December 2007 archive

Dec 24 2007

“E.D.” Advice Urgently Requested!

I just knew this would happen.  

I watched so much football on TV today that my better/more-astute half (i.e., spouse) actually saw an entire Cialis commercial.

Everything was ok until she heard the final “warning”…

Warning:  Contact your doctor immediately if you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours.

To which Faheyman’s spouse said:  Don’t your dare!

What shoud I do?

It reminds me of what B.B. King said when asked how he remains sexually active at age 80.

B.B. said (no joke):

“I have a great Doctor named Cialis, and two fantastic nurses named Viagra and Levitra.”

Dec 24 2007

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Well I’m once again at the lake house, sleeping on the red leather couch that used to reside at my one gran’s and typing on the desk that came from the other’s.

It’s been foggy today and out the picture window across the front porch’s snow covered Adirondack chairs you could see the fluffy and dripping trees clearly just as far as the dock and then only an impenetrable wall of white.  Even Midway Rock, a blueberry bush bearing boulder with a sloping back and sheer front perfect for the daring to jump off was invisible, though I wouldn’t have recommended that today.  Good way to break a leg.

It’s almost never good skating weather here, too much snow on the lake.  One year I tried to shovel out a rink, but the weight of the snow pack on the underlying ice pushes it down far enough that the lake leaks over the shore edges creating a two or three inch layer of slush.  I don’t much like non-rink skating anyway, too bumpy and the creaks and cracks make me a little paranoid.

But it’s ok to walk on most of the time if you stay a respectable distance from the inlets and outlets and it can be fun to go out to the thick part where our neighbor lands his seaplane in the summer.  Lots of people do the snowmobiling thing and the tracks are all over the place but I find them noisy and disruptive.

I much prefer the stiff crunch of silence.

Dec 24 2007

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Chanticleer



Dulaman

Dec 24 2007

Consider a holiday gift of peace

Still not finished with your holiday shopping?

Hate shopping?

Hate the war?

Here’s a last-minute holiday gift idea for you — and you can give it without ever leaving your keyboard, where you’re sitting right now.

Consider a donation to the antiwar movement as a gift to a friend or relative, or in someone’s memory.  Or simply in the name of building the peace movement, to stop the war in Iraq and bring the troops home.

I’ll get to some others in a minute, but my favorite cause is the Iraq Moratorium, which continues to grow on the Third Friday of every month, as more people take the pledge and participate.  Friday was Moratorium #4, and reports of actions are beginning to come in from around the country.  You can read them here. Some of them are really inspiring.

But we have a long, long way to go.  There is much work to be done.  And the Iraq Moratorium urgently needs your financial support. It’s a low budget, volunteer organization, with virtually no overhead and zero fundraising expense. Every dollar you give goes directly to building the movement.

To make a holiday contribution, simply click here.

Others that also will put your dollars to work in the cause of peace:

Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Veterans for Peace.

Iraq Veterans Against the War.

United for Peace and Justice.

Brandywine Peace Community.

Fellowship of Reconciliation.

The list is far from exhaustive.  You may know of other organizations, local or national, which do good work and need financial help.  (Feel free to plug them in the comments.)

If it matters to you, many of these contributions are tax deductible, including the Iraq Moratorium.  In most cases you’ll find info at the website.

But please consider a holiday gift of peace, even a small one.  It will help, and you’ll feel better, too.

Have a peaceful holiday season.

Dec 24 2007

The Big Picture Show

The Bush Years might not have produced much to be proud of, but one thing the have produced is an abundance of theories about the origin of the Bush Years.  Many of them are quite good; they provide both historical/theoretic insight and also guides for practical action.  I decided to make a chart of some of them, which you’ll find below.

What I find most surprising and also invigorating about these ideas is that they are not “Marxist”; they are not merely rehashings of old-school dialectical materialism.  These new accounts are genuinely original takes on the way the world works, what’s wrong with it, and what best to do about it.  Some of them, most especially, I think, Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, are state-of-the-art — they bring an exhilerating clarity to events that are seen only dimly or darkly through the older lenses lying around on the critical workbench.

One thing we ought to be doing is deciding what to use in this near-embarrassment of riches and what to discard; what to expand upon and what to emphasize.  Which ways of thinking about the Bush years provide us with the best tools for digging deeper, and which (to use an all-too-apt metaphor) are dry wells?  

