Grand Theft, Sibling Style: 35 Months Since the Disaster at Fukushima Daiichi

My eldest brother is my wisest one.  He also has the kindest heart and the most natural, unpolluted concept of living well and peacefully in community with one another and the Earth that is our gracious home.

I haven't ripped anything off from his blog, American Idyll in what seems like YEARS but is actually months.
Tonight, I'm scratching that itch, I'm cracking my knuckles, I'm gearing down for a casual five-fingered discount of digital thievery.  Ah, but thievery rich with attribution!  Go to American Idyll, browse, travel, dream, and learn - laugh, point, giggle, fall into awed silence the way you once were able to collapse into a bean bag contraption (and get up again).

He's democratic by nature and virtue, and so I'm hoping he won't hitch a ride on Elvis the Crow, leading a bazillion of the pointy-beaked creatures to peck on my head for violations of propriety, property, boundaries.

Not many of the voices raised or calmly modulated to float over the chaotic cacophony of the Fukushima accident and subsequent disasters are being heard.  Who wants to hear that stuff?  Unfortunately, the righteous question remains:  How dare we continue to play at being deaf, and prove our stupidity and arrogance, even if those attributes are the natural afterbirth of fear?  Fear is fueling our history of poor decisions, and our poor decisions are fueling the death power of these ecological man-made radiation disasters.  My brother-unit seems to recommend that we educate ourselves on what happened at the Fukushima nuclear power plant as well as what is happening at nuclear facilities around the world by staying abreast of this news via Energy News.

Hot off the presses at Energy News, by just minutes?

Radioactive cesium levels “never seen before” at Fukushima — New record as totals nearly double in under 24 hours — Officials admit ‘there may be a new leak’ — IAEA urging for ‘resumption’ of dumping contaminated water into ocean; ‘All options’ need to be considered...

The IAEA suggestions, by the way, are being roundly criticized, though I cannot discern, with what little I've read, what viable alternatives are being offered.  Here are, however, some of the reactions to the UN agency's proposals:

AFP, Feb. 13, 2014: Fukushima should eye ‘controlled discharges’ in sea: IAEA — The UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday urged Japan to consider “controlled discharges” into the sea of contaminated water used to cool the crippled reactors at Fukushima. [...] “This would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges to the sea.” [...] local fishermen, neighbouring countries and environmental groups all oppose the idea. [...] The agency also called for a careful assessment of the company’s plan to create a subterranean “freeze wall” to prevent radioactive groundwater from leaking into the ocean — an ongoing problem that has stoked fears about dangers posed to marine life and the food chain. [...]

Shanghai Daily, Feb. 13, 2014: TEPCO is still eyeing dumping toxic water into the Pacific Ocean as it fails to contain in makeshift storage tanks [...] a massive daily influx of water needed to cool the battered reactors, while nuclear experts believe that other methods need to be traversed before contaminating the ocean. Dumping radioactive water into the ocean is of grave concern to local fisheries cooperatives as the potential for radioactive materials to spread to marine life remains a distinct possibility, despite TEPCO’s assurances the levels of radioactivity will be kept well below the government’s and regulator’s limits. [...] Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) Chairman Shunichi Tanaka [...] said that even though three years has passed since the reactor meltdowns at the plant, TEPCO is still utterly inept when it comes to taking accurate readings of radioactivity [...] and “lacks a basic understanding of measuring and handling radiation.”

NHK, Feb. 14, 2014: IAEA: Consider discharging contaminated water — [The IAEA] advised [Tepco] to examine all options to treat contaminated water. These include resuming controlled discharges of radioactive water into the sea. [...] [IAEA's Juan Carlos Lentijo says] the situation remains very complex [...] the IAEA team believes it is necessary to find a sustainable solution to the problem of managing contaminated water at the plant. It says that this would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges to the sea.

Xinhua, Feb. 13, 2014: [TEPCO] said Thursday that samples of water tested contained radioactive cesium at levels never seen before by the embattled utility. TEPCO [is] admitting there may be a new leak at the site of a well located just 50 meters from the adjacent Pacific Ocean [...] The utility has failed to locate the source of the leak, in another major failing [...]

Tepco Handout, February 13, 2014: “The highest dose among the results previously announced” — 130,000 Bq/L of Cs-134, 137. Previous record set the day before at 76,000 Bq/L of Cs-134, 137.

I'm proud of my brother's voice joining with other activists' ways of speaking to the world.  But, as sisters do, I think his way of leading us to the information is gentler, and inspired.  (This is the part where I steal his post, all the while reminding you, Dearly Beloved Readers, that TW is its author, the artist who makes these beautiful collages of words, photography [his own], and subtle spell casting.  And maybe, right here, lost in all my verbiage, I can slip in how very much I cherish him, love him, and wish to sooth his brow.)

