Fragile Industries

Way To Go, Tucker

While I was looking the other way, last month some truly fugly things were said by a woman named Sally Kern in Oklahoma.  If you, like me, have been living under a rock, here's the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tFxk7glmMbo#  The appalling thing is that she serves as an Oklahoma state legislator from Oklahoma City, home of the worst domestic terrorist attack in this county's history (yep, sometimes Americans blow up Americans), and had the nerve to say that gays are worse than terrorists.  The more appalling thing is she still has her job.

The advantage of being behind the curve on viral stories like these is that I get to cover the fallout, and if I'm really lucky, some wise soul has already put the thing into perspective better than I can.  And then I get to cut and paste.

Without further ado, I give you Tucker from Oklahoma City, a high school student with a keenly personal take on Representative Kern's remarks, who wrote the following letter to her:

Rep Kern:

On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed my mother and 167 others. 19 children died that day. Had I not had the chicken pox that day, the body count would've likely have included one more. Over 800 other Oklahomans were injured that day and many of those still suffer through their permanent wounds.

That terrorist was neither a homosexual or was he involved in Islam. He was an extremist Christian forcing his views through a body count. He held his beliefs and made those who didn't live up to them pay with their lives.

As you were not a resident of Oklahoma on that day, it could be explained why you so carelessly chose words saying that the homosexual agenda is worst than terrorism. I can most certainly tell you through my own experience that is not true. I am sure there are many people in your voting district that laid a loved one to death after the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City. I kind of doubt you'll find one of them that will agree with you.

I was five years old when my mother died. I remember what a beautiful, wise, and remarkable woman she was. I miss her. Your harsh words and misguided beliefs brought me to tears, because you told me that my mother's killer was a better person than a group of people that are seeking safety and tolerance for themselves.

As someone left motherless and victimized by terrorists, I say to you very clearly you are absolutely wrong.

You represent a district in Oklahoma City and you very coldly express a lack of love, sympathy or understanding for what they've been through. Can I ask if you might have chosen wiser words were you a real Oklahoman that was here to share the suffering with Oklahoma City? Might your heart be a bit less cold had you been around to see the small bodies of children being pulled out of rubble and carried away by weeping firemen?

I've spent 12 years in Oklahoma public schools and never once have I had anyone try to force a gay agenda on me. I have seen, however, many gay students beat up and there's never a day in school that has went by when I haven't heard the word **** slung at someone. I've been called gay slurs many times and they hurt and I am not even gay so I can just imagine how a real gay person feels. You were a school teacher and you have seen those things too. How could you care so little about the suffering of some of your students?

Let me tell you the result of your words in my school. Every openly gay and suspected gay in the school were having to walk together Monday for protection. They looked scared. They've already experienced enough hate and now your words gave other students even more motivation to sneer at them and call them names. Afterall, you are a teacher and a lawmaker, many young people have taken your words to heart. That happens when you assume a role of responsibility in your community. I seriously think before this week ends that some kids here will be going home bruised and bloody because of what you said.

I wish you could've met my mom. Maybe she could've guided you in how a real Christian should be acting and speaking.

I have not had a mother for nearly 13 years now and wonder if there were fewer people like you around, people with more love and tolerance in their hearts instead of strife, if my mom would be here to watch me graduate from high school this spring. Now she won't be there. So I'll be packing my things and leaving Oklahoma to go to college elsewhere and one day be a writer and I have no intentions to ever return here. I have no doubt that people like you will incite crazy people to build more bombs and kill more people again. I don't want to be here for that. I just can't go through that again.

You may just see me as a kid, but let me try to teach you something. The old saying is sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Well, your words hurt me. Your words disrespected the memory of my mom. Your words can cause others to pick up sticks and stones and hurt others.

Sincerely

Tucker

Brave New Worlds, Presidentially Speaking

OK, I'm trying to beat the instant news at its own game.  Here it is, Super Tuesday, and here I am, on a cranky new computer.  Every news agency in the world would like to beat me to a prediction, to a news flash, to a scoop.  I'm just trying to beat my new computer brain (thank you, Dell Inspiron Skinny Mode) to it's latest decision that I'm not using the right program.  I'm also fighting a nasty virus which seems to think that just because it can make me puke because I'm coughing so hard that I'm calling uncle.  Fuck you, virus.  I voted by absentee ballot (good thing or there would be an interesting CDC cluster of pulmonary virusus in mid-Coast California) and I'm running on a dynamite combo of Robitussun and Tylenol and Sutter Home Merlot.  Ha. 

Anyway, last Thursday, I knew I was feeling sickly and filled out my Absentee Ballot.  Now I'm watching MNSBC, half drugged, half drunk, and cheering for Obama.   I'm coughing up half a lung and I don't care.  I want the Democrat to win in November.  Don't care who.  My mother, the life-long Republican, has already alerted the FBI and the Secret Service when, in cranky mode, she admitted to the Republican Women's Voter Poll who dared a telephone call, that she wishes someone would assasinate both Bush and Cheney.  As much as I applauded her late-life spunky reserve, I let her know that our inoffensive beachfront community was now home to mysterious black vans with great big satellite feeds.  Still, we voted the same candidate among several Non-Republican and that makes me cry for gratitude.

