Halloween Is Coming

Halloween Is Coming

This last day of September is a bright, beautifully lit day, one last glow before this area succumbs to the expected series of wintry blows that annually sweep out the year’s detritus. Lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, and leaf blowers swing through parks and lawns, perhaps for the last time this year, perhaps not.

Tomorrow begins October. Already stores have their Halloween goods on display: eerie cackles over pointy hats, whispy brooms, seething cauldrons, silken webs, all artistically draped over mounds of pounds of candy. For the for the sheltered and the naïve, it is still a time for innocent fun.

Conservative schools and parents, however, are prepare for what has become an annual war of words and policies over whether or not what was once an important Christian holiday has become an annual Satanic celebration. In fairness, how many people actually remember or think about the fact that Halloween started out as the Eve of All Saints Day, a time for reflection and contrition? Somehow it has gone from being a time of chasing out old demons and letting go of sinful ways to being a celebration of indulgence and demonizing. Each year the news is filled with tales of drink-fueled sprees of vandalism and violence. The entertainment industry contributes its bit to the shaping of contemporary culture by releasing a slew of horror-based films and songs of violence to match the sentiment of the season.

Like Christmas Eve, Halloween has been co-opted for commercial purposes. As the pre-Christmas season is the time of year when merchants expect to make the bulk of their profits, so the pre-Halloween season has become the greatest time of marketing and sales for the candy, sugar products, and costume industries.

Christian holidays have become touchstones for big business in the U.S. Perhaps that is why our money still says, “In God We Trust”; not a statement of religious faith, as the civil liberties advocates claim, but rather as an affirmation of commercial philosophy, as marketers practice it. Soon enough the bright glow of summer will be replaced by the bright glow of coins flowing into tills across the land.

9/30/05

Communication Gap No

Communication Gap: Noncultural

We are both speaking English, but we don’t seem to be speaking the same language, for communication clearly is not occurring. We have both been born and reared in the same country, though that, too, is not self-evident, at least not to one of us. In fact, from what she is saying, I would guess that we shared very similar childhoods and experiences, though that is nearly impossible to tell now. Somehow she has been frozen in time, trapped in an American experience that may never have truly existed, that certainly no longer represents any great universal, though she claims it as an unarguable, unchanged, perpetual truth. How did our once shared experiences become so different? Where did the paths diverge and why? I call her a fool as I turn and walk away, asserting that it’s okay because, after all, it’s a free country where people are allowed to be fools . . . but perhaps it is I who am the fool to expect that the Great Truth of my personal experiences must necessarily be universal truth for all people.

9/30/05

Fiery streams flow

Fiery streams flow like lava
Down Southern California slopes
Washing before them complex webs
Of wishes, dreams, and hopes
The U.S. nightly news swings
From flood to fire with ease
Like Jackson’s Tolkienesque images
Of undammed floods and burning trees
Whether in peace or in war
The cameras roll
Eager to catch the next great image
Of a troubled soul
It’s all about pictures and soundbites today
Reduction of thought
Amidst overblown stories and oversized people
Societal solace is sought

Promises of Indian Summer

The sun is shining
The car is calling
Auto hygiene is a must

Feather's flying
Ribbon's teasing
Must catch JJ or bust

Rain's done falling
Floods receding
Government promises: who to trust?

Indian summer
So they call it
Sunny days before the frost

Race in language
Thought control
Freedom's hazy promise tossed?

Life seems good
Gas seems safe
Indian summer's hazy promise?

Realists know
Winter's coming
Time for dreams to lie at rest

Flippism Is The Key

Professor Batty never fails to stimulate thought. I like the idea of reciprocal affection and the consequences of its lack. When my human and I don't have our daily lovefests, life just isn't the same. When my human doesn't pay attention during those lovefests, payment must be exacted. After all, a feline is not for taking for granted. Love and affection go much more easily than they come, as they should, and once gone, neither readily returns, if ever. It's a good thing, then, that I'm a loving fellow...

Return of the Carpetbaggers

Return of the Carpetbaggers

Roughly one hundred forty years ago Northerners descended upon the war-ravaged South to help “reconstruct” it; now several Southern states are once again ravaged, this time by a combination of acts of nature and the negligence of humans. This time, however, a Southerner is authorizing the invasion of reconstructionists, proffering the sugar cube of federal funding for the right to rebuild the impoverished districts that have been devastated by storm, flood, and promised pestilence. Help is clearly needed and might be appreciated, if it actually comes without the inevitable strings attached.

