Midday Open Thread

• More Republicans with no shame: the Alaska delegation which is trying to get yet another bridge to nowhere built:

  If the area is successfully developed, that could mean a significant windfall for a number of people close to the Congressional delegation — including Young’s daughter, Joni, Stevens’ chief of staff and campaign manager and Murkowski’s state director — some of whom purchased land in the area just a few months before then-Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Young began substantive work on a massive highway bill in early 2003.... Former Stevens aide Lisa Sutherland also stands to see significant financial gain from the development of Knik Arm.

• PBS's Frontline is broadcasting a new report, Spying on the Homefront, tomorrow night at 9:00 EDT. The producers worked with Glenn Greenwald, who has a preview:

  The real value in the program is to serve as a reminder for just how little we know about what our government is doing in spying on our domestic activities and communications and the data it is collecting. In particular, it is striking how little we still know about the NSA's actions as it relates to the revelation that the Bush administration has been violating the law by eavesdropping on our telephone conversations in secret and without any judicial oversight.

• If Iraq falls apart after a U.S. withdrawal, it will be your fault. At least that's what Dick Cheney says:

  Asked by Fox's Brent Baier to say whether he thinks anyone who opposes the war in Iraq -- that would be 65 percent of the American public -- "wants terrorists to win," Cheney says: "I think they have to be responsible for the consequences of the policy recommendations they make. If, in fact, they advocate complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, then they are, to some extent, accountable for what would happen when that policy [is] followed, what happens inside Iraq, what kind of encouragement that might give to al-Qaida."

  Is not taking responsibility for your actions, particularly when your actions result in a catastrophically unnecessary war, part of bringing honor and dignity to the White House?

• George Bush is a uniter, after all. At at a conference between North and South Korean generals, tensions were apparently running high until one of the North Korean generals stood up and told a joke about the one subject both sides could agree on -- George Bush. That's the most effective example of Bush diplomacy yet.
• Expect to see a handful of GOP retirements from Congress in the next year. A prime example might be MO-09, where Rep. Kenny Hulshof is on the short list to become president of the University of Missouri.
• Glacier Park, no more? The National Environment Trust is holding an online contest to rename Glacier Park, because by 2030, there won't be any more glaciers there. More to the point, it's intended to put some pressure on the Montana Congressional delegation to support mandatory global warming pollution reduction policies.
• Happy Anniversary, Greg Sargent! The Horse's Mouth is a year old today. Just a pup, even in blog years.

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Yuan strengthening

Monkey Fister over at Blah 3 is pointing to an interesting article in Asia Times on a potential move by the Chinese central government and bank to loosen their export subsidizing currency control regime.

China will have to choose between the lesser of two evils, namely the protection of employment in its export-dominated industries or the safety net being created by investments in property and stocks by millions of its citizens. I believe it will choose to protect people's wealth more than lower-end manufacturing jobs; therefore a sharp revaluation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, is certain in the next few weeks.....

In turn, their holdings of US and European government bonds as part of foreign-exchange reserves would diminish, sending up bond yields globally. That is how the adjustment in China would likely set off broader stock-market declines globally as investors come to terms with both higher interest rates and lower Asian appetite for Group of Seven assets.

The second quoted paragraph is the standard oh-shit financial modeling scenario as the intervention of the Chinese and Japanese central banks as the leaders of a quasi-voluntary dollar denominated bond cartel has allowed the United States consumer to borrow massive amounts of cash at below market rates as these rates would be determined if buyers of dollar denominated debt were solely interested in generating high risk adjusted returns. Minzie Chinn at Econbrowser has a very interesting and geeky post that looks at some of the estimated deviation from expected values caused by the central bank intervention.

If the US dollar weakens as the Chinese central government reduces its purchase of US bonds and assets at currently low interest rates, US credit expansion will slow down, which means the US economy will also slow. Additionally, dollar denominated commodities such as oil and coffee will continue to get more expensive in dollar denominated terms even if their real value as measured against a trade weighted dollar excluded basket of currencies was to stablize or increase.

In the very long run, US exports, to China and other countries that allow their currencies to move in tandem with the yuan on the way up relative to the dollar, should increase, but the short run could be painful IF there is a significant increase in the short term relative value of the yuan.

Interesting times, interesting times....

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http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2007/05/yuan-strengthening.html

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If Its Sunday Or Third-Way, It's White Dudes

In 2004, according to exit polls, Bush won men 55-44, and Kerry won women 51-48. In 2006, according to the national House exit poll, Democrats won a narrow majority of the vote among men 50-47, and also won women 55-43. Democrats thus improved their[...]

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Dave Lindorff: Bush and the Media: Playing Us for
Fools

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Dave Lindorff

The idiot American media are giving Bush another free pass, running stories now that the U.S. is "willing" to talk with Iran, but only about how to calm down the Iraq conflict.

What a pathetic joke!

Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Dave Lindorff Iran Iraq war oil Bush Cheney hypocrisy

read more

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YouTube Now Off Limits to Military

A few weeks back, word was leaked that the military is now severely restricting access to blogging by military personnel overseas. “Operational security concerns” were cited as the reason for shutting down the milbloggers. Some of the more graphic images of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come via YouTube videos, and [...]

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http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/05/14/youtube-offlimits-to-soldiers/

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Picture of the Day #16, Mother's Day Edition

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. There are so many faces whose stories aren't being told by words alone to give them the chance of a better life. For all those who live within the confines of poverty or racism or sexism or the bigotry of not being understood, these are the faces of your stories.

