The late afternoon sun streamed sideways through the trees, painting the flowers brilliant shades of orange and gold. It caught in the fencing, and reflected against the side of the house. The incense cedar towered over the long grass, and the maple had lost most of its leaves, carpeting the ground in a shower of red and gold and brown. The leaves of bulbs peeped up through the flower beds, and the earth was dark and moist. Alive.
We were both drinking lapsong soochong and staring down at the strawberries, which were confused by the weather, small white blooms crinkling in their planters, leaves a mass of rich green, eagerly overflowing, seeking the ground.
“This year I’m going to plant all strawberries,” he said. “I’m just going to fill the whole yard with them. Those ones last summer were so good. I don’t know about this kind, though, maybe I will plant different kinds, just to see.”
“That heliotrope is certainly looking good,” I said.
“Yeah, that really took off, didn’t it? Probably the fucking deer will eat that too, they eat everything else. Everything the gophers don’t.”
“Well, your little fence probably helps.”
“Probably. Damn birds ate the strawberries, that’s why I made the cages.”
There was a pause while we looked to the west.
“I think it’s going to rain again,” I said. “Look at those clouds.”
“They certainly are dark, aren’t they? You know, they carted Johnnie off to Sherwood Oaks.”
“Really? I remember you were telling me he wasn’t doing too well.”
“He just went crazy. One day I went up there and had to tuck him into bed.”
“I remember you mentioned that. That’s a pity. I remember you went up to their anniversary party. I wonder what Flossie is going to do now.”
There was another pause while we looked to the east, and I could see Martha tottering about her greenhouse.
“Martha’s out again.”
“So I see.”
“I was getting worried, for awhile there.”
“Is her daughter still here?”
“I don’t know what’s going on there, she’s been here since before Martha had her stroke.”
“Wouldn’t you hate it if I did that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, suddenly turning to me. “I think maybe people get kind of lonely sometimes.” He turned away and rolled another cigarette, and we looked to the clouds in the west again.
“I suppose we’d better bring those towels in, eh? Wouldn’t want them getting rained on.”
“Oh, let’s stay outside for a moment longer,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m almost sixty.”
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 8:12 am. Add a comment
Mr. Shadow doesn’t quite have this whole blogging thing down, but he is deeply committed to network security.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 1:15 pm. Add a comment
So I was reading the online edition of the Chronicle this morning, as I almost always do, and I cam across an article about “The Reality House,” which was featured at a home show in Florida. This article, and The Reality House, got me thinking about a few things.
The first thing was my father and I. We are both pathological bachelors. We cherish our own space, to the point what when we are in partnerships, our partners are not, in fact, welcome to move into our homes, and we are not interested in moving into theirs. I enjoy the freedom that being single allows me. I enjoy the fact that I woke up at three this morning and baked some bread, and no one questioned me about it, although the felines looked a little confused, and then I went back to sleep. I like that if I have a sudden passion to roast a chicken, or rearrange the furniture in the living room, or clean the toilet, I can do so, without consulting anyone for their opinion on the matter. Without having to tiptoe about because the other person isn’t up yet. I enjoy having guests, for brief periods of time, and I enjoy hosting them in my home and about town.
But really, my space requirements are not that extreme. My house is small. It’s a one bedroom with several large closets (one of which, in fact, is large enough to be the guest room, as it accommodates a bed and end table quite nicely). The design of my house is really due to its nature–it’s the second floor of an old Victorian, so I have a lot of floorspace to work with, but because of the pitched roof, a large part of it is unusable. The person who turned my house into a flat did a superb job of utilizing the available space and making it lovely and livable. Really, my only complaints about it designwise is that I wish there were windows along the south side, although they would have to be skylights. That and I really do need to paint, this is getting embarrassing, only I hate painting, so if you like to paint would you please come over and help me?
I love my house. The only thing is, it’s in the middle of town. Which is sometimes great. I can walk to work. I can walk to the Headlands. I can walk, really, pretty much anywhere I need to go, including the laundrymat in a pinch, and the movie theatre, and the library, and the post office. I love the downtown nature of my house for this reason.
