminent, it falls back, furry feet to the sky as it hisses it’s disdain. Gently I let the towel fall and cover the owl, and gently I scoop it up into my arms.
Inside the cardboard box it makes me aware of it’s displeasure by hissing and ‘clacking’; but it is not long before the warmth of the garage as well as the darkness of the box help the bird to settle into quiet security. With the box flaps closed, I appropriately place a large, gold painted plaster cast of the mythological Phoenix on top, balanced at the corner and testing the plaques ability to keep the box closed and the owl inside while not crushing either. Believing the bird was safe and snug, I return to the house stripping off heavy coat and boots to wash my hands under steaming water. I telephone the Zoo and arrange to have someone come and pick up a captured owl.
For the remainder of the day I find it hard to think of anything else but the owl. How soft the down of it’s feathers were and how beautiful. How golden were it’s eyes that blazed at me with such ferocity. later that evening, after the snow had stopped and cold, tiny stars winked in a clear sky, my husband and I shuffle through the drifts of snow to the side door of the garage to see the owl. But the owl was not where I had left it, the cardboard box was empty. Small, discreet scurrying sounds emanated from beneath the work bench and we took chair and sat quietly, waiting for the ‘scurrier’ to appear. Out from behind an assortment of garage flotsam peered those two yellow eyes. We did not move, we held our breathe. Suddenly the owl hopped into view; hunting for mice, looking for a way out, we were not sure what motivated it’s searching. But turning on the light did not help to recapture it. It played a merry game of hide and seek with us until we provided it with the cardboard box, open and inviting after the harsh overhead light and the maze of garage clutter. Into the box it hopped. This time I made sure it would not escape soon. I taped the box closed hoping that the rescue team would show up soon.
It was late when they arrived. Held up by the snow which still clogged the roads, and then by the ice, the young couple standing in the garage with the small pet carrier knew how to handle an owl. With leather gloves and quick and soundless movement, they transferred the owl from the box to the carrier. They thanked us for capturing the owl and caring for it and left the name of a contact person I could call if I wanted to learn about the owl’s prognosis. So quickly they came and just as quickly gone. The name on the snow white card read “B. Harvey - Raptor Rehabilitation”.

Barbara Harvey is the modern equivalent of a falconer. Her federal license enables her to keep endangered birds, as well as treat sick, injured and orphaned raptors. When not busy at the business of caring for birds, Barbara lectures at schools, local civic organizations, conservation areas and any place that there is a welcome interest in conservation. Barbara speaks and her bird ambassadors drive her points home with their amazing eyes.
Of the individuals who come to barbara’s lectures, most are children. Observing at an early Saturday lecture, I became aware of the strong feeling within children for the preservation of all things natural. Children have been learning that without good stewardship, the earth and many of it’s creatures will not be here for us to appreciate, to do the things that their evolutionary niches have provided. The children in the auditorium that day had a head start on many of the adults who accompanied them. And it is these children who Barbara spoke to.
“The lives of most people today do not leave time for each to notice how beautiful our natural surroundings are: the trees, the geese in the fields or on the wing - we are blessed with the beautiful and lovely songbirds who will entertain you for a healthy handout at a strategically placed feeder. As a child I knew there would be a time in my life when I could fly like the feathered friends I used to watch in awe. Didn’t you want to fly too? Now, a little of me flies free with each bird of prey I am able to release and it is indeed a very special feeling. We don’t live just for ourselves, we live for those who come after us”>
In 1993 Barbara and her husband John, spent $25,000.00 building outdoor ‘rooms’ for injured birds of prey so they can heal properly and hopefully be returned to nature.
Barbara possesses a fierceness about the eyes and nose not unlike the birds she cares for. Her determination is worn like a comfortable shirt. She can tell stories about human predation, misuse and plain meanness of spirit that breaks the heart. She can tell of battles won for the physical rehabilitation of a bird, only to find that for some reason it can not be released back to the wild. And how those birds must be euthanized due to laws regulating the keeping of endangered animals. She can tell of healthy birds residing in zoos which should be flying free. Sasha is one of Barbara’s ambassadors. Sasha is a red tailed hawk also brought to barbara after being shot through the elbow with a hunting arrow as a fledgling. Sasha was never able to fly again, and was allowed to live at the facility to help with educating the public about hawks.

“Hawk” is a standard English name in North America to loosely describe about 50 members of the family Accipitridae. It is used in combination with the names of other birds of prey. “Hawk” can be traced to Old German and Old English verbs related to “have” and meaning to grasp or seize. Hawks can vary greatly in size from 8 to 12 inches in length, to nearly 4 feet. All have powerful wings and legs and a short, stout, hooked bill for tearing flesh, and long sharp claws for grasping and in some cases, killing prey. Red tailed hawks are large sized and a common sight along roadsides and over farm fields. Their name is given due to the red tail feathers which are accented while the bird is in flight. They are the least likely creature to be considered “tame”.
Sasha is a miracle of patience and majesty as the children “ooh and ahh” over her beauty and seeming nonchalance at our presence. Suddenly, in front, where the kids are sitting on the floor, a young toddler tries to crawl away from her mother. Swiftly the eyes of the hawk have the child in her sight; not for long are we allowed to forget what Sasha is and why she belongs in the open skies. The morning passes quickly. I am left with a ‘mind’s eye” image of Sasha at the glove.

