National Poetry Month

On this last day of National Poetry Month, Poetry Super Highway has something special for you. Beginning at midnight EST, you may download any of 70 e-books as part of the Great Poetry E-Book Free-for-All. There will be a link on the front page of Poetry Super Highway that will lead you to the e-books.

Also, Billy the Blogging Poet is in charge of the 2nd Annual Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere election. Here is a list of nominees, and you may vote here.

This is also a good time to remind everyone that Billy the Blogging Poet has a very nice children's' poetry site, LaureatesKids.com.

Speaking of children...most of us were first introduced to poetry as children. Nursery rhymes, jump rope rhymes, and street chants and burned into our minds forever. That is how we learn the rhythm of words. I remember this rhyme and this rhyme. Most of us were also required to memorize some poems in school. I do not recall which ones I was told to memorize, however.

Little children are introduced to poetry through rhyme because rhyme is pleasing to the ear and easy to memorize. I am searching my memory for poems I was required to study as an adolescent and college student, and the one that comes to mind immediately is Matthew Arnold's "To Marguerite: Continued." I had an English professor with a rich, deep voice, and he read it to us aloud. It remains a poem of which I am especially fond. Most of us also studied Arnold's "Dover Beach," too. And the famous rondeau, "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae.

I recall being excited when I first discovered Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, W.H. Auden, and Robert Frost. Once, at some type of leadership conference, I was involved in a group reading of Carl Sandburg's poetry. It was actually more like performance art (a term I did not know at the time).

In the 80's, I wrote a poem for the first time in my life. I no longer have it, but I recall that it was a decent poem. I then fell back into my belief that I was not capable of writing poetry, and I remained there until the turn of the century, at which time I took a brief poetry-writing course to get me started. I now concentrate more on poetry than I do short fiction and essays, although that situation is likely to change, as I tend to go throuh phases with my writing. I enjoy writing in both free verse and forms, though I find formal poetry more difficult to write.

Bush administration discloses spying information

Now comes news that the FBI secretly sought information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents last year via their bank, telephone, and Internet accounts without the approval of courts.

Cleveland mall pulls plug on band wearing anti-Bush T-shirts

A downtown mall in Cleveland pulled the plug on a band that was performing yesterday during a jazz festival because the band members were wearing anti-Bush T-shirts. The shirts displayed a picture of Bush with a line through it. Tower City Center officials told the band members to take off their shirts or turn them inside out if they intended to keep performing. The band refused, and mall officials cut the mikes off. Tower City general manager Lisa Krieger said that the band's shirts were "distracting and inappropriate."

The audience booed when it became clear why the sound was shut off. The band leader's father spoke up that it was wrong to cut the mikes off, and a security guard told him to shut up. The father reminded the policeman that he had a right to free speech, and the policeman said "Not in here you don't."

You may express yourself to Lisa Krieger at this address: LisaKreiger@forestcity.net

Our garden is sick

'Seven Sisters' blooms just once a year, but what a show!

'Seven Sisters' in a vase (which has since been broken by Roxie)

'Mermaid' blooms on interlocking trellises

A few years ago, our crinum stopped blooming. A year or so later, our Formosa lilies stopped blooming. I didn't think too much of it; things like that happen in gardens from time to time. Last year, our spider lily also looked bad and failed to make a full bloom stalk, a condition I passed off as having been caused by pests (the year before, someone had eaten the flowers). Then, last year, our beautiful peach-colored miniature daylilies looked really sick and did not bloom. I dug them up, isolated them, and inspected them, and they seemed fine. Perhaps I should have bleached the crowns, but they looked so healthy in their nursery pots, I replanted them just as they were.

The peach-colored daylilies look bad again, and are not going to bloom. The daylilies around them are going to bloom, but their leaves look really bad. And in another bed across the yard, the daylilies look sick, and they have produced short bloom spikes with only two or three buds instead of the usual eight or nine. They are not overcrowded, so they do not need dividing. They are just sick.

Now we have to get soil samples tested for at least two of beds. We had planned to obtain the soil this weekend, but it looks like it is going to rain. This is all very depressing, since we have put so much work into the garden.

In the meantime, the roses are blooming very nicely, the hydrangeas are making many buds, the salvia is blooming like mad, and a couple of cannas and one of the gingers have already begun blooming.

