Afternoon bliss

It's a cold but sunny afternoon here in New Mexico, and I'm up in my loft listening to WUMB, reading cool Weblogs, playing with Photoshop... God do I love the kids' naptime. Laz stayed home from school today, which made my usually calm Monday morning more frenetic than I'd like -- it really sucks (for them and for me) when they can't go outside to play. So naptime came a bit early today....

I've finally finished a few languishing quilting projects: three small hangings, done mainly for practice (piecing and especially machine quilting). I definitely like the first one ("Maize") best; the colors in the "Santuario" one don't quite work for me (I think it's the adobe -- too yellowy-orange), and I should have stipple-quilted the adobe and used a different motif for the sky; and the red in "Balloon" seems overpowering. Oh well; I did get a bit better with each one, and they'll cover up some blank wall space!



I'm also putting the binding on Maggie's flannel quilt now -- handsewing that final edge is such a tedious process -- and am ready to start something new. Maybe I'll have some time this afternoon to play around with fabrics, though I suppose I should choose the purpose first, fabrics second. The knitting also continues, with another sweater for Lazarus underway:



I have a few other things on the needles but will probably focus on holiday projects for the next few weeks. Oh, and I have more lights to put up -- I would just put more up every day if we didn't run out, I love them that much -- and might start decorating indoors, too. I'm a holiday nut, I know.

Here comes Santa Claus...

Just a few random notes from America's Outback:

-Thanksgiving was quiet and lovely, with a nice dinner of turkey breast and the usual fixin's, a nappish afternoon, and knitting circle in the evening. I got kudos for Laz's mohair sweater, now finished (pictures forthcoming), a two-color (gasp!) sweater I just started for him, and another project I've finally figured out after three false starts. Laz says he wants a blue hat, so I'll get on that soon since he only has one that fits and it doesn't match his coat (gasp!)....
-Antonio promptly came down with a stomach virus and was out of commission for a few days. Laz and Maggie seem to have had some version of it last week -- it's been constant replays of Carrie around here lately. Nuff said. I was playing the nurse-hero (albeit an occasionally snappish one) and, since pride always goeth before a fall, now I've fallen ill. Now who will clean the toilet and air out the bathroom three times a day?!? Blecchh.
-Just before I got sick, I managed to pack up and remove FOUR big blue boxes of stuff from the house. Project Anti-Clutter will resume shortly.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Happy" Thanksgiving -- yeah, right. I'm just gonna hang out up here for a few days till the "festivities" are over. They might "pardon" the turkeys in some places, but we're pretty far from civilization here and I'm not gonna take my chances. I'll give thanks -- for my butt not being in the oven, that's what I'm giving thanks for today.

Our "Lady Turkey" (as Lazarus calls her) is up on the roof today, no doubt sensing that it's the best place for her these days. The "Boy Turkey," who's at least 25 pounds, couldn't fly a foot off the ground if his life depended on it, but lucky for him we're only making dinner for the four of us. If we get an elk next month on our hunt, he might just make it through Christmas, too...

Maggie's new sweater and hat

I finished these a few weeks ago but just got around to doing up the pictures:



The sweater is big on her, and that's okay because it wears like a sweater dress now and it'll still fit her next year. I'm done knitting for Maggie this season, since my mom made her two beautiful sweaters recently and the sweater-coat she made last year still fits nicely. Now I'm working on a mohair sweater for Lazarus (using mohair from the local fiber processor, just like the alpaca-wool-soy silk I used for Maggie's sweater above), and I'm about to dive into two-color knitting on another sweater for Laz. I'm also planning a few holiday gift projects but I won't write about those here because, well, you know.

The comforts of home

We're back from our camping/deer hunting trip -- no carcasses in tow -- and it feels so dang good to be home. It was a good trip, with perfect daytime weather (nights hit about 30 degrees, though, which makes my cold-hating butt near-miserable). Laz and Maggie did really, really well, and Lucy is an awesome camp dog. As always, Antonio was an amazing outdoorsman. I even did okay, after three cups of strong coffee each morning. I don't sleep well in the great outdoors, no matter what the weather, so mornings can be a bit dicey for me (always have been -- just ask my mom and dad what I was like on our family camping trips), and having to take care of two toddlers with few conveniences on hand hardly helped. But we did well, and although our area seemed completely and strangely devoid of wildlife and thus a terrible hunting ground, it was a good trip.