Barbara stays in contact; we talk and correspond through the mail. She invites me to help with a small project; she asks me if I could possibly go to the City Zoo after closing and meet one of the keepers there. The keeper will escort me to the hawk enclosure where I am to remove a viable egg from a stick nest the female hawk has built on the floor of the cage. I am instructed on how to incubate the egg and where to take it for the next lap of it’s journey to Barbara’s home.
That evening, my husband and I head for the Zoo. It is spring, but spring on the Great Lakes. There is a cold wind off the water, the air is crisp and I burrow deeper into my jacket as we wait for the Zookeeper to invite us to drive in. I am excited, I have never been in a Zoo after close and I fancifully expect to see animals cavorting and doing all of the things they stubbornly refuse to do during day hours while we are watching them. It is disappointingly quiet. We drive over to the hawk enclosure. Past the big cat building (“Is there anyone outside tonight?), past the otter and penguin pools. The enclosures are lit by large halogen bulbs on tall poles. The keeper opens the enclosure and asks: “So whose going inside?”
My husband and I look at each other, a silent “huh?” written across our foreheads. I volunteer him for the job. The hawks decide that they have not agreed to any of this and that they will stand by that egg regardless of the six foot four inches of human male. A baseball cap fluttered close by convinces the hawks of another agenda; they retreat to the far side of the cage. My husband grabs the egg and passes it to me, I take the egg and cradle it between my breasts until I can get to the car and put it on the warm next we have prepared for it.
Resting on Ziploc baggies filled with hot water and wrapped in a hand towel, the egg is turned every ten minutes We drive to the western edge of Milwaukee to a pet store. There we meet our contact, the owner of the store. She takes the egg and places it on a nest just like the one we had made. The Ziplocs are freshly hot and ready to take the egg the rest of the distance.
Barbara lives in the country in a small community near a vast, marshy wetland. Her home is a compound, built to accommodate birds of all sizes. There are mews for hawks and owls as well as ‘runs’, long narrow, fenced enclosures in which a lure is flown (dragged) for a specific bird to chase. These runs serve a dual purpose, they give exercise to recovering birds as well as being a tool to help birds learn to hunt. At Barbara’s house, the egg joins the owl as well as a variety of other birds in various states of rehabilitation.

Months have passed and it is late spring. Car windows down, hair flying, jackets off late spring. The grass is greener than emeralds, green as the emerald isle itself; begging to be cut every five days and full of mosquitos, bait for finches and feeding nestlings. Barbara calls to tell of a program she will be giving at a public school and invites me to come. I am free with no plans and it will be a good day for a drive. She gives detailed directions, it will be easy to find. Before hanging up, Barbara tells me she has a question for me. “Would you bring the owl home with you and release him in your yard where you found him?” I am speechless for moments; I wonder if she knows how honored I feel that she would ask. I answer an enthusiastic affirmative, we set a time to meet.
The program at the school was wonderful, as usual, but my mind is elsewhere. The birds Barbara has with her were magnificent; old friends: Sasha and Uno the kestrel. But I did not attempt any photographs, I did not wish to draw any attention away from Barbara’s message tot he kids at the school that morning. After her presentation, I help her with the many boxes and props which travel with her to each of the programs. When all are securely packed away for their trip home, Barbara brings a box out from the dark of her van.
“Keep the radio off as the owl can be stressed by high noise levels. He could get out of this box, but it’s unlikely he’ll try. Still, keep the windows up and don’t smoke in the vehicle. When you get home, keep him in a darkened, quiet place until dusk, then take the box outside and open it. He’ll eventually come out when he feels safe and when it is dark enough”.
She places the box in my hands. It is so light; is there anything inside? A trust, held in a darkened box and sealed with instructions. I felt my wings unfurl. “I’ll call and let you know everything”, I say. “And, I’ll try to take pictures”.
It is a quiet ride home and a quick one. I do not want to undo any of the hard work that was put into this owls recovery. I want the best possible outcome to this adventure, I want the owl to stay in our yard, to be part of our lives just as he had before I knew he was there at all.
I carefully carry the owl to the cool, dark workshop. I do not slam the door behind me but close it softly hoping not to disturb the very air in the cardboard box, hoping to keep the owl well until dusk. The hours pass slowly; this time of the year we speed towards summer equinox, the daylight is in the sky until almost 9 p.m. But at dusk I walk to the workshop on quiet feet.
Everything about this day has been quiet: the ride home, our dinner, waiting for dusk, the walk to the workshop. All is silent, the box still closed. Quietly I take the box in my hands. Quietly, I walk to the back yard and enclosed by 6 feet of wooden fence, I gently set the box on the ground and gently peel back the tape holding the flaps together. Once I free them of tape, I do not open the flaps. I still have not seen the owl. Quickly now I walk to the deck and stand in the shadows. Slowly the flaps rise to the indigo sky and a round, feathered body hops on the edge of the box and briefly, before flying off, looks at me with those amazing yellow eyes. This unlikely creature, this owl , lifts me with him on his flight into the darkening night.

