Pinch Me

I agree with Condoleeza Rice??

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together -- Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that." Read the rest...

What I disagree with here, is her statement that she supported Bush because of No Child Left Behind. If she really believed it would help poor and minority children, she was very ignorant. From the time it was first proposed, professional educators (and not just rank and file teachers) criticized it as bad policy that would hurt low income children the most. Frankly, I think Condi's being disingenuous making this claim.

(One of these days soon I am going to write a post specifically about NCLB.)

Anyway, this article makes me wonder who Condi supports for president. Interesting.

A letter to John Conyers

"Dear Chairman Conyers:

Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five categories of repeated, defiant “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The sworn oath of members of Congress is to uphold the Constitution. Failure of the members of Congress to pursue impeachment of President Bush is an affront to the founding fathers, the Constitution, and the people of the United States.

In addition to a criminal war of aggression in Iraq, in violation of our constitution, statutes and treaties, there are the arrests of thousands of Americans and their imprisonment without charges, the spying on Americans without juridical warrant, systematic torture, and the unprecedented wholesale, defiant signing statements declaring that the President, in his unbridled discretion, is the law.

In 2005, a plurality of the American people polled declared that they would favor impeachment of President Bush if it was shown that he did not tell the truth about the reasons for going to War in Iraq. Congress should use its authority under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution to officially determine what President Bush knew before going to war in Iraq.

Your files and retrieval systems are bulging with over-whelming evidence behind all these five categories. When constitutional duty combines with the available evidence, inaction amounts to a suppression of that evidence from constitutional implementation.

When the Democrats were heading for a net election gain in 2006 in the House of Representatives, many observers of presidential accountability entertained the hope that the Judiciary Committee, with its new chairman, would hold hearings on an impeachment resolution. No way! The next backup was the belief that there would an impeachment inquiry (fortified by your own op-ed in the The Washington Post) No way! The next lowered expectation backup was just a hearing on impeachment urged by several of your present and former Congressional colleagues. So far, no way!

The fourth fallback was simply a hearing on the criminal and constitutional violations of Bush-Cheney by your Committee, as urged in a letter sent to you earlier this year by, among others, several of your former Congressional colleagues, including Senators George McGovern and James Abourezk, and Representatives Andy Jacobs and Paul Findley, along with Rocky Anderson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, and the undersigned. So far, no progress.

There is another option: do nothing. Since January 2007—the politically expedient option of doing nothing has triumphed. Volumes can and will be written, about what can go down as the most serious abdication of impeachment responsibilities by a Congress in its history. No other president has committed more systemic, repeated impeachable offenses, with such serious consequences to this country, its people, to Iraq, its people and the security of this nation before, than George W. Bush. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and their colleagues had just these kinds of monarchical abuses and violations in their framework of anticipation.

Declarations by Bush on the somber occasion of the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this past March 20, 2008 demonstrated his criminal, unconstitutional arrogance and his confidence that this Democratic Congress will continue to be cowed, continue its historic cowardliness, and continue to leave the American people without representation. Even should he unilaterally attack Iran. The Democratic Party has abandoned its critical role as an opposition Party in this and other serious matters.

In a January 6, 2008 op-ed in The Washington Post, former Senator George McGovern wrote an eloquently reasoned plea for the impeachment of George W. Bush. More than two out of three polled Americans want out of Iraq, believing it was a costly mistake.

Repeatedly during the past seven years, Mr. Bush has lectured the American people about “responsibility” and that actions with consequences must incur responsibility.

It is never too late to enforce the Constitution. It is never too late to uphold the rule of law. It is never too late to awaken the Congress to its sworn duties under the Constitution. But it will soon be too late to avoid the searing verdict of history when on January 21, 2009, George W. Bush becomes a fugitive from a justice that was never invoked by those in Congress so solely authorized to hold the President accountable.

Is this the massive Bush precedent you and your colleagues wish to convey to presidential successors who may be similarly tempted to establish themselves above and beyond the rule of law?

Is this the way you and your colleagues wish to be remembered by the American people?

Sincerely,
(Readers, are you ready for this?)

Ralph Nader"
(Lifted from Nader's site.)

What's my point?