While I ignore the Flowers By Irene and Sunset Services vans near our house, I am excited by today.

It excites me, on an historical level, that I voted for an African American candidate for president without the sense of symbolic failure of those who voted for Jesse Jackson in 2000 and later years.  It floors me that my mother, who at 76, still tells stories about her jury duty obligation in the '90's by explaining each vote by racial./cultural demogaphic, can tell me unapologetically that she voted for Obama.   He is the candicate for hope, for change, for anything but Bush and the current regime.  My mother, whom on these pages I have railed against for her old-school classist attitudes, and for whom I have cheered on these pages for her fundamental sense of justice, a lifelong Republican, knows that the most important watchword is CHANGE.  And she voted for Obama, and out loud wishes her conservative parents, rolling in the grave, were here to tell them why.  My grandmother, bless her innocent heart, wanted to know late in life, if it was OK to still call the dark-complected "coons."  Mom's come a long way.

This is a big deal.

At the same time, I have to ask myself, am I a traitor to my gender?  Is my mother (to whom female solidarity only matters if the man paying your spousal support has been a cheating asshole) somehow defying her gender?  For my mother, this is less important and could prompt numerous anthropological studies because she disapproves of women who are not, in some sense "charming."   She's offended by Hillary's ability to piss people off, and a nice lady doesn't do that.   After a number of political discussions, I'm afraid that Mom and I are on the same page, but for different (if only by PC degrees)  reasons.Here's where we agree:

1. A Democrat HAS to win in 2008.  Me, I'm a yellow-dog Democat, as Molly Ivins would say.  I vote Democrat no matter if an old yaller dog is running.  (I have to note how significant this is for Dorothy, Mom, the lifelong Republican. She believes in all the old-school Republican mottos, such as low taxes, the best government is that which governs least, etc.  She is offended by Bush and everything he stand for, and the fact that Republicans have fallen in line with him on the basis of partisan politics.  She's what I'd call a Good Republican -- sorta Like the Good German -- the Republicans failed her and she hates the war and most of all she hates the fact that if she travels overseas she is hated just for being American.  There's something to be said for the argument that regardless of party, we've made ourselves a worldwide puddle of shit. To a classist Republican, this is offensive.  So she voted Democrat.  But for Obama and not Hillary, and this is kinda predictable, because Hillary is not a make-nice lady.)

2. Ya gotta agree that the Iraq war is idiotic. Our young, boys and girls, are dying because of a lie going in (WMD) and the obvious gains to Republican-based lies for the lack of an exit strategy (profits to Halliburton et al.)   Even Mom gets this.

3. To Mom, McCain, but for the Iraq question, would be a Nice guy.  Lacking that, he doesn't deserve our consideration.  Hawk in Iraq = Idiot.  Me too.

4. We both, from different ends of the political spectrum, don't trust Hillary to get us Out Right Now.  I have other axes to grind, but we both believe Obama will do everything possible from the Executive Office to get us out of the proto-Vietnam of Iraq.

That's where we agree and this is huge.  It spells death for any Republican candidate period.  We both agree that the Republican party has been a sham and a hidy-hole for hypocrites for years.  We agree that no matter who the candidate, we are voting Democrat for president in November.

Here's my personal slant.  I am jazzed to vote for Obama on any number of levels.  The strongest, I have to admit, is the moment when, in 1968, at 12 years old, I remember my white male Presbyterian minister's sermon on Palm Sunday, the first Sunday after Martin Luther King's assasination.  He delivered the "I have a dream" sermon verbatim to his nearly all-white congregation and received, for the first time in my memory, a standing, cheering, ovation.  This was in a Presbyterian church, where applause was declasse, where we waited, in a stupor, for the choir and our blessing before standing and leaving, without bringing palm to palm.  Old and young, we rose as a single worshipper, with tears, and roared our approval that Sunday.  I had just come from my Membership/Baptismal class.  It happened that I had decided to join the church from the junior/Sunday School class, and nothing could have excited my decision to follow Christ more than that message.  I went and did and had my permed curls dampened by holy water the next Sunday (Easter!) as I was admitted to membership into Hollywood First Presbyterian.  But the Sunday before, I said to everyone within hearing distance that I had heard Christ's message.  It happened to be delivered most perfectly by a black martyr that day.

It was 30 years before I heard it again.  In a very different construct.  Not relevant here, except to say that I again heard Christ's message -- which to me matters in how it accurately is delivered to the downtrodden, to the outsider, to the least of these, and then and only then it matters.  Jesus was an outside agitator.  He cared about and primarily about, the overlooked.  The spat upon.  The "camels thru the needle's eye"?  go home.  Anyway, through the African-American construct, it has some import.  More than I'll go into here.  And after receiving the joy of Christ's resurrection as a gift to the downtrodden, to those looking for someone besides the moneychangers to take up their burden, I will vote for Obama.  For that reason and many others.

It brings tears to the eyes of this white girl, this daughter of the Pharisees.

OK.  Outside of the Christian construct, then, and my knee-jerk white liberal guilt, why would I vote for a man over a woman?  I respect anyone voting for Hillary for any reason.  I want, more than anything, for a Democrat in the White House.  If Hillary is the Democratic nominee, I will vote for her gladly.