Late summer nights, after the traffic has all gone away and the crickets serenade contented sleepers, I stand at the open bedroom window and listen. There, on the night breeze, on the secret currents of the scented air, come the wailing toots of the owl in the obsidian dark and I welcome him home.

Distracted by Pants

2005-06-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

Lets see, yesterday was Sunday and I was able to finish zero jobs. It isn't as though this is a trend, I am always working on something, whether it be visual art work, writing, home making jobs, finances or parrot play. But it seems that weekends, which are heralded by the presence of my spouse, present an altogether different challenge from plain multi-tasking.
I am tending to calling this problem: "Distracted by Pants". Perhaps another term that could be applicable would be "Trou disoriented".
But this is nothing new. Although my libido, which is typically that of an unmedicated 54 year old female, isn't distracted in say, the same manner as it was when I was 30, never the less, distraction rules when my husband is home.
Whether he is working on projects (all 24 at one time) or simply lurking in his 6'2" way, I can't seem to get a flippin' thing accomplished when he is not at work himself.
I would think that perhaps this is a personal problem. You know, in the realm of maybe late diagnosed AADD or some other intitial laden malfunction. But no. This distraction problem goes away the moment he steps into his car and pulls out of the driveway. At that point I am free of his encumbrance. I do not have to worry about trying to have super hearing so I can make out the inane mumblings of a person not sure of the next step, or to be concerned with his interruptions as I head to the bathroom. Or being in precisely the place he feels he must be to conduct his next project in. I do not have to be concerned with leaving a towel on the counter, my laundry on the clothesline, a newspaper on the ottoman, or a bowl in the sink. Not that this is a perfect house, but it seems that my leavings are the very means by which he avoids his next job on his imaginary honey do list. Procrastination by means of other peoples chores.
This is not to say I don't give him things to do. Oh, I do. But he is not the kind of guy who needs to be told that something is broken - unusually. He IS the type of guy who flies around the house looking for the next big thing to occupy himself. Talk abut AADD. My dear husband has it in spades.
Fortunately he is not a couch potato. Not at all. His problem, if it is a problem (and it might very well be my problem according to other wives I talk with), is that he is constantly in motion, until he falls over from exhaustion. Now some people would see this as a plus. A man who always is busy and making or doing something creative. Compared to the alternative, my husband is a gem. But this constant motion can be just as frustrating as constant immobility can be.
Oh, I know, quit complaining. At least things get done around here. But is it too much to hope that once in a while nothing gets done other than relaxation, inactivity, and most importantly; no distractions?
Thinking about being distracted by pants, could it be that being distracted by a guy wearing no pants be more satisfying, even to a woman with decreased libido? YES! I say. I would rather be distracted by the promise of a lazy day in bed than the lawn being mowed, the screens being washed, the weeds being pulled and the garage being vacuumed. There are times when I would rather see the sheets being changed because they have been tarps for engaging sexual activity, as opposed to being simply surfaces to sleep on.
I guess after all these years I still ask myself why men find it so hard to strike a balance in their lives. Why they have difficulty moderating their behavior rather than putting their behaviors on steroids. Why they seem to have only two setting for their switches: TOTALLY ON or COMPLETELY OFF.
Women seem to not suffer from these problems. It is completely reasonable to us to take a day off park our butts in a comfy chair with book, iced drinks and glasses at hand while the house goes to hell in a hand basket. No, I do not endorse sloth as a lifestyle. But I do think it is very civilized to take a day now and then and do nothing other than enjoy the fruits of years of labor. To sit in the shade with the paper, to bask in the sun on a hammock, to finally listen with both ears to that Coltrane CD.
A hint to all men: if you really want to do something nice for the wife, how about chilling out for a day. Giving it all a rest.
Even eating only leftovers rather than expecting a gourmet feast......

We know what you are Walgreens

2005-05-24T18:02:00.000-05:00

Walgreens has decided that it will handle birth control for women in the following manner:

Some locations have decided that they will not carry or stock birth control pills, the birth control patch, or RU 486 for distribution to female customers. We are not talking about people who ask for these drugs on demand, but patients of doctors who have been given prescriptions for these drugs.

Some Walgreens stores have instituted a policy that they will allow their hired PHARMACISTS to deny a person their prescription because that pharmacist does not believe in birth control.

It seems to me as a FORMER stock holder of Walgreens that I do not wish to invest my money in a company that allows employees to dictate public policy or to deny the rights of patients access to prescriptions.

It also seems to me that Walgreens, who is known to have contributed a large percentage of cash to Republican coffers through PACs is trying to set legislative policy for the country.

