Tea with the Mad Hatter

Sorry I haven't been keeping this up for awhile. I've been, how do you say, busy - you know, with things.

To quickly update:

Eamon - more teeth, less sleep. Still skootching, can get up on hands and knees no problem. Sticks all sorts of weird things in mouth.

Dissertation - Getting committee together, reading - veeeeery sloooooooowly.

Vacationing - Going quite well. Lots of time in the sunshine, and another day on the river tomorrow. Going to attempt my first Class IV run at the Miracle Mile on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette.

Paz.

I found this rifling through the newspaper websites today, and this is extremely fucked-up. Most of us know that the armed forces are having some major trouble reaching recruitment goals thanks to a certain "mission accomplished" known as Iraq. You see, the funny thing is, nobody seems to think that George W. Bush's war is worth dying for anymore. Especially parents.

quote:

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When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call

By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"

Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.

But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade...

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Wow - we just had a fantastic day kayaking the MacKenzie River this afternoon. Perfect paddler weather - 60 degrees and rainy as all hell. The river was running at a great flow today, around 3000 cfs. I've done bigger and smaller flows, but this one was perfect. While the lower Mac is a fairly tame run, at this flow, the water becomes real pushy and a lot of play spots pop up. I ended up being upside-down counting fish a little more often than I would have liked today, and I even managed to get a pretty good knock on the ole noggin' from a submerged rock (thank goddess for helmets!), but my combat roll was bombproof today, and I was able to get back up despite the knockin', in the middle of some pretty burly whitewater, taboot. Here's a few pics (unfortunately, none of me in my boat). Sorry about the time it took to load.

The Lower MacKenzie River Valley

Mark performing the mystery move

Tim cartwheeling

Me - soggy and happy

To top off the day, on the way home, my friend Mark let spill that he and his wife Mara are expecting a wee little bairn to add to the nursery of sociology babies. This, of course, is awesome news for two very, very awesome people. To wrap up, here's a couple of Eamon pictures to make you smile.

Check out how silly this sunhat looks

Superfly

Paz.

Before the meat of this post, I just have to comment on this music pick. You could start with the bust-out "Sneakin' Sally" opener. You could ooh and aah over the Harpua. Hell, you've got a grade A gem in just the four-song encore: Carini>Black-Eyed Katy>Sneakin' Sally reprise>Frankenstein. But dear goddess, the AC/DC Bag that opens the second set of this show is so fucking hot. The jam is so good, it literally re-wires your synapses while listening. It's got the funk for your booty, and the headiness to cause visions - without the bowl of green! For me, this one jam is Phish at THE peak - I just haven't heard anything better... well, that second set 2001>Mike's>Weekapaug>Character Zero at the Gorge in 1998... but I digress.

Anyways, Eamon's got another tooth coming in, this one on top (so he's got one on the bottom and one on top poking through). Funny how his teeth choose the weekend to decide to make their appearances. Luckily, the homeopathic tablets are helping to ease his discomfort. Unfortunately, that means waking twice a night to dose him up. Poor guy.

The little guy has also learned how to get around. Notice I do not say crawling - he skootches backwards on his stomach, but he's definitely on the move. It's pretty funny to watch. He's also able to support himself on his hands and knees, and he can get up on them by himself. Every day brings us closer to full on crawling.

I built a big-ass (10'x4') garden box today, and have another to go. Hopefully we'll have them in place by the end of the week. I get to go kayaking tomorrow - we'll probably head up to the upper MacK. I'll pack my camera and dry-box and try to get some pix to post.

Before signing off, check this out. George Bush - you know, Mr. Moral Values - will be attending a dinner event with a porn producer and porn actress Mary Carey (who ran for governor of CA during the whole Schwarzenegger fiasco, and is apparently eyeing a run at the lieutenant governorship). Not that I have anything against porn, but I cannot abide hypocrites. And George W. Bush, in addition to being a liar, a cheat, a ne'er-do-well, an idiot, and general poor schmoe, is also a fucking hypocrite. Pay attention you Bible-bangers and other moral crusaders - whose moral degeneracy are you going to go one about now?