But I voted for Obama, and it still stings as a bisexual, womens-lib, huge fan of Clinton, any Clinton: I think she's the norm.  I think she's bought out.  I think she'd choose the expedient over the right.  I loved Bill and I'd vote for him over Obama.  But Hillary was just too quick to choose to join the Christian (and this from a Christian!) prayer breakfasts.  Hillary voted too often for the status quo in Iraq.  Hillary may be a woman and god bless her, I have the same genital equipment, has had her eye on the prize to the point where I don't trust her.  It has nothing to do with standing by Bill in the face of infidelity.  If that were my ex-husband's only fault, it might have worked out.  As mad as I was.  (My ex's fault had to do with not being a partner, and Bill wins on that front, and so, OK bully for her.)  I don't trust her and I trust Obama's idealism. 

Idealism and lack of experience has often been cited in the anti-Obama crusade.  Let's look at JFK.  He had as little, less in fact, national experience than Barak.  But JFK had the smarts and idealism and humility to call on REALLY SMART PEOPLE to advise him.  The I think Obama has the same.  Were it not for those Best and the Brightest, the Cuban Missle Crisis could have turned out so differently we'd all be either dead or nursing radiation-poisoned children.  Hillary?  Would she have the same humility?  Would she call on some politically "safe" group of counselors?

I also trust Obama's ability to work in a bipartisan environment.  I think the Republicans WANT a Clinton again for nominee, even for president, so that the ugliness of Bill's last years can again strangle government.  Sad but true: the worst thing to happen to our country is not Bush (much as I want to blame him) but the incredible and counter-productive polarization of our country's governance at all levels along party lines.  Hillary is a lightning rod on that basis, simply because of Bill, not gender.  The Anti-Hillary bias is far more entrenched than a party or gender bias.  I think (is this an idealistic hope?) that our country is far enough along that racism alone will not divide the electorate.  Most people have rejected the negative Black=Muslim=Terrorist lies propogated by the e-mail lies.  But then, I'm probably idealistically wrong about that too.  But I do have hope for Barak Obama.

This pisses me off.  I was in my first year of law school when Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman on the Supreme Court and was thrilled to my last hormone.  Not long afterwards, as a woman and an Italian-American, I was in tears when Geraldine Ferraro mounted the stage as VP candidate.  I WANT to vote for a woman for president, and soon enough, I'll probably have my chance.

And she will probably win.  But I see a future of more partisan politics and ugliness.  Bill Orally and Faux News will have far too much fun on Hillary's behalf.  I don't see an easy cure in '08 with a Democrat victory of any kind.

Damn it, I voted for someone I admire.  I gotta run back to the TV and see who agrees.

Smoky (cough cough), but fine

Yup.  Nothing is burning in My Little Town, or in the county of My Little Town.  Fire crews seem to be getting a handle on the various conflagrations in the absence of the Santa Ana winds.  Now the air seems to be moving in its normal pattern from water inland, good news for those of us near the water, not so good for those in one of those impacted inland areas near the foothills.  Mom woke up this morning with a horrendous cough, even for her, and so did I.  Last week's fire smoke is a culprit, but Mom's 50 years of cigarettes and current pulmonary fibrosis, may play a role, as might my own renewed enthusiasm (suicidal and foolhardy) for the inhalation of burning tobacco.

Boy, how dumb can you get?

I have to blame Katrina.  Were it not for that hurricane, I would not have come in nearly 24/7 contact with my dear friend and fellow Red Cross veteran Steve.  I've blogged about him before.  I adore Steve.  We've stayed in touch these two years and it seems mutual.  When we had adjacent cots (NOT adjoining, mind you) to minister to the dispossessed in Alabama, he'd crow to me morning and evening, "Ah wanna adop tchew!" in his Kentucky accent, then tell me the latest nefarious scheme on the part of the Powers That Be to screw the people we were trying to help.  He was and is an ordained, seminary trained Baptist minister who worked 30+ years on the Ford assembly line and diehard supporter of underdogs to the point that Ford, in the last years of his career, kicked him upstairs to being a diversity and tolerance educator for the other employers.  He was and is also a complete tobacco addict, regularly taking 5-minute breaks between "clients" (the folks we wrote checks/vouchers for) to "check the tires," i.e., sucking down another Marlboro in the parking lot.  Not that he shirked.  He managed to give out more money than I did, with perfect paperwork and completly charming everyone within a 50 yard radius, usually by asking female clients Of A Certain Age for their birthdate (required by paperwork) then erupting in a frenzy of disbelief.  It works.  It worked on me, every day for two weeks.

I was immune to the lure of his tobacco.  I hadn't smoked in over 12 years.  By my mid-thirties, I had tried every method of quitting and failed until late 1993, with a combination of nicotine patches and being head-over-heels in love with a righteously devoted non-smoker.  Between tobacco and my future ex-husband, I chose my future ex and never regretted that choice.  (Even if it didn't work out, he was still better for me than cigarettes.)  Then after Katrina, I was thrust into a situation when it seemed the world was ending, and we should all play, "Ashes, ashes, all fall down," along with those enduring the 13th and 17th century eruptions of the Black Plague.  I still would not have smoked except for one client, name forgotten but not particulars.

