This here blog is moving over to Livejournal, where apparently all the cool kids blog.

The new URL is http://www.livejournal.com/users/herbivorous/. Please update your links, or synchronize your watches, or whatever the hell you gotta do to stay with the times.

I might post here occasionally, but it's mostly gonna be livejournal from here on out. Don't worry; there's comments and forumy-thingummies there, too, so it'll be much the same as here, except far easier for yours truly.

And, as I said, all the cool kids are there.

I'm asked about absinthe on a fairly regular basis. I'm tired of it. So when a friend emailed me and asked about it, I finally just dug up as much information as I could in the scant half-hour that I had to dedicate to it, and here is the result:

The original absinthe, as *I* understand it (and I never did do any hardcore research into this as it never really interested me all that much) was a distilled spirit that contained wormwood (Artemisia absinthum) as well as other herbs. It was apparently enjoyed by sipping it thru a sugar cube, which would make sense if it had a lot of wormwood in it, because wormwood is ungodly bitter. The liquer Pernod is Absinthe without the wormwood. Three or four times a year somebody tells me that they had home-brew Absinthe like it was the coolest thing since Van Gogh cut his ear off, and three or four times a year I say "That's nice" and go on with my life.

The kick to absinthe--what made it different from other concentratedly alcoholic liqueurs--was due to the presence of the essential oils found in Wormwood, which apparently gave you a really trippy high.

Before we get everyone all scared about Wormwood, keep in mind that it is the *essential oil*, not the *plant* that is so dangerous. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE. Essential oils exist in plants at a fraction of a percent. The negative components of essential oils are a further fraction of that fraction of a percent. So using Wormwood in a tea, or in an alcoholic extract, isn't horribly dangerous--just profoundly nasty tasting. It's not an herb I'd use with pregnant women or young children, or super long-term, but it's reasonably safe as a whole herb. Likewise, essential oil of Hyssop is somewhat touchy, but Hyssop herb is an extremely safe herb that I would not hesitate to use in a children's cough syrup.

But with Absinthe, you're not dealing with the whole herb, you're dealing with a distilled spirit. Distillation is how you obtain essential oils from plants, so the process of creating Absinthe, depending on how they did it, could have contained a VERY high level of essential oil of wormwood. Again, I have no information on just how concentrated it was, but apparently it was enough to make people trip out.

The effects of Wormwood essential oil, combined with alcohol, were probably due to the presence of neurotoxic components in the oil.

Let's say that again, kids: NEURO. TOXIC.

That's about where I stopped researching Absinthe, because Momma told me to play with things less likely to cause permanent brain damage.

Anyway, the addictive/harmful nature of Absinthe caused it to be made illegal in France., but I wouldn't really take the actions of a government as a reputable source of whether or not a plant substance is actually *harmful*. However, my book on essential oil safety (published by Robt. Tisserand of the Tisserand Institute, pretty much as good of a scientific source as you're gonna get), says this about Artemisia absinthum (wormwood) essential oil:

"Do not use." (oral LD50 in rats less than 1.0 g/kg)

According to this book (Essential Oil Safety, Robt. Tisserand and Tony Balacs, Churchill Livingstone, 1995), it can have up to 70% thujone in the essential oil, which is indicated as a convulsant. (Ick.)

This book also has this to say about it: "In 1915, France banned the production of absinthe containing wormwood oil. It was claimed, with some justification, that the oil acted as a narcotic in higher doses, and was habit-forming. It was, and still is, believed that the thujone in wormwood oil was largely or solely responsible for these effects. Oral thujone is lethal, convulsive, and psychotropic in mice at 0.25g/kg. It has been suggested that thujone and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the most active ingredient in cannabis, interact with a common receptor in the CNS and so have similar psychotropic effects."

Of wormwood oil: "Chronic administration leads to fatty degeneration of the liver." Not so good, combined with alcohol....

About the "absinthe" yer friends are raving about: There are several possibilities. One-somebody's distilling something that they're calling "Absinthe". Whether it is from the original French recipe, we don't know. So maybe it has wormwood EO in high enough amounts to make you trip with a large dose, maybe not.

Two--Same as number one, but the company making it is doing something to remove the thujone. Which would make it something that is most distinctly not really Absinthe, since the thujone is what made it so trippy--and dangerous.

Three--See one, except they're using something other than Artemisia absinthum as "wormwood". Let's put it this way: When somebody asks me for "Wormwood", I ask for the Latin name of the plant they want without even thinking about it. It's become a spinal-cord level reflex. There are about eight zillion Artemisia species, half of which are used medicinally, and half of THOSE are often called "Wormwood". So about 60% of the time the stuff they're looking for that they're calling "Wormwood" is NOT Artemisia absinthum.

The moral of the story? Your friends *might* have had real, honest-to-goodness "absinthe"....but probably not. Would I try absinthe? Probably not, and definitely not enough to cause the famous "absinthe high". At least not until I was sure I wasn't going to want to get pregnant someday. Maybe far in the future, when I'm old and have descendants who HAVE to take care of me in my dotage.

This is an interesting article, and another on absinthe.

Heh.


Hooligan Bear


Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
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Oh. New CD:

"True Love Waits", Christopher O'Reilly plays Radiohead.

Radiohead on piano. And since Mister O'Reilly is a really good classically trained pianist, it's, well, really good.

Went to the coast on Sunday. It was incredibly beautiful, very reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings scenery or something out of your better woodland-set fantasy epic. Moss, dappled sunlight through huge monolithic conifers, the unutterable beauty of nature, etc. etc. I went berry picking--salal berries, which are a bit like fuzzy blueberries--and had quite a wonderful time.

However, I had one of the most ridiculous moments of my entire life thus far:

Due to an extremely regrettable combination of drinking Thursday and Friday nights, pizza, and Taco Bell, halfway up a fairly good-sized hill I realized that I was about to have an extreme Intestinal Experience. It was the kind of Intestinal Experience which causes you to be incredibly aware, deep in the forest, that there are NO restroom facilities for at least a good mile and a half around, and there is no way in hell that you are going to make it there, unless, of course, you prefer your Intestinal Experiences in your pants. If you know what I mean.

And so, after a few moments of desperately trying to convince myself that I could at least make it down to the nearby meadow to look for mullein (which is Nature's Charmin--really--big, fuzzy, nonpoisonous leaves that are a major reason that I devoutly believe that Nature is basically good to us), I told my companion to go on ahead, as I was going to need some privacy.

I scuttled back a few feet to a place off the trail which had a large, mossy opening, shuffled behind a tree, dropped trou, and did my business.

Now, the tree that I chose was entirely surrounded by a deep layer of moss, and the trail itself was very soft and spongy, so I was making almost no sound whatsoever before I got behind the tree. You really couldn't hear footfalls. Which is why I apparently REALLY upset the denizen of said tree--an extremely small (and extremely pissed) squirrel.

So there I am, in possibly the most undignified posture I've ever been in, and this tiny little squirrel no bigger than a good-sized danish pastry is squealing and chittering at me in a manner strongly reminiscent of my seventh-grade english teacher, Mrs. Wormwood. I assume that I either woke it up or surprised it, but still. I outsized it by about a factor of 150, and there it is, flicking its little fluffy tail back and forth and making Extremely Upset Squirrel Squeaks.

"Shut UP!" I said. "I'm not a predator, goddammit!"

The squirrel didn't care, and continued to screech and fuss. All the while, I'm having an extremely uncomfortable experience, and I DON'T need the help of this mighty mite to make me feel any sillier than I already do.

The good news, is, as an herbalist, I was able to identify nonpoisonous plants near the tree, and didn't wipe any tender areas with poison oak.

where are we going
and why am I in this handbasket?

For years the only song that I really knew with my name in it was that really really really really obnoxious song that went,

"Sarah
SARAH
Storms are brewin' in your eyes..."

I HATE it, always have, and every drunken moron in the tri-state area thinks they're being clever when they sing it at me. Off-key. With the lyrics wrong.

Besides, I think they spell it "Sara", not "Sarah", which makes it WORSE.

But a good friend of mine just clued me in to the fact that ween has a "Sarah" song that I really, really like.

So that's good.

"Sarah"

When I find you in your sleep, Sarah
I will tell you what you mean to me, Sarah
I know this big world ain't always what it seems, Sarah
Forever may I love you, and forever may you dream, Sarah

When I find you in your sleep, Sarah
I will tell you what you mean to me, Sarah

--ween.

That's better. Much, much better. And they spelled my name right.

I wrote this in response to a post Sam had on his blog about religion:

I think this little mini-essay of yours touches on one of the things I find most puzzling about human beings, which is to say our incredibly ridiculous arrogance.

The concept of "faith" pretty much sums it up, but what I've noticed is that religion is one of the only areas where it's openly discussed--nay, it's a PRIME COMPONENT of (most) religion(s).

But people divorce themselves from thought on a *daily basis* via much the same process. The immense hubris I've noticed is the unending ability of humans to believe that they have the answers, that they couldn't possibly be wrong, and to swiftly denigrate anyone trying to say otherwise.

Which, when you consider how much scientific knowledge, "common" knowledge, cultural idealogies, and political beliefs that we now consider to be dangerous, incomplete, or just plain wrong, is kind of a ridiculous stance.

A hundred years ago they thought they pretty much had the whole physics thing figured out, except for a couple of pesky things about light.

Slavery was considered the norm a millennia ago--hey, read the Bible for further instructions on the proper treatment of slaves.

"Common" knowledge a century ago held that hemp was a valuable crop for rope and other fibers. (Um....)

You'd think, looking at all the odd things humans have chosen to hold as "knowledge", that we might be able to look around and say, "Ya know, I bet a good 45-60% of the stuff I think I know is absolute fucking crap. So it would behoove me to be awfully goddamn open-minded when confronted with alternate ways of viewing my world." In other words, THINK CRITICALLY.

