RIP Walter Cronkite

I liked and admired him. Sensible, sensitive and reliable. My grandparents watched his news broadcast. My father thought he was too liberal. I remember his coverage of the moon landing. I was 7. His announcing that Neil Armstrong, "a 38 year old American" was the first person on the moon gave me chills I viscerally still recall.

Natasha Richardson

She was as beautiful as her mother, Vanessa Redgrave. I am sorry she is gone. She was talented and only 45: younger than me. As a mom, I feel for her mom. I always write about celebrity deaths here. I'm sad it's happened again. Rest in peace.

Poor kid

My daughter was disappointed with the first grade teacher she got and was determined to be "sad today all year".

Likes both meat and vegetarian fare

My son is in a vegetarian family. He likes meat. He is a carnivore, he says. But he likes vegetarian food. "I like both," says he," I know what I am: a bothatarian."

Life's litlle nuiscences

Smelly farts, not listening kids, sibling squabbles, belchs deemed funny, rascist (but don't call 'em such, because they're well meaning) clerical staff, neverending fundraisers, coworkers "life events" which require renumeration, necessary work suck-up to management events.

Some things I dislike

The president
The vice-president
Karl Rove
Fundamentalists
Preachers
The Iraq war
The four Supreme Court wingnuts: Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts
My old job
My old boss
Humidity
Slugs
Woodchucks
Mosquitos
Camping in a tent in the woods
Being dirty overnight
Commuting in traffic
Stress eating

There's no way for George Carlin to RIP; it's just not him

I remember listening to the 7 Word album at a friend's house in 8th grade. It was her brother's album. We were shocked, my 3 friends and I. My friend's brother caught us and just said that the album was what it was all about. And it was. Thanks, George.

Recent "kidisms"

"Smashed eggs" are those generally scrambled.

Burning logs sprout fires like a volcano.

It's not good throw a smoker (cigarette) on the ground while it's on fire.

Things to like and dislike about 5 (!) year olds

Dislikes
1 They can get into real trouble at school
2 The start to have real friends, not always people you'd chose
3 They pick up bad words and habits from other kids at school
4 They recognize differences in people about which comment in a loud voice
5 They discover that some kids are not as gifted in the same areas they are
6 They judge others
7 They ask questions about God and gods, and heaven
8 Their lying skills improve
9 They begin to question parental authority
10 They begin to worry about their peers' opinions

Likes
1 They have started to appreciate your parental uniqueness
2 They have genuine interests you can explore with them
3 They can read!!!!
4 They like school and they like to learn
5 They recognize some of the talents they have
6 They sometimes make friends with kids whose parents you like
7 They start to discover the universe's mysteries
8 They understand consequences
9 They begin to question authority
10 They are confident enough to confront peers

Michelle Shocked

My partner and I would both "do" Michelle Shocked given an opportunity because for each of us, she has great significance. Because we love her music, her passion.

These are the lyrics I love the most and for me which have great meaning:

"You remind me of someone I once knew

I don't know who, I don't know

Who could it be, who could it be, let me see

Oh, yes, I remember now

It was me
Filled with fear, possessed by pain

Bitter tears I'm crying again

I don't know when I lost the will to live

And I found the will to forgive

But the more I forgive the more I forget

Holding on to my past is my only regret

And the more I forgive the more I forget

Let it go let it go."

Yes, forgive, forget and let go. My partner and I get to listen to Michelle in NJ! Previously, we have always listened in NYC.

For me, one of the best concerts I ever saw was when Michelle closed out the last night of the old Ritz on 9th street. She sang for over 4 hours. Wow. I forgive much but that I do not want to forget.

The diva's swansong

I liked Beverly Sills on the Muppet Show. I liked her introduction of performances on PBS. I liked watching her on talk shows advocating for the arts. I enjoyed her shows with Carol Burnet. I only recently discovered how wonderful was her voice.

Farewell, Bubbles.

Book recently read: Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent

In Aruba I read Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent who spends a year living as a man. Her experience as a man lets us know that males are emotionally stunted and sensitive creatures from whom emotion is removed at various points of their lives willy or nilly.

