Brontë Sinclair's Island: Chapters I & II

Chapter 1
I first saw the island at sunset. It had been a fair day, cloudless and blue with a light but steady wind. Now and then sea birds wheeled over the mast or darted into the waves: gulls and terns, kestrels and petrels, sometimes in small flocks but more often alone, their high, wild cries running in my blood like the sweep of the wind and the whispering lap of the bluegreen water. Once, shortly after dawn, I thought I saw an albatross far aloft in the fathomless, pearl-lustered sky. That brought me comfort, though I hadn't known till then that I needed it, for an albatross ahead is an omen of fair winds and following seas. And, that bodes only well for any enterprise.

Now the sun was setting astern and some fifteen degrees to starboard, for I meant to make for the largest of the Falibar islands, not to go to Splangliborn as I'd told Morrow. Not yet, at least. I had business on Falibana, more pressing business than Morrow's, and a good deal prettier. I'd told him I'd be leaving on the Twenty-second, which was true; but, I hadn't bothered to tell him I'd be leaving from Falibana. That was none of his concern.

"The Twenty-second," Morrow had exclaimed, his round, fat face growing red. "But, that's not for three weeks!"

I shrugged, masking my amusement with polite blandness. "If you can't wait, of course…" I made as if to rise from the over soft, red plush armchair in front of the grain merchant's unnecessarily broad and highly polished mahogany desk.

His face grew redder and his pudgy hands twisted together nervously, but not so that I couldn't see them trembling. "Now, Shepherd, you're the best man I know, the - the best man."

"The best sailor, and the best judge of horseflesh, you mean; other than that, quite beneath your exalted notice," I thought wryly. But, I relaxed and pretended to pay attention to his querulous floundering. He wasn't evil, merely silly and a little pathetic, and I'd never more than half considered cheating him in all the years I'd known him. But, it didn't bother me at all to make him wait till I'd seen Jocelyn. We didn't get to see each other very often, and Splangliborn would be there when I got there.

Morrow was still spluttering. "So, I mean, Shepherd, my dear fellow, if you say you can't leave for three weeks, Well, of course I'll wait. I'll just have too, won't I?"

There seemed to be something desperate in his babbling, and I looked hard at him with a sudden stirring of concern. Was the genial fool really worried that I wouldn't do his job? Really worried, after all these years? So, unwillingly and yet wanting to calm him I said, careful to keep my tone indifferent, "I have a little job in the Falibars, man, that's all." I permitted myself a slight, reassuring smile. "It won't interfere with your business; it just means that I can't start for Splangliborn at once."

Morrow's face cleared like clouds lifting to reveal an untroubled sky. "Ah," he sighed, relief and satisfaction in the long syllable. "Well then, if that's all it is, that's all right." He rose and extended his hand.

Rising as well, I gripped it. "Do you have a bottle of brandy in your desk, Morrow?"

He started slightly and gave me a quizzical look. "Yes. Why?"

"I think you'd better have a nip. You look as if you could use it." Then, I'd turned and walked out.

So, I'd started. And now, the evening of my second day out from Raklebad, I was within thirty-six hours or so of Falibana. And that's when I saw the island that I knew wasn't there.

I was standing at the tiller, letting my mind wander forward to Jocelyn's welcome, for the Silver Star (Jocelyn had named her - graceful, fanciful, bright-eyed Jocelyn) was as light to the hand as a Namoranian, and she sped over the bluegreen sea as surely as one of those spirits of speed and power in horse form sped across the yellow-green planes, seeming to know her way instinctively to port as they knew theirs to paddock. After a time, I came out of my musings, still smiling wistfully. All around me was the whispering copper and bronze evening. I sighed and, pulling myself together, looked ahead. And as I looked, across the rippling, softly sighing expanse of copper and bronze to where, beyond all eyes but those of love and hope my Jocelyn waited, I saw a star.

I stepped back, blinded for a moment and bewildered for I knew the charts better than I knew anything, even Jocelyn's loving smile. Nor was this the first time, or the fiftieth, I'd made the Raklebad-Falibana run. And I knew there was nothing between Raklebad and Falibana in a straight line but sea. And yet, directly in front of me, no more than five miles away, the blue-gray bulk of a rocky island rose between me and the horizon. The suddenly freshening breeze bellying the sail above me, the Silver Star swept onward toward the golden star twinkling and flashing ahead like a beacon, drawing me towards itself and what lay beyond on that unknown island.

Dizzy and nauseous, with disorientation, I fumbled for the telescope. The Trinity be praised, the Star was as modern and well-equipped a craft as plied the seas. My telescope would tell me something about this mirage, if mirage it was. Then I'd go below and set all my sensors to work on it. Focusing the telescope I could see clearly that this western coast rose out of the sea like a great wall, cliffs and crags dark against the darkening eastern sky, with no harbor for any living thing but birds. And, now I saw them, and heard their chorusing cries as they swooped and wheeled, returning to their resting places amid the rocks and whatever rough plants could cling to them. And, that glinting, glittering golden star that had shone out for a time and then faded was a waterfall; a rushing, foaming cataract that fell fully two hundred fathoms to the sea.

As I leant on the bow rail, trying to fit the evidence of my eyes into my knowledge and fighting the sick, empty feeling the mismatch caused, the wind shifted. Automatically I started moving about the Star, tacking, adjusting the sail, accommodating the craft to the wind. The tasks being automated, it was a short time before I returned to the bow. And then I heard, faint but awesome across the distance, the great roaring and booming of the falls. And I thought of the tales I had heard, deliciously shivering in the nursery firelight, of the mermen who call with their echoing, mournful horns, and the living things, great as castles, that live in the depths beyond all soundings and call to one another in the lonely nights. Listening to that strange, rushing roar, never changing beneath the cries of the sea birds, I felt a sudden strange loneliness I had never known before on the wide, wild, silent sea but only in the impersonal press and bustle of city streets.

I had to tack while still far out from the shore, or the maelstrom at the foot of the falls would have finished me. With a sigh, I took in the sail and started the engine. It was a pity to spoil the romance of the summer evening with such a modern, impersonal sound.; but, I didn't want to take any chances. Cruising along northward, I gazed up at the scoured stone, rising like a fortress wall sheer out of the sea, save only for that mighty river rushing down forever through nothingness to crash and echo as its clear, crystalline waters found their turbulent rest. I knew the golden evening light would linger for two or three hours, so I was not troubled but curious as the Star approached the place where the rock began curving eastward. The island lay about one hundred miles south to north (port to starboard as I approached it), with the waterfall some thirty miles south from the northern coast.

Once I was sure of having put sufficient space between the Star and the infall of the cataract, I put In cautiously until I was skimming along right under that towering wall, taking soundings every few minutes. Those mountains of rock might well have outliers, shoals and reefs where the Star would founder, so my sea sense told me. And yet, somehow it felt right to keep under those looming, sheltering cliffs. Though I stayed about half a mile offshore, my short, ten fathom line never cane close to touching the sandy, seemingly level bottom, several hundred feet below me over which the Star's shadow skimmed amid dancing golden lights. I could see that through the gilded waves, now almost as clear as window glass as the water of this sea always is just offshore., yet my sea sense revolted. So close to shore, how could the bottom be as distant as a hundred miles from anywhere?

After rounding the gentle curve of the island where the rock began running eastward, I cut the engine and hoisted sail once more. The all but silent motion of a sail driven craft seemed more fitting than the sputter and hum of an engine that the vast wall of rock reflected like a megaphone out past the Star into the empty ocean. With a brisk breeze once more at my back, I ran along the coast in the gradually paling golden evening, until the cliffs had diminished to gentle hills, sliced shear down with a great knife, and I could glimpse now and then a dim green interior. I measured eighty-seven and a half miles till, now softly rolling and wooded, the land turned again. On this eastern coast, the land and water were shadowed, the last of the sunset light blocked by the western heights. The eastern sky was already dark enough for the first stars to appear. I felt my way along this gentler coast looking for a creek or inlet.

Full dark had fallen, and I had reluctantly lit my lamps and was beginning to despair of finding any way into this strange island when, at last, within about ten miles of the southeastern extremity of the land I found what I was looking for. With a suddenness that made me exclaim in surprise and relief, a harbor mouth opened off the port bow. Being close in, I wondered at not having felt the crosscurrents, but turning the searchlight into the harbor, I saw the water as still and glassy as a pond, and decided to trust once more to that strange sense that had led me to steer close to the cliffs.

I brought the Star around, starlight shimmering in her arcing wake, and with the engine purring, for the wind had dropped, I entered that Godsend of a harbor. I trained the searchlight on the nearer shore, off the port bow, and about a hundred yards in saw a creek, the water black under overhanging willows. "Trust to luck one more time," I murmured, and pulling perhaps seventy-five feet up the little watercourse, dropped anchor in no more than two and a half fathom. After securing the tiller and prowling about the Star to be sure all was in order, I stood in the sternsheets and looked back towards the starsheened water of the harbor, breathing in the calm land air, and wondering mightily where I was. Then, with one last glance around, I went below to eat a long delayed meal, and then I climbed into my bunk, promising myself sleepily that in the morning I would explore this strange and wonderful island.

Chapter 2
In the morning, however, I regretfully decided to forego exploration. I really did need to get to Falibana, and Jocelyn. I had no means of communicating with her. The Falibars were a designated techno-free zone, one of the few desirable living places on Nova Britannia to have that mixed blessing thanks to a far-sighted and strong-willed governor of the last century. So, like the rest of the inhabitants of her island paradise, Jocelyn had no telecom equipment other than the primitive telephone whose clumsy wiring was already familiar, and which the governor aforesaid considered adequate for her people's needs. They also had an ancient audio-video broadcast system; but, of course, that was only for inter-island contact. It was totally inadequate to handle modern ship-to-shore communications.