People identify with certain groups, and often, shut off their brains as a result. I read an interesting little vignette written by a guy who'd actually MET someone that thought Bush was doing a stand-up job. After questioning the dude, he finally just asked, "Why????"

The answer?

"I'm a Republican".

In other words, I have faith in the group in which I have chosen to self-identify, therefore I am not questioning or thinking analytically anymore. I have faith in the Republican Party!

Happens a lot in the sciences, too. Which is a shame, as science is a tool that humans have created that, when applied properly, really does a bang-up job of removing some of the bias we have towards what we think we "know" in favor of formulating new ideas on the way the world works based upon rigorous examination of carefully collected data. In theory, we should have a constantly shifting body of knowledge that reflects research. In practice, there's a helluvalotta dogma that tends to slow the process down considerably--people who have faith in their theories, in the way things "ought to be" depending on their (horribly subjective) ideas/perceptions of the world.

And, of course, there's the political arena....If you think that towelheads are gonna bomb the local Wal-Mart, then you've put a lot of creedence into extraordinary silly ideas. But a lot of people *have*, including the jokers in power at the moment.

Took a cool new quiz; it says I'm:


YOU ARE CATNIP


What herb are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

one of my friends said this, once upon a time, and it resonates sometimes.

I stopped at Albertson's to buy paper towels and a nectarine last night. Sitting in the parking lot just before I turned the engine over it popped into my head, and it stayed there:

"some days it doesn't pay to chew through the leather straps."

maybe it's low blood sugar. maybe it's ennui. maybe it's the heat, or maybe it's lack of exercise.

or maybe it's not, and it's me, and there's nothing to be done.

we'll see.

"at the center of all things is spirit. In other words, there is a central underlying unifying force in the Universe that is sacred."

The economy is in shambles.
The international community hates us.
We are no farther from ending attacks on our country, despite the "war on terrorism".
Tax cuts for the rich mean that I get no more tax relief than before--despite the fact that I make less than fifteen grand a year.
We have cut protections for clean air, clean water, and important natural habitats.

for all these reasons and more.

bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies. bush lies.

My friend Sam has a new livejournal. He's smart, it's cool, and it has a picture of ZEKE at the top, so what more can you ask for?

(Zeke is the best dog in the universe.)

So I went to the Tori Amos/Ben Folds concert on Sunday.

It rocked.

Ben Folds plays the piano like he's trying to crush something on the keyboards. Quite entertaining. And he did a Liz Phair cover, for which I give him molto props. He played a lot of my favorite tunes, including "Zak and Sara".

Tori Amos rocked, as per usual. The woman is just hella good with a keyboard. The show was remarkable, but I think my two favorite moments were her improv and her new version of "Sweet Dreams".

First, the improv. She told a little story about her daughter seeing two women sweetly kissing, and asking about it, and then telling Tori that she wanted a prince...so Tori told her daughter that her Uncle Don and her Uncle Kevin wanted princes, too....but they'd settle for a queen (grin).

So then she sang this sweet little song about how

"your prince might not look like Daddy
your prince might only have one beard
your prince might be
like you"

which I thought was a cute way of talking about non-heterosexual relationships with a two-year-old.

But the version of "Sweet Dreams" was great. She's not the most political performer--she will say fairly liberal things in interviews, but musically she's no Ani DiFranco. Way back in the day when Bush Sr. was president, she recorded this song with the SubDudes that referenced that ridiculous "points of light" nonsense that Bush used in his speeches at the time. I've never seen her perform it live, but she resurrected the song (lyrics below)...with the addition of a chanted chorus of "Who's your Daddy?" introducing the song and sprinkled throughout appropriate places within...:

"lies, lies, lies ev'rywhere," said the father to the son
your peppermint breath gonna choke 'em to death,
daddy watch your little black sheep run
he got a knives in his back ev'ry time he opens up
you say, "he got be strong if he wanna be a man"
mister i don't know how you can have

sweet dreams, sweet dreams

land, land of liberty
well-run by a constipated man
when you live in the past
you refuse to see
when your daughter comes home nine months pregnant

with five billion points of light
gonna shine 'em on the face of your friends
they got the earth in a sling
they got world on her knees
they even got her zipper between their teeth

sweet dreams, sweet dreams

you say, you say, you say that you have 'em
i say that you're a liar
sweet dreams, sweet dreams

go on, go on, go on and dream
your house is on fire
come along now

well, well, summer wind been catching up with me
"elephant mind, missy you don't have
you forgettin' to fly,
darlin', when you sleep"
i got a hazy, lazy susan
takin turns all over my dreams
i got lizards and snakes runnin' through my body.
funny how they all have your face

sweet dreams, sweet dreams"

A good show. Here's a pretty good picture of her saying goodbye.

EEEEEE!

I added comments to the page! So now y'all can directly comment on my posts. The forum will of course still be kept, as it's usually full of totally unrelated stuff, which is great.

I'm also tired of people complaining about how crufty and old my blog looks, so I'll probably do a major overhaul soon.

This week I went blackberry picking.

I do miss Chicago. But the nice thing about Eugene, Oregon is that I can be at work, and think, "Y'know, I wanna go pick berries", get done with work, grab a friend, and be kneedeep in a berry bramble in less than forty minutes. That sort of thing, in Chicago, would have taken planning. Here, I followed a whim.

And, of course, the blackberries are wonderful. Succulent, gorgeous colors, and I've frozen almost a half-gallon of berries for use later. For those of you what like my Christmas truffles, I'm fairly certain there will be a dark chocolate blackberry truffle this winter....I know, I know, the HORROR. I torture my friends, I really do.

I've also been walking several miles a day, so I don't have that lack of energy that I've been suffering from due to the time spent with my ass glued to my desk chair. And I get to have sushi for dinner with friends tonight, I had sushi for dinner yesterday, and I haven't had a bad sunburn all summer.

Life is good.

There is a broad, powerful bill being presented by Dick Durbin that would severely infringe upon the ability of most companies to produce dietary supplements. It's draconian, it's unneccesary, and as one of my friends said, "it's a pretty blatant greed-grab on the part of big pharmaceuticals".

So go here if you use herbs, have taken vitamin C, use a multivitamin, or just think that it's YOUR RIGHT to be able to purchase these things if you want to.

PLEASE go view this wonderful (short) movie, Technical Difficulties. It's faboo.

I'm not a virgin anymore.

I just thought you should know.

(With apologies to Poe.)

If I ever join a religious order, it will be this one. These nuns are COOL!

Read this and be afraid.

Be very afraid.

I'm glad that I can do without television. But without a computer? Urgh.

In this troubled day and age, many people are finding that Good Ol' Fashioned Traditional Values are being trod upon like a discarded peanut wrapper at the State Fair. But we can always count on Our Hero, the Rev. Pat Robertson, to provide us with kind of Traditional Values that made the 1950's the era it was--the era that spawned Miltown Wives, the childhoods of more serial killers than any other time, and the three-martini lunch. Let's look at some of the valuable advice we're gifted with in his pamphlet Love and Marriage:

First off: Divorce: "...[B]eyond abuse and adultery, there are no other grounds for a Christian to divorce another Christian." That's right. He may have gambled all of the kid's back-to-school money so that little Timmy has to go to school in his sister's old "Strawberry Shortcake" t-shirt and a pair of tennis shoes you found out back behind the Safeway, but you're stuck with him. And yes, she might be a raging schizophrenic that refuses to take her medicine and has created an entirely artificial reality for herself based around the Mary Tyler Moore show, but it's till death do you part. And even if s/he IS beating the shit out of you on a regular basis, you should "look for ways to redeem your marriage and make it work". Choose wisely, kids!

(For the record, I think that marriage SHOULD be something that is entered into with a "till-death-do-us-part" attitude. But I'm also a wee bit more pragmatic than good ol' Pat.)

The divorce business isn't all THAT ridiculous, I suppose, but then we move on to a juicer part (after skipping a whole bunch of let-Jesus-be-first-in-yer-heart claptrap)....

....this being, of course, the subject of the Natural Right of the Man to Rule Over His Family. Although he tones it down a bit and says that you're not supposed to be a TOTAL dickhead, he does say, in italics no less: Wives are to be submissive to Jesus and to their husbands.

Fabulous. So not only do I have to submit to a guy who hasn't been seen on the planet in 2,000 years, I'm also supposed to submit to my husband? Um. That's a helluva lotta submission for me, personally. I have trouble submitting to traffic laws, let alone a religious concept AND the guy I'm hitched to. Not crazy about that part. Now, in the next paragraph, he goes on to say that it's a partnership...but...but....um....see, I had this idea that maybe if I was married we could both be equal partners? Um, if that's not a problem for Pat, anyway. Because, silly me, I've been corrupted by the whole nasty "Woman's Lib" thing, and see, I *like* being able to vote, and own property, and keep my paycheck, and HELL, even WORK without anybody's permission. And last time I checked, the people that were really, really, really dead-set against that kind of thing? They used a lot of arguments from the Bible. So excuse me if I see this whole submission-in-marriage thing as a slippery slope. Sorry, Pat, but I think I'm gonna have to respectfully decline giving up ANY of my autonomy to a system that was a really big fan of subservience.

Now the next part isn't too bad. It's about maintaining your interests, and sharing things, and realizing that you're both going to grow as people. That's damn fine advice in any system, and I must say that people who make a lifelong committment would be well-served by paying attention to this. The bit about reading the Bible to your toddlers is something I'll pass on, though. But the part about "build[ing] a relationship of mutual respect and admiration", that's fine.

Then we get wonky again. There's a bit about disciplining your kids, which is pretty standard, but, um, "The goal of discipline is to make sure your children come to Jesus Christ"? Shit. The people I've known who've had Jesus forcibly rammed down their throats usually turned out to be HUGE problem teens, complete with rebellious drug habits/shoplifting problems/music collections with A LOT of stuff written by heroin addicts, and when they got older, they either totally rejected their religious upbringing and became really cool people, or remained sort of weird and resentful and fucked up a lot about sex.

