Gadflying

December 05, 2006

Xristi's passing

I regret to inform you that Xristi Megas passed away Friday, December 29, 2006, at her home. Miss Betsy Trotwood was adopted by her caring vet - "Dog Doc" (Carl Jameson). Xristi is survived by two brothers, one sister-in-law, two nieces, a nephew, and by many friends.Below is a list of some of the charities she supported in recent months. Please feel free to contribute to any (or all!) of them in her memory:

American Civil Liberties Union
Southern Poverty Law Center
KQED and KTEH (or your local public television/radio)
American Humane Association
Humane Society of the United States
Environmental Defense
Defenders of Wildlife
World Wildlife Fund
Democracy in Action
and
Democratic National Committee

Xristi's friendship and wise counsel will be missed - however, her wit and wisdom will live on!Tamsin
Her Favorite blogs:

http://priceofliberty.net - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://evenlittlesparrows.blogspot.com/ - Sparrow Chat
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ - BobGeiger (formerly Yellow Dog)
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.

---o0o---
A bagatelle of the bizarre…

1. Eye of the Beholder Case One: John Bolton

Of Mr. Bush’s eye, Mr. Bolton is the apple. The President pours the emollients of adulatory praise and gratitude over Mr. Bolton in his farewell, as though no one in the world were cursed/blessed with memory or the experience of having that scaly presence dragged across personal sensitivities. According to Mr. Bush,

He served his country with extraordinary dedication and skill, assembling coalitions that addressed some of the most consequential issues facing the international community," the president said. "During his tenure, he articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty.

"Ambassador Bolton led the successful negotiations that resulted in unanimous Security Council resolutions regarding North Korea's military and nuclear activities. He built consensus among our allies on the need for Iran to suspend the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium," Bush added. "His efforts to promote the cause of peace in Darfur resulted in a peacekeeping commitment by the United Nations. He made the case for United Nations reform because he cares about the institution, and wants it to become more credible and effective.”

Mr. Bolton had demonstrated his care about the effectiveness and credibility of the institution by saying on prior occasions:

“If the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 storeys, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

“If I were redoing the Security Council, I’d have one permanent member: The United States.”

Talk about your tough love!

Tony Snow, not a man to be caught on a road not previously trod by the Presidential boot, had apparently by mid-November known that kudos to Mr. Bolton would be lavish, despite a certain inevitability since the mid-term election that his head would probably go bouncing down the dais steps along with Rumsfeld’s. After all, Rumsfeld’s performance had been lavishly praised, just before the not very skilled Mr. Bush attempted to “whoooooosh” net by lobbing his severed head through the basket.

The home team didn’t cheer. It stamped its feet and chanted, “Why now when we’ve lost and not sooner when it might have helped!!!”

In this Administration, however, an oracle like Mr. Snow learns to speak not with forked, but with fully shredded, tongue. No matter what Mr. Bush had decided about Bolton, just as was the case with Rumsfeld, something Snow had said, sometime or other, someplace or other, could have been spun as a prediction -- of staying or going, as need seemed to demand. It’s not as though the other end of the rope in this Administration is tied to an anchor of truth that has to be considered.

Thus, in Snow’s eyes, Bolton has been “highly successful” and “has demonstrated an ability to work effectively with other members and other U.N. delegations”

For some, however, Mr. Bolton has not been an apple of watchful eyes. If anything, he’s been a particularly irriating floating mote, one that escapes removal and won’t be washed away. Thus, according to the view of ThinkProgress:

Bolton will be leaving a tenure that has been characterized by ineffectiveness and U.S. estrangement from the world community. Some highlights of Bolton’s “highly successful” tenure.

– Isolated the United States from its allies on the Human Rights Council. The United States was one of four nations to oppose the creation of the Council. (170 nations voted for it.) Out of 30 or so negotiating sessions over the creation of the Council, Bolton attended just one. He also argued for permanent membership for China and Russia on the Council.

– Made stopping genocide in Sudan a low priority. In early June, Bolton skipped a U.N. Security Council mission to Sudan for a speaking engagement at the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank in London. Most other nations, including the UK, China, and France, sent their top representatives.

– Sought to undermine the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs aimed to convert rhetoric into hard numbers on such issues as reducing global poverty and hunger. Just days after he arrived in New York after his recess appointment, Bolton released over 700 edits to the draft document for the 2005 World Summit Outcome, excising all mentions of the MDGs.

Well, as Mr. Bush said, "During his tenure, he (Mr. Bolton) articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty.”

If you don’t recognize the “positions and values of the United States” as articulated by Mr. Bolton and revealed by his actions, and if you have trouble seeing how his words and deeds advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty, you obviously have NOT being paying sufficient attention to our Attorney General and his amazing lexicon of redefined principles on which this nation was founded, and the extent to which a fair number of our Supreme Court justices seem to be mounted on a single rod: Knock one over, you down’em all -- like those adorable plump wooden yellow ducks in the carnival!