Because of Hurricane Katrina, we have an abunance of 'Mermaid' blooms this year. We had 'Mermaid' climbing up a crape myrtle tree, and it never got much sun, so the bloom was spare. After the hurricane, we had to take the tree down. 'Mermaid' was unharmed, so we put it on interlocking trellises, and once it saw the sun, it began to bloom profusely. It is probably my favorite of all the roses in our garden.

National Poetry Month

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about poetic forms, and will continue that today. One of the most popular forms is the Japanese haiku, which, unfortunately, has been distorted by Westerners so that it is often not really haiku at all. Other Japanese forms include the tanka and the senryu.

There are several types of sonnets, but the two most common are the Shakespearian and the Petrarchan. Forms we do not hear much about include the quaterne, the terzanelle, and the rondelet, and there are also forms even rarer than these. An especially interesting form is the ghazal, which contains, among other things, a couplet involving the poet's signature.

A very good book on forms is The Making Of a Poem, edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. Another good one is All the Fun In How You Say A Thing: An Explanation of Meter & Versification, by Timothy Steele.

Forms evolve with a culture. The sestina was invented by 12th Century troubadours, who entertained by singing strictly formed poems which repeated key words. The sonnet originated in the courts of Sicily. Francesco Petrarca, a Tuscan poet, strung together a sequence of these short poems, which were extremely popular. Blank verse, which people identify with Shakespeare and therefore assume to be English, also originated in Italy. The conversational meter of blank verse made it a natural form for Shakespeare to use in his plays. Likewise, the villanelle was created in Italian harvest fields. Most of the forms with which we are familiar, however, came to us directly from France, regardless of where they originated.

Today's popular hip hop poetry (sometimes called slam poetry because it is often read at poetry slams), a derivative of jazz poetry--though not a form in the structured sense of the word--is nevertheless a style of poetry that has evolved with our American culture.

Here is a quaterne, originally published by Poets Against War:

History Lesson
By Diane E. Dees

Ancient heads of stone have fallen,
shattered by the desperate mobs
who, for decades starved and battered,
took no comfort in their relics.

Liberators ignore the past;
ancient heads of stone have fallen.
The book that tells of Babylon
is missing pages forever.

Gone the Korans, gone the tablets--
taken quickly in broad daylight.
Ancient heads of stone have fallen;
history no longer matters.

Our oldest civilization
now a mass of shards and rubble;
those who clean up take no notice.
Ancient heads of stone have fallen.

The Sibel Edmonds case--forgotten, but still vitally important

It has now been a year and nine months since Senators Charles Grassley and Patrick Leahy sent their letter to John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, and Glenn Fine, asking that retroactively-declared classified documents be made available to the public. Both of Bush's Attorneys General have used the little-known States Secrets law to keep former FBI translater Sibel Edmonds from revealing what she knows.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

Bush wants you to sing the National Anthem in English, damn it

George W. Bush said today that the National Anthem should be sung in English, not Spanish. ae of arse poetica justifiably says she thinks it would be a nice start if Bush spoke English. Putting the obvious (to us) irony aside, Bush also said that, sung in Spanish, the National Anthem does have the same value it has when sung in English.

Perhaps this would be a good time to remember that it was immigrants who founded the thirteen colonies, on which the rest of our American character is based. The native Americans were already here, but instead of asking them to help write an anthem, we killed them. A small thing, perhaps, but it does represent reality.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is an offensive song, as far as I'm concerned, because it glorifies bombing. Other Americans are offended by it, too, and many of them want to replace it with "America the Beautiful," which has a much nicer message, but which also offends me because it insists that God is male. It also presumes the existence of God, which probably makes it offensive to a great number of Americans.

Anyway, to spit in the faces of Spanish-speaking immigrants who wish to sing their loyalty to this country strikes me as tacky, at the least.

An offensive commercial, and a great one

I went to the movies today (Friends With Money), and before the feature, there were some commercials. One, for Vault, was all about killing animals with a robot, and apparently, there have been multiple complaints about it. The other was the new American Express commercial featuring Kate Winslett, which--though not as wonderful as the one for Martin Scorsese--was nevertheless delightful.

