Prepare to be Charmed!

I want to introduce you to 2 extraordinary people, Ruth Mott and Harry Dodson. By some happy accident I have been able to spend some lovely hours in their company learning from them about long lost kitchen and gardening arts while being charmed by their gentle humor and competent manner. That is the best word to use, they are charming and the TV show that features them is charming. This post will take you back in time to the grand country houses of the Victorian era in "The Victorian Kitchen Garden" and "The Victorian Kitchen".

These were made back in the late 80s for the BBC. The host was a horticultural lecturer named Peter Thoday and his love of the subject is clear in every episode. He, Ruth, and Harry love every minute of what they were doing. The Victorian Kitchen Garden was the first show and it featured Harry who wasn't Victorian but trained under those who were and we follow him as he brings a long neglected walled garden back to glorious life. The show is slow paced much like life was during those times and the work was hard and the days were long. I kept wanting to taste all the delicious produce that the garden brought forth in such abundance. No dangerous pesticides or GMO's here just wonderful foods the way nature intended. Below is the introductory episode.

In the Victorian Kitchen, a long abandoned kitchen of a manor house was allowed again to function the way it was intended and the heart of it was Ruth. She had worked in many a country manor house from the time she was 14.  At 70, she was brought in to be the head cook with one lowly scullery named Alison. I fell in love with Ruth. Her gentle manner and sharp wit make her easy to adore. She was the last of a dying breed and much irreplaceable knowledge passes with her. Ruth introduces us to the way foods were prepared for the gentry in kitchens before we had all of our fancy time saving devices. I can imagine a little better now how time-consuming this was. Breakfast, luncheon, tea, supper, dinners, and picnics, it barely seemed one meal was finished before the next meal was being worked on. The one thing I think this show lacked was a full kitchen assembly, so that we don't quite get the hustle and bustle these great kitchens invariably had at this time. Many times I found my mouth agape at what went into certain dishes, it seems incredible to modern eyes. 

Both of these shows are part gardening/cookery show and part history lesson and all enjoyment. Every time the opening music would play and the camera panned over the lovely table I feel peaceful. I don't know why but it is a bit like meditation, it allows you to slow down too and just enjoy. Unfortunately, both Harry and Ruth have passed on. Ruth just this year in July at the age of 95. She enjoyed a second career from this show including another series that branched from this called the Wartime Kitchen, a cookbook and many television appearances over the years. I was also sad to hear that the beautiful garden that Harry revived has fallen into disuse and been allowed to decay. I think that they lost a golden opportunity. Many people both amateur and professional would probably of jumped at the chance to learn under Harry's tutelage and work in this living bit of the past. It would probably also of been a tourist attraction for the whole family and during the growing season provided a thriving farmers market. The thought of it sitting and moldering alone and neglected seems just such a waste and a loss. At least we have these wonderful programs as well as "The Victorian Flower Garden" to help us recapture in some small way what has been lost. All of the episodes are available in full on youtube.

Happy Christmas!

I sure hope everyone has a wonderful day and are blessed enough to be with the ones they want to be with. Please take a moment to send thoughts to those who cannot.

It hurts so bad...

I was not sure if I wanted to talk about this but I felt I needed to. I have lived through many mass shootings. I'm ashamed to say that I have become immune to them, thus is life in modern America. These incidents always disgusted me but I went on with my life with minimal interruption. But this is different. I have been crying since Friday. I can't sleep, I feel haunted. I imagined their faces in my mind and then they released the photos and I was gutted again. Those angels were even more beautiful than in my imagination. I keep thinking that I am done with tears then I am hit with something else. The bravery of the teachers, President Obama's speech, stories of survivors, the blow by blow of these little ones deaths. It never seems to end, I can't seem to cry enough tears. I am lucky in that I am a stranger to those whose precious children were taken from them. My anguish is but a shadow of what they are going through and I can't even pretend to comprehend what these parents are suffering. I just know that there are so many like me suffering with them. People who don't cry are crying, people who don't pray are praying, people who don't pay attention are standing in solidarity with the fallen and their families.  My heart is breaking. I keep thinking how scared they must have been. How they must have presents under the tree that they will now never open. That these families will never be healed as there is a child sized hole haunting there homes. That all those little faces will never grow up to experience both the pleasures and the pain of a full life. I don't know them, I never would of known them but it doesn't stop me from feeling that the world is a poorer place now that they are no longer in it. I want to remember all of their names. The shooter can disappear but those innocents should always be forefront in our hearts and minds. There was one little boy whose sweet face has come to represent to me all that has been lost in this horror. His name is Noah and his mother's words at his funeral brought forth even more tears from me, even when I thought the well had run dry. I will let her speak for all of us...interchange the name, it is the love of a parent for a child that is now gone for no good reason. I also see in him the son that I might have had if things had been different. He is beautiful as they all were, I will miss them and hope that their parents and siblings will see them again beyond this life.