I looked at the compact satellite array next to the Star's nav console, and wished not for the first time that Jocelyn would let me give her a sata-mini-ceiver. But, she wouldn't. Personal telecom equipment was not absolutely banned in the Falibars, but Jocelyn didn't like bending too many rules or stretching too many points. Her PCR (Personal Care Robot) already pushed up against the outer limit of the acceptable Use Clause; though, the very next clause defined and made exceptions for medical need. No one had ever or would ever dispute that her medical need was real. Still, she was sensitive about it and strove all the more to observe the anti-tecno laws and regulations.

So, I couldn't call her on the sata-mini-ceiver. And, I thought as I prepared to pull out of the creek, what would I tell her if I could? "Hi love, it's me. I'm running a few hours late. Spent last night on an island that isn't there. But don't worry. Everything's shipshape. I'll see you tomorrow night at the latest." Sure! And she'd ask me how much of Morrow's brandy I'd liberated. No, it was probably just as well. But, I had to get out of here, away from this impossible and enchanted island, and on my way.

I chugged quietly out of the creek into the early sunlight of the harbor. And, my heart sank. There, waiting for me, was a lovely little sloop. The semaphores rippling in the soft breeze read, "Welcome and heave to." I brought the Star along side -- what else could I do? -- and read the name painted in neat white lettering around her bow, The Black Moon. She was black herself, and as trim a vessel as I ever saw''''; And, I'd seen a fair number of sailing craft in my time.

The man who leant over the side, hand held out in token of peace, and called, "Come, my friend. Follow me. We can have some breakfast and a yarn on the beach before you go," was as trim and dashing as his craft. Bemused, I signed my understanding and acquiescence, and twenty minutes later was mooring the Star alongside The Black Moon. "Have you a dinghy or anything of that sort?" the stranger, my host I supposed he was, called to me cheerfully.

"No," I called back. In truth, I had been eyeing the shallows with little relish. An early morning swim was a fine thing, in its right time and place. But, I didn't care to appear before this man, gallant gentleman though he might be, on whose land and water I was trespassing, in close imitation of a water rat. He seemed to understand. "Come across to the Moon, then," he said, throwing me the end of a very modern looking grap-pass, "And we can go ashore together in my little bathtub of a motor shuttle."

Shrugging, I secured my end of the seemingly gossamer light grap-pass, jerked the tabs to inflate the tubing and erect the small support stanchions, and walked across ten feet or more of open water to the other boat.

"Greetings," my host said, extending his hand as I stepped from the suspended passage. "Welcome to Marooner's Haven. I am Brontë Sinclair, proprietor of this little bit of Heaven here on Nova Britannia."

I shook hands, feeling his grip firm and assured but not overbearing. And, I looked into the dark eyes that had been the stuff of young girls' dreams of adventure, and boys' too, for more than fifteen years. Yes, I had heard of Brontë Sinclair, and now I knew why this island didn't show on my charts. What I didn't know was how I had gotten here, or why.

"Charlie Shepherd," I said, smiling in my turn. "En route from Raklebad to Falibana. If I'd been much later, I'd have crashed right into that western wall of yours, or gone down in the infall of the cataract."

The outlaw's grin became mischievous, sparkling in his intelligent eyes and making him look far younger than his thirty-five years. "Now, Charlie," he said easily, leading me across the deck to where a rope ladder hung down the side to a compact little shore skimmer, "I wouldn't have let that happen. Do you want to get in first, or second. She's much more stable than she looks. She's never capsized on me yet, no matter how rough the seas."

I eyed the little boat. Close though not uncomfortable quarters for two men. Shore skimmers were designed for children; so, they were small and light, but the closest thing to indestructible and unsinkable that Man had ever devised. Their seats were well padded with springy, not squishy, water-repellant foam. These were cobalt blue. They had large, simple, brightly colored controls, and a large display screen that could be set to show, individually or in combination, various readouts. The nav console of this shore skimmer was larger and more complex than was usual on these tiny craft, and I suspected she had a lot of specialized and very interesting features.

"Had one of those when I was a kid," I said slowly, remembering that the seats opened to provide storage space. Inevitably, pets and even the occasional younger sibling got stowed away in these compartments. The design even took this into consideration. The front of each seat, rather than being a solid piece, was a fine grillwork through which air passed freely. And tiny fans and low power lights came on when, the lid being closed, sensors detected a warm, breathing creature inside.

I remembered checking out with my friend Tommy what we thought was a miraculous safety feature. We were pouring over my manual, Tommy had lost his, when we came across something we'd never noticed before. "If the Shore Skimmer begins to experience difficulty or if the 'passengers' in these compartments become distressed, the front will open allowing them to be removed safely." We fought all the way down to the river over which of us would be the distressed passenger. Finally, reluctantly, I agreed that as the boat's owner, I was the captain and so could not also be a passenger. In the boat, I started up and set the engine to idle. Then, I helped Tommy into the rear compartment and closed him in. "OK?" I asked. "Lights on and everything?" In the daylight, I couldn't see the dim glow of the compartment lights.

"Yep! Everything's ship shape, Skipper," Tommy's muffled voice replied. I scrambled forward and eased the skimmer out into the slow current of the broad, brown river. "I'm gonna be distressed now," Tommy called. I answered and, tapping the autopilot button, turned around to watch. After a moment's silence, Tommy began to cough and thrash around. I knew it was a fake cough, but the sensors in the compartment didn't. I watched, bug eyed and gaping, as the front of the compartment slid down into the deck and a goggling Tommy crawled out and onto the seat. We stared at each other. "Wow!!!" we both said at last.

I hadn't thought of that in thirty years. Tommy was a bank manager now, with a kind if slightly boisterous wife who had been a nude dancer in her youth, and two loving, high-spirited children, a girl and a smaller boy. I never got up the nerve to ask how he, Mr. Straight Laced Propriety, had met an ex nude dancer. He couldn't have found a warmer, more sensible wife, though, or a better, more loving mother for his children.

"Charlie?"

I started, and realized that Sinclair was watching me with quiet amusement. "Sorry," I said, feeling foolish. "I was just thinking of something a friend and I did when we were eight or nine."

"What did you do?" Sinclair asked, looking interested.

I was taken aback. "Well, we found out by experiment that the front of the compartments under the seats," I pointed, "really do open if the, uh, passenger becomes distressed. He pretended to have a coughing fit, and the front slid away into the floor. Scared the shit out of both of us, really, I think. But we acquired a new respect for our shore skimmers, I can tell you."

Sinclair laughed. "Marvelous little boats, shore skimmers. So, you had one too?"

I looked at him in puzzlement. "Didn't everybody?"

"You'd be surprised," he said in a tone that might have been sardonic or even angry. I only thought of that later, though. At the moment, my habitual observantness was not in the best of trim.

"Yes," I said, looking down again at the boat, scarcely more than a toy, lying on the smooth blue water. "I had one; though she didn't have nearly so much electronics gear as this one looks to be carrying. Good steady boats for kids, shore skimmers. Sure, I'll get in first."

Sinclair watched me to my seat, then followed. The idling, almost inaudible engine surged. "Anyway, Charlie, as I was saying," Sinclair continued, turning comfortably in his seat as the boat moved in a leisurely way towards a small wooden pier. "I wouldn't have let you go down." That boyish grin was back, and it seemed totally unselfconscious. He wasn't putting on an act; he really meant what he said. Or else he was the greatest actor of our time. "I don't get many visitors, as you can perhaps understand." His lips twisted in what looked to me like regret. "I certainly wouldn't want to lose a man of your caliber."

The spell snapped. I snorted. He was having me on for some purpose of his own.

Sinclair laid a hand on my knee. "No," he said, the fun gone from his manner. "I'm not making fun of you." An alarm chime sounded, and he turned his attention back to the boat. Leaping to the pier, he tied up and called to me. "Just shut her down for me, would you, Charlie?" Then he turned his back and walked away towards the beach.

I sat still. Everything he had done signaled that he trusted me. Maybe I ought to trust him. At least hear what he had to say. I found the large, half green, half red toggle switch, just the same as on my shore skimmer, and flicked it to off. I knew even without looking at the display, that he'd performed the simple, pre-switch-off routine. Then I followed him along the dock and onto the soft, warm sand.

The Poppy Fairy

The Poppy Fairy
is the centerpiece of a quilt that listener is making
for her goddaughter's baby soon to be born.

It seems that in this election cycle, with so much struggle in the world
it is Beauty and Imagination that restore us.

Bath Cat

listener painted this Kitty on her wall at home,
to surprise her granddaughters and to cheer any bloggers who visit.

Stone Age Graveyard in the Sahara

A paleontologist looking for dinosaur bones in the Sahara desert instead stumbled across the largest Stone Age graveyard ever found. The human skeletons, tools and other remains were left by two groups of people, the Kiffians and the Tenerians, who lived in the area between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, when the Sahara was a swampy wetland.

Links
Stone Age Graveyard (slideshow) - The Online News Hour
Stone Age Graveyard Unearthed In Sahara - NPR

Only the slideshow is up at The Online News Hour, no transcript of Jef Brown's interview with Paul Sereno. I'll check again later in the evening...

Voice of Palestine Silenced

Darwish, poet of the Palestinian cause, dies after surgery
By Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah
Monday, 11 August 2008

Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry encapsulated the Palestinian cause, is to get the equivalent of a state funeral in the West Bank following his death this weekend – an honour only previously accorded to the PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Tributes for Darwish poured in yesterday, a day after he died, at the age of 67, from complications following heart surgery in a hospital in Houston, Texas.

"He translated the pain of the Palestinians in a magical way," said Egypt's vernacular poet Ahmed Fouad Negm. "He made us cry and made us happy and shook our emotions. Apart from being the poet of the Palestinian wound, which is hurting all Arabs and all honest people in the world, he is a master poet."

Darwish's funeral in Ramallah tomorrow will be the first sponsored by the Palestinian Authority since Arafat died in 2004. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of national mourning. People gathered on Saturday night in the darkened streets of Ramallah, holding candles and weeping.

May he rest in peace. And, may his people find peace and freedom.

New Lease on Life for Masada Date Palm

Israeli scientists are nurturing a baby date palm, now three years old, grown from a seed found at the ancient fortrus of Masada. Though they don't yet know whether it's male or female the sapling, which is affectionately known as Methuselah, appears to be thriving.

