I know this person

Maggie looks like, well, herself in this picture. Herself as a person, not just a baby. I just wanted to share.

Just pictures

Pure joy:




Their favorite Christmas gift: a $.69 bottle of bubbles. They got other great stuff, too, but this was just the best, and the returns are immeasurable.

Victory!

Republicans Abandon Ethics Changes
House Republican leaders Monday night abandoned proposals to loosen rules governing members' ethical conduct, as they yielded to pressure from rank-and-file lawmakers concerned that the party was sending the wrong message.

I was about to spam everyone with an urgent call to arms, to flood the US House with protests about its proposed ethics rule changes... but they've already backed down!

BUT:
Republicans voted to go ahead with another of their controversial ethics proposals and will ask the full House to approve a change that could curtail ethics committee investigations. Under the change, a Republican vote would be required before an inquiry can begin. The committee is evenly divided between the two parties, and under current rules a deadlock means an investigation begins automatically.

Interesting that the Republicans would vote before beginning an inquiry, and that they're still pushing for any changes in this direction. Shouldn't these law-and-order paragons of good moral values be pushing the other way? Oh, ethics isn't the same as morality, you say? Certainly not in their world view.

Note to mom: I have some pictures on the camera to download, so yes, you'll see the babes again soon!

It's all gut-wrenching and nearly incomprehensible, but to me the most heartbreaking aftermath of Sunday's earthquake and tsunami is the thousands of orphans and missing children.

After a day and a night stuck in coconut trees, [Taiwanese girl Yeh Chia-ni] told rescuers: "I thought my parents didn't want me any more."

People are being incredibly generous, and in addition to pledges from governments around the world, large organizations and retailers are pledging funds and making it easy for individuals to help, too. Just a few examples: Amazon.com had collected over $5 million as of midday today from a link on its front page, and many other tech types are adding to that.

The Pew Charitable Trusts of Philadelphia plans to send $1 million to the American Red Cross to support relief efforts. The organization's chief executive officer, Rebecca Rimel, says she hopes that Philadelphia residents will contribute $500,000 and that major cities across the USA will each meet or exceed $1 million in donations.... "If every major city could rise to this enormous challenge, the private sector could come up with $50 million to $75 million" and help save perhaps 1 million survivors from starvation, disease and homelessness, she says.

Let's show the US administration just how generous we're willing to be. (I swiped the addresses and links -- hope that's okay, a.j.)

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
PO Box 372
CH-1211 Geneva 19
Switzerland
41-22-730-4222

UNICEF
333 East 38th Street
New York, NY 10016
1-800-FOR-KIDS

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC Crisis Fund)
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA
1-215-241-7000

Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres
PO Box 2247
New York, NY 10116-2247
1-888-392-0392

Mercy Corps
PO Box 2669
Portland, OR 97208
1-800-852-2100

Oxfam International/Oxfam America
1-800-77OXFAM

Save the Children
Asia Earthquake/Tidal Wave Relief Fund
54 Wilton Road
Westport, CT 06880
1-800-728-3843

Quake altered Earth's orbit

The 9.0 earthquake that devastated Asia late last week had an astronomical impact, literally. That's just frightening.

More reading, maps, and video here.

And more pictures of the babes, to steady my heart.

From the land of plenty

I just found a poetry contest at The American Street that reminds me that poetry can be political, too. Its single rule: Use Donald Rumsfeld's line, "You go to war with [sic: what] you have," in verse of three lines or more.

I might tap one out, but here's my pick so far:

Scrounging through the spoils of war
Finding scrap and little more,
The soldier stood and faced the man
Who answered from the speaker’s stand,
“You go to war with what you have”

Another man, in other ranks
Facing guns and planes and tanks
Sets a charge and turns away
Another bomb, another day
“You go to war with what you have”

The President sets forth his case
Claim victory while saving face
The heavy cost is justified
While bolstering our common pride
“You go to war with what you have”

In towns and cities through the nation
Witnessing the same occasion
Sons, daughters, husbands, wives
Called to set aside their lives
“You go to war with what you have”

by Harry — December 23, 2004 @ 8:38 pm

An online friend's brother just came home from Iraq, alive thank God. But this US Marine does have bacterial meningitis and otitis media, and almost lost an eye. He didn't go over there with any of that (except the eye, of course). Dare anyone call me unpatriotic because I question how our troops are provisioned and cared for as they fight this $152-billion-and-counting war that has no end in sight?