UPDATE 12/05/06: For lots of additional information about Mr. Bolton's UN tour, see the Progress Report from The Center for American Progress Action Fund. As always, it is very full and comes complete with links to underlying material of interest -- all well worth your time.

2. Eye of the Beholder Case Two: Pfizer and Big-Hearted Pharma Industry

Even before the labyrinthine Medicare Drug Benefit made its way into our lives, I entertained suspicions about pharmaceutical companies. I watched their lobbyists at work; I studied commercials geared to leave the viewer feeling that he had just watched a big-hearted public service message; I looked up on the Internet those financial reports which are required to be filed as part of public records. Imagine my surprise! Of the seven reports I studied by line, all expended more on “Marketing” and “Other/Miscellaneous” than on “Research and Development”. Gives a person pause, yes? In fact, in the case of a few, whiskers and tails as well! After all, R&D is the excuse for the high drug prices in this country. U.S. consumers "repay" R&D costs at a much higher rate than foreign customers. Go figure!

Check out Merck’s third quarter 2006 income report and balance sheet (then click to the full reports of 2005).

Now move on the Pfizer. Same drill with 2006 interim and 2005 annual reports.

Now get yourselves a clean hanky. Pfizer has fallen on hard times with its clinical trials of Torcetrapib.

Please understand: I am able to be here mouthing off today because of chemotherapy advances since 1961 when cancer killed my mother. I am grateful. But because I am basically a socialist at heart, it grieves me at some fundamental level that products necessary to health or sustaining life are tied to profitability. Those things I want to be a given in everyone’s life. Furbelows and extras like fine wines, a third home, snazzy old cars – fine. Those willing to work longer and harder or able to work smarter should have ‘em by all means. But not from rapacious salaries, bonuses, and dividends they receive from companies producing the necessities of life for people working at less exalted rates of pay (the not-a-change-in-nine-years minimum wage somehow springs to mind) and barely able to survive now that they've been stripped of medical benefits and reliable pensions.

And I am particularly disturbed by this quote. You will note it is not directed at sorrow that the trials have had to be halted, that the drug will not after all be available to help possibly hundreds of thousands of sufferers. No, that’s not the reason Pfizer is hanging out black crepe:

"I am terribly disappointed. This drug, if it worked, would probably have been the largest-selling pharmaceutical in history."

That from the apparently unapologetic lips of Dr. Steven E. Nissen, described as "lead investigator in an earlier clinical trial of torcetrapib, a heart-disease medication that Pfizer has shelved."

As the linked article says:

"Eighty-two people had died so far in a clinical trial, versus 51 people in the same trial who had not taken it. "

Yep, real damned shame about those lost sales.

Posted by xristim at 02:26:19 | Permanent Link | Comments (22) |

December 02, 2006

The cat's perspective of power in action…

Don’t forget to check some of my favorite blogs:

http://priceofliberty.net - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://evenlittlesparrows.blogspot.com/ - Sparrow Chat
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ - BobGeiger (formerly Yellow Dog)
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.

---o0o---

The cat's perspective of power in action…

A cat may look on a king. -- … John Heywood, Proverbs (1546)

Cats, cartoonists, satirists -- thank God for 'em!

First up, thanks to my computer guru and good, good friend Rob Bell who called to my attention a video titled "Hu's on first." If you feel awfully secure about your employment -- or truly don't give a damn about offending bloated capitalist GOPer pigs -- play it full volume. It's rib-crackingly funny with a tinge of terror that, "Oh my God! It might be real!"

Then stop by Bob Geiger's site to look at the work of the growing roster of cartoonists who have given Geiger express permission to post their cartoons! There are some pe-wowzers among'em! And I enjoyed the "Republican Revolution" animation, too -- it's not very long, so check it out if you have time.

By the way, the cursed cancer has begun to insist I take it a bit more seriously than I had been doing. So the blizzard of e-mails, postings, and comments will be lighter for the future.

That does NOT mean you don't have homework: Find out what's going on, and if it ain't right, FIX IT, dammit!

Posted by xristim at 18:32:37 | Permanent Link | Comments (8) |

November 28, 2006

When curative yields to palliative… UPDATE 11/27/06

Don’t forget to check some of my favorite blogs:

http://priceofliberty.net   - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://evenlittlesparrows.blogspot.com/ - Sparrow Chat
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ - BobGeiger (formerly Yellow Dog)
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.

                                          ---o0o---

When curative yields to palliative… UPDATE 11/27/06

Continuing the saga begun here --

I received a call this morning to appear at the Interventional Radiation Laboratory for thoracocentesis. There I met with Dr. James Hadley, who may be the most gifted 12-year-old I ever met!

I jest. The good doctor is obviously a full-grown adult -- and an extraordinarily skilled physician -- but at my going-on-73-years, to me all people who have not yet grazed even forty look impossibly young. Dr. Hadley has a long march uphill yet to reach forty.

He and his "dream team" of assistants (a remarkable crew in their own rights, with a rare talent for balancing along that awkward tightrope stretched above condescension on one side and genuine supportiveness on the other) decided against a trip to Sugar Plum Fairyland for me. At my age, anesthesia comes with perils of its own. The good doctor explained why he felt, even without sedation, he could perform the procedure on my left lung with less unpleasantness than has been my lot in the past.

