Cotswold Corner Diary

Yesterday Mormanism Did Mitt In

2008-02-08T12:29:00.000-05:00

Christianity is hard enough to swallow, but Mormonism? Egad! Yesterday Mormonism did Romney in--and a good thing too. Skeptics of every stripe, together with evangelicals in the Bible Belt and elsewhere (most of whom have adjusted to Catholics and Jews over time, but can't tolerate the Latter Day Saints.) Neither can I. Or, to be more precise, can't take them seriously. Live and let live is my motto, but what's fakier than Mormonism? It's daft. J A certain 19th century follow, Joseph Smith, born in a shack in Vermont invented it by claiming in the 1820s that an angel-prophet had revealed to him some golden plates, which according to Smith "corrected" statements in the NT about Jesus, among other things. Of course, the golden plates have never been seen since by anyone else! Sure is mind-boggling that millions around the world have bought into this stuff and have helped build a multi-billion dollar faith, and that a whole State in the U.S.--Utah--is in the hands of these people. I can't imagine even a whole county in my old country (U.K.) ever being the host for any religion, let alone the Latter Day Saints. Here's a bit from Wikipedia's entry on the subject of Joe Smith....

Smith said that an 1823 visitation from a resurrected prophet named Moroni ^[8] led to his finding and unearthing (in 1827) a long-buried book, inscribed on metal plates, which contained a record of God's dealings with the ancient Israelite inhabitants of the Americas. The record, along with other artifacts (including a sword, a compass-like device, a breastplate and what Smith referred to as the Urim and Thummim), was buried in a hill near his home. On September 22, 1827, Smith's record indicates that the angel allowed him (after 4 years of waiting and preparation) to take the plates and other artifacts. Almost immediately thereafter Smith began having difficulties with people trying to discover where the plates were hidden on the Smith farm

Read it and weep!
Read Mitt's Funeral, here:
!http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/

Obama/Clinton? Clinton/Obama

2008-02-02T14:41:00.000-05:00

"And what do you think of the possibility of a Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket?"
Susan in Oregon

Dear Susan-in-Oregon:

Your question seems to be on a lot of people's minds.

First, I just can't conceive of an Obama/Clinton ticket because it's clear to all of us that for at least fifteen years and maybe even thirty, Hillary has had her mind set on the Presidency. I just can't see her acquiescing to a subsidiary role. And if the regime continues for eight years, Hillary would have reached the same age, almost, as the doddering John McCain is today. .

Second, a Clinton/Obama ticket is a distinct possibility because his quest is not so much longstanding (despite the rumor that his desire goes back to kindergarten). He knows that a youthful vice president serving in a successful administration (we hope!) has a good chance of catching that final golden ring. Gore should have, but Barak would learn from Gore's mistakes.

I'll be happy enough that a Democrat wins the presidency. Oh, such a relief! It looks as if it's bound to happen.

Latest Debates Coming Up

2008-01-30T09:44:00.001-05:00

Drama every day in the primary election process. Today John Edwards will announce his departure. That leaves us Democrats just two to fight it out tomorrow in the latest presidential debate.

If eventually McCain does become the Republican candidate, his age and physical frailty will be against him as the year progresses. He also has to unify his own party behind him and that may be quite a feat. Also, if he keeps beating the war drums that noise will fall on many deaf ears. On the other hand, Hillary (who I think on February 5 will emerge as the real contender) is in her prime. In debates, McCain tends to get snappish, nasty even (example: his outbursts against Romney). But Hillary lately has kept cool under fire in the face of numerous debates and crises. Even Bill seems to have piped down the last few days. Hillary's strengths could make McCain look like a querulous old man. I admire and respect Barak, but I doubt he could pull off the general election. I've heard the talk about a McCain-Huckabee ticket, but there's a danger the Huckster will go off point and insist on bringing in his embarrassing notions about gender, anti-science and everything else. That could send the Republican ticket off the rails.
Hillary vs. McCain = two known quantities with Hillary having a good chance of winning.
Barak vs. McCain = one new to the national stage and one a very well-known performer.
In this house at the moment we have one pragmatic Hillary supporter and one passionate Barak supporter. However, we will back whoever becomes our leader.

Latest Debates Coming Up

2008-01-30T09:44:00.000-05:00

The Countess

2008-01-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

Saw The White Countess a couple evenings ago. Got it from our new Library! Reviews on line didn't seem to appreciate it, but we were both engrossed. If you haven't seen it, it's set in Shanghai in the mid thirties and the Japanese are on the point of invading. The countess and her White Russian family have fled the USSR and live in poverty-- she goes out at night to make money any way she can at a dance bar.

A drove of Redgraves are in it including Natasha Richardson whose voice reminded us of her mother's and whose face reminded us of Garbo. Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave gave wonderful performances. I guess some people didn't like Ralph Fienes, but again we differed. I thought he was perfect as the blind man. We liked it so much we listened to the commentary with Natasha Richardson and James Ivory. It's fashionable to sneer at Merchant-Ivory these days, but I don't. The features included a memorial to the work of the late Ismail Merchant.

A Fine Woman Photographer

2008-01-22T15:58:00.000-05:00

Picasso. Man Ray. Steichen. Etc. In The New Yorker this week I enjoyed Judith Thurman's article about Lee Miller. It sent me back to the Paris of Janet Flanner, who wrote about Paris for decades in that magazine. What a fine time they all had, or thought they did, in the twenties and thirties. Miller helped Man Ray photograph the famous White Ball of 1930, recorded by Flanner. Mention's made of a "fine biography. 2006, by Carolyn Burke. I must look for it. I'd like to see Miller's WWII photography. It's considered as on a level with Margaret Bourke White's. But-- like so many of those moths who danced in the flame for a while and inevitably burned out when they grew out of fashion, or old, Miller eventually met that fate. Years ago I read a fascinating biog of Man Ray. Couldn't get him out of my head.

Marmalade Boiling in Vats

2008-01-20T11:14:00.000-05:00

Imagine your kitchen
Filled with the fragrant fumes of steaming marmalade
All ready for pouring into waiting pots.
Saucer samples sit on the counter cooling off , ready for tasting.
32 shiny glass pots await the sweet golden liquid.
Should last the year if you don't give too many away
.
In British kitchens this winter
Housewives open up their secret recipes
For .
Golden marmalade to chase the blues away.

Only bitter-sweet Seville oranges will do,
From faraway sunny Spain.
But we too must have marmalade and can't exist without it.
Look to Canada my friend and Greaves in Niagara on the Lake.
Canadian master marmalade makers with a secret recipe.

Seville oranges aren't readily available in these parts.
A few small jars sit on the shelves at the Mustardseed Market,
But they're from France and expensive.
Spread on toast and the peel is chunky and hard.

Greaves knows where to get the right stuff.
Contacts in England keep them supplied with the little Seville golden globes.

Imagine mornings and the aroma of marmalade boiling below you in vats.

Click below to visit their delicious website where they picture all their varieties of preserves, marmalades, jams, jellies, pickles and others.

http://www.greavesjams.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=32&osCsid=e6a064612f4f5d1

Medina's Gorgeous New Library

2008-01-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

Wow. What an opening for the Library this morning. Beautiful place. I'm gonna live there. Even though it was packed, that didn't mean that we all felt crowded. There's so much space it's easy to filter off into different rooms and nooks. I took some books to the Quiet Room and sat near the fire and browsed for a while over a coffee. The eye is constantly taking in new vistas. I haven't yet followed up on what school of design they drew upon but there are touches of Art Deco with the curves, pastel colors, and stainless steel railings, etc. The color schemes and the lighting are reader-comforting and the views through the windows are wonderful. But one window looks out on one of those hideous "Victorian" houses listing to one side like a sinking ship. Some misguided folks in Medina want to save them, but now people will say , "get them out of my sight"! What a crowd were there sharing in this happy event. The check outs were doing land office business and I checked mine out at the self-serve machine. Our beautiful library makes a striking contrast with the new one in Akron, which is neither handsome nor visitor friendly.

Hillary Melting

2008-01-08T14:29:00.000-05:00

It's sad seeing Hillary's campaign melt before our eyes--before the realities of the campaign she was certain that she would be the winner. Too certain, of course. Many mistakes. The biggest, having Bill campaign with her. I cringe every time I see him--he sucks all the light out of the room. She should have sent him off to Pago Pago for the duration. She has never expressed any doubt or regret for voting in the Senate to empower Bush to make war in Iraq, and her close ties to enormously powerful commercial interests here are hurting her campaign. She says she'll create an "affordable" health insurance program for all--but what that means is keeping the huge insurance companies in the picture and they of course have given her millions for her campaign. People here know their voices haven't been listened to, whether in protest marches, letter writing campaigns, callling their representatives in Washington. But today they do have a method to show how they feel, and it's the vote. By the end of the evening I think we'll see that for once being a voter really does count for something.

The Children of Paradise

2007-12-26T10:39:00.000-05:00

To have lived and never have known Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty is a life shortchanged--a life deprived. Barrault and Arletty were two of the flaming stars of Les Enfants Du Paradise, perhaps the greatest movie ever made. And made it was under extreme difficulty in occupied France in the last year of WWII. The director was forced to employ French collaborators as extras in his large cast and their job was to report back to the Germans any hint of anti-Nazi sympathies in the story and direction. Jewish actors and technicians were carefully protected and sometimes hidden. Starving extras stole much of the food in the banquet scenes before a shot was taken. Forbidden then to make pictures over ninety minutes long, Director Marcel Carne created two movies and spliced them together when it was shown shortly after Germany was defeated. It's a long film but you don't notice time passing. I can't do justice to describing it here. Instead I'll hand that job over to Roger Ebert who wrote eloquently about it in a review a few years ago when Les Enfants was relased on DVD by the Criterion Collection:

Excerpts from Roger Ebert / January 6, 2002/Posted on Netflix

'All discussions of Marcel Carne's ''Children of Paradise'' begin with the miracle of its making. Named at Cannes as the greatest French film of all time, costing more than any French film before it, ''Les Enfants du Paradis'' was shot in Paris and Nice during the Nazi occupation and released in 1945......

"That this film, wicked, worldly, flamboyant, set in Paris in 1828, could have been imagined under those circumstances is astonishing. That the production, with all of its costumes, carriages, theaters, mansions, crowded streets and rude rooming houses, could have been mounted at that time seems logistically impossible (''It is said,'' wrote Pauline Kael, ''that the starving extras made away with some of the banquets before they could be photographed''). Carne was the leading French director of the decade 1935-1945, but to make this ambitious costume film during wartime required more than clout; it required reckless courage......

"Despite the fame of ''Children of Paradise, most of the available prints are worn and dim. It used to play every New Years' Day at Chicago's beloved Clark Theater, and that's where I first saw it, in 1967, but the 1991 laserdisc was of disappointing quality, and videotapes even worse. Now the film has been released in sparkling clarity on a Criterion DVD that begins with a restored Pathe 35mm print and employs digital technology to make the blips, dirt and scratches disappear. It is likely the film has not looked better since its premiere. There are formidably informative commentary tracks by Brian Stonehill and Charles Affron......

"The movie is not a historical epic but a sophisticated, cynical portrait of actors, murderers, swindlers, pickpockets, prostitutes, impresarios and the decadent rich. Many of the characters are based on real people, as is its milieu of nightclubs, dives and dens, theaters high and low, and the hiding places of the unsavory......

"Carne plunges us directly into this world with his famous opening shot on the ''Boulevard of Crime,'' reaching seemingly to infinity, alive with activity, jammed with countless extras. This was a set designed by the great art director Alexander Trauner, working secretly; the credits list his contribution as ''clandestine.'' To force the perspective and fool the eye, he used buildings that fell off rapidly in height, and miniature carriages driven by dwarves. The street is a riot of low-life. Mimes, jugglers, animal acts and dancers provide previews outside their theaters, to lure crowds inside. One of the first attractions we see is advertised as ''Truth.'' This is the elegant courtesan Garance, who revolves slowly in a tub of water, regarding herself naked in a mirror. The water conceals her body, so that she supplies ''truth, but only from the neck up.'' This is also what she supplies in life....

"Garance is played by Arletty (1898-1992), born as Leonie Bathiat, who became a star in the 1930s and was, truth to tell, a little old to play a sexual temptress who mesmerizes men. Like Marlene Dietrich, to whom she was often compared, Arletty's appeal was based not on fresh ripeness but on a tantalizing sophistication. What fascinates men is that she has seen it all, done it all, admits it, takes their measure, and yet flatters them that she adores them. Even cutthroats fall under her spell; when the criminal Lacenaire tells her ''I'd spill torrents of blood to give you rivers of diamonds'' she looks him in the eye and replies, ''I'd settle for less.''

"Around Garance circle many of the movie's most important characters. The mime Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) sees her from her stage, defends her in pantomime against a pickpocket charge, is rewarded by a rose, and falls for her. So does Frederick Lemaitre (Pierre Brasseur), as an actor who dreams of doing something good--perhaps Shakespeare. And Lacenaire (Marcel Herrand), who with his ruffled shirt, curly hair, villain's mustache and cold speech is the Rhett Butler of the piece. And the Count Edouard de Montray (Louis Salou), who thinks he has brought her but discovers he was only renting.

"It is possible that Garance truly loves the innocent Baptiste, who triumphs in a bar brawl and brings her home to his rude rooming house, where he rents her a room of her own and retires separately for the night. But Frederick, who lives in the rooming house, has no such scruples--and, for that matter, Baptiste is no saint. He marries the theater manager's daughter, sires ''an abominable offspring,'' in the words of Pauline Kael, and cheats on his wife by still loving Garance. Lacenaire, who strides through the underworld like a king, basking in his reputation for ruthlessness, thinks he can have Garance for the asking (''you are the only woman for whom I do not have contempt''), but it is the Count whose money makes her his mistress. When Lacenaire pulls back a drapery so that the Count can see Garance in the arms of Frederick, so many men think they have the right to her that the actor observes, ''Jealousy belongs to all if a woman belongs to none.''

"Carne's screenplay was by his usual collaborator Jacques Prevert; they not only set their story in a theatrical world but divert from the action to show the actors at work. Kael counts ''five kinds of theatrical performances,'' and they would include Baptiste's miming and a scene from ''Othello'' that provides oblique reflections on the plot. It is Baptiste whose art leaves the greatest impression. Jean-Louis Barrault (1910-1994), then a star at the Comedie Francais, is first seen in clown makeup, glumly surveying the Boulevard of Crime, brought to life only by his mimed defense of Garance. Later, he stages his own extended mime performance--only to see, from the stage, Garance flirting in the wings. No one's trust is repaid in this movie."

Easy to read and absorb subtitles.

Happy Holidays 2007

2007-12-24T14:50:00.001-05:00

Our first blizzard swept in last weekend on its way to New England, but the snow didn’t stop us from going off and plunging into the heated blue waters at the Medina Rec, or from walking the indoor track and warming off in the sauna. It’s do or die when you get to our age. A new little boy named Noah arrived at granddaughter Julia’s house last February to live with 4-year-old Ben and dad Drew. Meanwhile granddaughter Jen’s reward for graduating college is living the good life downstate in scintillating Columbus. In Akron Wendy’s readying Peter Pan with real flying for spring production at the Miller-South School for the Arts. In Medina a splendid new main library opens soon and Phil’s efforts on the board have helped bring to our little village our own branch with fireplace nooks and windows overlooking woods and marshes. Growing up he always dreamed of a real library in his own back yard instead of a bookmobile. Over in the U.K. sister Sonia has become computer literate, making communication so much easier. Three miles down the road new neighbor, multi-millionaire Cleveland basketball player Lebron James, is building a house that is only a little smaller than the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and just as fortified. Haven’t given up yet on our yearly escape to the Blyth Festival in Ontario and Phyllis and Emerson Mitchell’s B&B breakfast feasts.

Holiday Letter from Row D, Seats 20 and 21

2007-12-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

Jeeze! A month gone by since last I wrote here. My Christmas cards are on their way with my blog address included and nothing here to say for myself since the middle of November. Better do something quick. Unlike some moaners and whiners I enjoy the newsletters sent along with some cards and happily read the accounts of lives lived over the past year. Those epistles are the stuff of life--from friends and relatives who want us to know "We're still here."

This year we heard for the first time from the occupants of Row D, Seats 20 and 21 at the Blyth Festival Theater in Ontario. We know Don and Bernice from having adjoining seats for several years, and we've chatted before the shows and during intermission. We've tried to explain George W. Bush to them and why we spend our money on futile wars but don't have a universal health system like they do even though only a border separates us. Don and Bernice are in their 80s now. He's a spry fellow. She's been slowed down by a hearing loss. Both are very nice Canadians and I'm glad they are "still here" and hope they will be for years to come.

They are not online, and won't see this. But good luck, Don and Bernice. We'll see you next summer!

"Christmas in Connecticut"

2007-11-19T16:11:00.000-05:00

Years ago in 1945 when I was a teen I saw the movie Christmas in Connecticut and have never forgotten it. Barbara Stanwyck plays a popular women's magazine columnist (think Martha Stewart) whose publisher requires her to entertain a naval hero with her family in her bucolic Connecticut home. The problem is, she doesn't really have a home in the country or a family and fast work is needed to come up with them. Sidney Greenstreet, Dennis Morgan and other good Warners' actors fill out the cast. What took my breath away was the deep, crisp snow of New England, the lovely spacious house and its sparkling decor inside, and the magnificent Christmas decorations and presents under a huge tree--all of those absent in England in the dreary last year of the war when our tree was a spindly little twig and my "best" present was a second hand copy of a book by a favorite author. I've just learned that Christmas in Connecticut has been issued on DVD

Beware of "Water for Elephants"

2007-11-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

What to do when you begin the latest book group selection--a best-seller-- and find that you hate it? I had good vibes for Sara Gruen's Water For Elephants, anticipating a good read about a young man's adventures with an itinerant third-rate circus traveling the byways of America back in the 1930's Depression. I like trains and I liked circuses, but this book with its cliche characters, tiresome plot, predictable events, and banal dialogue that just goes on and on is a major disappointment. How could The New York Times praise it and 612 Amazon readers give it five stars when it's obviously such a chore to read? Not all Amazon readers were fooled, however. In 1 or 2 star reviews they were critical of the poor writing, while others reeled away from the animal cruelty depicted or a really creepy description of a strip-tease artiste plying her trade.. . I've given up on the book after about sixty pages. Here are a couple of Amazon two-star reviews, the first from neighboring Fairlawn--five minutes' drive away. I feel vindicated. For the one-star reviews, go to Amazon. They offer valuable advice.

