Insert A Trite Metaphor About a Corral

Posted on June 27, 2004 in Roundup

And they lived happily ever after is one of the most tragic sentences in literature. It is tragic because it tells a falsehood about life and has led countless generations of people to expect something from human existence which is not possible on this fragile, failing, imperfect earth.

-Joshua Liebman

At the top of this account, let me mention Brian Kane who was hospitalized on Sunday night with three blocked arteries. He underwent bypass surgery on Wednesday, a procedure which appears to have been successful. Last report has him eating food and talking to the nurses.

This news comes at a time when many of my friends are going through similar stresses. The boyfriend of a close writer friend of mine suffered a light heart attack recently. Lynn’s boss is making daily visits to the ICU where his wife — recently retired from teaching — recovers from a stroke. These people are my age or not all that much older than me. When I review these incidents in the light of my own Memorial Day trip to the ER, I remember how stressful these incidents can be not only on the victim (who has the advantage of knowing where the pain is) but on the partner (who is often taken by surprise by these events).

So when you remember Brian, when you say kind words, don’t forget Bridget.

This roundup covers the period from 18 June to 25 June, 2004.

Politics

Randy posted his Latin American briefing.
Jack rejected the Kevin Drum’s “culture wars” theory as an explanation for why the Right hates Clinton so much and came up with his better idea:

Clinton understood that the Democrats could get back in the White House if they appealed to parts of the coalition of voters that had elected Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And so he set out consciously to do that. He fractured the existing winning coalition by producing a combination of economic policies designed to appeal to middle class voters while accepting certain elements of the values agenda that had played so well for the Republicans. He focused on issues like crime and welfare, emphasized his populist roots and religious sensibilities, while at the same time maintaining strong ties to secularism, feminism, and civil rights.
LQ pondered the family values of Vice President Dick Cheney:

According to Congressional aides he told Leahy to “Fuck off or go fuck yourself”. The article says that Leahy said hello to Cheney, and Cheney lit into him about Leahy’s criticisms over Halliburton. Leahy retorted that he didn’t appreciate Cheney’s recent attack of him being anti-Catholic, to which Cheney responded with the “Fuck off or go fuck yourself”.
Jeanne is

not having much luck convincing myself this is a nonpartisan issue, a question of fairness and honesty that surely every American should care about. I really hate to sound paranoid, but it’s no longer an abstract issue of making sure every election is above reproach. There are too many shenanigans going on not to make us worried.
Andrew reviews potential vice presidents for candidate-apparent John Kerry:

Excitement is both underrated and overrated. Excitement doesn’t get the job done (Bush 41 won the presidency), but in a close election you have to give people, not only a reson to vote against the other guy (voters usually come up with that themselves) but more reasons to vote FOR you. For people who aren’t paying attention right off, a clip of some rousing speech can help.
Jeremy growls at a recent CNN poll regarding the use of torture:

I’m not sure why they keep running this question, or variants on it– all it does is underline the absolute barbarity to which it’s so easy to stoop from one’s air-conditioned computer desk. Now the whole online world can see that over half of the voters in a CNN online poll are proponents of torture “if it’s used appropriately,” as though there’s an appropriate time to strap someone to a board and hold them underwater until they think they’re dying.
Lauren described herself as holding

the Log Cabin Republican view – socially inclusive and fiscally conservative, with an emphasis on gay and lesbian rights and the inclusion of SSM. Conservatism sans evangelism. Definitely not liberal, more like the left-wing of the Republican party without the smug righteousness of Libertarianism.
MacDiva smirked at the woes of Jack Ryan.
Andrea the Serial Deviant mused over news that Iraq talked to Nigeria about importing uranium.