While the tale itself was entertaing, the larger issue for me as a parent of a young male was the large importance of having men in our son's life. There are rights of passage for which a male influence will be needed, especially as our son is finding his way as a man in adolescence. I am glad our son will be exposed through the Unitarian Society to senstive, strong manly men. We also have close male friends in this category but Vincent makes it clear that males need to find their way among the company of males. Before our son has to face male meanness, he should learn male kindness and tenderness. As much he will learn most "guy" skills from the lesbians in his life, he will not learn how to be a man from any woman, as Vincent's book makes clear. Men (like women) need to be among their own.

Recommended to any son's mother.

More kidisms

When it's winter, the trees are naked.

As your boo-boo heals, it melts. Eventually it's all melted.

Kid interpretation of traffic sign

This means "No swooping" according to my daughter.

What you become when you die

My daughter says when she is dead, she will be a fossil. My son replies that she will be a skeleton and she says after that, she'll be a fossil. I love my daughter.

Latest favorite kid saying

My son says, "When you're dead, you're dead all day." I love that kid.

Current biggest dislike

Yucky Chuck E Cheese's. See http://suburbandyke.blogspot.com/2007/03/chuck-e-cheeses-aka-yucky-chuck-e-is.html.

Worst and Best of 4 year olds

Worsts
1 They have opinions
2 They still have bathroom accidents
3 They whine
4 They think stupid things are funny
5 They've started to say that they hate you
6 They fight nasty with their sibling
7 They make messes they hate to clean up
8 They have too many toys
9 Too many of their toys are still big, pastic ones
10 They don't appreciate their possessions

Bests
1 They love to cuddle
2 They have interesting imaginations
3 They're fun to play with
4 They make you laugh
5 They say they love you a lot
6 They are developing interests
7 They have opinions
8 They can play well with siblings
9 They dance to any kind of music
10 They are enchanting

The Great Mortality - An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

Here is the book which decribes how medieveal Europeans were filty, unwashed walking disease vectors. This book describes how the Black Death started, spead and depopulated much of the "old world". As a history aficionado I would recommend it to others of my ilk. However, I think it should be required reading by all in medical and public health professions.

Then as now, health and hygiene are essential for humans. Any virus / disease can develop be spread the usual way through travel and trade.

This book discusses, as it says. the plague in intimate detail: how it effects a human body, how it transmits via rat fleas, how it flourishes in flea guts, how it kills in cities and the countryside.

It is well written and I could not put it down. This 700 year old catastrophy still resounds today.

Recommended reading - 1491 New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus

There was more to the new world than Pocahontas. This book explores many indigenous "new world" cultures and civilizations which existed before the European arrival. Disease, especially smallpox, devasted as much as 95 % of the pre-Columbian population. The Europeans were unhealthy, un-hygenic and immune to their own diseases.

The Indians traded with each other, fought each other and changed the environment as much as any other peoples in the world. We owe much of what we eat today to culitvars from North and South America. I am still reading this book which I can't put down.

Mood right now

Last night, no sleep. I don't wanna work, so I blog and I post. Tired, unmotivated. Sluggish and unrenewed. Coffee, coffee, coffee. Over caffeinated? Oh, yes. Peppy? Hell no. Gotta go, do some work.

Ali Farka Toure (belated)

He died in 2006. I loved his music because it moved and soothed my soul all at once. I can hear Niafunke playing in my head as I write. He was as hot as desert heat but he was as cool as the coolest New Orleans jazz. I wish I 'd discovered him sooner tnan I did.

"I'm a would-be rebel - the good girl who would like to be a bad one" - Helen Mirren

I fell in love with her in 1978 in the BBC production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, when as Rosalind, disguised as the boy Gannymede swaying her long gartered legs through the brush, says to her beloved, unsuspecting Orlando, "I shall be thy Rosalind in a more coming on disposition."



I have followed her career in movies and on Prime Suspect. She is marvelously sexy and deliciously bewitching. She is an intelligent, complex actress. Now she is nominated for Best Actress for portraying The Queen. Cheers, Helen.





