some days, i swear, i don’t even know why i read the news.

first off, this idjit decides to say something as inflammatory as:

“If you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,”

Now you can think whatever you like about the connections between crime and race. But as a politician and someone with a microphone in front of you, you cannot say it.

Not only has he refused to apologise, for his remarks, but he has also attempted to defend tham, by saying it was a “hypothesis” and that his record proves he’s not racist. Both of which are immaterial. What he *said* was categorically racist because it drew upon stereotypical presumptions about black people.

People have argued that in fact, aborting all black babies *would* bring down crime – as would aborting all white babies. All of which may be true – but that’s not what he *said*.

His comments reflect an underlying prejudice. A not-so-Freudian slip. What’s more disturbing than the idea that these views are held b the people in government (not in and of itself, all that shocking), is the notion that when they say something which can clearly be construed as hurtful, even damaging – that they see no need to bear any responsibility for that. He said something which hints at endorsing genocide, and will not apologise. I find that shamefully repugnant.

In other ridiculous news, florida has enacted a “shoot first” policy.

Previously, gun owners could only use their weapons if they first attempted to withdraw and avoid a confrontation, and were permitted to shoot threatening individuals only inside their home or property.

Now they can use “deadly force” if they “reasonably believe” that firing their gun is necessary to prevent a crime or serious injury. The law also effectively prevents civil legal action by victims of such shootings.

The gun-control lobby is hitting back where it hurts: the pocketbook. It is taking out a series of adverts warning Britons that their lives may be endangered if they visit florida. I think this is a brilliant tactic, and one which has worked before, as demonstrated by tourism boycotts of arizona and south carolina (over the mlk holiday and confederate flag, respectively). when common sense has taken a back seat to vigilanteeism, perhaps a monetary incentive will make more of an impact.

the lawmakers have taken leave of their senses, quite clearly. or perhaps they’re planning to save money by doing away with the police (who, last I checked, were still responsible for public safety). i can see no other logic to it.

but hey, i’m from massachusetts, so what do I know?

and then there’s the whole “intelligent design” controversy, which to be honest, I can’t even dignify with blog space.

thanks god it’s the weekend and I can stop thinking about shit which makes my blood pressure skyrocket.

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most people don’t know that i have a huge soft spot in my heart for folk music. real acoustic hippie-dippy stuff. my dad raised me on storyteller guitar melodies. i was weaned on peter, paul and mary, and spoon-fed joan baez. as a kid, I would borrow judy collins records from the public library. i knew pete seeger songs before I knew the alphabet.

it’s a strange sort of sonic thread running through my life. joni mitchell, bob dylan, and simon and garfunkle pop up in the unlikeliest places. there have been many points in my life when I’ve been estranged from my father, but even when my dad and i aren’t speaking, it’s a way I feel close to him. and sometimes there’s just nothing else to put you right but a good guitar and a clear strong voice with a lyric hook under your solar plexus.

So the past two nights, J and I have been watching “no direction home”, scorsese’s movie about bob dylan’s early years. a fascinating look at how he became a political figure against his will, and was then crucified for failing to live up to everyone else’s expectations. he was held up, then chopped down simply for making the music he wanted to make. he’s been called a poet, a prophet, a singer/wongwriter, and a sellout.

i haven’t owned any dylan for a while. I used to have a lot of stuff on tape, but they all got lost in travels along the way, and I never got around to replacing them on cd. and while watching this documentary i was lamenting the fact that i’ve never had a chance to see him play. i mean, dylan is an icon – one of those rare figures you’ll tell your grandchildren about. he played at the march on washington, he introduced the beatles to marijuana, he’s played for the pope, been nominated for the nobel prize five times, and won an oscar. love him or hate him, he’s a force to be reckoned with.

and today, j surprised me with tickets to go see him in manchester.

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Yes, as my niece’s name is piper lilian, we have taken to calling her p.lilly. because you could do worse than nicknaming a baby after a billionaire rap mogul.

since buying our rtw tix, I have spent the past 24 hours comparing and contrasting no fewer than 53 types of rucksacks. I even made a spreadsheet. seriously. how sad is that?

perhaps I’ll start a cheesy ticker for that! 26 weeks and counting…

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They’re booked! After all the saving and discussing and dreaming, we have bit the proverbial bullet and booked our tickets.

