For a variety of reasons, I have been thinking about death.

Today, I received an e-mail filled with facts that basically tells me that two of my cousins are dying. This is sort of inevitable since both have Muscular Dystrophy(MD). We met them when we (husband, dog, and me) were back there three years ago. They are charming boys. I think that technically they are first cousins twice removed. They are two of my first cousin’s grandchildren. Their mother is his youngest daughter. My cousin’s only son died of MD at about 12 years old in the mid 1970’s. He drown as his lungs filled with fluid that the rest of us get rid of moment to moment. I am sure his death certificate does not say that, but I just shorthanded for you the basics. Everyone knows what’s coming. (Just FYI, my cousin is in his early to mid 70's, and his daughter is in her early 40's.)

The older of the two boys is about 19 or 20. He was a freshman at Missouri State last year. Now his lungs are filling with fluid. Pumps have been installed and uninstalled, and it all is horrid. His mother moved him out of his apartment this weekend. He no longer FBs.

His next younger brother is about 16. He contracted a horrible infection last month in the hospital, C-dif, and nothing was done right until someone from the CDC came to see what was going on. The doctors, who had been good so far, are now in a tizzy. I think that he may die before his brother. Yes, he cannot breathe well, either.

My cousin’s third son, the one she refused to abort, does not have MD. He seems to be a healthy, active 13 y/o. These are educated guesses about their ages, and I am in the range.

Years ago, a cure was promised. Then GW Bush(league) stopped all funding of stem cell and thus nerve research.

With this research refunded, maybe there will be a cure in 10 or 20 years, instead of five years ago. It takes a lot of time to refund projects and restart research. None are just put into stasis. This will be too late for my cousins. They are smart, friendly boys. This is such a waste.

It is at moments of reflection such as this that I would like to personally nail GWB’s balls to the floor and walk away. Cheney’s, too. These crazy people and their sycophants, funders, and followers disgust me beyond words.

I will pray for my cousins, as I always do. However, I believe that we humans have the responsibility to do “God’s” work, and waiting for a miracle is a sin.

I find that doing something that I have not put much stock in is making me feel better, and, I hope, helping others. I just wrote a note to e_bourne, who is not religious as far as I know, so this is not a palliative for her, sending her and Mark #marksheart (on Twitter) my best wishes and prayers. I am also keep my cousin and her son in my prayers. I have long said a prayer for jaylake at irregular times.

This type of prayer for others that basically pleads a case to God is called Intercessory Prayer. It probably is found in all religions -- that bargaining with God, as though God operates on the same plane that we do. It is part of ancient Jewish tradition, and the religious basis for it in Christianity is rooted in that. I ignored it for the most part until about five years ago when a close friend who was enduring her probably fifth bout of cancer in about as many years, asked me to pray for her. Now I do it more frequently, because so many of my friends and relatives are sick or dying.

When I think about the act of Intercessory Prayer, I move more into the woo woo zone, so I don't usually talk about it. I have found myself bargaining with God on many occasions. As far as I can tell, I have gotten nothing in return. The bargaining did not work. So why should I think that Intercessory Prayer should work now? I don't know. Maybe I do it to feel less impotent (yes, gentlemen, women feel impotent, too); or perhaps it is way to be "doing" something even though I have not taken my immuno-deficient body into a hospital to help either one of our many mutual friends, or simply to sit with e_bourne or run errands for her.

The woo woo part comes from the Godhead idea that all is connected. It is part of mystical Hinduism, Zen Budhism, and many more philosophies. For me it like putting an idea into the metaphysical network (if there is such a thing) and wanting all the pieces of existence to align and speed someone's recovery. Intercessory Prayer has been studied with some small scientific method, and found to be worthless.

When I write to my friends as say "I prayed for you," or "I am keeping you in my prayers" what does that mean? I do not know in a practical worldly plane sense of life. Psychologically, it provides moral support. I am saying that the person is worthy of intercession from God and I hope it comes, now. I also am pleading my friends' cases at the infinite court of everything that is. I make no pretense of knowing what God wants, or if there really is a paternal/maternal God, or whether my prayers, my pleas are heard or acted upon.

I am keeping you all in my prayers.

I suspect that I am the only one having a lot of stress about the farm. Husband reports that CSA members are giving him good reports and many seen to think they are getting too much.

I am still tense.

I have a Chihuahua on my shoulder, so all will be right in the world.