By	M. G. Jamison (Fairlawn, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Water for Elephants: A Novel (Hardcover)

Last week, halfway through my own reading of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, I decided to check the customer reviews to see if any other readers were rolling their eyes as much as I was, and, to my surprise, not many were. 900 hundred reviews and most of them were five stars! What seemed paper-thin and kind of ridiculous to me was "beautiful and moving" to nearly everyone else. Everything about this book seemed like a cheat--like the warning you get on a bag of chips--"contents may settle"--to explain how there are only three chips in a family-sized bag. Even the inclusion of the period photographs seemed to excuse the writer for not making clear enough pictures of her own. It's not just the implausibility of the story either (elephant speaks only Polish). If the details are right, I can be drawn into even the most ridiculous of stories (THE RUINS and THE TERROR come to mind)), but the paragraphs here are so flimsy (usually no more than three sentences long) that I never pictured (or believed) a word of it. I'd close the book and pick it up a few hours later and have absolutely no idea what had happened. It was an "easy read," but I don't know many writers who would consider that a compliment.

Sara Gruen owes William Styron some royalties, July 26, 2007

By	Craig Keller (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

I rarely pick up best-sellers, but I felt compelled to torture myself through this one after Gruen was awarded -- in a baffling but sickeningly telling example of how lowest-common-denominator and bottom-line the book publishing business has become -- $5 million for her next two, as yet un-penned books. I've got $10 that says they involve touchy-feely maudlin interaction between people and animals and cliched romanctic treacle. I wouldn't be shocked to see a unicorn rear its head.

This novel is cliche and a pastiche of formula coopted from other, better books from cover to cover. The dialogue is PAINFUL. Every line feels prepackaged for the movie studio executive Gruen undoubtedly set out to placate before writing one word. Worse, while characters speak in cliched colloquial style, it remains ONE style. There is little to distinguish one voice from another. The plot, too, proceeds along a rote path -- I was predicting nearly every turn of it paragraphs, and then pages, ahead of time.

Gruen is justly commended for her research into circus history, which is the only original element she brings to the table. She clearly delights in it, though even that reads like dutiful observations culled from a torrent of microfiche and historical society archives. It's clear Gruen has spent a lot of time with her nose in books, and derives her style, such as it is, from other sources -- most notably, and unforgivably, William Styron's "Sophie's Choice," from which she shamelessly pilfers the very specific dynamics of that novel's central ill-fated love triangle, around which all else revolves. Gruen's Nathan is an equestrian director named August (interesting to note there are six letters in each name), and he's a Jewish paranoid schizophrenic. When Gruen's protoganist -- surprise! a young, precocious, naive but quickly maturing lover-boy bred from earnest all-American stock -- finds himself caught between the couple (Sophie is renamed Marlena here), all hell breaks loose ("all hell breaks loose" incidentally is a cliched phrase that appears several times throughout the book -- consider my usage a wry homage).

Do yourself a favor and buy the original, not the infantile copy.

The New York Times was generally favorable. 916 readers so far have reviewed it online at Amazo. 612 of those gave the book five stars (tops). But over 50 disagreed, awarding only 1 or 1 stars.

Peter Lorre and "The Mask of Dimitrios"

2007-11-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

Turner Classic Movies has been running a string of classic film noir these past weeks, and here the DVR button comes in useful. Last night I watched The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), and found myself tangled up in a web of mystery, spies, dark alleys, continental trains, seedy hotels and flats, and murderous intentions. The time period is late 1930s, although no expectations of a forthcoming world war are indicated. Hungarian actor, Peter Lorre, playing against his usual sinister type is a meek Dutch novelist who is required to travel by train to locales we are now familiar with because of current American foreign intrigues--from Athens to Istanbul to Sofia, Belgrade and Paris. The film was actually made on Warner Brothers' Hollywood back lot but they did a good job of making you think you're in Europe. Sidney Greenstreet, the large stout Englishman who often performed with Lorre is the master crook and in their scenes together they regularly upstage each other as they did in other films including Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Lorre usually plays creepy criminals, so it's quite interesting to see him play nice for a change. Except for Faye Emerson as femme fatale (she was married for a while to FDR's son. FDR Jr.) and Zachary Scott, the handsome Hollywood actor who managed to project sleaze and danger at the same time, the other actors are mostly European--and when you look at the credits you're reminded how Hollywood became a refuge in the 1930s and 40s for a large number of Jewish European artists, composers, actors, technicians, directors, etc. who fled from Germany in the 1930s and found work in California. Peter Lorre was one of them.

The Mask of Dimitrios was adapted from a novel by Eric Ambler.

Bright November

2007-11-02T12:52:00.001-05:00

Noted: November's here disguised in the garb of October; trees still wearing their red and gold leaves under a brilliant blue sky. If' this isn't a sign of global warming, I don't know what is. In the yard, the golden birch leaves and the red maples form a gorgeous diaphanous curtain, screening against the sun's bright rays. .Next week: will I be welcoming a big fall of early snow?

Shopped Marc's supermarket this morning. Seniors clogged the checkouts, spending their precious first-day-of-the month Social Security money. It was a Harvey Pekar moment--like the one in his movie American Splendor when he silently cursed the elderly woman ahead of him holding up the line over the price of drinking glasses. He ended up abandoning his cart. (Good old Cleveland's Harvey Pekar who won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Festival for his first movie)

At our checkout the clerk was distinguished by a a splendid braid of black hair that reached down her back to the bottom of her bottom. I wonder if she knows about the project that uses hair donations to make wigs for cancer patients. Perhaps she does know, and grows her hair for that purpose.

This morning it takes $1.05 American to purchase a Canadian dollar. No doubt Brian and Ruth are looking forward to living in luxury in Florida next February on their annual snowbird trek. The British pound is no slouch either, having zoomed into the stratosphere of $2.08 against the pound. Good for my little British pension, but not so good for Americans traveling abroad.

Bel Canto

2007-10-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

Funny how things work out. The Oct. 1 New Yorker runs an article about Ann Patchett's new book, Run and the library schedules Bel Canto for their Nov. discussion and with the stars aligning themselves like that I got hold of Bel Canto and couldn't stop once I started it. She uses a situation in Peru some years ago when terrorists took hostages during a party at the president's house. Their prize is an opera singer whose voice has thrilled audiences around the world.

Readers could sit around all day talking about the characters. who gradually adapt in surprising and unexpected ways. It's not exactly the Stockholm Syndrome. Something more subtle is at work. Perhaps it's something about the power of art to heal. There's the music as the opera singer begins to share her gift with the others. Because most of the hostages aren't familiar with the music, the reader doesn't have to be either.

New Yorker review of the book here:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/10/01/071001crbo_books_updike.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

2007-10-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

We saw an Irish film last night: The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Directed by an Englishman, Ken Loach, it is harshly critical of British rule in Ireland. What made it spooky was how the action in it reflected what's going on in Iraq at the moment. But in this case the bad guys are the British, not the Americans. It's the British who beat people up and destroy their homes, and call them horrible names. The time period is Ireland in 1920-21 when the Irish Republican Army formed to resist British rule. The focus is on one unit of men who form in County Cork to fight British rule. Vastly outnumbered they still manage to inflict damage and casualties on the British. But the British regiment, the Blakc and Tans, inflict far greater torture, deatb and destruction on the Irish. The Black and Tans were mercenaries hired by the government for better pay than soldiers got. The resemblance to Blackwater and its mercenaries in Iraq is clear. Not a very good film to go to bed on! I told Paul I'd pick a nice light and frothy French comedy for our next film.

Am reading a fine novel at the moment, Bel Canto by Ann Patchet.. Our library will hold a discussion on it in a couple of weeks, and I'll go and hear what others have to say about it. I'll tell you this.
A banquet is under way in the home of the Vice President of a poor Latin American country. A famous singer with the most beautiful voice in the world has been invited to perform. 200 people are guests. After the concert, the house is invaded by terrorists who take everyone hostage, including the singer. The streets outside begin to fill with rescue units......

The is from an online comment:

Even better the second time, September 28, 2007

By E. Almond (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

I just finished Bel Canto for the second time, and enjoyed it even more than I did on first reading. Without rushing towards the end to find out "what happens" -- which I did, in spite of myself, the first time, I was able to luxuriate in Ms. Patchett's elegant, evocative sentences. Her characters are so deftly drawn that they will remain with you long after you close the covers of the book. She's able to do the impossible, it seems: write about love and music within a highly charged, almost over-the-top scenario, without ever becoming melodramatic or maudlin. I believed this book so deeply, it seemed every word was true. Every character was real. Every note of music was there for the listening. I understand why another reviewer bought every one of Ann Patchett's books after reading this one -- I'm about to do the same!

Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852)

2007-10-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

Read Uncle Tom's Cabin lately? I recently came to it for the first time and, you know what, it's a compelling page turner. It has a suspenseful plot and a readable style. No wonder it sold millions of copies, helped Harriet Beecher Stowe and her spouse get out of debt, and drew thousands of readers to the docks at Liverpool to greet her as she began her first European tour.

Stowe, who lived in Cincinnati for over twenty years, tackles American slavery head on and shows its corruptive influence on owners and slaves. Families are split and never reunited, pretty light-skinned young women are shipped down to the bordellos in New Orleans, children are torn from their mothers' arms and never seen again. Not all owners were cruel to their property (other than owning them of course), but Tom's kindly owner has to sell him down the river because of overwhelming debt. The worst of all slave owners is Simon Legree and eventually Uncle Tom falls into his hands and suffers vicious and graphically described tortures.

In reading the book I discovered that Uncle Tom was not an Uncle Tom. Later stage versions changed the character to a shuffling fool who pandered to his owners). In the novel he is noble and brave--a Christlike figure--who protects and sometimes saves his fellow creatures--some of them white.

When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet he said to her, "and you're the little lady he started the Civil War." The book had power then, and it still does.

John Lanchester's Memoir

2007-10-13T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of reading Family Romance: A Memoir by British novelist John Lanchester. The centerpiece is what Lanchester finds out about his mother after her death--that she had lied to his father in order to get him to marry her (no mention of her many years in a nunnery, and she put her age at 31 even though she was actually 41 and pregnant with John. (The man must have been a bit gullible). She never let her son know anything about being immured in one of the most strict and harsh Catholic orders in Ireland. They were The Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and coincidentally a few years ago the movie The Magdalene Sisters exposed the cruel treatment that went on in that sisterhood. For Lanchester, having a mum who had spent decades being a nun before she finally saw the light and escaped and married at the age of 41, it meant having a mother who could express no emotion or love, and lied to cover up her past. It gets a bit bogged down in parts, and I'm skipping some, but in the main it's good.

Shakespeare Wallah

2007-10-13T22:57:00.000-05:00

This evening we saw, courtesy of Netflix, a most engrossing movie--Shakespeare Wallah--Merchant-Ivory's first picture, made in 1964.

Felicity Kendal was seventeen when she played the daughter of an actor-manager and his wife who spent their years with a little troupe of English actors touring India with productions of Shakespeare during India's post-independence period. It becomes increasingly difficult to get bookings and one scene is quite painful when the actor-manager faces up to rejection from one of his most reliable patrons. Lovely scene at a boarding house with the grand name of "Gleneagles." The actors have stayed there over the years many times, but it seems that it's in its twilight. . It's run by a Yorkshire woman who herself is dealing with rejection while a palatial new hotel is being built across the street.

The story is based on the experiences of Felicity's parents who themselves toured Indian for years and play themselves in the film. The DVD includes comments from Felicity, now in her sixties and still beautiful. She's very active on the London stage these days.

A review in The Daily Telegraph of her performance in a recent play says she took the challenge of taking over a part played by Judi Dench and made it her own.

Here's a reader comment from online:

.Set in post-independence India, it tells the story of a small, though thoroughly professional traveling Shakespeare company fallen on hard times. The troop, built on the talents of the three Buckingham family members, including the young and fetching daughter Lizzie, is slowly dissolving in a culture increasingly hostile to their art and readier to worship the queens of the silly Indian pop cinema.

Closely Watched Trains

2007-10-12T13:18:00.001-05:00

I'm reading some of this week's New Yorker online since it hasn't yet arrived in my mail box. Anthony Lane reviews a new movie with an important role for a train. The Darjeeling Limited seems to be about some American guys who take a train journey across India. Lane goes with a profound question in his opening paragraph.

Can you have a thriving movie culture in a country without enough trains? The decline of the American railroad neatly parallels that of the Hollywood studio system, and something about the train traveller and the moviegoer catches the eye: both are required to sit with their fellow-men, and to start their journey at a particular time, not of their own choosing. Both are left alone, yet their privacy—tinged with dreaminess—is of a very public kind. Set a movie on a train and you get the best of both worlds, for your audience will feel an instant kinship with the souls packed together onscreen. Preston Sturges knew this, as did the Billy Wilder of “Some Like It Hot”; these days, however, the thrill of the ride has shrivelled to a dull metropolitan commute.

He's right about the train/Hollywood parallel. Wasn't the first American movle with a plot The Great Train Robbery? Let's ask Amazon.com. OK, here's an answer:

By	Alex (Chicago) - See all my reviews

"Its hard to believe but this film was made more than 100 hundred years ago; it has to be considered to be a technical step forward for its time. The plot is basically a train robbery. It is also the first western. This was a stepping stone for what movies could be,

D. W. Griffith directed this historic movie. Anyway-

I love the train movie genre. Especially memorable are The Lady Vanishes, Night Train to Munich, The Twentieth Century, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway Train, 3:10 to Yuma, Strangers on a Train,
and the great Marlene in Shanghai Express. . . .

Stage coaches aren't bad, either.

Should cats eat kibble, canned, or mice?

2007-10-10T21:22:00.000-05:00

From dawlishgal

Following snatched from comments to Norah Ephron's column today in the HuffPost:

Our experience with kibble and our cat:

When we took him in for his kitten checkup, the vet told us that she gives her own cat canned cat food only on (get this) CHRISTMAS Eve...the rest of the time it makes do with kibble.

We felt guilty while we continued to feed ours a mixed diet of kibble and canned food, and ,when he developed chronic constipation and blockages that almost killed him, we blamed ourselves for not following the vet's advice.

NOW, a week after the latest episode and thirteen hundred bucks poorer, we have been told the whole thinking on cat diet has changed, and the theory is that now cats and dogs ought to be eating what they would eat in the wild (vermin?). Some wily petfood manufacturer is bringing out a version of THAT kind of natural food at a price higher than for human food. At the same time there is a new kind of digestion-problems kibble that goes for 10 bucks for a little bag. It is almost impossible to know what to do. And the cat would be better off eating MICE, forgawdssakes!

Comfortable Cats in St. Petersburg

2007-10-05T08:51:00.000-05:00

From the BBC today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7029370.stm
Go BBC.co.uk for the best in news each day

Maria Khaltunen sees the cats as part of the palace traditions

Hermitage palace is cat's whiskers
By James Rodgers
BBC News, St Petersburg

The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, is famous as the palace of Empress Catherine the Great.

The greatness of its cats is the less well-known side of its astonishing story.

They have been here since the 18th Century. Fed up with rodents running through the palace, Empress Elizabeth sent out a decree that the best ratters in Russia should be sent to St Petersburg. The first to respond are thought to have come from the city of Kazan - then apparently famous for the rat-catching skills of its cats.

The cats survived the Napoleonic wars. They lived through the revolution of 1917. Their royal masters, Tsar Nicholas II and his family, died in a hail of Bolshevik bullets the following year.

As Russia turned communist, the cats kept their regal home.

They only disappeared during World War II. Hitler's armies laid siege to St Petersburg, then known by its Soviet name, Leningrad. Hundreds of thousands of people perished as for 900 days, the Nazis tried to strangle the life out of the city.

The most important items in the Hermitage collection were removed to storage in the Ural mountains, far from the front line. The museum's cellars became bomb shelters.

Winter shelter

In peacetime, a new generation of cats was welcomed to the palatial surroundings their predecessors had made home.

Now, two full-time employees take care of them. Cosy corners of the Hermitage's cellars are their shelter in the depths of the icy Russian winter.

They are no longer chosen for their ability to catch rats. Poison has taken that job away from them. They have come here from the streets, and the Hermitage is happy for them to move on to good homes, where they can be found.

Officially, there are 50 of them. Museum staff make voluntary contributions to pay for their upkeep.

They are considered so important that they even have their own press secretary. Maria Khaltunen combines that role with her job as assistant to the museum's director.

While we spoke, one of her charges did its best to leap from her arms.

"We like them," she explained. "And all our staff decided to keep up this tradition: to have the cats, and to like them."

Office antics

They may have retired from rat-catching, but a trip to the Hermitage's accounts department shows the cats are still there when a mouse is around. But these days, that's a computer mouse.

To be honest, the cats are more likely to be getting in the way than helping. Some have made their home with the book-keepers. They lounge across desks or curl up to snooze in open boxes of printer paper.

They are not allowed in the galleries. But that does not mean they are cut off from the artistic atmosphere. Some of them appear perfectly at home among the statues in the Hermitage's gardens and courtyards - even occasionally seeming to strike poses copied from the classical-era art which surrounds them.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7029370.stm

Published: 2007/10/05 10:55:48 GMT

On The Loss Of A Cat -- Human-Animal Bonding : Excerpted From Natalie Angier's Article In The Times Today)

2007-10-02T09:37:00.001-05:00

"A couple of weeks ago, while I was out of town on business, our cat, Cleo, died of liver failure. My husband and daughter buried her in the backyard, not far from the grave of our other cat, Manny, who had died just a few months earlier of mouth cancer.

"Cleo was almost 16 years old, she’d been sick, and her death was no surprise. Still, when I returned to a home without cats, without pets of any sort, I was startled by my grief — not so much its intensity as its specificity.

