Death

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

Yesterday I wrote the following about Hillary Rodham Clinton :

Shameless.

Despicable.

Unfit to be President of the United States.

My words hit the front pages of both Daily Kos and The Moderate Voice. By evening Keith Olbermann had the following to say about Hillary Clinton's latest "gaffe" :

The most important part of the transcript is after the jump :

That is all.

Go read the amazing homage written in the Wall Street Journal by his father :

When an unarmed journalist is killed, we are reminded of both the freedoms that we treasure in our society, and how vulnerable we all are to forces that threaten those freedoms.

But this still does not explain the attention given to Danny's tragedy. After all, 30 other journalists were killed in 2002, and 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq alone since that war began.

The shocking element in Danny's murder was that he was killed, not for what he wrote or planned to write, but for what he represented -- America, modernity, openness, pluralism, curiosity, dialogue, fairness, objectivity, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people. In short, each and every one of us was targeted in Karachi in January of 2002.

It's not a touchy feely homage, but a reminder that Daniel Pearl's blood is in all our hands, especially the media :

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

[...]

The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel's murder, as well as for the "tsunami of hate" that has swept the world and continues to rise.

Go read the whole thing.

And here it is, you're moment of Zen : Monty Python and the Holy Grail's "Im' not dead yet" bit :

Sad but true story : I have been an oddball most of my life but especially after "discovering" at age 11 or 12 Monty Python. Remember, I grew up in Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans don't do Monty Python. So for me to quote this movie and laugh hysterically among a group of cuchifrito loving gwannabes was, well, seen as just plain old weird.

So anyway, the thing is that when I first met the father of my children, I remember clearly turning to my roommate who happened to be Puerto Rican, and telling her, "OMFG, he looks like a cuter Eric Idle". And yes, there was much consternation and glazing of eyes and "you're so fucking weird, Liza".

It's been almost 20 years since I first said that ... and no, I think he waaaaay better looking than Eric Idle; unfortunately not as funny. Well, maybe a little.

When I first began writing this, I was tucked into bed at seven p.m., hoping to be asleep soon. As I take my notes from last night and begin to type them into the computer, it is 4:34 a.m., and I've been awake for an hour. The headaches that have been dogging me for months have intensified their barking in the past couple of weeks. Pain and nausea are paired, and the pain in my face simply changes shape when I swallow the Vidodin I was prescribed on Friday. I have been trying other pain medications—and they haven't been working—so strung out from pain, I broke down and accepted the doctor's offer to write a small script for opiates until I can get in for my CT scan, which is scheduled for later this morning. (My history with opiates is not a good one.) The Vicodin has made me feel sleepy and sick—and relieves the grinding ache in my head for only 45 minutes or so.

I could pop these pills every hour, chasing the dragon of relief, but ironically, the Vicodin gives me a headache—it's in a different part of my head—a pressure that feels as if the inside of my skull is a pneumatic piece of rubber dangerously overinflated. I'm not really having a lot of fun with this, but distraction seems my only real coping mechanism. And so, I've been reading and reading. By my count, five books in a month, plus who knows how many magazine articles, online articles, and blog entries.

When I lay in bed, I clutch a large teddy to myself. It's an infantile reaction to my loss, but it helps. When I lie in that position, on my side, my legs pulled up in a semi-fetal position, I can almost feel Yves tucked up against me. When we were laying in bed, that night, that only night that we were together, he wrapped himself around me, his chest against my back, and he said, "I think this was the most perfect sleeping position ever invented. Because it allows me to kiss the back of your neck like this." And then he sent shivers down my spine as his lips brushed underneath my ear. He didn't stop there. He kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder, and then trailed his lips, in tiny increments that thrilled me not only with the sensation of the kiss but with the anticipation of the next, he moved his lips all the way down to the small of my back, and then turned me toward him so that he could kiss my belly. "I love this belly," he said.

I don't often find men with whom I'm sexually compatible. Of course, I find men who are perfectly content to fuck me, or be fucked, but, magazine bravado to the contrary, I don't often find men for whom sex is a passion. Certain men touch you as if they are you; so closely have they familiarized themselves with the female body that it's as if they've become female themselves. And no, the men who claim that they are lesbians are not the ones I'm talking about either. I'm fascinated by the inherent insecurity and shallowness I've encountered in men who consider themselves to be modern-day Casanovas. And there are other men who are so intimidated by women's bodies that they they never fully give themselves over to love-making. In fact, I've been told by more than one of those types of men that I'm too much woman, that I'm too voracious, or have too much of a sexual appetite for them. So, finding a man who has a passion for sex but is not a "dog" and who is secure giving himself completely over to the experience of making a woman happy is a rare, and wondrous, thing. Another thing to be pissed at the universe about.

While I understand the importance of mourning, dignity, and paying respect to the dead, I believe that if you died on Decemeber 26th, then your-not- wishing-to-be-President-but-Speaker-of-the-House- soul has already risen up to that great rotunda in the sky. And as such, your body should already be buried or cremated.

The money wasted on these burials slays me. The United States contains so many people that are hungry, homeless, and uninsured that the money spent seems like a slap in the face to the living who suffer these indignities. Our governemnt tells us they can't afford to feed everybody, but they sure can afford to bury the hell outta someone.

