New Family Member

I present to you the marvelous, beautiful Jinx! Adopted from the St. Paul Animal Humane Society on Saturday, January 10, 2009.

You are beautiful

Luverne, Minnesota

Last weekend, three friends and I went to Luverne, Minnesota, in the southwestern corner of the state to attend the memorial service of a friend.



I had never been in that part of the state before. There farmland stretches as far as the eye can see and the landscape is flat or gently sloping. The earth is that Minnesota variety that looks almost black and is full of nutrients.



This was originally prairie land. The wind is awesome and a great place for the huge, odd newer windmill farms.



We went to Blue Mounds State Park, a huge stone cliff that rises 100 feet up from the flat plains. The entire cliff is two-thirds grass and one third rock, Sioux quartz, that is very colorful: red, blue and purple. From Eagle Rock you can see South Dakota and Iowa.



It is also the site of the only cactus native to Minnesota; a rather intimidating being that was not in bloom yet, but whose spikes were impressive.



It was a good place to say goodbye to a friend whose battle with cancer was long, miserable and heartbreaking. He is free now from all this. Flying with the birds he loved.

Love it

Another patriarchal oppresser is among us

Head on over to visit and congratulate Antiprincess for enduring 18 hours of labor and bring us our newest little patriarch, Wolfgang!

Minneapolis fire



This is a screen shot from an amazing slide show you can view here by local photography Tony Webster. Please visit and post your comments on the flickr site.

This is what happens when you try to put out a fire with water in sub zero temperature. Amazing ice sculptures. I don't recall ever being at this bar, but it's a mere couple of blocks from the collapsed 35W highway bridge. The neighborhood is having its problems.

Pretty Bird

Found this on reddit. Click on the link to see more bird photographs from Philippe and he lives in Grand Baie, Mauritius. The bird is a Red Cardinal Fody, aka Red Fody, native to Madagascar.

Sex Wars by Marge Piercy

I am totally in love with Marge Piercy's writing. I used to buy her books as soon as they came out. But in the last couple of years I've been slacking. So I've just finished reading Sex Wars: A Novel of the Turbulent Post-Civil War Period and I loved it, of course.

She makes obvious the commonality between activist women of 130 years ago and activist women of today. Piercy know activism because she has been and continues to be an activist. Here's her comment on the reason she chose to examine the later half of the 19th Century:

"I was attracted to the era after the Civil War because I found it had so many of the same divisions and conflicts as our own time. The role of women in the public sphere and in the family, the degree to which free sexual expression was valuable, permissible, tolerated or condemned, whether Church and State should continue to be separated or whether Christianity should be the official religion, as opposed to all the other religions found in the States – these are all deep divisions in our own time as they were then."

Class issues, sexual issues, race issues, labor issues all came crashing together for the activists then just as they force activists today to question our assumptions and broaden our horizons.

Women got screwed royally back then and I suppose the novel will provide fodder for those who haul out the "women have always been oppressed" line. What's valuable to me, however, is how Piercy shows that strong women survive and thrive, especially when they have the ability to analyze their oppression and figure out who is an ally and who is a self-serving git.

I'm going to be re-reading bits of this book and will perhaps post more of my responses. Mostly, I'm reveling in the sheer comfort and delight of spending time with a writer who understands feminism and classism and life in ways that are so familiar to me.

Beautiful writing

This post at La Chola moved me deeply.

When bfp talks about her father, she is sharing an experience that is almost the complete opposite of my own relationship with my father. But the beauty of this post, the way she frames it, fills my heart with understanding. This is the kind of writing we need in the world. This is the kind of writing that will show us that even though we have completely different experiences, we can connect and learn and grow. This is good in so many ways.

Times stops at Grand Central Station

Typographic Art

Lovely images and brilliant use of type at the website for Jeremy Pettis. I chose to display "Fruitbat" because my dearest cat of all time was named Fruitbat. Sweet!

Hey Belledame, he's even got an emu for you!

Fun!



And a link to a fil

Moveable type of a different kind

Via Social Design Notes, here's a lovely link to a video about the constitution:

More Perfect Union by Andrew Sloat

and

The 22nd Amendment by Andrew Sloat

Enjoy!

