Cerebrally Hot

So I've recently discovered Bitch. Ph.D. and a couple of days ago, she was talking about Nice Guys and Bitchy Women. (Go and read it, if you'd like. Read the comments, too--I'll wait.)

Just in case you don't want to navigate over there--although I highly recommend you do--here's a synopsis.

She sorts "Bitchy Women" into possible categories:

1. There are surely women who are genuinely mean people; and often these women are bitchiest to other women, but tend to play up to men, because on some level being a "bitch" is all about power. . . .

2. Women who are abusive. Nothing much to say about this; women who treat their partners and / or kids like crap suck, just the same as men like that.

3. Strong women, as we all know, all get called "bitch" sooner or later. That's the spirit in which I named the blog; and sure enough, there've been a few comments here and there. . .

4. Women who are bitchy in private relationships. . . .women who are sometimes described as "high strung" or "high maintenance" or, as Mr. B. calls me, "stressmonkeys." Up to a point, I think these women are good partners for solid, self-confident guys; we have a clear sense of boundaries, we're direct; we're not conflict-averse; we don't mess about on the borders of hinting that something's wrong--we'll come pretty straight out and let you know. But I'll admit that sometimes those skills get misapplied. . .

She also suggests that perhaps Bitch #4 has some weird corollary relationship to Bitch #3, then she observes, "I think that a certain level of personal "bitchiness" is fine, and I suspect a lot of men are attracted to strong, assertive, ambitious women, which is of course the simple answer to the "why do men like bitchy women" question. But I wonder about the men who live with those of us who are (4). What's the attraction? I admit: I don't think I could do it."

*Whew* Okay. I've caught you up on what I was thinking about, and the conversation I've been following. I thought about replying there, then chose not to, since the conversation had become rather stultifyingly hetero, then increasingly combative, then began to degenerate into a discussion about whether or not Angelina Jolie is sexy (yes, but in a not-altogether-comfortable sort of way,) and why.

She says later, in the comments section: "I also wonder, come to think of it, how these archetypes play out in same-sex relationships, or whether there are different archetypes altogether."

The answer to that is, of course, "it depends" and "yes."

That is, I know same-sex couples both male and female who seem to avoid the nice partner/bitchy partner dynamic--but I've never quite managed the trick of it.

I didn't want to cut-n-paste the entire post, so I've omitted Dr. Bitch's nice-guy classifications. They're insightful and funny. Really, you should go and read the post. If you had Firefox, instead of the cursed IE, you could even open it in another tab and zap back and forth for reference.

And cuz this is my own blog, I'm not particularly inclined to explain why I classify myself as a nice-guy type. You'll have to just take my word for it. I'd love to be a bitch. I really would. I just can't ever pull it off. The closest I've come is when a dear friend described me as "mostly feral" and I'm not even certain what that precisely meant. I took it as a compliment. My friend who made the observation is very much a bitch, by the way. In the good sense of the word.

(I'm terribly tempted here to launch into a monologue about the urgent need to expand the lexicon: "Bitch" has been neatly appropriated by strong women to mean a combination of sexy/strong/wonderful/and-if-that-scares-you-we-don't-give-a-fuck. I applaud that appropriation, and suggest that those who need a gender-specific pejorative should go looking for another word to use. I'm resisting mightily. Feel free to admire my fortitude.)

What were we talking about? Oh yes. Nice dyke/bitchy dyke partnering arrangements, and what's the attraction.

*disclaimer: the following is mostly irreverent observation, thrown together out of my personal experience. It may well have no bearing on any one else's reality whatsoever. I'm okay with that.

So here's the thing. Dr. B's Bitch #3 and #4 are mostly the same woman, although there are some exceptions. She's strong, sure, intelligent and articulate in her public and professional life--but there's a cost for that. She's often strong, sure, intelligent, and articulate in her private life, as well--but sometimes she's a bit...err...neurotic.

Okay. You know what?

Occasionally, she's just plain bugfuck nutso.

Even that's sort of sexy, in a not-exactly-healthy-or-comfortable way. The "stress-monkey" side-effect is friggin' adorable as long as you can maintain a healthy detachment. Because it's still about knowing precisely what she wants, and how she wants it. Even though she's perhaps the only person in the world who can understand the logic. It spells the difference between Athena and Boadicea. Athena is, frankly, a bit boring. Boadicea is, well, a total hottie.

This is a phenomenon I've long associated with education. More recently, I've realized it's just about intelligence in general. Or rather, a combination of intelligence and a talent for appropriate introspection. So it's something I often see in well-educated women, but not exclusively.

It's a kind of sexy that's got little to do with pheremones, and so when it's combined with good pheremones, it's completely and overwhelmingly irresistable.

Shoes

So I'm watching the NBC Nightly News last night. Actually, I wasn't really watching--sort of listening with one ear, while I scraped old paint off of cupboard fronts. I couldn't help but overhear several minutes of discussion about four members of a women's lacrosse team who wore flip flops to the White House. Apparently, this act was sufficiently scandalous that it ignited controversy sufficient to overshadow any other issues of the day, because it got a lot of coverage.

Essentially, it seems the current White House prefers a higher level of decorum and...er...formality.

A bit later, still scraping, I hear on the local news about a big friggin' tunnel dug under the Canadian border. "Oh great," I think, "We have to take our shoes off in line at the airport--which I'm supposed to believe makes me safer--and meanwhile, someone's run a private underground superhighway from BC to Washington state."

I would have been fine, if I'd stopped thinking right there.

Instead, though, it occurs to me that if taking our shoes off in the security line at the airport isn't really about Homeland Security (booga, booga) then what the hell is it about?

Then I start thinking about what it was like to stand in that line for almost an hour. True, I don't take my shoes off--nor do my fellow travelers--until we reach the metal detectors and conveyer belts. At that point, though, there's this enormous mob of unhappy, stressed people handing over their shoes and belts to total strangers: Strangers in uniforms, unsmiling, officious, and abrupt.

That sets off a chain of images in my mind.

I think we need to be damned careful what we let ourselves become accustomed to. We're being conditioned to accept being treated like cattle--all in the name of security and freedom.

Cowboy Heroes

I have a confession: In spite of an education practically designed to engender contempt towards and automatic dismissal of any book you can find on a supermarket spin-rack, I love pulp fiction.

The stuff people in used bookstores buy by the grocery-bag full? I'm fascinated by that stuff.

I think many of those writers are/were on to something. They've tapped into a jugular vein of popular imagination, fantasy gender-roles, and cultural iconography.

This is by no means a secret sort of obsession. I wrote my master's thesis about Pet Sematary much to the committee's bemusement and...er...horror. (But they approved it with no rewrites, after my defense. The guy who wrote about literary allusions in Vanity Fair can't say as much.)

So that's how I came to be reading my way through a box full of Louis L'Amour westerns. My dad picked them up at a local garage sale, during a recent visit. Now, it isn't that I'd never read any of these books; in fact, when I was still tutoring reading-challenged kids, these slender little paperbacks were a big favorite with a lot of the boys.

Somehow, though, I'd come away with the impression that these books are more-or-less the same story. I'd developed a kind of patronizing, dismissive roll-of-the-eyes attitude about them.

Shame on me.

Okay, I'm not going to try to sell you on the idea that Louis L'Amour's books are great literature, somehow-overlooked.

Let's face it, though--the Cowboy has definitely become an archetype of American culture. He pops up all over the place, from John Wayne to Han Solo to Serenity to--god help us all--GW. Louis L'Amour certainly didn't invent the American cowboy archetype, though he cashed in on it, with enthusiasm.