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I've always liked Alastair Cooke

I'm reading Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin. It's witty and funny; a satire on the Royal Family. Tongue in cheek. Which lead me to re-think Alastair Cooke. No Brit was as fun or loved in my family as Alastair Cooke who introduced Masterpiece Theatre, the BBC and Britain to me. He explained and mocked, gently. He fed my adolescent and pre-pubescent anglophilia. He was suave and debonair. He made me sometimes wish to be an old, erudite Englishman. (He actually became a US citizen!)

I like electronic toys

I love my 4G Ipod. I don't need another. I use it at the gym, in the car when NPR is having a begathon or when I'm on a long trip, at work and when away. I love to listen to books on it. So far, I've heard Moby Dick, Gilgamesh, Aiding and Abetting and Tom Sawyer. Now, I'm listening to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Audio literature is a pleasure harkening to its oral origins.

I have always liked video games going back to Centipede and Pac-man in video arcades. I had an old Nintendo with Mario Brothers. My partner does not let me play games on our TV. I gave my Playstation 2 to homeless kids because she would never let me use it. On the computer I play Sims, Simcity and World Civilization. This is awkward and bad for my forty-something eyes and posture. My partner complains I hog the computer. My PSP is the best device because I can play it all the time wherever, whenever I want. I addicted to Lumine (3D Tetris on electronic, psychedelic, Japanese anime speed). I like the Sims but it's not as fun as the PC version. I have Grand Theft Auto - Liberty City but I cannot drive, so my guy always gets called a "pussy" and then dies.

Do you mean vibrators?

My partner asks over my shoulder. That is not for public knowledge!

View from my window at work:

A large, gray silver air-conditioning unit with pipes and stairs and fans which some of the guys in the office named, "The Death Star." It does not resemble that Star Wars icon but is ugly and noisy.

The pebbled roof of the large courthouse / post office on which "The Death Star" lies. In the pebbles are concrete paths leading from doors and windows to the "The Death Star".

Skyline of old industrial, improverished city in which I work. A still functioning factory with an American flag atop it. Chimneys and smoke stacks, mostly defunct, but some of which puff gray or white smoke. Wires and telephone poles. Billboards in Spanish and even satellite TV dishes.

To the far right, an arch shaped steel bridge stretching over the still polluted river about a mile away. The trees and church steeples of the Ironbound section in the far center. To the left, the skyline of lower Manhattan, now devoid of the Towers.

Clouds and the sky, through which landing aircraft fly.

Reading updates

I finished The Road Within. I lost interest in it and just skimmed it.

Now, I am reading a book about gnosticism. I am a Unitarian Univeralist. The gnostics were speaking about universal salvation and the unity of the divine before the Unversalists and Unitarians began espousing these ideas in the sixteenth century during the Reformation. (Of course, now Unitarian Unversalists have many beliefs about the divine or lack thereof.)

Because I am teaching the Coming of Age or Affirmation class at my church, I've had to read a handbook about Unitarian Unversalist beliefs and history. Many were burned alive in the 1500 and 1600s. Hungary and Poland were important to UU foundations. The gnostics seem to fit in here nicely and generally with my interest in mysticism.

I'll see where this goes.

They're dropping like flies

There some people like Naguib Mahfouz whom I always admired. Two other admirees died this week.

ANN RICHARDS
I liked Ann Richards' wit and brazen brashness. She overcame alcoholism and her recovery catapaulted her into politics until she was defeated in a gubernatorial race by the current president. She used her addiction as a strength. She was politically progressive. She supported gay rights in a live and let live way. She seemed honest. She was what was positive about Texas in the same way her successor enbodies Texas' bad traits.

ORIANA FALLACIIn the 1980's, I read a book called A Man which Oriana Fallaci had written about a Greek anti-facist guerilla who was imprisoned and later died under mysterious circumstances. She fell passionately in love with this man and the book contains some of the most sexually charged writing I've ever read. It exposed me to the ambigious world where the same people are called freedom fighters and terrorists. Fallaci herself was outspoken on many things, most especially fascism. Lately, she earned the ire of many because she spoke out about what was wrong in Islamic cultures. I have always admired her outspoken honesty even if I disagreed with it. Too few people speak their minds fearlessly and unequivocally. She was more than one of my favorite writers. She was a hero. She was a woman.

How did I never know about Leonard Cohen?