An elderly woman of regal bearing, fragile but with PERFECT hair, was escorted by a nice young man into the relief center.  She reminded me of my mother's mother -- a gracious, perfect gentlewoman, soft-spoken and very bright.  I greeted her and we got down to business.  Before Katrina, she had owned her own home outside of Biloxi, and ran it efficiently, even caring for her (younger) sister who was incapacitated with Alzheimer's.  Just the day before Katrina hit, she placed her sister in an inland nursing home just in case the hurricane came ashore.  When it was hours away, the nursing home sent a car for her and insisted she evacuate, so she packed an overnight bag, locked up, and weathered the storm with her sister.  A few days later, she learned that She Had Lost Everything.  Her house and everything in it, her car, everything, was simply GONE.  She was sharp, competent, and had all her paperwork, but her hands trembled slightly as she handed over her driver's license.  I filled in the info, and came to a dead halt when I saw that she was born on my birthday, July 5 ...

... in 1915.

This lovely woman was 90 years old.  Suddenly I was doing an imitation of Steve's flattery, but for real.  "This CAN'T be right!" I exclaimed.  With some pride, she affirmed that she was indeed 90 years old.  With a current, valid driver's license yet.  For some reason, after 10 days of hearing terrifying stories, tragic stories, inspiring stories, THIS story tore out my heart completely.  Neither she nor her sister had children.  There was no one to take her in.  Everyone else that had appeared before me had a determined gleam to rebuild in their eyes, even if their eyes were haunted with tragedy.  This fine lady, who could be my grandma, how could she start over at NINETY?  How could someone build her life for ninety years, survive two world wars, the Depression, care for an ailing sister and then at the hard-earned sunset of her days have all her security ripped away?  The WRONGNESS of it all.

I fudged the Red Cross form and gave her AND her sister full allowances, even though her sister's paperwork was not before me, and handed her the pittance.  I could tell she had NEVER asked for this kind of help from anyone.  She mentioned several times that it had been the idea of the the nice young man (he worked at the nursing home and seemed to take very good care of her).  I looked her dead in the eye at the end and told her that it had been an honor to talk with her and that I would pray for her and her sister.  Her eyes and mine misted over for a second, then she shook my hand briskly, and left.

I had 15 minutes until my next scheduled client, and I raced to the bathroom and sobbed for 5 minutes.  All the stories cascaded in my mind, but I kept coming back to this fine woman, who reminded me so much of my Nanny, my grandmother.  I splashed water on my face and stepped out back, where Steve was "checking the tires."  "Hand me one of those," I said, Steve took one look at my swollen eyes, and without a word, lit me up.  Don't let the do-gooders lie to you.  It tasted WONDERFUL.

But enough is enough, already.  A dumb way to grieve, and after two years, it's not even a barely understandable excuse any more.  I will quit.  I will, I promise.  I say that every time I sneak outside for another one.  "Just checking the tires," I call to my mother as she sucks down her oxygen.  She gives me a gimlet eye and says, "I really enjoyed all my cigarettes too, look where it got me."  Yeah.

Tired, Quick Update

Today's update is that although the Red Cross won't let me help humans, I'm considered OK for animals, so I'm working with the animal shelters as a volunteer -- I'm on call to the Ventura County shelters, the Humane Society about half an hour away, and the Los Angeles ASPCA (about an hour and a half away, and it's surprisingly shabby). 

The hardest hit are the displaced horses from the foothill areas; most people take house pets with them, but there is no room for horses except in equestrian centers and most are in the very areas most affected.  I can't help, as I'm not a horse person and there's no room in my garage for a horse.  However, the shelters are being inundated by lost pets, so today I was in the LA ASPCA tending to the many rescued cats and dogs.  They are stretched to capacity, so I may end up fostering some cats.  None I dealt with are injured, thank god, just scared and disoriented.  I hope they link up with their owners.

By the way, I found out that the new head of the American Red Cross, as of this July, is the former director of the IRS.  That explains a lot.

That's the news from the front, and thanks for your concern from all who've inquired. 

Red Cross to Fragile Industries: Not Good Enough For Malibu

Today's events have overtaken even blogging speed.  Fires rage out of control throughout Southern California, including areas in the county which includes My Little Town, and just over the LA line in Malibu.  I jested in this morning's post about being sent to the Malibu Colony disaster shelter, with valet parking for the Porches.  As ripe for black humor as that scenario may be, the current situation has affected less affluent areas, over a quarter of a million Southland residents have evacuated, and Red Cross shelters are taking in the threatened and dispossessed.  The damage and fear these people are currently suffering is unimaginable.

I have responded like an old fire dog to previous calamities through the auspices of the Red Cross: over two weeks in the Gulf Coast immediately post-Katrina two years ago, and last year at about this time to local fire shelters when Ojai and Santa Paula were burning.  I had a full day of classes, taught at breakneck speed, before Katrina -- a mash-up of two classes in Mass Care and Disaster Response.  I then had two weeks of actual experience in shelters and issuing emergency aid near Mobile, and even mastered the gobbledygook of Red Cross forms in every shape and size, in quadruplicate.  After my return from Alabama, I've taken two more classes from the ARC, after being told that my emergency worker status from Katrina was provisional only, and formal training was necessary for continued work.  I left those classes with no new information but a great deal of frustration with the red tape of the Red Cross.  See posts here and here (the Red Cross part comes in about halfway through that last one, if you're the impatient sort).