I'm writing this on Mother's Day, a day that is filled with joy and also bittersweet for this year my grandsons and granddaughter have been given their freedom, the freedom to live without fear, without danger, without verbal or physical abuse, without the scourge that drugs bring into a home, without hunger or wanting of a different life, a better life, a secure and safe life, a home to call their own, a bedroom in which to lay their heads at night and know the nightmare is over, that they are wrapped up in the bosom of the love of a family who will do everything in our power to show them it doesn't have to be the way it has been for so many years, that peace and freedom are theirs now, that they have a future they only dreamed of, that it has finally come, the day of liberation for them, a glorious day.








I say bittersweet because this Mother's Day is a day of hope and wonder, the hope of dreams lost coming true, the hope that we can turn away from drugs and alcohol, the hope that we will find it in us to reach further than a glass pipe or a bottle, the hope that we have it in us to do better for our children, the hope that we can save ourselves and thus save our children. That the we that once was my son and me becomes the we for my daughter-in-law as well.

This is a Mother's Day when my ex daughter-in-law knows she has lost her children because she gave up hope and lost the wonderment of the most precious treasure we will ever have, she will no longer tuck them in at night nor wake them up for school the next morning. She will never have the experience of making and packing their lunchboxes because she hasn't yet and now has lost the right to.

She won't be the one to help them with their homework, or watch them catch pollywogs, or try to cast a fishing line far enough or deep enough to reel it in and see what's on the other end. She won't be taking them for their haircuts or shopping for clothes for the new school year. She won't be walking through the aisles of the supermarket picking out their favorite cereal or stocking up on popsicles for a hot summer's day.

She will no longer put the measuring stick against the wall and mark their height and marvel at how much they've grown since the last time, even if it was just two weeks ago. She won't watch movies with them or their favorite cartoons. She won't watch them swim or catch a Frisbee or skip rope or slam-dunk a basketball.

She won't be doing any of those things because she never has and now she has lost the right to until she sees a way to put that pipe down and never pick up that bottle again. She will have to throw her fianc? out to take her children back in, she will have to finally make the choice and decision to put her children first instead of last, to place them above the men who are willing to abuse them, to yell at them, to call them horrendous names and to hit them and threaten their very lives.

She will not have the opportunity to make them go hungry, for food and for love, hungry for security and stability, hungry for what children deserve, to laugh and be carefree without wondering what will happen in the next moment, or minute or hour.

A few hours a week she will see in their faces a sweetness and joy instead of vacant stares, she will see in their eyes that they hunger no more for all the things she didn't provide, she will see peace, the kind of peace when violence has ended, the kind of peace real love brings. She will see innocent faces that are sated, that no longer ask why, that no longer have to wonder what is ahead because what is past is past and so they see into a future of promise and their own hope for what will be.

I know all of this because I've known her for eighteen years but also because I was once her, I was that mother she is now, I recognized her the moment I first saw her, her eyes were my eyes, her heart was my heart, her soul was my soul, her need to not live or feel life was my need and her pain is now my pain for what she has done because I did likewise and because I had it in me to change, I feel her pain and I cry for her, on this Mother's Day, I cry for her, and I fervently hope she has it in her to change as well, for her sake and for the sake of her children.

This is our beautiful Mikayla when she was four.

This is Mikayla last year at fourteen.

Mikayla will be placed in a home where special needs children live, she will be close enough to continue going to the same school she has gone to since she was four and she will have the same teacher, the one who loves her like she is her own. My daughter-in-law will be able to see her as often as the placement home allows. We will be able to do the same.

This is Jerod when he was four or five.

This is James when he was almost two.

And this is a picture that was posted above, one taken a few weeks ago.

These are the boys who are not my son's biological children. This is a letter that comes from an essay I wrote on my son's birthday, June, 11, 2006. The Mediator placed great value on my son putting his name on the birth certificates and raising his sons as his own.

I sent the letter to my son's attorney, she in turn sent it to the judge, the Mediator and my daughter-in-law. It was part of the newest deposition to be sent in the custody case, right before the Mediation Hearing.

To Whom It May Concern:

My son was born June 11, 1967 at 11:13 AM. He came into the world easily, he waited until the sun had risen to bring in a new day. I was in labor for a little over three hours. It seems he was eager to greet this life of his, he took his first breath, and settled in as the nurse cleaned him, weighed him and measured him. He didn't cry, he seemed content to be in this new world. As I watched the nurse do what nurses do, I wondered how we would fare together, this little boy and me, I wondered what would become of us, I wondered who he was, who he had been born to be.

From the time he was still learning how to get his balance, still learning how to walk, still reaching for things to steady him, we have been in this life together. Throughout his life, for better or worse, we have been inseparable. It's only been in the past three plus years that we've lived further than 10 minutes apart. Sister and her son, Jon, and Derek and I often lived together as a family. We were all bound on this earth to be as one, we taught each other, we reached for the stars together, we fell down together and we rose to fight another day together. We learned who we are together, we learned how to love together, we learned of such things as loyalty and grace together, we learned how to simply be, just be, together.

We all settled in Sonoma, a town Derek has spent most of his life in. He went to grammar school, junior high and high school with friends that are still his to this day. Derek married his high school sweetheart. He said she needed him, that if he could have her he would never want for another thing in this life. Six months after they were wed she gave birth to beautiful Mikayla. Jerod came along three years later. My son settled into being a family man, it's all he ever really wanted, to be a husband and a father.

Derek and I had a tradition of spending a day each week with each other, just the two of us. It started when he was in grammar school in Petaluma. We often drove the thirty minutes to the coast, we sat on the beach or on a large piece of driftwood, we would each draw something in the sand and the other one would use what was drawn to tell a story, we would watch the sunset and we would talk about anything that was on our minds. It was in a word, lovely. The bond that was forged in those years between us is so great that we are still the person each of us tells everything to. There isn't a topic that is out of bounds. This has continued through the years, we call them our date night now.