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The mysterious manner in which this growing sense of unity commingles with a sense of utter goodness is worth noting. It arises by no effort of mine; rather does it come to me out of I know not where. Harmony appears gradually and flows through my whole being like music. An infinite tenderness takes possession of me, smoothing away the harsh cynicism which a reiterated experience of human ingratitude and human treachery has driven deeply into my temperament. I feel the fundamental benignity of Nature despite the apparent manifestation of ferocity.
Like the sounds of every instrument in an orchestra that is in tune, all things and all people seem to drop into the sweet relationship that subsists within the Great Mother's own heart.
--Paul Brunton
A Hermit in the Himalayas: The Journal of a Lonely Exile

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AMERICAN IDYLL  AMERICAN IDYLL AMERICAN IDYLL   AMERICAN IDYLL

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2014

A Highway Of Diamonds With Nobody On It

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleeding
I saw a white ladder all covered with water

I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warning
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening

Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-going back out before the rain starts a-falling
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison

Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

IT HAS NOW BEEN 35 MONTHS SINCE THE WRETCHED DISASTER AT FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI OPEN-AIR NUCLEAR POWER PLANT BEGAN.
STAY INFORMED.

Simple, Brilliant Innovation: Still Looking for Lindsey Baum

KIROtv.com published this article two days ago,  and in the very simplicity of the project lies its brilliance.  It seems like a wonderful idea to be taken nationwide, worldwide, in the search for missing persons.

PACIFIC, Wash. — On Wednesday, aged-progressed posters of missing child Lindsey Baum will be added to Gordon Trucking trailers as part of the Washington State Patrol's Homeward Bound Program.
Baum was last seen on June 26, 2009, in McCleary.   She was 10 when she disappeared.

Posters of Baum have been traveling around the country on 10 Gordon Trucking trailers since 2010.
Members of Lindsey Baum’s family will be at the event at Gordon Trucking.

An age-progressed photo of Baum was created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last summer.

Anyone with information about the disappearance of Lindsey Baum should call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tip line at 1-800-THE-LOST.

More information about the Homeward Bound program can be found here  and a gallery of Washington State's Missing Children can be found at this link.

The Winter Garden Biosphere

Given the heaviness of the scones I made this morning, if I'm a foodie, I'm a failed foodie.  But when we see beauty, we know beauty.

White House Chef Cris Comerford describes the Winter Garden Salad in the White House blog, taken over by that fine kitchen so as to show some behind the scenes prep for the State Dinner with French President Hollande -- via Instagram.

The salad features herbs from the White House Kitchen Garden, and the dressing uses honey from the beehive on the South Lawn.

A tiny biosphere, pristine, a look at what Mother Earth can due when both nurtured and left alone:

About Chef Cristeta Comerford:

Chef Cristeta Comerford credits Obamas with change in White House food

Cristeta Comerford - White House Executive Chef

White House Menu for State Dinner with President of Ghana
September 15, 2006

Cristeta Comerford White House Chef



© 2013 L. Ryan

Presidential Poetics: "No woman ever played the whore / Unless She had a man to help her."*

* a recommended primer: "The Poetry of Abraham Lincoln" at Open Culture

source of my titular tease:

Whatever Spiteful fools may Say—

Each jealous, ranting yelper—

No woman ever played the whore

Unless She had a man to help her.

**************************************************************************

Thought I'd share this, as I never knew that President Lincoln wrote in verse.  I admit that not much would astound me.

"President Lincoln leads the Nordic Combined after soaring over the heads of the fans gathered at the bottom of the Normal Hill, for an estimated distance of 145 meters.  Having forgotten his cross-country skis at Knob Creek Farm in Kentucky, Lincoln himself fashioned a fine pair of Sochi birch, sharing a drink of warm black birch nectar with all comers.."

Anyway... once again I sing the praises of the Academy of American Poets and their Poem-A-Day program. It would not occur to me to search for The Poems of Abraham Lincoln while wandering the aisles at Amazon.

Only three poems can be attributed to Lincoln with certainty, and all are in the public domain.  I like the remark, though, that reviewer fredtownward threw down:

OK, I have to admit, this one has me a bit stumped. Who WOULD appreciate a gift edition of the only complete narrative poem (though sometimes treated as 2 or 3 separate poems as it is here, the author considered it a single poem in three cantos with differing subjects) attributed to Abraham Lincoln with absolute certainty? (There are several short scraps of verse scattered throughout his writings and one anonymous poem, "The Suicide's Soliloquy," that has been attributed to him by some scholars.)

Well, poetry lovers are a good possibility, as are teachers of poetry, and they might also appreciate the uniform edition of John Quincy Adams' poem The Wants of Man. Abraham Lincoln had a lifelong interest in both reading and writing poetry, and as these verses prove, he was no slouch at it. Another are would-be poets who could use a little encouragement to keep at it: if Abraham Lincoln could keep at it,... Admirers, students, and teachers of Lincoln and his times are good possibilities, too, and they might also appreciate the uniform edition of The Emancipation Proclamation.