Consider: Inner city revitalization projects have all too often meant the suburbanization of urban areas, the yuppy-izing of formerly low income dwellings and businesses, which, in turn, have resulted in the displacement of those who had nowhere else to go in the first place. Sure, it all looks pretty and clean folks no longer fear to visit, but where are the unwashed to go? Not to affordable housing: they bring property values down! Not to where the money has effected positive change: such areas are now desirable to and coveted by those who already have power and influence.

This time the 21st century carpetbaggers come bearing gaming consoles and hi-tech tools with their economic clout, but the net benefit for those who most need help will all too likely be the same as it was the last time our country was so thoroughly polarized. The rich will get richer, those with potential will migrate away, and those left behind will go on, scotch tape and stapler in hand, piecing their lives together as well as they can with what they can forage, bearing pity and scorn but little else.

Okay, yes, that does sound extremely cynical, but who do you know in great need that is proactive without model or education? Such folk are very few, and they do not long stay needy. Are we yet a culling society? Is that the last vestige of our agricultural roots that our society wishes to retain? Do we really believe that unless we keep our killer instincts, we will go the way of the Roman Empire? It wasn’t just their teeth they surrendered to the cavity that hollowed out their society long before the walls finally fell and the seven hills were filled with the rubble and debris of empire…

Promises

George W. Bush, the U.S. president who declared that this country will stay in Iraq for as long as it takes, for as much as it costs, has declared the same about his proposed federal support for the rebuilding of New Orleans and those parts of Mississippi that have been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and the levy breaks that followed in its aftermath. He sounded positively New Dealish in his acknowledgement of domestic social problems such as generations’ old racism and economic disparity. If his promises of commitment to the people of these United States prove to be at least as firm as his promises to the people and ruling government of Iraq, he may yet redeem himself in the eyes of many Americans, though it may sadly come at the cost of some of his current supporters. Irony: you gotta love it.

9-16-05

Prohibition Returns

Prohibition Returns

According to Darya Folsom on this morning’s KRON TV News (9-16-05), two years ago California became the first state in the union to ban soda and junk foods from elementary and middle school campuses. Beginning next year, it will extend the ban to all public high schools.

Slowly but surely, California is outlawing previously legal lethal life choices and habits. People are being denied choices at each end of life, from anti-abortion to anti-euthanasia, and now being cut off from those lovely little vices that make the living between endpoints enjoyable: smoking, overeating, overindulging, even merely indulging. California, once the proud leader in freedom of expression and free will, is slowly but steadily heading toward becoming the foremost non-religious puritanical state of the union.

And where California, home to Hollywood, leads, can the nation and the world be far behind? (I feel a dystopian tale welling up . . .)

Sleepy Day

Blogger for Word:  I’ve been wanting to download and try this feature ever since I first saw it posted, but I’ve been mired on a borrowed Mac all summer. Now that I’ve finally figured out what I should have known about my router, I’m back on my own home ground. My human just isn’t the swiftest, sometimes…

I’ve been sleeping the day away…
Must have caught JJ’s cold…
Haven’t got much else to say
Except that I’m not feeling too bold
I wish just a little longer I could stay
But my human has laundry to fold
I love fresh laundry as you must know
Because long ago I told you so
So off I go to snuggle down
Hang loose, and I’ll see you around

Unclean

I blah blah blah
On my blog blog blog
Searching for something to say

My mind min mi
Is in that foggy place
Where it always likes to stay

The news washes over me
Leaving me feeling unclean
As the waters of Katrina
Have flushed out those who are mean

I'm not talking
About the raging, looting, and killing
But about the rapacious media
And their tripe that we're swilling

They circle like vultures
Excited for fresh meat
Reporting the new carpetbaggers
As they salivate over ratings sweet

Who stands to profit
From disaster's wake
Who thinks they really have
The most at stake

Is it the poor, the oppressed, the homeless
Or is it the media and the politician
Jostling for position

What more can they possibly say
At the end of the day
To make me not want to surf away

Possible vs. Useful

Always doing what one can is not always the best decision. Just because JJ can eat all the wet food set out in the morning doesn't mean he can keep it down. When he fails to do so, we are left not only with an empty food dish, but with more of a maze through which to pick our way during the course of the day. This would not be so bad if he could just keep his paws out of the marshes and bogs he creates...