And, sure enough, despite my apprehensions, he was faithful to his promise. He removed close to a liter of fluid from the left lung with my being scarcely aware of it -- and was so heartened by the ease with which I bore it despite my initial nervousness that he suggested going on to tap the right lung again. I had not been aware of it, but apparently fluid is beginning to build there again, too. The shortness of breath was obviously not just my imagination! In the overall picture, that is not good news. However, when I suggested I'd like to defer the right lung tap for another time, Dr. Hadley at once agreed.

I reasoned that.because I was breathing much more easily and felt I needed time to "get my head around" the idea that thoracocentesis is not going to be so unrelentingly horrible as I had feared (or on occasion found it in the past), nor so rare and infrequent in the future as I had hoped, a short "breather" (ouch!) could be accommodated,   He and his staff also found time someplace along the way to talk with my friend Allan (husband of my very good friend and ex-secretary Tamsin), who accompanied me to the session, and to bring him up to date on my situation. I always appreciate that. I like to be relieved of boring people with a story that no longer contains surprises.

Allan and Tamsin are leaving on a trip tonight,. That also played a role in my decision to stop at tapping only one lung. In case a double procedure left me unable to fend for myself, I did NOT want them changing their flight plans on my account (as they alternately offered and threatened to do). As it is, I'm fit as a fiddle, and Allan and Tamsin can jet to New York tonight as they originally planned. Tamsin will be returning on a flight next Friday, the day after my scheduled chemo session. By then, I anticipate I'll know if the rate of fluid buildup in either or both lungs is such that another procedure is needed.

Meantime, I know my analysis of the situation is probably accurate. When a doctor dedicated to clearing lungs tells his assistants not to "hassle" me about wanting to end the procedure with a cigarette, it's reasonably clear that he agrees with me that there really isn't any point depriving myself at this juncture. Who says there's no silver lining to this whole thing? I've just been provided with an authoritative medical sock to stop the mouths of all would-be anti-smoking lecturers!

By the time we were out of the building, Allan, ever faithful, was handing me my smokes and lighter. There's a man who understands things! Being able to walk, talk, and smoke at the same time -- let me tell you, there's a pleasure I hadn't realized I missed so much! And as I told Dr. Hadley, between years of smoking and drinking, I may well be immortal -- alcohol-preserved and tobacco-cured! If not, it's entirely too late to worry about it now.

It was a drizzly day. However, if fair skies return soon (or the rain at least stops), I see a walk or two in Miss Betsy's immediate future! She'll be pleased. I know I am. I should stay home to dust…but I'd hate to bring on a coughing episode from stirring up a week's accumulation since I was last able to tend to that chore, or so I tell myself (ahem!). Besides, Miss Betsy doesn't much mind dust, and she loves walks.

Posted by xristim at 08:48:00 | Permanent Link | Comments (11) |

November 27, 2006

When curative yields to palliative…

Don’t forget to check some of my favorite blogs:

http://sparrowchat.com - Sparrow Chat -
http://priceofliberty.net - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://www.democrats.com/blog/8223 - Bob Geiger
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.

---o0o---

When curative yields to palliative…

If that sounds as though I have something new and different -- or even old and familiar -- to say about the debacle that is Iraq, I'm sorry. I don't.

This is a matter of much smaller interest, having to do, as it does, with only me and a handful or so of earth's other inhabitants.

There comes a point in the treatment of cancer when what can be done, has been done -- when treatment assumes the character of palliative rather than curative. No, it doesn't mean the Grim Reaper is tap, tap, tapping at the door, or even that he's found his way into my neighborhood yet. But it's obvious that if the invitation has not yet been penned or mailed, whoever is in charge of such things is scanning the calendar for a convenient date.

While no doctor has yet fulfilled his or her sworn promise to let me know as soon as he or she does that my days are reduced to a countable number, there is a subtle shift in how issues of treatment are addressed. That is, I'm being given choices. Oncology is not ordinarily a particularly democratic field. When I am consulted on the limits of indignity I am willing to undergo for additional lifespan, I'd say that absent a deus ex machina of a truly extraordinary nature, there is a general feeling that plans for that final dinner party are in the works.

I am strangely unmoved by the prospect. I have always taken the position that I have no problem with death, only with discomfort. Thus far, I've escaped the first and largely been spared the second. About the first, I confess to an abiding curiosity. About the second, I confess I have not only no curiosity but an absolute aversion.

I would not bargain for a single additional breath if it had to be drawn in pain -- the opportunity for disgracing myself by whining or griping (and surviving to live with the recollection of it) is entirely too present to my mind. Dying, on the other hand, seems to be a skill with which we are all blessed from birth. It invites forgiveness for whining as survival does not.

