Saw Horse

I'm starting to take photos again but always examining the small things within my eyes sight. I like the human form and face but when you aim a camera at anyone who knows your doing it you do not get the picture you wanted and they begin to grouse about their lack of make-up or the clothes they're wearing and it turns into something else. I also like the architectural element, the simple things. We almost miss seeing this beauty of form and texture since these are lowly useful tools or structures.

Unadorned Bare Feet

First there was the cropped detail, a bit of thigh, then there is the long shot of the bare feet, and the distance between the two is missing. I experiment with flesh and inside light at night, no flash and photographing parts of my own body, because no one else will pose for me. This also used to be my problem as an artist. So I looked into a mirror and painted a woman, who, once painted, was no longer me. Self-portrait after self- portrait. Experimenting with learning to drawing, then pen and ink, then water color. I'm now trying to see what my digital camera and the computer can do without photoshopping the photos. And the self portrait is not possible with a camera. I hold the camera to my eye. I don't have to, but a lifetime of holding a 35mm camera to my eye, keeps me from using a camera any other way. If I had a tripod and knew how to set the timer I could take the photos. Maybe someday I will become a visual artist again studying the minutia of my tiny world.

What Is This?

Is it a landscape? Is it a painting? Is it a photograph? Is it animal, vegetable, mineral? Is it bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a sand dune? Is it sunrise, sunset, or artificial light?

Auto Tune the News direct from Rachel Maddow

This is a must see. I can't embed this link but if you didn't see it live it's a must see. Trust me on this one.

Jay S Bybee and Monica Goodling: Both Products of a Religious Education

Born 1953 in Oakland, CA Federal Judicial Service: Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Nominated by George W. Bush on January 7, 2003, to a seat vacated by Proctor R. Hug, Jr.; Confirmed by the Senate on March 13, 2003, and received commission on March 21, 2003. Education: Brigham Young University, B.A., 1977 Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, J.D., 1980

Assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, 2001-2002

I post this because this is a such a lack luster education (Brigham Young University is owned by the Mormon Church) for a man with the power to write the justification for torture. I misunderstood the importance of a religious education or a mid-life conversion ( G W Bush) for those looking for the power to implement a policy of ideological indoctrination for all government employees at every level, and to turn us into into a nation with a torture program. It's hard to imagine that a religious education relieves a man of scruples and the capacity to know right from wrong. Or that a conversion mid-life isn't accompanied by a strong commitment to doing the work of Jesus, which is all about love, acceptance and forgiveness.

A boy from Oakland would go to a school like BYU for a couple of reasons: Either he didn't get offered scholarship money anywhere else, or he's a true believer. It's about as well known for it's law school as Regent University, Pat Robertson's law school. And we all know how well Monica Goodling (the best known graduate of Regent) did in her short legal career. It's okay, I guess, so long as you have no real curiosity and no serious ambition. That is unless you hitch your wagon to an administration looking for those who are not terribly well educated but have a fundamentalist background and a lack of ethics. This was a hallmark of the Bush Administration. From top to bottom, they are the most vociferous proponents of "Christian Values" ( wanting to find a way to force their version of them on all of us) yet the least ethical public servants of any I've seen in my long life. They happily trample the rule of law and seem without any discernible ethics or conscience.

Impeach and Charge Judge Jay Bybee

Judge Jay Bybee of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (he is also a completely amoral Mormon) was the author of the Torture Memos.

There is a growing call to Impeach Judge Bybee. It's about damn time. Then charge and convict him. Then do all the little things he dreamed up in his fevered and tiny brain to drive prisoners insane, brain dead, broken--do all these things to him. Do them all once at least and supervised by trained professionals from Gitmo with a doctor present to make sure, if he's really unable to breathe, he gets a tracheotomy. Oh yeah, give him the full panoply of tortures of which he seemed so fond. Then ask him if he's been tortured. And then ask him if this treatment of prisoners should be legal.