I do agree that you shouldn't let your kids see naughty movies, though.

The next part is about financial responsibility. Good stuff, really. Can't find fault in it, he even mentions setting aside money for recreation/vacations as a way to get away and decompress.

Then there's a whole bunch more Jesus crap and a Prayer Line to call their ministries. Ten bucks says it asks for a donation.

Here endeth the epistle.

I opened a box at Warehouse 23 and found this:

You open one of the 1005 boxes on this floor and find...

Two cups of steaming, dark brown liquid. Drinking from one will cure fatigue, heighten mental alertness and improve motor response. The other is marked Decaf.

For those of you who have been living in a sealed cardboard box or kept your head in the sand, the following information about President Chickenshorts should be read immediately.

The curious connection between "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Fight Club"

Saint Johnswort is a little bit of a wonder to me. We just got in a nice bunch of fresh St. Johnswort courtesy of one of our herbalist wildcrafter friends. For those of you that haven't seen the plant, it's a weedy looking plant about knee-high or less, with tiny star-shaped yellow flowers. Bright, bright yellow--quite beautiful. They aren't red, or purple...but if you bruise St. Johnswort it turns your hands purple, and when you make a St. Johnswort oil the oil turns out a beautiful ruby red--quite the surprise from a little, yellow flower. Interestingly enough, only the fresh plant yields this red gold. If you use the dry plant, you get a fairly worthless muck of yellowish something.

I had to prepare the plant to make oil, which meant that I had to handle it a great deal. Within a few minutes the plant had stained my hands a grape purple. These little yellow flowers! Grape purple?!? My hands are still vaguely purple.

Plants are awesome.

I have been needled in the recent past by a friend complaining that my blog wasn't personal and informative enough.

To which I reply: Boo-fuckin'-hoo.

But in order to placate this individual, I shall regale the events of the last weekend for those of you what care. If you come here for herb info and pithy observations about the sociopolitical climate, skip this entry.

So this last weekend was the Oregon Country Fair, which is basically an excuse for shameless hippies to come together, sell each other cool shit, and basically wander around being gigantic freaks. I highly recommend it.

Apparently, the fair has toned down CONSIDERABLY in the past few years. Used to be that it was TRULY a giant hippie fest--complete with mind-altering substances freely imbibed in public. One of my good friends here has pretty excellent tales of dropping you-know-what and running amok.

So what I saw, to those who've been there, was much more family-friendly. Still, there were plenty of freaks, topless hippy chicks (my business partner Em was one of them. We hennaed her breasts and belly and arms and away she went), and assorted oddballs, enough to make it feel homey. I just wore blue glitter and a tribal henna and a tank top, so I was definitely pretty tame.

The best part (aside from the Very Special Baklava that some nice friend-of-a-friend gave me...Very Special Indeed) was the sheer amount of beautiful handcrafted work there. In a world where we've gotten used to mass-produced crap, it's exhilarating to see something as simple as a bowl made with the kind of skill, time, and care that I saw at the fair. There were many things that I would have loved to have, and not in the normal consumerist "gottahaveit" mindset either, but more as a conscious choice to trade my hard-earned cash for something of great intrinsic beauty and value.

So that kicked ass.

I also got to hang out with some of my cool friends, which was neat, and meet some equally nifty people, which was great, and walk around in a beautiful wooded area. It's also good to be reminded that I am just One Freak Amongst Thousands.

The other bit of note was that Emily, my business partner, hand about seventeen zillion people at her house for a weekend long party. This was good, but I think we're getting old, as not nearly as much mayhem as I would have expected was had.

And you should all check out the band Hamsa Lila which is an awesome band.

"Embedded within the underlying epistemologies of the vast majority of nonindustrial cultures are the components of this other way [e.g., non-scientific] of gathering information. While containing numerous variations, themes, and differences these nonindustrial epistemologies do contain a basic framework that is very similar in a number of areas. Most assert that:

*At the center of all things is spirit. In other words, there is a central underlying unifying force in the Universe that is sacred.

*All matter is made from this substance. In other words, the sacred manifests itself in physical form.

*Because all matter is made from the sacred, all things possess a soul, a sacred intelligence or logos.

*Because human beings are generated out of this same substance it is possible for human beings to communicate with the soul or intelligence in plants and all other matters and for those intelligences to communicate with human beings.

*Human beings emerged later on Earth and are the offspring of the plants. Because we are their offspring, their children, plants will help us whenever we are in need if we ask them.

*Human being were ignorant when they arrived here and the powers of Earth and the various intelligences in all things began to teach them how to be human. This is still true. It is not possible for new generations to become human without this communication or teaching from the natural world.

*Parts of Earth can manifest more or less sacredness, just like human beings. A human being can never known when some part of Earth might begin expressing deep levels of sacredness or begin talking to him. Therefore it is important to cultivate attentiveness of mind.

*Human beings are only one of the many life-forms of Earth, neither more nor less important than the others. Failure to remember this can be catastrophic for individuals, nations, and peoples. The other life in the Univers can and will become vengeful if treated with disrespect by human beings."

--The Lost Language of Plants, Stephen Harrod Buhner, pg 37-38.

Fuck The Pretend Counterculture

or

Your Prepackaged Rebellion Fools No One

I recently got subtly dissed by some wanky little moron in a 311 tshirt and a hemp necklace driving a Honda CRX with alloy rims. I'm sure he thinks, like many people, that he's all Cool Like That and Against the Power, whilst I am UnCool because I was wearing business clothes. I have news for you, fartknocker: Your wardrobe does not make you counterculture. You aren't cool because you went to a reggae show once, one with real actual black people, and you aren't going to change the world by buying Rage Against the Machine albums. And while blue hair looks nifty, it really isn't social statement anymore. Once the MTV crowd apropriated body mod it became a cool new trend, not something that makes you The Other, okay? Tattoos and piercings and loud music are great, but they do NOT, repeat NOT, mean that you are rebelling. Yes, it might--MIGHT--piss off your parents. So what? That's your job as an adolescent.

I posit, for the record, that I am MIGHTILY more counterculture and wacked-out than most of the people dressing up to "scare the straights". You wanna know something? I don't dress like that because I want to be able to INFILTRATE the straights. I don't want them to see me coming. I want to be in the door and sitting in their office before they even suspect that I might have the intellectual equivalent of a neutron bomb in my briefcase. You want counterculture, mofo? Then you try living on $400 a month for three years to get a degree in something that you believe in--fuck the economics--instead of buckling under the pressure and getting a "real" job as a techinical editor for firms trying to clean up the mess left from the 1940's-era nuclear weapons program in New Mexico.

(That was my choice, at one point. I could have made fairly good money, too, but I would have had to sit and read about carbon tetrachloride-soaked rags being buried in shallow ditches in the desert for eight hours a day. You wouldn't believe the stuff I saw--and it was declassified. One shudders to think about the crap they're not letting anyone see.)

You want rebellion? Move to the third largest city in America, in the heart of the conservative Midwest, and try to tell people that they might want to consider growing their own medicine rather than swallowing pills. Watch your good friends--smart people, too--struggle like fuck to be teachers, or volunteers, or whatever, making not nearly enough money to pay basic expenses but DOING IT ANYWAY because they can't imagine doing anything else, while you watch rich selfish motherfuckers your own age roll up in brand new cars they got from working for huge nasty polluting corporations. Listen to music that is published on little tiny independent labels by people who love music, not prepackaged crap designed to make you buy more prepackaged crap.

In short, get a fucking clue.

Everybody has to have a Desert Island Album List. Mine changes from time to time. The immutable core is the Beatles' White Album, Tori Amos' Boys for Pele, Camper Van Beethoven's Key Lime Pie, and the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello as performed by Mstislav Rostropovich. There's always a Led Zeppelin album in there, although which one changes, and I would probably go slowly insane if I didn't have some Ween to scream to every now and then.

This week, anyway, the Top Ten list is as follows:

The Immutable Four
5. Show of Hands, Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists
6. Led Zeppelin III
7. Verdi's Requiem as performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Leontyne Price soloing
8. BloodSugarSexMagic, Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. The Night, Morphine
10. Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing (tied with Are You Experienced?, Jimi Hendrix)

This of course doesn't include Glenn Miller, The Clash, They Might Be Giants, Poe, Ani Difranco, The Cure, Dead can Dance, Erin McKeown, Beethoven, Corelli, Prodigy, Moxy Fruvous, Tom Lehrer, Meryn Cadell, Peter Gabriel, Nick Cave, Radiohead, George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers, Elgar, Berlioz, Gershwin, Metallica, The Strokes, Weird Al, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Garbage, Joan Osborne, Janis Joplin, Etta James, Cracker, Belly, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Beck, XTC, Santana, Rage Against the Machine, Porno for Pyros, Jane's Addiction, Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Tom Petty, Bjork, PJ Harvey, Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, Lauryn Hill, and all the other artists without whom I would have left my sanity at the door years ago. I hope I'm never forced to go to a desert island without at least 10 gig of mp3's and a solar-powered stereo.

Sigh.

So my lovely business partner called me this morning with a minor Child Emergency, so I had to open the store on short notice. This is no big deal--I was planning on being there around ten thirty anyway.

However, I was in the middle of shaving my legs when she called, and didn't have time to finish. So I have one leg that is nice and smooth and one that is all stubbly. It's a bit odd.

Went camping for the Fourth. Okay, it wasn't really camping so much as it was pulling the truck over, drinking and grilling and bullshitting around a fire next to a beautiful creek, and then sleeping in the back of the truck on a futon mattress. Which, by the way, is the way to go if you aren't backpacking. Because you are warm, you are dry, and you are not sleeping on rocks. I would compare it to dragging your bed outside on a nice summer night.