"I wanna be a cowboy...

Riding on the range,
I've got my hat - on
I've got my boots - dusty..."

The books are very clear-cut in the world view they put forward, with regards to strength of character, self-discipline, morality, ethics, and just how-stuff-oughtta-be in general. The characters live by a code, unwritten and largely unspoken--yet somehow understood and accepted by everyone.

They aren't terribly written, either. In fact, L'Amour had moments of real beauty, especially in terms of describing landscape with which he obviously felt a powerful connection.

Okay, yeah--he head-hops all over the place. It's a bit jarring to be reading a first-person novel, then jump to a third person scene, revealing the innermost thoughts of another character far away. Sort of a mostly first-person, but sometimes-omniscient-for-the-sake-of-convenience approach.

Now, to a degree, almost all of 'em could be read as sort of one-note Gary Stu stories. To give credit where it's due, however, I think he honestly tried to broaden the one-dimensional caricature of cowboy-gunslinger. Admittedly, his heroes tend to be much more thoughtful--and much better-read--than the typical card-board cut-out cowboy. There are even some notable attempts at real characterization, with varying degrees of success.

He gives his reader multiple hints that we are to understand the hero riding across the western landscape as a knight of the prairie, through oft-repeated allusions to Lochinvar and Ivanhoe.

OH! young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none.
He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love and so dauntless in war,	5
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

His version of romantic love, too, seems closely informed by the courtly-love, chivalric-code versions--the hero and the love interest have a sort of unspoken attraction, from which springs a barely-discussed understanding of one another...they can even travel across hostile territory in each other's company, with nothing awkward or unseemly happening.

" Where is my John Wayne
Where is my Prairie Son
Where is my happy ending
Where have all the cowboys gone

Where is my Marlboro man
Where is his shiny gun
Where is my lonely ranger
Where have all the cowboys gone ..."

Except the lonely, far-travelling gunslinger--as good with his fists as he is quick with his gun--provides what can be a disastrous real-life paradigm for "how to be." It's a model that has been glorified and imitated to incredible extremes.

This guy just never has any doubts. He intuitively knows what's right and wrong, and he sets about imposing and enforcing what he knows to be right, with gun and fists.



Sound familiar?

If only the cowboys currently in office were as well-read and introspective, as concerned with liberty and justice, as dedicated to the ideals of equality, as a L'Amour hero.

Smart People

I love hanging out with smart people. The smarter, the better.

Oh--it's humbling, for sure. In fact, nothing quite stings like hearing someone articulate off-the-cuff, with seeming ease, something you've been long been struggling to frame and verbalize.

But it's good, too. It keeps things in perspective.
It also saves me a lot of mental work.

Funny people tend to be smart. I mean funny in the says-clever-and-amusing-things kind of way, not funny in the oh-my-god-what-a-bonehead, GW kind of way. Perhaps that's part of why it's so much fun to just hang out in the background and listen to smart people talk.

Oh, I suppose you could make a case that it's intellectual voyeurism. I'm okay with that, actually. I can certainly think of worse perversions.

(These observations are leading up to my point, in spite of how it may seem otherwise.)

I like blogs, because I like to listen to smart people. Reading the blogs of smart people is polite, non-intrusive, and convenient. There isn't that awkward moment where you're hanging about listening, even though you aren't actually included in the conversation, and trying to pretend you aren't listening...

Thank god for smart people and their blogs. They've saved me from having to cope with my own social ineptitude.

If I notice I'm late for something, I don't have to make any apologies and try to unobtrusively exit a conversation. I can just close the screen. It'll still be there when I come back.

It's all sort of a huge party, where you circulate and eavesdrop on or even chat briefly with total strangers. Some of them are fascinating people, and you look forward to your next encounter. Some are simply dreadful, and you fidget while looking desperately for an avenue of escape.

Reading someone's blog on a regular basis is like the un-relationship relationship.

If someone usually witty and interesting is having an off day, I can just navigate away. I don't have to find polite ways of saying, "oh Christ you're boring today..." Thus, I don't have to burn any bridges, and when said person returns to their witty and stimulating self I can pick right up as if they'd never had a bad day.

And if your eyes are glazing over about now, that's okay. I completely understand. I never need to know.

I'll try to be wittier next time.

Paranoid and political rant--I'll understand if you skip this one.

A bit of googling and too much evening news has recently led me to an uncomfortable conclusion. What if this administration actually perceives most Americans as the enemy? It would explain a great deal of what I hear in the news, stuff that otherwise actually seems completely baffling and inexplicable.

First though, some observations from a paper purportedly neither opposed to nor in support of the American military operation in Iraq, written by Harvey K. Ullman and James P. Wade:

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance

Given this reality that our military dominance can and will extend for some considerable time to come, provided we are prepared to use it, why then is a re-examination of American defense posture and doctrine important? The answers to this question involve (1) the changing nature of the domestic and international environments; (2) the complex nature of resolving inter and intra-state conflict that falls outside conventional war, including peacekeeping, and countering terrorism, crime, and the use of weapons of mass destruction; (3) resource constraints; (4) defense infrastructure and technical industrial bases raised on a large, continuous infusion of funding now facing a future of austerity; and (5) the vast uncertainties of the so-called social, economic, and information revolutions that could check or counter many of the nation's assumptions as well as public support currently underwriting defense.

Lets just think about that for a moment, shall we?
"(1) the changing nature of the domestic and international environments"
mmm-hmm. The changing nature of the domestic environment? The environment here at home, that is.

"(2) the complex nature of resolving inter and intra-state conflict that falls outside conventional war, including peacekeeping, and countering terrorism, crime, and the use of weapons of mass destruction"
Crime? See, this starts to sound odd, to me, especially when so closely coupled with the aforementioned domestic environment.

"(3) resource constraints"Well, that's a bit vague.
Which resources precisely, d'you suppose?
The US military abroad certainly faces resource constraints. And so do our domestic police forces. Also, with a huge chunk of our National Guard serving in Afghanistan and Iraq--our domestic resources for national disasters and local emergencies are rather depleted.

(4) defense infrastructure and technical industrial bases raised on a large, continuous infusion of funding now facing a future of austerity
Austerity? Poor Halliburton. My god. I had no idea. (This actually has little to do with my point, but I couldn't stop the sarcasm from just bubbling out.)

(5) the vast uncertainties of the so-called social, economic, and information revolutions that could check or counter many of the nation's assumptions as well as public support currently underwriting defense.
Hmm. Again, back to concern with public perception and support. Wait, though, because it gets even more interesting. The authors go on to invoke Vietnam era political struggles.

It is clear that these so-called grey areas involving non-traditional Operations Other Than War (OOTW) and law enforcement tasks are growing and pose difficult problems and challenges to American military forces, especially when and where the use of force may be inappropriate or simply may not work. The expansion of the role of UN forces to nation-building in Somalia and its subsequent failure comes to mind as an example of this danger. It is also arguable that the formidable nature and huge technological lead of American military capability could induce an adversary to move to a strategy that attempted to circumvent all this fighting power through other clever or agile means. The Vietnam War is a grim reminder of the political nature of conflict and how our power was once outflanked. Training, morale, and readiness to fight are perishable commodities requiring both a generous expenditure of resources and careful nurturing.

WTF? I realize the authors are theoretically talking about a specific situation, perhaps within a frame of reference already understood by the intended audience. This paragraph starts to set off my subtext alarms, though.

I'm troubled by the implicit acceptance of military-as-law-enforcement.

Beyond that, I'm appalled by the notion of shock and awe as a law-enforcement tactic. It rather suggests to me that we perhaps should brace ourselves for our very own Kristallnacht.

