Today is the first day of the rest of my life...

..so allow me to begin it with one good deed. Read it and pass it on. That

is all:


Dear Corbid,


You and I have a message to send.

What the Bush Administration chooses to do about the horrific scandal of

torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq will determine what kind of country

we are going to be for decades to come.

We must make certain the Administration does the right thing. I want every

Amnesty supporter to know how we are responding to this crisis and to ask

for your immediate help. If you are a current Amnesty member, please make an

emergency contribution now by clicking here.

If you are not yet a member, there has never been a more important time to raise your

voice.

For nearly a year Amnesty has been raising concerns about allegations of

torture and abuse of detainees by U.S. and Coalition forces in Afghanistan,

Guantanamo, Iraq and elsewhere based on our interviews with former detainees

and other sources. We have had no meaningful response from the Bush

administration. And, despite repeated requests we have been denied access

to all detention facilities run by the U.S. Amnesty is openly calling for

specific, verifiable steps to end this horrific crisis, including:

(1) A public declaration stating that the torture and humiliation of

prisoners will not be tolerated;

(2) A halt to all ill-treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody;

(3) Granting independent human rights monitors unrestricted and regular

access to the government's numerous detainees in all detention centers;

(4) Compensating victims of abuse and conducting future interrogations of

prisoners in accordance with strict human rights standards; and

(5) An end to incommunicado detention.

In the days and weeks ahead, Amnesty will mobilize actions including an

International Day to End Torture in key cities and towns across the country.

Amnesty activists have begun organizing our members and other Americans of

good will to create citizen demonstrations on behalf of justice, human

rights and an end to the use of torture, wherever it may be found, whoever

may be perpetrating it. As part of this mobilization, we plan to mount a

major media/public education campaign to publicize the reports delivered

directly by Amnesty International staff to the most senior administration

officials a year ago detailing allegations of torture and ill-treatment in

Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq. Just this past week we taped an urgent

public service spot with actress and activist Susan Sarandon. We will be

seeking national distribution for the spot, which you can hear by clicking this link

We will also press for permission to dispatch an Amnesty delegation to

enter U.S. detention centers not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan,

Guantanamo Bay and various undisclosed locations. It is crucial that these

delegations include experts on the Geneva Conventions and other

international laws pertaining to prisoners of war, as well as experienced

human rights investigators. In the weeks ahead, please check out our Web

site for updates on our progress which your generous help makes possible.

And if you have already made a recent gift, please accept my warmest thanks.

With special appreciation for your enduring commitment and support.


Sincerely,

Bill Schulz

Executive Director

Amnesty International USA

P.S. Your membership in Amnesty sends a powerful message about what America

is really about. You can join or donate right now using

our safe and convenient online form.




P.S. (from me): Go thou and do likewise...

Words of Advice

Be careful what you wish for.
It might come true.

"And I won't forget to put roses on your grave..."

The tulips appear to have breathed their last, fortuitously enough.
Dead flowers anyone?

Free Association

For your profound amusement,here are the first 20 tracks of my involuntary
inner DJ this morning in semi chronological order.
Don't ask me to explain them, I just report the news:

Nine Inch Nails:"Head Like A Hole"
Nick Lowe:"Cruel To Be Kind"
The Cure:"Killing An Arab"
Bowie:"Sons of the Silent Age"
The English Beat:"Save It For Later"
Duran Duran: "Planet Earth"
John Lennon:"Julia"
Replacements:"Anywhere Is Better Than Here"
Depeche Mode:"To Have And To Hold"
Bowie:"Zeroes"
Elvis Costello:"Welcome to the Working Week"
Suicidal Tendencies:"Institutionalize"
Violent Femmes:"Add It Up"
Plimsouls:"A Million Miles Away"
Strawberry Alarm Clock:"Incense And Peppermints"
Pink Floyd:"Time"
Eagles:"Life In The Fast Lane"
Boomtown Rats:"She's So Modern"
Tori Amos:"Horses"
Linda Ronstadt:"Silver Threads and Golden Needles"

Coming soon: The story of my Neil Gaiman dream...

Tarot Cards Of The Day

Eight of Swords (Interference): Chagrin at the unforeseen consequences of prior decisions. Criticism, censure, and the imposition of external restrictions. Confusion leading to powerlessness. Inability to focus on the crux of a problem and free oneself from a difficult situation. Being hamstrung by a past failure or humiliation.



Knight of Wands: The essence of fire, such a great conflagration. One filled with vitality and passion for life. An alluring and exciting person, daring in their actions, cocky in their attitude, and utterly without fear. Absolute sincerity, coupled with violent emotions that swing wildly from one extreme to another. Boundless creativity and lust for a change of both pace and place. The rapid approach, or more likely departure, of something that sets your world ablaze. Often suggests travel or escape.

River

Sometimes she's Persephone

Or just another Ophelia floating in the river

And she falls like morale

While he rises like dissent

All intent becomes meaningless as war

and laughable as justice

Everything given is a prayer left unanswered

And the only words left are empty metaphors



Every morning the Promethean heart regenerates

Lays poised on its sleeve for daily breaking

Down by the river's edge she waits for a reason

trails a finger in the icy waters

Flirts with inevitable endings



Sometimes you have to die again

To remember what it hurts like to live

Sometimes you can sleep a life away

Wake to the scents of vanilla,smoke and fear

Sounds of a ragged heartbeat and a song

that will lose its meaning



Sometimes a heart stops on a doorstop

By light of a half moon and fire on a mountain

And you let the ghost of it burn into memory

Follow the contours of phantom hands and hesitant touch

An echo of reluctant longing

and heartbreaking sincerity of regret

Etched into permanence like a beautiful nightmare



There are days when she sits by the river's edge

and thinks about sinking like a stone

becoming cold and dead again

Hoping someone will give her permission

You have to be careful what you wish for



One day he'll give the signal and she'll laugh

And slip beneath the waves like she was born to drown

Close her eyes and dream happy mermaid dreams

Hoping it'll take this time

She's always been so bad at dying



Back at the water's edge he lingers

Watches her drift out to sea and smiles

Thinks he's lucky to be free of her at last



Still, he must admit,she makes a very pretty corpse

He's glad that he thought to bring the camera

He gets lonely sometimes...

Bibliomancy

A man deep in crisis turns to his bible for answers.
"Oh Lord." he intones "please bless me with your divine guidance, for I am
troubled and in need of your righteous counsel.
Please show me a sign."
Impatiently, he opens to a random passage and reads aloud.
"Judas hanged himself."
Grimly he laughs and kneels again in prayer.
"Oh, wise and great Holy Father, I am in need of further guidance.
I am but an ignorant sinner and do not understand the scriptures. Guide me
further"
He turns to another random page. Closes his eyes and points.
"Oh, most Holy One, I shall obey the sacred word as is your will."
He looks down and reads again:
"Go thou and do likewise."
Sheepishly he grins and looks up at the heavens.
"Um, Lord? How about best out of three?"

The problem with the desert...

...is that even if you found a bridge to jump off, there would only ever be dry concrete at the bottom.

Virtual Fortune Cookies Of The Day

Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.



Temptation usually comes in through a door that has deliberately been left open.



(They also have brainteasers on this site...)



(detritus)(dream)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Half Life

It smells like a jam...

There's a Ceilidh brewing in a week or so. The 22nd to be more exact. Most of you know when and where. Otherwise, contact Lizzie or myself for details. They've been a blast so far, and everyone says third time's the charm...Plus we're thinking of adding a visual and interactive arts table for art and photography type exhibits. Maybe if someone would bring in a laptop, we could even do multimedia...or maybe not. Simple is always good too. Anyway, we have a piano and the acoustics are great. Clear your calendars already for goddess' sake!

Emerging from my cocoon like some sort of warped moth...

Offline for several hours, I panic and fear all my friends will think I'm

dead. Finally, I am connected. I have 24 new messages in my inbox. All of

them are spam. Way to stroke the old ego, eh? Strange to think that even

just a year or two ago I was completely out of touch with everyone and

didn't care. I had my family and other than that, my friends were books

and indie movies and Elvis Costello CDs. Going to the farmers market and

buying fresh tomatoes qualified as an "event." Window shopping at the mall

was a major outing. A box of donuts on a Sunday morning heralded a

celebration. I was sooo fucking boring. Not that there's anything wrong

with that. There are plenty of good things to be said about "voluntary

simplicity" and I love my family to pieces. But I was not happy.

