SUNDAY GOOD NEWS

Neil Percival Kenneth Robert Ragland Young is 60 now, a transplanted
Canadian who’s been paying American taxes for 40 years and bringing us
his own brand of folk-rock and hard rock with guitar and song since the
Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the ‘60’s
and ‘70’s. Just one year ago he suffered a brain aneurysm and was
treated successfully.  Seems it didn’t hold him back.  In
September 2005 he released Prairie Wind.  In 2006 the film Neil
Young:  Heart of Gold premiered at the Sundance Festival. 
And just this past Friday, this patriotic American/Canadian brought us a brand
new album for FREE  called Living with War.  You can listen
to the entire album here until its release on
May 8 in stores.  It’s already hit #3 on Amazon.com in pre-orders
as of yesterday.  Asked this week if he was afraid about a
backlash to his CD, he said, “I’m not in the least bit concerned. I
expect it. I respect other people’s opinions. That`s part of what makes
the United States and Canada and all free countries great, is the fact
that you can differ with your friend and you can still sit down at the
same table and break bread with your friend.”  This summer he will
head out on a “Freedom of Speech” tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young starting July 6 in, where else, Philadelphia, traveling the
country, and winding up back in Pittsburgh on Sept. 10.   For
more about Neil Young, click here.
Some day maybe we’ll have politicians who care to speak out for us like
he does.  Meanwhile, here are the lyrics for one of the songs on
the album:

Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door
He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected
Thank god he’s racking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean
Thank God

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:  Individuality
Guess the Movie:  “I am
leaving soon, and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe
grown smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group,
anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all,
or no one is secure. Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom,
except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this, when
they made laws to govern themselves, and hired policemen to enforce
them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We
have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets, and for
the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher
authority, is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our
policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the
planets in space-ships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters
of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us … this power
cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act
automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their
action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace;
without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from
aggression and war. Free to pursue more profitable enterprises. Now, we
do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system,
and it works. I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of
ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your
violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.
Your choice is simple … join us and live in peace, or pursue your
present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your
answer … the decision rests with you.”  Answer:  The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951.  Winner:  HomerTheBrave
300,000 March in Manhattan at Anti-War Protest

by Desmond Butler
Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday through
Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq
just hours after an American soldier died in a roadside explosion in
Baghdad – the 70th U.S. fighter killed in that country this
month.  (Rest of article here.)

MONDAY READING



Close Range – Wyoming Stories

by Annie Proulx

After being on the waiting list for weeks, I finally picked up this
book from the library, containing the story, Brokeback Mountain. 
The movie made from it was a shocker in a lot of ways, subject matter not everybody
was ready to take in.  But it did remarkably well because it
treated the story with taste, beauty, and exquisite
interpretation.  The story itself was worth the wait.  I
wanted to see if there was something definite about Jack Twist’s death,
and what I found was that Ennis del Mar believed it was murder with a
tire iron but the act itself is not described.  Here though is the
wonderful scene with the shirt  at the end of the film, in 
the author’s words:

“The closet was a shallow cavity with a wooden rod
braced across, a faded cretonne curtain on a string closing it off from
the rest of the room.  In the closet hung two pairs of jeans
crease-ironed and folded neatly over wire hangers, on the floor a pair
of worn packer boots he thought he remembered.  At the north end
of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and
here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt.  He
lifted it off the nail.  Jack’s old shirt from Brokeback
days.  The dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing
nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their
contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis’s nose hard
with his knee.  He had staunched the blood which was everywhere,
all over both of them, with his shirtsleeve, but the staunching hadn’t
held because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the
ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded.

The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another
shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s
sleeves.  It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago
in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons
missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the
pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one.  He pressed
his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through  his mouth
and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty
sweet stink of Jack but there was no scent, only the memory of it, the
imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what
he held in his hands.”

Annie
Proulx has a great history of her own.  You can read her bio here.  She is 71
years old now and didn’t start writing until she was in her 50′s. 
She published these stories when she was already 64.  Oh, and she
just happened to win the Pulitzer Prize for the novel, The Shipping
News, when she was 59.  She grew up in New England and went to
school there, majoring in history and working as a journalist before
she finally began to write fiction.  She only moved to Wyoming
last year after three marriages and four children.  I went after
this book because of the one story and found an amazing gathering of
incredible tales written as though she has lived there all her
life.  Marvelous.