After carefully reviewing my own stock portfolio, I had advised my broker to dump Walgreens in the dirt. I certainly can't get behind a company that can not control the actions of their employees on the job. As a savvy investor, I see Walgreens' move as a blow to the back of the knees, I have no confidence in a company which can't make up it's collective mind from day to day.
But mostly I am offended that Walgreens thinks it is perfectly moral to sell Viagra, Cialis and condoms to its male customers; and not all of the items above need prescription. Not only is Walgreens attempting to legislate morality, but it is discriminating against women.
I am not sure which issue I find more disgusting.
BOYCOTT WALGREENS.
Pulling my receipts from year 2004, I realize that I had spent literally thousands of dollars on prescription drugs and toiletries at Walgreens. Well, not any more. Each penny I have to spend at a 'drug emporium" will be spent at a company which honors my and other women's reproductive rights.
I am happy to find that General Motors pulled Walgreens from their list of providers. Will you do the same? Please?
Don't let coprorate entities tell you how to live your life. Don't let corporate entities whittle away at gender equality issues that seemed settled years ago.

Demand that Walgreens' employees fulfill the duties of their accepted position; demand that your prescriptions be filled!

One Woman's Opinion: Mrs. T. Schiavo & Hypocrisy

2005-03-25T16:31:00.000-05:00

I applaud and thank the federal state/circuit judges who had ruled in favor of the removal and subsequent refusal for re-insertion of the feeding tube of Mrs. T. Schiavo. Your deference to the law is appreciated by many segments of the population, myself included.
I thank you for a number of reasons: first, for validating a person's wishes for their medical treatment and their decisions for the vision they have of life ending choices. Secondly, for empowering marriage as a contract; formal and informal of spouses and not government. Thirdly, for upholding the law and refusing to react to a small, but vocal group of protesters who refuse to honor the rights of the individual. And lastly, for acting in a manner that speaks of integrity as opposed to gratuitous pandering.

I am appalled at the waste of time, tax dollars and energy that the Bush administration and the Senate spent involving themselves in an issue that needs no government intervention. I am equally appalled at the tolerance by city officials of protesters who have surrounded the hospice of Mrs. Schiavo and who have done so without any connection to the family themselves, and often without the benefit of a permit, something which any other group must procure before gathering to protest things such as war, violence, or administration policy. These people have intruded on a private time in other's lives and they have convinced members of the Senate and government that their personal agenda is more important than is the dignified death of another single member of our society.

What bothers me greatly is that by virtue of attempting to over ride the rights of Mrs. Schiavo's spouse, that
very action would devalue the sanctity and legal status of marriage between heterosexual couples.
This is the same group of people who object to gay, or same sex marriage on the grounds that it threatens
the sanctity of marriage between "a man and a woman". What utter hypocrisy! It is they themselves that threaten, not just the sanctity of marriage, but the very freedoms our country prides itself in. My message to those who chose to recognize only those laws which validate their personal agenda: be very careful for what you wish; you just might get it. When you change the institution of marriage to fit your own ideals, you open the gates to other issues as well.
If you believe that the entire nation will sit idly by as you rewrite our constitution, you are wrong. Many of us who are opposed to your intolerance realize it is time for us to stop being so tolerant ourselves. It is time for
us to stop accepting your narrow view of the world and how you crave it's future destruction. When all people who are opposed to your bronze age mentality pick up their pens, take to the public airwaves to remind people that freedom of religion also embraced freedom from religion, perhaps we'll see an end to peer pressure religious dogma.

It sickens me to see supposed 'clergy members' grabbing at sound bytes for a moment in the spotlight. You
are not ministering while you are pandering - get back to your pulpits and preach that which is familiar to you, as the law is certainly not a topic in which you have knowledge. Your brand of Christianity is the noose that is tightening around the very neck of freedom. Your brand of Christianity would not be recognized by the Jesus who preached tolerance and open-ness for the new religion.

And politicians: you tread on dangerous ground. Remember the words of Jesus himself as he alluded to his action of evicting the money lenders and changers from the temple: "Render onto Caesar that which is Caesars'. Render unto God that which is God's".

I have no softer words for the mother and father of Mrs. Schiavo. Let your daughter go to her rest. Each human being is born to live and as we do so, prepare for death. If you believe this, then let your daughter go. Do you think you give her ease of mind to see you struggle so with the law of this land in her name? What is it about angst and pain that attract you so, even to the point of keeping alive someone who can not even recognize her own humanity? What is it that you so fear of death? Does not your faith hold dear the notion that upon death, those with a good heart and a soul accepted by Jesus will live in paradise? Why would you want your daughter to linger on and be the face of suffering? All humans who love face the loss of a loved one. Why must your daughter be the poster child for denial?
Additionally, you both, as her parents, are not living the definition of the faith you claim is yours. Does not the bible teach that honor must be given to a mother and father, but upon marriage, a daughter is cleaves to her husband and leaves her childhood home behind her? Again, another distortion of the bible is being perpetuated in the name of personal agenda, religious dogma and popular pandering.