This is the the very ordinary face of evil. This clean cut, well educated, Mormon asshole wrote the torture memos and then was rewarded for it with a seat on the bench of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. I'm surprised he didn't get a Medal of Honor too.

Where The Hell Did This Fat Come From?

I eat two meals a day and I'm not a snacker unless it's after midnight and I can't get the chocolate out of my mind. But even then I only let myself have two squares of the Special Dark, or the Breyer's all natural chocolate ice cream. I like an ice cream cone once in awhile, but not every night. I eat brunch which usually consists of cantaloupe and toast or whole grain unsweetened Cheerios and frozen blue berries with 2% organic milk. I might have a banana sometime in the afternoon, or I might have nothing. And then a modest meal around eight or nine. I do drink a lot of very milky espresso with a tablespoon of sugar. Two big mugs full. I drink very good tea that I order from Special Teas and I either drink it sweet and iced or milky and hot. I'm trying to force myself to drink more water, but I watched Frontline last night and now I'm afraid of tap water and any water that's in plastic is full of PCBs. Where was the plastic made and how toxic is it? And how much more money can I spend on water for Christ's sake? So I take it straight from the tap. I guess I could make it more palatable if I squeezed some lemon in it, but I can't afford lemons. I'm complaining about water to avoid something. I'm avoiding the fat. Can you tell? Still, you should be very nervous about your water supply.

This long and harsh Winter and long slow wet Spring have kept me inside. I have turned into the Venus of Willendorf over night, or so it seems to me. There have been weeks I haven't bothered to look in a mirror because it's just too painful. So my eyes slide past without ever focusing on the blur that is my rather large moving form. I was outside yesterday cleaning the gazebo and had my camera with me. Walking to the tool shed I looked down to take the two steps down from the porch to the deck and saw my Wellingtons, and then my shadow. I turned and twisted trying to get the light just right to slim the figure in shadow and could never quite find the woman I once knew.

Rachel Maddow Tweeted This To Me (okay and some others...)

Rachel Maddow and I are now tweeting at my place. I just woke up at noonish, got my coffee, took the dogs outside, fed them, and then checked twitter. I may have died and gone to heaven. My first visible tweet of the day is Ms Maddow's and it's amazing. Check this out. I know you've seen Jonathan Mann on The Daily Show or Colbert, and various news shows, but now he's hit his stride and todays song is...?
Waterboarding.

After linking to the song, she links us to the lyrics. Ms Maddow knows how to get the facts straight and even when you're crying about the lyrics, you're amazed at the talent of the singer and then horrified at what the Bush Administration gave us, and how very much Crazy Unka Dick loves, loves, loves justifying his torture program and how very very very effective it was. Keep talking Unka Dick. Maybe you'll get tortured someday. Well, I can dream, can't I?

Megan McCain's Terrible Twitter Tantrum

Yes, I know, it's hard to believe, but Megan is a chip off the old block. She swears, she blusters, she puffs up with her own delusions of relevance and gets her rage on in tweets. Andrew Malcome (my favorite LA times blogger and big time twitteratti) tells the tawdry details in yesterdays news. That's how I like this kind of news. Stale. And with a link about Megan not only going apeshit but prevaricating while doing it. See what I mean? She's a real chip off the old block.

For the actual transcript of the terrible twitter tantrum follow this trail to The Wonkette. For Andrew Malcome's blog and more of the little details see the excerpt below or check out my side bar. I have my morning coffee with Andrew.

Using her Twitter account, which limits users to 140-character messages, McCain produced a lengthy series of angry Tweets -- some using the #$%&!* word.

They detailed her numerous life activities starting with volunteer tutoring at 16 and helping receive flowers at a hospital desk and internships and moving up through writing a children's book and founding "my multi-award-winning website mccainblogette.com, which is officially the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign." (Her father's, of course.)

Because Andrew Gives Great News

The last thing any fun-loving politics blog would ever do would be to cheapen itself on a slow weekday by publishing a couple of color photographs of some hunky guy who works out every day and happens to be president of the United States, just to prompt thousands of readers -- all right, lookers -- to click on its pages.

