Author: Second Nature

I knew this day was coming, but still it was a shock when it arrived.  It had been an especially good day on Saturday, filled with moments so bright and sweet that you long, even as you’re living them, to hold this moment for as long as possible before it fades away.

What a normal day, filled with things we’d been needing to do for weeks but the boys’ schedules have been hectic with school and work and so it fell to this Saturday to catch up.  There was raking to be done…lots of it.  Between the 3 maples, the sweetgum, a massive oak, and more than a dozen tall pines shedding needles, we hadn’t seen the grass in weeks.  The boys raked and hauled tons of leaves to the curb.  Then they cut and edged the grass.  When they were done we sat on the front steps and pulled apart a perfect pomegranate with our hands, separating the ruby-like seeds from the tough membranes and popping them into our mouths, laughing at how the juice looked like blood. With two teenage boys, this is what fun is.

Then the mail truck came and inside was this:

I know I am probably being too sensitive, I have an older boy who, six years before, had to register for the draft.  But it was a different world six years ago.  And we were a different country.  So the arrival of this hard-ass American eagle commanding that my son register for the draft on his 18th birthday felt like a threat to me.  They were coming for my son.

They want me to send this little blond haired boy, and two years from now they will want the fat little baby on his sister’s lap.

He is required by law to register, and that law is backed up by all the muscle and swagger of this government, symbolized by that hard-ass eagle.  But I am serving notice that they will never get that boy.  Or his older brother.  And certainly not that fat baby boy.

I did not give up coffee and leave my chronic headaches untreated during pregnancy to ensure a healthy baby so that he could die alone on some distant battlefield for that hard-ass eagle.  I did not nurse him for a full year to give him the best possible nutritional and immunological start in this world only to have the government expose him to toxic chemicals and leave him at the mercy of faulty or insufficient protective battle gear.  I did not watch over him as he slept and remove every possible danger from his little world only to have hawkish cowards sacrifice him for the sake of their bad-ass ideologies.

Yes, my son is strong and agile.  He would make a fine soldier.  He would fight like hell for the right cause and probably be victorious.  But this is not that cause, and you are never going to get him.

Happy 18th birthday, Colin.  I’m still your mom, and I’ll still fight like hell to keep you safe.

Want to help a high school newspaper report on the CIA leak, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Dick (Dick) Cheney, and George W. Bush?

My son is the editor in chief of his high school newspaper and decided, last-minute like, to try to squeeze in a story about the CIA leak amidst the articles on football, the fall play, and music reviews.

Can you tell him why this story is so important and provide a good encapsulation and timeline?  Can he borrow liberally from your awesome ideas?

Thanks!

People, people, people.  You don’t just DECIDE what a community is going to be.  A community develops when a bunch of different voices and faces from all over the world with varying personalities and experiences and beliefs get together in one place and communicate with each other.

You can decide what standards you are going to enforce (dont be a prick) and you can decide to cast out those that don’t toe the line….but real communities are fluid and dynamic and they develop a personality all their own, ON their own.

Let me tell you why I am here.
I am here because I felt welcome from the first time Diane and Shirl forced me to stop hiding in the corner and introduce myself.  I’m here because there are amazing people here of all ages.  There are lawyers and physicians and educators and engineers.  They’re cool and it’s really impressive to have all of them here sharing their knowledge.

But, to be honest, the ones who really inspire me are the ones who might not have such impressive resumes.  How can I sit on my ass here at home feeling sorry for myself that my kids are growing up when there are people who have children with physical challenges, and they exhibit such tireless love and devotion to them without ever complaining?  How can I sit here and bitch about the political and social atmosphere in this country when there are people here at Booman Tribune who will take a few days away from their jobs and children and drive halfway across the country to speak for me in Washington, DC?

You guys inspire me everyday.  The women on this site who are in their 60’s and beyond have dispatched their wisdom to me with a grace and calmness that makes me unafraid to age.  When I am afraid life is over for me at 45 they patiently try to tell me that they can see things from where they are that I can’t see here.  They are futher down the road from where I am and they’re trying to tell me that, while it might be full of potholes, the journey is a beautiful one.  I appreciate and need that so much.

There are so many guys here, young, not so young, gray-haired, bald, pony-tailed, gay and straight and in-between who are not dicks!  Do you know how very much I appreciate that?  I’m really impressed with your knowledge and your energy and your idealism.  Plus, you’re hot.  You know who I’m talking about.

