And He's Telling the Truth, as Long as by "Absolutely Innocent" He Means "As Guilty as the Guiltest Criminal Who Ever Was Guilty of Being Guilty"

Yahoo reports that:

Skilling Says He's 'Absolutely Innocent' By KRISTEN HAYS, AP Business Writer

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling declared he was "absolutely innocent" Monday as he began to testify in his own defense in his fraud and conspiracy trial.

The 52-year-old one-time corporate celebrity whose reputation as a business wunderkind shattered along with the company he once ran also said he "never ... not once" considered making a deal with prosecutors the way more than a dozen other Enron executives did.

Thank You, Harry Taylor

Go here and say Thank You. Do it now. Do it right now.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Our Native Earth

1961

There are not any people in the world --
So simple, lofty, tearless -- like us.

1922

We do not carry it in lockets on the breast,
And do not cry about it in poems,
It does not wake us from the bitter rest,
And does not seem to us like Eden promised.
In our hearts, we never try to treat
This as a subject for the bargain row,
While being ill, unhappy, spent on it,
We even fail to see it or to know.
Yes, this dirt on the feet suits us fairly,
Yes, this crunch on the teeth suits us just,
And we trample it nightly and daily --
This unmixed and non-structural dust.
But we lay into it and become it alone,
And therefore call this earth so freely -- my own.

************

By posting weekly the poems of Anna Akhmatova, I'm trying to understand a poet who is difficult for me. I'm trying to understand her through her poems, before I read her autobiography, which I've added to my wish list. There are two ways to understand poets. One is to first read their poetry, and to then read about their lives. The other, the one I less prefer, is to read about their lives and to then read their poetry. Akhmitova is less accessible to me than many other poets; as I've said before, I think she may not translate well.

What I take from this poem is her allegiance to a sense of space. It's something Pagans understand -- allegiance to a piece of ground. "Yet this dirt on the feet suits us fairly, Yet this crunch on the teeth suits us just." I go out into my herb bed, pick parsley eat it, and get dirt on my feet, crunch soil on my teeth because I eat the parsley before washing it. I will, one day, lay into it and become it alone. Ok, I want some of my ashes scattered on the roots of my lilac bushes, too. I'd be happy, in my next life, to smell of lilacs.

How much more was Akhmatova saying? About country, nation, place, native land? How can an English speaker understand precisely what a Russian poetess was saying? Why should it matter so much to me? Does it matter to you? Why?

Lazy Sunday Blogging

A long, lazy Sunday morning spent w/ my circle discussing where we go from here.

Several of our members have received promotions that, especially in DC, have meant moving out-of-town. And, so, as happy as we are for them, we've been vaguely trying to add some new members, but also thinking about who/what we want to add.

I think in the future, the whole notion of "creating community" will become an academic field, a profession. Community used to simply mean the place where you lived. Now, it means something different, but no one is sure what. How do you create viable communities in today's world? How do the right people find each other and create enough time in otherwise busy lives to actually do the "work" of creating community, even when that work means just clearing time on your calendar to spend lazy Sunday mornings chatting?

I think of the Eschaton community, where this week, two members of the community got engaged and even those of us who'd never "met" them, in real time, were happy and excited or where two members of the community recently had a baby and all of us were happy and felt involved. But what if someone who regularly shows up at Eschaton stops coming? No one's likely to call them up and ask what's wrong. Not too long ago, there was a thread where we listed the people we remembered who used to show up that we hadn't seen in a while. A form of mourning? How is it different when we're trying to create community in the "real" world?

My circle is confronting ourselves. What do we want from each other? How much do we want it? What if someone's life takes them in a direction where they can't regularly "be there"? How, and I'll say "especially" in a group of women, do we confront that w/o causing hurt feelings? Most of us agree; you can't be a magical community if you regularly have a "hole" in the circle. But the reality of life for most women in Washington, D.C. is an overcommitted calendar, a Blackberry-full of obligations, a life that's very, very busy. Getting from the gym, to work, to Whole Foods to buy food for the week, to a political action meeting, to spending family time, to being a witch -- there's no time for sleep. How do you create a "college of priestesses" in the middle of that? We all need it; we need it to be there for us. The issue we're dealing with is --how do we do that? What are we willing to give up in our busy lives in order to have it?

We spent some time today trying to figure out if there are logistical ways to make it all easier for us. That runs the gamut from deciding that for mid-week Full Moons maybe we'll send out for dinner instead of doing potluck, to considering -- horrors for a feminist group that believes in a lack of hierarchy -- assigning certain jobs to certain people, at least for a four-month rotation, to, again, horrors, always having rituals at only one or two homes. It also involves deeply spiritual questions. What kind of magic do we want to do? How much pre-ritual magical time are we willing to spend in order to make the rituals "work"? Are we all willing to do political magic or should that be a subgroup? Do we all seriously believe that a witch who cannot hex cannot heal? If we believe it, how and when will we hex as a group?

Long story, long. We decided that we've been unfocused; we need a several month period of focused meditation and magical working and then a day-long retreat before we think about bringing in new members to replace those who've moved away. We need, no surprise for a magical community, to do magic.

