Millenarian Wishes - Holiday Invective 2000

Millennarian Wishes (No, not for a New Hat)

It's always the same desert, the same night, whenever I open my tired ey es, the same silver star, always, but the three wise men, the Kings of li fe, the heart, the soul, the mind,---they never stir. When will we go, ac ross hills and sandy shores, to greet the birth of the new labor, the new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demins, the end of superstition, to be thie first---the first! To celebrate Christmas on earth!
- Arthur Rimbaud trans Paul Schmidt "A Season in Hell" Dear Friends, 10 December 2000, Human Rights Day

Well, the common era Millennium approaches, a year late for the masses, b ut we pedants keep track of even arbitrary calendrics. Time once again t o sip some egg nog, light up the tree, and see where life has got us, an d to try new variations if the old ones are wearing thin or growing stale 2E

You know I can't resist commenting on the attempted right-wing takeover o f the election, (see the enclosed Broadside! )

First a level set, from las t nght's production of "Black Nativity" at Seattle Intiman Theater. Rev. 2E Dr. Samuel McKinney, a de facto leader of Seattle's Black community, in his preaching, reminds us that, the Scalias of the Court notwithstandi ng, we are still here and fighting. African-Americans have survived worse before, the lynchings and the Klan, and will defiantly survive this, too 2E In the nearly 400 years since slaves were imported in 1609 into Nova Scotia, the struggles have not ended.. The struggles for labor, the env ironment, and the poor are long term as well. Evil always has had the upp er hand in history, and today is no exception.

Good Riddance to Senator "Cyanide Slade" Gorton!

On the bright side, ther e was some genuinely good news in the past election in Washington and Cal ifornia: That bought-and-paid-for tool of the timber and mining industrie s, who disowned his gay son, 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 2E Though, or course, Dubya is thinking of a Cabinet position for that S 2EO.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. Env ironmentalist Jay Inslee and progressive Democrat Brian Baird won reelec tion. The "C" candidate for governor, despicable right-wing talk show host John Carlson, got creamed. A reprehensible anti-environmental init iative, by numbskull Tim Eyman, to divert all mass transit money to road building, also lost. Luckily his initiatives on taxzation are so poorly w ritten that they get thrown out as unconstitutional. We remember him fro m his "Pigmobile Rights" Initiative to lower license fees on all vehicles , no matter how expensive, big, or polluting. (On the technical front, w e rejoiced at the introductin of hybrid power vehicles from Honda and Toy ota. Detroit, where are you? And quiet fuel cell buses on the horizon)..

Good thinking from California

An initiative to take drug use out of the criminal injustice system, and into public health and treatment, passed o verwhelmingly. Now if only the bozos in D.C. would put this failed progra m out of its misery, and take a rational, health-based, harm reduction ap proach. I'm not holding my breath.. Nader the Scold. My heart was with Nader, but my head said his strategy w as cracked: spltting the left and electing right-wing Republicans for the next generation, Scalia, Scalia, Scaia, and again Scalia on the Supreme Court? 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 ble w the chance to make real gains on progressive issues and the environment by negotiating with Gore in the run-up to the election.

What you didn't hear

Nixon, Kissinger, CIA ordered assasasination of Allende in Chile 1973

Meanwhile, back at the the CIA, Clinton declassified the "smoking gun" do cuments that squarely place Nixxon and Kissinger in full support and comp licity with the assassination of Salvador Allende, the democratically ele cted Socialist president of Chile, by bloody right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, the deal being confirmed at the U.S. School for Dictators and D eath Squads the so-called "School of the Americas" at Ft. Benning, Georgi a. Their illustrious alumni included Panama Noriega, and the murderers o f the American nuns in El Salvador. Murder Inc. for corporate profit, and those country clubs families, like the Bushes, the scum that controls th e wealth of nations.

Not MY God, Thank You.

Israeli atrocities aginst the Palestinians in fu ll gear. Wasn't it Albert Speer who planned to bulldoze Poland and settle Germans there? Same thing in the Occupied Territories. The Palestinians throw rocks against the grim occupiers, and get machine gun fire, and aer ial boimbardment in return. Along with folks in the New Jewish Agenda, I don't accept right-wing Israelis as representative of Jews, nor oppositi on to their plans 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-a ffirming work this year. Our lab at Boeing lost about 25% of its Ph.D.'s to start-ups. Boeing Works. The strike by engineers pretty much demoral ized us as well. I had two interviews and a couple conversations about po tential consulting in the Geographic Information Systems area, which I ho p will pan out early in the new year. Watch this channel for further de velopments. Home: Visit from Nemesis: On 8/17 I finally paid off the loans I took ou t to repair my home to the state it should have been in when I bought it. 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 cushi on 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 ibscured the sunrise), and lazing on Little Beach.. Love: Except for the devoted Jeff the Cat, No news is not good news. See ing a counselor about emotional obstacles that may be impeding me. Gay m ale subculture is hung up on looks, and I haven't been able to escape the it myself, a double bind in that the type of man I find attractive, rare ly finds me so. I still harbor hopes that there's a Civil Union in my fu ture. Farewell: two spiritual forebears in the Radical Faeries departed the pla net on the same day, 5 June. Sai David Liner, who introduced me to the f aeries in 1980, of AIDS in San Francisco, after surviving twenty years, c omplications from the initial unsuccessful treatments, and Faygle ben Mir iam, one of the earliest agitators for gay rights in Seattle, whose legen dary baked goods nourished many a gathering. Culture-Production: On the producing side, there has been a lot of wirk with Pro Musica, including a big production of the Mass by Ethe Smythe, a suffragette who to this day is the only female composer tohave 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 F estival), nailed the High C in the ultimate Chorus Mysticus, Bach "Jesue Meine Freude" with SPM, and their new CD of tough a cappella pieces. An d rehearsing today for an Italian Christmas. Culture-"Consumption": Saw an excellent production of Handel's "Semele" a t San Francisco Opera ( a trip booked before the Sewer costs ovberran my budget). Ruth Ann Swensen was superlative in the title role, and the Cov ent Garden production broke the bank on costumery, to good effect. "Billy Elliott" was a fine film that strck a chord with me, about a boy w ho comes from a working class family, and aspires to a career in Ballet. Conflicting family loyalties and attitudes eventually are won over by th e boy's talent and pluck.
Black Nativity, that I saw last night, was either a powerful prayer meeti ng masquerading with production values, or as a musical review with God i n it.. A gospel rendition of Beethoven's Ninth? Suprisingly it works.
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. Got stuck in traffic the day the Kingdome imploded. Alas, t o 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 Sp ace Needle and see Coppelia at the ballet.
Upward and On!
David Kerlick