"The sky is crying, and the flags are at half-mast. It is a sad, sad day. But it is also your day, Noah, my little man. I will miss your forceful and purposeful little steps stomping through our house. I will miss your perpetual smile, the twinkle in your dark blue eyes, framed by eyelashes that would be the envy of any lady in this room.
Most of all, I will miss your visions of your future. You wanted to be a doctor, a soldier, a taco factory manager. It was your favorite food, and no doubt you wanted to ensure that the world kept producing tacos.
You were a little boy whose life force had all the gravitational pull of a celestial body. You were light and love, mischief and pranks. You adored your family with every fiber of your 6-year-old being. We are all of us elevated in our humanity by having known you. A little maverick, who didn't always want to do his schoolwork or clean up his toys, when practicing his ninja moves or Super Mario on the Wii seemed far more important.
Noah, you will not pass through this way again. I can only believe that you were planted on Earth to bloom in heaven. Take flight, my boy. Soar. You now have the wings you always wanted. Go to that peaceful valley that we will all one day come to know. I will join you someday. Not today. I still have lots of mommy love to give to Danielle, Michael, Sophia and Arielle.
Until then, your melody will linger in our hearts forever. Momma loves you, little man.

The Dust Bowl

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A few nights ago I watched another of Ken Burns excellent documentaries, The Dust Bowl (I have seen and enjoyed The Civil War and Jazz, although I must admit I declined to watch the one about baseball). This painful period of our shared history is familiar to me even though I haven’t delved too deeply into studying it, but I know enough to have some strong opinions. I love some of the movies from this period especially Shirley Temple's and Astaire/Rogers who I never tire of watching. Some of the best Jazz was born from the creative fervor that the times engendered. The fashions and the architecture were unsurpassed. But at this time, there were two Americas. One of wealth and privilege and one of soup kitchens and shanty towns and out of this economic despair and disparity rose FDR. I think that Roosevelt was our greatest president and we’ve had some amazing ones. This quote from a so-called class traitor particularly stands out, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.” Plus  his 2^nd or economic bill of rights still stands as true today as when he wrote it in its intrinsic fairness and embodies what liberals want for our country and planet. The New Deal lifted millions out of poverty and its legacy still lasts today although it is tattered and torn and the Repukes would like nothing better than to wipe it all away. They keep saying they want to take America back and that’s where they want to take it back to, the Gilded Age before Roosevelt to child labor and no regulations, long hours on the clock for pennies, your only right is to work for what they want to pay you until you die. Think of that recent tragic fire on a factory floor in India where 110 people were burned to death is to see what they really aspire to; people are just a casualty or a cost to business, instead of a partner and an asset. Right now these forces are closer than they have ever been in 60 years to this goal. The Dust Bowl highlights this, that everything old really is new again. It seems we learn nothing or maybe its willful blindness, I don’t know which is worse. But the strong helping hand of FDR is all over this documentary and if nothing else will show that government can be and should be a force for good in people’s lives.

The Dust Bowl may have seemed to be a natural disaster or the wrath of God but it was a manmade environmental catastrophe. Our hubris knows no bounds and we keep thinking that we can do what we want, where we want and there will be no consequences. The tearing up of the Great Plains for the planting of crops that were unsuitable for the environment was the cause of the dust that blew and blanketed the country all the way to New York and which consisted of the formerly rich topsoil decimated by poor farming techniques. These hardy people withstood this year in and year out. They are what is known as “next year people”, no matter how bad things got, they always hoped that NEXT YEAR would be better. What I found most interesting was the amazing stories that those who lived through it had to tell. Just like in Burn’s documentary on the Civil War and the diaries and letters of Mary Chestnut, The Dust Bowl also has a strong woman’s voice to guide us through the events from start to finish, Caroline Henderson. Her erudite testimony both hopeful and heartbreaking is fascinating. I was especially struck by the comment that follows, which is concerning how the WPA made such a difference in the lives most affected by this catastrophe, because of its prescience. 