If we are going to blog the future, these Big Pictures can be Big Maps of the terrain as we find it.

Photobucket

Dec 24 2007

Exposing maggots, planting grass: Toward a civil society

(originally posted, long ago, at daily Kos.  Offered here, with some changes, in the spirit of the season)

Reading dailyKos and docudharma can be depressing and scary.  A lot of people here are exposing a lot of maggots, and it’s scary to see what’s under the rocks.  Necessary, but scary.  But it’s not enough to expose maggots.  We must also plant grass.  Otherwise, our landscape will be just a lot of upturned rocks and dirt.

Most people aren’t devils or gods, they’re just ordinary shmoes trying to get along in the world, not thinking too much, just putting food on the table and themselves in a chair before a TV.  They listen to what their leaders say because it’s easy, and they don’t question because that’s hard.  They aren’t evil, but they won’t lead.

Winning the hearts and minds of the leaders of the opposition may be impossible; but winning the hearts and minds of these people – the ordinary people – is possible.  We just have to plant some grass.

I have some ideas below the fold.  But not nearly enough.  I need your help – this community’s help.  Together we do have the brains, the talent, and the wherewithal to plant a lot of grass. The seeds are there.

Dec 24 2007

A Weary Year (with resolutions)

I was with a friend the other night, another writer on The Environmentalist with whom I’ve been visiting over the holidays.  We were reflecting on 2007, which has been a far more difficult year for her than for me, and how long it’s taken the rest of the world to get how much trouble we’re in.

This came up during a viewing of François Truffaut and Nicolas Roag’s 1966 production of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 with Oskar Werner and Julie Christie.  If you haven’t seen it or read it, I recommend it; the story of a “fireman” living in a totalitarian society, whose job is to set books afire, not to question what might be inside them — which he eventually does.  (Note:  There’s a remake planned, but no guarantees it will retain the calm horror of the original).  

There is the moment when Montag, the main character, settles down with his evening “newspaper” which is entirely in graphic novel format.  They got their news that way and through large “wall sets”, where they were fed only what the state wants them to know, in between pills for either stimulation or sleep.  Equally telling was the comment by a character about her husband being away.  Montag challenges her.  She doesn’t know that her husband has been called to some war that they know nothing about and asks him what it matters anyway, as it is always someone else’s husband that gets killed.

More below the jump…

Dec 23 2007

An Open Door

As many around the world are thinking about a little town called Bethlehem and the family that needed refuge there a couple of thousand years ago, I’m thinking about a little town in Southern France called Le Chambon that heard the call of those in need during more recent times.

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The story of Le Chambon is written in a book titled Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed by Philip Hallie. It is the story of the people there who are responsible for saving the lives of over 5,000 Jewish refugees – mostly children – during World War II.

I read this book a couple of years ago and have since then found myself thinking about it quite often. It is a powerful story of ordinary people who had a huge impact in the world by living out their values of peace and human dignity in the face of totalinarianism and violence. Many have wondered over the years why a small town like this would take a stand when so many others were choosing to look the other way. Philip Hallie tries to answer that question in his book.

Dec 23 2007

Please Help American Buddhist Teachers Stephen and Ondrea Levine

levine stephen 1200 flagt

Stephen with the Wish Flag. Click on the image to get a fair-use copy – and spread the message.  

Dec 23 2007

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Turkish aircraft in fresh raid in Iraq, says Kurdish official

AFP

27 minutes ago

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) – Turkish jets bombed northern Iraq on Sunday in the latest of a string of attacks on Kurdish rebels there, but caused no damage or casualties, an Iraqi Kurdish security spokesman said.

“Turkish warplanes bombed Karukh mountain north of Arbil,” said Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdish militia which is responsible for security in northern Iraq.

He said the raid was carried out by three jets but “there was no damage or loss of life.”

…

If confirmed, it would be the fourth Turkish military operation against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the past week in northern Iraq, which Ankara says the rebels use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

Dec 23 2007

Ramón, Our Nigerian Dwarf Buck Extraordinaire

One aspect of life that gives me hope is the strong effect places, events, animals and people can have on us human beings. I became particularly aware of this phenomenon 13 years ago when I started practicing a Raja Yogic meditation system simultaneously with beginning work as a counselor at a treatment center for children who had committed sexual offenses.

Crossposted at Pockets of the Future  

Dec 23 2007

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Christmas Songs II



Eartha Kitt:  Santa Baby

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