Though people speak (inaccurately, I think) of "taking a long time to die", I think in fact it is almost instantaneous -- one moment, one is "alive". The next moment, one is not. One can probably squeeze a fair amount of self-embarrassing behavior into the final "alive" moments, but I suspect that's only among people who really don't consider themselves ready to go. I'm not eager, but I cannot say I am not ready -- and there's that curiosity itching to be satisfied. And, too, if I do something incredibly embarrassing for myself, I won't be around to answer for it. (It's a better break than I had while I was drinking heavily!)

For now, having exhausted the benefits of Carboplatinum-Taxol and Gemzar, I continue chemotherapy of Doxil -- which looks like melted raspberry gelatin in the infusion bag and seems to have about that consistency as it gurgles into my veins. I have had only one session of it thus far and face another this Thursday, 11/30/06. However, it appears that some of the "markers" used to indicate effectiveness are indicating that Doxil is not going to be my miracle drug. I don't complain of that. It leaves me a little queasy, but still not outright nauseated. It leaves me very tired, but, then, that could also be cumulative years catching up with me. If it isn't being totally effective, at least it is not being unbearably unpleasant.

More disturbing is that it looks as though thoracocentesis (*see below) is returning to my life. After nearly a dozen such procedures on my right lung some months ago, the fluid there stabilized at a level the specialist felt could be safely left alone. A couple of the last procedures had led to plummeting blood pressure and unconsciousness -- and there is always the fear of collapsed lung -- so he decided to leave well enough alone. Fortunately, the loculated fluid troubled me very little, and I almost unconsciously adapted my activity level to my diminished lung capacity. I could still walk long distances, do my yard work, clean my house, and talk a mile a minute non-stop. Now, alas, I've learned that my left lung has begun to fill up with fluid -- a liter in a couple of days. I can move only a few steps without wheezing like the old gray mare, my energy level is hugely diminished, and -- far, far worst of all -- it's very hard for me to keep up non-stop conversation!!! (My friends are too polite to mention what a blessing they consider this.)

* For those of you not familiar with it, thoracocentesis is a process by which a hole is put into one's back and a garden hose fed through to permit pumping out accumulated fluid. Okay, okay -- so the doctors always insist it isn't a garden hose. On the other hand, I'm the one to whom it's happening. Feels like a garden hose to me! The process is uncomfortable (and sometimes even painful), but primarily it is stressful. One is wide awake, leaning forward on folded arms on a table top, while all manner of Torquemadic activities are perpetrated upon one's person outside one's range of vision. One is assailed by coughing fits. One is asked repeatedly, "Are you doing okay? Are you all right?", and one's responses are repeatedly ignored. Passing out, on the other hand, did seem to arrest the attention of all caretakers. I'm not sure at the end I wasn't doing it on purpose -- though it's hard to believe I can control my blood pressure that easily.

So when my lovely internist told me the other day that she wanted to schedule thoracocentesis, I again suggested that I simply be left to drown quietly in my own seepages. She demurred, but she has kindly involved the Interventional Radiation crew, which advises they can anesthetize me for the procedure. For me, this is the equivalent of being out of the room while it is performed. I'll settle for that. Let Torquemada and his crew do their worst, so long as I spend the time in the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

What I do know from past experience with the right lung, is that such fluid buildups are recurrent -- and that eventually they break down into pockets which are inaccessible to withdrawal procedures. With the right lung I was fortunate -- after seven or eight procedures, there really wasn't much fluid left to "pocket" itself, and I've been living reasonably comfortably with what remained. But with the left lung joining in, I am less sanguine. I no longer have a spare, if you see what I mean.

I'm pretty certain Grim Reaper has time to have his robes cleaned and darned, to have them altered if his feasting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur has caused him to outgrow them, to tend to a considerable amount of other business before he knocks at my door. While I can't claim I'll be wildly enthusiastic to greet him, I've had houseguests over the years I didn't like much better -- and some of them tended to stay much longer than I anticipate his visit to be. Actually, I've had fringe family members I was more reluctant to see.

Miss Betsy Trotwood, for those of you who know of her, will be a bit of an heiress and will be going to live with the inimitable Dog Doc who first gave her to me -- or with someone he feels is suitable to be charged with her care. Dog Doc has cared for all my past and present pets since I moved to Oakland almost twenty years ago, making house calls to accommodate my status as a non-driver. I think he's on St. Francis' personal elite patrol.

So if you don't see my "mousetracks" among the comments of your various blogs (all of which I enjoy enormously), please know it is not diminished enthusiasm for your enlightening and amusing "snark", but diminished breathing capacity! I hope after the thoracocentesis and chemo, I'll be able to huff and puff as vigorously as in the past, at least in the short term.

By the way, I am probably, at this moment, the only person in the United States who can claim she is re-reading Max Beerbohm's wonderful Oxford novel Zuleika Dobson. (My friends assure me I'm probably the only person in the United States who can claim to have read it once, let alone to be reading it again!) I have the illustrated edition with Beerbohm's own watercolors and sketches and find it as much a pointless delight as ever. I plan to indulge myself in quite a few pointless delights. I urge you all to do the same.

And I'll let you know how "remote" thoracocentesis works out.

