Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Thursday is the day for Quilly's Three Word Challenge. This week's words and their definitions are:

paladin - a trusted military leader, a leading champion of a cause

intransigent - uncompromising

invidious - tending to cause discontent, animosity or envy


The insidious hate and fear-mongering engaged in by the extreme right wing of the Republican Party (the only voice they seem to have at present) and the equally insidious penchant for fear-mongering (and outright "dis-informing") by almost every "news" outlet is profoundly destructive to the well-being of our nation. Whether it be "we don't mean to frighten you, but..." news reporting on the swine flu, the repeated airing of politicians and ignorant "men/women on the street" distorting the truth by asserting that Obama is raising taxes, minute by minute obsessing about the state of the economy... most of what alleges to be news is closer to gossip and ends up spreading more fear and confusion than information. It is invidious as well as insidious.

(Just as an aside: when someone announces that they don't want to frighten you.... know that indeed they do in fact mean to frighten you. It may or may not be a conscious intention, but those kinds of apologies are red flags that tell you to be frightened and at the same time try to deny responsiblity for the impact of their behavior. My demented brother used to start many of our conversations with the phrase, "I don't want you to worry, but..." It took me a while, but I eventually realized that he did in fact want me to worry. That was the whole point. People who don't want you to worry find non-worrysome ways to tell you things. People who don't want to frighten you present information in ways that doesn't sensationalize it. )

But I digress. I used to consider myself an independent voter. I've always been liberal, more likely to vote Democratic, but I wasn't always a political bigot. I am now, though I have, on rare (and even fairly recent) occasions, voted for Republicans who seem to be capable of thought rather than intransigently spewing the party line. That they have driven a life-time moderate Republican Arlen Specter from their ranks with their intransigence seems not to have given them pause for thought. Some of them actually seem proud of themselves for it.

One thing that really bugs me in the discussion of Obama's budget is the failure of those on "my" side of the aisle to answer the questions (or perhaps pose the counter question) about the burden Obama's "rash spending" (on things like education and health care and the environment) will put on our children and grand children. Why doesn't anyone mention the burdens that the continuing deterioration of our health care system, the continuing decline of our schools and our educational system, the continuing rape of our environment, the contuing neglect of our infrastructure will put on the shoulders of those same children and grandchildren. Ultimately, fixing these massive problems - which are profoundly expensive in both dollars and human life - will pay for itself. Letting things continue to spiral down costs us in both the short and the long term. Part of the reason these problems require such expensive fixes now is because they have been continuously put off for decades. If we don't tend to these problems and soon - even if the put us deeper in debt for the moment - we will face much more expensive fixes down the road and many will suffer as well. It's much cheaper to fix a leak before your ceiling collapses from it than after. Obama - who is usually so articulate and eloquent - has sort of said this but has not said it with true clarity. What is WRONG with Democrats?

I think President Obama is a man of vision, a paladin of sorts for the rights of the average person and the poor. I love that he is doing more than just talking about the rights and needs of the poor and middle class, he's taking steps to help us. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that he doesn't assume we're a bunch of morons who aren't capable of understanding complex concepts and must only be spoken to in 20-second sound bites. Granted, it has only been 100 days, but I think this is another reason that he remains popular; he's telling us what he thinks and why he is doing what he's doing. He's explaining economic and political concepts in depth. How cool is that!

Anyway, guess I'll stop here except for....

I ran across this on Huffington Post this morning. It has gotten little (no) coverage on any news I've listened to... Last night President Obama stepped almost to a place he doesn't want to go to and said the words that "waterboarding is torture." It's an area where I'm disappointed in him, though I understand that to pursue trying people when he already has so very much on his plate must feel nightmarish. We aren't a nation that likes holding our leaders responsible for their crimes. It's uncomfortable. These people violated international law, though. They twisted the law to justify torture and they lied about it... It shouldn't be swept under the rug. I didn't want the boy who stabbed my sister to death executed, but I sure wanted him tried. Would it bring my sister back? No, but maybe it would protect someone else's sister. Torture violated the Geneva Conventions and it violates human decency. Ok... I'll stop ranting. Here's the video. It features Condalesa Rice saying it wasn't her fault and that since the President said it was ok, it must have been legal. Hmmmm.

Day late addition : Check out Dianne's (Forks Off the Moment) post on Swine Flu.

That's it from me for now. Sorry I'm so ranty today.

Just Some Spring Pictures

Don't really have anything to say today so I thought I'd just post some pictures.







This little bee got downed by the wind, I think. He sat there for a few minutes and then flew off.

Ruby Tuesday

Ruby Tuesday - hosted by Mary/the Teach at Work of the Poet - is here again. Great way to see lots of wonderful reds from around the whole world.

Today I just have a couple of robins and my flowering quince (I think that's what it is) getting ready to put on her full display.

It's about noon my time. Since I set this up to post last night, I spent the morning obsessively trying to take pictures of bumble bees. I swear they toy with me. They actually buzz the door and hover there and then just when I get them in focus they flit off. Very frustrating. But I finally got two fairly cool shots... not as zoomed in as I would have liked, but at least there are bumble bees in them. Now I'd better go sign Mr. Linky and start visiting others. Oh... that last quince photo was taken a few minutes ago... how quickly the blossoming is moving now.

It's SPRING!!!!

Well it finally feels like Spring here as well as looking the part. We went from temperatures in the 40s (and lower) to the 80s yesterday and today. The birds are singing, bees are buzzing, the flowering quince is rich in buds, there are periwinkles (I think that's what they are) all across my yard and a few dandelions. I'm pretty happy to be out of my three layers of warm clothes and to have my thermostat all the way off. Yippee!

On Thursday, the people from Delaware Opportunities came back and looked at my kitchen. I can't believe that now, besides fixing my entrance and giving me a walk-in shower, they are going to revamp my kitchen as well. As it is at the moment, everything is pretty tall for a sitting person and the cabinets are too high for me even standing. Even standing on a step ladder. Anyway, they're going to move my dishwasher (which I almost never use) over to the wall where they're moving the washing machine too and then put in a new lower sink and counter and put STORAGE under the cabinets so I'll have reachable storage! Wow! Maybe I'll be able to be a bit neater! They're also going to put in a big tall built-in shelf where there are three shelves coming off the wall (literally in the case of one of them) right now... and they may put some other low shelf space where I feed the cats and have their food and my coffee pot and stuff... all at a level that will be easy for me to reach. How cool is that!

Well, between that last sentence and this one, I took a shower and came back listening to the people on CNN talking about Swine Flu. I really ought to stop putting CNN on. It just makes me cranky. They had people calling/writing in questions and one person in California wanted to know about closing the border to those pesky sick people who come in to American hospitals. Well in defense of the CNN folks, they said they thought that was pretty unimaginable give the fact that this potential pandemic isn't that serious at the moment. What nobody said - which seems kind of like a no brainer to me - is wouldn't you WANT people to be treated? Not just because treating sick people is an inherently moral thing to do, but because TREATING them means that if they do have Swine Flu, they won't be spreading it to hundreds of other people.

Guess I'll leave off here and just post some Spring pictures for all the things I didn't particiate in - skywatch, shadow shot... Sigh. Hope your day wherever you are is as beautiful as the day we are having here.

