Everywhere, too much thought to consuming, consuming, consuming.

Reading this, I realize the only thing I've ever purchased that's made me happier in any way was my camera, which encouraged me to look at the world (and people) around me in a fresh way and enabled me to capture moments and arm my scattered brain against forgetting. The only thing.

But did it make any sense?

Jay Rosen's The Quest for Innocence and Loss of Reality in Political Journalism.

Running through it is a narrative of impending tyranny… That sounds like the Tea Party movement I have observed, so the truth of the sentence is not in doubt. But what about the truth of the narrative? David Barstow is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter for the New York Times. He ought to know whether the United States is on the verge of losing its democracy and succumbing to an authoritarian or despotic form of government. If tyranny was pending in the U.S. that would seem to be a story.

The other thing that came through was this idea of impending tyranny. You could not go to Tea Party rallies or spend time talking to people within the movement without hearing that fear expressed in myriad ways. I was struck by the number of people who had come to the point where they were literally in fear of whether or not the United States of America would continue to be a free country. I just started seeing that theme come up everywhere I went.
It kept coming up, but David… did it make any sense? Was it grounded in observable fact, the very thing that investigative reporters specialize in? Did it square (at all) with what else Barstow knows, and what the New York Times has reported about the state of politics in 2009-10? Seriously: Why is this phrase, impending tyranny, just sitting there, as if Barstow had no way of knowing whether it was crazed and manipulated or verifiable and reasonable? If we credit the observation that a great many Americans drawn to the Tea Party live in fear that the United States is about to turn into a tyranny, with rigged elections, loss of civil liberties, no more free press, a police state… can we also credit the professional attitude that refuses to say whether this fear is reality-based? I don’t see how we can.

Somehow the reality that this narrative exists as a binding force within the Tea Party movement is more reportable than the fact that the movement’s binding force is a fake crisis, a delusion shared.

What actually sustains life is far closer to home and more essential.

Our Economy of Kindness from Mother Jones.

Capitalism is only kept going by this army of anti-capitalists, who constantly exert their powers to clean up after it, and at least partially compensate for its destructiveness. Behind the system we all know, in other words, is a shadow system of kindness, the other invisible hand. Much of its work now lies in simply undoing the depredations of the official system. Its achievements are often hard to see or grasp. How can you add up the foreclosures and evictions that don't happen, the forests that aren't leveled, the species that don't go extinct, the discriminations that don't occur?

The official economic arrangements and the laws that enforce them ensure that hungry and homeless people will be plentiful amid plenty. The shadow system provides soup kitchens, food pantries, and giveaways, takes in the unemployed, evicted, and foreclosed upon, defends the indigent, tutors the poorly schooled, comforts the neglected, provides loans, gifts, donations, and a thousand other forms of practical solidarity, as well as emotional support. In the meantime, others seek to reform or transform the system from the inside and out, and in this way, inch by inch, inroads have been made on many fronts over the past half century.

The terrible things done, often in our name and thanks in part to the complicity of our silence or ignorance, matter. They are what wells up daily in the news and attracts our attention. In estimating the true make-up of the world, however, gauging the depth and breadth of this other force is no less important. What actually sustains life is far closer to home and more essential, even if deeper in the shadows, than market forces and much more interesting than selfishness.

Most of the real work on this planet is not done for profit: it's done at home, for each other, for affection, out of idealism, and it starts with the heroic effort to sustain each helpless human being for all those years before fending for yourself becomes feasible. Years ago, when my friends started having babies I finally began to grasp just what kind of labor goes into sustaining one baby from birth just to toddlerhood.

Lightbulb hanging over my head, I hope you're never gonna go out.

Two songs for today.

Ben Wilkins' Back of My Head.

And Rachael Goodrich's Lightbulb.

I'm in a Swell Season melancholy. An Aimee Mann funk. A Sam Phillips stew. A classic Smiths bout of whatever it is the Smiths always sing about.

Tuning in: 1989.