"It was very different from the catastrophic grief I’d felt when I was 19 and my father died, and all sense, color and flooring dropped from my days. This was a sorrow of details, of minor rhythms and assumptions that I hadn’t really been aware of until, suddenly, they were disrupted or unmet. Hey, I’m opening the door to the unfinished attic now. Doesn’t a cat want to try dashing inside to roll around in the loose wads of insulation while I yell at it to get out of there?

"I’ve just dumped a pile of clean laundry on the bed and I’m starting to fold it. Why aren’t the cats jumping up for a quick sit? Don’t they know everything is still warm?

"We expect the bonds between children and parents, or between lovers or close friends, to be fierce and complex, and that makes them easy to understand. We expect the bonds between people and their pets to be simple and innocent, an antidote to human judgment and the fog of human speech, and that can make the bond paradoxically harder to track or explain. How do we feel about the nonhuman animals whose company we crave? We think we know. Our pet is our “best friend,” a “member of the family,” a surrogate child for the adults, in loco parentis for the kids and the best possible pillow for whoever has first dibs.

. . ..

"We love our pets and we love the idea of pets, of reaching beyond the parochial barriers of the human race to commune with other species. When Alex the African gray parrot, renowned for his ability to communicate, do simple arithmetic and describe objects by their color, size, shape and material, died last month of cardiovascular disease at the age of 31, his obituary appeared everywhere, and Irene Pepperberg, the scientist who had trained Alex since 1977, was flooded with condolences.

“Alex touched so many people,” Dr. Pepperberg, a lecturer and research associate at Harvard University, said in a telephone interview. “He broke all preconceived notions of what it means to be a bird brain.” She admitted to feeling devastated. “There’s a parrot-size hole in my life,” she said.

. . .

"Marc Hauser, professor of psychology at Harvard and author of “Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think,” says ambivalence and tension have long been woven into our feelings about animals. “On the one hand, we feel a connection to other animals and we can’t imagine a world where we’re the only species on the planet,” he said. “On the other hand, we’re always trying to show that we’re not animals. We’re like them, yet we don’t want to be like them.”

"Dr. Hauser traces this tension to self-defense. We use animals, and we want to feel justified in using animals. We eat their muscles for meat, flay their hides for shoes and accessories, inject them with experimental vaccines, genetically engineer them into grotesque morphologies to study human diseases. This requires a certain mental distance.

"So we adore our pets and lavish time and money on them. Annual pet expenditures in this country have doubled in the last decade and are now more than $40 billion a year. And then we scold ourselves for our foolish fiscal priorities.

"We adore our pets and can come to identify with them so deeply that we attribute to them some truly daffy notions, like the radio listener who called in a comment to Colin Allen, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Indiana University’s Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior. “She wanted to tell me about how her cat had very gingerly brought in an injured bird to show her, as though to say, It’s hurt, please take care of it,” Dr. Allen said. “I suggested there might be other interpretations for her cat’s behavior.”

"Yes, we love our pets and anthropomorphize them to the point where we think our cat might enjoy wearing the mouse hat Halloween costume now on sale at Petsmart.com. And still we abandon difficult pets, and shelters euthanize some 10 million pets a year.

"I understand the ambivalence of the human-animal bond. I loved my cats, and I miss them, but I resent them, too, for showing me what a creature of small habits I am, and for reminding me that even love is not enough. Life, like the laundry, will always cool down."

The article gives helpful sources to tap for further reading. When our twin foundling kittens who grew up and became seventeen years of age, their inevitable death stunned me. Missing them was everything. The house was empty and sterile without them. No furry faces welcomed us home at the end of an outing. Their pictures on a shelf helped, but not enough Then two 15 week old rambunctious pitch-black kittens and a grey and white 18 month year old changed everything. Life came back again.

Sick Kitty Gets Holistic Vet Treatment

2007-10-01T13:46:00.001-05:00

A friend writes about the health of her cat. Kitty hadn't been eating, was listless, and when he did eat a little, he brought the food back up again. A visit to the vet emergency did little good, and so my last week my friend decided to take kitty to a local holistic vet. She reported as follows:

"Just thought I'd tell you that I went to see the holistic vet yesterday. A whole little world there--in that little town. Kind of interesting. The vet was a small, trim woman in her 40s, soft spoken and with a tendency to hum to herself. She runs the office entirely on her own, and our first appointment was an hour long. (Actually, it may have run a bit longer than that.) She spent the time sitting on the floor with my cat and gave him a typical hands-on examination and concluded that there could be as many as five or six possible diagnoses, none of which we could be exactly sure about without an endoscopy (which he can't have because of his heart disease). So we decided on a food change and some supplements designed to heal the stomach naturally. They won't interfere with his heart meds from the cardiologist and can't they hurt him in any way, so why not? She sent me a few doors down to an animal, natural food store to choose some organic, all-meat food. It's an animal complex in this little strip mall. There's dog training and doggy-daycare as well as the vet and the food store."

Thought I'd blog this in case someone would like to know that there are holistic vets out there who approach a sick animal's health problem a little differently. This particular vet often employs Chinese acupuncture techniques.

All-American Apple Pie

2007-09-30T14:01:00.000-05:00

We're not as young as we used to be. Seventy-six years or thereabouts was once considered "terribly old." My grandmother was 73 when she died and she seemed absolutely ancient, but she did understand that she couldn't do all the things she did when she was younger.

With today's science to help us, we live on and on......but if we expect (or are expected to) to do everything the same as we used to do there's no wonder women fall into their chairs in the evening and have a long nap.

Some spouses (not mine) on the other hand scale back if they feel like it and do the things they like to do best--even if it is sitting in a rocking chair most of the time. Or, if they are busy they often do the fun things--like writing that novel, painting that picture, or building something creative. Doing the laundry or serving up dinner doesn't appeal to them!

They still expect to have somebody else (little wifey) fix the breakfast, serve the coffee, come up with a tasty lunch, and finish off with a great dinner. When the little woman is finally carried off to the cemetery the neighbors rally round and help the helpless husband. My sister's husband can't even boil an egg! That's ridiculous. My cat could boil an egg.

When I purchased the other day a pair of frozen pie shells, spouse was shocked!!! "I like your home-made pie crust better," he said. But I said, okay, if you want a pie it will be made from these because making an apple pie takes time (peeling and cutting the apples, finding the spices, getting out the sugar, the rolling pin, etc. and making home-made pie crust takes even longer). He got my point. When the pie came out of the oven, the crust golden brown and tender, and the apples inside steaming away, it didn't take him long to cut a slice and declare it delicious.

So, we look for ways to give us more time to do the things we want to, like read a book, or write a letter, or take a walk.

Sometimes an old person has to make a decision between two loves-- baking bread and making jam, or making a painting. Not both. Well, you can buy jam and bread, but you can't buy your own original painting. And only the painting will remain for you to pass on to the next generation. (You can pass on recipes for bread and jam, but that's not the same!)

But if apple pie is what you do best and love to do, then do it. You will always be remembered and loved for it.

Not So Hot on Hillary!

2007-09-29T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'm not so hot on Hillary today! Shortly after I wrote my rave endorsement for her candidacy I watched the latest Democratic Candidates Debate on MSNBC. I kept in mind that she is preparing the ground for the time when she is the party's presidential candidate and will then have to present herself to the voters as the candidate of choice. In order to defeat her Republican opponent she will have to appear to be middle-of-the-road or even a bit rightist. In actuality, although her politics have no doubt mellowed since she was a flaming leftie student at Wellsley College, she remains a devoted Democrat.

But another problem haunts me, and that is her warlike stance--voting to allow George Bush to once again invade another country (Iran) if he feels like it. At least Hillary puts to rest the old saw that if women ran the world there would be no war. We have examples already of warlike women from Elizabeth I to Margaret Thatcher, in fact.

When Connie Schultz Came to Town

2007-09-28T21:20:00.000-05:00

Connie Schultz came to town yesterday to talk about her new book. She wowed an audience of over 400 people --mostly women it must be admitted--but there was also a fair sprinkling of members of the the male persuasion on hand as well.

Connie's visit was sponsored by the Medina Branch of the American Association of University Women (of which I can proudly say I'm a member) and the proceeds from ticket sales will go towards our permanent endowment fund aimed at providing university scholarships for non-traditional women students. Very generously, she donated her time to the cause. Because of the turnout, our fund has been much enhanced.

Although Connie is an admitted liberal Democrat her audience came out regardless of party. She was a fearless speaker: fearless about being a feminist in a post-feminist age, and fiercely proud of her working class parents who literally gave their lives to helping move their four children out of poverty and into professional careers.

Connie shared with us the some of the details of how her life has changed since her husband Sherrod Brown went to Congress this January as Ohio's new Senator. It was during his campaign for election that the idea for her book came into being.

. . . . And His Lovely Wife recounts her adventures on the road in support of her husband. At hundreds of meetings around the state she was invariably introduced from the platform as the candidate's lovely wife. As far as her own identity and successful career were concerned, they didn't appear to exist. Fortunately, her lack of ego combined with a sharp sense of humor and irony, play to her advantage in in her very wise and funny book--which may earn her a second Pulitzer Prize.

In 2005 Connie received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her first book, Life Happens : And Other Unavoidable Truths, a compilation of columns she had written over the years for The Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Pulitzer not only confers enormous prestige on the winner, but also on the paper she works for. Not many papers in the U.S. can field a Pulitzer winner, but here in Northeastern Ohio we benefit from her columns that tackle with wit and compassion the issues that beset us in today's difficult world.

In her talk Connie discussed many concerns including women and families, jobs, racism, health, and the war. She encouraged audience members to raise questions, and what ensued was a lengthy conversation between those in the seats and Connie on the stage.

These days, Connie's not so much a local girl. She travels abroad, participates in national conferences on journalism, and spends time in Washington, D.C. often mixing with the likes of Hilary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and other knowns and lesser knowns. (But come to think of it, in the question and answer period, no one asked her about Senator Larry Craig. Just as well, I guess).

Even Borders Bookstores benefited because afterward many people lined up to buy personally signed copies of Connie Schultz's books for permanent keepsakes of an evening well spent.

Stephanie Grant Duke

2007-09-26T09:01:00.000-05:00

I will vote for Hillary and I'll tell you why

I've made up my mind about Hillary. She's my choice. Why? I'll tell you:

First, I'm not swayed at all by skeletons in her closets like taking money from a guy who turns out to be a loony tunes ponzie schemer. Which one of the candidates is unflawed? I'm also unswayed because she's changed (or felt she had to change to be elected) her politics from idealistic left to pragmatic center Democrat. (She has to be in the center to get the votes.) And Ill be unmoved by any other flaws that may or may not come down her pike.

It's my last chance before leaving this earth to see the possibility of a woman president. It will take decades for another one to grasp the brass ring.

I want a woman president to represent me and all the sisters in this nation--black, brown, white, gay, young, old. I want to see a woman stand in front of the convention next summer and receive the cheers from an overflow gathering of Democrats. I want to hear her acceptance speech. I want to see her take the Presidential oath and then walk down Constitution Avenue in Washington with Bill beside her, or a teeney bit behind her. I want to see her send George W. Bush on his way out of the White House to oblivion or better still, to a trial in the World Court along with his cronies. I want to see the generals salute a woman as their Commander-in-Chief and I want to witness her walking into the Congress amid huge cheers that won't be quelled and getting up there on the podium for her first State of the Union address (followed over time by seven others).

Not much to ask, is it?

Interesting essay:

Is It Last Call Tonight For Obama And Edwards?

by jamesboyce

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/26/82321/0846

Ocicats

2007-09-24T22:33:00.000-05:00

On a cat blog the other day I saw some ocicats. So lovely.

They cost $500, and that makes me think their owners would be averse to letting them go outside for strolls. Sweet though they are, I won't be springing for an ocicat anytime soon. And anyway, our three commoners are just as precious even though they lack aristocratic lines. So we keep them inside, protected from hawks, traffic, coyotes, and anything else that would do them in.

James Wolcott, a lively intellect, began a blog post last week this way:

"Chill descended on Cape May last evening, the pre-dawn morning so nippy that our youngest ocicat, the personality-plus Veronica, batted at the covers until they were lifted, allowing her to scoot under them and bank herself against my back for warmth. I give off a lot of heat even when inert. We--"we" being my wife and I, Veronica and her two ocimates preferring to "sleep in"--rose early, the drop in temp coupled with northern winds indicating an auspicious morning for fall migration. Yesterday at the hawk watch there were merlins lancing the sky, an American bald eagle, cedar waxwings, etc., along with the scrappy advance scouts of the monarch butterfly migration set to arrive in legion force."

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/

Birds, Turner, and Diana

2007-09-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

This Saturday morning I'm looking at beautiful birds online and my favorite (I think) is the red-throated parrot finch, but they are all so beautiful. These photos are beyond beautiful. I think my favorite is the red-throated parrot finch, but it's really hard to choose.The article has orange-colored links to other bird watcher sites if you have the time. Oh, the miracle of the internet! I haven't learned yet the art of including links into my posts. In the meantime, you can copy and post links into Google.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/22/1221/34870

This morning, on The New Yorker Online, there's a terrific slide show of some of the paintings of J.M.W Turner (article discussing them and others by Simon Schama is there too). They are being exhibited at the moment at the National Gallery. One of the paintings is from the Cleveland Museum of Art--The Burning of the Houses of Commons and Lords. Turner did two versions. Both are in the show. What he did with color and light is out of this world.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/09/24/slideshow_070924_turner

I've just read The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown. It's a fantastic read because Brown has incredible access into the highest levels of the aristocracy. With all her insights plus her considerable intellect, her humor, and her advanced university degrees, and her wicked writing skills honed as editor of The New Yorker among others, she has produced a book that probably puts the others on the subject in the shade. I'm not a Diana fan, or a Royals fan, but the characters in the book and the events are part of British history now and that's what makes it interesting to me. Diana comes off in a much better light than Camilla (it's obvious Tina doesn't like her very much). One appealing aspect of Diana was her liking for being with the people who worked "downstairs." She loved to iron! Was never happier than when she was ironing friends' dresses or shirts, or washing their dishes, or tidying up. Tina's not too thrilled with Charles. The Queen she treats with respect, but the woman comes across as so entrenched in her role that all humanity seems to be absent. Anne's not a favorite either. Surprisingly, Paul Burrell comes off quite well in the book, but that may be because he dished stuff to Brown that hasn't appeared in his books.

Truth be told, because Brown renders all the characters in full dimensional detail, none of them come across as villains or saints. Other interesting "characters" are the stately homes of all the friends and relatives of Diana each of whom apparently lives in a country mansion each set upon thousands of acres of ground.

No wonder the rest of the British live in pokey flats or houses clustered close together on handkerchief-sized lots. The aristocracy still owns most of Engllish soil and many of them open them up to ticket-paying tourists. There's Althorp House, her family home, now a tourist attraction run by Diana's brother the Earl Spencer. It has a gorgeous website. Camilla has a nice country retreat at Raymill in Wilsthire. Pictures online show that it's a huge, castelated palace. Controversy surrounds it because British taxpayers have assumed its restoration.. To list the houses lived in by all the royals would be too exhausting. Suffice it to say that beyond Buckingham Palace there's Windsor for the weekends, Sandringham for Christmas, Balmoral for the summer, Clarence House for Charles and Camilla, Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh for Scottish official visits, and Kensington Palace with apartments for the "lesser" royals. . Anne has a home in the Cotswolds, Gatscombe Park. The lands surrounding it are so beautiful you would think she would wear a smile every day. Most of these places can be visited online.

The Domestic Manners of Americans

2007-09-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

If you haven't read Fanny Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans by all means do so. Fanny arrived in Cincinnati by riverboat in 1829 and stayed three years creating the city's first department store and keeping a journal. She brought three children, a starving artist, and two servants with her and was astonished when the servants preferred to stay in Ohio rather than return to London. The book was a best seller at home and here. Americans wanted to find out for themselves the extent of her waspish criticisms of their crude ways, and of course the English wanted confirmation that America was indeed that rough and rude country across the pond.

What's most important about the book are descriptions of Ohio when it was basically frontier country--all forests and streams, her means of travel (before the railroad), Washington, D.C., slavery, and the beautiful Niagara Falls--pristine and untouched by commerce (certainly no casinos). She raved about them. The thing she hated most about American society was that common, ordinary people were in charge. That was not the case in England where aristocracy ruled and everyone knew and stayed in their pre-ordained place.

From Amazon reviews
>
> Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.
>
> While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.
.

MoveOn.com

2007-09-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

Thank you Senator Sherrod Brown for voting against the resolution that targets and muzzles dissenting voices against the Iraq War. Stay strong for your Ohio Democrats. Move.on has a perfect right to speak its mind in behalf of the millions of Americans who are against the Iraq War.

As for Senator Voinovich, I will work as hard as I can here in Ohio to help replace you when it's your time for re-election. Your vote today in favor of the resolution was craven and shameful. Where were the voices and votes in the Senate when the Swiftboat team declared open season on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and when Max Cleland was viciously attacked by Republicans in his home state of George? It's time for all good Americans to wake up and repudiate the anti-democratic senators--twenty-two of whom were cowardly Democrats--who voted for this scurrilous resolution today.

Free at Last

2007-09-18T09:35:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we can read Frank Rich again for free.

Today The New York Times corrected a gross error--the one they made two years ago when they put their columnists and other reporters behind a wall they called TimesSelect and slapped an annual charge of over fifty dollars for the privilege of reading them. Well, they've discovered that the money they made from subscribers doesn't equal the money they've lost from advertisers.

So tonight at midnight (Septemner 19, 2007), the entire Times will be free.

Betray-Us, Betray-Us

2007-09-15T21:11:00.000-05:00

So much righteous steam steam has blown out of the media's outlets after Move-On had the nerve to suggest that General Petraeus has been "cooking the books" and is "at war with the facts." With their corporate blinders on the media criticizes Move-On for "embarrassing" the good general. But in truth, our cowardly media is betraying us just as surely as Petraeus and his Commander in Chief.