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge, Week 60

This is week 60 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a hard time getting anything to feel finished this week... even connecting them, they all just seemed to not quite finish except that I got all the words in. Next week's words are awful too. Anyone wanting to volunteer some words is welcome to do so.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: preparation, tic-tac-toe, splurge, auction block, the bitter end, milk, papyrus, when the parade passes by, bill of lading, stone wall Mini Challenge: polar bear, 20 seconds, get it together, spasmodic, antiquity

Here's my ten world offering for this week:

Margaret Milk Morgenson loved history. She was obsessed with things historical and had been since childhood. When her classmates had spent time playing tic-tac-toe she had read history books. She had begged her parents to take her to museums and historical sites. When other children had bought themselves candy, she had splurged on replicas of papyrus scrolls and books about mummies and mummification. Now, a college history professor, it seemed her whole life had been a preparation for finding ways to bring history to life for her students and society at large. Her newly published book of poetry, "The Bitter End: Stone Walls and Auction Blocks," had received serious acclaim. It dealt with the history of slavery and racism from historic times right up to the present moment. Two poem which had received the most notice were an agonizingly stark piece entitled "Bill of Lading," which painted a mercilessly unblinking portrait of what it was to both be and traffic in human cargo and "When the Parade Passes By," a remarkably empathic expression (so she was told) of what it had been like to be a young black male in the 1900s in America. Trying to decide what to write next, she was torn such profoundly diverse subjects as a biography of her uncle Harvey and the gay rights movement in America or global warming.

This week's mini challenge:

"Get it together... Get it together," Margaret muttered to herself. It made no sense to fall to pieces every 20 seconds over things one could not change. These spasmodic outbursts of emotion about Uncle Harvey and polar bears and even the tragedies of antiquity make no sense to her. "It just isn't like me to act this way," she muttered to herself. "I've been absorbed by history for my whole life without going to pieces. What on earth is wrong with me?" Across the room, her mother smiled knowingly. "I think, Margaret, my dear, that you and Henry here are perhaps about to make a little history of your own. I was the same way when I was pregnant. You have all the signs."

And the mega challenge:

Margaret stared at her mother dumbfounded. "Pregnant?" She had been so busy with her classes and the publication of the book that she had not really stopped for breath. "Pregnant." It made sense. She looked around at the house in a panic. There was so much preparation to do. She and Henry would really need to get it together. At least the surprising success of her book, "The Bitter End: Stone Walls and Auction Blocks," meant that they would have a little extra money. They could splurge on baby things. There was so much to do. So much to buy. Pointing to the papyrus that hung on the wall and the other fragile antiquities that decorated their home she decreed with such urgency that you would have thought the baby was due any moment, "All this stuff has to go, Henry." 20 seconds later she was on to decorating the nursery, leaving her poor husband's head spinning with the change in his normally reasonable wife. "Margaret," he whispered, "maybe we should make sure we're really pregnant first." He was not quite sure how to deal with this new wife with her spasmodic fits of weeping and intense mood swings. He was not quite sure what to think about having a baby. It was not that he didn't want one. It had just not occurred to him that he and Margaret might become parents or that she would become this strange new person when it happened. He wanted to go on as they were. He was excited by her new found fame, traveling with her as talk show hosts from Oprah to Charlie Rose interviewed her about Bill of Lading and the book's other poems. He loved listening to her talk about history. Now suddenly she was a weepy baby mom who wanted to buy stuffed polar bears and decorate a nursery with a "when the parade passes by" theme of endangered animals painted onto the walls. At least that was a bit like the real Margaret. The new Margaret, meanwhile, had responded to his comment first with an angry. "Of COURSE I'm pregnant," which was followed shortly with tears and a wailing, "You don't want our baby," which was then followed by.... well, you get the idea. Once she was able to stop laughing, Gloria Milk, Margaret's mother, put a hand on her bewildered son-in-law's shoulder and whispered. "This will pass eventually, my boy, but you have a couple of rough months ahead of you, I'm afraid." To her daughter she said, "Henry is right, of course. Take a deep breath Margaret and come sit down. Tomorrow you can go to the doctor and make sure you really are pregnant... and then relax. As for me... I'm going to be a grandma." Saying which, she sat down, put her arms around her daughter and the two of them began weeping copiously. Henry, for his part, wasn't sure what was more frightening to him... the idea of being a father or 9 months of weeping, moody women. It's like tic-tac-toe, he thought to himself and then wondered what he meant by that. He felt a bit like crying himself, but that he feared would only encourage the women.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: translation, crunchy, cat’s paw, trunk, I love raspberry tarts, global warming, star struck, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, fragile, Spring fever

Mini Challenge: pancakes and syrup, flat tire, mongoose, this place looks like a bordello, first dance

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Time for Quilly's vocabulary stretching three word challenge. This week's words and their definitions are:

antediluvian - relating the period before the (Biblical) flood; made, evolved, developed a long time ago.

prolix - unduly prolonged or drawn out; marked by or using an excess of words.


ineluctable - not to be avoided, changed or resisted

In some ways James Joyce's book ULYSSES might be called prolix by some, but if it was prolix it was also strangly poetic in places. In the antediluvian times when I was a college student, I took a course on the book and that was the first (and pretty much last) time I saw the word "ineluctable." I was really sick at the time and not functioning very well, but for some reason the first sentence of the third chapter stuck in my brain instantly (ineluctably?). The chapter started as follows:

"INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE VISIBLE: AT LEAST THAT IF NO MORE, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.


Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o'er his base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably. I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the end of his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of Los Demiurgos. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a'.

When I was looking for the quote, I found a cool website where you could read the book on-line. I was going to share the link but I lost it (long story). However, my nephew's fiance (he's getting married!) sent me this link which might be of interest to book and word lovers. Free literature... emailed to you in segments on a schedule you set. It's called DailyLit.com. Cool.

Guess that's it from me. Trying not to be prolix though I have been ineluctably drawn to being so from the antediluvian times of my youth on into the present.

Torture and Relative Morality

Well, there's nothing better for getting me out of the doldrums than something I feel passionate about. I've been listening to way too much CNN. It's an exercise in self torture... Commentators - even the best of them - tend to make me sputter and mutter, yell at the TV and at times use language unbefitting my alleged gentility.

So, anyway, last night before bed, I turned to CNN and they got to yapping about torture and interviewing opposing sides on the rightness or wrongness of releasing the torture memos and prosecuting people who attempted to justify torture and those who "just followed orders." Dick Cheney is busy saying... "but, but, but.... we got information from these techniques.... they didn't release that." First, I'm pretty skeptical about how much incredibly valuable information we got from tormenting and debasing other human beings, but secondly.... that doesn't justify doing it. Torture is torture. Inhumanity is inhumanity. A successful robbery makes you richer. That doesn't make it right. And nothing.... NOTHING... makes torture right. The reason there are international treaties banning torture is because it is an obscenity and beyond moral justification.

Whatever information we got or didn't get, we tortured one man one hundred and eighty three (183!!!!!) times, another 83. (What's with the 83 thing? Somebody's lucky number? Creepy.) How effective is something (even if you can cross the hideous moral boundary line that lets you debase your own humanity to indulge in it) which requires 183 tries to accomplish its end? What does engagement in such horror do to the perpetrators? Most of us from the comfort of distance and time cluck our tongues at Germans who sat back and allowed the Nazis to accomplish their horrors. We are righteous about those who tormented and killed millions. We are righteous and stunned by the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition (where water boarding was invented, I believe.) Now we - in our free society - have ignored and rationalized (granted on a much smaller scale) our own government treading into depravity.

