On the Road Again

Blogging will be slim to none for a few days. Tomorrow Sparkly Seacow and I are taking the train to visit fambly in upstate New York. Back on Friday. Everybody have a safe and happy New Year's eve and day.

If you live anywhere near Decorah, IA you can spend New Year's eve with the one, the only, the fabulous Reptile Palace Orchestra. And tell Mr. Ether to be good.

Be ready for the big blow out celebration when I get back: 2 years of Luminiferous Ether! Woo hoo!!

Happy Boxing Day!

Boxing Day is my third favorite holiday, after Groundhog Day and Hogswatch.

I thought I'd publish a couple of post-Christmas photos. The day after Christmas always feels a little like a hangover.

Here is our dining room table. It was cleared and nice for a scant hour or so yesterday, but Nature clearly abhors a vacuum (nearly as much as I do.) Any dishes that you see are from yesterday morning. Bad.

We really scaled back on gifts, and I especially feel like there simply isn't much I need or want. Mr. Ether and I are going to buy a new camera at some point (or that's what we say.) I prefer to be able to buy yarn or fabric when I'm inspired, or the occasional book. But I did receive 2 gifts of items that I've coveted for a while.

One, this locally handmade knitting needle holder, a gift from Sparkly Seacow.

Two, this sewing book is a gift from our deceased daughter, Sophie, via Mr. Ether. Gifts from Sophie are a tradition, a way of remembering her.


The best gift we gave this year was a new iPod for Sparkly Seacow, after her previous one (which she had saved up for and bought with her own money) was stolen. We chipped in with our daughter Cinderbelle and grandparents, and made Sparkly very happy. She loves her music!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you are getting together with loved ones, be they family or friends, and that you have a peaceful day. Cinderbelle and "the boys from Brazil" are coming over later this morning to open gifts and soak up a genuine U.S.A.-style Christmas. (Yeah, right.) I'm hoping to get outside to walk, or maybe even to skate or ski, before heading over to the in-laws' for festivities.

I hope the Hogfather* is good to you.

John McCutcheon's Christmas in the Trenches. Prepare to be moved, if you haven't heard it before.



Peace and Love,
Suzy

*Terry Pratchett reference

Socks

Hey, good follow up to "Shoes", eh? Mr. Ether accused me of being a compulsive knitter last night. How dare he? Then I stumbled on this little video on the YouTubes, and it seemed relevant to the discussion.

Shoes

By now, everyone has seen the footage of the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at lame duck "President" Bush. Maybe they've even joined one of the solidarity groups on Facebook. I haven't, and this is why. As soon as I saw the video clip, I thought, "Uh-oh. That guy is in trouble." Sure enough, it didn't take long for the reports to trickle out, that he was being severely beaten by his captors, whoever they are. Yesterday the news report came that he was sorry, admitted he was wrong, and asked for a pardon from Maliki. I feel sick to my stomach, imagining under what conditions the admission of guilt came. And he still faces a long prison term. (I guess a trial is not necessary for such a heinous crime.)

Ah, yes. The U.S. brought democracy to Iraq.

Why didn't Bush intervene? He probably gave the directive to crucify the guy, that's why.

There should be international demand to see Muntazer al-Zaidi right now.

Book Review: Quaking

Reading Quaking now seems like ancient history -- I think I finished it last Sunday -- but I intended to write a review of it, so I will. I have a little extra time today since school was canceled because of snow, our second snow day in as many weeks. This one is particularly sweet as it butts up against winter break.

On to the book review! Quaking by Katherine Erskine is a young adult novel, about a 14 year old girl named Matt. Matt has been living under the care of various distant relatives since her abusive father murdered her mother one day while Matt was at grade school. Matt has been shunted from relative to relative, largely, it is implied, because of her poor behavior.

The story opens with her in the car with a woman she calls "Loopy", an evangelical Christian who can no longer care for Matt because she's going on a mission. They are on the way to live with Sam and Jessica, distant cousins in a small town in Pennsylvania, who happen to be Quakers. Loopy tells Matt that they are her "last chance", I guess to stay out of the criminal justice system.

Matt is angry and rebellious. She dresses in black, wears lots of eyeliner, and paints a black widow spider on her face every day. She is determined to alienate everyone around her. She comes to live with Sam and Jessica, who are determined to love her unconditionally as they love their other foster child, a disabled toddler whom Matt calls "the blob." In keeping with the Quaker peace testimony, Sam is actively involved in protesting an ongoing war, taking an unpopular stance in their community.