We leave on 15th April for 6 months! Our itinerary:

London to Beijing. We spend 4 weeks in China, and fly out of Hong Kong to Bangkok. We spend 8 weeks in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. Fly out of Bangkok to Singapore – spend 3 days there. Fly Singapore to Sydney – 1 week in Oz. Fly Sydney to Fiji – 2 weeks in Fiji. Fiji to Auckland – spend 2 weeks meandering down the north and south island in New Zealand, fly out of Christchurch. Christchurch to Santiago Chile – 2 weeks travelling overland through the mountains to Lima, Peru then spending 3 weeks in Lima. Fly Lima to San Jose, Costa Rica – 2 weeks of beach and rainforest in Costa Rica. San Jose to London (via short stopover in Miami).

I can’t believe we’re really going to do it! Oh my god.

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T minus 10 days to the end of the regular season, which we end, fiitingly enough in a three game series against the skankees.

The sox, having held the lead in the AL east for the majority of the season, have hit an ill timed slump whilst the yankess have been on a ten game tear.

So the season will very likely be decided in dramatic showdown fashion. high noon at the ok corral.

does it get any better than this?

Here’s some sox blogs you may enjoy:

the joy of sox

boston dirt dogs

nesn’s eric wilbur

and finally –
3,079 Miles to Fenway, 3,448 miles to Yankee Stadium :The ongoing saga of a Red Sox fan from Edinburgh but living in the Big Apple and a Yankee fan from Portsmouth who has yet to grace the good ole US of A

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Maria Full of Grace – about a young woman from Colombia who ends up becoming a drug mule. Good, sad with a slightly predictable ending, but overall I’d say 7/10. Plus, an opportunity to brush upon my spanish.

The Woodsman – Can I just say, whatever horrendous movies Kevin Bacon has been in, he redeems himself here. An incredibly brave performance as a paedophile – he actually makes you empathise, not with the child molestation aspect, but as someone who wants to be able to control/understand his urges, but is tormented by the fact that he can’t. Not for the faint of heart. I’d say 8/10.

Spanglish – Adam Sandler in another semi-serious/quirky role. A Mexican woman becomes a maid for an upscale family, and despite not being able to speak English, finds a soulmate in the husband (Sandler). This was a wierd one. I felt like some of the dialogue was really very good, and the acting was pretty decent. I wanted to like it more than I did. I think Tea Leoni (the wife) throws the film off a bit. It’s by James L. Brooks who did “As Good as it Gets” and “Jerry Maguire” Overall… 6/10.

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J’s parents announced via email today that they’re arriving Saturday morning and staying til Wednesday.

oh, did I mention they’re coming from south africa?!?! Geez, it’s a good thing we weren’t planning to have our swinger friends over this weekend!

(and on the miniscule chance you’re actually reading this mum, the above was a joke!)

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Classic Weight watcher recipe cards, circa 1974
“Fluffy Mackerel Pudding.

One day, that all changed. And then, whoever was responsible somehow thought the word fluffy would help.”

From ironhymen.com : Boys’ private parts: 10 things every girl should know
” While almost all American boys have human-looking privates, most foreign boys have privates like German Shepherds or half-open tubes of Max Factor lipstick.”

from japan: smoking etiquette
“before passing gas I look behind me. but i don’t bother when i’m smoking”

Spontaneous combustion: another reason polyester is the devil’s fabric

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Summer is well and truly over here, which makes me more than a little sad. Two weeks ago I was wearing shorts and sandals, and now I am wearing cords and a turtleneck. It happens just that quickly here. The duvet is back on the bed, the space heater is at the ready.

I suppose i hate it so because it always happens without warning. in new england, you have several weeks of gradually cooling temperatures to get you used to the idea that the tan is going to be fading, and the flip flops are going to be put away. The leaves start changing, and the air gets crisp in the mornings. Kids start going back to school, apples are back in season, and the sailboats come out of the water. By Halloween you need a warm jacket over your costume.

But here, nothing seems to change. There are no turning leaves, no cider donuts and pumpkins. Nothing gets brisk – it just gets wet and cold and extremely windy. You don’t smell neighbours burning their rake piles, or lighting their woodburning stoves. There’s no real Halloween to speak of, so no candy corn or jack o’ lanterns.

I miss walks on the beach and spooky decorated houses and yellow school buses. I miss hot spiced cider and little trick-or-treaters and fall foliage and foggy mornings. I miss pumpkin bread and picking apples and that funny-coloured maize you hang on your door and frost on the grass and the smell of smoke in the air. I miss bracing hikes and acorns crunching underfoot and l.l. bean sweaters.

