Benevolent empresses and evil empires

The other night I was driving the Empress home from KF, and we chatted about all manner of things on the way home (as we usually do.) When we got to her house, I saw that the plow trucks had piled the snow up so high that it nearly covered her front gate, and was higher than their cars. (It's just the same out here, too.) I am just about done with witner, to be honest (I always am around March; though I really don't begrudge winter its parting wallop; gotta hand it to winter.) But anyway, still dismayed by the mountains of snow when I thought Spring was on its way I told her, "Look at these huge mounds of snow! There's no way this is going to melt soon. It'll still be here by April."

"No way," the Empress said. "Do you really think so? Nah, it has to melt before then."

Well, that was a brief and fairly meaningless semi conversation but while I was driving home all of a sudden I remembered this part of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book:

"Well," said Her Majesty, "how long is that mountain [of snow] likely to last?"

Everyone guessed that it would be ten days or a little more.

"And what do you think?" the Empress asked me.

"It will last till the fifteenth day of the first month," I declared.

Evem Her Majesty found this hard to believe, and the other women insisted that it would melt before the end of the year. I realized that I had chosen too distant a date; the mountain would last until the first of the year at the outside, which was the latest day I should have given. Yet there was no taking back what I had said: though I knew the mountain was unlikely to survive until the fifteenth, I stuck to my original prediction.

Towards the twentieth it began raining. There was no sign that the snow was about to melt, but the mountain did shrink a little. "Oh Goddess of Mercy of Shirayama," I prayed frenziedly, "Do not let our mountain melt away!"

Haha, so neat! Because I code-name Empress "Empress" because of the historical figure depicted in that book, naturally! Anyway, I thought that was cool.

This, however, is not so cool:

( The Subversion of Liberty Narrowly Averted by Naomi Wolf )

Please read that article; really take it in! And I'm not convinced that this was actually "narrowly subverted" or was subverted at all. I've always thought that the Bush Administration wasn't just one man voted into power by half of a terrified and manipulated country: I feel like the Bush administration has roots far deeper than most people know, and farther back into history than we suspect. This wasn't just some guy who happened to get voted in. If that sounds paranoid, well, maybe so did some of the stuff listed up there before these files were released a few days ago.

So I don't think anyone can afford to sit back and go, "Whew! Wow, we skirted that one!" Because those sons of whores will be back for more. Like my friend who sent me this said: the pendulum swings. But it has never swung this far in America before. Who knows but that it might swing even farther in eight years? I'm still afraid of Bush. Cut off the head of the dictator and the body will grow a new one.

I'm sorry to end this note on such a downer, truly I am. But anything I say after this will look paltry and insignificant (kinda like the rest of this journal. ;D )

Benevolent empresses and evil empires

The other night I was driving the Empress home from KF, and we chatted about all manner of things on the way home (as we usually do.) When we got to her house, I saw that the plow trucks had piled the snow up so high that it nearly covered her front gate, and was higher than their cars. (It's just the same out here, too.) I am just about done with witner, to be honest (I always am around March; though I really don't begrudge winter its parting wallop; gotta hand it to winter.) But anyway, still dismayed by the mountains of snow when I thought Spring was on its way I told her, "Look at these huge mounds of snow! There's no way this is going to melt soon. It'll still be here by April."

"No way," the Empress said. "Do you really think so? Nah, it has to melt before then."

Well, that was a brief and fairly meaningless semi conversation but while I was driving home all of a sudden I remembered this part of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book:

"Well," said Her Majesty, "how long is that mountain [of snow] likely to last?"

Everyone guessed that it would be ten days or a little more.

"And what do you think?" the Empress asked me.

"It will last till the fifteenth day of the first month," I declared.

Evem Her Majesty found this hard to believe, and the other women insisted that it would melt before the end of the year. I realized that I had chosen too distant a date; the mountain would last until the first of the year at the outside, which was the latest day I should have given. Yet there was no taking back what I had said: though I knew the mountain was unlikely to survive until the fifteenth, I stuck to my original prediction.

Towards the twentieth it began raining. There was no sign that the snow was about to melt, but the mountain did shrink a little. "Oh Goddess of Mercy of Shirayama," I prayed frenziedly, "Do not let our mountain melt away!"

Haha, so neat! Because I code-name Empress "Empress" because of the historical figure depicted in that book, naturally! Anyway, I thought that was cool.

This, however, is not so cool:

( The Subversion of Liberty Narrowly Averted by Naomi Wolf )

Please read that article; really take it in! And I'm not convinced that this was actually "narrowly subverted" or was subverted at all. I've always thought that the Bush Administration wasn't just one man voted into power by half of a terrified and manipulated country: I feel like the Bush administration has roots far deeper than most people know, and farther back into history than we suspect. This wasn't just some guy who happened to get voted in. If that sounds paranoid, well, maybe so did some of the stuff listed up there before these files were released a few days ago.

So I don't think anyone can afford to sit back and go, "Whew! Wow, we skirted that one!" Because those sons of whores will be back for more. Like my friend who sent me this said: the pendulum swings. But it has never swung this far in America before. Who knows but that it might swing even farther in eight years? I'm still afraid of Bush. Cut off the head of the dictator and the body will grow a new one.

I'm sorry to end this note on such a downer, truly I am. But anything I say after this will look paltry and insignificant (kinda like the rest of this journal. ;D )