Religion

Alison honored a woman who paid off an entire district’s utility bill so that her neighbors could have water.
Steven returned to the real fundamentals of Christianity

It seems to me that before I might say anything about the sin of another, I should mind my own sin. That is to say, my own is enough and more than enough to keep me occupied, what am I doing worrying about the sins or lack thereof of others.
doug endured his church’s Annual Conference:

This year we debated on the coffee local churches should use, “fair trade” or not. This is one of those things local churches could, and should, decide for themselves; it doesn’t need the benefit of an Annual Conference recommendation. Still the thing was discussed and discussed, reworked and amended; I’m not sure how the final draft or vote went, since I’d long since bailed.
Victoria had misgivings about Promise Keepers:

From what I can tell, this is right wing Christians teaching their men how to be right wing Christians. Half my brain, philosophically, can say that just as I want to teach my children to be radical left wingers, they want to teach their people to be radical right wingers. And just as I want the right to organize the people who believe in choice, they should have the right to organize to preach what they want to preach.
Nancy: Cows are the World

Culture

Denise notes that lawyers have a new concern: “Not only is it critical to know who will try your case, it’s important to consider who will blog it.”
Caterina sees sociopaths in Silicon Valley.
Teresa got to see Lucy Lawless at the Gay Pride Parade in LA.
Treesong mused about what constitutes Nature:

Unlike many philosophers, I don’t ask these questions simply to pass the time, or because I have some perverse desire for guests of this site to lose themselves in swirling circles of somnambulating sophistry. I ask these questions because I truly believe that the way in which we answer them — both with our words and with our lives — can mean the difference between happiness and suffering in our lives on this wonderful planet of ours.
Susan thought about Fiction:

Let me tell you something that I’m learning, and see if you have found it out yet for yourself, or disagree: The importance of fiction in its story form and poems, is the value of the maybe, the could be, and the what if that it offers and allows.
Katherine pondered the effects of Dramatica:

Think of the Scott Meredith plot outline married to the idea that all literature is character-driven; think deep affection for really trashy movies; think terminology so abstract as to make descriptions of the fundamental particles like quarks sound colloquial, homey, down-to-Earth; such terminology deployed in the service of a theory of pulp psychology.
Kate went in circles.
Coup de Vent thought about people shutting up their blogs “so they could work on other things”:

A number of people have recently shut up blogshop and the truth is that I am attached to some people now. Not to their blogs – their blogs as a very real route to aspects of them. I write this out of anxiety. Like most people, I hate being attached to people where there is a risk of an ending which is not mutually agreed.
Jody revealed things that you wouldn’t know if it weren’t for the movies:

Large, loft apartments in New York City are plentiful and affordable, even if the tenants are unemployed….If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to be a world-famous expert on nuclear fission, dinosaurs, hieroglyphics, or anything else, at the age of 22….You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home….When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
Mike: Is this fact or fiction? You decide:

I’m not going to bore you by reciting the Jesus Bunker Creed. Nor will I reveal Father Christopher’s lineage, details of his adventures with his stock, or the nature of his conception aboard a Virgin Atlantic airliner at 1,824 meters. You can read of these things yourself in my SG&M’s latest encyclical, Father Christopher and the Temple of Gloom (a veritable blockbuster on the art of “begatting” and being turned down by Google’s AdSense program).

Personal

Kimber has moved her website.
chari also moved her website
chari celebrated her as yet unregonized fourth wedding anniversary.
Maria ponders the myster of why crows have been raiding particular urban areas:

Bird experts speculate that crows, given their brainpower, which is pretty mighty in the bird world, have figured out that they are safe from predators in cities, since humans are not likely to hunt them there. Since scientist don’t know why crows prefer some cities or urban areas to others, I wonder if a study of the political leanings of the human populations of crow-infested areas versus those devoid of crows would help us uncover more clues to this mystery.
John observed the local weather:

The weather is changing. For long periods during the day there’s still a bite to the sunshine and more than enough heat to make the walker pause, pull out a handkerchief and wipe his brow before pressing on….Then, every couple of hours or so, not in any regular pattern, the wind shifts uneasily, turns cold, and shunts great cloud masses over the sky. Now and then there’s been a spattering of rain, not much, just enough to let us know there’s a change on the way.
Billy declared:

