Haiku

Osprey sees her catch

across the bay, far below.

I watch her fly home.

7/31/10

Haiku

I.

Osprey snags its prey.
Pelicans scoop many fish.
I write a sentence.



II.

Grandfather twilight,
pink, purple sky; no bats.
Why are they missing?

7/31/10

ADL Jumps In On The Wrong Side Of The Mosque Debate

Every once in a while, something happens that is so completely wrong, so inexplicably confused, that it makes you shake your head in utter disbelief. Today was one of those days. The Anti Defamation League (ADL), an organization that has been in the forefront of the battle for religious tolerance for decades, announced that it opposed the building of a mosque near the former World Trade Center site. I find this almost impossible to believe.

The New York Times reports:

The nation's leading Jewish civil rights group has come out against the planned mosque and Islamic community center near ground zero, saying more information is needed about funding for the project and the location is ''counterproductive to the healing process.''

The Anti-Defamation League said it rejects any opposition to the center based on bigotry and acknowledged that the group behind the plan, the Cordoba Initiative, has the legal right to build at the site. But the ADL said ''some legitimate questions have been raised'' about funding and possible ties with ''groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values.''

''Ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right,'' the ADL said in a statement. ''In our judgment, building an Islamic center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain -- unnecessarily -- and that is not right.''

Please read this carefully. The Cordoba Initiative has an unquestionable legal right to build at the site. But apparently, that's not the end of the discussion. The right to build the mosque is not in question. No. Something trumps that. ADL tells us that they have questions about funding, as if that were ADL's business, and then there's this magnificent urban planning point. Apparently, there is theoretical penumbra around former World Trade Center site in which all of the construction should not be "counterproductive to the healing process." If the mosque were further away, say 2 more blocks, maybe it wouldn't impinge on the theoretical penumbra, but as it is now, it's too close for comfort. What shameful rubbish.

The big question is what the construction of a mosque has to do with 9/11. On any level. Islam is a religion of peace. The people who brought down the World Trade Towers were fundamentalist lunatics. Nobody is saying that the proposed mosque has anything at al to do with those people. Or their views. Or supported the events. Or is subversive. No. There is no arguable connection. The connection, if you want to call it that, is just this: the hijackers were muslim, and the mosque is muslim. You see how that prevents healing? I don't. You can put all of the whip cream you want on that steaming pile, and it will never, never, never be a dessert.

The Cordoba Institute says it will be transparent and will deal with the Attorney General's Charity Bureau about its funding. Great. That ought to be the end of that thread of the argument. We can expecct the Attorney General to check the funding. What remains, I am saddened to say, is the bigotry.

And whenever there is collossal bigotry, people line up to justify it. The Community Board, the Mayor, and many others recognize that there is no legal, justifiable basis in a city to say that the Mosque that can legally be built on this site shouldn't be built. It has a right to be built. Who can abrogate that right? Nobody. And whose against it? Can you guess? Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and a caterwauling mass of rightwing nut jobs. And joining them, to my shock and my great horror, ADL.

ADL's position has horrified others as well:

The ADL, one of the most prominent groups in American Jewish life, is known for its advocacy of religious freedom and interfaith harmony. Its position on the mosque was met with shock and condemnation by several groups.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of J Street, the dovish, pro-Israel group, said he would hope ADL would be at the forefront in defending the freedom of a religious minority, ''rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fear-mongerers.''

The Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group, said he read the ADL statement ''with a great deal of sorrow.''

''As an organization that for nearly 100 years has helped set the standard for fighting defamation and securing justice and fair treatment for all, it is disappointing to see the ADL arrived at this conclusion,'' Gaddy said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged ADL to retract its statement.

You can add my voice to those. The ADL is seriously and embarrassingly off course here. It needs to retract its statements. But that doesn't matter to ADL's National Director:

Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, defended his position.

In a phone interview, he compared the idea of a mosque near ground zero to the Roman Catholic Carmelite nuns who had a convent at the Auschwitz death camp. In 1993, Pope John Paul II responded to Jewish protests by ordering the nuns to move.

''We're saying if your purpose is to heal differences, it's the wrong place,'' Foxman said of the mosque. ''Don't do it. The symbolism is wrong.''

Read that again. It makes no sense whatsoever. If your purpose is to heal differences, you don't jump into disputes on the wrong side, when religious freedom is at stake, and you don't attempt to justify your position by incendiarily invoking the Nazis. That is just entirely too much. And it show how terribly wrong ADL's position is.

Alejo Carpentier: Reasons of State

Virgen del Cobre


I love this book, so I just finished re-reading it. Very near the end, I found a treasure, which I print here for you to enjoy.