But the thing is, I miss nature. I miss an expanse of trees and plants out my window, instead of a view of more houses and streets. I miss darkness at night, instead of streetlights. I miss silence and peace, instead of traffic and my landlords downstairs and meth heads fighting in the alley. In an ideal world, I would simply transplant my house to a little wooded place, and become a recluse, because I’m not really a fan of society, really.
I struggle between these two placings, because they illustrate a conflict in my personal moral system. I think that all of us should live in highly dense areas of urbanization, allowing large areas of open space and farming areas to flourish around us. I also believe that there should be way less humans on earth, so that we can all live in small, dense villages, rather than megacities. I like the village style of living. I should be walking everywhere, you see, not driving. Driving, really, is something that be reserved for once or maybe twice a week. If I ever buy a car that doesn’t suck and resell it, the guy on the used car will say “this car was previously owned by a little young lady who only drove it to the supermarket on Wednesdays.” Walking everywhere is…great. It really is. To begin with, I get fresh air and exercise. I connect more with my community. I say hello to people I see on the street. I see the changes in the living matrix around me and I think about them. Sometimes it takes a little longer to get places, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it to budget my time and allow myself to slow down, rather than rushing willy nilly everywhere. Because my living in town means that there’s one more stretch of woods that is still woods, instead of houses. Yet I cherish and adore nature, and I want to live in it. Maybe my solution is that I should be living on the edge of a dense urban area, and hope it doesn’t expand. Suburban sprawl is the bane of my existence. And it’s largely due to people seeking to get out of “the city” and into “nature”, so they build alarmingly large houses where there used to be nature. As someone who is committed to and loves nature, I really should be living in town and walking to the nature, rather than building a vanity house in the woods somewhere and driving everywhere I need to go because I live in the middle of nowhere. Even though my vanity house would be small. Even though by then I would hopefully have an income that didn’t require being in a work place. Because I should leave that nature to be itself, rather than inflicting myself upon it.
So here I am, reading about the reality house. Which, for one, is clearly designed for families. Which is all well and good. I like the idea of multiple generations living under one roof. Except that no one in America does it. As soon as the children grow up and go to college, you are left with all this empty space that was previously designated “for the kids.” Sometimes they become failures and move back home, because of course the only reason anyone would want to move back home is because they are a failure. But usually that’s a temporary state–they are expected to move out. So there’s my first problem. You build this hulking monstrosity (the reality house, for example, is 6,000 square feet–over six times the amount of space I need). And then it’s empty for most of its life. It’s sitting there, hulking, on the land. And most of it doesn’t get used. But it does, the reality house argues for itself. You see, we collect so much crap that we need giant houses to store it in. Oh.
It saddens me that small houses and simple living are not values in this society. I’m not a big consumer, unless it’s food or books. I have fairly minimal possessions, and I’m happy with them. I don’t crave a television, let alone multiple televisions. Sometimes I wish my furnishings were a little less shabby, or my carpeting was replaced by bamboo flooring, but I don’t need more, and I certainly don’t need more stuff. I wish that more people understood the values of less, because I think our society would benefit as a whole from more introspective thoughts and activities. We are losing our connection with nature at the same time we are destroying it, and I feel it’s already progressed to such a state that it’s unstoppable.
For the love of God, take a minute to actually go outside today. Walk to the nearest park or greenspace, and smell it. Stand in it for a moment. Bend down and pick up the earth and feel it in your hand. If it’s raining, get wet. If it’s sunny, get warm. Hug a tree. Marvel at this wonder all around you and ask yourself if you are really ready for it to be gone, forever, because of one reckless species.
Bill Bryson, in A Brief History of Nearly Everything, points out that life on earth is cyclical, and that species do rise and fall with time. The earth is a pretty hardy creation, and perhaps if humans do go extinct, as we will, eventually, with time, the earth will recover itself. But I do feel as though we are killing the earth, at least as we know it, and I think that sucks.
[green architecture]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 11:48 am. Add a comment
I realize that manners are a declining grace in this society, and that I am not exactly a paragon of etiquette. I also realize that loud, uncouth women with no class such as yourself are alarmingly common in this society, especially considering your company.