Thus, the greatest constraints today to retaining the most dominant military force in the world, paradoxically, may be in overcoming the inertia of this success. We may be our own worst enemy.

"We may be our own worst enemy."

I suspect that sentence actually provides a key clue about the thinking of the current administration.

Moving right along, we get finally to the definition I wanted, that led me to the site in the first place:

Rapid Dominance, if realized as defined in this paper, would advance the military revolution to new levels and possibly new dimensions. Rapid Dominance extends across the entire "threat, strategy, force structure, budget, infrastructure" formula with broad implications for how we provide for the future common defense. Organization and management of defense and defense resources should not be excluded from this examination although, in this paper, they are not discussed in detail.

The aim of Rapid Dominance is to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe. Clearly, the traditional military aim of destroying, defeating, or neutralizing the adversary's military capability is a fundamental and necessary component of Rapid Dominance. Our intent, however, is to field a range of capabilities to induce sufficient Shock and Awe to render the adversary impotent. This means that physical and psychological effects must be obtained.

Rapid Dominance would therefore provide the ability to control, on an immediate basis, the entire region of operational interest and the environment, broadly defined, in and around that area of interest. Beyond achieving decisive force and dominant battlefield awareness, we envisage Rapid Dominance producing a capability that can more effectively and efficiently achieve the stated political or military objectives underwriting the use of force by rendering the adversary completely impotent.

Now--if I think of that stated objective not in terms of some faceless, overseas, foreign military enemy; then it means one thing.

But put that definition in the context of the domestic situation specifically mentioned several times at the beginning of the paper. It starts to sound rather chilling.

I'm going to sidestep now, with no elegant segue, into a Human Rights Watch statement about the torture of U.S. prisoners:

Each day brings more information about the appalling abuses inflicted upon men and women held by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world. U.S. forces have used interrogation techniques including hooding, stripping detainees naked, subjecting them to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light, and depriving them of sleep—in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This apparently routine infliction of pain, discomfort, and humiliation has expanded in all too many cases into vicious beatings, sexual degradation, sodomy, near drowning, and near asphyxiation. Detainees have died under questionable circumstances while incarcerated.

Now, let's consider just who is really shocked and surprised by all this. I'll give you a hint: it isn't the combatants. We've all seen the accounts of Iraqis and others, essentially saying that after the US invaded Afghanistan, it was widely accepted that the American military was going to beat and abuse prisoners. Prisoners expect to be humiliated, to have dogs set on them, according to more than one report coming out of the Middle East.

It's the rest of the world that's stunned and outraged: the citizens of our ally countries, and our own citizens.

Now, if we revisit the concept of rapid domination, coupled with demoralization:

"...we envisage Rapid Dominance producing a capability that can more effectively and efficiently achieve the stated political or military objectives underwriting the use of force by rendering the adversary completely impotent."

I think the torture scandals currently occupying so much of the news are carefully engineered not so much to obtain information from enemy combatants, nor even to deter would-be terrorists and combatants on foreign soil. I think this is "Shock and Awe" at home, to establish rapid dominance over the American people, and to intimidate our long-term allies.

I think we are supposed to start thinking about torture as a legitimate tool of law enforcement.

For really the first time in my life, I fear my government.

Yet More Kisses

Still thinking about kisses. A friend pointed out "Kiss Me" (Sixpence None the Richer) which was one of the songs I had in mind when I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. The song sets up all the singer's expectations about the environment--"you will wear those shoes, and I will wear that dress." Which makes me smile bemusedly about the incredible weight we can give to the simplest things.

Frank said of his first for-serious kiss: My mother was waiting in the car to drive me home. She must have talked. I probably responded. But a goodly portion of me was still on Laurie's back porch. I think maybe part of me still is.

I think part of us always stays with that first kiss--the kiss that makes you leave behind forever that schoolyard-cooties view of kissing. It marks a sea-change in the way we perceive the world and others. For me, that moment didn't happen until the first time I kissed another girl.

Ray, I'm blowing you a big friendly smooch right now.

Mommie4A said: Anyway - about the kiss you describe - I just watched Spanglish last night. Wasn't that thrilled with it but it's got a lot of pregnant with kisses moment. Those were my favorite moments in the movie. And Paz Vega -wow.

I really, really wanted to love Spanglish, and just couldn't. The pregnant-with-kisses moments were far better than the actual finally-realized kiss. Perhaps that was the whole point. The thing is, I just don't believe that's always true.

And an anonymous poster wrote: Kisses
You've reminded me of things I'd forgotten. Will I be able to make it go back to sleep now that you've awakened it? It's been such a long time gone.....

Which brought to mind a poem I read years ago.
Currently, these lines are running around and around in my brain:

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
...

From Richard Hugo's Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg

We use kisses as memory-markers for the passage of time--our first kiss to our last good kiss.

So you see, .:J.r.A.:, it's all in the history, and how you remember. Kisses that surprise you are, perhaps, even better than the kisses you anticipate and hold your breath, hoping for.

And stop kissing people you don't really want to kiss.

Poor crippled and ugly little WIP

Heh. I wanted you to be so perfect. Instead, you're a twisted and misshapen little thing. Gimping along, dragging your damaged and malformed little self along as best you can. Oddly, you're all dressed up in your Sunday-best words, which only emphasizes your inadequate and slow moving story.

Dunno if I should try to fix you, or send you to the shredder to spare any innocent bystanders from accidentally reading you.

"Kiss me..."

I heard a Bonnie Raitt song, yesterday. I've heard it before, but this time the phrase "...and you haven't even kissed me, yet" stuck in my mind.

Something about the word "yet"...So very loaded, such implications of inevitability.

Just because I'm an etymology weirdo, there is this:

kiss (v.)
O.E. cyssan "to kiss," from P.Gmc. *kussijanan (cf. O.S. kussian, O.N. kyssa, O.Fris. kessa, Ger. küssen), from *kuss-, probably ultimately imitative of the sound. The O.E. noun was coss, which became M.E. cuss, but this yielded to kiss, from the verb.
For vowel evolution, see bury. There appears to be no common I.E. root word for "kiss," though suggestions of a common ku- sound may be found in the Gmc. root and Gk. kynein "to kiss," Hittite kuwash-anzi "they kiss," Skt. cumbati "he kisses."

Kissing seems such a weird thing to do; and the emotions a kiss evokes, all out of proportion to the mechanics of the behavior, itself. We write songs about it, we fantasize about that first kiss, we hang all kinds of expectations and conditions and idealizations around the very idea of that kiss.

I'm not talking about the other kinds of kisses: the frosting-smeared toddler kiss; the papery, little-old-lady, grandmother kiss; the soothing kiss your mother planted on your forehead when you were small, and didn't feel well. Not the kiss from your long-time lover, partner, and friend. Although those are all lovely kisses, too.

I have it on good authority that the generation just after mine indulges in make-out sessions as sort of a recreational pastime. I'm not even talking about those kisses. Although I think that's great. And I'm sort of jealous. And I think the behavior signals a fairly radical cultural change--but that's an entry for another day.

It's a kiss related to the cathartic movie-kiss, when it finally happens; when you've known throughout the whole movie that it would happen, it should happen, these people need to just kiss, for chrissakes, and all those plot complications will magically resolve so nicely...

It's also related to the off-limits kiss: The kiss from that married-or-otherwise-unavailable-friend, the one you're crazy about, but haven't let yourself wonder about kissing. The kiss that you never anticipated, because you couldn't imagine where or how it would ever happen, but then it's New Year's Eve, and you zoom in for the quick, friendly smooch, and suddenly the paradigm shifts--drops out from beneath your feet--and the kiss is over, and you're staring at each other, and someone's spouse is pissed...

