Thoughts in the Jurassic Age.....

I've been reading Eat, Pray, Love for the past week.  It's been out for a while--five years--and Cathy lent it to me at least four years ago. She was full of enthusiasm for all sorts of things after reading it--going to an ashram, travelling to Italy--but for some strange reason, I couldn't get past the first few pages.

Last week, don't ask me why, I was looking for something to read, pulled it off the shelf, and haven't been able to put it down.  Ordinarily I'm a very fast reader--it's nothing for me to read a whole book in one day.  I don't want to go fast on this one, though.  I want to savor it and think about it and marvel at the effect her spirituality has had on her. 

I mean, spirituality! Spirituality, I'm afraid, has completely eluded me.  Starting when I was about 14 or so, I gradually became very pious (after a childhood of low-grade naughtiness, which included raiding my older brothers' supply of cigars and sharing them with my friend Joanie. I was maybe 10, and she was 8).  I started reading Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ and going to Mass every day. Then, at the age of 17, instead of going to medical school (which I'd wanted to do even before piety laid me low), I entered the convent. I lasted there for five years until I decided one day, while reading the Summa Theologica, that I did not HAVE to become a nun to save my soul. Whew.

Last night I wanted to see what Elizabeth Gilbert looked like, so I googled her website and found not only her picture, but this video recording of the talk she gave at TED last year. 

Gilbert's spirituality and how it relates to her writing is powerful stuff for me. I meditated and practiced Yoga and went to daily Mass for years, but it all came to a screeching halt when I moved to DC almost 20 years ago.  Don't ask me why.  Now I'm in the Jurassics (the 70s), and I feel as spiritual as my favorite shoes.

Still, this book, and this very young woman (good god, she's only about 40!), fascinate me. Perhaps we really do revert to our childhood when we hit the high numbers.  Is spirituality possible?  It's always bothered me that I don't feel spiritual at all. Oprah harps on spirituality all the time, and I like Oprah--she's given up the fight with her weight.  It's highly recommended for one's personal growth (gack....I can hardly write those words).

Things to do this week....UPDATE

Ole Phat Stu asked me to prioritize this list--ha.  He must have some punch line in store, so here's the status of the items.  It's not exactly the priority, but it's the order in which they've been accomplished fully, partially--or not. 
 
1. Unsubscribe from bastard Target's mailing list                      1

2. Buy a loaf of Italian rosemary bread from
         farmer's market                                                              2     

3. Cook the two remaining turkey burgers and one NY strip
         steak so they don't spoil                                                  3         

4. Mark up client review checklist to divide chores into 
          Client's&Mentor's and mine                                      ?

5. Clean the top of the stove and the area around the 
          toaster & coffee maker                                             4

6. Get serious about finding my next place to live                       ?

7. Read editor's comments on 2nd draft                                    ?       
8.Download and print BIG copy of Rook photo and
           frame it for my wall. (Spectacular picture.)                      ?

9. Clean off top of desk (easier said than done....
           pile is nearly a foot deep all over).                                   ?
10.Vacuum entire carpet in room.                                              ?          
11. Check on progress of PC repairs over at Geek Squad. 
          (Thank God Mac always works.)                                     5
12. Zzzzzz....boring, huh?

Thoughts for the day....

(Tonight's post is by AnonymousNFS)

 
We drop to 12th in rate of college grads. We close school in Hawaii on  
Fridays. In California, state workers stay home. In DC, metro  
escalators lie broken and dormant, while people climb down the stairs  
and ride in 30-year-old cars that are no longer safe. Around the  
country, teachers, firefighters, nurses and others worry about keeping  
their jobs.
 
The reason, they tell us, is money. There isn’t enough of it.
 
At the same time, a tiny few of the super rich pledge to give away  
half of their money, at least when they die. Perhaps it is in  
anticipation of this private dole that the Republicans fight to keep  
the Bush tax cuts for the super wealthy?
 
Does no one else think this is nuts?
 
We should not just restore the pre-Bush tax rates; we should restore  
taxes to the rates of the 1960s. We should open our schools, pay our  
cops, help our young people graduate, and stop an insanity that--in a  
land where free once meant equal--borders on criminal.