Note: One could complain that this book is available online for free. Well, yes, what part of in the public domain do you not understand? However, trying to get away with giving someone a printout as a gift will earn you the nickname of cheapskate.... 

Someone had the nerve to pretend the praise of "home-spun" in describing Lincoln's work.  I have a knee-jerk issue with that phrase that I will have to get over, for spinning from his home, like some knob-kneed spindly spider wending his web, mending his land... is perhaps what best describes the words Lincoln wrought, fraught with more care -- and cares -- than I can imagine.

Okay, Lincoln gets to me.

Here's the poem the Academy dropped in my email box today, perfect for the frozen tundra that quiets Marlinspike Hall today.  We are somber, we admit it.  The Castafiore feels the weather in her bones, and chose to cuddle with our Maine Coon, Buddy, an ever ready and egalitarian cuddler, over the opportunity to nuzzle her darling Sven Feingold.  "Mein Prof," she whispered, "I don't want to brush my teeth or fight the laces forsaken by God on that damned red satin bustier... Please find some Maze Emergency that Sven and only Sven might tend to?  A bevy of frigid beavers to rescue, something!"

Sometimes Bianca confuses our fledgling marshlands with the centuries-old English Boxwood Maze, star attraction of bright summertime's ManorFest.  I spared Sven a pointless romp in the icy mess and gifted the Milanese Nightingale with an ordinary headache, instead.  He borrowed Dobby on his way back to the Domestic Quarters, claiming that his adult son, Cabana Boy, was a bit blue -- Dobby's purview. 

Since that left me and Fred with but one feline, and as Marmy Fluffy Butt is bent on practicing her hauteur, we decided to treat our own sobriety of spirit with poetry.

My Childhood Home I See Again

by Abraham Lincoln

  

My childhood home I see again, 

And sadden with the view; 

And still, as memory crowds my brain, 

There's pleasure in it too. 

O Memory! thou midway world 

'Twixt earth and paradise, 

Where things decayed and loved ones lost 

In dreamy shadows rise, 

And, freed from all that's earthly vile, 

Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, 

Like scenes in some enchanted isle 

All bathed in liquid light. 

As dusky mountains please the eye 

When twilight chases day; 

As bugle-notes that, passing by, 

In distance die away; 

As leaving some grand waterfall, 

We, lingering, list its roar-- 

So memory will hallow all 

We've known, but know no more. 

Near twenty years have passed away 

Since here I bid farewell 

To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 

And playmates loved so well. 

Where many were, but few remain 

Of old familiar things; 

But seeing them, to mind again 

The lost and absent brings. 

The friends I left that parting day, 

How changed, as time has sped! 

Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 

And half of all are dead. 

I hear the loved survivors tell 

How nought from death could save, 

Till every sound appears a knell, 

And every spot a grave. 

I range the fields with pensive tread, 

And pace the hollow rooms, 

And feel (companion of the dead) 

I'm living in the tombs.

from blog January Magazine

The Privilege of Abuse

The television is fuzzy and my hearing is off.  I thought the NBC announcer called two women lugers "losers," and was getting ready to write the proverbial letter. Then it occurred to me that the women seemed to be taking the insult pretty well, and that I hadn't eaten in a good while, and the room was spinning, as well -- perhaps an example in surfeit.  Sharp as a tack, the phonic similarity of luge and lose eventually asserted itself, as well as my recollection that Lester Holt is an excellent commentator and, to my honed intuition, a good man.  The overweight Italian diva draped over the foot of my hospital bed loves him, but not to the degree that she adores Tom Brokaw (get well, Tom!), over whom she desires to one day exert her seductive powers.  Luckily, Bianca Castafiore has never had occasion to share space with the dignified Brokaw.

It'd be really cool were that a segue.

However, had the NBC announcer called the winter sportswomen "crazy nut-jobs who must have emerged from really twisted childhoods," I'd not even have blinked.

No, wait. Maybe that's how I feel about the skeleton sliders.  In case you've forgotten:

Skeleton is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5 g.

Unfortunately, my mental plasticity slid over to my email, reading some, tossing most. The plastics in my skull never seem to completely gel with the desired mold, never seem to attain that waxy smoothness that so aids really smart and able people. In part to protect my defective neuroplasticity,  I usually avoid WSJ columnists, not "like the plague," but as "not my preferred source of editorial information."  However ThinkProgress headed one of their magazine-like "come hither, dah-link" ads for today's content with this:

Wall Street Journal Columnist: Rape Victims Are Just As Guilty As Rapists 

If They’re Both Drunk

The headline spoke to me, having been drunk on some of the finest campuses in the world, academically-speaking, including one famed for its motto "Work hard, play hard," and because I owe the loss of a good half-cup of brain cells for my work to bring the "top party school in the USA" accolade to one of my undergraduate institutions.  (I did a great deal of endeavoring, undergraduately.)  I was not raped at any of the eight universities I attended, although I would say, of three sexual encounters, that there hasn't been a label invented to do them justice.

