An ode to the upcoming debates

( blog.nj )

There is nothing either good or bad,

but thinking makes it so. . . 

(Hamlet  II:ii)

Words are thoughts;

thought-words, things

that build apparitions

of what might be.

Thought-words can create

possibility or

they can destroy

reality.

Hold your thoughts,

and mold them well

before you deliver them

into the air.  Those

castles built

might build despair

unnecessarily.

So may it be.

( boston.com )

coda:

Talk to me --

and not of me.

Truth is best found

in the space

of silent greetings,

and cordial meetings.

walking to the eternal flame: Western New York, late September

It's been a way too busy time for me lately,

and I had to do something magical,

like take a walk

in nature.

My partner found the perfect place to take me,

a place that borders on the magical:

we walked to see an

eternal flame.

And here is what we saw along the way:

Unfortunately,

the sound on my camera

is broken,

from having dropped it into similar brooks

one time too many:

. . . Now, at this point, you may think:

What's the big deal?

This is just a walk in the woods.

And that was what I thought too,

until I saw this:

(I'm sorry to say I can't get Blogger to accept
the film I made myself, though
I have now processed it in a number of ways.
Good ol' Blogger.
So I'm borrowing this film from YouTube.
At least this one has sound!)

If it appears to you that this flame is burning behind water,

well,

you're absolutely correct.  

This is a natural methane leak

right inside a water fall,

and the result is,

well,

quite elemental.

Here it is, in winter,

with more water:

Well, that truly made my weekend perfect.

I walked away looking

for elves and fairies,

while approaching children squealed in anticipation

of the magic

just up beyond the bend.

May you all have a magical week.

(except for the YouTube video, all photos and film by me.)

Vanity Sizing and the American Psyche

( from: madisonbootcamps )

Sometime between 1999 and 2004, a miracle happened to me: 

I shrank.

In 1999, before I moved from the U.S.A. to Turkey,

I went to the doctor, and weighed in at around 148 pounds,

 5' 10" tall.

When I went to the mall to buy some pants for my move,

I bought a size 12.  I have wide hips.

The width of my hips was always a bit of an issue with me,

and as a younger woman I did stupid things to slenderize,

but then I decided that I had to accept that

my bone structure can't be changed.

And that was that: size 12 pants,

size 10 dress.

A comfortable, but slightly tall

Medium.

Out the door, I carried clothes made of real cotton

that I still own.

And then I moved away.

In Turkey, I did not shrink,

I remained the same size,

and my skin became paler.

But the first time I bought clothes back in the States,

about a year later,

I was amazed that I was buying

size 10 pants.

A few months later, in the USA, I was a comfortable

size 8, and by 2003 or so

I actually bought a size 6 pants in the USA.

I wish I could show them to you,

but they were really flimsy and feel apart.

America, you see, is the land of miracles:
as long as I was buying my clothes in the States,
I was shrinking.

I could ignore the scale, 

which hadn't budged,

nor had a shrunk in any other proportion.

It was all perception, after all.

I was shrinking.

The closet proclaimed it to me defiantly,
on every tag declaring my new size:

my ass was narrower,

my boobs more modest,  my waist

wasting away.

( from: listxsadist )

Well, if I wanted to be delusional,

I could believe that, but

I've never been one to favor

that frame of mind.

I prefer

the raw, cold truth,

even if it means acknowledging

things like my increasing varicosities.
In the end, I feel it makes life

a little easier.
At the time,

I suspected that there was a conspiracy afoot

to maintain America's delusion

that they weren't getting fatter,

and this morning as I woke up again

to my trusty radio, 

I heard a story that confirmed 

precisely what I had been thinking.

(photo and story at 

NPR )

Vanity sizing:

the latest, greatest

American tall tale,

designed to keep the clothes

moving off the racks.
This is what one of the women said
on the radio, in her lilting, lovely
Indian accent.
When Americans kept getting fatter,
and the sizes remained the same,
well,
the clothes stopped selling.
The clothing industry, then,
came up with this brilliant idea:
make a size 6 bigger, and
make a size 6 a size 00,
and lead the consumer to believe
they were still as svelte as a model,
even if they no longer fit
into normal-sized movie theatre seats.

I guess the statement that put me over the edge, though,
was this:
the interviewer asked the woman
with the lilting, lovely Indian accent
if this was ethical:
aren't we lying to the public?
And she replied:
It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

Ah, indeed, the logic of it sent my mind reeling,
because,
because
among other things, I thought:
is this the attitude that the rest of the world  has
about the average American?
That we are complacent, stupid, fat people
in denial about what we really are?

And then I thought:
yes, of course.  That is what the world thinks of us.
I've lived abroad;
I've traveled a lot;
I've seen the attitude towards Americans change,
and that change began when the American public
voted George W. Bush into office
a second time.

It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

( from nmnnewsandviews )


Just minutes before this story,
on NPR this morning,
I had listened to a speech from Mitt Romney,
given in Ohio.  Mitt Romney, declaring
that he will make more jobs, trim down the government,
and be a better international face for America ~ ~ ~

It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

It's the logic of the cheating lover
as he hands his spouse some flowers
and tells her that he loves her
before slipping off to see his concubine ~ ~ ~

It's not really a lie,
if the person wants to be lied to.

It's the logic of the boss,
who gives his employees a modest raise,
telling them that he would love to give them more,
but the firm is struggling so much,
and then buys himself a new private Leer jet ~ ~ ~

not really a lie. . . 
they wanted to be lied to. . . 

