(Sara in 1987, Oakland)
My lez-in-law Sara has her 51st birthday this week. In 1985, I became partners with her sister, and not long after we were lovers, Sara traveled down from Oregon to the Bay Area so she could check out the dyke who had become her little sister's first woman lover. The three daughters of their family were then all lesbians. Sara and I hit it off right away.
Not long afterward, my partner and I decided to take a long car trip back to Texas, showing her my home state and meeting my family. We invited Sara to go with us, and she accepted, along with my best friend at the time. We got to know each other on that long and difficult journey. We continued learning about each other on my visits up to Oregon with my partner, and when we decided to take another long trip, this time through the South (including Texas) looking for a place where we might relocate from California, Sara joined us for that voyage as well.
When my partner left me and renounced her lesbian past several years later, Sara told me I was still her lez-in-law. It meant the world to me.
Eventually, after several lovers who were not able to assume the responsibility of coparenting, Sara gave up waiting on a second mother and at 41 gave birth to her son, Jesse. She raises him alone, as well as teaching special education and ReadWrite, growing most of what they eat, helping with the family farm in the Willamette Valley, taking excellent care of herself physically and emotionally, and acting as a serious ally to immigrants in her town. She has strong Quaker roots, a lyrical gift for music and language, and a passion for dogs. Her son is delirious about her.
A few years ago, my ex was living with Sara and persuaded me to come to Oregon for a visit. I was not able to fly but rode the train three days there and back, in the disabled coach. It was a far more arduous trip than it should have been, for various reasons. And once I got there, my ex freaked out about all the crap she'd never dealt with -- she'd convinced herself she didn't need to work on it because (a) she wasn't a lesbian any more and (b) it had all been my fault, her having to leave me. Or so the story went. It was Christmas, and she was ready to abandon me in my wheelchair in Portland one evening, out of sheer desperation at her own overwhelm. I didn't let her walk on me (again) but, obviously, I was in a tough spot.
Sara stepped in, took over being the host, and made it one of the best holidays I've ever had despite the shut-down of my ex. We had a blast, me, her and Jesse. We established a new, independent friendship from that time, and she's one of my two "farm gals". She's been the source of a great deal of great poetry, much of it published.
To honor her, and the ongoing goodness of her life (she just became lovers with a great woman), I'm copying in here all my "Sara poems". Thanks for remaining my family, Sara. Love you always.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SARA!
JE REGRETTE PLUS QUE JE PEUX DIRE
(Joan of Arc by Janeen Banko)
Regret and longing
can draw and quarter me
I wish I could take it back
I wish you had loved me more
I didn't notice, or I noticed but
I didn't know what to say
I ran through my chances like
M and Ms in a bowl while I
watched TV too much
It's amazing how little people
can get by on
I read that Jeanne wrote letters
in prearranged code: Any sentence
followed by a carefully inked cross
was a lie, her friends knew.
She recanted, then
found a second wind. I can only
imagine the Cardinals' fury.
I saw an old man who had been young
in the Battle of the Bulge, saying
in one pocket was an extra pair of socks
In the other some K-rations
He rolled his blanket with string and
hung it over his back; all else was
bullets. He didn't change clothes
for six months.
What kind of a father did he become?
When his child wept because the
mashed potatoes had lumps, was he
understanding?
© Maggie Jochild, 20 October 2007, 11:20 p.m.
UPDATE: There's now a reaction to this post by Jesse Wendel over at Group News Blog.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
UMAI AND THE LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WATER
In 1959, Theodora Kroeber published The Inland Whale (University of California Press), a collection of foundation myths and stories from the Yurok and other Northern California Native Americans. I was given this book within months of moving to San Francisco in 1978, and I found these stories essential in understanding Northern California as a geographic region. I was particularly struck by how well these people, who had lived in this area for tens of thousands of years, understood plate tectonics and the mechanism of earthquakes. My favorite story of them all is about Umai, and I'm retelling it below as best I remember it.
(Photo of Theodora Kroeber 1970 © by Paul Bishop)
Theodora Kroeber is better known for her book Ishi In Two Worlds, about Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe whose people were wiped out by white invasion and genocide. Ishi was close to Theodora and her husband, Alfred Kroeber. Into this anthropological family was eventually born a daughter, Ursula, now known best as Ursula K. LeGuin.
(Photo of Ursula K. Leguin © by Dan Tufts)
Several years ago, I wrote a poem about Umai and much of what I had absorbed from California Indian culture. I sent it to Ursula LeGuin, along with a letter. To my surprise and pleasure, she replied personally, saying she liked the poem very much and she thought her mother would have, too.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
READERS' LINKS
Readers of this blog tend to share their sources and links, as they are a well-read and curious bunch. To their frustration, links don't always come out correctly in the comments box. Therefore, I've gone back, checked them all out, and turned them into HTML to be shared here. Keep 'em coming in, folks. I'll do this regularly as need arises.
Regarding Class and Classism, Kat shares an article by Michael Young, the man who coined the term "meritocracy", first used in his book The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958. The article, Down With Meritocracy, appears in the 29 June 2001 issue of The Guardian with a tagline "The man who coined the word four decades ago wishes Tony Blair would stop using it".
Surrounded by an exhibition of her life's work, and greeted by three hundred guests and old friends, the photographer enjoys Alice Austen Day in Richmondtown, October 9, 1951. (Photo by Yale Joel, Time-Life Picture Agency, © Time Inc.)
Regarding Alice Austen, the ground-breaking woman-identifed photographer of a century ago, Liza links us to the website maintained by those who run the Alice Austen House, Clear Comfort, a National Historical Landmark on Staten Island, NY, including herstory of Alice Austen, the photographer, her life and work
(Untitled, 1979, by JEB -- a clue as to what African-American dykes actually looked like in the late 70s, instead of Clarice)
Regarding another photography pioneer, JEB (Joan E. Biren) whose slideshow in 1978 also paid tribute to Alice Austen, there's a great interview with her by Carol Ann Douglas in Off Our Backs, January 1998. In this interview, JEB says "The reason that I became a photographer was to make lesbians visible. I became a photographer to photograph lesbians and make those images accessible to other lesbians. At the time that I became a photographer, in 1971, there weren't images that were authentic, that reflected who I was, that I had ever seen. I had never seen a picture of a lesbian like myself.
"There was nothing. Nothing is not an exaggeration in this.
"Part of my work was to go back into history and uncover those earlier images, which existed but were not accessible.
"I've done a lot of photohistory as well. One of the ways that I supported myself early on was to travel around the country with slide shows that talked about the history of lesbian photography and to share those images with communities of lesbians in way that was accessible and affordable. It didn't require a lot of money, like publishing a book. That was wonderful work, to be able to travel around and feed this available hunger that people had to see themselves. It was nice to be the bearer of those pictures.
"It was my life's work to make more and varied and true images of who we are and how we live our lives. To me, the words "lesbian" and photographer go together very easily."
(Furies office in basement of 219 llth St. SE, Washington, DC circa 1972, mailing out the newspaper, l. to rt. Ginny Berson, Susan Baker, Coletta Reid [standing], Rita Mae Brown, and Lee Schwing. Photo taken by JEB, copyright hers.)
JEB co-founded (along with others, including Rita Mae Brown and Charlotte Bunch) The Furies, a shortlived but extremely influential lesbian separatist collective that flourished in 1971 and 1972. She published many of her early images in the collective's newspaper, The Furies. She is the author of two groundbreaking volumes of photography: Eye To Eye: Portraits of Lesbians (1979), the pioneering photographic book that made lesbian existence visible as never before, Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front (1987), a vigorous affirmation of lesbian lives that portrays 125 women. You can also check out her page at the American Lesbian Photography website.
Regarding Captain Oates of the Scott South Pole Expedition and Antarctic exploration in general, little gator shares several sources. The first is Scott of the Antarctic - 1868 to 1912, a website with extensive background, history, photos and links. Within this is found the information that Oates' famous last comment, "I am just going outside and I may be some time", is a remark they generally used to excuse themselves from the tent for toileting purposes.
(Scott's Expedition at the South Pole, January 18, 1912 L to R: Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Robert Scott, Lawrence Oates)
Finding the Bodies at the website Antarctic Heroes entry for 12 November 1912, I'm going to copy in this entry in full because of an extremely interesting line that is all but tossed away at the end:
"Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his men had been expected back at their base camp in March 1912. When they failed to return for the winter, his men knew they must be dead. On 29 October, Dr Edward Atkinson, the expedition leader in Scott's absence, headed south with a twelve-man search party.
On 12 November, barely ten miles from One Ton Depot, they found a tent, partially covered with snow. They set up camp and dug out the tent. Then each of the men went inside to view the bodies, so there would be no dispute over what they had found.
The only Norwegian on the Terra Nova expedition, Tryggve Gran, later recalled what they saw:
‘I stayed outside... as a Norwegian it was not my place. The others undid the tent flaps and went inside. Wilson was lying quite peacefully, his feet towards the entrance... Bowers, the other direction. Wilson had died peacefully... Scott was between them, half sitting up, one hand reached out to Wilson. Then I heard a noise... like a pistol shot... I was told this was Scott's arm breaking as they raised it to take away the journals strapped under his arm. Scott had died dreadfully... his face contorted with frostbite.'
"After recovering the party's papers and geological samples, and some small personal items, Atkinson collapsed the tent on the bodies and built a cairn over the spot. Further south, they found Oates' sleeping bag, but not his body. "
Emphasis on the above line is mine. If he was "just going outside" as reported by Scott, either to take a dump or inobtrusively leaving to give them permission to leave him behind, what's with his taking his sleeping bag along? My suspicions are now raised, and I immediately think of Roland Huntsford's controversial theory that Scott hounded Oates out of the tent.
The third recommended link is more traditional Scott hero-worship by Dr. Donald Stevens in British Heroism They Would Rather We Forgot.
(Machu Picchu -- Incas gave potatoes to the world)
I myself researched a few links for those of you interested in why buy brown eggs, why eat different colored potatoes, and the question of monoculture in our agricultural base. First is a good New York Times article about potatoes from 1995 by Florence Fabricant, So You Thought a Potato Must Be From Idaho or L. I..
Another source is Which Came First - Brown Eggs or the White by Tammy Dobbs. Through her I found the exhaustive chart The ICYouSee
Handy-Dandy Chicken Chart, "An Alphabetical List of More than 60 Chicken Breeds With Comparative Information".
A Q&A about egg color elsewhere states: "Here in the United States, almost all the eggs sold are white. You've probably seen brown eggs now and again, perhaps at your local grocery store or more likely at the food co-op or the farmer's market, but mostly you've seen white. You may have even wondered why this is and what the differences are. I have an answer or two.
What are the differences?
The color of the shell. That's it. Nutritionally, there is no difference between chicken eggs from different colored shells. Once they shell is cracked and the egg is in the mixing bowl or the frying pan there is no difference.
Argument from me about this statement: White chickens are easier to raise in cages and therefore are more cost effective and convenient for the commercial chicken farmer. The chickens that lay brown eggs are larger and eat more, and thus are more likely to be free-range rather than raised in cages. The chicken-raisers I know, as well as my own palate, tells me there is a big difference in taste between the two, and if there is a noticeable difference in taste, I have trouble believing there is no difference in nutrition.
What determines the shell color?
The color of the shell is determined by the breed of the chicken. Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons lay brown eggs. Blue Andalusian eggs are white, and Araucanas lay eggs that are green.
Why does my local supermarket only have white eggs?
Most eggs that make their way to market come from corporate agriculture. And the corporations have found that the most efficient egg-laying breed is the White Leghorn. And the White Leghorn lays, you guessed it, a white egg. That's why you'll sometimes see folks who are backers of biodiversity tell you to buy brown eggs. A brown egg did not come from a White Leghorn, but from some other breed. And often eggs from free range chickens or organic eggs are brown because the farmers who raise animals this way often are also interested in breed diversity.
Lastly, if you want a GREAT weekly read wherever you live by a right-on organic farmer, sign up to receive the free e-mail of Carol Ann Sayle's "News of the Farm" from Austin's own award-winning Boggy Creek Farm. Tell her Maggie sent ya.
HAROLD DERWIN BARNETT, 22 May 1925 - 16 October 2006
(H.D. Barnett, Army Air Corps, 1945)
Today is my Daddy's yartzeit. He died alone, sitting in his armchair in front of the TV, at about 8 in the morning. My older brother found him an hour later when he got up.
Cause of death was a series of cardiac problems, all of them fairly easily treatable, for which he had been refusing care for a few years -- we found out from his doctor after his death.
He left a huge mess behind, which is still weighing on me.
I wrote a eulogy for him which was read by my older brother at his funeral. I didn't attend his funeral. After I wrote the eulogy, I wrote an anti-eulogy. Both are below.
Over the years, I've written many poems about my family. The ones that most pertinently include my father at the end of this post.
I'll say the kaddish, light a candle, and keep sorting his mess.
Monday, October 15, 2007
UPDATES REGARDING CLASS WARFARE AND "THE WAR"
(Cave painting discovered this week at Djade al-Mughara, a Neolihic site northeast of the Syrian city of Aleppo, believed to have been painted 11,000 years ago)
There's a lot of us, hopefully a critical mass, talking and writing almost collaboratively about similar topics, some of which I've created posts for on this blog from my own experience. I'm now going to link y'all out to some of these tasty essays.
First, I want to direct your attention to a recent article from the AFL-CIO by Tula Connell titled U.S. Income Inequality Is Growing. And It's Not A Temporary Blip. This article has some excellent charts and figures demonstrating our slide into Rich-Poor Nationhood, worth copying and saving.
It quotes from Center for Economic and Policy Research Economist Heather Boushey: "Boushey notes the corporate tax burden of top earners has declined by two-thirds since 1962, even as most of us are working an average 13.3 weeks more per year compared with the previous generation. Yet, as the CEPR study shows, these longer hours aren’t benefiting millions of working people.
"Boushey also points out why most of us feel a disconnect between claims that we are living in a sound economy and our own paycheck-to-paycheck reality. When mainstream media describes the economy, two contradictory points are made: How rich we are as a nation and how we as a nation are unable to afford a robust safety net.
"Reconciling these two themes, says Boushey, is the fact that the nation’s growing economic benefits have been funneled to a small group of the already wealthy, depleting the nation’s tax base and effectively defunding programs such as those that would make a difference for the working poor. When we hear the government can’t 'afford' such programs, Boushey says, what that translates to is: Let the wealthy take a bigger piece of the pie while telling the rest of us that’s the way it is."
The reality is on the bumper sticker of my van which states "We all do better when we all do better" -- originally a quote from Senator Paul Wellstone.
Just breaking is a story from the London Financial Times, We Are Overpaid, Say U.S. Executives, which states "Four out of six chief executives or company presidents polled by the National Association of Corporate Directors in July and August said the compensation of top executives was high relative to their performance. Nearly 60 per cent of the directors polled by the NACD said the reason for excessive pay packages was the absence of objective ways to measure an executive’s performance. Nearly half criticised the use of options and equity awards that reward executives when the company’s share price goes up, rather than when its operations improve."
In another article referencing class, Kos posts today about Why Republicans Oppose SCHIP Expansion. He quotes from Bill Kristol back in 1993, when "the Clintons prepared to roll out their new universal healthcare plan, ...Kristol wrote a memo to fellow conservatives and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill warning them that their goal must be to 'kill,' not amend, the Clinton plan. 'Healthcare,' Kristol wrote, 'is not, in fact, just another Democratic initiative ... . It will revive the reputation of the ... Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests.'" (Emphasis mine.)
Which becomes even more significant when you know that most working class people mistakely believe they are middle class, indicated earlier on this blog.
As Kos concludes "Democrats can't be seen as helping the middle class. They'll actually agree to help Democrats help the lower class (the Bush position), since that helps the GOP brand Democrats as the party of welfare queens and brown people. But anything that helps the middle class (often perceived as 'white')? Unacceptable and must be opposed at all costs." Check it out.
Two days ago, Ian Welsh at FireDogLake also wrote brilliantly about class (suddenly, the topic is everywhere -- can we finally be ready to discuss this in America?) in The Underclass. He addresses "what makes you poor and keeps you poor": The Parents Argument and the Education Argument, The Modeling and the “Right Crowd” Argument, The Credit Argument, and what he calls "the elephant in the room", Racism. Yeah, sister.
Digby at Hullaballoo in her post titled Spitting on the Troops points out ways that the Right is who is currently "spitting on the troops", including denying the reality of PTSD and blaming it on "The liberal mindset is what causes PTSD. Boys being raised to men without a strong male role model, and having a false sense of what life is about is causing our young men to go to war and come home freaked out." Ah, yes, we don't have quite enough masculinity YET in our camouflage-wearing, boy-obsessed culture.
Digby replies to this absurdity by quoting from "The War", a quote which Shadocat already referenced in one of her comments on this blog, and which Jesse Wendel has eloquently spoken to dealing with firsthand also on this blog: "One out of four Army men evacuated for medical reasons in Europe and the Pacific suffered from neuro-psychiatric disorders. There were many names for it – 'shell shock,' 'battle fatigue,' 'combat exhaustion.' The office of the U.S. surgeon general sent Dwight D. Eisenhower a study by two soldier-psychiatrists that found 'there is no such thing as ‘getting used to combat.’ … Each moment … imposes a strain so great that men will break down in direct relation to the intensity and duration of their exposure. Psychiatric casualties are as inevitable as gunshot and shrapnel wounds.' Army planners determined that the average soldier could withstand no more than 240 days of combat without going mad. By that time, the average soldier was probably dead or wounded."
Digby says "I don't think all those soldiers in WWII had liberal single mothers who didn't know how to raise proper children, do you?"
Hubris Sonic replies to the "fake PTSD" smear at Group News Blog with his article Camp Followers and PTSD Fakers. Good reads, both of these articles. From people who know that compassion has a well-known liberal slant.
And, there's more discussion going on over at Maoist Orange Cake with Shadocat's personal essay about Living Uninsured.
In a post that addresses both class and "The War", Tula Connell (again -- third time I've referred you to one of her articles recently, remember that name) at FireDogLake in her post Stick Figures Don't Make Waves outlines some of the many problems with Burns' documentary scope, including its failure to mention FDR's Second Bill of Rights, which wanted to guarantee for all Americans:
A job with a living wage.
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies.
Homeownership.
Medical care.
Education.
Recreation.
The silencing of "The Greatest Generation" was a temporary means to damming this current, but their children absorbed it through our placentas, it seems like. And the wheel is about to hit the road again, I believe, as those who are now adolescents and pre-teens face realities that have nothing to do with sex or personal style. Wish I could hit the streets with 'em.
Lastly, in a review of Paul Krugman's book "The Conscience of a Liberal" by Andrew Leonard at Salon.com, he says "its most important message is that, after years of Republican ascendancy accompanied by rapidly growing economic inequality in the United States, the point at which the pendulum finally starts swinging in the other direction has arrived. The year 2006 was no blip, argues Krugman, but the turning of the tide....It's a good time to be a liberal."
Posts
