Someone at Weather Underground is live-blogging the current (just starting) northeast U.S. snowstorm. In the comments, among the maps and discussions of what models the National Weather Service using, user pegleg666 posted a link to a post-Sandy blog post containing the Cuban poet José Martí's description of the blizzard of 1888 and its aftermath.
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rozk has taken a break from translating Catullus, and given us "A Poem I Have Waited Thirty-One Years to Write.It begins "She has been sick so long we forget how much/We hate her still…."
The panel on "Rethinking Disabling Metaphor," on the ways that casual use of terms like "lame" or "crazy" as all-purpose dismissals of people and ideas can both be painful to some people who hear them, and create or reinforce prejudices, was good. The moderators had to remind a few people of the focus of _this_ panel, that similar uses of, say, "that's gay," were beyond the scope of what they were trying to do in 75 minutes. But some good ideas were shared; one useful thing the moderators did was point out that you can't just tell people not to use idioms or metaphors, you need to provide and use different ones. So they collected a few from other categories: for example, that an idea is half-baked or doesn't hold water.
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elisem summed a lot of this up as "before you insult someone, think of the collateral damage."
The panel I moderated, on Tyrannosaurs and F-14s, went pretty well, I think, despite one person in the front row who kept jumping in without waiting to be called, to the point that I cut him off in turn, saying "we've heard from you a lot, $name. Anyone else?" (I have already forgotten his name, not having noted it in time to save for "people I do not want to be on panels with.") One of my panelists noted afterward that the audience kept laughing, which was a good sign. We threw in lots of "I liked this even though it was bad," and Cabell suggested that one reason we were all coming up with movies and TV shows rather than books is that there are several people involved in creating those, and more ways that some parts of it can be good: the script stinks, but the cinematography is gorgeous or one of the actors really appeals to you. Someone in the audience added that a movie, for him, is a two-hour time investment, and a novel is eight or ten, so he's going to have higher standards before sticking with a novel. Also, stuff that you hit at the right time: for different people, Lost in Space, and Highlander. So does context: part of what Cabell had enjoyed about Highlander was watching it with her roommate annd mocking it together. That's less likely/common with written fiction.
After that, I went to the Haiku Earring party, leterik serve me herb tea, had some nice round brownies, and eventually picked out a pair of earrings that I figured I could write something from, though I didn't want to keep them. So:
Patchwork Magic
Magic holds the world
together, after children
tear summer's thread.
I'm not 100% happy with it, but will probably just let it sit. (I took a photo with my cell phone before putting the earrings back; once home, I may see about getting that from there to Flickr.)
And so to bed, and a decent night's sleep this time.
[Lunch withoursin, dinner with Matt, Janet, their daughter, and pennski and her husband Chris. I've been in and out of Michelangelo's for tea often enough, close enough together, to have gotten into smiles and "hello again" with at least one of the counter staff.]
ETA: Elise has posted photos of the earrings; I'm fairly sure these are the ones I was working with.
elisem summed a lot of this up as "before you insult someone, think of the collateral damage."The panel I moderated, on Tyrannosaurs and F-14s, went pretty well, I think, despite one person in the front row who kept jumping in without waiting to be called, to the point that I cut him off in turn, saying "we've heard from you a lot, $name. Anyone else?" (I have already forgotten his name, not having noted it in time to save for "people I do not want to be on panels with.") One of my panelists noted afterward that the audience kept laughing, which was a good sign. We threw in lots of "I liked this even though it was bad," and Cabell suggested that one reason we were all coming up with movies and TV shows rather than books is that there are several people involved in creating those, and more ways that some parts of it can be good: the script stinks, but the cinematography is gorgeous or one of the actors really appeals to you. Someone in the audience added that a movie, for him, is a two-hour time investment, and a novel is eight or ten, so he's going to have higher standards before sticking with a novel. Also, stuff that you hit at the right time: for different people, Lost in Space, and Highlander. So does context: part of what Cabell had enjoyed about Highlander was watching it with her roommate annd mocking it together. That's less likely/common with written fiction.