But still, I thought I had it down, because last October, after the classes, they did send me to fire emergency shelters, where again, I walked the talk.  I set up and broke down more cots than I can count, brewed hundreds of gallons of coffee, and manned sign-in tables where I greeted people with haunted eyes and ashes in their hair.  I just love the doing of it.  There's probably something incredibly twisted in me that responds to the bacon-scented smell of disaster.  I get a sex flush when cooking in mass quantities.  Hand me a clipboard and I'm fresh as a daisy for days without sleep.  Put me in a Red Cross classroom, though, and I'm gnawing at my own paws to get away from the bear-trap boredom of it all. 

I called and left a message at county ARC headquarters that I was ready, willing and able.  Put me in, coach, I came to play.  My phone call was returned by a honey-voiced functionary this afternoon.  In short, I was told that my credentials were inadequate.  I hadn't had Intro to Mass Care and ... I forget, some Disaster 101 class.  I said I had taken the two classes in '06 that I thought were required, had two weeks of Katrina experience and was thereafter deployed in last year's fires for more shelter experience.  She admitted that I shouldn't have been sent out, actually, that was their mistake and they damn well weren't going to repeat it this year.  My pre-Katrina training (the mash-up full-day version of the exact half-day classes needed) didn't count because now the course numbers had changed.  To date, I have caused no fatalities by inadequate coffeemaking, I joked, but the humorless chirping noise continued at the other end of the line.  She would be happy to sign me up for the necessary classes right now.  Holding on to the last of my courtesy, I said my calendar wasn't in front of me, but the next time I was at my desk, I'd sign up online.  Well, she said, that wouldn't do, because the online class dates were wrong, but Intro to Mass Care would be offered on November 23rd.  Would I care to sign up now?

So a month from now, I'll be halfway to helping these folks.

I lost it.

"That will be a great big comfort to the people who right this very minute are watching their houses burn down," I snapped.  "Thanks for calling to tell me I'm good enough for Katrina, but not good enough for California because of some damn paperwork formality."   Outraged squawking was heard as I pressed the "end call" button.  (You can't really say, "I hung up the phone" anymore, can you?)

Words fail me.  (Hah, hardly.  I continue:) I give up.  The Red Cross really is the great stinky beached whale of compassion it's made out to be.  I'd like to set up an Anti-Red Cross shelter, across the street from the real one.  Sort of a lemonade stand offering free highballs and hugs, with a great big sign reading: "Unqualified Succor Here."  A Michael Moore gesture, and I won't do it really, but what a fucking waste.

I said privately to a friend a few weeks ago that I had my own name for the ARC acronym: Angry Retired C---s.  (That's not to preserve a PG rating, it's just my least favorite word in the world and I hate seeing it in print.)  The Red Cross is heavily populated and top-heavy with bitter old nurses, who spent their careers doing the real healing while being put down by doctors.  Now that they're in charge, no one escapes their draconian superiority and bean counting.   The other evil, as I perceive it, is the fear of bad press and lawsuits, so they cover their asses in even more meaningless paperwork, crossing every "i" and dotting every "t".  That last is intentionally wrong.  As wrong-headed as turning away proven willing hands.

My heart goes out to all who are affected by this year's blazes.  Let's all send them our prayers, good vibes and virtual hugs.

Dude! Gnarly fire.

The annual October disaster season is upon us in So Cal.  It affects us even in Northern So Cal or Southern Central Cal, wherever you place My Little Town.  A year of drought, followed by Indian summer heat (currently low '80's) and the arrival of the Santa Ana winds brings the predictable result.  All of California, especially the Cadillac Desert that is all points south of Morro Bay, approximately, is the topographical equivalent of a powder keg.  Sitting next to a pyromaniac with a fresh, sulfur-scented box of matches.  Whether by human design or nature's accident, October is Fire Month.

Yesterday I woke before dawn as the Santa Anas began to roar.  At first, the winds whipped sand from the nearby beach through every crevice, and my path to the coffeemaker was crunchy with grit.  The dry air made my eyes sting and my sinuses drain.  I had an immediate sense memory of October 2003, when events conspired to bring me to Southern California from my (then) San Francisco home.  Mom was having her second operation of five (so far) for various cancers that have flared up in the last few years.  Although this was not a major surgery requiring an overnight in hospital, she needed someone to drive her back and forth and stay with her for the next few days.  That year's particularly harsh fire season had just started, and I landed in Burbank into a thick brown gravy of smoke.  My memories of those days are somewhat Biblical in tone, all the personal worry and discomfort seen in a hellish, unnatural orange light.  On every trip between home and hospital, the windshield would cloud with sticky ash, and Mom's shiny black Mafia car soon turned a fuzzy gray.  The local channels went to wall-to-wall fire coverage, and Mom took it personally.  How was she to recuperate comfortably without the soothing tones of "People's Court" and "Judge Judy," her daily fare?  It was an odd time of crisis for both of us -- my marriage and life in San Francisco was skidding out control and by next May was rather cataclysmically over.  Mom was at the beginning of her health issues.  And it seemed the world was ending around us.  The sun, when visible at all, was a vague dirty penny glowing dull and baleful in a muddy sky and the air was nearly unbreathable.  I was recovering from some voluntary vanity surgery myself, a last-ditch gesture towards being young and desirable, wearing a compression bandage around my face, a sort of latter-day wimple. 