Smart,creative people with moderate depressive tendencies are not well

advised to hole up and forsake the outside universe. I forgot I could be

worthwhile at all. I hadn't written anything in years and I was supposedly

such a great writer (according to the people I went to high school with

anyway, some of whom didn't even like me that much and still said it...) I

hadn't sung anywhere but in my car in over a decade. The closest I'd come

to "going out with friends" in years had been a rather disappointing

venture to a tacky comedy club with one of my Colorado mommy friends and a

chainsmoking, cackling, retired friend of her mother. The show consisted

of a Hispanic comedian making ethnic jokes and a female comedian making

"men sure are stupid" jokes. But I digress. My point is that I'm happy to

have gotten to the point where an empty inbox is something unusual. I'm so

glad to havemy old friends back and a few new ones and the guts to give

myself a shot at being alive again on some level. I love my girls more

than anything in the world, but I can see them benefitting from a mommy

with opinions and friends and outside interests. I take them out more

often than I used to. I'm more creative with them than I used to be. I

feel so much more capable than I did not long ago at all. And so, to my

friends old and new I say a long overdue "thank you" and also I offer an

apology for the times I've bugged the living crap out of some of you

because I was using my newly formed and/or newly recemented friendships as

a form of social prozac. And I vow to try and network a bit more until

someday I am at the point where I actually dread looking in my inbox

because there's too much correspondence awaiting me. Depression is

invasive and stultifying and sometimes the best way to overcome it isn't

pills and therapy but flat out getting the hell out of the house and doing

something slightly different for a while. And I swear to you all I will

grow less annoying with time :)


Corbid the still slightly dull

According to Blogger...

This is post #319 of this blog. If not always charming or relevant, I can at least now claim to be prolific, eh? This week being no different. I've recently posted to every aspect of the realm, so by all means please follow the links below to my other blogs my dearies...

melt

The things you never asked for are the things you can't seem to shake

When you were a cold and dead thing

You'd have died again for a taste of prescience

And now you are almost always real

And it hurts just to breathe

It hurts just to laugh sometimes

You know that every small joy

Comes at a price

That flowers are just a thing made for dying

And sweetness grows acrid after a time

And you long to be so cold again

To close your eyes and wish it all away

It used to be that easy

Once upon a time



(detritus)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Tarot Cards of the Day

The Hierophant:Also known as the Pope, the Hierophant representative of the need to follow tradition, ceremony or a path of ideas and beliefs, even if they are outdated. This card can represent any structured group with rules and assigned roles. It could be interpreted as a need for group/mentored learning or the need to conform or change the rules. The Hierophant also represents an interest in spiritual matters, or a spiritual mentor



The Lovers:

The Lovers represent that the seeker is at a crossroads where a moral decision must be made. You must know yourself because making the right decision could mean going against what others tell you. The Lovers can symbolize a deep love or a powerful drawing together of two entities, be it people, ideas, events, etc.



(detritus)(dream)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Genius Invention of the Week...

Defrost a box of cheap hash brown patties in the fridge!
C'mon, I dare ya!
Makes for insanely easy breakfast burritos and potato pancakes and it's way cheaper than those "Simply Potato" things and much easier than precooking them yourself and potatos are like the food of all perfection as it is...

(detritus)(dream)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Orpheus entreating the Lord of the Underworld...

He sings to Hades and Persephone and all assembled there, entreating them to release his beloved from the realm of Death as follows:

As he sang these tender strains, the very ghosts shed tears. Tantalus, in spite of his thirst, stopped for a moment his efforts for water, Ixion's wheel stood still, the vulture ceased to tear the giant's liver, the daughters of Danaus rested from their task of drawing water in a sieve, and Sisyphus sat on his rock to listen. Then for the first time, it is said, the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears. Proserpine could not resist, and Pluto himself gave way. Eurydice was called. She came from among the new-arrived ghosts, limping with her wounded foot. Orpheus was permitted to take her away with him on one condition, that he should not turn around to look at her till they should have reached the upper air. Under this condition they proceeded on their way, he leading, she following, through passages dark and steep, in total silence, till they had nearly reached the outlet into the cheerful upper world, when Orpheus, in a moment of forgetfulness, to assure himself that she was still following, cast a glance behind him, when instantly she was borne away. Stretching out their arms to embrace each other, they grasped only the air! Dying now a second time, she yet cannot reproach her husband, for how can she blame his impatience to behold her? "Farewell," she said, "a last farewell,"- and was hurried away, so fast that the sound hardly reached his ears.