Cold

I glanced outside and the thermometer read 9 degrees. So I let the dogs in, and they must know it's a treat because they're behaving so very well. They seem to have had a tiff sometime this evening, though, because Chica was lying right by the front door but Lucy came from around back and they just growled at each other. What do dogs fight about? They're well fed and have plenty of room to roam, but sometimes they get snappish with each other, kind of how I used to fight with my friends when I was a kid -- I hate you forever for one day, sheepishly stroll by your house the next, and the day after that am thrilled when you come out on your bike to ride up to the playground with me. But tiff or not, on a cold night like this they should be cuddled up tight together. And dang it, I forgot to get hay for their doghouse, which probably explains why at least one of them wasn't in there lying on that cold hard floor.

Antonio seems to be doing okay in Denver. He's sad and misses life here, but he found a job right away and will probably find a second one early in the new year. I talk to Lazarus about "Papa" throughout the day, and tell him often that Papa loves him so much, and sometimes Lazarus tells me something he wants to tell Papa, like, "Tell Papa Lucy grumpy" or "Lil guy chase chickins Papa." But then a truck drives by and Lazarus calls out "Papa coming" and I hate having to tell him that, no, Papa's not coming, but Papa loves you.... Whatever else is going on here in grownup land, all Lazarus knows is that Papa isn't here and hasn't been coming home in the evenings anymore, and knowing he feels that loss just makes me sad.

And even though I was already doing 90% of the childcare and chores around the house (sorry, hon', but it's the truth), that last 10% is killin' me. Around 5 or 6 p.m. I just want to go hide -- late afternoon/early evening is always the witching hour, but in the summer I could let Laz roam around outdoors till dinner was ready. Being penned up in the house sucks, and I have to admit that we've been watching more movies, "The Tigger Movie" being his current favorite. No matter what, though, sometime after dinner Laz will go sit in his little reading chair and spend an hour or more looking at his books. We've read some of them so many times now that he can narrate the story as he goes -- tonight I knew he was looking at "The Very Hungry Caterpiller" because I could hear him saying "four strawberries... cupcake... watermelon... pickle!" and then "oh, pretty butterfly!"

I should be working, not writing, so off I go. Gotta stoke up the woodstove, too -- keep them dogs warm....

"Mama fun tonight!"

Lazarus told me that tonight as I put him to bed. I've been tired and busy and a bit snappish the past few days, so I was really glad to hear him say that.

I was also pleased to get the camera working -- I read the manual (what a concept, huh?) and found I just had to reset it to get the internal memory working again. So heeeeeeeeeeeere's Maggie!


And here's Lucy and Lazarus, just goofing around (once in a while I let the dogs in, much to their and the children's delight... tonight I just needed them to scarf up all the food Maggie dropped around her chair during dinner. Then I gave them each a pork bone and booted their restless hairy cat-chasing butts out the door.) The back story: The bowl Lazarus is holding suddenly became empty, but Lucy insisted she was in the other room chasing Keiko up the ladder and had nothing to do with it. And a special note to Keri: Laz has always loved the letter thingie you gave him, but now he sings the different letters -- often on his own!

No pictures, alas

More camera woes: I discovered (after much searching and gnashing of teeth) that the little memory card somehow slipped right out of my digital camera. This was just not a good buy. So I've dusted off my "real" camera and will keep shooting, and will somehow get the pictures from film to pixels. Somehow.

Antonio left for Denver on Friday and had a good trip up. Lazarus keeps asking for him, and I don't quite know what to say except that "Papa went on a trip. Papa loves you." How do military families do it? And they're going half a world away, for God knows how long, to stand in the line of fire that Donald Dick and friends insist is essential to world peace. Funny that, waging a war in the name of peace. Though they never use that word so I guess I'm expecting too much. ANYway, so I tell myself not to feel too stressed out, but it's hard sometimes, especially right before Christmas.

Time to make some chicken for the monkeys. Maggie can now eat all kinds of tiny-bite-sized foods by herself, and seems to favor her left hand lately. I love watching her focus on a piece, slowly reach for and grasp it, cram it in her mouth, and chuckle when she likes how it tastes. Her favorites seem to be chicken, peaches, Cheerios, and cheese. Lazarus' current favorite food is "peendie buttah" -- peanut butter, preferably straight from the jar with a spoon, or on an apple slice if I insist. Another cool development: Lazarus seems to be accepting Maggie as "human" a bit more every day. He sometimes takes a favorite book or toy to show her, and yesterday was playing her little music box and dancing for her, much to her delight.

Okay, dinner, then bedtime, then back to work -- the evening routine is pretty grueling with two babes, more so when I have an edit on deck. Work is good, of course, but it's the week before Christmas and I REALLY want to send cards and thank-yous to my generous family and bake cookies to make little boxes of goodies for all the people in town who've been so kind this year. Sarah at the bank, who didn't blink an eye when I brought several hundred dollars of change in to deposit. Abby and Libby at the post office, who always google over Laz and Maggie. Betty at the hardware store, Barbara at the grocery store, Clay at the feed store (my new best friend now that I have 50 or so chickens that Antonio left), Bob and Harold the car mechanics (who are always happy to jumpstart the Bronco, which dies almost every time I take it out), Steve and Betty at the wool mill, and Cat the weaver who calls me every month about the arts council meetings even though I never manage to make it. And of course Gail the knitting guru, and her deputy Evelyn who also coordinates the food bank distributions that are saving our butts this winter.