I came home and planted some black hollyhock seedlings and some black violet seedlings. Call it, not in a very far-fetched way, "grounding" -- the witch's most important tool. And then, I sat in the sun in the corner of my yard that's the shady, woodland garden part of the yard, and did what witches do. I sank my roots deep into the wet, hummusy ground and pulled energy up from Mother Earth. I called the quarters, North, South, East, and West/Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, and cast a circle. I called upon Hecate and Diana and Amataresu. I did the Ha prayer and directed energy out into the universe to create the community that we need to have, to call the new members that we'll, eventually, want to have join us. I thanked the energies of the four quarters. I opened the circle.

It's a strange time to be adding to a circle of witches in Washington, D.C. Women with real careers in this town are concerned about being outed as witches. It makes it difficult to, for example, advertise our open meetings where we'd like to meet potential new members. On the other hand, there are more public rituals than ever before and, for many people, that's enough. They can show up at the Radical Faeries and/or Connect DC public rituals, practice the rest of the time as what witches call "solitaries," and that's all they need.

It's, as Bush would say, hard work. It's hard work being in community, fostering community, taking responsibility for growing community. It's never easy. But, for me, at least, it's always necessary, it's always important, it's always worth the effort. I am who I am because I am a member of my circle. I need these women. I need this circle. I need to learn whatever it is that I'll learn by working on fostering this community.

This is my will. So mote it be.

Saturday Atom Bomb Blogging

You know they're just letting Sy Hersh live so they can judge whether or not most Americans get upset by the notion of dropping atom bombs on Iraq or if they just shrug and go back to watching American Idol.

America by Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Actually, I'd Just As Soon He Stays Away

Because he is as dumb as a box of rocks, if we're talking about a really, really dumb box of rocks.




Where IS George Allen?

Friday Son and Grandson Blogging

Free Trees in Arlington, Virginia

Arlington’s Parks Department is offering community groups FREE TREES to be
distributed for Neighborhood Day in May. There is a limit of one tree per
family for planting on their private property.

Two species of tree are being offered. The first is a smaller, understory
tree—sweetbay magnolia. The second tree is chestnut oak—a major canopy
shade tree. You can google the tree names to find out their
characteristics. The trees being offered are whips 3-4 feet tall and are
potted in one-gallon containers.

If interested in obtaining one of these trees to grow in your yard, call
Vicki Howard, the civic association president, at 703-304-4487. Leave your
name, address, telephone number, and the type of tree you wish. Call within
the next 7 days, since we need to call in the Leeway Overlee order by April
15th. In the event that more groups order trees than the County can supply,
orders will probably be filled on a first-come-first served basis. Vicki
will contact you when the tree arrives—presumably in May.

*****************

Do something nice for Mama Earth.

Your Honor, Please Stay Out of Small Planes

CNN reports that: "The judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial ruled Friday that families of September 11 attack victims are entitled to the same unclassified aviation security documents the government turned over to the al Qaeda conspirator's defense team.

"I've always been troubled to the extent which our government keeps things secret from the American people," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said, granting the families' request after a hearing.

"It is amazing what some agencies think is secret," Brinkema added. "As a culture, we need to be careful not to be so wrapped up in secrecy that we lose track of our core values and laws.""

Rock on, Judge Brinkema, rock on.

Now There's a Guy with the Ovaries to Speak Truth to Power

Thanks, Harry Taylor. You were a hell of a lot more polite than I'd have been, but you definitely said what needed to be said.

Go here to thank Mr. Taylor. It's slashdotted at the moment, but keep checking back. This guy's a hero.

Bush Not Interested in Energy Summit -- the Asshole

Today's EEI newsletter reports that:

"Democrats Call for Bipartisan Energy Summit; Bush Not Interested
Sens. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., led an effort of 51 Democratic members of Congress who are calling on the Bush administration to set up a bipartisan energy summit, the Associated Press reported. The White House, the report said, "showed little interest in such a meeting."

In a letter to the administration, the Democrats said: "Developing a serious long-term strategy to curb our nation's dangerous dependence on oil is long overdue." Such a summit "would be designed to produce solutions to move America forward more quickly on a path toward greater energy independence and security," they said.
Associated Press, April 6."

Good political move on Kerry's and Cantwell's part. Not to mention that they're right. We SO need a Manhattan Project-style push to get America off oil.

Friday Frost Blogging

The e-newsletter for my local farmers' market usually comes with a poem. Here's the one for this week. I love it.


A Prayer in Spring
~ Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us hapy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Passion

In my Reclaiming class tonight we were talking about passion. Not just sexual passion, but all kinds of passion. There are quite a few things in which I have a strong interest, but few about which I am passionate.

In America, as my friend Renee, aka the world's best cook, noted, it's ok to be passionate about, say, a diamond ring your lover buys you. Of course, someone profits from that. We allow men in our society, and, increasingly women, to be passionate about sports. Chomsky said some interesting things about that. And, of course, someone can profit off of that passion.

Is it possible in a capitalist society to have a passion that doesn't make anyone any money? What would that be? What is your passion? Is it any more than a way for someone to sell you something? Is passion a form of mania, of madness? For what are you willing to, literally, go mad? Do our passions help us to thrive? Do they tap into our fears? If so, what's the connection?

D.H. Lawrence Blogging - Just Because

Beautiful Old Age

It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.

Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! -

And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!