 “If mere dollars were to be considered, the actually destitute in our section could have undoubtedly been fed or clothed more cheaply then the works projects that have been carried out. But in our national economy, manhood must be considered as well as money. People employed to do some useful work may retain their self-respect to a degree impossible under cash relief. If we must worry so over the ruinous effects of made work on people of this type why haven’t we been worrying for generations over the character of the idlers to whom some accident of birth or inheritance has given wealth unmeasured, unearned, and unappreciated.”

There were many times in the watching that I just had to shake my head, we seem to be in such the same situation now as then, except this time we don’t have Roosevelt to lead us out of the darkness. President Obama is trying but he is no liberal and is no FDR. I also was amazed at the photographs that were presented. Roosevelt put together a project headed by Roy Striker that hired a cadre of talented photographers to travel the length and breadth of America to document the suffering of her citizens. Thanks to this we have the immeasurably precious and iconic visual histories that the cameras of Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Marion Post-Walcott, John Vashon, and Dorothea Lange captured. These images are simple but haunting and could probably be recreated today with little effort. I sit in absolute awe of these artists that take such ugliness and make it beautiful and it hits you viscerally.

The show ended with how new farming techniques based on ancient practices could renew the land and make it fertile again. It almost seemed that the land responded to the wise stewardship by ending the drought and the land once again produced bumper crops. Unfortunately, as I stated in the beginning, we learned nothing from this. Big factory farms moved in and for the last 20 years have been farming the land with the same destructive techniques that caused the Dust Bowl in the first place because it costs less. The only thing tying the topsoil to the ground is the water pumped continually out in massive quantities from the Ogallala aquifer while polluting it at the same time. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/polluting-the-ogallala-aquifer.html

Once this water is gone, the Dust Bowl will return guaranteed and with the droughts the region has been going through it will be sooner rather than later. The Ogallala is also one of the main things those who oppose the Keystone Pipeline is trying to protect, the dirty oil would flow right over this irreplaceable resource on its way to Texas refineries and then on ships to markets all over the world. It is the captains of industry who decide who lives and who dies because they can; they hold all the cards and our countries wealth is forever funneled upward. The same barons seem not to realize that they inhabit the same planet as us. I finish this with the words from The Grapes of Wrath, the most famous novel from this period and it is as true now as when the words were first written. We really do seem doomed to repeat a past we refuse to learn from.

“This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".”

Forward!

Tis the end for thee, so I must bid thee goodbye Mitt Romney…

…you won’t be missed. I will be working the polls all day tomorrow for this most momentous election. I find that I am more excited for this one then I was when I did the same thing in 2008. So in the face of Obama’s pretty much assured victory, never mind what the talking heads say, I thought it wise to make my farewells now to a truly unworthy opponent.

So here’s to you Willard “Mitt” Romney, one of the most craven, corrupt, dishonest, despicable, pathetic, and  egregious excuses for man or politician I have ever been exposed to in my life.

These are some of the things I will most remember you for:

1)    Binders full of women

2)    Etch a Sketch

3)    “Corporations are people, my friend.”

4)    A VP candidate with beefcake photos

5)    Making yourself extra tan for you town hall on Telemundo

6)    Buddying up to “rape babies are a gift from God” Murdoch

7)    Fake storm Sandy relief events that were really campaign stops **wink wink nudge nudge**

8)    Blundering and blustering your way through Europe

9)    Newt Gingrich’s scathing film about you and Bain capital

10) Your extremely shy tax returns

11) Ryan washing clean pots at a soup kitchen –honestly he’s almost as bad as you. Great choice!

12) Not believing in the same thing from one day to the next and then denying you ever believed it – You have always been at war with Oceania

13) Your ability to lie so easily and with such conviction

14) Your stepping in a Benghazi cowpie

     


You may have been good for laugh at times, your robotic delivery and stilted mannerisms always were good for that, but the thought of you actually running this country brings an absolute chill to my spine. You who would privatize Social Security and Medicade to non-existence leaving once and future generations to shrift for themselves. You who does not believe in climate change. You whose first priority is to your weird religion. You who gets hard just thinking about bombing Iran no matter how many must die for your hubris. You who would disenfranchise those of a different color, women, and sexual orientation then you. You who would increase defense spending at the expense of schools and poor folk. You who would drag all the tea bag loonies and religious nuts that you have had to pander to with you to the White House. You who thinks its okay to pay no taxes while shifting the tax burden to the rest of us. You who think that 47% of Americans are useless leeches.