But it is of the North Carolina Gothic Wonderland that i think, automatically, after reading James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" opinion piece, entitled "Drunkenness and Double Standards: A balanced look at college sex offenses."

It almost makes you itch, doesn't it, that title?  Makes you think of Title IX, almost!  Fair is Fair!  This must be yet another meditation on the "Equal Opportunity in Education Act"!  But it would be shallow to judge a work by its title, as it may have been chosen all willy-nilly by some ersatz editor, and besides, that is how Taranto chose to début his own thought piece -- by vigorously shaking his editorial tail, much like Buddy my Maine Coon, when riled, in an attempt to mark it with odd conservative pheromones. 

It's an old odd tail, er, tale.  It begins with false accusations of rape (all instances he discusses treat rape of women by men).  We all detest unjust accusations, particularly of the sort that taint the accused no matter an ultimate determination of innocence, or lack of legal guilt.  

The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics annually publishes a report on Criminal Victimization, the latest being from October 2013.  This paper, covering 2012, estimates that only 28.8% of rapes are reported.  Remember that when you hear bandied about the FBI assertion that 8% of reported rapes are false accusations or "unfounded" reports.  Take a moment to contemplate -- I mean, really get down and zen with it, mindfully -- the FBI definition of what constitutes an "unfounded" rape accusation: "if the victim did not fight back, if the attacker did not use a weapon, if the victim did not sustain injuries, or if the victim had a prior relationship with their attacker."

The mathematical adjustment brings the 8% level of "unfounded" rape within the norm of all falsely recorded violent crime, to approximately 2% -- for rape, 2.2%.

In a very FOX-y News echo, Taranto wants to bring a "balanced approach" to college sexual assaults, by making alcohol consumption some sort of levelizing force, a strike for equality.  He compares a car crash (I'm imagining his neuroplasticity invites further interpretation of this roadway danger as a fender-bender) to drunken college co-eds having sex, which will, of course, end with the woman falsely charging the man with rape. Elementary!

Taranto writes:

If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn't determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver's sex. But when two drunken college students "collide," the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.

I hate it when I run into a penis, don't you?

Unfortunately, Taranto writes from a mindset that seems steeped in an insurance lexicon, in some sort of automoblile accident outline drawing, with arrows and dotted lines, much as might be used to determine a sub-$5,000 monetary verdict of culpability by the ever astute Judge Judy.

He jumps too quickly, as well, to another paradigm -- from a reported, possible crime to the openly adversarial environment of the courtroom.  He refers to every accused man as a "defendant," which should make every woman, college-educated or not, guffaw.  Snort Diet Coke out her nose.  Gasp, even.

For a woman desirous of reporting rape, the road from report, rape kit, ridicule, mental and physical anguish, ruination of relationships... to an identifiable male being labelled by the judicial system as a "defendant"?  That road is arduous, long, and full of surprises, such as exposure of her sexual history, her habits of dress, her use of drink and drug, and the discovery of the stereotypes of ethnicity, lifestyle choices, and socioeconomic status.

Aw, leave Taranto with his banging cars, and yes, with the real cases of false accusations among college crowds, where binge drinking is truly a dangerous epidemic that compromises good decision-making.

I have personal knowledge of college women who practically "begged for it" when the college man in question was from a famous, infamous, or rich family.  Toss in an abject Greek system, and digging the good earth for the original kernels of truth becomes a muddy mess.  I have personal knowledge that money was often that honest germ, and, just as often, money was the muddy mess solution.  Society weddings have been based on less.

Colleges and universities are evolving, some ahead of the curve, some behind, keeping the Bell Curve theory alive, if gasping.  There are more advocates, more guidance counselors trained in sexual trauma, and there are vastly improved campus police agencies, better able to work with local law enforcement. One major obstacle still to be successfully managed in the insular campus world is the role of college athletics, and how collegiate athletes survive on amplified reputations, and sometimes steroids, and occasionally via well-placed good-old-boy pedophiles... and how that contributes to sexual coercion.

But I want to leave you with something that should shock whatever side of this "the booze made me do it" argument you support -- if it is even an argument, and not just another way to render complicated one of the least complicated of crimes.

Basic forensic evidence gathered from the body and clothing of the person claiming rape is called a "rape kit." It's important.  It takes hours to complete, feels invasive and degrading to someone who may have just undergone a violent and humiliating attack.