With all that in mind four years later nearly to the day, I knew that something would be burning soon, if it wasn't already.  Sure enough, a few hours later, the wind shifted and drove the Malibu fire smoke north into My Little Town.  Same orange Halloween light, smell, drifting ash.  I'm in a much better place now, emotionally and geographically, though I've traded my wimple for a monastic remove from the relationship wars.  Mom seems cancer-free for now, at least.  We're next to the beach and miles from any flammable hillsides.  If the Red Cross calls today, I'll be available for coffee and food service for the firefighters or shelter duty, although the notion of the Malibu Colony residents pulling up in their Porsches to claim a cot seems unlikely.  The Beverly Hills Four Seasons is probably booked solid with refugees.

Disaster, Hollywood-style, is a different proposition.

Photos, above and below, courtesy of LA Times.

Biblical times, indeed:

Cherubs in the remnants of a Malibu Castle:

Not everyone lives in a castle:

Soap Box Time

If you've come here for a relief from politics, now's the time to change the channel...

   1. DRAFT GORE (I mean, he's already been elected president once, how hard can it be?)

I'm coming out of the closet -- no, not that one, haven't seen it in years -- and announcing that I am crazy enough to endorse a candidate for President in '08.  Like you care. 

In fact, I'm crazy enough to endorse a candidate who is unnanounced and not yet on any primary ballot.  But I'm working to change that.  I sent the following to the DNC yesterday:

Greetings:

While there are several admirable candidates announced for 2008,  there
is one obvious choice for the Democratic Party.  He is not an
announced candidate, but will lead us to victory in November if
called on at the convention.  That candidate is Al Gore.

The Honorable Mr. Gore is already the popularly elected president,
but was forced from accepting the presidency in 2000.  The result of
this debacle is the horrifying spectacle currently occupying the Oval
Office.  We have far less than our Constitutionally guaranteed rights,
a devastating, deceptively-entered and unwinnable war killing our
countrymen and women, and a level of partisan politics and fraud
unheard of since (and perhaps including) the Nixon Presidency.

Gore, in the meantime, has taken an honorable path, following his
passions, changing the way America uses its energy resources, and
being among the first to protest the unethical war in Iraq when it
was almost unthinkable to criticize it. He has the clarity, the
vision, the moral fiber, and the values to bring us back on course
and regain the confidence of other nations.

Polls show that Gore can regain the office easily if he is a
candidate.  I am certain that if drafted, he would see it as an
ethical duty to assume the candidacy.

For all the above reasons, I will only support Al Gore as the
Democratic nominee in the primaries. Many, many people agree.  I
write to urge the party to support his candidacy and draft Gore at
the convention.

[love and kisses, Fragile Industries]

I've also signed up with  http://draftgore.com/  and http://www.algore-08.com/ , two PACs which will be circulating petitions nationwide, including here in California, to place Gore on the primary ballots of the various states.  This campaign will run in California from October 8 to December 4 with the goal of obtaining a minimum of 500 qualified signatures in each to the 53 congressional districts. Similar campaigns are scheduled across the country and have huge support already, and not just among a bunch of wacko tree-huggers.  It's across the board. 

If you feel that the current Democratic field is lacking, as I do, or even agree with me that a Gore-Obama ticket is the "Dream Team" for '08, check out these sites and join up too.

It's not a pipe dream.  First of all, the man's lost 30 pounds over the summer.  Sounds tanned, rested and ready to me.  Second, he's nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (to be announced this month), has won an Oscar and an Emmy, and, as I said, has already won the presidency once.  It's not like he's the Kokomo dog catcher.  This is sorta Mother Teresa meets Hollywood, with 8 years of "a heartbeat away" experience.  Third, he's already in second or third place in all statewide Democratic polls that include Gore among the choices, and he hasn't even announced.  Imagine all the relieved "Undecideds" who would flock to his candidacy.  The Clinton nomination is not a sure bet in that light.  She's viewed with a great deal of skepticism (justifiably, I believe) across the party.  Fourth, contrary to popular belief, he has NOT ruled out the possibility, he's just said he's not sure what it would take to convince him.  How about a strong showing in some key primaries?  Worth a try.

Fair warning, as I get more involved, I plan to beat this drum some more, so your politics-free refuge here is a threatened sanctuary.

2. SCHIP Scrapped by Bush -- The Latest Outrage

If you missed it, Bush vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Program renewal today.  No camera ops as usual for this veto, he did it behind closed doors.  If only that reflected a sense of shame.  This program is about the only government health care initiative that works even a little bit.  It has broad support and passed both houses by a wide margin.  I've seen first hand that it works -- a little girl I care a great deal for probably wouldn't be alive today if she hadn't received the critical care she needed earlier this year through SCHIP.  I received the following email from the DNC:

This morning, President Bush rejected health care for children. Now it's time for Democrats to reject President Bush.