Posted by xristim at 05:36:34 | Permanent Link | Comments (9) |

November 20, 2006

Scandals…

Don’t forget to check some of my favorite blogs:

http://priceofliberty.net   - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://evenlittlesparrows.blogspot.com/ - Sparrow Chat
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ - BobGeiger (formerly Yellow Dog)
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.

                                          ---o0o---

Scandals…

The papers and newscasts are filled with the current ones.

1. According to the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, PlayStation 3 greeted by shooting, robberies, mobs. There is something disquieting in being obliged to recognize that Americans value their toys so highly -- particularly toys that enable them to simulate the death and destruction of human life and property from the comfort of their living rooms. Can we really wonder that the full horror of Iraq and its effect on the lives of our troops and the Iraqis scarcely seem to penetrate our consciousness? That we don't seem able to piece together that spending everything we have on war prevents our doing other things, like feeding the hungry, treating the ill, educating children?

2. Old murders and new weddings -- both involving people most of us will never see "in the flesh", let alone come to know sufficiently to care about them.

The old murder, of course, is the infamous O. J. Simpson case, about which there apparently will be a Fox program already giving rise to great controversy. Personally, I am opposed to censorship beyond that offered by the ability to change channels or turn off the TV. I can escape the program with ease. What distresses me is that someone somewhere decided, apparently quite rightly, that some Americans will be interested to see it. If Mr. Simpson was guilty of murder and nonetheless acquitted, that is, indeed, an awful thing -- though less awful than he if was innocent and found guilty. In the first instance, even if he were to confess on national television, what would be accomplished except to demonstrate one more time that our system of justice is seriously flawed? At the time the trial was occurring, I declined to discuss it with even friends -- being, as I am, a believer that unless we change our system of justice, we are bound to abide by it. I was not asked to be on the jury. My opinion therefore could not matter.

The new wedding is that of Mr. Cruise and the latest missus, on which a reported $3million was spent. I know who Mr. Cruise is (I saw him opposite Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main, and considered it evidence of his acting skill that anyone even noticed him while Mr. Hoffman was on screen). What he spends on his wedding, whether his first or ninety-first, is none of my business. However, I like to think if I had three million otherwise uncommitted dollars lying around, a lavish wedding would not be the first place it would occur to me to spend it. Darfur springs to mind. Appalachia springs to mind. Inner cities spring to mind. Homeless people spring to mind. Again, however, I concede that the money is his; spend it where he will, 'tis no business of mine. But neither is his wedding my business or the business of that uninvited portion of the world which apparently exercised much ingenuity and expended not a little cash trying to find their way into it. Why? Does anyone outside family and friends really care? And if they do, I repeat, why?

Well, obviously recent revelations about members of Congress and the clergy have also offered lots of scandals. You already know all about those, I'm sure.

So I offer a different set of scandals. These are older…

First, for all the missionizing evangelicals whose presumption in appearing at my front door in greater than usual numbers lately has led to some rather acerbic and (on my part) not totally Christian exchanges, I offer something which may in part explain my reluctance to accept their luridly colored pamphlets and printed exhortations to be born again in Jesus Christ. Here's the story of a young woman who… well, with luck, it speaks for itself.

The Partial Palingenesis of Prudence MacPherson

[Warning: Content, language are irreverent]

When Prudence was born

the Great War, 1914-1919, surrounded her birth,
this they knew,
but by the time her age became a
matter of importance…
that is to say,
on which side of the age of consent
she was sitting when
the red-nosed, balding, maculate alderman
lured her, willing, away from her
giggling friends and
bought her a pair of bronze-toed shoes…
the hall where the records were kept
had been destroyed by an errant boy’s match

her grandmother, a venerable spinster,
looking like a faded, moth-holed tapestry,
perhaps a hunting scene with a frantic frothing fox,
kicked her mother, less venerable

though also a spinster, a very soft
and yielding, pink and fluffing one

onto the rivuleted, cobbled street one rainy night
and proclaimed with STENTORIAN virtue (reclaimed)

her own one lapse from
the state of grace
having been expunged
by convenient senility
and frequent change
of address

that no goddamnjesuschrist whore
would spend a night under her roof
ever again.

A self-fulfilling prophecy,
for the old lady’s ire rose
to an apoplexy
and she toppled over
thin and stony dead on her stoop
and lay there,
rouged in the rain,
until the Wednesday rag and bone man
found her
and loaded her on his wagon
atop the other rags and bones
and conveyed her grandly to the village square,
with an escort of five ragged boys
and a disinterested dog.

Prudence’s mother bought widow’s weeds
And wore her hair pulled
back tight to her egg-shell skull

which showed her pretty pink ears to advantage,
they being tiny and involuted
and so very shell-like
that one poetic uncle of Prudence
claimed he could hear the sea
rushing there

and moved to another village
where her double bereavement

mother and husband, mater et vir

won her the sympathy of
the Church Ladies’ League

and her shell-like ears
and other endowments
of nature and art
won her the
impermanent but sincere affection of
various gentlemen lodgers
whom she received in the
village-end cottage
she leased with the money
left her by her husband
when the news of incipient Prudence
brought him abruptly
to his grave…
which is to say,
Prudence’s mother
thought he might very well be dead,

for gone
he certainly was

which accepted her into the matronly bosom

carefully corseted

of the sewing circle and Missionary Support Guild.