I'm talking about that kiss--the kiss in your mind, when you're starting to think about what it might be like to kiss someone specific. Someone you've never kissed before. Someone who hasn't kissed you, yet.

That kiss, when you wonder about someone you know, when you imagine their lips and tongue, and you wonder if they're any good at kissing, anyway.

That kiss we write songs about. The kiss we remember, years later.

I was talking to a friend about the whole kissing thing, this morning. I said that I thought the kiss in your mind was much more powerful than the actuality. She asked me who the hell can hold out that long? "If I sense it's coming, I just go for it," she said.

She also observed that's why the first few seconds before the first kiss are so sexy.

That "kiss me" instant...

Awesome Chicken Tacos with mango/roasted corn salsa

You'll need to invite some friends over. This makes rather a lot. Delegate the margarita-making to someone with whom you don't mind sharing counter-space.

Salsa:
a couple, three, ears of fresh sweet corn
two or three fresh limes
a fistful of fresh cilantro
a couple or three ripe mangos
at least one fresh jalepeno pepper
a couple of fresh anaheim chile peppers
a medium red onion
a couple of small ripe tomatoes
a couple of cloves of fresh garlic
sea salt

In a big black skillet, or a wok, or whatever you have handy, roast the kernels of corn you've managed to save from falling all over the floor while you were slicing them off the ears. Send someone out for more ears of corn, if needed.

Just heat your pan with a little good olive oil. Before the oil starts smoking, toss in the corn. You want to roast it fairly hot, so it just begins to carmelize, but the kernels are still crisp. Have a margarita while you're working. Have two. Roasting corn while everyone else is out on the deck is hot and thankless work.

Take the corn up and let it cool, while you chop all the other stuff--you want it all chopped fairly fine, but not teeny-tiny. Holding back the cilantro, sea salt, and limes--chop up all the mangos, peppers, onions and tomatoes and put 'em in your biggest bowl. Add the corn. Then juice the limes and add the juice a bit at a time, until the mix starts to take on a salsa-ish texture. Add the cilantro according to taste. I like quite a lot. Sprinkle the whole thing with a bit of salt to bring out the flavors, then clear off the top shelf in your fridge until the bowl fits. Cover it with plastic or something. Have another margarita, if you want one.

Chicken:
fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced across the grain into strips about 1/2" wide
1/2 cup of decent tequila
2-3 limes
2-3 cloves fresh garlic

toss the strips into a big bowl with three or four shots of good tequila, the juice from two or three limes, and a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic, marinate for an hour or two.

Pour off the marinade and toss the chicken into the big black skillet, or wok, or whatever you cooked the corn in. (You've cleverly cleaned it up so that the chicken doesn't stick like crazy.) Cook it fairly hot, with a little more olive oil, so that it browns nicely. Salt as needed.

Set that off on the back of the stove, while you grill some nice corn tortillas. You want to cook them just a bit past "hot" but stop well short of "crispy". I like 'em just a little toughened, so they don't fall apart when you fill them.

Have another margarita.

Grate a bunch of Monterey-Jack cheese.

Serve with either plain yogurt (for the low-cal, low-fat contingent) or sour cream. Either tastes pretty good. Chicken, salsa, cheese, sour cream, in the grilled corn tortillas. Have more margaritas, as needed.

You'll probably have enough salsa left over to go on top of omelettes in the morning, too.

Musing on Heroes and Warriors

On the Warrior Ethos, From the Army National Guard Recruitment page:

"In the face of a rapidly changing theater of operations, General Schoomaker, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, has personally called for a return to this most fundamental of creeds. The modern Guard, active now on battlefields around the world must be prepared for battle at all times. There is no such place as “behind the lines” any more. Our enemy will strike at us whenever and wherever they can. And we must be, we will be prepared to meet them and destroy them. And we will accomplish this mission by adhering to the Warrior Ethos:

I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade."

Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously, April 4th, 2005. The accounts that I've read of his heroism and sacrifice clearly describe this man as both a hero and a warrior. You don't have to agree with the motives behind the Iraq War and you don't have to like the ideology that keeps America in the conflict in order to feel a surge of admiration and respect for a man who voluntarily laysdown his own life to protect the lives of his comrades.

Then I found myself thinking about heroes, warriors, and how we value them.

I spent some time perusing the Congressional Medal of Honor page, and the stories of the recipients of the medal. It was an education for a would-be writer of fiction.

There is a certain kind of valor, a level of heroism remarkable in its purity, that seems to transcend ordinary human nature. Perhaps that is why the more cynical souls among us seek to diminish the weight of such acts. I suppose it would be more fashionable, at least among my most radical pc friends, if I were to write and think about Sgt. Smith's medal as a story told by the government at a time when this war badly needs some positive publicity.

I refuse to do that. I can't bring myself to diminish Sgt. Smith's valor that way.

I do want to think about it in terms of stories, though. I want to think about this act in terms of the stuff of heroism. This story is all the more poignant because of the accompanying pictures of the sergeant and his surviving loved ones--the human face. And I wonder if we need to recognize the face of the hero, to love him. If, in knowing and accepting his all-to-human failings, we recognize all the more the power of his transformation.

Our most revered medals aren't awarded for killing the most enemy combatants, like some real-life video-game--God save us all, if our culture ever comes to that.

I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.

This ethos seems to me to be about selflessness, about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. An effective fictitious hero/warrior must be recognizeably human--and still must embody selflessness.

The tension of the struggle between those two states of being is where the story lives.

Passings

I'm struck by the quiet dignity accompanied by international vigils surrounding the Pope in his last hours. In comparison, the lunatic hysteria surrounding poor--purportedly Catholic--Terry Schiavo seems even more ghastly.

Godspeed to them both.

Pushing the edges

I got some really good advice, years ago. A Hemingway scholar I used to know told me, "write hard. Then, when you rewrite, write even harder. Make the words as true and powerful as you possibly can." That's actually a more or less fictionalized paraphrase--but it captures the essential gist.

Now, this is easier said than done, of course.

It seems a fine line: manipulate your reader, without letting on--because as soon as the reader feels manipulated, you've blown it; write in a manner both true and unflinching, without sacrificing tension and subtleties.

Oh, and write about something that lots of people care about--or if you're really good, make them care about something they didn't realize was so important. Find something that sets up that odd, aching, harmonic overtone inside the reader--without letting your words or your story slip away into cliches.

While we're at it, stand on one leg on the tip of a chimney in a high wind and recite The Odyssey backwards while knitting a sweater.

Just kidding. Mostly.

*note: I like this template quite a lot, but the white letters on the dark blue field have to go. I'll be mucking about with it for the next few days, and since I really don't know what I'm doing, the whole thing might well vanish completely. If that happens, my apologies in advance. I also rather like the courier font--but I'm afraid it isn't the easiest thing to read on the screen. So I expect I'll be experimenting with that, as well.

Humility

Whenever I feel the need for a reality-check about my relative importance, I just come here and look at my google ranking.

It helps me remember not to take myself too very seriously.

Tonight...

Tonight, I would like to be some incredibly interesting and complicated character in a noir film...or perhaps a little indie foreign picture. Someone with chiselled and compelling features, smoking at a little table in a tiny bar, someplace exotic and dangerous.

I would smoke, french-inhaling and letting the smoke curl from my lips into wisps over the table. If I could figure out a way to do so without looking ridiculous, I would blow smoke-rings.