Petraeus the panderer, by saying what Bush wanted him to say or ordered him to say, has betrayed Americans at home and in Iraq. What his testimony last week basically told us is that he intends to keep our troops in Iraq for an indefinite future. We've devastated their country, killed and wounded over a million Iraqi people, and scattered millions more to the four winds. Displaced Iraqi young women are now working as prostitutes in Syria just to earn enough to keep families alive. Most Americans don't even know this because they don't like reading or hearing "unpleasant" news. We've planted dozens of huge military bases across Iraq and have just completed an obscenely humongous multi-billion-dollar American Embassy in Baghdad. With all that in place, of course we don't plan on leaving anytime soon. The billions of dollars going down the Iraqi drain could fund a universal health system here at home twice times over. We are horribly betrayed.

The International Association of Turtles

2007-09-14T15:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I bought a new wallet. Well, not quite new, but it's in fine condition, and I'm happy to have it. Its supple black leather gleamed at me from the shelf of our local hospice's thrift shop and when I picked it up it felt soft and buttery. It's a Rolf--once the aristocrat of wallets. They don't seem to make them like that any more. I like a wallet to have plenty of credit card pockets, a roomy section to keep my huge pile of dollar bills in, and an attached change purse, When my last one --found ten yeas ago at an Akron tag sale-- fell apart I was forced to replace it with a shoddy little plastic and environmentally harmful one from Target. Lacking pockets and having a mingy little change purse it still cost $8.00. So when I found the Rolf at the Medina hospice shop I speedily paid the $1 they asked for it, brought it home, got out some saddle soap and cleaned it up. It looks divine now.

Then I made a little discovery . I found the name of the previous owner on cards she'd tucked way inside. One is her certificate of voter registration for 1987, and the other, dated 1964, is a membership card for the International Association of Turtles, signed by the Imperial Turtle. This card carried the following command:

We assume all prospective turtles own a Jack Ass. On this assumption is the reason for the password. This password must be given if you are ever asked by a new member, "Are you a Turtle?" You MUST THEN REPLY, "You bet your sweet ass I am." If you do not give the password in full because of embarrassment or some other reason, you forfeit a beverage of his choice. So always remember the password.

Also listed are several riddles that are part of a member's initiation and all of them are surprisingly risque for 1964. I'll include them in another posting.

The name of the previous owner I'll keep to myself. She may be still living, and I'd hate to embarrass her. But the first name is Ruth. .

.

Perfect Symmetry

2007-09-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

Really something! Perfect symmetry. Al Qaeda assassinates today Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, the leader of the Anbar Province Sunnis --on the very day that Bush is going to tell the nation that things are improving in Iraq! Those cunning Iraqi insurgents. Bush has been touting this leader as a prime example of the new U.S. and Anbar Sunni truce. As a reward we've given them tons of money and guns. Somebody evidently didn't go for that kind of collaboration. and now the Sunni sheik is dust. This killing also happened a day after General Betray-us went to Congress and a day after a day after the memorials to Sept. 11. Oh those fiendish followers of Bin Ladin!
Every day a ghastly new chapter unfolds. When are Americans going to snap out of their perpetual snooze and demand a stop to all this and an impeachment of the president?.

Listen to Joe Biden

2007-09-09T16:10:00.000-05:00

"The truth of the matter," said Biden today, who just returned from Iraq, "is that this administration's policy and the surge are a failure."

Listen to Joe Biden. Just returned from another tour of Iraq the Delaware senator is telling it like it is, unlike all the other senators and representatives who've come home from Baghdad mindlessly burbling on about the "progress" being made there. Biden, in his small state, is more able to meet with ordinary people on the street and get an earful from them. He's not isolated in Washington, as so many of our Congress people are.

Even with the Great Decider and our censored media keeping the whole truth from us, and Bush still, even today, connecting untruthfully 9/11 to Iraq, we know we have sentenced Iraq to unremitting chaos, from Baghdad to Basra and all the way over to Anbar Province. You can tell by Biden's face on Meet the Press today that he's shocked by what he has seen in Iraq. We've failed, he said in so many words, and he says the only kind of government in Iraq that has a chance is de-centralized, local-controlled government, town by town, village by village--under a very loose federal umbrella.

I believe Doomsday will come before the secretarian leaders in Baghdad will accept some kind of rule by unity or cohesion. They are the spawn of 900 plus years of religious separation and hatred and are unable to change.

Dame Mickey

2007-09-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

Imagine Hollywood star Mickey Rooney, 86, cavorting onstage at the Sunderland Empire in Britain as a pantomime dame in Cinderella!

Londoners who want to see Mickey as an ugly sister will have a long distance journey ahead of them because the city of Sunderland is in the wildest, coldest, most windblown part of northeast England. . It should be worth it though because the Empire is historic and has been restored and is now in state-of-the-art.condition.

Rooney will be making his panto debut at the Empire beginning early December. His wife Jan will play the fairy godmother. Hope he stays in good health and wows those usually taciturn northerners.

From Wiki:

The dome on the 90ft tower featured a revolving sphere bearing the statue of Terpsichore, the Greek Muse of dance and choral song. These were removed during World War II for safety reasons, after a bomb which had fallen nearby rocked the building. The original statue is now located at the top of the main staircase, with a replica on the dome itself. The dome and tower have recently been refitted with a state-of-the-art LED and floodlight system that illuminates the main entrance in the evening.

For more information including description of the unique auditorium, go to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunderland_Empire_Theatre

Shown here are the Main Doors, with the secondary Stalls entrance to the left. The Box Office is located 20 yards down the street.
Sunderland Empire Theatre

City	Sunderland
Country	United Kingdom
Owned by	City of Sunderland Council
Capacity	2000
Opened	1 July 1907
Previous names	The Empire Palace

Richardson Stumbles

2007-09-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

Wonder how critiques like these will look when the primaries begin early next year. How many faux pas can a candidate make and still be considered viable? Here's Markos himself writing on Richardson's remarks yesterday.

More on Richardson

by kos

Tue Sep 04, 2007 at 10:02:41 AM PDT

In short, an RNN reporter asked Richardson if he would vote for the Iraq Supplemental that was about to come to a vote and had been dominating the news for days (if not weeks). His answer:

I'm just not familiar with the supplemental. Which one is that?

It was particularly unfortunate given that his overall answer to the question focused on a complete pullout from Iraq. Yet with that quote above he betrayed a shocking ignorance of the war debate and how it was playing out in DC, and the sort of weak political instincts that are mocked in this video. It's this ignorance of the current political climate that could explain why he's still using obsolete 90's-era, DLC-style, Democratic Party-bashing language when just about everyone else outside of the Bush Dogs has moved on. Perhaps that political tone deafness explains why his campaign's top aide has no problem going on Fox News to yuk it up with Ann Coulter.

Richardson is clearly a man of great accomplishment, the "CV candidate" of this election. But it's amazing how skills that have served him well at the congressional and state level, as well as on diplomatic missions, have served him so poorly on a national presidential stage.

Update: The campaign responds to Richardson's dreadful remarks about the Iowa caucuses (they're Constitutionally and Scripturally mandated), claiming it was a "bad joke".

Democratic Candidate: Who Shall I Choose?

2007-09-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on making up my mind on who to support among the Democratic presidential candidates. As a woman I would like to see a woman in the White House before I shuffle off this mortal coil, but that's not my whole consideration. I don't think the blogger jct on Daily Kos will mind my passing along his/her post today --not if it can assist voters as they study all the reasons why they should support one Democratic candidate over another. Some of these reasons are fluffy, and 3 and 10 are practically the same, but nevertheless a call to consider Edwards seriously is worth thinking about.

Top ten reasons I support Edwards

by jct

Sun Sep 02, 2007 at 05:57:21 AM PDT

For me it always comes back to Edwards, none of the other candidates come close. Here are my top 10 reasons for supporting him (in no particular order):

He is out front and strongly pro-labor. He mentions the need to strengthen unions in every speech at every stop. Bonior, a great friend of labor, is his campaign manager. Who a candidate surrounds him or herself with shows who they are.

He is out front and strongly against corporate power. He doesn't tiptoe around the issue by talking about how we have to tweak the rules, he calls it like it is.

[The system is] controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it's perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don't stand a chance.

jct's diary :: ::

His personal history shows he has always held these values. Coming out of law school he must have had his choice of jobs. In law school students are heavily steered towards corporate law. Instead, he chose to challenge the corporations on behalf of the average person.

He is personally very appealing and this counts big time. In the studies cited in "The Political Brain" by Drew Westen it is one of the top reasons voters choose a candidate.

He speaks to my heart when he talks about how America can be a leader in the world to help people. It answers a longing for the end of this nightmare of horrors being done in our name.

He is working harder than anyone to get the nomination, as shown by his much more frequent appearances in the early primary states than the other candidates. http://www.openleft.com/...

His health care plan offers a government program that gives people the option to have health care run for people not profit. Sure, I'd prefer single payer, but, this is the best being offered by anyone but Kucinich (who has a truckload of other problems).

He comes from a working class background.

Elizabeth Edwards. It tells you a lot about a man who he chooses as his wife.

Hey, if we have to look at someone's face for the next 4 (let's hope 8) years, let's have it be a handsome one.

So why do you all support Edwards?

Tags: John Edwards, 2008 elections, president, primaries, labor, unions, Recommended (all tags)

The Royal Ballet's Cinderella

2007-09-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

My goodness, August over and only one entry! How fast the month flew. Will September be better? Last night we watched Cinderella from Netflix, made in 1957 during the Royal Ballet's cross-country tour. . This was the late, great Frederick Ashton's version. Music distinctly Prokofiev. Ashton did the choreography and danced one of the ugly sisters--the short, shy one. Kenneth MacMillen did the tall skinny skapstick one. Both were glorious pantomime dames. NBC commissioned this special TV version to show off color, but it was preserved only in black and white, and grainy at that. But its quite the artifact now, accompanied by quaint commercials of the time period and a narrator's ghostly fifties voice. Margot Fonteyn looked so young and beautiful, but Michael Somes as Prince Charming showed how dull male dancers were pre-Nureyev.

Liked it so much I returned to the Netflix index for more Ashton and found his Tales of Beatrix Potter, which I've put at the top of my queue. In addition, there are loads of ballet films at Netflix.

Netflix description of The Tales of Beatrix Potter:

With Frederick Ashton's choreography, John Lanchbery's music and Reginald Mills' direction, the Royal Ballet Company brings the fascinating Beatrix Potter characters and stories to life. Jemima Puddle-Duck (Ann Howard), Hunca Munca (Lesley Collier), Squirrel Nutkin (Wayne Sleep), Jeremy Fisher (Michael Coleman), Peter Rabbit (Alexander Grant) and others grace the stage in this engaging collection of children's tales.

Dyed Hair Not Always a Picnic

2007-08-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Diary:

I dropped into the hairdresser's this morning to give Lori my stylist the photo of the wedding dress crocheted by Alex. in 1971. As I walked though the door with yesterday's brassy orange-red-gold hair gleaming in the sun, Lori gaped in horror from across the room "Give me five minutes and we'll do something," she said as she finished up a man in the chair. I sent Paul over to McDonald's to have a coffee and Lori got to work. She applied a toner--blue and violet she said--and after it cooked for a while she shampooed it away and behold, my head was almost back to normal--not quite--but so much better it seemed a miracle. I asked her to cut it shorter and that helped by ,removing some of it. Then she told me that the entire staff had gone on a picnic yesterday to a local private park. They had won first prize in their Presidential (Bet Cuts) contest for best salon of the year. A substitute staff was working in their place, culled from other Best Cuts locations, . No wonder I didn't recognize any of them including the woman who tinted my hair--and she did try to her best to rectify the problem. Trouble was it didn't make much difference. The effect looked as if a bright reddish-brown feather duster had landed on my head. Lori, however, knew what to do. Moral of the story is, don't jump impulsively into a situation that could easily backfire on you.

Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

2007-08-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

Dear Diary:

Such a horrifying disaster in Minneapolis. When I heard about it I thought, oh no, not another bridge disaster. They seem to happen once in a generation. It's the realization of bad dreams experienced by many of us who never feel comfortable crossing large spans.

I've been impressed by the city's very competent officials as they discuss the latest details on television, and we're also hearing about how much help they're getting from volunteers. They all exhibit the right Minnesota stuff as exemplified in the writings of Garrison Keillor.

There's a bridge in Canada that gives me the willies every time we cross it. It's the Burlington Bridge and goes way high over water near Hamilton. Here it is and it is a beauty, but to cross it you have to drive up a very high and long ramp--like climbing up into the sky.

I found a good picture of the Burlington but I don't yet know how to insert photos here. Must learn.

Bridge disasters have taken on a mythology of their own. One of the most famous is the Tay Bridge Disaster near Dundee in Scotland in 1879. The bridge fell during a violent hurricane and an entire train fell into the river Tay estuary taking 90 victims to their deaths still in their railway cars. This was a new bridge, over two miles long, and was opened with lots of hoopla as one of the great structures of the Victorian age. It lasted about a year

Oddles of websites. The attached shows how the media told the story in 1880. Surprisingly similar in spite of having to use drawings instead of photography/. Here's the link:

http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/disaster/main.htm.

A bad poet wrote an epic poem. Here are the first lines:

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

Then there's The Bridge at St. Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. But that's fiction.
Alas! I am very sorry to say

A Poem I Liked Today

2007-08-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

HANDS

She peels cod fillets off the slab,
dips them in batter, drops them
one by one into the storm of hot fat.
I watch her scrubbed hands,
elegant at the work,

and think of the hands of the midwife,
stroking wet hair from my face as I sobbed and cursed,
calling me sweetheart and wheelling in more gas,
hauling out at last my slippery fish of a son.
He was all silence and milky blue. She took him away
and brought him back breathing,
wrapped in a white sheet. By then
I loved her like my own mother.

I stand here speechless in the steam and batter,
as she makes hospital corners of my hot paper parcel..

Jean Sprackland
The New Yorker, July 9 & 16, 2007

I turned to Poetry Archive.com. for information about Sprackland and and learned this:
Born 1962, she is the author of two books of poems and a collection of short stories, and has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Whitbread Prize and the T. S. Eliot prize. She was chosen as a Next Generation Poet in 2004.

There is an attention through Sprackland's work to the spark of mystery left in what we have allowed to seem domestic or ordinary.

She is a native of Burton on Trent, England.

Horrible Bush/Brown Press Conference

2007-08-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

Horrors. I just watched a YouTube playback of yesterday's Bush /Brown press conference. Downright embarrassing--Brown answering questions directly and crisply and that fool Bush looking for all the world like an unprepared high school student trying to answer an oral exam question with reams of B.S. and ending by charmingly asking, "What was the question?" Everyone, including Brown and the press ignored once again the lack of the Emperor's new clothes. Bush in his rambling answers once again made up his own words (eg. suiciders), lectured us that his job is "hard work," managed to insult the Scottish people with stupid Scots jokes, and picked on one newsman for having a bald head. Ha. Ha. Very funny.
You can see this travesty on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKEwkdBVErg&NR=1
But have a barf bowl at the ready.

Remembering Ingmar Bergman

2007-07-31T15:37:00.000-05:00

I must comment on Ingmar Bergman too. I feel I own a piece of him , even if the plots in his "art" films were sometimes dark and deep and full of symbolism and his characters' motivations were obscure and often perverse.When we were young and impressionable his movies made us feel grown up and intellectual, and so what if we couldn't always figure out what was going on in them, we knew we weren't in Hollywood anymore.

Now Ingmar is dead and everywhere you look today online, on TV, and in the papers, Woody Allen and everyone else is remembering him. On an international scale he is being recognized for the greatness of his achievements. .Only the death of a reigning monarch or national ruler could surpass in volume all the reports, stories, reminiscences, pictures, and praise for the Swedish maker of films who left us at the age of 88.

Out there in the blogosphere thousands are debating the contributions Bergman made to film as an art--some are denigrating his emphasis on the dark side of human nature. But Bergman didn't make only dark and deeply symbolic movies. Could anyone else have brought off his beautiful version of The Magic Flute--all color and lightness of spirit? Mozart would have loved it. Most often recalled today has been The Virgin Spring.

I was struck by how many commented on their first encounter with a Bergman film, recalling where they saw it (for the most part in little ratty art houses back in the sixties). For us to see a Bergman picture back in the sixties meant schlepping across town to the grubby little art cinema on Cuyahoga Falls.

Netflilx makes available many of Bergman's best films including Torment, a picture made so early in his career that he only wrote the screen play. Somebody else directed. In it are the themes that will follow in many of his later pictures: tormented characters caught up in traps of good vs. evil, symbolism, class struggle, young vs. old, revenge. The plot is simple. Virginal high school boy on the verge of graduation falls for a woman in town who is not as good as she should be, only to find that his malicious schoolmaster has already ensnared the girl , setting her up as his mistress. Since the teacher has the power to make or break the student (exam results, etc.) the boy finds himself out of his depth. Tragedy ensues. Today it's remembered for turning unknown Mai Zetterling into a star. In her older years she too became a director.

I read today that Bergman had no delusions about life after death. In the final analysis his life satisfied him and he said he was content with that.

Tomorrow we'll get out the tape of Fanny and Alexander and play it once again.
For more on Bergman go to Wikipedia

"The Economist" Recommends a New Book on India

2007-07-21T18:28:00.000-05:00

Toward the end of Ghandi, the movie, there was some coverage of the partition of India in 1947. We can be forgiven for not having paid much attention to the breaking up of a sub-continent along religious and ethnic lines--Muslims forcibly removed to the newly created East and West Pakistan and Indians keeping the rest--we were too young to take it in. The Atlee govt. was in charge then, but partition would have happened whatever the government. Also, by 1948 other distractions got in the way as the creation of the new state of Israel got under way.

The Economist recommends a new book: The Partition of India: The Unruly End of Empire by Yasmin Kahn. Parallels can be drawn with Iraq, especially the atrocious lack of understanding of history, religion and culture and absence of imagination or planning for possible unforeseen disaster. Nobody it appears learns from history--especially our so-called leaders. Vis a vis Iraq today. It's also worth considering that one of the unforeseen disasters is playing out today with killer terrorists from Pakistan striking at Britain's very heart.

Here' are a couple of tasty bites from the Economist articls:

The decision to divide India on religious lines was taken with regret but little foreboding and carried out with outrageous haste and unconcern by the British government and its viceroy in India, Lord Mountbatten. Asked by a journalist if he foresaw any mass transfer of population, Mountbatten said, “Personally I don't see it...Some measure of transfer will come about in a natural way...perhaps governments will transfer populations.”