Yeah, Andrew and my blog wouldn't stoop to stealing from your blog to link back to your blog so we can all drool about our very hot, hot, hot president, shirtless and ripped, oh yeah. I'm drooling on my keyboard.

Please Take Action Now!

Dear MoveOn member,
On Thursday, President Obama released memos that describe, in horrific detail, the torture techniques authorized by the Bush administration. The memos make clear that top Bush officials didn't just condone torture—they encouraged it.

So far there's been no accountability for the architects of Bush's torture program—the top officials who justified keeping detainees awake for 11 days straight, waterboarding them repeatedly, and forcing prisoners into coffin-like boxes with insects.1

We need real consequences for those responsible—it's the only way to keep this from happening again. Attorney General Holder can open an investigation into the torture program—but he most likely won't unless people everywhere speak up and demand it.

Can you sign our petition to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the torture program? If we can reach 200,000 signatures, we'll deliver the petition to Holder by the end of the week. Clicking here will sign your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/torture/o.pl?id=15951-8978383-qfr31Px&t=3

The petition says: "No one is above the law. It's time to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the architects of the Bush-era torture program."

Calls for action, from the United Nations, the ACLU, Amnesty International,2 Senators Leahy and Feingold, and others, are gathering steam. The New York Times made the case for accountability in an editorial:3


"...[Obama] has an obligation to pursue what is clear evidence of a government policy sanctioning the torture and abuse of prisoners—in violation of international law and the Constitution.
"

This isn't about retribution or politics. It's about accountability. If hundreds of thousands of us speak up, we can make sure Holder hears this loud and clear.
http://pol.moveon.org/torture/o.pl?id=15951-8978383-qfr31Px&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Kat, Peter, Ilyse, and the rest of the team

P.S. You can see all the Bush administration memos here.

Someone is Reading Me in Costa Rica

It must be Tom. Last time I talked to him, he was calling me from an Airport somewhere like Dallas or Miami sitting on the plane to Costa Rica. It was only the flight attendant's last announcement that got him to hang up. Oh the miracle of the Cell Phone! I may yet go to my grave never having owned one. I will be the last hold out. I do not want to be always available, always accessible, always on call. For awhile, when I was still hot as a talent, my agent insisted I needed either a cell phone or a pager. I opted for the pager.

When Tom last called he said he was going to Costa Rica for a month. That was at least six months ago or more. But with the birthday season approaching; if he's alive, he'll call. For two months, I'm older than he is. He seems to like that two month period when he is a younger old man. I hope the reason he's stayed so long in Costa Rica this time is Love with a capital L. Tom is a man who seems to need a woman in his life. It would be a shame if he chose to spend his time traipsing through the lives of the wives and lovers of his past. It's nice he still seems fond of us, but it would be better for him to actually live with a woman who loves him. I like to see him with another woman, one he really loves, one he can risk introducing to the rest of us.

My childhood seems to have made me immune to reciprocal romantic love. I might be in love, but I could never afford to weather the bad times and make it work. I ran at the slightest provocation. I left every man I ever loved.

But I Feel So Bla...

I worked myself into a frenzy, sweating enough to strip down to the wife-beater T shirt, yoga pants and Wellington's. I worked hard outside and in. I drank water as I worked. Now I ache in every bone and muscle. And though it's gorgeous outside I'm filled with lassitude. Is it me or is it bipolar disorder? It would be awful to slip into depression now, just when it's safe to go outside again. I'm just short of wanting to slip into a cottony sleep. And it just might be that the last three months of feeling sickish, are really the usual first symptoms of a mood swing. So many times after a long period of feeling good, I started feeling like I had a strength sucking virus. Tests would be done, even going so far as to an endocrinologist for a work up. And after months of tracking down the culprit, the final verdict would be depression. This is not the right season for depression. I don't want depression. I will not be depressed. But it creeps in on tiny cottony feet and saps your strength. It confuses you and makes you drift off course. I start one project and then notice another and am finally convinced before I do this big a job I will have to have a nap. But I yearn to be outside....