I spent many years as a depressed, demoralized person basically afraid to leave the relative comfort of my own house.  My children were my life.  Now they are growing up and it’s so fucking hard for me to figure out what to do with the rest of my life that will have nearly as much meaning, or bring me one tenth of the rewards that raising children has.

This place gives me a voice. I can throw out a statement like “I feel scared and unsure of myself” and within minutes I’ve got 10 responses ranging from total support and commiseration to total support with a kick in the ass thrown in.  I need that. And I need to sit here and laugh my ass off on occasion, even though I’m usually alone in the house and that’s really weird.

Yes, I know that I only know you all electronically and not in a real or physical sense.  Sometimes that seems pathetic to me.  But for whatever reason, we have all gathered here in this time frame and we are forming bonds that are real in the best sense of that word.  

I like politics and I enjoy the fact that I can read these awesome diaries and front page stories and be tons more informed than if I just sat it front of the tube like most people do.

But the reason I return every day is that hearing your stories, and listening to everyone’s unique voice, makes me feel stronger than I really am.  And it makes me want to get out into the “real” world and make a difference.  

There’s your community.

Looks like Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee is very interested in what the White House, more specifically Karl Rove, told FOF frontman James (Squarepants) Dobson to allay his fears about supreme court nominee Harriet Miers and earn at least a lukewarm endorsement from Dobson.

Courtesy of the New York Times and as seen on “This Week” with George Stephanopolous, Dobson said in his radio address last week that he had been told things he probably shouldn’t know, but he couldn’t divulge them, and what he had been told convinced him to support the nomination of Harriet Miers to the SCOTUS.

Specter is quoted as saying:

Dobson acknowledged talking to Rove before making his statement.

It’s fun to see the growing chorus of suspicion surrounding this administration and Karl Rove in particular.  The president is clearly using code language to calm the fears of evangelical christians, and it certainly appears as if Rove crossed another ethical line in making Dobson privvy to information that the rest of us apparently don’t have the right to know.

Hopefully it will be a fun week watching Rove circle the drain.

[From the diaries by susanhu with updates/edits. NBC concert will be reaired at 9am PT today.] Holy crap, people.  Is anyone watching the benefit concert on NBC?  Kanye West just let loose with a totally unscripted, off-the-cuff, angry rant.

Paraphrasing … “I hate the way we are portrayed in the media.  When they see a white family they’re looking for food, when they see a black family they call it looting.  The system is set up to get aid to black people as slowly as possible … George Bush doesn’t care about black people …” Then he gets cut off. Holy shit.”

Update [2005-9-3 10:59:52 by susanhu]: Crooks & Liars: NBC censors Kanye West (VIDEO)


   “NBC edited his remarks on the West Coast feed …”

   [BELOW at C&L] “During the Concert for Hurricane Relief, Kanye West and Mike Meyers were celebrity narrators during the segment, West said: (rush transcript):


   “I hate the way they portray us in the media. “If you see a black family it says they are looting if you see a white family it says they are looking for food.


   “We already realize a lot of the people that could help are at war now fighting another way and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us.”


   “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”


   Mike Meyers was floored… (VIDEO)

Anyone want to share photos from tonight’s peace vigils?  I know there are lots of us who went and I for one would love to see all of your shining faces, and to see people from all over the country standing up for peace.

Here’s mine from Raleigh, North Carolina.  It was held at a local UCC church and, though I stink at estimating crowds, I’d say over 100 people came, including the local 24 hour cable news channel.

It was really comforting to meet so many people who believe in the immorality of this war just as I do.  My teenage sons came with me and stood by my side, and I couldn’t help but think that in a year or two we could be standing around holding candles for them.  
Me and Ben

Cute unnamed lady

Some of the crowd

Colin and Ben

A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer is seeking letters from men and women who are currently serving, or who have returned from active duty in Iraq.

She gets many such letters and emails forwarded to her by family members of local soldiers, but many of them are so afraid of speaking out against the war or of criticizing the way it is being run, that they plead with her to keep their identity secret.

Connie Schultz, who is the wife of Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown recently won the Pulitzer for her extremely poignant and brave columns about regular people, who are, quite obviously, the ones who are fighting and dying in this war.

Here is a link to her column and contact information for her.  Do look over her archives if you get a chance.  She is dynamite.

“I love Jesus Christ!…so FUCK YOU!“

These ridiculously ironic words were just screamed, no SCREAMED at me by a young man just before he floored the gas and cut me off, causing me to slam on the brakes to avoid a crash.

