Symphysiotomy

I was out the other night with a dear friend and talk came around to a horrific procedure called a symphysiotomy that was performed on my mother in 1956. My DF had passed on my information in this blogpost (written in 2007) to a very well known author who has now published it in a book on Irish people's history in the past 100 years.

I read the post again when I got home and found myself still deeply affected. I truly believe I'm beyond anger and hate. Just totally sad at what happened to my mother and all the countless women of her era who suffered so much at the hands of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Here is that post again.

Pink Me Stupid Redux

I previously wrote about that irritating Breast Cancer Campaign and its inherent pink-me-into-a-coma-but never-find-a-cure premise.

But Lawdy Mawdy, courtesy of the NRA, we present the following, shown recently at a gun show. Yes, they're real.



This sure takes the pink cake in the pink-me-stupid department.

Designed to blow that pesky cancer right out of you.

Along with everything else.

Runner-up prize would have to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken who have now introduced a Pink Bucket of chicken to further the pinkwash cause. Omitting to announce that their product of fat and hormones would more than likely cause the disease.

Suffer the Little Children Chapter 9 Volume 1200

An eight year old child in Boston has been denied admittance to a Catholic School because his parents are *gasp* lesbians.

This was after the parents had paid the deposit and bought the uniforms.

‘We weren’t hiding our relationship,’ one of the boy’s mothers, who requested her anonymity be honored to protect the child, told the press. Both she and her partner had listed their names on their son’s admission forms. ‘I’m accustomed to discrimination, I suppose, at my age and my experience as a gay woman. But I didn’t expect it against my child.'

The saintly Fr. Rafferty

and the school’s principal Cynthia Duggan informed the third-grader’s parents that he would be denied admission because their relationship is in discord with church teaching

And that affects the child's admittance how, exactly? He's a lesbian too? He made them into lesbians?

Read all about it here.

I just despair of this wilfully ignorant,abusive, corrupt, misogynistic child hating
institution.

Who Needs Nuisancy Rules & Regs?

Amen, bro, amen!

Travelling

So I'm in Toronto. In the bliss of Highspeed.

Only when you're without what others take for granted does one appreciate the Small Stuff that makes life so much easier.

And talking of life ~

I wonder what it's like for the 12% of US homeowners now walking away from their houses. "Strategic Abandonment" is the new buzzword for this.

I wonder what it's like to be a fisher in the Gulf of Mexico and have this toxic spill swallow everything in its path.

I wonder what it's like in the EU and particularly in Greece and in the UK where life is about to change irrevocably with further economic collapses.

I wonder at the magnitude of this confluence of what is happening on our tiny planet as it twists and turns in its death throes. A commentary I heard on CBC Newfoundland as I was driving Ansa to the kennel summed up this whole disastrous way of life so beautifully:

"In the last fifty years or so we started to reverse the economic methodology of our ancestors wherein we now placed consumption before production when it HAS to be the other way around."

Amen, I thought. Of course. We have to produce before we consume. Is it too late for our grandchildren to rethink their worlds having been taught the opposite by their parents and grandparents?

And did you know that offshore in Newfoundland, they are digging even deeper for the oil than BP was in the Gulf?

And when the Newfoundland government was challenged on what we are doing to prevent another massive spill, here's a summary of what the minister said:

Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale says the oil industry is watching the events in the Gulf of Mexico to see what lessons can be learned from a massive spill there.

Ms. Dunderdale said earlier this week that the offshore industry is too vital to the province to ever curtail drilling.

Yes, Drill, Baby, Drill is the modus operandi in Newfoundland.

And flying over vast swathes of clear cutting gives me time to reflect on all of this.

And resign myself to the fact that those times I read about as a child are here. Now.

• When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
~ Cree Prophecy

Blog Buddies

It is extraordinary, this Brave New World.

I use the word 'Brave' deliberately here.

The blogs I read are mainly personal, though I do have a salt and pepper flavouring thrown in there with some political, climate-change, linguistic, feminist and knitting blogs.

I've developed close friendships with some, to the point where we email privately on more sensitive matters and/or on recovery from addictions.

So whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up for speculation.

I have ongoing chats with someone who has some serious mental challenges. She's a brilliant artist, writer and extraordinarily brave considering her personal history which has been plagued with murder, death of a child and serious abandonment issues.

And today she emails me she is horrifically depressed and can't see hope and then deletes her blog.

I have no phone number for her, I don't speak the language of her country to alert the police or have any contact info for relatives or acquaintances.

I feel so totally helpless (and useless).

***UPDATE***

My friend has moved back to an old blog after deleting her new so fingers crossed, healing thoughts go her way and she has called a crisis line who must be monitoring the situation.