I wanted to like Quaking. The author has created a likable protagonist, and you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be rooting for Matt. She also got the facts right, as well as capturing many of the nuances of one particular group of U.S. Quakers. I particularly appreciated that she portrayed modern Quakers; so often the only glimpse readers get of Friends is in a historical context -- all bonnets and thees and thous.

I wanted to like Quaking but (and as Pee Wee says, there's always a big but) I didn't, for a few reasons. In an interview with the author about the book, she said that she intentionally didn't identify the war because she wanted to create a timeless sense. However, she did clearly set her story in a post-9/11 world and I found the generic quality of the war to be irritating, to say the least. I believe, to really take a stand against the Iraq war -- as she genuinely seemed to want to do -- it is important to be specific. I mean, even the Bush White House sends out Christmas cards that say "Peace On Earth."

I felt that the Friends she created in Sam and Jessica were reduced to being cartoon Quakers. Sure, they weren't wearing bonnets, but she managed to work in every other Quaker idiom, and I found it tiresome after a while. To a non-Quaker -- especially a teen -- it may serve to underscore the peculiarity of Friends in a nonflattering way.

Then there was Matt. Her past sounded horrific -- abuse, the violent death of her mother, abandonment, lack of stability ... yet, seemingly without any counseling of any sort, just the love of two earnest and well-meaning Quakers in a relatively short period of time, Matt becomes a whole person.

Finally, she managed to incriminate the war, while never once implicating those in power who started this war. The book gave the impression that this (nameless) war just happened, kind of like natural disasters just happen. Acts of God, or whatever. Once again, I feel very strongly that if the author wanted to use it as more than a literary device, she should have been more specific. The war on Iraq was started by individuals and based on lies, I'm sure Erskine's Sam would agree.

Of course, I am an adult (and an opinionated one at that) reading a book written for adolescents. Would I recommend this book to a teen? Yes, I would. It is a compelling story and may open their eyes about a few things. However, I didn't think it was great.

Oy

I've been feeling very depressed these last few days. Mainly about the economy, and specifically unemployment. While I am pleased that unemployment has finally moved onto John and Jane Q. Public's radar screen, it also angers me. Unemployment has been an issue for many for a lot longer than the last few months, and I have to say that since Mr. Ether was laid off, it has always felt like there is a current of blame underlying the sympathy, as if somehow he had done something to bring this on himself. His friends/coworkers from his former job distanced themselves quickly; it might be contagious.

Our families and friends "worry" about him, about us ... while they continue to spend their money at stores with proven anti-labor track records -- and I'll be specific here -- like Whole Foods, Home Depot, WalMart, or Copps. If you're reading this, and you care about Mr. Ether and our family, you won't shop at those places. Period. Otherwise your sympathy doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot.

I am angry, and somehow need to find a way to be at peace. Maybe you can help me, because right now it is eating me up.

Yesterday there was a front page article in our local newspaper about unemployment, encouraging people who have been laid off to "make the job search their full time job" and "network." When there ARE no jobs, or the available employers want someone with a college degree, but they are only offering $10/hr., something is very wrong. This assumption that you only have to try harder is blaming the victim. The dirty secret is that the system has been stacked against workers for a long time. If you were non-white with any kind of a police record, you probably knew that years ago. Now it is coming home to roost in what is left of the white middle class.

Work -- with dignity and a living wage -- for a brief time in U.S. history, was an entitlement. It is time to build strong trade unions again. If you aren't in a union, you can still educate yourself about the businesses you support with your dollars.

Looking for union-made products? Here is a good place to start.

Destroying the unions and creating a large jobless class is a tool the rich use to oppress everyone else. They wage war against the poor, working class, and now the middle class through jobs. I'll leave you with the chorus of another favorite Johnny Clegg song, Work For All.

We need work for all.
We want work for all.
We need work to be.
Give us work for all.
Give us work to be.

College

College seems to be a theme these last couple of days. My friend Anne (Hi, Anne! [waves]) in Boston sent me a link to this op ed piece from the Boston Globe on Sunday:

This week, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the nonpartisan think tank on state and national education issues, released a scathing report that found that college tuition and fees have skyrocketed in the last quarter century 439 percent, three times the rise in median family income in the same time period.