I would drink something terribly potent and tasty and romantic. When the time came, I would slip my trenchcoat around my shoulders and step out onto the street, into the night and the fog, to keep my prearranged assignation--despite the danger and uncertainty.

I wonder who I need to talk to to arrange my very own, extremely cool soundtrack.

I'm allergic to the alder trees blooming their little hearts out, here. The antihistamines are obviously making me a bit strange.

Thoughts about the WIP

I've linked this back to the livejournal that I'm using as a sort of brainstorming place for what I want to work on next. I don't actually plan to be cross-posting like this, often.

Lately I've been thinking about Henry II and the murder of Thomas a Becket.

...The monks were solemnly chanting vespers to Almighty God, as he entered the sacred temple of Christ, shortly to become an evening sacrifice. The servants of Satan pursued having neither respect as Christians to his holy order, nor to the
sacred place, or season; but attacking the dignified prelate as he stood in prayer before the holy altar, even during the festival of Christmas, these truly nefarious Christians most inhumanly murdered him. Having done the deed, and retiring as if triumphant, they departed with unhallowed joy. Recollecting, however, that perhaps the transaction might displease the person in whose behalf they had been so zealous, they retired to the northern parts of England, waiting until they could fully discover the disposition of their monarch towards them.
Source: The Church Historians of England. Vol. IV - Part II. Translated by Joseph Stevenson. London: Seeley’s, 1856; pp. 465-7; 478-81; 493-5.

A terrible thing to love a king, and find yourself set against him. Even worse to be the king, though. The seeds of tragedy lie within human fallibility.

Divine King of England: A Study in Anthropology, by Margaret Murray, supposedly suggests the murder of Becket was actually a ritual substitute sacrifice, a Sacred-King sacrifice. Katherine Kurtz played with this idea in Lammas Night, sort of an alternate-WWII-history fantasy.

The problem IS that Murray and many of her ideas have been co-opted by more marginal new-age sites and proponents. I'm unsure as to the quality of her actual scholarship. I have a lot of work to do, there. I can't find an actual copy of her book, Divine King--which might at least help me distinguish what has been sensationalized and taken out of context. I'm off to the library as soon as I have a free day--because I just don't trust the internet for reliable sourcing.

Meanwhile, I'm completely infatuated with the picture of Becket, murdered at vespers, monks chanting, candles lit... during the Christmas season. I'm not alone in my interest, of course. There is also the French play, Becket.


Henry, legend has it, walked barefoot to Canterbury as penance. Becket and Henry, by all accounts, had been closer than brothers, at least at an earlier point in their lives and relationship. Henry was apologizing to Becket, or to the Church? Probably both, life and history being complex and fraught with rich nuances of relationship and politics. And he didn't actually cover as much ground barefoot as he might have.

Still.

The idea of the murder as a voluntary laying-down-of-life for the king--his close friend and almost brother--as a surrogate sacrifice...hmm.

Gawd, what a story, though. No matter HOW it really played out, once upon a time. You just KNOW the real story is infinitely more complex than history can really tell us.

Very bad news.

GENEVA
(CNN) -- Doctors reported for the first time Wednesday the ominous spread of a strain of the AIDS virus that is resistant to protease inhibitors, the medicines
that have revolutionized care of the disease.

I also heard on an NPR sidebar that there is apparently a drug-resistant strain that converts to full-blown AIDS much faster than the old-style HIV.

God. What if we just spent a third of the money we spend invading other countries on microscopic killers, instead?

This could be a very bad thing for the already floundering health-care system.

A Passing...

"As of 11:12AM Friday, February 11th, 2005, Jack Lawrence Chalker has now passed away and is now in a greater place. We thank all that have kept Jack in his thoughts and prayers." --from JackChalker.com

Midnight at the Well of Souls was one of the first sff books I remember reading.

Godspeed, Mr. Chalker.

Worthless damn spell-checker

A friend of mine recently returned to school for her graduate degree. The other evening, she told a story about a member of her creative-writing class who is hell-bent on submitting his stories with a sort of neo-spelling: laff for laugh, enuff for enough, thru for through--or threw, presumably--and so on.

My initial incredulity wore off just enough for blatant hostility to set in.

Apparently the guy belongs to an organization that promotes the simplification of spelling, and he firmly believes that if people start submitting stories and articles with simplified spelling, the whole thing will catch on and spread like wildfire.

I immediately started planning to lose a lot of sleep fretting over this thing. I love English. I love our words, and their idiosyncracies. I love the funky spellings that make little or no logical sense to the modern mind; words that send me off to the dictionary, where I can lose hours--literally hours, I kid you not--looking up etymologies.

I started looking for someone I could send my donation to, someone who was standing on the wall, in the gap, dictionary in hand--someone to halt the barbarians clamoring at the gates of civilization, demanding that we all start ignoring silent letters as if they'd never existed.

Information is power. Besides, I'm ever curious, and with too much time on my hands that I would only otherwise only spend constructively, I did some googling.

One web site tells me:

"The Simplified Spelling Society was founded in 1908 in Great Britain. The Society first proposed a fully phonetisized system. Its outcome was a basis for
the Initial Teaching Alphabet. This is a regularized spelling system which was used in several schools throughout the 1960s to the 1980s. The Simplified Spelling Society does not offer only one proposal to reform spelling. The
Lojikon (1995) proposed a reformation of consonants only, whereas Cut Spelling (1996) removed the 10% redundant letters."

The site lists George Bernard Shaw as one of the movement's early proponents. That bit of knowledge put an end to my original thought that these people obviously just hate the language, and/or are congenital bad-spellers, and bitter about it.

I've actually always sort of liked Shaw. I've read a couple of his plays, and perhaps an essay or two. I'd never found his spelling to be particularly eccentric. I'd have a hard time believing he hated the language. I felt oddly betrayed.

So I felt I must dig a bit deeper to make sense of the motivation behind the whole thing; because, frankly, spelling just doesn't seem that damned hard to me.

Turns out this is far from a new thing. Organizations promoting the simplification of spelling have been around for quite some time. Better than a century, in fact. It also turns out that hardly anyone but me is particularly worried about the simplified spelling movement. Far fewer sites exist, promoting the preservation of archaic English spellings.

Turns out the movement has actually gained some ground over the last century or so--just a bit.

This site informed me that "Webster's plan for reforming English spelling centered on 10 main classes of words":

1. "-our" to "-or"
2. "-re" to "-er"
3. dropping final "k" in "publick," etc.
4. changing "-ence" to "-ense" in "defence," etc.
5. use single "l" in inflected forms, e.g. "traveled"
6. use double "l" in words like "fulfill"
7. use "-or" for "-er" where done so in
Latin, e.g. "instructor," "visitor"
8. drop final "e" to give: ax, determin, definit, infinit,
envelop, medicin, opposit, famin, (others)
9. use single "f" at end of words like "pontif," "plaintif"
10. change "-ise" to "-ize" wherever this can be traced
back to Latin and Greek (where a "z"/zeta *was* used
in the spellings) or a more recent coining which
uses the suffix "-ize" (from Greek "-izein")

I don't have a primary source for this assertion about Mr. Webster--only what the website tells me. They drop a bunch of other names, too--Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt, for example. Mark Twain, I don't worry about, so much. He might well have had his tongue in his cheek--and I've seen some of the fun he poked at the language. And Teddy Roosevelt...well, I'm just not all that surprised.

But having gotten this many concessions, the philistines are only emboldened: This site has a list of proposed new systems.

Strangely, many of the links don't work. Heh. Imagine my pleasure that so many of these pages have already vanished into obscurity.

