Billy Buckley and defection, or degrees of separation or something

I last "hung out" with William F. Buckley, Jr. in November of 2003. We were all in black and navy blue. It was my aunt's memorial service at Caramoor in Katonah, NY. My aunt, born in 1912 (a great-aunt, really) , had been pulled from Juliard to be the Buckley's music teacher. She taught Billy piano, harpsichord. He spoke of his crush on her and riding in her car's jump seat when he was not yet 10. My Aunt's best friend was Patricia Buckley Bozell (a younger son), who had two sons. Brent Bozell runs the Conservative Communications Center and his brother, Michael, became a Benedictine monk in France. At Auntie's memorial there was a photo of her with Patricia and Michael at his grounds in France. Michael truly has marmalade colored hair. Thirteen years ago Auntie sent three of my stories to Billy. I may still have the note he sent back in 1994-- in handwriting already tremorous and angular with an aging hand. At nineteen I really didn't know who he was or why he was important. I somehow let the info that he "ran for mayor of NY" dissolve into the red wine and brie cheese conversations around me.

How do we get to where we are in our lives? Like most people, I want to trace the path of familial attachments, ideological evolution, moral coding and inheritance. It is difficult to find the sense for me, especially coming back from a family trip into North Carolina two days ago. I am reading and rereading Wendell Berry, a man grounded in the concept that we are place, that the co-evolution of people and their land is what makes modernity so fractured and sad. I am a product of my time here in Alaska -- my choice fifteen years ago. Or something. Or something else. I'll write another book about this, I suppose.

FARM AND ENTERPRISE NEWS

"catmilkscows" is active again. Use the link at right to get there.

Writing and Judgement

I wrote a story three days before New Years' in an attempt to just do something and finish something even if it amounted to just a "fart in the breeze" as most of my zealous endeavors have amounted to lately. I finished the story and described it to my partner as "a real misanthropic wrist-slitter"-- a distasteful peice, something I wanted to shake off. But I had this feeling that the readers at Glimmer Train . . I just had this feeling. Anyway, it was a finalist. That's nice, but the story is a mess technically. Words are actually missing. I was so deep in my funk when I wrote it that the really embarassing "their" instead of "there" and its/it's stuff is wrong. I suppose I'm just kind of confused. We all do want to make sense of what happens to us, to follow the "if . . .then" clause because it's just too difficult to continue to function otherwise. I think I feel pleased, but a little apprehensive that maybe It's True: that valuable/honored literature is mired in the hopeless dismantling of what we think we see, and not filled with the joy and optimism that we all so desperately need.
It's probably just a story. It fit together reasonably well. It got lucky. So it goes.

Making the bed we're lying in

from the HoughtonMifflin textbook "Economics" 5th edition, 2002

"Market failures may result because of an abscence of private property rights.Consider the pollution caused by auto emissions. Each driver of a car is imposing an externality on you. The problem is that neither you nor the driver owns the airspace in which the emissions occur. If you did you could restrict the driving activity or you could charge the driver a price that would pay for the externality. If the driver owned the airspace you would have to pay the driver not to drive and pollute. In either case, the externality would no longer be external; it would be part of the private costs."

From "Cheif Joseph" of the Nez Peirce, approx. 1830

"The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was . . .The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it . . .I see Whites all over the country gaining wealth, and I see their desire o give us lands which are worthless . . .The earth and myself are of one mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same."
--------------------------

This is one of the most distressing parallels I think I've ever come across, in the way it informs my actions. Even the wording in the economics textbook is fairly combative and individual-centered. Frankly, when someone is "imposing an externality" on me I am immediately outraged. Never mind that I'm imposing the very same externality on them. And . . .say I do wish to start my own "learning center farm" -- I still have to hoop-jump through business plans and buying land. We can not go back. But the reality that "the earth and myself" are the same . . .in that, as soon as you cut it up you kill it, is exactly true. Cut of Cheif Joseph's arm and create--say--South Africa, then further divide that country so that it is too worried about ownership within its own boundaries to notice that Cheif Joseph's left leg has been cut off to make--say-- Ecuador and Arizona. Inside all these large cuts are the mini-cuts of alarm systems and 'no-trespassing' and my yard and your yard and my hedges and your tree . . .and the only answer turns out to be lines drawn in terms of who owns airspace and bodies of water and shooting down planes and boats in the wrong spot.