Every villain has a great reason for why they have killed or stolen or tormented another human being. The wife abuser is convinced that it is his victim's fault. It's fascinating to me that this behavior was conducted and justified by the "What would Jesus Do" crowd (by this I don't mean all people who may ask this question, but Mr. Bush who and his cronies who allegedly used that question as the basis for their decisions). Last time I read the Bible, Jesus would have turned the other cheek. I'm not saying we have to go that far, though I do believe that if instead of responding to terrorists by behaving just like them, we held the high moral ground, they would lose much of their power. Their power comes in part from our willingness to make them into more than they are. If Israel - instead of taking the revenge times 2 route each time some deluded fool blew himself up - had continued trooping slowly, patiently towards peace.... perhaps the world would not be in it's current state of chaos. Maybe not. I don't know. History can't be rewound.

I was living in Arizona with my niece when the World Trade Centers were blown up. In the midst of all that horror there was a collective sense that the international community had a moment of clarity, of wanting to come together... not for revenge, but for peace. It was collective. It was palpable. It was a wasted opportunity because our country (with help from others) took the low road. In fact we blew up the road to Peace when we chose to invade another country with no justification. But I digress from torture.

Life is full of moral choices. Everything that happens can be used for good or ill. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney - in my opinion - chose to defend Democracy and the rule of law - by betraying everything that Democracy and the rule of law stand for. When the law didn't suit their ends, they evaded it or rewrote it. When truth didn't suit their ends, they lied. When confronted with evil doers, they became evil doers themselves. My first therapist once told me (and I didn't get it for a long time) that "we become the thing we hate." No finer example of that exists than my country justifying torture, military invasion, and violation of the principles of a democratic society in the name of protecting our principles. You simply cannot protect your principles by violating them. It's nonsense. It's irrational. It's immoral. Even if these men had drawn us maps to the hide-out of Osama Bin Lauden, it would not justify what was done.

We become the thing we hate. Horrible as the events of 9/11 were, the real damage to us as a nation came when we allowed fear mongerers in our own midst to persuade us that our values could be protected only by violating them. (The only way I can save you is to kill you.) This, in my view is the true power of terrorism... not the violence they do to the individuals they kill or the buildings they blow up - but the invitation they create for us to sell out our own values and justify behaving just like them. You become the thing you hate. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who is perpetrating it.

What would Jesus do? I don't think he'd waterboard anyone, lock him in a room with bugs, strip him, deprive him of sleep, beat his head against a wall.... Is this truly who we want to be as nation? This is why I continue to think it's important to hold the people who did these things accountable. It's too easy to try and turn away. Too easy not to look. That's how the Nazis succeeded. That's how American settlers virtually eradicated the Native American population of this country. That's how we allowed lynching and torture of black citizens in this country - a country with a free press - in my own life time. Evil is evil. Torture is evil. Evil can't be used to produce a good end. There is no such thing as relative morality. Ever. Or that's what I think.

One last thought/caveat. Having just said that there is no such thing as relative morality, I will now contradict myself slightly. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family may be a crime but it is less morally reprehensible to me than stealing from thousands to buy a mansion and a yacht. Killing another to save your own life in the moment is vile but comprehensible to me. I don't know if I could do it or not, but I think that's very different than plotting to kill... or killing in the name of some potential or imagined future event. Trying to rationalize torture as self-defense is self-deceit. Consciously engaging in intentional evil is simply abhorrent.

Phew.

Happy Actual Earth Day. I was ahead of schedule yesterday.

Earth Day

I'm still deeply in the dumps. Wanted to wish everyone a Happy Earth Day and apologize because I'm pretty much not visiting anyone... I still care about you, I just need to be inward, I guess. It's cold here still despite the daffodils and buds and forsythia. I'm so looking forward to open windows and not feeling cold.... and it will happen. It's already happening.

Anyway, this little grackle posed so sweetly for me this morning that I can't resist sharing her (I don't know why I think it's a girl... maybe because I think she's building a nest).



Oh - one other thing... friends of mine told me about this organization called Angel Food Network. Seems like a good organization to me and a way to make significant economic cuts into your food budget in difficult times. According to the website, there are no income qualifications and no registration. It's pretty meat heavy, so maybe not a solution for vegetarians, but...

Happy Earth Day!

Despite Spring I've Got the Blahs

Sinking into the blahs this morning. I had ideas for One Single Impression. I have photos for Shadow Shot Sunday. But I have a cold and no ambition to go with them. Even posting them seems too much, none-the less visiting 50 to 100 other sites to leave comments. I hate it when I get this way. I took a three hour nap yesterday afternoon and it helped some but I think I need to nap again today... and get back on my earlier to bed schedule. Daylight savings time has messed with me big time this year.

So anyway, I'll post some nice robins, take a nap and do some reiki on an assortment of people and Diane's kitty Mia.

Hope you all have a lovely day. It has warmed up some here... not enough to open the windows, but enough to leave the thermostat down. And there are daffodils and forsythia. Spring is winning. Winter has been deposed.

I hope you have a lovely day! I'm off to take a nap...

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 59

This is week 59 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Even I'm tired of hearing me complain about the words every week so I'm not going to do it this week. I'm just going to post my wordzzles. Nope, no complaints here even if they were so bad that I almost wanted to give up.... Nope... no complaints.... Just posting what I post and leaving it at that.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: prefix, art festival, income tax, chicken noodle soup, jump rope, Dutch Treat, flowering plum tree, bats in the belfry, diamond earrings, tigers Mini Challenge: book club, organic tea, the cow jumped over the moon, paragon of virtue, wench

Here's my ten-word offering for this week:

Dutch Treat seemed like a better name for chocolate than chicken noodle soup, Amanda mused to herself, but there was no denying that this soup was a treat, Dutch or not. Sitting at this outdoor café, surrounded by flowering plum trees here at the art festival the bats in the belfry madness of last night’s income tax trauma seemed like ancient history, though just the thought of sorting through bank accounts and prefixes and numbers made her anxious all over again. Nerves aside, the happy outcome – besides the fact that the filing was done – was that she was getting a big enough return to buy herself those diamond earrings or if not them, maybe that cool painting of the tigers she had looked at earlier. She felt elated enough to join those kids playing jump rope… well almost, anyway. It was fun watching them at least. In any case, all things considered, today was a good day.

And here's my mini challenge:

Miranda sat drinking her organic tea and feeling like a paragon of virtue as she read this month’s book club selection, which was entitled The Wizard’s Wench and while not the greatest book ever was entertaining. Certainly, she thought to herself, smiling at her sleeping three year old, it’s more exciting than the cow jumped over the moon.

