Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Eagle Forum

Speaking of Eagle Forum…you really do need to visit their web site if you’ve never been there before. They’re really crazy.

Join Eagle Forum and Phyllis Schlafly — Join Eagle Forum so you will have a voice at the U.S. Capitol and at State Capitols: “We oppose all encroachments against American sovereignty through treaties (such as the International Criminal Court) and United Nations conferences (such as those aimed at imposing energy restrictions on the U.S., registering privately owned guns, imposing global taxes, or promoting feminist goals)….”

Gay Marriage May Become Legal Throughout Canada

Canadian Court Says Government Can Redefine Marriage (washingtonpost.com): “Prime Minister Paul Martin has pledged to quickly introduce and pass legislation to do that, although the vote is expected to be close in Parliament. He has said he will enforce party discipline in his ruling Liberal Party to win passage of the measure, a controversial tactic that would force party members who oppose the bill to vote for it.”

Most of you already know that I’m strongly in favor of gay people having the right to legally marry in the United States, so I won’t harp on that issue yet again. What particularly caught my eyes was this quote from the Washington Post’s article:

“”That is totally undemocratic,” C. Gwendolyn Landolt, national vice president of Real Women of Canada, a group opposed to gay marriage, told reporters after the decision. “Those Liberal members of Parliament have to know they are not going to be reelected if they vote along party lines.”"

Real Women of Canada?!? Real Women of Canada!!??

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

So…I guess the implication is that lesbians are not real women. What are they, I wonder?

In my effort to track down the answer to this question, I visited the Real Women of Canada website. Their motto: “Women’s rights but not at the expense of human rights.” Oooookaaaaaaay. Hm. I guess they’re talking about abortion. (Though, to my way of thinking, the only rational and morally consistent argument against abortion is one based on a philosophy of non-violence towards all life.) Anyway…here are some of the highlights from their web site:

Their “Quick Topics” area which, it seems, would have provided an overview of their position on different issues is “Under Contruction.” Not an auspicious beginning. Instead of creating a link from their home page and having it go nowhere, they’d have saved themselves some scornful snickering on my part by simply adding the link only after the content was complete. Doh!

Ah, okay. Here’s their mission statement. Apparently the “real” in Real Women is really “REAL”–for Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life”. Isn’t that cute! They’re kind of interesting. While they’re against the same stuff our Republican ultra-conservative women’s groups (like the very nutty Eagle Forum) are against (abortion and pretty much anyone who’s not a straight white Christian), they’re also in favor of government policies that I’d typically associate with liberals. For example, “policies that make homemaking possible for women who, out of necessity, would otherwise have to take employment outside the home.”

Hmf. Canadians.

From the REAL Women of Canada web site: “Before women can have equality with men, we must first have equality among ourselves and this means a tolerance and respect for the differing views of other women.  This also means a recognition, not only of the dignity of the individual, but also fo the fact that women have always required more than just one voice to speak for our concerns.”

I guess that tolerance only extends as far as a woman is straight and a follower of the “Judeo-Christian tradition” because REAL Women of Canada sure doesn’t have any to spare for gay people.

Prom 1975

Between his powder blue tuxedo and my dorky haircut, I don’t know which one of us looks the goofiest.

Alaska Natural History Association

ANHA’s Mission Statement: “The Alaska Natural History Association is a nonprofit partner of Alaska’s parks, forests, refuges and other public lands. The Alaska Natural History Association is what’s called a cooperating or interpretive association a nonprofit organization dedicated to public land education. Incorporated in 1959, the Association has a long history of connecting people to the Great Land of Alaska. Alaska’s public lands are national treasures rich in human history and healthy ecosystems. About 80% of Alaska, the largest state, is publicly owned. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 placed large parts of Alaska in America’s conservation, wilderness, and recreation systems, forests, wildlife refuges, and parks. Combined with the already established federal reserves and a growing state park system, these designations round out an unsurpassed protected land base. The Alaska Natural History Association is the education partner of these amazing public lands.”

I’ve been spending a little more time this afternoon looking at the ANHA web site.

Alaska…

What a wonderful place.

It’s a funny thing. Almost everyone I’ve ever known who has lived for any length of time in northern Minnesota (and has enjoyed it) also has a strong desire to live in rural Alaska. I guess once you’ve got the taste for cold wilderness, you just want more of it! As I was watching that “Alone in the Wilderness” documentary last night, I couldn’t help thinking: ‘Hey, I could do that! I’m a hard worker! And I don’t mind isolation–in fact, I like it!’ I’d have a very hard time getting the spouse signed on for such an adventure, though. He doesn’t like cold. And there would be other more significant problems. He has medical conditions that require regular monitoring. I, on the other hand, am absurdly healthy. Hm. Maybe he could live on a boat and I could live in Alaska and–during the summer when the waterways are open–he could sail on up to visit me.

Anyway. More on the Alaska Natural History Association. They seem like they’re people involved in doing a good thing but, I’ve got to say, they’ve got one of the dopiest pages I’ve ever seen on a web site. Do click on that link I just gave you and check it out. They actually expect people to get permission from them before linking to their web site! Ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Can you believe it? Is that not one of the more anal things you’ve ever seen on a web site?!? Not only do they want you to get permission, they even have expectations on how you link to them. “Links may be text based, using the full name of the organization, “Alaska Natural History Association”, “Denali Institute”, or “Alaska Natural History Association: Books, maps, and educational programs for public lands.”" So, I guess since the link I provided in my earlier post–you know, the one where I suggest you send your money to ANHA instead of to PBS?–is not in compliance with these regulations. Maybe I should remove it, eh? Now, to give them a little credit, they do have one reasonable request–that people don’t link directly to their graphics on their web site so as to avoid additional load on their server. That’s fair. The other stuff, though….jeez. They need to get a grip and just be grateful if people link to them at all!

