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rmThe story of the solar system begins with dust: Stars died. They exploded. Their remains gathered from far distances to start again. ... The Indo-European base for the word “dust” is “dhus-no,” which is related to the base for "fury."
"He was his usual unusual self," she said.
"You mean," I asked, "he's still cranky and racist?"
"Well, yes."
"That's not unusual. That's cranky and racist."
No suggestion I should contact said relative about using the house, which resolves that question in my mind (the house has a long family drama history that sort of involves me except for the part where it doesn't because I was a child when that shit was going on, and it involved a lot of adults claiming to be negotiating on my behalf).
My mother is still offended by the matter in honor of the relative's now deceased wife. I'm offended by the matter, because these are all adults and my mother should be one too. I don't think the deceased wife would be offended, but my mother feels a particular loyalty to her.
They were both Jewish girls who had beach-side romances and married into this crazy Catholic family, although decades apart. It was during the war for the woman who is now deceased, and, unlike my mother, she converted to Catholicism, and, also unlike my mother, her husband got rich. But yes, I think my mother has always felt a kinship for being outcasts cast into this difficult family.
Some of my most vivid memories of a child are of being at their penthouse on Christmas Eve, mother mother and my aunt sitting on a couch, smoking and drinking champagne through straws as the bubbles bothered their teeth, reminiscing about what it was to be Jewish children before and after the War.
Then my aunt would get up, declare my mother the host of the party and leave with her husband for midnight mass at St. Patrick's. I was seven, eight, nine, and the Christmas tree was covered in crystal ornaments and there was such food! and I was always given designer clothes.
Sometimes, instead, Christmas was at their home (estate? 99 acres, I guess that's a fucking estate) in New Jersey and hundreds of people would come and there would be things like cold pumpkin soup and hired help in the kitchen. Then they wouldn't leave for midnight mass, but "their" priest would always come, and I remember him chatting with me while we ate salmon rolled around cream cheese. It wasn't the religion, but how culturally not Jewish it was, that I think drove my mother nuts.
My aunt had a hard, fucked-up life, that ended in a very different place than where she started it. One of her children died, of breast cancer at 39, after years of marriage and divorce, after joining a cult, after all sorts of things. She climbed so far, farther than my mother, but still, my mother always felt they were in on a secret together. I suppose they were, and she was really, the only life-long friend my mother has ever had.
Still, I think she needs to suck it up on this one with the widower and the new girlfriend.
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wcg.karnythia = good; fail described and linked to = bad).spiderine's series from ages ago. The other is from alex51324 here. But are there more of these? By good authors? It's not my canon interpretation of Ianto at all, but the people writing it well are writing such lovely things.Also, relevantly: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/health/policy/12insure.html
kalichan, look at creepy gazebo photo and think wizards!)
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 04:00 pm (UTC)Death panels? Delusions that Medicaid/Medicare aren't government run health care? Health care reform is evil? WTF?
**sigh**
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 04:17 pm (UTC)Yeah, there seems to be so much more fear now in the post-W. age. I recall that Bowling for Columbine's tagline was "Are we a nation of gun nuts, or just nuts?" To which Mr Moore's argument was the latter. And that was in '02. I don't see an improvement in the last seven years from that point of view, despite Obama's message of HOPE.
Oo, that's quite a mansion on PEI. And v. wizardy in places.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 04:30 pm (UTC)The Big Dog was in a weak political position when he introduced his health-care plan and the Republicans could shoot it down using more-or-less conventional political warfare. Obama came into office with a strong popular-vote majority, a unified party, and a powerful fund-raising network. Republican true believers (the ones left behind after so many moderates quit the party) are desperate, and desperate people do extreme things.
(Of course I would never underestimate my party's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:02 pm (UTC)I was on the other side of the world (Australia) and barely a teenager the last time around, so I don't really remember it - a few articles in the paper at the time, and that's about it. Most of what I know comes from histories, other peoples' recollections, and so on.
