For Grammie

Sometimes when I was young – ten or so – in bed at night I would think about the fact that my grandmother was old, and that she would die, and soon. I’d cry myself to sleep over this inevitability. I was big on imagination and small on perspective at that age. Fifty certainly seemed old and next door to the grave.

Yesterday I learned that my grandmother, now 92, has pancreatic cancer, for which there is nothing to be done. She will die, and soon.

Considering my age (and simple math will now reveal that to you), I’ve been remarkably untouched by death. I’ve certainly been aware of this. Only a handful of people who were extremely close to me have died. I’m also certainly aware that many people have never known their grandparents at all, let alone have known them well into middle age.

Maybe this – this long lifetime with a grandmother -- is why this news is so surreal. It’s as if suddenly the sky turned purple and the grass orange. Of course the situation is recognizable, but it’s also utterly foreign. My grandmother has frequently declared her intention to live to be 100. This is obviously not to be.

So in bed last night I tried not to think about the fact that my grandmother is old, and sick, and that she will die, and soon. And I cried myself to sleep over this inevitability.

Friday catblogging: Shadow

Shadow is our oldest cat; he was 17 in April.

Before I'd ever heard the phrase "alpha male," I knew what it meant. Shadow taught us. He runs the household; he is our overlord. Often when the girls (Molly and JJ) are lounging around, minding their own cat business, he'll pin one of them down just to remind her who's in charge.

People must adjust their meals to accommodate Shadow. Sometimes we have to close him up in another room -- or close ourselves up elsewhere -- especially if chicken is on the menu, since he will shamelessly attack our dinners. Sharing with him doesn't solve the problem since there's not enough chicken on the planet to satisfy Shadow's craving.

For all his bluster, however, Shadow is really just a big baby. He craves human attention (I hear about aloof cats, but darned if I have any at MY house) and insists on sitting on our laps, often crawling up our chests to schmooze face-to-face, the moment we sit in the living room. (It occurs to me, however, that this might be his version of pinning humans down.) Yet all it takes to send this macho cat running in terror is the "on" switch of the vacuum cleaner.

Here's to you, Mr. Shad.

A degree or two in English is good for SOMETHING

I put my education to work last night, winning myself a t-shirt for knowing the title of Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Take THAT, you naysayers who said I'd never profit from a degree in English.

_____________________________________

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Funniest weather photo of all time, and it's real

I'm shamelessly stealing from Blondesense.

But the way it FEELS from here, it seems to be pointing in the wrong direction...

Presidential Prayer Team

Those of us who are praying folks don't need to be TOLD to pray when it comes to George Bush's presidency. And we certainly don't need to be told WHAT to pray.

But apparently some people need guidance. Hence, the Presidential Prayer Team.

I wonder how sincere they are about this prayer request?

Pray for Frances Fragos Townsend, newly appointed by President Bush to investigate the problems surrounding federal response to Hurricane Katrina, as she now begins the process of looking in to this important matter. Ask God to bring to light everything pertinent, guiding her and those she selects to find key answers that will help our nation respond appropriately in the future.

"Everything pertinent" are probably the keywords. Yeah.

I'm asking God for the TRUTH. That would be refreshing.

Bad day at work

Today

I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with two students, one of whom allowed the other to copy his homework, spelling and factual errors included. The young man is one of my "best" students.

I made a student cry when I used the nano-second-long marriage of Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger as an example for a point I was making. She just found out her parents are divorcing.

Tonight

I must talk with a student who's been out because her father was killed in Iraq.

I must speak the truth to a disabled student whose English skills are so low that she can't possibly write passing papers.

Sometimes I'm really glad when all the bad stuff lands on the same day. It'll make tomorrow look that much better.

Awarding the Emmys

(I missed the beginning; I recorded it. Maybe if I ever go back and watch, I'll edit.)

Best speech: S. Epatha Merkerson, especially the constant search down her dress for her notes.