Stop the madness of your hypocrisy!

Mother's Day - A timely poem for those who aren't

2005-03-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

mother's day

I would rather give birth
to Ideas than children.
Ideas never come back later
thinking that you owe
them something.
Ideas will wake you in the
middle of the night
and certainly, Ideas have been
known to keep you up all night;
but
an Idea never needs a
diaper change
breast feeding
rocking
tranquilizer.
An Idea never leaves you;
once you give birth to it,
it soars and blossoms,
like a flower, and hopefully
will never dessert you.
The same can not be said of children,
who,
when the hormones move them,
are off, in their own direction.
An Idea never seeks therapy
for the lousy life
you gave it.
It matters not your age,
or the frequency with which you
give birth to ideas;
Ideas do not present hungry mouths
or need to be nourished on
Mother's Milk.
Multitudinous Ideas can not diminish stamina.
An Idea can not be lost,
molested,
turned against you,
used as pawn,
ask for money,
move back in,
use your credit card,
marry for spite,
do poorly in school.
A good Idea will never die!
nor will it bring you flowers on mother's day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fiction: A Fine Day for Ducks

2005-03-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

A Fine Day for Ducks copyright: 1999, L. Jody Kuchar

It is an autumn day on the shore of the lake. It is unusually warm, the sky is cloudless and the remainder of wasps, the ones not frozen in the cold nights, are buzzing around in the sun by the back door.

Bob has lived alone for years. He used to have a dog, but Bob outlived him, so now he’s alone. Bob is not bothered by solitude, he is reclusive, preferring the nonexistence of a partner rather than be forced to consult another human being regarding the every day things of life.

Bob’s home lies on seven acres of land which has several “out buildings” on it and is bordered by the big bay. The land is on limestone cliffs that are a few feet above the water line. There is a fine view of the water.

The bay produces it’s own weather systems; Bob is out taking advantage of the fine day. He is trenching holes in his yard with his “dig it” truck. There is no apparent reason for tearing up his once flowering garden, but Bob thinks he is keeping himself busy with various tasks that need to be done on his property.

Instead of a neat, cozy home, Bob has been collecting things for the entire time he has occupied his old school house. He had been doing some renovation inside, and in the dead of winter he still busies himself with laying hardwood floors or sanding down wooden cabinetry.

The schoolhouse has a basement, a main floor and an attic. Each nook and cranny of the basement and the attic is filled to the brim with stuff which Bob has salvaged. There are shadowy shapes of carved wood, wooden animals, ship mascots, birdcages, school desks, paneling, planking, unconnected metal air ducts, tools, electronics, glass. There is scientific equipment, an old furnace, wooden workman's horses, a large dog kennel. There are dead and dried up plants, stained glass windows, pieces of conveyer belts, jars of nuts and bolts and hardware. There are clothes piled up in various corners, perhaps they have been there for years. Perhaps they were once bedding for the now deceased dog. It is obvious that they are no longer used as clothing by Bob.

At noon, Bob turns off the dig - it and heads for one of his odd assortment of vehicles parked around the property. He gets into an old pick up truck and heads for the local bar where they serve greasy burgers, frozen pizzas and cold beer. Bob is hungry and really thirsty.

The bar is old and smells like stale beer, sweat, cigarettes and rotting wood. The tourists do not frequent this bar, only the locals come in here. The bar tender is an extremely overweight woman named Sue. Sue has been a widow now for two years. It is rumored on the peninsula that she was the death of her husband. The couple had been known locally as Jack Spratt and his wife. Sue, is slow moving, it takes a lot of energy to move her bulk from one end of the bar to the other.

Eventually Bob gets his burger and cold beer and sits to watch reruns of Mayberry RFD with the other bar patrons.

Sue pours a cold draft and asks Bob, “See any birds Bob?”

“Ducks are sure thick on the bay today”, says an old guy at the other end of the bar.

“Yep, and I’m getting impatient for morning”, injects another stool warming patron.

“Doing some hunting this year Ed?” asks Bob.

“Hoping for a few for the holiday, the wife says she's ordering a turkey though in case the hunting’s like it was last year”, says Ed who looks like he could use a few turkeys to pad out his meager frame.

“Wanna go out with us tomorrow?” Ed asks Bob.

“Oh, I don’t think so Ed, gotta keep on with the dig it, need those trenches ready for spring” Bob replies as he sips his beer, then wipes his mouth before biting into the burger.

“What's the trenches for Bob?”, Ed’s companions eyes come alive at the suggestion of some information other than what's being offered on Mayberry RFD.

“Hoping to lay in some pipe to keep the back 2 acres from flooding next year.” Bob mumbles through the bite of ketsup-y burger he is chewing.

“Oughtn’t have settled on the wetlands, I’d say. Maybe you should bring in some fill to help with that. That Injun on Highway M might have some stuff you could use for fill. He’s been peeling logs for a month now. Seems to be a little late in the season for starting a new cabin.”