After that, I went to the Haiku Earring party, let
erik serve me herb tea, had some nice round brownies, and eventually picked out a pair of earrings that I figured I could write something from, though I didn't want to keep them. So:Patchwork Magic
Magic holds the world
together, after children
tear summer's thread.
I'm not 100% happy with it, but will probably just let it sit. (I took a photo with my cell phone before putting the earrings back; once home, I may see about getting that from there to Flickr.)
And so to bed, and a decent night's sleep this time.
[Lunch with
oursin, dinner with Matt, Janet, their daughter, and pennski and her husband Chris. I've been in and out of Michelangelo's for tea often enough, close enough together, to have gotten into smiles and "hello again" with at least one of the counter staff.]ETA: Elise has posted photos of the earrings; I'm fairly sure these are the ones I was working with.
Tags:
I didn't know Mike as well as I'd have liked, but I did get to spend time with him, either listening to him on panels or as the delightfully funny "Ask Dr. Mike," or in company with elisem.
The last few times I saw him, Mike was wearing an enamel lapel pin, with a good depiction of the human kidney. A fitting thing, for someone with a kidney transplant, but Mike thought of it and many others didn't. When Mike got the new kidney, he said that a good friend of his whom he had never met had just died. And he was still in the hospital when he got a friend to bring him a steak-and-kidney pie.
This past Wiscon,adrian_turtle and I kept Elise and Mike company for a quiet dinner in their hotel room, and then we all helped her set up for her haiku earring party: quiet and companionable, talking for a while, then slicing cheese from the Farmer's Market and assembling furniture.
I missed Mike last weekend, at the Farthing Party: not because he'd said he'd be there, but becauseelise was, and because there was an Asterisk panel, and he was part of, and part of the reason for, the first of those, a few Minicons ago.
A few Wiscons ago, I'd been working on an earring haiku. Well, it started as a haiku. The Sunday evening, L (who is not on LJ), Elise, Mike, and I had dinner. I sat across from Elise, who helped me work on what had become a prose poem, while Mike and L sat across from each other and discussed theatre. It was a remarkable blending/overlap of conversations.
Mike had the same giftpapersky does, of writing poetry that fits into a conversation. Not the only kind he wrote, or that she does: Mike also wrote about love and the ways we defy entropy, and his memorial poem 110 Stories is all over the Web.
There are friends and loved ones we expect to outlive, for whatever reasons: we're younger, they have health problems, we think ourselves immortal. But that expectation doesn't make it less of a shock, or less painful.
pegkerr pointed me at this group of photos of Mike, many with his eyebrows raised, alone and in groups. It helps.
elisem.The last few times I saw him, Mike was wearing an enamel lapel pin, with a good depiction of the human kidney. A fitting thing, for someone with a kidney transplant, but Mike thought of it and many others didn't. When Mike got the new kidney, he said that a good friend of his whom he had never met had just died. And he was still in the hospital when he got a friend to bring him a steak-and-kidney pie.
This past Wiscon,
adrian_turtle and I kept Elise and Mike company for a quiet dinner in their hotel room, and then we all helped her set up for her haiku earring party: quiet and companionable, talking for a while, then slicing cheese from the Farmer's Market and assembling furniture.I missed Mike last weekend, at the Farthing Party: not because he'd said he'd be there, but because
elise was, and because there was an Asterisk panel, and he was part of, and part of the reason for, the first of those, a few Minicons ago.A few Wiscons ago, I'd been working on an earring haiku. Well, it started as a haiku. The Sunday evening, L (who is not on LJ), Elise, Mike, and I had dinner. I sat across from Elise, who helped me work on what had become a prose poem, while Mike and L sat across from each other and discussed theatre. It was a remarkable blending/overlap of conversations.
Mike had the same gift
papersky does, of writing poetry that fits into a conversation. Not the only kind he wrote, or that she does: Mike also wrote about love and the ways we defy entropy, and his memorial poem 110 Stories is all over the Web.There are friends and loved ones we expect to outlive, for whatever reasons: we're younger, they have health problems, we think ourselves immortal. But that expectation doesn't make it less of a shock, or less painful.
pegkerr pointed me at this group of photos of Mike, many with his eyebrows raised, alone and in groups. It helps.Tags:
I didn't know Mike as well as I'd have liked, but I did get to spend time with him, either listening to him on panels or as the delightfully funny "Ask Dr. Mike," or in company with elisem.