The creek was lovely. I went wading in its clear cool waters, found little fish, watched beautiful blue damselflies flit about in clouds of frenzied iridescence, startled a frog, and identified new plants that I'd not yet learned (hooray for Mister Michael Moore and his wonderful books).

The Pacific Northwest still is amazingly lovely. Our little campsite had tiny little miniature daisies strewn amongst the grass.

My dear friend Sarah (not me, another Sarah) now has her very own blog. Ya'll wander down there and check it out, y'hear?

MD Hysteria Against Herbs Reaches Epidemic Proportions: Threatens Nation's Health

Interesting. Concerning hormone replacement therapy, Peter H. Gann, MD, ScD, and Monica Morrow, MD, from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois comment that "...alteration of a woman's basic hormonal physiology over decades in the interest of long-term disease prevention is fraught with hazard."

I took a quiz to find out what flavor I was and I got:

"Groovy Grapefruit

With a laidback style and anything-goes outlook, your groove is mellow yellow. People enjoy hanging out with you for your calming vibe and unique perspective on life. That's probably because you aren't one to let everyday stress get you down. In fact, your pals would say they've rarely seen your feathers ruffled. But as much as you enjoy the company of your compadres, you're just as happy to spend time solo. Why follow the crowd when you can chill down your own path?

Chances are, traditional success has never been a huge priority for you. With your groovy outlook, we'd guess you're more interested in the journey than the destination. This type of thoughtfulness extends beyond your inner circle to the world at large. Whether lending a helping hand to others or getting the word out about social causes, your caring nature is punctuated with a zing that never fails to get people's attention."

This article on soy and isoflavones is cool, too. Jim Duke is calling into question whether or not soy is even that big of a deal, isoflavone-speaking, when compared to other beans.

Yet another fascinating example of how big money (in this case, the HUGE soy industry) can sway research, or at least weight certain items.

Michael Tierra's Online Articles are really cool. I just finished reading an article about Arjuna that I found really interesting. It seemed to have a lot of similarities to good old Hawthorn, but with a few very interesting differences. Tonic herbs are often really complex; but they're usually really safe, too, so THAT'S some sort of argument for the intrinsic intelligence of Creation.

In any case, I liked it, and I also read this article on Li Dong Yuan's Spleen and Stomach School, and I think I am finally kind of, just maybe, perhaps starting to get the faintest glimmer of understanding of Chinese medicine--or rather, its terminology.

I took the Hogwart's Sorting Test, and I got...


Slytherin! You're classy to the core, favoring the
traditionally finest things the world has to
offer. While you may or may not be evil *wink*
you certainly have the power and attitude to
get what you want. You're clever as all heck,
and tend to be a couple steps ahead of even the
most astute Ravenclaw.


A More Unique Hogwarts Sorting Quiz
brought to you by Quizilla

NO WAY!!! I don't think that's accurate. Then again, I don't think I'm any of the others, so...ah well. Maybe I shouldn't have checked off "assassin" on the "What Would You Be if you were Evil?" question.

MWA-HAA-HAA!. Heh. Pigeons.

I'm speechless.

Recently I've been thinking rather a lot of what I'd like to do with my life. I've even been reconsidering veterinary school, which I haven't thought about for years. But in the meanwhile, here's a list of things that I want to start doing within the next five years:

1) Build or buy a house, preferably with a few acres of land.
2) Become a beekeeper.
3) Take up some form of visual art, either drawing, painting, sculpting, or whatnot. Maybe collage, or decoupage.
4) Start riding again, and this time, learn jumping and dressage.
5) Spend time each month wildcrafting.

I posted Design for Chunks before, but I'm doin' it again because I think it's so fucking cool.

Personally, I didn't think you could make "Red Meat" more disturbing...

My boy Sean is cool. He did this. All hail Sean C. Tenner III, Ruler of Antelope:

"D.C. Will Host 2004's First Presidential Primary
June 23, 2003

By Jennifer Yachnin, Roll Call Newspaper Staff

With the conclusion of a Congressional review period on Friday, the District of Columbia became the official host of the nation’s first presidential primary in 2004.

Organizers were thrilled by the outcome.

"We’ve managed to thread the legal needle," said Sean Tenner, Executive Director of D.C. Democracy Fund, a federal political action committee which led the movement to push the primary date from May to Jan. 13.

Although some voting-rights proponents had said a floor fight over the bill could generate publicity for the District’s status, there was little expectation Congress would seek to overturn the legislation.

Under the legislation, signed in March by Mayor Anthony Williams (D), the District will hold a primary six days before the Iowa caucuses and two weeks before New Hampshire’s scheduled primary.

To avoid being punished by the Democratic National Committee, which had threatened not to recognize a majority of the District’s delegates at the 2004 nominating convention, the city’s 10 delegates will actually be chosen at a March party caucus. Many of the District’s 28 additional superdelegates — elected city officials and party leaders — have vowed to support the primary winner at the convention.

"There’s no way the DNC can say what we’re doing violates their rules," Tenner said.

Because the District’s primary is essentially non-binding, it will not violate national party rules that guarantee New Hampshire’s and Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.

The District’s Republican Party will not participate in the primary but will hold a caucus in the spring.

Voting-rights advocates assert a first-in-the-nation primary is critical to drawing attention to the push for full Congressional representation in the District — which is represented by a Delegate in the House and has no elected official in the Senate.

"This is really the best option," Tenner said. "If we had done the primary in February ... nobody would care because we’re such a small jurisdiction."

Tenner also insisted that the early primary has already started to generate interest. He said campaign staff for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) have been in contact with Democratic groups in several of the city’s wards.

"For anyone who thinks the candidates won’t come here, do we really think John Kerry’s campaign staff would be campaigning in Ward Eight in the District of Columbia ... if it weren’t for the primary?" Tenner said, noting that Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has also committed to campaign in the District.

Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss (D), an elected official who lobbies Congress for voting rights and statehood, expects all of the presidential candidates to campaign for the District’s primary.

"Let’s face it, they all campaign in the District anyway, whether it’s here to raise money or to meet with policy leaders, they have a presence in the District. Now they’ll have votes as well," said Strauss, one of the city’s superdelegates.

D.C. City Councilman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who authored the primary legislation, argues that the DNC has sought to "minimize" the District’s election, but said he still expects candidates to begin to focus their attention on the city sometime after Labor Day.

"The primary is the primary, it doesn’t matter if it is a beauty contest or not," Evans said.

Several organizations that pushed for the earlier primary are now working to organization a candidate debate, Evans said.

"Our primary will reflect an urban view of America, and will talk about issues that are important to urban America — and I say this jokingly but seriously — not what the price of soybeans are or how to keep farm credits in place," Evans said."

I find this comic to be absolutely hysterical. It takes old comics and rewrites them.

Oh, and as an interesting sidenote, my great-granddad Shurl came from a family of 13 kids--with TWO sets of twins.

My great-great grandma must have had serious baby mojo.

Odd.

Some dude in Colorado has my family tree. It's accurate back to Christian Hasler, the first Hasler of our family to come over from Switzerland. If you follow it through Christian--Henry--Shurl--Gregory--you get to me and my disreputable siblings.

Christian settled in Claremont, near where a major chunk of my family still resides. He was married to a Swiss woman. Ol' Henry married a Brian, which, according to family tradition, was a cousin of the somewhat-famous William Jennings Bryan (yes, the spelling is different--but then again, Hasler used to be spelled with an umlaut, so there you go. Variation was common 150 years ago, as not everybody was literate.) Miss Frances, I do believe, is also where my family got the Native American blood that threw in the random swarthy genes, making half of my uncles blonde and blue-eyed and very very Nordic/Swiss looking, and the other half dark and almost Italianate. Plus if you look at a picture of my grandpa there's very little doubt in anybody's mind that nobody from Switzerland gave him cheekbones like that....

Henry had a passel of kids--some of which survive--including my great-grandpa Shurl. Shurl married Clara Fletcher, who had a cousin (or was it brother?) with the absolutely musical name Napoleon Bonaparte Fletcher (everbody called him Uncle Nip, apparently), and they gave birth to three sons, my grandpa Keith among them.

Keith moved to Chicago, married a nice Polish girl (my grandma Gertrude--and apparently something was good about those Polish women, as his brother Elwin married Gertrude's sister Anna), produced my pop, and the rest, as they say, is history. I'm gonna have to email this guy, though. He's misspelled one of my uncle's names and he doesn't have some of my cousins in there. God knows there's enough of us...

"To visit Father Lucifer, to have a moment to dance... to go down in the dark, to visit with the dude! Not these Little prince of darkness wannabes...some of them are cute, but to visit the real energy force that has held the darkness: you go there with honor. And that takes a very big heart to hold the place of shadow. When I went to Lucifer I learned many things. But that whole thing of, he didn't see me watching from the airplane, he wiped a tear and threw away our appleseed...there's so much religious reference and metaphor coming back full circle from the myths. A part of her loved Lucifer, a part of her tried to find him in so many men that couldn't carry his energy."
-- Tori; B Side, 05/96

words like violence
break the silence
come crashing in
into my little world
painful to me
pierced right through me
can't you understand
oh my little girl

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms

vows are spoken
to be broken
feelings are intense
words are trivial
pleasures remain
so does the pain
words are meaningless
and unforgettable

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms

words are very unnecessary
they can only do harm

words like violence
break the silence
come crashing in
into my little world
painful to me
pierced right through me
can't you understand
oh my little girl

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms

vows are spoken
to be broken
feelings are intense
words are trivial
pleasures remain
so does the pain
words are meaningless
and forgettable

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms

words are very unnecessary
they can only do harm
can only do harm

--"Enjoy the Silence"

So Tori Amos did a cover of this song, singing it as a straight-up piano nocturne, in the character of an aging Vegas showgirl (because Tori is either a bloody genius or batshit insane, or both, as is often the case), and I am listening to it, and it's pretty damn neat. She had Neil Gaiman write about the showgirl who is singing this song:

"Thirty-five years a showgirl that she admits to, and her feet hurt, day in, day out, from the high heels, but she can walk down steps with a forty-pound headdress in high heels, she's walked across a stage with a lion in high heels, she could walk through goddamn Hell in high heels if it came to that.