Here are some highlights -- Laz and Maggie in their play tent:



And these are from our very best day (according to Lazarus, and I'd have to agree), when I took the kids for a wonderful hike in the deep forest:



I really look forward to camping with them again, though not till next summer when the days are longer and the nights warmer, and one or both kids are out of diapers....

The final highlight of the trip: I got a flat tire on the way home (I drove the kids in the 4Runner; Antonio took his truck and went home by a different route), and changed it by myself, in the fast-closing dusk, with two tired, boogery, poopy, hungry kids on hand. I was just finishing up when a state policeman pulled up to see if we were okay. Yay me.

Further proof that our nation's "leaders" are running amuck

I think we're back online... which is great, because I have some seriously pent-up ranting energy. Let's start with this:

Labor Dept. Is Rebuked Over Pact With Wal-Mart
(The New York Times, Nov. 1, 2005)

The upshot: Wal-Mart made a "deal" with the US Labor Department: Wal-Mart breaks the law, and the Feds give them two weeks' notice before coming to investigate AND ten days AFTER finding violations to impose fines and citations. Oh, and Wal-Mart lawyers write up the deal, the Feds wave it through, and no one has done anything wrong whatsoever because that's the Republican Way.

The Labor Department's inspector general does have a problem with this: his report (according to the NYT article) "criticized department officials for letting Wal-Mart lawyers write substantial parts of the settlement and for leaving the department's own legal division out of the settlement process."

"The report said that in granting Wal-Mart the 15-day notice, the Wage and Hour Division violated its own handbook. It added that agreeing to let Wal-Mart jointly develop news releases about the settlement with the department violated Labor Department policies."

I know, our "leaders" long ago erased the line between corporate and civil control of our nation... but they at least tried to hide that fact. Now they don't even seem to give a shit what anyone else thinks -- either they're arrogant beyond (our humble) belief, or they believe they're right. The Right, right? Gah.

Cloud art

I wrote a scintillating entry yesterday about daily life, inspirations, revelations -- then my laptop froze (I've been telling myself to get it fixed for eight months now) and I lost it. The upshot (with updates, because you want the very latest):

Knitting: We had our first knitting group session of the season last night, and it was a great three or so hours of knitting, self-revelation, and ranting about, what else, the Madness of King George. I'm working on a luscious cabled pullover for Maggie from local wool/alpaca soy silk, and an "all weather" pullover for Lazarus from old Irish homespun yarn that I'm trying to soften and strengthen with Lansinoh left over from Maggie's first weeks (applying the beeswax principle from sewing -- it's a stretch, I know). So here's what's on the needles now:


Quilting: I'm finally making good progress on Maggie's quilt, and just have the color blocks and borders left to quilt. Thanks to this book, I finally "get" how to do mitred corners on bindings, so that should go easily. I'd love to finish this by early next week because two jobs are coming in and I won't be able to "play" for the next two weeks or so.

Gardening: My little helpers have at least much fun as I do:


My autumn flurry of housework-avoidance-inspired gardening is on hold at the moment while a cold front descends and brings soaking rains and fog (but not frost, thankfully) to our fair village. I still have bundles of bulbs to plant, along with some new perennials (I'm making a fiery orange garden out front), and now the soil will be moist and diggable rather than dry and concrete-like. Note to self: pick up another big bucket of horse manure from Omar. I'm not so bullish (heh) on the chicken poop now that I've done some reading about that avian flu stuff. At first I thought, we're so isolated, it'll never come here. Then, as I watched the sparrows flit in and out of the chicken coop grabbing for food, I realized it would take just one infected bird migrating here to get it all started. Nice thought. But waterfowl are the primary carriers, not sparrows (as far as I can tell), so we might be okay here, and I guess we won't be tripping down to the Bosque del Apache this winter to see the visiting cranes, geese, ducks and other waterfowl. Anyhoo, I'm switching from chicken poop to horse poop, just to be safe. (See what I meant about scintillating?)

And what would a good blog entry be without a political rant? So I want to know, who the f%#& is Harriet Miers? There are so many judges, DAs, AGs, etc. out there who have spent decades working their butts off to build respectable careers and qualifications, and none of them seem to fit W's criteria? About all I've heard from this person so far is that she thinks Dubya is one of the most brilliant men she's ever known. But there's info out there -- many thanks to Catherine (via the divine Cecily), for compiling the following:

She was Bush's personal lawyer in Texas. She worked as counsel for his 1994 gubernatorial campaign. When he won, he appointed her to head the Lottery Commission.