Paz.

I can now tell you with 100% certainty that having a child who is cutting teeth is not fun. Of course, it's worse for Eamon, who still manages to remain pretty good-natured despite the discomfort. But man, last night, I thought I was going to go insane. I already go to bed really late so that I can get some work done, but after I got to bed, I was up for another 3 hours of his tossing and turning and whimpering. Ugh.

We went out today and bought him some homeopathic teething tablets. Seems to be working so for. He's sleeping like... well, like a baby.

If you have a decent high-speed connection and about 45 minutes of time, check out this documentary by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) News on Dick Cheney. Dude's life reads straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. It's veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery interesting stuff.

It just dawned on me today that I'm embarking on my 10th year of living in Eugene. What prompted this reflection? A typical Memorial Weekend cookout where it was cold and rainy. It brought back a lot of memories of standing around, shivering under a tarp cooking tofu dogs over a little Hibachi, all while a monotonous grey drizzle enveloped you like a cold, damp, really moldy sock. Oh, and you drank a lot to stay warm. And the Memorial Day weekends that really stick out are the ones where Captain and Tasha did something egregiously over-the-top - usually involving either Tasha punching someone or Captain passing out in increasingly bizarre locations. Although there was the Fight Club Memorial Day.

Anyways.

So yeah - nine, going on ten years in Eugene. I think I've earned some mossback street cred now. The best time of the year is the rainy season, because it keeps the creeks and rivers nice and full. The second best time of year is the rainy/snowmelt season, for the same reason. I just had to smile as I sat grilling shrimp under our covered patio, listening to the rain and occassional rumble of thunder (how odd!). A perfect Memorial Weekend cookout!

Eamon has been cutting his first tooth this week. That hasn't been much fun for anybody. He also seems to be getting closer to crawling everyday. He has a remarkable ability to get around already, and I think it's now just a matter of putting it all together before we have a bona fide terror on our hands.

I got to go kayaking down the Willamette through town on Wednesday with Mark and Mara. It was a nice way to kill a few hours on a warm afternoon. We spent a lot of time at a little surfspot where the river bends around a breached lowhead dam just upstream from the I-5 bridge. At good flows it forms a nice, even, and highly retentive hole to play around in. Due to my inexperience in actual kayak stunts, I got to spend a lot of time counting fish after getting kicked out of the wave. Incidentally, my roll is bomb-proof these days.

The spring term is finishing up, and I'm finally starting to get things together for my dissertation. I'm also trying to get prepped for the summer course I'm teaching.

So, I hope you all are having/have had a lovely holiday weekend. It's summer time. Time to bring the couch onto the lawn, put the PBRs in the cooler, and soak up the 14 hours of sun a day - because you're going to need it come October!

Paz.

Just got back from a few days in D.C. - always a bizarre time in that town. First, I really hate the architecture downtown. It either has that imperial Roman feel to it - indicative of a decadence and hubris all too fatal to the civilizations that exhibit them - or it just has really sharp lines. Either completely functional or having the express purpose of trying to impose a sense of grandeur. And quite frankly, it's really unintersting. Luckily, I got out to Adams-Morgan for an evening to see the real side of D.C. - you know, the one with people living in it.

But the real tale of the trip is the other occupants (besides us teacher union folks) of the hotel we were staying in. The first group was the air traffic controllers union. Talk about a crowd that was blowing off some steam. For the two overlapping days spent in their company, the Hyatt lobby had a smog-like layer of haze pouring out from the bar. And just try to get a drink with that bunch in town. Hey, I don't begrudge them - they're allowed to go a little nuts on their vacation - they have THE most stressful job on the face of the planet. And they were hella fun to hang out and shoot the shit with. Unlike the second group...