I miss fall. not autumn. i miss good ol’ new england fall.

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read this

The poverty rate, 12.7 percent, is … the highest in the developed world and more than twice as high as in most other industrialized countries, which all strike a more generous social contract with their weakest citizens. Even if the real number is lower than 37 million, that’s a nation of poor people the size of Canada or Morocco living inside the United States.

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Okay, I’ve been trying to get away from the Katrina stuff because I just don’t have the stomach for it any more (and I’ve been arguing it to death with a bunch of pro-Bushies on the American expats board). But here’s a political cartoon that’s been making the rounds – if you haven’t already heard/seen the interview given by Aaron Broussard, the Jefferson Parish President, the ending might be a little tough to take.

But here it is anyway.

In other stomach-churning news, fema is trying to keep images of dead bodies out of the media. Contrary to their statements, I don’t think they’re trying to protect anyone’s sensibilities, or dignity.

I *MIGHT* have believed that before they tried to ban the pictures of soldiers coffins.

But the truth is, u.s. media almost never show images of dead americans anyway. one of the few exceptions to that was 9/11. Then, it was okay.

So really, as someone recently put it, *the truth* is that “they don’t want dead bodies shown because carnage makes people angry, and angry people demand change.”

I’ve still got bile at the back of my throat, so here’s a spew:

jon stewart’s take on the katrina debacle
– god, i love that man.

a student speaks out – and gets arrested

someone actually says it: “go fuck yourself, mr. cheney”

barbara bush says “it’s working out well” for the poor evacuees

tom delay thinks being an evacuee is “kinda fun”

this cartoon captures it perfectly

and finally, a chilling account of why the unthinkable is no longer

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well my sis and her husband have not gotten their act together yet, so all i have is the hospital photos, but here she is throwin’ gang signs (she lives in massachusetts, but is apparently a west coast rapper…)

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Well, if I don’t start laughing, I’ll never stop crying at this point. I’ve vented my spleen, I’ve had sleepless nights, I’ve been sickened and saddened to a degree I wasn’t aware was possible. I’ve raged against the machine to the best of my ability.

And so, faithful reader, I bring you an interlude of light relief:

the texas chainsaw massacre (as re-enacted in 30 seconds by cartoon bunnies)

funny?er, no. seriously deluded? yessiree bob. britney’s contribution to the hurricane relief: filming her birth for the katrina victims.

English as she is spoke: This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I’m sure you’ll agree, are staggering.

“One eyed was laied against a man which had good eyes that he saw better than him. “I had gain, over said the one eyed; why I see you two eyes, and you not look me who one.”

ha. ha. ha.

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whoa. Louisiana state senator accuses bush of faking levee repairs for a photo op

this goes beyond incompetence. this is criminal.

there are very few people i truly hate. but this president has, in the 5 years he’s been in office, taken me from white-hot fury to the depths of despair more times than i can count now. i have long since run out of words to describe the intensity of emotion i feel at the way my country, my countrymen have been run into the ground. i have tried numerous times, to adequately depict my loathing and utter contempt and rampant anger at the sins he has committed against other countries and their people. i have always come up short.

but the failure is one of language. there simply is no vocabulary yet invented which encompasses the breadth of what I feel. if there were a word which meant “more than irate hatred and bilious disgust” that would be what i would say. and i would say it ceaselessly, unendingly, until he died. then i would dance on his grave with joy.

hundreds, if not thousands, of americans died like stray dogs in the street. babies died from lack of water. people were left to rot nameless and unclothed in gutters of waste.

because of *him*. he had the personal power to save them. he’s finally decided to rescue the last survivors in a great show of bravado. like magic, troops and food and water and boats and helicopters have appeared en masse.

i wonder how i would feel if my survival came down to praying to george w. bush for help?

i hold him personally responsible for every single one of those deaths. every baby that died of dehydration. every man woman and child who died hoping the president would save them.

there’s a word for people without a conscience: sociopath. i would ask bush how he sleeps at night knowing those americans died on his doorstep, on his watch, on his say-so… but I already know he couldn’t care less.

may you rot eternally in hell, you evil mutherfucker.