She also proved indispensable in a carrying out a delicate assignment in 1998, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. During Bush's re-election campaign for governor, she was put in charge of squelching rumors about Bush's dubious National Guard service. His campaign "actually paid Miers $19,000 to run an internal preemptive probe of the potential scandal."

When Bush became President, he made her staff secretary in the White House, then deputy chief of staff, then White House counsel.

Even the National Review online acknowledged her lack of qualifications for the job. "Being a Bush loyalist and friend is not a qualification for the Supreme Court," its editorial states. "She may have been the best pick from within Bush's inner circle. It seems impossible to maintain that she was the best pick from any larger field."

...you can bet that she'll be a down-the-line conservative on social issues. One clue dates back to 1993 when Miers, as president of the Texas Bar Association, tried to get the American Bar Association "to reconsider its pro-abortion rights stance," as Anne Gearan of AP reports.

Another clue: She served on the board of directors of Prison Exodus Ministries in Dallas, which describes itself as a place "where ex-offenders learn how faith in Christ is the first step from captivity to freedom."

And you can bet that she'll toe the corporate line. She has represented Microsoft, Walt Disney, and SunGuard. She has spoken at conferences of the American Tort Reform Association, the business group that has been one of the prime movers against anti-corporate lawsuits. And she was a trustee of the Southwestern Legal Foundation, which is now the Center for American and International Law. The center appears to be in the pocket of Big Oil. Advisory board members on its Institute for Energy Law include several ExxonMobil executives, as well as representatives of Amerada Hess, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Hunt, Marathon, Occidental, Shell, and Texaco. According to the group exxonsecrets.org, the "Center for American and International Law has received $177,450 from ExxonMobil since 1998."

So that's who Harriet Miers is.

Just another mountain of proof that the man is an insane zealot living in a bubble of privilege and ignorance. This cronyism crap is why the Katrina aftermath was so atrocious, and it scares me to think of the consequences on such a keystone institution as the Supreme Court. I keep waiting for Sandra Day O'Connor to step up and say, "Wait just a damn a minute -- this is NOT what I intended, so I'm going to stick around for a few more years until someone can come up with a qualified candidate." Come on, Sandy, step up to the plate. Please? Retirement can wait, can't it?

My beauties

Autumn comes upon us in the lengthening, cooling shadows and a twilight that descends sooner than we've become accustomed to. A few days ago, I noticed a distinct reddish-orange tinge near the top of the mountains, as the Gambel's Oaks yield to the first high frosts. Two heavy showers last week spurred another wave of wildflower blooms, and the hills all around us are outright green now, giving us a splendid last show before the chill descends for good.

In my gardens, I've started letting things run amuck -- the basil bed now reaches halfway up my thighs, and in addition to a sudden burst of enthusiasm from a late-blooming zucchini plant, I have another life form -- a gourd plant, perhaps? -- twining rapaciously around the tomato plants, laden with their ever-green fruits, and even straining towards the lowest elm branches. Were the first frost to hold off till November, this strange plant would surely bear a bounty of something, but I don't think I'll have the good fortune to see this mystery through to fruition. The bed of rainbow chard, beets, and kale that I planted last month is growing wonderfully and just needs some thinning and then a thick blanket of straw and manure to weather the onset of winter.

To prepare them for winter, I am amending and also slowly expanding my narrow garden beds (really more like borders) to build outward on the improving soil quality. Digging in one bed, I found lots of worms -- a gardener's delight! -- and am encouraged that this dry, rocky, alkaline, clay-and-sand stuff is finally coming to life. It motivates me to clean out the chicken house again soon; it's a nasty job (which reminds me, I need more dust masks) but the "gardener's gold" seems to be working as my Jupiter's Beard, Blanket Flower, and other perennials root deeply and this year's annuals put on big blooms and, now, big fat seedheads. I'll be collecting seeds soon from some interesting cosmos "sports" and a few other flowers that did especially well this year. Since I used organic heirloom seeds, I expect fertile seed and beautiful flowers next year, too.

I'm planting bulbs now, too: I put in somegiant allium and crocus today, and will plant scilla, daffodils and tulips later in the week. I'd love to plant the whole back yard in wildflower tulips, which are not only lovely but also xeric (drought-tolerant), but the digging and soil amendment would break my back. Maybe next year. Oh, and I have some iris to plant, thanks to the Socorro garden society. I'd like to plant those along the side of the store once the stucco is finished (next week? the stucco guy keeps getting sick) because the purples and yellows would look beautiful against the pale yellow stucco.

