August 11, 2005

• THURSDAY WHATEVER

  I began to hear about Cindy Sheehan about a week ago when I posted an article in her own words called “Where Do I Live?” Yesterday I posted another article about her visit to the Bush ranch in Texas with other military famlies to deliver a letter (which you can read here) and message to GWB to bring the troops home and care for them when they get here. Then lo and behold, she appeared on my TV screen sitting against a fence on a dusty road there in Crawford waiting for the President to come out and meet with her. Waiting in vain, of course, because he left by helicopter to go wherever he was going next on his 33-day “working” vacation. And then within a day of that I noticed another mother of a slain soldier facing down Bill O’Reilly with the same message. It was too painful to watch because I know his style, which is to smother his victims with his curled lip of disdain and I just didn’t want to see that happen. But I remember her face. It was a very sane face. On Sunday morning last I had breakfast with my 78-year-old neighbor and the subject of the war came up. She’s one of the few people I know personally who ever mentions the war (it’s not a popular topic donchaknow) and feels the same way I do about it. But she said, as she’s said before, “there’s nothing we can do.” I didn’t say anything constructive back because I don’t think she wants to hear it and also because I feel guilty that I myself am not doing more. All I can say I’ve done is write my senator and protest the torture in Guantanamo, following which he actually visited there and accomplished nothing as far as I can see. And then I keep bringing it up here in xanga where at least I know a few other people are still watching. But apparently Cindy Sheehan thinks there’s something SHE can do, and she’s doing it. Her son, Casey, died at age 24 in an ambush in Sadr City on April 4, 2004. And I could just about faint with relief that at last I’m seeing a parent on national TV saying they’re fed up. Where are the parents of the other 1836 and probably more by now soldiers who have died so far? Is every last one of them proud that their child died serving his/her country and leaving it at that? Apparently so – or perhaps it’s just that our media doesn’t allow them to reach us with their grief and rage. I’ve been working on Chapter 9 of my life story (see sidebar) which begins in the year 1969 and I open with a quote: “and it’s 1,2,3 what are we fightin’ for? don’t ask me i don’t give a damn, next stop is Vietnam, and it’s 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates. Well there ain’t no time to wonder why…WHOOPEE we’re all gunna die.” Ring a bell? I’m watching you in awe, Cindy Sheehan, to see who you’re giving permission to to speak up. Will this tiny spark set a blaze going?
  

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  Deep Thought: “I think the most beautiful sunset I ever saw was on page 4 and 5 of The Book of Sunsets.”
  Today I am grateful for: Staples of all kinds
  Guess the Movie: “1791 was the year it happened. I was 24, younger than you are now, but times were different then. I was a man at that age: the master of a large plantation just south of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth. She and the infant had been buried less than half a year; I would have been happy to join them. I couldn’t bear the pain of their loss: I longed to be released from it.” Answer, Interview with the Vampire, 1994. Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
  Cindy Sheehan Just Wants to See Her President
  by Margaret Carlson
  Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — I didn’t think Cindy Sheehan, the mother waiting on that dusty Texas road for a chance to ask President George W. Bush why her son died in Iraq, was having much impact.
  Then I saw her being Swift-Boated like John Kerry, whose medals and Purple Hearts were all a mistake, and like former ambassador Joe Wilson, reduced to being a ninny whose wife had to get him an assignment tracking down uranium sales in Niger. (Rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 8:31 pm
  + = Found someone to fix my dilapidated garden gates.
  - = Back in the 90′s again today.

  • 6:55 pm
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