History Lesson

[Recycled from 1:01PM, 2 February 2005]

I am teaching a history class this term at WVCS. A small class, but that just means I'll be able to tailor it to the needs and interests of the students.

We spent a large part of our first session walking around the block that holds the building where class is meeting, looking at patches in the sidewalk and bricked-up windows in buildings, seeing how much of the buildings' history we could divine from the clues left behind.

Oh, and about those students' needs? They're pretty substantial. None of them could identify the reference when we came upon a graffito that read "Big Brother is Watching You".

But, we'll work on it.

[Update, 12 December 2005: The students were not the most receptive (let alone perceptive) you could ask for, but I think we made some progress. Alas, the school will henceforth have to get along without me, and also without Kathe, whose efforts as a board member sustained the school through quite a few difficult years.]

Revenge is a Dish Best Served By Tossing It Out The Window

[Recycled from 7:56PM, 22 January 2005]

I received the following e-mail because I attend the Corvallis Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of the Friends of Christ, and Friends are invited to "season" it, which is Quaker jargon for thinking it over, talking it over, &c.

So, do any of you have any seasonings you'd like to stir into the pot?

renee@thestringhams.com

Dear Friends,

On 16 January 2005 Salem Friends Meeting passed the following minute on peace. We wished to send it to all WQM member meetings and have it seasoned before it is read at WQM Meeting on the Occasion of business 12 February 2005. It is our intention to invite minutes on Peace for North Pacific Yearly Meeting to consider in July 2005.



The Salem Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends feels called to speak out concerning the escalation of war and revenge. For more than 350 years, Quakers have affirmed that there is always a peaceful alternative to violence. In light of our faith, and particularly because we live in today’s world filled with weapons that threaten all life on earth, we declare our reliance on God’s love and will. We testify to people everywhere that we want no one to be harmed or threatened by violence, for any reason whatsoever.

We believe that the root causes of conflicts must be understood and addressed. We must strive to ensure that our actions are neither stimulated by violent rhetoric nor motivated by desires for revenge or domination. We search out and heal the seeds of war within ourselves as well as within our local, national and international communities. As individuals and as a Society, we must learn, support, and use reconciliation, conflict resolution, and love to communicate in all disputes. We recognize that equity and justice are necessary for providing stable and safe environments.

The United Nations has declared this to be the Decade for Building a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. We, the Salem Friends Meeting, are committed to a sustainable and peaceful future for all children around the world.



Please season this with your Meetings before WQM if possible, and if you have comments, feel free to share them with us.

Sincerely,
Renee Stringham, clerk
Salem Friends Meeting

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Don't look at me, it's your problem."\\

Welcome to the New American Century

[Recycled from 11:03AM, 28 January 2005]

The sun was bright and the sky was clear as I climbed the lookout tower this morning. I intended to post a message rigtht away, but first I fiddled around with my e-mail, and then darned a couple of socks while listening to the Books on Tape edition of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin. Eventually I opened an e-mail from Act For Change and found something I really ought to blog about.

Back when I first heard of the Project for a New American Century, I was skeptical. True, they called for trumping up an invasion of Iraq on whatever flimsy premise was available, and true, the group included people who are now pulling levers behind the curtain, but that didn't necessarily mean that the Project's wider goals of war in a dozen nations and global hegemony were going to be Bush administration policy.

But then Act For Change passed the word to me about Seymour Hersch's article in the New Yorker.

Oh, crumb. It's all true.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "My sources indicate yes".\\

Oh, Why Not?

I got one of those e-mails recently. You know, this kind:

> This one is a little different than the traditional ones.
>
> Welcome to the Summer 2005 edition of getting to know your friends. What you
> are supposed to do is copy this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail
> that you'll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send
> this to a whole bunch of people including the person who sent it to you. The
> theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends and
> family, if you did not know them already.
>
> Don't forget to send it back to me!!!
>
>
>
1. First name: John
2. Were you named after anyone? My grandfather, who chose the name "John" because he didn't like having a last name for a first name.
3. Do you wish on stars? Yes
4. When did you last cry? Last week. I've been having a hard year.
5. Do you like your handwriting? Works for me
6. What is your favorite lunch meat? Black Forest ham
7. What is your birth date? 10 August 1960
8. What is your most embarrassing CD? Most embarrassing is the extreme paucity of CDs -- we're still into audiocassettes
9. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with yourself? Hell, yes -- that guy gives really good backrubs.
10. Are you a daredevil? I'd like to think I'm more of a Howard the Duck
11. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? Yes. Shouldn't have, but I did
12. Do looks matter? Yes
13. How do you release anger? Fantasize revenge until I start to feel disgusted with myself
14. Where is your second home? Here in front of the computer
15. Do you trust others too easily? Dubious
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? Major Matt Mason
17. What class in high school do you think was totally useless? High school is useless
18. Do you have a journal? Yes. And how long has it been since I wrote in it . . . ?
19. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Certainly not. How could you even ask such a thing?
20. Favorite movie(s)? 2001: A Space Odyssey
21. What are your (acceptable) nicknames? That information is need-to-know
22. Would you bungee jump? Sure, why not?
23. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? They don't come off otherwise
24. Do you think that you are strong? Yep
25. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Dacquiri Ice
26. What size shoe do you wear? 10 1/2
27. What are your favorite colors? blue
28. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? Forgetfulness
29. Who do you miss most? Becca
30. Do you want everyone you send this to send it back? Gee, that would be cool
31. What color pants are you wearing? I'm in my bathrobe, wearing white thermal longies which I'm in the process of decorating with rainbow-colored yarn so they'll go with my famous much-mended shirt.
32. What are you listening to right now? The Mysterious Traveller, an old radio show, downloaded from themonsterclub.com
33. What was the last thing you ate? A slice of sweet potato pie.
34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Salmon
35. What is the weather like right now? Raining something awful
36. Last person you talked to on the phone? My grandmother, who stayed home from the Thanksgiving gathering because she had a cold
37. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? That information is also need-to-know
38. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes. Make of that what you will.
39. Favorite drink? Cafe mocha
40. Favorite sport? Middle-school soccer
41. Hair Color? Brown, but in my heart it's still red
42. Eye Color? Blue
43. Do you wear contacts? Only one
44. Favorite Food? Mexi-Snax hot tortilla chips
45. Last Movie You Watched? The Forgotten
46. Favorite Day of the Year? Christmas, if I have it off.
47. Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. I am accused of liking horror movies, but the truth is I just like monsters, and it would be all the same to me if the monster was working in a hardware store.
48. Summer or winter? Summer.
49. Hugs or kisses? Food or oxygen?
50. Favorite dessert? Vanilla ice cream and Oreos
51. Most likely to respond? Peni R. Griffin will probably post a comment on my blog, but probably won't fill out the whole questionnaire
52. Least likely to respond? My dear friend Bella, who has sadly dropped out of sight.
53. Where do you want to go on your next vacation? Wherever the family is gathering for their next reunion, probably southern California
54. What books are you reading? Haber's Medical Dictionary -- it's swell
55. What's on your mouse pad? Blueness
56. What did you watch on TV last night? Some of the Firefly marathon on the SciFi Channel. I'm hoping ot watch more of it with Kathe later
57. Favorite smells? I have a feeble sense of smell.
58. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles
59. What's the furthest you've been away from home? Virginia, when I was in the Navy
60. What do you have more of, pocket books or shoes? Shoes.
Who writes these things, anyway?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Um, did you want me to answer those?"\\

Dear Bill O'Reilly

I am deeply offended by your suggestion, facetious though I'm sure it was, that al Qaeda bomb the American city of San Francisco. I think you should apologize for saying that.

Is that enough to get on your enemies list, or do I have to get nasty?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Be direct".\\

Tokyo Rose and Other Unpersons

Eric of isthatlegal.org asked readers of his blog for a title for his book about bureaucratic efforts to judge the loyalty of Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War. He received many suggestions, some serious and other not-so.
I suggested
Black Dragons (referring to the wholly imaginary secret society of Japanese Americans devoted to serving Tojo) and
Tokyo Rose and the Black Dragons
(it sounds like an adventure story, but after a moment you remember that both the arch-traitress Tokyo Rose and the sinister Black Dragon Society were fictions).

