Life as a Spectator Sport

We have an inch of ice on everything, with freezing rain still failling and snow expected to replace it after nightfall. Sounds like a good day for cooking. The old small crockpot has split soup in it, the new big one is stewing a cut-up whole chicken with appropriate vegetables. A couple of gallons of spaghetti sauce is simmering in the cast iron stew pot, and later this afternoon I'll make a three-loaf batch of bread. Something about bad weather makes me want to cook in large quantities, and I do have a big freezer to keep full . . .

Monday, January 17, 2005

Don't you dare look!

A January 10th article from the Scripps-Howard News Service gives an idea of how paranoid our government has become:

Thousands of performers - marching bands, color guards, pompon dancers, hand bell-ringers, drill teams on horseback, and Civil War re-enactors - will be bused early in the morning to the Pentagon parking lot across the Potomac in Virginia. While performers disembark and go through metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs will search the buses.

Then everybody will get back on the buses for a trip to the National Mall, where they will spend most of the day in heavily guarded warming tents. Participants have been warned that they will not be allowed to leave the tents except to go to portable toilets accompanied by a security escort.

Other instructions given performers include a warning not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements.

"They want you to just look straight ahead," said Danielle Adam, co-director of the Mid American Pompon All Star Team from Michigan, which also performed in the 2001 inaugural parade.

"Last time we went security was really tight," Adam said. "This time we got almost like a book of things we needed to fill out beforehand."

I'm as anxious as anyone else to have no terrorist activity during the inauguration—my partner and a lot of my friends live in the immediate vicinity, after all. But this sounds more like the kind of instructions that might have been handed out in Romania or Communist Russia than in the USA. Don't look at the dictator, kiddies, it makes him nervous. And be careful how you shake them pompons—no sudden twitches or you might get body-slammed by a twitchy guy in a flak jacket. What we're teaching our children this year.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Odds and ends

Sorry, not much posting lately. This is partly because of some minor household crises. For example, I went down to get the mail yesterday morning and discovered the mailbox lying on its side in the ditch. The post was there, but the box had been knocked off. I had already bought a new and larger mailbox, so I dug through my wood scraps, cut a board to fit the bottom, and ran into town to the hardware store to get the right size screws. When I finally had the new mailbox on its post, I discovered I'd forgotten to buy numbers for it, and wouldn't you know, yesterday's UPS delivery was brought by a driver who hadn't been here before, and who informed me rather officiously that I was "required to put my house number where it could be seen from the road." It's been that kind of week.

This is the time of year when painting and fix-up gets done, and we've been painting the back hallway for a week now. It had old dark wood panelling that soaked up the paint like a sponge. But after the fourth coat, it was acceptable, and then we had to paint the long shelving-cum-pantry that lines the hall. That took three coats, but the contents of the shelves are finally off the living room floor and back where they belong, and it all looks much nicer.

The next project is to take everything off the wire shelving over the washer and dryer, and reinforce the end which is in the process of coming out of the wall--in other words, another stack of things on the living room floor.

The seed catalogs are arriving--several a day--and Nick and I have been poring over them deciding what to order. I think this is going to be the year for trees--pawpaws, mulberries and perhaps filberts. I have to be careful about getting carried away, because that sort of thing is delivered just at the point when my seasonal work is starting to move into high gear. I can just see the truck pulling up with ten trees to plant when I'm about to head out for a week.

And just about that time, I'll also be getting two beehives, and their occupants. What I know about beekeeping could be recited in two minutes flat, so this is going to be a real learning experience. Nick has informed me that he doesn't go near stinging insects, so I'm on my own with them. Fortunately, there are many helpful local beekeepers who are happy to assist newbies. By this time next year, if neither I nor the small hive beetles nor the varroa mites have killed the bees off, we'll be using our own honey.

I'll probably be mentioning bees again during the year, since I'm not an advocate of most stinging insects myself.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Cybersquatting--the new political tool?