It's important.  And the backlog in processing these kits, combined with their incorrect storage, and their mysterious propensity for being "lost," leave me sputtering.  So I'll close, because it's my night to cook dinner, with this excerpt from The Joyful Heart Foundation, itself originally part of an article by Sarah Tofte for the Shreveport Times in Louisiana, published November 6, 2013:

Every year, thousands of individuals take the courageous step of reporting their rape to the police. They overcome the social stigma of being the victim of sexual violence, the warnings sometimes uttered by the rapist to keep silent, the suggestions that these issues ought not to be spoken of; and they speak up. During a forensic exam of their bodies which can take between four and six hours evidence is collected in a “Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit” — a rape kit.

Experts estimate there are hundreds of thousands of rape kits sitting untested throughout the country. Over the past several years, this rape kit backlog has become a fixture in the national media, with reports of untested rape kits piling up in police and crime lab storage facilities across the nation.

Rape kit evidence is an invaluable investigative tool for a country that has struggled to respond adequately to sexual assault. When tested, rape kit evidence can identify an unknown assailant, affirm a survivor’s account of the attack, connect a suspect to other unsolved crimes and exonerate innocent suspects. And yet, hundreds of thousands of times, a decision is made not to process the evidence. Even when a member of law enforcement does send a kit for testing, it can sit unprocessed for months and, in some cases, years. Each untested kit represents a missed chance for justice for survivors and accountability for offenders.

Of all violent crimes in the country, rape has the lowest reporting, arrest and prosecution rates. According to FBI crime data, rape has a 24 percent arrest rate — the lowest in nearly 40 years of tracking such information. This means that a survivor of rape has a one-in-five chance of seeing the perpetrator brought to justice. It also means that a rapist is likely to get away with the crime and, in many cases, to rape again.

We have seen the difference that testing every rape kit makes. New York City cleared its backlog of 17,000 kits and now tests every kit booked into police evidence. Proof of the value of testing every kit: the city’s arrest rate for rape has jumped from 40 percent to 70 percent.

Detroit is another city that now faces the massive task of clearing its backlog — more than 11,000 untested kits. After a National Institute of Justice grant allowed the first 850 kits to be tested, 46 potential serial rapists were identified. From those first kits, prosecutors have already secured two convictions, and traced assailants to crimes in 12 additional states and the District of Columbia.  [READ ALL OF MS. TOFTE'S ARTICLE HERE.]

© 2013 L. Ryan

it's almost there...

the "sick room" is looking a little brighter... i'd love to paint, but that involves more of the dread "royal we," meaning that fred would have to do all the work.

© 2013 L. Ryan

Definition of the Moon

I've never dared to second-guess the choices by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders of Apollo 8, the first space mission to leave Mother Earth and travel to another planet, our moon.

They were the first to see Earth alone, and entire.

On December 24, 1968, they broadcast this message as they circled the moon for the ninth time -- the first ten verses of the Biblical Book of Genesis, using the King James translation.

William Anders:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman:

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

I found this photo on a woman's defunct blog, and just as it has no attribution here, it had none there either. She did say something, though, about it being her "definition of the moon." Or perhaps it was "my picture of the moon."   I cannot recall.

But in some moments spent failing dreadfully at mindfulness meant to squash severe physical pain and the ever-present specter of psychic torture, I found myself ripped in two -- between the men on their ninth rotation 'round the moon and this woman's chosen photo, unattributed, that reflected her understanding of that orb.

Yeah, yeah, yeah:  perspective.

Still, I ask you:  What would you choose?  Or, if you break out in a rash at open-ended essays, what would you have chosen to say to an Earth audience on December 24, 1968 (the date begging so many questions as to require medical marijuana)?  If you cannot speak, and now, thanks to that thought, I'll be thinking of the many ways in which my readers may have lost their speech, from force of will to tongue slashing -- If you cannot speak, refer me to the photo of your choice.  Unless you have no use of limbs, and nothing directable by eye movement or the witty manipulation of a straw.

"I know it's bad, kid. I got your back, kid."

What some teachers wish they could rap, if they could rap, in those hazy, hasty last moments with their Starbucks, before homeroom bell and the influx of the usual:

Bo Burnham:  Nerds

I'm a faggot, I'm a retard, I got a girl's bag, and a V-card.
I got three friends and a whack ass ride, you can judge by the cover 'cause it's shitty on the inside.
No girls wanna fuck me, trust me.
I don't give a fuck, don't adjust me, just please shut your face hole for just one second.
"Fuck you faggot, you're so fucking dumb."
Dumb, I'm the dumb one?
Calm down, Bo, just count to ten.
One, two, three, whore-I mean four-shit, three, four, five, bitch-I mean six-shit.
I quit, I got no patience, you won, I'll face it.
Your life peaks at graduation, well, congratu-fucking-lations.

Nerds, the faggots, the spastic fat chicks who sit in the back with no one to do their lab with, the kid with acne and tons of Proactive packed inside his backpack.
I got your back, kid.

Do you know why, kid, I can rap so mean?
I was reading while you were fucking the prom queen.
Huddled up reading, no lacrosse team.
"Huddle up, huddle up"
What? You lost me.
Sorry, bro, did I interrupt the circle of jerks all circle jerking?
I need savin'? No, fuck no.
Quote the raven? No, fuck Poe.
Ah, shit, I'm bitchin, listenin'.