The species to which Methuselah belongs died out in its native Near East in the middle Ages. But it is known to have had great significance, including as a source of medicine. Researchers hope to study the plant's medicinal properties; indeed, a leaf from the sapling has already been sent away for analysis.

Links
Date Palm Buds after 2000 Years (BBC)
Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well (AP)

Candidate for Oldest Place of Christian Worship Found

Ancient cave linked to early Christians in Jordan
By DALE GAVLAK (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
June 11, 2008 10:30 AM EDT
AMMAN, Jordan - Archaeologists in Jordan have discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches and say it may have been an even more ancient site of Christian worship. But outside experts expressed caution about the claim.

Archaeologist Abdel-Qader al-Housan, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, said this week that the cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian rituals.

The cave is under St. George's Church, which some believe was built in the year 230, though the date is widely disputed. That would make it one of the oldest churches in the world, along with one unearthed in the Jordanian southern port of Aqaba in 1998 and another in Israel discovered in 2005.

Al-Housan said there was evidence that the underground cave was used as a church by 70 disciples of Jesus in the first century after Christ's death, which would make it the oldest Christian site of worship in the world.

If varified, this discovery is very exciting both from the archaeological and the Christian point of view. That's because it would fill in the historical record just a bit between the life of Our Lord, for which there is, sadly, scarce historical/archaeological evidence, and the Second Century A.D., when the historical/archaeological foundation of Christianity first becomes firm. We'll be watching for further developments.

Nazis' disabled victims honoured

Crossposted at Disabled Americans for Democracy

Nazis' disabled victims honoured

The one million disabled people who were persecuted, sterilised or killed by Nazi Germany are to be commemorated in the UK's first such memorial.

Several survivors are expected to attend Sunday's event at the Holocaust Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

A rose and plaque will be dedicated in the centre's rose garden to the memory of the murdered disabled people.

The centre's Stephen Smith said there had been "little recognition" of the persecution the disabled suffered.

Up to 270,000 disabled people died in the Holocaust. Six major killing centres for the disabled were set up around Germany.

"Colossus cracks codes once more"

A cooperative project between Britons and Germans is pitting a reconstructed, World War II era computer, Colossus, against modern PC's. The project's goal is to draw attention to the National Museum of Computing, based at Colossus' home, Bletchley Park.

My money's on Colossus, but we'll have to wait and see. The results won't be in till Friday.

Human Destruction of Ecosystems Nothing New

One of Western Europe's earliest known urban societies may have sown the seeds of its own downfall, a study suggests.

Mystery surrounded the fall of the Bronze Age Argaric people in south-east Spain - Europe's driest area.

Data suggests the early civilisation exhausted precious natural resources, helping bring about its own ruin.

The study provides early evidence for cultural collapse caused - at least in part - by humans meddling with the environment, say researchers.

Some things never change.

Link
Eco-ruin 'felled early society'

War weary

This month's issue of the "Voices in Wartime" e-newsletter features the following "Editor's Reflections:"

In the documentary film Voices in Wartime, visual images accompany the words of Rachel Bentham as she recites "War--the concise version". In the pause between each scene, her lines rest in near stillness as if we don’t want to go on. We know what’s next, and indeed, are weary of the war’s resistance to all forms of compassionate thought.

Lately we’ve become justifiably weary of the ineptitude of our nation’s politicians. Their cheaply costumed rhetoric easily infuriates the anti-war warrior. We’re weary of the news media, its opinions and attention deficit regarding the civilian suffering in Iraq, while the silent masses tune out via the new season of sitcoms and the NFL. Patience is a different war of nerves as the work continues to put this war into its grave.

Read the entire article

The ongoing war in Iraq, together with the collective unwillingness of Congress to take meaningful action to conclude it, are indeed frustrating and wearisome, as is the call of some on both sides of the aisle for another unprovoked, irrational and illegal war, this time on Iran. In Burma, in Afghanistan, in the streets of Mexico and the U.s., wherever one looks in the world, violence and conflict abound, seemingly forces of nature, as unpredictable and uncontrolable as weather. For myself, I can't altogether condemn those who "tune out via the new season of sitcoms and the NFL." Under the circumstances, tuning out seems almost to be not only a viable, but a reasonable response.

REading Lost Gravestones with High Tech

Illegible words on church headstones could be read once more thanks to a scan technology developed in the US.

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon university are making high resolution 3D scans of tombstones to reveal the carved patterns in the stone.

A computer matches the patterns to a database of signature carvings which reveals the words.

The technique could one day also be used by doctors to examine a patient's tongue for signs of illness.

Scientists often find it difficult to distinguish between natural phenomena and man-made art works carved into stone, due to the build-up of algae and surface dirt.

At the moment, archaeologists are forced to do hand-tracing work with plastic sheets and to examine objects first hand in order to decipher obscured writings.

Full Article
Scans reveal lost gravestone text

Ooooooh!!!

Harry's here, Harry's here, Harry's here!!! WOOT!!!

I was going to wait a few days till the unabridged audio cassette edition arrives. But... Really, how can I wait?

*ruful grin* Yes, I actually am a mature, intelligent grownup person. But, damn it, everybody needs a little fun and silliness in her life once in a while.

Gotta fly. Harry's waiting!

Viking Treasure Hoard Found in Yorkshire

The most important Viking treasure find in Britain for 150 years has been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in Yorkshire.

David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th Century, in Harrogate in January.

The pair kept their find intact and it was transferred to the British Museum to be examined by experts, who said the discovery was "phenomenal".

It was declared as a treasure at a court hearing in Harrogate on Thursday.

North Yorkshire coroner Geoff Fell said: "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on.

"I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area."

The north of England, especially the area now known as Yorkshire, was a vibrant center of Viking culture in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. At the same time, large Viking finds in England are rare.

Link
Viking Treasure Hoard Uncovered

Alan Johnston, Freed in Gaza

The BBC's kidnapped Gaza correspondent has been freed!

BBC's Gaza Correspondent Released

Oh, how wonderful to be able to remove that banner!!!

Vikings and Emperors

A replica of a Viking ship has set out to sail from Roskilde to Dublin.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a hitherto unknown chamber has been discovered in the tomb complex of Qin Shihuang, first ruler of a united China.

Links
Viking Ship Sets Sail for Dublin
China Finds Secret Tomb Chamber

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I've just finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. Believe it or not, I'd never read it before. Depressing, how many books I've never read. However, that number is now reduced by one.

For others who may not yet have read this dark, powerful novel: The title character is Helen Graham, a pretty, strong and selfreliant young woman, ostensibly a widow, who has moved into the largely ruinous Wildfell Hall with her young son and only one womanservant. She is surrounded by mystery and, soon, also by malicious gosip, in which the village's handsome young squire, proprietor of the Hall, figures promanently. Gilbert markham, a substantial farmer and landholder, falls reluctantly but inexorably in love with the inigmatic Mrs. Graham, but is baffled in his attempts to learn her history both by the lady herself and by his friend, Squire Fredrick Lawrence whom, in his jealousy and despair, he eventually attacks.

Mastering his anger at what he believes to be the perfidy of his beloved and his friend, Gilbert returns to the Hall to confront Helen. But, though she confirms her return of his love, she maintains that it must not be consumated or even allowed to flurish in their hearts. Finally driven to frenzy by Gilbert's persistance and lack of understanding, she thrusts a thick manuscript into his hands, and commands him to go.

The manuscript, with a few pages torn from the end, proves to be Helen's journal. In it she recounts her courtship by and marriage to one Arthur Huntingdon. Though her aunt, her guardian, remonstrates, Helen believes that she can discourage what is bad in Arthur and cultivate what is good. However, her life with him gradually becomes intolerable as his drinking, philandering and general Debauchery come to threaten the wellbeing of their young son. With the help of her brother, none other than Gilbert's friend Squire Lawrence, and her faithful attendent Rachel, Helen devises and carries out a desperate plan of escape. But, no sooner has she returned to Wildfell Hall, her childhood home before her father sent her away to live with her aunt and uncle following her mother's death, but village tongues start wagging. To add to her troubles, the handsome young cockscomb, Gilbert Markham, has attracted her attention...

Now understanding both her sorrows and her scruples, the broken hearted Gilbert avows his undying love, but at the same time agrees to honor Helens request that they part. Hurrying to Lawrence, he apologizes awkwardly but sincerely, and Lawrence welcomes the return of their friendship. But, shortly thereafter, Gilbert learns from a malicious former sweetheart that Helen has returned to Huntingdon. Lawrence confirms this, explaining that Huntingdon has sustained severe injuries in a riding accident and, since he is gravely ill, Helen has returned to nurse him. Through Helen's letters, which Lawrence freely shares with him, Gilbert learns of Huntingdon's final illness and death. Lawrence gives Gilbert no encouragement, and between this and his own well-meant but misplaced delicacy, his pride, and his tendency which he shares with even the best specimines of his sex to be a blockhead, Gilbert lets time slip past without trying to write to Helen, as she had asked he do at their last interview.

It is, of all people, the same malicious former sweetheart who saves Gilbert by laughingly informing him that the former tenant of Wildfell Hall is to be married in two days' time. Travelling to Grassdale Manner, Huntingdon's estate, with all possible speed, he finds that it is not Helen but Fredrick Lawrence who has just been married. Warmly congratulating his friend, Gilbert travels on to the aunt's home, where Helen is now staying. But, his hopes are finally dashed forever, as he thinks, when he learns from the conversation of his fellow coach passengers that Helen has inherited a substantial fortune from her uncle. In despair, he walks up and down in front of the park gates, knowing he must leave yet unable to do so. Thus it is that Helen finds him when she returns with little Arthur and her aunt. It is almost more than Helen can do to persuade him that she still wants to marry him, despite her newfound wealth. Eventually, however, he grasps the miraculous fact, and while he gains his heart's desire, she earns at last the quiet, happy life she deserves.

