Skirting the Storm

Big thunderstorms tracked beside us all the way home from Salt Lake last week. Very forbidding sky. Lots of scary wind and lightning but we managed to miss most of the hard rain. As I looked at the dark clouds, it reminded me of Anne McCaffrey's books about The Dragonriders of Pern who fight "thread". I started reading her dragon novels in the 1970's and think she's written about 20 so far. "Thread" is what falls on the planet Pern whenever a certain rogue planet's orbit passes close by. Dragons were bred by the people of Pern to torch the "thread" in midair before it could reach the ground where it would destroy everything it touches. "Thread" falling from the sky:

After watching the protestors in Iran this week, it occurs to me that they have been skirting a storm for many years.

I pray the courageous people who have been marching non-violently can maintain their convictions in the wake of the Ayatollah's announcement today that protests will no longer be tolerated. I hope this weekend brings better news and that our media will have the courage to show us more of what is actually happening.

If the crackdown is severe, then I hope for dragons to assist the protestors in their quest for a fair and honest election -- although truthfully I think the quest has expanded far beyond that now -- I think they are getting ready to take on the ruling theocracy. If that is the case, they will need many dragons. People have the power!

For current news not on TV, keep refreshing Nico Pitney at HuffPost.

odds and ends

I've been so unproductive in blogging lately, I thought I'd share a few odds and ends of my week.

New Eyeglasses: For some time I've been trying to find new glasses that look decent on me and yet allow a large enough field of vision. Many lenses of the newer styles are smaller than my eyeballs! Kind of defeats the purpose, in my opinion. See photo above for my final choice. What do you think? They were my second choice. Here is the story of my first choice:

My husband was checking out the sunglasses while I was trying on eyeglass frames. One style in particular seemed perfect, so I put them on to check the look. I thought I looked great in them, so I called out to the husband to get his opinion. He turned around, took one look, screamed and ran out of the store! WHY, you may ask? Because they are the exact same glasses that Sarah Palin wears! I tried coaxing him back into the store by pointing out how perfect they were & how great they looked on me, but he wasn't going for it. What cinched the deal was when I noticed the Sarah-frames were $395 (vs $150 for the ones I finally purchased).

Early Voting: check! done and done! The poll workers said they've never seen anything like the turnout this year. I must admit I wasn't too reassured when I saw the DIEBOLD name stamped on the back of our voting machines, but there is a little roll of paper that runs alongside the screen which allows you to verify the paper trail is correct. I hope it isn't printed with disappearing ink.

Wal-Mart Women: this is a phrase I've been hearing this week. It has Karl Rove written all over it, doesn't it? Just remember the previous phrases of "soccer moms", "security moms", and "values voters" -- all used to justify why exit polling did not match election results for Bush. I have a feeling Tuesday is going to be an allnighter, possibly even an allweeker.

W: We finally went to see the movie, W. Now I remember why I hate going to movie theatres. If the endless commercials and previews weren't enough to keep me at home, the deafening sound system is. If this is what is being installed in expensive Home Theatre Rooms, I want no part of it. But we wanted to see W before this election, just to remind ourselves of what we are voting against. In that regard, the movie was a great success. Unfortunately it was not a great movie. However, it did capture the cockiness of W, the toadiness of Rove, the yes-womanliness of Condi and the shadowiness of Cheney pretty well. If you saw it, do you think Colin Powell ever really told Dick Cheney to fuck off? I hope he did, but I have my doubts. There's also a good scene with Tony Blair that shows him being double-team bullied into supporting our effort at Empire. I choked up over the footage of protestors around the world, because of course none of it ever made one bit of difference to the people pushing U.S. into Iraq. The callousness of these war thugs is astounding!

Democracy: Democracy cannot survive without an informed and motivated citizenry. The U.S. has a dismal record of voter turnout. Other democracies regularly see over 90% voter turnout. If you don't bother to vote, don't be surprised to find many more W's in our future -- a prospect that almost defeats the word "future".

Massive Voter Turnout: watching the scenes of long voter lines on TV fills me with a renewed sense of hope. One of the biggest crimes of the last 8-years has been to make people believe they have no power. That is a bogus argument designed to suppress the vote. We have ultimate power. We always have. It starts with voting, of course, but it does not end there, especially if we see another stolen election. We just have to decide to exercise our power.

We have the power -- People Have the Power (Patti Smith):


Click here for the complete lyrics. It's full of inspiring images, but I think my favorite line says "the armies ceased advancing". I saw Patti Smith some years ago at the Belly-Up Tavern in Solana Beach CA. She became my hero when some young guys in the audience yelled at her between songs, "Just how old a woman are you?"... She responded, "Old enough to know better than to answer fools like you"! BTW, she is even more intense in person than on camera.

Drill Here, Drill Now: In case you missed it, Prez Bush has started his end-of-term enviromental deregulation. 11 Million acres of federal land in Utah will be open for oil and gas drilling interests, as well as off-road vehicles, risking priceless artifacts and some of the most breathtaking open spaces in America if the Bureau of Land Management, guided by Dirk Kempthorne, the interior secretary, has their way. About 1 Million acres near the Grand Canyon will be open for new uranium mining, without any environmental review of potential damage to air and water. This same type of deregulation has to be going on in many other states, too.

Well, I'm sure there were many other odds and ends this week, but I'm also sure that these have been amply covered in the news and on the blogs. If I don't make it back before Tuesday, let me say once again, that in this election, any non-Obama vote is a vote for McCain. You don't need me to do the math for you. This is not just a hope-filled dream; it is the most important election in all my voting years. It took 40 long years to come back to the place we once were and recognize it for the first time (click here for link to T.S. Eliot). Sorry, I cannot be cynical when so much is at stake.