Likewise my human has been told that there is such a thing as "free" foods, vegetables that can be eaten without restraint, with metabolic impunity. How can one so quickly forget that such a misuse of the word "free" is actually a mask for the more accurate term, "irresponsible"? For every action there is a reaction, and it's not always equal, despite what physicists may say...

Naturally, these thoughts beg a contemporary political analogy, but why reiterate the obvious? From those who want to do so much to those who do so little, there are ample examples of all sorts of extremes. Will these actions or inactions garner either appropriate gratitude or indignation? The reactions have thus far been out of proportion; why should one expect otherwise?

Do or do not, as Yoda has said. Freedom is the privilege of choice coupled with living with the consequences of one's own actions (and inaction). It is both price and reward, opportunity and Catch-22.

Katrina and Ophelia are out of human control, but how each of us responds is not. Likewise, what the government does is more a matter of electorate control than individual influence, but what we do about that is not. Should we always do everything just because we can? No. Like the truth, sometimes "all" is too much; sometimes not nearly enough.

What Kind of Student Are You?

What kind of student are you?
Apprentice or master, graduate or teacher,
What kind of student are you?
Do you sit quietly by
Watching time fly
Or do you drink in every word
That you've never before heard?
Are you one of those who races ahead,
Finishing assignments so there's no homework to dread?
Are you one who never hears anything new
Because knowledge has always come so quickly and easily to you?
Do you feel an irresistible need
To share your views with exceptional speed?
Do you flatter yourself that what you say will matter
To others intent on their own private patter?

Are you there to show the world what you know?
Are you there to drink deeply of the wisdom of the ages?
Are you there to share and grow in the sharing?
What kind of student are you?

Stretching

Stretching is good for you, so I'm told
I stretch daily, warm or cold
Today my human tried to stretch
Good thing I'm a neko and not a lech
What is it about humans that makes them so stiff
Like an ancient wall painting, a hieroglyph
I stretch when I wake, mid-sleep, and after meals
I stretch and I roll because I know how good it feels
Stretching a limb or stretching a tail
People should stretch instead of cramping to no avail
Legs and limbs, minds and hearts
People should stretch all of their parts
If people would stretch their souls to each other
There'd be better tales to tell amongst one another
And perhaps the human race
Could find its place
Within the framework of creation
We'd celebrate with elation
And share the joys of stretching
Instead of fearful retching
That this same human race
Might soon destroy this place
We all call home

O To Be Worry-Free

When I was a kitten I drank from the tap
My human would scoop water for me in a cap
I'd lick my balls right in my human's lap

Now we live in a bright shiny place
Where I can sit in the sun as I wash my face
And cars and trucks go by at a much slower pace

But the water in the hose and the tap aren't free
There's lead in the pipes that hose off my pee
And dead spiders in cobwebs everywhere that I see

My litter has been changed from cedar to pine
The feces that reeks is definitely mine
And ants race to my bowl before I can dine

There are more bills to pay
More guests come to stay
And my human these days is harder to sway

O that I could be once more worry-free
A neko abroad overlooking the sea
That's the life I would wish for me

What Is a Refugee?

What is a refugee?
Could it possibly be someone like me?
I live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world;
But people just like me lost everything when the waters swirled.
Houses are gone, property too
Even people maybe you knew
There hasn't been electricity or the Internet or cable
No frig or freezer or dining room table
Help's been slow to arrive and there's no place to go
Everyone's talking about shelter overflow
A few generations ago the drought cleared everyone out
Now it seems too much water is putting people to rout
Planes trains and trucks are loading up quick
People say there's a whole nation from which to pick
But each destination's shelters are filling up fast
And tomorrow looks a lot like yesterday's past
Refugees come across water, so they say
Well, folks from down South are definitely coming that way
There's no Moses to part the waters this time
Just slow-draining water leaving behind slime
There's anger and fear and frustration ahead
As the count mounts as we tally the dead
First there was fire in 2001
Now there's water by the gallon and mud by the ton
We're choking the air as the ozone hole grows
And the soil's polluted as everyone knows
Do you think that our country can't produce refugees?
How much more flight will it take till everyone sees?
Our once-great nation's in a bit of a mess
How will this generation deal with the stress?
Will we whine and sob and point fingers at others
Or will we lean on each other and recognize brothers?
Can we give and take refuge and not worry about words
Or will we go the way of the Great Plains herds?