We listened to cassette tapes of me, and me and Adam, decorating Christmas trees (or "chimistrees") back in 1989 and 1992. In the 1989 tape, I am two years old. When prompted to sing a Christmas carol, I sing "Away in the manger, no cib [sic] for his bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head... how's that?!" and then go on to summarize the verse about how "the cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes" as "nothing to cry about." I also try to convince my parents to hang a very large something (it's not clear what) on the tree and when the problem of size arises, I say brightly, "We can cut it into a little piece!" My parents laughed themselves silly on the tape and in the present, at our kitchen table, remembering what an articulate and relentless little chatterbox I was.

...

I also describe the Christmas tree as "big and hung."

Best That's What She Said in awhile...

Bernd: [Friend] got a nice screwdriver set with a socket wrench and stuff, and it has a flexible thing hat lets you screw things at any angle you want.

Merry Christmas!

But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.




BILLY COLLINS. LITANY.

The slippery brilliance of fish.

Along this promenade walk many Moslem men, mostly youths, some Moslem women, who usually come to sit in black clutches of three or four in the grass under the fruit trees, and many gypsies, men, women and children, who pass through the more stolid Moslem crowds with the slippery brilliance of fish.

REBECCA WEST. BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON.





I am glad I am not rushing this book. It's been two months and I've restrained myself so that several hundred pages still stretch out ahead of me.

Wedding recap.

Aftermath.

You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

Gervais on faith, God and good works.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

The result of Saturday afternoon's cloture motion on the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" will probably be a source of bafflement to future generations studying the issue: You mean that in December of 2010, they will marvel, 33 members of the United States Senate were still so adamantly opposed to the idea of gays and lesbians serving openly in the military that they tried to filibuster it?

And this.

Thai Cashew Chicken

Cook 1-1½ pounds of chicken, cut in bite-size pieces

Add
1 large red onion, cut in thin rings or wedges
1-2 cloves minced garlic
2 tsp. ginger root, minced
2 large green peppers, cut in wedges

Fry until onions are tender.

Add:
½ tsp. ground black pepper
½ tsp. ground coriander
4 tsp. soy sauce
2-3 tsp. fish sauce
3-4 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. lemon juice
½ tsp. ground cumin

Fry for 1-3 minutes.

Add ½ c. cashews

Serve immediately with rice.




Always a great excuse to run to the co-op for the freshest possible ginger.

Glenn Greenwald interviews Nir Rosen.

As a journalist, I'm uncomfortable advising an imperialist power about how to be a more efficient imperialist power.

Under this noiseless drift / The path of trains softly blocked

We're getting married a week from today, so my head/life kind of feel like this!

Wikileaks.

The roads were too greasy and the buses running too late for the debate tonight, but I think that a government that plots and acts without real fear of being held accountable for its actions or revealed in its deceptions is an inherently dangerous thing. There is nothing such a government can't do, no check on its power - not even limits imposed by resources when no one cares that these resources are been expended, wasted, thrown away.



It's snowing, just the same as a year ago when the big blizzard struck and ground the dailiness of Madison life to a stand still and let everything else run giddy and wild.

Every day is a dress rehearsal for her death.

Most depressing this American Life ever.

Long overdue haircut.

Sunday.

Vintage!

The right number is not enough.

From Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

To join in a large number after death is to be dissolved into a stream of anonymity... It is to be abandoned by history, which begins from the assumption that each person is irreducible. With all of its complexity, history is what we all have, and can all share. So even when we have the numbers right, we have to take care. The right number is not enough.

Each record of death suggests, but cannot supply, a unique life. We must be able not only to reckon with the number of deaths but to reckon with each victim as an individual. The one very large number that withstands scrutiny is that of the Holocaust, with its 5.7 million Jewish dead... but this number, like all of the others, must be seen not as 5.7 million, which is an abstraction few of us can grasp, but as 5.7 million times one.

Nineteen days.

Egyptian red lentil soup.

Skeeter and I made spicy Egyptian lentils for lunch.

Oh, Americans.

Grateful for a few minutes before eating ourselves into stupors one day. Waking up in the middle of the night to be the first to nab a deeply discounted gadget in a fit of wild unchecked consumerism the next.