Mother's Day Canada May 9th, 2010

Motherless

For all of us who cry alone
And blunder on, so brave.
Her voice a merest whisper
Echoing from the grave.

We wonder how we tough it out
Without her shining face
Many are times both glad and sad
She leaves an empty space.

We hear her voice at moments
From deep within, a laugh
We catch her carefree open smile
In a yellowed photograph.

Time doesn't have the answer
To this puzzling mystery
Though we are old and tired and worn
Still Motherless Children are we.

I wrote the above for those of us who don't have mothers to celebrate with on this special day and wish we did.

Spin Classes

We can't believe all we read. Ever. Particularly in this age of instant news and more reportage than we've ever had in the history of humankind.

For instance, will we ever know the truth about:

The JFK assassination?
9/11?
The invasion of Iraq?
The invasion of Afghanistan?
Katrina?

And I offer you this ( tongue firmly in cheek, I hasten to add) as to how the news can be spun in any which way to fit an agenda:

Keeping My Mind Too Pure

I have a friend who lives by the statement "I keep my mind free of any polluting thoughts". She has had more than her fair share of health issues. She is a brilliant woman but won't read bad news or listen to it on radio or watch it on television. She firmly believes it affects one's health and outlook. I would wonder at her state of ignorance. How did she navigate her way around without being fully informed?

I resolved at the beginning of this year to avoid blogging about the perilous state of this tiny planet as I've been doing for years and concentrate on the local and familiar, allowing myself the odd explosion when brain buildup becomes unsustainable and rant just happens. The explosions have been minimal. In spite of an oil spill that is poised to engulf the Atlantic sea shore, Iceland and Greece just the beginning of the toppling of the global economic Ponzi scheme, bees in massive decline (and don't think that's not one of the more serious issues)and rumblings of financial uncertainty from the One Who Must Be Obeyed - China.

I write for other publications, often a rant on the political shenanigans and ignorance of Demz Wot Rulez Us, or an exploration of the failure of urban planning, you get the picture.And I was in the midst of writing a diatribe for another publication about something that was seriously chapping my hide....

When something happened to me. This inner, softer, gentler twin emerged and started writing about beauty and friendship and love and music and good food and the warmth of unexpected kindness.

I'm losing my grip, obviously. I need to brush up on BP and their empty clean-up promises.

A Splinty Splice of Newfoundland Time

I enchanted myself with a phrase I used in a comment on Stan's wondrous blog: Sentence First, so I grabbed it and ran with it and plopped it right on my header here. Splinty Splice. Say it.

I had an intense week work-wise. Could barely manage to squeeze in my ongoing online Scrabble games which are usually priority numero uno. Followed closely by blog-reads which had to go by the board while I earned a few coppers to keep the roof over my head for another year.

A couple I don't know very well (no, not Fred and Lily)invited me out for dinner at their place on Wednesday night and a viewing of their organic garden.

They live in a saltbox house similar to mine and right on the ocean in another part of St. Mary's Bay - and what an enchanted place it is. You'd never suspect they had such a magical kingdom from meeting them. They're quite brusque, no-nonsense types. But oh my what an evening we had!

First of all he cooked 4 different kinds of fish in 4 different ways. While he did this she gave me the 5 star tour of the gardens. There were flower beds everywhere, and she proudly told me all flowers had been gifted to her or she had 'helped herself' to the gardens of strangers. "With respect," she added. Masses and masses of different flowers. They had strawberry beds, root vegetables, rhubarb and runner beans ready to go.

Best of all, however, she had created an outdoor art gallery on her trees. Hanging from about fifty trees were pictures and bird feeders of every description, plaques and shells and driftwood and lights and candles. On the ground she had glued arrangements of miniatures - people, tables, chairs on old wood in hidden little spots. I was entranced. I felt it would be totally intrusive to take pictures then but asked her if I could come back to do so and she was thrilled.

But that wasn't all of it. Inside, she gave me another tour and proudly showed me her craft room where she worked on the old treadle sewing machine of her grandmother's. An 1888 Singer. Still in great running order. She had six quilts finished. I admired one gorgeous one of subtle Mexican colours (I'm in love with Mexican culture) and she insisted, over loud and long protests, that it was mine.

After a stupendous meal inadequately squashed down by partridge berry pie, I had the unfortunate stupidity to admire a history book of his and I was presented with that as well. My face reddened even further when he wrapped up a mountain of leftovers and told me I wouldn't have to worry now about cooking for myself with all the work I had to do over the next few days.

They both had to help me stagger to my car with all the bounty they had bestowed on me - oh yeah, did I mention her collection of conch shells from the beach I had the appalling lack of tact to admire?

Newfoundland people. Salt sea.

Ah now, don't be tellin' me that kind of stuff!

I have one of those faces.

You probably guessed that anyway.