I didn't measure, but I should think Helen's narrative takes up at least half the text. And, a harrowing narrative it is, detailing her struggle to maintain her dignity and her child's safety and innoscence in the face of Huntingdon's decline from casual vice to confirmed, despairing evil. Helen does sometimes seem a trifle too good. Certainly, she quotes Scripture with disconcerting fluency. We must remember, however, that Anne Bronte was a clergyman's daughter. Also, perhaps, she wanted to underline the difference between Helen's simple yet deep and sustaining piety on the one hand and Huntingdon's rejection of both human and divine law on the other. Only occasionally was Helen's piety cloying or distracting. For the most part, I found her a strong, attractive and deeply sympathetic character.

Huntington is by no means as strong or memorable a character as Rochester or Heathcliff. He didn't strike me as being as strong a representative of evil as Gilbert is of good. Still, the contrast is stark enough. Gilbert's egotism is relatively harmless. He is well off, handsome and intelligent; but, if he is aware of these advantages, he is likewise aware of being petted and spoiled by both his mother and his sister and realizes that he may not be quite as fine a fellow as they fondly imagine. On the other hand, Huntington's selfishness, willfulness and popencity towards cruelty manifest even before his and Helen's marriage.

The way Bronte has set up the novel's structure leads the reader almost unconsciously to contrast Gilbert favorably with Huntington. That is, we meet Gilbert first, finding him sympathetic if somewhat exasperating, as young people are wont to be. We also see his and Helen's growing affection, and are able to contrast it readily with the relationship between Helen and Huntington. In other words, this reader at least was predisposed to find that Huntington suffered by comparison. Yet, I do not think this is an authorial trick but rather a deft manipulation of material. If Bronte had told the story in chronological order, beginning with Helen's meeting and falling in love with Huntington and concluding with her meeting and falling in love with Gilbert, some at least of the emotional force of both storylines would have been lessened. Both are strengthened by the mutual contrast.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is not summertime fluff, but rather more of a thoughtful winter's afternoon read. As brooding and powerful as Wuthering Heights, it is yet less clostraphobic and achieves brighter sunshine in the end.

Editions
Paperback
Unabridged Audio Cassette

Hatshepsut, Greatest Ruling Queen of Egypt Finally Recovered from Mellennia's Obscurity

Sorry it's taken me so long to get this up. I spent the entire evening on an unrelated wild goose chase. Ooh, but I hate not being able to find what I'm looking for, especially in cyberspace!

Be that as it may, the discovery announced today is being hailed as the Egyptological find of the century. A mummy that has long been known but has languished, unidentified, was finally identified as the great (female) Eighteenth Dynasty pheroah Hatshepsut.

Herself a princess, Hatshepsut was married to Thutmose II. Upon his death, she became regent for her young stepson, Thutmose III. In time, however, she assumed the throne in her own right (some sources use the "U" word, "usurper"), ruling strongly and successfully for twenty years. When Thutmose III eventually deposed her, he took his revenge, and a terrible revenge it was by ancient Egyptian lights, by defacing all statues and monuments he could find that bore Hatshepsut's name or likeness. Thanks to his efforts, the greatest female ruler of Egypt long languished in obscurity. I'm very tired, and can't remember just now how she came to be rediscovered. I'll try to remember to look into the matter tomorrow.

Links
Find of Century for Egyptology
Hatshepsut (from Wickipedia)
Hatshetsut (from answers.com

On Writing

The BBC's kidnapped Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, has been missing for one hundred and one days.

As part of their continuing coverage and efforts to keep Alan's plight before the eyes of the world, they have posted a piece he wrote about a year ago on the art of journalism. Reading it, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head and murmurring, "Yes, yes." For, though he was talking about radio reportage, Alan wrote a lovely, concise article on fiction writing as well. I highly recommend it to all here.

Click the title to go to Alan's article.

Music

Crossposted at Disabled Americans for Democracy.

I've decided to learn to read braille music. To this end, I've bought, and am about halfway through, a book called who's Afraid of Braille Music?.

Naturally, I can read print music. But, even the largest of large print music is a struggle, while having music read to me to play and learn is, well, not particularly enjoyable. So, on a whim I bought the book and have been reading a little at a time. *shrug* It keeps me out of trouble.

The book itself is in braille - getting the print edition seemed a trifle counter intuitive - and the reading is going pretty well. Braille will never supplant audio in my life, but having access to a variety of media is helpful.

Feel free to discuss your own experiences with music, print or braille.

Thanks to Alan at Howard Empowered for the Wikipedia link.

Al and Gwen

Earlier this evening, The News Hour interviewed Vice President Al Gore. Read the interview.

It's been a long time since I heard Mr. Gore. Of course, I remembered him as devastatingly intelligent, but I didn't remember him as so charming and engaging. What an all round great guy!

Has Anyone Seen The Kettle?

Today the BBC has a story that would please Arthur Dent: Tea Healthier Drink than Water. Well, we knew that, right? *grin*

In a related story (from a few days ago), Blair Pines for Good Cup of Tea. The PM's finally got his priorities straight. LOL

India Works to Shield Traditional Knowledge from Modern Copyrights

A new digital library in India is safeguarding ancient knowledge from patents, which can force royalty payments for knowledge that is common in that part of the world. NewsHour correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from New Delhi.

I found this fascinating, and most gratifying. It's about time people started fighting the modern propensity to copyright and pattent everything, whether they have a legitimate cause to do so or not, especially in the U.S.

This particular digital library program was brought on by several people claiming pattent rights on traditional Indian medicines and healing techniques. This seems to me only slightly less repugnant than pattenting new animals and plants. I hope the project flurishes.

History Pulitzer for Race and the Press

The 2007 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History is The Race Beat. This evening, The News Hour aired a conversation with the book's authors, in which they discuss the role of the press in popularizing the cause of Civil Rights.

As with all News Hour Arts reportage, the segment is available only in RealAudio format.

India 'neglects' its historic heritage

As India celebrates the 150th anniversary of the first uprising against the British, the town where the first shot was fired by sepoy (soldier) Mangal Pandey is witnessing the gradual obliteration of its historical heritage.

Mangal Pandey fired the famous shot at a British officer on 29 March 1857 at the Barrackpore parade ground - now on the outskirts of Calcutta.

It was an action that stirred up a wave of rebellion in north India against the colonial power, and meant that Barrackpore would be a name always prominent in Indian history books.

But 150 years later, many of the sprawling bungalows and imposing structures from the colonial past have been completely swallowed by wild undergrowth.

I'm ambivalent about this. On the one hand, as a history buff, I naturally deplore neglect of historic sites. On the other hand, it seems to me that India has bigger problems and higher priorities than maintaining colonial era buildings. Parts of India are jungle, for Pete's sake! If these buildings are so all fired important, let britain maintain them.

King Herod's ancient tomb 'found'

An Israeli archaeologist says he has found the tomb of King Herod, the ruler of Judea while it was under Roman administration in the first century BC.

After a search of more than 30 years, Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew University says he has located the tomb at Herodium, a site south of Jerusalem.

As exciting as this find is, I can't help but be reminded by it of the priceless archaeological treasures lost or destroyed forever by the current war and occupation in Iraq.

'Stunning' Nepal Buddha art find

Paintings of Buddha dating back at least to the 12th century have been discovered in a cave in a remote area of Nepal's north-central region.

Researchers made the find after being tipped off by a local sheep herder. They discovered a mural with 55 panels showing the story of Buddha's life.

The mural was uncovered in March, with the team using ice axes to break through a snow path to reach the cave.

The find was in the Mustang area, 250km (160 miles) north-west of Kathmandu.

Journalists jailed in Azerbaijan

Two journalists in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan have been jailed after publishing an article that some Muslims said insulted Islam.

Samir Sadaqatoglu and Rafiq Tagi, from Sanat newspaper, were sentenced to four and three years in prison respectively, for inciting religious hatred.

It is the latest in a series of jail sentences for journalists in energy-rich Azerbaijan.

Violence and reprisals, such as prison sentences, against journalists have been on the upswing for the past several months.

Related Links
Committee to Protect Journalists
Reporters Without Borders

Gladiators' graveyard discovered

Scientists believe they have for the first time identified an ancient graveyard for gladiators.

Analysis of their bones and injuries has given new insight into how they lived, fought and died.

The remains were found at Ephesus in Turkey, a major city of the Roman world, BBC Timewatch reports.

Ancient Treasures of Gaza

A new exhibition showing off the archaeological riches of the Gaza Strip has just opened in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The exhibition, called "Gaza at the Crossroads of Civilisations", contains more than 500 artefacts dating back more than 5,000 years.

They reflect the diverse civilisations which at one time or another all spent time in Gaza.

Curators at Geneva's museum of art and history, which organised the exhibition, say Gaza's modern problems have so overshadowed its rich past that most people today are completely unaware that Gaza has any archaeological treasures at all.

The article discusses a project, supported by UNESCO, to build a Gaza museum, which would house these and other archaeological and cultural treasures. I think such a museum is a very bad idea. It would automatically, simply by vertue of its existence, become target No. 1 for the Israelis to bomb with their American-built planes and other armorment. As valuable as a museum of Gazan antiquities would be it, as so much else related to any sense of normalcy in Palestinian life, is held hostage until the mutual recognition by Israel and Palestine that the two states, the two peoples, exist and must live together in concord.

Link:
Gaza's ancient treasures revealed

Io Station (a work in progress)

Research Items

Moons
Periods of rotation for Io and Calisto
Periods of orbit for Io and Caalisto
Size (in km) of orbital paths for Io and Caalisto
Distance between the orbital paths of Io and Caalisto
What moons lie between Io and Calisto? Their orbital periods?
Is it necessary to travel only in the orbital plane, or could one go, as it were, above or below the orbital paths of intervening moons?
Do intervening moons have sufficient gravity to use any or all for gravity assist, depending on the distance between Io's and Calisto's orbital paths? Would this be necessary or desirable?