What caused this hostile act of aggression?

More below.
The answer is my Mom-mobile with the Who Would Jesus Bomb? bumper sticker on the back.

Here in the South, you cannot travel more than 100 yards in any direction without running into a church.  There are mainline Protestant churches, and a very few Catholic ones, but the vast majority are Southern Baptist and non-denominational evangelical churches.  There is one synagogue that I know of within the city limits of Raleigh, and no mosques (that I am aware of.)

The social lives of most Southerners revolve around church.  Sunday morning services, Wednesday bible studies, small group meetings at local coffee shops almost everywhere you look, pig-pickings (self-explanatory pretty much) church carnivals, garage sales, car washes, plant sales.  Everything is sponsored by a church.

As a northern transplant who grew up decidedly Catholic and then decidedly lapsed, this is the single most significant change I have had to get used to in my three years in the South.  And, make no mistake, it is South with a capital S.

Catholics are kind of the ugly step sister here.  We’re just barely tolerated as “not the right kind of Christian” because the biggest employer here, IBM, employs many northerners who need a place to attend Sunday Mass.  We wouldn’t want to offend IBM, but it’s okay if we regularly slander the catholics it attracts to the area.

The area which encompasses Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill is called The Triangle….or The Research Triangle.  Here there are many computer and pharmaceutical companies and with these high tech jobs come a lot of northerners.  This makes The Triangle lean blue these days, though the rest of the state is overwhelmingly Republican and very conservative.

I almost wept today to read in the Raleigh News and Observer this column by longtime Southerner Dennis Rogers.  In it he laments how the Southern Baptists have evolved over the past 10 years from “rebellious and contentious free thinkers” to what he calls Bobble-Head Baptists, going along as the ultra-relgious leaders wage war against homosexuals and women.

He ends with a word of praise for the United Church of Christ which just a few days ago voted to recognize same-sex marriages.

This, coming from a thank-you-ma’am, grits-eating, flag waving lifelong Southerner is a thing of beauty and a signal of hope for all of us that times might indeed be a-changing.

According to Alternet the music of Christina Aguilera has been used as a torture device at Guantanamo Bay.

Specifically, during a grueling, 20-hour interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani, suspected of being the 20th hijacker on September 11th, the interrogators played Aquilera’s music to keep him awake.

More below:
Not to make light of the torture allegations at Gitmo, I have to say that sleep deprivation and being forced to listen to Christina Aquilera would certainly force a confession out of me.

In the interest of variety, though, I would like to offer a few other musical suggestions that might be helpful in extracting information.

-Celine Dion
-Toby Keith
-The Captain and Tennille
-Mariah Carey
-Guns N Roses
-John Ashcroft (Let the Eagle Soar)

How about you?  
What singers/bands would make you give up the goat?

Hi and welcome to everybody!

This makes Welcome Wagon Diary #18 and, boy, has this been an exciting week!
I came over here just a few days ago and already it feels like home. Well, a 27-inch plasma screen home, but home nonetheless!

I guess I’ll tell you all a little bit about me and then, hopefully, any newbies will jump on in and introduce themselves and keep the lovefest hopping.  

I’d like to report that I’m 19 years old, trim and fit, fabulously wealthy, and have my whole life mapped out in front of me.  Unfortunately, 19 passed me by about 25 years ago and I’m still trying to figure out just what the heck to do with my life!  

I am the mother of four, ages 24, 20, 17 and 15.  I’ve had several jobs in my life, but not a career.  I’ve been poor, I’ve suffered on occasion from depression, I’ve had to struggle to stay afloat, and I’ve lived much of my life without health insurance.   So issues of mental health, poverty and health care, as well as the war in Iraq and the possibility of a draft, are the ones that I tend to focus my energies on these days.  I am a newshound (aren’t we all?) and I am an incurable writer of letters to the editor….the first published when I was just 8 years old.  It was about clubbing baby seals.  Um, I was against it. 🙂 Aside from that I am not as politically active as I should be and I hope to change that and to get motivated from the inspiring diaries I read here on Booman.

So, what brings you here?

Please introduce yourselves.  Don’t worry, this is not the first day of school and there will not be a quiz at the end of the day.  Just tell us who you are, where you’re from, a little about your interests and anything else you might want to say.

Welcome to the frog pond!

PS- please recommend this and remember to unrecommend #17….even though there are cool celebratory photos in honor of user #1500!  Woo hoo!

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