Without warning, people often pour out their deepest darkest secrets to me.

Seriously.

Even when they're not friends, merely strangers or acquaintances.

Like yesterday.

My canine companion Ansa, is just about engaged to another dog in the village called Bo-Diddly.

They absolutely adore each other. Bo loves Ansa with such a passion that often he flops down on his belly at her feet and just gazes at her with tears shining in his eyes. Really sweet.

Bo's human companion is Lily. Lily is married to Fred. Nice couple. Fred loves to dance at the village functions. I don't know them very well.

As Bo and Ansa play on the beach yesterday, Lily says to me, out of the blue:

“Home I go now, to 10-Second-Fred.”

I stifle a gasp. She can't be saying what I think she's saying.

“Cute nickname?' I offer, hesitantly.

“Oh I wouldn't say it to him,” she says, “It's more a private nickname. I've never told a soul!”.

Why now, dear Maude, and why me?

“Forty-one years of marriage to 10-Second-Fred,” she continues, sighing, “And do you know what he says before he starts?”

I raise my eyebrows, I call my dog, I gulp down a huge laughy hawk of a snort that rises in my throat.

“'Get ready for me, baby, the world's greatest lover!'”

I get down on my knees and offload my pent-up guffaws into Ansa's neck.

I'd like to suggest she tell Fred, in the nicest possible way, what she's just told me, or she buys him maybe the Kama Sutra or The Joy of Sex. But I can't. I'm afraid to open my mouth. So I nod, silently, straightfacedly, sympathetically.

And yes, I know it's sad. And awful. And lonesome.

But the next time I run into Fred, or dance with him, The World's Greatest Lover, what do you think I'll see?

Else

Else
– For Earth Day 2010





Disconnect.
Me from You.
You from Us.
Us from Them
Them from
Everyone

Else.

What Else?
Is Else
Not Them
And Us
And You
and Me?

We Are
Air
Water
Earth
Sun, Moon,
Stars.

We Are
Energy
Creating
Our lives
From this

Else.

And You
Tell Me
It's none of
My business
When You
Disrespect?

Hello Utah? Please update your calendars to the 21st Century!

State-sanctioned murder , sometimes known quaintly as 'capital punishment', is the order of the day down in Utah.

When offered a choice of means of death, Ronnie Lee Gardner chose a firing squad over a lethal injection. (I would too, knowing the additional and unnecessary torture these injections inflict on victims at the incompetent hands of the bungling executioners). At least with 5 rifles going off at the same time, death should be instantaneous.

He has been on death row since 1985.

Michael J. Burdell's (Gardner's victim) father and girlfriend insist that Michael, a lawyer and pacifist who never held a gun, wouldn't want this outcome and if he had survived the shooting, he would have defended Gardner.

Savage and barbaric doesn't quite cover my revulsion.

I've Seen The Future, Baby, It Is Hopeful (Apologies, Mr. Cohen!)

I think we need to be brought to our knees to make any beneficial changes in our lives.

I can write until I'm blue in the face about sustainability and green living and reducing, reusing, re-purposing and recycling. And trust me I do in other publications. I could bore for Canada on that topic alone.

I recycle, I make little herb pots out of my used cans. I compost faithfully. I plant vegetables. I use sustainable wood from my own woodlot to heat my house and for most of my cooking. I have green laundry equipment. All my bed linens are other people's discards as they climb the ladders of thread counts and matching huzzahs in their bedrooms. Come to think of it, most of my clothes are kindnesses donated by a friend. I don't pollute what's left of my brain with the toxic fumes of television pimping products I don't need for a house I would never desire. I make sure none of my clothes are walking billboards hawking the Chinese production line products of Gap and Garage et al. I avoid Walmart and its competitors like the viral plague on the landscape that they are and my cellphone is about 5 years old.

Am I virtuous? Absolutely not. I don't do all this out of virtue. I could afford 800 count sheets in creamy Egyptian cottons. And I could replace my micro Toyota with an SUV. I take a bag and plastic gloves and regularly clean up the 2 kilometres of beach in front of my house. And one day I will take a picture and itemize all the discarded rubbish of the contemptible litterbugs who pollute this pristine place without thought. But I think about it and do something rather than stew and fume. I am no saint. This little part of the planet is on loan to me from my granddaughter and her granddaughter.

My friend Twilight over at her Learning Curve on the Ecliptic Blog dug deep for some great quotes on Earth Day and I repeat a few of them here:

Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.
~George Carlin

I really wonder what gives us the right to
wreck this poor planet of ours."
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: "Look at this Godawful mess." ~Art Buchwald, 1970

The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. ~Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923

And then I read about a place that has been brought to its knees: Motor City – Detroit.

