So what's so hard about redeploying?

I see that the Center for American Progress has laid out plans for the United States to leave Iraq, and they have explained it in terms even I can follow. It may even be the same or similar as Senator Obama's plan.

So it's not that we "can't" do it, or that there is no way to leave in a relatively safe way. There's something else going on that I still can't put my finger on.

We know that the goal in the beginning was to secure our own control of the oil in the region, oil that under our present level of energy usage we need. Few of us want to give up our air conditioners or our Ipod chargers. Nobody has admitted this, but it's fact. The other reason for going about it in this hell-bent manner was to secure the right to refining this oil for American and British companies. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see this.

But what if we behaved like civilized buyers. When I go into Target to buy something, I don't go in with guns blazing trying to take over the store in order to do it. Maybe I'm naive, but I believe it's possible to buy oil from the Middle East without trying to annex the countries there.

As far as Iraq is concerned, for Pete's sake, let those people define their own borders and govern themselves however they'd like to. They have no money if they don't sell their oil to somebody, either us or China. If they don't want to sell to us, then we buy from Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia. Or, what if we just developed our own alternative energy sources with some of the billions we are spending in Iraq?

What is confusing to me is why we are still all sitting around chit-chatting about this, on talk shows, in newspaper columns, arguing about what Congress can or cannot do, while the status quo goes on. Can the Republicans not see beyond the next quarterly profit report from the oil companies? Are the Democrats more interested in re-election than in doing what they are supposed to be doing? What is so wonderful about being in Congress if you're not in fact doing the nation's business? Unfortunately I think we know the answer.

I am reading Senator Obama's second book now, "The Audacity of Hope." He has a chapter on the United States Constitution that gave me goose bumps. This country was set up carefully by thinking people who realized there would be short-sighted politicians in the power structures one day; they had a few even then. But it is designed to prevent all the power going to people like this. During the first six years of the Bush administration the crowd in Washington showed up just to say yes to everything while they pursued what to them were more important priorities. Whatever they were, they didn't involved American security.

I understand the fascination of the press with the presidential election in the United States, but sometimes they're reaching for news. The tit for tat blithering between candidates is not important; Britney Spears and OJ Simpson are not important. And I think we all know where each candidate stands by now on every possible issue because this has been going on for a year. Besides, we have the Internet now. Instead, I believe it is more important for the press to stay focused on the issue of Americans pressing for disengagement from the Iraqi civil war (that we caused) and not just assume we are prepared to lose another thousand American lives -- more if we count the contractors. The entire occupation of this destroyed country must be ended.

Enough already. This administration should not be allowed to ignore General Petraeus's bosses, or the Iraq Study Group, or the American citizens, or the Center for American Progress. I don't even understand why impeachment is off the table. These same people would like to destroy Iran too.

There has to be some pay-off for stretching this situation out as long as possible -- payoffs for both sides. I just don't see what it could possibly be.

Will the Texas Primary Matter?

Every presidential election year Texas Democrats loyally show up and vote in the primary, but somebody else Somewhere has decided who our nominee is to be before we have voted. This year may be different.

In my lifetime -- (FDR was President when I was born) there has never been such a powerful slate of Democratic candidates for President. Sure, there have often been two or three good ones, but for some reason the one I favored, and voted for in the Primary, was not the one chosen by the cigar-smokers in the back room. This year those cigar-smokers have been trying to do it the same way, and they chose Hillary some time back. It's not that I think Hillary isn't better than the Republican candidates, but she's not my first choice, nor the first choice of anyone I know. However, usually it doesn't matter by the time Texas gets to vote.

This year it may matter. With the wealth of candidates, the early primaries may be so tied or close to it, enough so that the progressive Texas Democrats might actually get to be in a group of delegates that matters at the Convention. Oh, let it be so.

A point about Goldberg and Envy

I have never read any columnist so obtuse or narcissistic as Jonah Goldberg, as exhibited by his recent column , "A Liberal Dose of Envy..." I never knew that people of whatever social class he considers himself part of, believed that those who work for economic independence and human rights for all people do so out of "envy."

I have seen first-hand the two Americas of which John Edwards speaks; in addition, there are many other "Americas" I have seen, subsets of the others. The America experienced by single mothers, that experienced by the handicapped, that experienced by people of color, of different religions, of victims of natural disasters, and those who are victims of greed and power. I have seen the America of the ignorant, the uninformed, and the America of the children of wealth.
People without salaries high enough to make ends meet realize they could make more if they had been able to go to college; but do people who have more than they could ever spend realize they have acquired it primarily on the backs of others? Why do employers fight paying living wages? Why do they not understand why healthcare should be subsidized when they themselves have been subsidized all their lives in a more "acceptable" manner? And don't even get me started on tax loopholes.

I have been rich, I have been poor. I have never seen the envy Goldberg imagines, but I have seen greed and cruelty. I have seen entire governments bought. I have seen the wealthy exploited by "professionals" with no conscience who charge what the market can bear. And I have seen idiotic assumptions made by people of one economic class about others.
It has been my great fortune to be in a position to bridge these Americas many times and I will continue to do so at every opportunity, even as the gaps grow ever wider.

We are all of the same species with the same needs, but perhaps born into different circumstances which often change. Period.

I have seen heaven...

I have seen heaven, and it is Western North Carolina.

Imagine a place that is incomparably beautiful, quiet, away from TV or radio or newspapers or Internet, but with air conditioning and the best food in the world; a place that insists you find your own soul, and that compels you to express your personal creativity in a sharing and noncompetitive manner.  That place was where I have been.

My husband and I rather accidentally learned about the John C. Campbell Folk Art School through an ad I saw in the Artists’ Magazine last April or May.  I looked it up on the Internet and ordered the catalog.  Reluctantly – because somehow things rarely are as advertised – we registered for classes back in July and sent our money in.  My husband signed up for Nature Writing, and I for Drawing.

The trip began on a sour note, courtesy of Delta Airlines again; our flight from Houston to Atlanta was cancelled, we were switched to a Continental flight some three hours later, but of course our luggage was not.  So we arrived at the school late Saturday without any of my art supplies or my camera or the other things I think I can’t live without.  None of that showed up until Tuesday morning.

I was immeasurably stressed when we got there; but the dining room staff had saved some dinner for us and the student host gave us a map with our cabin circled in red.  On the reverse side of the map was a schedule of the week’s activities.  Classes were already meeting to get acquainted, and we each found our spots.  At 9 p.m. Morris came to find me, and without a flashlight we stumbled to our room, some distance away.

In spite of the relaxed environment, the trains do in fact run on time at the Campbell School.  Morning Song (a short musical program that I never got to) starts at 7, and breakfast is from 8:15 until 9.  If you snooze, you lose, and that goes for any meal.  However, there is homemade bread and peanut butter available for anybody who is hungry between scheduled meal times.  Classes start at 9, and the schedule is fairly tight the rest of the day, ending with some special activity or program after dinner.

Those are the details; the rest was enchantment.  Monday night there was a musical program of Appalachian music, sung by a couple of people who must have been 90.  The music affected me so deeply I was moved to near sobbing, and I had to ask Morris if we could leave early.  I still don’t understand exactly what happened, but since my paternal ancestry traces back to those mountains some three hundred years ago, maybe it was some genetic memory.  But it was a powerful experience I won’t forget.  Already I was hooked, and felt I had found my soul.

I have always been such a cynic, and a little ashamed of my Appalachian heritage.  After all, I have understood these people to have been described as ignorant moon-shiners, “poor white trash” and Deliverance-types.  (Who would want to claim that?)  But I found out that whether or not that description is fair, this ancestry is a deeply felt part of who I am.  Far from fear of terrorism, concern with politics or nuclear war, this place gave me a sense of safety and connection I haven’t felt since early childhood.

I bought a few books on the southern highlanders – people who came from Northern Ireland, the Scotch-Irish.  Their ways were different from other immigrants, and many of them were indentured servants when they made their way across the Atlantic.  When they had worked off their debts they drifted west from Virginia or wherever, and settled up in the Appalachians where they ate only what they could grow or kill.  They sang and they danced, adapting music from England and Ireland, and the culture eventually was blended with that of early African slaves and some hint of Cherokee.  

My own ancestors were here before the Revolution.  Eventually they drifted south, and then west, and ended up in Texas shortly before the Civil War.  But there is something left over that resonates deep within me.  The beauty, the silence, the natural environment, the foggy mountains early in the morning and the clear skies at night; the acorns on the paths, the loblolly pines, the plethora of butterflies and hummingbirds, the creeks and streams, these are the scenes of my early childhood and it still exists in Western North Carolina even if it has long since disappeared from Texas.

I am planning to go back.  But if I should die tomorrow, I don’t care; I have seen Paradise.  And I know where I belong.
  

New Domain

Finally I updated my website.  After I filed for a new domain name after the old one expired and the bureaucracy wouldn’t allow me to renew it.  Even though it was my own name.  Go figure.  So now my site is moved to AndreaFriedell.com from A.S. Friedell.com, through no fault of my own.  Somebody else now owns A.S. Friedell.com now, and I’ll be (bleep) if I’m going to buy it back from them.

Greg Palast’s new book is finished and is on the market in June.  Order your copy early and you’ll be part of the crowd… it’s a bestseller on Amazon already.  Greg has found a way to tell the entire story of our present status all in one book.  It’s getting too complicated to try and follow the news every night.  I end up switching to three or four different cable news channels just to get the important stories of the day.

I think it is sad that somebody either was or wasn’t raped at Duke University, and I hate that people go missing in Aruba, but in the case of the end of the world and priorities, I think the prospects of nuclear war started by Mr. End-Timer really needs to be the headline here.  And how is it that people who believe that they have to instigate Armageddon also think it’s important to get rid of estate taxes?  I mean, it’s either one or the other, right?

Still on the train...

Although I am certainly not a fan of hers, I have to give credit where it is due, I suppose.  Barbara Bush recently said something that resonates with me.  This is from today’s Houston Chronicle, covering the First Mother’s recent address at Texas A&M.

She described life as a train trip that will have a final stop for everybody.

“The true joy of life is the trip, so stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles,” she said.  “Instead, climb more mountains, read a book for fun… watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less.”

So, where was I?

So.. where was I?

The circumstance of Katrina and Rita and the exposure of the underbelly of what has been called civilization in this country, gives us all something new to ponder.  And I have learned a lot.

1. Adrenalin is a great thing and apparently is unaffected by aging.  It was on pure adrenalin that I was able to work some long days as a volunteer after Katrina.  I hadn’t done anything like that in years… yet it all came back naturally.


2. Electricity is a necessity.  The thought of living without electricity even for one day, much less weeks is what drove me to hysterically evacuate before Rita hit Houston.  Which it didn’t.


3. Gasoline is expensive.  I think the generation of my children will be the first to really make some changes in their lifestyle because of this.  If they were in the oil business, they’d be delighted.  Otherwise, it’s time for us all to go into the bicycle business.


4. We need to return to self-contained communities, where we can all walk (or ride horseback) to stores, schools, churches.  Alternative energy sources are not impossible dreams.  


5. And I think the funniest thing about self-preservation for this mother hen, is the immediate urge to have all my chickens under one roof.  Meanwhile I’ll look for a new prescription for anxiety medication.

Big fish and little fish

I feed the fish in my pond several times a day.  I have koi, goldfish and mollies.  Without fail, the koi always get to the food first.

Koi are the big fish.  The goldfish and the mollies are very small by comparison.  Sometimes, seeing the big fish grab all the food, I throw out another handful so the others can get another shot.  Yet, the big koi, like little water bulldozers will shove the goldfish and the mollies away from the food and gobble it down.

“Survival of the fittest,” I think to myself.  But are they the fittest because they tend to get the most food?  Is that maybe what makes them bigger?  In other words, are they the biggest because they’re big?  And what about the little fish, don’t they need to eat something?  They get only the leftovers, just enough to keep them alive.

As I watch the coverage of Katrina and hear about the deaths of the people who couldn’t afford to leave their homes, I see the victims as the little fish.  In many cases these people who stayed had no transportation even to the shelter.  Sometimes it was because they were handicapped physically and no one saw to it that they were moved.  I think it is no accident that the poorest neighborhood is the one where people were in their attics still crying to be rescued late yesterday, as live power lines and gas leaks kept the boats out of the area after dark and as the water kept rising.

The people in the long lines of traffic we saw leaving the area on Sunday had one thing in common:  they had automobiles and they had gasoline.  They had money for hotels, or they had contacts where they could stay – either a shelter or family on higher ground. They are the big fish.

In this case, the “big fish” are not being greedy, they are just better equipped to deal with a survival issue.  So what accounts for the difference between the two?  Why is it that some fish are bigger than others?  How is it that some people seem blessed with abundance and others are not?  Why are koi bigger than goldfish?  How do they become koi and not goldfish in the first place?  

This is not to say that well-equipped people aren’t suffering great losses in this hurricane season, but mostly it is property.  And I am well aware of the fact that many of the people who fled used their entire paycheck from last week to buy the gasoline and the hotel room and will quickly reach a financial dead end because their jobs have been lost forever to the waters.  But life is what I am talking about here.

I will wonder about this today.

Goodbye, Peter

Peter Jennings.

Hmmph.  (My daughter says I say “hmmph” a lot lately.  It just means I have concluded an important thought in my mind, or come to some conclusion.  Never used to do it this way.)

When Peter made his announcement in the spring that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, I was sad to hear it, but with people like Peter Giuliani and Lance Armstrong bouncing back from cancer, it never occurred to me that Peter would die any time soon.

I missed him during his sick leave, as well as what I was convinced was his input into World News Tonight.  Seemed to me the coverage was more about missing blondes and sports figures, not anything relevant to our lives.  

And then he died.  

Peter isn’t … Sorry.  Peter wasn’t that much older than I am.  And I smoked for 42 years, twice as long as he did.  I stopped inhaling only three years ago.  So do I go get one of those lung scans to see whether there’s any sign of abnormal cells?  And if I do and somebody decides it means lung cancer is incubating, then what?  My husband will probably insist I suffer through chemotherapy.   Well, it didn’t work for Peter.

The grief I felt for Peter’s death was not only because I believed I knew him, and that I believed we could all trust him to tell us about anything really important happening anywhere in the world.  He even told us about things I didn’t find important at the time, and learned later he was right on about.  If Peter had been in charge, everyone would have heard about the Downing Street Memo much earlier and more clearly; if Peter had been in charge, Cindy Sheehan’s camp-out would have been covered from its beginning, rather than waiting – as other editors did – until there was a pro-war group to cover at the same time.

I noticed a few years ago that Peter, like me, was getting a bit wide around the middle.  But he was still smart.  He could read a propagandized story with a straight face, then add a sentence at the end and let you know from the turn of his mouth that he really knew the truth and that we do too, if we think about it.  And each night now when I see Martha Raddatz reporting on Pentagon matters, I think how sad that Peter is gone and none of the bad things in the world have changed one whit.  Maybe he could have explained it better if he were here a while longer; people wouldn’t believe nonsense quite as often.  

I was 21 when John Kennedy died.  It was an end to an era, an idealism, a faith that things are always going to turn out okay.  

My shock and sadness now at having Peter Jennings taken away forever is a lot like my feelings were then.  
  

Ponderous

As I stumble into the dreaded abyss of aging, I grab for a handhold. Lately it’s painting or drawing, in an attempt to leave traces of myself.  Last year it was a book.  Next year, maybe another book.  But moving onward ever so slowly, I understand that I can stop only momentarily to leave a footprint.

Within the course of a year, I witnessed the birth of a grandchild and the death of that same child’s grandfather.  How frail, how fragile we animals are both at beginning and at end.

Rock and Hawk
by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts watch their own eyes.
This gray rock, standing tall on the headland,
Where the sea-wind lets no tree grow.
Earthquake-proved, and signatured by ages of storms:
On its peak a falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem to hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive, but this;
Bright power, dark peace, fierce consciousness joined
With final disinterestedness.

Life with calm death; the falcon’s realistic eyes and act
Married to the massive mysticism of stone.

Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.




As I experience aging, I remember Daniel Pearl.  Bobby Darin.  Marilyn Monroe.  John Kennedy.  They didn’t have the opportunity to plan for a facelift or maybe just Botox.

A child never said youth is wasted on the young.  Wisdom is only entrenched knowledge, our dreams of youth and we return to the music of those days, remembering mostly with fondness.  But was it real?  Perhaps the music and the memories are no more than revisited fantasies.  Our grief has selfish roots.

I cannot stay away from computer as analogy.  Dreams defragment the mind; a newborn baby’s mind a blank video card, much like the coma of one’s last hours. Surely there is no more dreaming in this deep sleep, the no operating system of dementia.