Only one big question remaining: what to do with my perennials in pots? I suppose I should plant them... but I'll probably leave them for now because they make the front yard so pretty. Winter will seem so bleak once they're gone... maybe I'll fill the pots with small evergreens and fake flowers or something....

Tomorrow I'll report on my knitting -- just two projects ongoing -- and give a quilting progress report. To have progress to report on, I will turn to my sewing corner now. Adios.

"The stench of corruption": A handy scorecard

Thanks to Salon's Tim Grieve for the following tally of, as White House press secretary Scott McClellan put it, "instances" and "individual situations" where "the legal process" will need to proceed. Here are some, you know, isolated incidents in the otherwise rosy and sweet-smelling land of sunshine and lollipops that is the reign of George W Bush:

Tom DeLay: The House majority leader was indicted today on a felony charge that he conspired to launder corporate campaign contributions through the national Republican Party in Washington and back to legislative candidates in Texas.

Bill Frist: The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are both investigating the Senate majority leader's sale of shares in his family's healthcare business just before the stock's value plummeted in June.

Jack Abramoff: The Republican super-lobbyist, known to have bragged about his contacts with Karl Rove, was indicted in Florida last month along with his business partner on wire fraud and conspiracy fraud charges related to their purchase of a fleet of gambling boats. This week, three men were arrested -- including two who received payments from Abramoff's business partner -- in the Mafia-style killing of the man from whom Abramoff and his partner purchased the gambling boats.

David Safavian: The president's chief procurement officer stepped down two weeks ago and was arrested last week on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing a separate federal investigation into Abramoff's dealings in Washington. Some Republicans who received campaign contributions from Safavian are divesting themselves of his money now.

Timothy Flanigan: The president's nominee to serve as deputy attorney general has announced that he will have to recuse himself from the Abramoff investigation if he is confirmed because he hired Abramoff to help the company where he works -- scandal-ridden Tyco International Ltd. -- lobby DeLay and Rove on tax issues.

Michael Brown: The president's FEMA director resigned earlier this month amid complaints about his handling of Hurricane Katrina and charges that he and other FEMA officials got their jobs based on political connections and cronyism rather than competence or qualifications.

Bob Taft: The Republican governor of Ohio pleaded guilty last month to criminal charges based on his failure to report gifts as required by state law, among them golfing trips paid for by Tom Noe, a major Republican fundraiser who is the subject of his own scandal regarding the state's investment in $50 million in rare coins, some of which have mysteriously gone missing.

Randy "Duke" Cunningham: A federal grand jury in San Diego is investigating allegations that the veteran Republican congressman received financial favors from a defense contractor who allegedly bought Cunningham's house at an inflated price and let him live for free on the contractor's 42-foot yacht.

Ernie Fletcher: The Republican governor of Kentucky has refused to answer questions from a grand jury investigating whether his administration based hiring decisions on political considerations rather than merit. Fletcher has pardoned nine people in the probe -- including the chairman of Kentucky's Republican party -- and fired members of his staff.

George Ryan: Federal prosecutors made their opening statements this week in the criminal trial of the former Republican governor of Illinois. Ryan and a friend, Chicago insurance adjuster Lawrence Warner, are charged with racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, tax fraud and lying to federal agents.

And then there's Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. The grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame is scheduled to complete its work in late October. While neither Rove nor Libby is apparently a "target" of the investigation -- and while the "corruption" in Plamegate is moral rather than financial -- both men are known to have played a role in revealing or confirming Plame's identity in conversations with reporters, which may be a crime under federal law.

Wow. I guess that's what people get for voting their "moral values."

Yes, Brownie, we DID NEED you to be a superhero

Although he bust out of the chute buckin' and blamin', former FEMA idiot-in-charge (and now, unbelievably, paid FEMA consultant) Michael Brown got quite a spanking at yesterday's House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina, much to my and many others' surprise. I still think he needs a few sessions behind the woodshed with some angry, storm-toughened survivors bearing the crowbars they had to use to claw their way out of attics only to stew on their rooftops for days on end -- but yesterday's five-hour interrogation was a good start. Some highlights (from the Washington Post):

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday [two days before the storm hit] that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown asserted. Duh, Mike -- the place is crawling with Democrats, couldn't you have figured that one out? Seriously, though, Brown labeling anyone else "dysfunctional" is just further proof that the inmates have taken over the asylum that we call "government."