Wow. I live in a great place. Making that little list sure cheered me up.

My boy

He makes my heart sing. (When he's not making me nuts. Which is often. Gotta love two-year-olds.)

Laz talking so much now, and he works so hard to put words together. I can almost see him clicking them together in his head, this block here, then that one, then that one. It's gratifying to see that the therapy we've been doing the past year has helped him so much, and helped me understand where I can best encourage him. He is losing his idiosyncratic words like "oonie" for airplane and "moonana" for balloon and "buckabeckah" for spaghetti, but he still doesn't quite get the initial "s" on some words, so when he climbs into Maggie's walker and can't get out he calls "Duck! Duck!" And when we were picking up kindling around the woodpile the other day, he brandished a large stick and yelled "BIIIIG DICK!" The boy cracks me up. He can also count to seven so far, no kidding.

I stood Maggie up next to the big chair and she managed to hold on and hold herself up for a few moments -- she looked so dang happy. She wants so much to get into things and move around... I don't think she'll wait till she's 19 months old to start walking, not with such a fascinating big brother to chase.

This month is getting chaotic and will get more so as Antonio prepares to move to Denver, hence the lack of posts... also, the new camera is just crappy. Or I still haven't figured it out -- I'll start using the higher-resolution setting (which gives me maybe 8 shots on the tiny memory card it came with) and see how it does. I've got to get a good shot of Laz and Maggie in their Santa hats....

Maggie loves the bumper jumper -- Lazarus never really got into it, but Maggie bounces and twirls and laughs every time I park her in it.


Here's Lazarus, last weekend, and last year:

The camera's still not up to par, at least for indoor shots. But I'll keep clickin' just to catch Laz and Maggie being cute. Here we are at dinner last night -- venison-apple meatloaf for Laz, mashed potatoes for Maggie, and squash for both.





I was right about the storm -- we got a few inches yesterday and we're getting socked in today. When it blows from the east, it's gonna be a long snowy day. I wish I could bring the dogs in but... they're too much, so they'll have to stay in their doghouse. I do take them warm water every few hours, and when the soup is done they'll get some nice ham hocks.

I need to do laundry. Heh.

Breathe

I got some cute pictures of the babies the other day, but the camera didn't do so well -- maybe it needs new batteries. Photoshop helped a bit, I suppose. Anyway, Laz and Maggie are starting to play together, sort of -- Maggie wants to play but Laz still seems a bit ambivalent. I'm not sure if it's jealousy or confusion or what; he does like making her laugh, but he also grabs stuff away from her if he thinks it's his (especially when she starts chewing on it). I'm starting to read books to them both, together, in the evening, which will help them get more used to hanging out with each other. Well, we'll see what unfolds.

We're waiting for a winter storm that could hit us hard or stay north of us -- since the temperature dropped a lot this afternoon, and the dogs keep trying to sneak inside, I'm guessing we'll get some of it. I've got the wood stove going, and both wood boxes are loaded so we'll have dry wood for a few days. I have an urge to make stew and bake bread, too. And keep knitting. I guess if we can't go outside we'll be watching Nemo and Kermit and Pooh a lot this weekend.

I had other stuff to write, but my mind just went blank and the kids will wake up soon from their long, simultaneous naps. So here are the pictures....

Democracy now? My stomach tells me, "No."

I dunno, I'm feeling both sad and queasy about last week's election. Was it rigged -- were there enough subtle irregularities to tilt the critical precincts to Bush? The few people I talk to on any regular basis tell me to let go of the conspiracy theory stuff, but I can't help but wonder -- and feel appalled, really -- when reading stuff about "vote spoilage" and malfunctioning machines. The difference between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections? The GOP did a much cleaner, more comprehensive job of ensuring that the votes actually counted favored Bush. Computers don't leave hanging chads, they just eat votes for the "wrong" guy and leave no pesky paper trail. And they only record votes from "approved" voters, that is, those not purged from registration lists for minority-targeting reasons or whose registrations weren't somehow lost or corrupted.

-Kerry Won. Greg Palast, Tompaine.com -- Vote "spoilage" overwhelmingly works against Democratic and, hardly by chance, minority voters, including blacks in Ohio and Florida and Hispanics in New Mexico. These are real votes that are cast but not counted, either because the machines "malfunction" or the vote records are deemed "unreadable." Again, most "spoiled" and thus discarded, uncounted votes come from precincts with heavy concentrations of ethnic minorities, according to Harvard University researchers. We're not talking fringe here.

