First snow

Here's some photos of the snow which is still hanging around by the way. In fact, the other night the temperature was below zero. Lee and I have been walking to the park the last three or four days and feeding the ducks and geese. We thought they might appreciate a little extra. Seems like we're not the only ones thinking that way. There was lots of food scattered near the trees and birds just laying around nibbling at it. Sorry. No photos of the ducks. Maybe tomorrow. They swarm and eat out of my hand but here's some nice photos of the park.

Reflections of a cockroach

I've finally updated the Cockroach Diary A lot's gone on in their little world since Ha'penny died. They even have a pet now, Edgar Beetle.

Snow

It snowed today. Good thing my daughter left yesterday. Sixty-nine flights were cancelled at the Reno airport due to equipment failure and poor visibility. Some people may be stranded here until Tuesday. On the up side, flights have been going on as usual around here.

Grackles

Sagebrush

Ghosttown Holiday

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a nice day. My daughter came home for the holiday. She wasn't feeling well when she arrived but cheerfully took all the herbal tea, vitamin C and aspirin I put before her. She's a great sport. On Tuesday, feeling a bit better, the three of us loaded into the Jeep for a little adventure. We visited Bodie, a ghosttown a few hours south of here.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Under the weather but ready to go.
Bodie is an eerie intersection with the past. Take, for example, the school house.

Within its one dusty classroom, desks, books, papers and belongings still sit as though the children stepped outside for recess one day and just never returned.

At the undertaker's, coffins still wait for people who have long since died.


Bodie's streets, hotel, general store,




saloons,


homes,


and firehouse,


all await people and events that faded away long ago.

Lee doesn't like taking the same road both ways so we went home the back way, following a creek through the mountains and desert. It's a risky thing to do in November, but we live to tell the tale. It was great fun. On Thursday, we had a scrumptious, vegetarian feast and she left today. :(

But in three weeks we'll get together again for Christmas in Las Vegas! Woo-hoo!

Happy Thanksgiving
How about Tofurkey instead?

Photos from Mexico

Church on the beach

I took thousands of photographs in Mexico and have been planning to post some but haven't gotten around to it yet but here's one of a village church near the beach.

Thanksgiving transmogrified

Bird and Piano Wire Compass
Thanksgiving is a hellish time for the turkeys so I'm dedicating this drawing I did recently to them. I don't know about you, but we're having a yummy Tofurky for our family feast.


We're just not into supporting slaughter house food. This turkey, for example, may still be alive. By law, they are supposed to be stunned so that they feel no pain before their throats are cut; but very often the stun only paralyzes their muscles, leaving them fully conscious and filled with great fear and pain. "You are what you eat." And it is not uncommon for these poor creatures to still be alive when they are dropped into the vat of boiling water, meant to remove their feathers.

If you're like most people, this is an unwelcome subject but ignorance is not bliss. If you've got the stomach and the heart to see what happens to that bird before it reaches the table, there's a pretty good photo journal at all-creatures.org. The sit's a bit too religious for me, but I certainly agree in spirit. For instance, they believe the breeder's practice of masturbating male turkeys is wrong because it's a sin. But that's an obtuse argument, especially if you don't believe in god. It's simpler than that. The practice is inhumane and therefore a violation of animal rights. Why drag god into the argument, especially as some people think their god wants them to torture and kill. Take Bush for example. But back to my Thanksgiving rant. The turkey report is accurate and timely for the upcoming Christian holidays. Some moral majority. Didn't Falwell's Jesus tell them, "What you do unto the least of them, you do unto me."

I'm all for liberating the turkeys and feeding them pumpkin pie.

Egg goes home

~asha

Attila the Attorney General Torture Memos

Attila the Hun
Since Texas, Alberto R. Gonzales (ARG) has been Bush's moral ghost writer. There, ARG penned minute memos for then Governor Bush knowing that Bush has a serious distaste for facts. To speed things up, ARG brushed aside bothersome trifles like "crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence." As a result, innocent people died, murders stayed free to kill again and Bush, Praise Jesus!, had more time for golf. No wonder ARG remains part of Bush's born again, good old boy network.


Bush / Gonzales, good old boys on a roll.
Now, Mr. Mission Accomplished wants to appoint Gonzales our new Attorney General. Lovely. Gonzales, like Bush, is on the beginning rungs on the ladder of moral evolution. Perhaps he is a reincarnation of Attila the Hun. After all, he wrote the Torture Memos. ARG considers the compassion required by the Geneva Convention “quaint”. Too much to take in? Too bad. The rule of the day is either get informed or bend over and kiss your ass good-bye. Here in the Reality-Based Community, Gonzales rubberstamped torture. Why? Because the Bush Administration is a corrupt, arrogant maverick group who make it clear though their actions and mouth pieces like Gonzales, that they prefer to be law unto themselves. And, in case you’re confused by the administration's shell game, torture is NOT condoned by a moral society.

Which brings us back to another known fact, born again Bush and his born again cronies, are not moral men. They are racist, sexist bigots. They are priests in the fat cat corporate religion, GodCo. It’s not skin color that gets you into the club these days. It’s how low you go and how many people you’re willing to fuck on the way down. Roll over Hitler and tell Stalin the news.