The last few times I saw him, Mike was wearing an enamel lapel pin, with a good depiction of the human kidney. A fitting thing, for someone with a kidney transplant, but Mike thought of it and many others didn't. When Mike got the new kidney, he said that a good friend of his whom he had never met had just died. And he was still in the hospital when he got a friend to bring him a steak-and-kidney pie.
This past Wiscon,adrian_turtle and I kept Elise and Mike company for a quiet dinner in their hotel room, and then we all helped her set up for her haiku earring party: quiet and companionable, talking for a while, then slicing cheese from the Farmer's Market and assembling furniture.
I missed Mike last weekend, at the Farthing Party: not because he'd said he'd be there, but becauseelise was, and because there was an Asterisk panel, and he was part of, and part of the reason for, the first of those, a few Minicons ago.
A few Wiscons ago, I'd been working on an earring haiku. Well, it started as a haiku. The Sunday evening, L (who is not on LJ), Elise, Mike, and I had dinner. I sat across from Elise, who helped me work on what had become a prose poem, while Mike and L sat across from each other and discussed theatre. It was a remarkable blending/overlap of conversations.
Mike had the same giftpapersky does, of writing poetry that fits into a conversation. Not the only kind he wrote, or that she does: Mike also wrote about love and the ways we defy entropy, and his memorial poem 110 Stories is all over the Web.
There are friends and loved ones we expect to outlive, for whatever reasons: we're younger, they have health problems, we think ourselves immortal. But that expectation doesn't make it less of a shock, or less painful.
pegkerr pointed me at this group of photos of Mike, many with his eyebrows raised, alone and in groups. It helps.
elisem.The last few times I saw him, Mike was wearing an enamel lapel pin, with a good depiction of the human kidney. A fitting thing, for someone with a kidney transplant, but Mike thought of it and many others didn't. When Mike got the new kidney, he said that a good friend of his whom he had never met had just died. And he was still in the hospital when he got a friend to bring him a steak-and-kidney pie.
This past Wiscon,
adrian_turtle and I kept Elise and Mike company for a quiet dinner in their hotel room, and then we all helped her set up for her haiku earring party: quiet and companionable, talking for a while, then slicing cheese from the Farmer's Market and assembling furniture.I missed Mike last weekend, at the Farthing Party: not because he'd said he'd be there, but because
elise was, and because there was an Asterisk panel, and he was part of, and part of the reason for, the first of those, a few Minicons ago.A few Wiscons ago, I'd been working on an earring haiku. Well, it started as a haiku. The Sunday evening, L (who is not on LJ), Elise, Mike, and I had dinner. I sat across from Elise, who helped me work on what had become a prose poem, while Mike and L sat across from each other and discussed theatre. It was a remarkable blending/overlap of conversations.
Mike had the same gift
papersky does, of writing poetry that fits into a conversation. Not the only kind he wrote, or that she does: Mike also wrote about love and the ways we defy entropy, and his memorial poem 110 Stories is all over the Web.There are friends and loved ones we expect to outlive, for whatever reasons: we're younger, they have health problems, we think ourselves immortal. But that expectation doesn't make it less of a shock, or less painful.
pegkerr pointed me at this group of photos of Mike, many with his eyebrows raised, alone and in groups. It helps.Tags:
Having not been to the gym in about a fortnight, I discovered after I got there that I didn't have my combination lock with me. I didn't want to buy yet another, so I schlepped my pack with me, which is both less fun and something the gym doesn't really like. It would have been a minimal workout anyway, though, because I was squeezing it in after work:
( numbers, as usual )
Meanwhile, reading the subway-provided excerpt from Yeats again, I realized that it isn't actually in iambic pentameter, no matter how I try to force it. Or rather, some lines are, but not all: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" is iambs, but I cannot make "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" fit into ten syllables, and "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" is only iambic pentameter if I pronounce "widening" with the "e" silent, as "wide-ning" instead of "wide-en-ing" (which may be how Yeats would have said it). It doesn't rhyme either, but that's less startling.