Best follow-up to a speech: Jon Stewart's search down his pants for his notes.

Second best speech: James Spader, who didn't thank a laundry list of people but instead simply had a few things to say.

Most deserved win: Anything that went to The Daily Show.

Least deserved win: Patricia Arquette (Sorry, Patricia. You're not bad; you're just not Glenn Close...or any of the other nominees.)

Least surprising win: Any award that went to
Everybody Loves Raymond, especially the award to Doris Roberts.

MIA host award: Ellen DeGeneres. Where was the Ellen DeGeneres who hosted the 2001 Emmys? (First visit to the timekeeper: funny. The rest: overkill. Best moment: not coming out to intro Hugh Jackman and Whoopi Goldberg.)

Best presentation: Hugh Jackman and Whoopi Goldberg, who went off script AND kept it short.

Hairstyle that most belonged on a set and not at an awards show: Patricia Arquette.

Best non-skeletal body: Patricia Arquette (who knew they let size 10/12 women act?) (Before I get comments, this award's not sarcasm; I mean it.)

Campiest moment: William Shatner and the opera singer doing the Star Trek theme. C'mon, you know you've done before exactly what that lady was doing.

Edit: Forgot
Most Disorganized Montage On an Awards Show Ever: The Brokaw/Rather/Jennings montage.
Most Dragged-Out Segment: Brokaw and Rather's comments, which took at least twice as long as necessary. I thought being concise was one of the top rules of journalism?

Even so, we know they think we're bitches...

First,

the Food and Drug Administration posted on its Web site an announcement naming Dr. Norris E. Alderson, an expert in animal science, acting director of the Office of Women’s Health,

but a little later in the day,

the posting was replaced with an announcement naming Theresa A. Toigo to the post. The new new director is a career employee with a strong backgound in cancer and HIV/AIDS.

Maybe the administration learned a thing or two from Katrina, but that they even CONSIDERED a VETERINARIAN to head Women's Health speaks volumes.

Link here.

Edit: Here's Salon's write-up on the brief tenure of Dr. "Doolittle" Alderson. (Yeah, I know. The ads.)

Bill Clinton's political capital

Former President Bill Clinton was Larry King's guest last night. Transcript here.

There are at least ten things I'd like to say about that interview and about Mr. Clinton, but time constrains me to just a few:

Content aside, it's good to see a president who can articulate (keyword: articulate)ideas from something other than a continuous-loop pre-determined package.

Clearly Clinton has decided to spend some of his considerable and very real national and international "political capital" to literally change the world through his Clinton Global Initiative. The caveat of this summit is

each of the attendees is required to commit to doing something to improve the world.

"This is more than a photo op, more than business as usual," Clinton said as he opened the session. "All of us come to meetings, we study issues, we say what we think, and too often we complain when the governments that we seek to influence ignore what we think is our sound advice."

So every person attending is required to make a commitment in writing. More than 50 commitments have been made, totaling more than $300 million. Clinton announced four specific commitments -- signed on the spot for the cameras -- which included a $100 million Africa investment fund and a plan to fight HIV-AIDS through micro-enterprise development. One commitment was made by the Clinton initiative itself -- a pledge that all of its activities would be "carbon neutral," promising to mitigate the effects of plane travel and conference preparation by financing renewable energy projects that replace fossil-fuel energy sources.

What is striking here is that Clinton no longer sits in "the" seat of power. The power he holds today is his own, intrinsic power. He created it; he earned it.

Maybe it was the library and the health issues. I don't know what took Clinton so long, but as the world seems to disintegrate daily, it's a relief to see someone step up and show some real leadership.

The Metaphor of the Misunderbuttoned Blue Shirt

It occurs to me, all kidding aside, that the fact that George Bush showed up for what some have called the most important speech of his presidency since 9/11 in a shirt that was improperly buttoned just might be a metaphor for the state of his presidency.