Deep Thought:  “The king
threw back his head and laughed. He enjoyed a good laugh, and so did
his wife, the queen. When she saw the king laughing she let out a big
laugh too. In fact, she laughed so hard she broke her throne. This made
them both laugh harder. Then they got serious when they remembered they
had the plague. “The plague,” said the king, but the way he said it
made them both burst out laughing again.”
Today I am grateful for:  Indexes (or indices depending on how picky you are).
Guess the Movie:  “They
turned me loose from the nervous hospital. ‘Said I was well. I got
hired on by a Mr. Bill Cox fixing lawnmowers and whatnot. That grass
out there in the yard has grown up quite a bit. I reckon I might cut it
for you.”  Answer:  Slingblade, 1996.  Winner: STRESSEDwriter
Six ‘Green Nobels’ to be Awarded Today

by Douglas Fischer
SAN FRANCISCO — Craig Williams’ son was a year old when he learned the
U.S. government planned to incinerate 523 tons of chemical weapons 8
miles from his home in rural Berea, Ky.
Worried about the risk, Williams, a Vietnam veteran, pulled out his typewriter and started writing. He is still writing.
Today his son is 23. The weapons — nerve and mustard gas — have not
moved, but the Army has agreed to a safer, water-based process to
destroy the stockpiles there and at three other sites throughout the
country.
For his efforts, Williams today is one of six winners of the 2006
Goldman Environmental Prize, a $125,000 award that is the highest honor
of its kind for grass-roots environmentalists and is often called the
“Green Nobel.”   (Rest of article here.)

TUESDAY POLITICS

Mike Luckovich is 46.  This is the second time he’s won the
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning since he began his career in
1984 at age 24 after graduating from UDub in Seattle with a degree in
political science.  He’s worked for the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution since 1984.  This is one of his best known
recent cartoons, listing the names of 2000 killed in Iraq.

The
Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in
print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. It
is administered by Columbia University in New York City.  The 2006
Pulitzer Prize winners and nominated finalists were announced Monday,
April 17.  Prizes are awarded in 21 categories. The prize was
established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and
newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his
death in 1911. Part of the bequest was used to begin the university’s
journalism school in 1912. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on
June 4, 1917, and they are now announced each April. Recipients of the
award are chosen by an independent board.  This is who won this year.   And more about Mike Luckovich.

Deep Thought:  “Laugh, clown, laugh. This is what I tell myself whenever I dress up like Bozo.”
Today I am grateful for:  Things that are indescribable.
Guess the Movie:  “Our
city is counting on you to collect those screams. Without scream, we
have no power. Yes, it’s dangerous work, and that’s why I need you to
be at your best. I need scarers who are confident, tenacious, tough,
intimidating.”  Answer:  Monsters, Inc., 2001.  Winner: RnBoW_SPOT.
Taxpayer Says No More for War

by David B. Berrian
To the IRS:
I can’t do this any more. I will no longer pay for war — the murder of
civilians — with my tax dollars.  (Rest of article here.)

FRIDAY FIVE

Appetizer – About how many times per day do you check your email?
So many beaucoup de times because when I’m at work I have to
communicate that way for most of what I do and when I’m at home it’s
about once an hour just to stay current so it doesn’t pile up. 
But I’ve been really kind of puzzling lately about how much time I
spend at the computer – like many of us do.  Email is one thing,
because most of the people who email me are people I know in
three-dimensional real life, but blogging is different.  It has
its own attraction because you can say things you might not in person
that express your more vulnerable side, you can use photos to express
yourself, and post poems you’ve written, etc.  And some families
communicate this way in a wonderful way, all members having their own
blogs.  Still, I sense sometimes the looking glass between real
life and blogging life.  I’ve already cut back to not blogging
daily like I used to, so maybe that’s enough for now.  We’ll
see….
Soup – If you had the money to collect something really valuable, what would it be?
Houses.  I’d love to have a house at the beach and one in the
mountains while still maintaining a primary one in the city. 
Again, it’s about that balance between intimacy and solitude.
Salad – Write a sentence using the letters of your favorite beverage. (Example: The egret admires.)
Crossing over fallow fields elk emigrate.
Main Course – If you could be on a game show, which one would you want it to be?
Ick, game shows. I would rather die.  But I just watched a unique
film about spelling bees called Bee Season, where the whole family is
into finding god.  It takes losing a championship to find each
other.
Dessert – Name 3 computer programs or web sites you would hate to be without.
Pandora my constant musical companion at work (computer too old at home
to keep it steady), Google for finding pretty much everything, and
Xanga, of course, for challenging me to stay in my world and keep
writing.