When her softness had begun to sag
and the pleasant pink fluffiness to be merely puffy,
Prudence’s mother

she had named her daughter for her
favorite virtue

had put aside a nice nest egg and
was able to retire,
which she did with a twinge of regret.

Prudence had preferred the passing parade
of uncles, muscled and mustached,
dapper, striped and glinting,
each with a tooth of prominent gold,
but respected her mother’s red-rimmed eyes
and did not complain at the sudden cessation of
pig-a-back rides and sour lemon balls
and
other attentions.

Prudence grew in grace and beauty…
that is,
she developed somewhat prematurely
a well-nourished,
decidedly mammalian,
statuesque figure,
with a calendar-girl, unfocused face that
tended to speckle when she blushed.

After the alderman, an apologetic,
Essentially fatherly man,
Prudence encountered
a series of youths,
callow and otherwise,
whom she had the wit and

(prudence)

good sense to
keep a secret from her mama.

They met in the shed on the green where,
on fair Saturday mornings,
the old men bowled.

One winter, when Prudence was
more or less twenty,

or so she surmised; her mother was so indefinite

mama fell victim to a catarrh
and gently slipped from
the bosom of one of the Sewing Circle matrons
into the bosom of Abraham.

The new village curate came to call on
fair Prudence, bereft,
and felt himself sinking under
periwinkle eyes and a tremulous mouth,
wished vaguely for a High Church call
with a dangling crucifix,
and succumbed.

Afterwards he lit the four candles
marking the corners of the coffin
of Prudence’s mother
and spent the night on his knees in prayer,
and he didn’t call again for a month.

What her grandmother had
done once through weakness

once, to give her tally the
benefit of the doubt

what her mother had done for profit

and the pleasure of being admired

Prudence did for love of her craft.

And so, of course,
she was found out.

Being neither a secret, festering sinner
nor a shrewd profiteer,
she was insufficiently circumspect.

When the Church Ladies’ League
approached the young curate
and hemmed and harrumphed
their way to the rosebud center of the problem,
he blanched

which sudden alteration in facial hue was
immediately apprehended as
shock and disgust.

He was a clergyman, he argued,
but a man nonetheless.
The Ladies’ visit should precede his own.
The Ladies agreed and
admired his modest sensitivity.

Prudence teetered on
the fingertips of fortune, unaware,
her vague, calendar-picture face marless.
When she saw the Ladies’ League approach,
she sucked on her tongue
and blushed from bashfulness.

When they explained their mission and tut-tutted,
Prudence slowly

Prudence never acted in haste,
preferring to give her mind a needed head-start

turned over in her mind a new idea,
that her chosen, hereditary profession was
not professable
and was about to be rendered unpractisable.
The idea of sin could not be conveyed to her.

Being unashamed as well as uncircumspect,
Prudence was patient, appeared to listen,
cocked her head beguilingly,
speckled brightly under their pricking stares

all which the noble-bosomed ladies
interpreted hopefully as a sign
that maidenly modesty
had not been fully extinguished

and with her tapered fingers
systematically pleated the gauzy skirt
of her dirndl.

The meeting ended with a prayer

after a minor preliminary dissension between
Mrs. McGurdy, who favored addressing the petition for
enlightment and forgiveness
to St. Ursula, and
Miss Mettie Hodd,
whose paring-knife face and steel-shavings hair
suggested the tin works at Griswold Hill,
who spoke warmly for her favorite St. Bridget,
and then grew embarrassed
and docile
and yielded

for Prudence, who went down on her knees,
arranging the dirndl in a becoming heap,
clasped her hands
to her undulating bosom,
and rolled her eyes to heaven
in a gesture which the Ladies

had they not been piously squinting in prayer

would have recognized
as an habitual one of the curate
when he was most fervently praying.

When Mrs. McGurdy’s voice had
careened along a virtual wail
and subsided on a breathy amen,
the Ladies all rose,
kissed Prudence’s rosy round cheek
in a self-congratulatory demonstration
of undefinable emotion

consisting in almost equal parts of
charity,
self-satisfaction,
and
spite

and departed, with the proffered comfort
that the curate would soon call

at which Prudence flushed
most prettily and nibbled,
not hungrily, at her lip,
remembering.

For the rest of the day,
Prudence

framed becomingly by the
lace curtains

sat blushingly serene at the window
and waited.

© XristiM 1998-2006

And for all those absolutely certain about how we came to be roughly 6,000 years ago (ahem!), an alternate scenario which pleases my fancy if no other. I confess myself a dedicated evolutionist and live with the continuous hope that the other primates don't insist on pruning us from their family tree as failing to meet their standards.

A New Creature in Eden

After a good night’s rest following the labors
of days of uninterrupted creation,
God looked around Eden, saw the lush growth
of plants, the proliferation of bees, birds,
of everything feathered or finned or furred or felled,
and realized the need for a caretaker.