Once again at the end of the week, liberals had their undies in a big old bundle because Nader had the audacity to urge Hilary Clinton to stay in the race despite the fact that Sen. Leahy said she should drop out. He said -- can you believe this -- that she has a Constitutional right to run for president for as long as she wishes. There were comments dripping with venom, saying things like it would just help Nader's cause if Clinton stayed in. I read that and thought, "Yes, and it helps the Democratic leadership's cause, i.e. putting the party ahead of the best interests and will of the American people which has been the problem all along, to have Clinton drop out."

Meanwhile, we can all sit on our thumbs in our crumbling infrastructure, permanently unemployed, and feel great - yay. - about the health of the Democratic Party, while the billions of dollars continue to flow into the hole in Dick "So?" Cheney's arm! (People were justifiably shocked and appalled at Cheney's arrogance last week, but guess what, friends? The DC Democrats have essentially been saying the same thing to us, the people, for the last 2+ years! "You want us to hold these leaders accountable? So?")

I'm not advocating that you vote for Ralph Nader, unless you want to. As I've said before, I don't know whether I will or not; if it looks too close in my state, I probably will vote for the Democrat. But look at where [the arrogant and self-serving] Nader puts his energy and his activism. And if more liberals embraced his message, perhaps the massively popular Barack Obama would pay attention and embrace his message too.

It is no secret that I don't believe that Nader lost the 2000 election for Gore. I think Gore lost the 2000 election for himself, fair and square. That, and the stolen votes in Florida (which should not have been repeated in 2004, but was.) Nader got votes because he had a message that we wanted to hear. He still is saying the things that many of us want to hear, that we, the American people -- the proverbial Little Guys -- matter.

He is calling for Conyers to do his job, to do what he promised the American people: to conduct an investigation into the crimes of the Bush White House. I still want to see it happen. Don't you?

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles ...

... and don't forget buses. I spent a few days last week visiting my daughter in Pittsburgh. I'm not a big fan of flying, and we can't afford it anyway, so I took good old Amtrak. It's great: you get on the train in the evening in Chicago, go to sleep, and you wake up in Pittsburgh. Same thing going back, for only $120 round trip. Then there is a bus that runs from Union Station in Chicago to Madison, where I live. Easy peasy. Right?

Last Friday when I was coming home, the train was delayed getting into Chicago, causing me to miss the first bus to Madison. No problem. I got something to eat and went out to catch the next bus two hours later.

There was a line waiting to board the bus. The driver was arranging the luggage underneath. I was literally the next person in line when a police officer walked up and arrested the driver. Handcuffed her and everything! Led her away, leaving 55 people stranded and not knowing what was going on.

Here is what had happened according to some other passengers: A few minutes before I got there, the bus driver got into an altercation with someone who wanted to board the bus. She refused him service. He got in her face. Someone called the police, and the passenger told them that the driver had hit him. They placed both the driver and the passenger under arrest.

Now, the driver was a white woman and the passenger was a black man. Several other African-American passengers were saying that the driver started it by yelling at the man when he was simply asking her an innocent question. One of them said that they were going to file a complaint against her. Not surprisingly, other Caucasian passengers were saying that the driver was just doing what was within her rights when a passenger threatens her. I didn't know what to think. I just wanted to get home, and I must say I was unimpressed with both the police -- who I think escalated the situation -- and the bus company, who essentially did nothing.

Forty minutes later the driver was released. The passenger admitted that he had fabricated the story about her hitting him because he was angry. The driver was visibly shaken (turns out the police had threatened her) and probably embarrassed. The other man was released as well, though he did not come back to the bus. After a few more delays, including the driver not being able to find the keys because a police officer had taken them (!), we were on our way, delayed by a good hour or more.

I forgot to mention that it was snowing during all of this. As we drove northwest, we hit a stretch where the road was very icy, with cars in ditches everywhere. The driver was competent and though we had to creep along, we made it safely past that part.

By this time we were going to be at least 2 hours late. But the roads cleared and we were making good time. I even called my husband to let him know he could meet me at the Park & Ride in half an hour. When. traffic. stopped. Completely. What the...? The driver stood up, craned her neck to see past the long line of cars and trucks ahead of us, and then says, "It looks like there is a car on fire up there!" I stand up and look. Sure enough, an SUV was by the side of the interstate with flames shooting out of it and black smoke billowing into the sky.

We sat for 30 minutes, while the rescue vehicles and about 10 state troopers' cars came. It was during this time that the driver started talking about the arrest. As she talked, it occurred to me that it was lot like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Everyone saw a different part of the situation, nobody saw the whole picture.

