Poetry, politics, peace and passion

2010-06-12T20:01:00.000-07:00

For the past five years I've been doing all my communication through my email list. There may be reason to come back to this blog soon. Daily blogging was easier when I was on employment haitus. I'm also on Facebook (isn't everyone?)

2005-09-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

I’d like to get in the habit of a morning expression instead of espresso, and not be so concerned about how perfect the writing is or who I will offend. I try to be respectful of my e-list because it is a privilege to appear in people’s mailboxes.

Just a few tidbits from my daily dose of democracy now: FEMA head Michael Brown fabricated parts of his resume, per Time magazine, his main qualifications for his job seem to be that the former head of FEMA was his college roommate and that he worked on W. Bush’s campaign. FEMA’s top three charities listed to donate to include Pat Robertson’s Operation Blessing. When questioned by reporters about why, Brown said they were doing good work. Aside from the fact that Robertson advocated assassinating Venezuela’s president a couple of week’s ago, his charity had been under indictment in the past for contributions going to private enterprises of Robertson. Details on www.democracynow.org.

Quote from Pacifica Radio news report: Reporters have witnessed the militarization of the city and are starting to feel the effects of the government crack-down on information gathering. FEMA is now rejecting requests by journalists to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims. In addition, journalists are being asked not to photograph any dead bodies in the region. NBC News Anchor Brian Williams reported on his blog, that police officers had been seen aiming their weapons at members of the media. And a blogger named Bob Brigham wrote a widely read dispatch that the National Guard in Jefferson County are under orders to turn all journalists away. Brigham writes: "Bush is now censoring all reporting from New Orleans, Louisiana. The First Amendment sank with the city."

Earlier this week, Reporters Without Borders issued a warning about police violence against journalists working in New Orleans. They highlighted two cases – in one case police detained a Times-Picayune photographer and smashed his equipment to the ground after he was seen covering a shoot-out with police. In the second case, a photographer from the Toronto Star was detained by police and his photos taken from him when police realized that he had snapped photos of a clash between them and citizens who the police claimed were looters.
Jacquie Soohen, (Independent film maker with Big Noise films. Among her films - "Zapitista" and "Fourth World War," who traversed the globe from South Africa to South Korea, from Argentina to Iraq) said a recent experience in New Orleans rivaled any tension and fear she had in her travels.

I think it’s all well and good that we at the Santa Rosa Symphony are doing a hurricane relief benefit, but I’m worried about where sincere people's money might be going and concerned about Halliburton once again profiteering on tragedy with its exclusive contract to rebuild the military bases on the gulf coast and with Kellogg Brown and Root, who "misplaced millions" in Iraq, setting up shop in Louisiana in displaced people camps. Dick Cheney, who was visiting Mississippi yesterday, got a couple of "go fuck yourself" from people in the crowd. I understand the sentiment but I wouldn’t myself degrade fucking in that fashion.

2005-08-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Listening to Amy Goodman and Democracy Now from 6 to 7 a.m. this morning started my weekend on a hopeful note. Cindy Sheehan’s "Camp Casey" demonstration outside W. Bush’s vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas has not only made The Daily Show, but has hit media around the world and has become a focal point for the largely forgotten suffering families who have lost children and husbands to the Iraq invasion and occupation .

Of course the families want to know why they were lied to about weapons of mass destruction, and want to know where the government’s ill-conceived policy is leading our country. Interesting that Colleen Rowley, the FBI whistle-blower, named Time Magazine Person of the Year for her revelations about intelligence before 9-11 is at Camp Casey talking about how the Iraq invasion and how occupation has given terrorism an incredible boost, has squandered the real possibility of world cooperation that followed the events of 2001. Gold star families, legislators, celebrities such as Lance Armstrong are participating, all in their own ways. A Minnesota state senator who lost her son, a former diplomat to Afganistan who resigned in protest at the time of Iraq invasion, all spoke eloquently, made me cry and smile. Cindy’s imagination and courage was the spark, she said as she left her vigil to attend to her mother who had just had a stroke, but now the "fire of protest is raging out of control. "

I urge you to read the statement below by former CA state senator and longtime (since Vietnam) peace activist Tom Hayden (he was one the the Catonsville 9--people I knew personally who poured blood on draft files during the Vietnam War and had a high profile trial and conviction in the sixties. Hayden and others have drafted a withdrawal from Iraq petition which you can read below and then go online and sign. This is something Progressive Democrats are supporting, although our old friend John Kerry (former eloquent Vietnam veteran against the war) couldn’t seem to get behind when he had the opportunity to do so.

I wish you at least one happy weekend, knowing that over 1600 vigils took place last Thursday in support of "Camp Casey" and Cindy Sheehan and the other mothers. It had top billing in our Press Democrat daily paper yesterday, covering a local vigil, with Santa Rosa war victim families.

Follow the link to the petition, please sign, and tell your friends and family about the proposal when they say "we just can’t up and leave Iraq." This is your answer.

Heartfelt desire for peace and justice and a thank you from me.
jennie

http://www.peace-action.org/home/08.16.05Hayden.html
http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/Peaceact/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=102

Use this link to see photos and read reports of the vigils in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey
http://www.political.moveon.org/cindyvigils/pics.html?&id=5916-379048-lQFbF3H4W_6X7QXbImRgjA&t=14

2005-08-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

Can it be that I haven’t posted to my blog since March? To ease back into it, let me post a poem I wrote after our so-called Independence Day. Seems I’ve written many poems following the Fourth of July holiday. It inspires me.

(July 5)

"Spins on ground, emits flames and sparks"
I picked up the small red cannister,
read and dropped it, an unthinking part of me
started to think the dud could explode.

Signs of last night’s celebration litter the asphalt
black-on-black shadows amid carboard and plastic
carnage. "No smoking" signs plastered on the abandoned
fireworks shed; two for one on selected items.

News broadcast says the Pentagon’s revised its strategy
no longer able to “fight two wars simultaneously
anywhere in the world.” Now it’s one war and protect
the homeland. Booms, crackles and the barking of terrified

dogs kept me awake. Remember the 70-day bombing of
what was once Yugoslavia? The elderly sisters wrote:
"noise more than the blood is driving us insane." In Iraq
a boy picks up the litter of war, a girl in Afganistan

spins on the ground, emitting flames and sparks.

© 2005 Jennie Orvino

2005-03-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

In light of the California court decision yesterday supporting marriage equality by declaring the state’s marriage law unconstitutional for discriminating against same sex partners, I want to share with you two pieces of writing by my long time friend Barbara. I’ve known her since she was 40 and I was 22, and we were involved in actions against the Vietnam War in the city of Milwaukee. She is now over 70, a minister, living with her partner in the state of Washington. The first excerpt is from an op ed piece she wrote for the local newspaper titled "God teaches us to accept others." The poem is, according to Barbara, where "I let my full feelings out better than I could in the editorial." I read an article last year that pointed out that marriage was seeming to be a dead institution until the gays and Mayor Newsom in SF made it glamorous again. The "traditionals" should be glad for the p.r. boost.

I’m sharing the poem and excerpt in celebration of love, and for couples of all persuasions; and to support the wonderful families that have two mommies or two daddies. As my friend writes: the more mommies the better!

Make love not war,
Jennie

from an op ed piece in The Olympian, 2/19/05

"My wedding day started early on a fine June morning in 2001. Flowers were needed to decorate the plain white cake, so my friend, Jennie, walked into the garden to pick some. Other friends went t the church early to decorate the reception hall and to set out tea sandwiches and fruit plates… My partner and I promised to love and care for each other for better or for worse…We remember that every day, through thick and thin. This is marriage…"

***

How can it be that some people in this town
with its cloudy skies and soaring gulls
can tear themselves away from watching the sunset
over the Black Hills, to make an issue
of Carol and me and our lesbian marriage?
Don’t they ever stop--and praise--and weep?
How come instead of solving the problems
of poverty and war, they’ve taken up
trying to ban gay marriage
as their new religious duty?

They believe--they really believe--
that Carol and I are damned for eternity,
unless we give up on our wayward
sinful lives and take Jesus-Christ-as-our-personal-
lord-and-savior. Wait a minute! I’m more
of a Buddhist than a Christian, but
I actually love Jesus, the guy who hung out
with the "unclean," those the Good People
shunned. The Jesus who said "love
your enemies" and who refused to be a king.

I find it hard to believe that this radical,
mystical preacher and teacher, who
was humble and cosmic at the same time
would judge Carol and me the way
these people who call themselves
Christians do. Of course we’re not
perfect. Like everyone we’re crabby at times
and selfish and we get distracted
by unimportant things like TV shows.