Communications
How would Io station and Calisto Station communicate? Radio, microwave transmission? Other forms of transmission?
What would the delay time be? Are the orbits far enough apart and large enough that the delay time would vary? What about when the two moons were on opposite sides of Jupiter?
When Io and Calisto are occulted with respect to each other, could transmission relays on other moons/space stations in Jovian orbit maintain uninterrupted communications?
Is it possible that delay times would be low enough to allow "normal" conversation between someone on IO Station and someone on Calisto Station, or someone in low orbit around Io and someone on Calisto?
What is the delay time from Io to Earth?

Intersystem Travel
How long would it take for a two seater, Ferrari-type spacecraft to get from Calisto to Io? How large would the differentials be with regard to relative orbital positions? Minutes? Hours? Days?

Some Answers
Io, 1.77 days, 422,000 km
Europa, 3.55 days, 671,000 km
Ganymede, 7.15 days, 1,070,000 km
Callisto, 16.69 days, 1,883,000 km
Thus the distance varies from 1,411,000 km to 2,255,000 km or 5 to 7.5 light
seconds. Round trip time, for answer to statement, varies from 10 to 15
seconds, uncomfortable but manageable for a conversation. Io zips around
Jupiter so quickly that every second day there might be a period of ten
minutes during which communication is impossible. The two intermediate moons
might block communications for a few minutes every so often, but this would
be only a brief inconvenience.


Io Station

Frank was dead; and, I knew who murdered him. Not the name of the person who had tampered with his suit so cleverly that no one except me so much as suspected that his blocked air feed was anything other than a tragic accident caused by human error, his own error. But, I knew whom his findings would damage and who, for that reason, had wanted him dead as soon as their spies discovered why he was really on Io Station, and whom he was really working for.

As for me, I could only trust that they didn't know he had given me the information. It was a pretty thin thread to hang a life on; and, if it weren't for the vital importance of that information and, more important by far to me, Frank's urgent appeal that I get it to the admiral, I wouldn't have cared about any threads. My Frank was dead, and without him I couldn't bear to go on living. But, he'd given me a job to do. If they murdered me once it was finished, that was okay by me. But, right now, I had to make them believe I was harmless.

That wasn't, actually, very difficult. The other crewmembers had never taken me seriously. A poet on Io Station? They all assumed, in their smug, insular fashion, that I couldn't be the chief engineer's intellectual equal. Their patronizing attitude towards me had infuriated him and hurt me. After all, our friends back in Green Belt understood that, though my Master's was in Creative Writing and my poetry had achieved a certain amount of success, including a Reisling Award, I was also an amateur cosmologist, well able to follow the broad outlines of planetary science and even some of the finer detail. Frank Lange was a planetary engineer, for Pete's sake! He wouldn't have married some nitwit who didn't know an asteroid from her ass. But, that was exactly what, to a person, the crew of the Io station thought I was.

Frank had come home fuming about three standard weeks after we arrived. "Do you know what that lousy SOB Stafford had the unmitigated gall to ask me?" he demanded, suit jacket forgotten, in one hand and dragging on the floor.

Stafford didn't concern me; but Frank's blood pressure did. So, I calmed him and settled him with a cold Coke before asking as blandly as possible, "So, what did Stafford ask you?"

Frank spluttered. "He asked me what we find to talk about. He asked me why I hadn't married someone more suitable. More suitable! Can you believe it? As if there's something wrong with me because my wife isn't a physicist, or astro-biologist, or whatever his timid little mouse of a wife is." He took a long, cooling drink.

"I am the only spouse who isn't a scientist, practicing or otherwise," I pointed out. "Have some soy pasta chips." He munched them absently. "Then too," I continued, reaching for a chip, "You - well, and I - seem to be the only people on the station who realize there's a world beyond NASA. We've been in the Greens' quarters, and the Kowalski's. Do you remember seeing one volume of Dickens, or Dovstoievski, or Cardinal Newman? Or even SF: McCaffrey or Le Guin or Kim Stanley Robinson? And no poetry, no history, no reading matter at all but technical monographs and journals." Frank agreed thoughtfully and got up to refill our glasses. "And, do you remember what Joanna Kowalski said when she saw all our books and CD's?"

His eyes flashed. "Yes," he growled. "She asked me why I had let you bring so much extra weight. 'After all, you're only going to be here three Earth years. She could have left all that junk in storage' Junk! Elliot Gould playing Bach and G.K. Chesterton are not junk! And so I informed her. But, she just gave me a pitying, condescending look, as though I were some besotted old fool."

"Well," I said mischievously, "you're not old, anyway." It took a moment, but he had laughed. And, it was that evening that we realized that we might turn their attitude to our advantage. As long as they thought I didn't understand his day-to-day work; then, if they discovered his true work, they certainly wouldn't think I could understand that. And therein lay hope. For I could channel information to Admiral Sing, or at least to my Brother, Stacy, who was his aid, without attracting suspicion or even attention.

It was soon after that that frank came up with the idea for the bracelet. It was a cheesy idea, which is why it appealed to us both. It was so totally brainless that no one would ever suspect its true purpose. Once in Greenbelt, while in bed with the flu and too weak and miserable even to read, I had paused my channel surfing on the Jewelry Channel to watch a demonstration of make-it-yourself jewelry in which you take an empty setting, of a pendent say, select the gem stone you wan too mount, and just snap it in. I'd told Frank about it, and we'd had a good laugh. But, I'd begun to think about it. Would it be possible to de-mount the stone if you got tired of it? And, did it have to be only one stone? To my amusement, Frank had become so intrigued that he actually bought a jewelry making kit. It included a bracelet. We'd never been bored enough to mount stones in the bracelet, but now he suggested that he could mount his data crystals in it. We'd give out that we'd decided to mount one stone for every month of our tour. Frank took it as a good omen that the bracelet contained mountings for thirty-six crystals. Since our colleagues on the station already thought me silly and eccentric, the bracelet caused little interest.

Frank had to work quickly, but undetected. If he was right, the Io station had a little more than half those thirty-six months. A previous whistle blower had been silenced by being thrown out of a helicopter without a parachute. Things like that happened to people who criticized the President's brother's construction company. That company had, surprise, surprise, been awarded a no-bid contract to build the Io station. And, if what Frank and his friends suspected was true, the failure would make Morton Thyicol's failure with Challenger's O rings and the failure of Columbia's heat shielding tiles look like church picnics.

Seventy people lived and worked in Io's habitat, a habitat which was built not on but in Haemus Mons. Admitedly, this mountain near the South Poll was not volcanic, to the best of our knowledge. Nonetheless Io, third out of Jupiter's satellites, orbited close enough to the giant planet to experience, among other things, tidal action and consequent internal heating so severe as to make this little world, barely larger than Luna, the most volcanic body in the known Solar System. Such atmosphere as it had was mostly sulfur dioxide, and the mean surface temperature was -143°C. I'd never bothered figuring out what that came to in Fahrenheit. It was undoubtedly below the survivable range for humans. And, if the unbreathable air or the cold didn't get you, Jupiter's radiation would. And yet, even a "minor" failure of the station's superstructure or systems would send seventy shirt sleeved or pajamad residents rushing for the space suit lockers.

We weren't allowed to keep our suits in our quarters. "Contamination," Rothstein had explained, the miasma of contempt thickening almost visibly with each syllable. "We can't risk contaminating Io with any, anything from our habitat, and we can't risk contaminating the hab, uh, habitat with anything from out on Io. So, everybody and every suit is thoroughly decontam, cleaned before going out and after coming back."

Bristling at his "I'm talking to a retarded three-year-old" tone, I managed to keep my own tone light and conversational. "Yes, I understand that. But, what if there's an emergency?" Rothstein glared. "Some sort of breach or failure of the hab in which we'd need to suit up fast?"

"Obviously, Mrs. Lange," he said, leaning all his considerable weight on the Mrs., "you don't understand anything about the construction or management of this station." He turned away. "There are failsafes, backup systems…." He glanced over his shoulder, his sneer almost a snarl. "Nothing on this station can fail." Not till we were settled in and Frank had a chance to run unofficial background checks on the station personnel, about the beginning of our second week, did we discover that Chief of Security Robert Roghstein was one of some half dozen crew members employed by both NASA and ConStel (Construction Stellar International Inc.)

But, if my hunch was right, not even the sneaking, spying, eternally damnable bastard who killed my Frank knew that I understood the nature of Io, much less the nature of Io Station and the terrible danger it was in. Naturally, if I didn't know what Frank had been working on, I didn't pose any threat to them. But, just in case, I had to play the shattered widow to the hilt; the devoted wife so devastated by her loss as to be worthless from the standpoint of intelligence gathering. It was an easy roll too play, not a roll at all, really. I was shattered. I was devastated. The only thing that kept me from losing my mind altogether was the ingrained memory of what Frank had told me every morning before he left for work, every night before he went to sleep, and on the rare occasions that he left the station. He'd always said two things: "Remember, if something happens to me, Jill, get the information to Sing. And, remember that I love you."

Now, as I stood, suited and helmeted at the small port beside the outer lock of the Prometheus, one of Io Station's two shuttles, I remembered our last kiss before he'd gone in to suit up for the unexpected EVA. He'd gone through his little spiel as usual and, as usual, I'd said, "I'll remember. I love you, darling."

Then he said:
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight, watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."

And he'd kissed me again, holding my shoulders in his big, strong, gentle hands. And then, without a backwards glance, he'd strode into the suiting up chamber. I'd stood still for a moment, looking at the closed door, before making my way back to our quarters with an uneasy feeling firming into certainty about the significance of those lines from "The Highwayman."

I'd called Stacy, insisting a little hysterically on a super secure line, and told him. "So," he said, speaking slowly to reduce the stutter that excitement or anxiety always brought on," you think King George's m-men will come m-marching, or already have?

"Yes. The more I think of it, the more certain I am that he's been compromised or caught outright." I swallowed. "Stace, I don't think he'll come back."

Stacy was silent for a long moment. Then he said even more slowly and deliberately, "I think, I think you're in for a very rough time, Jill. Remember what Frank told you - _everything_ he told you!" As I started to reply he broke in firmly. "Sorry, Sis, gotta go. Talk to ya soon. Love ya." With that, he'd broken the connection, leaving me to speculate miserably about his safety as well.