They don't know what they're missing.
For instance, I like poetry, I like instruments.
Maybe we have similar interests?
It's no fall balls, no balls fall.
Sit and scrawl on the stall walls.
At three p.m., I pause.
That shit sounds like applause.

Nerds, the faggots, the spastic fat chicks who sit in the back with no one to do their lab with, the kid with acne and tons of Proactive packed inside his backpack.
I got your back, kid.

Nerds, the faggots, the spastic fat chicks who sit in the back with no one to do their lab with, the kid with acne and tons of Proactive packed inside his backpack.
I got your back, kid.

She stood in line and got cut.
Tried out, got cut.
Loved art, but the budget got cut.
Then, she got numb, and she only felt when she knelt and cut.

Nerds, the faggots, the spastic fat chicks who sit in the back with no one to do their lab with, the kid with acne and tons of Proactive packed inside his backpack.
I got your back, kid.

I know it's bad, kid.
I got your back, kid.

Happy Chinese New Year: Blazing Saddles...

Happy New Year!

It's the year of the horse, with the associated fifth element of wood:

It’s the Lunar New Year and the Chinese Year of the Horse. The horse is part of a 12-year-cycle of animals that make up the Chinese zodiac. These interact with the five elements: wood, metal, fire, water, earth. 2014 is the year of the wood horse, taking over from the year of the water snake. 

GET READY TO RUMBLE 

It will be a fast year full of conflicts according to some astrologers, who see wood as providing fuel for the energetic horse sign. The later part of the year is “yin fire”, increasing the potential for heated clashes even more. Feng shui practitioner Raymond Lo told Reuters: “The upcoming Horse year is also a 'yang wood' year, when people will stick more to their principles and stand firm. So it is hard to negotiate or compromise as there are more tendencies for people to fight for their ideals.”

Having US of American politics in mind, that's a grim prediction by Feng shui practitioner Raymond Lo. I'm not a student of geomancy, but perhaps it would've served us better if the fiery horse had paired up with, say, earth.  Then we could go around ordering the extremists of all political parties to stop imagining zebras running amok.  

"That's the good, solid sound of a fiery, fierce, proud horse running freely across hard dirt," we could tell them.  "That's not endless herds of wild, displaced, burning zebras tearing about the Capitol Rotunda." It is bound to come up during immigration reform discussions, and Lord help us later in the year, when mid-term elections bear down upon our National Sanity Reserves.

But why borrow trouble on New Year's very first day?  Instead enjoy some of these representations of the blazing steed known by Westerners as an unadorned, unpretentious 2014.  For an excellent short explanation of the well-kept "Chinese" lunar calendar, check out this Christian Science Monitor article.

The art/graphics were found HERE, and are, for the moment, offered for use as cards, calendars, and such, free of charge.

© 2013 L. Ryan

"Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crecen las palmas..."

May 3, 1919 - January 27, 2014

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crecen las palmas

Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crecen las palmas

Y antes de morirme quiero echar mis versos del alma

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Mi verso es de un verde claro y de un carmin encendido

Mi verso es de un verde claro y de un carmin encendido

Mi verso es un ciervo herido que busca en el monte amparo

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

I am a truthful man from this land of palm trees

Before dying I want to share these poems of my soul

My verses are light green but they are also flaming red

I cultivate a rose in June and in January

For the sincere friend who gives me his hand

And for the cruel one who would tear out this heart with which I live

I do not cultivate thistles nor nettles I cultivate a white rose

Cultivo la rosa blanca en junio como en enero

Cultivo la rosa blanca en junio como en enero

Para el amigo sincero que me da su mano franca

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Y para el cruel que me arranca el corazon con que vivo

Y para el cruel que me arranca el corazon con que vivo

Cardo ni ortiga cultivo cultivo la rosa blanca

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Con los pobres de la tierra quiero yo mi suerte echar

Con los pobres de la tierra quiero yo mi suerte echar

El arroyo de la sierra me complace mas que el mar

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

ugly bedroom

i've been quiet because... things turn on a dime.

anyone want to come and redesign my bedroom?  the centerpiece is now one butt-ugly brown hospital bed. i remain, o my president, author of obamacare, which allowed me to receive a hospital bed with trapeze within 48 hours of the doctor ordering it, o do i remain ever grateful!

but a butt-ugly bedroom will not do.

new rugs will be necessary, because i don't want to fall off the butt-ugly brown bed onto the slick butt-ugly brown floor.

this morning, after dear fred went to a sunday morning shake-and-bake with the militant existential lesbian feminists, taking along a gourmet tuna salad with a fresh and golden loaf of bread, i challenged myself.  "self," i said...

sorry.