- D.H.Lawrence

Oh, really, D.H., you should bite me. Go find your own comforting apples and leave us old people the fuck alone. Like we have to go on living for you forever. Grow the fuck up. My knee is sore.

Bush Told Libby to Leak Classified Information

"The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put interests of his political party ahead of Americas security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe," said Howard Dean.

Howard's right. Now, what are we going to do about it?

Swear to Kali, the next press person i hear mention Cynthia McKinney's hair is going to get a whammy placed on them like they've never seen before. Dear Mainstream Media: THE FRIGGING HOUSE IS ON FRIGGIN FIRE AND YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT CATIE COURIC AND AMERICAN IDOL. STOP IT!

Helicopters on the Roof -- Not a Foreign Policy

Moonbotica pointed me this morning to Sidney Blumenthal's article in The Guardian. Blumenthal reports that, "Since the Iraqi elections in January, US foreign service officers at the Baghdad embassy have been writing a steady stream of disturbing cables describing drastically worsening conditions. Violence from incipient communal civil war is rapidly rising. Last month there were eight times as many assassinations committed by Shia militias as terrorist murders by Sunni insurgents. The insurgency, according to the reports, also continues to mutate. Meanwhile, President Bush's strategy of training Iraqi police and army to take over from coalition forces - "when they stand up, we'll stand down" - is perversely and portentously accelerating the strife. State department officials in the field are reporting that Shia militias use training as cover to infiltrate key positions. Thus the strategy to create institutions of order and security is fuelling civil war."

He also notes that, "The Pentagon has informed the state department it will not provide security for these officials and that mercenaries should be hired for protection instead. Internal state department documents listing the PRT jobs, dated March 30, reveal that the vast majority of them remain unfilled by volunteers. So the professionals are being forced to take the assignments in which "they can't do what they are being asked to do", as a senior department official told me."

Finally, Blumenthal explains that, "Amid this internal crisis of credibility, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has washed her hands of her department. Her management skills are minimal. Now she has left coercing people to fill the PRTs to her counsellor, Philip Zelikow, who, by doing the dirty work, is trying to keep her reputation clean.

While the state department was racked last week by collapsing morale, Rice travelled to England to visit the constituency of Jack Straw. She declared that though the Bush administration had committed "tactical errors, thousands of them" in Iraq, it is right on the strategy. Then she and Straw took a magic carpet to Baghdad to try to overthrow Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari in favour of a more pliable character.

"Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that after Vietnam we'd be doing this again?" one top state department official remarked to another last week. Inside the department, people wonder about the next "strategy" after the hearts-and-minds gambit of sending diplomats unprotected to secure victory turns into a squalid fiasco. "Helicopters on the roof?" asked an official. "

Condalezza Rice is in so far over her head that she'll never see sunshine again. Especially since her theory about how to get out of a hole is to keep digging. It's going to take years and years to clean up the mess this administration has made of everything. Including our foreign service.

Go Read This

Anne Johnson just cracks my shit up. Huck Finn, Intelligent Design, and PTA moms.

It's Time for a Taxpayer Revolt!

Via Witchvox:

When are America's taxpayers going to rise up and say enough is enough?. Just exactly how many millions of tax dollars have to get wasted on lawyers fees, rather than spent on text books or athletic equipment or art supplies before America's tax payers put their feet down? When will America's schoolboards focus on educating American children and stop all the nonsense?

Sounds Like a Plan

In today's New York Times, John Kerry writes:

We are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.

Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can't bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq's leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires.

As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences.

So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines — a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections.

Now we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet.

Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave.

If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end. Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.

For this transition to work, we must finally begin to engage in genuine diplomacy. We must immediately bring the leaders of the Iraqi factions together at a Dayton Accords-like summit meeting. In a neutral setting, Iraqis, working with our allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, would be compelled to reach a political agreement that includes security guarantees, the dismantling of the militias and shared goals for reconstruction.

To increase the pressure on Iraq's leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads.

We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity. An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and allow us to repair the damage of repeated deployments, which flag officers believe has strained military readiness and morale.

For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that. We can put the American leadership on the side of our soldiers and push the Iraqi leadership to do what only it can do: build a democracy.

Random Thoughts

There are a limited number of airwaves. That's why the FCC licenses their use and, back in the good old days, used to require that those who used the airwaves do so for the public good. There's a limited amount of oil in the ground. Why doesn't the government license its use and impose a heavy tax on those who would profit off of it? Why should an accident of property allow the few to control a necessary resource in order to profit off the many?

I'm thinking a lot about balance, lately. How the planet is no longer in balance; how our economy is no longer in balance. As liberals, do we believe that we should live within our means? Why? Why should a single mother working at WalMart live within her means while CEOs live a lifestyle that would embarass a Roman emperor? Had dinner w/ a very old friend last night who was telling me how her son's ex wife is unemployed, driving a Lexus, and sending her son to school w/o lunch money. My first reaction is: that's crazy. I make a very nice salary, and I wouldn't dream of driving a Lexus. But what about CEOs who, figuratively, drive a Lexus while their pension funds go underfunded? Why is it so easy for us to condemn the Lexus-driving mother, but not the CEO?

I'm an older woman and I'm invisible in this society. Why do we allow this? Because there are advantages to being invisible. Clear advantages. Sometimes, it allows us to come out of nowhere.