I suppose I don't really think the language is in any real danger. I suppose there is no burning need to actually pick up arms and defend the "s" that sounds like a "z"--but that guy in my friend's creative-writing class is awfully lucky I'm not teaching the class.

Also, this whole strange excursion resulted in the unwelcome discovery that my MS Word spellchecker recognized "thru" as a legitimate spelling.

*sigh*

I already knew the damn spell-check was next to worthless.

"...a very interesting thing to know..."

I was cleaning out desk drawers the other day--in lieu of actually writing--when I came across a scrap of paper apparently from years ago.

I sat and looked at the little piece of paper, on which I'd written: “One of the things that is a very interesting thing to know is how you are feeling inside you to the words that are coming out to be outside of you.” --Gertrude Stein

I know it had to be from years ago, because the last time I actually read any Gertrude Stein, I was in graduate school. That would have been sometime just after the Louisiana Purchase. (Not really, unless we're speaking in terms of geologic time, but the phrase pleased me.)

I don't really know exactly what Gertrude Stein meant by that sentence, you understand. In fact, I really don't know what she meant by a lot of the things she said--except, of course, for those things she said so directly that it seems there is no way to misunderstand her. Even those things, I don't quite trust to be as straightforward as they seem. It makes me question my own perceptions.

She's tricky, that way.

I understand what the words themselves string together to mean, in a conventional sense. It just seems very much as if something altogether deeper and more complex sits at the heart of that sentence.

Take the whole "rose is a rose is a rose" thing, for example: Of course it is. Except when it isn't. Which is part of her point. I think.

Now, admittedly, I'm getting myself all tangled up in semantics, reading a woman who--legend has it--once received a rejection from an American publisher with the kindly advice that she should write in her native tongue and employ the services of a good translator.

The more I think about the deceptive simplicity of the sentence on that scrap of paper, the more intriguing it becomes. "...a very interesting thing to know is how you are feeling inside you to the words that are coming out to be outside you."

Then I put it aside and went to work actually writing, instead of pretending I was writing when in fact I was really cleaning out desk drawers. Then an odd thing happened. I was writing a scene taking place on a porch. Suddenly, the word "porch" looked very wrong.

Now, I'm not a particularly obsessive soul. At least, not about most things. But the more I looked at the word "porch", the worse I felt about it. I had to stop and look it up. make sure it really was a "porch" I was talking about, not a patio or a veranda.

The dictionary definition sounded all right, for the context. The etymology was unenlightening: "Middle English porche, from Old French, from Latin porticus, portico, from porta, gate."

But it still looked...wrong.

The experience was akin to the discomfort of having bit the side of your tongue, and for a day or so afterwards, your tongue seems to fit awkwardly in your mouth--uncomfortable, and the wrong shape for the available space.

So I moved the scene to the yard.

"Yard" is a good word. Nice, solid-feeling. Old English roots. I can depend on a word like that, I think, not to go all strange and uncomfortable.

Oh geez...

If you haven't seen this, you should. It's a blog purportedly coming out of Baghdad.

Nuremberg and the environment

I grew up with my mother's stories about JFK. In her fond reminiscence, he attains the mythic powers and stature of an epic hero. She was in Dallas the day he was killed. I've heard the stories over and over again. She calls him "Jack Kennedy" and goes misty-eyed and shining-faced when she talks about that era. (Never mind that she was a single mother working two jobs and living with her parents--hardly having a good time of it.)

So when I went to listen to Robert Kennedy Jr. speak, Saturday evening, I think I was hoping for something akin to the Kennedys of my mother's fond remembrance.

I also want to make note of the rather disappointing turn-out for his speech. Seattle is a pretty liberal city, but the appearance was poorly publicized--no doubt at least partly to blame for the small crowd.

I noticed that the folks who did show up and sit through the speech--rightfully denouncing illegal coal-burning power-plants--all expressed a longing for a 60's-style Kennedy to follow. They said this either directly or obliquely--but the longing was apparent. During the question and answer period, over and over, people asked: What can we do? Who can we follow? We remember your father, we remember your uncle.

The mostly unspoken question--are you like them?--went unanswered. One woman gamely hung on to the microphone and said, "We had leaders in the '60s, your uncle, your father. We need a leader like that today--maybe you...?" And she trailed off. There was a heartbeat or two of embarrassed silence. Then the microphone was passed on to the next questioner.

You know what? I was disappointed.

It took me a day or two to realized how very unfair that reaction really was. For one thing, I wasn't alive when JFK was assassinated. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that era, and the mood and the people and the culture. It seems terribly unfair to hold a living human being up to a fallen hero that I never followed, I've only heard stories about.

I'm don't really know that much about RFK Jr., but I will plug his book, Crimes Against Nature : How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy. (The title pretty much reveals everything you can expect from the book itself.)

Among other things, Kennedy says point blank (in this interview) that GW is "the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history."

RFK Jr. also refers to something Herman Goerring said:

Naturally, the common people don't want war... (but)
it is always a simple matter to drag people along ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

--Herman Goerring, the Nuremberg trials,1946.

I just thought it bore repeating. I'll give you a second to digest it, in case you hadn't seen it before.

Artificially linking the Nuremberg Trials with current environmental issues might seem a bit forced; however, RFK Jr. made it seem perfectly logical. This article is worth reading. So is this one.


By way of parting, since we're speaking of that era, I'll also direct you to Eisenhower's farewell speech:

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

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

Disappointingly, my mother voted for Bush. I have no fucking idea why. I keep thinking that if I can only understand that, I'll have a beginning of an idea what we're up against, and how to combat it.

Atlanta Nights

I mentioned a sting on Publish America, a few posts back. The book, Atlanta Nights, will shortly be getting an ISBN of its very own. It has a blogosphere radar profile rapidly becoming incandescent.

If you need to catch up, the official press release explains the chain of events beautifully. The story of the pseudonym "Travis Tea" is nearly as entertaining as the book. The acceptance letter from PublishAmerica is here, and the contract is here.

Meanwhile, you can watch the ongoing discussion at Absolute Write, Making Light, Critters,or Metafilter. You can also see what one of the involved authors had to say about the whole idea on Robin Hobb's newsgroup. Look fast, because I don't think those archives hang around very long.

It all serves as a cautionary tale for those searching for a book publisher: scams abound, and there is no shortage of unscrupulous companies and individuals willing to exploit new writers.

Proceeds from the sales of Atlanta Nights will benefit the Science Fiction Writers of America's Emergency Medical fund.

Today, January 27th

Today is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I wish I could think of something new and profound to write, on this day. But these events happened a couple of decades before I was even born--and anything I might try to add would sound hollow. And redundant. At least to me.

But I can offer a prayer--

And a picture is worth a thousand words.

Especially when there just aren't words, enough.

Oh, LOOK!

I've done something hopelessly stupid to my template.

Bear with me, while I try to figure out why the sidebar has dropped to the bottom of the posts....

*sigh* Now, if only I weren't such a complete techno-moron, I could fix it, and add some snazzy new features while I was at it.


Edited to say: All better now.

Strange new world...

I've recently bumped into the strange and skewed world of fanfic.

I'm not going to post any links, since a quick google search will certainly land anyone who cares to look in the middle of more fanfic than they can shovel themselves back out of.

Now, please understand that the adjectives "strange" and "skewed" aren't meant in a derogatory way; rather, I find myself at a loss for any other way to describe this stuff. Some of it is frankly awful.

But some of it is disconcertingly...well-written. I almost said good, but then I had an attack of goody-two-shoes ethical heebie-jeebies at the idea of appropriating someone else's characters and universe, and then moving stuff around without permission.