The dictator, now an Ex, is in Paris, and he's dying in a house near the Arc d'Triomphe. He's between sleep and awake, death and being alive. Carpentier writes:

...Ofelia ande Elmirita have filled my room with pictures of Virgins. There they are, in rows on the wall, surrounding me, watching over mmy sleep, present as soon as I open my eyes, the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Virgin del Cobre, the Virgin of Chquinquira, the Virgin of Regla, the Virgin of the Coromotos, the Virgin of the Valle, the Virgin of Altagracia, the Paraguayan Virgin of Caacupe, and three of four different pictures of the Divine Shepherdess of my own country, and naval Virgins and military Virgins, Virgins with White faces, Indian Virgins, Black Virgins, virgins of all of us, Ineffable Intercessos, Senoras of help in all trouble, disaster, plague, helplessness or misfortune-- all are here with me, covered in gold, silver and sequins, beneath flights of doves, the brightness of the Milky Way and the Music of the Spheres.

"God with me and I with Him," I murmer, remembering a simple prayer I learned as a child...

Utterly excellent. Enjoy.

Haiku

Full moonlight wakes me.
"Moon, what do you want with me?"
A distant train hoots.

7/28/10

Why I Find Myself Shrieking

I sighed uneasy relief with everyone else when BP finally stopped Deepwater Horizon from emptying itself in the Gulf. Yes, I knew it was temporary. Yes, I knew it could blow up again any minute. But there was, nevertheless, a relief. For a short time anyway, BP would stop turning the Gulf of Mexico into a disgusting oil gumbo garnished with oil soaked pelicans and dead dolphins.

But then I read this article in the New York Times:

A wellhead in southeastern Louisiana was spewing a mist of oil and gas up to 100 feet into the air after being hit by a tug boat early Tuesday morning, officials said. It is at least the third unrelated oil leak in the area since the Deepwater Horizon spill began 99 days earlier.

The well is about 65 miles south of New Orleans in Barataria Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands and was a fertile area for fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen before the BP spill. By Tuesday afternoon, a reddish brown sheen 50 yards by one mile long was spotted near the well, according to a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said the well was owned by Cedyco, a company based in Houston.

The wellhead burst at 1 a.m. local time Tuesday after being hit by a tug boat, the Pere Ana C, that was pushing a dredge barge, Captain Buford Berry, though details were still being investigated.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, there is more oil and gas being deposited in the Gulf as you read this. And they haven't started stopping it yet, and are booming. Booming. Booming with 6000 feet of boom. Pardon me, but didn't we all decide in the past 3 months that that is worthless. Oh, but excuse me again, this is a new day. And a new leak. And so we get to try stuff that didn't work before all over again. Because we're crazy and think it'll be different this time.

And then we have this gem:

No specific flow rate has been determined, officials said.

Mama mia. Oy gevalt.

And this, dear reader, is why I find myself shrieking. And uttering strings of profanity. Join me.

Haiku

Rabbit standing still.
You are not invisible.
Dog is watching. Please run.

7/27/10

OK. Unf**k The Gulf Already

Haiku

Perfect summer rain

gently embracing the roof.

A siesta calls me.

7/23/10

Haiku

Night clouds flash yellow,
Thunder brings heavy diamonds.
Open windows wide.


7/18/10

Arizona: Neo Nazis Patrol Border

Is it chickens or is it eggs? Is it that Governor Brewer's immigration extremism gives cover to Nazis. Or is it that Neo Nazis give cover to the ugliness that is SB 1070. Is it that Joe Apraio was thought to be as extreme as anyone could be, but people have emerged in Arizona who are even further beyond the Pale?

Is Arizona a Petry Dish from growing more and more virulent forms of extremism? You pick.

This from AP:

Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.

Jason "J.T." Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants....

But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."...snip

But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, ,,, and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.

"These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."

And so, today, running around in the desert where it's dangerously hot are a bunch of heavily armed Nazis. And Sheriff Arpaio continues to humiliate immigrants while failing to prevent crime. And the Governor of Arizona continues to insist that SB1070 is not preempted. And not racist. And a waste of money.

Arizona is a hot, dry Petry Dish for growing extremism.

My revulsion overflows. I'm not advocating violence. I'm just noticing the strong, negative feelings all of these creeps evoke. I hope that the people of Arizona will find a way to be free of these demagogues.

Haiku 800th Post

My 800th post
is yet another haiku.
Five blog years, a wink.

Haiku

Summer crow meeting.

Unruly, no agenda.

Where is my black top coat?

7/16/10

Haiku

For Borges

A black, dream jaguar
growls and waves razor nail paws.
Still asleep, I flee.