This was the driver's story: She was crawling around under the bus, loading in the luggage. The passenger walked up and asked her a question: "Does this bus go to Beloit?" or something like that. In backing out of the luggage compartment to respond to him, she smacked her head - hard - on the compartment door and she said, "GODDAMMIT!" The man got mad and said, "Don't talk to me like that!" The driver -- a rather petite woman -- said that when he got in her face she got scared. She said she has had to deal with abusive passengers before, and when you're out on the highway (and you're a small woman,) it is scary. So she told him he couldn't board the bus. She had no idea that what the passenger was reacting to was her exclamation of pain. He clearly had no idea that she had just whacked her head so hard.

So she, another passenger, and I were putting all of this together. The driver commented, "Now I feel really bad about that passenger. He must have thought I was really a jerk!" I thought the whole thing was an interesting (and painful) study in miscommunication and misunderstanding. I wonder how much of a role race played in it. I couldn't help thinking about how it could have been handled differently, and most of the hard feelings avoided.

I got home 3 hours later than I was supposed to, but I have to say that it was an interesting day and gave me a lot of food for thought.

book review: Wisconsin My Home

Wisconsin My Home, the Story of Thurine Olesen as told to her daughter Erna Oleson Xan is an imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press. It was originally published in 1950. I am not sure, but it reads as if the narrative was originally collected as an oral history, and then transcribed and roughly polished up for publication. It may even have been self-published at first.

Thurine Oleson was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, the first child of their family born in America. Unlike many other immigrants, Oleson's family did not leave Norway to better their lives. They were, in fact, well-to-do farmers in Norway who emigrated because everyone was doing it. They settled in central Wisconsin just after the Civil War in a community with many other Norwegian immigrants, a large number of them friends and relatives from back home. Their life in Wisconsin started out being much harder than their previous life had ever been, and it sounds as if Olesen's mother never stopped regretting the move.

The narrative progresses in essentially chronological order, while each chapter is organized around general themes, for example Norway, America, Cooking, Church, Childhood, Neighbors, Courtship, Kinfolk, Children and a couple of chapters that are even more specific to Oleson's life. Because the stories were collected over time (or so I believe) there is some repetition in different chapters. Reading it was a little like listening to your grandmother talk: "And then there were the Jones girls, Gladys and Dolores. You remember them, don't you? Oh, they were wild ones."

I lived in Norway for a year, and hung out for a while with a guy who traveled around Wisconsin collecting oral histories of Norwegian-American fiddlers, so I found the book to be interesting with its descriptions of Norwegian customs and a smattering of Norwegian words that I could understand. I especially liked Oleson's talk about dance parties. They were her favorite form of entertainment, but her husband, who was 5 years older than her, had made a vow to his pious mother that he would give up dancing (which was considered by the Lutheran elders to be sinful.) Oleson had some spirit though; while her husband was away logging in the north woods every summer, she would kick up her heels and go dancing. And she continued to show that spirit all through 55 years of marriage -- yay!

I also liked that Oleson was neither overly sentimental nor overly critical. It really was a chronicle of her life, good times and bad. There were friendships, enduring marriages, and joyful times. There were also abusive marriages, illness, and death. They were all part of a life.

This is definitely a niche book, not for everyone. If you are interested in the Midwest immigrant experience written in a more literary style, I suggest two excellent books by Carrie Young: The Wedding Dress (a book of short stories) and Nothing To Do But Stay (written about her own mother's experience as a farm wife in the Dakota Territory.) There is also the classic Giants in the Earth, although it is rather grim as I recall.

(Cross-posted at the Spring Reading Challenge)

4,000

4,000 American troops killed in action
1,191,216 Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion

It is 5 years past time to end this travesty. We must demand it of our political candidates.

We must continue to demand that our representatives in Congress hold accountable the criminals responsible for this war. No more, "So?"

Stop. the. war.

(Mosaic created by Nico Pitney.)

True Confessions of an Anglophile

I just finished reading Colin Irwin's In Search of Albion -- From Cornwall to Cumbria: A Ride Through England's Hidden Soul. I saw this book reviewed last year in Sing Out! magazine and had to have it, but it took me a while to track down a copy.