The announcement that India was to be partitioned and independence would follow not less than a year later was made in the House of Commons on June 3rd 1947. By August 15th the British were gone. They accepted no responsibility for the carnage that was taking place and they refused to allow the British troops still in India to keep order or protect people.

http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9507188

"Power of Art" with Simon Schama

2007-07-17T08:53:00.000-05:00

Simon Schama's "Power of Art" on PBS is worth watching, and I did last night. Now I wish I hadn't missed the episodes that came before it. Schama knocks the socks off with his powerful observations, discussing wittily in each episode mainly one work by one great painter (he also looks briefly at their other work.) Last night he focused on David's "The Death of Marat," a choice that gave him lots of room to discuss some of the madness of the French Revolution (on which he earlier wrote an entirely readable book, Citizens. [I'd love to hear him comment on David's "Cupid and Psyche" at the Cleveland Museum.]

Sadly I've missed his comments on Picasso, Caravaggio, and others. But now I'm looking forward to what he has to say next week about Turner's "Slave Ship: Typhoon Coming on" which he characteristically says is the greatest English painting of the 19th century. As he said, it's all about killing slaves.

Below is a snippet from a Times review of the show. The reference to The History Boys reminds me that that's a movie worth seeing--it's at Netflix

Simon Schama justifies the title of his series by showing how these artists transformed and transcended their times; he rests his case with “Guernica.” That painting shatters even the thickest complacency and breaks what he calls “the habit of taking violent evil in our stride.”

Mr. Schama is a passionate and persuasive docent.

“Power of Art” succeeds not because of the power of the chosen masterpieces but because Mr. Schama masterfully weaves engaging mysteries around each artwork. And he walks and talks viewers through it all in a “History Boys” style that is so chatty and disarming that even the flintiest museumphobe wants to stick around to find out what happened next.

“Yeah, right, led astray were you?” Mr. Schama says with dripping sarcasm to Jacques-Louis David’s highly flattering 1794 self-portrait, which Mr. Schama explains was David’s attempt to airbrush out his culpability in the Terror of the French Revolution. “Just doing your job? I don’t think so.”

The series begins with two episodes shown back to back, on van Gogh and Picasso. It is understandable but unfortunate that Mr. Schama opens with the two most famous artists. It’s the less familiar stories that he tells best, from David’s agitprop to the Rothko murals that were commissioned by the Seagram Company to hang in the Four Seasons restaurant, but ended up in London instead.

Mr. Schama explains, with great gusto, that Rothko only belatedly understood that those great works would fade in the background décor, ignored by plutocrats gorging on foie gras and sole meunière. “Anybody who would eat that kind of food, for that kind of money,” an actor playing Rothko says on the phone before slamming down the receiver, “will never look at a painting of mine.”

The van Gogh segment opens with his suicide in 1890, soon after painting one of his greatest works, “Wheat Field With Crows,” which Mr. Schama describes as “the painting that begins modern art.”

But Mr. Schama can also be boyishly irreverent about genius. He characterizes van Gogh, a maniacal bookworm, as “the scary one who’ll buttonhole you in the parlor and bang on and on about George Eliot and Dickens, and you’ll be backing off from the awful pong.”

Picasso’s tale begins in his Paris studio in 1941, with the image of jackboots stomping up a staircase. Mr. Schama recounts the story, perhaps apocryphal, of a Nazi who barged in and poked around, picking up a postcard-size reproduction of “Guernica.”

The German officer said, “Did you do this?” Picasso replied, “Oh, no, you did.”

Mr. Schama ends the segment with another anecdote, describing the moment in 2003 when Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, went to the United Nations to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein, and United Nations officials covered the tapestry version of “Guernica” with a large blue cloth, concerned that Picasso’s dead children, weeping mothers and screaming horses might clash with Mr. Powell’s message.

Mr. Schama says this is proof that art has a power that even a superpower cannot defuse. “You’re the mightiest country in the world, you can throw your armies around, you can get rid of dictators,” he says. “But, hey, don’t tangle with a masterpiece.”

SIMON SCHAMA’S POWER OF ART

Tonight on most PBS stations (check local listings).

Basil Comely, BBC, and Margaret Smilow, WNET, executive producers; Clare Beavan, BBC, series producer; Kristin Lovejoy and Junko Tsunashima, supervising producers for Thirteen Culture and Arts; Bill O’Donnell, director of program development. Simon Schama, writer and host. Produced by WNET, New York, and the BBC.

The Illusionist

2007-07-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

Recommended: The Illusionist on DVD. Time: early 20th century. Plot: involves a fictional Crown Prince Leopold played by Rufus Sewell, a police inspector played by Paul Giamatti, and Eisenheim the illusionist superbly performed by Edward Norton ( he's a dead ringer for assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand --at least in the picture of the duke in Wikipedia} Conflict arises when Eisenheim becomes the toast of Vienna because of his astounding illusions. Many parallels to history including the female lead named Sophia. The name of the real Archduchess was Sophia.

Michael Moore Takes On Wolf Blitzer

2007-07-10T07:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on CNN an amazing thing happened. Michael Moore appeared on The Situation Room and for ten minutes excoriated CNN and Wolf Blitzer for their biased coverage of Sicko--and for their earlier mindless cheer leading for the war. Moore was preceded by a slanted set-up piece by their mealy-mouthed medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta who, for whatever reason you want to think of, accused Moore of fabricating stuff and more or less lying. But Sicko is making people think coast. Resentment builds that Americans are held hostage by the special interests who will fight to the death to prevent us from having what all other western countries have--health insurance. If just one child or adult dies because of lack of coverage, well, shame on us. Tragically, though, the numbers are in the thousands.

For Moore and Wolf Blitzer go to link:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/9/175344/8323

Meanwhile...

2007-06-24T06:51:00.000-05:00

James Wolcott puts the news in proper perspective:

"Gee, I hope they find that "missing pregnant mom" soon, otherwise we'll never find out how the war in Iraq turns out. . Every available set of expert eyeballs is required to resolve this case before America goes mad with apprehension.

"Update: With the somber discovery of the victim's body, the cable-news reporters are diving into the depths of every puddle of information. "You didn't know Jessie but you saw her at church--what was she like?" asked one sob sister. Fox News host Julie Banderas was on her righteous steed, as if she possessed a 360-degree 3-D perspective on the case and was irate that fate had dared to defy her promonitory hindsight and allow the accused killer to coach kids' soccer. Meanwhile...

James Wolcott
June 23, 2007,

On Harriet Beecher Stowe Biography: Snippets from Carol

2007-06-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

My friend Carol emails to tell me what she did on her recent visit to Hartford, Connecticut.

"We did have a good time. [Visiting in Connecticut] Betty Cary at 88 is doing amazingly well. She went with us to Hartford Athenaeum and to Litchfield and Watertown. Connecticut is beautiful and rich with our country's history. I've returned with a bio of Harriet Beecher Stowe to read and one of her late works - Poganuc People. She was born and educated in Litchfield and was a teacher and advocate for women's education that eventually led to abolition and women's franchise. Early 18th C. was an exciting time in America - and in England, too. We drove around Hartford Retreat (now called the Institute for Living), grounds designed by Olmsted, who would eventually die there. The Retreat was modeled after an institution in England that pioneered in humane treatment for the insane."....

"Although the book has some delightful high points, I wouldn't recommend it for the book group. It devotes 4 rather tedious chapters to the details of female education and the administration of female academies in Litchfield, Hartford and Cincinnati run by her sister Catherine. There are some other quotes I'd love to share with you when I find time to type them out. The chapter on her marriage endorses what Trollope said about the difficulty of finding servants and time to write (which Harriet - and likely Frances - were doing for income while caring for babies.) They came thick and fast, 7 altogether, for H. and Calvin. Their method of birth control was periodic separations!

"In "Poganuc People" a memoir of her childhood written late in life, she talks about servants, the only people who had time for her in the busy parsonage, also crammed with babies. Servants refused to enter by the back door, though it may have been more convenient. They also refused to answer to a bell. They must be verbally summoned, if only by a child. Nabby, the servant in question, said she felt not only as good as the ladies, but superior, because she was paid a dollar a week and they got nothing!"

"Here's a quote from Joan D. Hedrick's Harriet Beecher Stowe that I enjoyed and laboriously typed rather than struggle withh my scanner:

"In England, he [Calvin Stowe, newly married to Harriet, who could not go on the trip with him because she immediately got pregnant] displayed a confident American perspective on British institutions, and had his revenge on Frances Trollope. He had no awe for the House of Lords, filled with what looked to him like "a parcel of old gracious grannies". "I wish you could have seen some of those old withered up, spindle-shanked, baboon faced specimens of humanity, with their big white perukes and long black robes noble lording one another." He preferred Shrewsbury on market day, where he entertained himself by observing the "whims and oddities" of the common people. Wherever he went he recorded for Harriet's enjoyment the accents that he heard about him."

Carol

Literature is Better Than Holy Texts Says Hitchens

2007-06-23T08:59:00.000-05:00

Mr. Hitchens makes a passionate case against organized religion as well as theocratic, fundamentalist states. He writes that "religion is not unlike racism." "Literature is a better source of ethics and a better source of reflection than our holy texts," he says. "People should read George Eliot, Dostoyevsky and Proust for moral leadership."

Quote from Huffington Post today.

Christopher Hitchens' new book, God is Not Great, has become a runaway best-seller to the surprise of himself and his obsucre publisher.

Away From Her

2007-06-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

Julie Christie makes a stunning comeback to the movies in the recent Canadian film, Away From Her. In the mellow beauty of her 67 years she plays a woman beset by Alzheimer's. Gordon Pinsett, one of Canada's most revered actors, plays the husband who must face up to the gradual loss of his wife. A plot such as this would seem unlikely to tempt customers to plunk down six dollars for a matinee ticket. Why choose to sink into the misery of others? But this is not the case. Wit and irony help keep our heads above water, together with the sympathetic treatment the story receives from the writer, director, and the actors,

I think Alice Munro would like this adaptation of her short story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." At least, I hope so. The film makers changed the title to "Away From Her," and for the sake of plot development added a few extra elements. But in all the important ways the film remains faithful to Alice Munro. In fact, Christie who plays Fiona, a woman married to the same man for over forty years at the beginning of the story even looks a little like Alice, a beautiful woman in her own right.

The story, so relevant for our time, follows the disintegration of a marriage--not because of infidelity or boredom but because of a slow but relentless disease.

Julie Christie is a revelation in this movie. My only memory of her before was her role as Lara in Dr. Zhivago where she seemed as inexpressive as a statue--a beautiful one, but unmoving nevertheless. But this picture demands an actor who can act, and and she gives a riveting performance. Nowadays, with lines etched upon her face, she is more beautiful than ever. Her Fiona is a woman in whom humor and pathos are blended with a brave desire to save herself and her marriage. Fiona answers her doctors questions (designed to diagnose her disease) with wit and dignity, but also on a solo ski jaunt across familiar territory loses her way and ends up lost and confused on a highway near her home.

We learn that the marriage has not been completely ideal. Grant has indulged himself in a few dalliances over the years and while Fiona knew this, she has kept it to herself. The role of the husband has been enlarged somewhat, and in Pinsett's fine performance we see a man in whom remorse and sorrow live together on a day to day basis. Soon after Fiona is placed in the Meadowlake Nursing Home she devotes all her time to a fellow resident and no longer remembers her husband or who he is. One can't help wondering whether Fiona, at some level, is paying Grant back for his former infidelities. In a typical Alice Munro twist, Grant gradually forms a relationship with Marian (expertly played by Olympia Dukakis) , the wife of the man Fiona is now devoted to. Dramatically unlike Fiona-- some would describe Marian as "common"-- but the sorrow she and Grant share helps them both move on.

The film is enjoyable on many levels, including the photography, background music, and the beautiful landscape of western Ontario. The camera lingers over the wide fields of grain framed by dense woods in summer, and the ice and snow of a lake in winter near Fiona's home. Knitting is featured too in the hand-made scarves worn by the characters and the afghans and shawls swathing the furniture in Fiona's living room. The views of life in a nursing home are particularly instructive. Meadowlake is obviously upscale and staffed by caring professionals. But the institutional life is clearly evident--one that's run on business lines and often petty rules.

I was particularly tuned into the sound of the film because Sonia's friend's daughter was responsible for it. Jane Tattersall of Tattersall Sound of Toronto did the sound work that added a sharp reality to a work of fiction. In fact the crew of Away From Her is dominated by women, including the director, producers, and others. Sarah Polley who directed it acted in the notable film, "My Sweet Hereafter."

The film won't stay long at the Montrose Cinema, but thanks to them we do see out-of-the-mainstream movies once in a while. I was amazed to see they are now running a French film!! Mon Dieu! The Valet. Look it up. It sounds promising.

Sparrows, Meadowlarks, and Bobwhites Are Disappearing in the Millions

2007-06-19T21:02:00.000-05:00

Millions of sparrows, meadowlarks, bobwhites, grackles, and other common species of birds have gone missing in these United States. The Audabon Society has announced this and the Times reported it today. It's true when you think about it that we no longer in Grangerburg hear the sweet sound of the bob white or see the occasional pheasant poking in the brush. Grackles I never liked, but now they've gone missing I grieve for their loss. First the bees, and now the birds are leaving us. Soon we will awaken to silence instead of to the lilting sounds of birdsong in the trees. Factory agriculture and sprawling developments and poisoned air are some of the reasons for our bird loss. The 21st century is turning out not to be that glimmering future we once thought was in store for us.

For the Times article, "Millions of Birds Missing in Plain Sight go to : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/opinion/19tue4.html

The Famous Stage Lupinos

2007-06-19T07:41:00.000-05:00

Remember Ida Lupino? She's Turner Classic Movies' star of the month which means they're trotting out a lot of her pictures. Apparently she got the parts at Warner that Bette Davis couldn't or wouldn't take. I've seen a couple so far and think she's better than Davis who compromised her roles with performances that were too mannered. "They Drive By Night" has Ida playing a wicked temptress who seduces humble truck driver George Raft (playing against type). Ida did some acting in England as a child and then Hollywood beckoned. Her career also included television acting and directing. She moved comfortably between British and American accents.

Ida's father was Stanley Lupino a famous pantomime star in England and Lupino Lane, her uncle, was an equally famous music hall star. An earlier Italian Lupino forebear who excelled in comedia dell 'arte introduced stage puppets to England. [Thank you Wikipedia].

Here's what the New York Times says about her today: (Ida's "Italian family" had lived in Britain for 200
years! )

"8 P.M. (TCM) ON DANGEROUS GROUND Ida Lupino, born into an Italian theater family, acted in films steadily from the age of 13 and in the 1950s was one of the few female directors working in Hollywood. Turner Classic Movies is paying tribute to this actress, director, writer and producer throughout June; tonight a series of her performances will be showcased, starting with this 1952 drama about a police detective (Robert Ryan) who helps a blind girl (Ms. Lupino, above with Mr. Ryan) whose brother has been murdered. Next, at 9:30 p.m., is “While the City Sleeps” (1956); at 11:15 p.m. Ms. Lupino plays a widow terrorized by a deranged handyman in “Beware, My Lovely” (1952); and at 12:45 a.m. comes “Ladies in Retirement” (1941), an understated thriller about women living on the moors."

The Latest on the Royals

2007-06-15T07:57:00.000-05:00

This evening we saw an expanded version of Matt Lauer's chat with the two princes at Clarence House, their very own palace in London. It boggles the mind that not only do princes still exist in the 21st century but that they are taken seriously--at least by some. A few things struck me as I watched. They were candid about their feelings for their mother, antagonistic toward the media, and they spoke with a singular lack of aristocratic accent. In doing so, are they rejecting the familiar "posh" Oxford English speech patterns of the royal family? Instead they speak in what the Brits call "Estuary English" a London dialect that is not directly cockney but has some elements of it including the glottal stop. This probably has come about because of the two boys' immersion in pop culture from which many of their friends and acquaintances come. Elizabeth's narrow circle of courtiers and her grandsons' wider milieu make an interesting contrast. Impossible to think of Elizabeth before she married haunting nightclubs, falling into gutters, or attending university for that matter.

Also of interest during the interview was Matt Lauer's casual style. Where a British reporter would have at the very least addressed the boys as "Sir," Matt called them "William" and "Harry.," and even at one point, "you guys." as in "You guys will be famous for life? How do you live with that?" The explanation for this informality is simple. Will and Harry may be the lords of all creation in Britain. But in democratic America where the royal family was thrown over nearly 220 years ago deference is earned not given away.

Perhaps when the Queen passes on we'll see the end of god-like royals There's something very godlike about the way she goes about her business and appears to the public-- and the way they respond to her. She mustn't be touched by lower mortals, or spoken to first, and they must back out of her presence. She never speaks candidly in public or even talks informally. Charles during his short reign will probably try to continue the tradition because he will take his divine anointing very seriously, but it's hard to imagine William carrying on as a god. .

The Tyrany of Gardening Implements

2007-05-29T07:28:00.000-05:00

Why is it that when adversity strikes, more of it comes to bash you over the head? With Paul not only still recuperating from the lung surgery followed by a whacking great pneumonia that has rendered him so weak and physically unable that he's almost lost interest in even looking out of the window to see the grass growing taller and the weeds spreading and winding around everything, then this is the time that the things I depend on to put our yard in order decide to give up the ghost too. First the ride-around mower spooks a front wheel--wobbly and a flat tire--then the dependable little upright mower that always works when the ride-around gets temperamental gets a hole in its gas tank, forces me to use duct tape to repair a loose handle, and then finally grinds to a halt and dies. It's now up to me to come up with the right approach to these mysteries. I call Sears and renew the ride-around's warranty for another year and make a repairman appointment--he can't come for ten days!. Next I visit the local Sears and buy a new upright. and Wendy transports it home for me in her pickup. But it won't work properly. It scrapes the ground, stops at the smallest bumps, and throws grass in clumps. I wait a couple of days. The grass grows longer. Phil and Kim return from their Memorial Day camp and save the day. They raise the wheels on the mower, show me how to convert it from mulching to regular, and are furious with the salesman at Sears for not explaining how the mower should work. As quick as a wink, P and K were all over the grounds, Kim mowing, Phil weed-whacking, while I make coffee and ice-cream waffles to refresh them. This morning I have what we call the field and the orchard left to mow and weed whack, and I think it will be a pleasure. Hope so.