Consider:

Bush was blissfully unaware of the reality of his misunderbuttoned shirt.

Possibly his hangers-on didn't notice the reality of his misunderbuttoned shirt.

Possibly his hangers-on were too scared to point out the reality of his misunderbuttoned shirt.

The mainstream media haven't paid a lot of attention to the misunderbuttoned shirt, but bloggers have.

We won't be fooled again

While politicians manipulate us, break our spirits, and break our hearts, they're not alone in that enterprise. It's that very special time of the year when the networks take their crack at us. Bombarded with new offerings, some of us will be seduced by shows offering intriguing premises* or favorite stars. Others will be lulled into watching new programs because we're bored or too weary to resist. Whatever the circumstances, some of us will fall in love with new shows. We'll make appointments with our new beloveds; we'll set our VCRs or DVRs to make sure we don't miss them. We'll talk about them at work or parties. We'll blissfully forget the stresses of our own lives and lose ourselves for that hour or half-hour each week.

And then, the odds are quite good that -- regardless of quality -- once our new shows have become a comfortable part of our lives, the networks will pull the plug.

For years I let them batter me around, offering no real resistance. Shows came and went so fast that I now barely remember what I lost. Then a few years ago, CBS offered That's Life!, a charming family show whose cast included Paul Sorvino, the now-hot (career-wise) Kevin Dillon and -- almost unbelievably -- Ellyn Burstyn. The story of a single 30-ish woman (played by Heather Paige Kent) caught in the tension between her determination to live a life other than that predetermined by cultural and familial pressures and her genuine love for that often exasperating family, the first season was -- not to sound too ooky, but -- sweet, heart-warming.

But apparently not enough people were watching because "changes" were made in season 2 that were presumably intended to improve the show but instead cut its heart out, and it was put down at the end of the second season.

I still feel gypped. I still want to know what happened to those folks.

After that, I made a resolution not to watch any more new shows, at least not until they became bona-fide hits with the younger demographic, which is all the advertisers care about anyway.

Like all resolutions, however, this one was hard to keep.

In 2003, I started keeping company with the charismatic Bonnie Hunt and Life with Bonnie. Sometimes outrageously funny and sometimes good enough (which is more than we can say about many comedies), the show brought Hunt a nomination for a Golden Globe in 2003 and 2004, and an Emmy nom in 2004. And I wasn't watching this one alone. Many people I knew spent their Friday nights with Bonnie, and all of us were just a little stunned when ABC pulled the plug (although the show had been making some desperate-looking moves, such as having "the gang" make the bizarre move of buying a pizza joint there at the end). I was torn between being glad that I'd had the show for two years and being mad at myself for letting myself get involved again.

The year earlier, in 2002, I became addicted to what is surely the best show ever to die prematurely, Boomtown. Textured and cerebral, it probably confused some people since its crime stories were told from multiple perspectives in recursive style. In other words, viewers had to pay attention and think. Ratings were low, and in 2003, NBC ran two episodes, then canceled the show. Like That's Life!, Boomtown had been tinkered with in the months between seasons. The multi-perspective flash-forwards and flashbacks were mostly excised, and the show died on the operating table. It's almost just as well it was canceled.**

I've been fairly cautious since then. I did start watching Lost last season after it seemed to be solidly pronounced a hit. Other than that, I generally stay away from new shows. (Admission: did start watching and enjoying The Closer on TNT this summer, but again not until it got good reviews and good ratings.)

Because television programming is driven by economic concerns and not by artistic merit or other qualities -- and sometimes not even by popularity -- television networks literally eat their own young. In doing so, they alienate people like me who would rather not get involved if the relationship isn't going to go anywhere. And if the viewers don't show up, the shows don't have the desired ratings. This unproductive cycle is the networks' own doing.

And yet my resolve is just a little weak. I know I'm going to get burned, but I'm considering checking out My Name is Earl next week. The show has the potential to be either rancid effluvium or a half-hour worth my time. As someone who's been wronged a time or two and still waiting for the offenders to show up and make amends, I'm slightly intrigued by the show's premise. So I'll probably tune in.