The rise of college costs surpassed even the 251 percent hike in medical care costs. In the 1999-2000 school year, the cost of four-year public college represented 18 percent of median family income for the middle quintile, 23 percent for the lower-middle quintile, and 39 percent for the lowest income quintile. Those respective figures are now 25 percent, 33 percent, and 55 percent. They account for grants and scholarships. (Read the rest.)

And Crooks and Liars had this post up today, entitled Remember College?

It upsets me that both articles quote experts as saying that, "College is going to become unaffordable." Kind of like how, for the last year, they've been saying, "We might be in danger of heading into a recession." Hello? Hello? Earth to so-called experts ... are you looking around you?

After a year away at college last year (granted, at an out of state school) our daughter is in debt around $25,000. When she was planning to go, we spoke with a financial aid officer at the school about our need -- her dad's frequent periods of being laid off from his construction job, etc. -- and guess what? They didn't give a rat's ass. "I'm sorry, there really isn't anything we can do to help you." Well, for multiple reasons, our daughter decided not to go back to school this year, and frankly, I am relieved. I don't want her to be over $100,000 in debt at the age of 22. Some people act as if she has thrown away an opportunity, but I think if you were to do a cost-benefits analysis I think you might find that the cost far outweighs the benefit at this point. (Particularly because she wasn't happy ... but that's a different issue.)

You might remember that I also went to college last year. I started a program to get a master's degree in Library Science. Each course cost $1,800, and there was really nothing they could do to help me financially either -- even though I have spent 22 years in public service. I applied for grants for older women returning to college, non-traditional students, etc. Nope. So I sucked it up and paid it. Silly me, for that price I thought I might have professors who knew how to teach and respected me as a learner. What planet was I on? I also am taking a break, with no intention of going back to that program.

I keep trying to see the bright side of the collapse of this gilded age we're living in. My hope is that the failure of all of these bloated institutions will create space for alternatives in all areas. Because the people and the needs aren't going to go away.

Remembering

Ed and I have a once-a-year musical gig together, at the local bereaved Parent Support Group's annual Remembrance Service. We play and sing a song by Australian poet Henry Lawson, set to music by folksinger Priscilla Herdman, called The Waterlily. It's a sad and beautiful song, about a mother dreaming of her child who has died.

There have been 15 of these services since our baby Sophie died; we've been to all but one (the year I ended up in the hospital a few years back.) We've been doing this song for perhaps the last 9 or 10 years. It should become easier, but I am finding that in the last couple of years I have had a harder time getting through the song without crying. I suspect it is because there are relatively few times that I devote to simply thinking about her, and this is one of them.

I consider the night of the service to be sacred. Other parents I know have drifted away from it, no longer feeling the need to be there, and that's OK. I suspect Ed might too, if I wasn't so compelled to go. But there is a point in the service where all of the names of the babies are read aloud, and hearing Sophie's name spoken by someone else is a gift.

One mother has made it her project to put together memory quilts, with squares that families have contributed. This is the square I made for Sophie, in the year after she died. The little bunny was drawn by our eldest daughter, who was 5 when her sister died. Our younger daughter came later.
I welcome these moments of remembering.

(Thanks to Barbara H. for taking the picture and emailing it to me.)

Michael Moore on the Auto Industry Bail-Out

Have you read this? If not, you should. He has a knack for cutting through mountains of crap, wielding the machete of common sense. Or something like that. Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing. It's so simple, yet so brilliant.

You might assume from this that I couldn't give a rat's ass about these miserably inept crapmobile makers down the road in Detroit city. But I do care. I care about the millions whose lives and livelihoods depend on these car companies. I care about the security and defense of this country because the world is running out of oil -- and when it runs out, the calamity and collapse that will take place will make the current recession/depression look like a Tommy Tune musical.

And I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.

Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.

And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in "loans" (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist). (Read it here in its entirety)

Kids ... or Cadillacs?

The Big Three

I'm Changing My School's Name to Chrysler is the title of an essay by Seattle middle school teacher Jesse Hagopian, posted on Common Dreams.

I am going down to Washington, D.C. to ask for a handout.

My industry is falling on hard times and needs at least $34 billion to cover basic operating costs—but I assure you the emergency aid isn't just for me and my associates. The truth is my industry is too big to fail, and if it were to go under it would have disastrous effects for the economy and millions of Americans lives.

No, I am not an automaker executive from one of the Big Three (General Motors, Chrysler, Ford)—I teach social studies to 13-year-olds and the Public Schools are my trade. (read the rest)

Watching the pigs belly up to the trough (with apologies to real pigs everywhere) over the last 6 weeks has been disgustingly predictable ... or predictably disgusting. Where is the help for "Main Street" that everyone was talking about during the election?

Johnny Clegg

DCup mentioned that she hadn't heard Johnny Clegg, which led me on an obsessive YouTube search for the best videos. Of course, that's no more possible than choosing the best seven albums (see previous post.) So here are a few of my favorite songs.

Scatterlings of Africa



Asimbonanga (We saw him perform this one live. It was the absolute BEST concert I ever attended -- I can still say that 19 years later. The moment when the female singer joined in was so ... powerful.)



I Call Your Name



Third World Child




I could have posted 15 videos and honestly said that each one is a favorite song. This music makes my heart pound. If I had to choose just one artist to listen to, it would be Johnny Clegg.

(My kids are even fans. My daughter just mentioned that, whenever she goes to get her hair cut, the stylist always plays Johnny Clegg just for her.)

OK, enough gushing.

Blogger Album Project

DCup is a clearinghouse for all the good memes. I happily jumped onboard this one. And then I didn't post it. And then Quaker Dave did it too. So I was re-inspired.

THE RULES:

1. Post your list of the seven best albums, the seven bloggers you will tag, a copy of these rules ...
2. Each person tagged will put a URL to their Blogger Album Project post along with a list of the seven best albums in the comment section HERE.
3. Feel free to post the “I Contributed to the Blogger Album Project” Award Graphic on your sidebar, along with a link back to this page.
4. Post a link back to the blogger who tagged you.

Seven albums? It's really hard to think of just seven, and then an album that was incredibly important at one time in my life suddenly seems embarrassingly ditzy from where I stand now. (Like the Bobby Sherman album I bought in 6th grade and listened to over and over and over and ...) I think what I am going to do is work backwards chronologically until I've got seven, and hopefully I won't get to anything truly mortifying.

Eliza Gilkyson; Paradise Hotel
The Pretenders; Isle of View
Kirsty MacColl; Kite
Johnny Clegg & Savuka; Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World
Johnny Clegg & Savuka; Shadow Man
Peter Gabriel; So
John Prine; Bruised Orange

Of course there were others, albums and songs. I love the Beatles, but I could never just choose one Beatles album. When Mr. Ether and I were first going out I listened to Roxy Music's Avalon a lot. I went through a Ladies of the Canyon phase, a Jethro Tull Songs from the Wood phase, a Neil Young Comes A Time phase and a Bruce Springsteen The River phase. For a brief period I lost my heart to Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and Lena Lovitch. In later years I was pretty into Tom Waits' Raindogs and John Prine's Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings. Recently I've been excited by John Gorka and Steve Earle. Townes Van Zandt is a perennial favorite. The Bonzo Dog Band ... and ... and ... (now I'm hyperventilating. I think I'll stop.)

I don't like tagging, so do it if you feel moved to do so.

Road Trip! Part 1

On Saturday night the esteemed bass player Mr. Ether (a.k.a. "Dog Park Guy") had a gig with the Reptile Palace Orchestra at the Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie, WI. I had been hearing about this theater for years and jumped at the chance to see it. It was built in the late nineteenth century by a lumber baron as a memorial to his daughter who died. (Interestingly enough -- to me anyway -- he built it at the urging of a local Unitarian minister; I don't tend to think of Unitarians as being active or even existent in the north woods of Wisconsin in the nineteenth century!)

I took the interior photos in the evening while the band was doing their sound check. Mr. Ether took the exterior photos the next morning. While the photos (especially mine) don't really do it justice, you can perhaps get an idea of the opulence of the place. All stained glass, velvet, tassels, and carved wood. It took my breath away.

Looking out across the theater from one of the boxes. Notice the balcony seating too.


This is one of the radiators in the foyer. I had never seen a cylindrical radiator before.


The organ.


One of the boxes.

A stained glass window commemorating Andrew Tainter, the lumber baron.

Some views from the outside.



Thankfully the building survived more than a century of change, including the death of Wisconsin's lumber industry. (You can't sustain the lumber industry when you clear cut virtually all of the trees, strangely enough.) It went through a period of being a Unitarian meeting house and then a public library. The theater was restored in the early nineteen eighties, and now serves as an arts center for the area.

It is said to be haunted. I looked for orbs in my photos, but sadly couldn't see any.