But these people!
They don’t want us to get married.
They don’t want us to kiss each other
or touch each other’s body in tenderness
and sleep in the same bed
and mix our breathing as we dream.

They don’t want people like us
to adopt abandoned and abused children,
or give birth to children, or raise
each other’s kids and make new families.
They say: "A child can’t have two mommies."
I say: the more mommies the better.
The more love the better.
The more good marriages the better.

They say Carol and I can’t be married.
We are married! In the eyes of God
and my children and grandchildren
and Carol’s children and grandchildren
and our friends who came to church
on a warm June day to sing and dance
with us and listen to us say our vows.
We made promises to each other
in the presence of not one but two ministers!
Two serious and funny gray-haired women ministers!

Don’t tell me that the Spirit of Love
and Goodness wasn’t with us that day.
Don’t even suggest that Jesus
wouldn’t have joined us that day in June 2001,
with his sad Jewish face lit up with smiles
and his bare feet moving in the dance
and he would eat our white cake, too.
I know he would.

To these so-called Christians I say:
lighten up! Walk around the lake
and watch the bufflehead ducks and
mergansers. Go help out at the Food Bank.
Or stay home and read Winnie-the-Pooh stories
to your children, and then make love
with your own beloved spouse.
And drop the anti-gay obsession.
You don’t need it to be happy.

© 2005 Barbara Gibson

2005-03-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

My friends say I’m a little crazy for setting my alarm for 6 a.m. each day to listen to Democracy Now with my favorite journalist and role model Amy Goodman and her wonderful crew, but it heartens me to hear the truth. While the talking heads jabber, I hear interviews with real people--the one who was picked up in a NY airport on his way home to his family in Canada and shipped to Syria to be tortured in prisons there for more than a year before returning uncharged with any crime to his shattered life. The U.S. policy of "rendition" for torture, now sanctioned by our attorney general.

Underneath the headlines, to hear the actual words of the Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena , held hostage in Iraq, who had been seen pleading for her life in video, whose release was negotiated by an Italian secret service agent over the weekend, only to have that same agent killed by American soldiers when their rescue car was fired upon on the way to Baghdad airport. Giuliana, unharmed by her Iraq captors, was wounded in the barrage of tank fire. She says there was no warning from the Americans, and that the car was travelling at normal speed. All of which contradicts the military version. The Italian people, already against the war, are even more furious now. Huge demonstrations at the agent’s funeral in Rome. We know this has happened to innocent Iraqis, and has happened to other journalists as well.

Listening further, the trial of Irish Peace Activists opposed to U.S. Military use of Shannon Airport has begun in Dublin. I was thrown back to the 1960s, non-violent direct action by the likes of the Fathers Berrigan. These are "Ploughshares" activists who hammered on aircraft, disrupting and trying to prevent these "pit stops" in their country. Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit was there to support: "I’ve been against the war on the Iraqi people since 1991, he said. Does anyone remember the first time we destroyed Iraq from the air with a few dozen casualties compared to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It amazes me that anyone can ask the question "why do they hate us?" but, according to "unembedded" reporters on the ground, Iraqis still give them hospitality, understand that half this country does not approve of killing them, poisoning them with radiation and killing their children with sanctions for 12 years.

Ah, nothing like a good rant on a Monday morning before work. Meanwhile, the government is refusing funding to high schools that won’t allow army recruiters on campus. The military "leaves no child behind." And even after a devastating report on "Oceans in Crisis", the Bush administration won’t give an ounce of funding to ocean research and education. I have to ask myself what more can I do, before it’s too late. In my lifetime, (which I admit is not that much longer) huge parts of our wonderful oceans could be damaged beyond repair. Is there no area or topic that can set the ordinary American on fire with activism? What will move us? More later.

2005-01-25T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'll be reading this piece on KRCB radio, 91.1 FM in Sonoma County (www.krcb.org) on the Word by Word show on Feb. 2. WbW just got an NEA grant and I'm proud to have co-produced it through its first year, and slightly into its second. I had the pleasure of interviewing many great writers, including poets Billy Collins, Nikki Giovanni and Diane DiPrima. The question, from Tiny Lights Magazine's "Searchlights and Signal Flares" writers exchange [www.tiny-lights.com] was WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM YOUR WRITING?

The question is not so much what do I want from my writing as what am I willing to give to my writing. I approach this-what is it, propensity, vocation, obsession?-like an intimate relationship which demands attention, care, respect, nourishment and a long leash. I also need to acknowledge that I write for the satisfaction of self-expression and sometimes for money. I love to read for audiences and I do it for the glory of the Muse and to get some of her reflected spotlight.

Each day I renew the commitment to my relationship "vows": pay attention, honor your process, be patient, read other writers, and "keep your hand moving."

Some writing is easy. Once a day, at least, I take up my journal to document, moan, rage, affirm, list and notice: Often I start with "today I celebrate myself for." whether I'm feeling blue or feeling high. As I did as I teen-ager, I write about requited and unrequited love. On the floor of my bedroom closet there are cardboard boxes full of 40 years of this stuff. For the gift of daily loyalty, my writing gives in return a container for my psyche, my Self. And when the Muse grins, I might find the seed of a poem in the pages of my diary.

My other easy writing is correspondence. I've always written letters, with special pens, stationery with matching envelopes, and cursive technique drilled into me by grade-school nuns. When I learned to type, I had a tiny corner desk, the Hermes manual, and a hand-painted, hinge-top box for stamps. And now, email! My passion, my delight, my marketing tool, my romance builder, my connection to hundreds, maybe thousands of like-minded souls. My longest-lasting friendships seem to be with those who "give good mail." And beyond the intimacy of deep electronic conversations, there's the gift of online magazines and instant publishing, which has connected me with writers around the world. For keyboards, electricity, DSL lines, chats and lists (a mixed blessing), and the ability to communicate with my fingers, I give thanks.

My journalistic and creative writing is more challenging, and. the greater the risk, the greater the reward. When I do meet a deadline, write something I'm proud of that pleases, provokes, inspires, I get a sense of "being who I really am, doing what I'm supposed to do." That sounds a little corny, but how else to say what I seek through writing is a feeling of wholeness, a relaxing into "aaahhhh, now that's more like it."

2004-12-25T10:38:00.000-08:00

I wrote this Dec. 11 but forgot to post it in my hurry to scurry to work.

"The United Church of Christ. No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here." NBC and CBS TV both rejected this ad--which shows bouncers working a rope line in front a church turning away a gay couple, a black girl and a Hispanic man--as "too controversial." To quote columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald, "The maggot eaters of Fear Factor are evidently OK to broadcast…but a commercial that says only that God’s love includes us all is too controversial to show?! Unbelievable."

I second that emotion.

"Unbelievable" is the word I’ve written and uttered the most in the past four years, but I may have to add something to the lexicon that is a whole lot stronger. The example above, indicating the bankruptcy of the American monopolized media, is unfortunately just one of many assaults on my (our) sensibilities. Last night, I happened to flip on the television while I was gobbling a late supper, to see a PBS Nova segment entitled: Life and Death in the War Zone.

The program had been made over a year ago (we must now assume conditions are much worse in Iraq) about the army field hospitals set up in conjunction with the American pre-emptive war. The outpost they examined was in the desert north of Baghdad, and the subject was doctors dealing with the "guidelines" on who they could treat and who they couldn’t with their "limited resources." All the tough decisions the head doctors had to make: A mother who brought in her 20-something son paralyzed by a missile that hit their house was a "no." Same for the Iraqi policeman whose stomach was infected from multiple shrapnel wounds, and the badly-burned two year old girl. Not enough supplies and beds to treat everyone, and of course, the American soldiers are first priority.

The Iraqi hospitals have no supplies, and haven’t had any for 10 years due to sanctions. Iraqi doctors were interviewed. "We have the knowledge to save people’s lives, but no medicines and supplies." The report then focused on a mother who brought to the American field hospital her 10-year-old daughter with lots of horrible burn and bomb injuries. But what was striking was how malnourished the girl was. Her arms were just bones. The report said the mother (I almost wrote "parents" but the Iraqi men are in jail or dead) hadn’t been able to get the girl to treatment because they were trapped in their house due to fighting. I don’t think a month of siege, though horrible, made that girl so agonizingly thin. Yes they tried all means to save her, were even going to fly her--the one exception that touched the young medic’s heart-- out of the country, but, well, she died before they could. A nurse cried, "I can’t take this--the children!) The dead girl’s mother wept, in the arms of one of the female nurse-soldiers (her head wrapped in a scarf). The docs put up a screen for privacy.

Nova reported this field hospital had treated 30,000 casualties (this was in 2003).

Now cut to a fully-equipped field hospital in Kuwait. They had personnel sitting around reading books, hadn’t seen one casualty since they opened. Nova reported, that particular hospital was subsequently abandoned.