Even James Brown's solid gold casket offends me. Who the fuck needs a solid gold casket?
He's the Godfather of Soul! He should be keepin' it real, even in the afterlife. (I am also not one for mythologizing the dead so I just have to mention the fact that James Baby shot up an insurance seminar because he thought someone used his office bathroom. Also, he endorsed Richard Nixon for President. I guess Nixon's resignation was "Payback! Hey hey hey!")

Of course, you are not suppose to point out that the money could be better spent or that the dead might have done some awful things because it is "disrespectful".

And I agree. The truth almost always disrespects those who benefit from the waste and the lies.

Prolific cartoon creator Joseph Barbera dies at 95 - USATODAY.com, or yabba-dabba-doo Joe.

Argus Leader Media - News | Son: Dad back at work 'sooner rather than later', or he's not dead yet.

Penguins offer evidence of global warming - Yahoo! News, or how Adelie Penguins are memorializing the death of Antartica with their southern shuffle.

Graham to decide burial site with wife - Yahoo! News, or how not to raise children to be vulture-like money-grubbing bastards; 'cause you know the one son who wants them at the museum wants to sell tickets to their cript. Family values my ass.

Independent Online Edition > Crime| Litvinenko detectives may follow German toxic trail, or how in blog's name do you smuggle ten million dollars worth of polonium to kill a Russian spy?

2nd baby dies of virulent bacterium - Los Angeles Times, or another good reason to have your baby anywhere but a hospital.

Friday nights are hell. There is something about anniversary days, regardless of how close or far-removed they are from the actual event, that set something off in my psyche. Yesterday was only the second Friday that had passed since Y's collapse. Last Friday was the memorial service, and this Friday, well, this Friday I needed to find something to do with myself.

Wednesday night, I was driving with a friend due west. The sun was setting, and the vermilion sky cast the barns and the trees in a sort of blood-amber light. In the midst of all that redness was the palest sliver of new moon. Inanna's moon, and I was reminded of the legend that says that the sliver of new moon is Inanna's boat, carrying the souls of the worthy from the underworld to heaven.

I could not take comfort from that legend. The only thing I could think was, "When you're dead, you don't get to see these things anymore." And the idea that Y could not see what I was seeing pierced me. Death is not about the dead. It's about the living. It's about how we make meaning out of the sudden disappearance of what was once a presence.

I keep seeing his ghosts everywhere. They're private moments, and I'm collecting them all, trying to piece them together so that perhaps, if I gather enough of them up, I can glue them together and make him present again.

Ridiculous. I'm a rational, intelligent human being. And yet.

When Caoily was 10 months old, she came down with rotavirus. If you have children, and you've been through this, then you know how awful this common infection is. Everything you put into your child--in my case, breastmilk and some solids--comes out in a very short time as a watery, noxious, seemingly neverending river of shit that overflows diapers. I would breastfeed her, and she would be shitting simultaneously, covering both of us in it as I tried to get fluids into her to keep her from dehydrating.
Our pediatrician hospitalized her after 12 hours. For three days, she stayed on a simple solution of electrolytes and fluid through an IV in her leg, the only vein the anesthesiologist (I had insisted on an anesthesiologist) could find to puncture.
She was one of the lucky ones.

Me. In the hotel room. Right before I left for the memorial service.

Y. A photo he sent to me when we were preparing to meet one another.

I feel as if I've dropped a box of marbles on a hardwood floor. They're rolling everywhere. They are my memories of Y. I'm afraid I won't be able to gather them all up, that some will never be found again. Maybe years later, when someone is renovating the house, they'll find a single cat's eye underneath a floorboard and someone will wonder at its significance.
Note from my notebook as I've tried to write down what is happening to me right now.

I have been writing down notes everywhere since Y. died. At some point, I will be able to make sense of things. There is something profoundly sacred in what happened, and right now, I am riding the waves of the universe, allowing myself to float. Eventually, there will be a spilling of ink. My sense is that once I begin to write about all of this, there will be no stopping.

This is the poem I'm clinging to today.

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Lorraine needs your blessings. Her boyfriend, who was just 43, died suddenly of a brain hemorrage. He had no know medical condition. The actually had had a wonderful night out, only marred by the splitting headache that was to cost him his life.

To say she is devastated is to put it mildly.

Pondering about the gift of love and the sorrow of death, I looked to the Tao Te Ching for widsom. I found this:

Verse 16, Tao Te Ching
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Running along the creek by my house, I spotted a small blackness jutting out of the water, stiff and stinking in the sun. I turned my head away from it, moving quickly through the greeness of sun-drenched leaves, my breath expelled through young lungs, alive.

Days passed. One afternoon, a neighborhood boy dragged a garbage bag across our front yard as I sang and looked out the bedroom window. Today could be the day that I caught a butterfly or made my parents another mud turtle sculpture. But that bag...what was in that bag? It made me feel bad. Soon I had to take my medicine. It had never really bothered me, though I bruised easily. I hated the boy dragging that bag. I tiptoed down the hall and stood at the top of the stairs as Dad peered into it. He signed. I twirled back to my room to finish my song, complete with high kicks. I had a butterfly to catch and a mud turtle to sculpt, so I needed to finish that song.

A few years earlier, I had been playing in the back yard when Mama started her car and I heard the screech of a cat. She pushed me inside, trying to calm me down by rubbing my face and explaining that when fans spin, they become sharp enough to cut. So I tested that theory by raking my fingers across different fans covers throughout the house. Nothing happened. And my needles didn't hurt me, they kept me alive. But the fan killed my cat. I understood very little about how the world worked. I still don't.