After mayberry and a second beer, Bob heads back to his house in the truck, barely avoiding a twelve point buck coming out of the tamarack swamp on the water side of the road. Bob has thoughts of trophy deer and venison sausage, but knows he doesn’t want another dent in the pick up truck. He swerves, misses and wishes he’d stayed for another beer.

At home the wind has picked up, the wasps have quit the sun by the door and Bob closes up some of the windows in the house before heading out for a load of wood for the furnace. Clouds are beginning to form to the west and there is a cold smell in the air. Bob drives the dig it over to the pole garage he put up last year. He puts the truck in park, opens the garage door and edges the dig it into an open spot. He turns off the dig it and pockets the key, shutting the door behind him.

The gray clouds scud over the bay, the ducks are thick and visually form a black smudge on the surface of the water. Bob takes binoculars from a shelf by the door and heads for the water’s edge. He sits on a log bench and raises the glasses to the duck smudge. There are mallards, ruffle heads, ruddy ducks and coots. There is a flock of tundra swans in the rice grass on the other side. The birds are surprising quiet for such large numbers. There is no sound but the wind on the water and the dried leaves of the birch trees on the cliff edge.

Bob doesn’t let anyone know he merely watches the birds. Bird watching is a dumb sport, usually the territory of the tourists and tree huggers that come to the peninsula. But there is a calming effect that comes over Bob as he watches the ducks and his life doesn’t seem so hard while he is sitting on the bench, in the sun, on the bay.

A couple of hours pass and it is getting darker now, Bob heads back to the house and stokes the furnace for the evening.

The next day dawns bright and cold, the bay is sparkling a many hued blue and the ducks have gathered in greater numbers. Bob does not need the binoculars to see the duck blind out on the water. “Damn floating piece of shit” he mumbles as he takes his coffee out to the log seat by the cliff.

The duck blind looks like a floating ice fishing shanty, as it very well could be. From afar, all that can be made out is some wood walls that appear to be floating across the bay.
“Dumbest thing ya ever saw” comments Bob to no one as he watches the blind motor towards the ducks. The hunter had to be up and out on the water before first light, there are decoys scattered in the general area of the blind.

Ducks are smarter than they look. These ducks seem to know all the rules of engaged hunting: as long as they remain on the water, the hunters can’t shoot at them. The blond motors closer to the dark smudge of ducks on the water, the smudge of ducks float away from the blind. It is a merry chase that seems to go on and on, Bob is delighted at the hunter’s lack of success. But sometime in the late afternoon, while Bob is busy elsewhere, the sound of gunshot echoes over the clear bay. The ducks are on the wing.

Bob stops what he is doing and grabs the binocs from the shelf and goes to the east windows. The ducks wheel and undulate in the sky, the swans have joined the flight display, the hunters are thwarted again. The swans are protected and can not be hunted. The sport is over for the day; the hunters drop the sides of the blind.

It is obvious now what the blind is constructed of. Collapsible wood siding panels are held in place by telescoping composite rods and are attached to the side of the fishing boat. There are cattails and swamp grass hanks applied to the facade of the blind. There are 2 hunters in the boat with a black dog, they are both occupied with collecting the decoys which have floated to various spots on the bay and must be retrieved before dusk. Bob laughs at the ‘floating pile of shit” and continues on with his daily chores.

Nights on the bay in late fall can be spectacular for watching the stars. If one is lucky, there is an occasional display of aurora borealis. This is one place where regardless of education, or lack of it, everyone knows what the aurora is.

Bob settles in front of his large east window in a broken chair with a beer to watch the constellation Leo move from south to north. Far to the north, there are northern lights: the earth’s curve makes them appear to be on the horizon instead of high in the sky. There are frequent flashes of light and movement of the light, but it is not going to be a great local display. Bob is, never the less, happy with the wheeling stars. After a few more beers, the fire dies down in the furnace and Bob heads for the loft in which he has built a sleeping platform in the old schoolhouse.

Bob dreams of ducks. Of ruddy ducks, mergansers, of coots and mallards. He dreams of by gone days when the bay was so thick with ducks that you could barely see the water. When you could paddle out to the wild rice grass and collect enough grain for the winter, as well as snare a duck. He wishes he had lived then, he wishes for the simplicity that he naively believes existed in those days.

When morning comes, Bob takes his coffee out to the bench and sees the same hunters on the water again. Bob wonders what compels a man to sit in a boat for ten hours on cold water in a stiff wind to hunt. Bob does not condemn hunting, but Bob feels you should hunt only when hungry. Bob has never been that hungry, so instead he just watches the ducks.

