Millennarian Wishes
(No, not for a New Hat)
It's always the same desert, the same
night, whenever I open my tired eyes, the same silver star, always, but
the three wise men, the Kings of life, the heart, the soul, the
mind,---they never stir. When will we go, across hills and sandy
shores, to greet the birth of the new labor, the new wisdom, the flight
of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition, to be the first---the
first! To celebrate Christmas on earth!
-- Arthur Rimbaud transl. Paul Schmidt "A Season in Hell"
10 December 2000, Human Rights Day
Dear Friends,
Well, the common era Millennium approaches, a year late for
the masses, but we pedants keep track of even arbitrary calendrics.
Time once again to sip some egg nog, light up the tree, and see where
life has got us, and to try new variations if the old ones are wearing
thin or growing stale.
You know I can't resist commenting on the sucessful right-wing
takeover of the election, see the enclosed Broadside!
and how I wished the story
would turn out.
First a level set, from last night's production of Langston
Hughes' "Black Nativity" at Seattle Intiman Theater. Rev. Dr. Samuel
McKinney, a de facto leader of Seattle's Black community since
1958,
in his preaching, reminds us that, the Scalias of the Court
notwithstanding, we are still here and fighting. African-Americans have
survived worse before, the lynchings and the Klan, and will defiantly
survive this, too. In the nearly 400 years since slaves were imported
in 1609 into Nova Scotia, the struggles have not ended. The struggles
for labor, the environment, and the poor are long term as well. Evil
always has had the upper hand in history, and today is no exception.
Good Riddance to Senator "Cyanide Slade" Gorton!
On the bright side, there was some genuinely good news in the past
election in Washington and California: That bought-and-paid-for tool of
the timber and mining industries, who disowned his gay son, and
whose latest scheme was to poison the water table of Eastern Washington
to subsidize gold mining corporations, lost out to Maria Cantwell, a
corporate Clintoncrat. Although she'll pimp for Microsoft Monopoly, at
least there will be less damage to the environment. Though, or course,
Dubya is thinking of a Cabinet position for that Indian-hating S.O.B..
Evil loves company.
Three good men in the Congress
whom I supported in our Washington, won. Rick Larsen, retired Repub
Jack Metcalf's seat by challenging evil John Koster, the head of the
"christian" right bigots in the Legislature.
They are neither Christian nor right. Environmentalist Jay
Inslee and progressive Democrat Brian Baird won reelection. The
"christian" candidate for governor, despicable right-wing talk show
host John Carlson, got creamed. Yay! A reprehensible anti-environmental
initiative, by numbskull Tim Eyman, to divert all mass transit money to
road
building, also lost. Luckily his initiatives on taxation are so poorly
written that they get thrown out as unconstitutional. We remember him
from his "Pigmobile Rights" initiative to lower license fees on all
vehicles, no matter how expensive, big, or polluting. On the technical
front, we rejoiced at the introduction of hybrid power vehicles from
Honda and Toyota. Detroit, where are you? Quiet fuel cell buses on the
horizon, already
have withstood the challenges of a Chicago winter.
Sane thinking from California!
An initiative to take drug use out of the criminal injustice system,
and into public health and treatment, passed overwhelmingly. Now if
only the bozos in D.C. would put their failed War on Drugs
program out of its misery, and take a rational, health-based, harm
reduction approach. I'm not holding my breath..
Nader the Scold.
My heart was with Nader's program, but my head said his strategy was
cracked: splitting the left and electing right-wing Republicans for the
next generation? Scalia, Scalia, Scalia, and again Scalia on the
Supreme Court? The
"religious" right coming out in the White House with knives drawn? Not
a picture I can support. Nader is in his metier as a critic, but blew
the chance to make real gains on progressive issues and the environment
by negotiating with Gore in the run-up to the election.
The German Greens had this problem, until the politically
minded Greens saw and acted on a power-sharing opportunity.
What you didn't hear
Nixon, Kissinger, CIA ordered assasasination of Allende in
Chile 1973
The networks are treating the election like O.J., Monica, or Elian.
Meanwhile, back at the the CIA, Clinton declassified the "smoking gun"
documents that squarely place Nixxon and Kissinger in full support and
complicity with the assassination of Salvador Allende, the
democratically elected Socialist president of Chile, by bloody
right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet. The deal was clinched at the
U.S. School for Dictators and Death Squads, the so-called
"School of the Americas" at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Their illustrious
alumni included Panama's Noriega, and the murderers of the four
American nuns in El Salvador. Murder Inc. for corporate profit, and the
investments
of those country club families, like the Bushes, the scum that controls
the wealth of nations.
Not MY God, Thank You.
Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians are in full gear. What can you
expect from people who believe their religion allows
them to take over other people's homes and lands because "their god
says they can?"
Wasn't it Albert Speer who planned to bulldoze Poland and settle
Germans there? Same thing in Israel's Occupied Territories.