About four hours later Rachel Green, Director of Io Station, had called me to her office and told me, as gently as possible, that Frank wouldn't be coming back. She'd been very kind, had made all the arrangements with NASA, and had brought me up on the Prometheus for the burial in space. So now I stood in the air lock with Director Green, Deputy Director Ivanov, Roger Roberts, Prometheus' pilot, and the body bag wrapped in the American Flag that contained the mortal remains of my husband. I had asked, at some point, to see him; but Director Green had told me gently but finally that it would be better for me not to. And, I hadn't asked again.

"Taps" was playing over the com. I switched my com off. "Taps" made me cry under the best of circumstances. And these were not the best of circumstances. I blinked and clenched my teeth. The outer hatch opened, and I watched through the port as the flag-wound body bag shot out of the lock and floated amid the stars.

"They couldn't even give him a casket," I thought bitterly. Startled, I realized this was the first coherent thought I'd had in hours. Then there came into my mind the lovely lines Robert Heinlein wrote to be sung to the Navy Hymn:

Almighty Ruler of the all,
Whose Power extends to great and small,
Who guides the stars with steadfast law,
Whose least creation fills with awe,
O grant thy mercy and thy grace,
To those who venture into space.

I whispered the words as the slight shuddering of the wall beneath my hand signified the closing of the hatch. After what seemed like a long time, I felt a touch on my arm. Without switching on my com, I turned and followed Director Green inside.

My fingers were clumsy, and the simple act of popping my helmet seemed to take long minutes. As soon as it was finally off I said, more querulously than I intended, "I want to go to Calisto, to Stacy."

Rachel paused in the act of stepping out of her suit trousers, and looked at me compassionately. "Of course, Jill. Demetri and I have to get back to the station; but, I can have Roger fly you over. I'm sure he wouldn't mind under the circumstances."

"Sure wouldn't," Roger said. Glancing at him, I saw the slight, milk chocolate complected pilot, already unsuited and stowing his gear, pass the back of his hand across his wet cheeks. He was young, on his first off-Earth posting, and Frank had befriended him.

Watching him as he closed the locker and eagerly turned towards me, it struck me that we were the only friends he had on Io. Yet, I couldn't even trust dear Roger. For all I knew, he had killed Frank and would kill me, or take me to ConStell headquarters to be tortured… I couldn't trust anyone from Io. I had to get away from all of them.

"No," I wailed, feeling the hysteria finally rising as inexorably as Prometheus' lava. "I want Stacy to come get me." Dropping my gloves on the floor, I sank my head into my hands and burst into tears.

I was vaguely aware of Rachel speaking quietly with Roger. Then, after a few moments, I felt Demetri's arm about me. He was a big man, almost as tall as Frank, and he supported me effortlessly. "I understand," he said in his rumbling, heavily accented English. "Everything and everyone associated with Io Station is repugnant to you now. You want only to see your brother, not even to stay on the Prometheus any longer than you can help." I could only nod against his shoulder. "Of course. We understand. Let us help you out of your suit, and you can go call him."

Like a child, I stood still as they quickly and efficiently unsuited me. As soon as my arms were free, I touched my right hand to the bracelet on my left wrist. It held eight crystals. Frank had mounted the eighth the night before he, he was lost. Since the stones were ostensibly to mark each completed month of our posting, Frank had mounted each on the last day of the month. So, it was now October Second, about twenty-four hours since he had gone away. October Second. Something stirred in the back of my mind, but I was too distraught to grasp it and it fluttered down into oblivion again.

By the time I spoke to Stacy, he and a hanger crew were already going through final check outs on the Galactica, his personal, two-passenger space plane. "Your friend Roger called and told me you needed me to come get you," he said; and, I was so distraught that this didn't strike me as odd.

………………....
Frank had suggested we drive out to the beach. Though, loving the Maine coast in all seasons and weathers as I did, I gladly agreed, it did puzzle me that he, not a beach person even in August, would make the suggestion. But, at his troubled look, I suddenly remembered what this all too rare holiday had, briefly, allowed me to put out of my mind. In a few short weeks, we would move in as part of the inaugural crew of Io Station. The quaint inn where we were staying seemed ordinary and safe enough. But, as Frank said, "I'm not paranoid if someone really is trying to kill me."

We drove with little conversation. Leaving the car in the otherwise deserted parking lot, we trudged across the dunes and the wide stretch of sand, sepia under the cloudy sky, to walk on the firm sand at the water's edge. We took our time. And I thought, not of the deep, soft sand under my boots nor of the salt-laden wind, soft as a June breeze, that brushed my face, but of the world we would soon call home.

I'd visited space and research centers on Tarra. The day at Kennedy Space Center my bemused parents had given me for my tenth birthday remained in my memory as one of the chief occurrences of my life. Less than two months later, the Delta 5 rocket carrying the first payload of nuclear waste being shot towards the Oort Cloud had exploded on the launch pad, destroying a large part of the Southeastern U.S. Later, I'd visited ESA and CSA facilities with Frank and, had toured the Cosmodrome at Vaikanor with almost as much excitement and enthusiasm as the Cape itself. We'd travled to the International Space Station, the Lunar Tri-Cities of Armstrong, Collins, and Aldren, and the Martian city states of Lewis, Bradbury, and Burroughs. And, of course, I was familiar with Calisto and Ganymede Stations. But, I'd never seen anything like Io.

The station had been built, ostensibly, as a research center. But, that cover story had never made sense to me. The research center an Ganymede was generously sized and amply equipped. It was operated by ESA, sure, but parochial considerations of what tarran flag an off-Tarran base or colony nominally had been established under meant little to most people and less to space scientists nowadays. Any research NASA wanted to pursue could easily have been accommodated at Ganymede. Of course, ConStel had lost the contract on Ganymede, unfairly as th CEO had screamed across the media like a toddler whose favorite stuffed toy had been taken away, to British, French, and Icelandic companies. Since Pres. Arthur A. Chester had, to his astonishment and chagrin, been unable to bully and threaten ESA, the EU, the UN and the international Space Consortium into nullifying the contracts and awarding the entire project to ConStel, he had arranged Io as a consolation prize for his baby brother's firm. That was an open secret in the space community. But, it didn't answer the question of why Io? What did this volcanic little satellite have that ConStel or anyone else could possibly want?

As we strolled, looking out to the grey expanse of the Atlantic, I put this question to Frank. He paused and looked at me with a mischievous, almost a boyish grin, which slowly faded to his now accustomed expression of vague worry. "They've found a life form," he said, "a microbe, on Io. An extremoophile that actually feeds on radioactivity, breaking it down into harmless chemical compounds."

I stared, momentarily speechless. "The first extraterrestrial life," I breathed. "Frank, it exists! We're not alone!" I drew a long, shuddering breath. "Microbes on another planet, well, satellite. They should name them Saganoids, or something."

Frank smiled sadly. "Yes, they should. I doubt they will, though." He glanced around nervously. The bleakly beautiful beach was deserted; not unusually for Castene Maine in mid December. "This is highly classified material, known only to a very few outside the NASA and DOD highest circles."

I frowned. "but, surely, such a discovery is the story of the century, of the millennium. We've finally found ET. What's more, ET can do something of tremendous service to Tarra…" I paused, a chill running through me. Just about every plant, animal, and chemical compound that might conceivably be of use to Man had long ago been patented by the pharma-chem-ag mega-corps. "They're going to patent the Saganoids?" I said, but it wasn't a question.

Frank nodded. "But, that's not the half of it."

I shuddered again. "What could be worse than that?"

"Lots of things," he said grimly. Sen. Harper and Admiral Sing think a fundamental design flaw in the station on Io was glossed over, covered up." I gulped, a chill sweeping through me that owed nothing to the large, fluffy snowflakes floating on sea breeze. He scuffed the sand with his boot toe. "Best estimates are," he said quietly, "that the habitable part of the station, which is the important part, after all, will fail about eighteen to twenty-four months after completion. Although the station is built in one of the few relatively stable parts of the world, it's still mainly underground and the tidal flexing will eventually breech its integrity, not because such a breech is inevitable, but because of the methods and materials used in its construction, in combination with an inadequate design." He sighed. "With only one of those problems, even the poor design, the danger would be far less immediate. With all three…" He waved his hand.

He laughed humorlessly at my shock. "What do you expect? Constel uses its own designers, engineers and architects. They use their own proprietary methods and materials. What else would they use? And, their inspectors approve every bolt and man hour. We can't have OSHA, or the Mine Safety Administration or any other government body, not even NASA, unduly interfering with their business, now can we? And, hey, it's good enough for government work. Who cares how many people are killed in the eventual structural failure? It won't disturb Constel's bottom line."

Voices in Wartime Newsletter: A Teachable Moment?

A Teachable Moment?
By Andrew Himes

I spent my high school years during the 1960s growing more and more outraged by the war in Vietnam. Every day I came home from school and watched Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News reporting on yet another cycle of death and horror, destruction and dismemberment. Every day I heard about dozens or hundreds of new US casualties and hundreds or thousands of new Vietnamese casualties. I heard about atrocities like the killing of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, and the carpet-bombing of the jungles by endless flights of B-52s, and pointless slaughter at places with names like Khe Sanh and Hue and Ia Drang. I was saddened by the killing. I was angered by the lies told about why we went to war and the fraudulent speeches by politicians like Lyndon Johnson who spoke dignified phrases about democracy and freedom while launching the most horrific bombardments and assaults against human life and dignity. By the time I was a junior in high school, I was sickened and horrified by the war and deeply opposed to its continuation.

In the fall of 1968 I went off to college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison bearing an extraordinary burden of self-righteousness. I lived in a permanent sense of outrage combined with an extraordinary feeling of freedom. I had escaped from the narrow confines of my family and church and high school, and the context of my escape was the ongoing war in Vietnam. By the end of my first year in college I had become a fulltime political activist. I gave up attending all but a few of my classes, and devoted myself to passing out leaflets, helping to organize rallies, attending antiwar demonstrations, and running the mimeograph machine in the Student Union to help organize yet more demonstrations.