When Brown argued that the White House "was fully engaged . . . behind the scenes," Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) interjected: "They had to be behind the scenes, because I think we didn't see anything out front."

When Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, pressed him about his performance, a petulant Brown complained: "So I guess you want me to be this superhero." Well, yes. That would have been a good start, especially for the people dying for lack of water and other basic essentials. Speaking of which...

When Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) complained about the lack of ice in New Orleans, Brown replied: "I think it's wrong for the federal government to be in the ice business, providing ice so I can keep my beer and Diet Coke cool." Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), incredulous, asked, "How about the need to keep bodies from rotting in the sun?" And, Brownie, you weren't there, remember? You were sipping your beer and Diet Coke up there in DC, playing Nintendo War of the Worlds or whatever you must have been doing to have been so completely clueless and ineffectual.

God, the man's blockheaded inability to SEE that something REALLY BAD happened there is absolutely dumbfounding, not to mention offensive. And we're still paying him his fat FEMA salary, and he's still being clueless and defensive, and the big wheel keeps spinning round...

"They're trying to wash us away...."

As many feared, the rains and storm surge from Hurricane Rita are flooding New Orleans again:

In New Orleans, water poured through gaps in the Industrial Canal levee, which engineers had tried to repair after Katrina's floodwaters left 80 percent of the city under water. The rushing water spilled east into St. Bernard Parish, where ducks swam down Judge Perez Drive.

The storm surge was both stronger and earlier than expected, apparently coming through waterways southeast of the city, said Col. Richard Wagenaar, the Army Corps of Engineers' district chief in New Orleans. Water poured over piles of gravel and sandbags in the damaged Industrial Canal levee despite efforts to build it up.

"We believed the 8-foot elevation was sufficient" to protect the Ninth Ward, Wagenaar said. (from CNN.com/AP)

Eight feet of gravel and sandbags. To repair a broken levee that should have been properly repaired and maintained a long damn time ago. The madness of King George and his court:

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency cited a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the three most likely U.S. disasters. Nevertheless, by 2004 the Bush administration had cut funding to the corps' New Orleans district by more than 80 percent.... Earlier this year, the Louisiana congressional delegation got Congress to provide about $60 million for ?ood protection for the city. But the Bush administration reduced that ?gure to $10.4 million.... While the Bush administration was cutting funding to strengthen protective dikes and levees, the state's bipartisan congressional delegation was also working to secure money for the restoration of its coastal wetlands to buffer the impacts of storm surges. Louisiana officials estimated this effort could cost $14 billion, but the lawmakers managed to secure only a tiny fraction -- $570 million over four years, according to The Times-Picayune. The requested multiyear, $14 billion, appropriation was all but erased from the administration's energy bill....

So in order to save in the short term for disaster prevention, the administration's lack of planning has yielded what will likely top $100 billion in damages -- and most of it uninsured. (from Alternet)

At least they finally managed to get the people out of there. Or so I assume, given that the media are reporting on ducks rather than bodies swimming down New Orleans' thoroughfares. I can't imagine Karl Rove giving the order to stifle the real story.

A story

The following account, written by a woman who is hosting a Hurricane Katrina evacuee from New Orleans, comes from a recent MoveOn.org email that's soliciting donations to help Katrina survivors organize and get some real action in Washington. I feel compelled and even honored to share it here:

The stories my evacuee tells are ten times worse than the reports in the media. A dental technician, she is divorced with two kids and lived in the lower 9th ward (one block from the levee break.) She spent a week at the Superdome and viewed first hand the most horrifying events a person could experience... She made a deal with a man who seemed nice that they would sleep in shifts and watch over each other so their shoes wouldn't be stolen as they slept.

Everyone in the Superdome knew the National Guard was unarmed and could not maintain order. After the shooting of a National Guard, they pulled out. One Guardsman she befriended gave her his knife and told her to hide. She didn't drink the water but thought that brushing her teeth with it would be ok...it wasn't. Because of the poison water she was violently ill for 2 days with no hydration or medical care. The unarmed National Guard trucks only had one driver in most cases and were routinely hijacked by armed looters who then sold the water ($2) and MREs on the streets.