Streets of DC cluttered with politicians!

Crossing the street by Starbucks, who do you suppose I ran into this afternoon just before the deluge hit?  Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They were out flacking for the Washington Nationals baseball game.  Who wouldn't want to spend a baseball game talking with these two guys??  Only problem is, the game is in *gack* Arizona today.  Maybe Abe and Teddy are staying away cuz of the immigration flap down there, but they still want to show their support for the Nats!!  Go, Nats!  Beat the crap outta Arizona!!!

Friday Visitor

My dear good friend, AnonymousNFS, graciously zapped by this evening with a letter that she sent to several news organizations:

This exclusive focus on race in the Shirley Sherrod story
exemplifies what we really can't talk about in America--which is
class. Shirley Sherrod said her realization in helping the
individual of another race was that the battle in this country is
between the "haves and have nots." How true. Except that it isn't a
battle. It is a massacre. Recent moves by a cowardly Congress that
can't even require transparency in television advertising, show
that the top 2 percent of America's wealthiest have effectively
destroyed any pretext of equality in this country that once prided
itself on a vibrant, innovative, enterprising middle class.

Well, say goodbye to all that. We can't even cover the Sherrod
story honestly, preferring to wallow again in the pain and self-
righteousness of our twisted heritage of white oppression.

Meanwhile the super rich nod thoughtfully, buy another home or
another wardrobe or two, and allow their kids to pursue again some
courses in graduate education--or party in the local bar--and get
richer.

Or, as they say in that song, "The rich get richer and the poor get children....
Ain't we got fun?" Not much!

Still, today was a gorgeous day, especially in the morning until Mother Nature remembered it was supposed to be HOT and kicked up the thermostat. And Chelsea gets married tomorrow, thanks be. May all go very well with everything.

Prom songs

Which one of these songs do you think would be the last song played on prom night, 1954?   My daughter just put a song on Facebook that recalls to her the "slow, smoochy last song played at the prom."  Well, these are slow--and I'm not sure they're zackly smoochy--but they were popular in 1954, when Shanley High School had its jr-sr. prom.  I like them all, and I remember dancing to them--just not at the prom, per se.  You pick...or if you remember a totally different song, and you're of a certain age, let me know what it was.  (Also, remember that Doris Day's song would have been played on a record--without the costumes...)

Thoughts on a Saturday Night without Effective Air Conditioning.....

Xtreme English is feeling a bit cranky tonight.  Even though the AC has been on all day, set responsibly at 78, it's around 90 in my room cuz it's so hot outside no AC can keep up with it.  Needless to say, I'm not complaining about the heat per se.  I've said many times that I'd rather be hot than cold any day.  Still true.  If you grew up where I did and in the era I did, you'd know what "cold" means.  Cold is not 40F.  It's -40F.
But I digress.  I'm cranky cuz I'm sweaty and because some loud and pushy residents of this country seem to be set on driving us all off a cliff.

I just read this on Prairie Weather (not exactly weather-related, but prairie weather is especially harsh).

Here's the last paragraph:

Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still—free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules—and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage “Beware what you wish for.”...Excerpts from Mark Lilla, "The Tea Party Jacobins," NYRB

 G'night, y'alls....Remember: "The family that sweats together frets together"--that's not exactly it, but you know....Have a nice evening....

Just in case the WAPO editors don't read this, here it is again: UPDATE

After seeing the WaPo's first page this a.m. (in the actual, grubby newspaper) and feeling incensed at this print headline--"New front in racism battle: USDA official's words provide fodder to those who call Obama biased"--my dear good friend Anonymous-NFS sent the following letter to the WaPo editors:

"New Front in Racism Battle?' If I hadn't had the misfortune of watching some TV last night, I'd believe your front page story. But I was stuck with TV. And it showed Ms. Sherrod's entire speech which shows the Post--as well as the NAACP and most of America--continue to be snookered by our vitrolic Right wing, which continues to dominate our discourse with lies and hate. You owe your readers an apology.