Have I been confused all these years, or is this just the difference between New York dialect of today and Irish of a century ago?
Also seen on the subway: "War is Peace: Bush/Orwell 2004".
( numbers, as usual )
Meanwhile, reading the subway-provided excerpt from Yeats again, I realized that it isn't actually in iambic pentameter, no matter how I try to force it. Or rather, some lines are, but not all: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" is iambs, but I cannot make "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" fit into ten syllables, and "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" is only iambic pentameter if I pronounce "widening" with the "e" silent, as "wide-ning" instead of "wide-en-ing" (which may be how Yeats would have said it). It doesn't rhyme either, but that's less startling.
Have I been confused all these years, or is this just the difference between New York dialect of today and Irish of a century ago?
Also seen on the subway: "War is Peace: Bush/Orwell 2004".
Having not been to the gym in about a fortnight, I discovered after I got there that I didn't have my combination lock with me. I didn't want to buy yet another, so I schlepped my pack with me, which is both less fun and something the gym doesn't really like. It would have been a minimal workout anyway, though, because I was squeezing it in after work:
( numbers, as usual )
Meanwhile, reading the subway-provided excerpt from Yeats again, I realized that it isn't actually in iambic pentameter, no matter how I try to force it. Or rather, some lines are, but not all: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" is iambs, but I cannot make "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" fit into ten syllables, and "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" is only iambic pentameter if I pronounce "widening" with the "e" silent, as "wide-ning" instead of "wide-en-ing" (which may be how Yeats would have said it). It doesn't rhyme either, but that's less startling.
Have I been confused all these years, or is this just the difference between New York dialect of today and Irish of a century ago?
Also seen on the subway: "War is Peace: Bush/Orwell 2004".
( numbers, as usual )
Meanwhile, reading the subway-provided excerpt from Yeats again, I realized that it isn't actually in iambic pentameter, no matter how I try to force it. Or rather, some lines are, but not all: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" is iambs, but I cannot make "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" fit into ten syllables, and "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" is only iambic pentameter if I pronounce "widening" with the "e" silent, as "wide-ning" instead of "wide-en-ing" (which may be how Yeats would have said it). It doesn't rhyme either, but that's less startling.
Have I been confused all these years, or is this just the difference between New York dialect of today and Irish of a century ago?
Also seen on the subway: "War is Peace: Bush/Orwell 2004".
[Background: there's a long-running campaign of posting poetry, ancient through contemporary, on the subways. I think it started on the London Underground.]
On the train home today, I was out of book, so I glanced up, and saw some very familiar poetry. Eight lines of Yeats: from "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" through "and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't know if whoever chooses poems decided the Republican convention delegates could use that poem--or that the rest of us who are going to have to put up with the damned thing would be comforted, cheered, or otherwise aided by it--or if the timing is sheer coincidence, but it seems fitting somehow.
On the train home today, I was out of book, so I glanced up, and saw some very familiar poetry. Eight lines of Yeats: from "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" through "and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't know if whoever chooses poems decided the Republican convention delegates could use that poem--or that the rest of us who are going to have to put up with the damned thing would be comforted, cheered, or otherwise aided by it--or if the timing is sheer coincidence, but it seems fitting somehow.
[Background: there's a long-running campaign of posting poetry, ancient through contemporary, on the subways. I think it started on the London Underground.]
On the train home today, I was out of book, so I glanced up, and saw some very familiar poetry. Eight lines of Yeats: from "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" through "and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't know if whoever chooses poems decided the Republican convention delegates could use that poem--or that the rest of us who are going to have to put up with the damned thing would be comforted, cheered, or otherwise aided by it--or if the timing is sheer coincidence, but it seems fitting somehow.