National Poetry Month

Last year I wrote a few words about formal poetry, and I feel compelled to write about it again. For the most part, formal poetry is "out"--that is, most of the poetry we see is free verse. But there are still poets writing formal verse, thank goodness, and some say it is making a comeback. Many journals treat formal verse with contempt, but then many journal editors do not even appear to understand what it is, with their warnings that they accept free verse but no rhymed verse (what about all of the formal poetry that does not rhyme?).

I had an instructor who described the form as "a kind of stand-in for inspiration," and that is a beautiful description, and one I have found to be true in writing my own formal verse. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than completing a sestina or a pantoum or a sonnet. Any of these forms or any of the other forms--rondeau, villanelle, triolet, etc.--is difficult to write.

Here is a sestina. And a pantoum. A piece of blank verse. A Petrarchan sonnet. And here is a rondeau, originally published in the 2005 issue of Manorborn:

Rose Culture
By Diane E. Dees

Old garden roses ramble, climb and spread
in shades of amber, apricot and red;
while nearby, stiff and fussy hybrid teas
stand rigid and impossible to please,
which makes them look a trifle overbred.

These modern roses in their formal beds
must constantly be sprayed, pruned back and fed;
and while they pose there, looking ill at ease,
Old garden roses ramble.

'Belinda' scrambles up the potting shed
while 'Mermaid' climbs a tree that--although dead--
now shimmers cream and gold with every breeze,
and steals the show from all the greening trees.
While hybrid teas, erect, look straight ahead,
old garden roses ramble.

Friday cat blogging--portrait edition

How to spot a terrorist

I really had no idea how to spot a terrorist until I studied the manuals published by the Phoenix FBI, the state employees of Virginia, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Now that I have absorbed these manuals, I not only know how to spot a terrorist, but I have discovered that I probably am a terrorist.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

On the subject of multiple rape reports

Now that the news is out that one of the Duke lacrosse team accusers made a similar allegation ten years ago (saying she had been raped by three men was she was fourteen), bloggers are rushing to comment that her credibility is now very much in question.

I do not know whether the lacrosse team members are innocent or guilty; that is for a jury to decide. But I do know a thing or two about rape and sexual assault, and a woman making more than one claim of being raped by a group of men is not unusual. Perhaps this woman is not telling the truth now or was not telling the truth then. Perhaps she was just unlucky enough to be raped twice. But a more likely scenario involves the syndrome of childhood sex abuse, especially incest.

Little girls who are raped by adults, especially adult family members (who are supposed to be protecting them) develop all kinds of problems. Their sense of personal boundaries collapses, and they are likely to do inappropriate things for the rest of their lives if there is no intervention. In an incest home, people tend to read each other's mail, enter rooms without knocking, and say things with adult content to children and adolescents.

Once their own boundaries have been violated in these ways and in the ultimate way--through sexual assault and rape--they tend to lose any sense of personal and social boundaries, which means that they are frequently in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They also become unconsciously seductive, and sex offenders easily find them. And they frequently believe they have no use in society other than as sexual objects.

Many of these girls, when they enter adolescence and adulthood, become the victims of multiple rapes. I do not know anything about the Duke lacrosse accuser, but she could easily fit this category. My point is that claiming to have been gang-raped more than once is not at all unbelievable. And no matter how poor a woman's boundaries may be, or how programmed she may be to be a sexual assault victim, rape is still rape.

Explaining a complex issue

Ethanol has got the largest potential for immediate growth. Most people may not know this, but today most of ethanol produced in America today is from corn....And so, we're strongly committed to corn-based ethanol produced in America. Yet you've got to recognize there are limits to how much corn can be used for ethanol. I mean, after all, we got to eat some. And animals have got to eat.

Alleged Leader of the Free World

Who will sue to ban "Sleeping Beauty"?

Because the prince kissed all of those princesses, which makes the reading of "Sleeping Beauty" sex education, according to the parents who have filed a suit in Massachusetts. You may recall that recenty, a teacher read King and King to a group of seven-year-olds with--gasp!--warning their parents first. King and King is a fairy tale about a same-gender relationship, and the litigious parents maintain that reading the book violates a 1996 Massachusetts law requiring parents to be notified of sex education lessons.

So if King and King is sex ed, so are "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella" (think of all that business with the feet), "Rapunzel" (all about attempting to get pregnant), and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (pregnancy, and a prince who believes he must possess a woman). Will someone in Massachusetts please come forward and sue a kindergarten?