Spin

Right wing Christians call it "Right to Life". Sounds good. What beast could possibly be against it? But look beyond the spin. What they actually mean by "Right to Life" is that they want to outlaw abortions even in cases of rape; even when carrying the child to term threatens the mother's life. Forget about the inevitable return of the coat hanger abortions, Right to Life means these zealots even want to force a woman to bear her rapist's child even if it means she will die during the birth.

Richard Thompson Ford, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School wrote a good article on the power of the Republican spin machine. Check it out.
Nice guys finish last.

But as always, the extremist Right Wing Christian Army is on the move. Here's the latest from one of their leaders, Jerry Falwell:

"Falwell announces new coalition to build on evangelical momentum

By HANK KURZ Jr. / Associated Press 11/09/2004

Trying to seize on the momentum of a presidential election in which moral values proved important to voters, the Rev. Jerry Falwell announced Monday that he has formed The Faith and Values Coalition to guide an "evangelical revolution."

Falwell, a religious broacaster based in Lynchburg, Va., founded and led The Moral Majority from 1979-89, which was credited with boosting conservatism nationwide.

He said the new coalition will have a three-pronged mission that includes ensuring that pro-life conservatives are chosen to fill any vacancies that emerge on the U.S. Supreme Court, a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and the election of another conservative president in 2008.

"The group's central premise is to utilize the momentum of the November 2 elections to maintain an evangelical revolution of voters who will continue to go to the polls to `vote Christian,'" the 71-year-old Falwell said in a statement released Monday night.

He called the organization a "21st Century resurrection of the Moral Majority," and said he is committing himself to a four-year stint as its national chairman."

Seeing as how the evangelicals are a political organization, I say they should have their tax-exempt status revoked. After all, why should taxpayers be forced to contribute to their Vote Christian campaign?

Circus Games

It's really a shame that the Gay Marriage Revolt was the deciding factor in the election. However, I wouldn't blame the surge of lovers who made national headlines sharing nuptials and rebellion. Dollars to day-old doughnuts, Karl Rove masterminded that one, with a little help from some gay Republican field ops. I hand it to them; they played the hell out of the gay scene. Their unwitting accomplices fell in line like lambs frolicking to the slaughterhouse...or Wedding Tent. Now they can amuse themselves watching the Bushwacker perform slight of hand tricks in the Domestic Issues Tent, making things like Lawrence vs. Texas (which overturned state sodomy laws) and Roe vs. Wade (granting abortion rights) disappear.


Republican hand puppets

There is a fine economy to this blood-letting, again compliments of Karl, who keeps Bush on a need-to-know basis. Karl is a bright guy. He understands his road blocks to civil rights will be challenged sometime in the future. It's the old hop-scotch game of democracy, but for now it pays off the tunnel vision voters who kept Bush in office and keeps all the kiddies focused elsewhere as the Iraq civil war and the terrorist jihad reach boiling point; something the rest of the world is already acutely aware of. Certainly they are gnashing their teeth over how stupid and dangerous we Americans are but, here at home, there's a bright side to it all. The newlyweds could be spared the cost of a divorce.

Nameless Writers

Cowee and I are going to Reno this morning to attend the monthly Unnamed Writer's Group speaker event. They have a pretty good tshirt. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Cowee and Ellen Hopkins recently became officers there and have plans to bump it up a bit; offer monthly publishing information, that kind of thing. They will definitely make things more interesting. I attended one of the UW meetings a couple of years ago and wasn't much impressed. They definitely could use a kick in the ass. The guest speaker didn't even know her magazine had an online edition and that all the back issues were available there.

Day Two

Okay, the stun guy effect of Bush's re-election is yesterday's news. It's another sunny day, somewhere, even if only here in Nevada or the future. For now, Bush will lurch onward, waving his so-called mandate and half the people will press on with him, waving their little flags.

The way I see now, just about every other person on the street is someone who thinks and feels like me; that Bush is very, very wrong and by following him, American is falling behind. And there is some dark humor about it all. Bush spent his first term loading the fan with shit. Now let him face it.

Dawn of an old day

Okay. Kerry has to make a show of wanting every vote counted. That's his job after Gore stiffed us in the last election. The upside is that we know we're not alone in our view. But no surprise really that George won this time. He is the straw Americans grabbed in the moral aftermath of 9-11, their panic over the gay marriage revolt, the continuing rise for people of color, developments in technology and science, and as always, more and more women empowering themselves. But his fusing of politics and evangelicalism is a mere place holder, a stand-in for the eclectic moral compass we seek. It is a shallow pond in a time of deep thirst.

High on hubris

"We're an empire now" - senior adviser to President Bush

The New York Times Magazine recently posted an article by Ron Suskind titled "Without a Doubt". In it he presents a rare and candid look at George W. Bush, religious fanatic and right wing extremist. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you think Bush's confidence and decisions are based on facts or even an informed intuition. I've included a couple of paragraphs from the article below but you can read it in its entirety here, here or here. As Kerry said during the debates, "You can be certain and still be wrong". Bush is so wrong it's nothing short of chilling. In fact, even Pat Robertson has trouble with Bush's megalomania.