My maxi Challenge:

Peter Prefix loved being curator of the art festival. He had single-handedly (well, almost) revitalized this once forgotten corner of his little city. It had all begun as he read Joseph Campbell and absorbed that great man’s sense of wonder… and the idea of following your bliss. Peter had followed his bliss and opened The Flowering Plum Tree, a sweet café where he served organic tea and quality vegetarian food. The place was famous for its vegetarian version of chicken noodle soup, a cocktail of his own invention which he called the Saucy Wench, and for the weekly book club gatherings held there. With the amazing success of Plum Tree, he decided to open another- very different - place in the same neighborhood. He had called the second cafe The Cow Jumped Over the Moon. It was created with children and parents in mind and was part café, part indoor playground. There was a padded jump rope corner, a room called bats in the belfry where kids could bounce and run and burn off steam, and the Paper Tiger room where they could learn origami or put on smocks and draw or paint while their parents watched and enjoyed his signature Dutch Treat hot chocolate and an unlimited supply of donuts and cookies or they could enjoy the "dining room" and have a meal if they preferred. With the success of both restaurants his bliss had guided him on to creating the series of annual arts festivals which included the whole gamut of the arts from painting and sculpture to literary talents. The Flowering Plum offered weekly poetry readings as well as the book clubs and The Cow had a standing gallery for the children’s art. Peter was a happy man. Though many accused him of it, he didn’t think of himself as a paragon of virtue. He felt he was a good man and an honest one. He paid his income taxes gladly, gave money to charity, helped those in need when he could and did everything he could to reach out a helping hand to those to whom life had been less than kind. He did this in part because he knew that his own good fortune had been built on an amazing stroke of luck. Thirty years ago as a very young man he had found a pair of diamond earrings lying on the sidewalk and after making great effort had been able to return them to their owner. She had rewarded him with the down payment on his first restaurant, a life-long friendship and her daughter's hand in marriage. He was more lucky than virtuous and he knew it. He was happy to be alive. Life was good and he counted his blessings daily.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: preparation, tic-tac-toe, splurge, auction block, the bitter end, milk, papyrus, when the parade passes by, bill of lading, stone wall

Mini Challenge: polar bear, 20 seconds, get it together, spasmodic, antiquity

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Keith Olbermann on Mr. Obama's Decision re Torturers

I think President Obama is a truly good and thoughtful man, a man of great integrity, but today I was a bit disappointed in him. I understand that with so very much on his and this nation's plate, that it must seem on some level unnecessarily divisive and traumatic to pursue legal action on the moral offenses of the previous administration. I agree with Mr. Olbermann, though. Sometimes difficult things must be done because they are the right thing to do and doing them - even if it's uncomfortable and difficult - is ultimately healing.

While there is a legalism that says the lower level players were operating under the legal advice from the administration that what they were doing was legal... morally, I think they have to have known better. That excuse - as Mr. Olbermann points out - is no more valid now than it was when the Nazi's used it.

Quilly's Three Word Challenge

Thursday brings us Quilly's three words you may never heard of before challenge. This week's words were: comity, sublunary, and specious. Here are the definitions:

Comity: a friendly social environment; loose, a wide-spread community based on common social institutions; avoidance of proselytizing members of another religious denomination.

Sublunary: relating to the terrestrial world.

Specious: having a deception attraction or allure; having a false look of truth or genuineness.


Listening to the news coverage of these specious, supposedly "grass roots" tea parties around the country is enough to make me spit tacks. We have outraged citizens protesting higher taxes just when the taxes of 93% of us have gone DOWN. We have the Republican governor of Texas threatening to secede from the Union. Texas is that gave us the evil dim-wit George W. Bush wants to leave the union because of big government. Oddly they weren't bothered when GWB spied on us, took us into a war we shouldn't have entered, gave us a record deficit, stuck his finger into personal matters like a family's private decision about pulling the plug on a brain-dead woman or the right of gay people to marry one another.....

I really don't like being a bigot, but Republicans bring out the worst in me. They are continuing to try the route they used when they had power... to keep the country divided and fearful. Commity - in it's best sense - is their enemy. In Republican eyes, in Republican parlance, the social welfare of the bulk of our citizens is "wasteful spending." They seem to have no shame about simply repeating old lies and half truths over and over and pulling in the gullible and unhappy with fears of freedom lost. It's ugly, insane and short-sighted.... not that I have strong feelings on the subject.

Then there's the issue of government spending. Republicans had no trouble spending money on rich people and bombs and spying. That, I guess isn't big government. For people who are supposed to be fiscally conscious they also seem incapable of grasping the idea that sometimes you have to spend money to save money. They continue to ignore the long-term impact of some of the projected expenditures. Our current failures in health care are costing us tons of money and lives both. Sometimes being thrifty is smart. Sometimes it's self-destructive. Sometimes it's not so much thrift as choosing who to help. Republicans don't so much like helping poor people. If anything is a testimony to the need to improve our educational system it's the fact that Repubicans (whose fingerprints and money are all over these tea parties) can get people to protest tax hikes in a year when their taxes have gone down... using the theme of taxation without representation when that too is patently absurd since if they voted they are being represented... and even if they didn't vote they are being represented by the person they chose by non-action.

When I lived in New York I was blessed to live in a complex called Stuyvesant Town. They ran the complex wisely. They took care of problems as soon as they arose. They didn't wait for the little leak to turn into a ceiling collapse. They fixed it while it was a little leak. It cost them money to keep a staff around to do this, but in the long run it saved them major expenses and it made Stuyvesant Town a nice place to live in. A country where bridges don't collapse, where roads are maintained, where schools aren't toxic and students have books and computers is a better country to live in, even if it costs a little more in the short term to catch up from all the neglect we have experienced in past years. This neglect lies at the feet of Republicans and Democrats alike, but it's time to turn it around. Doing so will bring us into the 21st century in terms of our power grid, which will make life better for all of us. It will be a step toward educating more children to be qualified for better jobs and so that they can live better, happier lives. Taking care of health care will save lives, keep people working, prevent catastrophic illnesses, and make us a better democracy in the long run.

This isn't pie in the sky. It isn't talk. It's keen attention not to misty realms of "tomorrow" but to true care and attention to sublunary issues.

I've long said - before I became truly poor myself - that something people with money don't understand is that poverty is expensive. Of necessity,, the poor often have to buy cheap because it's all they CAN do, when buying better quality goods would last them longer and ultimately cost them less. Cheap clothes, cheap furniture, cheap toys, cheap washing machines don't last as long and don't work as well. This is kind of off topic.... but what made me think of it is that we as a nation have too often gone for cheap rather than good. Whether it pans out in the end only time will tell. Hopefully, we can keep the forces of the status quo from hackin the vision and substance out of it, from spewing specious nonsence about burdening future generations for "frivolous" causes (like health care and education and modernizing our world).

I guess that's enough of a rant for today. I got the three words in.

It's beautiful here today. The sun is out and the temperatures are truly Spring-like. Yippee!!!!

This is Princess.... Shannon's new Webkins critter.
She is the pet of the month which is a big deal at Webkins.
Like Angel, looks like she is longing to go out and play.

Random Thoughts

Well, always dangerous, but I've been thinking. Watching too much CNN is part of the problem... reading too much Huffington Post.... In one of those strange moods I get into sometimes. Overtired and not sleeping well. So anyway... today's post... at least there IS one... is going to be dedicated to random thoughts about random things... probably.