anyway, i cleaned the common areas we share with the castafiore and her amours, and with the hangers-on that groups such as ours attract.  mollusks. oops.  typed that out loud, i did!

in my brief period of profound laziness, the feline triumvirate has been intensively training.  dry, sculptural, free-standing hair ball sculptures tucked like hidden treasures behind furniture legs -- sublime!  a stylized swirl of hardened ocean waves, slick and seemingly splashing, reaching for the sky -- carefully presented alongside a gravity-bound fourteenth-century leather and iron virginal hope chest.  the first pieces were clearly the creation of marmy fluffy butt, and her fury was swift and fierce when my efforts to preserve her commentary on world hunger somehow fell prey to the chaotic anti-art suction of my hoover.  the watery, shellacked offering was from the suddenly shy buddy, of maine coon provenance, and he approved its destruction, seeing his arching, asiatic columns as bits of performance art that already were passé.

using the forensic skills that only advanced students of french literature (and its intertwined, inbred complications known as critics) are able to focus upon the disparate remnants of avant garde cat art, i determined that dobby, the edgiest of this feline force, had dabbled with such success in a retrospective homage to trompe-l'oeil that it will be only by chance that we discern his gastric artiface from our hooman accoutrements and clutter.

so i am back in the putrid brown bed.  i confess that it helps my body relax, that joints previously screaming at an annoying level are now making only the occasional habitual moue.

but this room... this room.  a disaster.  i offer proof:

© 2013 L. Ryan

My First Use of Obamacare: Two Thumbs Up

Dear President Obama:

I thought you might like to know how my first use of "Obamacare" coverage, obtained through HealthCare.gov, went, and whether it was, in general, a thumbs up or down situation.

Two thumbs way up, sir!

I saw one of my new doctors on Tuesday. Due to electronic transmission of records, my daunting list of 20 medications preceded my arrival, so figuring out which ones required immediate renewal was easy.  I needed x-rays of my decrepit bones and got them, immediately - while  my prescriptions were filled.

I mentioned to the doctor that my former internist wanted me to have a hospital bed, with a trapeze (I've always wanted to be one of the "flying Wallendas"!).  I try to follow the Rule of Threes when I see a doctor and only mention 3 concerns or needs.  More than that can be overwhelming.  So, though I mentioned the bed and trapeze, I was not sure he even heard me.

Guess what is arriving at my home this afternoon? That's right!  A hospital bed with trapeze. Two days after mentioning the need in passing, almost under my breath, and voilà.

While writing this letter to you, I got a phone call, scheduling my first appointment with a pain management doctor in March.

I was treated courteously and professionally at every turn.  There were no flashing lights over my head announcing "Obamacare recipient, receiving tax credit assistance with her premium, despite enough medical problems to bankrupt the entire nation." None of that!

I filled 5 prescriptions for $75. I paid a $30 co-pay to see the doctor.  There will be a rental fee for the bed/trapeze, but it goes toward my reasonable deductible.

It almost feels like America again.  I don't feel like a "taker," or someone having great fun with "entitlements." I am paying my fair share, and struggle to live within my means.  I am a "permanently and totally disabled" French prof, who gladly would give up hospital bed and wheelchair to stand in a classroom again, sharing, helping, guiding, working.

This was certainly not how I envisioned things turning out.

It's my birthday tomorrow and this is my first "thank you" note: for the gift of "Obamacare" and the ACA, for the gift of people who listen and hear, for the many people who make a tough life tolerable.

Anyway, that's how my first use of my new coverage worked out.

Excellent work, Mr. President, and thank you.

© 2013 L. Ryan

this is true and that is true and these things are true, and yet.

i've been writing a lot, just not down.  hoping that as one word, line, thought goes, it will consider coming back when called, when searched for.  it matters less and less, which is satisfying.

still sleeping in spurts, the happiest being of ninety minutes.  i woke early this morning as my earbud played to a snoozy brain and ben harper singing "like a king."

i did not make that up.  it took me almost to the end of the song to piece together what day it was, and why it mattered to wake up to ben harper singing "like a king."

"Like A King" (1993)

Well Martin's dream
Has become Rodney's worst
Nightmare
Can't walk the streets
To them we are fair game
Our lives don't mean a thing

Like a king, like a king, like a king
Rodney King, Rodney King, Rodney King
Like a king, like a king, like a king
How I wish you could help us Dr. King

Make sure it's filmed
Shown on national T.V.
They'll have no mercy
A legal lynch mob
Like the days strung up from the tree
The L.A.P.D.