These are the things that have helped, that kept her walking and her head high: her daughter; a man from Chicago who loved her, although not enough; the national news anchor who paid her rent for a decade and didn't come to Vegas more than once a month; two bags of silicone gel; and staying out of the desert sun.

She will be a grandmother soon, very soon."

the burning times aren't over...

We All Knew New Zealand was cool, but THIS Takes the Cake....

My little sister lives in Wisconsin, home of QUALITY individuals like this one from her hometown.

I am covered with invisible, radar-avoiding lobsters.

Sarah's Theme Song This Week

I'm not feeling alright today,
I'm not feeling that great,
I'm not catching on fire today,
Love has started to fade,

I'm not going to smile today,
I'm not gonna laugh,
You're out living it up today,
I've got dues to pay,

When the grave digger puts on the foreceps,
The stonemason does all the work,
The barber can give you a haircut,
The carpenter can take you out to lunch,

Now, I just want to play on my panpipes,
I just want to drink me some wine,
As soon as you're born, you start dying,
So you might as well have a good time,

Sheep go to Heaven,
Goats go to Hell,
Sheep go to Heaven,
Goats go to Hell,

I don't wanna go to Sunset Strip,
I don't wanna feel the emptyness,
Old marquees with stupid band names,
I don't wanna go to Sunset Strip,

I don't wanna go to Sunset Strip,
I don't wanna feel the emptyness,
Old marquees with stupid band names,
I don't wanna go to Sunset Strip,

The grave digger puts on the foreceps,
The stonemason does all the work,
The barber can give you a haircut,
The carpenter can take you out to lunch,

Now, I just want to play on my panpipes,
I just want to drink me some wine,
As soon as you're born, you start dying,
So you might as well have a good time,

Sheep go to Heaven,
Goats go to Hell,
Sheep go to Heaven,
Goats go to Hell,

Sheep go to Heaven,
Goats go to Hell...

--Cake, "Sheep Go To Heaven"

and through the life force and there goes her friend
on her nishiki it's out of time
and through the portal they can make amends

hey would you say whatever we're blanket friends
can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way

and through the walls they made their mudpies
i've got your mind i said
she said i've your voice
i said you don't need my voice girl
you have your own
but you never thought it was enough of
so they went years and years
like sisters blanket girls
always there through that and this
there's nothing we cannot ever fix i said

can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way
bells and footfalls and soldiers and dolls
brothers and lovers she and i were
now she seems to be sand under his shoes
there's nothing i can do
can't stop what's coming
can't stop what's on its way

and now i speak to you are you in there
you have her face and her eyes
but you are not her
and we go at each other like blankettes
who can't find their thread and their bare

can't stop loving
can't stop what is on its way
and i see it coming
and it's on its way

--bells for her, tori amos


and sometimes there is that friend. I thought that no matter what we would always be friends I thought nothing would break it. but now there is a chasm and I am on one side and she is on the other and we look across and we're frozen. and as much as i love her and as much as i don't want it to be there

it is

this chasm.

it's been there for years now i thought it would shrink it's not shrinking.

we still look across at each other from time to time. something is frozen in her something is frozen in time something has sucked her dry something has made me hard and immobile.

only our eyes move now.

I stand in a wide flat land
No shadow or shade of a doubt
Whore the megaphone man
Met the girl with her hand that's
Covering most of her mouth

Fall in love with a bright idea
And the way a world is revealed to you
Fat man and dancing girl
And most of the show is concealed from view

Monkey in the middle
Keeps singing that tune
I don't want to hear it
Get rid of it soon

MC on the stage tonight
Is a man named Billy Purl
He's The International Fun Boy
And he knows the worth of beautiful girl

Stand on the tightrope
Never dreamed I would fall

Monkey in the middle
Keeps doing that trick
It's making me nervous
Get rid of it quick

I stand in a wide flat land
No shadow or shade of a doubt
Where the megaphone man
Met the girl with her hand
That's covering most of her mouth

Does she tell the truth?
Does she hide the lie?
Does she say it so no one can know?
Fat man and the dancing girl
And it's all part of the show

Stand on the tightrope
Never dreamed I could fall

Monkey in the middle
Keeps singing that tune
I don't want to hear it
Get rid of it soon

Monkey in the middle
Keeps doing that trick
It's making me nervous
Get rid of it quick


--"Fat Man & Dancing Girl", Suzanne Vega

What Makes Herbalists Swear

I'm making a fluid extract for a customer today. Fluid extracts are kinda tricky; Em and I are awfully good at them, hence the reason we're running an herb business and you aren't. Anyway. Part of the process is slowly running an ethanol/water solution through a mass of ground herb. (We use IV tubing for this.) The rate of flow is quite important--it needs to be slow enough that the solution is just barely trickling. I get everything all set up, things are looking great, I start running it through....and there is some sort of leak. A messy blend of alcohol, water, and plant guts is gushing everywhere. And the kicker is--due to the nature of the leak, there's nothing I can do. Can't turn it off. Can't reverse the flow. I could dump the whole mess out--maybe--but chances are I'd just end up making an enormous mess and wasting about $30 worth of herbs and $15 worth of alcohol.

Well, shit. Now I have to let the whole thing run through, fix the bloody hose, and then run it through again. The funny part is, this is the first time I've had any problem with leaks. It's also the first time I've had any sort of time constraint on making an extract. Murphy's fucking law.

I love independent radio. I got in the car this morning, and they were playing the German version of the Spice Girls "If You Wanna Be My Lover". (It was every bit as completely wrong as you would expect. And because I've had enough German, and the lyrics are really, really sophomoric, I understood nigh every word.)

When I got back *in* the car about an hour later, I was subjected to the South Park classic "Kyle's Mom is a Bitch". In French. With sitar music in the background. If I hadn't been gleefully giggling like some sort of maniacal freakshow, I'm sure it would have threatened my sanity.

Oh, and this cartoon is absolutely hilarious.

Auntie Sarah says:

...that you should never drink something called an "Irish Car Bomb".

Trust me on this one, kiddies.

My head STILL hurts, two days later.

Well, this is interesting....

It was recently pointed out on my forum that Wal-Mart is evil. Now, most of us already know that, but I thought that a few gentle reminders of why Wal-mart is an evil scourge that must be wiped from the surface of the planet were in order. So here are just a few reasons:

1) They negatively affect the artistic freedom of musicians.
2) They tried to refuse to pay for prescription contraception for their female employees AND they're being sued for gender discrimination.
3) Wal-Mart is absolutely infamous for its rampant wage-slavery practices.
4) And here's a little more information on how they screw their workers.

Things are busy around here. I've finally got a bike, and it's REALLY fun to ride around again, even if my bike is old and crusty and has only 2 working gears and makes all sorts of really unhealthy sounding noises when I do anything like brake or shift. But it works, kind of, enough to get me to and from work. So that's good. And it was a *free* bike, so I'm not complaining!

I just finished watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and after the graduation party on Saturday, the resonances with my own family are fairly amusing.

We don't roast whole lambs on the front yard, and you're free to marry any ethnic group (Polish or Italian preferred, of course), and we're not quite as fresh-off-the-boat...but we're pretty similar. Definitely as loud. Definitely as into over-feeding as a sign of affection. And I'm fairly certain that if a pair of middle-aged WASPs were dumped into our family, they'd feel approximately the same as the fiance's family in MBFGW. Granted, nobody in my family speaks anything but English in anything but a Western Suburb accent, but the hugging? The kissing? The death threats to new men daring to touch the women? Yeah. We got that. And, like the huge dysfunctional family in MBFGW, we're also awfully darn nice in the end, if a little too overzealous sometimes.

It's definitely getting watered down. My generation isn't nearly as bad as my parents, and I'm old enough to remember what my grandparent's generation was like. Hell, I'm old enough to remember my dear old Polish Catholic grandma trying desperately to save my heathen soul (my parents converted to Episcopalianism as a middle ground between my Dad's Catholicism and my Mom's First Church of the Nazarene Protestantism) by teaching me to cross myself and showing me her rosary. I think I got a lecture once on how Catholic boys were preferable, but I was pretty young. I know one of my aunts wishes they'd never stopped with the Latin Mass. And I have seen the way my aunts turn into Wedding Mothers overnight. My mom won't do that--THANK SWEET (insert deity of your choice)--so my sister is safe from that nonsense.

But I do have seventeen zillion cousins. We are REALLY loud. Some of my aunts (who shall remain nameless) are DEFINITELY of the "when are you producing offspring so that I may be a grandmother?" school. And the Polish still shines through. To this day if I go to a family funeral and it doesn't end up with us eating pierogi, pork, dumplings, and sauerkraut at some tiny little Polish restaurant with flocked wallpaper and dirty crystal chandeliers in Berwyn or Cicero, it just doesn't feel right. To me, the dead must be finally put to rest over tears and heavy Slavic food. It's insane, but it's also...family.

My entire family is still extremely sketched out about the whole becoming-an-herbalist-and-*gasp*-moving-to-Oregon thing. I've noticed an unfortunate distancing that has happened. They are treating me less and less like their cousin and more and more like some exotic stranger. They still don't know what the hell I do, and it's awfully hard to explain it to them. It's obvious that they're very proud of me, in a reserved sort of way, but it's a bit like I have some sort of tragic disease, which, while probably not contagious, isn't something they wish to risk.