Palestinians teenagers
throw throw rocks against the grim occupiers, and get machine gun fire,
and aerial bombardment in return,
along with more bulldozers. Along with folks in the New Jewish Agenda,
I don't accept right-wing Israelis as representative of Jews, nor
opposition to their plans as anti-Semitic in the least. The Palestinians are,
after all, Semitic people.
OK, enough of the invective, just the maxim of Gandhi: "Do not
co-operate with evil." This means I refuse to cooperate with an
illegitimate pirate government of Bush and the Republican "Heil Reagan"
crowd.
The Year in Review:
The Job Market
I made a concerted effort to find more compatible, life-affirming work
this year. Our lab at Boeing lost about 25% of its Ph.D.'s to
start-ups. The strike by engineers pretty much demoralized
us as well. I took the Environmental
Issues course from the Mountaineers,
and had two interviews and a couple conversations about potential
consulting in the Geographic Information Systems area, which I hope
will pan out early in the new year. Watch this channel for further
developments.
Home: a Visit from Nemesis:
On 8/17 I finally paid off the loans I took out to repair my home to
the state it should have been in when I bought it. from an unscrupulous
seller. Three hours after putting the check in the mail, I get a call
from my housemate that the sewer is backed up. It ultimately had to be
replaced at a cost of $10,000. Forget about the savings cushion I was
saving up for. Owning a home is digging a hole in the ground and
throwing handfuls of $100 bills into it. Prffh!
Travel: Gone to Maui.
This was a good break, and included an excursion to Lanai, seening some
whales en route, a downhill bike ride down Haleakala (alas, the clouds
obscured the sunrise), the Iao Valley that I remember
from old ViewMaster stereos, and lazing on gay Little Beach.
Love
Except for the devoted Jeff the Cat, no news is not good news. I have
been seeing a counselor about emotional obstacles that may be impeding
me. Gay
male subculture is hung up on looks, and I haven't been able to escape
it myself, a double bind in that the type of man I find attractive,
rarely finds me so. I still harbor hopes that there's a Civil Union in
my future. Hurrah to Vermont for passing such a measure, now
commonplace in Europe!
Farewell:
Two spiritual forebears in the Radical Faeries departed the planet on
the same day, 5 June. Sai David Liner, who introduced me to the faeries
in 1980, of AIDS in San Francisco, after surviving twenty years,
complications from the initial unsuccessful treatments, and Faygle ben
Miriam, one of the earliest agitators for gay rights in Seattle, whose
legendary baked goods nourished many a gathering.
Also farewell last February to my aunt Marie Kovach, who always used to
make popcorn for us kids in winter after
sledding in Buhl Park.
Culture-Production:
The year 2000 opened with Harmonic Chanting led by David Hykes, at Samadhi Yoga center on Seattle's Capitol Hill.
On the singing side, there has been a lot of work with Pro
Musica, including a big production of the Mass by Ethel Smythe, a
suffragette who to this day is the only female composer to have an
opera performed at the New York Met. Performances of Mahler II (the
same week) and Mahler VIII (with too few singers for 200 players at the
NW Mahler Festival), nailed the High C in the ultimate Chorus Mysticus,
Bach "Jesu
Meine Freude" with SPM, and their new CD of tough a cappella pieces.
Pro Musica is rehearsing today for an Italian Christmas.
Culture-"Consumption"
In June while learning Java, I saw
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco symphony perform "American Mavericks" which
included
a performance of Chales Ives Symphony #4, which has as many
as 77 simultaneous parts, a subterranean percussion section, and
a heavenly string choir. The concert also included a performance by Meredith Monk with selected
professional singers, and a String symphony by
Ruth Crawford Seeger (Pete's mom). I also saw on a second trip to
SF an excellent production of Handel's "Semele" at San Francisco Opera
( a trip booked before the Sewer Costs overran my budget). Ruth Ann
Swensen was superlative in the title role, and the Covent Garden
production broke the bank on costumery, to good effect.
"Billy Elliott" was a fine film that struck a chord with me,
about a boy who comes from a working class family, and aspires to a
career in ballet. Conflicting family loyalties and attitudes eventually
are won over by the boy's talent and pluck.
Black Nativity, that I saw last night, was either a powerful
prayer meeting masquerading with production values, or as a musical
review with God in it.. A gospel rendition of Beethoven's Ninth?
Suprisingly it works.
A tip of the hat to gay male porno director Wash West. Two tours
de force
in "Naked Highway" and "Technical Ecstacy
." Though (O tempore! O mores!) I wonder what it means to look at porno
and
compliment the director on the lighting ;-)
This years card is a portrait in oils by Grego Rachko, a
member of my Gay Men's spiritual group. I love it!
Odds'n'Ends
I got stuck in traffic the day the Kingdome imploded. Alas, to make way for a taxpayer-subsidized corporate ball team. We have
better things to do with the money.
A visit from Sister Lori to dine at the Space Needle and see Coppelia at the ballet.
The discovery of sedimentary rocks (?) on Mars
Upward and On!
David Kerlick