But in the end it is you and your ilk that are the parasites. You and the other vultures who have for the last 30 years striven to take without any thought to those you take from as long as profit is involved. You sir are a disgrace to the office of the Presidency and worse than Bush, which is something I never thought I’d say. I hope when this is over you will finally slink away back to the dark recesses to which you belong and take your repellent wife and 5 sons with you. It would be a great day to never have to lay eyes on your clipart visage again. Unless that is to see you marched away in handcuffs from all your dirty dealings coming to light. I’d watch that all day long.

When I come home tomorrow night to celebrate Obama’s victory with friends and Champagne, I will take a moment to honor your campaign and pour a flat diet cola out on the curb.

Happy Halloween!

I am a big fan of horror/scary movies. So in the spirit of my last post and because I’m still feeling Halloweenie, I thought I would share some of my all-time favorites. Even though I love zombies, devils & demons, and serial killers, I find that the movies that truly scare me as opposed to just making me jump or recoil from the gore, the ones that keep me up nights afraid to move or open my eyes, the ones that really stick with me giving me nightmares are ghost stories. For some reason, I have a visceral reaction to these types of movies and honest to god, if they are made right, they scare the shit out of me. Maybe it’s because ghosts can be anywhere, watching you, locking doors and shutting the curtains will not keep you safe. It makes you question every little temperature change or strain to identify every little squeak or bump as you lay in bed. They can only seek to harm or they could be reaching out for help or they could be little more than an echo of a long dead person whose death caused them to imprint. Regardless of what they are, the concept is frightening. I believe in ghosts and this probably adds to the terror I feel when I watch a good ghost story. Not to say I wouldn’t be willing to stay in a “haunted” hotel or do a little amateur ghost hunting, I’d actually jump at the chance, the fear is exciting. Once last summer a friend was trying to finagle us a night in the deserted and supposedly haunted Goldfield Hotel, the suspense was palpable, I wanted to so badly but unfortunately it never came to pass. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nv-goldfieldhotel.html

 

Before that, we stayed in this beautiful house in St. George Utah that was built around the turn of the last century and used to be a bed and breakfast before it became a private vacation residence. It has a stream running through the front yard and old abandoned buildings that litter the property. We were told it was haunted but alas no spirits chose to present themselves to us. It looked spooky sitting behind huge iron gates as we drove up to it but was beautiful on the inside including suitably creepy suits of armor and afforded us nothing more than a wonderful weekend. So in the end, I have never had traffic with the spirit world but I always listen to those who say they have and I must get my ghostly thrills vicariously, which means movies.

           

 I will start with some of my favorites from when I was a kid/teenager during the 70s & 80s. Honestly, thinking back, I’m shocked that I was allowed to see so many of these at such a tender age. It explains a lot. They are not all ghost stories but there is a preponderance of ghosts here.

Burnt Offerings

The Sentinel

Trilogy of Terror

The Amityville Horror

The Legend of Hell House

The Car

The Haunting – A classic and absolutely frightening.

The Changeling – I never thought a ball could be so menacing.

Ghost Story

Salem’s Lot

The Shining

Nightmare on Elm Street

Night Gallery

Poltergeist – I’ll never forget the man ripping his face off or that clown doll.

Prince of Darkness

Alien

The Fog

Not all of these have aged well but I still will watch them from time to time if only for the nostalgia. A few are just as good now as they were when I first watched them, they are horror classics.

As I got older I found it was harder for movies to deep down scare me. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy them or that when I was watching I didn’t hide my eyes or jump at the appropriate places but once the movie was done that was it, it didn’t follow me home or haunt me if you will. Some movies that stand out for me are:

The Others

The Blair Witch Project

The Ring

Stir of Echoes

Session 9

Signs

The Sixth Sense – This one actually kept me up for several nights after seeing it for the first time and gave me nightmares.

