Edgewise

well fuck you too PG&E

Emerging from the basement where I am on flood watch, I went out to the dripping mailbox to fish out our soggy load of coupons, bills, and bank card come-ons, including the Pacific Gas & Electric Company invoice for the month of March. March, the “40 days and 40 nights” of relentless rain in which the basement flooded daily or diurnally, necessitating use of a portable pump, garden hose, and sponge mop on a 24-7 basis. March, in which my energy-saving scheme to enclose the leaky window frames on the inside with plastic sheeting and strapping tape turned the house into a sodden greenhouse for the perfect incubation of black and green mold. March, which last year was a false summer of 70+ degrees and sunny days.

March did us in. The good-hearted folks at PG&E, after passing on the screwing by ENRON and others to jack up the price of natural gas, took pity on us and promised a rebate on our winter heating if we would reduce our gas usage by 10% over last year. Thus the plastic sheeting. And the setting of the thermostat to 62% for night, 65% for day. Chilly, but cheaper. And the bills arrived for December, January, February: $100, $150, $175. Still, we managed to reduce gas consumption by 20% for January, 13% for February.

Then March came. Last year, during the “March Summer” we used very little gas. THIS March we doubled the gas we used from last March. So we lost the Rebate Gamble. Since PG&E averages the saved consumption for each month—comparing it to use the following year, we didn’t reach the 10% reduction in gas usage that would have gotten us a 20% rebate on three months of our energy bill.

So fuck you, PG&E. (and now, back to the basement….)

Pinter writes for Bush

My friend EB sent me a note quoting Pinter, sure to enrage the jingoes:

On the chance that you haven’t seen it already, here’s an excerpt from Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers, but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man’s man.

God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.

Harriet Miers, fashion froward?

My first glimpse of the latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court on the afternoon news revealed not just your usual power-suited Washington insider. First, the suit was a serene royal blue, not screaming patriotic red. Beneath the suit jacket, nominee Miers sported a demure "high-collared" silk blouse, also in royal blue. Could this be a fashion nod to exiting Supreme Sandra Day O'Connor's "founding fathers" style ruched collar and cravat? Or is it hinting at strictly clerical leanings? The usual American flag pin hung on her left jacket lapel as well as some undistinguished piece of costume jewelry on the right shoulder. But my eye caught something new in neckware for the Washington power set - a dangling silver cross-on-a-chain. Prominently displayed, this wasn't your demure gold Catholic-school girl choker. But neither was it large or gothic enough to be retro-Punk. Call it Conspicuously Devout, could Miers' crafty accouterment be a clue to the true fashion tilt of the newest Supreme Court hopeful?

David Brooks can go to Hell or New Orleans

His choice--for saying "We have to think about whether we want to rebuild New Orleans" on the (Lehrer) News Hour this afternoon. Whaddya mean "we" Mr. Smarty Pundit?! Like, if a hurricane had destroyed Washington D.C. there would be a vote to decide whether or not it was wise to rebuild the nation's capitol in a former swamp (wetland to the environmentally savvy). Like David Geffen would be told by George Bush's FEMA Director (Army General, Air Force Captain, Monkey Cage Manager, whatever) that he couldn't rebuild his whumpdazillion dollar Malibu beach mansion after a major storm because "it's not safe". So what if the California coast loses forty feet a year to storm waves and earthquakes and sudden "slumps". So what if thousands of homes get burnt every year in wildfires. And the Mississippi (diked up and down the whole enchilada) floods its banks and millions of acres of farmland and river towns every few decades. So what if typhoons take out a couple of Hawaiian islands. Etc. Etc. Etc.

New Orleans is home to the people that want to go back and rebuild. New Orleans can decide for itself if it wants to be rebuilt. And David Brooks should just keep his smiley hole shut about what should and should not be done about rebuilding other people's cities.

Mannish boy

Saw this somewhere today - it's sad but not entirely surprising (Masculinity Challenged, Men Prefer War and SUVs):

Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds.

Their attitudes against gays change, too.

Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine.

The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

But the guys' reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Willer said. "There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars."