Although I don't fly the Union Jack or give a rat's bum for Queen Liz and her ilk, I have long nurtured a love for many things British. It was in high school that I discovered the music of Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and more. At the same time a friend introduced me to the English mummers' tradition (which clearly spawned the unbridled looniness of the Bonzo Dog Band, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and, I daresay, the goofy antics of the young Beatles.) I played briefly -- and badly -- for a Morris dance team, where the main goal of some of the dancers seemed to be to make me laugh. (Ever try to play a wind instrument when you're laughing? Impossible!) I danced English country dances. I even did the illustrations for a small book called Festivals of the English May, which I believe is cataloged in the Library of Congress, well la-dee-da. After a bad break-up with a fiddling folk musicologist, I swore off folk music, purged my lp collection of any folk music, and fell in love with a bass player in a punk rock band. That should have been the end of it, but the thing is, he loved Steeleye Span, et al -- it is one of the things that cemented our friendship in the first place -- so there you have it. Back to being an Anglophile.

In In Search Of Albion, Colin Irwin, a former writer for the now-defunct magazine Melody Maker, drives around England for a year, seeking out pockets of living traditions that define English culture and defy the media images of the "new England." From start to finish, In Search Of Albion was a delight for me. People who are into English folk traditions are probably a somewhat obscure subset of the general population; you don't run into them everyday. Reading it, I felt like I'd met an old friend.

Irwin begins his adventure in Padstow, Cornwall on May Day. (My introduction to English folk traditions was the Padstow May Day celebration, seen through the lens of George Pickow, documentary filmmaker and husband to folk music legend Jean Ritchie. I saw the movie years ago, and was entranced.) From there, he more or less circumnavigates the island, skirts Hadrian's Wall, dwells for a while in the North Country, crosses the Yorkshire Dales without ever once mentioning James Herriot, makes a detour across to the quasi-independent Isle of Man, travels through the Fens, and ultimately back to Cornwall.

Along the way, we get a kind of people's history of England, along with juicy tidbits about some well known folk musicians. For example, the great Scottish balladeer and songwriter Ewan MacColl was actually born Jimmy Miller in Manchester, England. (If I can digress for a few sentences, I just want to say that I lost a lot of respect for MacColl a few years ago when I found out that he carried on a love affair with Peggy Seeger while still married to his wife Jean, and fathered a child with each woman, both born in 1956. Kind of sleazy. One of those children was the incomparable late Kirsty MacColl, who famously said to Billy Bragg, "I hate fucking folk music." I think I understand why.)

Speaking of Kirsty MacColl, Irwin clearly has a soft spot in his heart for her, which further endeared me to his book. He reveres Ashley "Tiger" Hutchings and knows the album Morris On (one of my favorites in 1976.) He is underwhelmed by Nick Drake (me too.) Beyond simply wallowing in the familiar -- like a Kitty Kelly tell-all for the British folk revival -- Irwin does a good job of linking folk music and traditions with populist movements that are still ongoing, from labor struggles to current protests against the war on Iraq. The book introduced me to some musicians with whom I was not familiar, so today I'll be heading to a locally owned, independent cd store to order Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs. And Colin Irwin writes in a very funny and self-deprecating style.

If by this point in my review, your eyes are glazed over or you're snoring, this probably is not a book you'll be scouring the Internets to find. But if any of this made you prick up your ears, you might enjoy it. I found my copy used at Powells.

(Cross-posted at the Spring Reading Challenge.)

Easter Book Review

(Cross-posted at the Spring Reading Challenge)

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward, Illustrated by Marjorie Flack is one of my all-time favorite picture books. Published in 1939, it has a wonderfully strong female character in the girl bunny who stands up to the big white bunnies and the Jack Rabbits with long legs who can run so fast, to declare that one day she will be an Easter bunny. She goes on to have 21 babies which would appear to seal her fate as an ordinary bunny, but babies become children, and she wisely teaches all of them how to work together to take care of the household.

When one of the old Easter bunnies retires, the country bunny becomes an Easter bunny. She is sent to deliver an Easter egg to an ill child who lives high up on a mountain, a dangerous journey.

I love love love this book. I used to check it out from my school library repeatedly when I was little. As an adult I love the feminist bent to the story, but as a child I think I loved the sweet illustrations most of all. We are lucky to be living in a kind of golden age of children's literature right now. There is an amazing array of picture books to choose from, each one more beautifully or cleverly illustrated than the one previous. But sometimes my eyes get tired of the super-saturated colors or the computer-generated sameness of contemporary book illustration. I frequently find myself turning back to my old favorites.