On the train home today, I was out of book, so I glanced up, and saw some very familiar poetry. Eight lines of Yeats: from "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" through "and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't know if whoever chooses poems decided the Republican convention delegates could use that poem--or that the rest of us who are going to have to put up with the damned thing would be comforted, cheered, or otherwise aided by it--or if the timing is sheer coincidence, but it seems fitting somehow.
For some reason, I was moved to respond to one of papersky's posts in iambic pentameter, though I wouldn't call mine poetry:
Not a father's offerings, perhaps, but
an offering nonetheless. Little good
and little harm is not the worst we can
say, of parent or of chance-met stranger,
when the encounter or the years have passed.
(And yes, the last line limps; I should have stopped at four.)
Toelusis, who has just discovered a fondness for whole-milk yogurt:
I'm not exactly living on full-fat yogurt, but it's my default breakfast. With fruit if I can--if there's suitable fresh fruit in the house, or if I have time to defrost some berries--or with jam, or a bit of vanilla extract, or honey and lime juice... It's quick and easy, and I can bear to eat it half an hour after I wake up, before dashing out the door to catch a train to work.
I think there are two quarts of yogurt in the fridge right now; when I open the last one, we'll buy two more. A quart of yogurt seems to be about 3.5 breakfasts.
I may have to try the full-fat plus Greek yogurt, next time I get out to Sahadi.
Totherealjae, who linked to an interesting nostra culpa in the New York Times, admitting that they were far too credulous of Bush and neo-con claims before the attack on Iraq. Jae suggests that part of why Times reporters and editors were ready to believe such claims was that they were in New York, and traumatized by the 9/11 attacks:
It's not that simple.
A lot of us in New York saw through the claimed link between Iraq and the attacks on the World Trade Center immediately. Some of the people who opposed the war from the beginning did so because they did care about terrorism and Al-Qaeda, and didn't want to take resources away from the real problem so that Dubya could go after Saddam Hussein.
Part of the problem at the Times, I think, is that they fell for the oft-repeated lie that Bush could be trusted, and that never changing his mind on anything was a virtue. Another part, which they admit, is that dangers make for better headlines than "smoke but no fire". Also, the American right wing has the media so afraid of being called "liberal" that newspapers and television tend to report right-wing assertions uncritically and not even realize that they're presenting a biased viewpoint.
Toladysisyphus, who posted about exercise, weight, body image, and people's reactions to her:
I had someone this past weekend look at me and say "You've lost weight" in that cheerful/approving way. I smiled back and told the truth: "No I haven't, I've been turning it into muscle." I added that I don't need to lose weight, with low cholesterol and a blood pressure of 106/68.
I hang out in the weight room, all 5'3" 190 pounds of 40-year-old me. The only comments I get about my appearance are variants on "Nice tattoo!" I have no idea how typical this is, but at the gym I use, the other people in the weight room seem to assume that, because we're all in there, we're all doing compatible things.
papersky's posts in iambic pentameter, though I wouldn't call mine poetry:Not a father's offerings, perhaps, but
an offering nonetheless. Little good
and little harm is not the worst we can
say, of parent or of chance-met stranger,
when the encounter or the years have passed.
(And yes, the last line limps; I should have stopped at four.)
To
elusis, who has just discovered a fondness for whole-milk yogurt:I'm not exactly living on full-fat yogurt, but it's my default breakfast. With fruit if I can--if there's suitable fresh fruit in the house, or if I have time to defrost some berries--or with jam, or a bit of vanilla extract, or honey and lime juice... It's quick and easy, and I can bear to eat it half an hour after I wake up, before dashing out the door to catch a train to work.
I think there are two quarts of yogurt in the fridge right now; when I open the last one, we'll buy two more. A quart of yogurt seems to be about 3.5 breakfasts.
I may have to try the full-fat plus Greek yogurt, next time I get out to Sahadi.
To
therealjae, who linked to an interesting nostra culpa in the New York Times, admitting that they were far too credulous of Bush and neo-con claims before the attack on Iraq. Jae suggests that part of why Times reporters and editors were ready to believe such claims was that they were in New York, and traumatized by the 9/11 attacks:It's not that simple.
