Wow. YES! In Crude Awakening: An open letter to Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska Terry Tempest Williams tells it like it is:
What I want to know is this: What will you do, Sen. Stevens, when drilling in the Arctic Refuge begins, when the technologically correct pumps that look like “rows of outhouses” on the tundra are doing their duty, in and out, in and out, pulling the oil up through the permafrost as the one million barrels a day that you promised are spilling black gold into American coffers (ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching) and you hear the heavy coins raining down on the backs of caribou? What happens after the ice roads melt and the insect trucks are turned on their sides destined to become the corrosive artifacts of the Bush II Era (call it the Era of Ecological Deformation) and you, Sen. Stevens, now as an old man, are still depressed?
Dreamt last night of my mother and stepfather on a houseboat (they did have a houseboat, so this is not so unusual). They were sleeping on the deck with two members of the crew (this is the unusual part as the boat they had was small and certainly required no crew). My mother woke up and went on one of the pontoons because she wanted some water. The pontoon stretched far, far out into the water and became very thin, like a balance beam as one walked on it. She fell off and got wet and my stepfather berated her.
I was watching all of this from a distance as though filming it. But when he berated her I was suddenly a part of the action. He was sitting in a hammock and I stepped in and told him exactly what I thought of him. His face was smug and he was smiling but I could tell that my words were doing him damage. I was happy about it.
The sad thing for me about this dream is that my stepfather was exactly as he was in life. I saw him perfectly. Whereas when I dream of my mother or father, they are all fuzzy and indistinct, now. They are not themselves.
I think I dreamt of him because March 17th is the anniversary of his death (21 years). It felt good to finally tell him off.
The National Book Critics awards have been announced and Robinson has won for her book Gilead (which I have not read) and Rich for The School Among the Ruins: Poems 2000-2004.
Tomorrow is the The Vernal Equinox:
As the newly reborn sun races across the sky, the days become longer, the air warmer and, once again, life begins to return to the land. Twice a year, day and night become equal in length.
I shall skip through the snow storm with a garland of flowers, holding hands with a sprite or whatever.
Martinez trades vote for promise:
A Bush administration commitment to support the moratorium on oil and gas exploration off Florida’s Gulf Coast until 2012 was Sen. Mel Martinez’s price for supporting controversial drilling in the Alaskan wilderness.
Although he had indicated his support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge during last year’s Senate campaign, Martinez said he reconsidered the issue with an eye toward whether it would open the door to drilling off the Florida coast.
Without the administration’s commitment, Martinez said he would have opposed the Arctic drilling.
New lit mag reviews at newpages. The reviews cover: The Baltimore Review, Fourteen Hills, jubilat, Meridian, Pebble Lake Review, small.spiral.notebook and others.
I am officially devastated: Senate Backs Searching for Oil in Alaska Refuge.
Why do you think gas prices are all of a sudden so HIGH? Isn’t it a coincidence that they are peaking and this Arctic Drilling is coming to a vote? Please don’t let it happen. If it does, it is the beginning of the end. Suggest our Senators that we, as a country, invest in renewable fuel resources instead. How about that?
Join 260,000 other concerned folks and fill out the citizens’ roll call in support of the Cantwell-Kerry Amendment.
and if you are a constituent, call your senator and ask that he support the Cantwell-Kerry Amendment: Senator Coleman (MN), Senator Smith (OR), Senator Specter (PA), Senator Martinez (FL), Senator Lugar (IN), and Senators Gregg and Sununu (NH).
There’s a tight race going on for which story is going to be named the Million Writers Award story of the year. But there’s still time to vote, so don’t miss your chance to choose your favorite of the top ten stories.
No. Not really. This admission (Greenspan admits tax cut error) should have come in September or October of 2004–PRIOR TO THE FUCKING ELECTION. BAH! Read on:
US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has admitted he made a mistake in 2001 when he defended President George Bush’s controversial tax cuts.
The tax cuts led to the turnaround of a large budget surplus at the end of the Clinton presidency to a budget deficit this year of more than $US400 billion ($A506 billion).
Instead of a projected surplus of $US5.6 trillion by 2011, a deficit of $4 trillion is expected if Mr Bush gets his way and the tax cuts are made permanent. They are due to expire in 2008.
Mr Greenspan’s defence of the tax cuts was always viewed as highly unusual for a Reserve chairman who is mandated to be non-political and whose major responsibility is to determine interest rates and help keep inflation in check.
And who, exactly, thought this was a good idea, anyway? Umm, the RICH people, that’s who. I love this bit:
Under vigorous questioning by Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Greenspan, looking uncomfortable, said he had been mistaken in his view about ever-increasing surpluses.
“We were confronted at the time with an almost universal expectation amongst experts that we were dealing with a very large surplus for which there seemed to be no end,” he said.
“I look back and I would say to you, if confronted with the same evidence we had back then, I would recommend exactly what I recommended then. Turns out we were all wrong”.
“Not all of us,” said Senator Clinton.
myfanwy collins 