And eventually, if I like it, NBC will probably make me sorry I did. ________________________________________
*Ok; maybe I'm stretching it.
**To my delight, Boomtown's first season was released on DVD. The economics of this mystifies me. There weren't enough people watching the show, but someone thought there was interest enough to invest more money in it. But I'm not complaining. I own it.

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go RIGHT NOW!

God only knows how much we all needed this about right now.

The unintentional (?) irony of Reuters' deadpan caption juxtaposed with the actual content of the note (short version: need the potty) is priceless. Here 'tis:

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war.

And it's not from the Onion, my friends. My new favorite media source, Editor & Publisher, confirms.

PostSecret

PostSecret leads off this week with an especially harsh but presumably honest secret:






(9-14-05 edit: I've held the door open long enough and now I'm walking through myself. I've been waiting patiently for someone to wonder if Bush or Rove or Cheney had sent the card.)

Also, the PostSecret book is now available on Amazon as a pre-order, but considering that there's no publication date offered yet, I think I can wait.

Bitty is pretending she knows something about programming

I have no idea what I'm doing, really. Me with computer = me with car. I can drive, but don't ask me to spend too much time under the hood. Yes, I can find the spark plugs and wires and distributor caps, the dipsticks, the radiator, the oil filter. I can fill reservoirs.

But you really don't want me messing with the timing and belts and hoses, the valves, the alternator. No sirree bob.

All you brilliant ones have all kinds of interesting things on your blogs, and me, the best I can do most days is fill in fields when prompted.

But I'm trying, mostly by trial and lots of error. I've added a guestmap in the sidebar because I thought it was cool, reason enough to add anything to a blog, and I invite you to add yourself to the map. I've added links -- finally -- and I've renamed them "Stuff I Like to Read" but the perfectionist in me is driven nuts because the font for the words "Stuff" (etc.) does not match the font for the words "recent posts" and "archives." I'm not a clean freak, but I am the kind of person who could be driven frothing mad by a crooked picture. Go figure.

I'll eventually fill in the links to all my rather eclectic favorites. Someday I may even work out the font problem.

But for now, I am inordinately proud of me. I think I'll go change my spark plugs.

So it wasn't necessarily racism; it was just BONE-DEEP INCOMPETENCE!!!

We all have our bad moments. Heaven knows I have mine. Sometimes I'm a little grumpy. Sometimes I react a little slowly.

But when I'm grumpy and slow, no one dies.

Newsweek's postmortem on George W. Bush's reaction to Katrina ought to convince the 28% or whatever the current number is of those folks who think he's doing a heck of a job that they've been had. Ought to, but probably won't.

The article begins:

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

and continues

President Bush knew the storm and its consequences had been bad; but he didn't quite realize how bad.

The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

And if this much hasn't absolutely done you in, you can go read the rest.

America, we have a problem.

A day of silence, in remembrance

(I can't believe I let this photo get damaged, but maybe that's symbolically appropriate.)

Media Day on Bitty's Back Porch

On Shakespeare's Sister we find a link that takes us to The Tattered Coat, where we find posted a downloadable rap-with-a-tinge-of-blues that snakes into the mind and plays on a continuous loop: "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People." We dare you to listen to it once and not have it play in your head for the rest of the day. (Apparently this is a remix of a Kanye West song. We're old. We don't know these things without being told.)

Friday catblogging

This is not something I've done before, but I'm worn out thinking about all things Katrina, and to write about anything else seems almost frivolous.

I'm in the mood for something life-affirming, so here's my favorite cat, Molly.



Yes, I know it's not nice to have a favorite. But I do.

Two links worth checking out

Salon has been at the top of its game, as have so many bloggers, during the current catastrophe.

Would that clever words could fix things.