Why Bush doesn't need anyone to handle the news media

It handles itself. I suspect much of the fake "news" reporting is caused in part by conservative loyalty and in equal part by ignorance of the mechanics of critical thinking. Media Matters has an excellent analysis of how members of the news media "fill in the blanks" for Bush, delivering to hundreds of thousands of Americans attributions that are not at all grounded in fact.

Paying for health insurance means little for New Orleans teachers

Anyone who has lived in New Orleans would agree with me that the Orleans Parish School Board is one of the most corrupt and incompetent institutions in the United States. Here is just one more example of the damage it has done.

Chicago bans foie gras

In a major victory for farm animals, the Chicago City Council has voted to ban the sale of foie gras with Chicago city limits.

Chicago now joins the state of California (sort of) and the European Union (with a huge protest from France) in banning production and/or sale of foie gras.

Wounded soldiers return home to another fight--bill collectors

The Government Accountability Office is releasing a report tomrorrow that hundreds of American soldiers wounded in Iraq have had their debts turned over to collection agencies.

ABC News tells the story of Army specialist Tyson Johnson, who had just been promoted when a a mortar round exploded outside his tent, wounding him in the left kidney and the head. The injuries forced him out of the Army, which then demanded he repay an enlistment bonus of $2,700 because he had served only two-thirds of his tour. Johnson was unable to return the money, his account was turned over to a collection agency, and he ended up living in his car because of his bad credit record.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

The latest piece of Hollywood evil

Roseanne is doing stand-up again. All of the profit from the tour will go to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Oh, the immorality!

National Day of Silence

This is the one day of the year when kids really do need to shut up. Teachers, too, except when they are actively teaching.

If you are gay, bisexual, transgendered, or concerned about the civil rights of gay, bisexual, and transgendered people, now is the time not to speak up.

I read a good story the other day

On a message board, someone recounted his/her encounter with a middle aged conservative couple at a restaurant. Seeing that the person who told this story was in a military uniform, they stopped by his (I think it was a man) table and said "We totally support our military; of course, we're Republicans."

To which our soldier replied, "That's nice. I'm a Democrat."

To cover the embarrassed silence, he then said "Do you have children?"

Oh yes, they assured him--a son and a daughter.

"Where are they serving?" he asked.

They looked at the floor, mumbled "They're in school," and walked out.

Teenage girl promotes peace and is bombarded with obscenities

Ava Lowrey is an extraordinary 15-year-old girl who lives in Alabama. For the past year, she has been producing animations on her website that support peace. Ava has produced about seventy pieces, all of them in opposition to the war in Iraq.

As you may imagine, Ava has been repeatedly verbally attacked for her work. She has been told she is a traitor and should be executed for treason, and she has been invited to leave the country. She has also been asked if she is a terrorist.

And--no surprise to those who have followed the trashing of Cindy Sheehan and Margaret Cho--Ava has been assaulted with various sexual insults and threats, such as "It's people like you who need to fucking die and get raped while your corpse rots in the sun."

There is always that extra dimension present in insulting women and girls--references to their bodies and a call to violate their bodies. And it isn't a habit confined to right-wing nutcases; look at any "liberal" message board and see the invectives directed at right-wing (or perceived right-wing) women. Granted, they are not as harsh or as obscene as those found on conservative message boards, but they are nevertheless sexually based.

Criminalizing free speech

Is Wang Wenyi's criminal charge a test balloon for punishing others who speak out against, say for instance, George W. Bush? Patriot Daily makes the case that it very well may be.

Perhaps she should stop whining...

Miss Frances is 99 years old, and her hurricane story pretty much puts the icing on the cake.

A higher pie will explode in your face

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, already in trouble for his spontaneous speech, has now incorporated Bushspeak into his lexicon: "The economic pie that is getting ready to explode right before our eyes is going to be shared."

I guess so, but what a mess.

Bush's Almighty--a fickle god

I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.

George W. Bush

That's what Bush said today to a group of businesspeople in Irvine, California. Unfortunately, I don't think any of them asked him why the Almighty made so many exclusions with regard to the "great gift." Like those hundreds of people rounded up and placed in prisons and abused, with no legal protections, then eventually set free when it was obvious they were not terrorists or terrorist supporters. Did they not also desire in their souls to be free?