I am philosophically opposed to watering lawns, but even more opposed to watering asphalt and concrete. This habit seems to be more and more common around these parts.
Stu demonstrated how to work out the day of the week for any date in your head.
Pam celebrated an anniversary:

It was precisely 17 years ago today that I first went to Japan. I took a Northwest flight from San Francisco and landed at Narita at 6am with a too-big backpack, a Lonely Planet travel guide, traveller’s checks and a return ticket. I had no job, no friends and no clear idea of what I was going to do other than find a job and learn the language.
Rob unloads a house:

The buyers arranged for a home inspection a few days later and the guy showed up and did his thing. The next day I got a call from my real estate agent explaining that the guy who came and did the inspection was not the person that the buyers wanted and asked if I could extend the the deadline for them so that they could get the correct inspector–that’s when the trouble began.
Kris greeted the arrival of her titanic grandson Tristan:

“You can just throw out any newborn-size clothes,” the nurse said,
“and forget those newborn diapers, too.”
Irene went for a ride on an airplane:

as I was looking out at the wing, wishing it weren’t blocking my view (clouds are so much more interesting), I could see all the places where different plates of metal had been joined together and the screws and whatnot that held those pieces down. The plane’s wing was immense, stretching out into the sky, long and straight… the whole sight just rammed home the fact that the entire plane is a marvel of engineering.
Jill ennumerated her feelings about attending a fund raising dinner:

8. Let the speeches begin.

9. Please god, let the speeches end.

10. What will it take, god, for you to end these speeches?

11. God, I’ll give you 10% of all future earnings if you’ll just make this end.

12. I’ll throw in a baby.

14. Your main course arrives, and you remember that dessicated chicken is always the dinner choice at these events. In this case the dessicated chicken is stuffed with cherries. Cherries do not belong inside dessicated chicken.

15. Push the food around on the plate, eating the carrots that you’d usually avoid. At least you’ll have gotten some nutrition out of the deal.

16. God, are you deliberately ignoring me? I demand you make these speeches end.
Greybird felt conflicted over someone being nice to her.
Michael reflected on “June Gloom”.
Elkit shared a recipe for plum jam.
Jenny shared a day in the life.
Mileah has “gone fishing”.
Rae brought back her bangs.
Rachel received a special gift from her five year old.

Poetry

Theodore: A Day in the Clouds
Leigh has been working on her poetry:

I’d been letting the poems for my new book sit for a few months to ripen on the vine, and then came back to them in May to do some extensive revising. I was really worried that they totally sucked ass. But although they needed a lot of fine-tuning, I was amazed and pleased to find that they didn’t suck nearly as bad as I thought they did. I did about 44 pages of intense revisions, and then last week was able to do a massive mailing of new work out to various literary journals.
Seraph jumped into a discussion about “robo-poetry” and thought about the relationship between poem and reader:

let’s say we follow through and assume that, yes, there is a “relationship” constructed between reader and poem. Why should that relationship be any less complex or less tyrannical, obtrusive, confusing…than any other relationship between words and humans and objects and blah blah?
Redwaterlily: Poem by Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek
Michael: Random Act of Poetry

Photos

Natalie: Digital snaps from the last week
Kimber: Tooth gone
Mary Lou: Cute cat photo making the rounds
Mamageek: Cadillac Mountain
Manda: Favorite Photos
Bill: Julie
Daniel: A Poetry Reading

Missing Bloggers

Petitions & Appeals

Web Links

Recent Reading

Annie’s Soup Kitchen by Lawrence R. Smith
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
In the Palm of Your Hand:The Poet’s Portable Workshop by Steve Kowit
New Selected Poems by Phillip Levine
Wheelock’s Latin, 6e and Workbook for Wheelock’s Latin, 3rd Edition, Revised

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Wanting no nonsense, only facts, we make a curious discovery. Facts are like faces. There are millions of them. They are disturbingly alike. It is the imagination that looks behind the face, as well as looks out of it.

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