I can understand it. In a way, I've abandoned them. I've abandoned the values and the lifestyle which they share--namely, get an education in some sort of upper-middle-class trade, get a good job, get a house in the suburbs or a decent condo, and then settle down with a couple of cars, a kid, a mortgage, and all the trappings. Be available for frequent family gatherings. Make a good potato salad. Be a good person, but it's not necessary to rock the boat. I moved away, by myself, and did something that they don't understand. So I'm kind of outside things now, and it's hard. My politics are different, I tell people to eat better rather than taking more medication, and I don't wear much makeup. And I'm a single girl living on her own, with no sign of a family on the horizon.

But, dammit, I can't help it. I've been mushing up plants since I could walk. I made my first herbal tea (catnip, for a stomachache) when I was thirteen. I spent most of my adolescence reading about just about every subject I could, and nothing fascinated me enough to make me want to do it for the rest of my life until I thought about using plants as medicine. So I really don't think it's something I chose, exactly. It was more like something that just fit. And perhaps my family is worried that I won't fit them anymore.

If you truly love me, dear readers, then somebody will buy me this lunchbox.

It's only a lousy eight bucks. One of ya'll can afford that, right?

'K, I probably already blogged this, but it's just so damn funny....

I totally agree with this quote:

"It's little moments like these that I appreciate all the time my dad spent teaching me about the fine art of screwing with people."

from Something Positive.

Thanks, Dad. I miss you.

Graduation ceremony today.

In an unbelievable display of idiocy, the administration decided to hold the ceremony outside DESPITE the fact that it poured rain for almost two and a half hours.

Of course, my mother had sent my sister Emily and I ahead early--by almost two hours--to save seats in the bleachers for herself, my grandmother, and two of my aunts. It started to rain almost as soon as Emily and I were joined by the rest of my family. The administration, in a burst of genius, decided to delay the ceremony to see if it would stop raining. It didn't. In a further moment of brillance, they decided to go ahead with the ceremony, anyway, even though a) it was pouring rain, and b) the family and friends were already completely sodden from sitting in the rain for a half hour.

Joy. This is the high school I graduated from. It's good to know that they haven't gotten any smarter since I was there. I suspect it was a decision made by committee.

In any case, the weather was so horrific that family members were climbing over the fence around the football field to run umbrellas out to their graduating children. The valedictorian, no doubt demonstrating the intelligence and aplomb that got him his position, shortened his honors speech to something along the lines of, "Let's do this as quickly as possible and get the hell out of Dodge." They skipped the entire role call, and the principal started his speech with, "I was going to say a few words, but now I'm not". In many ways, it was FAR more amusing and interesting than it would have been otherwise.

Unfortunately, Emily and I were wearing cute little summer dresses, and had been (when all was said and done) sitting on a metal bench in the wind for almost four hours, and we were soaked, bored, and freezing fucking cold. We spent the entire first part of the ceremony itself text messaging our friends on her cell phone. A couple of them even responded.

The best part was watching the mortar boards of the graduates. The cheapo mortar boards nowadays are just fabric-covered cardboard, so Emily and I had fun observing the progressive deterioration of the mortar boards, which started off very crisp and ended up looking extremely comical. My sister Rachel's looks a little bit like a badly designed minature bean bag chair this evening, having been thoroughly soaked and then very unevenly dried.

Graduation was followed by a dinner at Buca di Beppo, which is a restaurant that I heartily detest, it being part of the Lettuce Entertain You chain (a Chicagoland monster, you know who I'm talking about if you've spent any time here), and therefore completely kitschy and without redeeming value either socially or culinarily. But it was the graduate's choice, so I shut up and ate my indifferent chicken marsala. It wasn't awful, but I would have much preferred Meson Sabika or La Sorrenta.

In any case, with luck I'll be spending tomorrow from eleven a.m. to four p.m. getting my Chicago fix (like a true junkie, I moved heaven and earth to weasel my way into that) and if I am extremely lucky there will be shopping and lunch at Russian Tea Time. If somebody decides that I've been a REALLY good girl, I may even get sushi. I have almost no money for shopping, but I think if I play my cards right, and the clearance racks are kind, I'll have enough dough to find at least one good outfit. Now I have to decide whether to be responsible, and get an outfit appropriate for work, or have fun and get something slinky and cute for going out.

Life has demonstrated to me, in many ways, that my fate is inextricably linked with that of the geeks of the world. While I am not an avid science-fiction fan, I don't know jack about Star Wars vs. Star Trek technology, I've never spent all night programming anything, and I refuse to work out what my "geek code" would be, most of my friends are big, fat, geeks, with reams of old D&D books, the complete run of Babylon Five on their hard drive, one or more videogame platforms, and a sneaking fondness for Dr. Who reruns.

While I don't count myself among their numbers, being largely indifferent to video games, roleplaying games, science fiction conventions, and the like, I certainly know enough about their care and feeding to have more than a passing knowledge of the various Geek Entertainmet Genres. So when one of my High Geek friends sends me a link labelled
"OH MY GOD THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL OH MY GOD!", I know something's up. It was. This is pretty fucking cool, folks, and if you've got a nice fat network connection, you should check it out.

My family is crazy.

Got off the plane and into my sister's car. Horribly sad episode there involving hedgehog with possible neurological problems--which might sound funny but when your pet can't walk it's not--and then dropped off at the house. People there already. Uncle Joseph the Baker begins his patter. Somebody hands me a phone, it's my mom, directing me to do things as the guests are expected any second. I tell her I'm doing nothing until I've washed the airport grunge out of my face, and hand the phone off to my sister.

I get ready. People are swarming in and by the time I'm downstairs the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room and deck are swarming with relatives, my sister's friends, neighbors, and assorted other visiting dignitaries. My mother is, as usual, in the kitchen preparing enough food to feed the Fourth Reich. Billowing steam rises from the vat of pasta, the fridge is laden with cold cuts and potato salad, and I'm seeing at least three kinds of dip.

Then again, there are enough people to fill the house to overflowing, and when the food was served it was a locust swarm, so maybe it was called for.

Hanging with family was fun. I got to talk to my dad's old hunting buddies, my favorite uncle was there, and I only got zinged about being a "hippie" once, when my Uncle Dave asked me, "So, are you a treehugger?" (I asked him what he meant. He sputtered. I said, well, I do understand that we need paper mills, but I'm a big fan of clean water, too.) My cousin Erik took me for a ride on his new Harley. I heard more stories about my fathers' generation--now that I'm of "an age" I get to hear how they once raised hell, and I must say, it's not a patch on what I've done, but still impressive. They're good people. Stolidly Midwestern, and I wonder if I have anything in common with them, but they are good people and I love them all.

The actual graduation ceremony is tomorrow. It's at my old high school. I'm going to wear my tie-dyed dress and bring a stack of business cards--it'll be interesting to run into old teachers.

"Just As A Casino in Las Vegas, She Boasted the Loosest Slot in Town"

--Number One on my list of "Things I Don't Want On My Tombstone", thanks to this livejournal

A Bunch Of Cats Wishing Death on Their Owners. Oh, yes. You can see the hatred in their eyes.

Do you blame them?

how can I go home
with nothing to say
I know you're going to look at me that way
and say what did you do out there
and what did you decide
you said you needed time
and you had time

you are a china shop
and I am a bull
you are really good food
and I am full
I guess everything is timing
I guess everything's been said
so I am coming home with an empty head

you'll say did they love you or what
I'll say they love what I do
the only one who really loves me is you
and you'll say girl did you kick some butt
and I'll say I don't really remember
but my fingers are sore
and my voice is too

you'll say it's really good to see you
you'll say I missed you horribly
you'll say let me carry that
give that to me
and you will take the heavy stuff
and you will drive the car
and I'll look out the window making jokes
about the way things are

how can I go home
with nothing to say
I know you're going to look at me that way
and say what did you do out there
and what did you decide
you said you needed time
and you had time

"you had time", ani difranco

This is beyond weird. That's Part One, this is Part Two. Freaky shit abounds, folks, and if you refuse to hold at least a small portion of your mind open to Things that Go Bump in the Night, you're just as much a Believer as the person who's convinced of the "truth" of UFOs. The simple fact is, if you really use science as a tool and not a belief set, there are a helluva lot of crazy fucked up things that we have NO idea how to explain under our current framework. Disregarding evidence that doesn't fit your paradigm as "nonsense" or "superstition" is just as bad as cooking the data.

In a weird way, this article, and the way the scientists are trying to deal with all the weirdness in the most objective way possible, reminds me of the way scientists handle herbal medicine. A great many of them (in the U.S. at least) refuse to look at plants as anything more than "little drugs", which cripples their ability to structure their research in a meaningful way, and reduces their ability to explore the true therapeutic potential of plants. It's about arrogance. If you refuse to admit that your paradigm--your knowledge structure--may be inadequate to deal with certain forms of information, and that you are going to have to expand your methods and stop making assumptions, you are inherently limiting yourself. If you cling to your paradigm and refuse to examine data that doesn't fit because it "doesn't make sense", then you are betraying Science for Belief, which unfortunately is how many researchers work whether they're aware of it or not. It's human. It's very hard to overcome that. Paranormal researchers are often viewed as crackpots, which I feel is shameful. A big part of the human experience, across all cultures, concerns ghosts, visitations, unidentified objects, weird phenomena, and assorted Fucked Up Shit. It can't all be explained as hallucination or an artifact of human psychology. Or, at the very least, it has not been satisfactorily explained as such. When scores of people see something weird and the answer is given as "mass hallucination", that sounds a lot more like explaining away than actually exploring the possibility that a truly new set of data about our world--or at least the way we perceive it--has been presented to us. Explaining the effects of herbal medicine as "placebo effect" or due to the action of a single alkaloid in a plant is akin to this shortsighted and incomplete way of approaching things.