It's time to go to cuteoverload.com for me. . .
This is just how we think. It's so deep.

Of Queens and Spanish speakers

I've been doing a lot of subbing at the elementary school level, and I've had many chances to go back to the preschool rooms I've enjoyed (at the military base and another one in town). Today I was back where I was around Christmas time. There's a little guy in the morning group (call him Q), not much taller than about 3 ft. 2inch. Around Xmas he and I took to dressing up from the closet of donated clothes that all could've been Demi Moore's red carpet outfits from 1984. I even found us a faux tiara at the reuse area at the dump and brought it in to compliment his favorite dress. So, now it's February and I'm back in this classroom and this little boy is STILL enjoying this one particular outfit with a fitted bodice and lace sleeves. (Remember, these are the sons of military men :!) Apparently, he still chooses the outfit every day. Today, though, right when three of these well-dressed little people began to argue about how many princesses a preschool was allowed to have, Mr. Q yelled "YOU'RE the princesses and I'm the QUEEN!" Mr. Q's speach teacher was standing in the doorway . . .rather than cause him great distress she just took him by the hand and walked through the school to the speach-therapy room with this little boy in a velvet dress and a plastic tiara. During speech they practiced the royal wave. He returned self-satisfied, having done well in his lesson, his tiara firmly planted on his little round head.

Of Spanish? I'll write about that tomorrow.

She's picking up the slack here

OK, well I'm having serious issues trying to link you to my "wife's" blog. She talks about the Yukon Quest and how it's still cold, and she does it with more color and vivacity than I've been able to muster. I'm currently reading and loving Wendell Berry's "Jayber Crow" and reading "Rethinking Columbus: the next 500 years" for my school district book group. The latter has sent me back into paroxysms of thought on environmental determinism in cultures. How much of it is environment, then overlay religiosity, and then . . . The reality is that in 1492 Europe was a vicious place--Italy, Portugal, Spain, Britian, Denmark--is there any other culture (a very BROAD stroke of the brush is calling all of 'whitey' a culture) that had refined their tortures so heartily? Other cultures have been harsh for certain, have owned slaves etc., but you have to ask why Europe plundered the rest of the world and not the other way around. Can we be surprised that Colmbus didn't "trade" the Indians(*ahem* Native Americans) for gold when he got here but cut the hands off those who didn't bring him gold so they'd bleed to death? It was 1492 for Chris'ake! That part of the "cultured" world didn't START to get its head out of its tush until Elizabeth showed up (don't get me started about testosterone).

Back to environmental determinism, I've even heard that a protein-based diet links back to the pituitary and makes more testosterone and makes a more warlike culture. WHA?? So how come the Native Alaskans didn't go over to New Zealand and claim sheep herds "by right of discovery" and force the people to farm freshies for them?

Good luck with this one, everybody. I wouldn't have written anything if I could've linked to Tania . . .

Full classrooms at 44-below-zero

It's cold. Yup. And the morning ice fog makes driving on square (read: FROZEN) tires like navigating through a moonscape. But inside the buildings things are buzzing with activity, with lunchboxes and bent homework papers, pink sneakers and crinkle-covered library books. What changes is that recess is held inside at these temperatures. Anything colder than -20 F (wih some wiggle room for wind chill) makes it impossible to guarantee anyone's safety outside. I was in a first grade classroom today when the overhead speaker announced "The fourth graders may now take their walk." A little girl with jelly on her face asked if she could close the classroom door. "They are just so LOUD!" she said.
"When do we get our turn?" I asked. Apparently after the (rolls eyes) sixth graders.

Not long after learning of this hall-walking tactic with cooped-up elementary kids, I was excused to take my own lunch. Eight of us in the lounge were enjoying lunch when one of the teachers on recess duty stuck her head in and asked "Carol, did you tell your class they didn't have to walk?"
'Carol' almost leapt out of her seat "NO! They HAVE to walk! I'll CHASE THEM! They almost killed me yesterday after indoor recess!"

I wonder if we just stopped feeding them on these really cold days if they'd slow down a little.

Fun trivia

"Urolithiasis [kidney and bladder stones] is a common finding in the captive population of Asian small-clawed otters."

--from the Journal of the American Veterinary Association, an article directly after the titillating "ECG of the Month"