Turn about is fair play, really it is. Considering the popularity of the White House pariody site, I suppose no one should be suprised at what the Massachusetts GOP did last week. Still, it does seem a bit petty. Today's CNet site carries this article from Reuters:

Massachusetts Republicans have launched a pre-emptive strike against Democratic Attorney General Tom Reilly by snapping up online Internet addresses that would have been obvious picks for him if he decides to run for governor in 2006.

Reilly has not yet said whether he will challenge Republican Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006. But if Reilly does run, it will be hard for him to use the Web sites reillyforgovernor.com, tomreillyforgovernor.com, reillyforgovernor2006.com and reillyforgovernor06.com.

That's because the state Republican Party registered those domain names last week, the Boston Herald newspaper reported Monday.

"We intend to have some fun if he indeed is the candidate for governor," said Tim O'Brien, executive director of the state party. He added that the party did not break any rules.

Reilly advisers said the Republicans' Internet maneuvering appeared premature, given that the Democratic attorney general has not yet announced his candidacy.

Susan Crawford, an expert in Internet law at New York's Cardozo Law School, said the Republicans' move seemed to be a new twist on the practice of cybersquatting, although O'Brien said it was "standard procedure for political operatives."

A term that originated in the 1990s, when the Internet was catching on, cybersquatting refers to the act of reserving a particular domain name for the purpose of selling it at a higher price. Celebrities and corporations have typically been victims of cybersquatting schemes.

Crawford said she could not recall another instance of one political party registering domain names for a potential rival, although she noted that before he ran for president in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush of Texas complained of a parody site that used his name.

Crawford said Reilly still has several options available should he decide to run for governor.

She noted the number of possible domains has expanded in recent years with the advent of new Web suffixes like .info, .biz and .us.

Reilly also could dispute the Republicans' move through arbitration, Crawford said. However, the cost of doing so is likely to be far greater than the $6 to $9 fee for registering a new domain name.

"He definitely has options, but he may not want to waste his money," she said.

I do have to point out that the White House parody site wasn't put up until after Bush was elected and provided such a wealth of parody-able material. It is not the one this article refers to.

Looks like Reilly's people were on the ball, however. The domain reilly06.com was registered on January 7, 2005 to the Tom Reilly Committee of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Good work and quick thinking.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

The crime of being a woman in Virginia

Kate wants to move to Maine when we retire. With 29 acres of paid-up property, I would just as soon stay in Virginia. I may have to change my mind. John Cosgrove, a Republican state representative from Chesapeake, has introduced legislation to require that any woman who miscarries, regardless of how far along the pregnancy is, must report the miscarriage to local law enforcement personnel within 12 hours, or face up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. Is this man NUTS?

I'm not given to hyperbole or shouting, but I think I'm going to shout at John Cosgrove's office telephone. "MR. COSGROVE, I HAD A MISCARRIAGE AT ABOUT SIX WEEKS, AND IF YOU THINK MY MIND WAS ON REPORTING THAT TO THE POLICE, INSTEAD OF GRIEVING FOR THE CHILD I LOST, YOU CAN GO STRAIGHT TO FUCKING HELL!"

No, that didn't make me feel any better at all.

And of course, as far as Virginia is concerned, it won't help to go anywhere else. The indignantly righteous anti-abortionists who are pushing this kind of legislation live in Maine too. The irony is that I'm strongly anti-abortion myself, while at the same time being just as strongly pro-choice. Meaning I grieve for every child who doesn't reach viable infancy in the arms of loving parents and a home prepared to care for it. I also know how many of those babies would have met poverty, indifference, barbaric abuse, lack of decent medical care, over-crowded and mediocre schools, and no jobs when they were old enough to seek them. If the anti-abortionists want to see fewer abortions, they need to teach children HOW NOT TO GET PREGNANT! Damn, I'm shouting again. Sometimes this seems like not just a losing battle, but one that was already lost a long time ago, with a few crazy people still firing off their guns.

