| Rayne Today Searching for dharma, in spite of the weather...
Build-A-Meme Project: On the move with MoveOn.org The following message asks for our help. If you’ve already signed the petition described below, thank you very much. If not, please consider doing so. Every little bit helps if we’re to ever get to the truth. You might well ask: is this really part of the Build-A-Meme Project? No, in the sense that this particular project team didn’t develop or launch this “memetic” initiative. But yes, it is, in the sense that this is aligned with the fundamental objective of the Project: remove George W. Bush from the White House in 2004. I’ll stick my neck out and gladly add that our vision includes removing Bush sooner if the opportunity for impeachment exists. Please sign if you can. Send a message to the Bush Administration and Congress, let them know we want the truth. Thank you. -------------------------------------- Dear MoveOn member, It's exciting: the campaign to get to the bottom of the Bush administration's distortion of evidence on If we work together, we can hit 350,000 signers by Wednesday, and really impress Congress. But we'll need your help…we can do it if everyone who signed brings in a few more people. Please take a moment to forward the message below to your friends, and urge them to sign on now at: http://www.moveon.org/wmdpledge/ You can automatically generate a message in most mail programs just by clicking here. On Thursday, we also launched a new hard-hitting "Misleader" TV ad which asks whether the president misused intelligence to make the case for war. The ad says, "George Bush told us Since Thursday, the ad has appeared (for free) on the news programs of CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, PBS, and NPR, and was covered on the Washington Post on Friday. You can check it out at: Please take a moment to ask your friends and family to join the call. Just forward the message below. (Please only reach out to folks who you know personally and who want to hear from you on this -- Spam hurts the campaign.) Together, we can make sure that the truth on Sincerely, Here's the message to send to your friends: -------------------------------------- Subject: WMDs: Help us reach 550 signers by Weds. Dear Friend, The President took the nation to war based on his assertion that I've joined over 330,000 other people in calling on Congress to investigate at MoveOn.org. 402 other people from our Congressional district have already signed, but we're shooting for 550. Please take a moment to help us get there by signing on at: http://www.moveon.org/wmdpledge/ If the Bush administration distorted intelligence or knowingly used false data to support the call to war, it would be an unprecedented deception. Even if weapons are now found, it'll be difficult to justify pre-war language that indicated that the exact location of the weapons was known and that they were ready to deploy at a moment's notice. With a crisis of credibility brewing abroad and the integrity of our President and our foreign policy on the line, we need answers now. Please ask your Representative to pledge his or her support for an open investigation at: http://www.moveon.org/wmdpledge/ A President may make no more important decision than whether or not to take a country to war. If Bush and his officials deceived the American public to create support for the Thanks. --------------------------------------  comment []Evening begins My parents' summer home is situated in a rather unique place. They are located in a narrow deciduous woods upon an old sand dune parallel to Lake Superior's shore; there is a beach to the north and a marshy bog to the south within a 200 yard span. Although everyone who visits is blown away by the majesty of the lake, it is the bog that provides much natural entertainment and subtle beauty. A beaver dam is a stone's throw away in the heart of the bog; there are countless species of birds and wildlife that depend upon the bog for habitat. Granted, this bog is Bug Central, a perfect nesting ground for Michigan's other state bird, the mosquito. Their life cycle is confined to the 4 or 5 months it might not freeze in the bog. Photo: an wild iris believed to be a "Blue Flag" at sunset 5:57:55 PM comment []