A chapter of Trease and Evan's Pharmacology that I just read deals in part with the difficulty of researching herbal medicines under the methods currently available for researching the actions of drugs. In researching a drug, you have one chemical, (usually) one receptor, one or two main detoxification pathways. A lot of plant research focuses on finding the "active constituent", which is sadly and woefully reductionist. With an herb you have multiple chemical constituents acting together. These chemical constituents may do one or more of the following: a) Slow down the absorption of one or more other constituents, either physically in the gut or by competing for the same receptor sites b) Speed up the absorption of one or more constituents, c) Increase or decrease the metabolic halftime of one or more constituents, d) Cause synergistic activity (activity of AB is greater than the activity of A+B)....and there are more possibilites. Even more problematic, herbalists rarely use single herbs, but combinations of herbs. No wonder herbs make people used to working with relatively predictable chemical drugs shit a brick. Of course, humans have been successfully using quite complicated herbal medicines for millennia, but if we want to talk about the way modern medicine treats traditional practitioners we'll have to go on a whole big rant about cultural arrogance, and we don't want to go there (today, anyway). All I know is, somehow the medicine men of the Amazon basin knew to combine MAOI-containing plants with DMT-containing plants in order to produce a more powerful effect, which is incredibly subtle biochemistry, and as far as I know nobody told them anything about the monoamine oxidase pathway....which leads us to surmise that perhaps there are other methods of obtaining really stunning plant technology besides laboratory science, which leads us full circle to the paranormal, because paranormal experiences, if viewed with agnosticism rather than disbelief, open up a lot of doors about the way we perceive what is "possible" and "impossible" and tell us that perhaps, just perhaps, we know jack about what is "possible".

*end rant*

My friend Sam sent me this very cool William Gibson link. It's an excellent and thought-provoking narrative and ya'll should read it.

A Smiths track that I haven't in forever came on this morning. Reminded me of the first time I listened to "louder than bombs" on my walkman on my way to my grandma's house. Borrowed it from cute gymnast Adam in my math class, who really sweet and so fucking gorgeous it made your teeth hurt, but not the brightest bulb in the box by a long shot, which meant that I couldn't even develop a crush on him (but didn't stop me--or the girl next to me, with whom I shared a sort of Adam Early Warning system for whenever he was going to do something that showed off his bod--don't think that only high-school aged BOYS are hopeless lechers--from staring at him--and if you can follow this meandering sentence you get a gold star)

and then the dj, who is my Personal Pocket Jesus of the day, followed the Smiths with something beautiful by Bob Mould, who can create the most lovely shimmering guitar melodies to back his fantastic lyrics sung in that only-Bob-Mould-sings-like-that-voice.

but anyway. Remind me to spend way too much money on CDs next time I get a little extra cash. I was looking thru my CD collection the other day and I'm missing far too many CDs. The attrition rate that occurs from frequent moves is awful.

There will be a seven-hour crazy clubbing monster ball at the Congress--which is a BEAUTIFUL theatre--with something like fifteen fabulous djs including Crystal Method over the fourth of July weekend. A 200,000 watt sound system. Two rooms. It will be within walking distance (practically) of my old apartment...

...in Chicago.

And I will be in Oregon.

Camping.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen....

And Deep Dish will be playing at Transit three days after I leave from visiting in June.

Jesus hates me.

Sometimes living in the Northwest sucks. Luckily Eugene is way sunnier than Seattle. By "way sunnier" I mean we get five days of sun, rather than two.

My sister got herself a cat. I'm impressed. She managed to get a cat less than two weeks after graduating college and moving to Wisconsin. I thought it would take her at least six weeks, especially since she was making noise about "waiting" to "be responsible".

HA!

I knew she was in denial when I found out that she'd already purchased a litter box. Before the cat. Before even FINDING a cat that she liked. Just in case.

Her fiance, Paul (whom I really like except for his irrational and strange dislike of cats), is chagrined. It's funny. The ENTIRE family has been telling him for at least a year, "You know if you marry my sister you're going to have to live with cats, right?", but I don't think he ever really, fully believed us. But then, he doesn't understand the deeply ingrained love of cats with which my mother has indoctrinated all of her children. We ALWAYS had a cat, it was ALWAYS completely spoiled and extremely friendly, and when I live in a house without a cat it feels a bit like living in a house without furniture. This, of course, is compounded by the fact that my sistersand I are big soppy messes around animals in general. I am a complete sucker for pets. My roommate's dog figured this out in about thirty seconds flat, and you will notice that when she wants someone to throw the stick, give her people food, or cuddle, she always bugs ME, because she knows I'm a creampuff. And with her its REALLY unfair because she's a hound mix so she has the huge liquid brown eyes of her type and she looks at you with the saddest, most pitiful expression...which gets me to throw the stick every. damn. time.

In any case, I have high hopes that Paul will turn out like my father, who started married life as a cat-hater and ended up an incorrigible Spoiler of Cats. No less than two animals learned that if they jumped up on the kitchen stool and yowled at him, they'd be rewarded with a treat every time. Our cat Blue would race down the stairs every evening on my father's return from work, jump on the stool, and scream his bloody head off until my father had given him multiple treats and a tummy rub. My mother's attempts to keep the cat slim were completely foiled by Dad, whom the cat viewed as a walking treat dispenser. My cat Simon lived with them for less than a month and by the time I "rescued" him, he'd already picked up the same habit and gained two pounds.

Don't fuck with the shieldmaidens.

Tonight I dragged my cello out of mothballs and played a little bit.

Boy, do I suck on ice.

It all started when Greg started screwing around with a guitar. He didn't know how to tune it; I can tune a guitar in about thirty seconds flat, so I offered to teach him. The guitar was so out-of-tune that I thought I was doing it wrong, so I broke out *my* guitar to double-check. That's when I noticed that my guitar has developed some sort of weird buzz. The idea that BOTH of my instruments were out of commission was so incredibly depressing that I immediately went to go look at my cello and see if it was as bad as I remembered. Maybe, just maybe, I could get a couple of things fixed and just repair it slowly, rather than all in one fell swoop.

I haven't been playing my cello because it needs new strings, a new bridge, soundpost adjustment, the bow needs to be rehaired, and it probably needs a few seams reglued. (This is basically the equivalent of new shocks, new brakes, new tires, an oil change, and finding out what that ominous grinding noise is on your car--all at once.) Playing a string instrument can only be called an "inexpensive" hobby if you're comparing it against competitive yacht racing or collecting small Mediterranean islands, so I have been trying to figure out a way to save up the $300-400 it's gonna take and get this all done in the next six months. That, and I have been gradually playing less and less since I blew my wrist out when I was sixteen, so playing is often painful and depressing.

Perhaps I'm finally removed enough from the situation to have a sense of humor about it, because I think I'm going to start playing again, despite the fact that my cello is in fairly crappy condition. I started to play the Vivaldi double cello concerto--a piece that, at one time, I could play well enough to kick ass and take names.

Not anymore. I figure that if I spent about an hour each day and tackled just two measures apiece I could probably get it back up to fightin' speed sometime in 2056. In the past, I would practice for about an hour or so, realize that I was so far removed from what I used to be able to do that it wasn't even funny, and put the cello away before I broke it. This time, the level to which I'd sunk was just sort of amusing. So I swallowed my pride and dug out the Seitz concerto, a piece that I pretty much mastered when I was in eighth grade.

If I practice regularly, I just may be able to play it without making the neighborhood dogs howl in a month or so. Until then, the neighbors are going to have to suffer with the whale-mating groans and rumbles of someone playing a cello very badly and very enthusiastically.

My cello is still a wreck, but it's not an unplayable wreck, I've decided. Oh, sure, the strings are so old that it's a bit like playing through steel wool, and the bridge is so warped it's a travesty, and the bowhair is so used it's almost completely smooth, but it's playable. Sorta.

It's definitely time for me to start playing again, as in the last few days I've been wandering around the neighborhood on my walks trying to whistle some of the Bach suites, which is just unholy. The Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello were NOT designed to be whistled, and the sorry abortions that I was hesitantly piping were probably enough to make the composer shriek with rage from whatever sphere of reality he's currently residing in.

It'll be awhile before I can play more than "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" without completely embarrassing myself, but I need a musical outlet, and until I can get a computer, a mic, and a copy of Soundforge and ProTools this will have to be it.

We all know that Monsanto is evil. But you should still read this website, and ALWAYS remember the following: A Monsanto official told the New York Times, October 25, 1998, that the corporation should not have to take responsibility for the safety of its food products. "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." (taken from the aforementioned website)

Oh yeah. And Roundup, which is a Monsanto herbicide used liberally in conventional agriculture as well as being sold over-the-counter in most every lawn and garden center in the United States (chances are pretty fucking good that you or your neighbor has some in the garage) is a hormone disruptor.

The internet is so cool. I am babysitting for a friend and for some reason I ended up looking up information on kiwifruit, and doing it while reading webcomix. Next I am going to look up information on being an Oregon Tilth certified business, and I get to do this all while eating a toasted bagel and listening to Ani Difranco. Vive la Internet.

We've all been over to ihumpthings.com because we're morbidly curious. But did you know that they're now offering thong underwear emblazoned with the website's url? Nothin' says "classy bitch" quite like a pair of panties with "www.ihumpthings.com" scrawled across the crotch.

"Pound Her Lovemuffin with your Huge Joystick"

I hate spam. But I do wish that if I am going to get 38 junkmail messages a day sent to my account, that they'd ALL have subject headings as humorous as the one above--which I just got sent to me by some misguided moron who doesn't know that I don't even HAVE a joystick, let alone the desire to buy something to make it a throbbing veiny lightsaber of lust or whatever the hell the penis-enlargment people are saying these days.

I got some of the reddest, ripest, sweetest, most perfect strawberries I've ever seen today at the farmer's market.

If you really, really look at a strawberry under strong light, their skin is semitransparent, and underneath it you can see some of the tissues, and it looks iridescent, or like looking at glitter through red pantyhose. Trippy.