How do you both support your friends and still hold them accountable for what they say and do? When the group agrees about someone's life, does that make it true? When is being "sick" a form of health for someone in a relationship where being "sick" is the only form of power they own? Do we help them or hurt them when we insist they tell us the truth about how sick they are?

A great teacher once told me that working on your own shadows is one of the best things you can do for future generations of your family. Will I find the will to confront my own shadows now that my grandson is here? If not, what can I expect from him? I held him this weekend and tried to imagine all that he may have to confront in what may well be a 120 year lifetime. Impossible. I settled for massaging his back and singing him lullabies. Is it enough

Would the Fundie Nut-Jobs Please Just Stop?

The NewStandard reports that, "Last week, a Texas appeals court overturned the convictions of two women who had used illegal drugs while pregnant, invalidating the prosecution’s controversial reading of a state law protecting the unborn. The decision, which skirted the constitutional issues at the center of the national abortion debate, drew support from a diverse host of both pro- and anti-abortion-rights groups." It goes on to note that, "The Act, primarily intended to protect pregnant women and their fetuses from violent crime and domestic abuse, explicitly exempts "conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child," as well as medical procedures to terminate pregnancies.

However, the district attorney’s office has consistently argued that the Controlled Substances Act, which bars the "delivery" or "transfer" of an illegal drug to a person under 18 years old, applied to the women under the Prenatal Protection Act’s definition of fetuses as "individuals." That law carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

In 2003, then-District Attorney Rebecca King issued a letter to healthcare providers advising personnel to report drug use by pregnant women to law enforcement. She stated that most of the women would "qualify for probation, which will allow [authorities] to legally mandate medical services" to treat the mother and child.

Many health professionals argue that intervention by law enforcement will simply instill women with the fear that those they turn to for help will end up turning them in. Before leaving office in early 2005, King charged eighteen women with delivering drugs to their fetuses.

But last January, after Ward and Smith had already pleaded guilty, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued an official opinion declaring that the Prenatal Protection Act’s exemption for pregnant women also shields them from the Controlled Substances Act. The prosecutors in the case nonetheless stood by the original charges throughout the appeals process.

Unlike litigation in other states that has challenged fetal-rights policies on constitutional grounds, the Texas appeals court ruled instead on a technical basis, avoiding the heavier issues.

According to the organization Center for Reproductive Rights, in the first half of 2005, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and Louisiana all enacted fetal-rights legislation expanding child-abuse or neglect statutes to cover newborns testing positive for drugs. On the federal level, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, enacted in 2004 amid intense political controversy, holds that a fetus that is criminally harmed or injured is a separate victim in addition to the mother, though the law does not address conduct by pregnant women themselves.

While generally acknowledging the dangers of drug addiction during pregnancy, many public-health professionals argue that intervention by law enforcement will simply instill women with the fear that those they turn to for help will end up turning them in.

In a statement accompanying National Advocates for Pregnant Women’s friend-of-the-court brief, David Schneider, Chair of the Public Health Commission of the American Academy of Family Physicians, predicted: "When patients know that physicians are required to report patient behavior to the authorities... women will stop seeking necessary medical care, including drug treatment. We will have more drug-addicted babies, babies born with lower birth weights, and stillbirths."

Critics also say fetal-rights prosecutions have a discriminatory impact on minority women. In 1989, for instance, law enforcement authorities began targeting a hospital in a poor, mostly black community in Charleston, South Carolina, to root out women testing positive for drug use during pregnancy. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that the intrusive testing, which had led to a spate of arrests and detentions of pregnant and post-partum women, had violated the women’s civil rights."

Hugo Chavez Has an Interesting Idea, as Well

BBC reports that Venezuela has taken over oil fields. BBC also reports that, "Last month, BP was slapped with a back tax bill of $61.4m (£35m) covering 2001 to 2004."

Hillary Clinton Has a Damn Good Idea

"Assess the oil companies an alternative energy development fee, taken solely out of unanticipated profits from sky high oil prices, to be put into a new Strategic Energy Fund. The Fund would promote adoption of existing clean energy and conservation technologies; stimulate research and investment by the private sector into the next generation of energy technologies; and help consumers cope with spiraling energy costs. It's not about new energy taxes on consumers - it's about redirecting the hidden 'tax' that middle class Americans are already paying to OPEC and the oil companies in the form of higher prices and harnessing it to secure our energy future."

The Very Essence of a Problem Requiring Government Action

It's a rare day in April when I wake up and say, "You know, that Senator Lugar really makes sense." And if such a day were to occur, you'd expect it to be on April Fool's Day rather than, say, Monday, April 3rd. However, this morning I said to myself, "Self, you know, that Senator Lugar really makes sense."

We've seen, since the dark days of the Reagan administration, a blind insistence that all of our problems can be solved by "markets". Particularly within the field of energy, this faith in the ability of "markets" to solve problems has persisted despite quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. When FERC Chair Kurt Hebert famously told the people of San Diego during the California Energy Crisis that, "If the truth hurts Granny, you have to let Granny die," he meant that if he had to choose between his belief in "markets" and letting old women in California die when they couldn't afford their medicine and their energy bills, he preferred to cling to his faith in "markets" and watch the old women die. The Enron traders thought that was great and enjoyed mocking "Grandma Millie." In the end, FERC was forced to put price caps and must-offer requirements in place -- to regulate -- in order to restore some sanity to California's energy market. Some problems can't be solved by simply asserting blind faith in unregulated "free" markets. Energy is one of those problems. Lugar appears to "get" that.

The March 20th issue of Platt's Inside Energy reports that Lugar gave a speech at the Brookings Institute and said that energy is the "albatross of U.S. national security," and that "the U.S. was risking economic disaster at home and influence abroad by not addressing it with full force." He said given the stakes, the "White House and Congress must reshape the national energy strategy and not simply try to make technologies desirable to the market."

The report continues: "We have entered a different energy era that requires a much different response than in past decades," the Indiana Republican said. "We could take our time if this were merely a matter of accomplishing an industrial conversion to more cost-effective technologies. Unfortunately, U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and their growing scarcity worldwide have already created conditions that are threatening our security and prosperity and undermining international stability.

In the absence of revolutionary changes in energy policy, we are risking multiple disasters for our country that will constrain living standards, undermine our foreign policy goals, and leave us highly vulnerable to the machinations of rogue states."

He added, "Any realistic American foreign policy must redeploy diplomatic, military, scientific, and economic resources toward solving the energy problem."

Lugar goes on to explain that, "By the time a sustained energy crisis fully motivates the market, we are likely to be well past the point where we can save ourselves. Our motivation will come too late and the resulting investment will come too slowly to prevent the severe economic and security consequences of our oil dependence. This is the very essence of a problem requiring government action."

Now, it will be interesting to see if and how the White House responds.

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

"As a White Stone..."
1916

As a white stone in the well's cool deepness,
There lays in me one wonderful remembrance.
I am not able and don't want to miss this:
It is my torture and my utter gladness.

I think, that he whose look will be directed
Into my eyes, at once will see it whole.
He will become more thoughtful and dejected
Than someone, hearing a story of a dole.

I knew: the gods turned once, in their madness,
Men into things, not killing humane senses.
You've been turned in to my reminiscences
To make eternal the unearthly sadness.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000
Edited by Orit Bonver, August, 2000

Boobies

It's the first of the month. If you're a woman, that means that it's either time for you to do a breast self exam, or, if you prefer to do them at a certain point in your monthly cycle, to calendar your breast self exam, so you won't forget. If you're a man, that means it's time for you to remind the women you love about breast self-exams.

Sweet Mother of the Gods, I Am Going to Be Sore Tomorrow

It was a lovely, windblown Spring day today, although I had hoped for rain, which we desperately need here in the MidAtlantic. But I used the nice weather to plant twenty-four Psychedelic Spring violas (you do know the Dorothy Parker poem about violets, don't you? You are brief and frail and blue—/ Little sisters, I am, too./You are Heaven’s masterpieces—/Little loves, the likeness ceases) and twelve white foxgloves. By hand. With my trusty trowel. Using a trowel to dig holes uses exactly the muscles that were injured when I had surgery for breast cancer and those are muscles that I've let atrophy over the winter, so I can definitely feel the stiffness setting in.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I'll still be able to move, as I want to get out into the herb bed, repair one wall that's getting loose, and plant a whole, whole lot of dill seedlings and some black velvet nasturtium seeds.

Now, in the words of the old MoTown song: Oh how I wish that it would rain, rain, rain, rain.

Recycling

A couple of people asked how to make pots to start seeds from newspapers. I use one of these. You cut a strip of newspaper, wind it around the round thing (yes, that's a scientific term), tuck it under, and then smush (another technical garden term) the round thing into the saucer-shaped thing. Voila, a small pot. Fill with dirt and add seed. I put the pots inside aluminum trays that I save from year to year and then water. When the seedling is ready to plant, you just plant it in the newspaper pot, which will disintegrate. It's cheaper than buying peat pots every year.

Friday Family Blogging

My wonderful son and gorgeous grandson. Not sure who tired who out, but I think I can guess.

We Need to Do Something About NonProductive Members of Our Society

Watertiger's post rocks. She hits all the important points.

I'm Afraid Some of Them Can't Be Rehabilitated

Really, these fundies are so whacked that it's difficult to imagine how they could ever be rehabilitated to live in normal society. Via Witchvox, Southern Voice reports that:

"Addressing the "down-low," a term that describes married black men having sex with other men in secret, Pleasant told hundreds of worshipers March 25 that God intended man and woman to procreate.

"The marital duty is not being fulfilled," Pleasant said. "Why are we with you women? Just think about it…we have a strong sex drive. You need to do your part and keep the marriage bed pure. Whenever your husband wants sex it is your duty to say yes.""

Further, "In January, Sheldon, who is white, and 70 black pastors who supported President George W. Bush met in Los Angeles. The summit yielded the "Black Contract with America on Moral Values," the Los Angeles Times reported.

In exchange for black churches focusing on defeating marriage for same-sex couples, the churches will receive money through the government’s faith-based initiative programs, the paper reported."

If it's true that they're getting government dollars to work on political issues such as gay marriage, I swear I'm going to start taking hostages.

And yet they had this extra child, which directly affected me because they did not have enough to go round everybody

A great story from the BBC on African men opting for vasectomies.