I’ve gone to the Nova website and read the subsequent comments of the U.S. medical personnel interviewed in the film. They are so dedicated, work so hard, suffer a lot and do a lot. They will ultimately be casualties also, their memories, their stress. They also have had the opportunity to witness courage and be courageous.

And yet, and yet, as noble as it is, it is all so expensive and unnecessary. It never had to be done, the war was based on lies and greed, and while so many Americans and Iraqis suffer, the neo-cons and their corp cohorts and families enjoy their dinners, play their golf.

(Does anyone remember that this is ongoing suffering, with our awareness --or mine--just beginning during the Gulf War in 1991. Deaths of hundreds of thousands of children Marilyn Albright said were the price to pay for undermining Saddam (but sanctions didn’t work, did they? and we had to go on in and bomb this defiant oil rich country and occupy it.)

2004-11-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

Oh friends, I’m trying to maintain my optimism (who said "reserve pessimism for happier times"?) in the face of the horrifying reports out of Iraq. I commit to two hours a day of staying informed and praying, then I let it go… so I am able to work, cook, eat and sleep. .

An illegal invasion, an illegal occupation, war crimes committed by my government in the name of bringing democracy to the Middle East (from Abu Graib prison to the blatant killing of unarmed wounded) and now, Bush appoints as attorney general his crony, Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the memo saying the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to USA in terms of torture. And as secretary of state, the woman who lied to the country over and over, (from the 911 Commission to the push for war in Iraq), who, as national security advisor, ignored warnings of Bin Laden’s plan to attack our country… what is going on here?

Al Jazeera is forbidden to report in Iraq by the American government, a journalist from Al Arabia is arrested and still detained for being "unimbedded" (this is "freedom of the press" in Iraq), a city devastated and uncounted civilian dead in Fallujah. Do read the dispatches that Dahr Jamail, one of the only independent reporters right on the ground near Fallujah, sending daily reports to KPFA and Pacifica from that embattled area http://dahrjamailiraq.com/. (Can be heard on Democracy Now at 6 and 9 a.m. and Flashpoints at 5 p.m. on KPFA (kpfa.org, democracynow.org)

Last night, I heard interviews with several young Marines, still on active duty, who are telling it like it really is, the stench of death and destruction they have witnessed, the deeds they have done. More and more of these soldiers are finding ways to articulate how they feel about the Iraq occupation, the toll it is taking on both their physical and mental well-being. They sound like hardly more than boys, and their words break your heart.

An exhibit which includes these interviews is now at the Yerba Buena center 415 . 978 . ARTS ( 2787 ) in San Francisco, and you can find out more about the artist-filmmaker at www.eliaarce.com. Her piece is called "The Fifth Commandment."

Latest news: the Republican congressional leadership has revised their own ethics rules to allow INDICTED members, like majority leader Tom DeLay, to continue serving. How embarassing and unbelievable that the first act of these congresspeople would be to lower their ethical standards! Of course, the example comes from the top: if the President and Vice President can lie as a matter of course, and in the face of all evidence to the contrary, and war criminals can be re-elected, why should I be surprised that the Republicans would enact such a vote?

My hour is up. Until next time (to quote Jennifer Stone), "Go easy, and if you can’t go easy, go as easy as you can."

2004-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

Written Nov. 4 Reactions to the election

As I write, a full scale attack on Fallujah is taking place. Even if John Kerry had won the White House, I think this would be the policy. As a veteran who was once eloquently opposed to the war in Vietnam, Kerry said several times in the debates how he would "find the terrorists wherever they are and kill them." He danced and danced around saying the word "liar" about W. Bush, but "kill" rolled off his tongue pretty easily. For the people of Iraq and their many, many years of suffering, there is no good news ahead.

I believe there was mass voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Marking my paper ballot with a black pen at the polling place in Rohnert Park, I could not imagine waiting in line for 4, 6, 10 hours in the rain to vote, as they did elsewhere in the country. (The blessings of being suburban and white.) What about the votes in Ohio that didn’t add up right? Lawsuits abound. We on the left are aware of Greg Palast’s work, of the work of www.blackboxvoting.org. Even if John Ashcroft lets voting information out through the Freedom of Information Act (not likely since he has weakened it so much), there is no way that this election can be reversed. So why not concentrate on building an electoral process we can trust? That is something worthy to work for, that is do-able.

My favorite commentator so far has been Van Jones, heard on the radio this morning and via the internet http://ellabakercenter.org.

He reminds us of the coalitions that have been built, the uninvolved citizens who have become involved, and that the progressives need to learn how to lead. He spoke of "lead-ism" instead of elite-ism. Rather than calling the people who voted for Bush "stupid," let’s start taking up issues that Bush has ignored with the same vehemence that Karl Rove has sparked people about Gay Marriage.

How about big issues that affect people directly like poverty, infant mortality, health care, jobs, the deficit, superfund sites around the country whose deadly pollution may never be cleaned up, global warming, all the treaties that Bush refuses to sign (including things like the chemical weapons treaty) treatment of veterans, nuclear proliferation, depleted uranium weapons, and on and on. What are our progressive VALUES, not policy and statistics, but values.

People who think the right has a lock on religion and spirituality have only to look at the long history of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and the work of priests like the Berrigan brothers, Father Roy Bougeois and all the church people behind the ongoing protests of the School of the Americas, the spirituality of Starhawk, Mathew Fox, etc. etc.

Liberation movements around the world have suffered much more bitter losses than our election, many many lives have been lost and years of struggle engaged in to "win." (I am thinking of East Timor at this moment. There are others.) Those reformers and revolutionaries would be amused that after a few years or months of disappointment, folks want to bail. My favorite columnist, Mark Morford, (sign up for his newsletter Notes and Errata at www.sfgate.com/columnists) told this story in last Friday’s column:

"…And besides, most hardcore Republicans would, of course, love it if you'd leave the country, and take your gul-dang gay-lovin' tofu-eatin' tree-huggin' pierced-labia values with you. They would love it, furthermore, if the libs in the morally-shredded red states would split for the coastal cities and the major metropolises of America, all those godless heathen places where the neighbors won't yank the Kerry/Edwards sign outta your front lawn and chase you down and beat you with it and call it patriotism. Remember: bullies never deserve to own the playground.

Morford continued: "One of the most stirring e-mails I received during the outpouring of grief the day after the election was from a young female reader, ‘an artist, an intellectual and a Jew’ who's been living in Mexico and who now says she's so enraged and saddened by the election's ugly outcome that she's preparing to return to the States ASAP, just so she can help, so she can join the resistance, keep the right-wingers from coming after our souls. Now, that's patriotism.

"The bottom line: Don't disband the newfound army just because one ugly battle was lost. … It’s far from over. The tunnel is just a little darker -- and longer -- than we imagined."

I agree with Morford and Jones. In addition, I will continue to write poetry, host Potlucks for Peace, and make my meager contributions to strengthen and build alternative media networks to counter government propaganda and break the consolidated corporate media monopoly’s stranglehold on our nation’s heartland

2004-09-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES FOR SHOW ONLY
After watching Bill Moyers' NOW program last night on PBS TV, I will probably forego the presidential debates. Moyers interviewed George Farah, the author of No Debate, who revealed all the secret agreements between the candidates not to ask each other questions, to pick the journalists and moderators, to screen the questions at the "town hall" type debates and not allow any followup questions (after a a young black woman asked during the GWBush, Perot, Clinton debate asked "how has the economic downturn affected your personal life and how will that make you better able to understand what American families are going through?" and he blubbered through without answering).

The program also pointed out that while the League of Women voters originally sponsored the presidential debates, they bowed out at a press conference in 1980s as the process became more corrupt. There is also a scene where Barbara Walters, a moderator at one debate, disgustedly announces that "these are the only three journalists the candidates could agree on to question them." Now, the "Committee on Presidential Debates" while sounding official, is totally corporate sponsored (do visit http://www.pbs.org/now/ to get all the details) and guarantees that no real "debate" which is by definition confrontative and face to face, will take place. Important issues aren't raised, third party candidates are excluded, and democracy is undermined once more.

Moyers showed an amazing edited clip of the "debate" between Al Gore and Dubya Bush where they said agreed with each other nearly ten times, and Bush even refers to the event as a "love fest"! It was also amazing to see Bush turn to Jim Leherer, who moderated, when Gore "broke the rules" by asking Bush a direct question. Bush was like a kid turning to the teacher who then told Gore, "you're not allowed to do that," so Bush smirked and sat silent.

I wish the entire country could have seen that program and I urge you to both get Farah's book, No Debate and check out any repeats of the program (usually on at 1 in the morning, but set the recorder). For Bay Area people, NOW is on KQED, Channel 9 at 10 p.m. on Fridays.