Bush Embarrasses Blair

2007-05-18T07:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday George Bush in his awful retarded way tried with his limited vocabulary to defend Tony Blair against criticism at their final press conference Instead of looking happy while receiving praise, Tony looked as if he wished the floor would open up and enclose him. An embarrassed grin was plastered to his face. One of the comments I read just about sums up the awful truth about George Bush's crimes against humanity and the moment in history we are in:

"You start to think that surely all of these remarks critical of George are nothing but partisan hyperbole. Then you watch the clip...oh god...this is the kind shallow bullying cretin you would petition the school board to remove as the coach of the junior high football team. George's utter lack of presence )much less charisma), woefully inadequate speaking skills and rudimentary vocabulary always bring me up short. ...[This] shallow, mean spirited and inarticulate buffoon who routinely lies, betrays colleagues, bombs civilian populations, fixes elections, spies on the citizenry, disdains the constitution (it's just a god damn piece of paper"), went AWOL and avoided combat, guts essential social and environmental programs, censors and suppresses science, tried to make a glorified law clerk a supreme court justice...and on and on -- IMPEACH THIS CRIMINAL AND FRAUD NOW!"

Some Snark on the GOP Debate Last Night

2007-05-16T09:06:00.000-05:00

I was watching House (a new episode about a 16 year old genius) and so did not see the second GOP debate. Here are some snippets from Digby who did watch:

"It was quite interesting watching the Republicans debate down in South Carolina tonight. ... . These guys have just spent the last fifteen minutes of the debate trying to top each other on just how much torture they are willing to inflict. They sound like a bunch of psychotic 12 year olds.

" The biggest applause lines were for faux tough guy Giuliani demanding Ron Paul take back his assertion that the terrorists don't hate us for our freedom, macho man Huckabee talking about Edwards in a beauty parlor and the manly hunk Romney saying that he wants to double the number of prisoners in Guantanamo "where they can't get lawyers." There's very little energy for that girly talk about Jesus or "the culture of life" or any of that BS that the pansy Bush ran ran on. (Brownback's position, forcing 14 year old girls who've been raped by their fathers to bear their own sibling, will have to suffice for the compassionate "life" crowd tonight.)

"John McCain is the only adult on that stage and that scares the living hell out of me considering that he's half nuts too. Wow.

"I think Rudy won it. These people don't care if he's wearing a teddy under his suit and sleeping with the family schnauzer as long as he promises to spill as much blood as possible."

[For the full column go to Digy's Hullabaloo blog]

Five Dead, Three Missing

2007-05-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

Sat May 12, 2007 at 07:05:08 AM PDT
From The Daily Kos

The escalation continues:

Seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi army interpreter came under attack Saturday morning during a patrol of a Sunni insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, leaving five dead and three missing, the military said.today.

Troops who arrived later found five of the soldiers dead. The other three members of the patrol were gone, according to the statement, from Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.

Thoughts or prayers, whatever your preference, for those missing men and their families.

Seventy-five women soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far.

U.S. troops killed since the escalation began: 265

Willie Nelson for Secretary of State?

2007-05-12T09:13:00.000-05:00

A clip from Welcome to Pottersville [ http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/]

"From his endless faux pas to the deliberate alienation and inevitable guilt-by-association suffered by our allies, George W. Bush has proved to be America’s Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the presidential candidates of both parties had better give some serious, pre-emptive thought as to how to go about repairing these crucial international relationships should they get elected.

"Last Monday’s Marx Brothers night at the opera with QE II was a mild but classic example. On top of praising a figurehead monarch for her “leadership” in our trying times and getting her age wrong by a century and a half either accidentally or deliberately, Bush didn’t even think a rare visit from the Queen of England herself merited a white tie and tails. If one had a flair for the poetic, they could easily see in the crowned Queen a Lady Liberty extremely aged and wearied by this administration.

"The new and official 43rd president, especially if s/he is a Democrat, will have to deal not only with wary and alienated allies and tyrants expectant of the same deferential treatment but also equally wary right wing nut jobs like John Howard, Canada’s Stephen Harper, Mexico’s Calderon and now France’s Sarkozy.

"Add to the mix Iran’s and Iraq’s leadership, Hugo Chavez and other avowed enemies made during Bush’s reign of error (to borrow a phrase from Krugman) and it’s easy to see that the next president won’t have as many ready-made friends in the international community. Obviously, the incoming administration had better choose a kickass Secretary of State, someone with the knowledge of a Kissinger, the wisdom of King Solomon and the likeability of a Willie Nelson."

Richard Price to Terry Gross

2007-05-11T15:53:00.000-05:00

On the car radio as I did my shopping rounds in Montrose, Richard Price was talking about his life as a novelist to Terry Gross on "Fresh Air." The conversation was already under way but what I heard made me think, "Why haven't I read any of his books? The announcer said at the end that the program had been recorded years ago and was included in a celebration marking the 20th anniversary of Terry's gift to radio, her always fresh and astute interviews on "Fresh Air." Price said in growing up in the Bronx, he knew only Catholics, Jews and Italians and until he went to college he had never met anybody from the Midwest, never met a WASP person. In the Bronx he was a rare specimen--a kid who grew up and went to college. It changed his life, transformed him, and made him desperate to become a writer. Noting that a writer's best subject is what he knows best, he knew he had to put down his early life on the Bronx's mean streets. "But what could I say, after Philip Roth?" he said. He had a point. What more could he say about growing up that Roth hasn't said already about life in New Jersey in 1942 in The Plot Against America? What he did also say though was that he always knew he would be an artist and that he knew that he could not go through life undistinguished.

An Operation at the Cleveland Clinic

2007-04-25T13:34:00.000-05:00

Paul's surgery for lung cancer at the Cleveland Clinic has left me neglecting this "dear diary." He is home now and what follows is the initial writeup I did.

Good Recovery for Paul After Lung Cancer Surgery

Paul is showing a very good recovery today after undergoing four hours' surgery at the Cleveland Clinic yesterday. This morning his color was good and he chatted with Philip, Kim, and me quite readily. He asked me to print off crossword puzzles and bring them along next. This afternoon they removed him from the ICU to a room up on the ninth floor in the thoracic step-down constant nursing unit . There they will re-introduce him to getting back on his feet.
He had in effect two procedures. The first surveyed the lymph nodes in his right lung. Fortunately, they were fine. The second op opened his chest, spread apart the ribs, and removed the cancerous growth at the periphery of the left lung. In doing so, they took only ten percent-of the lung--a good outcome. Phil and Wendy spent most of the day with me yesterday and P and Kim visited this morning. We're very happy with the way things are going right now.
Because the Cleveland Clinic campus is so large I did a lot of walking yesterday and today--and don't feel any the worse for it, either! Last evening when I walked in front of the lobby of the Inter-Continental Hotel, I saw a group of people surrounding an elderly middle-eastern couple who were climbing into a large, black European-looking car. They looked very regal. (A lot of gold glistened about them). One chap in a long, black raincoat stepped menacingly toward me--a bodyguard I guess.
I fell into bed gratefully last night in the Guest House. License plates on cars in the lot came from nearly every state in the union, and while waiting around yesterday I talked with people from San Francisco, Idaho, Kentucky and places in between. I thought, well, Cleveland is a gloomy town much of the time, and the weather is nothing to write home about, but we have the Clinic right here--and that's worth a thousand blessings.
The TV in my room brought in Abu Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait--and a Syrian movie was playing on another channel.
A cousin, whose wife is recovering from a cancer removal under excellent British National Health care, expressed the following sentiments in an email today:-
"We have found that talking about the illness somehow lessens its bogeyman severity. Forgive me for doing so when you have your own concerns. "

(Thank you David. I agree and I think we share some of the same verbal genes).

A Hint of Green Thinking?

2007-04-15T07:20:00.000-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal a hint of green thinking among that newspaper's dinosaurs:

Latest Gourmet Offering: Tap Water

Amid pressure to cut down on the plastic and glass waste from bottled water, restaurants are dressing up plain old spigot water instead -- installing expensive filters and serving house-made seltzer.

Afternoon Tea With Miss Sycamore

2007-04-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

When I moved up from elementary school to secondary school I discovered my new school had something stupendous going on--a class called "English". While I knew that I was English, nobody--certainly not my parents --had ever explained that in the big girls' school there was such a thing as English class. "What?" I thought. "Do we have to have a class that teaches us how to be English?" Elementary school classes had consisted of the basic "Reeling, Writhing, and the Branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision, " as Mr. Lewis Carroll put it. The reeling and writhing I quite enjoyed, but the branches of arithmetic turned me into a window gazer.

English in secondary school turned out to be heavenly and taught by a proper "English teacher." In English we read novels and plays and poems! Then we talked about them--and learned something about plot and characters. Often the English teacher would read to us while we sat and laughed or cried as the case required. I also discovered that not all my compadres enjoyed English. "Boring, " they said, and took their turn at the window watching the boys play soccer on the playing field. They sat and waited impatiently for gym class or a game of rounders or netball on the playground. How anyone could hanker after gym instead of reading and talking about a good book was beyond my understanding.

In second grade we had reeled and writhed under the guidance of Miss Pierce. Miss Pierce was fierce. How old she was is difficult to say now, but to us in 1938 she appeared to be a hundred. Plastered to her sour face were steel-rimmed spectacles and her greasy gray hair was screwed into a tight bun at the back of her neck. Long, dismal dresses finished off her look (neither the bobbed and shingled flapper era of the 1920s nor the sophisticated Marcelled wave of the 1930s had influenced her one bit).

Although we were only seven years old Miss Pierce regarded us as bitter enemies. She frowned as she entered the door each morning but I can't remember what crimes we committed--perhaps not sitting absolutely still, or perhaps turning around to talk to a girl behind. Whatever the crime, we could expect a heavy blackboard eraser to come crashing down on our heads, expertly hurled from the front of the room. If ever a person deserved her own name it was the piercingly unkind Miss Pierce. Her successors as we moved up through the grades were unremarkable. Long does she remain in memory.

In those days we wrote with pen and ink. The ballpoint pen would not be thought of until after the war. Our desktops contained an inkwell and a little groove for our pens to rest in. When the ink ran dry, Miss Pierce took from her cupboard a large jug of ink and toured the room filling the little empty wells. Our pens required constant attention because the pen-nibs wore out quickly and had to be replaced. Such pens in the hands of little girls created drops and blots that fell all over our pages, stained our fingers, and landed on the sleeves and cuffs of our white uniform shirts. The term "ink-stained wretches" certainly applied to us. We tried out suggested methods to remove the stains. Milk poured directly onto the blot was supposed to erase the ink, but it only helped loosen the blot and spread the ink further By the end of the week--laundry was an arduous task for our mothers in those days of hand washing--our shirts were in a dismal state.

Once we were safely in secondary school, Miss Sycamore, a mild and friendly woman with a face that looked rather like a friendly sheep, hooked us on English. She had us laughing hysterically when she read aloud the antics of Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn. Such freedom those boys had down beside the Mississippi! Mark Twain was the first American writer I had ever encountered and he was the first to reveal certain appealing things about that huge country so far away across the ocean. I learned that in America the people had the strange idea they were equal to one another, that there were no royals (except for actors playing kings and queens), and that whoever presumed to set himself up above the others and act in condescending ways would be jerked off his pedestal promptly.

So it was with great sadness at the end of our first year with Miss Sycamore we heard that she was leaving our school to become headmistress of a village school somewhere in the rural part of our county. The loss of our favorite teacher was so severe I decided to find out where she lived and visit her. Friend Peggy was a co-conspirator. Somehow we found out her address and got in touch with her. She responded by inviting us to tea on a Saturday afternoon.

How Peggy and I worked this out without our parents knowing is lost to me, but it did seem important to keep our plan secret. I think it was based on the fact that parents rarely understood our way of thinking. During vacations in those days children had a great deal of freedom to roam and we both knew our way about trains --the main mode of transport in those days together with buses. Our pocket money paid for our tickets and we traveled down the line past several stations to the small village where our good friend had settled herself in a charming little cottage.

Afternoon tea with Miss Sycamore was wonderful. Over little sandwiches and delicious small cakes we told her how much we missed her and the stories we read in her class, and she told us that she missed us too but it was important for her to move up in the world and become a headmistress. Somehow we understood. .

On the return journey we felt satisfied and renewed. That afternoon we learned something about moving on from disappointments and facing the future. We got over our loss of Miss Sycamore and when the new school year began we met another English teacher who inspired us further by making the plays of Mr Shakespeare and the novels of Mr. Dickens come alive.

Daffy Down Dilly

2007-04-08T09:11:00.000-05:00

Climate Change? This is what it's like here this Easter morn. A blizzard raging, fresh snow covering yesterday's tracks, and our daffodils lying like fallen soldiers, beaten down by six days of snow. It might be resurrection day in the Christian calendar but there'll be no rising again for my daffy-down-dillies this spring.

Later we'll be dashing through the snow to P & K's. For Benjamin I have a nice new Benjamin Bunny, a re-published edition of the Warne original, and a big book of mammals filled with gorgeous elephants, meeerkats, rhinos and all the rest (he loves animal books). For Noah, a knitted blanket (by me) that I had to unravel and enlarge because he came into the world too big for it.

TO DAFFODILS
by Robert Herrick

FAIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon ;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong ;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring ;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain ;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

The Prince and the Pauper

2007-04-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Here in Ohio this morning, green grass, daffodils, warm air blowing in from the west. What more can anyone want?

Last night Philip and Kim took us out to dinner at The Long Horn (a restaurant with western underpinnings.) Everything was meltingly good. Then we went to the Miller-South School for the Arts in Akron and saw their latest production--The Prince and the Pauper. The play is adapted from Mark Twain's novel and the story is about two young boys who look alike. One is Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII, and the other is a ragged street urchin who lives in Pudding Lane in London.

Accidentally, the boys switch roles and suddenly the little prince finds himself in rags and living among the worst elements of the city, while the other boy gets used to being waited upon hand and foot by servants. When the King dies, the prince becomes king, but which of the boys actually sits on the throne with the orb and scepter in his hands? It gets sorted out and the real prince is crowned. He then passes knighthoods and other honors among some of the Pudding Lane people and the pauper stays on as the new king's best friend.

It was a magnificent production. Many in the audience were parents and friends of the actors and technicians and you could tell they were absolutely awed by the challenge the children and the director had taken on and by the pure entertainment value of what they were seeing. This was not your average school play. This was art and we all knew we were seeing something tremendously special.

The director cast two African-American boys as the prince and the pauper and they were perfect as they changed from prince to pauper and back again. They both are twelve years old. As she said in her notes in the program, "The students worked on voice technique and breath control to help them express the language clearly. They also learned Tudor history, customs, and social conventions by actually living the lives of the nobility, the serving classes, guards and sheriffs, ordinary citizens and those living outside the law." She said they were all shocked at the awful disparity between rich and poor and to discover that in England of the time, human beings could actually be bought and sold as slaves.

The Tudor costumes were absolutely gorgeous. You could tell the kids just loved wearing them and they looked as if they had stepped out of a Holbein painting.

In all her productions the kids are taught to handle all the tasks--backstage and management. They manage the lights, sound, makeup, props, and wardrobe. Others are in charge of rehearsals and some are assistants to the director. The director arranged for VIP seating for us.. A tiny little usher took us down to the front and cut a ribbon that served to hold the seats. The ages are from 8-14 (fourth to eighth grade).

Tomorrow Paul will have a long day at the Clinic beginning at 9:30 and ending at 4 p.m. They sent him a map of the campus and an itinerary listing the tests, procedures, and specialists he will see. I will drop him off at the first building and then look for parking space and rejoin him. They have a wonderful cafeteria and I look forward to sampling some of the goodies while I hang around waiting--for good news we all hope for. Will take some crosswords, a book, and some knitting.

Slogan:

2007-03-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

"If You're Not Angry, You're Not Paying Attention."

Bill Mahr Smacks Down Bush on Patriotism

2007-03-25T14:09:00.000-05:00

Click here for the video of Maher's "New Rules" segment, which ended with the new rule that traitors don't get to question his patriotism, and here for the rest of the transcript of that segment.

I Free-Cycle My Quilts

2007-03-25T11:29:00.000-05:00

These days many towns including those in my area operate a Free-cycling system. It's an organized network, using the internet to help people who are tired of things they have or have no more use for them, to offer them free for the pickup. It's one of the many ideas emerging from the save-the-planet movement.

It works well because people respond who need or would just like the things offered/ No money changes hands. It's a sort of barter system. The only thing you have to watch for is that an unsavory person might show up. But first you talk on the phone and arrange an off-site meeting place if you have any qualms.

I had two reversible goosedown comforters (red on one side, beige on the other) that I was getting tired of. They were about six years old, boring, and too warm most of the time. So I bought pretty cotton quilts at Target to replace them and daughter said she'd freecycle the quilts for me. Within five minutes she got ten requests and the first person to respond picked them up this morning.

My gain? The new cotton quilts--so comfortable and easy-breathing--instead of the usual insomnia, I now fall asleep under them immediately.

Blackwater

2007-03-25T11:12:00.000-05:00

Below, an excerpt from a review of a new book. Remember the four civilian workers in Iraq who were killed, burned, and their body parts hung up on a bridge? They worked for Blackwell, an American corporation specializing in private armies.. Jeremy Scahill's new book, "Blackwater" tells the story.Here's a link to the complete review: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/25/112857/665

by SusanG

Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 08:34:30 AM PDT

Blackwater
The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
By Jeremy Scahill
Nation Books, Avalon Publishing
New York, 2007

"The Blackwater corporation is quickly becoming one of the most powerful private armies in the world, and several of its top officials are extreme religious zealots, some of whom appear to believe they are engaged in an epic battle for the defense of Christendom. .... For its vaunted American forces, Blackwater has expanded the mercenary motivating factor (or rationalization) beyond simple monetary gain (though that remains a major factor) to a duty-oriented, patriotic justification. Naturally the MSM is ignoring this.

"Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater would be a masterpiece of the genre of futuristic sci fi were it not so regrettably real. It’s got all the twists and turns and secret corners of a Hollywood thriller: records and contracts that can’t be traced, shady characters recruiting other shady characters in violent Third World nations, extremist religious figures lurking in the background of a mysterious unregulated company that uses PR tactics worthy of Orwell. Unfortunately for America, we’re living the plot in real time.

[Snip]

"The use of these contractors raises an even more alarming prospect, if followed to its logical conclusion: why not cut governments out altogether? As multi-national corporations continue to grow and exercise a power greater than that of many nations, what’s to prevent them from employing their own private armies – as they do now with smaller, more passive security forces – and ignoring all laws of any country, the ones they’re occupying or the ones they’re at least nominally registered in?"

...

House: My Comment in The Guardian

2007-03-24T08:23:00.000-05:00

"House' benefits from tight, intelligent, knowing scripts and the appeal of a fine ensemble cast. Integral are the conflicts that arise between House, Cuddy, Foreman, Chase, and Cameron as they all struggle not only for the medical solution in each week's case, but also to resolve issues between each other. As an American I can attest to Hugh Laurie's astonishingly spot-on accent. While it's not regional (not Southern, Midwestern, or Eastern Seaboard), Laurie manages to make it sound absolutely authentic. Many people I know here in the U.S. were astonished to learn that Laurie is British. Usually when British actors assume an American accent, we wince--it's so patently wrong. Even Laurence Oliver couldn't quite master it. A little troubling is the fact that Chase, Foreman, and Cameron can't continue to train under House's guidance forever. It's sad to think of them being replaced. But attractive as they are in the show, in real life they would be moving on to separate professional careers. One wish of mine is for Wilson to have a larger role. Robert Sean Leonard is a respected Broadway actor who could add more to the show.

Doctors Like a Good Attitude

2007-03-24T08:03:00.000-05:00

"Doctors advise a good attitude as part of "patient management", I think. It's easier for them to deal with a patient who is on best behavior - and more compliant. They like "good patients" who don't question or speak out - and kill them regularly."

by Tigana on Fri Mar 23, 2007

Gore Watch: Snide Press Comments

2007-03-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

[Keeping track of spiteful remarks in the New York Times headlines or reports--and other publications.]

New York Times headline today:

Star in New Role, Gore Revisits Old Stage
By MARK LEIBOVICH and PATRICK HEALY 2 minutes ago

"For Al Gore, returning to Capitol Hill is akin to a recovering alcoholic returning to a neighborhood bar."

Can't bear to read the report--perhaps tomorrow I will while holding my nose.

Barak Obama on Larry King Last Night

2007-03-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

Obama's my man. What an impressive hour. Intelligent, thorough, and adroit answers to Larry King's questions, including King's "gotcha" ones and the stupid ones, which Barak skillfully redirected into important points he wanted to raise.

Hemingway in New York in 1950

2007-03-20T07:56:00.000-05:00

Recently read Lillian Ross's Portrait of Hemingway, published as a Profile in a 1950 issue of The New Yorker and reproduced in a Modern Library paperback in 1999. (79 pp. including an introduction and afterword).

Ross spent two days in New York with Papa and his last wife Mary and she makes us feel we're there too with them in the Sherry Netherland hotel suite, drinking champagne, schmoozing with Dietrich, helping Papa buy a coat at Abercrombie (he didn't own one)., and revisiting some of his favorite pictures at the Met He wanted to see the two Brueghels again but the room was closed for repainting. His favorites were some Renaissance canvasses and Cezanne. He compared his writing techniques with the mountains in Cezanne's works.

Ross had already visited Hemingway at his home in Ketchum, Idaho before she met him and Mary at Idlewild Airport in New York. (Oh why oh why did they let that lovely name go when they renamed it JFK.) In 1950 I too arrived at Idlewild--named for the flower growing in the nearby marshes. Not the same day or time as Papa unfortunately.

Perhaps it's the way Ross captured Hemingway's speech patterns that brought him to life. Interesting that she and he came in for criticism from readers after the profile appeared. They didn't like the honest portrait of him. One thing I didn't like and attitudes have changed over the past 50 years is the talk of hunting. Seems a shame that after gallantly enduring the long migration to Cuba a duck has to be shot out of the air for fun. Even mink coats and elephant heads on the wall seem repugnant.

Ross is still alive and still writing short pieces for the New Yorker. She must be 85 or more. I wonder if any current New Yorker profile ever can match those written by Lillian Ross.

More on Women Soldiers

2007-03-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

NYTimes Magazine today features a lengthy story on the trials and tribulations of women soldiers on their return home. Anecodotes from many who are suffering from physical and mental traumas. One out of ten soldiers are now women. Many volunteers have suffered from abuse at home and look for an escape only to be abused in Iraq. The military time and again wriggles out of responsibility for the many rapes that have taken place.

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-03-18T09:41:00.000-05:00

Last night we saw An Inconvenient Truth--P for the first time, me for the second. Got it from Netflix. What a fascinating documentary--we had our eyes glued to it. Unexpectedly, Gore has become an excellent teacher, speaking in quiet, melodious tones and showing us evidence that few (even Bush finally) can reject. He said he had given the lecture over 1,000 times across the world. Boggles the mind. Standouts include his family's former tobacco farm and the decision to stop growing tobacco; the freezing of the gulf stream and Europe trapped in another ice age. Also, the polar ice caps and what's happening there already to the permafrost in the north and the melting of ice in the south. It was jolting to see a picture of Lake Chad in its prime and now reduced to a mud pile. I would say it's 99 and nine tenths per cent likely that Bush hasn't seen it. He doesn't call himself "The Decider" for nothing.

I'm coming back to life again and regaining my outrage at all the horrors I see in the world brought about by the U.S. I think of John Carre's MI5 agents who took every opportunity to despise their CIA counterparts--the American Cousins they called them, but not in a flattering way.

This morning watched the This Week news program. News has turned into gossip here. First the panel went on an on about the Atty. General who will most probably resign. Then inordinate time wasted on gays in the military. 160,000 gays have been dismissed even though many of them had really usable talents, like translating Arabic. The policy is "Don't ask;don't tell." In other words, so long as they lie about their orientation they stay in. The cost of replacing them (training etc.) is astronomical. Britain, Israel, and others all have an open policy. We're so stupid here it's sickening. Politicians steer clear of global warming. Instead, they get bogged down by issues like gays and flag burning. Finally the panel mused about whether Al Gore might declare his candidacy for pres. Sneeringly they agreed that he's waiting to be begged.

Now we hear that Fred Thompson, actor, who plays a politician on television's hugely popular Law & Order might run for President (Republican). He looks like a Bassett hound with syrupy southern accent. We just don't need another actor--but he's a long shot indeed.
Other than that, things are fine .

Plato Said It!

2007-03-17T09:41:00.000-05:00

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. ~Plato

House is Intelligent and Marvelous

2007-03-16T21:50:00.000-05:00

Just watched an episode of House. Hugh Laurie is marvelous in it--American accent spot on. Such an intelligent hour. The plot concerned the patient's (a trumpeter compared favorably to Louis Armstrong) and his wish to not be resuscitated. A tussle ensued between Dr. House and another doctor flown in specially from L.A. A court hearing was included. As the patient walked out of the hospital he handed House a present. An old battered case containing one of his trumpets. Even the irascible House was moved. Sweet!

Women Soldiers in Harm's Way

2007-03-10T09:48:00.000-05:00

The Village Green's post on women soldiers in today's war coincided in a timely way with a recent Newsweek cover story on the injured in harm's way at Walter Reed. The person chosen for the cover portrait is a wounded woman, with two legs gone. She is shown on a chair, sitting on her bandaged stumps. Until this war, the government had resisted sending women up to the front lines and imminent danger, even though the Civil Rights Ats of the 1960s have accomplished much in giving equal rights to women including the right to serve the nation on equal terms.

But there has always existed a fear that the public would not condone the idea of women returning home in caskets or physically damaged. A nation raised to believe that women belong on pedestals would not like to see its mothers and sisters returning from war as damaged goods. But in Bush's war it's been proven that the great American public has not risen up in protest. Women are returning to parents, husbands, children, and friends with horrifying and multiple injuries, physical and psychological, and apparently nobody cares very much that they were sent into harm's way in the first place. Another prized American value gone down the drain? It also goes without saying that our nation does not prize its male soldiers much either, based on the short shrift they are receiving from our government and the Veterans Administration. Strange, don't you think?

Edna St. Vincent Millay Greets the Spring....

2007-03-02T11:05:00.000-05:00

Glad March is here. We're on the back end of a winter that began with a beguiling warmth that lasted through Christmas and beyond. But when we thought we would come through unscathed by harsh cold, the Great St. Valentine's Snowstorm of 2007 shook us back to reality with below zero weather, snow by the foot, clogged roads, and closed schools. March itself is no picnic, but it beckons us onward to the green grass and tender shoots of April.

Lines from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Life in itself
is nothing.
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

.

—from "Spring" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I found these lines on Poets.org in a section entitled Life/Lines. Readers are invited to share lines that have stayed with them over the years and explain why they feel they are important. Here's what a reader says about Millay's lines:

"Even before Eliot named April cruel, Millay was there asking questions about the significance of that month's facile promise and eternal return. I admire the bravado with which she parcels out her wildly irregular lines. As well as the way she formally emphasizes April's momentary hope — set against life's continual difficulty and occasional danger — by setting “April” on a line of it's own. That bold gesture also delays ever so slightly the final disquieting image of April as some babbling daffy aunt who runs down a hill throwing flowers onto the new green. When have I thought of these lines? Endless times. And not just in April. Once in March I was in Austin, Texas while back home in Chicago, which was home then, it was still cold and trees were just sticks stuck in the cold ground. In and out of Austin, the highway medians were filled with wildflowers. There have been times since then when, in an icy March, I've thought of that Austin scene; the recollection of those strewn flowers that mark the roadways there takes me straight to the image of Millay's April as one who mindlessly and wantonly makes the moment pretty but delivers no lasting relief to those who feel the world leaning hard against them."

Mary Jo Bang
St. Louis, Missouri

New Arrival on Planet Earth: Noah Michael Young

2007-02-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

On a snowy, blustery day in February, at General Hospital Medical Center in Akron, Ohio overlooking Summit Lake and the edge of the Village Green in Kenmore:

    Noah Michael Young

entered the world today at 9:22 a.m. at a very sturdy ten pounds, 11ounces. Parents Julia and Drew and grandparents Phil and Kim are ecstatic while their relatives and friends rejoice in their happiness. Pink, plump, and healthy,  Noah cooed and chuckled and uttered not one cry while visitors milled around the very first room he has ever seen.  He's a very contented little chap, warmly wrapped in his blanket,
happy to be out in the light and blissfully unaware of what kind of a world he has entered. Within an hour he had polished off half a bottle of formula and seemed to know exactly what he was doing.  This little nearly eleven-pounder arrived having already outgrown first-size baby clothes and I came home and unraveled the baby blanket I was half way through knitting and have started another with more stitches on the needle.

More later with picture

Democratic Candidates at Carson City Event Today Impressed Me

2007-02-21T23:58:00.000-05:00

Turned on C-span this evening and thought I'd watch a little bit of the Meet the Democratic Candidates event broadcast originally earlier in the day. Was captured and stayed with it for the more than two hours. Dodd, Edwards, Clinton, Richardson, Byden, Kucinich, Vilsak, and Mr. Gravel, an elderly fellow from Alaska who had been in the Senate some years ago and gave a stemwinding, old fashioned labor speech were there -- from the ASCME convention at Carson City, Nevada. Each gave good accounts of themselves in two minute speeches, a short q and a with Stephanopolous, and a final 2 minute windup.

Edwards was strong and confident., Byden quite appealing, and Kucinich surprisingly moving and convincing, especially with his plea for universal health coverage now! Not baby steps, as he called it, as offered by the governors. And no ties to health insurance corporations. He ended by sticking out his arms horizontally and saying, "No strings, no strings, no strings." Richardson was disappointing. He seemed slightly nervous. But where was Obama, I wondered. Not there. Nevertheless, they were an impressive bunch. Nobody could call them "The Seven Dwarfs," the title given to the Democratic candidates running in 1988 and from whom came Michael Dukakis!

Hillary Must Listen to the Blogosphere Voices of Readon

2007-02-21T15:37:00.000-05:00

Hi Hillary. Are you out there listening to the voices of reason on the blogosphere that ask you to express sincere regret at having voted for the Iraq War resolution in 2003? This would be a good time now we hear how Iraq wounded are being so badly treated at Walter Reed Military Hospital.

Excerpt that follows from Amy Goodman's latest column presses the point that other distinguished members of Congress in 2003 knew then what Hillary professes not to have known. Goodman has impeccable feminist credentials going back decades. However, these don't precipitate her into giving Hilary a blank check endorsement. Voters today want straight-talking candidates who own up to their mistakes and live up to the responsibility of working on the voters' behalf.

"Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., fought the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. He said the president wants "to have the power to launch this nation into war without provocation and without clear evidence of an imminent attack on the United States, and we're going to be foolish enough to give it to him." Byrd seems to have known then what Clinton says she knows now. He called the resolution "dangerous" and a "blank check," and now, with more than 3,145 U.S. soldiers killed, and with Iraq War costs through 2008 projected at more than $1 trillion, it appears he was right.

"Reps. Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey also seemed to know then what Clinton says she knows now. They were lauded by the 50 activists who, on Jan. 30, 2007, occupied Clinton's Senate office, weaving a web with pink yarn "to symbolize the senator's web of deception and the innocent people - Americans and Iraqis - caught in it." Protesters have promised to "bird-dog" Clinton at all of her public appearances. These actions recall the student sit-in at Clinton's New York office on Oct. 10, 2002, while Clinton stood on the Senate floor and made her case for war.

Sen. Clinton has drawn the line in the sand over Iraq. She will not admit that her vote to authorize Bush to use military force in a unilateral, unprovoked war based on lies was a mistake. She is open to a military strike on Iran. Her latest message to voters: "There are others to choose from." Anti-war voters already know that, and are lining up behind candidates Barack Obama, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and, perhaps before long, Ralph Nader.

Amy Goodman is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears in The Union.

Our "Worst 10" Senators

2007-02-21T08:26:00.001-05:00

Empowering Veterans, a PAC founded in 2006, is targeting senators who consistently vote against the interests of veterans. It goes without saying they also have a sorry record on many other issues including the current war.

Ralph Parrot, the founder of Empowering Veterans, gives his list of ten in The Daily Kos today. Below is an excerpt from his column. So far. nearly 400 comments have appeared.

"Worst 10" Senators List Unveiled

by Ralph Parrott

Tue Feb 20, 2007 at 06:27:12 AM PST

Empowering Veterans, Inc. Unveils its "Worst 10" list of incumbent Senators up for reelection in 2008. These people are very pious in the "Support the Troops" rhetoric, but most hypocritical when it comes to voting to support members of the Armed Forces and their families and veterans and their families.

Ralph Parrott's diary :: ::

Empowering Veterans Unveils it "Worst 10" List of Senators

My name is Ralph Parrott. I am a 65 year old retired Navy Supply Corps Captain and retired businessman from Fairfax Station, Virginia. I served in the US Navy from March 1963 until September of 1990, over 27 years.

. . .

I started the PAC, Empowering Veterans, Inc., during the 2006 Senate campaign in Virginia in support of Jim Webb’s candidacy against George Allen. I decided the best way to support Jim Webb was to expose the voting record of George Allen on issues relating to members of the Armed Forces and their families and veterans and their families. As I researched George Allen’s record I became shocked at the difference between his lofty rhetoric of "Support the Troops" and the reality of his actual record. As I dug deeper I came to realize that George Allen was not alone in establishing a record of deceit and hypocrisy when it comes to really "Supporting the Troops". Indeed, his sorry record is shared by a large portion of his Republican colleagues.

Learning this, I decided to devote the time from now until the election of 2008 to exposing the "Worst 10" incumbent Senators up for reelection in 2008. As I watched the Republicans tie the US Senate in knots last week in order to avoid a debate about on the wisdom of the President’s troop surge in Irag I was struck by the sheer hypocrisy of many members of the "Worst 10" club as they piously implored their colleagues to "Support the Troops". A cursory view of their sorry voting records puts their rhetoric in sharp relief of where they really stand. Namely, there is always money for tax cuts for the wealthy, tax giveaways for the corporations, and no bind contractors for insiders, but when it comes to mental health care soldiers, head trauma research, or support for military families the budget is somehow constrained. The "Worst 10" on issues relating to members of the Armed Forces and their families and veterans and their families are:

Alexander of Tennessee
Chambliss of Georgia
Cochran of Mississippi
Coleman of Minnesota
Cornyn of Texas
Dole of North Carolina
Graham of South Carolina
Roberts of Kansas
Sessions of Alabama
Sunnunu of New Hampshire

Empowering Veterans’s strategy for the next election cycle is very simple.

We will track ("Bird Dog") each target incumbent’s voting record on issues relating to members of the Armed Forces their families and veterans and their families.
We will maintain that record on our website, www.empoweringveterans.org.
We will recruit volunteers in each targeted state to conduct Letters to the Editor campaigns to keep each incumbent’s record of deceit and hypocrisy constantly before his or her constituents.
We will encourage veterans to run against these incumbents.
We will raise money to support those veterans that do run against these incumbents.

. . .
For full text visit Ralph Parrot's Diary, link given abovve

Hilary Must Say She Regrets Her Vote

2007-02-20T08:42:00.000-05:00

Wonder how long Hilary Clinton's Senate vote in favor of war against Iraq back in 2003 will continue to haunt her presidential campaign unless she speaks up and in a genuine way says she's sorry for that vote and the disasters that have followed it. One would like to think a year from now American forces will be out of Iraq and when the election takes place in November 2008 her vote won't be a crucial issue. By all accounts Clinton is doing a sterling job as New York State Senator and is well qualified in other respects. If she doesn't win, how long will it be before another woman appears to run for the office in subsequent elections? Too long. That being so, Hilary must lighten her baggage to run all the way to the winning post.