But: the internet *does* cut both ways. On the one hand, you do get a hell of a lot more civil debate... people from totally different perspectives meet, talk and can get an idea of where the other person stands. Does *not* hurt that so much information is available there - try citing sources in an in-person discussion.
On the other hand, it allows the cranks to gather. Pre-internet, you had ten or twenty thousand lone nutcases; maybe two or three would meet, that's it. Now, those nutcases can meet each other, create forums to hang out on, and become a movement.
Happens on both sides, of course. Right-wing cranks and left-wing cranks, not to mention the extreme libertarians (yeah, they're on my side, but sometimes I wish they weren't.) But IMO the internet hasn't made the nation crazy - it's just allowed the crazies to get together and make a lot more noise than they could, alone, in 1994.
That it's also enabled a hell of a lot of intelligent, well-reasoned discussion and analysis (I mean, now *anyone* can get a copy of the health care bill - try doing that with a thousand-page piece of legislation pre-internet) is overlooked... the cranks are noiser, louder and more mediagenic. (When's the last time the NY Post ran a headline to the effect of "Reasoned Debate Takes Place Outside Town Hall Meeting - Participants Get Together Afterwards Over A Few Drinks To Better See The Other Guys' Side Of Things"? On the other hand, if some guy throws a tomato...)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:26 pm (UTC)If not the internet (or, as I said, internet-driven/enabled factors), what would you say *has* caused this to become such an ugly mess? (That's if it *is* an ugly mess in absolute terms. From all I've read of the era, by late-19th-Century political standards this present health-care business would be be considered as decorously polite as a Japanese tea ceremony.)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:28 pm (UTC)Other factors in the last 15 years include the national tonal quality as effected by an election decided by the Supreme Court, the disagreement = ENEMY tone of the Bush era, the paranoia induced by foreign terrorism coming to U.S. soil and our reaction to it, the racist reactions to Obama, etc. A lot of shit we didn't expect happened in the last 15 years.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:13 pm (UTC)It is a really pretty town, for the most part.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 05:23 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Melange
also offered without comment...
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:02 pm (UTC)Om nom nom coffeeeeee....
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 06:04 pm (UTC)I'm inclined to say that US craziness is contagious, not just when it comes to your discussions on Healthcare or this very, very disturbing Birther movement.
'Cause the whole world is pretty batshit at the moment, specifically where the US is exerting it's influence either militarily or financially.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:25 pm (UTC)Dear gods yes - the far right has gone from vile and annoying to the sort of utterly wacked out nuttiness that makes me worry that it won't end will at all.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:26 pm (UTC)The TW troll reminds me of the msscribe thing from way back when. What the hell is wrong with people?
I don't remember the sort of insanity regarding end of life care and euthanasia from the Clinton years. But then, Kevorkian's great public moments didn't come until the late 90's, which might have something to do with it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 08:39 pm (UTC)Also that wank from WorldCon is awful. It made me embarrassed to have gone to the same tiny college as that woman and her awful pompous husband.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 11:20 pm (UTC)PEI is one of my favourite places on earth.
WorldCon... yikes. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 03:22 am (UTC)I'm still processing the hostessing article. And I spent thirty minutes explaining to mom that the health care package is less bad than what we presently have.
Also? Sigh at the racefail thing, though it sounds like the woman having the fail is making some sort of useful breakthrough.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-13 07:39 pm (UTC)I just think between then and now, we've simply gone crazy as a nation.
Date: 2009-08-13 08:12 pm (UTC)It would be a lot less disconcerting if
a)You didn't have the nukes;or
b)Crazy people in other parts of the world didn't want to nuke you.
The Crazy should start to wind down in about another four years, and be an unpleasant memory, which no one born hereafter will ever really understand, by 2020.
Or so I hope.
Re: I just think between then and now, we've simply gone crazy as a nation.
Date: 2009-08-13 08:26 pm (UTC)