Nevertheless, I recommend two of the many insightful things currently posted on Salon. I know access is a pain for those without memberships.

The first catalogues the Bush Administration's use of the phrase, "Now's not the time for politics." If you think you've heard it before, you have. A sampling:

The president and his press secretary have suggested over the last few days that anyone who questions the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina is engaged in the "blame game," and that "now is not a time for politics." We thought that sounded just a little familiar when we heard it, and now we know why. In the presidency of George W. Bush, it turns out, it's pretty much never a "time for politics."

"Now is not the time for politics," the president declared on Feb. 14, 2001, just two months after the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore and put him in the White House. Later that same month, the president said, "There's a time for politics, and that ended a while ago." On March 22, 2001, the president explained: "See, there's a time for politics, and there's a time for policy. And the way I view it is, once you get sworn in, that the politics is over."

In the aftermath of 9/11, the president said, "Now is not the time for politics." When the president was pushing one round of his tax cuts in December 2001, he declared: "Now is not the time for partisan politics."

There's plenty more where that came from.

Link #2 is video, a public service for those who have heard about but haven't seen the tv journalist meltdowns and moments when reporters have grown a pair before our very eyes. In one segment, maybe not the most flashy but to me the most poignant, Ted Koppel points out a simple truth to Brownie:

Brown: We’re going to make absolutely certain that the devastation that has been wreaked upon these people is taken care of and we’re going to get their lives back in order.

Koppel: Mr. Brown, some of these people are dead. They’re beyond your help.

Barbara Bush, compassionate conservative

Former (Democratic) Governor of Florida, U. S. Senator, and hapless Presidential candidate Bob Graham featured "workdays" as part of his political schtick. He'd go off for a day of more or less real work in a real lower- or middle-class job. While it served as a photo-op, Graham actually did the work. He'd experience the muscle aches and mental stresses of what "ordinary" people go through on a daily basis.

In a Sun-Sentinel article from 2004 (no longer easily available on the web), political writer Buddy Nevins reported that Graham

has done just about every job there is to do in Florida. He's cleaned fish and floors, picked fruit in the fields and sorted fruit in the market, been an actor and an assembly line worker. He's sold tires and driven a truck, been a photojournalist and a sports writer, worked on a commercial fishing boat and a farm.

Graham said working beside other Floridians made him sensitive to their needs and wants.

"Sensitive" is not the first word many of us would use when describing members of the Bush family, as Barbara Bush (the matriarch, not the Presidential daughter) reminded us as she reviewed subjects in a Texas shelter. (Reported by Marketplace, and re-reported by Editor & Publisher.) Mrs. Bush declared,

referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

[...]

Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Scary. Scary? Scary is living in an overcrowded shelter without power, food, water, or restrooms for days. Scary is wading through muck, past floating bodies, searching for safety. Scary is living on a baking interstate for days, watching trucks and buses drive by. Scary is facing death by hurricane and then by flood and then by neglect and incompetence. Scary is NOT people moving into Texas by the thousands.

People have a tendency to presume poor automatically equals lazy. After all, we still generally believe in the Protestant work ethic. Those who work hard get rewarded; those who don't get what they deserve. However, surely all the working poor and many middle-class folks know better.

Many, many "underprivileged" (and I could parse THAT word, but I don't have the rest of the day to spend on it) people are working poor, not lazy poor. Let's not assume that an influx of "underprivileged" are scary drags on the community, which might be what Mrs. Bush was scared of.

As Marketplace's article pointed out, the sudden appearance of thousands of new citizens will cause problems in the community, but that's a challenge to be met, not a thing to fear. Many of the new residents will pull their own weight, given the chance.

And let's not even think about disaster as a golden opportunity that allows the undeserving to move up the class ladder.

Perhaps if Mrs. Bush rolled up her sleeves and helped out with the rescue effort Graham-style, she too might become sensitive to the needs and wants of the Katrina survivors.

I'm not counting on it.