Here is the information a woman would have to provide to law enforcement when she reported a miscarriage:

• place of occurrence
  
• usual residence of patient (mother)
  
• full maiden name of patient
  
• medical record number and social security number of patient
  
• Hispanic origin, if any, and race of patient
  
• age of patient
  
• education of patient
  
• sex of fetus
  
• patient married to father
  
• previous deliveries to patient
  
• single or plural delivery and order of plural delivery
  
• date of delivery
  
• date of last normal menses and physician's estimate of gestation
  
• weight of fetus in grams
  
• month of pregnancy care began (sic)
  
• number of prenatal visits
  
• when fetus died
  
• congenital malformations, if any
  
• events of labor and delivery
  
• medical history for this pregnancy
  
• other history for this pregnancy
  
• obstetric procedures and method of delivery
  
• autopsy
  
• medical certification f cause of spontaneous fetal death
  
• signature of attending physician or medical examiner including title, address and date signed
  
• method of disposal of fetus
  
• signature and address of funeral director or hospital representative
  
• date received by registrar
  
• registrar's signature
  
• registration area and report numbers.
  

Besides the fact that many of these questions are unforgiveably intrusive (not to mention just plain stupid), I can just see the pole-axed expression of the typical 911 operator if someone did call to provide such information.

Looking at the questions, it's easy to see that many of them are significant to medical personnel in the aggregate; i.e. as demographic information about the whole mass of women in Virginia who suffer miscarriages. Most of what we know about miscarriages has come from the study of such accumulated data. But demographic information is anonymous. Individuals' names and personal details are not even included in databases, much less revealed to researchers. Police reports, on the other hand, tend to be detailed, inclusive, and not very private.

What this really boils down to is whether women are citizens, with all the rights that accrue to citizenship in the United States (not many, granted, anymore), or chattel property, subject to the whims of the men who control their lives. I don't ordinarily see women's rights as solely a gender conflict, but it's hard to find any other purpose here.

I see from other blogs that I have just read that Cosgrove has backed down from the original language of the bill. He claims he never meant to require the reporting of miscarriages, only live births in which the woman had no medical attention. He blames the Chesapeake Police Department, in effect, for requesting such a bill. He calls many of those who emailed his office "abusive, condescending and mean-spirited." Well, guess what, Mr. Cosgrove? Your proposed legislation was abusive, condescending and evil. It was also a sloppy piece of legislation if, as I suspect, you took a standard reporting form from the state registrar's office and appended it to some vague, ambiguous and wide-ranging language about products of conception.

But this incident does prove that citizen action works. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates to the other side exactly what level of opposition they have to deal with, and possibly also the identities of many of the opposers. I will use my real name and my personal email address when I write to John Cosgrove's office, as I still intend to do, with the assumption that my name is going to end up in someone's database.

I'm tired of being anonymous. Three years ago, I was a quiet grandma, wanting nothing more than to get through the day without offending anyone. Two years ago I became politically aware enough to question some things I didn't like. Last year I was an activist. Today I get in people's faces and tell them what I think.

I don't really have any right to do this. I'm the sole caregiver for a completely disabled relative, and a surrogate parent for my grandson. I have no right to jeopardize their well-being by speaking out. But my God! at what point do you say enough?

[EDIT] - I should have credited Lex Alexander for alerting me to this. The issue has been taken up, I understand, by such powerhouse bloggers as DailyKos and Atrios, but I saw it first at Blog on the Run.

I should also add that John Cosgrove authored the proposed amendment to Virginia's constitution to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Kind of tell you where he stands on civil rights.

"In the bleak midwinter . . . " —NOT

We sang Christmas and Epiphany carols at church last week—the snow lay on the ground, etc, while outside, the temperature hovered around 68. These pictures were taken on Saturday, January 1, our anniversary, at Dupont Circle—and we might have been in Florida, or in DC in April. Kids, dogs and skateboarders joined the crowd; in fact, they were the crowd, for the most part. Kate and I sat on a bench drinking coffee from the Starbucks on the corner, and gazing around us in bemusement.



Joggers in shorts, or at least short sleeves



Except for the leafless trees, this scene, with its deep blue sky, might have been photographed in May or June.