Haiku

Toad on kitchen floor

on your epic journey,

Hop away, cat’s coming.

Boo Radley, I Almost Forgot All About You.

You been holed up in that house, that fallin' down house for so long I forgot you was there. But thank you, Mr. Radley. Thank you for rustling those blinds this morning to remind me.

So almost my bad today. I almost missed the Fiftieth Anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird. What kind of Lit Blog is this anyway when an event like that is almost overlooked?

So here's what Garrson Keillor has to say in The Writer's Almanac:

Fifty years ago today, Harper Lee's only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was published, the story narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. It was an immediate best-seller, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an instant American classic. It continues to sell incredibly well, with 30 million copies still in print.

The book's title appears in a scene in chapter 10, where Scout remembers something her dad, Atticus, has said and asks her neighbor Miss Maudie about it.

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Harper Lee, it's reported, hasn't given an interview since 1964. She's living in Monroeville, Alabama. That's entirely ok.

If she were passing us on the street, we'd stand up to honor her. We remember this, "Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."

Chalchiuhtlicue's Wrath

About 500 years ago, Cortez landed in Mexico. He told the people who were already living there that they had to become subjects of the King of Spain. But, they told him, they were already subjects of Montezuma, the Emperor who was in Tenochtitlan. Cortez told them that Montezuma had to become a subject of the King of Spain, too, and he took Montezuma prisoner. As if that weren’t enough, he told the People that they had to give up their Old Gods and accept his God. Cortez’s God, he told them, was far more powerful than their Gods, and if they didn’t accept his God and abandon their own Gods and abandon their practice of having idols and human sacrifices and ceremonies and dances to their Gods, they would be killed. Also, Cortez told them, they had to deliver to Cortez all of their gold and silver. So it was that the Spanish foothold came to what is now Mexico in 1517.

Cortez was deadly serious about obtaining compliance with these demands. To make sure they were carried out he brought to this hemisphere some frightening, never before seen things. He brought the first firearms. And explosives. And the first steel swords. And the first, huge battle horses. And horrible, gigantic war dogs. In the first skirmishes with the people who lived here, he showed that he and his God had entirely different rules in war. The number of deaths would be enormous. No captives would be taken. The dead would be left on the battlefield.

Those who lived here used in combat obsidian swords, which were designed to injure but not to kill. The goal of their war was to capture enemy combatants. Later, these might be sacrificed or eaten. But the idea wasn’t to kill them all on the battlefield. These obsidian swords were no match for Spanish steel. Steel swords shattered them. And foot soldiers were no match for cavalry. Or guns. Or explosives. A few, foul smelling Spanish soldiers were a match for large numbers of warriors.

To this mismatch Cortez added terror. Killing many unarmed non-combatants, including women and children was a tactic to assure compliance with Cortez’s wishes. Apparently, this horror was acceptable to Cortez’s God. To no one’s surprise, it was quite effective in securing compliance with Cortez’s demands.

Chief among what was not acceptable to Cortez’s God were the Original Gods. There were many Gods. Cortez insisted that these Gods all had to be abandoned. No exceptions. These Gods’ requirements, Cortez believed, were simply unacceptable. There could be no idols. There could be no offerings or sacrifices to these Gods. There could be no more singing and dancing. People who insisted on ceremonies for these Gods of any kind, offerings, sacrifices, prayers, songs, festivals, those people had to be converted. And if they resisted conversion, they’d be killed. Period. If their Gods were so powerful, Cortez taunted them, why aren’t they protecting you now? Why are they letting us destroy their temples and their images? Why are they letting us hold Montezuma captive and kill you? Why are they letting us live in this Temple and cover their altar with a picture of the Madonna?

Cortez evidently didn’t understand the Gods. There were obvious reasons why people followed them and made offerings to them. This was not superstition, regardless of how Cortez may have characterized it. The Gods were cared for because they were supporting the people’s lives. They had done so for centuries. It was a gigantic presumption on Cortez’s part to insist that the Gods were no good, or that they were powerless. Who was he to command them to do anything? Wasn't his arrival evidence of their displeasure?

Chalchiuhtlicue, Goddess of water, she with the “skirt of gems,” companion to the mighty rain God Tlaloc, watched and saw that the people gradually abandoned her. Not all of them left her at once. There was no formal renunciation of her. Over time, over a long time, virtually everyone who had offered to her songs, dances, prayers, sacrifices, offerings, virtually everyone who had remembered her, died or forgot her. There was no more dancing and no more incense. How long had it been since there had been sacred copal smoke? And drumming? And a fiesta? And worse, they didn’t tell their children about her. If they were frightened or terrorized into abandoning her, it did not matter to her. That was no excuse. Wasn't she an Old God? Had she not served them for millennia? After all, she recalled, there were reasons why for so many millennia the people had praised her, made offerings to her, and remembered her. There were reasons why they built temples to her. It was because she was their God and she cared for them. How dare they think they did not need her?