In the story about Mitt Romney they interviewed
a woman in rural Ohio,
who I'll bet is a size 6 or maybe even a 4,
and she said her only gripe with Mitt Romney is that
he isn't coming down harder on President Obama:

He should be saying it more like it is, and saying it loud,
she said,
Romney's been too polite;
he should not be so polite to Obama!

In other words, she would like to hear Mitt Romney screaming
that Barack Obama has done nothing for America,
that the woes of America are Obama's fault,
that Obama was born in Timbuktu,
that his mother wasn't a white woman from the mid-west,
. . . . .
She wants to hear it again and again,
and she wants to hear it screamed loud and long,
because she wants to be lied to,
because that will help her confirm her own beliefs
that a smart black man should not remain
in the highest office in the nation.

It's not really a lie
if you want to be lied to.

And if she and all the rest of working or
middle class G.O.P. America want to believe
that a wealthy millionaire businessman
really cares for her goodwill,
she can and she will,
as she sits in front of her 48" wide
flat screen TV,
watching the Simpsons,
which she feels comes closest to being like reality to her,
and eating burgers and chips,
in her size 6 jeans.


. . . not really a lie . . . 

(Oh, Romney assures us,
don't worry; we'll still have
Medicare . . . )

Vanity sizing, in the end,
sums up what is wrong with America.
And we hear about vanity sizing,
but still nothing is done about it.
Because we want to be lied to.
Because the truth might mean
that we have to do something about it.

( from runsleeprinserepeat )

I guess there's one good thing we can say about this:
as long as people are still lying,
the world will not end
anytime soon.

Or else that's what we want to believe.


Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true! She is a strumpet. What's the news?
Rosencrantz: None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
Hamlet: Then is doomsday near.

( Hamlet II:ii )

Flashback Queen

( from: proaudiostar )

It seizes the brain and numbs

the soul;

makes the living breathing world

a hell.

Fingers, too,

and hands and feet

belong to another,

but still persist and do their duties

ritually,

longing to touch again, and truly feel

longing to make contact

with reality.

( from: photoshopessentials )

It will come; it will come--

this curtained world has passed before,

and the waking is so beautiful,

but how I want my life to be

a continual display

of beauty.

But to do that would be to 

obliterate memory.

And that's impossible.

So I go on, still

a flashback queen,

that's me.

Antietum: Bloody Road

I woke up this morning to a story on NPR about

The Battle of Antietum, which occurred

September 17, 1862.

As I listened, my mind began to compose

some loose lines and contemplations:

(picture from NPR website; entire story at the link.)

~*~

(tablewarefare)

Antietum --

your innocent lands

still recall the

men whose blood you drank 

when they collided, driven by devotion to each

his own's belief in personal liberty:

Some, believing in freedom to all,

                               no matter their color

                                        or vessel for arriving

                                                     on America's shores.

Some, believing that the dark and enslaved

                                     were less than men,

                                                       and, as such,

                                                   deserved to remain so as they served

                                                  the economy of tobacco.

                                                          Oh,

Antietum --

two forces clashed in a 

Bloody Road, each force driven

by his own idea,

a whisper,

a thought.

Thousands lost

their lives; the idea

of equality ruled,

and history turned

towards liberation.

(from: old-picture.com )

So sad we no longer care

for history.   So sad

we no longer require

our youth to learn

to embody the lessons

of our heredity.  Instead,

we barely teach them

to get by; we teach to take a test,

then hurry home filled

with forgetfulness, anticipating

for the next episode of Jersey Shore,

or the next gossipy tweet.

( from: blogofshame )

History cannot be tweeted,

but history MUST be known,

as we stand today on the brink

of another ideological fissure,

right now embodied in

a battle over who should run

this land:

a Black Man

or

a Mormon;

a Son of Slaves and Idealistic Liberals,

or

a Son of Those Who Believe America is

The Promised Land.

But what promise is this?

Where guns are hidden and

(from National Park Service )

divisions are bitter,

the Bloody Road may be

just beyond the bend.

Our history can tell us how

to avoid it, and recent memory

of murdered diplomat,

a murder driven by 

insensitivity

to detail can stand 

as omen.

We have 

no time to lose;

the only answer is to restore

our public memory,

and with it, our ability to choose, 

and our integrity.

A Diva To Remember: Gilda Radner

As I approach the upcoming school year,

I turned to a pro for inspiration.

Have a great week!

Labor Days Ahead

Alas,

the garden goddess is overwhelmed by the height of summer,

and I,

am returning to teaching

after a long sabbatical.

Tomorrow.

Alas.

Much of my word energy over the past few months has gone

to an article I am writing about

how No Child Left Behind

and other educational reforms

have created a generation of American college students

who are way far behind.

Tomorrow, I head back to classrooms full of 'em again.

My particular focus is on student writing.

Believe me, it's very difficult to teach writing

when you'd rather be writing.

I can theorize away about the problem,

but when faced with a class full of angry young people,

my words, and skills, wain.

Because these students are ANGRY.

Our youth KNOW they have not been educated.

They KNOW it's all been a farce,

and they are amused by teachers 

and administrators

who perpetuate it.

By their first year of university, in fact,

they expect all teachers to be overworked to a point that the students simply are spoonfed

what they need to know to pass the test.

So these dear untutored and undisciplined students get angry

when a teacher actually asks them to be responsible for their own learning.

ehow-college stress

I don't blame them,

or their teachers,

but I sure have my theories

on who to blame.

Hold on tight --

I may vent here.

Tonight,

this Labor Day night,

my thoughts and prayers go out to all

the teachers in the world,

burdened by testing and assessments so overwhelming

that they get in the way

of teaching.