Gathering my thoughts

I've had a hella good post simmering for Hard to Get over the last few months. Since I'm still digging my way out of an elegant transition, masking only slightly the over-a-year-old burnout, I've not been posting at all. I'll keep that post on the backburner, tho. No need to rush things now.

Some thoughts from current news items:

Mississippi Burning: After 40+ years, Edgar Ray Killen has been convicted of the slayings of three civil rights workers outside of Philadelphia, MS. I wrote earlier in this blog about Rwanda through the eyes of Romeo Dallaire and I've also written about the Armenian Genocide, and I'm struck by the repeated ability to collude by many folks.

The re-opening of this case reminds me of the two references above because it takes economic pressures, collusion of folks in positions of authority and tacit agreement all around to single folks out for their differences -- yet we've mastered this ability. I've not even mentioned the situation in the Sudan, something that is happening right now. It's puzzling, the willingness we have to kill others.

I've been toying with a notion to highlight the ancestral relationships between men & women - men linked to protection of community, women linked to earthly abundance & nurturing. It's always seemed a contentious tragedy that the maligning & subjugation of women hasn't been connected to the issues of squalor & lack in the world. I know that men suffer at the hands of women & that there isn't a clear indication that bringing women, finally & forever, out of the snare of male rulership isn't a clarion call to resolving the issues the world faces, but it does seem that the world is in a bind & that the bind is simply contracting and expanding, rather than truly being resolved. Feel free to take potshots at this theory. I'm nothing -- if not one with a tendency to generalize.

Bolton GOP support is back: "President Bush has the power to install Mr. Bolton as United Nations envoy by appointing him while Congress is not in session, during its summer break, for example. Such a recess appointment would be effective until the end of the next session of Congress, about 18 months from now."

The Economy: Currently, healthcare cost increases are outpacing inflation. Also, more companies are firing people. Finally, chickens come home to roost for Rigas, latest in a line of messed up management. Generalist warning: at this point, how can industry not fight over the last dollar? Am I missing something here?

More stories, this time no links: Schiavo (still dead), Saddam (new story from, evidently, the guy guarding him), Bush polls (no longer worried about how low they go - and why not, it's his second term)

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So, funny story. J & I visited Laurie this week & she mentioned that she's writing a book (substitute appropriate job title here). No big surprise there, she's a genius with stuff to say. Would J be her book agent? This is the funny bit, I say "I'd make an awesome book agent", and "Choose me!". She's game, then a dull silence falls around the three of us. J's looking at me, Laurie's looking at us both & I say, "Oh yeah, I'm not taking on any new tasks before I get my work situation cleared up."

Laurie is one of my closest friends and indulgent, so she didn't mind my quick turnaround. But I know it's trying when I'm apparantly available to do good work, then I pull back. What I'm trying to avoid is spending my time in a way similar to how I used to spend my money: I would try to spend it four or five times. First on say, a nifty gadget - then on, maybe, food - and my favorite - after trying to spend money twice, I'd save it! Get where I'm going here? You can't spend money more than once! Ha! Took me forever to get that & now that tendency has creeped into how I spend time: I'll help here, there & everywhere - then I'll go have fun -- and then... I'll take care of myself & rest...

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No laptop yet -- so I'm luxuriating at J's desktop. He's on a conference call right now & has graciously let me interrupt his workday with occassional e-mail checkings & news readings... Infrequent computer access is doing wonders, I'm thinking.