Had a lovely time at marykay's last night. The Chihuahua had a hugly good time. She did not pay marykay enough attention, but there were so many other people to get to know that she must be forgiven. eddvick and amy_thomson's daughter carried her leash, and I heard her telling the Chihuahua story to some new Chihuahua followers. I saw ladyjestocost and husband, but did not get to visit more than a moment.

After months of reading her posts, and thoroughly enjoying two of her books, I had the pleasure of meeting anghara. She tells of great dog stories. Also had the pleasure of visiting with hal_obrien, akirlu, jerrykaufman, lasirenadolce, nisi_la, davidlevine, kateyule, scarlettina, and jackwilliambell, whom I am holding to the offer to help me buy a truck. lasirenadolce, we did not put a time on meeting for lunch, so let's do this not real soon now, but in the next couple of weeks. OK?

I left before midnight (sadly) and got up at 6 to take the stinking ferry to the otherside of the water.

While I am getting my writing, sort of done, I am not concentrating, so the 1000 words a week (OMG that is so little) is happening, but are they 1000 words I want in a story? Well some are. I think I should write a novel about the dysphoric effects of not being able to concentrate on anything.

On a happier note, I have 1/4 ton of fertilizer in the back of the truck. The cooler house extension is going up quite nicely, thank you, Cousin, and maybe I will not spend every weekend here trying to help move steel. Next weekend is the steel roof work. I am here writing this because the Cousin is cuttng steel, and the noise is too much for me.

Steel cutting is done. Must return to work.

In our backyard in town, we have a lichen covered pear tree with burls and warts (I am not sure if that is the right word) like swollen knuckles. Disguised as one of these lichen covered warts is an Anna Hummingbird nest. It has been there almost two months, so I suspect that any eggs that hatched are now teenagers, in hummingbird time. However, we saw none of the youngsters, or if we did, we did not recognize then as such.

Here is my question: When do baby hummingbirds leave the nest and what do they look like? I have great bird-books filled with worthwhile information, but not that.

I haven't posted because everything farm has become too much for me. I simply do not know what to do about it, but there are too many mistakes and too many excuses from the co-farmer who is supposedly doing the gardening. I am too upset to write more.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to marykaykare.

ANALECTS ON THE INFLUENCE[1] OF ARTAUD: HOW SICKNESS IS, AND ISN’T, A PREREQUISITE FOR POETRY was recommended on FB by Terry Hummer. It is definitely worth a read.

I think I am being taken as a fool by our co-farmer. I try to be even and approach everything in a straight-forward manner, but I am foiled because I cannot and do not want to "sit" on him. He has done wonderful things for us, as we have done for him, although I think he does not truly see that.

I get evasive answers to questions he should have the answers to. My husband, cousin (who gives a lot of support to me), and I get dissed regularly. I call him on this when I can without it being a diversionary tactic to avoid something else.

Here is the kicker: he is drinking heavily and steadily. He's a Miller guy, so he has to be going through a lot of that piss beer.

On one hand, I'd like to make this work. On the other, I am tired of it.

Reason for hope: I get along well with his wife, and she says she want to work making the farm truly profitable, and she has the skills to do this. She does not drink. We'll see.

This has gotten to be all drama! Phooey!!

I have been posting very little because I am so distressed at local government, both in King County and Kitsap County, that I can barely type of complete sentence on it. Kitsap Country is back saying that there are no farms. (Insert screaming and gnashing of teeth.) I have been asked to write a letter about a new zoning attempt to this end, but the thought enervates me. I do occasionally write letters, sometimes they are even fairly good, but this topic feels like a huge lost cause. The county gov't is split between those who are on the take and those who are not. There is an cult of silence. Now I don't want to be one of Edmund Burke's "good men" who stand by while evil is done, but at the same time I have this deep feeling and a heavy heart that it is all futile.

Anyone want to talk me out of this hole?

Good Stuff. Otherwise, we are growing like a weed. The CSA starts in two and one-half weeks. We should have food for everyone. We have 88 discrete customers, and about 15 of them are double shares, at this moment. We are still open to more subscribers. We have three pick-up areas, and our customers are fairly evenly distributed among them. I am happily spending money I do not have to put in a new walk-in cooler/refrigerator. We should have the pad laid this week with new water and drains, then we assemble the unit (yes, it's Ikea-like), and then (or maybe before) put up a temporary building. I'll post more on this saga later.