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

Public Television vs The Klan

Full disclosure: I have a liberal viewpoint. That means primarily that I believe in taxes, free speech, and that Abraham Lincoln was right. And sometimes I wish The North had let The South secede. Then we wouldn't have today a national leadership lording their prejudices over us from the legacy of a constitutional compromise. That's the compromise that allowed any decision about American slavery to be put aside as the Founding Fathers hammered out a constitution that gave equal rights to states but not to people.

My liberal viewpoint might look to some like the outcome of my personal geography. I live in California. I was raised in an urban area (near San Francisco Bay), and I have a degree from the University of California, Berkeley. But I was born in the South. My mother and all the Briggs's and Edwards's and Turners before me were born in the South. My fondest feelings and memories are attached to my mother's southern family and the places they lived and died in--north Florida and South Carolina.

But there is one memory that stands apart from the others of my beloved motherland. It is of me as a small child standing before a drinking fountain--the old fashion kind with a chrome bowl and faucet on a stand-up pipe--in the public park in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. I am thirsty and want to drink but I don't understand a sign posted next to the fountain. I can read it but I don't know what it means. "For Whites Only" it says. Does that mean I cannot drink? I ask my mother and she explains to me, for the first and last time, the meaning of the word "white" in America.

In the front pages of American newspapers this morning we are being reminded of just how far from the "whites only" sign on public drinking fountains we have not come. Maybe some will call it a victory that a member of the notorious terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan, was convicted of "manslaughter" in the killings of three young men who were pursuing a calling to make it possible for American Negros in the South to register to vote. Two of the murdered men were "white."

Also in our newspapers, probably not on the front page, is mention of the fact that our leaders in Washington, D.C. are calling for a major cutback in public financing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provides crucial funding for public television programs like Sesame Street. These same leaders have a very specific reason for wanting to cut public television funding: it promotes liberal "agendas" or ideas. And public television is what the children of America watch. The little ones. The ones that can't yet read signs like the one posted by that drinking fountain in Jacksonville, Florida.

Public television programs like Sesame Street make visual and audible to the children of America the liberal viewpoint that ALL humans--not just "white" ones--are people to be loved, respected, and treated equally. Public television is predicated on a guiding principle that prejudice--in any form--should not be a part of its programming. That's what being educational means. It means that there is a place in every home for children to see, to hear, and to feel what it is to be a loved, valued, and equal human being.

There is no other corporation in American that is committed to defeating prejudice in the hearts and minds of our children. That is why we should support Public Television. And because there is still a Ku Klux Klan

Her Body Her Self?

I find the current congressional furor over a certain woman's body (pretty much just body since her mind is gone)quite hysterical and tragic. The story is about everything but the woman herself. "A woman who at the age of 26 was apparently in the process of starving herself - that's what an 'eating disorder' is, folks - and succeeded to the point of triggering a heart attack?," writes Chris Nolan in her March 20 entry at Politics From Left To Right.

Robin Toner and Carl Hulse describe it a little differently in their Sunday New York Times article: "Ms. Schiavo suffered extensive brain damage when her heart stopped briefly 15 years ago due to a potassium deficiency; she remains in what doctors have testified is a "persistent vegetative state."

Potassium deficiency can cause heart problems - and can be caused by vomiting and laxative abuse, both symptoms of an eating disorder. Nobody now seems to think the cause of her life-ending heart attack is important. Everyone is completely caught up in who will have control over her body now that she has no control over it herself.

I want to know about her. Not her parents, her husband, or the grandstanding politicians who have made control over her body their cause celebre. Who was Terri Schiavo? And is there anything we could have done to help her before the feeding tube became her claim to fame.

you are what you et

I had to wonder, hearing that George W. was going to dine with the president of France on his European "friendship tour," whether he managed to spit his escargot into his napkin like a good patriot. This was because I had just read Deanna Swift's Feb. 7 report on the recent departure of Walter Scheib 3rd, the White House chef. She described how he had been tasked with what can only be described as an Iron Chef's nightmare: prepare an Inaugural banquet using America's top junk foods. And I do mean donuts, pretzels, soda pop, and beer. It's a wonder the fish course wasn't in stick form (it was a Pacific salmon--albeit doused in canned fruit).

