The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might well now say
of our abuse of it,
“Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do.”

The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

From A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut.

I recently had occasion to pick up a collection of George Orwell’s essays, including his 1946: Politics And The English Language. Most of us know 1984 and Animal Farm from high school, but few have been exposed to his keen linguistic insights. From the man who gave us some animals are more equal than others and doubleplusgood came this:

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Treat yourself and read the whole essay. It goes very well with a small snifter of Don Pedro.

My Soundtrack: Passed For Promotion by Midstates on WOXY.

Over at The Writing On The Wal — the successor to No Cleveland Wal Mart — we got the following request from artist Michael Murphey. It would be so easy to take cheap shots, but that would be wrong. Please take Michael’s call for input seriously. Since his art will most likely out live the Queen Jane Memorial Wal Mart Supercenter, it’s important.

Hi,

I like your article. I”m currently working on a design for a public artwork for steel yard commons.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Michael Murphy

My Soundtrack: Breakxxbaxx by Land Of Talk on WOXY.

Do you get to deduct your children’s allowance when you file your federal income taxes? No? Well you’re doing it all wrong, as Barabara Bush so adroitly demonstrates. The first mother generously donated funds to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina but she earmarked part of the funds to go to her son’s comapany: Ignite Learning.

Neil Bush — the Billy Carter/Roger Clinton of the Bush clan — is best remembered for being bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of more than a billion dollars when his Silvarado Savings And Loan went belly up. (The Bush boys do have a way with other people’s money, don’t they?) Lately he’s been fronting for Ignite, an Austin-based company that sells educational software, just what all those hurrican victims need.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group, told the Los Angeles Times:

I would think if she wants to do something beneficial for Katrina victims, she shouldn’t be making the decision that the vendor is her son. Other education experts need to be making that decision, not somebody who has a family interest in the success of her son’s business.

But this wasn’t about helping Katrina victims. This was about helping out a son. The rich are different. Very different.

My Soundtrack: Heartland Truckstop by Beth Orton on WOXY.

[Update — 1616, 27 March — The FEC voted 6-0 to accept the new rules.]

Just like the dead-tree and talking-head media, bloggers get to say what ever they want politically. It took the Federal Elections Commission a bit to figure out that the First Amendment applies to everyone, not just old-school gatekeepers. Under the new rules, which will be voted on next Monday, only paid advertising will be regularted.

According to CNET

Though not all the implications of the 96-page document were immediately clear, one prominent advocate of Internet free speech said the rules are preferable over what could have happened.

They’ve tried to take a light hand, and it looks like they might have succeeded, Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman who teaches law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, said in a telephone interview. Smith said, though, that he was not able to review the document in detail.

Also exempted from the sweep of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act–better known as the McCain-Feingold law — are e-mail messages sent to 500 or fewer people, posting a video unless it’s a paid advertisement, and online activities done by volunteers even if the actions are undertaken without the knowledge of the campaign. In addition, an employee’s “incidental” use of a company’s computers for political activity is acceptable.

It is amazing that these 45 simple words can cause such a great furor. So radical were they that Thomas Jefferson could not convince the framers to put them in the main body of our Constitution. Instead they became the first and greatest amendment to the single most important human document in History. I always get a chill when I read:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

If the FEC votes on Monday the way it is expected to, then Blogs and Bloggers will be more secure in their status as presses. That’s a good thing.

My Soundtrack: Still Take You Home by Artic Monkeys on WOXY.

No. Really. I mean it. When we allow people to use modifiers for the verbs that describe their actions we are allowing them to mitigate in some perverse way those actions. Take for instance the phrase: partially destroy. You can’t partially destroy something. You can destroy a part of something but that part destroyed is, well, destroyed.

But if we allow the use of the modifier partially in this case then we lay ourselves open to statements like: I didn’t completely destroy the Iraqi economy. As if that’s an OK thing to do.

South Dakota State Senator Bill Napoli’s recent defense of his state’s criminalization of abortion is a case in point. When asked what exceptions might be made to protect the health of the mother under the law which did not allow for abortions in the case of rape or incest, Napoli, in typical weasel mode said:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

The word brutally is inappropriate when referring to crimes. Does anyone believe that it is possible (when we’re talking about an adult capable of granting consent) for anyone to raped in a non-brutal fashion? Has any adult capable of granting consent ever been lovingly or gently raped?

I wonder how State Senator Napoli might feel if he were placed in the horrible position of sharing a prison cell with a man who then proceeded to orally and anally rape him. Would he consider it a mitigating factor if the man did it in a gentle and loving manner? I don’t think so either.