The article discusses Ghanaian Kwaku Antwi-Boasiako, 35, a finance administrator, who explained his reasons for having a vasectomy:

"My father had 10 children and I think that how he had to care for so many of us influenced me to take this decision.

When he and my mum had their last but one child, I was still in secondary school really struggling to make ends meet and not having what I needed as a student.

There were nights when I went without food - I virtually starved.

And yet they had this extra child, which directly affected me because they did not have enough to go round everybody."

Mr. Antwi-Boasiako, also explained that: "For my father himself, if he hadn't have had so many children he would have enjoyed his retirement benefits much better than he did.

I don't think he ever enjoyed them himself. I don't want that to happen to me and Femi.

What makes a man, a real man, is not how many children he is able to have but whether he is able to take very good care of the children that he does bring into the world.

The operation has not had any effect at all on my sexual life and there is no difference between now and before the vasectomy.

I am still the man I used to be."

It's amazing how logical people can be when given a chance.

Some Countries Have All the Luck - Part the Third

Go Jamica

Pharonic

Goddess, I would love to have the time to hop on the train to NY and see this exhibit. Someone, and i forget who, once called Hatshepsut "the first great woman of history." True story: my son has always been delighted that he was born a boy, as I'd always wanted to name a daughter of mine Morgan Moria Hatshepsut Aurore. Fine. Laugh if you like. But she was pretty fucking impressive, was Hatshepsut.

Simple Arithmetic

BBC reports that, "Africa's farmland is rapidly becoming barren and incapable of sustaining the continent's already hungry population, according to a report. The report shows that more than 80% of the farmland in Sub-Saharan Africa is plagued by severe degradation." BBC also notes that, "increasing productivity on African farms is critical to feeding a population that is expected to grow to 1.8 billion people by 2050."

The world simply cannot afford for population to continue to grow at current rates. Getting African farmers to use more chemical fertilizers is not the answer. We can begin to help people who voluntarily want to curb their families now, or we can wait, continue to pursue the insane policies of George Bush, the catholic church, and various assorted nutjob fundies, and then resort to forced abortions later on when the problem gets really bad.

I know which options makes more sense to me.

Brother, Can You Spare Me From Bush's Slime?

My friend Elizabeth, aka maker of the world's best cocktails, pointed out this article in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal. The comparisons between Bush and Herbert Hoover are pretty amazing. And Hoover's "more profitable job selling apples," sounds eerily like Cheney's suggestion that many Americans are now employed selling things (aka their old shit) on eBay. (You may have to click through the ad to get to Blumenthal's article, but it's worth it.) After noting that Bush recently gave yet-another Rose Garden announcement that he won't ever change his policy (whatever the fuck it is) in Iraq, Blumenthal writes that:

"Historians now agree that Hoover did take important steps to deal with the Depression, for example, creating the Home Loan Bank system and the Reconstruction Finance Corp., among other measures. However, it was all too little, too late. He clung desperately to an ideology of social Darwinism masquerading as laissez-faire individualism. And he came to regard change outside the narrow parameters of his vision as evil, threatening the self-reliant American character as he understood it. In the name of ideology, he vetoed public works and unemployment insurance.

Hoover repeatedly expressed his faith that the Depression was ending as though such faith itself were sufficient to restore the economy. On May 1, 1930, he said his policies had "succeeded to a remarkable degree" and "we have now passed the worst." A month later, he declared there was no need for further measures: "The depression is over." Later, after leaving the White House, his illusions persisted. "Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples," he wrote.

Hoover entered office with overwhelming one-party dominance over Congress. In the 71st Congress, the Republicans had a 100-seat majority over the Democrats in the House of Representatives and a 17-seat majority in the Senate. Two years later, in 1930, the Democrats controlled the House by six seats and the Senate was deadlocked.

In 1932, Hoover campaigned against the promise of the New Deal as something that "would destroy the very foundations of our American system." When he heard Hoover's remark, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: "I simply will not let Hoover question my Americanism."

Like Hoover, Bush builds walls of denial as the facts tumble down on his policies. And, like Hoover, who periodically proclaimed prosperity just around the corner, Bush almost daily announces progress in Iraq. Like Hoover, he sustains a Micawber-like optimism that something will turn up in the face of worsening conditions. Hoover's rigid approaches inspired a crisis of confidence. His inviolate integrity fostered greater frustration about him as his honesty turned into sanctimonious armor. He suffered a crisis of credibility because his statements were glaringly at odds with reality. But Hoover was not responsible for creating the Depression. And no one accused him of being a liar. Bush, by contrast, has created his crisis himself.

On the day after Bush made his brave statement in the Rose Garden about "nerve" against "the terrorists," his ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is reported to have observed that there have been more assassinations by Shiite militia than killings by the Sunni insurgency. Khalilzad also delivered a message to Shiite leaders that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" the man they had selected to be prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and demanded that they depose him."

Fundie Xians. Knock It Off. I Am Not Kidding. You're Beginning to Annoy Me. Which is Always a Mistake.

Fucking whiny-ass titty babies. I'm getting really, really tired of these people. And I'm beginning to develop a real understanding for how the ancient Romans must have felt.

Via ABC News: ""The message of 'V for Vendetta' is that Christians are plotting to seize the reins of power," said Don Feder of Vision America."