Or how about the ones who are still in prison, still not receiving any legal protection, and still not brought to trial? Do they not long to be free?

Of course, we have to remember that Bush's version of "free" is not the version most of us live by. His version does not include free speech, the right to vote in a fair election, or the right of free assembly. I think I'll pass on his god, too.

"Moral" pharmacists in Washington put women at risk

From feministing comes news of pharmacists in Washington refusing to fill prescriptions for abortion-related antibiotics. Someone at a Seattle pharmacy said she was "morally unable" to fill the prescription. In Yakima, a patient at a family planning clinic was told by a Safeway pharmacist that she didn't need her prescribed pregnancy-related vitamins "if she wasn't pregnant."

What I want to know (other than the obvious question: What the hell business is it of yours to make decisions about my body?) is what becomes of the pharmacist's "morality" if the patient does not get her antibiotics and is hospitalized for an infection? This is a strange sort of medical morality that is willing to take chances with a patient's health and safety. What pharmacy school do they teach that in? I have seen the pharmacists' code of ethics, and every one of these "moral" pharmacists is in violation of it, yet the pharmacy boards are not suspending anyone's license. I hope that--in addition to putting pressure on the stores where these episodes occur--patients will start putting pressure on licensing boards.

Women and girls missing in Iraq

According to the current issue of Time magazine, more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein. This estimate comes from anecdotal evidence collected by the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, and is thought to be the result of the collapse of law and order in Iraq.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

Family Circle Cup photo album

I have about a third of my Family Circle Cup photos in an album here.

National Poetry Month

Here is a poem by Joni Mitchell.

And a poem by Ricki Lee Jones.

Conchita Martinez retires from professional tennis

The long shadow of Conchita Martinez

I'm a bit late with this: Martinez officially announced her retirement in Valencia on April 15, and unofficially announced it the week before. I remember hearing her say that she considered retiring a couple of years ago, but when she saw the women playing at the academy in Spain, she realized she wanted to keep playing. Now she is the victim of a serious foot injury, and is awaiting surgery, so she decided it was time to call it quits.

Though she won only one Grand Slam (Wimbledon, 1994, on the surface on which she was expected to have the least success), Martinez's career has been an outstanding one. The holder of 33 singles titles and 13 doubles titles, Martinez also won 174 matches at Grand Slam events. She was the finalist at the 1998 Australian Open and the 2000 French Open, and she reached Grand Slam semifinals nine times. She was an integral part of Spain's Fed Cup team for many years, leading Spain to ten finals. She also won three Olympic medals, and reached a career high of world number two in 1995.

Also in 1995, Martinez won the most singles matches of any player on the WTA tour, and played a 26-match clay streak. That year, she won four straight tournaments, then made it all the way to the French Open semifinals.

Martinez says that, pending the outcome of her surgery, she may return to the tour to play doubles only.

National Poetry Month

What with going to the Family Circle Cup and getting stuck with a dial-up connection, and catching up on work, and trying to do Women's History Month, and coming down with flu, I haven't spent much time this year on National Poetry Month, which I regret. Both The Heretik and The Daily Blatt, however, have devoted much space to the month in which we honor poetry.

Here is a poem by my friend Sara Claytor.

Here is a poem by my friend David Ritchie.

And here is one of my poems.

"Flight attendants"...please

Now that Flight 93 is being discussed in a lot of blogs, I have to read the word "stewardess" over and over, rather than just seeing and hearing it every once in a while. The word is considered offensive, and here is why:

1. It implies that people hired to coordinate safety, efficiency, and comfort on flights have been hired to coordinate comfort only.

2. It is insulting to male flight attendants because it excludes them.

3. Any female derivative word is offensive on its face and is indeed intended to cheapen the original word (think "waiter" and "waitress").

4. Flight attendants asked us to stop using the word several decades ago, which is the reason that should trump all reasons.

San Diego school prohibits student from wearing flag

When Malia Fontana's friend was told that he could not wear an American flag headband at school, she protested by wearing an American flag in her back pocket. Malia was then told to remove her flag, and when she asked the security guard why she had to remove it, she was taken to the principal's office. Though not required to do detention, Malia had an incident report written that will remain in her records until six months after her graduation from Fallbrook Union High School in San Diego.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

There's repugnant, and there's repugnant

Yesterday, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News quoted Fimat USA senior vice president John Kilduff, who said that China is "willing to do business with a lot of countries that the U.S. would find repugnant." Mitchell provided examples: "Hot spots like Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Sudan."