[Orpheus in Hades: OVID, Metamorphoses, Book X, 1-106]

(detritus)(dream)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Vagueries of Nightmare

Dreamt I was trying so,so hard to get it right, that it was my last chance at something, but I don't know what...if I screwed up I'd have to go back to the scene if the crime...the backseat of the car, the impact, trying to get up, maybe this time it wouldn't work and I'd sever my spine or fall over dead on the spot...I could almost feel the pain again...not even childbirth hurts that much...there I was being punished again and I don't know what for...sometimes I think my whole life's been a test, and I keep failing, and you only get so many chances...one of these days I'm afraid going to wake up dead...



detritus)(poetica)(myth)(opinion)(divination)

Distant Image...

My Coloring Book Of Days...

My days are now organized by food events. Mondays is two for one hoagie

day. Tuesday is ninety nine cent leg and thigh chicken day. Wednesday is

discount bagel day. Thursday is Semolina bread day. Friday through Sunday

are the weekend and don't count. Both my eating habits and my whereabouts at

any given time are somewhat subject to the above formula.


Today was both discount bagel day and 10:15 storytime at the library, so

Sarah and I were out and about at an early hour. Dropped Maggie off at

school, swung by the only gas station where I can safely pay cash without

having to remove the baby form her carseat, and headed for the bagel

purveyor of choice. Bought a dozen bagels and some lemonade from a manager

who resembled a disgruntled Ricky Ricardo. He insisted that since it was a

discount dozen, it could only be 12 and not a "baker's dozen." That if I

wanted 13 bagels I'd have to pay full price. Then he tried to charge me $1.

99 for a 12 oz lemonade. When I pointed out that the sign said it was $1.39,

he sighed and rolled his eyes and said "Well it's really $1.99, but if you'

re gonna complain I guess we can give it for $1.39 this time. But only

because of the sign." As though I knew all the secret prices for things and

was actively trying to rip him off


We sat outside, adjacent to the designated old-man-dining-alone-table (the

table went through three of them successively before we were done, which

means we eat even more slowly than old men) and split a blueberry bagel and

our drink. Sarah finished every bite with the exclamation "Mmm! Dat's GOOD!"

in her sweet little baby voice. She smiled and preened and charmed her her

elderly admirers, then threw bagel chunks to nearby birds. Eventually we

finished and I packed her into the car with a bribe of paper and crayon. And

so we set off for the public library.


Storytime began with coloring time and Sarah did a very lovely job of

sharing crayons with all around her. Or rather distributing crayons

according to her whims. Eventually she had the whole tray in her possession

and put herself in charge of doling them out as she saw fit. Mommy's little

tyrant. When actual storytime began, she looked around the room and got a

little bit freaked out and hid under a table. Eventually I lured her out

with more crayons and paper. She finally warmed up to the idea when they had

"rainbow time" where they shook little paper plates with streamers attached

and the middles cut out. She didn't want to leave after that, and hummed the

"rainbow song" all the way home.


So that was our fun for today. Now we are home and offline still after

something like 18 hours. God knows when I will eventually get to post this.

Tomorrow will be bread day and probably running around the used bookstore

handing out toys to other children day. Clever mommy has learned to set up

camp in the children's area with a pile of magazines. On a good day we're

there for a while and I get half the stack read before we leave, thus saving

me the need to ever purchase them. If I'm ambitious and wee goosie can

behave herself we may even venture a trip to the movies on Friday before

school lets out. She is so much fun in the mornings these days. Nighttime

being another story. Night time is tantrum city. But perfection eludes us

all, right?


Farewell from mommyland!

Corbid