Butcha are Blanche! Buctcha Are!

"They also called the enormously popular Web site MySpace.com poison for its millions of young users. "It's a pornography hole," said Rebecca Hagelin, of the Heritage Foundation."

Yeah. Goddess forfend young people hook up. Cripes. Would someone please throw these people to the lions?

May the Goddess Guard Him. May He Find His Way To The Summerlands. May His Friends And Family Know Peace

SciFi writer Stanislaw Lem has died.

Well, then WTF are they good for?

Scientiests cannot say whether the males perform a sexual function

I keeeed; I keeeed!

ITMRN -- Impeach The Motherfucker Right Now

My brilliant friend, Elizabeth, who's a fan of Don Savage's sex/relationship advice column, Savage Love, turned me on to this very fun site: ITMFA.

As I am likely the last person on the planet to know, ITMFA stands for: Impeach The Motherfucker Already. Frankly, I'd like a button that says: ITMFY, for Impeach The Motherfucker Yesterday, but, hell, I'd settle for ITMFT, for Impeach the Motherfucker Tomorrow.

Last night I got in a cab and the driver said, "Lady, let me ask you a question. Do you think this country can survive three more years of George Bush?" I could only reply, "Nope." As we used to say in the sixties, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! George Bush has got to go!" OK, we didn't say it about George Bush back in the sixties, but you know what I mean.

Family Blogging

My amazing daughter-in-law with my wonderful grandson and my brilliant neice, who has a 3.5 GPA this semester!

Kneel Down, Shut Up, and Pray in a Church Closet Somewhere

Via Witchvox, check out this incredibly fun article from BP News -- apparently a publication of the Southern Baptist Convention. Crying about evil Wiccans who insist upon being able to offer prayers at public meetings, BP News pouts that, "Oconee County was one of three South Carolina councils sent threatening letters by ACLU attorneys around that time last year. The leftist organization was emboldened by a recent U.S. Court of Appeals decision which declared that no specific deity could be mentioned in an opening prayer.

In that case, Wiccan “high priestess” Darla Kaye Wynne was offended that a Great Falls, S.C., town council invocation mentioned Jesus. Demanding the tolerance to her religion that she wouldn’t afford to others, Wynne fought the council. And won.

Not only did the ruling force Great Falls council members to censor their religious expression, the “priestess” also extracted nearly $60,000 in attorneys’ fees from the town and its taxpayers. " I love the scare quotes around the term high priestess. I also love the fact that this moron doesn't understand that if the town hadn't fought Ms. Wynne all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case, there's have been no lawyers' fees to recover.

The whiny-ass titty-babies at BP News go on to piss and moan about some local ACLU chapter's leader who, "[w]riting for the left-wing website The Common Voice, . . . penned a shockingly intolerant article titled “A Bullet Memo to the Right.” In it, Cubelo wrote, “To Bob Jones, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson: Kneel down, shut up, and pray in a church closet somewhere. We’ll come and get you when we need a [J]esus jihad.” Oh, man, I wish I'd written that.

But honestly, the logic here is so twisted it's almost impossible to refute it logically. The basic premise is that if xians aren't allowed to shove their religion down everyone else's throat, then the xians are being persecuted. If they have to take turns at public meetings offering prayers with members of other religions, then the xians are being persecuted. If anyone, anywhere breathes, the xians are being persecuted. For a group of people who claim to have such a mighty sky god, they sure are a bunch of mewling, puking, bully-babies.

Nothing I Can Say; It's a Total Eclipse of the Sun

BBC reports that tomorrow's full moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun.

The report notes that, "During the "totality", darkness will fall over the surrounding landscape and the solar atmosphere - or corona, normally hidden from view - is visible. . . . "Solar eclipses are the ultimate astronomical show," said Dr Robert Massey, senior astronomer at the UK's Royal Observatory Greenwich.

"It's up there with the highest-rated television programme. If there is one thing you do to do with astronomy in your lifetime, go and see a solar eclipse.

"I think it's such a special event that you can't help but be moved by it.

"Day turns into night. Suddenly, in place of this brilliant Sun, you have something like a flower opening. You see the corona - the outer atmosphere of the Sun - radiating behind the dark silhouette of the Moon.

"It's indescribable - utterly beautiful. I think it's such a special event that you can't help but be moved by it," he told the BBC News website.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely covers the face of the Sun as seen from the Earth's surface. The track of the Moon's shadow across Earth is called the "path of totality".

Skywatchers have been warned against looking directly at the partially eclipsed phases of the event."

Now, you know, any time you have a chance to see the "path of totality," well, you should do it.

Warning, Warning, Danger, Danger, This Does Not Compute

Again from MarketWatch:

"THE FED
FOMC raises rates, signals more to come
Growth should moderate, but inflation still poses a worry
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:22 PM ET Mar 28, 2006


WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve opened the Ben Bernanke era on Tuesday the way it closed Alan Greenspan's: With a quarter-point rate hike.
The Federal Open Market Committee raised its overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.75% as expected and left the door open for further rate hikes.
With the unanimous vote, the FOMC has now raised interest rates at 15 straight meetings.

"Some further policy firming may be needed to keep the risks to the attainment of both sustainable economic growth and price stability roughly in balance," the Fed said, repeating language from the January statement.