And I want you to know, really, that I felt worse for the couple seated behind us who were trying to have a romantic date than for us, although after about the seventh time your loud, grating cackle shattered my eardrum, I wasn’t too concerned about them anymore, but was merely concerned with myself and my dinner guest.
I had a deep moment of internal debate, because I eat at this restaurant frequently, far more frequently than you do, and I like to maintain a rapport with the staff and the owners. I like to be known as an easygoing, friendly customer who is not too much of a bother, although I do have an obnoxious tendency to take people with allergies out to dinner. I thought to myself that perhaps I should ask to be moved, except that the restaurant was very busy, and I felt it would place an unreasonable burden on the staff.
I also thought, perhaps, that the best solution to the problem might be getting up, strolling the six feet to your chair, and running my fork through your trachea. You should consider yourself extremely fortunate–were it not for the fact that I adore the restaurant and the staff, and wouldn’t want to get myself permanently thrown out, you would probably be in emergency surgery right now, your blood thinned by the large amount of alcohol you had obviously been drinking.
In the end, we simply bore it, because this is our nature, as human beings. But I have a plea to you–please–when you go out to eat, drink less. Modulate your voice. Think, perhaps, that other people are trying to enjoy otherwise wonderful meals and might, perhaps, have less self restraint than I do. Which for people who know me is an alarming thought, but it is a fact–there are people in existence who do actually possess less self control than I do. And one of them might not be so reticent with their dessert spoon next time.
Thank you,
The far better dressed and mannered restaurant patron to your left.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 10:48 pm. Add a comment
A bit of a search engine storm is brewing. And no, I’m not talking about the person who searched for “alchemy architects wee house photos” and came up with this, but, rather, the government attempt to subpoena search records from the major search engines. Microsoft and Yahoo have already bent over and said “oh” for the government–but Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, arguing that it compromises customer privacy and also proprietary search methods.
We’ll stick with the customer privacy issue for the moment. Google is certainly not a company known for being overly protective of customer privacy–in fact, a lot of their proprietary search methods involve getting a lot of information about the customer and using it to customize results. Did you know that a Google search turns up differently for every user, for example? This is, admittedly, one of the things that makes Google awesome–Google knows me, and it usually knows what I want, and is able to help me find it quickly and easily. I certainly wouldn’t entrust private or confidential information over Gmail, though, or rely too heavily on Google not using my information for unscrupulous purposes. Google doesn’t need to turn over our browsing history to Big Brother, because Google is big brother. And Google does admit to sharing information with third parties, although they claim it’s non-identifying. Google’s vast empire shares information with itself, though, and rampantly.
But here the government is, claiming that complete records of search results for one week in Google history will strike a resounding blow against child pornography.
Well, actually, it won’t. What’s happening here is that the Bush administration is trying to save the “Child Online Protection Act,” which is being challenged as “too broad” and as a potential threat to free speech. Now let’s just say this right now: I am violently against child pornography and child exploitation. While I loathe children, I think that using children for these purposes is wrong. I would say that in general I loathe exploitation, no matter what the age of the victim. But child pornography is, unfortunately, a big problem internationally because there are a lot of sick fucks out there. And this is, for sure, something we need to be fighting. However, I’m not sure the “Child Online Protection Act” is the right way to fight child pornography. The idea behind the act is that children should not be exposed to elicit material–which doesn’t sound to me so much like a law trying to fight child pornography, but a law on a much more slippery slope–obscenity.
The government claims that the law is better at filtering out explicit material than safe search and filters on search engines. My question, of course, is who is going to be protected from explicit material? As a consenting adult, I’ll be the first person to tell you that I love me some porn. And I am not comfortable with the government restricting my access to porn, or anything else, either. I’m also not comfortable with the government having access to my search records, because, as Kevin Bankston says, “what you Google for defines you.” This is why password protected filtering programs are in existence–so that mommy and daddy can download their porn, and the grunion can look up Blues Clues on the internet. To me, though, there’s a deeper problem here, which is that children should be supervised. The internet is not a babysitter. If you are concerned about your child being exposed to explicit material, try watching the little fucker while it surfs, instead of dumping it in front of the Dell and going out for drinks.