Had a good and a hard weekend. We dug a 16' X 20' X 2' hole. Cousin ran a backhoe that was a bit small for the job, and the hydraulics had been turned down so it was not as responsive as he wanted it. I ran a front loader to get rid of the dirt.

Everything is sort of fine, but the man who runs the farm for us has more psychological buttons to push or not push than anyone I have to deal with usually. It wears me out. He is good at what he does, which is the main reason I have not said good bye. He is taking a financial risk with us, too. The cousin did some button pushing with positive result, and they both seemed happy, but we will see what happens.

holyoutlaw posted this clip of Sniff, Swig, Puff sung by Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur, and it got me thinking about Bea Arthur, who died April 25, 2009. You have see the clip because it is amazing. I tried to embed it here, but LJ despises my ignorance and gives me no help in the matter.

I remembered seeing this once before, and had to look it up. It must be from the 1980 Bea Arthur Special. When Maude went off the air two years earlier, the national jones of Bea Arthur was immense. She could have read a list of STDs to the tune of the ABC song, and won a Grammy. Reagan had not yet been sworn in as President. We had not endured the egocentric Bush 41 and 43 administrations, or the nasty nasty GOP majority in House and Senate that dominated Clinton's tenure as President. AIDs was just coming into view but had escaped being in focus. The worst thing you could get from sex was boring sex (not true, I know, but that was the meme).

When Sniff, Swig, Puff was sung, drug usage was likely 20% of what it is today. Nancy Reagan had not started the national ad campaign for drugs called "Just Say No." Instead of being something that could be joked about, as in this duet, drugs became a super serious topic. A few years ago I saw an effective advertising study of "Just Say No" and the use of drugs among people under 20 years old, and it said that the anti-drug campaign was the most effective advertising campaign for a product type ever done.

The horrible things that happened in Uganda with Idi Amin's reign of terror were a year ended (he was over thrown in 1979); people breathed a sigh of relief and pronounced that the 1980s would herald the move of Africa into the forefront of industrialized continents. Coffee advertised it was from Kenya. The year after Bea Arthur and Rock Hudson sang this witty song, the most popular show on PBS (probably shown as Masterpiece Theatre) was The Flame Trees of Thika. It's overriding theme is the richness of Africa, the sensible nature of Africans, and that Europeans have nothing to teach the African people. Out of Africa in 1985 was the last harrah on this topic: AIDS swept through the population with unforeseen deadliness. Rock Hudson was probably infected with HIV in 1980, since he died in 1985. That year, 1985, Bea Arthur started Golden Girls. Rest in Peace both of you.

The writers held up for emulation when I was in writing classes were Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Hammett,and Chandler. Hammett and Chandler define Noir, but both Hemmingway and Steinbeck wrote in the spirit of Noir: hard edges, spare prose, simple and compound sentences, simple, relationships -- even the ones that were complex, and ambiguity. There is so much ambiguity that it can be peeled away like an orange rind.

These men wrote for men; men who had survived WWI then WWII. Men who knew who they were, that had been proved and forged into them. However, returning to a peaceful society of wives, children, neighbors, and bosses, they did not fit. Their question was how to fit into the world. Uninterested in literature that explored finding who you were, with a few notable exceptions such as The Thin Red Line by James Jones, they read the literature of how to fit into the world. These books simmered in action. If X happened it lead to Y then Z. Feelings counted, but there were no personal revelations, only the path to survival. All four of these writers began their careers between the wars, and their popularity among the fighting me fuels their popularity after the war. Younger post WWII writers moved away from Noir yet kept the essential elements: sparse prose, triumph over frightening situations, and a distinct lesson about fitting into the world. The men of their time had survived WWI and WWII and knew who they were - self-knowledge - but did not know how to fit into the world - world-knowledge.

Other post WWII writers, such as Gore Vidal and John Barth vacillated been themes of self-knowledge and world-knowledge. Barth achieved literary popularity, but not the reader popularity of the aforementioned quartet. Vidal abandoned literature and began producing popular literature by the 1960s. Short on self-knowledge and long on action. Action, by the way, is not only fighting and fleeing but the simple act of doing and being.