Interested in sampling older children's books? A great place to start is with Caldecott medal winners, and go from there. I guarantee you will find a treasure trove.

Blog Against Theocracy, Easter 2008

You know, I'm having a hard time writing this post. I am an active member of The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) which is, for all intents and purposes, a Christian denomination. Yet I was raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition by atheist parents. So spiritually speaking, I'm a little confused about how to define my beliefs. Quakers put it kindly when they say I am a "seeker."

From time to time the Blogosphere seems to erupt into heated debate over religion. Frequently it gets framed as a debate between "believers" vs. "non-believers", and it is often quite painful. I was discussing all of this with my spousal unit this weekend. While he believes wholeheartedly in religious (or a-religious) tolerance, he also sees why atheists feel so threatened by expressions of belief. Even if religious fundamentalists -- those who wish to impose theocracy -- are a relatively small minority, they are feeling remarkably empowered in these times. And sometimes even well-meaning people operate under the assumption that we all "speak the same language" (religiously speaking.)

It seems that the religious beliefs of our presidential candidates are being put under the microscope as never before. I mean, we knew that John Kennedy was Roman Catholic, Richard Nixon was a Quaker (huh?), and Jimmy Carter was Southern Baptist. But that is where it ended. Perhaps the reason for that was the general assumption that everyone was some Christian denomination, so perhaps it is a good thing, in a way, that it is being discussed on a deeper level. But for some, it takes on the tone of the Spanish Inquisition.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. And seriously now, nobody should want the Spanish Inquisition. The founding fathers, flawed humans that they were, were also absolutely clear on the subjects of religious tolerance and separation of church and state.

As I contemplated what I would write today, I thought I would turn to my favorite author, the brilliant British satirist Terry Pratchett, who actually has a lot to say about about religion. He is the creator of (among others) Om of Omnia, Blind Io, Offler the Crocodile God, and Annoya -- goddess of things that get stuck in drawers. His book Small Gods is a small masterpiece.

So I leave you with a few Pratchett quotes, and a link to one lengthy passage.

In Thud! the dwarf Bashfull Bashfullsson explains that the dwarf creator, Tak, “wrote the World and the Laws, and then He left us. He does not require that we think of Him, only that we think”.

From Small Gods: "The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to."

"Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think."

From Sourcery: "I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
"CATS," he said eventually. "CATS ARE NICE."

Go in peace.
Coexist.
Namaste.

the hole in my heart

Not much energy for writing, but I don't want this day to go past without acknowledging my daughter Sophie's 14th birthday. (You can read my last year's b'day post about her here.) Unfortunately, I was on the road all day today, and didn't have much time for reflection, which leaves me feeling a bit at loose ends now at the end of the day. Sophie's brief life was, and continues to be, my convincement of some spiritual presence greater than the sum of all the parts.

Tying On My Traveling Shoes

Blogging will be slim for a few days, unless I can wrastle the laptop away from my daughter, whom I am going to visit for a few days. Wednesday is her golden birthday. It also happens to be the 5 year anniversary of the start of Bush's war on Iraq, a fact that really makes Cinderbelle angry.

Keep on the sunny side!

In Memorium

Today marks the 5 year anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death in Rafah, Palestine. Rachel Corrie, a 23 year old college student from Washington state, died while being a human shield, to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home in Gaza. She was run over by a (U.S. supplied) bulldozer, used by the Israeli military as a weapon of war. The driver of the bulldozer claimed that he did not see her. Multiple witnesses said that Rachel was in plain view, standing atop a mound of dirt wearing a blaze orange vest, at eye level with the driver. A partial investigation by the Israeli government found Rachel to be at fault; a full investigation of her death was never conducted. Rachel Corrie is considered a martyr in Palestine.

On Friday night I went to see My Name Is Rachel Corrie, the play that was adapted from Rachel's writing. I had read the text of the play before, but hearing the words being spoken was a treat. Rachel Corrie was a gifted writer, often very funny. Her emails to her parents from Gaza, the last one just a day or two before she died, were achingly poignant.

The play lasted about 90 minutes, an enormous undertaking for the lone actress who played Rachel. Everyone involved with this production chose to remain anonymous, in order to keep the audience wholly focused on Rachel's message.

Incidentally, the play has been translated into Arabic and will be playing in numerous locations throughout Israel and Palestine this month. Rachel's parents traveled to Palestine for the premiere.