 So when I went to look for the article in the ONLINE WaPo just now (hours later),  I found the article, all right, but it now has a new headline: "Firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod now under review"

Don'tcha just grit your teeth over this kind of b.s.?  How long are we going to suffer the slings & arrows of the Right wing?

UPDATE:  This is my comment to Rachel Maddow on Huffington Post this evening:

Rachel, the WaPo is in there pitching along with Fox. This morning they tried to pitch the story as "providing fodder for those who call Obama biased." Now that the whole story has come out, and Vilsack has apologized to Ms. Sherrod and offered her another job with the Dept of Ag., WaPo is saying "how the White House veered off message." Anything to dump on Obama. The whole thing is disgusting. 

Barney Frank and Ron Paul on Cutting Military Spending??

NPR's OnPointRadio carried this wonderful show with Barney Frank and Ron Paul today. 

My favorite of the comments is from someone named Mark.  He says this:

We liked him. We just wouldn’t listen to him:

“We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

-Pres. Eisenhower, 1961.

Thanks, NPR, Barney, Ron, and Mark.  (Ike, too, if you're listening.....)

Pardon my French.....

I just read Paul Krugman's 4th of July column about the blankety-blank Senate going home for an undeserved, uncalled-for vacation over July 4 without extending unemployment benefits to our friends, relatives, and neighbors who have been unemployed for months in this *@!! idiot-generated Depression. 

I'm trying to think of how I can express my OUTRAGE over these motherblankers and still have this post pass muster with the language nannies.  As Krugman says, the members of the Senate have flown home (at our expense, natch--or maybe, fearing criticism for throwing our money around, they've presciently paid for it themselves this time out of their supergenerous salaries--but these also are at our expense) to go glad-handing at 4th of July picnics and parades among their constituents--many of whom seem as clueless and heartness and lost in space as their elected representatives.

Nobody, including our beloved administration, seems to have the cojones (alert--foreign language, possibly illegal alien vocabulary) to stand up and do the correct, compassionate, SENSIBLE thing and EXTEND THE UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS INDEFINITELY UNTIL THE CONGRESS CAN GET THEIR CRIPE TOGETHER AND CREATE JOBS THAT WILL SUPPORT FAMILIES AND GET US ALL BACK ON OUR FEET AGAIN!!!!  Can't we start making sneakers and t-shirts and bicycles HERE IN THE USA again?  Don't we have any empty factory buildings (or whole cities--Detroit??) waiting? Can't we trash-can that stupid war and put Blackwater and Cheney's little fiefdom, Halliburton, OUT OF THE BUSINESS OF SUCKING AWAY OUR NATIONAL TREASURE????

Alas, I fear the blanket-blank, good-for-nothing, pigs-at-the-trough who call themselves U.S. Senators, Republican or Democrat, will do nothing. What more can we expect?  As I said, please pardon my French.

Sleeping Bees!

Found this wonderful blog --homeofthebudds--on my travels this a.m.  The post is "do bees sleep?"  Check out the amazing pictures.  One of the local blog readers said the bees are not asleep, they're drunk.  I dunno anything at all about bees sleeping out of the hive at night, but I really love this.  The local blogger who posted this on our town website said she finds sleeping bees in her flowers every morning!

Cities and states can't control handguns??

The SCOTUS live in wonderland, protected on all sides everywhere.  Let them move to a rough DC (and now, Chicago) neighborhood and ride the bus to work without their chauffeurs and bodyguards and retainers. Let 'em get held up at gunpoint a few times as they walk to the corner grocery. Let 'em wake up! If they're so concerned about the Constitution, how about working on separation of church and state?  


I pray that none of the poor suckers who think owning a handgun will protect themselves or their loved ones never shoot a loved one--or themselves--by accident.  The only reason to buy or own a gun like that is to kill someone.  I doubt if you're that nervous. I doubt if you really want to kill someone, so don't get a handgun.  Don't allow one in your house.  Don't hang around with people who need a handgun to feel brave.

Do yourself a favor....

read THIS!!

Gail Collins hit one out of the park today, and the comments, minus the usual nastiness from the right wingers, are wonderful.  What a great read to get us on our way today.....

HE DID IT!!!!