Taxes: I really don't get the whole American thing about taxes. I've ranted about this before but here's a mini on tax day. As a society we aren't over taxed. This tea party thing that's going on just seems so stupid to me. First off.... the whole federal tax cutting thing is sleight of hand to a large degree. The cut taxes go with cut programs at the national level. And they trickle down to your state and local government, because somebody has to pay for road repair and schools. Thing is, what's been happening while we give huge tax cuts to rich people is that there's only so much taxes you can get from an increasingly poor underclass, so the roads and bridges and schools have all just been neglected. Do that, and there are more accidents, and worse yet - you the future generation who you think is going to watch over you and the society when your in your dotage.... they'll be ignorant and incapable of keeping the society going and incapable of bringing in the big bucks to care for dear old Mom and Dad.... And in some countries, the higher taxes that they pay provide working families with things like easily accessible free, high quality day care... and oh, yes.... medical coverage. And then there's all the lying that lies behind some of the current hysteria. Taxes are going up for a teeny tiny fraction of Americans and by and large, they aren't the ones who are complaining. Taxes for most of us are being lowered this year. This government isn't going to spend billions sending letters and checks. They're just slipping it quietly and inexpensively into your paycheck.


Obama's Budget: Then there's the whole thing about the bloated spending which will be carried by our children. Boy Republicans (sorry, my bias is showing here... there are Democrats using that too but not as much as Republicans). One of the things that sets President Obama apart from his predecessors is that he has a vision for the future. You spend some of this money now because it as the programs mature they pay for themseles... like new thermal windows and a good heating system cost initially but save in the long term. Or like friends of mine who spent an extra $300 for a washing machine but will save in the long term because it's incredibly energy efficient and doesn't use as much water. It's projected to save them a minimum of $50/month. It will pay for itself completely in less than 2 years. Universal health care, modernizing our power grid, all of these things will ultimately pay for themselves. They will take huge burdens OFF the shoulders of our children and our children's children. Or that's what I think. I could go on and on about this, but these are random thoughts.



Pakistan and the Taliban: I've got to stop watching CNN. I think I kind of understand the logic behind the Pakistani government's decision to give the Taliban rule over one small region. They were losing the battle, giving what strength they had into the battle. Maybe it's wiser to lick their wounds and grow strong enough elsewhere and to fight in wiser, subtler ways. Still it's obscene to see schools closed, to see people being held on the ground and beaten.... What really bugged me yesterday, was that these Taliban bullies cover their faces while they are committing their atrocities. I have to wonder why, if you believe in the truth and righteousness of what you are doing, you're not willing to show your face while you do it. Is it because it makes you more scary when you are faceless? Or is it because you know if people knew who you were, you might not last so long? In either case, it seems like the supreme cowardice to me.


IQs: I never think about IQs. I think IQ tests are kind of silly, but for some reason the topic came up in two conversations in two days which always seems like a sign to me that I'm "supposed" to talk about it. I don't know my own IQ. My brother is a genius... his IQ is 161. He was virtually worshipped in my family. In the Bronx, where we lived until I was 5, he was skipped ahead a grade. When we moved to Long Island (the legend goes), because we were from "the city," he was put into slow classes and didn't do very well. Then they discovered that he was a genius and they put him in different classes and he became a great student again. My parents allegedly chose not to find out what my IQ was because my brother's journey through genius had not served him well. One thing that never occurred to me until yesterday (isn't that odd?) is that I think my sister's IQ was 158 but nobody ever made a big deal about that. Maybe I'm wrong and it was only 148 or 138.... but for some reason it's fixed in my head that it was 158. I always thought that probably I fell off the wrong end of the genius tree and that was the real reason my parents never told me what mine is... "No reason to tell her she's retarded..." Over time, I came to recognize that despite the fact that my brother's brain was amazing... He could quote the encyclopedia. He could slice and dice anyone in an argument.... he didn't have much common sense. I think genius, like beauty, is a fluid thing. I think you can have perfect features and an ugly spirit and not be beautiful. And I think you can have an IQ of 170 and not be smart. Or maybe the analogy works better the other way. You can have odd features and a good, generous heart and be beautiful. And you can have an IQ of 100 and use it creatively. Which is beauty? Which is genius? I know what I think.


Last one...

Free Speech: I keep seeing clips on the Daily Show and Huffington Post of this crazy - I mean I think he's literally crazy - person, Glenn Beck. I'm all for freedom of speech, but I wonder if our media - who uses public air ways - should not be held to some kind of standards for truth and sanity. The stuff I hear about from Fox news is scary in it's lack of integrity. But even CNN spews a lot of nonsensical dribble, off-the-cuff "reactions," and sensational crap. How else are you going to fill up 24 hours? There's so much pot stirring and so many entertaining goony birds in the pot... and many Americans don't seem to know (lack of education, maybe?) that just because somebody said it on TV doesn't make it true.


Elected (and unelected) Lunatics: I know I said the Free Speech was the last one, but when I was looking for the name of the crazy guy I ran across these... How do these people get elected? And what about that guy in Minnesota who has lost to Al Franken and everybody knows it and he's still going to thwart the electoral process and appeal again and again so Franken can't take his rightfully won seat?

Senator from NC encourages Run on Banks

Glenn Beck This is a Media Matters compilation of some of his nuttiest stuff.

Michelle Bachmann

Rod Blagojevich .... Alas, there are demented Dems too...


And I think I'll stop here. I'm just rambling mindlessly anyway. This has taken a while to finish because Angel has been very huggy this morning and I've had to stop repeatedly for snuggling. Not going to read this because I'll have to scrap it so I'm just going to post it and pray there are one or two coherent thoughts buried in all the garbled rambling.


One last, last thing: Assumptions and Dreams. I wanted to add a video here, but embedding has been disabled, so I'll just add the link. Britain's Idol show has found a new star in a 47 year old social worker names Susan Boyle. We make so many assumptions about people based on age and looks... And so many of us give up on our dreams. This woman is a teacher on many levels... and singing a song I especially love besides. Keep dreaming!

I hope you all have a lovely day.... even with taxes.

Happy 85th Birthday to Dennis Puffettt

I was thinking I had nothing to write about today and then I remembered that today my friend Dennis Puffett's 85th birthday so I thought I'd remind everyone of his presence in the world and in cyberspace. Actually, I think it's his birthday here but he has probably already had his birthday on the other side of the world. Still, I hope some of you will give both yourselves and him the gift of a visit to his website.

About a month ago Dennis sent me this email:

Dear Katherine,

The Our Instant Help Page has gained a few enthusiastic supporters but too few to be significant. This is simply because it is not known. If it were commercial with paid advertising it would have swept across the world by now. But I am not in a position to do this. I have written the little dit under this to try and ease it along.

Dennis,
At TheCentre for New Era Healing.



On The Right Track
Our Instant Help
By Dennis F Puffett

If you love life
To keep as long as you can
Then include this page
Within your plan.

The nature of things
We see each day
A beautiful blossom
Children at play.

Birdsong
Pleasant to the ear
Wavelets washing onto a beach
Natural stuff within our reach.

The wondrous power
Of all that is
Yours to receive
And also to give.

Pass this page
To one or another
Father, sister
Mother, brother.

Help and heal
With love from the heart
You too
Can be a part.

Know the joy
That helping doth bring
By passing on
This eternal spring.

For the spring to become a flood
We have to get the message out
And so we begin
With this little shout.

The Natural World
In all its glory
And we are a part of
The wondrous story.

To share Our Healing Love
We need your help
To give the page
A loving shove.