The Rat, The Cat, and the Dog

This is one of the many things I love about Santa Barbara. There are people and sights like this all along State Street. Not only are they allowed to entertain everyone on State Street as street entertainers, they are actually beloved members of the community even if they hail from Colorado.

Thanks YDG

Eizzy K Gave Me An Award For My Poetry!

What makes this especially important to me is that Eizzy K is a poet and a reader of my poetry. I write poetry so seldom that I have neglected the site. I don't know when I got this award exactly, but I'm really thrilled that it comes from a young poet to an old woman who hardly considers herself a poet. And Eizzy K, called me "Savage Queen" which makes me cry with this welcome elevation to royalty. It's one thing to write the occasional poem, but some of the poets in the blogosphere write a poem a day. That amazes me, since I only write poetry when a poem presents itself to me and gives me no choice. It's like having a vision or a little stroke or a mild seizure. So thank you Eizzy K.

One of the things I love about this award is the muscularity of it. It has an industrial, workman-like aspect that appeals to me esthetically and politically--it reminds me of my fondness for the labor movement. I love the wage earning working men and women of this world.

Now I have to think of ten things you don't yet know about me.

1. I fantasized a life as a labor organizer. I'm completely pro labor, and damn proud of it. I read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclaire when I was in my early teens. That was the beginning of my desire to be a labor organizer. Yet I have never been a member of a union.
2. Kindness makes me cry. I have toughened myself over a lifetime of cruelty from my family to be unmoved by the carelessly tossed off insult, but a kind and loving word brings tears I can't control.
3. I'm a socialist. I think the public utilities should be owned by the public. Water should not be sold. Nor should the oil and coal be owned by a company with a profit motive. If Alaska owns it's oil, why don't the rest of us own our oil? I'm not a fan of capitalism. Capitalism has given us a meltdown of the world's economies. What the financial services industries have done amounts to an enormous Ponzi scheme. Those responsible for the collapse should be prosecuted for gross malfeasance. I want single payer universal health care.
4. I would sell my soul to get my novel published. And yet I fear rejection so much I'm avoiding the edit on the first three chapters because then I will have no excuse for not finding another contest or opportunity to submit the manuscript. The most embarrassing thing about this procrastination is that MRMacrum has done the edit for me. All I have to do is print the copy of his editorial suggestions and get to work. I am sabotaging myself. I should be toughened to rejection--I spent my working life going to auditions. I did not get every job I auditioned for. The rejection was nothing I took personally, and yet the book is my baby.
5. I love the underdog, literally. I will take an animal no one else will, just to give it a bit of happiness and security before it dies. I'm sentimental for the person or animal who has been treated badly. I would love to be able to rescue all those needing rescue. But I can only rescue one creature at a time.
6. I care little for wealth and have never been ambitious enough to strive for money. It shows now. I worked in a industry where the pay is enormous for merely being pretty and showing up for a couple of hours of easy work and knowing how to move on a runway or pose for a photo. I was always embarrassed by this profession. Why so much money for something that is actually bad for society? I worked as little as possible.
7. I purposely avoided getting academic credentials as a way of pissing off my mother.
8. I married three men I did not love, and, if asked, would not have married the one man I always loved.
9. I do not like my fellow humans much. Oh I like a few people very much, but generally I avoid crowds. I have chosen the life of a recluse because I like being alone.
10. Poems take me like possession. Sadly that possession comes rarely.

The recipients I have chosen for this award are:
1. The Crow
2. Sarah's Dancing With The Waves of the Sea
3. Steve Emery
4. Pagan Sphinx
5. Watergate Summer
6. Alphaville
7. Naj
8. Mr E

These are the rules:
Then the instructions for the 'chosen ones' ;
1.You must brag about the award
2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger
3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. 4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.
Then pass it on with the instructions!

Remember, I did not make the rules, I just pass them along.