Some would say this is no time for "dissing" the only woman running for President. But I would say the primary season is the right time. As we move up to the primary elections, Democrats not only have the right to criticize their primary candidates but to hold their feet to the fire, to put them in the crucible, so that the outcome will produce the best woman or man to oppose the other party's contender. If Hilary does become our candidate, then we will back her with all our might--because the thought of another Republican presidency is anathema to us. In the meantime, she must speak out honestly to the American people. Recently Paul Krugman expressed concerns about Clinton's refusal to admit that her vote was wrong: Following are excerpts:

"Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton’s refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past error? And yes, it was an error — she may not have intended to cast a vote for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but the fact is he did.

The answer can be summed up in two words: heckuva job.
/snip
"For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences.

/snip
"The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — “I was wrong” — matter so much to the Democratic base.

"Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton’s refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past error? And yes, it was an error — she may not have intended to cast a vote for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but the fact is he did.
/Snip

"The answer can be summed up in two words: heckuva job. Or, if you want a longer version: Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, who said Saddam had W.M.D., Tommy Franks, who failed to secure Iraq, and Paul Bremer, who botched the occupation.

Snip/
For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job.

/Snip
"The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — “I was wrong” — matter so much to the Democratic base.

"The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.

/Snip
"And there’s another reason the admission by Mr. Edwards that he was wrong is important. If we want to avoid future quagmires, we need a president who is willing to fight the inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom on foreign policy, which still — in spite of all that has happened — equates hawkishness with seriousness about national security, and treats those who got Iraq right as somehow unsound. By admitting his own error, Mr. Edwards makes it more credible that he would listen to a wider range of views.

Snip/
" Although she’s smart and sensible, she’s very much the candidate of the Beltway establishment — an establishment that has yet to come to terms with its own failure of nerve and judgment over Iraq. Still, she’s at worst a triangulator, not a megalomaniac; she’s not another Dick Cheney.

/snip
" For some reason Mrs. Clinton and her advisers have failed to grasp just how fed up the country is with arrogant politicians who can do no wrong. I don’t think she falls in that category; but her campaign somehow thought it was still a good idea to follow Karl Rove’s playbook, which says that you should never, ever admit to a mistake. And that playbook has led them into a political trap."

We have yet to hear from many in the media their apologies for backing the war with unseemly enthusiasm back in 2003. That's a subject for another blog.

For Krugman's entire and lengthy column go to Welcome to Pottersville blog, Jurassicpork

posted by jurassicpork @ 7:21 AM 7 comments links to this post

Blizzard Soup

2007-02-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

Here in Grangerburg on Tuesday morning we knew from the forecasts about the big snow storming its way out of the Oklahoma Panhandle across the Great Plains, sweeping over the flatlands of Iowa and on into Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. We were waiting for it--with time enough to prepare and to make cancellations. The Nordonia Hills librarian called Tuesday morning and suggested we postpone the talk we were scheduled to give that evening in connection with our book. By evening the TV was listing all the closings including libraries, universities, and schools. I thought, what if we had a sudden emergency, needed an operation or something. I soon put that out of my head.

This morning, after 30 hours of snowfall, we peered through the door of our cabin and saw that it was possible to make an escape to the supermarket and replenish our dwindling stores. Last night Phil and K zoomed into our driveway in their husky snow plow truck and swept the snow out of the drive and into huge piles. Their visit gave us a chance to celebrate Valentine's Day. I filled large cups with hot coffee and served cake warm from the oven and iced with a pecan frosting. Kim liked the rose-colored fancy fur scarf I knitted for her in honor of St. Val, and all agreed on the cake's superior taste. I put that down to the eggs from Carol Thombs' chicken farm. Her birds live in a chicken palace--a warm and handsome barn with a big earthy yard outside where they can scratch and exercise to their hearts' content behind a fence that's safe from foxes.

Comparisons have been made, but I think The Storm of '07 didn't equal The Great Blizzard of '78 in intensity. . In that storm the wind's constant and frightening howling chilled the marrow in our bones. Little birds, hanging on to branches for dear life were blown sideways and sought out holes in a snow bank for protection. In this week's storm all we heard was the sound of silence. Everything was muffled. Nothing moved along the road, and now we could really see it, the amount of snow that fell was astounding. The snow clearing gangs left the roads lined with huge snow banks and up at the Montrose shopping district, mountains of the white stuff were everywhere.

We had just about used up our food by the time the driveway was cleared, but it's amazing what you can scrape up from the fridge and freezer. I magically produced omelets, French toast, BLTs (bacon and lettuce sandwiches), and baked potatoes --and we shared a Stouffer's tuna-noodle casserole. In the end, I scraped together a cauldron of blizzard soup--into which I threw just about everything I had--diced potatoes, carrots, lima beans, butter beans, celery, garlic, onions, herbs from Provence, broth made from chicken cubes, frozen corn on the cob and frozen leftover ham from one of Kim's dinners sometime ago. Paul pronounced the soup as jolly good and asked eagerly this evening if we were going to have the rest of it for dinner.

After shopping at Marc's supermarket for ourselves and Petsmart for Spot, Mimi, and Viola, we worked out that we had spent equal amounts at each place--$50 for us and the same for the cats. Their cans of Fancy Feast andtheir Iams dry food were perilously low, and they needed fresh litter for their boxes. Everything's okay now in Catsville. I looked for a soft cat carrier to take them to the vet for their shots. (One at a time). These are really neat with a zippered top that allows you to drop them through on their four feet instead of struggling to push them in through the door of the hard shell cat carrier. I didn't find quite what I wanted but online I saw a good one at the Petsmart website.

Everything seems back to normal now

"Decline and Fall of the Roman Myth" by Terry Jones

2007-02-13T08:44:00.000-05:00

Terry Jones' article in the London Times of last May revises our understanding of the Romans in Brittain and the original Celts' contributions. Here's a snippet. For the original article in full go to Londonbear (on my blogroll) and he will link you to the full article.

" We were ‘barbarians’, but early British civilisation outshone the Roman version, says ex-Python Terry Jones. We just lost the propaganda war.

"Nobody ever called themselves barbarians. It’s not that sort of word. It’s a word used about other people. It was used by the ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek people whose language they could not understand and who therefore seemed to babble unintelligibly: “ba ba ba”. The Romans adopted the Greek word and used it to label (and usually libel) the peoples who surrounded their own world.

"The Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the peoples whom they called Barbarians became for ever branded — be they Spaniards, Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And, of course, “barbarian” has become a byword for the very opposite of everything that we consider civilised.

"The Romans kept the Barbarians at bay for as long as they could, but finally they were engulfed and the savage hordes overran the empire, destroying the cultural achievements of centuries. The light of reason and civilisation was almost snuffed out by the Barbarians, who annihilated everything that the Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe to the Dark Ages. The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the renaissance rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art.

"It is a familiar story, and it’s codswallop...."

[To continue with Terry's article, follow londonbear's link in my blogroll ]

From Terry Jones’ Barbarians by ex-Python Terry Jones and Alan Ereira to be published by BBC Books on May 18 at £18.99. The book is available for £17.09 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585. Terry Jones’ Barbarians begins on BBC2 on Friday May 26

Hillary Made a Mistake When she Voted for the Iraq War: She Should Amit That

2007-02-11T15:13:00.000-05:00

Fellow blogger, Long Live the Village Green, defends Hillary Clinton who yesterday defended her decision to vote to go to war in Iraq back in 2002. In answer to an audience member's question as to whether she's ready to admit that her vote was a mistake, she said that it was the administration who made the mistake, not her. But the administration, from its point of view, was not making a mistake. It cleverly and consciously fed a tissue of lies to gullible senators who sopped it up because they felt their political lives were threatened. Below is a list of senators who had the guts to vote
against the measure. If you follow Hillary's logic, it was these anti-war senators who were making the mistake at that time by voting against what she felt were plausible reasons for going to war. Hillary must own up to her error in judgment. If millions of us out here in the hinterlands could see from the get-go that invading a sovereign nation on pretexts was wrong, who looked at Colin Powell's aluminum tubes with disbelief, who understood that Saddam had no fangs, then she should have too. She's paid to know these things.

From Democrats.com:

"Although we spend a lot of time talking about what – and who – got us into this quagmire, let's take a moment to look at the names and the words of the Senators who defied bullying by Team Bush and had the wisdom and courage to vote "nay" on October 11, 2002.

"Here are the brave ones:

Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Robert Byrd (D-WV)
Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
Mark Dayton (D-MN)
Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Russell Feingold (D-WI)
Robert Graham (D-FL)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
James Jeffords (I-VT)
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Seventy-fifth anniversary of "Frankenstein" film

2007-02-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

From Arthur Silber's Once Upon a Time blog:

February 4, 2006

"Karloff, Gods and Monsters, and the Horrors of War

The NYT offers an interesting article about Boris Karloff, on the occasion of a film festival celebrating the 75th anniversary of "Frankenstein" and focusing on "the odd career of this unlikely star." Before Karloff and the movie that established his enduring fame fused themselves into our cultural subconscious, Karloff was only "a middle-aged, middlingly successful English character actor (born William Henry Pratt), skillful and professional enough to have appeared in dozens of pictures in the previous 15."

Read on at link.....

years."http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/movies/03karl.html?ex=1296622800&en=9db9a8fce45bd268&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Iraq Casualty Count by Michael White

2007-02-09T17:11:00.000-05:00

A comprehensive casualty count of dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq--names, hometowns and other information-can be found at a website kept by Michael White. Find it on my blog roll or reach it here:

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Frankie Lane: 1913-2007

2007-02-09T09:37:00.000-05:00

While the networks went ape yesterday, 24/7, blathering on about nonentity A.N. Smith , it's should be noted that a true celebrity, that great singer of songs Frankie Lane died at 93. Some of his hits:

[That's My Desire] [We'll Be Together Again] [That Lucky Old Sun] [Jezebel] [I Believe] [Granada] [Rawhide] [Song of India]

Statement from the family of Frankie Laine

February 6, 2007

We are saddened to announce the passing of Frankie Laine, musician, father, husband and friend. He died at 9:15 this morning from cardiovascular disease at age 93 in San Diego, surrounded by his loved ones.

Frankie led a long, exuberant life and contributed greatly to many causes near to his heart. He donated his time and talent to many San Diego charities and homeless shelters, as well as the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Village. He was also an emeritus member of the board of directors for the Mercy Hospital Foundation.

Born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, he was one of the most successful American singers of the twentieth century. He charted more than 70 records – 21 of them gold – and achieved worldwide sales of more than 250 million discs. He will be forever remembered for the beautiful music he brought into this world, his wit and sense of humor, along with the love he shared with so many.

Frankie is survived by his wife Marcia; brother Phillip LoVecchio of Chicago, Illinois; daughter Pamela Donner and grandsons Joshua and David Donner of Sherman Oaks, California; and daughter and son-in-law Dr. and Mrs. Irwin Steiger of Couer D’Alene, Idaho.

We ask that you respect our privacy during this time. We thank you for caring about the life of Frankie Laine, a remarkable human being and musician who has left an indelible mark on the world.

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Arrowsmith

2007-02-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

.
On his blog, James Wolcott says, "Self-Styled Siren has a marvelous tribute to John Ford's Arrowsmith, recently shown on TCM." I read it, and it's surprising. Arrowsmith has belonged to those long-forgotten films, and it's good to read Siren's tribute to it. Here's a snippet below.

"The film seems to grow more visually sophisticated as it progresses, though the Siren has no idea if it was shot in sequence. The superb, Metropolis-like views of New York give way to the the Caribbean islands and the most beautifully shot scenes in the movie, as a misty, Defoe-like procession of biers and mourners continually moves past the doorway of Arrowsmith and his wife. Later, there's an extraordinary shot of a doomed Helen Hayes sinking into a cane-back chair to smoke a cigarette, as light slants through a shutter and around her hair. Here Ford is already working out his vocabulary, and despite its many flaws, that is the best reason to see Arrowsmith."

Read the entire piece at Siren, now included on my blog roll. (Sinclair Lewis wrote the novel, and he too has been denigrated over the years. The reading group I'm in won't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Too bad).

Lara Logan

2007-02-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

Do you follow the war? It sure does preoccupy me--perhaps because I grew up in wartime. Never for a moment did I believe we needed to go into Iraq. I thought it was an appalling mistake right from the get-go. It's wrong to cross another country's sovereign borders unless it's in our own self-defense. Our govt. bamboozled most Americans--played on fears and said that Saddam had WMD and was responsible for 9/11. I read a report yesterday on the economic cost of this war--as opposed to the human cost, which is terrible. The billions we've spent so far would have paid for a rapid transit station in every town and city in the U.S. Or that money would support a universal health system in this country. Rapid transit could be part of the answer to curtailing global warming, even though it's too late to stop it, the experts say. We're not even being taxed for this war. The government is borrowing the money--from China and other countries--and our children and theirs will still be paying it back long after we're gone.

Here's a link to Lara Logan who reports regularly from Iraq for CBS. She is talking to a pundit on the Washington Post.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/26/lara-logan-smacked-down-the-quotnegative-iraq-war-coveragequot-charges/.

Another Myth of Vietnam Applied to Iraq War:The Betrayal Narrative

2007-02-05T15:29:00.000-05:00

Interesting post on this morning's Daily Kos considers the myths spawned by the Vietnam War. This is hardly unusual. Mythology from earlier wars has found itself perpetuated in novels, poems, movies, etc. Not hard to understand. Myths provide a comfort level to help explain the inexplicable. Read on...

"Those Who Blame America"

by Devilstower

Feb 04, 2007 at 06:02:23 PM PST

This week NPR's On The Media featured Jerry Lembcke, whose book The Spitting Image helped debunk the myth that Vietnam vets were widely reviled on their return to the United States. The primary purpose of Lembcke's visit was to fend off similar stories now being built by those who want to vilify opposition to Bush policy in Iraq.

....

But while the initial focus of the story was on spitting then and now, another myth of Vietnam also got some air time, and in its long-term effect, this one is far more important than whether or not anyone was ever struck by a loogie. If it took ten years after the end of the war for the first stories of spitting to emerge, it took a similar amount of time for this other myth to solidify in the public mind: we could have won, if we'd only kept up support at home. This is the betrayal narrative, and it comes in the form of a hundred statements starting with "if only."

If only the protesters hadn't undermined our will...

If only the press hadn't turned on our troops...

If only we'd sent in more men, spent more money, exerted more will...

In many ways, this is the central narrative of the modern conservative movement. Rarely voiced in "mixed company," but often voiced at right wing gatherings. If only the left had not betrayed us, we would have won Vietnam. All the "embolden" statements the right is pushing today are only variations on this theme of the left's Original Sin.

On the Media: Why are we so prepared to believe that these were commonplace incidents in the Vietnam era?

Lembcke: Well, it's a face-saving device. It helps construct an alibi, the alibi being that we beat ourselves, that we were defeated on the home front, and that we -- the most powerful nation on earth -- was not defeated by this small upstart nation of Asian "others."

It's always been clear that those who call themselves conservatives today have only a token relationship to the political movement that operated under that name previous to 1980. And this is the difference: today's conservatives aren't united by a theme of limiting spending or concerns over changes in our society. Their real heart is a festering ball of bruised ego.

The big irony is that the right, having refused to accept the facts on the ground, has instead created a mythology that requires traitors in the heartland. Though they so often point at the left as willing to "blame America," the whole mindset of those in support of the action in Iraq requires that they blame Americans, both then and now, for the failures of bad strategy, miserable planning and sorry execution.

The war in Iraq was supposed to be their vindication, proof that enough bombs could bring flowers. Proven wrong, their reaction is to create an even more vile narrative in this cycle. The right doesn't just blame America first, they blame Americans first, last, and only for every mistake they've made. Now, bolstered by the myths they've built since the end of Vietnam, not only are right wing pundits spreading lies about protesters at home, right wing politicians are willing to denounce reasoned objection with terms just short of treason. In insisting that there must be a threat to American democracy at home, the right has done more than just build a mythology around this theme, they've created that enemy. And they only have to look in a mirror to find him.

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Discuss (185 comments)

Moose: More On Spitting

2007-02-05T07:52:00.000-05:00

Moose took issue with my diary entry on this subject but did not offer a serious rebuttal. It's a very weak argument to accuse me of wanting to spit on our current soldiers. If did advocate spitting on returning American soldiers today, I would have said so. I don't. So I haven't. They are the pawns of the Bush/Cheney/Neocon axis--our so-called leaders, most of whom have never served their country in uniform and wouldn't know what to do with a rifle if they picked one up. My central point was that journalists and the waning number of supporters of Bush's war persist in repeating the unsubstantiated myth that Vietnam GIs were spat on when they returned stateside. Why they persist and warn that today's soldiers face the same fate--Moose must figure out.

What I do want is an end to this ghastly war that's causing hundreds of deaths of innocents every week, and by extension or ripple effect, ruining the lives of every living relative and friend of those who have died. Included among those innocents are our own soldiers--most of whom come from small, impoverished towns and whose educators taught them not to think for themselves but to mindlessly salute the flag and never question whether their country is right or wrong. The billions of dollars going into this war every week could have built a rapid transit service for every town and city in the U.S.A. Or, it could have funded a national health system competitive with the best of those of all our western allies.

War enthusiast and compulsive liar, Dick Cheney, received five deferments to keep himself from serving in Vietnam. He has been quoted as saying "I had better things to do." His agility in dodging that long ago war is impressive. When it finally appeared that he would be drafted he married Lynne in just a few days and by doing so got another deferment.

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Moose said...

Sounds as if you would like to spit in the face of returning Iraq war veterans after all the heinious crimes they committed. In fact since as you say the VVs who also committed crimes were not spat on now is the time to go for it. Make it a two for one deal-Go get em Duke!

January 29, 2007 8:29 PM

Anonymous said...

The circumstances of which you know little were not carried out by large groups of protesters. When they occured it was by individuals or small clusters of people who did not support the war and choose to show there displeasure when ever they found a troop. Personnaly never happened to me but then again I didn't wander around in uniform either - not afraid of the REMF's just didn't to be hassled by the dipsticks.

Doc - class of 68/69

January 31, 2007 1:09 AM