28 September 04
A New Word for Today: “Bleh”
Feathers of Hope was born when the blogosphere was overwhelmed with political blogs: in the leadup to the war in Iraq we were both reading lots every day. For one reason or another, although our banner says this is a blog about nature and place, the design arts, politics, and baseball, we don’t write much about politics. I tried to articulate why in Where Are My Words?—my feelings of outrage were trumped by my feelings of helplessness.
We’re there again, but for other reasons. For the past few days I’ve been writing letters to single unregistered women in swing states through MMOB—not that I’m Mainstreet or a Mom, but they’ll take anyone.
Turns out even this might be the wrong target; soccer moms have become security moms, apparently, believing that Bush will keep their kids safer than Kerry will.
I can’t promise them that he won’t. But the world is certainly less safe because of this adminstration’s unforgivable excesses of power, greed, arrogance. It will take decades to restore our standing in the world, so forget about one presidential term.
Whoever wins this election—and of course I hope it’s not Bush—will have the biggest mess to fix since the Great Depression, or possibly ever at least in terms of foreign policy. It’s practically hopeless.
Numenius thought the security moms thing sounded like something cooked up by the Republicans as explored by George Lakoff in his latest book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, which we first read about on Daily Kos. Sounds like a must read, particularly with regard to the Republican hijacking of rhetoric about the family. One more for the list…
27 September 04
The Hordes Arrive
The students are back for the fall on campus. Classes begin Thursday—relatively late, but we’re on the quarter system, and move-in day was yesterday. Lots of freshman all over the place, carrying large cardboard numbered boxes from the Memorial Union full of orientation goodies and pre-ordered textbooks. A clutch of students bearing said boxes meet in the hallway of the MU, all of the programming each others’ number into their cell phones. Long lines at the Coffeeshop bakery during my 3 PM cookie run. And the terror of barely competent cyclists meeting their first campus roundabout during the noontime rush hour.
But in my windowless interior office, I barely notice it all.
26 September 04
L.A. in a Day
I flew down to Burbank this morning to see my high school English teacher. My high school in England, that is, the progressive co-ed boarding school I fetched up in when my parents got too frightened by the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll at my school in Madrid (it was there with similar prevalence at Abbotsholme, but by then I was committed to the long, cold, damp Derbyshire winter, and decided to worry them no further).
This teacher has recently retired as head of an even more prominent, progressive co-ed boarding school in England and has decided to take an M.A. through York University on 18th century theatre. We spent a lot of time today at the Huntington Library, just beyond Pasadena.
It’s something when you get to enthuse over the Ellesmere Chaucer—the real one, not a facsimile—with your high school ENGLISH teacher, the one who, 25 years ago, read The Knight’s Tale in a convincingly Chaucerian accent (though, what did WE know about authentic Middle English accents?), to have him take you on a pilgrimage to see Reynolds’ portrait of Mrs. Siddons, to share the joy of blooming cacti. It was a great day.
25 September 04
Seven Games Left
This evening Pica called with delight from the other room—“oh wow!”. She was checking the score of the Red Sox-Yankees game just after the Red Sox had scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth. The Red Sox went on to win it 12-5. The Yankees are assured of a playoff spot, and I don’t think the Red Sox are going to overtake them to capture the division title. But they’re in very good shape for the wild-card race.
More bottom-of-the-eighth heroics in San Francisco this afternoon. The Giants very much needed to win today to stay in the playoff hunt, both for the wild-card and the division race. We were running errands this afternoon and were catching bits and pieces of the game. For lunch we stopped at El Mariachi: on the telly the Giants already down 2-0 to the Dodgers in the first inning and I was distressed. Happily Ray Durham hit a leadoff home run for the Giants in the bottom of the first to make things closer. Later on it was 4-2 Dodgers—we grew disgusted so we turned the radio to KDRT, Davis’s new low-power FM radio station. When we finally headed home after shopping at the co-op we turned on the radio and had just missed a grand slam by Pedro Feliz. Giants were up 9-5, and they held on to the lead in the top of the ninth to win.
Back east, the Cubs blew a 3-0 lead in the ninth and lost to the Mets. The Cubs are the Giants’ chief rival in the wild-card hunt, the Giants now only a half-game back of the Cubs, and 1 1/2 games back of the Dodgers in the division race. More excitement to follow, for sure.
24 September 04
Fall’s Coming
I heard our first Say’s phoebe of the winter on Monday, its single plaintive cry echoing off the beehives. And the white-crowned sparrows are starting to come in—within two weeks there will be hundreds. They sing all winter long.
They have STILL not harvested the corn out back. It’s now a light wash of burnt sienna in color, if not in mass. When you go near it the weight of every single ear produces a rustle, so even when there’s no breeze you hear a permanent crackling. No wonder so many phantasmagoric movies involve cornfields. I’m not worried about phantasms, but cats do still seem to be emerging. The latest is a gray tabby kitten with spots, lovely to look at, with the long-legged gangle teenager affect.
I set a trap on Tuesday, pretty half-heartedly I must admit (what am I going to do with THIS one?). In the morning I saw I’d caught something—surely the kitten? No. It was a teenage possum, which promptly played dead when I tried to let it out. It played dead for about 1/2 hour after I’d gone back inside, its mouth open in a less than credible tooth-filled rictus and its eyes looking glassy and gone. But it slipped out while I wasn’t looking. Given the chances of catching a skunk so near the house, am I going to continue to try to catch the gray tabby?
23 September 04
Tossup
This election is far too close to call. The ever-valuable Electoral Vote Predictor today has Bush up 273 electoral votes to Kerry’s 255, but these values are changing all the time depending on the results of new statewide polls: yesterday this site had Kerry leading 269 to 253. And a state-by-state analysis in the diaries section on Daily Kos today comes up with Kerry winning by 291 to 247 electoral votes.
At least Kerry has locked down the Klingon vote.
22 September 04
He Just KNOWS
Michael Moore definitely has his finger on the pulse of the anti-Bush camp. I thought he had written this piece specifically for me.
21 September 04
White Shark Comes To Monterey
The Monterey Bay Aquarium placed a young white shark on exhibit a week ago Tuesday, and she is doing well. This shark was accidentally caught by a commercial halibut fisherman off Southern California in August, and then transferred to an ocean holding pen used by the aquarium as part of their study on white sharks. The four-foot four-inch, 62 pound shark has been eating consistently since arriving at the aquarium, which is remarkable as this is the first time a white shark has fed while being on exhibit. The aquarium hopes to keep the shark on exhibit long-term, but that depends on how well she continues to do.
20 September 04
Choking
The Red Sox are doing their thing, right on schedule. They lost yesterday 11-1 against the hated Yankees and lost to Baltimore today. You wouldn’t mind so much if they had been awful all season, but this follows a good run. They’ll probably just squeak the wildcard, do well for four games, and then JUST lose. You’d think we wouldn’t come back year after year for more, but here we are.
I don’t believe in the curse of the bambino, but the Red Sox sure as hell do.
19 September 04
Xocolatl
This week I tried some exquisite dark chocolate stocked at the Davis Food Coop, made by Dagoba Organic Chocolate of Oregon. This bar, xocolatl, has chilis in it, making for a bit of an afterkick! The darker the chocolate the better, as far as I’m concerned, and this bar is very dark with a 74% cacao content. The label is attractive, too.