Honey, again, please

Posted on by Dale

This has been floating around for a couple of weeks, I think: Camille Paglia, always good for a chuckle, in an interview with the Globe and Mail:

This whole thing about global warming, I am absolutely incredulous at the gullibility of people. What is this hysteria over drowning polar bears? And finally I realized, people don’t know polar bears can swim! For me, the answer is always more facts, more basic information, presented without sentimentality and without drama. To inflict this kind of anxiety on young people is an outrage.

Mercy. Has Ms. Paglia gone all Emily Litella on us?

I think Ms. Paglia is entirely correct in thinking more information, presented without sentimentality and without drama, is our saving grace here. So here’s what I propose: assuming Ms. Paglia can swim, we drop her in the middle of Lake Michigan. That way, she gather more facts at her leisure and can tell us what her conclusions are when she gets back to Chicago.

Honey, please

Posted on by Dale

So Rand Paul, teabagger extraordinaire, wins the Republican senatorial primary in Kentucky and goes on Rachel Maddow’s show to do his victory lap. (I know, right?)

So Maddow asks him if he would have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He says no. While he is in fact not in favor of discriminatory practices, the government, he says, has no bidness telling restaurants whom they must serve.

Well. Hilarity ensues, of course, but my favorite rightwing burble is Senator John Cornyn (R, naturally-TX, of course) He said

Maddow’s inquiry was a “gotcha question.” “If I’m walking down the street minding my own business and somebody sticks a microphone under my nose about a law that was passed 40 years ago, without more detail — I think it probably caught him a little bit by surprise,” Cornyn said in Paul’s defense.

Honey, please. Paul had 15 minutes to explain himself, and this is after giving the same answer to a newspaper and to NPR, and he acquitted himself admirably. He said exactly what he believes. As for his being “caught by surprise,” if that is so, then I say good on Rachel Maddow for exposing this guy for an even bigger idiot than he already appeared to be.

My question for Cornyn at this point: Do you seriously want this specimen on your team in the Senate? Really and truly, do you??

Labyrinth, 5/20/10

Posted on by Dale

You might have noticed that I was on a roll, posting nearly every day, and then suddenly I dropped off again. Life. Don’t talk to me about life.

Last Saturday, I was basking in the labyrinth and painting sketches of bodies and really getting somewhere when I got the Phone Call, the one no parent wants to hear: there’s been an accident. Grayson’s been hurt.

My son, my child, riding his bicycle down the Creeper Trail with his girlfriend, has taken a two-foot drop off the final trestle and gone straight over his handlebars into the gravel and cinder-covered track, landing squarely on his forehead and nose. Miraculously, he sustains no other injuries but to his face: no neck injuries, no skull injuries, no eyes or teeth, not even a concussion.

But it is enough: he has scraped off his forehead and a great deal of his nose. The plastic surgeon in Johnson City, TN, has a challenge to reassemble what’s left into something that will work. My son’s nose is now about a half inch shorter than it used to be.

I drive immediately to Tennessee. His mother flies from Boston, where she’d gone for a five-day conference. We deal. He’s hurting, but he’s fine. In terms of dealing, it’s all cosmetic. He knows that, we know that. And we try to be grateful. It is hard.

Short version timeline: Saturday–he falls, surgery. We head to Johnson City. Sunday–he continues to recuperate, stays overnight. Monday–he’s discharged, we take him to the hotel. Tuesday–we meet with the surgeon, who [OH MY GOD HE’S WONDERFUL] is pleased with his work and with the healing. I drive back to Newnan. Ginny and Grayson go to her parents’ house in Abindgon, VA, an hour away. Kristin returns to Greensboro. Wednesday–we all breathe. Thursday–today–he has his stitches out in Johnson City. The surgeon is very pleased that Grayson has feeling in his nose.

Now it’s just a matter of healing. We’re pretty sure that there’s more cosmetic surgery in our future. We don’t know where he’s going next. His sketchy post-graduation plans [YES, HE GRADUATED FROM GUILFORD COLLEGE THE PREVIOUS WEEKEND WITH A DOUBLE DEGREE IN GERMAN STUDIES AND POLITICAL SCIENCE AND I SHOULD HAVE BLOGGED ABOUT IT SO YOU COULD HAVE SHARED IN THE HALCYON PERFECTION OF THE WEEKEND] are now even sketchier.