Scary movies are fun and Halloween is great for an excuse to bust out old favorites or to find some new movies that could become future favorites. I will end this post with a wish to all for happy & safe Halloween!!

A Halloween Post

This is the first Raimi movie I ever saw and it blew me away. I remember seeing it for the first time when I was still in high school. It was a dark, cold and stormy Saturday night and my brother rented it on VHS tape, telling me I'd love it. And I did, I really did, while developing a severe crush on Bruce Campbell as well. The scariest scene was when they were playing cards and the one girl started to name them from across the room only to turn around all demonified and the delicious havoc did ensue. The sequel was great too, no one can do slapstick like my Bruce. Since it is Halloween, I do like to watch my scary favorites and this is one. I must say that I was laughing at all the sly references to this classic that the newer movie The Cabin in the Woods threw out. When the 5 college kids drove up to said cabin, I piped up with "that looks just like the Evil Dead cabin", not realizing that it was kind of an homage. (Cabin in the Woods is very good by the way and if you haven't yet freeze the screen and check out the betting white board and see all the choices they have to kill our protagonists for a laugh.) There is also a big budget remake being made now that unfortunately has decided to remove one of the best things about this version and the follow ups, its sly sense of humor. They really should leave well enough alone and this movie does not need any remakes. If you like this movie series as well, check out this website that is all things evil and dead http://www.bookofthedead.ws/website/the_evil_dead_synopsis.html. The internet really is great for these kinds of things, I feel like I have found a little treasure.

Just Wanted to Share This...

It is too funny and with a good message. Plus the absolutely gorgeous eye candy does not hurt.

It has already surpassed 3 million hits and would like to see that triple, so share it!!!

Just a Thought...

Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or we are going to take your balls. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we connect your calls, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us.

—Tyler Durden, Fight Club 

 

Recordings have power. It is tanking a Presidential campaign and caused a useless celebutard to apologize for her homophobic remarks, and this is just in the last month. One was recorded by a bartender and the other by a cab driver, 2 of the faceless 99% that the wealthy and powerful do not see. They do not think we have power because we do not have money. What we do have is numbers, we are everywhere. Even farther then the quote above, we serve their drinks, we drive their cars, we clean their homes, we do their nails and cut their hair, we wait on them at restaurants and stores, we watch their children, cut their lawns and run their errands. Those who are wealthy have virtually abdicated all responsibility for the day to day care of themselves and their families to others whom they pay, usually poorly. They denigrate us or ignore us and almost all of us have phones, which have the ability to record. Just a thought.

Happy 1st anniversary OWS

I find it funny that so many armchair and “respectable” pundits alike are counting it out. They say it is over now, that for all its bluff and bluster that nothing was accomplished. All of those people who with their sweat and tears who had the bravery to stand up to the machine and say that “I will not allow you to consume me and I am worth more than the amount of money that you can squeeze from me”, walked away with their tails between their legs never to look back. I beg to differ. The fact that in 2011 the middle class shrunk again adding to the class inequality that we in our precious USA have not seen since the gilded age means that we still have far to go.  

Humans are not cars but the crooks of Wall Street treat us as such, broken down into components our monetary worth is greater. I have written before of the high cost of poverty. There are things that people who have never been poor will not understand about how the money drains through the fingers, not by shiftless thrift but by rampant preying on those least able to protect themselves. The bounced check fees, the check cashing fees, the late fees, the higher interest rates all add up. The most mundane chores of life can become stressful. Something breaking down can throw an entire household into disarray for weeks, as the cost of repair is prohibitive. Paying for all the costs of an automobile (maintenance, insurance, registration) can be a terrible burden while being a necessity. Driving is a privilege you say? If you can’t afford it take the bus. Therein lays another hidden cost of poverty, time. Some cities, I happen to live in one, is not friendly to public transportation. A 20 minute car ride can become a 2 hour adventure on the bus. What if you have to shop for groceries for a family or pick your child up from school, is the bus really a viable option then? That is why so many poor people risk driving without…and then of course there are the fees if they get caught. When you are poor you spend more time than me doing laundry, going to the Laundromat can take at least half a day. When you are poor you spend your days in line at the unemployment, social security, or food stamp offices just to get by.  Most who are poor have to work more than one job, so a week where you just work 40 hours is a pleasant dream. Plus those who want to use education to climb the ladder of opportunity graduate with a massive student loan debt that is the equivalent of indentured servitude. When you are poor, the simplest thing is a struggle; every bump in the road becomes a mountain to climb. Money is not the answer to everything but it sure does take away so many burdens. The money is squeezed out of those who can least afford it in a million different ways and funneled upward. Being middle class is not the answer any more. Basically claiming being in that class is the untapped font of wealth that can be pulled upward and it is becoming an endangered species.  We still bray wildly that “we are #1” even while we fall pathetically behind in education, social welfare, and child mortality.