1200 buses each holding 50-55 people were bused to various locations. They announced that they were taking women, children and the elderly first. Men rioted and grabbed children and the elderly and pushed their way on to the buses claiming 'this is my child and we have to stay together.' This may be one of the reasons that so many people were separated. She was then taken to Houston where they waited outside in hot crowded buses while a near riot occurred in the Houston Astrodome.

Next she was bused to Baton Rouge. She walked out of Baton Rouge on a highway where some kind men in a pickup truck stopped and asked her if she was fleeing the hurricane. She said 'yes' and told them where she had been. They offered to take her to bus station, buy her a ticket anywhere she wanted to go and bought her a change of clothing. She went north into Alabama where the sister of her best friend lived. From there she went on the internet to find temporary housing in ATL. My notice was on the MoveOn.Org website. She cross-referenced it with job offers and decided that Marietta, an Atlanta suburb was safe, had some transportation and the hiring market was good. We talked on the phone and my brother and I went to Alabama to pick her up. As we drove back, we listened in horror as she told us her stories. Then, exhausted, she fell asleep in the car while still talking.

As she got settled in, I told her that, 'if it was me, first thing I'd do is sit down and have a good cry.' She said that, 'she had been crying for two solid weeks and she couldn't cry any more.' ...She had to swim in 20' deep water to reach safety where even worse things were waiting for her.

I have a spare bedroom, spare full bath and closet. Small closet was not a problem because she only had one little plastic bag of clothes. The next morning, she asked if we could get her a paper so she could start looking for a job. She sat down at the computer on Sunday and did her resume, then she faxed it to dental practices that were advertising on the same day (thanks to a neighbor downstairs with a fax.) Another neighbor contributed some clothing. By email I rounded up everybody I know who, in turn, put together all their resources. In a week, we've come up with clothes, money, 2 shopping trips, gift certificates, some books to read and furniture...

Through this experience I have come to believe that the news media is underestimating the horror and number of dead. The reality is at least 10 times worse than what we have been led to believe. She personally viewed many dead bodies floating in the water and even more animals. I don't have a lot of money to give to the Red Cross, but I can help put one person back on their feet. If every person assumed responsibility for one of the evacuees, this would be over a lot faster.

The government at every level and the aid agencies have been proven to be giant lumbering elephants that are incapable of reacting quickly in a crisis. I personally have never been so angry with an American President as I am at this time. I will never get the image out of my head of Pres. Bush FLYING OVER THE DAMAGE and not stopping to see firsthand how our neighbors on the Guld Coast are suffering. I am flabbergasted by the callous ineptitude of the President, FEMA and all levels of government involved in this disaster. Every terrorist in the world now knows how weak were are and how slow we are to react. God save us from ourselves.
–Ellen, Marietta, Georgia

Here comes Rita ... (some new pix, too)

Talk about kicking them when they're down -- people who finally made it to Houston two weeks ago have to move again, because here comes Hurricane Rita -- a category 4, soon to be a category 5. Good Lord, please spare them.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is trying very hard to look like he's on top of things, and urged residents in the potentially affected areas to evacuate.

"The lesson is that when the storm hits, the best place to be is to be out of the path of the storm," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "There's plenty of [advance] notice about Rita."
You know, Michael, there was plenty of advance notice about Katrina, too. Nice to see you guys finally woke the f*$% up.

In other news, Miss Maggie fell asleep for a while, so I got to do up some recent pictures. First, my little couch potatoes (I rarely get pictures of them together, sitting peacefully rather than mauling each other):



Laz and Maggie had a great time at my parents' party here last month -- Maggie looks kind of dazed after some major sandbox and swingset play with bigger kids, two purloined cupcakes, and no nap:




And here's the little guy on his very first day of school ever:



I have more in the camera but have to go pick Laz up from school, so they'll have to wait till God knows when. Maybe Maggie will nap again tomorrow morning....

My -- uh, Our -- new ride

I know, I know -- it's big. And it's an SUV -- a 4Runner, not too big but not my usual modest ride. But. I love it and can't believe how fortunate I am to be able to replace my officially dead old Corolla right away, with something we need and want. I've already taken it down a few of the many dirt roads around here, and on Friday we're planning a jaunt that will make good use of the high clearance and real 4WD. There's a warm spring out past Dusty, going up into the western foothills of the Magdalena mountains, and the only road there is rocky and rutted and likely half-washed-out from the heavy rains we got a few weeks back. I've been wanting to go back there all summer -- I think we were last there two years ago -- both to bathe in the waters and to see the red and blue dragonflies who live there, and now we finally can. Here's a pic of Lazarus in the little pool there, in August 2003:



We're hoping to go with some cool people -- gasp! potential real friends at last! -- who have a son just a year older than Lazarus and two older kids.