Chalchiuhtlicue was the Goddess of the waters, of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. She and Tlaloc together brought the rains. They watered the crops. If they didn’t bring rain, the People would starve. The mais would not germinate. They also protected the life of the seas and the lakes around Teotihuacan. They were responsible for fish. And frogs. Shellfish and crabs. Yes, sometimes they brought fierce storms, hurricanes, mud slides, terrible winds, but even these they moderated. They cared for the People. They made the wheel of life turn. They made the cycle of the weather. They brought sacred water. And in response to the offerings and prayers, Chalchiuhtlicue did what she could to be of help them. When she saw that she was almost completely forgotten, she became angry. And vengeful. And she decided she would no longer moderate the Sea and protect the people. Because they had forgotten her. And abandoned her. They had lived by her Grace, but they betrayed her. She seized her obsidian knife, and she stabbed herself in her stomach.

Perhaps you can understand that just as a dog’s year is 7 human years, a God’s year is about 500 human years. Chalchiutlicue waited for us to come back her. She waited a full God year. She waited long enough. And now she knows we are not coming back. As we have abandoned her, so she has now abandoned us.

Chalchiuhtlicue has now fully withdrawn her help. She has given up on us. And she has sacrificed herself.

You can see this in the Gulf. You can see her blood and guts emptying into the Gulf. You can see that she has cut herself deeply with her obsidian knife and is bleeding to death.

Who were we to leave her? Who were we to believe that she was powerless? Who were we to believe the calumnies Cortez brought? Didn’t we understand the Gods? Didn’t we realize that there were good reasons why we made offerings and ceremonies to them for so very long?

The Five Year Blogaversary: 8/7/10

Boy is this ever weird.

August 7, 2010, is the fifth anniversary of this blog. This is the 794th post. I have no clue how many people have visited here. I have no idea who has read what. I imagine that only I have read it all.

I have enhanced my own ignorance about the readership. Who is reading and what. You may recall that in a moment of clarity I proclaimed that I wasn't going to keep track of statistics any more, and I then took down all the counters. The counters, truth be told, didn't work very well anyway. It wasn't a big deal. I made believe it was.

Come to think of it, there have been a lot of quirky things in the five years. One of them is that the readership has been surprisingly quiet. The other is that nobody tells me that I've jumped the shark. I am far more ignored than scolded.

So here I am. I'm five years older than when I started. This is my Polonius moment. I probably write faster. Do I write any better? Doubtful. I have aphorisms, though: Writing fast is a virtue, editing fast is an important skill. Persistence has some value. Neither a borrower nor a curmudgeon be.

There are five years of writing piled up behind me. And the open road ahead. I guess I'll continue so long as this is still fun.

As ever, thanks for reading. And while we're at it, do you think you could order my book?

Zen Master Dogen: Back By Popular Demand

It's been over 90 degrees F in Columbia County, New York, for the past week. The air is really wet. The humidity index says that it feels like more than 100 degrees. And, of course, there's no relief expected for a few days. What better opportunity to contemplate Zen Master Dogen:

Mountains And Water Sutra

There are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.

An ancient Buddha said, "Mountains are mountains, waters are waters." These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.

Therefore investigate mountains thoroughly. When you investigate mountains thoroughly this is the work of mountains.

Such mountains and water of themselves become wise persons and sages.

So today, I am doing the work of mountains. I stand like a mountain. I investigate the mountains. This does not mean that the mountains I am investigating are mountains, it means they are mountains.

The World Cup: A Brief, Gringo's Guide to Futbol

Most of the planet has been tuned in to the World Cup since June 11, 2010, and will continue to watch and argue about it until the last whistle is blown on July 11. It's expected that the audience for the final game will draw a tenth of the people on the planet. An audience of about 600 million people. It doesn't matter very much to these people that their own countries didn't qualify, or got eliminated. No. They're watching, glued to the Tube, because that game is the World Game. And they love it. And they know great Futbol when they see it.

Unfortunately, in the US relatively few people care about futbol. Or soccer as most call it. They don't reflect on the fact that the barefoot kids kicking a ball made of duct tape and rags in a vacant lot in Port au Prince or Kabul or in a favela in Rio are playing the same game that well scrubbed kids wearing uniforms and $100 shoes are trying to play in this country. So they don't reflect on how democratic the game is. How anybody can play. And does. And how all you need is some ground and something to make a ball with. Shoes are optional. Goal posts are optional. Uniforms, optional. Only getting the ball into a goal counts.

