Month: September 2002
Fighting for America
Posted on September 30, 2002 in Citizenship North Carolina
The reasoning of the day seems to be: “Be glad that you live in a free country where you can say nice things about the president and not be arrested for it.”
Braceros
Posted on September 30, 2002 in California Watch
There was a gardener in the pond. I’d never seen him before. He waded in the ale-colored water and scooped out the algae with a small, clear plastic box and a couple of large soap buckets.
Cool and Dry
Posted on September 30, 2002 in Weather
I ought to crack one of those weather guides and learn something. I want to know how to milk clouds.
Valyermo – Holy Imposters and an Angel
Posted on September 29, 2002 in Courage & Activism Liberty Travels - So Cal
Lynn and I rooted our tailbones and did not join in the singing which, as it passed from the first song to “God Bless America”, began to resemble the “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” scene out of Cabaret.
Valyermo – Approach and Retreat
Posted on September 29, 2002 in Travels - So Cal Weather
I checked the roofs of oncoming cars to see if people had lashed personal belongings to them….Caltrans called the halt to weld in a new guardrail, not to evacuate Wrightwood.
Observing States of Mind
Posted on September 29, 2002 in Attitudes Blogging Crosstalk
Are my friends who believe in the Not in Our Name statement but won’t sign paranoid or did I make a mistake to come out? It happens in my life, in my mind. Therefore, I note it.
Off to the Festival
Posted on September 28, 2002 in Humor?
I mentioned to some friends online that I was planning to attend the Fall Festival at St. Anthony’s Abbey in Valyermo. Several people went to look at the URL I gave. One came back to the chat room and said “Norton, I don’t think you should go.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Did you see this?: ‘ALL GUESTS WHO PRESENT THEMSELVES ARE TO BE RECEIVED AS CHRIST.'”
I doubt that my skin will be hanging over the monastery barbed wire. Somehow I think they had the example of Mary and Martha rather than that of Pontius Pilate in mind.
I hope that Martha can cook and that Mary can dance….
The Jigsaw Woman
Posted on September 27, 2002 in Peace Travels - Past
You couldn’t look at her. Not right at her. Not in those eyes that ballooned out of their sockets. I looked away from her face, but I saw her leg.
American Fear
Posted on September 27, 2002 in IRC/Chat
I asked a progressive friend why she wouldn’t sign the Not in Our Name statement. She said:
I don’t want to spend my last years in a camp….People are just disapearing. A cube worker where I used to work just disappeared. She was Iranian, but naturalized citizen. She went to Iran Aug 2001, came back right before the attack in Sept, then just disappered in Oct.
I asked her, only half-jokingly, to contact Amnesty International if I should ever disappear. “I may not be much of a threat, though,” I bantered. “I’m one of those harmless pansies who preaches freedom.”
“thats what they fear most,” said the friend.
“No,” I said, paraphrasing a remark by Archibald McLeish. “They fear drunken poets who make a crack that sticks.”
“they fear Americans”, said the friend.
And for a moment, I felt like Clevinger sitting on the latrine next to his friend Yossarian:
“You haven’t got a chance, kid,” [said Yossarian] “They hate Jews.” “But I’m not Jewish!” protested Clevinger. “It doesn’t matter. They’re after everyone.”
The Unknown American Mind
Posted on September 27, 2002 in The Home Front
The only sound I hear is the crack and snap of the pages as they flip from the front page to the continuations and then on to the sports page.