Napoli’s weasel words find obvious associations with President George Bush ‘s administration’s use of weasel words when it comes to torture. Torture is a word that requires no modification. You are either tortured or you are not tortured. There is no such thing as gentle torture. Yet the administration attempts to mitigate the actions of those it is responsible for by drawing a line between torture, where things like organ damage does not occur, and Torture, where lives end.

Words matter. Semantics are important. And readers have tobe ever vigilant for weasel words.

My Soundtrack: I’ve Been Thinking by Handsome Boy Modeling School on WOXY.

Kevin, the Lost Bunny of the Apocalypse, struck a note with my readers. For Christians, the end of the world has been an any-moment thing for nearly 2,000 years. One of my readers sent along a link to a run down of the religious wrong and its end-of-the-world delusions. I was really enjoying Maureen Farrell’s piece until I came to his line:

Remember when Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior James Watt said that we need not worry about depleting our natural resources because, thanks to End Times prophecies, future generations won”t be needing them anyway?

Well, no, Maureen. I don’t remember that because, well, Watt never said it. More than a year ago in Attribute, Attribute, Attribute I took Bill Moyers to task for citing the same lie about Watt. I’m no fan of President Reagan nor Secretary Watt. But I am a fan of truth and accuracy. And what reading that attribution in Farrell’s piece did to me was to slam on the reading brakes and force me to ask the obvious question: do I now fact-check every claim she makes or do I just stop reading?

I chose a third path. I kept reading but I took each statement with more than a grain of salt. And I chose to pass the story along to you, my readers, with the strong caveat that Farrell has shown herself to be a sloppy writer. She means well. She’s impassioned about what she writes, but be careful what you take as fact from what she writes.

Any Latin students out there know what the Reader Beware version of Caveat Emptor would be?

My Soundtrack: The Great Salt Lake by Band Of Horses on WOXY.

Cecilia Fire Thunder is a rightious woman. The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation intends to build a Planned Parenthood clinic on tribal lands where South Dakota — and its white-male-passed law making abortion illegal — has no jurisdiction. If you’d like to help or just send good thoughts, go here.

I have a friend who has a thing for the smell of babies. When she finds out about this her wrath may be a thousand times worse than anything Kevin, the Lost Bunny of the Apocalypse could ever wreck. If you see a small mushroom cloud, seek shelter with your portable radio (do people own those anymore?) and await instructions.

The President came to Cleveland this week and I listened to the speech and the questions and then I sat back and wondered: where’s the sense of reality? We cannont continue to repeat the same delusions about turning corners, ink-stained fingers and standing down. Garrison Keillor asked the same question this morning.

A peacock walked past the window as I ate breakfast last Saturday at an old country inn in Albuquerque, N.M., his great fan of bejeweled feathers open wide, following a peahen who was pecking around the gravel as if he didn’t exist. The peacock appeared to be infatuated, shuffling around, waggling his rump, craning his bright blue neck, the little doodads on his head bouncing around rather fetchingly, and the peahen kept scratching in the dirt, looking for grubs.

Think of Elvis in a silver jumpsuit doing One Night at the Sands and the audience studying the dinner menu and trying to decide between the salmon and the baby ribs. Finally he got her cornered up against the window and then he stretched the great fan open to the max and he strutted and stuck out his chest and waved the tail feathers. The lady appeared interested for a while, and then she slipped past him and he deflated in about three seconds.

Keillor’s solution is to fire Vice President Dick Cheney. I’d throw in the rest of the crew, but I don’t think it would make a difference. The little man behind the curtain has pulled all the levers and pushed all the buttons. Dorthy ain’t buying it anymore.

My Soundtrack: Nice Clean Shirt by Eastern Conference Champions on WOXY.

There really is only one rule for success: put your butt in the chair and work. All of the other toys — the affirmations, the fetishes, the accouterments — they’re just distractions. I was reminded of this this morning, on the occasion of the 321st anniversary of his birthday that Johann Sebastian Bach once offered two insights on his work:

I was obliged to work hard; whoever is equally industrious will succeed just as well.

There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

Can any of us do less and expect reward?

My Soundtrack: Patience For The Ride by Centro-Matic on WOXY.

perfectly alone, the way water
is happy around a stone.

From A Little Tune by Joseph Enxweiler.

From Salon’s Priya Jain comes a story about how now that the war on a woman’s right to control her own body is all but won, the anti-choice is turning its energies to the real prize: taking contraceptives off the market. At first it seems contradictory, but when you get into the heads of these first-milleniums thinkers, the reasoning becomes obvious.

Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood told Salon:

When you peel back the layers of the anti-choice motivation, it always comes back to two things: What is the nature and purpose of human sexuality? And second, what is the role of women in the world?” Sex and the role of women are inextricably linked, because “if you can separate sex from procreation, you have given women the ability to participate in society on an equal basis with men.

