Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana
As we live through day after day of searing heat and severe drought, I find myself pondering the Dust Bowl days. The dust storms of the 1930s began with intense heat... and drought. The heat and drought grew increasingly worse, until at last the wind came and the soil simply blew away.
As I walk across the increasingly common dry patches in the yard, little plumes of dust rise where my feet have tread... and I find myself imagining the dust storms that swept across the Great Plains, and swept away everything in their path: an entire way of life.
It happened in my parents' lifetime. It can happen in mine.
Oh, the dirt probably won't blow away this time, due to modern farming practices. But add climate change to the mix, and long term affects of a megadrought are hard to predict. Higher ocean temperatures have already brought catastrophic hurricanes and a shift in the jet stream. The long term affects have yet to be seen, but it appears the changes are already upon us.
Tonight I sat down with great expectations to watch my neighbor John Mellencamp on Real time with Bill Maher. Mellencamp is very quiet about his political leanings here in Indiana; but his music is the voice of the quiet, tolerant Midwestern liberal living in a 'red state;' trying always to cut through the propaganda that seems to hold our neighbors in a trance. When I heard him describing the 'Great Swindle,' I wanted to leap off the couch and cheer.
I was listening to him just now explain, at Bill's request, about 'what is going on in the middle part of America.'
Bill commented on John's patriotism (without judging it, but...) and John commented that people in this part of the country are very patriotic. Yes, that is true. And as he also pointed out... the ones that do vote for a 'Fred Thompson in his red pickup truck' are naive.
As John put it, they tell the truth; so why should they doubt someone else's word? And what's wrong with being naive?
Like many countless other Americans from all over the country, I somehow found a way down to Louisiana after Katrina. I wasn't trained as a medic or in rescue, I wasn't a 'trained Red Cross volunteer,' and so they wouldn't take me. My car barely ran and I had no money. I have a chronic health problem (but I had been doing a lot of walking, so I hoped...)
Honestly; it hurt too much to watch. Watching the slow drowning death of New Orleans broke my heart more badly than anything I have ever witnessed before, in my entire life. In fact, my heart is still broken. I can tell; right now, as I am sitting here writing this. The feelings are just as raw as they were two years ago. It has forever changed me, remade me, and I will never be the same person I was before the storm blew ashore two years ago today.
Sometime shortly before Rita, I was in my car and on my way to Louisiana to volunteer in an animal rescue shelter.
"Wade in the water
Wade in the water children
Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water"
Sign the petition urging your Senators to support Senator Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill of 2007 (S1668) to assist the Gulf Coast region in rebuilding the infrastructure lost after the Katrina and Rita disasters.
After you sign the petition you will be redirected to a page listing further action you can take, but please... call your Senators and bug them; this is surely the time, and the bill should come to a vote sometime after Labor Day.
Once again a massive line of storms full of precipitation has passed just to the North of us, leaving our poor gasping forests parched; the bushes brown and brittle, the soil dry as powder. The birds are gone -- probably to the lake. I leave water out for the squirrels. The daytime temperatures have been between 95-100 degrees. We haven't had a drop of rain here at our house in a month.
I see another line of rainstorms approaching from Illinois, but I already know the pattern: North by Northeast, up through Indy and towards the Great Lakes.
We're parched. We need rain.
The time has come to consult with the experts...
The rain dance is still an important part of Native American consciousness, just as we are concerned with the amount of rainfall even in the modern world.
Golly jeepers, what a show! Thank you -- thank you Jon Stewart and Rob Riggle for finally reporting on the living hell we Hoosiers face here every day, in our frightening outdoor summer markets!
Much to my surprise, I turned on The Daily Show tonight for another installment of Operation Silent Thunder Fluffy Bunny, only to discover it was all about how closely Iraq resembles Indiana in the summertime!
After writing my original diary, in which I asked my late friend Abraham Lincoln if he might speak on my behalf concerning our loss of constitutional protections, I mentioned my - our frustration with this endless war, and our president's incomprehensible statements in it's defense.
As it turns out, Mr. Lincoln has plenty of experience with stubborn, clueless presidents and 'endless wars.' Recalling his own, frustrating days in Congress, he will now address the members of the 110th Congress on the subject of 'mentally perplexed' presidents... and war.
I have once again offered to take this letter down as dictation (I serve at the pleasure of the president.) My words will be identifiable as regular type; anything written by Mr. Lincoln will be in
blockquotes;
with the addition that I will make use of strikeouts to enhance readability ( Mexico becomes Iraq; it should be clear.)
As I have had no luck at all in my frequent correspondences with my congressman and senators, I have finally come to the sad conclusion that I am simply not important enough, and my opinion is of no consequence.