The only thing wrong with that statement is that the U.S. does do business with both Venezuela and Nigeria. In January, Venezuela was the U.S.'s second largest source of imported oil, providing 48 million barrels. The U.S. also buys oil from Nigeria.

Better to win Ben Stein's money--you don't want the rest of him

For the past several weeks, there has been a nauseating email circulating whose content is credited to conservative lawyer, writer, and game show host Ben Stein. Here is the email:

Statement by Ben Stein (a must read)

If they know of him at all, many folks think Ben Stein is just a quirky actor/comedian who talks in a monotone. He's also a very intelligent attorney who knows how to put ideas and words together in such a way as to sway juries and make people think clearly.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary, Sunday, 12/18/05.

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. Theynever know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.

If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu.

If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.

But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and JaneClayson asked her "How could God let something like this Happen?" (regarding Katrina)

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.

And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school . the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK. Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW." Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.

Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

I finally couldn't stand it anymore and replied to it. Here is my reply:

It does make you think...

Only a culturally isolated person wouldn't know that Lindsay Lohan--despite her undersirable personal life--is a gifted young film actor. It's not a big deal, but it also indicates that someone is out of touch with popular culture, which is nothing to brag about.

And of course it doesn't bother Stein that people call Christmas trees Christmas trees, since, duh, that is what they are. Of course, they were not always Christmas trees, since they were decorated before the birth of Christ, but they have been Christmas trees for hundreds of years. They are not, as his writing implies, some more general type of symbol that has been hijacked by Christians.

It doesn't bother Stein to see a creche on display in a public area, but Stein does not speak for all Jews, or for Muslims or Hindus or Unitarian/Universalists or Agnostics or Atheists or Christians who support separation of church and state. He wants a Menorah a few hundred yards away, which is fine, but that means he must be willing to permit symbols of all religions to be displayed in public, something the U.S. government and most state governments have fought hard to prevent. Only recently, the widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq had to fight to get her husband's religious symbol placed on his headstone.

"But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to." Does he mean the America with separate lunch counters, restrooms, and schools? The America in which wife-beating and raping were not investigated by the police because they were "domestic matters"? The America in which a woman couldn't buy property without her husband's permission? The America in which gay citizens were pulled out of private clubs and thrown into prison? Perhaps he means the America in which people of Stein's religion could not join country clubs. Or the America in which girls who attempted to enroll in law school and medical school were harrassed by faculty and students to the point of having to drop out. Or the America in which killing a black person got you an inconvenient time in court and no time in jail. Maybe he means the America in which employers were not required to have even the the most basic safety standards for their employees. Or the America in which a woman with a college degree and experience could not get a job that a man with a high school education and no experience could get. Or how about the America in which highly toxic substances could be dumped into the water system to poison our children for generations?

Saying that he cannot find where it says that America is an explicity atheist country is the absolute worst in logical fallacies because no one said it was. Prohibiting a state religion not only is not saying the U.S. is an athiest country, but rather, the opposite.

Blaming Madeleine Murray O'Hare (a loopy fundamentalist, by the way) for terrorism and school shootings is on par with blaming feminists for the September 11 attacks (which Jerry Falwell did). O'Hare, however, despite her limited cognitive abilities, still did the right thing by asking that public education not be mixed with religion. That is an American value.

Benjamin Spock's son did not kill himself. He is as alive as I am. That rumor was started by people like Ben Stein because they cannot stand to think that someone who understands child development might know more than they do about raising children. Why anyone would ever hit a child is beyond us; there is a reason America is one of the most violent countries in the world.

Children who "have no conscience" are not antisocial because their parents didn't hit them. Most of them are that way because their parents modeled it by example. Hearing parents talk about fags and niggers, seeing parents drink too much and hit each other, knowing parents cheat on taxes and steal from the workplace, finding out parents have extramarital affairs, watching parents commit insurance fraud and drive over the speed limit--that is what children learn. And then there are the sons of antisocial fathers, who have been proven to be genetically inclined to be antisocial themselves.

But most of all, children grow up to hurt others because their parents hit them, humiliated them, put them down, played head games with them, abandoned them, and molested them.

"Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says." Stein can speak for himself; we believe little of what we read in most newspapers because we know that it has been filtered and edited to death. And we defy anyone to find one single American who does not question what the Bible says. If people did not (appropriately) question what the Bible says, they would all be living like ancient Jews, and they are not. They are not obeying Jewish food and bathing laws. They are not practicing animal sacrifice. They also are not on the street giving their money to the poor; rather, the majority of them are railing against the poor.

Ben's Stein's mad ravings should indeed make you think.

Women's History Month--Honoring Lady Bird Johnson

When President Johnson was in office, people sometimes made fun of his wife, Lady Bird, whose Texas-drawled "Plant a tree or a shrub" slogan could be identified by anyone who wasn't living in a cave. It turns out that Johnson was both a naturalist and an environmentalist, and her ideas changed America for the better.

As First Lady, Johnson was involved as a goodwill ambassador, a beautification advocate, and an avid promoter of the Head Start program. Her interests ranged from business to classical literature to fighting poverty, and like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, her involvement in her husband's presidency was a crucial one.

Though Johnson was passionate about the war on poverty, and about the rights of women and children, as she traveled through America, the cause that became her career was that of the country's fading natural beauty. She planted trees and bulbs by the roadside, and called attention to the country's waning natural habitat and subsequent loss of species. In 1965, the Highway Beautification Act was passed because of the First Lady's efforts.

Lady Bird Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982, and in 1998, it was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The center is dedicated to honoring the country's natural beauty and restoring wildflowers, native plants, and their habitats. Johnson's book, Wildflowers Across America, which she co-wrote with Carlton B. Lees, is a stunning tribute to one of America's greatest assets.

New man already fills Rove's wingtips

One thing we know about the new White House policy chief, Joel Kaplan, is that he uses theatre for spreading lies, just as Rove does. Kaplan was part of the "Brooks Brothers riot" in Florida in 2000. In fact, Kaplan is the one who named the fake protest the Brooks Brothers riot.

Tawana Brawley's name invoked as bigotry increases

blac (k) ademic makes an excellent point regarding one topic of trash talk in the alleged Duke rape case. Also posted in Alas, a Blog.

Dear Mr. President

Here's Pink.

Friday cat blogging--wash day edition

National Poetry Month

Americans have a tendency to misunderstand the Japanese form of haiku, believing that it is simply 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. It is not. A haiku must be about one of the seasons, and it must create a sensory impression.

Some of Natalie Merchant's haiku poems are not true haiku, but a few are.

So what does that make Hu Jintao?

So if you point out that the ersatz president of the country is having tea with the leader of a regime so repressive, it tortures, kills, and rapes people who practice a peaceful sitting meditation, you are a "heckler."

Remember 4/20

Today is the 7th anniversary of the Columbine shootings. This afternoon, on the news, I heard it referred to as 4/20. Isn't that cute?

Business leaders join civil rights groups in lawsuit to stop wiretaps

A group of business leaders and civil rights organizations have joined together to support a lawsuit filed against George W. Bush to stop the Natonal Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of citizens, according to Raw Story. The suit, filed in U.S. District court in the Eastern District of Michigan, seeks a declaration that the wiretapping is illegal, and seeks a permanent halt to the wiretapping program.

(Continue reading at MoJo Blog)

Mt. Pleasant is pleasant indeed

While we were in the Charleston area to attend the Family Circle Cup, we stayed at the Old Village Post House in Mt. Pleasant. The idea of the post house is one we should never have let get away. It is reproduced wonderfully here, with a first-rate restaurant and tavern downstairs, and lodging upstairs. There is also a patio for dining, and a creaky old elevator named Myrtle that carries your luggage up and down.

This was the view when we walked to the end of the street behind our bed and breakfast.

Highway 17 is lined with stands such as this one, where the Gullah people make beautiful sweetgrass baskets and other items. This is the only area in the world where sweetgrass baskets are made, and the craft is passed on from one generation to the next.

No War armbands available

Get your No War armband from Armbands for Peace

Celebrate while you can

George W. Bush has declared April 22-30 National Park Week. There is plenty to celebrate, too: He slashed $100.5 million from the parks budget, not to mention there is a $5 billion maintenance backlog in the parks service because we have used the money for bombs and tax cuts for the wealthy.