Deep Thought: 
“A lot of times when you first start out on a project you think, This
is never going to be finished. But then it is, and you think, Wow, it
wasn’t even worth it.”
Today I am grateful for:  Being able to find the in between.
Guess the Movie:  “Half my
life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I’m a
thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on
a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.” 
“See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. ‘A
smudge of excrement… surging out to sea.’”  Answer:  Sideways, 2004.  Winner:  SuSu.
Immigrants Show Their Strength

by Ruth Conniff
As thousands of people rallied in cities around the country Monday–the
National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice–police, city officials,
and local media were once again surprised by the size and strength of
their local immigrant populations. The invisible cleaners, child care
workers, and landscapers were suddenly pouring into the streets,
chanting, speaking out, making themselves seen.   (Rest of
article here.)

FRIDAY FIVE

Appetizer – Name a trait you share with your parents or your children.
I can’t believe how much I’ve grown to resemble my parents in many ways
over the years, considering how far away from them I traveled
(literally and figuratively) to assert my independence when I was
young.  One thing I’ve noticed about myself here in xanga
especially is that I fall into the activist category in my stance
towards how life strikes me.  One of my spiritual heroes is the
little monk, Thich Nhat Tanh, because he is an activist pacifist. 
My parents were communists in their youth, then Progressive Party
members, then finally liberal Democrats.  They contributed time
and energy to making the community they lived in better, in their town,
their state, their nation, and the world.  Activism was their
religion.  I’m a pansy compared to them.  But I see the world
the way they did.  I like to watch if people walk their
talk.  I’m not religious myself, but I have a favorite religious
family here on xanga I stop by to visit frequently because they
seriously practice what they preach.  They don’t even really
preach, they just do.  It’s almost enough to make me
convert.  I want to simplify my life, bring my being ever more
into the here and now, quiet my fears, listen better, cherish what I
have.  And I want to stay connected to my earth, not tune it
out.  Activist pacifist – my inheritance.  
Soup – List 3 qualities of a good leader, in your opinion.
1.  Treats followers with dignity and honor.
2.  Is not afraid to risk telling the truth.
3.  Can see the big picture and stays educated.
(I guess I was thinking of political leaders.)
Salad – Who is your favorite television chef?
I so don’t watch any TV chefs.   I did remote by Martha today
who was showing Sharon Stone how to put frosting on a white cake. 
How surreal is that?
Main Course – Share a story about a gift you received from someone you love.
About 15 years ago I fell in love with another recovering addict in
NA.  He was a Vietnam vet with lots of issues.  It was too
hard for me to deal with how much anger he had so I eventually spent a
year of therapy getting out of the relationship.  A few years later, after a
failed marriage to someone else, he moved back home to his mother’s
house and died there in a sleeping bag of an overdose.  He was
still in his 40’s.  In better times, he gave me a silver bracelet
inscribed on the inside:  “When I look in my heart, I will always
find you.”  I treasure that bracelet and wear it still
sometimes.  He represents to me how powerful the disease of
addiction is and how it has no mercy.
Dessert – How do you react under pressure?
I do my very best to see pressure situations coming and avoid
them.  Stress is not my friend.  It shortens life, and I
don’t have as much of that left as I used to.  I learned that I
don’t have to hurry for ANY reason – it’s a choice.  I put lots of
mental/emotional breaks into my day to keep myself rested up for the
pressure stuff I can’t get out of.

Deep Thought: 
“It’s funny that pirates were always going around searching for
treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond
memories they were creating.”
Today I am grateful for:  The Impressionists
Guess the Movie:  “Are you
saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long,
fifty-four inch wide GORILLA? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME?”  Answer:  Young Frankenstein, 1974.  Winner:  weekdays.
Wyden says Congress must vote on Iraq

4/7/2006, 12:27 p.m. PT

By MATTHEW DALY

The Associated Press         

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oregon Sen.
Ron Wyden on Friday called for Congress to vote on whether to keep
American troops in Iraq for at least three more years, as President
Bush has said he intends.  (Rest of article here.)