When the love comes back
As it always does
You will know
That you, are on the right track.


http://www.healinghaven.com.au/httpwww.emergencyhealing.com.au.htm

Rather than repeat myself here about how wonderful I think Mr. Puffett is, I'll let you read other things I've said about him in the past.... and hopefully you'll pop over and give him the gift of a visit for his birthday!

#1

#2

#3

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DENNIS PUFFETT!!!

Nothing to Crow About

Well, I'm just way too lazy to do anything much today, even though there is Shadow Shot Sunday and One Single Impression out there waiting for participation. I had a lovely day yesterday reading wordzzles and then "playing" with my friend Shannon.

Made myself a pot of coffee this morning - something I almost never do these days - and sat by the back door for a while watching the crows and trying to do them justice with my camera. Alas, these pictures are nothing to "crow" about (couldn't resist), but they are my Easter Sunday offering anyway.




While his colleagues foraged for the bread chunks my neighbor so kindly placed by the stump in the middle of my yard, this guy gave his Easter morning sermon to anyone who would listen...


Poor guy. His audience seemed unimpressed on the whole, though they did listen...






Pastor Crow eventually flew off, possibly to preach to a more attentive crowd. I know this is blurry, but one of my missions is to catch the crows in flight. There's something so beautiful about the way birds' wings spread out... So blurry as this is, I'm posting his dramatic exit from his tree-branch pulpit.

And another wonderful sign of Spring!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Passover,
Easter, Sunday, Day, Spring Awakening.....
a wonderful Everything!

I'm off....

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 58

This is week 58 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. I had a hard time again this week. Guess it isn't the words.... maybe it's my brain. Agggh. Thanks again to Quilly for supplying this week's words.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: acrobat; grocery store; ceiling fan; dandelion; bumble bee; alabaster; scissors; chartreuse; strenuously; cube Mini Challenge: iPod; poison ivy; computer; interpreter; optometrist

Here's my ten-word offering for this week:

Standing under the slowly rotating ceiling fan and looking over her grocery list, Miranda was sure she had forgotten something important for her stepson’s first visit. Dandelion tea was there (that was for her), Bumble Bee tuna, mayonnaise, celery, cube steak, a bottle of Chartreuse (also for her), macaroni and cheese, children’s scissors, an Alabaster brand chocolate Easter bunny, jelly beans, candy eggs… EGGS! That’s what was missing… and food coloring… Charles had wanted to skip the Easter morning egg hunt but she had strenuously insisted on it. Those memories were among the happy ones from her own childhood and she hoped maybe they would help bond her to the little acrobat, imp, brat, angel who was her husband’s first and so far only child. She had wanted to get a dog too, but Charles had put his foot down at that. Still, she had great hopes for the visit. She so wanted little Chad to like her.

And here's my mini challenge:

His daughter’s iPod in hand, optometrist Dan Smith sat in front of his computer searching desperately for someone to serve as an interpreter for the coded messages she was receiving from someone called Poison Ivy. How was he to protect her when he couldn’t even speak the language?

The maxi Challenge:

The change from circus acrobat to grocery store owner had taken a significant amount of adjustment for Henri Chartreuse. He had strenuously resisted accepting the news when the optometrist - who happened to be his wife’s cousin – had told him he might have a brain tumor. He knew Ivy - Poison Ivy as he called her when he was cross – wanted him to retire from the high wire and briefly suspected her of plotting with the aforementioned cousin. In his heart, though, he had known something was wrong. They caught the tumor early and it had all gone very well, but his balance and agility had gone the way of the tumor. There would be no more circus life. He had thought about trying to work as an interpreter – he spoke three languages after all – but Ivy, Ivy of the alabaster skin and sky blue eyes, had wanted a store and he had never been able to refuse her anything, especially when she gave him that little smile and the sugary voice and called him Dandelion. “But Dandy-lion,” she had cooed… “a little store all our own out in the country where it is all peaceful and beautiful.“ So here he was in this little town in the middle of nowhere selling everything from Bumble Bee tuna to filet mignon, to ice cream. He’d gotten bored pretty quickly with just food so he had left that part of the business to Ivy while he expanded the store so it now carried everything from scissors, to Rubik’s Cubes, to i-pods, to ceiling fans, to computers. It was not a life he had planned on, but Ivy had been right. He was happy here. The community needed the goods they offered… and they needed also his stories of the larger world, of walking the tight rope, of elephants and jugglers and a world beyond the one they knew. On the whole he was a happy man. Sometime, he thought to himself, God gifts us in strange ways. A brain tumor seemed the end of the world when it had happened, but it had opened a new world to him… and through him and Ivy… to a host of others.

~~~~~~~~~~

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: prefix, art festival, income tax, chicken noodle soup, jump rope, Dutch Treat, flowering plum tree, bats in the belfry, diamond earrings, tigers

Mini Challenge: book club, organic tea, the cow jumped over the moon, paragon of virtue, wench

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Seven Deadly Sins: Pride

Well, it's time for the last episode of Kay's (Perhaps We Learn) Seven Deadly Sins meme. Last but not least comes the sin of Pride.

Well it has probably become clear to anyone who has been following these posts that I can't mention the world sin without raising the specter of my poor old mother who meant so well and did so much harm. My mother was raised by crazy people who combined that craziness with extreme poverty and ignorance. She was remarkably whole considering where she came from. My mother's mother was something called a Free Methodist. This was a Pentecostal, everything-short-of-breathing-is-sin church. Laughing was a sin, dancing was a sin, movies were a sin... Everyone was going to hell but them. You might laugh now but you would cry in hell while they were serene in Heaven. I've often thought that churches like my grandmother's -I won't call it my mother's... she hated it. She sent her own children to church (a more normal church) but would not attend herself. She knew on one level how much she had been damaged by her experience... she simply didn't know how to fix it or how not to pass the damage along.

But back to pride. I grew up shame-based. Toxic shame was the air my mother breathed. If she had nursed me, it would have been in her mother's milk. If I were God, shame would be a sin and not pride. The depth of my mother's fear of pride was such that I grew up being ashamed of feeling good about myself. That was prideful and pride was a sin. How stupid is that? How wicked. All these things so many of us have been taught to worry about and be ashamed of are so petty and so distorted. The Church - or some aspects of the Church - have created a lose/lose world for many that is as wicked and ungodly as the world my grandmother's church created for my mother. In their world the God who so loved the world that he gave a son to it, so hates humanity that he wants us to be constantly judging ourselves, constantly afraid of not measuring up to absurd and basically arbitrary standards of "goodness" and virtue.

I actually think it's the height of pridefulness to think we're so important that God has nothing better to do with His/Her time than to monitor our every thought and breath in hopes of catching us in a mistake. I think it's the height of pridefulness to ascribe human pettiness to the deity. In my experience those who do this the most are also the most prone to pridefully put on a God robe and sit around judging others, to declare that god doesn't like fat people or pretty people or gay people or rich people or poor people or... people who believe something other than what they believe. I think it is the height of pridefulness to presume to know the mind of God.

So - in what I guess by my own definition is an act of pridefulness - I'm going to say that I think God ... well let me fix that... if I were God, I would want people to feel good about themselves. I'd like them to bake a cake or paint a picture and think it was great simply because they had put their heart and love into it. If I were God, I'd want me to wake up in the morning and look into the mirror and see beauty, not flaws. If I were God, I'd be looking for the good in every being and I'd want them to be doing that too.

In Christianity - the tradition I was raised in - Jesus tells us to love one another. Jesus tells us that God is Love. I believe that. I think Sin is a human invention that probably leaves the Deity shaking His/Her head in dismay.

So - hows this for hubris and pride - if I were God, here's what I'd say to anyone reading this.

I am a Loving God and you are part of my heart. I know that you will sometimes make mistakes and that you will sometimes behave badly. You are human and it's ok. I love you anyway. I do pay attention to the big stuff like wars and killing because that's one piece of my heart attacking another and it's quite painful. But there is nothing you can do or say or think that can stop me from loving you. I am God. God is LOVE. Relax. Live and be joyful. Let go of judging yourself or everyone else. Waste of energy. Waste of Love. If you want to know me, the quickest road is Love. Love yourself. Love each other. Love all of life. All this foolishness of worrying about Sin is just a distraction from your true purpose which is to Live and to BE Love.

So that's my rather prideful take on Pride.

Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy Anything Else you may be Celebrating!

Ruby Tuesday: Reddish Hints of Spring

Ruby Tuesday - hosted by Mary/the Teach at Work of the Poet - is here again.

It has has been mostly dreary and chilly here still. Not feeling much like Spring. But no matter what the temperature and the skies are saying, the snow in my back yard is gone and the bushes and trees are showing knobs and flowers. Winter may be waging a more stubborn than usual attempt to stick around, but Spring will not be thwarted. These are mostly probably more in the pink and orange vein than truly red. But I'm posting them anyway. They attest to SPRING! Yeeee haaa!! Whoopee!!

One Single Impression: Listening

One Single Impression's prompt this week was "listening." It's always hard for me not to apologize for what I post here. Fresh out of the pen/computer poems make me feel very vulnerable. I've gotten addicted to adding graphics, probably partly because it's fun and probably partly because I hope that if it looks more interesting people won't notice my failings quite so much. Listening for some reason didn't offer a lot of visual inspiration for me and what it did seemed to need to be muted. But anyway, here's what I came up with. Reading one another's poems - reading someone's blog - is a form of listening, so I thank you for visiting, for reading, commenting, listening.

If you click on the graphic items, you can see them larger and hopefully they will be more readable. Alas, this week the type may be both too small and too large...

To those who know how

Listening seems such a small thing

Oh how wrong they are

It’s a gift beyond measure

When a lonely heart feels heard

You can click on this to see the text larger.

Listening to your voice

Still in my head, Mother dear

I am lost, confused

I want to put you to rest

Listen to better angels

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 57

This is week 57 of the Saturday Wordzzle challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Besides the fact that I had some unexpected company, my brain is having a hard time coming up with even a bad idea for how to use this week's words. Next week, we can all thank Quilly, who generously supplied me with 15 words for us to work with. Yippee! Boy... I thought this week's words were REALLY hard... even harder than last week's and I thought last week's were pretty terrible. I didn't think I was going to come up with something but in the end I did... Whew!

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: apoplexy, doctor, hummingbird, shallow end of the pool, brigadier general, mustard, greed, parallelogram, slumber party, casual Mini Challenge: Mount Olympus, arsonist, portraits, birch trees, "that car needs a new muffler"

Here's my ten-word offering for this week

Brigadier General Howard Apoplexy had spent a life time being teased about his name. Few people made the same joke twice, however, for although he tried to respond with casual humor, it usually became clear to all but the most dense that his name suited him. He was a toe the line, cut the mustard, spit and polish kind of man well suited to general-hood. He had very little sense of humor. The military was his bride, his child, his everything. His parents – whom he referred to as “those people at the shallow end of the pool” – had wanted him to be a doctor. They would have had my life be part of a parallelogram chaining me to them. They would have had me drive some little hummingbird of a car, with a dozen kids and swings and slumber parties and everything about greed and impressing others,” he would pronounce to his siblings, still seething with anger 40 years later. “I chose to do something that matters,” he bristled, to the amusement of his sister the brain surgeon and his brother the Senator. “Yes, Howie,” they would laugh in unison. “Thank goodness one of us made something of himself.”

And here's my mini challenge:

As he worked on what he called his portraits of the birch trees of Mount Olympus, New York, artist in residence, Hans Halderon, felt profound irritation as his new neighbor revved up the engine of his beat up old jalopy. That car needs a new muffler, Hans muttered to himself. That car needs a quick death; where are all the good arsonists when we need them?

And for the mega challenge:

Sitting at the shallow end of the pool, Brigadier General Mustard basked in the casual luxury of his new home. He loved Mount Olympus, as he called his beautiful new McMansion. He loved his parallelogram-shaped pool, the wonderful gardens full of bright flowers and the hummingbirds who visited the numerous feeders spread across the wonderfully landscaped yard. Then there were the three amazing birch trees. He had lots of trees, but the birches were his favorites. He was a happy man. Inside, the house was modest but wonderfully comfortable. The family portrait painted by a talented young officer who had served under him was his most prized possession. He could scarcely believe that the great tragedy in his life – the injury that had cost him his leg - had been the source of all this. Suing the doctor had not been his idea… he had been against it at first, but in the end he had realized that it was the right thing to do, not just for financial reward but because he realized that young men under his command might also become victims of that incompetent drunken hack. Retired now, he rejoiced in the wonder of this peaceful and abundant life. He was amazed at how well he was adapting to a life away from war and work. His two teenage daughters and his son each had separate wings where they could avoid the apoplexy they sometimes brought out in one another. The Greedy Arsonists as his son’s band called themselves (why he had no idea…) could practice in their wing and the girls could have a happy peaceful slumber party without ever crossing paths. Even at home there was peace now. Except of course for the strange noises that the Greedy Arsonists called music; he would have to sound-proof that room and soon. “That car needs a new muffler,” the gardener had said to him the other day and he had moaned and laughed and said. “Not a car, I’m afraid. My son’s idea of music.” But even the dreadful din of his son’s drums was a peaceful sound compared to the misery and explosions of war. The General was glad to be a soldier no more.

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

Thank you, Quilly for sending suggestions for next week's challenge: Here are Quilly's words:

Next Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: acrobat; grocery store; ceiling fan; dandelion; bumble bee; alabaster; scissors; chartreuse; strenuously; cube

Mini Challenge: iPod; poison ivy; computer; interpreter; optometrist

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!

Please only add your name to Mr. Linky if you are participating in the Wordzzle Challenge. Thanks.

The Seven Deadly Sins: Greed

Well, it's Friday and time for the sixth (I think) of Kay's (Perhaps We Learn) Seven Deadly Sins Meme. This week the subject is Greed.

Once again the voices of my inner demons are all shouting at once. On the whole, I don't think of myself as a particularly greedy person. I don't think the world owes me abundance and I don't want anything at the expense of someone else's well being. The kind of greed we've seen on Wall Street and in big oil is beyond my comprehension. Greed for power - greed so intense that we would kill for it - is beyond my comprehension. The greed of insurance companies that choose profit over the life of fellow human being is disturbing to me. It enfuriates me. It makes me feel all righteous and judgmental, which isn't really a good quality. I try to avoid feeling judgment. But this is an area where I struggle with it. I can't imagine thinking I deserved a salary of $6 million or $20 million, no matter how wonderful I was, especially in a world where children are going hungry and without health care. I just can't imagine it. I'm not opposed to money, either. I'd love to be rich. I'd love everyone to be rich. I actually think there's enough abundance in the world that everyone COULD be rich. But I'm getting off topic. Greed. Greed is the issue today.

So anyway, I'm really clear that living off the fat of the land at the expense of others and while others go without is greed. Capital G GREED.

But I struggle with the question in my own life of what's greed and what's healthy longing. Anyone who has visited for any amount of time can probably guess that my mother's voice is about to surface. As I mentioned when I wrote about gluttony, my mother grew up destitute and abused. She was such a wounded soul. Born to uneducated parents in 1910, she had to fight her family to even finish high school. She married a brilliant man who grew up less poor, but not rich. He got his college education free by attending City College and as an actuary made pretty good money. He and my mother survived the Depression. I think it was a hard time for them, though they never talked much about the details of it... or if they did, I don't remember. But anyway, I grew up middle class and my mother spoiled me with one hand and then judged me for my good fortune with the other. I don't think it was her intention, but I felt guilty for everything I owned. My mother taught me that wanting anything was a form of consumate greed. I believed her and I learned for much of my life not to want anything or if I did to push that longing down and punish myself for it. During the brief time in my life when I had some money to spend, oh what a battle it was to give myself anything.

When I first got my own apartment, I borrowed money from my father so that I could put carpet in. Not lavish carpet, pretty cheap carpet in fact. You should have heard my mother on my greed and selfishness. But she had the same response if I said I was going to a movie or out to dinner with a friend. Irresponsible and selfish. That's how she saw me. It's how I saw myself even though part of me knew better. Did I have a right to have anything? What had I done to deserve pleasure?

But is that greed? Nowadays, living on Disability, the subject of greed has great power once again. Though I have healed/quieted my mother's voice in some ways, it is not totally still. I've mentioned before that I really want a new TV. I'm hoping the prices will go down to $300 or less for a 22" flat screen. But then the debate rises in my head. Do I have a right to want this? This winter I got help from HEAP to pay my fuel costs. I get a small amount of food stamps help each month. What right, then - if I eventually do it - do I have to buy myself something like a television. Granted, I live pretty modestly. I don't own a car. I don't drive, I don't smoke or drink, but I also get help from the rest of the country to live in my little house and to eat and be warm. How greedy is it for me to want something that is ultimately a luxury. I can rationalize that TV is my companionship in a life lived largely in isolation. I can say that I'm not looking to buy a 50" or a 60" with bells and whistles. Just a small flat screen slightly larger than the 15 year old TV I have now. Then there's the whole question of whether I deserve the help coming to me sometime this summer from Delaware Opportunities? What have I done to deserve such help? Is it greedy of me to accept this largesse when I'm sure there are other people out there - people with children even - who have as great or greater need? Do I have a right to want anything? Or even if I have the right to want it, do I have the right to HAVE it?

So is my greed any less than that of the businesses who pay their executives millions and make the public pay for them? I like to think so, but is it really? Or is it even greed? I admit to great confusion on the subject. Having worked most of my working life for non profit agencies at salaries that barely paid the rent, while I did work that was supposed to be done by my bosses and for which they were earning considerably higher salaries, I like to think I'd never take a golden parachute salary. But then nobody ever offered me one.

And I feel myself starting to go into spiral thinking. I'm getting ready to second guess my second guessing and then it's just all downhill from there. So I guess I'll leave the subject on this sort of incomplete note. Not going to go back and read it. Hope it makes sense. Now I have to go and tackle writing some wordzzles. Agggghhh!

Other Deadly Sins Posts:
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth
Wrath
Envy

Autism Awareness Meets Quilly's Three Word Challenge

It's Thursday, which means that it's the arrival of Quilly's dreaded Three Word Challenge. She gives us three obscure, look-em-up-in-the-dictionary words and asks us to use them. Agh. Today's words (and their meanings) were:

propinquity - Kinship or nearness
susurrus - whispering sound
nescience - ignorance

Unfortunately, it is usually only when we are brought into propinquity with a child or children with autism that interest and concern begin to whisper in our ears, to be a susurrus, awakening our consciousness and breaking through our nescience, our ignorance and lack of concern. Today is Autism Awareness Day. Two of my favorite bloggers who put a human and tender face - who put heart and tender honesty - onto this subject are Linda at These Are the Days and Michelle at Full Souls Ahead. I hope you'll take the time to visit them and learn a bit about what it's like to have a child or children with autism and what it's like to BE a child with autism. Or an adult....

Michelle today wrote about a woman she knew in nursing school who was "different" and how she wished she had known then what she knows now. (She's much more eloquent. Please read her own words). It made me think about people who have passed through my own life. When I lived and worked out in the world I was always a magnet for odd people. They seemed to find me and glue themselves to me, probably because I was kind. I would listen and talk. I would make an effort to include them. Truth be known, though, much to my shame I wasn't always very sincere. I often resented it. In those days nobody knew what autism was. I didn't, anyway. Maybe some of these people were autistic. Probably they were. In retrospect, instead of resenting them, I should have been impressed that they were out in the world working and functioning. There was a woman at my church who nobody could stand. I was pretty much the only person who talked to her and she hung around me a lot. She was brilliant but she had trouble communicating. I used to try and help her find better ways to talk to people. Thinking back, I suspect she was autistic. Should I have had to know that to feel more compassionate about her? I've always thought that when we reject people because they seem different, we re-enforce their differentness. It has always bothered me but I won't claim that I'm above it. Part of me resented this woman's intrusion into my life. My own insecurities screamed to attention when all the odd people in the world glued themselves to me. Would people think I was one of them? (Was I? Was that why they liked me so much?)

In Arizona, I met my friend Sue and her son Nicholas. Nicholas has Asperger's Syndrome. He was 7 when I moved out there. Sweet and smart and articulate. And ever so slightly odd. The kind of differentness that makes the rest of us when we are at our worst move aside. There isn't necessarily any kind of cruel shunning (though there well may be that as well), but there is still an instinct in all of us to move away. Because we don't know any better. Because we are afraid as children and as adults of being judged. Nicholas is probably 12 or 13 now. I haven't been in touch with his mother as much as I used to be. I know they decided to start home schooling him as he moved into puberty because they thought the social problems at school might be too devastating for him. Nicholas has a wonderful imagination and a big heart and a sweet sense of humor. People who don't get to know him don't know what they are missing.

I don't know what my point is. I wish we lived in a world where we were able to be kinder to one another. Whether the differentness is autism or obesity or blindness or some other disability, I wish we were actively taught to reach past or initial impusle at rejection. We are too often ruled by the susurrus - the whispering voices of wanting to fit in, of not wanting to be bothered, of not wanting to be different by association.

I hope that somehow Autism Awareness will not just knock down walls but will also build bridges, not just teach us what autism is and how autistic children (and adults) are different, but also - maybe more importantly - teach us how those who live with autism are the same and how we can reach across what seems like a chasm but is often only a crack in the sidewalk.

I hope the day will come when people like my friend Nicholas and countless others will be less isolated by their condition because the rest of us will know that they are not so different after all.