Keep reading. It’s worth it.

My Soundtrack: Galaxies by Laura Veirs on WOXY.

The record of politicians on comedy shows is horrible; the worst being President Richard Nixon’s appearance on Laugh-In. Can you imagine the performance of any of our current crop of Democrats pulling this off? I can’t.The Daily Show’s Ed Helms shows us just one more reason why Paul Hackett should still be on the primary ballot.

This past week I empanelled a distinguished group of writers who, enticed by promises of anonymity and tequila, agreed to read and rank all of the entries in my Bad Conservative Headlines Contest. First place was a runaway winner, but only a single vote separated the Second and Third Place winners. All of them were great.

FIRST PLACE…

The First Place winner comes from Max who gets the $25 gift certificate from Mac’s Backs.

SECOND PLACE…

The Second Place Winner comes from Jerry Ritcey, who gets the $15 gift certificate from Mac’s Backs.

THIRD PLACE…

The Third Place Winner comes from Lou, who gets the $10 gift certificate from Mac’s Backs.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to write their entries.

My Soundtrack: Tonight We Dine On Fumes by The Carlsonics on WOXY.

When I was a teenager I wanted to build a cabin in the woods like Henry David Thoreau. The idea still appeals to me; so much so that I’ve considered buying a Tiny House. Reading Sherry Chandler this morning I discovered another Appalachian writer with a, albeit slightly twisted, connection, to the bachelor from Walden Pond.

Part of Sam L. Martin’s recollection goes like this:

Where exactly on the lake did he build his cabin? asked Homer Ferrell.

As a matter of fact, Homer, he built his cabin on the north shore of Walden Pond. Actually, it wasn”t exactly on the shore. It was several yards from the water. She seemed proud that she knew the answer.

All of us nodded and said, That”s good. That”s real good. We were impressed.
Miss Gray furrowed her brow a bit and asked, Why is it good to build a cabin on the north shore of a lake?

Barney Sword raised his hand. Cause the trees protect you from the north wind in the winter. Yep. In summer the south wind”ll cool you off. Yep. Blows right across the lake into your face. Yep.

Miss Gray sat down behind her desk, a slight smile trying to blossom into a big one. Very good, Barney. Very good, indeed.

All of us knew she hadn’t known the answer to her question, but we just let her pretend. After all, she was our teacher, and she was an adult woman. We respected her a lot.

Thinking like that is one of the reason I bridle every time someone makes a comment about hillbillies or ignorant conservatives/Republicans. I would take any bet that the people who makes those comments wouldn’t have had any more idea of why you build a cabin on the north shore of a lake than did Miss Gray.

I remember seeing The Blair Witch Project when it came out and thinking: this has to be the stupidest premise for a horror movie ever thought of. There is no way that anyone could get lost in Maryland Massachusetts (Thank you, Rebecca). All those kids had to do was stop at the first stream they crossed, check to see which way the water was flowing, and then follow the water downstream. I guarantee you that within a couple of hours, maximum, they’d be on a road.

Or, take the television story Lost. I watched the first season on DVD this past week and while the characters are interesting, the writing is horrible. The story is so filled with absurdities — starting with the plane losing its radio and turning back, to anyone surviving a crash where a plane loses its tail section at 40,000 feet to the ultimate absurdity, an engine still running after the crash — that I found myself laughing like I was watching a comedy and not a drama.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been writing a lot more about West Virginia the last few months. I’m not sure why that is, but it does seem that my native Ohio pales next to my ancestral West Virginia. And then there’s what Martin writes in his closing paragraphs.

Miss Gray continued, We have 10 minutes left today, so I”d like to know what you think of one of Thoreau”s main ideas. He gave us his idea in the form of a metaphorical statement, and it goes like this: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. Does anybody understand what he is talking about?

We”d been waiting for John Allan, the smartest kid in school, to speak. He”d been doing his math homework with one half of his brain and listening to English class with the other half, just as he did every day. John raised his hand, and Miss Gray nodded.

Well, Ma”am, he began, most folks do the same thing without thinking. They follow the popular drummer. Other folks, the ones that are a little different, follow another drummer, or maybe lots of drummers. These folks are trying to become independent. Mr. Thoreau didn”t mention the third type of folks, Ma”am, and that”s us.

Miss Gray said, Please explain.

John Allan continued, You see, Ma”am, we don”t follow any drummer. I mean, if we want to, we”ll make our own drum and come up with our own march…

There were only five minutes until the bell, so John Allan tried to sum things up. What I”m trying to say, Miss Gray, is that we don”t follow anybody but ourselves. Well, actually, Ma”am, we believe in three things. We believe in God, we believe in Jesus Christ, and we believe in the West Virginia state motto.