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The Laws of Physics

You defy gravity
The inexorable pull of the world’s spinning
Has not yet creased your brow or
Settled its weight into your malleable bones
The earth spins on today
And leaves you unfettered

Asleep at the nuzzled breast
Peace smoothes your light cheek
Whispers formless dreams
In your shell ear
Bliss and milk
Wash away an easy tear
Beneath your wet lashes
a mist of knowing smile
swirls the corners of your mouth
You’re laughing at me
With your sly fearlessness

Fingertips precociously toying with air
Space and time stretch endless between them
Blushless toes dance an airy abandon
In time to a chorus of fluttering leaves
Pink oh! lips proclaim your arrival
The wind’s silent native tongue
Disguised as a soursoft yawn

Evening stars will fall
Your darkness holds no meaning
The sun will come again
You have no sadness at the daylight’s passing,
No quiet heartaches for unnamed longings
Restless yearning for the nebulous undefined
Fear to once again lay your desires bare to the jagged rocks
Of mundane disappointments and sharp shattered possibilities
You will feed your brave hopes every morning
And mourn their death on your pillow
But not tonight

Night stars will fall
A spangled curtain to signify the next act
The sun will come again
And there is no weariness in seeing it
Your shiny bouncing new sun.

The veil of memory dissolves like an early morning fog
And you will forget you once knew all this
You will become earthbound, a mortal subject to the laws of physics
Rain and granite and grass will claim you as their own treasure
But your toes will remember the dance, when they feel the trees echo
Long after you open
Your eyes.

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new orleans mayor pleads for assistance, lashes out at what his city has been reduced to.

…they’re feeding the public a line of bull and they’re spinning, and people are dying down here

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I’ve reached my limit.

there is only so much horror and loss and desperation and fear i can absorb.

it makes me feel so helplessly panicked inside. yet i can’t ignore it the way other people can. other people can turn their heads and hearts away. they can read it or see it on the news, then simply turn off the television and go to bed. me: i see people suffering and i get that fight-or-flight response. but i have nothing to fight with, and i can’t run away. so it just sits there like an aching heavy stone in my stomach.

fury blinds me.

i’ve reached my limit, and now i’m spilling over.

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three weeks early… piper lillian was born today. 5 lbs. 12 oz., 18 inches are her stats.

my baby sis is a mother.

happy and sad and wishing, all rolled into one.

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I will share a few memories of new orleans which are making me pretty sad right about now.

I first went when I was in louisiana visiting my friend beth. i was really good friends with beth – she was a borna and bred new yorker with a natural southern twang to her. we’ve lost touch now, but she lived there and i’ve been thinking about her a lot because i know she’s probably mourning her city right now. in any case, i went to visit her in nearby lafayette, and we decided to spend the weekend in n’awlins on the spur of the moment. she rounded up some friends-of-friends of hers, and we headed off over the river. we had no reservation, but ended up at this b&b straight out of a movie, with the dripping wisteria and the veranda and courtyard. we wandered the city aimlessly and she got a tattoo of a gryffin and a crescent moon (n.o. being “the crescent city”) just because we happened to walk past. we hung out with the locals drinking all night long, at this little den off the back off a wrought iron staircase, with candles and curtains and lots of strong rum, and when it got warm we went for a 3am swim under the stars, and spent the morning watching the sun come up over the mississippi. 24 hours that are as vivid as if they were yesterday.

i was so struck by it, that when i came time to celebrate my 30th birthday, i knew where i wanted to go. my friend jo and i spent a whole week there over christmas (my birthday being the 25th, hers being the 28th) and it was amazing indulgent excess. we stuffed ourselves on muffalettas and crawfish etouffee. we hung out playing pool and drinking and getting naughty with strangers on Christmas eve. we played scrabble in little cafes and wandered through graveyards. we had our fortunes told, did ecstasy and coke, drank the best water in the world at a little electricity-less bar lit only by candlelight, and danced our asses off in a corny 80s club. we took photos and made lists and walked all over creation. we stayed in a really grim hotel, and a really nice one. we committed one felony, and several misdemeanors. we bought fuck-me boots and got our hair did. we had cafe au laits and beignets at dawn by the river.

it was gothic and vibrant and noisy and atmospheric and fragrant and hectic and lush. weighty with history. effervescent with life.

and now it’s drowned. and the sorrows of the people are mingled with the waters of the delta, tears and river as one.

it will be reborn, and rise from the depths, in accordance with its history. if there’s any city where things can be certain of coming back to life, it is new orleans. ghosts are the life and the heart of it – nothing stays buried for long there.

but until then, my poor sweet city, may you have peace

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