That is what OWS wants to end. They envision a world where the playing field is equalized and the rules are for everyone, not one set for the rich and one for the rest of us. They have not stopped fighting; they have just ceased it from one central location, no matter if it was in New York or Oakland or anywhere in between. I read today what has happened in words far more eloquently than I can say it, but I can’t remember the direct quote or where I got it from (apologies to whoever it was and my butchering of it). They said that like a seedpod, they were pushed out of their casing so that they could spread with the wind and deposit their message in the fertile ground, and the ground is fertile. Movements do not happen overnight. The abolitionist movement took over 60 years, the suffrage movement over 80 and civil rights another 40 (although I think we are still fighting that and not just for our black citizens but for our gay ones as well). The OWS of a year ago was just the first furious blooming that was mercilessly pruned by the military and police who work for the 1%. Anyone who gardens though can tell you what happens after a pruning. Usually new growth is stronger and more vibrant than ever. The Powers that Be would be grateful for you to think that occupy has faded away, for you to become complacent again, don’t let that happen.  No matter what they say, OWS has changed the dialogue, and the PTB continue to hate it as hundreds have been arrested once again. We must always fight, no matter how small it may seem, even a shift in consciousness can mean big things. We are not as gullible as we were even 10 years ago and unlike those earlier movements cited above, OWS has one thing, one very powerful thing, that they didn’t which is the internet. There is no excuse for ignorance anymore, not with a world of knowledge at your fingertips. There are more of us then them, so never forget that, times are changing whether those at the top want it or not. We are the 99%!

The DNC Convention

I have only been really into politics since the run up to the 2004 elections. I hated GWB so bad that I wanted to not have to suffer through another 4 years with him at the helm, him of the codpiece and "Mission Accomplished" swagger. A substantial interest in politics came to me late in life. I remember when I turned 18 and voting for the first time, and it was for Dukakis of course as I am a life long Democrat. Even though I didn't realize why at the time, I knew that Reagan and his policies didn't sit well with me and didn’t think another 4 years of Republicanism was the way to go.  After that election and Dukakis lost, I didn't really feel anything and went on with my life. When the 1992 election rolled around, I was on board the Clinton train and even have an old VHS tape my brother and I took when we went to see him speak. Now that I think about it that was my first political rally. I voted for Clinton the first time around but found myself disillusioned enough by the time his second term came that I didn't vote at all. When Gore and Bush were running, I voted for Gore but without any thought, he was a D and that is just how it went. I never realized until that moment what a Presidential election really meant. I saw the crowds throwing garbage and rioting during Dubya's inauguration, felt cheated that even though WE had voted for Gore that OUR vote had been superseded by a non-elected body of black robed "justices", and feeling disgusted but not sure why I just knew it was not right. 

The first 4 years of Shrub was an endless stream of terror alerts, fear mongering, and the start of these useless wars. This was where the idea of an Imperial Presidency started to bloom. His growing of the debt, torture, spying on Americans, and stripping our civil liberties all contributed to my despising of the Decider and wanted someone, anyone to take his place. Kerry/Edwards seemed good and I liked their ideas. Edwards was the first candidate to talk about the poor of our country for a long time and Kerry seemed like an honorable man. I made sure to try to watch all his speeches and the debates, kept informed with reading and news programs/talk radio and even attended a few events. Watching the election results roll in was very disheartening. Just like last time it seemed that there were lots of election night shenanigans (which is a whole other topic and if you are interested Google election fraud 2001 and 2004 and be prepared for the amount of information that pops up most by respected journalists) and Bush won despite the exit polls heavily favoring Kerry. The sad thing is that if Kerry had inspired more people to vote the rigging wouldn’t have mattered. But this started a trend of my paying attention. It can be distressing and depressing to always know what is going on but I pride myself on being able to talk intelligently and factually about world and national events. 
 