Tortuous Logic

The first time it was verified for all of us that we were not who we thought we were, was when we saw those horrendous photos from Abu Ghraib snapped as if they were staged, so awful, so casual, so matter-of-factly snapped, little mementos, trophy photos to take home and brag about. And once leaked to the press, verification that we do indeed torture. Horrifying and undeniable evidence that we do torture. And we torture those who have not been charged, and who have not been found guilty of anything more than being young, male, and Iraqi living in Iraq. In the wrong place at the wrong time.

To say that we don't torture now is a good start, but to say we will not prosecute those who torture is wrong. We did prosecute the low level interrogators (thankfully) stupid enough to snap those photos. It is a fact. A precedent has been set. What we are now saying is that we will not prosecute the low level CIA or other intelligence agency's interrogators. That's a double standard and forgets that we have international treaties which require that we prosecute these crimes at all levels, even the judicial. We need to prosecute all the way to the top. Otherwise we remain a nation of torturers in the eyes of the world. Hypocrites, liars, torturers in our standing on the international stage. We need a soul cleansing bath in the bracing waters of truth and accountability.

Dick Cheney has been taunting President Obama. This does make President Obama look weak. If we are not a nation that tortures but we have an ex Vice President constantly jabbing President Obama with the taunt of weakness because he is unwilling to continue the policy of torturing prisoners of war, then President Obama's assertion that we no longer torture seems toothless and leaves the door open for future war crimes we will neither investigate nor prosecute. We need to have the soul cleansing that is the outcome of investigations and prosecutions from the top to the bottom.

Keith Olbermann Talks About The Bankers

I was ranting yesterday about the Credit Card Companies' Ads and how offensive they are to anyone who has been dunned into bankruptcy by medical expenses or other emergencies put on a card. When catastrophe strikes and you haven't the ready cash to deal with it, but you do have a credit card in you wallet you've keep up to date and payed off for years-- that's the time you load it up. And then you start getting the calls demanding that you pay your card off now! Well, all you banks that press credit cards on us through deceptive advertising that claim all it takes is a call to make arrangements for lowered payments; you are lying to us again through deceptive advertising. My voice is small and I don't reach that many people with my outrage, but Keith Olbermann does reach a huge audience. Here is one of his wonderful "Special Comments."

Credit Card Ads Are Making Me Furious

There is an ad running now about a woman who has to leave her home and her job to take care of her mother who has Alzheimer's. She gets behind in her credit card payments and starts getting notices from her card holders. And all she has to do to straighten this problem out is pick up the phone and talk to her credit card company. Have you ever tried to call your credit card company? It is an endless loop of voice mail hell. You will never get to talk to an actual person, unless they are calling you to tell you you need to sell you first born into slavery to make your damn payment.

I know because I had to fly to Santa Barbara (ticket on a credit card) rent a car (rental on a credit card) kidnap my crazy mother and drive her back to Salt Lake so I could take care of her since she had vascular dementia and was being evicted from her apartment. Then I had to get someone to watch her while I flew back to Santa Barbara (ticket on a credit card) rent a car (rental on a credit card) empty and clean her house and her storage unit and drive back to Salt Lake with her few salvageable possessions (her incontinence had left her clothing unsalvageable).

My mother required constant watching since every time I closed my eyes she ran away. She would go to the grocery store, gather up the crap she wanted and stand in line at the checkout counter. Then if someone behind her didn't offer to pay for her crap, the store would pay for her crap rather than have her pitch a fit in from of other people. I would then have to pay for her crap with a credit card. My mother started hitchhiking to another store, and got picked up by the cops. This resulted in my getting turned in for not keeping her safe. A charge just short of elder abuse. Then I had to get all the locks on the house changed so my mother couldn't run away, turning my house into a locked fortress to protect her from herself and me from the Ombudsman. And that was my last credit card charge.