He scooped up a goodly handful of dust,
moistened it from a nearby spring – or perhaps
spat upon it, if some sources can be believed –
and fashioned Adam,
our first grounds- and gamekeeper.

Substantive details are lacking.
Our first father might have come into being
a palm-sized homunculus who grew;
might have been a single cell crammed
with evolutionary potential, its progress
to naked ape accomplished during God’s leisurely blink.
Or perhaps God created Adam truly in His own image
(and Spinoza’s of Him),
ending with a man co-terminal with creation --
a stature unwieldy and unmanageable for everyday use –
and patted him down to size.
Whatever the case, at the end of the process,
Adam indisputably was.

God pointed to one tree a little apart from the others.
It was a middling growth with large glossy leaves
too heavy to be stirred by wafting breezes,
with boughs numerous and intricately latticed,
and hung with pomes that seemed to pulse,
whose luscious hue and odor shifted,
altered with every looking, every sniff,
each new guise more provocative and inviting.
That tree stood alone on a knoll
carpeted with velvety grass,
except about its base.
There, a circle of soil barren, unpopulated and unmossed,
not reached by shower or sun through the clustering foliage.

“Do not go near that tree,” God cautioned.
“Eat nothing that grows upon it or falls from it. Avoid it.”
The first Stay Off the Grass sign was thus orally posted –
and followed with as good success as those in parks today.
Adam agreed.
Plenty, the possibility for satiety and more, was everywhere.
One tree and its ever-changing,
always altering bauble-like fruit
would not be missed.

While Adam poked about the Garden,
discovering what it means to taste, to smell,
to read the world through fingertips and soles of feet
as well as eyes and ears and tongue,
an afterthought occurred to God.

Adam fell into a deep slumber, while God
soliloquized out of his hearing,
planning the first arranged marriage.
The groom slept unaware.

Adam’s sleep was dreamless.
What need of dreams,
when one is hopeless and fearless?
Nothing left unprovided or undone for which to hope,
nothing yet created to engender fear ?
Dreams came later, with the need
to resolve waking conflicts, to sort out the day’s enigmas.
Eden was perfect, complete, and,
lacking contrast,
as unaware of its own state as Adam was of his.

And one prohibition only;
to avoid the fruit of that certain tree
growing there, apart from the others.
It seemed a very little thing.
Where everything that could be, was,
what need of more, of curiosity or speculation.

Adam woke.
When he sat up in the sun-speckled shade
beneath the sheltering, shimmering leaves,
he felt something had changed,
was aware of God’s touch while he slept,
saw a fading pink line on flesh already healing,
felt a tingling, a sort of irritated itchiness
in the area of his ribs, just below his left breast.
It was Adam’s first experience of self-awareness;

something in the perfect, static world had changed.
The change was somehow in him, of him, from him.

A rustling of the leafy shrub to his right…
a lamb, perhaps, nibbling at new grass;
or a bird, tending her fledglings, her nest low to the ground
to gentle their fall in learning to fly.
Adam turned, unalarmed, a friendly hand
extended to rub a muzzle or provide a perch--
but from the spring green leafiness emerged no bird or lamb--
instead, a new creature in Eden,
a creature too much like not to be perceived as different.

He had not wondered at tails, at paws, at antlers or wings.
In creatures so unlike, no dissimilarity causes surprise.
But this -- a different situation altogether.
This, for the first time, was genuine “otherness” –
the only not I who in so many respects might have been I
but somehow was not.

God appeared, named Eve to Adam,
placed her hand in his.
She kept her face toward God,
seemed less interested in Adam
than in her Maker and all else He had made.
But Adam…
the hand in his was smaller than his own,
seemed to quiver with the coursing of its blood,
its bones more fragile, closer to the moist warm skin
that covered it.
He wished to clasp it tighter,
but feared to crush it, sensed as much as felt
her efforts to withdraw.
Reluctantly he loosed his clasp, the small warm
hand was drawn quickly away.

God was speaking, but Adam, for the first time,
was not fully attentive.
He watched the new creature step delicately
upon the verdant ground,
saw the tender grass compress
beneath the pale, blue-veined foot and
spring up again as she passed.
That grass then, to Adam, seemed even sweeter.
God was talking of the tree.
Eve was absorbed in Eden, and Adam in her.
Neither heard, or if they heard, not with full attention.
They did not notice when their Maker withdrew.

Eve, a slender column of curiosity,
poked, prodded, and examined
all the marvels of creation.
Adam, beguiled by her beguilement,
followed her steps everywhere,
noted that the birds amiable to him
settled lovingly on her shoulders and
plucked playfully at her cascading hair,
that a pair of foxes trotted beside her,
deer ate berries from her hand.
He felt a vague unease when her path led her
toward that certain tree,
but his enchantment was stronger than unease.
His steps slowed, but did not falter;
he followed where she led.