The FOMC statement acknowledged that temporary factors were boosting the economy in the first quarter. The committee said it expected growth to "moderate to a more sustainable pace."

Higher prices for energy and other commodities have had only a "modest effect on core inflation," the committee said, warning that high rates of resource utilization, along with elevated energy and commodity prices, could have the potential to add to inflationary pressures.

At 4.75%, the federal funds rate is now the highest it's been in five years."

This story and the story about consumer confidence just don't fit in the same universe. If you owe money on, for example, an adjustable rate mortgage or credit cards, your payments are going to go up as a result of today's announcement. "Inflationary pressures" means, for example, that the Fancy Feast cat food I used to be able to buy for fifty cents a can now costs 59 cents a can. I may be crazy, but I can't see how this environment is good for consumers.

Shit.Fuck.Damn.

From MarketWatch: "Judge dismisses some counts against Enron's Skilling, Lay:AP

By Carolyn Pritchard
Last Update: 12:45 PM ET Mar 28, 2006


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed three counts out of 31 against former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling and one count out of seven against company founder Kenneth Lay, the Associated Press reported."

Are These People on Crack?

MarketWatch reports that:

""Despite generally mediocre attitudes, consumers have performed admirably over the past two years, overcoming a variety of obstacles such as surging energy prices, hurricanes, rising interest rates, and now the housing sector 'bust,'" said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "In contrast to the prevailing view, we believe that consumer spending will hold up just fine in 2006."

The percentage of consumers who think jobs are plentiful rose to 28.4% from 27.4%, the highest in this expansion. The number who thinks jobs are hard to get also rose slightly, to 20.7% from 20.2%.

The percentage who thinks conditions are "good" rose to 28.3% from 26.4%, the highest since August. The percentage who thinks conditions are "bad" fell to 14.7% from 15.4%.

Despite sagging home sales, the number of consumers who expect to buy a home in the next six months rose to 4%, the highest level since last April."

For the love of Venus, stop buying things on credit. And, BTW, "buying on credit" is what's really meant by "consumers have performed admirably over the past two years, overcoming a variety of obstacles."

More on Why Poetry Matters

For my birthday, Prior Aelred send me a book called Second Simplicity - The Inner Shape of Christianity by Bruno Barnhart. I'm working my way through it slowly; it's fascinating but much of the vocabulary is foreign to me. But I came across the excerpt below and thought, "Yes! Yes! That's exactly right!", so I thought I'd share it.

Barhnart is discussing different techniques, such as silent meditation, for what he calls "going upstream," by which he means the process of achieving "a truly unitive experience, a movement beyond duality into oneness with divine Reality." He says:

"Another way upstream is poetry. Poetic discourse knows the way to the Source that is hidden within words: the path within words to the invisible Word from which they originate. The words of the poem dwell within a bright little aura, a field of energy that participates in the energy that is beginning and end. [He sounds very much like a witch, here!] The poem is an epiphany, a little eucharist of the Word in which the cosmic communion is momentarily realized." OK, eucharist sounds very Xian, as does the capitalized "Word," but if you read "cosmic communion" without assuming that "communion"="eucharist" most witches would easily agree with his point.

Wicca has been described as an ecstatic religion, with rituals -- including poetry, drumming, dancing, and the Great Rite -- designed to induce ecstasy. Ecstasy is, I think, important for its own sake, but also for the reason that Barnhart describes. Ecstasy, which for me often comes from reading poetry, allows one to be aware that one dwells within (and is, in fact, a part of) an aura (I hesitate to call it "little" as Barnhart does), a field of energy that participates in the energy that is beginning and end. It allows one to realize the cosmic communion of everything. Absent that realization, on a cellular level, there's really no point trying to do magic, or read Tarot, or do any of the other things that most people associate with witches. Or, I guess, with any of the things that most people associate with monks.

The Gods Are Bored

Here's a very fun blog that my brilliant friend Renee told me about and that our brilliant friend Angela told Renee about. Enjoy!

Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Anna Akhmatova - You Thought I Was That Type

You thought I was that type:
That you could forget me,
And that I'd plead and weep
And throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare,

Or that I'd ask the sorcerers
For some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift:
My precious perfumed handkerchief.

Damn you! I will not grant your cursed soul
Vicarious tears or a single glance.

And I swear to you by the garden of the angels,
I swear by the miracle-working icon,
And by the fire and smoke of our nights:
I will never come back to you.

The Kuwait of the North

BBC reports that Iceland has plans to bore into volcanoes and use supercritical water to increase its energy production. Supercritical water is "water that is not simply a mixture of steam and hot water but a single phase which can carry much more energy."

The article notes that, "Engineers on the project have calculated that increasing the temperature by 200 degrees and the pressure by 200 Bar will mean that, for the same flow rate, the energy extracted from such a borehole will go up from 5MW to 50MW. Power station manager Albert Albertsson predicts that, by the end of the century, "Iceland could become the Kuwait of the North", exporting energy in the form of liquid hydrogen as part of a new hydrogen economy."

So, that's great, but here's the part that made me really, really jealous. Describing a lake heated by geothermal energy, Mr. Albertsson says, ""For me, the ideal time to take a dip is in the middle of winter, in the middle of the night, looking up at the stars and the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights."" How wonderful does that sound?