A couple of the interesting things, writerly ethics aside:

1.) My gawd...to write a story that takes such strong hold of readers that they can't let go of it once it's over...

2.) Interesting compulsion to "finish" someone else's story: the writer let me down by not pushing this as far as I think s/he could/should have...

3.) Slash: What the hell is this about? In some cases, about the fan's own unresolved sex-stuff, of course. In other cases, perhaps about tension the author/creator set up, that went nowhere, leaving fans feeling like the tension was unresolved, and the promised pay-off didn't happen.

I'm just sayin'.

It bears thinking about.

Publish and Perish

Heh. Seems that a group of writers from SFWA recently executed a rather telling sting against Publish America. You can read all about it here on the Absolute Write website.

The involved parties are understandably gleeful about showing PA up VERY publicly for exactly the scummy, scammy, exploitative operation they really are. And they deserve to feel glee. If you look at the manuscript, it is funny. Hold-your-sides, blood-pressure-popping funny.

Many of the writers involved with the project have taken no end of crappy and abusive repercussions for the work they do to expose this company. PA preys on the dreams of would-be writers with all the avarice and slick patter of a telephone con-artist working a scheme to part senior citizens from their savings.

At the same time, I feel so profoundly sad for the people who labored long hours--giving up time with family, staying up too late, and rising before any one else was awake--to finish a book they dreamed of selling. A book they loved and believed in. And in the face of all this, I think the PA authors that continue to defend their company aren't really defending Publish America at all, deep down.

They are trying very hard to continue to defend that book they love and believe in.

Ouch.

Okay

...I just don't think the colon/semicolon thing is going to work out, after all.

I just...I really miss my em-dash. I can't move forward, until I get some closure, there.

Oh, I know what you'll tell me. It's irresponsible and improper. I know. Trust me I know. You'll probably mention that nothing so flighty as an em-dash is going to make me happy in the long run, especially considering how badly I abuse it.

I've had all those same arguments with myself.

*Sigh* Everything has to be so damn difficult.

Resolutions

As a hedonist by nature, I try not to make New Year's resolutions. They typically get in the way of my continuing pursuit of dissipation.

However, I've recently been examining an alarming trend: the issue of the rapidly disappearing and dreadfully misunderstood colon and semicolon. The shocking neglect I've recently observed has led me to a change of heart regarding resolutions. I resolve to make at least a token attempt to do my part and use these oft-overlooked bits of punctuation. I think this terribly necessary; otherwise, these useful markers could become so endangered that no one with a public-school education can readily identify them.

Fiction-writing note to myself for the week:

No matter HOW bloody smart you think you are, it really DOES help to plot the damn thing first.

...and so it goes.

I seem to be spending more time staring into the middle-distance just beyond the monitor screen than I spend actually writing any words, this week. (Imagine a heavy, self-pitying and wretched sigh.) Sheer laziness in action, I imagine.

Red-herrings of thought lead me down blind alleys of speculation: Where do the words with which we tell our stories come from, to begin with? Not the language itself--I understand that, well enough. (Hey! I heard that snicker...Knock it off!)

I am transfixed by the idea that we can apply words to things we only imagine. We use words to describe a wil-o'-wisp of dreamed idea to transfigure that idea into a tale. Then we tell that tale, either in written or spoken form. Human beings have been doing so for untold generations. It's a mighty alchemy. It seems, as near as I can tell, to be an actual human need...and even those with little or no aptitude for tale-crafting show evidence of feeling that need.

Admittedly, many of the stories we tell serve a moralistic purpose. Didactic in nature, the tale-spinner has an agenda hidden (or not-so-hidden) inside the words. However, we also tell stories that quite obviously serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. How else do you explain Joey?

The ability to create fiction seems to me an awe-inspiring thing. From the tiny white lies we use to soothe our friends and loved ones ("Oh don't worry--it's no trouble at all, really,") to the multi-volume would-be epics that everyone stopped reading after about book seven--and yes, I'm talking about precisely that author you think I might be talking about...but I only made it through book five.

Our words give our thoughts shape. Words provide escape for those concepts that otherwise would be trapped forever inside of us, transforming what would otherwise be terminal alienation into mere solitude.

There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed or controlled;
cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense; for war is the
slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale
as possible. [Jeanette Rankin, 1929]

Blessed are the Peacemakers.

A little reading:
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2004/11/they-voted-for-this-mess.html

And something to ponder: http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/contest/winner.jsp

And also: http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm

I'm still following links out, so will probably post more about the above links later.

It seems to me that the Bushies are happy to declare war on other countries and kill hundreds of thousands of human beings--while claiming to be God's servants.
No wonder they seem far more interested in quoting the Old Testament (at least the pieces and parts that serve their agenda) than actually examining the reported words of the Jesus Christ they supposedly serve.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. for they shall be
filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed
are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for
theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Why aren't the fundies going to the wall to chisel those words on our courthouse walls?

Post Election Teeth-Gnashing

Okay. It was a sad, crappy morning, in spite of the uncharacteristic-for-Seattle-in-November sunshine. Along with everyone else I know and associate with, I've got the post-election blues. (Imagine guitar-plunking...sad, string-bending notes.) I wasn't crazy about Kerry--I really preferred Dean. But you know how it goes: Anybody but Bush.

So what's the deal? Who on earth VOTED for George W. Bush? My first instinct this morning was to gnash my teeth and dismiss the election results as blatantly fraudulent. My next instinct was to condemn the voting American public--or at least just over half of them--as hopelessly, criminally stupid. How can people not see and understand the dangerous, terrifying situation that the religious right and George Bush holding power, uncontested and unchecked, presents to all of us? The Republicans control the House, the Senate, the majority of Governorships, the White House, and likely--within the next year--the Supreme Court. The left has de facto lost its voice in our government. That is NOT the way this system was set up to work. If the Right doesn't like the way the elections go, they just re-zone the districts--four Texas Democrats just lost their seats that way.

I've calmed down just a tad. The fact is, I know lots of people who voted for Dubya. I've been driving by the Bush/Cheney yard and highway signs every day. Hell, my parents supported GW and his buddies. I watched Democrats all over the country lose seat after seat in the House and the Senate to Republicans, as well as the majority of Governorships. If the Republicans claim to be the party of decency and morality, I--for one--would like to see them do some damn good for people besides rich WASPs. Now, I think there are good and honorable people within the Republican Party. I just wish they would fucking stand up and get a lot louder. Because right now, men like Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are running this country. I know all those Americans who voted for GW thought they really were voting just for him...but they weren't.

Now. Here we are, and this is what we have to work with. It's pretty ugly. For the tin-foil beanie conspiracy theorists like myself, there is currently House legislation pending--section 3032 and 3033 of HR 10--that would allow the government to deport terrorist suspects to other countries for interrogation, without a hearing or a trial. The ugly part is that the legislation is hidden inside a bill to implement the 9/11 Commission Report.
Does anyone else smell a Stalin-esque trend in American politics? Right now we are free to say critical things about our government. We are free to congregate in groups that plan to vote that government right out on its ass. Unfortunately, I'm deeply afraid that perhaps they only allow us to do that to keep us safely out of the way and prevent us from taking more active measures. I guess we'll know, if bloggers and liberals, environmentalists and activists begin to disappear. In the name of patriotism. Prosecuted as domestic terrorists. Crucified in the "free" press as traitors. Hopefully, it isn't already too late.