If we can get 2/3 of Congress to stand up to President Bush, we can overturn his veto on the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- a program that provides health insurance for millions of kids.

We need your help to get those votes.

We've set up a simple tool that will allow you to write a letter and send it to your members of Congress instantly. Send your Senators and Representative a message telling them to stand up to George Bush:

http://www.democrats.org/FightForKids

George Bush made a cold political calculation this morning. He could have signed this bi-partisan bill into law, or he could have pandered to conservatives who didn't want to see the Children's Health Insurance Program get the funding it needs.

He decided to pander -- and millions of kids will suffer for it.

What makes this veto worse is that George Bush will spend billions of dollars in Iraq, some of it on contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton, while denying millions of children needed doctors' visits or medicine here at home.

On top of that, all of the Republican candidates for president support his veto.

Democrats are in the majority for a reason. Send a message to your Senators and Representative and let them know why that is:

http://www.democrats.org/FightForKids

That link again:

http://www.democrats.org/FightForKids

Just do it.

Life, And Other Petty Afflictions

Life goes on.  There's a reason for truisms: they're true.

Thanks

My gratitude goes out to all who commented or contacted me about Rupert's illness and death.  You know what that kind of support means if you've ever had a loss or heartbreak.  If you haven't, you weren't paying attention.

I'm out of serious grieving now.  It seems that the most painful and enduring catastrophes (no pun intended) in life are those where one harbors secret self-blame.  Divorce, addiction, mental illness, death of someone estranged or neglected -- that pain lingers because one wishes that one could have acted differently.  Someone fairly smart once said something like (if anyone knows the source and actual quote, please let me know, Google and Wikiquote have been of no help): "The first step in healing is sincerely letting go of the wish that the past were different."  There is nothing I would change for Rupert's life, except the ending of it, and immortality is the most futile wish of all.  So I have the ache of missing him, but no grief.  Here's a picture sent by Kerry of his sweet face:

Another apropos quote I can attribute:

"What's gone and what's past help should be past grief." William Shakespeare, "The Winter's Tale", Act 3 scene ii.

Courtesy Wikiquote.

Current Cat Conditions

The household cat dynamics are shifting in Rupert's absence.  Max, my mom's highly neurotic burly boy, has decided he is not completely terrified of the new cats in his house.  In fact, he has started flirting with Peabody with a typically oddball tactic by watching him constantly from a distance then running past him while doing something strange (either biting Pea's neck or a characteristic head-roll the meaning of which I cannot decipher), then hiding, only to repeat the process a few minutes later.  Max is extremely wary of everything and everyone, darts around sneakily, hides his bulk behind objects far too small to conceal him, and has no idea of affection and trust, but seems to want to give it.  He's endearing in a damaged, dysfunctional way.  Peabody must be, in feline terms, The Sexiest Cat Alive to other boy cats.  First Rupert, now Max.  Pea ignores Max utterly, to the point of smug insult.  It's going to be interesting.

We've All Worked At This Office:

Courtesy of Best of Craigslist

And Now, A Bitter Political Rant

Our Nation's Biggest Asshole President has made a recess appointment (i.e., one which does not need Congressional approval and thus no check or balance) to head the federal government's family planning office. The astonishing choice of Eric Keroack to oversee $283 million in annual Department of Health and Human Service grants is a slap in the face to the electorate.  The recent overwhelming rejection of all of Bush's extremism, stubborn ignorance, and move towards a fascist theocracy has not led him to governing "in a more bipartisan fashion," as he promised after the electoral drubbing.  Instead, he has started naming kooky ideologues to key posts, a classic "nyah, nyah, nyah, I'm still President and you're not," which is to be expected from an immature, politically tone-deaf zealot.

Keroack's responsibility as head of family planning, officially, is to supervise the disbursement of funds for providing access to family planning education and contraceptives "to all who want and need them."  His resume gives a clear idea of how effective he will be in this post:

• As medical director of A Woman's Concern, a small chain of nonprofit pregnancy counseling clinics that offer no information on birth control, Keroack has agitated against abortion and even contraception -- including for married women.
• The organization continues to push the discredited nonsense that abortion increases a woman's chances of breast cancer and is more dangerous during the first eight weeks of pregnancy (when in fact, the risk of complication is actually at its lowest).
• Birth control, according to Keroack's tortured logic, is somehow "demeaning to women."
• Keroack has argued that women who have sex with multiple partners alter their brain chemistry in the process, making it harder for them to form close relationships.

This is an extremist so out of line with scientific and objective reasoning that it is difficult to describe his views without laughing, if he wasn't so scary in this key job.

And this from an administration still wasting $158 million a year on abstinence-only education programs that the GAO concluded this month have not been shown to have any effect and at times put forth misleading information about condoms and AIDS.  The electorate has spoken decisively on these issues. On November 7, efforts to limit women's reproductive rights by initiative, legislation and court decision were soundly defeated by the voters in California, Oregon and even true-red South Dakota and Kansas.

Keroack does not need Senate confirmation, so there is little Congress can do about a president who continues to select anti-scientific ideology over basic competence, other than to echo Joseph Welch's anguished cry to Senator McCarthy during the anti-communist pogroms of the '50's:  "Sir, have you no sense of decency?"