I'd never heard of Leonard Cohen until a few years ago when I was looking through my partner's CDs. She does not play music as much as I do although she did have bigger collection after we merged and before we purged CD collections. I loaded a Leonard Cohen cover album on my ipod but have not yet listened to it.

Thanks to my mother babysitting, my partner and I were able tonight to go to a local film festival where we saw a movie called "I'm Your Man" which was a tribute to Leonard Cohen. His poetry and songs are beautiful. This movie was the first time I heard his songs. He wrote Suzanne, one of my favorite songs, which I knew through Judy Collins' music. The Wainwrights (Rufus and Martha) and McGarrigles (Kate and Anna) and other singers sang Cohen's songs. Throughout the movie, Bono and Edge from U2 gave a running commentary and then Cohen sang with them. It was swell. Cohen can't sing but he sure sounded good with U2.

Cohen writes of passion and compassion of women. He feels a life force and its mystery. He comes late in life to humor. I want to explore this poet. Bono compared him to Keats or Shelley. In Cohen, I found some of what I love in John Donne: tangles with the earthly and the divine.

Spamming creative

I like that in trying to spam me, spam itself has become creative in order to get through the filters that won't let through the email in which the title says says "girls, girls, girls", or "viagra" (however creatively spelled) or "smart money", etc.

Now, I get junk mail with titles such as "responsibility", "showpiece" and "glowing". I also get things like "A pre-approved loan" and "Stock Alert: National Healthcare Logistics." My favorite are the ones which seem like they were chosen from random literate quotations. Right now, one of my email accounts has these fine gems: "cordial flaunt" and "bigwig paradoxically". These are so interesting I am tempted to click on them but I won't because I know they're junk. "Bigwig paradoxically" is very intriguing because it is just so bizarre but it's probably just a come-on for viagra.

The other thing that has improved are the alleged names of the senders. No longer are they generic senders or from people with names like Mary K. or Bob B. Now, I get junk email from people named Gwendoline Chavez ("misplaced"), Lambert Rivers ("responsibility") and Skillet ("a pre-approved loan"). Again, I am also intrigued by these senders' names. Elsie Eaton sent "bigwig paradoxically." The name sounds like that of a stripper or of someone from a Dickens' novel. Who would name their kid Mortimer Santiago and what is he trying to tell me, or rather sell me, with a lead-in like "cordial flaunt"? What is a cordial flaunt? Probably, viagra.

I do think there is a bigger essay in these spam oddities. Or perhaps there is a code? Too woo-hoo. However, I am left pondering what is a paradoxical bigwig and how to flaunt cordially. Spam has become strangely creative. Paradoxically cordial or flaunting bigwig?

Update on The Road Within

Yes, I am still reading this but am now skipping parts. Tales of dreams which come true or send prescient messages are not my thing. I am interested in mysticism but have always greeted it with cynicism. Too much woo-hoo and I skiddo. I am hopeful that the sections on evil and simple gifts will be more enlightening and entertaining.

Currently procrastinating:

1 working on resume
2 finding an adjunct teaching position (see #1)
3 exploring our new photoshop software
4 working on kids thank you cars (see #2)
5 returning to Weight Watcher because I hate counting points
6 dieting (see #5)
7 doing house work (I am blogging)
8 reading (see parethesis in #7)

Farewell, Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz died yesterday. I read his book Midaq Alley many years and for many years have been acquiring his books as I have come across them at yard sales. I loved Midaq Alley because it was so earthy; full of yearning lower class folk attempting to escape the Cairo slum where they lived. They had really no means of escape and after brief flights always landed where they started. This story was so extraordinarily vivid, I haved long to read the rest of his work ever since.

Mahfouz was a quiet hero. He was a modest man who still hung out in the same cafes he frequented before his fame. He did not become famous until his 40s before which he had worked for the government. He spoke of tolerance and moderation. He was stabbed by a religious extremist when he was in his 80s. I remember him saying, in an article appearing a few years ago in the NY Times Sunday section, that he did blame the young man who had stabbed him. Mahfouz under went rehabilitation afterwards and returned to writing in classical Arabic. The news media say he died with his wife whispering into his ear. Mahfouz modeled the art of living.