I am so glad that I was finally able to see it. I highly recommend reading it, and seeing it if it is produced in your area.

Book Review: "Holding the Line"

Holding the Line is Barbara Kingsolver's first book, published in 1989. It is a journalistic account of events surrounding the 1983-84 Arizona copper miners' strike against the Phelps Dodge Corporation, specifically documenting the actions of the women -- miners and wives of miners.

Phelps Dodge miners struck when the new contract being offered them would have forced them to take cuts in wages, benefits, holiday and vacation time, and eliminate any cost of living allowance. The deck was stacked against the strikers from the start. Union membership had been in decline for several years already, and the outcome of the air traffic controllers' strike had been carefully noted by corporations across the country. The media portrayed the strikers as greedy, and later, violent troublemakers. Governor Bruce Babbitt, a democrat who had been elected with massive support from organized labor, sided with Phelps Dodge and provided both state police and National Guard troops to police strikers and protect scab labor as Phelps Dodge brought in replacement workers.

The short story is, that after 18 long months, the strike was broken and the union decertified. Kingsolver's subtext, however, is a story of empowerment of the women who held the line, who kept the strike going for those 18 months, when their husbands were barred by law from picketing outside the gates of the mines.

Arizona has a number of extremely rural, isolated communities. The populations of these communities were largely native Tohono O'Odham and Mexican-American -- from families who had been living there long before there was a United States of America or a state of Arizona. Many of them had a family history of being pushed off their land by Phelps Dodge and the other mining companies that moved in around the turn of the twentieth century. Most of them grew up in union families, with a collective memory of many strikes. Time and again, when Kingsolver asked strikers why they stayed with the union they'd say, "My dad was a union man. We saw what the union did for him."

In 1983 the women's movement was still young, and needless to say, Arizona's rural mining communities were not bastions of radical feminism. There were a handful of women employed in the mine, some who had come during WW2 when the need was great, and then fought for the right to stay on, and others who had started working in the seventies. By and large though, the
women Kingsolver wrote about had been homemakers when they formed the Morenci Miners Women's Auxillary. What they experienced in those 18 months wrought some extraordinary changes on many of their lives.

It was difficult to read this book and not think about what we have lost as a nation, not just in the last 7 years of the Bush regime, but in all of those years since Reagan became president in 1980. Kingsolver makes some excellent points about, for example, American citizens wanting to get tough on crime by expanding police forces -- but what happens when a police force is turned against law-abiding American people?

It was especially heartening to me to hear many of the women connecting the dots between what had happened to them and what was beginning to come to light about the U.S. involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador or the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. I also couldn't help but wonder if those same women were able to hold on to that connectednes and apply it to all that has happened in this country since 2001.

I have to say that I was bothered by the continual militancy of the strikers' actions -- screaming at scabs, rock-throwing, getting into fights at the five-and-dime. On the one hand, you have a group of people who are clearly being discriminated against and disenfranchised, and you have to ask, "What else can they do?" On the other hand, I kept thinking about Gandhian principles of nonviolent resistance, which I believe in my heart of hearts to be not only the right way, but infinitely more effective in the long run.

In the end, it was clear that Phelps Dodge was making a concerted -- and often illegal -- effort to break the union. They got away with it, and that is what we have seen happening time and time again over the last 25 years. The tide may be turning. The other day I read that, for the first time since the seventies union membership is on the increase. Hallelujah!

I usually enjoy Barbara Kingsolver's books, and this one was no exception. If you care about labor or women's history, you will find this a compelling read.

Spring is Springing!

Our massive piles of snow have been melting quickly in +40˚ temperatures. As soon as the snow was gone, the crocuses pushed up, and yesterday I saw the first ones blooming, right next to the foundation of our house. This morning I saw my first robin. Right now I'm watching a couple of lbj's (little brown jobs, a.k.a. sparrows) looking like they are building a nest. Oh yeah, and the ultimate sign of spring: roadkill possums. They wake up. They go looking for food. They get hit by cars.

A Question

I am going to be deliberately provocative.

For the people who think that Ralph Nader didn't have any business running for president in 2000 because he didn't have a chance of winning, what do you think of Cindy Sheehan's campaign for Nancy Pelosi's seat? (That's assuming that you know Cindy is still running, since no media, mainstream or otherwise, is reporting on it.) Do you support "Impeachment Is Off the Table" Pelosi just because she is the incumbent and a democrat? Do you revile Cindy Sheehan as a "media whore?"