I didn’t like Obama at first. When the candidates for 2008 started to declare, I immediately gravitated to Edwards (this was before his troubles) because I had liked him so much before, although my favorite candidate is Kucinich but I knew he had no chance. I watched all of the candidate’s debates; saw all of them speak at (except Clinton and Biden) at local events which there were a lot of as I live in a battle ground state. It is one thing to see someone on TV and in person; it also gives you a feel of the excitement the person generates in the vibe of the crowd. After Obama won the nomination, I went to see him and it was like a festival and the air was electric. The only other political event that even came close was Ron Paul. I even, for the first time, but certainly not the last caucused. I volunteered to work the polls on Election Day and donated time and money. 8 years of Bush had taught me how important elections are, how much they matter even long after that person is gone. 

Democrats aren’t perfect. We are still feeling many of the decisions that Clinton made to this day. Outsourcing started under him with NAFTA, the seeds of the economic collapse were planted with the repeal of Glass-Stegall, and a generation of low-income Americans was adversely affected by welfare “reform”.  It seems that Clinton has taken on the rosy glow of constant polishing that Regan has acquired and hell if he isn’t an amazing speaker. We aren’t perfect but I think that in the end Democrats look forward and our very inclusivity is our strength. 

I’d been feeling pretty apathetic this election cycle, Obama policies had left me very disillusioned. He had pretty much embraced the Imperial Presidency, hadn’t rolled back any of the draconian laws passed by Bush in fact he’s made them worse, no Wall Street person was thrown in jail, he let the Republicans frame the debate too often, gave up the public option on health care, and kept on killing innocent civilians in drone attacks. This wasn’t the change I could believe in. I was going to vote but that was about it, until 3 days in Charlotte. I sat down a watched the whole thing, every speech, every film clip, and every soaring crowd shot and felt my passion returning.

I know I was being play by the pomp and propaganda. The incessant cries of “USA, USA, USA” started to sound jingoistic and vaguely nazi-ish by the end, but damned if I wasn’t moved to tears more than once. The constant untrue cries that we are the greatest country in the world were a little much. I’m sure the Romans believed that too and so did Britain and we see how that worked out. We are judged by our deeds not our words and our deeds say we have far to go. I want us to take the best parts of other countries and make them our own; we can do if only we have the will. The speeches gave me that hope. Clinton’s speech blew the roof off while reminding us of the absolute hate there is for Obama (read any comments after articles about them and it is just disgusting in its nastiness) and a little nun named Sister Simone was a barnburner. There is still so much more work to be done and it would be a disaster to put Mittens in the white house. If things get that bad I know that I am lucky. My dad was born in Canada and I have dual citizenship, which means I can immigrate if need be. Other people don’t have that option and being a liberal I wouldn’t be able to just walk through the door and never look back saying “I’ve got mine”. I’ll leave that kind of thinking to our conservative friends. So it just makes me want to fight. I will be volunteering to register people to vote and working the polls again this year. I am donating money and time. Voting is so important, we must all do it, we must participate in our democracy or see it disappear. Romney’s election would prove once and for all that our democracy can be bought and sink into a cruel oligarchy. I know there are many who think that we are already there, I don’t believe that but I do believe that we are dancing on a knife-edge. So many people say they don’t have time to think about politics or politicians but they sure have time to think about you, so it is up to us to force them to do what WE want.  It really is now or never.

Personal

I received a call from my mother today. My brother was in a horrific accident on a construction site. He slipped from his ladder and fell with a plate glass window landing on him. He came very close to losing his right arm and right eye. Fortunately, the fates were smiling and he sustained just serious cuts to his face and instead of severing a tendon it was the muscles in his arm that sustained all the damage. These will heal. The prognosis is good. I came very close to losing my brother today, it was so frightening. I can't be there with him and I want nothing more than to hug him and tell him I love him. He has a long road ahead of him as he has no insurance and faces many months of rehabilitation and a limited ability to work. It's funny that his first thought was for the woman whose house he was working on, that she is left without a window. He is a good person and never seems to catch a break. It is also hard that we can't just worry about him getting better and now have to worry about the thousands of dollars in hospital and doctors bills that he can't hope to ever repay. It is a hard world. I am posting this to ask my readers (if I have any) to send good thoughts into the universe for his full recovery. Also, tell those you love that you love them, you just never know when you could lose them. Those in Aurora would say that too.

