Insert a Trite Metaphor About a Corral

Posted on April 30, 2004 in Roundup

The seventieth

day of bombing Kosovo

mouse turds in the oats

— Sam Hamill

In the aftermath of Sunday’s march, abortion was a major theme for many bloggers. Deborama, Kathryn, Vic, Jeanne d’Arc, and Lynn spoke to the event and the issue. I dove into a third stream, calling for empowerment of single mothers over abortion or adoption.

Today I caught this horror story about a teenaged boy who dragged his girlfriend out of a Palm Desert abortion clinic and shot her in the head. Lizard Queen broke the news.

Politics

Mileah doesn’t think we can trust the U.S. Supreme Court to separate the interests of accountability from those of the White House

The Bush administration is big on separation of powers these days. However, Dick Cheney of the executive branch and Antonin Scalia of the judicial branch seem to enjoy duck hunting together. The executive branch also has no problem usurping the judicial branch by holding American citizens without benefit of counsel or trial indefinitely.
Jack smiles as he watches the Bush Administration try to hide the fact that it needs to ask for a supplement to the $87 billion squandering it has already requested.

Asking for more money now on the heels of the previous request for 87 billion to fund operations tends to suggest (a) that the Administration hasn’t been forthcoming about the real costs of its Iraq venture, (b) that the Administration doesn’t have a good plan for winning the war, (c) that our forces are increasingly getting bogged down by insurgents, (d) that the entire Iraq venture is a sinkhole and a serious error of judgment, or (e) all of the above.
Randy posted his Winds of Change review where a commentator observed:

Regarding the wish for dictators, I’ve experienced the same thing with Peruvian friends who have told me they desperately want Fujimori to come back. I tried to explain how maintaining a democratic system and rule of law is the more important than having the right administration but my arguments fell on deaf ears.
Jeanne d’Arc followed up on the abuse photos. Seems that where the Marines try to cover up, the Army is doing something to discipline th soldiers involved. Photos here.
Andrew posts the new Iraqi flag and asks

What country wants their flag – a unique symbol representing a country and its independence – created by an occupying country?
Allison is one of many voices angry about the Bush campaign’s belittlement of Kerry’s war record. (See Web Links.)
MacDiva questions the canonization of Pat Tillman:

A soldier who pursues his adversaries is just doing his job. Tillman is a soldier who died in the poorly conceived war on terror. I don’t see any reason to elevate him over other people who have suffered the same fate.

Religion

doug gives his reasons for questioning the Rapture Cult and concludes

Our watching is part of our following. Spurious biblical claims, no matter how popular, regardless of the number of Bible verses offered in their defense, do neither.
Rob rolls his eyes at Fundamentalist ire over the trademarking of the name FCUK (French Connection United Kingdom Company).
Crasspastor believes we have a religious war going on in Iraq. Jeremy reflects:

I think all this talk of religious wars misses the point. Sure, some of the worst conflicts of history were based on religion, but were the religious wars that much more atrocious than those which weren’t fought in the name of some God or another? For instance, were the Crusades worse than World War II? What about internal “religious” wars, like the Puritan takeover of Britain, or that country’s long history of internal strife between Protestants and Catholics? Is that worse than the Chinese Communist takeover of Buddhist Tibet? After all, Communism isn’t a religion per se.

Culture

Natalie stood up to copyright thieves:

All I ask of both these people is to include proper credits but neither of them have replied to my e-mail. Some people have the view that stealing a writer or an artist’s work is not like ‘normal’ theft because such work is not real work – like plumbing, for instance. They would never go to a plumber and say “I’m not going to pay you for installing my boiler and I’m going to tell everyone I did it because your work belongs to the world and you should be happy that I allowed you to work in my house”. Yeah right.
Artichoke Heart shared a parody of Wallace Stevens.
Denise reviews the dispute over the ownership of UNIX.
Steven celebrates Henry James:

The subtle twists of phrase and the delicate irony and humor that are so prominent here stand out from the rather more bold reportorial front that shows up in the articles. One can spend time with James and come to know Italy very little, but have a profound knowledge of a man of great sensibility and sense. Too bad as a society we spend so little time with those who have so much to tell us about how to observe, how to write, how to go about thinking, and how to analyze.
Irene confronts certain eternal questions:

I’ve read that writers must be egotists because they’re convinced they have something worth saying — and that it’s something the world must hear. On the other side of the coin, though, we (or at least I) also constantly doubt the quality or legitimacy of our work. Does it really count? Can it really be as good as others say it is?
Billy quivered at the thought of snakefish taking over the United States:

I am of the opinion that snakefish and all other fish are from outer space. The stares I get from the supposedly dead fish as I walk hurriedly by the fish stand at the West Side Market can only be part of some biological wireless surveillance system that beams images to aliens in outer space.
Yule can be a tease:

I went on a rant (albeit via email) about something I read elsewhere by a so-called green anarchist. It was so wrong-headed and full of idealist synthesist fallacies as to make the head spin, a tract worthy of total (critical-feminist) deconstruction because it is so very very wrong-headed, and maybe I’ll have more to say about it here later, but maybe I’ll just give up.