Here in southwest Virginia, daytime temperatures have been around 70, and the farmers are beginning to get very antsy. If this keeps up much longer, the peaches and apples will start to set buds, the grapes will put out new growth, and the first good frost will kill a whole year's crop. Not to mention that if we have no snow, we'll also have no snow melt to replenish springs and creeks. Many people in this county still get their water from surface springs, especially up on the mountain. A warm and relatively dry winter is not something anyone wants to contemplate. The politicians can say what they want about global warming, but the local folk are beginning to believe in it.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Another self-styled Christian heard from

And whaddya know? It's Tom DeLay! Aren't we all surprised! Thanks to John at AmericaBlog for starting me on a roundabout trip to DemWatch. Here you can find a transcription of Tom DeLay's words at Tuesday's Congressional prayer breakfast. Or perhaps I should say, Tom Delay's Bible reading, since he apparently made no comments of his own. For his bully pulpit, DeLay chose Matthew 7:21-27, that familiar passage about the house built on the rock, versus the house built on the sand.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.

And then DeLay just . . . sat down. If this is being reported accurately (and the DemWatch site has a downloadable audio file), it sure sounds to me like DeLay said the tsunami victims brought their tragedy upon themselves.

What a wonderful way to promote Christianity. Once it was said of Christians, "You shall know them by their love." That was a long time ago, of course, and so-called Christians have been tarnishing their fellows' image for centuries. Still, it's just as embarrassing and humiliating to see it repeated again now.

[EDIT] -- Oops, I glanced back at this after it was posted and realized that my excerpt of Matthew 7:21-27 made it sound as though DeLay had read only those two verses. According to the transcript, he read the entire 8 verses before sitting down and leaving his listeners to draw their own conclusions.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

I wondered how long it would take . . .

. . . before some Christian fundamentalist blamed the earthquake and tsunami on non-Christians. I didn't see this when it was first published, but Anne Gavin Richie, rector of the Church of the Resurrection (Episcopal) in Alexandria, mentioned it in her sermon this morning. This is an excerpt from a Washington Post article, by Jose Antonio Vargas, published on December 30:

On his Web site Watch.org, Bill Koenig writes: "The Biblical proportions of this disaster become clearly apparent upon reports of miraculous Christian survival. Christian persecution in these countries is some of the worst in the world." Eight of the 12 countries hit -- Malaysia, Burma, Bangladesh, Somalia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia, he says -- "are among the top 50 nations who persecute Christians."

Koenig, who lives in Alexandria and started the site in 1996, sees the South Asian disaster as an example of Christian exceptionalism. "What happened, and we see this happen over and over again, was that Christians, supernaturally, have been able to escape from harm's way," says the self-described Christian fundamentalist. "'For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, not ever shall be,'" he says, quoting from Matthew 24:21.

To equate an earthquake and tsunami with some kind of divine revenge on non-Christians is little short of blasphemy. The Bible, in fact, says that God's care and provision falls on the godly and the ungodly alike. It does not say that natural disasters happen only to the ungodly. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to verify or refute Koenig's claim that Christians were spared, as that part of his website requires an annual subscription for which Koenig charges $1.00 a week ($1.15 a week if you subscribe for only six months). Since I wasn't willing to donate money to this idiot, I wasn't able to access the alleged miraculous news. One might think that a miracle of this magnitude could be publicized without requiring payment. I'm tempted to ask, What Would Jesus Do?

On another page on his site, White House correspondent Koenig writes that four of the world's worst disasters have occurred on "Catholic holidays." Since one of those holidays was Good Friday—not exactly the sole province of the Catholic Church—his scriptural understanding seems even more suspect.

I should point out that Bill Koenig was not the only one who blamed the disaster on God's ire. Vargas' article mentioned leaders of other faiths who gave "divine retribution" as the cause of the earthquake and tsunami. But he's the only Christian I've come across so far who has the nerve to accuse God of killing thousands of innocent children because some of their elders don't like Christians. I trust that Bill Koenig doesn't represent the majority of Christians in his opinion, and I'm sorry the Washington Post gave him four column inches of space.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've changed my sidebar to say four years with Kate, four going on very many, I hope. It's harder than ever to say what each new day may bring, but I'm looking forward to when I can write twenty years there.