Movies: Run, Lola, Run Very entertaining, in spite of the less than satisfactory quality of filming. Lola (Franka Potente) must save her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) in twenty minutes or he will die. She runs like hell to save him; she runs everywhere. Lola left me feeling as if I’d run along the whole way with her; I was completely engaged in her mission and all the periphery of events and people that were intertwined and integrated into this whole. You’ll want to watch this more than once; until the last third of the movie, you won’t realize you’ve missed something important that needs to be assimilated. In some respects it’s like Memento – lots of bits and pieces all add up in the end, but assemblage may not happen in the first pass. In other respects, it’s like Sliding Doors, a kind of discussion of karmic choices. My daughter and I did have that discussion while watching Run, Lola, Run a second time; it actually worked quite well as a tool to that end, talking about the nature of outcomes based on choices, outcomes that changed substantially with even the seemingly smallest of decisions. One of the most interesting portions (at least to a geek like me) is the opening monologue; I’ll have to try to copy that bit and share it here. Food for thought, in light of my interests in physics and consciousness studies. Hubby Meter: “So? She runs like this the whole movie? With the bass music playing like this in the background? And you like this movie?” Okay. Post-modern or ultra-modern he’s not. My mom’s not either; she, like my husband, got frustrated reading the subtitles and watching the action simultaneously. She fell asleep about 30 minutes into the movie. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m her progeny or that I’m married to him. Oh well, this one’s a movie I watch with my own progeny. (There is enough content to warrant an R-rating, but my daughter has been able to discuss any of the potentially objectionable content so that she understands it without being weirded out about it.) comment []
Eagerly awaiting: Queer Eye!!! Argh!! I saw another one of those special men this weekend. I meant special, as in Special Ed. You know the type – I think they’re born that way. Yeah, the dreaded white man in the Froot-o-the-Loom undershirt wearing aged plaid shorts and black nylon socks while cutting his grass. Only thing that could have made this ensemble complete (completely awful) would have been Teva sandals. (Maybe he didn’t wear them out of concern for safety while running a lawn mover. Thank God for small favors.) This guy was badly in need of a makeover; I’m surprised his wife let him out of the house looking like that. Or maybe that’s the intention; dressed this way, he’s completely unappealing to any other potential rival for his affections. Ugh. He had that dreaded white-man-indoors-too-much-weekend-yardwork-warrior “tan” going on, too. Dead white legs (“shark bait”, or so Hawaiians call it), pale brown arms, red-brown neck, pasty white and extremely high forehead when the hat was removed to wipe the sweaty brow. Eeewww. I want so badly to drop this fellow a note and tell him they make this cool product that prevents this blotchy, Mondrian skin color – it’s called “sun block”. I hope this guy will be camped in front of the TV tomorrow night at Yeah, get this billboard-for-casual-dress-ineptitude off my street, will you? Please, dear gay guy with the blessedly “Queer Eye”, wherever you are, do a drive-by makeover, will you? Please, before he strikes again next time the lawn needs mowing! comment []Kullerpflaume! First there was kullerpfirsich…now, kullerpflaume!! Peaches looked both entirely too large and too green when I went to the grocery. Plums, on the other hand, looked pretty damned good. I’d debated about “pluots” – those funky, oddly speckled fruits which are the resultant cross between plums and apricots. Would they be acidic enough to work? Not certain; the apricot component could sweeten and dull the tartness of the plum component. Besides, they wouldn’t be particularly attractive floating in sparkling wine… So plums it was. I selected and washed one, pricked its skin all about the “equator” of the fruit, put it in a large goblet and cracked a bottle of Mmm, smells good, plum juice and I turned my back on it, went about cooking dinner. My daughter, however, was mesmerized by the prospect of a rolling piece of fruit in a glass of bubbly. She watched it like a hawk. Nope, it’s not rolling, Mom. Still sitting there. Still sitting there. OH! OH! OHhhhh! It rolled over!!!, she yelps in surprise. I turn, catching the plum still rolling slowly in the goblet. It stops. And waits. And does it again. My daughter thought that was a blast, something worth doing just for the amusement. It tasted pretty good, too, although a bit sweeter wine than I would ordinarily drink. We continued to speculate on how to get the plum to spin more often, more entertainment in itself. I think we’ll try pricking the plum less, as Paul suggested with peaches; perhaps only in one concentrated area, or two areas opposite each other on the fruit. I’ll also prick the plum along the vertical axis rather than the horizontal axis. We’d observed the fruit tends to bob stem side up. Maybe if we’d worked in the other direction the fruit would have rolled more often. Try it yourself – any excuse for a little well-chilled sparkling wine on warm summer’s evening is worth exploring! comment []
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