I have pix of the kids, the store renovations, and other stuff to put up, when I get some real computer time.... Later, y'all.

The kindness of strangers

It warms my heart to hear and read stories of people's generosity during hard times, and the photo above, showing just one day's shipments of quilts to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston, made my day. Quilts Inc. now reports that "Due to the overwhelmingly positive response from quilters worldwide, the Quilters Comfort America project has received more than enough quilts to place with evacuees. If you were planning on sending us a quilt but have not yet, we urge you to find use for it to help those within your own community. Thank you for your efforts."

I just dug my stash of flannels out of the shed, so I'll start planning and cutting some flannel crib and single-bed quilts to donate for kids around here. Still gotta finish Maggie's flannel quilt... I'm just not in sewing mode. But I'm knitting, finally! Sure enough, as soon as the nights started getting nippy, out came the yarn and the needles. I have two projects going now, one a basic garter-stitch pullover for Lazarus using some sturdy golden-yellow wool a friend gave me last fall, the other a fancy cable pullover for Maggie using some gorgeous turquoise wool/alpaca/soy silk from the local mill. I always have to have two projects going so that I have an easy one (for TV and tired times) and a challenging one (to hold my interest and make me feel like less of a hack). I have two more projects planned (a cardigan for each kid) and three after that (yarn on hand but patterns not selected). The days get shorter, the sun sets earlier, the gardens are as good as they're gonna get this year, so it's time to change my evening routines.... I'm watching TV again, and am becoming a Daily Show regular. Antonio usually works pretty late over at the store after dinner, so once I get the kids to bed, I get some alone time.

And now, a word from the First Mother

"...so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." --Barbara Bush, speaking about Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston

Wow. It never occurred to me to think of the hurricane evacuees as fortunate -- here I was being all sad and gloomy that so many people lost their homes, their livelihoods, friends and family and neighbors and pets and treasured heirlooms and then had to endure days of desperate fear, hunger, thirst, sleeplessness, filth and absolute neglect... thanks for the perspective, Bar. And you people sleeping on cots, chin up -- see how lucky you are? I mean, what luxury accommodations. You have it so good now that Bar won't have to feel guilty about not opening up the Kennebunkport palace to evacuees for the next few months. So y'all be grateful, m'kay?

Any of that cake left over from last Monday?

Memo to Michael and Michael: Shut the fuck up and get outta town

to: Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff
from: disgruntled taxpayers

Resign now and spare us your self-righteous handwringing lies -- we don't want to see your deer-in-the-headlight stares or listen to your stammering excuses anymore. What you and your cronies have wrought in NOLA is beyond disgraceful, and when The Big Guy Upstairs is done kicking Bad Billy's ass he'll be buffing his boots for your sorry asses. Shame on you.

The times, are they a-changin'?

I'm actually gaining respect for CNN -- or, rather, for some of its field reporters and even a few "big-name" people there (though Larry King ISN'T one of them) -- since they're actively and vocally disputing the Feds' views of what's going on in New Orleans. This article on their Web site seems downright ballsy, given the past few years of media meekness in the face of the Bush administration's outrageous ineptitude and criminal activity. I almost cheered this afternoon as CNN's Soledad O'Brien sweetly yet doggedly cornered FEMA Chief Nitwit Michael Brown as he tried to insist that things were going well. "It's FRIDAY," she repeated several times. He got really red-faced and, good Bush crony that he is, held fast to his version of the truth and came out looking like an ass.

Jack Cafferty remains outspoken in his disdain and outrage over the Feds' "bungling" of this whole thing, and Last night Anderson Cooper ranted at Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu, "Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that [about the sanate approving $10 billion for relief efforts], because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.

"And when they hear politicians slap -- you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up.

"Do you get the anger that is out here?"

At least CNN finally gets it. I know, they're a far cry from Democracy Now! or Alternet or Daily Kos (my new fave read), but they're not right-wing stoolies anymore, either.

Oh, King George is wrapping up his Gulf visit -- flying out of the N.O. airport on his way back to DC. God, dude, it's Friday. Thanks for showing up. Oh, and tell Condi we love her new shoes. Really stylish. Y'all come back now, hear?