In light of my apparent uselessness, I approached my late friend Abraham Lincoln and have asked him if he might use his considerable respect, leverage and mastery of the English language to write a letter to Congress on my behalf.
Due to his... inability to use a keyboard, and slight confusion as to the workings of the internets, I have offered to take this letter down as dictation, and he has allowed me the option of slipping in a few words of my own: the agreement being that I attribute his own words via use of
Three people have died in an accident at a coal mine in Princeton, Indiana, police said Friday.
Contractors -- not miners -- were replacing an airshaft at the face of the mine when the accident occurred, said Gibson County coal mine superintendent Jim Brown.
"At this point we have people trying to retrieve the bodies and we know there was no explosion," said Mike Hurt of the Princeton police.
Hurt said the accident occurred at about 11 a.m. and authorities weren't sure if the cause was an equipment problem or something else.
Actress Mia Farrow has offered to trade her freedom for that of an ailing Darfur rebel leader, so that he can be guaranteed safe passage out of a hospital to receive advanced medical care.
Considering how dangerous Darfur has become these days - especially for a woman - this is astounding and courageous. I wonder how many other people, famous or otherwise, would be willing to do the same?
I already have an 'in' here on Daily Kos (they'll LOVE that,) and there are lots of other suspicious people living all around me.
That, and people I don't like. For example, everyone who tailgates in those freakin monster SUVs. On my list; and like yesterday bozos! As of now, you're all terrorists!
A few weeks ago I wrote 'Arbitrary.' after I was rear-ended on the highway at high speed.
As a quick update: my husband's car is totaled. The woman who hit us is officially responsible and we will be getting less than half of the money we spent for that car, paid out from her insurance. Somehow we will find another car, but it will never replace the 2004 'pristine' and much loved vehicle we lost.
I have been experiencing strange flashbacks of the accident, due to the fact that I never saw it coming. I was completely focused on the suddenly non-moving car in front of me when my husband's car seemingly exploded, and then I hit my head. My mind cannot connect the dots. Driving is a new and very different experience. I have lost all illusion that I was ever in control - of anything.
I now jump when I hear loud crashes, and am obsessed with watching other vehicles in the rear view mirror while I am driving. Everyone behind me is now a potential threat.
We the people want impeachment. The GOP was able to concoct a bogus impeachment against Bill Clinton - a very popular president - simply because they wanted one. We on the other hand... we the people are demanding one, and have stacks of legal documents to back us up. Books by countless lawyers, perjuries committed under oath, emails, felons that walked away from justice... torture, secret rendition, the 'Patriot Act,' and the 'Military Commissions Act' that took away habeas corpus. We are at war with a country that didn't attack us. Our media lies to us, seemingly from every direction at once.
Gosh, another wet-behind-the-ears, clean cut, know-nothing Bushie aide (Liberty college?) blocked a medical report drafted by then Surgeon General Richard Carmona because... aw shucks... it just wasn't political enough for him.
It seems there was a Bushie with longstanding connections to both Bush and Cheney standing between the American people and information about their health and safety, not to mention the spread of diseases around the globe.
I'm shocked - SHOCKED to hear this has been happening! Whatever will we hear next? That Bush has been breaking laws?
I had a dream, of darkness and despair;
And in that blackness I did see a man
And he, when saw me, reached out for my hand.
I knew the face, the countenance so bleak
And I: I could not face those anguished eyes.
He’s pacing now, his hands behind his back
His shoulders hunched, his agitation clear;
"Our Constitution tossed aside – and why?"
Dark eyes, deep pools of wisdom and of grief;
In quiet desperation search my face;
And I, reminded of the ponderous price,
The heavy weight he bore to keep his faith;
To save the Union and restore the peace,
and now he does not rest, even in death,
But brings a dire warning for our time:
Would you walk away from $5 billion to protect and preserve your tribal land, if you were the last remaining member of your clan? I guess that depends on who you are, how you think, and what you value:
"This is my country. Look, it's beautiful and I fear somebody will disturb it," he says, waving his arm across a view of rocky land surrounded by Kakadu National Park, where the French energy giant Areva wants to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium worth more than $5 billion.
Jeffrey Lee is the sole remaining member of the Djok clan (which must be a lonely fate.) He alone is the custodian and protector of his tribal land, the Koongarra. "I'm not interested in money. I've got a job; I can buy tucker; I can go fishing and hunting. That's all that matters to me," said Lee, who has vowed that he will never allow the ecologically sensitive land to be opened up to mining. Not at any price.
I'd just like to draw your attention to an amazing exclusive and investigative goldmine from truthout.org; which presents previously undisclosed documents that demonstrate how Republican operatives - with the knowledge of several White House officials - engaged in an 'illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes' during the 2004 presidential campaign. Truthout.org has the emails posted on their site.