Why are progressives so quick to turn on their own? I find it disturbing ...

Let me make this clear. I am not campaigning for Nader. I am not necessarily planning to vote for him. I am appealing to people whom I know to be smart and caring, to examine what appears to me to be blind prejudice and misplaced anger.

Good Reading ...

One of my favorite bloggers, Enriched Geranium, has written an excellent and thoughtful post about Ralph Nader, and I urge you to get off the beaten track and go read it. And while you're there, listen to the song Impeach the Moron, on the sidebar.

(In the interest of full disclosure, OK, I admit that Enriched Geranium is my husband, and I'm doing some shameless promotion here. So humor me.)

I'll tell you, I am not particularly inspired by this election. I don't feel optimistic that it will bring about much significant change in terms of the war, for example. The entire system is so deeply flawed. I support Obama more than I do Clinton, and will in all likelihood vote democrat, unless it is clear that the democratic party candidate will win my state with or without me. But it is difficult to place a lot of faith in the very same people who have either not had the guts or the will to stand up to the Worst. President. Ever, Inc.

Back in 2004, against my better judgment (and maybe because he brought Bruce Springsteen to town -- how cool was that? Pretty dang cool!) I voted for Kerry. That ill feeling that so many of us had on the morning of Nov. 3 will stay with me for a long, long time. Not for the first time, we were betrayed by a politician. In 2006, we turned out in droves to vote and gave the democrats a decisive victory. We liberals are a little like Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the football, aren't we?

In short, I'm pig-bitin' mad at the democrats. And until we have viable parties beyond the dems and the rethugs, we're going to be trying to kick that damned football until the end of time (which may come sooner than we think.)

Where does Nader come in? Well, he is an excellent writer and a tireless advocate for the downtrodden (and more and more we're all in that category). Should he enter the political arena again? As far as I'm concerned, that's his choice, under the law of our land. And we all get to choose who we vote for. (Sort of. Of course, if you live in a state that has a later primary, you don't have much of a choice at all. And the populist message that was carried by Kucinich, Richardson, and Edwards has largely been sidelined.)

I don't care if you support Nader, or not. But if you're somebody who has held deep anger toward him since 2000, please read what Enriched Geranium has to say, maybe even go to Nader's website and read some of the thousands of essays he has posted. (I tell you, the man works all the time.) And if you are tempted to repeat the popular memes about him, ask yourself, "How do I know this? Is it really true?"

This election is showing us, if we didn't know it before, that the democrats are just as capable of Rovian tactics as the rethuglicans. We do not need to help the smear campaigns.

Hope and Inspiration

Mr. Ether and I went to hear Steve Earle in concert last night. In these dark times when -- even yet -- people fail to speak out, Steve Earle is such a beacon. And he gets it. Not just about the war on Iraq, but on war in general, immigration, unions, globalization ... he totally gets it and speaks out. Sure, last night in Madison he was preaching to the choir, but the choir needs some hope and inspiration too.

He played for pretty much a solid 2 hours, and it was only in the second hour that he started talking politics. I thought the most radical thing he said was, "Wars aren't ended by listening to music. You gotta SING!" which some might find quaint, but is something that I passionately believe and preach to my kindergartners (only in different words.) [SOAPBOX ALERT] Think of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, Joan Baez. The incredible harmonies of Sweet Honey in the Rock were honed in jails in the Jim Crow South and fueled the Civil Rights Movement. Music is a powerful force. In my opinion, one of the great blights of these times we're living in is the fact too many of us consider ourselves to be consumers. We have to be the makers, the creators, and that includes of music and art of all sorts. Do you fancy yourself a revolutionary? Making your own music is a revolutionary act. Got a limited amount of money and thinking of buying an iPod? Buy a guitar. Got it? Buy. a. guitar. [END SOAPBOX ]

Going to hear live music, on the other hand, is incredibly inspirational.

A few minor disappointments of the evening: Steve wasn't touring with a band this time, only his wife and a DJ who did all the back up music. I missed other instrumentalists and the give and take of a live band.

Then there were the two seemingly drunk women sitting near us who kept screaming things like, "You're hot Steve!" and "Do it to me, baby!" and other equally mature things. Thankfully they stumbled out partway through the show. Maybe that was when they realized he is married and on tour with his wife.