And best of all, you don't have to be big. In fact, it helps to be small and fast and coordinated. Lionel Messi is a big star at 5 feet 7 inches. England's Peter Crouch at 6 feet 7 inches is consistently insulted by those who say he's a good player, for a big man. What helps is to be fast, very fast, and to have the kind of endurance that lets you run without stopping, hard, for 90 minutes and to be coordinated. The game doesn't let you use your hands, unless you're a goalkeeper, so you have to be able to use your feet, your legs, your thighs, your chest, your head. You can learn to do this with practice. The part you cannot learn you have to be born with: it's a futbol gift that is distributed at seeming random across the entire world. But you recognize it as soon as you see it.

In the US the common folklore is that futbol is boring. Right. It's boring in the same ignorant way as anything that has not been examined and is not properly understood. Actually, I suspect that this is a rap given the sport in the US because you cannot stop the game for commercials. That would be sacrilege. You cannot cut away to the studio. You watch until the time runs out. Then, and only then, do you get up, get something to eat, relieve yourself, watch commercials. In Spain you don't stand up during the game. That blocks others' views. Same in Germany and Italy. OK to yell and scream and curse and drink. Not OK to block somebody else's view.

Who are these players in the World Cup? The world's best futbol is played by club teams. The club season starts in early Fall and continues until Spring. Some of the teams are famous names, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, to name a few from the top of English Premier League. In England there are about 5 professional leagues below the Premier League. Every one of the players in every one of the teams in every one of those leagues aspires to play for a team in the top league. And every single player on a team in the top league aspires to be "capped," to be asked to play for the national team. That is a huge and important honor. This is the situation in the top leagues throughout Europe, which are in Italy (Internazionale, AC Milan, Lazio), Germany (Bayern Munich, Wolfburg), Spain (Barcelona, Real Madrid), France, and Holland. It's also the case throughout Cental and South America and Asia. The US has a few leagues, the top one MLS isn't really good. That's why the MLS season is going on now even though the world cup is happening. The players in MLS aren't at the World Cup (with a very, very few exceptions).

If you have DirecTV you can actually watch futbol in the regular, club season from England, Italy, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, and so on. These are exciting games. Goltv.tv and FoxSoccerChannel broadcast live and taped games.

How do you get to the World Cup? After about a year of qualifying (18 games in South America; about 10 in North America) a national team has to beat enough of the other teams in its region to make the finals. Every 4 years 32 teams are selected for the World Cup through regional qualifying. Those teams showed up in South Africa this year on June 11. They were divided into 4-team groups and played 3 games. The best two teams in each group advanced to the round of 16. Then there were games that pared the teams down to 8, and then 4. There are now 4 teams remaining.

On Tuesday, at 2:30 pm ET, Uruguay plays the Netherlands. On Wednesday, at 2:30 pm ET, Germany plays Spain. There is a game for 3rd place on 7/10, and the final on 7/11.

What does it take to win a game at this level? It takes a lot more than great individual players. All of the remaining teams have great players and have played very, very well. Spain probably has the most talented, most famous team. Germany and Netherlands have played brilliantly. Netherlands beat Brazil. Uruguay has been impressive as well. Its star Diego Forlan has been a magician throughout the World Cup. To win at this point, though, it takes massive energy and confidence. You cannot let down at all during the entire game, and you cannot be slow to start. The US team demonstrated that playing from behind, after an early goal, makes winning really difficult, if not impossible. The team has to play as a team. We are well beyond the point at which a star or two's great play will win the game. And the most important thing, I think, is that there be no defensive errors.

When a goal is scored everybody tends to blame the keeper. That's easy, but that's frequently not fair. If the defense allows a clear shot on goal, the keeper can sometimes do very little to make the save. Defensive lapses, and more important, forced defensive lapses, are the key to who will win these final games. That means that teams need a swarming, strong, airtight defense that can "close down" the field. But they also need an offense that is capable of creating space in front of the goal, space into which a striker can kick a ball into the net.

I hope you'll all drop what you're doing and watch these final games. The rest of the world will put everything on hold. You can do the same. It's worth it.

A prediction: Spain and Germany will advance to the finals. Spain will win the finals 1-0.

Haiku

1.
Who threw countless stars
Across a black velvet sky?
Turn off your lights. Look up!

2.
I wait for the dawn.
I sit, hear frogs. Look up.
Where is the pink sky?

Haiku

Queen skunk wanders,
summons the moon with perfume.
She shows no one her smile.