“Explicit material” is a dangerous phrase, because different people have different opinions on what is “explicit.” I, for example, cuss and talk about sex all the time. Does that make me explicit? Probably. Does this mean that children should not be reading my site? Probably, or if they are they should be reading the nice family friendly posts like…uh…who am I kidding. Does this mean, though, that my site should be excluded from search results because someone’s precious might find it? HELL NO, unless it’s because a parental filter which blocks out the word “fuck” is affecting the search results. A parental filter is a personal, one household choice, as opposed to one imposed by a third party. I can appreciate a parental desire to protect children from material which is too mature for them, but I do not think the government should be the arbiter and enforcer of mature material, because free speech is a value in this country. And the internet is a big place, and largely unenforceable (this being one of the problems with child pornography). Many people are opposed to the Chinese national firewall, as well they should be, and I think we should also be opposed to a law protecting us from ourselves.
Let’s sink the money into something worthwhile, like actually putting the scum who exploit children in jail, because, to me, the fact that there are probably hundreds of children out there being destroyed by their use in child pornography is a bigger issue than someone’s sheltered child possibly finding out that mommy and daddy weren’t just hugging. Child pornography is disgusting, and should be put to an end, but let’s leave the search filtering to CyberNanny, ok?
[data privacy]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 9:26 am. Add a comment
Have you ever checked out the Al-Jazeera Homepage? There’s some interesting stuff on there. Al-Jazeera often seems to be demonized by American media, so the less informed might be forgiven for thinking it’s some sort of 24-hour Osama Bin Laden talk show, with suicide bombings on the late night television. And maybe some anti-Zionist ads thrown in for good measure. It’s true, a lot of Muslim radicals use Al-Jazeera as a media access point–Jill Carroll’s kidnappers, for example, sent a tape to Al-Jazeera. But maybe Muslim extremists are just better at press releases and media awareness than we are.
I was first introduced to Al-Jazeera when I was taking Arabic at (famous university) and the university paid for a satellite subscription so that the Arabic students could gape vacantly at the television, utterly unable to follow anything that was going on because while the newscasters do generally speak Modern Standard Arabic, they speak it much more quickly than on our other instructional videos. I had more success reading the news ticker on the bottom than comprehending the journalists. Al-Jazeera is a media empire, for sure. They are all over the Middle East, but also the world–I would certainly liken it to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) or New York Times.
Al-Jazeera is actually an excellent news source, in many ways. It’s probably the biggest Middle Eastern media company that Americans have ready access to. For Northern African news, it’s a godsend–a sampling of today’s stories, for example, includes drought exacerbated tensions in Kenya, continued violence on the Ivory Coast, and release of political prisoners in Syria. I often make Al-Jazeera part of my daily news roundup, because there’s a lot of interesting news on there that I don’t see being reported in American media. (Likewise, I often read/listen to the BBC news.) Yes, there is a focus on Middle Eastern news, and there is an unabashed bias on some major issues, but tell me CNN doesn’t focus on American news, and doesn’t hold a bias on certain issues as well.
Al-Jazeera has opinion polls and discussions which often get quite lively, and incorporate a wide range of viewpoints. Al-Jazeera also has a clearly posted code of ethics, which is more than I can say for some American news companies. On a given day, you can find a news story about Lebanese homosexuals, suicide bombings in Tel Aviv, Confucianism in China, or an interesting “culture” story. I believe that Al-Jazeera does provide reasonably balanced, excellent reporting, and often it opens my eyes to global issues that I was unaware of. I also really enjoy the discussion threads–they are usually well moderated, and very interesting, even if I don’t always agree with the content–I always leave them thinking.
It’s a curious thing that in the age of rapid communications, we can be totally unaware of things that are huge in their home countries. I often find myself reading American news for several days in a row, and I force myself to go out and read something written somewhere else, under a different government, and with a new perspective. Sometimes that Al-Jazeera, sometimes it’s not. But the way to learn about the outside world is, in my opinion, through actively seeking information about it.