One night when I still lived in Sonoma Derek came to my house and sat down on the front porch with me. He told me he had something to tell me, he told me he needed to know what I thought of something important, he said he needed to know what my heart would say. On that Friday evening I asked him what it was and he told me his wife was pregnant again. He stumbled a little as he told me the baby wasn't his, that he was not the father. I held his face in my hands as I said to him that perhaps that's why women are pregnant for nine months so things can be sorted out, so the truths of who we are in our hearts and souls have a chance to show themselves.

I told him sometimes we get to see what we're made of, that sometimes life hands us an incredible gift, the gift of seeing if we just talk the talk or if we truly walk the walk. I told him that's what this baby was, it was a measure of who we are in this world. We were sitting so close to each other our legs were touching, he put his arm around my shoulder and said that's why he had come to me, he knew we would find the way together.

Derek told me that first night that he didn't know if he could do it, if he could love the baby as if it was his own, he didn't know if he could get beyond all the things that were bound to come up, his ego, his wife cheating, if he could look at the baby and know it's not the sperm that makes a father, that being a daddy is being there with love and an open heart. I told him that was fair enough, that he needed time to think it over, that he should be sure because it's a commitment for a lifetime.

We talked often during the coming months. We spoke of who was ultimately the most important person, we spoke of how babies are innocents, that they deserve to be born into a life where they are sheltered, fed and clothed, that they should be wanted and loved. We also spoke of the different ways people come to us, whether they be friends or family or babies we raise and call our own no matter what.

I was with his wife when she went into labor, I had decided that I wanted and needed to bond with the little guy from his first breath on so I held her legs as she pushed until my grandson was born. I watched as he was placed on my daughter-in-law's stomach, I saw how rosy pink he was, how perfect he was, how glorious he was, how loudly he cried. He was robust, in all ways, he was bigger than life, he was a force.

When they brought the baby boy into the room after being cleaned up we took turns holding him. There were great big smiles in the room but there was an obvious silence that was hidden, and then we all heard it, we heard the steps coming towards us made from cowboy boots. I took in a big breath and held it, tears formed in my eyes until they overflowed my cheeks, I knew who it was. Derek came into the room, he walked over to me and kissed my cheek, he walked over to his wife and kissed her forehead, then he reached down and picked up little James Ray, held him up in front of him, kissed his little button mouth and said, "welcome to our family son, I'm your daddy." That is my son.

I don't know how to begin to say how I feel about my son. There is, of course, love and devotion, there is pride for who he was born to be and in the man he has become, there is a sense of honor that comes with loving him, there is a swelling up of the heart as I tell this story, there is a sense of privilege that he came into my life, not matter how it was, I am and will always be grateful beyond measure that I know him, that he is my family and my friend.

Ericka has said this year that Jerod isn't biologically Derek's son either. The boys look completely different from each other, they have completely different personalities but being different in other ways, essential ways, stops there, it is obvious that Derek holds each of them in his heart the same, it is the measure of the man Derek is that DNA matters not, he is their father, no matter what anyone says, he is their father.

Derek and I had the opportunity to have another front porch moment. Five years ago Derek came to me once again and told me his wife was pregnant. Like the last time, Derek was not the father. We didn't have to have a conversation about it, he said he would be this baby's daddy. Derek talked to his unborn son all through the pregnancy. He told him jokes, he massaged his wife's stomach, he read to him, he went with his wife when she had ultrasounds, he passed the picture around proudly for all to see. He started loving that little guy from the moment he knew of him, Derek had crossed the threshold of doubt into doing what's right by innocent babies who are born into this world, he became the village that would raise them.

They decided to name the baby after Derek's best friend who had been killed in a motorcycle accident right after they graduated from high school. Clayton Elias never made it though, he was strangled by the umbilical cord before birth. We barely knew him, we barely knew him.

It's a sobering thing to say words over a newborn's casket, it takes courage to speak when a heart is shattered, it takes a reservoir of strength for a man to stand up before the world and talk about a son that was lost, his son that would not be. It takes a humbled soul and spirit to weep openly in front of so many who knew he wasn't the biological father and felt it their right to judge. It is a testament to who my son is that he never wavered, he never gave it a moment's thought, he was there for the love of his son, a son that was his in every important way from the time he was but a glimmer of light that had the possibility to shine for the world to see.

I don't know that there's any greater hurt in life than watching your child bury their child, what I do know is that there's no measure that comes close to the wonder that life is when it delivers a child to you that grows into majesty, that becomes the very light Nelson Mandela speaks of, that is fearless in who he was born to be. I am quite simply in awe that he is my child, my only child, that a woman who was so clearly not meant to have children got the bounty of who my son is.

As I looked into my son's eyes that day I saw greatness. After everyone else left the gravesite Derek and I stayed. We sat on that grassy knoll next to Clayton's grave and talked and we cried. Derek told me all the hopes and dreams he had for his son, how much he was looking forward to being his father, how he would miss him and hold him in his heart forever. He told me he would never forget the pleasure he had felt all those months of the pregnancy. He said he got to know him in a way a father knows a child before they have graced this earth, he said he would recognize him when they meet again.

I often say we are blessed to have landed in our hearts, when I do so this is what I'm talking about, it's when life is cruel and harsh but we find a way not to build a wall around us, when life is dark with just a sliver of light, when being in the shadows is our safe place, when our hearts are ripped to shreds and our souls feel like they will never mend, when our spirits are crushed beyond recognition, when we choose, when we make that choice to walk with an open heart, we are the ones who heal and because we do the world heals a little with us.

No one goes through their life unscathed, we have had hardships and tragedy, we have buried loved ones and wept, we have seen marriages and divorces, and now we are in the midst of this custody fight but, for me, when the sun rises each day I choose the greatness of love to guide me. I know what is possible when there is love. One only has to look at Derek with his children to know that that is also true for him, that he has always chosen the greatness of love to guide him, that's what was in his heart and soul each time a child came into his life and because he did they all will find a way to heal and because they do the world will heal a little also.