Finally, and perhaps this won't make sense to people in bigger cities with bigger city problems, but for some reason the theater hired an out of town security firm which appeared to be largely staffed by muscular bullies who roamed the theater during the show making rather than preventing problems. Mr. Ether had two run-ins with the same guy, who was just a thug. Now, this theater started out as a neighborhood operation, it wouldn't exist without the support of its neighbors (like us), it is in the heart of old hippie land, the average age of three quarters of the audience was over 40 ... c'mon! There was no need for such heavy-handed tactics.

But ... it was a good show anyway, and the new Steve Earle album is well worth a listen, and maybe a buy.

Finally!

The play My Name Is Rachel Corrie will be produced here this week and next. I highly, highly recommend that you read the play. It is entirely taken from Rachel's journals and emails, and is beautiful, haunting, and devastating. (If you're a fan of actor Alan Rickman, you should know that he is one of the writers/producers responsible for this play.)

Last year I read an article where the writer contrasted the production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie with The Diary of Anne Frank, which at this point generates very little controversy. (Rachel Corrie has been very controversial here in the U.S., because Rachel was highly critical of Israel's policies toward the Palestinian people. She was murdered/martyred in Gaza 5 years ago this month.) Interestingly enough, our local professional theater considered producing My Name Is Rachel Corrie this year, but opted instead for The Diary of Anne Frank, the safe choice. I was greatly disappointed in them.

I am very excited to see this produced. Rachel Corrie's parents will be here at the opening, and I plan to attend.

Book Review: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

(Cross-posted at the Spring Reading Challenge)
This was a fun little book: half parodying and half riding the wave of the Harry Potter phenomenon. Alcatraz Smedrey is an orphan, booted from foster home to foster home all of his life. They never work out because he has a propensity for breaking things. On his 13th birthday he receives a birthday present ... from his father, and his grandfather Leavenworth Smedrey shows up to help Alcatraz claim his birthright. To say much more would ruin the story, so I won't. It was a quick read, with many places where I laughed out loud. I do have to say, I was tickled by the idea of evil librarians. Thanks to my friend Sminthia for recommending it to me.

Immigration

This is an amazing song which, I think, hits the nail on the head. The artist, Tom Russell, will be in Madison this Thursday. I'm looking forward to it.



There is also an article in the current New Yorker entitled The Lost Children: Immigrant Families in Detention by Margaret Talbot. It is appalling and disheartening, and underscores in no uncertain terms that the bogus "war on illegal immigrants", like all wars, is about massive profits for a few fat cats at the top (and is anyone surprised that in this case, one of the fat cats who is profiting from the suffering of innocents is Dick Cheney's son-in-law?) I am unable to link to it, but I urge you to look it up.

Of course this isn't the first time our country has incarcerated children on a large scale. Everyone is pretty familiar with the Japanese-American internment camps, but did you know that German-Americans (and some Italian-Americans) were also interred in camps, mostly in Texas? Some of them were rounded up in the United States, others were picked up in South America and brought here. The grand plan -- conceived of by George Marshall ("peaceful" architect of the Marshall Plan after WW2) -- was to use these people as pawns to trade with Hitler for "real" American prisoners. Perhaps the most despicable part of all of this was that some of the people who were indeed shipped back to Germany at the height of the Holocaust were Jews who had fled Germany, some as long as 30 years earlier.

Haven't heard about this? That's because the State Department covered it up for years, and it is still not widely known. 60 Minutes did a piece on it a few years back, and there is a traveling exhibit from out of the Twin Cities.

I am absolutely ashamed of our history of human rights violations that continues to this day, but I am proud of my fellow Americans who speak out and who work tirelessly to shed light on the ongoing miscarriages of justice. Perhaps one day we will truly be a country of peace, eh?

A New Musical Obsession: The Be Good Tanyas

I happened to be in our local independent feminist bookstore a couple of weeks ago when they were playing an album by The Be Good Tanyas. I immediately looked up all three of their albums at the library (I always like to listen before I buy) and I am hooked. I think it's the lead singer's voice; it gives me chills. Enjoy!

Spring Reading Challenge

Do you like to read and write? Then the Spring Reading Challenge is for you! If you are interested in joining up (and who wouldn't be?) email the lovely and talented Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein at the following address: monkeymuck (at) gmail (dot) com to be added to the blog. I just finished the winter challenge, and it was a lot of fun.