Not only was I against the war, I was also against any soldier who had become part of the machinery of the war, whether by volunteering or consenting to being drafted, and then had gone off to take part in the war. I was sure such an act was the result of a moral choice made by an individual who was morally accountable. I believed soldiers knew what they were getting themselves into, that they were fighting an immoral war against civilians on behalf of an invading and occupying force. They were available for my sanctified disapproval, and I condemned soldiers along with their actions.

By the fall of 1969, these frequent demonstrations had become a source of irritation to the Regents of the University of Wisconsin, and they passed a law forbidding the use of loud speaking equipment on the public college campuses of Wisconsin for any political purpose. Antiwar activists on my campus at Madison held a quick planning meeting and concluded this was an egregious violation of our right to free speech as enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Far from being outraged, we were actually quite pleased, having been granted a perfect excuse for a demonstration and a gift of the moral high ground in our dispute with the Regents. We had the ideal occasion in mind. October, 1969 would see a national demonstration in Washington DC, supported by student strikes and other demonstrations on hundreds of campuses across the country. It was called the Vietnam Moratorium, and over two million American would march against the war in the largest political demonstrations in US history.

In Madison, several thousand students gathered in the square between the University Library and the Wisconsin State Historical Association. We had prepared for a dramatic yet peaceful demonstration. We selected four volunteers to be speakers at the rally and targets for arrest that day. Marge Tabankin was a vice president of the student body, a woman of large presence and strong ideas. Elrie Crite, a slim black man with a large round Afro, was the first director of the brand new Black Studies Center, which had been created in response to a campus wide strike called by the black student union the previous year. Billy Kaplan was an aggressive, eloquent, and fearless speaker and chairman of Students for a Democratic Society, the potpourri assemblage of radicals on campus. And I was the fourth person selected for arrest.

The other three speakers were set up on the steps of the library surrounded by the largest physical display of loud-speaking equipment we could muster, assembled from rental equipment stores up to a hundred miles away. We had gigantic amplifiers and massive microphones and ten foot tall speakers designed for use in rock concerts and political rallies.

Three of our designated arrestees were surrounded by a phalanx of the campus police, led by Chief Ralph Hansen, a genial, balding, and somewhat portly gentleman with a liberal disposition and a desire to keep the peace in a civilized sort of way. Ralph knew me well enough as a burgeoning troublemaker on campus, and I had acquired the permit for the demonstration in his office the day before. A large round fountain occupied the middle of the yard in front of the Library where we held the rally. During the summertime the fountain was uncovered and active, but in October it was covered by a metal sheathe that protected the fountain from the ice and snow of the coming winter. By 10 AM that morning, I was perched high above the rest of the crowd atop the metal sheath, which made a perfect speaker's platform.

As the rally began, Marge, Billy, and Elrie each stepped up to the microphone in turn and began to speak. As they did so, each was arrested and carted off to the Madison City Jail, leaving no one on the platform except for the police. The crowd then began to stir, with no immediate focus for their attention except for the cops, who were doubtless worried about what might come next, given the history of violent protests in Madison. At that point, I opened the cardboard box I had brought with me to the top of the fountain cover and pulled out my portable bullhorn to carry on with the rally. As soon as I started speaking, the crowd recognized what was happening. They turned their backs on the police and began chanting and shouting. Several cops led by Ralph Hansen started shoving their way through the crowd in my direction. And the crowd, while offering no active resistance, also provided no assistance to Ralph and his cohorts. When Ralph reached the bottom of the fountain, he looked up at me, waggled his finger in my direction, and shouted, "Andy, you come down from there right this minute!" To the delighted cheers and catcalls of thousands, I hollered back, "Ralph, come up and get me!"

That moment was one of the supremely glorious moments of my life. Two cops clambered up the slanted metal sides of the fountain cover and hauled me down, placing me in handcuffs at the bottom of the fountain where Ralph waited impatiently. I was hustled into a squad car and taken to jail, where I was charged with "illegal use of a bullhorn." I spent no more than twenty minutes behind bars before our lawyers got me bailed out, a newly-minted minor hero of the peace movement. The next day in the New York Times, I read a small article about our arrests in Madison. The case itself was thrown out a few months later by Federal Judge Frank Johnson, who declared the law unconstitutional.

35 years passed and I grew up a bit. I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as I had been opposed to the war in Vietnam. But I was looking for how we could create a dialogue that transcended political arguments and led to an exploration of the human cost of war. I helped produce a film called Voices in Wartime that included an interview with Jonathan Shay, a psychologist who has treated hundreds of veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. One afternoon in the spring of 2004 I sat in front of a television with my laptop, transcribing the raw footage of Jonathan's interview as he talked about how soldiers experienced war. Jonathan said, "We are talking about a clicking in of some very deep emotional mechanisms that bond soldiers to each other. The grief that a soldier feels when a comrade is killed or severely maimed is akin to the grief of a mother whose child has just been killed." That last phrase of Jonathan Shay's hit me hard. At a deep emotional level, I understood as never before the personal cost of war for soldiers.

In August of 2006, I was a speaker at a veterans' conference in Seattle. I told the story of my first arrest, in October of 1969, to those present, an audience of some 50 or 60 veterans, many of them from the Vietnam War. I looked back and remembered myself as a nineteen year old kid, full of self-righteous energy and disdain for anybody who disagreed with me, contempt for Ralph Hanson and Lyndon Johnson and my own parents, full of righteous anger directed at anyone who was in the military or in any way a part of the political superstructure that justified, supported, or funded the war. It would have been far from my consciousness on that long ago October morning, I said, to consider what might be going through a soldier's mind, or what the sufferings of any soldier might amount to or how they might matter. I was sure I was right and that anybody who made any choice contrary to my own was morally wrong. I was a fool, I said, full of my own sanctified disapproval of soldiers and disdain for their sufferings. I had been right to oppose the war. But I was wrong to oppose the warrior. I had failed to understand that soldiers themselves were victims of the war. I knew nothing of the sorrows of soldiers, of the fear and pain that attended their service and the nightmares that followed it. I was ignorant of their motivations and of the terrible cost they had borne and continued to bear. I had refused to grant them humanity, and in my refusal I had diminished my own humanity.

When I finished speaking, the first person to stand in the audience was a burly vet about my age. He was an ex-marine named Michael Patrick Brewer wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt. Michael was crying, and had trouble talking. He said that my story had opened his memory to a story of his own from that same time - October, 1969. And he said he had never told his story to anyone for 37 years. On that day he was a young active duty soldier who had just returned from Vietnam after a year's tour. He was in Chicago that day, only 100 miles away from Madison where I was. And he was also at an antiwar demonstration, part of the national Vietnam Moratorium. He was wearing his Marine uniform, and after much struggle and thought he had decided to speak at the demonstration.

Michael told us how he'd gone to the rally and up onto the platform where he had been invited. He knew just what he would say. He planned to make a short speech in which he would say that we needed to stop three kinds of hatred. We needed to stop hating the Vietnamese. We needed to stop hating each other. And we needed to stop hating ourselves. As he was waiting for his turn to speak, someone else on the platform saw his uniform and attacked him, screamed that he was a baby killer, and kicked him, driving him off the stage. He said he had never before spoken of his shame at being so treated.

"You know," he said, "that was more traumatic to me than anything that happened to me in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969."

After the workshop, Michael said to me, "You used the word 'sanctified.' You talked about your 'sanctified disapproval.' I've never heard anybody use that word before in that way. Nobody's ever apologized to me for what happened that day. And I never knew how much it mattered to me. I've always known what I did the next day - I walked into Hines Hospital in Chicago looking for help for my sadness and depression, though I didn't stay because they were just looking for guinea pigs to medicate. For some reason I never put those two events together until right now. I didn't go for help again until October, 1997, the same month as the Moratorium. 28 years of repression. Ain't the brain amazing? When repression is perfect you can't find it."

By giving me his forgiveness in so graceful and compassionate a way, Michael helped me understand that I was much in need of it. That day was important for both of us. As Michael told me, it was a big emotional "clear" for him, helping to close a chapter of his life in which he had difficulty trusting others or committing himself to being part of a community working for social change. He needed to hear how I had learned I was wrong, how much I wanted and needed to hear his story, and how I had come to feel compassion for him and other veterans. Michael needed to experience the liberation that came from forgiving me.

A gulf of perception, personal experience, expectation, and memory separates us from each other. On one side is who I am, my relationships, my pangs of hunger and desire, my terrifying loves and magnetic fears. On the other side are those others, like Michael, unknown and alien to me, whose emotions, experiences, and deepest beliefs I can only view "as through a glass, darkly." Even as I tell myself the story of my life, it changes. The story finds new pathways, enters new dominions. I discover new metaphors to filter and explain my memories and reshape my learning. I discover new connections and synchronicities between myself and those whom I identified in the past as my opponents.

For my part, I needed help from Michael to reach across that gap. I needed Michael to tell me his story, and I needed him to hear mine without judging me. We both needed to understand deeply the fear and sadness that had motivated each of us. And then we could begin our lives anew, having reconfigured the gap, having changed each other and ourselves. We could become each other's salvation. We could become each other's brother.

Now, five years after 9/11, we confront one of the most critical moments in our nation's history. With much blood and treasure, we have paid for some powerful lessons and deep wisdom. Out of the wreckage of this war, might we come to a new understanding of the terrible human cost of war, and the legacy of trauma created by war? Are we nearing an historic "teachable moment" when we may be open to new insight into how we can live in a more sustainable and peaceful world? The world is waiting.