My resolution for the new year? Work like hell for democracy, while activism is still possible, because, folk, if we don't do it now, the day will come when it won't be possible. Fascism is not just an ugly word any more. It's what we are dealing with on a daily basis. Germany had to go through a horrible war to come out of it; let's not allow this country to get to the point.

My first good deed of the year in that regard? Today we'll visit Lambda Rising in DC, and I intend to buy a pink triangle decal to put on my Jeep. Yep, I'm outing myself. Conversation at the Christmas party showed me that it's essential. One of the guests had been involved in a public discussion with a local business owner in which she stated her support of gay marriage. He then loudly called her sick and perverted, and informed her that her lifestyle was only her choice. That incident pretty much outed her and her partner, and I'm not going to hide in the closet any more either. I was never closeted before I moved to this area, and I've never been comfortable with it here.

After that, we'll see. The local Democratic chair never answered my email inquiring about when the next meeting was going to be, so I don't know the state of the party here, but whatever it is, I'm going to be active in it.

Today I'm just going to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather with my sweetie, and hope all of you have an equally nice day.

The template is set to display 10 posts. To see all the posts for this month, click on the month name in the Archive section

This site is a member of WebRing. To browse visit here.

RSS Feed PERSONAL Send email to liz at life-as-a-spectator-sport.com Home I'm a mother, grandmother, a computer professional, Democrat, Christian. I welcome politely worded comments and email, my spam filter throws the rest away, so don't bother to flame me WHY 'LIFE AS A SPECTATOR SPORT' "If you're lucky not to live in the gutters of a slum, but still can't afford to take vacations in the Alps, you're part of that enormous middle class who lives life through the medium of the television, further separated from "real" life by air conditioner, by automobile, by dishwasher, microwave and ice-in-the-door refrigerator, by automatic washer and dryer, and all the other appliances and conveniences that make it possible for America to live life at second hand. I'm not sure why Americans decided that televised drama was better than the real thing, that cardboard microwave food containers were an adequate substitute for real dishes, and their contents for real food, or that cooking, dishwashing and face-to-face conversation wasn't worth the effort and time it required. Someone fed this nation a plastic crate of out-of-season tomatoes and told us it was life and we took them at their word, and we're so much the poorer for it that it's hard to know where to start to list the shortcomings." I wrote this a couple of years ago, but I have to admit it's much less amusing than I thought it would be to see the artifical construct falling apart. THE NON-ELECTRIC HOME Cleaning, 1 Cleaning, 2 Cleaning, 3 KNITTING BLOGS Extravayarnza Knitting Heretic Mind of Winter Pie Knits Persistent Illusion See Eunny Knit The Keyboard Biologist Taleweaver's Ramblings TECHnitting Wendy Knits FINISHED PROJECTS -------FINISHED IN 2006------- Peruvian Cap Tutti-Frutti Socks Shelley's Socks Carol's Socks -------FINISHED IN 2007------- Chain Link Socks Baby Surprise Jacket Valerie & Friend Baby Bonnet Rainbow Baby Socks Girls Pixie Hood Mitred Square Heart Red & White Socks Coffee Cup Pot Holder Nubbins Dishcloth Garterlac Dishcloth Suede Booties Kate's Socks Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap Half Thumbless Mittens Red Mittens for Akkol -------FINISHED IN 2008------- SELF-RELIANCE AND THE FUTURE -- Blogs and websites -- Causubon's Book Club Orlov Food Storage Made Easy From the Wilderness In the Wake Listening to Katrina Survival Topics The Modern Homestead The Oil Drum Notes from a Hillside Farm -- Mailing Lists -- 12vdc Power Living on the Land Rainwater Refrigeration Alternatives Old Ways of Living POLITICAL BLOGS and SITES The political sites have moved BOOKS I'M READING How to Grow More Vegetables, etc. Small Scale Grain Raising ARCHIVES February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 August 2008 July 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002