Today of course the big news on Al-Jazeera is the truce Bin Laden is offering the United States. (Although Al-Jazeera was criticized for editing the tape…I’m curious to know if ABC would be criticized for editing an hour’s worth of video for a few relevant soundbites.) “The new operations of al-Qaida has not happened not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you’ll see it in your homeland very soon,” he said. I don’t know how much of this to believe. If alQaida has been active in Europe, as the tape claims, I suppose it’s reasonable to think they’ve had to put off another attack on the United States due to personnel and planning issues. I am also of the opinion that if someone really wants to attack the United States, they will. This is the way of things. There’s only so much that our security measures can prevent. However, alQaida has probably been destabilized due to American offensive activities, which may only serve as a goad to the organization, rather than a deterrent.
I am curious to hear about the terms of his truce. And I think he raised a valid point–on the coasts, at least, Americans are opposed to the war in Iraq, and the President does seem to be riding roughshod over us. “We are getting increasingly stronger while your situation is getting from bad to worse,” Bin Laden pointed out, which is certainly a strong point, and he’s right. The American foothold in the Middle East is slipping, and people are dying as a result. I’m just not entirely sure what Bin Laden might want from the United States. Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, certainly. But what else? And unless alQaida brings the war back to American soil, I think any terms Bin Laden offers are going to be ignored. Such is the way of arrogant nations.
“We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war…If your desire for peace, stability and reconciliation was true, here we have given you the answer to your call.”
If only it was that easy.
[Al-Jazeera]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 9:59 am. Add a comment
The weather this morning has been so curious that I feel obligated to comment on it, despite my general dislike of discussions about the weather. Unless the weather is so outstanding that we are all about to die, or the power is out.
At any rate. I woke up around 7:30 and the light, everywhere, was yellow. As though God had peed in the air, a rich vibrant bright unmistakable yellow. The eastern horizon looked like it was on fire, golden and orange and yellow and shot through with dark streaks. It’s been raining all night, and then it began to hail. The wind snaked through the cracks of the house, setting up a constant whistling noise.
Then the lightning and thunder began, in quick succession, right on top of me. But when I looked to the west, I saw blue skies and sunshine. Loki was running back and forth from the living room to the bedroom, looking at the ominous eastern sky and then the cheerful western sky. He was obviously deeply confused. Now the weather seems to be clearing and it appears that we might have a sunny day. The funny yellow colour is gone, and everything is normal again. How peculiar.
[weather]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 8:01 am. Add a comment
Filled with an overwhelming hunger when I escaped from work, I set about assessing the food situation. To begin with, I am utterly poor until payday and thus eating at my favourite restaurant in the world was not an option. Which is a pity because it sure smelled good. But what might lurk in my cupboards?
The ingredients for Thai-ish split pea soup, it turns out. The thing is, I haven’t been to Harvest in about a week and a half so I have a bunch of staple ingredients and some questionable tupperware and that’s about it. So I went through the questionable tupperware, determined that the contents were inedible, and wondered what I could do with split peas, an onion, a handful of tomatoes, garlic, and some staple sauces.
Place in a large stockpot two cups of split peas. In an ideal world, you simmer these in your own stock. In my world, you pour in enough water to cover the peas in about two inches of water (you will probably need to add more, at some point. We are not long on precision in this household.) If simmering in your own stock, bully for you. If not, add a few cubes of bouillon. This soup is actually vegan if you use vegan bouillon, if you are into that kind of thing. If not here’s the point where you might want to add some meaty goodness. Remember to wash those little peas before you cook them. Cook for about forty five minutes, and while you do that…
Get a large skillet (like a 12″). Heat on a medium setting with some oily goodness. Chop approximately eight cloves of garlic finely. If you have ginger, chop up about two tablespoons of that. Chop up two carrots into thin rounds, dice the onion. Fry all this shit up together. You’re going for a carmelized effect. You might fail. It’s ok. (I start with the garlic, add the carrots and cook for about ten minutes, then add the onion. Your times may vary.) Dice up four small tomatoes (I happened to have Romas around). Add those to the onion/carrot mixture once it is pretty much cooked, ambery and delicious, and cook some more. When everything’s looking all cooked and happy, add eight ounces of coconut milk, 1/2 cup peanut butter, and two tablespoons red curry paste. (I find that it helps to mix the peanut butter, curry paste, and a bit of coconut milk in a bowl before hand, rather than trying to mash it all together in the skillet.) You may want to add more curry paste. This mixture should taste too peanuty and too spicy because you are adding it to the soup, which will thin the flavour. Simmer all of this stuff together on low. Salt that puppy. Turn it off.