Feeling Good with Nina Simone

Beautiful motion graphics to an awesome song by the lovely Nina Simone:

A great man passes

Recently, the partner of one of the women in my book group, died after a long and difficult battle with cancer. I knew Peter only as a partner to Priscilla. We knew each other's names and could make pleasant conversation. But I can't say I ever spent more than 30 minutes in his presence.

I did know his work however, Peter was an ornithologist with a specialty. He could preserve birds as study skins or mounts for museums. The next time you see an exhibit that contains a preserved animal, you might notice something important: the people who do the work are not credited. Peter was one of those people.

The following is information I have discovered about Peter since his passing. I never knew what an amazing person he was.

Peter was a bird lover who was a walking encyclopedia on birds. He could mimic bird song and bird calls. He could describe the science and the behavior of hundreds of species of birds. The birds he used for exhibits were birds that had died from window strikes or vehicle strikes. He studied the bird's behavior and structure intensely so that he could arrange the mounts in realistic settings and positions. He was a scientist and a master craftsman.

Because I was Priscilla's friend, I had the opportunity to see many of Peter's birds in process. His craft involves tedious, patient practice that combines science and artistry. There are no taxidermy stores where you can pick up a few eagle eyes or falcon feathers to put together a bird. Peter began with a dead bird, but he would use anything and everything he could find to create a realistic looking model. He was self-taught and his amazing skill is lost with his passing.

He work is in the Smithsonian, in the museums across the world, and in DNR displays here in Minnesota. If you go to Lake Itasca, the birthplace of the Mississippi, you can see one of Peter's eagles.

So this is what I didn't know about the man I knew slightly and who has passed away recently.

His work was a passion and did not pay well. He had no insurance when he got sick and his care became Priscilla's full-time job. Because I did not know Peter well, I was not able to help as much as I would have liked. He did have many amazing friends and people who did what they could. The process of being ill and uninsured in the U.S. was a never-ending battle for the two of them. It was unbelievably frustrating and incredibly sad.

Priscilla has been forwarding eulogies from ornithologists expressing their memories and fondness for Peter and I am suprised to learn how widely respected and admired he was in his little corner of the universe. It seems I was in the presence of a genius and true artist, but I never knew it. Neither Peter nor Priscilla talked about his genuis or bragged about his accomplishments. To me, he was simply a nice guy, a good partner to my friend, and he had an unusual job.

This has reminded me that our fellow human beings can do amazing things, make awesome contributions to the world, and we may never know it. And, of course, it reminds me that capitalism sucks. Why should a man with his knowledge and skill be allowed to wither away without any real help? Why should his entire care be placed on the back of my friend, with no hope of relief?

I fucking hate cancer.

Edited to add:

I got together with Priscilla and a bunch of friends today. Apparently Peter was told there was nothing the doctors could do for him. He left the hospital and went into hospice care. Two weeks later, he passed.

I don't know what to say. I'm angry and I'm sad.

Don't miss it!

This awesome video is from the fabulous Sudy! Enjoy!

Carnival of Radical Action

Elle, Ph.D. and Vox ex Machina are hosting the next edition of the Carnival of Radical Action.

Here's the premise for #6:

Please get in your submissions for the Carnival of Radical Action.


...for the sixth edition of the Carnival of Radical Action, Vox and I want you to explore making radical history. How do we create and participate in radical history? And how do we chronicle it?

Some food for thought:
• How do radical activists incorporate history into their activism?
• What are the processes involved in forming radical, history-shaping movements in our day and age (i.e. how do we initiate, shape, translate into action our responses to injustice and violence against and within our communities)?
• How do we learn from the past and incorporate radical themes in our work?
Deadline for submissions is Thursday, November 29.

Good neighbor



I was driving home from the bookstore yesterday and found a new, wonderful neighbor sitting atop one of the elm trees that's been marked for Dutch Elm disease. A full-grown, white headed bald eagle. One of my neighbors was standing on the sidewalk staring up into the tree, which clued me into it. I pulled over and talked to her. She said it had been sitting there for 15 minutes or so. The top branches of the tree had already been stripped, so it looked like an old dead tree: something eagles love to roost in. The neighbor also said she'd seen him before flying in the neighborhood.

I live two blocks away and we have a resident pair off redtailed hawks that feed off the local pigeon population. But I'd never seen the eagle before.

I live in the inner city. Who'd a thunk?