Far from sticking to the guidelines of the recently revamped USDA food "pyramid," this menu looked like a junk foodie's dream. Except perhaps for the "Safeway" greens--whatever those are. Each trademarked ingredient used to prepare the four-course meal was suggested by a "Pioneer" or "Ranger" Republican party superdonor attending the banquet. The ingredients just happened to be some of the products their corporations manufacture.

But the real problem at the White House was not the chef's imagined reluctance (perhaps disgust?) at having to prepare such a ghastly assortment of faux food. It was his "french style" training. And I don't mean fries. Apparently "sauce" is just another word for "non-Iraqi ally." For a more appropriately educated cook perhaps the ol' W.H. could resurrect the Colonel. Barring such a miracle I suppose anyone with a Betty Crocker cookbook and a box full of coupons will do. Don't get me wrong. I grew up on Betty's recipes. It's just that canned pineapple and frozen peas are getting expensive these days. And I learned to peel the fruit and shuck the peas myself.

The truly unbelievable part of this story is that those capitalist kingpins paid for such a meal. And the redeeming part is that they had to eat it.

Chris Nolan has had enough

The best blog commentary I've read this year is Oh. Him. by Chris Nolan at Politics from Left to Right.

I don't want to quote it or summarize. Just go read it. It's absolutely essential.

I'm serious. I just (finally) put Nolan's weblog at the top of the syndicated headlines on the Edgewise home page. She's doing some of the best work out there and belongs on the daily reading list of anyone who cares about politics, media, or the Internet.

private? personal? it's all partisan

Since the Shrub administration is parsing terms these days, I'd like to suggest some additional euphemisms...

Private parts shall now be personal parts. There is no more privation--it's providence. Privileged? No. Preselected. Will the SSS become the Social Securities System? The Republicons who gave us the Death Tax are primed to pitch young against old in the war of words that will no doubt include a Youth Tax. Grow wealth? Sure, it's like money and trees.

Oh, and let's all give a big hurrah for the Ownership Society. Personal Accounts--they're like Constitutional rights, the government can never take them away.

Please welcome

Briggs Nisbet, cowriter of True Dirt, has joined the contributing staff of Edgewise, writing an occasional column called Hellmouth. (Two back entries have been imported from Briggs' former standalone blog of the same name.)

Please welcome Briggs to our family.

Toad Pride

This just in from San Diego (North Baja or South California, depending):
A federal appeals court has rejected a developer's plans to build a large housing development in inland North County because it would likely jeopardize a small, endangered toad.

Well, kinda. More like there is already a "housing development" there but nobody sees it - except the toads. Who live in it. The toad community, famously, opts for rocky sandscape instead of lawns that must be watered and mowed, and prefers cool underground burrows to expensive air conditioning. They think they have some of the best toad schools in the country - more Harvard graduates than trendy La Jolla.

Rancho Viejo sued Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton three months later, saying the federal government's application of the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional under an interstate commerce clause.

Neither a ranch nor old, the limited-liability corporation sued the government under the mistaken assumption that the toads were crossing state lines on illicit business (toadying, they claimed). Not true. The Arroyo Southwestern Toad, notoriously inbred, never leaves home. "We can't survive anywhere else," said a spokestoad.

An elder for the Arroyo community said, "the Long Toads cannot ignore us any longer. We are taking a stand for our tadpoles and our tadpoles' tadpoles."

The veil of invisibility

So we're walking back to the car parked along the frontage road when a coworker says, "there's an Amber alert on the freeway" and I look up to read the lit up message on the huge billboard "....brown Datsun 200sx..." and the license plate number that harbors a fugitive kidnapper and abducted girl (probably).

And I think about that fourteen year old in Salt Lake City who was hidden in plain sight for 8 months in her home town, in local restaurants, at street fairs, all around the neighborhood in fact unseen by people who were looking at posters alerting them to her abduction in the same room where she was standing but not seeing her because "she was veiled."

She was encased in white robes, only her eyes showing. Her captor-mother was also veiled. And all those hundreds of people not really able to speak out (or not wanting to) and say "why are those women being hidden?" Why are you making them invisible?

When we accept in our open and democratic society the normalcy of veiled women, women hidden from public view, prevented from speaking, not allowed to have faces, or voices, or--let me be perfectly clear--not allowed to exist in their own right, then we have abandoned them. If we do not see the veiled girls and women we have lost them even as they walk among us.