Oh…and you’ll all be startled and, no doubt, deeply disturbed to know that I did NOT contact their webmaster for a copy of their logo. I simply snatched it off their web site. I figure rational people won’t get upset with me doing that as long as I’m using it to link back to their own site. These guys, though…who knows!

Alone In The Wilderness

Our local PBS station (WETA) showed this documentary last night. You can buy a VHS or DVD copy from PBS too, but I figure the Alaska Natural History Association probably needs the money more, so…that’s where you’ll be taken if you click on the link.

What an amazing and interesting story! This guy built his cabin completely by hand–with hand tools, no electricity!–including wooden hinges for the doors, a fireplace made from rocks he hand-gather from along the lake and river near his home, and hand-gathered moss on the roof.

It appears that he shot most of the film in the documentary himself. It shows all sorts of really interesting things: shaping logs for the cabin, chinking it with moss and lichens, building the roof and the fireplace, planting his garden. There’s also lots of footage of wild animals. Disclaimer for those of you who don’t like animal killing: there are a couple of fishing scenes and one wild sheep hunting scene but there’s a minimum of gore. In the sheep scene you basically see some live rams on a hill and then the next scene is of him packing the sheep carcass out on his back. It’s all “folded up” so you don’t see much. You see him soaking the sheep pelt but, again, very little gore. Plus, it’s gratifying to know that he apparently would use every possible bit of the animal and whatever was left over would be left for wolves and bears to eat. So…not so bad.

Anyway. This guy, Richard Proenneke, lived in his cabin in the middle of the wilderness until he was in his 80s. Now the cabin and surrounding land are part of a national park.

The photo above, by the way, is of a place in Alaska–though it’s not from where Proenneke’s cabin is. I happened to be tooling around on the realtor.com web site–fantasizing about moving to Alaska–and I saw this picture in a land-for-sale ad. Nice, eh? Probably gets cold as a witch’s tit in winter, though.

Here’s Proenneke working on his cabin.

Peace Mission in Iraq is Double-Plus-Good!

Salon.com News | Whitewashing torture?: “Although no ‘medevac’ order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was ‘delusional’ and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist, diagnosed him as ‘completely normal.’”

And there’s this report of abuse occuring after the Abu Ghraib incident had been reported. Just keep the happy-talk coming, guys. If you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t really exist. Right?

Retired Wolves

WolfCam 3 – The Retired Ambassador Wolves Enclosure

I’ve written about the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota before. As I write this entry, the cam shows one of the older wolves standing in the snow watching a pair of crows or ravens pick at some deer bones.

Retired Wolves.

Think of the wolves in fairy tales…then think of them in retirement, maybe living in Florida, maybe driving a big Buick.

Fuck This Shit

A So-So Debut For Microsoft’s Blog Service (washingtonpost.com): “The established blogging community was quick to try out Microsoft’s new service, and several bloggers noted Microsoft is running an automated text filter that blocks certain words from getting published. The MSN censor appears uneven in our tests; it allowed plenty of ‘god damn’ headlines, but blocked a nod to an old Elton John song, ‘The bitch is back.’ Microsoft said it prohibits profanity in rules of conduct people must consent to when signing up for MSN Spaces. The company also said it is testing a mechanism to screen images.”

They’re just words and pictures, people. Words and pictures.

What is the point of this censorship?

Is it to protect children from seeing things they shouldn’t see? Protect your own children! Quit expecting the world to be your baby-sitter. You see that all the time these days, by the way. People let their kids run loose in restaurants, grocery stores, pretty much anywhere. People really are truly awful and stupid.

Is it to protect sensitive adults from seeing things they don’t want to see? Adults should have enough common sense to avoid this stuff. If they don’t, then they ought to be under the care of un-impaired adults.

Understand that I’m not talking about criminal stuff like child pornography. I’m talking about nudie pictures and the legal expression of naughty words and unpopular opinions.

Microsoft is providing this blogging service for free. Even if they weren’t, they’re entitled to censor whatever they want. (Look at AOL–they’re huge censors.) That’s certainly not the kind of service I would want to use. Though, just now reading through the terms of service for my Cox account, I see that they could yank my web site any time they want if they think my content is “threatening, abusive, libelous, slanderous, defamatory, incites hatred, or is otherwise offensive or objectionable.” Pretty broad, eh? Well…Fuck that shit, too! At least Cox doesn’t use filtering software that prevents me from even publishing those words. I’ll give them credit for that.

Whom Can You Believe?

Advocacy Groups Blur Media Lines (washingtonpost.com): “The chamber [the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which publishes an Illinois weekly newspaper called The Madison County Record] is one of a growing number of advocacy groups that blur the distinction between legitimate media and propaganda to promote their causes.”

Well….DUH! This is news? Like the Washington Post itself doesn’t occasionally engage in slanted reporting? I’m talking here in terms of the stories they choose to report–not about actual falsehoods. This sort of thing has been going on forever. Everyone’s got an agenda. The tricky part is in uncovering what the agenda is and in finding other sources of information that can fill in the rest of the picture.

People with money (companies, very rich folk, associations, whatever) support the media that represent their values. This is not news. Well…I would hope it’s not news to most people!

“Take One Home for the Kiddies”

“On shallow straw, in shadeless glass,
Huddled by empty bowls, they sleep:
No dark, no dam, no earth, no grass -
Mam, get us one of them to keep.

‘Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
Fetch the shoebox, fetch the shovel -
Mam, we’re playing funerals now.”

-Philip Larkin (1922-1986) British poet