This is my first of three today. It's Saturday, and I'm on a roll.

2004-08-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Good New; Bad News
Spent 2 and a half days in San Francisco talking about orchestras and listening to classical music, sleeping in a beautiful room on the 21st floor of a hotel overlooking San Francisco. I was at my first conference of the Association of California Symphony Orchestras for my new job. It was refreshing to explore "the ordering of sound in time and space in order to communicate through the language of music, something of what it’s like to be alive."

I know many of my brothers and sisters world-wide are struggling to stay alive and many are not succeeding. I glanced at a newspaper, but mostly tried not to. The good news I did see was the "Vote for Change" tour by Bruce Springsteen along with twenty bands and individual performers who are headed out on the road to give a series of concerts in battleground states. The entire proceeds will go to MoveOn and Americans Coming Together for media advocacy in the run-up to the election. Here’s a quote from a longer piece by Springsteen in the 8-5-04 edition of the NY Times:

A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.

The bad news outrages me. I learn that the U.S-installed government in Iraq has re-instituted that country’s death penalty and has shut down Al Jezeera media network! This is the brand of democracy being foisted upon Iraq and other victims of what I consider to be a very deranged American administration. (recommended film: The Control Room).

Even moderate NYTimes op ed writer and economist Paul Krugman is being put "on vacation" for exposing Dubya Bush’s lies and misinformation. He was shouted down by Bill O’Reilly last night in a TV interview, in what Krugman said was "one of the worst experiences of my life, next to my recent surgery." Ei yi yi!

2004-07-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

"The People’s Lobbyists"
I remember when I was a teenager, all the networks had convention coverage all day long and it was a great way to get me out of the house during the last week in July. Now, the major networks give us one hour in prime time (there’s always cable) for celebs like the Clintons (to quote SF Gate columnist Mark Morford, "come back, Clinton Sex Nation"). However, what strikes me most about the coverage is the implementation of a full blown police state in Boston and the caging of free speech.

Check newspaper photos of the "protest pen"-- a cage, resembling the detention area of Guantanamo, with razor wire, chain link fence, wire netting over the top. This is an affront to the first amendment--the right of people to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances--and was somehow upheld by the courts after being challenged by ALCU and others. And this was for only about 3000 individuals wishing to express their views to the Dem convention delegates. What is going to happen when 4 times that many want to give a message to the Republicans? Media Benjamin of "Code Pink" and Global Exchange, says we should stop using the word "protesters" and instead say "the people’s lobbyists." I couldn’t agree more.

Here's the word from the Kucinich delegates on the convention floor: they were not allowed (by the Kerry security squad) to wear "peace scarves" or to have any signs that mention the word "peace." This is too off-message for Mr. Kerry and company. Very sad that such a strong popular force for anti-militarism and anti-imperialism, (much stronger in mainstream politics than it was in the sixties "protest" era), trying to operate "within the system" has been so thwarted.

And the Dems, while not denouncing the caging of free speech, will also not mention a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq or anywhere else. How can America, or the world, even get the message of our dissent, when we have to fight even to EXPRESS our dissent?

Oh dear. Next time I write about Tango!

2004-07-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve been so concentrated at my new position with the symphony, and finishing up a feature article about the passion of dance (Argentine tango and Flamenco) that I’ve missed my log. Have you missed the news that plans are being made to cancel our presidential election in November if there’s a terrorist attack? This really scares me, more than any outside threat.Some Vietnam era activists and political people, like Tom Hayden, are more concerned about the elections in Iraq. If the new martial law/CIA-connected prime minister of Iraq and the U.S. ambassador John "death squad" Negroponte continue to be in charge there, let’s kiss our tax money, our prosperity and our next generation goodbye.

I also just read an article about the dozen points that define a fascist state (based on studying Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy), and, cry my beloved country, it fits contemporary USA to a T. Speaking of fascism, did I mention the film The Corporation? A must-see twin to Farenheit 9/11

Consider the recent rigged vote in Congress in which the Republicans held the voting open past the allotted time in order to change the balance in their favor. It was on the provision of the Patriot act that allows FBI to investigate what citizens are taking out of the library. A passionate speech by Independent representative Bernie Sanders followed the vote: "The ball game is over after 9 innings, and whoever has the highest score wins. You don’t extend to 18 innings to get your way. Shame on you," he said, followed by the Democrats chanting "shame shame, shame."

That chant seems to apply to everything I hear on the news. Including Bush and Cheney in super denial about every report and every official commission that says they were wrong to invade Iraq and murder thousands of Iraqi civilians, hundreds of American soldiers, and to blind, wound, and cripple almost 10,000 of our service people. Check out Bill Moyers report on American wounded in the Iraq occupation and their treatment from July 2 broadcast of NOW. (Friday nights at 10 on PBS.)

Ariel Sharon has the same case of denial and refusal in response to the ruling against Israel’s Apartheid wall by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. (14 to 1 saying the barrier, which cuts into Palestinian land and cuts people off from their schools and livelihoods, is in violation of International Law. (The U.S. was the sole vote against.) Not surprising, however, that Sharon would say he’s not tearing down the wall. Israel’s occupation itself is in violation of International Law and has ignored numerous United Nations resolutions since 1968.

I recommend a film that was shown June 3 on PBS, Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, which examines the role of media in shaping opinion around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. www.pbs.org

2004-06-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

So glad I spent the longest day of the year on the tango dance floor. Miriam Larici and Hugo Patyn, performers formerly with "Forever Tango," were the guest artists at the one-year anniversary of the Sausalito milonga. So far, studying tango is the singlemost thing that has changed my life since January, and I congratulate myself for taking the chance on classes. I’ve made some great new friends, including my teachers Gustavo Hornos and Jesica Salomon, and just finished writing an article for the local weekly on the tango/flamenco dance phenomenon. Hopefully when published it will have an online link. I’ve put up a recent poem too, about my relationship to dancing shoes (!) See below.
***
My friend Bill is in Cuba right now, allowed on an educational mission that will soon be forbidden if the Bush government has its way. Our so-called president is trying all means of regime change in that tiny country which has been under US sanctions for more than 40 years. Even invasion is on the table! Despite claims of oppression and lack of freedom due to the Cuban revolution (and ouster of U.S. multinationals and mafia), the Cuban people have been more harmed by U.S. policy than they have by Fidel.

Meantime, people in Florida are being prosecuted for organizing a sailboat race to Cuba to the tune of $15,000 fine (see national lawyers guild website http://www.nlg.org/news/statements/cubatravel2004.htm for more details of the rules that are to go into effect June 30. The lawyeer in charge of this aspect of the NLG’s work is Art Heitzer of Milwaukee, my friend from the anti-war, anti-draft days of the 1960s when I lived in that great Wisconsin city.)

Other rules seriously restricting Americans’ freedom of travel (do we live in a democracy?) include limiting the amount of cash brought to Cuba by travelers to $300 (down from $3,000) and forbidding gifts or goods being brought back to our country. Also Cuban Americans can only visit immediate relatives once every three years. Geez! Think Buena Vista Social Club, think Elian Gonzales, think about those wonderful drummers and musicians from Cuba you have heard and danced to. All this while the terrorist responsible for the shooting down of a Cuban airliner years back is living in protected exile on the east coast of this country. Geez again.

I always have more to say, but this is what’s up highest this beautiful California morning. (15 days until I’m back to 9-5!)

If the Foot Fits
for Jesica and Gustavo

See the bend of his knee, the crease of his slacks breaking
just so over patent leather shoes. With legs intertwined, they
hook and spin each other, twin wind-blown seeds; her steps flick,
flirt like a mare’s tail. From within the Tango embrace,
she pivots, turns, rises, at the will of her high-heeled, pointed
dancing shoes. The shoe commands the body

to reinvent its movement. Clicked three times, the sparkling
ruby pumps sent hapless Dorothy home from the land of Oz;
glass slippers revealed Cinderella as the future queen. Oh—
coveted scarlet shoes that danced a girl to death
in Andersen’s pleasure-hating fairy tale, I want to tame you,
and claim you for my own. A ballerina cries on pointe

for her blood in the lamb’s wool, remembers the bound,
broken feet of China’s daughters. Fashion models
sculpt their toes by surgery to get a perfect fit;
Red Shoe Diaries glorify sexual fetish in footwear. But—

for real heat—take me to the byways of Buenos Aires,
where I’ll trade my flat-heeled sandals for hand-made suede,
black mesh, or red leather Tango shoes, and flash a ring of gold
through the open toe, burnish the wooden floor with many ochos.

2004-06-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve joined Veterans for Peace as an associate member after reading their newsletter and seeing a presentation at the Sonoma County Peace and Justice center. No one struggles harder to keep their humanity than the soldiers, who by draft or choice, carry out the policies of governments who lie and deceive. My experience during the Vietnam era, my compassion for my former brother-in-law and others with post-traumatic stress disorder, and my study of the now-overt global domination intentions of a military-industrial-corp. media cabal require me to make the humble contribution of $25 to this organization.

I was impressed with vet Brian Wilson’s "Open Letter to John Kerry on Iraq" reminding his former comrade in Vietnam Veterans Against War of their fast on the steps of the Capitol in 1986 and Kerry’s articulate testimony before Congress upon return from that war. (You might remember Wilson being run over by a weapons train in Concord, CA --and losing both his legs--during a 1987 protest of U.S. military support of Central American dictators and CIA dirty wars).

I was moved by the "Arlington West" project of the Santa Barbara Veterans for Peace. Each Sunday they set up on the beach a small white cross for each American soldier killed in Iraq. A list of the names, cities of origin, age and circumstances of death of each soldier is kept at a table, with supplies so that passers-by can make a card and fasten it to a cross. Flowers and the intermittent playing of "Taps" are also part of this interactive scene. Imagine the power of tourists coming upon 800-plus white crosses in place of sand castles.

Both my brother and my father spent their military service in the medical corps, decisions I applaud them for. Unfortunately, my father saw plenty of WWII combat and came home with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He also came home with a blind right eye, a deaf right ear and much shrapnel still embedded in his body. Other daughters and sisters have not been as lucky as I was, and even those whose loved ones did return, found they were damaged beyond repair. The families suffered, some are still suffering, more than 30 years later

Take some time to check the following website: www.veteransforpeace.org and its links to other groups such as Military Families Speak Out and Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

I should know better than to promise poems. I just spent two hours writing an essay about my father, "Remembering the Blue Tango Man" which is too long to post here. After I run it through the gauntlet of my writing group, perhaps it will appear in the full-length manuscript I’m trying to have finished by July 29, my birthday!

2004-06-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

I admire Pacifica Network’s Democracy Now, hosted by Amy Goodman, for focusing this entire week on the legacy of Ronald Reagan (titled"Remembering the Dead"). The program’s guests have revealed a different story from what the mainstream papers and TV have aired in their "revision of history."

Remember Central America in the 1980’s: Guatamala and Honduran death squads, the Iran Contra scandal and opposition to the Sandanista government in Nicaragua? The U.S. was censured in the World Court for its activities in Nicaragua; (the U.S. ignored the ruling, and refused to make amends). The same criminals and liars who were prosecuted during the Iran Contra scandal are back in the G.W. Bush administration, like Elliott Abrams and John Negroponte, (famed for covering up and excusing the murder and torture of many Catholic priests, nuns and activists in Honduras). The death toll in all of Central American during the California cowboy’s presidential years was huge.The Texas cowboy president will have a similar legacy.

You can see/hear this week’s worth of shows in the archives at www.democracy now.org. If any of you have an NPR or local community TV station, ask them to carry this Pacifica Network daily program. I can’t recommend it enough. I have been listening literally non stop since the summer of 2001

Some notes after today’s "breakfast with Amy."

I was so busy surviving psychologically and financially in the 1980’s that I didn’t really get the whole story of the invasion of Granada by U.S. Marines under Reagan. Using the excuse that the elected government of Maurice Bishop was left-leaning and training Cuban communist terrorists to attack other countries in the region, the small island nation was attacked following a military coup that killed prime minister Bishop. Of course, many Granada civilians were killed.

Democracy Now also examined the Reagan administration in the Middle East, specifically during the Iran-Iraq war, one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern times in which more than a million people were killed. Chemical weapons were used and two of the most ancient societies on earth were devastated. Iranian human rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and journalist Alan Friedman spoke about how the Reagan administration armed Iran and normalized relations with Iraq, selling weapons to both sides of the conflict.

During Reagan's 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. Democracy Now looked at America's role in Afghanistan that led to the rise of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda with Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.

And finally, closer to home and to my heart, the program looked at the Reagan administration’s blatant refusal to deal with the issue of AIDS while thousands of Americans were dying from the disease. An interview with Andy Humm of Gay USA who confronted Reagan in 1987 when he first addressed the issue near the end of his second term. We still see today that while lip service is given by G.W. Bush, anxious to be seen as a "compassionate conservative." the money does not follow. In fact, AIDS service groups across the U.S. have been harassed and had resources drained by unnecessary federal audits in addition to budget cuts.

Is that enough of a rant? It’s just because the Ronald Reagan worship is making me a little sick. Next installment, I promise poetry.

2004-06-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Happy and relieved are the words for today. Beginning July 6, I will be working for the Santa Rosa Symphony as Marketing and Development Associate. I met with the fantastic group of dedicated administrative staff and executive director on Monday and yesterday they offered me a job. It’s been a long five months of searching for something that fits both my skills and interests. Music performance, arts education, and commitment to community are high in my values hierarchy.

As one of my references said, "Congratulations. I think the this will be a very good fit for what you want to do and, as importantly, the way in which you like to do it."

The Symphony is celebrating the final season with maestro Jeffrey Kahane as music director with a fabulous line up of concerts. And, in Fall of 2006, is scheduled to make its home at the world-class Green Music Center under development in partnership with Sonoma State University. I’m delighted to be part of this truly exciting period in the Santa Rosa Symphony’s 75 year history.

And, by the way, yeeeeeehaaaaa and hoooooray!!!!

2004-06-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

Film Review by Jennie To reward myself for 25 solid hours of job hunting activities this week, I went to a 4 p.m. showing of The Day After Tomorrow. It’s the exaggerated (in time frame only) story of a world climate change crisis. It was very engaging and held some interesting ironies, like the U.S. having to forgive Mexico’s debt so they would open their borders to refugees fleeing south to escape killer snowstorms. The sight of Americans slogging across the Rio Grande into Mexico brought a big huummpph out of my mouth. The vice president-- who looked a little too much like Dick Cheney-- has a change of heart when he becomes president and admits he’s been wrong, on national television. Another rarity that happens only in the movies!

Well, I recommend this flick. And I applaud the moveon.org campaign [http://action.moveon.org/dayafter/ ]
to use it to encourage discussion and questioning. The Bush administration is not only in denial, but has censored reports of scientific fact on the topic. Global warming, a result of the polluting policies and addictions of the northern hemisphere, will cause biological crises too. In The Day After Tomorrow, the "third world" turns out to be the savior of the "first world" people left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

The movie is simple enough for masses to get the message, and has humor, compassion and a little love story as well. New Yorkers might not like the images of their city, but I didn’t leave depressed.

2004-06-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

It’s a happy Friday. I’ve just giggled over my coffee as Gore Vidal was speaking with Amy Goodman (on democracynow.org) about his new book, Imperialism and the United States of Amnesia. My poet colleague whose car was stolen and returned trashed with stereo and 150 CDs missing, is in bliss this morning since his wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Genevieve. Continuing the affirmation of life, my friend Z. is 5 months pregnant. More congratulations. And I woke up with the feeling that somewhere in this metro area of millions there might be a person interested in having an intimate relationship with me. All this and the sun hasn’t yet emerged from the fog.

Here’s what I read when I’m blue— student reaction papers from a Sonoma State University "Health, Sexuality and Society" class where I have appeared twice as a guest speaker.

The professor wrote, "You really got them this time! What a gift you have for the written and verbal art of sensual/sexual expression…Class members each write two opinion papers during the semester and the choice of topics is solely theirs…For students to devote whole papers to one thing is very special because the competition is tough. And you did it, with poetry to a class full of business majors no less!"

Excerpts from student comments: "When you announced that we would be listening to erotic poetry, I groaned internally. Generally, I despise poetry. Looking at her, I thought to myself, ‘How could this little lady write erotic poetry, she is as old as my mother?’ I was ready to tune out, but the second she opened her mouth, I was captivated. Her poetry was intense and powerful. I don’t think I would be able to tune her out even if I tried. I was very surprised at the effect her poetry had not only on me, but also the entire class. As I looked around the room, I could see that I wasn’t the only person who was being captivated by her awesome words. There was one poem in particular that actually gave me goose bumps…At first I found myself blushing a little, but when she got to the end, I was amazed! Her words were so strong and truthful. I liked her so much that later that day I went to her website and read more of her poetry. I am not saying that I like poetry any better, but this particular speaker was really able to get through to me and help me appreciate poetry a little more."

"The dirty nasty connotations of her poems were beautiful. We think those things deep down inside, but never really express them. I guess you could say it was instinct explained, or at least to me."

"I felt I was like a mirror to Jennie, as her voice and lyrics of her poems seem to vibrate with intensity. I would almost leap out of my seat, sitting more erectly, with the small of my back arched completely. It was like she was my lover I have never known, with me completely in the pitch of her voice, completely unsatisfied until the end of her poem. I remember thinking, Oh man, I don’t think I could leave my seat even if I wanted to! I was captivated, enthralled, stoned-like, captured by her poems and her locomotion of ups and downs. I have never heard anyone speak so well."

"It seemed to me that this woman, who was maybe 50 years old or more, had the spunk and libido of an ex-swinger from the hippie era. Now to put my reaction to Jennie in perspective, at the beginning of class, I saw her and I just was not that excited. I would have listened intently just because of the novelty of a poetry reading because I have never been to one before. I certainly did not expect Jennie Orvino to be full of sexual energy in which she radiated as she spoke, nor her sexually explicit symbolism, nor her sweetened-honeyed voice. This husky, but not brutish voice and her instinctively knowing when to lay it on thick, to accelerate in intensity or to slow down to anticipation, hanging on to every word, every syllable as she spoke...

"When she started to read and we, the audience really did not know what to expect and some girl in the back gasped, like she was in shock and surprised that Jennie would use such vulgar language in her poem. That was great! I love it when people are pushed to the edge and surprised at what they find. I remember myself chuckling as the girl gasped. At that point, I knew with no doubt in my mind, that I was in for a one in a million speaker, writer and woman."

2004-06-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

A new "stop loss" order is preventing military and reservists from leaving the U.S.’s two current wars. Those looking forward to the end of their term of duty must now feel like conscripts. Our "free" country… No one knows better from experience how tragic and impossible the Iraq occupation is than those on the ground. I urge all to support the national day of protest on Saturday, June 5, in San Francisco, Washington and elsewhere. I know I think about this every day, same as I did in the sixties, as the deaths pile up by twos, threes, tens. All unnecessary. Will my grandchildren be visiting a tourist memorial with a hundred thousand names from the 21st century oil wars?

Recommended: David Rovics’ new CD Songs for Mahmud. To me, he is the quintessential protest songwriter/performer of our era, taking on the most unpopular of subjects (like the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the huge apartheid wall there, School of the Americas, police abuse at the FTAA demonstrations and many other topics, some known and unknown to me. He educates with poignancy. And keeps his sense of humor (consider the cut "Moron" about you-know-who).Check him out at www.davidrovics.com. Available are plenty of free MP3 downloads.

Tomorrow I’ll share some of the great term papers from SSU students commenting about my guest poet appearance in their class. That, along with showing "Faces of Ecstasy" to a multi-aged group of a dozen women last week helped me feel like at least part of my life is exactly on purpose and in alignment with my mission of making love not making war.

Two more items on the political front. A young man in Boston was arrested for this act of street theatre: He covered his head with a hood, his body with a robe, put stereo wires on his fingers in imitation of the now-famous picture of the torture of Iraqi prisoners, and stood on a milk crate in front of a recruiting station in silent protest. He was arrested on charges that could get him 20 years in prison. Let’s hope the district attorney in Boston remembers our bill of rights.

How interesting that the following people were hired by the Pentagon, etc. to run the prisons in Iraq. This excerpt from the website of Democracy Now with Amy Goodman (radio and free speech TV as well as democracynow.org):

It Happened Here First: Exporting America's Most Notorious Prison Officials to Abu Ghraib

One man ran a prison system in Utah where a 29-year-old schizophrenic died after he was stripped naked and strapped to a restraining chair for 16 hours.

Another man ran the system in Arizona where 14 women were raped, sodomized or assaulted by prison guards.

Another ran Connecticut's prison system where at least two people died after being severely beaten.

All of the men who ran these prison systems were forced out by lawsuits or political controversy. But rather than being sent to prison themselves, these men were sent to Iraq by the US government to set up the prisons there. Actually, one prison - Abu Ghraib.

We speak with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who was the lead counsel in a 1997 lawsuit brought by Angie Armstrong, who sued the State of Utah after her son died in custody. We also speak with attorneys Mark Donatelli and Antonio Ponvert, who both deal with criminal justice issues, as well as Donna Brorby, who was lead counsel in a class action suit brought by prisoners in Texas.

2004-05-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

I just wrote for 40 minutes and lost it in a computer crash. Deep breath...

Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911 has won the grand prize at Cannes, the Palme d’Or. The first documentary in 50 years to do so. He received a long standing ovation, as he told the world’s top film representatives: "There are millions of Americans just like me and I am just like them." I am part of those millions who want to end the Iraq war (invasion and occupation). More than 800 American soldiers and more than 10,000 Iraqis (this does not count the million, two million? children who died as the result of 12 years of U.S. imposed sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War). Michael Moore said he wanted to devote the rest of the year to changing America’s course, that those who died "won't have died in vain." This made me ask, am I doing enough?

I cried over my toast this morning listening to a ex-Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey of North Carolina who spoke with Amy Goodman on Pacifica Network’s Democracy Now. He admitted that U.S. treatment of Iraqi civilians is fueling the Iraqi resistance. He spoke about "lighting up" cars passing checkpoints during last year’s Baghdad invasion. So many terrified civilians fleeing for their lives, with their families, possessions, money. "We would just put their dead bodies in a ditch by the side of the road and let the Iraqi medics take care of them." He spoke of a child who died in his arms, and the father asking, "Why have you killed my child?" The brother of two men blasted to bits in a car when they didn’t understand the stop order, who looked at him with such hatred. "All those thousands of dead have brothers and cousins and sons who hate us…"

When the sergeant complained to his superiors about the policy that was killing so many innocent civilians, he was reprimanded, sent back to the states, hounded out of the military after 12 years of service. "I’m not a conscientious objector, I believe some wars have been justified, and we went over to serve our country. But we are seriously violating all the rules of engagement, the Geneva Conventions. What we are doing amounts to genocide."

His final words were spoken directly to his brother Marines, and even now my throat closes with emotion as I remember how he encouraged them to "do what you know is right." For transcript: www.democracynow.org

What is right for me now? I’m in the final process of two job interviews, I’m writing newspaper articles, taking tango class, doing my creative work, and I ask what am I committed to, how much do I want to participate with the likes of Michael Moore, Rabbi Michael Lerner of Jewish Voice for Peace, the independent journalists of Free Speech Radio News, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and the spiritual social activists like Dan Berrigan and Mathew Fox? Psychologically, I’m right back to 1968 when I was making the choices about school vs. peace work that changed my direction. What is the life change am I looking for this week, or next?

The computer crash put me behind and helped me forget the rest of the rather excellent rant I started with. I let go of that minor loss, and consider something else: retaliation and the cycle of violence.

If anyone has reason for angry revenge, it is Michael Berg, the father of the young U.S. contractor who was beheaded recently by his Iraqi captors. But Berg, in the article found at the links below, wrote: "Even more than the murderers who look my son’s life, I condemn those who make policies to end lives." This is a must read.

Friday May 21, 2004 The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1221515,00.html http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0521-09.htm

2004-05-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

As I used to do with my teen age diaries, I need to confide in, cry to, someone and the page is all that’s available. Everyone is living their life this Mother’s Day, but thinking of my mommy only makes the lump in my throat swell. I consider praying to her. Do I miss my mother or am I wishing there was someone "above" me who could say "it’s OK, everything will work out, I’ll take care of you."

Am I tuned to the wrong frequency? The California weather has been spectacular. My humble patio plot is profuse with roses; Marin and Sonoma counties are fragrant everywhere with huge blooms in shades of salmon, white with magenta edges, deep red, shocked pink, baby pink and yellow. My good condo neighbors just told me that they are buying a fixer-upper on a quarter acre and moving by the end of June. They will now consolidate their home and business, have room for the little dogs. I’m happy for them, but it’s just one more bit of evidence that everyone’s life (except the Iraqis and our wounded soldiers) is changing for the better. I liked those neighbors, they made me feel safe. Greg was my handyman consultant who showed me how to change the furnace filter, taught me use of tools and "lefty-loosey, righty-tighty which I’m sure boys learn sometime before the age of 50. As the Human Awareness Institute workshops say, am I tuned into radio K-FUCK instead of radio K-LOVE? Not making the positive choice?

Good fortune might come from ignoring the national news. Will my favorite non-profit media organization make its fundraising goal? This is the place I enjoy working (as a volunteer) and it constantly struggles to pay even a pittance to the staff. Then I watch our selected President ask Congress for billions more for military adventures and a 3,000-person American embassy in Iraq. Our tax money. Our schools' money. Our money for the arts.

I’m leaving for a visit with my daughter in New York. Can I leave worries about job and future behind--just for a week?

My favorite long-time single male friends now have women they love, are living with. I haven’t had a date in a couple of years. Can I find the door to big positive change in my life? Is it ok to wish for upheaval? I'm not afraid of growth and enlightenment. I'm not afraid to take intimacy risks. Something positive is happening in my life, I just need to notice it. Find the mentors and coaches to help. Yesterday I drove miles to practice Tango and left the class buoyed by a compliment that I was making great progress There are moments….

Nothing to do except to affirm that I have poems, love, health, and money enough. To give big thanks right now as I sit down to eat my lunch.

2004-05-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

From an Iraqi blogger, "riverbend," apparently a woman:

"...There were moments when I actually wanted to believe that what we heard was exaggerated. I realize now that it was only a small fragment of the truth. There is nothing that is going to make this 'better'. Nothing.

"I don't understand the 'shock' Americans claim to feel at the lurid pictures. You've seen the troops break down doors and terrify women and children… curse, scream, push, pull and throw people to the ground with a boot over their head. You've seen troops shoot civilians in cold blood. You've seen them bomb cities and towns. You've seen them burn cars and humans using tanks and helicopters. Is this latest debacle so very shocking or appalling?

Through all of this, where is the Governing Council? Under what rock are the Puppets hiding? Why is no one condemning this? What does Bremer have to say for himself and for the Americans? Why this unbearable silence?
...
"I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can-- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We’ll take our chances-- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go."

Jennie's reaction to the congressional hearings today
(Why is there never enough time? The inquisitors are always getting cut off. In the tradition of the 10-minute Bush press conference.)

It's incredible to me that in all the questioning of Rumsfeld, the focus was on the REVELATION OF THE PHOTOS and not on the fact of widespread abuse that has been reported in the alternate media since the Guantanamo Bay detainee suicides. The Red Cross says they have a report that goes even further than what we've heard, and have been talking about it for more than a year. "Isolated incidents" is not the truth. This is military and government POLICY that starts with the chant in boot camp "What makes the grass grow? Blood! Blood makes the grass grow." And it goes right up to hiring contractors to do intelligence work. That way, Rummy can play dumb. "Oh, we don't have control over them. Oh I didn't know about these terrible abuses." Yeah, right.

2004-05-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Orgasm for Peace. Before I start talking about sex, you might want to go to cleansheets.com and read a review of the film Orgasm: Faces of Ecstasy, a documentary video I’m proud to be associated with. The companion link below is the article I wrote about my experience as a participant in this movie which was designed to explore…well…topics as diverse as the 23 people who are featured.

Check out the entire issue of cleansheets (a weekly literary erotica site of quality).They are doing their month-long buildup [grin] for National Masturbation Month (each May). Very entertaining.

http://www.cleansheets.com/reviews/movie_05.05.04.shtml
http://www.cleansheets.com/articles/orvino_05.05.04.shtml

I screened Faces twice last weekend at my home, and it sparked a lot of conversation. I’ve posted some of the responses I’ve received. Both my writing and teaching are about a commitment to making love instead of making war. I’m interested in the honest revelation of human sexuality vs. the puritanical, violent or exploitative material which passes for information on sex and intimacy.

Post-screening comments:
"I love, love, LOVE how vulnerable you made yourself both in the video and in the personal account of the experience. I truly get what is meant by strength through vulnerability...and your sharing of this has affected me deeply. It helps me to to know who I am as a woman. Thank you."
***

"What you said in the video resonated with me powerfully to my core! I was one man who killed others and cheered about it, and was accepted by society for doing so as a sergeant in the military...but humiliated and vilified to the point of suicide years ago for masturbating..."
***

"Thanks for your courage!"
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"You were so articulate and clear. The audience loved you!"
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You are one brave woman!!!
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It was great to see orgasms I knew weren’t faked. And the interviews helped me get to know the people, which made it even more intimate…and interesting.
***

I had this observation: during orgasm, most people's faces do not look as though they're experiencing something pleasurable. They're experiencing something intense, but the actual look on the face is almost one of pain. I know this is true for me, and for partners I've had. I just didn't know it was so universal. I wish they had addressed that--it's so interesting to me. So I don't think the film actually illuminated the experience of orgasm, and maybe that's good. Maybe there's no illumination possible. It's just what it is, a mystery. A profound mystery.

2004-05-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

The pictures that lost the war. I hope the headline is right. The California spring is so gorgeous and the birds are singing vociferously both morning and night in an ironic contrast to the unraveling of the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. One year after Dubya, in his crotch-hugging, macho flight suit, posed on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln (another irony) and declared "Mission Accomplished," more than six hundred additional American soldiers are dead, and thousands more have been maimed, blinded and psychologically/physically wounded. Uh huh.

And the Iraqi dead (including so many children!) number tens of thousands. Add to this, the 12 years of sanctions that had already killed so many, years of bombing overflights (remember the no-fly zones?) that routinely killed shepherd families and their sheep. No wonder they hate us! (Even that statement is not entirely true. Peace activists and alternative journalists report that the "ordinary Iraqis" have continued to be gracious to them.)

And now this, the proof to the Muslim world that the USA is in league with the devil—torture and humiliation of the worst possible kind for a culture based on shame (as ours is based on guilt). Read Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, hear him on Democracy Now and watch for his followups.

Every other day I pray to find a lover to obsess me so that I can spend the months until the November election in bed, in bliss—not to forget about peace activism, but to balance my extreme sadness and my rage.

I hardly ever watch corporate TV news, but by accident I got a clip of Dubya on Saturday. "Our mission was accomplished, he smirked somewhat stiffly. "Saddam Hussein is in jail and there are no more torture chambers and no more mass graves in Iraq." Uh huh.

600 civilian bodies buried in the Fallujah football field because the road to the cemetery was closed by the Occupation. That sounds like a mass grave. A woman’s body rotting in her neighbor’s front yard for almost three weeks because each time he tried to retrieve it, he was fired upon by Marine snipers. Ambulances shot up (a detail right out of the Israili Defense Forces playbook). I will resist torture descriptions. Save that for the Mel Gibson-like sadists of the world.

There are many more pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib which Hersh says might not see the light of day, but he points out that the report by Major General Antonio Taguba is the most damning. It points to systemic issues in the military, lack of responsibility at the highest levels and harsh criticism of intelligence officers and private contractors who are increasing doing the dirty work for American military/industrial complex adventures, both in Iraq and elsewhere. Remember Afganistan? Anyone but the parents of young soldiers there care what’s going on?

Time is up. I have local news stories to write. Women on Wine, the Ballet… the concerns of my immediate, rose-scented, sunshine-soaked, breezy, blue-skied Sonoma County. Raise money for senior housing, raise money for public radio. Interview another set of Argentine tango teachers and buff up my dancing shoes for tonight’s lesson. I’ve spent my two hours in political awareness—all I can allot on a working Monday.

2004-04-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

Check out the Online Writers Exchange at www.tiny-lights.com. It’s a great way to get published without getting juried (read judged). Editor Susan Bono says she doesn’t even edit the submissions. Your grammatical mistakes are your own. Advantages: I don’t think a huge crowd contributes each month, and the entire Tiny Lights site (and printed quarterly journal of personal essay) is well worth any writer’s time. Also, we choose some of the "Searchlights and Signal Flares" entries for KRCB FM 91 twice-monthly Word by Word: Conversations with Writers. If you are not in the north San Francisco Bay Area, you can listen as we broadcast literary arts at 7 p.m. (Pacific time) on Wednesdays at www.krcb.org.

Thus ends the public service announcement for community radio.

Here’s something I recently sent in answer to the monthly Writers Exchange question: When asked "what do you write?" how do you answer?

I write poems," I answer first, and more readily, now that poetry is back in fashion. "I write especially for the fun of reading it outloud." I like making a direct connection, with one other person or a room full of listeners. When I'm working on a piece, I always speak the lines to know where to break them, to be more aware of how the sound matches the sense of what I'm trying to communicate.

When asked what I write about, I say that I started writing at age 15 in a dime-store diary with a lock and key, and that reading my work might be like peeking into a lifetime of subsequent volumes of that diary. My most passionate themes are self-discovery and honest expression, sexuality and relationships, war and peace. I am not a nature poet.

As a journalist, I write features, mostly personal profiles. It is sweet satisfaction to hear from community groups or individuals, "You really captured our essence." In interviewing someone, I look for the pathway to trust and literary intimacy. (If I'd admit to aspirations, one would surely be to join the ranks of Terry Gross, Barbara Walters and Amy Goodman).

