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.