-Voters Unite lists a slew of reported voting machine problems... 271 reports to date. Some of the more egregious errors include the following:
--An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said (CNN story)
--A software glitch in Craven Cty., No. Carolina, gave Bush 11,283 extra votes (New Bern Sun Journal, which also reports on election difficulties in other NC counties, "including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.")
--Voters in Florida and other states had many problems with electronic voting; many errors favored Bush (ABC TV affiliate)

-Global elections monitors find faults with U.S. elections(Int'l Herald Tribune)

-Did Kerry Concede Too Soon? Bob Fitrakis, The Free Press

-Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair? Institute for Public Accuracy

-Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster, William Rivers Pitt,
Truthout

-None Dare Call it Voter Suppression and Fraud, Bob Fitrakis, Free Press

-see more and updated items at http://www.blackboxvoting.com/

Okay, you know what? Now I'm really pissed off.

"Moral values" -- you bought that crap? Suckers.

So the GOP propaganda machine managed to convince enough people that Bush represents "good moral values" that he got elected (apparently for real this time) for a second term. What exactly does that mean -- where's the hard proof, the evidence that one man possesses more "good moral values" than the other? The evidence I've seen to date paints W and friends as greedy, ruthless, power-hungry jackals who flash big shiny smiles and spout faux biblicism at us as they devour this nation's heart and soul, and flesh, and bones.

I think it's just whitewash for a deep-seated racism, a trust in a certain Kind of person who will keep us safe from those Other Kinds. If Kerry had been able to act less like a Rhodes Scholar and more like a small-town preacher, he might well have pulled it off -- the American voters elected Clinton because he's a likable guy who doesn't threaten them. Most Americans can't stand intelligent people, which is why we have a bumbling dumbass with mean friends running our country. Still, despite the burgeoning evidence that he and they have been running it into the ground for the past four years.

So, what now?

I want to share some excellent insight and inspiration from a fellow blogger:

"I hope fervently that after everyone (not just here, everywhere) has a chance to process this and scream and cry and rage....

"...that we don't lose that passion. The passion that we feel today, that we felt yesterday, that we felt for the months coming up to the election. The passion that got people mobilized and out there doing whatever they could in the hopes of changing the vote this year.

"I want to see that passion carried on starting ASAP and not just put on ice until June of 2008. I want to see it next week. I want to see it in the local school boards, village halls, local initiatives, fundraisers, etc. I want to see it in the next state level elections. We can't change the results of last night. But we can work on the little results, the day to day ones, the ones that happen in our neighborhoods and cities. And that will keep the fires burning. That will provide us with victories. That will swell the ranks of people who want change. And that will carry us through the next four years, fight after fight. There won't have to be some big mobilization of forces in 2008 if that happens because that passion will still be there and will have been productive in the meantime."

Thank you for that, gremlin. It'll help me and, I hope, many others focus the disbelief and anger and despair over the next four years into something worthwhile: change for the better.

Moral frickin' values -- we'll show them good moral values, for real. Let's get to work, shall we?

Happy Halloween!

the lion says RAWRRRRRRR


Lazarus had a good time running around town with Papa this evening, and everyone admired him in his lion costume that my mom scored for him during our visit. I don't see any reason for him not to wear it for the rest of the winter....

The babes and I had a great visit to Philly, but I must admit I'm loving the sunshine back here at home -- and so is Maggie:

It's obvious

Kerry versus Bush: this news report makes the choice obvious. I mean, a man from #1 versus #33 -- come on, that's not even close. It's like the difference between a college graduate and a fifth-grader running a large, complex organization operating in many different markets. Or the difference between an intelligent, well-read, coherent speaker and a barely literate dumbass running a large, powerful nation meddling with many other nations' affairs.

Then again, no one should be electing me (living in #50) president any time soon, either.

Meme: Google Images, part 1

This made the LiveJournal rounds (where I *really* rant) a while back, and I've finally gotten around to it. The meme: type your name (first, last, middle, all, whatever) into Google and see what images it pulls up (on the Google results page, go to the "Images" tab).

First, Magdalene -- my original, and some lovely samples from around the Web:

If they could just stay little...

Here's what Laz and Jai (and Christine and I) did during Friday's presidential debate -- we listened to it on the radio rather than watching it on TV, and Laz and Jai acted it out for us:

Okay, I'll be the republican guy -- hey, no smiling at the camera, I'm the one talking here -


blah blah blah -


yeah, well, I think your politics are all upside-down -


We had so much fun. I had to curb my tongue when yelling at the radio, though, with two little mimics hanging around.

One thing Lazarus has picked up, somehow: whenever he hears W's voice or sees him on TV, he yells "BAD MAN!" Good boy.