Bookend the day.

Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi...

The Loss of Russ Feingold
It was Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who for the last 17 years has been the conscience of the Senate, one of the few public servants at so high a level of government to embody consistent integrity, thoughtfulness and principle. And for his nearly two decades of unwaveringly exemplary service, Wisconsin voters replaced him yesterday with a man named Ron Johnson, who, among other things, defended BP from the “all-out assault” President Obama had “launched” on the corporation, later to disclose that he owned more than $100,000 in BP stock.

All it would take to make an informed electorate would be a little interest and a society that encourages a culture of the mind rather than a culture of the gut. Even the stupid are entitled to their opinions and their votes, but if they want to show themselves worthy of the democracy they enjoy, a democracy that many people died and killed for in our war for independence, they are not entitled to their stupidity. It makes one recall the words of John Stuart Mill (from Considerations on Representative Government, 1861):
Thus a people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.

In Defense of Elitism
The more the rest of the media abandons the field, the more important NPR’s foreign reporting becomes. Yes, there are now websites overflowing with information about everything in the world, but very few have the resources and expertise to do the kind of reporting NPR does. And since America is increasingly buffeted by decisions made in other countries, our national ignorance is becoming a threat to our national security. Once upon a time, there was a wing of American conservatism that recognized that there were public goods and cultural standards that needed to be insulated from the whims of the market. Today, that’s considered elitist. Flagrant ignorance, by contrast, especially about the rest of the world, is a sign of populism, a sign that you don’t think you’re better than anyone else. On the right today, Sarah Palin isn’t adored in spite of her parochialism; she’s adored because of it.

New York Times' "profile" of Julian Assange
Apparently, faced with hundreds of thousands of documents vividly highlighting stomach-turning war crimes and abuses -- death squads and widespread torture and civilian slaughter all as part of a war he admired for years and which his newspaper did more than any other single media outlet to enable -- John Burns and his NYT editors decided that the most pressing question from this leak is this: what's Julian Assange really like?

Today's terror plot on ForeignPolicy.com
The bad news: Today, law enforcement agencies in several countries were put on high alert, two global corporations -- FedEx and UPS -- had to disrupt services and inspect dozens of packages around the world, Canadian fighter jets were mobilized, passengers on board a completely innocent commercial flight were scared out of their wits, the president of the United States made a statement on TV, the American Jewish community feels increasingly vulnerable, new security measures will be put in place for international shipments for at least a few weeks if not indefinitely, and the U.S. media will spend the next few days talking about the threat from al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.
So for the price of two small improvised explosive devices, which I'm guessing is not all that high in Yemen, plus UPS shipping fees, AQIM, or whoever is behind this, probably cost the governments of the United States, Canada, Britain, and the UAE millions of dollars and bought themselves weeks of free publicity.


Jon Stewart’s media critique annoys media on Salon
The media is how people learn about the nation, even if it's passively and without paying much attention, so a media that doesn't police lying and misinformation -- and a media that constantly fear-mongers or that presents every single issue as an intractable argument between two immovable forces -- certainly does hurt us all.

Married to Distraction on NPR
"Closeness depends upon this rapidly disappearing phenomenon of undivided attention spread over time," says Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist and co-author of Married to Distraction…
"What you give up at work is depth. And what you give up in relationships is intimacy," Hallowell says.

My Opponent Knows Where Washington is on a Map; I don’t and I never will by “Ron Johnson” for The Onion
What we don't need is Russ Feingold, who is a Democrat capable of conjugating verbs and composing thoughts in sentence form. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no clue what I've been saying here this entire time. What is time? Where am I? Who are you? How do telescopes work, and why am I writing this right now? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
Because I am an outsider and Russ Feingold is a man with dark hair.
Furthermore, overspending, the left-wing media, tax cuts, class warfare, Muslims, Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi, corporate giveaways, socialism, Nancy Pelosi. Washington, D.C.


Germany’s Age of Anxiety on Foreign Policy
"The crimes of the Nazi era," he told the cheering crowd, "are not an excuse for you to refuse to fight for your own identity. Your only responsibility is to avoid the mistakes of the past." The cardinal error of the interwar years, according to Wilders, was the failure to identify gathering threats against democracy. In his analogy, it was the Muslims who were the Nazis. The audience rose to its feet to applaud him. It was the first time in decades of reporting from Germany that I witnessed a passionate response to a passionately delivered political speech.

Skeeter study.

Keira Knightley.

Aftermath of Bernd's 25th birthday party - one tired cat lying on top of beer-soaked Apples to Apples cards.

But we also need.

It is ironic that the more affluent we become, the less hospitable we are. We're always so busy. And we don't think we can entertain unless we have everything in order.

Books and magazine articles about hospitality and etiquette abound in North America. People remodel their homes and refurbish their kitchens to make more room for entertaining. But are we really more hospitable for all the entertaining ideas we clip from magazines, and all the resources and energy we devote to creating entertaining spaces in our homes?

EXTENDING THE TABLE: A WORLD COMMUNITY COOKBOOK.



My goal for the moment isn't occupational or academic - it's to develop hospitality, to continue to grorw a circle of friends and a home that's welcoming, if imperfect.



We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.

WENDELL BERRY.

Halloween.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night.

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.


BILLY COLLINS.

Some of its houses spoke.

Some of its houses spoke, by lovely broken woodwork and tiled roofs fistulated with neglect, of a vital tradition of elegance strangled by poverty. There were lilacs everywhere, and some tulips. There was nobody about except some lovely children. From the latticed upper story of one of the houses that were rotting among their lilacs there sounded a woman’s voice, a deep voice that was not the less wise because it was permeated with the knowledge of pleasure, singing a Bosnian song, full of weariness at some beautiful thing not thoroughly achieved. They became credible, all those Oriental stories of men who faced death for the sake of a woman whom they knew only as a voice singing behind a harem window.

REBECCA WEST. BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON.

The possibilities of the life of the body in this world.

"Life is not very interesting," we seem to have decided. "Let its satisfactions be minimal, perfunctory, and fast." We hurry through our meals to go to work and hurry through our work in order to "recreate" ourselves in the evenings and on weekends and vacations. And then we hurry, with the greatest possible speed and noise and violence, through our recreation — for what? … And all this is carried out in a remarkable obliviousness to the causes and effects, the possibilities and the purposes, of the life of the body in this world.



WENDELL BERRY. The Pleasures of Eating.

Turn off the hate. Get out the vote.

Last night, I wandered around my neighborhood eating German chocolate out of my jacket pocket. The fact that the packaging advertised the chocolate as "square" (and "practical") amused me; like billing a great poet as "tall," it seems irrelevant.

I am half in love with everything these days - the crispness of the air, the silvery pink skies that arch over my head as I walk to work every morning, the refreshing unpredictability of my job from one day to the next, the company of my coworkers, snuggling with Bernd as he tries to hypnotize me ("Sarahhhh, look me in the face..." a direct translation from German, I think, but it sounds completely silly in English), friends, fresh local apples and pears from the Co-Op, streets filling up with leaves as the trees empty out.

And half the time, I am pacing, trying to figure this world out. It's an interesting mixture of sweet contentment and squirming, restless discontent.





Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one of the most engrossing books I've ever encountered.

Milwaukee weekend.

Cutest drunk person EVER. He giggles hysterically when drunk. And his dad is a major alcohol pusher. I have no idea how much beer those two drank Friday night at the Rock Bottom… I had one martini against my will (“This ‘Chocolate Covered Banana’ sounds really great when you say it out loud, but I can’t order this… they forgot a hyphen in the menu!”).

Home, Take Three.

We made a lightning dash to IKEA in Schaumberg yesterday and then Adam helped us assemble our sofa, and my new bookshelf and dresser. The place looks complete… which is... kinda important since Bernd’s dad will be showing up this evening! I’m glad today’s a furlough day for the state—it gave me an opportunity to clean everything up and practice my German.


My project this morning.








World map pillow is from IKEA. I sewed the others.


EVOL.








I can’t resist taking a picture of him every time I make the bed.