Master Sean Denson is now the proud owner of a degree (Hons) in Computer Science from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Need I tell you that he has worked LONG and HARD for this, and at long last, it's in his hands!!! Congratulations, Sean!!! Nobody deserves it more than you. NOW I hope you and Laura will tie the knot!!!

(Note the classic academic's "What's that smell?" pose)

New Meme: Technology during Your Life Span at 10-year Intervals....

A Little Red Hen stopped by to see her cousin, Hen Pink, and commented about "thinking 10 years ahead at our age."  There are many ways to consider what one's life will be like ten years from now.  But that got me thinking about what life has been like in the past--especially vis-a-vis technology. My grandmother died at the turn of the previous century--1900. She was 43 years old and never saw a motor car or an airplane (I want to spell it aeroplane...ha) or a radio or a telephone or electricity or indoor plumbing (although in Germany, the family lived ABOVE the cows, so the cows, at least, could tinkle in the house). Not to mention TV, computers, WIFI, cell phones, video cams--you name it. It all came after she died.

So...anyway, here's technology in 10-year intervals as I experienced it over my life span PLUS one heretofore unknown bit of technology I predict will be part of everyday life 10 years in the future!

1st 10 years: automatic transition in cars or portable radio--meaning you could lift it off the ground.

2nd 10 years: television!  (yeah....i was a junior in high school when TV arrived in the Dwyer home in Fargo)

3rd 10 years: stereo or LP records or color TV

4th 10 years: computers! The computers at work were room-sized. My first computer-related job was proofreading data cards before they were inserted into the computer to be tallied.

5th 10 years: personal computers 

6th 10 years: cell phones or portable video cameras or lasers.

7th 10 years: cochlear implant or Kindle or Nook or iPad

8th 10 years (THE PREDICTION): houses and cars go solar--all of them--or gene repair (curing illnesses by tinkering with or replacing genes)

I'm leaving out a lot of things like automatic coffee makers and washers, electric clothes dryers, crockpots, nylon/orlon/polyester fabrics--things we didn't have when I was very small but are ubiquitous now. Cars have gotten swankier and fatter and hungrier, but there's not been a whole lot of change in their basic operation (burn fuel to go).

Make your own list...it's fun to think about these things. Find a way to share it with the rest of us.

MAW has her troubles...

Spring 2010....eventful, hot, rainy here.  I am trying to get back into drawing the cartoons that occupy my thoughts.  BUT, seeing as I am not a professional  cartoonist, I'm having troubles that only a rank amateur would have--and this apart

from the actual DRAWING.  

F'r instance, I have LOST the memory card for my all-in-one printer-fax-scanner.  Even if I wanted to scan something, where could it go? 

Thus, after drawing the cartoon, and not being able to scan it, I decided to take a picture of it with my cell phone and forward that to myself.  I doubt that any pro cartoonist has to resort to this kind of thing just to get something published.

But I am just a beginner at this.  Malcolm Gladwell in OUTLIERS states that to become really good at anything--drawing, skating, pitching baseball, whatever--requires no less than 10,000 hours of practice. That's about 10 years' worth if you practice 2-3 hours a day. I don't think I practice ANYTHING for 2-3 hours every single day, unless you count eating.  I'm VERY good at that.  

It seemed, also, that Blogger itself was going quietly nuts.  Things were no longer what they seemed to be even last month.  Wot???  I figured this out, though.  If I use Firefox, everything--how to add new blogs or a new photo (as in my Garden Watch)--is OK.  If I use Google Chrome, it's way strange.

What, indeed, in MAW's universe has not been strange this spring?

thanks, Whoopee

I'm dedicating this You-Tube-bearing post to Whoopee in thanks for her recent post on her two bee children (also for the one on Caligula).  It's not easy taking care of two lively small children, with the new baby weighing almost as much as most kids do when they're much older.

So here's a little entertainment for when all else palls....I look forward to future posts after you and Ian and the children have learned how to play the fiddle and the other instruments.  Here's "Diga diga diga" by the Luminescent Orchestrii...(yeah, that's how they spell it)

Everyone's on hiatus these days....