Go to the essay on the Voices in Wartime web site
Help on Organizing a Community Screening of the Voices film

Voices in Wartime Anthology Available!
To order the book or DVD, go to http://voicesinwartime.org/order.htm
Voices in Wartime is a 240-page book containing the most powerful and eloquent voices - poets, writers, reporters, and veterans - testifying to the trauma and devastation of war, and the need for healing. Voices in Wartime is also a feature-length documentary that delves into the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets - unknown and world-famous. Poets around the world, from the United States and Colombia to Britain and Nigeria to Iraq and India, share their poetry and experiences of war. Soldiers, journalists, historians and experts on combat interviewed in Voices in Wartime add diverse perspectives on war's effects on soldiers, civilians and society.
See a Trailer of the Film: Go to http://voicesinwartime.org/trailer.htm
Learn More about the Film: Go to http://voicesinwartime.org/movie.htm

Hear the Poems from the Film
Featured poems from Voices in Wartime are now available in MP3 and Windows Media audio formats on the web site. Visit the Poems in the Filmpage to download and hear the audio clips.
Go to http://voicesinwartime.org/poems.htm

Sign Up
...to get this monthly e-mail from the Voices in Wartime Education Project, a newsletter of art, essays, and ideas for healing conflict and the trauma of war, plus news about Voices in Wartime.
Go to http://voicesinwartime.org/register.htm

Home - http://voicesinwartime.org
About the Movie - http://voicesinwartime.org/movie.htm
About the Education Project- http://voicesinwartime.org/about.htm
Contact Us - http://voicesinwartime.org/contact.htm

Radio, Art & Music changing El Salvador

Supporters like you have been keeping us busy this fall!

In Olympia, friends organized a successful benefit concert with folksinger Greg Brown. They packed the house and raised nearly $4,000 to support the work in El Salvador!

Here in Austin, a great team of volunteers put together an art show and reception. They've helped promote the art project and create more visibility in the community for the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency! You can read more about the event here.

You should also know that Mangrove Radio, the community radio station in El Salvador, has completed 3 great years now! One of the highlights of their third year has been a weekly show with an environmental theme. You can learn more about how this educational program helps the Bajo Lempa's sensitive ecology by clicking here.

Saludos,
Isaac "Ike" Trevino & Jose "Chencho" Alas
Executive Director Founder & Peace Project Director
ike@fssca.net chencho@fssca.net

Poet At Center Of Firestorm

Further developments on the Nikki Giovanni/Ken Blackwell story.

In an article in The Cincinatti Inquirer, poet Nikki Giovanni is quoted as follows with regard to her Saturday poetry reading in Fountain Square:

Giovanni isn't happy about the criticism or controversy. But she's not apologizing, either.

"All I have is my voice," she said. "I don't want it silenced. We were on (Fountain Square) where the Klan gathered to speak. I'm not sure as many people called to complain about what the Klan had to say as what I said."

Giovanni said Fountain Square has a long history as a place where controversial and sometimes unpopular issues are voiced.

"There's never an appropriate place," she said. "The square is a place for free speech and public dialogue."

Giovanni added, "I think Kenny is not a nice person. I think you can tell that by what I wrote."

Miss Giovanni's remarks are balanced by the following:

Keith Fangman, vice president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, was unhappy about a line in the poem that referred to police shootings of young black men. He called the reference "inflammatory."

"What a great way to welcome the cop-hating, racist element back to Fountain Square," he said sarcastically.

Fangman said 3CDC leadership was to blame for the "PR nightmare" created by Giovanni's remarks. "Any imbecile should have known that Nikki Giovanni is an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, left-wing, political militant and should never have been invited to speak at this celebration."

If that's not an imflamitory, militantly Right-wing, not to say vicious remark, this blogger doesn't know what is.

Moreover, I find it highly inappropriate for a police officer to make such nakedly partazan remarks in a newspaper, especially when he is specifically identified as Vice President of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police. Frankly, a poet *is* free to express her private views in any place and in any way she sees fit. A police officer is not. If Mr. Fangman had been speaking as a private citizen, he, too, would have been free to be as partizan as he wished. However, for him to speak as he did in his capacity as an officer of the law is distasteful and shows poor judgment on his part, to say the very least.

We wholeheartedly support Miss Giovanni's courage and artistic integrity, as well as her inalienable right to free speech.

Thanks to Renee*in*Ohio at Howard Empowered People for highlighting this controversy.

No Laurels For Nikki If Ken Wins?

Yesterday, Plunderbund ran this story about poet Nikki Giovanni:

I Am Not A Son Of A Bitch Like Kenny Blackwell

It is unclear whether the entire text of Miss Giovanni's poem is included in the article, or only most of it.

A strong, evocative poem, "I Am Cincinatti" is not necessarily well served by the hypertopical refferences IMO. My hunch is that they may be removed when the poem is printed. Still, Miss Giovanni demonstrates the power of poetry and the public engagement that I feel is an integral part of being a poet. She also showed no little courage.

We applaud Nikki Giovanni for her poem and the courage to perform it.

Read more:
Nikki Giovanni's web site

New U.S. Poet Laureate

Donald Hall has been named U.S. Poet Laureate. A prolific essayest as well as poet Mr. Hall, who lives in New Hampshire, writes movingly and vividly about the natural, day to day world around him.

Asked about the future of poetry, he expressed optimism. Poetry is infinitely more popular today, he told The News Hour's Jeffrey Brown, than when he was a boy. Today, Mr. Hall pointed out, it seems that there's a poetry reading on every block.

We congratulate Mr. Hall on his achievement.

Read more:
Poet Laureate Donald Hall Reflects on Age and Nature
PBS News Hour: Poet Profile - Donald Hall
Donald Hall's poetry at the Poetry Foundation's web site

Interestingly, while the just departed Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky wrote a statement of conscience supporting Sam Hamil and the Poets Against The War movement, Mr. Hall does not appear to have any material at their site. One cannot help but wonder whether this nonappearance has anything to do with Mr. Hall's appointment. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Poetry On The News Hour

Throughout this year, The PBS News Hour is carrying an occasional series on poetry. The series profiles American poets and discusses the role of poetry in America today.

Click the title to go to the "About" page for the series, from which you can access the entire sub-site.

Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz In Unstable Condition

Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning writer Naguib Mahfouz is in intensive care at hospital in the capital, Cairo.

Mahfouz, in his mid-90s, has been in hospital since a fall last month. He is said to be in an "unstable" condition.

His vibrant, colourful portrayal of capital in his Cairo Trilogy won the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature.

Click the title to go to the BBC article. Our prayers are with Mr. Mahfouz and his family.

Call For Solidarity From Poets Against War

Dear Poets Against War:

Fernando Rendón, poet and workhorse for peace, directs the Medellín International Poetry Festival. We at Poets Against War support his petition whole-heartedly.

Please go to
http://www.poetsagainstwar.net/poetspetition2.asp
and add your signature.

Namaste,
Sam Hamill & the PAW Board

Medellin, March 22nd, 2006.
Dear poets:

Greetings from Colombia.

We invite you to sign the attached letter to express as soon as possible your solidarity with this cause and then to circulate this letter electronically among your friends.

All the best,
Fernando Rendón
Director
International Poetry Festival of Medellin

Cease hypocrisy on the issue of Human Rights
The 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights will begin next March 20 in Geneva, coinciding with the broadcasting of new footage of US military torturing Iraqi prisoners.

The United States and its EU allies have successively prevented this Commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights promoted in the name of the so called war against terrorism.

The EU governments have refused to admit the testimonies and evidences submitted by citizens of their countries, who have been victims of several forms of torture at Guantánamo navy base. They have also allowed the flight of CIA aircrafts carrying prisoners to illegal detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.

We the undersigned call upon intellectuals, artists, social activists, and men and women of goodwill everywhere to join our claims: the Commission on Human Rights or the Council that will substitute it, must demand the immediate closing of the arbitrary detention centers created by the United States as well as the ceasing of all these deliberate violations of human dignity.

In Memoriam: John Morressy

from the Blind SF listserv

Forwarded (I think) from Joyce Scrivner:
SF and fantasy writer John Morressy died Monday, March 20, 2006, of a heart attack at his home in Sullivan, New Hampshire, at the age of 75. Morressy wrote more than 20 books, from space opera to humorous fantasy, and was best known for his novels and stories (mostly in F&SF) about Kedrigern the wizard.

» The SFWA obituary includes funeral details
http://www.sfwa.org/news/2006/jmorressy.htm

From mataliandy via listener: The Impeachment Wagon is Ready to Roll

(Oh you know you want it...)
All aboard!

Vermont's Impeachment document known as the Rutland Resolution has wheels, and we're hitching our wagon to it.

The Rutland Resolution is a resolution passed by the Rutland Vermont County Democrats on February 28 that takes advantage of a little-known US House rule for impeachment charges to be transmitted to the US House from the states. It's building a groundswell of support in Vermont, and starting to leak into other states. Rhode Island already had their own version in the works, and there are rumors of action elsewhere.

We need to keep the momentum going!

mataliandy has just posted a do-it-yourself impeachment guide on Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/7/105540/6002 and MyLeftWing http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6540, which includes the text of the Rutland Resolution, link to a pdf of the US House Rules, as well as steps to creating your own state's resolution.

Recommends are needed, but we also need swarming. The most helpful thing right now is to get rolling thunder - make it sweep across the landscape before it can be stopped. Once the word is out there, we can keep people excited by reporting on what's happening with it around the country. If we can't get it into the media, we can at least get it into our communities.

That's where you come in. If you can get folks to recommend, please do, but also, if you have a blog or know someone with a blog, please post about it - feel free to use the entire thing wholesale if you're short on time. The important thing is to get it disseminated.

While you're at it, please email the diary to any email lists you belong to. The more people who are aware of the option, the better

For more information email: impeach@dfvt.com

Thank you!

Ads For The War On Iraq, Coming To A TV Near You

TruthOut reports today:

TV Ads Push Iraq War Support
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030206E.shtml
In an early sign of the imagery that may flood the nation's television screens as congressional elections approach this fall, a conservative political group closely aligned with the Bush administration has launched a blitz of television ads to shore up sagging public support for the war in Iraq.

I don't need to read the story. The summary alone is enough to raise my blood pressure. I'll only say here that the purchase and broadcast of such adverts seems to me to be an abuse of the public airwaves and of the cable services many Americans pay for.

Cardinal: Ash Wednesday, 2006

"All artists are mystics in some way."

~ Franciscan Br. Robert Lentz,
(known for his riveting rendition of the Stations of the Cross)

Br. Robert's work can be found at Trinity Stores.