I wasn't born to be a mother but I was born to love the man who is my son, I was put on this earth to know and to love him, I am privileged beyond measure to call him my son.

Thank you,

XXXX

My son and I have come so far, we were both willing to do the work it took to bring us to this loving place, a place of trust, respect and love along with a commitment to bring that to his children.

We are so fortunate to come from a family that filled us with love and support, who never gave up on us, who saw us through addiction and helped us reach the other side. My daughter-in-law doesn't have that, her family is mired down in addiction and has been for generations, there doesn't appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel but my sincere hope is that my daughter-in-law sees in this world a different way to be, I hope she will hear the lessons my son and I learned and tried to share with her.

I cannot say there isn't a place in my heart for my daughter-in-law, there is anger now, there is such disappointment and rage, there is bitterness but forgiveness will come in time, Derek and I are committed to that, for us but mostly for the children, they need to know we love their Mom and that we understand how a life goes so very wrong, that at the end of the tunnel is love for her, and always will be.

In the Katharine Hepburn Open Thread she said, "When I'm cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating." I have to say that I find the same to be true of myself. When I look at my life and examine all those many years when my drugs of choice and the bottle were my salvation and when I look at where I've landed, in my heart, I marvel at it all and I don't lose sight of how that came to be. It leaves me utterly and absolutely fascinated, not just by me but by all that helped me to be who I was capable of being, it's no small thing that, and I'm most appreciative.

When I look at the clear blue sky today, my hope is for all the mothers out there who are still addicted to whatever it is that's keeping them from being who they were born to be, my hope is that they too can see the way out, somehow, somewhere, sometime soon. It's a wonder what lies on the other side of addiction, if we're only willing and able to go there.

I am so blessed, as is my son, for he was once there also, we don't take what we have now for granted, we revel in it, we get intoxicated with the goodness of it but we never forget from where we've come, not for a moment do we forget.

A version of this has been crossposted at BoomanTribune , Blue House Diaries, culturekitchen and dailykos




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Picture of the Day #15, Mother's Day Edition

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  There are so many faces whose stories aren't being told by words alone to give them the chance of a better life.  For all those who live within the confines of poverty or racism or sexism or the bigotry of not being understood, these are the faces of your stories.

I'm writing this on Mother's Day, a day that is filled with joy and also bittersweet for this year my grandsons and granddaughter have been given their freedom, the freedom to live without fear, without danger, without verbal or physical abuse, without the scourge that drugs bring into a home, without hunger or wanting of a different life, a better life, a secure and safe life, a home to call their own, a bedroom in which to lay their heads at night and know the nightmare is over, that they are wrapped up in the bosom of the love of a family who will do everything in our power to show them it doesn't have to be the way it has been for so many years, that peace and freedom are theirs now, that they have a future they only dreamed of, that it has finally come, the day of liberation for them, a glorious day. 
I say bittersweet because this Mother's Day is a day of hope and wonder, the hope of dreams lost coming true, the hope that we can turn away from drugs and alcohol, the hope that we will find it in us to reach further than a glass pipe or a bottle, the hope that we have it in us to do better for our children, the hope that we can save ourselves and thus save our children.  That the we that once was my son and me becomes the we for my daughter-in-law as well.

This is a Mother's Day when my ex daughter-in-law knows she has lost her children because she gave up hope and lost the wonderment of the most precious treasure we will ever have, she will no longer tuck them in at night nor wake them up for school the next morning.  She will never have the experience of making and packing their lunchboxes because she hasn't yet and now has lost the right to. 

She won't be the one to help them with their homework, or watch them catch polywogs, or try to cast a fishingline far enough or deep enough to reel it in and see what's on the other end.  She won't be taking them for their haircuts or shopping for clothes for the new school year.  She won't be walking through the aisles of the supermarket picking out their favorite cereal or stocking up on popsicles for a hot summer's day. 

She will no longer put the measuring stick against the wall and mark their height and marvel at how much they've grown since the last time, even if it was just two weeks ago.  She won't watch movies with them or their favorite cartoons.  She won't watch them swim or catch a frisbee or skip rope or slam dunk a basketball.

She won't be doing any of those things because she never has and now she has lost the right to until she sees a way to put that pipe down and never pick up that bottle again.  She will have to throw her fiancee out to take her children back in, she will have to finally make the choice and decision to put her children first instead of last, to place them above the men who are willing to abuse them, to yell at them, to call them horrendous names and to hit them and threaten their very lives.

She will not have the opportunity to make them go hungry, for food and for love, hungry for security and stability, hungry for what children deserve, to laugh and be carefree without wondering what will happen in the next moment, or minute or hour. 

A few hours a week she will see in their faces a sweetness and joy instead of vacant stares, she will see in their eyes that they hunger no more for all the things she didn't provide, she will see peace, the kind of peace when violence has ended, the kind of peace real love brings.  She will see innocent faces that are sated, that no longer ask why, that no longer have to wonder what is ahead because what is past is past and so they see into a future of promise and their own hope for what will be.

I know all of this because I've known her for eighteen years but also because I was once her, I was that mother she is now, I recognized her the moment I first saw her, her eyes were my eyes, her heart was my heart, her soul was my soul, her need to not live or feel life was my need and her pain is now my pain for what she has done because I did likewise and because I had it in me to change, I feel her pain and I cry for her, on this Mother's Day, I cry for her, and I fervently hope she has it in her to change as well, for her sake and for the sake of her children.

This is our beautiful Mikayla when she was four.

This is Mikayla last year at fourteen.

Mikayla will be placed in a home where special needs children live, she will be close enough to continue going to the same school she has gone to since she was four and she will have the same teacher, the one who loves her like she is her own.  My daughter-in-law will be able to see her as often as the placement home allows.  We will be able to do the same.