And I am taking advantage of the beautiful weather to sit in my labyrinth, drink, paint, and meditate.

There’s too much going through my head to get it all down, and some of it I don’t want to share anyway.

A fresh bottle of Xtabentun, please. Isn’t it a good thing that I ordered a whole case of the stuff last month?

Here’s the thing. He’s an adult. He must decide what to do with his life, injured or otherwise. I cannot help him other than to provide some kind of health insurance. He has to figure out what it means that in one horrific moment he changed his life forever. I can’t. I can’t even face that decision. I can only be there to hand him a cup of water when he needs it or to be stolid for his sake. But inside, I’m a father who’s ready to lose it at any moment because my child’s life has been changed forever.

I have nothing else to say.

Sumer is icumen in

Posted on by Dale

My summer of Myself is on the horizon, 1 month 2 days and 17 hours to be precise, and I find that it cannot come quickly enough. (Note: my “summer” doesn’t begin until I return from helping set up GHP on Tuesday, June 15!)

What are my goals?

  • sketch five proposals for the Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra piece
  • sketch, if not complete, the designated proposal for said piece
  • make headway on the Epic Lichtenbergian Portrait
  • further explore my “Field” series of paintings, and even finish the one I promised a young friend this time last year
  • build a “party patio” on the upper lot
  • finish a couple of things in the labyrinth, especially the westpoint
  • begin writing the journal I’ve chosen to call A Perfect Life
  • establish some kind of exercise routine

Given that I have six weeks to do all this in, I don’t think I shall have to worry about what I’m going to do with myself.

Dream music

Posted on by Dale

I’ve been asked whether I’ve ever dreamed any music that I’ve gone on to actually write. Yes, the opening theme of “Sonnet 18” came to me the night before the students arrived at GHP that summer. It was so insistent that I got up and scribbled down something to remind me of its contour the next morning.

Recently however I have been dreaming quite large orchestral pieces, and that’s frustrating, because I know I do not have the skills (nor the time) to capture them. Last night was a lovely work indeed; I was even able to manipulate it, extending the theme and developing it.

It’s gone now. I remember only a vague impression of its effect. Most frustrating.

Idiot.

Posted on by Dale

I think I’ve found our problem.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who was a JAG and even serves as a Senior Instructor at the Air Force JAG School, on the idea of legislation to strip citizens accused of terrorism of their rights as citizens:

Even if you’re an American citizen helping the enemy, you should be viewed as a potential military threat, not some guy who tried to commit a crime in Times Square.

No, Lindsey, no, you’re missing the point. That’s exactly how it should be viewed: as a crime in Times Square. Such a violent act does not require that we elevate its perpetrator to some holy-warrior status. Nor does it require that we cue “The Star-Spangled Banner” and smear our faces with Special Forces make-up and scream, “Wolverines!” (Look carefully at that quote page, and be very afraid.)

Idiot.

A scathingly brilliant idea

Posted on by Dale

Here, in its entirety, is my letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which was printed in edited form yesterday:

Dear Editor:

As an educator, I have followed with alarm the various cuts to the education budget in the General Assembly: larger class sizes, less support for the arts, fewer teacher aides, and now, in the Senate, the complete elimination of the Governor’s Honors Program, the crown jewel of the DOE.

I believe, however, I have found a solution to at least part of our funding woes.

The Republican governor of Puerto Rico has submitted a bill to slash the size of their legislature by 30%, saving nearly $11 million in the process.

Surely we could do the same thing here? I’m thinking it would be easier, math-wise, to cut the Assembly by 50%, so that all you would have to do is have each remaining legislator double up on his or her district. I haven’t done the math about how much we would save, but surely it would be enough to fund a few teacher aides, and maybe tide Governor’s Honors over until the economy picks up.

As for the increased duties the legislators would face, it’s the same as increasing class sizes for teachers, isn’t it? If larger numbers in the classroom is not supposed to have any real impact on instruction and learning, surely it won’t hurt our representatives to double up for the people they represent.

After all, times are hard, and we all have to make sacrifices.

Dale Lyles, educator

Labyrinth, 5/4/10

Posted on by Dale

I came out this afternoon to bask and found that the labyrinth had, overnight, turned into a shady respite.

At some point I will probably have to weed-whack the paving stones to keep the grass from overtaking them. I think they’re lovely au naturel, but I can see where it could turn into a problem. I know we have a brick walkway in the front yard that no one has seen for years for that very reason.