 

TUESDAY POLITICS

On most of the three mornings a week I haul my semi-retired butt to work these
days, I make an immediate beeline to the strategically placed (they’re
as omnipresent as Walmart’s) Starbuck’s in the lobby of the children’s
hospital I pass through on the way up the elevator and out the back
door and across the street to my little cubbyhole in an adjacent
building.  It’s one of the few vices I allow myself and I’m fairly
moderate about even this one (3 cups a day in all, usually
decaffeinated).  Something about the early morning cold, dark, and
hours of boring job ahead of me makes that cup of warm caffeine seem
comforting.  So imagine my mild annoyance but not really surprise
to find out that my beloved Starbuck’s has become the focus of a
campaign by a group called Food
and Water Watch to stop using milk produced with rGBH, a
growth hormone harmful to cows and humans.  This artificial hormone
is banned from use in many countries including all 25 in the European
Union, Canada and Japan.   As a major milk purchaser, a
decision by Starbucks to go rBGH-free would send a strong signal to the
dairy industry.  They also invite you to watch a little film
called Meatrix II: 
Revolting (be patient – it took about 60 seconds to load on
my ancient Mac).  So if you want to think of cows with kindness
today (or yourself), dare to mention this to your friendly Starbuck’s
employee – or just drink your coffee black.  Don’t worry, I won’t
suggest giving coffee up altogether because I’m not ready for that
either.

Deep Thought: 
“What would annoy me if a space visitor ever came to our planet would
be if he kept talking about things in “his world.” Your world? We don’t
give a flying hoot about your world!”
Today I am grateful for:  Humility wherever I can find it.
Guess the Movie:  “I am
nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a
common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will
soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as
anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul;
and to me, this has always been enough.”  Answer:  The Notebook, 2004.  Winner:  turtle_dove
Former US General Says Rumsfeld Should Quit Over Iraq
A former senior US military commander, Anthony Zinni, called for the
dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over critical mistakes
made in the Iraq war.   (Rest of article here.)

FRIDAY FIVE
(Senior moment – I forgot it’s Saturday – April Fool on me)


Appetizer – Name 3 things that you think are strange.
1.  That cows lie down to sleep but horses stand up.
2.  That bird flu is expected on the West Coast by THIS SUMMER
(according to Google news) but nobody seems to know it in my neck of the
woods yet.
3.  Lawnmowers.
Soup – What was the last ceremony you attended?
A 23-year recovery birthday of my very own sponsor.  We do recover but we never get cured.  There’s a difference.
Salad – What is one lesson you have learned in the past year?
I learned that I can give myself one Home Alone day each week for
spiritual regrouping and restoration to sanity.  Plus catching up
on the laundry.
Main Course – Tell us about one of your childhood memories.
One night when I was about 11 I suddenly ran a high fever and had a big
pain in my neck.  My mother somehow knew something was really
wrong, threw me in the car and drove like a maniac to the nearest hospital
where they did a spinal tap and diagnosed meningitis.  I was lucky
she acted that fast.  After a month in the hospital and some weeks
of a slightly paralyzed leg, I fully recovered. It took 3 nurses and my
mother to hold me down for the leaving-the-hospital final check spinal
tap once I knew what to expect.
Dessert – If you could extend any of the four seasons to be twice as long as normal, which season would you want to lengthen?
Summer if it would stay in the 70’s or 80’s the whole time.  Years
of living in Oregon have left me with a great need for summer to make
up for all the grey rainy days.  Not complaining though – we
Oregonians feel lucky we don’t have major weather disasters.  We
are due for an earthquake though and we’re just as unprepared for that
as we are bird flu.  C’est la vie.

Deep Thought:  “What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we’ll never know.”
Today I am grateful for:  Having a house over my head – wait, having a roof to live in.
Guess the Movie:  “Whether
or not what we experienced was an According to Hoyle miracle is
insignificant. What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God
got involved.”  Answer:  Pulp Fiction, 1994.  Winner:  LymphNode
John Dean to Senate: Censure Is Necessary

by John Nichols
“[The] president needs to be reminded that separation of powers does
not mean an isolation of powers,” former White House counsel John Dean
told the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. “He needs to be told he
cannot simply ignore a law with no consequences.”
Arguing in favor of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold’s motion to censure
President Bush for illegally authorizing the warrantless wiretapping of
the phone conversations of Americans, the man who broke with former
President Richard Nixon to challenge the abuses of the Watergate era
told the committee that Bush’s wrongs were in many senses worse than
those of Nixon.  (Rest of article here)