The people of our time know how to fit into the world, but not who they are. When the children of the survivors of WWII came of age, they knew how to fit into the world. Their parents, trying to find their way, steeped their children in the brine of world-knowledge. Yet what this generation knew of world-knowledge was undercut by a lack of understand of self-knowledge. This generation melded into the work world with ease. They could build a house or a road, write an advertisement or process a mortgage with ease. Living with themselves was a bit harder because nothing had tested them and so they were left unproven and unforged. The younger portion of this generation tossed themselves into a frenzy of seeking self-knowledge.

Novels exploring the acquisition of self-knowledge flourished. Perhaps the most popular SF story of all time, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein captured the imagination of the masses, as did Tom Robbins and Tom Wolfe.

Women writers, marginalized from the end of WWI through the late 1960s, began to emerge and answer a new need: women left without both self-knowledge and world-knowledge. From Marge Piercy to Jacqueline Susann, women emerged to write about people and how they lived with themselves and how they survived and lived in the world.

For these reasons, the spare writing style of the Noir writers is counter productive to the success of today's writers. The overblown sentences of the early novels from the 17th through the 19th centuries have not returned to popularity, but the introspection of who you are - self-knowledge, and how you fit into the world - world-knowledge - found in those stories is back. (Those stories and their telling must be considered, later.)

Stories speak to the condition of the reader: they answer some question or need that the reader has. The more thoroughly that need is answered to the most people, the more popular the book. This is the meat of today's most popular novelists: John Grisham, John Sandford, Laurell K. Hamilton, Robert B. Parker, Neil Gaiman, and many others.

The writers of Noir fiction today have to include the self-knowledge piece that Chandler, Hammett, Steinbeck, and Hemmingway would have scoffed at. The manly man fiction of adventure and action that takes its roots from the post WWII writers is marginalized in popularity. Editors talk about being about to sell a minimum number of novels around military bases. But this audience is small compared to the time between the wars and post WWII. We no longer have the citizen soldier, conscripted as part of his duty to country and God. Even the people (men and women) who do only one hitch have more in common with the men who fought in WWII, for they know who they are, not where they fit, often. These same novels gather dust in downtown book stores.

A riff on davidlevine's post

The whole idea of branding for books is good, but at the same time it is so seventeenth century -- readers bought books from the publisher and congregated at bars nearby. Maybe that is not bad. The more I "hang out" at social networking sites, the more I appreciate the power of this model. It is not going away. Specific passions may pass away, but Facebook has created something that won't go away. There are lots of providers of this, including LJ, which is the short story rendition. Twitter is the headline version. FB and MySpace seem to be the quick phone call. LinkedIn, Affluence, and others for business are rather dry. I have been on some that just don't get it. There are lots of blog sites. How one delivers not only a novel, but a series of novels -- think George R.R. Martin's Fire and Ice (gawd I hate that name) series -- is a real puzzler.

While short stories, especially flash stories, work on electronic devices quite well, the longer pieces don't, yet. Battery life is a huge issue. I had the two state of the art readers in 2000 and they were always running out of power at an inconvenient point in the story because I had not plugged them in. I realize Kindle has gotten around some of this, but not completely.

Sales of MMP are down, but then one looks at the distribution of these books and finds a huge distribution hole. Grocery stores tell me that profits are down because books had a much higher mark up than food, and they sold a lot of books. They don't even have a rack anymore because the distributors went out of business. Magazines are likely next. If the consumer can't get the product... you should be able to extrapolate the result.

Over at slave_driver's, there is a discussion on Obama not prosecuting those who were the torturers. He has said that the people who were given the orders with these "torture" memos. However, today, Obama did say, that the Justice department would be looking at the people who gave the orders. We will see bout that because not everyone sees this as a righteous fight. Today this piece by Dem. Senator Carl Levin wrote this article Press Reduces Torture Investigations Into Partisan Warfare. The title says it all. This is what Obama is struggling with: the people are with him, but Bush's supporters can't get over that they lost the election.

I suspect that Obama and his people are moving forward on many fronts. That's the sense I get from the news. They get crap from the GOP, like the whole tea-bagger silliness. So Obama's people let them marginalize themselves and look stupider every day, while they Obama's administration quietly undoes years of repression, such as the EPA 180 of last week. Probably, some departments are extremely damaged, such as Justice, which has a mole in it (seriously, someone is leaking information about decisions on pending prosecutions -- read that about a month ago). The NIH and the FDA are extremely damaged.