Reclaim the word liberal. It isn't a nasty word. Refuse to hear it as an epithet. Be proud of it. It's a word that means we believe in civil rights. We think workers should have some power and a voice and some control over their own destinies. We think the American infant mortality rate is obscene. We think people should all have somewhere safe and warm to sleep, and decent health-care. We believe in compassion, and giving, and some of us fear God and some of us don't even believe in him--but we defend one another's right to subscribe to whatever faith we choose.

Get involved. Volunteer. Educate yourself and others. Write letters to your congressmen and women. Find out if you have a Democrat to get behind in 2008. If your state doesn't have a viable candidate, help dig one up. Hell, run for office. Batten down the hatches. Keep the faith.

A link to a blog called Obsidian Wings, tells more of the story. And if you don't care to follow the link and read the whole thing, here is an excerpt (emphasis added):

Last month Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Congressman, introduced a bill that would clearly outlaw extraordinary rendition. But Markey only has 22 cosponsors, and now the House leadership is trying to legalize torture outsourcing--and hide it in the bill implementing the 9/11 Commission Report.
These are excerpts from a press release one of Markey's staffers just emailed me:

The provision Rep. Markey referred to is contained in Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004," introduced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist - thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish "by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured," would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary's regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will - even countries other than the person's home country or the country in which they were born. The provision would also apply retroactively.

Go VOTE for chrissake...

Ugh--I'm woefully behind here. Moving, finishing up my job, gallivanting around the country, recovering from some sort of virus that felt like a dead-ringer for ebola only not as fatal. This might not be pretty prose.

I may never actually unpack all those boxes. I'm okay with that, I'm thinking.

I forgot to request an absentee ballot, so must drive across the state Tuesday to do my civic duty. And I will.

Picked up two kids hitchhiking last night on my way back to Seattle. They'd somehow managed to put their engine block most of the way through the radiator of their old pick-up. (I know, picking up hitchhikers is risky behavior. But only if you pick up homicidal maniac rapists. These were just a couple of kids who'd gone looking for early snow on Mt Ranier to play in, and had some crappy luck.)

I got treated to the 19-year-old not really very well informed version of "why we should vote for John Kerry"--which included extensive misquoting of Faranheit 9/11. And a relieved observation that this year's election should be much safer with the international impartial administrators coming in to monitor the results (I know. It had me scratching MY head in complete bafflement, too.)

But you know what? These were two kids who had never voted. Had never really cared about voting. And they were excited. They felt empowered. They were clearly enthused and inspired. Regardless of who wins, John Kerry or the antichrist, this election has done something important for our culture.

I hope it lasts.

Massively Destructive Weapons Destruction...

If you don't live in the Pacific Northwest, you might not be aware of the chemical weapons stored at Umatilla, Oregon at the U.S. Army's Chemical Weapons Storage Depot.

From a July 2000 press release, from Rep. Peter DeFazio's (D) office:

"On September 15, 1999, 34 workers were sent to the hospital after suffering symptoms such as vomiting, chest pains, and difficulty breathing. The Army, and Raytheon, the military contractor for the Umatilla depot, investigated the area where the workers were afflicted and denied that there was any release of Sarin or Mustard nerve gasses. Under the Freedom of Information Act, a group of the affected workers obtained reports of the incident from the Federal and State Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). According to those documents, the Army and Raytheon's own data shows the release of Sarin and Mustard gas on multiple days from September 13-18, 2000."

They've tried to figure out how to safely get rid of the stuff...But it turns out that's pretty tricky to do--oh, and the incinerator designed for the purpose doesn't work quite right, either. There are more than a few safety concerns about the whole process.

Well, yesterday they incinerated the first chemical rocket. Seems they drill a little hole, drain the Sarin--or Mustard gas, or what-have-you--into another container, then cut the rocket up and cook it. After they've collected enough liquid, they incinerate that too.

Yeah...that's right. They burn it all. The army assures us that this is a very safe process.

Who the fuck thinks this is a safe thing to do (besides the army-powers-that-be)? I'm sure glad I'm not living just downwind from Umatilla, Oregon. Apparently, they project it will take at least six years to dispose of this particular stockpile of weapons.

Oh--one other question: If they really had found any chemical weapons in Iraq, what the bleeding hell did they propose to do with them? We don't even know how to get rid of our own chemical weapons without risking the health of our citizens.

Afraid of Words...

Why is it censorship if someone silences those with whom we agree, but not those with whom we disagree? I know this isn't a new discussion, but I think it bears revisiting.

Even more subtle is the way we sometimes seek to silence those who expose us to ideas that make us squirm.

If I wrote a graphic story about being brutally date-raped and the antagonist in the story gets away with it--and I posted that story on a writer's board on the internet--I would be taking a terrible chance that people would be disgusted and offended by the subject matter, language and tone. I would take a chance that some readers would misunderstand and think I was glorifying the topic, because the bad guy didn't get his comeuppance.

That would be a chance I was willing to take--because I believe it's an incredibly important issue. I am willing to piss people off--and willing to take the chance that some sicko perv out there is going to get his rocks off because he likes the whole idea--but I cannot control other people's reactions.

But I am a writer. Writers spend every word desperately trying to communicate with someone--a theoretical reader--who comes away from that story changed for the better, who comes away thinking and feeling something new. That's how I set about doing my part toward changing this sorry fucking world for the better. Sometimes I'm sure I miss completely. Sometimes I succeed and never know it--and the faith that I do so is why I can keep writing from this terrible alone place in my head, where no one else can ever quite go.

If someone doesn't want their child to read my story, so be it. If someone wants to be shocked and appalled, and pretend that such things don't really happen in their world--that's their prerogative. If someone wants to stop reading after the first three sentences, power to them. But that one theoretical reader, who sees it, who gets it, who really connects--for the sake of that one person, I refuse to shut up. I refuse to only write nice things that make everyone who reads them feel better. In fact, I HOPE I shake people up and upset them enough to get off their asses and do something real for a change.

I firmly believe that is what writing, at its best, is really about. And as long as what I am writing is not actually illegal--then I have every right to put the words down and get it into the world any which way I can. No one is forced to read it. Even if I put it on a freaking billboard out on the interstate--no one is forced to read it. I have not taken away anyone's free will.

But if what I post is simply summarily taken down because it may make someone uncomfortable--I've been silenced. That is completely unacceptable. And it's a especially heinous thing for writers to do to each other. Because the ONE single thing I can really do--the ONE real power I have to make a difference in my world--has just been taken from me.

I believe if we are really interested in communication, then it is absolutely unconscionable for us NOT to support those writers out there trying to write something real, something that pushes the edges of our own comfort zones. In fact, I think we should seek and especially support those writers.

And just in case anyone really ever does read this blog: No, I am not talking about things like child-pornography. Kiddy porn is fundamentally dishonest intellectually, emotionally, and socially, and rightfully illegal besides. As such, it deserves absolutely no space whatsoever.

But a discussion as to why it happens? Sure. That absolutely must be discussed. Horrible things that happen every day, and we know they happen, and we are afraid to drag them kicking and screaming into the daylight and examine them so we can deal with them honestly--we damn well deserve those things in our society as long as we're going to act like such fucking cowards.

My best advice to anyone would be to really, really READ what others are saying--read between the lines, imagine their voices, THINK about how what they have said previously now informs their words. No matter what it seems like, hardly anyone really just talks to hear the sound of their own voice. And writing is too damn much work to engage in it purely for the sake of ego-gratification--which hardly ever freaking happens anyway.

A guy on a writer's board I frequent recently posted that a writer who is afraid of words isn't going to get very far. I think that is very true--not only about specific charged words like "nigger"--but also plain old ordinary words strung together to tell an honest but ugly story.

We must stop being so afraid of words.