Excerpt from "Without a Doubt".

"REALITY-BASED COMMUNITY"
"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

This madness is rooted the neoconcervative program of Perception Management. George Orwell with his Newspeak has nothing on these guys.

--Ron Suskind was the senior national-affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000. He is the author most recently of "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill."

Magic Johnson

Magic Johnson called yesterday. He wanted to remind me to vote. General Westley Clark called today. He also reminded me to vote. Busy guys. I suppose you've also heard from them too and probably many others. I was already planning to vote. In fact, I voted today. There was a pretty good line, but it went quickly. I have to say it. I hope you vote too, and early if possible. Nov. 2nd is sure to be a very busy day. Have a question about where to go? Go here, enter you zip code and you'll be directed to local information. If you're voting early, be sure and double check on the location. It may be different than it is on Nov. 2nd. So vote, damn it!

Bill Cowee, impresario with a heart

An American director who had, along with his troupe (his two wives), nearly starved to death in Mexico told me once that you can claim to have an audience when there is one more person in the house than in the cast. I don't know if that's true. Good thing poets aren't bound by rules otherwise, even counting bartenders and baristas, we'd generally come up wanting. My fall back when doing a reading has always been to include an open mic. However, the Ash Canyon Poets don't do open mics. Cowee wants people to have attended at least one Ash Canyon meeting before reading with us in public.

Bill Cowee, poet
Ash Canyon Poet's beloved Impresario

That said, after the conclusion of our reading last night at Border's Books, Bill invited audience members to read if they wanted to. They were practically falling out of their chairs in eagerness. Cowee has an eternal soft spot for anyone with the slightest interest in writing poetry. Under his enormous wing, I have seen people improve who I would rather have dropped off a cliff. And after that, he invited them to join us at Casino Fandango. It is a garish, friendly place which, as soon as it opened, Bill immediately declared our new Friday night meeting after the meeting institution.

Susan Priest, Ash Canyon poet

Roy Chavez, Ash Canyon poet

The casino's quirky Vegas style jungle theme and pampering staff instantly earned the highest regard a group of poets, or dogs, can confer... Loyalty. Every Friday, we sit under the canopy of its neon jungle talking deep into the night over wine and coffee, lakes of chowder and mountains of fries. It provides perfect hideaway for strange birds and even includes a squawking mechanical parrot that scoots along a ceiling track randomly dropping money on people below. When I was a kid the adults warned me that if I grew up to be a poet I would die drunk and poor in the gutter. I don't know whether or not they'll turn out to be right, but that damn bird never drops a penny on any of us.

Borders Reading

After Hours

We're reading at Borders tonight (Ash Canyon Poets) and I'm at it again, doing a fourth version of my poetry zine, After Hours. Will it ever end? I changed a word, redid my SkyRiverPress logo, tweaked the cover and am printing out a few new copies. For all this, I'll probably just give the damn things away. Madness. Yes. This is madness. If, by some remote chance, you want to actually buy a copy, email me. They're 3 bucks, postage paid. ashaATashabot.com


Old logo


My revised logo. Much better.

Pat Robertson, Bush on the eve of the invasion of Iraq

Strange times. Who would have ever guessed that a playboy cowboy backed by such an unlikely combination as former Communists, Jewish extremists, fat cat CEOs, highly discrete billionaires, Ivy League Professors, otherwise known as Neoconservatives, and swarms of automaton evangelicals guided by Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition would ever be able to railroad the United States of America into this bullshit, first-strike war, needlessly sacrifice so many lives and line their pockets all in one swoop?

But recently Pat Robertson and the White House butted heads after Robertson reported to CNN that on the eve of invading Iraq, Bush told him "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties". Today on CNN the White House denied that Bush ever said such a stu-pid thing. What's up with that? Is the Brotherhood getting confused by its own spin? Robinson described Bush that night as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life. You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looked like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world'."

There's a creepy, quasi-sexual image...Bush at night, intoxicated by power, totally out of touch with reality, aroused and eager for war. Is it that he just doesn't get it or that he just doesn't care?

Monday Blue Plate Poetry Special #2

Rilke by Balladine Aquarelle

The other day, Mr. Lee reminded me that it's almost Nanowrimo time again. I immediately purged myself of the idea and wouldn't have thought of it until next year (when he will tell me again). But then someone else had to mention it. ARG! But don't get me wrong. I think Nanowrimo is a great idea. Get over yourself! Have fun! Kick out the stops! Be bold! Blast your ass out of the mud! Just write, damn it! Leap before you look! Of course, I'm not going to enter Nanowrimo. I'd have to write 1666.6666666666666666666666666667 words a day for thirty days. I'm sticking to poetry. There I can get by with writing 2 words a day. Less. I don't remember who it was but I completely relate to the poet who said of their day's work, "This morning I changed a comma to a semi-colon and in the afternoon, I changed it back again."

Which brings me to my point, Rilke's "For The Sake Of A Single Poem" which I include here for no particular reason other than it's the Monday Blue Plate Poetry Special.

from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
...Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough) – they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else – ); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars, - and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves – only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke