Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Come to the Cove!!








Special Preview: 

 POEMS:

"The Shaker"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Janine Pommy Vega
"Night Sonnet".  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Novica Tadić
"Tea Cup"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Aditya Bahl
"Fallacy" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tatjana Kukić
Haiku  (in 3 languages) by  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Višnja McMaster
"To and From"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Danielle Legros Georges
"Qamariya" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Greene
"Out of the Fog" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tom Clark
"Can not"   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aditya Bahl
"Zick Zack" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anatol Knotek
"Demain" (Tomorrow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Colby
"#99" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ben Mirov
"Psyanky" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Colby
"Luftwaffe". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruth Bavetta
"Free Verse Poet" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . Tom Montag

 ARTWORK:

"Untitled" X 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Caio Fern
"Winter Birch" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amy Komar

PHOTOGRAPHY:

"Feet and Cane" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Kevin McCollister
"Matchsticks"   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anatol Knotek 



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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Visit to a Friend

When I arrived she was sitting on her bed in her room, the shades drawn.  "Is it cold outside?" Mado asked, for the fifth time in our first three minutes of conversation.

They eat lunch there at 11:30 but the residents begin assembling in the dining salon well before that.  It is an "event" to look forward to, in a place where not much else happens.  At table, Mado's companion to the left, in a wheelchair, arms hanging limply at her side, stares into the distance.  Her companion to the right, a large woman whose wispy white hair tumbles rebelliously out from its barrettes, sings softly in a high-pitched voice and converses with someone only she can see and hear.  "She is not really with us," Mado leans over to whisper to me.

On the way out I pass the tall elderly gentleman in the wool sweater (which he wears even in 90-degree weather).  He is one of five men in a residence home with about 20 women.  He always sits with his back to the community TV, so he can watch the entrance hall.  Far more interesting to sight an unexpected visitor arriving than join the few others asleep or catatonic in front of the 'tube'.

Once when I was departing I witnessed his visit in the TV room with his daughter and small grandchild.  He seemed bored  and agitated.  His daughter's full attention was on the toddler, trying to prevent him from running places he wasn't supposed to or replacing items he had removed from the shelves. Neither father nor daughter seemed to have much to say to one another. It seemed such a contrast to his usual demeanor but such brief, one-time-only observations never tell the whole story.

At any rate, yesterday the sweater man seemed his old vibrant self, greeting me  with a smile and a high-five fist bump -- his silent equivalent of "Hello".

I usually hook my bike to the pole out front and if he's in the dining salon and spots my bike speeding by, he sends a big wave through its cheery windows, though I'm never sure if he's able to see me waving back or not. 

Mado has forgotten my name (for some reason, she keeps calling me "Pamela").  I think she thinks of me as her daughter - she sometimes refers to her (long ago sold) house as "our" house.  At other times she remembers I'm the neighbor down the street who used to walk her dog (but I don't dare mention "PomPom" for it would bring tears to her eyes).  The tall guy in the sweater calls me "L'Anglaise" ("The English"), because of my accent.  The major topic of our brief exchanges is my bicycle.  I tell him it's broken and in the shop right now getting fixed, so I'm on foot today.  He leans over to look at my feet, straightens back up, grins, and raises his fist in the air - to meet my raised fist in a "See ya next time" gesture, then watches me walk down the hall and out the door.

Comings and goings - of visitors, staff and the delivery people, the main point of interest for some of the residents there.  Mado's room door faces the elevator.  Watching fellow residents shuffle past in their walkers, getting into and out of that tiny ascending or descending cubicle is, for some, what constitutes an "event".  She complains about being bored.  A voracious reader, she also does crossword puzzles and "Find-the-Word" games.  "Is it cold outside?" she asks again, for the umpteenth time.

What I love about Mado and the "high-five" gentleman is their indefatigable sense of humor.  They have such interest in and curiosity about things, that lively spark inside still clamoring to get out . . . and they laugh a lot.   The sign outside this residence says it's for people of "le troisième age" (the third age) (the "oldest old?"). When I am "oldly old" I hope such spark can still be found in me.  The onset of old age, with all its loneliness and maladies and limitations, seems less frightening to me somehow than the  gradual loss of interest, passion for something, and imagination . . . or being deposited somewhere unfamiliar, waiting to die, in complete and unrelenting boredom.


Monday, March 19, 2012

Don't you

step on my blue suede shoes!!!   (Elvis's song, and I started hearing it the minute I saw these shoes on A's feet!)



We went to Yellow on Saturday for shoes and my mate fell in love with a green pair.  (Not because it was St. Patrick's Day.   He just liked the color.)  But they didn't have them in his size.  So he chose these blue suede ones instead.  (They come with white shoelaces as well.)

Off we went for an hour's walk yesterday afternoon down Notre-Dame Est past the sanctuary and back along the St. Lawrence river, to try them out.

En route, an old tree,  de-limbed


Little bridge at the sanctuary park


Snow gone from sidewalks & road; not yet from the park







First day warm enough to go without a hat, scarf, coat and gloves.  Everyone in the neighborhood it seemed was outdoors yesterday, on their porches, in their yards, hanging clothes out, riding bikes, fishing down along the pier, soaking in the sun.

Spring has finally come!!!

______________________________________________________________________

Well ...

I'd written the above posting early this morning.  Then went outdoors for a little jaunt, starting at the Pont Duplessis, along the Saint-Maurice river.  The walk itself (depending on how fast you go) takes around 15 to 20 minutes.  Longer for me, because I stop along the way to stand by the water, listen to the birds, watch the egrets, ducks or other river creatures, sit on a rock, take in the quiet, etc., for me the best part of the "walk."    Today I caught sight of a string of Canadian geese returning from the South, a solitary "V" inching its way across the sky. 

As you can see below, Spring has not yet exactly arrived, though the geese coming back is a good sign it's imminent.


Still a bit of melting to be done yet.

This (below)  is near one of my favorite spots.  There's a picnic table and bench nearby, for reading, lunching, or just sitting.  I prefer the rocks, though.  Less people there.



cool waters


Feathery tree limbs noting an ice floe drift by.


This looks like two trees; the bottom one is actually its own shadow on the water.



"Me and My Shadow" - They meet and converse with one another.

[Right click to open in new (enlarged) window.  You can see the shadow much more clearly in full screen mode.  Sometimes I download these as screensavers, for times when I can't actually go to a place.  "Virtual travel." ]
 
The banks and walkway there today were still covered in snow, something I hadn't anticipated (I was still in 'Spring mode' from yesterday, wearing only a light jacket and sneakers ), and while the part closest to the river (damp earth and brown grass) was walkable, I suddenly found myself mired, struggling to navigate large patches of solid, very wide, slippery ice overlays to get to the softer snow, where I could just step into a previous walker's footsteps leading out to the road again.  

To walk on ice without slipping is not so much a matter of what type footwear you're wearing but how you place the foot down for each intended step.  (Think "march" style, as opposed to the more casual automatic "swing" walk-step style.)  This works well when the iced surface is flat and continuous.  Not so when it's sporadic, uneven, and full of mini hiddden pocket-bumps like those I encountered this morning.   I'd crossed onto such an ice patch, misjudging the distance to the next most feasible stepping point, only to find myself stuck there, unable to go forward or backward without slipping.  I ended up stooping down and crawling forward two slow, short movements to where it was again walkable.  (Bringing along a pair of gloves would have helped.)  I thought of our walk yesterday, the sun beating down, people out in T-shirts saying "Ah, about time!!" and then today the blue sky switched to gray, the warmth receded, and there's all that snow still around, taking its own sweet time to evaporate.  It is not for nothing the Quebeckers refer to their province as "mon pays, c'est hiver", ha ha.    A place "where winter is embraced, not merely borne."  Well, not a few Quebecois would disagree with that, given the number who flee to Florida to escape it every year.  That said, everyone nonetheless pretty much deals with it, it's no big deal.  But boy is everyone eager for Spring!

Today, March 19, people here traditionally start their indoor planting prepping for their summer garden, as in certain regions planting their potatoes--and in Southern France, their haricot beans, according to the Olives-and-Artichokes blog on whose site I happened today, whose photos and descriptions of culinary examples in the Lanquedoc region has me salivating at the imagined taste.

Historical remembrance:  On this day, in 2003, the U.S. and its allies went to war in Iraq, on account of an erroneous belief that a gigantic "mushroom cloud" of destruction might be launched by Saddam Hussein toward America.  It has been nine years, no such weapons of mass destruction were found,  Saddam's been eliminated, regime change effected, the largest embassy in the world (costing $750 million, requiring a staff of 15,000) was built by and for the U.S. there.  "Mission accomplished."
  This year is the eleventh year of the war in Afghanistan against Taliban insurgents.  Mission unable to be accomplished.  Maybe in four more years. Keep doing a thing until you get it right, or so they say. If after 14 years there's still no progress - maybe time to go back to the drawing board, one would think.  But I'm not an expert in these matters.  They have databases that attempt to tabulate the estimated collateral damage (i.e., count the carnage). But none that shows where exactly all that money went.  Chilling thoughts on a still too-chilly day. 

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Tree Hugger


I’ve been called a tree hugger.   It’s true.  I once hugged a tree. It's not what you think.  It was not out of love but desperation.  Something happened that I'd had a hard time, at the time, dealing with.  I'd run out into the night, and there was this tree -  I put my arms around it.  It seemed to hear me.

That memory tumbled out this morning after reading Paul Martin’s wonderful post of two days ago on trees.  He writes some of the best stories and essays!!! - and his reflections and ruminations never fail to delight and inspire me. Or jog a memory in resonance.

Paul describes a scene where he felt as if the trees were whispering to him, calling his name, "telling me . . . maybe I needed to break away.    Maybe I needed to be elsewhere, to go off and be bold and courageous."

He seems to have had a whole chorus of them calling out to (and looking out for) him.  The way 'my' tree did for me.

How the trees speak to us - and we to them.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Afraid to go to Canada

Dick "The Torturer" Cheney, who is a tireless champion of war despite having evaded service in the military during the Vietnam war (through five deferments), apparently has more roar than bite in him.

Cheney rescinded an April speaking engagement in Toronto because, apparently, he fears protesters might greet him in Canada.  [1]

Article referred to: Former U.S. VP Dick Cheney Deems Canada Too Dangerous for Speaking Visit

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Knock knock, change your clock

 Attention: 

United States and Canada   Daylight Saving Time 2012 Begins March 11 - set your clock(s) forward one hour at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March. It Ends on November 4, and the clocks will need to go back an hour.  [it says]

fall back
spring forward

that hour they gave you last year -
you have to give it back



We normally go to bed around 11:00 p.m.  Last fall, when we turned our clocks back one hour (meaning the old 11:00 o'clock would now  be midnight), we started going to bed an hour earlier because staying up till midnight would throw our internal rhythms off.   Of course the "fall back" part of it meant the old 6:00 a.m.  (the time we normally get up), was now 7:00 a.m. (which seemed kind of late to be still lying in bed).  Plus the fact it started getting dark at 4:00 p.m. meant that extra hour could be spent enjoying light instead of  behind closed eyelids.

So -- Daylight Saving Time rolls around again, and it's spring forward (we lose an hour).  Since we're now going to bed at 10:00 p.m. (which has reverted back to the old 11:00 p.m.), it won't make much difference, internal rhythm wise.  Come summer it'll stay light out all evening, practically.  Never mind you lose an hour--the day will get longer!!

Except the cats are on their own crazy schedule, dictated to by their stomachs. I have to write all this down, make a chart.  It's so confusing.  It's already yesterday in some parts of the world, tomorrow in others, depending on where on the planet you reside.   California's 3 hours ahead of us regardless - when it's 8:00 a.m. here, it's only 5:00 a.m. there.   So if you're being interviewed  "live" in California for a  news program in the East at 7:00 a.m., you'd have to be up, all ready, awake and lively,  at 4:00 a.m. Not something a lot of people can do without effort.

I wonder why the measurement of a "day" is locked in at 24 hours, or a "month" at mostly 31 (give or take).  I wonder who made morning people morning people and night people night people and why they march to such different energies, completely unable to function in in each other's shoes.

fall back
spring forward
gain an hour
lose an hour

It's five o'clock already, but it only feels like four.


Saturday, March 10, 2012

Stand Up for Tibet Today


Last week - 32-year old Richen, widowed mother of 4 from Ngaba
 set herself on fire in front of a Chinese police surveillance station
at the gates of Kirti monastery.

Tsering Kyi, young female student from the Tibetan middle school in Machu,
set herself ablaze at the vegetable market in Tro Kho Menma Shang village in Machu.
Chinese vendors at the Machu vegetable market threw stones at her burning body.

Dorje, 18, set himself ablaze in a nomadic area of Ngaba, the third immolation in three days.

He is the 26th Tibetan to have self-immolated since February 2009 in protests against Beijing's rule in Tibetan-populated areas.  [1]

These are the acts of a desperate, deeply troubled people.   A different picture is painted from the Chinese goverrnment's point of view:  In Tibet, "the people are happy," it claims, with the changes brought under Chinese rule.

The people say different.

"Soldiers are ... everywhere."
"You can't have a picture of the Dalai Lama. You would be arrested."
"You can't speak out. You would be beaten. Taken away. Disappeared.
"You can't leave the country.  Reporters can't get in.  News is difficult to get out."*
 “Communities and monasteries in these areas are undergoing patriotic re-education.”
“Tibetans have been warned that they can be shot if they protest against Chinese government rule.”

"Happy" is not a word I would use to describe a population forced to live under such conditions.

Studying the history of any nation, one is struck, in general, by mankind's seemingly incessant desire for possession of territory throughout the ages -- and the Power wielded by those able to claim and assert control over the territories they manage to acquire.

Tibet has now been claimed by China and named the Tibet Autonomous Region.
An autonomous region is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority.


au·ton·o·mous   adj: According to my dictionary, means "not
controlled by others.  Independent.  Self-governing."  Which doesn't seem to be the case, however, in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

This posting is not about who owns what parcel of land;who is or is not in control; or even what words one uses to describe one's acquisitions.  My concern here today is about the violation of the rights of a particular group of human beings who want to keep their own language, beliefs and culture, and not be afraid every waking day of their lives.  

This is not about refusal to assimilate.  People willingly adopt a new language, religion, culture or way of life every day.  But if who you are and what you think, believe, say, write, or choose as a way of life constitutes grounds for you to be monitored, arrested, punished, "re-educated", disappeared or killed  ... that's bullying gone viral.  Societies claiming to be civilized that routinely permit, or engage in, this sort of "governance" should not then be surprised when others call them to task for this hypocrisy.

civ·i·lized .adj. :
1.  showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable;
2.  cultured, polite.

Intolerance, cruelty and revenge are not compatible with civilized society.

Such practices, unfortunately, are rampant throughout history.   Some group arrives that wishes to occupy the space another group inhabits. Or territories are won or lost as a result of war between nations.   I can't help seeing a parallel, though, between what happened to the original North American Native Indian population and what's happening today to the Tibetans vis-a-vis the slow, steady eradication, through subversion/conversion/dispersion, of a culture struggling to maintain its existence in the wake of drastic and unstoppable change. As with the Native Americans, the Tibetans are being forced to assimilate, not use their own language, accept subjugation and refrain from resistance.  I am not the only one who wonders if in another 40 years' time everything one normally associates with the words "Tibet" or "Tibetan" will be but a memory. 

Such were the thoughts that came to me when I heard recently from friends about what's happening today in Tibet.

"They install spies in monasteries to monitor us and demand that all monks be "re-educated."
"Our Tibetan native language is not allowed to be taught in the schools."
"All international phone calls are monitored. You have to watch what you say."

("Re-educated:  as in "Wipe the mind clean, insert only officially sanctioned material".)
 
I tried to visit a well-known, widely read Tibetan online news site today and a big red WARNING box suddenly appeared on my screen telling me not to go there, that doing so would infect my computer with malicious trojans ("This site is listed as suspicious. Visiting it may harm your computer.  Third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which cause a warning notice", it explained.)

Tibetan news sites or blogs in support of Tibet are routinely hacked, so this is not surprising, given that today is the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising.  Clearly, certain entities do not appear to want what's currently happening in Tibet to be known, much less talked about.



Today there will be demonstrations, candlelight vigils, marches, and protests worldwide, from thousands of people in a wave of support from activists, friends and sympathisers in solidarity with the Tibetans, standing up to say, unanimously, that the brutality and killings must stop.


I sense their desperation, these repressed  Tibetans who are resorting to self immolation as the only way out of a devastating situation. The last defiant act, the final plea, to the world at large, to please help.



I realize with a small shudder that if I  now lived in China or Tibet, this blog post would likely never be allowed, and that if I persisted in expressing my opinion or sharing such news about Tibet that unfortunate things might begin to happen to me.

(Just ask Cheng Jianping, who got sent for a year of hard labor to be patriotically "re-educated" for posting a sarcastic remark on Twitter.  Ask Liu Xiaobo, professor, writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose long,  non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China and calls for the Chinese government to become more "democratic" earned him a lengthy, ongoing prison term.)

So many uprisings, so much civil discontent, worldwide.  So many wars, so many violations by humans against other humans, so much death and suffering .... so little one can do.

Hang onto your freedoms while you still have them, those that can.  The bullies of the world will always exist, pouncing to control what you do, limit where  you go, decide who you're allowed to talk to, what you read; monitor what you say, judge you by what you believe.  And if you object, you will be dealt with.

We are all humans sharing the same planet.  Some just have more Power than others.  It is those powerless others with whom we must stand as brothers.  Born into a different earthspace  ... we could be them.

A single image, whether captured by camera or painted by words, is worth a thousand reminders.  What kind of world are we living in where one's response to another's desperate act of suicide by fire -- is  to hurl stones at her burning body?  As a species, we seem not to have evolved all that much in the Human Compassion Department these millions of years we've been inhabiting this planet.

Tibetans in Tibet are risking everything to ensure their message is heard and acted upon by the outside world.  *Last year, 54 percent of all messages sent to the Sina Weibo blogging site from Tibet had been deleted by the Chinese government.[2]

Please.  Stand up for Tibet today.  Enough of these needless deaths!!!





Saturday, March 3, 2012

Home again


                                                       catching up on reading
                                                       after 3-week hiatus* -
                                                       avalanche!



Pépé, warming garden bench in today's new snow


*hi at  (then bye to)  US.