And Detroit, in its economic pain and devastation, is re-inventing itself as the Ground Zero of the sustainability movement with a complete green revitalization strategy. And here's the big thing: social justice is at its very core.

With the city’s current leadership hypnotized by what they see as a civic death spiral, new leadership is coming from the place it always does in the end–from the bottom up. This new life cycle is a grassroots affair with an astonishing number of people fashioning solutions and affirming. There are now eight hundred community gardens on abandoned lots, peace zones for public safety, green retrofitting of empty houses, new open source media projects and an exploding hip hop and poetry scene.

This June, as many as 10,000 people from around the world will be convening in Detroit for the US Social Forum. They are organizing around the statement: “Another Detroit is Happening.” and have chosen the city because it is ground zero in today’s global financial meltdown.

This, above anything else I've read, gives me the greatest hope for the future.

Pass the kneepads.

Photo of the Week

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~COW-IN-FIELD~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

```{CLICK TO EMBIGGEN - YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!|```

I never take it for granted.

Never.

I just put in a 12 hour day. Being tax season 'n all. 12 hour days, hell 20 hour days, wouldn't even phase (faze? h'm?) on me until I turned 60.

Now? Well,let me tell you, I'll sleep tonight.

But I never take for granted that I can still perform (and so very much enjoy) this work.

And more particularly, as I'm doing it, I can look out my office window and see the red topped barge with its load of lumber and equipment, heading up the bay on delivery today.

I sometimes want to pinch myself as if this is all a dream. I work here, crunching numbers and writing, bathed in this constant beauty.

I am so very blessed.

This is getting personal

Funny how that Iceland volcano seems awfully distant. Even though you sympathize with the people who are stranded all over Europe. And the backlog of travel, the desperation, the family emergencies that are unattended. Even the funeral of the Polish prime minister being affected.

But it's all so, well, distant, and the other-side-of-the-globe stuff.

And then the headline at the corner of the screen catches your eye.

Iceland Ash heads to Newfoundland.

And you think, wha'? This is the thanks we get for the many years of shopping sprees the Icelanders flew here for? They belch a pile of ash at us?

And now we're all grounded too? And how about my lungs?

Shameless Brag

click to enbiggen

This was a long haul in the making, over 15 months. My daughter's birthday is tomorrow and this is the gift. I've designed and made these afghans for years, often as wedding gifts or family gifts. They always incorporate facets or hallmarks or talents or aspirations of the giftee and family connections.

In this one, there are the trees symbolizing family and grounding,. There is a garden representing my daughter's annual vegetable and herb planting. There are the honeycombs representing health for her (she has MS) and the blackberries representing the wild fruits of the hedgerows that she loves, cables of friends and relationships, there are boats symbolizing the ocean and then there are music notes representing her passion for music and her skill as a flautist.

Finally there is the surrounding edging of tulips which represent the month of her birth, April.

Oddly enough, it was the tulips that were the biggest challenge. I could not manage to get the pattern (it was an 18-rower) into my head until I'd made about 20. As I like to watch movies or DVD series or read a book as I knit, this was a serious challenge, having to concentrate and read the pattern so many times and tick as I went. But finally it sunk in and I was able to multi-task successfully (even to reading blogs as I completed so many of these tulips!)

My daughter's a woman who appreciates all things hand-wrought, so I know she will just love this.

closeup of music notes

Important Flow Chart

click to embiggen

H/T Bartcop

A Couple of Oopses

Oops - apologies to all re my hotmail account being hacked and everyone on my hotmail addie book offered some crap, supposedly from me. As it is a brand new laptop and I do have firewalls and anti-spam, etc, I wonder how this was accomplished and I have reported it. Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

And another oops, the last post omitted some significant data on the 'sexy men'.
I should make clear I do NOT like misogynistic cavemen. Never have. So-called 'rednecks' and "cruising for a bruising" types also seriously chap my hide.

The 'sexy men' of my post are completely rounded. Along with being outdoorsy and sometime shed-inhabitors, they also cook, clean and are totally comfortable with women. Among the many I know, there is only one who continually degrades his wife verbally. The others, single or partnered, are as at home with holding babies as they are with making jam. A couple continually provide me with their homemade bread and homemade soup. None of them drink to excess. One is gay.

The sexy part to me is the fact that they are so completely diversified. Equally at home with woodsy hunting or stormy sea-fishing or boiling up a Jiggs dinner for family and friends or discussing politics or books.

And in all the time I have spent with these Newfoundland men, I have found my opinion as equally respected as that of their male friends. And if they are married, they speak of their wives as equal partners. Always.

Maybe I'm in a particularly wonderful part of Newfoundland, or maybe they had exceptional mothers, or maybe, just maybe it's the water around these parts, but hell, 99% of these guys are dudely wonders of the world!