A lot of us in New York saw through the claimed link between Iraq and the attacks on the World Trade Center immediately. Some of the people who opposed the war from the beginning did so because they did care about terrorism and Al-Qaeda, and didn't want to take resources away from the real problem so that Dubya could go after Saddam Hussein.
Part of the problem at the Times, I think, is that they fell for the oft-repeated lie that Bush could be trusted, and that never changing his mind on anything was a virtue. Another part, which they admit, is that dangers make for better headlines than "smoke but no fire". Also, the American right wing has the media so afraid of being called "liberal" that newspapers and television tend to report right-wing assertions uncritically and not even realize that they're presenting a biased viewpoint.
To
ladysisyphus, who posted about exercise, weight, body image, and people's reactions to her:I had someone this past weekend look at me and say "You've lost weight" in that cheerful/approving way. I smiled back and told the truth: "No I haven't, I've been turning it into muscle." I added that I don't need to lose weight, with low cholesterol and a blood pressure of 106/68.
I hang out in the weight room, all 5'3" 190 pounds of 40-year-old me. The only comments I get about my appearance are variants on "Nice tattoo!" I have no idea how typical this is, but at the gym I use, the other people in the weight room seem to assume that, because we're all in there, we're all doing compatible things.
For some reason, I was moved to respond to one of papersky's posts in iambic pentameter, though I wouldn't call mine poetry:
Not a father's offerings, perhaps, but
an offering nonetheless. Little good
and little harm is not the worst we can
say, of parent or of chance-met stranger,
when the encounter or the years have passed.
(And yes, the last line limps; I should have stopped at four.)
Toelusis, who has just discovered a fondness for whole-milk yogurt:
I'm not exactly living on full-fat yogurt, but it's my default breakfast. With fruit if I can--if there's suitable fresh fruit in the house, or if I have time to defrost some berries--or with jam, or a bit of vanilla extract, or honey and lime juice... It's quick and easy, and I can bear to eat it half an hour after I wake up, before dashing out the door to catch a train to work.
I think there are two quarts of yogurt in the fridge right now; when I open the last one, we'll buy two more. A quart of yogurt seems to be about 3.5 breakfasts.
I may have to try the full-fat plus Greek yogurt, next time I get out to Sahadi.
Totherealjae, who linked to an interesting nostra culpa in the New York Times, admitting that they were far too credulous of Bush and neo-con claims before the attack on Iraq. Jae suggests that part of why Times reporters and editors were ready to believe such claims was that they were in New York, and traumatized by the 9/11 attacks:
It's not that simple.
A lot of us in New York saw through the claimed link between Iraq and the attacks on the World Trade Center immediately. Some of the people who opposed the war from the beginning did so because they did care about terrorism and Al-Qaeda, and didn't want to take resources away from the real problem so that Dubya could go after Saddam Hussein.
Part of the problem at the Times, I think, is that they fell for the oft-repeated lie that Bush could be trusted, and that never changing his mind on anything was a virtue. Another part, which they admit, is that dangers make for better headlines than "smoke but no fire". Also, the American right wing has the media so afraid of being called "liberal" that newspapers and television tend to report right-wing assertions uncritically and not even realize that they're presenting a biased viewpoint.
Toladysisyphus, who posted about exercise, weight, body image, and people's reactions to her:
I had someone this past weekend look at me and say "You've lost weight" in that cheerful/approving way. I smiled back and told the truth: "No I haven't, I've been turning it into muscle." I added that I don't need to lose weight, with low cholesterol and a blood pressure of 106/68.
I hang out in the weight room, all 5'3" 190 pounds of 40-year-old me. The only comments I get about my appearance are variants on "Nice tattoo!" I have no idea how typical this is, but at the gym I use, the other people in the weight room seem to assume that, because we're all in there, we're all doing compatible things.
papersky's posts in iambic pentameter, though I wouldn't call mine poetry:Not a father's offerings, perhaps, but
an offering nonetheless. Little good
and little harm is not the worst we can
say, of parent or of chance-met stranger,
when the encounter or the years have passed.
(And yes, the last line limps; I should have stopped at four.)