Book Review

11/23/1963 by Stephen King

**SPOILER ALERT** Don’t read this review if you have not read the book! Unless you’re like me and don’t give a damn.

As I’ve said in this blog a few times, I love me some Stephen King. It is the banked love of a long time couple for whom the passion has since faded but for whom the affection and fondness is still strong due to a lifetime of shared experiences. When I first discovered him I was insatiable and couldn’t get enough, many times reading until late in the night, unable to stop. I would talk about him to anyone who would listen and search out interviews because I found his thoughts fascinating, plus reading his odes to “constant reader” made me feel so special like he was talking just to me. I read his entire back catalog and when new books came out, I’d try to be first to the book store to pick me up a copy in the days before Amazon. Any project with his name attached would capture my interest from short-lived series like Golden Years and Kingdom Hospital to the excellent graphic novel adaptions of his work to the mountain of movies (for the big and small screen) both good and bad. If anyone is listening and has some pull, IT would make a great graphic novel, get on that please!!! I enjoyed his later work but I felt that he lost some of his mojo after that terrible accident (for which I am grateful for his recovery) and when I wanted to remember our love when it was young and full of fire, I’d pull out his older work and reread it, like a forlorn wife reading the old and faded love letters that her husband no longer bothers to write. SK has had some clunkers and I was very disappointed by the Ouroboros conclusion of The Dark Tower series, but usually his writing was never dull, so when I tried to read Under the Dome, I was dismayed to find it was just that. I could only get through the first 5 chapters and then had to give it up as a lost cause. I feared the worst… had we become just friends?

When I heard he had a new book coming out, I ordered it from my book club, more out of loyalty than anything. The thought of reading it didn’t excite me and I found subject strange, and was turned off by the premise that Oswald was the only shooter the day JFK was assassinated (I am a conspiracy theorist here and believe Oswald was what he said he was, “a pasty”). Here is the description offered on Amazon:

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stopping dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.

Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.

Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his two brothers with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

A tribute to a simpler era and a devastating exercise in escalating suspense, 11/22/63 is Stephen King at his epic best.

Knowing how I felt about Under the Dome, when the book arrived I put it in my night stand with the dozen or so other books I eventually planned to read but had not gotten to yet and went on with my life. Upon finding reviews nearly unanimous in praise for this latest opus, I decided to pull it out and just try a few chapters and test the waters. I settled into my bed one evening resting against my plumped pillows, a bed-hogging dog curled next to me, and cracked it open. What happened next was a shock, after reading the first paragraph I sat bolt upright in bed and said “holy shit”! It was like coming home one day to find that husband of yours had made you dinner and brought you flowers and then told you to get dolled up so he could show you off and take you dancing. I was being wooed again and it felt just fine. The fire was always there, it just needed some tending to come fully alight and when it is a fire built by the master it becomes a blaze visible from space. 

The story started like a shot from a gun. I liked Jake from the start, and he seemed so real as all of King’s best characters do. His life was fascinating and the concept of a portal to another specific time opened up so many possibilities. The book was very like an episode of Quantum Leap with Jake playing Sam trying to put right what once went wrong, his Al is portal guardians who are being driven slowly insane by their task. But, unlike in that show, here the past or AGO is almost a character in itself and it does not want to be changed or as SK says, “the past is obdurate.” It uses all the forces at its disposal to thwart Jake’s plans including insane stretches of “coincidence” and almost having him beaten to death. King’s protagonists never have it easy and it seemed that the last half of the book takes place in too many hospital rooms with first Sadie and then Jake, who is now George, becoming longtime residents. But, the heart of the book is the love affair between George/Jake and Sadie, the shy soon to be divorced school librarian, with a dark secret of her own. I’m not ashamed to say it, I grew to love her. Funny, charming, brave, clumsy (or as King says haunted, being this way myself that word fits perfectly), and sweet, it is easy to see why he fell for her. She is full of good qualities but she is not without her faults, a weakness for alcohol and cigarettes being some of them. For all of her wonderfulness, she is still recognizably human as we all are with both the good and the bad parts of our personalities. Sadie is no Mary Sue. She is a living breathing person although her physical body is made up of individual letters, a literary Frankenstein’s monster stitched together with words and given the breath of life by the lightening of Stephen King’s mind.