Personal

Jenny’s department is moving to a new building.
maria blogged from her backyard.

Ah, this must be romance in the 21st century, the tandem clicking of keys and the sweet droning of disks paging through their memory banks, searching for a bit of that compounded interest. Okay, that’s the wine speaking, I suppose … or that heady feeling that comes from glimpsing the exuberant brightness of Jupiter above the crown of a Colorado blue spruce that shades my neighbor’s house….
Brian needed the help of a Rockette to remain standing during a tour of Radio City Music Hall.
Caterina feels moved. So does Pam.
Crazy Tracy copes with pain:

If I were a doctor, all my patients in serious pain would be looped out of their fucking minds. That’s where I wanna be. In the meantime, crutches would be nice. Or a walker. One of those electric wheelchairs would be even better. Lying around in bed all day eating grapes…
Francis was glad to have learned the Swedish National Anthem:

I was taking my lunchtime stroll through Djurg�rden when a bunch of 14-year-old girls ran up to me, begging me to sing “Du Gamla, Du Fria” as part of some school scavenger-hunt type exercise so popular with the Swedes who, in an attempt to alleviate their natural taciturn natures, incessantly force on themselves such games designed to make them interact with strangers.
Kimber struggles with special needs parenting:

Ian, for the second time, bit someone during recess at school. Is parenting always one step forward and two steps back? Or do I really just suck at this?
Michael bought himself a glass head.
Jaded Ju contemplated Space:

I genuinely wonder how people can stand to live together in small spaces. I have friends that lived in a small, moldy studio for nine years while they saved the money to buy a house. Another friend and his partner just bought a house that is smaller than the size of my apartment.
MM is visiting Korea:

looking out the plane window just before landing at sunset yesterday, i happily took in the sight of small islands, randomly shaped and dotting the ocean, detached but not too far from one another, pretty much like tiny kimchi dishes inviting one’s appetite to discover.
Bill received a visit from an old friend.
PAP rhapsodized about her impending honeymoon:

Now, I am going to take my beautiful wife to bed, and proceed with frevor to make mad, passionate love to her in such a way that all of New England and part of Montana will feel the ensuing pleasure waves. Nothing between New England and Montana will be affected, though, due to newly imposed Pleasure Energy Broadcasting Restrictions and Regulations that deem it “improper, offensive, and just downright obscene, profane, and indecent.”
Rae was glad that “for once, the cops were there when you needed them.”
Andrea See writes of her first kiss:

The moment I felt him just centimetres from my face, I started laughing and couldn’t stop. I mean bellyaching laughter here. When I eventually calmed down, he tried again, only to be stopped by my giggling. So he tried again. And again. And I laughed again. And again. The impression I must have been leaving on his self-esteem had to be tremendous.
Andrea the Shameless Agitator had an encounter with an overzealous librarian:

If I’d had my wits about me, I would have said something like “Here I am, trying to find out if my friend suffered all night in her wrecked car before she died, with my daughter is home sick, and you are upset about my phone?!”
Susan attended a Writing Festival.
Stu’s struggling to write a short story for a science fiction anthology.
Beata hit a sheep.
Kris witnessed ecological disaster:

As we drove home, we kept seeing dirt in the air, and when we arrived home, we could even see faint streaks of soil in the air from our yard.

James said that the farms used to be smaller and had featured wind breaks, rows of poplars that acted to prevent wind erosion. But as the farms became larger through acquisition of neighboring fields, the wind breaks were cut down in order to make it easier for tractors and other equipment to cover the distance without the obstacles of the wind breaks.
Sally’s just fascinated with last week’s exploding penis link.

Photos

Raven reopened her Indecent Exposure gallery
Theodore calls this “Waiting under an irradescent sky for the next scene”
Mary Lou: I dated a woman who was like this.
Coup de Vent: “it’s honey and bluebells in the woods this week. Words don’t crack it really, do they?”
Robert shared photos of Japanese vending machines.
Photos of Military Coffins
pixelmonger shared this Rincon Mountains landscape
laura showed this fine macro of a “natural death”
Heather: balconies on uranus
jinky: Captain’s Flat series
Rolie: nice black and white of a bull
Michael caught a closeup of a creeping thing
Stillpixels: “This old mill is on the top of the hill on Wickham Terrace in the City [Brisbane]”

Missing Bloggers

Tamara (since April 18)
In Sequence (since April 5)
Treesong (since April 15)
Nancy (since April 14 — vacation)
YBLOG ZA (since April 17)

Recent Reading

The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes
Essential Sufism by Robert Frager
The Birder’s Handbook: A field guide to the natural history of North American Birds by Paul Ehrlich
Selected Poems by Carl Sandburg
Dumb Luck by Sam Hamill
Brewer’s Curious Titles: The Fascinating Stories Behind More Than 1500 Famous Titles

Web Links

Comments on any of these should be addressed to the blog authors. Respect their intellectual property and lend them moral support to keep doing what they’re doing.

Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax

From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss

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