//Thge Magic 8-Ball says, "No-one will care".\\

That's Enough

I remember vaguely a cartoon which went something like this: it showed a stereotypical Old West saloon in which most of the cowpokes, dudes, fancy ladies, &c., are quietly drinking, ignoring the man who has another man down on the floor and is viciously beating him. One drinker says to another, "Old Joe Meek is normally a peacable sort, but you don't ever want to rape his wife, beat on his kids, burn down his house and rustle his cattle all on the same day."

My message to Congress for today is, "You don't, you really, truly don't, want to pass a budget that hurts working people, benefits only the rich, and raises the Federal deficit even higher."

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Not all on the same day."\\

The Latest From Flotsam

Kathe's son Jake sends this:

Forget the Intelligent Design/evolution debate - there is something far
more important. For years our children have been taught physics in school
as if it was fact, when in it is really just a bunch of unproven theories.
There is an alternative explanation that I think should be put forward for
the sake of balance. I refer of course to MAGIC. Think about it -
everything that can be explained by physics can be equally well explained
by magic. How do planes fly? Magic! Why do objects fall towards the earth?
Magic! What makes the sun shine? Magic!

Consider the following facts:

* magic can explain everthing that physics can

* no-one has ever disproved that the universe works by magic

* there are things that physics cannot explain (OK, I cant think of any
right now, but I am sure there are), but they can easily be explained by
magic

* magic has been around far longer than physics

I think that if you objectively consider these facts you will see that
magic is just as valid a scientific theory as physics, and should be
taught as an alternative viewpoint in schools.

As a first step in returning magic to its rightful place in the education
system, I hope you will join me in lobbying your local educators and
lawmakers to have a statement read out in physics classes stating that it
is a valid alternative to conventional scientific theory.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "I liked the kneecapping idea better."

Sometimes It's Hard

There have been times in my life when I found myself saying, "It's so hard, it's just so hard . . . it's all so hard."

This is one of them.

Working forty hours a week at one job, ten or so hours at a couple of other jobs (including my massage practice), school . . . .

Yeah, it's hard all right.

But that's okay. Hard doesn't scare me. I've done hard things before.

But I'll tell you this:

Sometimes it's hard.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "And sometimes it's very hard indeed."\\

What Kind of Peach Would Taste Good Right Now?

Zogby polls show that a majority of the American people favor impeaching George W. Bush, in spite of utter silence on the possibility from Congress and the Liberal Media.

Well, I'm up for it. How about you?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "The time is now."\\

Dear Christian Right

They're laughing at you.

They think you're stupid.

They take you for granted.

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." -- Michael Scanlon

So the question is, are you going to put these people out of your lives?

Or are you as stupid as they think you are?

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Time will tell."\\

Hi There

Between nursing school, a suddenly-busy work schedule and some unpleasant personal matters, I have been skirting close to collapse over the last week or so.

The worst of the chaos is over for now, and I'm not just feeling relieved, but really good. I've got some work hours behind me, I've salvaged a failure at school, and things are looking up generally.

I may even feel up to blogging again.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Don't go overboard."\\

It Was a Cold, Cold War

[Recycled from 23:12, 31 December 2004]

_Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Quit Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb_, should be part of every school's history curriculum. It would explain everybody over 40 to everybody under 40.

My son once heard the "Huntley-Brinkley Song" ("There's rioting in Africa . . . They're starving in Spain . . . .") on the radio. When they got to the part about how nice it is that the world would soon be blown up, he was horrified. I told him you had to be there: we really were going around saying, "The world is probably going to be destroyed -- but it looks like we deserve it."

Just count me as one more traumatized veteran of the Cold War.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You never fully recover from your childhood".\\

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks lies in state in the Capitol rotunda. I am genuinely awed. In spite of all that has gone wrong over the last fifty years (and especially the last five), at least this woman who came to represent the courage and fortitue of millions is receiving some portion of her due.

So far as I know, no-one has asked her to give up her seat to him, although I hope Trent Lott will be kept out of the rotunda, lest he mistake her casket for a seat.

//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Accentuate the positive."\\