I will be concerned in 24 months if nothing happens. The release of the torture memos makes me think that there is a case being built here. He needs to win the bi election, that is keep a strong Dem majority to do anything. I don't know how fast he can go on all this. An since we are a nation of laws, the prosecutor must make a case even when we all saw the crime and can identify the criminal.

The news came: one of my college roommates died three weeks ago. What a shock. Her husband called last night. I am still trying to figure out how I feel about this. She was a year or so younger than most of us. She became my roommate and we just adopted her into the fold. I haven't seen her for two and a half decades, I think, so it is fair to say we were not close. I knew her husband around at college, we had a bunch of mutual friends, and he told me that I introduced them. Oh, my. They were married 35 years, so I guess it worked out OK. I called other friends; they hadn't been close to any of us. Most certainly, she is not my first friend to die. Some didn't make it out of Jr. H.S., others died weeks after graduation in Viet Nam, and others died of ill health, accidents, and such.

EB once commented that she thought I was fragile. I didn't think of myself that way, and with my robust body, I figured I could withstand everything. Until I had extremely bad reactions to any and all antihistamines. Off of them, I have had to manage my allergies with avoidance. Now I find I have to balance my general health with avoidance.

I have had two sets of immuno gamma globulin tests, one in January and the other in March. The second one confirmed the first. My IG-M is low (33) (reference range is 40 - 250), and it's counterbalance Ig-4 is high (923) (reference range is 8.0 - 40). (At least neither is in the "critical" or "toxic" range.) What this mean is that my body cannot fight off infections. In practical terms, I always have an infection. My allergist ordered the tests after I mentioned that I have had the measles 10 or so times. Blood work actually confirms this, but he didn't bother with that. The rest of my blood tests was normal. I'm pleased with that. The first test cost about as much as a month's rent for a nice apartment. I assume the second one will be about the same, although it was done at the lab at Northwest Hospital, so the cost may be different. To my insurance company credit, they have paid for most of this, but not all.

I am on a heavy duty antibiotic as an asthma treatment. The asthma is much better, and a minor skin infection (rosacea) is slowly clearing up, too. The theory with the asthma is that it is caused by a pneumonia infection (invasion) that just never gets better. I happily report that I feel so much better for the antibiotic. Really. I was off of the antibiotic for a couple of weeks, and everything crashed. After getting back on it, I could tell the difference. It takes about 1 1/2 weeks in both directions to tell the difference. I am off all statins (Lipitor in my case) because of adverse drug interactions.

Even though I have been feeling fairly well, my reaction to this is to avoid people. As I understand it, just the antibiotic makes my weakened immune system even more vulnerable. I always load up on vitamin C when I go places, like Corflu. I wanted to go the Norwescon because about 20 people I never otherwise see were there. I stayed home, concerned that I would be putting my system into a tsunami of allergens and germs.

Now I have a new health insurance worry. A few years ago, the "national self-employed" something or other group tried to sell me their health insurance. There was only one exclusion, tendons. Tendons! (I have a "bionic" Achilles tendon.) Do you have any idea how many tendon's are in the body? Neither do I, but there are a lot of them. Now I can add infections to the list of "not covered" ailments. Having been under the Navy health care system, I have had good and bad doctoring, but I have paid huge amounts of money, on top of premiums, for bad heath care from private physicians. So I know that the claims of bad medicine with single payer health care is bunk. I just want the health insurance companies to go out of business. Universal health care for all. I'll rant on this another evening.

Over at hal_obrien's, there is the picture of Obama running down the hall with his new dog, Bo. I like that picture very much. I also like the one with the flowers around its neck. Just lost the word - lai?

I think what I like best about Obama is that he acts like he knows he is just a guy. He seems very comfortable with who he is. Maybe he is an original, since I do not remember another president like that in my lifetime. Truman is reputed to have been "normal." I didn't vote for Truman, however, since I couldn't reach lever. No stinking rigged voting machines then. Just straight forward paid votes. (Whoops, channeling bad 43 thoughts.)

I wrote this post as a comment on hal_obrien's post, and decided to post it here.

You could make up a song to the tune of "Where have all the soldiers gone" if you were imaginative enough. I'm not this a.m. Here is an article and a link to a chart that explains were huge amounts of money has gone. WA state companies have avoided paying roughly $2.5 billion. That more than our deficit, I think. Nationally, the total is about $100 billion. It does all add up.

Offshore Tax Havens: A State-By-State Breakdown Of The Cost To Taxpayers. Here is the chart