Many of my most faithful readers are taking a break from blogging for a few weeks this summer: Kay's Thinking Cap, Darlene's Hodgepodge--even bloggers I read all the time, though they probably don't read XE much--like Whoopee (though not officially--she's just sidelined while her woman's bits heal after the birth of Caligula the Destroyer, aka Oscar).

Well, I'm not on hiatus...I'm just doing lots of dreaming about what to create next and running out every few hours to see if anything's up in my various gardens.  So I decided, for sheer bloggy pleasure, to go back to drawing cartoons for a while.  I thought of a good one today, and as soon as I finish editing a loooong piece for a client, I'll get cracking on it.  Watch this space......

I want to confide in my readers about something, too.  My housemate took it upon herself to dig up a second 4'x4' garden plot in the back yard this afternoon, but instead of removing the dirt from the sod and then tossing the sod along the fence where it can regrow, she just stirred it back into the plot again--with copious water.  So now there is a gigantic mud pit out back filled with very healthy-looking grass turned upside down that'll take a day or two to dry out enough to plant something in it.  I have memories of our Victory Garden back in Fargo in the 1940s, when we'd harvest potatoes and radishes speared with grass roots if we didn't get rid of the grass well enough.  And reading gardening pamphlets from NDAC about how grass and other weeds consume the nutrients needed for the veggies.  So....while I'm very grateful for her strong back and the speed with which she dug up the second plot, I think she should remove the growing matter and also add some good potting soil for the top layer as I did for the first plot, but she insists that the grass will add organic matter to the garden.  The ground is so warm now that the seeds practically burst open after just a few hours in the ground.  I'm feeling very conflicted about this.  It's nice to inspire others to plant a garden even if they don't do it the way I think it should be done.  But on the other hand, what the hey difference does it make?  If she wants her own plot, she can buy the seeds and water them, too.  I confess to feeling very selfish about this garden space--even though it's not even my own lawn--and upset that I feel this way, goldammit to hell anyway!

Tomato tower

Well, today would be my mother's 113rd birthday if she were still walking among us. She'd be just a few years older than Mary McGowan. Anyway, it was a lovely day..."What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days." Some poet wrote that...and if I weren't so lazy, I'd look it up. OK OK, I did...it was James Russell Lowell.


I saw a new bird today. Must be a warbler of some kind. Kind of like a white sparrow with a black cap (but not a black-capped chickadee). The bird songs here are practically symphonic. And I noticed that the trees by the metro tracks--the ones that have the beautiful white flowers in the spring--are locust trees. Nice to know.  Mom taught me by her example to pay attention to the beauty around me.  It was a gift that keeps on giving.


I planted a tomato tower in the back yard today. I'm taking bets on whether it actually will produce a tomato!

"Whacking the old folks...."

 One sour note back in January, when we were celebrating President Barack Obama's inauguration, was his quiet announcement that there would be NO cost of living adjustments for Social Security for two years.  Xtreme English complained a little bit at the time, but hardly anyone else made a peep--especially our favorite insurance peddlers, AARP.  The announcement landed on a soft cushion of indifference, possibly calculated.

Yesterday, the June 7, 2010 issue of Nation magazine arrived with THIS alarming lead paragraph:

In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink. 

The author, William Greider, goes on to discuss the commission, its purpose, and its membership, noting, "The people, once again, are kept in the dark." Greider's "excellent take on Social Security" also appears in an article by Trudy Lieberman in the May 25 issue of Columbia Journalism Review. 

Greider goes on, "What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case." 


Here's another paragraph in the Nation article (emphasis mine), about half way through the article:

Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda—the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus—$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s—unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.

Can us old folks do anything at all about this?  Can we at least get the President and his Commission to say what they're up to BEFORE the elections later this year?  Greider says, 

Citizens can win this fight if they mobilize smartly. We can do this by arousing public alarm  

right now, while members of Congress face a treacherous election and before Obama can 

work out his deal. Some liberal groups are discussing a "take the pledge" campaign that 

demands senators and representatives sign commitments to keep Hands Off Social Security 

Benefits. If politicians refuse to sign, put them on the target list for November. Barack 

Obama is standing on the third rail of politics—let's give him a warning jolt.