The hunters are anxious, no, desperate today. This makes sense as they went home empty handed yesterday. They are trying to spook the ducks into flight so as to have an open shot. The ducks form tighter and tighter groups which look like black bands on the water. They are agitated. The first band of ducks rise into the sky, a second band does the same but wheeling higher and heading in a tight group to the north. The second band wheels back and flies south, over the first band. There is a whirlwind of ducks. There are shots; one, two, three, four, five. “Shotgun”, thinks Bob as he watches the bird’s frenzied, whirling flight. Bob does not see any ducks fall to the water, a slow smile starts on his unshaven face.

Bob reads a lot. In the silvered light of the harvest moon, Bon stokes the furnace and curls up with Bullfinches ‘Mythology’. Secretly Bob loves Greek mythology and history. Not long ago, Bob read a book called “The Firebrand”. It was a work of fiction taking place in the city of Troy. The main character is Cassandra, cursed by Apollo to an outcast life. Bob fancies himself in love with Cassandra. His six pack finished, Bob’s head begins to nod, his chin rests on his chest, he falls asleep and dreams fiery constellation dreams.

It is still dark at 6 a.m., the clocks have not yet been turned back. The loud sound of gunfire echoes across the bay again. Bob is startled awake and almost falls out of the broken chair he has spent the night in. He gets up and winces, stretching. he is sore, a chair is not the ideal resting place. “Especially not that chair”, thinks Bob as he stumbles to the bathroom and starts the hot water running in the shower. He can still hear gunshots over the running water as he undresses and hopes for relief under the strong, hot water spray.

Shower done, Bob towels off and tosses the limp terry cloth into a corner with discarded clothing. He wanders to the loft and his closet and pulls out a wool sweater and dingy white T-shirt. he layers the T shirt and sweater, then wanders back to the hall by the bathroom for his lost jeans. He feels better now, a little steamy, but much less sore. He stokes the furnace and closes the steel door in time to hear more gun fire.

“Starting to sound like the OK corral”, Bob talks to no one but his empty house. “Maybe it’s time to see what’s going on ..”. Bob heads to the stove and puts on a pot of coffee. When the coffee is done, Bob pours a generous cup and heads outside.

There is frost on the logs in the woodpile, but the bay has held off the hardest of the frost, no doubt, on the ridge of the peninsula, there was hoar frost on the fields and leaves. The air is clear and the water blue as Bob scans the horizon for signs of the duck blinds and hunters he has been hearing all morning. As his eyes adjust to the rising sun, Bob begins to spot the blinds. Counting six, he knows this will be a noisy day.

Bob doesn’t have anything against the hunters, but he cherishes the peace of his little corner of the county. He resent s the hunters who, no doubt, carry binoculars like he does and probably can see him as well as he can see them.

Bob is an anarchist. he loves stirring the pot to see what cooks up. He wonders if there is any way to liven things up and maybe even quiet things down a bit. Bob heads for his basement.

Among the basement flotsam, Bob has a treasure. He has been saving it for the perfect thing and now he thinks he sees the beginnings of a beautiful plan. The ‘thing’ is a carousel animal. It is designed as a large white swan. It is a lovely piece and Bob brought it with him from Massachusetts when he settled on the peninsula. He had strapped it down in the bed of his pick up as he drove across the country. He had gotten plenty of odd looks from other motorists on the turnpike. But the odd looks and trouble it took to move the swan were worth it.

Bob hauls the swan from the dark corner and into the light. He circles it a couple of times, forming a mental picture of his idea. He leaves the swan and heads for another corner in the far side of the basement where he keep small engines, motors and the occasional radio control kit. It is dark in this corner too and it seems a resident spider has attempted to weave all his possessions into one large web which is essentially bare. No sign of the offending spider. Bob rummages in the dark, the sound of various metal things hitting the floor and others being dragged out and Bob’s heavy breathing are the only noises. Not even the mouses are scurrying now. Bob emerges from the corner with a box. he drops the box next to the swan. Bob checks through the box to be sure that all the parts that are needed are in it. When satisfied, Bob leaves the pile of things where they are and heads up the stairs and outside, to the garage.

The air is crisp, the gunfire is still noisy. There is no sound of ducks, it seems their energy is spent today out running the gunfire and hunters. Bob walks to the back of the garage and looks for some parts he had saved from the cherry processing plant that was torn down five years ago. He is searching for a piece of conveyer equipment. The piece Bob find is ten feet long, it is too long for his uses. Bob drags the conveyer to the table saw. He changes the blade in the saw and measures the belt, deciding to cut it off at 36 inches.

The table saw whines and sparks, Bob is deft and sure with his cutting. There is the smell of hot metal in the garage. He switches off the saw. he walks to another corner of the garage and pulls out an old trolling motor. He inspects the motor and finds that the propeller is not froze. He carries the motor and conveyer back outside and piles them by the back door to the basement.

Bob’s old wooden boat, which he has been working to restore for seven years, does not need the battery that is no longer connected to anything; Bob lifts the battery out of the well and carries it to the growing pile by the basement door.