This is Jerod when he was four or five.

This is James when he was was almost two.

And this is a picture that was posted above, one taken a few weeks ago. 

These are the boys who are not my son's biological children.  This is a letter that comes from an essay I wrote on my son's birthday, June, 11, 2006.  The Mediator placed great value on my son putting his name on the birth certificates and raising his sons as his own. 

I sent the letter to my son's attorney, she in turn sent it to the judge, the Mediator and my daughter-in-law.  It was part of the newest deposition to be sent in the custody case, right before the Mediation Hearing. 

To Whom It May Concern:

My son was born June 11, 1967 at 11:13 AM.  He came into the world easily, he waited until the sun had risen to bring in a new day.  I was in labor for a little over three hours.  It seems he was eager to greet this life of his, he took his first breath, and settled in as the nurse cleaned him, weighed him and measured him.  He didn't cry, he seemed content to be in this new world.  As I watched the nurse do what nurses do, I wondered how we would fare together, this little boy and me, I wondered what would become of us, I wondered who he was, who he had been born to be.

From the time he was still learning how to get his balance, still learning how to walk, still reaching for things to steady him, we have been in this life together.  Throughout his life, for better or worse, we have been inseparable.  It's only been in the past three plus years that we've lived further than 10 minutes apart.  Sister and her son, Jon, and Derek and I often lived together as a family.  We were all bound on this earth to be as one, we taught each other, we reached for the stars together, we fell down together and we rose to fight another day together.  We learned who we are together, we learned how to love together, we learned of such things as loyalty and grace together, we learned how to simply be, just be, together.

We all settled in Sonoma, a town Derek has spent most of his life in.  He went to grammar school, junior high and high school with friends that are still his to this day.  Derek married his high school sweetheart.  He said she needed him, that if he could have her he would never want for another thing in this life.  Six months after they were wed she gave birth to beautiful Mikayla.  Jerod came along three years later.  My son settled into being a family man, it's all he ever really wanted, to be a husband and a father.

Derek and I had a tradition of spending a day each week with each other, just the two of us.  It started when he was in grammar school in Petaluma.  We often drove the thirty minutes to the coast, we sat on the beach or on a large piece of driftwood, we would each draw something in the sand and the other one would use what was drawn to tell a story, we would watch the sunset and we would talk about anything that was on our minds.  It was in a word, lovely.  The bond that was forged in those years between us is so great that we are still the person each of us tells everything to.  There isn't a topic that is out of bounds.  This has continued through the years, we call them our date night now. 

One night when I still lived in Sonoma Derek came to my house and sat down on the front porch with me.  He told me he had something to tell me, he told me he needed to know what I thought of something important, he said he needed to know what my heart would say.  On that Friday evening I asked him what it was and he told me his wife was pregnant again.  He stumbled a little as he told me the baby wasn't his, that he was not the father.  I held his face in my hands as I said to him that perhaps that's why women are pregnant for nine months so things can be sorted out, so the truths of who we are in our hearts and souls have a chance to show themselves.

I told him sometimes we get to see what we're made of, that sometimes life hands us an incredible gift, the gift of seeing if we just talk the talk or if we truly walk the walk.  I told him that's what this baby was, it was a measure of who we are in this world.  We were sitting so close to each other our legs were touching, he put his arm around my shoulder and said that's why he had come to me, he knew we would find the way together.

Derek told me that first night that he didn't know if he could do it, if he could love the baby as if it was his own, he didn't know if he could get beyond all the things that were bound to come up, his ego, his wife cheating, if he could look at the baby and know it's not the sperm that makes a father, that being a daddy is being there with love and an open heart.  I told him that was fair enough, that he needed time to think it over, that he should be sure because it's a commitment for a lifetime.

We talked often during the coming months.  We spoke of who was ultimately the most important person, we spoke of how babies are innocents, that they deserve to be born into a life where they are sheltered, fed and clothed, that they should be wanted and loved.  We also spoke of the different ways people come to us, whether they be friends or family or babies we raise and call our own no matter what. 

I was with his wife when she went into labor, I had decided that I wanted and needed to bond with the little guy from his first breath on so I held her legs as she pushed until my grandson was born.  I watched as he was placed on my daughter-in-law's stomach, I saw how rosey pink he was, how perfect he was, how glorious he was, how loudly he cried.  He was robust, in all ways, he was bigger than life, he was a force.

When they brought the baby boy into the room after being cleaned up we took turns holding him.  There were great big smiles in the room but there was an obvious silence that was hidden, and then we all heard it, we heard the steps coming towards us made from cowboy boots.  I took in a big breath and held it, tears formed in my eyes until they overflowed my cheeks, I knew who it was.  Derek came into the room, he walked over to me and kissed my cheek, he walked over to his wife and kissed her forehead, then he reached down and picked up little James Ray, held him up in front of him, kissed his little button mouth and said, "welcome to our family son, I'm your daddy."  That is my son.

I don't know how to begin to say how I feel about my son.  There is, of course, love and devotion, there is pride for who he was born to be and in the man he has become, there is a sense of honor that comes with loving him, there is a swelling up of the heart as I tell this story, there is a sense of privilege that he came into my life, not matter how it was, I am and will always be grateful beyond measure that I know him, that he is my family and my friend.

Ericka has said this year that Jerod isn't biologically Derek's son either.  The boys look completely different from each other, they have completely different personalities but being different in other ways, essential ways, stops there, it is obvious that Derek holds each of them in his heart the same, it is the measure of the man Derek is that DNA matters not, he is their father, no matter what anyone says, he is their father. 