Like a king, like a king, like a king
Rodney King, Rodney King, Rodney King
Like a king, like a king, like a king
How I wish you could help us Dr. King

So if you catch yourself
Thinking it has changed for the best
You better second guess
Cause Martin's dream
Has become Rodney's worst
Nightmare

Like a king, like a king, like a king
Rodney King, Rodney King, Rodney King
Like a king, like a king, like a king
How I wish you could help us Dr. King

hours later, going through emails, missing the ones i did not get, i stopped for today's offering from the academy of american poets "poem-a-day" electronic gift box.  it was langston hughes' "Let America Be America Again." i did not waste a precious moment wishing some tea party enthusiast would read it, sit with it, be with it for a few minutes.  well, apparently i wasted a fleeting minute or two.  a lovely thing, this poem, an example of a poet's sight and essential fairness. this is true and that is true and these things are true, and yet.

this is true and that is true and these things are true, and yet.

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

 

Let America be America again. 

Let it be the dream it used to be. 

Let it be the pioneer on the plain 

Seeking a home where he himself is free. 

 

(America never was America to me.) 

 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- 

Let it be that great strong land of love 

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme 

That any man be crushed by one above. 

 

(It never was America to me.) 

 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty 

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, 

But opportunity is real, and life is free, 

Equality is in the air we breathe. 

 

(There's never been equality for me, 

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") 

 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 

 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, 

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. 

I am the red man driven from the land, 

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- 

And finding only the same old stupid plan 

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. 

 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, 

Tangled in that ancient endless chain 

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! 

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! 

Of work the men! Of take the pay! 

Of owning everything for one's own greed! 

 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 

I am the worker sold to the machine. 

I am the Negro, servant to you all. 

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- 

Hungry yet today despite the dream. 

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! 

I am the man who never got ahead, 

The poorest worker bartered through the years. 

 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream 

In the Old World while still a serf of kings, 

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, 

That even yet its mighty daring sings 

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned 

That's made America the land it has become. 

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas 

In search of what I meant to be my home-- 

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, 

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, 

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came 

To build a "homeland of the free." 

 

The free? 

 

Who said the free? Not me? 

Surely not me? The millions on relief today? 

The millions shot down when we strike? 

The millions who have nothing for our pay? 

For all the dreams we've dreamed 

And all the songs we've sung 

And all the hopes we've held 

And all the flags we've hung, 

The millions who have nothing for our pay-- 

Except the dream that's almost dead today. 

 

O, let America be America again-- 

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free. 

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America, 

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, 

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, 

Must bring back our mighty dream again. 

 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- 

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, 

We must take back our land again, 

America! 

 

O, yes, 

I say it plain, 

America never was America to me, 

And yet I swear this oath-- 

America will be! 

 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, 

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, 

We, the people, must redeem 

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. 

The mountains and the endless plain-- 

All, all the stretch of these great green states-- 

And make America again!

this is true and that is true and these things are true, and yet.

then i wandered a bit, following the "if you liked that, then here, you might like this" coquetterie.  i landed on another poem: "The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems" by yusef komunyakaa.  that was nice, but what was nicer was the next "come hither," an NPR interview with derek walcott on the matter of a president who reads poetry. 

he makes my point quite well, i think. for those of you confused as to what my point might be, this is true and that is true and these things are true, and yet.

from the transcript of that interview, available in its entirely HERE:

Walcott says it's good for people in power to read poetry because human beings are complex and contradictory, and poetry can capture that. Like in Langston Hughes' poem "Theme for English B" when the black student writes to his white teacher, "Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. / Nor do I often want to be a part of you. / But we are, that's true!" Or in Walt Whitman's line, "I am large -- I contain multitudes." 

Walcott likes the idea of a president who reads poetry and thinks about this kind of human truth. Someone who can see beyond the act of political posturing. 

"There's a deeper truth in the contradictions that exist in poetry than there is in foreign policy. Foreign policy changes with generations. One generation you're the enemy of Japan, the next you're the friend of Germany and so it's never stable. Who are our enemies and when are they our enemies? You can't deal with those lies, there's a deeper truth in there." 

For Walcott, politics and poetry are a natural pair. He wrote his latest poem for Obama. The title, "Forty Acres," refers to the "forty acres and a mule" offered to slaves after emancipation. That offer was revoked. And the phrase came to represent a broken promise of equality. 

"The way I knew [the poem] was going to perhaps finish itself was finding the rhyme which sometimes happens in a poem, like crowd and plowed. Once that happened, I saw the furrow that the plow had made. Same thing as if say a limousine were going through a crowd it would make a furrow of a kind and the turnover of the dirt would be the separation of people before the president's car, which of course becomes a plow, so the idea of the design of the whole endeavor of the plowing becomes the endeavor of shaping the flag, with all the states, confederate and union together, led by this plowman who is the young president." 

Walcott draws on the history of slavery in his poem for Obama. But, he says Americans shouldn't make a big deal of the fact that they elected their first black president. 

"What is there to celebrate to say that he's black and he's a president. The celebration is a contradiction of the belief. The statement is all men are created equal, but when they become president, you say 'Oh, we've got a black president.' How can they be equal if that's the case?" 

He says they should focus on the kind of person Obama is, and celebrate that their next president is courteous, dignified and he reads poetry.