The Family Research Council - this is one of those right-wing Christian groups that now apparently thinks they have a mandate to turn our republic into a nuclear missle-toting theocracy. Anyways, it was not hard to belly-up to the bar with these guys in town. But damn are they scary. One of their publications that I glanced out was entitled Ruling Inside the Gates: Transforming the Church Inside the State - pretty much a brazen call to merge church and state. They had Tom DeLiar in to talk with them. They prayed for me in the elevator because I happened to be a little tipsy coming from the bar (and wearing a shirt with the likeness of Lenin).

Actual quote: "Hey! My PalmPilot crashed and I've lost everything! I need a favor - you need to bring me two Bibles - a King James version and..." at which point we scurried away with two thoughts. 1) Why did this guy need two Bibles? and 2) Did he really have two Bibles downloaded onto his PalmPilot?

Seeing this crowd up close is pretty terrifying - they continue to play the victim. That's right, they pretty much control the government (and are fairly close to gaining control of the courts), and they claim to be persecuted. And the more shrill they become, the more irrational and dangerously they act.

I have never seen such a vile and hypocritical bunch of people. Claiming how much they love their brother while trashing anyone who happens to think that maybe the government doesn't have any business meddling in your private life or (on the other hand) wants government to work for the common good of all people, not just white Christians.

But I made it back ok. Trips to D.C. make me appreciate sleepy little Oregon that much more.

Paz.

I just realized that it's been a week since I last posted! What the hell have I been doing?

We've had some friends visiting us from NYC all weekend, so precious little hasn't gotten done around the house, but we have been eating phat for the past few days. Mesquite grilled wild salmon, Fish-ka-Bobs, organic spring potatoes, organic baby greens. Yum. I love springtime. Cooking and eating outside and the spring gardens are keeping the farmer's market packed with yummy stuff.

Unfortunately for us, we didn't get our act together for a garden yet. It's only a matter of one trip to the hardware store, a call to the soil people, and down to the market for some starts, but who knows when we'll have the time we need to get it all set up. We'll see. We do have an artichoke in the ground.

(shrug)

I'm flying out to DC for a few days this week. It's actually a pretty brutal deal - fly out of Eugene on Wed in the early, early morn, get to DC around 4 PM. Meetings all day Thursday. Meetings Friday morning and early afternoon. Flight leaves DC Friday afternoon around 5 PM and gets me back to the West Coast after 9 PM. There's not going to be a lot of time to dilly-dally. Looks like another couple of days hanging out in Capitol Hill bars with the hipper young AFT staffers. At least they're a fun bunch, but man, hanging around the hotels on the Hill sucks. West Coast laid-back type, wearing flip-flops, rubbing elbows with people who are attending very important meetings.

Last week I blogged on the Downing Street Memo which confirmed what most of us already knew - the Bushies lied. Well, word is getting out. Paul Krugman has opined about it in Monday's New York Times. The new website DowningStreetMemo.com has all the information and links you'll ever need to have to convince those remaining skeptics who refuse to believe that our government would send over 1600 Americans, not to mention countless thousands of Iraqis, to their deaths for a lie. Keep you eyes peeled for more details (I'm sure our international readers have already been made aware of this). Hopefully this will be heard over the din of the bogus scandal about the Newsweek riots.

So, how has your week been?

Paz.

Wow - if over 250 Iraqis dead in nine days is an indicator of success against the insurgency in Iraq, I'd really hate to see what things would look like if they weren't so "successful."

The PR behind this is just amazing. If you keep saying "everything is going swimmingly" over and over, it doesn't make it any more real. The situation in Iraq is a horrible, bloody mess. And it's not improving.

And while we're busy popping bubbles, do we still need to point out that Guantanamo Bay is a torture center? Is it still necessary to remind folks that more than a few bad apples, this sort of behavior was approved at very high levels in our government by people who haven't yet been held to account.

The new facts that are unearthed every day it seems are amazing. Our capacity to ignore them even moreso.

Paz.