Derek and I had the opportunity to have another front porch moment.  Five years ago Derek came to me once again and told me his wife was pregnant. Like the last time, Derek was not the father.  We didn't have to have a conversation about it, he said he would be this baby's daddy. Derek talked to his unborn son all through the pregnancy.  He told him jokes, he massaged his wife's stomach, he read to him, he went with his wife when she had ultrasounds, he passed the picture around proudly for all to see.  He started loving that little guy from the moment he knew of him, Derek had crossed the threshold of doubt into doing what's right by innocent babies who are born into this world, he became the village that would raise them.

They decided to name the baby after Derek's best friend who had been killed in a motorcycle accident right after they graduated from high school.  Clayton Elias never made it though, he was strangled by the umbilical cord before birth.  We barely knew him, we barely knew him.

It's a sobering thing to say words over a newborn's casket, it takes courage to speak when a heart is shattered, it takes a reservoir of strength for a man to stand up before the world and talk about a son that was lost, his son that would not be.  It takes a humbled soul and spirit to weep openly in front of so many who knew he wasn't the biological father and felt it their right to judge.  It is a testament to who my son is that he never waivered, he never gave it a moment's thought, he was there for the love of his son, a son that was his in every important way from the time he was but a glimmer of light that had the possibility to shine for the world to see.

I don't know that there's any greater hurt in life than watching your child bury their child, what I do know is that there's no measure that comes close to the wonder that life is when it delivers a child to you that grows into majesty, that becomes the very light Nelson Mandela speaks of, that is fearless in who he was born to be.  I am quite simply in awe that he is my child, my only child, that a woman that was so clearly not meant to have children got the bounty of who my son is.

As I looked into my son's eyes that day I saw greatness.  After everyone else left the grave site Derek and I stayed.  We sat on that grassy knoll next to Clayton's grave and talked and we cried.  Derek told me all the hopes and dreams he had for his son, how much he was looking forward to being his father, how he would miss him and hold him in his heart forever.  He told me he would never forget the pleasure he had felt all those months of the pregnancy.  He said he got to know him in a way a father knows a child before they have graced this earth, he said he will recognize him when they meet again.

I often say we are blessed to have landed in our hearts, when I do so this is what I'm talking about, it's when life is cruel and harsh but we find a way not to build a wall around us, when life is dark with just a sliver of light, when being in the shadows is our safe place, when our hearts are ripped to shreds and our souls feel like they will never mend, when our spirits are crushed beyond recognition, when we choose, when we make that choice to walk with an open heart, we are the ones who heal and because we do the world heals a little with us.

No one goes through their life unscathed, we have had hardships and tragedy, we have buried loved ones and wept, we have seen marriages and divorces, and now we are in the midst of this custody fight but, for me, when the sun rises each day I choose the greatness of love to guide me.  I know what is possible when there is love.  One only has to look at Derek with his children to know that that is also true for him, that he has always chosen the greatness of love to guide him, that's what was in his heart and soul each time a child came into his life and because he did they  all will find a way to heal and because they do the world will heal a little also.

I wasn't born to be a mother but I was born to love the man who is my son, I was put on this earth to know and to love him, I am privileged beyond measure to call him my son.

Thank you,

XXXX

My son and I have come so far, we were both willing to do the work it took to bring us to this loving place, a place of trust, respect and love along with a commitment to bring that to his children. 

We are so fortunate to come from a family that filled us with love and support, who never gave up on us, who saw us through addiction and helped us reach the other side.  My daughter-in-law doesn't have that, her family is mired down in addiction and has been for generations, there doesn't appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel but my sincere hope is that my daughter-in-law sees in this world a different way to be, I hope she will hear the lessons my son and I learned and tried to share with her. 

I cannot say there isn't a place in my heart for my daughter-in-law, there is anger now, there is such disappointment and rage, there is bitterness but forgiveness will come in time, Derek and I are commited to that, for us but mostly for the children, they need to know we love their Mom and that we understand how a life goes so very wrong, that at the end of the tunnel is love for her, and always will be.

In the Katherine Hepburn Open Thread she said, "When I'm cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating."  I have to say that I find the same to be true of myself.  When I look at my life and examine all those many years when my drugs of choice and the bottle were my salvation and when I look at where I've landed, in my heart, I marvel at it all and I don't lose sight of how that came to be.  It leaves me utterly and absolutely fascinated, not just by me but by all that helped me to be who I was capable of being, it's no small thing that, and I'm most appreciative.

When I look at the clear blue sky today, my hope is for all the mothers out there who are still addicted to whatever it is that's keeping them from being who they were born to be, my hope is that they too can see the way out, somehow, somewhere, sometime soon.  It's a wonder what lies on the other side of addiction, if we're only willing and able to go there. 

I am so blessed, as is my son, for he was once there also, we don't take what we have now for granted, we revel in it, we get intoxicated with the goodness of it but we never forget from where we've come, not for a moment do we forget. 

 

A version of this has been crossposted at BoomanTribune , Blue House Diaries,culturekitchen and dailykos

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http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16634

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More delays for Iraq’s political process.

“A parliamentary committee set up to study amendments to Iraq’s constitution has failed to agree on a number of issues and will seek a weeklong extension of its deadline to present a report to parliament.” The LA Times reported yesterday that “the oil law that U.S. officials call vital to ending Iraq’s civil war is [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/14/more-delays-for-iraqs-political-process/

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So Iran Gets Nukes. So What

I suppose I'll have to go through this at least once a week in the current season of still gathering madness. From a prominently featured New York Times story -- which as I write this is, of course, linked by a huge red headline on Drudge:

Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency's top officials.

The findings may change the calculus of diplomacy in Europe and in Washington, which aimed to force a suspension of Iran's enrichment activities in large part to prevent it from learning how to produce weapons-grade material.

Several paragraphs later, we begin to get the qualifications to this recycled doomsday scenario, in a neverending succession of virtually identical doomsday scenarios:

The material produced so far would have to undergo further enrichment before it could be transformed into bomb-grade material. To accomplish that, Iran would likely first have to evict the I.A.E.A. inspectors, as North Korea did four years ago.