A memo to King George

Yo, George. Yeah, you. Your vacation is over -- it should have been over on Sunday night, before Katrina came calling. Forget about bike rides, Cindy, gas prices -- be a man, step up to the plate with something other than platitudes, and do something useful for once.

Yes, more people should have evacuated if at all possible, though many had no cars or other ways out, or were incapacitated, and wow, who would have figured on that? Didn't any of the region's supposedly well-informed and trained public officials figure on trouble when they hastily decided to put these "everyone elses" in the Superdome? And where the hell were the Feds, with all their brainpower and resources? (Well, we know where George was.) Especially since one of the main concerns for New Orleans was that the levees would break and the city would flood? And water and electricity usually do go out when a hurricane passes through town -- lots of known variables here, and still no workable advance solutions. That's just wrong.

Well, it's easy to see in hindsight that the chaos in New Orleans might well have been prevented. But. We elect, hire, and pay for our public officials to have foresight. Oh, look, here comes a Category-5 hurricane that wrought havoc as a Cat-1 in Florida and now is knocking out oil rigs and drawing a bead on the Big Easy. Let's put our heads together and figure out a plan. (They should have had a plan before. But the storm still gave them fair warning.)

What a horrible situation for those thousands upon thousands of people stranded in the heat, the filth, the hunger and searing thirst, the chaos. And I just don't think it had to come to this.

Edited to add links to:
Ways to help:

American Red Cross
American Friends Service Committee
Liberal Blogosphere
The Humane Society

*Alert*: FEMA and some news outlets are directing potential donors to "Operation Blessing" -- which is chaired by Pat Robertson. You know, the guy who said we should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Do what you want, but...

Pointed commentary:

"Look, I've seen the conservatives and the Sensible Liberals saying that this disaster shouldn't be politicized. In other words, we shouldn't talk about the decisions that were made beforehand regarding the levee system, and we shouldn't discuss the ways in which the commitment of funds and manpower to Iraq will affect recovery efforts, and we shouldn't discuss Bush's bizarre decision to spend a day giving canned stump speeches before heading back to D.C., and we shouldn't discuss the decisions that will be made in the days ahead--and I say, bullshit. Bush is clearly operating under no such constraint--he's obviously anticipating the criticism and trying to deflect it." -Tom Tomorrow, "This Modern World" (the blog)

"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.... And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis." -"Waiting for a Leader," The New York Times

"If you condensed every single official duty of the President of the United States into a list of perhaps four or five things, taking responsibility and management of his or her own citizens' welfare would be one of them. And on that topic the President has... totally failed at this." -August J. Pollak

"I'm 62, I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things--I have never, ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in that Superdome down there? This is Thursday! This is Thursday! This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government the taxpayers are paying for and it's fallen right flat on its face, in the way its handled this thing." -veteran newsman Jack Cafferty speaking on CNN (transcribed here among other places)

Dog!

I love my big dog Lucy. Just wanted to share that.

Lazarus went to his first day of preschool this morning, and although he had some anxious moments, he seemed to have a really good time. The teacher was obviously overwhelmed, as I would be were I facing 17 three-year-olds -- 13 boys and four girls (two crying hysterically) -- and my aide hadn't bothered to show up. Gad. My mom and I stayed through breakfast, as did a few other moms and two dads, and at least one mom stayed the whole morning even after a substitute aide showed up.

I didn't cry. Well, I cried last night, because of course I had to start looking at Laz's baby pictures (oh, look how tiny he was! oh, he'll never be that small and tender again!) but also because I still (and will probably always) have some anxiety over his developmental delays. His verbal and cognitive skills seem fine -- definitely a different drummer thing going on, but what could we expect given the boy's heritage -- but his motor skills are way behind, and it's more obvious when he's with other kids who run, jump, dash up steps, and otherwise cavort unfettered. The pediatric specialist we saw in Albuquerque earlier this month did mention the possibility (though impossible to pinpoint or confirm) that something happened during those last few weeks of pregnancy when his heartrate was going irregular, especially after the doc induced labor and things got really dicey. But he came out alright -- I'll always wonder, but he's here, with me, and he's a marvelous boy, and God knows I'm thankful for that.

Anyhoo. Time for bed. Which means I'll be up for another hour at least. Maybe I'll go downstairs and work on a quilt while Lucy nudges my arm and slobbers on my toes.