Close to the tree, Eve looked up into its branches,
unstartled, more than unstartled – pleased –
that within the opalescent luster of its fruit
she could see a soft-hued reflection of herself.
Her hand reached up, less to pick
than to caress the lovely image.
Suddenly the birds started from her shoulders,
the foxes barked,
nipped at each other in misdirected alarm.
The deer bounded away, paused, watched,
then disappeared into the foliage.
Eve took notice, looked to see the cause.
Twined about the trunk of the tree,
its lustrous green-black skin gleaming even in the shade,
was a serpent,
its yellow eyes heavy-hooded, its tongue flicking.
It spoke to Eve in unctuous tones, insinuating, low,
a murmur seductive in its silky warmth.

Adam, belatedly mindful of the recent prohibition,
stood back, watching,
unable to hear what the serpent so softly whispered,
wishing to draw Eve away,
but fearful of the consequence –
less fearful of the breach of God’s commandment than
of the lovely new creature’s resentment of interference.
He could move no closer, but neither could he move away.
Transfixed, he watched the unfolding of the scene,
witnessed the moment when Eve
seemed altogether forgetful of the warning,
when the small hand he had clasped reached up,
its fingers gently circling and grasping,
pulling toward her the fleshy, lustrous fruit.

Adam took a step forward,
the serpent’s tongue darted warningly…
he hesitated, and in that instant, Eve bit into the fruit,
its ample juices spraying forth, moistening her lips
with sweet syrup,
running from her chin and spilling to her bare bosom.
The air was filled with wonderful fragrance, pungent,
heady – Adam was half-drunk with the aroma
and strangely lulled, his limbs heavy, his mind slowed,
its only image Eve, the fruit to her mouth.
The serpent’s coils quivered, pulsed, as it drew back
a little, draped itself upon a low-lying limb and
watched through the heavy dark leaves.

Eve turned to Adam and held forth the partially eaten fruit.
He could see its pinkish inner pulp,
glistening with its abundant juice.
His nostrils were filled entirely with its seductive aroma.
“Eat of this,” she said.
She had not spoken to him before.
Her voice was another birdsong,
another melody on the perfumed air.
Adam, forgetful of all except the vision,
the sound, the smell of Eve,
took the fruit from her hand, and ate.

Somewhere in the foliage of that tree, a hiss of triumph,
a kind of sibilant chuckle of satisfaction.
Adam moaned and cast aside the fruit,
saw it resolve itself into a tiny mound of ash,
carried away by a breeze that arose, turned chill,
and blew finally with the force of Eden’s first wind.
Darkness out of its hour descended, obscuring vision.
The trees and brush were suddenly loud
with the panicked movements
of birds, of creatures scurrying
in response to Eden’s newest gift, fear.
In the gloom, Adam and Eve stared at each other
in the grip of new feelings, of fear and shame.
Hostile sounds erupted about them;
one of the foxes that had frolicked about Eve’s feet
emerged from the underbrush,
in its mouth the broken, bleeding body of one of the birds
that had played about her head.
Eden’s first victim had been claimed.
The darkness deepened, and for the first time
paradise seemed not home, but a foreign place,
uncharted, dangerous.

Too dark now to see each other, too late to recall
the one, the single limitation on their perfect bliss.
Cowering, attempting to shield themselves
equally from the chilling wind and each other’s eyes,
they half-hid among the leaves,
and waited.

© XristiM 1998-2006

Posted by xristim at 20:12:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (10) |

November 01, 2006

Unlighted places…

Don’t forget to check some of my favorite blogs:

http://priceofliberty.net - The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
http://evenlittlesparrows.blogspot.com/ - Sparrow Chat
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ - Crooks and Liars
http://www.thinkprogress.org/ - Think Progess
http://www.nocapital.blogspot.com/ - No Capital
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/ - NewsHog
http://www.cursor.org - Cursor
http://www.mockpaperscissors.com/ - Mock, Paper, Scissors
http://tumblingvice.blogspot.com/ - Tumbling Vice
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/ - BobGeiger (formerly Yellow Dog)
http://left-over.blogspot.com/ - Left-Over

Glossary for newcomers:

Chief of the Counterfeit Compassionate Conservative And Oh Yeah By The Way Conspicuously Caucasian Caucus = George W. Bush
Dither of Dolts = The Bush Administration and heads of agencies
Lint Twins = The Bush twins, who, like lint, are neither useful nor decorative
Shithead = Karl Rove. To save typographer's labor and print space, this combines the two soubriquets frequently applied to Mr. Rove: Bush's Brain + Turd Blossom = Shithead
XianXrazies = Any group professing to be Christian which believes the faith excludes any of humanity from the hope it presumably offers since Christ's sacrifice or which believes it has successfully learned to read God's mind or which believes God wants followers who are drafted or gathered by impressment or which believes God hates or wants anyone else to hate those who do not believe in Him.
Ambulatory Emetic = Condi Rice, Secretary of State, aka the cacophagous, fawning bitch cur that slithers and crawls behind her master. A gourmand of whatever shit he deposits, she mixes it with her venomous digestive juices, then vomits it forth before the leaders of the world
War = . The indefeasible demonstration in support of the premise that we aren't good enough to qualify as fallen angels and aren't smart enough to qualify as risen apes.