Even then, it is unclear whether the Iranians have the technology to produce a weapon small enough to fit atop their missiles, a significant engineering challenge.

While the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all of its nuclear activities, and it has twice imposed sanctions for Tehran's refusal to do so, some European nations, and particularly Russia, have questioned whether the demand for suspension still makes sense.

The logic of demanding suspension is that it would delay the day that Iran gained the knowledge to produce its own nuclear fuel ? what the Israelis used to refer to as "the point of no return." Those favoring unconditional engagement with Iran have argued that the current strategy is creating a stalemate that the Iranians are exploiting, allowing them to make technological leaps while the Security Council steps up sanctions.

At this point, I suppose I should also remind you that the "unsustainability" of a sanctions policy was one of the reasons used to support the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That particular reason was enormously popular with many liberals, among others. Moreover, it is well-known -- or at least, it should be well-known -- that sanctions do nothing to deter the targeted country's leaders from pursuing the policies disfavored by those who demand the sanctions, while they inflict grievous, terrible suffering on the country's population in general. In brief, sanctions are an unspeakably cruel, complete failure.

On this subject, I will turn the floor over to Stanley Kutler, whose entire article I recommend with special emphasis to those liberals and progressives who continue, with no factual support whatsoever, to view Clinton's foreign policy in the 1990s through rose-colored glasses so heavily tinted that they render those who wear them almost completely blind:

Where was our attention for the decade following the Gulf War in 1991? ...

And what attention did we give to the thirteen-year campaign of sanctions and bombings of Iraq? For Barry Lando, in his useful new book Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush, sanctions were the weapon of mass destruction used against the Iraqi people to starve and reduce them to a Third World level of poverty. Lando's work opens our eyes to one of the most tragic episodes in the lengthy, sorry history of "Western" dealings with Iraq. ... The British preferred Winston Churchill's imperial ambitions. We chose Bushes, a Clinton and their respective entourages. Either way, disaster was not far behind.

...

The sanctions and bombings of the 1990s are directly linked to Bush's determination to invade Iraq in 2003 and attempt to remake it--again, in our image. History illuminates the present, and we would do well to absorb Lando's narration.

The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq as part of the run-up to the first Gulf War. The Security Council severed all imports and exports between Iraq and the world--from food and vaccines to hospital equipment and medical journals. Iraq imported 70 percent of its food, largely paid for by oil exports. The UN's writ is not meaningless--not when the United States and Great Britain rigorously enforced the sanctions. And to underline for the Iraqis where the muscle was, the two powers regularly bombed the country.

We estimate between 500,00 to 1 million Iraqis died in the 1990s, a very large proportion being children. To what end? Not, Lando maintains, to destroy Saddam Hussein's WMDs but to force him out. ...

The CIA badly miscalculated that sanctions, coupled with Iraq's devastating defeat, would result in a military coup, toppling Saddam. Anything but. The sanctions and Saddam's heightened repression insured his survival--much to the frustration of Western leaders.
...

The sanctions worked only as partly intended: They imposed untold suffering on the population. Americans at the UN blocked a request to ship baby food because adults might use it. They vetoed sending a heart pill that contained a milligram of cyanide because tens of thousands of such pills could become a lethal weapon. The banned list included filters for water treatment plants, vaccines, cotton swabs and gauze, children's clothes, funeral shrouds. Somehow, even Vietnamese pingpong balls found their way to the proscribed list.

Sanctions devastated the country's medical system, once one of the best in the region. Sanctions insured that malnutrition would morph into virtual death sentences, as Lando notes. Babies died in incubators because of power failures; others were crippled with cerebral palsy because of insufficient oxygen supplies. As early as May 1991, a visiting Harvard medical team concluded that Iraq had a public health catastrophe.

...

Iraqis hoped for a better day with the new President, Bill Clinton. Alas! Clinton's background and his political calculus determined that he had to establish his macho credentials and his credibility with the right. He authorized a Tomahawk missile attack against Baghdad, supposedly in retaliation for Saddam's alleged plot to assassinate former President Bush. (The Kuwaiti-provided evidence, many believe, is quite tenuous.) In any event, Clinton's attack went off track and killed eight civilians, including a gifted artist. His UN Ambassador, Madeleine Albright, carefully monitored the ever-tightening sanctions. In late 1994 the New York Times reported on children in filthy hospitals, dying with diarrhea and pneumonia, people desperately seeking food, and Iraq's inability to sell its oil--the country faced "famine and economic collapse." Without doubt, the sanctions consolidated Saddam's power. UN Administrator Denis Halliday wrote that the people blamed the United States and the UN for their travails, not Saddam Hussein. Halliday resigned, refusing to administer a program that he called "genocide."

...

The present Iraq War and occupation is but another chapter in our melancholy, misguided and decidedly bipartisan relations with Iraq. Lando painfully underscores how we knew--and deliberately enforced--such policies just to heighten that civilian suffering. The chimera of Saddam's imminent overthrow only tightened the screws for the Iraqis.

...

When in March 2003, the Bush Administration launched its inevitable invasion, American forces confronted an empty shell of defenses and a dispirited, devastated and despairing populace. The invasion was a cakewalk. But our not-so wise policy-makers wanted more, and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz promised our troops garlands of flowers as Iraqis would welcome their liberators. Some welcome. The American and British sanctions' policy had done its work quite well--painfully, devastatingly well. Remember: Much of this was pursued by the Clinton Administration, anxious to show that its statesmanship credentials could match any Bush. So the last word properly belongs to Secretary Albright. Although she belatedly disavowed her comments after the Iraq disaster was obvious to all except George W. Bush, nevertheless, she said of sanctions and bombings: "It was worth it."