Bob carries the diminished conveyer piece and the trolling motor and the battery, piece by heavy piece, to the basement where it joins the other things Bob has been assembling. When Bob watches television, he usually watches PBS. A few years back, he watched a program about engineering students at MIT who competed in a machine building contest. The students were given boxes of parts and were told to build a machine that would perform a particular function. The function of the machines that Bob saw built, was to pick up ping pong balls as fast as possible. Bob has always been a creative innovator. At 16, Bob was caught by the local constabulary for siphoning fuel from a rental truck with a kitchen siphon and some aquarium tubing. From then on, it was onward and upward. Bob could turn any worthless piece of junk into some kind of tool.

When Bob is certain that he has what he needs for the mechanics, he starts to mentally work on structure. He ponders his options: quick set to durability. Bob settles for quick set, if this takes too long, it could lose all semblance of fun. Bob treks to the cleaner part of the basement; the place where he has stored chemicals and fixatives and paints and primers and acrylics. he turns on an overhead light and searches for a specific can. It is marked ‘Bondo’. Bob grabs some mixing dishes, a spackle knife and some sand paper. He brings it out of the chemical room and into the middle of the basement. He returns to the main floor and picks up a floor fan. he returns to the basement.

It is 2 p.m. when Bob emerges from the basement. he has a strange smile on his face. If you didn’t know Bob, you’d wonder if he wasn’t involved in something illegal. It was just that kind of smile.

Bob leisurely strolls through he kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. He grabs the keys to the pick up and heads outside. He starts the truck and pulls it up to the outside door of the basement. He turns off the truck, gets out, walks to the back and drops the tailgate. Bob opens the basement door and goes down the stairs with his cup of coffee.

It is quiet except for the gunfire which is still thundering across the bay. Bob wonders how much lead lies at the bottom of the clear water and the rocks from the ‘bird shot’ pellets.

There is a sound of heavy breathing, not the kind heard after a sexual tryst, but the kind that accompanies hard work. There are bumping sounds and the sound of Bob cursing. Suddenly, out of the door of the basement, aimed towards the back of the pick up, is the head of a large, white swan. It is followed by the body of a swan, which is followed by Bob, who is pushing and grunting for all he is worth.

The swan bumps up the last of the stairs and exits, in full view, into Bob’s yard. Bob stands and wipes his forehead, the swan sits and watches the bay. Bob gets his breath and surveys the swan. he hops up to the bed of the pick up and with a huge heave, he hauls the swan into the bed where it settles majestically. He takes his empty coffee cup back into the house and grabs his jacket, binoculars and a small remote control unit.

Bob gets in the truck and turns the key, the truck sputters to life. Bob backs up carefully until the pick up tailgate is inches from the cliff’s edge. He sets the emergency brake and turns off the truck. It is suddenly silent. The gunfire has for the moment stopped and the ducks are caught between the shore and the guns.

Bob drops the tailgate of the truck, steps into the bed, and hauls the swan down to the cliff edge. It is a 3 foot drop to the water. Bob secures a rope to the swans neck, grabs the free end, then pushes the swan into the bay. The swan bobs on the water, seeks it’s level and settles into a gentle sway with the waves.

Bob ties the end of the rope to a cedar tree and goes back to the cab of the truck for his binoculars and remote control unit. He sits on the lowered tailgate of the truck, satisfied that he has some cover under the trees. He reaches over the side of the truck and unties the rope from the cedar tree, and deftly shakes it lose from the neck of the swan. The swan
looks free.

Bob flicks a switch on the remote unit, a small motor sound comes from the swan and for a moment the swan actually looks confused. Then it turn to the east, heading straight into the wind and motors across the bay, towards the ducks.

Bob has created the perfect duck blind. The ducks pay no attention to Bob’s swan, they have seen swans on this bay for months and it is just, after all, another swan, although larger than most. The ducks part, dark smudges swimming in opposite directions, and let the swan through. The swan sits smartly on the water and motors out to the duck blinds.

There are no sounds of gunfire. It is quiet as the swan approaches the small boats which have been disguised in various way to ‘fool’ the ducks. The swan approaches a small group of what appears to be ducks, but these ducks do not move. Bob watches through the binoculars and knows that the time is now.

He flips another switch on the remote control unit and holds his breath. Small servo motors buried in the swan’s interior opens a door in the swans breasts. The conveyer belt slides out the distance of 18 inches. The swan motors up to the unmoving ducks. The unmoving ducks touch the conveyer and begin to funnel up the conveyer where they
disappear into the swan. The black labrador dog in the blinds bark madly.

There is the sound of laughter from under the trees on the shore. There is the sound of dismay from the duck blinds.

“MY DECOYS! What the hell ...!” Bob can hear the angry hunters from his vantage on the shore. Bob is laughing so hard that he falls back into the bed of the pick up. The swan continues it’s hungry search for decoys, the hunters sit astonished in their blinds and Bob thinks to himself “This is really too easy”, as he watches the swan gobble decoys through it’s open breast.

Bob thinks of his creation as The Trojan Swan and realizes that he has created a new mythology on the big bay, on Lake Michigan.

Bob feels one step closer to Cassandra.