Taking care of her full time meant I was unable to work. As I started missing payments (time gets away from you when you can't ever sleep or work or take a bath because something might happen to your mother) the credit card company started an aggressive debt collection campaign. I kept trying to explain my situation, but I guess everyone's got a sob story when they are unable to pay their credit cards. It was only when they called me to dun me, to call me an irresponsible idiot, that I was able to talk to a "real" person. They were in no way helpful. They suggested I sell my ten year old Jetta to pay my credit card bill. Eventually I was forced into bankruptcy.

One of my best friends has had the same credit card for thirty years and has never missed a payment. She was one day late with a payment a couple of years ago and they hiked her interest rate from 7% to 40% without notification to her. It was not until her next bill that she noticed the enormous change in interest charges. She spent a month trying to talk to a real person about her situation. The person she finally got to talk to said, "It's right there in the small print. If you read your statement you would know that we have the legal right to do whatever we deem necessary to protect ourselves from the irresponsibility of card holders like you who think it's fine to pay late or skip payments without consequences." This practice amounts to loan sharking. Now neither of us has a card we ever use to make purchases. We each have a debit card from our credit unions. I never use mine, but if I had to fly or rent a car, I'd need a card.

Fuck you Citibank. Take this card and shove it.

Hello Quizzy Gets It Wrong

Your result for What Do Others See You As Test...

41 to 50 Points

You've scored 43 Points!

Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting, someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding, someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

Take What Do Others See You As Test at HelloQuizzy

Now I could go back and answer all ten of those questions differently and we'd get the real way others see me. Because this is not how others see me, I can assure you. I'd get a more accurate take on who I am by taking a quiz based on my astrological sign. I will not always cheer you up. And I might wish I could help you out, but if skill or money or physical activity is involved in helping you out, you're out of luck. I am not always cheery. Ask the manager at the grocery store. He hides when he sees me coming. Ten questions to get a take on me? Sure.

Awards Season Is My Favorite Time Of The Year

I got an award! Yea! Thank you, you Attentive Aphorist!

TheMom is one very smart and generous blogger. And she's a good mom as well, just ask me. If you don't believe me ask her, her daughter, son, and TheGrandkids, they will confirm my assertion. Because I never make assertions I can't back up as absolute fact, unless it's just my opinion. But even then you'll have to prove to me I'm wrong because, well, just because.

When I became a blogger I had no idea what a blog was. It had to be explained to me several times before I got the concept. At first I only posted essays about things that pissed me off, like, lets say Barbie for instance. Man I hate that bitch. That doll is responsible for everything that's wrong with us, from anorexia to pornography, from breast implants to the plastic surgery of the pussy, or a pussy tuneup, or whatever you want to call turning a well-used pussy into something resembling the pussy of a twelve year old. Barbie is responsible for Reality TV, and the lowered IQ of the general population. On no, now I'm really wound up and could just go on an enormous rant, but that's not what we're here to do. No, we're here to thank TheMom and pass the love along. We're here to bless the ones who got us started and sent us out into the world to rant and rave as we feel we must about the things that are important to us.

The ones who got me started are a young couple who live in New York and were visiting. They insisted that the blog was just the thing I needed and the world needed another ranting, raving lunatic with a bad attitude and the hutzpah to speak her mind. Well, world, what do you think now. Now I even twitter. Take that all you smartasses who never thought I had it in me. Actually I'd have none of these outlets without the computing expertise I receive from my blogmate Sitenoise, my favorite reviewer of off beat movies. So thanks for the start, Rachel and David. And thanks for the help Phillip. Without the three of you there would be no Utah Savage. Bless you my children for getting me going. Without you I'd still be sitting here scribbling on paper.

I hereby bestow this lovely award on:
Susan at Phantsythat
Boarder Explorer
Wee Mousie's Cinema Burlesque
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rienes

There are so many others who I'd love to give this award to, but knowing how beloved they are, I'm sure this award will make it's way to them all.

The aims of this award:

As a dedication for those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging.
To seek the reasons why we all love blogging.
Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it.
Don't forget to mention the person who gives you the award.
Answer the award's question by writing the reason why you love blogging.
Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like.
Don't forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.