The Clinton administration's Iraq policy, as well as its interventions in the Balkans, continued to strengthen the groundwork and provide unbroken continuity to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or lying, or both. The Clinton administration and its defenders in the realm of foreign policy have a great deal to answer for.

Finally, we should consider the more general issues that are implicated. Even though the foreign policy establishment and almost all political leaders of both parties are fully committed to American world hegemony, a world where we are entitled to call all the shots and tell every other country what it is and is not permitted to do, there is no political, strategic, legal or moral justification for this stance, and there never will be. (See "Dominion Over the World" for much more on this.) Our position is especially untenable when we carve out exceptions for a country like India, which is not a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, while we threaten to unleash nuclear destruction of our own on Iran (which is a signatory), because of the potential threat Iran might represent at some point in the indeterminate future. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are especially insistent on this last point.

Almost one year ago, in "And Still One More Time: Stop Helping the Warmongers," I discussed the irrelevance of intelligence to major foreign policy decisions. Such decisions, including matters of war and peace, are ones of judgment; they do not depend on "secret information," which is invariably wrong, and basically intelligent, ordinary citizens are just as capable of making such judgments as supposedly learned and experienced government leaders (who, as history has just demonstrated for the thousandth time, are stupendously thickheaded, entirely cowardly, and relentlessly bloodthirsty when it comes to such matters). In analyzing the terrible mistake of insisting that "the intelligence has to be right this time" -- as if intelligence actually has anything to do with the decision to go to war, which it does not and almost never has -- I wrote:

The issue matters so much because the error in the way the debate is framed may very well lead us into disaster once again, and even into a global nuclear war. With regard to Iran, everyone who is at all prominent in the debate about what we should do -- everyone, Democrat, Republican or otherwise -- insists that we have "to get the intelligence right this time." In other words: if we are convinced that Iran is actually trying to get nuclear weapons (even though all the best estimates indicate they still won't have even one for five to 10 years), then something has to be done. Usually, the proponents of this view add that something has to be done now, or very soon.

Just as I argued with regard to Iraq, I offer a resounding no. Once again, the decision is one of policy and judgment, and the intelligence will have nothing to do with it. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons in five or 10 years [or even sooner], many factors strongly argue against the likelihood that they would ever use them against the United States. There is no evidence to suggest that Iran's leaders are entirely suicidal: any attack that could be traced back to Iran would surely result in the large-scale destruction of that country. They know that, so do we, and so does everyone else. Given our current foreign policy of attacking and occupying any country on earth that our current leaders take a strong dislike to -- whether that country constitutes a threat to us or not -- it is hardly surprising that Iran and other nations want a nuclear deterrence of their own, to protect them from our lethal lunacy. Moreover, it is well-known, despite the fact that it is almost never mentioned in our polite political debates, that Israel has a very sizable nuclear arsenal. I should remind you that Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and that Iran is. If Iran and Israel both had nuclear weapons at their disposal, that might actually serve to stabilize the Middle East situation, and make a wider regional war less likely. This is not a complicated or controversial thought. It is blindingly logical and straightforward. (Obligatory point for the thinking-impaired: this is not to say that I view a nuclear Iran as a good thing. I don't view it as a remotely good thing that anyone has nuclear weapons, including us. [That is especially true, since we're the only country that has used them-- even when we did not have to, and even when we lied about the devastating human consequences.] I am simply suggesting that the results may not in fact be the End Times calamity that so many assume.)

But the current administration seeks to impose its will on the entire world, and the Middle East is only the first stop on their global hegemonic journey. And the Democrats -- fully cowed and terrified of being seen as "weak" on national security -- for the most part seek only to show that they're "gutsier" and "stronger" than the Bush crowd, which means only that they're even more willing to bomb countries that don't threaten us in the least. At this point, no one should have any doubts on one issue: if the Bush administration wants "intelligence" that shows Iran is a "serious" and "growing" threat, they will find it or create it out of nothing, or next to nothing. The atmosphere of growing hysteria will be amplified by a press which continues to view itself primarily as an adjunct to the powerful (some rare exceptions to the contrary notwithstanding, as noted here). With only one or two exceptions, the craven Democrats won't dare to oppose the tide -- and Armageddon, here we come.

Even after the unspeakably criminal, immoral, illegal, monstrous, and catastrophic invasion and occupation of Iraq, none of this has changed.

As I recently remarked: as far as our governing elites are concerned, America is God. God's Will be done.

That, please note, includes the destruction of large parts of the globe, and the deaths of countless millions of people -- destruction that it remains very likely the United States will begin and no one else at all, entirely on its own initiative, and on the basis of endless lies and propaganda.

None of this has changed. Most people are entirely unaware of these issues, and almost no one appears even to give a damn.

Have a nice night.

[Much more about the misunderstandings of the role of intelligence will be found in, "How the Foreign Policy Consensus Protects Itself," at the conclusion of which you will find links to other essays on the same topic.]

Read The Full Article:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/05/so-iran-gets-nukes-so-what.html

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Hard Work

Voting day in Philadelphia tomorrow. It's the primary, but it's basically a single party city so it's largely the one that counts.

I find it to be very hard work to follow local politics and to make informed judgments on even the major races, let alone the ones more down ticket (When in doubt I vote for the people who show up at Drinking Liberally). More than that, it's difficult to really know what the range of possibilities are, where the bottlenecks and blocks to progress are, what could reasonably be hoped for, etc.

It's also the case that my personal pet issues probably don't necessarily echo the pet issues of most people in the city. I have no kids and live in a low crime area, and while education and crime reduction are of course very important issues for every urban area, and successful improvements will have positive impacts for the city generally, it's still the case that they aren't things which by and large impact me directly.

Remember to vote early and often! I intend to.

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_05_13_archive.html#8717629703275863093

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