Labor Day

Today is the day we honor the worker
By slacking off and imitating a shirker
We say farewell to the summer sun
To days of lounging around for fun
To bright colored garbs of red orange and yellow
To every noisy feathered fellow
To gardens green so lush and ripe
It's time to tear down vines and bare the pipe
Time to roll up sleeves
And rake fallen leaves
Time to check storm windows and radiators and chimneys
Time to dig out blankets and comforters stored behind skeleton keys
Time to prepare for holidays with family and friends
Time to store away summer's odds and ends
Time to seek activities indoors instead of out
But not quite yet time for that long winter pout
For autumn has yet to pass through turning breeze to gust
With its flash of brilliance before rendering all still in the dust
Still summer's over of that there can be no doubt
So let's have just one more barbecue while the sun is still out.

Chatty Catty

Chatty Catty I am called
Just because when JJ's mauled
I'm accused of telling tales
When all I've done is watch garden snails
But late at night when everyone's asleep
I prowl the grounds to guard this keep
And oft and long as I make my way around
I'll sing the news of what I've found
Ants and wasps each asleep in a nest
Resting up from a long day of being a pest
Dryer humming and clacking as it tumbles
While outside I hear the feral rumbles
Owls and hawks and swallows passing overhead
While diurnal creatures are safe in bed
Squirrels asleep and dogs indoors
While I prowl these grounds on all fours
Television blaring is done for the day
Stories of disaster that have held sway
Continue to flow across the screen
Close-captioned ghosts telling of what they've seen
Computer screen silently flickers against modem hum
Screaming enough horror stories to leave one numb
Immigrants telling Americans their country's no good
Asserting they'd leave if only they could
Children hearing only the negative side
With not enough evidence to turn the tide
Of harsh opinions aired with conviction
Allowed to be aired without restriction
Because that's the American way, you see
Free speech is allowed and idiots allowed to rant free
So I sing all night of what I've seen
And keen through the day once I'm clean

European Response to Katrina

This morning Yahoo via Reuters is reporting that the European Union has announced that it will be sending refined gasoline to the U.S. in response to the disaster that has shut down refineries in the Gulf. Ironically, France is reportedly sending by far the most gasoline, and this at a time when French-bashing is in vogue. Germany, Spain, and Britain are also sending us some of their reserve supplies to tide us over for at least a month, these in addition to the help Canada announced yesterday. These countries have had mandatory reserves of at least 90 days ever since the Iran-Iraq war back in the 70's. The U.S., on the other hand, only stockpiles crude oil, thus leaving us vulnerable now that so many of our refineries are down.

European officials are being quoted as saying, "Whatever the U.S. asks, it will be given." Sadly, American reporters eye this generosity cynically, wondering what the political price tag will be, recognizing that the "hard ball" U.S. diplomats have been playing under Bush's regime will be difficult to continue in the face of such generosity.

In politics as in life, it's much harder to hold a line without seeming petty when other parties are prompt and generous in their open-handedness.

Response to Katrina

I was just wondering this morning if anyone thinks to send aid to the U.S. in times of disaster the way people here immediately set up hotlines and donation depots upon hearing of disasters overseas. Then this afternoon I came across an article on Yahoo highlighting Canada's intent to do what it can to help the U.S. alleviate a bit of the fuel crisis caused by the refineries in the Gulf that have been forced to shut down due to Katrina. Granted, the U.S. has trade restrictions in place that actually hinder such aid (in an attempt to protect domestic markets from being flooded and undersold by foreign sources). Don't you just love the irony?

I must say I am glad to be able to read that we neither have a monopoly on humanitarianism nor do we hide what should be a self-evident fact.

Let's hear it for Canada, a country that evidently does not intend to let our sticks and stones break their bones in our time of need.

Do You Sudoku?

Sudoku is a curious game
From Japan it got its name
Though the West gave it birth
Now it provides hours of mirth
Or endless agony for some
Who cannot make the numbers come
Or go into their proper spaces
Because they've stopped in other places
For hours on end I can tear my hair
Life for me has no other care
Than to fill those taunting empty boxes
Whose numbers are more elusive than foxes
Yes, Sudoku's the game for me
I love the madness, don't you see