I also write erotica. Not fictional stories but autobiographic journeys into what it means to be fully alive as a sexual being. I explore the particulars of women's portal experiences of pleasure and the connections of spirituality and sex. I'm either too dumb to be embarrassed or too much of an exhibitionist to be self conscious! I try to stay close to the artistic edge, without succumbing to either puritanical or pornographic pressures. I'm interested in writing through, and about, the wisdom centered in the body.

2004-04-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

My computer is down and I realize how much I depend on it, both to get and give news. But, I'm so grateful to Pacifica radio network for covering the 9/11 commission hearings and providing critical commentary that is so necessary to put the "official" remarks in context. I especially like the commentary from the 9/11 families steering committee members who were the persistent instigators of the commission and without whose hard work for two years, the hearings would not have happened.

Their list of questions, most of which have not been asked, can be found at the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission website: www.911independentcommission.org.

2004-04-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

A FRIENDLY ARGUMENTabout the alternative radio network, Pacifica, about Amy Goodman and Democracy Now, about Berkeley's KPFA 94.1 FM. I started shouting in the car, bouncing in my seat, yes, even swearing. My friend's contention: alt media was "all bad news," not giving the "other side," ridiculing those who disagree. I'm not working and I listen 3 hours a day to KPFA public affairs, and I don't hear ridicule. I hear the voices of the voiceless, and some of them are pissed off, just like the Iraqis. Just this week I heard many articulate, mature commentaries: Asad Abu Kalil, Gail Sheehy, Robert Fisk, Larry Bensky, voices from the 9-11 families who haven't had their questions answered. I heard John Dean, 40-year White House reporter Helen Thomas, Hans Blix. I heard Prothap Chattergee (corpwatch.com) and Aaron Glantz, unimbedded reporters from the streets of Iraq, telling what they see; I heard the manager of a radio station from Palestine talking about daily bulldozing of homes with people inside by Israeli army with U.S. made Caterpillars.

I remember how the world stood still while a Chinese protester in Tiennamen Square faced down a tank, but when Rachel Corrie faced down a 2-story high bulldozer about to destroy a doctor's home, or when kids throw stones at tanks, they have the life crushed or shot out of them and there is no fuss made. Pacifica's mission is to get this information out. Nobody bugs People magazine because it isn't Newsweek. Why bug KPFA because it isn't KQED or KJZY? They have different missions. I comforted to know that millions of people around the world and around this country think the way I do; that there is community out there in spite of the ultra right wing takeover of our government. Feeling that kind of commitment and caring is not "bad news" to me; these are people taking exception to the rulers.

Tomorrow I'll write about orgasm and my film debut.

And, here's a poem sent to me by college professor, editor and poet friend, Brian Boldt.

Fallujah, Iraq, 2004

The Americans came again last night, at three in the morning.
They battered down our door without warning.
My brother Ali was dragged outside, naked,
In the blinding glare of the helicopter searchlights.
I saw a soldier beat him to the ground with his rifle,
Then stand with his boot on Ali’s neck while our mother screamed.

Three weeks ago, their helicopters killed seventeen of our tribe.
We were demonstrating against the way they treat our women,
Humiliating them in their night clothes, beating our brothers and fathers,
Dragging them away from the village. We have heard nothing of them.
Now our grandfather Abdul and the babies cannot sleep at night.

Ali and I will plant bombs in the road tonight, and deaf old Abdul will
Wait for them to come again, cradling a grenade in his leathery hands.

2004-04-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent 17 out of the last 33 months unemployed—in three different stints. And 8 of the employed months were only half time. My employer of 9 years had brought me back because the CEO thought they needed my marketing expertise to help staunch the bleeding. But debt factors and industry economics were too much of a burden. After my final layoff, the 30-year-old family company struggled for another year and then closed its doors for good, flooding the local economy with dozens of tradespeople used to being well-paid.

My goodbye cake and lunchtime testimonials really moved me. It was almost worth coming back just to get that hefty card with its 35 good luck messages, and to hear my boss say, "Wherever you go and whatever you do, I know you will do it with the creativity, passion and devotion that is your hallmark." This quote has served me well in the closing paragraph of nearly 100 cover letters.

For the first several weeks, unemployment felt like a blessing. The lines left my forehead, I got the sleep I needed, I exercised every day and felt light, healthy. When the severance check was gone, and I started withdrawing from my savings account, I got uneasy. Unemployment compensation, meager as it was (just enough per month to cover my rent plus $50) helped, but I knew even that was a finite support. My primary task became taking care of my psychological health.

My psyche is what is troubling me this morning, beginning the third month of my third round of searching for right livelihood. Last week had hope. A promising second interview, compliments on that lovely Ann Taylor spring suit I could not afford, enthusiastic reports from consulted references who told me the prospective CEO "sounds like she really wants you." Last evening, I took a breather, turned on my television and watched a movie. It was a Dickensian story of poor wretches in London slums and aristocratic families fallen on hard times, complete with an assortment of villains, secret pasts, acts of supreme courage and loyalty, and of course, a love story.

I had good excuse to tear up during the poignant moments in the film and got tired enough to fall asleep without too much mental grinding. But as I continue to wait for the phone call that was to come "for sure Friday or Monday" about a local position I worked very hard to prepare and interview for, I feel like crap. It’s well into the afternoon of the second notification day, and my body says, "Ummm, Jennie, I don’t think so." Two cups of herbal tea is not calming my stomach. Did I jinx the job by talking to too many folks about the possibility?

It’s the same deal waiting for a return phone call from a cute guy I met at a party (another subject, another time…). How to keep sowing seeds (and I have been wildly tossing them in every area of my creative life, not just 9-to-5 related) without "saying uncle"?

Thanks to poet Kay Ryan (read her work featured in this month’s POETRY magazine) for our recent conversation and her wonderful book, Say Uncle, with the title poem about not giving up.

The light in my day is what I do, for the pure joy of it, as a volunteer producer of literary arts programming for public radio. Wouldn’t it be grand to get paid for doing that?

2004-04-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

Today I was guest poet/speaker at Prof. D.K.'s Human Sexuality class at Sonoma State. I was invited (this was my second appearance) to add an artistic element to their clinical and psychological studies. The response to my erotica was enthusiastic and mature. In glancing around at the 60 or so faces, I found several of both genders who were genuinely "with me" as I read my work. They all laughed in the right places and asked good questions. I even had the opportunity to comment on whether a person should "spit or swallow."

I was able to call upon my experience working at Face to Face to give the HIV educator perspective (thanks to Nick and Gopa!) that says swallowing is better because the HIV virus doesn't survive human digestion very well. The less time ejaculate stays in the mouth, where it might come in contact with broken skin (from brushing, flossing, injuries from braces) the better. Consider how many seconds it takes one to find a place to spit...

My teacher-friend was kind enough to put on the chalkboard the URL for a website where one of my stories is featured through the month of April (www.sextoytales.com). Readers may vote for their favorite of the 4 posted stories. I get a cash reward if enough folks like my "Toy Story" best. This isn't as dire as a presidential election, but, I hope, it will be a vote you'll have fun casting.

I'm thankful for open-minded and creative teachers, and I'm thankful for those curious and outspoken college students. To them and to you, I say, "Thanks for supporting my poetic licentiousness."

2004-04-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

THIS IS WHAT JOURNALISM IS FOR...

I want everyone to write your PBS station and ask them to repeat a "Frontline" program called "The Man Who Knew," which aired on KQED in San Franciso on October 3, 2002. The two-hour report is about the FBI's top counter-terrorism agent John O'Neill, who, beginning in the early nineties, understood the threat posed by Al Qaeda and was relentlessly pursuing Osama bin Laden. O'Neill was forced out of the job he loved by the politics of the agency and conflicts with his superiors. He took a job as head of security at the World Trade Center just weeks before September 11, and was killed there. Richard Clarke, who has been so much in the news, figures prominently in the film, and it is full of evidence about the use of planes as weapons, the foiled millennium plot and much more that is currently being "debated." It certainly exposes the "lying liars" Condi Rice, Dubya Bush, Cheney, et al. I'm so glad I recorded it from Channel 9 two years ago and was shocked to see its relevance upon last night's second viewing. (We should all be taking our ginkgo to remember better.) Incidentally, the high production values, the intriguing personality of John O'Neill and the life-and-death circumstances make "The Man Who Knew" as exciting as any good spy flick. Congrats to PBS for doing the show in the first place. Make them stand behind it! Yes, pester your stations to air it soon.

And while I'm on the subject of media, tune in via your computer to airamericaradio.com to hear three hours of Al Franken's talk show and much more. This new liberal radio network is an attempt to counterbalance the hold the right wing has on radio. I understand AirAmerica will have a San Francisco station affiliate in the future. Right now, it's broadcast in New York, Chicago and other selected cities. Enjoy, and be hopeful.