Moveon.org did the following with Senator Byrd. It's remarkable. Here ya go:

GRASSROOTS INTERVIEW: U.S. SENATOR BYRD
The following are the personal responses of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to the top-ranked questions MoveOn members posed last week:

First of all, before I begin, let me thank MoveOn and its thousands of members for the support that you have given to me and to so many others who are willing to stand up and make their opinions known. Your willingness to be active participants in this Republic makes a real difference, and I hope that you will continue to let your voices be heard.

Question One: What are the ways we can impact the choices being made today as powerfully as possible?
-- Michael McCann, West Lebanon, NH

Mr. McCann, you ask a very good question. Many of those who want to speak out are cowed by the intimidation and ridicule that often accompanies going against the perceived grain. That is as true in Congress as it is outside the Capitol Beltway. At times of national distress, it is natural to want to come together and to look for leadership from a single, clear voice. But America's song has never been expressed by a single note. It was never intended to be. America's music is not a solo, but rather a symphony made richer by the harmony of different views. Remember, our founders rejected a Monarchy, and sought, instead, a Republic. They chose a representative form of government that allowed the many voices of America to be heard.

Write your Members of Congress. Write your newspaper. Talk with your neighbors. Do not sit back and assume that everything will work out for the best. If we are going to make a difference, if we are going to break through the constant beat of rhetoric and bombast that fills the airwaves each day, we cannot be complacent. The freedom to dissent, to speak out, and to question is the birthright of every American

There is a power which can serve as a check against abuses by a government or by government officials and that power is the power of the informed citizen -- one who has read enough, who understands enough, who has developed a base of knowledge against which to judge truth or falsehood. Participation in the great debates of our time must not be relegated to the power elites in Washington. An informed citizenry has to participate, ask questions, and demand answers and accountability to make a country like ours work.

Without some base of knowledge upon which to make judgements about the critical issues that face us, the average citizen will be buffeted this way and that by spin doctors from the White House, statements by politicians seeking to please voters, and daily news coverage and talk shows which often have an editorial agenda.

I say, for the sake of our country, arm yourself with information. Especially with an Administration which has a demonstrated penchant for secrecy, our people must be vigilant. We must resist excessive invasion of personal privacy because of a well-intentioned zealousness by government to hunt down terrorists, and we must question the necessity of all measures which seem extreme.

Dictators and despots triumph when the people become complacent, drop their guards, and leave government to "the powers that be." Remember, sheep could never be peacefully led to slaughter if they could ask where they were headed and get an honest answer.

It is up to each citizen to do what he or she can to provide that all-important check on power, the wisdom of the people.

Question Two: How can we stop the right wing revolution of George W. Bush?
-- Elizabeth C. Mark, Alexandria, VA

Ms. Mark, you are not alone in your frustrations. Many Americans are concerned about what they see as a bias in the media.

There are voices in the media that seek to present an alternative point of view. But too often, these men and women are sent packing because their corporate bosses fear a commercial backlash.

I do not question the media's right to report on stories and to have talk shows which express opinion. That right is clearly laid out in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." This Amendment, ratified in December, 1791, gives broad power to the press. Our Constitutional Framers understood that the Republic would not function properly if the press is not allowed to operate freely and without intervention from government. However, the media must also recognize the responsibility it has to the public that relies so heavily on the information learned in the daily reports.

The free press must be a fair press. Through the First Amendment, our Framers guaranteed a free press. We, the people, demand a fair press, one that meets its responsibilities and our expectations. A free press cannot exist without the trust of the public it serves. To win and maintain that trust, the press must be fair in its work.

As I recently said on the floor of the Senate, the American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. The calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. There is no obstacle that cannot be overcome by the vigorous mind determined to follow the truth.

Question Three: How can we regain freedom of the press and airwaves, and restore free public speech and debate? Where are the liberal intellectuals and think tanks and how could they have been so easily marginalized?
-- Rev. Gerry Staatemeier, Tucson, AZ

First, let me thank you, Reverend Staatemeier, for your more than kind remarks. I am humbled by them. The Reverend Mr. Staatemeier asks a question very similar to that of Ms. Mark. The media. What to do about the media. This should not come as a great shock but, while I have a good understanding of the complexities of the Constitution and the issues facing the nation, I have very little understanding of the enigma of the modern media. I have often wondered how Daniel Webster or Henry Clay or James Madison would have come across on television. How would they do in 20-second sound bites? Yet their ideas helped to build the foundation for this country. Would their beliefs have been as strongly followed if all people heard were short bits and pieces?

These questions have all shared common themes. How can we speak out? How can we make our voices heard? How can we break through the barriers that seem to hold back balanced opinion? It is frustrating, I know. I have, for months, pushed, prodded, and pleaded with my colleagues to speak out, to let their voices be heard, and to not be intimidated by this Administration or others who would criticize.

The best advice I have is to read, listen, and participate. Share your opinions with your family and friends. Talk at your churches and community organizations. Not everyone will agree with you. When there are those who do not, stay civil. Rely on reason, logic, and facts. And remember, at the end of the day, we are all Americans. There is far more that unites us than divides us.

Question Four: What can citizens do?
-- Sid Kemp, San Antonio, TX

Mr. Kemp, you ask for specifics. I have already outlined many of the steps that I think are important: ready; study; write; talk with your neighbors; contact your lawmakers; ask real questions and do not settle for half-answers. Stay involved in politics. Support candidates who share your views. Vote. Get your neighbors to vote. Each of us has a part in making this government good by exercising the duty and privilege of the ballot box. We can show our gratitude for all that our nation means to us by the quality of our citizenship.

Question Five: Why is Congress giving up its Constitutional duty?
-- Eli Pariser, New York, NY

Mr. Pariser, your question is one that has vexed me for several months. The October 11 vote by the Senate to hand over to the President the authority to solely determine when, where, how, and why to declare war will go down in history as one of the lowest points in the Senate's existence. Twenty-three Senators voted against that resolution. Twenty-three Senators would not walk away from their Constitutional duties. Reversing that vote will not be easy, especially in this climate and with this President.

What also concerns me is this new doctrine of preemptive strikes. I continue to believe that this policy of preemptive strikes is a dangerous policy that carries unintended consequences. When America acts unilaterally to enforce its will on other nations, without an imminent, direct threat to our security and without regard for the rest of the world or even our traditional allies, we endanger the peace of the world. America is the world's remaining superpower. But that unique status does not give America the right to impose its will whenever and wherever it chooses. We have a responsibility to lead, not to bully.

As post-war reconstruction moves forward, more than just the Iraqi nation needs attention. The United States would be well advised to reconstruct many of the diplomatic relationships that have been seriously strained because of the doctrine of preemptive strikes. In the months and years ahead, we will need the world's support of our allies. We will need assistance in the effort to stop global terrorism; we will need the goodwill of the world to foster peaceful resolutions to dangerous situations. It is especially important that America show the world that we have the confidence and wisdom to step back from this policy of preemption and return to the steadier course of diplomatic resolution.

Question Six: Can Democrats offer an alternative vision for America?
-- Susan Faraone, Chicago, IL

Ms. Faraone, I certainly believe so. We have many brave men and women in Congress, in state government, and in local government who are working to improve the lives of their fellow citizens. And one does not have to be in government to make that difference.

This nation faces daunting challenges in the coming years. The baby boomer generation will begin to retire in the year 2008. Because of the demands of that generation, both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are expected to be running in the red by 2016. In 2015, more than 60 million Americans expect to rely on Social Security as a backbone of their retirement and more than 45 million Americans will rely on Medicare for their health care. But what steps have we taken to prepare for this looming crisis? Not one. Not a single dime is devoted to shoring up Social Security. Not one penny is directed to pay back the IOUs that Congress has been putting in the trust fund kitty for so many years.

Education. We know that 75 percent of our nation's school buildings are inadequate to meet the needs of our children. In fact, the average cost of capital investment needed is $3,800 per student. But are we providing the dollars to build and renovate schools? No.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has graded the nation's infrastructure. How did we do? Abysmally. Roads: D-plus. Aviation: D-minus. Schools: D-minus. Transit: C-minus. Drinking water: D. Overall, in 10 different areas, the nation's infrastructure received an average grade of D-plus.

When touting his tax cut packages, the President is fond of saying that we ought to give the people their money back. I think we ought to give the people their money's worth. Instead of more massive tax cuts, we ought to look toward tomorrow and repair our outdated infrastructure. We ought to help provide for safe highways and bridges; airports and transit systems that work; clean air; safe drinking water; and schools that help children to learn. We ought to plan ahead to insure that Social Security and Medicare will be available in the long-term.

In his book, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw discusses the greatness of the generation of Americans of the 1930s and the 1940s. He points out that it was this generation of Americans who "came of age in the Great Depression when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague." This was "the greatest generation any society has ever produced."

Like Mr. Brokaw, I too admire the generation of Americans who survived the hardships of the Great Depression and won World War II. They were truly outstanding Americans, a great generation. I am proud to say that they are my generation.

But ever since reading Mr. Brokaw's book, I can't help but think of the greatness of not only this generation of Americans, but the greatness of generation after generation of Americans. It seems that in every age of our history, Americans have risen to meet the challenges and the difficulties of their times and to move our country toward further greatness. We will not fall short now.


After answering these questions, I am reminded of a poem that I have recited since my youth. The words were penned by Josiah Gilbert Holland in the 19th Century, but the message carries forth into the 21st Century.

God give us men!
A time like this demands strong minds,
great hearts, true faith, and ready hands.
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie.


Men who can stand before a demagogue
And brave his treacherous flatteries without winking.


Tall men, sun-crowned;
Who live above the fog,
In public duty and in private thinking.
For while the rabble with its thumbworn creeds,
It's large professions and its little deeds,
mingles in selfish strife,
Lo! Freedom weeps!
Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.
God give us men!

Men who serve not for selfish booty;
But real men, courageous, who flinch not at duty.
Men of dependable character;
Men of sterling worth;
Then wrongs will be redressed, and right will rule the earth.
God Give us Men!