Speak out, be heard, stand up and be counted.  Bush is giving us a frat-boy mooning, and the sight of his stringy butt is not pleasant.  This link takes you to an easy way to protest (and hopefully reverse) this asinine and dangerous appointment.

Here It Is, Your Moment of Zen

http://www.spilsbury.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?ref=cpc_inktomi&storeId=10001&catalogId=30001&langId=-1&pageSize=9&beginIndex=0&sType=SimpleSearch&resultType=2&searchTerm=22050&x=8&y=15

The "Oh, Really?" Factor

How could a cable news network possibly be expected to fit something so outrageously embarassing as a Republican Congressman caught having dirty cybersex with teenage boys into their shamelessly conservative agenda? Make the pederast a Democrat, of course! Yes, on last night’s episode of The O'Reilly Factor, Rep. Mark Foley was labeled “D” for “Democrat” on THREE seperate screen shots. Was this just poor fact-checking on the part of our fair and balanced friends, or did the “D” actually stand for another Disgusting Disgraced Republican? Be sure to tune in tonight for Bill’s hard-hitting expose, “Amish Killer: Best Friend of the Clintons”

(thanks to http://www.bestweekever.tv/ for picture and story)

Inconvenient Truth and "Truthiness"

Yesterday, I saw "An Inconvenient Truth", the documentary about global warming featuring Al Gore. The movie has received a lot of press, mostly criticism and questioning about Gore's motives for making the film.  It's really a debate between an inconvenient truth, called global climate change, and "Truthiness."

Truthiness is the quality by which a person purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or to what the person might conclude from intellectual examination. Stephen Colbert coined this definition of the word during the first episode of his satirical television program The Colbert Report, as the subject of a segment called "The Word."

By using the term as part of his satirical routine, Colbert sought to critique the tendency to rely upon "truthiness," and its use as an appeal to emotion in contemporary socio-political discourse. He particularly applied it to President Bush's modus operandi in nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and in deciding to invade Iraq.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia. More on "Truthiness" here.)

Personally, I was glad I saw the film.  It is heavy on charts and statistics, but they do demonstrate the issue rather conclusively, and scare the bejeezus out of you at the same time.  Just at the point when you realize how much your butt hurts from the science lecture, it lets up.  It even manages to be entertaining, to a degree. It could be presented in a more exciting way, a more confrontational way, but I think Gore wants to leave that to the Mike Wallaces and Michael Moores.

I would recommend this film to anyone interested in or concerned about global warming. I would especially recommend it to people who do NOT believe there is a problem, or those, once convinced there is a serious problem, who believe there is nothing to be done. As Gore said in the film, people tend to jump straight from disbelief to defeat.

As the film makes clear (stay for the closing credits -- they are unique and encouraging, giving examples of specific ways we can help), there is a complete solution available using current technologies. The US is the least compliant with these technologies while being the worst contributor to global warming. As individuals, we can all do our part. Unified, we can change the course of this cataclysm. The worst current "truthiness" is that we have to choose between ecology and economy. This is the answer of the oil industry and the current political regime. It is a lie. Many new jobs will be created in these climate-friendly industries, if we insist on it.

So many other problems can be solved or at least partially remedied by solving this single problem.  To name a few:
-- mideast-based terrorism (if we are no longer dependent on foreign oil, we won't be messing in their affairs and arousing international resentment)
-- global starvation due to drought and flooding, especially in poor countries such as India and the Sub-Saharan nations
--devastating hurricanes, like Katrina
--global extermination of entire species of endangered animals (which, taken to extremes, will include the human race if nothing is done)

There are many solutions we as individuals can initiate, the most crucial here:
-- tell everyone you know to see "An Inconvenient Truth" (really, the best and most efficient education on the topic) or otherwise learn about global climate change
--change your personal consumption habits (as listed in the end of the film, really very simple changes that won't affect the quality or nature of your life in the slightest)
--vote for politicians who support global-friendly changes in actual concrete ways, and against those with ties to old, carbon polluting technologies (naming no names, but you catch my drift)
--let those in political office NOW know that this is a prime concern of yours, and that you will be watching their actions on this topic.

I appreciate Gore's efforts in making people aware of this problem. Is he using it for political gain?  I don't believe so, but I don't really care, as long as it gets the word out.

Unfortunately, the very prominence of the messenger that allows him a platform to speak on the issue is a two-edged sword: it is used against the messenger to question his motives and the truth of his message.  This is "truthiness" in action.

For more "truthiness" on the issue check out some of the responses here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060629201333AAu7EXE&pa

Gore posted a question on awareness of and solutions to global warming.  I'd say the majority of the responses are flat denials of the issue, and/or ad hominem attacks on Gore, or acceptance of the problem but statements of individual powerlessness.  I don't agree.  I hope Gore is not the lone voice crying in the wilderness, or is simply preaching to the choir.  His message is real, immediate, frightening and ultimately empowering.

For more about the film, check here with patience. It seems to load at a glacial (hee hee hee) rate: http://www.climatecrisis.net/

For more on global warming, there's a slew of links here: http://an-inconvenient-truth.com/links.html