To
elusis, who has just discovered a fondness for whole-milk yogurt:I'm not exactly living on full-fat yogurt, but it's my default breakfast. With fruit if I can--if there's suitable fresh fruit in the house, or if I have time to defrost some berries--or with jam, or a bit of vanilla extract, or honey and lime juice... It's quick and easy, and I can bear to eat it half an hour after I wake up, before dashing out the door to catch a train to work.
I think there are two quarts of yogurt in the fridge right now; when I open the last one, we'll buy two more. A quart of yogurt seems to be about 3.5 breakfasts.
I may have to try the full-fat plus Greek yogurt, next time I get out to Sahadi.
To
therealjae, who linked to an interesting nostra culpa in the New York Times, admitting that they were far too credulous of Bush and neo-con claims before the attack on Iraq. Jae suggests that part of why Times reporters and editors were ready to believe such claims was that they were in New York, and traumatized by the 9/11 attacks:It's not that simple.
A lot of us in New York saw through the claimed link between Iraq and the attacks on the World Trade Center immediately. Some of the people who opposed the war from the beginning did so because they did care about terrorism and Al-Qaeda, and didn't want to take resources away from the real problem so that Dubya could go after Saddam Hussein.
Part of the problem at the Times, I think, is that they fell for the oft-repeated lie that Bush could be trusted, and that never changing his mind on anything was a virtue. Another part, which they admit, is that dangers make for better headlines than "smoke but no fire". Also, the American right wing has the media so afraid of being called "liberal" that newspapers and television tend to report right-wing assertions uncritically and not even realize that they're presenting a biased viewpoint.
To
ladysisyphus, who posted about exercise, weight, body image, and people's reactions to her:I had someone this past weekend look at me and say "You've lost weight" in that cheerful/approving way. I smiled back and told the truth: "No I haven't, I've been turning it into muscle." I added that I don't need to lose weight, with low cholesterol and a blood pressure of 106/68.
I hang out in the weight room, all 5'3" 190 pounds of 40-year-old me. The only comments I get about my appearance are variants on "Nice tattoo!" I have no idea how typical this is, but at the gym I use, the other people in the weight room seem to assume that, because we're all in there, we're all doing compatible things.
elisem asked people to post their contributions to her haiku/earring not-exactly-contest to her journal. I wound up with two sets of earrings. For the second set, Twilight's Beacons (each has one large hollow bonebead, with star-shaped holes carved into it; two blue and one copper bead above, one blue below), I wasn't happy with my haiku. After thought and discussion, I wound up with this prose poem:
Twilight's Beacons
Emerging from the chaos and endless waiting of the terminal, we boarded a coach, over roads never seen before, but the birds are the same, the trees are the trees of home, and the sky on my planet is still blue, only a deep purple through the front window, above the same green world. Road names speak of other places--Harlem, Shattuck--as the twilight settles upon us.
Darkness ahead, of rain much beloved, but also feared. Lightning leaps for the clouds, leading us onward, and the sky on my world is a pale nameless not-quite-blue as the red setting sun shows me the place my people are calling home, for a little while.
Vicki Rosenzweig
Madison, 27 May 2001
elisem asked people to post their contributions to her haiku/earring not-exactly-contest to her journal. I wound up with two sets of earrings. For the second set, Twilight's Beacons (each has one large hollow bonebead, with star-shaped holes carved into it; two blue and one copper bead above, one blue below), I wasn't happy with my haiku. After thought and discussion, I wound up with this prose poem:
Twilight's Beacons
Emerging from the chaos and endless waiting of the terminal, we boarded a coach, over roads never seen before, but the birds are the same, the trees are the trees of home, and the sky on my planet is still blue, only a deep purple through the front window, above the same green world. Road names speak of other places--Harlem, Shattuck--as the twilight settles upon us.
Darkness ahead, of rain much beloved, but also feared. Lightning leaps for the clouds, leading us onward, and the sky on my world is a pale nameless not-quite-blue as the red setting sun shows me the place my people are calling home, for a little while.
Vicki Rosenzweig
Madison, 27 May 2001
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