Watch the split peas cook for awhile. Change the cat litter, if you haven’t done that yet today. Read the Chronicle, if you haven’t done that yet either. When the peas are cooked (and do check on them now and then to make sure they have enough water and aren’t boiling over, kids) and make sure to cook them well because if you don’t you will fart*, mix your coconut milk mixture in with the peas. Stir. Simmer together for five minutes. Eat. Put the leftovers in the fridge to turn into questionable tupperware of their own.
I should warn you that this soup turns out looking alarmingly like vomit. For that reason, I would recommend blending it. And then you can call it a “creamy Thai-inspired split pea soup.” If, however, you don’t have a blender, like yours truly, then enjoy your bowls of vomity goodness, and think fondly of the day when people will get you things you actually want for Christmas.
Suggestions for serving:
Put soup in a bowl. Toast some coconut shreds or flakes and scatter artfully on top. Likewise for chopped toasted peanuts. If you have fresh coriander, chop that finely and sprinkle on top also. I guess you could swirl some yuppie shit in there too but enough is enough people, it’s just use it up cupboard soup and it’s raining out, it doesn’t need to be a goddamn work of art.
*Like Theresa Simon did after eating dinner at our house when I was in the fourth grade only she had to read on KZYX that night and so she was farting all the way through the whole broadcast and I almost peed my pants laughing. Best broadcast KZYX ever had–it’s all gone downhill from there. I hate crappy local radio stations. They give us all a bad name. I listen to JPR which is the closest local good station and they are in Oregon. (Sorry Kate. I just don’t like the kind of music KOZT plays. And your syndicated news. But you are my non-stop shop for emergency coverage. I swear.)
[food]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 9:37 pm. Add a comment
“Patricia Pendergrass, whose 27-year-old brother Bryon Schletewitz died when Allen’s hitman blasted him in the head, kept her hands clenched together and her lips pursed tightly from start to finish — and then, as the official notice of his death was read off, she allowed herself the slightest hint of a smile.*”
By all accounts, Clarence Ray Allen was not a very nice man, well into his fifties, when he ordered the executions of several people from prison. His case has become important because death penalty supporters like to use him as a posterchild–”look, see, you can’t just give them life in prison, because people might die anyway!” Allen turned 76 on Monday. Contrary to reports of extreme physical disability, he walked into the execution chamber and also was clearly able to see, although he certainly didn’t die in optimal health. Allen had recently embraced his Native American roots and spiritual traditions–his spiritual advisors were Native American and he went into the death chamber with several symbolic items. I hope that this eased his soul in its passing.
Pendergrass has something else to share with us: “I don’t think this execution will wipe away the pain. But what it will do is close a chapter. He made not just our families victims, but those in his own family who must now lose him victims too — we have all suffered, for different reasons. I want it to be done.”
I’m sad that she feels the only way in which justice can be dealt is by making other people suffer. I’m sad that a man my grandfather’s age was killed by the state in my name this morning, and that his heart was so resilient that he required additional drugs to be murdered. I’m sad that we still don’t have a moratorium on executions, and that Michael Morales is scheduled to die in my name next month.
Remember kids: murder is always wrong.
[death penalty]
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 9:02 am. Add a comment
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is now President of Liberia, and Michelle Bachelet, a former Pinochet victim, is the President-Elect of Chile. Both women spent time in prison for their political activities and are now leaders of their nations. Congratulations, again, ladies.
Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 9:45 am. Add a comment