Miss Gray sat down. She seemed to be a little older than she had been at the beginning of class. I plead ignorance. What is the West Virginia state motto?

In his best baritone voice, John Allan said, Mountaineers are always free!

For some reason known only to God, who really must have been in the ceiling that day, all of us kids started laughing and clapping, and when we finally settled down, there was Miss Gray sitting at her desk, her face buried in her hands, sobbing big, deep sobs like she”d just finished watching a tear-jerker movie with a happy ending.

I’ve been reading a lot of late about the annual Appalachian Writers Workshop. Maybe I should see if I can save up enough money to make it this year.

My Soundtrack: Inside Of Me by Starlight Mints on WOXY.

Today is the birthday of John Updike, and, as Sherry Chandler has so kindly reminded me in an email, John Updike is not John Irving. I am particularly taken with the idea that what I write enters my reader’s brain in silence, a whispered comment meant for the reader and the reader alone. I’m just so shameless.

Here are two writer quotes from Updike:

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little east of Kansas. I think of the books on library shelves, without their jackets, years old, and a countryish teen-aged boy finding them, and having them speak to him.

I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.

My Soundtrack: Blandest by Nirvana on WOXY.

in spite of all these things, and more,
I have to report that the moon tonight

is filling the house with a wild blueness,
my children grow, excel, are healthy,

my wife is gentle, there are friends,
and once in a while a poem will come.

In spite of the fact that it’s twenty below,
tonight I smile. Summer bursts inside me.

From Calgary 2 A.M. by Christopher Wiseman.

[Critical Update — 0905, 16 March 06 — Immediate action is requested.

From the Middletown, New York, Board of Education:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a Special meeting of the Board of Education of the Enlarged City School District of Middletown, New York will be held Thursday evening, March 16, 2006, at the Board of Education Office, 223 Wisner Avenue Extension, beginning at 6:30 p.m. It is anticipated that the Board will immediately have an executive session for the discussion of the employment history of a particular person.

The particular person here is, of course, art teacher Pete Panse of whom the school district has previously written:

Pete Panse has taught Art in Middletown for some twenty years. He earned two college degrees in Art Education, and a sixty credit Masters in Fine Arts degree at the New York Academy of Art, where he studied figurative drawing, painting and sculpture. His personal art production is concerned with the expressive qualities of the human form, which he explores through drawing media, egg tempera and oil paint. He continues to investigate new and traditional methods of teaching, through extensive reading, workshops and reflective techniques.

The email address and phone numbers of the board members are not available on the website, however, the contact information for key board employees is. Please take a few minutes today to send an email or place a phone call to let the board in Middletown know that the nation is watching.

Dr. Kenneth Eastwood, Superintendent of Schools, keastwood@ecsdm.org 845.341.5300

Richard Del Moro, Director for Secondary Education, rdelmoro@ecsdm.org 845.341.5300

Ina Segnit, Supervisor of Fine Arts, isegnit@ecsdm.org 845.341.5962

Here’s a copy of the email I’m sending:

Shalom Members of the Middletown Board of Education,

No aspect of classical art is more critical than the artist”s ability to render the human form. The board does itself a disservice by suggesting that art teacher Peter Panse should be removed from teaching for directing those students who wish to pursue an advanced education in art seek opportunities to develop skills towards that classical end.

I strongly encourage you to reinstate Mr. Panse and continue to provide your students with the quality education I”m sure you wish them to have.

B”shalom,

Jeff Hess

hess@havecoffeewillwrite.com
http://www.havecoffeewillwrite.com

Please send your own emails or make your own phone calls.]

The inestimable artist Alex has alerted me to how the Internet has spread the tale of art teacher Pete Panse has spread beyond the provincial burg of Middletown, New York. There is now an internet petition drive calling upon the Middletown Board of Education to immediately reinstate Panse. It may make them dig in their heels.

It may also make then see some sense.

The petition reads:

This petition calls on the Middletown School District Board of Education to reverse the suspension of high school art teacher Pete Panse. It demands specifically the immediate reinstatement of Mr. Panse to his position as art teacher at Middletown High School, NY, and public acknowledgement from the Board of Education that the practice of teaching figure drawing including nude models by advanced art students does not constitute any kind of sexual impropriety, nor does recommending such practice to students.

I signed this morning.

The reason I didn’t sign was that once I went through the process I discovered that I had to pay a minimum of $2 to support iPetition in order to get my signature to the petition. That just struck me as wrong and it led me to take the more direct action of emailing officials in Middletown, an action that I encourage you to also take.

My Soundtrack: In The Dark No One Can Hear You Sweat by Sound Team on WOXY.